Transcript, E190: Dorie Clark on reinventing you

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Network ID: LinkedIn News.

Jessi Hempel:

Hey, it's Jessi. The Hello Monday team was off for a lot of last week because we were celebrating Thanksgiving with family and friends. There are so many things to be thankful for this year. One of them certainly is our Hello Monday community, those of you who listen, those of you who come to Office Hours. And Sarah Storm, our producer, and I will be at Office Hours as usual this Wednesday afternoon at 3:00 pm. We hope you'll join us. But for this week we bring you an episode from our archives. This is one with one of our favorite guests in the studio. In fact, she's come more than once, Dorie Clark. She speaks to us this week on her book Reinventing You.

From the news team at LinkedIn, I'm Jessi Hempel and this is Hello Monday, our show about the changing nature of work and how that work is changing us. Okay, so quick question. Don't overthink it. What's your Plan B? What are you going to do if your job goes away and your industry flat lines? Because this is definitely part of what's going on this year. Big media companies, I spent most of my career working for them and I've been really crushed to watch so many of my friends and former colleagues, really talented people, get laid off.

And it's got me thinking, as we prepare for this next big shift, maybe we just shouldn't be looking for a job like the one we have. Maybe it's time to look for something else. So how do you begin to do that? If anyone has a good answer to that question, it's my friend Dorie Clark. Dorie's a master at reinvention. She's actually written a book on it called Reinventing You. She's written a couple of books and she's a coach and she teaches. She's taught recently at the Business School in Columbia and Duke, which is to say that she's qualified on paper. But I'm here to tell you she's also qualified in person. A couple years ago, I called her up for a drink when I needed advice on my own side hustle. Why Dorie? Well, she's all action. Tips, ideas. And she's always in your corner. That, and she speaks from experience. Dorie lost her job after 9/11. It really shook her. Here's Dorie.

Dorie Clark:

It's something that has been on my mind for a long time, honestly, because during one of the last great national calamities in 9/11, I lost my job as a newspaper reporter and was unemployed and was given four days of severance pay and suddenly had to support myself. So, I really dove headfirst into the question of how do you deal with being laid off and losing your job in the midst of a truly terrible and frightening economic situation? Ah, so I, I definitely have a lot of thoughts and, and ideas to share.

Jessi Hempel:

Wow, so, ah, as a journalist, um, I will say that it, every year that I have been in the profession I have seen layoff at the institutions I've worked for. And that is not targeting one institution, it's every institution. It is an industry that is deeply troubled. Um, but 9/11, that's going back nearly 20 years. What was your life like then? What did you think you would do before that happened?

Dorie Clark:

Well, I think it's, um, somewhat analogous to our current situation. Right now, if you are a journalist let's say, it's not really a huge surprise when people get laid off because that's a thing that happens to journalists. But in 2001, it was a stunning and shocking thing that a journalist would be laid off, because we forget it now, but the year 2000 was literally the best year, all time, in history for the print journalism industry. It was, it was dripping in profits. It was so lucrative, and then everything-

Jessi Hempel:

Dorie, I totally remember that. Not to stop you, but I, shortly after that period, w- within a decade after that period, I went to work for Fortune Magazine and they always talked about that trip to Hawaii for the entire editorial staff in the year 2000.

Dorie Clark:

Yes.

Jessi Hempel:

And I was like, this is the life that I want.

Dorie Clark:

And that's what I thought I was signing up for, Jessi. I thought it would be all trips to Hawaii and yet, no. So I was, I was really in the first wave of people that was laid off. And I, it had literally just never occurred to me that this could happen. I mean, first of all it was my first job out of grad school, so I, I didn't know what was what. But I just never thought that journalism wouldn't be a secure industry, and I think for a lot of people who are experiencing a layoff now or who might feel that they are threatened with such a thing down the line, I mean, no one foresaw a pandemic like this. And so it's not like people have necessarily had a long time to think, "Oh gosh, I see all my friends around me being laid off. I should probably be cooking up a Plan B."

For many people who are experiencing it today, it is coming, like, a, a bolt out of the blue and suddenly they have to deal with this very rapidly and very quickly.

Jessi Hempel:

If you are in a place where you're needing to come up with something new or you suspect that you may in the future, how, how do you even start to think about what that means for you?

Dorie Clark:

Well, there's a couple of ways to think about it. So, the first is about the urgency level, essentially. Ah, because if you are in a position where you don't necessarily need to earn money tomorrow but you think, "Oh, okay. This is a wake up call. I need to start planning for it." Then, whenever there's a longer time horizon, you can be a little bit more thoughtful, a little bit more deliberate. And you can start taking what I would call longer term steps that will position you better down the road. And so there's activities that you can do in that situation. Maybe it is starting a blog or a podcast or starting to write and create content on LinkedIn. Something that can establish your expertise in your field, whether you want to continue in your current one or maybe you want to plan a longer term pivot and transition to another one. And those are great ways to get started and lay the groundwork.

Jessi Hempel:

I wanna jump in there and, and really hammer that home a second. Because this really is your super power, Dorie. You are personally very, very good at it. Um, one thing that I think is new about the time that we live in right now, is that it used to be that if you were a journalist as you began [inaudible 00:06:33], then it made sense for you to be writing on these platforms, branding yourself, as it were. But today, kind of anything that you want to do professionally, you're gonna better position yourself for the future if you brand yourself to a content. And I think it's really overwhelming for a lot of people and a lot of people ask me, and so I would ask you, like, where do I begin? How do I know what is useless and spinning my wheels and what matters?

Dorie Clark:

I will second what you're saying, I think it really is important because ultimately when you are creating content or you're putting something out into the world, that is the way that people who do not already know you personally can get a better sense of who you are as a person. And what's powerful about that, is it eliminates a large part of the risk that's involved in hiring you. And whenever you can do that, it is way better for your career. If you can make it less risky for people to pick you rather than someone else, that is a great thing.

So, one of the best ways that you can get started is literally to just make note of all of the questions that people ask you all the time. You're at a cocktail party, you're hanging out with people, and they have questions about your, your field, your industry, they wanna know certain things. Maybe there's myths or misconceptions that bother you. You know, you might have a contrarian opinion, you might say, "No, location based interfaces are not the future of X, Y, Z." Well okay, tell us why. Share your opinion. Put it out there.

If you don't feel ready to start, um, you know, putting your own opinions out there, something that I tell people is a fantastic way to get started with training wheels is to interview other people. Reach out to colleagues or senior leaders or, you know, even somebody potentially who has a, a book out. I can guarantee that, that for many people, if you're not talking about, you know, world renowned level, almost anyone with a book wants to promote that book. And if you say, "Hey, can I, can I interview you? Can I talk to you and write something about it?" Even if it's for your LinkedIn page or if it's for, you know, something on a, a platform like Medium where anyone can contribute. The odds are, they may well say yes and it's a great way to help shine a light on someone that you admire and also, ah, begin to create content under your name and to hone your own thinking about professional development in your field.

Jessi Hempel:

I'm so glad that you, you bring up the interview strategy because I find time and time again that people... And I'll tell you, in particular women over men, will say to me, "I, I'm not really confident enough in my idea to feel like anybody would want to share it or read it." And if you've been in this business long enough, you realize that nobody needs confidence. You just get out there and you, you know, it's like throwing you in the pool. You will learn how to swim.

Um, but thinking about how to ease into it is really important. I love that idea that you have. Another thing that I see people do a lot is share other people's work, because that is it's own way of telling the world about who you are and what you're interested in, right?

Dorie Clark:

That's exactly right. Pretty much any robot can just hit click, click, retweet. But if you share things in a thoughtful and curated manner and actually take the time to explain why you like it or why you think it's relevant, that is very powerful. Because it... Again, what you're trying to do is give people a lens into your thinking and how you see the world. And when you do that, they get a better sense of your personality and what you might be like to work with. If, if we want your, you know, to use some lingo here, if we want your brand to scale. You know, if we, if we want people to know you outside of the human beings who literally already know you in person, you need to give them a way to be able to do that. And if you're using social media or the internet as a way of conveying your ideas so that other people can see it and feel like, "Oh yeah, I know what she's like. She seems cool." That's a, a fantastic way to, to really get known which translates into much better professional results, because people already have a favorable opinion of you.

Jessi Hempel:

If folks don't have the capacity to be everywhere all at once and they need a front door, is it a newsletter, a Twitter feed, a profile on a social media site?

Dorie Clark:

So, what I advise people to do as they're thinking about their, their brand building, is... Ah, and I'm not sucking up here, I, I do think that LinkedIn is, um, non-negotiable for, um, for most professionals today. It ranks very highly in, ah, in search engine algorithms. It is usually one of the first things that people will find about you. And so, and also it is amazing because it is one of the very few places on the web where you can make it exactly what you want. If you had the opportunity to have one place on the internet where you can literally just say your piece, say what you want to say about who you are as a human being and what you have accomplished, unfiltered by other people and their interpretations and their agendas, why would you not do that?

And yet, so many people have these, like, barren profiles that they haven't updated in years. It looks like a ghost town. I, I think that having, ah, a robust and, and, you know, well tended LinkedIn profile is really important and really essential for most people. If you have your own business, if you're an entrepreneur, then I think additionally it's important to have, ah, a website that conveys more about you and your products and services. I do think that for every professional, whether you work for yourself or not, you need to buy the URL of your name immediately so that some squatter does not and then they'll hold you hostage 20 years from now when you finally decide it's time for you to own it.

Jessi Hempel:

We're gonna take a quick break and when we come back, Dorie shares more on how to formulate your plan B, even as you're living out your plan A.

And we're back. My guest today is Dorie Clark, speaker, coach and author of Entrepreneurial You. We're talking about reinventing ourselves, which often requires some capital. Here's Dorie.

Dorie Clark:

In my book Entrepreneurial You, what I really, specifically focus on is how can professionals, people, you know, white collar, knowledge workers, earn additional revenue and create multiple revenue streams for themselves. And so, if we look at where's the low hanging fruit, what is the thing that you can do as rapidly as possible, it is typically performing some kind of professional service. It could be coaching, it could be consulting, it could be, ah, a service that you happen to be good at, like photography or, I don't know, organizing closets. Whatever it is, it could be tied to what your regular job is or was. You know, the asterisk on that is, of course, it depends what kind of contracts you've signed with your employer, um, in terms of non-competes. But, ah, it also could be something that is outside the realm of what you do professionally.

And the reason that that is usually the best and quickest thing to turn to is, number one, there's no start-up costs. You know, if I want to say, "Hey, I'm a consultant," you don't have to get an office, you don't have to pay for anything. You really just need to start reaching out to people, reaching out to people who might potentially buy your services and say, "Hey, I'm doing this thing." Ah, so it's very inexpensive as compared to some of the things that people come up with, like, "Oh, I'm gonna resell things on Amazon," or, "Oh, I'm gonna start a franchise." I mean, those, those things have a huge cash-out leg, so you wanna go quick and dirty and cheap.

And also, if you have built up a good reputation amongst your friends, amongst your network, ah, you often when you raise your hand can actually get clients relatively rapidly once you start saying, "Hey, I'm doing this thing. Let me know if you're interested or let me know if someone you know is interested."

Jessi Hempel:

How do you figure out the tactical pieces of that? Let's take the example of, um, closet organizing. Great, maybe you have people who are interested in that. How, how do you figure out how much money to charge them?

Dorie Clark:

Yeah. So, there's, there's a few pieces here. The first thing, actually, is that you will discover that pretty much no one wants to be the guinea pig, so no one wants to be the first person literally in history that you've ever done something for. So a great thing to do is to pick a small number... This, you know, you don't want this to go on forever. But pick maybe three people who you can get to agree to be your volunteer clients, and you do it totally pro bono. And you do it because you want to get a testimonial and you want to get referrals. And that way, you're able to, to actually approach future clients with a lot more confidence because you can say, "Oh, well your, your closet situation is just like a, a person's that I worked with a while ago. She had X, Y, Z problem and I think we can solve yours the exact same way." That client is reassured because they say, "Oh, she's seen this before. Okay, I know she can help me. Maybe have some nice before and after pictures." And it, it's convincing.

So, that's number one, is it gives you the confidence. It gives you the ability to charge more because you can prove to people that you actually have gotten results and it's not just theoretical. In terms of how much to charge, there are a lot of professional communities on, on the web these days. Um, there's, you know, sort of like, online masterminds, Facebook groups, things like that, for people in given professions. And, you know, I actually run one in the consulting and, and executive coaching space.

And those are the kind of intimate communities where people can trade information about pricing and things that might be a little bit sensitive to disclose. If something is a, a, you know, B2C transaction, business to consumer, oftentimes you can literally just find out on people's websites. You know, oh okay, they're a closet organizer. They charge X amount per hour or whatever it is. But for often, kind of, higher level, ah, professional services or bigger ticket things, there's often a hesitancy for people to talk about. And so I'd say, if you, if you have any friends or connections that can introduce you to people where you can ask them legitimate open questions, or joining, ah, typically an online professional community, that can be very, very valuable in getting that intelligence.

Jessi Hempel:

Now, if you need money quickly this probably isn't an option. But if you ha- have a little bit of an economic runway, um, do you recommend a coach? Is that something people need or can people do that themselves?

Dorie Clark:

So, I... You know, asterisk, I do executive coaching. So I find value in it, for sure. Um, but I will, I will say that, um, in the early days of my business I was not in a position to afford coaching myself. Um, you know, so I, I do eat my own dog food. I have worked with executive coaches myself in addition to, ah, to coaching others on, you know, different things, right? We all have different areas where we are very proficient and can teach others and we have different areas where we need to grow and get better.

But in the early days of my business when I really didn't have a lot of cash margin, what I did was I, I kicked it old school, Jessi. I became the best library patron in the history of the universe. And for about two years, two to three years, I was checking out between two and three books per week and I, I was just literally reading hundreds of business books so that I could acquaint myself with the canon of business literature and best practices. Because I didn't know anything about this, ah, when I, when I got started. I had good subject matter expertise which a lot of people do when they start a business. I knew a lot about marketing and communications. But I didn't know a lot about running a business, doing marketing and communications. And so, I really embarked upon a program to try to educate myself in that area.

Jessi Hempel:

You know, as I'm listening to you, I'm hearing this through line, um, that comes up for a lot of our guests, and that's that if there's a thing that they need to know to execute the project, run the business, start the company, they just believe that they can go and learn it. And I'm curious, Dorie, where does that confidence to believe that if you read enough books from the library, surely you can figure it out, come from? Can we fake it?

Dorie Clark:

If you have been able to hold down a, a decent job at a good company. If you, ah, have become a college graduate or, or what have you. If you have managed to do those things, I'm not sure why you couldn't. Nobody knows calculus before they take a calculus class. Nobody knows how to, ah, perform lab experiments before someone shows them. You-

Jessi Hempel:

But Dorie, I didn't know how to do calculus after I took a calculus class. (Laughing) And we don't all have dispositions for anything we pick up, even smart people.

Dorie Clark:

I, I think that entrepreneurship is something that is a constellation of different skills and it is a lot more about, about willingness to, to learn and to try than about, ah, any kind of natural disposition. I mean, it's sort of a classic, do you have the fixed mindset or the growth mindset, right? If you're a smart person, you can figure things out. And there's some things that I continue to not be amazing at but I'm good enough. And then there are some things where I think I really excel. And, like anything else, you just, you try to lean into those as much as you can.

But, ah, I think, ah, I did always have the belief that yeah, I was intelligent enough and, ah, I was, I was gonna learn this because I committed to learning it.

Jessi Hempel:

There's one more thing I wanna talk to you about, Dorie. The other thing that this window of time gives us is time, for some of us a lot of it, those of us with small kids less of it. Um, and that time sometimes allows us the space to rethink what we're doing and some of us are figuring out we actually don't want to be doing it at all. And I know you know a lot about reinvention. Where do we even begin if you've discovered that the thing that you're doing day-to-day is not bringing you enough joy?

Dorie Clark:

Yeah, it's such a important point, Jessi, and, ah, you're right, of course. I, I spent a lot of time thinking about reinvention. Um, my first book was Reinventing You. And in my twenties I had a zillion jobs after my, ah, ill fated journalism career. I worked in politics as a political campaign spokesperson, I ran a non-profit, ah, did a lot of things before settling into having my own consulting and executive coaching business. And so, if someone is starting to feel the stirrings of, ah, discontent in some way, ah, hearkening back to our first point actually, I would say the, the most important thing that you can do is to really leverage and make use of your runway as much as possible.

The truth is, you can reinvent yourself into literally almost anything as long as your runway is long enough. The problem that a lot of people have is that they assume that things have to be an all or nothing proposition. They assume that, oh well, I've decided I'm not happy in my current career so obviously I'm gonna quite my job and then suddenly find another job. Well, first of all, we, we all know, especially in a down economy, it often takes a while to find another job. And it often can be very, very hard, especially if you've built up a certain level of seniority, to find another job right away at that same income level. That can be really, really challenging.

And so what we need to do as we think about reinventing ourselves, number one is to take, to take the time that we need to really get clear on where we want to reinvent ourselves. What is the direction we want to go? What is the ideal job? And so, that involves little experiments. I mean, everything from the kind of classic informational interview to maybe, ah, volunteering on a board, let's say, like, a charity board so that you can explore some of those skills or, um, even, even doing job shadowing for a day or a half day with a friend. That, that's something that not a lot of people do, but is a very legitimate way to find out what things are like.

So, it's first about getting that clarity and then beginning to try to build up as much experience and network on the side, on your own time, as you can. So that when it becomes time for you to really make a shift for real, that you're in a far stronger position to do it.

Jessi Hempel:

One thing I've been thinking a lot about lately is what networking looks like now that we don't have physical proximity. And I was a person who did a lot of it in my younger years. I got my first media job by essentially cold calling people toward the beginning of their career at magazines in New York and asking them for coffee, and after 20 coffees finally somebody gave me a job.

Dorie Clark:

Well done.

Jessi Hempel:

Well, it feels a little harder to cold Zoom. Its awkward anyways. So, what works right now?

Dorie Clark:

Cold calls are, are always a challenge and they're never the optimal strategy. But I think that in some ways we, we have to flip it around and, and realize some things actually are easier and better. And one of the things that I've started doing, um, is, as you know, in New York I often host a lot of dinner gatherings and of course that is not happening right now. Ah, so I have, ah, I've switched to doing virtual dinner gatherings. And something that I very quickly realized was oh, wait a minute, when I do something in person in New York, I can only invite New Yorkers or I can only invite someone who's visiting New York. But when I'm doing it virtually, literally the world is open to you. And so I have been able to tap in and have experiences visiting with colleagues from Austin and from Minneapolis and from San Francisco, and we're bringing people together in a way that really wouldn't be possible before. Um, so that's something that I've discovered that I think is exciting and, and better.

I think that participating in events like that is, is great and oftentimes people underestimate their own ability to be the host of something. But it is actually such a low bar and people appreciate it so much if you are the host and you invite them. And so I'd really encourage people to think seriously about doing that.

Jessi Hempel:

That is great advice. Thank you, Dorie. That was Dorie Clark. If you're looking for more information on how to level up your own plan B, Dorie's website is an excellent place to start. She's at dorieclark.com. Now, let's talk about you. Maybe the COVID shut down, made you totally rethink your life plan. Maybe it was the peaceful protests across the world this month. Maybe you've already reinvented your career and you have tips to share. Wherever you are in your journey, I hope you'll join me this week to talk about it over on Hello Monday Office Hours. My producer, Sarah Storm, and I get together every Wednesday at 3:00 PM Eastern and go live from my LinkedIn profile. It's our coffee break, a chance to visit with listeners and talk about the episode. What's on your mind when you think about reinvention? I hope you'll come and share your thoughts with us.

Hello Monday is a production of LinkedIn. The show is produced by Sarah Storm and Madison Schaeffer. Jo DiGeorgi mixed our show. Florencia Iriondo is head of original audio and visual. Dave Pond is our technical director. Mia Mangini, Victoria Taylor and Juliet Foreau make sure to wear their masks when they go out. Our music is composed just for us by the Mysterious Breakmaster Cylinder. You also heard music from Paddington Bear. Dan Roth is the Editor in Chief of LinkedIn. I'm Jessi Hempel. See you next Monday. Thanks for listening.

Dorie Clark:

I'm going for tons of walks, oh my god. I, um, that's been sort of my, my little ritual, because... I, I'm sure this is the case for you too, but like, the time on screen has maximized so much that I feel like I'm in front of a computer, like, seven consecutive hours. So, you know, it can drive you crazy pretty fast. So, I took a two hour walk this morning. Um, I will probably walk tonight, too, just, just to kind of get out. Also because my gym is closed.