Career Catalyst

On the 6th episode of season 3, we welcome Chad Shackford who is an Aviation Safety Inspector for the Federal Aviation Authority, and has spent his career living out his childhood dream to be a pilot.  Oddly enough though, halfway his career he pursued an opportunity that meant he would not actively fly commercial airplanes.  Chad has a great story with lessons that are applicable to any career, including many decisions to balance family / work-life and choice of where he wanted to live.  If you have ever dreamed of being a pilot or have a lifelong passion, this is a great career story told by a great guy.

Season 3 interviews kick-off with an interview of Amanda Gettes, who is the Executive Dean of Urban Agriculture at City Colleges of Chicago, where she is on the leading edge of building education programs for the development of Cannabis and other urban farming initiatives.  She started her career in environmental science, but pivoted into public service, then pursued an opportunity in higher education.  Her story is filled with critical decision points leading to career changes that set-up her role leading strategic initiatives at Olive Harvey College, and eventually her role leading the Urban Agriculture program.  Not only does Amanda have a great career story, she's also my little cousin, so I cannot stress how proud I am to know her both personally and professionally.

Finishing off our look back at previous episodes, we revisit the discussion with Tony Giberti, which is one of the most popular episodes we have had on Career Catalyst.  In this episode, we focus on a few of the insights Tony has on his career as he discusses the importance of finding your passion and understanding how you can make an impact to achieve a rewarding career.  He has shares his story with how he landed a leadership role at the start-up Wellnecity and how he manages stress in daily routines.  If you enjoy these insights, we highly recommend you listen to the complete episode (004), season 1, episode 4.

In this episode, we continue the "highlight" format, pulling together some great insights from Meredith Smith's interview (Season 2, Episode 1) where she talks about her "non-linear" career.  Meredith has some fantastic insights about how to think about your career like a sculpture, first taking large chunks out of the block of wood (or marble, or ice....whatever your material), then starting to get more finite with your touches, brushing and sanding to get more fine tuned.  She also talks about how important it is to find good people to help you understand and learn throughout your career, and avoid those who can work against you. 

In the spring of 2021, we sat down with Rob Cancilla, a career coach and executive recruiter who has amassed a large following on TikTok with his expert advice for job seekers.  In this highlight episode, we focus on some of the key insights from the full episode, focusing on how he has leveraged his network to successfully navigate 6 career changes and how he found his way to TikTok as a content creator.

Rob has a great story that starts at Syracuse University where he went in pursuing a film production degree, but wound up obtaining a communications degree.  He has moved from managing customer support teams to leading development efforts at non-profit, and more recently stints at digital start-ups and major tech companies like Facebook and Pinterest.  He now is the Talent Strategy Director at Hunt Club, a venture backed search agency focused on changing the way companies (and individuals) go about finding their next candidate (or career move).

We kick-off season 3 of Career Catalyst, we are testing out some new formats and going back into the first 2 seasons to highlight some of the insights our guests shared about career development and how to create your own career story.  Also, I have a new partner on the show, Zach Jewell, who is a broadcast engineer for Learfield Sports and is considerably younger than I.  He offers up some excellent alternative perspectives on the discussions.

In the first episode of season 3, we revisit the conversation with Neely Tamminga, who describes herself as a "Economic Nutritionist" and after nearly three decades in banking and on Wall Street, she and a partner started their own boardroom advisory business called Distilled.  The original discussion was published in November of 2020, but so much of her insights and perspectives certainly have a long shelf-life.  We focus on a few of the key themes she has built her career on, including having intentionality, building strong relationships with mentors, and navigating tough decisions.

On this final episode of season 2, I talk with a unique guest who has forged his own path in a career that has ranged from insurance sales, to rental car agency management, to payment processing, and most recently in a financial management role at Northwestern Mutual. His name is Terrence Floyd, and he shares his story about the importance of perseverance, setting personal goals, and creating independent income streams. His insights are unique and helpful, and many of his quotes are memorable.

The fascinating twist was that his journey had a very interesting turn early on, when. his roommate at Delaware St inadvertently brought nunchucks to their dorm room, resulting in Terrence transferring to North Carolina A&T.  In addition to the sticky situation with the marital arts weapons, he spent 6 years studying a field he wound up pivoting out of immediately after finishing his masters degree.

For anyone who has contemplated 100% commission roles or starting a business in an open territory, this is a great conversation to learn about the ups and downs of being in business for yourself.

On the next episode, my guest has a career story that ranges running tech start-ups, grinding at IBM, owning pizza franchise and writing a book. His name is Erik Severinghaus and he talks about the highs and lows of his journey, and why those life lessons propelled him to the top of Mt Everest.

Erik has his first book coming out in May called “Scale Your Everest: How to Be A Resilient Entrepreneur” and he shares some of the inspiration for writing the book in our discussion. He also talks about how he used his experience at IBM to polish his business skills and apply it to other companies he would start later in his career. The discussion includes great insights about the difficulties and hardships of being an entrepreneur, and how to overcome some of the most difficult moments.

Whether you are looking to start your own company or just contemplating your next steps in your career, Erik shares strong insights and perspectives about why being resilient can lead to success in any type of career journey.

In the next episode of Career Catalyst, I have a conversation with a guy who has had a wide ranging career and finds himself today creating job searching and career planning advice content on TikTok and LinkedIn.  His name is Rob Cancilla and his career journey has spanned high end credit card customer service, program management for executive education at the Harvard Business School, consulting at PWC, working at video/content ventures, leading efforts at a career development firm for the visually impaired, and, most recently, an executive recruiter for a tech enabled search start-up.  

Along with a fascinating career story, Rob shares great advice on how to think about a career.  He also provides some perspective about where job search and career planning efforts are going as new platforms continue to mature and employers get smarter about how they evaluate and hire talent.

After you listen to the show, be sure to check him out on TikTok and on LinkedIn, as he gives some powerful advice about all sorts of topics related to building a strong profile on LinkedIn, to how to prepare for an interview and what to do when negotiating your offer with a company.

In the 5th episode of season 2, I speak with Dan Moriarty the Digital Leader for both the Chicago Bulls and the Chicago White Sox.  Dan's career story starts out with a brief attempt as an entrepreneur, and then launches into a great path in digital strategy.  His journey is fully aligned with the digital wave of the last 2 decades, and starts in an agency, goes to a large hotel chain and then lands him in an opportunity to connect fans with the Bulls and White Sox through digital touchpoint.  Dan is a digital expert and has been on the cutting edge of many digital experiences at Hyatt Hotels and now in sports.

Dan provides great advice about how to build your skills and focus on opportunities that will create new paths, versus simply chasing compensation.  He references a great quote about the challenge with life, in that it is best understood backwards, but you are forced to live it forward.  Anyone looking to find a path in digital experiences and marketing will want to check out this conversation.