00:10 — Peter Boolkah
Hi, Peter Boolkah here, and welcome to today’s edition of The Transition Guy.
Joining me in the studio today is Misha Rubin, an entrepreneur and career educator.
Welcome, Misha.
00:24 — Misha Rubin
Hi, Peter. It’s a pleasure to be on the show with you.
00:27 — Peter Boolkah
Misha, what is a career educator?
00:33 — Misha Rubin
I fill a gap that exists in society.
We’re taught millions and zillions of things throughout our lives, but nobody teaches us how to look for meaningful, fulfilling careers that work with our lives.
In the past, people often had one career. They went to university or college to prepare for the career they would follow throughout their lifetime.
We now live in a period when it’s extremely unlikely that somebody will have only one career.
People are more likely to have several careers. They may become entrepreneurs at some point, try different things or discover that particular careers have disappeared or become irrelevant.
We’re living through a period when understanding how to navigate that process is becoming increasingly important.
01:22 — Peter Boolkah
That’s interesting because we’re probably living through a period when people are experiencing all those things.
Companies we thought would exist forever have disappeared, so jobs for life are no longer available.
Industries we once considered extremely strong were rocked by the pandemic. Lockdowns changed the way money flows, the way we think and the way we work.
The pandemic and lockdowns created considerable change.
For some people, that change has been traumatic, quite rightly. I know people who have lost their livelihoods and businesses. They did nothing wrong; it happened because of circumstances.
Many people are concentrating on how bad things are.
But you and I both know that where there is adversity, there is also opportunity.
We probably have more opportunities available to us now than at any point during the past ten or fifteen years.
What would you say to that?
02:30 — Misha Rubin
I would say we’re living in unprecedented times by almost every measure.
We must recognise that it has been a painful year for many people.
You might be an entrepreneur who owns a business. You might work in an industry or corporation undergoing massive transformation. You may be a parent dealing with the pandemic and children at home.
I can look at my own life and say it has certainly been something.
But we must also recognise the unprecedented opportunities available now. I would make four points about that.
First, whenever society experiences a major transition, the pain is accompanied by immense opportunity. Industries transform, and new industries, products and ideas emerge.
There are clearly many opportunities.
Second, employers are now more open to remote working.
In the past, your profession might have been constrained by geography. That isn’t necessarily the case anymore because more employers are willing to employ people remotely.
Third, it has never been easier to start a business.
When I developed the Career Leap idea, I created a website in an hour and posted about it on LinkedIn and Facebook. By the following day, I had my first three students.
I don’t know how people started businesses 30 years ago. It’s now that easy to start one.
I’m not saying it’s easy to maintain or grow a business, but it’s easier to begin.
Fourth, we have access to learning.
We live in a period when we can learn almost anything.
I was recently following a woman who lives in the Philippines. She wrote to her followers about taking a Stanford course.
You can now be almost anywhere in the world. A considerable amount of knowledge is available free of charge. Some courses require payment, but fundamentally, there are very few barriers to learning.
We’re living in something resembling a feast. You arrive and think, “My goodness, there are so many opportunities and things I could be doing.”
The real questions are:
Where do you look for those opportunities?
How do you recognise the right opportunity?
Why aren’t you pursuing it right now?
Those are the three main questions I would pose to the audience.
05:25 — Peter Boolkah
What answers do you think most people listening will give?
05:35 — Misha Rubin
One of the things I work on with my students is mastering the process of dismantling disempowering beliefs.
People have disempowering beliefs about themselves.
They say:
“I might be too old to change.”
“I might not have the right skills or experience.”
“They would never hire somebody like me.”
They might believe that because they’re a woman, because of another personal characteristic or because they have a gap in their experience.
As humans, we create all this noise and develop beliefs about ourselves and the world.
The truth is that those beliefs normally have some supporting evidence. When we believe something, we can usually find evidence for it.
If I believe I’m too old, I might think it’s harder for me to learn now. Perhaps I’ve seen somebody in my age group fail to get a job.
But when we begin dismantling that belief, we can explore the possibility that we aren’t too old.
What would you say to yourself ten years from now? You would probably laugh at yourself for thinking you were too old today.
A 72-year-old surgeon recently enrolled in my career programme. He loves what he does, but because of the physical nature of his work, he knows he might not be able to continue doing it for the rest of his life.
He’s exploring his next leap.
There is plenty of evidence that age doesn’t have to be a limitation.
You dismantle these beliefs because they’re never the complete truth. They’re concepts to which we cling.
07:27 — Peter Boolkah
What comes next?
Once you’ve helped somebody dismantle those beliefs, what do they do?
07:32 — Misha Rubin
We return to the other questions we discussed:
Where do I look for opportunities?
How do I recognise the right one?
As human beings, we have unique qualities and characteristics responsible for our experiences of meaning and fulfilment. They contribute to our success and influence how we’re motivated.
Much of my work involves helping people understand themselves and articulate who they are.
That understanding can then become a set of criteria against which they assess different opportunities.
The premise of the Career Leap method is that where you work should align with your career values, and what you do should align with your strengths.
Where you work is often much more important than what you do.
When people are unhappy with their work, there is probably a gap between their career values and the industry or organisation in which they’re working.
Understanding your career values gives you a useful set of criteria for exploring different industries, organisations and business ideas. You can determine whether they represent the right direction for you.
Once you understand your unique career criteria, you can discover several potential leaps and choose one.
The next question becomes: how do you move from where you are now to where you want to go?
There are four pillars in the Career Leap method.
The first is your unique career criteria. You understand who you are and where you’re heading.
The second is mastering the dismantling of disempowering beliefs. You remove whatever is standing in your way mentally.
The third pillar is how you communicate with the world.
I teach the principles of impactful communication. There are three principles: be authentic, relevant and transparent.
You can apply those principles to any form of communication.
It might be a covering letter, CV or résumé. You might be looking for investors, a business partner or a mentor.
There is a way to communicate that can produce an excellent response.
The fourth pillar is intentional action.
We all understand how to take action, and people take plenty of actions.
But how do we take intentional actions that produce the outcomes we want?
There are several principles governing how you operate within that.
The four pillars are:
Understand who you are and where you’re going.
Dismantle disempowering beliefs.
Communicate with impact.
Take intentional action.
Those pillars connect to my mission, which is to fill the world with empowered, impactful human beings.
Those people understand who they are and live and work in alignment with their values. They’re empowered to initiate change and make the difference they know they can and should make.
Most importantly to me, they set a powerful example for their children.
Their children grow up with an example showing them that they can contribute to the world and do amazing and unreasonable things.
That’s essentially my game now.
11:31 — Peter Boolkah
It’s a process that people need to follow to make a change.
Some people skip the process and simply go for it, but most people don’t.
During the past 18 months, many people could see the writing on the wall but continued watching the bad television programme.
They were watching bad things happen and knew the outcome probably wouldn’t be good. But they waited to see whether everything would flow back to the way it was before.
Many people are paralysed by fear.
When that’s the case, what is the first step you ask somebody to consider?
How do they begin making a change?
12:13 — Misha Rubin
Thank you. That’s my favourite question.
Everything starts with confronting your career mediocrity.
You might be in a corporate environment that no longer fulfils you.
You might be running your own business, but perhaps it has run out of energy and it’s time to consider what comes next.
You need to look at the complete picture.
There are probably people who depend on you and your income. You might have a family or children.
When I made my career leap, I had to confront the fact that I had three young children and was my family’s breadwinner. Yet here I was, taking on this change.
You must confront those realities.
You may have particular circumstances. Perhaps you care for your parents, you’re moving or you’re dealing with health problems.
You might not even know what you want to do next.
Given all those things, you say:
“No. I’m not going to tolerate career mediocrity. I’m going to explore what comes next.”
Everything begins when you decide that you’re no longer willing to tolerate something mediocre.
You know when that moment has arrived.
13:36 — Peter Boolkah
Suppose somebody has that voice on their shoulder.
They know in the back of their mind that something needs to change, but they can produce a million and one reasons why this isn’t the right time, situation or set of circumstances.
The reality is that something must change.
They need help overcoming those beliefs and moving forward. How would somebody contact you and say, “I need some help”?
14:08 — Misha Rubin
They can find me at MishaRubin.com.
If they’re ready to go, they can visit TheCareerLeap.com. They can read about my programme and learn more about me.
I launch programmes periodically. They’re live programmes delivered over three months.
I take people on these amazing journeys. It’s incredibly inspiring for me because I’m finally doing something completely aligned with my values, and that makes my life extraordinary.
I’m also preparing to launch a programme for students.
When you’re a senior in high school, that’s the right time to begin asking yourself the right questions.
By the time you finish college or university, you can have a method for exploring different ideas and opportunities.
We’re living in exciting times. It’s time to find the next thing.
15:11 — Peter Boolkah
It is, and the first step is to take some form of action.
Nothing will simply bounce back. The future ahead of us is unknown, evolving and constantly changing.
People crave a sense of security and stability, but I don’t think that will always be possible because there are too many moving parts.
If you’re ever going to make a leap, now is a good time to consider it. Everybody is in the same boat and experiencing that state of flux, so nobody necessarily has the upper hand.
Misha, thank you so much for sharing with us today.
There are some excellent takeaways for the audience.
The first is not to become paralysed by fear. Take the first step and explore the possibility.
That doesn’t mean you have to pursue it. But beginning to explore it is the first stage.
If you’re interested in making that change, head over to Misha’s website, examine the information and explore what might be possible.
Misha, thank you once again. I really appreciate having you on the episode.
If anything we’ve discussed resonates with you and you want more information, head over to Boolkah.com and get in touch.
If you loved today’s episode, subscribe so that you don’t miss future episodes. Please also like it and share it with somebody who could benefit.
Most importantly, remember that failing to learn is learning to fail.
Please stay safe, and thank you.
