🎙️ How do you build a meaningful career in a world shaped by climate transition, artificial intelligence, and rapid technological change?
In this episode of Tangelic Talks, hosts Victoria Cornelio and Andres Tamez welcome Stephen Shortt, a career strategist and entrepreneur who helps individuals and organizations navigate the evolving world of work.
As industries transform through automation, sustainability initiatives, and emerging technologies, the traditional idea of a “stable career path” is rapidly changing. Many professionals are now asking:
• What skills will matter in the future?
• How can we adapt to jobs that haven’t been created yet?
• And how do we find purpose in our work while maintaining financial security?
Stephen shares practical strategies for navigating career uncertainty, explains why adaptability and curiosity are becoming essential skills, and discusses how the global shift toward sustainability is reshaping opportunities across sectors.
This conversation explores not just green jobs, but the deeper question of how people can create careers that are both resilient and fulfilling in a changing world.
In This Episode, We Discuss
🧠 Why the biggest challenge in the future workforce may be mindset, not skills
💡 The growing importance of curiosity and lifelong learning
⚡ Green economy opportunities beyond technical or engineering roles
📊 The difference between a career, a passion, and a hobby
🎯 The IDEAL career framework for making better career choices
🏢 Why companies often struggle to clearly define the roles they need
🤖 The real impact of AI and automation on the job market
🛠️ Why skilled trades may become more valuable in the green economy
⚖️ Finding the balance between meaningful work and financial stability
🔍 Why it’s okay to focus on a “for now” career instead of a “forever” one
👤 About the Guest: Stephen Shortt is a career strategist, entrepreneur, and facilitator focused on helping individuals build fulfilling professional paths while helping organizations attract and develop the right talent. His work focuses on leadership development, career guidance, and workforce transformation in a rapidly changing economy.
💬 Join the Conversation: Do you think the future of work will depend more on skills, mindset, or purpose? Would you choose career fulfillment over a higher salary?
Share your thoughts in the comments.
🌐 Explore More: www.TangelicLife.org and 🌱 Support Our Mission
#FutureOfWork #GreenJobs #FutureCareers #GreenEconomy #WorkforceTransformation #AIandJobs #JustTransition #SustainableCareers #SkillsForTheFuture #AIWorkforce #CareerFulfillment #TalentDevelopment #ClimateJobs #TangelicTalks #GreenEconomyJobs
🎯 Tags: Future of Work, Green Economy Jobs, Career Development, Sustainable Careers, AI and Jobs, Workforce Transformation, Career Strategy, Talent Development, Green Skills, Climate Jobs, Future Workforce, Workplace Innovation, Career Fulfillment, Energy Transition Careers, Tangelic Talks
In this episode of Tangelic Talks, hosts Victoria Cornelio and Andres Tamez welcome Stephen Shortt, a career strategist and entrepreneur who helps individuals and organizations navigate the evolving world of work.
As industries transform through automation, sustainability initiatives, and emerging technologies, the traditional idea of a “stable career path” is rapidly changing. Many professionals are now asking:
• What skills will matter in the future?
• How can we adapt to jobs that haven’t been created yet?
• And how do we find purpose in our work while maintaining financial security?
Stephen shares practical strategies for navigating career uncertainty, explains why adaptability and curiosity are becoming essential skills, and discusses how the global shift toward sustainability is reshaping opportunities across sectors.
This conversation explores not just green jobs, but the deeper question of how people can create careers that are both resilient and fulfilling in a changing world.
In This Episode, We Discuss
🧠 Why the biggest challenge in the future workforce may be mindset, not skills
💡 The growing importance of curiosity and lifelong learning
⚡ Green economy opportunities beyond technical or engineering roles
📊 The difference between a career, a passion, and a hobby
🎯 The IDEAL career framework for making better career choices
🏢 Why companies often struggle to clearly define the roles they need
🤖 The real impact of AI and automation on the job market
🛠️ Why skilled trades may become more valuable in the green economy
⚖️ Finding the balance between meaningful work and financial stability
🔍 Why it’s okay to focus on a “for now” career instead of a “forever” one
👤 About the Guest: Stephen Shortt is a career strategist, entrepreneur, and facilitator focused on helping individuals build fulfilling professional paths while helping organizations attract and develop the right talent. His work focuses on leadership development, career guidance, and workforce transformation in a rapidly changing economy.
💬 Join the Conversation: Do you think the future of work will depend more on skills, mindset, or purpose? Would you choose career fulfillment over a higher salary?
Share your thoughts in the comments.
🌐 Explore More: www.TangelicLife.org and 🌱 Support Our Mission
#FutureOfWork #GreenJobs #FutureCareers #GreenEconomy #WorkforceTransformation #AIandJobs #JustTransition #SustainableCareers #SkillsForTheFuture #AIWorkforce #CareerFulfillment #TalentDevelopment #ClimateJobs #TangelicTalks #GreenEconomyJobs
🎯 Tags: Future of Work, Green Economy Jobs, Career Development, Sustainable Careers, AI and Jobs, Workforce Transformation, Career Strategy, Talent Development, Green Skills, Climate Jobs, Future Workforce, Workplace Innovation, Career Fulfillment, Energy Transition Careers, Tangelic Talks
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00the benefit I suppose of having parents who were entrepreneurs so they understand the idea of
00:06letting the kids take a bit of a risk maybe they'll make a mistake and they might have a
00:11tough year or two or whatever but they'll learn something you have a lot of different interests
00:15absolutely there's a book that I want to write called spectrum of skills because I think it's
00:19it's incredibly useful for people to actually have a number of skills because if you just become so
00:26laser focused that's when you are most vulnerable because all it needs is one thing to change and
00:31that skill is no longer um needed is there is there's there's something there's just something
00:38weird about going on linkedin uh linkedin is like one of my least favorite platforms it's you're
00:44missing out
00:56welcome to tangelic talks your go-to podcast from tangelic where we dive into the vibrant world of
01:03clean energy development sustainability and climate change in africa we bring you inspiring stories
01:09insightful discussions and groundbreaking innovations from the continent making waves in the global
01:14community tune in and join the conversation toward a brighter greener future let's get started
01:23uh welcome to tangelic talks a podcast at the intersection of energy equity and empowerment
01:28with uh myself andres temez is your uh co-host and victoria cornelia is the other co-host thank you
01:36guys
01:36in today's episode we're joined by stephen short a career and talent strategist entrepreneur and
01:41facilitator who's on a mission to make the world a better place through happy people and fulfilling
01:46future ready careers he's going to talk to us about how we prepare the future workforce as we go
01:52through the just transition but also how do we feel fulfillment in our careers is our careers everything
01:57how do we balance these kinds of things he works at an intersection of career guidance talent strategy
02:02and leadership development so we kind of want to pick his brain about this in this season so welcome
02:07stephen hi thanks for having me thank you for joining us how did you find yourself at this
02:12intersection how does one say this is what i'm going to do uh so i've grown up in two family
02:17businesses uh first family business was an english language school an esl school and i did uh i worked
02:24there bought that for my folks and about 10 years later then decided to sell it and in the interim
02:29had
02:30uh bought this business which is the which has always been career guidance selection personality
02:37profiling that kind of stuff a much smaller business um but really over time as i adapted my why and
02:43i
02:43really came to understand why i enjoyed certain parts of the other industry why i didn't enjoy certain
02:48parts of that industry and then what didn't what this represented uh this was a better fit for me
02:53for this uh chapter of my life okay so did you take your own career guidance is that kind of
02:59what
02:59happened pretty much i mean i've grown up with a career guidance uh occupational psychologist as a
03:04father so i've been doing assessments on all kinds of stuff and it has always come to marketing
03:10communications entrepreneurship that kind of stuff so yeah and that's what i've really always been
03:15involved in and i also had the benefit i suppose of having parents who were entrepreneurs so they
03:23understand the idea of letting the kids take a bit of a risk maybe they'll make a mistake and they
03:28might have a tough year or two or whatever but they'll learn something as opposed to just playing
03:33it safe and going on a path that you might not actually find fulfilling and rewarding yeah which
03:38i think is isn't something a lot of people even allow themselves to do let alone their families
03:43actually backing on and from what you said the work is very one-on-one it's very personal there's
03:49this element of you're you're helping someone decide what they're going to do supposedly for the rest of
03:56their life or at least for a big chunk of it so from your perspective are we facing more of
04:01a skills
04:02gap or a mindset gap when it comes to people wanting to pursue the career of their dreams or the
04:08career
04:09that they think they should be in mindset because you can learn all kinds of new skills every every
04:15skill is is learnable um i mean i've my view is the most important thing that we have as humans
04:23that
04:23help us to develop and help us to do anything that we want to do in life is curiosity if
04:27we're curious
04:28about something if we're interested in something we will pursue it um i studied years and years ago
04:33i did basic um coding um c plus plus coding in university in college i didn't really like it but
04:42i liked the application stuff and i liked the communication stuff middle of last year i discovered
04:47the concept of vibe coding now i don't know how to code but i know how to communicate i know
04:52how to
04:53express myself and i understand how those components work and i'm really really curious about all that
04:58so i've been building little apps here and there and little tweaks to to help me in the business or
05:02to do new projects so that curiosity has helped me to develop those new skills which is ultimately
05:09going to help me at some point um with the the career path so i think um it i just
05:15had a conversation
05:16with a client today they're not really a client they're a friend who i do a bit of help with
05:20um they're hiring a new person and they're down to two people and they're wondering whether they
05:26should get somebody with the experience who's maybe not the high energy person or they should
05:30get to somebody with maybe less experience what seems to be more of a an aligned fit and my bent
05:38would always be you can teach people skills it's very hard to teach drive yeah and people's
05:43personalities are kind of molded already i've been seeing a lot of uh a lot of content pop up articles
05:49pop
05:49up about how it we're rediscovering the fact that actually people being aligned with you
05:57is more important than the skills because you can teach them that if you're hiring them you can
06:03usually teach them the thing that you want to hire them for or they're something that they're
06:07specialized in like accounting right but usually when you want someone that fits the culture
06:11the culture comes first right from a culture point of view having like an uh having what you
06:18consider to be an a player somebody who provides who who really hits the results and really brings
06:22in the metrics but is toxic to work with and and the antithesis of the culture that is just a
06:29cancer
06:30in in your organization and as tough as it is i mean as hard as it is to say okay
06:36mary is bringing
06:37in more sales than anybody else but by god she makes this place so horrendous that we can't work with
06:44um unfortunately you've just got to do that for the for the long-term benefit of the organization
06:48but it it hurts to make that decision definitely yeah it's a bit of a trade-off isn't it when
06:55you
06:55were talking about the skills and mindset gap and saying that it's a mindset gap mostly do you think
07:00that also applies to the green the green and clean energy careers and people wanting to transition
07:07into these kinds of of sectors um so clean green renewables all this kind of stuff it's it's a
07:15really interesting area at the moment there's a lot of growth in it how much of it is reliable like
07:22how much of it is greenwashing of companies that are just trying to oh we're going to hire one or
07:27two
07:27green consultants but they actually don't fund it and the people that they're hiring then are actually
07:33left with no resources and no way to do it so that's the area that i would be a little
07:39bit
07:39concerned about with the renewable energy i think there's the renewable stuff solar wind b corp stuff
07:46social responsibility people who are involved in building communities it's all it's a real return
07:52to to being innovative and thinking about things so i think as a whole area it's really interesting
07:57but where cynical people get involved and unfortunately a lot of times in big businesses
08:02there's a bit of cynicism in me of people who hire a a green energy person and then they don't
08:09fund
08:09them and then they blame oh well it hasn't returned any results or anything you've given them ten dollars
08:14a year as a budget to to redefine our our solar and wind energy power for our 16 plants in
08:22australia like
08:23so what do you what do you yeah so um where i i do think also they're also like isolated
08:29from the data they need
08:30right because it's not essential that they have it but it is essential that they have it for their
08:36work but for the company they just don't care sorry go ahead so that that's where i that's that's where
08:41i see the biggest issue with this stuff um but actually people who are interested in developing that and
08:48again we get to a point where if your company if you're if you're going to find meaning in it
08:53if you
08:53have an interest in that part of in the industry or even that area of development you can build a
09:01lot
09:01of stuff there's a lot of opportunities in there there might be a little bit more fighting with
09:06some of those cynics to to take that off the ground to get that off the ground at the beginning
09:10um but if it's what you're interested in it will be worth it for you ultimately in the medium to
09:16long
09:16term yeah and where is because you're talking about fulfillment and sort of you know you're gonna
09:22you have the right mindset you're gonna have these challenges most of them will be resource challenges
09:27but if you've got the drive you're gonna feel fulfilled where is that balance between feeling
09:32fulfilled and also the reality of the world we need to have some stability so we can engage in the
09:38wider world around us is that a personal choice mortgages we got mortgages we got school fees we got
09:44bills we got everything else um my where i come to this from is 60 of your waking time
09:53is spent either at work or thinking about work now your waking time includes commuting it includes
10:00watching tv in the evening it includes going to the pub with your friends or going out for dinner
10:04it also includes the time spent in the bathroom it didn't it includes time shopping and doing your
10:10groceries so 60 of the time that you are awake you're thinking about work or you're at work
10:16and 50 or 52 of people around the world on average are not happy in their work they're not happy
10:23with
10:23their job a later a recent gallops thing had it up and as far as 80 something as i think
10:28are just not
10:29sad not excited so i think that it's slightly skewed but people who are just not happy is more than
10:34half
10:35that to me is a horrendous way to spend your life and it's it's terrible but there are certain
10:42situations where people make that mental decision to go well i gotta put food on the table i hate what
10:48i'm doing but this is what i can do right now um and this is what i've got to do
10:52this is where
10:55i can't i i can only um present stuff to people it is such a personal decision which way you
11:01want to go
11:02with it and so having those conversations and whether you are in a position to say okay i'm
11:06going to step back in my salary range for the next six months to go do something completely different
11:13and start at a lower grade and go off in that direction my instinct is always to say you might
11:22have six months to 12 months of maybe having a tougher time or not as comfortable a time but you
11:29will then spend the next 10 to 12 years being happier more fulfilled and more rewarded in an
11:34area that you're actually passionate about than spending the next 10 years eking out a living and
11:39going i really hate this and i hate getting up in the mornings and some days fill me with dread
11:43so yeah that's my feeling but i can't speak there's obviously so many other uh variables that it's it's
11:50the classic consultant answer it depends yeah and it's very personal as well in that in in that
11:58regard um when i was reading your bio you have a book for career changers and yeah your next career
12:08why or when do people sort of do a career change what are the motivations what leads people to do
12:14that
12:14so there's a couple of things in in our experience one i mean the common one is they've been
12:19made redundant they've been let go that something has happened and the decision has been made for
12:24them that they're no longer gainfully employed but where we see it an awful lot is people who are
12:30getting really burnt out they really don't enjoy the work they're feeling a little bit stuck they
12:36don't have the drive they're just not passionate about what they're doing anymore and they're looking
12:39for other alternatives they've looked around the fact is it today it has never been easier for
12:46somebody to make a good living doing something that they enjoy doing there has never been so
12:51many options between i mean we're talking about the even just in the renewable energy space and all
12:56that stuff that did not exist 20 years ago so it has never been easier to to make a living
13:02and make
13:03money doing something you enjoy doing but the natural flip side of that is it has never been harder
13:08than to figure out what the hell you should be doing because there's so many options so that's why
13:13that's why we built this framework of the ideal career so if you imagine three circles in a kind
13:18of event diagram you've got your abilities your interest and the demand if you have the interest
13:24in something you're really interested in it and you have the ability to do it but nobody's really going
13:29to pay you for it there's no demand for it right now that's a hobby if you have the ability
13:35to do
13:35something sorry if you have the interest in doing something and there is a demand so people are paid to
13:41do
13:41this and you really are interested in it but you don't have the ability you don't have the skills
13:45to be at the highest level of that then that's a dream so a lot of people for a lot
13:50of people that
13:50might be a professional musician or a footballer or something like that then where you have the ability
13:56to do something and there is a demand somebody is willing to pay for you but you really just don't
14:01care
14:01about it that is a job right now it is absolutely possible to to move from into the middle of
14:09those so
14:09you can develop the skills if you have a dream you can develop the skills and that can become you
14:15can
14:15have those three you might if your hobby if you're able to find people who are interested in paying
14:20for that that hobby can become your career that's absolutely fine and if you you can start to develop
14:26an interest in something that you didn't have an interest in before you can find an area that's
14:30interesting for you what we want to do is to identify a short list of where those three intersect
14:35naturally right now for you today then have a look at those careers those are the careers that
14:40are your immediate fit of you'd be good at them you'd enjoy doing them and people are willing to
14:47pay somebody to do these jobs then you look at that short list and see the enthusiasm so what's the
14:53what are you most enthusiastic from that short list and then the l is looking at it through four
14:58different lenses lifestyle leadership longevity and learning what are you interested in doing and is it a
15:04long-term job is it something does it fit your lifestyle does it fit are you interested in
15:08learning more about it do you see yourself in a leadership or a team member position and that's
15:12ideal i-d-e-a-l so once you have that you have a real framework to understand what's your
15:18ideal
15:18career how can you figure out what it is that you want to do then the other framework that we
15:23built
15:24is the happy people project as happy as highlights appreciation progress people and your contribution
15:29to figure out your life by design and then moving those two things together that gives you
15:33a way of understanding what do you want out of life and how which career is going to help you
15:38to get there it's so cool i mean this might be a really dumb question to follow up no such
15:44thing
15:44but what why are all these frameworks so necessary why is it so hard for someone to just sit down
15:53and be
15:53like this is my interest and i'm gonna upscale and i'm gonna work on it because we get a target
16:00confusion there's so many different signals there's so many different things that are coming
16:03at us all the time if you look at your phone and you look at your screen time in your
16:07phone
16:07and see how many times you've picked up your phone to look at a notification it stuns me every time
16:13now
16:13i use my phone all the time and i use it for work i use it for emails and i
16:16also use it for a little bit
16:18of social media a little bit of tiktok every time and again but all the rest but the amount of
16:23noise
16:23that we get the amount of information that we're getting is an overload as an overload is so far and
16:29away i can't remember what it was like i think it's in our great grandparents time the amount of
16:36information that they used to receive on an annual basis this generation gets on a daily basis or
16:41something like that it's something it's a magnitude of order of that so being bombarded with a bucket list
16:49on your instagram and then somebody talking about the latest side hustle on tiktok and then somebody
16:53else on linkedin talking about living your life by this and you just have to manifest and not actually
16:57do anything about it so we're getting pulled in so many different directions that we don't have the
17:02ability or we don't have the time we don't give ourselves the time to actually sit down and go i
17:08don't
17:08know if i can swear on your podcast but i won't what am i going to do with myself and
17:13figure it out
17:14because we don't know the other thing again i'm a little bit older than you guys uh maybe a lot
17:20older you might not like that a little bit um but when i was in school like i i was
17:25i was my career
17:25guidance counselor's worst nightmare because i have an occupational psychology father who is an
17:30occupational psychologist so so but a lot of teachers they just like career guidance teachers
17:36and people who are helping if they've if they've not been in industry or if they've not been researching
17:40they might know 50 100 different careers that they can kind of guide people into and it's it's it with
17:47the absolute best will in the world i mean they have the best interests of these kids yeah but they
17:52just don't know what the options are because they haven't had time to do the research because they're
17:57too busy getting not being properly funded and not being properly supported by schools one thing i do
18:02with parents sometimes i sit down and go if we were to sit down for the next three hours how
18:06many careers
18:07do you think that you'd be able to to list off the top of your head what kind of jobs
18:12would you be
18:12able to list and people sometimes say oh maybe 300 350 if i like taxi driver podcaster cook all of
18:22these things and if we say okay how many could you explain and they go and they cut it in
18:28half and
18:29then i go what kind of personality and what kind of attributes you need and people just start to
18:33glaze over they don't they have no idea where to start other than maybe two or three careers that
18:37they've worked in in their life our database has 1275 careers description of that career and what
18:45it takes to do well in that career so when you do the assessments you actually we give you a
18:50short
18:50list of those careers that are highly targeted to your unique mix of interests and abilities
18:55but that's stuff i mean you can do it yourself but like what we do is we we shortcut that
19:02but you can
19:03do it yourself but it does take time you've got to then research that even sitting down with an ai
19:08like a chat gpt it doesn't have the context to be able to do all of those things and to
19:14understand
19:15all those nuances of it um so there is a there's a huge amount of experience that goes into the
19:19back
19:19of it yeah and that lack of headspace to sit with it absolutely you know when i was when i
19:25was in high
19:25school there was an assessment that they they made us take uh with the with the psychologist there
19:30and i remember it it making things a lot more confusing than uh than helping and uh i was i
19:39was
19:39very i just i just didn't know what to do you know um and they like you say there's a
19:46lot of good
19:47intentions they try their best but especially if you're someone who is like who who has a range of
19:53interest and also a range of like things that you you can do um the noise just becomes so loud
20:01yeah it just becomes impossible to see through it and then you then and then you're you sort of burn
20:09out right because of just the amount of information and then you get distracted by the noise which is
20:15like the the the social media pipelines you mentioned them like the side hustle thing this thing
20:19drop shipping let's do this how to make like ten thousand dollars a month that's you know all that
20:25all that sort of stuff so how how is one you know obviously they could go to you right but
20:32if somebody
20:32doesn't have access to you right or so one of the things as well and you meant you what you
20:37said this
20:37one of the things that i really picked up on when you were talking about this is like you have
20:40a lot
20:41of different interests absolutely there's a book that i want to write called spectrum of skills because i think
20:45it's it's incredibly useful for people to actually have a number of skills because if you just become
20:52so laser focused that's when you are most vulnerable because all it needs is one thing to change and that
20:58skill is no longer um needed so having a range of interests is absolutely uh useful and an absolute skill
21:07in medieval times that was called a renaissance man so people a renaissance man is basically somebody
21:13had lots of different interests in lots of different areas to do stuff um renaissance man
21:18patriarchal society i'm not saying that it's still case um it is the renaissance but the what you what
21:27you if you were sitting down in your high school self and you were looking on yeah i'm gonna have
21:31a
21:32couple of careers in this area and i have a whole area of this i'm interested in the whole area
21:35of this
21:36i'm interested in in theory you could pick any one of those and just go on that journey for a
21:42year or
21:43two because if you're if you're at a crossroads or if you're at a woods and then a forest and
21:48you have
21:48a couple of different paths that are going into the forest and you can't tell which is the one to
21:52go
21:52through it doesn't matter which one you pick just pick one of them because when you walk down that path
21:58after a while you will have a different vantage point and it might be okay i gotta turn around and
22:02go
22:03back and try a different one or oh i can cut across to that one or oh i can move
22:06over here
22:07so this is where when we have all of that we have so much noise that we can't make a
22:13decision that's
22:14where you need to have somebody that can help you it doesn't have to be a psychologist it can be
22:18somebody who can help you in a coaching capacity or a mentorship capacity and just go okay just move
22:24any one step anything to make some kind of progress helps you to have a different perspective
22:29the other thing is people who like the people who are in high school now they're potentially going
22:36to have five or six full careers that nobody's going to be retiring at 65 anymore um by by the
22:43the
22:44by virtue of the fact that we're all uh living longer and being healthier retirement age is going
22:49to be irrelevant uh so people are going to be working till much later you're going to have so many
22:54different um generations working side by side that people are going to have these portfolio careers
23:00that are going to go on and on and on until a much later time so you don't need a
23:04forever career
23:05you need a for now career what do you want to do now what do you want to explore now
23:09and then in 10
23:10years time you might decide yeah i've kind of done with the the consulting bit and the traveling bit
23:15that was really fun when i was in my 20s and my 30s now i want to settle down i
23:18want to do maybe some
23:19some podcasting and some thought leadership and some interviewing and some other stuff and then
23:23maybe in a couple of years i'll set up the equivalent of an etsy store and make some kind
23:28of a product or something like that so there's all kinds of ways that we can have a a career
23:34for
23:3510 years five years seven years whatever and then do something completely different because it's a
23:40different side of our personality that we want to explore i think that's very liberating because
23:44there is the pressure of this is forever and i have to choose my career now but again that is
23:49old
23:49school thinking that's the way like when there were only 20 careers to choose from that's what
23:54you had to do yeah the options were very limited yeah i guess i want to apply that into that
23:59just
24:00transition thing because a lot of people who probably started with um the more traditionalist
24:05careers right might be looking into moving but they say i don't have the skills i don't have this i
24:11don't have that there is this there's often this thinking that only engineers or scientists can
24:18work in the green sector or in clean energy all these things what kind of roles do you think
24:24are most underestimated or overlooked in this space firmly believe that 80 percent of people can do 80
24:31percent of the jobs that are out there it's a matter of interest it's a matter of whether you actually
24:36are interested in developing it and developing yourself okay maybe brain surgeon yeah i kind i kind of
24:43want my brain surgeon to have done quite a bit of training and have a lot of people looking at
24:47this
24:47dexterity um and maybe for some very specific engineering stuff so maybe when it gets to the
24:53real technical stuff in uh solar panels or something like that to be able to understand how that works
24:58but if you're able to deal with people you can go to any industry uh if you're interested in if
25:04you
25:04can do project management if you can do basic maintenance and basic administration of stuff
25:09you can learn how to do the specifics of that and if you are interested in that area if it's
25:15something that is uh uh something you're passionate about the other thing about passion this is a
25:20really interesting thing people talk about being passionate about your career and being passionate
25:24about this passion doesn't mean interest passion actually willing to no passion actually means what
25:32are you willing to sacrifice to make sure that that happens so being really interested in a career
25:37it has come to mean passion has come to me oh i'm passionate about this but that just means i'm
25:42interested in it actually if you're passionate about it means that you are willing to give up all kinds
25:46of stuff in order to make that happen so people being passionate about their careers is a little bit of
25:53an overstatement so you can have a really keen interest and a really strong interest in something
25:57be really really fascinated with it and want to learn as much as you can about it but then once
26:03you've done
26:03everything once you've you've explored everything you can you go actually yeah i want to i want to go
26:09do something else now and it's not that i've lost that passion i'm still interested in it but i'm
26:14interested in this now as well because that's what human beings do you're saying so for example with
26:18that earlier example that you gave about you hire a green consultant but you don't give them the
26:23resources if they're passionate about this kind of work they would take the hit and they would
26:27sacrifice for example a salary or this and that for the work that they want to do or how does
26:34it look
26:34different in the workplace so i i on that example it's not necessarily about passion it's about if
26:41that person has the ability i mean you can you can have somebody who's um in in that scenario
26:49whether they'd be giving i wouldn't be recommending that people be giving up a salary just to to do
26:55something that they especially in a corporate world that they give up a salary just to do
27:00something with green energy if you're you're not going to be able to convince people by not taking
27:04a salary they're just going to take advantage of you if they're not well if a big company corporate
27:08is not willing to pay you a salary to do something uh yeah that's senior uh i would i would
27:13be saying
27:14that's a bit of a red flag for me um but if you're really if you really believe in this
27:19is the green
27:19initiatives that we wanted to to build out into the companies and i'm willing to take a bit of
27:25flack and i'm willing to really push through some people's maybe uh i don't want to say ignorance
27:31but lack of education in that world or that area and i want to it's going to be painful for
27:35me to
27:36to get some of these older people to buy into this idea that maybe we shouldn't be spewing lots of
27:41oil
27:41over penguins i don't know um but there's areas that you might say i'm willing to to really push through
27:49and have these personal difficult situations and conversations because this is something i really
27:53believe in but i'm doing it for the betterment of the organization so i'm expecting to be paid for
27:59that makes sense and then from that flip side as an organization you've got a worker that is bringing
28:05you ideas that is trying to for example transform this new department that you've made because esgs are
28:10now a thing and they're sort of leading that do you see organizations making a mistake when they focus
28:16heavily on technology and funding and their own financial stability rather than on their people and
28:22sort of training their people and giving them the resources that they need or are they two
28:27completely separate things i don't know that they're mutually exclusive i think one of the things
28:31that is a is a natural byproduct so it in the organization it depends on the culture of the
28:37company what they're predisposed to actually rewarding and in a lot of companies once you get to a
28:43certain size and you're optimizing you're really rewarding for risk avoidance and risk mitigation
28:47so bringing in new things is risky it's an unknown and you have people that are used to spending their
28:53time and they're they're incentivized for minimizing risk maximizing profit so trying these things so
29:01really what they could be looking at at trying to get those initiatives that esgs in is actually
29:08saying well this is going to give us more attention this is going to get us more market share because
29:13it so putting it in terms of what the company is actually interested in even if their stated goals
29:19are we want to be a green leader in whatever what they're actually incentivized from the top down
29:25is minimizing risk and creating new organizations or new departments within an organization
29:32it's risky because that's just the way it is so understanding what their what the culture is
29:39actually rewarding that's the the best way for me about going to to understand how they can push
29:45those things through i have a question it's sort of as someone who um who's currently uh um doing
29:51freelance and it sometimes looks into full-time employment how do you how do you navigate hiring like
30:00like the the hirers or is there is there's there's something there's just something weird about
30:07going on linkedin uh linkedin is like one of my least favorite platforms because it's you're missing
30:12out it's happened but it's uh like going on there and you see like the moment i look at like
30:22it's like
30:23we want you to have the strong loyalty to the to the to the company and we want you to
30:28go above and
30:29beyond and it's like it's not a problem i have no problem going above and beyond what i have a
30:34problem
30:34with is this there's there's a vibe there you know there's like um there's something here and
30:40there's hiring speak i don't know i don't know how to explain it but i i i can see that
30:44you know what
30:45i'm talking about oh no i know exactly what you're talking about um and again i don't want to swear
30:50on
30:51your podcast um but it is the a lot of the time so we train people in how to hire
30:59the right people
30:59so one of the and again i i love my framework so we've built some frameworks around this to help
31:05companies because you get these you see these jobs job descriptions that are so generic that you're
31:14like do you actually want a human to apply to this like this is like it means nothing and then
31:20they run
31:21them through five rounds of interviews to find the right person it's like how can you possibly find the
31:26right person um so a lot of the time and we do this with clients like we we actually have
31:32a call
31:32with them beforehand we go okay your job spec you want somebody who is a team player and able to
31:38work
31:38on their own two ends of the same spectrum so you want the schizophrenic or you want somebody who is
31:45uh um very creative and very detail orientated generally not the same thing so this is one of the
31:54things when people are hiring a lot of the time they don't actually know what they because they
31:58haven't spent the time it's not that they want a unicorns they actually don't know what they want
32:03they they want they they want a thing fixed and they think okay i just need that one person to
32:08fix it
32:08and again that's not feasible um so they're not clear on what the role is so we have spec the
32:15role
32:15and then calibrate talent so specing the role um the skills the personality the experience and the
32:22culture like what is it that you're actually looking for we've had people where we've we've gone into
32:26to a job we've gone in to do a a selection for people and we said okay well what do
32:32you want this
32:32person to be like and they were hiring like a um a cf a ceo ceo i said okay well
32:38what do you want like
32:38what's the culture like what's the organization like what do you want them to be doing what are
32:41their responsibilities in your organization like oh we don't know we'll see who comes in and we'll see
32:45who's the best fit like yeah it ain't gonna work um sense yeah so i had i had a really
32:53really good
32:53friend of mine who uh just moved home to the state for the to the states he was living in
32:57america he
32:58was living in in europe for a while and he was trying to find somebody to help him to build
33:02his
33:02his business is a very values-based organization of values-based training wonderful guy um and we
33:08were we were looking at his job spec because he was getting like people that just weren't a fit
33:13they were applying to to increase the cv to become consultants and all the rest of it
33:18and then we rewrote it and we and we put the values right up front like this is what we're
33:23doing this
33:23is what we're looking for this is what we believe this is how we're this this is what we're trying
33:27to build and he had two people that i contacted them one of them who ended up being his partner
33:33on
33:33it took something like a 60 pay cut from a massive corporate business in america and just because she
33:39read the ad like yeah this is what i want to be doing um uh she was still getting good
33:44money like
33:45he wasn't he wasn't looking for an intern but um she was able to to really feel fulfilled she'd done
33:52what she wants to do and then so that kind of thing companies a lot of the time don't actually
33:58know what they're they're looking for so they use this vague jargon to make it look like they've
34:03thought about it but then when you dig into it it's a nonsense we're looking for excellence okay
34:09cool who isn't who's looking for a mediocre manager yeah you have to define these things in context
34:18absolutely actually there's a there's a big ones that we have we want somebody who's ambitious
34:23okay define what ambitious means for you because ambitious could be leading a team of people into
34:28something unknown or ambitious could be i'm going to stab everyone in the back to get ahead
34:32so there's two different like you really got to define what these things mean and then you can
34:38start looking for people i've i've seen situations where like we want someone ambitious and then they
34:42put them in a situation where there's literally no growth no no just follow the playbook what's
34:48their ambition supposed to go and i guess that goes back to what you're saying about the value slide
34:54right ambition within this company in these in this value framework means this right thank you for
35:01the coaching stephen that was awesome it's very reaffirming for me because i love what i do
35:07but we're going to stay on for a couple more minutes to get some more practical advices talk
35:12about the green workforce you can find all of this on the blog at angelic life.org make sure to
35:17check
35:17out stephen all his stuff will also be linked you can get his books as well if you're looking into
35:22career changes or just finding your career and thank you so much stephen for being here my pleasure thanks
35:28for having me
35:35let's stop power let's stop change for rural lights to brighter days equity rising voices strong we're
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