Episode 43: Re-evaluating your career during the time of coronavirus – with Ali Temple of Steadfast Coaching

Episode 43: Re-evaluating your career during the time of coronavirus - with Ali Temple of Steadfast Coaching

Jeremy Cline 0:00
If you're thinking about re-evaluating your career, but you're not sure where to start, then this episode is for you. This episode was recorded during the coronavirus lockdown, but really if you're considering a revaluation, whether as a result of the coronavirus crisis or maybe later down the track and you're just thinking about how things might be different, then you've got to listen to this episode. I'm Jeremy Cline and this is Change Work Life.

Jeremy Cline 0:40
Hello and welcome to the Change Work Life podcast, where we're all about beating the Sunday evening blues and enjoying Mondays again. I am really pleased to welcome back to the podcast Ali Temple of Steadfast Coaching. If you haven't listened to Episode Five where Ali first came on, go listen to that episode - not now, listen to this episode first - but then once you've done that, go back and listen to Episode Five. It's a brilliant episode where Ali talks about how we overcome our fears, our objections, and also you get an insight into Ali's backstory, which is really, really interesting stuff. So Ali, welcome back to the show.

Ali Temple 1:15
Thank you very much for having me back to the show. It's always nice to be asked back a second time, so thanks for having me.

Jeremy Cline 1:22
Before we get on to the main topic, why don't you give us a quick update on what things you've been up to since we last spoke? You mentioned last time that you had a book that you had co-authored that was just coming out, and I think you mentioned that you started a new coaching line as well?

Ali Temple 1:37
Yes. Obviously last time we were talking about a little bit of my backstory, transitioning into being a coach, and really since then, I've just had my head down hustling away as I call it. And so yeah, the book's all published and printed and that's out there now which has been good. And I've been fortunate - through my hard work, fortunate I say - I've been inundated with clients, so I'm always very, very busy with clients and I'm going into different organisations and consulting within their businesses on strategy and how to grow and I've written coaching programmes for organisations and I've got clients all over the world, which is brilliant. And the cliche of you become a victim of your own success, and you realise that you've maxed out how many clients you can coach in a week. We always talk about that - that at some point, you have to figure out how to stop exchanging your time for money. So what I've really been doing this year, and specifically within the corona lockdown periods where we've been gifted some extra time in our life, I've been building a membership subscription and an online course specifically tailored for business owners right now, but I'm going to do one for more health, wellness and lifestyle next year. The amount of hours that go into building a membership or a course is crazy. So I've still been coaching lots of clients, but really putting all my time into a membership course so that essentially, I'm still producing all the content that I put out there on social media, but now it's going to be much more focused and much more specific, much more action-orientated. And if you've got a course or a membership, you create content once and you get paid many, many, many times for it. So the most important thing about that is it's scalable. And that will allow me to really do some proper numbers and really turm what I do into a proper proper business. That's really what my focus has been for the last few months.

Jeremy Cline 3:25
You mentioned the coronavirus, which segways rather nicely into the topic that I was so keen to have you back to talk about. Let's just say briefly, we're recording this interview in early June. And certainly here in the UK, we are slowly beginning to come out of lockdown, so the restrictions are gradually being lifted. People who can work from home are being encouraged to stay at home, those who can't work from home are being encouraged to go back to work. Schools and nurseries are beginning to reopen. So we're kind of coming coming out the other end, but who knows what's going to happen in the future - whether this is going to lead to a second spike whether we're going to see a reimposition of lockdown, who knows. But whatever happens, this has been a big upheaval for people. I mean, it's really changed everyone's lives, whether that's temporary or longer-lasting, people have been working from home or some people will have been furloughed and not been working for a period. And it seems almost certain that there is going to be a lot of people out there who have in these extraordinary circumstances taken the opportunity to start re-evaluating their life, their job, their careers, and there's a few different aspects which occurred to me. I mentioned working from home - some people are going to have discovered that actually, they really rather like working from home and it suits them rather well. Other people might not necessarily want to work from home and there's quite a lot to be said for working in office, but they no longer have a commute and they'd like to combine office work but without having an hour, hour and a half commute every day. People have got a bit more time on their hands often as a result of not commuting. So more time to spend with the family, more time to exercise. I have to say with a young child, there hasn't been that much more time, but it has been a little bit more time to spend with the family, which has been lovely. And for some people, it's just kind of brought into sharper focus something which a lot of them are going to have realised anyway, but people who weren't enjoying their jobs anyway, the whole circumstances now are going to have brought that back into really much sharper focus, particularly if you've been furloughed, and you're kind of thinking I'm not sure that when my employer opens up again, I necessarily want to go back to that job. So there's all sorts of things. Ali, are there any other examples of some thoughts that you've seen people having during this time?

Ali Temple 5:52
I think you've pretty much hit the nail on the head with the ones that you've listed. But yeah, ultimately, we've got some people that cannot wait to get back to work because we all love our partners, but being around someone 24/7 in any capacity is not healthy. And I think some people are looking to get back to work, whether that be an office or elsewhere because it gives them that sense of purpose. And a lot of people that are not working at this time, that sense of purpose and productivity has been removed, which is actually really important for our overall happiness. But then again, there are people that say that job that I'm doing, I didn't miss it, I don't miss those people, I don't miss that role, I don't miss those day-to-day tasks - so maybe that thing wasn't right for me, in which case, you know, this is an invitation to change. But I think one of the most important things from my perspective and coaching a lot of people through this - admittedly most of the people that have coached through this are business owners, so I'm coaching people how to pivot through the pandemic, but I still work with people that are essentially employees - one of the things that it really comes down to for me is about how much control, how much ownership do you have over your direction, your finances and income. And there has been people that have given so much to a company that says, Well, we can't pay you, or you're being furloughed or stuff like that. And so there's been a lot of stress, there's been a lot of unhappiness. There's been a lot of sadness and disappointment that employers - I'm not saying it's their fault, it's a really difficult situation for everybody - but employees have given a lot of hard graft and employer is not in a position unwilling to repay that loyalty. And I think that's been a source of unhappiness within some employees. But I think it's also been a wake up call this to make people realise, actually, I don't have any control here. I am at the mercy of not just the market, the environment, but also employers. There's some great employers out there, don't get me wrong, but a lot of employers do not have my best interests at heart and maybe I need to do something different so that I can protect myself or at least have a high level of control over my income and my finances in my job, so that's some of the stuff I've been seeing.

Jeremy Cline 7:57
Okay, what I wanted to do with you, Ali, is to help people find a way of making sense of all this, and perhaps most importantly, how they can get to a position where when this is all over - whatever that looks like - that they don't necessarily just default to going back to the way things are, because that's going to be the easy option. Assuming that jobs are still there for people to go back to when offices open, it's going to be very easy just to basically pick up where you left off. And if people want to make some kind of changes, they may not be big changes, they might be small changes - but whatever the changes they want to make, is how do they start to think about implementing those changes, especially when, for a lot of people, myself included, it's almost like a washing machine of ideas - you've got things kind of spinning round and round. The idea of well, you know, I'm kind of enjoying this. Where do I go from here? So what's the starting point, how do people start to make sense of the washing machine?

Ali Temple 8:58
Yeah, that's a good analogy. I like it actually. The washing machine, I'm gonna steal that and start using that! Yeah, I'm a victim of the washing machine as well. I'm a coach, but I'm also a student of coaching. My job is to bring clarity to people in a way that facilitates action, specifically action that creates a result. However, I've got a business, I'm a business owner as well. And my head spins as much as anybody else's. But luckily, I've got a pretty good toolkit. So I think we talked before, we'll put some stuff in the show notes, I'm going to put a PDF in the show notes, so anybody that's listening can actually go through this on their own and journal away. So if you're listening to this, and I'm firing out questions, don't have a meltdown or feel that you need to rewind every 30 seconds to catch them because I'm going to put a PDF in the show notes for Jeremy. And what I invite you to do is if anything that we are talking about, you want to start a little side hustle, start a new business, maybe you don't want to go back to work in the way that you were working in the past and you've got some ideas. Then what I'm going to talk about is best case scenario. This is how you actually get out of thinking mode and into doing mode. But again, this is if you want to go all out - if you just want a slightly different version of that, it's just a little bit of a side hustle, then feel free to take as much of this or as little as you want. The way that I speak about stuff is often quite big and full on, but you set the level with which you want to work on this stuff. So how do we get out of the washing machine? How do we get out of our head? Well, first of all we have to get those ideas down onto paper. As a coach, I don't like to give advice, but I will call it advice for argument's sake. Here's a good piece of advice that I could give you, having helped many, many, many people transition from being an employee to self-employed, to increase their income or their financial freedom, is think about what's gonna fulfil you - because there's so many different ideas in there, and to action any of them is gonna require a lot of time, effort, energy, ultimately, action, almost certainly frustration. And if you're going to get past those things, it needs to be something that your heart is truly in. And I get a lot of people come to me with ideas and I deliberately challenge them. How much do you want to do that? Are you sure you want to do that? What if that doesn't work? What if that fails? What if you fall short? I deliberately came to push the buttons because if your heart is not in it, you will give up at some point and giving up is going to be really detrimental for your mindset, for your progress, for your results, for your relationship with yourself. It's easy to get stuck and frustrated and think that because your project has been unsuccessful, that that means that you're a failure in some way - and it doesn't. First and foremost really make sure that whatever you want to do, it's gonna fulfil you, and your heart is in it. That's off the starting blocks.

Jeremy Cline 11:31
We could probably spend an entire episode, in fact, probably several episodes just on that one question, which I don't think I want to do now but I think I will come back to that. But perhaps maybe just a sort of helicopter view. I mean, this is a big question. How do I know what is going to fulfil me? It's that whole finding your passion, should you love what you do/do what you love, all that sort of stuff all melded together. What challenges should I set you - in three minutes how do you work out what is going to fulfil you?

Ali Temple 11:59
If you consistently have an idea, if you consistently have that inner stirring of a thing that is calling to you, I believe you have a personal responsibility to call back. So if you just can't stop thinking about going to live in the mountains, or if you can't stop thinking about having an online business, if you can't stop thinking about helping somebody solve a problem in their life, and if you keep thinking about that thing, you're doing yourself a disservice by not exploring it. So that's first and foremost. Secondly, think about what's the thing that you would do, even if no one was paying you for it. For those that listened to the last podcast, I was a professional dancer and acrobat and worked all over the world. Now, I would have been doing acrobatics and circus stuff every day of my life, whether someone was paying me to do it or not. That's the kind of good indication - do you get up and think, Oh, I'd really like to do this today, I'm looking forward to so that. There is obviously a potential negative to turning your passion into a profession, because then you have to do it. You have to make that decision - yes, I love doing this every day. But what happens when I have to do it no matter what? So you have to resolve that equation. But ultimately I would say start with those two things. If you're being called towards something, call it back. And what's the thing that you would love to get up and do every day whether someone's paying you for it or not.

Jeremy Cline 13:17
Just to press that a bit, there's going to be people out there who say, there ain't anything. I don't have something that I feel calling to me, or I can't think of anything that I would do, even if I wasn't being paid to do it. I mean, I guess some people might come up with things like watching TV, playing computer games, something like that. That doesn't necessarily lead to well, what is my calling? What do I keep on thinking of doing. So where do you start if you feel you're in that position, where you just don't think there is anything that is calling you, that you're interested in? That haunts you so much that you would do it no matter what.

Ali Temple 13:54
I would probably reverse engineer that then and start asking them what are you best at, what's your greatest skill? What's your greatest gift? What's the thing that you do better than anybody else, you know. And the reason that I would reverse engineer is that if you're really, really good at something, there's a reason that you're good at it. Now we've all got natural gifts, don't get me wrong. But if you're really, really good at something, if you're highly skilled at something, that would probably tell me it's that you've practised it, you've done it regularly and often. And you tend to not do things that you don't like to do. So if you've done something consistently and regularly and evolved a skill set from that, then that will let me know that actually, you may be doing it for a reason. But you're maybe not consciously aware of what that thing is. So I would probably reverse engineer - start with what you're great at, what you're super skilled at, what everybody says you're brilliant at, what you believe that you're fantastic at, and go from there. Then you start creating that list of all your skills and say okay, of those skills that I'm great at, that I'm really good at, which of those do I enjoy the most, and then decide or establish, what is the reason that I enjoy that and then there'll be something within that that makes you go Ah, I like it because, it's great because I get to interact with people, that I help people produce results, or just like being creative, for example. And that will then give you actually, the passion is there that you maybe just weren't consciously aware of. I'll play devil's advocate, and I'll be deliberately challenging. If you have no passion for anything, then maybe you're more suited to being an employee, then maybe you should stay at your desk. And I'm not saying that's a bad thing. But if you've got no passion for anything, maybe you've got no business exploring those areas. That's me being deliberately provocative to try to spark a little bit of a reaction within you.

Jeremy Cline 15:32
And there's definitely is a line of thinking that says that you don't necessarily have to be fulfilled by your job and you can find fulfilment in other places. I'm still not entirely sure I buy into it, but it is, in fact a previous podcast guest, Mio Yokoi was saying how it's not necessarily not okay - at the risk of using too many negatives - work doesn't necessarily have to be the fulfilling thing and there can be fulfilment in other areas of life. Some people will identify that and other people won't. But going back to what you were just saying, I'm really glad that you said, make a list of what you're good at, and then pick the ones that you enjoy doing. Because I think it's definitely the case that some people are really good at things, but they don't necessarily enjoy doing it. And obviously, you don't want to just play to your strengths when you kind of think, yeah, I know, I'm good at this, but I just don't want to do it.

Ali Temple 16:24
Yeah. And like I keep saying, if I'm talking about being an employee, please don't anybody think I've got anything against being an employee - I absolutely do not. I think you've got an obligation to yourself to do what's right for you. And should you be fulfilled by what do you do professionally? Well, obviously, there's always a valid argument for both but the way that I look at it, say you work 40 hours a week, the average in the UK is about 37 to 40 hours a week, something like that. And figure out what percentage of your life does that equate to? My ego is such that I refuse to spend that percentage of my life doing something that I'm not either engaged with, doesn't serve a higher purpose, or doesn't fulfil me in some way. Now I get that some people just think, you know, I'm happy to go there make money and then I do my own stuff round and about that, and if that works for you that's completely okay. But for me personally, I shiver at the thought of allocating that much time and effort and energy in my life to something that doesn't stir me, doesn't make me happy and fulfilled. That's just my personal approach.

Jeremy Cline 17:23
We've got some ideas on paper, we've had a think about what we think is going to fulfil us or what we're good at and what we enjoy doing. What's the next step?

Ali Temple 17:33
Yep, so I'm gonna summarise that. So ultimately, the way that we get started is we create a list. Write down all your ideas. Now you put your ideas in front of you. Say you've got five or six ideas. Circle the one or two that you think resonate most with you the most. And this is going to be in the PDF download that we're going to put in the shownotes. You're going to basically go between what you love doing, what you're great and doing, and then more importantly, where is there an opportunity? So this is really the catalyst of your idea. This is really step one, your foundation and the thing that you have to get right. What you love doing, combined with what you're great at doing, combined with where there is an opportunity. There's no point in trying to sell ice to Eskimos. There's no point just now setting up an events company that needs people to be in the same place at the same time when we're in lockdown. So maybe the opportunity in that market is not there, but maybe there's an opportunity - and there is a great opportunity right now in the online space. And what I've seen is that people with online businesses are absolutely crushing it right now. And people that are reliant on being in the same space as other people are obviously not getting as good results. So we're gonna think about what you love doing - just because you love doing something doesn't mean to say that you're gonna be great at it. Just because you're great at it doesn't mean to say that you would love it, like you said Jeremy, but also just because you love it and you're great at it, there might not be an opportunity there. So you need to do some horizon scanning. And just because nobody's doing that thing doesn't mean to say it's not possible. And just because there's lots of other people doing, it doesn't mean that the market's saturated. But you have to say, okay, there is an opportunity for this idea to be successful if it's done in this way. Or I'm going to go and do some research and exploring to see how my product, my service, my idea fits into an existing market. Or maybe you're going to create a new micro economy round about. But it really starts with horizon scanning, to identify opportunity out there in the world.

Jeremy Cline 19:28
So this is definitely looking at it from the perspective of someone who's thinking they might want to use this as an opportunity to start their own thing, to start their own business. What about if this is someone who doesn't want to do that - they're actually quite happy being an employee, they're quite happy working for someone else, but they're just not necessarily entirely happy or fulfilled with the job that they had at the time of this crisis coming into being - so can they use the same framework? And if so, how would you use the same framework if in fact what you're looking to do is change your employment situation?

Ali Temple 20:01
Yeah, I think you can use the same framework and it doesn't need to be starting your own business. You can think about it well okay, where out there in the marketplace do I best fit in. What is my skill set - so again, what do I love doing, what am I great at. Where would my skill set combined with my passion be most effective out there in the marketplace? You know, would I be great in marketing? Would I be great in events? Am I fantastic at accounts? And do I love interacting with people, do I need a real kind of people-based thing, or am I quite happy just being on a screen machine-gunning through numbers, that sort of stuff. And another way you can reframe that - where is the opportunity. If you've been stung right now because of corona lockdown and you've lost your employment or that's been compromised, you can look and say okay, well what sectors are doing really well right now, and what sectors are going to thrive moving forward, whether that be in technology or communications or other stuff. And okay fine, if I love something and I'm great at that thing, and that sector is going to move forward and we be recession proof or something like that, maybe you target that instead. So you can really use that framework as well to get a little bit both creative and clear about where you best fit in based on what you love doing and what you're great at doing.

Jeremy Cline 21:13
And one point that I think I should make absolutely clear, this isn't something that's limited to the coronavirus. This is the sort of thought process that someone could have had before this crisis, they can have it at any time in the future. I mean, yes, we're recording this during an extraordinary set of circumstances, but if someone's listening to this in a year or two's time and thinking, Oh, yeah, I remember the coronavirus - that was a weird time, wasn't it, but everything's back to normal now - this is still a great framework that people can use if they're in a situation where they're not happy where they are.

Ali Temple 21:41
Yeah, spot on. 100%.

Jeremy Cline 21:43
Okay, we've looked at these three things: what you love doing, what you're great at doing, where there's an opportunity. And that could be either in a job or it could be in starting a business. So what's the next action?

Ali Temple 21:57
Next one - again, this is a three part model, actually. So part two is the same thing - again it's going to be in the show notes - is okay, then you're gonna figure out what it is you're going to do, how you're going to do it and who you're going to do it for. So again, whether you're thinking about maybe starting a side hustle, an online business, starting your own business, or you're looking to maybe get a new job somewhere. So you know what you're great at, you know what you love doing, you're starting to identify opportunities, then you need to start dialling into that. So okay, what is it that you do? Or what is it you're going to do? How are you going to go about doing that specifically? And who are you going to do it for. So for example, I'm a coach, so what I do is basically help people get better results. How I do that is providing them with clarity, tools, techniques, systems, models, and a bit of peak performance mindset stuff. And who I typically do that for is really successful business owners, CEOs and people that are really looking for a higher level in their personal or professional life. So give some thought to okay if you're starting a business what specifically is it? I do? Do I do food boxes? Do I create custom jewellery? Do I have an online business? Do I have a subscription? Okay, how do you do that? So you want to break down into detail, okay when I create these products or services, I actually make people feel this way or I help people create this result, I give them clarity - maybe I'll make them feel good, maybe I give them recipes and make them a god or goddess in the kitchen. And then who you do it for is really important because you have to clarify your target market so that you can communicate in their language. So if you suddenly figure out that you think that marketing's the way forward - okay, you need to go and figure out the language of marketing companies, so you can go in there and speak to them on their level. So again, if you want to work in some sort of marketing communications, you're not going to go to a bakery and start saying, 'Hey, I do marketing communications', 'Great, but we make cakes'. So you need to go to the marketing company - it sounds silly to say, but really knowing who you're looking to work with or who you're looking to work for is super important for coming into that in the right position.

Jeremy Cline 24:04
Is that stage two then?

Ali Temple 24:05
That is stage two.

Jeremy Cline 24:06
Okay, so stage three?

Ali Temple 24:08
Stage three - Who wants it, who needs it, who can afford it. So this is really again, dialling down. So if you're going to go self employed and start a business, this is really starting to tap into what's called your avatar, really, your avatar is just your ideal customer. So you would say, okay, that thing that I do, who actually wants that thing? Right, let me create a list of all the potential people that I can either imagine or currently see wanting that thing. Okay, who are they? Who needs that thing? I will use them sometimes when I do mindset coaching, sometimes that dives a little bit into mental health but not always - it's different areas - but because of the wellness mindset, mental health aspect of coaching,there's a lot of people that I could say I think they would need some coaching, but they don't necessarily want the coaching. And you see that with business owners as well. Actually, I look at other businesses and think actually with just a few sessions, I could really make some adjustments for them and they would get much, much better results. So, in that sense they actually need it, but do they want it? Everybody could benefit from a personal trainer, or everybody could benefit from the gym. But who actually wants a personal trainer? A smaller percentage. So you need to get that really good combination between who wants to thing but who also needs the thing. Because necessity is normally a big reason people buy. And then the third one - who can afford it. So if you're a business, looking to start a business right now, and this is a limiting belief system that I hear all the time, but nobody's gonna have any money, nobody's spending - that sort of stuff. Actually, that's not true because the government is in the process of flooding the economy with money. So there's going to be a lot of money up for grabs, if you can have the right kind of bucket to scoop some of that up with. Also look at the online economy, which is actually not really attached to the regular economy at all. The digital economy has absolutely boomed in the last three months, and I've seen that in my own business. I've actually made more money in my business in the last three months, I've had record months, every single month, for the last three months. Now, I'm sensitive to the fact that not everybody's in that position. So I don't lack the self-awareness, that's not a brag, it's to demonstrate that actually, the online market, the online economy, is thriving. So that takes me to my third one - who can afford it. If you know that certain industry has been really hammered by lockdown, and if you're listening to this and not in lockdown, but if you know that an industry has been absolutely hammered just now and it's in a decline, then maybe that's not the best industry to be getting into. Maybe look at what are the industries that are thriving, industries are doing really well, that are forecasting exponential growth. Maybe that's who you either ask to work with, seek employment in. Or if you're doing this as a side hustle or starting your own business - who wants it, who needs it, who can afford it. There's people like myself out there that are happy to spend money just now and when lockdown gets properly lifted, I can't wait to go and get my hair cut properly and maybe get a massage or you know, maybe get some PT or some physio or go out to some really fancy restaurants, I'm going to book some holidays for sure. That sort of stuff. And I'm not alone. There's loads and loads of people like me that have got their money right. I've got investments, I've got an online business, and as a result of that, I'm really happy to spend - open some shops so I can spend some money, please. So you have to not be limited by any fear-based belief systems or any limited belief systems, like 'Nobody's got any money, nobody's going to be spending, nobody's going to be employing'. So think about who wants it, who needs it, and who can afford it and that's really going to allow you to get great clarity of who your ideal customer is or who the ideal business is, that would potentially be employing people in the thing that you want to do at this time, or moving forward.

Jeremy Cline 27:46
So stage one and stage two are much more about self-reflection. So looking at yourself, thinking about what you're good at, what you enjoy doing, and then what action you can take. Whereas stage three is thinking much more about other people. Stage one and two, it's kind of easy to find the source of the answers because it's you. It's all within you. Stage three, how do you go about finding out who wants something, who needs something, and who can afford it?

Ali Temple 28:15
Yeah, good question. You just need to do a little bit of market research. This is not a particularly sexy answer I'm afraid, but get on the internet and have a look around. Phone all your friends. Whatever example you want to give yourself right now, go and start observing, who's the type of person already buying that? Who's the type of person already engaging with that? So you know, maybe you decide that you want to create the best yoga mat that anybody's ever made - just a totally random idea. You're gonna make the best new yoga mats in the world. Okay, so who wants a yoga mat? Well, guess what? yoga practitioners, yoga instructors. Who else wants it? Yoga studios, dance studios, fitness studios, that sort of stuff. Okay, are you selling wholesale or retail or whatever. So you have to look at what is the culture of yoga. Okay you see people jumping on buses and tubes with their mat - what's going to make your mat look different? So you kind of have to one place yourself in the mindset of that person or that business, that organisation. But secondly, place yourself within the culture of that thing. Look at CrossFit. CrossFit's a great thing because it's culture. And that's why all these online Facebook groups and online communities and memberships and subscription models and all that sort of stuff - ultimately, that's why we still go to jobs, even if we don't like because we're part of the culture, we're part of the community. Really kind of dive into what's the culture, what's the community, who's the type of person that wants this. Who is seeking it out, who is engaging with it or using it consistently. Both observe it when you're out and about in the world, but get online and do some Googling and see what comes up.

Jeremy Cline 29:54
There's a lot in here of what we've been discussing big picture stuff, major changes - going out, starting your own business, going and seeking new opportunities and that sort of thing. The person who has been through these sorts of exercises and actually they're kind of pretty happy with the sort of work they're doing and where they're doing it, but there's a few tweaks that they want to make - fairly small stuff - and I think this is going to tie in quite nicely with the previous episode where we were talking about fears and objections, but you know, maybe it's someone who they kind of like what they have, but there are a few small changes like particularly around commuting or something like that. They want to work from home more, or maybe work in a co-working space or something, so they're not stuck at home, in their home office in their pyjamas the whole time. But there's going to be fears around asking the questions, whether it's going to work - help that person out.

Ali Temple 30:48
Your personal philosophy will determine how anything goes. So I think it was Henry Ford that says whether you think you can or you think you cannot you're right either way, and it's cliche, but it's true. So you have to get your personal philosophy right. So you need to exercise a little bit of self-awareness here, are you talking yourself into something? Or are you talking yourself out of something? There is enough barriers to your success without you being one as well. So remove yourself as the barrier to your own progress. So if you look at something and think well I want to get paid a little bit more or I want a little bit more flexibility, or I want that promotion, or I'm okay doing the thing I want to do, but I want to advance my career. Maybe I want to work a couple of days at home. First and foremost, one of the best ways to make any progress is to improve your skill set. Can you do a top-up course? Can you become more valuable in your organisation? Can you become more valuable, more highly skilled in the workplace in some way? And the reason I think that's super important is if you're more valuable, or if you can produce better results, you have more leverage over either your customers or your employer. So that's first and foremost - get more skills, remove yourself as a barrier to your own progress, and then get super clear about what it is you actually want so you know what to ask for? And this doesn't have to be a corona lockdown thing. I think this is just an overall thing. The corona lockdown has been a catalyst of change, because it's made people look and say, I want things to go back to normal. But actually you determine what your new normal looks like. So some of the old normal can get left in the past and some of the new normal can get created for the future moving forward. What we've seen is that where there is a will, there is a way - and not everybody has to report to their desk Monday to Friday. So maybe you can go back to your employer and say, actually, I've been super productive, and I've not been in the office for three months. I acknowledge that there is a need to be there a certain number of days, but what would be the possibility of me doing you know, you know flexi work, and two days per week, I'm going to work from home and 3 days a week I'm going to work from the office. And you've said okay, I want to work from home, but maybe one of those days you work from a cafe or a co-working space or from your garden or to take long weekends in the Lake District. You know, you decide where you want to go. But ultimately, this is about choice. But first and foremost, get very, very clear about what the thing is that you want, then make sure you've got the skill set for that to be either valid or as a leverage tool for yourself. And then simply ask. And if you ask, and you get a no, you say okay, for that to be a yes, what would I need to do. To make that work, what would we need to do. And so don't always accept no as a final answer. Part of being successful or moving forward and getting the thing that you want, you might have to get told no 20 times until you figure it out. Your kids are an expert. Look at the way that kids ask, they say can I, can I, can I - and you tell them no a million times, and then they just keep asking and asking another way. And then you say yes. So take a leaf over the kids book and just keep asking until you get the thing you want.

Jeremy Cline 33:49
In terms of the process that we've been going through, is there anything else that you want to add or to summarise before we wrap up here?

Ali Temple 33:56
No, I think that's really it. You know, I'm very aware I don't want to give too much stuff and overwhelm them. And really the process hopefully helps people get out of thinking mode and into doing mode. So, you know, look at that download in the show notes, listen to what we've talked through, get clear on what you love doing, what you're great at, where there's opportunities, so you know get your eyes open, see what's going on, get very clear on what you do, how you do it, who you're going to do it for, because that's the transitional one, which is step two in the model - transition you from your inside world, what you do and how you do it, but then transitioning to the outside world - who specifically wants that, needs it, you can do it for, that sort of stuff. And ultimately, one of the biggest things to remember is that you have to take action because if you take no action, you will get exactly nothing in return, you will produce no result, you will make no progress. But if you start taking action, it doesn't have to be perfect. Change is messy. Success is a little bit like a battle sometimes. Whatever success is on your terms, just take action, even if it's not perfect, even if you don't get the exact result that you want. Evaluate it, say okay what worked, what didn't, what's the reason for each, what have I learned? What will I do differently next time. And then simply go again and go again and again and again, until you start getting the result that you want. Remove perfectionism as a barrier to your taking action, yet ultimately take action.

Jeremy Cline 35:17
And to add on that - it doesn't have to be wholesale either. I mean it can be incremental. So someone can go through the process and start making small changes. So maybe they begin with working a day at home, and then maybe they think, well, actually, I'm going to up that to an extra day. And then maybe, actually, I'm going to have some flexi-time because I want to have a day to myself where I can start looking at other things. And you can do it. It's gonna take longer if you do that, but ultimately, you can do it at your own pace and at a rate that's comfortable for you.

Ali Temple 35:47
Yeah, exactly. I mean, you determine the speed at which you do this. And if you find all this really overwhelming, Okay - simplify it. Write down your action plan and just do one thing one day that produces one step forward. If you're a bit of a maniac like me, and prone to just all of a sudden making a massive change, because you're more dynamic, then great - take massive action and you'll get massive results, but just kind of don't compare yourself to anybody else's standards - just because other people do something a certain way, if that's not right for you do it in a way that's right for you. And that's all that really matters.

Jeremy Cline 36:20
Well, I can't wait to see the downloads because I haven't seen them yet. But I will definitely put them on the show notes. So yeah, if you go on to the website, changeworklife.com, find this episode, and you will find the links there. So Ali, thank you so much for coming back on the show. This has been awesome and extremely timely, but also something that people can use way into the future, so thank you so much.

Ali Temple 36:43
Thank you for having me.

Jeremy Cline 36:45
Wow, what an interview. So much amazing stuff there. I hope you got a lot out of that. I'm going to link to the PDFs which Ali mentioned, they will be in the show notes which you'll find at changeworklife.com/43 for Episode 43. There's amazing stuff there. I hope you found that really, really useful. And if you have found it useful, it would be great if you would share this episode with whoever you think might find it useful, and also leave a review. If you could take a few minutes to leave a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever it is that you get your podcasts, it would mean so much to me. It really does help other people find the show. We've got another great interview to come next week and I can't wait to see you then. Cheers. Bye.