365: Are You the Kind of Professional I Help?

You can be talented, experienced, and dependable and still feel invisible at work.

If you have ever wondered, “I’m doing great work, so why am I not gaining traction?” this episode is for you.

Many mid-career professionals reach a point where working harder no longer produces better career opportunities. They get passed over for a promotion, receive vague or unhelpful feedback, watch colleagues navigate workplace politics more effectively, or struggle to gain visibility with senior leaders and decision-makers.

That does not necessarily mean they lack the skills or experience to advance. More often, the problem involves career clarity, professional visibility, strategic positioning, and the ability to communicate their value.

In this episode, we pull back the curtain on who hires us for career coaching and what usually prompts them to seek support. We discuss why accomplished professionals can remain overlooked despite consistently delivering strong results. We also explore why endlessly revising your resume, adjusting your LinkedIn profile, or pushing yourself to be more productive may not solve the real problem.

Creating career momentum requires more than excellent performance. It requires intentional conversations, targeted relationship building, clear career goals, and the confidence to advocate for the value you bring to an organization.

I also address two common questions about career coaching: How is coaching different from therapy, and how do you know when you are ready to work with a coach?

I get candid about what coaching cannot guarantee. No ethical career coach can promise you a promotion or job offer. What I can promise is a coaching process designed to help you show up differently, strengthen and protect your professional brand, receive direct feedback, and take intentional action toward measurable career change.

In this episode, you will learn:

• What commonly drives mid-career professionals to seek career coaching
• Why high performers get overlooked despite producing strong results
• How to shift from working harder to making more strategic career moves
• Why clarity, visibility, and positioning matter for career advancement
• How to communicate your value to leaders and decision makers
• What career coaching is and how it differs from therapy
• How to determine whether you are ready to work with a career coach
• Why intentional action is essential for creating career momentum

If you are tired of waiting for someone to recognize your value, join me for my free webinar, Stop Waiting to Be Noticed: How Mid-Career Professionals Increase Visibility, Influence, and Career Momentum.

Register at https://johnneral.com/webinar.

Subscribe to The Mid-Career GPS Podcast, share this episode with a colleague who needs to hear it, and leave a rating and review. Your support helps more mid-career professionals find the clarity, confidence, and strategies they need to build careers they love.

Transcript

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Welcome To Mid-Career GPS

John Neral 0:09

Hello, my friends, and welcome to the Mid-Career GPS Podcast. I'm your host, John Darrell. This is the show for mid-career professionals who feel stuck, undervalued, or unsure what's next, and know that doing more isn't the answer. Here, we focus on how you show up, and that means how you make clear decisions, build influence, and take control of your career. Let's get started.

Listener Shout-Out And Why Action Matters

John Neral 0:39

Hey there. It's good to be back with you for another week. And I want to begin this week's episode by giving a shout-out to all of you who reached out, as well as any of you who took action based on last week's episode. When I shared with you how I ended my membership to make room for something else, I was really touched by the reactions and the feedback and the comments I got from people who shared they appreciated the honesty, they appreciated the space, and they also shared some things they took action on that they've been meaning to do. So congratulations, big shout-out and high five to all of you. And that's one of the reasons why you're listening to this podcast. And more importantly, one of the reasons why I do it. It is about helping you figure out what's next and the action steps you want to take. And so, with that in mind, what I want to offer you this week is a peek inside my work and who I typically work with. And what I want you to know right off the bat is yes, I typically help mid-career professionals. And there's a certain characteristic or avatar that really kind of fit into who my ideal client is. But what I want you to know right here at the very beginning is that whatever challenge or obstacle, or even if you describe it as a problem that's going on in your career, that's worthy of support. There is an opportunity for you to get the support you need and reaching out to someone to say, I could use your help, or how could you help me navigate this issue I'm having with my team or with my leadership or inside of my organization? That is the power of coaching. That is why I do this kind of work. And it's why I love this kind of work.

Who Coaching Is For

John Neral 2:54

So I have five questions for you today that I'm gonna answer that typically address the kind of people whom I help each and every week. And so, question one is what's usually happening in someone's career when they decide to contact me and inquire about coaching?

The Triggers That Push You To Change

John Neral 3:18

Usually they are unhappy about something going on in their career. And that unhappiness stems from a particular trigger. That trigger is often a circumstance or an event that is making them question what they need to do next. So, for example, it could be they've been passed over for a promotion. Maybe they're watching someone inside of their organization navigate the organizational politics differently, quote unquote, better or more effectively than they are. Maybe they're receiving little useful feedback, or they're not receiving any feedback at all. And they feel invisible to the decision makers inside of their organization. But what they also realize is that they're hard workers, they're high performers, they are high potentialed individuals, and that the excellent work they're doing day in and day out is not creating the kind of career and leadership momentum they want. So when they reach out, they're typically looking for a quick solution to something that is ultimately going to elevate their career or even accelerate it in some way. But I am a firm believer that the people who reach out for support, they have so many things going for them. And the first thing is, is they realize in a lot of ways, this is normal. This is what happens at mid-career. At some point, mid-career gets difficult. And we need some support and resource to help us figure out how to get through it. But additionally, the people I work with, they're not broken, they're not lazy, they're not unsuccessful, they're not unprofessional, they're not unmotivated. The people I work with are talented, dependable, experienced professionals who have built and are building amazing careers. Their challenge is often not their competence in terms of how they're doing their job. Their challenge lies in the clarity, visibility, positioning, and most importantly, they're communicating how they're communicating their value to the decision makers inside their organization because the people I work with do not want to settle. They realize there is so much more ahead of them for them in their careers that they're looking to define not only what's next, but why they're most strategically positioned for whatever that next thing is. See, the people I work with are resourceful. They're smart. And so oftentimes they are going to do a tremendous amount of work before they even reach out or before they even hire me. And I think that's awesome. I think that is an incredible step. It is something I did in my career as well, because you sit there and you say, hey, I've graduated college, I have a master's degree, I have an advanced degree beyond that. And I should know how to figure this out. I've gotten all the success in my life up until this point. Why is it now so darn difficult? Well, here's the thing. For the mid-career professionals whom I work with and help, yeah, they work really hard. They wait to be noticed. Maybe they've put themselves up for promotions inside their organization, or they're applying for jobs outside of their organization. And they consume a lot of content. They listen to podcasts such as this or other ones. They're on YouTube, they're using different AI tools. They're constantly tweaking everything. So they'll make adjustments to their resume, or they'll tweak their LinkedIn profile, or they'll look for a better networking angle. They try to solve everything alone. And what I want you to think about here is if you've done everything on your own and you are not getting the results you want, is this the time and the opportunity for you to do something different? For so many of us, we believe that if we just work harder, we'll get a different result. Well, what did Einstein say? Einstein said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result. So this is an opportunity to consider doing something different.

What Clients Want To Change

John Neral 8:40

And so when people reach out and they inquire about coaching, here's what they really hope will change through our work together. When I first started my business, we were in a very different job market, a different time in a different place. And so the results or the ROI, the return on their investment, was very tangible in the sense of I want to get promoted, I want to find a new job. And for some mid-career professionals today, that's still valid. But as I've gotten deeper into this work, as I've worked with dozens and dozens and hundreds and hundreds of clients, what I know is that in order for the mid-career professional to navigate their career more strategically and get the results that they want, this right now is about taking greater command of your career. This is about being able to use your voice and speak confidently and competently about the impact you bring and the value you provide inside of your organization, or if you are interviewing for a new job, what you're going to bring to that company. What they also hope they will get is they will get better at having more intentional conversations to move relationships forward to get the information they need versus the information they want. It's about not wasting time anymore and doing things that will increase your visibility to the right people and ultimately making decisions for you and your career that come from a place of clarity and confidence rather than frustration. In coaching, we are trained that we do not tell you what to do. We believe that in coaching, you have all of the answers and the to decide what's going to be best for you. It is my job as your coach to help you explore different scenarios and situations so you can make that decision that is best for you about what it is that you want. I always say to people that if you came to me as someone who has had a very successful career, you work in whatever particular field, and you come to me and you say, John, I think I want to work with people a little bit differently. And there's this store, it's called Walmart. And there are people that stand at the front of that store and they say hello to everybody. Come in. I want to do that. It is not my place, my role, or my agenda to ever say, Why the hell would you want to do that? That's not the best use of your talent. You shouldn't be doing that. It is my job as your coach to help you explore why that's the best move for you. It's also not my role to get in the box with you because personally I would hate that job. You might think, John, you do this podcast, you're so personable. You speak in front of audiences and you you work with people. Yeah, that's different. That that job to me as a greeter at a store like that would seem so exhausting. I wouldn't want to do that. But this is your space. This is for you figuring out what it is you specifically want. When people reach out and hire a coach, it's because they are frustrated they are not getting the results they want. Think about it. If you are unhappy with how you look or how you feel, more than likely you would hire a personal trainer or a nutrition coach to help you look and feel better. If you're unhappy in your relationship, you may hire a relationship coach. If you are unhappy with where your finances are, you would go and hire a financial advisor.

Coaching Versus Therapy Explained

John Neral 13:27

One of the questions I'm often asked is that what's the difference between coaching and therapy? Well, first of all, it they're two totally different things. They're two totally different sciences and dynamics. And I am not trained as a therapist or a psychologist. Okay. My background in training is in coaching. And so what I often say to people is that when we enter into a therapy type relationship, there is usually something dysfunctional that's going on in our lives. And that therapist moves us from a state of dysfunction to function. A coach takes someone who is functioning at a certain level and helps them move toward an optimum level. So they're two very, very different things. And in the coaching relationship, we get really clear about your goals and how we're going to work toward that.

Readiness, Expectations, And No Guarantees

John Neral 14:30

So you might be sitting there and going, okay, this all sounds pretty interesting. How how do I know if I'm actually ready to work with you or ready to work with a coach? And what does someone really need to be willing to do in order to make that coaching relationship the most successful? Well, I need to be really clear with you. Coaching is not for someone who is seeking certain guarantees or shortcuts or for a coach to make decisions for them. I remember one time someone was thinking about hiring me, and they they eventually did, and they said, What can you guarantee me? And I asked them, that's an interesting question. Tell me where that's coming from. They're like, Well, I just want to know if I'm going to invest money in you, what are you going to promise me? And I said, Well, it's been my experience that there are some people that think that in this kind of relationship, I can guarantee you that you're going to get a job, get a promotion, um, level up your career, whatever it may be. And I can't do that. I'm not with you in all of those conversations. And it would be unfair and unrealistic for me to say if you hire me, you're going to get a new job within 30 days. I don't know. You have to do the work. That's what coaching is. We talk about things, we create action steps, you go ahead and do the work, you come back and report on it, we figure out what's going to be next. I can't guarantee those things.

What I Can Guarantee In Coaching

John Neral 16:16

But what I can guarantee are things like this. I can guarantee that if we were to work together, you will absolutely show up differently. You will show up differently at work with your team, with your leadership inside your organization. And part of how you show up is how you set ground rules and how you have intentional conversations, how you create greater ownership for where you are and how you welcome those new opportunities. I can guarantee that you will show up to use your genius better than you ever have in your career, and you will learn how to protect and promote your professional brand. What I can also guarantee is that you will receive direct feedback. In a coaching relationship, we will go back and forth. I am not your best friend. Now that doesn't mean I take license or liberty to be mean with my clients. I'm never, ever, ever mean or dismissive with my clients, but I do challenge. I challenge your thoughts. I show you your brain. I show you where your thinking is either helping or hurting you based on the goals it is you want to achieve. In coaching, we sometimes have uncomfortable conversations. And I only know that because in all the coaches that I have worked with over the years, and even the coach I'm working with now, we have uncomfortable conversations. Uncomfortable conversations is what helps us move the needle. And that's what allows us to take very intentional action. I help my clients take intentional action. Because without taking that intentional action, nothing changes. Nothing moves. When I'm speaking to groups and I'm speaking from the stage, what I will say to them is that you're here for a professional development experience, but professional development without action is nothing more than informational entertainment. I don't want to work with people that want to come to a session and do nothing after. I want people to work with who are willing to take actions that they believe are safe but challenging. They might be a little risky, but can yield some great reward, all under the guise of this is how I make my career better. Because there are direct results from what happens when you make your career better. You're happier at work. More than likely, then you're happier at home. You realize that as you go to elevate your career, you get more responsibility. Those promotions happen. When those promotions happen, there's an increase in compensation. The people I have worked with over the years have tremendously reaped the benefits time and time again of their investment in coaching because of how they've elevated their career. But coaching is about you. It is about what it is you want and the goals you want to achieve, and you believe I am the best person to help you get there. The people who hire me are not trying to fix a failed career. The people who hire me are trying to stop the successful career they already have from becoming a stalled one. That's what I mean when I say you're not willing to settle. You want something different.

Free Webinar Invite And Next Steps

John Neral 20:23

If you recognize yourself in what I've shared today, I'm hosting an upcoming webinar for mid-career professionals who know they have more to contribute, but are tired of waiting for their work to get noticed. This is your opportunity to take a closer look at what may be keeping you overlooked and what you can begin to do differently. The webinar is called Stop Waiting to Be Noticed: How Mid-Career Professionals Increase Visibility, Influence, and Career Momentum. I'm hosting this webinar live three times in the month of September. The first one is going to be on Thursday, September 10th. You can get more information and sign up for the webinar by visiting my website, johnnarrell.com forward slash webinar. The webinars are going to be at noon Eastern. There will be a replay available for a limited time, but only for the people who register. So johnnarrell.com forward slash webinar. I would love to see you at the webinar and let's continue this conversation about what it is you want to do and what it is you're looking for to take your already successful career and keep it moving forward rather than it becoming a stalled one. Thank you for listening. Don't forget to sign up for the webinar, johnnarrell.com forward slash webinar. But also, who do you know that needs to come to this webinar? It's a free webinar. Who do you need to know that comes? You could really help me out here if you know someone who would benefit from coming to this webinar. Again, I'm running this three times in the month of September. Take this link, share it with them, share the link to the webinar. Have them come to this webinar and do something different. And let's take a step to move your career closer and further to where you want it to be. All right, my friends, for now, that's all. But remember this: you will build your mid-career GPS one mile or one step at a time. And how you show up matters. Make it a great rest of your day.

Share The Show And Leave A Review

John Neral 22:54

If you enjoyed this episode, don't keep it to yourself. Kindly share it with someone who needs it. And if you're tired of feeling stuck, overlooked, or underutilized in your career, go to my website, johnnerrell.com to get started. There you'll find free resources, ways to work with me, and details about the Show Up Leadership Lab, my signature membership for mid-career professionals who want to lead better, get noticed, and elevate their career. All the links are in the show notes. You can grab what you need right there. Feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn. And if you're getting value from the show, take 30 seconds to leave a rating and review on your favorite podcast platform. Remember, how you show up matters, and I'll see you next time.