Career Relaunch®

📄 Episode Transcript

Laura: [00:00:00] Most inventions or innovation has happened because of someone being curious. We never should underestimate curiosity. It’s one of the best things that you can have in your back pocket, and I think it’s going to serve anyone well.

Joseph: [00:00:16] Welcome to the Career Relaunch® podcast focused on helping you reinvent your career. My name is Joseph Liu, and I’m here to help you gain the clarity, confidence and courage to overcome the challenges of making changes to your career so you can do more meaningful work and enjoy your professional life. In each episode, I feature people who have stepped off the beaten path to reinvent their careers. We talk through their unique personal journeys, the challenges they overcame, and the lessons they learned along the way to help you understand what it takes to relaunch your own career. Today, my guest is going to share her story of going from an opera singer to a management consultant focused on business transformation. We’ll discuss the importance of keeping an open mind and the hidden upside of uncertain transitions afterwards. During today’s Mental Fuel®, I’ll talk about the role curiosity plays in uncovering career opportunities.

Joseph: [00:01:10] Curiosity is something we’re all born with as humans. Most of us come into this world with an immense amount of it. If you ever watch young children around a new set of toys, they’ll excitedly try them out. Similarly, during the earlier stages of our careers, we’re thirsty to explore, absorb, and learn as much as we can on the job. But over time, that curiosity can get dampened and even shut down because of work pressures, life realities, or societal expectations around how we should be spending our professional time. But keeping your curiosity alive is one way to open new doors throughout your career, and we’re going to talk more about this right now.

Joseph: [00:01:52] Today, I’m speaking with Laura McIntyre, a business transformation consultant focused on connecting people with solutions and empowering them to achieve their personal and professional aspirations. Originally from Lithuania, Lora began her career as a professional opera singer, performing in the UK, France and other European countries. After realizing her health and emotional well-being were taking a hit from the relentless pressures of performing, Lora decided to take a break from singing and explore some other career paths. She is now a consultant at Deloitte, one of the world’s leading professional services firms, where she focuses on human capital consulting, digital transformation and change management. Now, I first met Lora when she reached out to me on Instagram to discuss the topic of personal branding. We later met up in London to collaborate on one of her projects focused on career change, and we’ve stayed in touch since.

Joseph: [00:02:42] Coincidentally, my neighbor who lives right next door to us is actually a professional singer herself. But this conversation with Lora was really my first time getting a deeper, behind the scenes glimpse into what goes into professional opera singing. I think you’re really going to enjoy hearing how Laura managed to pull off her radical career change, going from performing in front of audiences to now working in the corporate world. You can get all the show notes from today’s conversation at Career Relaunch Net 104. Laura spoke with me from Kent, not too far from where I’m based myself here in the UK.

Joseph: [00:03:19] Okay, Laura, welcome to the Career Relaunch podcast. Great to see you again and welcome to the show.

Laura: [00:03:25] Thank you so much. I’m really glad to be here and happy to see you again.

Joseph: [00:03:29] I want to talk with you today, Laura, about your transition from opera singing to consulting, why you left that behind, and also your career transition. But I would love to just start and get a glimpse into what you’re focused on right now. Can you just tell me a little bit about what you’ve been devoting your energy to in your personal and professional life lately?

Laura: [00:03:51] In my professional life, I’ve been devoting my time and my energy to my career as a management consultant. So just working on different projects. Really enjoying it, experiencing, working with different teams. I work predominantly across the public sector. Really finding that interesting. Lots of very challenging situations that I have an opportunity to dive into and support my clients in. It’s a really diverse kind of portfolio of the work that I do. And yeah, I’m just finding it really fun at the moment and in my free time. I’ve recently started my gym journey, so I’m becoming an avid gym goer, so I’m devoting a lot of energy and time into that. And also I’m trying to keep up with my horse-riding skills as well.

Joseph: [00:04:39] Oh wow. Okay. What kind of horse-riding do you do exactly?

Laura: [00:04:43] I suppose it’s called just English riding.

Joseph: [00:04:47] Are you jumping over the hurdles? I don’t know the exact terminology.

Laura: [00:04:51] A little bit. I’m not quite there yet, but I’m taking some lessons and doing some kind of hacking out into the English countryside as well.

Joseph: [00:05:00] And on your LinkedIn profile, Laura, now, I think your jobs title says that you are a business change consultant at Deloitte, and I know that this term consultant and management consultant, it floats around out there. And it’s kind of this, to the outsider, a bit of a black box. Can you just share a snapshot of projects and clients you currently work with?

Laura: [00:05:23] I mean, this is actually a really difficult question because really no one knows what a consultant does, right? I believe even the consultants themselves sometimes don’t know what we do. But to keep it neat and short, I predominantly go in to help clients with any challenges related to people as their businesses or their organizations are going through some sort of transformation. So, for example, whether that would be a technology transformation, whether that would be a people-related, culture-related transformation, whether that would be a strategic transformation, whatever it is at the heart of every transformation, there are people. And my focus predominantly within management consultancy is kind of the human capital side of things. It’s kind of a term, I suppose. Used to talk about people as a resource and kind of having that people-centered, human-centered approach to transformation. And within that, one of my key interest areas is business change. Specifically in our organization, we tend to think about professionals in a kind of a T-shaped form, expertise on kind of a high level, broad library of various skills and knowledge. But then we are encouraged to have kind of that t letter going downwards into kind of one key area that you’re perhaps really passionate about, or maybe where you’re kind of greatest talent lies in. So that’s why on my LinkedIn profile I call myself a business change kind of specialist within Deloitte.

Joseph: [00:06:59] You haven’t always been a human capital consultant focused on business change and business transformation. At Deloitte, you were a professional opera singer. You performed in the UK, France and other European countries, I think for about seven years, if I have that correct. Before we get to that though, Laura, I’d love to just go back in time a little bit further. And can you just tell me a little bit about you personally? Where did you grow up and what can you remember being interested in as a kid?

Laura: [00:07:32] When I was growing up, music was always very close to our family. My mum, was a choir conductor for a while and then she transitioned into working in school as a music teacher. So I ended up going to a lot of her rehearsals, and music was always quite close to my heart. My dad was also a musician, kind of more towards the jazz side of things. So he was also a composer and played in a band. So I suppose music was always running in the family. And then from a very early age, I started playing some instruments and I ended up going to sort of like an after-school club, but like an after-school where you are taught various music subjects like music, history, solfeggio, as well as playing an instrument of your choice. And at the time, the instrument of choice was a piano, predominantly because there was a piano in the house already. So that became kind of the instrument of choice. So I did that for many, many years, pretty much all the way up to when I graduated from school.

Joseph: [00:08:40] You played piano?

Laura: [00:08:42] Yeah, I played piano for a while, and I sang in various kind of bits and bobs choirs and  ensembles in school as well. So to be honest, a lot of my childhood and my kind of young years were spent doing music.

Joseph: [00:08:59] And can you remind me, Laura, where you grew up?

Laura: [00:09:02] I grew up in Lithuania. I’m a girl from the coast, so I grew up in a city called Klaipėda, and that’s a port. So we were very close to the beach and wonderful forests. It’s a very beautiful part of the country.

Joseph: [00:09:19] I’m sorry I’m not that familiar with Lithuania just because I’ve never been there myself. Is music something that’s quite well embraced in the education system in Lithuania? Is it encouraged? Is it part of the typical academic curriculum there?

Laura: [00:09:36] At least back in my days, it was part of the general curriculum. You would have a music lesson where you would be encouraged to learn about different sorts of music composers, a little bit of music history, kind of that whole rounded individual type of thing. So not necessarily going too deep, but it has always been encouraged. And every school has or at least used to have various opportunities for children and young adults to get involved in various music activities, bands, orchestras, choirs kind of pursue that passion. The one thing that’s really good, or at least used to be, I keep saying, used to be because I feel like I’m so far removed from it right now. So I kind of really speak into the situation with 100% certainty. But we used to have music schools that were sort of after club, but they offered quite serious music activities for children and for young adults to pursue various instruments and some of the other things that are already mentioned that I was able to learn as well. And it was quite a serious form of education, very well recognized across the country. We used to have exams, I think twice a year, so it’s quite a serious approach to it. The wonderful thing about that, is that it’s government funded and parents don’t have to spend loads and loads of money, which enabled a lot of children from less privileged families to attend as well, because the fee was very, almost like symbolic fee. The majority of the costs were covered by the government. So there’s really an encouragement from the government to pursue these types of careers. Same with the universities. There are a lot of free spots or government-funded spots for talented individuals to apply for.

Joseph: [00:11:21] So it sounds like this was a pretty big part of your upbringing. At what point did you decide that, hey, I might want to do this professionally? Like, do you remember when that occurred to you that this could actually become a career for you?

Laura: [00:11:35] I kind of fell into it. I did a couple of competitions in my last two years in school. There were sort of singing competitions where I competed. I won a couple of awards, and a lot of the feedback was that my voice would be really suited for classical music and that I should really give it a go, so the feedback was really positive. I kind of enjoyed doing it. I didn’t really have another thing that I was really settled on pursuing as like a very serious career. So when I was graduating from school, I thought, well, why not? Let’s give it a go. So I applied to a university audition type of thing. I did that and I got the spot and I thought, well, great, let’s give it a go. And that’s where it all started.

Joseph: [00:12:26] And for somebody maybe who isn’t familiar with the different types of opera singing paths, was there a particular range and type of performance that you eventually ended up focusing on?

Laura: [00:12:37] So I think in the early years they avoided trying to put you in a box because when you’re still really young, your voice continues to form up until you’re probably about 25, I think. So it continually grows together with you and it matures. But throughout your journey, you start falling into your own kind of area of you could call it vocal expertise, but yes, it’s something to do with the range, the colour of your voice, kind of where the quality of your sound really lies. And at the time I was considered to be a mezzo-soprano, which is kind of the mid-range vocal kind of performance.

Joseph: [00:13:18] And what was your life like as a professional opera singer? Can you give a glimpse into the types of shows or performances that you recall being a part of?

Laura: [00:13:28] I think my early career was very much mixed with studying, so I was still kind of a full-time uni student doing all the music lessons and singing classes and exams, and at the same time I applied or auditioned for a couple of roles, and then the National Opera House in Lithuania, and I got the roles. So I was often kind of working and studying at the same time. So I had, I think maybe up to 5 or 6 shows a year. It wasn’t much, but it was just the right amount as kind of a starting singer and to be honest, all the way throughout my career, studying and working kind of always went hand in hand because I think in singing you can rarely walk away from kind of singing lessons. You continually require that improvement. It’s a little bit similar, I suppose, to sports. You always stay connected to your coach. You never really stop learning, you never really stop improving. It always has been connected. So after I did my undergrad studies in Lithuania, I then applied for a kind of. It’s called like a post-grad program in London. And that’s how I arrived here in the UK. So I did a couple of years of that in the Royal Academy of Music here in London. Some of the places that I used to perform the most was Opera Holland Park. They did a lot of kind of seasonal shows, so that was one of my very frequent places that I went to. I still had contracts back home in Lithuania, so I traveled between here and there. Then I spent a year in the National Opera Studio, which created lots of opportunities for me to perform with them on different stages in Leeds, and in London as well. And then I got a contract with Scottish Opera, and I spent about nine months living and working in Glasgow, while at the same time performing in France, as I had a small contract in France as well. So we traveled lots of cities and with one of the productions it was Vichy, Versailles, and Lyon.

Joseph: [00:15:39] How did things progress for you compared to maybe how you envisioned them transpiring for you? Like, if you think about the entry into the world of opera singing compared to the actual experience, was it what you expected? Was it different from what you expected? How would you describe your overall experience as an opera singer?

Laura: [00:15:59] Even though the world is so broad and there seems to be space for everyone, it’s quite a competitive space. It can be competitive in a good way, and someone perhaps critiques what you do. And that’s what the whole industry is built on, is on critiquing, reading reviews and someone critiquing your performance. Someone critiquing, not necessarily with bad intentions, but maybe they want to help you out. Maybe they want you to improve. And so I think very early on, I started noticing that it’s really difficult to separate what you do from what you are. And therefore, whenever someone critiques what you do, it really affects how you feel about who you are. And that, I guess, was the more tough side of that particular career. It has many positives, but it also has a few negatives, which I think I ignored for as long as I could. And then I suppose I had to come to a realization that perhaps I’m not necessarily the right type of person to enjoy this type of career.

Joseph: [00:17:05] Was there a particular moment when it dawned on you that you just had to make a change and that this was not sustainable for you?

Laura: [00:17:14] So one of the things that singers will often experience is something that comes with the job is, you know, sometimes you fall sick. Things happen to your voice. It becomes way more sensitive because you’re using it as an instrument. So it’s naturally way more sensitive. And I’ve noticed that when I stopped singing, I stopped being sick, which is miraculous. But I used to get colds all the time, and I kind of struggled with acid reflux as well. And perhaps I still get some of it now, but it’s almost like I don’t notice it anymore. Or maybe I get less of it as well because I’m not using my voice in that capacity. It’s not as demanding on my voice kind of day-to-day talking. So my last year was quite a difficult one. I fell into kind of this vicious cycle of you’re sick and then therefore you’re anxious because when you’re sick, you cannot perform. If you don’t perform, you lose money because you’re not paid. If you’re not paid for a long time, you can’t cover your bills. And they can also cancel your contracts because if you’ve been sick for a long time, the show must go on. It seems unfair, but it’s also really fair. It’s a business. They can’t just wait for you forever. So you kind of get into that cycle of you’re sick and therefore you’re anxious, but then also you’re sick because you’re anxious.

Laura: [00:18:35] So I found myself in this continuous loop. And I think there came a time when my voice was not doing very well. I was determined to push through, and that was one of the biggest mistakes I made because I continued pushing through and I think the anxiety really got out of hand. At one point I used to wake up, remember, in the middle of the night like 3 a.m., just to check if I still have a voice, because any moment it could be gone. And I felt really, really anxious, very, very stressed. Which obviously didn’t help my sickness either. So it only created more acid reflux, kind of more hardship and performance. And what started happening was that sometimes I started losing my voice during a performance then added the trauma of hundreds of people looking at you while you’re losing your voice. So all of these things started piling up, and I think I was really struggling to deal with it, like on a mental level. And I think at that point I decided I need to just take a break. So it wasn’t like I decided I need to change careers. I think at that point I understood that I have to step away from it, and it was a huge hit for pride because suddenly you feel like you failed.

Laura: [00:19:48] You failed at your own job, you failed as a performer, you failed as a singer. And you know the constant thoughts of what are other people going to say? And often people in the industry would say, well, you know, you failed because you didn’t have a good technique or, you know, you failed because of x, y, z. So everyone has an opinion to offer. And at that point in time, I decided I’m going to take a break. I’m going to take it slow, continue taking the lessons and just use this time to recover. What happened during that period was I very quickly realized that the recovery needed to happen, not in my voice. So there was nothing wrong with my voice. There was nothing wrong with my body. There was no physical issue. The issue was a mental issue. I think over that really stressful year, I built a lot of trauma in my head, which started really inhibiting kind of my singing, and I think I faced a choice at that point. How much time and how much of my life I’m willing to invest into this healing journey, because it’s not that difficult to heal from physical trauma. It’s much more difficult. It’s not necessarily much more difficult, but it’s less predictable. Healing from kind of mental trauma or like a psychological trauma.

Joseph: [00:21:18] Yeah, I think that’s what makes these sorts of transitions so unsettling because there’s not a clear start and end. What you just mentioned about your physical side. You kind of know when you’ve physically gotten better from an injury or something. But yeah, the psychological and emotional side of of making a transition or having come out of a really difficult situation is a lot less tangible. And so it’s it’s just kind of harder to wrestle with. And then that creates more anxiety.

Laura: [00:21:46] Exactly. It’s really difficult. I think anxiety is one of the most difficult things to recover from because you’re so invested in your own healing journey. You know, the stakes are high. You must recover from this, and that only creates more anxiety. So it’s almost like you have to completely walk away from it in order to completely heal. Because if you keep on pushing yourself with the pressure of I must heal from this, it just doesn’t work that way. Or at least it didn’t work that way for me. So what I did, was I stepped away from it all and then found myself in a funny predicament of having cancelled all my contracts. I had no income.

Joseph: [00:22:24] Well, that’d be really interesting to talk about that now, Laura, this transition of yours. So it sounds like you need to take a step back. You’re not sure if it’s going to be a permanent step away, or just kind of a momentary pause. London is not. Or the UK in general is not a cheap place to live, so obviously you had to make ends meet. What did you do? Like what kind of jobs did you apply to? And I’d also be curious what sort of roles you took on. Maybe like temporary jobs you had to take on to make ends meet.

Laura: [00:22:52] So during that time, I obviously thought, you know, I have to pay my bills, I need to find a job. So I opened all the, you know, what they call the websites with all the job opportunities. And I started scrolling. It was a really discouraging time as well, because all I had in my education, kind of in my little portfolio was music studies. I barely had any other work experience. I’ve only done music, which at the time seemed really not applicable to anything else. So what I started is my application journey applying to loads and loads of different jobs. I really was aiming low and when I say low, I mean where the requirements were very basic. So not necessarily that they’re bad jobs, but where the requirements are completely basic, like washing the dishes.

Joseph: [00:23:46] Oh wow.

Laura: [00:23:47] The only requirement you need to have is usually the ability to work in the UK. And I don’t even think they require anything else. They usually just say as long as you can stand and you’re physically fit to stand there all day and wash the dishes, we’re good. So I applied for jobs like that, catering, waitressing, jobs. So where the kind of the level of requirements for the entry-level was pretty basic because I really saw myself as someone who doesn’t have anything else to offer regardless. And I just thought, well, that’s going to be easy to get one. I just thought anyone could get this. I think I applied to close to maybe 80 jobs over the course of about four months. I was rejected by all of them.

Joseph: [00:24:31] Oh, wow.

Laura: [00:24:32] Either didn’t hear back or was rejected. And I think progressively my applications were just going down. Down to like just any kind of job will do. If you pay me, I’ll work.

Joseph: [00:24:44] So for 3 or 4 months here, you’re applying to whatever 80 jobs and you’re getting either no response or negative response, and oh wow. Okay. And like what was running through your head at that time? Were you thinking go back to opera? Or was that not . . .

Laura: [00:24:59] Well, that wasn’t an option either, because I wasn’t in a place to actually do anything with my voice either. I was really surprised and like, puzzled because I thought, I don’t know, why doesn’t anyone want me? And I thought, well, surely I can wash the dishes. And I remember I called my mum and she said, how is it going? And I said, well, it’s not going very well. I said I kept on either hearing negative responses or not hearing back at all. So basically nothing happened. My mom said something quite profound, quite unusual to what she would normally say as well. She said, you know, this is really strange. I think it’s because life is about to offer something very different to you, and it’s preventing you from getting anything else, because there is a plan in place and there’s a job for you that’s waiting for you. And it’s not any of these jobs. So it’s basically the life itself that is preventing you from getting it. And I thought, whoa, that’s a really strange thing for my mom to say. She doesn’t normally speak like that, but I think it encouraged me. And what happened then was that maybe a couple of weeks later, I ran into someone who I knew and they sort of asked, as usual, how is this singing going? And I said, well, it’s not going very well.

Laura: [00:26:29] I kind of paused everything there. And I’m actually now looking for any kind of job because I need to kind of sustain myself. And the person looked at me and he said, oh, well, I know someone who is looking for people like they have a business and they’re constantly looking for new people to join. And in my head, I thought, oh, business. I really don’t know anything about business. I’m definitely not a suitable candidate. But out of kind of politeness, I said, yes, of course, I’ll connect with them, I’ll reach out to them. And I did, and they told me about their business. They told me they have. They sent me a list of different roles that they have. I looked at all of them and I obviously thought, well, this is I can’t do any of this. I know nothing about business. I know nothing about any of these roles. The one thing I spotted was a graduate position.

Joseph: [00:27:22] Is this the customer service position?

Laura: [00:27:24] Yes. And I reached out back and I said, well, for a graduate position, what’s the time period for that graduate in terms of I graduated many, many years ago? Am I still, you know, could I still be a candidate? And the guy said, yes. Why not? And I said, okay, I did. And I said, does it matter where I graduated from? And they were like, no, it doesn’t matter. Oh, okay. Maybe it doesn’t matter though. And I applied and the position that I applied for was customer services because again, I thought, I don’t have much experience with any other things, but I do have experience with people. So I thought, that’s what I’m going to hang on to. And I applied and I got the job.

Joseph: [00:28:14] And how did that go for you? I think you spent a few years doing that. It sounds like you went from a place where you felt like you didn’t have, I guess, the formalized qualifications to take on that role. But when you actually got into the role, what was your experience there like?

Laura: [00:28:28] It was a really good experience, I think. I did not expect to enjoy it as much as I did, and that is one of the reasons why I never got back to singing. I just really enjoyed the whole corporate environment and client services was a very broad role. It offered a lot of variety, and lots of people contact. I enjoyed so much learning about business, what they do, kind of the whole corporate side of things. Really, really loved it. I think I did that for about a year, and then because it was a small organization, kind of almost like a startup, that was going through a lot of restructuring, and they kind of kept on changing their shape. So they kept moving me kind of around different roles. So I got to experience a lot. I was offered a role as an analyst, a data analyst. And I thought, well, that’s interesting, why not? And basically from starting from customer services. Associate moved my way up through data analysts, insight analyst into a consultant.

Joseph: [00:29:31] And then that takes us to the consulting chapter of your career, which is what I’m hoping to talk with you about now. You climb all the way up to becoming a strategy consultant, and then eventually you would make it to Deloitte. I was looking into the acceptance rates of applicants at Deloitte, and according to the Cambridge consultant, it’s about 4%. Now, I’m not sure how precise that figure is, but it’s very well known in the corporate world that landing a job at Deloitte or any of the big four professional firms, Deloitte or Ernst and Young or PwC or KPMG, it’s really competitive to get into these places. As someone who didn’t–at least before this latest role that you just described before that–didn’t have a formalized business background, how did you approach landing a job at Deloitte?

Laura: [00:30:17] Well, I’m surprised now too! I didn’t know these rates!

Laura: [00:30:20] Yeah. It’s competitive. You make me surprised now too!

Joseph: [00:30:23] Yeah, you made it.

Laura: [00:30:25] Oh my goodness. Feeding my imposter syndrome.

Joseph: [00:30:29] I work with a lot of business schools, and I know that consulting is one of the esteemed target industries that a lot of business students try to get into. There’s banking, there’s consulting. Those are two of the most attractive and also the most competitive. And so a lot of people don’t make it. And a lot of people wonder, how do you land a job at one of these big four firms or one of the big three firms? So yeah, I’m just curious how you did it.

Laura: [00:30:54] I think a lot of it also has to do with being at the right place at the right time. I think we cannot discredit that. I know that things right now are really, really tough within the industry. So it really depends on the time and the place. What’s the environment like? What’s the industry like? It’s not so much to do with what you bring. Sometimes it’s also being able to ride the tide. But basically what happened in my previous job, and I’m forever grateful to them for the opportunities that they provided me with. I had so many opportunities just to learn on the job, and I think what really helped is keeping that why not attitude. Some of the roles I was quite certain at the time, this is not going to be my forever role. I don’t think this is my thing, but I used that time to kind of take as much as I can from that role, and from the responsibilities that I was given. Some of them I did not thoroughly enjoy, but I think I tried to keep an attitude of what can I learn from this and kind of put in my little library of skills. One thing that did help was during Covid. While I always say while other people were baking bread and kind of everyone found.

Laura: [00:32:13] Everyone found their own thing . . .

Joseph: [00:32:14] I was not one those people . . .

Laura: [00:32:15] Lots of people were.

Laura: [00:32:16] And I have nothing against people who bake bread. I’m just really bad baker. That’s the true reason behind it. I decided that I also needed to do something, you know, with my time, even though I was still full-time working because our organization was working kind of in the digital space. So we were not really affected by the whole kind of work from home. What I did was I decided to do a little like a diploma. It’s not a university, it’s not a college. It’s not any of those. It’s just like a certification. But it’s a full-year course with lots of assignments and it’s still quite pretty in-depth. The topic that I chose was actually Human Resources, even though I did not necessarily have a desire to become a human resources specialist. But I kept that passion for people and business because I never had that true background in business. After reading kind of the brochure of that certificate, I really enjoyed what they were outlining. They were kind of really going on that human-centered approach to how to run an organization through people. And I just loved it. And I thought, why not? So that’s the thing that I did within Covid, which I think also helped me land the job at Deloitte because I was able to offer almost a niche expertise in addition to my more general consulting skills. I think the other thing that does help is if you know someone within the organization, it can really help you almost tailor not necessarily lie or pretend, but tailor your kind of focus of your application to what really matters to the organization as well. So I was kind of blessed to have some people on the inside who told me a little bit about the organization. They recommended the organization as a good organization to work for.

Joseph: [00:34:08] These are just.

Joseph: [00:34:08] People in your professional circle network. Okay.

Laura: [00:34:12] Yeah. So a couple of people in my network were in the organization. So that really helped because it really gave me an insight into the application process, understanding what the priorities for the business, and what can I speak into. And it really helped me to also then tailor my CV, tailor my application, and even tailor my interview approach to make sure that when I come in and I speak, they know that I understand their business, I understand their challenges, I understand their clients, I understand what they need, and I’m not coming in cold like I felt like one of their own in a way.

Joseph: [00:34:53] So it sounds like you investing the energy and the time into doing your side research, your side certification, and also just really customizing and tailoring your approach. It really sounds like that helped you stand out as a candidate.

Laura: [00:35:08] I suppose it sounds a bit of a cliche, you know, don’t go on an interview without having read about the organization, but I think you’d be surprised how many people don’t. It’s a surprising, shocking number as well. And I think that’s really the key. If you can go into that room and talk their language. Talk about the things that matter to them, kind of from the hiring manager all the way into kind of their current year priorities. That shows dedication. You’ve dedicated your time to research these things, that shows interest. You’ve shown interest in that organization. You can show expertise and what you know about clients, and then you can bring your own little niche expertise in something else that you do. And I think all of that together makes you quite attractive.

Joseph: [00:35:56] So it sounds like things are going well for you there at Deloitte. And one of the last things I was hoping we could talk about before we wrap up is just some of the lessons that you’ve learned along the way of your career change journey. When you look back on your career change journey, Is there anything in particular that you wished you had known that you now know about what it takes to make a pivot successfully?

Laura: [00:36:22] I’m overall really happy with my transition, so I don’t think there’s anything that I’m regretting. So it’s probably not as strong of an emotion, but I really wish I would have known sooner that I’m capable of so much more than I give credit to myself for. I think it has been a really encouraging journey throughout, and I probably owe it to a lot of people walking alongside me, who continually kept giving me opportunities and opening doors for me because they believed in me when I didn’t believe in myself. So I think, number one, surrounding yourself with those people again sounds really cliché, but it’s so important. And then second thing, just believing in yourself and giving yourself more credit, I think is important. And I think the third thing would be I hear a lot of people saying, oh, I’m really not happy in my current job. I want to change, I want to do something else. And they just sort of sit and wait until kind of the penny drops and they’re going to figure out their next big move. Sometimes your pivot is not made out of one big move. Sometimes it’s made out of lots of little steps and moves, and sometimes you’re going to fall into things and that’s okay. Give it a go. Approach everything with the attitude of why not? Let’s just give it a go.

Joseph: [00:37:43] Was that a major adjustment for you, Laura? I know we didn’t really touch on this, but you go from being an opera singer in front of these. What I’m assuming is quite large audiences in this sort of performance space to then being in an office, kind of dressed up in office attire, working with clients, sometimes behind a laptop, kind of in these meeting rooms. Was that a hard adjustment to make, or did you find that you kind of just fell quite naturally into that?

Laura: [00:38:08] It wasn’t too difficult, but there were some things to get used to. Like, I think in the opera world you’re way more active. There’s less kind of sitting down and your work is really split into kind of bursts of energy. So you’ll rehearse a scene, you have a little bit of time to hang around while some other people are doing other things. So like your work is more segmented and it’s really stretched across kind of the day. It’s also much later in the day, so you don’t really start as early, but sometimes you do tend to finish really, really late. So that adjustment was something to get used to. So just being able to sit again from like 8 or 9 until five, it just reminded me of school.

Joseph: [00:38:54] Yeah.

Laura: [00:38:54] And at first, I think I really struggled to just keep my concentration going. I had like back issues as well. When I first started sitting for long periods, I wasn’t used to it, but these are kind of the only major, I suppose, adjustments. It wasn’t dramatic.

Joseph: [00:39:11] And having been through this career change, Laura, what’s one thing that you’ve learned about yourself?

Laura: [00:39:17] One thing I learned about myself is that curiosity is my superpower.

Joseph: [00:39:23] Yeah, it sounds like curiosity has really served you well in your career, from just the example you gave of not being able to answer maybe a client question, and then you going back and diving deeper into that, or you just allowing yourself to say yes to some of these opportunities when you weren’t quite sure how they were going to work out. So it does sound like that’s worked very well for you.

Laura: [00:39:44] It really has. And I’m always very encouraged to hear the stories from around the world that most inventions or innovations have happened because of someone being curious and kind of going against the usual and thinking, why not? Well, what if. And I think that’s a really encouraging. And I think we never should underestimate curiosity. It’s one of the best things that you can have in your back pocket, and I think it’s going to serve anyone well.

Joseph: [00:40:12] And one more question before we wrap up with one of your side projects. Do you still sing?

Laura: [00:40:18] I still do. Not in the same capacity. I don’t do opera anymore, but I kind of sing in my free time. I sing in a kind of my local church sort of every other Sunday. So I do have some opportunities for my creative outlet.

Joseph: [00:40:35] I do want to wrap up speaking of outlets with one of your side projects, can you tell me a little bit more about Path Changer, which is actually how you and I first met and something I know you’ve been working on, wherever you can somehow find the time to work on it.

Laura: [00:40:50] It’s been such a busy time. I haven’t had a chance to do much on it in the last couple of months, but it is kind of something that I call my soul project. One of the things that I’m quite passionate about, having gone through this career change journey myself is helping others. Not calling myself a career expert and not a career advisor. I’m not anything in that area. However, I really wanted to create something that would allow people to get a glimpse into various perspectives related to career change. Hopefully with the view that they start seeing that things are possible. Because I think one of the most frustrating things for me to see is when someone really feels boxed in and without options, for the same reasons that I felt boxed in. For that, I don’t have the right certificate. I don’t have the right degree. I don’t have the right background to try something new, or to apply for this position, or to have a different career to the one that I had before. So I tried to create something, almost like an interview form, where I interview various experts with viewpoints or expertise related to something that might be relevant to career change. And yeah, and hoping that people can find that content interesting and then ideally also connect with those experts if they want to take that conversation further.

Joseph: [00:42:17] Well, and I’ve seen some of those video clips myself and they’re very useful and very insightful. So I would encourage people to check those out. And speaking of which, if they do want to learn more about you, or if they want to check out some of the content you’ve been creating through your Path Changer initiative, where is the best place people can find you?

Laura: [00:42:35] So I think currently the best place to find me would be either on LinkedIn . . . so I’m Laura McIntyre on there. Or Instagram. So if you do have Instagram, @pathchangerofficial is the handle. And that’s where I’ll be sharing all things related to career change.

Joseph: [00:42:53] Okay. And we’ll be sure to include links to those profiles on our show notes. So thank you so much, Laura, for taking this time out of your busy schedule to tell us a little bit about your former life as an opera singer, your transition into the world of consulting, and also just the importance of being curious and open and how much that can really serve you in your career. So best of luck with your time there at Deloitte with Pat changer, and I also hope we can cross paths again soon.

Laura: [00:43:20] Yes. Thank you so much for inviting me. It’s been really a pleasure to speak to you again.

Joseph: [00:43:29] So I hope you enjoyed hearing Laura’s perspectives on prioritizing your mental health, the power of your professional network, and believing in yourself. Now it’s time to wrap up with today’s mental Fuel, where I’m going to pick up on this topic of how curiosity can play an important role in your career change journey.

Joseph: [00:43:50] Before we get to today’s Mental Fuel®, I wanted to thank Stubble & Co for supporting this episode of the Career Relaunch® podcast crafted for the modern urban professional. Stubble & Co combines premium British design and practical functionality, offering stylish, durable and high-quality bags made from recycled materials perfect for work and travels. After ordering one of their crossbody slings myself, I also appreciated how they use minimal packaging and give 1% of their annual sales to approved environmental nonprofits. Check out their full range of bags and accessories at CareerRelaunch.net/Stubble.

Joseph: [00:44:28] This is the part of the show called Mental Fuel®, where I finished the show with a brief personal story related to one of the topics we covered today, and wrap up with a simple challenge to help you move forward with your own career goals. So for today’s mental fuel, I wanted to pick up on something Laura mentioned about curiosity being her superpower. And when I think about curiosity in the context of career change, it’s really about embracing an open, inquisitive mindset where you’re more focused on learning, understanding, and exploring new ideas, skills, or perspectives, rather than getting too caught up with the outcome of those explorations.

Joseph: [00:45:06] And while I wouldn’t say that curiosity is my superpower per se, I’ve definitely seen how allowing myself to be curious about things has opened up professional doors that would have otherwise remained closed or undiscovered. I’ll just share a couple of concrete examples, the first of which opened up a new career opportunity, and the second related to discovering interesting people. Many years ago, after I graduated from college, I was living in Hawaii doing a financial services internship at a company there, and I used to take the same bus to work every morning, hopping on at a very specific time and seeing the same bus driver every single day. I lived in Waikiki, and that bus originated its journey from the bus stop right next door to my apartment. So when I hopped on board. Sometimes I’d be the only one there with the bus driver waiting to depart. Now, I wouldn’t call myself the most gregarious or chattiest person out there, but I would consider myself fairly friendly. So I’d chat with this bus driver every morning on my way to work, mostly to learn as much as I could about life there in Hawaii. Things to see, things to say or not say, and just the way of life there on the island. This guy’s name was Yama. He was originally from Samoa, and I do remember that he was always reading the newspaper at a time when people read newspapers before setting off, so we’d sit there in the bus and chat about things in the news before he drove off.

Joseph: [00:46:45] And we were chatting one day, and I was telling him about my confusion around what to do after I finished up that internship, whether I would head back to the US mainland or to stay there in Hawaii. And I wasn’t quite sure what to do next, and he mentioned something that really planted a seed in my mind that would kind of forever change the trajectory of my entire career. He asked me if I ever considered going into radio news journalism. He knew I’d liked talking about the news, said I had a decent radio voice, and just posed the question. To be honest, I hadn’t ever thought of going in that direction professionally. But a couple of weeks later, I found myself doing some informational interviewing with journalists there, one of whom eventually put me in touch with a guy running the Hawaii Bureau of National Public Radio there. And the next thing I know, I’m working there as a fill-in classical music host, volunteering and eventually getting a job there, anchoring a daily news program. And this all started with me just being open to having a conversation with someone who I never would have imagined could help me come up with an idea of where to take my career, and also just being open to learning more about journalism opportunities in general, and just to jump forward a couple of decades and give a more current example now as a podcast host, where the seeds of this work really date back to that first experience being on air there in Hawaii.

Joseph: [00:48:18] This entire show has emerged from my ongoing curiosity about how people navigate career changes. Sometimes listeners ask me how I find guests I feature on this show, and while there are people who apply to be guests, the vast majority of guests you hear on this show are just people I’ve informally crossed paths with, either professionally or personally. Just being curious about their stories is typically how I find most guests for this show. Now, because I’m a public speaker and I speak a lot professionally. I do plenty of talking myself, so in one-on-one conversations I tend to do more question asking than speaking myself. I try my best when I meet people in general, to ask them about them and how they ended up where they are today. Mostly because I’m just curious about it, and you’d be surprised once you probe a bit and give people some space to share their more personal stories. They do open up, and you very quickly come to realize a lot of people out there have gone through some sort of a major career or unexpected life change. So clearly I’ve seen curiosity play a role in my own career. Laura talked about how curiosity’s played a role in hers.

Joseph: [00:49:48] What about you? When was the last time you just allowed yourself to pursue a new skill simply because it intrigued you? When did you last explore a new potential career idea? By taking a course, talking with someone in that sector, or reading a book or article on the topic? Or when did you make the effort to reconnect with someone you once met in passing, whom you felt could just be a nice person to have in your life? Sometimes just allowing yourself to be open to a new idea, path, or person can plant the seeds to an entirely new chapter in your career and life. This takes me to a quote from Elizabeth Gilbert, author of eat, pray, love. Curiosity is the truth and the Way of Creative Living. Following that scavenger hunt of curiosity can lead you to amazing places. So my challenge to you is to dedicate a few minutes this week to just learning something entirely new that you find intriguing right now. You could, for example, explore an emerging technology affecting your industry, or learn more about a skill that someone you admire possesses, or listen to a podcast episode about a topic you’re curious about.

Joseph: [00:51:17] I’ve been doing a little bit of learning and exploration myself recently, delving deeper into the world of AI to figure out the role it might play in my own workflow, the careers of my clients, followers and audiences, and also broader society.I’ve actually just finished the book Co-Intelligence by Ethan Mollick, which I would highly recommend if you want to learn more about how to embrace and work with AI in your career and broader life, think about what step you’ll take to allow curiosity to play a greater role in your career.

Joseph: [00:51:49] If you want to share a step you’ve recently taken to explore something new in your career; have a question you want me to address on the show; or just want to share a story of career change with others, I’d love for you to leave me a voicemail with your thoughts at careerrelaunch.net/104, where you can also find a summary of my discussion with Laura and learn more about her. Again, that’s careerrelaunch.net/104.

Joseph: [00:52:13] If you’ve enjoyed today’s show, I’d really appreciate you leaving a positive review and rating on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. And be sure to hit that follow button so you can get the latest episodes of the show delivered right to your device. Thanks so much for being part of the Career Relaunch® community, and a special thanks again to Laura McIntyre for sharing her story with us today from Kent.

Joseph: [00:52:34] This episode was mixed by Liam MacKenzie. Today’s music was curated by Jonathan Renaldy Poll and the career relaunch theme song was written and performed by electrocardiogram. I’m Joseph Liu. Have a great final few weeks of the year and I’ll talk to you next time.