Episode 112: Dream Jobs with Rod McDermott

On this episode of the Career Clarity Show, I’m excited to have Rod McDermott here talking all about dream jobs, career change, and how to find what fits in your world. If you have been on the cusp of making a career change, but you’re not feeling completely clear on where you want to go, this episode is for you.

Rod is CEO of Activate 180, which works with corporations on providing coaching to all levels of employees, and offers its dream job program – Project Activate – to individuals looking to make a career change and land their dream job. He brings a unique look at whether dream jobs actually exist and has some advice and guidance on how to get there.

Want to learn more about our strategic framework for successful career change? Download The Roadmap to Career Fulfillment ebook right here!

Show Notes:

• Activate 180
• Roadmap to a Fulfilling Career eBook

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Transcript:

Lisa Lewis Miller  0:04

Welcome to the Career Clarity Show. If you want to create a career path you’ll love, you’re in the right place. I’m Lisa Lewis Miller, career change coach, published author and your host, and each week, we’ll bring you personal transformation stories, advice and insights from experts about how you can find a more fulfilling, soulful and joyful career. Hello, and welcome to the Career Clarity Show. I’m Lisa Miller, and I’m delighted to have you with us today. On today’s episode of the Career Clarity Show, we are doing something that I love to do and I don’t always do often enough, which is talk to a fellow Career Clarity, Show career change practitioner about how to find work that feels like it fits. So on today’s episode of the podcast, we are gonna be talking all about dream jobs, career change, how to find what fits in your world, getting a sense of what direction you’re looking for how to navigate obstacles, like wanting to make a career change into a new industry and not being sure how to. So if you have been on the cusp of making a career change, but you’re not feeling completely clear on where you want to go. Or you have been wondering whether a dream job for you actually exists and you want to get some advice and guidance on that. Or maybe you feel like you’re ready, and you want to talk a little bit more tactically about what to do next, to make your change actually happen. This episode of the podcast is going to be for you. I’m delighted to bring on today’s guest, a fellow practitioner in the space, Rod McDermott. rod is CEO of McDermott amble executive search a global firm with offices in the US, Canada and Europe, and has been in business for over 20 years. And as a top 25, North American search firm. He’s also the CEO of activate 180, which works with corporations on providing coaching to all levels of employees and offers its dream job program, project activate to individuals looking to make a career change and land their dream job. Rod. Welcome to the Career Clarity Show. Hey, Lisa, thanks for having me. I’m excited to be here. Well, I am delighted that you said yes to come on the show. And as a fellow career development evangelist or a career development practitioner, I’m curious what got you interested in and started down this road for your own career?

Rod McDermott  2:30  

Yeah, you know, so Lisa, in the executive search business, I’ve had a couple experiences that have been really kind of life altering for me. So I’ll tell you really quickly. So one of them. My very first big client, which was was 22 years ago, we’ve had our firm about 20 years, I started working for global number five firm, when I got into the industry, and I walked into a company that was massive, right? It was this, their building was the size of a football field. And it was almost all cubicles and I walk in, and you literally could hear a pin drop. And I’m walking by all these cubicles in the head of talent acquisition is just retain me to do three searches, right? That’s my first big client. He’s telling me about, okay, here’s accounts payable, and here’s inside sales. Here’s product management, we’re walking through the nobody’s talking, right? nobody’s saying anything. And it just dawned on me. Is this what these people dreamed of? When they were 14 years old? Is this what they were dreaming of it? I don’t begrudge that. Right. I just, I didn’t see any excitement. I didn’t see, you know, and was so we got accounts payable. And we’ve got accounts receivable, and we’ve got research and we’ve got all that in our firm too. But we try to match people with their calling, right? So that they feel like hey, this is really, really cool. I’m playing my position on our football team. And this is a position I love, right? And I can I can make a difference. And so it really just dawned on me that I think a lot of us go through life, we land somewhere. And then life kind of takes over. Right? We get married, we have kids, we have a mortgage, we have car payments, and then we find ourselves living for that vacation. Oh yeah. Next year, we’re going to Hawaii and I just can’t wait. And then you know, boy, I you know, if we do it, right, we save enough, maybe maybe by 60, we can retire and then do what we really want to do. And that really, really hit me it’s had an impact on me. And I’ve heard so many people with that kind of story. They live for vacations or they live for retirement. The second thing is, we started this group called the MC terminable Executive network back in 2001, in the middle of the tech recession, and we had great CEOs and CFOs that they couldn’t get hired for nothing. I mean, you know, I had a CFO who called me up. He had taken five companies public and he’s working at Nordstrom, just trying to pay his bills, right. He had money in the bank and everything Like, but I don’t want to take that out, I want to actually pay my bills, and I got to do stuff to feed my family. And, you know, you couldn’t give away a world class CFO at the time. And so they didn’t know how to do job search. And so I saw this, you know, I don’t know, if you want to call it an epidemic in our, in our society of people doing the wrong jobs that weren’t giving them joy, they were actually being robbed of their joy. And then you have these other people that are senior executives who didn’t know how to do job search. And there’s a little bit of that robbed of your joy stuff there too. Because when you become a senior executive, and you’ve got to see in front of your title, it’s hard to go back to do something else, you can say, you know, I really want to be a high school basketball coach, when you’re used to making $700,000 a year, you might say, hey, maybe I can retire at 55 and be a high school basketball coach. And I would say, if you’re not doing what you love, what are you waiting for? You know, because we’re only on this planet for X amount of days, we don’t even know how many those are. And it’s, it’s a finite time. So don’t waste them doing anything you shouldn’t be doing. That’s my belief, at least.

Lisa Lewis Miller  6:08  

Hey, I appreciate that. I saw a meme last week of this, this billboard with a lady on it that said, I didn’t give up drinking Chardonnay for nine months just for you to do a job. That’s fine. That is awesome. I love that. And it feels like it really symbolizes that sense that we don’t know how many days or months or years we’re going to be blessed with on this planet. And if they aren’t infinite, don’t you want to make them matter? And don’t you want to make them feel good for while you’re here, especially because you want to have some energy and time leftover at the end of the day to invest into the things beyond your work that are bringing richness and joy to your holistic sense of your life?

Rod McDermott  6:55  

Yeah, and I think the reverse happens, right? I think if you’re robbed of your joy, from eight to five, you bring that lack of joy home sometimes and I see it. And so I think what you’re doing and what we’re doing is solving potentially a multi generational problem, because I think these things are handed down, right? We start, you know, we came out of college, right? And our parents are like, hey, just get a job, right? You need experience, just get a job. And so these days, back in the day, we had to go look for a job, it was either post in the newspaper, I’m 55. So you know, back then we didn’t have the internet. And, and so it was posted in the newspaper, or you went on your college campus, or you picked up the phone and call places. I wanted to work for a bank in New York. And so I made a list of all the big banks in New York that I thought were pretty cool that I wanted to work for. And I called them and said, on my own dime, I’ll fly out there. I want to interview with you guys. And they said yes, I had seven interviews in the month of February, my senior year, and I went back the next month for a second round with a couple of banks and then took a job. That’s how we did it. Right. And but now it’s about well, let me see what what’s being offered out there. And let me let me accept a job, right? So you start this pattern of accepting what’s offered versus going after what you really, really want, right? And then that becomes a cycle. You know, you’re out of work, and Okay, well, who’s hiring? Well,

Lisa Lewis Miller  8:22  

let me go Look, don’t know it’s not about who’s hiring, it’s about what you want, what you can bring to them, and convince them that you can solve a problem that they’re having, maybe they know they’re having, maybe they don’t know, but we convinced them that you can bring value to their company. And so that’s what we talk about is trying to change that dynamic of accepting a job that’s available, instead of going after what you want. All great entrepreneurs go after what they want. Employees can do the same thing. You don’t have to start a company to go after what you want, you can still work for somebody and do that. Absolutely well, and arguably, managing your career, like you’re an entrepreneur is going to make you feel more empowered, it’s going to make you feel like you have more control, it’s going to give you more choices, or optionality and it really is going to allow you to choose from a buffet of options rather than feeling like you have to take the one thing that’s given for you, and rot. I feel like the difference in energy that you’re describing between the I almost feel like it’s a hunter versus a gatherer. And I know it’s that kind of imperfect metaphor, but there’s a different energy when you are actively creating your list of targets, and having conversation with them, seeking them out showing your interest, you know, really being more aggressive or assertive or confident in your energy as opposed to the energy of Oh, let me get on the LinkedIn job board today. And I’ll scroll through a bunch of things and kind of see what’s what’s talking to me and what’s appealing to me and like Well, that doesn’t sound that bad. I suppose I could do it. The mindset and the energy of those two approaches are so wildly different. And yet, I think one of the interesting things that you’re highlighting about the the generational shift and the technology shift in the way that we look for jobs is that because of the advent of the internet and internet job boards, it’s really incentivizing a lot of this sort of sit back and wait and infinitely scroll behaviors that don’t necessarily set you up for success in finding something that’s going to feel fulfilling, life giving soul stirring to do.

Rod McDermott  10:32  

Yeah, no, I fully agree. I don’t know how people, how did we get to a point where where somebody said, Well, this is how you do it, or these are the rules. I mean, I’ve never seen a published rulebook that says, this is how you get a job. But everybody that I talked to says, Well, I’ve got to look on LinkedIn. And I’ve got to look at a deed and I’ve got to see what’s being published out there and what’s being offered, who said, you know, go get a job, go get what you want, with who you want. And what I try to tell people, you’re absolutely right, I look at your, your, your analogy of the person who’s going after versus the person who’s sitting back and scrolling is an active process versus a passive process or reactive process, right? I’m going to react to what I see going on up there versus going to make something happen. And, you know, if if we can get people honed in on this concept of identify what it is you want, identify who it is that has that what you can bring to them, right? connect the dots between your skills and experience, and them, and then convince them and how many jobs do most people need, they generally need just one, right? So if I identify 40, or 50, companies that I could go work for that might need me. And I’ve actually connected the dots as to why my background can serve them. Even if I’m outside of the industry, if I’m making an industry shift, White can serve them. All I need is one to give me the time of day to listen to me, and hire me. And that’s it. And I I often tell people, especially when you get to the mid levels, and the senior levels, stopped looking for a job, start looking for a problem that you can solve right? At the senior levels in management. When I go hire a senior manager for my own company, it’s because I’m having a problem. It’s because where there’s an opportunity, right, I need to fill something, that there’s an opportunity we’ve identified but we don’t have the right talent in house, right? If somebody can approach me and say, listen, there’s this opportunity in your company in your industry, I want to hear how you guys are handling it. But I want to share with you what my background is how I think I can help you. I might create a job for that. And that’s how things were done back in the old days. People created jobs for folks that could come in and help them move the ball down the field.

Lisa Lewis Miller  12:50  

Oh, Rob, there’s so much I want to react to and everything that you just said it’s totally positively. absolutely, positively, I think that the idea of reframing, trying to find a single title or a single position to what kind of problems do you help organizations solve is so powerful and interesting, and such a more fun way to search for jobs instead of trying to figure out okay, I’m a technical project manager to where am I seeing that particular title listed on the internet? So, I love that. But what I what I actually want to come back to is something that you just hinted at around career change, and, and making moves outside of your industry or outside of your role. Because one of the biggest things that career changers that I’ve spoken to really struggle with is the idea of how do I tell my story? How do I convince people that my skills are transferable and relevant? And rod, I’ll tell you, we’ve had several recruiters and headhunters on the Career Clarity Show. And it’s been, if I’m being candid, a little disappointing to hear how often they say like, well, if you’re a career changer, you’re out of luck. We’re not interested in you, we don’t want to talk to you. So as somebody who works in this space, knowing that you’re already teasing the possibility of career change out there, you’ve piqued my interest. So tell me more about that.

Rod McDermott  14:19  

Yeah, and I want to hit both of those two, because you know, as as a search consultant, and I’m hired by my client, to go out and fill a senior executive role. I have to gauge how willing my client is to go outside the box, right to think outside the box in terms of what kind of talent they get. And I’ll do that when I when I kick off a search and one of the things I share with clients because a lot of clients have, they have this concept. I need somebody who’s been there, done that because I need to move really really quickly. And so they immediately go to their competitors. Right and and oftentimes they’ll say, this is great if you have a competitor who is eating your lunch. Right, if I’m Ford, and I want to go into electric vehicles, and I can bring one of the top people out of Tesla, I could probably leapfrog pretty significantly. But if I go and I get somebody out of GM who’s just barely better than me, or Volkswagen, who’s just barely better than me, or Volvo who just launched their car, you know, I’m gonna make marginal moves, right? I might be better off getting somebody from a totally different company who thinks of this differently, right? And that helps me even leapfrog Tesla, for instance, maybe I get a designer out of apple. And maybe that person said, Hey, we were looking at cars, here’s the way we’ve approached her, maybe I get somebody out of Amazon, right? I go a different direction altogether. So I can leapfrog my competition, I have some clients that are very open minded that right especially at the C level, so what I tell people is, if you’re at the management or or executive level, if you’re going to folks like us internally into a company, even some some search consultants like us, who are given marching orders from companies to stay within a box, you might hear that. But if you can go to a CEO, and you can connect the dots, I’ll give you a quick example. There was a company that I was pursuing this going back probably 10 years ago, in the aerospace world, I told you, I do a lot of aerospace executive search. And this is a company that makes avionics for small aircraft, right, general aviation aircraft, and I’ve been a pilot for 30 years. And I’m having dinner with the CEO in Albuquerque. And he’s like, yeah, the problem is, we got this thing called the FAA, everything has to be certified. So you kind of have to have some level of knowledge about things that fly and blah, blah, blah, right. So they hire these engineers who don’t care about user experience and user interface, they’re going to create amazing products for aircraft. But you almost have to be a professional pilot to know how to do this stuff. And a lot of guys like me, who fly two to 300 hours a year versus 1000 hours a year, I want it to be easy. I want to understand it really quickly. I don’t want it to confuse the heck out of me, especially if I’m flying in the clouds. That’s not a great time to be confused. So I want user experience, I want symbology I want all these things to be easy, like technology, right? So I’m having dinner with this guy. And I said, you hire a bunch of aviation guys, I didn’t break through to him, by the way, he was my prospect, not my client. But I said, and I know you use aviation search guys, and the guy I know you use is phenomenal. He’s actually a very good friend of mine. He’s a competitor, but a good friend. And I said, keep using him for the stuff like that. But when you need to build stuff that a guy like me is going to use, you need to bring people out of technology, because they made it so easy for us to use these iPhones and do all these crazy things that has to happen in the cockpit. And if you don’t catch up, you’re going to be left behind. He called me Two weeks later hired me on my first search. And he said, that landed on me, I need to go get somebody from technology, I ended up bringing him a VP of Sales out of Bose, who happened to be a pilot. And he’s like, I want to merge high end consumer electronics with high end avionics. Because that’s essentially what it is to a guy like me who’s not a professional pilot. So the story is, how do I bring a solution to your potential problem? And that’s what if I didn’t bring the guy from Bozeman, but he wanted to go into that space, he could identify this company is that do you want me to help you leapfrog your competition, you need to bring somebody like me, who understands consumer electronics, that’s essentially what you’re selling. You don’t know that yet. But that’s what you’re selling. So all we need is one open minded CEO to say, Yes, I get it. And you can bring an industry change. I want to give one more quick example. So I had a young young gal, three years out of college. So a friend family friend calls me up and says, Listen, I want to get into med device sales. And I’m interviewing right now with a really great company in the space. The problem is I have no experience. And I said okay, well what have you been doing? And she’s been working in a recruiting company. And I said, what kind of recruiting you’ve been doing? She goes, Well, some of the clients are this and that. No, yeah, we have some med device clients. I said, Oh, interesting. It’s yours. Yeah. And she told me at the very beginning of the conversation, I don’t have any experience med device. I said, Wait, wait, you’ve been recruiting now. In med device? She goes, Yeah, I’ve actually had a few clients. They said, Have they’ve been one? No. I said, Have you called any other people? Oh, yeah. Every client I have once they’re people, so I call them and they tell me, they’re not interested in leaving. This is the greatest company because of this, this, this and this. And they mentioned all these things, which is why I want to work there. I said, Listen, you don’t have zero experience. You actually know a lot about the competition. You know a lot about this company. So when they ask you a question about well, how much experience do you have or why should we hire somebody who doesn’t have experience say, Listen, I think I do have a decent amount of experience. I know your people. I know why I can’t recruit them over to these other companies. By the way, I know those other companies, and I know how they go to market with their product, because they talk to me about it.

Rod McDermott  20:07  

Here’s one thing I see what job seekers Lisa a lot, you probably see the same thing. They tell me what they don’t have, they almost have this built in system of limiting beliefs. It’s like we were born with this thing that says, I’m going to tell you all the stuff you don’t have. And you’re going to have to rely on somebody else. To tell you what you do have, I want to say to all the job seekers out there, don’t come to me with all the things you don’t have come with the things you do have and make an argument, grab a whiteboard and start writing 10 things that you have 10 things that are going to make you great in this job. Because if you can convince yourself, and you can I call it connecting the dots, if you can connect the dots with what you’ve done, in your experience in your skill set with what you want to do, then you’re more likely to be able to convince one person and that’s all you need one person or one company, that you can do that at their company. Sorry, that was long winded.

Lisa Lewis Miller  21:04  

long winded but juicy. And okay, what I what I think is really telling about the stories that you gave, were that they didn’t require the individual to get any different skills or trainings or certifications, it was purely, it was two things it was one coming up with a compelling story and to having the confidence in your convictions behind it. That if you can weave the narrative that shows the connection between your past interests, or your experience, your previous clients, or the types of problems you’ve solved in the past, and what this organization wants to solve. But the story is what sells people more than the exact specifications, what you have or have not done. But there’s some, there’s some chutzpah that goes with that to you know, to be able to walk into that room and hold your own and say that with conviction.

Rod McDermott  22:03  

Well, at the end of the day, when a company is hiring an employee, they’re looking for a result, right, they have a definition of success around what that person is going to perform or produce or what results they’re going to achieve, right? All I want to do is do this, I have this mindset that the person needs to have all these different experiences and skills and everything else. But at the end of the day, if that person was mowing my lawn, and I’m hiring him as my VP of sales, and they can come in and grow my company from 20 to 30 million, I’m gonna high five, I don’t care what the heck they were doing. It doesn’t matter to me, right? So now, I know that’s a little ridiculous. But the reality is we as a hiring as hiring managers, we kind of make an assumption about what skills and experience we think we need to be able to get to the promised land. At the end of the day, the world is littered with people that have no business doing something and have done really, really well. You know, Lou Gerstner, I don’t know if you know that name. He was at American Express. And he left it to go run RJR Nabisco after a big buyout firm bottom back in the I don’t know, late 80s, early 90s. Turn that company around. Then he went to run IBM and turn that company around. Okay, so he’s a financial services company. Then he goes to a consumer products company. Then he goes to a technology company. And he was interviewed a bunch, he always turned these companies around. And they said, how is it that you can go into these places not know anything about their industries and fix it. He’s like, business is simple. At the end of the day, it’s all about cash flow. If I get cash flow, I can solve a lot of problems. I just need to make sure I’m flowing cash, if I’m not flowing cash, I got big problems. So that’s what I focus on is what’s generating the cash. And then let’s simplify things. We’re usually over complicating, we’re investing in too many things. Let’s kill all these pet projects. Focus on the core. And it goes my own employees know what that is. I just have to find the good people who know where the bodies are buried, bring them to the executive suite, say, What do I need to do here, guys? And just listen to them, and we do it. So great leadership, I’ve seen move different industries, employees can do the same thing. And even with this gal who wants to sell med devices, she and I talked about, I said, when you’re talking to surgeons who are going to use your company’s device that you’re representing, or these competitors devices, can you talk about these competitors? She goes, Yeah, I’ve talked to a lot of salespeople from all these companies. They tell me, they told me where their products are second rate. I said, Great. use that as your sales pitch. And by the way, when you’re interviewing for this company, tell them why these products are second rate, why there’s a first rate, right and say, I’m going to tell you how I would sell your product if I’m going to a surgeon, I’m gonna say the reason why you should buy my product over this company in this company this company’s and I’ve talked to other sales people. I know a lot of their people, they tell me the truth, which is why they want to leave those companies. So We have experiences that sometimes we don’t give ourselves credit for having. You know, the last experience I’m going to give you is our last example is, as consumers, we have experience, right? So we might not know anything, I want one quick example, we ended up winning a VP of Sales search for a company that makes gloves, right, and they make work gloves. And I remember working with one of my my guys in LA on this, and we go to pitch the CEO. And my guy tells me, hey, let’s meet an hour early, meet me at this hardware store, I’m going to plant myself there for three hours, he goes to this hardware store that sells their product, he’s just sitting back, watching people go up to the display of gloves. And he’s watching how people buy these gloves. And he’s watching women try on certain things, and men try on certain things. So then we go meet with the CEO, and he starts relaying the stories. And the CEO says, Wow, you really did your homework on us, you really went and stuff. And he goes, tell me what the women were buying. And he starts describing the different clubs they were wearing, tell me about the men, he goes, I saw a guy and I asked him, he’s a plumber. He goes, What did you buy, he goes, he bought this, you know, certain kind of glove, because that’s what they’re always buying. We didn’t make it for that. We made it for box carriers, but the plumbers like it, you know, and the CEO was digging all this, my guy did his homework, ask consumers, if we want to go in and work at a consumer product company, go do your homework, you’re gonna blow them away. Most candidates don’t.

Lisa Lewis Miller  26:23  

It’s sad, but true. And the amount of homework you have to do in order to knock somebody’s socks off is not actually that much. And it I think, is both profoundly sad that the bar is so low, and hopefully is incredibly encouraging to people who are listening to this to say, it doesn’t take a lot to stand out, and to show that you know, an organization and you see their values, and you understand what they do. I mean, for like that the fangs of the world, right, if you want to go work at Amazon, you probably need to prep your butt off to be able to show up there and be competitive. But for most other organizations, the bar is not that high. And if you already have any interest in the industry, or the company that’s pre existing before you knew they had jobs available, or that they might be interested in hiring you, it’s going to make the enthusiasm and the depth of your knowledge just flow out of you so easily.

Rod McDermott  27:18  

Yeah, and I like to hire for passion, too. If you’re, here’s the other thing, too. It’s really hard to fake passion. This is the other reason why I tell people if you’re looking for a job, and you come to me and you say hey, I just need a job, I just need I’m going to tell you, the more you need a job, still get focused on what your dream job would be. Because that’s going to make you really powerful. If you’re just trying to get any job out there. You’re competing with somebody who’s that, that that’s their dream job maybe, right. And so they’re going to come with more passion than you will. And it’s hard to like when and fake it right. So they’re not going to be faking it because they would have done their homework, they would have done all these different things. And you’re probably not but something that you’re really passionate about. You’ll do all that homework. So take the extra time figure out what it is. You really, really want. I always like to say this, Lisa, what would it be that you could work at 10 1215 hours? And it doesn’t feel like work? You’re like cheese? I’m getting paid for this. Are you kidding me? Wow. And it feels like you’re just playing man. You’re having fun. It’s like, you know, I will say this about Tom Brady, right? Does he need more Super Bowl rings? No, he doesn’t. Does he need more money? No, he doesn’t. Why is he doing it? Because he’s having fun. This is his game. This this is play every great athlete who continues to do it long after they they need the money, the fame, all that stuff? They do it because they love it. Same thing in business. Right? That’s what Sorry?

Lisa Lewis Miller  28:48  

Well, so, so rad. I feel like the natural question that comes up for me is that the dream job concept and the idea of play and joyfulness for those of us who who have experienced it. It’s real. It’s tangible. It’s something that we believe in. It’s something that we have hoped for. But I’m curious what you would say to somebody who hasn’t ever felt that way about their work. They’ve never had the Tom Brady moment, they maybe don’t even believe that there’s a dream job out there that they could feel that sense of passion or calling in their work. What do you say to folks who who are coming at a conversation about career pathing from that perspective?

Rod McDermott  29:31  

Yeah, no, and that’s mostly what I see. So I come at it two ways. Number one, I say Is there anybody that you know, in your life that looks like they’re playing and not working? And they’re doing really, really well? Talk to them find out the characteristics of of what they’re doing? The second thing I say is, what are the things that you love? What are the characteristics of a potential job or life that you love? There’s there’s actually three things here I’m gonna I’m gonna move on to the third in a second. But the second one is think about do I want to sit behind a desk? Do I want to be in an office? Do I want to travel? Do I want to be outdoors? Do I want to be talking to people? Am I introverted? Would I rather not be talking to people? Right? What what are the characteristics of that job? We had one person who was working for a company in a warehouse came to our dream job workshop. And he was a mortgage guy, right? And his his business cratered in the mortgage crisis. And then he was kind of doing some handyman work. And he started working for this guy who owned a company that was a consumer electronics company. And he said, Hey, why don’t you come work at my company, I can put you to work in the warehouse, you can move up, he ultimately became the manager of the warehouse. how that happened. It was literally a port in a storm. He just like parked his boat. It was supposed to be a year before he knew what it was eight years. And he’s doing this job that is soul crushing. And I’ve gotten to know him, I got to know his wife a little bit. And she’s like, I just want him to come home happy. I want him to be happy. And so he came to our workshop. And he said, I think what I want to do is I want to get back into mortgage and I want to sell second or not. Second, I want to sell reverse mortgages to seniors. I’m a trustworthy guy. I like going into people’s homes. I like talking to them. And there’s so many, you know, shyster folks selling those reverse mortgages to seniors. I’m not that guy. He’s got two sets of grandparents still. And, you know, he, or I’m sorry, two sets of parents on his wife side and his side. And, and he you know, he sees the retirement age and what happens and how their targets He’s like, I’m not that guy. Well, after going through our workshop, we determine that that would be okay. But it wouldn’t make his heart sing. And I said, What would make your heart sing? He goes, I love fishing. I love being outdoors. I love being creative. So he ended up getting a job. This is totally departure with a hardscape company that does you know, front yards and backyards. They do total remodels to actually use them in my house here last summer was great. And he is working there days that I might run into him. He lives nearby on a Sunday and he’s wearing his polo shirt. I’m like, Hey, are you working? Today? goes, this isn’t work, man. Yeah, I got a run up. I gotta go meet with the the Orange County Sheriff called me up. And he wants me to look at look at his backyard. And I might do some work there. How are you doing? He goes, I am having a blast. He goes, I’m making way more money that I have ever made. I’m in the top 10 of salespeople out of his company with 500 people. He’s only been there about a year and a half. But he goes, this is my zone, I am in my zone. And I’m loving it. If I work seven days a week, I don’t even care. And he doesn’t go to an office, he doesn’t wear suit. He’s not behind a computer. He goes into people’s yards. And he gets to know them and ask him questions like, how do you like to live out here? What are the things that you like to do? What are important to you, because I want to create something that is going to give you joy based on what you love. And that’s what he does. He’s an artist.

Lisa Lewis Miller  33:02  

And what’s particularly cool about that story is that the initial idea that he came up with, of going into seniors homes and having conversations with them wasn’t wrong, per se, it was the impulses and the values and the gifts that would have made him good at that job that just needed to be channeled in a different direction. that enabled him to have access to so much more joy and satisfaction and movement in life.

Rod McDermott  33:32  

Yeah, he when he started his his process, he took what he knew, and shifted that slightly to what he thought he might love. But by taking the parts of that, that he loved the going to meet with people and getting to know them. And he’s a real relationship person, which is why we become friends. And in moving that and tying it with his creativity in the outdoor stuff, and all that was able to create this dream scenario for him. The third way that sometimes people come in and they’re like, I don’t know. And I sometimes will say, well, let’s do this, let’s think for a little bit on your best life. If you were to fast forward five years from now, 10 years from now, and tell me like you found your dream job. You’re you’re making the money you want to make you’ve got the kind of work that you want it in the kind of life that you want. Tell me about everything that doesn’t include your work. Tell me about the life that you have. Tell me about the money that you’re making. Tell me about the vacations maybe that you take how much time you’re able to spend with your family. Where do you live? All these different things? So let’s start with the end in mind, right? We call this the big life exercise, right? If I’m living sometimes I call it the best life if I’m living my best life, and I’ve succeeded in a new in that five or 10 or 20 years down the road. What does it look like? And then sometimes I’ll back into what could the job be that gives me that so when I start looking at all those things, Then I start looking at what are the components of what you like to do workwise. Right, talk to people be out and about, not be behind a desk, things like that, then I can start to craft what this might be. That’s how that was my journey. My personal journey was that I had no idea what I wanted to do. What at 33, I woke up as a VP of the company, and realize I’m not doing what I was meant to be doing.

Lisa Lewis Miller  35:26  

Well, Rod, every story that you’ve shared today has been so interesting, and so compelling. And I feel hesitant to even bring us in for a close for our conversation. But I do want to let you go here at some point. But I also want to put you on the spot after talking about this best life exercise. So you’re working, you’re enjoying what you’re doing, when you do the best life exercise for yourself in the here. And now. What’s left, where are you going?

Rod McDermott  35:57  

I still have more to go Trust me. So So I met my wife in Spain. So we love Spain is one of our favorite countries in the world. So in my best life story, and that’s one of the reasons why I opened an office in Europe, we bought a company over there a 30 year old search firm in the Netherlands, it’s close to Spain, I get to visit when I go over, but we want to have a house in Spain. And as you know, I’m a pilot, I want to be able to fly over there probably with one stop, which kind of tells me what kind of plane I got to be able to buy. And, but it’s going to be something that I can fly myself. And for me, I have a picture of my various companies, you know, probably being a few 100 million. I’ve got great leaders right in each company, and I get to spend my day envisioning things that we can be doing to make people’s lives better, you know, and change the world in a little way. That’s what gives me pleasure. And it gives me joy. My purpose is to create opportunities for people to live great lives. It’s been my purpose for about 15 years ever since I worked on it with a coach and I said, that’s what makes me my heart sing. When I can see that my company, sometimes it’s even telling people, my company, you need to go to another company, you know, I don’t think we’ve got what you really want here. And so you need to move on. And that’s really challenging, that’s really tough to do. But, you know, it’s the right thing to do for certain people. And so, but that’s my big life is, is keep doing what I’m doing, keep building these organizations keep innovating, and in trying to change lives. I mean, I love the stories that you have on your website. Those are incredible stories, I want more of those as well. Because, you know, that’s not only a life, it’s possibly a multi generational family who you’re impacting.

Lisa Lewis Miller  37:38  

I love that your sense of purpose and mission comes through so clearly in the way that you speak and the stories that you share. And so for anybody who’s listening to this, who has felt so moved by your energy, and by everything that you’ve been sharing so far, where can they find out about more about the work that you do, the programs that you run and what you’re all about?

Rod McDermott  38:02  

Yeah, thankfully. So you can find us at a couple of places activate 180 is our corporate coaching business. So activate 180 calm just how it sounds. That’s where you can find a lot of me, you can find me on LinkedIn, obviously, you know, Rod McDermott, and you’ll see mc terminable Executive Search as well. So I love running my companies, and I’ve got great leaders in there. So I’ve got multiple different places where you can find me, I guess. And and certainly if you’re an executive too, we’ve got our executive network and mc terminable.

Lisa Lewis Miller  38:35  

Excellent. Well, Rob, it has been a pleasure. Thank you for coming on the Career Clarity Show and reminding people the kind of energy and feelings they can have when they’re living a lit up life. Thanks, Lisa. It’s been a lot of fun. Thanks for having me.

Lisa Lewis Miller  38:54  

And that’s the wrap. Let us know what you thought about today’s episode. leave us a review on Apple podcasts. Because not only can your stars and words help us find great guests and topics to feature on future episodes. Your input also helps other people find the resources they need to discover the work that lights them up. And make sure to check out my book Career Clarity Show finally find the work that fits your values and lifestyle for the link to order it go to GetCareerClarity.com/book. And don’t forget to get your other tools resources and helpful goodies at GetCareerClarity.com/podcast. Thanks again for joining us for the Career Clarity Show today. And remember, if you don’t love your work, we should talk because life is too short to be doing work that doesn’t light you up to talk to you next time.