Scott Anthony Barlow, CEO of Happen To Your Career and career change expert, shares his insights on finding meaningful work. He challenges the common belief that clarity comes first, emphasizing the importance of declaring priorities instead. Scott highlights the value of career experimenting to uncover interests and relationships that align with your values. He discusses the impact of self-awareness, proactive exploration, and even volunteer work in shaping fulfilling careers, urging listeners to take action rather than waiting for clarity to emerge.
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insights INSIGHT
Clarity Through Priorities
People often believe career clarity comes first, then direction.
Actually, declaring priorities creates clarity, which then reveals direction.
question_answer ANECDOTE
Sabbatical Doesn't Guarantee Clarity
Christy took a 6-month sabbatical in Europe, hoping to find career clarity.
She returned realizing she enjoyed travel and wine but lacked direction.
volunteer_activism ADVICE
Career Experiments
Test career hypotheses through experiments to minimize risk.
Small upfront efforts can prevent years of pursuing ill-fitting careers.
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Scott Anthony Barlow: Happen to Your Career
Scott Anthony Barlow wants you to find work you love. He is CEO of Happen To Your Career and host of the Happen to Your Career podcast, which has been listened to over 3 million times across 159 countries and is the largest career change podcast in the world.
As a former HR leader, Scott has interviewed over two thousand people for jobs and completely rejects the way most organizations choose to do work. He’s a nerd for self development, human behavior, and ice hockey. He's the author of the book Happen to Your Career: An Unconventional Approach to Career Change and Meaningful Work*.
In this conversation, Scott and I discuss the assumptions that many of us bring to finding career happiness — and where those assumptions might lead us astray. We also explore in detail the process that Scott and his team use with clients: career experimenting. In addition, Scott and I share how we’ve used experimenting in our own careers to align with meaning.
Key Points
People assume that you start with clarity. In actuality, you start with declaring priorities, which is what eventually creates clarity.
Taking vacation or an extended break from work is important for many reasons, but it’s not often the activity that creates clarity.
Movement and experimenting is the way you move from declaring your priorities to creating clarity.
Use career experiments as a way to begin surfacing interests and relationships that will help you to find clarity.
Leaders should open the door to career experimentation to support employees in developing themselves inside the organization — or potentially moving onto other opportunities.
Resources Mentioned
Happen to Your Career: An Unconventional Approach to Career Change and Meaningful Work* by Scott Anthony Barlow
Finding the Career That Fits You (Scott’s FREE 8-Day Video Course)
Interview Notes
Download my interview notes in PDF format (free membership required).
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