Episode 114: An Accidental and Rewarding Career
Ash Rao fell into a career that now, ten years into it, she continues to find rewarding and challenging. What she seems to love most about her work as a recruiter and career coach is that moment when she identifies something special about the person in front of her or on the phone. When she figures that out about a person, she can truly help them find a job they love.
Stories That Shape Us Aren't Always Our Own
Ash Rao, Career Coach
Ash Rao fell into a career that now, ten years into it, she continues to find rewarding and challenging. What she seems to love most about her work as a recruiter and career coach is that moment when she identifies something special about the person in front of her or on the phone. When she figures that out about a person, she can truly help them find a job they love.
Because so much of our happiness and satisfaction in life depends on having a job we feel good about, Ash's work makes a huge difference in the lives of the people she serves, and she honors that with every conversation.
Our conversation was rich with ideas about career transitions, what makes her feel rewarded and satisfied in her work, and the legacy we can envision, especially as we experience grief.
Ash Rao works as a Global Talent Acquisition expert at verizon. She is a certified career coach and a published author. Her work has appeared in major publications like Thrive Global, Fast Company, and powerhouse global magazine.
Last year she contributed to the published book Tough Road Creates Tough People.
Her new podcast "Passion to Profession" is launching March 2020.
Connect with Ash on LinkedIn to learn more!
Episode 64: Like Change, Uncertainty Is a Constant Undercurrent in Life
Stories of Risk and Addressing Uncertainty
Marylene Delbourg-Delphis doesn’t see risk the same way most people might define it. To her, it’s all about how prepared you are for whatever step you intend to take, the people you’ve surrounded yourself with and trust to take that step with you, and your ability to address uncertainty at any given moment.
Uncertainty is, like change, a constant undercurrent of life. There’s nothing certain in life, and there definitely isn’t anything certain in business. So how do we find ways to cope with an ever-uncertain world?
As a founding CEO and a turn-around CEO, Marylene has learned to quickly identify the resources she will need to address uncertainty and to make decisions effectively. She also has learned to trust that people truly want to learn, they have the capacity to learn, and they want to do a good job.
We covered a lot of ground in our conversation about how she sees risk, and how she addresses learning and innovation in her employees. One strategy Marylene uses in her presentations is to include music, particularly classical symphonies and opera. Here are a few links we agreed to share for you - our listeners - to get a better understanding of the impact:
Hector Berlioz - Symphonie Fantastique
Why listen to what Marylene has to say about building a strong, engaged, trusting workplace? For one thing, she has had great success in this area. For another, she is the one who, when she started her first US tech firm, poached Guy Kawasaki from Apple, and wrote the French forward for his recent book!
The operatic piece she mentioned, featuring Maria Callas:
And the book The Republic, by the philosopher Plato.
Learn more about Marylene by checking out her book, Everybody Wants to Love Their Job, and by connecting with her on LinkedIn.
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We Can Choose How Our Stories Define Us
She could easily have given up all of her power, her love, her compassion. As a matter of fact, she tried to when she was 25. As she woke in the hospital after a suicide attempt, her dad (she was finally adopted by a loving family), who was not a particularly affectionate person, but who demonstrated love in other ways, was there, patting her hand. The look on his face said it all: He was disappointed, hurt, heartbroken at Ashley's choice to leave him and this world.
We Can Choose to Use Our Most Painful Experiences to Help Others
We all know a few people who cannot seem to get a break. These are the friends we have who were in tough childhood situations, moved from home to home, and had abusive teen and young adult years, and then seem to have tragedy after tragedy in their lives well into adulthood.
Some of them are angry and bitter, some are simply resigned to their fate, and then others become more and more resilient, making choices to grow and help others in a variety of ways.
That's Ashley Horner. She could easily have given up all of her power, her love, her compassion. As a matter of fact, she tried to when she was 25. As she woke in the hospital after a suicide attempt, her dad (she was finally adopted by a loving family), who was not a particularly affectionate person, but who demonstrated love in other ways, was there, patting her hand. The look on his face said it all: He was disappointed, hurt, heartbroken at Ashley's choice to leave him and this world.
It was his hand on hers that awakened her desire to live and thrive, and her motivation to make the changes necessary.
Years later, following more tragedy in her life, she decided to help others in a few different ways. First, she started a recruitment agencywith a focus on, and ambitious goal of helping veterans and members of the LGBTQ community. Next came Anchored Souls, to serve those who also suffered abuse and sexual assault, and then the recent creation of Anchored Kidz, an organization to help grandparents, extended family, and those children being raised by that family find resources and support as they navigate the sudden or unexpected custody of those children.
When we choose to use our most painful, damaging stories to motivate us to grow, thrive, and help others, we leave a legacy we can not possibly measure.
If you write on topics related to suicide, there are great resources available to make sure you are doing more good than harm. As a relatively uninformed professional on this topic, I use this website, ReportingSuicide.Org as a resource.
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline - Call 1–800–273–8255
Available 24 hours everyday.
You Never Know Which of Your Stories Will Inspire You
When Gail shared the story of her mother’s advocacy work for victims of domestic violence with Rebecca, they agreed immediately that their business had to have another side to it, a side that would benefit that same population of their community.
Some Stories Become More Meaningful with Time
Gail and Rebecca met when they worked together at a recruitment firm, and as they worked together, realized they were inspired by some of the same things about that industry: The advocacy for clients, the feeling they got when they had a placement they knew would change lives, and the knowledge that when they did something really well, it made a big difference in their communities.
They came from completely different backgrounds, and they are completely different people, which is probably why they are not only compatible, but they are also great complements to each other.
When Gail shared the story of her mother’s advocacy work for victims of domestic violence with Rebecca, they agreed immediately that their business had to have another side to it, a side that would benefit that same population of their community. And when they make big business decisions, including choices about scaling their business and growing in other communities, both sides of their business would benefit from those decisions.
Visit their website, and explore NextOpp’s work with victims of domestic violence, and be sure to connect with Gail and Rebecca on LinkedIn to learn more.