Finding Balance: How to Align Personal Well-Being with Career Success.

Do you struggle with finding the balance between personal well-being and professional growth? What if creating a secure, private environment to express yourself openly could transform your career resilience? If you're seeking to enhance your emotional and professional life, this episode is for you.

In this enlightening conversation with Elaine Bloom, we explore the pivotal role of mental health in personal and professional growth. Elaine emphasizes the need for a secure and private environment for individuals to express themselves openly. We discuss the transformative power of being heard without judgment, the significance of self-awareness and self-compassion, and the courage to voice one's needs and set boundaries. Through touching client stories, we illustrate the profound impact of empathetic listening and the dangers of trying to fix others' issues prematurely.

Imagine navigating your career with a deeper sense of self-understanding and resilience. 

By listening to this episode, you'll discover:

1. The Power of Empathetic Listening: Learn how being heard without judgment can transform your mental and emotional well-being.
2. Career Resilience Strategies: Understand the importance of aligning personal identity with professional endeavors and how to build emotional intelligence and adaptability.
3. Access to Support Services: Gain insights into the Career Health Talk service and free career counseling available in Norway to support your work-related experiences.

Three Benefits You'll Gain:

1. Enhanced Emotional Well-Being: Discover how self-awareness, self-compassion, and setting boundaries can improve your mental health.
2. Improved Professional Growth: Learn strategies for aligning your personal identity with your career and navigating career changes with resilience.
3. Support and Resources: Find out about available resources like Career Health Talk to help you process work-related experiences and enhance career health.

Are you ready to embrace vulnerability and build career resilience? Scroll up and click play to join our insightful discussion with Elaine Bloom. Gain valuable insights into the importance of mental health in professional growth and discover resources to support your journey. 

Share your experiences, subscribe to the show, and embark on a path towards career resilience and emotional well-being today!

Elaine Bloom's info:
Email:  elaine@elainebloom.no
LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/elaine-bloom-5272501a/
Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/elaine_bloom/
Website:  https://www.karrierehelse.no/
Website:  https://www.elainebloom.no/

Elaine's Articles:
1. Jakten på mening i arbeidslivet og karrierehelse
2. Karrierehelse: når nærhet til jobb skaper avstand i våre nære relasjoner
3.

Transcript

Transcript

[0:00] Music. 

Welcome to It's an Inside Job: Building Resilience Together

[0:09] Back to It's an Inside Job podcast. I'm your host, Jason Liem.
Now, this podcast is dedicated to helping you to help yourself and others to become more mentally and emotionallyresilient so you can be better at bouncing back from life's inevitable setbacks.
Now, on It's an Inside Job, we decode the science and stories of resilience into practical advice, skills, and strategies thatyou can use to impact your life and those around you.
Now, with that said, let's slip into the stream.

[0:37] Music. 

Introducing the topic of career resilience and success

[0:44] Hey folks, welcome back to the show. It's an inside job. I'm your host, Jason Liem.
This week, we are going to focus on a subject that we haven't touched on.
We've kind of come close to the idea, but it's about career resilience and what that means.
And there are kind of two aspects. We break it down black and white career success, but career shame.

Career Shame and Challenges

[1:08] And discussion and dive deep into the subject. Because at some point, we all feel success.
But at some point in everyone's career, we may feel career shame.
That might be losing a job, not being hired for a position or getting that promotion, maybe even a demotion, getting laidoff due to economic times.
And so my guest today is Elaine Bloom. She's a distinguished social entrepreneur and career counselor deeply committedto fostering career real health, and sustainability.
Her multi-faceted approach, underpinned by her extensive academic background in neuroscience, career counseling, andpedagogy, is further enriched by the development of the FEMS model that emphasizes flow, engagement, meaning, andstrength.
This model showcases her dedication to nurturing personal and professional growth, resilience, and fulfillment in one'scareer path.
In her professional capacity, Elaine utilizes a variety of platforms to share her her insights and to provide guidancethrough workshops, her podcasts, articles, and her series on NRKNet TV.
She equips individuals with the tools to navigate the complexities of career development, managing challenges, andleveraging opportunities for success.
Her work is characterized by a holistic approach that not only aims at career advancement, but also at the cultivation of ameaningful and engaging work life.

[2:33] Music. 

Introduction and Background of Elaine Blum

[2:47] Jason, how are you? I'm doing quite well. I was wondering if we could kick off the conversation, if you could pleasemaybe introduce who you are and what you do.
I can give a quick, quick, quick run of who I am and what I do.
So as you said, my name is Elaine Blum.

[3:03] I turned 40 last year and I'm very grateful for that.

[3:07] I've been learning a lot of stuff and decided to let go of some of the the strategies and the coping mechanisms I usedin my 20s and 30s and yeah kind of let them be there so 40 for me is started out interesting we'll get back to that laterwithin the career and career resilience we're going to talk about but I've always had a passion for for people careers howwe choose and especially how our work and our lives work life and private life kind of affect each other because i've seenit um i've experienced it firsthand within my own family and i've seen families being beaten up and broken i've seenfamilies disintegrate and become holy again and um work plays an enormous part in our lives and we're all kind of boundinto the discourse when you're born your socioeconomic socioeconomic status what you earn where you live how youlook what's your gender who do you love uh are you rich are you your poor your neighborhood and everything is sointertwined and interconnected and we kind of talk about work and what we do like it's isolated from the rest of who weare so I kind of started seeing some patterns or I didn't have the language for that as I do now but I started kind ofconnecting some dots when I was about 13 that kind of led me into you know career counseling health.

[4:36] Psychology work psychology neuroscience and also obviously pedagogics and me working.

[4:42] With career and organizational and leadership development kind of like on the intro trying to get into the insides andgetting the insights to show on the outside because there are a lot of surface stuff going on when we talk about work andhealth and career and choices and education and the notion that career is something linear you're gonna climb somethingclimb a ladder run you gotta you have you gotta kind of start running because you're out of time and we need to hit thismark and get this education and get this job and I think it's something about to conclude my answer it's something aboutthe career and work narrative that does not sit well with me so I kind of, Try to be, I would say, a pioneer and a rebel,rattling the cage a bit, trying to create a paradigm shift.
That's a big word. But within how we think and live and breathe within our career, work-life family and work-life balanceas a whole.

[5:42] Yeah, I mean, this is the first conversation I've had on this podcast about career resilience and just the idea of career.
Because as you said, I think you said it so eloquently, it takes up a large part of our lives. I mean, we, for those who go touniversity or college or study a trade, you know, that becomes a large part of our identity.
We identify as the profession or the career that we take.
But sometimes along the way, we, at least I experience as, you know, working as a sparring partner, we can sometimeslose ourselves in the career.
And I think also you said another salient point is that sometimes at least younger people can sometimes see that. And atsome point, we were young in that sense.
You can see it as a linear, you know, just go up stages.
But I think it can be completely compared to success.
I mean, success is not a straight line. We all know this. We've experienced it. We've all taken our hits.
We've all been, you know, knocked to our knees.
And we've had to get up, brush ourselves up, and try to move forward again and again and again.
And slowly, we climb to whatever success as we define it.

[6:53] And so this is part I want, because I think also it's very important, though, not just to go out to younger people asthey start their professional lives, however that is.
But I think it's also for a lot of people because of technologies, because of AI, because of machine learning, because ofhow industries are shifting.
You know, the idea of retooling and reskilling becomes more part of the landscape, the ecosystem that we have to talkabout. And if you're 50 plus, maybe, and of course, that's not an easy shift to make.

[7:27] That's something we have to also talk about. And career resilience, I think, always will come back to that mentalresilience, that robustness, that tenacity or fortitude to take the next step if you have to, if you must, or if you want to.
And I think to speak to your point there, you know, the discourse of work, career.
Career um you know work used to be at least let's say here in norway on the scandinavian speaking company because ifyou obviously the united states or some other countries are way different because here in norway we have the welfare youknow you get maternity leave um if you lose your job i used to work closely with um the knob you know the welfaresystem so if you lost your job you could get up to two years of pay if you attended career courses you got all all the helpyou needed to pay your electric bills so when i think when we talk about careers and the career resilience there's also kindof a cultural thing here and also a nationality depending on where obviously some of my friends united states stay andthey give birth and they go back to work after two weeks and here you you can stay home a year if you want to more orless so there's something about the equality there and but if i speak to your point within this Scandinavian kind offramework that is also applicable.

Cultural Perspectives on Career Resilience and Worth

[8:46] One of the things I see.

[8:50] And in Norwegian, we say, vad ska du bli? So what do you want to become?
That's kind of the question we ask our kids.

[8:57] And vad vi du bli, what do you want to become? In Norwegian, that kind of means, so what would you like to dowhen you grow up?
But in Norwegian, it kind of sounds like your worth is placed on the career or the education you choose.
Or, you know, you want to be a cop. Oh, good for you. You want to be a magician.
People go like, but you can't be a magician. Are you crazy? crazy no no you want to do arts oh my god it's not secure it'snot safe so to speak to your point work at least here used to be about we need money because we need money to buy foodand we still need money but still something has happened there is a shift because now for me um you know the how wekind of placed what was important used to be money and it's the currency yeah the currency but for me now the currencythe new currency is actually meaning we're pursuing meaning chasing meaning hunting down meaning you know ourwork desk has become our altar where we place everything and um so we work and a lot of people you know they areworkaholics and they work and work and that's also a form of at least from my perspective working with you knowburned out stress workaholics a form of addiction.

[10:13] A form of numbing, but we also kind of get rewarded for self-betrayal.
We get rewarded for running.
So to speak to your point about career resilience, either you're 50 or 30 or just kind of going into the workplace or makingdecisions.

Placing Value and Self-Worth in Career Choices

[10:32] You know, kind of just going like, OK, so where do I actually place my worth?
Is it within all the hours I kind of, you know, ching ching, chime the bell and look at me? Or is it because I have nolimitations?

[10:46] Where is my value placed and where do we place our value on young children in order to where what kind of theychoose to talk about when they want to choose a career?
So I never ask my son what you want to become because he is already whole.
He's all he needs to be. I ask him so what do you like to do what are your interests and now it's pirate piratesmanship he'sa pirate okay so what kind of skills do you need as a part well you have to have to be brave so tell me how are we braveso we have those kind of talks and those talks are also transferable if you're 30 or 50 but I think this is an inside job Jasonand that's the holy grail that it seems like we're kind of missing because the answers are out there if I just get that job getthat education get that car the wife the house whatever and we're still kind of empty so where do you place your value andalso whose kind of narrative is playing out whose kind of you know thoughts and and concepts about career and work andmeaning and purpose are they yours are there someone else's because when I talk to people and do you know careerhealth development and leadership and.

[12:03] I usually talk I seldom get to talk to the one I actually need to talk to because a lot of people just send out theiravatar so they send their avatar to work making the decisions and kind of the the rest of me I stay at home because it's safeI don't want to be vulnerable I don't want I want to, I just want to send my avatar and I also need to be seen.
So I keep running. So my boss praises me for all my accolades and all the things, but I still can't show up as my wholeself.

[12:35] So this is quite important also. And I've been working a lot with Plus 50 for many, many years.
We had an oil crisis here in 2012.
So I've been working with a lot of people who lost their job there.
And, you know, I've been working with people from 16 to about 75, 80 different nationalities for many, many years.
And there are some similar threads, Jason. Like, am I enough? Do people like me?
Do I actually know what I think I know?
How, where do I fit in? What do I actually want?

[13:08] So those questions kind of just keep coming up. And I think those questions do come up because, you know, whenwe get hit, when we get knocked back, when we lose our job, when we get demoted or whatever happens to us, you know,these are natural tendencies.
Because obviously, you know, we have this 50,000-year-old wetware in our heads called the brain. and with its archaicprogramming saying we need to be part of a tribe.
If I lose my status in that tribe, that means what do I bring?
Will I get banished to some extent? I'm very black and white here, but it is. We start questioning our self-worth.
We start being self-critical. We start seeding ourselves with self-doubt.
And this is not because you're broken. This is what we all do.
But the question is, that's what the brain does. It has a negativity bias. We've spoken...

[14:02] Ad nauseum on this podcast about the negativity bias.
But for those who don't know, it's the programming of the brain where it's constantly searching in the environments fordangerous threats to your life and limb.
And it does it for a good thing, to protect you.
But when we lose our status, such as a job, or we get a hit in our career.

[14:23] Well, this negativity bias kicks in and this narrative plays in our head.
And this narrative can unfortunately tear us down.
It can And it can completely rip our self-esteem and gut our self-confidence.
And unless we have professionals such as yourself to help to maybe redefine that narrative, to look at it on more factual,not just all these assumptions that we have, right? Am I actually worth?
You know, you are. And maybe the cut that was made was not because of you, but it was because of some spreadsheet.
Sheet and as as demeaning as that feels you know and then of course the conversations become a lot more complicatedbut i think what you're saying at the end of the day to follow the purpose and passion is very important and not just tochase the paycheck i mean we've been hearing this conversation for a long time but i think it becomes even more andmore relevant and for those coming coming out of, you know, coming into the game, you know, young people, maybethat's what it is.
I think to some extent, you know, Elaine, a lot of what you say really resonates with me because when, when you talkabout this and the people I work with, you know, I work from five to 7% with people who've unfortunately hit the wall,highly educated men and women.

[15:40] And I kind of consider myself fortunate because my dad told me, like, I grew up in a, so my mom's British,Caucasian. My dad's Chinese.
And so I had this East West sort of mix in my house of philosophies and values.
My dad said to me, he said, he said three things. He says, Jason, follow what you love doing.

[15:59] You know, follow what you're good at. And most important, follow or deliver on what people are willing to pay for.
And those three waypoints created a sort of a triad for me to constantly figure out where I want to go.
And it kind of focused on that same philosophy that my dad shared with me.
It's the same conversations I have with my kids today.
And I openly admit it. That's what I also use as waypoints for my conversations with clients.

[16:31] I think this is so important because obviously there's a Danish philosopher, Søren Schierkegaard, and he said lifehas to be lived forward, but kind of understood backwards.
So usually when I work with, say, plus 30, 40, 50, because I work at university as well with young students, you knowwith a master's degree in biochemistry they're like can you look at my cv and i and they're not actually asking me to lookat their cv they're asking me to say you're okay you are worth yes there's room for you in the workplace but to speak toyour point one of the interesting things as i was 13 and then my father lost his job at the time and no one told me i justJust something happened in the household, a dynamic shift. Okay.
So I had my elbows on the table on supper. We were eating dinner and it was like, get your elbows off the table. I waslike, whoa.
So the dynamic changed. But in my household, I love my parents.
God bless them. They're alive.
My father's 86. My mother's 76.

[17:43] But my parents, we did not talk about the important things.

The Importance of Talking About Feelings and Self-Understanding

[17:47] Feelings they um just kind of to build a bridge to why we're talking about this and why this is important for mebecause i never learned how to talk about my feelings i learned how to talk to live from my head and be pragmatic andsystematic and you know logic but i'm i have a lot of feelings and i'm warm and i'm curious and empathetic and but i kindof um, And it's hard to explain because I've been doing a lot of interesting work on myself, trying to understand how I dowhat I do.
And so my father, when he lost his job, I met him kind of in our hallway during the night.
There was some kind of rummaging and he was on his way out and he woke me and I was like, where are you going?
And he said, go back to bed. And I said, well, you know, I'm a rebel, so I'll just get dressed and I'll, are you leaving mom?
What's going on? and Jason I can remember his his um kind of yellow bonnet or kind of hat on top of his head.

[18:45] Mustard colored scarf big empty sad brown eyes he was about 59 at the time you know in Norway November itwas like it was cold and he has this book under his arm and it's like 12 or 1 in there and I'm like where where are yougoing and he said I lost my job two months ago we haven't told you I'm delivering the newspapers during the night andwe had an old Datsun 79 model blue no belt in the back seat and he took that car went to collect the newspaper and ran upand down all the you know the blocks and the flats and the stairs and he came back and to speak to your point about thecareer decisions and resilience the amount and I get chills when I say the amount of career shame which is kind of aphrase I've coined because I've seen so much career shame, drove him to when he came home, do you know what it is?
He showered, ate, and then he pretended to go out to work with the rest of the world.
Because as you said, if we do not do what we're supposed to do, part of the tribe, go to work, earn our money, pay ourtaxes, you know, kind of be the man of the house at that time.
We're talking in 1997 or something like that.
And my mother, she was working. She earned a good deal of money.
But, you know, the feeling, the shame, he could never, ever put it into words.
So he just pretended to go to work and he pretended to be somewhere and he came back at four o'clock.

[20:12] You know, that also speaks to, you know, you know, sort of the male mentality.
And I don't think it's wrong.
I mean, there's always been this, at least when I've grown up and I still see it, it's just, you know, the guy. And the waywe've been indoctrinated, the way we've been taught is to to provide for the family.
And I think it's it just it goes beyond than just sort of what we're taught.
I think it's honestly, I think it's part of our sort of our mental makeup as as males per se.

[20:46] Obviously females feel the same sense when they lose their job they feel a sense of career shame but it's not to ithink like your father he he stepped up he he was a proud or he sorry he is a proud man and it wasn't the pride that itdoesn't sound like he just wanted to deliver for his daughter and his wife and he wanted to provide right and because healso to kind of to understand understand people's career paths you also have to look at attachment theory from you knowfrom deep psychology and also where people come from he's born in 38 he's kind of a boy of the war when the blitz cameto london you just woke him up at three o'clock in the night put everything you have in a pillowcase get on the train andhe had to move miles and miles away and live with a nervous wreck that was called mrs white for a whole year withouthis parents his father died he started the sailing went to sea when he was 13 it was either that or being a criminal and he'sbeen on his own ever since so i don't think anyone's actually kind of you know really loved him or or really guided him hehas a completely different life than mine and i remember being like 11 and i said why don't we have you know i'm from aworking class my mother's a farmer's daughter and i was like why don't we have a cabin there why don't we have this andthis this and this and this. And it was like...

[22:10] Have you ever imagined not having a roof over your head, not having anything to eat, not having it? And I waslike, no.
And it was like, you see this scar on my, it kind of started telling me stuff.
And so when I look at my father's shame and pride, I also have to look at his attached. He wasn't securely attached.

[22:29] He was probably anxious, ambivalent, disorganized, all of the, you know, patterns that kind of keeps you blockedfrom being vulnerable.
So telling was an act of vulnerability and we didn't do it in my family i kind of had to learn it um although it's alwaysbeen in me in me but the point is he started then um working at the municipal government from 73 and also thenbecoming a security guard by night so he had three jobs and unfortunately he had to kind of um pensionary had to yeah hehad to retire retired 67 but i I started my company a bit later, so he's now doing, he's a member of the board, he's doingeconomics because he managed to have two years and doing some economics and he was really good at that.
So the point is, we think we have all these free choices, you know, from neuroscience as well, free will.
But I mean, come on, how is our decision making process based?
How are we not feeling ashamed or feeling confident or secure?

The Interconnectedness of Decision Making and Career Paths

[23:30] Everything is interconnected. And I think this This is the most interesting part of looking at how we choose ourcareers and what kind of shapes our careers, because that was a pivotal moment for me, deciding at 13, when I went tobed, I was like.

[23:45] Okay, I will help people who lost their jobs.
I will start my own company so no one can find me. I will become a manager or a leader and help people and make themfeel safe and always take care.
And I was like, when I was 13, I was like, check, check, check.

[23:57] I've been running my company for 13 years. I have two companies.
You know elainebloom.no and careerhealth.no have a big career podcast.

[24:08] You know, I've been working as a leader for many, many years, developing and pioneering career services,developed the first integrated career services for people at university, students at University of Oslo.

[24:20] But none of this would have come to me unless kind of some of the moments in my past had shown up.
And I think I did a study of people 50 plus who lost their job.
Job and you know they traveled 20 to 50 minutes to another grocery shop the grocery shop near them so they would notmeet their neighbor saying how are you doing how are you going what's up because they did not want to tell peoplethey've lost their jobs they turned down the lights pretended like my father to go to work and the amount of shame and ithink here's one of the things uh jason we talk about society we're so open come on everyone's sharing everything onlinkedin but we're not we're still judging we're still like you're not working but why are you working out you're on sickleave you're weak you know we still there's something ingrained like bigger stronger faster come on more more more so ithink um when being faced with adversity or kind of being forced to stop all the big existential questions pertaining workthe life career they kind of show up and that's why I just for many years I was like okay we thought we talk about mentalhealth as you said you know the robustness we have to you know bounce back we have to be strong develop skills and Iwas like.

[25:46] Why is nobody talking about career health? Why is nobody talking about that?
Everyone from we're born until the day we die, we have a career health because when you talk to my father, you know,the male kind of providing, it's also about identity.
And that's kind of not something you throw out the window and you create.
It's deep embedded, as you say.

[26:11] So at the core kind of of the career health model that I created or the framework is like, who do you become whenyou go to work and what do you allow your work to become how do you allow your organization your culture yourcolleagues how do you allow them to see you how do you show up because organizations also have a career health as doindividuals and it's kind of the.

Defining Career Health and its Dimensions

[26:38] Intersection between the individuals and the organization's career health that career health that makes for asustainable psychological safe work environment so let me ask you let me ask you then just so we can operationallydefine for the listeners what do you mean by career health, maybe you can maybe you can define that a little more yeah soso as an example was how we We, when we go to work, obviously we have, we have our physical health, we have ouremotional health, we have, but I think at least for me, the way we've been viewing career work, it's quite one dimensional.
So when I work kind of from a holistic approach where we have to see the whole human being kind of, the whole humanis also going to work and people go like, you know, I have some trouble at home, but I just leave it at home and I go towork.
And I'm like yeah yeah yeah but it seeps out so I created this framework that I call in Norwegian FEMSS but it alsoactually converts into English beautifully so the career health framework is about five dimensions it's how to assess yourcareer health and understand your career health along five dimensions the first one is the physical.

[27:56] So, and every dimension has five categories. So I'll just give you an example.
So the physical has rest, nutrition, surroundings, energy, just to name some.
And then you have E, the emotional dimension, also have five categories.
And then you have the mental dimension where, and you have the spiritual dimension.
And a lot of people in Norway, they laugh and go like, are we going to sit in the woods and hold hands and singKumbaya?
Yeah that's actually about meaning values belonging authenticity and then you have the s the social compartment i theysay i am included but i feel alone as i like we're talking about diversity but is there any diversity so i created thisframework in order to assess and understand your career health because people come to me i don't like my job i want toquit or my team is so crazy and then there's so much going on and we seldom talk about with the things we need to talkabout so with this framework you can actually go in and assess what is going on so you know as a leakage scale if you doa personality test you go I like having control from one to five and you go like three so what you do with this frameworkyou actually assess your career health so you go go okay so from one to five five being like great how do i kind of rest.

[29:21] And not fake resting because i made a lot of people you know they're on the couch they're relaxing but their mindis at work so the body's pumping cortisol adrenaline you know just yes physically they're not at work but mentally they'rein that space so we're accessing and assessing and we see probably uh how do you kind of put up boundaries and youprobably see one there and work is meaningful, probably four.
And kind of you start to summarize, of course, look at the scores and you go like, and I would say, can you see anypatterns or anything going on here between the social dimension and the physical dimension? And they go like.

[30:00] Okay, I put one, I don't rest very well. And I'm kind of pulling back from my call.
But look at this one, I put zero on boundaries. I just keep saying yes, and yes, and yes.
And that's why I can't rest because I'm occupied about how people perceive me, my position, what they think.
That means I can't fully show up at work. Oh my God, I'm put two at authenticity.
But my work has meaning. So you kind of get to look at kind of because there are 25 reference points and you kind of getto see, oh, it's about this one.
And this one makes it difficult for me to rest. And when I can't rest, I pull back. When I pull back, I experience stress.
And then so career health is so the overarching kind of thought is how can we create a sustainable work life together?
So if I take care of my career health and understand what I need, and here's the point, almost everyone I've been workingwith for the last 15 years, they go like this, Jason, what's wrong with me?
Why am I tired? Why can't I do this? Why am I overstimulated?
Why do I not feel at ease? Why can't I feel my purpose? What's going on with me? What's wrong with me?

[31:15] And i say well look at the culture look at the framework you're in look at what's going on with your organization'scareer health you know what i really like about this uh career health framework as you said you have 25 points to helpmarket and you know from my background i think it's really good because it's it's an exercise of self-awareness you knowpeople have to kind of check in with themselves at an emotional level of these 25 different points and they have to put anobjective number on a subjective feeling that allows them to assess.

[31:51] More or less where they are on some things where some emotions they feel i'm in the zone other things are kind ofoff kilter i think just that idea of putting an objective number on a subjective feeling based on these five frameworks of thephysical the emotional the mental spiritual and the social spiritual being values and purpose and such i think it's very veryimportant because Because once they get the results, I think that also allows them to show a little more self-compassion.
Instead of self-critical, why am I broken? Why am I this or that?

[32:26] You look at it and think, okay, maybe show some self-compassion.
And by doing that, and what I also hear you saying, Elaine, this career health framework, it allows them to also pinpointwhere they can direct their efforts and energy.
And in English, we call that self-efficacy. self-efficacy meaning what are the actions I can take to do this and so when wefind that we can do something about something about us that we've just discovered through this this framework of yourswell that leads to more it doesn't boost our confidence but it slowly rebuilds the confidence so I just I just wanted to kindof put my little bow on what you've said perfect I also think this is the point because I want I want to change my job and Igo like so we really need to decipher for what you want to move away from and what you want to move to and people gono i just i don't like my boss okay well let's have an assessment and you can see well okay it's my job um job in a way andkind of i'm working on a job security i'm not quite sure so kind of you have your job security jotted down for one and thenyou see your stress levels going five and you, and you don't eat properly if you look at the physical and in your kind ofyour surroundings surroundings.
Maybe you have a crazy commute to work. So if you look at a crazy commute to work, it has a hectic schedule because ofyour kids, your trouble kind of getting in the right nutrition and you feel insecure and you go like.

[33:53] Okay, so when you looked at the framework and all your scores, and what are the patterns, you know, between thespiritual, the social, how is everything interconnected?
And what do we really have to address?
Okay, I need to talk to my boss because I cannot handle this work, this job insecurity.
So the community is actually not that crazy because I get to rest.
And okay, can I actually reframe the community?
Yes I can but it's difficult because I have this job insecurity pressuring me.

[34:27] And so you're kind of okay so uh oh yeah so my contract will be prolonged I had that talk now I can rest in thecommute because usually the things we're talking about that bothering us they are not the things that are bothering us sothat's kind of the core of the career health framework because people come I'm so stressed I don't know what to do and Igo like so you're you're scared.
And they go like, no, no, no, I'm stressed out.
But we can, we can talk about stress up here, but we are not, you're sending me your avatar.
Show me your insides. We're not talking about stress. We're talking about fear.

[35:00] So when I talk to people, I hear words, but I seldom pay attention to the words.
It's everything that's going on, on the inside, kind of getting that to show up on the outside.

[35:11] And they find that 90% of people in some sectors, especially health, went to work although they were sick andthere were three things that kind of showed up from the work psychology number one sanction pressure fear of sanctionsyou're afraid of being seen as weak or uh fear of missing out you know maybe your project will be passed on to someoneelse because you're not there and number two the moral pressure you think i'm not sick enough i kind of you know i havea bit of covid or i'm not that i'm not that ill i'll show up you know i feel guilty so I'll just log in although you know I'mhome but I'm not home and the third is feeling of.

The Cost of Presentism: Sick Leave and Self-Betrayal

[35:49] Indispensability so you know do not have enough people I have to go so what happens is you know the sick leaveor the Norway is one of the top countries in syke fra var or sick leave and it's costing loads of money but also inNorwegian the syke nær var why we go to work when you should stay at home is equal amount and that also kind of inthe long run is called presentism presentism it also leads to higher costs because you know you're a bit sick you go towork you're a bit sick and suddenly you're in there for you know you're you're off duty for the long run and I started towonder like why do we self-betray I mean compromising okay Jason we'll do a bit of this and a bit of that but I just it justseems like society and this is just my take and reward Rewards us for self-betraying.
Rewards us for running and panting and, you know, driving ourselves to the ground.

[36:47] Music. 

Exploring the Relationship between Personal Identity and Profession

[36:54] In part one, Elaine discusses the intricate relationship between personal identity and profession, probing into themotives behind work, be it for financial compensation, career progression, or seeking meaning.
She delves into career resilience, distinguishing between career health and the often overlooked concept of career shame.
And career shame, well, it stems from a negative self-perception and societal pressures. Elaine introduces acomprehensive model for career health based on five dimensions.
The physical, the emotional, the mental, the spiritual, which encompasses values and meaning, and the social.
She advocates for a holistic approach to enhance self-awareness and to be able to pinpoint areas requiring self-compassion and proactive efforts.
This way, the clients can focus on what they can control, where the challenge really lies, and the ways to remedy or tomitigate those challenges and to address them directly.
You know, furthermore, she addresses the stress and the pressures fueled by fears of inadequacy, the moral dilemma ofconstant availability, and a sense of indispensability, offering insights into navigating these challenges.
So now let's slip back into the stream from my second part of my conversation with Elaine Bloom, where we discuss andelaborate on career resilience.

[38:16] Music. 

Embracing Authenticity and Unedited Self

[38:27] I turned 35. I just booked a big theater here and called it Unedited by Bloom.
And I did some quasi research asking people, when do you edit out yourself?
And when kind of can your full self show up?
And I just, there was a full, you know, theater, 500 people.
I just ran my show, a bit of standup, a bit of humor, but also a bit of like, so why can't we show up as ourselves althoughwe think society is like open and everything and and i'll tell you something personal i had um i have a son and last yearabout one and a half years ago um it's not a divorce because we were not married but we broke up we live together have ason together and we decided to go our separate ways and working and talking about career health you know career Rearresilience, going through a breakup, having a child with all the crazy complex feelings.
I'll tell you, Jason, I've never felt more complex pain and sorrow in my whole life.
I was feeling like my heart was going to stop working.
And we have a 50-50 split and we work really well together.

[39:42] Father of my son is great. Dad lives 10 minutes away.
Way but a pain of being a mother without a child showing up to work I mean what parts do I edit out and what parts do Ibring and I remember being in this big meeting at university talking about something completely useless I can't describeto you how little that matters for anyone.

[40:12] And everybody knows, but it's just, we're having a meeting because we have the meeting and go to the emotion,but it's nothing to talk about.
And it's like, and I was sitting there and I just, I just wanted to cry.
I wanted to stand up and say like, what am I doing with my time?
And I decided, well, I'll just send my kind of avatar.

[40:28] I'll send my representative to this meeting because this is not a place because I was in doing a project.

[40:36] So they were kind of not my friends not my close colleagues I do not want to show my whole self to these peopleso I think it's also when I talk about showing up and being your whole self you also have to be kind of quite aware whodeserves your story who can hold your story what you tell your boss or not kind of what repercussions does it have um soI was kind of simultaneously creating and developing career health taking care of my own career health and I was talkingabout this in my podcast because my podcast is about you know the career health and life itself and I actually got umsome messages saying uh and this gives me chills like your podcast literally saved my life because I've been sharingsnippets because when I have the microphone and I can just I'm just completely honest going back to the point of yourfather um doing what you love and just you know doing it not for the sake of earning money i have no sponsorship on mypodcast i just i just enjoy sharing and i do not know who gets to hear it or who who it kind of gets to it but i don't care it'sjust out in the ether finding what it needs to find so this is going back to career resilience being able to to kind of stop andjust feel your feelings because that is insanely difficult.

The Difficulty of Feeling and Facing Our Emotions

[41:59] It's much more easier to, you know, to numb with a podcast, maybe a good thing, or Netflix or working out oreating or shopping or whatever.

[42:08] You know, just an ancient wisdom has known this, you know, thousands.
And you're talking about Eastern, Western philosophy, you know, being still, what's the next right step?
And I think talking about career resilience, people go like, oh my God, there's so much and I have to change everything.

[42:23] It's just what do I need what do I need and I think there's a difference between what do I need and kind of what do Ilong for and I usually say to the people I work with when we kind of get deep so what's going on and they go like I justwant everything to stop please I just want my work to stop for a moment I just want to breathe I just want a sailor youknow a voluntary punctuation between.

[42:55] It's a space between words, between music, between action, just make it all stop just, But people, I don't, I don'tmean to generalize, but kind of getting off the carousel.
What happens if you do, what happens if you don't, you're damned if you do, you're damned if you don't.
So it's all these dilemmas. You should stay at home, but you go to work.
Um, and I also wrote in quite an interesting article saying when proximity to work, great distance in our closerelationships, you know, have you ever been with your family, friends, partner, whatever, but your mind, as we said, it's atwork.
Yeah yeah i've been there definitely definitely never present and that's also you know dipping in or tapping into the careerhealth all of these kind of deep sweaty difficult kind of crazy things that aren't so crazy but we're so scared jason of facingor meeting ourselves and we're so good at breaking all the promises we.

[43:54] Create i'm gonna breathe i'm gonna drink water i'm gonna say no I'm gonna do this and I did a big a big radio showwhere I had a career program and I was talking to this amazing intern and she said I would like to set a boundary but if Iset a boundary I'll be more preoccupied with setting the boundary thinking about the what the person I set the boundarythinks about and then I'll be crazy all evening thinking about what she thinks about the boundary so it's just best to say yesI was like so you know the inside job and the mind talk how i would like to ask you jason how have you tamed or haveyou ever tapped into or just felt like your mind was untamed at times just kind of running wild and how have you kind ofgot back or tamed it or kind of built your career resilience because obviously there's been no straight line for you eithertalking about vulnerability no straight line no it's more like a bouncing ball in a small room it just ding ding ding off allsix all six surfaces but you know of course i mean i i'm over sometimes i'm hit with overthinking or negative thinking orself-critical thoughts or rumination but i i think what's important and maybe i've had the advantage of having an educationand working in this field for 25 years but i always come back to the emotions the emotions i've always dictated and againthis is something i've talked ad nauseum on this podcast guess about.

Taming the Untamed Mind and Addressing Emotions

[45:24] But emotions are just chemical messengers from my physiology to my psychology.

[45:28] And that's what I tell myself. And I also tell myself that it's just my brain doing its thing. It's a message.

[45:34] And so basically I see emotions as neither negative, positive.
I see it as comfortable or uncomfortable, but it's communicating something.
And so what I will do, so I am not caught up in the narrative of the emotion.
And then I go down those rabbit holes.

[45:50] I will catch myself and I have different ways of catching myself.
And over 25 years, it's just become a habit. And I could feel the physiological response in me.
So when I feel that, I literally, as you said, I pause.
Because at that point, I'm mentally probably off the rails. I'm derailed.
And if I'm trying to drive my train, I'm not going anywhere because my wheels are not on the tracks. So I have to stop andI reflect.
And I literally think to myself, what is the emotion I'm feeling?
I'm not just saying stress or anger because I know those are secondary responses.
So I look for a primary response.
If it's fear, then I try to identify the fear or the anxiety or whatever it is.
And then I'll ask, well, why is my emotion communicating this to me?
And through that revelation, through that self-awareness, I kind of calm down. I start reflecting.
And I realize these are just physiological responses.
And they're the filters in which I see the world. But once I address it.

[46:49] You know, things start coming down.
Maybe I'll go for a walk or I'll go for a run to burn out the cortisol and the adrenaline to clear that, clear those out, thosehormones, so they're not polluting my thinking.
And I think from there, I find a sense of stability.
But then I start asking myself questions based on what I, okay, what are the facts?
What do I control? What am I certain about?
Where can I invest my effort and my actions? Yes, I focus on the outcome.
I mean, that gives me direction orientation.

[47:22] But I need to figure out the efforts I can put in now.
Because if I get lost in the outcome, when I'm going to get my new job, when I'm going to get the new client, then again,I'm going down the rabbit hole.
Because outcomes can be influenced by so many variables.
And a lot of those variables we can't even see coming.
That can be knocked off kilter, right? But the thing I can control is always the effort. it's always the mind talk, it's alwaysaddressing my emotions.
And it's sometimes admitting that my brain will lie to me. Sometimes the emotions I'm feeling is based onmisinformation, right?
And if I can assess that and I look at if it's misinformation, then I'm thinking, okay, there's no point to making a decisionbased on faulty data.

[48:07] Go out and collect. And that's why I ask those sort of those other questions.
Now, it doesn't help me to doesn't put me into a positive mindset because I might be in a shitty situation.
But what it does, it puts me into a constructive, pragmatic mindset and allows me to grind to get through what I got to getthrough.
Right. I have to go through the storm, even though I don't want to go through the storm.
Yes. And I think this is speaking kind of to your point of the Dante's Inferno as well.
Sometimes you kind of gotta go through the crazy havoc parts and i think that's one of the problems now speaking to yourpoint about this and career health where we're um surface reading we're surface interacting we're swiping and andpressing and doodling and chat gpting and you know not to say the technology is great so we're not going into that butalso you know we get synopsis of of a book in like one second and we kind of think we know the whole book so one ofmy um most.

[49:08] Cherished values is depths in in relationships in in reading in understanding myself and it has cost me blood sweatand tears talking to you about going inwards and I kind of the memo or the or you know the memo we get is like stayhappy be positive I never want my son to just be happy I want my son to understand his feelings in his body, feel hisfeelings, sit with his feelings. I'll sit with him and it will pass.

Importance of Embracing and Understanding our Feelings

[49:37] And I think this is so important to also speak to the point earlier about, you know, attachment theory and kind of, asyou said, with a neuroscience, also tapping into the brain, but also our nervous system, kind of painful fears, our socialnervous system, like what's going on and how we show up.
Because when I talk about people kind of sending their avatar and how I at some point also sent my avatar because I donot want to get hurt.
I do not want to open up. I do not want to be vulnerable because I do not know the repercussions.

[50:08] We have this primary and secondary feelings, right, from the emotional research.
Like most of us, we are meeting up, up showing up with our kind of secondary emotions so our primary emotion is JasonI talked to you and I feel fear okay you're my boss and you're going to ask me if I've done my job and I feel fear because Ihave an imposter syndrome I don't think I'm enough and I'm getting tired so you come in and you say and I go like.

[50:40] Quit nagging i i'm doing you know i meet you with anger so my primary kind of feeling is fear or not being enoughprobably shame not knowing how to do the task and not knowing how to ask for help but i'll show you my secondaryfeeling aggression or or you know being cold and you go like so what's what's going on i'm like nothing just just let me beobviously i wouldn't talk to my boss that way way but this is kind of communicating close relationships so this is whenthe career health is just not about work it's about the transferability to all walks of life to the kindergarten our partnerskind of how we affect each other uh how we can use language to elicit you know oxytocin that makes us feel close andand we need each other and we elicit empathy or i can And say to you, as my employee, like, okay, I don't think you haveall the skills, Jason, so let's see if you can do this task, have it done by Friday.
I'm kind of, you know, with my words, injecting something, I'm mixing something in your drink that kind of starts, createsyour cortisol production.

[51:48] Maybe fight, flight, freeze, you want to run away, adrenaline.
So just imagine how we show up using our words, how we mix our own cocktails, just to speak to your point about yourown mind talk and how you tame it and kind of how, what do you as a manager or leader or as a parent or mix in thecocktails, you kind of serve the people around you.
Because what I see is a lot of emotional discharge going on, you know, with everything that's going on in society.
We're more anxious, we're more afraid, and kind of we do not kind of know how to get rid of all our stuff.
You said you were running, and so we just kind of dump our emotional stuff or discharge on other people, and we seldommeet kind of the primarily emotions, but you always, at least sometimes at work, if there's not kind of a safe environment,environment, you meet the secondary needs.
So we interact upon the secondary needs. We create teams. We deliver.

[52:44] And people go like but I don't feel like my leader sees me I'm not appreciated and I say well.

[52:50] What do you want to repeat all my efforts but what about your efforts is it your avatar sending your efforts or is itare you actually bringing your whole self to work so how and this is one of the most interesting questions when I travel atthe career health tour and do talks I say to people do you like who you become at the workplace or in the workplace andyou know what happens three or four hundred people they kind of start giggling and I know oh you know when people dothe nervous giggle a lot of people Jason do not like who they become in the workplace and I said so who do you becomewhen you meet kind of your manager your colleagues your tasks who do you become within in the framework of theculture and how do you let your organization also see you that's kind of the baseline of the career health because yeah butmy manager he don't get but have you used your words to communicate what's going on no but how is someone supposedto get to you or have you have you no but it's too difficult but what is your role and i think there's a lot of pointingoutwards.

[53:58] But always kind of come back to so with a breakup it's nobody's fault but what what was my role, in that breakuplike I had last year was like oh I kind of checked out of the relationship before I knew I checked out so I kind of closed ohyeah so it wasn't his fault so what was my.

[54:20] Kind of role in not being too close to my colleagues at the unit okay i didn't show up fully because i didn't want tobut why because i was oh so i think with the mind talk um, one of the most important things i heard you say was the mindand the talking and kind of the feelings we're so good at talking and the minding and the speaking but we're not that goodat doing the feeling and also showing kind of our insights on the outsides and we're not supposed to just blah you know goup and spew everything up but kind of who am i in this context and do i like who i become and if not what's going onwhat's my mind chatting about but usually there's sometimes a discrepancy between the feelings and the things we do soi'll just go ahead and run myself self you know stressed what i think is important here is to you know when people feelcareer shame they've lost their job and they do actions such as they drive an extra 20 minutes to go grocery shopping soit's they're not.

[55:28] Going to run into people they know i just want people to know that this is an enormous reaction career shame oncebecause it's an identity wake i mean it as we talked at the top of this conversation a lot of our identity is wrapped up inthat and so to have that shame is a natural a natural product of losing one's position status their sense of value or theirsense of contribution and there's no one broken because of this but what it means though it's what i also hear what you'resaying elaine is you when it came to your your split with with your significant other at that point is that you had to haveself-awareness. You had to take ownership.
You had to look at your responsibility in this game.
And maybe you were acting in a way that you weren't aware of, per se, or what the drivers were.

[56:22] But I think that takes a level of vulnerability to yourself, but also a level of courage to face that vulnerability, tohave that self-awareness.
A lot of people, and this is no comment on themselves, at some point, they haven't reached that level where they can facetheir vulnerability because they're so wrapped up in their identity, which is completely understandable that they go alongwith that narrative that goes along with that identity until at some point they hit.
At some trigger point where thinking i can't continue this and then they have to do a little more of the deep work theycan't keep kidding themselves but i think for a time that's also a normal reaction we kid ourselves and we kid ourselvesand we kid ourselves the coping mechanism jason because you know as we know from gabor mate's work in kind ofinfancy and um we're born with two needs the need to belong and the need to be authentic and in order to to receive love.We can, you know, alter parts of ourselves.
We become quiet. We stop crying, or at least we don't cry that much.
We do not ask what we need. We learn kind of to read the environment and our parents and what do I need to do to feelloved?
Do I need to run and be successful? Do I need to get it look pretty?
And I think this also kind of follows up, follows us, of course, into our adulthood.
And I think there's a lot of people abandoning themselves, like I need to belong.

The feeling of being alone in career decisions

[57:46] And Brene Brown also, of course, talks about it kind of of belonging and fitting in and I think we we've some of ushave forgotten how to belong to ourselves so we kind of belong to everyone else and I think one of the most interestingthings there when we talk about career shame and kind of starting a new and career resilience um one of the worstfeelings is just feeling so completely alone and I felt alone in my breakup I felt alone in my career decision becausepeople say go right and I've just went left I quit an amazing job as a manager leader responsible for 300 people 22 leadersbecause there was something about the ethical it was something that just kind of kept gnawing at me so just my job and Itraveled the world 2016 started Project Bloom I've been working like in slums in the Dominican Republic public i've beento south africa brazil i've been working in places where like career as a definitional career doesn't exist people just kind ofmurder people to to get money because they need to eat that's not it's just what you do and i think this is interesting thefeeling of being alone and how many of us to speak to myself as well uh with the breakup or we're more connected thanever Jason but we're never felt more alone we come home we lock ourselves into houses our kind of bird cages and weyou know wink.

[59:14] To our neighbor and we do some activities but we're like shit.

[59:17] What do I do why am I frustrated does anyone else feel this going through.

[59:23] A breakup is there heartbreaking am I enough should I change jobs am I too old why can't I just fit in am I includedwhy do I have this skin color oh my god why was I born here.

[59:33] Why don't my parents love me you know all the questions and I think what I've seen in the last 15 years alsoworking with career development and career guidance to just utter feeling of being alone.

[59:49] Being alone with the shame, with I do not know how to write a CV, I do not know how to create an application, Ido not know how to, people say, just go and network.

[59:58] How do you network? Where do you start? Do you ask for help?
Do you kind of raise your hand? And I say to people, if you want a new job, people need to know that you actually exist.
Exist so where kind of where do you start and it's overwhelming and i think to speak to the point of transitioning likewilliam bridges has a great model kind of to make it easy for the for the list it is an easy model kind of what you need tolet go in the first phase because it's not kind of that you lost your job you're you're burnt out you you're starting a newrelationship or you've lost whatever you had kind of he says the first stage is letting go of status of money of identity youknow letting go of everything but we usually kind of skip that stage because it's a bit painful so we just move into youknow the limbo you're between the old and the new and here there is no room for you know the big visions and thedreams kind of realistic small small steps and And staying in the limbo lands quietly and slowly kind of move into thethird phase, the new beginning, like a new vision.

The importance of holding space and letting go in transitions

[1:01:03] You've reorganized, you've re-identified, there's hope, there's optimism.
And I actually did some research on people who lost their job, asking them.
They had two hours of career counseling and I said, and I designed this qualitative study.

[1:01:19] 73% were like, I don't feel I've had any help.
I was like, whoa, but you had two hours of career canceling.
And using the transition model to William Bridges, I discovered that the career counselor was like, woohoo, come on, let'sgo.
See me, you know so much. You're so strong. You've got this.
Look at what you've been doing.
Woo. More like cheerleading.
Yeah. And they were not able because they were at the new beginning.
It's their job. They're optimistic. Come on.
But the participant said, no.
I just wanted someone to hold space for me in the first phase.

[1:01:56] Asking me, like, what do I need to let go of?
My identity, my status, my money, someone missing me at work.

[1:02:05] And also in a relationship, you have to let go of the sorrow of the past or the future family you could have had.I'm speaking to myself now.

[1:02:12] I know, shit, there's a lot of things I have to let go.
And in order to let go, I actually have to, as you said, walk through it.
And the so also when covid happened it's like oh this amazing change is crazy change everyone but actually changepropels us into psychological and emotional states so what are we letting go of what are we kind of dwelling diving intothat's in the between the liminal phase and when are we ready to move and we also alter between all the states and all thephases i still do kind of i haven't let let go and sometimes i have let go and i talked to a woman because uh she was sobitter and so frustrated she was about 53 and I said can I just ask you what kind of pain or sorrow are you carrying and shewas like and she just lost it so for three years she's been sent to career course CV application but no one's actually soyou've been working a place for 20 years and you were downsized it was kind of her her life no it was just let's move onwe're so quick jason to kind of move on next train next stop next person next swipe i think that speaks to what you saidabout taking a pause you know i've been doing what i do for for quite some years and it's interesting when you werespeaking to loneliness there was a lot of kind of things that that came to my head.

[1:03:39] And when, you know, there's complete, uh, a hundred percent confidentiality with my clients, of course, right.
And then I can work across teams and such.
And one of the things I sometimes say, like one of the things that you said, what really resonated, resonated with me isjust that first phase.
Sometimes it's just to have someone there listens.
Sometimes I I don't say anything in our 15 minute session and they will speak and they will speak.
And they said, I'm sorry, I'm all over the place. I said, you're not all over the place. You're, you're speaking your thoughtsout loud.
And what's really interesting is is that they can't change the situation, but what happens after the conversations, they'vechanged their perspective.
And in, in a few cases, they say, you know, Jason, I just feel I'm standing alone.
And I'll just say something like, I got your back. I got your six.

[1:04:34] And just saying that sometimes triggers an emotional response in them.
It might be deep breathing. Sometimes they cry.
Sometimes there's just a few tears.
But it's almost a sense of relief that someone has listened to them, allowed them to speak their thoughts without judgingor sending them solutions or have you tried this, have you tried that, giving them advice and just saying, you know what, Igot your six. I got your back.
You know, that's why we're here. And I'll see you in a couple of weeks. Here's your homework.

[1:05:04] And you know what? Nothing significantly has changed out here.
But what has changed is that mind talk. It's the narrative.
They've become much more self-aware, self-compassion about how they deal with things.
And sometimes that's where you got to start. You just start with the fundamentals.
And it doesn't cost a lot of money. It doesn't cost a lot of effort.
But what it does, Because you have to take ownership, as you said, Elaine. You have to take responsibility.
And maybe you have to be a little vulnerable and find that courage to deal with the identity that may be serving againstyou and not serving you as it once did.
Yeah, and I think I just kind of got chills when you were talking because one of the things I kind of see now doing this formany years as well, you know, I do mental training.
I do a lot of lectures i meet a lot of people it's always about the listening and people are so scared of of speaking out loudbecause they're scared that someone's trying to fix me.

[1:06:15] Like i said with my son someone i just want to take his pain away don't feel it what happens when he grows uphe's going to feel those feelings so i'm actually you know bestowing giving him a gift, like, okay, I'll hold the base.
And I think that's one of the things I had to learn about 22, 23 years ago, kind of like, why am I living from my head?
What's going on? Why do I have the urge to fix people?
And so when I went through my breakup, people were like, oh, God, you're so not lucky, but you get to spend the wholeweek without your son working out, working, reading, having fun. And I was like, yeah.

The Fear of Speaking and the Need to Fill Silence

[1:06:54] Okay, you're not listening. There are very few people who are able to kind of hold space.
Like, that sounds hard. I'm here.
Just talk it out. Or if you lost your job or going through a hard time at home, probably a sick child and you have to go towork and there's a lot of pressure.
And I think we're afraid of speaking because there are these easy fixes because we want to fix each other because wehaven't learned how to sail.
Kayla now to how to kind of you know the voluntary punctuation and go man Jason that sounds that sounds wild I don'tknow don't know how you cope and just sit in the silence because we just we have to fill it fill the air music we just haveto fill things because oh please do not make me, feel and think like and that's one of the most interesting things I had aclient um Um, and she said, uh, I just need to talk. And I was like, okay.

[1:07:53] I felt bad kind of charging. She talked for four hours. We had a double session, then a pause for a week anddouble session.
All she did was talk. We sat on the floor. I sat next to her on the floor.
We had our backs against the wall. No, no fancy office.
She just looked straight ahead. I like sitting shoulder to shoulder, like instead of in each other's kind of gaze.
And she just talked through her life and sometimes I stopped I was like is there a connection between this and yourchildhood and the way you showed up and work and she's like, yeah and that kind of led into new rambling but it's notrambling and I think.

[1:08:31] The part we're speaking of now is so deeply human why can't anyone see me for me why can't my my colleaguesunderstand me why doesn't anyone see my pain or my struggles or my insecurity, um because I think if we speak out loudwe're afraid of being vulnerable vulnerable being weak but also people kind of throwing quick fixes at us and what'sinteresting when one of my, semi-friends kind of how are you doing and I said I'm having a bit of a hard time but youknow coping but trying to balance everything and she said this will pass and you know what has happened Jason, I'm notresentful, but I haven't told her because there's no, no point.
The relationship with her has changed for me.
She doesn't know that I still meet up, but I send my avatar.
I will not send my insides to her outsides because.

The Importance of Articulating Needs for Effective Communication

[1:09:29] There's just no holding space. There's only trying to fix it.
So at some point, and this is also, you know, transferable to work, I'll show up with my insights and tell her kind of what Ineed, because this is also important speaking to this point, being able to say, Jason, I just want to tell you something and Ijust really need you to listen.
Or Jason, I really need to share something and I need some cold, hard, no bullshit advice.

[1:09:54] Or Jason, I just need someone kind of to throw a ball back and forth because I'm kind of stuck.
Being able to articulate your needs for a particular conversation is also taking ownership right instead of becomingannoyed so i'm not annoyed at her it's just kind of a symbol of what i'm trying to say with a story so so i'll show up atsome point but not now but i think oh we just want to fix each other we do not want to hold each other's pain and i have acolleague who lost both his parents within eight months came back to work and we have a deep connection so kind of wehold space but one of our colleagues was like hey welcome back cool did you see the football game i was like yeahnobody asked so tell us how you're doing because we do not know if we should enter that space we do not know kind ofwhat what recoils what comes out of it and i don't think we're not quite sure if we are resilient enough to kind of hold thatso we go or like, oh, that's sad, he's crying, okay, well, yeah.
And I think that has to do with...

[1:11:01] The more our insides are on the outside, I think the more we can also hold space for all the stuff that comes uparound us and kind of be, you know, calm and like, okay, I hear you.
I'm here. Nothing to do, nothing to fix.

[1:11:15] So what you said was so giving someone the gift of just being able to share and not fixing.
That's, um, I think that's important. And it's also to give, you know, to give flexibility to a lot of people because a lot ofpeople don't know how to handle you know very tough emotions such as your colleague who lost two parents it's like youknow there's so much uncertainty around it you know that I think.

[1:11:43] All their intentions are well meant it's like okay do I want to because if they say something is it going to bring upthe pain for them again or how do I react if they cry or you know a lot of people don't know how to handle these kind ofthese kind of conversations and such and so you you can understand the reluctance between sometimes engaging and sothat's why i think it's very important that you know where you have psychological safety to some level where a managercan have that or there's an hr well maybe not hr but some degree if there is some sort of relationship that that particularcolleague has at work or maybe it is to bring in you know a a a third, a third type of professional who sits out of theorganization where there is no one to, they have no relationship.
So it's a little easier to talk about things.
And so it's, it's also to sometimes understand and to give flexibility to, you know, a lot of people don't, okay, I don't knowhow to handle this.
What do I say? Or how are they going to react? Or I don't, I don't want to trigger something in them.
You know, it's all well meant, I think for a lot of people, but I agree.

[1:12:51] But it's also holding empathy for yourself, not being able to let, but also noticing we, apropos of mind talk insidejob, we spend so much of our time living in other people's minds.

[1:13:06] Like what would he say if I ask him, or what do you do, Jason, if I do this?
So what would they think? So kind of, we take the bus to work and we have, you know, our conflict with our colleague inour mind.

[1:13:17] You know, spending an hour it's hashing out the conflict being back both and back and forth being both yourcolleague and can you get all you know irritated and you run into work you kind of open the room go like let's talk thisout and i'll take you down your colleagues like hi so it's not we kind of wind it wind ourselves up as well you know thenfrom the mental training the visualization and just being mindful of when we spend time in other people's minds andhashing out their thoughts their reactions and one of the things i see a lot of women especially they take overresponsibility for other people's feelings and thoughts and the other one they don't know they haven't asked of it so youdon't go to work because you think you go to work all over your sick because you think there's too much to do for yourcolleague it's not.

[1:14:09] Over a responsibility but you don't know and you don't ask about what's how has it been since your parents diedbecause you think you're going to trigger something and make them sad and the interesting thing is my colleague said ijust wished someone would look me in the eyes and say good to see you great that you're back what do you need anythingjust but i think of course i i i understand and you know that oh my god what are we triggering how do i handle this hecries what if my boss i want to pay raise and i go and discuss it and they say no what do i do and.

[1:14:49] You said this early on, kind of to come full circle, like what can we control and what do we have to let go?

Balancing Control and Letting Go in Career Resilience

[1:14:56] I think that's one of the most important things to kind of start working on as well.
And it's also a part of, you know, the career health framework as we go through the assessment. So can you actuallycontrol your commute?
Okay. Can you ask for more home office if the commute is kind of your surroundings are driving you crazy? or can youchoose to put up a boundary or can you choose to show up as being more authentic? No, it's impossible.
Okay, so if that's impossible for the moment, can you see there's anything else kind of going on?
And like, oh, everyone sits eating lunch, but I just feel so alone.

[1:15:36] So I think in order to develop career resilience.

[1:15:40] Not just at 50 plus or 30 plus or changing jobs or changing education or climbing or achieving um i think amybiznevsky and colleagues from from interesting research.

[1:15:53] They talked about uh a job a career or a calling like a job is something you do from eight to four do not interferewith my amazing private life you know i have my kids in the football and in poker and i don't care i just need my moneyand then kind of you have the career where you like to probably take an education maybe advance climb the ladder whati've been thinking is sometimes people just need to step out of their careers and go get a job because what are you actuallyoffering or trading your time for your stress you're you're not being present you're not resting is it worth it and somepeople who kind of feel a little bit meaninglessness in just their work maybe they should go get a career and sometimeswe also you know have the calling as we both i feel we're kind of tapping into our calling now having this conversationthere are no kind of there's no framework there's no script we're following we're just kind of talking about life on a deeperlevel hoping that your listeners will probably have one one new thought one new reflection probably feel a feeling notgoing ahead and changing or fixing but kind of just just integrating something and kind of, you know, just, yeah.

[1:17:11] Having their moment of sale and just kind of, what did he just say there? Okay, I have to stop.

[1:17:16] And I think just knowing the whole concept of career, because here in Norway, the career in Norwegian, it'sdefined as löpebane. It's like running in circles.
Yeah, it's running track, yeah. Running track. And all of the students I work with from 18, you know, to 40 now atuniversity and all of that.
Career, it's something way ahead of me. It's something, oh, it's the mountain I have to climb. It's stress, pressure.
It's the real life. I don't want to talk about it. No. But the thing is.

[1:17:48] Everyone's career has already begun from the kind of moment we're born because of the bio-social, psychosocial,kind of holistic framework.

[1:17:59] The ecosystem they grew up in. we're all a part of so there's no escaping it and I think just trying to start todecipher what does career actually mean for me what does the word job mean what is meaning and I don't think meaningis something you kind of go hunting for I think meaning is something you you find as you try okay I like this podcastthing I'll try it some more I don't like that why so asking the open unended questions and also jason starting to kind oflisten to yourself i think that's from that point you will build an incredible career resilience okay so you may lose your joband this is not kind of like oh it doesn't matter because you're just listening inwards no no no no but it's it's a way of kindof building resilience and kind of showing up for yourself every day so you actually can also show up in the world insteadof showing up into the world and banning yourself and just feeling empty and lonely although we're so connected and umi think kind of influence influencing ourselves more as well and that's that's hard no i think that's very well said you knowi i think everyone is going to get hit in their career the position their job whatever you want to call it at some point there'sgoing to be a shift that they have to make it may be be only a couple of degrees or maybe a complete 180 who knows andit's I think with your deep experience.

[1:19:28] And knowledge obviously you are one sort.

Taking ownership and managing our career narratives

[1:19:32] Of conduit people can go to to kind of sort through this because again as as we've talked uh throughout thisconversation career shame is something that is naturally comes from it and everybody feels it so you're not a freak you'renot a an outlier of the human race everyone feels this regardless of.

[1:19:49] Where we're from you're human if you feel it you're you're human exactly exactly but the idea is that back to yourpoint we need to take ownership and responsibility we need to be able to manage those moments understand what ournarrative understand what the emotions are you know to find when we can the vulnerability and the courage to addressthat identity because at some point that identity is not working for us and or life is saying you got to shift it you got toshift you this this is no no longer safe ground.
And we need to find that time and find that momentum to do that. And so...

[1:20:26] Elaine, if people are in the midst of this, where they're coming into the game, they're somewhere in their 30s, 40swith young kids and aging parents, or they're near closer to the end of their career, how can they reach out to you for yourprofessional services?
Services well um obviously for the norwegian listeners there's a podcast called career but it's i love when people add meto linkedin and kind of like tell me listen to jason's podcast wanted to add you that's that's one place you know send me anemail elaine at elaine bloom.no but i have been quite busy because uh after covid as well you know when covid hit i hadlike 400 hundred mails to my inbox and one of the most important things that i can do or i can tell people to do is and ialso just want to say one thing for people in norway there's a free service called karriereveiledning.no where you can chator talk to career counselors and there's also free career counseling at all the offentlige karrieresenterne so each kind ofcounty has as free career services.
I want to say that as well, because as a service, one of the things, Jason, before we close this conversation.

[1:21:43] Showing up for yourself, kind of before you even contact me, or maybe part of contacting me, maybe showing upfor yourself, is like, sometimes we feel we need to have a problem.
Kind of, okay, I've lost my job, I need someone.
But I've started a new service now called the Career Health Talk. Like book a talk.
Let's just be the in-between. We're not fixing. You're not between jobs.
You're not kind of suffering to your core.
You're not going after something wild.
There was just this thing at work today with your colleague and you got upset or you have to do this meeting and you justwant to, you know, get it all out before you go home. So I'm actually offering now.

[1:22:27] And it's different from the career guidance, you know, where we're at a different path.
What should we do? We have to sort out this, sort out that, your compass, your values.
And obviously, I just think people find it difficult to contact professionals because they need to have a problem.
The thing is, no, you just kind of need to have someone listen to you.
And probably sometimes you have the ache. It's a learning process.
Well, I'll make sure to leave all your contact information in the show notes so people can can just follow a link and you'reonly a click away.
But Elaine, thank you very much for spending so much time with us today.
I understand your time is very valuable, but I think what's even more valuable is the thoughts and your experience andyour advice and your suggestions and obviously your personal experience that people can relate to to some extent.
And I think just to re-emphasize that you know career shame and career health is something that we all think about andwe all can react to and i think putting it into words because we always had a career health and everyone's felt careershame but no one talked about it so kind of verbalizing it and creating a framework makes us understand oh i'm not lostthis is what's going on ah okay i'm okay i can breathe and that's kind of the whole mission just the sailor the breed andtake it from there knowing where you choose from thank you for an outstanding.

[1:23:57] Music. 

Career Health: Aligning Personal and Professional Identities

[1:24:11] Episode, Elaine sheds light on the deeper aspects of career health and resilience, urging us to examine how ourprofessional lives align with our personal identities across all walks of life.
She emphasizes that career health is not confined to our professional achievement, but extends to how we carry ourselvesas individuals in various roles, be it as a parent, sibling, friend, or colleague.
This holistic perspective challenges us to reflect reflect on our behavior and attitudes in the workplace, our interactionswith colleagues and superiors, and the image we want to present to our organization.
Elaine advocates for clear communication of our intentions, expectations, and our situational awareness, highlighting theimportance of taking ownership and responsibility in our own careers.

[1:24:56] Addressing career shame, she encourages us to embrace vulnerability, allowing ourselves the space to processemotions and to seek closure.
And then we can move forward with a sense of control over what we can influence in our lives and in our careers careerresilience well it's a multi-faceted concept that embodies our ability to navigate the complexities of career health and toaddress career shame it's about recognizing our emotional responses to work understanding how these feelings reflect onour identity and taking active steps towards personal growth and professional fulfillment this resilience is is crucial foradapting to change, overcoming obstacles, and thriving in our careers.
And it serves as a testament to our capacity for self-awareness, adaptability, emotional intelligence in the face ofchallenges.

[1:25:47] Elaine, I'd like to send you my personal thank you and appreciation to have you on the show.
I think it's such an important subject and an important topic that we don't always address.
We address everything around it, but the actual subject.
And thank you for investing your valuable time in this long-form discussion today.
I very much appreciate it. Well, folks, that was the amazing, vivacious, and insightful Elaine Bloom.
And for those of you who are interested in contacting Elaine, she is only a click away.
You'll be able to find her email, her website, and all her social links in the show notes.
And a thank you to you folks for showing up and listening to this conversation and showing up every week. If you knowsomeone this can help, a colleague, a friend, a relative, please let them know and subscribe to It's an Inside Job.
It helps me spread the word. But until next week.

[1:26:42] Music.