Radhika Bhatt: The work only stops if we stop doing the work.

Radhika Bhatt is a climate career coach, recruiter, and founder of Saathe Studio, a climate and social impact career coaching agency. She’s coached 400+ climate-motivated professionals, from recent grads to mid and senior career levels, on the start-to-finish strategy of a successful climate job search, including strategic resume updates, improving LinkedIn profiles and the algorithm, networking with a regenerative mindset, telling stronger career stories, and discovering the hidden job market. In working with Radhika, many people have landed jobs at climate tech startups, environmental nonprofits, international philanthropies, and B-corps, and many have successfully started their own sustainability consulting businesses. She works with people to navigate their job searches in climate in general, and helps people dig deeper into topic areas like climate tech, circular economy, nature-based solutions, clean energy, regenerative agriculture, food systems, environmental justice, and climate communications. She also partners with leading climate organizations to deliver workshops to job-seeker communities, and clients of hers have included: Terra.do, The Bloom, My Climate Journey, Green Jobs Board, the Sustainability Service Corps, Earth Advisors, Climate People, TechChange, and General Assembly. She has also given keynote speeches and facilitated workshops at NY Climate Week (2024), Climate Careers Week (2024), the White House (2016), the UN Global People's Summit (2017), and Cisco Live (2017).

Find Radhika at:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/radhika-bhatt/

https://www.saathestudio.com/

Transcript

Thank you for joining us today. We're excited to bring you this talk with Climate Career Coach, Radhika Bhatt. With a background in technology, design, and social impact, Radhika runs her own consulting agency for career coaching and talent matchmaking, serving individuals and organizations working in design, social impact, and climate tech.

So let's get going. Radhika Bhatt, thank you so much for joining us today.

Thank you. I'm so excited to be here.

I introduced you a bit, but tell us a little bit about your current work.

Yeah, absolutely. So a little bit about me even before I got into coaching. I call myself a serial career changer.

I worked in social impact in government for about eight years before I became a climate career coach. And in those eight years, I had a squiggly career path there as well. I started out doing UX and front-end development within the Department of Commerce and then moved more into UX, then moved into service design, interaction design, held a lot of different types of roles, had a short stint with Accenture, where I was also working with all federal clients, and then moved back into government as a program manager, and helped to design and operate an accelerator program called the Opportunity Project.

So through those eight years, I worked in the Obama, first Trump administration, and the Biden administration, and had a lot of squiggly career path, but learned a lot of different things. And I think that's been the through line in my career is that I'm a voracious learner. I just always want to learn new things, and that really has shaped what I do as a coach as well.

The quick transition between, you know, how did I go from working in technology to becoming a coach? A really big part of my path is that I also experienced really intense burnout, especially working in the last three administrations. I just got super burned out and didn't know how I could honestly continue doing the work that I was doing.

So I took a step back. I took a break to kind of try to figure out how do I get back in alignment with myself? 

How do I figure out work-life balance?

What does it even look like these days anymore? And so I took a break to kind of figure thatout. And while I was taking that break, I found myself hiking and immersing myself in nature and going on long walks.

And I got to experience firsthand the really beautiful and powerful impact of the healing aspects of nature. And while I was continuing this kind of healing journey, I got a part-time job with a tech company called General Assembly, where I started coaching their students. And it was a natural progression for me since 

I was already in the tech space.

And at the same time, I took the General Assembly course. I also started taking the Terra.do Learning for Climate Action course. And the two combined in a very parallel way, started to realize how much of a crossover there was between understanding the climate landscape and trying to figure out my place in it, while also coaching other people, helping them navigate their own job searches.

The two very much began to cross into one another. So in July of 2022, I launched my business called Saathe Studio. I launched it thinking I would just be doing climate career coaching. And very quickly, Terra hired me back as an instructor. So I went backto teach their program and started developing careers content for them. And fast forward, this is now my third year in business.And it's taken a lot of different shapes and forms. And I don't know, it's kind of been like a journey that I didn't expect, but it's been really rewarding and really interesting work along the way.

I want to make sure we get this very clear. Saathe Studio, and that's spelled, S-A-A-T-H-E, studio. And so, just if you're listening, I want to make sure we get that clear.

So, anyway, so like, what was today for you? Was today a typical day?

Yeah, let's see. Today was actually almost a little atypical in that I didn't have any meetings, which is crazy. Normally, I have like three to four calls with clients, with people that are looking to break into climate, or people that are even just curious to see how coaching works, that want to talk through some of their challenges.

So, normally, I'm talking with three to four people a day, either existing clients or potential clients to help them navigate that. But today was actually a very big kind of business development day for me. So, kind of unique day where I spent the day just looking over all of the people that I helped last year, kind of understanding what their problems were and what I helped them with.

And so, I was kind of just doing like inventory of all the people I worked with over the last year.

What's the first step with a new client?

Yeah. So, over the last three years, I've worked with over 400 job seekers that are looking to navigate their careers into the climate space. Sometimes, and what I'll say is that those 400 people, every single person's journey is different.

Sometimes people have already worked in the social impact space. Maybe they've been working in the industry for 15, 20 years and they are kind of at a place where they want to do something different. Or maybe they've been working in one industry for a long time and they finally reached the point where they're like, I don't think I'm making as big of an impact as I would like to make.

So that's kind of a big question that I get. Sometimes it's early career folks, maybe recent graduates that have just graduated maybe with an environmental science degree or even are in technology, but care a lot about climate and the environment and want to figure out how to land their first job in the space but need some assistance. And then I think there's also mid-career people, maybe people that are generalists that have had a lot of different skill sets or held a lot of different roles that are like, look, I can do anything, I just don't know what it is that I want to do, or I don't know how to find that next thing.

So that first step of what coaching looks like, it's kind of different, but I think the first step across the board is having a conversation with me or like any other coach, really to assess like, what's the challenge that you're experiencing? Is it that you've already applied to jobs and that's really hard itself? Is it that you've tried to update your resume or your resume is like your worst enemy and you don't want to work on it, so you need help with that?

Or is it that you're actually landing a ton of interviews, but you're not getting any offers? There could be like so many different challenges. And of course, I think the biggest one is, I want to make a difference, but I don't know what to do.

I don't know how my skills can make a difference. I think that's like a really big one that I hear a lot of the time. So the first step is having a conversation.

And I have a lot of those 15 to 20 minute long introduction calls where I'm getting to know people's challenges, what they've tried, what's worked and what hasn't worked. And in a 20 minute conversation, I can actually normally diagnose like, this is what the challenge is, this is what the true issue is, and this is what we can do together to resolve that.

How does your company make money?

Yeah. So I work with both, I have like a B2C and a B2B angle for my business. And the beautiful thing here that I was excited to have the opportunity to talk about being a solo entrepreneur or solo printer.

In doing so, being the only person that operates and runs this business, I have a lot of flexibility in terms of the business model that I run and the ways that I work with people. And so on the B2C side, working with other companies, I work with a lot of different climate companies that are either in the recruiting space. For example, I've worked with an organization called Earth Advisors, which is a climate recruiting agency, helping place top talent with climate startups, even government agencies, things like that.

And then on the other hand, I've also worked with climate education organizations like Terra.do, and Sustainability Service Corps, which is along the lines of Climate Corps, AmeriCorps program. So with B2C, I develop partnerships, I reach out to people that are already doing the work of building the climate workforce, build those relationships to see if there are any gaps in their needs or if their audiences need help with anything. And I would say it's very, it's done very much through building organic relationships that are rooted in trust and very regenerative in nature.

So that's one way that I make money in my business. And then the other angle is one-on-one coaching programs. I have a three-month coaching program.

I also do one hour long strategy calls with people. I have a few different programs where people can work with me for a short amount of time or for a longer amount of time. And I worked with around 35 one-on-one clients last year.

And then that, I think the rest of the 350 people or so in the last two years, very much has been around group coaching and group workshops and things like that that I've delivered with B2C partners.

I have a quick question.

Yeah.

In your experience coming out of working in the tech industry, and now you've had exposure with a lot of people coming from different industries trying to get into climate, or what would you say one of the main differences, what is the main difference that really makes the climate industry different to work in, positive or negative?

Yeah, I love this question. Okay, maybe it's a hot take and maybe it's not. But I think that if you want to work in climate, you have to be committed to building a better world.

Climate is not the industry where you're going to come in, you're going to build something, you're going to exit, you're going to make a ton of money. In my opinion, this is not the place. Ethically, I'm like, you just shouldn't be doing that in climate in particular.

But even outside of that, if we don't look at ethics or whatever, I'm like, I don't think that climate is the place where you can do that, because we need long-lasting solutions, we need intersectional solutions, we need multi-solving solutions. And what I mean by that is every single piece of the equation is interconnected, and there's no silver bullet here for climate solutions, and there's also no one and done. So I really think for climate, like the differentiator here is we can't just come in, build a piece of technology, and then leave or go do something different.

We need all of our systems to be redesigned, and we need all of our systems to be cooperative. And I say systems in this case, but I think at the end of the day, it's really we need people to be cooperative, we need people to be working collaboratively to be able to build a better, more equitable and stronger and resilient world. And I think that is the most energizing part of this work, especially when, you know, if we look at what the layoffs happening at the federal level and all of the kind of changes that we're witnessing with the new administration, I'm just like the best time to work in climate was yesterday, even better time is today.

And I'm, you know, it's like, I think there's, you can look at it from a lens of fear and uncertainty, which is real. And you can also look at it from an angle of there is so much opportunity to do things differently. And immense opportunity to do things creatively in ways that they haven't been done before.

And that's like the most energizing part. And I think the biggest differentiator of climate from other industries.

You broke the seal, you mentioned the elephant in the room. I think we're scared. I think a lot of people are really, if they weren't in environmental or climate work already, you know, a good friend of mine was like, just got his PhD in plant pathology.

And he was all set to just like, all right, that's my career path. But we're, oh, uh-oh, there's suddenly the well may be gone dry. So where do you, are you hearing a lot of stuff like that?

I think what I am seeing, what I've been witnessing, obviously at the federal level, they have changed a lot of funding structures. They've kind of canceled, you know, funding going from the federal level down to non-profits, local organizations. All of that is in flux right now.

I think they, and I think that, you know, that connects to not only non-profits, but also start-ups, how all this work gets done. That's what funding is about, right? So I'm seeing a lot of changes in that landscape, but what I'm not seeing is the funding going away.

What I'm seeing is, what I've seen a ton, actually literally today alone, I saw so many new funding projects get announced. It's actually really, really incredible. Yes, there is, and I can pull up my LinkedIn and share links afterwards too, but I've seen a ton of new funding structures that are coming out, maybe from the VC world, from philanthropies, from non-profits that have been doing this work for a very long time that I think are almost know what to do in this situation.

And I think the easy way of saying that is just a redirection of funds. If they are not coming from the federal level, where else can we find them? And I think a lot of people are already doing the work to find those funds, reallocate them to where it's needed, or even open up opportunities for organizations to apply for funding.

So that, I think, is a really big thing that I've noticed, is people are already stepping up to say, we are not going to let this stop us, and we're going to find ways to collaborate, and as a collective, fund solutions that we believe in as well.

It brings to mind prohibition, where alcohol was illegal, but you'd have clubs open up like, alcohol, we don't serve alcohol. We have a cover charge for our theater performance that we're doing, that maybe people bring their own thing in, we don't know. And there's all this sort of dancing around it like that.

Are you seeing that kind of thing happening? I feel like there's a lot of sort of real cautious renaming of things.

Yes. And I was going to talk about language. Like languages, that question just made me think about renaming, but also like what are the ways in which we're talking about this work?

And it's really interesting because this is also, when I worked in the first Trump administration, I worked with EPA, I worked with DOE, I worked with EPA the first time that he was trying to defund them. And we were still able to do work. Of course, there was a stress on top of everything, but the work that we were doing with EPA was around, how do you build technologies that are using EPA open data to help communities on the ground understand and actually make changes around specific challenges that they're having?

Clear example is air quality. In places like LA, where air quality is a really big challenge, not only from the fires, but from pollution, air quality monitoring is a lifeline. It's really important for communities to understand their air quality and work to be able to improve it.

So we worked with EPA to access their open data. It was already open, accessible data, but we worked with technologists to actually use that data to build different types of technologies that can help communities on the ground actually monitor and understand their local air quality and improvements to it and what they can do about it. And we did this work in the first Trump administration.

Now, air quality, in my opinion, is absolutely related to climate change. But that was the whole thing. We couldn't say climate change, but we could say air quality.

We could say community health. Like there were a lot of other terms that we could use. And I think this is like a really important part of the work right now is that this work is not going to stop because we can't say the words.

It's not going to stop because we lose the funding. The work only stops if we stop doing the work. And I think that is, you know, the change that we'll have to make here is what is the language that we're using to describe this.

And the English language has a lot of words. We can find other words. I am confident.

And I really want to emphasize that using those other words is not erasure. It is, in my opinion, survival. We have to do what we need to do to continue doing this work.

And when the moment comes that we can use the right words, we'll use them. But if that means we have to change our language ever so slightly to continue doing this work, then let's do it. So if that means we can keep fighting for climate change and air quality and diversity, equity and inclusion, let's keep going.

But we can change our language ever so slightly.

It's a slightly different thing, but ESG comes up a lot these days. And it's a different name, but it's kind of the same thing. But it's a little coded for now until they catch us.

No more ESG, and whatever.

And then we'll call it something else.

Right, I know. We'll call it notebooks or whatever.

Yeah. I think it's interesting too to also note too, like a lot of people, and maybe this is the case with your PhD friend too, but I'm like, I just want to emphasize too, like climate work is not new. I think a lot of people coming into this space are like, oh, climate tech or like climate change work or climate work.

Everyone's like, oh, what is this? And I'm like, environmentalism has been around for centuries. It's not a new area of work necessarily.

I think what I like to tell people is like, there's new language, right? There's new language, there's new ways of working, and maybe even the really large VC investment into climate technology that we've seen in the last few years. That is new, especially if we're seeing the numbers of VC funding that went in, the new technology that's come out.

Yes, there is a newness to it, but I think at its basis, the most basic level, climate change is environmental work and environmental conservation and restoration and forest protection. All that has been around for ages. And I think all of this work is an extension of not only protecting the land, but protecting people, health, community.

Like these are all things that have been going on for a long time. So that's another place where I find comfort. And even though it's a scary time, this work has already happened for so long.

We can survive another four years.

Let's take a quick break.

Transitioning to a greener economy could create 24 million new jobs by 2030, according to the International Labor Organization. And about 30% of roles in the climate space don't require technical expertise. Skills in marketing, sales, policy, business operations, or communications are in high demand.

That means your experience might already be more relevant to you than you think. If you're curious about diving into climate work, here are a few ideas to get started. Research and apply for roles in rapidly growing sectors like renewable energy, EV infrastructure, and carbon markets.

These areas are booming with opportunities for fresh talent. Volunteering with climate-focused nonprofits is a great way to build relevant experience, expand your network, and see firsthand what climate work looks like. And remember, networking is key.

Eighty-five percent of jobs are filled through connections. Communities like My Climate Journey, Work on Climate, and Terra.do are fantastic slack communities to meet like-minded individuals and learn from others already in the field. You can find the links in the episode notes.

Three years and 50 weeks now.

I have an opinion, I have an opinion. I think, you know, we felt this during the last Trump administration. And at the end of it, it was very painful, there was a lot of change, there was a lot of struggle.

But what I think came out of that was a lot of innovation. Like, but if we can't rely on public funds, and we still want to get this out. So this is where we started to see this huge increase in for-profit models, right?

And then the VC dollars kind of came after that. And then when Biden got into office, the public funds came on top of that. And then the VC dollars just exploded after, you know, because public funds and their private funds are safer.

So, you know, I'm holding on to that, right? Like we will just adapt and change. And when the doors open again, we're going to run five times faster.

Exactly. Exactly. I'm with you.

I agree. I hope you're right. And my friend of mine, different friend, after the election was like, well, it just goes to show you, you can't just run on, hey, at least I'm not this guy, you know?

And it was funny, but what I took from that was like, yeah, we have to have something on the shelf. We have to have some real ideas, some real research, some real money behind it, you know, and not just go, this is wrong or I don't agree with this or that, you know? Switching gears a little bit, did you find a mentor or mentors in when you're kind of coming up?

Yeah. So I would say I've had a lot of mentors throughout my career, especially in like my early days as a technologist, I had a lot of different like design mentors or design leaders that I followed. Also, it's worth noting, I used to be in DC, I was in DC for eight years, and now I live in Richmond, Virginia.

So just two hours south, I'm like not that far. But I participated in a program called AIGA. They had a mentorship program.

It was for designers in particular. And I think, you know, leaning into those like those professional associations, like AIGA, there was like a UX design professional association as well. Those really helped me in my early career of understanding.

Obviously, you know, overcoming imposter syndrome was a big one. But also, you know, how do I navigate the next steps in my career? What career options do I have in front of me?

And even understanding, like, what are other challenges that people are experiencing in their day-to-day, whether they're at my career level or another career level, I think. So yeah, so mentorship has been really, really a big deal for me in my entire career. And I would say the same, you know, as a coach as well.

I've really leaned on the expertise of other coaches, asked a lot of other coaches, you know, how they run their own businesses, how they get clients. The same questions you're asking me. I've like sat down and talked to so many coaches about how they do their work as well.

And it's, it's always been very eye-opening to hear how other people run their own businesses. And I think a really beautiful part of this is like success looks different for everyone. And that's, I think, another thing that I really love about being a solo solopreneur is that, it's kind of interesting.

When I, I spent the first two years being like, I'm a founder, I'm an entrepreneur. And I would say that, and then all the things that I would see were like, okay, like how to scale your business and sell, or like how to do, like how to apply for like this accelerator to build a product. And I was kind of like, that's not what I'm doing though.

Like that's not what my coaching business is. And so I just recently, in the last three months, found the word solopreneur and landed on it. And now that I really like identify as that.

And now that I know that I've actually found like other mentors and communities that are supporting solopreneurs. And one of them is this really incredible one called the Email Collective. It's founded by this really incredible woman named Lily Graf.

And it's an online community of all solopreneurs, people that are running their own businesses, either as coaches, consultants, artists. It's a really interesting group of people. And I just joined that group in January, and I've actually already seen the results of just like having a collective of people that are doing something similar.

That's cool. Yeah, getting their help. And the cool thing is it's, Email stands for Impact Maker.

So it's all solopreneurs, all in the social impact space. Definitely some climate but some other sectors as well. And participating either like having a one-on-one mentor or participating in those sorts of communities have been super helpful.

Yeah, it's so powerful when you finally like, I was a UX designer as well. And I didn't know that's what it was. And like till somebody said that phrase to me like in 2009 or something, like, oh, you might be a UX designer.

I'm like, a what?

Yeah.

Like opened up, oh, there's a whole community of those people. And that's, there's a hundred books and blah, blah, blah, you know. So it's so great that that power of like, oh, I'm this.

Yeah.

Head blows off and now we're off to the races, you know?

Exactly. And sometimes it just takes like, we're talking so much about language, right? Like, you may not know the language because you're earlier in your career, or you're not in a specific, you don't have a specific title, but you're like doing 10 jobs in one, right?

But it just takes someone else to be like, hey, you're actually doing this. And then a whole other world of opportunity opens up. And it's like that power of someone else's language or like someone else's knowledge like showing you that.

I think it's, yeah, mentorship is so powerful.

And I think that opens up to a great place of what I wanted to get into, which is the abundance of opportunity that is out there. And we don't know that it is. I mean, you know, a lot of people, if you said I'm working in the environment for the environment, it's like, oh, I install solar panels or I build wind turbines, which both are awesome.

I would love to do either one of those things. But there's, you know, and then like when we started at Terra, you know, Kristin and I both were like, oh, there's this whole world of choice, of directions you can go in that can really, you know, people already have the skills for, you know. Yes.

So, yeah, I wonder if you can speak on a bit of that sort of abundance of choice and helping the, you know, you used the phrase matchmaking in your bio. So like, how does that go for you?

Yeah, absolutely. Yes, I love this question. Abundance of choice is correct.

And I actually, yeah, one thing I want to mention too, is I recently read a book called Urban Shaman, and it was a book that I picked up at a free library in Sardinia. Again, I was like, it was the most, like random of random things that could have happened. But I read this book and it was about, it uses practices of Hawaiian shamanism, and kind of contextualizes them in the modern day of thinking and living.

And it was very interesting. And there was a page or chapter entirely on the power of choice. And I mentioned this because there was a really powerful passage in it that talked about how, you know, I think aversion to choice, so like people being afraid to make a choice or a decision, it's very normal.

I think we all experience decision paralysis in one shape or form in our lives. And the book talks about how our fear of making that decision is not actually about the decision itself, but it is about the fear of judgment around that decision or the fear of us not enjoying the outcome of that decision. And it makes total sense, but that paragraph blew my mind because it helped me.

It just, again, put into words the thing that I was already thinking. And I think that is another example of what I'm seeing here right now with the amount of opportunity and the amount of choice that we have. But it's almost paralyzing to be like, I can do anything.

I can have a farm and I can farm every single day, but am I going to make any money? And maybe I won't and I'm going to be miserable, or maybe I'll be super happy. Or do I want to go spend four years going and getting a master's degree so I can have this expertise?

And then you go and do that, and then maybe you didn't enjoy it, or maybe you're not getting the results you wanted necessarily. So going back to this thing that I learned from this book, it's really just more about, instead of being so focused on the decision and almost fearing the outcome, whether it's good or bad, I think the reality is actually sitting with the power that you have in that choice and decision, and forming solace with yourself no matter the outcome. And I think that is a big thing that goes into mindset.

What is the mindset that you have when you are pursuing the job search? What is the mindset that you have when you get a job, and it maybe isn't perfect, but what are the opportunities within that space for you to change something? And so all that being said, I think when I think about abundance of choice, I think about a few stories that I think about of people that I've worked with, that I've coached, or just colleagues in the space.

And a lot of people oftentimes are like, okay, the best way for me to work in climate is to get a job. I'm going to get a job that's 100 percent climate focused. And you can, yeah, that's one way.

That's certainly one way and you can definitely do that. And I also want to say that a lot of people are trying that and it's hard right now. It's been hard for a few years.

The job market has been difficult in every industry, including climate, including tech. So I think that, I think a lot of people are like, oh, well, I did all this stuff and I want to get a job in climate. And for me as a coach, I'm like, yes, let's get you there.

And in the interim, what else can you do? And I think another angle to this is, maybe if you're struggling or like maybe you're not even ready to leave your current job and get a climate job. The other angles to this work are maybe you take on freelance work, or you take on fractional consulting work where you are dabbling in climate work or dabbling with different types of work or roles that you haven't had before, and you even get the chance to see if it's the right fit for you.

This could be an experiment across the board of, do I want to work for a non-profit? Maybe do a part-time gig with them, and you're like, you know what? I don't know that I actually want to work in a non-profit anymore, and that's valuable.

That's a really valuable experience. And then the other angle of this, too, is in what ways can you integrate climate into the work that you are already doing? And I think of people like Drew Wilkinson, who literally started a small group of climate-focused and climate-mission-oriented people at Microsoft, grew that to 10,000 people, and he was able to internally pressure Microsoft to make changes around climate initiatives and climate promises that they had made.

And they did that from the inside. And so, I think there's so many angles to this work of, like, when we're thinking about levers of impact, getting a job in climate is only one of them. There's so many other ways.

And of course, now if we even remove the context of work, volunteering at a local food pantry, volunteering at a local farm, building a community farm, getting involved in local politics or local government to advocate for certain laws or policies, like all of those things have a place in this work. And you don't have to quit your day job to be able to make an impact and do this work as well. So I think all this being said, with the abundance of choice that we have, I think it comes down to, well, at the end of the day, like, what is it that you enjoy doing?

And what is it that energizes you in this kind of difficult time that we're in? And I think leading with the energy and the joy, like, dare I say we have fun when we build a better world? Dare I say we have fun?

So I think that's a really big part of this, of like, you know, there's coulda, woulda, shoulda, like, always, but if you lead with what it is that you are most interested in, what you are most passionate about, that will be seen in your work. And you will feel the effects of that, whether you are volunteering or whether it's a full-time job as well.

I want to add to the volunteering. It can be, you can volunteer with your own work skillset. Yes.

You would be surprised how you, many non-profits need help and resources. And if you can commit five hours a week and you can approach a non-profit and say, hey, I love what you do. I have five hours a week.

Here's my skillset. Like I'm in marketing, you know, I volunteer with Clean Tech Open, which is a clean tech accelerator. It's opened a million doors for me.

I get to go to these amazing events and meet a wonderful, very passionate, just absolutely impressive people. But I also get to start building credibility. Like, oh, my skillset applies in this space, and I can show that now with real results that I've driven.

Yes, absolutely. And I think one other thing I'll add to that too is, a lot of what I just kind of described, what you talked about, Kristen, like to me, this is alchemy. This is taking one thing and transmuting it into something else.

Maybe that is a person that you're working with them, you're turning that into a long-term relationship, partnership across different organizations or the work. Or maybe it's you take a volunteer opportunity, you are offering your skillset, your time, and that transmutes or translates into a full-time opportunity or a paid opportunity or a referral. Same thing even with Drew's story about building capacity within Microsoft.

He now runs his own business helping other people do that, build capacity within their own organizations as well. So a lot of, as I mentioned at the beginning, I spent today doing some business operations, business strategy, thinking about things for myself. And a big thing for me as I move into scaling my business in 2025 is, my work is rooted in alchemy.

How do I help people alchemize opportunity or alchemize relationships that they already have? I think this is a really beautiful part of all this is, we already have the skills that we need. We possibly already have all the knowledge and resources that we need.

It's simply about translating that into the materials, the resources, the technologies, the funding, all these different levers we need to move this work forward. So yeah, a lot of, I feel like what we're talking about to me translates into being alchemy and like alchemizing opportunity either in my work as a coach or through all these different types of collaborations.

What do you feel brings you joy first of all?

Yeah, let's see what brings me joy. Well, I am, my Myers-Briggs test is ENFJ. So all that means is that I love talking to people and I love helping people.

I think from a young age, I have always kind of gravitated towards helping people. And it's taken a lot of different forms throughout my career. Like there's lots of different ways to help people obviously.

But I think now that I'm running my own business and my business operates on helping people, that is my entire mission. I think it brings me a lot of joy to help people with their own child, like overcome their challenges or get back in touch with their like inner confidence, kind of unlock that for people. That brings me a lot of joy.

And I think creative problem solving is a big one. And when I say creative, I mean like wacky creativity. I mean like building a crazy thing that you've never seen before just because you think it's fun or it like unlocks a new idea for you.

And I think for me, what that looks like is outside of coaching, I'm a DJ and I DJ in Richmond, I've DJed in DC. Yes. And so like this is like totally, it's funny, it's like outside the context of work.

But the more and more I think about it, I'm like all these things are actually directly related to each other. I think in times like these, we need places to dance, we need place to release tension in our bodies. And to me, DJing is a very creative outlet for me to take not only stress, but like it's a feedback loop of creativity and creation and inspiration.

And music and dance has been a really big part of my life. I started performing when I was two years old on a stage, and it's just kind of a cultural element of my upbringing. And DJing kind of brings all these different parts of myself together.

And it's kind of funny, let's see, last year at New York Climate Week, I actually reached out to the organizers of the Climate Tech Cocktails Party, which was the opening kickoff of the week. And I got to DJ at the Climate Tech Cocktails kickoff party of New York Climate Week. And so this is what I mean by wacky creativity.

Why would a climate career coach be DJing at New York Climate Week? Why not? Why not combine all these different parts of ourselves?

And so yeah, I think DJing brings me a lot of joy, and it's a very community focused craft as well. So I've been teaching other people how to DJ. My dream is to DJ at a farm, and have a series of videos or something, maybe concerts at a farm or something.

So hopefully, that'll happen in the future.

That'd be really cool. Can you talk a little more about the impact that you have had, not necessarily in statistics, but in humans that you've helped?

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So in the context of, so I have a three-month coaching program.

It's called Land My Dream Job in Climate. And I have had the pleasure of working with really incredible people, I'd say that are mostly like mid to senior career, that I think are experiencing those challenges that I mentioned before, of people that have done something for a really long time and want to do something different, or people that are generalists, multi-talented, and want to break into climate, but don't know which of their skills to use or which skills to focus on. And I would say through the different people that I've worked with in that program, I'll need to look up exact numbers, but every single person that I worked with in 2024, that worked with me in a three-month program, every single one of them landed interviews at companies of interest.

And I want to expand this a little bit too. Most of my work is climate, and some of it also goes into social impact. And to me, I'm like, the two are very well connected.

But sometimes that's been more like on the philanthropy side or on the nonprofit side with an organization that touches on climate, but has a bunch of other challenge areas that they work on as well. So for me, a really big one that I'm realizing now is like, people are able to land interviews when they work with me. And a handful of those have also turned into full-time job offers that people have accepted as well.

So that's something that I'm really proud of. And then at the same time, too, it's like, again, getting the job isn't the only angle of success here. I've also worked with a lot of incredible, incredible people that also struggle with confidence, that struggle with being able to tell their story and kind of own the different parts of their story.

So a lot of what I do with people is kind of myth-busting, right? Like, what are the myths that you've been told about your own career or that you believe, especially for mid to senior career folks, right, that are maybe a little older and that are like, oh, I should be doing this or my peers are doing this, is kind of that, maybe again, imposter syndrome or those myths that are kind of drilled into us from an early age. So a lot of what I do is kind of help people deconstruct those myths, whether it's life experiences or it's things that they've been told, and a big part of deconstructing that is actually helping them find the parts of their story, the parts of their career that they are most proud of.

And it's really just pulling out the things that people have already done, that they already know, and celebrating that and uplifting that. So that is at the top of their mind instead of maybe the external pressures, the things that people are telling them, any failures or anything that might be top of mind in the job search. We are trans, we're moving that.

Instead of failures being at the top, we're putting successes at the top, and those successes are self defined. So I think that's a really big part of what I do, and it's such a joy to see people kind of come back in touch with themselves, honor their journey, like get excited, build their confidence. And that's something, yeah, I really enjoy, and I've been able to witness kind of that change in the people that I've worked with for over three months.

That's really great. Is it possible to share an example of one of these job myths?

Yeah, let's see. I think the first one that I think of and it comes up a lot is that I don't have a linear career path. I hear people say that all the time.

Honestly, early, mid, and senior career folks, I hear it at every career level of, I don't have a linear career path, so how can I move into this other industry? Or why would they interview or look at a candidate like me if I don't have a linear career path? And I think that's a really big myth, that there's a singular process of go to school, get a degree, get an internship, do this, work in this job, then maybe go back to school.

Or maybe you go to school, you do undergrad, then you do master's, and you do PhD, and then you're at a specific level. I think that the systems around us, education system, culture, whatever it is, have kind of created those outlines that then make us think that that's the only way of moving forward. But I would say again, I'm like out of the 400 people that I've worked with over three years, I want to say 80 percent of those people did not have linear career paths.

Sure. It's so common. It's so common.

And I say this too from my angle of, I also didn't have a linear career path. I'm, at the beginning, I said I'm a serial career changer with a big squiggly career path of a journey.

I love that.

Yeah. And like I own that. And I think part of that is, it takes time and it takes building confidence to own that part of your story.

There's no need for it to happen overnight. But I think that's the biggest myth that I feel. People come to me and they're like, well, I can't do this, or how can I do this when I don't have a linear career path?

And so I'm just like, okay, let's break that.

Yeah.

Let's break this myth because it's not needed and it's not helping.

It's such a silly line of thinking because eventually, like you're going to look back and go, oh, it could have only happened that way for me to get here, and for my job path to be all over the place. You know, in 10 years from now, it's going to be the perfect background for X job or X life.

I think it ties back into that cultural pressure you were talking about. Like that story isn't just in the individual you're talking to. When I decided to pivot into climate, I got a lot of cultural pressure, social pressure.

Peer from my, not just my social peers, but my career peers were like, we're worried about you. What are you going to do? Like the assumption that I was blowing up my entire life and I wasn't.

I was really happy and excited. Same with you. I think I kind of hit, not burnout physically, but burnout emotionally.

Like I just can't get out of bed for this anymore. But, you know, and that was it. Like there was this, culturally, I just got a lot of pushback that I was not following that outline anymore.

And so I don't think it was a confidence issue. I think it was actually what, I mean, I had someone take me out to dinner to tell me they were concerned about me. You know, so I think it's amazing that you work with people and help them get through that.

Because when I was going through it, I felt very alone. So people, people were not supportive. People were supportive.

People love me and they want me to be happy. But the general consensus is that it was a mistake.

And it's the same with the whole, what about this gap in your resume problem?

Exactly.

Like, especially after COVID, like, are we even worried about that anymore?

Yeah. And I think, I think it was during or after COVID, LinkedIn actually added the feature to put career break on the LinkedIn profile. That wasn't a feature before too.

So same thing, that is a very common question I get. I've worked with quite a few mothers returning to the workforce. I've worked with people that take career breaks for any sort of reason.

Parenthood is an awesome reason to take a break. And there's also so many other ones caring for your family members that are unwell, traveling the world, like you name it. There are so many reasons to just take a break from working, and there's nothing wrong with it.

And at this point, I would be fine with going, yeah, I just ran out of gas, and I need a year off and deal with it.

Yeah, exactly, exactly.

Does it feel like a grind at times for you, or do you find motivation in what you do?

I love what I do, and I'm so lucky and fortunate to be able to say that. I think the areas that maybe feel like a grind are the things that I feel like I'm not good at, which is I'm still learning all the marketing and how to run a newsletter, and these are all things that I'm trying to build out and learn. But I'm really learning now, too, three years in, that I'm like, I really can't do it alone.

So I've started, joining EMA Collective was a big one for me this year, and I've actually hired someone to help me with some of this stuff as well, which feels like a big deal as a solopreneur, to hire anyone to help me with anything. But I think that's been a big realization, is like, I love all of this, but I also can't do everything. I can't do all the writing, all the marketing, and then all the business development, which honestly, I'm doing all of those things right now.

But I'm really trying to figure out how do I streamline and grow the operations without putting more of a burden on myself. And even honestly, even just saying that, it is such a joy. It is such a joy for me to say, I started this business three years ago and now I'm scaling it.

And I didn't know three years ago that I would be here, that business would be going well, and that I'd be able to help this many people. So I feel lucky, I feel so honored to be able to be doing this work. And it brings me a lot of joy and brings me a lot of flexibility.

And I think that was a big part of why I started my business. The number one thing was I wanted full ownership over my time. After having worked in government for so many different people, so many different teams, I was just like, I want to own my time and I want to be able to take off whenever I want.

I'm not going to count vacation days. I couldn't be bothered. And I've been able to kind of integrate that into the work that I do and really kind of design my business around the life that I want to lead, which is around creativity, connection, family, and helping people.

So I'm, yeah, I'm very happy and I love my job and I love what I get to do because I get to work with absolutely incredible people. And I hold that it's very important to me the work that I do. So I hold, like anyone that comes to me, I'm like, you will be safe because I value the fact that you even came to me in the first place.

That's a great place to end it. I'm trying to end it every episode with this question. Cast your job as a workplace sitcom.

Who plays you?

Oh, my gosh, I'm going to have to say Parks and Rec, and I feel like I'm Leslie Knope.

Yeah.

Because I'm that person that's just like, no, but you guys, we can do anything. There is a way forward. There's no setback here.

We're always going to push through. I think I have a slightly, I think I have a calmer demeanor than Leslie Knope, but I think I have the same energy of like, we're going to do this. I don't care what's in our way.

We're going to get you to your goal. We're going to do it together. I'm going to introduce you to people that can help you.

Let's get you there. So yeah, I'd say Parks and Rec, Leslie Knope would probably be my business as a sitcom.

Yeah. Now I see it. You show up with a big three-ring binder and stuff like that.

Yeah. Radhika, it's a pleasure to speak to you. Thank you so much.

We always end up like, what would be one piece of advice you're giving you would give to people who are interested? So will you ask that question?

Yeah.

Jeff, will you ask it?

Yes, sorry. And if you have any advice to, you probably do this all day long. People who want to pivot into climate action, what would that be?

Yes. I think my biggest piece of advice is actually coming from this speaker and author that I really admire. His name is Bayo Akomolafe, and he has this really beautiful essay called A Slower Urgency.

And the first sentence is, the times are urgent, so we must slow down. And that, I would say, is my biggest piece of advice right now. In a time where everything feels like it is literally burning around us and uncertainty, maybe you're not feeling safe, maybe you're feeling scared, it is okay to not jump into action right away.

I think it is okay to sit with those feelings, sit with your people, be with your community, talk about your feelings, figure out, like drink some water, eat a meal, go to sleep, and then wake up the next day and start again. And for the context of those listening that maybe got laid off recently, or are in fear of layoffs, or just thinking about all of this in general, I think it is very valuable to take that moment to slow down, to actually assess what is it that you want? Is it that you want another job, or is there something that you can do where you are already?

Or are there different angles of what you're looking for that already exist? Or if you want to create something new, how can you do that as well? So I think my number one piece of advice right now is to slow down, think about what it is that you want, and actually define that before we're kind of jumping in to the job search and things like that.

And maybe what I'll say at the end too is, if you need help, I'm here. I'm obviously on LinkedIn, I have a website, you can find me, but send me a message to anyone listening. I'll just say, send me a message.

Talk, come talk to me, and we can figure out a path forward for you.

And once again, that's Saathe Studio, S-A-A-T-H-E studio.com. And that's where you can find Radhika.

Yes, thank you.

Thank you so much, and have a great night. Thanks again.

Thank you so much.

Thanks for listening to Team Climate. We hope you enjoyed this conversation. We are not professional podcasters, just passionate about sharing these stories.

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