Career Relaunch®
Joseph Liu
Podcast
Episodes
Listen, download, subscribe
Managing a Crisis with Liya Dashkina
In addition to the enormous human toll the 2020 coronavirus pandemic has had throughout the world, the virus has also had a significant impact on people’s careers. Some have seen their jobs eliminated, work projects cancelled, roles furloughed, industries turned upside down, and businesses completely shut down. After thinking really carefully about who I wanted to feature in this episode of Career Relaunch, I decided that financial controller Liya Dashkina would be the perfect individual. Liya, who’s also a listener to Career Relaunch, decided a few months ago to resign from her job in London and move back to Australia to be with her partner while continuing to work remotely. Her three-month notice period was supposed to wrap up at the end of March, after which, she was planning to explore new career options in Australia. Then, the pandemic hit. The sudden uncertainty and upheaval she’s now facing in her career is similar to other stories I’ve heard from clients and listeners who have suddenly had their career plans upended. I hope you find this conversation helpful as you figure out how to bounce back from whatever setbacks you may be experiencing in your own career during this COVID-19 crisis. Key Career Insights During times of uncertainty, you can only focus on what you can control. Building relationships takes time. Sometimes, you need to go into it without counting on the fact anything will necessarily come out of it. To be truly successful, you have to be truly invested in what you’re doing. Try to figure out what drives you, what makes you tick, and what gets you out of bed in the morning rather than just “doing what you love.” Now that the world has stopped due to coronavirus, it actually enables an opportunity for you to get creative and reassess where you want to take your life & career. Tweetables to Share Not everything has to be a success in life. Sometimes, the experience is what really matters. Liya Dashkina Tweet This Related Resources Liya mentioned the Business of Fashion is hosting some online events you may be interested in checking out, especially during the coronavirus lockdown. If you are looking for some career resources to guide you during the COVID-19 pandemic, I’ve compiled useful articles on job hunting and virtual interviewing on my COVID-19 career resources page. Liya requested I share this poem excerpt, related to some of the things we discussed during our conversation. If you do follow your bliss you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. When you can see that, you begin to meet people who are in the field of your bliss, and they open the doors to you. I say, follow your bliss and don’t be afraid, and doors will open where you didn’t know they were going to be. The adventure is its own reward — but it’s necessarily dangerous, having both negative and positive possibilities, all of them beyond control. -The Power of Myth- Joseph Campbell Listener Challenge During this episode’s Mental Fuel segment, I talked about trying to find your optimal path to living with this pandemic. To decide on something in your career or life to let go of, at least for the time being. You can absolutely come back to it later, but I’d like you to consider loosening your grip on what you had expected to do, and focus instead on what you may have to do at this moment given the unprecedented times we’re in. And to try to embrace it . . . because maybe in the long run, we’ll all come out of this coronavirus pandemic having reinforced the aspects of our careers and lives that truly matter most. About Liya Dashkina Born in Russia, Liya Dashkina moved to Australia at the age of 15 where she completed her high school and university studies, qualifying as a chartered accountant and a solicitor. In 2010, her job brought her to London, where she spent the last decade working mostly in the finance industry. In 2018, having always had a keen interest in the fashion industry, she made the decision to leave her career in banking to join a fashion media start-up. At the beginning of 2020, she moved back to Australia to be with her partner, whilst continuing to work remotely during this transition. Be sure to follow Liya on LinkedIn and Instagram. Did You Enjoy This Episode? Please Let Us Know! Tweet: If you enjoyed this episode and have a few seconds to spare, Tweet to let me and Liya know! Tweet a thank you! Review: I’d also love for you to leave a positive review and rating for the podcast on Apple Podcasts, which helps my show reach more people who want to relaunch their careers. Subscribe: Be sure to subscribe to Career Relaunch podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, or Android so you can automatically get each new episode on your device. Full instructions. Stay in touch: Follow Career Relaunch on Twitter and Facebook. You can also follow host Joseph on LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. Comments, Suggestions, or Questions? If you have any lingering thoughts, questions, or topics you would like covered on future episodes, record a voicemail for me right here. I LOVE hearing from listeners! Leave Joseph a Voicemail You can also leave a comment below. Thanks! Episode Interview Transcript Teaser (first ~15s): It is trying to figure out whether to ride it out and wait a couple of months and then get back to what the original plan was or altering your plans and altering your original idea where you saw yourself. Joseph: Good morning, Liya. I know it’s pretty early over there in Sydney, so I really appreciate you making the time to come on to the show. Liya: Good morning, Joseph. Joseph: I’d like to talk with you today about a few different things, including balancing practical career decisions with your true interests, making a big international move for personal reasons right when your life is flowing, and also what it takes to break into a new industry. First off, I got to say we’re recording this in early April 2020. This is actually the first episode I’ve recorded in a while after taking a break from the show. Right now, the main thing on everyone’s mind is this corona virus, which is very much still a global pandemic at this moment and seems to be just getting worse and worse by the day. I actually just heard a few minutes ago on the news that the global cases of corona virus have now passed one million and had more than doubled just over the past week alone. Here in the U.K., we’re on a national lockdown. This is clearly affecting every single person out there. I was wondering if you could start by painting a picture of your situation there in Sydney, Australia, and exactly what your life has been like the past couple of weeks. Liya: We are currently in a lockdown in Sydney and trying to adapt to this new reality and the new way of living. Sydney is not the worst place to be stuck in a lockdown. I think we’re a little bit behind the U.K. and the U.S. in terms of the timing of lockdowns and restrictions, which seem to be about a week behind the U.K. It has been an interesting time obviously, a very anxious time for many people, both from a personal perspective and professional perspective as well. It’s just very similar. Everyone seems to be on the same page, just taking it day by day and adapting as we go along. Joseph: I’m going to try to stick with the typical format I follow on this show. I do want to go back in time, just like I normally do, and talk about your historical career and your transitions, but before we get to that, I just want to stick to this topic of the corona virus for just another moment here. One reason why I wanted to have you on the show, Liya, is because I know you’ve recently moved back to Australia right before this outbreak happened. You had a certain vision of how things might shape up there. I know you’re not a healthcare worker—nor am I, nor are either of us on the frontlines of dealing with this pandemic in a way that healthcare workers or delivery drivers or many other people are—but what have you found to be the most challenging part of what’s going on at this very moment? Liya: I think outside of the obvious, personal things like being away from your family, which I’ve actually found very difficult, because my family are all in Russia still. Even though I have been living away from them for over 20 years now, it is at a time like this that I found it particularly difficult. I feel it very acutely. In terms of the work situation, there are two things. One is the uncertainty with respect to time. You don’t really know how long you are going to be in this situation, how long to plan for. It makes it very difficult. Secondly, trying to figure out when you are caught out in a stage of flux, especially in a transition period, it is trying to figure out whether to ride it out and a couple of months and then get back to what your original plan was or to retreat into safety or a more traditional secure job if it does come along, but that means altering your plans and altering your original idea where you saw yourself in the next 12 to 24 months. Joseph: Yeah, I totally hear you on all of those things you just mentioned. There’s so much in there that I want to unpack. I do want to come back to it, but the one that really struck me was what you mentioned at the very beginning about being far away from your family. I’m also far away from my mother and my sister. What I found most unsettling about this whole situation and what makes it I think different than being far away from your family in other instances is that you can’t actually go and see them if anything were to come up. If anything were to happen with our parents or people we care about, we can’t actually g
Career Relaunch® RSS Feed
