Ready to take full control of your career journey? In this episode of the Mid-Career GPS Podcast, you'll uncover the essential steps to self-direct your professional path confidently and clearly. Join us as I speak with Paula Caligiuri, president of Skiillify and professor at Northwestern University. She shares her transformative experience studying abroad in Italy—a pivotal moment that shaped her passion for cultural agility and career success. Paula also emphasizes the significant role of mentorship in career development, detailing her initiative to honor her mentors through a generous scholarship program.
We'll also guide you through the nuances of navigating job satisfaction and growth in today's job market. Whether you feel content in your current role or are seeking a change, this episode offers practical strategies to plan your next career move and build a solid financial safety net. Plus, we delve into the importance of reassessing your personal identity, especially post-pandemic, to ensure your career aligns with your life goals.
Ready to take full control of your career journey? In this episode of the Mid-Career GPS Podcast, you'll uncover the essential steps to self-direct your professional path confidently and clearly. Join us as I speak with Paula Caligiuri, president of Skiillify and professor at Northwestern University. She shares her transformative experience studying abroad in Italy—a pivotal moment that shaped her passion for cultural agility and career success. Paula also emphasizes the significant role of mentorship in career development, detailing her initiative to honor her mentors through a generous scholarship program.
We'll also guide you through the nuances of navigating job satisfaction and growth in today's job market. Whether you feel content in your current role or are seeking a change, this episode offers practical strategies to plan your next career move and build a solid financial safety net. Plus, we delve into the importance of reassessing your personal identity, especially post-pandemic, to ensure your career aligns with your life goals.
Visit https://johnneral.com to join The Mid-Career GPS Newsletter, a free, twice-weekly career and leadership resource for mid-career professionals.
Connect with John on LinkedIn here. Follow John on Instagram @johnneralcoaching. Subscribe to John's YouTube Channel here.
John Neral:
If you've been following me on LinkedIn this month, you've seen many of my recent posts about how you are 100% responsible for your career. Today's conversation will continue to shed a light on this principle by helping you consider your skills, professional development and career path. Today, I am joined by the president of Skillify and a professor at Northwestern University, Paula Caligiuri. In this episode, you'll learn how to self-direct your career by owning every step of it, along with some tips to help you build a safety net and protect your career. Let's get started.
John Neral:
Hello, my friends, this is the Mid-Career GPS Podcast and I'm your host, John Neral. I help mid-career professionals like you find a job they love, or love the job they have, using my proven four-step formula. Owning your career is vital to your professional success. So let me tell you about my guest, paula Caligiuri. Paula works extensively with leading organizations and universities on the development of individuals' cultural agility and career success. She has authored or co-authored several award-winning articles and books, including Cultural Agility Building a Pipeline of Successful Global Professionals Build your Cultural Agility and Live for a Living, which she co-authored with Andy Palmer. Paula is an instructor for LinkedIn learning Courses, including Six Skills to Build Cultural Agility and Managing Globally. She holds a PhD from Penn State University in Industrial and Organizational Psychology and is a fellow in both the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology and the Academy of International Business.
John Neral:
Let's get into my conversation so you can determine how you want to own your career a little bit differently. I hope you enjoy my conversation with Paula Caligiuri. Hey there, paula. Welcome to the podcast. It's great to have you with us today.
John Neral:
Oh, it's such a pleasure to be here, john. Thank you, paula. We've had such great conversations leading up to today and I'm excited to dig in with you about this whole idea about how mid-career professionals can own their career more intentionally and specifically. But before we get to all of that, would you mind sharing with us what was your mid-career moment that got you to where you are right now? Oh gosh, I have so many mid-career moment that got you to?
Paula Caligiuri, Ph.D.:
where you are right now. Oh gosh, I have so many mid-career ones, but can I share one a little earlier in my career, of course?
John Neral:
Absolutely yeah.
Paula Caligiuri, Ph.D.:
So early on. Actually, I was in college. I was studying abroad in Italy my junior year. I'm originally from Buffalo, New York. So unfortunately for me, this was the fall of 1987. And if you remember the fall of 1987, that's when the stock market crashed. The money I had saved up wasn't worth anything. My parents said, sweetheart, you have a choice you can either come home or get a job. And I ended up getting a job.
Paula Caligiuri, Ph.D.:
So my experience went from being, you know, running around with other Americans to basically, in Rome, Italy, working and visiting relatives down in Southern Italy and the whole bit. So my experience became one that was much more authentic. I learned Italian and the like, went back to the university, back to Buffalo, and my psychology professor said Paul, what's wrong with you? Something's different, Something's like like you just don't seem like you. You seem kind of sad, mopey, depressed. I said, yeah, I just don't feel like me anymore. And they said you know what, If Italy had such a profound experience for you, you should study. It said I want to study what makes people effective living and working internationally and I want to know how they change from deep, deep experiences, deep developmental experiences. And so to this day I'm still studying what makes people effective, you know, and how they change from deep experiences, but I think it was the pivot point was the mentorship and the experience.
John Neral:
What made you have that kind of sense of self, or just awareness, at such a young age to be able to go? Yeah, this is what I need to do for me, and this is how I get in touch with who I am and what I do.
Paula Caligiuri, Ph.D.:
Well, you know it's not fair to say at that age I had any any great truly was Harvey Pines and Judy Larkin at Canisius College was Harvey Pines and Judy Larkin at Canisius College and I actually set up a scholarship in their names because they had such a profound experience in my life. They were the ones that intervened and said you've changed, we see that you've changed. And then I was receptive enough to their mentorship to hear them and then they correctly kind of understood me that I had some skills to go on and be a researcher and I kind of took it and ran with it. So I really credit them tremendously for having the insight on myself and helping me see myself, building my self-awareness.
John Neral:
I'm curious tell us a little bit more about the scholarship.
Paula Caligiuri, Ph.D.:
Yeah, it's actually to help any student in psychology. So my PhD is in psychology. Back then it was a bachelor's degree. So any bachelor's level student in psychology who's working and being mentored by a faculty member, the money is earmarked to enable them to do something they wouldn't have been able to do otherwise, but it has to be mentored. So it could be a research project, it could be going to a conference studying abroad, I mean yeah.
John Neral:
Oh, what a nice legacy gift in memory of them and honoring them in that way. So it's, and that stuff warms my heart because there are there certainly are people like that in our lives and in our journeys that really touch us in very profound ways, that help us get where we are, and I think that's so important.
Paula Caligiuri, Ph.D.:
And they're in their 80s now and I'm going back in a few weeks and going back to see them. I just love them dearly.
John Neral:
Oh, that is so nice. Oh, my gosh. All right. So here you are, you are living your life, you're pursuing your interests and your dreams, and you have these experiences that lead you to who you help today, and it's specifically around helping them own their career. What does that look like to you when you see a mid-career professional who quote unquote owns their career?
Paula Caligiuri, Ph.D.:
So, john, for me this love came back really around the recession in 2008. And I saw so many people who were committed, dedicated, hardworking, high performing in organizations lose their jobs and it was from that experience that I realized so few people have the realization especially in the United States, that they're at will employees and that the person who needs to be responsible for their career is themselves. So that was the one big kind of aha moment and really kind of pushed me to write the original book, which was called Get a Life, not a Job, which initially brought out those ideas. And then now later, when we saw, you know, in the midst of COVID, we saw all of these individuals kind of redefining their kind of priorities. We said, you know what? It's really important? That they kind of manage their career in the context of their priorities. So that's how live for a living came up.
John Neral:
Yeah, and when you talk about managing their career in the context of their priorities, what are those priorities that tend to be at the top of the list or the forefront in people's minds, and how they're really shaping how they're living and working today?
Paula Caligiuri, Ph.D.:
Yeah, I think the biggest one that I've seen is that people have to get really honest about where their work fits within their career. I mean, so many people take on the idea that, oh, my career is central, when in fact the career might not be. It might be family, it might be others. So I would definitely lead with that one. What does your career mean to you? Some people are incredibly. They have a high need for achievement. They absolutely want that. It's in their belly. They want to go ahead and build these big careers, and they should, and that looks different than somebody who wants a job.
John Neral:
For a mid-career professional who's listening to us today and they're feeling the three adjectives I often use to describe people who listen to this show, and that is they're feeling stuck, undervalued and underutilized. And they're listening to us talk today. And they're listening to us talk today. What do you believe they should be thinking about when it comes to taking better command or ownership of their career, so they're no longer feeling stuck or feeling undervalued or feeling underutilized?
Paula Caligiuri, Ph.D.:
The first thing I would ask is think about your last three promotions and where did they come from? Most often, what happens if someone doesn't have agency, if someone isn't owning their career? Their last three promotions were a function of someone tapping them on their shoulder, either from HR or their boss, saying we need you for this other job, and congratulations, we're giving you a promotion. Feel good about it. Other job and congratulations, we're giving you a promotion. Feel good about it. Or a headhunter called and they said hey, we want you to accept this new job, accept this new role.
Paula Caligiuri, Ph.D.:
Both of those meant that someone else owned their career, as opposed to them saying you know what I'm going to navigate. This is where I am now, but I know I need to go over there in the organization, or I know I need to build that skill, or I know I need to kind of tack over to this other type of company. If that was the move, that means you're staying in control of your career. I am amazed at how many people aren't at this point. They're just waiting for HR to come to them, their boss to come to them or a headhunter to come to them.
John Neral:
So I want to stay on this point for a minute, because it really is a fascinating dynamic in terms of how you just described this, because, for people who are starting out in their career and, let's say, they're within the first 10 years of their career out of college there can be a very gratifying moment where they get anointed by the powers that be right your tap on the shoulder, example where they are elevated into a new role because they've been chosen by somebody else to do so.
John Neral:
What we see time and time again, though, is that, for high-performing, high-functioning professionals high potentials, if you will there can come a point where, in that emotion, work all of a sudden gets really difficult. It gets hard for them. They're essentially believed to have all the skills and tools necessary when, ultimately, some of them are really not equipped to be successful at that level. Some of them are really not equipped to be successful at that level. When somebody feels like they're not equipped in that regard, what would you offer them in terms of guidance, to right the ship, if you will, in terms of their career path at that point?
Paula Caligiuri, Ph.D.:
Yeah, that's a really interesting question because it's kind of asking the deficit question. So if you've now been promoted and it's even maybe even one that you welcomed, if you're in that, if you're moving in that direction and that's where you wanted to go, but now all of a sudden you look around and you say, okay, these aren't the skills that I don't have, the skills that I thought I did in order to do this and do this well. So there's two choices right, if you need to build your strengths, you do. Or you say you know what? This might not be the path for my career journey. I could succeed more if I was true to my natural strengths, and that might be tacking and going into a completely different direction that will better your career going forward because you're working in a more natural way. But if it's a direction that you absolutely want to move into, this is the time when you need to get the mentorship, get that advisor, get that training, get that development. You build the skills.
John Neral:
Okay, so here we are talking in mid-2024. It's kind of hard to believe we're already in mid-2024. This year is just.
Paula Caligiuri, Ph.D.:
There's still the COVID one. I'm sorry, there's still COVID.
John Neral:
Yes, so what do you see as a talking point, or a highlight or issue, if you will, specifically for mid-career professionals in this job market right now, that they should be paying attention to in the latter half of 24?
Paula Caligiuri, Ph.D.:
Yeah. So I would say gosh, it's a really interesting one. I would say be very, very sensitive and aware of your level of satisfaction with the work that you're doing right now. If you are feeling good, balanced, in control, content with what you're doing, happy, blah, blah, blah the list goes on. If you're there, great. Now keep your eye next six months. Let's think about what your next move is going to be and get from point A to point B. What's going to get you there? Who do you have to network into? What company do you need to talk to? What person do you need to?
Paula Caligiuri, Ph.D.:
Okay, if you're not in this happy, content, fulfilled, whatever, take the next six months to almost do a little bit of an inventory. What is it about your day? What is it about your week? What is it about your job that you like? What are you doing and doing well and succeeding at? What puts you into a state of flow? What is the job that, if you could create one for yourself, what would it look like? What is the work situation?
Paula Caligiuri, Ph.D.:
Maybe you love the work you're doing, but you don't like the context that you're in. Maybe you love the work that you're doing, but you don't like the state where you're living or the location where you are. It could be all of those different things. So if you love what you're doing, the next six months is decide how to get to the next step and where. If you're not where you want to be, I would take the next six months and do a really serious inventory of what you really want out of your future and out of your career, and that includes where does work belong in all of this?
John Neral:
Hey there, we'll get back to the episode in a moment, but want to give you something game-changing, a golden ticket. That is like having a roadmap to take you from career confusion to clarity in minutes, introducing the Mid-Career Job Seekers Checklist. It is your secret weapon in your job search and if you feel like navigating your job search right now is like navigating a maze, search right now is like navigating a maze blindfolded. Don't worry, my friend, I got your back. This checklist is a powerhouse of organization and preparation, crafted to make you say goodbye to feeling overwhelmed and hello to a career transition made easy. I want you to head on over to https://johnneral. com to snag your free copy of the Mid-Career Job Seekers Checklist. It's not just a checklist, it is a career compass to help you find that job you're going to love. Now let's dive back into the episode. How important is it for mid-career professionals to have a safety net in their career?
Paula Caligiuri, Ph.D.:
Yeah, that's an interesting one. Safety nets can take on a lot of different forms. The one that we think of most often is the financial safety net. Right, you know, think of mid-careers. At this point you might have the mortgage you might have made a family that now is requiring that you're a regular income earner. You know you might have debt from student loans. Still, who knows? I mean, you're 10 years out, 20 years out even, you might still have student loan debt. These are very real things.
Paula Caligiuri, Ph.D.:
So to be able to be frivolous and say, oh, I'm going to get up and I'm going to go into the, I'm going to leave you kind of can't right. The more we, the more we are financially beholden to our employer, the less flexibility we have, which is unfortunate. So I think you know it's a good piece of advice is think about your resources, think about your financial resources. And is there a way to mentally give yourself some freedom, some financial freedom? Either talking to a partner and saying you know what? I think I might want to step off, step over step, you know, step back, go back for retraining. Can we talk about how we can make that happen?
Paula Caligiuri, Ph.D.:
So that that's one approach. Um, you know, there's a, there's another kind of safety net and that or that and, if you will, and that. That's one of identity like so how much of your identity is wrapped in being, you know, a manager or a physician or, um, you know, a librarian, like whatever it is that you are doing professionally? And then to what extent is it okay and are you allowing yourself to have that identity shift to do something else? So many people have just tied themselves too much into either where they're working or what their title might be, so I like to see both of those.
John Neral:
Well and I asked that question and I love how you tie all this in here, though because we talked about earlier about how we know things have changed a lot since the pandemic, right how people look at themselves and they look at the work they're doing and how meaningful it is.
John Neral:
It's a very different conversation four years after the pandemic started versus four years before it, right.
John Neral:
And so when we think about really taking ownership of our careers and what we want to do, we also can't ignore the fact that there are certain perks and responsibilities that we have in the job that we currently hold. I often refer to it, paula, with clients as the job that you have feels like, sometimes like a really comfortable pair of shoes, right, so you know where the supports are, you know where it's getting a little bit worn, you might have a little hole in the toe or something like that, but they're still comfortable and that's okay. That's okay in that regard to your point, if you still believe you're happy and fulfilled and satisfied, but if that shoe starts giving you a blister, get new shoes, get a new pair of shoes and figure, figure all of that out. So when you talked earlier about taking that kind of inventory. What are some inventories or resources that you have or know of that that maybe may benefit somebody that wants to do that deeper dive and really examining where their career path is headed?
Paula Caligiuri, Ph.D.:
Yeah, yeah, john, we have a few of them available there for free, right On a site called my journeycom. It's it's M Y J O U R N I, icom, and, and you can go on and you can take these assessments. There's also an AI that will. You can interact with that kind of helps, with those types of of prompts. There are a lot of just just casual resources, though, available to everyone.
Paula Caligiuri, Ph.D.:
It's amazing how, how often the people who care about us and know us the most can see things in us like, for example, I do with my MBA students this thing called the reflective best self. I don't know if you do that with your clients, but it's one where you basically ask each student. You know they're evening MBA students, they've worked for a while, they're kind of mid-career-ish. They go out and they ask 15 people in their lives and it could be their spouse, it could be a parent, it could be a friend, it could be their roommate from college, it could be their brother, it doesn't matter 15 people who know them well to say reflect on a time when you knew me best or when you saw me at my best.
Paula Caligiuri, Ph.D.:
What was I exhibiting at the time when you saw me at my best? Assignment has changed the course of some of my students careers because they they see that their grandmother, their baseball coach and their manager at work I'll see that they are great at building community, or they're great at um, at um, training and helping, or they're wonderful things they didn't see about themselves. So that's a really good one. It's free, it's easy, everybody should. There's a bunch like that.
John Neral:
Yeah.
Paula Caligiuri, Ph.D.:
My thing with the what. What did you want to do as a child and why? Or what do you? What was your dream dream job and why?
John Neral:
Yeah, and, and the thing of it is is that, given that there is so there are so many things that are out because I have to remember, subject and verb need to be in agreement when I speak. So shout out to my sixth grade grammar teacher.
Paula Caligiuri, Ph.D.:
It's weird how stuff just pops in your head, right.
John Neral:
But when you think about all the things that are out there and that can help, the idea is find something. Find something that's gonna connect with you and resonate with you. That's gonna help you on that six-month evaluation to really explore what that next move is going to be. That's one of the joys about building your mid-career GPS is all that kind of preparation.
Paula Caligiuri, Ph.D.:
Here's my greatest concern and I don't think it's hitting mid-career folks quite as much, but I have started hearing it among the mid-careers and that's this concept of quiet quitting. I get really worried when you see people who otherwise love the idea of achievement orientation, who they truly did at one point love what they were doing, but then they either kind of gotten to got themselves into that comfortable shoe that you, that you mentioned, that starting to give the blister, and that rather than buying the new pair of shoes, they just decide to go barefoot you know, I guess.
Paula Caligiuri, Ph.D.:
I'm just not gonna, just I'm gonna do the bare minimum. It's not so. They're losing the one of the things, one of the areas in their lives that were really quite satisfying and gave them a source of flow. It gave them a source of happiness and instead replacing it with doing bare minimum. And that's not it. It might be it if you really don't care about work, that's fine. I mean, there's no judgment in that. I think everyone just has to be really honest and honor what makes them happy.
John Neral:
I agree I often have had conversations with clients and with other people and talking about how they're really just unhappy in their jobs and so they're kind of coasting and they're just trying to figure out whatever's gonna be next. But they're not showing up every day doing high quality work, because there are other things that are getting in the way. And I will often ask them and simply say is that who you are? Is that part of your brand? Is that how you want to be recognized? And it opens up a bigger conversation in terms of okay, where's my fit? Where do I really find that sweet spot? Paula, you have a book called Live for a Living and I want to take a couple moments and just talk about that with everybody. If people were to get your book and to read it, what's the one takeaway you want them to have after reading your book, cover to cover?
Paula Caligiuri, Ph.D.:
If they've read the book cover to cover, I would hope that they would have a deep sense of self-awareness for their own career journey and they would know with clarity what their next step should be and what some of those roadblocks might be along the way and ways to remove them. It's just a really Andy Palmer and I spent a lot of time creating that we thought would be valuable for everyone and it's available in audio, which is kind of fun, because Andy and I narrated it and it was a lot of fun doing that and people really like it.
John Neral:
Good, that's good to know and I will make sure that's obviously in the show notes. But, paula, as we start wrapping up here, we've talked about so much today, but maybe there's something you want to expand on or we haven't talked about yet. So what advice would you give someone to help them build their mid-career GPS today?
Paula Caligiuri, Ph.D.:
I would say give yourself the gift of time to do a bit of reflection. You know it's July, it's summertime, it's what's better than you know going to the backyard, put a you know, get out a lounge chair, sit down and have that moment of just thinking about what you want, your future. You know five years to look like for your career. Spending a little bit of time if you really don't know. Five years to look like for your career. Spending a little bit of time if you really don't know, exploring what, what could be, and then and then giving yourself the permission to go get it.
John Neral:
I love that so much, and I love that whole part about just giving yourself permission to go get it, cause that's so key, especially at this stage in our career, so I want to thank you for that. Well, paula, look, if people want to find you, connect with you, learn more about you, all the great things that you're doing. I'm going to turn the mic over to you. Please share with us all of the great things and places where people can find and connect with you.
Paula Caligiuri, Ph.D.:
Oh, john, thank you. So I'm really easy to find out there if you can spell my last name. So, linkedin, I know it'll be in the show notes, so you're certainly. Linkedin is a great place to connect and I'm happy to do so. I put a lot of content up Instagram. I met Dr Paula Caligiuri on Instagram. The company's page is Skillify S-K-I-I-L-I-F-Y, and on that site, on skillifycom, you can find some resources that I mentioned, but also there's news articles, research articles. We have lots of great resources there as well.
John Neral:
Paula, I'll make sure all of that is in the show notes, but once again thank you so much for being such a great guest on the Mid-Career GPS podcast.
Paula Caligiuri, Ph.D.:
Oh, my pleasure, John. Thank you for having me.
John Neral:
Yeah, it was great connecting. I look forward to staying connecting with you as well. So, my friends, before I let you go, here's the big takeaway You've got some time this summer and use this time this summer to do that inventory, do that self-assessment, think about where you want your career to go, because and I'm not trying to scare you here 2025 is going to be here before you know it, and the work that you do now especially given the timeframe it's taking mid-career professionals to find a new job the work you do right now on whatever your next career move's going to be, whether it be internally or externally, from where you work, is absolutely going to pay off. So give yourself that permission to invest in you and take the time to develop yourself as you build those components of your mid-career GPS. So until next time, my friends, remember this you will build your mid-career GPS one mile or one step at a time, and how you show up matters. Make it a great rest of your day.
John Neral:
Thank you for listening to the Mid-Career GPS Podcast. Make sure to follow on your favorite listening platform and, if you have a moment, I'd love to hear your comments on Apple Podcasts. Visit johnnerrellcom for more information about how I can help you build your mid-career GPS or how I can help you and your organization with your next workshop or public speaking event. Don't forget to connect with me on LinkedIn and follow me on social at John Nerrell Coaching. I look forget to connect with me on LinkedIn and follow me on social at John Darrell Coaching. I look forward to being back with you next week. Until then, take care and remember how we show up matters. Thank, you.
