254: How a Blast from the Past Can Give You Career Independence

Phillip Migyanko 00:02
It's really trying to figure out how do you translate all of those skills that you have into finding a great career that you're also excited about.

Introduction 00:16
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 00:40
As a company, we get the unique opportunity to be able to interact with 10s of thousands of people that are going through career transitions every single year and that number is growing daily. And once those people decide that they want some kind of help with the biggest challenges that they're working with and working through and facing right here and now. Well, then we have one person on our team that gets the opportunity to get on the phone or get on Skype with each of those individuals and understand every single aspect of their needs.

Phillip Migyanko 01:17
I get to talk to everyone that goes through each of our programs, and make sure that, one, they have all the tools and resources to make them successful. And two, also make sure that each one of them gets the premiere experience when working with any one of our teams at Happen To Your Career. And so really, this just for me, this means I get to jump on calls and speak directly to each and every single person. And this means people who have real problems that need real help and includes people who are, you know, in situations where they need to get out of their jobs as soon as possible or they might be in jobs that on the outside look really good, but have just kind of shifted and they're just not a great fit right now.

Scott Anthony Barlow 02:08
That's Phillip Migyanko. He's the director for client and student success here at Happen To Your Career. And he gets the really unique perspective because he talks to so many of the people that come into our world. And we wanted to bring him on to answer one particular question. What are some of the biggest challenges that we see so many people in this world facing? Especially when they want to make a career change to something that they love, and they're on the beginning stages of making that happen.

Phillip Migyanko 02:42
So to go back way when I'm originally from the great state of Ohio, so shout out to all of my Buckeye fans out there, right. Whoo. OH-IO! But I grew up in a family business my entire life. And what we did, we had a landfill and trash hauling business, which means we just had a giant hole in the ground and all the trash trucks. So I grew up my entire life around dirt and big trucks and precent and doing stuff like that. So I don't know when the first time it was, but I can remember very clearly just going through neighborhoods and being on the back of a garbage truck and picking up trash. And for my entire life, myself and my family, we grew up very much with this entrepreneurial mindset, but also we get up at 5am every day and then work and get home at 5, 6, 7pm every day, some very long days. And I'm very grateful for that because it's taught me so much and it's carried those lessons that I learned growing up in a family business, have really carried over through my entire career which led me to HR and recruiting in college and then getting lots of different jobs through that, where I was able to really network through people, through Twitter, but also be able to really know the entire hiring process from beginning to end. So I jumped on interviews, I jumped on phone interviews, I got to look at the types of people for applying a jobs, I look at resumes. And really, they gave me a really good knowledge, know what it's like to be out there in the job market. But what it also takes to hire somebody at a company, which, spoiler alert, it's, there's a lot that goes into it, which I did not know until working with HR and recruiting. And long story short, I remember the final day we sold our family business. And like I said, that was a 12 plus hour a day that we had to work very often. And we were working that really long day. And it gave me the opportunity to kind of sell that last day and move on to the next thing or think about what was next. And I ended up moving all the way to Austin, Texas, which I now live in now. So also shout out to anybody who lives in the Austin, Texas region. And I came here without knowing really anybody, also without having a job too. So kind of like you mentioned, Scott, I had to really put my feet down and start networking, and really putting myself out there, which is what I did through, like as mentioned through Twitter and other types of stuff. And all that came from a place for me when I was back in Ohio from being very grateful of what I had.

Scott Anthony Barlow 05:40
So I want to ask you about that here. But first, I want to know, because I don't think I've ever asked you before, like what prompted you to move to Austin, Texas with no job, essentially no connections or network or friends or essentially no support system in any way whatsoever? Like that for the average person is kind of a scary prospect in a lot of different ways. And I think that most people might not make that same decision. So I'm always curious why you've made a different decision than what most people might? What drew you to do that? What caused you to do that?

Phillip Migyanko 06:15
So originally what drew me to move into a new place, let me also say that it was just a scary and I was terrified the entire way too and what originally drew me to moving to a completely new places that I knew that one important factor for me, and especially my career was growth. I thrive in different areas where I can really get to know an area or a place or a bunch of people, and where... I also don't know a lot of people, I went to a college where I think I only knew one other person, I studied abroad in France, I didn't know anybody and I barely spoke any French so that was a tough situation. And I moved to Austin without support system either but I knew the things that were important to me was being in an environment where things were going on and people were doing things. I also knew that I kind of wanted to get a job in the tech field as well. So I knew Austin was a great place for that. I also got tired of the snow. I grew up with the snow my entire life. So it was time to move away from that and move now more towards the heat. And I always heard great things about Texas, and especially Austin, and visit here for a week and I was like, okay, this seems like the place and I can tend to be an over thinker and over planner so I had spreadsheets figured out of, okay, here's how much the cost of living is here, how much my rent will be, and things like that. But I thought about it for a really long time until I actually I had a career coach, push me to go and figure it out. And at the time, I was really scared because the biggest fear I had, which is the smallest fear now is like, I was so concerned about where I was going to get groceries at. It kept me up the whole night, I was like, "oh my gosh, like, where am I gonna get groceries at? I have no idea. I've never been there before." And even though I know Texas has grocery stores, I know Austin's grocery stores. But for some reason, this is the biggest concern. And she very clearly got me out of, this career coach, were gonna she got me out of my head it's like, "just go try it out. Just go down there. What's the worst thing you can happen? Just go there for a week, see if you like it and come back." And I did exactly that. I came and tested things out. I met some people around here, I looked at different areas. And I was like, yep, I can do this.

Scott Anthony Barlow 08:44
That is amazing. Love that. And also, I appreciate you sharing all the context and everything that occurred before because what I found and actually you and I were just talking about this before we hit record too, about anytime somebody has done something very difficult or anytime somebody is great at something, there's so much behind that. And in this case, you went to France, like you've done a number of things leading up to this point, even before making this type of decision and making it happen. So appreciate you sharing that too. And that becomes my next question then. Once you got down there, how did you start to make things happen? Like you went down there, no role, no idea where the groceries are gonna come from. Clearly you figured that part out. But what did you do once you got down there? How did you connect with people? How did you get that first role? Tell us all the things, Phillip.

Phillip Migyanko 09:36
Definitely. One of the things that I did before actually going there. I started doing a lot of networking, before I even moved down to Texas. So I did a lot of networking for people in Ohio, especially through the HR community. One of those connections, got me a connection in San Antonio, who I met, and I mentioned too his name was Carlos and I met him at a Starbucks in San Marcos, which is in between Austin and San Antonio, and I was telling you my whole situation, these like, let me think of somebody, and they knew somebody here in Austin, and I try to connect with her over email. But I think at the time, her name is Wendy, she's very busy, so she didn't have time to get back with me. So Twitter comes again to save the day. I knew I could see from her tweet that day, she was at a job fair, that was just a block down for me. So I went and I visited her. And there's context there too where I was, like, nervously pacing the entire event space, because like, "oh my god, I gotta go. I have to go talk to her. I have to go talk to her." And then I was just like, did it two or three times. And then I was like, "okay, Phillip. Let's do this." And I was like gear myself up. And I went and talked to her and I said, "Hi, Wendy. My name is Phillip. You don't know me, but I know you." And then I just went through my kind of my spiel my story. And I got an interview with her a couple of days after that and ended up working a recruiting job with her. And that was one of the ways of putting myself out there. And very uncomfortable situations for me at the time, where you could possibly well off and doing it by myself and having the courage to just not be fearless because I definitely had all that fear, but seeing fear and then doing it anyways. And that's how I found a grocery store is like I'm gonna go try it a couple places and I found one I mean, Whole Foods astounded here, so that was an easy to figure out. But I don't know, I stood up and looking back now, it was one of the smallest ones, but finding resources and finding people and finding opportunities, I was just putting myself out there and really taking the chance and choosing myself and having a little bit of that courage. As part of it as well.

Scott Anthony Barlow 12:01
When I know that it progressed drastically from there, too. And there's a continuation of this. And when you and I first interacted and first met too, even that first interaction, I got to see evidence of you reaching out and doing exactly that taken a chance on those in that exact same way that you're describing. And I would say at this point, this is a bit after that original landing in Austin and everything else along those lines. But at this point, I think that you've become pretty phenomenal at this as you practice this over a period of time. And first of all, one, wanted to commend you for that and two, I know that has helped with the rest of your career progression too, and getting some of the other things into your life that you really have wanted as well.

Phillip Migyanko 12:50
Yeah, I remember our first interaction, I sent you little GIFs of, I remember Kermit, he was typing and things like that. I'm like, "Hey, Scott, I just sent you this type of thing." And then I was like it's hot off the presses. And then here's Kermit typing away. And it was the very, in my opinion, hilarious GIF. And I just kept always trying to be in contact, but always letting you know where I was at and which led me to also meeting you face to face in South by Southwest here, which was an amazing experience. And I know we just mentioned this before we hit record too where I was at a South by Southwest event all day, I think it was an eight hour day, and I don't know how I saw it. But I saw that you're coming to Austin, and I sent you an email like, "oh, hey, you're gonna be in Austin. Let's make sure we meet up." And...

Scott Anthony Barlow 13:46
It's probably on Twitter.

Phillip Migyanko 13:47
It was. Yeah, it probably was based on the past experience, and I just remember getting there super early, and I was like, "I don't know what time he's coming on. But he's gonna be here. I know that and which means I'm going to be there. And if that means I have to be out here all day, that means I'm going to be out here all day." And I think I got there early in the morning. And you didn't come until like, late in the afternoon, maybe three or four. And that was such a cool experience. I got to meet you, I got to meet your wife, got to meet a couple other friends that we ended up really hanging out for the rest of the night in downtown Austin and having a really good experience where we both got the opportunity to meet each other, but also talk about careers, talk about things we're into that at the time. And again, that was such a terrifying experience for me the entire time. But I knew that, that was very important to me. So I knew that I had to put myself in that environment into that situation to get to talk to you.

Scott Anthony Barlow 14:49
That's one of the things that I've observed over the course of time. And this is something that I think people can take away as well is in order to get different opportunities, it doesn't necessarily need to be here at Happen To Your Career or anything like that. But like any place around the world, in order to get different opportunities than what most people will get. You have to do, and be willing to do different things than what most people are going to be willing to do. And that's something I've seen time and again for you that you have been willing to do. And it's led towards different types of opportunities and relationships and all kinds of things throughout your life. And you've been very modest here. I think some of the things that people don't realize is that you are also a career coach, like you have your own business on the side, doing career coaching as well. And you've been in such a variety of different types of industries and at the same time, worked with such a variety of different people too that it gives you this really unique understanding across many different sectors and many different people and even different countries too with some of your experiences. And I think that, that is super cool. And to be quite frank and honest, that's one of the reasons why I was interested back then and having you on our team because that is something that we need. But I think that it does something else too. And I know we're going to talk about some of the things that you've observed. I think it gives you that big picture understanding, which allows you to be able to connect with people on a completely different level in so many different types of people, too. And that's part of the reason why we have you in the type of role helping our students, and people who are incoming into our programs, set them up for success and get aligned with the right type of help and everything else, as well. But I'm curious what you have observed, as you have been on so many of these different calls with people, and what are the biggest challenges and most common challenges that they're experiencing as they're coming in to this and they're thinking about making a career change and trying to decide how they're going to make that happen, which isn't easy at all, you know, and they're in that kind of thought space.

Phillip Migyanko 16:54
Yeah. And from jumping on these conversations, it's been a lot of fun. 'Cause I got the opportunity to connect with a lot of different individuals coming from lots of different scenarios all over the world in different countries. And through that experience, I've been able to really see, I think, three challenges that people are going through. And the easiest way to really put it is, I show like the first one is, what's next. It's like, what's next mentality where they've been taking all these tests, and trying to figure out what might be that next scenario, even taking BuzzFeed questions and quizzes. I don't know if you've taken those before Scott or how many you taken, I've just told you what type of house you'll be in at Hogwarts, or which character you're most like it on the Friends’ show.

Scott Anthony Barlow 17:45
Oh, I'm Ross.

Phillip Migyanko 17:46
But... Are you? Okay.

Scott Anthony Barlow 17:48
I don't know if ... but I've seen it.But I've seen it.

Phillip Migyanko 17:50
But it's really trying to figure out how do you translate all of those skills that you have into finding a great career that you're also excited about and I think about one of the calls I was on with Yvette. And that was exactly what she was going through, and how she dealt with all this information. But she was kind of unsure what to do with it. She had all this knowledge, but no way of putting it into action and putting it out in the real world. And then it makes me think of another call. And another challenge that we and I have seen time and time again, when jumping on calls with these great people. And it's, what's important now, and what's important now might have been what's not important, you know, to you 10 years ago, and really moving down that track and not sure how to change into what this new thing might possibly be. And not also knowing what's out there too, wanting a job for people maybe starting their careers two or three years ago, 10 years ago. What might have been important to you then can completely change now. It's also recognizing those subtle differences and be able to honor those within yourself. But also be able to articulate express them to possibly what the next thing might be. And really, that's the third one to try to figure out what's out there. I was thinking of Sophia, I was on a call with her last week. And she didn't know what was out there. She felt like she was in this sea of possibilities, and is more about eliminating things that might not work. And she didn't really even know what was possibly realistic. And it really comes from the point of, and I think we've kind of express this through my story, but really the stories I'm hearing from a lot of people is the ability to choose yourself, and the difference between living of choosing yourself figuring out what might be important to you and what those options might be versus existing. And that just means of just taking what's coming, but really always coming from a point of value, and what you might going after what you really want, versus what you perceive is available to you.

Scott Anthony Barlow 20:15
So let me ask you about this. So first of all, I really like the lens of breaking these into three different areas. What's next? What is important now, as opposed to in the past? And then, what's out there or understanding what's out there? Or what can be out there? And here's my question in totally get the first one in terms of, hey, look, I understand that I want to do something different. I've made that decision. I know that I need to do something different. I've got all of this information from like taking strengthsfinder and MBTI, and all of these other things, and then I'm a Griffin dork. So like, we got to factor that in as well. And how do you translate that into one career? So I totally get that one in terms of that particular challenge, and trying to take and understand how to move that into something that's going to be useful. But I'm curious about the what's important now, because that's something that I've observed quite a bit as well, like, you know, I know you mentioned one of the conversations that you'd had in particular, but the thing that I see again and again is, you know, people have gotten on this track, they got on the track somehow, sometimes it's from, they had a set of family members that have done this same sort of thing, or their uncle Bobby told them that, you know, it'd be great if you were an attorney, or, like, my wife became a teacher, because our whole family is teachers. And that's what she knows and everything like that. And she's not teaching anymore at this point, or at least not in the same way. But like, that's kind of, for all intents and purposes, how that happened? And we see that type of story again and again, but what happens 10 years down the road, when what was important to you then has changed and you have had kids or you have an ill parent or you have had life circumstances that have caused you to realize that you want something different, like how do you not just, you know, get up and move to a new role or new industry or something like that, but something that really reflects what you actually now want. And sometimes, it seems like there's an identity change that goes along with that, because you've been on this, like you're so far down this track in some ways that it feels like you just have to keep going.

Phillip Migyanko 22:13
Yeah. And I completely agree with that. And it's so much more about figuring out in real life, what those things are important to you and getting out of your own head and a certain way too, right? We're in many ways you feel like, it's, you feel like those things should still be important to you, where you feel like they were important to me then, why can't they still be important now? And you bring up a really great point, Scott, which is, life happens, things change, and you change as a person. So what you might have been, at the time, maybe starting out in your career, even in that new job, really valuing growth. But now since you've done the job, you've got all the medals, you've risen up in the company. Now it's more about wanting to own more of your time and so maybe now you value more time flexibility or maybe you've been just sitting in traffic a lot, and you just don't want to be in traffic anymore. So I think it really comes down to trying things out and realize and figuring out what are those new values that you have? Or what are new things that now have become important to you?

Scott Anthony Barlow 23:19
So let me ask you about that in the next one, the what's out there piece, because I think that there is this huge, I observe, and you can tell me if you see the same thing or not with many of these conversations that we've had here with people, it seems like there's a big gap in between there in some ways, like, I'm in the place where I recognize that what's important to me now is different than what was important to me then. But I'm still on this set of train tracks going down this particular road, and I'm not sure how to move from one train track to another. But I don't even recognized like I don't even know how many different train tracks there are, and like how many trains come on those tracks and do they fork off at different places like, and I don't even know what I don't know. And I think at that point, one of the things that I observe is that people feel like they have to choose, as you said, what's available to them, or what they think is available to them instead of choosing what they actually want, and doing the work to figure out what is it they actually really legitimately want. And then going and getting that and something you said before we actually recorded really kind of resonates with me, we were talking about at an earlier conversation. And you were talking about the difference in living versus existing. And I feel like that sort of that paradox is like choosing from what's available to you versus what you really want. So help me understand what you mean, when you said living versus existing.

Phillip Migyanko 24:46
Yeah, it really comes back to going back to really what you want, right? It's and what's important to you and living for the types of careers that you want and the types of work that you want to do and the types of people that you want to be working with, in many ways, living comes from the choosing what's important to you and really going after that, and that comes from doing all that work to really ask yourself and know those answers to those questions versus existing, rather than I'm now in this job because I chose this major 10 years ago, because at that time, this is where all the jobs were. I remember growing up, especially when I was first going into college, and the whole thing was turf management. People wanted to go into turf management, because that's where the jobs were. And now, all the people who went off to study turf management, and just for context, turf management is all the astroturf on the football fields that they said this used to be this huge thing. All those people who studied that in school are no longer don't have jobs anymore. I think one of them, he end up working on a farm and things like that. But the point is, is that instead of figuring out those types of things, he was just kind of taking life as it gave it to him or that's what I'm observing all these calls are people are choosing what uncle Bobby, like you're saying, what uncle Bobby told him to do a bunch a while back. And they realized that, "nope I don't like that thing as much as I used to or I thought was good." I think that's really the difference between living and existing. Living for a life that you want and a career that you want rather than existing, and one that was chosen for you or what was available at the time.

Scott Anthony Barlow 26:32
Okay, so then here becomes a question because I think that, you know, we've all been in that place at some point in time, like, that happens to everybody. And when people are finding themselves in one of these places with one of these challenges that we've identified, what's next or what's important now versus, you know, 10 years ago or trying to identify really what is out there when you don't even know what is actually out there. What advice would you have to help them with these three challenges?

Phillip Migyanko 27:04
I really think the first one is leaning into your curiosities. And I always like to think about this as, do you know, when you were ever in classes or if you were ever, the next time your classroom or if you're in there one right now of the people who sit in the front rows of the class or even the second row. I don't think of those types of people and I was also that type of person. And I was also the type of person who was like, hey, Professor, did you forget to give us our homework? So I don't know if I've always the favorite person in the class. I don't know...

Scott Anthony Barlow 27:37
Glad we didn't meet in College.

Phillip Migyanko 27:39
But I always like to think about is sitting in the front row of your life, being super excited about what really you're curious about. If you love scuba diving, just go after scuba diving really, like lean into this stuff. You might meet somebody there who has some ideas about hey, maybe you might try this thing, you might try that thing. But the point is, is just getting out there and leaning more into the things that you really enjoy and really like doing. I think another great piece of advice is being ridiculously helpful. I remember back when I was networking in Ohio, I had a mentor at the time, he was talking about networking. And I know networking has all those horrible connotations with it. But he mentioned that people only network when they need something, and people only really do that when they actually, when they need help. But I think a good piece of advice is making sure that you're being helpful also to other people and not just networking when you need it. But being helpful to anybody, think people are helpful to people out there too. Those are where opportunities to help grow and contribute are often overlooked. And this is what I've seen a lot in the cost of just volunteering, maybe helping out others. That's where opportunities can possibly come from. And I think the last piece of good advice is, this is something that I've mentioned a lot is really getting out of your own head and starting to take action. I know this often comes from the perfectionism mindset, which you've done a great job of talking from on this podcast. And through every a lot of your Happen To Your Career content. But I always think about it, and this is the way I always have to tell myself is "stay in your head and you're dead" right? You have to get out of your own head and start taking action in real life. We can often think that our ideas are really great in our head or, like myself, or I was really fearful to move all the way across the country to Austin, Texas, or I had no idea where any of the grocery stores were. But until I actually came in, said, okay, there's a grocery store. I can figure this out. There's a road over there, coming here and actually living it breathing the air and figuring out I can make it work. So getting out of your head and really start doing action now.

Scott Anthony Barlow 30:03
I love that. One of our past podcast guests and used to work with us here at Happen To Your Career is Mark Sieverkropp. And he one of the things that Mark says all the time that goes hand in hand with what you're talking about Phillip is, you know, he always tells the story of like, jokingly behind the scenes, they'll say things like, I'd love to build this company, however, you know, and then I want to like grow it to 100 million dollars. But here's the problem. Like, I started thinking about all of the airplanes that I need to buy and the corporate jet that is gonna fly me back and forth. And where am I even gonna get a pilot like, oh, my goodness, like, how am I even going to find a pilot and like, none of that stuff matters, whatsoever. And especially it doesn't matter if you're not taking that first step forward. Like in your case, that example that you gave, getting down there for a little bit to Austin, Texas and seeing that, hey, Texas has grocery stores too, as crazy as it sounds, but then taking that first step and moving you forward. And you know, I know you irreverence, perfectionism. And we've done several episodes on this, including airing some of our own personal conversations behind the scenes about perfectionism and some of the things that we struggle with on our team. And that was Episode 233. But we also detailed out some really specific strategies, I think six of them in total, in Episode 226, that can really help with perfectionism and being able to get out of your head and make the move to Austin, Texas, or whatever it is for you in your world. Love that example. I'm gonna bring that up. Probably more than once from here on out.

Phillip Migyanko 31:32
And more the merrier. If you want to come move down to Austin, Texas, everybody is totally free. I will take you to all the great barbecue and taco places here.

Scott Anthony Barlow 31:40
Oh, my goodness. Yes, that is happening because I don't think we got to go to any last time as in town.

Phillip Migyanko 31:45
We did not.

Scott Anthony Barlow 31:46
Oh, my goodness. Phillip, hey, I so appreciate, one, you taking the time and coming on. I know that you've got a ton of people to meet with and a whole bunch of projects that we're working on behind the scenes for our students. So you taking the time and making it and coming and sharing some of this advice and what you're observing for all of our listeners here, at Happen To Your Career, is just something that I really appreciate. And also, I appreciate it because you have this unique perspective, since you're in these calls every single day where people are coming to us and asking the question like, how do I figure out what's next? And how do I jump to a different track when I know that something is important? Now to me, and it wasn't, you know, 10 years ago, and how I'm looking at that has changed, and how do I figure out what else is out there? And these are not easy questions to answer in the first place. And thank you for doing that type of work, first of all, on our team. But then second of all, this is stuff that very much matters, and one of the ways that we get to contribute and show up in the world. So really appreciate it.

Phillip Migyanko 32:49
Thank you.

Scott Anthony Barlow 32:50
I hope you love that episode with Phillip. And as since we talked about some of the biggest challenges for people that come into our world, that were listeners of the podcast, and then, well, they've decided they want to do it differently. Next week, we get to hear about one in particular who started out listening to the podcast, and then decided she had to do life differently than what was happening for her now.

Kristy Wenz 33:19
There are some things I like about it, but it's kind of been alone and doesn't get very exciting. And it just there was really no upward mobility. It's kind of lost its bluster to me at that point.

Scott Anthony Barlow 33:30
That's Kristy Wenz. And she'll be back next week to talk about her amazing journey from a business that she didn't love anymore to a career that she described is feels like she gets to pinch herself every single day. We'll see you next week, right here on Happen To Your Career. Until then, I am out. Adios.