[00:00:00] Nola: Have you ever thought about starting a consulting or coaching practice? Maybe you've been mulling over the idea of launching a side business that aligns with your skills, interests, or hobbies. Perhaps the real question is, how do I get started? Or better yet, why has it been so hard for me to get started? If fear of the unknown or uncertainty about what to do next have been preventing you from making a career or entrepreneurial pivot, stay tuned friend, because we've got a fantastic show lined up for you. We're delighted to welcome back entrepreneur, career and leadership development strategist, Gretchen Skalka, for part two of our talk, to further explore this timely topic so you can get started on your new career path today.
[00:00:42] Lori: Welcome to Sticky Brand Lab, where we bridge the gap between knowledge and action by providing you with helpful tips, info, and tools from entrepreneurs and other experts, so you can quickly and easily jumpstart your side business. We're your hosts. I'm Lori Vajda, and this is my co-host, Nola Boea. Hi Nola.
[00:01:02] Nola: Hey Lori.
[00:01:04] Lori: Nola, when we started part one of the interview with Skalka, we started it by reading a quote from Steve Jobs. Let me read that quote for you. "The only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking, don't settle."
[00:01:21] Nola: And that is still a great piece of advice.
[00:01:24] Lori: It is. And that's the point, you know, great advice can be transformative. It can set you on a whole new path. It can land you a new role. It can even prompt you to make a big change in your life. And our guest today has made that her business.
Join us as we welcome back Gretchen Skalka, the founder of Career Insights Consulting, a company specializing in career and personal leadership development. With a wealth of personal and professional experiences, Skalka is on a mission to help struggling professionals achieve personal and career growth. Armed with over a decade of experience coaching both private individuals and corporate teams, Skalka has a powerful understanding of the complexities surrounding change. Her toolkit features science backed strategies like NLP, CBT, and her exclusive RAM Thinking method, all designed to equip clients with the tools to turn adversity into opportunity.
Beyond her transformative work, Gretchen seeks inspiration in exploring new horizons, channeling her creativity through art, and cherishing precious moments with her faithful furry friend, companion, And dog, Newman. Welcome Skalka.
[00:02:43] Skalka: It's great to be back.
[00:02:44] Nola: It is so good to have you back. But before we get into career pivots, we know that whatever personal or professional experiences we have, they go with us to every new role we take on, whether it's a job or a venture. Now, with your background and experience as a corporate marketing director, along with your experience as an entrepreneur and career coach, can you tell us, with those things that you are bringing with you, how have they prepared you to assist clients with their career development?
[00:03:13] Skalka: It stops a lot of people. So we started talking about change and how people are fearful about making change. There's a sort of almost unspoken, but mass understood thing that if I'm going for something, a new job, it's going to be in some way wholly different than the one I've done or what I've done in the past. And that's actually fundamentally not true. Everything that we've done has led us to the point to be able to be open and receptive to a new opportunity. For me as a corporate marketing director, of course, that was part of a succession of work that I had done, starting with being a reporter, a journalist, long time ago, specific to being a marketing director. That was, I was sort of at times unequal parts, recruiter, my own recruiter. Hiring manager, I had to determine what was necessary in my team as I built it and grew it. Mentor, certainly; leader, not just of my team, but of others; but you're also a teacher. In many ways, you're an accountability coach for the people on your team and your peers, your colleagues; but also, you're a financier of sorts. You have to be able to establish partnerships with others in the company to be able to get the funding and the budgets necessary to make all the trains run on time and everything happen for everyone. And that also includes their career pathing, making sure they have that upward onward progression as well, because that's obviously very important to a lot of people. So being a corporate marketing director, you wear a lot of hats.
And as a career coach, you do as well. But the one fundamental difference is, I'm really a lens for my clients in a way that I don't think that I was as a corporate marketing director. I might've been a lens for a company goals, but I wasn't so much a lens for them as I am for my clients now. But I'm certainly all of those other parts. I do help them with all of those other things. And being an accountability coach is certainly very strongly present in both. I think combined what they've been able to do is, I had a very diverse team when I was a corporate marketing director. And I think that the ability to identify what the company needs, but also having the understanding of what that's going to take at the human level to make that possible, helps me bring sort of a nonjudgmental quality to my clients. It helps me connect with them because I'm not leading. It's a very unled kind of relationship where it's very collaborative and mutual. And that also helps open doors for them that lead to professional opportunities.
[00:05:37] Nola: I love that. Now for those listeners who are at the start of this journey, tell us and them about what exactly you do.
[00:05:45] Skalka: Career Insights Consulting is the name of the business and it is all encompassing, but not. So it's the business, Plight Attendant is the facilitation. So it really is a mechanism, a vehicle for people who are at an impasse, at a crossroads. People come to me, they seek out the support because they are at that position in their life, in their career. They're at some sort of crossroad. Nine times out of 10, they've tried. And they've just been unsuccessful on their own. And so they need that additional perspective and training and help to get through that. So that's generally why people come to me and seek out a coach in general.
Their pain points, the reason that they're seeking me out is that those are symptomatic. They're actually not the root cause. So there's something else going on there that's manifesting as this big, huge problem that they want to get through, but there's actually something else going on that is allowing that to happen. So they may present with a goal or a desire of making more money, getting a promotion, having an easier time at work, all those things that are generally symptomatic of a larger issue that's happening probably elsewhere in their lives as well.
So those outcomes that they're looking for are generally centered around addressing those pain points, but in a sustainable, long-term way, and that's important because a one-and-done kind of request isn't something that I generally get. It may seem that way on the surface when it first comes in. I want a promotion. I want a better job. I want those things. But if we don't address the underlying reasons why that is a challenge for you, why that is presenting itself as something you can't get through, you're going to face it again and again and again. So we need to understand how and why that's happening and how to get you through it. Because if we can do it once, we can do it repeated. We can get it done every time.
[00:07:30] Nola: Makes sense.
[00:07:31] Lori: So what is your approach to working with people who might be the first one in their family to shift careers? They might be the first one in their family to start a side business that morphs into a full-time business. So they don't even have anybody that they can look to and say, you did it. I want to do it. I see a career portfolio in my future.
[00:07:53] Skalka: Yeah, the place that I start is, I really like to find out a little bit more about the person because what I generally find is that there's been some steps, some risk taken, some decision made at some point previous in their lives that they didn't think they could do. And then they did something. Sometimes that may even be being the first in their family to go get a post-secondary degree, right? It could be being the first in their family to not work in the family business and just get a different type of job altogether, not necessarily a shift or a change in what they're doing at the next point, but just in general to start with. So a lot of times what I find is that people will have already made, unconsciously and unaware, that they've done the thing in the past, but they've gone out on that limb in some way before and it worked out, led them to the next point in the next point.
The other thing that I try to work with people to understand is that it's not a series of stops and starts. That's how we're sort of trained to think of life is that you get your starter job and then you move up here and you move up here and you move up here and then that's the ladder that we walk for life. And it can be if that's what you want, but it doesn't have to be. That's a big thing for a lot of people to wrap their brains around because we start junior high and high school. Actually, you start even younger than that. What are you going to be when you grow up? And so those questions start happening and you start thinking about when I grow up, that end point, when I grow up and what am I going to do? We really rarely introduced the notion that you can do many things. We say you can do anything, but we don't say you can do many things. We have seasons in our lives. And so it is completely understandable and normal that as we evolve and grow in the course of our lives, our interests will change. Our values will change. Our goals will change. Our needs will change. The values and goals that you had professionally in your 20s are going to be different than they are for you in your 40s and 50s. The way that you look at what's important for your work, what you do for work, what really matters will also change and shift over time. Your personal preferences will change and shift over time. As will your knowledge of yourself, what you're good at, your skills will grow. So it is a completely natural thing to begin to think there might be something different than what I've been doing here. And it could be something different in the same environment, or it could be in a whole new environment. It could be in one that you create. But I think the first place that I have to start with any client is helping them understand that that's okay. You're not breaking a rule. Everything's not going to fall apart if you entertain the notion that there could be a different thing for you out there, a different way.
The fact that no one has done it before doesn't mean it's impossible. There's already been something in their lives that they weren't sure they could do. It could be something as benign as passing algebra, but they did it. It could be something very big in terms of changing a fundamental relationship in their lives, right? Maybe a marriage that had conclusion or something along those lines, right? A best friend who moves away and you lose touch and that seems very traumatic, but you get through those things. And of course, those are all different examples, but they bear out and they have direct ties to what you believe to be right, true, real and possible for you in life and in your profession. And so you have to get down to that level to really get a fundamental understanding that if you think you can, you probably can. You just have to figure out the mechanism to make it happen.
[00:11:10] Lori: Do you work with the short term and long-term goals?
[00:11:13] Skalka: I do.
[00:11:14] Lori: So how do you combine setting goals with the steps to taking action so that when people feel out of their comfort zone, they're still feeling like they're making progress.
[00:11:27] Skalka: it kind of goes back to what we were talking about in part one. Where you have the idea that you want to start something new, you want to start a business, but you're not sure where to start. And so something as simple as a checklist, take a sheet of lined paper or a sticky note and just write a few things down. Make it digestible and achievable. That's 1 place that I always like to go is, you have an idea. You want to make a change. And you have a goal for whatever it is for yourself, but what do you do to get there? Every goal is comprised of many, many, many micro goals and micro wins. I think one of the most common ones would be a promotion or a raise. That's the goal. But there's a series of events and actions that are going to happen all along the way that will make that possible. And it can make that possible in a condensed period of time or an elongated period of time, depending on what's comfortable for you, what's achievable for you, and then how you go about working through that.
Celebrating the wins on those micro goals along the way is absolutely pivotal because most people will give up on their goal when they don't see massive progress. The big goal happened. I didn't get a raise last year. That's it didn't work out for me. Well, why didn't it work out for you? What are the other factors that are at play here? Raises, even though we like to think that they are just a natural culmination of a period of a time of work, they're not. The relationship that you have with people all around you matters.
I have a really good example of something that happened for me professionally, where there was one year where I reported to the CMO of the company, and he let me know that the respect for me was waning. It was not healthy in the company. And I was really taken aback by this. It was like, I need to understand how that is because I have great relationships with everyone. He said, you do. However, you're a leader and your team is not respected in the same way. You're the face of that team. Where go you, so go they. And vice versa. And so it really helped me understand the reciprocity of relationships in business and understanding that if we have this sort of tunnel vision, myopic view of, I need to do X to achieve Y, we've factored out all of the necessary elements that are going to help make that not just achievable, but easily achievable for us. And building those partnerships and understanding those extra things are very important to successfully getting to those big goals.
So, for anybody who it's a daunting prospect to go after that thing they want or set that big goal, the best way to start is think about the 1, 2, 3s. Picture yourself on a path. You're taking steps. What do you see along that path for you that you know you're going to encounter along the way? Will it be a project you need to do to get your visibility up? Will it be a partnership you need to establish to get that chatter about how great you are going? That sort of the reciprocity of those relationships. So think about all the things that make up that goal. What's going to go into that? The person who's going to put their signature on the paper for the raise, the promotion, the new hire, any of those things. Who are they talking to? Where are their influences coming from? Where are they going to get information about you that they're not going to get just from you. All of those things matter. So I believe that when you can start to create and just think through the steps to get you to the goal, that is in fact how you get to that goal.
[00:14:54] Lori: Can you give us an example, either of your own experience when your CMO told you that, so using yourself or a client that you're currently or in the past work with, of a short-term goal, a long-term goal, and the action step to reach that.
[00:15:10] Skalka: I actually have a client that I started working with last year. She came to me with one goal. I want a new job. I want out of what I'm doing. So in talking to her and working through that with her, what we found was that she liked her job. She liked the work she was doing. She liked her colleagues. She enjoyed the day- to- day activity and projects and tasks that she was doing, but she had a challenge, is common with a lot of people, with her immediate leadership, her boss. They did not have a good relationship. That was a situation where in talking with her, it really became very clear that she didn't necessarily want a new job. She didn't necessarily want to leave her company and she did want a new situation, new environment. She wanted a new job without that boss. Once we realized that, you have something to work with now. Do you really want to leave where you are seen as being successful, but you have this very omnipresent immediate challenge that you're not sure how to work through.
What we ended up doing was we really had to do a lot of work with her and her perception of things. And so understanding that the challenge that she was facing was one that's absolutely workable. He was not a good listener, he's very set in his ways, had very unrealistic expectations for her and the team that she was a part of. Really unforgiving on deadline and just kind of the textbook ingredients for an unhappy workplace.
But what those told me was that he was not plugged in to what was happening in the day to day. And so I started asking questions like, okay, well, when you have meetings, what's his role? Where is he? Are we on zoom? Are we face to face? There were all these conditions that I needed to understand really the parameters of the relationship because to understand if a wholesale big change is needed, I have to know if there's absolutely nothing to work with. Even if your mind is made up, if there's nothing to work with, okay. But if there's even a kernel there, then maybe we want to give that another look. I have seen people walk away from tenured careers and real success because they could not get through an interpersonal challenge they had with someone in the workplace. I really don't want that to happen if there's a way to work through it.
So what I ended up doing with her was we had to really work through separating the activity and the mindset around it from the environment. What was she doing that she liked? And she still did like it, but the environment she didn't like. So now we have to go through, okay, what about the environment? And it's an individual. Well, now we have to separate the individual, the person they are from the role they're playing. In doing that, you can begin to break down some of the walls that are self-created with that person and really being able to see them as an individual and where you can partner. You see the person, not the problem, in front of you. When we can see them not as a problem, as long as we see them as a problem, as the thing that is preventing our happiness, adversarial position, and if we can get beyond that, we can begin to make real change. So now we can see that person as a potential partner. You can build that relationship and yes, sometimes it is necessary to train your boss or your leadership in terms of how you expect to be interacted with. Sometimes they don't know. And sometimes they've never been afforded the opportunity, and I will use those words, to think through it differently and behave about it differently.
That's where you really have to ask, what do you really want? And what are you really looking for in this situation? So, if it is a new job, is it a new job with a new leadership? Is it the job you have, but with new leadership? Those are two actually different things. Are there opportunities elsewhere in the company? Or, can you create a path in your present circumstance to get you to where you want to go? And so that's what we did for her. And actually, I had a WhatsApp from her. I was driving back from a recent trip and she let me know that her boss has asked her to coach her peers.
[00:19:01] Lori: Wow.
[00:19:03] Nola: Could you give us example of someone who really was ready to make a pivot and the strategies you applied to help them make a significant pivot
in their career?
[00:19:14] Skalka: One that comes to mind is somebody who reached out because she definitely wanted to do something different than what she had been doing for a long time. She had outgrown what she was doing. She reached the pinnacle of what she would achieve there. And I think she knew that, but it was also very comfortable, very safe, very much a part of the fabric of her life by that point. And so the thought of doing something different was incredibly scary for her because also a lot of her identity was wrapped up in what that was. And her son was friends with a lot of her coworkers’ sons because she had been there for so long.
So that pivot for her, by the time she asked me about it, she had been thinking about it for a long time and she'd been saying no to herself about it. Again, it's that a lot of times we'll stay where we don't want to be because it's more comfortable than the unknown. I sat down and asked her an open-ended question. What's going on? I don't lead them. I let them tell me what's going on. That question will bubble up to the surface, the immediate thing they want to talk about, because that's what's going on in their brain and that's what they're going to talk about. We started talking about what she had been thinking about at work, opportunities that had come and gone for her at her job, and feelings that she had had about that and why she wanted to do that particular type of work. And so I said, okay. Let's go through what opportunities are you finding. And she had an opportunity and she had immediately pooh poohed it. She was like, it's perfect, but they'll never hire me. Why would they never hire you? Well, I've never done that. And I was like, okay, what specifically haven't you done? Let's go through the job description together and let's pick it apart. And so we did that and they were all things that she had done. But she did not feel like this was a safe or even a guaranteed move that she could make and, or really should even entertain because she'd never been called that specific title in a role before, even though she had done that work.
And so I tried to let her know, look at what you're doing, where your skills are, what you've grown, what you've learned, where your value that you're contributing, putting back into the enterprise is. Now, let's look for opportunities that have that commonality, and let's go for that. And doing that opened her up to the fact that it wasn't as scary as she thought, because she actually had been doing this all along. So she knew how to do what she wanted to do for another company, but she really did want to pivot out of this very safe environment that she'd been in forever. She just was ready for that change. Everything in her was telling her it is time. You have to go. I think in that way, it's really a good idea and something that I like to do with all my clients, to get down into what's really happening. What's really motivating them to want to make a change. Now what's stopping you is a belief that it's not going to work out. Is it because it wouldn't be accepted by people in your immediate circle? What is it that's going on there? And now we can work with how to make that comfortable for you.
[00:22:12] Nola: When you're working with these clients, I understand that you use a variety of science backed strategies, including your exclusive RAM Thinking. Can you please explain what RAM Thinking is and how you integrate it with your clients and any other methodologies that you use?
[00:22:30] Skalka: RAM Thinking, I call it a method, it's a modality, but everybody engages in RAM Thinking all day, every day, because we all live at the top of the results pyramid. So at the very top of the results pyramid, it's RAM. And so the R is Results or Reality, the reality of your everyday life and circumstance. And that is a direct product, the pinnacle, the end result of the Actions, the A, that you take, and you take those actions based on your Mindset, what you believe to be right, true, real, possible, achievable for you in any event or circumstance. And so if you go back through our lives, we can see how that has borne out in our lives and sort of gotten us to where we are now. And if there's something that you're unhappy with in your current reality, then you want to look at the actions you're taking. You want to get down to what you believe to be possible for you. And there are a lot of things that influence that.
So that's where RAM thinking really has ties to NLP, which is really, I think of it as like the roadmaps we use to navigate our lives. And you can always build and reroute your neural pathways. If you have set thinking, stayed thinking in your life, I can't do this, I'll never do that, it never works out for me. Those thought patterns will produce results that you don't want, but they're rooted somewhere. So now, I have to understand why we think that. We've thought it enough that it's our default operating sort of narrative. But why do we think that? Getting down to what are the big saboteurs that we all have, and how can we intercept those thoughts and behaviors? There's the master saboteur that we all deal with, which is the Judge. And we judge situations and events, and we have predetermined outcomes from that. That's an old survival mechanism that we have from way, way back in the day. Everybody is dealing with it because it's just the way our brains work. But along with that, you have accomplished saboteurs. And so, depending on which ones you have, the most present in your thinking will determine how much of that we can work with. And again, you can work with all of them to intercept those thoughts and behaviors so that you can begin to create the outcomes that you want thinking through those things in a different way. Challenging those thoughts when they come up. Really? Is it true? That's the NLP part of it.
Cognitive behavioral therapy. I really love introducing that with some of my clients because that is also a way to do exactly that, but in the moment. Stop, take that pause. You can do it. When you're super stressed about something or you're in that default mechanism, it's never going to work. I've tried this before, it was terrible. Your brain gets very, very, very, very tense. And when it's very tense, you're not able to really think through things. You're not going to problem solve in the right way. So you have to be able to stop. That 4, 4, 4 breathing technique we talked about in part one, very, very helpful to get people to have that subtle shift in their thinking, and now I can see opportunities that I never would have seen before.
[00:25:34] Lori: I love that. Speaking of career crossroads and career pivots, one piece of advice that we've heard is when you're thinking about a new position or an entrepreneurial journey is to consider talking to people who are currently in that role or a similar role. that informational kind of interviewing. Do you encourage people that work with you to do that? How do you suggest that they develop a list of who to talk to?
[00:26:06] Skalka: I definitely do. In fact, I have a client that I've worked with. She was a college senior. Actually, her mom reached out to me. And did not want to do anything related to her major. She was a criminology major and she had this idea of what it was going to be and she wanted nothing to do with any of it. So, at this point, being the age that she is, she thought her life was over. She'd wasted all this time in college and was going to have nothing to show for it. I had no career and everything's terrible.
I came in and I encouraged her to talk to people who were in that space. But the challenge for her was, where do you go for that? If I have a preconceived understanding, for her it was criminology. So that in her brain was courthouse, crime, all these negative things, without really thinking through it. So how do I do that? You have to start to me really stretching yourself. What goes into that? And of course, she had studied that. But if you're doing a job, a type of profession, and you want to grow into a new area, chances are, you actually know somebody who's got some of those skills. So I would say, one place to start is break down what it is by what it does. Look for what the role is. Search by that, not what it's called. So let's take away what it's called because we love labels and let's look at what it does. Who do we know that does something like that? Chances are we do, but also ask. Don't be afraid to raise your hand and say, I'm not sure where to go. Look at what it does.
Now, look at what you do, what you like to do. Do you see yourself in any of those things? For her, we actually identified that social forensics was a great opportunity for her. Every company has a social media department and social forensics is not only something that Is done in law enforcement, but it's also done by every company because we want to know what our customers are thinking and doing. And do we have products and services that could support that? So social forensics turned out to be a wonderful opportunity for her. She never would have thought about that. It's really a matter of outreach. So, a great way that I like to do it is if you're on LinkedIn, I think of it as 3 things. It's a social media platform for sure. It's a marketplace, absolutely. But it's also a search engine. if you go and use it as a search engine and you look for photography, put photography or photographer into the search bar on LinkedIn, you're going to get like 10 buttons. You'll get companies, jobs, people, events, start looking at the people and introduce yourself. Start to make those connections. Really find out from them, what is a day in the life really like? What do you like about what you do? And the reason I say that, and it's really important because a lot of people get very hung up on title compensation. I don't want to devalue those. They're certainly important, but if it's going to be what you're going to be spending your time, your life doing, the doing part of it is really what matters. Because at some point, going back to the Steve Jobs quote and the speech, if you're spending time doing something that you fundamentally do not want to do, that's how burnout happens. And that is very dangerous. There's not only a psychological impact, but there's the health impact of it as well. So doing what you love sounds very dreamy for a lot of people and unachievable, but it's not. If you start to look at what it is that you like to do, and now we look at and we're introduced to and we're meeting people who are doing that, what did they like about it? Is it the same thing you think you'll like about it? Doing it for your profession? And what does that look like for your day? What does it take? How much time? Is there a lot of structure in that type of profession? A lot of hierarchy? Are you someone who is good with that structure or not good with that structure? Do you need autonomy? Does that profession have that? That is where I would always start is encouraging people to think about the doing part, not what it's called and not what it pays, but the doing part of it, because all of that will come if you get this right.
[00:30:07] Lori: Very helpful questions. Can you offer up some tips or suggestions, perhaps. If people are at the beginning stage of thinking about making a career pivot, what are some things they should think about prior to working with someone to help them guide that process?
[00:30:28] Skalka: I think one of the first places to start is where they are. So, if they're thinking about a career pivot, usually the brain goes to all of the other things that it will impact and affect beyond me. So spouse, children, partner, if I make this career pivot, and of course, our brands also kind of go to the negative part of it, what is that going to do for my finances and things like that? So go ahead and work through all of that. If you have a family or a support system, reach out to them, talk to them about it, get that information together, really think through what does it look like?
That also has a tangential benefit of, you may find that somebody that you're talking to is willing to support you in that so that if you hit a bump, they're there, they understand what you're going for, what your goal is, where you want to be. So, I would start there so that you can answer those seemingly unanswerable questions right now and get comfortable with those what ifs that you may not be able to answer on your own.
In addition to that. Then you want to think through, okay, I want to do this pivot. There's going to be a change. We've worked out how that might impact my current situation. Now, let's get into the specifics of that change. What would be necessary for that? So that if it is a change that requires certification, a degree, a skill that I may have, but not be adept in as I would need to, or a skill that I don't have, what's really needed to do that?
And now I have answered that. So I'm ready or I'm not ready yet. If I'm not ready yet, I can create a schedule. I know a timeframe by which I will be ready. And I can work toward that, which again is new setting goals. So those two things. If I am ready now, now we get an action plan together. Now we really think through what that looks like. Where would those opportunities be? How do I best position myself to achieve those? And there are some fundamentals, optimization strategies and other things that will help you be discoverable digitally, but also that network, talking to people. A lot of times people will keep those plans close to the vest. They're afraid to tell someone because they may not support it. They may think it's silly. So we hold that close to the vest and we don't tell other people, but those other people could be a wealth of information or opportunity in themselves. Those are the big buckets I would start with. Your support system, making sure people know how they can help you support your dream and your goal. And then what you personally need to do to support that dream and goal for yourself. And now, what are the steps that you can lay out for you personally to begin to walk down that path toward getting there?
[00:33:07] Nola: That is so helpful.
[00:33:08] Lori: I was like, from my past, I should have known you then.
[00:33:12] Nola: Skalka, tell us, what does living a vibrant life mean to you?
[00:33:20] Skalka: I love that question. I love the word because vibrancy to me is life. It really is. And I think living a vibrant life is one that makes you feel alive. Not going through the motions of something, but where you feel alive. And I do think there's a little element of unsureness in there. We don't have to have all the answers and that's okay. That's the point, is figuring it out. And so to me, living a vibrant life is living one of curiosity. It goes back to being open and curious about everything and creating all the time. You're always creating that vibrant life.
[00:33:54] Nola: I love that.
[00:33:55] Lori: I love your definition. Yeah.
[00:33:57] Nola: Thank you, Skalka, for being our guest. We're sure your personal experience, along with your real-world tips and suggestions will inspire and motivate ambitious women to take that leap of faith and do great work in a career or business that they truly love. Before you go, please tell us about your upcoming or signature programs. For more information, how can listeners get in touch with you? Where should they go if they want to learn more about you or your business?
[00:34:23] Skalka: So they can go to my website at careerinsightsconsulting.com. They can also check me out on LinkedIn, LinkedIn slash Gretchen Skalka, and then they can also check out The Plight Attendant YouTube channel. Any of those three places, feel free to get in touch with me. They can also subscribe to my newsletter, which you can get right off my website.
[00:34:41] Nola: Very good. We'll be sure to put links to all of these resources in our show notes as well. Well, listener, we hope the ideas and thoughts shared here today have sparked your interest and curiosity to make a mid-career change or to become a first-time entrepreneur in the second half of your vibrant life. And be sure to stick around to the very end of the podcast for a fun chuckle.
[00:35:01] Lori: If you found the information we've shared helpful and want more tips, tools, and inspiration delivered to your inbox, sign up for News You Can Use, over at our website. That's stickybrandlab.com or click the link in our show notes.
And remember, small steps, big effects.
[OUT-TAKE]
[00:35:22] Lori: Her toolkit features science-backed strategies such as NPL, NLP, I just threw that in there and it was so smooth! Take two, like NPL, CDT, NLP.
[00:35:44] Nola: You did it again. NPL, it's NLP. So start back from her toolkit.
[00:35:51] Lori: Apparently, this new, new, neuro linguistic programling is not even working. I had two cups of coffee and I feel like I still need more. No, that's fine. And I, and I was like, and I'm on a roll. Thank you guys, for listening.
