278: Embrace Simplicity & Grow Your Career in 2025

Embrace simplicity and transform your mid-career journey as we kick off Season 5 of the Mid-Career GPS Podcast! Imagine a year where you focus only on what truly matters, letting go of the noise that clutters your path to success. 

Join me in this episode as I share my commitment to simplicity in 2025 and how it can guide you toward greater happiness and fulfillment. I reveal how performing a calendar audit can uncover time-consuming tasks, allowing you to reclaim precious time and energy so you can focus on what truly matters. 

Whether you're contemplating a job switch or aiming for a promotion, this episode offers insights into strategic career planning and skills development to help you achieve a more rewarding and prosperous 2025.

In this episode, you'll hear: 

•  Introduction and Reflections on New Year's
• Importance of embracing simplicity in the new year
• Encouragement to focus on key priorities
• Tips for conducting a calendar audit for better time management
• Shifting away from busy work to meaningful tasks
• Reframing motivation through clarity of vision
• Preview of a supportive community for mid-career professionals
• Closing thoughts on simplifying work-life balance

Chapters

• 0:00 Simplifying Your Life in 2025
• 8:03 Maximizing Mid-Career Potential and Simplifying Goals

Transcript

John Neral: 0:00

Happy New Year. How is this year going to be different for you? How will it be more exciting? How will you be happier? What is it that you want from this year? As we kick off Season 5 of the Mid-Career GPS Podcast, I will share with you one tip that will help you thrive in 25, so you can stand out and be different at your organization, show up more impactfully as a leader or when you go to interview for that next job you really want, whatever it is. We've got a lot to cover, so let's get started. 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.

John Neral: 0:59

If you are enjoying the dulcet tones of my voice today and appreciating the lower register, I have not gotten over this cold from 2024. I got sick right after Christmas and I cannot seem to shake this cough. I don't know if you're experiencing the same thing or you've had people in your family going through the same thing and everything. I hope you all heal quickly. This obviously has been no fun, but I'm going to try to get through this episode without coughing too much or anything like that. So I'm glad you're here with me, hope you had a wonderful holiday season. I hope you had a chance to make some memories. I hope you got a chance to rest and recharge and are ready to hit the ground running.

John Neral: 1:45

Here we are, at the start of 2025. If you're like me, though, you feel like this year's already been going on for a while. It's a little strange to feel like we start the official work year on January 6th. Some of you may have been working through the holidays or were back to work on January 2nd, but here we are. We're back in the first full week of 2025. And I don't know, it just feels like it's been so long already, but you know that's probably because I've been sick and fighting this or whatever, and just pause for a moment to just acknowledge the horrific terrorist attack that happened in New Orleans on New Year's Day. It's another reminder for us how precious life is and how quickly things can change.

John Neral: 2:37

We've spent so much time on the podcast talking about how our professional lives and how we show up matters, and what it means for those of you who are job seeking or for those of you who are leading and I often don't give space or time to really acknowledge all the things that happen in our lives, outside of our professional life. You know our families, our loved ones, our friends, our fur babies, all those kinds of things that we have going on, and when events like what happened in New Orleans on New Year's Day, what I often think about is how quickly life can change. And so, with that, if you've been impacted by that in any way, if you know somebody personally who was injured or God forbid, killed in that attack, whatever it might be I just want you to know. I wish you healing and comfort and certainly, hopefully, this year gets much better, because it certainly wasn't a great way to start. And so, as I was thinking about planning this episode and talking with you today, what I want to share with you is my theme for 2025. It is my theme for things both personally and professionally, and that theme is simplicity. Personally and professionally, and that theme is simplicity.

John Neral: 4:08

My goal for 2025, that what's going to allow me to thrive in 2025, is to keep things simple. That means not overcomplicating things, not excessively or unfairly worrying about things. I'm a worrier by my own default and my upbringing. I was always taught that if you're worried about things, it made you more attentive and cared about things more, and I just realized that's not true. Worry is wasted energy, because oftentimes what we worry about isn't going to happen anyway, right? So when I started thinking during the holidays about what do I want this year to be, the theme of simplicity kept coming up more and more, and when I think about making things simpler, I find it to be energetically refreshing.

John Neral: 5:15

So what that means and what this can mean for you here in 2025 as well what needs your attention? What's the thing that needs to occupy your attention the most this year? When you think about your work or if you think about your career, what needs the most attention? If you love your job and you're in a leadership role, or you've got new responsibilities at work, what needs your most attention? Where does your focus need to lie? That's going to give you the greatest result? If you're unhappy in your job and you want to get a new job, or you're looking forward to a promotion, where does your energy need to be in order to make that a reality? Energy need to be in order to make that a reality. The simpler we can make things, the more time we can get back. Think about that for a moment. When we stop worrying about all the other stuff that's going on, what time do we get back? So I started thinking about what does that mean for me and my business?

John Neral: 6:27

So I just celebrated the start of my eighth year in business Pretty amazing, when I think about it. I had a moment over the weekend thinking that I was a classroom teacher for 14 years and then I've been away from that job for 14 years. It completely turned a whole different chapter in that regard, and so I started thinking like, well, what would make this year different if I were to simplify things? And so I did two things. I took a look at my task sheet or my to-do list a look at my task sheet or my to-do list and I took a look at my calendar and I started looking at what was taking up my time. Essentially, I did a calendar audit and then I started blocking time off on my calendar for the week and I looked at what was there and I thought, okay, if I'm going to do something different, if I'm going to release all the busy work, if I'm going to only focus on the things that matter the most, I need to set some boundaries, and setting boundaries means giving myself permission to say no or not now to things. I want to offer that to you as well. If you're going to keep things simpler in your work life, where do you get to say no or not now that gives you that kind of focus time or gives you time back.

John Neral: 8:03

So here's what I did. I looked at my work streams for a week and I thought, okay, well, what's first? First and foremost, it's serving my individual private clients. So these are the people whom I work with one-on-one, that book a session on my calendar each week. They're the priority. They get my attention Just as much as the ones who are also my private clients, who we may not meet on a given week, but they might email me. They have questions. I want to be able to respond to them and be there for them. So that's first. That takes up a certain number of hours, both contact time when we meet over Zoom and also handling those emails. Both contact time when we meet over Zoom and also handling those emails. And then I thought well, what are my deliverables?

John Neral: 8:50

Well, one of the things is getting this podcast done. So I drop new episodes every Tuesday, if you've been here for a while, you know this. If you are new and you've just found the podcast or you were looking for a podcast to kick off your New Year's listening, I'm so glad you're here. Hope you stick around and stay. Make sure you follow or subscribe wherever you listen, right? So the podcast is one. I also have a free email community, which, on average, I email everybody twice a week. It's a minimum. Sometimes, if we're in the midst of a special promotion or an event, I'll email a little more often.

John Neral: 9:27

But there's the mid-career GPS newsletter that goes out on Wednesdays at 8 am Eastern, and then there's the Friday Focus that goes out at 8 am every Friday morning. So those have to get written, okay. Then there are other things that I do to create awareness. So it would be like posting on LinkedIn. I'm starting to post a little more on Instagram and YouTube, so all that kind of marketing stuff, right. So those things have to get done. That's part of my marketing plan and my strategy, after I fully serve my clients every day, every week.

John Neral: 10:07

Then I got thinking well, then there's other time for things, right? And I thought what are the projects that are most important for me and my business this year that I want to give energy and attention to, and so one of the things I am working on is creating a mid-career community. You'll hear more about this in the upcoming weeks, but it is a community specifically for mid-career professionals who are either job-seeking or they're happy where they are and they want to level up their career in some way. But the common theme amongst anyone who's going to be in this community is that they refuse to settle. They're in search of something more fulfilling, more satisfying, because that is what is going to propel and accelerate their career in the ways that they want. So stay tuned.

John Neral: 11:05

One of the easiest ways you're going to find out about the community is by being in my email community. You can just join that by going to my website at johnnarrellcom. Then there's like what are the extra things? Right? So it's workshops and speaking engagements and meeting facilitations anything else that comes along. But the thing that I learned when I went back and looked at my calendar was how many things I felt like I needed to do. That was really just busy work, like I didn't need to post every day on LinkedIn. I didn't, right. Or if, oh, if I needed to attend this networking meeting that I didn't really want to go to in the first place, but I should attend anyway.

John Neral: 11:58

Making things simpler is about taking out the shoulds and bringing in the musts. Taking out the shoulds and bringing in the musts I must get this podcast out every week. I must get my email marketing out every week. So I want you to think about your work day, your work week, and I really invite you to go back in and do that calendar audit and block off that time to see where you are spending it, because so often we can get caught up in the thrill and excitement of the new year and saying I'm going to change things, I'm going to do all these different things and we overwhelm ourselves by thinking we're going to do so much. What I want to offer you here in this episode is, if you were to make it simpler, what's one thing you could do to make it simpler?

John Neral: 13:00

So for me, this is about really giving the time, energy and effort to create and finally launch this mid-career community okay, and then continue to have that, to welcome people into it on a regular basis so they can get the support they need at a much different price point than if they were hiring me as a one-on-one coach. That becomes an activity for me that I'm passionate about. It's important to me, but it's also something that's going to help elevate my business and, most importantly, expand my reach. Right, where's your impact? Right, where's your impact? Where is your impact? That will be the greatest thing you could do this year. Look, it doesn't mean that when we make things simpler, we're not going to work hard. Of course we're going to work hard. You're mid-career professionals. That's what we do. We work hard.

John Neral: 14:06

At this point in our mid-career, you're still going to work a full week, unless you're hitting the Powerball, the Mega Millions, the Scratcher and winning millions and millions of dollars. Your life pretty much is not going to change financially unless you change it yourself and when you think about where could you be making more money. There are two options. One is you either pick up a different job, you pick up a second job in addition to what you're already doing, or you actively work at elevating your career and getting the skills and experiences you need so you can go after that promotion, and that promotion, be it internally, on average is probably going to yield somewhere between 6% and 12% more of your salary. If you jump elsewhere. We typically see that percentage get a little bit higher somewhere in the 10% 17% range, and if you're really good at negotiating and can negotiate your offer more strategically, there could be ways for you to get more money than what you are making right now. But what would that new job mean for you? What do those new responsibilities mean in terms of not what you get to do now, but what you get to do in the next two jobs or positions after this one?

John Neral: 15:39

I heard this first from Brendan Bouchard, but I've heard it from other people as well. You do not have a motivation problem. You have a vision problem. You are a highly motivated, driven individual. More than likely you don't need more motivation, but what you do need is a specific, clean and clear vision about what you want for your career, where it's headed and why that's important to you. Whether you're working for a Fortune 50 company or you are working for a small business in your town, the vision is what will get you there, and the vision is one of those things we do in helping you prepare to build your mid-career GPS.

John Neral: 16:38

As we go to wrap up, I want you to think what making things simpler in 2025 is going to get you? Where do you get to let go of some of the weight or the pressure or the burden that you're carrying around professionally? What does it mean for you to be more focused on your vision, to have that clarity about what's next for you in your career? Where can you streamline systems and processes that make it easier for you to focus? And because of that focus in making things simpler, how much stronger are your non-negotiables? What does that mean for you specifically?

John Neral: 17:28

Now, this is the first episode of season five. I am excited about what's ahead for us in the upcoming weeks, the guests I have lined up, the conversations we're going to be having. I've got some people on my guest wish list that, oh, I truly, truly, truly hope they get to say yes, because that will be some amazing conversations. But in the meantime, if you are looking for some additional support, last month I dropped a brand new journal on Amazon. It is called 30 Self-Coaching Questions for Mid-Career Professionals.

John Neral: 18:07

Admittedly, I'm not someone that really embraces journaling a whole lot. It has come and gone in different parts of my life and I created this journal specifically to let that journal come to you when you're ready for it, right? So if there's a particular question or prompt in that journal that you want to answer or spend time with. That's what it's there for, but these questions are specifically geared toward mid-career professionals who are looking to find that job they love or love the job they have. The journal is $7.95. You can get it on Amazon and I really hope this is something that maybe you add to your toolkit to help you keep things and make things more simple in your life moving forward.

John Neral: 18:56

Okay, come back next week. I'm looking forward to another episode with you, but in the meantime, if you like this podcast and you like the content that's here, do me a favor. Text the link to somebody, share it with them, invite them to listen, invite them to follow or subscribe. This podcast continues to grow every single year because of listeners like you who come back each week, and I really, really appreciate it. It means the world to me. I never thought I would enjoy podcasting as much as I do, but you are the reason why I continue to do it, so thank you for being a part of that and I'm glad this is one of those things that is an absolute, non-negotiable for me every week.

John Neral: 19:40

So, my friends, happy new year and until next time. 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 and I'm gonna go take care of this voice. All right, take care. See you next week. Bye, 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. I look forward to being back with you next week. Until then, take care and remember how we show up matters. Thank you.