Description
Key Learnings
- Evaluate career choices of other professionals for personal tactical and strategic value.
- Inventory personal strengths and opportunities in context of your career journey.
- Determine best matches of presented tips, tricks, and tools for your leadership style.
- Learn about making immediate next-step choices to advance your career.
Speaker
- Todd ShackelfordAs an Area BIM Manager for HDR, Todd is driven to make technical processes easy for users. Todd is an Industry Fellow of Digital Design for the University of Nebraska, former Revit Content Manager for AUGIWorld magazine, and a founder of the Omaha BIM Collaborative and the Central States Revit Workshops.
TODD SHACKELFORD: Hi, I'm Todd Shackelford, and this session is called Getting Your Career Unstuck Transitioning to a Technical Leadership Role. Before we get started, I just want to say, I'm not all that special and no one really is. When I solve a problem for a user, it's typically because I've had that same issue earlier in my career. And I'm just sharing how I solved it.
And this talk is pretty much just that. I got stuck in my career at different points. And I found some methods for getting unstuck very useful and some not so useful. And for this talk, I didn't just go on my own experiences. I also asked about 100 of my friends to answer a survey and give me their observations and insights, and I've included all of that in this presentation.
So with that, let's take a picture, or let's look at a picture from AU last year. And I was just going through my pictures here and thinking about my presentation. And there is a guy in this picture who is looking for a seat. And I was just kind of like, this fits, this fits.
Because sometimes in your career, everyone's got a seat, or they seem to be going to a place. They seem to very much know where they're going. And there are times in your career where you kind of have to just pop up and look around and say, where am I going? Is this the right place? Am I doing what I need to do? That's where you're at. So that was just a great picture from last year.
So with that, I want to talk a little bit about how we get stuck in our career. There's infinite ways to get stuck, there really are. Maybe you just like the software. Maybe you saw ways to go faster and get better results. Teams often look up to us when we are good technically with stuff. And before we know it, we're creating some standards and some templates. You start just being looked at as the de facto technical leader.
You kind of do everything at some point because you just start handling everything that comes up. You put fires out. You find ways to go forward. Things are relatively good. But at some point, you might feel like you're just on a treadmill, like, I'm just doing this job. I know that leadership is often thankful that you exist, but at the same time, they might take you for granted.
You got this job because of your very much your personality. It's your interpretation of the job. No one's really lined up with your unique skill set. You don't have anyone to pass that job to. So essentially, you might be too good at your job to be replaced or promoted.
And it may be that leadership simply doesn't see what's next for you. The status quo is fine for them and without any clarity of vision otherwise, nothing seems to happen. So with that, I want to talk about the steps to get things unstuck for you.
So however your career got stuck, transitioning from a BIM or a CAD manager position to a leadership position, it requires a shift in mindset and some development of some specific skill sets and strategies. So I have some of those that will hopefully make your transition go very well. Let's look at seeing what those steps are.
So the first one is a self-assessment. Before you decide to go somewhere, it is a really good idea to know who you are. Obviously, I like dogs looking at their shadow, especially when they look like Batman. Who knows who knows who you are until you take a look at those things?
So it's a critical first step before embarking on your career transition is just honestly assess your individual desires, your skills, your natural strengths. Choosing a career goal that's mismatched to your traits will likely end in frustration. So how are some ways that we can figure those things out?
One of the things that I first encountered in the military was something called a SWOT analysis. And this is really where you reflect on your strengths, your weaknesses, opportunities that you have, and threats to those opportunities. Often, I'll just draw a vertical line and a horizontal line and I'll write strengths in one of those quadrants, and I'll just think about, what am I great at?
I'll write those things down. What am I not so great at? I'll write that in the quadrant below that. What opportunities do I see for myself? I'll fill that in, and then I'll fill in the bit about any threats to those opportunities. And it's a great way to start thinking about yourself and what's possible for you. And that's a great way to go, and that one's really built on self-reflection for yourself.
Another thing that you can do is just search the internet and look for a personality test. I recommend the Gallup Strength Finders. It's internationally recognized and used by so many firms. And it is pretty comprehensive. It's going to give you a lot.
There are some other tools, but since I'm talking about it, I'm going to throw up my Strength Finders. And according to this, I guess I'm pretty good at communicating. That's my number one skill set. I'm strategic. I'm positive, that's good. Futuristic, I really should have figured out what relator is, since I put this slide up, but I think that's a good thing too.
Those things are really cool to know. I also put up my bottom five because if you're doing a self-assessment, knowing what maybe are not your strengths, are a good thing to know, as well. So context, apparently context means nothing to me. Competition, I'm not very competitive. I think there's room for everybody.
Ideation, I need to look at that one find out what that is. Includer, this feels bad. I feel like I'm an includer. It says, no, I'm not, really. And significance are those little things. Well, there's that.
I would say there's a lot of other things out there, as well, that you can find on the internet. Be careful, do a little bit of looking around. Some things are very good and some things are not as good. Just do your research, and don't be afraid to try multiple things as you're looking around for something to do in that area.
I also want to talk about self-perception here, a little bit, because these are things where you're kind of saying, does this match? When I look at these things, I'm looking for trends, like, is this good, or is this bad if I run a couple of things? And I try to be honest with myself. And you should try to be honest with yourself.
If something doesn't feel right at first when you see it, be open to it. Well, maybe this is something. Maybe there's something that I should look at. The idea is to be honest with yourself. And see what you think. You might have an initial reaction, and later on, have a more thoughtful reaction later on. An emotional reaction usually comes first.
Do these results align with your perception of yourself? If they don't, that's OK. That makes you're a regular person. But these are the things to find out. This awareness, it's an awareness exercise for you to do. Accept the results for what they are in the end. This is how a test interpreted your responses. That's what it is.
All right, so there's also something, just external perceptions. So once you've done this, I've found a good thing to do is to ask people that are close to you what they think and for their analysis of who you are. And if you ask someone, do your best to let them talk without interruption. If you're me, this is really hard to do, because I like talking. It's one of my favorite activities.
So this helps me, and it helps you. So one of the things I'll do is, I'll say, hey, what do you think? How did I handle a situation? And when a person says, oh, I think you did good. When I get a response like that, I, in my head, count to 10 like this one hippopotamus, two hippopotamus, three hippopotamus.
I leave a really long uncomfortable silence in the air. And when I do that, I'll never get to seven before someone will just fill in more information. And it's usually more detailed, more nuanced, and more honest. So if you let them talk, they will talk, and you can kind of force that by leaving an uncomfortable silence. It's a great tool to just get people to add something.
Then think about do these results agree with the other results you got? Are they reinforcing something a test told you that you didn't think so? Just put that in the pot. This is something that might be good. They might have an insight that a test didn't have. They might have an insight that you didn't have. And it's really good to ask people that you know because they are outside of your drama, and they see you very clearly.
Again, look for trends. Listen, how other perceives you. It's not right or wrong. It's their perception of you. Knowing how you're perceived by others, also provides you with some actionable insights. In the end of the day, you have a brand. And that's how people understand you.
So how you act, how you dress, how you communicate it's all informing others and coloring their thoughts about you. So like it or not, you're presenting something to the world and asking people what they're getting is good to see how those things align.
When you hear this, don't jump to rebrand yourself right away. Consider that even when you hear negative feedback from them, things that seem negative, can actually be advantageous. And things that seem very positive, could be an area of concern for you. Understand that any single trait that exists for you, it can present different results in different situations. So the circumstance may provide different results there.
So for example, if you're impatient, that might serve you really well in certain circumstances. And others, maybe not so much, being impatient is not a good thing for you. Just be aware that these things exist in you, and they're situational.
All right, a next good step is targeting your best outcome. A self-assessment, it should inform you of an achievable career goal matched to your traits and desires, which sounds really easy. It is not so easy. It's a good start. And a good place to build from that, is to start asking yourself questions that might have conflicting answers.
All right, so what are some of those things? So what does your company need? I've asked, what does my company want from me? They want something. And if you think about it, put yourself in their shoes. What do they want from you? And that's part of where maybe your future lies.
And what do they need from you is a different thing. And a lot of times, what they want and what they need, you might perceive as the need is completely different. So think about those things. And then compare that to-- ask yourself, what am I capable of? Does that align with my company's needs and wants what I can actually do?
Oh, do you think enough of yourself to, like, I'm going to stretch and do something that maybe I'm not sure I'm capable of, but I'll figure it out as I go. Think about also what do you want to do. Your desires are really important there.
A lot of times your desires are based off of your company's, like, these are the job progression that we have for you from the day you show up. Think about what you truly want to do. If nothing else existed around you, what do you want to do? That's important.
And then think about will that make me happy? Because a lot of times what you kind of want to do and your happiness are not necessarily on the same tracks. They might be on parallel rails, but think about your happiness, as well because going forward and being happy is an important part of your life.
Another thing that I would do, this is your self resection, is ask others. But you don't have to ask others on this one. What you can do is say, what do others say I am great at?
So I'll give you an example in my life. I was asking people, what do you think my best skill set is? What is something that I should pursue? And people would say, oh, you're a great teacher. And I'm like, well, I'm not a teacher. I do BIM management. I do CAD management.
And I got a lot of good teacher for a very long time. And at some point, I started teaching on the side at a community college. And 14 years later, I realized, I think I could have just been a teacher. This is something that I didn't realize about myself. And that might be true for you that there's something that you might be really great at that people truly appreciate that, hey, you didn't focus on for whatever reason it was.
So these questions get you a little bit farther down the line. And I've got some more here. So let's just throw some more on there. There's your personal desires. And what your best use is. I want to talk about, hey, maybe you need to make your own job description here?
And some things I think of right before that, and maybe I'll ask these three questions first is, what situations do your traits make you most successful at? So if you're good teaching, maybe teacher is a good thing to do. What things do you need to get out of your comfort zone on? Does your external brand align with your internal desires? All things that have an impact on where you're going to go.
So a way of finding out where you're going to go, is, well, good suggestion bad suggestion is to go on a fake or a real job hunt. Go out on the internet and start looking for jobs that are even remotely interesting to you, especially if they're outside of your industry or stuff.
So the exercise here is to go through, find the job that's kind of interesting, and download the job descriptions. Go through the required tasks that this job will entail and pull out the duties that you think are a good fit for you or interest to you. And just start assembling things that you think are a good fit for you.
And this is an exercise I've done more than once, where I'll take a lot of different jobs, pull them all together, pull all these things together, and what I'll come up with is, man, if I did this job, I think I would be very good at it. It would make me very happy. It would answer all these questions in maybe a very positive way. And quite frankly, every time I've done this, I've come up with a job that didn't exist before.
So be open to that. We're actually in a slice of time now, where a lot of the jobs going into leadership and moving forward, they haven't existed before. 10, 15 years ago, one CAD manager could do a CAD manager's job, which is putting out all the fires.
These days, it takes multiple people. There is so much more complexity and nuance to jobs right now. The granularity is there that it takes specialists to do things. If you think about in the old days, there was a doctor who took care of everybody. And now, if you go see a doctor, you see about 100 specialists. That's happening in our career right now. So while it feels like you're making up a job, you're making up a needed position. It's a great exercise to go through.
The advice I got from people that filled in my survey on this one, was to aim high. If your career has been going A, B, C consider going for M. The next available step is not necessarily the place you need to go. Maybe it's several steps beyond that. Again, this whole exercise really isn't breaking a glass ceiling for yourself and getting to a different level. Being timid at this point will get you to your next level, but not to the next level. It'll get you really to your next assignment. So aim high. Do something bold here. Go for something that you think is best for you.
All right, next step is developing your secret sauce. So what do I mean by that? Well, when you have a target position in mind, it's important to identify the skills and the qualities, the experiences you need to achieve that goal. And there might be things in your power to change to make things better, increase your chances, of getting that next job.
So if you're adequate at something, now's a good time to get great at that thing. If you're OK, let's be better at it. And if it's a weakness, let's deal with that weakness. If you're looking to go to a job, being OK at it is not the best thing to have on your resume. Being the go to person is. So let's look at those things and consider things.
So far in your career, if you are not in a leadership role, probably, it's your technical expertise that's gotten you where you want to go. But that's not necessarily the thing that you should be thinking about now. What you should be thinking about, if you're breaking that glass ceiling, is to go on and think about your thought leadership here. If you are leading, it's more about where we are going and not how we do it. So it is a mind shift from where you've been.
Focusing on that technical thought leadership, it's not so hard. Explore where technology is going and how that affects your company, how it affects the industry. Be able to discuss with people the advantages and pitfalls of things that you see coming down, and there's plenty of things happening right now.
I would say, let your company invest in that outcome and invest in your training. Companies like to do that. They want to train you to do some things. So do that.
You can also just research things How's business and science going? Read books, read articles, watch videos the internet is full of things that are cutting edge. This is happening. Read about it.
It feels like it could be a huge commitment of time tuning in to where things are at, but honestly, this is something that I typically do 15 minutes a day. I start my day, get myself settled at my computer, and I'll do 15 minutes of research. What's happening in my industry? What's happening at Autodesk? What's happening with my software? What's happening in training? What's happening wherever?
And I will spend 15 minutes exploring that. And then when the clock dings on that, I go on to my next thing. But every morning I do that. And after a month or so of doing this, you're starting to tie-in to the things that are really sticking, the things that are kind of moving and shaking. And you'll be able to have an awareness and knowledge and be able to provide information and valuable comments on things when people ask.
If you're consistently bringing insightful information to conversations and meetings, leadership and staff are going to seek you out for your insight. And you already have this ability with technical issues. You've done this on the technical side. This is really just kind of putting a focus on the non-technical side and being that person that kind of gets the whole concept and can talk about where we're going and the reasons that those things are happening.
As you consider all of that, I want you to think about role models and mentors. Who do you consider a thought leader? If you can, ask those people questions directly. You're at Autodesk University right now. Go out in the hallway and ask somebody that you think, hey, man, how did you get there? What did you do? That's what I kind of did a lot of that stuff.
If you can't speak to them directly, that's OK. Observe them, emulate the traits that you find valuable. Steal their tools and put them in your toolbox. Stealing sounds bad, but it's not. It's, like, look and observe things that you think that you might be able to use and use those things.
It's not uncommon to have a role model or a mentor that is completely unaware that they are your role model. I do this all the time. An easy way to think about that is, I really like some things that Abraham Lincoln did. I can't really ask him for his thoughts and leadership, but I can read about it and go, that seemed to work. Let's do that. Being able to learn from other people's successes and failures is a very good skill, so be open to that.
And I know there's a natural tendency to look up to people that have done amazing things and try and emulate their things. But everyone has something valuable to add. In fact, when it comes to certain situations, I will seek children out. They have some of the best situational advice you think you'll ever get.
Children tend to be very open and honest and positive. And when there is a situation where I'm like, boy, I just don't know how I want to approach this, it's often very enlightening to me what an eight-year-old will tell you. So it makes sense to look up but also look around. And look down and look everywhere for advice and take good advice where you find it.
The next step is relationships. And this is really important. Transitioning to a technical leadership role necessitates positive relationships. You are not going to do this just because I'm the greatest person ever. In fact, no, being a humble person that has good relationships is absolutely essential to moving forward.
So think about how your relationships are going right now. Do you have good work relationships? Do you have good industry relationships? Have you spent time making sure that you can talk to the people that you need to talk to? Or do you kind of hang in your very small window or in a medium window, whatever it is. Think about how you can refine the relationships that you have in a way that will improve your standing, or I want to break through and do something different.
So the number one piece of feedback that I've gotten, when I asked in my poll about relationships, was they should be based on positive outcomes. So what am I mean by that? Basically meaning that when you have a relationship, probably the easiest way to do this is to never take any feedback that you get personally and never present any personal feedback to people.
Listen to people's idea, thank them if they have a better outcome than yours and go with it. If you disagree with what they're saying, express why you think you might have a better outcome. I'm always searching for the most positive, best outcome for the company here.
It's not that you have a bad idea, or I have a better idea. It's just like we both have ideas. Which one is the best idea? And make it about the idea and not about the person that is presenting the idea. And that can be hard in the beginning, but it really isn't that bad.
As a leader, you want to foster open communication and trust. Ask people what they think and give them credit when they have a great idea. You really do need to model professionalism, and that will help you in relationships.
Part of that is-- I've found that gossip is a thing that happens a lot. And I've kind of made up my mind to shut down gossip wherever I find it. And the easiest way to do that, if I walk into a group or for some reason we start talking about an individual, and someone's saying, hey, they did something bad, or something. I didn't like something they did, and then it feels like everyone's coming in to put a dig on them.
I will just simply mention something positive about that person. You know I like about that person is they always do A, B, C. Bring in brownies, they work really hard, whatever it is, just say something good. Chances are those conversations will take a positive turn when somebody models this behavior and just saying something good. It's just how people work together.
And if you're heading towards a leadership position, you need to expect that everything you say or write in an email could become public anytime. That can just happen. You will never have to defend your positive actions. If you are being positive, you'll never have to go back. I'm sorry I was so positive about that. That is not a thing that will happen.
But you might find yourself, if you're saying negative things, that those are things that you might need to walk back, and that's tough to do. So being positive all the time, that can help you quite a bit.
Think about your relationship with leadership. And I have, act like an owner written down. Why do I have that written down? Because when I'm talking to the owners of the company or leadership of the company, one of the things I find is helpful, is if you act like an owner.
And what I mean by that is, put yourself in their shoes. What would an owner do here? What if I owned the company? Would I think differently about what I was just doing in-- yeah, I would. If I truly put yourself in the shoes of the owner, your perspective changes.
And on that topic of you're kind of understanding where they're coming from, when you interact with owners, you can continue to act like an owner. And say no when you should. So a lot of times, owners, they come in the room and people just want to say yes all the time. If the answer is no, say no.
If they ask for something, give an alternative view if you have one. And I would say owners truly respect thoughtful options. And if they don't respect those thoughtful options, well, that's worth knowing too. If the owners just want yes people, well, now you know that, as well.
Let's talk about external. Because all those relationships were internal to the company you're at, but external relationships can be very advantageous. Some of the most memorable boosts I've gotten in my career came because someone external to my company somehow communicated to one of my leadership that, hey, Todd did something amazing outside, and that was cool.
So hearing it from outside the walls is always a good thing. If you think about when you're kids and a teacher says something good about you, like, your parents, or like, oh wow, that's amazing. And you're, like, I've been telling you I'm amazing my whole life, and you're not getting the message. So hearing it from another source is always really great.
That's a cool thing about external relationships, but honestly, I look to external relationships as a way of benchmarking my own success. Often, in our careers, we are alone doing a lot of things. And do I truly know I'm doing the best I can do?
When I have external relationships, the people that are doing the same thing or similar things that I'm doing, and we have a chance to talk about those things, I find out how they're dealing with that situation. And maybe they have a really great idea. Again, do they have a really cool tool that I can put in my toolbox that will make my company do better work? It's really great to find those things out.
So I don't know. How do you make these external relationships? A good place to start, I think, would probably be just joining a professional network or organization of some kind. AUGI always jumps to mind. It was one of the first professional organizations I joined because I was doing AutoCAD at the time. I'm that old.
And there was a local group that was just starting up, and I got in on the ground floor. And I met a lot of people that were doing a very similar job. And I learned a lot from being around people that were doing the same. It's a great accent. It's a great tool to have, an asset to have.
If you don't have a local group, you can start one. You really can. There's nothing stopping you. Autodesk loves helping you start something like this. So look into that. And it's actually a twofer. Not only do you get the recognition for starting it, but you've also assembled that group.
There could be technical ones, and there's non-technical ones. Toastmasters is a great one. It has dual advantage, as well. You will meet people, and you'll also start perfecting speaking at a higher level. And that's a great thing to do.
The idea here is to meet people and make connections outside the walls of your company. In the end, the more you interact with others, the more opportunities you will be aware of. If you're just hiding out in one place, you're only going to meet the people that show up there.
So my wife writes romance novels. And she always says, they aren't looking for you at Walmart. You have to go to the places where you're going to meet the people that you need to meet. And she's right about a lot of things.
All right, what's the next step, since I talked about that? The next step is being able to articulate a vision. So at this point, hopefully, you've developed some sort of vision for where you would like to go, where your company needs to go. And you need to be able to tell people about that.
It's crucial that you can articulate this vision clearly and concisely. Communicating your ideas, effectively, signals your intent to the rest of the people in the company. So let's throw up a little thing out there with a little light bulb, since I'm not doing so good at that. Be clear and concise.
And also be persistent. You can't say something once, and think that that's going to work. So communication is a lot like exercise. If I do 25 jumping jacks, I can't announce mission accomplished. I'm in shape. I'm going to live forever. It's something that you have to do a lot. It's messaging. At the end of the day, you're kind of campaigning, right? So you got to be able to message and keep messaging. And as you do that, you'll refine your messaging and get better and better at it.
Use your current position to communicate with leadership as regular as you can. Put yourself in that place where you're talking to them and then communicate that message. And when you get that feedback, start to refine your message and make it something that is resonating with them.
Try and gain as much core awareness as you can to the dynamics of the leadership team that you work with. And know that they're being strategic at times. They're being tactical at times. And you need to do the same thing with your messaging and the timing of it.
When you are presenting your ideas, and this goes back to clear and concise, be brief. What you're trying to present, make it the clickbait, not the article. Just say, this is what I'm shooting for. If they are interested, they will ask, and that will start the conversation. Don't try and just, I'm just going to just throw this thing out, and just blah, and it's 12 minutes of me just talking.
See if it's something that's going to stick and acquire interest and then go into it. When they're interested, and they ask you about it, that is your signal to just, like, go and do this. And typically what happens, is once you sell it to one person, they will take you to a place where you need to sell it to others. So get good at your message. Know what it is, and be able to articulate that in a fashion that people understand.
So many steps, the next step is letting go. That's a weird step. But here's the deal, though. You do a lot, right? You kind of do everything. If you want to grow, letting go of old responsibilities is an effective way for you to gain the needed bandwidth. You need to have more bandwidth. It is time to let things go.
I listed this last. Really, this is the last step, but honestly, it's the first step that you should take. It may be the very hardest step to take. It is difficult because when you let go of a task, it's a public bridge burning announcing your intent, and you're cutting off your retreat. I am giving this thing that I did that I'm known for to someone else.
But when you do that, you take your self from this, I would like to, to I am going to. You are making an announcement. I'm going to do this. And part of it is, I got to let go. So when you get to this point, take a breath, be intentional, and execute your plan.
That's it. It's going to work. I've got to tell you, lives are not at stake in this industry. It is the chances that cause a lot of fear or I'm worried, probably not all that bad. You can do this. You really can. Look to others that have done it, and say, man, if that guy did it or that girl did it, I think I could do it. So start delegating now.
People need time to do your old task poorly before they can eventually do them better than you did. Give them time with you where you can give them guidance and set them up for success. They will appreciate that. And you will not have to take a step backwards later if they were unsuccessful because they didn't have the time to develop the skills they need to do the job.
Hold on, I got to go to another slide, again. There's part of the let go. Start now, commit, do it right. That is true. Up to this part, it's about them. It's not about you. If you are going to a leader position, your success is entirely based on your team's performance, not yours. Your performance is theirs. Your job is to make them successful. You must let go of your glory and focus on their glory.
They must do your old tasks better than you. When you think about it, why would someone promote you to get the same results? We want better results. I'm going to promote you, so you can let other people grow and do your job better than it ever happened before.
And don't feel bad about this. Of course, they're going to do your job better than you did, the portions that you have peeled off. Because they're not doing 27 things. They're doing five things. And you've let go of five things, so you can pick up another five. It's all part of progression and moving forward.
Oh, wait. I got to go back, got to go back. It's OK. So you may need to accept that your current company is not going to provide you the growth that you desire. And this might be the-- I don't know. The uncoolest thing that I'm saying here is that you may be thinking that you need to leave the company that you're at if you really want to grow.
Think about, however comfortable you are now, moving might be your best move. Much like when you were in high school, where you had the best friends of your life and all these things happen. And so much growing up happening there. Moving on might be the thing that you need. Much like high school, your old job should have set you up for future success. You get to keep your personal relationships, but things will change.
So all right, now I can go on to that slide that you kind of saw. There's the plan. Assess yourself, target what you want to do. Develop that secret sauce. Develop those things about you that work with that target that you're having, and then develop those relationships to get the traction you need to move forward. And those relationships will give you the opportunity to express your vision. And right now, you need to let go of some stuff, right?
That's the plan. And now I'm going to talk about, probably, just when you're ready, the parting advice that I got, from all of the people that responded to my survey, really boiled down to four things. So here they are.
One, be intentional in your plan and methodical in your execution. Like I said, you're not going to do 25 jumping jacks and declare you're in shape. You need to have a change where you just do stuff methodically now. And you're very strategically following the steps and going, this is not a switch that you flick and it just happens. These are steps that you take every day, and over time, they pay off. And that's the way that it is.
Another one that really stood out to me was, take the initiative every time you have an opportunity. If the boss says, hey, I need someone to look at this. I thought about you. Absolutely, is your answer. Go do it. Figure out how you're going to do it after you say yes, take opportunities.
That is a trait that, I think, just gets looked at. And you've probably been doing this already but don't stop doing it. Take that initiative every time you have an opportunity to do something. Don't let something go by.
Essentially, everyone told me this try, fail, learn, repeat. Keep trying stuff. You will fail a lot if you're me. If you're me, you're going to fail so much. But every time you fail, you learn something. Adjust your plan, make some changes, and then learn from it and then try it again and do better.
Nobody rides a bike the first time they hop in it. They fall off, and they fall off, and they fall off, and then they get good at it. So fail is often as you need to learn what you need to learn to go forward.
And the last piece of advice is this. Go your own speed. This is your journey. You're looking at all these people. You have all these mentors. You see all these things. And you feel like you should do something, but honestly, go the speed you need to go. And it's OK if someone's pushing to go a little bit faster because maybe one of your things that you found out about yourself, is that you don't take chances. And you need a little bit of push every once in a while, but it is your journey.
Go the speed you need to go. You're not in a race with anybody. This is about what brings you happiness, and what gets you to where you want to go and gets you unstuck from where you're at.
And with that, that is the plan. I wish you the best of luck in your career journey. These are all things that have worked for me and about 100 of my other friends that have made these same transition. It's all possible, and it's all doable. You just got to go in there and give it some go.
Personally, if you have an insight that I didn't think of, I would love to hear from you. And you will get my contact through the website if you're watching it on the website. You'll get your contact with me on site if you're here at AU. Thank you so much for watching. I appreciate everything, so thanks.