Escaping the Corporate Grind: How Kolby Goodman Helps You Take Back Control of Your Career

Welcome back to another episode of the Ally from Corporate Podcast. Today we are with a very awesome rock star named Colby Goodman, and he is a career coach who has helped over 4,000 professionals take their careers to the next level. You know, we're all about that here. And get this. He did it all after leaving his corporate IT management life behind, similar to me. I want to hear more about that. Colby has built an amazing business that helps people find their passion and thrive in their careers, and he's gotten the results to prove it. He's delivered over 200 keynotes and workshops. He's been featured in the Huffington Post, Yahoo News, CBS News, Business Insider. The list goes on and on. Oh, and just for fun, Colby's also a professional improv comedian. So, you know, we're in for a great conversation. So if you're looking for some inspiration, practical advice, maybe a few laughs along the way, you are in the right place. Colby, welcome to the Ally From Corporate Podcast.

Allie. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me on. It's a huge honor.

Awesome. So I'm so curious why you became a career coach and a job search expert. I love to ask this question to all these career coaches that I interview, because there's often a theme. And so tell me a little bit about why you chose to leave corporate and make this transition for yourself.

Yeah, so I. I toddled myself as a recovering IT professional. So I started off in the help desk, moved my way up in my career, got better roles, got better gig, got paid more, and towards the end of my tenure in it realized that I was working with people I didn't really like on projects I was not in making people I never met a bunch of money. And I said, this is not the value I want to put into the world. I don't know what that value is yet, but let's start figuring that out. And for me, it was a realization in talking to my peers, talking to my friends and family, that my superpower was the ability to empathize and the ability to communicate. And if you guys have ever had to call the help desk at your corporate role and ask for a password reset to complain about a slow computer. Empathy and connection are not exactly running rampant in a lot of corporate IT departments around the world. And so that's when I started, was helping those that were around me who had seen me elevate my career, get more opportunities, get paid more to say, colby, how do you do that? And it was. This realization was like, oh, what I'm really good at What I have this intrinsic gift of is not universal. And so through some education and some self reflection, honed in some strategies on how to help others advocate for themselves better in their own careers and their own lives. Go out there and get aligned with the right leadership and the right companies to make the impact that they want and present a value proposition so that they get paid not simply on what they're capable of, but what is the actual value and attack that they bring so that there's more connection, there's more engagement and there's more joy in their careers.

I love that. Everybody could use that. Everybody can use empathy, everybody could use a mindset of what value can I bring? So can you give us a couple examples of value that people can bring to a company? And this could be for any industry, any job title you pick.

Yeah. So I put value and impact in kind of two buckets. There's the tangible bucket, which is how are you going to help a company make money? How are you going to help companies save money? How are you going to help a company save time? How are you going to help them reduce risk? Right. Those are the tangible. Right. And those are things that should be measured that you should be taking stock of on a regular basis. You should be asking your boss, how can you do more of? Those are really important because you don't. In a capital society, you need to be able to prove a return on investment in the bottom line. The other part of it, which I think is widely ignored across all industries, is what is your human? How are you making people feel right? Are you helping them feel comfortable? Are you helping them feel that they can trust you? Are you helping them feel a sense of relief? Wowing back to my kind of my consumer behavior classes in college. It was like, well, we all, we all buy something. We all make decisions in a society to help us solve a problem. From something as small as a pack of gum to as big as the homes that we rent and buy, it solves a problem for us. But as we go out there and we communicate about ourselves and we allocate to other people who can make these really life changing decisions for us. We don't speak to how we can impact them, we don't talk about how we can make their lives easier. And so what I kind of, what I coach my clients on is this ability to get really clear about what is that business roi. And also what is the human ROI that you can bring so that yes, you are a obvious business decision, you're going to have a positive return on moving those needles in those right directions. But you never be an obvious human decision because you make people feel good while you change.

Yeah. And I've been a part of a lot of leadership conversations and almost every decision at a good, solid company you pair with the question, is this gonna align with our business needs? And that's for hiring as well. So. You're so right. And I. I'm glad that you're a guest on this episode today because I wish more people knew that because I see so many resumes that their bullet points just say what they did at their job, not the impact that they had and the value they brought. And it's harder to answer the question, would hiring this person help us achieve our business goals? Because you can't really see the value they're going to bring. So. Absolutely.

And you can't. In the day and age of the easy apply and the one to comply and the ATS system, you can no longer thread to be professional, amateur, or you cannot be average. Right. Like, you can't simply just check the box. And so it's your job to go out there and showcase how you can make an impact, how your expertise allows you to make a difference. But then also what that allows you to do is to go out there and problem solve, to engage in challenges and puzzles that you, as a professional and as a human find interesting. Versus all you do is talk about what you can do. You're signing up to be a professional order taker or a professional robot. And that's where disconnect and burnout and hopelessness come in to people's lives because they just feel like they're a cog in the machine because they haven't put themselves to be anything corporate hopelessness.

Can we go deeper into that? I talk to a lot of people that message me and it comes in different forms. I'm stressed, I'm burnt out. I'm in a toxic environment. I hate my boss, I hate my job. And there's a couple questions that I ask each person. But it comes down to the root of I'm not doing what I like doing. I doing it for the money. And if you don't get raises often and get a lot of stock that's going like this, it's not worth the money. Heart attacks are not worth the money. Like, I'm serious.

Yeah.

Tell me more about corporate. What did you call it?

Helplessness. You feel helpless and hopeless in your career. And because what I find this a lot is a lot of my clients are kind of in their late 20s or early 30s and they're having this quarter life basis. They graduated and I, and I mean I can diagnose for life crisis because I have. Right. Like I, I know what it's like to wake up in your late 20s and think. The thought is this, it is this everything that I hope for, worked for.

Yeah.

And I think we feel like our careers are more rocked than strategy. I think there's a combination of both. But I think we skew into the lucky side versus the strategic side. But ultimately we, we are challenged enough or they're not challenged in the right ways. And coincidentally, women leaders from great companies will pay you more if you solve the right challenges. So it's your job to switch your mindset from I'm looking for a new job, I'm looking for a new opportunity to what problems can and do I want to solve and who's adding those problems where I can help them out as much as possible.

Wow. And that's a simple mindset switch that probably takes a little bit of practice to get used to. But once you start being a professional from that angle, I bet you see people get opportunities coming to them quicker. They get jobs faster because they're low risk hires. When they can convince a recruiter and a hiring manager, hiring me will help you achieve your business goals, then it's a no brainer.

Yeah, you become, it's a no brainer. Right. You become the obvious choice because you understand, okay, how you're, how you're solving the business of things. But then also you know that you're, by setting those problems, you've been also solved the problems of the individual humans that you're talking. And by making that shift, you then are able to take control of your career because people are always going to have thoughts, people are always going to be suffering and have frustrations. And so if you can ride in on a proverbial, you know, white horse and be their savior, you're be able to dictate where you want to go, when you want to do it, how much you want to get paid. And it's that mindset, it's that very simple but not easy saying I want to do this job into I want to solve this problem that can help you feel hopeless in your career to taking full and complete.

For somebody listening right now who is maybe thinking I want that to be me, but I don't know what I'm good at or I don't know what I love doing. I don't have purpose in life. Is there an Exercise, you lead them through or is there a way that you help your clients figure out their purpose?

Yeah, my first thing I tell my clients, and I would tell your listeners, is you don't lack strengths, you're just not aware of them. So you're not hopeless, you're not helpless, you're not useless, you just don't know. And what I call this is kind of the plight of the expert. The things that we're really good at, the things that we've either been born with intrinsically, that we've built up an expertise at, they're easy for us to do, they're automatic for us to complete and they're thoughtless for us to action on. It's automatic. And so because we, because the thought of the action doesn't have weight for us, we think it doesn't have a weight for everybody else. So it's your job then to go get perspective. And I challenge my clients to go out to the people around them, both superiors, peers, subordinates, customers, clients, even people in their personal lives and ask them this one very, very question, which is how have I been able to help you?

And I imagine sometimes people say I don't know you.

Well, it's, it's one you that is the fear.

That's my fear.

Yeah. But I can tell you in doing this for every decade, Ali, that is never my, I've never had a client say to me, I asked three people and they all were dumbfounded about what to answer. Everybody has an answer.

Okay.

Because of the pre structure the question, right? How have I been able to help you? Yeah. You leave it open ended enough where you allow the listener to take it where they want. And the way to help is very subjective so it can. Everything is as direct as a. You really good at Excel and you teach me all these awesome things about the formulas and the vlogs of pivot tables, right. Or you know what, you listen to me so intently and you reflect about what I'm feeling and you help me break it down to these really manageable ideas box. Basically things for you, no matter how technical and how applicable or how you know, emotional and how people oriented, you may think, well of course, duh, who wouldn't do it? Or I didn't know that was a special, I didn't know that was a superpower is it for you, it's just you. And so it's your job to go out there and gather that perspective, get that feedback. And I totally understand, appreciate that fear of the potential of getting nothing back. But I. My perspective is people want to heap praise on you. People want to know, want you to know the impact you have on them. It's just awkward to have that conversation. And so if you start out and say, hey, how have I been able to help? And you can preface it, hey, I'm doing a self audit. Hey, like I'm just being, I'm looking to become more self aware. Hey, like I want to see how I can double down on my efforts with you. You can ask that question and then to make it not so me oriented, which is all, you know, that spotlight effect that we all hate, say, great, you know, how do we do? Write that all down. They appreciate this, I'll do this more. How else can I help you? Moving. Oh, and then take the feedback in the more in the negative way. And I think that then breeds trust and connection. Definitely makes people more aware. And then when you know how you're helping somebody else and if it becomes, if what you're doing for them is effortless, imagine if you just put a modicum of like 1% effort in that strength and helping that person, how much more exponentially you'd have an impact.

Wow. I bet this is a way to improve relationships all across the board and people will probably inspire their people in their communities to go out and ask other people this question too. And sometimes I think we're probably blind to how others see us in a good way and maybe a bad way also.

Yeah, I think, and that's the thing is we're so fearful of hearing that negative stuff or feeling like we're useless that we don't try to seek feedback in the positive. And it's not this. And to make it clear, this question in this exercise is as far from an ego play as possible. It is always about the other. And really that's what problem solving is about. It has to be about the other person. And so by going out and doing this, you're starting to build a tapestry of, oh, this is what I'm good at. I thought I was average. I thought I was everybody else. I thought this strength wasn't special enough to talk about. And in, in the long run, you're totally wrong. And you're doing all of us, the universe, a destroy us and not understanding, owning and actioning on your strengths.

I love that. I have a game I want to play with you right now for it. So Alex, so I thought it was interesting that my first thought, my first reaction was what if something, somebody doesn't have anything negative to say? So let's go through a quick exercise where I'm going to be the negative inner monologue that has ego. After asking a friend, what value do I bring to your life? I'm going to be the negative, like, maybe what not to think. And then afterwards, I want you to be give an example of a positive inner thought after that, like, of how. Oh, like I gave. You know. Okay. So here's how it would look like, in my opinion, to have an ego and answer this question. So I ask my friend, hey, how do I add value to your life? How have I helped you? And if they say, well, you're actually really good at making spreadsheets, and you taught me how to use Excel in a way that I had no idea. So a negative inner monologue with ego might sound like this. Oh, I'm good at Excel. And my teacher in college said that I would never be good at Excel. I'm probably better than that guy at work that always gives me crap about my pivot tables. So screw him. And I knew I was good at Excel. Thank goodness. Okay, so that's an example of what I think would be kind of an egotistical reaction. Now show us what a positive mindset would look like after getting that same feedback.

So I think I would encourage those people who have that is to double down on them. Right? Because yes, it's the Excel thing. Oh, I'm so glad I got the Excel. At least come to me with a question. There's no question too big or too small. I'm here to help. Curious. What is knowing Excel, having that knowledge do for you? Right? What is it? How does it make your life easier? What does it allow you quicker? How many others using this skill? And so by kind of going deeper. Right, because it's your job then ask good questions and to dig deep. Because remember, like, I think you could start off, you know, knowing Excel and being an expert with a spreadsheet is a business, as a business roi. But if you can then tie that to human roi, then you have the cherry on. And so, yeah, I think it's. I tell we're gonna get. And I've worked with some people who building a career on Spike. And I get it. I, you know, being told you can or you. You won't be able or you're. It's impossible is a great way to start. But it. That takes up so much energy and fuel that it becomes life drink. And so I think that's a good start. I think if you can try to focus it on, okay, that person was wrong to how can I make the people that I want to make feel good, feel good?

Good distinction. And what you're describing right now, I have been really working on in my personal life, which is making decisions from a place of love, not fear. And that's kind of what you're talking about, dropping the ego. And I wish more people could adopt this mindset. And I'll be the first to admit it's not easy because sometimes I make decisions based on fear and then I catch myself. And it's not. When you have a career based on spite, it's not a good enough motivator to keep you going through hard times.

It's. You're talking about doing mentality. And I, I have that too. I definitely diagnosed myself as having a pretty persistent scarcity mindset. And it's. It's built into us, those out there who feel like I'm too scared, but I know I'm too scared, but I'm a bad person for feeling scared. You're not like your brain is doing its job. We are survivalist beings right now. We no longer have to worry about the crops failing or the tiger eating us or the crowd, you know, across the valley from attacking. Right. And have the problems anymore, thank goodness. But it brings kind of an event with our society. And so it's something that took me a long time to realize for myself, and now I try to pass on to my clients, is that you're gonna. You're not gonna ever get rid of those feelings of fear and anxiety and that future shipping that we all do, that's just, we're. That's hardwired into us. You can't change your hardware. Well, you can change your software. And so your goal is to practice and not get mad at yourself the next time you have those fears or the emotions or you get nervous for an interview or you get a vague email from your boss about into the talk and you doom spiral into the worst. Your job is to process better. So if you freaked out for 20 minutes today, your job is to get. Ask yourself questions and get in the mindset where next week it's only 15 minutes and then it's 10 minutes and then it's five, and then maybe it gets down to 30 seconds to a minute, but it'll never go away. And that's okay.

And I love what you're saying about this fight or flight response. And I think that's the main reason why people get nervous before interviews. That's the main reason why I get nervous before I Give a talk and it's because we're having this fight or flight response. And if we can be logical enough to convince ourselves internally, I'm not at risk of not surviving this. This is an opportunity to add value and show my worth. I think that has helped me not be so nervous for these things. Like, what value am I bringing instead of like, how are people gonna judge me? Or if I don't ace this interview, I'm not gonna be able to pay my mortgage. Those are coming from a place of fear. But I would love to encourage people to come from a place of love. Like, I'm so excited to talk with this recruiter. I can't wait to tell them how I can be the solution to their problems. And so on that note, I want to transition away from how we can become more self aware so we know how to be problem solvers. Let's think for a second. If somebody was able to master that and they were no longer at the mercy of their career, but they were suddenly in control of it, which is something that you and I have talked about previously, what does that look like? What's like the dream scenario? What does that look like for people?

It gives people the power of choice a lot of times throughout. And I was a victim of this too. And I made these choices myself there. I took a wall because I didn't know when the next opportunity was coming. I felt desperate. I felt pain in the corner. I wanted to escape the, the anxiety and the fear and the unknown about looking for work. And even though the job wasn't ideal and the boss gave me enough red flags in the conversation leading up to it, I wanted to choose a different kind of stress. But when you actualize and when you understand the problems you want to solve, who you want to solve them for, why you like those kind of challenges, you have this ability to go out there and be purposely choosy. You're not going to settle for anything. You're going to always be on the lookout for our next opportunity. You're not going to scramble. You're always going to have a conversation. And because you're seeking discomfort, right, you're seeking positive challenge, the challenges don't feel like challenges like they used to. Yeah, right. This. You talk about positivity and mindset shift. I think a lot of times in our careers we feel like we have a mentality of why this is happening to me. Why is my boss being an a hole? Why did my company go through layoffs? Like, why are they calling you back into the Office. And if we can shift some of that into, why is this happening for me? Why is this trying to teach me something? And so your challenges no longer feel like they're taking you for a ride. Your challenges are now learning opportunities. And I think it brings people, it allows everything to really be an opportunity. And so with that control, no matter what paintball is thrown your way, you can square up and hang out. And that's just something. Your life is not going to go in the plan. It's not going to always be a cakewalk. It's not always going to be predictable. But when things go not according to plan, you know, with the self activation, with the self awareness, and with the ability to communicate with others, you can get yourself out of that pickle way quicker than you could before.

Yeah. And you don't have to feel stuck. So I did an exercise in a mastermind recently that I did with my husband where we list out things that we have to do. This coming week. I have to film a podcast. I have to get back to this person in LinkedIn DMs. I have to send my resume template to my friend. They had us say those things out loud. I have to do this. I have to do this. And then they had us instead. Rephrase it to I get to do these things. I get to film a podcast with my friend Colby. I get to share a resume template with my friend. And then they had us phrase it. I choose to. I'm choosing to do a podcast. We're not at the mercy. Like, yeah, we don't. I don't want to be the mercy of somebody else's decisions. And then the last step was, I'm blessed. I'm blessed to. I am blessed to be able to have a podcast where I have a platform to be able to have friends and guests on. I'm blessed to be able to share this resume template with somebody and help them. So that was like a crazy mindset shift. And so for anybody listening or watching, if you've been feeling like you just are going through life going through the motions, not really making an impact, don't really have a purpose, try this exercise where you look at your week and see what you have to do that week and then say in your mind, I choose to do these things because, in fact, you are choosing to do those things. It's your life.

I think it's so powerful because it's. And it's really easy to get stuck in that. It's really easy to feel like the victim. And sometimes it Will sometimes we need to throw little pity parties for ourselves to kind of get through those emotions. But when it's a perpetual pity party, say that three times fast, it's not good for us anymore. And I think if you can shift that mentality, I mean, having the control is knowing that you have a choice to choose to be in control. That's like, that's when the code in the Matrix, right? Like, I don't have to worry about what the economy looks like. I don't have to worry about if there's a pink slip in my inbox. I don't like, I just, I'm. I'm going with. And I think that knowing that you have that choice, knowing that you have that control of self, no matter what is happening around you, is such a sense of peace and just like, just like loraxing. And it just makes life just so much how it as it is. Like, don't be another contributor.

Yeah. And it's like you develop this mindset where you trust that you'll be okay no matter what. I think I've heard a quote, it goes something like, a bird isn't afraid of a branch breaking beneath it because it trusts its wings. It's the same thing. It's like, yeah, it doesn't matter if we're going to go into recession. It doesn't matter if the housing market crashes, the stock market, because I'm going to be okay. Because I have opportunities coming my way. I get to do these things every day. So that's a super healthy mindset. And I guarantee you, people listening to this right now are really thinking like, I want to be like that because it sounds more. More filled with joy, more positive, less imposter syndrome, less self criticism. So I'm so glad we're talking about this.

And I want to. One more thing here before I move on is. And I said it before, but I want to say it again. It's like. Because the lesson I had to learn in my 20s and 30s is the win isn't getting rid of the feeling. The win is being able to process it better. So like I said, when you sail back into that petty party, it doesn't help you to feel bad for feeding. Right. What helps you say, okay, I caught myself throwing this petty party for me. What do I get to do to get out? And I. And knowing that those feelings are always going to come because I think it's really easy because we feel like we should be better because we're comparing ourselves to others because of social media and all this stuff, right? Like, we have this heightened sense of self. We have a heightened expectation of self. Excuse me. And when we slip from that, we tend to get really hard on ourselves. And so when you slip, when you get. When you default to your hardware, don't get mad at your hardware. Just know that you can utilize your software better.

Great analogy. Really good analogy. Well, I definitely know that we're inspiring a lot of people listening, because I can't tell you how many DMs I get on every social media platform. Exactly what you're saying. I'm not getting jobs. I don't know why recruiters aren't calling me back. I don't know why I'm networking. Nobody's messaging me back. So I would encourage people to. If we're talking about some action items that people can do after listening, I really like that exercise you're talking about. I wrote this down. So ask friends, family, coworkers, mentors, bosses, how have I been able to help you? And help them be creative. If they're like, what do you mean? Give them some context. Tell them you heard about this episode. Send it to them. Send them the link. But, yeah, you might be surprised at what value you have brought to people. And you might be different than you think.

Absolutely. Because of things that you're doing that have such a big impact on people, you are probably doing un. Or subconsciously. It's like breathing or walking to you. And so you're like, oh, I didn't. I had no idea. When I do this thing for you, it means some. Like, I thought. I thought it was just X or I thought I was just doing Y. And I think that's something we hit on before, too, in our previous conversations. Here, Ali is another action item you can take. I would encourage audience to take is to stop using the word just in conversation.

Tell us about that.

Every time we use the word just when we talk about our value, our worth and our worth, we are automatically doing two things against ourselves. We are denouncing it. We are limiting its value to ourselves because we're saying that word out loud. And the people that you're communicating with are signaled to say, well, this doesn't mean much, so you don't have to take it as seriously. I just saved that account from going to our competitor, or I just helped my coworker, you know, print and collate that report. I'm sort of with just. It diminishes everything you do. So experiment taking ownership. Experiment standing on your saying, I did this thing. It's going to feel uncomfortable at first because we're just, we'll all been Brad at saying that your work should speak for itself, but if you can speak for it as well, the world is going to be full of opportunities for you, 100%.

And if you ever feel friction or hesitation because something is awkward like what you're talking about, removing the word just from your vocabulary, I encourage anybody watching or listening to lean into that uncomfortable feeling because that's where the growth happens. That's where the mindset shifts start to take place because that's you starting to practice a new habit that is only going to bring good things to your life. What a cool. What a cool mindset shift. Okay, so we're telling people, ask your people in your network, how have I been been able to help you? And remove the word just from your vocabulary and take ownership of the value that you bring because you're amazing.

Yes, absolutely.

Oh, this has been such a cool conversation. I know we've inspired people. So tell me, Colby, how can people get a hold of you and are you taking on clients? I know people are going to ask me.

Yeah. With Ben, if your audience definitely need some help, some one on nine support in advocate advocating for themselves in the resumes, coming to LinkedIn profile they need are telling better stories, adding more ownership, connecting better in their interviews. Do they feel like they're a victim of their career to you or the captain of it? Feel free to reach out. My company is the child hunter. T h e j o b h u dash n dash t r dot com or reach out to me on LinkedIn. I'm the only Colby Goodman out there. K dash o l b y Goodman. Let me know that you heard me here on Ali's podcast and we can have a conversation to see how I.

Can help and an extra challenge for people watching and listening. If you're going to try this, asking people in your network, how have I added value to your life? How have I helped you send one of us a dm saying the feedback you got. I would love to hear this. I recently did this exercise actually, and it wasn't about work, but some of the things that people said about me was that I was creative. I have it, like written down here. I was creative. I'm an idea maker. I'm curious. But when I did this exercise, I was shocked because it wasn't the things that I thought people were gonna say about me. So this is a really cool exercise. I'm glad we talked about this. Thank you so much for your time. I'm so grateful that we were able to do this today.

Me, I'm so grateful we got to do this, that we were blessed to do this today, Ally.

That we chose to do this.

And I'll get to this again real soon.

Awesome. Well, thank you, Colby. Thanks, everybody, for listening. Until next time.