What happens when the initial excitement of your new job starts to wear off? Or the work you’re doing becomes misaligned with the person you want to be? In episode 88 of the Career Relaunch® podcast, Melody Mack, an neurodiagnostics business owner turned project manager shares her thoughts on managing your relationship with work, letting go of a business you created, and taking an honest look at who you are. During the Mental Fuel® segment, I’ll also share a glimpse into a few of the issues I seem to have dragged around with me from job to job.

Key Career Takeaways

1. Divorcing yourself from your professional identity is extremely difficult, which is one reason why saying farewell to your job can be so difficult.
   
2. When the challenges and frustrations you’re feeling in your professional life seem to follow you from job to job, the issue may have more to do with you than your employer or work itself.
   
3. While professional transitions and gaps in your CV can feel uncertain and stressful, those periods of transition are a part of the journey. Slowing down and taking the time to figure things out is not only okay but also necessary to make the right career choices moving forward.
   
4. If you focus too much on what other people are saying, thinking, or doing, you can lose track of yourself. It’s important to stay true to yourself in order to feel at peace in your career.
   

Tweetables


When you blame and criticize others, you are avoiding some truth about yourself.


Deepak Chopra


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Resources Mentioned

• I talked briefly about Attribution Theory, which you can read more about here.
  

Listener Challenge

During this episode’s Mental Fuel segment, my challenge to you was to take an honest look at one of the persistent issues you’ve been struggling with in your career for quite some time. How much of your work struggles are a result of the specific environment you’re in at this moment? How much of them actually have to do with you—your expectations, your beliefs, your blueprint of how things should be.

Take 1 action over something you can control to help you manage those things you can’t control at this moment in your career.

About Our Guest Melody Mack

Melody Mack left a successful career in healthcare as a provider and business owner so she could  focus on project management in a different industry. One thing she’s learned is that working hard in a job that doesn’t give you joy is simply not sustainable. I caught Melody in the middle of her transition, and in spite of facing some tough challenges along the way, she’s still hopeful for the future.

I first crossed paths with Melody when she sent me a note on LinkedIn after being a long-time listener of this podcast. She mentioned feeling burned out by her last job, the challenges of walking away from a lucrative role, and the complications of transitioning into something else–all universal challenges many career changers face. I was really excited to get her onto the show so she could share in her own words what I think is a very relatable career transition journey.

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Comments, Suggestions, or Questions?

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Interview Segment Music Credits

• Dog And Pony Show – Podington Bear
  
• Planet – Infraction
  
• Signal To Noise – Scott Buckley
  
• Temporary Stop – Jay Varton
  
• Ethereal – Punch Deck
  
• New Ambitions – Trevor Kowalski
  
• Rand Aldo – Open Atmos
  
• TV Show 2021 – Infraction
  

Episode Interview Transcript

Teaser: I had to recognize that I brought some of my bad habits that led to burnout and resentment in my last career into my new career that is also possibly why I’m not happy yet where I’ve landed.

Joseph: Let’s get started by talking a little bit about what you’re up to at this moment. Can you just give me a glimpse into what’s been keeping you busy in your personal life and also your professional life?

Melody: [02:29] Actually, this is the first time in 14 years that I haven’t been on-call in some capacity. So, my greatest joy is being able to not have my phone on me. I’m spending time reading and taking long walks, and I’ve even started taking cooking classes.

In my career, I am a senior project management consultant for a small group out of Denver Colorado. My current contract is with a school district. I’m having a lot of fun working with some incredible people and learning every single day. That keeps me very much on my toes.

Joseph: You mentioned that you were on-call a lot in your past life. We are going to get into more detail about your history in a moment. But what sort of things would you be on-call for?

Melody: [03:26] I was working in two leadership roles. One as a provider in healthcare and one as a business owner. At any point in time, either there was a fire to put out for the business, or I was actually on-call to provide services for a hospital.

Joseph: The other thing I wanted to ask you about is just like personally, you said you’ve got a little bit of space for hobbies right now and to kind of have a little bit of breathing room. What are you enjoying doing in your free time right now?

Melody: [03:54] Naps are great.

Joseph: It never hurts, yeah.

Melody: [03:59] Reading. I’ve been looking for new opportunities to learn something that I haven’t done before. A lot of it is interjected with just fun. For example, there’s an event in a couple of weeks where there’s an outdoor movie being shown, but they’ll also have goats running around. Things like that that are a little outside of the norm, but something that will just be fun. I had lost a little bit of joy in my career. And now, I’m just seeking new opportunities and having fun.

Joseph: Very good to hear. Okay. Well, let’s talk about your past and let’s talk about your previous career chapters. You have not always been a senior project manager. Could you tell me a little bit about your time back in the day when you were working in neurodiagnostics? And then, we can move forward from there.

Melody: [04:52] Well, I got a great opportunity 14 years ago to apply to be an interoperative neuromonitoring technologist, which is a healthcare technology position where you work in the operating room monitoring brain and spine. I got that opportunity without having a graduate degree, which was a dream for me to be in healthcare. It required a lot of calls, a lot of travel, and a lot of agility.

But along the way, I got a chance to co-found a company with one of my bosses. And, that’s where that second role came in where I was working as a provider, but I also co-founded a neurodiagnostics company. It was exciting. It was something I never thought I’d get a chance to do, but it was good old-fashioned hard work.

Joseph: You mentioned that you were really excited to work in healthcare when you think back to when you were a kid. Was this something you wanted to do when you grew up?

Melody: [05:58] It was. I was that little girl who said, “When I grew up, I’m going to be a doctor.” I got the chance to apply for medical school, and I was most interested in alternative medicine. I applied for a program to get a Doctorate in Alternative Health. The estimated cost of the education would have been $500,000. And, that was the biggest barrier to entry for me. In hindsight, it was the right decision to not take on the debt. But it did leave me thinking I could not be in health care unless I got some sort of higher degree.

Joseph: You moved into this area of neurodiagnostics, and you also co-founded a company. Can you tell me how things started off for you? What did you enjoy about that role?

Melody: [06:53] Well, first and foremost, I love science. Getting the chance to integrate technology, and caring for patients was exciting. Being in the operating room behind those doors that a lot of people don’t get to see, it was a dream come true. But again, it was very demanding and a lot of hard work.

I compare it a lot to what it’s like to travel on a plane. If you’re not on the first flight of the day and you get delayed, you never know when you’re going to leave or arrive. That’s how a lot of the operating room time schedules work. So, there were a lot of times when I had no idea when I would start or end my day. But everything becomes routine after a while, and a lot of the work I did was elective. I wasn’t saving lives. I wasn’t the one doing the operation. I was ancillary to the team, which was good, but it also stripped some of the meaning of being a healthcare provider for me.

The business side was where I got my project management experience because there’s no way to set up a business if you don’t look at it like a project. I got the chance to try something that on paper, I probably wasn’t qualified to build or do because I didn’t have my MBA. But you could pick up on the theme that I was always worried about lacking that degree, that higher degree, to prove that I could do something. I was given a chance to do it without and it was fun, it was exciting, and it was hard.

Joseph: What was the most challenging aspect of that period of your career?

Melody: [08:40] Wearing multiple hats. Being in the operating room, but knowing that I needed to attend to a business matter. Also, staying focused on what was right in front of me. I had a really hard time being present and caring for the patient in front of me while I was also thinking about my business meeting that was happening shortly thereafter. The more I learned about healthcare for profit, the more out of love I fell with the industry as a whole.

Joseph: We talked about this when we first spoke about this idea. I know you mentioned you were in the operating room, you get a chance to see a lot of things that the average person doesn’t get a chance to see. I think the way you put it to me at the time was the more you were able to see behind the curtain, the less passionate you were about healthcare. Can you just explain a little bit about what was happening?

Melody: [09:34] I had lost my belief in what I was doing it for. Don’t get me wrong. My business was very small and we were profitable. It helped me get out of student loan debt from my undergrad, and I’m forever grateful for that. But once I saw what it would take to expand and grow the business, I realized that some of the nuances in health care and insurance building here in America were just not aligned with my values. I’m not criticizing anyone in the industry, but for me personally, it was a point where I couldn’t sell the services because I didn’t believe in the way billing worked anymore.

Joseph: How long did you have that feeling before you started to think about moving to something else?

Melody: [10:31] In all honesty, it was death by a thousand cuts. There were so many little things over time that were difficult: knowing the behind-the-scenes of healthcare billing, having a 24/7 job, working with other people who are 24/7 in a high-stress, high-intensity environment, and just the sheer exhaustion that comes from that.

But there was a single moment in time I was thinking about it, the last 24 hours preparing for this. I was on call for trauma neurosurgery, and I lost track and I had taken a long walk. And, I was about a mile from my house when I got the call that they needed a tech immediately. So, I literally had to sprint home, jump in my car, drive across town, and set up for work, and that ended up being a 17-hour workday.

Once I arrived, I found myself thinking more about when I would get to take a break, when I would get to eat, or how many hours I would get to sleep when it was over, versus what was happening right in front of me. I was having to work harder and harder to be present for my patients and my team. At the end of that 17 hours, I went to give the surgeon a summary of the case and he said, “Who are you again?”

I was devastated because I thought my role in the room was important. I powered through a big long day, and it turned out that it wasn’t what I thought. I was looking for validation from the team around me and that’s something that I have been working on in my new career. But it was pretty grounding and humbling. That was the moment when I knew it was time to go.

Joseph: That must be tough to hear because you’re investing your blood, sweat, and tears into something. And then, for someone to not even who you are in the room. That’d be really tough for me to stomach. Did you then think about making a change at that moment? What was running through your head after that night of pulling all those hours and well not even knowing who you are?

Melody: [12:56] How am I going to get out?

Joseph: What were you most afraid of when you were thinking about it?

Melody: [13:03] I was most afraid of leaving the salary, which was a good salary but it required a great deal of self-sacrifice. Self-sacrifice had become my mode of operation. Most of all, I would be, on paper, walking away from a dream being in healthcare, founding a business. Let me be clear, that they were tied by my business partner was also my boss. I was very embedded in this neurodiagnostics world with my partner. The idea of untangling that was terrifying.

Joseph: Did you guys have conversations about what was running through your head? This potential whisper that you were hearing about maybe doing something else, what was that like?

Melody: [13:53] Joseph, I’ll be honest. I realized that for the six months prior to me finally saying it was time for me to go, I had become grumpier and grumpier at every meeting. I realized that my business partner was dreading having meetings with me because I would always bring in all this emotion and baggage because I was so burned out and so resentful at that point. When I did tell him, it was like breaking up. So, there was a great degree of guilt and awkwardness. His response to me was, “Oh, I know. You’ve been burned out for five years.” We had been working together for 11.

Joseph: So, he recognized this, you recognized this. Well, you can share as many details as you want here. But what did he tell you when he found out that you were thinking about no longer carrying on as someone who was really burned out in this particular industry?

Melody: [14:56] He was the same as he’s always been. He believed in me when he met me 11 years prior. But he also wanted me to stay holding up the two companies. He was considerably gracious. There was no arguing or begging me to stay. But I think it took them a few months to realize that I really was moving on. We kept in touch until — actually, very recently. I haven’t heard from him for maybe a month. We kept in touch because we had become friends over the years. Ultimately, I think that as much work as I carried for the companies, I think he also understood that maybe it was time for us just to go our separate ways.

Joseph: I know you mentioned the moment that you experienced in the hospital when you realize you had to make a change. Was there a moment when you realized that as much as you wanted to continue to work, I guess with this co-founder of yours and to continue to work on this project you’d invested years into, was there a moment when you realized that that wasn’t working for you? The building of this business that you had built from scratch.

Melody: [16:08] Yes. There’s a lot to it, but I’ll summarize it this way. I knew that I didn’t have the capabilities to grow the company in the way that it would take to be successful. I also had fallen out of love with that service line. The hardest part of leaving that were the people that my team there were such incredible and hardworking, and they sacrificed a lot to make it what it was. Ultimately, leaving both companies gave other people an opportunity to lead.

Joseph: I have always been curious, Melody, about what it’s like because I’ve never been in this particular situation where you create the business, or the product, or the service, and you are building this thing. You are raising this like you would a baby. In some ways, it is your sort of metaphorical baby. I know this must be tough but can you put into words what it’s like to say farewell to that and to just hand it over to some other person who probably feels like some random individual who hasn’t been involved from the very start?

Melody: [17:26] It was really hard. I was flying down to another city to tell my right-hand person, my right-hand team member in person, that I was leaving. I was in the airport googling how to leave a company that you co-founded, literally. I was grasping at straws. I felt better about it by creating new leadership positions for individuals who had been dedicating a lot and pouring into that, but nothing was adequate enough for me to feel good about leaving that. It still isn’t. I’ll be honest, I think about my team, I keep in touch with some, and I do still feel guilty for leaving them but they’re doing fine.

Joseph: Just to paint a timeline here. We’re recording this in mid-2022. My understanding is that it was in 2021 when you started the process of trying to extricate yourself from this business. I’d love to shift gears here a little bit and talk about that exact transition. Like that period when you decided, “Hey, I’m leaving. I need to find a way out of this.” What happened between the time when you decided that and when you left? Can you walk me through those few months in your life and what was happening for you, what was running through your head, and what you were wrestling with?

Melody: [19:10] Quick plug here. I found your podcast last February. That was after that moment of the 17 hours of surgery that I needed to look for that external support. So, thank you. You’ve been with me this whole time.

From there, I had already built a foundation in project management. In 2017, I’d taken a Certification Course in Project Management so that I could apply it better to the business that I was already building and running. Continued with that and took a project management approach to everything in both of my businesses. To me, that was the obvious direction. But leaving a leadership position I held, two of them for 11 years, is very difficult and takes a lot of planning.

I think from when I said, “I was leaving” to my last day, it was probably April to July. And then, I did some freebie consulting for the team afterward with some questions, I think until January, just little odds and ends and questions. Along the way, I drink a lot of wine. I probably talked about it to everyone that I knew. I exhausted my support system by talking about it because it was the only thing I could think about. You know what? Ultimately, when I did tell people I was moving on, it was just a collective sigh of relief. People were like, “Oh, thank goodness! Melody’s finally going to move.”

Joseph: When you say “people,” like friends and family.

Melody: [20:54] Yeah, my support system had been listening to my gripes, my grumpiness, and my woes for so many years. I hadn’t taken action until last year. I’m so relieved that I did. But it wasn’t the end, it was just the beginning.

Joseph: During these few months when you’re trying to extract yourself, you’d also achieved your Project Management Certification, is that right? This was in late 2021.

Melody: [21:28] I sat for my Project Management Professional Exam this February. So, just a few months ago. But I had been building my project hours over the years. Then, I put off taking the test because the application process in itself is pretty time-consuming. The application, I completed last year. Then, when they approve you, you have one year to take this exam. Like I said, the application alone is very daunting.

Joseph: When you’re thinking, “Okay. I’ll get this certification and then I’ll be set to apply to other roles,” was that the plan?

Melody: [22:10] I’ll back it up to when I finished my last day, my jobs. I started a small consulting company just to help give small businesses business operations and project management. But what I found right away is that I didn’t want to be a one-man shop and that I needed more resources, and probably more experience to be successful. So, I even got a job at a cafe because I wanted to make cappuccinos and do something that was not full of pressure.

Joseph: No pun intended.

Melody: [22:45] I know. It was this fantasy to go back to my first job, which was a barista. And, I got this cafe to give me a chance even though they looked at my resume and thought, “You’re insane.” But they gave me a chance and it was a full-fledged line-out-the-door café, and it was not a relaxing job. Although, the perks were delicious food and being on the other side of the register, which was important.

Joseph: I mean I was just talking with somebody who was telling me that they had a friend who was saying, “Hey, at some point, I just want to slow down. I just want to have a job in a café. I just want to serve coffee and do something that doesn’t require a tremendous amount of effort outside of the work hours.” What was that like for you? I know you mentioned it was busy. But what was the experience like going from this high caliber job, but also role as a co-founder, working in hospitals, life-and-death situations to — not to diminish it but, serving coffee to people?

Melody: [23:47] That’s what I wanted to do. Part of that was complex. I was immediately humbled because I hadn’t been in the restaurant industry for many years, and I had a lot to relearn. It was fun and exciting for about five minutes. And then, I realized that being customer-facing is hard. That people are either incredible or terrible. My co-workers were diverse and interesting, and hardworking. I only got to make a few cappuccinos. I mean that was what I was in it for, and it was harder than I thought. I scratched that itch. I made friends with the master baker who gave me a 30-year sourdough starter. I only lasted about a month before, honestly, my back went out.

Joseph: Oh, no, okay. This was quite the change of scenery for you. Before we talk about some of the lessons you’ve learned along the way, I do want to talk also about what’s been happening for you over the past few months. Again, we’re recording this in mid-2022. You got your certification just three, or four months ago. What has this process been like for you as you have now tried to create this new chapter in your career focused on project management? How’s that gone for you? Just completely recreating your life and your professional life.

Melody: I made it harder for myself by selecting to not look for roles within healthcare. I had some early opportunities from recruiters to do project management within healthcare, and it’s not what I wanted. In an attempt to reinvent my career in my life, I had said very early, “I want out of healthcare entirely.” I didn’t do myself any favors there.

I’d like to say that I’m a generalist and I’ve been trying to continue important general skills like public speaking in my Toastmasters’ Club, and leadership, also in my Toastmasters’ Club, in hopes that someone would give me a chance to interview and say, “You know what? Melody can do anything. Let’s plug her into this industry.” Essentially, that’s what happened but it didn’t happen quickly. And now, that I’m in that, I’m still a little surprised and grateful that someone gave me a chance outside of my specialty area.

Joseph: What did you ultimately end up doing, and what are you ultimately focused on right now?

Melody: [26:28] I had a recruiter find me on LinkedIn for a project management consulting position. The job description does not match what I do and it wasn’t even close to what I interviewed for. I got placed in a contract with a public school district doing all kinds of things. But mostly, I’ve gotten the opportunity to be paired with strategic projects, which they’re not life and death like what I had been in before, but the scope of the people that they could affect is very large.

I don’t know a lot about public education, and I’m learning every day. It’s nuanced, and it’s complex, and it’s political. But what I’m focusing on is taking my general skills in project management. And, just having been in such a high-stress environment and applying it to these projects, which are high stakes in a different way. To be honest, some days I leave work with more questions than answers. But that’s what I asked for when I left my other industry.

Joseph: When you say questions, Melody, are you talking about questions related to the job itself, or questions related to your choice to do this job, or both?

Melody: [27:57] That’s an interesting way to frame it. Maybe all of the above. I would say if you asked me a year ago if I would have thought it’d be in public education as a project manager, I would have said, “Hell, no!” But I also realized what was attracted to projects is that there’s a start and an end. I’m already finding myself wanting more, and that’s a scary place to be because I just gave up more. I gave up two massive roles to simplify my life. And so, what I really need to do is just sit still and be present, and do what I’m doing.

Joseph: This is a really common I guess scenario that people either face or may be concerned about when they’re making a career change. From the people I talk to, one of the biggest hang-ups or hesitations people have about making a career change is maybe making a mistake, or maybe things not going as you hoped they would go, or maybe things not moving as quickly as you thought they’re going to move, or the work not being as interesting as you had presumed it would be. I’m not saying that any of those are necessarily what you’re talking about. But how do you wrestle with this situation where at least, initially, the blueprint you had in your head of how things could be, hasn’t exactly matched up with your experience?

Melody: [29:27] I think I’m responsible for a lot of the discomfort in where I was before and where I am now. I brought some bad work habits with me into my new career, which include equating work ethic with self-sacrifice, with having difficulty setting boundaries around work. Not just because work is not demanding of me, I’m not shutting down the work thought at five. I know it’s not possible always to just turn it off. But more than once, my husband has said, “You’re not getting paid to talk about work right now. Why are you talking about work?” I had to recognize that I brought some of my bad habits that led to burnout and resentment in my last career into my new career.

I have to take accountability that that is also possibly why I’m not happy yet where I’ve landed. I am really in a mode where I need to do some deeper work and not put all of my hope for joy, and peace, and love, and happiness in my career because I sacrificed the side of myself to be successful, to pay my student loans, and to build something. I believe that it’s time to build myself and my career is going to be on side of that, but not necessarily the central focus anymore. Does that make sense?

Joseph: Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. I think when we spoke before starting this recording the first time we connected, I think one of the things you told me was that a lot of your self-esteem comes from work. We’re not talking about you specifically, but just in general. People’s self-esteem a lot of that really emerges from your professional life and your professional identity, the company you work for, the title that you have, how big your office is in some cases, and how much you’ve climbed the corporate ladder. And so, I think it is very difficult to completely divorce yourself from your professional identity. It’s just really tough to do.

It is interesting also to hear a little bit about your husband and his perceptions of you now versus before. I mean, have there been any other observations that he’s picked up or that he shared with you that you care to share with me that have just been interesting and maybe eye-opening for you to hear?

Melody: [32:06] He gets alarmed when I don’t answer my phone, and I actually ignore it now because I was so tied to it. I was one of those people who if we were having coffee, I would be looking at it constantly, responding to texts while we were talking, and not being focused on who was with. Now, I’ll have the ringer on maybe 20% of the time. It will be buzzing and he’ll run into the room and say, “Your phone’s ringing!” Like, I don’t care.

It took me a while to not jump every time I got a text or a call because that was how the hospitals and my team would communicate in the past. I did block about five hospitals that were still calling me as of two months ago for services. Don’t worry. I informed them first who to call. So, nobody’s not getting served. I blocked their numbers so that they wouldn’t call me anymore. The big one is just my behaviors with my phone are different, and I’ll sit through a whole meal without pulling up my phone, which I think we should probably all be doing. I didn’t recognize until recently what a bad habit I had developed with my phone, but it was a necessity of my job.

Besides that, I think what people have known me this whole time have noticed is that I’ve become less serious, which is something I would also tell my younger self is “Don’t be so serious about everything.” I’ve created this insurmountable expectation for me and other people in my life over the years. It was tied to my career, but it seeped into my personal life. I believe people have noticed that I’ve calmed down and relaxed a little bit. I still have a way to go, I’ll be honest.

Joseph: We all do. I was just having this conversation with my wife before we had this recording. I was telling her about my days back in Hawaii. For a long-time, listeners, and you may know this also, Melody, I spent about a year in Hawaii before medical school. I was out there just trying to do different things. I was just telling you, I didn’t give myself permission to relax as much as I wished I would have. I was really way too cautious that I needed to be at the age of 22. This does happen sometimes.

I think this is a really good segue to talk about one of the last things that I was hoping to cover with you, which is just some of the lessons that you’ve learned along the way of this career change journey, which you’re still just like right in the middle of it right now. If it’s kind of at the start, actually. And, this is the perfect time that I think I would like to ask you about some things related to what you just mentioned about advice to your younger self. Anything else come to mind is you’re in the thick of this right now?

Melody: [35:12] With all things, I would tell young Melody, “This too shall pass.” I did not spend enough time before I took this contract enjoying the in-between. To me, it was purgatory. I was suffering. I was stressed about what was next, what would my next salary be, and whether would I be able to prove myself. I didn’t enjoy that ride in between which was I just left a career, I sold the company. This is an okay moment to enjoy the ride and take each day as a day. Some days are great, some days are just a day. I was so focused on getting to this side of it where I had a contract in my hand and guaranteed pay. If I could go back in time, I would tell young Melody, “You know just, this too shall pass, enjoy the ride, and calm down.”

Joseph: I can so relate to a lot of things that you’re telling me right now, Mel. I think you and I are very similar in this way. Maybe a lot of people listen to this where you just kind of want to get through that transition and just get to the other side, and you like to put so much pressure on yourself to figure it out right away. And, until you figure it out right away, you feel guilty about going and treating yourself to a cup of coffee or a cookie until you have your “life back in order.” You’re right. I think those transitions are rare moments when you’re in between these jobs, and you can kick back a little bit and slow down. It’s just very hard to do when you feel pressured to find that next thing. When you look back on your career change, what’s something that you wished that you had known that you now know? I realize you’re still in it right now.

Melody: [37:25] I wish I would have known that my internal critic was not helping me. That it was holding me back, and that the people around me who were supportive and said, “It will be okay. You’ll get through. You have a good work ethic. You have a lot of skills. Just hang on.” I wish I would have known that they were right.

It is something that is a central focus of my self-work now is calibrating that internal critic when it’s helpful, which is not that often for me and when it’s wrong. I want to believe the positive I want to know that it will be okay and it is okay. It sounds so simple but I read myself through the gauntlet all these years. I am still at the beginning of the shift, but I can breathe again. And, I can see that there is potential that this isn’t forever, this contractor, this specific position. I’m coming to peace with that unknown because I’m starting to finally believe in myself.

Joseph: Having been through this career change, the last question for you, what’s one thing that you’ve learned about yourself along the way? Again, keeping in mind that you’re still at the start of this pivot.

Melody: [39:01] What I recognize in myself is that if I spend too much time focusing on what other people are doing, I lose track of myself. What I’m learning is as long as I show up with integrity and authenticity, wherever I am, either work or non-work, people will respond in a positive way and I will also attract the right kind of people and the right kind of work as a result of that.

Joseph: If people want to learn more about you, or if they want to get in touch with you, or just hear more about the kind of work that you’re doing right now as a project manager, what is the best way that they can get in touch with you?

Melody: I’m on LinkedIn. That is the only form of social media that I use. And, I’m always looking to network and collaborate. I’m looking for inspiration and partnerships in a very broad sense. I just want to be connected and around people that are positive, and inspirational, and that we can learn from each other.

Joseph: Anything else you want to say before we wrap up?

Melody: [40:16] Well, I’ll give another shout-out to you, Joseph. For your podcasts and your work. I am so inspired by the people you attract to your podcast and the interviews that I’ve heard have helped me along the way. I’ve passed them on to others who are in transition. If there weren’t for people like you, people like me maybe wouldn’t feel as confident making that big leap. So, just wanted to thank you and all your interviewees for their great work.

Joseph: Thank you very much for those kind words, Melody. I am really happy to hear that the show has helped you and it does make my day when I hear stories like yours where people have felt inspired to make a change. Even if it isn’t necessarily the perfect move right away, but that you’re taking strides in the right direction, that’s great to hear.

Thank you so much, Melody, for telling us more about your recent shift into the world of education, some of the challenges you’ve had to overcome along the way. Most importantly, some of the things that you’re still wrestling with right now, which is what many people wrestle with when they’re trying to figure things out. So, best of luck with your new role for that school district. I hope you can continue to take steps toward what will hopefully provide you with that balance that you’re seeking.

Melody: [41:39] Thank you, Joseph. It’s an honor and a privilege to be here. I’m going to consider this for me like closing of that old chapter because I’ve been holding on to a lot of things. I think I’m going to take this day and close that chapter, learn the lessons but definitely move on. Thank you. Take care.

[End 41:58]