Build a Vibrant Culture Podcast

Build a Vibrant Culture Podcast Trailer Bonus Episode 194 Season 1

Finding Career Fulfillment with Rich Salon

Finding Career Fulfillment with Rich SalonFinding Career Fulfillment with Rich Salon

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This week on the Build a Vibrant Culture Podcast, Nicole interviews author and HR expert Rich Salon. Rich is a seasoned HR leader, keynote speaker, and author of two books: Career Trust and Unleashing Your Career. Known as "Rich the HR Guy," he’s passionate about helping individuals achieve career fulfillment and fostering employee engagement. 
 
Rich has held pivotal roles at industry giants like The Home Depot, Penske, and Lowe’s, where his work has impacted employee engagement, career fulfillment, and organizational trust. CNN recognized him as a “Hero of the Economy” for his critical efforts at Circuit City, where he fought tirelessly to keep the company afloat during turbulent times. His ability to inspire and lead, earning him the nickname “Chief Engagement Officer,” is a testament to his motivational power. Rich also serves as a Rotarian and, after retirement, plans to honor his late mother by granting final wishes to terminally ill adults. 

Listen in while Nicole and Rich discuss six (of the 52 total) practical strategies that will help you find purpose and fulfillment in your career!

5 Key Take-Aways
[00:02:54] Employee Engagement: How leaders must understand employee passions to foster engagement and how engagement thrives in a personalized, "one size fits one" management style.
[00:06:25] Rethinking Retirement: “75 is the new 65” as people live and work longer, and employers must learn to embrace older workers’ contributions.
[00:09:46] Transforming Leadership Styles: Realizing that 'command-and-control' leadership is outdated; collaborative and servant leadership models are more effective. 
[00:15:51] Building Company Culture: Culture isn’t just HR’s responsibility; it’s a shared effort across all levels. Learn to evaluate and remove outdated cultural norms to align with current values and goals.
[00:23:56] Can I Get a Career Guarantee? Unfortunately there is no guarantee in career paths; we must take calculated risks to grow. Plus, how to focus on your capabilities rather than your limitations.

Resources Mentioned:
Career Trust by Rich Salon: https://a.co/d/6Oh30vm
Unleashing Your Career by Rich Salon: https://a.co/d/5l3PDMf
One Minute Manager by Ken Blanchard & Spencer Johnson M.D.: https://a.co/d/0cfF1Ne
Rotary International: https://my.rotary.org/club-search

Where to Connect with Rich Salon:

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Nicole x Rich Salon
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[00:00:00] Announcer: This is the build a vibrant culture podcast, your source for the strategies, systems, and insights you need to turn your dreams into your destiny. Every week we dive into dynamic conversations as our host, Nicole Greer interviews, leadership, and business experts. They're here to shed light on practical solutions to the challenges of personal and professional development.

[00:00:21] Now here's your host, a professional speaker, coach, and consultant, Nicole Greer.

[00:00:29] Nicole: Welcome everybody to the Build a VibrAnt Culture podcast. My name is Nicole Greer and they call me the Vibrant Coach. And I am here with another fantastic guest. And look what I got in the mail, everybody. Career Trust by Rich Salon. I'm so excited because this is a fantastic book that helps people get their head in the game when it comes to their career.

[00:00:50] But let me tell you about Rich. Rich's experience and understanding of the HR world comes from living in it for 25 years. Don't miss that friends. He's a survivor and he is currently a human resources and employee relations consultant and as a corporate leader has held critical roles at leading companies including Home Depot, Penske and Lowe's.

[00:01:10] His career highlights and recognition include: he was named "hero of the economy" by CNN for work performed at Circuit City, and he has also helped leaders achieve superior employee engagement ratings. He's nicknamed the "chief engagement officer" at a major corporation. He is known through his professions as Rich, the HR guy, and has published two books to help people find career fulfillment.

[00:01:33] And again, the one we're talking about today is Career Trust, and the other one is Unleashing Your Career. He's also a keynoter and his topics include career fulfillment, employee engagement, leadership, and company culture, (which you know I love, building a vibrant culture). In his spare time, Rich holds three leadership roles within Rotary International. Please go check out what Rotary is. If you don't know what that is, please do that. Following his retirement, he will become a wish granter for adults diagnosed with terminal illness in memory of his mama. Everyone deserves a final wish is Rich's slogan. Please welcome to the show, Rich Salon. How are you?

[00:02:11] Rich Salon: Thanks, Nicole. And I still remember the day we met. You were the speaker at a Rotary Club meeting in North Carolina that I just happened to be attending. You knocked it out of the park, and I was quick to introduce myself at the end of the meeting, your presentation, and we've been in contact ever since. So thank you for supporting Rotary. And by the way, I also got a chance to catch the session with Paul Morton from Scotland that you interviewed recently.

[00:02:40] Nicole: Oh, so good.

[00:02:41] Rich Salon: You guys talked about one to ones. You talked about servant leadership, my favorite leadership model, by the way, and its inventor, Robert Greenleaf. And, oh, it was awesome. So congratulations on the continued success.

[00:02:54] Nicole: Oh, I'm so grateful and we're going to talk about your amazing success. You've got two books out there and y'all, this book. It's the kind of book that you don't read and that's it. You leave it sitting on top of your desk and maybe at the beginning of the day you open it up, turn to a random page, just read what it says. It's a little bit like a devotional, dare I say that. So I love it. Okay. We picked some favorite chapters in here and the first one is about disengagement. And the reason why we picked this one is because, hello, if you've been to the SHRM meeting, that's all we talk about is what's up with our employees. Why are they disengaged? So what this means is our people are, and this is the name of the chapter, "Disengagement: racing for the parking lot at five." Rich, why is this happening? What's going on? What do you suggest? Help us.

[00:03:41] Rich Salon: Yeah unfortunately, the high percentage of our workers throughout all organizations, public or private throughout our great country are just not engaged in their work. So they're counting down the clock every afternoon, and when they see 5 o'clock, they're grabbing their bag and they're out the door. They're leaving skid marks often. So, unfortunately, you know, team members have passions regardless of what are their level. They want to do their best possible work. They want to be excited, but they want to utilize their talents and their passions. And sometimes they just not able to do that.

[00:04:17] In many companies, secrecy is still an unwritten competency and, layers of red tape that continues to exist. So they have some challenge. They have some barriers. But when I think of engagement, you know, we typically think: how is the employee engaged? What's their level? A lot of that onus is on the leader, their boss, their manager, their supervisor. And my advice to supervisors, continuously, is you employ people. That's a big task. And for many people, that's a daunting task, but understand what each of your team members' passions are. What do they love doing? Where do they want to go? What makes them tick? I help leaders understand leading people, -running a department, running a business, corporation, whatever- really takes on a one size fits one mindset, not a one size fits all. There's no two businesses that are identical, just like there's no two team members or managers or supervisors that are identical.

[00:05:21] So understand the passions and figure out how you get the most out of the team members. Keep them excited every day.

[00:05:29] Nicole: And what he's talking about is, these passions that he's talking about and what's important to the employee. You got to do the one to one that we were talking about, the one on one and really it's about developing people. And I'll tell you that the first thing you're developing is their brain, like how they think about things and how they see their work and how they see their -don't miss this everybody- potential. See, I think, Rich, don't you think it's because people are sitting there going, I got potential and nobody realizes it.

[00:05:57] Rich Salon: Absolutely. Well, it's a two way street. The team member has to speak up, they got to help their boss understand how they grow, their best development method and where they want to grow. So speaking up is part of it. And the other half is the boss, the supervisor, the manager recognizing the person's potential and developing programs or at least a plan on how to help them get from A to B. So it is a two way commitment.

[00:06:25] Nicole: Yeah, disengagement is all about relationship. Absolutely. Okay, so we've got 52 to choose from. I don't know how many we're gonna get done. Let's do another one. So on page 18, he talks about "75 is the new 65." You know, in our HR world, we talk about, "Make sure you're not discriminating." There's a lot of great people who've already had one career. And they're ready for a second career and they're energized. So what are you talking about in this particular chapter? 75 is the new 65. Tell us.

[00:06:55] Rich Salon: Yeah. If we went back 40 years and we said, I want to retire at 65 so I'm joining this company. I'm 22 years old so I'm going to retire with this company 43 years from now, age 65, I'll sit around and watch the grass grow and then figure out what day I want to cut the grass. Well, times have changed, you know, it was a real eye opener for me when I met with a financial planner several years ago and he said, okay, we're going to plan you to live to 95. 95! My first reaction was, I'm not going to drive a recliner from age 65-95.

[00:07:30] Nicole: Heck no.

[00:07:31] Rich Salon: No way. And people are living longer; they're living healthier, largely thanks to the advancements in healthcare and modern medicine. It's amazing. So people are going to be able to live and work til they're 75.

[00:07:45] So if they're in their 40s or 50s or 60s, don't think that, you're going to hang it up at 65, not likely going to happen. And for a lot of people, they don't want to hang it up at 65. Why? They're still vibrant. They want to use their energy.

[00:08:03] And then, for employers and managers and directors out there, you know, really be cautious of the stereotypes when it comes to somebody that might be perceived as an older worker and whether that person's 55 or 59 or 65 or 72, the stigma of, are they going to be technologically savvy in this new world? It's an unfair stereotype. It's an unfair generalization. Give them a chance and plan for it. Because that 62 year old that you just hired, you're thinking, "Oh, okay, he's just going to want to wait out three more years." No, he's got 13 more years and he's looking forward to enjoying every single one of them. And guess what? He may surprise you on his 75th birthday and tell you I'm looking forward to my next five years and be with you til he or she is 80. And that's great.

[00:09:01] Nicole: Yeah.

[00:09:01] Rich Salon: So that's the world we live in. 75 is the new 65. People will be working into their 70s very commonly.

[00:09:09] Nicole: Yeah. And here's the thing. It's also called discrimination. If you have a bias against the folks with gray hair and wrinkles, I'm just saying... I cover up the gray hairs, but I definitely have the wrinkles, but I'm working on it. I'm using a new cream. But here's the thing. I think that sometimes people might be in a role til they're 65, but then maybe they just want to readjust, and do something different inside the company; redirect themselves, do something that has less stress, less demands, but still, somebody who has expertise, who's available to all the folks that need development. I think that is fantastic.

[00:09:46] All right. We're going to talk about a leadership style right now. So this is another chapter in Rich Salon's book, Career Trust. Okay. Get this at the Amazon, everybody. And so there's this leadership style, not servant leadership by a long shot. This is the opposite. This one's called command and control. Think back to your favorite leader who was very bossy. There they are. Okay. "Command and control: it's time to go." So this is what he says. He says many of us grew up in a unique management style called command and control. It seems a little surprising that a style popular -don't miss this- in the Roman empire still exists in some corporations today. So this is from the, this is older than you and me, Rich! Okay.

[00:10:29] Rich Salon: Way older.

[00:10:29] Nicole: So, talk about command and control. What are your thoughts when people are in this kind of situation? First of all what, what's going on?

[00:10:39] Rich Salon: Command and control, otherwise known as it's my way or the highway. Very authoritarian. Go do this, this, and this, then come see me and I'll tell you to do that, that, and that. It's rigid leadership. It is not welcoming the employee's image. It is the work environment equivalent of a fax machine. And, it is time to go.

[00:11:01] Now, in all fairness, it still exists in the police, fire rescue and the military. That's okay because that's a potentially dangerous position. There are lives at stakes. So police, fire rescue and military- command and control is fine. But in the rest of the workforce, no, it's terrible! Some companies still have it just because they never morphed out of it. And it's very, very unfortunate. It doesn't allow the team members any creativity, any initiative. So managers and leaders out there recognizing your team members today, they want input. They want to be part of the solution. They want to be part of the big picture. So the command and control method is just, it's an absolute dinosaur. Fortunately, there's a lot of great models still out there. There's the servant leadership model, which I'm a big fan of. A collaborative style. I even went to work for a company that, you know, you can't say that the organization had a leadership style, but here is my impression of their "how we conducted ourselves" leadership. We made people feel important.

[00:12:18] Nicole: Yeah. Write that down, everybody.

[00:12:21] Rich Salon: Make people feel important. It's amazing how far you can go with the organization.

[00:12:27] Nicole: Yeah, I would totally agree. And I love the little examples you've given here. If you're like, I think I'm in a command and control environment culture. Let me see. Okay. So do you have this going on? Managers keep close of employee infractions, right? We know how many points you have, right? I work with a couple of companies that have this point system. Oh my gosh, they're point happy. You got a half a point today.

[00:12:51] Rich Salon: Catch me doing something wrong. You know, I can't go home today. I haven't caught my employees doing three things wrong each. So how could I end my day?

[00:13:01] Nicole: That's right. That's right. And there's this old book "The One-Minute Manager." If you listen to this podcast, you know, I talk about it all the time. That's a real, that's a good one, too. All right so Rich and I came up on that book and in there it says manage by walking around and catch people doing things right. So I love that.

[00:13:19] All right, the other thing might be happening if you're in command and control: following decisions without questioning, and you said that before, it's my way or the highway. But if you ask a question, they're just kind of like, why are you asking a question? Just do it.

[00:13:31] Rich Salon: Exactly. Just do it, man.

[00:13:33] Nicole: Yeah,

[00:13:33] Rich Salon: And it's, it doesn't work.

[00:13:36] Nicole: Right! And here's the thing. I don't know what kind of resources you grew up to learn with, Rich, but my dad had a Funk & Wagnall encyclopedia. That's what we had at the house. And don't miss -this Gen X, Gen Y, all these people- they have the internet, people. They're so dang smart! We didn't know any better to ask a question. We just thought, okay, that's how you do it, just do what the boss says.

[00:14:01] Rich Salon: Absolutely. Again, the work environment's just changed so dramatically versus just follow the rules, fly below the radar and plan on retiring from Acme Widget Corporation at age 65 with a nice gold watch and brand new lawnmower from your spouse. Well, that's different. People now, their life's work is often their legacy. It's what they leave behind. It's what they're known for. So their career versus, you know, they coached little league for 17 consecutive years. Okay, not a bad thing, but a lot of people want to be known for what they left behind professionally. How many careers did they help? Any new inventions, new patents, new ideas? They start a company. You know, there's so much to be proud of in the spirit of a career. So that's what people want to be known for in the end.

[00:14:55] Nicole: Yeah, a hundred percent.

[00:14:56] Announcer: Are you ready to build your vibrant culture? Bring Nicole Greer to speak to your leadership team, conference, or organization to help them with their strategies, systems, and smarts to increase clarity, accountability, energy, and results. Your organization will get lit from within. Email her at Nicole at VibrantCulture. com And be sure to check out Nicole's TEDxTalk at VibrantCulture. com

[00:15:22] Nicole: So you've got three actions to consider. One is getting rid of any rules that create fear, address the company culture, and remove components no longer valued. That one's interesting to me. When you say address the company culture, remove components no longer valued. Can you give me an example of that? Because I love the idea where I am always talking about building a vibrant culture, but maybe we need to tear something down before we build.

[00:15:51] Rich Salon: Yeah, it's just anything within the culture, you know, going through it for the fine tooth comb, it could be an expectations issue, could be an ethics issue. It could be a company goals, could be the value proposition that the company operates under. Look at everything. You may find that it was written 25 or 30 years ago when things were important. But what's important now? You might find structures that say you have to become a director before you can become a vice president, or there may be a rule that says you have to be in your position for 12 consecutive months before you can transfer to another position. Well, wait a minute.

[00:16:32] Nicole: Where'd that come from

[00:16:33] Rich Salon: Companies change. Yeah, the company's changed and they change fast. You have an opportunity and you're going to say no to Wanda Jean because she's only been in the job for nine and a half months? You're going to say no, it's a great role for you, boy, we need you in that role, Wanda Jean, but unfortunately you're two and a half months shy of that one year mark. Get rid of it!

[00:16:56] Nicole: That's right. That's exactly right. Now you've got me all fired up over here. So let's talk about a couple of other things you need to look at in your culture. One is: are your core values boring, outdated, and are they character traits? So many companies I work with, Rich, it's like integrity, honesty, respect, you know, it's like something that might be on the side of police car or something. And I'm all about those things, but you know, I have a cool client out in Colorado called Mineral Life and they sell nutraceuticals, really great vitamins and supplements. And one of their core values, Rich, is "Mind the Terrain," which means, pay attention to your environment and then pay attention to you and to your body. They've got a whole thing. If you work there for five years, you get a month off a year for a sabbatical. Is that so cool?

[00:17:45] Rich Salon: Yeah,

[00:17:46] Nicole: So can take care of yourself!

[00:17:48] Rich Salon: There's a term, sabbatical. Where's that gone? That used to be quite popular. But companies have kind of left it. It's like a lot of companies no longer sponsor their team members or their leaders to participate in charitable organizations. I was in a conversation with one of my colleagues in Rotary just a couple of days ago and I said, it's amazing how Rotary has changed that so many organizations, public and private, no longer sponsor their members to be a member of a Rotary club! So yeah, it's I think people are just become so busy at work. Organizations have piled on the duties. No question, it has simply become secondary.

[00:18:30] But I love that part of the culture because the culture really is the secret sauce. If the company lives this culture as it's designed. Now, some companies, the culture was designed by, you know, the marketing department or the investor relation department, 14 years ago, using language, that sounded really, really good to attract stockholders. That's fine. We're not going to fault them, but guess what? It's 14 years later, using this example. Define the culture to make it work.

[00:19:02] And if you find that certain unwritten competencies are not viable, like secrecy, if you will peel back the onion and wow, sounds like secrecy is an unwritten core value of our company. Blow it up, get rid of it, fix it.

[00:19:20] Nicole: Yeah, yeah. And he's saying secrecy and you're calling it a core value and it is like an unwritten one. Like it's there, but we didn't put it on the sign in the lobby. Yeah, but I couldn't agree more about secrecy. Again, I've said it many times on the podcast, it's just like having open book management. It is letting these smart young people and, you know, people my age, know what's going on inside the company. I mean, I can help you get those numbers up or down, whichever way they need to go, but I can't help you if I don't know what the numbers are. So I think what you're saying is so good.

[00:19:56] And then the final thing, because I think it's worth mentioning, page 41, "Command and Control: it's time to go," Problem solving should be conducted with leaders and employees together. Ugh

[00:20:08] Rich Salon: People want to be part of the solution.

[00:20:11] Nicole: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

[00:20:13] Rich Salon: How many times have some of the best ideas come from the front lines, where the leaders go, wow, how come I didn't think of that? Well, I'm sorry, you're not on the front line. I do this and live with it every day.

[00:20:25] Nicole: Right, right, yeah. And they get an email and they look at the email and they're like, that's not going to work. And I got three reasons why it won't work. That's, first of all, that's not how it works in the beginning, so get with your people, bring them in. And that's the other thing we were talking a little bit ago about disengagement. I think that's one of the things is like, There's problem solving going on without consulting me and I know how to fix the problem and you're not even to me.

[00:20:51] Rich Salon: Absolutely.

[00:20:52] Nicole: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. All right. Page 69, everybody. And don't forget. We're talking to Rich Salon. He's the author of Career Trust. Again, this is like a little thing you just leave right on top of your desk and read from it every day to get all of this internalized. So, he's going to talk about company culture. And so here's the title. "Company culture: Help your employer live it." The culture within any company is known as its secret sauce. The work environment, mission, leadership style, ethics, expectation, and goals combined make it special along with the value proposition designed to produce results. So what are you talking about in this chapter, Rich? How can I help? How can employees help the employer live it?

[00:21:33] Rich Salon: Absolutely. So there, there's an expectation or perception within organizations that human resources and senior leadership are the culture drivers for the organization. Well, frankly, it's not true. And companies that are relying solely on HR and senior leadership are frankly missing the boat. All the team members. Absolutely. All the team members at all levels are really charged with making the culture work in the, from the front line and the second levels. I expect them to speak up, raise questions. For example, if the culture is not working as intended, if we do not have an open door policy here, we say we do, but we really don't speak up.

[00:22:22] Offer feedback and team members at all level. Give feedback regarding your leader's performance on how they're doing and inspiring you and challenging you to make your career better and make the organization better. And at the same time for leaders, don't expect your team members to speak up. So team members are expected to speak up, encourage them to speak up, cultivate it, get their ideas, get their feedback. Again, it goes back to team members want to be part of the solution.

[00:22:55] Nicole: Mm hmm.

[00:22:56] Rich Salon: Foster that. Again, an employee just doesn't show up, punch our time clock, go home, come back Monday through Friday for 43 years and retire. No, they contribute a lot more than they think they do. So don't be shy.

[00:23:12] Nicole: Yeah, I love it. And the thing that I would say, too, in terms of "help your employer live it," I think that the leaders need to ask the employees to help us live it. And so, I totally agree. I, and again, I just, I repeat myself. I repeat. I repeat myself. Culture is like a one person at a time deal. You know, we can say we want it to be vibrant and pick a word, but then it's like, what does it mean for a human to be vibrant? Or what if your culture is all about excellent research, you know, your pharmaceutical company or something like that? How do we make each person an excellent researcher? It's like one person at a time builds the culture. So, it's about that employee development, and keeping them away from the disengagement, which is where we started.

[00:23:56] All right, everybody, let's go. We've got one chapter left, which is a career guarantee, a career guarantee. Hold on. And I'm kind of all over the place because, you know, picking and choosing from all these goodies in here. Here it is: a career guarantee. Let me read the first little bit. Rich says, "I often see people trying to upsize prospective career opportunities, whether it be employment, contract work, consulting, or self-employment. People have posted the question themselves and others as to the likeliness, guarantee, or a sure thing. Okay, Rich, is there a sure thing in the career path? Is there any such

[00:24:30] Rich Salon: Absolutely not. A sure thing does not exist. A career, a guaranteed success, guaranteed fulfillment, guaranteed happiness, it does not exist. And the reason I wrote this chapter was to inspire people. Look, there's going to be a time in your career, probably multiple times where you're considering a change. It could be a change from company A to company C; from procurement to marketing. Could you go from, you know, from employment to consulting? Each of these are significant changes and people want to size up the opportunities. Like, wow, is there a guarantee that I'll be happy? Is there a guaranteed I'll, be successful. Is there a guarantee that I will find this role fulfillment? And the answer is no, it's not 100%. So you really just need to, you know, we roll the dice in most things in life that we do. So it's a career, whether changing vocations or organizations or areas, fields the same thing applies. Size it up the best you can, but a mathematical formula on a spreadsheet, it's not going to help you determine the right career move to make, or whether the move that you're pondering is going to be guaranteed successful. So size it up, get some feedback, look at yourself in the mirror and make a decision. But each of us has to step off a ledge a little bit when we consider making a change.

[00:26:06] Now, why make a change? Think back, think of your friends, your colleagues, your coworkers. How many of them have done the same job for the same company their entire career. I think you'd be shocked to find more than one. People change companies, people change fields, people make wholesale changes. Some people take time off, go back to school and do something completely different after they return. So you will make changes in the course of your career. Don't get wrapped around the axle and worrying about your likelihood of success.

[00:26:42] Nicole: Yeah,

[00:26:43] Rich Salon: It's no guarantee.

[00:26:44] Nicole: I agree. And I think that the most important trait to do that is this character trait what I call willingness. And here's the definition again, friends: willingness is the ability to do what needs to be done without reservation, refusal, or judgment. And sometimes people are sitting around, they are disengaged and they do have a command and control boss and they're like, what do I do? And I'm like, get your resume together! Odds are, you could find something fantastic.

[00:27:12] And, I think here's another thing about this, Rich, I don't know what you think, but in my career I had a great career, I still have a great career, but like when I was working for other people, I wasn't entrepreneurial. I got asked by people, "Would you come work for us?" But it was because I had this reputation of being willing to do anything, and try stuff. Right? And people say, "Well, I've got a family, I've got a husband." I had all that too. And I would just go home and say, Hey, You want to move to Florida? And he's like, he's like, yeah, there's lots of golf courses in Florida. And so we moved to Florida! But people, like they put all these weird, I don't know, barriers around themselves when there's a lot out there. But you gotta do something you've never done before.

[00:27:57] Rich Salon: Absolutely. I said no to relocation. I'm a recovering Californian. I said it. So lifelong Californian. And then we had an opportunity to move to Virginia. My employer wanted me here. So yeah, we, me and the family, my wife and kids, we moved from California all the way to Goochland, Virginia, and it was 18 years ago and it was a terrific move.

[00:28:17] And the company did go out of business, Circuit City, about three and a half years later, which was unfortunate. But as part of the unwinding, they asked me to stay on and they asked me to close down the distribution centers. I said, fine. And close down the service centers. Fine. Then they came back and they said, Rich, we want you to kickstart the job search for the 34,000 people just laid off nationwide. It's like, okay! You had me at hello!

[00:28:41] Nicole: And what an experience!

[00:28:42] Rich Salon: And I figured it out.

[00:28:43] Nicole: Who gets experience?

[00:28:44] Rich Salon: I figured it out Exactly. I figured it out, and I had an opportunity to tell every company in America that their responsibility to their team members, following the layoff announcement, does not end. I showed them what I could do, what we did, with almost no resources.

[00:29:02] And for me, it created a second career calling. It showed me at the end of that assignment that I'm destined to help people with their career search. So I've been doing that after work, nights and weekends, for the last 15 years. Because my destiny, my career passion is to help people find the career fulfillment that they need. I always thought that that was my DNA as part of HR, and I'm still in HR. But coupled with the career transition coaching that I do... yeah it's fulfillment. Go for it. Don't rest til, don't rest til you get it. So I got lucky. So I did step off a ledge when I moved all the way from California to Virginia, only to work for a company that went out of business three years later.

[00:29:49] So, great experience for me. That's an example. You gotta take a risk sometimes within the course of your career, and you'll find the growth is amazing. That was an example.

[00:30:01] Nicole: Hmm. That's so good. That's so good. All right. We are at the top of the hour and I know everybody's like, wait, what? Rich, one more nugget. Do you have one more nugget for us? What would be the final nugget that you would, give to the folks who are listening?

[00:30:14] Rich Salon: Take off the blinders and keep them off. When it comes to the course of your career, so many people, they focus on their limitations. They'll come up with a long list of things they cannot do. Then they'll come up with a short list of things they feel they can do. So that list of capabilities should be much longer than your list of limitations.

[00:30:37] Focus on your capabilities, not your limitations.

[00:30:41] Nicole: That's so good. Good advice from the author of Career Trust, Rich Salon, Rotarian extraordinaire and a great HR buddy of mine. All right, everybody, this is where you can find Rich. He is on Facebook, he's also on the Twitter, which is now the X, by the way, the X, it'll be in the show notes, people. He's also on the Instagram, on the LinkedIn, Rich Salon, S P H R S H R M S C P. He's got all the letters after his name. He knows what he's talking about. So check out Rich. Rich, thank you so much for being on the Build a Vibrant Culture podcast. I'm so grateful.

[00:31:18] Rich Salon: It's been great, Nicole. And till we meet again.

[00:31:21] Nicole: All right. Thank you.

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