Ep. 380 - Free Talk on Career

Since deciding to participate in "The Great Resignation" just over two months ago - Rob shares the ups and downs of his new career path in today's "free talk" episode.  

Tune in to hear how I've been busier than I ever have been in my life - even though I'm not employed full time, and have yet to replace the income that I once had.  

My original career plans stalled, I went cold turkey off tobacco, got sick for the first time in over two years, and gained twenty pounds in less than a month...what happened?  

In today's episode, you'll hear steps I've taken to get back on the train - and some additional insight that I've gained during this rollercoaster of what might be considered "self-employment" and a complete reconsideration of the life I want and the direction I wish to go... 

I am confident you will enjoy today's episode.

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Discussion Links:

Ep. 349 - Men of Order Monday: 6 Steps to Succeed in The Great Resignation

NEW - Application Guide/Book Combo - 48 Days Online Store
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York Meadow Farm
York Meadow Farm produces hand-crafted batches of probiotic-rich fermented foods and all-natural bath and body products, scented with pure essential oils.

Ep. 30 - Fire Cider

Ready Farmer One – The Farmers Guide to Selling and Marketing
Ready Farmer One arms you with the tools and skills you need to thrive as an “online” farmer.” 

💥 Goal Setting Guide
Feeling discouraged? Miserable in your job? Just lost your business? Give yourself a new beginning!

48 Days Eagles Community
You've felt the nudge to "do your own thing" for a while now (maybe even your whole life)...Join us!

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Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:01

If we stand together, we'll never fall. We can make a difference. Well, hello there and welcome back to another episode of the All Around Growth Podcast. My name is Rob Kaiser and I am your host. Today is Monday, July 18th, 2022, and this is episode number 380 of a show that provides insight and tools to build the life and homestead of our dreams. Today, we're going to talk about career. Now, as you know, we've been talking about these seven different aspects of our life that allow us to live a balanced life financial, physical, personal development, family, spiritual, social. We've covered all of those to date. And that brings us to today. Career. So what are we going to talk about? Well, I don't know. Seriously, I I I don't know. That remains to be seen. But that's what's going to make today a bit of an interesting episode. Now I don't know what we're going to talk about because the past couple of months have been a little bit different. And for those of you who don't know, what I mean by different is I'm no longer employed by someone else. I no longer. Oh well. Check that. Let me. Well, and and this is this is why it's complicated. I and that's why today is going to be what today is going to be. It's going to be a free talk episode, kind of an update, a status update, if you will, on where I'm at with my career. And without further ado, let's dive right into it. Excuse me. Now, for those of you who are unaware or new to the show or may have missed out on some past episodes, I resigned from my day job in May of 2022, just a couple months ago. I became part of the Great Resignation. I didn't necessarily have anything specific lined up at that time. I just knew I no longer wanted to part be participating in what I was doing at the time. And um that's the reality of it. All right. The reality of things also is that my parents aren't getting any younger, and I really want to learn and grow and participate with them, but but really I just wasn't satisfied with where I was, uh, the direction of the department that I was managing, and um so I decided to leave with no real plan. Now I say that, no real plan, but the reality is I can see the writing on the wall. So going into 2022, I've had some career goals lined out already, and that included working through the 48 days um, well, the 48 days book and the application guide, which uh which I will link to in the show notes, but basically I've got it right here, and I can read this with you. The 48 Days Application Guide is nice because it is a hands-on get ready to act guide for applying the little steps to create the work and life you've dreamed of. It basically puts everything in the book, 48 Days to the Work and Life You Love by Dan Miller, into a very easy-to-use application guide. And um, you know, for a couple of weeks after I left my job, I was doing some side work. I was working uh twenty twenty hours a week or so with one of the customers from my day job, just helping him out with string trimming, spreading mulch, and basically getting him through the spring busy season and when there was no longer much of a need for it, um for me, you know, I stopped working with him. And in the interim, you know, I began working with dad. Then when I stopped working with with uh with this individual who who brought me on for you know, on average 20 hours a week, which was good manual labor and helped me get my mind right, I began working with dad and then began working through the 48 days book and the application guide. Day one, day two, day three. Now I'm making journals, you know. I've got my whole self-employment journal because I'm you know, hey, I'm self-employed now, right? Yeah, yeah. But I'm not really like three I'm talking like I'm self-employed, I'm self-employed, but the reality is I'm really working full time with my dad um at York Meadow Farm. As and I don't this is where family businesses uh oftentimes get a little weird and strange because you know I'm working with and for my parents. We are having the conversations routinely about aging, about uh, you know, parents submitting for lack of a better term to their children for care as they age, especially if their mind is still sharp but their body begins to fail. That can be a true act of submission. And we and and we've had talks about this with my parents and how they've dealt with their own parents and things that I'm going to most likely have to deal with at some point in time. And we got a little taste of that this weekend when an accident happened loading up at the farmer's market, and um but, anyways, you know, I've working with dad, working through this book, I got to day 18 and I stalled. Alright, I'm I'm not really sure what happened. Like, I wanted to try and keep going just every single day, every single day, every single day. And so I was doing it Saturdays after market, you know, Sundays, and I I was like, I was really grinding. I was I was working a lot, I was busier than I ever had been. Like, and I wasn't, but the thing is, like, I was busier than I ever had been. I was working more than I was working with my day job, and it's not like I wasn't making money. Yes, I was working a little side job here, a little side job there, and then I managed to score some other work, you know, move some furniture for somebody, and that led into uh what is now some light equipment operation, basically just running a tractor with various implements doing light landscape work. Um and that's uh that that seems to be nice, and hopefully I can continue this type of pattern, but it's uh it it's really not much of an income. All right, but I guess I stalled when I was working through this 48 days book because I'm thinking two things here and I've got to get them out one at a time. I stalled working through the book because the whole premise of the book is like you're committing this time to finding a job, like putting out cover letters, introductory letters, like creating your resume, and I I I've done all that and I've gotten to the point where I'm writing cover letters and I've identified the 30 to 40 companies. Now, I also I I did this, and then I also got to thinking, well, what about some of these local companies? Like if I wanted to if I could work just part-time for some of these local companies, because all right, more backstory. Let me see where I'm at with my French press here. I decided that what I was going to pursue in terms of work was going to be something along the lines of an entry-level remote work position. And there's a number of different positions out there, and I'm not even going to get into how I got there right now, but if there's enough feedback on this, and if people are interested in this path on how I got to determining these 30 to 40 uh companies that I could potentially submit letters to and uh seek, then you know, fine, I can do a I have to do a whole dedicated, you know, little series on that because there was a there was a whole process and it's kind of involves how I research anything. But um I realized that you know this is this is all going to take like oh god, where do I even begin here? Because it's it's this is this is crazy complicated because there's in addition to just stalling out on day 18, you know what, and just for just for grins, while I've got this up, let me pull up my self-employment journal, and I can even provide some some uh time frames on when I was grinding it out. Now this is this is late May, early June. Um yes, I am basically Memorial Day weekend is when I decided to kick off this whole 48-day kick. So day 18 is the 16th of June. Okay, and I'm like I'm grinding hard by this point. And the 17th comes up, and then the 18th comes up and yeah, um and and you you know the work that I'm putting in is just the work that I feel is required to like get achieve, hmm, do what I want to do to get the results that I want to get. Like it's it's taking me several hours a day to get that sense of accomplishment. And honestly, guys, I'm like, I was feeling like I was getting to the point where I was burning out. You know, I'm looking back at my notes on day 36, day 18, June 18th. I'm late on day 20, market day today, home at 3.30, ran errands, uh, home at 5.30, played fiddle on the porch with mom after walking Toby. Dinner from Los Contarritos from dad, shared dinner until 7.30, began continuation of day 18 at 8 p.m. Two Pomodoros later, 9 13, time to wrap it up and stretch in bed. You know, the like my s this is that was that was it, and I was it was it was it was rough, and I I I kind of I maybe had like a mini burnout, or I felt like I was approaching that. I I uh because I've been there two other times, so I I'm not gonna say I had a mini burnout, but I felt like I was getting there. Alright, so you know, you may or may not be aware that I'm talking about all this, and then we have the the date right there is the 18th. Then all of a sudden we have Sunday, Monday, and then we have the you know, at this point I'm doing the first of the the new side work with this tractor work. And then we've got the summer solstice. I do a half-assed summer solstice episode. Almost damn near a month ago now. No, just a few days. It'll be a month from summer solstice. And then just weeks passed with no no episodes. Well, what happened during those few weeks? I I, you know, decided to go straight up cold turkey with the tobacco, with the nicotine pouches, with everything. And I also decided, like at the same time, oh I'm gonna take I'm gonna abstain from cannabis too, after not having done so in two years. Well, I did about a week of both and then just kinda broke, for lack of a better term. And I decided that, alright, I, you know, I relied on both to mitigate stress. Uh well for my entire adult life. That's going to be hard to, you know, relief, relieve myself from both at the same time right now. So um I decided to stick with abstinence from tobacco and uh went back to cannabis. And I'll go ahead and consider abstinence from cannabis at another time or doing my temporary fast or whatever tolerance breaks uh another time, but that's um you know that that that that sickness that that that cold that wasn't really that drastic. It it and you know I had a conversation with my mom and and drew some parallels that it almost felt like withdrawal symptoms, you know, but then now we're getting into the physical and I'm feeling like I can talk about this another in another episode, and I'm I most likely will at some point in some way, shape, or form. But this all ties into the career because these are all reasons why I have you know stepped back from this 48 days plan. Hell, for a couple days I even had to step back from making kraut with dad in the kitchen. I was I was very sick, but all I did was, you know, I fast uh, you know, I I believe in the old standby of um starve a cold, feed a fever, or basically starve everything. I believe fasting is a is a wonderful healing mechanism, and so that's what I did. I I uh fasted and drank uh, I don't know how much, I would say a approximately two tablespoons, one to two tablespoons of fire cider on the hour, or you know, whenever I could with some water until I felt better. You know, and a couple days later, uh I was feeling okay, and day three I was back to work. So um subsequent conversations with my parents, we've had the decision to, or we've made the decision in these conversations to grow the business through an online store, and in the process, I've done some market research on behalf of the farm. Okay, so now I'm kind of working as a as an independent contractor, so I'll be billing the farm for my expenses in obtaining these uh sauerkraut samples from three different companies to see how they were shipped. Uh, two of them specifically were selected because their packaging and jars are almost identical, if not, well, they're very, very similar to ours. It's hard to say if they're identical because how the jar manufacturing process, glass jars are, you know, there are so many manufacturers out there making a 16 ounce type and style of jar that, but you know, it was a great example and a great lesson, and we are very close to doing that. So I've been spending a lot of time lately building up the online store, and there was a lot of Waffling back and forth. I want to do things on WordPress. We will eventually do them on WordPress, but a few years ago I built the site up through Squarespace. Also started building the online store up through Squarespace. And we're just going to continue to roll with it. So I'm building that up. And then over the winter, or at some point, we will go through a not necessarily a rebranding, but the site will be rebuilt. And luckily, I've got or am in the process of you know building a team to help with that, some of which includes some family, but it's going to be awesome. It's going to be run through WordPress, and we're going to have a lot of functionality because of well, the fact that I'm interested in creating the content and doing things on the front end, but need someone to help with the back end, and that's where my uh brother comes in. And um we have kind of we've verbally agreed and talked through all of this, but at the same time need to hash out a lot of details because he's busy with a family and his own career. I'm busy trying to sort things out with my career, and that brings us back to where we're at with career in general. So where are we? All right. Um, like I said, I've got about a month ago was when I submitted my first uh time sheet, if you will, to this landscape company who I am working for now. Um worked with them again last week and will be working with them this week. Sorry guys, I'm getting distracted because I'm hearing Dad next door in the uh kitchen. And um this is part and parcel of the of the new career. So, um I have to go check in with him shortly to see what lies in store. Looks like he's getting an early start this morning. However, um, yeah, career is all over the place. And uh one thing that I wanted to touch on with regard to this 48 days plan, this book and this application guide. Um for a while, and I think this may have also contributed to this sickness, this illness that I got was I was beating myself up real hard for not staying consistent with this 48 days application guide. No, I was beating myself up because well, day 18 stretched out, and it took me three days to actually work through all of the steps in day 18, and it was taking me a little bit more time because I identified a specific kind of niche work that I wanted to do. It it it was taking me a little bit more time than uh than normal to, I guess, work through this this book, and I was beating myself up about how much time it was taking me. No, I'm not good enough, I'm not doing this is in the time frame that I but at the same time. I also needed to remind myself consistently that hey Rob, yeah, you know, you are working. You know, on average I was working five to six hours a day with dad in the kitchen, or if I wasn't working with them five to six hours a day in the kitchen, I was off on a side job somewhere, and oftentimes making up for that work that I missed out on in the kitchen by working later and then working the farmer's market on Saturday. Now I'm not getting paid in a traditional manner. And you know that that in and of itself is kind of confusing and probably something I need to sort out in uh with them just to put put my own mind at ease and also to make it make sense on paper because this is uh navigating this whole this whole uh this whole whatever it is that I'm doing. Well, when it comes to tax time, and I'm gonna need to figure this out. I mean, it's working, but over the past two months, you know, I haven't really thought much about it because, well, I haven't needed to dip into my emergency savings fund. You know, I've had some cash flow coming in, I've had some limited expenses. Um, one thing I failed to mention before I get back to the 48 days book here, and you know, kind of having a lapse or uh in in time frame working through it was when I decided to go nicotine-free and go cold turkey and get sick, I also went completely off the wagon with my diet and just found myself eating a lot of fast food, you know, drinking more alcohol than normal, eating a lot more sugar, just eating garbage, galore. And I'm gonna be honest with you, and we're gonna talk about this later, most likely in a physical episode, but I probably put on oh 20 pounds over a month. It was wild, wild. Alright, so I had um now one on the positive thing, you know, kind of unrelated to but related to career, is I had to work through my health insurance and getting that squared away. And I I I presumed I was just going to do Cobra and you know figure the rest out later, but uh I got lucky and was able to work with someone, a good agent, and get a good plan at a fair premium, if you will, and um will be able to simply continue the functional medicine practice that I had been engaging in, and I was kind of stressing that because well, I had no job, I had no insurance, and uh I basically just thought, well, I've empowered myself with enough knowledge that I can continue to work through this, but in the same time, I I was just like, alright, well, I'll get back to that later, you know, pizza, beer, I don't know, like cinnamon toast crunch, like, you know, you know, all that shit. So, um, cookies, gosh. And that's okay. Fall down seven times, stand up eight. Getting back to 48 days. I decided to get back into the 48 days Eagles community. There's a lot of people who are, I don't know, I don't want to say floating, but trying to figure figure things out. People that aren't satisfied with where they are. You know, that's why I talk about that 2022 goal setting workbook so frequently. I feel like I push that a lot, and I feel like I, you know, but but I mean I talk about it because it's been a big part of my journey. And the 48 Days Eagles community has been as well. Not as much because that's more of like a social media thing. And like I talked about just on Friday's episode, I'm not a big social media user, but if I'm using social media, I I'm using that just as much or more than any of the others, including Telegram. And and surrounding myself with thinkers like those who are members of the 48 Days Eagles community are is what is largely what you know empowered me and gave me the strength and courage to do what I did two months ago with regard to my own career, which was walk away. So, in you know, today's episode, I am gonna talk about it, and I am gonna link to it in the show notes because you know, now that I think about it, that's one avenue of social media that maybe I should return to and be a little bit more active on because of the impact that it's had on my life and uh you know the tools and resources that it's equipped me with, one of which is the 2022 goal setting guide. Like I wouldn't have learned about it if it wasn't for the Eagles community. Now I take that back. I may have gotten that in an email or something like that. And I actually actually, now that I think about it, I don't know, guys. I don't know what came first, the chicken or the egg. Nevertheless, I'm a big proponent of both. 2022 goal setting workbook. You can download for free at no charge, all right, and you can kind of get a taste for what you can expect in the Eagles community, and then I'll link, I'll just link to the Eagles community as well, and you can you can explore that. But um yeah, that brings us to today. Um a lot of work yesterday in the online store. Um and I think that's uh I've got I've got side work lined up this week, and um that's where it's at. We're gonna we're gonna try and grow the family business. The next step or stage in development of or the net the next step in with regard to the growth and development of the business is increased market to keep up with the increased production. Alright, so we don't really have the ability to get into increased or additional markets at this time, like real face-to-face farmers markets, and I'm okay with that. And um, so we're gonna build up you know our our our our online store and in large part um well we're gonna do that through Squarespace, and then when we go through a whole rebuilding, we're going to utilize a lot of what Diego Footer has to share in his book, and I'm looking for that somewhere. Um And it must be in the back room. Um, but his new book, Ready Farmer One, that uh that I recently picked up, which is a book specific to online growing your business through online marketing, your your farm business. So, anyways, guys, uh career, that's what's up. I'm gonna wrap this up and um get this uploaded so I can check in with dad and uh get going on today. So that's it for today, guys. And uh look forward to catching you tomorrow. This is Rob Kaiser, and thank you.