Career Relaunch®
Joseph Liu
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Charting Your Course with Eloise Skinner
As the global Covid-19 pandemic now enters into its third year, professionals are now beginning to return to their offices, daily commutes, and ways of life pre-pandemic. On the one hand, it’s encouraging that life is returning back to “normal,” but on the other, it feels strange that things just are going back to the way things used to be. At the very least, this pandemic should be a big wake-up call for us all to reevaluate whether the ways we were living and working before this pandemic can and should be the ways we continue to live and work moving forward. Former corporate lawyer turned author and founder Eloise Skinner describes her own professional awakening catalysed by the pandemic in episode 81 of the Career Relaunch® podcast. We talk through the challenges of balancing multiple career endeavours, the seemingly inextricable link between our professional jobs and personal identities, and the importance of honoring your own values and interests no matter what others think. In the Mental Fuel® segment, I also describe what I would consider one of the biggest professional tragedies of this pandemic. Key Career Takeaways Balancing multiple career endeavors between your full-time job and side projects often means you can’t fully commit your energies to either, forcing you to decide where to devote your focus. Feeling grounded is often directly tied to having a defined professional title and clear career path, so leaving either behind is not easy. Figuring out what you want to do with your career starts with focusing on what YOU want instead of how you think others will react to your choices. Consider your values, what excites you, and what gets you out of bed in the morning. The pandemic has resulted in each of us letting go of things we assumed were just part of everyday professional life (regular hours, commute, etc), but we all have an opportunity now to reevaluate exactly how we want to work. Listener Challenge During this episode’s Mental Fuel® segment, I talked about identifying at least one change you want to make in your career (or life) that you feel would allow you feel better about where it’s headed. Insist on having something that’s important to you that you’re just not getting enough of right now or at least keeping your eyes peeled for opportunities where you might find it. About Eloise Skinner Eloise Skinner is an author, teacher and existential therapist. She is also the founder of two businesses, The Purpose Workshop and One Typical Day. Eloise’s newest book, The Purpose Handbook, was released in late 2021. And the proceeds from this book are shared with Career Ready UK, the UK’s national social mobility charity. She also has a seat on their youth board. 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 Eloise 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 or Spotify, which helps my show reach more people who want to relaunch their careers. Follow: Be sure to follow Career Relaunch podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, or Android to 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! Thanks to A2 Hosting for Supporting the Career Relaunch® podcast A2 Hosting is the web host provider I use and trust for my own websites, and they even offer 100% carbon neutral green hosting. For an easy, fast, and affordable way to get your personal website online today, visit careerrelaunch.net/a2 to get 50% off your web hosting plan. Interview Segment Music Credits Leimoti – Blossoms Jakob Ahlbom – Crossing the Rubicon Lama House – Where Legends Dwell Wonder – Hazy Expand – Hazy Rannar Sillard – Siljan Episode Interview Transcript Teaser (first ~15s): I think the pandemic removed so many things that I previously thought were unshakable that I started to re-evaluate what other things could maybe go without me missing them too much. That was when I decided I would just leave completely. Joseph: We got a lot to talk about today. I want to talk to you a little bit about your career as a former corporate lawyer. And then, I know we want to talk a little bit about your book-writing adventures. But I was wondering if we could first of all start by having you just give us a glimpse into what’s been keeping you busy right now in your career and your life. Eloise: [02:36] There’s been a few things. The biggest projects I have at the moment are writing my third book, which will be out next year. That’s a very big project which I’m working on at the moment. And then, the other thing is the business side of things. At the moment, my business is raising investment and that takes up pretty much all of my waking hours and some of my non-waking hours as well, thinking about that. That’s things like putting together a pitch deck, pitching to investors, and having lots of meetings. Those are the two biggest challenges at the moment. Joseph: What about the rest your life? Anything personally keeping you occupied these days beyond what sounds like it quite a busy work schedule? Eloise: [03:16] It’s a very work-heavy time of life at the moment. Work moves in seasons. It comes, there’s very few seasons. And then, hopefully, towards the end of the year is when I’m thinking things will take a bit of a pause or at least there’ll be a season where things are less busy. Otherwise, I love to do things like fitness. I’m a fitness instructor. I teach quite a few Pilates and yoga classes. And, that as much as teaching. That’s a good part of my work. But it doesn’t ever feel like work because it’s also a personal passion. It’s something that kind of takes my mind off the other work that I’m doing and puts me into a different headspace. That’s something I enjoy outside of my main projects Joseph: Can you just tell us a little bit about your businesses? Because I think you’ve got a couple businesses. Eloise: [04:04] The first one is “The Purpose Workshop.” This is a business that is centered on working with people either one-on-one, or working with corporates, or working with educational clients, like schools or universities, just to help people find a sense of purpose. It’s based on my work in the field of existential therapy which is the training I have on the therapy side. It’s the idea that everyone has the ability to shape their life in any way that they want, people have the ability to find a sense of purpose in whatever situation they’re in. This is kind of the basic understanding of existential analysis which is the more academic side of things. The business is a very practical skills-based workshop to help people do that, that’s “The Purpose Workshop.” And then, my other business is an ed-tech start-up, and it’s called “One Typical Day.” It is a video platform for students to figure out their first career steps. We showcase video content helping students get an insight into a day in the life of lots of different types of careers. Joseph: Very interesting. It sounds like you definitely have your hands full with a lot of different things. I know that you haven’t always been an existential therapist, and you haven’t always been a founder of two businesses, and a writer of what’s coming up on your third book. Can we just go back in time a little bit and talk a little bit about how you got here? I know that you were originally working in the legal profession. Could you take us back to that part of your career, and then we’ll go forward from there? What exactly were you doing, and what kind of firm were you working for? Eloise: [05:42] I had a very traditional career starting out. I studied [unintelligible] university. I always thought I want to be a lawyer. I was one of those annoying people at 14. That was like, “I know exactly what I want to do for my career, and this is the direction I’m going in. This is it. This is my passion.” I studied law at university, really loved it, really loved my law degree from the academic perspective, and ended up in the city training as a corporate lawyer. I did two years training contract, and then three years as an associate. I spent some time out in New York. I ended up specializing in corporate tax, which is maybe not the most exciting job title, but it connected for me with the academic side of law. Most of corporate law, isn’t really about law in a technical sense. It’s more like the business environment, and the legal aspects of a business deal. It’s very much driven by market trends, and client demands, and what’s going on in the business world. But tax is a little bit more academic, so there’s a bit more what we would call maybe “black letter law,” the legislation, the statute books all of that stuff which apparently is what I love to do. That’s my legal work. Joseph: You liked that part of the legal journey kind of being in what you called the “black books,” and going through statutes, and getting into the details of things. What did you think your career was going to look like in the legal profession, and then what ended up being the reality that you experienced? Eloise: [07:12] It’s an interesting question because as a law student, even though you can think, “I really want to be a lawyer,” but you don’t know the reality of what that job is like in any respect until you get into
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