As you’ve heard me say – just a few (thousand) times, relationships are the part of our careers that bring the most meaning and joy into our lives.

Yet many of my clients find it beyond challenging to meet new interesting and generous people – in between all of the multitude of responsibilities they’re juggling in a given day.

But here’s the thing – I meet so many people like you – talented and looking for connections and community in your work life.

And I’m always on the hunt for ways to bring you together.

To show you all the other interesting humans who find you interesting…and want to help you.

So, here’s something new.

I will be facilitating a Virtual Networking Event where I guarantee you will meet at least 5 new people.

People who can help you think about your career in a new way.

People who can introduce you to folks in your target companies.

And those other folks like me who just LOVE connecting people. I see you, connectors.

We’ll be gathering on Thursday, May 23 at 7pm ET and the cost to join is $32.

For those of you who are already part of my Career Connections Membership, this event is one of the benefits of your membership – so no need to register!

Bring your glass of wine, polish off that elevator pitch, think about what you might be able to offer others – and where you may ask the group for help.

I can’t wait to see you there!

It’s hard to believe it’s May!

For the fellow working parents out there – we’re staring down the barrel of all the lovely but middle-of-the-workday end of school events...and the bittersweet seasonal lapse of caregiving coverage, most affectionately called, summer.

If you’ve already been job searching and getting some traction, your cortisol levels may start to amp up when you think of the extra camp drop offs and pickups, the days without activities at all and the melty (but understandable) fall out in your kid’s behavior due to the constant break in hard-won routines.

I am going to generalize here – so guys please reach out if I’m off base – the mental load of summer planning and activities and camps and coordinating with other parents so your kid has a friend at said camps and mountains of on and offline forms and procuring crazy hats for ad hoc spirit days – falls on the mom.

All while she has a full-time job. And is looking for a new one.

I see you, tired (and quietly enraged) moms.

Here are a few ways you can plan for this time to bring a bit of calm and keep your job search momentum going.

Ask for help so you continue to have (at least some) job searching time:

If you have a partner, have a meeting about summer plans asap. You don’t have to do all of this by yourself AND if you do want to share the responsibility, you must make the tasks visible to your partner. If you’ve been doing this work every year, your partner expects you will continue to do it. And, while you’re such a pro that you know all the steps and when they need to happen, I assure you that your partner doesn’t. Just as you would train someone on your team the steps to complete a project – go forth and assume good intent while you share your expertise with your partner. If you don’t have a partner, I highly recommend having a brainstorming session and community meeting with a few other single parent friends so you can help each other with both ideas and village support on tasks.

Consider a summer staycation:

If you typically take a summer vacation where you either travel or rent a home in a beach, or country spot for a week, consider staying home and planning for a day or two of whole family time. Time for you and your partner to be together without the kids and some alone time for each of you so that you can build in some networking conversations, do your homework for your career coach 😁, and see a friend that is heart filling for you. This approach can help you save money to put into your “F-you fund” - a savings that will support you if you must quit your job without one – or if you get laid off. And it saves you the time and mental load of packing for the kid/s. Also something that typically falls on mom.

Set different boundaries in your current job:

If you’re in an industry that slows down over the summer, take a beat and slow yourself down. You don’t need to be putting in 110% when the job is currently requiring 70%. Reminder, your 70 is probably someone else’s 110. If you’re not in one of those industries – now is the time to practice those boundary-setting muscles! Start taking an hour for lunch where you can do research for your job search. Begin scheduling networking meetings at 5:30 so you can still get home before the bedtime shenanigans, I mean routine. It’s great practice to draw these lines with your current employer so it’s in your muscle memory to set them for your new exciting job that you’re definitely going to get…soon!

Now, you may read this and say – these aren’t job searching strategies. Give me LinkedIn hacks. Give me resume best practices. These go in my favorite category of job search strategies.
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​The first category where you must focus before all others - prioritizing you.

​​You must believe your time, your career desires, your mental health is worthy of investing the time and putting yourself at the top of the list. After you do that – the more tactical part comes together.

If you’re ready to prioritize you, your career and need the tools and accountability – I’d love to work with you. To learn more about my 1:1 Coaching program and sign up for a complimentary 30-minute call go to rachelbgarrett.com/coaching.

As you may remember, I’ve been on a path of divesting from diet and wellness culture, all the many rules and programs and rigid regimes I’ve internalized since the age of 5.

It’s been a process of listening to my body, trusting it knows what it wants – while also drowning out the noisy ever-present messages that tell me to make myself smaller…and well…to buy something to make myself smaller.

It is not easy work.

I’ve let experts tell me what and when to eat for so long, that in this area of my life, my body and I are just acquaintances, sizing each other up – wondering if we’re going to build a relationship.

Yet, as I do this work, I am grateful that there is one part of my world where my body and I are simpatico…and it’s my career.

Since my early career, I’ve locked arms with my body. In the best of times, I’ve listened to its whispers. I took action when I got the nudge. Even when others disagreed, advised against, told me to quiet down or chill the f out.

And even in the tougher moments on my path, when I had two small children and felt stuck on my marketing track, my body sent me clues that would lead me to my answers over time.

I trusted my desire to train for a marathon. To set a big goal. To make time for something of my own that wasn’t about my kids or my job. That training time was exactly what I needed to meditate, to reflect, to learn about myself and what I wanted.

It led me here. To a business and a practice where I trust my intuition and my body’s clues in how to move forward and I teach my clients how to do the same.

In this year of revisiting embodiment in all other areas of my life, I smile wide every time I share one of the many ways it’s threaded within the career pathing framework that’s part of all of my programs.

Remembering the moments in your career where you felt sparky and alive in your body.

Checking in with your body during networking conversations and interviews and even reading job descriptions. If you’re experiencing chest constriction when you read the jd, do you think you’re really going to be energized in the role?

As you’re moving through your day either in your current job or in your job search - experiment with checking in with your body. What are you feeling? What is it telling you?

And if you feel more connected to your body in other areas of your life, spend some time reflecting on how that’s going for you and how it might be able to give you confidence that body trust is possible for you.

How can you build a bridge to create that body trust in your career?

Part of my work with clients is talking about their non-negotiables for their next roles.

What are the 5 things you need to be in place for this next role to feel successful or meaningful? Flexibility comes up for many clients – yet it means different things to different people.

So – what does it mean to you?

And how’s it going?

Sometimes it’s as simple as - I want to be treated like a grownup. If I need to run an errand during the day AND I get all of my work done – it’s not a major event where I need to account for the 30 minutes I was gone.

Also – most of the working parents I support want to log off between 6:30 and 8:30 to spend QT with their families.

They may log on after to check a few emails…or they may dive into the latest streaming true crime docuseries. Or both at the same time

Whatever you want it to look like with your work day, it’s important to take the time to reflect on your work-life boundary-setting wins – and the areas where it may be falling apart.

Are you able to carve out sacred, disconnected time?

Is it respected by your employer or your clients?

Are you jumping into after hours or weekend work without being asked? Where is this coming from? Does it feel expansive and energizing?

Or is it coming from a place of fear? I need to prove my value. Responsiveness equals usefulness.

We’re going to be discussing setting work-life boundaries, holding our lines, the discomfort when others disagree, powerful ways to say no…and more in our next Career Connections Conversation.

To be part of this chat and a member of this growing community of vulnerable, supportive and wise humans sign up at rachelbgarrett.com/connections.

Our last conversation about asking for help was heart-filling. Everyone walked away with new friends and career advocates.

Hope to get you thinking about how it’s going with your own boundaries – and even better get to chat with you about it soon!

I’ve been wanting to experiment with ChatGPT for a while now, but family, business, life…all the things have been going on and taking up a lot of my time.

Then, a couple of weeks ago, while I was procrastinating from reviewing my taxes, I thought – right now is my moment. Let’s play!
​
I decided to start with one of my clients’ biggest questions in the career pivot.

How do I translate my strengths into potential paths outside of what I’ve always done?

This question stops people in their tracks because they don’t know what they don’t know.

I typically fuel them with answers from their network, online research and my own knowledge of which skills typically go with which roles.

Yet, what if we had a tool that could fast track clients with answers that they then could experiment with to see if they resonate and feel sparky?

So, I jumped in with two of my favorite hobbies: the Clifton Strengths and learning more about me.

I asked ChatGPT, “What careers are best for people with the top 5 Clifton Strengths: connectedness, activator, maximizer, communication and individualization?”

And oof, freaky.

Number one response…

Life Coach or Mentor:

This role allows individuals to leverage their connectedness to help others see the bigger picture and find meaning in their lives. The activator strength enables them to take action and initiate positive change, while maximizer helps them focus on optimizing their clients' potential. Effective communication skills are essential for guiding and motivating clients, while individualization helps tailor coaching strategies to each person's unique needs and goals.

Interestingly, Marketing Manager was also in the top five paths mentioned – so according to ChatGPT, I was on track with my previous career, as well.

I continued my experiment by asking about my clients’ strengths. Then adding in salary parameters and other variables from their non-negotiables list.

I wouldn’t say we were on-target all the time, but like anything generated with AI right now – it gave us some new ideas to think about, to ponder, to expand our thinking beyond what we know and what our circle of other humans know.

All to say – if this is the point you’re at, where you’re clear on your strengths, but you have no idea how to translate them into a new career path – give it a shot! You have nothing to lose and only new possibilities to gain.

Lastly, because I couldn’t help myself, I did ask ChatGPT: Write a blog post about how to use ChatGPT in a career pivot in the style of Rachel B Garrett.

And…it was complete shit.

So fellow humans who enjoy writing – there’s still a place for us. For now.

Did your first quarter fly by like mine?

Between kicking off my 2024 cohort of Career Command Four-Month Shift, helping all of my news clients remind themselves of who they are and matching up the right roles to their gifts, and starting my new community – Career Connections – it’s been a bit of a whirlwind.

Full transparency – I’m behind on solidifying my Q2 goals. And writing this note is helping me to get back on track – so thanks for the space to share and also – I mention this because it’s part of a process I use for goal-setting and planning that fits with my style and my strengths.

I begin all of my goal-setting with free writing or sparky conversations with colleagues and friends.

I must start from a creative, exploratory place before I can buy in and attach my name to tasks and due dates.

My (almost) thirteen year old daughter and I have been discussing this recently. We share a personality quirk that we can easily follow rules, jump into projects and go above and beyond – when we buy into that thing – whatever it is. And when we don’t – there’s struggle, often an impasse.

If you’re aware of Gretchen Rubin’s framework of The Four Tendencies, we’re the Questioners and we’re learning how to navigate being who we are with some self-awareness, self-honoring gifts of doing the things that energize us and the tough love of – sometimes there’s just shit you have to do.

After I let my ideas percolate for a short period of time, I like to make sure they’re aligned with my values and my overarching goals for the year.

You may remember, I am prone to epiphanies and I can create new things quickly. So, I’ve built in ways to validate whether or not these new ideas fit with my overarching goals for the year that I set in December of 2023.

In addition to my revenue goals, I have Career Self Care Goals in categories like: Energy, Relationships, Growth and Positioning. These are the domains where I can get intentional about how I want my business and career to look and feel – beyond the numbers.

Sample goals in these areas:

• Energy: Don’t send emails on the weekends. (I may write them, but I won’t send them)

• Relationships: Continue to set two networking conversations a month with people from my career advocates list. Hint: if you don’t have a list like this, I recommend making one asap.

• Growth: Research Embodiment Coaching Certification (I love thinking about all the new tools I can bring to my work!)

• Positioning: Rework my LinkedIn to reflect my current offerings and messaging.

This all feels doable for me in addition to all I have on my plate already. I like to make my goals realistic and even inviting and fun. Because – we all know what happens when they’re not. Not only are you unlikely to achieve them – but you may not even set goals for the next quarter/year/ever again.

I’m curious to hear more about how you’re thinking of goal setting. What has worked for you in the past? How do you continue to tweak your process? How can you make it fit with your personality, your style and your strengths?

Whether you're...

feeling stuck in your current job,
having trouble setting boundaries with your boss or your colleagues,
or like you only know people and perspectives from the industry or company you’ve worked within your entire career...

I promise you – you are not alone.

There are so many other thoughtful, kind and generous humans who have been where you are.

I know, because – I meet them all the time.

And the wild thing is – something magical happens when you all come together.

Nothing in your life has changed. But something has.

You can release the shame, the guilt, the judgment of the current moment.

Because you know…you’re not the only one. You’re not alone.

That’s why I created Career Connections.

In my work with my group coaching program, my monthly office hours, and in the  one-off matchmaking I do for my clients – I find the answers, the calm, the grounding, the meaning comes through seeing yourself through someone else’s eyes, finding commonalities and feeling like you belong somewhere.

If you join Career Connections by 10pm ET on April 3rd, you will be included in our first conversation on April 4th at 4pm ET.

And we’re talking all about – Asking For Help. The how, the who and most importantly – the why.

Enroll now at rachelbgarrett.com/connections.

I spoke at a networking event last week and I mentioned a concept I didn't realize was so controversial…

People want to help you.

Wait, what?

In response, I heard a lot of…

I don’t want to be a burden.

I don’t want to sound weak.

I don’t even know how to ask!

That’s why I’m kicking off my new community, Career Connections, with a conversation about…

Building career relationships by asking for help.

We’ll be discussing how “the ask” actually builds trust, makes the other person feel honored to be asked – and the very tactical strategies of how to do the actual asking.

This 90-minute Career Connections Conversation will take place via Zoom on Thursday, April 4th from 4pm ET - 5:30pm ET.

I would LOVE for you to be a part of this crucial career chat and meet some new incredible humans by joining the community!

A reminder, in Career Connections we’ll be diving into…

Monthly conversations at the intersection of relationships and career (Think…asking for help, setting boundaries, combating loneliness in virtual work, networking according to your strengths, etc.)

Quarterly virtual networking events where you can get to know your community in an easy and informal way – and still intentionally grow your career network–or as I see it–the bridge toward meaning and joy in your career.

An online community tool (that’s not Facebook or Slack – you’re welcome!) where you can celebrate your wins, ask each other questions and share a good podcast, book or movie that’s helping you think differently about relationships.

And, if there’s interest, NYC in-person networking events.

Join now, as one of the founding members and help shape the community into one that helps you find the meaning and humanity you’re seeking in your career.

Learn more and enroll at rachelbgarrett.com/connections.

Sign up by Wednesday, April 3rd to receive access to our April 4th gathering.