John Tarnoff on Finding Your Next Chapter

Gap to Gig Podcast Episode 1 with John Tarnoff for Clips
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[00:00:00] Speaker: Don't think that you know what you know, right, right. Be open, take up a beginner's mind to the whole process, but build that community so that you can gradually extend that community to the like-minded people and just be open to the conversations as they happen. Get feedback, propose ideas, prototype ideas.

[00:00:22] Someone says, Hey, have you ever thought about doing this? And you say, I have no background in that. I don't think I have any skillset that's right for that. Why would you think that I would be right for that? And they'll say, just because of this one small thing.

[00:00:36] ​

[00:00:41] Michael: Welcome to Gap to Gig, the show for dads re-imagining how work fits into life, not the other way around. It's where we talk about what comes next, how to make sense of the in-between and who you become in the process. I'm your host, Michael Jacobs, and today my guest is John Tarnoff, an executive coach who knows what it means to reinvent yourself when life takes a turn. He's helped countless mid-career professionals rediscover confidence and direction after time away from work. For any dad looking to balance, ambition and family while writing their next act, John's insights today I think are gonna be pure gold for you. John, welcome to the show.

[00:01:13] Appreciate you having you here.

[00:01:14] John: Good to be here, Michael. Thank you for having me on.

[00:01:17] Michael: Thank you. Your story, John, it's proof that it's never too late to rewrite your career, your definition of success. How did that journey start for you?

[00:01:25] John: So the the journey started for me, the way it happens for many people, which is when you start, when you get close to 50 or thereabouts, and this is a natural, psychological phenomenon, you tend to question, wait a minute, what's going on here? And, you know, typically in our culture, there's this cliche of the midlife crisis.

[00:01:49] The guy goes out and buys a sports car, dumps his wife, takes up with a 30-year-old. But I think it goes deeper than that and I think it really goes to this sense of, "what's next?" I've done a lot. I have accomplished a lot of my goals or really come to terms with what that means. I have learned a lot in my career.

[00:02:13] I have started a family, I have bought a house. I, whatever the milestones may be and now you're hitting midlife. All of a sudden, the goalposts are starting to appear over the horizon, and you start to think, wait a minute, what is the rest of this supposed to be like? So, this manifests in many ways personally, certainly professionally, there is a reevaluation that takes place and what's gonna happen also is that the culture is gonna start reevaluating you based on your age, and you're going to start hearing these little whispers all around you. You're gonna be looked at differently, and people will start asking you when you're planning to retire when you're not planning on retiring at all for at least 10, 15, 20 years.

[00:03:07] So there's a lot of bias which begins to creep into the whole process and that hit me just along, along the way with everyone else. I was at a particular tender junction in my career. I had started, this was in the 90s, I had started a small tech startup with a partner through the internet bubble.

[00:03:35] Raised all the money, had the development team chugging away, had a couple of big clients really looking good, and then spring of 2001, NASDAQ got wiped out, the bubble burst, everything went away including us, including our customers. And at the end it was my partner and me sitting in his little loft apartment in Venice, California with a room full of computers and no one to run them thinking, okay, what are we gonna do now?

[00:04:10] Michael: Right.

[00:04:12] John: And so that was my wake up call, and I realized I needed to do something different. I had been, prior to that, I had been a film studio executive and film producer and had really a fairly volatile career. It's a volatile business, and I had been up and down, fired a lot, lots of different jobs.

[00:04:28] I really didn't, I hadn't really burned any bridges, but I really hadn't maintained my bridges, so I really couldn't go back and didn't wanna go back to the jobs that I'd had before. Didn't know what was going on. So I had to do a flip, and I wound up going back to school, earning a psychology degree, which repositioned me in a very different way back in the business, strangely enough, that I had been in and wound up at DreamWorks Animation for the 2000s, but doing talent work, mostly talent development, which was something that was entirely new on a formal basis, although it had really been the undercurrent of everything that I had ever done as a development production executive. It's all about the talent. So, I became this poster child for how to reinvent yourself at this particular time in this particular economy. And when I left DreamWorks in 2010 to go off and do my own thing, I really wanted to do my own consulting gig. I didn't wanna take another job.

[00:05:26] This kind of came to the fore. And I've been doing this now since 2014, 2015 and wrote a book in 2017. Been perfecting this coaching methodology, and I help people in mid-career go through the same kind of transition and crisis that I went through and get to the other side.

[00:05:47] Michael: What a fascinating story. I appreciate you sharing that with us. What do you think through, there was certainly a lot of uncertainty in, all this that you experienced from going from the Hollywood or the film industry to your own tech startup and that tech startup fall into the pressures of the the tech bubble of the early two thousands and then reinventing yourself after that. What helped push you through all that uncertainty and get to the point where you are today? Was there...

[00:06:21] John: I was gonna say blind faith or fear,

[00:06:25] Michael: sure.

[00:06:27] John: You get to a certain point where and, people have said to me over the course of time, wow you've done really courageous things. You have you you did this pivot and you reinvented yourself and, wow, you must have been very strategic about this, and I wasn't. I was reactive. I was doing the best I could at the time. I had a lot of dark nights through that period, and for people who are struggling in the job market and they've been out of work for a long time and six months or a year, and they're not getting responses, and it's a very toxic job application environment that we're undergoing right now, or have been increasingly for a while.

[00:07:11] And people say how do you get through it? And unfortunately, you just have to go through it. It's the old Winston Churchill line, "if you're going through, hell keep going." Right. You have no alternative. And the, only thing I can say that's perhaps reassuring to people is that by going through hell and keeping going through hell, you are going to learn lessons, right?

[00:07:37] You are going to figure things out. The only thing keeping you back from learning those lessons is your own unwillingness and resistance to moving forward. And I get that as well. And there are the days where you just wanna pull the covers over your head. And you can't. You, you have to figure out a way of getting outta bed, of moving forward, of picking up that phone or sending that email.

[00:08:10] Michael: Yep.

[00:08:11] John: And one of the, and now this goes into a whole other branch of this question, which is personal growth, building resilience...

[00:08:25] Michael: Yep.

[00:08:27] John: Creating healthy habits for yourself. Using psychological tools to support that resilience building. And I think that's really where it comes down to. I will make a recommendation here.

[00:08:42] An author who, helped me out a lot during these periods of uncertainty named Pema Chödrön, who is a, who is a American-born, Canadian-resident Buddhist nun, who I believe runs now Gampo Abbey in Halifax, Nova Scotia, has written many books about resilience and about uncertainty.

[00:09:06] Being Comfortable with Uncertainty, which I think is the name of one of her books, and this idea that you want to be able to accept and even get comfortable with the idea of uncertainty is very important in a changing time, in a tumultuous era that we're living in, and particularly if you are at this juncture.

[00:09:30] Michael: Yep.

[00:09:31] John: Now, I'll skip ahead maybe to directly address your audience here.

[00:09:38] Michael: Please.

[00:09:39] John: One of the, one of the challenges I think that dads have who have chosen to stay home for whatever reason is a sense of isolation.

[00:09:55] Michael: Yep, absolutely.

[00:09:56] John: And I think that this is certainly a very insidious challenge that stay-at-home Dads are gonna find because as men we don't tend to gab about this.

[00:10:17] Michael: Right.

[00:10:17] John: And all these studies about the fact that women will speak X percentage, higher words per minute, words per hour than men, right? They're much more communicative about these things. They're much more fluent about feelings and sharing and this and that and we don't do that, right? So it makes it really hard for us to engage in this process of self-reflection, of prototyping new ideas, and I think it's the number one thing that we have to be very mindful of as we are trying to get through this, and that is we can't do it alone. Right.

[00:11:06] Michael: Absolutely.

[00:11:07] John: We have to reach out. We have to create these groups of other men and women, too. I don't think it necessarily has to be a men's group approach where we are just thinking as men, we have to figure this out as men. I don't necessarily buy into that. I think it, it benefits from being a, an open gender, open environment and forum for us to do these things so that we can learn from one another.

[00:11:41] Michael: Absolutely. So one of the things you talk a lot about is confidence and how often it comes last,

[00:11:48] John: Yes.

[00:11:49] Michael: and so is a dad, whether you're a stay-at-home dad or you're a working dad, but you have some caregiving responsibilities. They're tend to have confidence in perhaps your child raising abilities and taking care of your child when you're supposed to be taking care of your child. But as you talk about the, challenges that dads face, it's not necessarily having that confidence in yourself to go out and pursue the type of work that is most meaningful to you, so do you have any recommendations for like, how dads can rebuild their confidence after a long time, years maybe, of focus on more caregiving instead of career climbing?

[00:12:33] John: I think it's a, I think it's a deeper question than simply relating it to action and function,

[00:12:42] Michael: Okay.

[00:12:43] John: and I don't think that defining your expertise or your ability in one area and then necessarily diminishing your lack of expertise in another area

[00:12:58] Michael: Right.

[00:12:59] John: necessarily, I don't think that's necessarily helpful, but I'm gonna go out on a strange circuitous limb here and say that what comes up for me when you ask that question about how to attack this, comes down to a very simple, deceptively, deceptively simple practice, which is to do a daily journal.

[00:13:21] And I think that what the journal does, and this is not a "Dear Diary, I went to the grocery store and ran a stoplight and petted a dog." This is a feeling-based, freeform writing almost stream of consciousness process. It's, really based on a woman named Julia Cameron, who wrote a book called The Artist's Way, which really addressed the question of writer's block, and she prescribed this concept of morning pages.

[00:14:00] The idea that you would write three pages a day, longhand whatever came up. It was not about what you were writing and not about your work. It was everything about the, about it was the meta process around your work.

[00:14:15] Michael: Yep.

[00:14:16] John: And I think a, subset of that, I only write one page a day. I don't recommend people write more than one page,

[00:14:23] Michael: Sure.

[00:14:24] John: but that page is your chance to check in with yourself and coupled with external work that you may be doing, such as, in my case it was reading Pema Chödrön when I was in that kind of crisis transition.

[00:14:43] Michael: Yep.

[00:14:44] John: A couple of different occasions, one, getting into getting out of the startup eventually into DreamWorks, but then leaving DreamWorks, I had a period of time where I was like, I knew I wanted to do it, but I had some setbacks and I, was in the middle of a divorce and it was like, whoa. It's like the, rug has really been pulled out from under me.

[00:15:01] So, to have that notebook to reach for,

[00:15:08] Michael: Yep.

[00:15:09] John: when I didn't know what else to do and I was feeling the panic coming up was so important to be able to just start writing

[00:15:19] Michael: Absolutely.

[00:15:20] John: and write whatever was coming up and really allow all of that vomit of fear and anxiety come out onto the page and realized it really was not defining me.

[00:15:32] It was something that I was experiencing, but that was not a state. It was not a fixed judgment. It was not like, oh, this must be the bottom line. This is who I am. I'm a failure. No, it was just what I was experiencing. And to be able to get that out in this process of doing the journal is enormously helpful to make you, or give you, the opportunity to start moving.

[00:16:01] And then by the time I would put down that journal, I'd go, oh, okay, now I feel a lot better. I actually know what I need to now do.

[00:16:11] Michael: Yep. Yeah, I found in writing myself, it's, it helps me process, right? And then through that process, it clears my mind. It gives me a clearer path forward. So that makes a lot of sense of as a way to build confidence is to first process through what you're experiencing in the here and now, so that you can take that next step.

[00:16:33] So you can process

[00:16:33] John: Yeah.

[00:16:34] Michael: that and now you have a clear path forward. You're not holding onto the things that are perhaps holding you back.

[00:16:39] John: Yeah.

[00:16:39] Michael: That makes a lot of sense.

[00:16:41] John: Another thing that, just another little nuance on the confidence question where people will say to me, I'm gonna wait until I feel a little bit more confident before I reengage, in general, and I think we have this idea when we're experiencing a lack of confidence, or we're saying that we are experiencing a lack of confidence, which is I know what confidence looks like, and that's not me right now,

[00:17:12] Michael: Yep.

[00:17:12] John: and therefore, if it's not me, that is a condition that is determining my course of action. But if you were to look at that and say, okay, confidence, I understand what confidence looks like or feels like, I'm not there right now, but think of it as an aspirational state.

[00:17:33] It's a place I'm going to.

[00:17:36] Michael: Yeah, that's a great point.

[00:17:37] John: Not a place that I am not in, will never be in, am shrinking farther and farther away from.

[00:17:47] Michael: Right.

[00:17:49] John: Those decision making processes are within your control. Right? You can decide to flip that around and say, let me reframe this a different way. Right? Let me, think of confidence as a future possibility.

[00:18:03] Michael: Yep.

[00:18:04] John: And those small reframing tweaks can be enormously helpful.

[00:18:12] Michael: Absolutely. I, I think what really hit home for me there is the more you avoid, the harder it is to get to your next step. Like, if you're taking that next step, you're just pushing yourself further from

[00:18:24] John: Right,

[00:18:25] Michael: doing it.

[00:18:25] John: Right.

[00:18:26] Michael: Sometimes you just gotta put one foot in front of the other

[00:18:27] John: Yeah.

[00:18:28] Michael: And just start going down that path,

[00:18:31] John: Yeah.

[00:18:31] Michael: and you may not get the results you want today, but if you keep at it, you will get to the destination that you want there.

[00:18:39] John: Yeah, you'll get the results that you get. And that's the bigger lesson, right, is that what's the Dylan line? "Life happens when you're otherwise making plans."

[00:18:49] Michael: Yep.

[00:18:50] John: Right?

[00:18:51] Michael: Exactly. Yeah. So, let's pivot a little bit to more of the practical part of your work. You, help people, get, reinvent themselves, get into the work that they want to get into at a later stage in their career, and for many returning dads, or dads that are trying to figure out what that balance is between raising their family and doing work that not just pays the bills, but means something to them, that brings them some sort of positivity, some sort of joy, some sort of meaning to their lives. The biggest concern that I hear from dads right now is that they don't know how to address, or reframe, their skillset, things that they do at home that are relevant to their work in the real world. How do you look at a dad's resume today, or a dad's ability to go and find a job? What should they be focused on to help them succeed in finding the path to a meaningful work?

[00:20:03] John: Right. The protocol that I start with when I'm working with a client at whatever stage they're in, they may be out of a job, they're in a job, they may be home, they may not, wherever they are, is to try to firewall all of these external expectations and judgements and if thens

[00:20:27] that that we do right.

[00:20:28] And

[00:20:28] Michael: Yep.

[00:20:32] John: partially this is, I think, a valuable cognitive exercise, but I think it's also a powerful pattern interrupter. Which is really important because you want to, I was thinking about this idea of return to work, right?

[00:20:45] Michael: Yep.

[00:20:45] John: I think just those three words implies that you're going back to what you did before.

[00:20:54] I'm returning to that same place, but you're not,

[00:20:59] Michael: Right.

[00:21:00] John: right? You're going to a new place.

[00:21:03] Michael: yep,

[00:21:05] John: So you're advancing to a new work, right? You're you're reinventing. You're reimagining. And that's, I think, an important distinction that people wanna make from the get go.

[00:21:21] Michael: Right.

[00:21:23] John: Then I would say this protocol that I work with, which anybody can work with, it's public domain, is this concept of the ikigai, which is this westernized interpretation of a Japanese concept of life's purpose. And you've seen this Venn diagram all over the internet. The four questions: what do I love to do? What do I do well? What does your world need? That's my interpretation of it. The ikigai then says, what does the world need?

[00:21:53] I think that's much too aspirational.

[00:21:55] Michael: Sure.

[00:21:56] John: We're not all gonna change the world tomorrow, but you can change your world, right? If you have a particular profession, industry role, you, you can change that. What does, what, does that role need? And then what can you get paid for?

[00:22:11] So at the intersection of those four questions is the beginning of your new product-market fit. And I really think it is difficult to try to cram in this idea of how do I talk about my skillset if I haven't been in the job as a salaried employee or consultant or whatever it is that you were doing in a steady state of work with clients or customers or managers.

[00:22:51] That's gonna drive you crazy.

[00:22:53] Michael: Right.

[00:22:56] John: Sidebar, someone said to me the other day, I'm working with a cohort group right now. Someone said to me the other day, "so in doing the ikigai, should I just do it about the professional likes and preferences and skillsets, or should I do it about the personal? Should I do both?" And I said, "yes, you should do both." There's no distinction in the what I love to do and what I do well, going into this very freeform because you'd be surprised at how what you do well and what you love to do on the quote unquote personal side is exactly what you do well and love to do on the professional side.

[00:23:40] Michael: Right.

[00:23:41] John: You just have different clients.

[00:23:43] Michael: Right. That's a great point.

[00:23:45] John: And I think that's an important kind of leveler for people. Don't be worried about what's my business skill versus my personal skill. Oh, the personal skill, it's just personal. Everybody does that. No, not everybody does that. Not everybody is good at maintaining a schedule, organizing a household, having systems that run that give you freer time to be able to do stuff that.

[00:24:11] Matters more a project that you needed to do, right? You're replanting the garden. That's a pretty big process. Do you have a spreadsheet for that or a project plan for that? I also think that people are much more open today because everyone's living the same life, ultimately,

[00:24:32] Michael: Right.

[00:24:32] John: to appreciating how managerial skills, no matter what the venue may be are still valuable.

[00:24:42] Michael: Yeah.

[00:24:43] John: And I would just as you would look for these valuable lessons, experiences and successes when putting together a resume, preparing for a job interview. Why would you not talk about a really successful experience you had in managing something on the personal side, the family side, and it's not just about your individual or nuclear family. There are big families with big political problems within them,

[00:25:16] Michael: Yep,

[00:25:17] John: and if you have one of those big families, my partner, she comes from a huge Italian family. I'm a, kind of a little Jewish guy from New York with a very small insular family. She's got cousins down the street and every, they're Italian, so they've got, everyone's got an agenda, everyone's got an opinion.

[00:25:42] Right, right. If you are able to manage that, if you are even something as crazy as a family reunion.

[00:25:54] Michael: Yep.

[00:25:54] John: Or a wedding or something like this. It may sound funny and you may want to figure out a fun way of talking about it. That I think has tremendous professional value depending on what it is that you do, that you want to do.

[00:26:11] But I, would not shrink away from this, I think, artificial distinction that we make between work and home.

[00:26:22] Michael: Yep. That's a great point. Do you think you mentioned bringing these personal experiences into your resume, into your job interviews. Do you think things like talking about planning a wedding or managing some big household event that shows personality and is it, is that a risk or a potential reward to show off your personality through these personal experiences that you convey when seeking a job?

[00:26:58] John: I think it depends. I think the degree to which you kind of traffic in your personality, right. Depends largely on who you are, what kind of personality you have, the kind of work that you do, the kind of industry what's, what are the industry norms. I may be a little bit on the kind of creative industry side of this where personality and eccentricity are perhaps a little bit more valued.

[00:27:28] Michael: Yep.

[00:27:29] John: But I also think that's a trend today and that this kind of gray, bland, anodine industrial model of work and workers is going away, and I don't think it's necessarily serving us, plus the fact that if you are one of these bland, programmatic, anodine workers, AI is gonna eat your lunch if it already hasn't.

[00:27:58] Michael: Yeah.

[00:27:59] John: So part of your strategy, I think, regardless of what it is that you do really needs to identify where you're special.

[00:28:10] Michael: Yeah.

[00:28:11] John: And people will say to me, "I do X, Y, and Z, and there are a lot of people who do X, Y, and Z." Yes, but no one does X, Y, and Z quite the way you do it. So in that self-reflection process of the ikigai or whatever other process through your journal, however you're doing this, look for those aspects of your personality, your identity, your skillset, your preferences, your style that make that difference. Because guess what? People like to work with people.

[00:28:51] Michael: Yeah.

[00:28:52] John: They don't really wanna work with bots all the time, right? They want bots to do the work, but at the end of the day, the decisions hopefully.

[00:29:02] We'll be made by people like you and me and other people that we know sitting on a call or in a room and going, okay, what are we gonna do about it? And someone's gonna crack a joke

[00:29:12] Michael: Yep.

[00:29:13] John: to get the meeting going, or share an experience that they had either at work or in their life that is strangely relevant to the topic at hand.

[00:29:26] And we are all now centered around this and energized and focused. Because of the personality of that person. So be that person, right?

[00:29:35] Michael: Yep.

[00:29:36] John: And you don't have to be the life of the party. You don't have to be an extrovert to do that.

[00:29:40] Michael: Right.

[00:29:40] John: You can be the introvert who goes "I always think about it like this."

[00:29:45] And everyone goes, oh my God, that's great. Right?

[00:29:48] Michael: Yep.

[00:29:48] John: It's the one thing you say in the meeting and it changes the meeting for everyone.

[00:29:53] Michael: Yeah. I love that. It's so encouraging to hear that your take on this, because there is a lot of that, especially with AI coming around now of what is going to happen next. And being yourself is always the one true

[00:30:09] John: Right,

[00:30:09] Michael: kind of way to like

[00:30:10] John: right,

[00:30:11] Michael: distinguish yourself not just from AI but

[00:30:12] John: right,

[00:30:13] Michael: in life

[00:30:14] John: right.

[00:30:15] Michael: and in successful arrangements of work

[00:30:18] John: Yeah.

[00:30:18] Michael: or family or whatever it may be.

[00:30:19] John: Yeah. There. There's a great Oscar Wilde quote from this, which I love to use, which is "Be yourself. Everyone else is taken."

[00:30:30] Michael: That is classic. So I wanna ask you, you, your work has particularly been focused at least recently on kinda that mid-career shift or late career shift, and you challenge people to stop complaining about ageism and instead demonstrate their value. And I hear similar things from other dads of "oh it's one thing when I graduated college to go get a job. Like, they always hire young workers. They always want the young ones. But now I'm getting too old now that my kid's starting to grow up, but I need to return to work. How do, how can dads, either as career shifters or re-, returners, how can they demonstrate their value when they feel rusty and throw out that whole ageism concern?

[00:31:28] John: I think that it starts with, and there's a, lot of ageism is self-inflicted,

[00:31:34] Michael: Sure.

[00:31:34] John: And that I think is the worst of it, is that we internalize the ageism and this kind of fatalistic idea I'm getting old. That must mean that. And yes this is not to, this is not to deny that ageism is a powerful, destructive force.

[00:31:53] It is the last sanctioned bias in our culture. It's gonna be nowhere on anyone's campaign platform. So yeah we have a, we have a, big task ahead of us, but it starts with us, right? And again, it's back to the self-reflection work, right? It's back to really focusing on what we deliver and who we are.

[00:32:24] What's the mission that we're on? Right? What's the kind of the value set that circumscribes the work that we do, the way we do the work, the reason why we do the work, the values that we bring to the work, the principles that we find inviable like, I will always return an email within 24 hours.

[00:32:49] Michael: Yeah.

[00:32:50] John: Something as simple as that, which is rarely codified and rarely followed. But something simple like that if you have a handful of those principles. That you live by and maybe you wanna update some of those principles. Whereas, and I think this is probably more applicable to people my age than the people who are Gen X or millennials, but the idea that in that context it's, I will always return a phone call within 24 hours.

[00:33:21] Today, I don't know, that's it's not gonna be a phone call 'cause you're probably not gonna get the phone call. You may get a text, right? You may get an email. But the idea is what is your, what do you live by?

[00:33:32] Michael: Yep.

[00:33:33] John: So I would try to bring a lot of these more practical principles about being in the world and engaging with other people to the forefront.

[00:33:48] And yes, be more proactive about this. Do not lean back. Lean in with other people, engage with other people. Be uncomfortable when you, you're making the decision to get back out there. First of all, it's not a, it's not a overnight process. You're not going to get to Sunday night having been working out of your house and being primarily responsible for taking care of your household and your family and your kids for the last three years, and then tomorrow morning you're back to work in the office.

[00:34:33] Michael: Right, right.

[00:34:34] John: This is gonna take some time. You want to start making this process happen. Prototyping, I think is a very important way of looking at this return to work process where you define possible venues, possible targets, possible support groups, and you start plugging them in to your life. See if they work. Create little plans for how long you're gonna give this to work. Where's it gonna lead you? What are your expectations? Monitor the situation. Approach this as a job, and don't spend too much time worrying about it.

[00:35:21] Even too much time thinking about it. Better to just do it. Learn from the experience, seek feedback from others, meet new people, build more friendships.

[00:35:35] Michael: Yep.

[00:35:36] John: Risk getting burned a few times, you'll learn more, and think about if I do this for the next year, where could I end up?

[00:35:51] Michael: Right. No, that's, you're essentially building blocks, right? You're

[00:35:56] John: Yeah.

[00:35:58] Michael: your own staircase to get to

[00:35:59] John: Right.

[00:36:00] Michael: get to that next level.

[00:36:00] John: And there is no perfect way to do it,

[00:36:02] Michael: Right.

[00:36:03] John: and there is no definitive way to get to the outcome that you think right now is the outcome that you want? Because it may not be, there may be another outcome that's better, right?

[00:36:17] Michael: Yep.

[00:36:17] John: Or that's more attuned to you, but you're not going to figure that out alone worrying about whether you're making the right move or not, staying insular and not testing the waters, feeling, feeling uncomfortable, taking risks, making new friends, having more conversations.

[00:36:41] Michael: Right. Yeah. So, what I gather from what you're saying is that the most critical step here is put yourself out there. You just gotta do the work and get yourself in front of others. And part of that, a lot of what you spoke about is essentially networking and networking, it can be uncomfortable for a lot of people, myself included. Especially

[00:37:01] John: Oh yeah.

[00:37:02] Michael: outta the loop for a while. Do you have any advice or what's your best advice for building or rebuilding a professional network in a way that's authentic?

[00:37:10] John: Yeah. You probably already have, we all have the seeds of that rebuilt network in our existing network, in our mothballed network, and there's a procedure for doing this. The paradigm that I like to use with people is not so much the concept of network, but the concept of community and that within your network, which is basically everyone who's in your contact file within your network, is a community.

[00:37:45] Your goal is not to network as the verb; it's to build the community out of that network. Who are the people in that network who really vibe with you, the people you feel most comfortable with, the people you trust more with sensitive information to help you make the next moves. Identify your loyal friend group within that network.

[00:38:08] And by the way, parenthetically, another sidebar, your most long-term, you know, college-friend connections may not be the most active or productive network contacts for you. There have been some interesting studies about the, ironically, the weakness of strong ties that the people that you and, this is something having been out of work a lot over the course of my career, it's always surprising.

[00:38:47] When you're outta work to find out who's your friend and who's not your friend,

[00:38:51] Michael: Yep.

[00:38:53] John: and I'm sure that all the guys that you are working with have a story about someone that they thought was going to really be helpful to them when they changed their venue and they left the office and went home, or whatever the transition might have been, and this person vanished from their life

[00:39:12] Michael: Right.

[00:39:13] John: or sabotaged the friendship in some really yucky way, and I've had that a number of times. On the other hand, there will be people who will surprise the heck out of you and show up for you,

[00:39:29] Michael: Yep,

[00:39:30] John: and you wanna be looking out for those people 'cause they're going to come from unexpected places.

[00:39:37] Michael: Absolutely.

[00:39:40] John: The reason that I got myself back into the entertainment business was through a, through an ironic community network connection. A guy that I had known for years. He was the most unreliable, flaky, really bright, really charming guy, but he's the guy who you'd invite to a party on Saturday for Saturday and, you knew he was a little bit flaky, so you'd call him up and say, you're coming, right?

[00:40:10] And he'd say, absolutely, I'll be there. And Friday you'd call me. So tomorrow night, right? Yeah. It's on my calendar. And then five minutes before he's supposed to arrive, he calls and says, oh man, I'm really sorry. I can't make it. Something came up.

[00:40:22] Michael: Yep.

[00:40:23] John: This is the guy who showed up for me 'cause he was working there.

[00:40:29] And he said would you think about coming to work with us at DreamWorks? I said, oh my God, that'd be great. I said, what's the job? He said there really is no job. We're not really hiring anybody. I said, okay, great. That would be what are we talking about? He said, no, let me introduce you to some people there.

[00:40:44] Six months, six months later, they created a job for me. Took that long, but I just kept meeting people there. I kept having conversations and the sparks just started to happen, but

[00:40:57] Michael: amazing

[00:40:58] John: the guy who was the conduit was the person I would've least expected. I would never have looked, I would've never called him up and said, Hey, can you help me find a job?

[00:41:07] Because I would never have expected that he would do anything that was consistent or effective. But that's what happened. Don't think that you know what you know, right. Be open. Take up a beginner's mind to the whole process, but build that community. So that you can gradually extend that community to the like-minded people and just be open to the conversations as they happen.

[00:41:36] Get feedback, propose ideas, prototype ideas. Someone says, Hey, have you ever thought about doing this? And you say, I have no background in that. I don't think I have any skillset that's right for that. Why would you think that I would be right for that? And they'll say just because of this one small thing.

[00:41:54] Michael: Yeah.

[00:41:56] John: Okay, if you say so, let me explore it, and something might happen there.

[00:42:01] Michael: So in a lot of this network effect that we were just talking about, it reminds me of the, your three elements career builder framework. So there's niche value, referral community, and thought leadership are the three cores of that framework. Where does a dad who maybe they are a working dad, but still have some caregiving responsibilities.

[00:42:25] Maybe they're a stay-at-home dad, but looking to get back into work. Where does a dad start within this framework to find that job that is meant to be for them?

[00:42:35] John: Right. So again, I think it goes back to your personality and your values and what you stand for more so at the end of the day than your skillset. You've got experience. You're a stay-at-home dad, you're a working dad, you're coming back out into the workplace, but you have a track record

[00:43:03] Michael: Right.

[00:43:04] John: and the reason you're gonna get hired is because of who you are, what you stand for, where you see the world going.

[00:43:15] There may be a they, they may try to pin this culture-fit problem on you. That's a kind of a failed excuse for ageism. Yeah. Really, want you wanna be developing a relationship with that hiring manager on a deeply personal level. So, I'm gonna take the three elements from the back and start with the thought leadership, which is really the aspect that binds these three concepts together.

[00:43:45] The idea of standing up for what you stand for,

[00:43:49] Michael: Yep.

[00:43:49] John: sharing your experience, sharing your points of view, whether it's online, LinkedIn, Reddit, wherever, out in the real world, professional organizations, groups, teaching, mentoring. Lots of opportunities to get out and make your presence known and your philosophy of life and business known.

[00:44:12] Work your personal life and experience into that, right? There are all sorts of parables that you can extract from what you're seeing out in your particular world and how it relates back to the work that you've done.

[00:44:30] Michael: Sure.

[00:44:30] John: There may be even an argument, to be made that you are better at what you used to do now than you've ever been because of this experience.

[00:44:41] Michael: Right. That's a great point.

[00:44:43] John: Right? So, there's a lot of narrative possibility there. Instead of trying to dissociate yourself from that or compartmentalize that, I would say bring it in, right? Dine out on that. Don't be the blindered. Yeah I'm, I used to do this, or I used to, be at home. I'm no longer at home. I'm... No, merge this all together.

[00:45:10] Michael: Yep.

[00:45:12] John: And I think this is a, a prescription not just for dads, but it's a prescription for anyone who's coming back out into a new job, a new role is to be holistic about it. Bring your whole self into it. And that, I think is a great place to start. That mindset.

[00:45:35] Michael: Got it. That makes sense. And to bring back to the, first part of your answer, which is make it personal, like connect on a, you said connect on a deeper level with the hiring manager, the other people in your process, right? So it's not just bringing your whole self to the table, but connecting yourself to the people that are involved in that process.

[00:45:56] John: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:45:57] Michael: All right one last question before we get to the speed round and wrap this up. What does, you've said this before, like never having to look for a job again. What does that actually mean and how can someone get there?

[00:46:10] John: Right, so that's, that, that's what the, that's what the output is of this three elements process, as I see it. If you are clear about what you do, what your specialty is, your niche, your superpower, and you're able to articulate this as a very defined set of skills and most importantly deliverables, what do you do to transform the work? That clear understanding and that clear ability that you have to express that, to share that, makes it easy to connect to other people. It makes it easy to create that community out of your network. And now that you're so clear about what it is that you do, your community you're gonna find that people are much more willing and able to market for you.

[00:47:09] Michael: Yep.

[00:47:09] John: They have a very clear understanding of what it is that you do,

[00:47:13] Michael: Right.

[00:47:14] John: and when they're seeing an opportunity, then it's, oh, you gotta talk to this guy.

[00:47:18] Michael: Yep.

[00:47:20] John: That begins to generate opportunity for you as opposed to you having to constantly chase down and say I know you've got, you see this generalist resume that I've got where I've done all these things.

[00:47:34] Here's, the three or four things that apply to this job, which is why I can do the job. And, they're going, no, we need a specialist. We need someone who's all about this job, right? Not someone who touches it on three levels. That plus the thought leadership, which kind of keeps you top of mind, it builds the footprint that you have been generating all along, really reinforces that footprint so that if someone who doesn't know you connects with you, they're seeing this very clear, specific profile.

[00:48:14] Anyone who talks to them, who knows you is part of that community, is gonna be able to talk about this and talk about you. And then your thought leadership, wherever that is expressed is a bread, is a series of breadcrumbs, really, that establishes your long-term credibility and trust as that professional, as that subject matter expert, so that you're generating this flywheel of opportunity.

[00:48:41] It's constantly returning opportunities to you. It's an inbound marketing approach to career.

[00:48:51] Michael: Got it. So the jobs start coming to you

[00:48:54] John: Yeah.

[00:48:55] Michael: as opposed to you going out to try to find

[00:48:56] John: Right?

[00:48:57] Michael: those jobs.

[00:48:58] John: And that's because it is clear what you do. So, of course they're gonna target you because they're looking for you. Right? And that's what, you want. You want to define yourself. It's back to the ikigai. What do I do? What do I love to do? What does my world need and what can I get paid for?

[00:49:13] That's the product-market fit. So, if you've got that clear, then every time you're working, right, and you're talking about it, and then you're sharing about all of the peripheral issues around what you're doing and the challenges to it and the successes, and look what these people are doing and you know how they're improving on the whole playbook, you're gonna get noticed, you're gonna become distinguished in that field, in that group, in that industry. People are gonna say, get me that person.

[00:49:51] Michael: Yep. Great point. All right, so I like to wrap up these conversations with a little bit of speed round. Five quick questions,

[00:49:58] John: Okay, okay.

[00:49:59] Michael: A little bit off the wall, not exactly what we normally expect to ask, but here we go. What's the first kid show theme song that comes to mind?

[00:50:09] John: The first kids, oh, Mickey Mouse Club, I guess.

[00:50:12] Michael: I'm sure. Okay. What was your very first job?

[00:50:15] John: My first job was like a teenage school job or a job outta school?

[00:50:25] Michael: A teenage school job.

[00:50:27] John: I was a cashier in a local diner.

[00:50:31] Michael: Excellent.

[00:50:31] John: On Saturday mornings, junior year of high school. And, yeah, and that was a prestige job. Let me tell you.

[00:50:41] Michael: Yep. I was a cashier in high school too, so I, get it. Would you rather spend 24 hours with a toddler-sized T-Rex or a T-Rex-sized toddler?

[00:50:53] John: A toddler size T-Rex or a T-Rex size? I think I would go for the T-Rex-sized toddler.

[00:50:59] Michael: Yep. Probably the smarter plan. I don't think any of us can really grasp what, how a T-Rex will behave regardless of size. What's your go-to karaoke song?

[00:51:11] John: Oh God.

[00:51:20] I am not a karaoke fan. I am terribly embarrassed about my voice. On the few occasions that I have done karaoke, i'm trying to think. I'll just say you've got a friend.

[00:51:32] Michael: Okay. Fair enough.

[00:51:33] John: Carol King.

[00:51:34] Michael: Sounds good. All right, last question. It's fairly dad related because most dads, especially in their early days of being a dad, they're always carrying around diaper bags and all kinds of things, and their

[00:51:47] John: Been there. Yeah.

[00:51:47] Michael: pockets get filled with all kinds of stuff. So what's the weirdest thing you've ever carried around in your bag, your briefcase, or your pockets?

[00:51:54] John: The weirdest thing I've ever carried around in my briefcase.

[00:52:03] There was a time where I had a it it was a bag of Cheetos had burst in my bag and, and so I, wound up, it was those were the days when you were carrying these kind of satchels, right? These kind of man purses. It's a long time ago. And, and the, this, so I had, I had the Cheetos were like everywhere and colored everything orange, and my hands were covered with orange, so I was like walking around in that day as this orange Cheeto person as a result of this.

[00:52:39] Michael: That must have been

[00:52:40] John: Not a particularly great story for you, but there, we go. That's what comes up.

[00:52:45] Michael: Love it. That's, I feel for you. I think if there's a bag of things to explode, Cheetos would probably be the last on a list of things I would want to explode in my bag.

[00:52:52] John: It was the worst. It really was the worst.

[00:52:55] Michael: But that must have taken quite a while to clean up. So, I'm sorry you had to deal with that.

[00:52:58] John: Think I may have thrown the bag out.

[00:53:02] Michael: Well, John, I appreciate you coming on today. Everything you've shared today fits right into what Gap To Gig is all about. Building meaningful work that fits your life.

[00:53:09] John: Great.

[00:53:10] Michael: People, for anyone that wants to keep learning from you or get help in shaping their own comeback, where should they start?

[00:53:16] John: So I think the best place to reach me is on LinkedIn. I think I'm the only John Tarnoff coach on, LinkedIn, and, and we can start there. I've got some stuff on there about my other programs and you can certainly reach out to me. And and I'm also working on a community. I've started a community called the Mid-Career Lab, and you can find it at midcareerlab.com.

[00:53:39] And it really is a, now a free community of people who have about 200 people in the community who are there really to talk about mid-career challenges and reinventing yourself and learning about what comes next and helping one another through that journey.

[00:53:58] Michael: Amazing. Love that. John, thanks again for joining me. I really appreciate you sharing your insights today. Your perspective you brought to this conversation is really was pure gold. I think I, I think I called that at the beginning of the conversation. So I appreciate you coming on and if you

[00:54:13] John: Pleasure.

[00:54:13] Michael: enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe to check out the Gap to Gig newsletter at gaptogig.com.

[00:54:18] It's where I share weekly stories, tools, and inspiration to help dads relaunch, redesign their careers. That's it for this episode. And remember, your career is just one part of your story, and it's never too late to write the next chapter.

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