Career decision making is one of the most pivotal skills you can develop, yet many professionals struggle to balance emotions and logic when charting their path. In this episode of the #Career101Podcast, host Porschia and guest Patricia Ortega delve into proven strategies for making informed, confident career decisions.
From uncovering hidden biases to gaining clarity on your values and skills, they discuss how to navigate uncertainty and transform indecision into a clear action plan! Patricia shares her expertise on leveraging outside perspectives, conducting purposeful exploration, and validating your choices to ensure each step aligns with your goals, even when the path feels unclear.
Whether you’re considering a major pivot, seeking greater fulfillment, or simply feeling stuck, this conversation on career decision making will equip you with the tools to take control of your career and move forward with confidence.
Patricia Ortega is a board-certified executive coach and career counselor with over a decade of experience guiding professionals toward meaningful, sustainable work. With a master’s degree in counseling, she combines deep expertise in personal branding, job search strategy, and mindset work to help clients build grit, resilience, and interview confidence.
What you’ll learn:
- How smart career decision making involves both emotional awareness and objective analysis to avoid common pitfalls
- Techniques for gaining clarity when you feel stuck, including identifying values, interests, and “must-haves” in a new role
- Why seeking outside perspectives (friends, mentors, coaches) uncovers blind spots and accelerates decision making
- Practical steps for exploration and validation, how to research roles, industries, or companies before committing
- The role of personal branding and self-advocacy in positioning yourself for opportunity and clarity
- 3 tips for creating a strategic career plan that balances short-term actions with long-term goals, even in times of uncertainty
As a thank you for listening to this episode of the Career 101 Podcast, we are sharing our FREE master class – Career 911: Solving the Top 5 Challenges Executives and Professionals Have! It’s a training based on solving the common problems our clients have experienced to reach their goals. You can get access to the master class here!
Resources:
- Episode Transcript
Porschia: [00:00:00] Hello, I’m Portia Parker Griffin, and I wanna welcome you to the Career 1 0 1 Podcast, a place for ambitious professionals and seasoned executives who want an edge in their career. We’re talking about all of the things you were never taught or told when it comes to career growth, development, and change.
Now let’s get into it.
Today we are talking about smart career decision making with Patricia Ortega. Patricia is a career counselor, coach and host of the Top 3% podcast, the Uncommon Career Podcast. She helps high achieving women in the US find fulfilling work. When you work with Patricia, you have a counselor and coach with expertise in personal branding and job search strategy, as well as mindset work for grit, resilience, and interview confidence.
She’s [00:01:00] an ICF and board certified executive coach with a master’s degree in counseling and a decade of professional experience. Patricia is a Christian, faith-driven business owner, a wife, dog, mom, and hoarder of books, pins and planners. Hi Patricia. How are you today?
Patricia: Hey Portia, it’s good to be here with you and with everybody listening.
Porschia: Great. I’m excited to have you with us to discuss smart career decision making, but first we wanna know a little more about you. So tell me about 7-year-old Patricia.
Patricia: I know I saw this question on your list. I was like, oh. I don’t know if you wanna hear a little story. No. I’ll give you the short version.
Short version is there’s craziness, there’s some chaotic pieces, right? My mom suffers from schizophrenia has done so since I was about four as long as I can remember. And so it was just really, I’m not gonna lie to you, we’re gonna go in deep really quickly. It was just a really crazy, chaotic, traumatic, negative, abusive childhood.
But I excelled at school. And [00:02:00] as a child you’re like, this is good, this is bad. School is awesome. I’m great at this. Home, maybe not so much. What happened is, when I was around the time that I was seven, I was doing so good in school that I learned these habits of, okay, school is good.
That transferred to work is good, right? And 7-year-old self was not the greatest time, but it’s really transferred into really what makes me a career coach now. I found myself striving and burnt out because I had made that. School is good, therefore work is good. And so that’s where I find my value.
And I think a lot of us find ourselves that even if we didn’t have that childhood, but I found myself striving and burnt out, just trying to get acceptance through work. And then that’s where I realized that, 10 years, 15 years later, now in my career, I’m not helping people with some of those exact same pieces.
Finding new and exciting goals with grit, with resilience. And more often than not, taking a look at, I. Where is my joy and my value coming from? Is it [00:03:00] from work, is it not? But a lot of that was absolutely what’s the word, influenced right. By how I grew up. And even, I know we’re talking about seven years old, but at the same time, just.
Fast forward through the absolute grace of God, I was couch surfing, right? Literally having adoptive families and I got into college without actually applying. It’s, there’s a lot of stuff going on, but without actually applying. And I was just beyond myself that I could have a place to live while going to college.
So all of those pieces are really shaped by that 7-year-old timeframe. And. I look back and it was terrible, but at the same time, there’s like a blessing in it. And so it was a really formative time in my life. But I do think that it contributes to who I am now and how I help people on a day-to-day basis.
Porschia: Absolutely. Thank you for sharing that with us, Patricia. We do go deep on this podcast and just in hearing your story, I’m hearing a lot of [00:04:00] things, but I. My first thought I’ll say was perhaps maybe that’s why you were drawn to counseling as well because of your childhood and now it’s your counseling and coaching and really using those tools to support other people like you mentioned.
So tell us about some highlights or pivotal moments in your career before you started your business.
Patricia: Oh yeah, absolutely. So I think the first one I thought real long and hard about this, I was like, oh, that’s a great question. The first moment that, that I remember is finding my mentor. I was in at the university and I was working at the dean of students’ office and your kid, you know at.
I was like 17 at the time, 17, 18, and I remember this new associate Vice president Dean of students and associate vice president had come into her role. Her name is Rebecca, and this woman just took me under her wing. I don’t know what she saw, but she took me under her wing and just [00:05:00] showed me the ropes and just gave so much compassion and literal, unconditional love, and just not only like the personal piece, but then also helped to train me up, develop me as a professional, open doors for me, when we find people like this, it is just absolutely life changing. And so she was like the initial blessing in my career, like a complete godsend. And so there’s blessings and then there’s also really hard lessons. And one of those is so she had helped me prepare for my first, semi-professional interview.
And the stakes were really high. ’cause it was like the most coveted, student affairs internship at the university. You’re working at the Vice President’s office. It was like I had gone from the bottom of the bottom to the top of the mountain. And so I don’t know if she pulled strings or if they just decided to interview me for my application.
But I, and mind you, I’ve got all this stuff. From like when I was younger, I have all this stuff [00:06:00] and I’m like, okay, I got this. And so here’s this. At this point, this was years later, maybe I don’t know, 2021. And so here’s this. Young lady myself, and I’m like, okay, I’ve got all this stuff that I’m carrying in a, backpack, if like an emotional backpack.
And here’s this woman who’s relatively high up in the game and she’s counting on me, right? You can see where this is going. There’s a lot of pressure. And then I walk into this room. I’m already super nervous and I see this, older man, super tall in a suit with a really deep voice and he sternly shakes my hand and then right next to him is this really slender, very sophisticated, wise woman with glasses.
It just, I just felt like about an inch tall. And so I go in here and I’m like, oh my gosh, I’m not like them. Like it just felt so, and so I’m like, oh no, like I don’t even fit in here. What am I doing? All these thoughts. [00:07:00] And so then they asked me one very simple question. They asked me, tell us a little bit about yourself.
And it was a the sophisticated, very sweet lady in her sweetest voice. You could tell she knew I was nervous. Tell us a little bit about yourself. All I heard. We can see everything, so you better tell us like that’s all. That’s what I heard. And of course, this is my first professional interview and no interview experience. I don’t know what they’re going to ask. And so I interpreted that question in the worst possible way, right? We’re about to judge you tell us because we know that you are, you don’t have the experience, blah, blah, blah. And I kid you not, I started hyperventilating and I’m like literally breaking down in this interview and I just, I was like, clearly I didn’t get the job.
I’m just gonna see my way, and I leave and I’m in the elevator. And again, I’m like mid hyperventilating in the elevator. And I remember thinking, if I can’t figure out how to advocate for myself, if I can’t figure out how to muster [00:08:00] up my own confidence and speak for myself, I will be in survival mode the rest of my life.
And that was the moment that I decided, okay, I’m gonna make career, my career. Like I’m gonna figure this out. And so then. I knew part of it was the resilience and the grit and the counseling piece. So I got my degree in counseling. But then I’ve worked for the last, what, 10, 15 years now with the emphasis on grit and resilience and, that hard earned confidence that comes from deep inside as opposed to, awards and outside recognition, which is what I had gotten up until that point.
Everything was surface level, I felt good when I got an award. I felt bad when I didn’t thing. And so that’s what I’ve been doing. I’ve, I first started with, career counseling. My introduction was the recession, 2008, 2000 9, 10, 11, I think I, I did most of the work in around 2011, I’d say.
When architects were changing careers in a completely different direct, everybody was changing careers because every [00:09:00] market just seemed to not have anything left. And then I started working with engineering students and underrepresented students and all these scenarios, I had students who started at arithmetic.
One plus one is seven plus 10, 10 times seven, right? And I saw some of these amazing students go from that. To becoming engineers, right? And so the grit, the resilience, the sheer, like we are going to figure this out. And then along the way, finding moments where, this is not only something I’m not good at, but it’s also something I don’t want to be doing, and I don’t know how I got here.
So those moments, and then also the moments of this is hard, but I know this is what I need to be doing and I just have to figure out a way to do it. And so that’s been my space for a long time. I ended up, becoming a tenure track and eventually a tenured faculty working at a community college where I saw people from, right from high school all the way to CEO level, that they were taking a pivot or, post-retirement, people coming [00:10:00] out of prison, they need to now build a career.
So every which situation you could possibly think of, and then a couple years ago, we’re all mid pandemic, things are changing and I thought, this could be a great opportunity to bring a lot of that, emotional intelligence skillset into the career search process for mid-level professionals.
Because I saw a lot of them coming into my career development classes and what we were teaching. Is helpful for them, but it was a lot of theory and what I felt was really needed was the let’s get into the trenches and act not just tell you like, here’s what’s happening, here’s the process, but more of we need to get you hired and so that’s, honestly, that’s the trajectory and all the key moments in between.
Porschia: Wow. Thank you for sharing those pivotal moments with us. A couple that I wanna really circle back to. It sounds like Rebecca, that first mentor that you had, it sounds like she was also a sponsor for you as well.
And on the podcast we talk a [00:11:00] little bit about mentorship and sponsorship, so people understand the difference. It sounds like Rebecca was advocating for you as well. Would you say that she was probably a sponsor?
Patricia: I think in some PO in some ways, yes. I still, to this day, I don’t remember that she pulled any strengths because I feel like, I remember asking her at the end and I was like, did I get that interview?
Did I really earn that interview? Or did you put a call in? And I don’t, I can’t remember if I’m being completely honest, I can’t remember. I don’t think that she, I feel like she said something like, no, this was all you, kind of thing. But I do believe that in other ways, like for example, there was a next position, probably a couple years later.
This was a full professional position. She saw my value. She saw she saw things in me that I didn’t see in me yet, and she created a position, like a full-time. Staff position in her office to it was a win-win. She was like, you have skill sets that I [00:12:00] really need and you need to develop them.
And so why not do this together? And it was fantastic for, I think it was two or three years I worked for her and I learned unbelievable, skill sets that I think elevated my career faster than if I would have just tried to, apply on the job. You know what I mean? Yeah. It just would not have happened in the same way.
Porschia: That’s great. That’s great. And to your point, it sounds like you learned about the grits resilience and self-confidence very early too. That definitely, shows, I should say, in your career trajectory. So we’ve discussed aspects of career planning on the podcast before. Back in episode 53 we talked about how to create a career plan.
What are your thoughts on how career planning affects executives and professionals? I.
Patricia: Oh goodness. Part of the first thing is that oftentimes we find ourselves at the end of our, and by the end, the present moment, right? We find ourselves in the present moment realizing, oh, [00:13:00] I don’t think I had a plan.
I don’t think there was a plan there. It just very happenstance, right? I’ve talked to three people this week alone, just, and we’re only on Wednesday, right when we’re recording. It’s only Wednesday. Three people this week alone who were like, I stumbled into this position. And then I thought, oh, okay, it was her last role in the last three years.
But then I look at their career history, I’m like, oh no, you stumbled into this 17 years ago. And so for 17 years you’ve been in this role where you stumbled into it. And we don’t really know that it’s not the right role because it’s boil the frog, like it’s when we’re burnt out and we realize, where have I been the last x number of years?
And so that’s the first piece. But then, now that we’re in awareness of, okay, I have control over where my career goes, I can build a plan and get there. I think the biggest thing is that we sometimes.
We think decision making is logical, but more often than not, decision making is actually highly emotional. And for some people [00:14:00] they’re just really good intuitively, but many of us don’t have that intuition to immediately be like, I know the right answer. And so it’s a mix of, paying attention to your emotions and then also mitigating any emotional pieces that might be affecting us. Like for example, worry, fear might be affecting our decision making process to not go into a field because we think we can’t get into this space. When there is a way to get in, it just might take a little bit more work, but in the long term, it’s gonna be so much more beneficial.
So it’s. It’s figuring out how do I feel emotionally, what parts are beneficial for me that are gonna build momentum and confidence and positivity, and what parts are holding me back. And then also looking at the logical side, because that’s important too. So to be able to balance a holistic picture of how we’re planning and making decisions ultimately is gonna lead you to the best informed and educated decision.[00:15:00]
Porschia: I love that. That kind of balance that you mentioned about paying attention to the emotions, but not necessarily letting your emotions run the show, right? Oh yes. So in my years as a coach, I’ve seen countless clients struggle with career decision making. Why do you think career decision making is important?
Patricia: Because oftentimes we don’t realize we’re making a decision and we really are. Sometimes a non-decision is a decision. A good example, I’ve talked to a couple people, and I always say this week, because I’m like just sometimes it’s, it continues to surprise me. Oh no, this continues to every single day this happens, right?
But I was talking to. This wonderful professional, so successful, and it’s that, success on the outside, but on the inside you’re like, I don’t know that I’ve ever decided, but oftentimes we make decisions without making decisions like externally. So one good example is, I, someone asked me, do you wanna take on this [00:16:00] position?
This, a lot of it, right? Is this manager has left or creating this new program, do you wanna be a part of it? And it’s okay, it doesn’t feel like a decision, right? It’s like paying with cash versus paying with debit. You don’t feel the money coming out of your account if you’re paying with debit, but if you pay with cash, you feel it.
And oftentimes some of these decisions where an opening just happens, it feels like an opportunity that was given to you. Sometimes that’s a great opportunity, but sometimes it’s an opportunity you say yes because it’s just there without feeling like you took the time to plan and make an intentional decision.
But yet the decision was still made and it may or may not be the one that’s right for you.
Porschia: Very wise words. Patricia, and as you were talking, it made me think about that saying, it is something along the lines of, saying yes to something is saying no to something else. I. And I think to your point, that opportunity that sometimes just shows up outta nowhere, we’re like, oh, okay, I’ll do this.
We don’t realize that could be a [00:17:00] demand on our time or prevent us from doing something else in the future. Definitely. So what are some tips you can share to help executives and professionals make smarter career decisions?
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Show notes.
Patricia: Number one, you’ve gotta get out of your own head. We have these blind spots.
I always tell people I have no idea what’s behind my head. I have no idea. I will never know, without a mirror. I will never know. But we need somebody with a different perspective. So someone who sees us and, can share a different part of us. There’s this concept I always talk about.
It’s called Johari’s Window. And [00:19:00] Johari’s Window is a counseling concept that helps us to know ourselves better. And basically there’s four quadrants in Johari’s window. And imagine that a horizontal line breaks up and then a vertical line breaks up well in one of the quadrants. It’s what you know about yourself that other people.
Also know about you. This is the stuff that’s real. I have brown hair, I wear glasses but then there’s another quadrant. It’s information that I know about myself that other people don’t know about me, right? And it takes time for someone to get to know someone else, and jump into that space.
Then you have another quadrant. This is a really valuable quadrant. This is what other people see that you don’t see. And you can have two ways of being able to gather information from this particular quadrant. One is to talk to people who know you really well, and they’ll show you some perspective, but then also talk to people who have expertise, right?
In this example would be a coach or a counselor, right? A [00:20:00] mentor, people who have expertise in a certain area. That can also tell you the real honest truth. Here’s how you might be coming across, or I wonder if you’ve thought about this, or, whatever that might be. And so that quadrant is gold that you haven’t yet dug up.
And so if you’re only working by yourself and not getting input from anybody else, you’re never actually going to see that gold. And then there’s another block. That last block is things that neither nor other people see. You might be asking, okay, that sounds interesting. How do I ever get the that information?
What happens? Imagine it’s a puzzle you know about yourself. Let’s say we’re, I’m gonna use a coaching experience just because I’m in this and Porsche, you’re in this all the time. I’m in a conversation with the client. The client is going to share information that I would not know about them.
So now they’re bringing me into that quadrant. I’m going to share my perspective. Oh, really? Because when I first met you, I thought, X, Y, Z. Or when you say this, I hear [00:21:00] X, Y, Z. And so now what’s happening is she or he are sharing a little bit of information that I wouldn’t know with me. I’m sharing a little bit of information that they wouldn’t know otherwise.
And what happens is those puzzle pieces, we start to put ’em together to then understand that block that neither I would see of them alone. And neither they wouldn’t see it either of themselves without. The information that we’re sharing together. And so that’s the power of interacting with other people, of having deeper conversations, whether it’s a long-term relationship or whether it’s a coaching conversation where, as, Porsche, we can get pretty deep, pretty quickly and find some amazing, pieces of insight to move forward with.
And so that’s just one of the many ways that you can do that.
Porschia: Wow. I love that. I had not heard of Johari’s window. I think I’d heard about different quadrants of that, but I love your point specifically towards the end about putting the puzzle pieces [00:22:00] together. What a client can do generally with a coach or another professional.
And I think it’s really important, and I always like to stop and then and talk a little bit about, what I call a career support system. And so you’re talking about the deep work that someone would do with a coach or with a counselor. And sometimes people think can’t I just talk to my coworker, my neighbor, my sister, my friend, my mother?
And I think it’s really important to note that a lot of this deep work is gonna be done with a professional someone who is not biased. In the way that your friends, your family members, your coworkers are
Patricia: So important. Yeah. It’s the bias. It’s the, I had a woman who just came into my dms on LinkedIn, and by the way, if you’re on LinkedIn, reach out to me.
I love hearing from you. But I had a woman who reached out to me and she was like, I would love your take on my LinkedIn account. She goes, because my family loves me and they love everything I do, [00:23:00] and I can’t get that kind of feedback. And I think that’s so true.
Porschia: Yes. And she was astute enough to know that, sometimes people are not. So I wanna continue along. I think you really started here, but I wanna dig a little deeper. From your perspective, what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve seen professionals and executives have with career decision making?
Patricia: Oh yeah. One of them is how we’ve touched on, right?
Not knowing what emotions or what worries or fears are potentially influencing, right? So before we even get into the nitty gritty of the decision we need to make, I. I usually have people answer a few questions similar to a little bit of an assessment. Have you ever made decisions where money seems to take over the decision making process?
What was your relationship with money security and achievement in the past? And these are questions specific to decision making in career, just focusing on the most frequent decision making factors. But then it’s also things [00:24:00] like. Who influences your decisions most and what are their perspectives of X, Y, Z topic?
And then, there’s several questions in there, but that’s probably the first piece. And then the other thing that comes to mind, at least in the moment is being able to. Switch back and forth between the emotional and the objective, between the relational and the tactical. One quick activity.
If you’re in the middle right now, if you’re in the middle of a decision and you’re like, I just, it’s not clear to me, I just can’t seem to see forward. I. One quick thing you can do to just get the process started, right? This is very much a process. It’s you’re mudding through the water.
It’s complex. It’s it just takes time. But one thing you can do right now just to get a little bit more clarity is do a pro cons list, for example. And I would say, okay, here’s my decision. Here’s option A, option B, maybe even option C. But then you wanna write down, just brainstorm. All the pros for each one, but then go back and what you’ll notice is that for each pro, I want you [00:25:00] to prove it.
So if one of the pros is, I don’t have experience. Challenge that, do you really not have experience? Where is that coming from? Is that more of an emotion or have you gotten feedback from a recruiter that no, you don’t have any experience? So that’s one of the pieces that I think is really helpful is putting down everything you think, feel, everything that’s on your mind, but then going back and analyzing and challenge each one to look for absolute proof.
And then from there, figuring out, okay. What is clouding my judgment and what’s a real thing, a real question I need answered and what’s already settled, and now you can start from there.
Porschia: I love it. I love it. And yes, I see those challenges all of the time with our clients as well. And I wanna go back a little bit to something that you touched on earlier.
I’ve talked to a lot of clients who’ve just fallen into their jobs or their careers and they turn around and realize that they’ve been doing something [00:26:00] that they don’t even five, 10, or even 20 years. Patricia, for the people who are perhaps out there listening to this and saying, yes, I need to make a change, perhaps what is a good first step?
For someone who feels completely out of alignment with their career.
Patricia: Yeah. I think a good first step is typically to figure out how do I get from A to B even if you don’t know where B is. Right? And so that might be, for example first clarity I need to get clarity. And it could be as simple as that.
For some people it might be drawing out a little bit longer plan. So what does clarity mean to me? I need to figure out what I want out of life. I need to figure out what I want out of my everyday work. I need to figure out what my parameters are, right? We, I’ve got some folks who are like, I wanna do mission oriented work.
I want to literally feed the hungry. Like I want to be the person who’s there with them, but I also have a mortgage and three kids and they’re going to college, right? And so we need to find that middle ground. So clarity can [00:27:00] involve a couple different steps. And so figure out what’s important to you.
Typically you wanna go down this list. Interest, values, mission, skills, right? And then your needs and wants, right? So for example, a need is for many people, it’s income. We need a certain minimum amount of income. But the next piece is in you have clarity, then it’s validation, right?
Exploration and validation. So once you feel pretty clear, I think this is where I want to go. Then it’s let me explore all the possibilities within this space and see what are the, what possibilities can give me the higher earning income if that’s my priority, or the less stress, if that’s my priority or more flexibility to be with my kids.
But then you validate, and that’s a part that I think a lot of people miss. I know whenever possible in my program, you bring in recruiters that work in that particular space to actually say, here’s how you fare in this particular market at this time and in this function. And here’s a couple of pointers on where [00:28:00] I see you fitting in.
I see you fitting in a mid-size organization, or this is a really big pivot. You wanna go into a smaller org where you’re gonna get a lot of experience, wear a lot of hats, and then step into a larger organization. Clarity with the exploration, validation, confirmation of your role. And only then is it time to step into the branding.
And I think oftentimes what happens is we go straightforward job boards, right? And straightforward. Let me submit my resume. I. But then you just stare at that search box. I don’t even know what to type in here. I don’t even know what to type in here. And that can, I’ve had people who have applied to hundreds of jobs and I’m like, okay, great.
What titles are you applying for? And they’re like it’s just, anything that I qualify for. And I’m like, we’re going to get into the same space again. So that’s where I would go. There’s certainly more to the process, but that first piece before branding I find is the most important and the most frequently overlooked.
Porschia: Agreed. Agreed. Agreed. I’ll echo that from the [00:29:00] mountaintops. That clarity and then doing career exploration if necessary. Prior to even thinking about your resume your LinkedIn profile, I call ’em professional branding documents is so important for positioning. And to your point about the example you gave, I was speaking with a gentleman yesterday who, is working with us on one of our programs and getting his resume done. And he said you know what, I just wanna apply for all of these jobs. And to your point, and I’m sure the recruiters you work with, mentioned this, those days of just having a general resume that you use to apply for everything or just one strategy for a whole bunch of jobs that you’re gonna apply to it’s.
Not effective today. You’ve gotta be way more targeted with not only your professional branding, but with your strategy. So thank you for touching on that, Patricia. So tell us more about your business.
Patricia: Yeah, absolutely. So what I do is I help primarily women. And I also [00:30:00] say, and a few pretty cool men, I always say that ’cause we always have just a couple of men in the program who are working through this.
But primarily I help women to reach their career goals. Especially in this market. It can become. Difficult to see the finish line, and a lot of times what happens, we talk about emotions and we talk about decision making. I was just telling my clients, every action you take today is a seed.
Every action you take is a seed, but whether or not that seed is on good soil really depends on you and your state of mind, right? You’re either applying, with positivity and confidence, and so you’re detailed and you know this is gonna work out. So even how you write your, adjust your resume, write the messages, like everything comes forward or it could be on bad.
Soil and it’s not ever going to, give an opportunity to grow. And so that’s a lot of what I do is helping people stay grounded in the career search. There’s certainly the tactical pieces that’s not to be ignored. You need the strategy. You need to figure out what your best opportunity is to get in.
You need the branding. I cannot reiterate that enough. [00:31:00] Like you need a brand that shouts from the mountaintops so that you don’t have to be shouting, right? Loudly you can. Go into an interview and share your value and just excited and share all of this, right? But before you even get in there, you want your resume to speak for you.
And so that branding’s really important. But once you get into the job search. It typically in this market at least, is just a downhill spiral, right? It’s, I’m gonna apply to all these jobs, I’m gonna hear back from none of them. And the reality is that we have the strategy that helps you to get more responses faster, but then we also help you at each stage of the process on that emotional side of things to.
Show up as your best self and stay positive, but then at the same time, increase your momentum and increase your results at every single stage. Because I don’t think a lot of people know this, right? If you’re not a coach, a career coach but at every single interaction, there’s something [00:32:00] you can do that makes you stand out from everybody else, and most people are not doing.
Any of these things, right? And so that’s why, people who work with career coaches, as you probably already know, Porsche, like they get those higher results is because of those pieces that are taken care of at every single interaction. So that’s what I do.
Porschia: Agreed. Thank you. We are gonna be providing a link to your website and other social channels in our show notes so people can find you online.
Now, Patricia, I wanna ask you our final question that we ask all of our guests. How do you think executives or professionals can get a positive edge in their career?
Patricia: Yeah, definitely. So I thought about this and I think it could be dwindled down to three different things. One of them the overarching umbrella is to think strategically.
I don’t think we think strategically enough. I think we consider strategy to be something that vice presidents and CEOs do to grow a business. But you are a business, you’re a business [00:33:00] of one. And so I always say think strategically. But specifically about the relationships you make. About the way you spend your time and energy because your time and energy is more important than your money.
I need to say that again. Your time and energy is more important than your money. And I think oftentimes we give money such a big we put it on a pedestal such that we give away our time and our energy for it. You can make more money. You cannot make more time and more energy. And then also recognizing the opportunity in a downturn.
I think when there’s a downturn, everybody is like, the sky is falling, the sky is falling, but there’s always an opportunity in that. And to help give you that edge. I always share this because I’m. I see LinkedIn accounts every single day, and I’m like, oh, there’s so much we could do here.
And so if you’re listening right now and you would like to get a LinkedIn review, I invite you to, connect with me, send me a message. I’m happy to provide a detailed LinkedIn review with, how you can think strategically about your brand and how you can better present yourself on LinkedIn because that is a [00:34:00] key decision making factor that works for you while you sleep.
Because as people have multiple resumes in front of them. They wanna know more information about you before they decide to give you a call back, and they go to LinkedIn for that. Think strategically relationships, time and energy, recognize the opportunity and the downturn. And you can start with that LinkedIn review.
I
Porschia: love it. Love it. So Patricia, you have shared a lot of insights with us today, and I’m sure our listeners can use it to be more confident in their careers. We appreciate you being with us.
Patricia: Absolutely. It’s been a pleasure and I’m glad to be here with you.
Porschia: This episode was brought to you by the Brave Bird Career Alliance, the go-to membership designed for seasoned executives and ambitious professionals with everything you need for career planning, strategy, training, and support. Thank you again for listening to the [00:35:00] Career 1 0 1 podcast. I hope you have at least one key takeaway that you.
Can use in your own career. If you enjoyed hanging out with us, please rate, subscribe, and share this podcast. Until next time, here’s to your success.
