Diana Alt [00:00:04]:
Hey, Diana Alt here. And this is Work Should Feel Good, the podcast where your career growth meets your real life. Each week I share stories, strategies and mindset shifts to help you build a work life that works for you on your terms. Hey, hey, hey. Good morning everyone and welcome to the very first episode of Work Should Feel Good, the show where your career growth meets your real life. I'm your host, Diana Alt. Today my guest Angie Callen and I are gonna dive into what it really means to thrive at work and beyond. So as the kids say on TikTok, let's get into it.

Angie Callen [00:00:50]:
So is that what the kids say on TikTok? I didn't even know they do they.

Diana Alt [00:00:57]:
People to you. And she gave me that cool bio. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna read it.

Angie Callen [00:01:02]:
Might use the cool bio.

Diana Alt [00:01:06]:
So here we go. Angie's an award winning coach, international speaker and obsessive entrepreneur who loves empowering others to lead amazing lives with thriving careers, all while embracing authenticity. She's a Carnegie Mellon graduate and former, or is it recovering engineer, known for strategic, analytical and creative approach to personal and professional fulfillment and development and her life and life. Actually a fun, engaging, energetic speaker, which I can definitely attest to because I watched this show at the thing in Orlando last year. Angie is unapologetically exactly one thing. Angie, when she's not helping executives, leaders and entrepreneurs maximize their performance and impact, she's hanging out with her dog Steve, her cat Taco, and her husband Jim. And you best believe that for the first couple of months I knew Angie, I didn't know whether Steve was her husband or the dog.

Angie Callen [00:02:04]:
And also it happens in that order.

Diana Alt [00:02:06]:
Yeah. Steve cat. Yeah. I feel like you always have to put the most important one first or last.

Angie Callen [00:02:14]:
Seriously.

Diana Alt [00:02:16]:
Okay, we gotta, we gotta talk about something really important. How did you end up with a cat named Taco? And what is Taco's official full name?

Angie Callen [00:02:27]:
Taco's official full name, which I know you love, is Taco Cat because it is a palindrome. And I also happen to know your favorite food is tacos. So we immediately knew we were destined to be besties once Diana found out I had a cat named Taco. But there is a little tidbit about Taco that I'm not sure you know. Tacos from the great state of Kansas.

Diana Alt [00:02:45]:
The great state of Kansas, I think. Did you randomly adopt Taco like on a trip or something?

Angie Callen [00:02:53]:
Adopt is a strong word. Found an abandoned kitten in a park and had no hope of not keeping it is probably the more appropriate term. And what's funny about this is, as you were asking me about Tacocat earlier today, we stumbled upon the fact that Taco is either a cat who thinks he's a dog or a dog who thinks he's a cat. I don't know which it is.

Diana Alt [00:03:17]:
What does your vet say?

Angie Callen [00:03:19]:
The vet thinks Taco is some super cool kind of breed. And so here's what's really funny. Literally an hour ago, Jim comes in and goes, I went on an Instagram binge. And he's like, if you've got some time, Google Maine Coon and Ragdoll mix. Because Taco is a giant behemoth of a cat who is a super floof right now, especially because it's winter. And so there you go, people. There's your random trivia factoid of the day. If you Google a Maine Coon and a Ragdoll Mix, we are pretty sure that that is what the the Taco man is.

Angie Callen [00:03:53]:
And they, they fetch like $5,000 as kittens if you actually try to buy them as a breeder. And we got a free one abandoned in a park in Kansas City.

Diana Alt [00:04:02]:
Oh, my gosh, that's crazy. Well, enough about the cat. Although cats are part of life, so.

Angie Callen [00:04:09]:
Cats do make work feel good.

Diana Alt [00:04:14]:
I don't think.

Angie Callen [00:04:16]:
Ain't nothing like having a 17 pound ball of fur on your keyboard to make your day feel better.

Diana Alt [00:04:22]:
I mean, that's a lot, actually. So, okay, so we have Liam and John Ott today. Oh, and Linda Westfall. Who you and I.

Angie Callen [00:04:33]:
My fellow Tartan is here.

Diana Alt [00:04:35]:
Yes, she's here. Liam Darmo Day wants to know what TikTok is.

Angie Callen [00:04:41]:
TikTok is an app I have on my phone that every time I open, loud music blares and a video I don't want to see plays and I don't know how to stop it. So I close the app like a proper old lady.

Diana Alt [00:04:52]:
Oh, right. I actually kind of got into it. But Liam, TikTok is where most other people put their vertical videos. So all that stuff that you've been putting in the LinkedIn video feed, like all the rest of us are also putting that on TikTok.

Angie Callen [00:05:06]:
That's what Opus Clip was really made for, Liam.

Diana Alt [00:05:08]:
Yeah, it was. Love it. I should put an app link in the comments for.

Angie Callen [00:05:13]:
I think, Diana, you're gonna have to rename this show to Work should feel good. And we're gonna heckle you about it.

Diana Alt [00:05:19]:
You're gonna heckle me?

Angie Callen [00:05:21]:
No, we are gonna heckle them.

Diana Alt [00:05:23]:
Oh, right, right, right. I think that's a great plan. I really want it to be worse. You feel good. Sponsored by Bucky's. That.

Angie Callen [00:05:30]:
That would be appropriate. So, hello, Bucky's. But if there's any Bucky staff out there listening, please get us in touch with your sponsorship department.

Diana Alt [00:05:39]:
Both of us would like to be sponsored by that. Okay, so we're going to talk career journey today because if I, if, if you were anything like me, you have been asked 100 zillion times, how in the hell did you go from engineer to career and business coach? So tell me about your story. How'd that happen?

Angie Callen [00:06:00]:
Well, I think I'll. I'll also add the. The little factoid that I've also realized I'm a former or recovering. I like that word. I. To steal it. Recovering engineer who loves people. And that.

Angie Callen [00:06:11]:
That in and of itself should tell you how one led to the other or why one led to the other. Because engineering was something I did because it made sense. And it was suggested to me by my math teacher dad as a career path that would. That would make a lot of sense back in the late 90s when there were only like five career paths and your baby boomer parents told you to go do one of them for 30 years. And I was like, okay, cool. And here was the first. Here was my first sign. I chose civil engineering because in my research, it was the engineering discipline in which you got to talk to people the most.

Diana Alt [00:06:45]:
Oh, yeah. Because you're doing all the things like with city councils and zoning boards and all of that.

Angie Callen [00:06:51]:
Yeah. But also, I guess, first bit of career advice to come out of the show. If you're choosing an engineering discipline based on the amount of communication it entails, you might be barking up the wrong tree.

Diana Alt [00:07:03]:
That's possible. Although I gotta say, I'm gonna push back on that for a minute because I also am a recovering engineer. Really? I went into it and engineers love to tell me that. I've never done anything as an engineer, but my bachelor's is in chemistry. My master's is in engineering management. My dad was an engineering professor person at the local junior college. He owned all of engineering except for the chemistry stuff. So we lived.

Angie Callen [00:07:33]:
You were predisposed to it, too?

Diana Alt [00:07:34]:
Predisposed. And my mom was an English teacher as well. They both were department heads at various times. So I got the language stuff and I got the math and science stuff. My dad always said that I went to college for chemistry and engineering, but really majored in extracurricular activities. So I was kind of in the same boat. I was at the right brain around. But I feel like the discipline that I landed on in my master's actually was exceptional legitimately as one where you would often work with people or, you know, and do your analytical and engineering things.

Diana Alt [00:08:12]:
So.

Angie Callen [00:08:13]:
Which makes sense if in the management space. And that, that actually ties into this story because, you know, I realized when I was a junior in college that engineering wasn't going to be my destiny. But as we, as the aforementioned, I went to Carnegie Mellon. You don't change your major when you're a junior. A junior and you're paying for school yourself situation. I, I stuck with it. And I'm. In a lot of ways, I'm glad I did.

Angie Callen [00:08:34]:
I did. I would probably do it over again. I loved my time at the school. I got involved in a ton of student life type stuff that was all this like personal development kind of thing. Tons of seeds were planted at that stage. And also there is a way of thinking as an engineer that I appreciate having and I think I naturally gravitate towards that way of thinking and algorithmic and very logical kind of brain anyway. And ultimately where I think you're right, Diana, is the is. I got pushed into project management very early in my career because I had the communication skills.

Angie Callen [00:09:07]:
And that's the part of it where communication does come into play. But where I struggled and what really was a turning point is the civil engineering and the real estate industry tanked during the Great Recession. And I was about five, six years into my career. I moved from Boston to Colorado and started work at an engineering firm here on September 8th of 2008.

Diana Alt [00:09:29]:
Wow.

Angie Callen [00:09:30]:
With the goal of me taking that kind of junior project management role because they needed somebody to fill it. And that never came to fruition because Lehman Brothers tanked a week later and all the projects got pulled. And essentially Angie rewound seven years and was sitting in a cubicle looking at a beautiful blue Colorado sky in this state. I had just moved to to do all these outdoor things and I'm doing CAD drawings that weren't even my designs. And that's when I really was like, you know, this is the, this. It was a little bit of a wake up call to say this is. This is time for me to go do something more aligned with who I am. Communication.

Angie Callen [00:10:07]:
Maybe something a little bit more creative. You know, spoiler alert. I kind of leapt off the cliff with no plan. I, you know, parachute, which I think definitely informs my work as a career coach now. But that's kind of where the turning point really came and where. Where I started to realize that I was in a. In a career that didn't align with. With life, and that didn't feel good.

Diana Alt [00:10:29]:
Yeah, I. I experienced an early career recession too, which was pretty wild. But I actually think it took me about 10 years maybe to realize that it's the best possible thing that could happen to me because I grew up with parents that worked the same place before. Four decades. We're talking like, Cadillac indemnity insurance, pensions, the whole.

Angie Callen [00:10:53]:
I didn't know. We were both educator kids, teacher kids. Right. So it's very similar. Probably a very similar mindset around career solvency and the like.

Diana Alt [00:11:06]:
They didn't change my. And also, they never had to look for jobs. Like, they kept getting recruited to jobs. So everything that I had to deal with early in my career, I mean, I had two layoffs within the first two years of my. Of my career because of the tech wreck. And my parents were like, what did we do wrong? What did we do wrong? Why is this person unable to keep a job? That's what it felt like at the time. So where'd you go after you decided that you didn't want to draw CAD drawings? Which nobody in their right mind should want to draw a cat.

Angie Callen [00:11:38]:
No. Yeah, no. We used to call it Cad Monkey, which I'm not sure is a PC term anymore, but. Well, there you go. And so I. I will be 100, honest. I took the first job that I was offered, and it was, let's call it Baptism by Fire. I ran a single artist gallery.

Diana Alt [00:11:58]:
Stop.

Angie Callen [00:11:59]:
Yes. And the reason this was Baptism by Fire is a few reasons. I went from a very large. I mean, at this point in time, this company had 10,000 employees worldwide. It probably has 30,000 now. Hundreds of offices. So huge structured corporate environment in engineering, also a very structured environment to running a small business. So that was a taste that, That I liked, but for an artist who owned this gallery.

Angie Callen [00:12:25]:
And artists are very different than engineers, especially when they're batshit crazy. I'll just kind of say that. And so it was a tumultuous year of just kind of learning and doing random things, and eventually the gallery actually closed because this was like 20, when nobody was buying $15,000 art in a. Off a gallery in Aspen. And. And so I. I just kind of started searching. I did a bunch of random stuff along with that.

Angie Callen [00:12:52]:
I sold bags for a direct sales company. I sold ads in a parent magazine. I'm 44 and still have no children. Right. Like, just a bunch of, let's say, random kind of fact finding in a way. And eventually got to the point where I needed a job. And so I stumbled into the nonprofit sector because it's a huge, it's a huge piece of our community here because there's so much money in the Aspen, Colorado area. And I was offered a part time job as an administrative assistant at a film nonprofit.

Angie Callen [00:13:22]:
And when the executive director offered it to me, she goes, you know, you're really overqualified for this, right? And I said, yes, but I need a job and I want to get started somewhere. And in the two years I went, I stayed at that place, I went from part time admin to director of operations and events because it was such a toxic shit show that there was basically a revolving door of departures. And every time somebody left they were like, angie can do it, Angie can do it. Angie can do it. And so ultimately I hit a role that allowed me to then go position myself to be the executive director of another nonprofit. And that's where sparks really started to fly because it was a small grassroots organization that had a ton of potential. And all of a sudden the entrepreneur hat is on. I'm realizing that's a word that should have been applied to me for 20 years and hadn't.

Angie Callen [00:14:08]:
And my builder component started to really come alive and get to do things there.

Diana Alt [00:14:13]:
That is so interesting.

Angie Callen [00:14:16]:
It was an art center, by the.

Diana Alt [00:14:17]:
Way, the nonprofit part being such a big part of your life in the Aspen area, the greater Aspen metropolitan area. And nonprofit like the toxicity and nonprofits is real. Like my rampant churches too. It's like all these places where they can gaslight you into believing you just need to give more and everything is fine.

Angie Callen [00:14:42]:
And they operate on a scarcity mindset and not to dog them. I'm sure that there is a healthy, resource filled nonprofit out there. If you're listening, please show it to me. Because I actually went on a whole speaking circuit one fall where I went to like five nonprofit conferences and literally talked about how nonprofit is a tax status and not a business model because most of them operate in that martyr to mindset and scarcity mindset, which tends to just breed, breed toxicity, breed burnout, and it doesn't have to be that way. And all of this is totally relevant to becoming a career coach and understanding different industry segments and job types and employment formats and all these kinds of things. So I feel like in a way, and this is all the hindsight, that's 20 20. I spent 15 years preparing for the last seven.

Diana Alt [00:15:34]:
I think I feel the same way too. So there's times when I left corporate for good in 2019 to go all in in my business. And actually when I first did that, the first year and a half or so, I was doing technology consultant as my main form of income. And then a minority of my income came from coaching and I got sick of it. I just decided I was so burned out on the technology life that I gave up that stream of revenue entirely at the end of 2020. That was like 60% of my 2020 revenue. So that was an interesting choice.

Angie Callen [00:16:10]:
But you went all in.

Diana Alt [00:16:11]:
I went all in. And I, you know, I made more money the last two, two or three years. Have to count three. Then I did that year that I had all that consulting. So. And I still do some consulting work. So let me what do you think that people in corporate need to learn from nonprofits and people nonprofits need to learn from corporate?

Angie Callen [00:16:41]:
I think that people in corporate can, can learn and, and find a lot more purpose in being connected to something that is mission minded. And you can, you can be mission driven and find purpose in your calling in a corporation. But I think, I think that you can take a note out of the nonprofit book to be inspired to do so because ultimately when we talk about work should feel good. That's the special sauce, people. If you just want the spoiler alert, that's the special sauce is find a purpose, root yourself in your calling, ditch the 60% that doesn't align with how you want to work and go all in on the other 40 and things will become a lot more fulfilling. And that I think is definitely a lesson that can be learned there. And then I think on the flip side, nonprofits can learn from corporations. The mentality of what can we do with what we have instead of we don't have enough?

Diana Alt [00:17:35]:
What can we do with what we have instead of we haven't. That's exceptional. So I'm going to throw the question at you different, differently. So what can corporations, or more accurately let's call it like employees in any kind of sector learn from entrepreneurs and vice versa because there's so here like the, a lot of the corporate folks have so much fear about the idea of running a business. And then the business folks, like, there's this whole entrepreneur like porn that basically demonizes people for calls you a sellout if you have a job like that kind of crap. What can those groups learn from each other?

Angie Callen [00:18:17]:
You know, I'm actually going to start with something both groups need to know and it's mutual respect for the other because one is not better than the other. They are different. And in my experience, what I have found is most people are naturally wired one way or the other. Now you can, you can usually get an employee to maybe lean into entrepreneurial tendencies if they, if that is the best option for them. But an entrepreneur who is put under the thumb of employment will never thrive because once that spark ignites, you will never be satisfied unless you're allowed to lean into the entrepreneurial spirit. And so I think both, both need to respect each other. One is not better than the other. They are different.

Angie Callen [00:18:57]:
What I think employees can learn from entrepreneurs is the idea of maybe pushing boundaries, that idea of being purposeful in your work, being creative, and maybe even taking a little bit of risk. You know, we tend to look at employment as a safe bet. I attest that is not necessarily the case. Case in point. Diana got laid off twice in the first two years for career. But I also think that there can be an aspect of entrepreneurship that is brought in intrapreneurship that you can bring into your employment in order to make it really fulfilling, make it feel good, and even contribute in a new way to your environment. What I think entrepreneurs can learn for employees is boundaries. It's easier to have boundaries when they are.

Angie Callen [00:19:42]:
When it's within the set framework or structure of an employment situation. When left to our own devices, entrepreneurs either have no accountability or let ourselves work 90 hours a day. And you can learn to have that happy medium somewhere.

Diana Alt [00:19:58]:
Yeah, that is, it's really funny because a lot of people will talk time, freedom. And I'm an entrepreneur who does my very best to work close to what I had in a corporate schedule. And so sometimes, you know, the ability to look at things on at 12:45 on a Friday and go, I'm burned out. I will do better with whatever was planned between now and 5:30 if I do it in 90 minutes while the laundry is going on Saturday morning. Like that kind of thing is good. To be very honest, I sometimes have the freedom to do that in corporate too. But the boundaries thing I think is really very good to talk about because I don't think most people understand boundaries and what they actually are.

Angie Callen [00:20:42]:
They don't. And that they're very, very healthy. But you know, you brought up something that I'm going to actually do, one more lesson, because we talked about what employers can learn from entrepreneurs and what entrepreneurs can learn from employees. But I think there's an employer lesson here as well, and that is that if you run a company, this is going to be a little soapboxy and it's going to lean right into some of the current challenges of what's going on. But if you run a company, allow your employees to be entrepreneurial and have the flexibility of working when they're at their best, that may not be 9:00am, that might be Saturday afternoon at 2:00 clock after they took a half day on Friday and had the flexibility to do it. Chaining people to desk five days a week, eight to five, doesn't work anymore. Is the expectations changed over the last five years? We found out that we can still operate and be productive, if not more so with latitude and younger generations aren't going to have it. And so that's something I believe employers can learn from the entrepreneurial way of working in that flexibility.

Diana Alt [00:21:47]:
I think you're completely right on that. And I would also say that here's my soapbox. If you are in an organization that tries to preach being entrepreneurial and none of the people in leadership have so much as owned a goddamn lemonade stand, then you need to ask a lot of questions about what people mean. Because so often when you're in the environment where people don't understand entrepreneurship, they turn it into we just have to work all the time in order to do the unreasonable thing that has not been well planned. Or they turn it into we don't really have processes because we're agile, because we're entrepreneurial. And that like that kind of stuff is not good because, well, it can be for some people. And that goes into. Have I ever told you my four, like my four cornerstones of an aligned career, Angie?

Angie Callen [00:22:48]:
No. Maybe you have, but everybody out there needs to hear them. So enlighten to hear this.

Diana Alt [00:22:53]:
So this comes from a, this comes from like 50 years on planet Earth and over a decade of coaching and you know, another, however many years of being an employee. So I've come up with a model. There's four things that you have to have in place at a high level for an aligned career or job, however you want to look at it. But it applies to if you run a business, it applies if you are an employee, whatever. The first one is the right work. And when we talk about the right work, we are not just talking about a job title. We are talking about the actual physical work that you are doing, the stuff that you're spending 40ish hours on day to day. And the key things that I, that people have in place whenever the work is right are number one, they've minimized the stuff that sucks.

Diana Alt [00:23:42]:
Like, we all have some stuff that we just don't like.

Angie Callen [00:23:45]:
No job is perfect. That's another thing. You need to realize some things you.

Diana Alt [00:23:49]:
Really want to do, even if all it is is your ding, ding time card. But you also get to maximize working on things that put you in a state of flow where you can lose track of time. And you also get to use and develop skills that you're interested in. So a lot of times there's people that say, I really like my job, but they aren't developing skills. And with the people that you and I work with that are mostly STEM leaders in stem, that is death to a career.

Angie Callen [00:24:20]:
I was gonna say, when in general, you stop learning, you die.

Diana Alt [00:24:23]:
Yeah.

Angie Callen [00:24:24]:
And so complacency, I mean, complacency is, you know, just. Yeah, just dig yourself the hole right now.

Diana Alt [00:24:30]:
Yeah. And then I also call it, like, the right level of challenge. So you want to be testing boundaries, but you don't want to be feeling like something got given to you that's so big you're going to fail, especially if there's not adequate support. You don't want stuff that's beneath you. You don't want stuff that's too far ahead. I do think there's room for, like, some mindless admin along the way. Like, we all have to have a gear that we can switch to for a bit to give our brain a break. The next is leaders.

Diana Alt [00:24:59]:
If you have the right leaders, there's two key aspects. Number one, your boss, like your direct relationship with your direct report. But the other thing is the strategic leadership of the company. Like, if you have a great time and get to do great things, but you're working at whatever your industry's equivalent of Blockbuster is, that's a problem because you're. It's not just about, are you going to get laid off because the company fails. It's about are you in the right types of environments so that it sets you up for whatever you want to do in the future. Third is environment, which is how your work and your life work together. This is a lot of what people think about when they hear work should feel good.

Diana Alt [00:25:38]:
You know, you put it as purpose. This is how it actually. This is where career meets real life. So that's everything from, are you being paid adequately to feed, like, take care of your needs. Plus, is it fair in the market? You have the right level of flexibility, the right level of bureaucracy. If you want to go to little Johnny's soccer game on Thursday, you can do that. And then culture is the fourth. And culture is the least understood thing that most important.

Diana Alt [00:26:06]:
But I have a very specific definition of culture. I first heard it from Barbie Winterbottom, who's a friend of mine that's been a chief people officer multiple places. And the definition is values in action. So it's not values on website, it's values and how it shows up in policy and in practice. That's my framework.

Angie Callen [00:26:29]:
Well, the values piece, I mean, how many companies do we know have values plastered on a website that don't mean jack? And that's something to dig into and what I like about. So I'll give the quick summary of what I hear. The framework function is how I would phrase the first one. Leadership is the second, who's who you're being led by as a second, culture is the third. And then fourth is does it meet your basic human needs?

Diana Alt [00:26:55]:
Right.

Angie Callen [00:26:55]:
And what I find is really interesting in that framework, which I would completely buy into and share. And I think that you should. I may have just sent you a slack message about a whole product idea I now have for you. So I didn't forget. The builder is on everyone. This is why I own a business. What I find is the the basic human needs are kind of like a checklist that is easy ish to rein in. Where I find people tend to gravitate is that either where what they're doing is important is more is most important, or where they're doing it is most important and a lot of people it's equal.

Angie Callen [00:27:34]:
But knowing how you would rate the importance of each of those buckets insofar as work feels good for you is important and knowing where you fall.

Diana Alt [00:27:44]:
Sorry to interrupt. Like, there's one. I'm so excited and I don't know how to be a polite podcast host yet. The other one is who you're working with. Because I know people that are like, I can handle anything as long as I can pay the rent, buy some groceries, and hang out with cool people. And those are some of the people that actually take the worst abuse on the job because they like the five people that sit in the same floor as them, but everything else around them.

Angie Callen [00:28:15]:
Is otherwise, they're a punching bag. I put that in the second category of the leader. So it's like function. Who, where and how's it look is almost like the recap because the who's who's above you and who's below you impact those environments. And you said it exactly like I usually do, which is some People, they'll be a punching bag all day long, as long as their best friend's sitting in a cube next to them.

Diana Alt [00:28:38]:
Yeah. And when your work bestie quits.

Angie Callen [00:28:42]:
Oh, man. Yeah. But, but. And then there are other people who, as long as they're doing really meaningful, actual functional work that does challenge them, it's at the right level. And they're growing. They don't. They don't care, you know, whether they're killing the earth. Right.

Angie Callen [00:28:57]:
And this is not judgment, it's just extremes that we're talking about versus other people who are like, I don't care what I have to do to go work for a social impact company.

Diana Alt [00:29:06]:
I will do anything. I will live in a car.

Angie Callen [00:29:08]:
Right?

Diana Alt [00:29:09]:
Yeah.

Angie Callen [00:29:09]:
And again, none of these are. Are wrong. But knowing what's right for you is a huge step in being able to identify the way work would feel good. And under all of this, the foundation of all of this, is the last piece you brought up with the values alignment. And that's one thing that in the all the conversations that I've had on my podcast, no More Monday Shameless Plug, are that it always ties back to values alignment. Whether you're an entrepreneur or an employee, if you can find a place that's values aligned, even if you think you care most about the function, work will feel better. Work will feel good. If you are an entrepreneur and you are rooting the work you're doing and serving people in a way that aligns with your values and it's purposeful, you'll hit the jackpot.

Diana Alt [00:29:56]:
Here's a random question for you.

Angie Callen [00:29:58]:
Okay.

Diana Alt [00:30:00]:
How do you know something is a value? I have an answer for this, but I want to. I want to know, how do you know that something is really a value for either a person or an organization? What's your answer?

Angie Callen [00:30:13]:
Oh, those are. Those are actually two different questions. The second is a can of worms. The first is you should know your core values and go through an exercise to identify them. Almost in the vacuum of what are my values? Not applied to any sort of context except for you, yourself, what you care about, and how you prioritize it. That. That to me, is how you set the foundation to then have a benchmark or a check and balance to evaluate whether or not something fits. And what I mean by that is one of my values is fun.

Diana Alt [00:30:48]:
Yeah.

Angie Callen [00:30:49]:
And I take what I do very seriously. I don't take myself very seriously seriously and try to make the, you know, the hell that is job searching a little bit more fun. And so if I walk in somewhere that feels super, super stiff. Attorneys, for instance, are not one of my target audiences because they tend to be a little too serious, a little too stiff, and not always fun, notwithstanding a few friends who buck the trend. I'm just using it as an example of where you could feel values. Corporate attorneys misalignment.

Diana Alt [00:31:19]:
The people that are in large practices, large firms.

Angie Callen [00:31:23]:
Right.

Diana Alt [00:31:23]:
It's different than the person that started their own smaller firm because they probably wanted to get rid of all that crap. Just like.

Angie Callen [00:31:30]:
Exactly. And I'm just, I'm not picking anybody. I'm just, you know, first example that comes to my mind. If I'm looking for a job and I walk into a corporate environment where everyone is in white shirts, blue pants and tan belts and shoes, with the same comb over haircut in like, you know, the financial district of New York City, I'm gonna be like niche. I don't know that this place is going to be my style because it doesn't align with who I am and how I would work. I would feel stifled.

Diana Alt [00:31:59]:
So what you're saying is you are not in fact looking for a man in finance.

Angie Callen [00:32:04]:
I am not. If you saw my husband, you would know I am not looking for a man in finance. I have a grizzly mountain man of a husband who's got a big old beard and wears a flannel every single day.

Diana Alt [00:32:15]:
I love, I love that about him.

Angie Callen [00:32:18]:
So, so that's, that's the values piece. I will walk a lot of people through a core values exercise where they establish, you know, four to eight, I like, six core values that become your compass in, in life and work, because then you have a foundation to evaluate things against and you have established them because you already are doing them. And it's how you show up in the world. That's how you know it's a value. It's how you show up in the world. And you have prioritized it and articulated it based on today, not, not a future state.

Diana Alt [00:32:52]:
I love your definition. And I have one more explicit thing that I would add to it. I think it's implied in everything that you said, but you make decisions with it. So if I would argue that if you tell me that you have a core value, but you can't tell me when you have made a decision using that core value recently, that you might need to do a little bit of work on your core values. Yeah. And it's the same thing with boundaries, because boundaries are something that you hold. So. And they're tightly aligned.

Diana Alt [00:33:26]:
You know, we usually set boundaries so that we can have our life be more aligned with our values. But if you tell me, you know, if you have a boundary that tell me one of your boundaries. Let's talk.

Angie Callen [00:33:40]:
Well, and I didn't have them always so I want to close the loop on something you've said which is that is an excellent way to evaluate whether a value is actually a value or more of an objective in your life is have you actually used this as a decision making platform. And real quick, because it's important to me to give people the counter of how do you assess whether values are just plastered on a webpage versus lived in an organization is asking review them and and ask everyone you meet, hey, how do you see this value being lived out in everyday life around here? Ask. Ask the question. Do the due diligence. Because either people will him and ha not be able to answer it or you'll get drastically different answers that will tell you it's a bunch of.

Diana Alt [00:34:22]:
So there's that don't ask what they are because everybody compared that.

Angie Callen [00:34:28]:
Ask how they show up, how they look.

Diana Alt [00:34:30]:
I ask them how they show up day to day. And I also sometimes ask how do they show up in policy.

Angie Callen [00:34:37]:
Yep. Or in strategy.

Diana Alt [00:34:39]:
Yeah, that's true. Both of those things are really good. Okay, so boundaries. Plug your podcast no more Mondays. Shout out to no more Mondays. I love it. I think we have like the best podcast.

Angie Callen [00:34:50]:
We have the best two. Two titles. Yes we do. Which is in fact biased and we're in an echo chamber talking about them. But we do.

Diana Alt [00:34:59]:
Maybe. Maybe we are. I wanted to ask you what do you think most often gets in the way of people not making work suck? Like we both challenged idea this like very thing that we learned from our boomer parents that had the pension of if work was supposed to be good, we wouldn't call it work that crap.

Angie Callen [00:35:27]:
Yeah. What do you and I think that's one thing that gets in the way is former social norms that have that have shifted and are continuing to shift and challenging that almost belief system that we're supposed to just go slave away for 40 hours a week. And you know, this actually ties in the boundary thing because I didn't always have good boundaries and worked while I knew work was purposeful, it still didn't feel good for several years of my coaching career during the pandemic when I was working 70 hours a week and actually coaching 40. And I am an extreme extrovert and I can tell you no one should spend that much time talking to individuals on zoom, especially when everyone needs a lot of extra emotional support due to a global pandemic. And so it took a while to unwind that. But I, I think that I don't like the, I don't like the term work life balance because it's insinuates that there is a state in which you can arrive at that actually never happens. But boundaries help you establish some sort of equilibrium in which life and work are more integrated versus I work and I live. And that's where work feels good.

Angie Callen [00:36:39]:
If you're able to bring a little life to work and then leave work at work, but not feel like you have to leave work at work. Right. It's. You have designed the life that you want to have and you layered work into it. And this is something I realized that, you know, to kind of close the loop on the career journey, everything prepared me to be in my space to be a coach helping people live and work more authentically. Even the seven years of being a career coach helped me find that focus. And the. Your values, your mission, your purpose will always evolve.

Angie Callen [00:37:12]:
Maybe they'll get a little bit bigger and things like that, but you're constantly being prepared for that. And if you can listen, really, really amazing things happen. And this is where work feels less crappy because you have figured out how to make it support life instead of making it be your life. Because where I realized this, and I feel like this was maybe the pot of soil that all the seeds were put in over the years. When I moved from Boston to Colorado, I was, that was, that was the recession, that was the. I lasted about a year and a half longer in, in engineering when I made that transition. I moved here because I wanted the lifestyle, I wanted to be. I wanted all the things I love to do outside, specifically skiing, to be more accessible to me.

Angie Callen [00:37:55]:
And so I needed to be in a place. And for me, sense of place I've realized is huge. And it was a huge, huge opportunity to open self discovery for me. But when I was making this move people back in Boston and no, no, I'm not going to dog on east coasters, but major city people tend to be identified with what they do for work.

Diana Alt [00:38:13]:
Yes.

Angie Callen [00:38:13]:
And so I remember people just being like, oh, you're living my dream. You're moving to a ski town. I've always wanted to do that. And I was like, you can.

Diana Alt [00:38:21]:
I'm no one special sale next door to me. I know, come on, let's do it.

Angie Callen [00:38:28]:
That was the soil in the pot of. That was the soil in the pot that told me we stay mediocre, we stay small, and we don't challenge those beliefs that society now allows us to look at and say, hey, I actually can create the life I want and find or develop a career that supports it instead of the other way around.

Diana Alt [00:38:48]:
I am a big believer in that. And it was really hard for me to get there because I not. Okay, we have the educator families, right? Do you have any farmers in the family?

Angie Callen [00:39:00]:
Yes, my. Actually, my brother in law is a sheep farmer.

Diana Alt [00:39:03]:
Oh, nice. Get us some facts, some fun.

Angie Callen [00:39:06]:
I have sheer cheap. I have sheer cheap. I have spit sunflower seeds at a fair and I have chugged milk in order to win a milk chugging contest. I grew up in farmland.

Diana Alt [00:39:17]:
Have you chugged eggnog?

Angie Callen [00:39:19]:
Oh, but I love eggnog. No, I feel like you'd get a stomachache. But I do love eggnog.

Diana Alt [00:39:23]:
I just went to, like, the Christmas vacation situation where they have eggnog all the time. So what I was gonna say is my parents both came from farming families and teachers and farmers are two of the top. I identify with my profession. The only thing that I can think of that's even higher potentially is clergy.

Angie Callen [00:39:48]:
I would actually, I would actually agree with that.

Diana Alt [00:39:50]:
Yeah. So I had two out of the three of what we identify with. And so I was raised for work in many ways. And we had. I mean, when you got to get harvest in, when you got to get the. You got to get the seeds in the ground, like, that takes over everything. And I made the mistake that a lot of people make where I kind of applied the ethos of either got to get the seeds in the ground or you have to get the grades done for the semester. And I acted like all these jobs that don't operate that way operate that way.

Diana Alt [00:40:23]:
I want to. I want to switch gears for a second. I love lightning rounds. I love Adam Grant's podcast Work Life. So I created a little lightning round. Are you ready for it?

Angie Callen [00:40:36]:
Ready.

Diana Alt [00:40:37]:
Okay. What's the worst piece of career advice you've ever received? Ooh.

Angie Callen [00:40:45]:
Lightning rounds are different when you're live. I used to do rapid fire on no more Mondays. We could edit out the silence.

Diana Alt [00:40:50]:
I'm already failing the lightning round with myself.

Angie Callen [00:40:53]:
I think. Well, and I mean, let's be real, Diana. You and I do nothing in a lightning amount of words.

Diana Alt [00:40:59]:
Well, just.

Angie Callen [00:40:59]:
I. I'm going to say, I'm going to go back and reiterate something that we've already talked about, because I think that that idea of like the work ethic that comes from teaching and farming rolls forward and that isn't whether you want to consider it advice or a belief it isn't. It doesn't serve us anymore because there is a way to work smarter instead of harder and there's a way to adapt work ethic to the appropriate like schedule and rigor of the career you have. So you have to slave away and, and work for whatever company pays the bills for 30 years. Is the worst career advice. Whether I ever explicitly got it. It was probably implied a little bit and it's the worst one I hear.

Diana Alt [00:41:46]:
Well. And also when we look at fields like teaching and farming, you sprint and then you stop for a while. Like you have seasonality to it, but it's right.

Angie Callen [00:41:56]:
That's an industry that has seasonality to it and not everything's like that. We are killing the 45 second Lightning round, by the way.

Diana Alt [00:42:03]:
Yeah. Anyway, what's a red flag in a job interview that people ignore too often?

Angie Callen [00:42:11]:
Not, not actually doing your own due diligence to find out if the culture and the leadership styles are fit. So if they can't articulate how the values look or a leader can't tell you their leadership style and what the personality and the morale of the team is, run, run, run away.

Diana Alt [00:42:27]:
Okay, I love that. What about from the interviewer's perspective, the person hiring? What is the red flag they avoid or that?

Angie Callen [00:42:35]:
I mean, if they don't, if they don't ask any. If you're interviewing somebody who asks no questions, it's a nail in the coffin.

Diana Alt [00:42:41]:
Yeah. I had a guy I worked with, he's a wealth manager. He's actually my financial advisor and I helped him with some hiring and one of the things that he would say in hiring is if you don't ask me any questions, I'm gonna fire you. And he met after being hired and I'm like, oh, I love that he wanted to be questioned. What personal habit or might. What is a personal habit or mindset shift that you think most people need.

Angie Callen [00:43:10]:
To try to make that you have agency and have more control over your career than you think you do or than you leverage.

Diana Alt [00:43:19]:
Okay. I love that. What is a completely useless skill that you're weirdly proud of?

Angie Callen [00:43:30]:
I mean, it's not useless to me, but I am an exceptional gluten free baker.

Diana Alt [00:43:34]:
Oh, fantastic. I don't even. I have a, I have a family member that's gluten free. So we might have to talk.

Angie Callen [00:43:40]:
I have lots of recipes and even custom flour mixes. For you.

Diana Alt [00:43:44]:
I went to Mac to learn how to make macarons because of my gluten free family. So what is something you've changed your mind about recently?

Angie Callen [00:43:55]:
Ooh, that's a good question. That's an introspective question, not a lightning round question. And especially recently, I actually am gonna. I think I have an idea that you asking me has made me realize. So one of the things we haven't talked about as far as like, like having the life you love and layering career over it is. It's been, it's been implied. But you know, we live in the mountains of Colorado and we do kind of all the things. And I mean, you should see the REI annex in my basement.

Angie Callen [00:44:26]:
You should see the table of activity in the living room that has everything from crochet to avalanche books to fly tying devices on it. And because of that, it's easy, it's interesting. And this is a boundaries balance question. I think it's very easy to fall into the I always have to be out adventuring kind of thing. And I recently have decided that like, I don't have to have 50 days on my ski pass, even though I pay a buttload of money for it. If I, if, if staying home on a Saturday, even if it snows is what's best for me, that's okay. So I, I kind of have started looking at outdoor adventure a little bit differently. I mean, it's always been something that's fun, but not keeping myself to such a high standard of volume.

Diana Alt [00:45:08]:
Yeah, I like that because. So like, when your fun starts to have guilt attached to it, something's wrong. Something's wrong. Okay, last one. What's a common misperception that people have about your work as a career in business and executive coach? Oh.

Angie Callen [00:45:31]:
That'S actually really interesting. Okay, let's see. Common misconception. Well, I thought you were just going to ask about me. People think I'm much taller than I am. And since you've realized met me in real life, you know why that's funny? Holy crap, you're really short. You know, I actually am going to roll this up to something bigger and that is the, this like almost the misconception around what coaching is and is not and how it can kind of help people. And educating people through that is, is helpful to getting the clarity around how, you know, how we do work versus the, you know, useless, never going to get you anywhere kind of idea that sometimes people can attach to coaching.

Diana Alt [00:46:18]:
I appreciate that. And like you and I have had multiple slack Conversations and other conversations about how actually the International Coaching Federation contributes to that inadvertently. Like they're a very well meaning organization. But we don't live in an age anymore where just asking the powerful questions.

Angie Callen [00:46:42]:
Is enough is enough.

Diana Alt [00:46:44]:
As people are coming to coaches both to have their mindset shit changed. Even if they say like, even my clients that are like, I'm not woo, I don't want to talk about mindset. Okay, we're not going to talk about it, we're just going to do it is how I look.

Angie Callen [00:46:59]:
Okay, I won't say the word but you're gonna do it anyway.

Diana Alt [00:47:02]:
I'm a, I'm a master. Like one of my favorite techniques in my work is talking about the thing without talking about the thing. And I think if I ever went back into corporate I would want to just go back to being a scrum master and make teams more agile without saying any of the agile words. That would be. I think that's a good point.

Angie Callen [00:47:22]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [00:47:22]:
Yeah, I think it's a really good point. Thank you for indulging my lightning round. That wasn't really a lightning round.

Angie Callen [00:47:29]:
I was looking at the time. I think it was a four and a half minute lightning round. However, there are thoughtful questions there that take a few seconds to think and answer. You know I have a really specific, funny, funny answer to that question. I would say one of the things that people misconceptions about our work or even about let's say job searching is that their resume is a magic bullet or the resume is the starting point to your job search. Because it's not.

Diana Alt [00:47:56]:
Let's say that if you don't know what you want to hear me now, everyone looking for a job or thinking about looking for a job, if you do not know what you want to do next, then the resume is roughly 75% of the way through the process. I mean the, the actual search takes who knows how long but when you think about preparing to go out into the market, it's 75% of the way through the process. If you do know what you want to do, then it's about 50% of the way through the process. So.

Angie Callen [00:48:28]:
And lack, write it on my gravestone. It's one of my post posthumous memes. Lack of clarity in a job search is more detrimental than a bad resume because you probably have a resume that doesn't support it. And to me, I actually think this goes all the way back to everything that we've been talking about and, and the, and the idea of work should feel good. You're not going to know how work should feel good or how to find work that does feel good if you don't go through that planning and that's whether you're in an active job search or not. Take inventory.

Diana Alt [00:48:58]:
Yes. If you don't know where you're going, how do you know you got there?

Angie Callen [00:49:01]:
Yeah. Good luck. Get in the car and drive in circles.

Diana Alt [00:49:04]:
Exactly. Exactly. Kind of a more serious question before we go into talking about what Angie is doing because you're doing some crazy amazing stuff right now. I do some things. How can these ideas behind no more Mondays and work should feel good coexist when the world is in feels like it's an utter chaos like especially like it has last few months. And I think this is really important because there is an intentionality, a strategy and unless you are already dialed in 100%, there is a lot of time involved sometimes in making the no more Mondays ethos. The work should feel good ethos come to life.

Angie Callen [00:49:48]:
So and I'll start off by saying I think the no more Monday and work should feel good ethos is more important than ever right now. And I actually believe that in the current climate purposeful work conscious companies are going to thrive because people are going to seek them out as a bastion of hope amongst the shitstorm. So there's that. I also, I am so two things on that front. This is a shameless plug, but because we're live, I'm having a town hall on this very topic tomorrow if anyone would like to come. It is about thinking through these uncertain times and what you should be kind of getting ahead of or considering because putting blinders on completely isn't, isn't necessarily healthy or productive because you could be blindsided. I also don't think doom scrolling and constantly consuming all of the things is healthy either. So you've got to find what is enough information to stay informed and to inform while not tipping the scales to the thing that, that you know, makes you just have anxiety constantly.

Angie Callen [00:50:51]:
Because ultimately the, the pointed answer to the question is to focus on what you can control.

Diana Alt [00:50:57]:
Yes, that's really, I mean that's the answer to all of this honestly. And but what you said earlier about people need to recognize that they have more agency over their career in their lives. That's really important because what people, when I say to people who are discouraged, focus on the things that you can control because like, like I'm the girl that studies, that studies stoicism for fun. I was, I had a client the other day that told me we Need a call sign for you as if it's Top Gun. And I was like, I decided it.

Angie Callen [00:51:32]:
Needs to be Tango Taco.

Diana Alt [00:51:33]:
By the way, Tango Taco.

Angie Callen [00:51:37]:
I. E. Your call sign is T.T.

Diana Alt [00:51:40]:
Oh, okay.

Angie Callen [00:51:41]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [00:51:42]:
I was like, seneca would work. That has a ring to it. It sounds strong. But in any case, when you think about this, what can you control? The people that are the most discouraged feel like the answer is nothing. And so understanding what you have agency over is really important.

Angie Callen [00:52:01]:
Yes.

Diana Alt [00:52:02]:
Even if all that is is saying no. So I think an interesting topic that we could talk about more. I don't want to hit it too much today because I want to talk about what's going on with you and your business a little bit here. But we need to be talking to people about how they can have agency, a sense of control, and almost, like, create purpose in place when it feels very scary to make a move. Because as much as I've done the thing where I said, eff it, I was burned out. I had some savings. I've quit a job with no job. Most people could never do that.

Angie Callen [00:52:40]:
And in this current climate, it's riskier than it was two or three years ago. Right. Like, we. We used to be able to have that conversation with somebody and say, hey, if you've got six months of Runway, I trust that we can make this happen. And now it's like, it could be a year to feel like you're not putting yourself at a financial risk.

Diana Alt [00:52:58]:
We should do a little brainstorming on that offline of, like, how can we feel like we have purpose and agency in place? So what are you working on? You launched a new brand. You have career benders. I have career benders, your brand. That with all.

Angie Callen [00:53:14]:
By the way, I want to acknowledge the connecting of the two things, because you pointed out exactly what control what you can control. And there's more there than you think if you go root yourself in change and agency, because you can control who you talk to, who you don't talk to, who you say yes to, who you say no to, how updated is your resume? What do you apply to? What do you not apply to? Where do you live? Right. That is just five things right off the bat that you actually have control over.

Diana Alt [00:53:43]:
And.

Angie Callen [00:53:44]:
And those are all things that, like, you know, I focus on doing as I'm moving into, like, new stuff. So career benders has been my home and the best thing I've ever done for the last seven years. And in building a successful career services business started to have a lot of people who wanted to do the same, you know, start asking for advice and mentorship. And because I love business so much and have always approached my career, my, my coaching as a business, there's kind of like a natural, a natural synergy there to step into the modern coach, which is career Bender's sister brand, focused on helping forward thinking coaches of the 21st century build skills, build community and build businesses that have the kind of impact we want and need to have.

Diana Alt [00:54:37]:
I just get the chills every time you talk about it. When you first told me about that brand, I was kind of on the, I was on the, the need to know list kind of early on for the audience. I was so excited about it because I have had, I want to approach coaching as a business too. And I've always wanted. Well, since I went full time, I've wanted that because when I made six figures and I did it, you know, I took it seriously, but I wasn't taking it seriously to do all of my eating and living indoors. It's really important. And there's not that much that's advanced. Like all of the stuff about, you know, how to be a job search coach, a career coach as fairly.

Diana Alt [00:55:16]:
You're fixing that for us. Yes.

Angie Callen [00:55:19]:
And that's really why, that's really this, you know, to tie back into a lot of what we've, we've talked about today. This was something that felt like I was called to do and bring to my, my peers into my community and my industry and to go back to, you know, you brought the ICF into the, into the conversation. And I think that there's a lot of good about ICF that I would not have said even a year ago. But I also think that there are limitations and it has a place in the coaching industry that no longer is as whole as it used to be because of how dynamic and broad also coaching has gotten. And what I realized is there's a lack of resources for coaches to continue pushing boundaries, innovating and building skills that are highly relevant to the way people want to be coached and the outcomes that they want. And so I've decided to be as audacious as enough to fill the hole. And that is the modern coach.

Diana Alt [00:56:15]:
I love it. I am audacious enough to be in the first cohort.

Angie Callen [00:56:19]:
In the first cohort of. Yeah. So I decided that, you know, it's really interesting, what you can look at yourself in hindsight is that over the last seven years of focusing on career coaching, you know, I really carved out a niche in specifically comprehensive Job search coaching, which even more audaciously I realized was kind of a new approach to it. As I came on the scenes in an emerging, in an emerging specialty of coaching that was career coaching seven years ago. And what's interesting is I didn't try to create a new, a new product or a new service. I just approached my discipline. And the only way my recovering engineer, who loves people, knew how to do and in doing so, kind of created this almost its own specialty of coaching, which is job search coaching, and really felt called to empower other people to provide this type of service because it is a different way to work and a different way to impact. And so I created a certification and it's launching and I've got the first 15 people and I'm super excited, excited about the curriculum and can't wait to see, you know, what people do with it and how they make it their own in this kind of unique approach to, you know, helping, helping professionals.

Diana Alt [00:57:30]:
I'm really jazzed about it. It's like one of the, like one of the reasons that I jumped into it is because we talk to people all the time. Like, you know, everybody has their own version of like this is a sales call or a land troll call and learn more about coaching. And most people either say that they need a job in the next 90 days or they say they need it in six plus months. There's not very many people that I have approached me that are saying three to six months. They either want it yesterday or they want to take their time. And I appreciate that. But the problem with the people who right now it's the majority that's like asap yesterday, like, give me the job, give me all the jobs right now.

Diana Alt [00:58:12]:
They don't realize that number one, the process takes time. Like from the time you are ready to effectively enter the market, which has a lot of work. We talked about earlier that like 50% of the work to get ready is before you even touch your resume. From that time, it's now five to seven months at best, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, to land the job on average. That's point number one. The other point is they don't realize that the investment that they make in this is huge. So you and I both work with leaders in tech. If you're average, like let's say you got $150,000 software engineering manager, which is not uncommon for either of us to have worked with, that's 3k a week.

Diana Alt [00:59:03]:
And if we have a program that costs 3k to 5k you get a job one to two weeks earlier because you worked on it and your ROI.

Angie Callen [00:59:15]:
Is pay for yourself. Yeah. And there's another layer there too. And you use a perfect example. You know, how many technology professionals have we talked to ctos I've talked to who are like, I've been working for 20 years, I don't know how to find a job. And so now, you know, I also focus very heavily on teaching people to fish instead of just giving them the fish even though they really want the fish. That's maybe that goes back to a misconception is like, oh, are you going to just help me find a job and call aheadhunter? I'm like, oh, let's get into that whole madness. No, I'm going to teach you how to fish.

Angie Callen [00:59:47]:
Because now that investment not only goes to this position, but any job you look for in the future until job. The style of job searching drastically changes.

Diana Alt [00:59:57]:
Yeah, for me, I feel like the best complement to my services is anytime someone comes to me and I work through a program with them and then they come back three years later because they're in the market again for one call and it's, they trust me enough to come back. But I, we taught them.

Angie Callen [01:00:16]:
They clearly learned the framework or they learned they, they know how to fish. They're coming back you for sir for a re up on some tip it and flies and there's a nerdy outdoor statement for you. But that's, I think that's why I want in. Specifically in the career coaching space, we can trend towards very prescriptive, tactical approach to our client engagements because oftentimes that's, that is what they need. But we forget the human in there. And that is where the magic of helping people find work that feels good and not have and have no more Mondays really comes from. Is this idea of job search coaching for life.

Diana Alt [01:00:53]:
Yes, I, I, the secret behind job search coaching, I love when I run across a career coach that's like, I'm not a life coach. I'm like, you are.

Angie Callen [01:01:04]:
Yeah, you are. Career coaching is a, is a sub, is a sub discipline of life coaching. It's just a specific area of life you help with.

Diana Alt [01:01:12]:
Correct. Exactly. So, yeah, we're, we're all in the business of making life better. So yes, we're almost done. I'm two minutes over.

Angie Callen [01:01:22]:
Whatever.

Diana Alt [01:01:22]:
Not bad for the first time.

Angie Callen [01:01:23]:
It's your show.

Diana Alt [01:01:24]:
It is my show. Where can people learn more about you and what you're doing with either or both of your brands?

Angie Callen [01:01:32]:
Yeah. So LinkedIn is a great place to tune into my meanderings about how work, how you can live and work more authentically. And I prove it by hurling myself down mountains on bikes and somehow turning that into a life lesson. And I shared on LinkedIn, so that's a really good place to kind of just follow along with me and the, let's say showing the, the, the the theme there. And then careerbenders.com and themoderncoach. Co are where you can find me for career specific stuff and business slash coach specific stuff, respectively.

Diana Alt [01:02:04]:
Great. Well, Angie, I'm so glad we did this. Thank you.

Angie Callen [01:02:08]:
Thank you for letting me be first.

Diana Alt [01:02:10]:
Did we set a date to start the podcast? And so I was like, great, you're my first guest. Let's do it. So thank you for being a catalyst for these kinds of conversations. And someday you'll get drugged back on here. I promise.

Angie Callen [01:02:25]:
That's all right. I'm a willing participant anytime because these are important conversations people need to hear. And I love having somebody else who's out there empowering people to, to do good work and make it feel good.

Diana Alt [01:02:37]:
Well, thank you. Have a good day. And that's it for this episode of Work should feel good. If something made you laugh, think, cry, or just want to yell yes at your phone, send it to a friend, hit follow, hit subscribe, do all the things. And even better, leave a review if you've got a sec. I'm not going to tell you to give it five stars. You get to decide if I earned them. Work should feel good.

Diana Alt [01:03:03]:
Let's make that work. Your reality.