Job Joy

Your Guide to Success, Meaning and Happiness in Your Career

Kristen J. Zavo

• Publisher: Morgan James Publishing
• ISBN:
  9781642792256
• Topic: Persönliche Entwicklung
• Subtopic: Persönlicher Erfolg

Job Joy is a different approach to career coaching because rather than presenting a Job Search 101 it takes those who want more from their career through deep self-reflection and teaches them to build a plan to achieve their unique goals.

Job Joy is for readers who have a successful career by all traditional measures (title, income, etc.) but are frustrated with the lack of meaning in their work. Since the early 2000's, Kristen J. Zavo has been there multiple times and in different careers. In this go-to guide, Kristen shares how she turned things around and once again became excited, passionate, and fulfilled at work. It's the perfect guide for those who feel stuck in their career, unsure of what to do next, and even afraid it's too late to do anything different. Throughout Job Joy, readers gain the tools to:

• Find meaning at work NOW
• Do more of what they love and less of what they don't each day—and still make it to 6pm spin class
• Determine whether they should stay put or find a new job (or even an entirely new career)
• Overcome the top fears and challenges that are stopping them from making a move
• Create a plan to build a career that has meaning

PART 1

Reflect

The more reflective you are, the more effective you are.

~ HALL AND SIMERAL

CHAPTER ONE

I Can’t Get No Satisfaction

My Story

The only way to do great work is to love what you do.
If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle.

~ STEVE JOBS

Growing up, success generally came easy for me. Yes, I studied and worked hard, but I always got straight As and was at the top of my class. I graduated high school in three years, received my Bachelor of Science with two majors and a minor, a couple weeks before my 20^th birthday, and continued on to earn my MBA in finance by the age of 21. While in college and grad school, I taught test prep classes, teaching high school kids not far from my own age, as well as grad students, some easily twice my age. After graduating, I continued teaching but got my first “real” job in banking, where I was responsible for monitoring the financial performance of a portfolio of real estate entities. By all outside measures, I was successful.

But just a few months into my new job, I started to get restless – a feeling that would become very familiar to me as I progressed in my career. I had what seemed like good reasons. For someone accustomed to progressing fast and on my own timeline, the traditional banking method of promoting based on tenure instead of performance, frustrated me. And as was the nature of portfolio management, I reported to a handful of managers, who understandably each deemed their work to be top priority – a seemingly unwinnable position for me. But in retrospect, I now know it was deeper than that, and something I didn’t want to face. I was questioning if my work mattered. In this particular instance, since my portfolio consisted of successful, blue chip companies, I suspected that my analysis was more of a “check the box” item for the bank – and that no matter what, these companies would continue to get their requested credit line increases and loans.

After just one year, I started looking for another job. This was unheard of at the time. Even to this day, we have this idea that you can’t leave a company until you’ve been there at least three years – especially if it’s your first job out of school. But I was young, had chutzpah, and hadn’t invested years in my career yet.

I left banking for the world of consulting, working for a firm that specialized in distressed businesses and restructurings – quite the opposite of the companies in my portfolio at the bank. At first, it was exciting. I traveled every week to client sites, worked hard all day, and then had dinners out (expensed of course!) at night with my new colleagues and friends. But about a year in, I started to get that restless feeling again. I had different reasons this time. The 12-hour days were getting to me, as was the travel. Because I was on the road all the time, my home office didn’t know me, which was bad for politics and promotions. And again, it was more than just these surface issues. I started to doubt the difference my work was making. Sure, I was learning a ton, billing lots of hours, and making good money. But I questioned if my work actually mattered, and if our clients actually implemented and maintained the changes we suggested – or if it went back to business-as-usual as soon as we left. I suspected the latter and it didn’t feel good.

Still, I loved consulting, so I decided to join a top firm known for interim management. Unlike many consulting firms that were known for coming in, analyzing the problems, presenting a solution, and then leaving – this firm actually implemented the plans they recommended. This satisfied my initial desire for meaning and I stayed there, got promoted, and took on more challenging projects, traveling the country for seven years. But if I’m honest, it was probably at least three years too long. After a few years in, I had a full roster of former clients that I kept in touch with. I began to notice that many continued to struggle with the same issues they hired us for, long after we were gone, despite the initial implementation and management we had done for them. The “interim management” distinction in the field of consulting didn’t seem to be making the difference I had thought it would.

But something was different this time. It wasn’t as easy to leave as it had been in my previous two jobs. Something they don’t tell you at the start of many successful careers is that once you make it past a few years, you get your very own pair of golden handcuffs. At first, you might not even notice they’re there. It starts out innocently enough. You like your job. You get paid well, very well in some cases. You sign a lease for a nice, overpriced apartment or buy a house with a mortgage you can barely afford. You are overworked and stressed, so you find ways to treat yourself, because you deserve it! Maybe you enjoy expensive dinners out with friends, afternoons at the spa, or shopping for designer brand clothes (you are no stranger to red-bottomed shoes). And it makes you feel better, for the moment anyway. And then you wake up one day and you have this lifestyle that you’ve become accustomed to, that you can’t imagine changing.

Plus, by now you’ve invested what feels like so much time building your career in a particular industry. On top of that, leaving also means losing out financially, and not just to maintain your current lifestyle but to receive what you’ve already earned. You may be waiting for payout from last year’s bonus, and/or biding your time for your options to be fully vested. This is a vicious cycle, because the longer you stay, the more dollars are at risk.

So I stayed. I moved to New York City, where I lived in a high-rise doorman building. I indulged in designer clothes and luxury brand shoes. (If I was going to hate my job, I figured I might as well feel good in my clothes.) I bought the best in skincare and makeup products, and in my free time, worked out at overpriced boutique gyms where $35 for a 45-minute class was the norm. Since I worked six to seven days a week and ten to twelve hour days, there wasn’t time for much more. Work, workout, work some more, eat, sleep, repeat.

To an outsider, I had it all – a successful career, an impressive résumé, a great wardrobe, an expensive New York City lifestyle, and a job that allowed me to travel all over the country (and earn all those frequent flier miles!). But I wasn’t happy. I wasn’t passionate about my work. I had that nagging feeling that what I was doing didn’t matter (at least not to me). All of this led to what I’ll call my 30^th birthday breakdown.

I’ve never been one to make a big deal out of birthdays, and this one was no exception. The day was fine, nothing exceptional really. But that night, I woke up from a dream, extremely upset and hysterically crying. This was out of character for me. After almost a decade working in a male-dominated field, I had trained – and prided myself – in not being emotional. This night was different. I called my mom in the middle of the night (of course), and she listened as I went on and on between sobs. There were so many thoughts going through my head.

This is not where I expected to be at 30.

I’m not happy.

I don’t feel successful.

More often than not, I don’t like what I am doing.

I am burned out.

I look at my managers and their managers, and don’t like what I see in my future if I stay.

How did I get here? How can I get out?

It is too late! Almost ten years in, I’m too far along in my career to change. What can I do?

My mom and I didn’t solve my problems that night. Actually, I would put off taking action for almost two more years, waiting for a health crisis to knock some sense into me and to give me the perspective I needed to completely change careers (more on that later).

I share my story to show you that I understand and have been in your situation. I have built a successful career, only to feel unhappy and unfulfilled, craving more meaning but feeling stuck and at a loss as to what to do next. And I’ve gotten through what feels like an insurmountable challenge, to the other side.

I also know what it’s like to feel excited and inspired by the work you do, and who you get to do it with. To know that the work you do is aligned with your values and makes a difference. To have a job that makes you feel successful, happy, and on purpose.

It took six jobs, three career changes, and compromised health and happiness for me to figure out what was missing in my career and how to change it. I don’t want you to have to endure the same. That is why I wrote this book.

My hope is that it will help you speed up this process, so that you can experience success, meaning, and happiness in your career faster - and make the difference you are meant to make sooner - in the lives of the clients and customers you serve, and more importantly, in your own life and the lives of your loved ones.

JOY NOTES

• •If you find yourself unhappy and unfulfilled despite a successful career, you are not alone.
• •You do not need to sacrifice your happiness or fulfillment in order to be successful
• •This guide will provide you with strategies and tools to find success, meaning, and happiness in your career.

CHAPTER TWO

All I Want Is to Have My Peace of Mind

Redefining Success

Now you’re climbin’ to the top of the company ladder
Hope it doesn’t take too long
Can’tcha you see there’ll come a day when it won’t matter?
Come a day when you’ll be gone

~ BOSTON, “PEACE OF MIND”

The goal of this chapter is threefold: first, to help you understand where you are and how you got here; second, to clearly articulate what it is costing you; and third, to examine your definition of success. I want you to move from feelings of frustration and overwhelm with your current situation to a place of understanding, confidence, and hope.

If you skip this self-reflection, you could end up spinning your wheels – and even if you do make a change, it will likely not have the lasting impact you are seeking. Let me explain.

About a year before my 30^th birthday breakdown, I was clear on a few things. I was unhappy. I didn’t like where I was in my career. I needed a change. But at that point, I didn’t spend the time to figure out how I got there or the deeper reason I was so unhappy. What I did do was decide to embark on a minimum three-year path to attain my CFA (Chartered Financial Analyst designation). For anyone who has been through that, or knows someone who has, you know it is a super strenuous, highly regarded, self-study program with three tests spread over the course of three years. It is arguably more difficult than earning an MBA, with a pass rate of around 35 percent for each test. People give up their life for the three to six months before the exam for intense study.

Looking back, this was an interesting choice for me to make, especially since I ultimately realized I didn’t want a career solely in finance. At the time though, it felt good to take action, however uninspired. My thought was I’d get the certification and then be able to get a better, higher paying job. Except my problem wasn’t that I didn’t have a good enough job or that I wasn’t paid enough. It was that despite having a good job and good pay, I wasn’t fulfilled or happy in my career.

Around the same time, I remember having conversations with Alicia, a friend and colleague ...