Last Updated on February 6, 2026 by Fly High Coaching
The career planning process is something a lot of us, even successful professionals, sometimes skip or get wrong. We often hope our careers will just work themselves out, but years can go by without a real plan. This can lead to feeling stuck, frustrated, or like something important is missing when things don’t move forward.
In this episode, you’ll discover how to see career planning not as a strict map, but as a flexible guide you can return to again and again. Our warm and insightful host, Porschia, chats with the wonderful career coach Cassie Spencer. They dive into why being intentional with your career path truly matters for your happiness, growth, and success down the road.
They also talk about finding the sweet spot between having a plan and welcoming happy accidents. They show how being reflective, taking action, and staying open can actually create your own lucky breaks. The conversation points out common missteps we all make in career planning and shares heartfelt, practical ways to check if your job, your company, and your bigger dreams are still in harmony.
Cassie Spencer is a caring career coach with over eight years of experience. She’s personally guided more than 800 clients with everything from planning their path to landing promotions. She’s beloved for her personalized approach, (she knows there’s no single answer for everyone) and for helping people build satisfying careers for their whole life, not just look good on paper.
What you’ll learn:
- Why giving your career planning process some heartfelt attention is key for long-term happiness.
- The simple, core stages of a career planning process that actually works.
- How to mix smart planning with the flexibility to catch wonderful, unplanned opportunities.
- Common career planning mistakes even smart, accomplished people make.
- Gentle, practical ways to check in with your career and choose your next steps with purpose.
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 your career planning process with Cassie Spencer. For over eight years, Cassie Spencer has worked in career and professional development, coaching more than 800 clients on resume writing, strategic job searches, effective networking, interviewing, and so much more. She doesn’t believe in a one size fits all approach to career coaching and is committed to tailoring her coaching to suit the unique needs and ambitions of her clients.
Hi Cassie. How are [00:01:00] you today? I’m good, thanks. I’m so excited to be here. Well, we are thrilled to have you with us to discuss your career planning process, but first we wanna know a little more about you. So tell me about 7-year-old Cassie.
Cassie: 7-year-old Cassie. I think everyone who knew me at seven would describe me as a social butterfly, a busy bee.
I was always running around making plans, looking for activities, and involved in. Everything sports, music, camps, you name it. I was doing it at that point in time.
Porschia: Mm-hmm. So what did the social butterfly, Cassie wanna be when she grew up?
Cassie: Fittingly? I believe my desire at that point in time was to be.
A news anchor, particularly on Good Morning America. I just, you know, that would be on the tv, in the background, on weekends, and I just [00:02:00] always thought as I was running from one thing to the next, like, that looks so fun. And now I’m on podcasts and I host podcasts. So a little bit different, but kind of close.
Porschia: Yeah. Agreed. Agreed. So, Cassie, tell us about some highlights or pivotal moments in your career before you started your business. I.
Cassie: Ooh. I would say probably one of the most pivotal moments in my career happened when I was in undergrad. I was actually a typical college student. I had no idea what I was doing.
I had changed my major a bunch of times and I was actually meeting with a career coach at my campus and during one of those meetings, I did kind of have this aha light bulb moment where I was like, wait a second. You get paid to do this. And the career coach I was meeting with was like, yep. And I was like, I think I wanna do this.
And so that was a pretty pivotal moment. I had no idea what career coaching was or what that world looked [00:03:00] like at that time, but I was already editing all of my friends’ resumes and trying to get them all on LinkedIn. So that was definitely a pivotal moment for me of kind of having that aha moment.
And then I would say another pivotal moment, I went to grad school to study higher education, student affairs, and I will always be honest that I. Picked a grad school strictly based on the location. I did not do the research that I should have done and that I recommend people do when making that decision.
But happenstance, we’ll talk about it. I got really lucky that I walked into my first class. I met my grad school advisor and her entire research background was in the postgraduation or the postgraduate experience, particularly when it comes to career planning and career transitions. And so that was a pivotal moment where I was really.
Able to like dive into that side of career development and the research side of it. So those are two that come to [00:04:00] mind right away.
Porschia: Yeah. That’s some, I think, great experiences that you had in undergrad and grad school. So you started touching on this, but I wanna know what motivated you to become a coach and really start your own business?
Cassie: Hmm. The motivation to get into career coaching really did stem from that experience in undergrad. When I met with my career coach and when I was meeting with them, that was in my senior year. Everyone I knew was getting ready to graduate, having kind of that panic moment, and you could see. Some people, I had friends who knew exactly what they were doing from day one and they were applying to those jobs.
And some people like me who had picked a major and we were like, I don’t know. And kind of applying to everything. And I just remember thinking so clearly in those months leading up to graduation, like it, there has to be an easier way. Like it can’t be this hard. We can’t all be this clueless after.
[00:05:00] Almost four years of school. And so it was kind of that feeling and knowing like there has to be a strategy to this. I just kept thinking about that piece of it and I think knowing that then I was meeting with a coach and I was utilizing what they were telling me to kind of put some of these pieces together and then having success with my own job search in a completely different field as a soon to be graduate.
When I then realized this was a career path. That was really the motivation of like, there are ways to help people and to help them find careers, not just because they got, you know, accepted into a whatever role, but there are ways to find careers and to be strategic in really creating and cultivating the career and the path and the life that you want.
So that was really the motivation. When I first started in the field, of course I was meeting with a career coach in a higher education setting and. That’s kind of what they presented to me. And I [00:06:00] think in 2014, there certainly were people who were doing private coaching, but it was, I think, less common than it is now.
And so that was the path that was presented to me. Go to grad school, get another degree, work at a college or a university and you can work your way up. Maybe someday you’ll be a director of a career services office. And that was the goal until the pandemic hit. And that was kind of a pivotal. A pivotal moment for me when then I decided, okay, something’s gotta give here.
And then shifted into building my own coaching business.
Porschia: Yeah. That’s, that’s really a great background, I think when it comes to coaching and career coaching specifically that you have. And you’re absolutely right, you know. I started this business in 2013 and I had to tell people what coaching was.
Yeah, yeah. In a lot of instances. And then, you know, you fast forward, you know, five years or so and there are a ton of coaches, and so what’s great [00:07:00] is that I think it is more mainstream so that now we don’t necessarily have to do all that education on what a coach is. People are a bit more open, they’re more cognizant of all of that.
So back in episode 53, we discussed how to develop a career plan. I wanna know from your perspective, why do you think career planning is important?
Cassie: Hmm. I think career planning is important because without a plan, you are just kind of seeing what happens. You’re casting such a wide net and there. It’s a lack of intention with that plan, and I think the people that I talk to most who don’t really have a plan and haven’t had these ideas of at least what they want their life to look like, typically leads to a lack of fulfillment.
So I do associate a lot of that. Career planning, the more we can effectively plan [00:08:00] our careers, we can also then typically lead more fulfilled, happier lives. So that’s really where I see the interaction. We all spend so much time working. Such a large portion of our life is spent at work, doing work with the people that we work with.
And so having that plan in place. It helps you reach your goals, of course, but also can lead to just that overall higher level of fulfillment.
Porschia: So what do you think are the essential aspects of the career planning process?
Cassie: Hmm, great question. A couple essential aspects of career planning. One big piece and an area that I wish more people would spend some time on is doing that self-assessment, self-reflection.
You have to know who you are and what you want to start planning your career and to, again, plan what you want your life to look like. And so really thinking about things like what do you value? What are [00:09:00] your interests? What skills do you have naturally, but also what skills do you like using the most in different settings?
Of course. Some of that self-assessment can also include thinking about things like strengths and weaknesses, reflecting on your past experiences, whether that be work, volunteer, academic experiences, but really doing this good collection of information and really thinking about who am I, where do I thrive, what types of environments and situations do I feel the best in?
And also starting to think about like what. Impact do I want to have? I think those are some good starting questions to really assess kind of where are you, and also then giving you that strong foundation to say like what fits? Because it’s really hard to plan a career if you’re just saying like, I’m just gonna go do this thing, and then you’re not thinking about how it fits in with who you are, what you want, and [00:10:00] all of those other aspects.
So that’s one piece of it. Of course, depending on where you’re kind of at in your career, thinking about more of that. Exploration, gaining experience process is another foundational aspect which we can dive into a little bit more. And then if I had to kind of come up with a third piece of this is really where I get into like the action planning, goal setting piece of, of career planning and establishing like, what is this actually going to look like for you short term or long term?
Porschia: Yeah. I love the way that you broke that down in terms of, you know, the self-assessment and reflection, exploration, getting that experience, and then the action planning, the goal setting. I think a lot of people get lost in the shuffle of that. So that’s. Part of the reason why I was so excited about this episode.
So Cassie, you talk a lot about happenstance [00:11:00] or allowing for unplanned events. How does someone strike the right balance with career planning to make sure that they aren’t over planning right, so that they can allow for that happenstance?
Cassie: I love this topic so much because it is about finding that balance and the whole premise of happenstance.
Happenstance is a career development theory that was kind of coined as this idea that for a lot of people, their careers are based on the unexpected things that happen. It’s a conversation that you have with someone that leads you to learn about a company or to learn about a career path or you know, it’s the fact that.
Your parents signed you up for tennis lessons and so, you know, now you’re, you’re on that path and really enjoying it or something like that. And so I think part of striking that balance is knowing that when you have a plan in place, you can cultivate happenstance moments. And so, you know I’ll use an example for [00:12:00] myself.
Like the plan for me was to go work in higher education, work in a career center. Get promoted and eventually become a director of an office and run that office. And that was the career plan that I had, you know, starting in 2014. And over the course of that time, working towards that goal, I was able to cultivate happenstance moments by saying yes to different opportunities.
By recognizing different needs in the places that I was. You know, I went into an office as kind of a generalist, career consultant, career coach, and then a couple of people moved and took on new jobs and suddenly there was an opportunity for me to still be a career coach, but to. Oversee this thousand student program and it was like, okay, great, let’s try that.
And then the pandemic hit and there was opportunities to craft these really creative, and for me really fun social media campaigns and different virtual programs. And that was this happenstance moment. I didn’t plan for that. I mean, [00:13:00] none of us planned for so much of what happened there, but those were opportunities that cultivated then more opportunities to.
Learn that I could take on a business and to learn that I could start a podcast and to learn these other skills that allowed my career to kind of ebb and flow in in different ways. So I think part of that balance is when you have a plan. You know what you’re working towards and you can be strategic in that effort and having that openness to happenstance moments, saying yes to something simply because it sounds exciting.
Or, you know, reaching out to someone because. They do something that you’ve never even heard of, but it’s interesting really kind of following some of those nudges, I think can help find that balance. And the other thing I’ll say on this topic is that I’m sure you’ve talked to people, I’ve definitely talked to people where they have such a plan in [00:14:00] place that they’re kind of missing these moments or missing these nudges.
And so I think that’s where it’s important with the career planning process too, that. It is cyclical and that you’re coming back to that reflection piece and that self-assessment piece to really say like, how have my interests changed or where have my skills kind of shifted? Our world is changing so fast all the time, and you’re probably developing new skills or learning new technologies.
And those could be things then that we’re leaning more into and deciding, oh, I really like this and this is really interesting. Or things that we decide like, Hey, I’ve done this for five years or 10 years and it’s good and I’m good at it, but every day I’m drained from doing that. And so those can be some of those signals to come back to that.
Reflection piece and to kind of reassess. And then to know that the plan can shift and likely is going to [00:15:00] throughout our careers, if not once, many times.
Porschia: You said a lot of great things there. I wanted to follow up on a couple of them. Yeah. I really liked how you talked about career planning being cyclical, because I think a lot of people have that goal and there’s a destination and that’s what they’re focused on and they’re missing the aspect that, hey, the cycle might start over again.
So I think that was really important that you noted. And then when it comes. To your point of cultivating happenstance moments, I don’t know if you’ve heard this, I’ve heard this in different ways from people, but they feel as though those moments don’t happen for them. Right. So what would you say or how would you advise someone to start creating and cultivating those happenstance moments when it comes to their career plan?
Cassie: I’m so glad you asked this [00:16:00] question because this is something, this is a conversation I’ve been having with some of my clients. Even just yesterday, I was emailing a client just about this exact topic, one of my favorite exercises to walk someone through or to suggest that they do so any listener, you can do this after, after you finish the episode, is to set aside some time.
Maybe 20 minutes, 25 minutes, try to be in a quiet place and to do a visioning exercise. What do you want your life to look like a year from now? Six months from now? I try to keep it a little bit smaller. Like going five years is always hard for me personally. So we’ll say a year from now, what do you want your life to look like?
And this doesn’t have to be beautifully written. It can be bullet points. It, it literally doesn’t matter. But jotting down. Every aspect of it. What do you want your work life to be like? What do you want your home life to be like? Where do you wanna be? How are you spending your weekends? Who are you [00:17:00] interacting with?
Like when we think about every aspect of life what do you want that to be like? And I love doing this exercise because when you really allow yourself to kind of start to dream about what you want that life to look like in a year from now. It can bring up some important things that are not really work or career related, but that can be wonderful ways to cultivate these happenstance moments.
And so I’ll give a brief example. Not the client I was talking to yesterday, but another one, did this exercise recently. She really dove into what she wants her life to look like a year from now. In a couple of those standout things, she has a photography business and she talked about some of the people that she wants to work with, the amount of money she wants to make from her photography business as a side hustle.
She talked about what her and her friends do on the weekends and how they leave the city and they go for hikes and they meet up for lunch in these different aspects. She even talked about some things like having a partner [00:18:00] that she could go for a walk with every day after dinner. Although the photography’s a little career related, none of it is really career related.
And so we looked at that vision and that reflection and started identifying like, what are some things that she could do right now that align with that? And so as a really beautiful example, she texted a couple friends and said, Hey, who wants to go grab lunch? There’s this new restaurant on Saturday.
They said yes, they went to this new restaurant and guess what? The owner was there because it’s a new restaurant, and the owner was thanking them for coming in, asking them, you know, what their experience was like and how they liked the food. All of that kind of typical stuff that happens. And she was able to share that.
She has a freelance photography business. The owner dropped their business card, very old school I know for 2025, but dropped the business card and now they’re in. Collaboration, for her to start taking some photos to help promote this new business, [00:19:00] that would’ve never happened. Maybe they would’ve gone to lunch eventually, maybe she would’ve said We should do this.
But you know, the plan didn’t actually happen. But I feel like that’s such a beautiful moment where I suggested she do something from this list. I had no clue that was gonna happen either, right? Like I had no clue and it wasn’t even career related. The purpose of that was you’re saying you want your life to be filled with friends and going to grab lunch and trying these new places and leaving the city to go for hikes and all of these things.
And it was like, great. Pick one thing, get that on the calendar, add that to your life. And I think that’s when these really wonderful happenstance moments happen is when. You’re doing things that you enjoy when you’re opening up yourself to those new and different experiences. And when you’re saying yes to something else, even if it’s just lunch, it’s like these other things will happen.
You never know who you’re gonna meet. You never know what [00:20:00] kind of aha moment you’re gonna have. And so I think that’s one really beautiful way to start to cultivate more of these happenstance moments in your own life.
Porschia: That is very powerful, Cassie. Very powerful. Over my years as a coach, I’ve seen that career planning can be the difference between success and not reaching your goals.
Mm. I see many people who’ve been in the workplace. I. For decades that don’t have a career plan at all, and think that, you know, everything will just fall into place. And you started touching on this earlier, but I wanna know, what would you say to someone without a career plan?
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Show [00:22:00] notes.
Cassie: Hmm. I think the. The old saying failing to plan is planning to fail is maybe a little bit harsh because you’re not necessarily failing if you don’t have a plan.
But I do think not having a plan, again, just leads to that lack of fulfillment. Often not for everyone, but it can often lead to that, that lack of fulfillment. And I think it can also lead to a lot of frustration. Within your career when you’re dedicating so much time and energy and effort into a career, into a company, into the team that you’re working with, and to just be waiting, waiting, waiting for something to happen.
That can feel really hard watching other people. You know, I, again, I feel like I have clients all the time and they’re like, everyone else seems so much more successful than me. They’re getting promotions, they’re changing jobs. Everyone’s [00:23:00] doing all of these things. You know, that can also lead to a, a challenge, a feeling like you don’t have that purpose and that fulfillment.
And so I think. It is a balance. You know, having a five-year plan is not the right plan for everyone. But having goals that you’re working towards, having kind of that purpose and that impact in the back of your mind remembering why you’re in the path you’re in is really important to. Helping you meet those goals?
Of course, but also, again, I’m probably a broken record, but just cultivating that overall fulfillment and happiness and remembering that you are in control. I think a lot of times, and especially, you know, right now the job market is tough and it can feel like I just have to take whatever, whatever job comes, and I just have to sit at this job because things are so uncertain right now.
And. That can be true, and I think it’s also important to remember that there [00:24:00] is always something that you can do to help you work towards your goal or to help you advance your career or to learn a new skill. There’s always an option, even when we’re kind of feeling stuck with the other circumstances at play.
Porschia: Very well said. So what are some of the biggest mistakes you’ve seen professionals and executives make when it comes to their career planning process?
Cassie: A couple mistakes, I think we already covered. The not planning mm-hmm. Is one mistake that people make. Another mistake that I think people make is.
Aiming to follow the exact path that they’ve seen or aiming to follow the traditional path to success. And I think that’s something that, you know, a lot of people, again, that I’m working with more recently are kind of grappling with of like, what is success to me and. Is it what I’ve seen? Is it what I’ve heard in my [00:25:00] designated path, or is it something else?
And I think, again, especially in the world that we’re in, people’s jobs are changing. The way we work changes, you know, what success looks like is changing. And so, I think the people who haven’t really assessed that for themselves, I would say is definitely a, a mistake. Like part of this process is knowing what’s important to you and, and what do you want, and kind of how do you define that happiness, that success.
And then I would say. I think a combination here. A mistake I would say is people staying at companies too long and also people not researching or getting a good sense of companies. So a little bit of a, of a combination there. But I think, you know, of course. 20 years ago, people would stay, potentially, some listeners, parents or grandparents, people would stay at a company for their entire career.
And that can be right for some [00:26:00] people. But. For some people it can also really hinder the opportunities that you have. And so thinking you need to stay somewhere for any amount of time, I think can be a mistake that I see some people make and just hanging on for the sake of hanging on. There may be some intricacies with that, with like benefits in other outcomes, but in general that and then likewise, I would also say, you know, like.
Companies operate really differently. And there may be companies who operate in ways that really align with who you are and what you want out of your work experience. And there may be companies that operate in ways that do not align. And I think that’s where, when we’re chasing the plan or the success and not allowing for some of that wiggle room and some of that due diligence is where I see people.
Make mistakes. I just had a client not too long ago send me a message that was like, I learned my lesson. Never chase the money because they, [00:27:00] you know, that’s their own personal lesson and their own personal kind of belief in this moment. But they were job searching. They had multiple offers. They took the offer with the most money.
I had a feeling we discussed the pros and cons. I had my own gut feeling, but they made that choice and they’re in a job where they’re like, they do not align with the company and how they operate and how, you know, the demands of the company and, and so many other things. And so I think that’s another mistake that, you know, for everyone, it’s a little bit different and we make these decisions, but not having a good sense of.
What a company values can be a mistake as we’re like so focused on the plan.
Porschia: I wanna echo everything that you just said. I have seen those things play out a lot. I’ll add on to, you know, researching the companies and. Not chasing the money [00:28:00] if that is not the only thing that matters to you. In addition, I have seen people chase the title.
So they’re either chasing a a dollar amount or they’re chasing a title, and I. As you illustrated, someone might get the money, they might get the title, and then still not you know, be fulfilled to your point. Really engaged at work because of, you know, the company or the team members that they’re working with or a lot of things.
So I think that that’s really important that you mentioned as part of the process. And then another thing that I thought about. Because this can be really part of the career plan. I think a lot of people just think of changing jobs, but you touched on, you know, getting people getting promoted and not too long ago we aired a series on promotions and you know, one of the biggest things I think that was part of that was.
I told people they need to ask themself, are they in the right company? [00:29:00] Mm. Because some companies do not necessarily promote from within. Right. They do not necessarily value the talent that they have. It is not their culture. Yep. To promote from within. They go get people from the outside. So to your point, if you’re sitting there and.
Same. Well, similar. I was talking to a prospective client yesterday who’s been at her company for almost nine years, and she said to me, Portia, I just realized that there’s nowhere for me to go. Mm-hmm. So what are your thoughts on those things? I know it was a quite a bit, but it, when it comes to her career planning.
Cassie: Yeah. I mean, I think it’s so important to, I guess I would add in addition to that self-reflection, to do some of that. Critical thinking and reflection on what you’re seeing in the companies that you’re in, and even some of that reflection. I love talking with clients when we look at their work history, like what did they love about a previous role, a previous [00:30:00] company, a previous boss, what did they not love about a previous role, a previous company, previous boss, and really assessing like what types of, I use the word environment so broadly, but what types of environments do you thrive in?
Time and time again, I talk with clients and they’re like, I want a, I want a good manager. I want a good team. What does that mean to you? Because that could mean something very different from me. A good team to me could mean that they leave me alone and they let me do my work. And a good team to someone else could mean that they’re super collaborative and they’re always engaging with each other, and they’re talking about their weekend and they know other things about their life outside of work.
And for someone else, it could mean something totally different. And so. You know, having those reflection pieces too, and again, that cyclical element of it, reflecting on this every year, every handful of months can be so important to kind of assess like what is happening. I. In the company that [00:31:00] I’m in, in the team that I’m in, what am I noticing?
You know, in those types of things, I’ll again use myself as an example. Part of the reason that led me to business, the pandemic had happened, the team I loved, the team I was working with, we were working really hard. The expectations had skyrocketed in terms of the work that we were doing. Being a hundred percent remote on a college campus, trying to do all these new and different things.
And as we started to come back into the office on a hybrid basis, I started to notice pretty quickly all the things that I loved doing. I. When we were remote, they were slowly being taken away, not because they were going to other places or to other people, and not because I wasn’t doing a good job, but because the environment was shifting.
I got to do all these new and fun and creative things because we were remote and we didn’t know what we were doing, and people were just saying yes to all the crazy ideas I was having. And then we were back and it was like, okay, we’re getting back to business as [00:32:00] usual. And then the things that were on my plate were things that I was finding to be a little bit more draining, that I was just enjoying.
Less. And so that and many other factors kind of went into it, but I think that’s a good example of how there are elements of our work lives that we don’t have control over. You know, there are things like what there’s money for, or you know, what the environment needs in that time. And so having those kind of assessments along the way and just kind of doing that check-in to be like, does this still align?
You know, are they promoting from within and it’s just not happening for me. So there’s a disconnect here. Or am I not seeing a single promotion happen within my team? What is that? Culture can be really important in helping you determine way earlier, like, okay, I need to be thinking about the move that I’m gonna make.
And giving yourself then more strategy to make that move successfully versus hitting the panic point. Because I think [00:33:00] that’s the other thing that happens with a lot of people is. You know, potentially in this example, like maybe this client never planned to be there for nine years. Maybe she wanted a promotion three years ago, or six years ago.
And was just hoping, hoping, hoping. And then now you’re at a point where it’s like, okay, you spent a lot of time here and we’re, we’re not really on the plan. We have to reestablish the plan now.
Porschia: Absolutely. So in your opinion, what are some of the best tools or resources people can use for career planning?
Cassie: Hmm. I would say some of the best tools, you don’t even need a tool, just pull up a document, pull up a piece of paper and start doing some of that reflection. I would also say in terms of resource, like talking to other people that could of course be a coach like you or I, but even just other mentors, other professionals in the space that you know and trust and have that relationship with, I think can be really valuable to [00:34:00] bounce those ideas off of each other and to cultivate ideas of like.
What does success look like to me and what are some of my options? Career-wise, I think can be two really powerful steps for people to take. There is a book called Design Your Life. I’m sure some people have heard of it. I am a, a fan of some of the exercises in there and kind of the premise of the book in thinking about what do you want your life to look like and kind of planning.
That and finding careers that fit within that. There’s a really great exercise in there called Odyssey planning. They do look at a five-year plan, which again, I know can be overwhelming for some people. But I feel like that’s a nice exercise. You can Google it and how to do it will pop up if you don’t wanna read the whole book.
But looking at that can be another great like tool and option for people to do some really strategic planning.
Porschia: Great resources. So tell us more about your business.
Cassie: Yeah, I would love to. [00:35:00] I launched my own career coaching business full-time three years ago. Three and a half years ago which is exciting.
So I work with clients as you mentioned so kindly in my bio at the beginning, I work with clients one-on-one to develop different strategies from their career planning to their job searches to other aspects. You know, negotiating salaries, cultivating promotions, all of those aspects of the career.
Process, and I really aim to tailor my coaching to fit the unique needs of the people that I’m working with. So through my own experience, that was something I was kind of seeing again and again. Was these like one size fits all? Approaches to coaching and approaches to the career. And I think as we’ve talked about today with the career planning, there’s so much customization to it and so much of that individual and reflective work that I really like to tailor the work that I’m doing to the individual people.
So [00:36:00] that is how I spend most of my time. In addition to that, of course, I love podcasting and hopping on to talk about these topics. And also host my own podcast called Happenstance which I always describe as being career adjacent. It is not a podcast where you’re gonna get, you know, wonderful career advice like so many of your episodes but a little bit more of a storytelling.
Style to podcasting, but really looking at people’s unique career journeys. What are the happenstance moments that they’ve had and that have led them down one path or another or to kind of loop back around. So that is how I spend my time. I
Porschia: love it. We’ll be providing a link to your website in our social channel and your social channels, I should say, in our show notes so that people can find you online.
But now Cassie, 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? [00:37:00]
Cassie: Hmm. I would say. One way to get a positive edge and something I’ve been thinking about so much lately and talking about with so many clients is to really get creative with how you’re gaining experience.
And although some executives may be like, I don’t need to gain additional experience, what I really mean by this is like getting creative with how you are further enhancing. Or cultivating new skills. So could be skills you already have or cultivating new skills, but I think we can create such a creative edge by.
Being creative, I should come up with a better word for that. But we can have such a unique edge by coming up with these creative ways to gain experience and in ways that can also enhance other areas of our life. So I’ll kind of bring it full circle to that visioning idea. You know, volunteering with a local organization, mentoring someone.
Going to a new class [00:38:00] to like do pottery class or whatever it may be. Trying these new and different things and cultivating those skills in more creative ways, getting on podcasts or writing an article, kind of stretching ourselves in those ways, I think can be such a fun and unique way to kind of get that edge.
Porschia: Well, Cassie, you’ve shared a lot of insights with us today. I’m sure that our listeners can use it to be more confident in their careers and with their career planning. We appreciate you being with us.
Cassie: Yeah, thanks so much for having me. It was lovely to chat with you today.
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 [00:39:00] to the 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.
