The Traveling Introvert

Latest Episodes:

Why new managers need to build a peer support system Sep 20, 2022

Hello and welcome to the Travelling Introvert. Today I want to talk about being a manager. Whether you've created this role yourself or you're new to being a manager and how you need to craft and create a peer support system. Now, you may have been a manager before, you may know everyone at your workplace, you may have been promoted to be a manager so you know everyone and you know what's going on, or you might be a new manager in a new role in a new company. Either way, you need to have a support system during the first 90 days of any new role.

It's super stressful and having a support system is beneficial in many ways, not just for the first 90 days, but for your ongoing success as a manager and a leader. Now, when you're thinking about setting up your peer support system, the idea is for you to get a system that helps you feel supported and helps you manage stress and is a go-to group of people humans that you can go to about work stuff. So, for example, I was working with someone who has crafted their own position within their job and they're the first person that's done it. They took certification and now, like the other director of Insert Bank here, they've never been director of anything in any other organization, don't have experience in this role in any organization or any other organization. So they don't know what they don't know.

While they know the culture of the company, while they know everyone that they work with, they don't know really huge gaps that they might have in their learning just because of the way certifications are made these days. They don't necessarily cover a lot of real world scenarios and nothing gives you more experience in working in different types and sizes of organizations. So this person has gone out to try and create their peer support system of fellow humans that work within her industry as well as outside of her industry, but have the same role or job title, or have had the same role and job title previously because they can help fill in the gaps of what she does and doesn't know. Not only that, having insight into other industries and other verticals and seeing how they do things will help them figure out what might be missing from their work. For example, after getting this group of peers together, she figured out that she needed a better infrastructure and policies within their workplace and also just generally software.

The company did not have software to track general things for this particular type of work. Not only that, it gives you people to go and bounce ideas off who aren't part of the work, click or don't know about the drama and aren't involved in those sorts of things. It gives you a space to learn and to grow and see how different people deal with the type of situations that you have or how they've dealt with them in the past. And everyone learns together. And so there's nothing better than having that feeling of nonjudgmental support when you are in the first throws of a new position or just when you are a little bit further along.

I want to expand your knowledge now, you can't just go ahead and get anyone when you're thinking about building a peer support system, but do think about where the gaps in your knowledge might be missing. And this is where it's a really good idea for you to kind of do a skills audit and figure out where your blind spots, your weaknesses might be. And then go ahead and find people who have skills and strengths in those areas to be part of your peer support network. This helps you take care of yourself as a manager and a leader. This shows your potential for growth.

This helps you on your personal journey. And by doing this, we will help expand your network. And it's not expanding your network because I need to do networking. It's because you want to support others who are in the same situation. As you will end up finding people who you want to mentor or you want to be part of their peer support group where you are further along in your journey than they are, when you also want to find out all sorts of industry things that you might not have known, websites to go to, pieces of software tricks and tips that you just didn't know about.

It's all about gaining knowledge. It's not necessarily about the networking and the people. It's about gaining knowledge so you can be good at your job and successful while balancing out and reducing that stress. Because you know you have people that you can go to who will answer your questions in times of need. Thank you for listening.

This is janice@thecareerintrovert.com helping you build your brand and get hired. Have a great rest of your week and don't forget to do that skills audit. Bye.

How to view your business as a creative project Sep 13, 2022

Hello and welcome to the travelling introvert. Today I want to talk about how you can view your business as a creative project. Now, as an introvert, you may or may not see yourself as a creative person. I definitely have struggled with seeing myself as a creative person only to have creatives look at me like I'm got two heads and don't understand why I don't consider myself to be a creative person. However, you too can view your business as a creative project and this might help you tap into your creative side and help you come up with new and innovative ideas.

And so I want to talk about some tips on how you can go about viewing your business as a creative project. Whether you be a freelancer, sellerpreneur, a small business owner insert word here. So start off by defining your creative vision. And for some people that's their values. For some people it's their mission statement.

What is your creative vision? Do you want to help introverts around the world build their careers and get hired? Or do you want to stamp out imposter syndrome? Do you want to make sure that every flower has a shady spot to rest in? Whatever your creative vision is, define that.

And then as part of that, develop a plan that supports that plan and that vision. But make sure it also supports your creativity. And keep in mind your time management, your energy management and things that are important to you. For example, maybe you're about anti hustle, maybe you're about five minutes a day is enough. Whatever it might be, make sure that your plan supports this.

Then set aside time on a regular cadence to brainstorm new ideas that could be every week, every quarter, every month, or whatever works for you and your lifestyle. And then keep a journal or book or to do list or whatever it might be of your thoughts and ideas. Having a place to dump thoughts and ideas is really helpful. Some people call it second Brain. Just a way to get it out of your head and try and take on new challenges and experiment with new things.

Don't be thinking that once you try things that are the be all and end all and that's the way it has to stay, we really get caught up in thinking that once you try a thing, that's the last thing you can do and if it doesn’t work, that's the end of it. It's an experiment, it's a creative project. Another thing that's really important is don't be afraid to delegate or outsource tasks that don't support your creativity. If you are not into writing outsource to delegate it or find a way to do it differently, like voice to text. Find different ways that support your creativity so you're not being sucked into things that drain your creativity.

Also be open to feedback from others, of course, constructive feedback. And embrace change and embrace failure. As part of the learning process. Not everything is going to go right, not everything is going to go perfectly and not everything is going to go the way you think it's going to go. And that is okay.

I know someone that I work with is currently showing everyone, every time they quote, unquote fail, they might go and apply for a certain thing. They are creative, so they'll apply for certain art programs or for certain jobs or like voiceover work, and they have now taken to posting every time they don't get that role or don't get that job to help normalize that. Hey, not everything you see on my Instagram and my LinkedIn is going to be me success all the time. These are quote unquote failures. But also, like, I tried and I didn't get it and that's okay.

And I'm learning and moving on. Take time for yourself outside of your business to refuel your creativity. Be that taking time off, going to the beach, going for a massage, whatever it might be. No one is creative 100% of the time, so don't expect yourself to be either. So all of these things will help you with saying no to things that are not in line with your vision and your creative project.

And if you are currently having problems saying no, please check out the link with a worksheet that will help you in different ways to say no and set those boundaries that help you're to keep you on course with your creative project, your creative vision or life in general. Thank you for listening.

This is janice@thecareerintrovert.com helping you build your brand and get hired. Have a great rest of your week.

Everyone can be a leader not everyone can be a manager Sep 06, 2022

Hello and welcome to the travelling introvert. Today I'm going to talk about leadership. I was talking with a client the other day and it was a group of managers who were in for some leadership training. And the first question is what makes a leader a leader? And this led to like a 45 minutes discussion and conversation between what makes a leader different from a manager or from an influencer.

Some things that came up right now is that how being a manager is considered to be old school and very rigid, and more about giving people tasks, and how a leader is like the new cool kid on the block. But people really couldn't identify what makes being a leader different. One person was like, well, a leader is someone who gets followed. People follow you if you're a leader. Which led to the conversation about, okay, so there's a bunch of people on Instagram with thousands of followers.

Does that make that influencer a leader? And they were like, well, not necessarily that's an influencer, it's a little different. Okay, so what makes a leader a leader? And they were like, okay, well, people have to trust you, all right? Don't people trust their managers?

Sometimes yes, sometimes no. So there starting to be a degree of separation between what makes a leader a leader and a manager a manager. Then we started to talk about inspiration. Leaders inspire people. That's something that they all agreed on, that they are inspired by leaders, but they themselves did not feel that they were inspiring, yet they consider themselves to be leaders.

And yes, different people will inspire different types of people because not everyone inspires everybody. You will inspire someone who aspires to be like, you right, but it is a form of leadership. And then there was the question, can everyone be a leader? And they were like, huh? So then I flipped it and said, can everyone be a manager?

And they're like, no, no, no. Good. Managers gives tasks in a clear way with timeline, expected turnaround. They answer questions, they give examples of what done looks like.

They explain why it's important managers do a very specific thing. Okay, all right, so very clear definition what a manager is and very specific people can be managers, but not everyone can be a manager. Yet so many people are in management area or roles who shouldn't be there, according to a lot of people. But leaders, anyone can be a leader because anyone can inspire someone else.

And just because they don't know that they're inspiring somebody else doesn't mean that they are not a leader. Every one of us has someone that looks up to us. And it might not be everything that we do, it might be one thing that we did. That person is like, oh, wow, that was awesome. I'm inspired by that.

We might not know it. Most of the time we don't know because it's very rare someone comes up to and goes, you inspire me. And to be honest, if they did, I'm not sure how our reactions would be right. But everyone has the competency to be a leader, whether they see themselves as one or not. You're always a couple of steps ahead in your journey, whatever that journey might be.

Then somebody else, somebody will look at something you do and be like, oh, I want to do something like that. Someone will listen to something that you say and be like, oh, that really inspired me to go and do A, B, or C.

Thinking about the fact that anyone can be a leader should make you think differently about how you view other leaders and how you wish to inspire others or the people that inspire you. What do they do? What did they say? Who do they connect with? Who do they network with?

And what makes them inspiring? Why do you aspire to have certain traits of another human? So remember that it's not being a manager makes a good manager. The key trait that separates managers from leaders is to be inspiring, and you can do that by just being you. Thank you for listening.

This is janice@thecareerintrovert.com, helping you build your brand and get hired. Have a great rest of your week.

How to know if you are micromanaging yourself Aug 30, 2022

A brief summary of this episode

How to work with Extroverts Aug 23, 2022

Do you struggle to be heard at work? Many introverts do. Maybe you are compromising your authenticity. Maybe you feel it affecting your health, happiness & family time. I help introverts find their voice while being true to themselves. Visit the latest podcasts (an oldie but goodie - rerun from November 2020, and download the worksheet to explore where you are on the journey to being heard.

How to make yourself visible at work Aug 16, 2022

I'm grabbing another one from the archives for you this week, and this is a classic one to talk about how you can make your work visible, as well as doing sort of a mini skills assessment to see your areas of strength and your areas of growth so you can access this free four part mini assessment. And let's start by making you the star you deserve to be seen.

Grab the free assessment here

Hello and welcome to the travelling introvert, or the not so travelling introvert. Today I'm going to talk about why you need to regularly assess your skills. I think something that happens as we go through life and we come across a problem, we deal with it, we move on to the next problem or move on to the next thing. And there's a kind of time of year where people are planning for the next year and looking back from the previous year and we tend to look at what we've done, what we've accomplished. And one thing that really needs to happen is to regularly assess what skills you have and what you've learned or what you need to change or what isn't useful anymore.

And we don't do this enough. Anyone who wants to improve and prosper, even your professional or your personal lives, you need to make time to assess your skills. And this can be, I don't know, every quarter is a good way of doing it. I mean, when you're an employer, you know often employers will have a yearly assessment, feedback and so on and so forth to make sure that their employees are learning and growing with the new company. This is because it benefits the company as a whole.

If you improve your team, the company improves and the bottom line improves. And so, whether you're an employee or an employer or just entrepreneur, regularly assessing your skills is really important. And so think about these things. When you are assessing your skills, what can you do to improve your quality and speed? Productivity is a crucial attribute for successful people.

And to do this, you must improve your quality. And by doing so, you'll take less time doing things. After all, getting more done isn't good enough if it's not done well.

Also, when you're regularly assessing your skills, use it as a time to self-reflect. Self-reflection is vital for successful career business life in general. It provides time to look within yourself and see where you can improve and what you've accomplished. So putting this in your calendar on a regular basis and making it a non-negotiable is a way of doing this. Now, when you are thinking about assessing your skills, also think about your strengths and how you can maximize those and all lead to new ones.

Repeating daily life stuff can make things easy to ignore what you are truly good at. So reflecting and testing your skills and reassessing your abilities will allow you to focus even more on areas that you are great at and allowing you to perfect that skill even more. And on the flip side, of course, is also understanding your weaknesses and how to improve them. Just how looking back and reassessing your skills will highlight what your strengths are. It should also highlight what your weaknesses are, your shortcomings and make them far more visible to you.

This is great because if it's done more than once a year. You want it to work towards bettering them or having a plan to mitigate your weakness. If you are selling, if you are bad at certain things, you can outsource it or you can learn to make it better. Often, if you reassess this on a more regular basis, you'll figure out where that gap is. An outsourcing is fine, but the sooner you figure that out, the sooner things can balance out and work out better.

Also, when you're assessing your skills, it allows you to take education and learning into your own hands. It provides you the ability to be more self-aware and acknowledge your achievements as well as your failures. And it also gives you a clearer, more defined path to learn and develop yourself interpersonally and professionally. If you want to grow as a person and have a more successful career or business or work on your life goals, you need to continually make time to evaluate your abilities so that you know where to improve and where you lack. You can go ahead and look for online skill assessments or personality tests.

Ask friends and co-workers to assess you. Look at past reviews, past things that you've said about yourself. These are just a few ways that you can get valuable feedback on your current abilities so that you can enhance your career, advance your business, and accomplish your goals. Reviewing is crucial. Thank you for letting this is janice@thecareerintrovert.com, helping you build your brand and grow your business.

Have a great rest of your day.

Put yourself first Aug 09, 2022

This is a great one for the archives and it's currently what I'm doing right now. I would love to know how you prioritize yourself. What things do you put in place to put yourself first? Be it your needs for recharging, be it your needs for creativity, be it your needs for just being able to get 8 hours of sleep. So how do you prioritize yourself first? And please go ahead and let me know in the poll. Do you, number one, engage in self-awareness and development through digital content? Kind of like this? Number two, do you work with a coach or mastermind group like myself? Do you three have a gratitude and mindfulness practice that you engage in? And number four, do you never really prioritize yourself? Let me know and enjoy listening to this episode. Bye.

Hello, and welcome to the not so travelling introvert. Today I want to talk about prioritizing yourself. I'm guilty very much of not doing this. I don't want to say I'm a regular basis frequently enough and one of the worst things you could ever do is pile on the guilt of wanting to have some time to yourself and putting yourself first. In fact, putting yourself first is really the reverse of being selfish.

Because of that fact, there is no reason to feel guilty. I want to talk about some of the ways that you can be helped by prioritizing yourself. People who care about you will respond healthily to you finding time to put yourself first, especially when it comes to your health and happiness. Because they want you to be happy. If you tell them that these 15 minutes, an hour, a day, a particular activity that you do alone is important to you and why they truly care about you, they'll respect it.

And even if they don't first and you explain why, they see the benefits of you getting that time to do what you need to do and prioritize yourself. Then they will understand. Don't get me wrong, even your best friend at times might take advantage of you if you let them. But it's not that they don't care about you or they even mean to take advantage, it's the fact that if you just say yes, they assume you wanted to say yes. Try saying no or not right now or let me check my calendar.

Or actually I'd prefer to do blah blah blah set boundaries. So you help yourself to prioritize yourself. When you have some downtime, that's just for you to do whatever it is that you love doing, whether it's reading, painting, walking, meditating, coloring, all of those things. If you put aside downtime for you to do these things, you will be a happier person because you get to do things that you enjoy. So you will enjoy life more.

And let's be honest, prioritizing yourself is a requirement, not an option. The fact is you shouldn't feel guilty for doing something that is a requirement in your life. It is not optional for you to take care of yourself. If you don't take care of yourself in the way that you know best, you won't be productive or happy and you can't blame other people for that. And then if you think about it, what happens if you don't put yourself first?

You'll end up sick in some way, shape or form. What happens when you feel sick? If you go to bed for a few days with the flu or any other illness? Does the world fall apart? No.

If you take time to take care of yourself, you're less likely to be stressed, you're less likely to get ill. And even when you do, you won't be ill feeling stressed that you're missing stuff, or that you'll feel guilty being sick, that won't happen because you know you're taking time to prioritize yourself. When you're overworked and say yes to all the things or things you'd rather not do, it shows. People might not be able to interpret the actual reason behind your attitude, behavior or energy, but they will be able to sense that something is off. And this can make people feel uncomfortable without understanding why.

So don't do it. Only you can control yourself. You might have a hard time with guilt, and I get that. But the truth is you can only control yourself. You can't control all the things that are going on, no matter how much you try.

And just a word of warning prioritizing yourself does not mean neglecting others. Some people think that me time means that you neglect others, but that's actually just not the case. You have to learn to differentiate needs versus once. Needs are before once. You need time to yourself, you need time to recharge.

You need to take care of yourself. That's far more important than whether you run the PTA bake sale or whether Betsy does. There's a difference. And honestly, the more that you learn to put your needs before other people's wants I'll say that again. The more you learn to put your needs before other people's wants, the happier and healthier and better you will feel.

And to be fair, if you don't put yourself first, no one else will. Not your partner, not your kids, not your friends. So it must be you.

Why would you feel guilty about being true to you? Thank you for listening. This is janice@thecareerintrovert.com, helping you build your brand and get hired. Have a great rest of your week.

Ways to say NO Aug 02, 2022

I said no this month. When's the last time you said what you really wanted to say? No. I said no this month and yes to myself. I'm doing a little bit reworking on my programming and so using this time to bring back some of the most popular episodes from the archive. Now, this particular one is about saying no. You might need to say no to request for your time, to borrow your work, to borrow your materials, or even just wanting someone invading your personal or office space with an in person meeting. Here's the thing. No is a complete sentence, but sometimes that doesn't feel just right. So to help you to prepare for the inevitable, grab the download and get your best no face on. No is a complete sentence.

Hello, and welcome to the travelling introvert. Today I want to talk about, and I've talked about this before, but saying no and how to do it the right way it's super easy to feel guilty and want to avoid conflict or simply want to make other people feel good. However, if you don't say no, it can consume your whole life on how other people react and you might get stressed because of other people's happiness. Your happiness is kind of more important. So, in fact, saying no more often is crucial to come to your goals and aspirations.

And actually, it's something that I've struggled with the past couple of weeks where I wanted to say no and I wanted to set boundaries. I found it incredibly hard and so this has been helpful to me. No is not always a negative. Behind every no, there's also a yes. So what I mean is, when you say no, you're also saying yes to another opportunity that can better serve you in your life.

Just because you're saying no doesn't mean like no right now and no forever. Saying no means that you're committed to your values and goals and your boundaries. And you can always say yes without considering everybody. It's fine. The sad truth is, you will always need to think about yourself first.

Establish and stick to your boundaries. The only person you are responsible for is yourself and you can't expect others to know what you need. If you don't speak up, say something practice, assertive communication. Always speak up about your boundaries. And don't be afraid to let others know if they can't respect your boundaries, you don't need them, they're only going to hold you back.

You're only going to feel guilty and resentful on a whole bunch of other things which will just get you down and have you feeling overwhelmed. And I know it's not that easy. So finding the right words is hugely important. You don't just say no. There are other ways to let people know why you can't do it.

Suggest an alternative or provide a reason why you can't do it. Let them know that it doesn't work with your schedule or your timing is wrong. The more you can communicate and the more information you can give them. As far as I'm not doing this because of X, Y and Z, we'll stop them asking you again, but not in a bad way. If you are like, I can't do this on Mondays, then I'll ask you for Tuesdays instead.

So setting the right boundaries and using the right words are really helpful. Take the personal out of it. In other words, you're not saying no to the person asking, you're simply saying no to the activities that they want you to do. Often people don't say no because they're afraid to offend the person. However, not being fully honest with yourself isn't fair on them either.

Instead, realize it isn't about the person, but rather what they asked for. More likely than not, they'll understand why you are respectively declining their request. If you're always saying yes to people and activities that you don't enjoy, then you're not really being you. You're not really living your life. You're living the life you think other people expect from you.

And is that really what you want to do? Yes. You might be avoiding conflict, but you will easily create more by being dishonest with yourself and the people around you. A vague yes versus a firm no can be seen as more harmful, as your lack of commitment and poor attitude are noticeable. And it means people can't rely on what you say, and that's something really important.

Seeming wishy washy isn't a great thing. Knowing when to say yes and when to say no or when to say, let me check my schedule, let me check my calendar, let me get back to you within the next 24 hours. Whatever it might be is far better than being like, yeah, I guess it just doesn't work. So in the end, saying no allows you far more control and ease and less stress with your life and will help you accomplish more. It's not about making others feel unwanted.

It's not about being rude. It's about ensuring you are using your time wisely and doing the things that you want to do and following the path that you want to go on and where you want to be and your goals in life. Once you find a balance that works for you, you'll never regret saying no because of reasons that you value in your life. Thanks for listening. This is Janice@thecareerintrovert.com helping you build your brand and get hired.

If you have any questions that you want me to answer on the show, email me at janice@thecareerintrovert.com. Have a great rest of your week.

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Stop feeling guilty about self care Jul 26, 2022

A brief summary of this episode

Things to do for your staycation Jul 19, 2022

A brief summary of this episode

Speaking up is hard do Jul 12, 2022

A brief summary of this episode

The lies we tell ourselves Jul 05, 2022

A brief summary of this episode

Being sick as an introvert Jun 28, 2022

A brief summary of this episode

How to survive public facing roles Jun 21, 2022

Hello and welcome to the not so the travelling introvert. Today, I want to talk about people or client facing jobs. A lot of the time, the assumption is as introverts, we can't do client facing or public facing or high touch jobs. And that is not the case. I know I've spoken about how I used to work in casinos, and that is very much a people skills job, but I want to just talk about some ways that could help you through when you're thinking about jobs or you're in a job that is a people facing job.

So one of the things that I talked about was the fact that even though the casino job was very people facing, we got brakes on a regular basis. So that was one of the reasons why that job was a really good fit for me was because I got a lot of downtime in between the people facing time. And most jobs have that cadence. There are very few jobs where you are facing and dealing with people all the time. And even if that is the case, there are ways of finding those moments of solitude within that that help you recharge.

For example, if you have a job where you're on the road a lot and you're going to sales meetings or client meetings and going to different offices, that time in between when you're not at the client's site where you are planning the trip, sending emails or just travelling to said site is your gift of downtime. That's when you can go ahead and recharge and think things through and gain second wind or third wind. So you might have five meetings a day, but in between and that might just be like a busy period of the month. A lot of people have a cadence with their jobs where the start of the month is really busy or the end of the month is really busy. But the middle two weeks are not as busy.

Use those middle weeks as and block out time to do focused work and recharge work. Every type of job has a cadence, and it is for you to find that cadence and make it work for you.

And that's like one of the things that you need to think about when you're thinking, oh, no, it's a people facing job. I can't do that. That's not necessarily true. It's just finding a way that works for you. Now, say you're in a sales role, and a lot of people, when they think about sales roles, are like, you have to talk all the time and you have to go ahead and smooth.

And that's not necessarily the case. A lot of the times, it's a lot of emails, a lot of the time, it's just listening to the other person, figuring out what their specific wants are, what their pain points are, because they could be talking about one thing, but really what they need help with is something else. So one thing that you can do to help you get through that or figure out what works for you is to role play do it on a regular basis in different ways that people could react to you and figure out what you would say and what you would do just like you would practice for an interview to make sure that you feel comfortable do the same thing for that role and you know, if you're more of a phone person then use the phone more. If you're more of a text person, you know, use asynchronous messaging like figure out a way that works for you and even if you still end up not liking phone calls, you'll figure out a way that works for you to have these phone calls. Whether it's making sure that there is an agenda before the phone call or whether it's making sure that phone calls are done on a certain week or a certain time that works for you, begin thinking about what you want from that phone call and even in meetings it's really interesting how many times people will set up a meeting on a calendar but don't explain what they want from that meeting.

When you think about is it you want to sell a service, you want to request feedback, what is it you want from that call and then work backwards to the steps that you need to take to make that happen and some of that stuff might be have to do before the call.

Another thing is thinking about like icebreakers and that sort of a thing have some topics that you're quite happy to talk about whether traffic, art, restaurants, whatever it might be, have those as handy things that you are happy to talk books that you are happy to talk about when you have to talk about something unexpected and don't forget you can't control everything and that's okay because you learn along the way. Thank you for listening. This is Janice@thecareerintovert.com helping you build your brand and get hired. Have a great rest of your week.

Quick networking tips Jun 14, 2022

Quick Networking Tips

Networking lets you connect to a variety of helpful people — everyone from potential business partners to new customers — and promote yourself. It doesn’t come easily on learning how to network and build relationships with smart, successful people. But when done right, networking is genuine, comfortable, and extremely valuable for both parties. But how do you get started? And how to do it effectively.

I’m sharing the following insights on this episode.

How can get the most out of networking events.
Ways to connect with speakers and audience.
Things to consider before starting.

Hello and welcome to the not so Travelling Introvert. Today, I'm going to talk about events online or otherwise. A lot of the times there are certain things that you can do in advance of an event and after an event to make networking easier.

So, the first thing is start networking before you even get to the event. Normally, when you are told about an event, there will be a list of speakers or a website with a landing page that has information about who's running the event, what organizations are involved and you can go and look and do some research on these people.

Say you're going to an event and there's twelve speakers. Go on LinkedIn, take a look at the speakers. Normally, you'll be able to find them and maybe their contact information or connect with them on LinkedIn, send them a message like, “Hello, I've seen that you are going to be speaking at this event that I'm attending. I'm very excited to hear your talk on [insert topic here] really looking forward to it’. Let them know that you are looking forward to hearing from them.

If you don't want to connect on LinkedIn, most speakers, when they're at an event or advertising for an event will have their contact details, how they prefer to be contacted. So, if they don't have their Twitter profile up there, don't go and stoke them on Twitter. Contact them the way they wish to be contacted and let them know.

Now, feel free to also email or contact the producers of the show and let them know that you're excited about the show and that sort of a thing. Review the schedule or the program before the events start, make a list of the talks that you want to hear and then put those in your calendar so you're not going to miss them. And then make sure that you have time to attend.

Also, give yourself time before and after to prepare any questions that you might want to ask or do further research. Afterwards, because a lot of the time these things run over, they'll leave time for questions and you just might need to refresh or just recharge after that event. So, those are a couple of things that you should do where you don't have to network just at the event.

Now when you're at the event, for example, if it is a Zoom event, normally you would see people's names or their organization names and their names in their Zoom window. If there's someone who's talking or someone who's asked a question that is of interest to you, go ahead, make a note of that person's name and the company they work for and then go and look at their LinkedIn and say, “Hey, saw you were at this event. I really enjoyed the question you asked on [insert here]. I would really love to connect”.

Not only have you then connected with the people who are speaking at the event but then you started to connect with the audience there as well and if the event is using a hashtag. For example, go ahead and look up that hashtag on social media to see what the conversation is about and who else is using that hashtag because you can connect with them as well. Now the other thing is having an introduction or an elevated speech prepared.

If you get asked who are you where are you from? Or drop your links in the chat or whatever it might be, make sure that you have that information ready to copy and paste and drop in the chat so that will be a good thing to do. Now, another thing is set yourself realistic expectations. There's no way that everyone who's at the event is going to respond to your invitation or talk to you and that's okay, don't be upset if not everyone does that. It is kind of a numbers game.

When you're thinking about networking have a goal in mind. What is your goal being that you just want to add more people to your role decks? Is that you're looking for people that you want to interview for a book? Are you looking for a mentor? Are you looking for something specific? Be interested in the person and not just the opportunity and part of that is by being a good listener asking follow-up questions.

Now, after the event always feel free to follow up 24 to 48 hours later to say, “Oh hey, I really enjoyed your speech on this or this topic. I had a follow up question or [insert whatever it is that you are looking for]”. Those are things that will be helpful for live and in person and events moving forward.

Thank you for listening. This is janice@thecareerintrovertcom.com helping you build your brand and get hired. Have a great rest of your week.

Why constructive criticism is important Jun 07, 2022

Why constructive criticism is important?

Have you ever wanted to give constructive criticism on something, but held back from doing so because you did not know how to convey your ideas across? Let’s face it, it can be hard to give or receive criticism no matter how it is delivered. But getting comfortable with offering and receiving practical, constructive criticism is helpful to deliver better results, find motivation, and strengthen relationships.

In this episode, I will discuss the following:

What is constructive criticism and its importance.
Practical strategies to give and receive it well, and what to avoid.
Benefit of accepting constructive criticism.

Hello and welcome to the not so Travelling Introvert. Today, I want to talk about why introspection, retrospection, and criticism can be the key to success. Constructive criticism -- That's feedback that you get from others, intending to help build you up and provide you with more information and data or tools to help you improve in some way. It's not meant to harm you, it's not meant to be personal, it's not meant to feel like an attack.

And, a lot of people aren't very good at giving constructive criticism, but also in general, accepting criticism. Proper criticism can open-up doors and opportunities that you might not have been aware of before, leading you to more success and happiness closer towards your goals as long as it is provided respectfully. And I want to talk about reasons why accepting constructive criticism can lead to more success. It tends to improve your awareness and your focus. When others provide criticism, it unlocks key bits of information that you might have otherwise overlooked and over time, in doing retrospectives and reviewing, it can help you notice patterns and vital details on your own, and therefore improving your skills and understanding of what to do next time to be more successful, the more information and data you have that you actually review and take action on, the more that you can improve.

And by improvement, I mean it inspires personal growth. When you know that others will provide a valuable feedback, it motivates you to do better before the information is even given. In addition, consistent feedback improves your awareness, which fuels your determination to keep improving and growing. And, this is why, lots of companies should have regular reviews, not just once a year. If you want to provide someone with valuable feedback, the more often you do it and the more constructive you do it, the more the better you're going to get out of that human.

Because at the end of the day, it's helping somebody understand themselves. So, when you're thinking about constructive criticism and accepting it, this helps you increase your understanding of yourself. Within constructive criticism, of course, there are likely to be variables that detail who you are as a person as opposed to something else. For example, your boss may have noticed how you deal with completing an important assignment, which it may not ultimately affect the results, but they want to provide you with the tools to help you get the results, maybe more efficiently in the future.

In addition, your actions can easily affect other areas of your life and also work assignments, so the feedback gives you richer knowledge of who you are, what you've done well, and what you need to improve. And this, will inspire you to take action. Without action, there is no success. You need to take consistent steps in order to get where you want to go and achieve your goals. No one else can provide this. No one else can do this. Only you can do it yourself.

And taking action is normally the most difficult step in process to overcome. However, receiving constructive criticism can be a great reminder of just how important the right steps are and data is and can provide you with the inspiration you need to keep going and will make better decisions. And with that, it inspires you to take action based on data.

So many times, people are like, well, X, Y, and Z and it's answered by how do you know this? Where is the data? A thought is not a fact. Do you know that you work harder than somebody else? Do you know other people have more experience than you? In what way and does that matter?

Another thing that accepting criticism means is that you get it. You look at it, you digest it and you go ahead and make tiny improvements on the data that you are given and then learn measure and repeat. You learn from it. There's a measurement taken data given back and then you adjust and then you repeat criticism is not harmful nor should it be avoided. In fact, you should seek it out from those you admire the most and those who know you best and have your best interests at heart. The more knowledgeable and more perspective that you gain upon yourself, the better you will become.

Thank you for listening. This is janice@thecareerintrovert.com helping you build your brand and get hired. Have a great rest of your week.

How much approval is too much May 31, 2022

How much approval is too much

People pleasing doesn’t have to be a life sentence. But, it can be common problem. This can be normal as we are part of a social and professional system that requires a very wide range of inter-relational skills for us to be happy, appreciated and successful. So, you might be wondering: what makes a people pleaser? How people-pleasing shows up in your work, social life and more. In fact, every area of your life. And what you can do about it.

I will cover the following on this episode.

Red flags that someone is a people pleaser.
Dealing with people pleasers.
How to overcome people pleasing and approval seeking tendencies.

Hello and welcome to the not so Travelling Introvert. Today, I want to talk about being a people pleaser or some people might see it as having a need, a deep need for approval, almost like an addiction.

Receiving validation from other people feels good for a lot of people. So, good that some people kind of develop almost an addiction for receiving that outside approval and take more weight in getting that outside approval instead of being motivated intrinsically. And therefore, they can't motivate themselves without somebody else's approval. It could manifest as if you're obsessed with people going to express interest in you.

Maybe you like being on social media, dating sites, or any situation where you can attract people and get their attention by having them express an interest in you. It might even be hard for you to settle down with like one human because you enjoy having people express an interest with you rather than just having that interest from one person. Maybe you need constant reassurance to make sure that your friends and family are not mad or upset with you.

Maybe you're often overthinking little confrontations and so you often ask for reassurance about how somebody feels about you. You might like to talk about how awesome you are and this can be weird, like, especially if you lack confidence. But some people who aren't confident will talk about all the impressive things they've done to appear worthier than they think they are, in the hopes that people hearing all the things that they've done will agree and validate their thoughts about said awesomeness, even though they might not believe it themselves.

You might find someone who is that really craves attention, loves to name drop. Do you find someone like name drops people who you may know who they have worked with or know a friend of a friend in order to make themselves look more important? This is a sign can be a sign of insecurity, especially when it's not done within context. So, that can be an issue.

Some people will go ahead and make friends with folks based on their wealth or their reputation. So, they look around at their close friends group and they might think, well, this person's rich, this person is a doctor, this person X, Y, and Z. But they might not know a lot about them as humans, and so they might not share the same values which can lead to issues.

Also, you might find someone who is a people pleaser or has a need for approval. They might change their beliefs or the way that they act, or how they act, depending on the situation or the company that they're keeping. They might change what they say or what they think about certain topics depending on who they're talking to.

They might also feel the need to be in control of each and every single social situation when it comes to networking and making friends or building relationships. They might need to be the one that is control of the event so that they can feel confident and comfortable. Because if they let other people oversee the social situations, it might be a bit scary because you might not therefore appear as confident or might not know what's going on. And, it could be a case of just being rejected in any way, shape or form could make that person feel out of control. It often happens with job searches. It can happen with just people that you know, someone you've just met and how they deal with that rejection can reveal whether or not they are a people please or maybe they have an approval addiction and things that don't help with these are social media, especially things like Instagram where what we call vanity metrics. How many followers do you have? How many people liked that particular post?

These things go towards hurting someone's self-esteem and making them more of a people pleaser. People pleasers need to stop and think and figure out who they are, make sure they have personal values and design a path to reach their goals based on their own values rather than what other people value them as.

Thank you for listening. This is janice@thecareerintrovert.com helping you build your brand and to get hired. Have a great rest of your week!

You are not alone in your introvert struggles. May 24, 2022

You are not alone in your introvert struggles

In today’s world, it can be hard to be an introvert. Introverts face many struggles, as we navigate extrovert-biased workplaces and social situations. Often, introverts feel exhausted and overwhelmed by the sheer pressure to be more extroverted and like to have ample alone time to recharge and feel at our best. Unfortunately, not everyone understands this.

In this episode, I will share with you the following:

Understanding the struggles that introverts might be facing.
Some of the most successful introverts in the world.
Providing a perspective that you are not alone.

Hello and welcome to the not so travelling introvert. Today, I want to talk about some struggles that introverts might have, but also the fact that you are not alone. So, by understanding why you might struggle with certain types of communication or certain things, it means you can better explain yourself to other people. For example, extroverts in your life, and for example, conversation, due to some perfectionist tendencies and just also not wanting to interrupt or various other things. A lot of introverts don't speak up or interrupting a conversation because they're listening and absorbing.

Even when you have something to say that you might not feel it's going to be insightful enough, or you're just listening and you want to have deeper conversations. So, just letting people know that oh hey, how's the weather isn't the best conversation starter for you. You might neglect phone calls. You probably much prefer text or email or asynchronous types of communication because you can skip the small talk because that's socially acceptable in those forms of communication. But phone calls, it's a little different.

You might even find yourself procrastinating and making important phone calls or return calls even to those that you care about. Or for example, just to get your dentist. You must feel energized enough to be an enthusiastic participant in the conversation, which can cause you to put off making calls even if they are vital. You also might find it difficult to think in groups because you need to think before you speak and because you might need silence while you ponder. You might find it challenging to participate in a conversation where there are comments and ideas flying everywhere.

You may feel that you can't gather your thoughts well enough to contribute to the conversation because you're still processing and because of this, big groups might exhaust you. When you have to be around a lot of people, especially when you don't know them, you might feel exhausted fast, and one reason is because it involves a lot of meaningless small talk which we talked about before, which doesn't come naturally to us. Introverts and putting in that much effort can wear you out along with the pace of the conversation and you wanting to think and then sort of feeling left behind almost because the conversation has moved on.

Maybe you might dislike working in groups because you must rely on others to communicate in ways that you might not feel comfortable with, and it can be a real challenge to complete a project. There's also the issue of perfectionism there, but not being able to have the time to think and do focused work because you're supposed to be working in a team and as a group, but regardless of that, you are in good company. Albert Einstein was also believed to be an introvert. In fact, Einstein believed that the quiet life was the secret to his creativity. If he had any preconceived notions about introverts not being successful, he is one that trounces that stereotype.

Another example is Bill Gates. You certainly can't say he's not successful but he is, again, another quiet human that enjoys his solitude and if he's called out for being that way, it doesn't bother him. And why should I he's living his life? Abraham Lincoln was someone who believed in having integrity. He believed more of being the unsung hero rather than performing acts for the sake of the attention that it gets. However, he was able to attention that he did receive because he was the President of the United States and that's got a lot of attention.

You'll also find that Lady Gaga is an introvert. With all the flash and energy from her concerts, it's hard to believe that she might even fall into this category. But she is a very private and needs a lot of time to recharge. Mel Streep is a well-known actress and she is so talented. But she is and she is an introvert along with Michael Jordan who is among the list of celebrities who is a larger than life basketball player and at one point even tried his hand at professional baseball. But he is also an introvert.

So, you are not alone and you, too can be successful. It's just knowing more about yourself that helps. So the next time anyone says to you that introverts can't make their way in this extroverted world, refer to them to this list. These are all people who have accomplished amazing feats in their life and are tremendous inspirations to everyone, not just you.

Thank you for listening. This is Janice at janice@thecareerintrovert.com helping you build your brand and get hired. Have a great rest of your week.

Client privacy May 17, 2022

Hello and welcome to the not so travelling introvert. Today I want to talk about client Privacy. So many times there are Facebook groups, popup Facebook groups or posts on social media celebrating that this person and that person and the other person has joined this particular coaching group or coaching program. Or there is a group in Facebook and people join and there's a welcome to the group and listing all the names on that particular post. So here's the thing.

A lot of people who reach for coaching services, no matter what kind of coaching services they are, are doing so expecting a certain level of confidentiality and Privacy. And I know that a lot of coaches use their hey, join my group and hey, these people have joined. Look how popular this group is to make that fear of missing out thing that much more palatable. But at the same time, what they are doing is destroying their credibility, destroying their clients trust in them because of the lack of confidentiality and Privacy. So many times I get asked, hey, why don't we see a bunch of testimonials on your website?

Or hey, let me know the people that you have worked with. Or why don't we see you posting about all the successes that your clients have? And the simple fact is, my clients come to me because they want help in their career. More than likely they don't want their boss or their LinkedIn friends or their Facebook friends knowing that they are seeking help and support to maybe change careers, maybe start their own business, maybe just do better or get a promotion. They don't need people to know that and they don't want people to know that.

So those of you who are out there looking for your next coach or mentor or insert word here, keep in mind that you want them to keep your information private. You want them to keep your information confidential. Not everything is made to be splashed around on social media. It's fine if they get your permission. That's also the reason why I don't run a Facebook group for my clients that I coach.

Because putting them all into a group means that then things pop up like, oh you might know such and such because you know the Facebook algorithm, right? Oh, you might know such and such. You should ask them to join this group. Oh, such and such is in a group that's similar to yours. No matter how private you make that group, people can still take screenshots of things you say in that group and post them to other places.

Nothing is truly, truly private if it is in a Facebook group.

So when you are thinking about who to work with, take a look and see how they treat their clients. Are all their clients splashed all over their social media, with or without permission? Or do they just give examples that are anonymous because then they're more likely to keep your information private and confidential. That's also one of the reasons that clients work with me is because they don't have to be on video with me. I respect their Privacy.

If they're having a bad day and they don't want to be on video or to be honest, we've all got Zoom fatigue at this point, then they don't have to be I have coaching that I've had some that I've coached with for I think now three years and we don't do video. She doesn't have to see me and I don't have to see her. We still get the job done. So it's just something to keep in mind. Find someone that works with you in a way that works for you.

Thank you for listening. This is Janice@thecreerintovert.com helping you build your brand and get hired. Have a great rest of your week. Bye.

The Continuum of Anger May 10, 2022

Hello and welcome to the not so travelling introvert. Today we’re gonna talk about the different facets of anger. Different facets of anger. So more than one way to, I’m angry, that's all it is. This thing happened and I got really angry.

But angry, anger, I should say, is nuanced. There are different things to go through and feelings as far as anger. So how anger grows? Anger and irritation are normal human emotions that we all go through. But it's not something that you need to think about too hard.

But you need to learn to understand your anger and what sets it off. Because once you understand this, you can take steps to reduce it and know what to do in certain situations, right? But there's a continuum of anger. Any of us can escalate from irritation to rage as any other human.

So let's think about more about what happens. So irritation. Irritation tends to be on an everyday part of life. For example, your car won't start, the WiFi keeps kicking you off. The store is out of your brand of toilet paper again too soon.

You're usually a calm person and you're just having a bad day feeling frustrated or agitated. You express your irritation as annoyance, but it's not necessarily meant personally and the situation is forgotten quickly. Then there is mild anger. One of your goals is blocked. For example, say you wanted to go away for the weekend but your child is sick so you have to cancel.

Alternatives exist. You can go away next weekend. However, you do feel disappointment and frustration. You remember the experience and the feelings.

Then there's intense anger. Your goal is blocked and there is no acceptable alternative. For example, you've been let go from your job. A close family member has been diagnosed with a terminal illness. Your level of anger and frustration is very high. It's difficult to express and you become preoccupied with the situation. As you can see, no way out. And then there's a rage. Rage results from frustration and then some a build-up of circumstances. You are consumed by angry feelings. You have no control over the expression of your feelings and you don't respond logically.

Violence may occur, either verbal or physical, and you could be a danger to yourself and others.

This is a vicious cycle of aggression. You can see the continuum of anger. At each stage, the level of anger rises. So what do you need to do is think about how you deal with anger and aggression and what that looks like in various cycles for you. Is it because of low self-esteem, anxiety, hostility, guilt?

It's these things that you need to think about, because you need to acknowledge that emotion. Acknowledge the emotion you are feeling and then have a method for you to deescalate that feeling. Be it you take a walk outside, be it you stop, take a beat and then restart the conversation. It could be that you need to Journal most of the time it's like you need to stop but you need to do this before you get to the rage stage because if you're already at the rage stage, logic is not an option. So just by looking at and knowing these different stages and levels of irritation and anger and rage, think about situations that you have been in previously where you thought these things or experienced these feelings.

How did you deal with them? What have you done previously that helped those feelings go away or settle down? And is it something that you can think about and use in the future to make sure that you don't reach the stage of rage. And maybe have a little list of when this happens, I need to do this when X happens, I need to do B when Y happens I need to do Z and B. Knowing yourself and knowing how to deal with these situations will help you moving forward.

Hopefully you never get to the stage of rage and it daily irritation is fine but just thinking about how you act and how people might see that is something to take into consideration. Thank you for listening. This is janice@thecareerintrovert.com helping you build your brand and get hired. Have a great rest of your day. Bye.

7 Key Steps to Handle Any Difficult Situation May 03, 2022

Have you found yourself in a difficult situation lately? Have you dealt with a difficult client or customer? How do you deal with your customers after a rough start to your day?

In today's episode I discuss:

The 7 steps to handling any difficult conversations or situation.

Remaining calm
Listening
Wait until the other person is calm
Apologizing
Find common ground
Move towards an endpoint
Next Steps

The Traveling Introvert - About the show

The Career Introvert - Coaching, courses, and more, to help you shine.

Check out membership levels at The Career Introvert, a place for introverts to thrive.

Where is home for you? Apr 26, 2022

In today's virtual world it’s all about virtual meetings. In these meetings, there's the age-old question “Where are you from”? This can be a difficult question to answer.

In today's episode I discuss:

Why you don’t want to ask, people “where are you from?”
How to be more inclusive in the way you ask questions.
How to better frame your questions for today's internationally connected world.
Staying conscious about appropriately networking questions.

The Traveling Introvert - About the show

The Career Introvert - Coaching, courses, and more, to help you shine.

Check out membership levels at The Career Introvert, a place for introverts to thrive.

Who Do You Find Difficult Apr 19, 2022

Do you have people in your life you find “difficult”? Do you find yourself getting frustrated with the difficult people in your life? Are these negative situations affecting your personal or professional life?

In this episode I discuss:

How to identify patterns in the situations that frustrate you.
Identifying your feelings with each difficult situation.
What to do with your newly gained insight about your frustrations.

The Traveling Introvert - About the show

The Career Introvert - Coaching, courses, and more, to help you shine.

Check out membership levels at The Career Introvert, a place for introverts to thrive.

How Procrastination Will Hinder Your Success Apr 12, 2022

Are you someone who is always pushing tasks off until the last minute? Do you find yourself constantly procrastinating tasks in your personal and professional life?

In this episode I share:

How procrastination can hinder your success.
How procrastination can negatively affect your health.
Why procrastination is the key to destroying your confidence.
How procrastination affects your reputation, trust, and credibility with others.
Why procrastination is making you lose out on opportunities.

The Traveling Introvert - About the show

The Career Introvert - Coaching, courses, and more, to help you shine.

Check out membership levels at The Career Introvert, a place for introverts to thrive.

How public is public Apr 05, 2022

Do you feel like you have to tell all your friends and family about what you do? Have you heard people say that you should tell everyone about your business ventures because you never know who they know? Are you someone who’s reluctant to share much of your personal life on the internet?

In this episode, I share:

Avoiding the pressure of being everywhere online.
Why it’s okay to not share everything about your work or career with everyone in your life.
How building a community around your work, while keeping private is possible.
When sharing more about your business is appropriate.

The Traveling Introvert - About the show

The Career Introvert - Coaching, courses, and more, to help you shine.

Check out membership levels at The Career Introvert, a place for introverts to thrive.

Why you should interview even if you have a job you love Mar 29, 2022

Are you someone who is happy with their job, and have no intentions of leaving? What are the benefits of interviewing, even if you’re not looking for a new job?

In this episode, I share:

Why you should interview for jobs even when you aren't looking to move.
Why keeping up to date with the most current interviewing information and interview styles is important.
How interviewing can be a great way to learn more about an organization
How practicing interview skills can be a benefit you later.
Why making connections with recruiters matters.
How you could end up finding something you didn’t know you were looking for.

The Traveling Introvert - About the show

The Career Introvert - Coaching, courses, and more, to help you shine.

Check out membership levels at The Career Introvert, a place for introverts to thrive.

Why you should dream Mar 22, 2022

We have forgotten how to truly dream. The world is full of opportunities, and everything can be reshaped. Sometimes dreamers are seen as abstract creators with a train of thought that's hard to follow. Having a dreamer mind seat doesn't mean you are void of reality. A lot of dreamers are very practical. Here are some benefits to being a dreamer.

Dreamers take nothing as certain or definite. They let their imagination breathe, keeping in mind that your current situation is just a temporary state of thing and that everything has the potential to change. Whatever negative things are happening in your life are not permanent. This can give you a more positive outlook on life. Additionally, positive things in your life are a chance to smile. It's a common trait of a dreamer mindset to appreciate all aspects of life. This doesn't mean you are immune to the bad things happening. The difference is the way you deal with them when these situations arise.

Dreamers tend to be more positive in their thinking and more active in the present.

When it comes to the future, dreamers know the world is full of opportunities. Whatever your present situation, it can always shift. Your highest fulfilling dreams could become a reality.

A dreamer's mindset knows that they are the architect and master of their own life. Dreamers are free to make their own choices.

Creativity is nurtured and taken care of with a dreamer mindset. A dreamer mindset lets you explore the big world and all its opportunities. It is the perfect breeding ground for ideas. This is why the best writers, musicians, and scientists are dreamers. With this creativity, implementation and action need to go hand in hand. Without action, there can be no progress. Dreams don’t come true without putting the work in.

Be ready to go for what you believe in and to put the work in. A dreamer can be anyone that allows themself to think outside the box concerning themselves and the outside world. Without considering societal norms, you can allow yourself to try things you haven't tried before and dream.

Solo Adventures for Introverts Mar 15, 2022

Why would you want to go on a solo journey? Most of us enjoy travel, and that comes in many forms, from a weekend trip or a year-long trip. Most times, we tend to travel with others. But there are reasons to consider traveling alone.

Silence and solitude: our lives are filled with noise and stimuli from the start of our day. Rarely do we get silence and solitude. These are the best times to slow down and reflect. Experiencing retreats alone by yourself in nature can have great benefits on your mental well-being.

Learning to deal with loneliness: voluntary periods of loneliness can calm your mind and entangle all that's going on in your head. Disconnecting from your normal routine and going into nature helps you gain calmness and concentration and puts you face to face with your strengths and weaknesses to work through.

Detaching from technology: we spend so most of our time online. We have the tendency to get lost and scroll on our phones for hours. Companies design their content this way to keep us on our phones for longer. Traveling in nature takes us off our phones and reminds us that we don't need to be our phones. It's okay to be bored.

Start small, don't overextend yourself with a month-long mountain climb. Start with a small nature walk in your local park. Happiness can lie in removing yourself, and there is magic in nature. Give nature a try, go on a mini solo adventure.

Focus Boosts Mar 08, 2022

A brief summary of this episode

How to be more assertive Mar 01, 2022

How to be more assertive

Being assertive doesn't have much to do with being an introvert. Assertive communication helps you get your message across in a clear, respectful, and direct manner regardless of being an introvert or an extrovert. Assertive communication is a valuable skill to have. It helps you lead with confidence and enables groups to work more effectively as a team. Additionally, assertive communication reduces stress, anger, and depression. Good communication skills provide mental clarity and better relationship with others. Assertive communication can be important in all aspects of life, not just work. Here are some tips to help you feel more assertive.

Understand your value: what benefits do you provide to your organization, and why do they matter? Create a detailed list and be ready to offer it up if requested. Highlight your strengths and weaknesses, be realistic, and avoid internal criticism. If you want to be taken more seriously, you need to know your value.

Expect discomfort: to set proper boundaries you won't always be comfortable in the process. Don't give in, some might use your discomfort to take advantage of the situation. You don't have to step back because of someone's negative reaction. That could very well have more to do with them than the boundary being set.

When you know that being assertive is tied to your self-worth and self-esteem, you can then start to move forward and think about your needs and boundaries and if they line up with your values.

There is also a fine line between being assertive and being aggressive. Being assertive is about being respectful to those around you while still valuing your thoughts and opinions and finding harmony between the two while standing your ground. It's not about taking full control, micromanaging, and disrespecting those around you. Stating you disagree with an idea and explaining why you got there is a much more effective way of communicating than calling someone's idea stupid, crazy, or dumb.

Personal growth will also lead you to be more assertive. The more you learn, grow, and practice, the more understanding of your character you will gain, allowing you to draw attention to your value. This will give you more confidence to speak when appropriate, appropriately.

Remember to give yourself time to adjust and be patient as you learn to be more assertive and set boundaries.

Finding your niche within your job Feb 22, 2022

A brief summary of this episode

First 90 days on the job for introverts Feb 15, 2022

Let’s talk about some things that can help you ease into a new job and avoid feeling overworked for those first 90 days and ways to help you avoid burnout.

If possible, look at a calendar, and at 90 days mark, schedule at least a three-day weekend. It’s often the case that at a new job, the new mental processes and all the new learning will have you feeling burnt out at about 90 days. Also, consider the same for 30 days and 60 days if your job allows. Keep federal holidays in mind and use them as rest days as well to avoid burnout.

Set the tone early on for the type of boundaries and recharge time you would like that allows you to work best. This could be as simple as telling your manager you would like to, for example, avoid early meetings on Mondays. Set these expectations early on.

Be intentional about meeting people. It doesn't have to be a live Zoom meeting. It can be prerecorded video or audio. Meeting with people daily via zoom can be tiring, so be intentional when meeting with others. Make the meetings productive and ask questions that allow you to better support your team.

Think about the communications you use. It could be a web series or podcast; get creative.

Find a mentor, mentors are great for getting information, getting people talking, and for pointers you can use moving forward.

Be clear with what works for you and set aside downtime. These are the keys to a successful first 90 days.

Employer red flags Feb 08, 2022

Today let’s talk about employers and red flags. There are tell-tell signs from employers that might indicate to you that it’s best not to accept a job offer from them or look for a new job if you are with the company currently.

The first one is the sink or swim method. At first, it might seem like the company has a good onboarding process, but once work starts, you are left to your own devices to succeed or fail on your own. Avoid companies like this because if you are not appropriately trained, chances are others aren’t appropriately trained, and customers aren’t happy.

Also, if the entire staff is either young or old, this is a red flag. It can mean that it’s hard to move up in that company, and everyone has been there for a long time if everyone is older. And if everyone is younger, it means people aren’t sticking around and just moving on.

Always in an interview, ask, why is this position now open? Is this a new position, or is this a position someone left, and why did they leave? The answer can be a great indicator if the company will be a good fit.

Another red flag is when a company says, “everyone here is family. We are all like family”. Generally, this means you are overworked without pay and expected to do everything and anything without complaining because “we are all family.”

Avoid companies where in the interview they ask you if you are the type of person that leaves at the end of the workday or leaves when the job is done. This tends to indicate that the company doesn't have enough staff, and you will be overworked and expected to pick up the pieces.

Another huge red flag is when companies say they offer “competitive pay” and won't tell you how much they pay until they give you an offer. This is a big indicator of low pay.

Poor communication during the hiring process is also a red flag. If it’s messy from the beginning, it can indicate overall disorganization within the company.

Don’t allow companies to rush you once an offer is made. This could mean they want to snatch you up before you have had a chance to “shop around” and compare job offers.

having a bad attitude can affect your job performance Feb 01, 2022

Let’s talk about how your attitude or mindset can affect your performance.

Studies show a positive correlation between a positive attitude and performing your best. Multiple studies back the idea that a negative attitude leads to poorer performance and quality in work.

A positive attitude encourages constructive thinking, gives you a more optimistic look on life, and it can lead to more energy and motivation to reach your goals. Practice positive thinking, and you should see a noticeable difference in your quality of work.

Here are some tips to get you started:

Expect Success: successful people expect success, even when they fail. Failing is still a success. A positive attitude and drive will push you forward.

Look for inspiration: we are surrounded by inspiring things. Be open with your mind. The more variety, the better.

Build up your perseverance: a person with a positive attitude will persevere through hard times. Don't get discouraged when things get hard. Focus on the overall outcome to motivate you to keep you going.

Open your eyes to opportunities: keep your eye out for opportunities. Figure out what opportunities are good to take. When you focus on the positive, you will notice more opportunities come your way.

Never stop learning or moving forward: most successful people are lifelong learners. They are always looking to improve and learn in their current field or in new and different ways.

Believe in yourself: The critic in your head can make this challenging. But a positive attitude leaves less room for self-doubt.

Become more solution-orientated: a positive person thinks of a solution to a problem instead of harping on the negative and seeing setbacks as failures. Instead, stay positive and see “failures” as opportunities to improve and come up with a solution.

The more you seek to improve your attitude, the more success you will experience.

Scheduling fun Jan 25, 2022

Let’s talk about making time for fun and creativity.

It’s easy to block out time for work and events you know are happening, and it’s even easy to block out time for rest. But are you also blocking out time for fun? Not vacations or parties. But just something you find to be fun.

Start allowing for some mental white space in your calendar. This time is for sitting, daydreaming, and being creative without distractions from your phone, work, or social media. Truly just sitting with you and your thoughts.

When you are thinking about your schedule (even if you work a 9-5), think about when you can schedule some creative white space and some fun time.

Before creating a schedule that works for you, consider the following.

Know your priorities and your overall goal: This way, when you are scheduling, you keep an overarching goal in mind of what moves you forward.

Learn to say, No: No, or you could say “let me check my schedule.” Knowing your priorities makes it easier to say no, and it makes it easier to know when to say yes. Stepping back and saying, “let me check my schedule,” allows you to take the time to evaluate if this is something that will advance you towards your overall goal. If not, say no.

Focus on impact: Focus on the impact your choices make on your life and aspects of your life. When you see the effects good choices make, it’s easier to say no to things you don’t want to do.

Understand how long tasks take: We tend to be bad at scheduling out how long a task might take. When scheduling a task, don't lie to yourself, be honest about how long your task will take. Give yourself a time buffer as well.

Group like tasks together: If you are already out at a doctor's appointment, consider adding any outdoor errand to your schedule while you're out. Or, if you're already online posting, your social media use that time for your page engagement. Make the most of your scheduled time.

Use the right tools: whatever the right tools for the job are, make sure you know what those are and be ready to use them when needed.

Establish a system and a routine: when you do something in a specific order day in and day out, you are less likely to make mistakes.

Schedule everything: work, sleep, eating, downtime, white space, and fun time. When you really want to do something having it on your schedule and committing to yourself can be very helpful.

Self compassion Jan 18, 2022

Self Compassion

Let’s talk about the importance of showing self-compassion. It is important to remember that everyone is going through something, whether we know it or not, and we need to learn to be more compassionate towards others and ourselves.

There are times in our lives where we are hard on ourselves. When you do this, you lack self-compassion. The way your inner critic speaks to you would never be an acceptable way to speak to others. Don’t allow yourself to speak that way about yourself either.

Here are some tips for self-compassion:

It can help to give your inner critic a name. Example “Beatrice”, that way when you are having negative thoughts about yourself, you can tell “Beatrice” off by name with an appropriate speech.

Avoid negative self-talk, internal and external. It’s okay to accept responsibility for a mistake. But name-calling is not an appropriate response to making a mistake. You wouldn’t talk to others that way, don’t speak to yourself that way either.

Practice self-kindness. Give yourself the same encouraging, patience, and understanding advice you would give friends or family when it comes to facing a dilemma in your life.

Stop comparing yourself to others. Everyone has different abilities and experiences. Don't focus on what others are doing and live your life and enjoy what you have.

Recognize when something is a learning opportunity. Sometimes unexpected results can yield something great. Don’t be hard on yourself when you make “mistakes”; instead, learn from them.

Look at your budget and see if you have something set aside for personal development. It can be something as simple as a coloring book. It doesn’t have to be just professional development (but it certainly can be).

If you are having difficulty being kind to yourself, you might consider professional help. Many people who suffer from imposter syndrome find it hard to be kind to themselves. A professional therapist or counselor can help with that.

Lastly, be patient. Change doesn't happen overnight. Craft a plan that allows you to tackle your self-compassion issues over time. Deal with one thing at a time.

Creativity boosts Jan 11, 2022

Creativity

We as humans all think of different ways of doing things, we daydream, we work in or out of the home. So even if you don't consider yourself a creative person, we all are all creative by nature.

Solutions start with creativity. The ability to form an idea that brings new and different value to a problem is creativity. There is no need to reinvent the wheel, but thinking of creative ways to help you and those around you daily can be of great benefit. Here are some ideas to get you thinking creatively.

Get rid of the fear of failure. Creativity is about trying new things. There is always a risk in trying new things. Just because it doesn't work now doesn't mean it won't work in the future. The more you harp on the failure, the less room for positive growth you give yourself. Embrace the lessons that failure gives you.

Don't stick to the status quo of what's been done before. Learn from what's been done but make it your own. Don't be concerned about what others think about your idea or that you might be doing something differently. Thinking about others will only cloud your thoughts about your ideas.

Creativity doesn't follow a set schedule. Reduce outside pressures and fill your workspace with materials that encourage you to be creative, be that color pencils, post-it notes, fidget spinners, whatever might help you be more creative.

Give yourself time to be creative. If you are constantly procrastinating and pushing up on deadlines, your mind doesn't have the opportunity to be creative and sit on ideas.

Figure out how you best process ideas and come to conclusions. Consider how much space and time you need to get a job done, and then give yourself ample time to be creative. Your career and business will appreciate it.

Remote leadership tips Jan 04, 2022

Tips for remote team leaders

Let's talk about some ways to be a better remote leader.

First, hire people who can work independently. There is no need to micromanage a team when you can trust that they are getting the job done. Hire candidates who have taken ownership of their work in the past.

Over communicate, and encourage others to do the same. Communication is different when working remotely. Consider a shared google calendar for the entire team (including CEO). Find ways to make sure everyone is in the know.

Cultivate spaces where people can share what they are working on regularly. And make it so that others can hold each other accountable. Be it with long projects or a project of the day.

Understand that life happens, people get sick, people need off days, the doorbell might ring, you could hear kids in the background. As long as the work is getting done and the interruptions are just occasional, be understanding.

Be flexible about how you communicate. Not everything needs to be a "cameras on" zoom meeting. A quick form of communication is often a more effective way to get the job done.

Build systems that account for downtime, for international teams or different holidays, etc. Find ways to communicate without interrupting your team's downtime.

Practice empathy and check up on your team regularly. As the team leader, this is your responsibility. Actively listen and work to cultivate a healthy working environment.

Ask for feedback. Just because it works now doesn't mean it will always work.

Traditions Dec 28, 2021

Let's talk about traditions.

What are some things you do during the holidays or the year solely because other people have done them before you, whether alive or dead?

Traditions can be held dearly to us. But they should be able to grow and change in a way that best suits our lives. Like themes, they should be flexible. When we learn more, we should change the way traditions fit into our lives.

For example, instead of holiday cards this year, I chose to send voice memos with a personalized message to the close people in my life. Many people appreciated this, and it can be a one-off tradition, or I can choose to do this again. Traditions don't have to last 20 years. You can choose to incorporate one-off traditions into your life.

Think about the things you do every year because it's expected of you and not because you like to do them. Reconsider these traditions and change them in a way that best fits you. Make your traditions add value to you, don't just think about what happened in the past; consider your future.

Don't forget to join me on January 2nd, on https://www.bullhorn.fm/thetravelingintrovert

Themes for the new year Dec 21, 2021

We are coming to the end of 2021, and it’s a great time to talk about Themes. These aren’t goals or resolutions for the New Year. But instead, overarching themes for your New Year or even next season.

Traditionally you might start a New Years’ resolution, but these goals tend to be strict and ridged on the intended action. Say “work out every day” or “lose 10 lbs by x date”. And when we miss a day or don’t achieve our goal, it derails the entire resolution, and we then have “failed.” Instead, a theme is a word or short sentence that guides you through the year or season to make more decisions towards your said theme.

My 2021 theme was Year of Discovery, so I chose activities that would let me “discover” something new throughout the year. As long as you move forward in choosing activities within your theme, you won’t fail.

Themes help you avoid burnout. The broadness of themes means you can choose something different daily and still move forward with your theme. You will feel more accomplished at the end of the summer or year, having chosen activities within your theme.

Themes are easy to pivot and change as well. If you think you like learning via reading books but come to find you prefer to listen to books with your theme as “winter of learning,” you are staying within your theme and keeping motivated.

Theme can also be made seasonally to avoid the feeling like you have all year to get something done. It shortens down your time frame and pushes you toward your theme faster.

Themes are a different way to look at things and change your frame of mind.

If you want more info on Themes check out CGP Grey

Join me for a live version of this podcast on Jan 2nd on World Introvert Day at 3 pm EST. Download the Bullhorn podcast app and follow the podcast to get notified when I go live.

You are the best person for the job Dec 14, 2021

Are you having feelings of imposter syndrome when applying for jobs or when at a new job?

Imposter syndrome at work is especially damaging and can affect you in many ways. Holding you back from promotions, being known as the person that can't be handed an extra task, long hours at work, and overall added stress. Imposter syndrome needs to be dealt with before it derails your career entirely.

Almost everyone has suffered from imposter syndrome at one time or another.

When having this feeling, you need to analyze why exactly you have this feeling. Are you in the wrong department, do you not understand the assignment, are you in the wrong career, or do you not understand the assignment right now? Once you know why then you can address the problem. Create a plan for your particular reason. Maybe you need more training, or you might have a bad manager, or you need time to settle into your career, or it could be time to look for a new job?

Having imposter syndrome can cause us to overcompensate and set unrealistic goals. This creates a self-feeding cycle of failure. Start by setting small goals to get your confidence going.

Always get advice and find a mentor. Find someone who has accomplished the things you want to achieve or someone "higher up" than you.

Recognize what you have achieved. Track your accomplishments to look back on as reference when the feeling of imposter syndrome comes on.

Your career can take over your life if you let it, especially with imposter syndrome. These feelings can have you working long hours to overcome your own perceived shortcomings. The lack of balance can take a toll on your physical and mental health.

When you don't know the answer, ask for help and get clarification. Getting clarification will help ensure you are on the right path to do what needs to be done. You can't do your best if you lack details. When in doubt, ask questions.

If you are feeling derailed by imposter syndrome, consider this. You came into this job with a specific purpose in mind. Whatever that may be, allowing feelings of insecurity to pull the rug out from underneath you won't help you accomplish your goals. Take a step back recenter your vision, and move forward with that.

The lost art of doing nothing Dec 07, 2021

The lost art of doing nothing

You should be scheduling time out to do nothing.

On your days off, you might find that you have lots of things to get done. Whether it is doing chores, seeing people, side projects. You might often find yourself scheduling out your days off instead of allowing yourself to go with where the day takes you.

Due to the nature of technology nowadays, with notifications and easy access to our phones, we gravitate toward that instant gratification, and we have a large fear of missing out. This makes it hard for us to do nothing and plan nothing.

Don't feel guilty for not being "productive" all hours of the day. Our bodies and minds are not designed for that. If you continue to push yourself without a "do-nothing" break, you build up a deficit that can eventually lead to burnout.

Don't even plan things that will make you feel better. Truly let your body or mind take you through the day. Does your body need more rest, does it need to meditate, does it need Netflix, does it want to bake a cake? Listen and let your mind and body decide.

It can take effort and practice, but go with the flow, don't check your mail or phone. Don't be "productive." Let yourself play, let yourself be.

Prioritize yourself Nov 30, 2021

Prioritizing yourself

One of the worst things you can do is feel guilty about prioritizing yourself. Prioritizing yourself is a need, and you should not feel guilty about your needs.

People who care about you will respond healthily to you putting yourself first.

Set boundaries or time for yourself and explain why this designated time is important to you. It May take time, but the people around you that care about you will understand why this time is important to you.

Sometimes friends and family don’t mean to take advantage of you. Instead, they assume that if you say yes, it’s because you wanted to say yes. Instead, try saying no, not right now, let me check my calendar, or I would rather do…

Set boundaries and help yourself prioritize yourself.

Block out the downtime to prioritize yourself by doing the things you like. Walking, reading, painting, meditating, coloring. If you allow yourself this time, you will be a happier person and enjoy life more.

It is not optional for you to take care of yourself. If you don’t, you won’t be productive. You might end up sick and stressed. It shows in your work when you’re not allowing time for yourself. People will be able to sense that something about you is off. They might not know why, but your energy can be telling.

You can only control yourself so give yourself that time. Prioritizing yourself doesn’t mean neglecting others.

Needs and wants are different, and learning to differentiate is very important. When you finally learn to put your needs before other people’s wants, you will be happier.

If you don’t put yourself first, no one else will. Don’t feel guilty about being true to yourself.

Balancing self-esteem Nov 23, 2021

Balancing self-esteem

Having healthy and balanced self-esteem is key to a happy and healthy life.

Sometimes people assume that introverts don’t have high self-esteem or even that they have low self-esteem.

And then, there are times when self-esteem morphs into ego or overconfidence.

There is healthy self-esteem. Here you have the confidence to be honest with yourself. You know your strengths and weaknesses, and you love yourself. Healthy self-esteem encourages you to live your life to the fullest, make good measured choices, and keep going even when mistakes happen with a lesson learned.

Then there is low self-esteem. Unhealth low self-esteem leaves you with no confidence and a fear of making mistakes. Often this leads to a poor quality of life where you feel scared and trapped. Here you take in a lot of what people say about you, especially if it is negative.

Then there is the overinflated self-esteem. This is also unhealthy. Overinflated self-esteem can trick you into thinking that you are better than everyone. This is ego and can ostracize you from your friends and family.

Your self-esteem can fluctuate. But it is important to keep balance. Unbalanced self-esteem can lead to poor quality of life. People with low self-esteem can miss out on important experiences. And overinflated self-esteem can push people away.

Most excess confidence or extreme lack of confidence is a form of deception. You are the one person you really don’t want to lie to, and unbalanced self-esteem is likely you lying.

Understanding what self-esteem means is important. It is defined as confidence in your own self-worth and a sense of self-respect. You are not respecting yourself if you don’t believe you deserve respect and happiness. Neither is it when you hide behind a false sense of confidence.

Being honest with yourself is the most important step. Only then can you start working on the changes to your life for the better.

Benefits of alone time Nov 16, 2021

As an introvert, you likely like to have alone time.

There are benefits to spending time alone.

Schedule into your days alone time. Here are some benefits to a healthy amount of alone time.

It is important to enjoy your own company, alone time enables you to just be in the moment with yourself. This will overall give you more peace and can make you a better friend

Time alone can encourage creativity. When you are alone and centered you will find that this is when your best ideas will come to you due to the lack of distractions.

You might find that you get more done. Without distractions, you will be surprised at what you can get done in a short amount of time.

Spending time alone is a great way to recharge. Even 10 minutes to yourself can be beneficial. Find something that revives both your mind and body.

Spending time alone can help you clear your mind. A few deep breaths alone can recenter you.

Ideally, you can find an hour of alone time each day but even 10 or 30 minutes can be beneficial. If you can’t, even a 2-minute break alone with deep breaths can give you what you need to recenter and take on the tasks ahead.

Spending time alone can help relieve some stress. A lot of stress comes from the people around you. Scheduling the alone time gives you something to look forward to and keeps you pushing through your day. Your alone time can be spent any way you want. Sit, meditate, read, watch tv, it’s up to you. Humans are not meant to always be on, scheduling alone time will allow you to be a more rounded and healthy person.

The problem with multitasking Nov 09, 2021

We all multitask, so being aware of when you are multitasking and why can be very helpful.

Everyone might think they are good multitaskers, but our brains are not wired to multitask; it's not designed for it.

It is important to avoid multitasking when doing specific tasks. (ie. Reading, driving, learning, writing).

What we call "multitasking" is actually task switching. Meaning you go back and forth between tasks. You aren't really doing both at the same time, more so not focusing on either task. Multitasking also causes you to be slower. When you don't give 100% focus to one task, it will take you longer to complete your tasks.

Multitasking can also cause you to make some mistakes. Mistakes can range from deadly, like in instances of texting and driving, or just an unneeded mistake.

When completing a task with multiple steps, be sure to focus on your task at hand to avoid mistakes or inaccuracies.

Multitasking can make you stressed. When things are taking longer or mistakes are being made, this adds stress.

When your brain has too much going on, it can get information overload that can cause problems with your memory. Your brain starts filtering information incorrectly, giving everything the same weight of importance.

When you have multiple tasks to complete, do one task at a time, do not kind of do each task at the same time.

Knowing and acknowledging that you are task switching and not multitasking allows you to categorize similar tasks. For example emails, you might want to work through your emails consisting of info, things to get done, archives, calendar invites. If you filter each of thous individually, you will find that you will get things done quicker because you will not be task switching through your email work. Attempting to multitask can ruin your creativity and take the joy away from the things you like to do. Take the time to enjoy life by focusing on one thing at a time.

How to create a time management plan Nov 02, 2021

Have you been thinking about time management and how you block out work time?

Are you blocking out your week, month, quarter, year?

One of the most important things when planning is creating a time management plan. A time management plan helps you avoid procrastination and make the hours you have count. It can alleviate pressure and let you enjoy your downtime because you know you have put in the hours needed to get your tasks done.

Having a plan ensures you get things done more quickly and can allow you to spread your tasks out accordingly.

Create a plan that is unique to you.

Think about the following:

Be realistic with your planning. Listen to your internal clock for when you best complete tasks. Suppose you are not a morning person or night person, don't schedule out work time during that time frame.

Set time limits: with tasks you like and dislike. Sometimes tasks we like can keep us procrastinating from tasks we don't like.

Avoid distractions. Plan ahead on how you will deal with distractions.

Differentiate important tasks from none important tasks. Make it a habit to plan to do more important tasks first. This will make you feel accomplished, and it gives you the motivation to get more done.

Both calendars and lists can work together but find what works for you. with technology, make sure to set reminders for tasks.

Eliminate the need for urgency in your life. Train your clients or staff to give you enough time to get things done, set family time and time to recharge into your calendar as well.

Create a daily action plan. Pick three things to do that will work you toward a future plan or goal.

Trusting Yourself to Make Good Decisions Oct 26, 2021

We only have the capability to make so many decisions in a day. Little daily tasks like choosing outfits or meals count towards this capacity to make decisions.

It is important to cultivate an environment where you trust yourself to make good decisions. If you trust your decision-making, you know that everything will be alright or that a good lesson will come from a bad decision.

Here are some ways to start trusting yourself.

Connect with your gut instinct, quiet your mind, find the voice of compassion and respect and listen to that voice. This skill takes practice, so keep at it.

Avoid people who weaken your self-trust. “Naysayers”

When you make a promise to yourself, keep it! When you don’t do something you say you are going to do, you slowly erode trust in yourself.

Be kind to yourself, don’t be an inner critic of yourself.

Forgive yourself when you make a mistake or make the wrong choice, and trust that you will make a better choice next time.

Keep a list of the times that you followed your instinct and note how it felt in your body. Use this as a feelings reference for future decisions.

Surround yourself with people who support and understand you. These people will encourage you to listen to yourself!

Just make that decision, trust yourself enough to know that you are making the right decision, and stop holding yourself back from getting things done.

Productivity breaks Oct 19, 2021

Do you have trouble with productivity consistency?

Some days you can get a lot done and then other days you lack the energy to get small tasks done? A reason for this could be the type of work you are doing or that needed to be done the next day. It could also be mental fatigue. You could be pushing yourself too hard past your work stopping point. Your mind like your body can’t work all out, all the time. Slow and steady will give you a better average of work completed. Get into a good rhythm that works day after day.

Productivity also includes taking quality breaks. This will take some trial and error to find what kind of break works best for you. It could be a 5-minute break when you are in a good rhythm, or a longer break when you are switching to a different type of task. What you do during your break is also important. Stay hydrated, eat a snack, take a walk. Do something that will allow you to recover. Remember to be mindful of what works or take notes for future reference.

Don’t max out on productivity one day and then be maxed out for the rest of the week. Consider blocking out smaller 3-4 hour productive blocks. We are not designed to be productive all the time.

I had a question come in that I wanted to answer today on the show and it was a question about productivity. And this person mentioned that they have really unproductive days after super productive days. They recently tried out basically like pomodoros. So it was like 25 minutes on five minutes of 24 minutes and twelve minutes of and it worked really well for them for the day.

They got a lot done and was even able to get sort of ahead of schedule. However the next day and they did this for about 7 hours the next day they got literally nothing done. They were either learning out doing a top back a piece of paper filling on the internet. They got some work done just through to guilt, but like, the day was gone, but I know it can be productive. This worked for me yesterday.

Why isn't this working for me today? And there's multiple answers to that. It could be the type of work that was done or the type of work that needed to be done the next day. It could be the fact that you might have been pushing yourself super hard and you didn't realise where you're stopping point was because it's like, I'm now going to the gym. If you go hard all day every day, it doesn't work out.

You do I know 100 pushups and that's the maximum you can do. And you try nd do 101 Luke your body's like not not doing it. If you try and do 100 on Monday and then try and do it on Tuesday and then try and do it on Thursday and every day of the week you'll have like, you know, a certain amount of push ups, but really your body can't do that. It needs slow and steady. If you did maybe 70 push ups a day instead, you could probably get a better average and you wouldn't feel so exhausted the next day.

So instead of trying to go all out every day and pushing everything to the Max, it might be better to look into where you get into a good rhythm and you're like, I've done. I've done good to dive on a certain amount. Maybe that's 3 hours work. Maybe that's far as a focus work. And then I'm going to stop and take breaks and do something else.

And here's the other important part about productivity is it shouldn't just be about the work that you do, but it should be about the quality of the break that you take and everyone is different. But you need to figure out for yourself what type of breaks work best for you and how often and that might depend on the type of work that you did. So there could be some breaks were a five minute break is enough because you want to keep rolling on and maybe you're writing a paper, whatever else kind of work that you might be doing, or you might be doing the type of work where you're actually context switching.

So you finish one thing in 25 minutes. When you stop and you go do something else.

So you might need a ten or 15 minutes break in between to go and context switch and do something else. Now, what you do during that break is just as important as what you do while you're working. Do you eat? Do you stay hydrated? Do you go and breathe fresh air?

Do you splashing cold water on your face? Do you zone out? Do you give your brain a chance to recover? So what you do on the brakes is just as important, if not more important than the work you are actually doing. Think about what type of breaks work best for you, depending on the type of work you are doing, and it will be sort of hit and miss and will take some fine tuning and tweaking.

So Journal it, write it down, take notes, have data points. But at the end of the day, it's not just about the work that you're doing. It's about the breaks that you take, how long they are, what you do with them, maybe even the time of day. So you can't just Max out on productivity all on one day and expect to be fully functioning the next day. It just doesn't work.

Is that having an introvert hangover right? You go to an event, you speak to lots of people and you come home and you're done because you've hit that wall and you're like, I'm done. I can't. I just and you come home and you're exhausted for the rest of it, like the week. But if you go speak to one or two people and leave and come home, you'll still be able to function of the next day.

It's the same sort of thing. You just need to think about it in the that sort of a way.

And so maybe try and have smaller, productive day on the whole seven or 8 hours, but three hour block or a four hour block, and it's not necessarily the amount of things you get done, but the type of work you get done right. It's just something to think about and to be fair, we're not done to be productive all the time, something that we kind of forget about. So thank you for listening. This is Janice at the Korean trip. Com helping you build your brand and get hired.

Have a great rest of your week.

Why problem solving is important Oct 12, 2021

Problem-solving is a crucial skill. All success comes with challenges and obstacles to overcome.

Tips on how to problem solve

1) Be able to adapt and learn: No one has all the answers. Focus on what you have to do to learn the answers using your " Research Mindset." You will need different approaches for different problems.

2) Be confident in your abilities and welcome challenges: Success stories have obstacles to overcome. Remember that the challenge will help you grow and develop your skills. Experience will give you the confidence to get the job done.

3) Focus on Finding Solutions: Don't focus your time on the problem. Instead, come to the table with a solution. Use your time to test possible solutions.

Don't take challenges negatively. Instead, change your perspective to consider what valuable knowledge and experience and your organization will learn.

Don't shy away from challenges. They will help you achieve more than you ever thought possible.

Transcript

. I want to talk about how to problem solve. A crucial factor that stands in anyone's way to success is how they solve problems. No success comes without some form of obstacles or decisions to make and things to overcome. So it's crucial to understand just how to go ahead and solve problems.

And so I want to took about four different ways that I've heard about or done or had people come up to me and talk about to solve problems efficiently, be able to adapt and be willing to learn. Sounds simple, but no one. No one has all the answers and this is okay. You're not going to have the answer right away. Instead, focus on what you need to do to learn it.

Research that research mindset that I've talked about in the past. Every situation you face will be different and will require different approaches to solve it. You can't expect the same approach to work every time and that's okay. You must be willing to adapt and learn new ideas and and come at things in a different way. With a curious mindset, successful people stress the importance of adaptability because they wouldn't be as far as they are today without it.

Just think about any business organisation. If they weren't open to trying new things, the business might have failed. Now you should be confident you a bit it and welcome challenges. No success comes with that action, hard work or obstacles. With every success story, there's always something someone overcame to achieve their goals.

You must welcome these challenges as an opportunity to grow and develop your skills. Experience ensures that you will learn to trust your abilities over time, allowing you to solve problems more quickly and with different facets of creativity. When you believe in yourself and your abilities, you will no longer focus your mind on what you can't do but what you can do or how best to do it. And one thing managers really love focus on finding solutions. Don't just bring me the problem.

That'll be what we can do to solve it. Focusing too much time on the problem rather than the solution really helps. It only leads to more frustration, stress and no action plan to take it. And so it just sits there and it is to be a problem. While you need to understand the problem to develop solutions, this shouldn't be your focus and shouldn't only occupy should only occupy a short period of time.

The rest should be used to creating and testing possible solution. Obviously you can have a solution and it might not work, but at least you've got something and stay positive and carb. So here's the thing. You will always have something to overcome. There will always be struggles.

There will always be someone who doesn't agree with you. There'll always be all sorts of things that you might see as getting in your way. While these things can be frustrating. You see silver lining. A lot of people see problems as new opportunities.

Therefore, the next time you run into a problem, a roadblock and issue a challenge instead of putting a negative cast on it straight away, turn around and try and think about it from a different point of view. What new opportunities or knowledge could you gain? And how will it help you achieve your goals or your tasks or your organization's? Goals or your tasks? Right?

Changing your perspective and keeping a Curiosity a curious mindset or research mindset allows you to save energy as it takes far less energy in time, and so you can focus on what matters the most. So just learn from your experiences and so that way you can look at problems differently. Don't shy away from challenges. Embrace it to help you learn and achieve even more than you ever thought possible. Thank you for listening.

This is Janice at the CareerIntrovert. Com, helping you build your brand and get hide. If there's any question or topic that you would like me to cover on the podcast, please email me at Janice at the CareerIntrovert. Com. Have a great rest of your day.

How to Relax More at Work, and Why Oct 05, 2021

Hello and welcome to the Not So Travelling Introvert today I want to continue a conversation I started having actually at an event I was part of talking about work productivity, but more like how to relax and refresh and recharge at work and why so nearly 80% of work as a reporter to feel that they feel stressed at work and roughly half of them need help managing it and the other half just think that's the way it is and it doesn't have to be. Stressful. Environments do not breed positive productivity.

It hinders and store success and creativity, and your mind just doesn't work too well and de stress for long periods of time. So when you can't take a break or relax at work, you generally can't make the right decisions to perform.

At Ur best, you will always be underperforming, making it harder to focus on what matters and ultimately affecting your professional goals or tasks that you need to do. So one of the things I really recommend is recognise your triggers. Actively take notice of the things that are causing you stress, so it be obvious others not so much to have a notebook or a post it note. You can write a list so you can create a more personalised way to combat them when you're uncomfortable or you start to feel stressed.

Write it down.

You don't have to do anything then, but examine it later and it will help you better identify what is causing problems. This way you can make sure that you're doing the right actions to counteract those issues and those triggers and to make work that much better for you, speak up and establish your boundaries. You must speak up if things or people are taking advantage of your space and time. If the hours are too long or too many meetings back to back and the causing you to experience problems, speak to somebody about it to a manager.

Appear.

Find a solution. Honesty and establishing healthy work boundaries are essential for any positive relationship. Ensure you have an optimised workspace and I feel this one set up your environment and dash for success for you. You don't add items that get in your way or distract you. Add things that help you reach your work goals and be more efficient but also inspire you.

Do you like being at the beach? If so, can you get a tiny part of the sea and stick it in the wall in front of you? Do you want to remember how to get stuff done? So you have a little poster that says stuff and what to do? Yes.

No in the next step. So you just kind of look at it. Whatever it is that can optimise your workspace for you to work more efficiently or happier. Anything to make you happy. It could be a little stuffed toy, it could be a plant, it could be dual monitors, whatever it is.

See if you can get that set up for you and take short, quick breaks. Often take small five to ten minute breaks in between us and focus on your breathing and relaxing your muscles. Go for a short work around the office or your house or your building wherever it might be, go outside on a break or turn on some calming music or even just meditate for five minutes. Do something that completely distracts you from the noise or the chaos or the overwhelm and stress at work and reduces the tension.

However, don't rent to others.

This time should only be used to focus on you, your body and your mind because when you invite other people, you're not giving yourself a real break. And the other thing which is so much harder to do these days is keep work at work. You don't need to take your work stress home or do your home environment. When you're at home, you can do nothing about work issues until you get back to work. So why use that time to focus on negativity play music to separate the time when you're at work, to the time when you're at home.

I know someone who even though they work and you live in the same environment, they will make sure they get up and go walk around the block as their commute. Do something that that's your mind has a chance to separate. Oh, I'm going home now. I'm going to work now. Once the work is done, it's done and must stop thinking about it.

Don't have notifications on your phone, don't have pings on your computer, have a different computer or whatever it is. Using these tips to help you relax and disconnect a little bit at work more often and stop stress in its tracks will be great because it will help you long term before plagues plague you and stops you doing other things and it's something we kind of forget. Our brain is not made. We are not made to work for 8 hours straight. So why we forcing ourselves to do so?

You will find you will be more productive and creative if you just give yourself time to breathe and have a break. Thank you for listening. This is Janice at The Career Introvert com helping you build your brand and get hired. Have a great rest of your week.

Do you have a research mindset? Sep 28, 2021

This week's topics: Making extra time and having a research mindset

Are you not scheduling time to review and do tasks after meetings?

Sometimes meetings require you to block out additional time after the meeting to review the slide deck or task for that meeting.

Are you going about your work with a research mindset?

Doing so will eliminate the possibility of letting your assumptions guide how your work. Instead, when going about your work, confirm or research your assumptions. Sometimes you will find that what you believe to be true is not the case.

Hello and welcome to the not so travelling introvert. Today, I want to talk about making extra time. So I was in a meeting the other day and it was the usual PowerPoint presentation with lots of hyperlinks embedded within the presentation and the presentation hadn't been hadn't been shared in advance. You didn't know what was going on and then the person is like, so doesn't have any questions. And I said, Well, you know me.

I'll look at the presentation later and then I'll get back to you. Only then did I realise that I've said this multiple times and not actually done that thing. I always mean to go back and look at whatever was presented, but I don't actually schedule time to do it because other things. Ok. The reason isn't because other things getting the way.

But I just go about my day and continue doing other things. I very rarely go back and do and look over the things that I said I was going to do. This leads me to realise that not only do I have to schedule in time for these meetings, but depending on the type of meeting, if I can't convince them to share their screen or the slide deck earlier is to set aside time. What I'm in that meeting to review said slide deck, and I can't believe I've been working all this time and haven't done this.

It's amazing when you think of random things.

That is one way to make sure that I go ahead and move you the information and get what I need from it and come back. So decide time only for the meeting, but we view the meeting afterwards. Another thing that I've realised is some people go about their work with a research mindset and I think this comes across with this, you know, going ahead and reviewing that information, everything that they do or see or try is a data point to be put aside and come back to later or built upon having a research mindset like the growth mindset thing but sort of approaching projects, tasks, assumptions with.

Okay, I'm going to try this to see if it works or what I need to tweak or what I need to reiterate or iterate having that research and curious mindset stop you from making assumptions and moving forward with those assumptions, speaking to a client the other day about pay rates for their staff and they're very much like all they get paid this and then I get paid that and then as far as I know, they get this and I'm sure they get the paid X, Y and Z after this point and we have the conversation where was like, well, actually, I've spoken to your staff and they get paid this and then this which isn't the number that you gave me.

And that doesn't happen at the time.

You told me she's like, Wait, what? But I assumed it seeshe's like, oh, well, I'm going to have to research into this. So after making the assumption, she's now going back and researching what she thought was true in her assumptions, which could have been avoided. If, instead of making this options, you go from a research mindset. Hey, I want to double cheque that this is true.

I want to make sure I got this right. Just because this book sets, though, doesn't make it right. I highly recommend thinking about your work and your assumptions and projects, and that sort of thing with a research mindset. Just think about it from a curiosity standpoint. Oh, what happens if this what happens?

If that I think this happens? Does that actually happen? Let me cheque. Let me ask someone. Let me test.

You will be amazed at what you will find if you come to something with that time of a mindset. And if you feel you struggle with that crowd source, I had a problem recently. Not a problem. I had a thing come recently that I really had no clue about. I asked three or four different people who all gave me three or four different pieces of advice, but all together made this wonderful thing hopefully happened.

And it all came from different angles. Different viewpoints, different expectations, different things that they had seen and heard. But that helped me learn so much. And so when I was creating this thing that I needed to help with, that nothing about. I came at it from a research point of view.

I'm getting data points to help with that. So just my thoughts today. Talk about research. Thank you for listening.

Have a great rest of your day.

Saying No and How to Do It Right Sep 21, 2021

It’s easy to feel guilty, want to avoid conflict, or simply make other people feel good. However, you can’t consume your whole life on how other people react, nor should you stress about other people’s happiness. Your happiness is more important. In fact, saying no more often is crucial to accomplishing your goals and aspirations.

“No” Is Not Always Negative

Behind every no, there is also a yes. To explain further, when you say no, you are also saying yes to another opportunity that can better serve your life. Just because you are saying no doesn’t mean it is the end of the world. Saying no means that you are committed to your values and goals in life. If you always say yes without considering everyone, the sad truth is, you will always be living someone else’s life.

Stick to And Establish Your Boundaries

The only person you are responsible for is yourself, and you can’t expect others to know what you need if you don’t speak up. Practice assertive communication, always speak up about your boundaries, and not be afraid to let others know. If they can’t respect your boundaries, you don’t need them in your life. They will only hold you back.

Find the Right Words

You don’t have just to say “no.” There are other ways to let others know you can’t do it. Suggest an alternative or provide an apparent reason why you can’t do it. Let them know it doesn’t work with your schedule or objectives: the more communication you can provide, the better.

Take the Person Out of It

In other words, you are not saying no to the person asking; you are simply saying no to the activities you want to do. Often people don’t want to say no because they are afraid to offend the person; however, not being fully honest with yourself isn’t fair to them either. Instead, realize that it isn’t about the person but rather what they asked for. More likely than not, they will understand why you are respectively declining their request.

Strive to Be More Authentic

If you are always saying yes to people or activities that you don’t enjoy, you will never live the life you want. Even if you're going to avoid conflict, you can easily create more by being dishonest with yourself and the people around you. A vague yes versus a firm no can be seen as more harmful as your lack of commitment and poor attitude are noticeable.

In the end, saying no allows you to control your life and accomplish more goals. It is not about making others feel unwanted or being rude. It’s about ensuring you are using your time more wisely and following the path you want. Once you find the balance that works for you, you’ll never regret taking control of your life.

Why Improve Your Emotional Intelligence Sep 14, 2021

Controlling your emotions or possessing proper emotional intelligence is vital for a successful life. Feelings, along with rational thoughts, ensure you get what you need out of life financially, physically, and mentally. This is essential to understand your emotions and improve or possess emotional intelligence. The following five tips, when implemented, will improve your emotional intelligence:

Recognize Your Good and Bad Emotions

When you feel a particular emotion, recognize and label it right away. Don't push it away or ignore it. Allow the feelings to happen, good or bad. Let them rush over you. Then take a moment to recognize how it makes you feel and what reactions you took or want to take. To understand your emotions better, you need to experience them first, not avoid them.

Identify Your Triggers

A trigger is something that starts or causes you to react and experience an emotion or feeling. Before you feel something, there is likely a cause or culprit. Take note of the cause, how it makes you feel, and what actions you take now. This is important so you can learn to control your emotions before they happen. If you know that you will be around a particular trigger, you can bring resources to cope or avoid it altogether.

Understand the Difference Between Responding and Reacting

Often people tend to react to conflict instead of responding to it. This situation can lead to further consequences. These reactions don't benefit the situation. Learn to take the time to listen and then respond instead of reacting.

Receiving criticism from a peer or manager is often an excellent example of this type of situation. Imagine the last time you received constructive criticism. Did you take the time to listen to what they had to say genuinely, or did you feel attacked and react?

Utilize Active Listening Skills

This includes your own thoughts before you express them to others. If you have difficulty processing, your emotions pause for a moment instead. Reflect on your behavior and truly analyze what is being said by others and yourself. "Think before you speak" is an all-too-common phrase that is just as easy to avoid as it sounds. It takes determination and will power to control this behavior.

Be Mindful of Your Actions

Last but certainly not least, you must practice self-awareness and mindfulness. You need to understand your actions or lack thereof can have a negative or positive consequence at any moment. With this in mind, you won't allow your emotions to overcome or control the situations. Instead, you will likely choose a rational solution or make a good decision.

Keep track of each of these tips by investing and writing in a journal or diary. By keeping track, you allow yourself to look back on your progress, and seeing that proof can help you find the motivation to keep growing and improving. You have more control of your emotions than you think, if you keep trying and doing the work necessary to understand yourself truly.

Self review Sep 07, 2021

I want to talk about self assessment or that can other both be sort as self view or a retrospective. This is something that this came up recently with the clients that I work with, but also just myself. I'm very good at planning. I say that I'm fairly good at planning most of the time, but very, rarely do I take the time to review and look back and see what you know, what has happened and how it's happened and maybe reasoning why.

So I've all these data points, but I'm not really using them to the to you know, how I could improve things for myself on my business. And so some of my clients and now started doing retrospectives from products that they've done. But here's the thing about doing sort of self assessments or your views. It helps you to be honest and open and ask yourself challenging questions and the reason why you want to do this so you can learn. It's not just for you to do a workplace on annual sort of review to get a promotion or anything like that.

It's a great strategy to use on yourself yearly, monthly, weekly, whatever sort of time period feels right for you to ensure you are on the right path for your idea of success. Just think about it for if you never got the opportunity to reflect new abilities and mistakes and what you want in life, you know, how does that really affect when you're going? How would you know if you're making the right decision to ensure the future is the way that you want it to be see you at some time.

And one of the things you should do, especially if you do this weekly, is what is one thing is a question I should say, what is one thing that I struggled with this week? And the more often you ask yourself that question, the easier it will become, because sometimes you don't want to admit that you've struggled with anything like that.

Everything this week was fine. But the more that you ask yourself and you're like, okay, well, today I struggled or this week I struggled with getting spending time in myself or setting boundaries or whatever it might be. Then the next question from that is sort of OK, well, how can I make sure that doesn't happen again, or what can I do to improve my chances of it not happening again? And so that gives you the actionable steps to take that will help make your life better in the long run.

Another question could be what negative is emotions?

Have I experienced this week day, month, whatever it is and why this will help you figure out maybe certain aspects of certain situations that start these emotions and set them off? Another question you could ask yourself is, what change can I make right now to get me closer to my goals. You might have three or four different types of goals, but it could be what can I change right now that will get me closer to my self care goals or what can I change right now? That will make me do X, Y and Z.

And when you think about what that change is, then go ahead and put it in your calendar, but it can note of it to make that change and go ahead and do it right then and then document and keep track, keeping track of your progress and achievements.

Failures in most challenges and rewards. These are all essential for you to look back and be like, oh, I felt this at this time. I didn't realise that it's probably because of this, this and this. Oh, all right. So I should avoid it in the future because of this.

This or this helped me grow. Or this helped me change this or this is why I ended up doing this particular thing and not the other. Take the time to be proud of yourself. Brag on yourself. A little self evaluation or reflection isn't just about the bad stuff.

You should also the good stuff, too. And it's not about comparing. It's not about a competition. It's just making sure that you're aligned in what you want to do and making yourself better, incrementally, bit by bit. It's a great thing.

Also learn forgiveness and be more mindful be forgiving to yourself realise that you are human. And yes, you will make mistakes, and that's okay. But dwelling on them instead of forgiving yourself and taking action is really where you will fail and stay sort of trapped and not move forward and to make sure that you do take the time to put like, yes, this happened. Yes, it wasn't quite what I wanted. This is what I've learned from it.

This is what I'll do. Moving forward to this happen again. Now move on forgiving yourself and realising your human is key and also part of that is that the thinking about it because making a mistake might be lead to negative thinking. Failure isn't a negative. There's a positive, positive side to it, but yes, go ahead and ask yourself those questions today and then maybe do it once a week whenever you listen to this podcast.

Thank you for listening. This is Janice at the Cure. Introvert. Com. Helping you build your brand and get hired.

Have a great rest of your week.

What is introversion Aug 31, 2021

I realize that this is possibly a topic I haven't gone over whenever I am working with new contractors to taking on new staff. One of my go to questions always is, what does introversion mean to you? Because as we know, there's a lot of misinformation out there and I wanted to just talk about some of the things that people say when I ask them what introversion means to them, bearing in mind what I do and where they find me, where they hear my name.

So one person said to me, Introversion means being more comfortable, either alone or in smaller crowds, are not expressing ideas and thoughts outside of an inner circle. So I found this really interesting, that the thought process there wasn't necessarily about being aloof, it was just setting boundaries and knowing that very comfortable with a smaller group of people, people you trust and telling them about stuff which was interesting. And someone else said it's being shy and possibly not being able to or wanting to express oneself, always wanting to be alone and indoors.

And I think they're not being able or wanting to express oneself could come from, yes, quite happy to express oneself, but get shot down by extra first or by other people or in general, what needing the right time or to think about something before expressing oneself which can come across as hesitancy. Then someone said, introversion for me means a lack of confidence.

Okay, I wanted to delve a little bit deeper into that and asked, Why does introversion mean a lack of confidence? And they're very much like, well, if you're not outgoing and bubbly, it means that you are not confident in your abilities or what you want to do. So there's that juxtaposition there. You have to be seen as outgoing and bubbly to be sure of yourself. And that's not necessarily true.

A lot of people who are sure of themselves, whether they are introverts or extroverts, might not be out there or the time they're just cracking on and doing their thing. This next statement was really interesting. It was an internet is a person who is shy and not able to convey their ideas to the world in a convincing manner. So it's not what you say, but how you say it according to this person makes an introvert an introvert, which is really fascinating. And someone mentioned introversion to them was focusing about how they handle emotions with their mind.

So when I delve a little bit deeper to them, being an introvert or an extrovert was all a mind game kind of a thing like you could get out of your comfort zone if you really wanted to, sort of a thing, which was fascinating. Now I'm going to move on to introverts that I've spoken to and what they feel introverts or introversion is. So someone said, as an introvert to me, it means only being able to handle groups of people for so long. I require time to recharge alone.

I prefer to be more alone than with others, which makes it hard for us to start businesses and brand.

Pitching to others about what we can do is draining someone else mentioned as an inert myself. I like to describe it as having my own bubble. It means knowing oneself, having a safe space to be alone with my own thoughts and feelings, and having the power to decide if and when I want to participate in what's going on on the other side. I love that she's happy with what they've got and she feels empowered, which is wonderful. Someone mentioned that I'm an introvert all the way, and to me it means that I want to recharge, and I do this by spending time alone with self care and meditation or just downtime helped with that.

I process things internally first and think about them before answering, and I love this statement. For me, introversion means having a calf and exciting world inside one's own thoughts. It is found that really, really fun, and there's nothing negative there that introverts said about themselves, which is really interested that it all comes from people who might see themselves as being more extroverted. So dear Listener, I'd love for you to email me and let me know. What does introversion mean to you?

Email me at Janice at the current overt com helping you build your brand and get hired, and I guess I should finish with to me for me, for me and my introversion, it means where I get my energy from how I recharge. I am occasionally shy, but generally it's me figuring out for like you are not an on going from there, but yeah, how I get managing how I recharge, and it's an ongoing learning journey and process. All right. Thank you for listening. Has a great rest of your week.

Energy Management vs. Time Management Aug 24, 2021

Today I want to talk about the difference between energy management versus time management. What I've found that working with my clients is so many so often they're trying to manage their time, which is great. All the projects and all the things that you have to do and figuring out what goes and what bucket and using line of house matrix or, you know, using get stuff done, flow whatever it needs to do. And that time management.

And they kind of forget that as an introvert, energy management is just as important. You've likely heard the old adage that life is a marathon, not a sprint. So if you're trying to manage your time effectively, but you are not paying attention to your energy management, you might end up with like sprints and sprints and sprints rather than like a long, sustained marathon, and that it could be fine if that works for you. But more than likely, it's better for you to do something in a sustainable manner than it is to sprint, get stuff done, burn out, have to stop for however long, and then sprint burn out and then stop for however long.

So experts are always saying about productivity and productivity can mean very different things to different people, and productivity and success have more to do with how you manage your energy than it does with time management.

And so many people try to do everything to give us more time, because time is like one thing that we only have a certain amount of, but thinking about staying healthy, eating healthy, spending time, doing things and connecting and all of those sort of things. This a time we don't necessarily schedule in time for energy management. Right? And so we normally scheduling all the things that we have to do. But whether we have the energy to do all of those things, it's a problem that is often overlooked.

Trying to adhere to a certain time to manage everything can leave us feeling exhausted, so we're not even able to relax and enjoy ourselves when we've scheduled at the time for it. So an alternative to managing your time or can be used in conjunction with managing your time is to manage your energy effectively, and it works by taking time for recovering from those sprints so you can make it to the end of the moth and so to speak. So here are some things that I found with my clients work work well for managing your energy, and these are some of the things I've talked about previously, like learning how to recharge what you need to do to recharge yourself.

Make a list of what makes you feel refreshed, more creative, lift your mood, feels rejuvenated all of those things. Write them down and will help to remind you about the benefits of these particularly uplifting activities.

For example, watching a great series or show that you follow on TV, sipping a cup of tea and listening to music can be very rejuvenating to your energy levels, and they can go on and do something else. Doubling the time you usually take for breaks. Don't get to a timetable when it comes through vibing your energy level. Take that hour instead of a half an hour and have fun with whatever you're doing. You might have a schedule that, you know, I'm going to have the study minute break, and I'm going to go do something else.

But if you get to the end of the study minute break and you still don't feel quite Rejuven idea enough, take that extra time. And as the time with so concerned about having time to do stuff that we never scheduled enough time to not do stuff and then reward yourself for every goal reached. If you have lots of projects and it seems like you'll never finish them to be able to relax and enjoy yourself, break those projects down into parts and reward yourself. After that, you complete each one.

And rather than waiting to the entire huge project is finished, make sure you sit frequent recovery stops with those so that while you're doing that sprint, you may stop, take a break, rejuvenate, and then start again.

Do it. You'll feel so much more like completing everything when you and you'll be happier at the end. Managing your energy is a much more effective way to get through life rather than putting time limits on making schedules for everything. Your energy thermos that doesn't pay attention to the timetable you've created. Instead, make your energy the most important factor while you are going through life.

Thank you. This is janice from the career introvert helping you build your brand and get hired. Have a great rest of your week.

Do Nothing Aug 17, 2021

today I'm going to talk about not doing something, I find that not doing something is the hardest thing of all to not do, to do. Not sure which way I'm not supposed to go. There's times where you might have a lot going on. You keep busy. Things are coming at you left, right and centre. You just want to go, go, go, go, go all the time and you might lose focus of what your overall goals and mission is because you're just kind of stuck in the weeds taking five minutes to just not do anything and look at a piece of paper.

Maybe that's on the wall or on your your board that says whatever it is you're famous for the year or the week or month or whatever it is, and be like, OK, well, the things my doing today or in this next hour that are working towards that goal or are in line with that mission is everything that I'm doing towards that yes or no. Also not doing something is really helpful when setting boundaries. For example, I have been known to not be good at setting boundaries with clients and if something is urgent or I know that other people are depending on me or I know that it's urgent for somebody else, I will probably go out of my way to work hours that are not paid for or do work in times that I would not normally work.

And so it's really hard to not just automatically default into that, but you need to remember that it works both ways. And if they are not willing to do the same, then you really shouldn't be. And it's not setting healthy boundaries for yourself. So not doing something. For example, this weekend I saw two emails come in to my business email address, and my first thought was to, oh, I know this is really urgent and this needs doing, but at the same time me stopping and thinking and being like, what kind of expectations am I sitting if I now go and respond to these emails on a Saturday night, on a Sunday mid afternoon?

And is that how I want to be moving forward? Is that the impression I want them to have and I setting myself up for failure because they're just going to keep doing that. And to be fair, I have lost clients because of this. I know previous clients have gone on and hired other people who would be more flexible, but that's not what works for me. I can't remember for the longest time when I have had a two day weekend and I'm still working towards that.

So and with that, it's doing nothing because I could have a two day weekend, but what else would I fill it with? And that's normally my first thought is OK, well, so now I have this time what can I fill it with? But if I just take a second and do nothing, then my brain gets time to process, my body gets time to relax and repair itself and life goes on. Other times when it's good to do nothing is when you get an email and and it invokes a reaction and emotional reaction.

You might want to fire off an email straight away, be it happy or sad or angry. But I can almost guarantee you that it is better to do nothing for at least five minutes. You could write that email, you could journal about that thing, but do not send a response email in that time. Just do nothing, sit with it, think about it, think about it from that other person's point of view. Think about how you were communicating.

What you are communicating in the right way was the information that you are missing. Maybe you won't play it, but just stop and do nothing. And it is the hardest thing because in this day and age we are primed to be always doing something. Even if we're sitting still on board, we're scrolling through our phones on Facebook or Instagram or Reddit or whatever it is doing. Nothing is almost harder than doing all the things and all the hustle. So if you can at least once a day just sit and do nothing.

Thanks for listening. This is Janice from The Career Introvert, helping you build your brand, get hard and do nothing. That doesn't quite sound right, does it? All right. It's been great speaking to you, looking forward to the rest of the week. If you have any questions for me, please email me at Jannis at The Career Introvert dot com. Have a great rest of your week.

A to do list is not a plan Aug 10, 2021

today I want to talk about something that happens a lot with some of my clients. They confuse a plan with a to do list. And so I want to talk about how these things are completely different. A to do list is basically a list of tasks that you want to do during the day, the week, the month, the year, etc.. Plan is what's the plan? OK, so this is what a plan could look like.

10 a.m. wake up 10 a.m. to 10, 30, some sort of loose morning routine, 10, 30 till one deep work, one o'clock. There's going to be breakfast probably in there somewhere, but it might be part of your morning routine, one o'clock till to go to the gym or sort of meditate or do something that is a self development wise, two to five more deep work. All right. So what I'm trying to show that is that a plan doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the tasks that you'll do during the day.

And I have a rough idea, but not necessarily. So you set the intention during the time frame, your work on your business or your career or your job or whatever it might be. The point is to include in your plan or the kind of activities that you want to do throughout the day, but not necessarily exact specific things. Because here's the thing. As an introvert, your time is precious. As a human, your time is precious for making sure that you have enough time to do the things that you want to do and get recharged in the way that works for you is really important.

So you must guard your time wisely. And a plan, of course, can include non-work activities, i.e. recharge time. That's why it's called a plan. Doing something for yourself, doing something for yourself, like I said, meditating or anything of that nature. That is OK, because it's something that you need to do for yourself. And it shouldn't cause guilt. It should be intentional and not just sort of like, oh, fit that in somewhere.

Right. If you don't have a plan and you will let yourself become sort of susceptible to wasting time and being distracted and procrastinating or blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So you need to set out like a carved out time. Some people call this time blocking. Some people call this planning whatever wording you want to use, but your time must be guarded and protected. The way you use your time should be aligned with your values. So some of the things to consider are sort of what are your values?

Who do you want to be? What do you want to do, where you want to get to? And it's really interesting that you just need to take ten minutes per day, probably before you go to sleep or at the end of your workday to map out a plan for the next day. But it is not a list of to do items. You can block out time. That's deep work. And then you go and look in your list of things that I need to work on and then work on those things.

During your deep work time, the plan is to do deep work. The to do list is to do deep work on marketing and then deep work on client work. I'm in deep work on something else. You see the difference between the plan and the to do list. The plan is all about you and protecting what you need to do and making sure that your life and day works for you. The to do list is more along the lines of stuff you do for others or the individual tasks that you do to complete your overall plan.

So don't be confused with the two. So many people are like, yeah, I have a plan, I have this like to do list of stuff to do. No, you have a to do list, which is great. It's great to have to do it, but it is not a plan. So that's something for you to think about. And again, God, your time, how you God, your time is really important moving forward, because a lot of the time we let other influences and outside influences push us into doing different things with our time.

But as an introvert, we need our time to recharge. We need our time to regroup, to help us be better humans. And so, God, your time wisely by creating plans with time blocks, with what you're going to do moving forward and then go from there, take some time to make a plan, a plan in order to do list. Thanks for listening. This is janice@thecareerintrovert.com helping you build your brand and get hired. If you have any questions or topics that you want me to cover during the podcast, please email me at janice@thecareerintrovert.com.

The Confort speaking to you next week and have a great rest of your day.

Days Off Are Not Always Fun Aug 03, 2021

still today I want to talk about days off. This came about because I was talking with a friend and we assume when people take time off work that it is full recharge and fun reasons. And let's be honest, it's not always the case. And when you come back to work, people like, oh, he must be now well rested after that time off. You took time off work.

Yes, that may be the case. But if you look at the last year, a lot of people have taken time off for funerals. A lot of people have taken time off for mental health. A lot of people have taken time off to deal with whatever it is they're dealing with. It might be you need to put down an animal. It might be you need to look after grandma. It might be the plumber's coming and you have to take the time off work.

So we were talking about how it would be great if there was a different way. There's two things. There's one is a different way of calling time off when you're doing something that isn't fun or recharging. And the other flipside of that is how to deal with people, how to change people's assumptions. That time off is always a vacation or holiday or recharging and or fun without because you might not want to tell people why you're taking time off. If you're going to put your cat down, for example, you might not want people bring it up.

You might not want people going, oh, I'm so sorry about all of this other stuff. You might just want to get back to work and work. But at the same time, when they're like, oh, what did you do on your day off? You don't want to say so how do you deal with that and how do we get around calling? Time off. Time off? Yes, it might be time off from work, but that doesn't mean that you might not be not thinking about work.

Maybe you are seeing the emails pile up and it is stressful. Maybe you get a phone call from work and it is stressful or WhatsApp message or whatever method of communication it is. How do you let people know that there are boundaries with the time off? Yes, you are taking time off from this thing, but it doesn't mean that you are coming back refreshed all the time. I know there is no well, I mean, there might be a right answer.

I do not know it. So if you have any ideas, please feel free to email me. But it's a very interesting thing to think about how we use time off, what the expectations are for time off and people's assumptions with time off. I know that there is definitely the idea that people shouldn't be asking you why you're taking time off. You just taking time off and that's that. Managers, CEOs, supervisors should not be asking you why you're taking time off and in all honesty, should not be making comments about, oh, this is the second Friday you've had off in two months or whatever it might be.

You might be taking an exam, you might be applying for another job, whatever it is, the reason you are taking time from not doing work should not be up for discussion in general. And then the other part of this conversation was the work that's left behind when you know in advance that you're going to take time off, even if it's one day, sometimes you might find yourself working weekends or working extra time that week to make up for the time off that you have not been at work.

And so does that make your time off enjoyable or not? Because the rest of the time is spent stressing around that one day off or two days off that you will not be around at work. How do you balance the workload? How do you make sure everything gets done and people know what's going on and you don't come back to a train wreck yet? Enjoy that time. Because what tends to happen is if you have like, you know that you're going to take one day, you're not going to be at work.

You tend to front stack all your other work on the other days. You're not going to be there. And so you end up working more anyway. And so then is that day off? Was it because then you just playing catch up and all recovery and not necessarily enjoying it is something that you need to enjoy while having the headspace to deal with that time off when you are not at work. I know. I just find this very fascinating and I would love to hear people's thoughts about this because it's all about mental health, physical health and how the work life balance is that even a thing anymore is lines are blurred.

Anyway, thanks for listening. We'd love to hear from you. Please email me at janice@thecareerintrovert.com. This is Janice from The Career Introvert. How can you build your brand and get hired? Looking forward to speaking to you next week. Have a great rest of your week.

The two sides of volunteering Jul 27, 2021

I want to talk about volunteering, something I've done for the majority of my working life in one way or another. And yes, there are upsides to volunteering and giving back to the community, your local community, the international community and people in general. And there are also downsides. But let's talk about the benefits, first of all. Volunteering can be seen as a vital service to your community. There are many organisations that rely on volunteers to help them get done what they need, doing charities and nonprofits.

Basically, it often takes the care and empathy from volunteers to provide help the community's needs. Now, there might be a lot of different organisations that thrives on volunteers, and it can provide benefits to your life as well as the people that you are helping. It can help you build more relationships when you're part of a team connexions form learning. This affects three out of five Americans. According to Signees 2020 Loneliness Index. Loneliness needs depression and anxiety and can wreak havoc on people's immune systems and the economy.

As we have seen recently, when you start volunteering virtually or otherwise to meet new people who share your values but are different from you, from those you help and from those you work with, they are all different. Creating new relationships and opening your life to more opportunities, knowledge and understanding of the world is a huge benefit from volunteering. And the great thing is you can do a lot of virtual volunteering, especially right now. But even before I certainly did virtual volunteering and it can be such tasks as compiling data during analyst work, it doesn't necessarily have to be the kind of work we have to be out talking to people all the time.

It could just be creating a spreadsheet for people so they can see where the money's coming from or where it's going. It could be leading a coworking sessions. There are so many different ways to volunteer to help organisations. One of the other benefits is it increases your knowledge and understanding of others only volunteer. You get a clearer idea of how other people live differently or similarly to you, opening your perspective and getting a new understanding of the world and the people within it.

This increases your compassion and empathy, and this knowledge allows you to live a more positive life with more intention and knowing empathy, where people are coming from and the struggles and maybe how you can help them. It can also provide you a sense of purpose. It doesn't have to be overall purpose, but a purpose while doing this role. When you know your purpose is in life, is it to understand he one where fit best within a community, within the world, within your role and your job?

This knowledge also helps bring a greater sense of happiness and success. Most of time, because you feel fulfilled, it helps you feel fulfilled. Purpose and fulfilment do tend to go hand in hand, and volunteering can give you a sense of direction. It can help you figure out things that you do like and don't like work that you would like to do and work that you do not do well without the added pressure of it being for a job and for money and, you know, to pay the bills so you can use it in a way to test different types of roles and things that you would like to try out.

Also, I can give you a sense of pride because of what you're doing and the difference you're making in people's lives. So these are all various methods where volunteering can bring a benefit to your life. But please not let's not overlook the downsides of volunteering so many times you can volunteer and have your work taken for granted or basically have an organisation use you instead of paying somebody, instead of paying somebody to do the work part time, paying a reasonable wage, just get so used to having a volunteer.

They forget that if they actually want to have a thriving business, they should be able to afford to pay someone that will. Sometimes being a volunteer is a thankless role. Sometimes you do not get fat for being a volunteer. You don't get any praise, you don't get any recommendations. Nothing comes up on your LinkedIn profile. Sometimes it is a thankless job and you might feel that you are being taken advantage of. So just be aware when you're volunteering what you get out of the situation as well as the organisation.

Thanks for listening. This is Janice from The Career Introvert, helping you build your brand and get hired. Looking forward to speaking to you next week. Have a great rest of your week.

How to systematize your memory Jul 20, 2021

I'm going to talk about creating a reference system and this is something I've realised that I've been doing unintentionally for a little while now. So when I say creating a reference system, the reasoning to do this is so that you you free up space in your brain for other things. And what I mean by a reference system is, for example, when you go shopping, do you go ahead and just make a list of all the things that you need and then go shop for them?

Or do you make a list of all the things you want, go around your cupboards and those sort of things, and then go shopping? Or when you run out of something or when you're down to the last jar or 10 or kind of something, do you then go to the place where you normally go shopping online or place where you make a list and write that item down straight away, which those three things do you do? And which of those three things do you think helps free up more space in your brain for other things?

So what I've been doing for a long while is any time I think of something that we need in the house, I'll go ahead and go to my target dot com or Amazon.com or whatever site that is to whatever it is that we're using for shopping and go find that item and put it in our cart, not buying it then and there I am just adding it to our cart to buy later. And I've been doing that for quite a while. And then what I've been doing is as far as I was having a conversation with a friend the other day about content, how do I think of content and where do I come up with ideas, etc.

? And I was I said, well, I come across things all the time when I'm not thinking about content and when I'm not thinking about my podcast or my newsletters. So when I am coming across content, what I do is I have a place where I go and store the link to said content that I want to go ahead and talk about. And so this place I have, this could be a better name for it, but it's like the dumping ground.

And so it is a dumping ground of ideas. Articles means Facebook chats, things, whatever it is that have sparked interest about whatever it is that I'm going to talk about. So this is a dumping ground and it frees my brain because I'm like, OK, I'm going to remember that thing, because otherwise what I used to do before was, oh, that's a great article. Click read article, maybe have a tab that's open for months on end because I'm like, I need to come back and read that and talk about that.

And then when I do want to go ahead and create content around that thing, I can't find it. I'm not thinking about it at the time. I'm on a different, different document, a different item like it could be a laptop. I could be on the phone, can't find it, or I'll just go and do something totally different. So having one main place where I put stuff that I want to talk about on my podcast, stuff that I want to talk about in my news, that is stuff that I want to talk about in webinars is a really good way for me to keep track of content and be free my mind from having to remember what I did with that content so I can go ahead and use it later.

So I realise that now this is expanded into other areas of my life. So I use it, my shopping, I use it for creating content. And so I was speaking to a colleague about this because they found it really difficult to sit and create content because they had to find inspiration for that content. So now they have this Pinterest board and they have this Trello board and some other places where they go ahead and dump content. And it doesn't have to be just for creating content.

It can just be for it. For an example, you are talking to a client you're having is a meeting and they're telling you this list of things that they want to do in the future and mid-term and stuff that you're going to do now and you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then maybe write it on a Post-it and then nothing happens. You remember some stuff because you're going to do it straight away, but the long term stuff in the midterm stuff kind of gets lost.

What did you do with that Post-it note? You need a system. So whether it's always clear or Post-it notes at the end of the day and make sure that it is inputted into a computer or a note taking Apple to do task list app, what is it you do? What is your system to make sure that you remember all the things that you need to remember that is really important will help you free up space to do other things and be more creative and just have space to breathe rather than having to remember all the things because your brain can only remember.

Say so much. Thanks for listening. This is janice@thecareerintrovert.com helping you build your brand and get hired. Thank you for speaking to you next week. Have a great rest of your week.

How to create a starting point Jul 13, 2021

I want to talk about procrastination, kind of, but in a different way, how to bounce back from feeling like you've been procrastinating or lazy or that you've wasted any time in your day. Because here's the thing. We have a habit of, as humans say, it's midday, like, oh, well, I haven't studied X, Y and Z, so I'll put it off to tomorrow because I won't have time to finish it today or then before you know it, it's two o'clock.

You're like, oh, well, I could have done this other thing, but now I'm going to put it off to the next day and then it's five o'clock. You're like, oh, well, like, I'm not going to do all the other things right. Don't wait till some future moment to start something or do better. You have an opportunity to do better or to start something right now. And I think what we get trapped in with our thinking is that we have to start fresh tomorrow.

We can start fresh next week. We can start fresh next month. We're always waiting for that. But delineator, which we've made up arbitrarily in our minds what that is, and just by doing so arbitrarily in our minds, we can choose to start now. I definitely have been the person that, you know, like, oh, wait till, you know, the next set of virtual cycles starts what I'm working with coworking like, oh, well, it doesn't start for like an hour and a half, so I won't start X, Y and Z.

There's nothing stopping me from studying X, Y and Z. It's just a form of procrastination or having a start point. Something about us as humans feel the need to have a clean, fresh start point. Now you have the opportunity to wipe the slate clean and begin again. This is easy. If you have a way to mark the transition, you could use mealtimes or other daily rituals to create transitions. For example, you could be like, OK, I'm going to start after breakfast.

I'll do this thing after lunch. I'll do that thing after elevenses. I'll do this other thing, whatever it might be. Or you could use physical action as a divider of time. If you need to get a fresh start for your day, get up and go for a walk, do some breathing exercises, meditate. Any of these things can help your brain believe that you were leaving behind a previous state and decisions and then you are starting fresh to make better ones moving forward.

There are so many things that you can do in that way. So just think about it doesn't have to be dinnertime or lunchtime or after this meeting, it can really be as simple as. Getting up. Going outside, walking around the block or just walking down the street, coming back and sitting down again, that's your fresh slate. It could be going sitting in a corner for three minutes, centred deep breathing. Meditating a little bit, clearing your mind, stopping coming and starting again, that could be your clean, fresh slate, it could be journaling and a book, getting a book, writing a bunch stuff down, doodling, colouring, stitching, crocheting, doing the laundry, anything it can be used to help your brain reset.

And I think it's really important that we learn to do this as humans and not just wait for that arbitrary day in the month or day of the week to start a thing because nothing is worse than not starting something. You don't know what the possibilities are and what could happen once you start this thing. And I am definitely guilty of putting things off. I know from a previous month I was like, I'm not going to do X, Y and Z because I'm waiting for other people to make decisions about A, B and C.

Were these decisions linked? Sort of, but not really. It was just an excuse me, procrastinating, maybe me being scared. That's something to think about, is also why you don't want to start this thing that you are putting off, because getting to the root of that might help you also move forward. Well, thank you for listening. This is Janice@thecareerintrovert.com helping you build your brand and get hired. Looking forward to talking to you next week.

Have a great rest of your week. If you have any questions that you would like me to answer on the podcast. Email me at Janice@thecareerintrovert.com. Have a great rest of your week.

Don't say no, ask when Jul 06, 2021

I'm going to talk about saying no, but not just saying no, generally when you're feeling overwhelmed or think about productivity or one of the things we get told, and I definitely agree with it to a certain extent, and I've said it myself, is to say no to sad thing and constructively saying no or, you know, I'll check my calendar or I'll do whatever it is to put a little buffer between that person asking a question.

You having to get back with an answer straight away, because a lot of the time might say yes, reflexively and then look at me like, oh, I don't know how I'm going to fit this in. So, yes, when you feeling overwhelmed and you're not sure if you can do something or maybe you just don't want to say yes to something, saying no in a way that is constructive is helpful. However, when you're at work, you might feel more pressure.

If you say now, you might feel that you can't really. So here's what kind of works, yes, you should say no more often, because it will free up your time and really work for your productivity. But in practise, this advice can also kind of backfire, because while you can set boundaries around your work, you can't straight up refuse a task when your boss asks you to take it on. So you need to figure out a better way or method of saying no, which can at least turn that no into an actual actionable solution or like a no.

But so instead of saying no, a straight out no or no, blah, blah, blah, blah, you can also say no, let me check my calendar. But instead of saying no, ask when I'm without understanding sort of where your deadline might be, it can be superficial for you just to say no straight off the bat could be there asking you for something that they don't need for two months. So setting that boundary be like, OK, when do you need this body is really, really important.

And so the other thing you can do to help expand that is, oh, you need it by this date. OK, well, let's look at my calendar and see how this can fit in. So you want to sit down with your manager or whoever else, you know, time to look over your schedule together. This only works if you've got sort of time boxing in your calendar where you've blocked out certain times for certain things on certain tasks.

So you're like, OK, here is everything that is on my plate for the week ahead. For example, here, all my task is how long it should take to do them. This is what my calendar currently looks like. Now you want me to do this X, Y or Z task for whenever it might be. Let's see how I can fit it in. Maybe this task you've already given me that you can see here that aren't as much of a priority as this new task you want to give me.

So let's work to see where I can fit some time into work on this thing that you need me to work on and then we can figure out the priorities together. Now, the great thing about doing that is you're being proactive, showing how your time is being used, because a lot of managers really just don't have a clue. And you're saying you're happy to make space and time for this task, but they need to keep in mind how much of a priority it is and it helps them rethink their priorities and what they're asking.

So asking when they need it and then taking a look at everything that you need to do is super helpful when it comes to making sure you have time, block time, letting your manager know exactly what it is that you're doing and making sure that you have space and time to do said work. Now, just say, like we discussed before, just saying no isn't the best option. So having these extra questions like how long do you think it's going to take?

What steps and what other information do I need to make a concrete sort of plan about this? Because sometimes you think it's going to be one thing but really ends up taking X, Y and Z time. And so if you've already shown your commitment and said, OK, this is how much time I have, and then you figure out that, oh, actually, it's going to take X, Y and Z more time, you can then get back to manager and be like, remember when up to my count I had this amount of time we thought the task was going to take this amount of time.

Well, it's not it's going to take this amount of time because of X, Y and Z. So now let's take a look again, see if the timeline is still right and if that's what we want to do and how priority it is. And this is how I will fit it into how I work. So this is a just a different way that you can work with managers to help them respect your time, be let them see what you're doing and see give a little bit of pushback if they're trying to get you to do something that is out of scope or will take too much time and make you work overtime that they won't be paying for.

So I thank you for listening. This is janice@thecareerintrovert.com helping you build your brand and get hired. Look forward to speaking to you next week. Have a great rest of your week.

Things not to do on Zoom Jun 29, 2021

day I want to talk about I can't believe I'm saying this, things that happen on some things that you really shouldn't do when you are on Zoom. So in my time, I have been running online coworking sessions and sometimes most people have their video off, which is fine and makes perfect sense. But occasionally I've been running the sessions and there's a couple things that I've noticed that even if I'm deep in work, catch my eye and therefore make it hard for me to concentrate.

If you are on video and depending on where your camera is compared to you, especially if your camera is lower down on, you are looking down into your camera. If you are eating or chewing gum while being on easy video and you were looking down into the camera, it's not a great look. And also it is very distracting if I get it, if you are working and the camera's on for accountability. But that movement of constant chewing can be distracting for people because it is a very consistent kind of movement that can back.

And also people then want to know what you mean, because there's been times where I thought someone was just like taking a bite and then realised that the chewing gum the entire time or they're having a full four course meal, then the other things that I have seen and these are stories also that people have told me about things that they have found disturbing during coworking sessions as well as in video meetings, is people who pick their nose and not just a gentle sort of like wipe or blow your nose and sneeze and wipe it out and go.

But more like, you know, digging for gold or buried treasure up there. If this is something that you do, please be aware that people can see you and might find it off. Putting other things that people have mentioned during the meetings is the camera of the camera of your angle. The angle of your camera is very important. If you are looking down into the camera, it means the camera can see directly up your nose. I didn't mean to do to nose things in a row, but so be it.

And that might not be the best, most flattering angle for you. It's also not ergonomically great if you're using the same keyboard. So something to think about when you are doing a zoom meeting, online, coworking, any other sort of thing that involves Zoom. What else have I heard about? There was also the time when and I get it, it happens. You forget that your camera comes on automatically. You set it to come on the start of a meeting and in the meantime you faffing around doing whatever.

But we've definitely had people who have gotten changed during a zoom meeting or working session. They kind of put the camera sort of when you sort of half close your laptop and you put the camera down and you think the camera can't see stuff. But the problem tends to be Kamisese, the lower half of you. So if you are, you know, bulleting where you you're great on top in the bottom. We've just got underway. We see that.

So just something to keep in mind. Just because you close your laptop, then three quarters of the way doesn't mean the camera switches off and or we get to see the lower half of you. And it could be that your dog is at your feet and we just get sea dog. Or it could be that we get to see those fancy fishnets that you're wearing or some stripy socks or underwear and a lot of leg. So these are things to take into consideration.

I highly recommend chess is better just not to have video if you're going to do anything and or double safety is to have a little cover of your camera that you can flip over it so that it can cover it. So you know for sure that your camera is not on or it can be seeing stuff because, you know, stuff glitches. Just because you press that button on zoom, sometimes it doesn't always work or there's a delay, etc., etc.

. So thank you all for listening. If you have any stories of things that people have done during zoom meetings, that or coworking sessions that you would like to share, please email me at janice@thecareerintrovert.com, helping you build your brand and get hired. Thanks for listening and have a great rest of your week.

You are not lazy, you are processing Jun 22, 2021

, I want to talk about processing time, there's been a lot of changes in the world in the past year or so, and I'm sure everyone has been dealing individually with changes in general. And to be fair, changes happen all the time. And sometimes when you don't realise that you feel like you're being lazy or unproductive, you might feel like just staying in bed for the day or reading a book or whatever it is that you like to do to help yourself feel better.

And for the longest while I was talking to a friend of mine, as always, these episodes, so many of them are inspired by a really good friend of mine. And we're talking and I was like, I don't want to do this. I don't feel like doing that. I have a couple of things that are up in the air in the moment. And so I don't want to move forward with these other things because things are up in the air.

And I said, this is just me using these things up in the air as an excuse to procrastinate. And she was like, you're not procrastinating, you need processing time. And I was like, yeah, but blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Move on a couple more days. And I'm complaining again that, yeah, I put this thing off and I'm putting this other thing off until these things get sorted.

And I should have some closure at least next week. And she once again was like, yes, I understand what you're saying, you need processing time. And I was like, oh, OK. And then I had a second friend be very much like, you need to do the pros and cons of this and you need to figure out this and this. And if all things are equal, which would you choose? And I was like, oh, I guess I need to.

And it's a process that because so much of my life, I have fallen into things by accident. And to be fair, whatever happens next, I would have fallen into it by accident as well. However, I never really realised I have the luxury to process and understand that I need to process. And even if I don't end up making a decision and the decision gets made for me, at least me processing everything that's going on is hugely important to my well-being and my ability to go ahead and do other things.

And so processing time, ladies and gentlemen, is what I want to talk to you about, giving yourself the time and I see yourself, your brain, the time to process. And that can mean many things. The brain filters through a lot of stuff. You have a lot of inputs coming in at you throughout the day, from email to social media to just being outside to talking to someone. There's a lot more inputs today than they have ever been.

And you have that along with whatever you're dealing with at the time. Maybe something's happening with your children at school, maybe works making a change. Maybe there's something happening in your personal life. You as an introvert, you as a human being, need to take the time to give your brain space to process. These things, and I don't think it will happen in a day very much like, oh, I've gone and I've written down all the things that are on my mind, I processed I can move forward.

Now, that is not how your brain works. Your brain is like, oh, you've written all the things down. That's great. You'll have some space. Now I want to fill up with stuff. Don't let your brain fill it with stuff. Sit, meditate, go for a walk, take deep breaths, pause, chill, relax. Think about nothing. Think about everything. Let thoughts float, don't feel the urge to write them down.

Just float back and do other things and then come back again an hour or two hours or a day later and focus again on that thing and process and think and float. You need a couple days where all you do is sit and eat cherries and strawberries all day while crocheting. Go for it if you need to colour, if you need to journal whatever it is, don't try and shove all these other things in your head. So I had a day off and I was like, oh, I need to plan the day off.

And I was like, my wait, I shouldn't plan a day off. I used to have it and I don't know, I got out of practise where I had one day a week, which just like do what my mind and my body tells me feels good at the time. And I stopped and I didn't realise I had stopped doing that. So don't feel you were being lazy. Don't feel that you're being unproductive. Remember that you need time to process everything that is coming at you.

Take that time to process. Don't be hard on yourself and you will find that life is easier. Thank you for listening. This is janice@thecareerintrovert.com helping you build your brand and get hired. Have a great rest of your week.

The Introvert Hangover Jun 15, 2021

introvert today I'm talking about what to do when you have an introvert hangover. This is what I currently have I I had a busy couple of weeks that involved seeing humans in the flesh because there is a difference between an intimate hangover and a Zoom hangover. I know a lot of people during the pandemic got very zoomed out and, you know, fed up of them. And I get that and how I dealt and it's kind of easy to deal with that.

You just have less same interaction or change the way you have your same interaction. And obviously in the past year or so, I spent less and less time amongst other humans, are having to do with other humans in person. And I thought I was being smart and doing a soft re-entry into having to deal with humans in person. I had a weekend where I saw some people in small doses and I had an evening where I had a break. I was all by myself and then saw some other people in small doses and then had another break.

And then I was on our way home. We had brunch with a friend, which was wonderful. And then we made a last minute decision to go see another friend. And then we ended up spending, I think, an hour and a half there speaking to this other friend. And it was it was worth the trip. But what I realised was my mind already thought, hey, I'm on my way home and. Was almost in wind down mode when we ended up seeing this other person, and so I got back from that trip and passed out and that was a few days.

And then I had a couple of busy days because, you know, after you've taken some time off, you always try to catch up. So at a couple of busy days with some slightly stressful calls that I had to make, and then I went to an event outdoors. But it featured a lots of people that I didn't necessarily know and no one that I knew very well. And this event was from about five, six, six ish in the evening.

And I did not get home until about 1:00 and then the very next day. I slept, didn't even want to talk to the other person that I live with, and I thought I thought I to be OK, but I got up and I was grumpy and I was tired. But it wasn't a tie due to lack of sleep, like I wasn't a yawning tired, it just presented to me just feeling very drained and tired and grumpy. And then that same day, I also had to go to another.

Rent and hang out with a couple of people for a couple of hours, and I got back that evening and yes, was hanging out, but it's kind of that when you're at home and you need to be productive, but you just can't. And then this is now manifested into data where I'm just sort of napping, playing games, not sure what to do with myself because I know I should be working. But at the same time, I'm foggy brained.

I don't have the energy. I'm not going to produce good works. What the hell am I doing? So I would love to know. Dear listeners, how does your Internet hang over present in you? Do you get grumpy? Do you get hungry? Do you get short tempered? Do you have foggy brain? Do you like how does it present in you? And also what do you do to counteract that? I realised I was foolish to not give myself enough alone time and felt guilty and wanted to perform societally.

Also realised that my my levels have obviously dropped the ability to deal with lots of people for more than a few days or what have you. You know, it's a muscle that muscle has exercised, atrophied, petrified. That would so what I am going to try and do over the next week or so is to nap read. I did a lot of meditation that was useful, and I'm going to do some work and I need to plan and check my schedule and see what other things that I've got planned and make sure I have downtime in between.

And I'm just trying to figure out what works best for me in my current situation to help recharge myself. Whatever that might look like and how I might feel about it could be do nothing, but I feel bad doing nothing. So that's a whole counter-intuitive thing for me. So those of you who are out there who are thinking about going out and seeing humans and you haven't seen them in a really long time, be aware of the overwhelm and be aware of the impending possibly you might not get it, but just be aware that it could happen.

Hang over that. I mean, they haven't had alcohol hung over in a really long time, but this almost feels worse. Thank you for listening. This is janice@thecareerintrovert.com helping you build your brand and get high and have a great rest of your week.

Staying at a job for sentimental reasons Jun 08, 2021

Introvert today I'm going to talk about staying with your employer for sentimental reasons, and this has come up due to a couple of clients that I've been working with and. It's a case of I've got a client, she has been working with a Start-Up for eight years, she was an employee in about four or five. She's been with them through thick and thin. She's helped build processes, build the company that she's not a co-founder and worked 60, 70 hour weeks well, obviously at 40 an hour pay.

And basically her life was consumed by this organisation. And she did rise up the ranks along the way due to experience within that organisation. It was like her first job and also due to just knowledge, she went and pulled together and created processes and documentation and programmes and figured out how to basically run this type of logistics company. And now it's got to a stage where the company is heading in a direction that she doesn't agree with. There are people have values, and this company, when she started with them, were very much in line with her values.

But now, as time has moved on and the company has gotten bigger, they have moved away from those core values and she's tried to tug them back time and time again, to let alone no success, to the point where she's wondering why she is the only one talking about the company's core values anymore. She has some options of she started a business on the side that she's got, but she's staying with the organisation right now because of stock options.

And because she doesn't want to leave under bad terms, she would like to have a six to 12 month transition to go part time and then transition out of the organisation. And the CEO apparently agreed with this. However, as time has gone on, because she set up her particular department to be able to run without her and someone else is taking charge of her department, even the transition over for that, she wasn't she was cut out and it was just between the CEO and this new person and any other things that she's done.

She now has a new role within the organisation, but it hasn't really been clarified or talked about. And so she's finding it hard to get anything done because anything that she says is not perceived as important anymore from what she was doing before. And she is staying with the organisation. She wants it to go. Well, there's another person who worked for the organisation who also has been there for a couple of years, again, wants to leave in a professional manner, wants to do a transition.

And yet what is happening with this organisation is no decisions are being made, no information is being put across. Communication is very bad. And at the end of the day, most people that leave this organisation are escorted out. Basically, they are seen as dead to see suite of this organisation. They tend to blame whoever leaves for not sticking it out because. The culture of hustle and got to work harder, and if I can do this than everyone else can do this, which is pretty toxic and which is why people are leaving, they are tired and fed up of feeling underappreciated and underpaid, along with all the other things that are happening within this organisation.

And so my question to these people are, what's stopping you from leaving now? And they both and some others have said, because I believe in the organisation, because I want to leave in a professional manner. And most people seem to think that living in a professional manner is giving notice and then seeing what is said and comes down from on high. And if he says, yes, that's great, awesome. But if On High has a reputation for not making decisions and not saying anything, people are left on the hook.

So there are some people who have been left on the hook for over a month when they're trying to leave. Don't get yourself trapped in a situation where you think that you are worth more to the organisation than you really are. If you want out for your own mental health, get out. Don't wait and rely on other people to get you out. It's not worth it. Both of these people are burnt out, they're tired, and now they're just frustrated and leaves a bad taste in their mouth that they would not recommend working for the organisation, which isn't great PR.

So just a cautionary tale. For those of you who might be thinking of leaving your current employer, they won't care. I mean, some will, but most jobs won't care if and when you leave. So we do it when it's right for you. Thanks for listening. This is Janice at The Traveling Introvert. Looking forward to speaking with you soon. Have a great rest of your week.

Toxic self care and self love advice Jun 01, 2021

today I want to talk about some popular sort of self care and self love advice that is actually quite toxic. So this came about because a coach that I follow was very vulnerable and open about something that had happened. And one of the things she mentioned that had held her back from realising that this thing was happening is because she her mindset was very much about stay positive and no toxicity. And it's just a mindset thing.

While all the time her body was giving her signals that something was wrong. And so this led me to dig a bit deeper about some things that we hear a lot. And one of those things is positive vibes only stay positive. People use it because they think it's uplifting, but it's actually quite dismissive. Often people say when people voiced sadness, frustration, emotional fatigue and anger, basically any other emotion but happiness, a positive attitude, yes, of course, can get you a long way, but took it, acknowledging it and letting yourself and others just feel those emotions is really, really important.

And then some other things of there, how not to give a word in here. You know, you shouldn't care what people think. Of course, it's fine. You can enjoy a certain type of music, but not care about how your actions affect other people. It's basically just wrong. And it fortunately, it means that many people just take it to mean I don't care what happens, even if it might hurt other people in order to self care and self-love, it's important to consider what consequences your actions have on the world around you.

It's almost like a narcissism of self-help. Basically, it boils down to everyone else is wrong. You were always right. And the only problem you need to fix is that you care too much about what other people think. And that's that's not correct. And then. There's some other things that come up. So the kind of thing where you are, huh, this is a really common one is a find, a job you love and you never work a day in your life.

I mean, kind of. Sort of, but not really. Even if you do get a job that you love, it's going to suck sometimes because nothing is great all the time. I mean, that's why you get paid to do what you do. This advice makes you feel like a failure when you've had a bad day at work. Plus, there's a lot of value of working for a living and finding your satisfaction on a more personal level.

So, you know, it's really, really important to just think about these things, because not every day is going to be wonderful, but every day is going to be perfect, no matter how much you might love your job. Stuff sucks sometimes because that's just the way the world works. And so that's really interesting about these sort of positivity things that kind of keep people down and the blood is thicker than water, especially when it comes to our family.

And this is where you should feel obligated to be loyal to your family no matter what. But if they're toxic and abusive, then there's no reason for you to keep them around in your life, especially if it's detrimental to your own well-being and mental health. And not only that, you know, there's a family, you have the family, you choose. Not everyone happens to have blood relation, so they choose a family. So part of that is also the definition of family is can be a very grey, muddy area with a lot of people.

So these are some things that are brought up time and time again that can be detrimental overall to how you feel and what you do. You shouldn't necessarily be thinking about these things in such a way that you forget about other people and how your actions affect other people, what you do and what you say affects other people. Yes, being positive is great, but that doesn't mean that you shouldn't be able to feel a whole range of emotions. And as some people also just would like to feel, no emotions, no emotions at all would be great because emotions get you into trouble emotionally.

You get hurt. Emotions lead other people to see what you're feeling and thinking. But being able to work through those emotions and have them is part of the joy of being human. So just a little rant, I guess, about toxic positivity. Thank you for listening. This is Janice@thecareerintrovert.com. If you have any questions or anything you would like me to answer in this podcast, email me at janice@thecareerintrovert.com.

How many to do apps is enough May 25, 2021

or to do lists, apps. More to the point, we all have this running list of things that we need to do in our lives. Some of it may be work related. Some of it might be personal, some of it might be family related. But in general, I don't know anyone who doesn't have a running lists of tasks and or things to do, places to be.

Stuff to do, things to remember. And what helps us not keep it all in our heads is to get it down somewhere so people have a journal, a book, a calendar. Some people have lists, they have project management tools. They have all sorts of different ways to remember all the little things that they need to do and a lot of the times. Get told that we should really dump everything in one place, so have that one tool to rule them all, for example, like they want to be everything to everybody and think it was a great tool.

But sometimes your mind doesn't work that way because there's a difference between being reminded to take out the trash, for example, to be reminded that you have to record a podcast. There are two very different things and being reminded to take out the trash, you can probably be reminded about that a couple times on the same day or over a three day period. And that is fine. But record your podcast you probably have to do on a certain day just to make sure your editor can get stuff in and everything like works out in a certain way.

But having those two reminders in the same app or doing the same thing at the same time might not be best for you and your brain. So I know a lot of people will use a project management tool for managing bigger projects, so to speak, bigger things that they need to do and then have a to do list type app where they can put in their personal to do this. And I know that to do to do list, for example, has multiple apps, multiple like you can have personal and business and colour code and different labels on all of that, but sometimes your brain just doesn't work that way.

So one way that can help you is like separate these two things is using one app, I don't know, like tick, tick or what have you. And remember, the milk or whatever is useful these days for business stuff. And another app I like to do or whatever it might be for personal stuff. And that way you can separate these two things in your mind. And not only that, you can set up alerts differently. So if you want alerts for your personal stuff to keep bugging you until you do it, you can have that set up in one app.

And if you want business stuff just to let you know what your overall day is supposed to look like, you can have that in a different app separating these things and making them different colours and having different icons and maybe having them in different places on your phone or maybe your personal reminder thing is only on your watch or your phone, but it's not on your desktop. Those little differences are a key reason why you should have two different to do list type apps for the kind of works that you do and personal stuff because you can just tweak things, notifications and how you input information in a very specific way by having these two separate things.

And yes, it means you download another app and yes, it's another thing to remember, but at the same time the benefits can be huge. And also, you know, think about the kind of when you're thinking about these kind of apps, how do you like to input information? I have personal, like voice notes. I the kind of person needs to write out a detailed plan to do this. And these kind of apps are very, very personal.

I need to figure out what works for you. You might need to try a couple to find ones that work for what you need, the type of reminders you need. Do you need things to run concurrently parallel? Do you need to have it? So if this thing happens, this next thing happens? Doesn't need to time as all of these things think about what you would love in an ideal application, then see if you can find it. So I would love you, dear listeners, to let me know the types of to do list apps that you use because there are so many and there are new ones coming out all the time and some are also being defunct.

So let me know. Email me at janice@thecareerintrovert.com. How can you build your brand and get hired and also be a little bit more productive? Thank you for listening. I look forward to hearing from you and have a great rest of your week.

Earn or Learn May 11, 2021

Today, we are going to talk about reasons people leave jobs and also more to the point, why people look at new roles. And this came about because I was I'm working with a client and they were talking about the two things they look for when they're looking for a new role. And I thought it was really interesting because what happened is she said that she either looks to learn or to earn. And I thought that was a really great thing.

And I asked her to sort of expand on that. And she mentioned that, I mean, to earn it's kind of self-explanatory to earn more than she currently earns in benefits and stocks and actual salary. She would move to earn more so she can do more and and pay off a house quicker or have more time with her other family or her dogs or whatever it might be. And the learning point, she mentioned that she would stay in a role even if she got offered something of more money, if she felt she could learn from her manager or someone else within the organisation.

And so at that point, money didn't matter quite as much because they felt that they could learn skills that would help make them better at their job and maybe take them, make them better at whatever their next job would be or give them an insight into how to be a better manager or better, whatever it might be. And I thought that was really interesting. So you either earn or you learn and reasons why people might think about leaving an organisation.

Most of the time it is management. Your direct manager, because you're the direct manager, is normally the person you have a lot of contact with and decisions that your direct manager makes directly affect you. So that's one of the reasons why people talk about people don't leave jobs, they leave managers. But there's also leadership in general and it's becoming more and more common with the types of Small Start-Up companies that because there's a smaller gap between a member of staff and the CEO, for example, that the leadership or lack of leadership displayed by the CEO makes a huge difference on how staff think about their roles.

And so there's someone else that I'm working with where at their organisation. They're currently going through some issues and they'll be going through some issues for a while. People are kind of burnt out. It's been a very hectic six or seven months with various fires always being burning. So people are tired. Even though this organisation has unlimited time off, people aren't taking it, people aren't being asked to take it. And when people do ask, can I take vacation?

A lot of the time that got told, you can take one or two days, but taking a week is too much. And so they've also gotten the fact that they feel like the CEO isn't showing leadership skills, isn't being transparent, isn't giving people the information they need to do their jobs. Well, they know how much information their manager is getting. Maybe their manager is a good manager and is being transparent and has plans. But then the CEO isn't helpful, leading the manager and therefore things fall down now when there is a lack of trust between staff management and sea level, as in C suite level, not as in the sea level, then more issues become apparent and then people start to have one foot out the door all the time.

And this affects productivity because searching for a job is hard, takes time and mental energy. If you are already burnt out worrying about the stability of your job and also looking for another job, you are not going to be productive in any way, shape or form. And so this is bad for the company overall. So if there are managers or c suite level people who aren't showing good leadership, this hugely affects the company and what people think about and if they want to stay.

But not only that, it might stop them from working from other start-ups might stop them working with other types of institutions that are like this. And so when people are thinking about leaving, if you're a good manager, you know, when people are thinking about leaving and you have that conversation with them about how to make things better. But if you don't realise when people want to leave, you are a bad manager. So just think about that. If you are a manager and you listen to this and people have left and you didn't see it coming, what were you.

Missing and what can make you a better manager so you don't miss it next time. Thanks for listening. This is Janice@thecareerintrovert.com helping you build your brand and get hired. Have a great rest of your week.

Out Of Office May 04, 2021

, I want to talk about out of office. This has come up a couple of times this week.

There was a tweet that I saw that said, European out of offices. "I'm away camping for the summer email again in September". American out of offices. I have left the office for two hours to undergo kidney surgery, but you can reach me on my cell any time. And I sent this round quite a few friends and it's heartbreakingly true. And then something else happened. I sent out an email to my mailing list about an offer that I was doing and how things were going.

And I said, you know, if you need anything, just just send an email, respond if you have any questions. And that goes to my personal email address. And I happen to have an office on my email address at the time because I was taking a couple of days off. And so I always have an out of office when I am not going to be responding in a timely fashion. And I got an email back saying, of course, you are taking time off.

Can you possibly how can you not think about other people you shouldn't be taking time off when you've asked people to respond to X, Y and Z, and this made me feel guilty for like a split second and sad. And it was because this person was emailing out of frustration that they felt they couldn't take time off without losing pay or benefits or maybe they didn't get sick pay and with the.

Tweet that I was talking about, where Americans out of offices feel like I'm doing this thing, but, you know, you can reach me any time, the feeling of having to be available at all times, whether you are an employee or a business owner. The pressure is huge and it's not healthy.

And I was also giving support to a company in California this week, and they also had the same thing. Everyone was experiencing burnout. They couldn't set boundaries between work time and non-work time can take. There was one person who wanted to take a week vacation off and basically got told no, and they could only take three days off. But then that wasn't communicated to the rest of the team that they were on vacation. And then it looked like the person had left or been like fired suspiciously.

It's a very weird situation. So my question to you is, what do you do in your life or what can you do to create a life where you can do more of the European style out of the office rather than the American style out of the office? Can you split up your vacation so that it's now one long weekend, a month or every two months and you work a different job, can you work towards a different job?

Can you work towards working for yourself? I'm currently in the process of changing how my business works for various reasons. And this is one of the things that has come up is wanting more control over my calendar, not feeling that I'm doing things last minute for everybody because that causes me more stress and more like to make a mistake. To be fair, more pressure. You put people under there's a certain amount of pressure that is good and healthy, stress and pressure.

And there is a set amount that isn't. And what is out of office look like, because it doesn't have to be out of office? I'm not here. It could just be I check my emails once every 24 hours or I check my emails at nine a.m. and 4:00 p.m. Anything else? You know, text me or give another way if it's urgent for someone to contact. It doesn't have to be out of office, per say. But reducing your instant availability could do wonders for your mental health, the feeling of having to respond instantaneously to everything, whether it is CELAC or email or messenger or or Instagram, Deanne's and Facebook, all of those things takes a huge toll.

So what can you do to help set some boundaries about how quickly you respond to things? Because people that I've coached have found most of the time nothing is on fire and desperately urgent. And if it is, then you know that and you can fix it. But most messages, emails, etc do not need to be responded to instantaneously. You can get back in an hour, three hours, four hours, 24 hours. So just take a look and see what you can do to set some boundaries around maybe your emails or not having the notifications on your phone so you can be a little bit more out of office.

Thanks for listening. This is Janice@thecareerintrovert.com helping you build your brand and get hired. Have a great rest of your week.

Input devices and RSI Apr 27, 2021

, I'd like to talk about repetitive strain injuries, this has come up because a lot of people have been working from home now for over a year. If due to world events and even though you might have been used to working in an office and you go into the office and work, say, 9:00 to 5:00 with a lunch break and occasional other breaks, watercooler breaks, and you come home and you might do some other things.

But because of the tendency now for everyone to work from home, there is an increased tendency of their being blurred lines between work life and home life. And when do you start working and when do you stop working? I've been working with a lot of companies and organisations that just don't respect boundaries and people working 10, 12, 13, 14 hour days. And so this has led to increased increased incidences of repetitive strain injury. So repetitive strain injury is when you've been doing the same thing over and over and over again, that same movement, miniscule movement over again to the point that it ends up hurting you.

One example of that is carpal tunnel syndrome. So one way that you can mitigate some of the injuries that are RSI related is, of course, not. Work is often how to work as much and spend as much time on the computer. However, that might not always be, you know, possible. So another way that you can do it is I have a friend, for example. They have a mouse. They have two mice. One is for the right hand and one's for the left hand, and so once a week they will swap input devices.

So one week they will do work with their right hand and the mouse will be their right hand. And the next week they will do it where they use the mouse with their left hand. And they found because they've been doing this for years. This has made them, to a degree, ambidextrous. But they they get a lot of enjoyment of work done that way. Another ways that you can sort of switch up the input devices that you are using for your laptops and your computers, especially if then you do a whole day's work and then you go in game.

And now if you are a PC gamer, you probably using your keyboard a lot and you might use your keyboard a lot at work. So think about the types of work that you were doing and try and get different input devices that you can switch around depending on the type of work that you are doing. Some people use the trackpad for some things and then other things. They'll use the mouse. Other times they'll use the keyboard and use shortcuts, shortcuts none of people use because they're very, very helpful keyboard shortcuts.

Rather than using a mouse to click everywhere settings settings in such a way that you can get different types of mice. Now try and get one that has a more natural position for your hand. Logitech, do a nice little line of mice that have different input buttons that you can pre-programmed. So instead of you having to do click, click, click, it might be able to copy and paste for you just by clicking one button so these can help you reduce your repetitive like movements.

The other thing is maybe to use a pen and a pen and a tablet to help with doing different inputs or touch screen will help you use a different form of input.

And then when you are doing so, you are gaming. Maybe get a gaming controller. I know that like Steam has a controller if you have it. Like a. Like a. Thing on Xbox, you could use controls for that, so you using different movements and different ways with your hands, so you're not doing the same thing for 10, 10, 14, 16 hours per day. Repetitive strain injury is a real issue and it's just becoming more and more apparent and highlighted more and more because of the amount that we use computers.

The other thing is doing exercises do take a minute, five minutes every hour or two hours to stretch out your arms and your wrists and rotate your wrist and to to try and strengthen them up, but also to give them some release that cramped over all the time to try and flex them out. There are many different ways that you can go about sort of reducing the likelihood of getting a repetitive strain injury. But it's something that you need to think about more and more these days with health.

So that is what I wanted to talk about today. I'd love to know what other things people do to help prevent repetitive strain injuries. Please email me at janice@thecareerintrovert.com, helping people and introverts build their brand and get hired. I look forward to hearing from you and have a great rest of your week.

A CEO, Technician, and a manager walk into a bar Apr 20, 2021

, I want to talk about many hats as a business owner and most solopreneurs and entrepreneurs, especially at the start of their journey, you will find that you wear many hats.

And this can be great to start with as you get to know what different parts of your business do and how to how it gets done and getting systems in place in that sort of a thing. But generally speaking, this is what happens. We had a day job. You were basically sort of the the person that did all the things at that day job. And then you took whatever you did at that day job and transposed it into a business. But what happened was you were like the technician.

You were the person people went to for X, Y and Z, and you were good at that. And that's what you did. You had the tasks and you did the tasks. You had a manager and now you moved to this business where you're still kind of doing the tasks. But what you're forgetting about is managing and being the CEO. So when you are an entrepreneur, yes, you have to wear many hats. But there are three really important hats for you to wear.

The technician hat, the technician hat is where you do the thing. The whatever the thing is that you do, you get paid for. That is the technician hat. Should you wear that all the time? No. Should you designate maybe certain hours of the day that you do that on certain days of the week that you do that?

Yes. Then apart from a technician hat, there's the manager hat. The manager has sort of a better overview, like is a technician doing the thing? Is it the right thing that they're doing? Are they working with the right clients? How can I get more clients like that for the technician to work with? Do they have systems in place? Is a support? Do they have the tech or of those things? Those are managerial type things. You should definitely spend time during your week with your manager hat on thinking about you as a separate person, as the technician and how you need to manage the technician and their workload, because as the manager, that's what you're thinking about doing.

So you have the technician and you spend, to be fair, most of your time being the technician. But then you also need to think about being the manager and having a manager hat on. And the third hat.

And this is the hat that really is the hardest to start wearing. As someone who might have had a day job and watching a company and then running their own business is the CEO hat. And this is because.

You tell know what you see if you work in a big company, you don't really know if he does. You've probably seen them got a newsletter from them. It's not really them and other things, but you don't really know what the CEO does. And so breaking out time in your schedule to be CEO is really nebulous.

And so some of the things that you should be thinking about when you when your CEO hat is budgets and cash flow and partnerships and how you are going to grow the business. And what you can do to grow the business that might not only have that you, the technician person, may be the technician and somebody else, but the CEO hat is the hardest hat to remember because there are decisions that you might make as a CEO that you would not make as a technician or a manager.

And you have to separate those things in your head. You always have to have three different personalities, almost, but definitely the CEOs, the vision, the CEO knows what they want the overall brand to be. They know what the company is going to do. They know the type of communication they want to go out. They they have this vision. And normally, as an entrepreneur, you're so stuck being the technician that you kind of forget all of those other things and you get in the week.

And so making sure that you start out time every week where you where the CEO hat, the manager hat and the technician hat, it's separate times, separate places, and also for different types of meetings or certain meetings where it's really good for you to go in as a technician, like I know what I'm doing and here's stuff. And there's other times when it's really good for you to go into a meeting with the CEO hat on. And as an entrepreneur, you kind of forget that.

So when you're thinking about a meeting or making a decision, think to yourself, am I making this decision as a CEO?

Manager or technician, because that might change the type of decisions that you make and how you make them so that they really important distinct hats. Yes, you've got the sales hat and all the rest of it. But those are the three main distinct hats that you need to think about when you are moving from being an employee to running your own business and being an entrepreneur. Thank you for listening. This is janice@thecareerintrovert.com helping you and introverts build their brand and get hired.

Thank you for listening and have a great rest of your week.

You don't need to know about my family Apr 13, 2021

, I would like to talk about roles for you applying for roles as a freelancer or a small business owner. I saw a post sometime this week in a group and this particular person was looking for a service provider that could provide graphics and social media support, and they had a Web page with all the information on it. And at the end it said, if you are interested in this role, carefully read through this overview and then email me at and gave the email address.

And then the first question was, tell me about yourself, family background, where you live and what you do. And this was for a. Social media manager, virtual for an organisation, and they're in the health and wellness space, so what I found interesting is the way I'm going to use about this was the tell me about yourself exclamation mark. OK, fine family. Why I should have to tell you anything about my family to be considered for a role in your organisation is beyond me.

You might not be an employer and have to deal with the rules and regulations that generally come with applying for jobs. But the questions that you ask should be will still be relevant to the role that you are hiring. For my family, I mean nothing to you and should mean nothing to you and definitely have nothing to do with my ability or the other person's ability to do the real background. Background can mean many things. Dmae, my ethnic background.

Do you mean my educational background? Do you mean something else? It's not specific. And it also makes me feel a little uncomfortable that you're asking these questions, bearing in mind on this particular website for this organisation, they were a, like I said, in health and wellness, but they didn't seem to be a lot of diversity in what they were doing. Where you live, where I live for virtual again, shouldn't matter if you need me to work in certain time zones.

That is different. But I need you to work from this time zone. Time to this time zone time. But where I live, not necessarily your concern and what you do, that's the important part, what I did. So when you are looking for someone to work with you and you want information about them to find out if they might be a good fit for your role, please do not ask them about their family and their background. Only ask informational questions that are relevant to what you are hiring for and what work you need them to do, because nothing will turn off somebody quicker but is being asked about family.

And I know there's the old saying that, you know, most small organisations make you feel like family. And I've said this before, the podcast episodes. The thing about family is they're overworked and underpaid and treated like trash. So don't treat me like family, treat me like an employee or like a freelancer or like the business owner that I am, whichever level it is there. But please don't treat me like family. And that is also going under the assumption that you have a functional family and not everyone has a functional family.

A lot of people have dysfunctional families or split families or just issues with family or have no family. There's nothing more triggering if you do not have a family than people asking about and assuming about family and being upset when you tell them about your friends, who to you are your family. So just a small net to those of you who are looking to hire people. And for those of you who are looking to be hired, if someone asks about your family, a red flag, if you as someone who is going to hire us about family red flag, don't do it.

I would love to know, dear listeners, are there any other questions or comments that you see from people who are hiring that make you second guess and then think, no, I don't want to work with that human? I would love to know. Thank you for listening. This is Janice@thecareerintrovert.com helping you build your brand and get hired as an introvert. Thank you for listening and have a great rest of your week.

What does a powerful woman look like? Apr 06, 2021

. I want to talk about powerful women. What image is conjured up in your head when I say the words powerful women? This came around because I'm working with a client and she has this great little programme that she's running just over, I think two and a half weeks and it's cool. It's got a name, it's got the word Alpha in it. And she's running this group and she is looking for images or we are looking for images to use and social to kind of reiterate what we're talking about.

And what we've discovered is if you go on and on Splash or even in Encounter and you put in powerful women, you generally get images of women with their arms crossed, looking vaguely happy or or looking down on somebody. I tend to be a woman alone or a woman in front of a group of people. And even when you do get those images of women with their arms crossed because a Pountney, that is a powerful stance. It tends to be women around the 20s, maybe no older than 30 or sort of 60s, 70s, kind of a vibe.

Then there's another group where it's a group of women and they tend to be smiley laughy jokey again in the 20s with the age group, with different ethnicities. And that's in a more casual environment. It doesn't tend to be in a in a business environment. And then on the other hand, if you put in powerful women, you also get a lot of women weightlifters as images. So with what I've just said, when I say to you, what does the image of a powerful woman conjure in your mind?

Was it any of those things? And if not, why not? And if so, why? So I feel but we feel I mean, my client feel that there is a gap somewhere in the market of general stock photography. I mean, there's many gaps, but powerful or confident women portrayals for stock photography, multi ethnicity that it has a business is really hard to find. And I don't know why that is. I don't know if, like whenever they say powerful, that people, like, cross their arms because it works well for certain things.

Or this obviously the other thing where they have women dressed up as superheroes, that makes them powerful. But can't you be powerful and happy? Can't be powerful and confident. Why does your stance have to be aggressive to be seen as powerful? And why do you only have to be a 20 something to be seen as powerful according to stock images? So this is an ongoing conversation that we are having within her coaching group and that we are having with each other because we find it really fascinating.

I know that there must be some other people out there who also have this thought that they're not finding the right stock photography. And I know there's a lot more like stock photography out there. That is an all white people, but there's a lot of it that is and it shouldn't be so difficult to find multi-ethnic stock photography shouldn't have to be specialised. It should just be. But listeners, I would love to know what image comes to mind when I say powerful woman and feel free to email me images or put it in the in the Facebook page or tweet it at me, Instagram at Atmeh, whatever it is, I would really love to know.

So thank you for listening. This is janice@thecareerintrovert.com. You can email me at janice@thecareerintrovert.com with your images of powerful women. Thank you and have a great rest of your week.

Which is better failure or success? Mar 30, 2021

today I want to talk about a quote I saw that was don't let the Internet rush you. No one is posting that failures. And I found that really interesting for many reasons, but mainly the fact that with social media, with Instagram and Facebook and we see we think we see so much of people's lives or how people run their business. And yet behind the scenes, even the behind the scenes shots are never behind the scenes shots of I failed at this or I tried this thing and it didn't work.

It's always shots of I try this thing and look, I go, you know, 20000 people or 10000 people out, a six figure weekend or whatever it is, even when they're doing the behind the scenes, they're never doing the behind the scenes of failure. And here's the thing. As humans, we learn better from trying something and failing and making mistakes than we do from trying something and succeeding at it or seeing someone succeed at it. We just don't learn as well.

So it's really interesting how people on Instagram, on Facebook or wherever that you're seeing slices of people's lives, it's always 90 percent of the time the happy stuff. And even if it isn't the happy stuff, the sad stuff isn't I try this thing. I lost a bunch of money. Normally it's I try to sing, lost a bunch of money, but was the best thing that ever happened to me because then I, you know, hustled and I did this thing and I did this other thing and everything's rosy.

But as someone who's trying to learn things, how do you learn from that? Do you learn from that? Do you take away all the good stuff? And a part of it is this person did this thing and they succeeded. So I'm going to follow and therefore I should succeed. But once again, we are all individual. We have all our different paths and different baggage. So it probably doesn't work that way. And this also leads to the question about just viewing other people and viewing competition or just seeing where someone else is in their journey and being upset that you're not at that place within the journey or your journey.

Envy and compassion, as I'm sure you've had before, comparison is the thief of joy. And so when you are looking on social media and you're seeing other people and their slices, they are just slices and slivers of other people's successes and very rarely their failures. How do you feel? What does it make you think? Does it inspire? Does it make you think you can do better or does it make you think I need that quick fix to go ahead and be do whatever it is that they did to get the same results?

Would you, as an audience, as a listener, be interested or as interested in the people you follow? If they actually posted their entire process from start to finish, whether it worked or not, would you be as interested if they tried a thing and it failed? But you still got to see that process of them failing? Is this something that you, as a bystander, an audience member, would be interested in? Would you follow someone trying out different things just to try them, or would you only follow if people were successful?

I think it was really interesting and it's a question that I've put out to to friends and acquaintances. And I've got a mixed bag of results. And I think it depends where you are in your journey and where you are in your self confidence about what you're doing and your role in either your career or in your business. But comparison doesn't help you. There are going to be things that you do that will be different from other people because that's what sets you apart.

Yes, you can follow a system. And really, I do believe that system should be followed. You follow a system once through just to see how it works and get an idea of the mechanics. And then when you follow it through the second and third time around, you iterate so that it fits you well, your lifestyle, your business style or just your your personality or your humour. But having a bedrock of something, a system that you can follow is super helpful.

But then you tweak it. And I think people kind of think, OK, I've tried this thing and it didn't work rather than I tried this thing. What did I learn about it so I can reiterate and change it next time around. So that's food for thought. I'd love to hear back from you about whether you would like to see someone just trying things and seeing what their failures and successes are. Or if you. Only like happy to see what the successes are, so you can then follow them and reiterate for yourself.

Thank you for listening. This is janice@thecareerintrovert.com helping introverts build their brand and get hired.

When is your weekend? Mar 23, 2021

I want to talk about recharge time and weekends. So I was recently working with a group during one of our online coworking sessions and the statement came up that weekends our social construct. And so why do weekends matter? Unlike sort of, you know, the 24 hour daily rotation of the Earth was a yearlong journey around the sun. The seven day week specifically is purely a social construct. The two day weekend was, in part, born from another economic crisis.

So during the Great Depression in the 1930s, many industries that had not yet adopted the 40 hour work week cut in place schedules back from seven days to five days a week so that fewer working hours could be distributed among more people. And so this led to the weekend, these two days off that where people did not go to their regular jobs. However, speaking to a lot of people recently, I asked them what days do they take off? Because we happened to be working on a Saturday.

And the overwhelming response was they did not take time off.

They did not take one specific day off or two days off or even three days off in a week to recharge. They mentioned that they recharge by sleeping and also just by taking a little time every day to recharge rather than keeping two days at the end in the middle of wherever of the week to get that energy back. And so having a weekend wasn't really a thing for them, and this led to further conversation about weekends and why they're helpful, why they're not helpful.

And right now, because there is such a blur between home life and work life and because people just don't see the blurred lines and the differences, that they don't tend to take weekends and they don't seem to see how that could have health effects later on down the line. Now, there is a couple of people who were wed the weekend day, and so they have Wednesday off and Saturday off, a Wednesday off and Sunday off. And so they split up their weekend.

Some people have a three day weekend. So they have they work for days on three days or four days on three days off to recharge. I do think that recharge time is very personal and maybe having two days off at the end of the week doesn't work for you. It is your weekend doesn't have to be the weekend. And if it is not, if you do not take two days at the weekend, what do you call those days off that you take to call the midweek weekends?

Do you call them Wednesdays? Like, what do you do? But humans are a creature of habit. So having a schedule when we work and when we don't work is hugely important. It doesn't matter what that schedule is, it's just that the schedule needs to exist. So try and figure out when you can do things that are creative, things that are fun. It doesn't matter what is in your routine, just the fact that you do have a routine, because that's how we work well as humans.

So it doesn't matter if your weekends, all your weekends or you may recall your weekends or you take your only work four hours a day, whatever it is, figure out what works for you and use that to your advantage. How you recharge and what you're doing during those recharge is really important, but also having something to look forward to. One of the challenges people are currently facing is that every day kind of melds into another. If you ask them what they did last Tuesday, about Tuesday, when was Tuesday, what was Tuesday.

So having these little pockets of time where you do things that are creative and then you recharge and you have something to look forward to, really helps your brain remember what happened when. And so even if it's appointments or virtual dates or games or whatever, it might be just baking at home like one day on this particular day, like every Tuesday, I bake, for example, having something to look forward to and having that delineation helps you remember and define a time that's just kind of the way our minds work.

So I guess the question is, do weekends really matter? Yes, to a degree, but it doesn't have to be at the weekend. I'd love to know what you do to recharge and what times of the week you set aside to do recharging. Thank you for listening. This is janice@thecareerintrovert.com helping you build your brand and get hired. Have a great rest of your week.

When to grow your business Mar 16, 2021

A brief summary of this episode

What is the difference between a Strategist, a Coach, and a Consultant? Mar 09, 2021

Introvert today I want to talk about the differences between strategists, consultants and coaches. So I'm going to start with strategists. Strategists are for when you have an unclear vision strategy plan or next steps for the big picture. Right. The whole idea is they kind of help you with breakthrough aha moments and then come up with actionable and customized strategies and plans to move your business forward generally with some sort of clarity, purpose and direction.

The idea is to pivot you and set you on the right path. And when is the best time to kind of hire a strategist is normally at the beginning or early on when you're just trying to sort of figure things out or doing really big changes, pivots or growth like last year or when problems, challenges or dissatisfaction arises. And it can also be a regular touch points. Just to clarify and make sure you're still identifying the good opportunities and going in the right direction.

And you know what's a really good time to get a strategist when you don't actually know what you need because they should be able to give like an overall sense and get information from you and then figure out, OK, well, this is how we're going to clarify your vision and this is how we're going to put you on the right path to what you want to be. The approach of most strategies will be to help you make thought, make sense of your thoughts, ideas and opportunities, kind of a sifter, and to find patterns, brainstorm ideas, analyse options, and guide you to making tough decisions based on your unique situation.

They don't make the decision for you, but they do say, well, this is what you can do. What are you going to do about it now? Tends to be a lot of hands on one on one sessions, maybe with some like pre work or homework to do until clarity is achieved and sort of your plans are completed in place and then you ready to go off and complete. Those said things tend to be done in a sort of private workshop, one and one, and intensive anything of those sort of ways of doing things.

And they tend to be business strategists, small business strategists, growth strategists. Basically, they have strategists in the title somewhere. And there is that does tend to be some fuzziness between strategists and coach. So now let's talk about coach. So coaches often navigating daily difficult issues when running your business and that I help holding you back from maximising your potential. They will help you reach goals or at least take meaningful action towards those goals faster than if you were doing it independently.

And it has helped you improve your approach to managing your business. The best time to hire a coach is when you need to get from where you are to where you want to be. And you probably already have the strategists tell you what you need to do. It will hone in your approach to managing and growing your business and help you overcome any mental blocks that you might have or behaviours. So that's a really key difference between like just a full on strategist and a coach and coach will also give you ongoing support for self improvement and accountability.

Now, that does tend to be, like I said before, a bit of a merge between those two. Now, their approach tends to be guiding you towards coming towards conclusions with insightful questions and maybe other approaches. They teach you proven methods to improve your mindset, behaviours, decision making and management of those sort of a thing. And they also help you clarify your goal and provide encouragement and accountability for making continued progress. And normally it tends to be with a coach's regular schedule discussion sessions until the goal is reached for a set period of time, normally about three months, and sometimes there will be homework and accountability.

Check ins in between tends to be more of a group programme and less one on one with the last part is a consultant. So when you don't know how to do something very specific or lack the ability to like, learn that thing. So this will help you have an increased understanding on how to do something and complete that very, very specific thing. You already will have like a strategy in mind. And they're just going to help you implement that thing.

And they provide expert advice, recommendations or teaching on that specific knowledge that they have deep knowledge in. And they lean on their experience in their speciality to complete help you implement whatever it is that you need to do. Where's the time our consultant will do a presentation, a reporter consult or a training just to get you up and running and implementing support to get that specific project? Done and so examples of those tend to be like a DNA expert or specialist, a legal adviser or a consultant.

So those are the differences between a strategist, a consultant and a coach. And when you might be looking to hire and get someone of that calibre onto your team to support you, get to your business goals. Thank you for listening. This was janice@thecareerintrovert.com helping you build your brand and get hired. Have a great rest of your day.

Why you need to know how to use a calendar Mar 02, 2021

I would like to talk about calenders so some people are ruled by their to do list, some people are ruled by their project management and some people are ruled by their calendar. Regardless if you are ruled by any of these, when someone wants to set up time with you, your calendar is kind of important. And so nothing is more frustrating to somebody than having you send your in important information that's needed for a call in an email that isn't a calendar invite, considering so many people are working online these days.

And if you do have even if you do have a simple Gmail account, your Gmail account is attached to a calendar. If you have an outlook account, your outlook is attached to a calendar. If you're on Apple, then it will be attached to Aikau like it goes hand in hand. It's very rare that you have access to like an email situation where you cannot add it to a calendar. If you don't if you send information just in an email, it means the person can lose that email.

It means the person then has to copy and paste it into their calendar to make sure that it pops up. And they remember you are creating extra work for the other person that you want to meet. And the assumption is you want to make meeting with you as quick and painless as possible. So making that person have to open that email, open their calendar. And it's especially worse if they have to do a time zone conversion and put it in their calendar.

So you've got a meeting. It's like two thirty UK time, but you're in central United States. You then have to go Google the time difference, put it in your calendar, hope it's right and then go ahead and copy and paste all the information. Why would you want someone to have to do that? That is that is painful and unprofessional and makes the person hate you just a little bit, to be fair. And then there's the other type of person who will send you an email going, hey, we should meet at this time.

I'll send you a link closer to the time. So then again, you have to copy and paste the information. And then if you're preparing for the day and you want everything in order, but you don't have this link, and if you're jumping from meeting to meeting, you know, maybe you only check your email three times a day, maybe you only check your email once a day. But because of this particular person, you then have to go and look, try and find that email or wait for that email to come through, assuming it comes through on time, try not to get distracted by all the other emails you're seeing.

Find that information and then copy and paste it wherever you need it. Again, frustrating people who do not send calendar invites. Please, please, please think about the person on the other end and what they have to go through just to attend your meeting, which I'm sure you have. It's very important for you and things that you want to talk about and will be great for everyone concerned. But at the same time, you are making it that much harder for someone to meet with you and do it with a good frame of mind and a good reference.

So if you are that person that doesn't send Calenda invites and there might be a reason for it, maybe you don't you're not run by your calendar. Maybe you run by your to do list or your your email. But the thing is, you just making it hard for people to find that information. And if you are leading the meeting. Yes. You sending out that that link ten minutes before works for you. But do you think about other people, especially when they've message you to express this this problem, at least message them back and say, OK, well, this is why I do X, Y and Z.

It could be the systems issue. It could be the way stuff is set up at work. But explaining it to somebody, especially when they've asked about it, is really helpful. Ignoring the email. That's not great. So thank you for listening. This is Janice at The Career Introvert dot com helping people build their brand and get hired. I would love to answer any questions that you have here on the show. Please email me at Jannis at The Career Introvert dot com.

Have a great rest of your day.

Using compassion to grow your business Feb 23, 2021

Introvert today I want to talk about developing compassion as an introvert, something happened to me this week where someone I was working with very last minute, like, had set them a deadline and the deadline came and the message that same day. And I was like, oh, I can't do this, I'll get back to you. And then disappeared for a couple of days now instead of viewing it and being like, OK, well, they missed a deadline.

This is a problem. I tried to view it with compassion and curiosity. And so I message, hey, this isn't like you. I hope everything is OK. Please get back to me when you can. And just by doing that, the person said, Oh, you know what? Actually, I'm sick. I'm not feeling so good. Can we put this off for another couple of days so I can get better? So instead of me saying, oh, hey, you haven't done this thing, why haven't you done this thing?

You're late. And I gave you a deadline a week ago. Why are you leaving it? Last minute I decided to be compassionate. And just by showing that compassion, the person came and showed up and said, hey, this is what's happened, which was great. And then when they were ready, they were like, hey, thank you for for asking. Yeah, I'm feeling better now. I'm ready to do whatever needs doing. And they came back and worked really, really hard.

So developing compassion is something that can be hard for introverts because we might think in our own head and make assumptions. And so just stepping out a little bit and avoiding negative talk, for example, don't allow yourself to speak negatively about yourself or about others. It's OK to sort of there's this difference between derogatory statements and acceptance of a mistake. So and also practising self kindness and other kindness and practise being kind to others, not assuming that you know exactly what's going on and go with curiosity and ask questions, stop making assumptions, because that is what gets you and it can get you in a bad headspace and isn't fair to the other person because you are making assumptions on their behalf.

So think about the same encouraging advice that you would give a friend or family member and do that maybe for people that you work with or for staff or for higher ups. The other thing that is really, really helpful when when developing compassion is not comparing yourself to other people. Comparison is the theft of joy. I know that's from somewhere. It's not me, but it really is all individuals. And we all have our own paths and things that have happened to us and things that we are going to do.

We are all in different stages in our journey and that is OK. Comparing yourself and beating yourself up about different things isn't healthy for you and doesn't help you move forward. Everyone has different abilities and positivity about themselves. If you have something that you think is a problem, try and refocus it in a different way. And the other thing is to recognise your learning opportunities and be patient. So be patient not just with yourself, but with others, especially right now.

There is a lot going on. So being patient and going in with curiosity, any time you want to make a change, remember, it's not going to happen overnight. I'm currently in a competition sort of with a group of people and we get to set our own targets. And people have tried to change five different things at once. And I found it very difficult. But they kind of set themselves up for failure by expecting that to work. So instead craft a plan that will enable you to tackle little things bit by bit.

And over time you'll deal with one thing at a time, get one thing done, and then move on to the other self. Compassion and compassion for others takes time if you're not accustomed to thinking about yourself and or others in this way. And so it's really important to kind of do that both in work and personal life, because it will help you grow immensely as a person will help grow your business. So thank you for listening. This is janice@thecareerintrovert.com helping introverts build their brand and get hired.

If you have any questions, please email me at Janice@thecareerintrovert.com and I will answer your questions in the podcast. Have a great rest of your week.

Decision Fatigue Feb 16, 2021

surprise episode on travel. But this can be related to everyday things. So I was listening to a podcast the other day that made a light bulb go off in my mind. So travel can be especially fatiguing because of the amount of decisions you have to make that you wouldn't normally have to make. So, for example, every day you normally probably get up, go to work, come back from work, eat, brush your teeth, your shower, do all of those things.

Some of it is probably rote and some of it is new things. But we know that we can only make a certain amount of decisions per day before we get decision fatigue. And so this is why people end up crying in airports out of frustration. Part of it can be the system. And part of it is when you are traveling, almost everything you do requires you to make a decision. What time are you going to the airport? When you get to the airport, you go left or right.

Where's the check in desk? Which Check-In desk do you pick? Then you pick that check in desk, you load up all your stuff and then you go through. Which line do you pick for security? Do you which lounge do you go to? Where do you go and get food? What food do you get? What's available? Is it going to be food that you like? Oh, where's my gate finding my gate. How do I find my gate.

Look left. Look right. Do I take the left, I take the stairs. All of these tiny tiny decisions. But you're making them almost constantly, which is not what you would normally be doing. And every day occurrences. And then there's the once you get on the plane, what do you do? Do you have like do you read, do you eat? Do you know what time you going to get set. Oh you get drinks.

Is it different airline like all of these things that you have to make decisions upon and that's just if everything goes OK, hey, what happens if your flight then gets delayed?

What if you have to stay overnight? What if you then have to pick a hotel to stay at? What if you then have to pick up when the next flight out? Which flight should I pick? Which airport when it go? Is it going to be direct? And do I have to pick new seats? What happens to my luggage? All of these things end up increasing your decision fatigue hugely. And that's why when you then have to make a decision of no eggs or no eggs, you kind of stand there going, I don't know, just feed me.

I don't know, because you've had to make all of these little micro decisions so much. And this is why. Travel can be super stressful, so when you are traveling again, please keep that in mind. But in the meantime, let's take this decision fatigue and apply it to everyday life.

This is why checklists and subtasks and managing your tasks is super, super important. Having like a task manager can help you immensely because you don't have to make all of these decisions planning the night before what you're going to do, putting it in your task manager and then the next day you just get up and work through the task. Yes, stuff will come up, but at the end of the day, you have less decisions to make off the cuff.

So this is why planning your day is hugely beneficial, even if it's just three things. Three top things that you want to get done today can be top two things that you want to get done per day, put it on your to do list and then checking it off is a really good feeling. Anything that you can do to reduce the amount of decisions that you have to make per day will help you in the long run. Even something as simple as what to cook, I know a lot of people like when they're doing laundry, is launching a book and the podcast like have a really heavy week.

They tend to meal prep for the entire week. So they don't have to think about food. They can just concentrate on that thing that they're doing or you have a regular delivery. So it's done like clockwork. So, you know, every other Saturday you just get the same veg every time stops you having to think and scroll through the list of veg that might be available to you. So I highly recommend just bit by bit in your everyday life, see what you can do to reduce the amount of decisions that you have to make daily.

That way you will increase your creativity, space and bandwidth and decrease your likelihood of getting decision fatigue. Thank you for listening. This is Janice@thecareerintrovert.com. If you have any questions for me, please email me at janice@thecareerintrovert.com. Helping build Bill Brand and get odd. Thank you for listening. Have a great rest of your week.

when your mind won’t get in sync with your planner Feb 09, 2021

, I'm going to talk about this particular topic, which was inspired by a friend of mine, which is when your mind won't get in sync with your planner. So I am one of those people that plans using my calendar every now and then. Your brain doesn't want to do what's on your calendar. For whatever reason, it might be a mental health session. So having a plan for when you got this stuff planned in your calendar and you've got things to do and you want to do this and that, maybe for your clients, for you business for yourself, but your mind's just like you're not having a good day to day.

We don't necessarily want to do that. But even if we did, it would be do it poorly. It would take you three times the amount of time. So maybe you just shouldn't do it. Yes. Sometimes your mind just doesn't want to be in sync with your calendar. So what do you do? Do you have a plan? Do you have a way of do you are you transparent? Do you have a way of letting people know, you know what?

Right now I'm not having a good mental health day, so I won't be able to do X, Y and Z until whatever time it is. Do you have that option in your business when you're building it around yourself? Do you have that option with companies? It's really important. There's a couple of companies that I've seen that are giving during this time of quarantine and lockdown to extra mental health days per day, per day. I wish per month that you can use at your discretion because sometimes you just just need that mental health day.

You as a business owner, do you give yourself mental health days? Do you even give yourself vacation days? This is a question. So what do I do when my mind doesn't want to work with my current calendar? First thing I do is try and take two minutes and figure out what it is. Do I need a break? Do I need to do a different type of work? Do I just need to fix a thing that's bothering my brain or do I just need to take the rest of the time, day, week, month off?

I sit still, figure that out. After doing that, write down anything that has to happen or the world will burn in the next twenty four hours. But those things, can you delegate them, communicate with the other person, say I can't do this until this time. Will the world still burn or can you do a different version of it? Does it have to be the full completed version or can you just send an email going. I've started.

Well I've done this much. Can you do that so you can then go and take the time off that you and your brain require? After that, move everything out of your calendar that you don't need, put you out of office, can be out of office. That says I will get back to you within the next 72 hours. That gives you a little space. You have to say you're taking time off. Just say checking the mailbox for 72 hours or whatever it might be, and then move everything in your calendar over.

So you have that free space. And then once that happens and you can then get everything to a brain dump, get everything out of your brain that's currently bothering it, toss that you have to do things that you're thinking about, all that other stuff, get it out, don't do anything with it. Just just just get it out. And then once you do that, go away and do something that is not related to your work but brings you peace and grounds you.

And so maybe you just need that time alone. Maybe you just need to listen to music. Maybe you just need to need some dough, whatever it might be that brings you peace and calmness and centers you go ahead and do that. That is what I recommend when when your mind just wanted to do what you set out for it. And sometimes that can just be because you've over estimated like how much you can do in a day, or it could be because you just have a foggy day that happens and that's OK.

So if this is something you haven't thought about before, maybe think about it now. Do you have a foggy brain day or mental health day plan or an emergency mental health plan? Sometimes you wake up in the first half of days. Great. And the second half of the year, like, I can't deal. Do you have a plan checklist of things that you can do to relieve the pressure from you so you can go ahead and take that rest that you need?

If not, I highly recommend you do that now. It's like a disaster recovery plan. What do you do? Right, because you and your mental health come first, because if that doesn't work, nothing else will work in your business life. Same with your career. Pick jobs or companies, if you can, that do care about mental health. If your accountant in a position and I know a couple of my clients are where they are in a position where they can't move and be, mental health isn't a priority.

See if you can get vacation days on a regular basis every Saturday by Friday, whatever it might be to help give you. And release that pressure and give you the space that you need to recharge. Thank you for listening. This is Janice from The Career Introvert dot com, helping you build your brand and get hired. Have a great rest of your week.

Deep research tips for job hunting Feb 02, 2021

I'd like to talk about a couple of things you should do when you're looking into moving jobs and looking at new opportunities. If there is an organization that has posted a position, that's great, see how long that position has been posted and then do your research on the company.

And most of the time people will kind of look on Glassdoor and that's it. Or look on LinkedIn and that's it. Or go search the company's website and that's it. But really think about where they really should be looking to go to somewhere like trust pilot and see what customers are saying about the company. Are they saying good things? Are they saying bad things? Even if they are saying bad things? How is the company responding to that feedback?

Are they giving the same response time and time again? Are they actively responding or have they not responding at all? That's very interesting. And what departments are people complaining about? Are they complaining about logistics, other complaining about customer service or complaining about management? Because that will give you a really good idea of where the trouble spots are in that organization. Another thing that you can do is sometimes depending on the organization, they might have a Facebook group.

So it's a really good idea to see if you can be part of that Facebook group. And again, see what people are talking about. Are the comments free or are people being muted or what kind of discussion is happening there? Is it positive? Is it happy? Is it saying nice things? How involved is the company in this Facebook group that, again, can tell you a lot about how they deal with conflict, which is really important?

Some organizations will go ahead and just ban and mute everything and tamp it down and others will come back and join it and talk to and build into a discussion and a learning opportunity. Those are the kind of organizations that you really want to work for, whereas if you see that they're trying to reach people and stifle what they're saying, that's probably what happens within the organization itself day to day. Another place to go is the Better Business Bureau, because that's an unbiased place.

And again, take a look and see what's being said and how people are responding. So those are just three really key things that you can go ahead and do. I guess you could go on Twitter and Reddit as well. But those trust pilot, Facebook group and Better Better Business Bureau are three really good places for unfiltered and unbiased customer feedback. And don't get me wrong, I do know that customers generally will complain when something negative and won't say positive things.

It takes far more effort. However, knowing how a company deals with conflict or bad news and negative information is really interesting and gives you an insight into the company culture and can also give you fodder to ask questions. Should you get that interview? And it could be like, Oh, I saw that. I know six months ago you had this problem. Has this now been resolved or how did you go about resolving it? Is this why I'm the new hire?

Like, you can give you a really good insight. If they've been having a specific problem and you're being hired for a role that is really linked to it, that you will have a very clear idea of maybe what needs to be responded or what needs to happen, and that can give you a leg up. So these are things to think about when you are looking for new roles. Of course, go ahead and see if you can talk to people who've worked there.

Go on, Glassdoor, do as much research as you can. But those are three very specific things that you can do that gives you an insight that isn't the norm of games. Look at their website and seeing what their vision and mission statement is is helpful to know what that is. But are they living up to that vision and that mission, or how can you help them rise to that occasion? So thank you for listening. This is Janice from The Career Introvert dot com helping you build your brand and get hired.

Should you have any questions, please email me at Janice@thecareerintrovert.com. Have a great rest of your day.

Don't tell me to get out of my comfort zone Jan 26, 2021

Today, I want to talk about comfort zones, and the reason this came up is because recently I was speaking at a UK startup event and I was talking about how when you're building your business as an introvert, as a human, you should be building your business around you, your likes, you wants and your needs.

And some of that was talking about time blocking, setting boundaries, using systems and generally making a list of things that ground you and recharge you. And on the other hand, making a list of things that are deal breakers for you, things that you don't like doing are not good at doing, because those are things that should not be the core of your business that you are building for yourself.

And it so happens, as I was giving this talk that there was a comment in the comment section and someone said, but getting out of your comfort zone is where you learn the most. Surely it's better to learn all the things that you don't know so you can become good at them. And so here is my pushback towards that. Yes, you can push yourself out of your comfort zone to learn new things, but you don't have to learn everything.

The whole point of being a business owner is that you don't do all the things because you know what you are good at and where your zone of helping people is. And there's a reason why you pay people to be accountants because they're good at that. You, as a business owner might need to just know a general idea of what your accounting should look like. But you are not an accountant and might not file your own taxes depending on which country you're in.

But in general, that is not something that is in your zone of expertise.

So while, yes, get out of your comfort zone can be good to a certain degree, but not if it is at the detriment of your business. So if this means that you are learning how to do email marketing, for example, but you don't like writing, then that's probably to the detriment of your business because you could be spending two, four, six, eight, 10 hours on this email marketing that you don't enjoy and are not good at when you could be spending those two, four, six, eight, 10 hours with your clients providing excellent service doing what you do best.

Now, don't get me wrong, I am not totally against get out of your comfort zone. But it is one of those phrases that gets tossed around a lot, especially when we're talking to introvert entrepreneurs or even just introverts in general in regards to networking or public speaking or talking to people on the phone, cold calling.

A lot of the time you will find and I'm generalizing here, extroverts very much like what do you just need to get out of your comfort zone and do blah, blah, blah, or even people who just don't necessarily have an understanding of what introversion means to you might say, well, just get out of your comfort zone and do this, that and the other. We are all individual. We all have things that we like to do and don't like to do.

That is just life. We also have things that we are good at, things that we are not good at. That is just life telling people to oh well, just suck it up and get out of your comfort zone isn't supportive and isn't constructive. A different way of going about that conversation is finding out. OK, so you don't like networking. What is it about networking that you don't enjoy? Is a specific type of networking? Is it that you don't like going to a new venue?

Is it that you don't like talking to people and then drilling down to find out what exactly it is specifically about networking that that person doesn't like, and then coming up with finding out if it's something that's important to them and they want to do, and then coming up with a solution together, working with them on what it would take to make that happen in that thing a reality. Is it going with somebody else? Is it only doing networking events from where I mean now from home, but only doing networking events that apply to certain topics, maybe networking events that are not business related, and then you just grow your friendships, which will help grow your business.

That is a supportive way of helping someone get out of their comfort zone. But just telling someone you should get out of your comfort zone doesn't do it. Thank you for listening. This is janice@thecareerintrovert.com helping you build your brand and get hired. Have a great rest of your week.

Introvert intuition Jan 19, 2021

today I want to talk about Introvert instinct something that I I guess for the longest while I don't have and now I'm starting to believe I do have to a certain degree. And I don't know whether it's because I reflect this kind of thing or because stuff has happened. But learning to trust your emotions is really interesting because we are all born with a certain amount of intuition. The problem is from a very young age, we're often told to maybe ignore our feelings or our feelings are not justified or our feelings are just wrong.

Much like force feeding, an infant can cause the child to start ignoring the natural hunger control mechanisms. It's the same with emotions. The more we're taught to push down our feelings, the more likely we are not to trust our emotions. Sometimes you get a gut feeling, a feeling in your gut, a gut feeling that something is wrong. Everyone has a natural ability to know that something's sort of not right in any given situation. The problem is, over time, you may have pushed down those feelings as maybe wrong or crazy.

You might meet a new person who you've no real known reason makes you feel like something's a little off. You could talk to someone and believe that they're lying. Wait, while you may not want to react to these instances because they are not cause for immediate danger, keeping an open mind and keeping your eyes open, chances are you might find out that you write more than you're wrong. Sometimes you might feel a tug to help somebody. TV commercials are really good at like using these emotions when they want you to send money to the starving children in Africa or donate to save abused animals feelings.

What you feel when you're watching those commercials are normal and you should respect them. However, when you do feel compelled to help people, don't push it down, really offer help. But just keep in mind what you're thinking about things. And another thing that our intuition helps us with is maybe we feel pulled to do something different, you might be sitting in a cubicle, bored to tears, waiting desperately to do something different, but you're kind of afraid to change and you're not sure what to do.

You feel that you're being pulled in a different direction, but you just don't know what to do about that feeling. And maybe you don't even recognize it as a feeling. Maybe you just think that you're having a bad day. If you do feel pulled in a new direction, take the time to give it some real consideration instead of nixing it. Because if you go ahead and fix it immediately, it's not necessarily the best thing to do. And also, you might not feel confident in your abilities.

That's something we kind of learn at a young age and that it's really hard to unlearn when you're not feeling confident. Don't push those feelings down or away. You're right to feel that way. But you need to think why you're feeling that way when you feel good about yourself is not misplaced pride or bragging. And so often people, especially women, are taught from a young age not to boast about their abilities. This tends to put young women at a disadvantage from their male counterparts when it comes to job and fair pay.

Allow yourself to feel confident when it is appropriate and acknowledge the different emotions you experience. Don't push away any emotions that you have about drugs, alcohol or food. Instead, allow yourself to experience a full range of emotions as appropriate, because learning what these feelings and emotions are and how to deal with them is super, super important to knowing when you're just having a bad day or when you're just feeling off. Write down your feelings, keeping a feeding's journal for yourself to help you process different feelings that you're having and different things that you note other people might be having reactions to, situations can be useful as datapoints.

Your journal can help you work through your emotions in a healthy way, as well as give you something to look back on when you're having trouble. And one thing that's really helpful is to test your judgment, accuracy. So if you're afraid to go with your gut due to having pushed down the skull from a young age, pick one thing to test. For example, if you feel the need to switch jobs, start job hunting in earnest, it won't help to go on some job interviews and test your intuition.

You might find the job of a lifetime. Or if you feel strange, then then don't go ahead and do it. As you learn to trust your emotions by practicing actually feeling them, you're going to get better at discerning what's right from wrong and what's just like a weird feeling. And that's what I've been learning. I've had some gut instincts about a couple of things and I've been afraid to move forward with them. And I've had someone point out to me that any time I've had that feeling have been more or less correct.

So I should just go with it and said, that's what I'm doing over a couple of things these next few months. I hope you have a great week. Feel free to reach out to me at Janice@thecareerintrovert.com, helping introverts build their brand and get hired.

Interview red flags Jan 12, 2021

Interview questions or things that might come up that are a red flag, that you probably shouldn't work for that organization or company. And this has come about because of various clients that I've worked with and various people that it's the start of the year. People are looking for new jobs. They want to make sure they have some sort of job security. But at the same time, they don't want to just say yes to anything.

So what could be a red flag when you were in the interview stage or even just reading through the job description stage of a role? So any time a role says, you will be wearing many hats. This is normally a sign that they're going to assign you two or three positions worth of work, rather, for the wage of one. It's one of those things. It's like, what do you do a little bit of this or a little bit of that.

But you also might be going to this team, another really big red flag that the company hasn't thought through. What that role actually is going to do is when they say that you'll be reporting to two or more people because it means they're not sure what you're going to be doing that have enough work for one full well under one department. So they're kind of splitting you up into two different departments. And then either both departments try and take ownership of you and your work or neither takes ownership of you on your work.

And then it gets really, really weird.

Another phrase that comes up a lot that is can be a red flag is everyone's like family here. So here's the thing. With organizations that tend to treat their workers like family is that means they expect you to work overtime or give up your weekends or be at your beck and call because family is available all the time. Right. You can call your mom, dad, sister, whatever, and any time of the night and they will back you up.

And so that is seen as a very big red flag. Also underpaying most people who work for a family organization or work for like my mom, dad, sister, whatever, a they might be qualified for the job. And B, they do it not realizing their worth and therefore are underpaid and overutilized. So we treat everyone like family here, not necessarily always the best sign or also when you are required to wear company logo clothing that you must purchase yourself from the company.

I've heard that come up a couple times when they're really, really happy that someone actually turned up for an interview because it means that maybe no one's turning up for the interviews or they're really desperate to hire. And most of the time when someone is desperate to hire, it means they haven't thought through what the world's going to do, where it resides, or the person who used to have that role left for a very good reason. And therefore, it's possibly not the best thing to be getting into.

So one thing, when you are also interviewing the company, a good question to ask your interviewer is, hey, so what do you like about working for this company if all they do is talk about the location and everything except the actual work and the job or the like? Oh, that's a good question. And they're like, the people are nice and run run for the hills because they can't tell you where they fit in the culture of the organization, how they make a difference and why they really enjoy working for that particular organization.

And so. Also, if you do get a video interview, see see if the person you're talking to looks tired because that that can be a thing, I ask them when they last worked weekends. Ask them what time they finished work. Ask them what time everyone else finishes work if you get to always finish at 5:00. But most of us are still here, eight or nine, because we had this project. And then if that's a one off, the next question obviously is how often does this happen in the past six months?

And if they like we've always had this big project, there's always something going on that means that over time is just normal, but probably not paid for it because you are salaried. So these are just things to think about when you are applying for a new job. One last one, if there are new hires and people have been there for 15 years, but nothing in between, it means there's no room for advancement. People are believed to be advanced and those who've been there for 15 years just keep their jobs.

So if you're looking for somewhere that you can move up, probably not the best fit for you. All right. Thank you for listening. This is Janice@thecareerintrovert.com helping you build your brand and get hired. I hope you have a great rest of your week.

Bait and Switch Jan 05, 2021

, I kind of want to talk about the bait and switch. This is something that I've experienced a couple times over the years. And just when I think I know when I'm going to be baited and switched on, I kind of have an idea, bam, it happens again. So let me give you an example of what a bait and switch might be. Someone reached out to me on LinkedIn and said, Oh, I heard about you through mental health, remote working.

I love that you work that you're doing and your values love to speak with you further, because I'm currently writing a book on these things and I want to talk to experts about the different views on mental health, remote working and that sort of a thing. Great. I'm like, here's my email address. Set up some time and then I say, OK, here's my calendar. OK, let's set up some time to talk. And the calendar actually says interfere with coaching expert, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And they mentioned you be speaking to one of my members of my team because I'm super busy, but they'll be doing the interview and that's fine. They have my blessing, OK? And, you know, I get my two day warning, my day warning, my No. Ten minute warning, get on the call. And the person admits it's the first day that it's not a problem. So we go through, he asks me, does it stop recording?

We say hello. We talk about general staff. Then halfway through, he starts recording. He asked me three questions, did not ask any follow up questions and or any sort of good interview techniques. It was, you know, ask question A I sort of answer, but not really. And then he doesn't answer ask any follow up questions. Now, bearing in mind that blocked off forty five minutes of my time for this interview. This interview consisted of three questions.

Then as soon as that was over, maybe seven minutes into the call, this person was so sure. I'd like to know more about X person's work. Would you like me to set up an interview with them? And I'm like, can you tell me more about the book? And so they said, I just started. I don't really know. And it's really, you know, passionate about and they want to do and they want to speak to people like you.

If anything comes up from the book, you know, we'll let you know so you can we can quote you and what have you. But would you like to speak to this person about what they want to do? Part of their membership group is bla bla bla bla bla. I say, wait a minute, you blocked out forty five minutes, of which you barely used seven to speak to me about my expertise, and now you're plugging a membership group to help me grow my business.

But ask me if that was a problem in the first place and why would I go to you for help? But that's what they did. They baited and switched. They made it look like they wanted my expertise on remote work because I've been doing it before. It became hip.

But really, they wanted me to join their membership group to help grow my business within their business. And it kind of started small l m me like you pay into it and then we might give you some stuff, but then you have to get other people. Well that's how we get people out. I don't know. So this was a bait and switch, but apparently they're fully aligned with my values and et cetera, et cetera. And would I like to set up some time to talk with boss person or actually both persons lead team?

Because obviously I'm not talking to her. So part of me wants to say no, but I'm going into this year with a open curiosity and discovery. This is my theme for this year of year of discovery. So what I want to do is go to the next section and see what this call will bring, what is their membership, how much it is, because nowhere on any websites that I have looked at has pricing, which is something that I should talk about in the next episode and what it is they're expecting from me.

And no, they did not make me sign anything for their book. So far there's been no contract because I ask the question, have they done something like this before? Because I have and I don't think you're doing it right. Not can get a straight answer on that. It was more like I know they're very passionate about it, but it's my first like any started with the last week, so I don't really know. PORKED, I don't know has had any onboarding.

Is that those, in fact the company culture or knows anything about the project that he is currently working on. That's really interesting. Um, so yes, if you have been the subject to a bait and switch, I would love to hear about it. Please email me at janice@thecareerintrovert.com. I know what happened, what you did. I will not mention companies or organizations, but please be aware that this happens. And it is it gives people a bad name.

Thanks for listening. This is Janice@thecareerintrovert.com.

Life Happens Dec 29, 2020

today I talk about dreams, it's the end of the year. It's that kind of a thing going on. And one of the things that I got asked to do as part of a planning exercise was to write down things that I want to do in the next 12 months. And they wanted me to write down a list of things that might be obtainable or unobtainable just just to put it all out, get it on a piece of paper, all the things that I would like to do that I want to do sometime in the next 12 months.

And so I scribbled away, got about 10 and scribbled away more about 15, scribbled away a little bit more, got to about 17. And then I went to look at the next set of instructions and the next set of instructions was, you should have at least 50, at which point I was like, oh, 50 50 things that I would like to happen in the next 12 months. And they say, well, that's OK, go away.

Sometimes you think about things when you go when you're not thinking about it, this exercise should be done in one day. So you've made a start and I go away and come back with anything else that you think about. So I did and I got up to about 22 and even that was pushing it. And so I wrote to a friend of mine and I said, I'm doing this exercise about dreaming. And, you know, I've been accused of not dreaming big enough before.

And so I have this list and I've got twenty two. And she's like, oh that's good, that's twenty two. It's a good place to start. You can always add as the year goes on. So it's like, OK, that's, that's good. So then I went back to the exercise and the next step of the exercise was OK, now that you've got your list of 50 things that you would like to happen sometime in the 12 months, go ahead and cross off some things that are really just not going to happen.

Those pie in the sky dreams, for example, maybe some travel plans or some things that are not possible without gobs of money going to space, for example, probably not going to happen. So I went through my list and I scrubbed off three, three things, maybe four. That definitely, almost definitely not going to happen. And these were things that were travel related or things that I had, like, no control over. And I was going to move on to the next stage.

And I have these things and and eighty to ninety five percent of them are fairly obtainable. My dream list was a list of obtainable things that I could do. So I wrote to my friend again and I was like, so get this list and it's it's my bed and dream big enough. But I was like, what am I doing wrong here? And she said, All right, let me go look at the list. Let me look at the list.

Look how bad could the list be? And so I sent her this tiny list of twenty two things that I would like to do in the next year. And she was like, it's a great list. There's lots of like aspirational stuff on this list. Like, I don't I don't see why this is this is a problem that some of it is practical. Yes. But it is dreamy. Some of the things that you have and having, you know, and without having time to fill it all that that's great.

That is dreamy to make sure that you have space and time to do all of this stuff. So I go, OK, then there's some other steps to go and some more planning that I was doing a different exercise. And this exercise was about my business and about what I'm doing. And I had one goal for my business and it turned out that that wasn't the right goal. After going through and checking off and thinking about other things, I had like these three or four other things that were supporting my overall goal.

But at the end of the day, no matter how much planning you do, how many dreams you have and many goals you have, things will always change. And that is OK. And I think we forget that, especially when we think like New Year's resolutions and themes, this and that and the other. If this year has not taught us anything more, then things will always change. Things will not always go as you planned. So sometimes it's better not to have that hard core, rigid plan and just to have a vague idea of the direction that you.

Want to go in, I was doing planning I a planning session, and one person was very much like, I just want to have three months where I'm not launching and I'm not doing this and I'm just working. And that was great. And that works for her. Have another person that I plan planning with and she's very much like, no, I to do these eighteen thousand different things in this, I'm going to do it and this is what we're going to do that works for her.

But there are definitely clients that I work with where they have all these plans and they don't put in before time and don't put in time for life just happening and they get really frustrated with themselves when it doesn't work out. And that's something that I teach my clients, but also want everyone else to know life happens and being able to roll with it is a far better skill than having to stick to a rigid idea. And things have to be done a certain way.

Anyway, that's my thought for today. Thank you for listening. This is janice@thecareerintrovert.com helping you build your brand and get hired. I wish you a great year to come. Thanks for listening.

Introvert Intentions Dec 22, 2020

today I would like to talk about intentionality, something that I was thinking about, one of those shower thoughts where right now I'm currently starting taking some time off. I'm taking about two weeks of client work. And yesterday I spent the day resting a little and pottering around and doing stuff. And I wasn't on the verge of being bored because I was tired. And so I napped, you know, read a little.

And that's more played some games, a trend. But I realized because I hadn't planned my day, I had to be really intentional in what I was going to do with my time. I was intentionally napping. I was intentionally going to eat now and then eat again in three hours or prepare whatever it was. I was intentionally attending a planning session. Even though the end of your planning session will start of your planning session really was a five hour session.

I was tired, but I was enjoying what I was doing. So I intentionally stayed and focused on that work and the process that I was going through with my cohorts. So what I realized is when I'm not officially working, I have less control maybe over what I am intentionally doing and how I am intentionally spending my time. And so this is making me think about how I want to set up my time next year, next week, next month.

And I can intentionally work with clients and be very much I'm here to intentionally do this thing. And maybe that's a slightly different mindset to, OK, I'm going to do this thing because it pays me money or because it makes somebody happy or it helps them with their business. And so the intentionality around intentionally napping, because my body is telling me that I am tired, even though I had a good night's sleep or intentionally spending time on crochet or intentionally spending time planning X, Y and Z, because I didn't have a jam packed calendar.

And normally I'm a very strict calendar person. So I'm wondering, do I need my calendar to be as strict as it has been? And is it stopping my intentionality or how can I breathe intentionally out intentionality into my calendar? That's something I was thinking about and also intentionality in my time off. I do have a bunch of stuff planned that I want to do that I'm excited about, but I actually get to choose the time when I'm going to do it, how long I'm going to take on it.

And it's it feels very different to me and I can't quite explain why. I've had people talk about intentionality before and I didn't fully understand it. And now I think I'm starting to get a little idea about intentionality and what that might look like in general.

So, listeners, what question I have for you is. While you are thinking about what you want to do in the future this week, this month, this year, except that you always have choices, even if you don't like the choices that are available to you, you still have them. Any time you tell yourself that you must do something because you have no choice, it's a lie. It's not true. The thing is, you may not have a choice that you like, but there is always a choice between things and it is yours to make get to know yourself if you don't know yourself and what you want from your life, your morals, your values and that sort of thing, that is hard to make choices and you kind of make random decisions.

It's hard to live a life of intention if you don't know where you want to end up and you don't know what success is or happiness is to you, you won't be able to get there because you won't have an end point and learn how to set your goals and understand what it takes to reach those goals. You set goals and make it the smart method and all that good stuff, but make sure that you track it so you know when you've succeeded it.

Small daily actions that impact your goals will get you somewhere further than hodgepodge here, there and everywhere, doing random things to get towards your goal. But the main thing is stay focused and be mindful because these will have a long term effects on your goals and your plans just being intentional in what you do and why you do it. Can change the world, thank you for listening. This is Janice@thecareerintrovert.com helping us build our brand and get hired. I look forward to getting your e-mails.

If there's anything you want me to talk about on the show, please email me at Janice@thecareerintrovert.com. Have a great rest of your week.

How not to prepare for sales calls Dec 15, 2020

I want to talk about sales, doesn't matter how amazing your business or your product is if your sales guy sucks. So I've been looking to work with a company about a project that I've got coming up next year. I've been vetting them out. I loved the mission. I loved the values. I loved what they stood for and I loved the product. And so I was on this page and I needed to get in contact with them.

So they have a contact form and the contact form asked the usual questions. Name company. Why you how did you find us and any other questions that I would like to ask to make the call? You know, better for everybody. And so I put specific questions. I wanted to know about time zones. I wanted to know about opening hours, and I want to know about invoicing and hours. And I put that in the form along with my name, my company.

You are well, that sort of a thing that then led me to a calendar link and like a great perfect. Now I get to look at a calendar link straight away. Wonderful. I go. And I booked time with someone who wasn't who they said I was going to talk to, but that was fine. So far, so good book. The time I get a confirmation email to my email address. Great email confirmation is from a name dot company at Gmail dot com, a bit of a red flag because this company has been around for at least four years.

Kind of thought I would get a domain name. So it should be name and company name, dot com or Gmail or whatever it might be. But fine, what have you next day I have the call now bearing in mind that it asked me some questions and got me to fill out a form so soon as we get on the call, the first thing the sales person says is, please tell me about your business. I'm already like and I just sent you a bunch of information about me and you can take the two minutes to go and Google company name or me my name.

I happened to be lucky enough that my name is unique enough that you pull up something. And so I ambivalent about something that is not exactly my business. It's just part of what I do. We continue on with the core. They ask me what my requirements are and I, I tell them what I'm looking for and then the person is very much like, OK, well, we think we're going to be a very good fit for you. And so I said, well, as you think, you're going to be a good fit for me and my organization.

Please tell me like what the top thing is that my clients are looking for, not persons response was. Well, they're looking for your unique service proposition and your offerings. Now, if you've been listening to this long enough, you would know they only had to mention the word introvert. That's it. That's all they had to say. But they obviously, even during that twenty minute call, couldn't be bothered to Google my name or Google my my company.

And so they tried to B.S. me some now really annoyed about it. And so they asked me if I have any other questions and I'm very much like, well I did ask questions in the form. And you haven't answered those questions because we still hadn't talked about when they open timezones that their staff are in and invoicing. And so the person got defensive and said, well, what do you think? I haven't answered. And so I repeated my questions and they sort of kind of answered them.

Then they said, OK, so when can we get back to, you know, to get this ball rolling, really have very limited spots, yada, yada, yada. Hartsell and I said, well, this week is very busy. I'm doing this for my clients and then I'll be working on this sort of thing the week after that. And so the person then says, OK, so I can contact you at the end of this week.

No, you obviously weren't listening. I just said I'm busy this week and then you can contact me next week. So I had to reiterate, we close the call normally most salespeople at this point, we then go ahead and send it if formational email that says, hey, great talking to you today. We covered X, Y and Z. I will follow up with you on this day. No email. Oh, wait, no, I lied.

I did get an email, but I got an email from a different person in the company saying, hey, I noticed you filled out this form and one of our team would love to speak with you. Please click on this link to put the time.

Really, really, it's not only does the left hand know what the right hand is doing, the systems are messed up and the sales guy blew it. I was so happy I was going to throw money at the most happy to work with them because I loved their vision and their mission. But he couldn't be bothered to just Google my name or my company name. Instead, he tried. They got defensive and then tried to to be asked me to be fair.

And that's how not to run your sales process, or at least the sales guy. He didn't use any common sense. It would've been better if he admitted and said, you know what, I just hopped on this morning. I didn't have a chance to look you up. I'd love to know more about you. Or can you give me a second while I do it? Now, that would be better. Coming clean would have been better, but the lying and the squirming around kind of made it look kind of sleazy and unethical.

And now I don't want to work with the organization and I don't care how much I love the mission and what they do, I now don't want to work. And actually there was a point where I was like, maybe I'll just email someone higher up and explain the situation. And then the other email came through the automated. Only one of our team would love to speak with you. And I was just like, oh, I'm done. So that's what I wanted to talk about today.

Thank you for listening. This is Janice@thecareerintrovert.com helping you build your brand and get high. If there's any questions on topics that you want me to cover on this podcast, let me know. Email me at janice@thecareerintrovert.com. Have a great rest of your week.

Why You Need to Regularly Assess Your Skills Dec 08, 2020

Today, I'm going to talk about why you need to regularly assess your skills. I think something that happens as we go through life and we come across a problem, we deal with it, we move on to the next problem or move on to the next thing. And now's the time of year where people are planning for the next year and not just out and looking back from the previous year.

And we tend to look at what we've done, what we've accomplished. And one thing that really needs to happen is to really assess what skills you have and what you've learned or what you need to change or what isn't useful anymore. And we don't do this enough. Anyone who wants to improve and prosper in your professional or your personal lives, you need to make time to assess your skills. And this can be an every quarter is a good way of doing it.

I mean, when you're an employer, you know, often employers will have a yearly assessment feedback, so on and so forth, to make sure that their employees are learning and growing with the new company. This is because it benefits the company as a whole. You know, if you improve your team, the company improves and the bottom line improves. And so whether you're an employee or an employer or just a solar panel, regularly assessing your skills is really important.

And so think think about these things. When you are assessing your skills, what can you do to improve your quality and speed? Productivity? Productivity is a crucial attribute for successful people. And to do this, you must improve your quality. And by doing so, you'll take less time doing things. After all, getting more done isn't good enough if it's not done well. Also, you know, when you're regularly assessing your skills, use it as a time to self reflect.

Self reflection is vital for successful career business life in general. It provides time to look within yourself and see where you can improve and what you've accomplished. So putting this in your calendar on a regular basis and making it a non-negotiable is a way of doing this. Now, when you are thinking about assessing your skills, also think about your strengths and how you can maximize those and all lead to new ones. Competing daily life stuff can make things easy to ignore what you are truly good at.

So reflecting and testing your skills and reassessing your abilities will allow you to focus even more on areas that you are great at, allowing you to perfect that skill even more. And on the flip side, of course, is also understanding your weaknesses and how to improve them. Just how looking back and reassessing your skills will highlight what your strengths are. It should also highlight what your weaknesses are, your shortcomings, and make them far more visible to you.

This is great because if it's done more than once a year, your ability to work towards bettering them or having a plan to mitigate your weakness. If you are a partner, if you are bad, a certain thing, you can outsource it or you can learn to make it better. Often, if you reassess this in a more regular basis, you'll figure out where that gap is. And outsourcing is fine. But the sooner you figure that out, the sooner you know things can balance out and work out better.

Also, when you are assessing your skills, it allows you to take education and learning into your own hands. It provides you the ability to be more self-aware and acknowledge your achievements as well as your failures, and also give you a clearer, more defined path to learn and develop yourself into personally and professionally. If you want to grow as a person and have a more successful career or business or, you know, work on your life goals, you need to continually make time to evaluate your abilities so that you know where to improve and where you lack.

You can go ahead and look for online skill assessments or personality tests. Ask friends and co-workers to assess you, look at past reviews, past things that you've said about yourself. These are just a few ways that you can get valuable feedback on your current abilities so that you can enhance your career, advance your business and accomplish your goals. Reviewing is crucial. Thank you for listening. This is janice@thecareerintrovert.com and helping you build your brand and grow your business.

Have a great rest of your day.

Unsubscribing from black Friday Dec 01, 2020

I'm actually recording this on Thanksgiving, so actually it's midnight. So Black Friday and what I am doing is unsubscribing from Black Friday. And what I mean by this is Black Friday week and Cyber Monday. Tuesday tends to be the time that any mailing list that you are accidentally or on purpose on will send you an email or 15, because this is the time when people who have these mailing lists that they've left dormant for months or years or whatever will be like, oh, but Black Friday, I need to do a sale.

I need to do this a promotion or whatever it might be. So you're almost guaranteed to get an email from companies, organizations that you haven't heard from in a long time, or also companies that you have been hearing from on a regular basis. So what I've been doing is using this as an opportunity to unsubscribe from organizations, people that I haven't been engaging with, that content is no longer relevant for me. It's a really interesting thing. Now, there are some people who I have been reading the emails on a regular basis.

And yes, they happen to be doing a promotion or they are specifically doing a promotion for Black Friday. And I will just delete the email, but I won't unsubscribe because I've been in regular contact with things have been going on. But Black Friday is a great time to unsubscribe and clean out your mailbox. And also you'll find that the amount of emails that you get will be more. Now, there are a lot of organizations that decide Black Friday is a thing.

This is what I'm going to do. They have amazing discounts of 25, 50 percent of whatever it might be, or they put together bundles or they do lifetime deals or they work with other competitors or other organizations to put together this Black Friday deal. Um, some other deals that are just available on the Black Friday. Some have been known to up their prices before Black Friday and then discount this amusing bunny ears, discount those things afterwards. And so when you're looking and thinking about your Black Friday deals, I think it's really good to take a look and think about the kind of organizations that you want to work with are the ones that try and do.

It's only nineteen dollars to sign up and then, you know, your next payment is three hundred and something where they do the bait and switch or that they decide, no, I'm not going to, you know, live into the Black Friday and fade into the Black Friday sales thing. And my prices are my prices. And this is just what your pay. Maybe I'll do a special on offer something extra, but I'm not going to discount my base prices.

And I think that is a good way to go, because all in all, what Black Friday encourages, especially with software deals, is for people to buy something cheaply, not really see it at its true value, because even if someone says, oh, it's nineteen dollars, but really it's five hundred and sixty eight dollars, you know what it's worth. People don't perceive it that way and they'll buy it at the eighteen dollars and then be shocked the next year or the next quarter whenever the next billing cycle is, when the price is whatever it is and they won't see the inherent value in that particular item.

So it goes with courses and with coaching sessions or with branding, whatever it might be that you have as a business, it is better to offer a bonus like a bonus, one on one session or a bonus workbook that only comes out once a year or something of that nature. Offer more instead of discounting your prices, because people will see that, oh, this is your price and you're going to offer this extra thing, Black Friday. So you're still getting paid your worth.

That's my viewpoint on it. And the other thing is it's overwhelming. There were so many emails and so many Black Friday deals that you don't know what might be good for you and your business. And you might buy something on impulse and then realize it's not a good fit. Oh, it's not exactly what I need. And so unless you've done your research in advance and had a game plan or I'm only going to spend this amount on Black Friday, this tends to be a time of year where people impulse spend and then regret later.

And maybe you don't want to be that organization that people regret buying later. Just just something to keep in mind. So thanks for listening. This is janice@thecareerintrovert.com helping people, mainly introverts, build their brand and get hired. Have a great rest of your week.

How to Learn from Criticism Nov 24, 2020

Today, I want to talk about learning how learning from criticism, how to take criticism, how hard you try, it's often difficult to hear any type of criticism, especially when it's about your work. And if you are creative, even more so because you are your work and it's very personal, it can cause us to second guess ourselves. And worse, it might even make you stop doing whatever it was that you wanted to do.

It might send you into a tailspin and like wondering and thinking and round and round it doesn't have to. In fact, the most criticism can be turned into like valuable feedback even. It sometimes feels like a very negative experience. One thing we really have to remember is that most of the time when someone is giving you feedback, it's not usually an attack. Most critiques are not about attacking you. The person, even sometimes when it's given negatively, they're often like kernels of truth that you can gather from it.

You just have to let go of the emotion. And even if you pretend it's not an attack and lies with the critique was without passion and emotion, without being personal about it, it's normally about your work and or how you're doing something, not about you. The person. Something else that you can do when reacting to criticism is listen carefully and try not to react when the critique or that feedback happens. Either listen or read it with a minimum emotion as possible.

You want to take or take all of the information in and just listen to it for complete understanding. Don't make assumptions or rush through. If it's a conversation, it's OK to ask questions, but don't interrupt. If you're reading it, that's usually easier. Just read it out loud and let it rest and sit for a bit, then come back and read it again to make sure what you originally thought when you're just like rushing through is exactly what's being said.

Once you allow yourself to kind of sit and understand as much as you can, as much as you think you can, now you can ask for clarification of things that you're not sure about and you do this carefully without sounding defensive. The idea is to say, OK, I've I've heard this feedback. I just want to clarify X, Y and Z. I just want to check is this exactly what you meant? Because your understanding of what they have said or written might not always be the same thing.

Now, as I mentioned before, try not to take it personally, even if it's someone trying to get under your skin with their feedback and usually they're not don't take it personally. Often criticism and feedback is more about the person delivering it than about you, the person, unless you have a mentor or coach giving you feedback and then that's a little different. Now, one really important thing is. Letting go of things that aren't factual, focus on the meat of the feedback at first, if the entire thing is someone's subjective or like just what they're thinking about, then you only need to talk about it with the person because it's just their opinion.

But and because it's not like truth, you know, it's OK. But if it is actual facts, that is what you need to focus on. One tactic is if someone is mad and they're giving you, the feedback is to mentally and physically delete anything that's not factual and just mean what they read and process the rest. So you just need to process the things that are facts and not subjective. And whenever you do get feedback, always, always say thank you what someone has given you and taken the time to give you feedback, it's vital that you thank them and follow up with them, especially if you can tell them how it helped you improve and or change something.

Getting feedback is an important part of improving yourself. No one ever gives you any type of feedback.

If no one ever gives you any type of feedback that doesn't make you uncomfortable, then you might be hanging out with the wrong people. Then yes, people instead of those who really want you to succeed, can really give you critical feedback. So consider hiring like a coach or a mentor or someone or having a group of people that are willing to give you regular critical feedback that is honest, transparent and upfront. This can only help you moving forward, because one thing that we're not taught is how to take feedback and to learn from it to improve ourselves.

Our writing, our reading, our business, our everyday lives, we can all improve. None of us is perfect. So take what is given to you as feedback, work on it, adjust and move forward and reiterate. Go back and check with a person if that's what they meant. That's the way to move forward and improve. Thank you for listening. This is Janice@thecareerintrovert.com. If you have any questions for me, you want me to answer on the podcast, email me at Janice@thecareerintrovert.com.

Have a great rest of your week.

Plan your client journey Nov 17, 2020

today I want to discuss your customer journey. A lot of people, when they're thinking about starting a new business, they get very excited to do the website. They do the logo, they they have the product and they go out there and try and sell it, which is great.

But a lot of the time they don't think about the journey that the customer has to make. Either before or after or during the sale, and that's where you can figure out where there might be some issues. So, for example, OK, your client finds you, happens to find you via a blog post on that blog post page. Is there a way to contact you? Is there a way to grab your freebie? Is there a way to get one on one time with you?

If they own if the only thing they see is that blog post, how can they then get a hold of you? Is that even an option? Does a blog post lead to something that carries on from what the blog post topic was about, or is it something unrelated? Is there a special offer at the end of the blog post is an option to sign up for your newsletter. If they do sign up for your newsletter, do they get put into a welcome sequence or do they go straight into a sequence that leads on from that particular newsletter?

And if so, when do they get the welcome sequence to find out a little bit more about you? Do they get tagged in the system? If they do get Tegner system, what's the tag? Where's the workflow? You need to think about the workflow for your customer, your potential customer to make sure that you have everything in place required to make that happen and flow easily. You want your customer to find out more about you to feel like, know and trust, but also have a very consistent experience.

And so along with the emails, how do they then maybe buy a course from you or set up time with you? Is it easy? Do you always promote within your newsletter that the newsletter doesn't have to be happy about the course, but at the bottom of your newsletter, are there calls to action? Like if you want this information, click here. If you're more interested in this, click here. How do you go about segmenting your clients?

Because you might have people who are interested in travel overall, for example, but some might be more interested in train travel or plane travel. How do you go about segmenting people in that way and keeping them engaged? So the other thing is once they pay for a product, what happens? Do they get a welcome sequence from paying for that product or do they get something else or something similar as some of you could duplicate across all of your all of your products?

But they sort of get an email that's slightly tweaked. And what help and support do they get after that? Are all of your newsletter emails just by friendly neighborhood Spider-Man emails, or are they some of those kind of emails?

But every month you give an overview of what you're doing that month. How do you break up the information that you give to your potential clients and your newsletter followers? Do you have different newsletters for different things?

Once someone does start working with you, do they get a regular email? Do they get reminders for their appointments? How does that flow? What about payments? How do they regularly pay you? Do you invoice or is auto payment is a subscription.

So many coaches I know do manual payments and so they're sitting there once a month on different days of the month, like figuring out how much someone needs to pay and then running their credit card manually instead of just setting them up with paper subscription. So they pay once and then it comes out. And at the same time, every month, there are so many different ways to make your life easier and your client's life easier. But if you don't figure out your clients flow and how they get to you and what different ways they can get to you and their client journey, you have no way of plugging those gaps and no way of making it a seamless and hopefully mostly automated experience for your customers.

So before you get into selling in the flash sales on the phone, all of these things, figure out what your client journey looks like and then figure out if you have the tech stack to go with it, because that's the important thing. And once you figure out what you need, then you can make sure that you have a tech stack to support the framework that you have for your clients. Thank you for listening.

This is Janice@thecareerintrovert.com.

If you have any questions for me to answer on the show, please email me at janice@thecareerintrovert.com

Thanks for listening and have a great rest of the week.

Why you should have more than one income Nov 10, 2020

I want to talk about how your money shouldn't come from just one place. If recent events have taught us nothing, it is that nothing is guaranteed. So even if you do have that day job that that 9:00 to 5:00 paycheck, having that as the only way that you earn money is not a great thing, is having all your eggs in that one basket. And the reason why this might not be optimum for a lot of people is when that basket goes, you might be prepared, you want to have savings, and then you are left in this position where things are very dire very quickly.

And so while you're in that panic mode, it's very, very hard to go ahead and think clearly about what steps that you need to do next and how you need to move forward to make your situation better. And so there's a couple things that I'd like to talk about. One is sort of, yes, you can have your nine to five job as do you get money from other things, be it interest on some savings that you have, or do you have stocks where you you get dividends, maybe you rent out a place, maybe you have a little side business where you create jewelry and sell it on Etsy and whatever it is, it's something that is very low for you to maintain.

It is really interfere with your day job, but you get joy from it and it brings you in a little bit of income in some way, shape or form. And if you don't have that right now because you think it will take up too much time or money or resources with that sort of thing, something to think about is at some point in the future, it might be helpful. What happens if you cannot do your current role? So, for example, if your role is very much computer based, what happens if your eyesight goes or you get carpal tunnel syndrome?

Do you have something that you can do that uses different a different skill set or different physicality so that if one thing goes, you are still capable of doing other things? That is something else to think about. For example, if you super into your own health and you like writing books, yes, it's great that you can maybe write it using a computer, but could you write it? I'm doing voice to text. It's doing the same role, but doing it in a different way in case something happens.

You never know. Also, you know, do you have enough savings for six months worth of paying your bills, for example, should something happen and you don't work for six months, can you survive? Will you be OK? Because sometimes six months is that job search process, sometimes at six months, is being sick and getting better again and not having the pressure of going back to work too soon, which will make you ill again. These are all really important things to think about.

So many different ways that you can go ahead and start to think about different methods of having income and learning different sorts of money. And it's the same that goes for you. If you don't have that nine to five job and you are working for yourself as a business owner, you could have a couple of different income streams. Yes, you might be a musician, but maybe you could also do production work or live streams or teach. There are so many different ways that you can use your skills to help other people, but also to earn money.

It's really important to have that that variety and that diversity within your portfolio of the things that you do so that at any given time you can pivot and or switch depending on maybe your energy, how you're feeling, your health, your finances, the weather, where you want to be in the world or, you know, a global pandemic. This what's happened recently has caught a lot of people off guard, but it's also made a lot of people very, very quick decisions that I wouldn't normally make.

Some of it has been good and some of it has been bad. But just, you know, with this upcoming year, take a second and think about how financially secure are you? Is there any changes that you can make? Can you do courses online? Can you create PDS for other people? How can you be of assistance to others? That's one way of being able to possibly make money in a different way if you are a teacher. I know that there was a lot of unpaid work with being a teacher, but can you create resources for other teachers that other teachers can use and pay for?

So you have a little bit of money on the side. These are all just things to think about for your mental health and your financial health. Thank you for listening. This is Janice at The Career Introvert, helping introverts build their brand and get hired. Have a great rest of your week.

Why You MUST Treat Your Business Like a Client Nov 03, 2020

. Today, I want to talk about why you must treat your business like you would a client so many times when you have a couple clients, you're getting money coming in. You tend to go ahead and forego everything that you were working on with an on your business to have that time to work on your client's business, which is great. You are trying to keep your clients happy doing what you said you were going to do, hitting those targets and maybe exceeding those targets and keeping your clients happy, because keeping clients happy means that you will get paid.

But if these are one of jobs, something you need to think about is where is the next job coming from? And yes, you could think, well, if I do a good job at this client, there will be a referral involved, or maybe they'll have another project for me to do or maybe something else will happen. But you can't always rely on that. And so when you first starting out, you should be spending at least 40 to 50 percent on revenue generating stuff, marketing yourself, blog post, getting yourself out there, being a podcast, whatever it is.

But you should be out there trying to generate as much business and drum up as much business as possible. And so the further along in you are in your business is spending less time on generating leads. There are some businesses out there that very much work on. They generate all the leads all the time and they have stuff or a team that will go ahead and execute on the systems and the strategies that they are selling to that leads there other people who might get someone in to go ahead and generate leads for their business.

But you have to be really fine tuned to know what you're going to get them to sell and how they're going to sell and how it's going to work. So make sure now when you have a client on board them and you give them some milestones and you say this is going to happen at this date, at this time and these things are going to happen, you need to do the same thing for your business. So set up some time on your calendar.

That is non-negotiable. This is going to be time that you are going to sit and be like, I'm going to work on X, Y or Z on my business to move my business forward, to get more clients, to make myself more visible, to get myself out there, to write a case study, to write a couple blog posts, to schedule my Instagram, whatever it might be, but set aside this non-negotiable time at least once a week.

And it can be for an hour, an hour, week. It all makes a difference. We go ahead and set up this time in your calendar that is non-negotiable, that you will spend working on something for your business. Now, the other thing is don't just sit down and be like, OK, so this is my allotted time now. What do I do with it? You should have a clear plan of what you're going to do. So, for example, if you're thinking at a summit coming up and so I sit down like, OK, so I could finish the landing page or I could create a form or I could create a feedback loop or I could you know, there's all sorts of things that I should do, but I should have a very clear plan of action, of what needs doing when.

And so I'll sit down and do the first thing. Once I've finished that allotted time, I will go ahead and make a note of what the next step is. So when I sit back down a bit like, OK, now that's been done, I now need to do this other thing. Even if you finish like a part of a project, there's always something else to do. So make a note of what that is. And so, you know, the next time you sit down in your allotted work on your business time, that that happens because you don't want that famine and drought and feast thing go on feast and famine, low time, lots of businesses, one where they have all I have lots of clients and all the things and feeling overwhelmed.

But the money's coming in and then there's a drop off because you haven't been doing those those activities that help keep you top of mind with potential clients and keep you visible. So that is a delicate balance that you need to do and treat your business like a client you would hate if you missed a deadline for your client for doing whatever it might be, the blog post, the Instagram feed, whatever it might be. So why is it so easy for you to say it's OK?

It's for my business. It's OK because you're already working on something else that isn't how it should be. You need to think about your future self and your future self as a client and how you want to do the best for you as your business. Never mind your clients and you can't do that if you're wondering about where the next paycheck is coming from. So set aside time every week, even if it's just thirty minutes, preferably more, where you work on your business and treat yourself and your business like a client.

Treat it like the best client you ever had and you will see results. Thank you for listening. This is janice@thecareerintrovert.com helping introverts build their brand and get hired. Have a great rest of your week.

What to charge your friends Oct 27, 2020

I want to talk about friend rates, something happened recently and. Wanted to talk about how to deal with it when your friends ask you for work and they don't want to pay. So I was part of an online virtual summit and there was a pre-recorded section where I gave advice on finding businesses online. And then there was a free live Q&A segment where people could type in whatever questions they had, which was played directly after my pre-recorded session.

And a lot of people ask questions and some of that I knew from a long time ago. Maybe I hadn't spoken to them in maybe eight years as I go, hi, nice to see you, blah, blah, blah. OK, I didn't ask any questions, but this was a Q&A free for all and it lasted about 30 thirty to forty five minutes. And then after that I was answering specific questions within a Facebook group. This person decided to not ask questions during the Q&A, but go ahead and type in the Facebook group.

Oh hey, long time no see. I'd really like to pick your brain. Can we arrange some time to chat? And so they didn't ask a specific question that they wanted me to answer, they just wanted to pick my brain in general for free. Well, that's what it seemed they wanted to do to get some consulting, OK. Of course, here's the link, you know, to my calendar so you can set up some time. Here's like, oh, oh, but there's there's a cost.

I just I just wanted to pick your brain. And my response was, well, that wouldn't be fair to my paying customers and clients. I give away a lot of free content via email on my podcast. Why this particular summit that you attended for free and yet you would like to pick my brain for an hour with no cost. And I did not get a response from that person since, and I have not heard from them since now. One of my friends does when she has friends that ask for stuff like that is if you're doing a trade, for example, if you're saying I will do this thing, if I get this thing in return, she still invoices that because even though it's a trade and it's not necessarily cash going, she wants them to know the value of what she's doing.

So she'll still send them an invoice, an invoice for xx work that I did with the cost, but have how much it would be normally, but then have it like zeroed out. So people are aware of the cost of what you do. So when they refer you to other people, they can say, hey, she costs around this much to do this sort of work, because otherwise when you do get referrals, they have no idea of what you charge and what value you bring.

So that is a very, very good tip. You can give the friend discount if you wish, but make them aware of what you and your services are worth. Always invoice, even if they invoice get zeroed out or there's a discount. Put how much the discount is. If it's 70 percent, 50 percent, 20 percent, no discount because no one says you have to give your friends a discount is the other thing you can if you wish, or you can give them a rate that is compatible for where they live.

For example, if you have people who live in different countries, you might not want to charge US dollars. If your friend is living in a Gasca or whatever you think about it and be kind and sensible, but at the same time you know your worth and people will not know your worth unless you charge for it. So going back to the person who I gave my calendar link, what they did not know is I gave them a reduced rate calendar link.

They didn't even have the usual price that my clients pay. And I told them it was a reduced rate.

Still not enough interest. I highly recommend that to let people know what your worth is, charge them and if they say they want to pick your brain, let them do it for 50 minutes and then let them know that the next 50 minutes will cost X amount. No harm in letting people pick your brain a little bit, but don't let it get out of hand. Thanks for listening. This is Janice@thecareerintrovert.com. Have a great rest of your week.

Due Diligence Oct 20, 2020

Today, I want to talk about due diligence, and it's not a subject I've talked about before, but something happened recently that made me think this would be a good topic for everyone to think about right now, especially with more people working online and the holidays are coming, a lot more scams are out there. And so recently I got an email saying, hey, I was recently a business manager of successful Game of Thrones podcast.

And while I was there, I was able to bring in a certain amount of sponsorship money in just six weeks of the last season. I mean, it's a Game of Thrones podcast. You're probably going to bring in money regardless because it's jumping on something popular. But anyway, you said I've reached out now because I've launched a podcast network and would love for your podcast to be part of it. We currently have over 20 podcasts on the network and adding more shows weekly and in partnership with the podcasting platform.

And we are able to give all the podcasts in the network to ads. And they gave a certain amount of money for click click Theroux's per hundred thousand listeners. And so they were saying, you know, we'd love to have you on board. Essentially, we're bringing together, you know, high quality podcasts of different genres and that sort of a thing. And it will be great to have your podcast on there, too. And they wanted to say that, you know, because they'd have because there'd be a network that have better reach and better ability to go and like, fight in your corner and that sort of a thing, they think that my content is great and they would never ask to change anything about it at all.

In fact, I shouldn't even mention the network, but the thing I would have to do is move my podcast over to anchor from whatever I am hosting now.

And they said they have a, you know, an easy converter and all you have to do is do this thing and and it will happen. And then you'll be available on all platforms, know maximize your exposure on Apple, Spotify, overcast pocket cards, radio, public, et cetera, and you get real time stats and all these wonderful things. And again, it went on about how I could earn money through advertising, through my podcast. And they would also help with, like banners and logos and audio quality and all of these things.

And if interested, that I should respond to the email and they'd be happy to jump on a call that was a name. And there was a website like, have they really listen to my podcast? But OK, sure, whatever. And I went to the website and the website because really you get excited like, oh, you know, someone thinks I'm wonderful, I'm going to offer me money. So really, my first thought would have been to possibly just jump on a call, but no due diligence.

I went to look at the website and the website was terrible. It wasn't even a website. You know, those websites where they've got they haven't figured out what they're going to put yet. It says the ipsum and blah, blah, blah, because they haven't figured it out on the website. That's what happened. And interestingly enough, the email came from a Gmail account. They gave a name of a podcasting network. And the name of the podcast network also doesn't really go with my brand.

So I found that really interesting. And so I went and used the website address. In fact, now when I look at it again, the site cannot be reached. Originally it just had this, like, fake site up there with no information, no podcasts, and it was like a slap up landing page. And so they were asking me to move my podcast over and possibly give up like access to my podcast so I could be on their network, which doesn't exist.

So due diligence, friends and people, I highly recommend this is something you you should do. Whenever you are making a business decision, go and look at the website. Go and see if you know anyone who knows this person. Go on LinkedIn and see if you have similar connections, see if there are any referrals or testimonials. Also, go with your gut. You know, sometimes it still looks so nice and shiny, but you got so they're not really doing your due diligence because really what I should have done or emailed them back.

What do you love about my podcast? Because ninety nine point nine percent of the time, whenever I do that, people don't have a clue because I also get a lot of people going, hey, I want to be a guest on your podcast. I really love your podcast. And I think blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And of course, I respond, oh, tell me which episode that you listen to that you liked.

Because obviously if they want to be a guest, they haven't listened to my podcast. So during due diligence, doing due diligence is something that is highly important. I will stop you going down some black holes and getting ripped off. That was a quick rant. Thanks for listening. If you have any questions or anything you want me to cover on the podcast, message me at janice@thecareerintrovert.com. Have a great rest of your week.

Why all businesses should have a podcast Oct 13, 2020

Today, I'm going to talk about a little give you a little slice of something that I talk about very often in front of other professional groups. That's podcasting. Surprise, surprise. And the reason I talk about it and this little snippet is I feel like almost every business should have a podcast every business I hear you cry. Yes. And this is the reason why there's many reasons. One of the reasons is accessibility.

And so a podcast doesn't have to be a podcast in the traditional sense that you are listening to right now. A podcast could simply be having your your blog and having an audio version of your blog so that people can listen to it rather than read it. It's about accessibility, but other reasons why all businesses should have some form of a podcast is a lot of people have smart speakers in the House, especially in the United States. And so smart speakers are evolving.

Now, you get families listening to podcasts, the elderly who can't like press buttons, they can now just talk to their smart speaker and say, I would like to listen to blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And the smart speaker will play it for them. It's a great one on one medium. There's nothing like feeling that you have that personal connection with the podcast that you are listening to that in your ears and in your head.

It's very, very personal and in this day and age right now. But we are not doing a lot of in-person stuff. Getting to you reach your clients and your potential customers personally is great. It's not necessarily better than being in person, but it is an actual other way to get in that gives people a look behind the scenes of what you're doing and what you're talking about and gives them a real insight into what it might be like to work with you if you have a service business.

But even not just that, it could be, you know, what your thoughts are, what your ethics are, what you stand for and you believe in all really important. There are definitely companies that I refuse to work with because I do not like the ethics or the way that they do things. And so having a podcast is a different way to get that information. Or you can use it to highlight your clients. You can use it to highlight your customers and give when stories.

Everyone needs a little cheering up right now, so why not bolster other people? But one thing that I have seen that has been amazing is some podcasts create resources for other people so they become a resource hub. And so not only do they have the podcast, but then you can download PDF and worksheets and things to go and work on whatever it is that they're talking about. And so they could be a resource hub on travel that could be a resource hub on working from home, whatever it might be, they are the go to place to do that thing.

Another way thing could be it could drive forward your mission. If your mission is to feed 50 people a week or show 50 people how to do X, Y and Z will be financially accurate or do the taxes or whatever it might be. This is a great way to reach more people that aren't in your sphere and your circle. Another website that I've seen that has used podcasting in a really unique way. Well, until, like I tell everyone now is it's a service provider and you can work one on one with her as a business coach.

You can do a group program with her or she has this like DIY section. And the DIY section is literally a podcast embedded in her website. I don't know if it's available anywhere else and it's embedded in her website. And so she walks you through sort of working with her. But because it's very general, it's not tailored as it would be if you were working with her one on one. But it gives you a great idea of the things you could learn and what it's like working with her, but kind of for free.

It's wonderful. So there are so many different ways that you can use the product, you can use it to tell stories. You have a book maker podcast out of it. Reading to kids, reading stories to kids has been used as a podcast. There are so many different things that you can do. Someone did stories from chefs like while they were making food, they could tell you the story behind like the the thing that they were making wonderful thing.

Then they could turn it into a magazine. Then you can do other things with it. But all businesses should have audio available in some way, shape or form for people to consume content about either them or their clients, their mission, their products, anything of that nature, their processes. And yeah, that is what I think is really helpful, especially now. So you're going to go and start a podcast. Do you want to know how to do that?

You can contact me, but thank you for listening. This is Janice@thecareerintrovert.com. Do you have any questions? Feel free to. Email me at Janice@thecareerintrovert.com or anything you want me to cover on the podcast. Thanks for listening and have a great rest of your week.

Why have a personal development plan Oct 06, 2020

Today, I'm going to talk about personal development plans, and the reason I want to talk about this is because development plans tend to be something that I've seen very negatively, especially in the workplace. If you are put on a performance development plan or a performance improvement plan, it means that your role at work is at risk. But having a personal development plan is something that you should have anyway. And so I want to talk about some ways of how you can go about building your own.

It's a process that you will work on for your entire life, but it will help you assess skills and qualities that will help you build the lifestyle and the career that you want and that you will make you happy and give you a high quality of life. A personal development plan can help you with all aspects of your life and help you become more self aware not only at home, but at work. So a well-designed personal development plan will address your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and roadblocks, just like a SWOT analysis.

And so the idea is identifying your strengths so you can improve on them your weaknesses so that you can make up for them in some way, shape or form, whether that be learning or doing something else, also explore new opportunities so that you realize when a door window is open and you can go ahead and explore something else, as well as noting any roadblocks, threats that are in along the way. Now, this is something that you should actually do on a regular basis.

And then the other thing, or one of the really great things about creating and the purpose of having a personal development plan is to recognize those development areas. So once you've performed your SWOT in each area of your life, you'll discover internal and external things that are blocking your success. And these can be things like you might have a belief that you hold on to own insecurity, and so it could be something like you might hold the belief that you will never have enough money to save for the future.

And because of that, when you do get, like extra unexpected money, you tend to blow it right away on things that you feel you've missed out on before or just spend it. Now, this is a somewhat limiting belief about money. And a lot of people have it because most people think that money is a finite source. And, you know, you do have the opportunity to make more in various ways. So that's something to think about when you are creating a personal development plan.

The other great thing is it helps you identify your resources. So when you are creating a personal development plan, you might do some work that helps you look at the resources that you have available to a specific task. For example, if you decide you want to start a coaching business, what resources do you have where you can start straight away or and what things do you need? What things can you live without? One, a nice house. What are deal breakers?

What can you do for yourself and what does somebody else need to do? And this works in almost every single aspect of your life. You may realize you already have the skills to do exactly what you wanted to do. However, you might also realize that you need to pay for additional brainpower, i.e. resources of other people or a course or workbook or something of that nature. But identifying the resources you have and what you need to get where you want to be is crucial in developing a plan that will work for you.

Also, doing a personal development plan will help you create better relationships. And this is because you then have a clearer idea of what you need to move forward. And so when you're managing your relationships, it helps you realize, OK, well, I'll need this for the future or this might be useful for right now. And just becoming self aware enough that not everyone likes what you say or do and you need to treat people differently is super helpful.

Now, whatever you want to work on and however you want to build up your career, what you're doing can be done by using a personal development plan. Whether you want to lose weight, start a business, change jobs, go back to school or anything else. The goal doesn't matter as much as developing the plan that you need to get where you want to go. Your plan will not be the same as anyone else's because it's unique to you, because you are different.

And that's why it's so unique and important that you create your personal development plan. Thank you for listening. This is Janice@thecareerintrovert.com. If you have any questions, please email me at janice@thecareerintrovert.com. Anything you want me to say on the show. Apart from that, have a great rest of your week.

How to improve creative thinking Sep 29, 2020

Hello and welcome to The Traveling Introvert. Today, I want to talk about ways to improve your creative thinking. So for the longest while I've always said that I'm not creative and I realize now it's a slightly limiting belief that I have on myself, I don't see myself. See, even now I'm saying I don't see myself as being creative, and yet people will point out all the things that I have created. So here are some things that I have done that have helped me improve my creative thinking.

So you might find times when you find yourself lacking creativity and it can be for different reasons. Or it could be that you haven't been using your creative muscles regularly and you've forgotten how to tap into those things. And so there are many things that you can do to sort of improve and dig into doing that creative thinking.

Again, one of the best ways is to keep yourself inspired. And so I create a ritual every day that you can use and regularly and routinely several routines that inspire you, condition your brain to tap into your creativity easily. And some examples of a ritual might be reading in the morning or listening to music every day or meditating for five minutes, or just sitting and being and deep breathing throughout the day. So if you can see if you can create something every day, even if you only have five or 10 minutes to do so, it keeps your creativity muscle, so to speak, alive and inspired.

And you don't have to be creating a masterpiece. This is this is something that people sort of get caught up on. They think it has to be this wonderful thing, whatever it is that you create, it could be something as simple as a doodle or writing a short article, drawing a mind map in meetings, developing new product ideas, or reorganizing your files, taking photographs of the sunset or, you know, a plant that's growing in your house.

These are all ways of being creative. Everything is to take breaks often, and I can't recommend this enough, especially when you feel stuck with a problem and can't kind of figure out the solution. And I think I've spoken about this before. Taking breaks allows your mind to focus on something else while getting inspiration and like working in the background. It's also good to take a break from all the digital chatter that allows regularly has. So getting outside and unplugging at least once a week just for work.

You know, if you can do it at some point daily or even if it's 10 minutes, 20 minutes, an hour, whatever it is to help build your creative thinking muscle without digital binging and annoying you all the time. And whenever you do feel inspired, make a list of these ideas on a notebook or an app or something. Uses ideas as a launching pad for new ways of doing things or new products or new podcast episodes, whatever it is that inspires you.

The other thing that your creative mind loves and thirst for, which is probably being a little hard recently, is to have fun, have fun regularly, and finding different ways to do that, depending on the circumstances you're in, can be difficult. But laughing a good conversation, bouncing ideas off each other, bills and inspires your creativity while relaxing and having fun in different ways. It can be with other people. You can have a back and forth conversation on what's up with someone.

It doesn't have to be real time, but finding a way to instill and inspire fun and relaxation in your life will help you. The other thing you can do, and this is really interesting, is the three F's to ask questions, to inspire your thoughts on a concept. And it helps build your creative thinking by answering things like this. What would happen if I change X, Y and Z, like the software, the color, the whatever it might be?

But what would I change or improve about it if I wanted to use it in 10 years? This is really good for software like you might have software you like. How does it work now when it works for me in five years, 10 years, think about those things. What would I do if I had a one million dollar investment to improve it or at twenty dollar investment to improve it? These are really the what if questions these questions or ones like them can be powerful tools to help you think just a little bit differently repeatedly using these questions and these types of questions test in all type of situations, ideas will begin to flow and enable you to think more creativity.

The other thing is take advantage of the peak hours when you feel most productive and creative, when you need to find a solution. Some people are more creative during times of emotional stress or whatever that time is. Use it to let your creative juices flow, put on some music, surround yourself with inspiring things and be creative. Interact with creative and inspiring people on a regular basis just to get fresh ideas and outlooks and perspectives. These interactions and exchange of ideas will help you refocus on the creative ideas that work best for you and help you narrow down what you want to do.

And don't be afraid of taking risks to improve your creative thinking. When you avoid taking risks, you end up suppressing your ideas. Risks give you permission to think so to speak outside the box and embrace your creative ideas. So people are more creative than others, naturally, and that is fine. But anyone can be a creative thinker. Build your creativity in ways that help you to be inspired and create all the time. Thank you for listening. This is Janice@thecareerintrovert.com.

Looking forward to hearing from you. If you have any questions, email me at janice@thecareerintrovert.com. Have a great rest of your week.

Introvert ways to deal with overwhelm Sep 22, 2020

Hello and welcome to The Traveling Introvert. Today, I want to talk about different ways to deal with overwhelm and overwhelm can come in many different shapes and sizes. It could be overwhelmed from all the tasks and the projects that you've taken on and not setting good boundaries. It could be overwhelmed from overstimulation, from too much music, noise, crowds, that sort of thing.

There are so many different types of overwhelm and know the difference between what that experience is and how you feel after that experience is highly important. But one of the things that's really helpful is, you know, acknowledging the chaos outside or inside. Be honest with yourself about it. If you're feeling overwhelmed, overstimulated, pushed to the brink, acknowledge that fact instead of trying to push through and just getting it done, acknowledge how you're feeling, get in tune with it, maybe sit for a minute and think, why might I be feeling this?

Is it the music or is it the type of music or is it the volume of the music? It could be a small thing that needs changing that would make all the difference. Is it because you're hyper focused on it and you need to just go somewhere else? Acknowledging it and and not pushing through is a great thing.

Pushing through can be detrimental. Pushing through stops you from adjusting your actions and prioritizing yourself. So don't do it. Stop. Take a breath. Figure out exactly what it is that is causing that discomfort, that overwhelmed that feeling of that feeling, of of that brick wall, that tiredness that you're feeling. That's really helpful. Getting in tune with that. If you don't acknowledge what you're feeling, you can still burn out and then you can easily go about berating yourself or feeling down about it rather than acknowledging it going, OK, this is what's happening.

What steps do I need to do to make that change? And something to think about also is a lot of the time when we're feeling overwhelmed, overstimulated, the the thing that we like to do is just shut everything down, like I'm going to go into a cold, dark place and leave me the hell alone.

You don't necessarily need to do that. Sometimes you do. But once you kind of pull in, maybe you end up not seeing the bigger picture, maybe go on a downward spiral. Maybe everything he's thinking just, you know, you start overthinking and thinking bad thoughts.

So, yes, you might need to shut down and get some inner peace, but also reach out, explain yourself, tell another person, say, hey, I'm going to do X, Y and Z because I need a B, and F, whatever that might be. Letting someone else know what you're doing, why you're doing it and how you're feeling is huge. Because then next time, if you say to that person, hey, I'm doing this because of X, Y and Z, they might say, well, last time you did this, this and this, did it not work out for you or is a different thing or what should we try this time?

And just making people aware of how you're feeling lets them know that you care and that you are including them and you're not just blocking everybody out. So that is something that I highly, highly recommend.

Now, that's just some like spur of the moment feeling overwhelmed sort of a thing. But what about enable yourself to prevent exhaustion and overwhelm to a degree, because you can't always know that it's going to happen. I know I've definitely tried some things sort. I've been consistent that one day it's like, no, this week has been different and so it's not working.

So it's really important to schedule some you know, they call it self care time. Your own time, whatever it is, is sort of a mini retreat, even if you don't have the time or finances or things to do it like a vacation, you can probably set aside a day or two for a mini you retreat. And here's some things that you can do for that retreat. Maybe take a two day hiatus from social media, an email or just like devices so that you can read and wander and daydream and do whatever it is that makes you and your body feel good rather than being at the beck and call of your devices.

You know, do a lot of brainstorming and reading outside or in bed, so it feels like it's a treat rather than a chore, you know, take yourself and do cool stuff for the day, go for a picnic, go for a walk, treat yourself to ice cream or whatever it is.

These are things that give you the space and the brain space as well to go ahead and deal with everything else in your life, giving your brain that time to think and do what it pleases without being at the beck and call of a device or other people is invaluable. So thank you for listening. This is janice@thecareerintrovert.com helping introverts build their brand and get hired.

If you have any questions for me or things you'd like me to cover on the show, please email me at janice@thecareerintrovert.com.

Have a great rest of your week.

Partitioning work and non-work Sep 15, 2020

Hello and welcome to the traveling introvert, today, I want to talk about separation of business and personal, and I want to come around to it from a tech point of view. So I was remembering the days when I used to go to work at a desktop computer, do the work, finish the work, go home, go about my life. And then SARS happened and I had to bring my desktop computer home. So at work, my desktop computer, I had my own personal laptop.

So I do the work finished on that. I put my laptop.

Never the twain should meet. Let's go forward another few years, then I have a work laptop and a home laptop, and again, I would do my work on my work laptop and I would do non-work stuff on my home laptop. Never the twain should meet somewhere along the line that got blurred. I started my own business and then I had one laptop and that one laptop did business and personal. And it happened so gradually that you don't even realize that it's a problem.

And that's how the line between personal and business gets really blurred, especially now using this one particular laptop for everything. So one thing that I've been told can be useful I'm actually going to try it is to have separate user logins for my laptop. So one user will be all business, the suit and the tie. It will have all my logins, my last pass, access to whatever it is I need all the software installed a certain desktop image all that good stuff.

And then another user on the same laptop, but with a different desktop, maybe beach or traveling or, you know, whatever latest book that I want to read. And it could have like my gaming accounts and access to my gaming accounts, because then what I could do on my business side is to block certain websites. So there's websites that I probably shouldn't be looking at, or rabbit holes that I shouldn't be going down while I'm working so I could block that access, but then have that access on my other user account to try and get that separation between work and non-work, especially just for like personal learning or watching YouTube videos.

Because I have access to a lot of different accounts in general because of my work and the work that I do for my clients. So making sure that I'm not accidentally watching a certain video on my clients like YouTube channel because I was working on it during the day and then in the evening I just went and looked at YouTube. This is a really easy way of keeping that line of delineation. And I've heard about this from a I was gonna say fellow podcasting and I was like, I don't know the person, but technically they have podcasts, content creators.

They are fellow podcasts. And I think it makes a very valid point. Demarcating the difference between personal and business is, I think, good for mental health gives you more space. And you you feel that break, OK I'm not working anymore because even though I might not look at my business email, I know it's there. I can access it at the click. And yes, a user isn't quite as good. Obviously, I would love a separate laptop, but not on the cards.

Right now, though, what I could do in time is what I do like to do is to buy a laptop, a new laptop before my old one dies. And I some people like to wait until their actual laptop dies and then panic and buy a new one. But I you know, you see the warning signs. It's been three to five years , probably starting to run a little slower. So maybe at that point what I would do is make one laptop, a work laptop, the brand new one, and the fresh install and the fun stuff, and then keep my old laptop just for fun.

That is something that I'm also thinking about doing after I get through a couple of financial stuff that I think is a good idea.

So moving forward, I'd love to know what you do to delineate or stop, you know, the bleed between work life and non-work life. Any tips, any hints, anything you want to try, anything you've heard about to try, any experiments? Because I think it's it's hugely important and it's an area we forget about. Like with your phone, my phone specifically. I know with Android I have the option of having a work profile and a non profile, and I use them very, very separately on purpose on my phone.

Why don't do that on my computer. I don't know. This is just a little light bulb moment that I wanted to share with you all. So thank you for listening. If you have any questions, please email me at Janice@thecareerintrovert.com. Have a great rest of your week and thanks for listening.

Days off Sep 08, 2020

Hello and welcome to the traveling introvert. Today, I want to talk about time off. It was Recently brought to my attention that I don't take a lot of time off. And looking back at it, it's been for a couple of reasons. So for the past month, I have been trying to take Sunday as my day off where I don't do I don't respond to emails. I don't look at business stuff. I might dabble with some new software, but I generally get up late and let the day flow where it may.

I mean, I generally don't have to cook because we've gotten takeout for the whole weekend. I might bake, but because I enjoy doing it, there is nothing that is specifically calling my attention. My mind can wander where it wishes and I can do what I feel like. I could get up, go out, take a walk, exercise all that stuff. I could stay in bed and do nothing. And depending on the weeks I have done many, all or none of those things.

There was also one week where I did work on that Sunday as a favor for somebody, and it ruined my week afterwards and from then on, because, you know, when you take time off, you don't realize how beneficial it is. So you think, oh, no, it's OK. Like just this once it will be fine. No, never again. It ruined my week afterwards. So I then realized, OK, this is something that I need to keep, which is great.

But Sunday is just one day. And as someone who no longer does nine to five, I forget, you know, it didn't really do not have long enough. I forget that a lot of people have two or three days off a week. And when you're running your own business and your computer is always on and everything else, you kind of don't. And I know I talk about having better boundaries. So this is this is a thing. And I've talked or will be talking about how how I'm going to separate my computer.

But let's talk about days of actual full days off. So I don't think I can figure out in my calendar two full days off that would disrupt me and all my clients. And I don't think I'd get the full benefit from it. I love Sundays A because I Sundays B because other people aren't going to be harassing me on Sunday. But also it's a time in our household where, like I said, this food already sort of have to think about cooking and other stuff.

But I think for another full day off, I don't think it would work. But I'm quite happy to take maybe two afternoons off a week, and it doesn't mean I won't work. It just means I will maybe ignore business stuff or I will only work on or read stuff or just, you know, try and meditate or do stuff for me and my mental health and my physical health.

So I was looking at my calendar and trying to figure it out and along with fitting in with meetings that I already have a lot of standing meetings. And so this also came about because for the past couple of months, you know, with everything that's been going on in the world, I haven't had as intense work as I would normally. And that now seems to be back on the upswing. I've got maybe three or four projects that in the next will be finalized in the next week.

That could make my life very busy. If I am not organized and me being me, I will take on these projects and then not have time off or just, you know, power through which can be done, but isn't necessarily the best thing to do. Also, over these past few months, I've discovered better ways of working and that I need like a two hour block to get stuff done. If I'm doing hotchpotch stuff, I just I don't feel as productive.

I'm not working as well. So I need like maybe block out my clients two hours for this client, two hours for that client to hours for the other client. And that should work better for the kind of work that I want to do and mentally keeping me like sharp. So my plan is to have my one day off a Sunday, which I currently have for various reasons, and then to take two afternoons off a week. Now I say afternoons for some of you that mean from midday.

But as I don't really like to get up before 10:00, that would really be like a whole day off.

So I kind of me from like 4:00 in the afternoon, which does count as a half day because some of my clients are in California. So, yeah, still a half day. That's what I am thinking of doing. If you do not work nine to five and you do work for yourself, I'd love to know when the last time you took a day off was. Do you take half days off in the middle of the week? Do you take full days off in the middle of the week?

There is someone I know that is taking weekend Wednesday and having Wednesdays off in the middle of the week also. And I hate to say this because I don't really see this in my future, but when's the last time you took a whole week off and the world did not burn? I would love to know. Please message me at janice@thecareerintrovert.com. Thank you for listening and have a great week.

What I have learned about inbox zero Sep 01, 2020

Hello and welcome to the traveling introvert. Today, I want to talk about things I've learned about inbox zero, and I previously done an episode on inbox zero and am it inbox zero? I totally understand. Does not work for everybody. I just want to talk about my experience with Inbox Zero. So for the past, I guess six months I've managed to hit Inbox zero. You know, I'd say consistently two or three times within that time period and I would get it. And I would be

like, yes! Give it two or three days or a week. And it's back to inbox, not zero. I want to put any numbers in there, but and I didn't mind. I was like, OK, well, I got to inbox zero, but stuff's going on and, you know, so on and so forth. However, I'm happy to say this is the first week that I've managed to have inbox zero all week. And I'm so stoked about it because it means that it is for me anyway, obtainable and sustainable, which is really important.

So here are the few things that I have learnt from my experience with Inbox zero. One. It's much harder for emails to get lost in the shuffle or get further down my inbox because my inbox is zero. Most of the time when it isn't like Oh, I got this email great, I don't check my mailbox as often because I don't feel overwhelmed by all the emails that are there. Or I might miss something and it might slip down the rabbit hole.

And one thing I really realized is how much easier it is for me to unsubscribe to emails that I don't want anymore. I know that there are apps out there that you can use to help you unsubscribe from things, but you might not get emailed as frequently or you might forget or it slips through the cracks. And so when you see an email and I'm like, who is that person? Why am I getting emails from them? It is so much easier for me to just go and click, unsubscribe and then never see it again because it has popped up in my mailbox.

And I think that is one of the key things about having inbox zero. Now, the first few days I'd go to sleep and then wake up and obviously have 40 or 50 or 60 emails in there. And I would make a point of being like, I am going to go in there and clear them out. And as the days have gone by, when I wake up in the morning, there are less and less emails in there. It's also part of the process was moving some of my business emails to my business email and keeping some of my personal emails in my personal, because that was a can be a blurred distinction sometimes because, you know, some people in person.

But you want to do a business thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So those are the things that I have learnt from my experience with Inbox zero in my personal mailbox. Now in my business mailbox, I also got to mailbox zero there, but it has been harder to maintain and I haven't figured out why yet. It could be because a lot of things that I want to get back to and I do use the snooze function, which I love, but it still doesn't quite work.

I also use streak for Gmail because I'm currently creating a lot of events and all those people I want to keep track of and see what stage they're at. So that helps with reminders. But I still haven't been as consistent with inbox zero, so I haven't gone above, say, mailbox ten, but it's still not the pretty mailbox zero thing. So that's what I'm working on for my business email. I mean, there is obviously the you know, I have multiple emails that I check, but these are my two main ones of my business, my personal, so personal.

I think I have nailed it, it is that the business needs a little more tweaking. So maybe it takes two weeks instead of one week for me to deal with mailbox zero. Now, like I said before, it is not and will not work for everybody. It happens to work for me right now and I look forward to continuing to work for me in the future. I know people that don't archive their mail or they don't go in and ruthlessly unsubscribe or think they're going to come back to a thing.

And as someone mentioned that they have a deal with or next folder, that they put some things in that they want to do or deal with when they they have a time set aside for things to do with my email. And they go in the next folder. I might play with that for my business, for my business email, but I'm scared that I won't check the next folder. So I need to figure out a way to, like, either put it in my calendar, like check next folder and there's a set time every day or I don't and I make it a color and then have a notification or reminder or something.

I mean, I know there's multiple ways of doing this. I just haven't figured out what's going to work for me. But that is my experience and the things that I have learnt from Inbox zero. Thanks for listening. If you have any questions or anything you want me to answer on the podcast, email me at Janice@thecareerntrovert.com Helping introverts build thier brand and get hired. Have a great rest of your week.

Don't work on your passion project on the weekend Aug 25, 2020

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How monthly planning can ease stress Jul 21, 2020

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Introvert Remote Leadership Communication Jul 14, 2020

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The Future of Coworking Jul 07, 2020

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How to avoid burnout as an introvert leader Jun 30, 2020

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Naming a podcast Jun 23, 2020

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Setting expectations Jun 16, 2020

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Negotiation Tips Jun 09, 2020

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I Love Food Jun 02, 2020

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Breaking Bad Habits May 26, 2020

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How To Recover From Setbacks May 19, 2020

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Building Teamwork May 12, 2020

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Work space routine May 05, 2020

Hello, I want to talk about routines for your desk. Most of us now are working from home. And we probably have a work space, it might be the work space of your dreams because you've had time to craft it. Or it might be your kitchen table. And so, because of this in the current situation, one of the major sources of overwhelm for many people is clutter. piles of stuff everywhere means they're not conducive. It's not conducive to concentration and the sense of calm and organization so you can get things done. And there are many techniques and you can, you know, use to cut down the clutter. But here's a couple of simple things that you can do to make a major difference to your workspace in general. Set aside at least 15 minutes of your workday. putting things away time, stop, especially if you have a lot of like pens and papers, notes and cups and sources and that sort of thing. And start by stripping up everything that is on your desk and other surfaces and finding a home for it. And eventually what happens is instead of having to decide where stuff goes, everything will have a place. And that will cut down into the decision making that you have to do. And for most of us, to be honest, the last 15 minutes of a work day isn't the most productive part of the day anyway, you're probably worn out from your your day and looking for a mindless task to do to finish your day. So for these last 15 minutes, get up from your desk and get physical putting away the things that you use during the day that will help stretch and you know, get the blood flowing. Not only does it help you stay organized, but it also provides a psychological benefit. You're cleaning up your tidying up with signals to the brain that your workday is finished. It becomes a ritual. And this ritual sends you off with a tidy workspace after a long day at work. Another great benefit is obviously the next time when you come and sit down at your workspace, it'll be neat and tidy and everything will be in its place, especially when you come back the next morning, which What better way to start the day. In fact, you might even extend this ritual a little more than just putting things away. Once you get into the flow of doing this daily and seeing results, you might want to add another 15 minutes and dedicate this time to some deeper organizing. And you could extend it to do stop mindless tasks that get lost in the shuffle, like backing up files or watering plants. What you could also do is use that time to help set up your next day. One great thing to do and get into the habit of doing is planning your day the day before. And the reason I say this is a lot of the time you'll you'll come into work or come to your workspace, open your laptop and look at your email. And overnight, there's probably another 510 15 2035 emails in there that you have to go through. And all of a sudden your email becomes your to do list. And whatever else it is that you plan to do kind of gets left behind. And before you know it, it's lunchtime, then you haven't even started on the task, or the projects that you were going to do that day. So if you plan in advance the day before, or what it is that you want to work on, it means that you're primed and ready, you're gonna sit down and have to do these things. And maybe don't even open your emails until you've done an hour's worth or 100 minutes worth of other work of that project that you wanted to do. Or that organizing or that setting up a project management tool or whatever it is that you wanted to do. Why don't you try just for a week doing other tasks before opening your email and see what a difference that makes for your feeling of being overwhelmed. And I know it can be hard, because the anxiety kicks in and you desperately want to open that email. And to help you with this you could download, especially if you're using Gmail, there's a pause app that you can use that will pause your email, so it doesn't look like you've had any emails overnight. And so then when you're ready, click the pause and you know, all the email will come flooding in. So those are just a few suggestions of how to start creating your routines for your work space. Now that you're in a different place. I'd love for you to email me and let me know any other routines that you have, or things that you'd like to try things that you've heard of. Please feel free to email me at Janice@thecareerintrovert.com, helping introverts build their brand and get hired. Thank you for listening and have a great and healthy week

How to juggle multiple projects Apr 28, 2020

Hello, and welcome to the not so traveling introvert. Today I want to talk about managing multiple projects or multiple clients. Because a lot of people are now working from home. And this is for you freelancers out there, you consultants out there. And to be honest, even if you are a career person working in a department, you might have more than one boss, or even within that department working on more than one project. So I want to talk about a couple of things with having a simple method for managing multiple projects to make sure you don't feel overwhelmed. One of the biggest causes of overwhelm is managing multiple projects at the same time, and they might not have the same timeline and that sort of a thing. And there's hardly a business owner or Freelancer who doesn't have to work this way, at least some of the time. So how do you go about managing multiple projects without feeling you know? overwhelmed, don't multitask. That's the first thing as this contributes to more stress. Instead, give each project the time it needs every day in order to feel like you're making progress. So let's say you have three projects A, B, and C. Ooh, imaginative. All right, so set a time limit such as an hour or 20 minutes for you to each project, whenever project a one off project D when after project C, setting aside daily time for each project, in a balanced way prevents one from taking over your whole day and preventing you from getting anything done on the others because you know, once you start fires occur, or you need to wait for emails and that sort of thing. It also helps you make take control of your daily schedule, because there's other things that you'll be doing. And this ensures that the other things that you must get done you have time for as well. And you know, you need to consider does each project need an hour do certain projects need more, you can adjust these time boxes accordingly. And you might set more time for a project that is bigger or has a closer day. deadline, that is for sure. But try and give roughly the same amount of time each day. And when you're approaching a deadline for the, for a, for example, you'll have a sense of how far you've come and how far you need to go. And if you need to make adjustments. Now, you also need to think about if you have more projects coming down the line, can you fit your schedule and plan ahead. For example, if you had a project slated to start Friday, can you block out time starting Friday to give that bit of daily time it already needs and I talked about sort of blocks of time and that's the other part of dealing with different projects and that sort of thing. You know, it's a case of time blocking what you're doing. And I find this really important and I do it myself and sometimes I forget and I have to go back. And there's only so many hours in the day and so much needs to be done. And as I said before, you know you might spend too much time on task a and then you get nothing done on task or project being seen. Nevermind the routine daily stuff that you need to do. Do So, time blocking involves taking each regular task and giving it its own time block in which to work on it. And this works great because it takes each task and treats them all equally. And so you get some work done on something. For example, say your daily to do list is something along these lines, social media work information on a product, you're creating work for client project, think about marketing and conduct market research, right? That's each of these items are super important. However, the client project and the information product a big task and you should work on those each day, you might want to put the client work first because it has a deadline and it means you get paid, and there's consequences if you don't finish. But what if you get engrossed in it and realize it's much bigger than it expected and it eats up into your social media and planning time. So Time, time tracking or time blocking helps you balance all your to dues by assigning each one a daily timeframe and it could look something like 30 days for social media, one hour for the information project, 90 minutes for client work 30 minutes planning your business and like an hour for research. With time blocking, you can make steady progress on each task and nothing that way can kind of slip through the cracks. The other huge benefit is you don't need to multitask because you know that you're going to spend another 9am to 930 on one thing, and you will be focused on that designated activity. So these are a couple of ways that can help you focus and get more done. Try the these time management strategies and see how it works for you to do this, you know, give it a week or two and see what happens. All right, thank you for listening. This is Janice from the not so traveling internet. And I am founder of the career introvert helping introverts build their brand and get hired. If you have any questions, please email me at Janice@thecareerintrovert.com Thank you for listening and I will see you next week.

What is your working style? Apr 21, 2020

Hello, and welcome to the traveling introvert. I should say they're not so traveling internet. Today, I would love to talk about your work style. I know that okay, we, we all might know those with the lesson that we are introverts. And that can dictate to a degree, our work style. But I'm not just talking about that. I'm not just talking about the fact that you might be a morning person or a night owl, on about a combination of all of these things. And I know that it can take years to figure this out, and it shouldn't really you just actually have to pay attention to yourself and your body and what your mind and your body is telling you. Sometimes we end up feeling like overwhelmed and stressed out because we're forcing ourselves to work in a way that no other Natural but doesn't jive with our general flows and rhythms. And working styles vary from person to person, knowing your own welcome start working style enables you to work with it rather than against it. And it helps you tell others what you need to work better rather than them, you know, going against the grain and also helps when you are leading or managing other people if they know their own styles, and they can tell you what they need rather than you having to guess. But how do you go ahead and discover? You know what works for you. And I'll tell you now, no productivity expert can tell you what your own style is. Because it's possible just like a lot of things. It's very individual and personal to you. However, there are some things that you should think about, and that will help you figure out what your style is, and there's not necessarily a name for the style. It's just the case of these are things that work for you. So first thing is Your best working times. Everybody has a time that's the most productive time to work. It's when the most can do their most focused work. It could be in the morning, it could be at night, it could be late morning or early afternoons. I know for me, it is probably from about 7pm to about midnight. I'm not exactly a night owl, but I'm leaning towards that anything in the morning is not the best time to get me or not cognitive and creative and just for different things. And it does depend on the tasks you're doing some tasks, you might find that you do better in different times of day. You also need to think about how you recharge. Just as we all have our different style of working and taking a break. You need to think about how often you need to recharge and how you do it. Do you happen to know your natural energy cycles? Can you work for 15 minutes, 20 minutes, 30 minutes an hour and without too Taking a break? Or do you need to do just like eating little? And often, it really does depend but figuring that out, and also what things recharge you better? Is it getting up and stretching? Is it totally getting away from the screen and reading a book or coloring? Or going and putting your feet on fresh grass? Knowing what recharges you and how quickly and from what type of task is really insightful and something that you should try and pay attention to? Are you an independent kind of worker? Are you a collaborator? Do you work well with others? Or would you rather work alone? Along with that think about which tasks are better for group work and which are best done solo? Because sometimes they're not what you think it is. Another thing to be really cognizant of and pay attention to is whether you're a big picture thinker, or you will like get super granular, granular and into the details. Are you the kind of person that looks from the big picture aerial view Do you work better when you get to dive into those fine details and the nitty gritty, because knowing these things helps you in your career, figure out the kind of career you want to have the kind of roles that we would be better suited for you. And are you a thinker? Or do people tend to be doers or dreamers? And you can be both, but you clearly more likely to be one type of Van another. Ask yourself these questions and spend some time reflecting on them. And the answers can be quite revealing. And you can also figure out how you work best by asking others especially people who you work closely with, by asking them some questions because they see it from the outside point of view and not you making assumptions. You will get a better idea of what is true, rather than what you are assuming or what you think. I'd love to know if you have any questions about working styles or working online and your working styles. Please feel free to email me at Janice@thecareerintrovert.com I look forward to hearing from you the career introvert helping introverts Build that brand and get hired. Thank you for listening and speak to you next

Introverts struggling to work from home Apr 14, 2020

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Helping Overwhelmed Employees Apr 07, 2020

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Focus During Tough Times Mar 31, 2020

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Introverts Supporting Extroverts Mar 24, 2020

Hello and welcome to the traveling introvert. Today I am going to be talking about supporting extroverts. During this time, a lot of us are in what Bill Gates is calling a lockdown, quarantine and staying in place self isolation. There are many different words for it. And what I found in the past week is that there are a lot of memes around. Say, you know, introverts being like, Oh, this is this is what I normally do. This is my life. I don't know what you're all you know what all the excitement is about. However, what I have found is that I have been pouring a lot of support into or supporting people in general. But generally, I've realized that I've been supporting a lot of extroverts. And for us introverts what we do on an everyday is normal to us, and possibly staying in and keeping ourselves occupied Just one on one or, you know, just with one other person we have possibly arranged for hobbies that we do to recharge, but that we can do by ourselves. And a lot of extroverts don't have that. And instead of us versus them, and us being like, Well, we know how to do this, why don't you figure it out? It would be really good for introverts to support extroverts in any way that they can to try and help them through this, this phase. And it but there is the flip side of that is helping too much. So what I've discovered in the past couple of weeks that I've been spending so much time on zoom on Skype on phone calls, that sometimes work isn't getting done, but also I'm just drained because it is still draining. There's a reason why I set up my business so I don't have to do that amount of calls and that sort of a thing. And now I'm doing it into supporting other people. Obviously there's that extra emotional level to it. So it's hard to figure out the perf balance for you of how much time you spent supporting other people and how much time you still have for yourself. And when you're thinking about extroverts, reach out to them, see if you can do a big zoom call, get all the extroverts on one zoom call that we have to do multiple one on one calls. Not great for you, but great for them. And they feel like they have a community. Anything that you hear about which has online communities where people can work online, co work online, do activities online, there's an cooking one of my friends started a cooking show. People are spending a lot more time on social media, but there's so much negativity and scare and fear information out there that people are getting very depressed. And there's going to be a spike in suicides, depression. And so what I want to do is have content out there that is uplifting and helpful, rather than fear and scare mongering is a part of that is you know, making people happy. playing games with them having a co working session where we don't talk about the C word, anything that you can do to show people, hey, this is how I do introversion and this is how I do self isolating and quarantining. You know, what do you do share with me? Yeah? Can you make your home office? Awesome? Does it change every day? Can you change your background color, things to do with zoom or Skype, and team building activities, communication, communication is key through all of this. And so and so companies are starting to figure out how they're going to communicate with their staff during this time. And some people have just become managers. They become managers of a remote workforce, and they've never done it before. So figuring out how to keep your team motivated and strong while all of this is going on. I know some people have a lot of work and some people have less work and some people have no work. So try and be as supportive as possible as you can during that time, but those of you who don't have any work, don't assume that everyone else is the same and has all that time to devote to you. There are some people who are overwhelmed with work because I tried to make sure that people get paid, that nurses get paid that people have equipment. There are some really vital services out there, that people don't realize what's going on. Even though they're not nurses or doctors, payroll companies, they are vitally important. If you used to get paid by cheque and had to go into the office, they are doing everything in their power to make sure that your check either goes direct deposit or gets to your house. They are working overtime to make sure stuff happens, but they are the unsung heroes. So just be aware of what other people might be going through and take some compassion instead of that, Oh, we've been doing this our entire lives in Japan. It's a wonderful show. compassion, it goes a long, long way. Thank you for listening. This is Janice from the career introvert and the traveling introvert. Stay safe and speak to you next week

Selfish Self Care For Introverts Mar 17, 2020

Today I'm going to talk about selfish self care. And the reason I'm calling it selfish self care, or lazy self care is because this was spurned by a post I saw by friend of mine who mentioned that whenever friends cool, too lazy for taking a nap, and she was like, This is my business. This is how I run my business. If I am not well, or I don't feel like doing stuff, or I want to take a nap for my mental health. I can do so. It doesn't make me lazy

and

fascinated me because why would someone I kind of get why someone would think you're lazy if you're napping. But as long as stuffs getting done and you're living your life and you're not hurting anybody, why should it be a problem? And the reason is, although self care is very much a buzzword these days that you must take self care and you must do this self care thing and that other self care thing. If you actually Truly go ahead and do it in a way that isn't considered to be the norm or fashionable. People get butthurt about and I really don't understand why. If taking a nap works for you and makes you feel better or clears your brain or whatever it is that you have to do, go take a nap, that is your self care. If you need to do stretches, go ahead do that. If and this this is kind of seen this happen a lot new mothers if you need one full night's sleep, and it means that you have to pay for a hotel and leave your kids with your other half and you go and do that. That is fine. It gives you a full night's sleep. I have a friend who has been sleep deprived now for I think three years. She's actually forgotten what it feels like to have a full night's sleep that is not healthy for you. So going and doing whatever it is you need to do so you get one full night's sleep and you come back feeling

amazing. Go Do

that. So what if people think it's selfish? It's selfish to you, you have to put you first if you don't know what else is going to, and if you are not 100% Okay, no one's ever 100% 90% 99% How can you give to other people, people seem to think that you should just keep giving when your cup your energy, whatever it might be, is half full. And that doesn't help anybody. You need to be filled up first before you can go ahead and give and as interest. Sometimes we want to go ahead and take ourselves time or do whatever it is we need to do. But society is famous. Why are you so quiet? Don't you ever talk? Oh, you're just being alone again, why do you never come out and see as a very negative thing when you are very much doing your own introvert related self care. That's all you're doing. You are taking care of you. You are doing your self care. And it is selfish and that is fine. I don't think selfish is quite frankly the right word. But right now that's what we're going with. So you know what you need for your mind, body, soul, Allah, whatever it is that you need. So go ahead and do that. And if you don't know what it is you need, try and figure it out or ask someone

or,

or write down a journal what when you feel happiest and lightest and fulfilled? Do you need to go and do some yoga? Do you need to go and write a book? Do you need to go ride a bicycle? Do you just need to go for a walk? Or do you just need to put on noise cancelling headphones for 10 minutes? What is it that you need? self care can come in so many different things. And I think it's really good to have like a bucket, I say a bucket list of things that you can do for your own self care. Because sometimes, you know, the one thing isn't always the thing you need in that situation. So write down a list of things that you know help recharge you in various ways. You might do certain things. When you are feeling overwhelmed. You might do certain things when you've been socially accepted that you might do so things because of work, you might do certain things because you like doing certain things. Have this list and make sure you try and do at least one of them today. Because I think that's that's what we miss out on my say busy working and being on the internet and doing all these other things that just in one thing per day that brings you joy and peace and balance to your life can make a huge difference long term. So give me permission. Go ahead because some people need permission. Some people feel that they need to, you know, have someone tell them, go ahead and look after you are important. You know what you need. No one else can tell you what you need. Go and look after yourself. Make that list and do one thing per day off that list that brings you joy recharges you and brings balance back to your life. Thank you for listening. This was Janice at the career introvert, helping introverts build their brand and get hired if you have any questions or things you want me to

answer on the podcast please email me

at Janice@thecareerintrovert.com

How To Nail A Video Interview Mar 10, 2020

Today I'm going to talk about interviewing, video interviewing, actually. And the reason I want to talk about this is because people in general, don't really prepare for interviews the right way. What tends to happen is they'll have a job and be working in the job and be fine until some incident happens. And they decide they want a new job. And then they go into panic mode, and they start updating their LinkedIn and updating their resume and trying to figure out where they might want to move to next whether it be in the same department, a different department or a different company altogether. And then they'll stop splashing and and putting that their resume everywhere and getting recruiters and that sort of thing. And then we'll have a phone interview. And that's when the panic sets in because it's probably been a year Since they last did a phone interview, and so they kind of wing it. And they they maybe go and look on Google and see what questions they might not be asked or talk to the recruiter. And then the next stage might be a video interview. And then I've done a little bit of research on the company, and they've figured some stuff out. But they haven't really honed the answers to the questions that get commonly asked in interviews. And so the whole thing is going like a crash course in interviewing, and then then they wonder why they don't really get through until maybe the fourth or fifth round when they've got through doing a bunch of interviews. And it's because you're out of practice. And so there is a few ways to make this work for you. And you'd always have an upstate resume and your LinkedIn should always be up to date, you should always be getting new connections. So it doesn't tip anyone off. If all of a sudden you've you know, tried to get 18 new connections. It's normal if that's what you do all the time, but the business This thing, the biggest thing that is helpful for you is once a week, or once every two weeks, sit down in front of your computer against a background that you think would be suitable for a video interview. And if you can't find one, this gives you time to figure out where in your house might be good, depending on the time of day, because there might be, you know, it's mid afternoon the sun might glare or it might be a window issue. But once every couple of weeks, do a recording into your computer, like a selfie, and it can be just held on your computer. It could be Facebook, live into like a private group that you have. And practice answering interview questions, have a list and work your way through the list. You can do one question per week and that's 52 questions and you kind of good because that will give you a chance to figure out what you want to say how you want to say how it might look on video, maybe you have a weird facial expression that you didn't know about. Or that you say I'm a lot or whatever your your tick might be your verbal tic might be. So this is a great way to figure it out. And if you don't want to look at the video, maybe have a friend take a look at it and see what they think. And they can critique it in a nice way. Or if you have a recruit a friend ask them hey, you know, once Mufti just check this video and see what I'm doing wrong. This is a great way to challenge yourself a to get used to answering questions and be what you look like on video because sometimes there's nothing worse than seeing yourself on video hearing yourself back and cringing and see knowing that you have a good background. So should you be asked to do a video interview you're not scrambling to, to move the stuff toys out of the way you'll get the right settings or sitting down or standing up or whatever it might be. you've practiced this you're prepared. It will make you feel much more at ease because you've done it before. You know what you're going to say you know how you're going to say it and That alone will reduce your anxiety level. And that's really what interviewing is about. It's about seeing how you deal with pressure. And this is a way of combating that. And as intervale it's really exciting because you've gotten over all of those things and those nerves and this photo buys, because you've practiced over and over again, so always becomes second nature. And that is one way of making sure that you will fly through your video interview. I'd love to hear any other tips or tricks that you might have about going through a video interview. I know someone did literally 30 day live selfie, answering interview questions, and an employer saw it and hired him because of it. That's just something to think about how you can challenge yourself to be a better interviewee Thank you for listening. This is Janice from the Career Introvert helping all introvert shine. Have a great week.

Conference Ramble Mar 03, 2020

Hello, and welcome to the traveling introvert. I haven't done a travel one in a while. And so this is going to be travel based one. And the reason I haven't done one in a while isn't because I haven't been traveling. But because I've been so buried in the weeds, I guess, planning my future travel because I have a lot of travel coming up shortly. And I'm traveling with somebody else for some of this trip. And discovered that we have very different travel styles, not travel styles, pre travel styles, we're going to call it pre travel stars. I'm going on something that I never really done before and going to place I haven't been to before, so I'm doing a little bit of research. And else I don't know if it's an internet thing, maybe it's just a me thing. I'm also going to be traveling a lot for work and a lot of conferences. And so as much as I would love to stay on site for these calls. fences because it's easy to escape. And, you know, you can get room service and you're not going to miss too much of the action and there's not that back and forth or trying to find an herb or walking in the rain or whatever might happen. I also, most places, way conferences are held hotels are normally 200 or $300 a night. And it's weighing up that return on investment, especially when Airbnb and other types of companies are available in that area. And even if you take away the fact that you might have to do an Uber or a taxi, whatever mode of transport floats your boat to and from, somehow it doesn't always add up to the extra money that you're paying at the hotel. The other is the perks of some places with room service, and that's nice, or you can put everything on the tab. And it's really interesting. I'm weighing up those pros and cons. Now the plus side of staying outside of the area where the conference is for me is I do get that walk, or that time between being at the conference and being at my place, I'm going to say home, I'm going to call it home. And that time where I get to have some fresh air, or maybe view some of the city, if I've never been there before, can be really rejuvenating in itself. On the other hand, it has a particular conference that I'm going to, and they admittedly, it is a travel conference, but they are planning group tours of the city. So not only are you going to the conference, but they're inviting you to stay with the conference people and go on a tour. And I, to be honest, I didn't really look at

the details because as soon as I saw tour and the group,

it closed out the email and maybe I should have looked, maybe it was maybe anyhow but most the time when you do a tour, it's two or three hours, headed it along with a group of people Which can be nice if you're networking and you're trying to make friends where it can be very cliquey. But if it's before or after the conference itself, you might be tired already, or there might be people that you don't actually want to hang out with at that point. So it's really interesting trying to find that balance of being available enough and hanging out enough at the conference, and not doing all the group stuff. The other thing that I'm doing is knowing that I have these conferences to go through to throughout the year, and keeping an eye on sticker meal. Because at least once every two months, they do some kind of deal on stickers on coasters or on buttons America call them buttons. In England, we call them oh my goodness, I forgotten pins. No, no, but I don't know. Now, I've forgotten because I haven't been home so long.

I try and stock up in advance rather than the last minute panicking of Oh, I have this conference to go to I need it like immediately. And I don't have the design ready, I just wait and see when the specials come up. And then I can order them and then just stockpile them. And its stockpile huge amounts, just small amounts. So things that I do to get ready for travel. And then also I, you know, I know how much space is needed and that sort of a thing and what's popular. And so one thing I've come up with is luggage labels that are stickers, which I'm really excited about. So I am planning my travel but trying to find that balance between my introvert needs and the conferences that I'm going to and some of them are within weeks of each other. I didn't have back to back conferences, but I definitely have events, at least every other week for about three months. And just saying that out loud is a little terrifying. I need to see how I can make this work for me. There will be more travel stuff coming up shortly because I am going on a brand new adventure that I've never been on and I want to share it with everybody. But that will come later. All right. Thank you for listening. This was Janice at the Career Introvert helping introverts shine you know, build your brand and get hired. Have a great rest of your week.

Brain Dumping For Well-being Feb 25, 2020

Hello, and welcome to the traveling introvert. Today I'm going to talk a little bit about overwhelm drowning. And the reason is because last last week, two weeks ago, over the space about seven days, a lot of things happened. And I had to take a break for my own well being and mental health. And the thing was, I kind of need some of it I knew was going to happen, and some of it was very unexpected. And so I'm going to talk through how I dealt with it and hope it helps somebody. I know that so this week happened, and I know that for the last four days to have a weekend day on a Thursday and Friday that I was going to try and take some time off. Even though I was taking time off. I knew that I had things planned I had events on the Thursday, Saturday and Sunday. which involves me socializing. And so this Friday, spent the entire day just chilling. I went out to eat. And that was kind of it. The person I was with was like, so you paid to go out and then you just dating in, I'm like, Yes. And it was great. And then Saturday I had to go out and I ended up socializing with people and it was in a place with a lot of people and pushing and shoving and very loud, and it was fine for a bit and then I went home and I came back out again, actually, I got a second wind, put some flat shoes on I went out and broke it a little bit. And then came Sunday,

where

went out again during the day and night for like a doubleheader. And it was loud socializing,

which was fine. And then come Monday. I was like, I

I feel a little Well, uh, normally, and this wasn't socializing in big groups, it's just one on one, one on two, one on three socializing. And normally I'm quite fine with that. But what it also happened at the start of that week, is that I'd gotten a bunch of new clients, or clients have come back from vacation or like, whatever it is that they were doing. So my normal flow of work was then like, doubled or tripled. And I had this to do list that just seem to keep on growing and growing and growing as more people's Tell me more stuff. And I felt like I was drowning. That's That's you. And it might seem like an overreaction, but it was, you want to provide the best service and help everybody but people will address this thing, this thing, this thing, this thing, that thing, this thing, the other thing and then you go to the next meeting and be this thing, that thing, that thing, that thing, the other thing, and the next meeting and so on and so forth. I spent one day in meetings that gave me a really long to do this. And so what I had to do was put my phone on airplane mode because my computer Go to a different room, meditate, breathe. And I found this meditation, which was, because I have an app that I kind of scroll through. And it was wonderful because they talked to you through exactly how to get through the overwhelm. And then had a really nice message at the end of which felt really personal. Even though I know this message goes out to like hundreds of millions of people, it felt really personal to me. Then I sat, and I brain dumped everything that I thought I had to do. And of course, you forget stuff in brain dump some more, then you go away, do something mundane like washing up, showering, whatever you need to do, then come back brain dump some more, take that brain dump. And for me, what I do is then categorize it into my clients, then categorize it into what's urgent or when or what has a due date. And then I put it into my project management tool that then gave me some sort of order. And then I figured out what I could delegate what I could outsource what I was going to do when it needed to be done. Also with the fact that I will be offline for a bit coming up in the future. So I need to make sure that things worked around that as well. Just taking that time out during that specific meditation, brain dumping, then going to do something Monday. And then brain demming, again, was like a pressure valve release. I mean, I also talked to some friends, but it made things better. Just getting it out of my head meant that I could then I came up with ideas about other things, or how to automate things or how to make things better how to do this quickly, I realized that I needed the space in my head. That's what was missing. So now what I have to do is make sure my head doesn't get filled with too much stuff. And so to do that, for me, I have to have a notebook around all the time so I can dump stuff straight to the notebook that keeps my head clear, and helps me I don't know if recharge is the right word, but it definitely stops me from feeling overwhelmed. And I get into a good habit and then sometimes I stop and then I realize I have to get back into that habit again. So what do you do to clear your head? How do you bring back balance in Your life I'd love to hear, please email me at Janice@thecareerintrovert.com helping introverts build their brand and get hired. Have a great rest of your week.

3 Tips On How To Be Successful At Interviews Feb 18, 2020

Hello, and welcome to the traveling internet. Today I want to talk about interviews. I'm specifically going to talk about in person interviews right now. This is something as a person nevermind a introvert that can be very overwhelming can make you nervous and hot and sweaty you know you're trying to get them still a cool calm and collected, you know that your every move is being observed. And so because of this, being prepared is crucially important. So, I would just want to go over a couple things this isn't this isn't the be all and end all of interviews, but just I know top three things. Make sure you arrive on time. Take into consideration traffic app finding parking, the weather freak accidents. Whatever it might be, as an introvert, there's nothing better than getting to interview earlier actually have to be in the building, maybe being in your car. And just being able to have five or 10 minutes to breathe and think through your answers to your questions. Get yourself together, maybe change your shit, like whatever it is that you have to do. Just having that extra 1015 minute buffer, maybe maybe listen to a meditation tape or something on the radio, whatever it might be, that puts you in your happy place. Try and make sure you leave a buffer for that before you attend an interview. Now, the thing that's really crucial is your approach. think positively. You are offering your talents, your experience, your time, effort, energy education to this organization, and you give that impression that you would be a valuable asset and they'd be foolish to kind of not take you on This doesn't mean you have to be aggressive or overly enthusiastic, pompous or pretentious. But it does mean that you need to show the interviewers that you are confident and assertive and proactive. You are a professional who will perform successfully if appointed to that position. So, instead of thinking about the fact that you're boasting or saying bragging, for example, to help prepare, practice answering questions there are tons of resources on types of interview questions that you might be asked depending on the role that you are applying for. Now think about these questions I'm brainstorm with a colleague or friend or, and practice answering the questions. practice using the interview questions to strengthen the argument of why you will be the best person for the job. For example, you must certainly be asked about your experience and qualifications. Even though obviously this would be shown in your resume or CV, but your responses should be phrased in such a way that we let you experience and knowledge etc. to the new post that you are applying for showing how your existing attributes and skills can work in a new environment. And because you know that this is correct and true, when you're talking about it, you will have that confidence behind it. And so that will make you feel more relaxed because you know, it's true, and you're just wanting to point them in the right direction. So the other thing to think about is that, you know, you want to be able to give very specific examples, please listen to the questions and talk mostly about your strengths, but they will ask you about your weaknesses, and be honest about your weaknesses because nobody is going to be the exact perfect fit for job description, or you have nowhere to grow. So make sure that you just say, you know, be honest what you can do and what you can't do, and how you go about bettering yourself and how you learn from things and do your research. Please, please Please, please, please research the company that you are applying for. So many times I've interviewed people, and we'll go through the usual like, what do you think introversion is and why did you apply for this role? yada yada, yada? And then I'll be like, so what you know about me or the the organization? And they literally Oh, I didn't I didn't I didn't have time to research. That's, that's not a good answer. Do you want this job you would make time to research I don't care. If you were researching in the lobby while you were waiting, you would have made time to just Google. So please research the company. These are just a couple of things to help you be successful in an interview but being prepared and make giving yourself that buffer to put yourself in your happy zone and be calm and collected and know what you're doing and be okay with it. That will be will help you know end with being successful in an interview. Thank you. This is Janice from the career internet. If you have any questions please email me at Janice@thecareerintrovert.com

Methodology for client quotes Feb 11, 2020

Hello, and welcome to the traveling internet. Today I am going to talk about quotations. Quitting for work as a freelancer, I know can be very daunting, and you're not sure how to do it. I'm in a lot of Facebook groups and I see this question all the time, like, how do I price my work? And one of the ways is, you know, you have to give a quote, someone tells you the work that they need doing. And you have to come up with a magical figure. And sometimes you might ask the person for that budget, and most the time the person's like, Well, it depends. Because they might have a budget in mind, or they just might not know because it's not work that they do. If you are not a photographer, and you ask a photographer for a quote, you don't know how much what they do is worth. I mean, you kind of have a rough idea, but you definitely don't know, the facts and the figures and the time that they take and the software and the overheads and all of that sort of a thing. So whenever you get asked about a budget, you Normally kind of freeze me, I don't know how much is gonna cost me, especially when a lot of websites don't have their prices very clearly out there. Which can be frustrating. I highly recommend having you know, minimum cost from X amount that helps people when they are shopping to know whether you're at least within or over their budget. Because otherwise then not only are you wasting their time, but you're wasting your time by sitting down and having this conversation when they cannot afford you. So, one thing I've learned when quoting something and normally I have my prices up on my various websites, but there's some things that I do back in that people, I don't advertise the services, and people asked me for them and so I have to give them a quote. And I want to tell you a little secret that's helped me create quotations where I don't feel that I'm being exploited but I feel I'm giving a fair price to my clients. And that has been because of the way I work. I currently work in a method. It's sort of like the Pomodoro method, which is 25 minutes of work and five minutes of rest. But I work more in a 30 minutes of work and 10 minutes of rest. And because I've been doing it for a certain amount of time, I become better and better at figuring out breaking down my tasks into 30 minutes segments. And so I might have a big overall task of updating my website, but then I have to scale that back into 30 minutes to update the font or change the colors will just update the homepage and then go to the about page and whatever it might be. And so because I've had practice and sort of changed my muscle memory, or not my muscle memory, my memory memory on working in 30 minute blocks, I find it easier to then be able to give a quote because a lot of the work I do I know Well, this and this will take me this amount of time. And so getting into the regular habit of breaking your work down in some way, shape or form will help you Be able to give quotes to clients. So it could be that you find it easy to work in 15 minute increments, or hour increments, or 40 minute increments or 47 minute increments, I don't know, whatever works for you. Try working that way for about a week or two weeks, just where you're solidly working. And from, for my example, 30 minutes on 10 minutes off, 30 minutes on 10 minutes off, I know how long I can do that for. So for me, I know, I can do that for about three hours depending on the work. And then my brain kind of fries. Or I can do it for two hours on one type of work, maybe very analytical work. And then I could do it for two hours on this very creative work. And that way you can do a four hour stretch. And so the idea is to get you used to working in a certain way and then when someone says hey, I want you to copyright under 53 emails, you know that well one email or three emails takes me at these times. times that by however emails needed, plus your overheads and everything else. And that gives you a quote. And it's not a quote that makes you feel that you're not, you know, being compensated for the time that you you're going to put into it. Because there's a lot of times where you, you, you hear about work and then you you give a quote for it and I go, No, it actually it can take me longer, because you didn't actually figure out how long the original thing was going to take you. So if you just get used to working a certain pattern, that will be the key for you to be able to go ahead and give quotes and work in a reasonable manner and know how much time it's going to take you how many weeks months, whatever it might be, and get paid at the right way. I hope that's helpful. Thank you for listening. This is Janice@thecareerintrovert.com helping introverts shine build their brand. Hope you have a great week.

Tips to pinpoint your perfect career Feb 04, 2020

Hello, and welcome to the traveling introvert. Today I want to talk about ways to kind of narrow down and pinpoint what might be your perfect career. This is all about goals and working and your commitment and brainstorming. Now the thing with introverts is we time to come to conclusions and time to analyze things and think things over. And so a lot of the time, people want you to make snap decisions about your career and life and etc. What I highly recommend is doing it in a slower, methodical way. But one of the first things you should kind of do is think about, you know, brainstorming on a sheet of paper.

And it's kind of a strategy I use in general all the time, but take a pad of paper and write down your top objective, exactly what it is you want to do. And so for example, you could say

What should I be doing with my time in my life? And then think about 20? Or so answers to that question. And you can do this all at once, say, you know, set aside 30 minutes and write down everything that flows to your mind whether you think it's insane or not. And then go away. And come back and do the same thing again the next day and see if you come up with something new or something different. But the key to the exercise is to come up with at least 20 answers, do not stop until you have at least 20 answers. And then you'll begin to see if there's any patterns or anything that that that crops up. One of the other things that you could do is ask three close friends of yours. Because generally speaking, what we think we see is generally different from what outsiders see. And so our friends might see us better than we see ourselves or they'll be able to see things that we don't think about all in a slightly different way. So what you can do

was talked to one of your friends or you know, three or four of them and mentioned that you're thinking about different things or different ways that you want to live your life and ask what they think you would enjoy doing and what you might be good at. You'll be surprised at how easily that they can zero in on your strengths and abilities and find something that you didn't even think about.

Another thing you can do to sort of pinpoint what might be a perfect career fit for you, is to take a career assessment test, there are lots of them online, you'll be able to go and take the test for free.

Or maybe if you know, a headhunter recruiter, they might have this software you can take the test for free, or anything of that nature. Just to give you a general idea of what you might be good at what is interesting to you what is new stuff you might not ever even heard of, because right now jobs are changing and evolving so quickly. That's really interesting that

You know, something you might not have thought of, or even a role that hasn't really been created yet. But you could market to other people.

And the other thing I find really useful for pinning down information or just when I'm brainstorming or anything of that nature, is to keep a journal.

Keep a place where you write down stuff, and take a look after a week or a month and see if they're general common threads in your writing. Is there something specific that you always upset about at work or something, ideas, types of ideas that you always come up with better things? Maybe you're very analytical, maybe you're good at brainstorming overarching themes, you might find that if you read through your journal that you will see patterns that will be common, and make you think, Oh, I didn't realize but this is something that I really like and enjoy when I talk about it, or there's something I really hate irritates me, so I should stay very far away from it. So keep your eyes peeled.

trends and activities, the things you'd like as well, as well as things you don't like. In fact, finding examples of what you don't like and what frustrates you is almost as important as finding out what you like. Because if you hate being overwhelmed or you hate like a boss, who is Mike, a micromanager.

It's better for you then when you're looking for your next move to find one, that maybe you in a more self directed position. Or if you hate, you know, co workers always being up in your business, then maybe you would prefer a new position that would involve some privacy or maybe working from home so you have your own office or your own space. So discovering what you really want to do with your life is one of the most important decisions you can make. But don't forget, that can change over time. And whatever, you know, happens but you do need to remember that we spend at least a third or more of our lives at work. So figuring out your right career is important because it keeps us

Your life happy and productive. Thank you for listening. This is Janice from the career internet. If you have any questions for me, please email me at Janice@thecareerintrovert.com Have a great day.

PR Agency Fail Jan 28, 2020

In this episode I am talking about how PR agencies are missing the mark when it comes to podcasts.

Hello, and welcome to the traveling introvert.

I'm going to tell you a little story.

Basically, I have a podcast This is now obvious. However, there are podcasts on the wave up and people want to get on podcast to grow their brand, or to promote their latest book or their latest course or whatever it might be, which is great. And it is a great way to build your brand and to build backlinks and SEO for your website. And that is a good thing. However, right now there are a lot of PR companies also jumping on this bandwagon. Because one of the things is you know, you do book tours and now you do podcast tours, that sort of a thing that you can do to grow your brand. And so a lot of PR agencies are talent. That they can help you get on to podcast, which is great, and some are very good at it. However, recently, I got contacted by a PR agency. And they said, Hey, we have this particular client, they're also basically do the same thing that you do. And we think they'd be great for your podcast. Also, this person and can talk about the following topics, and it was literally like, what is an introvert and things like that. And there was some typos. And you know, they signed off, they gave me the person's name, and they signed off as a PR agency. And normally, I ignore these because I get a lot of them I get a lot of requests on LinkedIn, or on the email, you know, at Janice at the current red.com, sort of, Hey, you know, this person would be great for your show. And a lot of the time I ignore it, but this time, I will wanted to do something different. So I looked up the person that they were talking about, and I found their contact details. And then I decided, Okay, maybe I can help this PR agency and what they're trying to do. And so I sent an email to the PR agency copying their client, and I said, Hey, thanks for reaching out, whoever it appears you didn't do any homework, or at least listen to one of my episodes. Because if you did, you would have noticed that, Oh, wait. I'm not an interview podcast. And I know that a lot of podcasts out there that aren't in that sort of thing. But I am not. Not only that, you didn't really have good topics for the person to talk about. There wasn't a good angle. You didn't tell me what they could bring to my audience. Should I have been an interview podcast, and you didn't provide me social media links, I had to then go and search information on this particular client. If you are looking to get this client on other podcasts, I highly suggest that you do the following. And I gave them a bullet pointed list of things that they might want to consider not the entire list, but things that would point them in the right direction. So the problem here is, obviously, it was a copy and paste email. And I get that because they're probably emailing like a bunch of people. But at the same time, just doing the tiniest amount of research would have, you know, yielded better numbers. Because it's not about the quality quantity of like emails that you spam out. It's the quality of the emails. And I said to them, hey, if you just listened to one of our episodes of, Hey, I really liked this episode you did on this and this, or if that actually research me, notice how many other podcasts I had been on. It could have been like, hey, you're really good on this podcast. Could you introduce us to that podcast so we could get our client on there? But they didn't. They missed out on so many different ways that they could have approached us they could have talked about the book, like oh, we really enjoyed the book, maybe you'd like to, you know, interview our person for the next series, but they didn't. And so because PR agencies are generally used to dealing with television or authors, and they just don't have the nuance required for podcasting because podcasting is very personal. The podcast is you have their podcast, generally, it's their babies, it's something they're very proud of, and they put a lot of hard work into etc, etc. And so it's really important that you get that personal connection or at least, you know, make the effort to make that personal connection, follow them on Facebook or Instagram or what have you, and then reach out to them. cold emailing can work so like oh my God, this, you know, amazing person emailed me, but at the same time, put a little bit of frickin effort in. So PR agencies if you are listening, just the tiniest things can make a huge difference and how that email could have gone so differently for that PR agency. And for that fellow introvert so happened that I carbon copied that person. And so they reached out to me directly, because they saw the email that I'd sent to their PR agency and obviously they're paying that boutique agency and lot of money for not quality work. So if you want to be on a podcast, make sure you personalize your email show your value and include your social media links, please. Thank you so much. Thanks for listening. This is Janice@thecareerintrovert.com. And please send me emails of questions you would like me to answer live have a great day

Building a Brand as an Introvert Jan 21, 2020

Hello, and welcome to the traveling introvert. Today I would like to talk about having a personal brand as an introvert. And the reason I want to talk about this is I want you to take a second and think about your closest group of friends, say five people. And I want you to think about them. And I want you to think about different situations when you've reached out to certain friends. Do you always reach out to the same friends for all situations? Or do you sort of pick certain friends or certain things? Do you have a friend that you go out and party with? Do you have a friend that you would read books with? Do you have a friend that you play games with? Do you have that friend in another country who you talk about mothering with and who do you go to when something's happened at work? Who do you go to when something's happened in your family life? I'm sure that most of you would do have friends that over Your friends and maybe equal so to speak, they are you go to them for different reasons, which of each of your friends are specialists in a specific area. And to you, that is their brand been whether you know it or not, that is their brand. So, you might have that friend who is totally into whatever or knows your industry so you can talk to them about industry stuff that might not work with you. But you can say certain acronyms or or talk about certain situations and they will understand, as opposed to another friend who doesn't work in that kind of area. And if you have to explain everything, like piece by piece, it's far more excruciating. So that brings me back to you. I wonder what your friends reach out to you for what is your brand in your friend circle.

And if you don't know, maybe, maybe find out maybe ask or maybe think back to when your friends have reached out to you for sensing what those things have been. because believe it or not, whether you realized it or not, you have built a brand with your friends, your friends know you as X, Y, and Z or that person who does a, b and F, whatever it might be unwittingly you have built up a brand. And that's how you've gotten friends. And that's how you keep friends. And that's what they know you for. Have you done the same for your business? out or for your career? And if not, why not? You might have done it unconsciously. But maybe you want to go and take a look and think of make a conscious effort of what you want your brand to be. What do you want to be known for? Do you want to be known for being persuasive? Being good negotiator? Do you want to be known for being very good at backend stuff? Do you want to be known for programming? Do you want to be known for something really frickin specific? Like you carve names in pieces of rice? I don't know, whatever it might be. What is it you want to be known? For? What is it you want people to Think of you, when they think of a certain thing. Do you want to be an awesome plumber? Do you want to be an awesome Carpenter? Do you want to be that plumber that only fixes European style toilets, or whatever it might be? Because building a brand as an introvert is really important because we might not go out there and brag about what we do very often, or we might not put ourselves first when people ask for stuff. However, if people just think of us any way, because they know Well, this person does X, Y, and Z or x, y and F, or x, y, and two and three, as long as they know you and have that in the back of your mind, their mind, they will come to you for this thing, whatever this thing might be. And so instead of you having to toot your own horn horn, you get referrals and referrals are some of the best things that you can get, whether it be for your career or you running a business. When you run a business and you get a referral someone has already paid money to work With you, and they've said that you're awesome and referred you to somebody else who knows probably how much that person paid and therefore is not going to try and lowball you. That's awesome. Job wise, most jobs are filled before they're really posted, is it because it's a friend of a friend or somebody knows somebody else. So if you're already at the back of someone's mind, or should say, bring them to the front of their mind, they will think, oh, hey, this person will be really good for this position. So building a brand as an introvert is really important. And how you go about that is thinking about what you want to be known for. And then doing that and doing it incredibly well. And every time you get someone says something nice about it, put it in a folder and quote, The Happy folder or the testimonial folder, or whatever it might be, but be known for something very, very specific. Don't go general. General doesn't help anybody. You don't think of a general doctor. I mean, you do but like then they move you on to a specialist. So you want to be a specialist. Think about those things as an internet how you can Grow your brand, know what your brand is and get people to know you for that thing. And to grow your brand doesn't have to be hard. It doesn't have to be you shouting from the rooftops actually it's the smallest details and the customer service that can get you a really good brand as opposed to shouting from the rooftops. Thank you This was Janice from the career injury. If you have any questions you want me to answer please email me at Janice@thecareerintrovert.com looking forward to hearing from you and have a great rest of your week.

Check out other introvert items here

Work environments for introverts Jan 14, 2020

Hello, and welcome to the traveling internet. Today I would like to talk about workspaces. I recently posted on Instagram, asking what type of workspaces people preferred. And I got a few answers and I got a few answers from other people that I talked to. And I realized that I actually missed the days of cubicles. I used to work in a big office environment, and we had cubicles and I always had the cubicle in the corner facing the wall away from the aisle. So if anyone wanted to get my attention, they literally had to come up behind me and sort of tapped me on the shoulder because I also used to wear headphones. And it was great for concentration because there was nothing that would draw my iomai attention way because it was just me and my two screens, Oh, don't get me started on having more than one screen. So that's something that I realized I miss even though now I generally have my own office, my my desk faces, sort of a filing cabinet type place open a filing cabinet is like a bookshelf type thing. And my door might be open or close. And I can see outside and I realized now that I do get distracted by various things. And so I might need to rearrange my room so that I'm facing a wall and make it a cubicle wall. And even if I put headphones on. And so this led to further discussions, one person mentioned that they liked being in coffee shops with classical music. And that might not be as easy to find as you might think. And my response was, Well, why don't you bring your own classical music and they were like, well, I edit Sound or podcast for my jobs, I need to be able to actually hear what I'm editing. So I copy my music. And I was like, Oh, yeah, that that makes sense. So they like the background noise of a coffee shop and people having people around. And also classical music. Another person was very much like me myself, and I know no one else. And so leads to the discussion of what kind of environment Do you work best. Some people work best in different types of environments for different types of tasks. For example, if it's like green sky, or blue sky thinking, you might want to sit on a couch or somewhere comfortable. If it's just a menial work where you're doing repetitive tasks, you might want to sit in a certain place. For example, if I have to do a very repetitive task, I actually have a playlist of music that I like to use. I have a friend that they if they're doing a menial tasks, they will have a podcast on TV on and I find that incredibly distracting, even if it is a menial task that I'm doing, I'd rather listen to music where, for example, I know the lyrics, so or Michael Jackson songs, or this, like brainwave music that's quite popular right now that you can find on YouTube or something of that nature. And everyone has a different way that they work and how they work best part of that is the environment that you are in. So what can you do to create the ideal environment for the work that you do, or the different types of work that you do? Be in an office or that you work for yourself? Even those digital nomads, as much as they work for themselves and get to pick to a degree where they work, they might not have the choice of the type of lighting that's in the CO working space, or the see that they have those of us who are short. And it's incredibly difficult to get a comfortable seat because generally we need a seat and a desk and a foot rest or an adjustable desk and that you don't get very often. So what kind of environments D You work best? And why do you think you work best in them? And what can you do to change your current environment to help you work better? And I don't think this is just an introverted thing. I think this is also just a people thing, trying to make what your tasks are and how you do them more efficient. I wasn't really talking about anything specific, I realize but for me, I think what I'm looking forward to is getting a plant. I've never had a plant before. And I think it will be interesting to see if that helps with my concentration. Also, I am going to now move my desk to face a wall and see what happens and give that a try and see what else I can add to my environment. Maybe lighting might make a difference. I'm not really sure because right now I just use natural light. But I'm wondering if having a lamp or white light lamp would make a difference. I would love to hear or see photos of your ideal workspace. Please email me at Janice@TheCareerIntroert.com or you can find me on Instagram at the courage of it. I look forward to hearing from you and have a great rest of your day.

If you want to know the kind of equipment I use check out this link https://kit.co/IntrovertMediaLab

Do you make time to play? Jan 07, 2020

Hello, and welcome to the traveling introvert. Today I'd like to talk about having enough time to play. I am trying to new thing this year where I am working for set amount of hours per day in a very focused manner. And then there's going to be other time that I can use however I choose. And I was talking with a friend today about their plans for the year. And they also mentioned the fact that they work in it and they spend a lot of their time managing their company, and they went to an event. Now last year, we've actually got to spend time playing with tech instead of managing tech, and how they didn't realize how much they missed playing with tech. Because I think a lot of the time when you start a business or you start doing your thing, you're generally playing or you're playing on behalf of somebody else. And when you play for yourself, it's okay it's kind of a low stakes and low risk when you're playing for someone else on behalf of somebody else. ends up being very, you know, there's a lot at stake possibly in you, you you pay more attention, and it's less play and more implementation. And then you end up like managing the thing. And so the play is no longer there. But do you do anything in its place to keep play in mind. And so we were talking about the fact that how play is important for innovation and creativity. But you can't play unless you give yourself the time, and headspace and availability to do so. So we were talking about how our lives are going to be different this year. And what we're, instead of talking about what we're planning to put in and all the things that we're planning to do, we actually ended up talking about all the things that we are going to take out, to leave a space to breathe for other things. And I think this is a wonderful thing because it's the start of the year. And people aren't about planning or looking back at the last decade or year and planning what to do and all the things to stuff into your calendar for the next three 6, 12 months or beyond. And that's great and all. But now we should take that time to reflect and think, Okay, well, last year I planned all of this stuff. Did I do it? No, do I feel bad about it? Maybe? Is it worth me feeling bad about it? Probably not. Because more often than not, we over schedule ourselves. We only have 100. And I think it's 67 or 77 hours per month that we can fill that stuff. And really, we should be aiming to fill about 50% of it with stuff bit personal work, to leave room for error, flexibility stuff happening, but also to have time to sleep, eat, breathe, and to play. And to play you must have that time and flexibility and that space and not be overworked and overwhelmed all the time. And that's when sometimes you get the best ideas. Have you ever realized that you get a lot of ideas when you're in the zone doing something else, like having a shower, you're doing something very automatic, like cleaning yourself, which you probably do every day. And that's when your mind rooms free and you have these ideas. Some people have installed sort of pieces of paper, not paper, like whiteboards in the in the showers that can write down their ideas when they have them, because that's when they get the awesome ideas. And there is a reason for that because you're on autopilot and you're free thinking and you're just like, you know, scrubbing yourself and getting some some soap and detonated editor. And your mind gets to let go and not be focused on a thing. And it's not quite the same as meditation. Meditation is a very different thing, and it is actually very focused in a certain way. But when you're just autopilot. That's wonderful. So think about the last time you let yourself autopilot and what happened, what ideas you had and the other part of playing is giving yourself a chance to try something you haven't done before or try something you have done before but in a different way. So like my friend was saying they work in tech, but they never got a chance to like play and they got to make this musical jukebox thing. And, and he was excited about it and used it and all sorts of things afterwards. So think about what you do and how you can turn on its head or look at from a different point of view, or talk to somebody else and find out what their point of view is, and how you can play with things. That's where innovation comes in. That's where joy comes in. And that's where you get your best ideas. take a pause and think about that. So thank you for listening. This was Janice from the career introvert, helping introverts shine. I look forward to answering any of your questions, please email me at Janice@carrerrintrovert.com. Have a great rest of your week.

Book recommendation for this episode is Pause by Rachael O'Meara

Where Can Introverts Eat In Peace? Dec 31, 2019

Hello, and welcome to the traveling introvert. Today I'd love to talk about safe havens for eating and drinking as an introvert. A lot of the time, you might want to go out and enjoy a good meal or have a nice cocktail. And it has to be said not all restaurants and bars are created equal in that kind of realm. I know a lot of people have complained that they want to go to a restaurant, enjoy a meal by themselves and get treated like second class citizens because of it. Either they get put in a corner somewhere or they don't get the table that they requested. Or they basically get ignored by staff or on the opposite end of the scale. They get hustled and moved on quickly by staff because they want to turn over the table. And because there's any one of you instead of two of us at the table they They want you to hurry up your meal, whereas you might just want to sit and enjoy and savor the food that you are paying for. So, as an introvert, and trying to find spaces where you where it's okay for you to go and eat by yourself, because that's the other problem, the social norm makes it awkward for you to go and eat by yourself. There was a time when I booked a train in California to go on a wine run. And I was going by myself. And they were very much like, Oh, well, we might see you at somebody else on the train right now. I want to enjoy this beautiful view, by myself at a table by myself. I do not want to have to interact in awkward conversation with somebody I do not know. I'm paying money to go on this trip. And it became a bit of a to do and luckily it was low season so it wasn't that bad. But still, I was made to feel that I was in the wrong for wanting to enjoy my ride. So areas or places That are comfortable for people to sit and go and eat alone or have a drink alone. Many people have said coffee shops most of the time coffee shops you can go in, order your food or drink sit in the corner read a normal bother you and it will be fine and it doesn't feel awkward. But to go to a restaurant and sit down necessarily fine dining, but sit down restaurant, the menu and and you may feel awkward if you're by yourself. One place however, that seems to inadvertently cater to introverts or somebody who wants to just go and dine by themselves and not be bothered. His hotel bars, hotel bars and restaurants. And this is fascinating. And it seems to be because people are transit within a hotel and it was looking to make friends that kind of tired. They've been traveling or their business and they're at a meeting and they're coming in to have a drink and chill and wine down. Eat and leave Eat and go over paperwork or read a book or what have you. But very rarely Will someone came up to you and try and hassle you along or want to talk to you. So airport, no airports also. bars, hotel bars and restaurants seemed to be a really good place for you to go. If you're an introvert and you just want to enjoy a nice meal without getting harassed or feeling uncomfortable because you are by yourself in a hotel you almost expected to be by yourself or you know with somebody else but that's fine. There's no it is normal or abnormal. And so that is a great thing. Dear listeners, I would love to know if there any other spaces that you have found that have been welcoming to you coming in sitting and reading a book, or doing a crossword or just coming in and enjoying a meal by yourself without you feeling that they didn't want you there or they wanted to move you along. I would love to hear from you. I'm trying to think also airports, know when, but it was a funny place like airport lounges. If you sit at the bar people will talk to you, if you just sit away from the bar people will not talk to you. So there's that that halfway point of like, okay, I might want some conversation, or I'm gonna go sit in the corner and do my thing. So that's very, very interesting. And the Uber, the Uber, right, but that's a whole other conversation probably. But I know that Uber we're trying to roll out something and I think there's in certain cities where if you don't want your driver to talk to you, you can you have that option. You have that control, because Uber drivers are not taught customer service the way sort of restaurant is might be. So that's another interesting topic of like, how do you shut down your Uber driver in a nice way that hey, I don't want to talk. It's not you. It's I just you know what to sit here and recharge. Thank you for listening. This is Janice from the careerintrovert.com helping you build your brand and shine as an introvert. If you have any questions, please email me at Janice at the career introvert dot com and have a great rest of your week.

How Accountability Can Help Introverts Dec 24, 2019

Hello, and welcome to the traveling introvert. And today I am going to talk about accountability. And this can come across in a couple of different ways. I have different accountability people in my life for various things. And as an introvert, I found it really important to have people who are accountable to and I don't mean a boss or a manager. What I mean is people who view different areas of my life differently from me. For the longest while I did everything on my own. I'm definitely super independent, for various reasons have lived a lot of my life, sort of been in charge of my own life from a very young age, and been let down by multiple people. And so I definitely had the mindset that don't trust people because they let you down. And over the years, I have learned that that is not always the case. And so as far as business is concerned, having people who are surrounding yourself with people who have different skill sets, or who view things differently from you, heaven forbid, even extroverts is, is, is something that can be really beneficial. And I have, like I said, a few in my life for different reasons. So I have someone who is a daily accountability partner. And our relationship has changed slightly, I guess, over the years. But it's one thing that has been consistent for over two years now. And it doesn't have to be a really big thing. It could just literally be a text message every day that says, hey, my intention today is to do this thing. And then at the end of the day, you check in and say, Hey, did you get to do that thing? Or what stopped you or how can I help or was there an issue or you did that thing? That's awesome. That's one way of having accountability. I have another accountability group that meets weekly. And with that group, we, that has also changed. We tried spreadsheets, we tried all sorts of things of keeping track, and maybe we'll try something again this year. But generally, it's been about emotional support. But also, you know, some of us are better at copywriting, or some of us are better at picking up and figuring out different things to do, and or different ways of approaching different types of business, or just being like, hey, you're being treated badly, you need to sort of deal with it. And people who talk to you straight, and aren't afraid of what you might think or say about it. And you also have to be open to getting that feedback, as long as it is constructive. And the reason why this is helpful for me as an introvert, I'm sure for others as an introvert is we get wrapped up in our own thought process and our own things and we overthink and we tend to we think we're thinking things through from front viewpoints and perspectives. But that not might not be the case. And so having someone from the outside him go and say, Hey, this and this and this and this, and then you're like, Oh, well, I hadn't thought about that. And so it's always wonderful to have that just like, it's always wonderful to have people on your team who work with you or for you, that also have a different viewpoint. They might not have to be introverts, they might not have to be extroverts. They might have a be from a different country, or from a different culture, all of these things, and having this diversity in your life will help you run a better business and be a better person. How you communicate, sometimes, you know, you used to communicating in a certain way. And so I might say, hey, for this particular thing, why don't you try communicating in this way and see what happens and you might discover something new. And with the years rolling by, it's always good to stop and take take pause and take stock and there's a set You know, surround yourself with the kind of people that you want to be. And part of that is maybe surrounding yourself with accountability buddies that inspire you or help you or lift you up and support you and don't tear you down. It's not about competition. It is about support and being there for one another, and people go through bad things and that's okay. People go through good things that is also okay. So I'd love to know dear listeners who you have in your life. That is your accountability person, your your your, your business wife, your BFF your business best friend, your accountability, buddy, your accountability, buddy, whatever you want to call them. Who do you have in your life that is there for you in that way? And if you don't have that person gotten find that person or ask Oh, hey, email me. So this is Janice from the career introvert dot com. Helping you shine as an introvert, build your brand and get hired and all that good stuff. Please email me at Janice at the courage read.com Should you have any questions or any topics you would like me to cover in the future. Have a great rest of your week.

Why people hate masterclasses Dec 17, 2019

Hello and welcome to the traveling internet. Today I am going to talk about why people no longer watch master classes. And this is because I have just and I hate to say this wasted two hours of my life. I have been following a digital marketer online for about a year or so I bought one of her products It was a $27 thing did exactly what it said on the tin. It worked great. And I've just been following along following along and it's been fine. And a lot of companies that I work with will use they talk about are in in glowing terms and say she's wonderful on what she does is wonderful and everything about her is wonderful, which is fun. And she had an offer where you go and look at a video and so I went and up to the video and after the video. There was all we're going to do a master class like next week science Okay, sure, like I looked at the time, my calendar was free, okay, a master class on whatever it was cuz I don't want to out to this person. And so I kept getting email reminders, which was great every, you know, six days to the master class three days of the master class two days to the master class. And we've had 3500 people signed up. But we've only got room for 500 people. So make sure you on time Oh, and by the way, there will be no replay. So as I go, okay, make sure my calendar is clear. And I will go and attend. Next kind of follow up was, hey, we're actually going to be giving away $15,000 worth of prizes. And they kind of detailed what the prizes were going to be. You have to attend live and you have to be there at the end to get the prize. No. Okay, even more incentive, which makes sense. Well around to the day off, I get three Facebook messages, which I now know that I could have switched off and I got an email you know, An hour to go 20 minutes to go kind of a thing. Great. already signed in waiting for the countdown. It starts on time. And they hadn't really said how long the masterclass was going to be. So I allotted like an hour's worth of my time. 20 minutes and she's still giving her backstory about who she is and her journey, yada, yada, yada. And she's got three moderators. And I happened to go and look to see how many participants there were because oh, well, surely because you told us a software can only deal with 500 Oh, I see 800 people in the room. So maybe you upgraded at the last minute, or maybe that was some BS. And then she continues talking about the product and it gets to about I think 3540 minutes in and people are complaining about the video cutting out and lag and some people are saying to use an app and some people use saying to use the computer, whatever. Then it cuts out. I get a four or four message and error message. I go and I message on the Facebook because I see the little green dot there online like hey, this happened. I hope everything's okay. I keep trying to get for one message. So I go about my day for like 20 minutes, and then try again. And magically I get to get back in, which was great. And I see other people are also coming back in and complaining that they just lost 20 minutes. But we've been told there will be no replay and we're like, well, it's not our fault your technology, bro, will there be a replay? And even though there were three moderators, no one was answering that question. Move forward. It's now an hour and 20 an hour and 30 in and she's finished giving the master class which is basically a high level overview of some stuff, there was useful information and some diagrams. And then she starts pitching her product. Now we're in like an hour 40 and people like how long is this gonna last? And she's pitching the product about you know, this is the thing that I'm going to do and I'm putting my all into it and I'm not selling any of my other courses right now. And people are on her website going all the courses is still up for sale, but okay, whatever. So now you know it's time to get annoying because you're wasting our time or have at least haven't said hey, it's going to be this month. time, she said an hour. And then she's like, oh, maybe 90 minutes. And now we're encroaching on two hours, starting to sell some more stuff, breaking down exactly what's in the course, great, breaking out how much it should cost great should cost as and like the value of whatever she's giving. And then, oh, this freebie and that freebie and this other thing that I'm going to throw in for you and this other thing, great. And Sunday, right? Okay, so how much is it going to cost? And how long does this course last? Again, she ignores all of these questions. And our moderators also ignore all of these questions. And people are still complaining about the fact that they've been kicked out, or that the video is lagging, or they can't see the slides. But these moderators don't seem to be doing anything, gets to the two hour mark. And she gets to the end of her pitch about her course, and then says, Oh, hey, there's a little application thing you need to apply for this course. And you click on the Apply thing to apply for the course. And she says because it's limited, we've got you know, because it's a high touch point, you're going to get a lot of my time and my team's time. You know, we can limit how many people are going to get this actually To this as well, people click on the Apply and apply needs to a calendar. And then he booked some time, there was no actual application. Oh, and by the way, we still haven't been told the price. Two hours. And people are asking about the question. So let me go and look at the questions. This is question and answer time. Did she answer that question? No. And so people ask him, Hey, where's the application for me see the link, which was working for some people and not for others? But, you know, that was the application. Oh, well, we're gonna have to talk first. Okay, so what about cost? Well, you attend this, this 30 minutes time thing, and then after that will be discussed the cost. So people at this point and are getting annoyed because you're not respecting our time as human beings. You've had us on this call for two hours on this webinar. You haven't told us the price. You've ignored all of our questions about tech and time and money, and then you're trying to get us to invest more Our time because she likes to use the word invest because we all know invest sounds better than cost. Invest another 30 minutes of our time to hear whatever your spiel is for then you to tell us what the prices. And most of us like to know up front, well, is it worth our time, our time is worth money to. And it's just looks like a way for you to fill up your calendar and say I've had this many people wanting to be on this thing, but I can only accept so many, when in reality, it's smoke and mirrors. And so then, sorry, we forgot about the giveaway. People started asking about the giveaway, because she mentioned that there's going to be $15,000 worth of prizes given away should actually turn to inside them as such and such as the winner and turn back. We don't know if the winner was online. Because right people like she here because you said we had to be online to get that prize. We don't know and then the transmission cut off. Forget. So this is why people are fed up. With master classes, especially ones run like that, and what was even more frustrating was that at the start of the call she was on about how she's disrupting the particular industry and how she's doing things differently. And then she comes up with this bs with this master class. And she did the exact same thing that all master classes have been taught to do and annoy people who attend, because you're not respecting us our time as human beings, nevermind, like business owners, or whatever it might be. As human beings. We spent two hours and then we have to apply we don't know what the grounds are for the application. Do we have to be earning a certain amount of money? Do we have to be located in certain timezone? We have no idea what this application really means. And then you want us to invest another 30 which, judging by the way she talks, it might be 40 or an hour's worth of time to be then told the price and made to feel like shit afterwards, if we don't agree to the price. So this is why This person has lost my respect. They don't respect people's time. They lied about so many things, and then just didn't respond like a human to the requests that were said in the particular webinar. And I am very upset about it. And I've talked about it in my facebook group, and with friends of mine, and that is something that I don't agree with it as business practice that I find disgusting. And I understand why people don't no longer sign up for master classes. So I'd love to know what would be a different term that people could use to attract people to attend useful webinars. This is also why when I do a webinar, they tend to be short. And I tell you how long it's going to be. Normally it's 20 minutes to half an hour because I respect your time. And I don't track whether this is my life story. I tell you what you came here to learn and be done with it. And you might know this because you listened to my podcast. It's kind of short and sweet except this episode because I Really ranting about this. So, I'd love for you to email me at Janice at the career internet calm and let me know your thoughts about webinars master classes if another word should be used and any other thoughts that you have. Thank you for listening. This is Janice from the career introvert helping introverts shine

Stress Management as An Entrepreneur Dec 10, 2019

Hello, and welcome to the traveling introvert. Today I want to talk about stress management as an entrepreneur. And this has come up because of burnout has become a very popular topic among the circles that I'm in. But knowing what to do before you even get that far, and realizing when you are under stress, and how you should deal with it. And a lot of the time, you don't realize how much stress you are under, because it ends up being a very gradual thing. It's very rare that one minute you're not stressed in the next minute, you're super stressed. It could be like an email or something like that, but it's something very temporary. You'll write the email and the stress will go away. But what tends to happen as an entrepreneur is there is a slow and steady buildup of stress to the point that you don't realize it's happening until it's too late. And this happened to me recently. And I ended up breaking down crying and calling friends. And that was great, because I realized what had happened. And I reached out and I got support. And that part was great. But looking back and realizing that this was something that had been steadily building over a period of time, and that I hadn't caught the signs. It's, it's kind of sad to me. And so what I realized is what I need to build into my every day work practices or my everyday non work practices, is something that will always ground me something that will bring come to my mind, something that will bring peace to my body as well. And it could be a variety of things. I'm having a list or a variety of things that you know that you do that ground you It could be something like reading a book for 10 minutes. It could be Something like gentlemen, where you brain dump everything that's going on in your mind and put it all on paper, you have to do anything about it, you have to solve any problems, you just have to get it out of your mind. What happens with me is I tend not to sleep very well, the more stressed I am. And that's because I just, I just lie there. And I think and I think and I think and so one way to stop that is to write it down or to leave a voicemail if you don't write it down because I can't read my handwriting the next morning. Maybe it's nice to have a voice memo of the stuff. And it could be something like coloring. It could be something like playing a game it could really be something like zoning out and Xbox in for an hour. That could make you feel grounded and whatever it is, whatever it is that you need to do have a bath every Friday night Are you always loved during that sitting candles and glass of wine or my favorite drink of choice at that time with the book. But try and build something in every day and then something slightly Bigger maybe every week, something that's a bigger thing every month and something that's taking a half day and going to a spouse mean that like completely unplugged you every quarter so you can reset. I've seen it happen to a friend of mine they recently went on vacation they haven't been on vacation in years and it's only because they girlfriend push them to go on vacation and they're like, oh, okay, I feel far more equipped to go back and deal with like the stuff because they got to unplug and just be away. For three days. It was like a long weekend. So stress management as an entrepreneur, it's not about the the every day stuff that gets you angry or upset or stressed. It's the realizing that your pressure valve is slowly creeping up and and it will get to a point where it bursts and you need to stop that. So making sure that you have a valve a release valve for every day and every week and every month and every quarter. It really lucky every year. That you can go and you can reset and release that pressure. And that steam that I found and I'm finding is the best way to deal with stress management as an entrepreneur because other things are always going to change. Other things are always going to get in the way. There's always going to be a setback, there's always gonna be some software that breaks, there's always going to be something and because of this having a practice of a range of things that you do that calms you will save your blood pressure, possibly save your life, and it will give you mind space to think about things from a different angle. Thank you for listening. This is Janice from The Career Introvert, helping you launch your podcast with a minimum stress and no overwhelm

How to Make an Impact Even if You Don’t Feel Like an Expert Yet Dec 03, 2019

Hello, and welcome to the traveling introvert. Today I'm going to talk about how you can make an impact even if you feel like you're not an expert yet. And the reason I want to talk about this is because recently I attended a conference. There's a conference I attend every year. And it's called seven and seven, and it's seven cities and seven continents in seven years. And three years ago in Barcelona, they were gracious enough to let me talk about introversion and remote working. Fast forward to this year. It's now been a couple years I followed them to Colombia and I followed him now to New Zealand. And they normally have networking sort of mixer welcome party at a location. And I normally go with a time limit. I actually had plans to go and have dinner that evening, so I was going to pop in pick up my badge, any swag. Say hello to a few select people and skedaddled Mainly because it's not I don't know, people I know some people who go and it's just, you know, the edge of the circle going in do I get a drink? First I sit and have some nibbles. Because the place of food is the general comfortability of me in networking events. And I was talking to one person and we finished a conversation, I almost spilled a glass of beer, not mine. And I went and I was at the edge of a conversation, those three people talking and I was gonna, you know, just get into the conversation and like, Hi, I'm just gonna join you. And I did. And they told me that they were talking about me. And I stared wild eyed for a minute and they explained that they were telling a new person who had just started coming to this event that I'd spoken a couple of years ago. How they learned so much from me because when they first met me, they overwhelmed me and we're talking at me and everything else. And they're the two people who were talking to me were extroverts. And who I go, my God, I must have done all the horrible things, but you taught me so much about ambivert and introversion and all of these things, and we thank you. And I didn't know what to say. I mean, I smiled and nodded and said, Thanks, Mike, really me okay. But it's amazing because I never would have considered myself to be an expert on introversion, on expert on working remotely. In fact, this talk that I did was one of the first that I done on introversion and how I ended up starting the career introvert. And so it was humbling, terrifying and flattering, of course, to hear people talking about me years later and how they learned something you always think that people already know what you know. And that is so not the case. There's always somebody in front of you who knows more than you. But there's always someone behind you, who knows less than you, or wants to learn more or just doesn't know, your point of view on something or your instincts about something or your background on something or what different lens or angle that you can bring to something. So whenever you're thinking, Oh, I don't want to start this podcast. Oh, I don't want to write that book. Oh, I don't want to give that speech. Oh, who am I to say X, Y and Z about whatever. Just remember. There's always people out there willing to listen to you and hear what you have to say. And, and take it and accept it and listen and learn from it. That is a great gift. And something that I think we we forget a lot because we're social media. Everything's Instant and it's pictures and all of these things, but just having your voice out there, and people listening and, and, and, and agreeing with you is is a wonderful thing and people loving and taking that and passing it on to other people. It's wonderful. So I highly just want to say you can make a difference you can make an impact. Even if you don't feel like you're an expert in whatever topic it might be. You are an expert in you. Your viewpoint, your bubble your life. bring that to the table. That is more than enough. Thank you for listening. This is Janice at the current rate.com if you have any questions for me, please email me at Janice@thecareerintrovert.com helping you launch your podcast with minimum overwhelm

Unwelcome at a coworking space Nov 26, 2019

Hello, and welcome to the traveling introvert. Today I'm going to talk about co working spaces. And the reason I want to talk about co working spaces is because recently I did a lot of traveling. I think it was a ridiculous amount of countries in a short amount of time. And I love to explore the different co working spaces that might be available and most co working spaces have a free offer or a free day or an hour, or they'll show you around. And so there was one co working space that I went to in Wellington and New Zealand. And they knew I was coming they were having an open week where they were giving out free co working spaces and open hot desking for the week. And you have to sign up to go to the New York Comic and you had to say which days that you're going to come in. So they have this information on me already. I entered the coworking space known as that reception. I look around and Okay, but there is an iPad there for you to sign in. So I go ahead and I sign in this place that very blatantly says hot desk so I go and sit myself down and I see the Wi Fi code and use that and start working. I don't put my headphones in. I didn't do all the usual things that I do when I just want to sit down and work just because I wanted to be open to someone to come up to me and welcome you to the CO working space and show me where everything was. And this was about 10am. at one o'clock I get hungry. I see the someone at reception she sees me but doesn't say anything. I kind of look around I see people taking water so I scrambled around and I kind of find a cup eventually and so on and so forth. I then go out have get lunch come back in. People are cooking because in this particular co working space there is a full on stove and people are cooking I sit in and kind of eat lunch with a toothpick because I can't find the knives forks. Spit any cutlery, and I haven't been shown round. And I quite frankly too nervous to go and say anything. So yes, I know part of this is my own fault. But move on to another couple of hours of the day. It's now 445 and the receptionist finally comes up to me and he said, Oh, hey, such and such and I'm like, Yes, I am. Oh, I I saw he checked in but I just I wasn't I welcome to the coworking space and I hope you found everything Okay, and what was it? At no point did I get told where the bathrooms were, what the facilities were the coworking spaces was their quiet rooms was their Skype rooms where the cutlery was where to find water, tea, coffee. Welcome to the coworking space. This is all the activities we have going on. Nothing, nothing at all. And come in being there for an entire day. being ignored by reception felt uncomfortable enough that I Couldn't be didn't want to ask where the cutlery was. And that was it. And this was the open house week like they wouldn't new people were coming in. They were expecting people to come in there was events going on. And basically they ignored me. And glutton for punishment, I went back for a second day. And I got ignored gang and it's not like this co working space was super busy and couldn't have seen me. I was the only non white person there I kind of stick out and still reception or any of the other members because they were also doing like an Instagram. Like photoshoot thing. No one said anything to me. In fact, I might be in some of their photos because they failed to mention that they were taking photos and I don't really think I send an undisclosed anyway. So co working spaces. When you are having an open event. Try and be welcoming especially as you You have my information in advance I then checked in on the iPad and somehow reception so don't notice this did not come and find me did not make me welcome did not show me where everything was. And this was your chance for me to be like, Oh, I'm gonna go tell everybody because it happened that there was 100 plus bunch of people in Wellington, specifically digital nomads who are looking for co working spaces and I can recommended your place, but I didn't. Because, yeah, not great. So that is just one of my experiences with coworking spaces around the world. I'm sure there will be more to come because I'm now thinking of others. But that one particularly stuck out just because I was not made to feel I wasn't not made to feel welcome, but I wasn't made to feel welcome. I'd love to know if you have any co working space stories or what would make a really good coworking space for you. Oh, and did I mention they were singing they had a radio on and people were singing along to the radio anyway Thank you for listening. This is Janice from the career introvert helping you launch your podcast using systems and workflows to prevent overwhelm.

How often do you keep in touch? Nov 19, 2019

: welcome to the traveling introvert. Today I want to talk about keeping in touch. This has been on my mind since a friend of mine messaged me, must've been. Two weeks ago. I hadn't heard from this friend in about three to four years, and so it always something that comes up time and time again.

I do tend to be the, the keeper of my friends relationships. I do tend to be the person that keeps in touch the most. I'm the one that starts conversations. However, this is not always the case. I'm trying to get better at making sure that my relationships are a two way street. And so I got this message and I was traveling at the time, and so I kind of looked at it and then didn't think about it again.

But this person had reached out after not reaching out at all for about three to four years. And I happen to live in the same city as this particular person. And so it's not a case of, Oh, they live in a different time zone or in a different country or anything of that nature. They literally live in the same city as me.

And what bothered me about this message was they were very much like, hi, long time, no, see you haven't heard from you in ages. And. Okay, so you haven't heard from me, but you also haven't messaged in ages. Why is it me that has to be the one to keep in touch, and I definitely have friends who are bad at communicating.

So, but they're very upfront about it. They're very much like, Hey, I'm really bad at keeping in touch if you message me I will messages straight back. And so I have that already in mind with that person. And so yes, I do definitely have two or three friends who are those people. But if I message them, I do get a message within 24-48 hours depending on which time zones we're in.

So that is fine because they've set the boundaries in advance, they've set expectations, and that we know. But people who I used to talk to every two weeks who suddenly drop off the map and then turn up three one three years later, and as if nothing happened or as if it's my fault, irritates me friendships and relationships in all their forms.

That should be a two way street. And so. When you're thinking about your friendships, think about when's the last time you reached out to somebody and are you always reaching out when you want something, because that's the other thing. I've definitely had people who drop off the first of the earth and then turn up a couple of years later say, Hey, I need you to do this thing for me.

And then get frustrated, irritated when you're like, Oh, Hey, haven't heard from you in forever. Thought you were dead or whatever, and now you want something from me. No, that's not how this works. That's not how relationships or friendships work. It is a two way street where. Both of us. There's some give and take.

You can't just be like, Oh, Hey, I haven't seen you in eight years or however long it is. I need something from you, or I need to stay at your house, or where are you? It's very frustrating. So my advice to you out there is checking on people because also you don't know what has happened. Don't be the one person that.

People always are asking for, make sure you reach out to other people, even if it's just to say hi. It's better than radio silence for years on end. And also when you reach out, don't only reach out to people when you want something that's not fair, nor is it nice and it doesn't make you a good human being.

We check out people and say, hi. You don't know what's going on in their lives. Maybe they just need someone to say hi to them. So be that person and see what a difference that makes, what a difference you can make in people's lives. But I'm curious listeners, how do you view it? If you have a friend who hasn't messaged you in three or four years and they pop up out of nowhere as if nothing happened and asking you for something, how do you react?

How do you feel? Do you empathize? Maybe something's happened in their life and they lost track. But they're not apologizing. They're not saying, sorry. They're not asking how you are. They want something from you. So how does that make you feel? And if you are that person that does these things, there's, you can never, it's never too soon to stop being their person.

Go through your lists, go through your WhatsApp list, go through your contact list and just say, hi. It makes the biggest difference in the world. Thanks for listening. If you have any questions, please email me at Janice@thecareerintrovert.com.

Books for Introverts Nov 12, 2019

A brief summary of this episode

Introverting with other introverts Nov 05, 2019

In this episode I am going to talk about all the ways I got to connect with fellow introverts at a 7 day conference and still felt wiped out at the end! It was totally worth it and I scheduled some time to recharge. How do you recharge after a conference?

Hello, and welcome to the traveling introvert. Today I'm going to talk about introverted with other introverts. And the reason this has come up is I recently spent time at a think about a seven day conference, which is quite a long time, it was split up into different types of conference and different activities and different things were done. But at the same time, it was about a week's worth of attending events, talking to people, I also gave a workshop and there was meetups and dinners and and events and activities to go to. And looking back at this week's worth of activity, even though I knew it was going to happen, and even though I tried to pace myself, I still found myself overwhelmed at times. And that's okay, that happens. I was still in Join what I was doing, though now, I'm enjoying really long showers or just lying and not doing anything and letting my my mind wander. But looking back during those seven days, I realized there were quite a few times where I was into reading with another interview, which was wonderful. And I want to talk about a couple of ways that this happened during this conference. So one times agenda this conference had provided breakfast and lunch and that coffee breaks. And you'd come in in the morning and there was one morning where there was a little seating area, and one person mentioned that she can get Wi Fi where we were because her house had had gone her Airbnb. So she was like catching up on things. And I was sitting going through my email, and then third person came and joined, but she didn't say anything. Just let me not it that to the other person, not it went on her phone and it was great. He was blissful. It was wonderful day we all introverted together. Another was at this particular conference, there was a breakout session and all the interest wanted to get together and talk about stuff related possibly to interpersonal just issues or things I wanted to discuss. And so there was about, I'm going to say at least 10 of us all sitting there, talking about different things that have come up with the way people have viewed introversion, how you've dealt with certain situations, what's good and what's bad. Everything from eating alone in a restaurant to how to tell an Uber driver thank you for you know, talking, I'm not really like talking right now actually need this time to recharge, can you please be quiet without being rude? So that was one way I ended up interviewing with other introverts which was great. And then there was a third time a friend that I've been trying to this is someone that I knew online, but I had never actually met in person, but we felt like we knew each other. And on the last day, we decided to have lunch. And we ended up we weren't weren't in a corner, we were in an area where other people could join in. But just the two of us just sat there and had a conversation. Other people sort of dipped in an hour. But definitely respect to the fact that the two of us were sitting there trying to have quality time together. So that was great. And another way introverted, this time without a fellow introvert was I found a quiet space. And then I realized another internet was like, Okay, so I'm gonna go find a quiet space. And so we both went, and then separate ends of the quiet space, where they're doing whatever we needed to do. And also at this particular event, they provided a quiet room and so it was a room dedicated to you recharging or recharging your

phones, laptops, etc. And just quiet and there was um, coloring books, and that sort of a thing. So those are ways that I ended up integrating with and without fellow introverts and Oh, the last thing was there was a closing party and it was an In a bar strip restaurant, and as usual in bars, the music starts off relatively nice and quiet. And then it ramps up as the evening goes on, I think they think it makes people feel the party mood. It just makes it more difficult for people to talk to each other. And so they had an outside patio area, and myself and another person went out to the outside patio area. So we could hear each other talk and be it stopped all that noise because when you have everyone talking over each other, and the music and everything else, it gets loud and overwhelming and overbearing, and then you just want to leave. When we went outside. I was as I walk 30 minutes and then I'm done. I can't do this anymore, and then end up staying outside for two hours just talking to her and a couple of other people because the environment was a little more chilled and calm. So those are ways that I introverted with fellow introverts at a seven day conference and survived. I would love to hear how you interact with fellow interest, please email me at Janice@careerintrovert.com Thanks for listening and have a great day.

Customer Service Oct 29, 2019

Shownotes:

What does customer service mean to you and your business? Is it a team that you hire to answer complaints or queries? Is it a group that you hire to have someone be on standby in case something happens? Customer service isn’t just all about focusing on whether the buy-and-sell concept is fulfilled. Customer service is making sure that your customers feel valued for purchasing from your business.

Hello and welcome to The Traveling Introvert. Today I'd like to talk about customer service and what it means to you. The reason that I want to talk about this is for a couple of reasons. I've had one fairly large company that I was buying my product. It's a subscription product and I had been buying it for a good three years. I found a different product that I wanted to try and I tried it out. I kind of liked it better, the price was better, the things that I needed it to do at the time were better. I went ahead and stopped my subscription of the old company, and that was it.

I didn't get an email that said, "Sorry to see you go." I didn't get any of their customer support reaching out and like, "Hey, I noticed that you were thinking of canceling. Can you let us know why?" There was no exit interview. There was nothing. There was radio silence from this particular company. And it surprised me because they're very well known in remote work. They're very well known for being a great company and yet, as someone who's been using their company from earlier on in the day, I got nothing.

So, I reached out and I said, "Hey, you might not care, I'm just someone who barely spends any money with you, but it would have been nice just to get an email so that you noticed that I wasn't paying anymore." Again, I didn't get a response. And now, I don't think I'd ever go back even if they ended up changing their product and doing it in such a way that was a good fit for me, I'm not sure I would ever use them again because now I just feel like a number, and not even a number. People notice when their numbers go down.

Then, on the second hand, there was another company, again a very large company, that reached out to me and said, "Hey, we think you might be a good fit for this thing we're doing. I'd love to get on a call with you." I'm like, "Ah, really, me? Little old... I mean, sure, I guess," and I got a little excited about it. I started researching on the thing that they wanted me to be a part of and I found some information, but really not that much. I know someone who had been involved with them and so I asked them some questions, but there really wasn't a lot out there for me to gather myself if I didn't have a friend.

So, they said that they wanted to have her call me. The call was scheduled for 20 minutes. So, I'm on the line and waiting. I'm a little bit nervous. I have a list of questions from what I've gathered. The person is late to the meeting, and they were five minutes late. They did not message, but also they did not say sorry when they got on the line. They just asked me if I had any questions. They didn't even try to explain anything to me or pitch anything to me, they were just like, "So, do you have any questions?" My response was, "Well, you haven't really given me a lot of information. Please tell me about this thing that you want me to be involved in." As I said, this call was scheduled for 20 minutes. This person took five minutes to explain their product.

I then went ahead and asked the questions that I had on my list, and a lot of the questions were very much like, "Well, what happens with this information?" or, "Okay, well this happens and then what if I stop contributing or whatever happens?" and, "How long is this process?" A lot of the answers I got during this interview was, "Oh, I don't know. Well, I'm not sure. Oh, I'll have to figure it out." And this wasn't someone that was new to the company because I had checked on that. This person had been with the company for a long time. I don't know if they weren't expecting the questions, or I wasn't giving them the right... I don't know what it was, but they didn't seem to know the answers to my questions.

Now, we're about 12 to 15 minutes in and this person is like, "Oh, well, yeah, you can email those questions and I'll email a response back to you. I'm going to have to go now." I said, "But, the call was scheduled for 20 minutes and I have some more things that I'd like to ask and would like for you to explain a little bit more." Her response was, "Yeah, but just email them to me and I'll email you a response. I've got to go now, bye," and that was 16 minutes of the 20 minute conversation where they were trying to get me to do something. So, I waited with bated breath for this email to come through, and I got the one email, and I haven't responded yet, and I haven't heard from them since. This is a huge, global company.

Customer service is key, people. Just following up, and it doesn't have to be aggressive following up. It could just be like, "Hey, here's this information and if you have any questions," and follow up a couple of days later. It's the really simple things that make the difference. For example, I did an interview in a podcast, totally forgot about it, and a month later I received this beautiful box with information and it was a gift box. I'd totally forgotten about it but it made me feel special. That little bit of customer service goes a long, long way.

Listeners, please email me at janice@thecareerintrovert.com and tell me a time when you have had awesome customer service and what that meant to you.

How do you plan? Oct 22, 2019

Shownotes:

How many plans of yours succeeded? How many of them failed? The success of your plan depends on many factors including planning -- which most people don’t pay much attention to. Many people would rather go unplanned, but that’s not advisable if your plan is to achieve a goal. In today’s episode, I want to dive into planning and some tips that would help you stick to your plan and achieve consistency.

Hello, and welcome to the Traveling Introvert. Today, I would like to talk about planning. It's an area that I haven't covered, and I'm not going to talk about travel planning. Well, in a way, I am. But I want to talk about just planning for the upcoming month.

Now, most people sort of know how to have a rhythm of what's going to happen. At some point maybe you have kids and they're going back to school, or you know you have a big trip planned, or something else. But with your business, how much do you plan? Do you do a plan at the start of the year? Do you do a quarterly plan? Do you ever look back and see what you originally planned and see how far you did or did not get? What do you do to plan your business?

And the reason I ask this is because a lot of the time we get stuck in the weeds and we're just trying to get going. We just kind of keep going, trying to get clients, trying to keep those clients, and trying to get new clients.

But is there a plan? Do you have a goal? Do you have a direction that you want to go in? I know there are a lot of marketers out there, there's one marketer that suggests that you make one big, in depth, juicy blog post per quarter, and then use the theme of that blog to create other content for the rest of that quarter.

So, it could be Instagram, it could be Facebook, it could be how to get clearer skin, it could be beach body. Whatever it might be, but to write one big, juicy, in depth piece of content that then can be reused and repurposed and split up for other months.

And then, build the rest of your efforts with your business around that. Do you have a particular product that you could promote during that time? Could you run a challenge? What your emails to your subscribers going to look like? Making sure that everything is cohesive.

And one thing that I know another planner who's super into analytics does is each month, they name their month. It's normally something like, "Go-Getter Month," or I know some sports athletes use like [inaudible 00:02:28] or target, or whatever that one word will be so that when you wake up in the morning, you think, "Okay, I'm going to do this." And it has to be very, very specific to you and what you want to do.

Is it team work? Is it get stuff done? Is it automate? Is it get help? Is it delegate? Whatever that word is, it's really powerful if you have it for like your theme of the month. And you can have that one word, no more than three word theme, and then break that down into like what does that mean to you?

What does automate mean to you? Does it mean automate all of your accounting systems? Does it mean automate all of your customer service systems? Don't make it mean automate everything because you'll never get that done in the one month. But think about what that specifically means to you.

Document everything was one of my months, and that was a case of, I know at some point, I am going to hand stuff off to somebody else. And so, I need to start documenting now what I do and how it's done, so that someone else will have an idea and that I'm not stuck when I hire someone to be like, "Ah, I've got to do all this documentation now." I'm already doing it as an ongoing process.

So, that's one part of planning. The other part of planning is not stretching yourself too thin. We only have a certain amount of hours in a month, and during that time you have to sleep and eat and have a life and do things. So, the rest of that time, maybe 50 or 60% of your life can be spent on your business and gaining visibility and getting clients.

So, how do you want to spend that time? And you should go and look back and think, "Okay, what is my one goal for this month?" And then, what tasks do I need to do to get to that goal? How much time will those goals roughly take me? And then, how can I fit them in, in the time that I have left in the month, not forgoing whatever else that I'm doing.

So, planning is really, really important and will help you, if you have an overarching theme over a set period of time, to get stuff done and to move you forward. Like, one quarter, my specific thing was visibility.

And so, I made sure that I recorded a bunch of podcasts [inaudible 00:04:51] I was interviewed on other podcasters' podcasts. And so, I did many episodes. One was focusing on my book. One was focusing ... there's the different things. And so, it's really useful to have a micro focus within that month to get stuff done.

Thanks for listening. This is Janice from the travel ... actually, the Career Introvert, helping you amplify your voice through podcasting and publishing, and making sure that people know what your wonderful skills are as an introvert.

Inbox Zero Oct 15, 2019

Shownotes:

Are you one of those who feel pressured or stressed out whenever you see your mailbox full of e-mails waiting for your attention? Even though some of it is really necessary, what purpose do the other emails serve? For today’s episode, I wanted to introduce a quick productivity tip for you -- inbox zero!

Hello and welcome to The Traveling Introvert. Today I would like to talk about inbox zero and it is not a myth, it is also not for everybody. But the reason I want to talk about it today is because I gave it a try and I've managed to more or less keep it for over a month. I wouldn't say I'm a convert but it's definitely helped with my workflow and my processes and stopped me feeling overwhelmed by my inbox. And so I'll walk you through what I did.

So the first thing I did was I had about, I think, 3000 emails in my mailbox to start with. And the first thing I did was I archived. Except everything from the past week, I archived everything else. And I archived because you can find it again. Yes, I could have gone through and checked what I needed to delete but that wasn't the best thing to do. I went and I checked for emails that I hadn't opened, or that I could filter.

So there's certain emails that come from certain organizations that I do want to read them, or they have it set up in a certain way that I get all the emails whereas I just want one or two of them or key words and so I set up filters for those. Then the next thing I did after archiving everything is went through the last week and I had a plan. If it was something that I could deal with straight away, I would email back. If it was something that was like, "Hey check this article out so you can read it". I would click it, open it up and then save it to Instapaper.

Now Instapaper is a read it later app that's across platforms and where when you then have time you can go in and read it later. Because you don't actually have to be reading it when you open your email, it's not urgent normally. So, anything that I could get away with messaging back straight away, I would. Anything that was an article or something that I wanted to read, I'd open it up, save it and Instapaper to read later. There are things that I was waiting on somebody's response, or I knew that I had to wait for a certain date so I would use the snooze function in Gmail. And so that's awesome because I'd go in and be like, "Snooze it," even if it's just for two hours because my day hadn't started yet, or it was going to be something that I have to have a meeting first and then knew I was going to respond to. And that was wonderful. Anything else would be archived.

And so I hit inbox zero and it was the first of the month and I was like, "Yay." And I sent an email to my accountability buddy. I was like "Look inbox zero," because she's a big fan of it. And I wanted to see if this method of doing things would work. And it did to a certain extent. I wasn't at inbox zero all the time because obviously you get a bunch of emails. I'd wake up in the morning and be like, "Oh, 68 emails. Wonderful." But during the first week after hitting mailbox zero, what I would do is look at the email and be like, "Do I need to receive this email? Is this on a mailing list? Is this something that I need every day? Is it useful information?" And then I tried to be harsh about it. If I didn't need it, I would unsubscribe.

And so that cut down on my emails even more. And then I know I'd set up a bunch of Google alerts. So I went into my Google alerts and was like, "Do I need all of these alerts? Can I refine them? Can I change how often they turn up?" That sort of a thing. And so it was really refreshing to see how much my inbox dropped, how much was coming in but also how I was dealing with what was coming in. And it was very rare that I got an email that I was like, "I don't know what I need to do with it. Do I need to do this or that or the other?" There were definitely ones where I didn't need to make a response straight away so I would wait until I was cleaning through my mailbox or there was something that I wanted to do.

The other thing, this was great, that I didn't realize was an option is if you go into your settings and you have options how you filter through your mailbox and how you work through it. And so what I got told was that there is an auto advance where instead of when you click and you delete or you archive something that it takes you back to your inbox, you should set it so it takes you to the next oldest conversation. Which is wonderful because then you just work through it. You'll open one email and then it's like, "Archive. Snooze. Instapaper. Archive. Answer." That sort of thing. And you go through and you knock it out and it's a wonderful thing and it's a very easy ... what seems like a simple thing, and I didn't realize how much of a difference it would make. So that is how I got to and stayed at inbox zero.

Thank you for listening. This is Janice at TheCareerIntrovert.com, please feel free to email me any questions at janice@thecareerintrovert.com, helping introverts launch their podcasts with a minimum overwhelm.

Mental Hygiene Oct 08, 2019

Shownotes:

Self-care is not just about healthy eating or taking care of your body. Showing yourself some love can also be done on the inside like doing mental hygiene. Every now and then, you need to check on yourself and assess how you deal with stress, what’s going on in your mind and whether it’s healthy for you or not. Do you do mental hygiene? If yes, what kind of cleansing do you do?

Hello and welcome to The Traveling Introvert. Today I want to talk about mental health and the reason that this has come up is recently I've had a lot of my friends go through some mental health issues for various reasons and I think it's something that doesn't get talked about often enough, but it also makes me introspect and think what do I do for my mental health?

And there are many different ways for people to look after their mental health. And something that isn't brought up enough is mental hygiene. As children we are taught that we need to brush our teeth twice a day and how much toothpaste to put on the toothbrush and the correct way to brush your teeth, which teeth needed a little bit more love and also your tongue and other areas of your mouth and mouthwash, et cetera.

So we get taught also how to clean ourselves. We get taught how to wash, and shower, and bathe ourselves. We get taught that this is good for us and this is what we should be doing to be a good human being. However, when it comes to mental health, I don't think we get taught in the same way if at all how to look after ourselves mentally. And this is becoming more and more of an issue. Not only due to the way life is now, but the things that we do and the way we do things, our life is very different from how it would've been 50 or a hundred years ago. We deal with a lot of technology. Our life is much more fast-paced to then it used to be, there is a lot of outside influence, a lot of things that happen that are more reactionary and we don't do things in the same way.

You know when your email goes off, your phone goes off you jump straight away like Pavlov's dog when that sort of a thing happens. But you know, a hundred years ago that wasn't really a thing. And so having this constant bombardment of information, and things, and notifications leads our brains to be wired up slightly differently. And also the expectations that are set upon us societally how we're supposed to deal with things. What is a good or bad way of dealing with something is taught in a really interesting way, but it's not taught necessarily directly.

You're not taught directly how to take care of yourself mentally. You are taught directly how to brush your teeth but you're not taught directly by your parents, "Hey, meditation might be a good thing to do." Or examining why you do things and what your triggers might be. So what I think is a great idea is to set aside some time and think about what mental health or mental hygiene might mean to you and how you would like to achieve that.

And also how you've seen it with other people, what they've done, what they've tried to do and maybe failed at. And it's okay because you won't always know what works for you mental health wise, and that might change over time or when something happens. I know definitely there was an incident that I had last year that changed my view on a lot of things because of what had happened and so I then had to try and deal with that and I'm still dealing with that and that's fine. That's okay. Don't expect everything to be solved straight away.

That's the other problem right now is the instant gratification thing. Yes, you can go to therapy, but you you should only go once or twice and then you should be fine. And that's not the case. Sometimes healing takes years and that is okay. So I'd love to know listeners, what is it you do for your mental health.

Do you spend 20 minutes a day writing a journal? Do you spend 10 minutes coloring? Do you meditate? Do you do yoga? Do you speak to a therapist? What works for you and why is it important? And is it something that you used to do and you stopped doing and you'd like to take it up again?

Because just like brushing your teeth and showering, mental health, you shouldn't just deal with it when something happens. There should be constant care and attention, even if it's once a every six months that you go to a therapist just to talk it out. And yes, your friends semi-count as therapists, but they're not professionals. So I'd love to know what you do for your mental health. And if you don't do something now, what you would like to do before the end of the year. Thank you for listening. This is Janice from The Career Introvert, helping introverts launch, their podcast with limited overwhelm.

Online Marathon Oct 01, 2019

Shownotes:

Have you ever wanted to do something but failed to do so because of the excuses you’ve had for yourself? You might have said you don’t have enough time, or that something else needs your attention. This is something that you can easily resolve through an online marathon. The whole idea is to help you get into a healthy habit that will make you productive and will make you so much better in general.

Hello and welcome to The Traveling Introvert. Today I am going to talk about how I'm doing a marathon, but not a regular learning sort of a marathon. I'm doing an online marathon and I want to talk through the experiences that I've had because I've done this twice now.

So the idea behind this online marathon is that you have five key areas that you concentrate on. You have sleep, fitness, nutrition, most important, work. You know what? I've forgotten my last one, so let me look it up. Planning, and do you work with a team online and you get points for planning your day, hitting your fitness girls, hitting your nutrition goals, hitting your sleep goals, and then doing your most important work. So the thing behind the most important work is we get so caught up in our day to day lives of just doing life, that sometimes things that are really important to us get left behind.

So one of the times I did this marathon, my most important work was continuing to write my book. I have a couple of books that have been on the back burner for about nine months. I've been doing a little bit here and there but I haven't been consistent. So the whole point behind the marathon and is that you do at least 10 minutes on your most important work per day because that 10 minutes per day ends up being a lot of time, it ends up being over an hour per week and if you do up to 100 minutes worth of your important most important work per day, it leads up to a lot of time. I ended up writing half of a book basically the last time that I did this particular style of marathon, so the most important work.

So what I learned is that for the sleep patterns, I don't regularly go to bed at the same time for various reasons. It could be for travel, it could be I'm attending an event, but I put in plans that I know I could achieve, you want wins, quick wins that you can get. For nutrition, it was eat a piece of fruit per day and to help me make sure that I would get to that, I made sure that my fridge was stock to the Sunday before the marathon started, with fruit that was easy to eat that I liked. It could be strawberries, it could be cherries, it could be an apple a day. I just put a piece of fruit because if I put, eat an apple a day, it seems more of a chore but if I just put fruit, that gives me a variety of things to choose from that then I can say, "Well I had a handful of grapes that was eating fruit for the day."

For fitness, you try and sort of look at a wide range of things that you could do. So it could be, I will either run, or do cardio, or go for a walk in the park, or go to the gym, or I will cycle at least 10 minutes per day and that can be your fitness goal, even stretching, yoga, whatever it might be, it counts towards your fitness goal. So one thing that we've learned as a team is that some people like to get their most important work done straight away. First thing in the morning they'll go, they'll get it done, get it knocked out because then they find they don't have as much control over the rest of their day and things happen, fires happen, clients happen and then they never get back to their most important work.

What I have found is that happens, but I'm not the best in the morning, so me trying to do my most important work in the morning is a no win for anybody but I've, because of this, have realized when I'm most productive, when it's good for me to do things. I've started to get into a habit of one thing. I discovered a really cool app to go to the gym called Zombies, Run! Which I'm a little in love with, I haven't yet coughed up for the paid version, but we'll see. The thing with this marathon is it's supposed to get you into habits and because you then fall into a habit, you're using less glucose to make decisions. The less decisions you have to make in your day, the more things that you can do.

So the whole idea behind this is to get into a rhythm, get into a habit that makes you feel good and it's better and it gets your most important work done. Your most important work can change from day to day, from week to week but at least you have that feeling of accomplishment that hey, I did a hundred minutes of coloring today. I did a hundred minutes of self-care, I did a hundred minutes of gardening. There's one person who's done a hundred minutes of setting up his new home. He just bought a new place with his partner and he's setting it up because moving is one of those things where, because life is happening at the same time you are moving, I definitely know people who have boxes that haven't been opened in six months since they moved because they just haven't gotten round to it.

So this is the things that people use for their marathon. The marathon is done with a company called Ultraworking, who I love and I love working with them. They do many other things, but I just wanted to talk about setting habits and how sometimes your most important work can get left behind just because of life.

So my challenge to you moving forward is think of what your most important work it is and what can you do for 10 minutes per day towards that most important work and what a difference that can make in your life. Thank you for listening. This is Janice from the careerintrovert.com, helping you launch your podcast or your book as an introvert.

Short flights with talkative people Sep 24, 2019

Shownotes:

Not all people can sit still while traveling. Other people can listen to music, read or sleep the whole ride, but some people don’t have the ability to do that simply because they get bored. Usually, when this happens, they try to find someone to talk to - which is the person closest to them. Though having a conversation with someone can help pass time, you still need to be mindful of whether you’re disturbing someone else.

Hello, and welcome to the Traveling Introvert. Today I am going to talk about... Wow, I had that thing in my head and now it has gone. So I'm going to go on feedback that I just got recently from one of my listeners. I'm going to talk about plane travel, but not just any plane travel, that plane travel that you have, when next to you sits someone who just can't stop talking.

So recently I was on a flight to Denver, and I was in the corner, I had my little window seat because it was a short flight, I had my noise canceling headphones on. They were on, I mean I wasn't listening to anything, but they were on my head and they were plugged in, and it looked like I was listening to something. And the guy in the aisle, he sat down, and so you're waiting and you're waiting and you think no one's going to sit in the middle seat and you're almost a little bit excited. You almost start to stretch out a little, and then someone comes and sits in the middle seat, which is fine.

I'm looking out the window because I like to see how they're loading in the bags because I tend to see my suitcase, because it's very recognizable. Let me rephrase that, it was recognizable, I had to buy a new one recently, which was sad. So now I'm on the side, minding my own business, looking out the window with my headphones on, and the two next to me start talking. The usual, "So where are you going? Where are you heading? What are you doing? Business or pleasure?" And all of that sort of conversation. And those two are having this loud enough conversation that I can hear them over... My noise canceling headphones are now on, but they've got the noise canceling function on, so there's that hiss sound, and that's fine.

And I normally take my headphones off when flight attendants are giving the emergency speech because I want to let them know that I'm paying attention, and also pay attention. No matter how often you have flown you should always pay attention, because all planes are different, and different airlines do different things. And you want it to be automatic, the thing why they tell you the same thing over and over and over again, is because when you are panicking you need to hit into automatic, and so you need to know it's under the seat or it's this, I need to do that. That's why you hear it time and time again and that's why you should pay attention, side note.

So they do that, and I put my headset back on because they've finished the speech. And we take off, and we're flying and it's wonderful. I get to look out the window, which I don't normally.

And then the flight attendants come around with the drinks cart and the food cart. And so, I'm not in the first row, we're three rows back and so they're like, "What would you like to drink?" And they're asking everybody and they're throwing pretzels at them, but they also have the option of ordering food or extra drinks if they wish.

And so our flight attendant gets to our row, and she asks the person in the aisle, "Hey, what would you like?" He's like, "Well, what do you have?" And she's like, "Well, here's our magazine and if you look on the pages here, you can then pick some things." And then she goes and deals with the other side and she comes back. She goes, "Well, what would you like now?" And he's, "Okay, I want this thing." And she's like, "That's the breakfast menu, if you turn over the page..." So he picks something, and then the lady in the middle is like, "Oh well, Oh, Oh there's a magazine. Oh, let me look at the magazine," bearing in mind she had all this time in between.

Anyway, she looks at the magazine, in the meantime the flight attendant asks me what I want, I already know what I want, I order. And the person next to me was like, "Oh, you already knew what you wanted, smarty pants, you knew about where to find the drinks and everything. You're obviously a frequent flyer.".

FYI, I still have my headphones on, and I just smile and nod. And we get our food and everything and I put my headphones back on and I've got my book out and the woman decides she's going to turn to... And you know when you see someone turning to you, like they want to talk to you but they haven't done so yet? And I literally pick up my book and put it in front of my face to be like, "I can't actually see you and I can't hear you," whether I could or not is beyond the point.

But then I did this for most of the flight, I actually slept for some of the flight, but every time I woke up I could... You know, you get that sense when someone wants to talk to you? And then at the end of the flight, to get off the plane, I took my headphones off and she starts talking to me.

"So what do you do? How are you? Do you fly often?" And I was polite enough, but the fact that for 90% of the flight I had headphones on, and was reading a book, should have been the universal symbol of, "Please don't talk to me," and that was for the short flight.

I've now realized I've rambled for almost my five minutes allotted time, so there will be a part-two of what to do when someone won't stop talking in an extra long flight, like a 13-hour flight to Asia.

The other thing about these two is they talked the entire flight. I knew about their grandkids, their mom, their dad, what they did for work, what they ate for breakfast. Because they were loud, they didn't keep it at a reasonable level. Yes, I know planes are loud, obviously why I listened, and have noise-canceling headphones, but you're sitting next to each other.

So that was my... it wasn't even a rant, it was just information about traveling. Headphones on, book out, as close to your face as possible to try to ignore them, or just do one-word answers.

Thank you for listening. This is Janice from the Career Introvert, helping you launch your podcast with minimum overwhelm using workflows and systems, so you can recharge quicker.

When to say no Sep 17, 2019

Shownotes:

Favors are an important part of our lives. It gives us a good feeling when we know we have helped someone and that we lessen their workload. However, not all favors deserve to be said yes to. We still have to weigh every “yes” that we will give because if not, we will be the ones to suffer the frustration. How do you decide whether someone is worth helping?

Hello, and welcome to the Traveling Introvert. Today I want to talk about how many favors is enough. This has come up a lot for me recently because I am very much the type of person that likes to support other people and give people a chance.

Recently, I've found it's bit in the butt and I've had to go and take a look and think how much is too much and what is good and what isn't. So part of that knowing when to say no, which I'm still obviously a little terrible at, and knowing when accepting something is good for you and your business and what you may or may not get out of it and what it benefits the other person.

So a couple of things have happened. One is where I agreed to support a particular business and they were going to send me something and I was going to go ahead and promote it with whatever I was doing at the time. This did not happen.

Even from the get-go when I was asking for contracts, when I was asking for information, I kept on having to follow up. But I was nice about it. I'd say, "Oh, maybe they're busy or and it's their first time trying this. Maybe they don't know what they're doing. They don't have a system in place." So I was asking questions and getting told, "Trust me, I got this." So I was like, "Okay, I'm going to trust you."

Fast forward a few months, I'm still the one chasing out, I'm still the one sending emails and only getting information if I follow up. Then it turns out, long story short, it didn't happen. They tried to give me some kind of monetary payment. Instead, I agreed that maybe it should be used to sponsor different event.

They liked the idea, wanted to talk about it. I sent them my calendar. They then were upset that I sent them a calendar and wanted me to just call randomly. I explained that I don't do that. This is how I work and we want to be able to give each other the full attention that is deserved. And so setting up a time in each other's calendars is the best way forward.

Fast forward a month, didn't hear a thing. And then they get upset about the money that they said they gifted and they made a request for the money back. Gave the money back, but sent them an email saying, "This entire process has been frustrating. I've been the one following up and the fact you asked me for the money back after saying it was a gift, after you didn't do what you said you were going to do, et cetera."

Turned into that person being very angry and very upset and saying that they were swindled and that they didn't agree to anything and there's a whole to-do. That was one thing.

Then another time when I've given someone the benefit of the doubt and tried to support their business was that I was going to do a mini-speaking thing for them, but it was on video. They gave instructions on how they wanted the video done and they wanted good lighting and a microphone and all of that stuff.

I got the best lighting I had. Not everyone's house has amazing lighting. I don't have lamps. I wasn't actually at home for maybe 24 hours before I did the recording. It needed to be done in a short timeframe because even though they'd announced that they were doing this particular thing three or four months ago, they waited until two weeks before the event to start actually going ahead and doing the video.

Apparently, I didn't have the video quality that they wanted, the lighting quality that they wanted. I ended up going round my house trying to find the lighting that was good for them.

I wasn't dressed appropriately, because they wanted it to look a certain way. I said, "Well, that wasn't my brand, but okay, fine." And also the weather. Wasn't looking to wear a bunch of clothing in the weather that I currently had. Their response was, "Well, it's hot here too." And ended up doing video.

What was frustrating at that time was I almost broke my computer. My computer and I ended up on the floor with me trying to figure stuff out. Also ended up breaking up my fan. I have an external fan for my computer and that broke, due to all the kerfuffle and everything that was trying to be done to get this thing done because they were in a time crunch.

At one point they kind of said, "Oh, are you okay," and that, but that was it. And I was like, "Well, yeah, my computer ended up on a tile floor because of all that. That could we just does not record this. And yeah. And I offered to reschedule a couple times, but ideally it wouldn't work for them because they were running on a short time crunch because they had not planned.

So think about when you say yes to something, what that means to you. How much time it might take, what the responsibilities might be, and if it works for you. Does it work for your goals for that month, that week, that year? How does it help them? Is there a contract in place?

Think about all of these things when you say yes to something, because just having a little tick chart of things that should be, is this good for my business, does this go towards [inaudible 00:05:12] goal, is there a contract in place, will help you in the long run.

Thank you. This is Janice from the Career Introvert helping you launch your podcast and do so much more.

You don't need to be an early bird Sep 10, 2019

Shownotes:

There’s a popular saying that goes, “an early bird catches the early worm.” It talks about how being early or being first in action would give you the most opportunities. Although it might be true for some, it doesn’t really mean that you’ll be left out when you come later than others. People work at a different pace and a different time. At the end of the day, the only thing that matters is you get the job done right.

Hello, and welcome to the Traveling Introvert. Today, I am going to talk about not being a morning person. There was a conversation in a Slack group that I am in of people, and we were doing this particular thing that we were doing and people are like, "Ah, I'm going to get up early and I'm going to seize the day. Do exercise, and yoga, and eat right, and go for a run, and all the things that you do because when you wake up early, you're a better human being."

And we realized that there's really not a lot of information out there about not everyone has to be a morning person. There was a lot of Buzzfeed articles and listicles in general about the top things that CEOs do before breakfast, and why waking up early is good for you, and you have to dig a little bit to find any information on, hey, you don't have to be an early bird. You could be ... Wait, you could be a night bird because technically night owl is still a bird. But you can be a night owl and still be productive because there is definitely this myth surrounding the fact that if you don't get up early, you cannot be a productive human being.

And this is not the case. What you find is a lot of writers write at night because everything that could disturb you and bother you, is probably not around, be it your kids, or work, noise outside. At night, a peace tends to descend on certain places on earth, and therefore people find it easier to write, to compose, to paint. There was a famous painter who went, and she had access to a studio. She would only go at night because that's when she felt that she could be her, as she said, "Weird, but not really," herself. She could put her hands all the way in the paint pots and fling them around to create her art. She was free to express herself without other people judging. Whereas if she'd gone during the day, she'd feel like people would kind of judging.

You can be productive. I found that I have my most productive time between sort of 7:00 p.m. and 11:00 p.m. at night. That's when I can just sit and get either creative work done or organizational work done. It just works out better for me, but I found hard, with being productive in the evening, is that any communities that I am part of, generally the community events or the coworking events tend to be during the considered to be the normal working day between the hours of 9:00 and 5:00, and I found that I've had to find communities maybe on the other side of the world that will do things in their time zone when it's like 9:00 a.m. for them but 11:00 for me.

That's how I've worked being a night owl, and being a night owl, you can enjoy being by yourself. You can get a lot done. You can use tools that you're not getting pinged by your email, you're not getting interrupted, and what that will send your email out 8:00 a.m. In the morning so everyone thinks that you sent the messages at 8:00 a.m. In the morning. Being an early bird is something that seems to be prized in a lot of industries and communities and cultures. But if you take a look at it, as long as you get the work done, no matter when it is done, it shouldn't be a problem.

And this is something that should be true for remote work and remote workers. We definitely have a culture of, well we're having a 9:00 a.m. meeting because it's the start of the day. And so most people's Mondays are chockfull of Monday morning meetings to catch up on stuff when really you could have done it on Thursday and then doing on Monday afternoon or Tuesday afternoon instead when things have settled down rather than, "Oh, I have all this bunch of emails but wait, I'm spending my entire morning in meetings."

If you are a night owl or you work better in the afternoon, try and adjust your work or what you're doing or your creative time to enjoy that because you will feel better and you'll be more productive in your own way if you work with what times work good for you. Set up a spreadsheet. And if you don't know when you work best, and just do sort of 9:00 a.m., 10:00 a.m., noon, 3:00, 5:00, 7:00, 9:00, and take a note of your energy levels during those time over a week, and then you might be able to figure out when you will find it best to work. And honestly, I get so much more done in the evening than I do during the day because I figured out that, oh, it's okay for me to work at that time. And I also tend to try and have clients that aren't time pressure-sensitive for the stuff that needs doing.

How do you work best? Are you an early bird? Are you an afternoon bird? Are you a night bird? Are you none of the above? Do you like to do things in small chunks and then take a rest? How you work and how you work best is for you to figure out. There is no one right way. Thanks for listening. This is Janice from the Career Introvert helping you launch your podcast.

Pay to Play Sep 03, 2019

Shownotes:

As time goes by, many things now get charged for a price, and that includes being a guest on a podcast. It can be compared to guest blogging, there are certain sites that charge a certain amount if you want to promote a book, event, or a site of your own in a channel with a large audience. This happens because the hosts use a large amount of money to maintain their sites, and not all potential guests show up or fulfill their obligations. Have you ever paid to be a guest on a podcast? How did it go? As a listener would you like to know when someone has paid to be on a podcast? And then there are companies like Forbes.

Hello and welcome to The Traveling Introvert. Today I'd like to talk about something that's come up recently and it is pay to play, and to some people, this might be triggering just because of the fact that they're like, "Oh wait, but pay to play. Isn't that something you can't do? Isn't that something to stop networks from taking over?" So the reason why I want to talk about pay to play is because there are some podcasts that now will charge people to be interviewed or be on that podcast, and some people are very open about it and some people are not so open about it, and there is a split amongst the podcasting community on whether this is a good thing or a bad thing. On one hand, it helps weed out people who might be wasting your time. There's a lot of time that's spent by podcasters setting up the interview, doing all the research, waiting for someone to come online and then they don't turn up for the interview and they may or may not reschedule, and that is time wasted by the podcaster.

On the same note, it could be that this particular podcaster has a huge reach and if you go on that podcast, it's almost like going on Oprah, if once Oprah says, "This is a thing.", the place sells out so you are buying basically advertising and so why would you not pay for that?

On the other hand, there is the camp that thinks that if you are going to pay for play, then you should state so very clearly and be upfront about it. The idea is someone should want to talk about something, not necessarily just go on to sell. It should be a conversation, it should be a growth, it should be a learning and so there is a divide on the pay to play. Now the thing is pay to play is not just with podcasting. It's also with companies like Forbes for example, they have a a council that you can be on, they approach you, they tell you how wonderful you might be as a good fit to be on this council like board and how you can, you are able to go and you can write articles and be quoted and they'll put articles together with best practices and that sort of a thing.

But you do have to pay a yearly, basically a yearly subscription fee to have access to a, being able to be published on Forbes and to have a badge that states that you are a member of the Forbes Council. So these are all things that give you exposure but they want you to pay for them and you are basically paying to advertise. And so there is definitely a split between the process of what might be seen as pay to play and what might be seen as advertising. And it might just be the mindset of how you go about it or it could be the, well you're not being upfront about it. Because definitely for the Forbes Council, if you try and look online about it, there isn't a lot of information. They reached out to me a couple months ago to be on board one of these councils and when I was trying to find out information how much content was out there and how things, their process was, it was just very murky.

I can't find a lot of information online. There were a couple of people who did put that information out there, but it's not very well stated. When you see a particular, you'll say it's a contributor for Forbes, but it doesn't say that that contributor has to pay sort of a monthly or yearly subscription to be able to post on Forbes. So it's very, very interesting how that works. I would love to know audience your opinion on pay-to-play, whether it be something for like Forbes or something like when you're being a guest on a podcast. Where do you draw that line? Where is it advertising and where is it paying to get ahead from somebody else, which is kind of what advertising is. Is there a wrong or a right way? It just depends how you look at it. I would love to hear your thoughts. Thank you for listening. This was a quick one. This was Janice from thecareerintrovert.com helping introverts launch their podcast with minimum overwhelm. I would love for you to write in, email me at janice@thecareerintrovert.com if you have any questions or any topic you would like me to cover on the show.

Career Reflection Questions Aug 27, 2019

Shownotes:

Have you ever wondered why there are people who grow unhappy with their career as time pass by? Some people find dissatisfaction in their jobs because they feel like they are stuck on a wheel that goes round and round without end. And usually, this scenario happens because of our failure to reflect on our career and how it affects our life, both financially and mentally. Are you content with your career? Does it really help you and the people around you?

Hello, and welcome to The Traveling Introvert. Today, I want to talk about how to reflect on your career, your job, your business. You can do this at any time. People really like to do this at the start of the year, in the middle of the year ... every quarter. As long as you do it, it's fine. It doesn't matter how often or when you do it. So, I want to talk about a couple of things.

The first thing is, does your work matter? And the reason I say this is because it's a really fundamental question. Because, if the answer's, "No," then why are you doing it? Or if it's, "No, but it gives me the money to do other things that matter," that's fine. But, your happiness, both professional and personal, come from possibly doing work that you care about.

And so, you need to think about what you've done, why you've done it, what you've achieved, what does it mean to you, why does it mean these things to you, and ... Because, what we've found now, is that a lot of people, when they're looking for companies to work for, they want to have meaningful jobs. They want to know that what they do matters. And not just matters to themselves, but to the greater community.

So, just stop and take a look, and think about, "What is it that I do?" Not every single thing that you do as part of your work has to matter, but there should be something in there that, "Yes, I enjoy doing this part because of X, Y and Z." Or, "I enjoy this because I get to work with Y, B and X." It doesn't matter, but you need to think about what you're working that is and doesn't matter.

And also, not just to you, but does it matter to your employer? Or does it matter to your clients? Because the best way to get a synergy with work is to make sure that you're all on the same page, and one way of doing this is comparing your values, and does that work matter?

Now, the next thing is, right now we are in constant flux and constant change. Skills that you acquired last year might not be so good and useful this year. Technology changes so quickly, and there used to be just one, like ... Buffer used to be the thing that you used to use for your social media, but now there's Meet Edgar and there's Social Curator and there's all these things. Technology drives a lot of what we do these days, and how we do it.

Just today, I ended up trying a new software for someone as far as rendering your podcast, and sort of mastering it and digitally producing it. I got one thing that I use right now, but this person came up with a new thing, and I should try it, right? So, just take a look and look back over the past year, or six months, and see ... Have you learnt any new technology? Is there something new that's come out that's better for your business? Or better for your career? Or something that you'd just like to know more about? And take a look, because probably there is something that you'd like to take a look at, and just see what would happen.

Now, the other thing that's really important to think about when you're just doing an analysis, is your financial wellbeing. And, that can be your personal or your business, or both, financial wellbeing. I mean, money alone doesn't dictate how satisfied you might be, but it sure does help. So, when you're thinking about, holistically, your lifestyle, where you want to be, what you want to do, where you might want to be located, think about the funding needed and required for that. Also think about retirement, what you want to do, how that would look, and are your financial needs currently being met? If not, is there something that you can do to change it? Could it be learning a new skill? Could it be changing position? Could it be starting a new branch of your business?

Just stopping and taking stock of these three things can help you pivot or lead you in a different direction, because sometimes we just get so lost being in the weeds and just getting stuff day to day, that we forget to breathe and take a step back and think, "Okay, what are my values? What do I enjoy doing? What do I give back to the community? Or, my community ... whatever that might be. And, are my finances where they need to be?" Those are really important things. And then, "What technology can I use to get myself there? What technology can I use to help other people do X, Y and Z?"

So, these things are very much intertwined. You can use apps to track your finances. You can snap photos to see how much money you spend on these different things ... All of these things together will help you make a decision about what you want to do next. Maybe what project you want to work on and the type of people you want to work with. So, that's one quick way of how you can make a review if you're in a career, or if you have your own business, to see what the next three to six months might lead you to.

Thank you for listening. This is Janice@TheCareerIntrovert.com, helping you launch your podcast or your book with great workflows and strategies and systems to help you be consistent.

Ways I've Overcome "Shiny Object Syndrome" Aug 20, 2019

Shownotes:

For this podcast episode, I want to talk about one of the topics that many people can surely agree on. How do you treat new objects? For a child, they usually play with this new toy and completely disregard the other ones that they already had before it. Do you know that we somehow brought that kind of attitude as we grew up? You see, whenever a new trend, app, or a new technique comes out, we feel this strong desire to try it out. For some, it is because it might be useful, but for others - it’s just their FOMO! Ask yourself, do you have the shiny object syndrome?

Hello and welcome to The Traveling Introvert. Today I'm going to talk about ways I over use to overcome sort of Shiny Object Object Syndrome, Huh? So Shiny Object Syndrome is when a new diet comes out or new software comes out or a app comes out that everyone's talking about it, so you have to try it, yada, yada, yada. And then you waste, you know, days, weeks, whatever, trying out this thing while neglecting everything else that you were doing in your business or your career.

And the reason why I want to talk about some shiny object syndrome is because in this day of online businesses, we get bombarded all the time with adverts on new things. You can come up with a new idea, create a Facebook page for it and have ads linked to it in a matter of hours. And there are so many things going on around the world that we now have more access to that we never really did before that it can be overwhelming.

And so when I see a shiny new object, for example, there are hundreds of different calendar booking options or things that you can use to help clients book with you. Or a way to link your invoicing with your contracts with something else. And this other thing. So what I do is festival number one, do I have something that already does this? Am I happy with it? Is it cost effective? If so, move it along. Number two, which really should be number one, is it in line with my business goals? Does it help me with my overall business goal? If it does, okay I'll take a look into it. If it doesn't, stop, move it along. Does the company that is creating whatever product it might be, are they also aligned with my goals or are they anti X, Y or Z that I am totally for, because that can make a difference.

I try and use products or work with clients, work with other companies that do things that are in line with my beliefs and my mission and my vision for my company and for things in general. So that's another thing. Is it in line with your business goals? Is it something that you currently have and you're just looking to replace?

The next thing that I do when I'm thinking about, Ooh, should I try this shiny thing? What is it I would use it for? Is it something that would make me more productive? Is it something that will save me money? Is it someone that will help promote me or market me or my products or whatever it might be. Take a look at that and see, A, could you do it another way? Do you need this software? B, is it doing something that you really need right now or it's something that will enhance what you're currently doing?

Think about those things and if it's not, then move it along. Just because everyone else is using it and everyone else is super happy, jumpy about it doesn't mean that you have to. Another thing that I really take a look into is how long would it take me to set up? Is this something that I'm going to have to go and read a bunch of software or go and see a lot of YouTube videos and spent hours setting up or is this something that could take a minute or two and we'll be able to use it very, very quickly because that makes a difference. There's certain things that I'd be happy to spend time figuring it out because it's a longterm thing or something that helps my client journey or something that is very, very targeted to my business goal. But if it's something sort of like tracking stuff, I need that to be as automated as possible.

I need to meet, go in once, click check this, that and the other, link it up to whatever I need to do and then it should be able to run on its own. So think about those things when you, you see a new shiny object. Just because your friend is using it or because someone else is using it doesn't always mean it's a good fit for you. And yes, the price might be amazing and it's an introductory prices. This is another thing. It could be something where an introductory price is a dollar, but then a year later you get smacked with a charge of 599.

That's something to keep in mind. The year of the dollar is great, but then you need to make back that money. Can you make back that money? Is the charge going to come out at an inopportune time? Are you going to forget about it? Cause they don't remind you and all of a sudden you see this charge? That is something for you to keep in mind. So those are ways that I use to overcome or to at least sort of project out shiny object syndrome and buying lots of new things all the time. Thank you for listening. This is Janice at The Career Introvert, helping introverts amplify their voices through podcasting, publishing, public speaking, and general personal branding. If you have any questions, please email me at Janice@TheCareerIntrovert.com.

Stick To Your Values Aug 13, 2019

Shownotes:

Values are one of the most important things for me. Not only does it make you a better person, but it’s what you are known for as well. Sometimes, our own values get compromised even if we don’t want to just because we don’t want to offend this other person. But hey, just because we are friends or partners, doesn’t mean we’re required to agree to them even if our values say otherwise. It’s perfectly okay to have different opinions and values.

Hello and welcome to the Traveling Introvert. Today I want to talk about standing by your values. Recently ... I'm part of a lot of Facebook groups. And one of the Facebook groups I'm in wanted to encourage other members to meet with each other, so they could have in person meetups, which was great. And so, I made a little comment going, "does anyone do any virtual ones?" Not all of us might be close to everyone else. Some people live in remote places, we were all over the world. Does anyone do a remote one? And to my surprise, when I looked the next day, because I try not to be on Facebook too often, there was a lot of replies and responses that people wanted to do this. So, over the time, took about a week, we managed to arrange to have a virtual meetup. We knew what we wanted to talk about and who was going to be there. And it was through Zoom. It took a little while. People liked using Facebook to communicate and some people offline at the time and online.

And instead of sending a calendar invite, we had to double check who were actually meeting. And there was a couple things. But I made the question, so I wanted to attend this meeting to see what would happen. I wasn't sure if it was something I wanted to commit to on a regular basis, because I'm very careful about the kind of things that I commit to on the regular, and whether it is a useful time for me or whatever it is that I want to do, and whatever my goal might be. So I attended the meeting. And as normal with a meeting that is a bunch of people who've never met before, we go around and we talk about what we do, where we are, our background maybe, that sort of a thing. And we went around and I realized that one of the participants was part of an MLM, a multilevel marketing company. She didn't say so specifically, but she mentioned that this particular product had changed her life and that she needed to find two other people to buy it, and then she kind of took that back.

But that was a big clue to me that this was a multilevel marketing kind of company. And the meeting continued and we all talked about different things. And I just didn't really get a good vibe from most of the people in the group. They were fine. There was nothing very specific. I just ... The MLM thing bugged me. And also that was the person who's Zoom account we were using. So then the end of the meeting came, we helped each other as much as we could, and we had the discussion of whether we were going to meet again. We were going to meet again, but we were talking about different things. And again, this person used it as an opportunity to say how much her life had changed, which is fine, but it was due to this particular product, what they were doing, and how wonderful it was. But she's out to help people, which is good. Her core belief is to help people, which is a wonderful thing.

So at the end of the call we logged off, and I sat and I thought, and then I went and had a discussion with a friend. And I said, "I just did this thing, and this person, she's part of MLM and we're supposed to meet together and be accountable and help each other in various ways. And so if I was part of this group, I would be helping this person with their MLM business. Which is not really what I want to do, but I'm the one that started this particular discussion and I feel bad dropping out." And they said, "there are other people in the group, there's like five of you. You are not the head of it. You're not even using your Zoom account, you're using somebody else's Zoom account. And if you don't feel comfortable doing this, then don't."

So I ended up writing an email to the one person who I considered that I would want to keep in touch with and I said, "hi, I really enjoyed meeting everybody. I think I'm going to be dropping out. I don't think this is a good fit for me. Plus one of the members has a business that I don't agree with." I didn't mention what it was. I just said it's a business that I don't agree with. Only to have that person email me back and say, "hey, actually I didn't think it was a good fit for me either. I will also be dropping out. Thank you for your honesty." So just by me sort of reaching out and saying, "I don't feel quite great about this", and sticking with my values and beliefs, I ended up making a better connection with this other person. So, that was my story for today. It was just stick with your beliefs, because people will recognize it. Thank you for listening, this is Janice at thecareerintrovert.com helping introverts amplify their voices through podcasting, publishing, public speaking, and personal branding. If you have any questions, email me at Janice@thecareerintrovert.com.

Solo Traveler Safety Aug 06, 2019

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Are you the type of person who can easily doze off while on a ride? Can you fall in deep sleep the moment the Uber driver drives smoothly? I could do exactly that, but I usually choose not to. Let’s be real: times have changed and the people out there may not be the same as we’ve known them before. Danger is everywhere and the only way to be safe is to be aware of your surroundings.

Hello and welcome to the Traveling Introvert. Today, I would love to talk about sleep. I love sleep. I'm a huge fan of napping. I am lucky enough at this moment in time that if I put my mind to it, I can sleep pretty much anywhere, any time, any place. Unless I'm cold. It's not good if I'm cold. I don't like being cold.

But what I really want to talk about is sleeping on public transport as a lone, solo female traveler. I take a lot of Ubers, and I take a lot of public transport, and when I'm in a foreign country, and actually to be honest with you, even when I'm not in a foreign country, I find it impossible to sleep. I don't care how tired I am, how jet lagged I am, I will not sleep if I am in a taxi, an Uber, a Lyft, or whatever transport, train, bus. Like small commuter buses, I will not sleep, because in the back of my mind, I'm always scared that they drive somewhere that I don't know where I am, they stop the car, they drive me to some place that I don't know and something happens.

The other thing I do like to do is, when I'm on my way to my new location, I like to see where the nearest supermarket is, or restaurants that are around where we are. I'm always got my GPS, sort of Google offline maps tracking me to make sure I'm not going the wrong way, or the scenic route. That happens. I thought this was fairly normal behavior, to be honest with you. I've always sort of traveled this way. Being hyper-aware of my surroundings has always been something that I just did.

Recently, I'm traveling with my partner, and my partner sleeps in Ubers and sleeps on public transport. It boggles my mind, because I can never be that relaxed to sleep. Bear in mind, I just said I can sleep any time, any place, anywhere. I refuse to do it, because anything could happen, and I'm asleep, basically incapacitated until you get woken up by a knife at your throat, or you're in the wrong place, and it's too late, because they've charged you a bunch of money, or whatever it might be.

Apparently, my partner says he doesn't do this. My traveling partner says they don't do this when they're alone, but it just boggles my mind that therefore the assumption is that I will stay awake anyway. Or if we're both together, everything will be fine. I would love to know what other things solo female travelers do to keep themselves safe.

I know that I've been told when getting an Uber to ask the driver what their name is, so they have to say their name and my name before I get in. One thing that I got told was to make sure I touch somewhere on the back, the front, the handles, very sort of blatantly on an Uber, so if they ever had to look for fingerprints, that they'll be able to find it. Obviously, always share your location on your Uber. Know in advance which way you're supposed to be going and the route you're supposed to be taking. That's always good.

One thing that I generally do is, if I'm entering a new country late at night ... I try not to put my flights that way, but if I am late at night, I'll make sure that I get a hotel pick up, so that it's prepaid for by my hotel. They know where the hotel is, and they know to pick me up. Because there's nothing worse than arriving jet lagged, groggy, tired, late, in a darkness in a country that you don't know and then trying to have to find a hotel, which may or may not be as visible as you would like to be, especially if you don't speak the language. So that's one thing that I do. Even though there tends to be a higher than average cost involved, it gives me better peace of mind.

Another thing as traveling solo, I try not to get dropped off at my door. Maybe there's a block of flats that's close by, so I could be like in any one of those flats. But if there's like a single house, I'll try not to get dropped off there. I'll get dropped off at the corner store or the nearest supermarket or somewhere that's really not my place, but my Uber driver can't come back and find me.

I'm sure there's other little things that we do subconsciously as solo female travelers. You know, having your keys in your hand for attack purposes, or just being very aware of who might be following you or sounds, and that sort of a thing.

But I'd love to know what you do, public that listens, to make yourself safe, or at least feel safe when you're traveling solo as a female traveler. I'm going to say female specifically, because men have it differently, and I can't empathize with that. I don't know. So please send me answers at Janice@thecareerintrovert.com. I look forward to hearing from you.

What do you do when you are sick? Jul 30, 2019

Shownotes:

There are a lot of differences for employed and self-employed professionals and one of those is sick days. Companies provide sick leave for employees, but there’s none for self-employed individuals -- which is why you need to have one for yourself. Self-employed people tend to abuse the fact that they can work from home by working in their beds even if they are sick. But think about it -- can you still be productive at home knowing you’re not in your 100%?

Hello and welcome to the Traveling Introvert. Today I want to talk about sick days. What do you do if you are not employed and you have a sick day? And the reason why I say you're not employed is because some people who are employed, do get sick days as part of their compensation package, and there's just a different protocol involved with being sick when you are an employee compared to being a freelancer and/or working for yourself.

And so I want to talk about it because it brings up a lot of different things. So when I am sick unexpectedly, the first thing I do is send out an email to my team, letting them know that I am sick. I don't say what I'm sick with necessarily, but a due date of when I should be back at work and what the expectations are. As in I will clear my mailbox or I will just attend the call, whatever it is that I'm supposed to do that day, let them know that I will or I won't or minimize it and when to expect me back.

The next thing I do is stick an out of office and I just say I'm unavailable. I don't necessarily say I'm sick. Though, these days I've taken to being very forthright about it and being very much about, "Hi, I'm currently taking care of myself because I believe that work-life balance is important. Due to this I will not get back to you until ..." You know "... this day." Or "I will get back to you in the next ..." 72 hours, 42 hours, whatever that might be. Because if you don't put an out of office message and you get ... You know you fall asleep because you've got a fever or whatever and you get bombarded with messages, people don't know what's going on and people tend to want a semi-immediate response. So I definitely go ahead and put an out of office.

For social media, I don't worry about it mainly because a lot of my posts are already pre-scheduled or if I haven't gotten anything scheduled for today, I'll go ahead and quickly schedule it or just not schedule it at all. There's definitely days where I'm not on Twitter or I'm not on Facebook. Mainly because it's a time suck and it's not my favorite place to be. And also if I get a feel I don't have anything to say, then I won't say it. So social media will go down the wayside.

Now if I'm sick and I can feel it coming on, because sometimes you know that you might be sick or you're getting a cold. Your nose gets a little runny or whatever. Then I will try to do my best to mitigate it by, as soon as I feel that I'm getting sick, I'll go ahead and have tea or whatever it is that I do to make myself feel better. I will clear out my day or my afternoon before to and get more rest or more sleep. I'll also try and schedule or reschedule things in advance for the rest of the week in case I do come down sick. Therefore I have less pressure and less things to move around and just lower my workload schedule in general to give myself some breathing room and some time to be sick.

It's okay to be sick. I think we get lost a lot of the time thinking that, "Oh my God, I have a cold. I can only be sick for one day." Colds actually last three days. That's sort of a proven fact. And if you have a fever, then it's worse. So it's okay to be sick. We're not made to go through life without ever being sick. Be sick, but pay attention to it. Rest instead of working. Maybe you could have listened to a podcast because it's more passive or you could color or watch TV or YouTube or whatever it is you might do. You can always take in information in some different way or just sleep it out.

That's totally fine. Being sick is okay, but learn from it. Learn what makes you feel better quicker. Learn what you have to do. Read your body and do that. Do what your body is asking for and then when you come back, don't come back to everything at once because that's just depressing and might put you back to being sick again because you've over done it. Come back gradually, just like you should do after a vacation. Don't come back one day and be like, "Oh, I've got 300 emails. I have to clear them all." Don't do that. Come back gradually as a half day or do a couple hours work. Take a break for an hour, then come back and do a couple hours work.

It's all about taking care of you and not being afraid to tell people, "Hey, I'm sick. This is what's going on. I'll get back to you in 48 hours." If your clients can't understand about you being sick and as long as you have some measures in place with maybe someone else can watch your mailbox or someone else can do something. If it's behalf of a client, then those clients are not worth having. You are a human being and people need to realize that.

Thank you for listening. This is Janice from the Career Introvert, helping introverts amplify their voices through podcasting, publishing, and public speaking. If you have any questions, please email me at janice@thecareerintrovert.com.

Rule Breaking Jul 23, 2019

Shownotes:

Some people say that rules are meant to be broken, but actually, they are meant to be followed. Rules are set up to maintain organization and processes, it’s necessary to make sure that everything is going smoothly. On the other hand, there are some people who try to defy these rules while hoping for a positive outcome. Sure, there’s no harm in trying, but rules are rules. Today, I’m going to share with you a story about rule-breaking and how they are treated for it.

Hello, and welcome to The Traveling Introvert. Today I want to talk about something that happened recently, to me, that made me happy. Unjustifiably happy. It was about rule following. When you're catching a flight these days, on most airlines, there is some sort of order given to who gets to get on the place first, what order you get on, etc. A lot of the time it's priority, or people who've paid more get to get on first, and then it's, sort of, the next person, the next person, the next person, depending on what group, or number, or zone you're in.

Recently I was taking a flight from Mexico City. It had been delayed for about four hours, they were very bad at communicating with us. In fact, to the point where, on the screen, it still said my flight was on time, well after the flight was supposed to leave. I had to go find their offices and be like, "Is the flight leaving?" They give me a different time, they give me a gate. I go to the gate, I sit down, I got that gate information before most other people, so there were actually seats. It started filling up, and then we got told there was a 40-minute wait after the time that they said the flight was going to leave, and everyone was not happy about that. They said they were waiting for the First Officer, that's fine, can't fly the plane without the First Officer.

Then, after that, they communicated again that, "Oh, you know what, we're going to give out vouchers." Great, food vouchers. I go, I'm second in line for the vouchers, and they are hand-writing these vouchers, which is fine, but it's long-form handwriting. So, they had to put in my name, anyone who was flying with me name, the flight, the flight number. There was apparently only one place that we could go and get the reimbursement for this food, and then they had to figure out how much to give, because it was a certain amount per person. Then they had to do the math to add it up. Scary enough the fact that they were using their calculators on their phone to add up two numbers.

I finally got it, it took about ten minutes just to do my one. I go, and there's one place that they've given this voucher for. So, this place right now is overwhelmed with everyone on a big flight of at least 25 times three seats. So, like 100 people. Let's call, like, 80 people, because it wasn't full, all trying to A, get reimbursement, and then B, going to get food at this one poor little vendor. To the point where the vendor was just like, "Here's some sandwiches and a drink, please go away."

I was lucky, I was, like I said, second in line. So, I went, got my voucher, and then I was third or fourth in line to get my food. All the other people who were behind me still had to get their voucher. I got back from getting my food, only for there to be an announcement that they are boarding, and I was second in line. So, some people were out still, trying to get their food. They didn't realize there was a boarding announcement. Other people were still trying to get their vouchers, that was a no-go.

So, they start boarding, and they normally board by number, this particular airline. So they let, you know, disabled on first, children on first, and then they kind of call a zone, and a number, sorry, and people are looking round and going, "So, do we all just board?" Because normally, you know, we're just trying to board as quickly as possible so we can leave as quickly as possible, but they were very specific. They said, "We're boarding this number."

So, we thought about joining the line but we didn't, and other people were like, "I'm going to give it a go and see if I get on." Only for the first time ever in all my travel experience, for those who were not in that boarding number, to get kicked out of the line and sent to a different, and I'm going to call it the Bad Child line. Because so many people did it that there was a separate line created by all these people who tried to jump the queue.

Then I get to board, and I was, like, the second-to-last boarding zone, and I board, and I'm sitting, and we're waiting, and people who were still getting food, they came on. Because we were worried we were going to just leave people behind who didn't know that we were boarding. They came on, and actually it was a full 20 minutes later that those who tried to skip the line were allowed on the plane. It was amazing. Mainly because they were rule-breaking, and they knew they were rule-breaking, and they got punished for it.

I've never seen that happen, and it was really interesting, because then they had to try and find a place to put their luggage. So that was an issue, and the flight attendants helped them to a degree, but it was just fascinating to see, for once, that people were held accountable for their actions. You know, they thought they could slip in and break the rules, and get in first, and they were held accountable, and that is not often seen in the airline industry, and it warmed the cockles of my heart, so to speak.

Thank you for listening. This is Janice from The Career Introvert, I'm helping amplify voices through podcasting, publishing, and public speaking. Please email me at janice@thecareerintrovert.com should you have any questions.

Working with Family and Friends Jul 16, 2019

Shownotes:

How long does it take you before you actually make an idea come to life? 3 days? 1 week or more? The thing about ideas is if you leave them hanging on your mind, saying that you’ll get back to it later, later becomes never. You lose the idea, you lose the inspiration, you lose the opportunity that comes with it. You might say that you don’t have enough time, or you don’t have the materials to do it, but is it really necessary? Sometimes, the best way to be productive is to do it now. Not later, not tomorrow, but now.

Hello and welcome to The Traveling Introvert. Today I want to talk about going from having an idea about something to first iteration.

I was doing some virtual coworking the other day and I'd set a goal for myself to create a workbook. And this virtual coworking session was a four-hour session. It's something I do on a regular basis with a select team. I'd set it as my overall goal. Normally during the four-hour session, you can have a base goal and a stretch goal. I thought this particular workbook was going to take me the whole four hours. So, I set it as my base goal and I didn't set a stretch goal. Well, forward about an hour and I realized that actually, the workbook wasn't going to take me as long as thought and maybe I should plug in a stretch goal.

So, in this particular coworking environment that I work in, this virtual coworking session, we do speaker sessions every other Pomodoro. They asked me to do a speak session because they said, "Well, to start with you said you weren't sure you're going to hit your goal and then all of a sudden you're speeding past it. What happened?" And so, they asked me really critical questions. One, when did I come up with the idea that I had to do a workbook? And I was like, "Oh, yesterday." And I go, "Oh, so you're getting on it today?" And I'm like, "Well, yes, because I kind of had some imaginary deadlines and I wanted to get it out of the way." So, I had this idea to do a workbook and then I set aside time when I was going to do it. After that, I did a little bit of research on other workbooks but I try not to do too much because I don't want to feel like I'm copying. I didn't know how I wanted this workbook to look. To start with I was obsessed about the sort of aesthetics of it rather than the content.

So, after I stopped thinking about the aesthetics I was like, "Okay, what do I want, what do I want this web book to achieve?" I was like, "I had a goal and then I sort of thought about it in a different way, who do I want to use this workbook and what do I want them to achieve? And then it clicked. So, I ended up writing a whole list of questions that people who would be looking to use these workbook would be asking and then answering those questions along with hints and tips and questions for them so they could also work through this particular problem that they were going to have. And this workbook was going to help them work through it and solve it or at least give them answers and drill down a little bit better so they more fully understand what they were getting into with this particular topic. Which is great.

Then I had to go back again because I just had this whole list of questions and then go back and write a little blurb to each question to explain why I'm asking the question rather than just here's a list of questions, answer my questions. It was a case of explaining the reasoning behind the question and what you would get out of answering the question. Then I had to go back and format it and make it look pretty. And make it into a pdf and all that good stuff. But I went from idea to iteration and almost completed it, to be honest with you in 24 hours. And that was a workbook and I don't, I've never really made too many workbooks before. I've done one. But that already sort of had a format and already a framework for me to use. This is just me winging it.

The person who was interviewing me for the speaker was very, told me something that I hadn't realized. He said, "You just created this thing and you're talking about it's like no big deal. In fact, the thing you were worried about was the formatting but you just created this 20 odd page document for other people to use and for you it was no big thing. So, I went from an idea to an iteration fairly fairly quickly. This is something that people get bogged down with because what happens is, they have an idea, they research a lot. They research some more. Get down three or four or five different rabbit holes because, "Oh, the internet." Then they ask people advice even though if one is a different situation and then they kind of sort of start a thing and by this time six months has gone past. That doesn't help anybody. You can't learn unless you fail. You will fail by doing. Or you will succeed by doing.

So, the idea is to go from idea to iteration as quickly as you can using the very bare minimum and basics. So, instead of figuring out, "Oh, I need x, y, and z, to get stuff done and make it look pretty." Just figure out what you need to get it done. Then iterate it. Then you can learn. Then you can change it. Then you can do a 2.0 version. It's basically what happened with this podcast. I just did it. I had an idea and I just cobbled it together and I've learned stuff along the way. And maybe I should do an episode of what I've learned from podcasting for two years. Maybe I'll do that.

So, thank you for listening. That's how you can go from idea to iteration as quickly as feasibly possible. This is Janice from The Career Introvert. Thank you so much for listening. I am helping people, and introverts to be specific, amplify their voices through podcasting, publishing, public speaking, and general personal branding. If you have any questions for me please email me at janice@thecareerintrovert.com.

From Idea to Iteration Jul 09, 2019

Shownotes:

Hello and welcome to The Traveling Introvert. Today I want to talk about going from having an idea about something to first iteration.

3 Ways I Deal With Overwhelm Jul 02, 2019

Shownotes:

Have you ever had a lot of things in your mind that you want to do, and gets frustrated with what to start first? Then you end up clearing up everything instead and not doing anything? If you answered yes, then you’re overwhelmed with your workload. Multitasking is not something that a lot of people can do. There are some who are more productive when they focus on one task before the other. Tasks get done easier if they are accomplished one by one as well. Now, how do you deal with the feeling of overwhelm? How do you get it out of your system?

Hello and welcome to the Traveling Introvert. Today I'm going to talk about what I do when I feel overwhelmed. I think it's a topic that sort of gets talked about but doesn't really get talked about very well, especially by entrepreneurs. Burnout is real and generally speaking, people don't talk about it because of the hustle and how you should be always working and be available for your clients 24/7 and everything else that goes with that. And overwhelmed doesn't necessarily mean burnout. It could be a warning signal that you are on the way to burning out, but it's not always in relational conjunction.

So for me, when I... times when I feel overwhelmed can be when I've taken on too many projects or I have too many ideas that I want to execute, or I just have too many different things pulling me in many different directions. And so how I deal with overwhelm is a couple of things. The first thing I want to do is do a brain dump. I get a piece of paper, a whiteboard, a chalkboard, an online app, whatever it is I have available to me at the time and I just dump out everything that I'm thinking about. It doesn't have to be everything that I want to do. It has to be everything that is on my mind currently. And the reason why I do this is because it helps make space. Just getting it written down gives you that extra space or RAM in your head to think things through.

And then once I've gotten everything down, I take a look at it and see if I can categorize them in any way. Some things might be personal, some things might be client related, some things might be my business related, some things might be travel related. It sort of depends. And so I see if I can categorize them. And so then it's like, "Oh okay, I have all of these things." And then I take a look at them again and I'm like, "Okay, so which of these are urgent?" Which of these have to be done, I don't know, in the next hour, the next four hours, today, week, month, so on and so forth. And so those that have to be done today, I take them and I schedule them in my calendar so I have time blocked out, A, so clients can't book my time and B, because I run most of my things by my calendar. My calendar is is the boss of me in a good and possibly a bad way, but that's the space I go to to see what I need to do and when I need to do it by.

Then I take a look at all the other things that need to be done and I sort of also look and see, are these things that have to be done by me? Are these things I need to get other people to do? Are these things that depend on other people to give me information before I can get them done? Because sometimes that is the case. I might have a client that has to give me their book for me to be able to get it formatted, to publish it, and they might've said it was going to be here on Monday and it's Friday and I still don't have it yet. So there are things that are dependent on other people and if that is the case, I put them below in my things of, of things to do until I get the thing. And then when I get the thing, then I go ahead and schedule it in my calendar.

And then I look and see what things are giving me a good return on investment. Things that aren't client related, but do they give me a return on investment on my business? Are they good for my business? Are they helping me move forward? Are they getting me more clients? Are they getting me more exposure? Are they getting me whatever thing it is that I might want? Are they getting me free tickets somewhere? Are they getting me an upgrade on a flight, whatever it might be. So take a look at those and then do those next.

But all of these things, just getting them written down and getting them slotted into place somewhere, helps make me feel like I'm in control and I've got a plan, and also just relieves the sort of pressure that I feel and gives me space in my head to think about other things. Obviously, one of the other things I do is nap because I've probably said before, I'm a big fan of napping, and that's really how I work through overwhelm.

Sometimes I talk it out, I will message... I have accountability buddies or people that I speak to and say, "Hey, if I do this, this, and this, does it make sense?" That's also a great way to help me stop feeling overwhelmed because a lot of the times someone looking at something from an outside point of view will be like, "Well, why don't you just do this thing?" And you're like, "Oh, yeah, yeah. That would have been easier."

So I hope that was helpful. Thank you for listening. This is Janice from the Career Introvert, helping all introverts amplify their voices through podcasting, publishing, and public speaking.

Working on Planes, Trains, and Buses Jun 25, 2019

Shownotes:

Some people get really bored when they travel. A good reason for that is perhaps the internet may not be available, or being seated for a very long time is uncomfortable for them. But for me, I try to stay productive and use that time for work purposes. For today’s episode, I’d like to give you some ideas on how I’m still able to work while I’m traveling and what sort of work fits the mode of transportation that I’m currently in.

Hello and welcome to The Traveling Introvert. Today I want to talk about working on planes, trains, and buses. Wasn't gonna put automobiles. The reason I want to talk about this is because I'm planning a trip, and I realized that I will be working on certain modes of transport, and I was trying to fit in, and I was looking at what I needed to work on, and there's certain types of transport that are better for doing certain things.

For example buses, I would love to work on a bus, but the buses in the United States ... or actually I get travel sick anyway, so it doesn't really matter. Buses in general are not great for me, but then if you add on the fact that I'm trying to do work, 99.9% of the time, I can't do it, and it's normally because someone might be sitting next to me, and I don't want them to see what I'm working on, but that's not really a thing. It's more the space and the distance between seats. The seat in front of me, and my seat. There may or may not be a tray table, so I might be balancing my laptop on my knees. If there is a tray table, it's probably very short, and can't actually fit. Not that I have a huge laptop, but I can't fit my laptop on there, and so I find it really difficult to work on computer-based stuff on the bus. What I do find really easy to do on the bus is bigger picture thinking or outlining stuff on pen and paper.

Then there's trains. I love trains for various reasons, but what I found is when I'm traveling on a train in the United States, and in Canada actually, there is a lot of space, even if you're not in business class, there are some chairs that are a shared table, so four seats around a table, an actual solid table that you can work on, next to a plug point, and most of the time you have internet. It's not amazing internet, it is not lightening fast internet, but it is internet. And if you're not sitting at that table, you will be sitting at a normal seat, and there's still enough room for you to have your tray table, a plug point, and work in relative comfort.

I find working on a train very good for maybe drafting emails, or slow internet work, or listen to a podcast, and doing some work. I've also found it's very good for just creating PowerPoint presentations. Just getting it done. If you have all the pictures already and the images that you need, and you just need to get it done, I found being on a train is very very good for that. Stick your headphones on and crank it out.

The next one I wanna talk about is planes. This is interesting. If you are in economy class on a regional flight, or a local flight, yes you will have some room, you can't guarantee the person in front of you won't push their seat back and then your laptop generally gets crunched. There has been so many times where my laptop has almost gotten crushed because of the way the tray table is set-up, and if you want to get your laptop open to a comfortable viewing position, you end up being under the lip, and then as soon as someone moves back, it's terrible.

One thing I do is I use my computer in tablet mode because it has that option, but if you can't do that, economy class, you can possibly do some work. The airline I travel with the most has a section called economy plus where you get extra legroom and boy is that useful. Not to me specifically being short, but for having space to work with your laptop because the train moves.

Now if you're lucky enough to be in business class, then there tends to be room, and a little side for you to put your drink on so you're not worried about your drink possibly splashing on you, or especially in economy, I always have that worry that when people are passing drinks out, people go and grab the drink, and I'm so terrified they'll grab it wrong and it will spill on my computer.

Business class international, I have yet ... no wait, have I done it? I've done it on a four hour flight, five hour flight, that was sort of international, but not in the United States, and that was luxurious and wonderful, and I would love to do it again. I've done sort of a five or six-hour in business class, but that was on a night flight, so all I wanted to do was sleep. That was also wonderful.

What I do love about long-haul flights, even if I'm in economy, is that I get to think. I get to unplug, I get to binge on podcasts, which is work in itself because I might be doing research for a particular topic, so I'll go in beforehand, put in my keyword, pull up all the podcasts that are relevant to that, download them, and so I'm doing research while on my flight. And the other thing is again sketching Blue Sky Thinking, and putting things in my calendar I find is very useful.

That's how I work on planes, trains, and buses. Thank you for listening. This is Janice from The Career Introvert. I look forward to helping you with your business, or your career alongside your introversion.

Video Interview Tips Jun 18, 2019

Shownotes:

Video interview is one of the most convenient ways to get to know the person without having to meet up with them in person. Usually, people who are looking to hire freelancers are the ones who do this, but it’s also utilized by some clients who want to reach out to their network. Either way, the video interview is something that we should be 100% prepared. How do you make sure that everything goes smoothly in a video interview?

Hello and welcome to the Traveling Introvert. Today I'm going to talk about how to make a bad impression on an interview with a video. And this has come across and around because all of a video interview that I did recently for a speaking engagement. So first thing's first, try not to be late. And I say try because I know there're so many different ways to do a video interview these days that you might not have the software on your phone or your computer and you have to download it or maybe your computer restarts. I know that all of these things happen at the most inopportune times.

What I would say is if you are going to have a video interview, make sure you download the software and try and test it in advance. Test your microphone, test of the camera, make sure everything's set up the way that you would like it to be set up. Two, with your background try and make sure that it is, if it's just a plain background or maybe just some books or it's not kids running around in the background. If you can help it or it's not anything that might be distracting to the interviewer. You want them to concentrate on you and what you are saying or what you might be displaying, not what's going on behind you. And also you don't want to be distracted. So try not to have a window that you can be distracted out of.

Actually speaking of distractions. While you are being interviewed or if you are interviewing somebody, please, please, please try and look at them on the screen. Don't look off at a window. Don't play with your shoes. Don't play with your phone. Don't play with something off screen or off camera. Please at least look like you are interested in what the person is saying and what they are showing you and because they're showing up. So that's another thing. It might be hard. Put a sticker on your computer, whatever it is you have to do to make it look at least like you are paying attention.

The other thing is interviewing for something, knowing full well that it doesn't exist. I recently interviewed for something and it was a speaking engagement and I got, it was a 20 minute slot. We'd been 15 minutes into the conversation before they said, well actually we're not holding the event ever. So they had 15 and they've made the decision with enough time that they could've just canceled. Send me an email and said, hey, we won't be moving forward with this because we're not moving forward with this event. Instead they spend 15 minutes asking me sort of questions, not really giving anything, only to tell me that they weren't doing it. And it wasn't like they wanted ask me questions to see if I'd be a good fit for somebody else. They will literally just asking me random questions and ask me feedback of stuff that they obviously hadn't taken a look at what I do.

Another thing with a video interviewing is make sure you have a headset. There's nothing worse than sort of hearing the feedback came from your computer and hearing your own voice repeat and re-roll because someone doesn't have a headset. Even if it's just the headset, your ear buds that you got with your phone that is perfect so that it stops any feedback.

Now the other thing with video interviewing is be careful of what colors you wear. So if you have a white background for example, and you wear a white shirt, you might just be like this headless thing. This neck and bodyless thing, not headless. And so that can be a little discombobulating for the person who's looking. So just make sure that you were maybe playing colors and structured colors, not patterns because patterns can be also very distracting.

And then there's background noise. Make sure if possible that you have control of your environment and that you can eliminate as many background noises as possible. If you can't, I highly recommend the mute button in between whatever you're saying and listen to the other person so the other person doesn't have to hear the background noise if it's unavoidable.

And so these are things that I think are really important when you are thinking about an interview that is done via video. Make sure the person knows in advance what it is they're doing, what platform it is, where it is. There's nothing worse than sending an email five minutes in being like so ... because you haven't been able to log in because they haven't sent you the login information. Also being on time helps. And if you are late, apologize, not apologizing is rude.

All right, those are my tips for today. Thank you for listening. This is Janice from the Career Introvert. Looking forward to helping you move your business forward or your career forward in line with your introversion. Thanks for listening. If you have any questions, please email me janice@thecareerintrovert.com.

Introvert Traveling Solo Jun 11, 2019

Shownotes:

For a frequent flyer, my decisions are usually based on the situation that I’m in. My choices when it comes to the mode of transportation and accommodation usually depend on whether I’m all alone or traveling with someone. But aside from this, the majority of my choices depend on which would take me less time to do even if it means I’d have to spend a bit more.

Hello and welcome to the Traveling Introvert. Today I am going to talk about the differences traveling alone and the differences you make with the decisions that you make and traveling with somebody else. I'm currently figuring out some travel and one of the options I had and I'm going from New York to Washington or Alexandria area and so, I know Alexandria very well and everything is kind of expensive in Washington. And so, I decided that I was going to go to Alexandria instead.

Now as I'm traveling by myself, I looked at the differences between going by train or going by bus. And if I go by train, I have to remember that depending on how long it is, and that generally I'm I'm probably not going to go the restroom because when you're traveling alone it's extremely difficult if you're traveling with luggage or stuff that you want to go to the restroom and feel that your stuff is safe. Yes, you might be on a train and no one can go anywhere but at the same time these things happen.

I've definitely read about, even on planes where people have had things stolen. So when I'm looking at distances and how long a trip is going to take I could take a bus which I think would take me four or five hours. I say four or five because the registered time is about four but we all know traffic is a thing. I could take the train so that was fairly easy enough for me to think about. And then I'm going to stay in Alexandria and then I'm going to go up to Philly for the day. And I again was looking at that Philly.

It's funny with the flights and the trains. One train was $39 and that was to go from Washington, Union Station to Philadelphia and to go from Alexandra was $51. And you your mind you're like, "Ooh, 30 to 50, that's a really big jump.", but actually it's only $11 difference. But, beside the point. The big thing that I had to do was go from Alexandria to roughly the Springfield area in Massachusetts. Now I could take a train and I love taking trains because you get enough personal space and you can get some work done because most of the time the internet is on.

Slow as though it may be, you still get to get stuff done and you get enough personal space which for me is a really big thing. However, the cost was about $100 and it was a seven hour train ride which is great until you consider the fact that you have to get your own food beforehand. There is apparently a buffet cart in there or a food cart, catering cart and after you like to get up and pee. When's the best time? You can ask your neighbor to look after your stuff but do you feel jittery? And going, finding where the bathroom is on the toilet, on the train ... or my other option which I didn't think was a possibility was to catch a flight.

There's a flight from Dulles to Hartford for $90 and it takes like an hour. It really doesn't. I've been on that flight before and it's kind of an up, down sort of a thing. And so I'm going to take that. I would love to take the train. I would get a lot more done but at the same time it's a one hour flight and I don't have to worry about bathroom stuff. The other thing that I find that I do differently when I'm traveling with someone, towards traveling by myself, is the type of accommodation I will pick.

If I am by myself I'm more likely to pick a hotel with 24-hour room service or 24-hour reception so I can drop my stuff off and it can be looked after while I go and do other things and just that feeling of I have a place to go. There's probably going to be a door person there and I don't have to be in an area that I'm not ... even if I'm in an area that I'm not familiar with I feel slightly safer whether that's legitimate or not. Whereas if I'm traveling with somebody and I'd be quite happy to take an Airbnb room for example.

Whereas if I'm traveling with somebody else I'm more likely to want to have the whole space rather than an Airbnb room and will probably do Airbnb over a hotel unless the hotel is really nice in an area that we want to be in or is not as expensive as we would have thought between the two of us. So it really does depend. But for me, a lot of it is about personal space and personal safety. And for me it's also about cost and time. I'd rather do something quicker so I'm happy to spend more money to take the train and take a flight then to do something that will take forever and be cheaper. That's just not something that I want to do.

For example, to go to Philly I could definitely catch a five buck, $5 train. Sorry. Let me start again. To go to Philly from Alexandria I could catch a $5 bus. Actually I can only get that from Washington but ... and the train is actually going to cost me more like $40, but then I have to get to Washington and then change from bus to bus and then get on and you know, the personal space on buses is a little less, a little more cramped and you just don't feel as comfortable. Do you eat? Do you offend the person if you don't eat? If you drink, whatever it is. So I am more likely if I am traveling by myself to take the train or the plane. Thank you for listening. This is Janice from the Career Introvert. I look forward to helping you with your business and your career alongside your introversion.

Pre-Interview Strategies for Introverts Jun 04, 2019

Shownotes:

Interviews are one of the most nerve-racking parts of the job application process, especially for an applicant who’s also an introvert! The small talks with the interviewer can get us really nervous and end up getting awkward, but there are ways to avoid that. In this episode, I’ll be sharing some tips for the introverts to help them ace this interview and make a really good impression!

Hello and welcome to the Traveling Introvert. Today I'd love to talk about strategic ways to get through and interview, and prepare for an interview more than anything. So, this is the before you get to the interview stage in person, these are a couple of things I think will be really, really helpful.

Now, one thing is to arrange your day strategically. The thing is, normally we're rushing rom place to place, and we get to the interview and we're a little overwhelmed already and we're nervous. And stuff is going on, and you're thinking about what to say and how to say it. I highly recommend that you plan to have a cushion of alone time, recharge time, balance time, both before and after the interview. So, you can recharge. You'll be better if you're fully charged for the interview.

So, I highly recommend you do that. Even if it's just 30 minutes alone, where you can meditate, where you can read a book. Not going over your notes. What you should be doing is nothing that involves the interview, or gets you worried about the interview. It's just whatever it is that you need to stay calm and focused, and to recharge. This strategy ensures you'll have maximum energy during the interview, which, you know, is crucial when you're speaking to people about yourself.

The next thing I'd say is small talk. We don't like it, but we know we have to do it. And so in an interview, or even just before an interview, it's really important to set the tone and vibe with your interviewer, so you will have to make that small talk. What I've learnt is that I've come up with a couple of questions in advance so you're not thinking and scrambling. Maybe you can ask about seasonal activity, or discuss hidden gems in the area that they're in, like a good place to eat, or something of that nature. Don't use normal ones like, "Oh, so how was it to get here?" Or the weather. Don't do that.

Use it as a way of maybe figuring out something about your interviewer's personality. It's a good idea to remind yourself that the ultimate purpose of the interview small talk is to build a rapport with your interviewer, and make them like you. So, it's not a waste of time, you just have to be strategic about it and plan what you're going to ask and why.

And the other thing is we all know first impressions are key, but also the last thing you say, the lasting impression is also key. So, think about it in advance. Smile, the handshake, the body language that you use is really important when you're first meeting your interview, along with those key questions that you're using for small talk. Because normally they're like, "Oh, how was it getting here?" And you can answer, and engage in conversation. But make it a little deeper. That will work in your favor.

Similarly, you want to end on a high note. So, most interviewer's try and summarize their thoughts quickly, so that after you leave the room, they can figure out exactly what they're thinking. And they're less accurately going to remember what you said at the start, unless it as a clanger. So, you want their last impression of you to be as awesome as the first, because that's normally when they're taking notes, or having a conversation.

Make sure you have a big smile, say it was great to meet you, great for the opportunity. A firm handshake, end on a high note. That's what I recommend. So, those couple of things that you need to think about when you're thinking about the interview.

Now, the other thing you need to think about is you should mirror the body language of the person who's interviewing you. Of course they're going to know you're doing this, because that's what they're trained in. Don't go overboard. But you want to match the interviewer's tone. And the reason I say that is because a lot of introverts can come across as standoffish and bored, distant, unenthusiastic, and lots of other negative words. And that might not be the case. We might just be internally thinking and scrambling, and look that way.

So, to make sure that your interviewer doesn't have this impression of you, just subtly copy the interviewer. If they use a lot of gestures, also use gestures. Think about the tone. Is it professional? Courteous? Telling jokes? Whatever it is, try and meld with that.

So, those are my tips on sort of pre-interview techniques to stop you getting too nervous and too worried about what you're going to say. Have little notes in advance as well, of things you could talk about, as well as the highlights of your career. Thank you for listening, this is Janice from the Career Introvert. I look forward to helping you with your business and your career moving forward, along with your introversion. Thanks for listening.

Hustling in Hospital May 28, 2019

Shownotes:

When we’re on social media, one of the common posts that we see is people working on a particular scenario with the caption, “hustling”. For some people, it is motivating and inspiring to have so much dedication for work regardless of what their situation is. But, has anyone thought about how unhealthy it is to put work on top of your priorities before your health? Imagine if your health becomes at risk, would you be able to work at all?

Hello, and welcome to The Traveling Introvert. Today, I want to talk about how hustling isn't good, just hustling isn't good.

I was scrolling through Facebook today after speaking to ... I think that was a new friend ... about podcasting. She wants to launch a thing and there is an image of somebody in a podcasting group, and they are in a hospital gown, hooked up to a couple of drips, and they have their laptop out, and they are editing their podcast. And it literally says, "When the episode is supposed to launch on Friday night, it will launch Friday at midnight," and people were like, "Yay. Thumbs up. Keep grinding. Get well soon. Dedication. Inspiring. Work it. Wow, get better." Like, really?

This person is in hospital and yet they are there ... and this is on a Thursday ... editing their podcast. What is the fascination with people thinking that this is a good thing? Thinking that the hustle makes it better. It makes ... it proves them ... that they're a better human being or something.

Let's get this straight. Hustling is not good for you. It is not healthy. Sustained hustling is not healthy and good for you. I do not know why this person is currently in hospital. It could be something minor for all I know. But, the fact that people are seeing this photo, and congratulating him, and thinking it's a good thing, shows a disturbing lack of thought and foresight. So, this person probably didn't plan their podcast a little bit better.

One of the things I always talk about it planning your podcast around your lifestyle and having a few episodes in the bag so in case anything happens, like you go to hospital, or your internet is down, or something happens and you have to go look after somebody. Have a few episodes in the bag already that you can just pull out.

Also, there's nothing wrong with telling people, "Hey, I'm in hospital right now so there will not be a podcast," or, "There will not be a blog post," or, "There will not be an x, why, z," whatever it might be. Why do we have a huge problem with saying, "No, I need to focus on me right now. I need to get better. I will be back." That's it.

But, instead people are congratulating him on the hustle. And I'm kinda anti-hustle. I'm not kind of anti-hustle. I'm anti-hustle. I don't like the hustle. You can hustle for a short space of time on something, but to have a sustained ... "I'm hustling," I think really means, "I'm not prepared," or, "I don't have systems," or, "I just don't know what I'm doing."

Having systems helps. Having backups help. Delegating helps. Outsourcing helps. Means you don't have to hustle as hard or as long. There's no point hustling all the time if you can't be well enough to enjoy it.

So, if you are out there right now, and you are hustling, and you think it's wonderful, shame on you. From my personal point of view, it's disgusting. The fact that we're trying to make it better ... 60 hours a week, not enough. It should be 70, 80 hours a week. Doctors have it easy. No.

Life is about living and enjoying it. So, don't be working all the time if your can't enjoy your life. You can work for a certain amount of time to then enjoy something later, and have a goal. But, the fact that you are doing this, and celebrating it, is not good mentally or physically for you, and for other people in the future.

What are your thoughts on hustling? What does hustle mean to you? And what do you do to prevent hustle and burnout? Because, let's be honest, that's the next stage after hustle, but no one talks about burnout. No one talks about founder's burnout. No one talks about entrepreneurial burnout. No one talks about digital nomad burnout. And these are all things because of hustling.

Thank you for listening. This is Janice from The Career Introvert. Looking forward to helping you with your career and your business alongside your introversion. If you have any questions or comments, please email me at Janice@TheCareerIntrovert.com.

Travelers Can’t Count on Hotels for Water May 21, 2019

Shownotes:

As a frequent traveler, I’ve been to a lot of hotels in different places. Some people say that every hotel is unique in its own way, or different among other hotels. But rather than difference, I noticed one thing that most hotels have in common - they don’t have ready-to-drink water in the room. It’s either you have to look for a fountain or a dispenser, or you have to ask for room service and get billed too much for water. What could be the reason behind that?

Hello and welcome to the Traveling Introvert. Today, I'd like to talk about water and specifically water in hotels. What I found is that when traveling, it's amazing how many hotels will have a coffee making machine, and offer you tea and coffee in your room, but not water. Now, as a human being, we generally need water to live. Yes, some of you might argue that you need coffee to live, but that coffee also requires water. And I've definitely been traveling in some countries where the water isn't drinkable from the tap or the faucet, depending on where you come from, and yet there's a coffee machine there. And no way for you to fill said coffee machine with drinkable water. And those places that do offer water might offer one or two plastic bottles of water, small ones, maybe a quarter or half a liter.

But if you're traveling, you're going to be dehydrated. If you're flying, you're going to be dehydrated. You get to a hotel and maybe you get to the hotel late at night where you can't go out to a store or a shop to go and buy water. But as a human being, you need water. And even more so if you're traveling and then doubly or triply so if you're traveling in a hot country. So what I don't understand is why A, hotels make it so difficult for you to get water and B, why is it plastic bottles? I mean now, it'd be a great way for you to promote your hotel if people had stainless steel water receptacles, or maybe there was one in the hotel room and you had a water filter bottle on every floor. Instead of having the ice machine on every floor, next to the ice machine, you could have a water filtration system that someone could go and take their little aluminum or stainless steel cup and get filled up.

One thing I have done, on the odd occasion when I can't leave the hotel and I do need water, I do happen to travel with a refillable water bottle. But if not, what I found is the gym, if your hotel has a gym, which tends to be open 24/7 though I have come across some unique hotels where someone has to be in there with you for you to use the gym. But another story. If you go to the gym, most of the time there will be water in there. I don't think I've ever been to a hotel gym that doesn't have water and so it's a great place to go and refill your water bottle or get some water in a cup or a couple of cups or stand there and just drink a lot of water to re-hydrate. That's something that I would do, especially if I was in a neighborhood that I didn't know. I came in late at night. I find that's a good way to get water.

But yeah, hotels, what's up with not sort of having just water for people. We're human. We need water more than we need coffee or tea. And one time I actually tested out a hotel to see what would happen. They had a coffee maker and I was like, "Oh, hey." So I see the coffee maker, which was not near any plug socket I might add, and it was in a country where you couldn't drink the water. And so I called up and I was like, "There's a coffee machine here and I'd like some coffee or some tea, and how can I get boiling water?" I mean I get it because boiling water is a risk. People will sue because they've been scolded by the water. So I do get it, but then just don't give me a coffee machine.

And their way of working round the problem was by charging me for room service for tea. I literally just got a teapot, a metal teapot with hot water, a teacup. I had to use the tea bags that were with the coffee and tea thing that was in my room to get tea. And so there goes convenience of making it yourself or doing it yourself when you have to get room service, put clothes on, tip and be charged for hot water. Yeah.

So thanks for listening. This is Janice. Please feel free to email me with any questions that you have at Janice@careerintrovert.com helping you move forward with your business and your career alongside your introversion. Thank you for listening.

How to Respect People’s Time and Communication Preference May 14, 2019

Shownotes:

Facebook Messenger has been really helpful with communication. You can chat with someone, call them, or have a video call with them. However, when you are connected to a client or a colleague through social media, some of them like to assume that you’re free because you’re “online”. So, for today, I’ll be talking about asking a person their preferred way of communication and how to respect it.

Hello and welcome to The Traveling Introvert, today I would like to talk about Facebook Messenger calls. I don't understand why people think it's okay just to call randomly. For example, I had someone recently, we had been exchanging emails, I'd responded to an email, I had to take some time off, but I explained that I was away for two days and a weekend celebrating a thing and I responded to their email. And I got two calls on my Facebook Messenger one after the other, and I didn't respond, mainly because I don't do calls that I'm not expecting and two, we'd been communicating via email, so why did you now need to call me on Facebook Messenger?

And so I waited, and then when I had time I went back and I sent a message going, "Hi, I'm not sure why you called. I did respond to your email, just let me know if there's any questions, but I don't respond to unscheduled calls." And I haven't heard from this person since. Now what bothers me about this is the entitlement, assuming that I would drop whatever it is I was doing to talk to them on Facebook. It's not like we were having a conversation and then they called, it was just a random call. Just because you see someone on Facebook doesn't mean they're not working or that they're in a position where they can talk. They didn't know what I was doing, they didn't know where I was and they did two phone calls, one after the other. With no message in between, saying "Oh hey, is it okay if I call you?" It just beggars belief.

The other thing that bothers me is, all of our communication apart from the initial communication was via email. Now what would have been so urgent that you needed to call me? And a little explanation about the communication, the communication was about me sponsoring an event to do with NASA and helping out some kids with their project. Now the project had already been done and this was following up on the time that I was donating to these kids and they just had to set up a time on my calendar. They had the link and they also had my website to go and so I could do some mentoring. There was absolutely no reason that anything should have been on fire or urgent enough to call me. And so I found it really interesting.

So when you are communicating with anyone and you've been using one method of communication, keep with that method of communication. If it's all been through Facebook, great, unless they tell you, "Hey, I'm only on Facebook for this, please send all further communication to ..." Whatever it might be, my Instagram, my email, my slack whatever your particular method is. But once they do that and they make that request, you should really respect that request.

Same thing goes if they're in email, and "You know what, could you just send it to this thing?" Do it, it just shows respect and understanding. The problem these days is, especially with Facebook and sometimes with Instagram, is the need for instant response, and just because you see someone, like you see the little typing sign, so you wait for them to finish typing. It's the same with WhatsApp, you wait for them to finish typing so you can respond really quickly. We feel that we have to respond immediately and most times you don't necessarily need to respond straight away. A lot of the time, you can be doing whatever you're doing, stuff will happen and then you come back and you then respond and it's okay. The world is not burning.

So what I would like you to do, is just remember that and be cognizant of the fact that the person might be doing other things. The person might not be in the right head space right now. The person you're communicating with might prefer a different method of communication, and that's okay. You should also figure out you preferred method of communication through various things. For example, I communicate with my friends on voice with WhatsApp, I know one particular friend can't listen to voice messages for some reason their phone messes it up, and so they hate listening to voice messages so I made a note never to send them voice, I will type. And that is fine.

Just know what works for you and how you express yourself, and also just be respectful of other people. And ask them, say "Hey, what's the best way to get hold of you? What's the best method to continue this conversation?" Same thing with Linkedin, but that's a whole other conversation about Linkedin, maybe I'll do that next.

Thanks for listening, this is Janice, I am the career introvert. If you have any questions for me, please email me at Janice@thecareerintrovert.com. Looking forward to helping you grow your career and your business alongside your introversion.

What's in Your Carry On May 07, 2019

Since I go to different places pretty often, I’ve learned a lot of things not only about traveling but also about packing my stuff wisely. Because of this, I usually get asked for tips and what I put inside my carry on for both short and long hauls. So for today’s episode, I want to share with you the things that are always present in my backpack or handbag.

Hello, and welcome to The Traveling Introvert. Today I want to talk about my carry on luggage. So, this came up because I talked about delays and also I've talked about being short and I don't generally track my luggage. And so, one of the questions someone asked was, "Okay, so what do you keep in your carry on for short haul and awful long haul travel?a and is it the same thing?"

And so for me, it very much isn't. For my short haul travel, I have a backpack. I don't carry a roller suitcase, I just have a backpack and maybe a handbag. But. The must things I have to have are some kind of bar, nuts, whatever is might, like a Nutri-Grain bar or a Clif bar, whatever it might be. Simply because you never know when you're going to be delayed and there are times when I've definitely been just stuck on a tarmac for a couple of hours. Which, isn't great, but it's better than, you know, anything bad happening. But at the same time, they can't feed you and if they do feed you it'll be pretzels or cookies or what have you. So, making sure you just always have a bar or two stashed somewhere is really good.

I also do tend to have chocolate stashed somewhere in my bag just because it makes you feel better.

All right, next this is water or water and any kind of electrolyte type drink. So, Powerade, Gatorade, anything like that.

I also have my noise canceling headphones. I will have all my sort of tech equipment so my mouse, my chargers, my power cords, anything like that will be with me, but that I keep in a separate stuff sack or what people would call a small bag so that if I ever have to take out my electronics for TSA or anything of that nature, it's all in one place. Instead of them having to go through my entire bag pulling out wires everywhere or misplacing stuff and not having it all in one place, I just tend to have a little bag, one of those e-bag things that has all of my electronics in.

And, so I'm just talking about my carry on right now, I'm not [inaudible 00:02:21]. So, it's definitely got my noise canceling headphones in, my laptop. I have a coloring book, there's a small version of a coloring book that I'm currently carrying around with me with about six pencils. What I realized is if I carry my entire pencil case in my carry on luggage, the scanners don't like it and they generally have to go through my bag, so I've stopped taking my entire pencil case and not I take six. If I'm somewhere and I have my entire pencil case in my checked luggage.

Then, the other things that I tend to have are clothes. I have a set of clothes to change. It will be sort of like underwear, socks, a Tshirt maybe, not necessarily bottoms but definitely something that if I reach to wherever I'm reaching, if I want to sleep, I'll just shower and put on a Tshirt and sleep. I say put on a Tshirt because I like to be warm, so I always have a change of clothes.

Also, because I check my bag, if something happens and I have to stay in a hotel if I'm delayed, having a change of clothes can make a huge difference in how good you feel about the whole situation.

Along with that is I have a small carry on toiletries bag and so this will have toothbrush, toothpaste, deodorant, that's kind of it. That's how small it is. Again, it's also just to freshen up maybe while traveling. Ah, wet wipes are also good but also in case you get delayed, at least you have a way to brush your teeth that's familiar to you. Yes, you might get a kit from the airline but normally they're sort of throwaway kits and I've definitely had kits where the toothbrush disintegrates in your mouth and it's a terrible feeling. So, not only is your mouth not feeling clean, but you've got bits of toothbrush in your mouth.

And that's the main things or the main gear. Anything maybe ... Something warm I'd also keep there, so I always tend to travel with a scarf but also a hoodie of some description. And those are things that I keep in my carry on luggage. I also have a disposable water bottle. Not disposable. I should say a refillable water bottle. I keep that with me as well. Never can have too much water.

So that is in my carry on and if you look at my handbag, I have tissues, wet wipes, any kind of medication, headphones, non noise cancel ones that just are little ear bud type things, my phone, business cards, I have a specific thing that I use to carry my passport and tickets and all that sort of information, SIM cards. What else is in my handbag? My Kindle. My shawl, for example, and any kind of little things, little sweets, anything to chew on, mints and that sort of a thing.

So, those're the things that I keep in my carry on. What do you keep? I would love to know. Please email me at janice@thecareerintrovert.com. I look forward to hearing from you, helping you with your career and your business, along with your introversion.

Productivity Mix Apr 30, 2019

Shownotes:

Productivity is one of the main concerns of people. Some of us may have a problem with focusing because of certain factors such as chatty co-workers, slow network connection or your laggy desktop. But either way, if you really wanted to boost your productivity, there are lots of ways to do that effectively. Have you tried any techniques before? If not, take notes as I will introduce you to strategies that you can use!

Hello and welcome to the Traveling Introvert. Today, I want to talk about productivity mix. We all want to be as productive as possible whether we're working for ourselves, working for other people. As introverts, it's even more important because we want to be productive maybe in small bursts so we have longer time to recharge. Today, I want to talk about just the different ways that you can boost your productivity.

Everyone is different. There is no one quick fix or one way to be productive. Everyone is different. Everyone will have their own mix and things of ways that work for them. Some people work on sleep-rated cycles where we get told that our body is in four hour cycles, so people will sleep for four hours and work for four hours and sleep for four hours and then work for four hours. Some people do what's known as a time blocking method where you take your calendar and you block out times, maybe 30 minutes long or an hour long or two hours long for specific types of tasks, be it create tasks, admin tasks, daily job stuff, food, leisure, etc. Some people will actually block out each hour of their day and this prevents context switching where you're switching from one kind of work to another type of work, so you know that you're just going to focus on this one thing for two or three hours.

Now, the thing is when you are scheduling out blocks of time for this, you need to have a mixture of reactive and nonreactive blocks. So, reactive blocks or proactive blocks are when you focus on things that need to get done and reactive blocks is sort of going through your email and that sort of a thing. So, that's one other thing that you could do. Some people try the most important task method. So, they think about okay, most important three things for me to do today that will earn me money or get me a promotion or whatever your main overall goal is. You think about those three things, put them at the top of your list and they're the first things you're going to work on. Now, this is great if when you start working, that's the best time of day for you but for some people, it's not. So, depending on how you work or depending on when you want to fit in these most important tasks, it's a good method for some people and works in various ways. You need to be very focused, however, and ignore all distractions. That's why some people like to do it first and get everything out of the way and it clears the way for anything else that you might need to do.

Another very popular technique is The Pomodoro. This one, I found, is very used in a lot of co-working and virtual co-working groups. So, you pick a task, set a timer for 25 minutes, work on the task until the timer goes off, take a short break around five minutes and then start again. Do this for three or four cycles and then you would then take a slightly longer break, say 15 to 30 minutes. Now, there's lots of timers online but you can just use your phone. It's a great way of getting things done and you don't realize just how much you get done in that short amount of time. The trick, however, is figuring out which task will take you 25 minutes.

And then there's ... Some people go for 90 minutes focus session where they work really hard for an hour and a half and then rest for 20 minutes instead. It's just a different version of The Pomodoro Technique and you just work and then rest and then work and then rest and work and then rest. Same thing. Another thing that people love to do is a mixture of all of the above or anything else. Like I said, there's no one thing that works. What I've been doing is I've tried some Pomodoro along with some ultra working along with some "These things need doing first" along with some planning and along with some blocking out. It really depends on how your day looks. If you have one day that's just for meetings, for example, that's a great way of blocking out your time. If you just have one day that's for creative work or one day that's your day off in the middle of the week or one day that's for yoga, whatever it might be, having that schedule and knowing in advance that, "Hey, it's Monday, so Monday I do an hour of this and an hour of that" and it is already laid out for you is one less decision you have to make. Decision fatigue is real.

So, think about these different ways that you can be more productive so it reduces the amount of decisions you have to make per day 'cause that's what it really comes down to that people don't talk about. They talk about being more productive and how your brain works and all of that good stuff but the main core issue that you need to solve is how many decisions you need to make per day and how you can reduce that amount to give you more space to be more creative and do all those other things.

Thank you for listening. My name is Janice. Thank you for listening. If you have any questions, please email me at janice@thecareerintrovert.com. Looking forward to helping you in your business or your career in balance with your introversion.

Uber Pool Apr 23, 2019

Shownotes:

Uber Pool has made everything easier for passengers because of its amazing features. You can book an uber for your convenience with just a few taps on your phone. It has been really useful to me every time until this one incident happened. Today, I’m going to talk about how my Uber Pool started as a wonderful experience and ended up being annoying. Have you ever experienced something like this as well?

Hello, and welcome to the Traveling Introvert. Today, I want to talk about [Uber Pool 00:00:09]. It is not available everywhere, but I happen to be taking it, one time I was in San Francisco for a conference. After the conference, I was going to go to a co-working space and do somethings. I ordered Uber Pool. This Uber Pool is Uber Pool Express. What I want to talk about Uber Pool Express today, because I'm still mad about what happened to me earlier. We're going to talk about Uber Pool, and I want to describe this particular trip because it had almost everything wrong with it, that should be wrong.

It started off well enough, I ordered Uber Pool, and my car was two minutes away, it turned up. The driver was like, "Oh hey, do you live at that house?" I'm like, "Yes." He said, "Oh, I live like half a block down, I literally just started work." I'm like, "Oh, that worked out well. That's wonderful." Then the radio's on, it's playing Salt-N-Pepper. We're both like, he's whistling to Salt-N-Pepper Push It Real Good. I'm singing along, and we're having a good time. It's all good. We drive for about five to eight minutes. Then, we pick up a next person. We're at the place where we're supposed to pick up the person. He messages the person, we sit outside for two minutes. That person comes out, it's like, yeah, a person for our Uber Pool. They get in the car, and they have a couple of bags in there to Starbucks. They come in, and he's like, "Okay, so did you order two?"

Because you have the option of ordering one or two seats with Uber Pool. She's like, "Yeah, I ordered two seats, thank you very much." She got settled in, and she put down there was a divider that you could have, that you could put your little cups in. She put that down, I said that was okay. She put her bags out, and she made herself at home. Which is fine, I don't really care. I have my seat, I'm doing my thing. We've stopped whistling to Salt-N-Pepper at this point. Then she gets out food. Starting crunching, snacking, eating away at the food. It's fine, I guess. Then she decides she's going to have a phone call. This isn't one of those quick, I'm in the car, I'm on the way phone calls, or tap, tap, tap, tap, on your phone, phone calls, well text message, let's be honest. It was a, I'm going to have a full on catch up with my friend while I'm in the car video call.

It started off at a reasonable level, volume. Then it got louder and then they started talking about San Francisco. Now, I say it like this, because the person was not speaking English. The person assumed that the rest of the car could not understand what they were talking about. Mistake number one. They started talking trash about San Francisco, and yes you are allowed to you know have your own opinion, but you are in the presence of other people. One of these people happens to work in San Francisco, because they're your Uber driver. She continues, she's eating, and she's chatting, and she's laughing, and now it's getting very loud and very you know annoying. Then, what she does is she takes the head rest that's in front of her for the passenger seat, and she moves it so she can stick her phone in between the space so she doesn't have to hold her phone anymore while she continues to eat and have this loud, gregarious conversation with her friend.

This total ride was another 20 minutes. While this is happening, Uber in its trying to be efficient, messages me and it goes, "Hey, can you be dropped of on this corner instead? It would save your fellow passenger an extra six minutes." I'm like, "Nah." That might have been mean, but I think she wanted the extra six minutes, because she was having a full on conversation in this car. That was it. It was, yes you're allowed to kind of do what you want in your Uber Pool, but at the same time, there are other people there, and there's someone, you know working and giving you a service. A little bit of respect would be nice. Did you have to have that conversation right then? Even if you did, did you have to have it that loudly? Did you have to move stuff in the car to make yourself that much more comfortable? Did you have to eat at that time? What she was eating? I don't know what she was eating, but it was loud. It smelled slightly. You know, everyone's got a different perception of smell.

That was my Uber Pool experience. That has been the worst one. I generally take Uber Pool you know depending on what's going on. There's never really been an issue, but this one stood out in my mind to the point that as soon as I got out of the car, I made a recording, and messaged a friend, so I could remember exactly what happened. That was my Uber Pool story. Are things, please don't do this when you're in an Uber Pool, it's very upsetting to other people. Thank you for listening, this is Janice at the Traveling Introvert. Should you have any questions for me, or travel stories, I would love to hear them, please email me at Janice@TheCareerIntrovert.com. Thank you and see you on the road. Oh, I stole that. Wait, that was from Nomad + Spice, so we're not going to see you on the road. The Career Introvert, here to help you with anything to do with your career, or your business in line with your introversion.

Introvert Career Moves Apr 16, 2019

Shownotes:

As an introvert, sometimes, it can be hard to let other people know the things that we’re capable of. Not because we’re not confident of what we can do, but because it can be pretty awkward for us to do so. And when you’re in the workplace, you are required to showcase your abilities and make yourself useful not only for your boss but also for your colleagues. But how do you do this? How can you let other people know your strengths?

Hello, and welcome to The Traveling Introvert. Today I am going to talk about showcasing your strengths. As an introvert, I'm going to talk about me, I definitely have found it difficult to showcase my strengths whatever they may be in various work situations, and I've talked to a lot of people. I'm in HR. I've seen a lot of interviews. I've talked to a lot of managers, and so there are a few things that you can do as a human, never mind as an introvert, to help showcase your strengths but in a way that doesn't feel icky and salesy. I think that's something that's really important because as an introvert I know that I made the mistake of assuming that my boss knew exactly what I was doing. I was there. I was doing my job. Everything was running smoothly. There was no complaints. Obviously, my boss knows what I'm doing.

Actually, not the case. So, I want to talk about a few strategies that can help you move forward in your career without feeling sticky and icky and all the rest of it about what you're doing. One thing you should definitely do is find a comfortable way to showcase what you can do while helping other people. Interesting tip if you're good listeners and then take time to process and reflect on information. We're excellent on focusing on the task at hand, and so it's better for us to showcase our skills in a way that makes ourselves feel like we're just helping somebody, and so we feel at ease and are confident in what we're doing.

A good example is, I don't know if you're a wizard at Excel because I hate Excel, so I love people who love Excel, you could volunteer to help next time someone is struggling with their spreadsheets. One-on-one, we're not talking about doing a training, or email a list of handy shortcuts to your team, or maybe you just need to ensure that you're communicating your wins in a good way. The other thing that you can do is volunteer outside of work, this doesn't even have to be a work thing, in a way that can help your portfolio and increase your skills and at the same time helping other people, so, just think about the things that you can do in that way.

Now, one thing I said is that my boss never knew what I was doing. I thought they knew, but let's be honest. They're not being necessarily copied in on all your emails. They are in charge of a lot of other people. So, what you need to do is find out exactly how your boss likes to communicate, what they expect from you, and then make sure you communicate in that way, so if they want a report every Friday by email, great, if they want a meeting, great. Do what you need to do, but also it's good for you because you may then start making a journal on every Friday what you've accomplished, what you didn't accomplish, what you want to accomplish in the next week. These are things that are really important in the long run because at the end of the year when you have your performance review and you're looking like, “Oh, man I don't know what I did,” but if you have a journal then you'll know.

Another thing that you can do especially if you don't like being put on the spot is to get allies or do your thinking in advance. What I found is great is if you know you have a meeting coming up and you know that there is an agenda and you know what's going to be talked about think about what you might want to say in advance and then go and talk to somebody else in the office about it and ask their opinion or whatever it might be one-on-one. So, then when you bring up your thoughts in the meeting, you'll have an ally. You'll have someone else who's also going to cheerlead you on. It makes you feel less alone, and not only that, you will be slightly prepared about what you want to say. You will feel less on the spot.

It's a great way to sort of do that, and so you know in advance what you're going to do. So, that's the one thing that I would say, following up. One of the things with allies and planning sometimes you didn't share everything that you wanted to say, or you missed something at a meeting or an event, or because you think about things later you think of new ideas or feedback after you've had time to reflect. In those instances, it's really important to remember that it's never too late to have your voice heard. It may feel awkward or weird but just say, “Oh, hey I was thinking about what we talked about at the meeting XYZ, and I just came up with this idea. I would love to talk to you about it, or write an email about it," or whatever it might be.

“After the meeting, I thought of this solution or this option.” Lay out your plan in a one-on-one conversation. That way you make your contribution while managing your introvert side. I think that's very, very important. I think that after meetings are done people feel that they can't go ahead and make a contribution and that is not the case. So, along with handling your energy, these are things that you could do to help move forward in your career without feeling icky and weird about things. Thank you for listening. My name is Janice. If you have any questions, please email me at janice@thecareerintrovert.com, helping you with your career and your business alongside your introversion.

My Eventbrite Fail Apr 09, 2019

Shownotes:

Eventbrite is one of the best apps to use when organizing and launching an event. It’s pretty useful, not only to those who have already established their brand online but also to those who are just starting out. I've been loving how convenient setting up events have been so far until Eventbrite had one slip that caused my attendees to miss my event.

Hello and welcome to The Traveling Introvert. Today I want to talk about my Eventbrite mistake. When I run live events ... actually even when I ran webinars, I advertised them and I put them in Eventbrite. Eventbrite I have found to be very useful for getting the word out and getting people to know about my webinars or my live events who wouldn't normally know about me.

And this time round I was in Singapore and I'd posted the event ... and I've done this before. I posted the event. When I first posted, I didn't have a confirmed address. I just knew it was gonna be in Singapore and I had a time. And we just wanted to see if people would actually come, so we put it up, and we got a few bites.

So, I was waiting for confirmation on the address that I wanted to hold the event because my friend wasn't sure which location would be better, etc., etc. It was no longer than a week. I get confirmation of the actual address, I put that in Eventbrite, people are still signing up, and I think nothing more of it. And I started this about a month in advance of the actual event.

Come two days before the event, I'm checking the place out, I'm making sure it's easy to get to. I realize if people wanna park, they'll need to let me know. I make a note of the nearest station and that sort of a thing. And setting up, and seeing how many seats we have, and everything's gonna be okay.

So, I send out an email through Eventbrite being like, "Okay, don't forget, in 24 hours time. Here's a thing. If you do need parking, please let me know. If you can't make it, let me know." All of that good stuff. And I got a couple of responses. One person was sick, another person wasn't sure, all of that. Everything seemed to be okay.

I had to go out. I went and I bought refreshments, and beverages, and made sure there was enough snacks because I had had 59 ... no, well actually, I originally had 50 people sign up for the event, which was amazing because we only had space for about 40. And then you think a certain percentage are gonna turn up. And then, I ended up opening up a wait list for another 10 people, and that got filled up as well. So, 60 people had said they were gonna attend this event. And even if I get say 20% of those, that's a nice little number, especially as it was an event which was networking for introverts so I specifically said I didn't want it to be a big event because I wanted it to be small, and intimate, and not scary.

Come the day of the event, I'm there nervously waiting all these people to trickle in. Some people might be coming from work, and some people might be late, and I wasn't starting on time. I let them know the first half hour was networking. But still, it's your event and you're standing there, and you're waiting. I saw one person hanging out outside, pretending to be on their phone, or being busy, and so I mentioned they should come on in, join the fun. And I actually had a friend in town that she was coming. She was from England, and we happened to meet on her podcast, and then we met in real life, and that was super fun. And I let her know, "Oh, come to the event. It's fine. One other person won't make a difference."

Little did I know, come the time of the event, I still have two people. One is my friend and one is this other person that's turned up. And I don't understand why. I was stoked that so many people had said yes, they were gonna come to my event. And then, I started talking to the person who'd attended and I said, "Is there a reason? I'm not from Singapore, so can you tell me why people might not have turned up? [inaudible 00:03:57] might have different expectations." And he said, "There was no address on the actual invite from Eventbrite." The only reason he knew about the address was 'cause he happened to check his email and saw the email that I sent him. But, if you used the Eventbrite app, there was no address.

And I was out of ... "But look, there's an address." And I showed him my backend from Eventbrite, and when I look at it that's what I see. Eventbrite doesn't do it in such a way that I can see what people see. Then, he shows me his phone and there is no address. So no one knew where to go. And he said, "People don't check their email. They're probably at work and they rely on the app to give them the information that they need."

So yes, I might have had 60 people say they were coming. A, it's amazing they signed up that they didn't know where the hell they were going. That is wonderful 'cause it means if I go back again, I'm definitely gonna get people to turn up. But, Eventbrite didn't update my details so I thought I'd done everything right and the only reason, the only reason, I figured out that Eventbrite had messed up is because someone actually turned up, figured it out, and then showed me.

So if you can, when you're running an event check to see what the other side looks like. See what other people get to see. I couldn't do that. I've now figured out a way how to do that. But, yes. So this prevented me ... it didn't prevent me. I still held the event, I just had a lot of leftover beer and snacks.

So that is the story of my Eventbrite fail. Thank you for listening. This is Janice from The Career Introvert helping you with your business and your career in line with your introversion. Should you have any questions for me, please email me at Janice@thecareerintrovert.com. Thanks for listening.

Airline Miles - Its Not What You Think Apr 02, 2019

Shownotes:

If you’re a frequent flyer like me, you probably get asked how many miles you have by now every single time. As a matter of fact, if we were given a dollar every time someone tells us how much miles we’ve earned, we’d be able to afford a roundtrip ticket. So today, I’d like to debunk all the myths that people have not only about frequent travelers but also for airline miles!

Hello and welcome to the Traveling Introvert. Today is a question I get asked a lot, or assumed a lot, is well, you travel so much, you must have so many miles stacked up. And I think this is a case of people know that that's a thing, but people don't really know how it works and so that's what they say. And it generally works. Yes, of course you do get miles, but now, it's that much harder to get miles and it's not miles per miles you actually travel. So that's the first myth. A lot of people think that you get back in mythical miles currency, the amount of miles you actually travel per year. And that would be wonderful. Maybe.

But that is not the case. A lot of the times you will get, it's based on how much money you spend times maybe the miles or depending on the airline, how they do it. Things that don't get taken into consideration is the amount of money you pay for taxes, and when you buy a plane ticket, you don't realizes sometimes that there is a tax for leaving the country, a tax for entering a country, a TSA tax, an airport tax. There's all sorts of other little taxes that get put in, which might even make it more than half of your actual plane ticket price. So that's one thing. Then there's the fact that most of the time, how many miles you earn might be linked to the airline that you're with. Also might be linked to which credit card you might use.

In fact, it is better if you have a credit card, or you have to spend a certain amount of money with some airlines. Yes, you might have a case amount of air miles, but that doesn't get you status, and status is the important thing. Status is the thing that can get you access to lounges, can get you access to boarding first, can get you extra luggage allowance. These are things that are very helpful. But sometimes you can't get them if you don't have the credit card, 'cause you just can't spend the money, or -- here's the other thing -- if you work for a company and that company is buying your ticket, sometimes you don't have a choice of who you get to fly with and therefore you don't have a choice of where the miles go.

So just because someone is traveling a lot doesn't mean they're automatically racking up a bunch of miles. What if they're buying the cheapest tickets? And now, there are definitely tickets where you don't get miles. You're just lucky you get a seat. You might not even get luggage. You get hand luggage, not necessarily carry-on. It might just be a personal item and you have to pay extra for everything else. So, I always found it really interesting, oh, you must have racked up a bunch of miles. And I look at my miles and I'm like, I've got 12,000 miles. It's very interesting.

The other thing is okay, so I might have miles, but then how do I spend them? I have a friend right now, she says I have these miles, I've got them with Copper Airlines which, y'know, is fine. But she's looking and she's like, I wanna spend these miles but there's nowhere I can go that the miles will cover. And we've just had a conversation recently, and she's like, the most I can do is go from Mexico City to Panama City, one way. And it costs me far more money to take a one-way ticket back than it would just by return. So she can't use the miles. Some miles have expiration dates. It takes a lot of miles.

So, for example, some airlines definitely have sort of a 32,000 mile minimum for you to get a flight, one flight, somewhere, or 17,000 miles. And to get that 17,000 miles, you can't just fly 17,000 miles, you actually have to fly more than that to get there, and sometimes you can have an accelerator, sometimes you can buy the miles outright. But generally, mile per dollar or cent or whatever doesn't work out the same way.

So, yes, people might travel a lot. Doesn't necessarily they have miles racked up, and even if they do, it doesn't mean it's really easy to spend them. So don't necessarily be envious and assume that miles is the thing. Now, some people are super into the mileage game. And it's great. But it's not necessarily the miles that you get with staying with an airline, it's the loyalty and the parks you may or may not get. Now some airlines have the same perks if you just get their card, their credit card. Not everyone can get a credit card. And I'll be honest, the credit card game is mainly restricted to the United States. And so, there's the rest of the world out there that can't play the game in the same way. It's fairly interesting.

So when people say oh, you must have a lot of miles racked up. Yeah, no, not really. I looked and I don't really spend my miles that often. I tend to save my miles for emergencies. If I have a friend who's sick and I have to go in an emergency, I would use miles, for example. But yeah, no, I don't have a bunch of miles racked up. If someone wants to donate miles to me, I will take them. My airline of choice is United, but I will take any miles in Star Alliance or with Delta, 'cause Delta miles never expire. Alright, thank you for listening. This is Janice from the Career Introvert looking forward to helping you with your career and your business out in line with your introversion. If you have any questions or anything you want me to answer, please email me at Janice@thecareerintrovert.com.

Being a Digital Nomad is NOT a Job Mar 26, 2019

Shownotes:

What comes into your mind when you hear the words “digital nomad”? For some, it can be about the lavish lifestyle, the perks that you enjoy while working in different places. Because of this, a lot of people have come up with many misconceptions and expressed how they want to become one. Sure, you can. Anyone can. But the real question here is: are you ready to be one?

Hello, and welcome to the Traveling Introvert. Today I want to talk about how being a digital nomad is not a job. The reason why I want to talk about this is because I see in a lot of Facebook groups, and a lot of questions on Reddit, and various other places, the main question, the most popular question that people ask is, "I want to become a digital nomad. How do I do it?" Like becoming a digital nomad is some kind of job, like I want to become an electrical engineer. How do I do it? I want to become an accountant. How do I do it? They don't equate. They are not the same thing. It's mainly because there seems to be some misrepresentation about digital nomads.

Another thing that's come up recently is digital nomads versus remote workers. I understand that people see photos, and hear things about digital nomad, which to some people might look like sitting on a beach with your laptop with pina colada. I'm not sure what you might be doing with that laptop and pina colada on a beach, but that's the impression that people get, and of course, that you get to travel. Still, it doesn't make it a job. There's a distinct difference.

When people ask, "I want to become a digital nomad," I think most of them they're like, "I like that lifestyle. I want that lifestyle. How do I get that lifestyle?" They don't understand the work that goes on behind the scenes because of the way social media is where we see a very curated slices of people's lives. Let's be honest, most of the time those slices, because they're carefully curated, only show the best side, and the things that are appealing because they have to be aspirational and inspirational. Not everyone like the beach. Having said that, some people are into mountains. The most popular images that seem to convert and get people interested are pictures of people on a beach. There is something about a beach that makes people want it. They [inaudible 00:02:25] get it, but that's the thing.

Now being a digital nomad means you have a job or you work for somebody where you do certain tasks. You might be a writer who happens to be a digital nomad. You might be a HR consultant that happens to be a digital nomad. You might be a programmer that happens to be a digital nomad. You might be a coach that happens to be a digital nomad. You might be an accountant who happens to be a digital nomad, but something has to come before that digital nomad part. Instead of asking, "How can I become a digital nomad?" think about what it is you want to do with your life, your job, your career, and how you can make that job livable, how you can do that job from different locations, being location independent minus Wi-Fi. Think about that thing.

People come at it from the wrong direction. It's not about being a digital nomad. It's about doing a job that you enjoy and seeing how you can create that job or have that job in a nomadic way or in a way that is totally online, or in a way where you need to spend a certain amount of time online and the rest of it you can do offline. Once again, being a digital nomad is not a job. They're not the same thing.

When you're thinking about, "What is it I want to do?" think about the job, the kind of tasks you like doing, what you enjoy doing. Do you like to interact with people a lot? Do you not interact with people a lot? How is your energy? Are you tech-savvy? Do you really want to travel? If you do want to travel, how fast or slow do you want to travel? Also, there is no wrong or right way of being a digital nomad. There are some of us with home bases. There are some of us that travel all the time. There's some of us that are on a cruise ship. There's some people who travel every six months, every two months, once a year. There is no right or wrong way of doing it. You are just living your life. It is your lifestyle. Being a digital nomad is not a job.

Thank you for listening to that rant. Today was definitely a rant. Thank you for listening. This is Janice from The Career Introvert. Looking forward to helping you with your business and career in line with your introversion. If you any questions or want me to talk about something specific on the podcast, please email me at janice@thecareerintrovert.com.

What I learned while traveling in 2018 Mar 26, 2019

Show notes:

When you’re a frequent traveler like me, you learn and experience a lot of new things not only about the place where you’re headed, but the whole trip in general. Of course, not all experiences will be wonderful but once you get over it, you’ll see that all your mishaps during that trip was kind of memorable as well.

For today’s episode, I’m going to share with you the few things that I learned like flying with a different airline, making my way through different places, and the kind of service you can get when dealing with the taxi drivers around the area. Enjoy!

Hello and welcome to The Traveling Introvert. Today, I want to talk about the fact that I traveled for almost half the year last year. I was doing the math, I went and looked back at my TripIt to figure out how many trips I did and how many days I was traveling, and I realized that it was just under half the year I spent traveling, or not in my home base.

And so I want to talk about a couple of the things that I learnt last year while traveling for that amount of time. So one of the things I did last year, which I'd never done before, was crossing a land border. This was between Guatemala and Mexico. It was unexpected. Originally, I was supposed to fly but there was a volcano in Guatemala and some other things happened. And because of this, I ended up having to cross the border walking and with a Tuk Tuk and other methods. But I had to cross a land border. That was something I'd never done before and it was an interesting experience.

The other thing I learnt last year was it's okay to travel not with the airline of your choice, but it does make the travel a little bit more stressful, for me anyway, and a little less sure. So for example, when I travel with the airline I'm used to traveling, I know when to check in. I know how long the lines are gonna be. I know what I can get and what I won't get. When I'm traveling with a different airline, it's not as easy and not as autopiloted, so I have to make more decisions during the day.

The other things I learnt, which took me years, is ... So right now, as of today, Uber is not allowed in Vancouver. And the airport is kind of far away from the city. And so if you have an early morning flight, being able to get from your hotel to Vancouver Airport can be a real problem, because taxis are not considered to be reliable. So you can order one, but it might not turn up. So my way of working around this, and I can't believe I didn't figure this out earlier, is to look for a hotel that is close to the airport, but has their own shuttle to and from the airport, preferably a 24 hour shuttle to and from the airport, so I can stay at that hotel. Getting to and from downtown Vancouver is fairly easy because there's a very quick train, but just getting to the airport at 4AM in the morning, just make sure you use either a car service, which would cost you anywhere between 50 and 70 Canadian dollars, or an airport that has a 24 hour shuttle. So that was something that took me long enough to figure out.

Groupon. The other thing I figured out last year was that Groupon, USA specifically, only accepts US cards. So if you don't have a USA card or a friend that can buy the Groupon for you, you can't use Groupon specials. Which is interesting. Not good nor bad, but just sort of interesting.

The other thing that I learnt was Philly traffic is pretty bad. Didn't realize it at the time, but Philly isn't known necessarily for traffic, but to get from one place to another can take a really long time.

One of the other things I learnt was traveling around the holidays, I was in Nashville for the holidays and I had a particular Uber driver who on that day decided to berate people who were not celebrating that particular religious holiday. So that was a very uncomfortable, let's be honest, uncomfortable ride in an Uber. Hey, Uber drivers, we get you have an opinion. It doesn't mean that you have to berate your passengers. Just saying.

And the other thing that I learnt was to pick very carefully which speaking gigs I attend. I definitely made some mistakes last year at that, and now I hope to learn from them. They have led to wonderful experiences and knowing different people, but there's just some things now that I've put in place to see if I end up doing these things or not.

So those were some of the things I learnt in my half year of travel. I'm sure there was a bunch more, but these were the ones that popped up to mind right away. If there's anything you'd love to know about traveling or any hints that you think I might love to know, or questions you have about traveling, please email me at janice@thecareerintrovert.com, and I will be sure to answer.

Thank you for listening. This is Janice@thecareerintrovert.com, helping you move forward with your career and your business in line with your introversion.

Stop Being Your Own Worst Client Mar 19, 2019

Show Notes:

There is a saying that goes, “You are what you attract.” People might think it only applies to relationships, but surprisingly, it is also applicable to businesses.

If you want to have an amazing client, then you need to have the same energy as that client. You need to work on yourself as much as you work on your business. You need to achieve balance in your personal and work life for you to be an effective entrepreneur or an effective coach.

Hello and welcome to The Traveling Introvert. Today I want to talk about being your own worst client. Imagine that you had a coaching client who consistently failed to complete their tasks on every week, or every month. Or, every time that you talked to them they couldn't find the time to get their opt-in page completed, or they were too busy to write the next chapter of their book. They were basically just working too hard and completely forgot to put together a webinar, or a presentation, or something really important.

It wouldn't take too long before you sat them down and had a serious talk about the future of your coaching relationship and their business. Coaching a client such as that is frustrating, and it's also a waste of both of your times. So, why is it that so many people continue to accept these and other excuses for themselves? Why is it that you might have a lack of business developmental growth which will allow you to continue and do better, even when you know it's important that these tasks, for the future for your growth, why do you still make excuses to not do them?

It doesn't make any sense, and I know you might think I'm being hard or weird, but all entrepreneurs struggle with this same issue. We all put our clients, our family, our friends, and even the neighbor we barely know, before ourselves. And sometimes it's even worse for introverts, and especially in this day and age where we're always on, or available 24/7, or want to be responsive in case something else happens, or our client goes to somebody else. It's really hard, but you need to think about this. I'm giving you permission right now to stop doing that.

You need to treat yourself like your VIP client, you need to put yourself, your needs, your introvert balance and your business growth ahead of your clients, because by doing that, and by learning how to grow your business you can then help your clients do that. You'll be able to reach a larger audience, help more people, and achieve the goals you set for yourself. So you need to put your business growth and your introvert balance ahead of everything else.

The simplest way to do that is make appointments with yourself. I started doing this on my calendar, you know, that hour or two you have free on Thursday afternoon, make sure it's free. Make sure you can't have a client call booked in that spot, book it for yourself. What I've had to do recently is put in blocks of time, one or two hours a day where it is just work on my business not in my business. Put it in your calendar, make it a funky color, make it stand out, but it has to come first and you need to treat it as an unbreakable appointment, just as you would with an appointment with a client, or a doctor, or somebody else. You need to set those barriers as well.

And, spend the time working on things that are important to the continued growth of your business. It could be, develop a new coaching program, or develop a new product, write a chapter in your upcoming book, write emails for your autoresponders, reach out to partners, think about a summit that you want to do. Just get everything in line. Maybe it could be, just get your acuity up and running, maybe you've had it up but you need to tweak it, or make sure that the emails that go out to your clients are fully understandable. In short, do the things you tell your clients to do, you know, the things that your own coach, if you have one, is probably telling you to do. Don't push them aside for later, or after I get this client worked out, or after I put out this fire.

Evaluate yourself and think about it, is it really worth putting all your client work first if you can't pull in the new business? You need to be constantly pulling in new business to keep things going, and the only way to do that is to concentrate on your business growth. Elevate yourself to VIP client status and start putting yourself first. You, and your business, and your bank balance will thank you for it, and it's a lesson that you need to repeat to yourself, because you might start off well for a month or so, and then stuff happens. The client has a fire that needs putting out, you go on vacation and things happen, and then you come back and you stop doing it.

This is why you need to sit down and block out time, maybe for the next six months, maybe for the next year. You can always move times if stuff happens, and yes, you are allowed to take vacation, but putting these times in your calendar and making them a non negotiable is the first stage to growing your business.

Thank you for listening. If you have any questions please email me at janice@thecareerintrovert.com. I look forward to helping you grow your business and your career in line with your introversion.

3 Tips to Free Up Your Friday Afternoon Mar 12, 2019

Show Notes:

When we have a lot of things on our plate, it’s easy to get overwhelmed by the volume of our workload. For people who are able to manage their time wisely, it will never be a problem. If you’ve just begun your career, you can get lost along the way pretty easily and that might even lead to procrastination.

And of course, we don’t want our time to go to waste! So today, I’m going to share with you some tips on how you can build your own system to effectively manage your workload and documents. Once you’ve successfully done everything, you’ll notice how easier your career has become and that you also get to spend some time on yourself.

Hello, and welcome to the Traveling Introvert. Today, I would love to talk to you about some solutions for de-stressing your business that you can do right now.

So, what if you could say, around an hour a day starting tomorrow, that's five hours per week, or more than half a day off? Imagine closing up shop at 11:00 AM every Friday without worrying about the stuff that didn't get done, or just stop working. Close the computer and go and have a nice Friday afternoon. Well, you can do that when you put these solutions in place, and you can start this week.

So, the first thing I wanna talk about is proper project management. If you're still managing your team with email and Skype messages, stop it. Stop it right now. It's not great. We all know that emails turn into to-do lists and Skype is unreliable to say the least. Things get lost. Messages are forgotten or never received and balls have dropped. Not to mention the time you spend shifting through the list of emails and searching for that one piece of information you need.

I highly, highly recommend that you sign up for project management assistant. You can start with Clickup, Asana, Trello, start putting all your projects in one place. You'll have one place for all the tasks that are all outstanding, ready-to-do, then you'll be able to tell at a glance what needs your immediate attention and what needs tweaking. Having one central location for everything is super important.

Pick one that's right for you, you'll often have free sort of things that you could do, free months trials what have you. The first one you find might not be the best one for you, there are so many out there, but there's the top ones, there are Notion, Asana, Clickup, and Trello, oh, and Basecamp. Pick one, and put everything in there. Everything, everything, everything, everything, everything, have it in this one central place.

Then there's proper documentation. Do you find yourself sort of reinventing the wheel every time you have to record? For example, a podcast, or a video or write a blog, or get pins for your Pinterest, or Instagram. Take five minutes and document the steps, and then the next time you have to do it, or better yet, when you have to hand it off to somebody else, you'll be able to get it done quickly and figure out what needs to happen and there will be fewer mistakes. So, there'll be a checklist and the work will get done.

Proper documentation, that's my thing right now for a couple months ago, what I did was, my thing was document everything, and so, no matter what it was that I did whether it was for a client or for myself, I would document the steps that I took. And so, that documentation is there if I ever have to hand it off or if I forget or something happens, then I can be like, "Here's the documentation." And it's just super, super helpful. And when you have to look back at something, or if you forgot something or something changed or you drop something and then come back to it a year later, you'll have that documentation.

The next thing I'd like to talk about is time blocking. This is super important. Get out your calendar and start making ... and I've talked about this before ... start making appointments, but not just for yourself but for your clients. Work on certain clients on this day at that time, and you'll get into a habit and then you become on auto-pilot, like, "Monday morning at 9:00, I always work on this client, and then at 2:00 PM on Tuesdays, I always work with this client."

When you start getting some rhythm and some sort of less decision-making that you have to do, it's like, "What should I do next?" Putting time blocking in your calendar for your clients as well as yourself is super duper helpful. So, you just come in and be like, "Okay, now I'm going to do, and do this, and do that, and do the other." It helps keep you focused, rather than wasting time, maybe on Facebook or Reddit or whatever black hole that you turn to go into when you're procrastinating.

And you can space those time blocks out and you can put gaps in them, whatever you need to do, but time blocking is really important, and also then you'll be able to see at a glance, like, "Oh, I have an appointment with such-and-such, so, I need to move this thing over." So, just those few things will help you be more focused and know in advance what you need to do, and just documentation project management all of these things can be set up more or less in an afternoon or a day.

But the time that will save you consistently will be phenomenal. An hour a day is just the beginning, but you have to actually take the action and do it. You have to put the work in first, so you can get the rewards afterwards. But you know what? The benefits are sweet. That Friday afternoon off is a wonderful thing, and in the end, you'll wonder how you ever managed before you did these things to improve your business and your life.

So, why don't you give them a try? If you have any questions about them, please email me at janice@thecareerintrovert.com, and I will sort of have a little ... I have the A to Z of systems in my membership box should you wish to join that. There will be a link at the bottom of this podcast. So, thank you for listening, this is janice@thecareerintrovert.com, and I look forward to helping you grow your business and your career in line with your introversion.

How to introduce yourself Mar 05, 2019

One of the situations that introverts struggle with is the introduction. Based on experience, it can be pretty awkward to tell people about yourself and what you do for a living, especially if you are meeting them for the very first time. Can you just imagine saying things like, “Ah… I see. So...”? It just makes you want to dash to the exit!

Keeping up with the conversation is another thing that most of us have an issue with, so today, I’d like to hit two birds in one stone - I’ll be talking about how you can introduce yourself in the most natural way and how you can keep the conversation going to make new friends at this social event.

Hello. And welcome to the Traveling Introvert. Today I want to talk to you about networking events. And not just the whole thing because there's a lot I could talk about with networking events. But specifically I want to talk about how to introduce yourself at a networking event. And the reason I want to talk about this is because it's something that I find a lot of my clients struggle with. They might have multiple things that they're interested in, or they are looking for a new job, so they don't want to introduce themselves as X because really they're looking for job Y. The other thing that happens is that people don't want to brag. They don't want to misconstrue themselves. They don't want to be seen as, oh yes, I'm this and I work for such and such because they don't want to be put into a category.

I've found a different way of introducing myself that I find has worked and other people have used this as well. So this is feedback I've got from other people. Instead of saying, "Hi. I'm Jane, and I'm an accountant." And then peoples' next question normally is "Oh. So who do you work for?" And if you don't work for a company that people have heard of, they then don't know what to ask next. And I have this problem. If I say, "Oh, I'm a career coach for introverts." Most people have no idea what to say next. They are like, "Oh, so you've come out of your introvert shell." Or the conversation literally just dies. It's not exciting. It's not sexy. People just don't know what to say to that, unless they're an introvert. Then they're super interested.

I've come to say instead that I help introverted women achieve success in their career and their business because this helps lead to other questions. People will then ask you, "Oh, well, what does that entail?" Or "How do you do that? Is all your work virtual? Is that what you're doing here now?" It naturally leads to more questions where you can then maybe talk about a client. So I would say, "Oh I helped X client do this and this and this, and now they work for this company." Or "Now they have their own business." Or "Now they do sales without pressure." Or whatever it might be. But if you get a person who's interested, you can be like "Okay, so what is your top problem?" And they will tell you their problem, and you can say "I would solve it by doing this, this, and this."

It shows your problem solving skills and puts you in a light of oh, you can help do this, that, and the other. It gives a very practical example of what you do without you saying, "I'm an accountant." There's so many different types of accountants. There are forensic accountants, there's small business accountants, there are corporate accountants. Saying accountant isn't enough. So if you could say, "Oh. Well I help businesses or I help my business save money on their bottom line." Then someone's like "Oh, well how do you do that?" Because you do this, this, this, and this. It helps guide the conversation better than just saying "Hey. I do this, and this is all that you need to know about me."

That's what I wanted to share. Think about what you've done or how you help people, how you serve people. And use this as your introduction when someone says, "So what do you do?" "I blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. I help this person achieve this, that, and the other. Or I support these type of people do this, this, and that by X, Y, and Z." This, I have found, is a great way to get conversations going and without you feeling like you're selling yourself. You're giving hard concrete facts about what you do and how you do it. And it leads to far more engagement and a more in-depth conversation and avoids all of that small talk and helps people think about what they do, and how they help people.

On the flip side, when someone says, "Oh, I'm an accountant." And you can ask them, "But what type of accounting do you do? What type of clients do you help, and how do you help them?" And that, again, helps lead to a deeper conversation.

All right. Thank you for listening. That was my tip for today. This is Janice. If you have any questions for me, please email me at janice@thecareerintrovert.com. I look forward to helping you with your career and your business in line with your introversion.

How To Find A Mentor Feb 26, 2019

Show Notes:

No one is ever a pro right in the beginning. All of us have to start somewhere, so don’t feel pressured to be a beginner in the industry that you want to pursue, because there are a lot of ways to learn and get help for ourselves – just like mentoring!

For this episode, I’d like to talk about one of the topics that I value the most – mentoring in general, finding a suitable mentor to work with, growing your relationship with them, and reciprocating their efforts. Not only that you’ll have an honest and reliable opinion on your decisions, but your friend list will definitely grow as well!

Transcript:

Hello, and welcome to The Traveling Introvert! Today, I’m going to talk about mentoring. I think mentoring is something that is very important and often overlooked when people are out thinking about their careers. You are in charge of your own career, and as part of that, you should have a plan. While it’s an idea of where you want to go, and if not getting outside your views and help, and mentors can help you in while doing that. While beefing up your career skills, mentoring is proven to be essential for your career success. Several mentors to utilize range from CEOs to CMOs to college professionals. There’s no one set thing that a mentor should be as far as job title is concerned. But these people are instrumental to your career growth and success. They will offer their time, care, and commitment to improving your skills. Great mentors have the knowledge and experience to guide you, your men, as a mentee. Mentors are valuable because they guide you on your career path whether you are an experienced professional or recent college grad, mentors are a valuable asset in your career toolkit.

And how do you get started with creating a relationship with your mentor? Well, you should determine your mentorship goals before you seek out a mentor. [Right now], all your expectations and the role that you would like to mentor to play in your life. Do you want a mentor who can help you with installing network attempts? Or would you like a mentor who can assist you in learning more about a particular industry? Or do you want someone who can provide guidance on how to be a successful entrepreneur? There is a specific experience or skills in your career that might need further improvement. It’s crucial to determine your set of objectives and goals because this is what you and your mentor should be achieving together.Then you have to recognize what is a good mentor. While trying to discover a good mentor, you may look for someone that can aid your personal growth, but in addition, you need to find someone who’s truly brilliant and has found success in many areas. The most obvious mentor candidates are your current or former bosses, colleague, or college professors because you already have a good relationship with them and they are leaders that can help you beef up your career skills in almost any field of work.

During the entire process, however, bear in mind you are not limited to a single mentor. You can choose to have a mentor for each stage of your career or different areas of your career. There are multiple mentors who will specialize in different areas, so just think about that. Don’t feel you just have to have one mentor, and then like how do you request the mentorship? So, it’s easy to approach a mentor candidate if you’ve known the person for a while and have a pre-existing relationship with them. You can easily ask them for a meeting at a coffee shop or an office environment, so that’s okay. If it’s someone that you don’t know, sending out an email or connecting with them on LinkedIn is the first step. And then, showing interest in what they do and then proceeding from there. Communicate all of your career goals and identify some of the areas that you want to improve in. Explain that you have high regard for that specific leadership or experience and skills and you would like to take the opportunity to learn from them, and there’s nothing wrong with asking for a person to be their mentor. But remember, they are giving up their time, so be very clear and specific about what you’re looking for. You could ask for a mutual friend to be introduced to someone else as a mentor. There are other places you can reach out on social media like Facebook. You can be persistent, but don’t be annoying, and have a couple of people in mind, because like I said, it might just be the wrong time. Explore different ways of crossing path with your mentor. If your mentor is an online influencer or professional organization member, maybe you could attend one of their events. Don’t stop them but be proactive about the opportunities where you can meet them in an outside setting. So, show admiration for things that they do and show enthusiasm for growth.

Now, the next part is actually being a mentee. As I said before, people are extremely busy and they consider their time to be valuable. Therefore, when a person has agreed to mentor you, you need to realize this is a privilege and an honor and give the respect and time to the mentor by being prepared before you go out and meet them. Be careful in planning the questions and topics that you want to address. This must be done beforehand so that when you meet you will have a focused meeting. Ask suggestions but in moderation. Don’t reach out for suggestions all the time because that could be seen as too much work for your mentor. Reach out only for advice on career decisions, not little challenges. Make sure you listen. Mentors are dispensing an advice. You might not always take the advice, but you should at least listen to it and you should be able to explain why you did something different and share your development. Show, you know, what you did that’s changed and show your gratitude. Just saying thank you or sending a card is a really great way to let them know that they’ve made a difference in your life and you can keep in touch with them later on even if they’re not your mentor anymore.

So that was just a quick episode on mentoring and it’s something that is close to my heart. If you have any questions, please email me at janice@thecareerintrovert.com.

Thank you for listening, and I look forward to helping you with your career and your business moving forward.

What Is Your Bosses Communication Style? Feb 19, 2019

Show notes

Communication is one of the most important recipes for a successful business. As an introvert, it is never easy to deal with it, especially if you’ve just come out of your comfort zone. However, if you really want to be successful in your job, you need to learn how to understand your colleagues and business partners and be able to express yourself through an effective communication style.

For this episode, I’d like to give you the four communication categories often used in the business field. Aside from being comfortable, knowing which one of styles is the best for you will help you learn what kind of people you’re best paired with!

Transcript

Hello, and welcome to The Traveling Introvert. Today we’re going to talk about, do you know your boss’s communication style and why this is important. Closely tied with our personality type, your communication style will drive many elements of your career and business, and just relationships in general. How you choose business partners, who you hire, people you work with, and the programs you create. Even marketing materials or like your resume and CV. Depending on who you speak to, communication styles may have many names but regardless of the titles, they all fall into four broad categories.

One of those is analytical. You want numbers and facts to base your decisions on, not emotions or feelings. Personal communicators make you a little bit crazy. And so knowing, think about people you know, and think about if they are those types of people. If they’re analytical and they want numbers and facts, but you’re giving them warm and fuzzies, you’re not giving them what they want or they expect and therefore they might feel that you can’t communicate well. And so you might need to adjust if your boss is an analytical boss and they want numbers and facts, you should give them numbers and facts. It’s very important to think about these things.

And then, the second type of communication style is intuitive. These people see the big picture and often only want to know the outcome, not the details of how to get there. And so for them, speaking to someone who’s a functional communicator makes them lose interest really fast. I’ve definitely worked with clients that are very, very big picture. I just, just get it done, whatever needs to happen, just get it done. But my big, glorious picture has to work. And so again, if your boss is a big picture person, or just someone you work with is a big picture person, you might need to adjust the way you communicate with them to deal with that and to compliment that. It might not be your personal communication style but if you want to move things forward and get things done, you need to communicate with people in a star that they recognize and appreciate.

Then, the third type is the functional. They prefer step-by-step plans and outlines. No detail is too small to be held up to endless examination consideration, and so they’re a little different from analytical and that it does tend to be a blur in the lines between those. But they want step-by-step, so they’re the kind of people that will want checklists and workflows, and that sort of a thing, and they’ll go over it and see how it could be tweaked and how could be made better. So again, when you’re communicating with these types of people, just, just think about that.

And the last one out of the four is personal. They value emotional connections and build them easily by recognizing not only how people think but how they feel. They probably have a very high EQ. And those type of people need to be communicated to it in a certain way as well. So just think about that.

Think about your communication method. Are you analytical, intuitive, functional, or personal? If you’ve ever sat in a meeting that seemed like it will never end while a co-worker took on, and on, and on about the budget for product on a project, chances are you’ve met an analytical communicator. Or maybe you’ve sat down with a partner to hammer out a plan for a new project and to be met with something like, well just create a 15-week coaching program rather than a step-by-step roadmap and milestones that you expected. When you’ve met someone who is intuitive, none of these communication styles are bad. They all can and do make great entrepreneurs, have great careers, small business owners and coaches. But the key is to know yourself, how you communicate and which style will complement your own or how you deal with other people. So it’s just something to think about and keep in mind. And I found that really useful in my work with different people. It also helps me figure out who are good people for me to work with and to partner with for certain things. I can communicate in a way that they want, in a way that makes sense for them.

Thank you for listening. This is Janice from The Career Introvert. Please email me with any questions you have at janice@thecareerintrovert.com

Helping you grow your business and career, in balance with your introversion.

Build A Business, Not Another Job Feb 12, 2019

Show Notes:

Many people dream of having their own business. It may seem easy from another perspective, but when you’re in the shoes of a business owner, you might realize that it’s not always rainbows and sunshine.

For today’s episode, I want to make a few points on the difference of being self-employed and being a business owner, and their similarities. Moreover, I also want to introduce you to the idea of automation and outsourcing to help you continue living the life you’ve always dreamed of even when you have a business to run.

Transcript:

Hello and welcome to The Traveling Introvert! Today, I want to talk about building a business and not another job. So many people dream of working for themselves, being their own boss, having their freedom, to take on, projects they love, and they have this dream – and it’s great.

It’s great to have dreams, but what they don’t realize though is that there’s a huge difference between building a business and being self-employed. Business owners scale their income. They strategize, they think about certain things. Self-employed people traded dollars for hours. Business owners leverage the skills and talents of others as well as themselves Self-employed people rely only on their own skills. I’m not saying this for you to be discouraged. It’s just that every business started out self-employed, they just don’t stay there. And so I want to talk about things that can help you sort of build a sustainable business and not just another job. And these are things that I’ve learned over time. Don’t try and do it all yourself. It took me a really long time to learn this. To build a sustainable business requires that you leverage the talents and time of others as well as yourself. It might not see, it might seem cost-effective to do everything yourself especially at the start because you might have more time, money, and it’s but it is a path to burnout and stress, and that’s not why you’re doing this. Separate tasks into being things that you love and you are especially suited for that you’re good at and you enjoy doing, and things that you dislike and you are not good at. Separate those tasks, then make a solid plan to get those that you’re not so good at off your list.

Either automate it, outsource it, whatever it is that you have to do, or cut it out from your business altogether. Do what you needed. If you feel like you can’t afford to outsource it all right now, start with the one thing that you tend to procrastinate the most on, even if it’s just for three hours a month. It will make a difference. The other thing you need to remember is don’t allow yourself to work all the time. The trouble with being your own boss and technology these days is that when you work at home, is that you live at work, and that means there’s no clear line about when your work day is and your home day is because there’s always work to do. Always. And it’s easy to find yourself working every available moment because you need to make this work, or because if you don’t, stuff will happen or you’ll miss something, or you’ll miss an opportunity. And normally, this is to the detriment of maybe at your health, your sanity, and maybe other relationships.

So, you can avoid this by setting and maintaining clear work hours or office hours, having a room specifically for your work so you can close it when you’re done, and scheduling time and your calendar for family and other activities as well. Please do this, take time for yourself, and my last sort of thing about getting a business and not a job. Though this is, by any means, not the last thing ever because there are so many things that go with this, but vacations and downtime are very important. Don’t create a business that requires you to be in the office every day. At the start, yes, it might be all about you, and you might need to be available more. But even when you start, you should be thinking about the day when you have to be off-grid for extended periods of time. So that cruise you want to take, it’s a week-long cruise and there’s no internet, will your business survive? So think about that from the very start. Can you get trusted contractors that can handle things when you’re not available? Can you leverage automation tools such as autoresponders and systems that will work while you’re not there? Start creating repeatable systems so that you’re not always reinventing the wheel.

While you might not be able to hit the road with no internet access for weeks at a time But with some forethought and planning, you can create a team and all the systems that they need to successfully run your business without becoming overwhelmed and overworked. And I’m working on that all the time.

So thank you for listening. This is Janice from The Career Introvert, helping you just be awesome with your career and your business.

If you have any questions, please email me at janice@thecareerintrovert.com.

Airline Loyalty A Different View Feb 05, 2019

Show notes

Not all airlines are the same. They have huge differences when it comes to the processes and the services that they offer. What a particular airline features, might not be offered at another, and vice versa.

For today’s episode, I’d like to talk about airline loyalty and its importance to a passenger – especially if you’re an introvert who travels a lot. Aside from that, I’m going to share with you a different experience flying with a totally different airline to show you how confusing it can get.

Transcription

Hello, and welcome to The Traveling Introvert! Today we’re going to talk about airline loyalty. I’ve realized I haven’t been done a travel one in a while. It’s not because I haven’t been traveling, it’s just because – yeah, there’s been a lot going on. Alright, so, traveling and being loyal to an airline. A lot of people, especially now with this low-cost airlines, this ultra-low cost airlines and where I do a lot traveling, there’s maybe three or four big airlines. So, why should you or shouldn’t you be loyal to a particular airline?

A lot of the time when people are shopping, when they’re looking for flights, they’re looking for availability of the flight, timings so that it fits in well with what you want to do, and cost – and that’s great. And over the last trip I took, I took a flight with an airline that isn’t my airline of choice, and here’s the differences in how I travel, when I’m traveling with my airline of choice because I am a frequent flier with them and I have a certain level of membership with them, I don’t worry about if I miss the connection that they’re looking to make sure that I get my next flight or that I’m not going to be taken care of in some way, shape, or form. I’ve definitely been stuck in an airport due to weather, and they’ve put me up in a hotel and put me on the next flight out. They’ve even re-routed me on the odd occasion, they lead me to an airport that wasn’t my original airport because I was like, “Well, I can go to this airport instead!” and they managed to do that for me. That was something I didn’t have to worry about. I knew all the procedures, I knew how to check in. I know I can check in on my phone for this, or if it’s international, I know I have to get to the airport. I know what the lines are like for them because I have the status, but with this other airline that I traveled with once before but it was a day trip from San Francisco to LA. But this one was a different trip with a layover and it was only a 45-minute. That was the best time they had.

And so this trip was different from a mindset point of view. I went, I can check in online, or they had what was called like early bird check-in process, but they didn’t let you know if it happened or not – which I found really interesting. So I ended up messaging them and tweeting them, and be like, “Hey, I paid for this extra thing but I didn’t know if it happened. How will I know?” And they’re like, “Well, we do it 72 hours beforehand, but you won’t know until 24 hours beforehand, but if didn’t work then it’s too late for me to do anything, anyway.” So there was that form of communication. I got to the airport extremely early because I didn’t know what their lines would be like, and it was over the holidays. And so, I was spending extra time in the airport that I wouldn’t have done normally. And then their boarding system I didn’t know about, so I wasn’t sure [do I line up over here, do I line up over there?] Does it have to be in numerical order exactly, or is it just a rough assessment? It was very, very different.

It wasn’t stressful per se, but definitely, I wasn’t on autopilot. I had to be paying attention and asking questions and being unsure, I spent a lot of extra time in the airport that I wouldn’t have done normally. A lot of extra time lining up that I wouldn’t have done normally, getting on the plane, was I getting service? What kind of service was I going to get? What were the options, because each airline has different drinks options, and food options, etc. Do I have to pay with a card? Is there a TV on the plane? All these little things ended up, it was not a bad travel experience. Oh my goodness. But then, when we finally get to the end destination, it might have been because it was that time of the year. It might have been, this is what they normally do, but I got told, “Your luggage is on carousel 1!”, “Your luggage is on carousel 3!”, “Your luggage is on carousel 5!”, “Oh, actually, wait a minute. Your luggage is on between these two carousels, have fun trying to find it.” It was a mess, and there was no tracking for my luggage. The airline of my choice, my preference, I can track my baggage, I know if it’s got on the plane or not. There’s something very satisfying about knowing that your luggage is on the same plane as you.

So, as much as it was fine traveling with that airline, and I would probably do it again. I realized looking back that the time that I loss and the stress that I had, and just the general sort of awkwardness might not have been worth that cost or time-wise. And so this was just a different view on why to be brand loyal to a particular airline because we do something often enough it becomes autopilot and so with an airline that I know, I know how to check in and know how to book. I knew the whole process unless it gets tweaked, but that’s one less decision-making thing that I have to do per day and it makes my travel easier.

Thank you for listening, this is Janice at The Career Introvert. Please email me with any of your questions at janice@thecareerintrovert.com

Helping you grow your business and career, in balance with your introversion.

What online summits get wrong Jan 29, 2019

Hello and welcome to the Traveling Introvert. Today, I want to talk about online summits. The reason that I want to talk about this is because I recently ran one, and it was about podcasting, believe it or not. I want to talk about the process that I use before I ran my summit, so there's some information out there that people generally don't know about summits. Summits are touted as a very good idea to help raise your visibility and make you look like an expert in your field. You'll find a lot of big names do summits, and so I wanted to do a virtual summit. I looked around because I like and I enjoy learning new information, and I realized that there was a podcast out there, a podcast summit, and it was the biggest summit in the world, and it had over I think 75 speakers and ran for a very long time, which is great, but 75 speakers? Okay. Say it's 30 minutes each. It's still an awful lot of time that you have to spend listening, and yes, we do binge podcast, but we don't binge summits in quite the same way, and I'm curious why not.

Also, I was doing some research. I listen to some podcasts. I use my podcast app to search for online summit, and it brought up all of the episodes that podcasts had that talked about online summits, and I went and listened to them. One thing that struck me when I did that and did some more research is there are very few out there that do the following things. There are very few online summits that pay their speakers. It's another one of those things where you get exposure, and exposure is the currency that people who run virtual summits use to get people on board.

Another thing that I realized is a lot of summits won't let you speak unless you have a certain amount of followers. They don't care if they're engaged followers. They don't care about that. They just want the numbers, so you need to have five or 10,000 followers because what they do is affiliate marketing. They say that, okay, if you're going to be on the summit, you need to email blast your newsletter and so on and so forth and do X, Y, and Z, and then whoever buys tickets, and not the free summit tickets but the actual all-access pass, which we'll talk about in a minute, then you get a percentage cut. While this is great on the surface, it means if you have a smaller sort of footprint as far as follows are concerned, you are less likely to earn as much money as someone who has 10 or 20,000 followers who click on everything that they do. It means your earning potential is low.

The other thing that I realized is a lot of the summits, in fact, all of the summits have something that's called an all-access pass. This all-access pass gives you access ... some of them, a lot of them say lifetime access to the summit, and you can look at all the videos and what have you afterwards. Great, except when they change their platform or they pivot their business. A lifetime access is a lifetime of what and or who. One of the things that I did with my summit, and I will continue to do so moving forward is I paid my speakers. I appreciate that they are professionals and they've given up their time to ... and spend an interview time with me. I will pay them. It might not be thousands of dollars, but I will pay them. It shows respect. I'm tired of people wanting to do events and not paying their speakers because of the exposure. I'm tired of people not being given a voice because they don't have a certain amount of followers. Just because people don't know who you are yet doesn't mean you or your voice isn't valuable.

The other thing that I did was, yeah, great. You have the all-access pass full and lifetime pass. Most of them are $200 to $300. My pass, not only was it an access pass, it's not a lifetime access because things change so quickly, and I want you to keep up, so it's a six months to a year sort of pass. It was at under $100, and you got four weeks' worth of one-on-one and group coaching on podcasting, so not only did you get all of the summit information thrown at you, but you also got the time to digest it, talk about it with other people who are in the same situation as you, and you got to learn from them. Then, you actually got went and got your thing done. You got your podcast started instead of having these 75 sort of things and you paid, and then you never look at them again. I wanted to provide support.

I thoroughly enjoyed it. I learned a lot. I will possibly be doing it again, but I didn't do it for the reasons that other people do it. I spoke to a lot of virtual summit experts, and they thought I was weird doing things the way that I wanted to do it, but I highly recommend doing a summit even as an introvert because you get to speak to people one-on-one, and we're really good at that. We get to ask deep questions. If you're an introvert and thinking of a way to raise your visibility, I highly recommend doing a summit. If anyone has any questions, please email me at janice@thecareerintrovert.com. It has been a pleasure. Thank you for listening, and this is Janice, the career introvert. Looking forward to helping you move forward with your business and your career.

How to get more time in your day Jan 22, 2019

We’ve all got a fixed 24 hours in a day and 7 days in a week. But in 2019, you can feel like you have more time every week by making different choices about how you allocate your hours.

Follow Up Systems For After Networking Events Jan 15, 2019

If you are wondering how to keep track of all the people you meet so you can follow up with them then this episode is for you!

Introvert Bubble At Work Jan 08, 2019

How can you find balance at work?

Singing for Work Jan 08, 2019

In this episode I want to talk about things you should not be asked to do for your first week at work.

Running an Event as an Introvert Dec 25, 2018

In this episode I talk about things you can do to make things a bit easier on yourself when you are running an event.

Communicating as an Introvert Dec 18, 2018

Introverts and extroverts communicate differently but at the end of the day we are all just human. Do you know what your preferred style of communication is?

Colombo Airport, Sri Lanka Dec 11, 2018

I really enjoyed by trip to Sri Lanka. One of the things that really stood out in this trip was the airport. Tune in to find out why!

How To Say No Dec 04, 2018

As an introvert sometimes it is hard to say no to things. In this episode I am going to talk about ways to push back.

Do You Have A Disaster Plan Nov 27, 2018

What would happen to your business if you couldn't work for a week or more? Do you have a plan?

Pre 16 hour flight Nov 20, 2018

This is one of three episodes where I talk about Ultra Long Haul Flights.

Family Vacation Nov 13, 2018

Today I talk about how the holiday's are coming and you are probably trying to figure out how you can avoid introvert burn out.

DisruptHR Nov 06, 2018

I was lucky enough to speak at DisruptHR Denver. In this episode I talk about how hard it it to not have control.

How To Get A Promotion Oct 30, 2018

Today I will talk about some things you should know to get a promotion as an introvert.

Productive Check-in Meetings With Your Boss Oct 23, 2018

Most of us have a regular check-in with a manager. In this episode I talk about how to make these meetings productive

Airline Issues Oct 16, 2018

So interesting how booking with airlines is different depending on where they are based

Introvert Work Life Balance Oct 09, 2018

Why work life balance is super important for introverts

Flight Delays Oct 02, 2018

Do you have a plan once you find out your flight is delayed?

Remote Introvert Working Sep 25, 2018

What are the pros and cons of being an introvert remote worker?

Titles Matter Sep 25, 2018

What you call yourself matters!

Luggage Tags Sep 18, 2018

What is the longest time you have managed to keep a luggage tag on checked luggage?

My life outside of work is uneventful Sep 11, 2018

Keeping your private life private is a good thing

[00:00:14] Hello and welcome to The Traveling Introvert. Today I'm going to answer a question someone wrote in. The question was my life outside of work is kind of uneventful. Could this hurt my career? [00:00:26][11.9]

[00:00:27] I found this question to be interesting because it's all about perspective. What does uneventful really mean. Because a lot of us do think that we lead maybe very boring lives. You know we get to work we come home we Netflix we sleep we get out we go to work come home you know that sort of thing. And for us because we're stuck in the every day of our lives we might feel that it is boring or uneventful and because we get told that networking and socialising is the backbone of getting getting on in your career or climbing that ladder. You may feel that having an uneventful and use this word sparingly uneventful social life. It could hurt your career and so I want to look at it in a different way. [00:01:14][47.6]

[00:01:16] Your life in your eyes may be uneventful but are you happy because I think this matters more than hurting your career chances. Are you happy with your life. Are you happy with what you do. When you come home is your home a refuge or do you hate being at home. Can you come home and relax and recharge. Does your home make you feel comfortable calm relaxed. If it does these things and you are happy then that's okay. If you don't go out much you stay home and you do things at home. Or maybe people come round to yours. [00:01:55][39.6]

[00:01:56] I know people who think their life is uneventful and they come home and they cleared a podcast or do puzzles or do charity work online or run a forum or even a gaming group. To them this is uneventful because they enjoy what they do outside of work and they feel it doesn't make a big enough impact on their career. But they are happy because while a career can be great. It is not everything and so finding a balance in your life is important. If you feel that you need to make more of an effort thats also fine and there's ways of doing that without feeling that you're you're cheating and then not being yourself just those same things that you do at home. Maybe you could do outside of your home with different people for example board game groups. There are a lot of boardgame groups around and boardgame cafes where you accidently end up meeting new people or meeting a new game which will then lead you to go and maybe do research on line and then you find a new forum then you find a different way of playing it and then you're learning this other thing and all of these things lead to meeting new people or otherwise and learning new things and so it's not about work your life outside of work being uneventful. [00:03:20][83.5]

[00:03:21] I think one of the problems is that people always ask how your weekend was and you think that you have to have an answer that it's like oh I'd have 3000 different things I am super man rather than I stayed at home and recharged because work is draining which might be the real answer. [00:03:37][16.0]

[00:03:38] So your life outside of work doesn't affect your career. Obviously there are some circumstances where if you doing some things certain things that people find out about might affect your career. But if you are private about your private life then it shouldn't be a problem and if people want to talk and ask what you do you can go to tell them the whole thing you can tell them snippets of anecdotes about what you do. People ask me what I do over the weekend. Sometimes I can't even remember because I tend to take my weekends in the middle of the week. For example my take a Wednesday offer Thursday off and not necessarily like a Saturday Sunday but also because things go into a blur for me because . I might go out and see it then I might do a thing but I would say My life is uneventful and people look at me like I am crazy. So it's all about perspective. [00:04:30][51.6]

[00:04:31] So to answer the question my life outside of work is uneventful and could this hurt my career as I enjoy not doing anything illegal that hurts people. No you should be fine, do you. And this is The Traveling Introvert I look forward to seeing you next time. [00:04:31][0.0]

[250.2]

Court your Clients Sep 04, 2018

Just because they are your clients now, does not mean they will be your clients later!

[00:00:14] Hello and welcome to The Travelling Introvet. Today we are going to talk about follow up and the reason this has come up is because I did a post on LinkedIn which is very popular but also two or three things have happened recently that make me think that people just might not be aware of the implications of follow up. [00:00:33][18.8]

[00:00:33] So one thing I learnt really early on when I was a freelancer was the fact that I needed to follow up. I got this contract which involved me doing a lot of HR work we were working on this big project that involved sort of telling people all the different types of interviews that can be had different interview biases and how to get through them and so there was this huge checklist of things to do and then multiple people working on the project. There wasn't a project management software used but that's another matter. So I didn't really get updates or there was no communication from the client that I was working with. So at that time I did as I just did what we talked about and then I stopped and I didn't say anything. I was waiting to be told what to do next. And the thing was this was because I still had an employee mentality we get told what to do all the time. But as a freelancer I should have been more proactive. [00:01:31][58.3]

[00:01:32] I then met this person this client in person because I happened to be in Australia and we met and we talked and all was good and I went back and I did some more work and then stopped again and then out of the blue. As far as I was concerned they stopped my contract and cut it off said it was good work with me. Thanks very much but my lack of communication was a real problem. This was a shock to me because I was new at freelancing and didn't realise that and I'd had some freelance clients who were micromanagers. I learnt from then on to overcommunicate and over follow up. [00:02:06][34.0]

[00:02:07] Now on the flipside now that I hire people what I've had with three different companies recently is a distinct lack of follow up. I've definitely had someone go "well I didn't back from you". From your email and it's been two weeks and so I didn't know what you wanted to do I didn't message you. My response was well if you didn't hear back from me and you want to know what was going on you should messaged me. And the other thing was where's I've had another one who was very much. She did some work Monday Tuesday. Didn't hear from me until Monday. The next thing you know she's like hey just wanted to let you know this if you had anything for me you know you could do this I could do that let me know how I can help. She's very proactive and so I gave her more work as she asks for it. Follow up. And that's just sort of one kind of type of follow up. [00:02:52][44.7]

[00:02:52] There are many different types of follow up that I could talk about but as a freelancer from a freelancers point of view if you do not follow up with your clients and even your ex client you are leaving money on the table and you're leaving it open for someone else to come in and do your work and maybe better cheaper faster or the same but with just better communication. [00:03:20][28.3]

[00:03:23] I had another vendor that I was trying out actually. And so this was the test phase and they did one task for me. That was two weeks ago and I haven't heard from them, nothing. Not a peep and so from my point of view. Maybe you don't want me to pay you. Maybe I did something I don't know . You want me to pay you right you want me to give me money for services but you are not asking for the money. This is a problem. [00:03:52][28.8]

[00:03:53] Another vendor didn't have a backup plan that I think will be for another episode. So yes please follow up. You might think you're being annoying you might think they've got a lot of emails but you'd be surprised how many more sort of slip through the cracks or don't open it. Want to respond something happens and they end it just like drops down the list of e-mails they never see and so sending a reminder is helpful until they tell you to stop sending reminders if they don't do that. Keep sending reminders. Hi I just wanted to check in on this. Hi I just wanted to check in on that. Oh. I saw this article and thought of you just because they are already a client doesn't mean you need to stop courting them. [00:04:31][38.0]

[00:04:32] You need to continue courting your clients even when you have them already because you don't know what's going on you know they're looking at other things you don't notice bright shiny object that they're also looking at. That could take your place. You need to continue courting your clients even when you have them. That was my rant for the day. Thank you this is The Traveling Introvert. [00:04:32][0.0]

[250.9]

Packing Aug 28, 2018

In this episode I talk all things packing

[00:00:14] Hello and welcome to The Traveling Introvert. Today, we are going to talk about you know what I just changed my mind. We're going to talk about packing. The reason we are going to talk about packing is because I just had a dream about packing and going on a trip in a few days and I've done my first round of packing and my dream was about having a certain amount of stuff that was in my suitcase going into another room coming back. And all of a sudden the stuff had doubled or tripled and I'm still trying to fit that same stuff in to my same sized suitcase. So I guess packing is on my mind and there is so much about packing it is because I do certain things. [00:01:02][48.2]

[00:01:03] One of the things is I'm going to rave about packing cubes mainly because one of the things that I've discovered that's wonderful about packing cubes. Actually two things is and there is one bad point and a bad point packing cubes can cause you to overpack and overstuff because you can fit so much in a packing cube and it compresses everything that you have technically more space in your suitcase for other stuff and then you end up being too heavy. [00:01:27][24.1]

[00:01:28] Two plus points. I actually ended up using a packing tube in my backpack that I take with me that has my electronics and stuff like that. And normally what I do is I have on a small cube that has a change of clothes in it and one of the planes I caught not so recently anymore was one of those turboprops which has very little space and at the time my bag looked very full because it had food and other things in it. But what I did was I popped out my packing cube and said my bag compressed and could fit in. The packing cube just sat on the side. It was great because everything was still organized and nice. It's just it's helped save space. [00:02:08][40.0]

[00:02:08] The other thing I realized about packing cubes is put my clothes in packing cubes before I even put the cubes into the suitcase. I can weigh the packing cubes separately to have a rough idea of how much my suitcase might weigh. So what I did last night is that I packed my packing cubes in a different way of my suitcase. Normally I go down put it in the suitcase and then weigh the suitcase awkwardly because I'm kind of short and so doing that is weird but then I just scooped up all of my packing cubes because I have a scale and I put them on the scale. It was nice and easy and not so bad on my back. [00:02:40][32.3]

[00:02:42] So when I said first round of packing I wonder how many of you just packed the once because they always say that you should pack three or four times. Not everyone has the time to do that. We should sort of lay out your clothes that you want to take and then take a look see if the colour coordinated and what events you actually have to attend and how much you actually need. Do you have access to a washing machine. Can you mix and match some stuff. Do you have to wear them once. Those sort of things and then you know you must go through and cul do a second or third go round and it is very helpful because I don't really need that top just because you pull at the top and you want to wear it. Or Oh I forgot this I've forgotten that it's very good to sort of lay it out and plan it so people have packing lists to date. [00:03:25][43.6]

[00:03:26] And if anyone finds this please email me or put it in the Facebook group. If you find an app a packing app that is capable of having you pack for more than one place at a time that would be awesome because I tend to get packing apps that very much like where you go Hawaii and Alaska and Brazil and they're like oh well we're are going to deal with Hawaii because that's the first thing you put in. They're not very good at long trips or trips that involve different things because they're like is a business or pleasure like it's both. I need a little bit of this and a little bit of that so I couldn't find a packing list that does that would be great. [00:04:02][35.4]

[00:04:02] So people keep especally if they travel often keep a set quick travel toiletries bag that's just ready to go and might be refilling every now and then you refill it when you come back but it's just ready for you to go it just have it there. You can have your home stuff at home but just have this little vanity bag just ready to get so you have to think about repacking it every time he just has your stuff in there all the time. [00:04:25][22.1]

[00:04:25] The only thing I realize that I do that helps me have a really good taste of home that I love Lush products but I can't really get them everywhere I go and so I specifically have a body wash that is from Lush that is my body wash it's a thing that I like to do. Lush is very good for travelers they have shampoo bars so you don't have that many liquids and that sort of thing are highly recommended and lots of people rave about the bars. I personally don't use them but I know a lot of people rave about them. [00:04:57][31.5]

[00:04:58] I am also very upset right now because the suitcase I have had for about at least three to four years has been broken and I'm sad but it also means I could use my spare suitcase now. Which is weird and so it is the exact same suitcase but I just I'm just not used to this new one and it's it's also a color that is very similar to everyone. My other suitcase was a lovely color with lots of stickers on it so now I have to find more stickers for this new suitcase. [00:05:24][26.1]

[00:05:25] Always check the locks. I always make sure you have a luggage tag on there that has your name your number. I know great way of doing it is having your business card in there instead. [00:05:34][8.1]

[00:05:35] And happy travels. Packing is out. Are you a roller or are you folder because a lot of people are also into that. [00:05:41][6.0]

[00:05:41] Please message me and let me know which one you are. Thank you. This is The Traveling Introvert and look forward to seeing you next time. [00:05:41][0.0]

[317.4]

Public Speaking Aug 21, 2018

In this episode I am talking about how I began speaking.

[00:00:14] Hello and welcome to the Travelling Introvert. Today we are going to talk about public speaking. I have had a couple of questions come in about how I sort of got started speaking and it was an accident. I think I basically started off doing workshops for General Assembly and they tended to keep theirs because they sort of ran coworking spaces. I started off there. I didn't see it as public speaking for me it was more like teaching because it was a case of going in and talking about a particular topic that I knew and enjoyed talking about. This sort of expand into oh I'm traveling to these countries maybe I can speak at their coworking spaces because in most places around the world there are coworking spaces. And so I started doing that I started reaching out and saying hey I'd love to talk about this. At your coworking space, thanks. Sometimes I get a response and sometimes I wouldn't. And that was fine. And the places that I did get a response was one of two things that happens is one they're like well do you have an audience. It brings bring people to our coworking space or we have an audience. We will open up and people from our coworking space will come. I did not have an audience so I would only go coworking spaces that had audiences or could promote on my behalf and promote it on your behalf is actually a really good thing just because they already have an ecosystem there. [00:01:44][90.0]

[00:01:44] They are very appealing to, well depending what you want to talk about they are applealing to sort of entrepreneurs and small businesses. And not only that they have a built in community and so they have a built in network ready. They probably have a newsletter they have a bulletin board they have all these things locally that you just won't have if you're travelling. If you have a audience however the other way of doing it is just finding a space on maybe breathe.com or that there's a couple of places depending where you are in the world where you can type in looking for an event space and I don't mean sort of like a huge event space like a meeting room and you can hire a room from anywhere from I guess 25 bucks an hour U.S. dollars an hour. You know a couple hundred depending on where you are and what you're doing and it depending on how many people you need it for. And so if you have an audience you could say hey I am going to be in this city for this event. Come on down and it's a great thing because people who've been following you and interacting with you online get to meet you in person and it's a wonderful thing to do and you get to meet people and hear their stories and be like oh I'm so glad this has happened. [00:02:52][67.6]

[00:02:53] And so that's a wonderful thing but if you do not have an audience yet going to coworking spaces and asking if you can talk to their 10 people their five people. In Australia I know lunch and learns are very popular and you will not get paid but you know the exposure theory but you do get me some really interesting people so be careful of your mindset going in if you are looking to get paid every single time. That's great. Will it happen. That is up to you because you get to choose what you do or where you speak. [00:03:20][27.0]

[00:03:21] And after that the next things that really sort of step you up on the speaking thing is you'll find a lot of people will attend conferences to find speakers of the conferences to then invite them to other conferences. So if you do go to a conference and you do want to speak look around for those people who run other conferences or have attended other conferences I can tell you because there are so many conferences going around in the world that it's really hard to keep track of them all and sort of know when the dates are to submit a proposal and all of those things. [00:03:53][32.1]

[00:03:53] The last thing that really gets you up the list as far as speaking is concerned is to write a book or to have a book written. This gives you something to talk about and to sell and is a great way to create yourself your brand and so on and so forth a sidestep to that is going on people's podcasts going and being interviewed about whatever it is that you do or that you are passionate about. Is a great way to sort of do public speaking without the public and it is a great thing for sort of getting your confidence and feeling like you're talking to a friend it puts you in a very relaxed state. [00:04:26][32.7]

[00:04:27] So these are things that you can do to get yourself sort of on the speaking circuit so to speak and to get yourself more comfortable with public speaking. And a lot of people recommend Toastmasters personally not my thing. But I do understand that for some people that is a great resource. [00:04:43][16.5]

[00:04:44] So thank you very much for listening. Look forward to traveling with you soon. [00:04:44][0.0]

[265.8]

Travel Apps Aug 14, 2018

Breaking down which travel apps I use and why

[00:00:14] Hello and welcome to The Traveling Introvert. Today I am going to talk about travel apps and the reason I say this is because I love travel apps and also they have gotten me out of some situations and just because there are many uses for them that I think people don't realize. So I am about to change phones and I'm looking at all my apps and I have a whole section called travel apps. So I want to talk about the apps that I have regarding travel and why I love and use them. And it's funny because I know a lot of people and a lot of digital nomads who travel a lot don't use some of these. I'm fascinated by them and I dont travel half as much as they do. [00:00:57][43.7]

[00:00:58] The first one I wanna talk about is TripIt. It is a free app and basically it will go into your email scan any emails hotel reservations, concert tickets, flight reservations and pour them into this one app. Now the reason why I love this app is because it is available off line. If you have just landed in a foreign country and you dont have internet and immigration ask you. So where are you staying if you don't know the address instad of being in a hot panic or cold sweats. You can look up the hotel or whatever is in Tripit because it works off line. You can put notes in and you can put photos in and you can share it with friends, family, co-workers, etc. and you can also have other people build an itinerary for you so if you have a V.A. for example setting up all of your stuff they can put it in there for you and be seen as a planner or as just someone who watches or someone who is a participant. So the free version is very very good. I've never used the pro version but I know it like keeps track of miles and stuff like that. [00:01:57][58.5]

[00:01:57] The next thing, airline apps always have the app of the airline you are flying with. Some apps are better than others for example some apps are just literally redirected to the web page. Other apps are more robust. You can check in using the app, you can have your boarding pass on the app and even if you do that take a screenshot so you have it in case you don't have internet. Some apps will show you like the layout of the airport that you go to or where the nearest lounges is or you can track your baggage using the app. So I highly recommend that just because there's been times where maybe you don't have access to a computer but you do have access to your phone and using the app is just a really good deal. [00:02:40][42.2]

[00:02:40] Exchange rate app can be useful. Not when I'm travelling but because I get paid from different people in different countries I have and different payments go out in different currencies. I find the exchange app is now ridiculously important to me even when I'm not traveling. [00:02:55][15.6]

[00:02:56] I am going to say Uber but I know a lot of people are not Uber friendly. Some countries you don't have a choice. And the reason why I like it is because if I'm landing in a foreign country and I don't know where I'm going Uber does. I'm not sort of relying on a local taxi driver who may or may not take me the scenic route. [00:03:14][17.8]

[00:03:14] The next thing that I do really like is Hotel Tonight and mainly because the app is fast loading. This sounds sort of like a really random thing for me but I've got the Orbitz app and that app takes so long to load and I have to swipe through some things and just putting in information takes that much longer than if I am in a rush or my battery is about to die. I am more likely to pick Hotel Tonight than I am the Orbitz app and Hotel Tonight I have now got there own rewards system where the more money you spend eventually you get more discounts and that sort of thing. [00:03:47][32.9]

[00:03:49] Google maps off line. Also amazing. Before you go anywhere and also if it is linked to your calendar it knows this it will message you letting you know that your trip to New York starting soon and would you like to download a map for that? Having an off line map is super helpful. Again if you don't have data on your phone and will tell you where you are and you can also mark off favorite restaurants places you want to go and that sort of thing. And and one that is slightly less travel related. [00:04:18][29.2]

[00:04:19] A podcasting app I love radio public because not only the podcasters get paid but you know you get a good listening experience and they introduced me to some very random podcasts that I never would have found all by myself and so that is an app and I find ridiculously helpful. [00:04:34][15.3]

[00:04:35] Another app and it looks like last app because I'm running out of time no one is memorize. This one is a really good language app that gamifies use. Gamifing is the big thing right now how you learn a language and so I've been going through it. I did it with Spanish and I did it with Japanese and I was going to Japan and I learned some stuff through it. So obviously not as fast as google translate. [00:04:58][22.6]

[00:04:58] So those sort of the travel apps that I use. Hope someone has found that helpful and please feel free to tell me what travel apps you use. Jump in to the Facebook group and on the Facebook page and tell me what apps that you use. I would love to know because I love finding out about new and different apps. So thank you very much. And till next time. [00:04:58][0.0]

[277.8]

Communicating with Vendors Aug 07, 2018

Do you have your own business?

Are you a vendor?

Take a listen

[00:00:14] Hello and welcome to The Travelling Introvert. Today we are going to talk about communication with vendor's. This has come up a lot in the past month and I wanted to talk about it because it's really important as someone with their own business or you out there who might be looking to have their own business. There's nothing more important than your communication with your clients/vendor's. [00:00:34][20.4]

[00:00:36] One thing that happened is that I was working for a client and their primary communication was a mixture of a lot of Facebook and social media tagging and then it followed with some emails and Slack was suggested. Now the way they introduced me to this method of communication was they emailed me most of the time. They Facebook tagged me a lot of the time but didn't ask if it was okay. And then they also just sent me an invite to slack. They didn't explain what it was they didn't explain what they used it for and they didn't explain why it was important. Fast forward about three months and this particular vendor was an event vendor and so I was speaking at this event only to find out that Slack was their primary method of communication and a lot of really important information regarding transportation getting picked up for flights and that sort of information was only being communicated through Slack which in itself isn't great but the fact that they didn't tell people that, hey for this particular event this is going to be our main method of communication you really need to jump on this is a huge misstep. [00:01:56][79.2]

[00:01:57] Not only that, Slack is not that widely used, those people who do use Slack think everybody uses slack and that's not the case. What is the case however is that most people use email. And so why you wouldn't try and make sure that you email everyone as well as putting this information in your preferred method of communication is beyond me. And then rollforward sort of a little bit past that they actually sent out a message asking what my preferred method of communication was during the event and I gave them that information and they failed to use it throughout the event. They just did the same Slack thing and this caused a lot of confusion not on my part but definitely from other people who attended the event and were not on Slack and don't have it on their phone and all these other things whereas email you know it will get through. [00:02:47][50.5]

[00:02:48] So that's one thing about communication. If you are going to introduce communication to a client or vendor make sure you explain to them what it is and why they need to use it. It is part of your onboarding process. So if you prefer to be communicated by by voice message say so. If it's a case or email then say so if it's email plus the project management tool say so and explain why give them instructions on how to use it. [00:03:18][29.7]

[00:03:19] I know I've been onboarded with various clients of mine and they use a project management software and I just got told here you go and yes partly it is on me as an adult to learn the software but at the same time as an employer or project/client it is also nice to have it onboarding even if it's just a case of here go and look at these top three links or here go and do this and try these task and do it in our sandbox. These things make a huge difference to how you feel about a the tools that you have to use and the company and same goes for you. If you have clients that you want to use your specific software on. Tell them show them take 30 minutes of your time and do a Zoom video a live thing and show them how to use it because you want them to use it so you dont get annoyed and you want them to be comfortable with it and you want them to understand. Understanding is the key. If they don't understand how to use it or why to use it it's far more difficult to get them to use it and then there's frustration at both ends. They feel that stuff isn't getting done and you don't understand why they're not doing what you asked. So that is just a short thought on communication methods and tools and how you can use them with clients or with prospective speakers or with vender and a good way of going about it. Just explain why that's all. Explain why and let them know. Don't just invite them and expect them to know. [00:04:52][93.2]

[00:04:53] Thank you for listening. This was The Career Introvert should you want to drop me a link or send me a message email me at Janice@thecareerintrovert.com Until next time. [00:04:53][0.0]

[273.0]

Train Vs. Bus Jul 31, 2018

Two different ways to get to the same place.

[00:00:14] Hello and welcome to The Traveling Introvert. Today we are going to talk about trains vs. buses specifically where now we're going to talk about buses and trains in the United States. Myself and a friend were going to take the exact same trip but five days apart and I said I am coming by train, you know make sure I get picked up at the train station. They were like I don't even think about train because there going to, was to catch the bus. And so we looked at it and it works out that the bus is great. I mean getting to the bus station in New York. The road where certain buses are depending on which bus you catch because a lot of low cost buses that leave from various points around New York you get on the bus and the bus journey takes four and a half hours. And for me I have to get the train where I'm staying in New York it's a straight shot on the 2 or the D. Well on the D not so much but a straight shot on the 2 down to Penn Station and from Penn Station I just get on my little train where there is wifi and plug points and a seat. On the bus, there is also Wi-Fi and plug points so that is not a differentiating factor but for me what is a differentiating factor is the amount of space, personal space that you get. [00:01:36][82.0]

[00:01:37] So buses are great but you know when someone is sitting next to you when they are sitting next to you almost on top of you and kind of touching you and you feel weird getting food out or going to the bathroom. Do you leave your stuff do you take your stuff with you. And what do you do. So there is that out with the train. A) It is a little bit quicker. It's 30 minutes quicker to where we're going. And yes you are sitting next to someone but not quite as close. There's a lot of leg room. Doesn't matter if you're in economy or in business and you put your luggage that's possibly a good thing because on a bus it just goes underneath and you good to go. But on a train you have to bring it on with you and find a luggage rack space and and put it up on top or not if you can or not. So that's the thing. So for me as I just I don't mind sitting next to someone but it's better that they're not sitting on top of me I'd rather have the space so I paid I think it was three dollars more to take take the train instead of the bus. However buses in other countries for example let's say in Mexico the long distance bus that you take is much better than say a greyhound or mega bus in the United States it's a between like Economy Plus and business it's not quite a life flat sort of seat but it does recline a fair amount and has a foot rest for you. You have an individual TV screen and you get given a water and a sandwich and chips or whatever it is before you board. [00:03:08][91.0]

[00:03:08] So that's long distance bussing in Mexico which is great in Korea, South Korea the bus that takes you from the airport to downtown because it's quite a trip is quite luxurious and the seats are wide and my sort of business class plane wide and you get drinks and the plug points and wifi. But the quality of the interior is leather seating in and very nice where else is have I had of experiences. Zimbabwe back in the day but this is probably more like 10, 20 years ago had the Victoria Falls train. Oh that was glorious and it was a sleeper train. So you got fed and watered and then that sort of thing kind of like the Canadian Rocky Mountain train that still exist now that goes from Vancouver to Toronto. That's a great little train to be on. So I know that a lot of the time people want to do maybe the cheapest option but you should look into trains and sometimes it's just better seating or you get more space. The wifi is good and you not sort of so cramped going to the bathroom it is more of a hassle. So depending on how long the trip is will depend on what you want to do. But for me personally on this three and a half four hour ride catching the train it gives me more personal space and to me that is what is important that when you're traveling you know what's important for you. So plan accordingly. Thank you very much for listening. This is The Traveling Introvert and look forward to traveling with you next time. [00:03:08][0.0]

[173.0]

Time Audit Jul 24, 2018

Do you know how you use your time? I mean really know down to the amount of time you spend on Facebook to the time you spend with clients?

Panels at Conferences Jul 17, 2018

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Jabbrrbox Jul 10, 2018

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Templates and Checklists Jul 09, 2018

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Beyond SMART goals Jun 26, 2018

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7 Day Trip Planning Jun 19, 2018

How my planning worked out for a short 7 day trip.

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Hotels Going Above And Beyond Jun 05, 2018

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The Difference Between Introversion and Social Anxiety May 29, 2018

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Not My Favorite Airline May 22, 2018

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Private Chef May 08, 2018

Have you ever gotten a private chef?

What are your values? May 01, 2018

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3 tips to protect your downtime Apr 24, 2018

As an introvert you need alone time to recharge but how do you make sure you get the time that you need?

Should I tell my boss I am an introvert Apr 17, 2018

In this episode I answer a question that I get asked all the time.

Are you afraid of success or failure? Apr 10, 2018

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Fake it till you make it Apr 03, 2018

In this episode I talk about how much I hate this phrase.

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Conference season can be tough for introverts. I talk about ways to make conferences work for you as an introvert.

Communicating your Introversion Mar 13, 2018

How can you expect people to know what you need if you don't tell them?

Are you a morning person? Mar 06, 2018

I am not a morning person, what about you?

Introvert Accommodation Feb 27, 2018

How do you pick where you are going to stay?

That Friend Feb 20, 2018

We all have that one friend who just doesn't understand that we like working for ourselves

Introvert does not equal shy Feb 13, 2018

Today I talk about what being an introvert is and what it isn't.

No Lights Feb 06, 2018

Best productivity hack yet!

Keyboard Matters Jan 30, 2018

How much of a difference does the tech we work with make to our productivity?

Pitching Jan 23, 2018

Today I talk about the subtile art of pitching....or do I?

Can You Travel Without A Credit Card Jan 16, 2018

This is something I get asked a lot. People assume that anyone can get a credit card and this is not the case.

Questions Jan 09, 2018

Questions introverts hate

Travel Hobbies Jan 02, 2018

Do you travel with your hobbies?

Medical Insurance Dec 26, 2017

Digital nomads find it hard to get insurance and this is something i talk about.

What Does Your Work Space Look like Dec 19, 2017

People have different work spaces. Today I talk about mine

Listen To Your Body Dec 12, 2017

Do you know when you are close to burn out?

Barcelona Internet Dec 05, 2017

The highs and lows of Barcelona

Website Myth Nov 28, 2017

Do you really need a website to get clients?

Security at Airports Nov 21, 2017

Not every airport is the same

Digital Nomad Beach Myth Nov 14, 2017

When is the last time you saw someone using a laptop on the beach? Today we talk about how destructive this myth is.

Replying to Facebook Job Posts Nov 14, 2017

Today we will talk about Facebook and how to get clients.

5 Flying Tips Nov 07, 2017

Today I give you 5 ..or more tips around flying

They Are NOT Your Employee Oct 31, 2017

In this episode, we talk about how people can mistreat freelancers

Success Oct 24, 2017

We love hearing people's success stories. Why do we care so much about what other people have done?

Business or Pleasure? Oct 10, 2017

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Flights and Breakfast Time Oct 03, 2017

What is the deal with airelines and when they like to serve breakfast?

How to Train Your Extrovert Sep 26, 2017

Do you know the best way to help extroverts understand you?

My Long Distance Flight Ritual Sep 19, 2017

Today you get to find out about the things I do on long flights!

Client Onboarding Sep 12, 2017

In this episode we are going to talk about how to set boundaries with clients.

Airport Hotel Fails Sep 05, 2017

Join me as I talk about airport hotels

LinkedIn Invite Aug 29, 2017

Today I am talking about the joys of the LinkedIn invitation to connect.

Salary is not a Perk Aug 22, 2017

In this episode, I talk about a job description that was not quite right

My Favorite Traveling Clothes Aug 15, 2017

There are a lot of articles out there talking about what is the right thing to wear while traveling. I have to say that I am not a big trend setter but in today's episode I am talking about scrubs!

Introverts in the Service Industry Aug 08, 2017

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Don't Flake Aug 01, 2017

If you are looking for a mentor or advice then listen to this podcast!

Weddings with Introverts Jul 25, 2017

This is a longer episode this week where I talk about meeting a fellow introvert and conversations about beards!

Flight Prep: Seats, and More Jul 18, 2017

In this episode, I am going to talk about a couple of things I do to prep for a flight.

Facetime Vs. Me Time Jul 11, 2017

In this episode, I will be talking about one of the ways I survived a conference

App Attack Jul 04, 2017

Apps that introverts might find useful and how I use them.

Dealing with Meetings Jun 27, 2017

How to deal with in person meetings as an introvert

Only Extroverts Can Grow Businesses?!?! Jun 20, 2017

In this episode, I will talk about a common misconception about introverts.

If you want to let me know about a topic you want me to cover, email me at introvert@thetravelingintrovert.com

What is The Traveling Introvert? Jun 13, 2017

In this show, I will talk about what to expect from The Traveling Introvert and why you should keep on listening!

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