Ep #152: When Things Get Hard

Welcome to the Get a Six Figure Job You Love and Thrive Podcast. This is episode 152, When Things Get Hard. Stay tuned. Welcome to the Get a Six Figure Job You Love and Thrive Podcast, where I, Natalie Fisher, am teaching you weekly how to land your premium role that you love and thrive in it. Let's go. Hello, my friends. Okay, so I want to give you a quick update on what's been going on with me. So the exciting news is I moved into our new house a couple weeks ago now, and it was very exciting and very meaningful, the fact that we purchased this brand new house. And it's not brand new, it's like 12 years old, but It's brand new to us and it fit all the criteria that we wanted. We had been talking about it for a long time. We knew we were going to buy a house and we discussed, you know, what we each wanted and what was important to each of us. And those were quite different things. So for example, for Andrew, he needed trees around, like He wanted to have a lot of nature and wildlife, and that was really important to him. And for me, I didn't want a really old house that was going to require a lot of maintenance or taking care of, and I wanted it to be newish in design. Like, I wanted it to have like an open concept layout so I can be cooking and also see the TV and also see Lena playing. And so she doesn't have to be like in the same room with me because The room is like a big room. So that was important to me. And so anyway, there was just a bunch of things that we each had. And anyways, we found this house, it came together super perfectly. And the story of kind of bringing it together was that I kind of got into the feelings of it. Like I was in the process of creating something or manifesting something, as people call it. Is like, it starts with the feeling, right? It starts with knowing the end result and how that's gonna feel. That's the most important thing. And this actually happened really fast. So I was actually in a spin class and I was imagining Lena, my daughter, playing in a yard, a garden, green grass, and That she had space and she was running around because we were in a condo before, a 2-bedroom condo, fairly big, but still just 2 bedrooms. And she needs her own room. I need my office. And so it was never the plan to stay there. But anyways, so I was picturing her running around and having her space and laughing and playing. And that really got me connected to my emotions of like what it felt like to have that and to be living in that. And it was a really big vivid picture. So it's kind of like you want to pick something that really connects you to your emotion about what it's going to feel like. And that's going to be different for everyone. But the more you can connect to that emotion, the more that you are going to make the thing happen faster. And it's kind of like trying out what works for you best, right? So for a job, it might be you receiving that offer. And how are you going to feel emotionally when that offer comes in? And what's the number going to be? Is it going to be over $100,000 or whatever that they offer you as a starting salary. So like, that might do it for you. It might not, right? It might be like you shaking hands with an amazing new hiring manager that you feel so excited to work with, right? Or it might be you imagining yourself just working and being so excited to dive into work in the morning. So it might just be a bunch of different things for you. For me, in this case, for the house, it was imagining my daughter playing and imagining her happy and imagining her Having this big space to play. So anyway, I imagined that. I did that, and then I immediately, and then it's kind of like you just go about your day. It's like you see it as done, and you feel it, and then you go about your day. And I just did all the things that needed to be done to get this house, and by the end of the next day, we actually had an accepted offer. Now, I'm not saying that this was like something that wasn't a long time coming because. For a few years financially, we'd been lining it up, right? But here where we live, it's difficult to find a place with all of our criteria because there's not that many places for sale. And when one place does come up, if it's a really desirable place, it can have several offers on it. And sometimes people can want to bid higher than the asking price. And so it can get a little bit complicated. It's not like even if you have the money, you might still not get it. Right. Right? Because you might need more money than you thought, or, you know, most of the places that we actually were gonna go look at were already sold. So it took a lot for it to come together. So it's like the feeling and then seeing it as done, and then you just kind of go about your day as though that's happening. So then these were the steps I took, and I look back at it and I'm like, oh, that was so easy. And it just like happened, like I knew exactly what to do. And I wanna share a story about it because, so I came back from my spin class and I said, I think we're ready to look for houses now. I phoned my mortgage guy. I told him all my numbers. He said, yep, that looks good. Now you just need to get a property. Like, you need to find a property that you want to buy. And then he's like, then we can work with those real numbers and then we can actually get it going. And I was like, okay. So we started looking and then we found one we really liked, but then it was sold. And then we were like, okay, whatever. Next. And then we actually found one that we were really excited about, but when we went to look at it, it wasn't that great. And then we got a call from the realtor saying, hey, you know that one that was sold? That offer actually fell through. Do you want to go see it tomorrow morning? So we said, sure. Not really thinking much of it because apparently it already had another offer on it. So we were like, oh, we'll just go look at it, I guess, but it already has another offer. So whatever. Anyways, we, we went and looked at it and we loved it. And we'd just seen another one that was the same price, but really not very nice at all. Like it had a nice yard, but it was really old and it kind of felt like going into your grandma's house, partially because how it was decorated. But Andrew commented that it felt like you were walking down a mobile home park. Hallway, for the hallway. So he didn't like that. So anyway, same price but just not nearly as nice. And anyway, so they were like, yeah, but the other house already has an offer on it and it's for higher than the asking price. So we were like, oh, okay, well, that doesn't sound like we're gonna get that because we could not bid any higher. Like, these prices are already really high. The house here was $1 million. So then I was like, okay. And then the realtor happened to say something. She's like, the other offer is dependent on another sale. So the people who offered over the asking price, that offer is only good if they can sell their house, which I guess they hadn't yet. So it was contingent upon something. And the people selling the house that we have really wanted to sell quickly. They were motivated because they had another house they wanted to buy and they had to sell. This one. So I thought, hmm, okay. And I just thought to write this letter, just this random idea I got to write this letter to say, hey, we understand that you have another offer on the house and that it's a higher offer than we were able to make. Actually, I wasn't even supposed to say that. I wrote that originally, but then the realtor's like, don't say that because you're not supposed to know that. So I wrote a letter. It was something like saying how we really love their house and we really wanted our daughter to learn how to walk there and how it was beautiful. And then I said, we aren't able to bid any more than asking price, but maybe we could make an arrangement and you— and we could get my dad to build you a new piece of furniture for your new home. 'Cause my dad builds custom furniture. He's pretty well known here in Victoria and he has a really good reputation. So I offered that and I didn't even ask my dad about it. I thought it'll just be the gesture. They probably won't even take it. Right. But I was just making a gesture. I was like, well, sweeten the deal a little bit. My client Colleen says like, it's like a basket of mini muffins on Friends. Like Ross wanted to get the apartment, so he gave the guy a basket of mini muffins. And then it turned out the guy had a whole bunch of other bribes as well that he had been given by other people because they all wanted his apartment. In this case, they just had this other offer that was higher and our offer, which was for asking price. With an additional piece of furniture. Anyways, they, they went for it. And also our offer wasn't contingent upon another sale. So, so they went for it. They said, we are very excited about the furniture. They were trying to figure out like a value or whatever, but I was like, you know what, as long as they're happy with the piece that they get, like, and I was like, there's no way they can get a, they can ask for a piece that costs like $30,000 or something because this piece was going to be Like they were offered like $50,000 above asking price and we just weren't gonna offer that. So I was like, whatever furniture they asked for, if it's like $5,000, that's fine. Right. Anyway, so they accepted it, they went for it and they loved it. And they said, okay, we accept your offer with gratitude. And that's how we got our house. My realtor said you would not have gotten it if you hadn't have offered that furniture. They were really excited about it. And I just thought, I just thought to do it. It was such a random idea. I don't know why. I don't know how it came up. I think it was just intuition coming from that feeling of this is what is happening. And then it just kind of flowed and then it just kind of worked. So anyway, then I called my dad. I told him, I'm like, I'm sorry I didn't actually run this by you before. I was like, obviously I'm going to pay you for the piece of furniture that you make for them. And I hope that's okay. And I said, I didn't promise a timeline because I know my dad's busy, so I couldn't commit to any timeline, but I kind of said, you know, he'll build you a piece of furniture. And he was very happy. He was very flattered. He was happy to help. So that all worked out. Yeah. So that's how it ended up happening. And now we are in our new house. Anyway, so the reason why I titled this podcast When Things Get Hard was because right after we moved into our new house, the second day I broke my ankle. I broke it, 2 bones, tibia and fibula bone. And I just had to have surgery and today is my 2-week checkup. So, so that happened as soon as we moved in, like the second day. I had one day of unpacking and then I broke my ankle. And it was just the silliest thing. There's never a good story for it. It's always just, you end up stepping out on the front step. I was gonna go call my dog because she was out in the front yard. It's a quiet street though. She probably wasn't gonna run off and she never runs off. But anyway, she was out in the front yard and I went to go get her. Oh, that's so sad. And I stepped down and I guess wasn't paying attention to where I was stepping. Wasn't expecting there to be such a big step down, 'cause through the, like out the front door, there's a larger step than I was used to. And yeah, I just went down and I hurt both my legs. I couldn't bear weight on either. And so like, I'm still kind of scooting around on a little scooter thingy, but it's hard to get around anyway. So yeah, that happened. And I was in acceptance right away. I was like, okay, this has happened. We're going to deal with it. And then I was told it'd be 8 weeks to be able to walk and get back to quote unquote normal life and stuff. But I'm noticing how I deal with things when, when they get hard, because this has been challenging for me for some reasons, and then for Andrew for some reasons. And he's been dealing really well. And I really appreciate him, and I'm like, I'm so glad that he's so patient and like mindful and considerate and everything because he knows that I can't do anything, so he's really on top of things. But it's easy to be happy and do well when things are going well, right? But when things get hard, like for example, he got a whole big unexpected workload that he never expected. Right. He has to do everything and I can't do as much, right? We were a really good team before and we will go back to that as soon as I can walk. But he basically has to pick up the slack because I can't really stand or get around very easily. He has to run after our 1-year-old all the time and we're getting support, so it's good. But just noticing how he handles things when things get hard has been Really interesting. And also it reminded me of when I was a hiring manager and I worked with a lot of hiring managers in HR, they would ask the question in interviews, what was your biggest screw-up? Or a question of that form, right? Because they want to know. And I remember them saying to me, they're like, I get the best answers when I ask things like, what was your biggest screw-up? Or what was a really embarrassing moment for you? Or they really want to know that stuff about candidates because they want to They don't really know how candidates behave when things get difficult. They're like, it's easy when things are going great, or like when there's lots of budget, or like when the business is doing awesome, or when nothing's going wrong. But it's like, what happens when a big mistake gets made? What happens when they get a whole bunch of extra work piled on them? What about like, how do they handle things when they get put in difficult situations? And they really wanted to know about that. And they said, that will tell me more about the candidate than any accomplishment hero story that they could tell me. And the reason is because they want to know the experience of working with you, of how you're going to handle things. And I can tell you, I've worked with people where it's not a very nice experience when you work with them and things aren't going well for them. Like when they're stressed out, when they have too much work. Like I've had people yell at me and say, I don't have time for that now. What do you expect of me? Like, what do you think I am? Like, I don't have time to do that. And then just not respond or not look, not— and it's just kind of leaving you like, what? Like, that's your job. You need to prioritize or figure it out or tell me when you're going to be able to do it at least. Right? Like I worked with lots of people where they just don't know how to handle things when things get hard. Right. They just don't know. So they either shut down, They get snappy, they blame other people. They just constantly complain all the time. So in interviews, people want to know, they want to have a clear picture of what that's going to be like for you when something happens and it goes wrong, or you get overloaded with a bunch of work. What, like, how would you handle that? Right? It's important for them to get to know that because that gives them comfort and trust that they can trust you to Keep a level head or to be reasonable, to have open lines of communication when things are not going well. And that's really the indicator of how successful you are going to be when things are going well, right? And things are not always going well, kind of like in life when things could be going super well and then all of a sudden you break your ankle and your life changes for like 2 months. So, It's really, really important. So the way that you handle things better when things are not going well is you train yourself mentally and maybe you do some work, right, on yourself. Like, and some people need more than others. Like, I used to handle things terribly. Several years ago, I would have been much different. So I'm handling it. I would say I'm handling it pretty stellar, honestly. I'm Feeling my feelings. I'm having my emotions about like, sometimes I'm a bit frustrated. Sometimes I don't like that it takes effort to— more effort to do things. But I'm like, this is just it. This is my new normal. This is my circumstance. I'm not going to be able to walk for 8 weeks. I've got, I guess, 6 weeks to go because this is my 2-week checkup today. So I'm like, this is my circumstance. This is my new normal. How can I make this work? And I jumped into that line of thinking. Right away, and then I was aware of myself when I was getting cranky or I was getting frustrated. I knew it, and I owned it, and I was like, "Yeah, I'm frustrated right now. I really hate that I can't walk. I really don't like this. This sucks." And I just let myself have a little bit of a, a little bit of a tantrum, and I said, "I understand," you know, to myself. This sucks. You're doing the best you can, and really, in comparison, it could have been a lot worse. There could have been like really, this is. Not a big deal in the grand scheme of things, but it is a big deal to me because it's a really huge change. So resilience when these things happen and reacting, and how do you react? And how are you? Like, who are you? Like, do you change as a person? Like we maybe have seen on TV? I don't know when someone— I don't know if you've ever watched Breaking Bad, but this comes to mind. The DEA agent, he gets shot and he's a great DEA agent. He's awesome at his job. He's great. He gets shot and then he, he can't walk and he needs a lot of help and he needs to do rehab. Walking is going to take him a long time. It's going to be a long recovery. And he gets so mean. He starts snapping at his wife, asking her, like, she, she goes and does everything for him. And then he gets mad at her because she got Cheetos, not Fritos or something. And he makes her go back to the store and he yells at her and he's so mean. And she tries to encourage him and he, gets even more mad and tells her to get out. And anyway, he could be really great at his job, and then when something challenging happens, he just turns into a real jerk. And I mean, I can understand that, but it's not fun to be in a work environment with someone like that, right? And so when things get hard is really where your character is tested, where things really get tested. And how you come out of it and what you decide that means is up to you, right? So this experience for me so far is teaching me that Andrew and I have a really strong relationship. Our communication is really good. We're both pretty chill. And I'm just like, yeah, I'm just a little more chill now because I can't do stuff. So if he wants to do something a certain way, I can't really stop him or do it myself because I can't get up fast enough, so I guess he's doing it his way. That's fine. And I'm normally pretty chill about it anyway, so it's fine, but just had to raise that chill factor a little bit more. And yeah, so this podcast was a little bit different. I am really excited about what's coming up. We have masterclasses filming that I'm actually delivering live inside the Six Figure Curriculum, and one of them is this week. Well, by the time you listen to this podcast, it will have already been Delivered, so it'll be in the portal when you join, and you can come in and it's on storytelling. So we're going to be diving into storytelling, the ways that I tell stories, and that it gets lots of people to reach out to me on LinkedIn. Lots of people want to work with me just through my stories. So sometimes it doesn't even have anything to do with career, and I'm just good at tying in a lesson from my story. So kind of like I did today, where I told you the story about breaking my ankle, I told you the story about. The creation coming together of the new house that we wanted. These stories kind of get you to know me better. And then when you know me better, you feel like you either resonate with me or you don't, right? So they kind of clear up who wants to keep listening to the podcast and who doesn't. And they also help the right people come in to work with me, right? So they like hear what I have to say about things. They love my approach on Like my take on life, whatever it is that I'm talking about. And I want to help you to do that same thing, right? To be open, to be honest about your experiences, your lessons, and your value that all comes together while you tell a story. And I hope you enjoyed the 2 stories that I told today. And I'm going to be breaking down how I tell my stories, how I get people coming to me because I tell stories, and how you can get hired when you tell stories right. And this is something that I used in getting my 3 competing job offers in 2014 and how I continued to rise up the ranks was telling stories in different situations and about hard things too. Like definitely telling stories about things that were challenging and how I came out of them and how I learned. And that has been huge. It has been huge for all the things that I talk about in my free class. Which I'm going to tell you about because my free class is going to teach you how to land a 6-figure job. So I'm doing a free class coming up. It's called The Art and Science of Landing a 6-Figure Job. And the things that we're going to cover are how to see the opportunities that are in front of you right now and that you're likely missing, how to fully capitalize on the opportunities that you are getting. If you're one of those people who's getting lots of interviews, but no offers yet, Addressing the luck factor in how in landing a six-figure role and my strategy for creating your own luck. So that's something people ask me. They're like, well, like it seems like there's a luck portion of this. Like I can do all these things, but then what about you know the stuff that's not in my control? And I love to address that and talk about that because there's a much better way to approach it than just thinking that you know it's lucky. And actually, there's a study been done on people who could consider themselves lucky and people that don't, and there's very specific thought patterns. For each person. So there's that. It's fascinating. We're gonna be covering how being patient and it takes time are lies and how to adjust that mindset for more productive results. And like, I have to be patient and it takes time, or like that impatience conversation, that is huge. And it's like, it's BS. You don't have to be patient and it doesn't take time. That's, those are thoughts. So I'm gonna adjust how to tell you how to adjust your mindset so that you can have more productive results from that. And then we're going to talk about the 3 highest leverage actions you can take that most people are not focusing on right now. And well, most people who are not successful are not focusing on those actions. The framework that clears up exactly why you haven't landed the 6-figure job offer yet. And if you've taken lots of other career trainings in the past and still not landed your 6-figure offer, I'm showing you why on this class. You will have clarity on that. And you are free to join that class. You just need to go to www. nataliefisher.ca/landasixfigurejob, and you can sign up for that there. There will be different time slots available for you to sign up for that class. So your schedule is not going to be an issue. We will have different times and dates available for you to attend. Yeah. So there's lots of different opportunities for you to learn different things in this class than you've been taught before. I'm kind of condensing everything into this one masterclass that has been the most successful. So I'm always about making things simple, more clear so that they can be implemented faster and my clients can get results faster. And so this class is a demonstration of that. It's basically everything broken down very simply, very clearly, the most successful things that I've shared in the past that have been able to help people along faster. So that's my wish for you is for you to be able to land your 6-figure job And not just that, but to change your entire career, have your entire career taken care of so you don't feel that worry, anxiety moving forward. You don't worry about your future anymore, right? Like, that's a gift I would love to give you, right? I don't want you to have to worry about your future because I want you to have that certainty within yourself and I wanna help you create that. And I know that I've created that for myself and I can truly say that I rarely, rarely worry about the future anymore. Because I know that I've got me. I know that I can figure it out. And I wanna share that with you in whatever way that I can. And I just want you to know too, that when you join my program or you're a part of my container, one of my clients, I treat you as a friend. You have access to my entire LinkedIn network. If I can ever introduce you to anybody, I will be doing that. I go above and beyond for people. I take care of you. And I really like you to know that. If you are looking for support and you do resonate with me, I would love to help you. So sign up for that free class, link in the show notes. I hope you enjoyed this podcast. It was a little bit different. I had a lot to share, but I also wanna say that I really appreciate you, you listening. Like it really helps me to know that the people who I get to impact are people like you who keep coming back here, keep listening. Thank you for the reviews. Thank you for all the kind comments that you send me on LinkedIn and, and in email. And I just want you to know that even though I can't see you or I can't talk to you like directly, I appreciate you because I know that listening to a new podcast is not always the easiest thing to get into. Like, you're like, oh, I don't know, who's this chick? What's she doing? I don't know if I have the patience to get into this new podcast. And I know that there's a ton of different podcasts that you could listen to. And the fact that you are here listening to mine really means a lot to me. So with that said, I'd like to wish you a great week and I will see you on that class and I will talk to you next week. Thank you so much. Hey there, thanks for listening. If you're new here, I'm Natalie Fisher. And if you wanna take this work even deeper than the podcast where I help you apply it and I help you dig into your own personal situation, you have 2 ways to do that. The first is in my signature program, the Six Figure Curriculum, where we go through everything you need and I personally help you weekly to land that 6-figure premium role. And the second way, once you land that 6-figure premium role, is the Time to Thrive Mastermind. So if you're already in an amazing premium role that you love and you want to advance, you want to develop your mindset, you want to thrive in that role, Then I support you in my Time to Thrive Mastermind. So that's the 2 ways that you can work with me. If you want to take the work on the podcast deeper, the links for those are in the show notes below. To go right away, you can go to www.nataliefisher.ca/start.