282: How to Achieve Career Success on Your Terms with Sergey Gorbatov

Aoife O’Brien [00:00:01]:

Are you managing your career or is your career managing you? That question is something I posed just yesterday to a group of leaders in a fantastic organization and it’s really apt for the conversation that I have today on the podcast. This is the Happier at Work podcast, the award winning podcast about careers and culture. I’m your host, Aoife o’. Brien. I’m the career and culture strategist for People First, Leaders in global organizations and teams. I and today’s episode features Sergey Gorbachev and we talk all about careers. So whether you feel like you’ve been drifting for a while, you’re a bit directionless, whether you feel like a change, or you’ve been following someone else’s path instead of crafting your own, then today’s episode is absolutely for you. We talk about uncovering values and strengths and how to ask for feedback that’s really gonna make a difference.

Aoife O’Brien [00:00:57]:

Do get involved in the conversation. I usually post about the podcast on LinkedIn. In fact, I always post about the podcast on LinkedIn. So if we’re not connected there, feel free to connect with me. But let me know what you think of today’s episode and what’s one thing that you’re going to do differently as a result. If you enjoy today’s podcast episode, don’t forget to leave a rating or a review on your favorite podcast platform or share it with a friend who you think might benefit. I really hope you enjoyed today’s episode. Subscribe Sergey, welcome to the Happier at Work podcast.

Aoife O’Brien [00:01:28]:

I’m so thrilled to have this discussion with you. I’m excited about what we’re going to talk about in relation to careers. Do you want to let listeners know a little bit about you, a little bit about your history and how you got into doing what you’re doing?

Sergey Gorbatov [00:01:41]:

Thank you for having me here. If I’m really excited to be here. So who I am, I’m a teacher, I’m a professor, I’m a consultant. What I do, I help people and organization to be better. And that’s the question that everyone should be asking themselves because we all want to be better. But okay, what am I willing to do and what’s my next step? I really believe in very pragmatic and practical ways on how to have an edge. And we can have, we can talk about your performance edge, that is how you do your better and great work, your career edge. That is how do I have career on my terms so that I can get more of what I want.

Sergey Gorbatov [00:02:25]:

And finally, if you are in a position of leadership and you want to amplify your impact culture edge. About seven or eight years of age, when normal children want to be astronauts and presidents, I wanted to be a teacher. And that passion sort of followed me throughout my life. And when I got an opportunity to join IE Business School as a professor in 2015, I grabbed them. Grabbed them. I also wanted to be learning my entire life. So I did my master’s, I did my PhD, and then, of course, sharing that knowledge via podcasts like this one, or writing books or doing research. So I guess that that’s been the theme throughout my career.

Aoife O’Brien [00:03:11]:

Yeah, I love it. You mentioned something that kind of struck me just a second ago with this idea, if you’re willing, and can we unpack that a little bit about this willingness to maybe stretch our comfort z or to take a risk on doing something a little bit different in order to grow.

Sergey Gorbatov [00:03:30]:

I often meet people who tell me, well, Sergey, why do I need to do anything? My organization will take care of me, or things have always happened to me somehow. I got this job, I got this opportunity, I got into this. So I think that will just continue. We call them drifters. So people who don’t take an active position in managing their career, and that could be all right for a time being, but basically it means that you bet on luck. Okay? Things happen to me. I think that’s not a very good strategy. Why? Because people are most productive.

Sergey Gorbatov [00:04:15]:

They’re at their happiest. They’re most satisfied when they are aligned to their purpose. And for that, each one of us needs to answer the question, what is career success for me, if I ask you to, and everyone on this podcast to ask, okay, what’s, what’s my definition of career success? My personal definition of career will be different for everyone. One of the people I’m coaching, she said, okay, by the time I’m 50, I want to be making $1 million a year. Okay, great. Another person said, this is. This is lovely. She said, I see myself in a red leather chair in front of a large desks making decisions that impact thousands.

Aoife O’Brien [00:05:04]:

Oh, wow.

Sergey Gorbatov [00:05:06]:

Was her definition of career success. And someone recently told me, sergey, for me, being successful means waking up without an alarm clock. So that definition of career success is deeply personal and it needs to be truly yours. Now, if you believe that your organization will do that for you, or I’ll just do what my boss does, I’ll go where my boss goes. There is nothing sadder than to arrive at a certain age, look back and said, that’s not the life that I Wanted. So to the life that you want and to have the career that you want. First step is defining what success means. And that’s an intentional.

Sergey Gorbatov [00:05:51]:

It’s an action that want each and every one of us to take.

Aoife O’Brien [00:05:55]:

Yeah. And it’s. So what I’m thinking while you’re talking about this is when I still worked in a corporate environment. I was there for about 20 years, and I definitely did not know what career success meant for me. I was going, sticking with the industry that I was in. I was looking for the next gap in the team, usually looking above, so trying to climb the ladder and get to that next level always. And I did that for 20 years. And you could say I had some degree of success in that role.

Aoife O’Brien [00:06:31]:

But is that the kind of career success that I wanted? At the time, I was like, I want to be CEO. I wanted, you know, but actually I think we have this perception of what we should want or we have society’s perception, you know, why did I want to be CEO? Well, it’s for the accolades and the recognition and the title and all of these things. You don’t have to be CEO to do that. And by the way, you can just go and set up your own company and call yourself CEO if that’s what you want. But all of that to say that there are probably a lot of people who are listening today who’ve taken that same path. And what I see out there is people get to, let’s say, their 40s, they’ve been in a career for 20 years, and they kind of wake up and go, I’m not sure if this is the right thing for me anymore.

Sergey Gorbatov [00:07:22]:

I’m coaching this wonderful lady and we have our conversation. She’s thinking what her next step is. Her organization wants her to move, to get the next promotion, to get the next title. I asked her, what’s definition? What’s your definition of career success and where did it come from? And she told me the story that she was this poster child in her family. She was the only one who was getting good grades. Everyone was saying, oh, look at her. At least one of us will get out of here. This is the perfect, the perfect child, the example student, great professional.

Sergey Gorbatov [00:08:07]:

So all of a sudden she started crying and she said, sergey, my entire life I lived according to the expectations of others. What my family wanted from me. I no longer want to be high potential. Now my organization says I’m hypertosal. I don’t want it. I want balance. I want to spend time with my children. I’m okay that’s it.

Sergey Gorbatov [00:08:37]:

I want to start living my life how I want it. My life, my terms. So that’s why defining what career success means to you is very important. So that we step away from the shadow of others and their expectations of us. And until you realize that the danger is that you’ll be either chasing and that’s the society’s expectations that, oh, the title, every step up is the right one. It’s the salary, so the external factors of career success, or you might be drifting and that is letting others make decisions for you. Neither of those strategies can lead to satisfaction, to living your life with purpose and having the career that you want and deserve.

Aoife O’Brien [00:09:34]:

Can we drill into each of those in a little bit more detail? So I’d love to tackle this idea of drifting first because it seems probably a lot of people do that and maybe what’s getting in the way is it. There’s just that they, like a lot of people, say, I just landed in this and I just kept going and they kept getting promoted and so they just stayed where they are without really examining this. And I think certain things happen when you get maybe to an age and you start thinking about these things in a little bit more detail. Like, wow, I’m kind of halfway through my career. Is this really what I want to be doing?

Sergey Gorbatov [00:10:09]:

And the question is, where are you going? So what’s your values aligned career vision? If you don’t have that clear, well, then any step would do. But let’s imagine that you’ve taken your time. You looked at your definition of career success, you looked at your strengths, you looked at your values, you looked at the environments and contexts that get the best out of you. You put all of that together and you say, well, you know what, that’s where I’m going. That’s my career direction. And that direction can be very specific. That is, I want to be a VP by the age of 40. Or it can be very generic.

Sergey Gorbatov [00:10:49]:

I don’t care what I’m doing as long as it’s in Paris. But you need to answer, right? It will be very personal and individual to any of us. But okay, you need to define your destination, no matter how specific or generic that is. Once you have that clear, what are the potential scenarios that would get you there? Here, I encourage everyone to adopt this GPS mentality. Remember when we used to have gps is now nobody has GPS because everyone has their phones. But in the phone you can punch in a very exact address and then it will offer you several routes. It will offer you the Fastest route. And probably it will have tolls.

Sergey Gorbatov [00:11:35]:

So some sacrifice is expected. You know what? There is an accelerated way to your destination. But be expected to work long hours. You won’t be spending as much time with your children. You’ll be tired because you’ll constantly be on the road. It will offer you a regular route with some stops and which means that you’ll be moving at average speed together with someone else. Or it will offer you a scenic route where you can stop for a picnic and I don’t know. And career terms.

Sergey Gorbatov [00:12:06]:

Take a sabbatical or take time for yourself. It’s up to you to choose which one you want. And you need to have clarity on what those routes are. Those are the potential scenarios. And you can have the most logical one or expected one, a different one. You might change industry, might change a company. And something weird and wonderful, something that say, I’ve always wanted to do that. So that.

Sergey Gorbatov [00:12:38]:

Why do you need that clarity on the destination and the potential scenarios or routes towards the destination? Because when an opportunity lands or you are offered an opportunity, you can evaluate it in the context of your plan. So now you have a point of reference to say, hey, I have this opportunity. So at least I have two options already. Option one, I take that opportunity. Option two, I stay where I am. Which of those options advances me meaningfully towards my destination? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I have a different option. So without having that clarity, how can you take good decisions? We’re all about helping people make good decisions.

Aoife O’Brien [00:13:28]:

Will come on to the clarity piece in a second. But I’d love to know, in your experience, when people get to that destination that they say they want, do they feel happy that they figured out like, this is where I want to be and now I land here, or is it kind of like, okay, now I’m here, what’s the next destination?

Sergey Gorbatov [00:13:50]:

That’s a great question. If we shouldn’t be confusing achievement with happiness. Different things, they’re not correlated. So let’s not conflate. Title, position, getting to a destination where, how you feel. So should you have direction and a sense of clarity in your career? Absolutely. At the same time, you need to be answering the question, what makes me satisfied?

Aoife O’Brien [00:14:25]:

Yeah.

Sergey Gorbatov [00:14:25]:

And we are satisfied when we do work that is deeply aligned with our values. When work in environments that get the best out of us, when we do things that get us closer to our personal definition of success.

Aoife O’Brien [00:14:44]:

Yeah.

Sergey Gorbatov [00:14:44]:

And for many and often, happiness should be a byproduct of how you’re getting to your destination, of the destination itself. You can’t say I’ll be happy when I’m 40 and I’m a vice president. So what are you going to do? What are you going to do? And then life happens. You know the first rule of career management, life happens and you never know what’s going to. You might need to throw away your plan and everything because you need to move to a different country, you need to take care of your ailing parents, a child is born, your partner starts a startup, which means that you need to put your career on ice and anything can happen. So the question is, and the question becomes, are you able to navigate that? And is that factored into your plan? And how do you generate that resilience so that you can adapt and adjust and pivot on a dime? And that’s where a deep understanding of who you are, self awareness, what are my values, what are my strengths, what makes me happy? Answer those questions to yourself. And that requires a deep sense of self awareness. We know that people are not very self aware.

Sergey Gorbatov [00:16:10]:

Actually research will tell us that most of us are delusional. Right. So we create this movie in our head. So how do you get more self awareness? One, you can get there through reflection. But because we are delusional, reflection will only get you so far.

Aoife O’Brien [00:16:29]:

Yeah.

Sergey Gorbatov [00:16:29]:

The second way is to get feedback. You go and you ask people on how you’re perceived. But feedback is a rare commodity. You’re lucky if you’re getting good quality feedback that is useful and you can leverage that. And the third is assessment. So do a cognitive assessment, do personality assessment. I’m a big fan. And you can get a lot of information from those psychometrics.

Sergey Gorbatov [00:16:56]:

Like we can do 16 PF OPQ Hogan’s wing finder. There are many good ones out there. There are also many bad ones out there. So be careful what you’re doing. But that self awareness is absolutely critical. And understanding who you are, where you’re going and how do you get there being satisfied and happy. Because if you’re satisfied and happy, you’re healthier, less stress, your cholesterol levels are lower, your heart is feeling better and when you are happier, it means that your relationships are better. So if you want to have better families, better communities, better health, why not start taking care of your career? If there is anything that I learned from airplane announcements, is that the oxygen mask you put on yourself first and then you help others?

Aoife O’Brien [00:17:53]:

Yeah. Love this. So from everything that you’re saying, Sergey, it sounds like it’s not about the destination, it’s more about the GPS and the direction that we’re taking. And in a previous podcast we talked about the toward move or the away move. So with each decision that you have to take in your career, it’s whether this is bringing me towards something that’s going to make me more satisfied and happier in my career versus an away move which would take you away from that direction. And it’s all about that journey. And in order to have a satisfying career, we really need to understand ourselves. So you mentioned about values, strengths and the environments.

Aoife O’Brien [00:18:34]:

Can we touch on that a little bit? How do you help people to find their values? I know, like when I worked in corporate, I had no idea that I had personal values. I knew that the company had values because they were on the wall and they were in the email signature. But it wasn’t until I started studying this stuff that I realized the importance of values and knowing our own core values and what they mean. So we can maybe talk about that and some of the specific assessments that people could potentially take to understand themselves selves a little bit more and how to look at the environments that you’ve been in and what makes you really come alive.

Sergey Gorbatov [00:19:13]:

That’s a great question, Aoife. Personal values are those signposts for decisions that we take in critical moments. It’s easy to live without values when everything is right, when you really need to make a pivotal choice. How you make the choice is dictated by what you hold dear. So think about difficult situations in your life. When you had the choice to help a friend versus advancing your career. When you had the choice to tell the truth versus to feel comfortable. When you had the choice to earn a lot of money versus spend it on yourself and pamper.

Sergey Gorbatov [00:20:01]:

What, what, what did you do? How did that. That would be, you know, an easy way through telling those stories or sharing those stories with others. Sort of reflect why did I do what, what, what I did? And the answer would be, well, because that’s important to you and values is what’s important to, to you. That values are the engine behind our decisions. Another way how you can get to values is, well, take a list of values. Just Google list of personal values. You’ll get a list of hundreds of them. Look through and pick 10 that are important to you.

Sergey Gorbatov [00:20:40]:

Then out of those 10, circle those. If you stack rank them, circle those. That will end up at the top of your list and those will be your top three to five values. Alternatively, you can do an assessment. For example, if you go to www.personalvalue.es so it spells personal values, but There is a dot between.

Aoife O’Brien [00:21:05]:

Yeah, yeah.

Sergey Gorbatov [00:21:06]:

There is an assessment. You can do it in five minutes. And basically it will allow you to choose as many that you want, and then it will force you to pick one or the other based on the situation. So now through forced.

Aoife O’Brien [00:21:17]:

Oh, yeah, I like. I like that approach. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Sergey Gorbatov [00:21:22]:

You will get there. And there are other sophisticated approaches, psychometrics. But yeah, just go and explore. And sometimes I ask people, okay, show me your calendar. I look at your calendar and I tell you what’s important to you.

Aoife O’Brien [00:21:40]:

Yeah. Your time. Yeah, yeah.

Sergey Gorbatov [00:21:43]:

With your team versus on the process, if you’re looking after clients versus your blocking. Time for deep thinking. Show me your priorities. I’ll tell you what are your values.

Aoife O’Brien [00:21:57]:

Love that. And when it comes to strengths, something that I often find is that people don’t. Maybe they have an inkling of what they’re good at, but they don’t really know what their inherent strengths are. Because as individuals, we think, well, that comes so easily. It couldn’t possibly be a strength of mine. And if it comes so easily to me, it must come so easy to other people as well. So how can we uncover our strengths? Like, I know there’s. There’s a few tools that I recommend to people, but I’d love to hear more about.

Aoife O’Brien [00:22:28]:

About what you recommend.

Sergey Gorbatov [00:22:31]:

There is exercise that I’m doing with my MBA students. Say I teach a number of MBA programs, and before they come to class, I ask them to do an exercise that is called Reflected Best Self. Very easy to do. Highly recommend to. To anyone. You ask 15 to 20 people to share with you a story or a couple of stories on when they saw you at your best. Reach out to your friends, colleagues, family, and say, hey, can you think of a situation? When you saw me at my best, what did I do? What made you choose that story? And you collect those stories and you read them and. And it, first of all, it just generates this wonderful feeling of humility and wonder.

Sergey Gorbatov [00:23:31]:

It’s like, really, people see that I didn’t think that exactly what you said. I never thought that would be the best version of myself. And then you identify the themes and you’re trying to answer, so which characteristics or qualities or behaviors I demonstrated across those situations. And you end up with 3, 4, 5, what we call signature strengths. And those are uniquely you that quintessentially you. Even your enemies will agree that those are your strengths because you demonstrate them in every single meaningful interaction or project or achievement. You demonstrate you relied, and you leverage those strengths. Yeah, you need to just to own them, turn them into a personal branding statement, so that whenever people ask you to introduce yourself, you put it on your LinkedIn profile, you integrate that into your resume and say, yeah, so that is who I am when I’m doing my best work.

Aoife O’Brien [00:24:40]:

I love that because. So if I think back to. I think it was about seven years ago when I was doing my coaching qualification, and part of that homework was to reach out to people and ask them. I can’t remember the specific question, but they have to come back and share something about you. But I’m sure it wasn’t phrased in that way. And I love how you phrase that, like, how did I show up when I was my best? Because that doesn’t feel like you’re bragging or that you’re looking for someone to say brilliant. It feels very authentic that you want to behave in the best way. You want to improve yourself in some way.

Aoife O’Brien [00:25:19]:

And so you’ll ask trusted people how, you know, what am I like when I’m. I’m my best.

Sergey Gorbatov [00:25:25]:

Authentic and behavioral. I always ask, which, what did I do? Because if you ask people, what are my strengths? They thought, oh, you are. You’re humble. You are a good communicator. Well, it doesn’t mean anything.

Aoife O’Brien [00:25:39]:

Yeah.

Sergey Gorbatov [00:25:40]:

What. What. What did I do?

Aoife O’Brien [00:25:42]:

Yeah.

Sergey Gorbatov [00:25:43]:

That made you say that. Very actionable. So that you know exactly what you need to do more of next time.

Aoife O’Brien [00:25:52]:

Yeah, no, I think I’m gonna. I’m gonna take that and I’m gonna ask 15 to 20 people straight after this call, and I’m gonna put the question out there and see what people say and use that, like you say in my branding statement. Because if that’s what other people are saying about you, that’s how you’re showing up, how you’re being perceived when you’re at your best. It’s not obviously when you’re angry or when you’re performing.

Sergey Gorbatov [00:26:20]:

And both about your strengths and your weaknesses. There is a saying that if one person called you a horse, ignore them. If three people called you a horse, look in the mirror. If five people hold you a horse, buy a saddle.

Aoife O’Brien [00:26:33]:

Okay.

Sergey Gorbatov [00:26:36]:

You do need calibrated feedback on.

Aoife O’Brien [00:26:39]:

Yeah. Yeah.

Sergey Gorbatov [00:26:40]:

How you come across at your best and at your worst.

Aoife O’Brien [00:26:44]:

Yeah.

Sergey Gorbatov [00:26:44]:

Because, yes, you need to leverage your strengths to get ahead in your career. If you’re not taking care of your weaknesses, your weaknesses can hold you back.

Aoife O’Brien [00:26:54]:

Yeah.

Sergey Gorbatov [00:26:55]:

I have 20 years of corporate experience, mostly in HR, and I’ve never fired anyone for their strengths. Fired a lot of people for Their weaknesses. Not taking care of what you’re not good at particularly creates noise. The noise is okay. Every time that people talk about you, those things come up. So bringing them to a marginal okay, average level is important so that they don’t hold you back.

Aoife O’Brien [00:27:26]:

When I first started my career, overcoming your weaknesses, being able to identify and overcome your weaknesses was the biggest big thing. And we always have to work on our weaknesses. And I’ve seen this huge shift towards leveraging, as you said, leveraging your strengths. But when I speak about careers and strengths in particular, what I share is that it’s this idea that your strengths can become your weakness if they’re overused, first of all. But also you have these blind spots that you don’t know about. And the only way to find out about those blind spots is to ask other people for feedback. Because going back to our earlier point, the self reflection is not going to be successful in that scenario. It’s about getting that feedback and having other people like you say quality feedback.

Aoife O’Brien [00:28:18]:

That could probably be a topic for a whole other day about how to give quality feedback to people, especially when you’re asked for it, and how to proactively share it. So it’s really interesting, that kind of shift that we’ve seen away from focusing on our weaknesses, but still with the idea that we need to know what our weaknesses are, we need to know what our blind spots are and we need to be able to manage them in such a way that they don’t trip us up when we’re trying to use our strengths totally.

Sergey Gorbatov [00:28:50]:

The more you know yourself, the better off you are in every single aspect of your life. So self awareness makes you more successful no matter what. And as we said, how do you become more self aware? Reflection, feedback, assessment. We talked a little bit about assessment. Don’t know how to ask for feedback. Very often they use this phrase, can you give me some feedback? The worst possible to ask for feedback.

Aoife O’Brien [00:29:22]:

And it puts a shiver down the spine of the person who has to give the feedback as well. It’s a lot of feedback.

Sergey Gorbatov [00:29:27]:

Oh my God, now I need to think. Think for half an hour. Then I need to come up with something that is meaningful and that will make them go away. So very often the answer that you get is, you’re wonderful, you’re fantastic. There is nothing to change. Just keep doing the good work.

Aoife O’Brien [00:29:43]:

Yeah.

Sergey Gorbatov [00:29:45]:

Two tricks how you can ask for feedback that really work. One is after a project presentation, you’re doing something, go to your colleague or peer, whoever you want to ask your feedback From. And I’ll say, what’s one thing that I could do differently next time? It’s one thing. Anyone can come up with one thing, one thing to do differently. Okay, you’re asking me for advice. People don’t like giving feedback, but people love giving advice. And if you preamble that with. For my development.

Sergey Gorbatov [00:30:24]:

Yeah, you get them and they share a lot of information with you, which in essence is feedback. Because they’ll tell you, oh, you need to do this differently. Which means right now you either did it not so well or you can do it even better. And they share it in a very willing way and without this shadow of feedback. Because.

Aoife O’Brien [00:30:53]:

I come up with something. Yeah, exactly.

Sergey Gorbatov [00:30:57]:

So, and the second trick is, after presentation, project, whatever you ask on a scale from 1 to 10, how did I do? Nobody will ever give you anything less than six, and no one will give you 10. So typically say, oh, you’re a seven, an eight. And of course you know your next question.

Aoife O’Brien [00:31:16]:

Yes.

Sergey Gorbatov [00:31:17]:

What would give me to. What would get me to a 9? Or what would get one notch higher? And you got them because now they’ve given you a number, they’re on the hook.

Aoife O’Brien [00:31:28]:

Yeah.

Sergey Gorbatov [00:31:28]:

You can’t use this trick with the same people too often because they’ll know, they’ll figure it out. But if you use one or the other trick or a combination of those, I guarantee you can get high quality, very useful feedback in a way that, that strengthens your relationship with the other person versus putting them on the defensive and say, oh, my God, I need to give feedback.

Aoife O’Brien [00:31:53]:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I love that. The other aspect that we haven’t touched on yet, Sergey, is this idea of the environment that we find ourselves in and the context in which we’re operating. Do you have like a framework of how to think about that? How to think back into previous work environments that I’ve been in and think strategically about. Well, what. What really impacted how I showed up at work.

Sergey Gorbatov [00:32:19]:

So here’s an exercise. On a sheet of paper, draw two X’s, Y and X. On the Y axis, you will have satisfaction at work from 0 to 100. And on the X axis, you will have time. Plot all your career experiences, starting with your first student jobs to where you are right now. And the distance between the lines would be how long you’ve been in the job. And their height will be their satisfaction. Now look at the peaks and answer the question, why was I so satisfied? What was true about job? Look at the lows.

Sergey Gorbatov [00:33:06]:

Why was I so miserable? What made me deeply unhappy? In those roles. Okay, so those lows, they were administrative. I was. I had to commute. I was in different country, far away from my family and friends. Those highs. I had a supportive boss. I had a challenge where I needed to overcome myself and learn something new.

Sergey Gorbatov [00:33:29]:

All right, great. Now summarize those themes and items, and that summary will be the answer around what context or what environment. Get the best out of me and get the worst out of me. And that becomes your checklist for when you need to make a choice.

Aoife O’Brien [00:33:47]:

Yeah.

Sergey Gorbatov [00:33:47]:

And you go and you ask people, oh, what. What does it feel like to work here? How are decisions are made? Who gets promoted and who get. Who gets put on the back burner? People answer them, and in your mind, you’re checking out those boxes. Okay, is that an environment that. Where I could thrive or do I need to. To run away? And very fast.

Aoife O’Brien [00:34:10]:

It’s so funny, because I literally just shared that exact same example yesterday with an organization that I was working with. So I first did that when I was doing my master’s. I’d never seen it before, but it was exactly like that. So the x, the Y axis, the satisfaction, the time, and doing those curves, it’s a real eye opener as to what drives it. And for me, what I found personally was there may have been some jobs that I was in for a period of time, and it wasn’t all up. You know, some of it was up and some of it was down, let’s say. But it’s really interesting to understand what really drove those satisfaction scores in those different contexts. So thank you so much for sharing that.

Aoife O’Brien [00:34:55]:

I think it’s. It’s such an interesting and powerful tool and something that listeners can do straight away. So, you know, pause the podcast or finish listening to the podcast, get out of blank piece of paper and just draw your career history and see, well, what’s actually coming up for you and what drove those peaks that you see.

Sergey Gorbatov [00:35:16]:

Exactly. And thinking where I am right now.

Aoife O’Brien [00:35:18]:

Yeah.

Sergey Gorbatov [00:35:19]:

And time for me to move on. Or not. As we say in our experience, there are three reasons on why you need to leave your job. One, I’m not performing. I just can’t win. I don’t have the resources. I don’t have the support. It’s an impossible job.

Sergey Gorbatov [00:35:39]:

I can’t leave a wow story here. The second reason, I’m not learning the learning curve. It’s leveled off. There is nothing inspirational around it. The people around me, I can’t really learn anything meaningful from them. And the third reason is I’m not Valued. So it’s a toxic environment. I.

Sergey Gorbatov [00:36:04]:

It’s, it’s, it’s really getting on to me. It’s not, it’s not healthy. And if for the first two reasons, you really should take your time, just don’t jump in. Look before you leap, find the next opportunity. The third reason, if it’s really toxic and it starts getting to you, sometimes it’s better just to resign. Because for many people, toxic workplaces can, can get you into really dark place.

Aoife O’Brien [00:36:35]:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I’ve been there. I’ve left toxic work environments. And everything that you’re saying there totally resonates. The not performing, not learning, and not valued. I was going to, after our last con, like our last kind of discussion, what I was going to ask was, why do some people stay in the roles? And then you kind of went on to share, well, this, these are the reasons that people leave. And I think sometimes we get complacent. Even if we’re not learning.

Aoife O’Brien [00:37:06]:

We’re like, well, I’m happy here. They’re paying me enough salary. It’s, you know, what is the fire that lights people to actually take action and move on to the next thing. Even if they’re, they’re kind of like, they’re a bit meh about their career at the moment.

Sergey Gorbatov [00:37:21]:

Yeah. Stop drifting because people are. Wait. Or something will happen.

Aoife O’Brien [00:37:26]:

Yeah.

Sergey Gorbatov [00:37:27]:

Well, if. And to your point, pulling towards or pushing away.

Aoife O’Brien [00:37:34]:

Yeah.

Sergey Gorbatov [00:37:35]:

You know, are you taking an active position and you are actually doing something intentionally to have a career on your terms or you’re thinking, okay, I’m a victim here.

Aoife O’Brien [00:37:48]:

Yeah.

Sergey Gorbatov [00:37:50]:

Some. My company owes me. I said nobody owes you. You know that you do something for your company, become your paycheck.

Aoife O’Brien [00:37:59]:

Yeah.

Sergey Gorbatov [00:38:00]:

And when we say the company, it’s very broad. No, it’s people who make decisions. So unless you have a sponsor or a boss who will get you that next job, well, don’t expect anything from the company.

Aoife O’Brien [00:38:13]:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So people can slip into that victim mentality without even realizing, probably. And they’re like, oh, well, there’s something I can do.

Sergey Gorbatov [00:38:23]:

It is the money. I have a very fresh conversation from last week where the salary is so good that the long hours, the stressful environment make the person say, hey, you know what? I just need to hang in here for two years. Then I can make the down payment on my apartment, and then I can. And then I can leave. Okay, there is a plan. There’s clarity of what you want.

Aoife O’Brien [00:38:50]:

Yeah.

Sergey Gorbatov [00:38:51]:

But if you say that, hey, I hate my boss. I hate My colleagues. I hate the job that I’m doing, but I don’t want to do anything about it. But that’s.

Aoife O’Brien [00:38:59]:

That’s a problem.

Sergey Gorbatov [00:39:00]:

And intervention is needed.

Aoife O’Brien [00:39:02]:

Intervention, yes, exactly. Sergey, the question I ask everyone who comes on the podcast, what does being happier at work mean to you?

Sergey Gorbatov [00:39:10]:

It’s doing things that you love, which means that it’s tightly aligned with your definition of success, your personal, individual definition of what you want from your career. In alignment with your personal values, those things that you hold dear to your heart that make you you. And working in environments and contexts that enable you to do your best work.

Aoife O’Brien [00:39:41]:

Yeah.

Sergey Gorbatov [00:39:42]:

The combination of those make you happy and satisfying.

Aoife O’Brien [00:39:46]:

I love that. And if people want to find out more about your work, if they want to connect with you, what’s the best way they can do that?

Sergey Gorbatov [00:39:54]:

Connect with me on LinkedIn. Sergey Gorbatov. Find me or check out our website theedyouneed.com theedgeuneed.com and you will find blogs, articles, assessments, our books there. And please drop me a note. I love getting feedback. I love getting new ideas, stories, examples. If you do the Reflected Best self exercise and you have a story to share, please do so. I do love hearing back from readers, listeners, students, and just anyone who would like to share something about their career.

Aoife O’Brien [00:40:30]:

Brilliant. Thank you so much for your time today. It was so insightful. I really loved having this conversation with you.

Sergey Gorbatov [00:40:35]:

Thank you.

Aoife O’Brien [00:40:37]:

Thank you. That was Sergei Gorbatov talking all things careers and career happiness and satisfaction. You’re listening to the Happier at Work podcast. I’m your host, Aoife o’. Brien. If you enjoy today’s show, I’d be so grateful if you could take the time to leave a rating or a review on your favorite podcast platform, or share it with a friend who really needs to hear it. I’ll be back next week with another solo episode.