Change Your Career Without Leaving Your Job: Podcast Episode with Darcy Eikenberg

What's up, everybody? Welcome back to another episode of the Ally from Corporate podcast. This episode's going to be a little different because instead of talking about how to leave your job, we're going to talk with a very awesome, beautiful, wonderful guest today named Darcy Eichenberg about how to change your career and move up in the world without having to leave your job. So, Darcy, welcome. We are so excited to have you.

Oh, thank you so much for inviting me. I'm excited to be here today and talk about some different options that people may not realize they have.

Yes. And you and I are filming this at a very interesting time of year right now. It is mid November, and a lot of people think that it's not the best time to job search. So I'm extra excited to have you on today so we can talk about how to fix things and stay in your role and not just fix things, but improve and excel and flourish. So before we talk about all that, tell me a little bit about what made you. You want to become an executive coach. And I know you're also an author and a speaker and a leader, but let's focus on the coach part.

What.

What made you decide to get into that?

So I got into what I'm doing like many of us do in our career paths, totally randomly. I had been successful corporate leader. I, you know, every three years, I had a new opportunity. I worked for a great company, worked with great people, did great projects, kept improvements and promotions and change. And then one day, my boss announced that she was going to retire, and I realized I didn't want that job. Then in a flash, it was like, what happens if I don't want that job? Then what do I want? And that really led me to hiring my first professional coach. And this was at a time when people weren't hearing a lot about coaching, Right. Coaching was, in this world of, you've got a problem, you need to be coached. Right? So for me, I had to seek out somebody who could help me process through what was next for me. And that helped me discover what was emerging at the time in the world of professional coaching. And I realized I wasn't looking to start a coaching business. I wasn't looking to go out on my own. It actually led me to realize I could start a new business inside my existing business by getting really clear about what my strengths were, what my gifts and contributions were, and what the pain was inside my existing company that I had the credibility to be able to raise my hand and say, hey, wait a minute, I could help with this thing that we need. Would we be willing to do that? And so for me, that turned out to be an internal coaching program. I had been seeing what other people were doing and how this action we call coaching was really helpful to help keep engaging and energizing and helping people communicate better together, which was important in my world and in many companies. And after doing that for a while, I realized, wait a minute, I could do this for other people too, and went out on my own. So that's been now about 15 years ago and over time that's led to more speaking, broader projects, working with a higher level of person and executive team, executive level folks, but also then writing books that are accessible to everybody in the professional space.

Awesome. So you're bringing up an interesting point that sometimes in our careers a position is being unlocked above us, but we don't want it. And I feel like sometimes, at least in my 10 year career, the only answer is up, the only next logical step is up. So I really like that you're shining a light on the fact that we don't always need to go up because sometimes we don't want more responsibility or less work, life balance or more stress. So thank you for being transparent about that. But the answer's not always up.

Yeah, well, and there's two ways that I think about that. Because sometimes the answer is up, but it's not up in the way that the person who had it before made it look. So I've had a client who was on the path to be the next senior vice president of her department, but the person who was there before worked like a maniac, had no children, family, and made the work her life, which she's perfectly entitled to do. My client, though, had three kids, had a mother that she traveled to to take care of from time to time. The way she would do that job wasn't going to match what had been done before. But instead of just saying no outright, we actually coached her through having some different conversations with the stakeholders around that job and saying, this job, I could make the contribution that we need in this job and here's my boundaries, here's how it needs to look for me. And they were so excited that she would be willing to take that because it saved them recruiting time. She knew the problems, she knew the people. It's just she had to speak up for herself to say, I'm not doing it the way it's been done. Here's what it's going to look like and here's what success is going to look like for me in that role, so you can move up without taking on more. You just have to be clear about who you are and what you want in the situation.

Yeah. And that's one of the reasons why I am so excited that you agreed to come on for an episode here. Because essentially what you're talking about is this client of yours, this woman changed what she could control. And that's really what I want to talk to you about today, specifically controlling what you think, say and do. So I know that you talk about this a lot. Can you give us a brief overview of what this means? Changing what you can control and maybe changing what, not changing what you can't control.

Most of the frustration that we have in our life at work, and let's be honest, probably in our life too, comes from trying to control things that we just don't control. Why won't they do it this way? Or didn't they think about that? But the truth is we only control three things. We control what we say, what we do and what we think, and that's it. But it's enough so we can pull one of those levers when something is just butting against us, when we're frustrated with something, instead of saying, oh, I hope that she's going to change, like, no, I only have control over three things. What can I change? And then that gives you control to make a choice. You know, the fascinating thing, too is that things like saying something or deciding not to say something or things like changing a thought, we can actually change our emotional state and our reaction to things in an instant if we change a thought.

That is very powerful and it's a lot easier said than done.

But that's true.

I'm glad that you're bringing this up in this episode because I can guarantee that some of the mid to senior professionals who are listening to this right now, who maybe want to move up in their role, have a. What I would call a victim mentality. And they're thinking, well, you know, my boss has put a ceiling above me and. Or maybe they put me on a pip, a performance improvement program, and that's just not fair. And life's not fair. So instead of having the victim mentality, they could change what they think and say, wow, I've been given an opportunity here, or change what they do. Maybe they could leave or change something within themselves and grow. So can you give me an example of somebody changing what they can control, maybe with what they think, like changing perspectives?

Sure. Yeah. So let's take your person Who? Oh, man, My. My new boss doesn't understand me. I have so much to give here, but I'm not going to get moved forward. Maybe I'm older than they are, they don't respect me. There's a bunch of age bias in our company. So there may be. That may be true. And we get to choose how we think about those circumstances. So it's almost like pulling those things apart, and instead of putting your judgment on them, just looking at them, it's like, oh, isn't that interesting? All the younger people get invited to that meeting. What might that mean? So maybe for you, you can't change your age, but can I change if I'm not invited to that meeting? Have I asked why? Have I said, hey, I just noticed that I'm not at the XYZ meeting when I'm working on XYZ Project. I'm happy to come to that meeting. When's the next one? So instead of making the stories up in our head, and I talk about this in my book, Red Cape Rescue, is we rewrite that story in a way that gives us more power and more control. And also, though irregardless of what other people do, gives us more data. Because so many times we make assumptions and stories based on what we perceive and not what the hard actual data is. So if I have been consistently saying I have something to contribute to that meeting, when is it? And no one's including us in that meeting. It's data. Like, one time is an oversight, twice is check in and see if there's just some weirdness in the email system. You know, three times may start to be data, but we have to make sure that we're not making up stories that are in other people's heads. And I call this assuming positive intent. And I think starting with if you assume positive intent in someone else, as opposed to they're out to get me or I'm always the last one on the list. If you assume positive intent, then you get to have more power and say, well, then what can I do to get more of what I want in this situation?

Yeah, I feel like you're reading my mind right now, because I posted on LinkedIn yesterday, if you're having an issue at work, do two things. Assume positive intent of the other person and ask for more context. So essentially, you're taking the emotion out of it, which is what you're talking about, and thinking of it as data. And that piece that you mentioned about not making up a story in our mind about what somebody else Is thinking or how we're perceived by others is so powerful, not just in the professional world, but in our personal lives as well, especially with family. We're getting into the holiday season. You know, there's some, some hot topics that could be talked about at the Thanksgiving dinner table. Assuming positive intent is so important because sometimes at work we can feel like everybody else is evil and they're out to get us, but it's really not true. We've all been hired to work as a team towards a common goal. Like that unites us in itself. So assuming positive intent can often change everything.

So yeah, yeah, it's almost like, you know, going into a situation like let's say that there's somebody who you just, you rub the wrong way. You just, you just have had this friction filled relationship. If you go in with your fists up, you know, if you go in all tense and all like, I'm ready to fight, I'm ready to rumble. We're not good actors, right? We can be smiley, but people feel that energy. But if instead you switch your frustration and replace it with empathy, like, isn't it interesting that they're kind of annoying or that they don't seem very happy or that they're always criticizing that thing, huh? Isn't that interesting? You go in basically like arms open as opposed to fists up. It actually can change the interaction. And that's you assuming positive intent. You assuming they're not trying to hurt you. They're trying to do what all our brains naturally do is our brain is designed to try and protect us. And so understanding that, you know, your defensiveness is trying to protect you, their defensiveness or whatever behavior is trying to protect them. If you can override that primitive brain, that loser brain, and say, you know what, I'm safe here, I'm just going to let them be them. And I'm going to assume positive intent. And let's see how that interaction might change. If I'm not looking at them as enemy or bad. If I'm looking at them as, huh, here's another human being and isn't it interesting? They make different choices than I do. Isn't that interesting?

Yeah. And that's again, taking the emotion out of it. Approaching things from a curiosity standpoint, not from a judgmental or a defensive standpoint, that right there can probably de escalate 90% of conflict at work. And just asking more questions and saying exactly what you're mentioning. Isn't it interesting that dot, dot, dot, instead of, you know, crossing your arms and saying it's not fair that. Dot, dot, dot.

And it doesn't mean being what they call toxically positive. Right. It doesn't mean overlooking things that actually happen, circumstances that actually have a consequence. As a matter of fact, it may mean when you are assuming positive intent, calling out those things more, but it's not calling out them in terms of, Allie, why did you do this thing where made everything happen? It's like it's talking about the thing, you know, itself like, huh, it's unfortunate that this decision led to this outcome. What are we going to do from here? And so, you know, you don't have to. We're not trying to cover up things because there's a lot that is broken in our workplaces. There's a. It's why we have work. Right? Work is just problems to be solved. But when we add more meaning onto it that doesn't exist or we haven't taken that step back to ask ourselves, how am I interpreting this through my lens? That might not be the same that how other people are seeing it, then, you know, we, we can take back more of our own power and take more control.

Yeah, absolutely. And that definitely goes along the lines of changing your career without leaving your job. Because you wouldn't believe the amount of messages I get that you probably get also of, I don't like the people I work with. It's preventing me from moving up and achieving my, my professional goals. I need to leave. But if you adopt the mindset that you and I are talking about right now, it might enable you to change things, your perspective at work and stay. And I know you talk a lot about that. Is that what Red Cape Rescue is about? I want to know more about your book. Can you give us like a high level overview?

Sure. So the book is called Red Cape Rescue, Save youe Career Without Leaving your Job. And it really is about. It's intended to be a guide for those times when you hit a roadblock in your life at work. When like something comes together, it's just been enough. Sometimes it's a roadblock of things that actually happen in work. Sometimes it's a roadblock of things that might happen in your life. You have a family member who's ill and you need more time to spend there. Or it could be your company's going through a merger or you have a new boss. So some kind of catalyst moment. And conventional wisdom is that when those things happen and we throw up our hands in the air and we're like, I just need to leave, they'd say, well, yeah, sure, go find another job. But the truth is that typically not everything is bad in our job. Not everything is broken. And finding another job is not a simple feat. Right? I mean, it's not like throwing a resume out on LinkedIn and then all sorts of options come up, right? This is an exhausting, difficult process. And there's no guarantee that the grass over there is any greener than the grass that you have. So when you hit those roadblocks, what we forget is there's a whole host of options in between deciding to leave and saying what's in my control to make the situation that I have better and to not hand that control over to somebody else. Oh, when my boss retires or when the new budget comes out. But to say if I want something different, if because of my caregiver status now I need more flexibility, or if my boss and I, the new boss and I aren't communicating as well, what can I do differently? When we look at the three things that we can control in the book, within each of those three areas, what you think, what you say and what you do has five different tools and tactics that you can use to actually create change, to use those levers, things that you don't need anybody's permission to do, you don't need anybody to help you do it, you have full control over it yourself. And often what you can do is find that you know, there. Actually I can overcome some of the things that aren't great and I can turn up the volume on some of the things that keep me here. And I always suggest before you just up and leave because what happens, and this happens a lot, especially during some of the so called great resignation, is that people who just got frustrated, said I need more and left are now experiencing the same problems they had back with the jobs that they left. So wherever you go, there you are. We can do the work to change how we approach things that help us in the long run.

Yeah, and I would rather if it, if it's up to me, I would rather not. Job search. Job searching is a pain in the butt. It's exhausting. It can be a full time job if you make it. And it's not a great time of year to be job searching. I recommend having a coach help you if you are job searching because like you mentioned before, it's not as easy as just whispering your resume and the seagulls flock to you with job offers. It's not like that.

Sometimes think that if you haven't been job searching, you Know, actively, recently we get this imagination, like it's Amazon, right? You know, like, oh, I'll just put my resume out there. And there's some master algorithm of the world that's going to shuffle through all the opportunities and serve up the perfect one. It doesn't work like that, folks. Doesn't work like that. And I think the hardest thing when someone is looking for a new opportunity, especially if they've come out of a hard opportunity, for example, a layoff, we're recently seeing, as we do at the end of many years, a lot of layoffs. And so that's. You weren't even planning on a change and you've had a change first on you. The job searching process can be emotionally demeaning. Right. Let alone just the time and the effort, but it can make you feel less than, even though you may be an excellent professional with a lot to offer an organization.

Yep. And I have a friend who works at LinkedIn. They gave me some insider data yesterday. They told me that there are 1 million software engineer job seekers in New York right now. And do you know how many software engineering jobs are open in New York right now for those million job seekers? 5,000.

How many thousand?

5,000. So that kind of illustrates the job market right now. So I'm glad you're on this episode as our guest right now, Darcy, because if you don't have to job search, please don't. And you brought up a good point about the grass isn't always greener. I also get questions from people. How do I know if the problems are going to exist in my next job that I'm leaving that are the reason I'm leaving my current job. So I like what you are teaching us right now, because if you can fix your perspective or your behavior, your own behavior, and fix the problems in your current role, please don't job search if you don't have to.

And so, and it doesn't mean I always want to be clear about this too. It doesn't mean resigning yourself to saying, oh, job search is so hard, so I'll stay stuck, or, oh, I'll just sacrifice because I have to make a living and, you know, I'll just deal with it.

Right.

Because that's not a satisfying life either. Right. It really is valuing yourself enough to say, huh, okay, something's changed here for me. And what are the things I can do about it? Is there something that I'm not saying or something I'm saying that I need to stop saying? You know, is there something that I need to do differently or stop doing, which actually is a chapter in my book about drop some balls. Sometimes I think we're doing too much or overdoing things that maybe are exhausting us and burning us out that we don't need to. And again, then what can I change about how I'm thinking about it, if it's actually the right place for me right now, that it's not the perfect place, but it gives me flexibility because my kids are little or. And I'm, you know, treated fairly, paid fairly. Maybe it's not the be all and end all doesn't have to be the perfect career. Maybe it just plays a particular role in my life and it's good enough. So, you know, I want to encourage folks that this line between I either leave or I suck it up and I and I just suffer, there's a lot we can control in between. And you get to choose. You get to choose the experience that you want to have.

Yeah. Choose your own adventure. Yeah. I like that a lot of people probably are thinking out there, if they don't like their job, their only option is to leave. So I like that you're highlighting the fact that there's a lot more in between there that you can do, that you can control, which does not include other people's thoughts or behaviors, but your own, in fact. So I'm glad that you're pointing this out. So. And I often tell people to, you know, if they're considering leaving because they're unhappy in their role. Ask yourself, what are the three most important things to you? Maybe it's work, life, balance, pay, and a good manager. If you have those three, but your commute's really long, maybe you can get creative and carpool, or take public transportation, or ask to work from home for one or two days a week, but don't leave for a small reason. Leave if it's really bad or there's no growth opportunities. And that's important to you. I could name a bunch of different examples. But can you give us an example of a reason that somebody should leave?

Yeah. So, you know, should is always dangerous. Right. But I think the point you're making, getting clear about who am I at this stage of my life and what's important to me, that's the work that we sometimes skip over and, you know, we don't always recognize, why is it that that person I'm working with is just rubbing me the wrong way? Or why is it that that new policy to return to work is making me angry or what is it about it? Is it actually about returning to an office or is it about something else? Is it about power? Is it about don't tell me what to do? So I think the first thing when we're kind of at those catalyst points is getting clear. And some of that, I think is understanding your values. Because we all have a different set of values and often we think we know how we're operating in our values, but until we articulate them, it's and, and, and if you're midlife, you know, later career, often we're not just stopping and saying, wait a minute, what do I care most about now? And if it's, you know, I care most about having time to, you know, take care of my health, like, great, like, are you choosing that? Like, does your schedule choose that? And are there options in your work to be able to make that happen? Or are we making excuses to not do the things we want to do because it's like it's easier to point to work instead of pointing to our own motivation? So I think that getting clear about what you really want when I start working with clients. And we also have some of this in the book, that's worksheets that are for free. That is setting a long term vision. Where do you want to go? If you were looking back on your life, what are the experiences? What are the things? Who would be around you? Because then that allows us to reverse engineer what might be important today. Because if we're kind of not pointed today to where we want to go later, we're not going to get there.

Yeah, that's a good reminder to reverse engineer where you want to be. Instead of just keeping your head down, working day to day, and then all of a sudden you're 50, 50 years old or 65 years old and you're like, wait, where did my life go?

Right. And often just because this is in our, especially in the US culture, but I think a lot of the developed countries, this is the case that there is such an overemphasis on money. And then, don't get me wrong, money is very important. We need to be able to know we can support ourselves, our families, our goals, our retirement, whatever that is. And often when I find that people are conflicted about whether to take a new job or whether to move on a job they have, they may overweigh money against their values. Now it may be that that is a value of theirs, that generating wealth or taking care of the family financially, there's nothing, nothing wrong with that. Absolutely. You know, if it's right for you, it's right for you. And sometimes people are at a place, especially later in their career, where they may feel like, well, gee, that job pays $10,000 more, so I guess I should take it. It's like, what are the other things that actually have a value to you that maybe isn't a dollar sign, but how do you translate time into a dollar sign? How do you translate energy or opportunity into a dollar sign? So really getting clear for you what's important and kind of blocking out all the noise of everything else that the world kind of tells us is important about work.

Yeah. And I feel like what you're talking about is just the tip of the iceberg. And I want to thank you for coming on today. This has been so informative and just eye opening the things that you're shining a light on because oftentimes we have blind spots and maybe we're in denial or we have sort of a victim mindset of some of these things you're talking about. So if anybody wants to learn more about you or your book or your services, how can they get in touch with you?

Sure. Come over to redcaperevolution.com@redcaperevolution.com Insider. You can join my weekly Insider community where I send out strategies, tips and stories every week. And also you can get the book Red Cape Rescue, Save youe Career Without Leaving youg Job. And you could find all the places where that is available@redcaperescue.com awesome.

Well, thank you, Darcy, everybody. This was Darcy Eichenberg. Thank you so much for joining us. And I'll see you soon. Thanks, everybody.