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[00:00:00] Andrew Hibel: Welcome to The HigherEdJobs Podcast. I'm Andy Hibel the chief operating officer and one of the co-founders of HigherEdJobs.

[00:00:11] Kelly Cherwin: And I'm Kelly Cherwin, the director of editorial strategy.

[00:00:15] Andrew Hibel: Today we're joined by Beryl Greenberg, a career and executive coach for marketing and advertising professionals. And as Beryl's website says, whether you're looking to revamp your career spice up your leadership.

Or optimize your life as a working parent or all of the above, she's there to help you lean into your natural brilliance and make it happen. Thank you for being with us Beryl. Could you just tell us a little bit more about what you do to make that.

[00:00:40] Beryl Greenberg: Thank you very much. I'm excited to be here. I am an executive and career coach.

I'm in private practice and I work with individuals, groups, and companies to help you find your authentic leadership boy. Whether that's leading in your home or leading in your [00:01:00] work or that unique combination of the two. And I do that by again, working one-on-one with individuals. I lead groups through a few different avenues, including the executive women's organization called chief and companies hire me to help with their employees, both on an individual and group basis.

I believe there's really a dual strategy to be able to lean into your authentic self. And that is around getting clear on what's really important to you. As well as getting clear on what's holding you back from achieving, what's important to you. It's really that simple yet. So difficult to do when you're sitting around trying to think of that on your own.

So I'm your guide, I'm your cheerleader. I'm your reflector to help you achieve your goals.

[00:01:59] Kelly Cherwin: Thank you Beryl so much for explaining what you do and how you are able to assist with. Today, we're gonna have a conversation on how to deal with different professional challenges that you might come up with in your career.

Maybe you hit a brick wall. Maybe you want to spice up your leadership skills.

[00:02:13] Beryl Greenberg: Sounds great.

[00:02:15] Andrew Hibel: For somebody who's in a position or actually might even be in a current job, sir. What are some of the symptoms of, if you haven't quite put your finger on it, that you're in a little bit in a career malaise.

[00:02:26] Beryl Greenberg: It's really being able to look inside yourself and see whether you are motivated or not.

Are you excited about the work you're doing or are you dreading it, are you excited about Monday morning or are you dreading it. Do you want your boss's job? I hear that a lot. Well, I don't want my boss's job, so I'm really not sure where I'm going. So the symptoms are noticing some signs in yourself that maybe [00:03:00] you're not as excited, motivated, productive as you once were.

[00:03:05] Andrew Hibel: You would look at those symptoms and you start getting the impression that your careers may be at a plateau.

How do you know if it's a good plateau? If it's an okay place to stay. Or maybe this is a plateau that you may want to address and go in a different direction from where you are right now.

[00:03:20] Beryl Greenberg: That's a really individual question. My first response to that is don't make any assumptions. Don't assume that you have to settle and don't assume that you want more.

You've got to go on a little bit of an exploratory mission to understand what's true for you. And what I mean is really pulling apart the pieces of maybe where some of those symptoms we were talking about are coming from what's going on in the culture of your organization, that either you enjoy or you don't enjoy.

What's going on with the work that you [00:04:00] personally are doing and the impact that you're having that is working or not working for you. How is this impacting your priorities in your home life? Are they complimentary? Is it infringing? All of these are different areas to help answer those two questions that you asked is this where I want to be, or is there something more that I want to go for?

So for example, if you were just up for tenure and you're a fabulous professor, and that just didn't happen this time, this might be a good time for you to go on one of those exploratory missions and assess, what do you love about what you're doing? What do you wish were different? What are some of the things that you've learned through this process that you can add in or take out from your career to help [00:05:00] you determine what that next step might be for you?

Not through the lens of what the world expects of you, but through the lens of what you really enjoy and really want and how you want to take your career.

[00:05:17] Kelly Cherwin: Beryl, I love the fact that you are using the example of an exploratory mission. And it sounds like we have to ask ourselves a lot of questions in order to kind of explore where we wanna go.

Moving to maybe the opposite of a career plateau. What if you have asked yourself questions and you're going into work and your department chair is asking you to do more than you actually can handle. And your career, you feel like is getting a little bit out of control. You're not able to manage it and you are not finding as much joy in it. What strategies do you have for someone to kind of handle that?

[00:05:46] Beryl Greenberg: My general recommendation, that when you're in the midst of chaos and overwhelm and uncertainty, the best first step [00:06:00] is actually to do nothing. Take that pause or break and give yourself the opportunity to shift away for a moment from that stress and overwhelm and chaos so that you can think clearly, because when we're in the midst of that stress, our initial reaction is to react and to try to make that go away.

And that's not necessarily what we may want to do. It may not get us the best results we may just say, well, I'm just going to do it this time so that I can just tackle that hurdle. And when you do that, there's going to be a next time and it's going to build, so the strategy of doing nothing is not tell, whoever's asking you to do this, no way, Jose, it's more take that pause and break for yourself to think clearly about what do you really want.

What am I [00:07:00] saying yes to, if I take this on, what do I need to say no to, to take this on and then be able to have a proactive conversation around your decision. The first step is actually to take that pause and break and do nothing.

[00:07:18] Kelly Cherwin: Absolutely love that advice so much. And on a personal note, I kind of heard that same advice from a friend this morning on a different matter. So, it resonates well with me.

[00:07:28] Beryl Greenberg: I don't know if you or your listeners are familiar with Renee Brown, but she's a rather popular professor and social scientist, and she just issued a book and she actually referenced a thought leader that suggested that mindful play or no agenda. And the non doing time is the cure for overwhelm. I guess I have someone with a much bigger title and more scientific data to validate my response.

[00:07:57] Kelly Cherwin: I love that it's not doing nothing means [00:08:00] being lazy, doing nothing means, doing the best for your career and taking a pause. I love the word pause, and I think we can all reevaluate when we're we're taking a pause, so thank you for that.

[00:08:07] Beryl Greenberg: Actually, I wanted to add a little bit about that pause because the pause can take a lot of different forms. Sometimes when you're in the midst of chaos and overwhelm. We think it needs to be a big pause, like, oh, I need to go on vacation or I need to go on a meditation retreat or I need to go do yoga for the next week.

Those are all great solutions. And they also might feed the overwhelm because it's a big chunk of time. So sometimes the pause can be a mini pause. It could be in the world of Zoom and remote work, it could be going to take the dog for a while. It could be just taking a quick break and stretching the pause doesn't always have to be a huge investment, but the small pauses actually add up.

[00:08:59] Kelly Cherwin: Adding [00:09:00] onto that. When do you know, to kind of come out of your pause and to move forward?

[00:09:02] Beryl Greenberg: I'm going to add a little scientific or neuroscience evidence to this. When you're in the midst of overwhelm and chaos and stress, you've actually activated one part of your brain where that lives and your wise confident, all-knowing self, where your intuition and your creativity live.

That's in another part of your brain. And so the pause helps you switch from one part of your brain to another. When you can access your all-knowing confidence self that's when you know, you're ready. You know, when you've been involved, let's say you're writing a research paper or writing a big presentation, and you have moments where you're really struggling with it. And then you have moments where it just loads and you read what you've written. And you're like, wow, I did that? [00:10:00] Those leveraged different parts of your brain to write those. So when you're struggling with it, that's your stressful part. And when it's flowing, that's your creative confident part of the brain. So again, it's an internal reflection to kind of notice what state you're in and that can help give you your answers. Some of the time.

[00:10:21] Kelly Cherwin: Beryl, you were talking a lot about confidence. I want to touch on that briefly because I think as humans, we sometimes have some self doubt and it's normal to evaluate how we're doing in our job. If we're good enough in our job, if we're good enough compared to others, you know, why are other people getting promoted?

Or why are other people getting recognition? Why did that person get tenure? Things like that. How do you battle that doubt in your self confidence?

[00:10:44] Beryl Greenberg: Yeah. Well that lack of confidence or commonly known as imposter syndrome, inner critic, it's all talking about the same thing and that lives in that same part of your brain [00:11:00] where the stress and chaos and overwhelm lives.

It is definitely triggered by not getting what you want or comparing yourself to somebody else and what they were doing. And it sends us off on a mission that may not be serving what we really want. And it has us questioning it. Using the same techniques that we've been talking about. Notice that you're in that, notice that you're in chaos, or notice that you're not feeling so confident about it.

And then taking that pause can be a really great way to activate that flow state I was talking about earlier and activate your confidence. Another thing to think about there is when you're listening to the doubt and the inner critic, it's pretty loud and it's pretty all consuming and it can kind of take over.

And [00:12:00] there's a lot of stuff in that message that's not really true. Yet, it's usually rooted in a little teeny tiny bit of truth. The problem is we magnify it to say. I'm doomed. I'm never going to get anywhere because I didn't get tenure or I can't make a move now because my family is settled here in this town and it would be too disruptive.

So, I just have to grin and bear it. We believe a hundred percent of that, and we don't allow ourselves to kind of sift through it and see, well, what's the little kernel of truth and what might I be making up about that? And that part of the message kind of gets lost in the negativity. Taking that pause helps us to reassess and reevaluate what we're listening to.

I'll give a personal example. I'm thrilled to be here with all of you on this [00:13:00] podcast, and I'm going to admit I was a little nervous. I'm not an expert in doing a podcast. I'm an expert on coaching and career development, but being interviewed for a podcast, I got a little nervous. I got a little doubtful and had I listened to all of that nerves and doubt and self critic.

It may not have allowed me to answer things in my truest coach self. And so I had to take a pause and say, okay, Beryl, what do you know? What are you confident in? What's the little bit of truth here. The little bit of truth is, no, I'm not an expert in being interviewed for a podcast, but I sure am an expert in career development and coaching and helping people navigate their career trajectory.

And so when I gave myself permission to listen to that, it calmed some of the doubt [00:14:00] and that fear. I couldn't access that if I didn't take that pause and didn't sift through what were all those messages that I was hearing. That would be my advice. When you notice that the lack of confidence is showing up or the imposter syndrome or whatever you want to term it, is no, it's probably an exaggerated truth.

And if you can sift through it to see maybe what's the kernel of truth and what is it might help you to lean into your power and your confidence a little bit more.

[00:14:35] Andrew Hibel: We'd like to stay on the same theme here, but maybe shift gears just a little. You've now gotten through this process and you've determined that it's at least worth your time to go into a job search.

In many job searches, the periods of doubt and the gremlins of the job search process feed off of the minds of even the most talented people. Do you have any examples in that instance [00:15:00] where you can help our listeners better understand that when you're getting those job search demons coming back to haunt you, how do you handle those?

[00:15:07] Beryl Greenberg: So, so common Andy, I call the job search process, like a huge garage door opening for self-doubt to show up in our lives. Because the whole premise behind looking for a new job is fraught with rejection. And what's the greatest way to rip your confidence right out of you is to be rejected over and over and over again.

You know that old saying you have to kiss a lot of frogs to find your handsome prince. Well, you have to go on a lot of job interviews. Search out a lot of different opportunities before you find the perfect fit. If you allow that confidence to take over your mindset, it totally impacts your job search.

[00:16:00] A recent example that comes up for me is a client that I was working with last week. And this client had already accepted a great job that she was super excited about. And at the same time as luck would have it, she was offered an opportunity to interview for a position that was at a dream institution, working for an amazing thought leader.

And it was kind of intriguing. So she decided to go on the interview and also be very upfront. I'm really flattered that you're interested in me and I just accepted another position. So I wanted you to know that and they said, thank you for telling us we'd still love to talk to you. So she had the interview.

Amazing conversation, really appreciative, had decided she wanted to stick with the job that she had accepted, but wanted to keep [00:17:00] the door open. So she wrote a really nice thank you note and heard crickets. 24 hours passed and her confidence and doubt around her interview and the connection she had, and the legacy she was leaving with this organization were waning because she did not get a response from a hiring manager and it was really bringing her down the tubes.

And then 36 hours later, she received an amazing text from the hiring manager that said something like, 'Hi, you are a class act. You have really admirable integrity. I wish you all the best with your new gig. And if you're ever wanting something different or more at any point, please give me a call. You are someone I'd make room for.'

Talk about a 360 from O M G I just blew something up here in this [00:18:00] conversation to, wow, did I have an impact. Not only was she thrilled with that text, but any time her confidence is now waning, she's going to look at that text and remind herself, you know what I've got. I did a wonderful job and I need this reminder.

So in a job search where there are a lot of ups and downs by design, you're getting a lot of reminders of the negative influences that rob you of your confidence. You also need to give yourself those reminders of what you do bring to the party where your skills and strengths lie with what you're capable of doing.

Give yourself those reminders too, and have those handy because they will help you navigate those ups and downs.

[00:18:52] Andrew Hibel: It almost seems like in those instances, those are always harder to remember.

Beryl Greenberg: Totally.

Andrew Hibel: I really wish over the [00:19:00] years, I would have tried to journal those and have like a, a choir of compliments that you could come out and have the choir sing a beautiful song to you on those days that those job search demons. If you will, those songs that get into your head and just can't get out for no good reason, to try to combat some of those. So that's a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful story. And in that moment, when the text came through, obviously the shift was made for your client from being amazingly doubtful, to being amazingly proud of themselves.

Sometimes you don't always have an event like a text to make that shift and making that shift, I can only speak for myself, is one of the biggest challenges of day-to-day life for me. How do you suggest that people when they don't have an outside event that allows them to make that shift, possibly try to do that on their own with their own skills and what skills would they be?

[00:19:55] Beryl Greenberg: The reason why I love that question so much is it's so much [00:20:00] easier for all of us to tap into the negative response. It's easier and we don't always have that more positive side of us as accessible. And that is the muscle that we need to develop more of. So what you're asking for is how can we develop that muscle and lean into the positive things in our lives more often as our almost counterattack to those moments of doubt.

I like to look at it through that view and help people come up with their own ways of doing that one way that is accessible and popular is gratitude. Taking a moment to feel grateful for what you do have. Take a moment to feel grateful for what is going well, whether that be just reflecting or starting a practice of a journal at the beginning or the end of the day, [00:21:00] those would be my ideas around adopting a gratefulness practice.

There are other ways as well, just thinking about what brings you joy. I was on a Zoom with a client an hour or two ago who was really distraught about some things going on in her life. And all of a sudden her dog popped up and joined her on the Zoom. And she introduced me to her dog and everything shifted the smile on her face, her body language, the calm energy, just from the unconditional love of her dog.

Showing and sharing that unconditional love with a pet or a child can also be a way to tap into that positive side and give you a reality check. Another client that I was with earlier this week talked about how valuable he found just adding moments of things that bring him [00:22:00] joy in his day to add to his job search.

And it was a huge revelation to him that those things that bring him joy, don't have to be related to his job search. Yet it will have an impact on his job search. So he challenged himself to go take a day trip and go hiking. He challenged himself to come up with a new baking recipe, even though the recipe failed.

He said, I got joy out of using my creativity. And here's how that impacted my job search. There are lots of ways to add that into your life, to be able to deal with the frustration and the ups and downs of your job search, and they don't have to be solely focused on your search to have the impact on your search.

[00:22:55] Kelly Cherwin: I love the fact that you are really good at taking pauses. So I have a question for a job seeker who [00:23:00] is in an interview and faced with a question that they don't know how to answer. What is your advice on how they should address that?

[00:23:06] Beryl Greenberg: I love that you connected your question to the pause. I would have a two-step answer first take that pause because you have a choice in that moment.

You can say, I do not know the answer to this. This interview is doomed. You can go down that negative confidence draining path, or you could take the pause and activate that positive side of your brain. And in that instance, one of the best positive activating tools is curiosity. Turning that situation around into a question. Could you tell me a little bit more about that? What do you mean by that? Could you give me a minute to reflect on that so I can formulate my answer. That is giving you not only the pause, but a little [00:24:00] time to refigure your thought process and come up with a more empowering answer. I actually did this unknowingly when I was interviewing for my first job out of college.

I was interviewing with the head of the department that I was going to work for and he literally asked me a question. That was a trick question. And it was a trick question that I knew the answer to, but because he was trying to trick me, I froze and I was like ope there, it goes, I'm not getting the job now.

And I actually turned to him and said, you know, what, can you tell me a little bit more about what you mean? And then I'll answer the question. And he was happy to oblige. He said like five words and I went, oh, okay. Now I got it. Answered the question and got the job.

[00:24:52] Andrew Hibel: I think one of the things that I am much more comfortable with today than I was when I was interviewing for my first jobs is probably some of the smartest [00:25:00] people I know, the best thing about them is if they don't know the answer, they A tell you, 'I don't know the answer' and B want to understand what the answer is. They see it as not an opportunity to feel inferior, but an opportunity to learn. And when you're looking at somebody to be a member of your team, I want somebody who, who doesn't know the answer, doesn't try to just punt or make something up or appear like they know it. I want them to see it as an opportunity to learn. So if you're not able to answer the question, which sometimes you're not going to be, I'm never afraid to say I'd like to learn more about that. I don't always know the answer to the question, but the last thing I want to do is fake it and put a little dent in my integrity to try to seem like I can get out of answering the question or looking stupid. I just want to find out what the answer is and address that as a chance to show who I am, as opposed to falling for that trick question.

[00:25:55] Beryl Greenberg: I love that Andy, and it's really true when you [00:26:00] read or listen to a lot of the thought leaders on leadership, it's not about having the answers. It's about having the right questions or knowing where to get the answers or knowing how to empower others, to figure out whatever the problem is you're trying to solve. It's just reinforcing the power of curiosity and how that can be a confidence building tactic if you will.

[00:26:28] Kelly Cherwin: Circling back to what we started at the beginning of the podcast of being an authentic leader and being authentically true to yourself. Andy, that's a prime example of you being authentic. So kudos to you.

Andrew Hibel: Thank you.

Kelly Cherwin: I want to end on one final life question and it relates to the story about the dog. If someone was on a virtual interview and their dog came up and jumped on their lap, what would your advice be to go with that?

[00:26:51] Beryl Greenberg: To go with that too, to make light of the situation or introduce the person. [00:27:00] This is real stuff that's happening to all of us in the pandemic and in this virtual world. Our worlds collide. Everyone has experienced it. So don't try to hide it, run with it. That would be my one piece of advice. And the other piece of advice is do what makes you feel comfortable if hugging the dog, but ignoring the fact that the dog is there and continuing to answer the question is what's going to feel right to you in the moment, then that's perfectly okay too.

To bring it full circle. It's really how you are internalizing it and what feels right to you.

[00:27:37] Andrew Hibel: Thank you, Beryl. We enjoyed spending time with you.

[00:27:39] Beryl Greenberg: My pleasure. This was a lot of fun. I hope there were some valuable tidbits for your listeners to navigate their career and job search paths. If some

[00:27:52] Andrew Hibel: If some of our listeners want to reach out to you with some stories they may have, I have a feeling, a lot of people with dogs are going to be asking you advice at this point, where [00:28:00] can they find you out on the internet?

[00:28:01] Beryl Greenberg: My website is coachberyl.com or on LinkedIn. There aren't that many Beryls. So I bet if you search B E R Y L you'll find me.

[00:28:13] Andrew Hibel: Thank you so very much.

Beryl Greenberg: Thank you all.

Andrew Hibel: Thank you for listening to the HigherEdJobs Podcast.

We look forward to talking with you soon.