Carlos Martinez (1:48):

Good Morning, Good Afternoon and Good Evening. Welcome back to another Work Like a Laker podcast. My name is Carlos Martinez and with me we have Megan Riksen and today we’re doing another little advisor chat. So today, our two advisors from our career center are going to be Lisa Knapp, our associate director, and Grace Pushman who is one of our assistant directors.

Hey, how are you doing today?

Lisa Kanpp (02:10):

Good, Thanks!

 

Grace Pushman (02:12):

Good, Thank you!

 

Carlos Martinez (02:14):

Before we get into the actual topic, I just kind of want to give them the opportunity to let you all know who they are, their background, what they were doing before they came into the Career Center to work.

 

Grace Pushman (02:24):

I’m Grace and before I was a career advisor, I was a teacher. I worked for four years in elementary schools and I really enjoyed it, but I was sort of thinking, as I was working that these are the pieces I like about teaching and these are the pieces I don’t and as I was doing that I was kind of thinking- is there a career that has mostly the parts that I like? And that’s where I got into Career Advising, which I love.

Lisa Knapp (02:49):

And this is Lisa and I, too, started as a teacher and I loved it. When I went to college I wanted to find a job where I could read, write and talk and be paid for those things. Teaching did that. I got to read, write and talk. But, after a little while of that and a move, and a few children later, 5 to be exact, my values changed and I needed a job that better suited my family- so I worked in student affairs in housing, and then I worked for the Grand Rapids Press for a number of years. I taught for a gifted and talented program that met one afternoon a week and when it was time to become a full-time career person, I started to explore the different places that I could go. I looked at what was in the field of communications, education, secondary ed, higher ed, and I landed in the Grand Valley Career Center as a Grad Assistant and have stayed ever since.

 

Megan Riksen (03:43):

Awesome.

 

Carlos Martinez (03:45):

You know the whole idea, the notion, of changing careers, planning a career change or even planning that first career is a really common occurrence all across the globe. Earlier this year, as an office, we read a book called Design Thinking Life by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans. It’s actually based on a pretty popular class that they teach at Stanford University- and what they did is they used the concept of design thinking and applied it to this whole career or life planning process. So, that’s kind of what we’ll talk about today. I know design thinking isn't super common outside of certain circles. and all it means is it's a user or human centered process. And what they did is they took the concepts of and the thinking style of folks who design things, be it a car, a table, a house, and they try to apply it to other problems. So it could be, you know, social problems, how do we solve poverty?

It could be-  how do I make more money in my business? But in this case we're just using it to plan our actual careers.

 

Megan Riksen (05:00):

as well as the pieces that go in and around your career- because they’re all interconnected.

 

Carlos Martinez (05:03):

Correct. Correct. And that's what I like about the title because it talks about designing your life because the career is just a piece of it. It's a crucial part of it, but it's not, you know, a hundred percent of what your life will consist of.  And to give you kind of the basic breakdown- well some of the more popular terms, what we'll talk about is empathize and that just means you search for maybe rich stories or you try to get a deeper understanding of this particular issue or the population you're working with. You define it, when you're defining it, all that means is you're going to determine what it actually is to help you get to that next step.

Carlos Martinez (05:40):

Ideate,  it's just ideas. What are some different ways we can come up with a bunch of ideas for a prototype? You try to build a [inaudible] in other words, to learn about a word and which you could learn about it. That goes hand in hand with testing and then you get to your design or you can always start all over, right? Because it's a process that keeps on happening. All right. So after my long winded yeah, there you go. Long winded, but helpful stage setting here. Now we can talk. Right? So in the book they talk about only about 27% of college graduates actually have a career related to their major. You know, when I read it, I just think about my major was sociology. I'm not a sociologist. I'll use some of the tools, but I'm not one. What about the rest of you?

 

Megan Riksen (06:28)

 Oh yeah. I was a French major, sadly I don't have the opportunity to speak French in West Michigan, so, but I would argue I'm still using many of the skills I learned from, you know, learning a foreign language. And then, yeah, you have both shared that you were education majors.

 

Grace Pushman (06:46):

Well, and my original undergrad degree is in psychology, which again, I do think that it really helps me out as an advisor to have some of that background. And then I got my teaching certificate, which was in English. So it's kind of a variety of areas.

 

Lisa Knapp (07:00):

Right. And I started as English and Communications. Again, I like to read, write and talk. And so that fell in line with what I like to do. And it wasn't until my last year that I added the education major on.

 

Carlos Martinez (07:15):

We are the 27%.

 

Lisa Knapp (07:18):

That number actually was higher- It was a lot higher in the book than I thought. At parent orientation, we ask parents to think of the 18 year old version of themselves and raise their hand if they are doing what they thought they would do when they were 18-19-20-22-21, all of that, and roughly 10 percent of the room would raise their hand. So, the 27 is higher than I would have expected actually.

 

Grace Pushman (07:41):

Most people, actually, I know I don’t think are using their majors… unless they’re people who are maybe nurses, doctors, stuff like that. Or they are using their majors, but not in the way that you would expect.

 

Carlos Martinez (07:52):

Well, when you think about it, you have certain fields: the engineers, the nurses, the educators who have some sort of license attached to it. So they’re going to have a higher percentage, usually, of applying or a direct correlation. Tons of employers are looking for a set of skills or of experiences, and your major might be the cherry on top. For a social science student, I always tell them: any job you’re required to work with HUMANS, you can apply your skill set. But a lot of it is, how can we build those skills?

Lisa Knapp (08:25):

And how can you talk about those skills in a way that the employer will see the connection or a job that will make that connection for the employer?

 

Megan Riksen (08:34):

So, one thing that I really like from the book is the message that there is no one idea for your life, and that there are many lives you could live happily and productively. From my perspective, I guess I didn’t know that as being true, but it’s not something I ever really thought about before reading this book. Have you all thought about that? That it’s not this one very special path that we’re on that will make you happy and that there’s more than one way to get to that?

 

Grace Pushman (09:06):

Oh my goodness, I feel like I thought about that a lot, which is why I had changed my major like 8 times in undergrad because I kept seeing all of these different careers I would like and different possibilities. Do I want to stay in Michigan? Do I want to move out of state? So, I think it gave me some stress initially, but I think when you reframe it and look at it in a different way, it’s nice to think that there isn’t just one way I will be happy, it’s not some needle in a haystack that I need to find- there are a lot of possibilities where I could live a fulfilling life- it’s just a matter of trying those out. So, I think it can be stressful, but overall it’s a very positive thing to think that way.

 

Megan Riksen (09:42):

Right, yes. So yeah, in this book, there are a lot of different tools that kind of get at that idea of what are these multiple paths that my life could take that would ultimately lead me somewhere great. We can start by just talking about one of them.

 

Megan Riksen (10:00):

So, mind mapping… I know, I’m going to throw it over to Lisa because, well, you’ve actually used this with students. Can you just describe what it actually is? and how it might help?

 

Lisa Knapp (10:09):

Mind mapping is taking a concept and throwing it on a paper, quite often you’ll see a teacher do this with you and put it sideways. Your english teacher probably did this when writing. And you put a concept or idea right in the middle of the paper and then you start building out. It’s a way of taking this idea that seems huge and too big to imagine and breaking it down and organizing it. So most recently, I did this with a student who thought they needed a career mentor. And so, they were going around and asking all kinds of people “will you be my career mentor” and then they were failing because either the person was caught off-guard or they would say “what does that mean” and the student didn’t know. So we put the idea of a mentor in the middle and then they started mind mapping. They started writing branches and connections. Sometimes they would change colored ink pens to talk about different things. What they were really looking for was maybe somebody that could help them develop a skill, somebody that could help them connect to a certain company.

There was another mentor that they wanted that maybe could help them make decisions. And so as they started mind-mapping, they realized what they needed were four career mentors. One, to help with skills for a short season, one to help build these connections into a company. Steelcase was the company they were looking at. Another to help them make decisions. And then another to work on kind of professionalism. They felt like they weren't quite presenting in the most professional way. And so then the ask was a lot different. It was, could you meet with me four times to get these materials ready and written? Well, could you meet with me over the next year to talk about the decisions I have to make related to the internship I want? And so suddenly that map helped them organize this big concept in a way that was usable and gave them some action steps.

Whereas before, find a mentor. You know, that's just so ambiguous and you don't even really know why except for you've heard this concept that you should have a mentor. So you could do that same concept around networking. You could do it around a job title. Maybe a question you pose, you put out there, what would it look like if I were a teacher and you could start to map out what are my values? You could put your values in there and start to build those out in a more,

 

Megan Riksen (12:40):

it's almost like a more graphical representation of like a pros and cons list. Almost like a lot of it feels that way, but maybe just the structure of having it flow all around this one idea helps you to connect the different, you know, pieces of it.

 

Lisa Knapp (12:53):

Right. And it starts to break down for you in a natural way.  And we know that the brain, especially a lot of the research will tell you that you should switch pens and change colors for different ideas and concepts because our brain responds... we're visual. And we like to make visual connections. So, when you change the colors it opens up your mind. I’ve done mind maps with students in writing classes where they use their non-dominant hand because they’re so focused on their hand that they’re not thinking about… they’re not editing. Because we often edit while we’re doing these things, we make decisions before we put them on the papers. If we’re more preoccupied with the colors and the process of writing, it opens up our brain and lets it flow.

 

Carlos Martinez (13:41):

And I almost think it’s a skill you’ll begin to develop. Even if you struggle at first, once you do it a couple of times and get the hang of it your mind just starts spitting out these ideas. I know that when I was looking at my career change I went from, I used to work in the admissions office, and the basic concept was I want to work helping students. So, I’m very happy in my current role but there’s other ideas I threw out there like running a nonprofit program in the city, and I would be just as happy there but it’s the basic thread of working with students in some capacity is what I want I’m looking for. So, back to that idea from the book that you can live multiple happy lives- it’s just about how you’re defining that happiness. Is it the job? Money? We talked about that in other episodes.

 

Grace Pushman (14:32):

I love that idea of having a map where the center is maybe “helping people” because a lot of people have that as their idea of what they want to do, and creating some ideas off of that.  What does that really look like?

 

Lisa Knapp (14:44):

Right, because we can help people as a nurse and care for them, physically care for them. You can help people as a teacher, connect them to things. You can help people. As a police officer,

 

Megan Riksen (14:55):

You can help people as the CEO of a company, right?  Just looks different.

Carlos Martinez (14:58):

You can say, I want to work in healthcare. That could be a nurse, but that could also be an office manager. We were at a hospital yesterday on a site visit so it’s fresh in my mind. A couple hospitals, a couple of different places that you could consider.  All these industries go  so deep and wide, once you really kind of dig into the type of things you can do with them.

 

Lisa Knapp (15:30):

The other thing about the mind map is it keeps you from stopping at just one. Right. So if healthcare were the center and you had different organizations all the way around and you started mapping those out, you would realize that they're very different. Yeah. As opposed to visiting just one on a job shadow and being like, Nope, don't like healthcare when really you just didn't like that place.

Megan Riksen (15:45):

Or that very specific part of that place. I mean a lot of what you guys were saying I think leads into the next tool that we're going to talk about, which is Odyssey planning. And this is I think a fun exercise. Cause it, it totally gets at that concept of allowing yourself to imagine these multiple lives that you could lead. So sometimes podcasts aren't the best medium for describing things, but we'll try our best to talk about what the Odyssey plan really looks like. And I will say that if you want to have a physical copy of a worksheet to work through one of these Odyssey plans come into the career center, a career lab, we will help you. We will provide you with some resources to get that going. So does somebody want to talk a little bit about that?

Carlos Martinez (16:43):

I can give a quick intro since Lisa and Grace have  an example of one that they built. So, in the book when they talk about this Odyssey plan is just taking the concept of living multiple fulfilling lives, right? Those possibilities and all they had to do was to imagine three different versions of your life. One, if nothing were to change at all right now,  if your life remains the same, where are you going to be in the next five years? Right? Then the amount of years is arbitrary. You pick a number of years. The other one is what would happen if everything got taken away. If you lost your job today, if you got kicked out of Grand Valley, that's not going to happen. But if you did if, if something drastic were to change where the current path were eliminated, what would it look like? And the third one, I believe it was, if there are no obstacles at all, money, resources are not an issue. What would your life look like? And again, it's, it's a great tool. I don't know which route Grace or Lisa picks, but Megan and I are going to hear it for the first time ourselves. Who wants to volunteer first?

 

Grace Pushman (17:45):

I'll go first. So mine is kind of that dream scenario where if you didn't have obstacles, remove those barriers. And my title is called Stephen King move over. And it, I really liked to write, as Lisa was saying, she also likes to write. So probably in my dream world, I would maybe do that for a career. Although again, I think, you know, there's pros and cons to everything, so, and I think there are multiple ways to be happy. So I don't know that it would be my happiest path, but I think it'd be fun to think about.

 

Lisa Knapp (18:20):

 So then what I hear you saying is you want to be Stephen King, you want to write creepy novels.

 

Grace Pushman (18:27):

Mostly I'm focusing on the fact that he's so successful. Famous, but yeah. Creepy is fun too. So so yeah, so I have, you know, in this it's kind of, I did it a little over the top, so my first step is to quit my current job and then to move into my sister's basement. And I would, you know.  Also in this, you're supposed to be thinking of things that are happening maybe at the same time. So like what, you know, if you're vacationing personal life, things like that. So I have probably, I'd be eating, you know, a lot of ramen noodles. I'd be going on vacation maybe to, you know, up North to where my mom and dad lived, those kinds of things. And then I would, you know, set up a schedule. So Stephen King has a writing routine where he writes every day from eight 30 until whenever he gets his words in, which is usually around noon and he tries to write a thousand to 2000 words a day.

Megan Riksen (19:15):

He does this every day?

 

Grace Pushman (19:18):

He does this every day along with reading a ton. He reads so much. So in this scenario, I would, you know, try that method where every day I was treating it like a job where I was getting up writing consistently. And then, you know, maybe when I'm done reading, you know, at noon or whenever reading and then maybe creating- trying to create some buzz by making some social media about what I was doing, maybe a YouTube channel, who knows? And then when I finish it, sending it to an agent, you know, while that's being processed, maybe I'll be doing some dog sitting or something like that, part time to pass the time and then it will be published and become a bestseller. So this, you know, in these plans you're supposed to talk about your resources, how much you like it, your confidence and the coherence of the plan. So in this, I rated each one and there's a little gauge in the worksheets that has a scale of zero to 100. So I put for resources, I put about 40, because I have not been, if I quit my job right now, I have not been planning for this. I have not saved up a bunch of money. You know, luckily, I do have some family members who would maybe be supportive if I could really, you know, get my best convincing pants on and show them a concrete plan. So, you know, I have some resources but not a ton. How much I like this plan. I put a hundred because that would be so fun. I think to do that for at least a little while. For confidence I put a two because I think the chances that I would, you know, write a book and have it be a best seller is very slim.

So that, you know, confidence is not super high.

 

Megan Riksen (20:50):

I like the realism there, Grace.

 

Grace Pushman (20:53):

Right. And also the fact that I don't practice writing, I don't take any classes for it. I don't really have much going on in that front. So confidence is not super high. And then the last one, coherence, how much does this plan really make sense? And I put a 10 it's not very, it doesn't make too much sense, but it was fun to think about. So but honestly this, the process of doing this did help me think about, well what if I really did want to do this? And you know, would there be ways to make this more coherent and make it more feasible? So that was a fun exercise to do.

Lisa Knapp (21:40):

Yes, my dream is very similar. My dream headline was Wordplay All day, Arts appreciated because I would love to have my career be writing and leading poetry workshops, especially to youth. And I think that that comes from some of the work that I've already done. And so I have confidence in my ability to do that. I do not have confidence in my ability to make that happen as a career. But what it did prompt me to do… my takeaway from the exercise was, I don't need this necessarily to be my career. Maybe there's a place that this could fit in alongside because in doing this exercise, I thought I have come back to this over and over in my life. One of my favorite things to teach was poetry and to empower a student to write a poem that they were proud of and that was theirs. And so I got to thinking it keeps resurfacing over and over again. Maybe that's an indicator that this is something that's important to me and I should find a way to weave it into my life. Which kind of goes back to what Carlos said at the beginning that is designing your life. It's not designing your career. So perhaps the takeaway is it doesn't need to be a career change- it just needs to be something that I fold into my life now that I have some time again to do things like that.

Megan Riksen (22:58):

Yeah. And it sounds like both of you kind of had that epiphany moment that even though these were more of your potentially dream scenarios, you already were kind of thinking of ways that it could work in your current life without needing to blow everything up in order to make it happen.

 

Grace Pushman (23:18):

 I definitely have time to write if I want.

Carlos Martinez (23:22):

 Yeah, I think that's one of the hidden values of these types of activities that- like you both said, it's not about changing everything, right. You might think of a hundred but maybe only do 50% of it, but then your life is still in a better place. Cause I, I, what was it for me? For me, I've always liked playing around, starting businesses, starting ideas and I had a podcast with some friends. We shut down the podcast, but then I didn't have to give it up. Now I do it as a part of my job. Right? So that's how you can start blending some of those things in. I used to always tell myself I want to work out, it took me years to start, but when I was something that I do and now it's always hard at first when you integrate something new into your life, there will never be a perfect time, but you can always start tweaking it.

When I've ran this activity with high school students one of the things that I noticed that many of them struggled with is the idea of using their imagination, right? The idea that they can imagine this entire world that's different from what they've been told as possible or what they see around them as possible. And I think that would apply to a lot of college students if we started doing that too. We all get so caught up like in our little bubbles that sometimes it's hard to realize how- Hey all these people are doing it. I have the exact same or very similar skills to them. What's stopping me? And sometimes it's just kind of like that, that hidden script in our minds that's preventing us.

Megan Riksen (24:40):

So true. Yeah. So then the last tool that we'll touch on here is prototyping, which basically is your chance to kind of test out whatever it is that has kind of come up through either your mind mapping or creating a few of these Odyssey plans. Cause it's really easy to create these and be really inspired and then do nothing with it. Right. So the prototyping is your chance to kind of get out there and start testing some of this out. So one of those ways could be just through having conversations. Does anybody have any thoughts on how you might prototype just through talking to someone?

 

Grace Pushman (25:26):

Yeah, we have something at the Career Center that we talk about with students as far as prototyping conversations and we refer to them usually as informational interviews. And so often we'll recommend students try this out if they're thinking about maybe different careers that might be a good fit for them. How do you test that out without getting a degree, getting the job, and then really being committed to it. So how can you really test out something without having to do a big commitment? And so in our informational interviews, which are really prototype conversations would be finding someone who does something that you find interesting and then just having a conversation with them about what they do, why they like it, what does their day look like? And the goal of those conversations is to gather information, not to necessarily get a job or get an internship out of it. It's really just to gather information, and from there you might find that the next steps might be, Oh, well why don't you come in for a job shadow and spend a day? And you can kind of try it out in that sense. And then if you still like it, maybe then the next step is having an internship, which is exactly how I got this job. Actually, I did a job shadow with Lisa and I had a conversation with Troy Farley, our director before that, and then I got an internship. So I mean, that's really how things work often and it's a great way to try something out. Maybe after that conversation you find out, Oh I don't think that is for me and then you really didn't spend too much time on that idea and you can go to the next idea.

 

Megan Riksen (26:58):

Yep. Love that. So that's kind of a really not very risky way of prototyping, but you could push yourself further and actually get out there and prototype experiences as well. Like with yours, Lisa, what do you think you could do to like start testing out how you would be working with youth and poetry and

Lisa Knapp (27:12):

Oh, I could stop by the arts council and see if they have any programs where they would need instructors or if they would be interested in starting a program. A short term one. I could find the places that I'm already in so maybe I could start making the classes I visit. Career poetry, right? Of some sort, cause there could be some fun exercises with that. And so I could kind of embed it into places and spaces I already am. Or I could do the easy reach outs. Probably I would do some research to see who's already doing it and see if I could assist in their venture.

 

Carlos Martinez (27:55):

And the worst that could happen is what the person you reach out to doesn't respond to. It doesn't have an interest in talking or you do pursue an experience and you find out you really dislike it. Well that's okay. That's the whole process of it through internships, volunteering, job shadowing. We find out what we like, but we also find out aspects of positions that we dislike. And that's a smarter way than, you know, jumping head first into a new career without knowing much about it, you know, in a realistic day-to-day manner.

 

Lisa Knapp (28:17):

One of my good friends from college chose a major based on input from other people and then continued on in that major kind of ignored feelings he was having that it wasn't a good fit. Graduated, worked in a company for six months and then had to announce to everybody that he wanted to do something different and he returned to school for a new bachelor's degree because what he wanted to do required a certification. It doesn't always require a return to school, but the kind of anxiousness that went along with that, he was in the process of getting married. He was doing all these things and so it made the whole thing harder than it had to be.

Grace Pushman (29:00):

There's a line in the book that says fail fast and fail forward. And that's my favorite line cause it's just that idea of trying a bunch of things that aren't a huge commitment. And if they don't work out, if you're not in that situation where you're six months out of school and hating your job…

 

Lisa Knapp (29:15):

but if you are, we can meet with you and we can help you with that. We can help you with that! It's not a lost cause.

 

Carlos Martinez (29:26):

So you know, as  we start wrapping things up. We're going to get to our favorite segment, which is “Would you hire this intern?” So I'll throw it right back to Megan. This is her specialty

Megan Riksen (29:37):

This is my specialty, reading our little segments here. Okay. So Grace and Lisa, I have a little scenario for you and you can let me know what you think of the intern in this case and if they deserve to be hired. All right. So your intern is a hard worker and often comes in on the weekends to go the extra mile. This last weekend though, he brought a few friends into the office with him. While it appears work was done. There is evidence that his friends were playing Fortnite on company computers. Also there is a fine layer of Cheeto dust over everything and the faint smell of e-cigarettes fills the air. Would you hire this intern? And you can talk through your process. It doesn't have to be a black and white.

 

Grace Pushman (30:18):

Okay. Well so obviously they're allowed to come in on the weekends so they weren't breaking any protocols in that sense. We haven't talked to them about it before, so maybe I think if it were me I would maybe talk to this intern and  mention, you know why it's not okay to have outside people into our office and make sure it doesn't happen again and then go from there. I think is how I would approach this.

Lisa Knapp (30:49):

Right. I would want to talk with the intern and inquire, Hey, what happened this weekend? Or tell me about this weekend is probably what I would say.  Tell me about this weekend. I see that you were here doing some work. Yeah. Can you say more about that? Because maybe there was somebody else who came in to work over the weekend. Maybe the intern did, but another employee came in and brought their kids. We don't know just yet.

Megan Riksen (31:22):

So we're going to throw some twists in now. So the positive twist on this is what if you discovered that instead of the lingering smell of e-cigarettes, it actually was a delightful plugin that your intern bought and gifted to the office. Would that change your opinion?

 

Grace Pushman (31:38):

Well, I think as I mentioned, I probably would give them the benefit of the doubt to begin with and that would just make it all the more reaffirming that I had made that right choice.

 

Megan Riksen (31:50):

Now what if later you see that hashtag office party is trending and images of your office pop up showing several people holding red solo cups by the copier?

Lisa Knapp (31:57):

I would still have the conversation, tell me about the weekend, and I would see what they presented. And then I might share the evidence and rephrase the question, tell me about this weekend. And then you'd see if you could trust them, right and trust and then verify.

Grace Pushman (32:19):

There you go. And then have a big conversation about social media and professionalism going on there.

 

Carlos Martinez (32:21):

For sure. You're both kind. I wouldn't hire, not if office party trending. That final straw was show me that they liked discretion if they were to break the rules. That told me that they lack a little bit of common sense that I would want in someone. Now if it was a hidden picture that I just happened to find that maybe they're really good at discretion.

Lisa Knapp (32:46):

I'd still want to hear the story.

 

 

Grace Pushman (32:48):

 Yeah. Same. I'd also want to know how they got it to be trending on wherever. What are their magic tricks?

 

Lisa Knapp (32:55):

Is this earned media for my company? Right. I might have to reward that.

 

Grace Pushman (32:59):

Maybe we have to move them to marketing. (laughing)

Carlos Martinez (33:02):

Yeah. Well that's all for today. If you liked the conversation we were having, you want to learn a little more. There's a few good resources. The first easy one is just Designing Your Life. It's the book, again, by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans. But of course you can always come into our office. We'll have all the worksheets that we were just discussing on here and probably other ones as well. And if you just want to come in and talk in, in general without design thinking, we can do that always. Alright. Thanks again and we'll catch you back next year.