Know how to get comfortable with career discomfort? You should. The pace of change in today’s world of work is accelerating. Anne Oudersluys, Founder and Chief Strategist at Core Impact, shares how she has become increasingly adept at forging a non-linear career path.
Anne is a purpose driven marketer. She has embraced a sustainable approach to marketing. She “found” brand building after dabbling in law and politics. Now, she helps mission driven brands succeed.
She lead sustainable brand building at Procter & Gamble. She studied Social Studies and International Relations at Harvard. Now, she is embracing life as a entrepreneur. Plus, she writes a thought provoking newsletter that explores a variety of marketing topics.
Anne shares some of the things she has learned over a 20-yr career honing her brand building skills. She encourages listeners to focus on the next step, to learn that discomfort isn’t bad, to see their awesome personal power, and more.
Listen to the full episode. You’re sure to pick up a nugget or three for your own career adventures.
Don’t have time on your commute to work? Skim the top themes below. Then listen to the full episode on your commute home.
Core Themes
Here are the core themes we should take note of in our own career adventures.
The Next Step Matters Most
Stephen Covey championed to “Begin with the End in Mind” in his bestselling book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. This is great advice for shorter time horizons, but might not be as effective in managing your career. Why? Careers are managed over extraordinarily long time horizons, hopefully. For some, a career may last 50 years! That’s roughly 10 economic cycles.
Anne championed career prototyping: considering what your next step should be and testing it. This helps take pressure off of you. Rather than worrying what the end will be when you retire and how to get there, look at what interests you now and if it aligns with your strengths.
“I'm a big believer in prototyping when it comes to career…That could be as simple as trying to sell something, starting a side hustle, or as basic as even just having interviews to understand, is there a market for what you're trying to do? We sometimes do too much thinking and not enough doing when it comes to figuring out what's the right next thing for us.”
Process of Elimination
What do you remember most from the last time you ate at a Cheesecake Factory? Was it the cheesecake? I remember the gargantuan menu they drop in front of you like a ton of bricks. It looks like a Gutenberg Bible. It’s filled with nearly every food possibility on the planet. My mind hurts whenever I have to open a menu that big to make a choice. I cope by immediately eliminating broad option categories. The same can apply to careers.
Anne discussed the idea of process of elimination in careers. Oftentimes, we focus on the exact thing to do. Yet, eliminating options via testing and learning can make selecting potential paths much easier. This is because it minimizes choice. Choice can be overwhelming and limiting.
“I very much took a process of elimination approach to careers. I started out one summer doing law and then another summer working in Washington, D. C. in politics. Then, I stumbled on business and realized I loved marketing. I worked for a local beer company. That's what kind of got me at the step for marketing, which took me to P&G.”
Personal Power > Positional Power
Stay in your lane! Color inside the lines! Follow the rules! We’ve all heard these statements throughout our lives. They are intended to be helpful guardrails. Yet, they can be limiting. It’s important for us to remember the limitations of a job description. They are necessary “evils” that serve as a basic guide. Yet, it’s easy to follow them out the window and limit the power of creativity and exploration.
Anne shared some of the best advice she received from a manager: recognize the expanse of your personal power. She saw first-hand how some people created unique roles at work that were completely based on their own exploration. Describing advice from her manager, she said…
“Your personal power always exceeds your positional power. He drew this little bullseye graphic where the positional power was in the middle. Your personal power is outside of that. He said, “It's limited thinking when we just take what the position we are given is, and just assume that those are the boundaries on what we can deliver. If we understand the position, like the personal power that we have, is much broader than that. We seize that ourselves and go beyond that. We really create and expand our role.””
Demonstrate Passion
Prove it! Don’t just say you are interested in something. Show that you are. The actions we take are the most likely ways to demonstrate what we’re passionate about. If we’ve worked in a specific job type or industry for dozens of years, this demonstrates we are passionate about it, whether we are or are not.
Anne talked about getting a sustainability marketing job at P&G. She saw it as the perfect opportunity for her. A big reason she got the job was because she showed her interest in the environment in previous roles. Even though the sustainability role looked like a “stretch” she got it because she showed her interest with previous managers.
“One of my managers had said that I had always demonstrated an interest in the environment and sustainability, even in my earlier roles at P&G, which to be honest, I hadn't even remembered. It demonstrated that was a passion of mine, whether or not I was particularly conscious of it. Identifying where those threads are, where those areas of interest for you that are not just one offs, but you have demonstrated continued interest in them, then allows other people to vouch for you and speak to your abilities and interest in that space.”
Get Comfortable With Discomfort
Feel the burn! Shake up your exercise routine from time to time. That’s what fitness gurus will tell you. We’re told this because it helps our bodies. Our bodies are trained to find efficiencies. Our cardiovascular and physical strength can stagnate if we don’t change things up and stress ourselves from time to time. The same applies to our careers.
Anne encouraged us to be comfortable with discomfort. She’s right. We are imperfect beings. We make mistakes. Yet, mistakes lead to success. They do more than help us learn. They open us up to new paths we hadn’t considered. We never have it all figured it out. It’s hubris to think we do.
“You have to just fall on your face and be a little bit embarrassed and realize you could have done it differently…Being uncomfortable, that's one of the things I try to subscribe to is be comfortable being uncomfortable. The moment we get too comfortable in what we're doing and we have mastered and we're really good at it. One, it can become boring and two, we stop growing.”
Listen to the Full Episode
Anne has embraced a purpose driven ethos. She has gotten comfortable being uncomfortable. She recognizes the value in shorter term career planning.
Go beyond the themes. Listen to the full episode. Anne provides more insight to how she has forged her unique path. She eschews the notion that careers are ladders to climb. Rather, they are jungle gyms to meander.
Enjoy the episode! Thanks for you support!
Paul G. Fisher
Need Help With Purpose-Driven Growth? Connect with Anne and Core Impact
Curious to learn more about Anne’s work helping purpose driven companies create a clear roadmap for sustainable, mission-driven growth? Check out her company Core Impact! At Core Impact, she helps companies define what they stand for, attract more customers, and grow their impact.
Share this post