Webinar: Reinventing Yourself and Your Career

The following transcript was auto-generated from the video version of the webinar. Please excuse any typos / inaccuracies.

Keith Wolf:

Okay. We’re going to go ahead and get started. Welcome everybody today. I’m Keith Wolf. I’m the managing director of Murray resources where Houston based recruiting and staffing firm. And I’m also the CEO of resume spice. We are a career coaching and resume writing service. I’m so excited about today’s webinar. We think it’s a very timely topic is reinventing yourself and your career. Now we all know it’s a tough time right now in the job market. Some of you on this call have been laid off, or your concern that your job may be in jeopardy and others are using this time to take stock with their careers and to think about what you want to do next. Well, our speaker today is Karen McCullough and she is the perfect person to speak on this topic because not only is she an exceptional speaker, but she’s had just an amazing career and she’s an amazing example of how someone can transform themselves and their careers.

Keith Wolf:

And I’m excited for Karen to share her story because she’s going to provide some great inspiration and thought provoking ideas. Let me give you a little bit of background on Karen. So she graduated Ohio state with a master’s degree in library science. She worked for Ralph Lauren. She opened her own retail stores, and then she closed them and then she took a year off and she became a professional. And today she’s a nationally known generational expert and a personal branding authority. She’s ranked eight in the 2020 global gurus, top 30 for branding. So she is a master of reinvention. And today she’s going to share her story, hoping it will inspire you to begin your reinvention. So before we get started just a few housekeeping items, so the webinar’s going to be 60 minutes, but in all transparency, we’ve done several of these and we’ve never been able to stick to 60 minutes.

Keith Wolf:

So we’re going to do our best, but if we don’t just think of it as a free bonus, if we go over, I just want to make sure Karen shares all the information she’s prepared without having a rush. So if we do go over, just think of it as a bonus, and we’re going to try to answer as many questions as we can. And the good news is if we go over, you can always watch the recording if you miss anything. And since we always get this question, let me just clear it up. This is a webinar format, so we cannot see you. We cannot hear you. There are almost 500 people on this call, so we’re going to keep everyone on mute so you can make sure we can hear Karen. And lastly, we will be sharing the slides from this webinar, with everyone who registered. Okay. So with that, I’m going to go dark. I’ll be here and I’ll be chiming in and asking Karen some questions as we go from the audience, but let’s go. Are you ready to go care? I’m ready. All right, let’s go.

Karen McCullough:

Hey everybody. Hi, it’s Karen McCullough. And I put this slide up here so you can see kind of what I I used to do. Actually, this picture was taken on August 1st, 2019. I was speaking at the junior league here in Houston on hot topics in HR for Marie resources. I gotta tell you something. I love live events. I love seeing the audience. I love hearing their laughter. They stimulate me. They give me energy. And so when people say, what’s your passion, that is my passion up there on that stage. But I’m not on that stage right now. And it’s really because of what’s happened. So think back I was thinking about what I was going to do in 2020. I thought 2020 was going to be my best year ever. The stock market. It was so high and unemployment was low. And I was looking forward to a fabulous year.

Karen McCullough:

I don’t know about you, but I was excited. And then bam, the storm hit. Yeah. In March, the coronavirus hit and my whole life changed. My whole life changed again. I think they say right now that live events are going to be one of the last things that comes back. And so for me, I had to pivot, I had to pivot again. And I, that word is used so often, but it’s really true. I’ve had to change my office into a, a lab right now. I’ve got lights up, I’ve got a microphone here and I will be doing virtual events, but we’re all in different places. That’s just what my life is like. But think about all of the different situations that are out there right now, the different families, people that are worrying about their income, people that are worried about their jobs, people that are worrying about their health.

Karen McCullough:

So we’re all in the same storm, but we are in different boats. And I thought what I would do, because this is going to be about rebranding and reinventing yourself. I thought of some questions that you might be wanting to know. The first one that I thought of you, maybe sitting out there and you go, how do I know? How do I know when it’s time to pursue another career? I can’t answer that for you. I can only say that you’ve got to begin to go deep within yourself. And you’ve got to decide where it is that you want to be in the next three to four years, we used to do 10 years out. I’m saying, think about three or four years. If your job right now, if your job is not stimulating, maybe you have to reinvent yourself at work. Maybe you have to get reengaged at work, but only you can decide that for me, I knew, I knew.

Karen McCullough:

And you’re going to hear my story in a minute that I did not want to get a job. I knew that I wanted to start my business. So that’s the next question. Should I start a business? I’ll be honest with you. If, if I had asked everyone, should I start this business? Should I become a speaker? They would have said no, because most people are not really going to see what you can contribute. Most people don’t know what’s in your heart. So when people say, should I start a business? I have to say to them, are you ready to make it through some hard times? Because when you start a business, it’s a Rocky road and the passion that desire has to keep you in the game. Well then how do I find my passion? I don’t know. I I’ll be honest with you when I first started speaking that wasn’t my passion.

Karen McCullough:

I was afraid I was nervous getting up on stage. The longer I did it, the more it fed me. But I think the passion for me is in the interaction with people and interaction with the audience. So I think that you’ve got to begin to explore. This is a time for many of us when we’ve got some time on our hands today, I’m going to take you through some of the steps that I did that I believe will really help you on this road to reinvention and rebranding. And the last one is, should I turn my passion into a hobby and keep working at my job? Yeah, that’s a good one. If you can. Why not? Keep the job. I always say, keep that stay on the cashflow mountain as long as you can, because it gets pretty scary sometimes when you don’t have the cash flow coming in.

Karen McCullough:

I’ll get to that in a little bit later on today. So, so let me tell you my story. This is, this is my first. I reinvented myself a couple of times because really having a master’s in library science and then opening a clothing store, totally didn’t fit, but I’m I not going to go into my stores and all I had four stores and I closed the last store in 1999. And the reason that the store is closed was because the times had changed. Casual address came on the scene and people were not buying suits. They were not buying Ralph Lauren clothes anymore. They weren’t buying their ties. They wanted to wear their Snuggies. Actually they wanted to wear their Snuggies to work. And so my biggest flaw, I think going through my business was I didn’t stay relevant. I wasn’t looking at young people.

Karen McCullough:

I was just so consumed with my business that I didn’t see what was going on around me. In 1998, we filed bankruptcy. We filed a business bankruptcy. I’ve never told that story. I have not shared that. I’ve told people that I closed my business, but I want you to understand the depth that I was in because coming out of a bankruptcy, really just literally coming out of it can do a lot for your self esteem and your self worth. And I had a lot of work to do on repairing myself because I totally, not only did I lose my business, but I lost my identity. When you’re out of work, when you’re going through transition, who are you? You know, you’re going through a time where you don’t know who you are and you can’t tell people, you know, I used to say, I owned that clothing store.

Karen McCullough:

We called it, meet you, meet you. I own me too. Me too. And I, that was my whole identity for many, many years. When that store closed, who was I? This was the beginning of my search to really dig deep. Because sometimes when you’re in a job or when you’re in a business, you are in it so much. You don’t take time at all to look at who you are. But I had time. I had time. So I began to search and I went to a coach in the very beginning. I had to get some direction because I didn’t know where to go and what to do. And it was interesting because as soon as the coach met me and we talked about my business, she said, why don’t you become a speaker? So she gave me the idea and I didn’t run with it off the right off the bat.

Karen McCullough:

I wasn’t like, Oh yeah, that’s what I want to do. Because in the beginning of there was, there was a lot of fear and I want to tell you, I’m going to show you a picture of me speaking that’s me. That was four years ago. That was 16 years into the business. It didn’t start like this. It started with me one by one, speaking for free at rotary clubs. I had to build that muscle. I had to build who I was and it took me 16 years before I got to a stage that big. So what I’m going to tell you, it’s going to take time.

Speaker 4:

Hi, it’s going to take

Karen McCullough:

A desire. And so that first question about passion, there has to be a passion for you to live the life that you want to live. There has to be a passionate for you to want more. It doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to have a passion were exactly what you were going to go into. Because like I said, I didn’t have a passion for speaking right in the beginning, actually I had a fear. But this is kind of cool because it was right around the exact time that I found myself out of work. I’d worked for a guy named Ralph Ward. I learned a, from Ralph Lauren at Mt. Branding a business in our polo shot in our stories. We had to do everything according to Ralph because his brand was impeccable. So I got that. But in 1998, this guy, Tom Peters, he changed my life.

Karen McCullough:

And he continues to change my life because this is my philosophy. He said, he wrote a book called you that you are the brand, something similar to that. But he said, we are the CEOs of our own companies. And he called it me incorporated. And I got it. I got it. I got, I am in charge of wherever. I’m going to take my life and I’m going to build my own brand. And so this was really the very, very beginning. This is really how it started. So I want to just jump right in with you because you already have a brand. You, people are already thinking something about you. You may love who you think you are, but what we have to do now is go and find out. So what I’m going to talk about today is a lot of reaching out.

Karen McCullough:

It’s a lot of talking to people, asking about yourself and finding out what people actually see in you. Sometimes they see more than you see. So I’m going to kick it off right now with some branding questions and you will get my slides. I’ve got a branding worksheet. I worked up several things for you. If you want, you can email me or I’ll give you my text number at the end, but I have created a packet for you where you can actually start your own branding process, but let’s just kick off with these five questions. Number one, this is where you would ask someone. I would suggest going to at least 20 people with this. And don’t ask your family members right now. They’re too close to you. Ask people who you work with. Ask associates, ask friends, even ask neighbors. Number one, what?

Karen McCullough:

Three words. Best describe my personality. Brands have personalities. You want to see what people see as your personality? It’s a big one. Second one, if you didn’t know me, what if you didn’t know what I did for a living? What would you guess? I love this one. What would you guess? So they’re looking at you. They’re thinking about you. They’re sizing you up. You want to know that that’s a really important question. If you didn’t know what I did for a living, what would you guess? Number three. What do you see as my strengths? So for me, I’ll tell you all about, this is what I’m good. I don’t want to go into me right now. A number four. What career can you definitely not see me in? Right? What can you not see me doing for me? It would be definitely be brain surgery or any sort of anything that has to do with blood.

Karen McCullough:

I’m not going to be there. And the last one, how would you describe me to someone who’s never met me? You know, I’d like you to meet here in McCullough. She is so blank. You need to know this is the beginning. This is peeling back the onion to who you are right now. And you can begin to look at these there’s people don’t see your strengths. That means that Jordan not exhibiting them. You are maybe not using them at work. Your not showing people who you are. So for me, one of my strengths is I had to start communicating, right? I had to start. And so really right now what we’re doing right now, I hope that you think that this is one of my strengths because that’s on my strength list. So these are the, the questions to just to start the branding process.

Karen McCullough:

Oh, did I get that one out of there? Okay. Next know yourself. So now we’re going to go deeper. We’re going to dig deeper into who you are. And so for some of you right now who are very nervous, you’re fearful, you’re kind of in a panic. You’ve got to relax because you’ve got some time. This is the thing that I found the most important for me was I had to take a breath and I had to relax and I had to begin the process of knowing myself. And so for me, I started taking some tests. I had taken the Myers Briggs years and years and years ago. And I knew that I was an E N F P, but I didn’t even really remember what that meant. So I started, remember I took the disc and I was a high, I, I took the Enneagrams.

Karen McCullough:

If any of you have not read any of the books at Enneagrams, this is like, what people are talking about right now, I’m hearing in a lot of podcasts. My Enneagram number is a seven. Then all of a sudden I started to see a pattern, my type, my disc, my Enneagram, all of these things started to click because there was a depth and pattern showing up. So I, when I took the strength finders and I would highly recommend, I’m sure most of you have, but if you haven’t, I will give you all of the these these the, the, and information on how to find StrengthFinders. I’ll send it, do you in a worksheet, but then StrengthFinders, it was interesting because all of my strengths led to me communicating. They led to me connecting with people. And one of my strength is called woo sounds really good.

Karen McCullough:

Huh? It means that I like to connect and I like to interact. So it was interesting because everything was pointing me in the right direction. Even Sally Hogshead, Sally actually is a friend of mine. She’s a speaker. She wrote a book years ago called fascinate. When I took her fascinate quiz, it turned out that I was a catalyst. So this really helped me. I heard what the coach said, but I started looking deeper and deeper into this. And I said, this might be something that I want to pursue. Maybe I will become speaker, but here’s the problem. I had a huge, huge imposter syndrome problem. How can I tell people how to live their life? How could I tell people about their business? How could I tell people anything? When I had failed so deeply in closing my business? So I didn’t tell anybody I hit it and I hit it so well that people never knew.

Karen McCullough:

They felt like they didn’t see me. And they would say, wow, you’re coming out on top. You look great. You know, I really had to work on that for me maybe today, you know, I would share that, but, but 15 years ago, 20 years, I didn’t want to tell anybody where that I had come from a bankruptcy because I felt like I didn’t have, I didn’t really have the power. I didn’t really have the knowledge. I really didn’t have the experience to help people with their lives. It’s interesting because the best way for me to break that imposter syndrome was to start listening to what people said about me. What I discovered was everyone, well, not everyone, but many people have the imposter syndrome. It wasn’t just me. I started hearing people talk about how their fears were getting in their way. I actually was working out one day and a Dean from one of the universities here in Houston, shared with me that she felt like she wasn’t ready to become a Dean.

Karen McCullough:

And that if people knew that she didn’t have all the qualifications, they would have really never given her the job. She said, I don’t really know how I got this job. So I want to share with you that people, many, many people, especially in higher levels, they all have this imposter syndrome. And what we have to do to break through it is to start listening to the positive things that people say about you start listening to some of the things, how they describe you, maybe words that they say sometimes when you get a compliment, you go, right. You know, when you kind of brush it aside, this is a really important time for you to hear what people see in you. And you need to believe in this. For me, it happened a few years ago. I was going to, I have a doctor that I’ve been going to for a long time.

Karen McCullough:

And when he walked in the door, he said, I’m so glad. He said that when I saw your name on my roster today, he said, it really made me happy. You always cheer me up and brighten my day. That changed me because if this doctor would say that to me, you know, I began to see where I have value. Sometimes my value is just in making people smile, shearing up their day. And I believe that we have to begin to look inside of us and listen to what people say about us, because this is the best way for us to begin to grow and really to fight that imposter syndrome. We’ve got to really begin to know and understand ourselves.

Karen McCullough:

So it’s time for the reality check. You know, I’ve been over we’re, we’re thinking about ourselves, we’re getting excited. We’re reading about ourselves. We’re beginning to hear what people say about us. We’re beginning to get a positive feeling about ourselves. And bam reality comes in and this really was true for me. The reality check for me was I was broke. I needed money. I needed money. I had, I was spending money on this business, but I needed money. And so I had to begin to make cuts. You know, sometimes we’re living in this place where we feel like it’s okay, but I think that a reality check means that be more cautious. Okay. and we have to begin to look at the expenses and I like touch your cable, whatever it is that you want. Well, I don’t want to get rid of Netflix, but you, I want to cut and make it a little bit smaller, but we have to begin to look at also how we’re going to sustain it.

Karen McCullough:

So this is for people who are wanting to start a business. You’re going to have times when you have got to go out there and work. I thought about working at the container store because they had good health benefits. I mean, that was one of the things I actually went back and worked part time in retail. It was hard for me because I didn’t want to go back, but it was what I knew and I could get the hours that I needed and that little income helped support me. Eventually. I decided to use my skills and I started helping people organize their closets. They called me the closet cop. I have been through so many, so many different names and titles to keep this business going. But I remember going into people’s homes and helping with mostly women, but I did do several guys, helping them get their professional wardrobes in line and cleaning out their closets.

Karen McCullough:

The biggest problem I had with that, with that I’m allergic to cats. And it seemed like there were so many Catley HES who wanted to hire me. But anyway, that’s a whole nother story, but the reality check is some people get in LA LA land. You know, they think they’re going to have a business. And they think that they’re going to branch out and do what they want, their dream and their passion, but reality bites. And it really does when it comes to your income, your money, your health benefits. So we have to really keep our eyes open and we have to make decisions. And some of those decisions might be getting a part time job for others who have a job that they still want to live out their dream. They might start doing a side hustle. They might start dipping their toe into what it is that maybe they want to create what they want to sell or what business they want to go into. Keith, we have any questions.

Keith Wolf:

Hello? Yes. Yeah. Sorry. Just on mute there. So we did have one question early on about, you know, you’ve, you’ve had a coach who was helpful. Somebody who’s asking for tips on how to find that coach, any, any tips for that, where you look or

Karen McCullough:

I’m always looking for coaches. I belong to the, I also know that in Houston, I don’t know where you’re from, but if you email me, I can tell you some of the places that I went to find a coach. I am, I went to actually, I very first, first coach was a friend who was a coach and she is still my friend today. Her name is Cecilia Rose. She’s a phenomenal career coach here in Houston. And she was the one that really helped me because she’s known me for a long time and she knew my, my energy. But you’ve got to ask around, I think the best way to find a coach is to ask around and you probably want one, you don’t today, you can get one that’s virtual. You don’t have to have one in your own city. So whoever that is just email me and maybe we can, we can we can chat.

Keith Wolf:

I’d also be remiss if I didn’t mention the resume spice also has career coaches. So yeah, that’d be remiss if I didn’t say that they would give me a hard time. One of the question is where did you go to, to get people, to tell you about yourself? If it wasn’t your family?

Karen McCullough:

No. I went to associates. I went to every one that I could find, and I made a list. I joined a breakfast club and I asked them, but you’ve really got to widen your net if you don’t have a lot of people right now, that’s, that’s interesting. You’re going to have to go to friends. You can go to your family, don’t get me wrong. I just, you know, for me, I wasn’t going to go ask my kids what they saw in me because I don’t think that they see, you know, being their mom. I don’t think that they saw what I wanted other people to see. But if you, if you don’t have a lot of associates right now, yes. Use your family.

Keith Wolf:

Can I ask you just one more question and I’ll let you continue here. We have a question about when you applied to the container store, people running into folks thinking they’re overqualified and they’re having a difficult time getting those types of roles. Did you run into that? And if so, how?

Karen McCullough:

No, because I told the truth. I told the truth that I wanted the early, early morning hours. And nobody wanted them, but I actually went in and told the truth, but I, because I came from retail, they kind of knew me. You know, it was, it was a benefit because I pretty much knew everybody in Houston. I was, I’d been a retailer for a long time and I’m pretty social. So I did know a lot of a lot of retailers, but that helped me get into the container store.

Keith Wolf:

Got it. Okay. I’ve got a few more, but we’ll get to those in a little bit.

Karen McCullough:

Okay. So we’ve done our reality check right now. And we’re going to start thinking about money. We’re going to start thinking a little bit more seriously about how we can keep the cash flow going. This is a big one. Fill in the gaps. I had a lot of gaps to fill in. Think about this. I had never been a speaker. I didn’t even know what a speaker was. So I started reading about speaking. I started going to join national speakers association. Oh, I can give you that link for any of you that are interested. And that was like grad school for me. I would go once a month. The national speakers association in almost every big city in the country has monthly meetings, helping people understand the business of speaking. I had really a bonus here because I knew how to run a business.

Karen McCullough:

So a lot of times when people go into business for themselves, they have the talent, but they don’t have the business skills. It was just the reverse for me. I had the business skills. I knew how to run a business, but I didn’t have the talent. So I had to really learn how to become a speaker for me, the best way for me to learn how to become a speaker was to speak. So I spoke at every rotary in this city, I for free and after each speech, I would kind of analyze, did they like this? I listened for a house laugh, you know, and I was trying to really grow my business today. The gaps are much bigger, much bigger 20 years in. Think about what I’m having to learn right now. You see this, this learning never ends. It’s gotta be a continual part of your life, whether you’re in a career, whether you’re an employee, whether you’re owning your own business right now, you’ve got to continually keep on learning.

Karen McCullough:

Who knew that I would have to get my blue Yeti microphone who knew that I would have to be, get all of this lighting in here. I continually learning. And I feel like that has to be it, no matter what you’re doing, that has to be a huge plus. So for you all, it might be getting an accreditation. It might be a certification. It might be going back to school, but you’ve got to keep learning. And what I love about Ted talks today is we’re always having a chance to listen to so many speakers through Ted talks and through webinars right now. There’s no excuse. And what about podcasts? So I’m going to talk about podcasts a little bit later because I have a few that I really like, but I think that I wasn’t that great in school. I have to be honest with you.

Karen McCullough:

I wasn’t a top student. I did go to grad school at Ohio state. I stayed on and I went because I didn’t know what else to do to be honest with you, but I didn’t have a lot of focus. When I had my business. I had no time. I was working all the time and I didn’t have really any time to fill in the gaps. It wasn’t until I started this journey that I realized how much learning I needed to do and how much learning I love to do when subject matter is something that I like. I can stay up all night, listening, reading, watching. So we have to really click it. If you love learning, think about what you enjoy, because this may be your next, this may be your next journey. This may be your next invention, finding out what it is by just watching yourself and watching the people that you like to listen to. And the books that you like to read. So finding the gaps is really important and filling in the gaps. This is an important thing. And I, this is one of my I have a rule up here that perfection is not the goal.

Speaker 5:

Focus on action, not on outcome.

Karen McCullough:

You’ve got to take risks. You’re going to stumble. You’re going to fail. You’re going to fall. It’s part of growth. And once you can learn this, and even once you can create a community of friends who feel this way, you know, focus on the action, not the outcomes. You’ll focus on the outcomes down the road. But in the beginning, you’ve got to do things that scare you. You’ve got to jump in there. You’ve got to try things. I was petrified to speak to those rotary clubs, but you know what? The more you do it, the more you enjoy it. And the more you want to do it,

Speaker 5:

I’ve gotta be honest with you. I done a lot of webinars.

Karen McCullough:

I don’t even know how I’m doing right now, but I’m doing them because this is how I’m going to share my messaging. So I’m going to jump in. Maybe we’ll make a mistake, but let’s focus on action, not on the outcomes. So I’ll tell you this, fail fast and move on this for me, this has two pieces to it. I could have sat around and I could have really more into my business. I could have told that story to so many people and I could have gotten a lot of maybe sympathy, maybe a few hugs, but I made a decision that I was putting it in the past. I would think about it in the evenings when I was home. But during the day I was going to move on. So this fail fast for me, was getting through the sticky part of not having any work.

Karen McCullough:

I’m going to fail. I’m going to focus on speaking. I’m going to put my energy into it. I started telling people, yes, I am working on becoming a public speaker in the beginning. I said, public speaker. Now I’m a keynoter. But I told people because that made the commitment more alive. So that’s number one. The other fail fast is kind of going back to the slide I had before. Take some risks, push yourself. Don’t think that everybody is watching you. The focus isn’t really on you. People are looking at themselves. So take a risk. If you stumble people, forgive people, forgive. So fail fast, figure out what you messed up and move on. After every speech, every after every speech in the very, very beginning, I would sit in my car and I would analyze what the audience liked. Sometimes I would say, did I get a house laugh?

Karen McCullough:

Cause the house lab means that everybody’s laughing, right? There were so many times that I got in my car and I just cried because I didn’t connect because I didn’t know my material because I didn’t know the audience, but you’ve got to start somewhere. And when you start somewhere and fail fast, analyze what you’ve done and just move on. It’s probably, I have this one in my room right now. I have it in the office because I am now in a place where it’s a little scary again. It’s scary. So I worked for 20 years. I love the stage and now guess where I am. I’m in my office, in my home. So fail fast and move on.

Karen McCullough:

This is interesting. So if you met me or if you, some of you that know me, you might think I’m fearless. I have a lot of fear and I have had to work at managing my fear. I’m pretty good during the day, but my fears come at night and they come early in the morning. And so I have really had to learn how to manage my fear. I’m going to say this. You’ve got to stay with it. If you have decided that you’re on the right career path, if you have decided that you’re opening your own business, if you’ve decided that you maybe want to become a coach or Hey, maybe you want to become a speaker and do this, you’ve got to stay with it. It’s it’s going to be bumpy. And you have got to build a tolerance for discomfort, build a tolerance for discomfort.

Karen McCullough:

It isn’t, it’s, it’s tough, but people have learned how to live through this. And I’m going to tell you the things that I have to do to stay with it and build a tolerance of discomfort because I have one because it’s Rocky, even when it’s great, things can go wrong and it can be become uncomfortable and it can become a little bit scary. So I wrote things usually get harder before they get easier. These are just little things that I have because I am kind of a motivational speaker. I need things like this. So sometimes, sometimes when I am trying something so hard, especially with the technology I had to stop and laugh and I have to say, things are going to get just a little harder before they get easier. But the more you do something, the more you practice, the more you stay in the game, the more you hang around with people who inspire you and motivate you and believe in you, the easier it gets.

Karen McCullough:

But I like that when things usually get harder before they get easier. So the coolest thing about my job is that I do research. So when I’m not speaking, I here and I’m studying and I’m reading. And I had a friend had told me, I think it was even my friend Cecelia. She had told me about this course at Harvard. And this was like 10, 12 years ago. The students at Harvard were very stressful. You think? Why, why would they be stressed? They’re in one of the top universities in the country, but kids at Harvard are stressed because they don’t want to be in the bottom half. Somebody has gotta be in the bottom half and they worry about their grades tremendously. They worry about how much it costs to go there. So they’ve got a lot of worries. And so the staff at Harvard decided that they were going to make a course on happiness.

Karen McCullough:

And they were sure that nobody would sign up. I mean, you’re going to Harvard, you’re going to take a happiness course. But low and behold, not only did people sign up, but right now, 12 years later, you have to sign up your freshman year in order to get into this course, maybe by your junior year. So many students are stressed. And so this course I’m happiness was a big destresser. So I studied it. I read the Harvard business review. So what do they teach? And I’m going to tell you in a little nutshell, what they talked about at this happiness course at Harvard, they said that you have to create daily rituals, that happiness. And to me, I’m going to say, when I am fearful, I can hold onto something and you have to put daily rituals into your life. And where ritual is something that you do all the time.

Karen McCullough:

I could call it a habit or I could say self discipline, but I liked the word ritual. I think it’s cool. So I have put, these are my daily rituals. And the first one that Harvard talks about this is a six month or a quarter semester course, they spent most of the time talking about gratitude. And you can’t just say you have an attitude for gratitude. Like, yes, I wake up and I’m so grateful, but you have to create a gratitude practice, a gratitude practice that you do every day. Let me tell you something, this, this is the one thing over everything that I do that has helped me and my fear and helped me stop staying in that worry mode. It moves me forward so that I can do some work. So I have a gratitude practice that I do twice a day. And I do it when I brush my teeth because I brushed my teeth twice a day.

Karen McCullough:

And I could say I’m going to journal, but I’m the kind of person that probably will buy a beautiful journal and a cool pen. And they’ll put it beside my bed and I’ll go to sleep. So I needed something that really kind of hooked on to a practice or a habit that I already have. And I approached my teeth. So my toothbrush is my gratitude brush and I have an electric brush. So it goes for about two full minutes in the morning. I am grateful for people. And I think of all the people that have helped me, all the people that have come into my life, but it could just be a neighbor that smiled at me like right now, when we’re walking and people smile, they say, hi, it makes me feel so great because I have so little human contact. So I go through in the morning, a ritual of people, and I think about people.

Karen McCullough:

And I, and I say in my mind, I am so grateful for you. So Keith Wolf, I’m so grateful for you. Thank you for having me do this. And you’ve been in my gratitude morning brushing for several days now at night when I’m brushing my teeth, before I go to bed, I think about the things that happened that day and what I’m grateful for, the opportunities that came, maybe a phone call something positive that has happened that I am grateful for. Sometimes it’s just having a good dinner. You know, I’m grateful for having that delicious avocado today. It was fine, but I have to look for things. I started on this gratitude practice. When I bought my house, I live in the Houston area called the Heights and I bought a little old, old, it was built in 1930 bungalow and I got it for a good price.

Karen McCullough:

But when I started to move in, I saw everything that was wrong with this house. Every single thing, no matter where you looked, things were wrong from cracks to floorboards, to creeks. And they started to irritate me. And pretty soon I had anxiety about the house and I realized that I had to have gratitude for the house. So my very first gratitude project was falling in love with this little old house. And I gotta be honest with you. It’s pretty cute right now. It’s taken me a long time, but practicing gratitude has really helped me move through anxiety and negativity into positivity. In the morning, I do a meditation and I do a quickie. Sometimes I only do five minutes. Sometimes I can do 15 minutes. I’m a little high strung, as you can probably tell. And so meditation is hard, but what I’m trying to do is settle my mind.

Karen McCullough:

I’m trying to settle my mind so that I can think it’d be more productive during the day I have to exercise every day. So I exercise for me twice a day. I exercise in the morning and then I exercise in the evenings so that I can get my fill because I have an obligation to be high energy. And I have an obligation to show up looking pretty good. So I’ve got to really take care of myself, which is probably something that you should all put into your daily ritual. Get up, take a shower, put your makeup on ladies, guys, comb your hair, put on a cool shirt. And I don’t care what you wear on the bottom. But I think that we have to put rituals in every single day, especially now that we’re home, I’m looking good. I found that I am pretty pretty active in the morning.

Karen McCullough:

My brain is going really, really great. And I can write, I have much better capability of writing in the morning than I do at night at night when I close the computer down, maybe at four or five o’clock I don’t want to open it again. So I have a practice now of writing and trying to get a blog done or something for my SEO or writing my next book. In the morning, connecting, we have to connect with people. People are huge. So I have a morning. I have a daily ritual that I’ve got to talk to at least three or four people. That’s pretty easy for me before. Now actually it’s even easier because everybody’s doing zoom calls. So it’s kind of fun. I’m connecting with people that I haven’t seen in a long time. And the last one, the last one really helps me.

Karen McCullough:

I try to do an act of kindness every day. So these pieces act of kindness, connecting with people, exercise, meditation, and gratitude. The writing is mine. These are all things that they taught at Harvard, starting to do a random act of kindness every single day, every single day makes you like yourself. It makes you feel better. It tells you your brain is saying, you know, you just helped the neighbor next door. You’re a pretty cool person. It’s subconscious, but we’re continually telling ourselves that we did something good. So we do random acts of kindness. So let me tell you about doing these rituals, their heart, their heart. I try to get up every day at five. I know Keith got up today at four 30, but he beat me, but I tried to get up at five and every morning when that alarm goes off on my phone, guess what I say, Oh, maybe I should sleep in today.

Karen McCullough:

Maybe not today. There’s always going to be a voice that says you don’t need to exercise today. There’s always going to be a voice that says it’s raining outside. You don’t need to go for a run today. There’s always a voice that says you don’t need to meditate five minutes. You need to drink your coffee. We all have those voices inside of us and we have to fight them. It’s not just you. That has them. Every single person out there has these voices in their that. Tell them not to do these daily rituals. So I want you to find those voices. And I want you to think about this is the best way for you to really conquer that fear factor, because what you do every day matters more than what you do once in a while, what you do every day matters more than you do once in awhile, pretty important.

Karen McCullough:

So now we’re getting into fun. So you’re going to have to tell people, you’re gonna have to talk about yourself. You’re going to have to, if you’re on that job interview, they’re going to want to know your story. You’ve got to begin to create and craft your narrative. We want to hear your story. So as I told you, I continually keep learning. And last February I took my marketing guy, Ben and I, and we took a three day workshop with the Donald Miller the StoryBrand guy. And we learned how to craft our narrative, how to craft our story. And a lot of it was done for marketing, but I sitting there realize that we’re always marketing ourselves. So how do we craft that story about ourselves? So I’m going to give you three pieces that Donald Miller shared that you need to think about before, when you start to write your story.

Karen McCullough:

And the first part of it is, what problem are you solving? No matter what we’re doing, whether we have a business, whether we are looking for a new career, a new job, whether we’re wanting to start a consulting business or a coaching business or a speaking business, or if you want to bake bread, everybody’s baking bread right now, a bakery business. You’ve got to have a problem that you were solid. And he says, jot down the problem. And for some of us jot down as many as you can think of brainstorm and begin to think about why that company needs you, what you can do to help them move the needle. So we begin to think of what problem we’re solving. The second piece of it is it’s kind of a two way street. It’s empathy and it’s it’s empathy and authority. So with empathy, you’ve got to, once you’re talking about the problem, you’ve got to tell the audience that you are right there.

Karen McCullough:

You have been through this, you’ve had this problem. So you are showing them that you understand the problem and your authority is. And so I worked on, I’ve been doing research on, I’ve been studying because this is something that I’m very interested in. You start your story off with a problem. It’s called opening a narrative. You open your narrative with talking about something going on in the workplace. You open your narrative. Maybe we’re talking about how to give a presentation. Virtually we opened the narrative, telling our story. Then we talk about, you know, I get it because I have been afraid. So when I opened the narrative as a speaker, I say, I’ve always wanted to do something that used my creativity. And I realized that if I was a speaker, I could help people solve some of the problems that they have, if I could give them some sort of benefit.

Karen McCullough:

And so I get it though, because speaking is hard for me. So you’re, you’re telling them that you connect to this with empathy, and then you tell them the authority. So I’ve spent the last five years studying, working on it, trying to improve my diction, trying to improve my energy, whatever it is that you want to say. So those are the three pieces with building your narrative from Donald Miller. Start by naming the problem. Then add your empathy and then work on your authority because you’ve got to have a story. So keep, keep working on that one.

Speaker 6:

[Inaudible]

Karen McCullough:

Make friends with the competition. This, this is one that was foreign to me because in retail, you know, the competition, who’s going to talk to the competition. We used to actually, when we went to market, they would close the doors and pull the blinds. If you’re, if you were in the same market with your competition, because nobody wanted to show the competition, the clothing that they were buying. So making friends with the competition was really new to me. I learned this through national speakers association. So think about this. I belong to the local chapter. And then I joined the national chapter where everyone in the association in a way is competing with each other. And what I found was this, these were my people. When I embraced the competition. When I shared ideas with the competition, when I knew that there was enough for all of us, there was enough, there were enough speaking events for them.

Karen McCullough:

And there were enough for me. When I joined forces with the competition, it totally changed my life because guess what they did, if they couldn’t do an event, or if they didn’t have their resources, they would tell people about me. And if I asked for a favor, if I asked for resources, they would share it with me. And I learned this whole idea of sharing and giving and it opened my eyes. It really opened my eyes to those years in retail were kind of sad because I was very private and I didn’t want to share. And I really didn’t have a lot of friends, but today I would tell anyone, the biggest mistake I made was not joining and becoming friends sooner. Do it as quickly as you can join an association, join a group and then give those random acts of kindness, help people in the group, help people in the association, whatever groups you can belong to.

Karen McCullough:

This is the time to do it, but you have to show up, well, you have to know your story. You have to tell your story. And maybe for some of you, you have several stories. You have to look good. You have to invest in yourself. I used to tell people that I was in product development and I’m the product. Every dime I spent on myself was into product development. And it really helped people want you to succeed. You just have to show up. You have to be generous. You have to give, you have to share. And the benefits will come to you so much, so much better than what you can ever. It was the biggest lesson that I learned. Make friends with the competition, share your ideas, join organizations, and grow your circle.

Speaker 6:

Okay.

Karen McCullough:

It’s done. And this is probably one of the most interesting stories I’m going to talk about because when you think of mentoring, I mean, I do mentor a lot of people, but my mentoring really started very differently. And I’m going to share two stories with you. I said that I have been through so many reinventions. I in 2001, I just said, share this with you. I started speaking in 2000 and my biggest client with Enron and Ron hired me right off the bat. So when in 2001, yeah, I had two things happen. I had nine 11 happened and I had an rotten go down. And so I was looking at 2002 with no clients and I had to start totally over again. And in a way it was a blessing because I started with a new topic before that I had been talking about image and dress and I had a program called the look of leadership.

Karen McCullough:

I made a decision in 2002 to reinvent myself and become an expert on change. I started reading everything possible. I could unchanged. And like a month later I did my first keynote on change and I had kept it all along. So let’s move to 2008. So in 2008, I got a call on Thanksgiving. I had, I was going to be helping sun Microsystems, which is now Oracle. I was going to help them rebrand all of their sales teams. And they had 10. It was a whole year’s worth of work for 2009. I was really, really excited. This is a true story. Thanksgiving. the morning of Thanksgiving, I got a call from sun. They canceled everything for 2009. And so did everybody else? I had an empty calendar of 2009 and 2010. So I was watching this guy named Gary Vaynerchuk.

Karen McCullough:

He was called Gary V and he was doing a speech back in the day. 2008. It was called web 2.0. And he started talking about the power of social media. And I remember he said, if you love Smurfs, Smurf it up. He said, because social media is free. And he said, you can grow a brand so quickly. When I heard the word free, I was in, he got me with that word and I became, I studied Gary Vaynerchuk. He had a thing called wine library, and he would do these. I don’t know if any of you seen him, but he would do. He would come on on YouTube and he would have like five wines and he would taste them and spit into a bucket. And he would tell you all about the wines. His father had a liquor store and Gary had to work at a liquor store.

Karen McCullough:

His father made him work at the liquor store and he started hanging around, watching the people that bought wine. And he noticed that they had more money than some of the other patrons in the store. And so he decided to become an expert on wine. And then he took it online. He has pretty language. I’m not going to say you should watch Gary Vaynerchuk, but he opened my eyes to social media. And I still listen to him today because he does motivate me to get going. So now I’m thinking about social media. I had nothing to do, and I meet this woman. She was about 24 years old. She was a social media coach, a consultant here in Houston. She worked with small businesses and our name was crystal Washington. So she was a millennial and I was a baby boomer. And she, one day I had just put a book out.

Karen McCullough:

I had written a book with my daughter Meredith and crystal got the book and put on Facebook back then I called it the Facebook, how great this book was. And I think I sold like 50 to a hundred books that day. And I said, who is this person? So crystal and I met two totally different people, two totally different generations, two totally different ideas and cultures and perceptions of the world. And we joined forces. I taught her how to become a speaker. And she taught me social media in 2009 and 2010. We started a company called social Trinity’s teaching all of the associations and small businesses in the Houston area through live presentations, the power of social media and how to work. How do use Facebook and LinkedIn and Twitter? My 2009, 2010 income was bigger than I’d ever had. I was more than I could imagine.

Karen McCullough:

We were killing it. And then one day right out of the blue as such lineal would do, she came over to say hi. And she came over to say, bye. She told me that she was pulling the plug on social communities and she was going out on her own. She’s going to get to the big stage today. She’s an international speaker. She’s my best friend. And she actually lives right down the street from me. So mentors come in, all shapes, all sizes. In all ways. I have a lot of mentors, mentors online. They don’t know me. I follow a lot of people. I listened to a lot of podcasts and they’re my mentors. I get a lot of ideas every single day from my mentors online. And then I hang around with a lot of young people because they are teaching me. They’re pushing me.

Karen McCullough:

They’re telling me that I have to get with it. They’re telling me to be more relevant. And they are really my motivators that are moving me towards where I want to be. If I hung out with my generation and my friends, no offense boomers on there. I love y’all, but you’d be telling me you’re scared or you’d be telling me not to. I have to find the right people to be my motivators. My mentors have to be the right people. So I want you to think about that. I want you to think about who you’re going to to get your information. And it doesn’t always have to be with someone that, you know, it could be someone on a podcast or it could even be Gary V. So as I’m closing it down, the biggest thing that I want to leave with you right now is no matter where you are and you have to shift your mindset, you have to shift your mindset that you’re willing to grow and change because here’s the thing.

Karen McCullough:

I listen to CNBC every single morning. And today they were talking about what the new future of work is going to look like. They were talking about AI. They were talking about so many things that even two years ago would have frightened me, but I am learning year by year to push myself, to keep myself open because the workplace will be very different in the next three years. And we need to be equipped both mentally and with our knowledge to be able to handle it. So a fixed mindset says, Oh, I can’t learn another thing. I, I’m not good at technology. I’m going to shut this down. A growth mindset says, I am open. I’m willing to learn. It may take me a little longer, but I am going to pursue this. And I’m going to learn this because I’m willing to grow. So we’ve got to continually work on our mindset.

Karen McCullough:

So I wrote down a few things. Reinvention requires number one, getting feedback from others, build your community, getting feedback. If you’ve got lots and lots of connections, create a focus group, have them over. When we can get back to having people in our houses or maybe have them on your lawn and ask them what they see. And you tell them that your dilemma, they may come up with an idea for a career that you’ve never thought of. The ideas may come from someone else. They may make a spark in you, but you’ve gotta be open to talking to people about your growth, develop new skills and never stop, keep developing skills and see, listen to what people say about you. Listen to the good things that people say and believe them. You’ve got to begin to see your value. You’ve got to begin to see that. Just making someone smile, just cheering. Someone up brings tremendous value to a person that day before I close, I want, are there any more questions

Keith Wolf:

We do? We do. So for someone who is introverted, I think you said your EFP, which the, the E is extrovert, but for someone who’s introverted and they value privacy and modesty any tips for how to overcome that.

Karen McCullough:

It’s a hard, it’s very hard. I am extroverted. And so it it’s, it’s a lot easier for me. Introverted people have to learn, they have to push. They don’t have to become an extrovert, but they have to become interested in others. Introverted people have to learn how to smile, how to look people in the eye. And I know he said he likes to, you know, I’m, I’m picturing somebody that likes to stay, you know, home, but you, you can’t, you can’t grow a brand without putting yourself out there. It’s just going to take a lot more work for introverts. It is, but you don’t have to be an extrovert. You, in fact, I love, I have so many friends that are introverts because they care. And they ask me questions about me. Many times, extroverts tell you about themselves, but introverts ask you questions about yourself. So you’re going to have to really Polish on that one and really work at connecting with people, looking them in the eye, listening and asking them questions.

Keith Wolf:

Now I’ve got a difficult one. So if you’re ready for this, you know, you, you you, you started your own business, but for somebody who is not looking to do that, but you know, their, their industry, maybe it’s energy in a civical right now. And they’ve decided to leave that industry or another industry. What tips would you give for someone who’s looking to start fresh in a new niche?

Karen McCullough:

You got to just do research. You got to find out, you know, so they need to use your coaches and you need to decide and find out where I know so many people that have changed careers, and you’ve got to find out what interests you, what area do you want to go into? And you’ve got to do the research on it. I’m being really honest with you listening to CNBC every morning from five o’clock, until eight 30, you will hear CEOs talking. You will hear companies that are hiring. You will see where the business is going, but you have got to continually feed yourself with information and ideas.

Speaker 7:

Yep. How about you, Pete? What do you think for them?

Keith Wolf:

Yeah, I mean, you’ve got to get started, right? I think finding mentors in other businesses is key. Informational interviews, you know, I think right now people are more willing to help others. And then they may, I’ve ever been at least that I can remember. So, you know, people have more time than they’ve had a long time. So being able to spend some time, people are looking to help. And I think that goes a long way. And also think anytime that you can actually take on a project rather than, you know, just taking courses, courses, certifications, that’s all great. But if you can actually prove some way whether through writing or some project that you can do, and it’s going to be for free on your own time that you can show somebody who’s looking to hire, it goes back to the research that you’re talking about. You’ve got to do the research and educate yourself, but then you have to be able to show value that you can come in and immediately hit the ground running in some sort of role. Cause that’s, that’s what employers are looking for rather than ever someone who can contribute immediately.

Karen McCullough:

I just heard Facebook. I heard of, I heard Mark on today this morning and he said that they’re going to be hiring engineers. He mentioned a number. It was huge because they’ve decided that they’re going to stay at home and work from home. And so now they can hire people from all over the country. So they’re going to be hiring. So, I mean, they’re hiring engineers. So I thought that was pretty interesting.

Keith Wolf:

Yeah. And then, you know, we are seeing folks hiring. So it’s, you know, just to give people a little bit of hope on this call in case, you know, the case, you’re one of the people who’ve been laid off. You know, we, at one point didn’t have any jobs and I’ll flip my camera since we’re nearing the end here, but we didn’t have any jobs that we’re working on. I mean, it was, it felt like the world was ending for a few weeks there in the recruiting business because the jobs were working on, they just stopped overnight. And then it started to tick up and we’re about 40 to 50% of where we were. And so it’s not a hundred percent, but it’s ticking the right way. And you know, there, there are jobs. I can’t point to any one industry or any one area.

Keith Wolf:

It really depends on the risk profile of the leadership. There are still some energy companies are looking to acquire other companies looking to grow. They’re looking to take advantage of this opportunity. We’re also seeing manufacturing pharmaceuticals. We’re seeing technology company. So there are just pockets, even real estate, just pockets of businesses that are still hiring. And so it’s just, you know, something to be optimistic about it. And in my opinion, it’s only gonna get better from here, I think, and hope that we’ve seen the worst of it. So, you know, give people something to look forward to. We are actually looking like we may, we may end up on time. So let me, Karen, let me, let me just say, I’ve seen you speak several times and I’ve actually never told you this, but I saw you speak, I think it’s about six or seven years ago.

Keith Wolf:

And at that time, it wasn’t looking for a speaker, but it, and I didn’t come up to you and say anything. Cause there was no, you had a crowd around you, but you know, years later when I was looking for a speaker for hot topics, I remember you and it popped in my head and I reached out. So you just never know the impact that you’re making on people and who’s in the audience or who might hire you later, who might be in a position to do that. And I just really appreciate it. Like I said, I’ve seen you speak a lot of times. I’ve never heard you share the story that you did today and be as transparent with all that information. I think that just makes your story then that much more interesting and relatable. So thank you.

Karen McCullough:

Thanks. I’ve never shared it. And I thought I, if the time is said to Mike, I actually told my son, my kids didn’t even know I went through any of this cause they were off at school. And my son said, you need to write a book on this because he said, you’ve got some story. I got some stories, but I want you to think about this at the most. I love this quote and it really has helped me because especially speaking, because I have to go in and know the audience loves me and they want me to succeed because there’s still a fear when you’re up there speaking live and virtually the most important decision that we make is whether we believe we live in a friendly or a hostile universe. I believe we live in a friendly universe. I believe that people are out there and they care for me.

Karen McCullough:

And I believe that if I ask for help, I’m going to get it. Just think of it this way. Especially for some of you that may be in a transition right now. Things don’t happen to us. They happen for us. What can you do right now in this situation? How can you actually, I know it’s hard to think that it could be better, but what can you do to understand yourself to learn more? And what can you do to help yourself? What is happening for you right now? I’m going to put this up here. I’ve got a lot of materials. If anybody wants anything and you text me at a four to eight to eight and you just write stuff in the message, I will send you a lot of stuff. So just text me at a four to eight to eight and and you will get some of my branding materials. I’ll give you some podcasts I listened to. So if any of you are interested, I’d love to share. And Keith, thank you so much for having me Marie resources and all of you that are out there. Thank thank you.

Keith Wolf:

Thank you so much and really appreciate everybody being on the call today. It looks like almost everybody hung on until the very end. So thank you. Thanks everyone for joining. And we will send the slides out afterwards. And as Karen said, she will be sending out additional information, worksheets and additional stuff. If you sent her a text message. So thanks Karen.