Find A Job You’ll LOVE: Beyond The Comfort Zone

How To Find A Career That Aligns With Who You Really Are

In this episode of Grow With Kepo, we sit down with Pelumi Ogedengbe, Senior Product Manager and Founder of Aidrr, a career coaching platform redefining how people align with meaningful work. Pelumi has helped over 500 people land roles they love, especially in tech. His story is deeply relatable and full of insight for anyone who’s ever felt stuck, misaligned, or ready to pivot. This conversation is a masterclass in how to stop guessing and start matching your career with your person.

• You don’t need a new job, you need alignment
• Your passion alone won’t pay the bills, but your alignment can
• You’re not lazy, you’re misaligned
• The best time to find a new job is while you have one
• Your “person” is where your power lives
• How to identify what comes to you naturally
• Why people struggle to see their own strengths
• Transferable skills are your hidden superpowers
• The real reason most people avoid career transitions
• You can’t grow in your comfort zone

BEST MOMENTS

00:00:15. “You will never find the growth you are looking for within your comfort zone.”
00:00:57. “You’re not lazy, you’re just misaligned.”
00:06:19. “What are the things that come to you naturally that don’t come to others as easily?”
00:12:38. “I was limited to the types of jobs I could apply for... I needed visa sponsorship.”
00:18:23. “Ask yourself, what are the things I would enjoy doing in a job?”
00:25:09. “Just because something brings you joy doesn’t mean it will be easy.”
00:32:00. “That’s how you know you’re working within something that’s aligned with your person.”
00:39:07. “Those were the three things I identified as my most critical transferable skills.”
00:46:26. “Go learn AI, but not from a place of fear. Learn it from a place of strength.”
00:55:02. “When you work in a role where your job flows naturally, your personality shines.”

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Transcript

0:00

There is something extremely limiting about comfort, about being in your comfort zone. So while you may think you don't need a move because everything seems cool with where you are, doesn't mean that it's not time for a move. Because like, you will never find the growth you are looking for within your comfort zone. You just don't, right? Like until you stretch. You wouldn't really understand the true capacity that you have. Here is something you need to hear. You're not lazy, you're just misaligned. I'm Keppel. I help high performers get unstuck by taking bold, aligned action. And this is grow with Keppel, where we speak with influential trailblazers who've made their mark and found the clarity that changed their lives. This is where we get clear, realign, and move toward a life that actually feels like yours. Welcome to the show. Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the show. Today we're tackling one of the most frustrating yet high stakes challenges out there. Finding a job you actually love. Not the kind of job that just looks good on LinkedIn. The but the kind that actually makes you feel like you're in the right place doing the right thing for the right reasons. The problem is, most people are just guessing their way at what they're good at. Your guessing what companies will make you happy? You know what? Just guessing our way through job boards and interviews and somehow hoping that we get lucky, right? But today's guest is really going to be helping us to break through all that noise. And he's saying, enough with the guessing and it's time to start matching. And looking. He's been enough with the guessing and it's time to start matching. I can't wait for you all to get into this. I can't wait for us all to get into this. I'm so excited about this one. Let's jump right into it. KMI, welcome to the show. Thank you for joining today. Instead of doing your introduction, the service I want you to introduce yourself. Were you all the person that we're talking to has helped over 500, 500 people land the tech career of their dreams that they absolutely love. Follow me over to you. Thank you very much. Thanks for having me. Absolute pleasure. My name is going to be. I am a senior product manager at the tarot. So I work in tech. I'm a tech boy, if you will. But I sides work in, like, a 9 to 5. I also recently built my own business called Ada. I'm Wayne, I'm rich. I'm Ada. Essentially, I'm the founder of Ada. We are a career coach in the business. We help people essentially to discover it. Call it, well, joy in their career. Right through landing better roles. Predominantly within the tech space, but not limited to the tech space right now. So again, been doing that. A lot, more recently, lately helping tons of people, hundreds of people land really fulfilling roles that, you know, where they can find better happiness within their jobs and, make especially, you know, folks that are trying to make, career transitions. Awesome, awesome. Well, congratulations on launching your own business. I love it. And that's what this show is about, right? About speaking with trailblazers like you who are just following what is in alignment with what they're supposed to do, and that is helping people find joy in what they do for a living. And I love that word that you used. And actually, that brings me to the first question, right. Most people think that the key to success, career satisfaction is simply following your passion. And I find that that advice is often misleading. Why do you think it's misleading and what should people be doing instead to find that joy that you talk about? It's a great but great first question, to be honest. Your passion might not necessarily be the most lucrative field. Let's start there. First. And let me tell you something. I know that this very popular statement that says, you know, in, in any job you should be earning or learning easy. If you're working just within your passion and get a, you know, earning Canadian a USB user nugget, which. For you is like that. So, for example, you know, like people like outside of like terrorist or people who know me are passionate about music. I'm a drummer. I play drums afterward, playing drum sets. Right. However, that's not my source of income, is not sustainable for my current state of living to maintain my family and our expenses. And we're not even flamboyant, right? You know, your passion. You know you the way I kind of see life is you know, while of course you should still be working on your passion, maybe eventually grows into something they able to turn out to feed on and sort out your expenses with. But oftentimes what I realize is that it takes time. And you see within that time you can't find a job that aligns with your person. That's kind of where I always draw the line. If you can align with your person, you're going to find joy in that role. That role is not going to seem like a chore, but it's going to come to you naturally. You know what I'm saying? They're going to come to you naturally, come to you naturally, and your personality can shine. You will find better fulfillment there to earn the income to fund your passion, and maybe eventually turn your passion into your main gig. That's kind of what. I love, that I love that framework already, and I hope you all are taking notes. You don't start with your passion, but it doesn't mean that you need to completely forfeit it and just let go of it. You mentioned, you know, if it's in line with your person, how do you define your person? Great. So I think, you know, maybe because, I believe that we are all unique in our ways, right? You know, and we all have, like, our different areas of strengths. Right? So, you know, for example, you might take a quick personality test to identify the kind of person that you are. I remember like, maybe I'll, you know, give a little bit of a backstory, you know, to how I got really rooted in this concept of your person. So I have a bachelor's degree in accounting and finance. I have a master's degree in accounting and finance as well. You know, I wanted to become an investment banker. That was my dream. You know what I'm saying? I lots of movies. Wolf of Wall Street sound. Lots of the suits. Don't get me started. I know they look great. But I started working in accounting and finance. And I absolutely. Hated it. I was miserable, right? So then I took a step back and said, okay, let's analyze this. Because I was not having a good career path. I was not great at my job. I could do it, but it just seemed so not for me. Right? So what I did was I took a step back and I just started identifying, okay, what are the things that come to me naturally? I want people to ask themselves in terms of like discovering, like what aligns with that person. What are the things that comes to you naturally that doesn't come to others as naturally? So, for example, one of the things for me, you know, for people who are at school with me, write a number of things. One was just the art of communication. You see that guy who would, you know, in in an MBA program who would always wanted to do the presentations? That was me. Because for me, it came so naturally. I needed little to no prep time to kill a presentation, to be quite honest. I was not, you know, exactly what I was doing, what I was talking about, and I understood the material. I could kill at any moment. For me, that came to me naturally. I'm a natural speaker, right? When that doesn't come naturally to everybody. That's true. Or you might be your great unknown, but you love your Excel spreadsheets. Great job. It's. You know what I'm saying? For me, that wasn't me. So one for me was great was communication. The other part about me was I studied Lucent Trends and myself. I was very curious. I could ask, like, these more stupid questions. Why is the wall white? Why not? Why did they paint this wall white and or black? I was why is the road tar black? Why didn't they choose a different color like red? Just me driving and asking those questions was another thing I noticed about myself. And then the third thing was I noticed that I was extremely keen about improving processes. Right? Just naturally in my home. How we do things. Oh, babe. How can we streamline this thing? How can we do that? So for me, my three pillars then became curiosity, communication and, curiosity communication and this is I forgot to talk to you. My mind is blank right now. I just came back from playing golf. And you. Said, So there were three things. The third party thought I spent three days with, like, logical thinking. So for me, I knew that that was my person. And so I started to look for roles that aligned with my person, that allowed those things to flow naturally within me. I knew that was where I was going to get my sweet spots right. So in terms of, you know, doing finding that in terms of finding your person, you might go through like a personality test, which is absolutely fine. So that will give me great ideas. For me, I'm just, I like to think I'm a, I'm a good thinker. Like, I like to sit down and just think and think about weird things sometimes. So that's how I came about, that introspection and finding who I was as a person. Yeah. Thank thanks for sharing that. Honestly, I can relate with being on a career path that just doesn't light you up. Mine started as far back as undergrad. I studied electrical and computer engineering. Like. People will see me on campus. They're like, oh, you study electrical engineering? You saw me make you like you don't look like. I. Like me neither. I don't feel like social studies. Right? But I was so stubborn that I was like, no, I. This is what I told my parents I was going to study. And for me, changing majors just felt like I was like, oh my gosh, I'm a failure, you know? But just before I graduated as well, I knew that I, I can't do this. I can't do this for a living. I need something else. I like to I like more how to solve more high level business problems. I don't want to understand way that the circuit is shut down. I don't care. I just, you know. So for me to. I had to make that pivot. And even when I made that pivot to consulting, it was because I didn't know what I wanted to do. I was like, okay, maybe consulting will show me all these different industries, and then I'll be able to decide, but then guess what? Even when I started to know what okay, I think I know what I like, I know what I don't like, I do not like Excel. I don't like those financial models like, should me, I just let somebody else do it. And some people same here. All of it. They love it. And I'm just like, you know what is good somebody this one must do it right. So I have to do it. Hey! Quick one. Are you spinning your wheels but not moving forward? I know how frustrating it is when you're putting in the work but not seeing any progress. In my free Race Your Standards 21 day challenge, you'll get some life group coaching to uncover your blind spots. You reignite your momentum and finally make those bold moves you've been avoiding. Join the next round or get on the waitlist today. The link is in the description. All right. Back to the episode. So but then again for me and this is the situation that was in, I was limited to the types of jobs that I could apply for because in the US, I was in the US then I needed to. I could only apply to companies that were willing to sponsor my visa. That was my own reason for limitation. For some people that are probably like, okay, this sounds great, but I'm just not in the position where I can even find a job. Like right now, I just need to pay the bills right now. I need to keep my my family afloat. What's up? And I'm sure you've come across people like that, right? What's your advice for people like that? Like okay. Is it, you know, manage this one day you're in this. Okay. You're so well you find the one that is going to give you joy. Like how how do they balance that out? It's a great question. So. Each person's scenario will be different. Right. I strongly believe if you don't have something else or a backing financially to make sure that you're still able to, like, sustain your expenses because like I said, and then, you have expenses, delicate ways for you. You know, you. Have to think through it very logically, like what's pen to paper, calculate your expenses, you know, and all of that. Typically I always recommend that find it's first wise to have something. See why you have a job right. I feel like that's the best time to find yourself. Why. Because there's less pressure. You have income coming in right. The finances have been sorted out. You have the time to take the time you need to identify. Okay. What is the right path for me. Right. So typically that's how I recommend that people balance it out. However, if you're working in a toxic environment, right, you know and you just can't take it anymore. Again, like I said personally, check your accounts. You have what it takes to sustain, right? Unless you are just going to quit anyways. You know, saying like, unless you are just. Right. And then but you know, what I recommend is if you can stay in the job or stay afloat immensely, start discovering your path, right? Start that introspective thinking. Think about yourself. Think about the things that come to you next, right. Take those tests. Talk to people around you to find out. Oh, what? What do we got? This things that that you see that I'm good at. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Yeah. What? It's about me. You know what I'm saying? People around you usually have a pretty good case, you know. Well, let me bring at distance you think of so naturally, you know what I'm saying? You know, talk to people around you stuff, find other information. Why? You're why you still have something, right? You know, and then through that start to make that transition, typically that's what I recommend. You know, I love that I love that you said talk to people around you because that was what I was going to ask you next. When someone gave me this advice years ago or when I read books, we were talking about aligning. You know what, you want your career with something that gives you joy, aligns with your person, like you said, like, okay, what? Who is this person? Hey, I, the person said, I think someone said something along the lines of, you know what welcomes you? Naturally, that doesn't come to others naturally. Like you said, I was like, I, I don't know, because it comes so naturally to me that I don't even think about it. Yeah, that's because some things about us are so ingrained and we just we take it for granted. We just think, oh, really? That's something that people struggle with. So to your point about asking around, this is what I did years ago. I actually chose like 15 people, maybe former colleagues, close friends and family. And I just said to them, why would someone who was that was one problem that somebody will come to you with and you will say, Go to Keppel, she'll solve this thing for you. And that was something that it just it was an eye opener. I was like, really people, this is the problem for. Right? So I, I so love that. Do you have any other prompts that people can, you know, ask people around them or any of the tactical advice around that? One of the things that I did was I started to write down on a piece of paper, what are the things that I would enjoy doing in a job? It was. Not tied to a role. I wasn't thinking about a role or a title. What are the things that I would enjoy doing in the job? For me, one of those things was presentations. This was again, this was years ago, right? I didn't have the level of cybersecurity or even a vision strategy as I do now. Right? I would just think all the things I would enjoy doing in the job. So wasn't some of the most mundane things right? I would not sit in a room and brainstorm on problems together. Right. And, you know, work towards identifying how we would solve that problem. So kind of think about that. That is strategy. That's exactly all that strategy is. Yes. You know what I'm saying. But at that point in time, I did not know what that was. But I wrote it down. These are the things that I would want to do. So ask yourself as well where those things that you think you to enjoy. Write it down. Write it down. Take that exercise. Of course. In addition to like asking people, is that come to you naturally or desire to see the a good activity? You know, you said write it down and I know people will listen to this thing or they are watching. I will just gloss over the I said, okay, write it down. No, no, you will write it down. There is something magical and honestly productive that just happens when you write it down. When you start to write out or open them. You can correct me if that's not been your experience, but there is something about writing it down. The what exactly do you call your board? There's something about writing it down. The more you write it down, the clearer it becomes. First of all, you empty your brain of all that clutter so that there is even more room for creativity to flow, right? And once you start writing, you may want to like, oh my gosh, yeah, I never thought about this one. And then you start writing more of that. I'll do not like this. These are so simple. And because they're so simple, they're so easy to do, but they're just as easy not to do. Yeah I agree. No. So okay. Another one that that came to my mind as you were talking. Okay. You know how you said the best time to find a job is when you have a job right? But what about what if the answer is not even finding another job? Right? How how is how would someone distinguish between. Okay, I'm just in a rut right now. That has nothing to do with my job. And I just there's some things I need to fix. And this actual job that I'm in is actually going to light me up. And I'm sitting on a great opportunity here versus, okay, no, it's actually time for an actual career shift. So the question. Yeah. So how can someone distinguish between oh, I'm just in a rut, right? I don't need a career move. I'm just in a rut. I need to figure out what's going on here. And I'm actually in the best place I could be right now. Versus because we always have this thing, or we think the grass is greener on the other side. And sometimes it is. A lot of times it is. But, how do you distinguish between. No, no, stay where you are. There's just something you need to fix versus no, it's actually time to for a career change or to pivot to go somewhere else. Right. So you always want to start with identifying why you're feeling the way I feel, right? You know, we call it root cause analysis. Right in my line of work. Right. You want to identify what that is and obviously what that is dependent on the person would default. Right now I want to put a word of caution out there. You know, there is something extremely limiting about comfort, about being in your comfort zone. So. While you might think you don't need a move because everything seems. Cool. With where you are, doesn't mean that it's not time for a. Move, right? Because like, you will never find the growth you are looking for within your comfort zone. You you you just don't, right? Like until you. Stretch. You wouldn't really understand the true capacity that you have or. Right. I mean, you're, you're you know, you recently started your businesses or a couple. Is that's like your. It's no joke. Right. You know what I run a proper business is not a joke. No it's. Not. You know you got on this call you were saying my eyes are looking my. Is that because I'm, I'm going through it. It's all the work. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, number one, just really thinking, like, why am I in this rut? Why do I feel like I'm in this Roth right. You know, and identifying, you know, where do I want to be? Right. So current status analysis or root cause analysis? Feature state analysis. Identify the gap. Ask yourself the question where I am right now. Does it give me the potential to get to where I'm trying to be even though is since convertible. You're earning what. You know whatever. Right. But is it going to get me there. You have to ask yourself that tough question. Yeah, I, I love, I love that is. Oh you dropped some Mike bomb moments there. I just I didn't want to interrupt because I'm like, I want this to land for whoever is watching or listening. You cannot grow if you just continue to stay in your comfort zone. For most of us, the kind of life that we dream of, the kind of career that we dream of, the kind of business that we dream of, is on the other side of stretching. Right? There is something about basically where we are today and even what we think is our standard. And what the true standard is, what the not even our own vision for our lives, like the God vision for your life. And there is that gap and you are trying to reach it and most of the time you don't. Richard sitting on your couch, you don't reach it. Just going to work. 9 to 5, coming home, turning on Netflix and then going to bed at 11 and rinse, repeat. Okay. Right. No. No. Even me. Like even me. Even when I, when I've shifted jobs like maybe from one job to another, there was some stretching that had to happen, right? So finding finding the job that brings you joy. The career that brings you joy, the business that brings you joy is likely going to require some stretching. And this is, okay. This is where a lot of people struggle, I feel, because they expect that maybe it's going to be easy and because it is something that brings them joy, then it should just be easy. Can you share more about that? Actually, you're someone who is obviously doing something you love. You just started your own business and it's bringing you joy, but you just said you're going through it, right? Tell us more about that experience. That like so I so, you know, Ada, for example, were more than just career coaching. We run a hybrid model, but we're really a tech startup as well within the edtech space. Right. So what we are doing is actually exactly this topic, right? We've realized that there's a ton of people out there that I would just working jobs because they need to foot their bills. Right. But then if you're just working jobs to put your bill right where the job isn't allowing your personality to shine, more likely than not, you're not going to find the growth level we're looking for within that role. You know what I'm saying? Because they're so worried about doing the job that you're letting go of your personality, which is what really makes you shine, right? You've heard of that. That whole concept of is not really the most hardworking person that gets the promotions, that gets the movement slow. So you need to work in the role that where your personality can come to life, where people can advocate for you and love your person. That's growing your career, right? So, you know, at Ada, we're building an AI driven rule recommendation system that will take people's skill sets on personality to spit out information about. Number one here, a couple things that we think are strongest at. And based off of that, here are the you know, three tech roles. Again, this is specific for tech. Right now we have three tech roles that you should be considering. We rank them to you know, proprietary rank and logic for the user. And so that you can, you know, have that information and we give them a roadmap on exactly how to get there. Right. So we are building that. So now we've between that, I started this in March. So just March this year. And it's been a lot of work. Right. It's been a lot of work because I had to hire developers, and other people in the team to help out. So it's been a lot of meetings. It's a lot of late nights. If I sleep at 11 p.m., that's an extremely early night. Average sleep time is is one m right between 1 and 2 is when I sleep. Right. And I'm a planner mode person is like I am. I'm working. Because, I. Mean, there's a lot of strategy. There's a lot of like running things at this level where I'm at where again, I'm still pretty brand new. Before I could start get some things off right. So eventually it's still the business that I'm still having to do. So it's a lot of work and I still have a 95. So imagine after my next five, I have to have a 5 to 9, and then I have a 10 to 1. Right? That's how my life is structured right now. Oh, I. Have a family. And I have a family. I have a son, I have a wife. Right. And I also have to help out the other side of sense. So like, you know, it's it's a lot like my average days. Average days. I have ten plus meetings a day between my 95. And I'm at five tonight. Right. You know, so like it's, it's a it's a ton of work. Has it been easy. Absolutely not. You think I don't want to get sleep? I, I. Like sleep too. Right. But like, you know, if you're pursuing something, right, that you love, something that you want to build a future with. Right? Right. Takes time. And it takes that grinding initially. So outside of, like even business like when I if I remember when I started this new job, my current job and I draw, I draw is extremely meticulous about data, extremely like, oh you for a fact, all of our product managers are unequivocally better analysts as well. Oh, wow. A lot of data I can pull for you. Unlike I've, I've. Done. Ridiculous, right? Yeah. And you know, again, well, while I've always been data driven, I've always been more of primary data driven. So I've always gone out, you know, visit sites, observe users firsthand. But now I'll have to do that and really dig into this snowflake data to pull out the data. I need to tell the stories to make the decisions that I need to make. You know that for me, took time, had to learn new tools, right? These are things that I wasn't aware with, I wasn't aware of as in-depth as I should have. Right. So again, that took a lot of pruning. It took a lot of like grinding, taking courses and things like that. So this stretched me out of my comfort zone. Right. And obviously, like I can tell you for a fact, like what I've learned in the past two years in product management is very different from what what I learned in my, you know, many other years that I spent in product again, because again, it never I'm it's where I had to grow, I had to learn the industry and all of that. So, you know, the fact that it is within what you're meant to be working on doesn't mean that it's going to be easy. Yeah, not at all. Yeah, not. But you know what? It's almost like choose your hard, right? Yeah. Well, what would you rather be doing? Would you rather be at a job that is a dead end for your life or your mission, and it's aligned to who you really are? Are you miserable or would you rather be doing this? And at the end of the day, you are not going to be working in 9 to 5 and building either at the same like for for forever, right? At some point one is going to take over. Exactly. It doesn't mean that you just say recipient from drinks with umbrella in the cup wherever you want. Anyone to get bored doing that right? Continue to grow. But the point is, you will if you want, if you really want something, that this is how you even know how badly you want it, how much you're showing up for it, how much I'm showing up for yourself, and how much are you showing up so that you can actually change your story? So it's not, this dread scary Sunday scaries less than the literal. Oh, yeah. Yeah. There's Moody Mondays. Yeah, yeah. Hump day. Yeah. You're you're frankly CGI y. Yeah, that's going to be right. Up against it can't I? Yeah I guess you know the difference within like working with working within like what I am working on is while it's tough, you're going to find it fulfilling, how you know, while it is tough and when I'm in tough some days is going to be like, am I ready? So let's continue this. But when you look at it over a span of time, see, just pick a sample size of a month. You're going to find more fulfillment than those drawback days of past. I'm already sure what I'm doing here, you know what I'm saying? So yeah. That's how you know, they are working within something that is aligned with your person. Yeah, absolutely. It's it it does take time. It but it gets even more and feels even more and more fulfilling over, over a time. I love that I, you know, some people listening are like, okay, this all sounds great. But there is the reality of the job market. You know, there is the there is the comma. And I'm going to call it an excuse if you are triggered by this good. This is an excuse that oh the job market is crazy there. You know, there are more people out there seeking jobs and there are jobs available in what economy have we ever seen where there are more jobs than people available? Right. So going back to okay, now they know what they are good at. They know what comes them naturally. How do they actually then apply that to what is available on the job market. And just the reality of things today? Well, I mean, in the near future, you'd be able to take advantage of a tool like a diet or a beautiful woman. But while you are at it, you know, once you've identified again, sort of your strengths, ideally what you want to start doing is start talking to people, start doing research. Right. So you can do that research by again. Now with this is really easy these days with all these AI tools out there, you get a bunch of options of like, look at what rules are going to give me, you know, allow me to do these things. You know what I'm saying? That I can allow my personality, which is this, this, this and this to sign. Right? Because I get a bunch of options from like, AI tools that GPT, Gemini, right. And so on and so forth. Right. And then you can talk to people as well, find people that work in those roles, talk to them, try to understand what they experience is that's just not what they do. A need to day, right? What you are doing is you're filtering out the noise gradually, gradually. Right. So you land in a bucket of, okay, these are the kind of roles that I should be targeting, right? And typically at that point, once you've identified, okay, these are the kind of roles I should be targeting. Next question to ask yourself is do I have the skills? Do I have the skills to step into that role right now? If the answer is no and I know this is where, oh my God, this is way. A lot of people struggle with issues that look like you, and I get it. I come from my own country. Yes. You understand the value of investing in themselves, right? So would see it cost $3,000. No. The old maybe asking the school. Whoa, what is my guarantee? That's successful? That if I take this course, I'm going to find that. Went to a third party and spent $2,000. I'm easily right. You have. Once you identify the role, right, they're going for it. You've identified, you know, that you don't have the skills yet to take on that role. You need to go and gain the skills somehow. Please don't shy away from invest in yourself. Most right now. I was there was this right? I was working in accounting. Right. Miserable while I was broke and miserable in my job. And I went through that discovery process. I took a course, I took a course. Then I took $2,500 years ago. And that's a lot of money. Years ago. Fire broke. Boy still, there's serious money. That was almost my life savings from that paid. On, of course. But you see, it changed. I, I over at ten axed my income within this short period of years. Right. That 2500 investment. So now I don't think about that money and, and since then I've invested in so much more. You know what I'm saying? In my school. So once you've identified the role, I repeat it, I then check do I have the skills right? Do I have the skills it takes to identify that? Go to a few job descriptions for that role online, do you usually like to write to that? You have to be good at this. Do you understand what it mean? Yeah. If you don't, you don't have the skills. Yeah. Don't beat around the bush. They need you to gain the skills. You can go to roots to go to either a, you know, a proper vocational college, university or whatever. You can go to like a self-taught, self-paced course, right? Udemy, Coursera, whatever it is, get the skills. Once you've gained the skills, start to apply it to your resume easily. Majority of the times people don't really understand the concept of transferable skills. There are misery. Many things that you already do. Your current job right. For example, for my space, getting into tech, you know, the main thing is you probably already do that are transferable to the next role. So now you can isolate those transferable things and package your resume. So it's a remarketing strategy and market positioning strategy. Yeah. Positioning yourself differently. So for example someone who's always works in like operations trying to get into like I.T business analysis or I.T project management in operations. You manage projects there already so you can take those transferable skills and leave out the more you know detailed parts of your operations. Bring it, paste it into more of like the kind of roles you're trying to get. That's the concept of transferable skills. I mean. Yeah. Just sort of based off of that, now that you have the knowledge, you can actually sell it during an interview and you will be given a chance. Yeah, yeah. No, no. Yeah, I know, I know exactly what you mean. And I love that you said that. But for you, you came you went from accounting on finance and you moved to take. What were your transferable skills? Yes, I'll tell you. So, one was transferability by industry. Right? I had worked in accounting, had knowledge working on accounting assistance. So my first transferable skill was, okay, I know these accounting systems. And guess what? Every company I don't matter whether you and I company or maybe company, every company needs an accounting system. Why? Because they have inflows and outflows of cash. So I'm like, okay, I could start helping organizations to implement accounting systems and guess that's exactly what I did. Oh wow. I understood the problem. I understood the users, understood the use cases. And that's where that's exactly what I was exactly my entry point. That was the more second of all, working in accounting. I understood data, right. I understood how to run reports, build reports, all of these things, again, transferable skills. As well. In terms of like my natural ability to be a communicator as you can probably tell from this color idea. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. I was able to take that as well. Right. And demonstrates that strong communication skill that I have. Yeah. Those were the three things that I identified as most critical transferable skills into, into the space I was going to. Oh, also, by the way, before accounting, I customer service. Right. Oh. Meant a lot because again, I started my career in tech as a business analyst, as a customer, in customer, service, a lot of the things you are doing is you are, you know, you're getting inquiries from customers, you are gathering their requirements, or you can prefer a solution. Right? You are this you are gathering customer requirements. The only difference here is you're translating those requirements to the development team to prefer the customers with the solution and different customers. B2C mostly it is customer service, but now it's more B2B. The same goes. What the difference is. Those are the as a bit of transfer over and lift over market myself. Right? I love that you will Love me has given us two main buckets to pull from. Number one is just what you're naturally good at right now. Just comes naturally to you. We've talked about how you can extract those either from your brain or from other people, or from writing it out. And number two is just the skills that you actually gained on the current job or your past experiences, or even doing some work outside of, you know, your 9 to 5 or some people, maybe they've helped to put together a lot of events or programs at their church or their school. Whatever it is, they think you've done stuff on this. You spent your entire life literally sitting down doing nothing, which you probably haven't. You probably have some skills to transfer from where you currently are or where you've been before now, but to me, there is something. There is something that I noticed. You know, how you have a visceral reaction, what you were talking about, how people don't like to invest in themselves or which are nothing, just doesn't really get me. The second thing is I see is this, stats have shown this that men they will apply for a job, even if that they have this their skills much by just 30%. Women. If that thing is not like line by line by line, looks like they just kind of, you know, censor themselves from it's right. So to this point of if you see that you don't have the skills, go fill the gap way, where is the kind of gray area or balance where you might not have every single thing on the job description, but you might actually still qualify and actually get it? I am an example of that. So how do they draw that line? Fantastic. So I see it as if you see your job description right? And you barely understand anything on this. Like, you know, there's a difference between having the skills and understanding. It's. So as an example, if I look at your job description, right, for, an aeronautical engineer, someone who fixes planes and plane engines, chances are. That. I would maybe. About. 10% of what is there. My brother, my sister does is in that situation. You need to go and fill the gap right? But if you look at a job description and say, you know, I'm opening number 70% or whatever, or let's just see you understand what they're asking for and it doesn't look foreign to you always apply because you know when to this job description. Hey, here's a thing, for example. Like if if you know nothing about software project management, you know nothing about how software is built, know nothing about how software is implemented. Right? Do nothing about risk management, change management, all of those core concepts in project management. As an example. Right. You need to go to fit the gap. But if you do a now you see job description where maybe they go into details about specific frameworks. Right. So let's say they're talking about comply frameworks. Right. So right all of these different different frameworks. Right. But the bulk of like the core of the job itself, you understand, always apply because companies put up those things to actually sift out applicants. So you whose is it if you don't apply it. That's one less person to have to worry about in their so of not wow right. Is is never going to be 100% match. They know that but they are working in a psych psychology. You see it I think oh I don't have this line. I don't have this thing. I don't have this thing right. But hey, if you understand it, if you know what they're looking for. Always apply, Always apply. Oh. It's a sorting mechanism. When you don't apply it, you don't have to worry. About a little different. Okay. One next person to worry about. Oh, I never thought about it from that angle before. You know, like, if you don't apply, that's because. Because they're having to do with a large volume. A lot of if you say good morning, right. And even post the salary. And so there is good. Oh my goodness. Yeah. You, you actually really do miss 100% of the shots you don't take. Yeah. Point blank period. And who's who's caught. Is that is someone's with no purpose. Yeah. So when someone. You. Find it out okay. So this is another one that has been coming up a lot in conversations. And it's really around this whole, the, the, the dominance of AI. Right? People are afraid of their roles. They are afraid that, you know, their work will become extinct, blah, blah, blah, or AI is taking over. There are no jobs out there. I'm about to lose my job. What what's your advice to someone like that who is still trying to find the job that brings them joy, but they have this fear of okay, well, what about AI? Great question. And the difference, like you want to think about it from number one, do not be ignorant. Go and learn something about AI. That's just the plain blank truth. But you're not learning this from a position of fear, right? You are learning it actually from a position of a position of strength. Right? You want to know what is going on out there. That's the status in terms of the fear of, oh, I take it my job is gonna take my job, blah, blah, blah. You know. Not quite. Not yet at least. Right. If you are thinking about your job as just tasks that you fulfill and you don't really see the value you bring to an organization, then yeah, sure. Yeah, it's going to take a job. But yeah, you have to think about your job deeper than that of value to you. Bring to the organization. Right. What are those unique things that you bring to an organization? Because at end of the day, like AI is not going to communicate with the stakeholder like, communicate with capital. No, never. Them is never really going to understand. But cuz as, as as as as early as human being will. Right. So you should not be scared of it. And that's actually the reason why I start a lead with go and learn about AI. Because y z you know, if you're sitting in strategy meetings and you are able to recommend, for example, how companies how you organize, you can leverage AI in speeding up processes, in automating redundant processes. As an example, you are also a winner from that standpoint, right? So don't be scared of AI. Go learn it. Go on, understand it as well. You to have it in your toolkit. You know, I also don't know enough about it to be able to contribute in those meetings, right, with stakeholders when these conversations are being had. Right. But again, don't think about your job as a task, all right? Don't think about your job as a task. Think about the value that you really bring. So what that really means because like I said, the week for someone. So for example, you work in a job where they're doing accounts payable, accounts payable, you are receiving invoices that sort of get invoices from vendors. You process them through the next, pay cycle. Payment. Gets, checks, get mailed outs to the vendors. Right. If if all you think if that's all you're thinking about. It's just that I collect this. I process this. That's right. Yeah. We're going to replace you. We are thinking about is us. Okay, let me try the number of invoices again. What was delayed on this invoice or how can we streamline this process? Right. Is there something else we can do here? Right. You're thinking about the value more than just a task of of fulfilling that line, of getting vendors paid. The thinking deeper. How can we improve this process? How can we streamline things? Right. Improve communications with vendors. Right. What are those other things that we can do to surround your role that makes you more valuable to your company as a person? Really? Title. That's how you should be thinking about the job. Awesome. So put it. Just put it out there. You know, while AI is great, it does. It is capital intensive for organizations to, fully on board. It. Right. Is is it is capital intensive, not just that there is a there's a need for a mindset mindset shift for the senior executives to, audit you even if you don't know. A lot of some of these senior executives are also other people who are not necessarily pro. I. So it's not just going to wipe out the jobs like that, right. Them the Microsoft and and meta them. Right. Those kind of companies, they have the budgets. They have a visual look at their owners. You know, look at the founders. Where. They have the flexibility to quickly adopt. But there's still a lot of companies out there who are just going to jump in there just like that, right? Not to do so. Okay. You all stop living in fear of AI taking your job tomorrow because again, that's another excuse to not level up. Right? And this is even all the more reason why it's important to do a column is saying, you know, which is aligning your job with your person. And when you do that, you're able to really get clear on the value they actually bring to the table. And there's just there's something that but there's something that happens with human exchange. I cannot replace that. It will not replace it. It's unless I becomes a human being. And for that to happen, that means that a man and a woman must come together and actually conceive of ai egg and give it. A okay, like. It's a helper. So just everybody calm down. And rather than using all these noise as a reason to just not do anything, that's just not level up, go do the hard stuff. There's just that's just all there is to it behind all of this. So there is a mindset, right, that people need to have. We've talked about how, first of all, that you already said just, you know, thinking about your job not as just a bunch of tasks, but the value you bring, embracing the hard because what's the alternative really? The alternative is harder. But is there another like major mindset shift that you feel really needs to happen for people, for them to actually pivot into a joy that if it's a job that brings them joy. Amen. There's a lot, there's a lot. Some of those, like in this. I didn't study this. So like, you know, bachelors, you know, my background. I did not study this. So because of that, I can't do that. So for example, let's say you study. Animal husbandry. So this group. Right. You know. Thing because of that, you kind of work in cyber security. You you. It is it is one of the biggest ones. You deal with it. But if you. Really go out there, I dare you just go on LinkedIn and really look at people and their backgrounds. More like. You're going to find lots of people who are actually working in roles that align with their background. Absolutely. You and I examples. Exactly. You and I examples. And this is this is actually a very, very put on mindset shift because I have coached 1 or 2 people like that in the past that felt, oh, I see everybody else around me having the master's and PhD in this. Me okay. But you, you have a different kind of experience. You have different skill sets. You have transferable skills like we talked about. Right? I have a superpower in communication or in helping people break down problems into smaller tasks, like what is it like? What is your excuse. Right. And a lot of times these are the stories that we tell ourselves that stop us from actually reaching for something and sometimes even driven by that thing that just wants us to stay in our comfort zone again. But that comfort zone conversation, then we come up with this high and lofty sounding excuses right? Okay, one more thing before we go. So you mentioned how it's important to think about the value that you bring to the table. This is just me. I'm just curious about what you're doing with Ada because I think is so cool and I cannot wait to see it go right. But yeah, I, I really love that. Congratulations. That's awesome. So I'm curious, like, how would something like Ada hopes somebody even get that insight of, oh, yeah, apart from my skills, my personality and this and how I match with these rules are these this is the value that I bring as a person, or is this something that they still have to go? I mean, we always have to think for ourselves. We can never outsource all our thinking. To. Software. But like most people that how are you guys doing that? So, you know, I'll put it this way, we're not yet solving that. The problem where we want to solve, maybe in the future will get to solve that. Right. And, I like to think products. Right. So but my product mindset, I want to focus on one problem first. Right. True problem of getting people. In roles. Where they will find more fulfillment. Right? That's our goal right now. Very simple. We want to keep it simple that way. Streamlined I love it. Once we can solve that problem, then we can start to think about other things right? Here's how solving that first will facilitate, you know, people identifying better value. You see, the hypothesis that I'm working with here is also based off of like my own personal experience. Right? Which is the fact that when you're working in a role that you find better fulfillment in, things will come to you naturally. Ideas will come to you naturally. That you don't have to research anyway. You know what I'm saying. Okay. Like in my job right now, my 9 to 5 I promise you I'm at something. So sometimes I'm dreaming about my product solution. Something that I'm dreaming about or sometimes my dream. I've literally woken up one night because I had a dream or in my dream. Or maybe subconsciously, I thought about the solution to one of the problems I was solving, and I woke up rooted down on my phone. Yeah, we'll be in the shower and I'm not consciously thinking about it right? Yeah. Those things will come to you. Not more naturally, because you found your role where the job. It's so for me is a byproduct. Do you. Get. Like yeah. Oh my God I don't, I'm not to explain this but like. You explain it. Creating presentation decks for example. Oh perfect. So if you think about your deliverables in your job right. Christian presentation decks for me writing strategy decks. Those are my, you know, deliverables right. For me that's a byproduct. Do get is my output. But my outcome ideas that I bring right. Like when I'm leading those strategy sessions how I'm thinking through problems. Right. How am identifying those problems. How I'm quantifying the time, defining my why right and what it is to solve it, and why it's important to solve it. Right. And you know, when I, when my, process improvement hacks, I'm like, oh, we do, I know this, we always do this. How about if we do this instead? Once we get to this right instead? If if you kind of give me more. Yeah. I mean. Yeah. So when you, you know, you're working within a role where you're not worrying so much about the outputs, right? Yeah. Personality will start to shine more. So I'll give you an example. When I was working in accounting I was so worried about the output. Right. The deliverables. Because what that I enjoyed that it didn't allow my personality to shine. Shine. Yeah. My personality couldn't shine. I couldn't. Give. More of myself to the job or the company. Does that make sense? No, that makes sense. And that way because you're so blocked on that again, there's no room for creativity. You just. Create. Activity. Yeah, I, I can so really because sometimes when I'm and I'm so hung up on I just want this what you need to look good and to say the right things. And I'm not even thinking about what is the core insight I even want to communicate here. What's the problem that I'm trying to solve, you know, so sometimes times I back in those days I'll produce a document and I'm like, I worked so hard on this thing. Like, I worked my butt off under my boss to say, because I wasn't solving the actual problem. I wasn't letting things flow. And no, I can still relate with the whole downloads. I call them downloads that you get, and I'm just so I wake up, I'm like, God, thank you. Yeah, thanks for this. And I go write it down. And you know, when, whenever that kind of thing happens, you write it down and you execute on it without delay. Yeah, that is something with ideas that we get. That is something with, businesses that we want to pursue. Our vision life test it, that's what's the vision. And so give it to you and to say, okay, here take this. Yeah. But when you don't action it, I have I believe these things they're they're living and breathing. They just go to somebody else. Yes. That is why sometimes you wake up, be like, what? I had that idea. Right? Or somebody say something that emits an egg. I wanted. I thought about that, but I didn't see. That. Right. And say, you know, when this was. Oh, my gosh. What? Whoa. Okay, look at the time. Oh, they having fun. This was so good. Thank you so much. I really enjoyed this. And you all let me tell you how true me is to when he says one of his core strengths is always looking at how can we improve things? One of you is all of my few friends. I will send him something, say, hey sis, don't you think maybe you can do this? Why don't you include, your website or something? Make you important? And he always makes plans, right? So you can't really say, you ask me for. This. But this is the one that. You know what he's saying? I can testify to that. It's for real. And he said, is a great communicator. I'm pretty sure you had a lot of things to jot down today. He did ramble the way some of us ramble. And, yeah, I really enjoyed this. This was so good. I hope you enjoyed it too. Thank you. Yes I did. Yeah, yeah. And I'm just I'm looking forward to a time in, like, I can't wait for you to just be like, we're ready to roll. You all watch that face. Watch. Hey, that way I do right? Yes, ADR. ADR. Oh, nice. Okay, so for now, is there any other service like I you think you. I know you're coaching people, but is there a way you want them to reach you or you want him to reach you for. Totally. Like if you go to ADR idea RCom my our site is live, so you can see the services that are readily available. Anything that is already available is also there to do some information on like overbuilding, and like how to sign up to like, in a waitlist and all of that in a newsletter. So you start getting, immediate value even while we're building. Oh, I love that, I love that. Well, I direct com correct. All right. Get on the wait lists and start getting value, along the lines of aligning your person with your career. And I know we've talked about jobs. Jobs 9 to 5, but if you're also trying to build a business the way and I are doing on this side while we work on our 9 to 5, this is the exact thing to that you need to do understanding who your person is and aligning that. What are your transferable skills, right. It's not okay. Yeah, that's why I love this conversation because pretty much anyone, whether you're trying to do a 9 to 5 or a business, it applies it wise. Do not be afraid of the hard I love. Maybe there's even another conversation line, you know, coming up between you and I. I love it. I love it. Thank you all so much. Thanks for watching and see you on the next one. Thank you. Okay. Bye. Thanks for tuning in to Grow with Keppel. If this episode sparked something for you. Subscribe. Share it with a friend and keep growing. Your.