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You're listening to Carry On Friends, the Caribbean-American podcast, episode 85. Welcome to the Carry On Friends Podcast, where you'll be inspired and empowered to do amazing things in your personal lives, career, business, and community. With your host, Carrie-Anne Reebrown. Hello, everyone. Welcome to another episode of Carry On Friends, the Caribbean American Podcast. I'm your host, Carrie Ann, and as always, I'm glad that you're listening. Now, this episode was supposed to be an episode on personal and professional branding, but um I am recording this episode after some feedback from a panel where I was a speaker on um last Wednesday, so um almost a week ago. And um I wanted to strike while the iron is hot, respond to the questions, and while things are kind of fresh in my head, so I decided to insert this episode into the sequence and kind of push all the other shows back. But before I get into that, um you can submit questions via social media for me to answer on the show. Um, and you could also connect with me um at carry on friends. Um, you could sign up for the newsletter as well. That's carryonfriends.com forward slash newsletter. And if you have any general, you know, specific questions you want to ask me so I could ask on the show, ask and answer it on the show, or read and then answer the question on the show. Um, go to carry on friends.com forward slash ask carry. You can email hello at carry on friends.com and you could also text 347-875-0531. Also, before we get into the main segment, April is financial literacy month, and we have a segment called Money Changer, like the segment, like the name. And um, we have three tips presented by Melissa Boutin, who is a personal finance expert from St. Kitts, who's living here in the US, and she gave three really good tips about how we can do better with our money so we can change the way we handle money and how money works for us, right? So check out this segment called Money Changer.

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Hello, carry-on friends, listeners. My name is Melissa Butta, founder of yourmoneyworth.com, and today I'm bringing three money changer tips. The first one is leverage our Caribbean culture of saving and pooling resources. We call that Susu or partner hand. We Caribbean Americans save at a higher rate than the national average, and we should use that practice of savings to build a financial buffer for ourselves. The second tip is to increase your financial knowledge about your net worth, which is the difference between what you own and what you owe. Knowing your net worth, you can use that as a guide when making decisions about borrowing. If a debt that you're considering taking on will have a large negative impact on your net worth, then you know that that's not a debt that you should consider. The third money changer tip is opt into investing in tax-advantage employer-sponsored retirement plans when they're offered. And when you don't have access to a retirement plan at work, make sure to sign up for an individual retirement plan. A bonus tip is get your children involved in contributing to their own IRA when they work part-time during school or the summer break. I'm Melissa Butter of YourMoneyWorth.com, and this has been your money changer tips exclusively on Carry On Friends. Now let's get back to the podcast.

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Alright, so I hope you enjoy that money changer segment. Those are some really good tips, and I hope that at least one of them can be applied to you and put into use, and you could also share it with your family and friends. Alright, so um about a week ago on the 18th of April, I was on a panel for the IPME, and I'll explain what that is, called um seize your opportunities, leveraging your experiences to create new career opportunities. And um I was on a panel with five other people who are also from the legal industry. So a little bit about my background. I'm not sure if I've ever said it. I probably said it in bits and pieces throughout the entire history of the podcast, but I'll, you know, I'll I'll share a lot of that. So for over 16 years, I've worked in the legal industry. I started out as a litigation paralegal. I began like within a month or two into that job, I started to focus on legal technology and um used that to kind of carve myself as a mini expert within the law firm I worked in. I left, I went to another firm. I worked, I worked a lot with one partner, and so when he started his own practice, I went over there with him and I was his office manager. I set up the law firm and also did the hiring of other attorneys and more paralegals. And then um in 2008, 2009, the Great Recession, that was a particularly bad time for firms, so I um was laid off. Um, but you know, I went back into the law firm, but I took a lesser role, and I'll explain that as I talk about transition. So I kind of went back, you know, I didn't go in as a high level as being a firm administrator. I went back to being like a paralegal or lit support specialist, focusing on the legal technology. And so a few months into that job, um, I was asked to join this other firm in this other role where I'd have like more duties and kind of focusing, kind of getting me back up to that level. So I transitioned to being a paralegal manager and lit support manager, which means that I managed and I was the in-firm technical expert on legal technology, what we call e-discovery. And then in 2014, I got laid off from that job. Um, I did such a good job in that job that they didn't need my role anymore because I basically got experts in and they couldn't have to come through me, at least so they thought. They didn't have to come through me, they could go through the experts, and that was that. And then I started working on the other side for service providers who I would normally work with on the law firm side, and I started there as a project manager, and then a few like almost a year into that role, they had um layoffs, and um they they eliminated my position as a project manager, but they rehired me in the marketing department. And then finally last year, another I lost my job again, and um I've been working in out of the legal industry into um learning and development. So if you're listening to it, you're probably like, my god, how much time you get laid off from a job, which is kind of you know something that I've you know, I'm familiar with, unfortunately. And I'm also fortunate and I'm grateful that I've just kind of used various strategies to get back into the game. And every time I get back into the game, um, whether it's taking a step back, a position that either pays less or it's it's a lower title, it's able to push me further to where I ultimately want it to go. Um, so we we could have a totally different discussion on layoffs and what to do in the meantime. But this discussion on um seizing your opportunities and career transition is on a higher level. This is assuming that we'll talk somewhat, we'll talk a little bit about you know losing your job, but I'm having this conversation assuming that, you know, for the most part you're in a you're you're still in your current role and we'll and not go too deep into the whole layoff landscape because like I said, that's a whole different episode. So that has been my um background. A huge part, and I've said this in a few episodes, I preach this, I absolutely believe it, is being part of a professional association. So um when I got into that first role, being an office manager at a law firm, I I didn't know how to do that role. I was just like, I mean, I worked with that partner for a number of years, and I had left the firm where I was working with him to go to another firm, a bigger firm, and I wasn't happy there. Um, I wasn't being challenged. You know, I I was just at work and it was just like I thought it was gonna be more challenging because it's a bigger firm, but I really wasn't. So um, when that partner struck he decided to start his own firm, he was like, come on over. And you know, for a quick second, I was like, Can I run a law firm? Meaning I had to set it up, like file papers, do everything. I was like, mm-hmm, but I took the chance because he was like, Listen, you can do this, let's go. And so I I said, All right, cool. And so when I did that, I joined three professional associations because I'm big on like absorbing and gathering information and like putting, you know, getting making sure that I had the resources, and he bought into that because he understood that he was asking me to do a role that I had no experience, but he trusted me enough to know that I would learn what I needed to learn and bring it to grow the firm. So I joined Sherm, which is a society of human resource management. I joined ALA, which is the Association of Legal Administrators, and I also joined IPMA, which is the International Paralegal Managers Association. Now IPMA means International Practice Manager Association because they had to rebrand to reflect what was happening in the law firm in terms of the title changes. So it's about that. So I was part of those associations. As I went back into other roles, I had to give up membership to some of those organizations because I wasn't really in a managerial role and or I wasn't doing like human resources roles. So there was like a two-year gap between that, and then I rejoined um one, which was the IPMA, and then I joined other organizations that were more aligned with the roles that I have. So, long story short, I'm big on associations. In my role at the IPMA, where I was now paralegal manager and lit support manager, they asked, I was on the magazine committee, um, and I was asked with another colleague to co-chair the New York City chapter. And I'm like, whoa, because the New York City chapter is the biggest chapter. And I was like, oh my God, this is scary. But I leaned into that fair and I took on the challenge. And um, so for about a little bit over a year, I was the co-chair of the New York City chapter of this um professional association. So I left that association the end of 2014 because of course I was no longer um in that role. I had been laid off, that's around the summertime, so I wasn't in that role. And so, to show you the value of a professional association, here it is two years later. I'm not part of that association, but they reached out to me about being a guest on this panel, and I was like, absolutely, I'll do it. So, even professional associations are very helpful while you're in a role, but if you're doing it right and forging the right relationships, you can have opportunities like this to give back to you know your colleagues and help them or you know, whatever, however, it works out. But I I I was just grateful for the opportunity because they helped me. So that was the panel last week, and that was a little background on my professional history. So I then posted to social media that I've navigated in and out of these roles, and I just asked people, do you have any questions? And a few people did. A few people posted their questions on social media, a few did not. But that's cool. I know my audience, and some of you will post on social media, and some of you will slide into the email box or whichever box, and you know, say, here's my question. Good. So I got you. So um, one of the first things when it comes to leveraging, you know, seizing your opportunities and leveraging your experiences to create um new career opportunities, it's it was intentional that I wanted to leave the legal industry. I it was intentional because it was for me, it was a little, it was getting too volatile. Um, I was seeing a lot of trends. I was there were a lot of things volatile, not meaning, you know, people were just going crazy, but I was just looking at what was happening in the industry, and there's a lot of changes that are happening in the industry. The legal industry tends to be the last frontier to, you know, go through changes, and and that's because they're dealing with the law. The law doesn't change much, especially, you know, or change as quickly. So things were slow to change, but because I also had one foot outside the industry, whether it's the technology, my you know, I my daughter's going to a very t technical high school at the time. And so I I I just love keeping up on the trends. That's just me generally. So I was I was looking at the trends and noticing that over the years through my career, they were eliminating roles, they were merging roles. And so after 2008, that's kind of where it was just more like unpredictable. And I think a lot of firms are still trying to recover from the 2008-2009 fallout. So I so after 2014, I was very clear that I wanted to leave the industry. I don't know how, but I wanted to leave the industry. But it was very hard. So I made that decision in 2014, and a lot of the moves that I've made since then were steps towards leaving the industry. And so here, so 2017, three years later, it finally happened. And I'm not gonna say it's gonna take three years for anyone else, but it takes intention to say, okay, I want to leave this industry and be okay with how long it might take you to eventually leave. Some people might say, okay, I'm leaving this industry and switch. Um, the challenge I was having was um, I've had up until that time, I'd had 14 years, you know, 13, 13 years of legal experience. And even though it was in a variety of roles, no one could see the transferable skills. They were just seeing all this legal experiences. And even though I tried a functional resume, and so a functional resume is putting, not focusing so much on the experience, but the skill set. So you you you kind of categorize your experiences into buckets um or into certain subtitles or headings, and then you focus on the jobs. So I tried different approaches, it still wasn't really getting me anywhere. So um so that's a backdrop as to me being intentional about leaving the industry and what skills I needed to kind of take on to position, give me a better position to leave the industry. All right. So that's that's backdrop. So if you want to switch careers, you have to be intentional and and you have to really have some kind of a plan as to how you're gonna go about it. So whether it's leaving an industry altogether, switching to a new role, it first has to start with intention. I need to do this, and then the next thing is what do I need to get there? And be okay that okay, I need a few steps to get there. Being proactive. So you have to be proactive in educating yourself. You know, you're going to webinars, you know. I even said in a in a past podcast episode that your professional development is your responsibility. It's great if your company offers training and it offers a whole bunch of other stuff that you could go to to keep up on your industry. But if your company does not, it is still your responsibility to do that. Because, you know, if you've ever been in a situation like me where, you know, you're getting laid off, that's a whole other thing. Like you have to be prepared. And so this is proactively educating yourself whether or not um those opportunities are provided for you. It is doing web online webinars, and most online webinars they have recordings, and you could get access to those recordings. So even if um, and I know this for true, and the panelists also said this you know, a lot of times I'd sign up for webinars, and but because I was busy, I wouldn't always have time to sit and eat. Or if if I did start the webinar, I'd have to leave because I had to tend to like a client project, or if the something happened before that and I can't even start the webinar altogether. Sometimes they send you uh an email that say, hey, here's the recording and here are the slides or something. So you still want to be able to sign up for those opportunities. The one thing you can't afford is to be comfortable and complacent in your role, um, whatever that is. I'm always looking at the industry, I'm always looking at what's happening because not to say that that will insulate me, but I want to be able to be able to be in the driver's seat as much as I can be, you know, being laid off, being fired, whatever it is, is not a comfortable feeling. And, you know, at least if that should happen, you then kind of can still find yourself in a place where you're like, okay, here's the next step because this is what I've been observing, and maybe I should try this. Um, so it's always good to educate yourself, not only with formal training, but reading, you know, industry newspapers, reading, you know, whatever is happening and keeping up with what's happening in your industry. I think that's a first clear step because that's kind of where you know where the roles are. So some roles are already defined, but I feel like there's a good opportunity in roles that are, they aren't the most popular roles yet, but you see that they're about to be popular roles. And that's a strategy that I took when I first started out as a paralegal. I was fresh, you know. I mean, I had some working in law in high school and in college. I did a lot of those courses, but when I started as a paralegal, it was just like a level playing field. But I knew instantly because I started, and that that partner was focusing on legal technology, and the technology introduced leveled the playing field. So I was getting the same experience as someone who was working there at five years, and I saw that as an opportunity to say, okay, this is how I'm gonna differentiate and position myself. And besides, I loved technology, so it was just really easy for me to kind of say, okay, let me really understand what's going on. And you know, it it was just a natural fit for me. And when I started out, you know, little did I know that that position or that role that I was playing would blow up quicker than I thought it would. I I knew it was gonna be a big thing, but new no one saw technology the way technology was coming, you know, back in 2002 or 2003. No one ever thought we'd get to this place where we are. If if they did, not as quickly as it did. So we knew it was coming, but not as quickly. And within months of of taking on a project and really handling all the technology about this project, you know, vendors were coming to me to sell me a product so I can then sell it, like, you know, to sell me or pitch to me a particular product so I can and convince other people. And that's really a good place to be in because they see you as some kind of expert. And not everybody wants to be seen as an expert, but you want to, this is how you're adding value, not to your company, but you're you're adding value to yourself as a professional, and people will remember you and your name because of how you've carved out this area of expertise for yourself. So just a quick recap on what we are because I could talk about this so much because I'm living it, I've been in it. So a quick recap. It to leverage your career opportunities, one, you have to be intentional. I either want to be intentional that I want to switch industries, I want to switch to a new role. Two, you know, accept the you know, the time frame that which is going to take. For some people, it could be very quick, you know. So if you're already an accountant in fashion and you want to go into, you know, pharmaceuticals or health, it might be a little easier because it's still kind of the same basic finance or accounting principles. But if you're in a different industry, like for me, being a paralegal, you know, or a lit support manager or a paralegal manager or whatever manager, you know, there there's some transferable skills, but it's not always obvious if you're trying to get out of that industry. So you have to be intentional, you have to understand that it might take some time, strategy, and setting up the skills that you need to get into those roles or get into the industry. How you to do how you can do that is you have to proactively educate yourself. Professional development is important, whether your company provides it or not, you have to go out, educate yourself about the role that you are looking to get into. You know, free webinars, read up on the industry, that is kind of the first few steps to get into leveraging, you know, your experience and transition into a new career. So before I go into my story, because my story will take forever, I'm gonna start to answer some guest questions. So only one fab on Instagram asks, how do you transition or change career? So I just kind of pointed out that first you gotta be intentional, you've identified where you wanna go. And you start educating yourself regarding the role that you're trying to get into, the industry that you're trying to get into, if it's a different industry. And the other thing is start making connections with people who are in that role or in that industry. And one way you could do that is if you're not already on LinkedIn, you should do that. LinkedIn is not really to find a job. I've personally tried their job opportunities platform, and I didn't get much results. There were, it was great for research, and I'll get into that, but um it's really for you to connect with other people, interact with other people, like articles, share relevant articles. You know, LinkedIn now has hashtags. You can hashtag you know an article that you're sharing, just so that you can start seeing what people in that role or in that industry is doing. LinkedIn is also good because they have these professional groups similar to Facebook, but it's really more a professional feel. Join those groups as well, you know, be parts of conversation, like and comment, you know, substantial comment, you know, um, not just like okay, you know, you know, and I don't mean to minimize, but you'll be surprised at how many people are like, okay, got it, that type of thing, on comments, and you really want to be adding some value, or if you're congratulating someone, you know, sometimes it's like, congratulations, great job. I I didn't know that, you know, people were experiencing this, or you know, I'm glad that some steps are being made to if alleviate X or something. So, in addition to what I mentioned, it's really starting to make connections with people outside of the industry. I've never tried this, but uh a colleague had said that meetup groups were also if um helpful for her. So I guess if you go to meetups.com, there are different meetup groups, whether it's in technology, those are the more popular ones. But if you you search, like I did some meetup, um, I met with some people, and then it just starts sending me stuff on like dance hall and reggae meetups, and I'm like, I didn't really, you know, but it's intuitive enough to understand like your preferences because um the meetup group that I had um met up with early, early is site, um, Caribbean Tech um entrepreneurship. And initially they were a meetup group and they've evolved into this bigger community. So since then, anything with Caribbean, it sends me. So um that's also helpful, you know, in terms of you go to a meetup group that aligns with the career or the industry you're going in, and meetups will send you recommendations as to events or whatever is happening within, similar to what you've previously attended. So that's another way. Um, the other question was um, how to use your current skills for a side hustle or becoming a budding entrepreneur. Now, this is key. So I started carry on friends while I was working as a paralegal manager and a lid support manager, and because of how the law firm is set up, I I couldn't really blog or do anything on, you know, or I felt I couldn't because the law firm thinks that it's a representation, and that's why you've noticed a lot of people say opinions are my own, etc. etc. And I I felt this way even more when a legal industry publication did an interview, and it took almost two weeks for the firm to approve the interview. So here I am trying to have a blog, it's almost like so. For the that's why for a long time on the blog, no one saw my face. I rarely used my name, or I I don't use Carrie Ann. And you know, when you search that, it's fine, but it was very important for you know the firm or for the industry. Everything has to go through approval. But I really wanted to start a podcast in 2013, but I felt like it felt hard. So I went just the blog route at first, and then two years later I did the podcast, and um blogging and podcasting um and owning my platform has allowed me to experiment um and allow me to take skills that I had in my nine to five and apply them to something that was my own. So I wanted to get into get out of the industry. I wanted to get into like, you know, I for every professional association that I belonged to, I was either on the magazine committee or I was either on the education committee. Those two things were always super important to me. Um, and so the blog kind of took on, like me here, teaching and sharing with people my experiences, learning and development. So it became like my own laboratory of sorts to display my skills, um, to really share what I know, but I did that with my own freedom, not answering to anyone. And I then use my platform and it's on my resume. So when I my resume has carry-on friends on it, there's and and I and I I put out what I do on it. So that is a value. So if you're looking, you know, for a side hustle or what you know to do a side, you you look at your stronger skills and or you look at the skill set that you have at your nine to five and see how you can apply them. I'm also good at operations. So when everyone is setting up their business or everyone wants to organize themselves, they come straight to me because a lot of my jobs also involve involved me helping set up a law firm. I was doing I was paid to to help people to do that as part of being a paralegal, and then also, you know, just helping other people set up their companies and me setting up a law firm. People say, Oh, you you have some ideas, but it's not legal advice. Again, that's a legal experience in me. But I to what I what what I'm trying to say is I took that experience and I I use that experience to help me, you know, help other people who want an office manager or need someone to help them set up a business or organize their business, and they don't really want a full-time office manager, they need a consultant to help them structure their their office and their operations or their back office, and I do that as well. So it's really taking the skills that you already have and seeing how you can leverage it. Not everyone could sell services on Upwork or Fiverr, but you might have one or two people who might recommend you and you know, one or two paying clients. Um, it really depends on what you want to get into as an entrepreneur in a side hustle because maybe none of the skills that you're currently doing at work apply. You know, my neighbor, she's knitting. Her nine to five has nothing to do with knitting, but that is her side hustle. And and and that's and she grows that um and and she can experiment with photography and doing that. So then her side hustle is also working for her nine to five. So it goes both ways. So your nine to five can support your nine hustle your side hustle, and your side hustle can can enhance your skills for your nine to five. Um, the other question is how to get some resources as a freelancer, a side hustler. I mean, it's the same approach. You are reading industry news or trends, Google Alerts is very helpful. Um, medium is a good place to be on. If you're like, I don't want to start a blog, it costs too much money. Going on Medium is helpful because you create an account and you could just write about whatever you feel like you want to be known for or start raising your profile. LinkedIn is also becoming that place where, again, LinkedIn is not so much about finding jobs, but connecting with other professionals and kind of displaying kind of what you know, sharing what you know with other people. All right, so I'm gonna answer another set of questions and I'm gonna wrap up this episode. I'm so sorry because I want to keep the episode succinct, and um, I don't I I can continue this conversation. I think it's probably easier for people to send me their questions because I could go on and on and on about this. So I'm gonna answer the Portmore Girls questions on from Instagram, and then I'm gonna wrap up the show. And if you have more questions about transitioning or leveraging, please, please send me those questions because it's easier for me to answer questions because I could sit here talk about my experiences and lessons learned from that. Um, so it's it's it's easier for me to approach it from that angle. So the Portmore girl's question is how can you best package your experience to grab the extension, the the attention of recruiters, hiring personnel in the industry for which you're trying to transition. All right. So lessons learned from what I didn't do very well. I've spent at the time up on 13 years in the industry, and most of the recruiters I knew were in the industry. So one of the things that was very hard to do was connect with recruiters that weren't in the industry and connecting with them. So we all are we've all been in the place where, oh my God, may I quit my job? No, right? And in that moment, you start looking for the job. But that's not when you should be connecting with recruiters. You we need to start building relationships with recruiters before we get to that fed up point because that you you want to create the relationships because recruiters don't always have a book of jobs that they could give you, they also need to know who you are a little bit more about you so they could know which jobs to send your way or recommend to their clients. So it's finding the recruiters outside the industry early and building the relationships with the recruiters so that they could know a little bit more about who you are, what you're looking for. Those recruiters are also good for telling you, well, this is kind of what the industry is looking for. So you don't have those skills yet, and I would encourage you to get some of those skills. I've had some of those experiences as well. So a recruiter is good. Where do you find these recruiters? You kind of look at the jobs, and sometimes some of the jobs that you see available aren't posted by the company themselves, they're posted by recruiters, and sometimes doing a Google search on you know, healthcare recruiter or something, legal recruiter, those things come up. So doing those types of searches is good. Um, two tools that I use for me, ZipRecruiter was um was very helpful in my job search. Um, and I use the Muse T-H-E-M-U-S E.com was also helpful. I use these a lot for research purposes because a lot of times titles in one company may not be the title in another company. So doing research on keywords will help me see the different types of titles that are coming up and see, okay, this is the type of job that I need to be searching for or opportunities. So one thing that I did was um after connecting with a recruiter outside the industry, I kind of reached out to her late. She I I reached out to her on the recommendation of a cousin of mine who was an HR executive. And she was like, You have all this great experience, but she didn't know me well enough to give me an opportunity and I would follow up and you know, but by that time I was like, I really need to get a job. Whereas before, you know, you need to kind of be building those relationships because when there's a summertime, and that's the other thing, just to insert, depending on where you are, the seasons play a huge role in as to when you'll find opportunities. So I was in the legal industry or I'm in New York. Summertime kind of tends to be a slow period. Everyone's, you know, the executives, they're on holidays, their kids are out of school, their kids are home from college, and so there's always like a really small window of when you can get opportunities. Um, and then you know, you go back and before it's September, and then it's a holiday. So it's there's it's always trying to figure out the seasons because timing is everything. All right, so how to package your experience for the recruiters, okay. Um, also get someone outside your industry to look at your resume. So, one huge thing that I did was I had a friend that worked at Twitter and he took a look at my resume because, as much as I can edit my resumes very well, and I edit almost everybody else in my family's resume, when it came to my resume, I couldn't see what was on that resume that wasn't connecting with people outside the industry. So he took a look at my resume and he also shared it with the hiring person at his office or the office manager, and the feedback from that was very helpful because I wasn't looking to get into Twitter as much as people want to say, Oh, I would want to be hired at Twitter. I wasn't looking to get there, but having their insight from someone who who's not in my industry and they were like, What it, what are you trying to get a job for? You know, it was easy for them to say, Oh, I see that you've progressed, but tell me more about this, and maybe you should reword it this. And sometimes those small changes are also just very helpful in how you position yourself. And I could tell you from the changes from that resume, I've had I when I did submit that new resume, I had two job opportunities that I had to choose between. I'm not saying, you know, applicable results for you will be in will be the same, but that's kind of the benefit of having someone outside your industry to seriously take a look at it. So this may not be your friend, this may or may not be your friend, this could be just a colleague or you know, making a connection with someone else to take a look at your industry. If that's not an opportunity for you, um, in 2016, when I was like, all right, I'm going to leave this job and eventually the job, you know, pull the trigger first. Um, I reached out to I used Muse.com. They have a service where specifically for that you could get um resume service, people wanted more career coaching. I wanted resume service and career transition. So I, you know, used those as my filter and I used that service. It's not cheap, but I used it because I was willing to invest in myself because I was serious about finally getting out of the industry, and that is how my resume was razzle-dazzled even more, and um, I had like a LinkedIn um LinkedIn profile makeover, and um I had a really good experience, and I tell you, everything was kismet because that is how I met Joelle. And Joel was um a guest on the podcast a few um maybe over a year ago, but I didn't know she was Jamaican or had Jamaican heritage. I just went through everyone's profile. I was like, hmm, I think I'm gonna go with her. And when I went with her, and I was, you know, we we did the diet, the intakes, and the questioning back and forth, she's like, Oh, my dad's Jamaican. I was like, praise Jesus, you said, you know, she was laughing. Um, but I still have that relationship with Joyelle, even though I, you know, I purchased her services, and when by the time she got on the podcast, I was no longer her client. I was long past being her client. But you you continue to forge these relationships because and then she she she you know, she sends, you know, in the email, she checks in, and you know, so aside from being her client, relationships are important. It's not all relationships are easy to maintain because we all have personal relationships, but a professional relationship is is should should go along those lines. You've made connections, and as we say in the curve, you know, that's right a person, you're still touching base, maybe not every week or every day, but you know, every once in a while a tickler email, hey, my mind ran on you. What's going on? I'm over here, and it shouldn't always be an ask. And that's the thing. If if you find that people aren't connecting or returning a call, it or are your emails, it shouldn't always be about an ask. Sometimes it's just to check in. And I keep going back to that episode with Paul C. Brunson, sometimes you gotta give, give, give, give. The challenges that people right out the gate, you make a connection and they're asking you for something, and that rubs a lot of people wrong way. And it's almost like I don't know you yet to give you this. So those are um those are some experiences. Um, so with that, I'm gonna wrap up this episode. Please send me more questions. Email hello at carry on friends.com with more questions about how you can transition, you know, out of a out of an industry or into a new role. I think I focus more on industry and we could talk about new roles within the same industry or within the same company. But I really didn't want it to make it a super long episode. Maybe I could just do a series on this. Um, but questions are definitely helpful because it's easier to answer questions than talk, you know, on and on and on about something. But those are those are my tips about transitioning from an industry and what has worked for me. The other thing that I just want to leave you with is um, and this is more for those who are looking to transition and they see an opportunity. It's like you sometimes doubt yourself whether you have the skill. And I talked about how I was like, I don't know if I could do this. Sometimes you got to lean into those roles, you got to lean into those opportunities because if you're waiting until you're ready, you're never gonna be ready. By the time you're ready, something new is coming. And I know that from experience. You are going to learn a lot what of what you don't know in the role. What you what you have to position yourself as is you know you know enough, and you you've you have a history of displaying that you are a fast learner and you you produce results, and that's the whole thing about even my resume. My friend who worked at Twitter, that was the first time my resume was positioned in a way, and this was what 2014, in a way that showed the results that I delivered to my clients, which were my employers. My employ the my employers are my clients, and I delivered results to them. And the minute I positioned my resume in terms of this is what was there before, this is what I this is the results that um came out of the changes that I made. So take those things into consideration, and then um I'll follow up with another episode, maybe a couple, you know, a couple episodes on more about how you can transition in and out of an industry. Um, and then we could focus on transitioning, you know, out of different roles within your same company or within your same industry. But I hope this was helpful. Forgive me, I've I'm so excited about this topic because I live it and it's is something that I I really, really want to help people with um with doing because I I know what it's like to be in an industry and you feel like oh my god, I want to get out. I know what it's like to to to be laid off, fired, whatever it is, out of a job. I know what that feels like, but I know also how I got with the grace of God because I never want to say it's on my own accord. My grandmother would be so upset, but I know that it's just knowing how and having the skills and just making the right moves to position yourself. So, with that, I want to say thank you for listening and until the next episode, walk good. Okay, friends. I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Carry On Friends Podcast for a recap of this episode and other great articles. Please visit the blog at www.carryonfriends.com. That's C A R R Y O N F R I E N D S.