How To Be More Intentional

Introduction 00:04

This is the Happen To Your Career podcast, with Scott Anthony Barlow. We help you stop doing work that doesn't fit you, figure out what does and make it happen. We help you define the work that's unapologetically you, and then go get it. If you're ready to make a change, keep listening. Here's Scott. Here's Scott. Here's Scott.

Scott Anthony Barlow 00:28

You may have heard me share before that every single year, we take our kids on a trip, most of the time, this is to another country, and it'll be three to six weeks, we will literally plunk down in that other country and do life there. Not necessarily as a vacation. But you know, just living there, did working at the same time. We've done that in Paris, France. We've done that in Portugal. And we've done that in the UK, they've all been wonderful experiences. This has allowed our kids to become exposed to many different people and places all over the world. And mine and Alyssa's hopes as a parent are that this exposure will help them understand, not only how we're all different people with different cultures, but also how we're very much the same at our core as humans. And that's, of course, you know, the plan that we have as parents. And it's how we've experimented over the years. And it's something that we felt very strongly about. And it was very challenging the first time that we did it, it was well worth it, it was 2016. And now, it's become a thing years later. It's something that we do every year. And I hope that this will continue on, it's our plan to have it continue on. This year, though, we're doing something a bit different. We're combining the time that we are in another country, this time we're going to Greece, with actually taking an entire month off from work, this will be the first time that I have ever taken a month off of work in maybe ever, I guess, since I started working. And then also at the same time, it's something that has been a work in progress over the last three years. Three years ago, Alyssa and I had said, "Hey, we want to set up the organization so that we can step away, it's not reliant on us." And we have worked really hard to create a much stronger organization so that we can serve people all over the world that want to do work differently, that want to make career changes, but something that is not always obvious when people go to our website. When they listen to the podcast, what we stand for as an organization is far larger than just helping each person find and do work that they want to be doing, find their ideal career, and then go and make it happen in reality. It's much larger and what we want to do as an organization is change the way that work is done around the world. Change the way how we think about work to make it much better for humans to allow us, as human beings, to be able to get much more back from our work, make it meaningful, and also you're well compensated. And at the same time, most organizations are not doing that. So years later, now that it's coming to fruition, what this has really turned into for myself and Alyssa, and all of the members of our team, is we feel obligated to role model how work can be done differently. I want to create, not just our organization, but an entire world where we have normalized the flexibility to be able to go and do what is most important, most important with your family, most important outside of work in addition to what is important for you at work. And at the same time, and okay... let's just acknowledge the fact that most organizations right now, you can't just step away for a month for so many different reasons. One of which is that it's not normal. It's not a thing. It's not socially acceptable in so many different ways. And for us, it's not really about the month, it is about being able to create flexibility for what's needed by individuals. And that's the part that we want to be able to role model within our organization. So all that to say that this year, we're combining these two things together. It's coming to fruition. All the work we've done for the last three plus years, to be able to create an organization that allows us and our team members to be able to step away, like at this moment, as I'm recording this, we have a team member actually that is taking a surprise to her trip to Italy to go ride horses with her family kind of a once in a lifetime trip was definitely a surprise and we bent over backwards. We have several members of our team who are really bending over backwards to be able to make that a reality for that team member, it's one of our coaches. And that's phenomenal. That's the type of organization that I want to be in, it's what I want to become much more common throughout the entire world. So it starts with us. What I will tell you is that it is freaking hard, it is freaking hard to create that type of organization. It's really hard to have that type of intentionality to be able to work for years, and then have the benefit of our team members being able to have the flexibility that they want or need.

Scott Anthony Barlow 05:28

So is it hard? Yes. Is it worth it? I think so. I want to be able to allow other people to decide, as opposed to what is the social norm out there. So this episode is really about two things. First of all, it's a bonus episode. It's a bonus episode, because it's an extra episode. But I wanted to share with you why this was so important. Why it was so important for us to be able to step away and it's not just about the vacation, that's gonna be fun, don't get me wrong, I'm pretty sure we're gonna love Greece. We decided we wanted to do something different than just the normal trip. So we rented a boat, and we're going island hopping, because we've learned over the years from traveling that, you know, bouncing from driving for hours, and hours and hours, although we have many friends that love to do that, and love to do the road trips, that's not really our thing. In Greece it is kind of spread out. And there's so much we wanted to see. So we've learned for us, it's better if we have a home base, and we can leisurely go enjoy and dive deeper into the things that we want to see. We did that when we were in Paris. And we see like one thing per day. And sometimes we might spend half the day there as opposed to rushing on to the next thing. And that was a mode of experiencing that just really worked for us as a family, and we want to do more of that. So we spent a little bit of time trying to figure out how on earth that was going to work in Greece. And we realized, well, what if we could have the boat be our home base? And then that would allow us to be able to see so many more things, but still have that lack of having to get up and go go all the time. So our solution to that was we rented a catamaran and a skipper to help us navigate the waters because I'm far from a professional sailor. So by the way, if you want to see why on earth we're doing this or follow along for our trips, or learn how to be more intentional with work, life, family, then you can absolutely do that. You can go and visit this episode page, which is called "How To Be More Intentional" on happentoyourcareer.com. Look for that podcast episode or look for the links in the show notes, in the description. Or you can visit familypassport.co and we share everything that we share, all the links to all the places that we visited, and we have an agenda for every single trip. Most of them are posted there. We even post a budget with how much things cost for other people who might be interested in living more intentionally with their families, and want to do that. We don't charge anything for that. It's all free over there. It's just something that we have really benefited from and want to be able to share with other people. And we've had so many questions over the years that we just started putting it on the website to make it easy access for people like you. So I wanted to be able to share though that this isn't about us taking a trip to Greece. Instead, what it's about is we need to get more people like you into roles and opportunities that you want to be in, that really are a fit, and then have you to be able to change your organization that you work with from the inside out. So that we can create a different level of flexibility for the entire world. Because we all know that we need it in so many different ways. And you know, we've got things going on right now where the United States and other countries are testing out the four day work week. And while that sounds fantastic to many people, I don't really think that that's the solution. I think what is the solution is much more difficult than saying, "well, it needs to be four days or five days", quite frankly, you know, "There are some days where I want to work for... or some weeks where I want to work for days and weeks where I want to work five, and honestly I really enjoy my work. So sometimes I want to work more than that." And that is something where we shouldn't be, in my opinion, mandated by the government. How many days that we work overall. Instead, I think it is the responsibility of organizations and individuals to make that change, not the government. So I would love to see that we are working to change that from the inside out.

Scott Anthony Barlow 10:00

So first and foremost, let's get you to a wonderful situation where it is a fit. It's the right fit for organization. It's the right fit for an opportunity that makes up your ideal career. If you need help with that, I think you know where to go. Feel free to drop me an email, scott@happentoyourcareer.com put 'Conversation' in the subject line, and we can absolutely connect you with my team. I'm not answering my email right now, but I have a team member, Kate, who absolutely will make sure that you get connected with our team and the right person on our team so that we can figure out the very best way that we can help with that. But once you're there, it's much bigger. Once you're there, once you're in that situation, it's your responsibility to help change it for everyone. And that's what I want to do. And that's what I want our organization to be a role model. So I appreciate you listening. I appreciate you continuing to write in, share what has been helpful, and ultimately, most importantly, get yourself to a situation where it is your ideal work. Because you, quite frankly, perform better and are able to contribute so much more to the entire world when you are in the right fit situation for you. It's better for you. It's better for your family. It's better for everyone. So I'm going to have fun in Greece. I'll see you when I get back. Enjoy hearing from the team. I think you're going to love it. See you in about a month. Adios. I'm out.