Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:12 Hi, welcome to autism on shift. I am Thora and I'm Adam, and we're here to chat with other autistic people and see what they do for work. Let's dive in today. We are talking to Kelly. Kelly works at a university in Texas, and she has a really exciting job. Can you tell us what you do? Kelly?
Speaker 1 00:00:40 I am a proposal manager. Awesome. What does that mean? Oh, it's so glamorous. Let me tell you
Speaker 2 00:00:51 So it's, I would say it's
Speaker 1 00:00:54 A glorified project manager, but it's got a lot of perks to it too. Okay. I get to do a lot of big picture stuff, but then I do a lot of little picture stuff too. So I am at the very beginning of a project. And then I go to a very end of a project to, I am giving faculty the opportunities when they come in the door. So RFP, which stands for, um, request for proposal. So there will be, um, so there's different levels that I deal with federal state and then generally foundations sometimes local too. So an RPO come in the door and I will take it to a faculty member and, you know, get them all excited. Oh, don't you want to do this? Don't you want to go after this $200,000? Wouldn't that be great. Come on. Let's do it. Let's do it. Nice. And get them excited and then I'll help them depending, help them develop a timeline, figure out what components we need and we go from there.
Speaker 0 00:02:08 Awesome. Now you mentioned that you work, um, the specific department is an environmental Institute, so, so what kind of projects does an environmental Institute do?
Speaker 1 00:02:20 So we cover kind of an interesting gamut. Our focus is generally in water because water is a big deal in Texas. Um, we focus a lot on oil spills and so we're looking at actually, uh, dealing with fish and, um, how they recover an oil spill.
Speaker 3 00:02:45 When you write those proposals, you write them or to someone else, right? The, you write them to someone else researches them then.
Speaker 1 00:02:51 So the faculty that I work with, it's all their research. Okay. So the researchers, the narrative and the narrative contains there, the research that they have done, and they're going to pull that together with, um, their preliminary data usually. And they're going to talk about what they're going to do to move forward with the project. And I might edit for them or proofread, I'll help them get graphics in there. Um, but their main focus is getting that, you know, for the national science foundation, which is one of the big ones that we do a lot of applications to awesome. Their main thing is putting that narrative together. Okay. So I will help them pull together all the supplemental documents. So we're working with NSF, it's a data management plan and it's facilities and equipment it's, biosketch, it's current and pending it's O uh, just all these exciting things.
Speaker 1 00:03:57 Um, and then there's a bunch of other pieces, depending on what we're going after the budget. Oh, how are you going to spend your money? Um, so there's a lot of pieces, parts to be mindful about. Um, so I'm helping them get those all together and get them together in a timely manner, because I have to work with my partner at the university to get those in early, because she needs to review them all. And then we still have to get them into the big portal and zap them off. So I'm also sometimes helping, um, faculty. I like to call it matchmaking. Okay. Because you know, somebody, sometimes they'll, they'll, they'll have an idea or they've been working on something, but they need a social scientist, or they need citizen science, or they need somebody in education and they don't know, you know, they have no clue how to find this person.
Speaker 3 00:05:01 Do you always find those people within the same university? Do you go all over the place?
Speaker 1 00:05:06 So if we've got, yeah. If we've got the expertise on our campus, we tend to do that first, unless, you know, if the RFP calls for it, you know, they want to see something that's collaborative, you know, multi campuses, or sometimes they want a, you know, um, a non-profit involved or community partner involved get a community partner involved. Um, so it just depends. We want to look at that RFP and tear it apart and make sure we know everything that's being asked. That's awesome. You wear a lot of hats. I was going to say,
Speaker 2 00:05:49 How did
Speaker 0 00:05:50 You learn all of that stuff? Is it, is, is it just like a background in a bunch of stuff you've done? Is there a specific, you know, education thing that, that makes this work?
Speaker 1 00:06:01 And there probably is. I know that there is some sort of proposal degree at my school actually. Um, I started out my career as a copywriter in an ad agency. Okay. Wow. Interesting. So I started off as a copywriter, um, and I learned to write really well really quickly. Uh, and actually I have to back up a little because in high school I took AP English and God rest her soul. My AP English teacher just died last week.
Speaker 4 00:06:42 Oh no, I know.
Speaker 1 00:06:44 But she is the one I credit her with, teaching me to write under pressure really well, really fast. Being able to consolidate thoughts quickly, easily, clearly. Nice.
Speaker 3 00:06:57 I need her, like I said, I know her. Yeah,
Speaker 0 00:07:02 No, you got me. That's true.
Speaker 3 00:07:05 Thorough completes all my, uh, uh, sandwiches. Thank you.
Speaker 0 00:07:13 I'm the word person? He's the math person. There's always like, you know, that kind of dichotomy in a, in a relationship. I think it's a good partnership
Speaker 3 00:07:21 There. It works well. Yeah. The math adds up to lots of sandwiches,
Speaker 0 00:07:30 But
Speaker 3 00:07:33 Says, could your fun, because you said a lot of the sounds dry and I was thinking you probably have to deal with a lot of paparazzi personally.
Speaker 1 00:07:41 Oh, all the time. Yes. Our marketing person is always taking my picture is we win all these proposals. That's right.
Speaker 3 00:07:51 Are all the proposals? I just real quick question. Did all the proposals have to do with funding? Is it all? I mean, there's always trying to get money for those, these different things.
Speaker 1 00:08:02 So we, so generally the proposals are for funding are the research in the Institute that I serve, but we also have some community programming. And we also have, I'm trying to think how alert, like an outdoor learning area as well, that has, we're building up the citizen science. It has a bird banding station. It has, um, water area where you can go and learn about fish and learn about the wetlands and, um, observe, you know, different things there too. So we, I, I serve to get funding for all these different things. So it's, yes, most of it hardcore, you know, research for different, you know, scientific endeavors, but I'm also doing some programmatic things and it's some K through 12 things and it's, um, some support for graduate students and, you know, other college students too. So,
Speaker 3 00:09:15 And I didn't mean to even bring it back to like, you know, the copyright background. I was just, I was just curious if there was other aspects of the,
Speaker 1 00:09:22 Yeah. So I started as a copywriter and then I went into marketing and, uh, I, after nine 11, uh, I was, had a hard time finding work and I backed into proposals that affirm and they needed somebody to do the work. And so I was doing proposals, not really loving it and private sector, but doing it. And I did proposals in private sector, uh, for different industries, several different industries, including engineering for about six years, I think. And when I moved to California to be with my now husband, I thought I should maybe do this for good. And I applied, uh, at a school out in California at a university in California and got the job and I started writing proposals sort of proposal writing job
Speaker 3 00:10:26 Or not. So is it something you started to actually like, or is it something you were just like, Hey, I'm good at this? Or there was something else.
Speaker 1 00:10:37 I mean, I still was, you know, it's still something I fell into, but I felt I had more ownership of it.
Speaker 3 00:10:44 Okay, awesome. Yes.
Speaker 1 00:10:47 And doing it at the school, I worked with five different colleges essentially, and the medical school. And so it was this whole plethora of subjects and people. And, you know, I got to look at all these funding, you know, all these different funders and it just opened up my world in a whole different way than working in private industry,
Speaker 3 00:11:15 Opens up your world then like right now.
Speaker 0 00:11:17 Very cool. Um, so, so let's talk more about like the autism piece. Um, I can see that you have like a nice big picture view and then you also seem to be really detail oriented, which is, um, is not common to have both tell us about, um, tell us about that. I'm going to, I'm going to preemptively apply that, uh, as autistic stuff, but who knows? Um, how does it, how does that occur for you?
Speaker 1 00:11:51 Well, I think the big picture stuff is only because I'm older because I'm 48 and it's only been through time that the big picture stuff is also just a big pattern too now. Okay. It really truly, you know, somebody, yeah. Somebody hands me an RFP and I break it apart and yes, I have to get a team, a multi-disciplinary team or an interdisciplinary team together at my job now, but I see the patterns and I see the team and I use team science to get everything going, but it's only because I have 20 years under my belt.
Speaker 2 00:12:30 Oh, okay. Know
Speaker 1 00:12:31 How to pull the team together. I know how to leverage my resources. I know how to see the big picture because I have the patterns from, to relay on from before.
Speaker 3 00:12:44 That's a good feeling to kind of have a mastery of something and just kind of, you know, nothing's of scares you. It just comes through and you just go with the flow, let's take care of this.
Speaker 4 00:12:52 Yes. Awesome. But it
Speaker 1 00:12:54 Feels very, it still feels like very small. Like it feels very detail oriented in the sense, like, I know it seems big picture, but it doesn't really
Speaker 4 00:13:05 Feel that way. Exactly.
Speaker 1 00:13:09 Yeah. I mean, it appears that, and I would say that people would tell you, it appears that for sure, from the outside, it doesn't feel that way inside of me, for sure.
Speaker 0 00:13:20 It sounds like it's building now. And I'm not trying to say this to like take away from, from, from how hard you work to get there. Like totally not at all. I know, but, but it sounds like pattern thinking, right? Like patterns on patterns on patterns until you see a bigger pattern. Does that sound? Yes. Okay. I like that. That never occurred to me like that before. All right. So let's talk about, let's talk about the hard stuff that, that, that, yeah. Autism makes some things hard for us, right? Like how does that occur for you?
Speaker 1 00:13:57 For me, it definitely shows up in the social side, the social side and the sensory side are my two. I don't always know how to interact on the social side. I don't know how to show up. I second, guess what I'm saying? I have been so grateful for COVID because I can control all the social part and I can control all the sensory part. And it's just been an absolute gift. And I've been able to focus on my work in a way that I understand my job so much better. And I understand my challenges so much better. I mean, it's just been, I mean, it's been hard, but it's been absolutely wonderful to, that's
Speaker 3 00:14:47 Almost exactly that. And I definitely understand without all the distraction things really come into focus and it's, it's very familiar sounding. It's interesting. We've never once thought, oh, being at home stems, right. This is
Speaker 0 00:15:07 Great. Yeah. This is the first time I've ever worked from home. And, um, at my job, it was kind of strange. Like I got it during the pandemic. I had been out of work for like seven years. Um, but I got this job during the pandemic and, uh, it was a remote job pandemic or not, it's just a remote job. My boss lives on the west coast. I live on the east coast. He just cast a wide net and yeah, it's, I will never go back.
Speaker 1 00:15:41 It's just so much easier to deal with the things that I find challenging masking is just been such an interesting phenomenon for me. It's, you know, it's one of those things that I literally for years was coming home and my face would hurt. And I'm thinking what the heck is going on with me. And then I got diagnosed and I realized, and I started reading about masking and I'm thinking my face literally hurts. My face literally hurts because I'm masking all day. I'm putting on these facial expressions, I'm mimicking people's facial expressions. I am not wearing my natural expression because even now in COVID when I have, you know, four or five zoom meetings in a day and I'm having to be on camera, I find that my face will hurt. And it's just crazy to me that that happens that my face literally will hurt from having to mimic
Speaker 3 00:16:46 Well, it's like a camouflage type of it is a literal mask. It's
Speaker 1 00:16:50 A literal, it's a literal mask. And I just, you know, I could never figure that out for you for, I mean, for the better part of probably I've noticed it for 25 years until I figured out what that was. Wow. That's crazy. Yeah. Yeah. I'd probably say I noticed it in college for the first time. And I was like, gosh, why is my face hurts so much? This is crazy.
Speaker 3 00:17:12 That is wild. Cause you know, a lot of times you hear, you know, uh, you know, if you go out and you have to do something, you have a meeting, whatever it's, I'm exhausted afterwards, you know, but the, you know, that just have specific like, you know, facial muscles having to work hard to fit in and to be a part of what's going on and, and, and mask. And that's, that's very interesting. Yeah.
Speaker 0 00:17:37 Can I just say how much I love COVID masks now for that reason? I know, right. I don't have to smile at every Tom Dick and Harry. I walk by,
Speaker 3 00:17:47 I still do, because I know see a smile I've worked outside of the, you know, the outside of the house. I mean, it's, I'm always, I'm interacting. Of course I work in the middle of the night so I can interact with less people. But, uh, you know, I know they see that and it's it's, I could feel
Speaker 0 00:18:04 My muscles. I don't think mine actually like changes yours. Does you have wrinkles? Hey, you know what? I am reaping the benefits of those two decades of acne. So I'm going to go ahead and claim this. I take it as a win. Exactly, exactly.
Speaker 3 00:18:26 That's the only, I only pretend I like my wrinkles
Speaker 0 00:18:29 Wrinkles to actually go on distinguished. Yes. I agree. I think everything about him is distinguished. I like it.
Speaker 1 00:18:44 I was going to talk about my mind palace too.
Speaker 0 00:18:48 Let's hear about that. That sounds fascinating.
Speaker 1 00:18:52 It's funny because I did not realize how beneficial my mind palace is until this particular position I've long had it I've always had it it's been a thing. I just didn't realize how beneficial it was until this particular job and somebody at this job. That's what they named it.
Speaker 3 00:19:11 Okay. That's cool. Did they name it for you specifically or was it just in the conversation?
Speaker 1 00:19:20 I think I, I kinda think I maybe heard it on a sh like a Sherlock episode, somewhere along the line or something he'd go into his or some, he's got some sort of mind.
Speaker 3 00:19:34 I like that. Okay. Well go ahead.
Speaker 1 00:19:37 And his might be a different name, but same idea. Uh, so we would sit in meetings and this came out of my supervisor. You know, he and I would attend 11 at the same meetings and he knew that I, my brain is basically like a tape recorder and he would forget the numbers or the names or this or that. And he knew if I had been in the meeting, I knew exactly the percentage or the name or the, and it's just crazy and how I can, you know, you might have to give me a minute, but I'll flip through the pile over there and my mind palace, and I'll find you
Speaker 3 00:20:22 Nice. So this is your husband liked that when he said, I didn't say that, what are you talking about? And you say, hold on. I mean, look through my mind palace, actually, what you said was this. And it's terrible
Speaker 1 00:20:35 Now because my daughter also seems to have a mind palette.
Speaker 4 00:20:41 Oh, times of turn. No.
Speaker 1 00:20:43 And now we're ganging up on him because it just happened the other, and she w she said, no, daddy, that's exactly what you said. Mommy's exactly right. That's exactly what you said. Sounds so familiar. Yeah.
Speaker 3 00:20:59 Now, do you have like an image thing as well? Or is it just with like hearing? I was, so I actually am one
Speaker 1 00:21:08 Of those people that I don't see anything when I shut my eyes, I have no mental imagination. Okay. Interesting.
Speaker 0 00:21:15 Yeah, mine is. Mine is very similar to that, but, and I've heard of a concept similar to mine, palace where people do like a memory thing where they associated thing with walking through a physical space. And I have mine. Mine's not like that mine is. I associate the, uh, the, that exact moment that I saw, the thing happened that I saw the person say the thing or that I read the thing on the page, or, you know, whatever. Like I can, I can pull up. It's like a movie I can just fast forward and rewind and like pull up that scene. And I'm like, oh, in that scene, he said, blah, blah, blah. You know, like, yeah, it's not, it's, it's, it's very similar. And Isaac does the same thing. He has a memory. His memory is better than mine, probably because he's younger than mine, but yeah. What a jerk.
Speaker 1 00:22:00 Yeah. So weird because it's like, I don't see it, but it's all the other senses are involved. It's sense memory, but no sight of it.
Speaker 3 00:22:09 That's like, yeah. It's like a synesthesia induced
Speaker 0 00:22:16 In a word memory. Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:22:19 It's the weirdest thing. Cause I know my husband's like, can you explain it? I'm like, yeah, I know. I know it's hard to explain. Mine is not. What's
Speaker 0 00:22:28 Interesting is it's not a visual thing. Like I don't actually recall the visual thing. It's just the vision is what I used to imprint on my memory. So like, when I was in high school, I never took notes. I didn't have to take notes. All I had to do was watch the teacher's mouth. And I would remember everything that they said yeah. By watching their mouth move and people were like, what do you mean you don't, I just need your notes. I'm like, I don't take notes and yeah.
Speaker 1 00:22:59 See, and I don't have to watch, I don't have to watch it that I just have to like touch something
Speaker 3 00:23:04 Really. Like,
Speaker 1 00:23:06 Mine is more like, this is, you know, my input is touching, you know, the smooth top of the table or the smooth top of the chair or, but that's how the record,
Speaker 3 00:23:21 I love that. That is so cool. That's awesome. There's something about these kinds of things. How would they work? Go ahead. I'm sorry. An intro. So
Speaker 1 00:23:28 Weird. I mean, it's just weird. It's just the weirdest thing.
Speaker 0 00:23:32 Do you have to hit record or are you always recording?
Speaker 4 00:23:35 I'm always recording, but it's heightened.
Speaker 1 00:23:37 It's heightened if I'm putting it in.
Speaker 3 00:23:40 If I'm like as an input. Yeah.
Speaker 0 00:23:43 Okay. My, I have to hit record on mine. Like I can't, I cannot, I can't hold anything unless I intend to, like, I have to say, this is something I need to remember. And so it's going in my brain. Wow.
Speaker 1 00:23:55 Oh, I wish I had,
Speaker 3 00:23:57 Uh, I don't know, like every, like everything it's, um, everything has its pluses and minuses, you know?
Speaker 0 00:24:05 So if I don't intend to remember something, I literally cannot remember it. I can't, I, I just don't, it's gone, gone completely.
Speaker 3 00:24:13 And now isn't it annoying if you have that sort of the mind palace, the superpower is it, I I'm a visual person and I find that and I can remember things. It's not a photographic memory is the other identity, identic memory identic. Yeah. And so it's, it's similar. Um, but sometimes I find people won't believe me in. I think it would be even more so with words, you know, if you're saying, well, I remember this is what was said, do you ever have people saying, wow, I don't know. And you're like, but I know because I have this thing that you don't have just trust me. I don't ever try to prove it. Oh yeah.
Speaker 1 00:24:56 And all you have to do is be in the car with the radio on, and I know every lyric to every song I've ever heard. So I don't know. There's something, you know, it's just like something bizarre or, you know, they'll say something, they'll say some random factoid and I'll fill in the blank or, you know, I mean, see like that you can turn yours on and off. I'm like
Speaker 2 00:25:14 Off on and off why? I mean, that's amazing to me.
Speaker 1 00:25:19 It's not just always on really? No worries.
Speaker 0 00:25:21 I would be overwhelmed if it was always on, I think. Yeah, no,
Speaker 1 00:25:27 I have a different plate. It just goes into different. I know. I don't know. See in that, it's just, it's just a, yeah. Without
Speaker 0 00:25:33 Having the opposite experience, you have no idea. Well, I mean, I've gotten to the point now where, um, everything okay. It's kind of, and tell me if this is your experience too, because after I was diagnosed, I started reading about it and I started allowing myself to be more of myself. If that makes sense. Like instead of trying to fight off the, the natural things that were weird or whatever, like I started allowing myself more of the things. So in the last two years, I think I've changed more than I have probably my whole entire life. I feel that same way. Is that, is that accurate? Oh, absolutely. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. For sure. Interesting. I love it. I wonder if that's like, that's how there's a name for that. That's what I'm going to go look up when we're done here. By the way,
Speaker 4 00:26:21 I know where you please let me know, because I want to know too,
Speaker 1 00:26:24 Because there has to be B and there's such, there's such a relief. Like I had, I was, you know, my friends thought I was going to be, I, I feel like some of my friends, my neuro-typical friends thought I was going to be devastated by this. And I was like, no, you don't understand. This is the missing piece. Yes.
Speaker 0 00:26:44 This is, this is the validation. And the,
Speaker 3 00:26:49 Now you're not out at work. So I assume there's no, uh, although I was going to say, you know, is there things that your boss can help you with, but I assume there might be things that you do to get from your boss. Is that something good?
Speaker 1 00:27:08 It's funny because I actually have told my boss, oh, so I, I have not requested any accommodations at this point. Um, although working from home, ah, I, I actually have, my doctor has, uh, the, the paperwork. It says that I can work from home indefinitely. Wow. So pretty much I think I have a carp launch on that. Um, so we'll see what happens moving forward. Um, I was lucky enough, uh, to when I did, when I was starting to work towards diagnosis, which I've only had for not even quite two years, I started exploring on campus and I found someone else who was about gosh, 15 years older than me, who was just looking for other people to, to start a group on campus. And he, he, it was so funny because he sat down, we had muffins together one day and we were like, oh, this is the first meeting.
Speaker 1 00:28:24 This is the first meeting of neuro-diverse people. And, you know, um, it was before as a notice, but I think it's been over two years now in the last meeting, I, I think we had about, I don't know, 20 people. Oh, that's great. Wow. And you know, and it kind of ebbs and flows. You know, we have more people and less people and we're doing some things. We have a speaker coming to campus, uh, later this month and we're starting to do some more education on campus. Uh, we're trying to help people understand what, you know, how to easily get accommodations. We're working with HR to get some more things, move through. Uh, we're working with, uh, uh, the, uh, provost office. We're trying to get more dialogue happening. Um, so we're working on getting some things moving with our group in just super city on campus. And then we're also providing a support group. Um, so we kind of do the business up front and then we do a little bit of support on the back half. And I know for me, it's been just great to sit there and listen to everybody, you know, and think, oh, you know, everybody's kind of dealing with some very similar issues.
Speaker 3 00:29:48 Yeah. That's awesome. Yeah. I think a lot of times people don't know what is helpful to them. I know when I went to school, um, you know, you know, like earlier, before college, it was, uh, you know, tests were so difficult. And when I went to college, you know, I was able to, um, you know, obviously undiagnosed, you know, uh, go to a separate place where I can take tests and quiet. And I was like, I was amazed at what a difference it made for me. You know, I always thought I was just worried about people around me looking at, I don't know what it was, but then, but when I was able to test by myself, I felt so comfortable, no pressure. And I wasn't thinking of, you know, 20 different things, you know, so, but I didn't know what I needed. And so it's, I think that's probably very helpful to hear what other people are dealing with and then be able to ask an S some, you know, sort of like a support group, you know, what do you do for that? Because I need that.
Speaker 0 00:30:43 Yeah. So let's talk about, um, you know, how, how, how being on the spectrum helps you at work. What, what are the traits that you feel that you have or things ways that you operate that help you?
Speaker 1 00:30:59 I do a lot of editing and I do a lot of reading. And those days when I have to edit a 15 page narrative, and I have to make sure it's readable for a reviewer, you know, diving into that. Hyper-focus, I mean, it's probably really astounding how quickly I move through this to the researchers, because sometimes I'll turn them around in three or four hours and I'll get comments back, like, no, did, are you, you got through that, did you
Speaker 3 00:31:41 Take the time? Like, are you sure? But then when they go
Speaker 1 00:31:46 Through and they see, you know, just stacks and stacks of comments and changes and, and lots of little things, you know, I know that they know I've really been through it. Yeah. Um, but it's just that, that hyper-focus is so helpful. And it's so helpful at the end of a proposal when you're in the time crunch and so much is going on and everybody is flustered, but, you know, I just get in that zone in my head and I just see what has to be done, how to get it done and I get it done. And it's just, it's, I mean, it's just a super power. I mean, I can't even, you know, I can't explain it. I can't describe it. I just know where it's at and I know how to activate.
Speaker 0 00:32:30 That's good though. I love it. I love it. It's super helpful. It's funny. I have been in, in the past, I have been at work and, you know, I've in management, um, many, many years and, you know, people always kind of looked at me like, you know, like your job is so easy, you're just management, you know? And, and I think mainly it was because I was able to activate that, like not flip out, run around like a chicken with my head cut off. Cause I have 18 fires to put out. Like, it was just that, that same activation that you're talking about. Like I just turned the switch that like, that like clears all the clutter away and I'm able to focus on the things and the priorities and all of that stuff. Right.
Speaker 3 00:33:09 If you make something look easy, like guys like you do as well. I'm sure if it's, you know, it's for other people, it's probably very difficult, you know, but it looks easy. So I could do that. And I mean, you could try, here's the proposal. Good luck. That's what you do it.
Speaker 0 00:33:29 Yeah. Right. Ready. The timer starts.
Speaker 3 00:33:35 Awesome. So knowing that you got backed into this job, you know, sort of, you know what I mean, kind of, kind of fell into, maybe this is maybe the universe just provides, who knows, but, uh, you know, you, you made a conscious decision to go forward with it. Um, is, is this where you would want to be forever, you know, with the gifts that you have, you know, and the struggles that you deal with, is there a particular, you know, perfect job that fits you? Or, or is this it, is this what you want?
Speaker 1 00:34:06 Wow. That's a very interesting question right now. So I actually, during this time have been, you know, I sat with what I, what was enlivening me about this job and what was killing me about the shop, basically, what was, what was feeding my soul and what was killing my soul. And I realized that there were two things that were really feeding me and it was the reading through and the editing. And it was those two things were just making me so happy. And then the part that was just not making me happy, what was more the detail work? It was the crunch time. It was the paperwork. It was the sorting through the hundreds of RFPs to find the match, which I least to love that it's just not what I love anymore. So I actually opted to go after a coaching program and I looked all around and I found, um, it's called the L cop leadership coaching for organizational performance at Rutgers. And it's a certificate program. So I'm pursuing that currently. And it really has been, it's been life changing. Uh, and I feel like I can use it my position. Now I can opt to pivot and go after coaching. I can do coaching on the side. It just opens up another realm for me. That's cool.
Speaker 0 00:35:50 That's exciting. Yeah. So it is exciting. I'm not sure. I quite understood, um, operational leadership coaching. So coaching on being a leader of an operation, is that, did I get that right? Organizational? Oh, okay.
Speaker 1 00:36:07 And it's interesting because it really is meant for those in business, but it, it can be anybody like, it can be coaching for anyone. You can take this coaching and it can be across the board. Really. It's just the, I think how they, I mean, they're teaching us how to go in and work with executives. Oh. But it could be, you know, I could work with anybody with this. Awesome. So
Speaker 0 00:36:42 Does that, have you looking forward to some kind of leadership? It, I mean, is that, is that the kind of space you're in right now? Um,
Speaker 1 00:36:50 Honestly, I'm, I'm just, I'm open right now. I mean, I can see myself using it with those around me. I can see myself using it, you know, just coaching those that I currently work with. Um, the faculty that I currently work with, I could see myself, you know, just taking on a few, a handful of clients while I still work full time. Um, I just not sure. I'm not sure what the future holds. Uh, I just know that I have loved it and I'm finding it a place of joy.
Speaker 3 00:37:26 That's important. That's awesome. We're good. And I do find that, uh, when you, when you keep things open like that, uh, that's usually when, um,
Speaker 0 00:37:38 The right things fall. Yes, exactly. When you have like an expectation, you try to push for something, things don't fall into those places. That's just not how it works, but it's good
Speaker 3 00:37:48 To be able to see it. Like, that's what I was saying. The options, this is good to be able to see the different places where, you know, you're open to multiple things, but you can see that, you know, Hey, this could be a side hustle. This could be, you know, whatever. And it's so that's great. Good. Well, look, I want to thank you so much for being here with us today. I really enjoyed having you.
Speaker 0 00:38:09 It was fun. Getting to know you. It's fun to meet you too. Thanks for listening today. We love y'all out there. We love you so much. We want you on the show, go to our website, carp resumes.com. Fill out the contact form and say you want to be on the show. Any jobs, all jobs, love to learn about them. We want to talk to you. Absolutely. Thanks. Have a good one. Thank you.
