445: Your Career Evolution: It’s More Than Just A Job Change

Larry knew early on that he had a love for beer, and he (eventually) made a fulfilling career out of it.

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Guest

Larry Chase, Brewer & Great Game of Business®️ Coach

Larry Chase knows all about beer, and went from brewing craft beer, to consulting and coaching breweries on how to be successful financially.

on this episode

Raise your hand if you’ve ever wanted to leave a job.

I know MY hand went up, and I think I heard all of yours go up, too. We’ve all been there. 

One thing we’ve learned over many years of helping people make career changes is that it’s about WAY more than just changing jobs.

You have to consider the mindset, and who you are as a person when thinking about making a career change.

What you’ll learn

  • The importance of figuring where you want to go before deciding how to get there
  • Fixed mindset vs growth mindset
  • Why sometimes it’s about changing as a person – not just a job or career change
  • How Larry managed to pivot from “just brewing” to the financial side of brewing

Success Stories

I was nervous. But obviously, it worked out extremely well. (Kelly) was unbelievable. I still keep in touch with her. She's phenomenal. And we had such great conversations. I didn't know that I would be getting laid off from this job. And I signed up for Career Change Boot camp a week before I got laid off. Which was just insane timing. And I just started it. I remember I wrote you guys, and I was like, “I just got laid off from this job. I'm so happy that I enrolled in this program.” And it was, it just was the perfect time.

Melissa Shapiro, Career Specialist, United States/Canada

Scott took the time to really hear my problem, to understand, and offer solutions to help me transition to where I am and where I’d like to be. That is why I decided to sign up for Happen to Your Career. I used to work in the legal industry and now I work in the nonprofit industry for a nonprofit that helps people change their lives!

Cesar Ponce de Leon, Online Campus Manager, United States/Canada

If you're ready to make the change, if you're willing to give yourself the time that you deserve to figure out what's right for you. If you're willing to take that time, I think Happen To Your Career, and the Figure Out What Fits course, can be great for a lot of people, if you're feeling stuck, and you don't have to bridge that gap to where you are. I think this is a great, great course to really break everything down and give you what you need.

Nicole Mathessen, Art Director, United States/Canada

Larry Chase 00:01
It was a realization that I'm not figuring this out on my own. And that was the challenge. You can't go figure out how to do something if you don't even know what you want to do.

Introduction 00:14
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 it 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 00:38
Raise your hand if you've ever wanted to leave a job. Okay, I know my hand is way up. Pretty sure I heard all of yours go up, too. We've all been there, right? One thing that I've learned over many years of helping people make career changes, is that it's about way more than just changing jobs.

Larry Chase 00:59
There were things that I saw that I could do and help out. And I was really put in my place every time that I would reach out and try to do more, and they say, "Well, you're just production." It tore up my soul, because I saw so many other things that I could go in and do. And so it was time to leave that company. And so I left and the question was, well, what's next?

Scott Anthony Barlow 01:21
That's Larry Chase. After discovering the love for beer, he ended up working in breweries for 20 years. He got to know every single aspect of beer, becoming an expert in all things, beer and breweries. He loved it for many years. However, more recently, he realized he wanted something different, something more, not just a job change, though, but an entire career change. Now I want you to listen in for how he was able to figure out the very next step in his career evolution. But first, I want you to listen to where Larry started out. Here's Larry sharing what led him to the beer industry in the first place.

Larry Chase 02:00
We'll start with a biology major in college and did not know what I wanted to do with that major. When I left college, I'm not going to seminary, I was going to be a Lutheran minister. After one year of seminary, though, I realized that this is not for me. And the short version of the story is that I found my higher calling. And that higher calling was brewing beer.

Scott Anthony Barlow 02:25
Love it.

Larry Chase 02:25
Now, it didn't quite happen that quickly. What did happen, though, is that during college, I didn't drink beer. I didn't care for the flavor. And it's really the beer that college students certainly drank 25, 30 years ago, I just didn't care for it. I got to seminary, I was in a larger metropolitan area, and the craft beer scene was really starting to kick off. So I can still remember the first couple of beers that I had, Pete's Wicked Ale and Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, were two of my introductory beers to beer with flavor. And I said, 'Wow, I like this. Wow, what's going on?' And being a science major, I was curious about the questions of how do you create all of these different flavors, because that's not what I was familiar with.

Scott Anthony Barlow 03:13
That's what not you put or you were used to in college.

Larry Chase 03:16
Right. And so this is all starting to happen at seminary. And people always laugh at it. But the best theological discussions took place at the bar on Wednesday night. So I probably partied more in seminary than I ever did in college. So I get to that end of that year of seminary, I'm not going to go back, I had a goal to travel Europe. So I worked for two years. One of those years was literally working 4 jobs, 80 hours a week to save money. And when you work that much, you don't spend so you save fast, and I did. I traveled Europe, and people would ask me, "What are you most looking forward to when you go to Europe?" And it was "I want to experience drinking beer in the British pubs." And it was... It was fantastic. Drank beer in Germany, learned about it there, ended up, didn't realize Oktoberfest was going on when I got to Munich, and boom. So I've been to Oktoberfest in Munich. fantastic experience. I get back to the States. I ended up traveling for three or four months around the United States. And as I go, I'd stop in at these little breweries and brew pubs everywhere I went. And it was on one of those places, I picked up this beer paper that was in one of these brew pubs, and I saw this ad for the American Brewers Guild of brew master. And all of a sudden it was "*ding*. Oh, I could go do that." And so I got done traveling and I was living with my parents at home flat broke, because I just spent all my money traveling. And I remember my dad taking me out for lunch, looking at across the table from me and saying, "Larry, what are you going to do now?" And I looked right back across the table at him and I said, "Dad, I'm going to brew beer." And you know, this fits at mid 20 years old. I didn't know how I was going to make that happen. I didn't know what the steps were, which is a lot of what you go through in this career change, right? And for some reason, though, it was much easier at mid 20s. I had nothing to lose. I didn't have a job, I didn't have any money. I just got to go figure it out. And I did. I started... this very little internet at the time, I think America Online was not the only thing going on in about 96, 97.

Scott Anthony Barlow 05:30
Good old AOL.

Larry Chase 05:32
Yeah. So you really couldn't go and research places and what's out there. And so I just started stopping in the breweries in the places that I knew. And it was one of those times I was back in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, which is where I went to college, a friend called me and said," Hey, we're moving out of this house, you got to come get your stuff." And so I did. I popped into the brewery, talked with the brew master, I was doing informational interviews, that's really what I was doing, just asking lots of questions. And it was... by the time we got done with that conversation, he said, "Well, would you be interested in a job?" Whoa, wow, heck yeah. And I didn't even walk in expecting to get a job. I was there asking questions. So shorten that story up, that was my first brewing job. I worked part time, learning on the job as a brewer, the other part time I bartended at the place and I was so fascinated with it, I read voraciously all the texts and the magazines that they had, and anytime there was downtime I was reading. So anyway, I had that job. And I've been a professional brewer for 20 plus years, and have worked in the Midwest in Oregon for eight and a half, nine years at a brewery. And in that time, I got involved with the Brewers Association. I'm a real big proponent of the association and how they support small and independent brewers. And because of my interest in Financials, which I think we'll get to, when we talk about my career change story, I was on the board of directors for the Brewers Association, and serve that for eight years, and for five of those years, was treasurer of the organization and did a lot of work in bringing the BA along with their investment portfolio, creating investment policy statements and guiding the financial side of the organization.

Scott Anthony Barlow 07:27
That is wonderful story and really appreciate you sharing, especially where and how it began. That's so fun to hear some of the origination of what ends up setting the stage for many years. And what I'm also curious about too, and I recognize that you and I have talked before there's not the first conversation that we've had, but I don't know the entire story for what caused you to want to change. You got into the beer industry and brewing industry by chance, almost, in one way or another, faded chance maybe, however, also you decided at some point along the way that once, you know, what was a wonderful situation for you, was no longer as wonderful in the same way. So I'm curious, what had caused you to want to change?

Larry Chase 08:17
Things that caused me to want to change. I wanted to change out of the role that I'd had. I'd been a head brewer for 20 years, and I'd always, for the most part been a head brewer in brew pubs. And as a brew pub brewer, you're a department of one generally. And as a department of one for anybody who has been their own independent business person knows, you get to do it all. And while brewing definitely still excites me, I get stoked about stainless steel equipment. I get stoked about the technical side of beer, the flavor of beer, how you create it, there's a lot that goes into being a brewer in a small brewery that I was just tired of the word. The joke is that you spend 85% of your time cleaning, actually, I shouldn't say joke, because it's true, it's what you do. And it was the nitty gritty daily tasks and the cleaning that I was tired of doing it. And I wasn't interested in going and finding a job in a larger brewery, in the operational side. I certainly could, I've got the chops to do it. But that didn't really appeal to me either. So I was really tired of doing some of that day to day work. And there was a second side of it too, is that the organization that I was in was very unhealthy. And I had come out of now three organizations over my brewing career where it was great to start and I think a lot of that was the honeymoon period, and then things change or organizationally, and it became a place that I didn't want to be, I dreaded going to work. I didn't want to be around some of the people and the leadership, and there was no direction coming from the leadership. And there were things that I saw that I could do and help out, and I was really put in my place every time that I would reach out and try to do more. And they say, "Well, you're..." I hated this. But it was kind of like, "Well, you're just production. That's all we want you to do." And, oh, it tore up my soul, because I saw so many other things that I could go in and do. It was time to leave that company. So I left. And the question was, well, what's next? And I thought I'd figure it out. And six months went by, I worked in a winery during harvest and crush with a friend who is the winemaker. Fabulous experience, because I got to learn about wine and how the similarities and differences between making wine and brewing beer is great. Yet, I always thought I'd open my own brewery. And I'd been thinking that for 15 years, but I could never come around to actually making it happen. And we could dive into all kinds of reasons as to why that is.

Scott Anthony Barlow 11:11
Well, I'm curious, you know, looking back now, what do you think were some of the most prominent reasons why you decided not to, either real or what was stopping you, however you want to look at it, what were those?

Larry Chase 11:28
I have a, especially at this time in my life, I have a fear of not succeeding. Right. And I think that's what a lot of us are up against. And because I've been around the brewing industry for 20 plus years, I know how difficult it is to start a brewery and to make it successful. And part of it is that it's really important that you have partners in that that can help, because there's so much that has to happen, and the type of brewery that I wanted to open, you're almost three different business models. So that's not easy. And you need people to help. Well, I didn't have people who I really wanted to be partners with. I didn't even know names of people to consider. So the difficulty of doing it was very daunting. The financial side of doing it is very daunting, because a lot of people will try to bootstrap their breweries. Now, the friend we're staying with right now, he was talking about a brewer here in New Eugene, who is very proud and will boast to everybody that he hasn't paid himself in nine years. And I'm thinking "Dude, that's not something to be proud of. You've been doing a hobby for nine years. And that's not a business." So I know how challenging it is from the work that has to go in, the financial side of it. And you got to go out and raise money. And it's just all these things that I could never bring myself around to just diving in and doing and making happen. So I think that was a big part of it.

Scott Anthony Barlow 13:03
That's really interesting. So then, I am so curious, as you started about figuring out, "Okay, what is next?" And you started embarking on "Hey, what is this change for what's next going to look like for me?" You know, what did you encounter along the way? And what I'm really interested in are, what are some of the parts that you feel like were surprising to you that you didn't expect?

Larry Chase 13:29
It felt early on that I'd be able to figure this out on my own. That's what I thought was going to happen, I'd take this time. But one year went by, a second year went by, and I'm still sitting here without a job. And my wife and I are making it work, yet, I was, I wouldn't say miserable, but I really was a float, drifting, not really knowing where to go. And I think it was the realization that I'm not figuring this out on my own. I don't have the tools. I don't have the, for some reason, even though back 20 plus years ago, I said, "I want to be a brewer" but I didn't know what I wanted to do. And that was the challenge. How do you go... you can't go figure out how to do something if you don't even know what you want to do.

Scott Anthony Barlow 14:18
Exactly.

Larry Chase 14:19
And so, and again, I was at a point in my life where I think that I felt I had more commitments than I probably did that first time around, and that I couldn't just go and do because of these commitments. I know too, that my mindsets was not where it should have been, and that came out through the work I did with Jennifer and mindset was a huge part of why I was not making any progress forward on my own, for sure.

Scott Anthony Barlow 14:51
In what way?

Larry Chase 14:52
I really latched on to the conversation in our coaching with the difference between a growth and a fixed mindset. And I had read Carol Dweck's book, "Mindsets", probably in January of 2020. And I really latched on to it. But at the time, as I read it, I'm thinking, "Yeah, I've got a growth mindset." Because as you read that book, you know, the fixed mindset, we've all got fixed mindsets, we've all got some growth mindset. It's kind of a continuum of where do you land. You know, and I viewed myself as having on mostly all growth mindset. Yeah, of course, because that's the good thing. That's where you want to be.

Scott Anthony Barlow 15:30
Obviously.

Larry Chase 15:31
Of course.

Scott Anthony Barlow 15:32
Of course.

Larry Chase 15:32
When in reality, I had a lot of fixed mindset. And that's what was holding me back from...

Scott Anthony Barlow 15:40
What did that show up for you? When you say, "Hey, in reality, I had a fixed mindset in..." sounds like more areas than what you had previously thought. How did you see that show up for you?

Larry Chase 15:53
The way that I've saw it show up best, there's this exercise that Jennifer had me do, and it was called old agreements, new agreements. And she said, "Larry, I want you to sit down, and I want you to write out what are all of the agreements that you have with yourself right now." And that was hard work, for sure. And getting it down on paper, and for sure you think about it and get it down on paper. But once we got it down on paper, and there was probably six or seven different ones that I came up with, and as we started reading through the old agreement, and then comparing that to the new agreement in a particular area, and as I would read through all of the old agreement, the words were all very fixed mindset, terminology.

Scott Anthony Barlow 16:43
Interesting.

Larry Chase 16:44
And it took Jennifer to point this out to me. But when I realized it, I'm like, "Oh my gosh." And I start looking through each of these old agreements that I had with myself, and so much of it was fixed mindset. So my wife has a very positive, how can we make this work, figure it out attitude, always has. And one of the things that I am really good at is when an idea comes up, and this is where I overuse one of my strengths. When an idea comes up, I will immediately look to how it won't work.

Scott Anthony Barlow 17:23
Let's say all the reasons why this will not work or can't work or needs to...

Larry Chase 17:28
Exactly. I forget which strength that falls in. But that's the over use, it's that analytical side of it, it's good to have that, yet, when you take it way too far, you never end up seeing the positive. I'm looking... instead of... use the analytical side to look to how it can work, right. But I would always go to how it can't work, and that frustrated my wife immensely, because every time she would bring up an idea, my immediate response was to start talking about how it won't work. Well, when she is 100%, always, how do we make it work, and I'm always the downer of how it won't work. And we were these two opposites. So that's how it was coming out, you know, this fixed mindset side of me.

Scott Anthony Barlow 18:11
Can I read you some that Jennifer sent me?

Larry Chase 18:14
Please.

Scott Anthony Barlow 18:15
She says, "Larry took his mindset language very seriously. Early in the engagement, we talked about growth mindset and empowering language as a way to call forth, what was his to do in his professional and personal life. He put together a detailed ideal career profile and used this entire process to retrain his thought process and speech patterns to empower himself and others to take action." And so I think this is so cool to have, one, you're sharing the story of here's how this was showing up. This was showing up in a variety of different ways, "My previous agreements were all fixed mindset, didn't realize it to the point of where, you know, I have this continuous interaction with my wife, where she was 'how to make it work.' And I'm like, 'Hey, here's all the reasons why it's not going to.'"And it's no small amount of work and effort and time and energy and all the other things to do something like retraining yourself, you have a totally different lens to look through, and focus on growth mindset, and just other mindsets that are very positive in that area. So what I'm curious about and the question I wanted to ask you is, what do you feel like helped the most? Because I think that's difficult to do over a period of many years, let alone a period of months. So really nice job, and what helped you along the way aside from what we've already talked about?

Larry Chase 19:43
One of the things that I did, I can't remember how it came out, but I'd started practicing meditation some time in this realm as well. And what I did, I took all of the new agreements that I've written for myself, and after, every morning, after my 5 to 10 minute silent meditation, I would take that piece of paper with all those new agreements, and every single day, I would read them out loud to myself. And that repetitiveness to try to put it in my head of this is how I think, this is how I am going to approach the world, the empowering language piece of it as well, I found a great one page or document online that really outlined instead of this word, instead of saying "I need" say, "it's important to" and by doing that daily, and helping to cement it in my head, one, was some of the words, I'm now at the point where... if I recognize I'm about to say, "I need to do this", or "I should do this", which is disempowering language, I can catch myself before it actually comes out of my mouth, and I am able to flip it and say, "it's important for me", or "I want to", or "I will do this". And that has a huge impact on how your mind approaches the world when you change the language that you use. And when you do it out loud. So that was speaking it out loud, and speaking it daily, I've gotten out of that practice right now. In those first two to three, four months, that's really what was keeping me, helping me make that change.

Scott Anthony Barlow 21:33
That is pretty awesome. And again, I just want to reinforce, if people listen to this, as you're listening to this right now, it can easily be glossed over that this might not sound like a big deal. But this is something that I would advocate is a much, much harder part of any type of career change that often people don't realize. So many people show up in our world, where they believe it's going to be more about a job and company and work change, but really, what we see over and over again, it's about becoming a different person and becoming the person that you want to be along the way. And I just think that you've done a really, really nice job with that, Larry, and I want to acknowledge that out loud. And also, you know, one of the other things that makes me very curious about too is, what else happened for you? Or what else did you do that you found to be very helpful in getting to the point that you are now?

Larry Chase 22:33
Sure. So I'm transitioning into being a certified coach for the great game of business. So this gets to that financial piece that has been an interest of mine for a long time. In fact, I still have my name tag from my junior year of high school when I was the junior class treasurer. So there's been this financial side that has been an interest to me for a long time. And so great game of business is an operational system that is open book management. And a lot of times people think open book management is, "I just throw up in the financials, let people see him" and walk away. That's really open book reporting, and there's a lot of companies out there who do open book reporting. They let their employees, at least upper management, middle management, see the numbers, yet they never go beyond that. It's... well, here's the numbers. So true, open book management, and specifically through the great game of business, which is the organization that really pioneered the idea 40 years ago, is teaching employees about the financials, so you open up your books, and then you teach them financial literacy, about how the company truly operates from a financial standpoint. And in doing so, you start to teach and give them line of sight into how, what they do on an everyday basis in their role impacts the financials and the success of the company. And one of the big mantras of the system is that "people support what they help create." So it's not about the leaders and the upper management, you know, pushing down from the top and saying, "This is how we're going to do this." It's about giving employees the knowledge and the tools to be able to create it themselves. And one of the questions that we'd like to ask is, well, "Who really out there creates the numbers for a company?" You know, a lot of times the answer is, well, it's the accountant. It's the people in the finance division who are putting out these reports, daily, weekly, monthly, and that's not the case. It's the frontline employees who are truly creating the numbers for the business. So when you get them involved, and you show them and you teach them, they get more excited and they now see how they're successful. And then you give them, what we call, "a stake in the outcome", where they get to participate in the rewards of that success. And whether it's a bonus program, there's many games that are 90 Day pushes to really make a behavior change, and there's rewards if you win. So I am in the process of getting my certification to coach that, to help companies. And then my primary realm that I want to serve is the craft brewing world. Because even though I don't want to be hands on brewer every day, I still absolutely love beer. I love the people in the brewing world. I've got contacts everywhere that I can call upon as I grow this new business of mine, which that's a whole nother realm. I'm now figuring out how do I build my own independent business. And that's not where I anticipated going, when I started the coaching with Jennifer back in November of 2020. So that's the change. That's where I'm headed.

Scott Anthony Barlow 26:05
That is fantastic. And here's the part that I love about that incorporates so much of what you are really wonderful at and really just gravitate towards, in so many different ways. And I think anyone listening to this right now can tell that just in how you've talked about your story leading up to this, just in how you are explaining what it is that you are doing or get to do now. And I think what's really cool too, is this isn't just a "hey, here's what I'm going to do now." You already have your first client too. Is that right?

Larry Chase 26:43
Yes, I do. And that's a little bit longer story of how that came about. The connections are absolutely amazing. I got my first client, because the owner of the brewery saw me post on the Brewers Association daily forum, asking about any breweries out there that are currently practicing open book management, and specifically along the lines of the great game of business. And he saw that post, and he said, "This is interesting." He looked into it further and realized that this might be the missing piece that he's been trying to figure out for his company. And turns out, we ended up on, as I'm getting into the coach training, and is this something that I want to do, we end up on the same webinar call via the great game of business, and I knew he was going to be on there, because they'd given me a heads up. Anyway, we made that connection. And it turns out that he learned about it from me, unbeknownst to me at the time. And as we continued the conversation, I'm now gonna have a contract to be support person for them, who has the knowledge to help them implement the system.

Scott Anthony Barlow 28:01
That is pretty fantastic. I love how life works when you start to become very clear on what you want, which direction you go and who you want to serve, it isn't magic, but sometimes it seems like it in a variety of different ways.

Larry Chase 28:16
So if you don't mind, I'm going to tell the magic of this. Because when I first left my job in 2018, I was aware of the great game of business, I've been following them. I haven't paid attention to it. There's other breweries and there's some big name breweries New Belgium Brewing out of Fort Collins, Colorado is a rock star in the world of the great game of business. And I'd served on the board of directors with Kim Jordan from there. So I was familiar with it. And when I left my job, I thought, "Oh, well, what would it be to be a great game coach?" And I was on their website, I called, I talked to somebody and this was in 2018. At the time, they said, "Well, we really want our coaches to have been practitioners." And while I had not been a practitioner, I'd never worked for a company that had done it. So put that on the back burner. Well, then fast forward, we get into my coaching work with Jennifer in HTYC. And when we got to the point that realize this is really something I want to pursue, I had made a chart of "here's the roles that it's important for me to go find to get to that point 5 or 6 years from now where I can then become a great game coach." And so to do that, I need to find a company to work for that is practicing the game, playing the game. So I start making the calls, I start finding contacts. And in one of those calls, I knew that a colleague of mine in the brewing world had recently implemented the great game at his brewery a couple years ago, and we served on a committee together so we talked about it. So I called him and I said, "Hey, would you introduce me to your great game coach?" So he did. I had a fantastic conversation with her and one of the questions that, you know, HTYC teaches I think is, you know, when you get into these conversations, that final question that you ask is, "Well, who else do you think I should be talking to? Who would you introduce me to?" So I asked that question. She thought about it. She says, "I'll get back to you." She hands up introducing me to the Vice President of coaching at the great game business. I get on that call, thinking that he's going to be able to share with me names of companies that I could go talk to and explore the possibility. That's not what his intent for that call was.

Scott Anthony Barlow 30:36
What was his intent?

Larry Chase 30:37
His intent was to say, "I think we want you to be a great game coach, Larry." And it just blew me away. And part of the reason being is that I have 20 years of experience in the brewing industry, they've had breweries come to them, inquiring about what does it looked like to coach, to have a coach, and they're big believers in that coaches work best in industries that they know. And they didn't have any coaches who know the brewing industry. And so they wanted me because of my knowledge. And then they had a process to, you know, I had three different conversations, you know, to actually get to the point to them saying, "yeah, we'd love to have you on board." And so it all started, I think, as my wife will say, and I've heard some other people say, "You already know everybody who you need to know." And that was exactly the case here. I've known Jeff for 10 plus years, he introduced me to his coach. And before we knew it, I'm a great game coach. And it was all about those connections. So that's that magic that you talked about. And I love that story. And the great thing about it is that Jeff and his Bri are in Springfield, Missouri, which is where the great game of business is headquartered. So Jeff knows a lot of the people in that realm. There's Miller Brewing equipment out of Springfield, I've known one of their... he doesn't work there anymore, but he was their sales guy for the brewing side for 20 years. I've known him for almost as long, I called him to talk about the great game. He's a big proponent and fan of it because they do it. And turns out that he knows a lot of people at the great game. So it's all this small world stuff that these connections start to give you credibility and then excitement. And it's things just start rolling.

Scott Anthony Barlow 32:25
Here's what I love most about that story. I love, really two pieces, maybe more, probably a lot more. However, two main pieces really stand out to me. One is that you have this conversation way back when, you had an inkling that this would be a lot of fun for you quite a while ago, and basically was met with a "Yep. No, we just don't do that. Nope, sorry." "Hey, thank you. But no, thank you" essentially. And you're up against a wall there. And instead of just accepting that, you kept going in that direction. Well, at the same time, you were trying to refine what you really wanted, and continuing to pursue that, continuing to figure out how this could be possible ended up leading to getting an exception made for you. And I think that's one of my favorite things about so, not just your story, but so many of the stories that we get to share on this podcast is that, really, once you start to declare what you want, and you're continuing to put action to figure out how it might be possible, then all of a sudden, that's part of what is that secret magic in one way or another that ends up making it possible later on. So I so appreciate you sharing a bit of what looks like an impossibility or looks like magic from the outside, and how it actually functions from the inside. I very much appreciate that. And congratulations again too. I don't know that I told you that.

Larry Chase 33:51
Thank you. The challenge now though it's just beginning. It's only beginning. Right? You said earlier how a lot of people come in thinking that it's simply about a career change a new job, a different role. You know, for me, it was... I went for six months, weekly with Jennifer, and for probably three to four of those months, we didn't even talk about a job, a role where I want to do, it was that mindset piece that we really had to work on first before I could even get to the point of considering what's next. The way I tell that story, it makes it sound like it just, you know, rolled one piece into the other. It was still challenging though because there were the days I had I really want to make that call, or I don't even know who to call and might have spaced out by three weeks because I didn't do it. I was afraid, yet, it's that case of, if you sit down and do it and do the work, it comes faster. We like to procrastinate because we're afraid and, nonetheless, here I am.

Scott Anthony Barlow 34:58
I think that's amazing. And I am curious as you said, your journey is now just beginning. But I think the part that really is amazing about is even though it is just beginning, it is now on a different track that clearly you diagnosed years ago was what you, you no longer wanted to be on that same track. And you've gone through something that is very difficult. Most people in the entire world don't do this. They don't identify what they want to be doing, and then actively make it happen in the real world. So again, just kudos to you. But then the other question that I want to ask you is, what advice would you give to those people who were or where you were several years ago, and you know that you no longer want to be doing what you were doing, but aren't quite sure where you want to go or how to make it happen, what advice would you give?

Larry Chase 35:51
There's a few things that come to mind. It's one that my wife likes to say, and it's "leap and the net will appear" really, really difficult to do, I get that, really, really difficult to do. Yet, if your mindset is thinking positively in that direction, it happens. I think another piece of advice is that, don't wait. Because I didn't talk about how it took me way too long to leave that last job, even though it was probably two or three years that I knew I needed to be out of there, and yeah, don't wait. It may seem really, really difficult that you can't and you gotta wait this out, you will feel so much better. And it's not the first time. I've left two jobs under duress. And there was the first time I did it, it was... I should have done it sooner. And this last time, I should have done it sooner. So don't wait.

Scott Anthony Barlow 36:50
I want to just close really quickly with something else that Jennifer wrote, your coach Jennifer wrote, one, "Larry did an amazing job of reaching out with a survey that asked about his strengths and leverage the how to ask help formula to enlist a highly educated support team." And she also went on to say, "Larry is one of the kindest, most honest clients that I have ever had the opportunity to work with. A heart for helping others and creating organizational health." I just I wanted you to know that. I'm sure she's probably told you some of those things anyways, but I wanted to make sure they got told here as well. And, again, congratulations, I really appreciate it. And thanks so much for sharing your story.

Larry Chase 37:33
Oh, my pleasure.

Scott Anthony Barlow 37:38
Hey, many of the stories that you've heard on the podcast are from listeners that have decided they wanted to take action, and taking the first step of having a conversation with our team to try and figure out how we can help. And if you want to implement what you have heard, and you want to completely change your life and your career, then let's figure out how we can help. So here's what I would suggest, just open your phone right now and open your email app. And I'm going to give you my personal email address, scott@happentoyourcareer.com just email me and put 'Conversation' in the subject line. And then when you do that, I'll introduce you to the right person on our team. And you can have a conversation with us, we'll try and understand your goals and what you want to accomplish in your career no matter where you're at. And we can figure out the very best way that we can help you and your situation. So open up right now and send me an email with 'Conversation' in the subject line; scott@happentoyourcareer.com.

Scott Anthony Barlow 38:46
Let's say that we were to overly simplify the career change process for just a second here. If we divided it up into three stages, they would be the identification stage, which is identifying what creates a great next step and beyond for you. Stage number two would be the creating, finding and testing stage. Stage number three would be landing the opportunity. Each of these stages are pretty difficult in their own right. However, I see time and again from the 1000s of people that we work with that stage number two is probably the most difficult, that creating, finding and testing stage. It's also where we get the most questions again and again and again. All that and plenty more next week right here on Happen To Your Career. Make sure that you don't miss it. And if you haven't already, click Subscribe on your podcast player so that you can download this podcast in your sleep, and you get it automatically, even the bonus episodes every single week, sometimes multiple times a week. Until next week. Adios. I'm out.

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