The Introvert Leader

The Career Questions ChatGPT Can't Answer

• Austin Hopkins

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0:00 | 16:00

ChatGPT can't solve your nuanced career problems. But I can. In this episode, I tackle four real questions from real people who are scared, stuck, and not sure what to do next. My honest answers, no fluff. 


Timestamps

1:56 – How Do You Get Over The Constant Fear of Being Fired?: Irrational fears cause more harm than you imagine. 

4:27 – How To Know If You Have What It Takes to Be a Senior Leader?: You are asking the wrong question.

7:20 – What Was The Exact Moment You Stopped Treating Minor Corporate Inconveniences As Life-or-Death Emergencies?: My boss called me on my honeymoon. This was the last straw.

10:25 – Is Anyone Else Terrified They Stayed In a Stable Career Too Long and Now Feel Completely Trapped? You aren't trapped if you can change at any moment. 

  

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Four Career Fears To Start

SPEAKER_00

Is anyone else terrified that they stayed in a stable career for too long and now they feel stuck? When do I get over the constant fear of being fired? How do I know if I'm ready for senior leadership? When do I stop treating every crisis like the building is on fire? These are four real questions from real people across the internet. Uncomfortable situations, my honest take. This is career support.

Welcome And A Storytelling Lesson

SPEAKER_00

Hello, this is your host, Austin Hopkins, and welcome to the Introvert Leader Podcast. As someone who talks for a living, I'm always looking for ways to increase my influence. And so I recently took a master class by Michael Lewis on storytelling. I'd never really heard of him before, and so I looked up some of the books he wrote and the movies that were based on them. Moneyball, Blind Side, The Big Short, some of my favorite movies of all time. And this guy is a master at what he does. And two things really stuck out to me from the class. The first, always make the audience or the reader feel smarter than you. And two, look for stories in weird, unconventional places. So if you haven't taken that masterclass or if you haven't heard of Michael Lewis, highly recommend taking it or reading some of his books. I learned a ton. Okay, do me a favor, take 20 seconds, click the follow button. It helps the show out a ton, and you won't miss any new episodes. With that, settle in, my friend. It's time to learn something.

Why Chatbots Miss Career Reality

SPEAKER_00

So Chat GPT and Claude can't help you with your career problems. I know you might not believe that. You may trust that a chatbot has your best interest in mind and they know all the answers, but the fact is, they've never worked for a bad boss. They've never tried to negotiate for a raise. And so if you're going to those kind of sites to get the answers to your questions, you're probably getting half answers or answers that don't really apply to your situation. So today, I'm going to answer real questions from Reddit and I'm going to give you my honest answers from my 20 years in corporate.

Fear Of Being Fired

SPEAKER_00

How do you get over the constant fear of being fired? This question comes from Pizza Overlord666 on Reddit. I've been working since I was 16 years old, and now I'm nearly 40. I've always had a persistent fear that I'll get fired, and my whole career future will be derailed. I've never been fired and have never been unemployed, but I've changed fields three times in hopes of finding a career or workplace that doesn't give me this fear. I just don't think I'll ever trust any employer enough to let this fear go away because of the nature of capitalism. So this is an uncomfortable question. And the blunt answer to you, my friend, is that you are scared of something that may never happen. So you're letting your life, your energy be focused on a possible negative outcome when you have no proof that it is likely to happen or that it ever could happen. Now I see this a lot with clients. They focus on every negative outcome that could happen. Maybe I won't get that promotion. What if that person gets the raise over me? What if I get fired? And trust me, these things can happen and they do happen. But is there any value in focusing on things that you don't know for a fact are going to happen? Of course not. There's no value in thinking about the negative. Now I'm not saying to not live in reality, but if things are going well and you have no reason to assume the worst, why would you do that to yourself? When you do it, two things happen. Number one, you're exposing yourself to extra anxiety and stress, which is never good. And two, what if we start to manifest those things that we're worried about? Now bear with me, you may think that's weird, but let's say I'm worried about getting fired. And so I start acting a little bit more guarded. I start protecting myself in a way that makes it more difficult to work with me. Maybe over time people start to sense that and then they start to pull back and trust me less. And what happens if I do get fired because of the way I'm acting and the way I'm thinking? I'm not saying if you're worried about getting fired that you're going to get fired, I'm just saying I don't think that serves you in any way. What I would say is focus on the things you control. What are the things that are right in front of you that you can actually adjust, change, push harder, take action with? Those are the things you should be thinking about, worrying about, stressing about if you must. Don't ever worry about the things that you can't control and the things that you don't know will happen. It never serves you. At the end of the day, I want you to ask yourself this question: Do I trust my expertise and my value enough to go find another job if I'm fired? If the answer is yes, you have nothing to be afraid of, my friend. You may get fired, it may be a tough season, but you're going to be able to bounce back. So I hope that helps Pete's Overlord 666.

Are You Built For Senior Leadership

SPEAKER_00

The next question comes from Reddit, and Sizable Data asks, How do I know if I have what it takes to become a senior leader? I've been a top-performing individual contributor in data analytics for the first eight years of my career. Six months ago, I became a manager of a new team. In that time, I've gotten positive feedback from my direct and stakeholders and two additional directs. I've enjoyed management so far and have shifted my technical learning to leadership. As a new manager, how can I tell if I'm cut out for a VP or SVP in my career? Is it difficult to go from a highly technical IC role to senior leadership? You know, this is a good question that I even asked myself during a couple of points in my career. So you become a manager, you start to like it, and then you think, gosh, could I do more? Could I move up even further? Could I go the distance? And I think it's a good question to ask yourself before you just throw your hat in the ring and just start blindly moving up the corporate ladder. Here's what I would want to ask you before you even go any further, which would be this: why do you want to go into senior leadership? Do you want to go into senior leadership to make more money? Do you want to go into senior leadership because you want more power? Do you want to move into senior leadership because you want to have a bigger impact on more people in your company? Do you want to make the lives of the people beneath you better on a bigger scale? If the answer is self-serving, more money, more power, more things for you, then I would say, yes, you could probably go into senior leadership, and many do, but I wouldn't recommend it because at the end of the day, you are responsible for the lives beneath you. So does it make sense to move up into a senior leadership role where you're going to be influencing potentially hundreds of people just so you can make more money, just so you can get more of what you want. Now, if you want to move into a senior leadership role because it's something you're passionate about, you want to help more people, you want to have a positive impact on a bigger scale, then I would say absolutely yes. And is it possible? 100%. If you're getting positive feedback from your team, if you're getting positive feedback from your peers and other people you work with, that means you have a knack for leadership. What I would continue to do is focus on how you can serve the people beneath you. I'd focus less on the day-to-day technical things. Yeah, that's important. But at the end of the day, the most important thing is can you help the people beneath you become the best version of themselves? Can you help the people that you manage grow, get out of their comfort zone, expand their capabilities? If so, that means you've got a talent for leadership. And I wouldn't give that away. There's nothing more enjoyable than going from an IC up to senior leadership. I did that in my career, and it was one of the most fulfilling things I ever did. It was challenging, yeah. Comes with lots of office politics and lots of things that you're not expecting, but it's really, really fun to stretch yourself. And the ability to affect change on a bigger scale in a positive way, there's nothing like it, my friend. So great question, sizable data. If you've got a passion for it, if you're getting good feedback 100%, might as well take a stab

Escaping Fake Urgency And Panic

SPEAKER_00

at it. Our next question on Reddit is from Kitchen Abchroma 520. What was the exact moment you stopped treating minor corporate inconveniences as life or death emergencies? One of the most exhausting parts of standard office culture is the fake urgency. Every minor email, every delayed Slack message, and every small metric dip is treated like the building is on fire. When you are in it, the anxiety feels incredibly real. But once you step away or pivot out of a toxic environment, you look back and realize how absurd it was to lose sleep over a weekly status report. For those of you who have successfully escaped that mindset, what was your wake-up call? When did you finally look around and say, we aren't saving lives here? I'm going home at five. So I got married in 2015. I had booked a suite at a resort in Hawaii. My entire family, all of my friends are going to Hawaii. I get married, it's amazing. The next day I start my honeymoon. A few days later, I get a call from my district manager at the large bank I was working at. He knows I'm on my honeymoon, and yet he calls me with an emergency. He wants to know about something related to an audit that my branch is going through at the moment. I answer the phone kind of puzzled because I don't know why he's calling. I think maybe somebody had passed away or maybe there was some sort of an emergency. No, he just wanted to ask me a question about the audit. So I begrudgingly give him two minutes of my time, try to answer his question, and he's freaking out. And in that moment, I thought to myself, what in the actual hell is happening? I'm on my honeymoon, on the most important week of my entire life. And the boss that I work for thinks what's happening at work is more important than me saying yes to the partner that I'm going to be with for the rest of my life. So at that moment, I realized that the corporate people I work for and the corporations that we all decide to devote our lives to always think that what's happening is the most important thing. They don't really care about us as humans. Now I know that sounds kind of negative and bleak. And of course, there are exceptions to this rule. There's plenty of smaller companies or even some larger companies where the leadership at the top really do truly care about the individuals. But most companies, the emergencies, are not actual emergencies. That report that you're turning in late, does it really matter? Is anyone gonna die if you turn in that report late? Are you allowed to clock off at five when you need to? Are you allowed to be a human outside of work? So for me, that was the moment when I realized this is just what corporate is. And so I need to protect my boundaries, I need to protect my sanity, and I need to not allow everyone else's emergency become my emergency. So if my boss makes a mistake and needs something last minute, is that my emergency or is that his emergency? If another department reaches out to me with a problem that I need to fix right away, do I have to drop everything just because they asked, or can I decide to push back strategically? So those are the kind of things that I would think about is is it truly an emergency? Does it really matter? If the answer is no, if I can push back, if I can strategically protect my boundaries, you gotta do it. Just remember your piece is more important than any deadline at work. Our final question on Reddit comes from Plastic Animator9223.

Feeling Stuck After A Stable Career

SPEAKER_00

Is anyone else terrified they stayed in a stable career for too long and now they feel stuck? I've been working in the same field for about nine years. Good pay, decent benefits, respectable title. On paper everything looks fine, but lately I wake up dreading Mondays in a way I never used to, and I keep wondering if I made a wrong turn somewhere back when I had more options. The problem is I've built so much of my identity and financial life around this career, and leaving feels almost impossible. My resume basically only speaks one language at this point. I'm not sure another industry would even look at me seriously. And starting over at this stage feels both humiliating and financially risky. I keep reading about people who've made bold pivots and landed somewhere better, but I never see the full picture of what they gave up or how long it actually took. Has anyone here successfully made a career change after nearly a decade in one field? And what was the hardest part? Not the inspiring part, but the actual messy reality of it? Did you take a pay cut? Did you feel like a complete beginner again? And looking back, was it worth a disruption? I like this question. And this was exactly my situation. So I stayed in corporate finance for nearly 15 years. When I started in finance at 18, I had no desire to go into finance. I needed a job. I needed to make some money so I could move out of my parents' house. And banking was a natural fit. I could make good money, it had good hours, and it felt a little more professional than maybe doing door-to-door sales or some of the other things I had done. Now, I did that for a long time. I did that for 15 years. And then eventually I realized this isn't what I want to do for the rest of my life. I had made good money, I had a great title, we were able to buy a big house, take vacations, all the kind of things that you'd want from a good job. But inside, I was feeling less and less fulfilled every single week. So eventually I made a decision to leave. Now, before that decision was made, I had to get a couple of things set up. Number one is I had to make sure that my wife continued to support us and our family with her job. I had to make sure we had enough money saved away so that I could go out and start my own thing. Was it messy at first? Absolutely. I went from making a fantastic income to making virtually nothing overnight. Now I had to start a new business from scratch. I had never been an entrepreneur before. I had never had my own business. So I had to learn tons of new skills. I had to get out of my comfort zone. But I will say this: I have never felt more meaning and more fulfilled than I do right now. Is every day perfect? Absolutely not. Do I have uncertainty? You better believe it. What do I want to focus on? How do I want to attract new clients? What's going to be my biggest value that I add to people? Those are all the kind of questions I'm wrestling with. But it is absolutely possible to change your career. But here's what I would say. Are you feeling unfulfilled in your career? And does that mean you have to change to a different career path? Or could you stay within your same field, but maybe find a better boss to work with? Or could you stay in your same field and work for a better company? Could you find things outside of work to supplement the lack of fulfillment you're feeling at work? Could you get involved in your community? Could you start volunteering giving back? Could you find new habits, new hobbies? Could you find new groups to become a part of? Could you find more fulfillment outside of your career? If you have a career that you're paid well, you have respect, you're doing well, it's paying the bills and it's allowing you to have a work-life balance that's desirable. I would say be a little careful before you decide to just throw that away and go find something else. You may think there's another industry that sounds more interesting, but until you've worked in it, how do you know what it's going to be like? I was just talking with a client the other day who was telling me she wants to change industries completely and move into the dental industry. Now she's currently in sales. This is wildly different than what she's doing right now. And before she decides to quit what she's doing and leave all of that expertise and all that knowledge on the table, I asked her, do you actually know what a day-to-day looks like in that new industry? Is there someone you could talk to before you decide to give it all up and go into that new industry and start at the bottom? My suggestion to you is before you give it all up, do a little research. I want you to think long-term instead of short term. I don't want you to think about how you're feeling today. I want you to think five years in the future. What do you want to be doing in five years? What do you want that day-to-day to look like? What do you want to spend your time doing? What kind of problems do you want to be able to address in your career? Those are the things you should be thinking about. Where you want to be in five years, not about the immediate thing that you're going through right now. That was a great question. Thank you for asking it.

Take Action And Get Support

SPEAKER_00

Kitchen AB chroma. I can almost guarantee you're facing a problem or a situation just like one of the ones we covered today. I bet you it feels super heavy. You probably think about it a hundred times a day. The uncomfortable part is that nothing is going to change until you do something about it. I want to help you take the first step. So I work with people one-on-one to help them get unstuck from the big career moments that matter. If this sounds like you, click the link in the description and let's talk. Every question I answered today came from a real person facing a real problem. And here's the difference between them and someone who does something about it is they take action. So no amount of thinking has ever changed a situation. Things don't change until you change them. So whatever you've been sitting with, whatever the problem is, I want you to stop thinking about it, stop ruminating about it, stop living in that fear and anxiety. I want you to take action. I want you to do something about it. I want to say thank you so much for listening. Make it a great day. Subscribe for new episodes every other Wednesday.

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Austin Hopkins

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