John Neral helps mid-career professionals prepare, position, and promote who they are and what they do, so they can SHOW UP to find a job they love or love the job they have. He's the author of the newly published book "Your Mid-Career GPS - Four Steps to Figuring Out What's Next." He and his spouse are the proud parents of a rescue cat named, "Amy Farrah Meowler" named after their love of the show, the Big Bang Theory.

We discuss:

• The fear of being stuck [02:44]
• What to do with your unique professional value [04:32]
• The people we hurt when we don’t make our offers [09:32]
• No place is a party [12:54]
• The role of a coach for planning a coaching career [16:18]
• The things that make the coaching fit easy [19:11]
• The most fascinating part of the career journey [22:55]

Learn more about John at https://johnneral.com, LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram.

The allure of being like, I'm going to be my own boss.

I'm going to have my own business.

I'm going to do all of these things is great.

And it's wonderful until you sit there at one point for me, this definitely

It's not the job.

That's the hobby.

This is my work.

And if I'm going to really make this happen, these are the things

Welcome to smashing the plateau.

We help you get unstuck so you can do what you love and get paid.

What you're worth consistently.

I'm your host David Schreiner Kahn today on episode 599 of smashing the plateau.

I'm speaking with a coach for mid-career professionals, John.

John helps mid career professionals prepare position and promote who

If you want to learn how to gain more control over your working destiny

I believe everyone should have the opportunity to do what they

On my podcast, I've interviewed hundreds of successful entrepreneurs, many of whom

We've created a free ebook with 49 actionable steps from 49 of our

It includes tips to help you with your mindset, relationships,

You can get your copy of 49 tips to smash your

That's smashing the plateau.com/tips.

Now let's welcome, John.

John helps mid-career professionals prepare position and promote who

He's the author of the newly published book.

You are mid-career GPS four steps to figuring out what's next.

He and his spouse are the proud parents of a rescue cat named Amy Farah, Meow.

They're named after their love of the show.

The big bang theory, John, welcome to the show,

David, thanks so much for having me on today.

It's great to connect and I'm looking forward

to today.

So John, you coach a lot of professionals going through mid-career

What do you see as some of their biggest challenges to

beginning?

Probably the biggest challenge they face is this fear of being stuck,

They have a sense of what they think they want to do, or they're pretty

But they may be looking for a different challenge.

Their biggest fear is about being stuck and about being stuck in a

They're not going to be able to grow.

If they get caught with the golden handcuffs where leaving may not give

They just fear of being stuck in that job.

And then really looking at 10, 15, 20, more years in a job and

Um, and for those folks, if they do stay in their job for

out?

It's an understandable concern.

And that also becomes a fear where they then start really questioning

And whether or not they are staying as current and they are

So it's absolutely an understandable fear.

So

David Shriner-Cahn:

where do they need to do.

David Shriner-Cahn:

A to understand their professional value and be to take action.

So to understand their professional value, it's important for

Specifically, I call it their unique professional value.

You know, David, we're all good at things.

And there's a lot of other people who do similar things that we do.

But only we bring what I like to call our genius into that work and

So if we can lean into specifically where our value is and why that is

To our organizations, to our clients.

Then we get to show up from a very different place.

And we almost get to be like that person who is known as the go-to or who is

Nobody really wants to let us go.

At that point, there

was an example of somebody like that.

An example of that would be.

Let's do, let's just take a project manager, for example, because I do

They're dependable, they're reliable.

They get projects delivered on time and under budget, but there's that other

The talent development.

It might be something in their project management skill set

It might be the way they build and maintain their client relationships.

It's those kind of things that really become more of an asset and helps people

This is where I am most valuable.

Here's where I can help you next with that next project, with that next

Okay.

So once they have identified their unique

They need to live it, breathe it, share it, demonstrate it and tell

And it ties into what their professional brand is as well as their reputation.

Right.

Jeff Bezos has this great quote that says our brand is what people say

Our unique professional value is directly tied to what people get to hear about us.

Our reputation is how well we deliver on that.

You know, it would, it would be something as simple as if

And I don't make that offer.

Who am I hurting?

I'm hurting you in some way, because I'm not giving you an opportunity to realize.

Absorb that offer and decide whether or not you want it.

And I'm also hurting myself because I never put myself out there.

So the action steps that you have references, we have to be out there making

Our very organizationally loyal and they've been with a company

They have to find what that next offer is that there are always

Right.

Are you saying that there's an offer that they need to be ready to make to their.

If they're employed.

Absolutely.

Right.

And that offer may not necessarily, it doesn't have to be, I want

It may be, I want to lead this particular project.

I want to get on this assignment.

It's, it's putting yourself out there with that offer to say, here's

Here's where I see myself being a value.

Am I needed?

Do you see the same thing?

I mean from that point on, in the conversation, especially when it's either,

Finger on the pulse of and decide what your next move.

Okay.

I was going to go back to the project manager example and, um, you know,

And talk about an example of what kind of offer a project

Well, let's go this

route because stories help, help sort of frame how

this works.

Absolutely.

So let's just take, for example, an it company.

This is kind of top of mind for me right now.

So you have an it company and a lot of demands, a lot of

And.

The focus of the company is understandably results, driven, deploy the project,

And as a project manager, while you are known for delivering the project

That there's a sense that morale is getting pretty.

People are getting frustrated.

People are getting burnt out.

The project manager who is good at all.

The technical parts of delivery is one thing, a project manager who can step

Be resourceful and develop people on their team becomes a much more enticing offer

And at the end of the day, they just don't really have a good time doing it.

We can get results while at the same time being the person who.

Listens who is empathetic, who is knowledgeable, who is willing to train

We have to get this done kind of thing

right now.

Let's talk about the situation where the employer doesn't really

Doesn't really care about morale.

And as much more interested in just getting things done.

And you, as the project manager, since you have the soft skills to really develop the

Sometimes this happens when there's a new new manager.

Or these things often happen when there's, um, there could be an

And then all of a sudden the acquiring company is way less interested in the

So these kinds of misalignments happen in for various reasons.

And they're not connected to your own performance.

What do you do in that case?

Because a, you may have the feelings of being stuck that you described earlier,

And you do want to be working, you need to be working and you probably

I deal with that a lot in my practice, the majority of

And what you just described is such a common scenario across a

A leave or an opportunity to leverage their talents and expertise and

The first thing I want to acknowledge though, is that

And for a company let's say that's been acquired or a company that's

We know that happened.

So let's just call that out for what it is.

And for the employer who finds themselves in a values conflict that

And they find themselves almost in this churn and burn kind of environment.

The first thing that I do with my clients on that is we have to

Where are they feeling that disconnect?

And is there an opportunity for them to have an intentional conversation with

If not, we know it gets very, very difficult to wake up

And when those kinds of things happen, when that inner voice starts

You're not satisfied.

They don't care about you anymore.

Then you start really entertaining the idea of if I were to make a leap

And the truth of the matter is, is that the older we get, especially once we

And I work with my clients on drilling.

Specifically what that fit looks like for them, because that's going to help inform

Not only from when they actually start looking for jobs, but when

So John for those folks that realize that no place is

They want to become a consultant or whatever, what do they need to do so that

David, that question hits so close to home because I remember

I mean, there were, there were several things.

I mean, obviously the first thing was I realized I was very grateful for the

I was.

There is not going to be any advancement.

I wasn't getting a raise.

Wasn't getting a promotion, all those kinds of things because

So when I started talking with.

I started talking with colleagues and got really clear about like, yeah,

You're absolutely right.

You're not going to go anywhere.

Okay.

That was one thing came home, started having conversations with Richard about,

If I were to go out on my own, he has a job with benefits.

We're married.

I was able to hop on his benefits.

Those kinds of things were really important because I didn't want

It's just a good thing to have.

Right.

I think we can acknowledge that.

I hired a coach.

I hired a coach to work with me on if I was to go out on my own and

And we built a five-year plan together so that it wasn't just

We had to do a lot of financial planning and examination in terms of what would

Where do I need to be?

Who am I targeting?

Who are my marketing to who, where am I serving?

Where am I going to get the clients?

How am I going to be putting myself out there?

It was things even like how many people do I need to connect with

How many consults I would get for clients and out of that, how many

It was all of those data, things that I didn't know, the, a lore of being

I'm going to have my own business.

I'm going to do all of these things is great.

And it's wonderful until you sit there at one point for me, this definitely

And it's not the job.

That's the hobby.

This is my work.

And if I'm going to really make this happen, these are the things

So the planning piece was just huge for us.

Right.

And how important was it to have somebody guide you through the planning

part?

It was really integral for me.

I worked with an amazing business coach named Jeff St.

Laurent.

And the thing that I loved about him was we started talking about consistency.

Right.

It was things like you're going to send out your email, you're going to

You're going to do this many events, be it virtually or in person and

I didn't know enough about what that all was going to look like.

So to hire somebody that really became that partner for me,

I would not be where I am at.

Had I not enlisted the help of someone to guide me along that process and

And to help me make decisions about what was going to work for me.

I actually probably David, in all honesty, I might be back working a nine

John, what was most important to you?

Figuring out who could be the best help.

Cause there's so many people that, that call themselves business coaches

There's, there's really no barrier to entry.

There are a lot of people that call themselves business coaches that have

And I know that many people go through the same process of trying to get someone who

What kinds of questions were you asking there?

How did you figure out what would be most important to you and, and

help you get there?

The person I hired actually was somebody from my coaching certification program.

I went through IPEC, the Institute for professional excellence in coaching.

And he was tasked solely with a lot of the business end of things.

So there were opportunities for me to engage with him while I

But then when I started looking at his work and I started looking at.

The things that he had put out there, the resources, the content, the information

It was about listening as much watching as many videos, seeing if this was

It was those kind of things that made the fit.

Same really.

Easy at that point, I have worked with some other people and not

And in all fairness, I think we interact with different people at

Was walking a similar path that they had the competence and the confidence

Yeah.

That makes a lot of sense.

Well, John, congratulations on everything that you've achieved

What do you aspire?

Too in your work, in the future.

And how do you see it impacting this?

Um, the mid career challenges with that people face and applying.

Mid-career is probably the most fascinating part of the career

We go through our twenties and our thirties trying to figure

And then by the time we hit our forties, which is typically the wealth building

And it's a messy time.

A lot of times things happen in for me and my journey.

I was standing in front of a, a middle school mathematics classroom and teaching

11 years going, dear God, I don't think I can do this anymore.

Then trying to figure out exactly how I was going to take my

My purpose and my impact right now is to reach as many mid-career professionals as

It's natural and it's supposed to happen.

It is part of the career journey and in whatever capacity I can help them

They're going to be so much better on the other end because they're really

And that to me, is what I'm most excited about where I'm at in my

Wow.

It sounds remarkable.

Congratulations again, on, uh, what you've achieved, where your head.

If anyone wants to go deeper with anything we've discussed today, access any of the

Get in touch with you.

Where would be the best place for them to go.

Best place to go is my website@johnnarrow.com J O.

N N E R a L certainly connect with me on LinkedIn.

You can find me on Facebook and Instagram at John narrow coaching and

My

guest today has been the coach for mid-career professionals.

John narrow.

Thank you again, John, for joining

us.

Thanks David.

It was a pleasure

when you visit the smashing the plateau

You'll find a summary of each episode, along with the links we mentioned on the.

Today we learned how you can gain more control over your

I believe everyone should have the opportunity to do

What they're worth on my podcast.

I've interviewed hundreds of successful entrepreneurs, many of whom run

And we've created a free ebook with 49 actionable steps from 49 of our

It includes tips to help you with your mindset, relationships, business,

You can get your copy of 49 tips to smash your

That's smashing the plateau.com/tips.

Thank you for taking the time to listen to our show.