Stay or Go? The 3 step strategy to help you decide your next career move

But the only way you can determine whether those opportunities are right for you is by doing some work, some internal work to kind of make that happen. So in today's episode, I'm just going to talk you through an exercise that you can do. Now, you don't need a coach to do it. You don't need anything apart from a piece of paper, a pen, and your big, beautiful brain. You're listening to the Circle C Project. Foreign welcome to the Triple CE Project, the podcast that helps you gain clarity, boost confidence, build courage so you can live lifeless. I'm your host, Ryan Spence, the big Lord dropout, life coach, author, speaker, lover of hoodies, hip hop, and big, hairy, audacious goals. If you're tired of living the life you think you should want and ready to start living the life you want, this podcast will help you get from where you are to where you really want to be. So now with friends, I invite you to grab a drink, take a seat, allow me to guide you towards living a life that's lit. Hello. What's up? Welcome to episode 20 of the Triple C Project with me, Ryan Spence, life coach, author, speaker, and former big law lawyer. And I literally wrote the book on helping you gain clarity, boost confidence, and build courage so you can live better life Lit. What's that book? The book is called the Triple C Method. It's available now on paperback and ebook, and later this month, the audiobook will be arriving too, which is very exciting. And for the last couple of weeks, I realized that I've neglected to fill you in on the reviews of the book. I started by reading a snapshot of a review each week and I kind of fell off because if you listen to last week's show, as I explained to you, organization isn't my my strong suit. So I'm going to bring it back. I've had quite a few reviews coming over the last few weeks, which I'm very, very pleased about. And so today I'm going to read a review on Amazon.co.uk from Kevin Troy, which is headlined go for it. And the review reads, I love this book. Ryan has a very clear message and he gives you the roadmap to living the life of your dreams. I will remember what he said about focus, clarity, purpose, practice, and courage to get out there and do it. He illustrates his points with his own life story, which makes them really memorable. You don't need to know the how, you just need to know the what and the how will come. I love that review from Kevin because again, it just does says exactly what I wanted the book to do. You don't need to know the how, you just need to know the what. The how will follow. You need to trust that the how will reveal itself as you start to take action. So if you haven't grabbed your copy yet, you can head to iamryspence.com, click on the link for book and purchase it there. Or just head to Amazon or to your favorite bookstore and pick up your copy. And if you read it, it helps you out. It gives you some great insights. Two things I would love you to do. The first, please write a review. Really helps more people to see the book. And if you do write a review, tag yourself, take a photo and I can give you my personal thanks. And also share if you have something that helps you, why would you not share it with friends, with people who you think it could help too? I mean, that's how we create this ripple effect of people stop not staying stuck, not staying in that lethargy and starting to create and design the life that they want. So leave a review and share the book with anybody that you feel could benefit. Cool. So podcast, I I don't know where to stop. Thing is, so much happens in the intervening weeks of each podcast that I like to give you a little bit of a snapshot of what I've been up to just so you can get to know me a bit better. And so that we, you know, I feel like I'm having a conversation with you, but sometimes so much happens that it's difficult to know where to start. So I guess all I'm going to say is that as I record this today on the 7th of July here in the UK, our Prime Minister has finally resigned, which and the reason that's funny is that it's he's been hanging on by his fingertips for weeks, if not months, and many say he should have gone a long time ago. And I this isn't going to be a podcast about the the ins and outs of British politics, because that's not what I do. And I don't think that's necessarily useful to you. It has helped to inform today's episode, which is going to talk about when do you know it's the right time to go? How do you know whether you should stay or whether you should go? And of course I'm not talking about that in the context of political office, of being a Prime Minister, unless that is your job, which. Cool. I'd love to hear more about it. So drop me an email. Hey Spence, Dot Com. But I'm talking about it in relation to anything really. So in relation to relationships that you have with your significant other, with your friends, in relation to any health regime that you have. But specifically, and for this episode, I'm going to focus on, in relation to your job, how do you know if you should stay or if you should go? So if you've been following me or listening to me for any length of time, you'll know that for me, leaving Big Law was the right decision. I didn't want to stay. I didn't want to try another firm. I knew that I wanted to get out. It just wasn't working for me on lots of levels. Yes, there was the political side of Big Law and the culture and that kind of stuff, but even just in what I was doing, I just felt that after 11 years, I just, it just run its course for me. And I had so much more that I wanted to do and I wanted to achieve and I didn't want my legacy to be that I worked on a big multi billion dollar restructuring deal in Asia. I mean, who cares? I mean, I'm happy for the clients, but I mean, in terms of the grand scheme of the world, who cares? So I wanted to do other things. I wanted to do things that were more aligned with me. And when I first started coaching, I wanted to help everybody escape. That was my thing. I was going to help everyone escape Big Law. But as it became apparent to me, it's not for everybody. And my job as a coach isn't to tell you what to do. It's to help you find the answers which you already know within yourself. So it's to give you the space to explore that. And I have friends, I have two friends in fact, who immediately come to mind who made partner at law firms. One this year, one last year. We trained together at the same firm. They both subsequently left at different times to go to other firms and have then gone on to, to make part. And I knew from knowing them as trainees and junior lawyers, I mean, they, they were destined for partnership. But what I also like is that they both have a healthy skepticism of the job. Not necessarily the physical work that they do, but the industry, the politics, the culture around it. But even so, this, that was right for them. They wanted to make partner and that's what they did. And they're still within law and they're obviously trying to carve their own path and make it work for them. And I love that. That's to be commended. They have made that decision so I'm on one end of the extreme where I knew I wanted to go, they are at the other where they knew they wanted to climb that ladder. They just had to figure out how to sort of do it in a way that worked for them. And sure, they probably made some compromises on the way, but I'm happy to say that, I mean, they're still both good friends of mine, they're both thoroughly decent people, and I feel that they haven't lost too much of themselves on the way. So the question how do you. How do you know if you're in your job? Big law in the corporate, I mean, mid senior level, outwardly successful, but you're at this crossroads and you just don't think you necessarily want to go where this path, this train is taking you. How do you know if it's time to get off and get on another train? And how do you know if it's time to maybe stay on that train, but just make some changes within the environment that you're in? Because leaving completely and burning everything down is definitely an option, but it isn't necessarily the right option for everybody. You may just decide to change company or change firm. You may decide to move sideways within the firm or company that you're in and do a different role. There are lots of potential opportunities that could happen, but the only way you can determine whether those opportunities are right for you is by doing some work, some internal work to kind of make that happen. So in today's episode, I'm just going to talk you through an exercise that you can do now. You don't need a coach to do it. You don't need anything apart from a piece of paper, a pen, and your big, beautiful brain. Okay? So here's what we want you to do. Grab yourself a piece of paper. Don't overcomplicate it. Just a standard piece of paper vertically on your desk, on your table, and then get a pen and draw a line down the middle. And thinking about, in this instance, we're going to think about your job, your career, but you can also use the same exercise as I said, to think about any relationships, your health, any particular habits, whatever it is. But for this, we're just going to focus on the job that you're doing now. And on one side of the paper, on one column, I want you to write down at the top, what is this giving me? Okay, what is this giving me? And before we start, I mean, everyone gets really complicated. Is this paper right? Is this line in the right place? Does this look Right. I don't wait to over complicate at all. If it's simpler for you, don't even draw a line down the paper. Just take one piece of blank piece of paper for now and write at the top of it. What is this giving me? And write what that is right at the top. Job, career. Okay, what is this giving me? And then all I want you to do is write down what your job is giving you. And this could be things that you thought about when you took the job. They could be things that have become apparent as you've gone on. And then it can also be things from the present day now. So for example, for me, what was my job Bigelow giving me? So it's given me money, of course, we all need money to live. It's given me a decent salary by normal standards. But you know, that's, that's one thing. Again, that's neutral. That's what it was giving me. It was giving me status. You know, when you say you're a lawyer, that carries a certain weight, rightly or wrongly, whatever it is, and within legal circles, when you name the firm, when I named the firm that I was at, again, that would also carry a certain weight as well. So there's a status that came along with that role subconsciously. And this is only looking back. Parental approval. Having dropped out of uni, having failed exams a number of times, and you know, I mean, having made my parents disappointed at that fact. I think by finally going and getting my law degree and joining a big international law firm, there was an element of gaining that parental approval for doing that. So again, the job gave me that. He gave me a solid career path. Okay, this is where it can kind of get a bit arguable. I mean, what does that actually mean? But it meant that there was, you know, you, you can kind of go through the ranks, you can see what the progression looks like. It's not always clear as to how you make those moves. And that's a whole nother conversation. But again, we're not over complicating it here, just talking about what does it give you? So it gave me that, and then arguably it gave me stability. And again, this is something which could be queried. And if you've read my book, you'll, you'll understand where I'm coming from with there is this kind of argument that being in the corporate world is secure and is stable, particularly over something like entrepreneurship. But at this time, cost of living, crisis, recession, and looking back through history at other periods like this, that isn't necessarily the case because companies are very quick to let people go when it's not working for them. But again, we're going to simplify this. So arguably we're going to say stability. So in my column for what does this give me? I would have had money status, parental approval, solid career path stability. And there could be more. But I'm just going to run through this quickly for the purposes of this podcast, so you get an idea. Okay. And on the second, in the second column, on the second piece of paper, take a second piece of paper and at the top I want you to write what is this taking away from me? What is this taking away from me? Okay, so again, I want you to take some time and think about what is the job that you're doing taking away from you, taking away from your life. So again, using myself as an example, my job in big Law was taking time away from me, time away from my family, the fact that I we have to work weekends, I mean work on holidays, the taking time away for outside activities. So one of the stresses that I know some people have and people that I've talked to is that they just don't even have the time to think about what they would do instead because the job is all consuming. And that can also, that can sort of feed into boundaries which we're going to talk about in a future episode. But again, took that away from me. It took energy to me, particularly in the latter years. It was draining just the mental, this mental load of being in that office. And as I say in the opening in the introduction to my book, I felt like my soul was being sucked out of me and that was just draining my energy. Well being, particularly my mental well being dealing with the office politics, dealing with unclear parameters, dealing with that constantly being switched on. You know, there were times when I was sleeping with my phone under my pillow because emails may coming at the night on a deal that you'd have to suddenly get up in the middle of the night and check. That's not normal. Well, it's not normal outside of that world, that's for sure. But again, it took that away from me, started to take happiness away from me. I just wasn't happy. Just the thought of getting up and going through the day to day, being stuck in that route, it was, it just wasn't making me happy and fulfillment. I wasn't feeling fulfilled before law, when I was working in music, making no money. I was so fulfilled. I just felt every day I was getting up and I was Excited. And I was doing something that meant something, meant something to me and meant something to other people. And towards the latter years in big Law, I just didn't feel that it was taking that away from me. So again, quick list here. What was it taking away from me? Time, energy, wellbeing, happiness, fulfillment. So look at your lists, and with each of these lists, I don't want you to sit down and knock it off in five minutes. I really want you to take some time and sit and think and get deep into it. And it may be that you take five or 10 minutes now, you go away, you come back to it. But this, this needs real work. You need to spend the time on this because we're talking about the rest of your life or the next phase of your life. So you want to take the time to really focus on this. Okay, so recap. We've got one list, which is, what is this giving me? We have a second list, which is what is this taking away from me? And now what I want you to do, I want you to look at both lists side by side. And looking at column two, what is this taking away from me? If that outweighs column one, then it's probably time to start asking yourself deeper questions to figure out your next move. So, for example, column one, what's it giving me? It's giving me money. Great. Okay, column two, what's it taken away from me? Time. Which is more important to me, the money or the time? The money to spend on material things, on flash holidays, on food, on daily coffees, or the time to hang out with my kids, to participate in hobbies, to learn new skills? And there's no right or wrong answer. This isn't about telling you what you should choose. It's about looking internally of what. What. What works for you, what gives you that visceral response, which one gives you that feeling in your body like, fuck, yeah, that. That. That. That's what I want. And so for me, even though the money was good, the time is more important, I think. As I said in last week's episode, Hire a Professional. You can always make more money. You always find some way to make more money, but you can never make more time. So in that instance, time wins out and you can go down the list like that. You don't necessarily have to sort of do one versus the other. You can look at them as a whole. It doesn't really matter. But the idea is, at the end of this second phase of the exercise, you have a sense as to whether the job in this instance is giving you more than it's taking away. And if it's not, if it's taking away more than it's giving, then you need to go deep and you need to ask yourself some further questions. And if it is taking more away. Sorry, I just lost my train of thought there. If it is taking more away, then now might be the time to start exploring alternatives. And those alternatives can be anything. You should keep an open mind and again, brainstorm what those alternatives were. So take your third sheet of paper and just brainstorm. If I wasn't doing this, I would like to be doing that. And just write down all the things that you think you might like to do. And if you're anything like me, you might just start off small and with things that are very close to home. So things that are related to what you're already doing. But I want you to again, keep coming back and be expansive in your thoughts here. And don't rule anything out. Just think of all the things that you might like to do that relate to your interest, to your skills, to what lights you up. Get them all down on that piece of paper. And when you've done that, because you've already done the previous work, you can go back to look at list two, what is it taking away? And you can start to have a think about in terms of your perception of what these other roles are, as to whether they would fall into the category of taking these things away from you. So what I mean is that if you put something down on the list, so say, for example, I put down on Daylist, move to another firm. Looking at my list of things that's taken away my perception of what it would be like at another firm, based on interviews that I'd had with other firms and conversations that I had, is that nothing would really change. All the things on the list of what is it taken away from me would still apply. So that's not really. That wouldn't really be the right option. And so it's very easy to rule that out rather than going through the hassle of going to another firm, trying to ride it out and realizing it's the wrong thing for me to be doing. So what I'm saying is that by doing this foundational work, it helps you to make your decisions a lot easier and make them a lot quicker. And it doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to find something where it doesn't take anything away from you. But what it does help you do is it helps you to minimize you know, I mean, you may not be able to avoid, but you can sort of look at minimizing and look, we're working on perception. We don't always know what a role entails until we do it. You know, whether that's another job or whether that's starting your own business. We don't always know what it entails until we do it. But we can have a perception, we can do our research, we can speak to people who are doing those sorts of things and kind of get a sense so that we can apply to this list. So to recap, here's the exercise. 1. Sheet of paper heading, what is this giving me? Write down everything it's giving you. 2. Second sheet of paper, what is this taking away from me? Write down all the things it's taken away. 3. Third sheet of paper, what else would I want to do? What else could I do? Write down, brainstorm all the alternatives that you could do to what you're doing now. And then looking at that list, take each of those things you've listed down, each of those roles and run them through list two and see what would potentially, what it would potentially take away to do those roles and see what's left over. And that will help you to start making those decisions. And when you've gone through this, or even if you're listening to this and thinking, this sounds good, but it just sounds like a lot of work and I'm not sure it's something which I can do my own. This is what I help clients with in my one to one program. I help you work through questions of should you stay or should you go? And we go deeper into discussing who you are, what you want and why you want it. We don't necessarily do this exercise exactly because this is really something which you can take away and do right now, but we get deeper into it and I ask you pointed questions really to kind of get to the essence as to, as to who you are and whether you are saying things that you think that you should say that you've been conditioned to say, or whether you're really expressing who you truly are. And by doing this work together, I help you stop wasting time spinning out on questions of should I take this job, should I leave, should I stay, should I move sideways? And I really help you to start to a get to the answer quickly because the answers inside of you, I just help to guide you there. And then I help you to start to take action, to act on that decision to create the life that you want to make the change that you feel you need to change to be the person who you really want to be. And in the program, in addition to focusing on the three Cs clarity, confidence, courage, we also dig deep into energy, productivity and influence. So we take a whole a holistic view really on really looking at all aspects of your life to help you again become who it is that you want to be and do what it is that you want to do. So this sounds like something that is good to you, that could really help you get out of the funk that you're in, get out of that mental quicksand to help you start to ditch that lethargy and start to live a life that's lit. I want to hear from you. So head to iamryspence.com coaching and check out the page and book yourself a call. There's a short questionnaire to sort of fill in to give me a sense as to what's going on with you and where you help and how we can work together. And we'll get on the call and we'll talk through it. That's what I'm here to do. That's my purpose. That's what helps to keep me fulfilled. And so I would really, really love to hear from you. And also if you are on LinkedIn, come and find me. I'm hanging out there. I'm currently doing my own 30 day challenge on there, so I'll be posting something each and every day for 30 days to help you really. So things around this podcast, things around the book, and just general things that I'm using on and talking about at the moment. So come find me on LinkedIn. Ryan Spence it's easy to define me, my photos there and say hi, say, say you found me on the podcast and yeah, let's, let's keep in touch. That's it for me this week. As always, I could go on forever, but no one's got time for that. Look forward to catching up with you again next week. And until then, as always, stop living a life of letharg and start living life. Thanks for tuning in to the Triple C project. Before you go, I want to share something with you. When I was in Big Law, I struggled with limiting beliefs. I didn't have the confidence to believe that I could change my life, that I could leave Big Law and do something differently, that I could move from a life of lethargy and create a life that's lit. That's why I created a confidence journey for people like you who are in the same position that I was who was struggling with that confidence and need a boost to allow you to believe that you can do the things that you want to do. Confidence Journal is six journal prompts that I've used and I still use to help me get from the guy who was too scared to post on Instagram, to the guy who is now committed to giving a TED Talk, to the guy who wrote a book, to the guy who launched the podcast. You can do any of this too. All you need to do is start boosting your confidence. So to do that, head to iamryspence.com and download the Confidence Journal. It's free, it works, and it's going to change your life. Thanks for tuning in. See you next week. And remember, stop living a life of lethargy and start living life.