On the forty-first installment of Tristan's Tips, our special guest Tristan Layfield talks about how you as a job seeker can maximize your holiday break. Since many of us get a little more time off around the holidays, it’s a great opportunity to get all your ducks in a row to make some major moves for next year!Connect with Tristan on LinkedIn, IG, FB, and Twitter!Visit our website!TRANSCRIPTTristan: What is going on, y'all? It's Tristan Layfield of Layfield Resume Consulting, and I've teamed up with Living Corporate to bring you all a weekly career tip. This week let’s talk about how you as a job seeker can maximize your holiday break.For many us, searching for a job is a tiring chore when you’ve already been working for 8, 10, or 12 hours. But the holiday season offers us a couple of breaks that we can fully take advantage of to be ready to hit the ground running on our job search next year. Here are a few things you can do to leverage that downtime.First, update your resume. Review and edit everything - your contact info, your summary, your education, the way you sell the results you’ve driven or the value you’ve provided, etc. This is also a great time to analyze a couple job descriptions to identify and incorporate keywords. Since many of your friends or family are off from there jobs this is a prime opportunity for you to get another set of eyes on the document to make sure things sound good and to correct any spelling or grammar errors. If you need help, check out my free resume update checklist at the link in my Instagram bio.Next, update your LinkedIn and build your network. Make sure that your profile represents not only what you’re currently doing and the results you’ve driven but also what you are looking to do in the future. Check out the job seeking settings they have, I talk about these on episode 141 on this podcast. Also, go beyond just your profile. The key to LinkedIn is engagement. That means you should start posting your own posts as well as liking, commenting, and sharing other’s posts.Lastly, take the time to reach out and reconnect with lost connections who may be home or visiting. The holiday season is a great time to rekindle connections with people you may have lost touch with since they may travel back home or back to the area. These people can provide you with a wealth of knowledge as I talked about in my tip on episode 138. They typically have access to knowledge and information that our immediate circles aren’t privy to.Since many of us get a little more time off around the holidays, it’s a great opportunity to get all your ducks in a row to make some major moves for next year!This tip was brought to you by Tristan of Layfield Resume Consulting. Check us out on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook at @layfieldresume or connect with me, Tristan Layfield, on LinkedIn!

On the fourteenth installment of The Link Up with Latesha, our incredible host Latesha Byrd, founder of Byrd Career Consulting, talks about how therapy has made her a better entrepreneur, a better professional, a better friend, and better to herself. Having a relationship with yourself is crucial to your growth and development, and it will allow you to build self-awareness as you are constantly improving and working towards achieving your goals. Let's normalize the conversation of going to therapy!Learn more about Latesha on the BCC website or connect with her through her socials! LinkedIn, IG, Twitter, FBStop by LateshaByrd.com!Check out Latesha's YouTube channel!BCC's socials: LinkedIn, IG, Twitter, FBVisit our website!TRANSCRIPTLatesha: What's up, everyone? Welcome to The Link Up with Latesha on Living Corporate. This podcast is for young professionals that need some real advice, tips, and resources to navigate corporate America and dominate their career. If you're looking to upgrade your brand, get the knowledge you need to level up professionally for your future, you are in the right place. I'm your host, Latesha Byrd. So let's get into today's episode. I'm so excited to just share this very important topic with you all today. I am going to be talking about how therapy has made me a better entrepreneur, a better professional, a better friend, and better to myself honestly. [laughs] So, you know, as working professionals or entrepreneurs that are highly driven and ambitious, we have a hard time with giving ourselves grace. I hope that you can relate to this, [laughs] because our mental health is so, so crucial to success. Having a relationship with yourself is crucial to your growth and to your development, and it will allow you to build self-awareness as you are constantly improving and working towards achieving your goals. So what I'm gonna be sharing with you all is my journey with therapy, why I started going to therapy, how I started going, and how it has essentially changed my life. If you follow me on Twitter, I am always talking about therapy. I love going to therapy. It's not easy, now. [laughs] It's not easy. It's not, like--I don't know if I would categorize or label my therapy sessions as fun, but I enjoy going because it stretches me and makes me uncomfortable and makes me call out the biases and the lies [laughs] that I'm telling myself. So I'll start with why I started going to therapy. Actually, let me just--before I talk about why I started going to therapy, I want to just share that, you know, PTSD is real from working as the only person of color, or one of the few, in a predominantly white workplace. I've talked to women particularly--and there's some men as well--you know, black women that have been discriminated against, that are treated unfairly, that are blamed for things that they have--that they've never even touched before. I've heard of women being, you know, let go for things that their co-workers maybe just got a little slap on the wrist for, you know? I have heard stories of us feeling uncomfortable walking into work or feeling like if we share a little bit of ourselves, they will take that and use that against us. I've heard all of your stories, and I've--it really, really hurts, and it angers me to hear the experiences of the trauma, you know, that we have to deal with in the workplace, and I do think that is why going to therapy is extremely important. Know one that you are not alone. You are not alone in this, and it's important to have someone that you can talk to about it. Now, my personal reasons for going to therapy--I'm not going to get into too much detail as to why I started going, but it was really for me based on some deeply rooted issues within my family that I had been experiencing and the trauma that I went through as a child, as a young adult, in college and even, you know, post-graduation from college, and hell, I'm still dealing with some [BLEEP]. [laughs] But we cannot, you know, choose our family, but I also kind of grew up thinking "Okay, well, your family is your family. You have to respect them. You gotta just deal with them, even if it's your parent, because that's how it's supposed to be. You gotta respect 'em." You know? And so I just thought, like, I had to deal with a lot of BS because they, you know, were my family members. So that's why I started going to therapy, just to kind of figure out, you know, how I can relieve some of the stress and the heartbreak that I have experienced. I have a--just to share a little personal anecdote, I have a very distant relationship with my mother because of a marriage that she's--a very toxic marriage that she's been in for about 10 years. So I very--I rarely see her. Actually, I haven't seen her in years. Honestly, I don't talk to her. I want to be in her life, but I have been shunned. And I grew up in a single-parent household. She raised me. So that has been so hard for me to just get--to get through, you know? I love her, and I will be there whenever she needs me, but I've realized in conversations with friends that they said, "Yo, like, your situation, that's not normal, and that's not okay, and we need you to really get some help." There is a stigma in the black community that if you are, you know, going to therapy you're quote-unquote "crazy," right? Or that means that something is wrong with you, but it is so important for us to--and I'll be honest, I thought that. I mean, it was literally ingrained in me, and so I was conditioned to think that if you go to therapy, "What? What's wrong with you?" You know? [laughs] But I've been going now for--let's see, starting in May, so about six months, and it has literally changed my life. So without further ado, let me just tell you all what I have learned from therapy. It has--one, I've learned that I need to give myself more grace, giving myself grace, and also working on self-compassion. My first therapy session I was super nervous. I didn't know what to expect. I was like, "Okay, what if she doesn't like me? What if I don't like her? What if I--" Like, I just had no clue what to expect. [laughs] So, you know, I kind of went in there and she said, you know, "What made you come to therapy?" And I'm like, "Wait, what? I don't--I don't know. I'm here." And she's like, "Okay. Well, just tell me about yourself." So that's kind of how we started. The first thing--the advice that I would give about going to therapy is you definitely will have to be vulnerable and transparent if you want to get the most out of it. Vulnerability is something that I also struggle with as someone that is a leader. Naturally I have a lot of people that look up to me, and my clients and friends, and so showing weakness, showing that you don't have it all together, ooh, you can't do that, right? I have learned though, from watching Renee Brown--I probably have talked about her a lot on previous episodes, but I've learned a lot from her about vulnerability. So check out her TED Talk. She also has a Netflix special, and she talks about, you know, that--she talks about how vulnerability is bravery. So I am learning to be vulnerable, but anyways, in that first session, the main thing that came out was self-compassion and having a relationship with yourself. And I did not have a relationship with myself. Like, I did not. I was kind of going through the day-to-day, going through the motions, you know? Going to my office and talking to clients and working, coming home and working more, and not really checking in with myself to actually ask myself, "Hey, are you happy? How are you feeling?" You know, "How is your energy?" Right? And so that was the first thing I learned was one, I had to give myself self-compassion and know that, one, I'm not going to be perfect. [laughs] The people around me are not going to be perfect, and see, because I did not practice self-compassion, I also wasn't compassionate with others. With my team, you know? With friends. I didn't give other folks grace because I did not lend that to myself. So I've had to learn how to be kinder with the words that I'm speaking to myself and also make sure that I'm constantly checking in to see how I'm feeling, and if I need--maybe I'm working too hard or going too hard and I need to take a break, you know, or maybe I'm having, you know, some negative thoughts. That means that I need to take a step back and say, "Okay, why am I feeling this way?" So it's been really interesting, you know? I love learning more about myself. I feel like I am coming into myself, and I think that becoming is better than being, and I learned the difference between being and the difference between becoming. I journal all of the time now. That took me some time to actually get used to. I mean, I've journaled before in the past. Like, in the morning--I have a stoic journal that was gifted to me by a friend where we have guided journal questions or prompts, but I have now transitioned more into self-reflection, journaling my emotions throughout the day, journaling how I feel about my relationship with myself and then with others. So I've learned to give myself self-compassion. That has, you know, allowed me to be more compassionate with others. That's allowed me to be more empathetic. The way that this has helped me to change my life and business, or business specifically, is because I would go into therapy sessions, and the first thing I would say--when she'd ask me how things were going I would say, "Oh, man. You know, entrepreneurship is so hard." [laughs] Which it is. Like, real talk. Everybody knows it's hard. But I was like, "Man, business, running a business is just hard," and she looked at me and she said, "You understand that this is your business, right?" Like, it's your business. This is what you wanted. This is what you signed up for. You are in control here, so I'm going to need for you why or what's making it so hard and go ahead and start working on making some changes. And she asked me why it was so hard, and I was telling her about the workload, and, you know, she told me how she ended up, you know, just kind of downsizing, and she thought that she wanted to grow a very large company and realized that that's not what she wanted. And it made me take a step back because I was working--I mean, there's 24 hours in the day and your girl was working about 17 hours, sleeping and getting up and working again, going to the office, going to meetings, speaking, you know? I also teach at a university. And, I mean, I would--I was driving myself crazy, and I was unhappy. I was so unhappy. My team was stressed out. And I ended up changing my whole business model, because I realized that I did not want a company where I had to work myself to death and my team had to as well. So the shift that I made, I'll tell you about that. Originally, you know, when I started my company, if you listened to the episode a couple weeks ago, I talk about how I started my company, where it was mostly doing resume writing, and now it's shifted into career coaching. So I've pretty much changed the business model. 75% of my business, approximately 75%, is solely 1-on-1 career coaching and business coaching. Prior to that--and I made the shift a few months ago. Prior to that, you know, it was focused on resume makeovers, LinkedIn makeovers, interview coaching, and we had about 30 to 40 clients--whoo, just the thought of that gives me--[laughs] just the thought of that just kind of gave me a real quick headache. 30 to 40 clients a month. I was keeping my prices somewhat low so they could be competitive in the market, and that's fine if that's how you want your business model to operate. Lower price point means more clients, right? Well, I don't want to say that that's exactly what it equates to, but that was my thought process. And so we were working with about 30 to 40 clients, you know, probably about 15 to 18 simultaneously, and it was hard. Like, it was very hard. I was stressed out. My team was stressed out. It was hard to keep up with everyone. And then I had to take a step back and ask myself, "Is this truly what I want?" "Is this really what I want?" And sometimes you do have to do that, you know? Check in with yourself regularly. And I realized that it wasn't, and so because of that I shifted my business model to career coaching. I had a launch strategy. I built a brand new website. I did that on my own, which I am so proud of, on Squarespace. Check it out - LateshaByrd.com. I'll probably link it in the show notes as well. And so--now don't--I know there's a lot of listeners out there in the tech industry, so if y'all have some tips on my site let me know, okay? I am not [laughs] a coder, but I worked very hard on it. So anyways, I shifted my business model. I had a launch strategy, and I ended up getting 15 coaching clients to start coaching with me from October to December. Most of them paid me upfront for the three months, but I had my revenue goals, and I said, "If I can charge this amount, if I can hit this number of coaching clients, I'm good," and that's what I did. Everything has been so wonderful. I do have a three-month coaching program, so now I will have recurring coaching clients every quarter. So I'll have new coaching clients starting in January. So going from January to March, the next group going from April to June, and starting again in July and then October. I love that because I didn't have that level of organization and efficiency in my business the way that I have now where before I would just enroll coaching clients whenever they wanted to start, and so now everyone is on the same schedule, they're going through the same type of information, and so it has been wonderful. I have gotten so much of my time back, and I also realized that if I am preaching to other people about just living the lifestyle that you deserve but I'm over here stressed out, you know, I'm kind of being a hypocrite, right? And so I had to take a tough look at myself, and I fundamentally decided this was the best thing for me to do. I have gotten so much time back, and because my business is now at this level of, you know, organization, I am able to focus on other areas of my life. So now I'm focused on my physical health, going to the gym and eating healthy. Still working on that. [laughs] And, you know, I think I said my budget, so I'm just trying to work on my finances as well, but because now I have this one area of my life in order, it has allowed me to focus on other areas. Hopefully for those business owners out there that are listening to this, if you don't go to therapy, I highly recommend it. Let's normalize the conversation of going to therapy. Let's talk about what we learned. You know, let's just all focus on mental health, you know? We get a lot of negative content kind of fed to us on a daily basis, and there's a lot of the--you know, we all kind of compare ourselves to each other on social media, things of that nature, but get your mental health in order please, because that is going to hold you back from really just being your fullest and truest and happiest and your best self. Other things that I learned outside of self-compassion - giving myself grace, you know? Asking myself the tough questions and checking in with myself, and making changes was, again, just taking that ownership, you know? Taking that ownership and understanding that I cannot change other people. I can only set boundaries. So I'm working on setting boundaries. Communicating my needs and my expectations in all of my relationships. You can't control what someone else does. You can tell them how you want to be treated, and if they act accordingly or not, then you will know what it is that you need to do. So that is my spiel. If you have any questions about therapy, let me know. You know, this is a very important just time in our lives as we're growing in our careers to make sure that we do have a relationship with self. If you don't have a relationship with yourself, then let's start there, because that's gonna be, you know, the #1 factor to building, as I mentioned earlier, that self-awareness. You have to know who you are, what you need to work on, and who you want to be so that you can know what changes need to be met and so that you can also know where you want to go professionally. All right, guys. I hope this was helpful. I look forward to hearing your feedback and your comments about this. Again, therapy has changed my life. It has made me a better entrepreneur, has made me a better friend, and I'm so incredibly grateful to be on this journey, and I'm really excited to share this with you all. So talk to you all next week.

On the thirteenth entry of The Link Up with Latesha, our incredible host Latesha Byrd, founder of Byrd Career Consulting, speaks about effective career planning - working on your career versus in your career. With 2020 right around the corner, this is a great opportunity for all of us to make some fundamental shifts that we have been maybe kind of putting off in our careers or in our businesses. Hear the five questions Latesha suggests asking yourself that are key to unleashing your career potential next year!Learn more about Latesha on the BCC website or connect with her through her socials! LinkedIn, IG, Twitter, FBCheck out Latesha's YouTube channel!BCC's socials: LinkedIn, IG, Twitter, FBVisit our website!TRANSCRIPTLatesha: What's up, everyone? Welcome to The Link Up with Latesha on Living Corporate. This podcast is for young professionals that need some real advice, tips, and resources to navigate corporate America and dominate their career. If you're looking to upgrade your brand, get the knowledge you need to level up professionally for your future, you are in the right place. I'm your host, Latesha Byrd. So let's get into today's episode. Today on The Link Up with Latesha we are talking about effective career planning - working on your career versus in your career. Now, if I have any entrepreneurs listening, I'm sure you all are very familiar with the term of working in your business versus working on your business and how many entrepreneurs get caught up working in their business--meaning just handling the day-to-day tasks of actually running the business versus actually working on the business, which is centered around, you know, strategizing, planning, really thinking about the future of the company, thinking about scaling strategies and et cetera. However, this is a really important topic for entrepreneurs, but what about working professionals? This is why I wanted to talk about this. I've never heard someone use it in the terms of working in your career versus working on your career, but it's super, super similar, and I've realized through my coaching, as a career [and life?] coach, [that] most of us--I don't want to say most and make that assumption or generalization, but many of us don't really work on our careers, we work in our careers. That being said, we typically just go through the day-to-day of getting the work done, you know? Getting the work done, doing our jobs, going home, right, and then when it actually comes time for evaluations, promotions, talking about, you know, longevity with the company or upward mobility with that company, we could be a little confused or maybe a little bit unclear as to what our future with our company or even in our careers and what that looks like. Now, this can be dangerous, and I think that there should be a balance of 1. having a plan in place, but 2. also being flexible, you know, and knowing that, hey, your desires, your dreams, your goals, those may change over time. So there is a fine line of okay, having a plan, you know, having that being structured, but also having some willingness to change if needed. So how do you actually effectively plan your career, A.K.A. how do you actually effectively work on your career versus working in your career? So I think it's important to 1. just kind of differentiate the two. Working in your career is, you know, essentially going to work each day and doing your day-to-day tasks, completing projects, working with clients, responding to emails, putting together deliverables, you know, implementing processes. Examples of working on your career is again around that career management, career planning. Setting goals, long-term goals. Understanding what it actually takes to be successful in your role. Understanding what it actually takes to get to that next level that you would ultimately like to go in, and that's different than sending out some emails or working on a deliverable. It takes a different--it takes a different mind muscle, if I can say that, meaning you're really gonna have to think strategically about your career from a long-term standpoint than "Okay, what do I have to get done today? What do I need to get done by the end of the week?" So I hope that makes sense, and I wanted to 1. just talk about how do you actually begin to work on your career. You don't want to, you know, work work work every day, and months down the road you look up--or years down the road, to be honest, and look back and say, "First of all, why am I still at the same point?" [laughs] "Why am I still at the same salary 5 years later? Why have I not been promoted? Why are there others that have came in after me at lower levels that are now at higher levels?" Right? That's because you have not taken the time to work on your business. So how do you do that? I want to make sure that you feel that you have complete ownership over your career, that you are in control, and that it's not up to these employers or these companies to tell you what, when, how, where to move. This should all be within your control, and you should be able to understand, like I said earlier, what it takes to get to that level that you want to get to, what do you need to do, but actually what does that level look like. So that takes me to the first thing: I want you to ask yourself, "Where do I see my career in 5 years?" So we are embarking on a new year very, very soon, 2020, which is a new decade. I am super excited about this new decade and this transition in life and age and time in the world. I'm super excited about it. This is a great opportunity for all of us to make some fundamental shifts that we have been maybe kind of putting off in our careers or in our businesses. So thinking about where do you see your career in 5 years, in 2025. What do you see for yourself, for your professional self? Do you see yourself in a leadership role? Do you see yourself traveling the world? You know, do you see yourself leading global teams? Do you see yourself retiring? [laughs] Do you see yourself retiring? Launching that business? Maybe taking that side hustle to a full-time hustle. Hopefully if you are an entrepreneur you listened to my last episode on how I actually took my side hustle to full-time. So then thinking about where you see yourself in your career in 5 years is important, okay? And then hey, maybe 2 years. So 2025, 2022. What about 2021 or by this time next year? So by November of 2020, where do you see yourself in your career? I am going to loop you all in on a secret--it's not really a secret. It's moreso of a method [laughs] that I follow with my clients. So, you know, my objective as a career coach is to help my clients get three things, which I call the three Cs. #1 is clarity, getting clarity on what you actually want for your career, what you want out of your life, how you actually show up, meaning, well, how you want to show up professionally. When you are operating at your best, truest, highest self professionally, getting clarity on what that actually looks like. And then also, once you get that clarity, getting clarity on what it actually takes to get there. So working through that strategy plan, you know? Really putting some goals down and knowing that "Okay, I gotta do Step 1 here first, then Step 2, then Step 3." So having a strategy, having a plan that actually makes sense and is not overwhelming so that you can start to move forward. That's the first C, clarity. So clarity on what it is that you want, and then I would say the other part of this clarity is clarity on what companies are looking for, employers are looking for, based on where you want to go, so that you know what you actually need to do within yourself to actually make that transition happen to land your dream job. So that's for clarity. The second C is confidence. So building up confidence in your skills and your experiences and understanding how what you have previously done and what you currently do is aligned with where you actually want to go and fully believing in that and owning that, because if you are not confident in yourself--I probably say this every single episode, [laughs] but if you're not confident in yourself, these employers are not going to be confident in you. These recruiters are not going to be confident in you. Your team--if you are a leader, your team won't be confident in you. So, you know, #1 clarity, #2 confidence, and then #3 is control. You guys know I love to talk about having that control, feeling empowered, having ownership over your career and really feeling like you have a good pulse on where you're going and what it takes to get there. So those are the three Cs. But in my coaching program--I'm going to break down five key steps that I follow or walk my clients through. So the first thing I already mentioned. Where do you want to be? So thinking about where you see your career in 5 years, in 2 years, even a year from now, okay? And then #2 is where are you right now? And really coming to grips with where you are. If you aren't where you want to be that's okay, but you really have to take a step back and say, "Okay, where am I in my career? Am I in a company that I see myself growing with?" Or "Am I in a toxic work environment and have I just been putting up with BS just because of this paycheck?" You know, you really have to come to reality with that understanding of where you are now. Based on where you are now, what do you need to get to where you want to be? What are those resources that you need? For example, are there certain certifications that you need? Are there certain skills that you need to develop? What about your social capital, you know? Who's in your network? Who do you need to know? This is important to think through in and out of the workplace. In your current company, if you see yourself moving up there, staying there for, you know, the long haul, you need mentors and you really need sponsors. I will be talking about mentors versus sponsors in a future episode, and I was just reading an article last night that was talking about how black women are mentored--we got mentors, but we are not getting sponsored. So, you know, we are not getting promoted to these leadership levels that we should be. However, we are coming in knocking it out the park. Killing it. Most educated, you know? But we aren't getting to those levels of leadership that our white male counterparts are because we are not being sponsored. So more to come on that, but it is important to think about who do you need in your network. You need sponsors. What about outside of your company? You need to know people in your industry outside of work. That's important, because you want to make sure 1. you are staying ahead of the curve in terms of skills that are needed to be innovative in your industry, and you also want to make sure that you are staying competitive. So, you know, again, #1 - where do you want to be? #2 - where are you now? #3 - what do you need to get there? What resources do you need to tap into? Who is in your network that maybe you have not reached out to in a long time, or who is that person you have been stalking on LinkedIn or stalking on social media because they're doing something that you know you want to do or you want to be in that place. Why haven't you reached out to them? Social media makes it super easy to build relationships with folks. It's so important to be super intentional about 1. how you are establishing yourself and your brand online, but how you're going about developing relationships. I have gotten so many clients through Twitter. Follow me at Latesha_Byrd. I tweet a lot of career advice. I've gotten so many clients through Twitter. I've gotten friends through Twitter and even LinkedIn. Instagram not so much for me. Instagram, you know, people I follow I've known since college or, you know, maybe over, you know, the years being involved here in the Charlotte community as an entrepreneur, but a majority of my clients come from Twitter and they come from LinkedIn. That's where I ultimately spend most of my time in the online world. But saying all that to say think about who do you need in your network. We can't do anything without people, and I'm realizing that relationships probably are the most undervalued thing [laughs] when it comes to effective career planning and management. Okay, so what do you need to get there, all right? What are the roadblocks? This is #4. What are the roadblocks that are keeping you from getting there? What I mean by that is--let's say you have a manager that is an ineffective leader. They don't know you. They don't care about you. [laughs] Y'all don't have a good relationship, but your manager is a decision-maker in getting you that promotion. That is a roadblock. Or maybe you know you want to get this certification, you've been planning on taking it, but it's the money thing. Like, you just don't want to dish out, you know, that 1,500, that 2,000, 5,000. Some certification are very, very expensive. Maybe it's money that you need to get certifications or certain classes that you want to take, you know? Conferences that you want to attend. Or maybe it's mental. Maybe it's the mindset. You know, what is holding you back? What are those roadblocks, mental, financial, you know, emotional, spiritual? What are those roadblocks that are keeping you from getting there? If you can identify those roadblocks, then you can start to think through "Hm, what do I need to do to overcome these roadblocks? What do I need to do to knock down these roadblocks?" If your manager--going back to this example--if your manager is not an effective leader, but you know that your manager is a decision-maker, you know what? You may have to really work on establishing a better relationship, and you may have to do some intense managing-up. Maybe there's other folks within the organization that you need to start establishing relationships with. You need sponsors. Maybe you should identify who could be some potential sponsors in your organization that you could start to build those relationships with. Going back to the example of money, maybe it's money, okay? Like, you might have to start saving up. [laughs] Putting away, you know, 100 bucks a week. That might be, you know--for, you know, ladies, maybe we don't--I don't even want to say this 'cause it hurts my heart, but, like, maybe we don't, you know, get our nails done for just a little bit of time. [laughs] When I first quit my full-time job to focus on full-time entrepreneurship I stopped getting my nails done. But, you know, think about where can you cut from a financial standpoint if it is that money that you need. Start saving. Thinking about where you can cut. Maybe you don't go shopping. I love me some Nordstrom, and I really try to stay out of Target 'cause Target is really on the up-and-up with the quality of their clothes and just the prints and just how it--I just love Target. [laughs] You know, I know we see this posts online where it says you go into Target and you come out with a whole cart full. Like, that is so me, so I try to stay out of Target. Maybe, you know, try staying out of Target. That might be the answer to this. [laughs] But seriously, think about what resources do you need to tap into that can help you with overcoming those roadblocks. Get a career coach. I mean, hey, I'm a career coach if you don't know any. [laughs] But seriously, get a career coach. The two most important investments I have made in my career was getting a career coach and then getting a therapist. Actually, getting a therapist was the best decision I've made in my entire life. [laughs] But, you know, start thinking about what do you need to invest in to help you. So I'm gonna run through this 5-step process again, or 5 questions. Like I mentioned, this is a process that I follow or take my clients through. #1 - where do you want to be? Where do you see your career in 5 years, in 2 years, next year? #2 - where are you right now? And being very honest and real with yourself. #3 - what do you need to get to where you want to be? So if you think about a diagram--if you're a visual learner maybe you can draw this out somehow, you know? #4 - what are the roadblocks that is keeping you from getting what you need to get there? And #5 - how do you overcome these roadblocks? One more time. #1 - where do you want to be? #2 - where are you now? #3 - what do you need to get there? #4 - what are the roadblocks that's keeping you from getting there? And #5 - how do you overcome these roadblocks? Last thing I will say here is to set some goals, all right? Start setting them for 2020. I'm not saying that you need to set some goals for, like, Monday of next week, but, you know, take some time this week, over the next couple of weeks, maybe in the morning when you first wake up and you're refreshed, [and] just kind of journal. I'm a huge, huge fan of journaling. I take my journal with me everywhere, and I will legit be, like, in the middle of, you know, reviewing a client's LinkedIn and "Let me pull out my journal real quick," 'cause I have a lot of thoughts and things running in my mind, so I'll just pull it out and whip it out any time, but [laughs] journaling is big for me. It helps me to just kind of get my thoughts all out and do a brain dump so I can kind of try to organize what I'm thinking. But, you know, start thinking about how you want to show up in the world professionally in 2020. Visualize and mentally place yourself into the position of success that you want to be in. In order to do that, you have to know what success looks like to you. It may not be a title. That's perfectly okay. Maybe you don't want to be in this high, visible, you know, leadership role where you're managing large teams, and you may have to come to terms or come to grips with that. I know at one point for me as an entrepreneur, I thought I wanted to, you know, scale my business by having multiple locations and having a team of 50 people and different career coaches and different resume writers, and I realized that that was not how I wanted to define success for me and that wasn't the only way that I could define success for me as an entrepreneur. So I'm scaling my business in other ways - by creating digital products, by building an online brand. The goal is, in 2020, to have a full-fledged online career shop with courses and e-books and guides that will help you navigate your career. And I'm okay with not having a team of 50 people, but you have to think about what success looks like for you, and it's okay to redefine success as needed. Maybe it's not a certain, you know, salary amount. You know, maybe it's the feeling of being able to empower your patients, if you're in healthcare, you know, or being able to empower your clients. Maybe it's just that feeling of knowing that you made a difference in the world. I know that sounds a little cheesy, but seriously, you know? Money is not everything, and so you just want to make sure that you know what success looks like for you. And also - for you, okay? Not what your mom, what your parents, you know, what society is telling you in order to be successful. And when I think about success too, I equate that to happiness and being emotionally stable and happy. Seriously. So I hope that this was helpful. Again, in 2020, we are working on our careers, not just working in our careers. So let's get it, and I will talk to you all soon. Peace.