Beyond the Job Hunt: Discovering Who You Are and What You Want - with David Petrovay

Have you ever chased after a bus, finally hopped on, only to

realize that it was the wrong one?

Suddenly you're out of breath, off course, and even further

from where you want to go. That's what happens when we

chase goals without really knowing ourselves or our

destination. The truth is, building a

meaningful career isn't about running faster.

It's about knowing where you want to go.

In this episode, career coach David Petrovey shares how

clarity, confidence, and openness to opportunities can

help you define that destination and catch the bus that's truly

going your way. Welcome to the show Mind Blind.

I'm your host, Karen Chong, and I'll be diving into the minds of

incredible people, each an expert in their very own way.

Together, we'll uncover insights and share ideas so you can be

inspired and empowered to navigate your own unique journey

in life. Ready to get curious and

discover what's possible? Let's blend in the very, very

beginning of Mind Blend. I had an episode with Juan

Silvera where we talked about how to get that job you want.

But getting a job is a very, very small part of anyone's

career. So today I'm going to talk about

exactly this topic with my guest, David Petrovay.

Hi, David. Hi, Karen.

Great to be with you today. Thank you for coming to Mind

Blend. Welcome to the show.

So before we begin, I'm sure people are interested in what

does David do, Who is David? So can you tell us a little bit

more about yourself and how you got to what you're doing today?

So I'm currently in what we refer to as the fourth quarter

of life. So you know how if you would

break it up into 25 year segments, I'm in that 4th

segment in my life. And so obviously there's a long

history there. Karen and I, I was born on the

East Coast of the US. That's where I went to school.

I earned 2° from the University of Pittsburgh.

The first one was in psychology. Would make a lot of sense in the

work that I do today. And then after that, there

weren't a lot of choices. One of them was, well, you can

either go back to school or you can go to Vietnam.

Huh. OK.

So it. Was just those two.

That was about it, Karen, at that time.

So for me, I was in that first group of people where they held

the lottery to determine based on your birthday, if you would

be eligible for the grant for the draft.

And I was #19 out of 366. So obviously I was at the top of

the list. But luckily I'd had a knee

injury that kept me out of the service and that allowed me to

go directly into Graduate School.

And in fact, when I was told you will not qualify to go into the

Army, I called directly to the School of Education and said,

OK, here's the situation. Accept me.

And they did. And so I worked.

I did a master's degree, working with the blind.

OK, Education of the blind, when I got into that, I'll tell you

in a little while. Yeah, I'm very.

Interested. And I did that for 34 years in

various capacities across the country in schools for the

blind. And I was, I was getting toward

the end of that part of my career, I decided I want to go

back and study career counseling.

So with a generic counseling degree and my focus was on

career and all the different areas that I sampled, that was

the one that I enjoyed the most because people generally were

not in crisis like they were in marriage counseling or

individual counseling or family counseling.

So after a number of years of that, I decided, you know what,

I want to pursue getting a doctorate APHD.

So I that was at the University of Arizona in Tucson where the

second masters was. And so I believe it or not, I

think they were going to give me some type of a prize for the

longest amount of time to complete a doctorate.

It took me years to do it, but. How come?

You know, I was working full time, I would go in and out of

motivation and I'm sure a lot of your listeners could identify

with that. And when you're going to get

that type of a degree, someone said you better be married to

it. It's going to have it's

insurance and it's outs now. I completed that in 2008 and my

dissertation was on why would people choose to become teachers

of the blind? My study and it was on career

development, which is basically what I do now.

And it was fascinating because I went into it just by chance.

I know anyone, unlike most of the people that I had in my

study. And I thought, oh, I could do

this. And I did it.

So what brought me to the point where in 2005 I said, you know,

I've done this for 34 years, so I think it's time for me to

change direction. So I look back at my life, just

like all of your listeners can do, and said, what did?

And I asked myself, what did I enjoy most about what I did?

And it was the career piece of it.

So that's where I went back and became certified as a career

counselor and coach. And I've been doing it for over

25 years. Totally.

OK, so you so you looked back at all the education for the blind

that you did and so tell us a little bit more about what that

included in the education for the blind.

What do you what did you teach them on?

So when I first started, my first class was multiply

impaired students. So they weren't just blind, they

had cognitive issues, other issues in their lives.

And that was a trial by fire because my very first class, I

had 13 students, youngest was 9 and the oldest was 18, quite age

range. And so I had to learn to either

sink or swim with all of them. And then I moved into just what

they would refer to as vanilla blind children.

That was all that they were dealing with, with just their

blindness. And Aaron, I love that because I

them regular subject matter just like they would have in a public

school, all adapted for the blind.

So I'd put their materials into Braille because I had some

Braille, and it was just so much fun, the various things that I

was able to communicate with them.

And then after I was in Pennsylvania doing that for

seven years as a classroom teacher, I moved to Arizona and

started out as a classroom teacher there and then moved

into career development, my career development specialist.

So for eight years, I worked with high school students on

their job skills. Yeah.

So identifying what they might want to do after they finished

school and then how to go about applying for a job, how to

interview, how to write a resume.

And it was interesting because when they were older, beyond all

of this, people would interview them and say you've been coached

in how to do this, you're so good. 9th graders that I was

teaching it to. That was another area where I

felt very successful in them out.

And then after 22 years in Arizona, I went over to

California and their school for five years in more of an

administrative position. So I was able to do a little bit

of everything. Looking back over it, what did I

love most? It was the career development.

What was the most gratifying besides your students telling

you, Oh, people knew that I was coach, what was what did you

enjoy the most? Well, it's actually what I'm

enjoying now because I'm still in touch with those students

from Arizona. They're now in their early 50s

and they're telling me how much their education with me meant to

them in terms of who they are as adults now.

Especially the young women, because when they arrived in the

classroom they were very shy. And.

Assertive. And then later on the mothers

would say to me, what did you do to my daughter?

She's up for herself and I remember one time we were having

a party and one of the mothers showed up and the student at the

time, who was about 10, said, mother, this is our party.

You weren't invited. Oh, the wrong audience, but the

right mentality. Oh yes, yes.

So again, it was them learning to be assertive and they still

on. Yes.

And I could imagine maybe back 30 years ago, being assertive as

a woman was probably one of the biggest challenges when it comes

to looking for a job or interview for a female, right?

That's right. How are the male and the female

students different back then? I think you just nailed it that

the the male students, OK were it was a form of entitlement

where, you know, they were given more about a carte blanche in

terms of moving forward with the work that they did, found it

easier to find work. The females, not as much.

I mean, a number of them did go on to get work and some of them

are still struggling with that because their blindness is seen

as an obstacle. So their job is to educate

whoever it is that is interviewing them in terms of

here's what I can do, here are the skills that I have.

And with the the ADA, the Americans with Disabilities Act,

as long as you can perform the essential functions of a job,

you need to be seriously considered an apple.

Yeah, yeah. So what about what did you enjoy

the most seeing in your male students?

They're always gratifying. You know, again, it's where they

are today and I see them on Facebook and I see them voicing

their positions in terms their beliefs.

They are so strong and articulate, Karen.

It's just amazing. And I'm, I tell them how proud I

am of the people that they've become.

Doesn't matter what their position is.

It's just the fact that they're willing to speak up to support

it and defend it. Yes.

So not to make you give out your secrets, but how do you coach

them? What aspect of them as a person

do you focus on to tease that out so they can represent

themselves the way you would encourage them to?

And I think the common denominator there is

self-confidence, really knowing who you are and being willing to

share that. There might be push back, but if

you truly believe what you bring to a situation that you can

share that, that is what will make a difference.

And it's also what I find in my regular clients, the same thing.

It's like they come, and what's hurting most for them is their

self-confidence. OK.

And what makes you think that, oh, this person needs to work on

their self-confidence when they first come to you, for example?

It's pretty obvious. It's how they talk about

themselves, the doubt that they bring about being hired or being

employable that well, no one is going to hire me because and you

know, it could be my age, it could be the fact that I'm a

female in a male dominated industry, those kinds of things.

So really it's focusing on their strengths and their talents,

what they bring to whatever that setting is.

OK, I remember a long time ago, it was, this was at least 10

years ago, I had sort of more like a recruitment, like a

recruiting agent headhunter person.

And then I had a session with her because I think she was

moving into career counselling. And I vaguely remember she asked

me a bunch of questions and then we put all these bubbles onto

this giant white paper on the wall.

But then I didn't really see how I can continue, like, OK, what

are we getting out of this session and how is that going to

help me? So I struggled with it a little

bit back then. If for someone who's not

familiar with career coaching, how would you describe it to

them? Well, there are actually 2

aspects to this. One is career counseling and the

other one is career coaching. So the clients that I have in

each of those lanes are very different in terms of what they

bring to a session. So career counseling is directed

toward individuals who say I'm no longer employed, I want to

change the type of work that I do, but I'm not sure what it is.

So in counseling, I help them identify what that path might

look like for them. So that would be the career

counseling. And then of course, I will help

them with redoing their resume to reflect that practicing the

interview, career coaching, these people are all working.

They're very successful in the work that they do.

They're dealing with situations that are real time situations.

And they say, you know, I might be having this situation with a

Co worker or I coach them in how I can address that so that they

OK, so that would be the difference in the 2.

So I think the other thing is with career counseling, that's

rather short term. So they'll come to me and say,

well, this is my goal. I want to get this type of a job

and within this amount of time. So it's very time structured.

And so we focus on that. And once they achieve it, they

say, thank you so much. It's been great working with

you. I may never see them again.

Whereas with coaching some of these clients I've had for four

or five years. So they keep coming back because

obviously they keep dealing with situations in the workplace

where they say I need some support here.

I'm not sure exactly what direction to go in terms of

this. So we look with my psychology

background and the counselling, we look at the types of

personalities they might be dealing with and the most

effective ways to address that. So career counselling is very

much targeted at getting a job, but coaching is not just finding

jobs. No one's about finding jobs.

The other one is keeping a job OK once you have.

It I see. What about mentor?

How is that different from mentoring?

So mentoring and in fact I've, I've written a book and I

include a section on mentoring, whereas coaching and counseling

are very targeted. So as I said, there's a goal and

it's time limited, whereas once you've identified who that

mentor might be, that relationship could continue for

years. So the career counseling in

coaching are again, they're all about a short term situation and

they're more formal in nature in terms of how we structure it.

Whereas with enter, once you've identified who that person is,

you might say, well, we're going to meet once a month for lunch.

I'm going to give you an update on what's happening in work and

then get your feedback based upon your experience as to what

I might do to address this. So they're both focused on

behavioral changes, OK. And so what's going to work for

that individual? Just it's delivered by a very

different type of person. So as a coach, I don't have to

be, let's say, if I'm working with an engineer, I don't have

to have an engineering degree. But if I'm looking for a mentor,

I probably want to have someone with the same experience in the

industry that I'm in. I got it now.

Yeah. I because I hear say football

coaches, sports coaches, formerly they were also players

themselves, but I guess sports are very different from

behavioral. Yes, and it that really is

coaching when you talk about developing a skill.

Let's say you're a golfer and you want to improve your skill

as a golf. That would be more under the

auspices of a coach rather than a mentor.

A mentor might help you if you wanted to become a professional

golfer. In.

Terms of what would that path or what could that path look like

and how could I get there? I see.

Yes. And you mentioned goals in both

the counseling and the career coaching.

You're the people who come to you.

What if someone has no goal? They don't know what their goals

are, or what should my goal be? How do you tackle that?

Well, they do have a goal. In fact, it's one that I just

talked about on LinkedIn two weeks ago.

Their goal is to achieve clarity.

Are they clear in what it is that they want to do?

And it's my job as a career counselor to give them that

direction for clarity. So there are all kinds of tools

that we can use to do that is simply.

So tell me about what you enjoy doing as a child, because many

times the work that we do today is an expression of what we

enjoy doing as children. Yeah.

So you know, what was, what was fun for you to do?

Because I really see work as not drudgery, but there's an

enjoyment and sense of fulfillment very similar to what

would happen when you played. Yeah, yeah.

And so, you know, getting that information from them, I will

say things like when you go to a bookstore and you go to the

magazine rack, what is the first magazine that you pick up?

Yeah. Yeah, that tells you a lot.

Now it not be exactly what they're choosing to do, Karen.

It will be an aspect of that. Yeah.

And now I'm trying to think of what I picked when I go to Mac,

when when I go to a bookstore, think beautiful pictures, food,

like traveling. And I do like traveling.

But that's a very, very good question.

Yes, yeah. So one thing we talked about but

we didn't go into is how did you choose to go into education for

the blind? You were going to come back to

it. Oh yes.

So for me, what happened was as I was nearing the end of my

bachelor's degree, I received a letter from the school of

actually, it was special education in the School of

Education, and they were offering fellowships.

So oh, someone's going to pay for me to go to.

How nice. So what I did was I made an

appointment to go to the School of Education Special Ed and I

interviewed the head of every specialty area.

OK. Very last one was working with

the blind. And all I said at the end of

that after comparing it to all the others, was I could do that

and had no experience at all with anyone who was blind.

And I thought, well, all right, let's see what happens.

And then I was accepted into that graduate program.

Back then, they were so hurting for teachers.

I finished a master's degree. I started it in September.

In less than a year, I had a master's degree.

And, and so then I went right into a classroom as a result of

that. So when I was doing my student

teaching, I was approached by the principal who said to me, I

don't know what your plan is after you finish your degree,

but I'd like for you to consider working here, which was the

first school for the blind that I was in for seven years.

And so I had the background for it again, you know, a lot of it

was trial and error. And I think that that's one

thing that people really need to give themselves the gift of is

just lack, you know, no self judgement.

You're going to go into a job, it's going to be brand new for

you. Give yourself the time that you

need to learn it. And you know, often times

they'll say, well, you have a probationary period of 90 days.

Typically, you can learn many work tasks within those 90 days.

When you go into education, you need a whole year because what

you do at the beginning of the school year is very different

than how you end it. You.

Have to take that into consideration.

So that was, you know what, what got me into it, and that was

also the gist of the doctoral dissertation that I wrote, was

that people choose to become teachers of the blind.

So a lot of it is very much like you happen to have come across

these different opportunities. And that's life, Karen, all

about opportunity and taking advantage of it when it shows

up, it's. You.

Know it's like you go to a dinner where there are all these

foods that you may have never tasted.

Some of them you're going to like and they're going to work

for you in terms of, oh, I'll, I'd do that again.

Others were OK, I tried it once. No, I don't do that again.

So I think really life is about taking advantage of the

opportunities in front of you and just being open to whatever

they might be. Just like with doing podcasts.

I mean, if 10 years ago you told me I'd be doing what I'm doing

right at this very moment, I would have had no idea what they

were talking about nor, well, how would you ever do it 'cause

the only people I could do it with were would be people I'm

sitting right next to. We're not even in the same

country. No, at least we're in the same

hemisphere, Western Hemisphere. And as I said a year ago at this

time, I was heading to England, to London.

So I've been to London several times.

So I'm very familiar with that country.

And again, it's opportunity. Yeah, I agree with that 100%.

It's being open minded because if you are not, you will not see

the opportunities, no. Yeah.

And as I said, what it what's the saying about your mind?

Is like a parachute. It only works when it's open.

I have not heard that. I've just read a book about

what's it? It's career related book.

It's called What's the Color of your Parachute?

What color is that parachute? Yes.

Yeah, it's like a 15 year old book by now.

Well. Actually they do an upgrade

every year. Or they used to.

Or the Richard Bowles who wrote the original 1 before he died

and I think his son took over. But you know, I have ones from

1984 or in 1987, pretty similar, but of course they're going to

change based upon what's happening in the world of work.

Yeah, yeah. If anyone hasn't read that book,

highly recommend it. But I think it helped me gain

clarity and I think it it has something practical like try to

switch careers. Not like if you think of it as a

quadrant, try not to go diagonal, but try to go to the

one next to your what your current field is.

It'll be a little easier. So I'm sure our listeners love

love practical advice. That's what I'm all about, is

practical. So for someone who may not even

know that they are stuck or sometimes you don't realize it's

something happened and then you think what, what have I done all

my life? Like I have been doing this for

20 years. But usually that's what happened

when you hit like certain age, like midlife crisis, quarter

life crisis. How could, what would you

encourage people to do so that they, they, they don't get to a

point where it's too late, but like, what can they start doing

to make sure they're pursuing the right thing at the right

moment? Well, you know, you were talking

about using the word crisis. I think they're just

developmental stages. And what I've been hearing

lately is that people either experience A7 year cycle and re

evaluate or 10 year cycle. And so I've been looking at my

past and I thought, oh, I'm actually a 10 year cycle person.

If I look at my age, you know where I was when, you know, OK,

so I was born in 48. Where was I in 58?

Where was I in 68? OK, so you know, and how old was

I at that time? So these were decade birthdays.

And when I look back at them, Karen, I think, Oh my gosh,

there was a major shift at that time.

And you just acknowledge that and say, OK, if this is a

natural progression developmentally, when I reach

that seven-year or that 10 year cycle, it's time for me to re

evaluate what I'm doing. And I like your approach to I'll

do something that's next door to it.

So you rarely will get someone who says, well, you know, for

all these years, I've been an auto mechanic.

So I think now I'm going to be doing brain surgery.

OK, Well, there'll be some aspects, you know, manual

dexterity that will be important.

It's not likely that they're going to make that type of

shift. So for me, being an educator and

a teacher and now doing the work that I am now, I do webinars

which are about teaching. It's different.

So it's a next door occupation. I like that.

Yeah. Is there any psychology

rationale for the seven-year and 10 year like shifts?

No, sometimes they say that it's based upon brain physiological

development because they'll say, for instance, we talk about

being 21 and being an adult. Well, that would be a seven-year

cycle. And the interesting thing is I

used to say, I don't know if I agree that at 21 you're an

adult. For me, the number that kept

sticking in my brain was 25. Now.

Know that anatomically the brain is not fully developed, that

prefrontal cortex is not fully developed until 25.

But I also noticed that, you know, just talking to clients

where they might fit in with that one year cycle, 10 year

cycle. I think it's good to just when

you reach one of those milestones, re evaluate what is

it that I'm doing in life? Is it bringing me the

satisfaction that I really want to have?

Or do I need to look at doing something else and stay in the

same field, which is what I did, and then just do very, very

different types of jobs within that field.

So I was the vice principal for a number of years, OK, same

field, doing a very different type of work.

And then what you learn from that?

So evaluate, look back and see what you enjoyed the most as a

person, what you enjoyed as a kid, and what you're doing right

now and sort of just finding out how far those are, right?

That's right. And I'll tell you what, I have

found a great tool. It's it's not really giving away

a secret. It's a tool that I'm finding

with clients who don't have that clarity.

I'll get to them. OK.

What is it that you're looking for in a job?

And they'll, they'll say, well, I want to work with my hands.

I want to be indoors and outdoors.

I want to have some level of responsibility for supervision.

So, so we take all of those parameters, we feed them into

AI. Yeah, now we got an assistant.

Yes, so we say OK, what would a job be like if it included these

parameters? You list as many as you want.

AI will do an incredible job of identifying at least five jobs

that you could consider. I just with a client and he was

really lacking clarity and I was like a little, you know, a, a, a

spot of inspiration for me. I said, let's put it into AI and

see what it says. I, I could do that.

Oh, that would be fun to do. And so I think that it's using

tools that are out there. And I know many people are

frightened by something like AI. Remember, it's a tool.

Let it for you. Yes, yeah, it's the oven, not

the chef. Exactly.

Yeah, yeah. So what would?

What's your most successful case?

Oh, I've so many. There's a a woman that I've been

working with and she's in her 30s now.

And again, we've been working together for probably five

years. And I remember when we first

began what herself confidence was like.

And it was not unusual to have a session where she cried because

it was off beliefs that she didn't think that she was good

enough. And so we just kept chipping

away at that. And now the person that I see

when we meet, we meet on a monthly basis, she's not a

different person, she's more involved.

I would say would be a better way to describe that.

It's just so exciting to hear her talk about what she's going

to do next. And I'm being unafraid to try

things. So I think that's probably my

biggest success. And of course, everyone who's

found a job that they find fulfilment in, satisfaction,

joy, those are all successes too.

Yeah, that's so meaningful. And just think about the impact

that you have made on her life. And it's probably doesn't just

apply to jobs, It probably applies to her life, to how she

carries herself in front of friends, families, like people

who she meet for the first time or in public.

Yeah, and that's where the self-confidence shows up, Karen.

Yeah, just how they interact with people on a day-to-day

basis, they're sure of who they are.

Yeah. So Speaking of that, you've

probably also heard of this phenomenon.

Female won't apply to a job if they don't fit every

requirement. What advice would you have when

it comes to picking what jobs you apply for?

Because it's a fine line. It's a fine line not applying

because you don't fit 100% and applying but you're not going to

do well at all. Well, you must have read this

thing. Research study that I did or

recently read was men will maybe only fit 80% and they'll go for

it, whereas women will look at it and say, well, unless I can

do it all, then I'm not going to bother applying.

And I mean, when you look at that, you think about the

disservice it does in terms of what women can bring to a work

setting. And in fact, I once was, I have

actually applied for a job as a career counselor at Stanford

University. And I read their job description

and I spoke to the person and said, is there anyone on the

planet who can do everything in this job description and this?

No, you know, you can do probably 7080% of it.

Mostly what's at the top of the job description.

Seriously consider you. OK, So I thought, oh, but that's

really good to know. You don't fit into everything.

You do go through training and that's always something to ask

during an interview, the training that is provided once

you're in the position, because they're all going to have things

that they do that are unique to that specific setting.

So yeah, with with women, I would say look at what it is

that they're asking for. And I always teach people how to

do something called AT Chart and AT Chart is simply a letter T.

Are you familiar with AT Chart? I feel like I have seen it but

not all our listeners have so please explain.

Yeah, you put the job title at the top and on the left side of

the T you write what they want. You go through the job

description and all the requirements.

OK. Then on the right, you put what

I have, OK, and then you look at the match, let's say they want

five years experience. Well, I have seven years

experience that match and all the way through and just see how

close you are. Now.

In some cases, it could be something that you've done

that's similar that would qualify and you haven't given

yourself credit for that. Give yourself credit for it.

And then that's what you put onto your resume in your

interview. No, while I haven't done that

specifically, let me tell you about what I have done that is

very similar. So that if I can learn that, I

can learn this. Yeah, I think with with women,

they're much more likely to sell themselves short.

And yet women are so talented because working in education the

majority of my Co workers were women.

Yeah, I can imagine. You know what they would do when

we were in a large meeting? Lean over to me when the speaker

was talking about a specific topic and say ask them this

question. Yeah.

That great question you ask it. Yeah, I don't take credit for

what you're thinking. And it was very hard for them to

do. And these were women who

eventually went on to get PhDs. Yeah.

Look, it's, it's about programming.

Women's programming, yes. That's many, many years, decades

of just mental like all these propaganda messaging like you're

not good enough from our parents, even though that would

take some time, but at least I'm seeing a lot of us are becoming

a lot more confident we have a seat at the table.

So, but unfortunately, the market is not doing so great

worldwide. So there's still a lot of people

who might have been just laid off.

I know you wrote about that, or just haven't been able to find

jobs even after a year, year and a half, two years and they're

losing confidence. Do you have any advice on what

they can do to like evaluate what they're doing or keep the

momentum, just not lose confidence?

So I think again, it goes back to what are my strikes, what are

my skills, what are my talents, Where is the best place for me

to be using these and then finding where those there we go

opportunities and then using your network.

I thought that people use their networks as much as they could,

Karen, because what we find is that many times about 80% of

jobs are found through a network.

It's called the hidden job market.

I can't agree with that more. Yeah.

So build that network. Now, it doesn't mean that you

run around to people and say, hey, get me a job.

That's a bit of a challenge. But when someone asks you,

especially in this country, what do you do for a living and

you're unemployed, there's an embarrassment and shame attached

to that, even though you probably had nothing to do with

that decision to have the unemployed unless you quit your

job because it was toxic or, you know, other reason.

But it's really about saying, well, right now I'm between

jobs, yeah, See if that can open up a dialogue because people

know people. Yeah, and I also just wrote

about it. Even so, it's about how when I'm

finding guests for my podcast, very similar to companies

looking for people, one of them is network.

Because you don't know if this will become a connection down

the road. You won't get a job tomorrow

just by networking. But you never know.

Like expanding your network never hurts and opportunities

may come along. That's right, they do.

And so you, as you say, you just remain open to that.

And you never know who you're going to be talking to.

Or they say, well, I don't do that work, but a friend of mine

does. Would you like to talk to them?

Sure. And the other thing is dealing

with rejection. I mean, let's face it, there's

going to be rejection in this. Hey, when I sign up to do

podcasts, do you think everyone that I replied to has me on

their show? No, Yeah, well, that's their

choice as the podcaster, and for whatever reason I may not be the

type of guest they're looking for.

I'm OK with that. Yeah.

And I would like to tell my friends who are getting deflated

by rejections, you only need one.

Yes. So it's, you know, you don't

need everyone to say yes, you just need one.

And that works across the board, Karen.

It's people who are looking to find a partner.

I'll never find someone. I said, wait a minute.

You know, there are 8 billion people on the planet.

Yeah. How many of you want to be

married to? Yeah.

Oh, just one. I said, guess what?

The odds are in your favor then. And it's like anything else.

The odds are in your favor. Don't worry about the nose.

Yes, will come eventually and it'll be the right one.

And even if you get a, an acceptance, you go into the job

and you may find out, oh, this is not a match for me.

That really doing your homework about the culture.

Because a lot of times when people are looking to be hired,

that's another area that they don't educate themselves on.

It's like, what's the culture that I fit best into?

And so it's looking at, OK, I want something that's collegial

or I want a job where I'm always told exactly what to do.

I really don't have to think for myself and that's OK.

Then don't go into a job where they where they're expecting you

to do independent thinking. Yeah, I found out what I won't

enjoy as I'm doing the interviews.

So I remember I used to interview for all kinds of

business fields and then as the year progresses, I just trim

them down. And now that's why I'm doing

what I'm doing because all the other ones, I did not enjoy that

environment or the personalities.

So it's like you said, reflect, like ask yourself.

Yep, And the more you, you know, this goes back, wow, centuries,

if not millennia, which is know yourself.

That's where you begin anything in life.

We don't spend enough time knowing ourselves.

I, I spent more time in school with that.

Just who am I in all areas of my life, not just where I, you

know, where I work or what I do for work, but just in what I

bring to the table. Yeah.

What are your strengths? That's right.

So let's see how well you know yourself, David.

All right, so I'm going to play a quick round of rapid fire

questions. So don't think too much.

Just got reaction. What's a small habit that made a

huge difference in your career success?

Oh, I definitely think it was being open to opportunity.

I think once I did that, Karen, the world opened up for me in in

just so many aspects of life, not just work, but I like you.

We talked about this. I love to travel.

And so I have a list of all the places that I want to go to.

I wanted to go to Russia, just like Petersburg, but we had a

trip planned to go to Alaska, OK, And we were going with a

couple who was celebrating their 50th anniversary.

She couldn't get her passport because of a technicality.

Oh, OK, yeah. And I said, well, we'll still

go. Well, we get a call from the

travel agent saying, you know what, Alaska's hot ticket item.

Would you be willing to give up your travels to Alaska to go to

the Baltic, which includes Russia and Saint Petersburg?

Wow. So we said of course, and not

only that they flew us over first class.

Wow, OK. We go to Saint Petersburg and

they offer two excursions. One of them is to go to the

Hermitage, which was on my list of places to go to, and you

could go during the day where there were thousands of other

tourists. Or you could go for an evening

excursion in which a Symphony would do a private concert for

you. And then the group from the ship

would be broken up into groups of 10 and on a private tour of

the Hermitage to see artwork. Wow.

Now there is being open to opportunity.

I I know. Oh, no, no.

We want to go to, you know, Alaska.

That's it. Yeah, yeah.

But Alaska was never on my wish list.

The Hermitage was wow. I mean it.

It's just I could tell so many stories about how just being

open to opportunity has made an incredible difference in my

life. And another thing that I can't

agree more on. OK, next one.

Worst career advice you have heard?

Oh that's easy. Someone who was a so-called

specialist, OK, who said when you go into an interview make it

sound like you're the perfect person for that position,

whether it is a match for you or not.

Just be whatever they want you to be.

I think, OK, worst career advice.

And this was someone who was supposedly well known in the

field and I thought, oh, I could see where that would take you.

Yeah, but certain certain fields may require that personality.

OK, one thing you would never say in a job interview.

When they ask you tell me about a, a weakness that you have, I'm

a perfectionist. No, that is, that's a well.

No, yeah. That is A and so that'll win the

hot water every time. Actually, what we say is I'm an

imperfectionist. Yeah, OK.

I mean, I would an interview, but it's the truth.

OK. Focus on the fact that we are

imperfect now. What we do then is we come up

with compensation or how we deal with it.

So if I'm not good at something, well, you know, I hire someone

who is good at it. So if if I have a business of my

own and I'm not good in accounting, guess what?

I'll hire an accountant to do that.

It's great answer, great advice. If you had ten extra hours a

week, how would you use them? And then the first thought that

crossed my mind, Karen, was just living just because one, one of

the lessons that I've learned in life is how to live in the

moment. For instance, if I was

travelling, you know, I'd, I'd build more travel time into

what? Because next month I'm on my way

to Italy and France. For real.

For real. OK.

And there's these that I've been to before.

Gee, if I had, for instance, 10 more hours a week in Paris, oh,

I could Add all kinds of activities that would fill that

with working. The other thing that I do

besides speaking like this and doing career counseling is I

write. And that was another area where

I was told when I was younger, you'll never be a writer.

You you really have bad writing skills.

And I thought published 3 books and I've got two more on the

way. So I'd probably spend more time

devoting myself to writing. I had that.

So that what I enjoy in life I would just add to, that's all.

Yeah. Like I relate to that.

I would do those things, but better or more in depth, not

necessarily just adding more things.

What's the point of doing 10 million things if you only did

the surface right? Right.

OK last one, what's a completely non career related skill you

wish you had? Being able to address any

problems I have on the computer. I am not a computer savvy

person, so we're talking about finding people who are my next

door neighbor. Anytime I have a problem my

computer, I say hey Bob, you need to come over.

I said in my next life I'm going to come back as a computer

programmer. I understand this better.

I, I just, with my personality type, I'm just not a high tech

person. I can use things, but you know,

my computer stops working. What do I do?

I call my neighbor. Yes, find the people around you

who are better than you at the things you're not so good at.

And that's your network, OK? Yeah, yeah.

It's the network of people who know how to do what you don't

know how to do. Exactly.

Yes, not everyone has to do everything and be perfect at it,

but that's life, right? That's right.

We're all not all Renaissance people.

There are a few of them like that, like Thomas Jefferson, he

was one. But they're few and far between,

and they're probably one in a billion that have that ability,

right? More than a billion.

Yeah. Well, it was very, very nice

talking to you, David. It reinforces certain things

that I know, but it opened up a lot more areas of career that I

haven't thought about, and I'm sure our listeners would agree

with that. And in along with those, Karen,

I do have a book that is called Out of Work Not Out of Worth

navigating the emotional side of job loss.

So it talks about many of the topics that we discussed, like

the first one is huge, that chapter, self-confidence.

Yeah, yeah. And it's something that you have

to not lose it, otherwise yourself will crumble.

It does. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Thank you so much for being on mine, Bland.

I really enjoyed talking to you, David.

Likewise, Karen. It's like we've known each other

forever. I know, and it felt like I also

had a coaching session with you, too.

Thank you. Thank you very much.

You're quite welcome, have a great day.

Thanks for listening to this episode of Mind One.

If you enjoyed the conversation, don't forget to follow and share

it with anyone who needs to hear it.

And let's keep the conversation going.

Connect with me on LinkedIn or leave me a comment.

Until next time, stay curious, keep exploring, and let's

continue to blend our minds and discover what's possible.

Beyond the Job Hunt: Discovering Who You Are and What You Want - with David Petrovay

About This Episode

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