Think Tank Career Coach

Welcome to the Mike Hartman Show. Mike is a performance coach and former Stanley cup champion with the New York Rangers. Topics on this show are focused around stories, mindset and champions. Mike will also go into details about helping you with your pain points and struggles and finding motivational solutions on how to have the mindset of a champion. Now, here's your host, Mike Hartman.

Welcome to another episode. We still are on the topic think tank, which is I love it because we're finding people. We've had people respond to us in Facebook from LinkedIn. And this is a LinkedIn conversation I've had with Ryan MacArthur. Ryan, great to have you here today.

Thanks, Mike. Happy to be here today.

Yeah, I like how we connected. We. I put this out there and then I looked at your background. I said, wow, this is great. Because we, we do a lot of similar things. How you apply your, your coaching business with the sport that you are now we call it. Now, I know you're in England from Virginia, but they call it football where you are, which makes sense in soccer here in the United States. So I'll just let you take over, share a little bit about who you are. We'd love to hear it.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. My name's Ryan McArthur. To the English guys I play football against on the weekends. It's usually dumb Yank, but, you know, we hang in there and roll with the punches. But yeah, Mike, I basically run a career coaching and resume writing business and we also provide interview coaching. That's my business partner, Naomi, who runs that part. But anyway, what we do is just try to help people figure out, okay, what the hell do you want to do with your life? You know, you may be able to relate to this and you got a background as a hockey player, but, you know, some folks get to the end of the career where you just put everything you had into it. Right. You know, for me, I, as a kid, I lived, breathed, eat everything that had to do with soccer. And I know I got to a point in my career where I hit a ceiling with it and it was like, oh, crap, now what? And I know a lot of people, whether they're in the military, whether they've been in a certain role for a long time, and they get to a point where they want to make a change, but they don't know how to do it. So what we help our clients with is figuring out, okay, what do you want to do? What are the things we need to put in place to make that happen? How do we train and prepare for the interview for all the steps and then, you know, get to that end goal of finding that next opportunity.

I love that. So you take, you've taken your background because you played at a pretty high level. You played soccer at college. You played college soccer, correct?

Yeah. Played Division 1 at Virginia Commonwealth University. We used to be in the Colonial Athletic association back then. Now they're in the A10. And then I played. What's it called? It's the, it's basically, it's like fourth division in the US So it's PDL and npsl. But I guess what, I don't know if you want to call it the crowning achievement. I was fortunate enough to get to go over to Europe and play in Gibraltar and we were able to win the league, gain promotion, and we actually got pretty close to European football as well. We were three games away from making it into the Europa League, which would have just been an amazing experience. And we didn't. We ended up getting smashed, I think 9, 10, nothing in a quarterfinal match, which was probably the worst I've ever been beaten in my life. But just to get that far along was an amazing experience and very grateful for it.

Yeah. Well, you're an elite athlete, so what you've done is what I've learned over the years, like to take the little bit of a backpedal a little bit. A lot of athletes do have identity crisis when they're done. Like what do, what do you do when you're done? So that's why we need to have the mindset. We talk a lot about mindset. That word's thrown around so much. But you take the athletic mindset in your career coach and you do you intertwine those together?

Yeah, 100%. So, you know, on my personal day to day basis, right. I mean, I'm competitive. I want to win everything I do. Right. So with my clients, that win is seeing them find that job that they've been looking for forever or getting over that hump of landing that first interview or, you know, again, getting in with a company that they've just been dreaming about. Right. So for me that's, that's where I get that competitive, I guess, buzz from, from my, my background in sports and then, you know, from that aspect of taking sports, combining that with how we work with our clients. You know, it's very similar. Right. There's the preparation side of it, where we're practicing that interview, we're training those mechanics. Right. We're doing, you know, our game study in terms of researching companies, knowing what to Talk about knowing how to, you know, target that resume for a specific role and getting into that mindset of, you know, finding a job is a grind. Right. And it's. It's incredibly difficult, especially now in, you know, the pandemic era where the job markets flooded to an extent, and there's a lot of other people who have either lost their jobs or are looking for new roles because they've kind of had this, you know, moment where they've been stuck inside for a year, and it's like, am I really happy with what I'm doing? And when it's no, then it's okay, then we've got to fix that. So it's about getting into that mindset of, okay, this is going to be a grind. This is going to be an everyday thing, but we're here for you, we believe in you. And, you know, trying to be that coach who can not only inspire and prepare, but, you know, sometimes people need a kick in the. Kick in the behind. Right. To get things doing, you know, to make things happen. So that's. That's kind of the approach we take.

I like that. I like that. That you can combine it together. Because it's like, as an athlete, sometimes when you try out for a team, you have only one chance to make an impression. So, yes, when with your resume and doing, being a career coach, you're really setting people up to. To make it for that one chance. And that's what people have to realize, especially today. It's so competitive out there in corporate America.

Yes.

I know firsthand from. From many people that I talk to, from people at the major banks to even small businesses, that it's competitive. So you have one chance to make yourself look great. And the cool thing is you've been at that level where you know what it takes to be an elite athlete. You know how to prepare. And you. And you. It's the same thing with sports. You have to be on your game.

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Mike, you know, to your point, with first impressions, you know, whether it's that resume, right. Or whether it's having that LinkedIn profile squared away, I mean, it shouldn't matter. But having a professional headshot done for a LinkedIn profile can boost your attention by something like 25 to 45%. Again, things like that shouldn't matter, but it does, right? So we've got to prepare for all those different angles. You know, I've been in this line of work for about six, seven years now, and I can tell you, you know, having built up A network of recruiters, headhunters, and hiring managers. Little details matter, right? You know, they may not be the thing that's going to get you over the hump, but they're the pebbles that make the mountain. So whether that's just, you know, having a nice, clean document, that's professional, Right. Knowing what your value proposition is as a potential employee. Right. Being able to communicate your thoughts and ideas succinctly and in an interesting way. All those little bits lead up to, you know, I guess what we, you know, call it the win. Right. Getting. Getting the job offer.

You know, what you.

We're.

I mean, we don't know each other.

We.

We met, obviously, I looked you up. That's the, you know, before we do look to see who we're. Who we're talking to and working with. So.

Sure.

But, you know, it's not scripted. And. But one thing you said, the magic word, because as an athlete, I. People would say, well, what does it take to be a big league athlete? I said, believe it or not, there's a lot of guys in the minors that were a lot better than guys in the big leagues, but they knew how to do the little things in details, right?

Yes.

Like, you take a guy like Derek Jeter, I'm a big baseball fan, he practiced and practiced and practiced and made sure that he did all the little details so he can get the edge. And my understanding is that's what you're providing, being a career coach and helping people with the whole package. I love this. I love this conversation act. This is. This is awesome.

Yeah, absolutely, Mike. I mean, I talk about this stuff all day. And, you know, I'm not a baseball guy personally, but I can tell you when I look at somebody like Jeter, right, I respect him as a professional. Right. He's a master of his craft in terms of just that technical ability. Right. You know, I was. I dabbled in mixed martial arts. I had a couple amateur fights and being able to study under professional fighters and watching how, you know, they would practice that jab in the mirror a thousand times just to get it picture perfect with their footwork and blah, blah, blah. And, you know, and I had that same kind of correlation with soccer. But what I try to do is take all of those aspects, right, of, you know, being a professional, right. And what that means in all aspects, not just being able to kick a ball or throw a baseball, but, you know, how are you eating, how are you sleeping the night before? What's your mindset going in before the match? And you know, being.

Love it.

Being in that environment as an athlete has really helped prepare me to prepare my clients because I, like we've talked about, man, I try to put him in that same, you know, that same boat. And, you know, you don't want to psych anybody out. Right. And even though, you know, there's. You're only going to get that one chance at a first, you know, impression. What I try to communicate as well is that, you know, this isn't going to be the only one. Right. If we lose, we take the L and we don't get the job interview, there's going to be more. Right. I believe enough in what I do and how I prepare my people that that's going to be the case. Um, but, you know, we do want to make sure that we go into it prepared and confident and just, you know, ready to do anything.

I definitely, I definitely needed you. And I know I talk to many, many athletes sometimes every day. Some of my closest friends are my teammates, and we're stuck. We're stuck. And then some coaches, you know, some, you know, the coaches are great. But that foundation is important, like you said about having a profile picture that's professional, because that's a good first impression and you have to get the edge any way you can.

Yes.

And that's what I love about what you're doing. And you said something too. Like, I, I did leadership training for a long time and I would work with people within banks and real estate companies, but I would say the first thing I want you to do is take care of yourself, self care, manage yourself. They said, what does that have anything to do with real estate? I said, who's going to buy from somebody who looks tired, exhausted? So I want you to exercise, I want you to find a dietician. I want you to be on a good plan. That's what we do. But I'm really here not so much to promote you, but I'm learning a lot from what you're doing. Is there any. Do you have a website where people can get in touch with you?

Yeah, absolutely, Mike. We've got a website. It's canary-careers.com. you can follow us on Instagram @canarycareers. Know I'm very active on, on LinkedIn. You know, that's how obviously we were able to connect and start a conversation. And, you know, one thing I tell everybody, Mike, is that, you know, advice is always free. I don't charge if somebody's got a question about, hey, how would you do this? Or, hey, I want to try to connect with this company. How would you approach that? Listen, man, I'm. I'm all about trying to help people as best I can. And so, you know, folks can find me on. On LinkedIn. It's Ryan MacArthur. Yeah, that's pretty much it.

Well, people know that I don't promote businesses that much, but I think there's a need for this. We do have a lot of coaches that. Come on. I've been in this business for. For many years. Spell your website out just for. For our people.

Sure. So canary dash careers. That's C A N A R Y-C-A-R E E R S dot com.

Ryan, great having you here today. It's been. You really gave a wealth of information. I'm not just saying that. Sometimes I won't say anything if someone, you know, some. Everybody bring. Everybody's unique in their own way and they bring different things to the table.

Sure.

Like a hockey team, like a sport team. You have different roles and this was great. So if anybody wants to get in touch with us, go to Hartman Academy. And you could go under the contact us area. We are also doing something for mental health, so if you buy one of our courses or a magazine, we donate 10% to mental health America. So please reach out and plus, if you want to get in touch with Ryan, and please do. Ryan MacArthur, great having you. Thank you.

Thanks, Mike all pleasure's all mine.

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