Diana Alt [00:00:04]:
Hey, Diana Auld 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. Hello, hello, hello everybody and welcome to the Work should Feel Good show. The show where your career growth meets your real life. I'm your host Diana Alt and today my guest Andy Storch and I are going to talk about what it means to own your career and future proof your career, which is something that we need to talk a heck of a lot more. Andy is the author of the book own your career, own your life, which I talked to him right after he started writing that book and I told him I was mad that he picked that title because it's so good. And he's a keynote speaker who works with companies to teach people how to own their careers and prepare for the future.

Diana Alt [00:01:04]:
He's the host of do you still have the both podcasts?

Andy Storch [00:01:08]:
I've got two talent development Hutsuit and.

Diana Alt [00:01:10]:
The owner career show, the Own youn Career Andy Storich show, as well as the founder and host of the talent development think tank conference and community, which if you are in talent development, the next time he has that, you have to go. I got to attend it this year. Most of all, Andy is a husband and father on a mission to get the most out of life and inspire others to do the same, including his daughter who is. Is she 10 or 11?

Andy Storch [00:01:35]:
She just turned 11.

Diana Alt [00:01:36]:
She turned 11 like she is. She was threatening to be on the podcast or on the live stream today.

Andy Storch [00:01:42]:
Was here just a moment ago, kicked me out of the room and said she was going to do it for me, which is make my life easier, I guess.

Diana Alt [00:01:48]:
We were talking about your birthday, so no big deal.

Andy Storch [00:01:51]:
Okay. And she's fun and funny, but I don't if she would bring a lot of value to people with regards to career development since she hasn't had a career yet. But you know, she knows a lot.

Diana Alt [00:02:01]:
You never know, she might, she might have some observations from watching what makes you and your wife Courtney happy.

Andy Storch [00:02:07]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [00:02:08]:
And what she doesn't. So I'm so stoked to have you here because I don't know if I, I don't know if you remember this, but back in 2020 when like the world closed five years ago almost exactly to this week and you started doing lives every day on LinkedIn because you're like, I'm a speaker, what the heck else am I going to do? I was The. You were the very first person to invite me on anything, like live or podcast adjacent.

Andy Storch [00:02:34]:
Oh, that's right. I remember.

Diana Alt [00:02:35]:
I was terrified. I was utterly terrified.

Andy Storch [00:02:40]:
And here you are now with your own show.

Diana Alt [00:02:42]:
And here we are with my own show. So future proofing your career. I'm sure we're going to talk about that a lot today, but I know that has to do with learning new skills. So I want you to tell me and everybody else, how's the Spanish learning going?

Andy Storch [00:03:01]:
I was like, where are you going with this question? Are we going to help people with their careers? I do think that, you know, one of the things you can be doing always to invest in your future career growth and set yourself up for future success is investing in continuous learning. And, you know, most of that, you would think in the realm of the area where you want to work, you know, we need to learn about AI and whatever function it is. But I think learning in general is, you know, I know I'm preaching in the choir, but, like, so good for your brain, especially when it's really hard and it gets you out of your comfort zone. I was just reading some of Adam Grant's new book, and he was talking about, you know, the best learning being when you're, like, so far out of your comfort zone, it just feels really uncomfortable. You don't want to do it. And so, you know, to answer your question, I moved with my family to. From Florida to Spain a year and a half ago, and quite frankly, none of us really spoke that much Spanish. I took some in high school, but it'd been a long time.

Andy Storch [00:03:55]:
Yeah. And so I've been working on learning. Again, not the top priority because I'm running a business and have some other things going on, but, you know, I'm taking classes a couple days a week and obviously doing duolingo and stuff like that. But I was reflecting on what Adam was saying in this book because I realized two or three times a week, I get on with a tutor, a Spanish tutor, and I'm so uncomfortable. During that whole time, I'm like, when is this going to end? Because I don't know what to say, but those are the times when I learn the most. So I'm determined to, you know, to pick this up and speak more and more Spanish. It's certainly one of my goals this year, but I'm very, very far away from being fluent. And I'm growing.

Andy Storch [00:04:32]:
I'm growing one day at a time.

Diana Alt [00:04:34]:
I am, too. My best friend married a man from Mexico, and he has more English than I have Spanish. But when we get together, we both try to speak the opposite language. And then my best friend has to be in the middle playing translator.

Andy Storch [00:04:48]:
Right.

Diana Alt [00:04:48]:
And she enjoys it. She has a good time with it, thank goodness, because otherwise it would be miserable on everyone. But I think it's. It's one of the most interesting things to me because I've been in the US in the, like, corporate tech world for 20 years before I went into coaching full time. And there was never any reason to speak Spanish because everybody speaks English and I don't. I don't like that. So one of the things I want to talk about. You are working on a book, right? About personal brand, owning your career brand or something.

Diana Alt [00:05:22]:
Is that still a project that you're working on?

Andy Storch [00:05:24]:
Yeah, yeah. So the, the first book, Own youn Career, Own youn Life, there is a chapter about Building youg Personal Brand.

Diana Alt [00:05:30]:
Right.

Andy Storch [00:05:30]:
The benefits of that to help you in your career. Right now I'm working with our mutual friend Mike Kim on a new book called Own youn Brand, Own youn Career. It's a collaboration. Mike, obviously, as you know, has a just a ton of experience, has been a big name in personal brand space for many years for entrepreneurs, and I've been working mostly in the corporate space. So kind of bringing our, our expertise together, if you will, to publish a new book this year on building your or owning your personal brand in the corporate space.

Diana Alt [00:06:02]:
I am really looking forward to that one, honestly. That's his current book, own your Career on your life, that he published that in 2020, if I remember right. That's right. But I'm really excited about it because personal branding, like, I, I don't know what your experience is working with people. I know you work with a ton of people in talent development and L and D, as well as other areas, but I work with tons of people in tech and they think personal branding sounds gross, even the people in leadership. So they think it's nonsense on LinkedIn and like hustle porn and all that kind of stuff. So what do you. You can speak a little bit on behalf of Mike too, since you're working on that project.

Diana Alt [00:06:45]:
But yeah. What do you wish people understood about personal branding and how it relates to owning and future proofing their career?

Andy Storch [00:06:55]:
Sure. And. And people might have different perspectives on it and maybe they think it's not something they need to be thinking about. I put it, it's in the same realm as networking. You can like it or not like it, but it's still going to Be really important to your success. Right? I know you coach a lot of people in their careers and, like, the best way to go find new opportunities is through networking or building relationships. So personal brand, I think of as essentially your relation. Your sorry, personal brand is essentially your reputation, what people think about you.

Andy Storch [00:07:25]:
And everybody has one. Because we're always forming judgments, micro judgments about the people in our world all the time when we interact with them. You know, every moment of every day when you meet with someone, you're working with them and you're like, would I want to work with this person again? Would I never want to work with this person again? That's always going in the back of your mind. And so we're always forming these judgments which create a reputation. And so we all have a brand, whether we are like it or we do anything about it or not. And so I'm very. I'm kind of big on being intentional with building that personal brand. Now, it doesn't mean, you know, doing anything fake.

Andy Storch [00:07:59]:
I'm also a big fan of authenticity, as I know you are as well, like, be yourself, but realize that you can be intentional with how you show up and build that brand and that while you cannot ever control other people's perceptions of you, what they think about you, you can certainly influence those things with how you show up and how you interact with other people. And there's, I see two main sides to that. There's the, the brand that you build and how you interact with people in the work that you're doing. Right? So your collaboration, how you show up in meetings, how hard you work, how helpful you are to other people in the job that you do. And then, of course, there's the outside kind of thought leadership side or the social media side of like, are you creating content on LinkedIn or other platforms? Are you commenting, connecting, supporting other people? Are you engaging? Are you just criticizing other people and getting in political arguments? Right. And that all goes to build your brand and your reputation. And I want people to be more aware of that because I think that, you know, there's a myth among a lot of people that if you just show up and work hard, that you're going to be rewarded for that. Right? And I know that, you know, right, you've coached a lot of people that that's not how it works.

Andy Storch [00:09:06]:
It's not about what you do, it's about what people know that you do. And so you want people to know about you and your accomplishments, and there's a right way to do it, right. Without bragging but you want to make sure that people know about who you are, what you stand for, what you're good at, so that you can build that brand and people think of you when opportunities come up.

Diana Alt [00:09:25]:
Yeah, I love all of that. And I think when people sometimes ask me, well, what the heck is a personal brand anyway? And I don't want to be an influencer is one of the things people say. Well, I'm like, if you want to get anywhere in your career, you got to be influencing somebody. You don't need to be like a Kardashian on Instagram trying to sell whatever your new makeup line is or whatever all that that is. But you have to be able to influence somebody if you want to get promoted, if you want to get noticed for any kind of opportunity internally and externally. And to me, you know what I think the most dangerous personal brand to have is? One nobody can remember. Yeah, nobody remembers you. Like, I would almost rather be remembered a little bit negatively than not remembered at all.

Diana Alt [00:10:13]:
Because mature people that might remember you a little bit negatively, assuming there's like, not complete bullying, like, jackass behavior type stuff, if it's just like you cross swords sometimes at work, a lot of times that person will say, well, like, she and I clashed sometimes. But I think they'd work great on your project because, you know, they're very tenacious.

Andy Storch [00:10:36]:
As long as it's married with. Yeah, that person can be a little bit abrasive, but they're very effective. Or they always get things done.

Diana Alt [00:10:42]:
Exactly.

Andy Storch [00:10:42]:
Maybe I didn't get along with them, but you might. Obviously you don't want the brand or the reputation of the jerk on the team that nobody wants to work with because you just refuse to respond to anyone's emails or you criticize other people overly. I think there's. There's a balance, right? It's not just about being nice to everybody all the time. But are you collaborative? Are you someone that people want to work with and do you. Do you get results? Right. And so I ask people all the time when we do exercises and like the programs I run, what do you want to be known for? You know, pick three words that you want to be known for. For example, I want to be known as generous, inspiring and motivational or supportive.

Andy Storch [00:11:22]:
Right. And then. And other people tell me I want to be known as high integrity or productive or someone who can get things done or detail oriented. Whatever it is, oftentimes it could be related to your profession. And then you can ask yourself on a regular basis, am I showing up in alignment with my brand. Right. And so I say I want to be known as someone who's generous and supportive and kind. But I look back at my week and I was actually pretty selfish and I didn't really help anybody.

Andy Storch [00:11:52]:
I wasn't really showing up in alignment with my brand. Right. Same as the person. I had a client tell me once when we did this exercise, he wanted to be known as the guy who could get things done. That's what he wanted. So like leaders could always come to him. He's reliable. And so you can look back in your week and be like, well, actually kind of dropped the ball or I avoided taking on a project this week.

Andy Storch [00:12:11]:
I'm not living in alignment with my brand. And so you can think back to that and make sure, let that push you to, to go out and do the things that you want to do to build the brand that you want. Side note, when he said that, I kind of cringe and thought I do not want to be known as the person who gets things done because I feel like that's just going to attract more work. But that's just me. That's just me. I want to be known as someone.

Diana Alt [00:12:29]:
I think that I wish I would have learned that particular lesson like 20 years ago.

Andy Storch [00:12:35]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [00:12:35]:
Because I wanted to be that person for a long time. And there comes inflection points in a career where the thing that worked to be known for isn't working anymore, which is a huge aspect of leadership development and going from like first line manager to being in the executive suite. I'll say this for anybody listening on here, that's still like, why are these people talking about the word brand? I still hate the word brand. I don't know how to relate this. I tend to equate it to values. So when I think about what I want to be known for, I have my core values sitting on a. They're literally pasted to my monitor to make sure that I'm thinking about them regularly. And so for me, if I substitute being in alignment with my values for being in alignment with my brand, if I operate like my values, my brand is going to follow.

Diana Alt [00:13:26]:
So if you're not, if, if the people in here are not used to thinking about what is my brand, think about what your values are and are you working in your values? And it'll come through. That will be, basically will become your brand. And the brands that don't work are the ones that are clashing. The way that they are showing up in the world is not in alignment with what they're doing.

Andy Storch [00:13:48]:
Yeah. Dan, I have a question for you, because I get this question a lot. Not a lot, but fairly often, you know, how do you define your values? How do you figure out what your values are?

Diana Alt [00:13:59]:
Oh, man, that is a really good one. I. I look at it as. There's a few that. First off, there's tons of different exercises out there that you can do. I've done one. The one. There's a book called the One Thing that was written by, like, Gary Keller and J.

Diana Alt [00:14:17]:
Papazon, and they talk about that, and they actually have, like, a cool little deck of cards and an exercise that people go through to sort of let things bubble up. I went through another one recently that was just looking at a whole bunch of adjectives and doing, whoops, I lost my. We're live. My left ear is the wrong side. Here we are. But I basically, we went through like, two or three iterations in this job master, job search coach course that I'm in of this giant list of adjectives and kind of let things bubble up. And we worked on them together. A small group of us worked on them together.

Diana Alt [00:14:58]:
And a lot of us found words that weren't even on the list, but it kind of forced comparisons and conversations and let's group like things together. But another way is just simply saying, how do I make decisions? What are some of the things that I make decisions on? You can also look at, like, how. What. What pissed you off, you know?

Andy Storch [00:15:18]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [00:15:19]:
Sometimes that is looking at the opposite or the negative is another way. And it doesn't have to be a thing that, like, not everybody has to have them pasted to the monitor. So, you know, if you're out of sync. So.

Andy Storch [00:15:30]:
But I think it's. I think it's good to know those. I have done a couple of those exercises as well, and I don't have a specific one I recommend either. I always tell people, like, just Google it. And there's. There's multiple values. Sorry, the sun is, like, coming in right. Right now.

Andy Storch [00:15:45]:
But the way I learned it and understood it years ago that I stole. True is like, when you see that, oftentimes you do the exercise and there's a list of, like, 50 adjectives, and you want to pick all of them. But the whole idea is that you pick the ones that resonate the absolute most, because you got to whittle it down to 20 and then 10 and then 5. And those guide how you make decisions in life. And the example. I always think about that. I think I took this from My friend Christine Denonato, who has a great book on careers as well, was that if you value both, we'll say health and wellness, but also social activities. When you get to the end of the day and you're planning to go to the gym but your friends invite you to happy hour, what do you do? There's no right or wrong answer, but a lot of that's driven by your values.

Andy Storch [00:16:32]:
You can say, yeah, I want to get in shape, but you know, being social and connecting with people is more important to me. So I'm going to go to happy hour or yeah, I like connecting with other people, but I committed to going to the gym. Health is my number one value. So I'm going to the gym and I'll catch up with them later. Obviously you could try to find happy medium when you go to the gym in the morning and go to happy hour in the afternoon. But it's sort of like how do you make those decisions in those moments when you have like two competing important things? What's more important or what's going to drive your decision and your behavior?

Diana Alt [00:17:03]:
I think that's good actually about a lot of people. One of the biggest mistakes you can make when trying to kind of set codify right on the post it note by your monitor, your values is picking ones that you think you should have. That's the biggest one. Like people love to write integrity down.

Andy Storch [00:17:23]:
I know.

Diana Alt [00:17:24]:
And I feel like that's just baseline being a human. So it's actually not on my list. But I have integrity. But that's like walking upright and breathing oxygen in my opinion.

Andy Storch [00:17:35]:
Yeah, I don't have it on my list either. I think like all of us want to live with integrity, but there's also levels of integrity. And if integrity is the most important thing to you, then that'll, you know, that probably means you're the type of person that says like if I say I'm going to be there at 4 o', clock, I will be there by 4 o'. Clock. Whereas like I might roll in at 4:03 and be like, hey, what's up?

Diana Alt [00:17:55]:
Yeah, I'm going to text you that I'm running late is kind of how I am because I'm trying to be less rigid, but I love that. So if someone is other than the kind of some of this value stuff that we've been talking about, if someone is just kind of in this mode of. I haven't been paying any attention to my personal brand and I know I need to. What are the first one or two things that you recommend people do.

Andy Storch [00:18:23]:
Well, I start with. I would actually start. I mentioned the exercise where you asked, like, what do you want to be known for? I would even take a step back. The first thing the exercise I do is how do I identify now? So I do this thing where I just write the phrase I am, fill in the blank, and then write down as many things as you can think of that you identify with. For example, I am a husband, I'm a father, I'm an author, I'm a speaker, I'm a cyclist, I'm a son, I'm a brother. You know, all the things that you can identify. I'm a friend, right? You know, some people might say, like, I'm a tennis player or I'm a singer or you don't have to be a professional at that thing. It's just, it's something that you do or you like doing and you identify as that.

Andy Storch [00:19:07]:
That gives you an idea. And of course, you want to make sure you're adding a lot of professional things. If you do write something regularly, you can say, I'm a writer. It doesn't mean you get necessarily get paid as a writer or whatever it is, and start to look at some of those skills and some of those things that you're proud of and then ask that next question, which is, what are the things that I want to be known for? And I start with adjectives like integrity or hardworking or things like that, but also take it to the work you're doing. I want to be known as an expert on AI. I want to be known as an expert on career development, or I want to be known as someone who is always there and supportive for other people and think about things you want to be known for. And then, of course, like I said, you can ask, start to ask, how am I showing up? Or how can I show up better in alignment with those things, both internally in the work that I'm doing and I'm collaborating, right? And start to be a little bit more intentional and mindful about how you're showing up with other people. Because again, you can't ever control how.

Andy Storch [00:20:04]:
What other people think about you, right? But you can influence it by how you show up and how supportive you are, how collaborative you are. And then the other side of that, of course, is thinking about, am I going to start engaging on social media or creating content or doing something to create some type of thought leadership, if you will. So I'm going to start posting once a week on LinkedIn or I'm going to write an article and put it on Medium and LinkedIn or I'm going to start a podcast or start a blog and start writing some things down about some of the things that I'm learning and that I'm doing. And you know, to your point earlier, about like, a lot of people are like, hey, I don't want to be an influencer. Your goal is not to have thousands of people read it or follow you. Your goal is just start getting stuff out there to show who you are, what you know, what you're learning, what you care about. Because a few people will probably see it. And there's a good chance.

Andy Storch [00:20:55]:
You probably know this better than me, Diana, that if you're applying for a job, a recruiter is going to go look at your stuff or a hiring manager and be like, oh, I wonder what else Diana has out there. Wow. Oh, she wrote this article about AI in talent development. Like, that's interesting. Let me see what this is about. That shows that she's really interested in getting, you know, information out there. And this is the type of person I would like to have on my team. So I think it all adds up and helps you.

Andy Storch [00:21:20]:
It's not about being like a big time, you know, influencer, like you said, it's just about getting content and starting to build that brand, building that reputation, the things that you are known for. And it really doesn't take much. I mentioned I'm a cyclist.

Diana Alt [00:21:33]:
That's the best part.

Andy Storch [00:21:34]:
I'm not a pro cyclist, but I ride my bike a couple times a week and I post about it. And most people know that I'm into cycling because they see that stuff and that's something that I'm known for. It's not going to get me a job, but it just, it's an example of how easy it is to become known for certain things.

Diana Alt [00:21:49]:
It is. You have to. A lot of it is a decision, especially at the beginning. Like if you've been, if you've been working on this for a really long time, it can be harder to pivot than if you are kind of just starting to get out there, especially in the online space especially. The hardest places to pivot are if you've had a business for a long time and you want to significantly make a big pivot, or if you've worked at the same company with the same people for a very long time and they have an idea of you, those are places where it can be a heavy lift. That doesn't mean you shouldn't do it. If you want to, but it can be really difficult.

Andy Storch [00:22:27]:
So I think online you can, you can build a brand and a reputation fast. You can change people's just by posting a few things about something. I just don't think it takes that much, you know, and. But it's just, you have to start. Obviously been working in a company, in a group for 20 years. It might take stuff a while to shift people's perspectives. But imagine if you've never talked about AI before, but you just start showing up every day, every week and saying, like, oh, I investigated this platform, I'm trying this thing, and you start teaching other people in your group about how to use different AI tools. I don't think it would take that long before people start to refer to you as the AI expert on the team.

Andy Storch [00:23:04]:
And by the way, you don't have to be the foremost AI expert in the world, speaking in Davos. You just have to be the one on the team that's been trying and playing with all the different tools and recommend stuff to people.

Diana Alt [00:23:16]:
Thank you. That is actually where you predicted my next question. Because one of the things I hear the most from people about starting thought leadership for anything really is. But I'm not an expert in that. And it's. There's a few reactions I have, one of which is you've been doing that for 20 years progressively, like, you're more of an expert than you think.

Andy Storch [00:23:40]:
You're not an expert.

Diana Alt [00:23:42]:
Yeah. If you're not an expert by now, like, I think you might have a problem there. But in all seriousness, I can't. Okay. You've been working with Mike, and I think this applies, like, for his entrepreneur audience that he had targets and you are the brand and probably for the people y' all are targeting in your new book. But this notion of, like, you can come at things from it as an expert or you can come at it as, I'm one step ahead of you. I'm showing you what I did last week so you can learn and kind of bring people along as well. So showing the learning process.

Andy Storch [00:24:19]:
Look, when I, when I wrote my book, own your career, own your life, I didn't consider myself an expert on career development. I had never even worked in, we'll say, the field of career development. But I had interviewed dozens and dozens of people. I had experience from my own career and tons of conversations and trying lots of things and reading lots of books. And I realized one day that I could put it all together in a framework that I thought could be helpful to other People I didn't know for sure if it would be, but I put it together in this book and then started offering to speak and organizations on it. And luckily for me, it resonated with enough people and started taking off. I was able to build a business around it, but I didn't go into it thinking, oh well, I'm an expert on this thing. So now let me go out and put this.

Andy Storch [00:25:00]:
I just wanted to take everything that I knew had worked for me and put it into a framework and hope that it resonated with other people. Now, there was a lot of other, we'll say, marketing and branding that went along with that. Right. Sending the book out to tons of people, posting on social media all the time, running live, you know, all the things that I've done. There certainly was a lot of hustle in there, if you will. I've worked hard to create the brand and the business that I have and the reputation I have. But you don't have to wait until, you know, you win some type of achievement award in an area. You can start putting stuff out there now.

Diana Alt [00:25:31]:
Yeah, I love that you say that because there's a lot of people that are like, I'm not enough of an expert to write a book.

Andy Storch [00:25:37]:
Right.

Diana Alt [00:25:38]:
And honestly, some something I've been thinking a lot about and trying to talk a little bit differently about is those of us that are true experts that have been doing something for years or decades, we often make it too damn hard for the people that are starting. So I've been kicking around the idea of doing a paid workshop series on how to use AI in your own job search because a lot of people can't afford coaching or aren't interested in it, but they're using AI wrong because they're just trying to drop their old resume into chat, GPT or Claude and get a new resume out. And that guys don't do that. That's not how that works. But there are ways to make it work. And I don't think that an expert is helping people that are like, crap. I was at the same place for 25 years and now I got laid off. In some ways, they're not serving those people as well as me.

Diana Alt [00:26:41]:
I want to switch gears for a second. So you talk about you have kind of a tagline of teaching people how to own and future proof for their careers. That future proof word. What do you actually mean by that? Because it sounds like it's either really cool or a load of. Or a load of BS or something in the middle, like It's. It's like. But you're not the person that just throws marketing buzz out there. So that's why I have you show instead of somebody else.

Andy Storch [00:27:09]:
In this case, maybe I did. I think I have a. I have a marketing person on my team who kind of made that up. And I was like, yeah, that sounds good. What I really want to get across to people is that I think that there are ways you can always be things you can always be doing to set yourself up for future success. Future proof is a word. I didn't make that up. Somebody else did.

Andy Storch [00:27:31]:
I don't know how you could really define it. Someone may imply that, like, oh, if I do this, these things, then nothing bad will ever happen to me. Obviously, anything can happen in the future. But what I want people to know is that, look, the world of work is changing fast all the time. In fact, the pace of change today is faster than it's ever been before. And yet it's slower today than it's ever going to be. One of my favorite sayings on that. So it's getting faster.

Andy Storch [00:27:58]:
It's never going back to, you know, quote, normal. It's just going to keep getting faster. Things are going to keep changing all the time. And I don't think that we can just. The old way of doing things don't quite work anymore. And so I think there's three things we can always be doing to set ourselves up for future success. And we've. We've talked about each of them a little bit.

Andy Storch [00:28:14]:
Number one is investing in continuous learning. Because the days of, you know, getting a college degree or even a master's degree and working in that field for 30 years and then thinking like, oh, I can just get my next role. I'm sure you see this all the time, Tana, without doing any additional learning is those days are over. Right? Because things are changing so much. So we just need to be learning all the time and saying, like, okay, what else can I learn about these things? I was just coaching. I'm running a cohort through my own youn Career program this week. And I was. Every now and then I go on these little rants, but I was saying to people, and it's sort of a mixed group of age and experience that I don't want to hear anybody ever say, I'm too old to learn that.

Andy Storch [00:28:50]:
Right? Because. Right. Because like a. I remember when someone said to me several years ago, oh, they were a couple years older than me, not that much. And they were like, oh, you're so Good at this social media thing. I'm too old for that. And I was like, what are you talking about? You're like 40, like you can learn social media. It's not that, it's not that hard if you're 85, like, okay, I get it, like, you don't want to dive in.

Andy Storch [00:29:14]:
Although my wife's 95 year old grandmother follows me on Facebook and she still sends me an email like, you know, respond to my post or something like that, if she can do it. The point is, like, it's the same with AI, you know, the moment you take yourself out of the game or you say I'm too old for that, you're taking yourself out of the game. So I want to be learning all the time about different things. I highly encourage people to be investing in learning. Think about what it is that you want to learn and when are you going to make time for learning? Because learning is one of those things that is important but not urgent. No one's ever like, you know, over your shoulder going like, Diana, you need to learn today. You need to read a book today. Right? You've got to make time to do that on your own.

Andy Storch [00:29:49]:
And I'm not always the best at it, but I do things on a regular basis. The second thing you can be doing is building your network. We know how important that is. I mean, it's the single most important thing that has driven success in my career over the last 25 years or so is having relationships. Going back to my very first job When I was 15, my mom got me a job working for the highway maintenance crew through some connection. I still don't know where that came from, but the next job I got was working at a pharmacy through my friend in high school who got a job there. And he's like, hey, come work here. And on and on it went like it's even to today, you know, introductions, referrals, things like that.

Andy Storch [00:30:26]:
And a lot of people tell me that they're intimidated by networking. They don't like the idea of networking. And I think that they're thinking of it. Sure, you see this all the time too. They're thinking of it in terms of walking into a big room and throwing business cards around and like telling entertaining stories and meeting everybody. I think of networking as building relationships one person at a time. So if you think of yourself as introverted, you're shy, whatever, you don't have to go to the big room. Just reach out to two people this week and invite them to coffee or virtual chat and Build a relationship, get curious, find out about them, learn about them, and try to keep in touch with people you've worked with in the past, because that's where those future opportunities are going to come from.

Andy Storch [00:31:05]:
Projects, new jobs, et cetera. And then the third thing you can always be doing to set yourself up, future success is building your personal brand, which we talked about, your reputation. And the more you can invest into building that brand and how you show up with other people, how you show up online, the more you're going to look attractive to, you know, certain hiring managers in the future. It's going to help you attract certain opportunities in the future.

Diana Alt [00:31:27]:
You know what I love about those three things? They've always been true, right. They have never not been true. So it's very interesting when I talk to people, they're like, well, the job search is so different. I'm like, the things you can't control about the job search are most of what's different. Not all, but most. So the volume, you know, you can't control, the economy, you can't control, you know, what your competition is or how many people are applying. Especially in this age of like AI application tools that have 10x or more the applicant pools, but you can control. Do you own your own message? Do you know what you're about? Do you know the top few things that make you amazing at that? Do you know what your results were? And then you can talk about it effectively.

Diana Alt [00:32:23]:
And the worse the job market is, the more that the networking side matters and the more that the continuous learning side matters. Something I'm shocked about. Still. Two and a half. I guess it's two and a half years since Chat GPT went like really mainstream when it became publicly available.

Andy Storch [00:32:43]:
I feel like end of 23 is when we all like really kind of found out about it, right?

Diana Alt [00:32:47]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Andy Storch [00:32:49]:
That's about, maybe about a little less.

Diana Alt [00:32:51]:
Than two, I don't know.

Andy Storch [00:32:54]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [00:32:54]:
Couple years.

Andy Storch [00:32:55]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [00:32:56]:
I look at hundreds of resumes a year.

Andy Storch [00:32:58]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [00:33:00]:
No one is mentioning how they're using AI for productivity.

Andy Storch [00:33:03]:
Interesting. Yeah.

Diana Alt [00:33:05]:
And it's not to me, like, I think 10 years from now, if we're not doing that, it's going to be because it's become like being a corporate employee that lists that they know Microsoft Word.

Andy Storch [00:33:14]:
Right. Which people still put on their resumes. Right. Microsoft Word.

Diana Alt [00:33:18]:
If you work with me, I'm going to make you take that off. Unless you're an executive assistant or you're doing the expert level stuff.

Andy Storch [00:33:25]:
Right.

Diana Alt [00:33:25]:
But right now, something that could be Very helpful for people is if they are. They have their expertise from 20 years, they decide to either figure out how can I be more effective with AI and learn in public, or at a minimum write down on their resumes and in their LinkedIn what they are doing that they haven't been bubbling up at least a little bit. Those things will help bring people to the top of the pile. I work with a lot of roles that it's like the. Everybody's becoming either like a lower level builder or like the higher level crazy expert. And the middle is kind of going away. Software engineering is one of them.

Andy Storch [00:34:07]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [00:34:07]:
And this is one of the things that can help them. So that's my little tidbit.

Andy Storch [00:34:11]:
Yeah, I like that. Why not add, you know, just, just spend some time learning about how to craft a really good prompt, which we know is very, very important with when using chat, GPT or any other AI platform and then put it on your resume prompt, AI prompt proficient, or something. Like, I know how to craft a great prompt because I feel like other people are still so intimidated by that. They'll be like, oh, if we bring Diana on the team, she'll show us how to craft great prompts to get one better.

Diana Alt [00:34:38]:
You know what I did this weekend? I built custom gp. I. This was me being lame. I just got in a roll with it though. I built custom GPTs to help my VA team with like show notes and YouTube descriptions and social. First time I'd ever done it. I've never wanted to let them write my social because I'm a control freak.

Andy Storch [00:34:58]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [00:34:58]:
And this is my way to let it go and let it be 80% and that's the type of thing I hear people in my one on one coaching. Oh yeah, I do that. You know. Oh, I use Claude for this or I use whatever. So, yeah, talk about your AI expertise. Guys, I'm going to toss this over to kind of a fake lightning round because it's not really lightning and it's never lightning. It's like I'm actually inspired by Adam Grant's podcast because I love him. He's one of my favorites.

Andy Storch [00:35:26]:
Okay.

Diana Alt [00:35:27]:
But I'm gonna go through a few questions. So number one, what is the worst piece of career advice you've ever received?

Andy Storch [00:35:34]:
Follow your passion. I don't know. You know, for me, I don't know. Have I ever received any bad career advice? I don't remember a lot of the career advice I've received. You know, I received advice and guidance all the time and I feel like you Got to take these things with a grain of salt. But I do, I do address the. Follow your passion a lot because I think that there's a misnomer out there that, like, oh, if you just discover what you really love, then that's going to be your career and you don't even have to worry about anything else because it's all going to fall into place. But, like, what if your passion is.

Andy Storch [00:36:05]:
Is painting and you're not gonna be. You're probably not going to be a professional painter. It's a hobby, or your passion is the environment or something else. Then you need to think more about, like, what are the things you want to learn and that you. You do enjoy doing or you're good at. So I tell people, especially early in their career, if they don't know what their vision is for, where they want to be going to follow their curiosity, like, what are you curious about? What do you want to learn more about?

Diana Alt [00:36:29]:
I love that.

Andy Storch [00:36:30]:
Yeah, follow that AI, you know, thing that we were talking about and like, okay, let me go dive into some of this stuff and learn how to create custom GPTs, and then I can bring. Maybe I can build a career out of that. Who knows?

Diana Alt [00:36:42]:
Yeah. Have you done that?

Andy Storch [00:36:43]:
Have you tried that a little bit? Not that much. I'm. I'm embarrassed to say. I started down that road probably a year ago and I, you know, uploaded my book and I thought, oh, I wonder if I can make a GPT for my book or for my podcast. And I. I just haven't gotten around to it. So I'm very intrigued by what you're doing.

Diana Alt [00:36:58]:
I have one. One of them I can't, like, share because it has, for whatever reason, chat GBT doesn't want to let me share it. But I'll send you a link to the other one so you can play with it.

Andy Storch [00:37:06]:
I was intrigued. I thought you were saying you couldn't share it because it had, like, you know, important, secret secrets.

Diana Alt [00:37:13]:
I'm pretty sure, like, that I've never really heard, like, the reason, but what I suspect it said when I, when it wouldn't let me share it, it says something about copyrighted info. Well, it's basically a GPT to write YouTube description and show notes for the show.

Andy Storch [00:37:28]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [00:37:29]:
And because it says, like, LinkedIn and Twitter and all this stuff, I'm using all these copyrighted names and just catching that. So it's not perfect, but it's faster than what I had. What's a red flag in a job interview that people ignore too Often. And you can either answer as a candidate or as a person on the hiring team or both. Whatever.

Andy Storch [00:37:49]:
Oh, that's interesting. And I would say caveat, like, I. This is your domain of expertise. I. I'm not an expert on job interviews, and I haven't been in a job interview in, I don't know, 15 years. It's been a while. But, you know, when I have, I mean, I've hired a lot of, like, contractors. I don't know if I've done, like, official job interviews, but I do like to obviously talk to people and see if it's going to be a fit.

Andy Storch [00:38:17]:
One thing that just came to mind was that for job interviewers, people that are looking for the job, if you are able to be a little bit sort of selective about where you're working and you're thinking about culture. When I was writing my book, I surveyed my network, asking people what their biggest mistakes they've made in their careers. And one of the biggest, I think it might have been the biggest that came up that I was surprised about, was people saying that I took a job knowing that the culture was a little bit toxic or something was wrong, and I thought that I could just kind of power through it or steer around it or change it. And I was wrong. I couldn't. And I ended up leaving that job in shame or frustration, administration or whatever. And so, you know, I don't know exactly how you figure that out, but I would say, you know, look for the red flags in terms of, like, asking questions about what the culture is like and how they treat employees. Is it inclusive and, you know, all the things that you might care about and don't, I guess, discount if your antenna are going up and thinking like, oh, maybe this is not the right place for me, but I'll just make it work.

Andy Storch [00:39:26]:
And it's probably going to be fine because it probably won't.

Diana Alt [00:39:30]:
Yeah, that's. That Spidey sense is a real thing, and we are trained to ignore it too often. I'll give you a little bit of an answer in case other people ask you this question, because I know you get asked things. So I. The reason that it sucks so much when you take the job where you knew it was a little bit toxic is because culture is values, values and actions. So if you go to a place where you detect that the values are not in alignment with yours, it's automatically going to suck. So what I like to do is have people not ask, what is the culture like here? Because everybody's gonna give you it's great. It's great.

Diana Alt [00:40:11]:
Yeah, whatever. Ask about a value that someone has told you about. It's on the website, the recruiter told you early on. And ask how it shows up day to day. Oh, you say your company has a value around inclusion and belonging. How does that show up? Yeah, because if they ditch dei because that's the cool thing to do, but they're still saying that they valued, you know, belonging on their team. Like, we've got a problem. So what's a personal habit that you wish more people would pick up to make their lives happier?

Andy Storch [00:40:54]:
So many. Um, but the thing that really comes to mind is writing gratitude on a regular basis. I think that you and I both are big on stoic philosophy and focusing on things that are within our control. I read the Daily Stoic every day, and it. You know, those lessons kind of guide me in looking at stressful situations and thinking about, okay, what I can control here. But I've also developed a habit years ago of journaling every day and generally writing things that I'm grateful for. And what I found is that no matter how bad things are, how hard things are, what challenges we're facing, there are always things we can be grateful for. And oftentimes that can help put things into perspective that, like, oh, yeah, this, you know, my boss is kind of being a jerk today, unfortunately.

Andy Storch [00:41:42]:
Or I'm having a hard time with this job search. But I still have my family and my health. I have access to clean water. I have things that other people don't necessarily have. And I think it helps reframe things in our mind, give us more perspective on the situation. And remember that even when things are really hard and they're bad, there's still a lot of things that are great, and I want to build on those. And that helps shift our mindset, I think, and helps us move forward with a little bit more, I don't know, comfort that not all is lost. Not, you know, life is not as terrible as some people like to make it seem.

Diana Alt [00:42:16]:
Yeah, I. I love that, too. I. I used to do the gratitude journaling thing, and then I realized I was starting to, like, it was starting to be a problem because I felt. I felt pressure to do it, and I decided to let go of it and just try to observe day to day, and that actually works better for me.

Andy Storch [00:42:34]:
I think that's really. I mean, the journey, really bringing it to life is what's.

Diana Alt [00:42:38]:
Yeah, but I journaled to get to that point. I don't know that I could have Done it without going, passing through, journaling.

Andy Storch [00:42:44]:
Right.

Diana Alt [00:42:44]:
What is a totally, like, kind of weird skill or what some might consider a useless skill that you're kind of proud of having?

Andy Storch [00:42:53]:
It's a useless skill that I'm kind of proud of. I don't know. I don't know. I can't think of anything.

Diana Alt [00:43:02]:
Are you the guy that thinks all your skills are useful? You're like, I spent all this time learning. I have.

Andy Storch [00:43:07]:
No, I'm the guy that thinks I don't really have any skills. But I just. I just keep doing stuff. I've never, like, you know, won any, you know, talent contests or even entered. I wouldn't even know what to do. I just feel like I don't have that many talents or skills. I. You know, I don't know.

Andy Storch [00:43:27]:
I thought of something.

Diana Alt [00:43:28]:
I think you have. I. I think you have a few skills that you have honed exceptionally well and that can be better, like your WD40 with relationships and connecting people and getting things done. So there you go. Take that. Write down that you're grateful that you're a WD40.

Andy Storch [00:43:47]:
I will tell you one thing that relates to careers is kind of interesting. I have a skill that I used to think was absolutely useless that turned out to be useful. And I hope this is inspiring to people that are, you know, if you think you're maybe in the wrong career today, but you don't know, and you have this thing you're doing. So. For many years, I was working in. I worked in the insurance industry. I worked in consulting. I was the guy who, you know, speaking of me being a connector, I was the guy who organized lunch and happy hour and brought people together.

Andy Storch [00:44:15]:
I was always, like, chatting with people. And I actually thought that. And this was something that I enjoyed doing, but I really couldn't turn it off. And I actually thought that it was something that was a problem for me because I was mostly in jobs that were like, get to work and focus on your output and get work done. And I just couldn't stop chatting with people. And I think it actually held me back in some cases in terms of being able to move up and achieve more in my career. So I thought this was actually a weakness, that I just couldn't stop talking to people. Well, it turns out I was just in the wrong career.

Andy Storch [00:44:46]:
Right. I ended up pivoting. Later. I took more ownership of my career and I built this career in business where I'm, you know, speaking on stages, facilitating workshops, connecting people. I run a community and a conference connecting People bringing people together. And now it's a lucrative career in business that I built around a strength that I have that originally I thought was this is actually a problem for me because I can't just sit down and focus because I just, I just don't want to talk to people and have a good time.

Diana Alt [00:45:14]:
Yeah, I experienced something similar related to the fact that I. So I am kind of a contrarian by nature. Like I'm a nice contrarian. I'm not like a jackass contrarian. Right. Especially if in a good. I'm in a good spot. But corporate America doesn't always value that, especially out of women.

Diana Alt [00:45:33]:
And so I spent a lot of time feeling terrible in corporate jobs, especially when I had bosses that wanted me to shut up in color. But as I got out of it, that is actually one of the things that makes me an exceptional coach is because I'm constantly poking at things from a different angle. Okay, this is the real deal. Adam Grant, Stolen question. What is something that you have changed your mind about recently?

Andy Storch [00:45:58]:
Oh, something I've changed my mind about recently?

Diana Alt [00:46:03]:
Surely you've changed your mind some since you moved to Spain.

Andy Storch [00:46:07]:
Yeah, I mean, I like to think that I am open minded. Changing my mind maybe. I haven't changed my mind about anything. Well, you mentioned moving to Spain. This is kind of a silly one, but I do think, you know, one thing people notice when they come to Spain and some other European markets, but definitely Spain, is that it's a much slower culture. People really take their time with meals. They sit down. It's rare you have a lunch or dinner out with people that doesn't last two hours.

Andy Storch [00:46:39]:
And I think that me being an American, I was just like very focused on efficiency a lot. And sometimes I might think about that and be like, oh, that's way too long to be sitting down with people. But now I really, really enjoy it. Just sitting down for a nice long meal and just having conversations and like no pressure to get up and go places. Not like I'm doing it every day, you know, I work most days through lunch, etc. But. And it's not France where I've heard technically it's illegal not to take a lunch break. But in Spain people do take long breaks in the middle of the day.

Andy Storch [00:47:14]:
They take lunches. In fact, most stores close in the middle of the day for a couple hours and which can be annoying. That's when you decide to go somewhere.

Diana Alt [00:47:21]:
That's when I have a break.

Andy Storch [00:47:22]:
Right. That's when I have a break and I'M going to go out. But yeah, that's something I've kind of shifted my mindset on. I know there's probably many other things and not sure what else right now, but I'm always trying to keep.

Diana Alt [00:47:35]:
I like that answer because I do think one of the ways people burn themselves out is by never taking breaks. They don't understand that. And so the two hour dinner with friends helps you out, then I'm for it. I had tacos on a patio yesterday with a friend of mine and that was exactly what I needed.

Andy Storch [00:47:54]:
Nice.

Diana Alt [00:47:54]:
Because I had been kind of really grinding yesterday. What is a common misperception people have about your work?

Andy Storch [00:48:06]:
I don't know. I don't know what people think about my work. I think that I don't know. You ask a lot of hard questions, Diana. I know that comes to mind is like a lot of times people ask what I do and I tell them that I am a speaker and trainer. I work with big companies and for some reason people always go right to, oh, so you're a coach. Do you work with people one on one? And I'm like, no, I didn't say I was a coach. Not a coach.

Andy Storch [00:48:27]:
I mean, I do, I knew some coaching, but not that much. If people come to me for career coaching, I refer them to Diana altogether. I say, go talk to Diana because I'm not a career coach. I'm a speaker and a trainer. I like being in front of big groups of people and inspiring them, but then they still need to go take action. So that would be one of them. Maybe if I've worked with companies, they see me as a speaker. They may not realize or see that I can come in and do more work with them as a consultant to really help them shift their culture.

Andy Storch [00:49:00]:
But that's on me for not always raising that awareness and having those conversations.

Diana Alt [00:49:05]:
Yeah, well, thanks for that. And then the last one before we talk about what is next in your world is what have you noticed that is different about how people view their careers in Spain versus the US Careers, Career development.

Andy Storch [00:49:23]:
I don't know if I have an answer for that. Because you ask all the hard questions today, Diana. I, I don't, sorry. I'm embarrassed to say I don't talk to a lot of. I hang out with a lot of expats. You know, when you move somewhere.

Diana Alt [00:49:36]:
Yeah.

Andy Storch [00:49:37]:
It's not a quick process to go get ingrained and meet local people. I'm starting to meet a few more here and there. But I do think generally, because it's such a social culture, people take their time for things that it's a little bit more of a work to live, you know, than a live to work in a culture. Comparing back to the US not that people don't in the US don't have a good time or fun or whatever, but you know, if you look statistically and I, you know, I'm a typical American who works hard, but you look statistically like people don't take their time off. Right. Most people don't even take all their vacation time. And in Spain, I think people do the job that they need to do and then they go enjoy time with their family or they take a vacation. They take their vacation time.

Andy Storch [00:50:22]:
They take the whole time off in the summer if they can. So I think it's a, it's a bit of a different mindset, I think all the time and I see examples of it. I don't know if you've ever seen like the, the kind of the meme comparison of the American and the European person taking time off and the Europeans out of office is like, you know, it's summertime. So I'll be out of the office for the next two months with no access to email. So I'll talk to you in September and the Americans, like I'm having major surgery today, but I'll check tomorrow and I'll be back in the office tomorrow. You could take a little bit of time. Not everybody's that way, obviously, but a lot of people are.

Diana Alt [00:51:06]:
Yeah, they sure are. Well, I'm so glad you came on the show. Let's hear a little bit about what is next for you and where people can find you.

Andy Storch [00:51:18]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [00:51:18]:
If they want to learn more about your coaching, your training, et cetera, give us some good.

Andy Storch [00:51:22]:
I mean, everything about me is generally on my website, andystorch.com and if you go to andy storch.com careers there's information about the career work that I do. There are bonus resources you can download, including a summary of the five steps to own your career, my morning routine, and even the five questions to ask anytime you face a big challenge or uncertainty.

Diana Alt [00:51:43]:
That's a good one.

Andy Storch [00:51:45]:
Topics I've been going into lately with companies. Next for me, we mentioned the personal development book with Mike Chem. Own your brand, own your career should be coming out sometime this year, so that'll be a big one for us. And then I'm also working on a book about leadership that planned for 2026 and many more ideas. Many more ideas.

Diana Alt [00:52:06]:
Yeah, I had book ideas I haven't written one yet, but I have three ideas. So you're actually getting them done. I'm impressed. Well, thank you very much, Andy. It has been a pleasure to have you and to basically have a conversation with you when you have brought me into your platform so many times. So have a good evening. Or you're in the evening. I'm in the day.

Andy Storch [00:52:30]:
You're in the day. Thank you, Diana and I've been an honor to be here. I appreciate it.

Diana Alt [00:52:34]:
Thanks. Hey there. Do you ever find yourself wondering, is it finally time to walk away from this job? You might want to go over and check out my free mini video [email protected] it's going to walk you through the four pillars of an aligned career and let you know whether it's time to start making your move. That's isittimetowalk.com and that's it for this episode of Work should feel good. If something made you laugh, think, 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.

Diana Alt [00:53:20]:
Work should feel good. Let's make that your reality.