Jennifer McClure 0:04 Be very, very careful if you are blaming someone else for your lack of success or achievement or a situation, the pandemic, whatever it might be, because you have agency. The best gift you can give yourself is to really grab that agency that I have the power to make change in my life and that it can be and should be positive change, but first I need to identify what that looks like. And then I need to go do the work to make that happen.

Blake Schofield 0:43 My name is Blake Schofield, founder and CEO of Connections Illuminated, mom to three, and former corporate executive who got tired of sacrificing my life for a comfortable paycheck. My mission is to change women’s perspectives about what is possible, empowering them with the tools to create greater impact at home and at work without sacrificing their health time, family or income. This is The Bridge to Fulfillment. On this week’s episode of The Bridge to Fulfillment, I interviewed Jennifer McClure, who’s an entrepreneur, keynote speaker and high performance coach who works with leaders to leverage their influence, increase their impact and accelerate results. Frequently recognized as a global influencer and expert on the future of work, strategic leadership and innovative people strategies. Jennifer has decades in the trenches, leadership and executive experience working in and with startups, privately held companies in Fortune 500 organizations in a variety of industries. Jennifer is also the Chief Excitement Officer of Disrupt HR, a global community designed to move the collective thinking forward when it comes to talent in the workplace. And she hosts a weekly podcast, Impact Makers with Jennifer McClure, sharing conversations with practitioners, entrepreneurs, authors, and speakers who are changing the world while building careers that they love and lives that matter. On today’s episode, we talk about women and developing women leadership, but some of the insights that Jennifer shares in terms of self empowerment, and truly being able to understand and align yourself in the right work environment, I hope that you’ll find just as interesting and valuable as I did. Welcome, Jennifer, I’m so excited to get to spend a little bit of time chatting with you about leadership in the workplace, and just learning from you, your perspective, and what you’ve been sharing globally with so many different companies and different women out there. So welcome to The Bridge to Fulfillment.

Jennifer McClure 2:43 Thank you. I’m excited to be here, and to get a chance to talk about a topic that’s different than one I usually get asked to talk about, you know, women in leadership is obviously something that means something to me. So I’m looking forward to our discussion.

Blake Schofield 2:55 Me too. So can you share, I often say it helps in the context of who we’re listening to, and a little bit about them. And obviously, I’ve already shared a little bit about your bio and some of the things you’ve accomplished. But I would just love to know, maybe more personally a little bit more about you and your background so our audience feels like they get to know you a little bit.

Jennifer McClure 3:15 Sure I was reading, just updating my bio for this year, earlier this week and realize I haven’t there has decades of experience. And I’m like, do I want to keep that? And I was like, yeah, yeah, I do. Because it’s true. I mean, we can own both the age and the experience level. So I started my career, way back in time in the 80s, as an HR professional started as a department of one the youngest employee in the company and the only woman on the leadership team. And little did I know that that was going to be a trend going forward. After a few years at that company, relocated to Cincinnati and joined another company as an HR leader. And it was a startup situation and was the first and the youngest person promoted to management as Japanese company. So I took a step back because they they didn’t have a lot of management titles. So that was my goal to get back to that level. And was able to get there and then moved on in for a few years there to a VP of HR role at a company that was a turnaround situation, was not the only woman leader, thankfully at that position, but had a really supportive boss who believed in me and also really believed in what human resources could and should mean to the organization. So really had an opportunity, I think, to do some of my best work there. As part of the executive team, we turned the company around financially and culturally and sold it. The goal was within five years we sold it in two and a half. I stayed a little bit longer than I should have eventually found myself out on the streets trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life and chose to go to work in an executive search firm here in the Cincinnati area. After getting a lot of great advice from people who told me I was not ready to start my own business. And they were very accurate. But I didn’t know it, I was like, I’m gonna start my own business because that’s what people do when they don’t want to go back to the corporate world. But smart, smart people gave me a lot of good advice that I did not have a clue as to how to do that. So I should really join a team of people and learn from them. And I did. And after about four years there started my own company in 2010, where I am a professional speaker and executive coach. And I love talking about the topics of personal branding, communicating strategically, and high impact leadership.

Blake Schofield 5:36 That’s awesome. I love that. I don’t know if you know this, I don’t know if we share this, I actually started my career in human resources as well. I spent my time in recruiting and training for most of the time that I was there. So I have a real appreciation for Human Resource work, work with a lot of women with human resource backgrounds, I think those of us who just have a passion for helping people, a lot of times end up right starting their early ending there.

Jennifer McClure 6:00 Well, I like to tell people that I chose human resources, I say I was a Millennial before Millennials were a thing. Before we started labeling groups of people, I wanted to get to the place have the most impact as quickly as possible. As a 21 year old college graduate, I had never met, I don’t believe, someone who worked in it was called personnel back then personnel, the only job that I’d held well, two jobs one I got because I have a store manager and a small grocery store hired me, so I didn’t have HR experience there. And then the second one, my mom was a bank teller at a bank, and she got me a summer job. So I chose human resources, because I felt like that was the quickest path to impacting the most people that within HR, you have the opportunity to have influence and impact over the whole organization. And rather than just jet quote, just a small team. And I am decades into my career now. And I think that was an amazing choice for all the right reasons, because I still believe that but I expand that today, too. I believe leaders who really focus on where people have the opportunity to have real influence and impact I think HR is opportunity, because they do have responsibilities for all the people in the organization is is amplified, but any people leader has a real opportunity for influence and impact. But looking back, I think it was an inspired choice.

Blake Schofield 7:26 You mentioned when you started your career, you were, you know, clearly outnumbered men to women. And then as you have progressed, I would imagine, you know, after spending decades and in the workforce, I have you have seen things shift for women in the workforce from where they were 20 years ago, to where they are today. What are your thoughts in terms of places that you really see we’re winning and places where we have some significant challenges or opportunities that we would really want to address in the years to come?

Jennifer McClure 7:58 I have been asked this a couple of times, you know, kind of what’s my perspective on where where women in leadership were when I started versus the opportunities available to us now. And obviously, it’s different, it’s, there’s more opportunities, there’s more acceptance, there’s more willingness for people to not differentiate men and women in terms of, you know, who’s the best leader because of your gender. But there are certainly with that great amplification of opportunity comes great challenges as well. There are still people out there who have real issues with women in leadership, or maybe bias that they don’t verbalize, but it’s internal. Women have all the challenges they’ve always had, but probably at a greater scale with managing work and life in ideally, it’s both all types of people, not just male or female, but everyone who identifies in whatever way they do. That’s a challenge for all of us. But we also all know that women tend to share more of the burden when it comes to home and family life. So that just is. So there’s great challenges or great opportunities, I think for a woman leader who wants to really step into her greatness and have influence and impact and either move a company forward or really grow a team or be a great individual contributor. There are opportunities out that in spades to do that you may have to search around, maybe have a few failures before you find your success. But when I I started my career, I wasn’t thinking about any of those things. And I’m sure that comes from a place of privilege. But I really just thought I can make a difference. Did I hit obstacles along the way? Because I was a woman or because I was young at certain points? Sure. The conversation at that time and again, there wasn’t the internet and all these things. There wasn’t a lot of thought leadership out there about what it means to be a woman in a leadership role when I started so I just chose to keep going forward. And again, that comes from a place of privilege. I realized that But I didn’t really let it hold me back. And I don’t know if women today have that same opportunity to really just push forward with ignorance. Because we’re all much more aware of both the challenges and the opportunities of making sure there’s balance and leadership and that people feel like they belong and that everyone is included, and that we are really making conscious efforts to develop people all across the spectrum.

Blake Schofield 10:26 One of the things I often talk about is, I think we’re at the beginning places of a real tide change in terms of corporate America, and bringing humanity back to corporate America in ways that I think it hasn’t existed for decades. And it’s been improving over time. But this scenario, to me, that’s a natural strength of women, we are naturally tend to connect, care about people. And what I’m seeing, at least from my perspective, and interested to hear what you’re seeing, and what conversations you’re having is this real dichotomy between the companies that are holding to traditional values, traditional ways of doing things, versus the companies that are really understanding inclusive environments, balance, people work differently balanced teams, understanding people strengths and opportunities, and really building environments where people can thrive, that it’s not this thing that just anyone can be in that job. But it’s about understanding really, who’s best and right for that, and how do we create an environment where everyone’s voice is heard. And so I’m seeing it, as I’m seeing so many women honestly come to me from very traditional environments, where they’re now being told well, I mean, there’s a woman that came to me just a few weeks ago, for example, Jennifer, who is on the call with me, and she is at a more traditional company, and the employees wanted to keep some of the work life balance and flexibility that they had, and the CEOs commentary was, well, all I hear is that allows you to take your dog to the vet, and for you to go grocery shopping, I don’t see anything about the organization or anything about what you’re going to drive. It’s all me focused. And so as a result, I don’t think that we need that. And from my perspective, it was a really short sighted perspective, because you can look at the data and the data tells you very clearly, that a this is what employees want be employees that are happier and more productive, they drive better value for the organization, they stay longer. So I see this real dichotomy happening between companies that are really shifting and innovating in that space of companies that aren’t, what are you seeing? And what are your thoughts on that?

Jennifer McClure 12:32 Definitely, I think there’s a lot going on in the workplace. Now, in terms of the challenges, again, that the workplace faces and what the opportunities are, and some companies, as always, we’ll jump on that. I like to maybe remind people, though, that there are companies out there that have been and will be successful with very old school patriarchal thinking. So you know, these blanket statements that, you know, three years from now, everyone will have hybrid work, or everyone will have gender parity on their board, you know, I don’t know that that’s the case, there are always going to be old school companies with old school values, and some of them will be successful. And it’s really about us as individuals, looking at the culture and talking to leaders there and deciding if it’s the right fit for us. But to your point, I mean, obviously, I think there’s a real opportunity for companies and leaders who are looking at the landscape of the world of work and saying, if we can be more inclusive, if we can be more flexible, if we can find ways to allow people to have work and life kind of blend and also understand that they have needs and wants, just like we as a company have expectations and priorities. There’s an opportunity, I think there for them to really attract, recruit and retain really good people. So it comes down to not every company is going to change and not every company frankly, has to change, they will still get good talent, because either they’ll pay them a lot, or that’s where that talent feels comfortable. But I do think it’s the right way for leaders to be thinking about both having a place that is successful or an organization is successful and hitting our goals, but also finding ways for employees to win it work and succeed at life, too.

Blake Schofield 14:23 Yeah, I agree with you. This like all or nothing thinking it’s all gonna be discipline. We know that’s not true. Companies, I often talk to my clients about the fact that when you’re in a job search, you should consider it sort of like you’re dating. You should be interviewing the company and looking and saying, Is this somebody want to have kids with and be married to? Do you know what I mean? And I think far too often those people that are job searching, don’t look at it that way. They’re so focused on is this company gonna like me and am I going to impress them that what I often see is we haven’t talked about right, especially from an HR perspective, one of the most expensive things to do is hire the wrong person. Very, very costly. And yet, what I consistently see is both the candidates, people seeking jobs as well as the a lot of the hiring managers are not clear enough on their values on what they really want and need. And they’re not asking deep enough questions to really identify if it’s the right person. And it is like dating, you really need to understand fundamentally the right spot for you, because there are a ton of companies where you can add value. But if you’re not aligned with the company culture, if you’re not aligned with how they work, if the value system is a mismatch, all of those things then create so many other problems down the pike. And so to your point, there are some people that are more comfortable with more traditional values. And that’s more traditional ways of working, and that’s where they’re going to work. And those people aren’t just gonna go away. There’s options for each person, depending on how they fundamentally work best what they value and what that work life looks like for them.

Jennifer McClure 15:57 Well, I think you hit it on the head, it’s really a personal responsibility. Life is about personal responsibility. But we tend to blame other people when we’re not successful. If you have not really done your homework, when you are considering new career opportunities, and then you join a company, and you then are unhappy because their leadership is not progressive, or because you now don’t see a lot of women in leadership, or whatever that might be. I think you have to look, turn the finger back at yourself and say, did I really do the due diligence to find the place that’s the best fit for me, I kind of think of an example, as I said, you know, thinking about companies that are still successful, that have very old school patriarchal values, about 12 years ago, when I was in executive search, I had a client company that is a financial services institution, very old company, multi billion dollar company, very patriarchal leadership style of leaders had been there a very long time, and they had a lot of old school, you know, thoughts and values about how people should dress and how many hours you should spend at your desk and your chair and the way work should be done. And I was working with them to fill a director of recruiting roll, knowing those would be challenges. And you know, making sure that people were aware that this was a company that, you know, the culture was this from what I understood, and I’ll never forget that one of the candidates that I very qualified, super qualified for the position was an African American gentleman. And he went, let’s say his interview was at two o’clock, and he got there at like, 1:15, and sat in the lobby of the building and just observed. And ultimately, you know, he did go through with the interview, and neither side felt it was the right fit. But I was really impressed because he said, ‘I knew before I went into the interview that this was not the right fit for me, just by seeing who passed through the lobby, just by seeing how people interacted with each other, how they were dressed. And they expected people to wear a suit and tie. They expected women to wear dresses with pantyhose, no close toed shoes.’ All of these were things that I knew and had explained him, but he was able to just from observing the culture make a quick decision, this is not the right fit for me. Now, some might argue and say, ‘Well, you know, he could have really made a difference there.’ You know, maybe he could, maybe, but that’s where you have to decide if you are up for that challenge. Do I want to be the one tilting at the windmills? Is that my career path where I’m the the the sole individual calling for change in this big battleship? And so I, I’ve shared that story with candidates, as I think, you know, that’s one example of really looking to see not is this just a good job on paper? Or is the salary, right? Or do I like my boss? But will I actually enjoy working in this environment? And then this culture, and then through interviewing, asking good questions. If moving up in leadership is important to you, and you are a woman or a person from an underrepresented group, you should really be asking thoughtful questions and listening for answers about how others have or have not succeeded in the organization. Not only can you look around visually or on the website, and maybe see some of those things, but you should really be talking to people about thoughtful questions around those topics. So taking that personal responsibility is really important. Again, it’s easy to say now, I actually took screenshot of recruiter on Twitter last week, who shared kind of a thread that said, ‘Hey, if you’re recruiting me and you’re looking to recruit me away from my current company, here’s my requirements. My salary needs to be a minimum of 150. It needs to be a manager level role.’ I needed— it was, I mean, again, a person who’s been in the workforce decades, like myself looks at that and he’s like, ‘Oh, my God, so entitled.’ But the reality is, you know, at the end of his thread, he’s like, and you may think this is, you know, entitled or whatever he said, but I know my worth. And I’m being contacted by multiple companies, and I’m not afraid to put out there what I expect. That’s because it’s the candidates market. Right now, and he can do that. And he will probably get that in more, because he’s talented and got a good background and good experience. So we can’t look down on him and just saying up front, here’s, here’s what it’s going to take to even get me interested. But at the same time, I hope he’s doing the same thing on his end as well, really making sure and I’m sure he does person who’s laid out, what it’s gonna take to get me probably has a really good clue about what not environment they’re going to succeed in and what that looks like. But it’s always going to be I mean, the candidates are in the driver’s seat. Now, companies will be in the driver’s seat again, at some point in the future. So neither side can take it for granted that there’s responsibility to ensure that this is a good fit.

Blake Schofield 20:41 Yeah. You know, it’s interesting to hear you say that, I certainly would not necessarily advocate for someone to put something on Twitter. But I really do value the fact that he has clarity on this is really what I want in need. And it’s a huge part of what I always advocate for the reason we end up in environments that aren’t the right fit for us. The reason we feel a lot of stress or friction or anxiety is usually because something’s misaligned. And it’s misaligned because we don’t have that awareness of what I call your fulfillment framework, which is the things you need in your career in life to be truly fulfilled and happy. We don’t We haven’t unlocked our secret sauce, transferable skills. So we don’t know where we should be spending the majority of our time and where we add the biggest value. And we haven’t defined our criteria, we don’t understand the right and best fit for us. And if you’re missing those fundamental pieces, you’re going to accept whatever comes your way. And so we’re here to talk about right how to help women grow in their leadership. And I think this conversation is such an important one. Because if you don’t have that clarity for yourself, you will never be able to truly advocate or position yourself to grow in the way that you want. So love hearing you say, Jennifer, maybe I was ignorant. And I just went for it, you know, but there was there was a gumption of like, I know what I want, and what I’m going to go after. And that I think is so important. And I think generationally for women, many of us were not taught that. Right, many of us were taught to be grateful for the job, right, we had to work twice as hard to get recognized. I mean, a lot of things that were really true generationally, and you know, a number of decades ago. And I think that the tides have really turned where I’d love to see and empower more women to understand who they are, appreciate and understand their value in the context of where’s the best place, I can do this. Because you’re right, that one candidate, he probably could have made a great difference. But would he have suffered from stress and anxiety and frustration and all of these things that were completely avoidable if he put himself in the right environment that worked with how he naturally worked. So that was easy. So he could create impact in either organization. But I would venture to bet, far more impact in the organization that was aligned. That was easy. That felt fun, right?

Jennifer McClure 22:54 And that’s where I like your fulfillment framework. It is important. And I think, hopefully, this podcast and others who are listening, you know, the other things that your listeners are paying attention to will remind them, yes, there’s huge opportunity out there right now, you could quit your job today, if you have any talent whatsoever and get a job, you know, within a week, just talk to the recruiter last week. He’s an executive recruiter, you know, high level positions, he said, we don’t have, he said, I can’t think of a candidate that I’ve placed in the last few months that has not had at least three job offers at the same time. You know, so there’s opportunity. And I think I see people just jumping at the opportunities, more money, you know, remote work, whatever your darling of the day is, but they haven’t done the real deep work to say what is wholly important to me. It’s not just ‘oh, well, I, I don’t want to go back to the office. So I’m going to take this job because it says it’s remote.’ Well, did you do your homework to see what you know, are the 10 things that are really important to you? And does this job have, you know, eight or nine of those at least? Because I think what we’re going to see is, yeah, everybody’s talking about The Great Resignation, you know, people are jumping or leaving the workforce, leaving that they’ll be able to get back in when they’re ready, or they’re jumping to other opportunities. I’m not the first to say it, but I think within a few months, or maybe even a year or so we’ll see The Great Regret, you know, where people took jobs that they didn’t do a lot of that upfront, fleshing out of where they’re going to be able to add the most value where is a good fit for how they are and where they are mentally at the time and their their life and family needs. And they’re gonna be going, ‘Oh, well, yeah, I left that job.’ Or ‘maybe I wasn’t happy and I took another job where I’m still unhappy,’ because they didn’t do the work to figure out what’s going to be the right fit. I think the great regret is coming, not for money.

Blake Schofield 24:49 Some of what you’re saying is so aligned with what I talk about all the time. I spent 18 years in corporate retail, five different companies, and throughout my career was going through cycles before unfulfilled and unfulfilled, right? If fulfilled at the beginning, the honeymoon would wear off and that feeling would come back. And I kept making moves, hoping they would be better researching and figuring out what is it about this, that isn’t right. But I never addressed the root cause. And that’s often what I talk about why what we do here at the bridge doesn’t film and it’s helped women uncover the root cause of why they’re unfulfilled, and then actually help them align their work with their skills and passions, and their natural ways of working. So I completely agree with you. And I would say, the pattern that you’re talking about that great regret, like I have women come to me all of the time, because what we what we do is help women who want to do something different, right? Who are tired of doing the same thing, don’t want just another job where you could, yeah, next week, I can go get more of the same, but that’s not really what I want, I want to do something different. But they’re lacking this foundation and this knowledge and these skills to understand how to maximize them position themselves, and then they take this job. And then yeah, nine to 12 months later, they come to me and said, Right, I’m really unfulfilled and unhappy, most of the time underpaid, because they take pay cuts, because they don’t know and aren’t moving themselves to the right role. And so I think you’re very right, I think there are a lot of people who’ve recognized Wait, I want more out of my life than what I was getting. And wait, maybe the company I was at no longer is aligned with what I value. But if you’re not taking the time to actually do the deeper work, you will be back in the cycle over and over and over again. And probably the greatest lesson of my life to have spent as many years as I did, going through this process until I finally figured out what I was missing. But I watched this cycle happen all the time for people in their careers, it’s what I call the road to break down. It’s so hard to watch, because what I consistently see is, people keep hoping the next thing is going to be better. And they stay. You mentioned earlier, I stayed too long. They stay too long, right? And then what I see happen is either complete emotional or physical burnout, I can’t sit I can’t go back to this job one more day, and they quit, or debating quitting. Or they get put on a performance plan or lay off. I remember watching for so much my corporate career and being like, These people seem absolutely miserable on this job. Why are they here? Why are there so many people in this job miserable. And then when I understood this, I was like, Oh, I get it, because they feel trapped. Or they think that this is as good as it gets. Or they think they can hide it.

Jennifer McClure 27:25 Or they’re comfortable. You know, I didn’t leave or when I was asked to stay, which I should have said no when I was asked to stay because I had good reasons why it was time for me to go. And my former boss said, ‘I want you to stay and help the new guy.’ And I was like, ‘I’m not his HR person. I need to move on.’ He’s like, ‘you can help him.’ Well, and again, he was a friend, but it’s like, all the reasons why when I was clear, I made sense, you know, nine months or a year later still made sense. But as to your point, I had devolved into a very unhappy, very unproductive, toxic employee. And then ultimately, you know, he had to invite me to leave or when even invitation it was a here’s the deal. But we’re good friends today. Because thankfully, you know, I was able to realize even on the drive home that day, this was all my fault. I left him no choice. And that’s because I was comfortable with the amount of money that I was making, and comfortable with the title and comfortable enough that there was no you know, the discomfort and the unhappiness about the job were not enough to make me move on my own. And like sit on the drive home. I was like, thankfully, he pushed me out. Because who knows how much more toxic I could have gotten. Because I was simply taking the paycheck and saying this is good enough. So sometimes it’s that again, we haven’t done the work to say, this is not good enough. And there, you know, I’ve done this now that I’m an executive coach and you know, have have learned from some of my own experiences as well as have frameworks to work with others. I’ve worked with clients who are super talented, who are struggling in their job. And I will say to them, what would happen if you got fired because you took that risk? Or you did this or whatever. And again, because they’re super talented and good at what they do. They’re almost always will you know, when asked that question, we’ll kind of you know, look up and go. All I get recruiters to call me all the time for other jobs. Some of them sound really good, so I probably would be able to get another job fairly soon. Oh, okay. So why are you worried about taking that risk? Or why are you worried about asking for what you want? Or why are you worried about making a change? Because what’s the worst that could happen? The worst is you get fired and then you have the opportunity to go find your bliss elsewhere. You know, so I’m not you know, asking people to go out and break things just for the sake of breaking things but that’s what I found in myself and also with leaders that I work with when you really dig down to people who are resisting change. And that’s what it is when there are people out there who are unhappy in their current jobs, they’re resisting change. They’re saying, I have a family to feed. I’m resisting leaving, because I’m afraid I won’t be able to get another job. You know? So it’s really more about identifying those fears, figuring out, is that real? Or is that a story that I’m telling myself? And then what work do I need to do to get another job before I leave this job or whatever. But I know my own experience again, and probably many people that I see is too often we are sitting in the misery of where we are today and blaming the man, the boss, the woman, though whoever, my boss won’t let me do this. Or if I could only work remotely, my life would be better and my company won’t allow it. Okay, what’s causing you to not make change? I’ve yet to I’m sure maybe somebody could stump me. But I’ve yet to hear from a person a legitimate reason why they have to stay in a job they hate.

Blake Schofield 31:12 Yeah. 100%. It reminds me of a quote one of my mentor shared a few weeks ago from Virginia Satir. “Most people prefer the certainty of misery to the misery of uncertainty.”

Jennifer McClure 31:25 Absolutely. I chose it for a year. And I’m on the other side now. And I’ll tell you that the misery of uncertainties wait. Totally agree.

Blake Schofield 31:34 I spent honestly a decade of my 18 year career going through that I was exactly like you said resistance change. I think I was a victim of my circumstances. But I didn’t know it. One of my mentors calls it learned helplessness, right? When we think that we are incapable of creating change in our lives. And we believe that our circumstances are the reason why we can’t I love this topic, because it feels really aligned with what you said before about personal accountability and personal responsibility. And I know our time is almost up, it’s been such a pleasure talking with you. If I were to close things out, in terms of female leadership, or messages that you would love to share to inspire others, is there anything that I haven’t asked you that I should have?

Jennifer McClure 32:20 I just want to challenge and encourage your listeners to really know what you want and where you add the best value. And it sounds like you have a lot of great resources to help people with that. And be very, very careful if you are blaming someone else for your lack of success or achievement or a situation, the pandemic, whatever it might be, because you have agency. And again, maybe it is that you have to endure something for right now. But the best gift you can give yourself is to really grab that agency that I have the power to make change in my life. And that it can be and should be positive change. But first, I need to identify what that looks like. And then I need to go do the work to make that happen. So it might not be overnight, but I can find an opportunity that is a good fit for me right now. And know that that may and probably will change over time. So continue to do that work. Know yourself, know that you have the ability to make change, the majority of us in in the realm of your listenership have the opportunity to do whatever we want. So that’s my wish.

Blake Schofield 33:35 Thank you. I appreciate that. I see consistently when we take agency and ownership of our life. It enables us to show up and be better leaders. It’s amazing to me to watch, it’s the funniest thing, right? Women come to me because they want to leave their careers and do something else. And yet, within three to four weeks, their job so much better. They start getting all this positive feedback. I have had women negotiate raises while in that job. And it just really goes to show right that your circumstances are such a smaller piece of the puzzle. Truly showing up in leadership is showing up knowing that you have the power to create change, understanding what that change is that you want to create and then being able to influence others to bring that to fruition. Absolutely. I agree. Such a pleasure, Jennifer. So for anyone that’s listening that wants to just continue to hear from you or connect with you. What’s the easiest way for them to do that?

Jennifer McClure 34:32 You can find all things Jennifer McClure at JenniferMcClure.net. That’s my website. And I’m on the social platforms at Jennifer McClure on Twitter, LinkedIn, you don’t need to connect with me nobody’s using Facebook, Instagram. So I’m out there, and if you’d like to do some work, it sounds like it’s a good fit with the the resources that you have available. I have a personal brand workbook where you could actually go through and really do some work on what your personal brand is and I recommend to people that you do that on a regular basis because again, you’ll evolve your personal brand will evolve and change. And you can find that at JenniferMcClure.net/pbworkbook and that’ll give you something that after you’ve spent all this time over the last few months, maybe looking at your goals and valuing, what do you want to do to the future, you can now really kind of focus in on yourself.

Blake Schofield 35:22 Awesome. Thank you so much, Jennifer, really appreciate it. And for those of you listening, I hope that you got some great inspiration, a tidbit to take away with you about what’s that one thing that you’re going to change or do today to create more empowerment to be able to really create the life that you want. Thanks for joining me today, rather than hope the grass will be greener, identify what the right next step is. We can help you do just that. Get clarity on where you are in your journey to career fulfillment, where you’re headed, optimal paths to get there, and the right next step to take. Start your complimentary personalized career fulfillment plan at www.thebridgetofulfillment.com/plan. Again, you can get your personalized career fulfillment plan at thebridgetofulfillment.com/plan. Thanks again for joining and have a great week ahead.