E28: Internal work is necessary for external success with Dr. Caroline Sangal

 “Outwardly successful, inwardly unfulfilled.”

In this conversation, Dr. Caroline Sangal shares her transformative journey from a successful career in polymer science to becoming a career architect and life coach. She discusses the predictable stages of career transitions, the importance of self-discovery, and the need for work-life integration. Dr. Sangal emphasizes that authentic success is about understanding one's true self and aligning it with one's work. She introduces her Next Success Method, which focuses on mental fitness, communication styles, and personal values. The conversation highlights the significance of community support and collaboration in achieving personal and professional growth.

Check out Caroline's work:

https://nextsuccesscareers.com/

Connect with Caroline on LinkedIn: 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/caroline-sangal/

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:12

Outwardly successful, inwardly unfulfilled. That's where today's conversation begins. Our guest Carolyn built a career solving problems until she realized she had become the problem she was trying to outrun. For years, beneath the achievements and titles, there was a quiet rage simmering. Being everything for everyone else eventually led to a breaking point, one to where she literally put a hole in the wall. In this episode, we explore what happens when changing jobs doesn't fix what's broken because the same problems show up in new roles, with new faces. From mistaking emotional pain for physical illness to masking exhaustion behind the appearance of success, we talk about career transitions, chosen and forced, in the moment when work can't be trusted after success is followed by a layoff. This conversation isn't about quitting, it's about redefining what quitting actually means, choosing yourself and rebuilding performance, relationships, and well-being from the inside out so you don't kill yourself. Fair warning, this one might mess with your mind in the best way possible. Let's roll right in. All right, welcome to the Work Sucks But I Like It podcast. Today we have Dr. Carolyn Sangle. She has a PhD in polymer science, is the founder of Next Success, is a life first career coach, and is also a host of the podcast show, Your Next Success. Carolyn, welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_00 1:35

Thank you so much for having me, Tony. I was like fascinated from the moment you first messaged me. I'm like, yes, let's do it. Let's go.

SPEAKER_01 1:44

Well, same here. I love on your site, it says from researcher to career architect. So can you walk us through that loaded statement there, please? A lot to unpack there. Let's start with that word, please.

SPEAKER_00 1:57

Yeah, let's start with it. Okay, so um, firstly, what I've come to find out is career transitions and questioning your career happens at normal, predictable stages. We're all familiar with perhaps the 18-year-old one, maybe the 22-year-old one, maybe 22 can expand to 26, depending. Okay, so researcher to uh career architect. Back in the day, I grew up in the 80s and 90s, and there was a huge push for women in science. And in school, I did well in math, science, and a multitude of other things. My father had, I thought maybe I wanted to be a teacher. And he's like, girl, you don't need to be an educator to educate. You may have something where you can help people all throughout your life, but uh, you have something special when it comes to math and science. So I listened to his and his very well-meaning advice. And I went in to first get a bachelor's in chemistry, ended up with that PhD in polymer science, you know, just ended up with it. Um, but I mean, I loved, loved and still love the scientific method. I apply it just pretty differently in how I do things. I wanted to try to figure things out. I thought I was interested in materials and and and I am. And I also had this uh beautiful gift of extroversion and being able to connect with people, maybe perhaps differently or or on a different level than some of my introverted peers in science. And so first I thought, aha, this is gonna be my in. I'm gonna learn all the things that these people are doing and be able to help communicate it to others or to the world about how awesome it is it is and why it matters. And um took a few iterations of that approach to really realize that my purpose is not, even though I could do science and I could do it really well, even I and I still do, you know, research, it's just applied. But I was made for more of helping bring others along, helping them to realize how awesome they are, how everything that's been given to them is a starting point that you can build skills on later and just really um like what would it be like? Work sucks, right? And I like it, right? Or I like the pay, but what would it be like if 80% of the workforce was not dissatisfied in their jobs? Like if we're leaning into all the awesomeness that makes us us? Like, how much better would our lives be, our family, our friends, our community, the world? Like, what remarkable discoveries can we unlock if people are just who they are?

SPEAKER_01 4:45

So, how did you come to realize this? Did you see it in yourself? Did you see it in somebody else? Like, walk us through that, please. It's a cool transformation there.

SPEAKER_00 4:55

It's been a few decades. Just hold on. But you're already on this, um, but you're on this um yourself, like a few decades ahead of where I started to realize it embraced more.

SPEAKER_01 5:05

No rushing.

SPEAKER_00 5:06

So I'm I can't wait to see where where you end up going. But you know, I I did what I thought was success. I I, you know, I pushed it in high school, and I thought, okay, I'm gonna be that high school valedictorian 91234. Oh, now you know how old I am. That right there, that's gonna be my picture. And I worked hard and I and I got it there. Well, it my picture is actually one space over because lo and behold, for the first time in all the years of the that high school, there was a tie one year. And I'm like, how can there be a tie, man? Like, I took the hard stuff. This guy, lovely, um, took slightly different classes. But I, and then in school and getting the chemistry and then getting the PhD, like I pushed it hard and I did it and I could do it, and I could do it well. But there's this recurring theme I started to notice even then: outwardly successful, inwardly unfulfilled. Um I found myself becoming involved in so many extracurricular activities in school. So, like, that would be my fun. And then I would do what I had to do. So, like, I'm talking 16 organizations had leadership positions in 11 just because like I didn't know how else to survive uh, you know, doing that thing you're supposed to do, and you feel like you should do it because you could do it. Um, even in um working, I worked for about a decade in the chemical industry, and I still had some of those feelings of um, I mean, I actually started in chemical engineering. I could do that, but like, my God, they calculate pressure drop through a pipe. And um, looking at some people next to me, like they were really jazzed by it. And I'm like, what the hell? Like, I get it. If I want to wash my car, a short hose gives more pressure. Perfect. Beyond that, I don't care. Like, what's in the pipe, man? Like, why does it matter? Why are the pipes that long anyway? Like, I so I felt feelings in my body that I tried to wrote ride off. Like, is this food poisoning? Um, you know, sleeping extra, staying up late the the night before something's due that I would have known about for a long time, but still pushing to like get everything done. But I was miserable in the process, eating my feelings, distracted by every other thing that I noticed it in myself. Okay, so there was that. Even though there were depending on which angle you looked from, it could have been like, oh, she's got this um, you know, high grades or a fellowship or blah, blah, blah, awards, awesome. But if if you looked at me holistically, you know, my if if I look at pictures from back then and the camera quality wasn't that great, but like my eyes didn't have the brightness. They looked a little more like I'm like there's definitely a mask there. I'm trying to front like I'm something or someone successful. And I didn't feel it. I felt if I perform well enough, maybe I'll finally be enough. Um that that was a a big, I didn't know that's what it was, right?

SPEAKER_01 8:28

So, how did you internalize this and find the courage to kind of steer it a different direction, if you will? I'm really interested in this.

SPEAKER_00 8:37

Yeah. So uh first, uh people can have career transitions uh naturally, right? And then they can happen by choice or by force. So even after my first uh decade in the chemical industry, having had a national fellowship, only one person or all the North America could have, becoming part of this company, leading projects through breakthrough innovation development of the next level generation of structural adhesives, doing things like fatigue and fracture mechanics, watching cracks propagate from metal bonding structural, like seriously, that was a chapter of my life. No one would really believe it. And alas, it was true. But the first thing, uh, there was a by force. I had commercialized in and he said that sold over a million dollars in the first six months. And the reason I can't say beyond the first six months is because I was part of a layoff, me, my two technicians, and 297 other people. So we're talking, I think I was probably like 32, um, still pretty high on the ego and my identity being taught up, taught it caught up in what I did, not who I was. And so that first hit was like, oh my gosh, never did I ever think I would be barefoot pregnant living off the government. And alas, there I was. So, first I'm starting to be like, well, this wasn't it. I worked so hard. I did all the things. I pushed it, you know, I was pregnant with our second kid. I sacrificed a lot being away from our first kid, never thought I was stay-at-home mom material. Now I have the opportunity to stay home and see some of the things I'd been missing, have some time with our first kid before the second one came. And so I just thought, okay, well, screw it. I'll just focus on family now because work can't be trusted. And so then I immersed myself in there and volunteered and um became a lot super helpful room parent of the kids' classrooms and organizing all the field trips and kind of reminiscing of that college experience where like getting to do a lot of the fun things organizing. Um, my husband is the there's the beautiful thing, people. Find a partner who loves you, supports you, challenges you, knows you, wants the best for you, and finds a way to sneak in things that you wouldn't listen to from other people. So he said, uh when our youngest was getting ready to go to kindergarten, you know, you really should think about getting a job. And I literally about bat his head off, like, what the heck, get a job? Like, I didn't go for computer science, man. Like, I went for chemistry. Like, I can't work from home with this kind of a degree. Like, I the kids, they don't have a bus that takes them. It's a charter school. You gotta drop them off, pick them up. I'm room parent, blah, blah, blah. And he said, Look, I'm just saying, if somebody ever has a job or talks to you about a job, don't tell them what you can't do or you won't do. Tell them what you can do or you will do. This is adjustment one. Priming. It was priming me. I didn't even know about a uh three days into that kindergarten. I got a phone call from a recruiter trying to recruit me for my former company's main competitor. Now it'd been a few years out from me working, so it's like non-compete had run out. Um it would have required a rem a move from uh North Carolina to Detroit. I originally came from Ohio. I kind of think Detroit is phenomenal. Um, Henry Ford is there. I mean, like, come on, failure is the opportunity to begin again more intelligently. Like, um, but my husband uh and his family were all so close to where we still live. Um there were sister and brother and sister-in-laws that also were having kids. We had this phenomenal opportunity to have children in an environment with cousins as they grew up. And so I said, no, I'm sorry, but where are you calling from? And I found out that that particular recruitment firm was located not even 10 minutes from my house. So now here, uh here's opening up this like opportunity. I didn't even know exactly like I could have said, man, if I could talk to people about science, if I could help people, if I could have articulated what I'm doing now, I didn't know it could be a job, right? I could have articulated what I was doing in recruiting. I didn't know it would be a job. I thought it might be silly, or I thought I had to do the hard thing. But there became an opportunity where I got to use my knowledge, education, experience, even changing from chemical engineering to chemistry, commercializing products from concept through commercialization, fatigue and fracture, like so many things. And I got to do that. I chose 100% commission only because I'm like, I am fine with betting on myself. And if I choose 100% commission only, then I don't feel like I have to sit in that chair at that office. I feel like I get to sit wherever I want. Y'all should be thankful that I'm helping, you know. Um, so I did that. Uh, I did it for probably nine something years or so globally matchmade between companies and people who were happy in their job. Most of them were not looking for a new job. I used my search and research skills to find those people. There may have been only five in the world that had the capability. Talk to them. What would you love to do next, et cetera, et cetera. And they had this pace setter award that was global, top performer, top two percent. You could win a great vacation, right? And I'm like, somebody dangled an award. Wow. Like, I don't care if it's the ugliest sticker. If there's a sticker that could be achieved, I want. So I wanted this thing. I got these vacations and I'm thinking, okay, I'm helping people, I'm using all these skills, I'm I'm making a difference. Um, and I'm earning vacations that are in February when it's really cheap to get a vacation and no one else could go with me. And so then I'm like, well, shoot, man. Uh now I'm vacationing by myself and my husband's having to take these kids to the school with no bus. Like that didn't feel it. And I'm watching people think changing their job would solve all their problems. And in real, and they were taught-performing people, right? But the reality is, I watched over a period of time that people change their jobs, and it was the same problems they encountered, just on brand new faces. And I'm like, man, something, what is this? Like, again, these are externally successful, very like you would think they had it all, right? And and they did have it all, but they weren't becoming all they could be. And even myself chasing these things of what I thought was success and becoming everything for everybody who I committed to helping, whether it was a client or a candidate. Recruiting for those kind of positions happens on nights and weekends. And so nights and weekends is when my children and my family are here. And I literally, Tony, would be screaming. Like there was this underwritten under the achievement was this like rage that was just simmering. And I was screaming, mommy's on a call. And then like I'd get on the call and be, oh, hi, absolutely. Everything is like not, it was not authentic. So I've come to realize that there's performance, relationships, and well-being. And my performance at many chapters has always been exceptional. My relationships were not what I really wanted them to be. Um, my well-being, um, my body was having, you know, I still like did the sleeping thing, the I had anxiety, depression, um, diagnosed with being neurodivergent, which shows up as anxiety and depression, um, not getting sleep, not taking care of myself, not putting my own oxygen mask on because I didn't even know what I needed. I'm becoming everything for everyone else. And I didn't remember what I liked to do because I didn't have time for that. Um, so I had high blood pressure, and I'm like, well, I guess it's just because I'm getting older. And it was like, well, one medicine, two medicines, three medicines. I developed an irregular heart rate. So I would be sitting, just regular. Like by the time I would go sit, and I'm gonna try to watch like 90-day fiance or some sort of nonsense, right? Because like, doesn't matter if you miss a few minutes, you're good. But my heart would go to 210, 110. I had supraventricular tachycardia. So it would go up to 210, and I would sound like I'm giving childbirth and Lama's breathing, and I'm not. And that's freaking terrifying. So I had a cardiac ablation to do all that, and I'm still not connecting that me pushing success by somebody else's measure is what's causing this. And then here comes my husband again around our 20th wedding anniversary, and he said, um, I am terrified that we are not going to have another anniversary. And I'm thinking, oh shoot, man, like he's super patient. Did I overextend? Like, what's happening? And he said, Because you're killing yourself and the kids don't know who you are. They don't know this ver I know who you are. I remember who you are. But what they're seeing is not you. You know, you're angry, you're yelling, they don't want to be around you. I kind of feel like doing other things too, you know? And I'm like, and so he said, I don't care what you do, um, but figure it out. I'll support you 100%. And I was like thinking, firstly, okay, I'm 100% commission only. If I leave, man, I gotta plan that out way early. Secondly, um, quit would that mean I'm quitting? Like, I don't quit. I'm not a quitter. I'm gonna rise up to something. And then I had to kind of reframe and realize I was gonna choose myself because I had brought up things, even though I was externally successful, right? Even though I was, you know, number one, two or three as far as the money being brought into the that company year over year. Um, I saw some things that I wish were done differently. And being the scientist, I'm gonna, I've identified something. I've got a hypothesis and let's go. Um, but bringing up a problem that could be solved in a very small company that was not my family's company, um, it quickly turned from me identifying a problem and solutions, but I became the problem. So now I'm labeled as a problem for pointing out problems, and that's just add, and then I'm trying to push and like prove it even more with achievement. And so, yeah, I noticed it in myself in school, in work, in another work, in lots of people that I dealt with. And so I was like, we have a kid getting ready to go to college. If I leave, then what? Don't we need the money? And my husband's like, nah, I mean, I mean, do we need money? Yes, everybody needs money. But um, he said, What does it matter if you're not here? Money is not as important as you being you. And so I left and chose myself and built my company. I built the resource that I wish I had. I built the resource that I wish many people. Next success.

SPEAKER_01 20:51

Is that what you're referring to?

SPEAKER_00 20:53

Yeah, to my company Next Success. So I tried to treat that problem like a dissertation, did a lot of historical background. I'm like, there's gotta be a way. Somebody has to have figured it out already. Like, if I can find the un, you know, the missing assessment or the missing thing, that's it.

SPEAKER_01 21:07

So help me with this, Carolyn. So I'm trying in the podcast, I love trying to what I'll say, solve the work life balance equation. So, scientist to scientist, I guess. What are your thoughts on, first off, the variables of work and life, and can we solve this equation? Is it even the right equation to be thinking about?

SPEAKER_00 21:27

I think uh work-life balance is a complete fallacy. And here's why. There's there was not a version, there was not a whole me that was at work. Because you think about work life balance, you imagine that like scale, right? And we're gonna balance it. F balance, man. Like that went out the window. It is not balance that we're seeking because there was not one separate me at work and one separate me at home. And if I could just balance it, everything would be great. So now what I strive for is forget balance that it was. Was it was the wrong equation for me, and I tried, believe me, I I did try from the tools I had available at that time. But what we're going for now, I believe, is work-life integration. So, what is work-life integration? That means, firstly, what do you want your life to look like? Like for real, what do you want your life? Like, you know, well, I feel like being on call 24-7-365. You know what I feel like? I feel like missing little Billy's uh soccer games. That would be a mate. No, man. Like, I don't make some people, okay. I feel like solving this big huge complex complex problem. And therefore I'm going to sacrifice some time and, but I'm gonna get some other time back. But like, so define what do you want your life to look like? What do you think is okay for that? And so I have a pretty detailed method to look at eight different areas, make a draft of what you want the vision for your life to look like. Right. Here's what happens if you don't do that and you go into some corporate entity and they have mission, vision, values, and here's what you need to do to get a raise, and here's what you can do to maybe keep up with inflation or not, and here's how you can get a promotion. And let's do the math. If you join at 25 and you're a research scientist, and by the time I that guy was 64, he just became a uh a principal scientist or a fellow. Uh, there were four levels in between. So you got 40 years. Every 10 years, you might get a promotion, right? Like something that math doesn't math. So then therefore what, right? What is it that you're you're looking for? If if you don't know what you want, it's easy to become the path that was defined. So some people can become, oh, I'm gonna become that mission, vision, value, so I'm gonna do that thing. There was my annual goals, and I'm gonna achieve and I'm gonna get it. And then they are gonna tell me if I did enough to get to the next level. But then over time, when there's that pull between who you are and what they needed, that shows up in your performance relationships or well-being. And so if you don't know what you want, you don't, you just like, all I know is this isn't it, but I still don't know what I want. And so I'm like, let's flip it. Do what do I want my life to look like? Uh, I would love it if my teenage children in a period of time uh came back home willingly and wanted to hang out with me. I would love it if I had developed the emotional intelligence, emotional regulation skills enough to be a safe spot for whatever they had. I would love it if uh the pictures with smiles were real life occurrences, not just things on the wall. I would love it if I didn't have to worry about whatever I just bought the food or went on the vacation or uh uh splurged and had the safe vehicle. Like, but it's not like no longer is it a title, a salary. Um, maybe it's still a little bit location, because I want to be with the people that I love.

SPEAKER_01 25:13

So I really like how you're answering that with I want and I feel. I feel like when most people are asked what they want, it's more like, oh, I want a car, you know, and you alluded to like I want a position, I want to go on vacation. I guess how, I mean, those are important too. I guess how do you factor these extrinsic things with, I guess, in building up an intrinsic desire for something?

SPEAKER_00 25:34

Well, I think for me, when I would ask people what they wanted, even if their jobs, they didn't, they weren't even able to articulate what they wanted. They would tell you what they don't want. Interesting. I don't want to keep working for an asshole, right? Excuse me, slightly, but like I don't want to be uh living paycheck paycheck to paycheck. I don't want to be missing my children's events. I don't like that. So they were, but they so even so I think first step, especially for analytical, data-driven skeptics, scientists, beautiful people, would be take what you don't want and then reframe it into what you do want and then what, right? Once you know where you are and where you want to be. Okay, these are super important. And then you can make a map, like a massive action plan of how to get there. But that but there's also, I feel like there's this uh a lot of my work now is also I've realized it's on placement and worth. The intersection of placement and worth is where authentic success comes in.

SPEAKER_01 26:39

What do you mean by placement?

SPEAKER_00 26:40

Can you elaborate on that for like your place, like your role, your vocation, the thing that you're placing yourself into to try to provide good things of the world. That's your place. It could be your title, it could be your job, it could be your the field of study, it could be who you work with, all you're placing yourself that you didn't show up there, right? Your placement. But then internally, um before I uh knew, accepted, appreciated that everything about me was made on purpose for a purpose. Like I knew it. Okay, I'm Catholic, we're gonna love everybody, and life is good, and you're made on purpose for a purpose only you can fulfill. Let's go. But like I heard it and I didn't know it because I still felt like by some of the um judgments that I allowed to affect me, other people's thoughts, opinions of, you know, like I brought up a problem, now I'm the problem, right? Oh, maybe I'm a problem. Uh, in in science, like other people were more reserved. So maybe I'm a problem, right? Maybe I'm not enough, or maybe I'm too much. And it was a lot of kind of internal work um removing some things that were never mine to own and remembering, like trying to remember like who was I before I was shaped by fear.

SPEAKER_01 28:02

So can you share some of those internal things you did for that kind of work? So you brought up the idea of like putting on your oxygen mask first. And I love that, right? You have the turbulent plane, it's going down. You got to put your mask on first to get the oxygen so you can save yourself and then be in a position to save others. And I feel like today the plane's crashing and burning and we're on our cell phones and we don't even know where we're at. So I guess what's talk to us about the internal work required to see ourselves, our value, our potential.

SPEAKER_00 28:30

Yeah. It's it's um, and it doesn't have to be that hard, but somehow we make it really hard. See, I spent decades as a a th a scientist who thought a lot about trying to figure things out. And I didn't, I I was a head fully attached to my body. Like I did not walk around with just a head. But emotionally, the reality is I only did like hard science, right? Like, like chemistry and physics and and those things. And like I had an aversion to psychology, psychiatry, like any of those. It was like, oh my gosh, you're gonna mess with my mind. Do you know how far my mind has taken me? And I had thoughts, I had feelings, but I tried to override them with the thoughts, right? So I was in this logical spot. So, and that wasn't working for me, right? Like it wasn't working for me. And that little, that, that, that rage underachievement. There were times. So first I had to recognize I even had work to do, right? But there were some times where I um after the fact would think back and realize my reaction was over the top. It was not a response. It was a a reaction that uh a toddler would do. That was uh for a long time, I uh, regardless of other achievements, my emotional mature. Like that, we didn't talk about feelings that that weren't safe.

SPEAKER_01 30:03

So I think that's an important distinction, if you don't mind building on the difference between reaction and responding to something for the audience here.

SPEAKER_00 30:11

Yes. So you can see it in a child and you don't judge it as anything other than a child being a child, right? Uh a a two-year-old wants a piece of candy and somebody takes it from them and they're gonna have a fit and temper tantrum and and and all of that, um, perhaps hit to try to get their way, perhaps um run and hide, right? So it's like when I was adult, an adult and I already had children. Okay, then there's this thing called parallel processing, which I didn't realize was a thing. Okay, but there that's a thing too. So my children became the age that I did not realize. Because I used to think like some people talk about trauma, and I'm like, you're freaking nuts, man. Seriously, you're gonna have that thing happen and you're gonna block it. Okay. All right. And uh lo and behold, anything that I now I realize, anything I've had such a strong thing for, it's like, aha, there's work for you to do there, you know. Um, but so my children became uh the same age that I had blocked some pretty significant trauma when I was little, and I wasn't even sure why I was feeling some sort of way. Somebody said something, it was one little, one little, one little thing. I I don't even recall what the trigger was. Next thing you know, I literally kicked a hole in our coat closet door. Okay. So in that moment, I'm like, oh my gosh. Like first I'm like, what the heck? And you know. And I'm glad there's no child that was in front of me. Because now I see how people get on the news doing crazy things to their kids. Like I in that moment, it was not okay. That was complete reaction, complete just whatever that trigger was. And I felt this like fight or flight thing, and I chose fight, and I kicked a whole like how embarrassing is like all the qualifications, all I'm smart. Come on. And yet that, and then I was like, whoa, like, what was that? And like, who do you even say something like that to? So that I, but I had a friend who um, her children are about uh, she's about 10 years older than me. Her, she also had two boys, uh, you know, so like I and I'm like, I don't know, like what the heck is this? And she said, um, I don't necessarily know the solution for you, but I know the way through it. And here's who you should talk to. And she gave me the name of a therapist that she had. Now you're therapist? Wait, what? I need therapy. We're talking about my mind again. Oh, what? Don't mess with my mind.

SPEAKER_01 32:44

I feel like we're so similar, Carolyn, because I've had these same realizations. It's like science and I'm thinking logic, I'm studying consciousness, and then it's like, oh, I should go see a therapist that's actually helping me. I should do the internal work. So, one thing I like to talk about on the show is that success is not good luck, it's good skills. Why is it important skill today to do the internal work so people can show up and do their best work? Why is that important?

SPEAKER_00 33:08

Because you're hired for a job and your whole self goes to work. Okay. You bring, like, you're hired for this thing on your job description and you're gonna do da da da da da da da da da da da. And the reality is depending on how well you slept slept, like who forgot their shoes in the morning, um, who cut you off in traffic on the way there, like we are carrying baggage. We are carrying baggage from what just happened in the last day, hour, whether we ate or didn't, what we ate, whether we did or didn't work out, uh, anything. And we're carrying baggage from all the trauma from our childhood that it may the happiest person will still have trauma, right? So I part of what another part of my program is also about mental fitness and mental resilience because it's like, okay, you got to realize my operating system that my brain was functioning on in a lot of the ways was that of a toddler. So we're talking, I was operating on an operating system from like 1978 to 80. Are you freaking kidding me? Like my iPhone is a 14. I feel like I need to replace it. Like, come on. But like, in some ways, the reality was as children, we do a phenomenal job of observing and trying to do what we needed to do in that moment as children to be like received and loved and whatever the case may be, right? And so our childlike ways are just trying to help us adapt and and and conform and be in the world to get whatever the attention it was. And then that repeats, repeats, and repeats, and without adjusting, and I didn't even know it could be adjusted. I didn't even know. I why would because again, that's my mind, right? Like, but I had to build, I had to first pause. Okay. Just pause, do a little bit more observations internally. Because it's like real easy, real easy when you're given awards and things of achievement. And oh, I am smart. I am the smartest in the class. So therefore, you all are wrong. All of y'all. If you would just do what I do, then everything would be great. And the reality is, holistically, I didn't look great. I had gotten to, you know, class two obesity. I didn't feel great. Uh, you know, I was either overachieving or numbing or sleeping. Didn't none of it was great. So it's like something's up here. So pausing, assessing, investigating. And as scientists, sometimes it's great to have give me a data-driven assessment to help me understand my starting point. And I'm not talking like, okay, Myers Briggs. Well, I'm an ENTJ. Like, and now freaking what do you do?

SPEAKER_01 35:56

ETJ for me.

SPEAKER_00 35:57

Oh, yeah. Okay. Okay, yeah. So, like, but what do you do with that? Like it's party banter, you know? Right. Hey, cool. Or uh Clifton Strengths, woo! Like, I cannot tell me like some of those, and maybe you can break it down for me more to like why I should actually care, but like subjective assessments that say, tell me how you think you are, and then I'll tell you what you've said, I had a challenge with those because I knew people who would manipulate the answer to what they thought it needed to be to be the leader, but their perception of what they were and the and how other people experienced them was wildly different. And so when I was trying to come up with like what are some assessments that could be foundational underpinnings of my method, so that when you don't know who you are, even though you've been who you are, you can have some common language to that. I couldn't stand behind some of the very common quick assessments. It's my like it's like a Cosmo quiz, like honestly, like what? I so I try to choose some more foundational, like let me have.

SPEAKER_01 37:02

How do you measure that today? I'm very curious. So in my first book, I tried talking about this, trying to answer for myself, and I call them beats. People have these beats, they're it's an acronym, belief, um, emotions, actions, and thoughts. And I'm a drummer in the band, and so I think of like people having these rhythms. And so what I'm getting at is when people say these things, they have these beliefs, emotions, actions, and they're not like playing along to those beats, there's a mismatch in that. How do you find your sort of true song and dance, your true beat, you know, if you will?

SPEAKER_00 37:35

Yes. Okay, yes, yes. Love the question. Phenomenal. Okay, so I'll of course, of course, you know, the answer is going to be in the next success method, Tony. So I'll help next chapter explorers become authentic success creators, which authentic success is how you define it. And the foundational underpinning tool that I try to utilize is my next success method, which has four pillars. Because I'm like, these are the missing things, right? So one, so you can have your belief, emotions, actions, and your thoughts. That's that's all fine and good, but it didn't tell me about like how was I hardwired? How was I hard? So I understand, yes, there's neuroplasticity, and yes, I can build skills. Awesome. But where was the hardwired? What were the natural abilities that were poured into me? And can I get some measure of them? So I found an I didn't find, but like I realized that a an objective performance-based measurement in 18 different areas, lo and behold, existed. It's called the Highlands Ability Battery. It was originally made by Johnson O'Connor, is a is another common thing. They're the same thing, they're just different, different uh branches. So there were like five guys that did stuff. They kind of split into their own. Anyway, Highlands Ability Battery. Objective performance-based measurement, 18 different areas. Um, and so originally a guy who was a mechanical engineer at GE was trying to, in the like 1900s, early, was trying to be tasked with like, as people show up for work, should they be on the office floor or should they be in the machine shop? And this mechanical engineer said, aha. Well, when I'm trying to test out something new in assembly, I get a sample. And then I see how it works. And so the 18 different areas are called work samples. And so back in the day it was all in person. Let's see how you are and let's see how you perform this work sample because the reality is, we've been given these gifts and talents. And you hear the, oh, yeah, you're all your gifts and talents, right? But like help me understand, let me measure that. And so these work samples have timed interactions. And so it's like uh you can see like a 2D picture and like you can imagine 3D was it rotated. Now pick the one that matched, but there's a certain amount of time. So you're gonna run out of time. If if you can do that because you've built the skills, and you know, if you do enough repetition and you keep doing it and you keep doing it and keep doing it and you didn't stop, you can maybe do it, but you will never be able to do it as quickly as the person who's building that skill on top of the inherent ability, right? So you can, you're gonna, if you're doing the beats and you're doing drumming, like you have that rhythm sense and that kinesthetic learning kind of thing that you're able, yes, yes, you may have studied, yes, you may have practiced over 10,000 hours. Malcolm Glo, awesome, out, let's do it. Like, but still, when you're building things on top of how we are, we are built, it takes less time, effort, and energy. It feels energizing. When we're doing things counter, and it's that I can, how many people did you go to school with that believed they could be in the NFL and may have been better suited to be a fan? I'm just saying, how many people believed they could be an astronaut because they really liked space, but were better suited to maybe, I don't know, watch the movie. Like it's just so like you can have a belief, but it also has to be backed up a bit by an ability. And then it has to be backed up with skills and all those things. So this Highlands Ability Battery helps me unhelp help people understand more about where they're. Again, it's just your starting point. And a low about amount of an ability or a high amount of an ability, our educational system has conditioned us to think low is bad and high is good. That's not true. Because we've all been designed on purpose. So if we can understand where that was, for example, like idea productivity. Awesome. Clearly, I have high idea productivity. It helps me in speaking, it helps me in problem solving, it helped, but my ideas don't shut off. If there's somebody, and but for what I'm choosing to do, and even for a lot of the things that I chose to do, it was so helpful. But somebody else who has less of that, that's not wrong. Perhaps if they had a little bit lower idea productivity, maybe they're really able to focus on spreadsheets and numbers and the things that take a tremendous amount of focus on a particular small area. So that's good. Just like uh, let's say golf versus football, both are our games with balls, both have a score, but in golf you want the low score, and in football, you want the high score. So each ability that we have, if somebody understands what that is for them, and then how that correlates to like different functions of our job, or I can even take a somebody who really has no clue. I could be like, aha, here's the thing. Here's your overall abilities, or here's certain patterns of abilities that correlate with jobs, real life jobs. So you can see that correlates the entire govern government ONET database for careers. So to tell a kid you can be anything, well, you really can, but you might want to consider to focus in a little bit on something that's aligned with who you are, but not okay, so that's just one factor, one liabilities. Okay. It's a it's an important, I feel like it's super foundational. Okay. Second, your communication behavior, your communication style. You can really quickly assess people based on are they open, guarded, direct, indirect? Are they focused, focused on people or task? Or are they careful or fast? You can kind of roughly quadrant people out. Okay, so that's the disc assessment. Love that. Is it subjective? Yes, yes, it is. But it has a foundation, it'll have like a here's your natural style and here's your adapted style. And there, and then also here's what you can do with it. So I if I went to Spain, okay, and and like let's say I went to a place that didn't speak English and I need to go to the restroom or find something to eat. If I adapt my language to be in Spanish, I'll have an easier. Time. Okay. If I'm trying to work with somebody, I could try to adapt my language to be heard heard the way they need to hear it. And if I can do that, the reality is at the end of the day, I want them to get the message. I might not need to be so carolin and forceful naturally. I can adapt a little bit to be like, ah, okay. Yeah. Right, man. I got you. You know, like, but but like either way, I just like, what is the intent? So naturality is communication behavior. Third, mental fitness, mental resilience. So what's that chatter in our head? You can, in fact, upgrade your operating system. Really, and and there's an assessment. Of course, there's gonna be a there's gonna be. There's gotta be. Um, so for that, I love the uh positive intelligence framework by uh Sherzad Shameen, Stanford Stanford professor. Um he tried to break down all the positive or negative things that like things that are uh sabotaging your success or things that are propelling you forward, trying to understand what percentage of your mind is working for you versus against you. And then what are your favorite flavors of six of sabotage? And oh, by the way, and then how can you counter those to build up things like curiosity, innovation, exploring? Like, loved it. Okay, and then having an integrated vision back to that integrated um work life thing. I will have help people to assess by the by themselves, a lot of reflection, but like where are you in your career development stage? 18-year-old's way more open than a 50-year-old or 65-year-old. Um what are your natural abilities? Okay. What are the skills, the things you've invested time, effort, and energy to learn? What are your interests? And oh, by the way, interests change. So telling a child, pick your job based on your interest. Okay, partially, partially true, not the whole equation. Um, your personal style. So are you an introvert or an extrovert? Are you a generalist or a specialist? And how do you communicate? All of those influence, like how you show up at work and what you like to do or what's again giving or taking energy. Your family, the family you come from and the family or friends that you have now, they influence a lot. Like the family you come from, you'll find either, well, I'm gonna be college educated because that's just what we do. Or you're gonna find people like the hell if I am gonna be check to check. I'm not doing that. So either way, though, it's opening up your possibilities of like what you see in your environment, what work looks like, what you even think is possible. But that's why if if I can also help them see with the Highlands Ability Battery, it opens up beyond the scope. Nobody knows people that are doing 50 different careers that align with your ability. I mean, I would love it for the day when somebody does know, but inherently they just don't, they don't have those connections. What are your goals? What are your values? So these are the factors that I believe is it beliefs, emotions, actions, and thoughts? Absolutely. That's a different layer. But I wanted to go like foundational, help me understand, and then let me see where I am, where do I want to be? Let me make that map. But I that's my framework, if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_01 47:23

No, I love that. I love that a lot. So you kind of talked about work and life, right? Solving this equation that they're kind of just blurred, right? So I guess after hearing all of that, how would you define work now for someone this day and age? How would I define work? Work, yes.

SPEAKER_00 47:40

Yeah. So um, yeah. So work, like let's say that is your vocation, that is what you're choosing to do with your time, effort, and energy. Uh, idealistically, I'd like to say, so that you're bettering the world, and even if that's just bettering your own family. And uh there is some value exchange by your time, effort, and energy, value that's being like given, and then you can receive.

unknown 48:04

Right.

SPEAKER_01 48:05

So this doesn't have to be just in a space where we go to our nine to five, then is what you're implying.

SPEAKER_00 48:10

I guess of No, because I could tell you after having two children who are now teenagers and thankfully still living, there was way more work uh in that than any work that I um paid for. I did not if if anyone, firstly, if any lady ever gets like, here's what it really feels like to either uh have a child or have an emergency C-section, no one in their logical mind would say, sign me up, right? And and then the needs of when you're it, like that is your human, it hits so differently. And there's so much growth and flex and work and just like, yeah, it's is it love? Yes, but love can be a a choice and a decision. Um, and and and there can be times it feels like work because it's against your time, effort, and energy. Like in the middle of the night, are you freaking kidding me? You threw up again. You you need me? Like you are 16. What what what is this? Dad's here too, you know. But then it's like the next family, help me understand what happened. I just needed you. Okay.

unknown 49:24

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 49:24

But that was work. So we can expand, right? But it's a both and world. Work can be something we get paid for, but then there's also a lot of volunteer work that is so important. And so many people that need to be helped and served that that would not have the resources to pay me or others who are providing some like social work and like like there's so much, there's so much need there. So I don't want to say that work is only when you get paid. I don't want to say that work is only fun. Um, I want to say that, yeah, work is an exchange of time, effort, and energy for some higher purpose or reason.

SPEAKER_01 50:09

I love that definition. Yeah. I've been trying to grapple with myself, Carolyn. So I've defined work from a physics perspective as force multiplied by a displacement. So now you can plan the word force, right? I'm fighting gravity every day, right? As I wake up, I'm fighting the psychological forces, right? Of people. Absolutely all in an attempt to move my mind and body, right? So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 50:32

And then recognizing that there's an activation energy.

SPEAKER_01 50:35

I love it. There we go. I love that.

SPEAKER_00 50:37

Because like when because like that's the thing I would have been like, oh, that's it's a so like if you're laying in your bed and you're like so freaking exhausted, and like maybe you do, maybe you did choose work that's toxic, or you did choose work that's like, oh my gosh, like what kind of crap am I gonna encounter today? But yet you need the pay or you need the insurance, and you're but like you sometimes you just would rather like, and I tried this for the long time, like if I fall asleep and wake up, maybe it'll all be better. And the reality is it wasn't better. Now I'm just late. Like, now I have less time to do the thing. But um, but yeah, so sometimes we have to overcome that thing to allow it to make like nobody like going hardcore, going from like weekend, like I don't know, like couch potato, let's just say it. No one going from couch potato to all of a sudden, like whatever the trigger was, it's like, now this is gonna be, I'm gonna get fit, man. I'm gonna go run or I'm gonna work out or whatever. And then you're like, it, if you really do it up, you're not gonna feel great about it, you know? So you have to have that persistence to keep overcoming that activation energy. And then once it starts to become your routine, you see, like, ah, I do feel better. I am able to manage my stuff better because I moved my body in a different way. And that helped clear my mind. And then understanding more when I was trying to, I still feel like there's so much to learn, but like some things have to work through us. I couldn't just think my way to the solution. And I couldn't just tell somebody to the solution. I had to move, just like my friend said, move through it. And even in you can have trauma or whatever the heck stuck. And but if you're exercising all the time, like you're allowing that stuff to not be stagnant energy and giving it that release. And then it's like, and then you're better and the world's better. What?

unknown 52:26

What? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 52:28

I feel like we could go on more and more. But Carolyn, where if people want to work with you on their next success, where do you recommend for them to reach out?

SPEAKER_00 52:37

Absolutely. So um, you could check out my website, next successcareers.com podcast, next successpodcast.com. All of the um socials, it's at next success method. You could find me on LinkedIn, Carolyn Sangle. But uh, there's a multitude of ways that uh somebody could come into my universe. And whether they are on the uh tactical thing of I I need a new job, that's all I need, I need a new job. I I have a program, job search roadmap, to help those people if they want to do the deeper work and figure out who they are, what they do best, um, how they communicate what the things are in their mind and and getting that vision. If they really want to do that deep work, I'm I'm there for it. Um, and that would be from Next Success Method. So um plenty of ways, plenty of ways to get in touch. And I really do hope that anybody does. I always have a free, um, free conversation to just help people where they are.

SPEAKER_01 53:35

Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Carolyn, for your time. Appreciate it.

SPEAKER_00 53:38

Appreciate you, Tony. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_01 53:40

Thank you. One of the biggest takeaways from this episode is that work-life balance is a fallacy. It's the wrong equation, as Carolyn puts it. What we should be aiming for instead is work-life integration, starting with a simple but often uncomfortable question. What do you actually want your life to look like? Our guest shared a powerful practice she uses to uncover that answer by completing the phrase, I love it when. Because the truth is most people can't articulate what they want. And when you don't know, you end up taking what others give you. So here's the skill for today to be successful and not rely on luck. Be radically honest with yourself. Talk it through. Go see a therapist to help you articulate what you want. I've seen many therapists over the years to work on problems in my mind in life. You can even reach out to a trusted friend, a partner, or even Carolyn herself at Next Success. But go inward. That's where fulfillment starts. I have to say that even after our recorded chat, Carolyn and I kept going on and on about her work and my own. And even though our approaches may differ, both Carolyn and I share the same passion helping people become who they're capable of being. Thanks for spending this time with us on Work Sucks, but I like it. Until next time, choose yourself.