Here’s the story behind this episode, Goodman has been a guest on this podcast a couple of times. I will link her episodes below,. Because I want you to go and check them out. Listeners love Cassie. My clients love Cassie. They have her books. She teaches a masterclass inside my group coaching program, job hunting made simple. And we collaborate on. Many things together because there is a symbiosis on what we care about and how we serve our clients that work really well in combination. A few months ago, Cassie started her own podcast. Her show is called true power and you can find it on apple and Spotify. It’s such a great listen, everyone.
Her guests are real professionals, just like you. And Cassie is great at bringing out their stories and allowing them to feel comfortable with their vulnerability. The first episode blew my mind. I totally recommend you go and listen to at least that one in particular. I still think about it all the time and I want to have her guests on my show. The guest’s name is Jasmine Malki or is it, I don’t want to spoil it for you.
So please go and check out that episode.
So I was her second guest for her second episode of true power. It’s always a blast when Cassie and I have a chat, I’ll be honest with you. It really flows naturally. And we work super well together. I decided to ask her permission to share that episode of true power here with you today. Because I listened to it again recently and I thought, well, I don’t think anyone knows these things about me. I haven’t shared this insight on my show. There’s also a few pearls that I wanted my childhood friends to listen to as I loved them so much.
And I think they will enjoy the stories that I shared with Cassie. So, what is this episode about? Anyway? It’s about finding happiness. It’s about planning and adjusting your plans until they feel right then doing new plans because you changed or because the world changed. It’s about knowing who you are and finding a way to be comfortable with it and deal with the criticism and the challenges along the way. It’s working with your talents.
Not against it. And giving you examples of my own life to illustrate all of these ideas in real life.
I really love this chat, Cassie, you are a gem and I can’t wait to have lunch with you soon and blend. New projects for 2024. And to you listener, I hope that this chat inspires you. I would recommend asking yourself the same questions that Cassie asked me in this episode. Write those answers down. This could be a great project for you to do over the holidays. I will have all the questions that Cassie asked me listed in the episode, show notes to make this project easier for you. And finally, in this episode, I mentioned strengths and talents a lot.
And I refer to my favorite strengths assessment for career planning, which is TalentPredix. I am a TalentPredix global partner. I think I was in fact, the first one they announced when TalentPredix was founded a few years ago or two years ago now. Oh gosh, time flies. And I’m very proud to be, collaborating with them. When you do a TalentPredix assessment, you get this amazing report that lists your top talents, your personal values, your career drivers.
It’s all explained for you in a report that you can use to prep for interviews. To write your personal pitch to write your LinkedIn about section I kid you not. The report is awesome. So go to my website and go to my services page and learn more about TalentPredix My service is called. Find my talents.
So if you click on find my talents, you will find a TalentPredix assessment. I charge. 97 Australian dollars at the moment at this price will go up very soon, unfortunately. So, if you’re listening to this later, I’m sorry if the price has gone up. So it’s 97 Australian dollars.
If you are in the us or the UK, the Australian dollar. It’s very good for you. So I would urge you to have a look in and see if you’re interested in finding more about your talents by doing the TalentPredix report. I love the names of my services. They’re all very simple, you know, find my talents is exactly what you will get when you do the TalentPredix assessment. Then we have reset your career job hunting made simple. Or the two services that you will find on my website. And of course, you know, the name of this podcast, the job hunting podcast. Yes, it is exactly the does what it’s supposed to do, right.
And without further ado, here’s Cassandra Goodman and me talking about talents, happiness. And why first plans are never the best ones.
Cassie: My first question is this. Can you share with us a moment in your history, a moment in your life when you felt like you were not being true to yourself?
Renata: Oh, okay. I need to choose only one. Moments
I wasn’t being true to myself. I dropped out of uni a couple of times early on and I always say this to my clients, I wanted to like, to like things, but I didn’t.
and it’s the same when, for example, you really want to like to go to the gym, but you don’t like to go to the gym. So I wanted to be a certain type of person as an adult, and I tried really hard to be that type of person that I romanticized in my head. And I went to university thinking that, you know, if I studied hard and if I did this, you know, degree and if I had this sort of friendships that I would achieve that, but it made me unhappy.
And it broke my heart, to be honest, because I had already thought it all through because I’m a planner. So I thought if I had planned it well enough, it would just happen. And I think a lot of my clients and other professionals are still in that kind of situation. When you think about something you want to achieve and you work really hard and then you don’t want to let it go.
Even though you know it’s not true to you. Do you find that with your clients as well?
Cassie: Oh, yes, absolutely. And this idea that, wait a minute, this was the plan. I’ve got to stick to the plan. Yeah. And one of my favorite saying from agile methodology is actually the first plan is the worst plan, but we forget that the first plan is the worst plan.
Cause when we make that first plan in the case of your story, you didn’t really perhaps yet understand what you wanted. Perhaps that kind of sequence of events that you’d mapped out in your head was a standard sequence of events that one must do in order to be air quoting here, successful.
So I’m curious about that plan that you kind of logically constructed that when you start actually enacting that plan in your heart, you knew this is not. the right plan for me. It seemed good in theory, but in my lived experience of executing this plan, it’s not really resonating with who I really am.
And so I’m curious about what insight you have about where that plan came from. If it didn’t kind of emerge from within your heart. As your plan, what’s your understanding of where that, where you absorbed that, that was a plan you should
Renata: follow? Well, that’s actually an interesting story.
And I wonder what you will make of it because it came from my heart. It came from my love of history of story of art and beauty. And my first degree was history. I wanted to be a historian and more specifically an art historian and I went to university. So my idea of success, you know, my ambition, believe everybody is ambitious.
You know but that doesn’t mean that my ambition was to make a lot of money at the time it wasn’t, you know, to make a lot of money and go up in the corporate ladder. Far from it. I despised , that sort of career. I didn’t want that career for myself. I wanted to be an intellectual, a scholar, somebody who would sit and analyze things and work in museums and that was what I wanted to do.
Thank you. So it came from, in fact, a talent that I have. So when I did my via character strengths, the first talent was appreciation of art and beauty, and it almost made me cry because by then I had already given up on, on becoming an art historian. The reason why was it a suitable career for me and a path for me to follow was because I need people.
I am an extrovert. Kind of, you know, I think as I get older, I, really seek out opportunities to be alone, but I really love being around people and I love giving advice and I love leading, I have to admit, and slowly as I Got older and matured. I understood the corporate world and the opportunities in it, and I wanted that more and more as time went by.
So I moved from art history to civil engineering, which was also not a good move for me. You know, very quickly I, decided that I didn’t like what I was studying. And then when I moved to Australia, that’s when I finally finished my degree and that was the Bachelor of Commerce and I loved every moment of it.
I enjoyed every single subject. I think it was partly because I was older. But partly because everything that was being said just resonated with me, you know, there was a part of me that instinctively understood what was being told and I knew I could do the role of a manager, the role of a colleague or a member of a team, I knew I could do it.
It was very interesting and I hadn’t felt that before in my previous studies.
Cassie: Yeah, that’s beautiful. And, you know, we’ve known each other for many years, but I did not realize that appreciation of beauty and excellence was your number one character strength, but that makes perfect sense here. For those of you who watch this on the video, Renata has this beautiful office with this beautiful art behind her.
when I think about the, you know, we were talking about our websites recently and the care. That you take on creating a beautifully designed digital experience that your clients interact with. And when I think about the feedback you’ve given me on my books and you’re noticing of the detail that I worked so hard to create a high quality book and your deep appreciation of the quality and effort I put into my books, you know, through those examples, those three examples, I see your essence of this appreciation of beauty and excellence to shock, just really radiating.
Through you and that, what was lacking in that first degree was the combination of that with the community piece with the leadership piece and perhaps with the bigger impact piece. Yeah, that, that story makes a lot of sense to me and it helps me get better, kind of get clearer on your, your essence, this, this blend of beauty, appreciation of beauty and excellence with community, with leadership.
Yeah, thank you for sharing that. That makes a lot of sense.
Renata: And I love that. I’m a true believer that everybody should do the via character strains and other strains assessment test. I work with TalentPredix, which is more. Align with the work I do as a career coach because. It’s so good to validate things you already know about yourself and also be able to explain it to people.
So when I’m growing up, for example, in my family, I was always known as being a fussy person. She’s such a fussy person. Things have to be a certain way for Renata, you know, what she dresses and her room and how she decorates everything. And people used to make fun of me, of course, you know, because that’s what we do when you’re kids.
Kids can be quite cruel and family members can be cruel too. And, and now I look back and I say. Well, that’s just who I am. And I embrace that. So, I, I was in Sydney for a couple of days last week, and we went to go to the opera, which my husband and I love. We love going to the opera. He likes it more than I do, but I, I appreciate it.
You know, I love art and I appreciate everything. And there could be nothing better for me to do than the next day Go to the Sydney Opera House and sit there for three and a half hours watching Don Quixote. Like, there’s nothing more rewarding for me than that. And when you learn about your strengths, it doesn’t necessarily need to be applied to your work.
It’s applied to you as a person, right? It can be a hobby. It can be how you feel your time. It can be how you talk to your friends, the sort of relationships you have, how you. Raise your kids like it can be part of other things, not just your career and that’s what I had to come to terms with. I, I appreciate that, but I don’t necessarily need to be doing it or critiquing it.
It’s not part of, you know, what I want to do as my career. But, but if I could
Cassie: offer something up there in terms of this idea that, that our essence doesn’t necessarily need to, you know, flow through or permeate our work, I would offer a different perspective because I see your essence is this, this, when I think about essence, I think about there’s all different active ingredients to our essence and, you know like drops of essential oil, and you’ve got quite a few drops of appreciation of beauty and excellence in there.
And then you have a few drops of community and leadership and other beautiful aspects of your essence. But I do see this particular aspect of your essence, who you are at your core, who you’re being when you’re being most yourself, which is a human who has a deep appreciation and reverence for beauty and excellence.
I see that shine through your work. Very, very clear. I see it. Thank you. Yeah. I see it in your website. I see it in the feedback you give. I see it in what you pay attention to. Yeah, so maybe. I feel like our essence does illuminate all aspects of our lives if it’s activated. But then sometimes it’s invisible because you just do what you do, you know, you can’t imagine having some sort of ugly clunky website, right?
You couldn’t live with that.
Renata: You have to remember that before I had my own business, I was an executive, you know, implementing. Projects and, CRM solutions like sales for us or hiring lots of people and structuring businesses and that was something that I knew it was part of my delivery. And Impact that I could have in an organization.
I knew that I could deliver, for example, for many years, I organized very large events or very important events. I’ve done events at the Sydney Opera House in Oxford, in Australian Parliament you know, here in Melbourne Crown Casino for, you know, state premiers and Melbourne Crown Casino.
Governors and prime ministers and whatnot, like people really the IPS and I am, I know that that appreciation and that strength was one of the components of making everybody. Have an amazing experience at the events that I was involved in. I, I know that, but that’s not something that when you’re thinking about your career, or when I’m working with my clients, right?
And they get the results from their via character strengths and it looks odd. The 1st thing they say is like. Why am I at a content? You know, so we need to kind of do what you’re doing, dig deep and kind of analyze it and reflect. You’re right. You know, but the other thing I didn’t use to do was to convey that I was, as I was being employed, I used to focus more on the skills and the experience that I had, and then wow them with the presentation, you know, like it’s, it’s a hard sell to say, Oh, my top strengths, what are your strengths, Renata, when you’re talking to a headhunter?
Like, Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Cassie: Appreciation of beauty and excellence. You know
Renata: what I mean? You have to translate it, right? Yeah. Yeah,
Cassie: absolutely. And it’s in the how, you know, we all have a unique how we work, right? People who work with you experience the way you work and the way you work, the experience you give to your clients is unique to you.
And I see that appreciation of beauty and excellence. Shining through the way you’re being with me, with your clients, with all that you come in contact with. And I think it’s, yeah, that’s been really clarifying conversation. It makes a lot of sense, you know, a few, you know, bits of yeah, getting to know you have fallen into place there.
And I think you’re a great example of someone who’s embracing and activating. Their essence with awareness and with discernment, of course, because, yeah it’s got to be an appropriate translation of that essence into the work at hand. But I think you’re a beautiful example of someone who’s living into that.
And so I have 1, I have 1 more question because I think that was a wonderful conversation and. A rich reflection on the importance of understanding and activating our essence. So, so my question is really about a moment in time when you got feedback from the outside world that perhaps this way of being, this deep appreciation for beauty and excellence, what the world perhaps Labeled as a fussiness.
Was there a moment that sticks with you maybe as a, as a younger child, a moment when the world around you said, Renata, you’re too fussy, you need to be less fussy. And was there a moment that stuck with you when that, created some level of incongruence or challenge for you in being told that to basically not be yourself?
Renata: I think funny moments, funny moments. I, I’m, I’m sure that there, there were times at work when, people lost their patience with me, and I remember getting feedback about things like that and so let’s talk about work first, the way that I used to explain, you know, the importance of creating an experience, was by communicating it and kind of.
Share, so I’m, I’m having difficulty finding the words here, but it was really almost creating like a manifest. Okay, this is like what is the, the name of Tom Cruise in that movie? Jerry Maguire
manifesto because so a manifesto and I’m, I’m, I’m big on that. Even when I created my own business and it was just me, I still created a manifesto for it. But I. What I used to say, so let’s say, let’s go back to the example of those events, you know, was like, I’m being fussy and I’m being particular because we compete with everything else for somebody to wake up at 6 a.
m. to attend an event at 7 a. m. At crown casino, which is like an hour away from where they live, you’re competing with time with family. You’re, you know, you’re not competing with another industry association. That’s organizing another event. No, you’re competing with timing badge time with family, taking the kids to school, you know, so, so it was really explaining.
Why it was so important when they landed at Crown Casino for a breakfast at 7 a. m. that they were absolutely wowed by the experience that we had thought things through, who they were going to sit next to, who was on stage, what sort of topics were going to be most Interesting for them. What sort of food were they going to eat?
So I was really into that experience and I wanted people to go out and want to come back again next week. Right? So it had to have that. So it was over explaining. The funny things really happen in my childhood teenage years and adulthood where I basically forced my friends to read books and appreciate art and go to the ballet with me
Cassie: and the forced appreciation society.
Yes, yes,
Renata: yes. And they remember it, you know, and I was back in my home country last year and we were looking at. Diaries and, and it was so cute. Like, this friend of mine had all of her diaries from grade 1, all the way to university. And we were reading it over the weekend. We went to the beach together and we were reading it.
And there will be one entry where she was having fun with friends and, you know, doing sort of something super cheeky or naughty. And then the other entry was like, oh, Renata came over and we studied for English together. Like, you know, I, I was the one that they will call when they either needed to study or understand something or they needed advice.
Or they were running away and this friend in particular used to run away from home and, and where would she go? She would come to my place. I’m sure that
Cassie: was a relief for her parents. It sounds like though, even as a young child, child, you really have this strong awareness. No, this is, this is me. This is what I need to do.
And I’m going to engage to enroll others in this appreciation of what, what matters here. So. I think that’s really, really beautiful that as you look back to your childhood and your friend’s diaries, you see this. This enthusiasm for beauty and excellence shining through. And so it doesn’t sound like this message from the outside world that saw this appreciation through this lens of someone who was too fussy.
It doesn’t sound like that had
Renata: a mix of that. There was a mix of that. There was a bit of bullying. But, but my close friends who are my friends to this day gave me. Constructive feedback. I remember, you know, a friend of mine, I actually tried to have a podcast with her cause she’s so funny. And, and didn’t work the time difference.
She’s still in Brazil. She’s in Rio and she used to come into my bedroom and say, your bedroom is too neat. Are you a teenager or are you like 80 years old? Like, and I, I remember. Thinking, yeah, that’s actually uncool. So I need to find a style for my bedroom that is a little bit, sort of a bit more relaxed.
And I changed a few things, like the way I organize my books.
So before it was trendy to have the bed leaning a bit, a bit sort of more soft on the bed. I created that trend. I remember sort of, okay, this is too nice to me. Let me just soften this up a bit. And a
Cassie: throw. I love it. I love it. the adapting to what was socially, the socially acceptable bounds of appreciation for precision and beauty.
And so I think my, my question then is around how today, you know, given all this, you know, you’re a leader who reflects, you’re a woman who reflects deeply given all the reflection and the inner work that you’ve done. How would you describe, then, who you’re being when you’re being most yourself? How would you encapsulate in language, you know, the vibrant, pure expression of who you are at your core?
Who are you being when you’re being most yourself?
Renata: Oh, wow. I hope I can answer that question. Well, I know I’ll have a perfect answer in a few days, you know, it will be following me as I try to sleep. And then I’ll think of a perfect answer. I have never been happier. than now. I am so content with my life and satisfied with what have I achieved.
And it’s not about money or status, which I had more before, to be honest, it’s about waking up in the morning and doing exactly what I set out to do. This plan of being a career coach has been bubbling along for decades. And I, Thought I would do it much later in life, and I just brought it forward by a decade, and it was the best thing I did.
I’m very. I don’t know if I’m answering your question, but I, I wake up in the morning and yes, there are stresses and, you know, I have a whole bunch of things that I would love to have done already. And it hasn’t been done yet. You know, when you’re a business owner, you and I know it’s all about time management, but I enjoy what I’m doing so much and working with clients and seeing the results and learning from them.
Thank you. The clients that have now and applying those learnings to the next sort of clients that I’ll have, you know, in a few weeks or days time. That is just the best feeling in the world. I have never been happier. How
Cassie: do you describe that feeling? Like, how do you feel in this moment where you’re like, okay, this is it.
doing the work. I’m born to do in the way I was born to do it. So, you know, one of the things I say is that I help leaders love who they’re being, not just what they do, because when we stay connected to our essence, that’s what becomes possible. Right? So, so tell us a little bit more, give us a glimpse in your inner experience on these days, when you just know in your bones, you’re doing what you were meant to be doing in the way you’re meant to be doing it.
Renata: Yes, I’ll give you an example of what happened in the past couple of days. because I am my own boss, and I know this is not always the case when you have a job, having said that I have felt this sense of inner satisfaction and peace and accomplishment when I was working as well. And it’s about finding the right culture and fitting team that works with you.
But because I have total control of my business, I focus on working with my strengths. Thank you. Right, so on the TalentPredix assessment, my top strengths are understanding others and leading and sort of foresight and thinking ahead. And if you’re a career coach, that’s exactly what you should be doing to help your clients.
So. I am focusing on what I know how to do well, and just designing my work life around that. And for those talents on the wheel that I couldn’t care less about. I don’t worry. So precision, for example, I’m not precise. I’m not a precision person and I’ve never been. And that’s why I’ve always loved to work as part of a team because, you know, I could choose things to delegate or escalate and, precision was one of those.
But now if I record an episode, which I did yesterday for the job hunting podcast and. It’s not a 10 out of 10. I don’t fed about. I don’t worry. Yeah, you know, I’m like, I know that I have a community that will listen to this and take stuff away from it because I still recorded it with the best intentions.
And I know that there’s a message there for someone. And I’m not going to rerecord it over and over again until it loses its Yeah. It’s essence. Like, as you say, and it becomes something to, sort of plasticky and no, no, it’s, it’s fine. You know, I’m doing it one episode a week. Of course there will be things that are not going to be perfect, but that’s okay.
And I, and I go to sleep at night and I’m not worried about it. Yes.
Cassie: So that’s beautiful. So if I can reflect back what I took from that answer about who are you being? When you’re being fully yourself, you know, I, you use the word, there’s a sense of inner peace. There’s a sense of satisfaction, there’s a capacity to hold things lightly.
There’s a capacity to trust that the goal is not perfection. The goal is authenticity and realness and connection and sharing. And so, yeah, does that, does that sound right for you that when you’re being yourself, when your essence is activated and you’re kind of getting out of your own way, you know, what I mean by that is that the parts of you that perhaps we all have parts that are less empowered.
When those parts are quiet and you’re connected to your core, you’re a person that’s, peaceful, that’s content, that’s satisfied. And that’s able to continue to create this, this, this wonderful work, these conversations that you’re capturing and sharing and all, all the other conversations you’re part of, you continue to, to put this goodness out in the world in a, in a way that really embodies a sense of lightness and playfulness, which I think is when we’re at our best.
Right.
Renata: Yes, yes, for me it is, you know, and I, I find that that resonates with my personality and with the talents that I have the personal values that I have. I know that for some of my clients that would not resonate. Because they’re not you. No, no. and, and I want, I don’t want people to listen to this and think, oh, you know, I want to be as relaxed as Renata is.
I, you know, I have even my, some of them, I have two boys, my oldest, he has a strong. sense of justice. Yes. All the things he needs to do in the world. And it comes from a warrior kind of mentality, which I do not have. So sometimes I just need to watch him and observe and not judge or not criticize or not sort of be scared by the things he decides to do.
And some of my clients have You know, completely different personalities as well career drivers and personal value. So I think it’s important for people to be kind to themselves and not sort of mimic or. Envision somebody and see that as an ideal when they have to actually from inside and you’re the best person to talk about that.
In fact, not me.
Cassie: Yeah, no, no, I’m not for a moment suggesting like, you know, do what Renata does.
Renata: Yeah, no, I just worry that people will listen. And I know I’m a very calm person and I have a calm voice and a lot, I get a lot of feedback about that, about the podcast being a calming listen for somebody who is in distress or lost their jobs or, you know, I get a lot of feedback about that.
So I feel like I’m in the zone that I should be, you know, that’s the sort of area that I, I should work with. And I think that there will be other coaches that have a very different essence and they will be more go, go, go and more motivational and inspirational. And that’s definitely not something that they will get from me.
I’m like, go rest, go sleep.
Cassie: I think we’ve talked about this, like the space between roles. Is such a precious space, right? It is a place for reflection and pausing and taking our time to figure out who am I really, and what is the work that’s going to help me to best serve and to be myself. So, you know, personally, I think the energy and the essence that you bring to the work you do is exactly what’s required at these really.
Precious and rare moments in time between roles where we have this opportunity to reflect deeply and figure out who am I and what do I want to do with this one, you know, short and precious life.
So thank you so much, Renata. I have loved our conversation. Thank you for all that you shared. And yeah, I have, we have the chance to have more conversations.
Renata: Keep being yourself. Thank you so much for this opportunity, Cassie.
