Embark on an engaging voyage through the seas of professional development with Pete Tram, a seasoned navigator in the realm of mentorship and career growth. As you tune into our latest conversation, you're guaranteed to chart a course toward success, guided by Pete's insights from his journey with Lockheed Martin to the helm of Latitude. This episode promises a treasure trove of strategies for steering your career path, pinpointing your personal advisors, and assembling a board of directors that rivals the wisdom of the most accomplished captains.
From the lighthouse of self-reflection to the bustling ports of networking, Pete illuminates the art of aligning one's professional compass with intrinsic values and passions. He shares tales of career mapping and the importance of emotional intelligence, ensuring listeners are equipped with the tools to build a fulfilling career. The discussion is not just about reaching destinations but also about the richness of the journey, embracing every wave of opportunity and challenge with a seasoned mentor's perspective.
As we unfurl the sails and prepare to dock, Pete leaves us with a parting gift of strategies tailored for introverts in the networking world, along with his 'PBA checklist' for curating a supportive team of advisors. We close our session during the celebratory Mentoring Month with a sense of camaraderie, grateful for the connections made and the wisdom shared. Set sail with us, and let the mentorship spirit guide you to new horizons in your professional odyssey.
Embark on an engaging voyage through the seas of professional development with Pete Tram, a seasoned navigator in the realm of mentorship and career growth. As you tune into our latest conversation, you're guaranteed to chart a course toward success, guided by Pete's insights from his journey with Lockheed Martin to the helm of Latitude. This episode promises a treasure trove of strategies for steering your career path, pinpointing your personal advisors, and assembling a board of directors that rivals the wisdom of the most accomplished captains.
From the lighthouse of self-reflection to the bustling ports of networking, Pete illuminates the art of aligning one's professional compass with intrinsic values and passions. He shares tales of career mapping and the importance of emotional intelligence, ensuring listeners are equipped with the tools to build a fulfilling career. The discussion is not just about reaching destinations but also about the richness of the journey, embracing every wave of opportunity and challenge with a seasoned mentor's perspective.
As we unfurl the sails and prepare to dock, Pete leaves us with a parting gift of strategies tailored for introverts in the networking world, along with his 'PBA checklist' for curating a supportive team of advisors. We close our session during the celebratory Mentoring Month with a sense of camaraderie, grateful for the connections made and the wisdom shared. Set sail with us, and let the mentorship spirit guide you to new horizons in your professional odyssey.
I know you're gonna find it. You've got to keep on at it. Hey everybody, this is Bob Goodwin, president of Career Club, and welcome to another episode of Career Club Live. Thank you so much for taking a few minutes to join us. I'm very excited about today's guests, which we'll get to in just a moment, but as we kick off the new year, want to make sure that you check out all the free resources that are available for job seekers at Career Club. If you're an HR professional, please make sure you check out our for employer section, where we've got a bunch of other cool resources for you guys as well.
Speaker 1:If you are watching this on YouTube, please subscribe. Click the bell, comment. You know what to do. Same for whichever podcast platform you happen to be catching this one. When you rate and review, it really does help their algorithms and make sure that the program gets maximum visibility.
Speaker 1:So with that, I'd like to tell you just a little bit about today's guest. So we're going to be speaking with Pete Tram. Pete is the author of a new book called Pathfinders, and the book is a comprehensive guide for professionals and aspiring leaders to navigate their career paths with greater clarity and strategy. And go off script here for a second. But when Pete and I first got acquainted and he was starting to kind of talk through the book with me like we were finishing each other's sentences, so I'm really excited about the book, excited to have Pete on. But beyond being an author, pete is also an entrepreneur, tedx speaker and founder of Latitude, a platform promoting employee connection, survey and retention. His backgrounds in engineering, global operations and mentorship, and combined with his experience as a speaker and influencer, this is what's really gone into informing his new book Pathfinders. So with that, pete Tram, welcome.
Speaker 2:Thanks, bob, great to see you. Hello everybody else, great to meet you, learn about you and I'm excited to dive in today. But you probably knew what I was already going to say, because we're finishing each other's sentences.
Speaker 1:I think that is true. So, as we are want to do, pete, just like to help listeners get to know you just a little bit better. So where do we find you today? Where are you calling in from?
Speaker 2:Calling in from rural Western Pennsylvania. I grew up in Butler, pa. It's a little bit north of Pittsburgh, pennsylvania, so a couple hours away from you know many of the big cities on the East Coast.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, that's cool. And then, where'd you go to school, pete? Did you go to Pitt?
Speaker 2:No, I did not go to Pitt. I was born and raised blue and white, so Penn State, but I went to school in Washington DC, a Catholic university.
Speaker 1:Oh, very good.
Speaker 2:And then just a little bit about your family Mom, dad, brother, myself and growing up on a farm, we had lots of animals and other things running around our property.
Speaker 1:That's funny and then it's only helpful because you've got such an eclectic background. Do you mind maybe kind of giving the one to two minute version of your career?
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, I'm pretty tall. I think that's an interesting thing for people to learn about.
Speaker 1:I'll call you five foot 20.
Speaker 2:So let's see if the listeners do the math. Okay, give you a chance Six foot eight whenever you translate that over. So and people are like, do you like?
Speaker 1:being tall, I'm like, yeah, it's pretty awesome.
Speaker 2:Except for cars and clothes and airplanes and stadium seating. Those kinds of things aren't overly fantastic. But I'm blessed and unfortunate, so grew up Western PA on a farm. I learned this thing like work ethic and take care of others. I'm like okay, how in the world do I do that?
Speaker 2:I don't necessarily want to stay on the farm my whole life, so went to Catholic grade school, public high school, private high school and then college in Washington DC. So I'm like whoa, here we go, big city. I studied engineering, mechanical because I'm like I don't know what I want to do whenever I grow up. I was fortunate to play basketball and track in college and then, upon graduation, went to work at Lockheed Martin huge company and I asked my boss. I'm like hey, how do I become the best employee you ever had? And whenever we get into the book, you'll see, on page one we talk about that. And his response, which was go find yourself a mentor. And I'm like great, where do I get me one of those? And so, as the next few years, trans, you know, transpired. That's where I learned okay, I'm in a supply chain role. Who can I learn from here? I'm in a corporate strategy role, working on sustainability, business cases super fun. Who can I learn from and grow with here? Supervisor down in Florida, right, union, non union people are two times, three times my age and I'm like okay, how do I keep growing, developing and progressing myself? But those around me went to Eastern Pennsylvania and near Scranton and it's a non union shop as a supplier, quality engineer, down to Baltimore building 30 foot tall myth along as a quality engineer.
Speaker 2:And then in DC, I was probably living in DC, working in DC, working on a multi billion dollar ship project as a program manager. I'm like, wow, this is awesome. And people were calling me up. You know one or two or three phone calls a day. How'd you get to where you are? What's it like? You connect me to this kind of person? Like yeah, sure, but then I didn't have time to help everybody and I didn't have all the answers. So I'm like I guess I should start a company. We will start a company, and that's where the serial entrepreneur journey came from. Worked at a smaller defense contractor, built standoff protection systems like robots for the army to keep our good guys safe, and then got into building what is now latitude, employee engagement software, mentorship software. And since then I need to update this in the bio on the middle of 23 joined the board of stature, which is kind of like that. You need this before you can fully benefit from latitude to track the ROI on your investments. But people, passionate people, person Pete from Pittsburgh.
Speaker 1:There you go. Well, again, there's something else we have in common, which is a literation. I speak a literation to, so we can. We can do that. So you kind of already, oh, time out. What does Pete do when Pete's not doing latitude, writing books and other cool stuff.
Speaker 2:If you would ask me a couple of months ago and say nothing, right, that whole like work life balance. I was like man, bottom of the list, failing. But over the last few months I stepped back and said, hey, I got to walk the walk and talk the talk. I love being around the game of basketball and, at the age of 31, have become very accident prone. So now I'm transitioning into coaching basketball. Not done playing, but I'm pausing playing. Love to be on Peloton. So if anybody's shrimp farm you know, let's, let's ride on Peloton. Love traveling my brother and I try and take an international trip each year. I'm working to build a waterfall near, of course you want everybody's working to build a water for building a log cabin from 1786.
Speaker 2:So stay tuned, as we keep progressing, I'll give you some photos. But also meeting new people is one of my favorite things to do, because people I meet more people I can connect and the more people I can help. That's one of the things that I learned growing up on the farm, right bettering the lives of others Like well, if I can meet more people, then that's easier to connect them. And then I'm, you know, doing what I'm supposed to be doing here.
Speaker 1:Well, we'll definitely be talking networking. I know that's going to come up. So you kind of already telegraphed a little bit of how the book started, based on page one, and I need to find me a mentor what's what's sort of the overall thesis of the book, and then maybe we can start to break it down into those general pillars.
Speaker 2:So, bob, I'm a trained engineer but I'm kind of a broken engineer because I like people and I like to communicate with others.
Speaker 1:But what I did covering engineer but go recovering there we go.
Speaker 2:But to make it super simple and I like the format of here's what I'm going to tell you. Then I told you that I'm going to remind you. Then I'm going to break it down and tell you what I told you and then I'm going to, at the end, wrap it up by telling you which I already told you a couple of different times. So, whenever we look at the cover of the book, you see pathfinders at the top, navigating your career map with a personal board of advisors. Okay, career map is involved, board of advisors is involved. Two concepts that's what we focus on, right, who are the different kinds of people that can guide you? Multiple mentors. And then, how do you sort of visualize where you've been, where you are, where you want to go? And break it down, make it super simple Career map, personal board of advisors.
Speaker 1:Got it Okay. So let's start, because I think, well, you tell me, does it start with getting a personal board of advisors first to help our you know kind of architect, the career map, or is it the other way around?
Speaker 2:Yes, the way I go through it is you know about your background, so that's something that you can put together and you might have some ideas of what you want to go through and do in the future. When you get the book, there's a QR code on the back. If you scan it, it takes you to some different interactive workshops. This is the icky guy. We've talked about that before. So there's a little bit of work to do as an individual to figure out hey, what do I want, where do I want to go? What are some of my interests?
Speaker 2:So you do rev one of the career map before you start interacting and formally building your personal board. So some career maps. So then, whenever I say, hey, bob, mentor, right, functional mentor, you know, board seat one of eight excited to chat, here's a first draft of my career map. That makes your life nearly infinitely easier to say like, aha, I see something and I can build off of these concepts and give some feedback instead of just starting from scratch. So then you continue to build up the board and you continue to iterate on the career map. But that's kind of my approach.
Speaker 2:Okay, so spell the Japanese word that you used for the career map so well, no, no, no career map is one thing, but it's a pre career mapping exercise, iki Gai, and I'll put it up on the screen. Here's my goal of the concept. For the patient, it's a Venn diagram, yep.
Speaker 1:What am I good at? What do I care about? What do I find passionate in?
Speaker 2:Yep one, two, three, four. I love doing this. The world needs this. I can be paid for this and I'm good at this. Right, so there's a lot of different takes on it, but it's really just figuring out those different pieces. That's whenever you get into the piece of. Here's my why, here's my purpose. I keep progressing through my career, am I keeping true to these true doors or these pillars or these things that I really need for me?
Speaker 1:Yep. So as we coach people in Career Club and this is now a team up, finishing each other's sentences in alliteration, one is helping people define their personal brand. Yeah, like, for me it's Jim Collins hedgehog concept of what am I good at, what do I care about, what can I be the best in the world at, or what drives my economic engine. So you put those together. That's a good thing to start to define your convictions, your values.
Speaker 1:As you said right, convictions lead to clarity, which, starting to the fog, to lift and have what an idea of which direction. What's the map starting to look like. Once I've got a notion of what the map looks like and where I want to go and say yes to and say no to, yeah, huge, huge. Then I've got confidence, and confidence is contagious when I believe, it makes you believe yeah, right. And so when we've got it's all rooted in convictions, whether it's icky guy or the hedgehog concept or whatever. But it's that pre-work that only you can do to know what's true for you. That's not even totally true. Sometimes people can guide you and you can get feedback, like Pete, when you've seen me at my best, what?
Speaker 2:was I doing?
Speaker 1:Yeah, what was your observation? Well, bob, you're really good at this. You're really good at that. I've seen you struggle with this a little bit, all right, well, that's helpful feedback for me to figure out some of those different components of getting to my why.
Speaker 2:And I also like to. So great point. But I also like to ask people from various chapters and various functions in your life. So as you go through, I know it's in my head more than you know what's in my head. I'm not super good at reading minds yet but we'll work on it.
Speaker 2:So to say, hey, here's, I put draft one of the icky guy or hedgehog together, right, and then I can say, ok, here, that's what's going on. And then I asked some people from my childhood, I asked some people from my academic journey, I asked some people from my early career profession, I asked some people from you know other parts of my life, because whether we you know, know it or not, sometimes we act a little bit different in various environments. And so that's where we get to see like, hey, this is the real me, but that icky guy it stays consistent, right, the stuff that I really love doesn't necessarily change where I am or what time of day. It is right. The value I add to the world, sure, I can get paid for it, but, like my core, who I am is going to be pretty consistent, almost 24, seven.
Speaker 1:That's true, and you know what I love about getting these outside perspectives, and I'd like to get your notion on using assessments as well.
Speaker 1:But you know, sometimes, though, we're too close to things right, and it's actually kind of hard to see. You know where I fit in a given context, as you're saying, and so when you have somebody speak into you, as they've seen you, as you say, different phases of your life or in different contexts, it's like, oh, I never really thought of it that way, but now that you tell me, pete, that you saw this to me, I guess that is true. I never put words to that before, and so the emotional intelligence for me of sometimes, you know, not being as self aware as we could be and even to the extent we are, sometimes we lack the vocabulary. Other people can help fill in those blanks for us. And again, that's what I love about what you're doing is most people tend to not be self reflective enough, and then we just sort of wander through our careers, kind of what I call a pinball strategy. You just react to the last thing to hit you.
Speaker 2:So we can also think of it as we're on a journey, right? So, pathfinders, you kind of see the map that's on here, right?
Speaker 2:I liken this to a nautical journey, right we're sailing on the sea and what happens if you don't have a clear heading, if you let those waves push you this way and that way and you're not focused. And a lot of people, you know when they're getting started, they don't know where they want to go, and if you can't figure that out, then it's pretty darn difficult to figure out how to get there. Right, because it's right. So that's, the first piece is figure out, where do I want to go? And then you can have a couple of options, right, but then you can help refine and define this path to get to that point.
Speaker 2:You see, there's a couple of different icons, those tools. But you know, if you just kind of are out there sailing, which sometimes it's okay to do, right, you're an explorer, you're an adventurer, that's perfectly fine. But then we want to make sure that we're not. What's the other saying? Right, Is the tail wagging the dog? Right? That piece. We want to be in control. And now we have a framework to own and influence and positively drive our professional development journey.
Speaker 1:So you helped me guide the conversation here, because I know we need to get to personal advisors. But you know what's your take on when do people actually realize they need what you've architected? Is it enlightenment, like you know what? I've just been thinking about it and I'm not satisfied. Maybe, coming out of the pandemic, you know, I've just been thinking more about what I really wanted my life and in my career. Or is it? Oh, shite, I just got laid off and somebody pressed the pause button for me and I got to figure out what it's all about and what do I actually want to do with my life.
Speaker 2:So I'll tell you a couple of stories from just the last couple of days. Okay, so I was getting coffee with one of my friends yesterday and he said hey, pete, I'm mid-career and I'm trying to figure out what's the next step for me. Right, extremely successful professional. And he already had a copy of the book and I'm like, well, this is so cool like people are doing this. And he's like I needed this 10 years ago. I wish I proactively had this, so I had those different people at this pivotal transition point. So he's like I'm building up my board right now, mid-career professional. And then I was like hey, let's take a picture together. And, bob, you'll love this. I borrowed a dog from somebody inside the coffee shop. Hey, would you mind taking a dog you borrowed?
Speaker 1:your dog.
Speaker 2:Yeah, why not?
Speaker 1:right, I'll have to send you the photo.
Speaker 2:And then they said, hey, what book is this? And my buddy's like, oh, this is Pete, he just published this book right At the time of this. It was weeks old, it wasn't even a month old, right? So essentially hot off the press. And they're like hey, I'm going into the last year of my college career, I'm trying to figure out what I can do with my life. Who can guide me? And I was like, are there cameras somewhere? I was like that's literally what this is. I just gave out three books between I walked in and coming over to this meeting, but I don't have any more books on me. Here's a bookmark. So anybody that's like thinking about a book, right, really good idea. Jody came up with this one. So bookmark right here as a fantastic way to market, get the word out there.
Speaker 2:And so she was finishing up getting ready to graduate. You know from her academic experience. So that's a great place, right, hit the ground running. And then her sister was sitting across the table. She's like, hey, I'm getting ready to start my first job. What about me? Like I don't really know what to do over here? And I said, well, have you thought about where you want to go and whenever you have those check-ins with your you know, stay interviews, your one-on-ones with your manager, the other people that are in your circle, how are you going to be able to sort of visualize, you know, what it is that you want to do and they can then help and say, hey, here's where you can progress. Cause, bob, you and I both know listeners know this one of the biggest reasons that people leave organizations is no little to no map to professional growth.
Speaker 1:So okay. So we've got kind of this kind of the DNA of the beginnings of my career map, right We've got and I like what you said too, that you've got something for people to react to right. And as a former market research geek, you know we would talk about aided and unaided awareness, yeah, and. But when you can show somebody something to stimulate their thinking and give them some attachment points, like like their mind starts to really click because you give them something to work with. But like I don't know what I want to do, you know I'm just thinking about la, la, la, and it's like just goes into the junk drawer of their mind. They don't know what to do with you, so they don't do anything. But when you give them some stimulus, it's like, oh, okay, now I can start to track with you. So I love the fact that you're giving people a visual, the words. So what happens next? So we've done the icky guy, what happens next?
Speaker 2:So that's where I kind of learn about myself, right, simon Sinek, start with Y piece.
Speaker 2:So we're trying to align with some of those concepts and then we start to build up our board. Right, I like to think about who are those people that are in your world today. That might be, you know, pretty similar in experience. This could be the first board seat I recommend is your buddy, right, the least formal role. Some organizations have a buddy program, onboarding program, right, but this is the person that you know you're in the trenches together and you're going to ask some of those, you know, more tactical questions, right, you're going to, you know, work to build up your career map, their career map, just that first draft, and it's kind of the hey, I'm not alone, let's, let's figure this thing out. And it's kind of like peer to peer mentorship at that, that regard. And then we get into kind of board seats. Two and three are kind of your boss, right, if you have one, which you know majority of people have one. But you know entrepreneurship is becoming more and more, you know, enticing, right and popular. So that's where functional mentor, right. So it's kind of like one, two, three and you know, grab at least two of those three. Obviously, three of three is ideal. But grab those folks functional mentor, right?
Speaker 2:I alluded to this concept earlier. It's somebody that's been in my shoes before five to 10 years ahead of me and experience. They may have even had my existing manager at some point and they kind of say, hey, here do this, don't do that. Right, you're aligned with them professionally, you know, mentally, maybe even spiritually right. And I go through a checklist of you know. I think it's like 14 or 15 different questions to ask when you're in the prospecting phase with your personal boards, kind of like dating right, these are my non-negotiables, these are my things that I'm kind of like iffy on, these are the things that you know take it or leave it, and these are the deal breakers, right? So it's important that we don't settle right In many different aspects.
Speaker 1:So those are kind of like one, two, three that we'd go through you know it sounds like don't let me put words in your mouth, but it sounds like you're. You kind of build a portfolio of different people, serve different roles on the board, right, and we did a webinar the other week on resilience and one of the concepts was having a tribe and different people in the tribe serve different functions. So like, if I just need to be like super emotional about something, there's some people I can go to and other people I wouldn't go to, for that doesn't mean that they're not a very valuable member of my tribe, so that's not their role in the tribe. Can you build on that concept a little?
Speaker 2:bit 100%, and I'm opening up the book here, so this is the way that we sort of visualize some of the concepts in here, right, so we go from one through eight, and then we have the different icons that we talked to so that you figure out, hey, who do you need at different stages?
Speaker 2:And then I'm a big pictures guy, right, big picture, big pictures guy. But then we have different background of you know, hey, early career, what do I need? And the circle size represents who do I spend more time with each of those board seats, early, mid, late, career, right, so, 100%, I'm with you. And you think, is it a tribe? Is it a friendship bench? Is it a, you know, circle of peers? Right, there's a lot of different ways that we can look at it, but it really just comes to hey, who do I need for these certain things? And it's almost like a racy chart If you've put something like that together.
Speaker 2:Who's responsible for this part of my professional development? Who's accountable, who's informed, right, you know. So those are kind of the different pieces, but it really just depends. You know, what are those goals and expectations that we set early on in the relationship, because some people on my personal board, you know they're going to say I don't want to talk about personal stuff. It's unlikely, but they could right. They might say I don't want to talk about any promotion stuff. I don't want to talk about any job raise stuff. I want to spend more time on developing these skills around these areas, right? So that's kind of how I go through that piece of it.
Speaker 1:How much of it, pete, is kind of professional development, career specific, versus just life development, and just sort of because I think about, like the people in your coffee shop, example, and they're young and you know well, yeah, this will have application in your career, but this is actually a bigger issue than just you know. Hey, I want to be a CPA one day, or whatever. How do you see like the integration, I guess, of the work component and just the life component?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we think about Maslow's hierarchy of needs, right, and you have the basic human needs and then you get into some of the other things that are really nice to have. But really we all need connection, we need that sense of belonging and whenever we can get that in our professional development journey, that gets us a lot closer to that concept and that S&M, that sense of self actualization, right. And I kind of go through the professional development journey of, hey, what is it that I'd love to do if money wasn't an issue, right. What is it that gets you know, makes me jump out of bed in the morning? And then, how can I learn about those opportunities? How can I prepare an interview for those opportunities? How can I hit the ground running? First 30, 60, 90, 365 days, and then five is how do I pay it forward? Right, so paying it forward to that next group, that's absolutely paramount to it. But it really just comes down to hey, this is my game plan and I'm going to make it happen.
Speaker 1:So let's just talk about the game plan. Is it five years out, 15 years out, 20 years out? How forward looking are we?
Speaker 2:There's another picture in the book where I captured my career map from 2017, 2018. And so I'm what? Five, five years into my professional career and I projected out until age 53. So I projected out nearly three decades right, a little less. And I said I want to go from here to here, to here, to here to here. And I look at it two different ways. Just like you're working on a proposal, am I going to go bottoms up? Am I going to go top down? Right. So I think top down is begin, with the end in mind other Covey reference, and I think I want to be. For me, it was COO of Lockheed Martin, right, and I said they don't.
Speaker 2:At that time the position wasn't filled. So I said, great, it's going to be fine by the eight, you know, 2045, I think I said I was going to be in that role. You know, probably it's probably not going to be filled between now and then, anyways. But then I asked different people. I said, if I want to be here, what do I have to do before? Well, you probably do like this or this or this, so, having multiple options, and before you do that, you have to do this and this and this. And here's the position, here's the education, here's the achievements.
Speaker 2:So we break the career map down into five I call it four quadrants plus the fun stuff and so we see those different pieces coming together over time and then that gets back up to current state, right? So the career map is broken up into three different segments past, present and future. And so that's top down, right. Working backwards, we can also go bottoms up, say, hey, here's where I am, here's what I think is coming next, right, based on a promotion, based on what I have interest in, what other people have recommended to me. I've been voluntold stretch assignments, we've heard all of those things, and then I can say, well, from there it might make sense to do this, and then could do this, and then could do this, and then, like, I want to chill for a little bit. Right, so that live toward where to live, that cycle can change over time. Perfectly fine. So I go through those different pieces, you know, top down, bottoms up.
Speaker 1:Gun to your head, which which would you really recommend to?
Speaker 2:someone. It really depends on the person.
Speaker 1:Early on what are the attributes and what are the attributes of the person that would dictate.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I think early on in your career you may not know what the top down option could be. So the easier approach might be the bottoms up and just kind of take one step forward from where I am and as you learn about more opportunities. I love whenever people are having a conversation with a board member and they say hey, bob, let me see your career map. It's like whoa, you were this and this and this. I didn't even know that was an opportunity. I know that was an option. I learned about this thing called management consulting a couple of years after college and I'm like where has this been my whole life? You work hard, you meet people, you solve problems and then you do it again and again and again. Sheesh, didn't, didn't know about that. So it's just those kinds of things to have as many of those informational interviews early as possible. But looking at the career maps of others, extremely valuable. So guns to my head easiest way to do it First round, first pass, going through the career map, let's go bottoms up.
Speaker 1:But if you can't get that, so I appreciate what you're saying, particularly for somebody young in their career, because, as you say, it's like a little kid with sports or musical instruments, like I don't even know what my choices are yet and it's almost a test for negatives. Oh, I tried that. That sucked Like I don't want to do that anymore, but that was pretty cool and you kind of see where that goes and it does get a little iterative and then you do probably have some critical mass of visibility and life experience, professional experience. Okay, based on what I've seen so far now maybe I can start to work it in the other direction and say I would aspire to do this by the time I'm 53, which is an interesting number and then work backwards. So, yeah, I mean I can kind of see where it really kind of depends on where you are in your career that what would dictate which approach that you would take.
Speaker 1:You you mentioned well actually I won't talk about networking basically and in the board of directors do you have a point of view on? Yeah, you might want to start with your bestie or somebody that's like knows you really well and it's easy for you to be with. What about people that you know? I just met this person, like pretty recently, or. You know, my good friend Susan recommended Pete to me and Pete and I hit it off. Pete's got some pretty cool qualities. I've only known him for not a very long time, but, man, I could really see him being valuable to me. How well do I need to know somebody for them to be on my board?
Speaker 2:It goes back to that checklist that I referenced earlier. You can have love at first sight, right, and I liken a lot of these concepts and analogies to dating and relationships. In that regard it's the same thing, right. We could meet up and say, hey, I love what you're all about, we're aligned mentally, we're aligned professionally. That spiritually piece is kind of up to you. But if you get that trifecta, man, there's a lot in there. And if that mentor has, or that board member prospect has, the capacity, the time, right, man, this is really cool. You can go through all those items on that kind of I call it the PBA checklist, personal board of advisors checklist. You can do all that in a couple of hours. Right, you might wanna have a couple of interactions before you formalize the relationship, but, bob, in chapter six, navigating network networking with potential mentors, I go through all of that, right and so that's where we see, hey, whenever.
Speaker 2:I'm networking. Who are the different kinds of people at a networking event? Right, do I want to? The other part that's really important about this whole methodology is you wanna find the people that are gonna tell you what you need to hear, not just what you want to hear.
Speaker 1:You can have your hands up, I'm out, I'm out, hey.
Speaker 2:You can find those folks and they're not bad right. But whenever it comes to serious professional development and growth, which very often correlates to personal growth, we had to be firm. And one last piece on that personal and professional development. Whenever we get this thing right at work and we're able to find fulfillment and joy, we have less stress and we have that sense of connection and belonging and we're able to do good for others and do that pay it forward piece. Whenever I leave the office or I shut my laptop or whatever it is, I turn off some of the work stuff which hopefully we're doing more and more frequently. I am able to have more of the life I want outside of work. So by doing these things in the professional setting, it gives us the space, it gives us the opportunity to really live that life that we want to live. We have less stress, our mind is in a better, positive space as well, so it all goes together.
Speaker 1:Well, and too I appreciate you mentioning that A colleague that we worked with, Dr Andy Garrett. You really kind of taught me the difference between work-life balance and work-life integration.
Speaker 2:Integration yeah.
Speaker 1:Work-life balance. By definition, these are things that are in opposition and we're just trying to minimize the opposition forces. That that's exhausting. That is exhausting and I gotta be one thing at work and something else at home, and or this doesn't align with my values and I'm trying to keep this going versus everything you just said. Like no, these things are harmonized. I get to be the same person at work and the same person in my quote real life, and they reinforce each other rather than compete with each other.
Speaker 2:Complement and supplement. I think whenever we can be our true selves, think of it like this right, our body right. I have hurt myself many, many times playing sports and sometimes you know your back gets out of line or your ankle is out of line. What happens? It's difficult to walk properly and I talked about this on a podcast recently with Alex Persquove and we talked about something of a career chiropractor. So whenever I can better align these things, then I'm able to walk more properly. Right, I'm almost in that flow sense. So same thing whenever I can have fewer of those competing friction points in my career and professionally and I can align and get into more of a flow, I can get a lot more stuff done. I'm happier. So it's that piece of realigning things similar to like we might do with our body as we go through that process.
Speaker 1:Really, and I love that. I'm gonna steal career chiropractor through it. Yeah, so one of the things I'm wondering about and I think about our clients here at Career Club all kinds of different personality types.
Speaker 1:I teased you at the beginning recovering engineer, you know this very seriously. Like methodology, process, step by step, it all kind of makes sense. That's one that's not everybody's work style and like how do you get enough discipline to be able to stay with that? But two is and I wanna really kind of get into the networking piece it's dude. I'm all over your methodology, like I get processed too. But man, all this reaching out to people, I don't know, that's not my lane. I'm an introvert and this is really uncomfortable for me. This is not natural for me. Can you help me?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so there's a couple of pages in there of introverting, or sorry, networking. As an introvert, yes, ok, so we definitely get into it. I've realized that not everybody is like me. But the other piece is you have to have something that says I'm going to do this. This is not easy, this is not something that just oftentimes does not just get handed to you. It takes time, it takes work and it takes iterating on it. And let me tell you and whenever it comes to networking, sure I'm fine going up and saying hello, introducing myself to people I'm really there to seek first to understand and listen. We got two of these, one of these for a reason.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:I've fumbled and done bad on introductory engagements. I'll tell you that I've not done well sometimes.
Speaker 2:But you learn from them, and so I'd say the biggest thing is, if you're an introvert, we have some great tools that are around us. Think of the people that are in your network that you could say, hey, I trust you, I respect you. I'm trying to find some other kind of person that's like this to help me with this career map thing. It feels really weird and slimy, but is there anybody I could just talk to to get some of their thoughts and feedback? So, warm introductions, one that's a really nice way to take a look at it. The second piece is take a look at LinkedIn and you can search for other people and you're not actually speaking to them or shaking their hand in real life. But can you comment on some of their posts or maybe ask somebody a question? And don't overthink it, right, there's a lot of people out there that love to talk about themselves. Look how much I'm talking on this single podcast, right, bob? But that's a way to kind of do it passively, asynchronously, and then I think one of the best ways is in person.
Speaker 2:So figure out if you could maybe go and join a meeting at a local rotary club. I don't care if you're in high school, college, professional, any phases. I kind of go pre-career, early career, mid-career, late-career, post-career five phases of the career life cycle. But rotary club is very welcoming. If you're involved in church or religious communities, that's a great way to meet people. Chamber of Commerce fantastic way to meet people. And you can say in any of those settings hey, I'm new, I don't really know anybody, I just like to meet some new folks, right? And so those are some opportunities.
Speaker 2:Whenever you get to a networking event, you can go to Eventbrite, right? There's lots of free events that you can go and check out virtual, in person and a fantastic way to do that is talk to the person that's setting up the event. You can get in line to get some food or get a drink at the bar alcoholic, non-alcoholic, it doesn't matter and just kind of say hello to the person in front of you You're probably stuck with them for another 15 or 20 seconds and say hey, what brought you here? Right? I don't think anybody's going to be mad about that. Have you met any interesting people so far this evening, right? Those are just a couple of ideas to get started. We could go on and on.
Speaker 1:No, no, I love it Going back to LinkedIn for a minute, because at Career Club, we're working a lot, obviously, with people in career transition and they're getting the direction on what they want to do next, why they want to do what they want to do next, things like that, and exactly what you said about find people to follow. If there are companies of interest, people that are doing the kind of role that you aspire to on another day, following them they've got the cool feature now where you can ring the bell or you can click on the bell next to the person, be notified whenever they post content. As a content creator and I think you would agree with this I know who's commenting on my stuff, right, and so I may never have met some of these people and probably won't in real life, but I know who they are and so if they reached out to me and they're doing more than great posts but hey, that was really interesting what resonated with me was X and I mean really add value to the post. If they reached out to me and said, hey, bob, would you have 15, 20 minutes? There's a couple of things I would just love to ask you. I love your content, like, I promise you I'm going to say yes. And I do say yes to those people Because they took the time to invest in me first, right, which is amazing. And so when they want to ask me something, I'm like, of course, I'm happy to help you. One thing that I'll say you talked about being out on the water and kind of the nautical stuff.
Speaker 1:One of the key concepts that we talk to people about is keeping an even keel right because of all the waves. But the first and it's an acrostic, I guess is the right word, where the first E is expect the best of yourself and of others. There are enough nice people out there who will say yes. And I want to speak very directly to introverted people. I can't just reach out to somebody like that. That's just weird. No, it's not. If you're genuine and you truly wanted to ask Pete something about Pathfinders, I promise you he's going to take your call, he'll answer your email. There's enough nice people out there that will help you. Are there Comudgian, sher and other people that are too busy or whatever? Ok, that's fine. That's just part of it. We didn't say it was going to be easy. I was absolutely shocked, exactly, but expecting the best of other people and not. I just see people automatically disqualifying she's too important. I'm sure they're too busy. They wouldn't remember me, whatever.
Speaker 2:Which might be the case. That could happen. It is people with a chance. Yep, exactly.
Speaker 1:One other advice because on the directed networking, this is really where we work a lot with people and I'd love to get the benefit of your perspective on this. Is this very intentional networking? And like I want to be the COO of Lockheed on another day, like how do I go meet the people that can help me get there? Like and or hey, I really need somebody to fill this role on my personal board of advisors. I'm learning the lingo, pba, like I just again you're gonna say Bob Ari answered your question, but I just see how much people struggle with doing that initial outreach to people. That will feel like an air quote, cold call to them.
Speaker 2:So I love your piece of the LinkedIn supporting from afar. And just to break that down, how I do it right, just another idea at least five words in a comment and have it be something that is more intentional that says hey, I at least took eight seconds to skim through what you're talking about and I think that's where some of our interactions came from. You can go ahead and follow them as fast as you want to. Maybe don't send a connection request just yet. When you do send the connection request, add a note. Definitely do that. I think I probably have like 1500 connection requests that I haven't answered because there's no notes in them and I don't really know what's going on there. So whenever you put that note in there super, super valuable I'd probably do that for you know, two, three, four weeks, maybe a month, right, not one size fits all, because people don't always post as frequently. You catch me.
Speaker 2:The last three months I haven't posted as frequently. There's been a lot of things happening, but I think that's the part one. And then you know, maybe you know I replied on Bob's post and then he commented back and he did that a second time, a third time. Oh, this is kind of exciting and I haven't asked anything. All I'm doing is helping you get your word out there. Further and further I'm learning from you. I'm kind of feeling out the waters of. Am I aligned with this person's brand and what they're all about? Because you know, just because somebody said oh my gosh.
Speaker 2:Pete and Bob, you're going to be a great fit together. Obviously we do that. Thanks, jody. But there was also the piece of like hey, I need to check myself as well, and you probably did the same thing. Let's see a little bit more of what's what's happening here. A couple other ideas.
Speaker 2:That, bob, is volunteer assignments, right. Volunteer activities Fantastic place to network and just meet other people. And you know what you do at volunteer efforts. You put your titles aside, you put your badge aside and you're handing out food to people at the food bank right? You're picking up trash on the side of the highway. Last time I checked, I don't care if you're a senior vice president or you're a level one engineer. I can pick up trash. You know pretty similarly, and I can do good for others. I don't care what level you are in the organization. Stretch assignments you can say hey, boss, here's where I'm at right now. Is there anything else I can do to take some work off of your plate? Right, what keeps you up at night? I'm still going to get my stuff done, but I'm really interested in growing here. So other things on my career map, some of the skills and achievements and accomplishments. You know what are some of those things that I might be able to add in here. Right, as stretch assignments Go out of your comfort zone, right?
Speaker 2:One of the guys that I worked with, he always said I'd take the jobs that other people wouldn't. Another mantra that mentors taught me is run to the red programs. Red programs what the heck does that mean? Whenever we manage a project, we have a triangle of cost, technical and schedule. Red typically means that we're behind on one or more of those things. It's over cost, it's behind schedule, the technical is not correct.
Speaker 2:And then the last piece I'd share. On this again, we could talk all day. If I want to be the COO, then let's see who the person under them is, and under and under and under. And you know, if you're working at the same company, right, you can usually see that in the global access directory, whatever it is, and see if you have a mutual connection there. Maybe cross reference over to LinkedIn, click on the company, go to the people and see who the you know people I know. Second connections, third connections, right, and see how you can kind of work your way up because, let's face it, if you're a senior vice president, executive vice president, your time is much more difficult to come by. But what about the person that's like a senior analyst in that food chain? Not going to say their time is less valuable, but I will say that their calendar probably is not as jam packed all the time.
Speaker 1:Love, love, everything that you said I'm going to look forward to in when we start posting on this podcast some of those things you just said. That's great advice. A couple others that I would add to it. One is going into networking meetings authentically, intentionally seeking how you can add value to the relationship. So again, I'm kind of in the mindset right now of a lot of our members at Career Club who are in job search, and so what's in it for the job seekers is very obvious. Like you know, I'm hoping ideally, you know, have an exact role, but if not, you can connect me to somebody. But I want to go into a meeting like that. Also, like Pete, how can I help you? Like I see you've got your company latitude, I see you've written this book, like what does help look like to you? And when you come into it, not bartering, but genuinely looking to have a mutually beneficial relationship and add value to the other person. That's a very differentiated approach versus kind of gimme, gimme, gimme. It's Adam Grant, give and take right and you want to be a net giver, not a net taker.
Speaker 1:The other thing that I would say, pete, in terms of doing outreach to people, this works, I promise you this works is say that you know there's an executive who is speaking at a conference on a topic that you're interested in, or they were on a podcast, or they were quoted in you know an article on something. Doing an email to them. You know where it's, jody your comments in Forbes. Hey, jody, I was just reading the Forbes article on career development and you know you highlighted X. One of the things that really struck me about that was Y and in line with that, I was wondering if you would, you know, be open to taking a few minutes with me. I'm actually doing some career mapping right now. Yeah, you're in a role that I would aspire to it one day, and just any advice that you would have for me would be gold. You know, I know you're busy, but if we could find a few minutes of next few weeks, that would be amazing.
Speaker 2:Here's option A. Here's option B. If that doesn't work, here's a link on my calendar. If there's somebody else that's easier to, I'm happy to work through your EA, whatever and dude, that works.
Speaker 1:Most people don't have the hutzpah to do that kind of an outreach to begin with, and when it's timely and relevant. Hey, I saw you just spoke at this conference. Hey, I just listened to this podcast and it's relevant. What really struck me about that, the reason this resonated with me and why I'm reaching out to you that's sort of the magic is being timely, relevant, I guess I'd add personal. That works, people will respond to that.
Speaker 2:It's, it's, it's huge. And I want to add two other points to what you just shared. Right, the give and take piece Walter Bond, who was one of the first people to help me with my coach speaking and delivery. He talks about his, his book swim right, parasite is bad and being a suckerfish to sharks is a good thing. And the second thing as a job seeker, I just want to take that advice you gave one step deeper.
Speaker 2:I love saying, hey, here's an idea, here's what to do and here's an action you can take. Right, so people can try it on for size, right. Hey, you know, would love to learn about this position. I've been in similar roles and can share some of my experiences to see if that would be helpful to you. Some of what work didn't work OK, that's pretty cool. And even if I'm not the right person for this position, I will at least have no more about it, so I can share more with the people I interact with in my network. Jeez, that's like one, two, three things that you know. Even if Bob's not the right fit or Pete's not the right fit, that could help me get my job done easier. All right, I'll give this guy a second shot.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah so you know, what I love about you, pete, among many things, is that you're very practical right. This isn't just theoretical stuff. This is like OK, how do I actually go execute on what you're talking about? And you know the famous expression your network is your net worth. And you're helping people understand how to do this in a really practical, pragmatic way. That, again, is fulfilling right. Like you know, unlike you, like I, love meeting new people. I love helping people and connecting people like that. That's what gives me energy in the day. It's not a drag on me, it's actually, you know, enhances my day. Being able to do that and the fact that you're showing people how to do this, you know, is really meaningful. I want to be mindful of the time. There's 25 chapters, I think, in the book, so I'm sure we have scratched the surface. Are there a couple of things that we haven't covered, pete, that you think would be really important for people to understand about pathfinders and why it might be a good fit for them?
Speaker 2:I wrap up the book with an organizational use case. So you might say, wow, this is fantastic for me as an individual, but how can we incorporate this to my company? So some ideas are around the onboarding process right, to give somebody a t-shirt, a pen, a coffee cup, a notebook and a copy of Pathfinders as they come in as a new employee that's your map to professional growth in a box or in a book, right, so that they have an idea we're teaching them how to fish. The other piece is if you have some kind of a mentorship program, right, incorporate this to that program. Some of the other pieces in part three are around some of that individual development and you get into some of this work around some of those assessments, some of the trainings I can take so that I am continuing to grow myself and be my best self. We also talk about full board meetings. Do I want to bring my whole PBA together? Right, sometimes yes, sometimes no. How do I go about that? Again, there's more templates, examples and things like that In the companion website.
Speaker 2:More things always coming out. I love, love, love hearing from people, but I'd say the biggest thing is just pick it up, read it and start to figure out what is the best for you. And I'll end with one quote here, bob, from Bruce Lee. I would run past his statue all the time on the waterfront whenever I was living in Hong Kong and I'm like what the heck? So I started reading more about this fellow. Right he's got this big statue and he says absorb what is useful, discard what is not and add what is uniquely your own. Ooh, say that one more time Discard what is not, sorry, sorry, sorry. Absorb what is useful, discard what is not and add what is uniquely your own.
Speaker 1:Ooh that is awesome, pete, amazing. Thank you so much. So if people want to buy the book, where do the avenues to go? Do that. I'll send you a link.
Speaker 2:We have a website that makes it super simple. You get some information about it, you can find me on LinkedIn and you can go to Pathfinders. The book has its own LinkedIn account. It's available on Amazon, but, yeah, I'll share the link so we can put it in the show notes.
Speaker 1:And then the show notes in on the final production of this will also have visual for a QR code, the link, whatever it is. That's awesome, Pete. Thank you so much. It was a great talking to you. It's so easy. Time flies when I'm speaking with you.
Speaker 2:I feel like I'm talking with a twin and happy mentoring month, january 2024. Happy mentoring month to everybody. Awesome, I appreciate it Pete.
Speaker 1:thanks so much.
Speaker 2:Thanks, bob, see you.
Speaker 1:Thanks everybody for taking a few minutes every day. I hope you found today's episode really helpful. I know I did. I learned a bunch of new stuff and I just appreciate everything Pete had to share. So with that we wish you well. I'll catch you in the next episode.