[00:00:00] Anthony: One of the biggest challenges that people face and I face myself, and I imagine you have as well, is that you're unhappy and you just don't know why, and you don't know what to fix, and you feel like you're just throwing darts at a board.
And then you're paralyzed by fear that if I make a change, I don't want to make things worse. So you don't do anything
[00:00:16] Aneta: We often hear people wishing us a long, happy, and healthy life, but what if the length isn't what matters most? What if instead, it's the breath depth and purpose of each day that matters most? Welcome to the Live the Width of Your Life podcast. My name is Aneta Ardelian Kuzma and join me weekly as I interview guests who made changes in their lives to live more fully with intention, gratitude, and joy. Be prepared to be inspired by their stories of how they shifted their mindset, took courageous action, and designed the life that they always wanted to live.
Welcome back to the Live the Width of Your Life podcast. My guest this week is Anthony Kuo, and he's a career satisfaction coach who helps recovering people pleasers find and pursue their version of career satisfaction. Anthony graduated from NYU Stern School of Business in 2010. He subsequently took an 8-year tour through the Fortune 500 world, rising the corporate ladder before realizing he was filling his bank account, but leaving his soul empty.
He integrates his practical experience with his training as a transformational NLP practitioner to gently and playfully guide his clients through one of life's most omnipresent questions. What do you want to be when you grow up? We had such a great conversation talking about career satisfaction, redefining success on your terms, and the difference between pursuing what we're good at and what lights us up.
We talked about fear and how that really gets in the way of many people and just some strategies that he uses to help people figure out what they're passionate about. If you are interested in learning more about finding your purpose, your mission, and really what lights you up, I think you're going to enjoy our conversation. Take a listen.
Anthony, thank you for joining me today.
[00:02:03] Anthony: Thank you. It's such a pleasure to be here.
[00:02:05] Aneta: Yeah. I was so excited and looking forward to our conversation because you are a career satisfaction coach, which I never heard someone call themselves that. So do you mind just sharing a little bit about what it is that you're passionate about and who you work with?
[00:02:24] Anthony: Yeah. So I'm not surprised to hear that you haven't heard of it because I kind of made it up.
[00:02:30] Aneta: I was going to ask, I didn't want to assume.
[00:02:32] Anthony: Yeah. I think many people in my position I started as a general career coach. I started by helping people out with their resumes and getting new jobs. And it was just like helping friends and colleagues as I was still in the corporate world.
And then at a certain point, I started to realize that it wasn't just about the movement that was satisfying to me or the coming up with the narrative and putting it on a pretty piece of paper that interested me. It was the person and their experience of their lives and their careers that was really what magnetized me and what had me feel like whether what I was doing was a success or not.
And so when I kind of coined that phrase career satisfaction coach, I put a lot of emphasis on that word satisfaction because I think there's so much focus in our society on what are you good at. That's essentially what the resume exercise is. What are you good at? What skills do you have? What can you do for me?
And of course, that's an important part of the equation, but in that discourse, what we lose is the person who's doing the career. And, we put so much of our lives into our careers. It's the best hours of your day. It's the best years of your life. It is an investment.
And I firmly believe that if we're going to put down that investment, you better get something good out of it. Aside from a paycheck. And so that's where career satisfaction coaching was born.
[00:04:03] Aneta: I love it. And you were in the corporate world.
[00:04:07] Anthony: I was.
[00:04:08] Aneta: Yeah. I mean, I shared in the intro, that you graduated from NYU Stern School of Business and you spent about eight years. Is that right? In corporate? And what was your journey with that experience and why did you decide to leave?
[00:04:22] Anthony: the entire time I was in corporate I knew I didn't want to be there, but I didn't have any idea of what else I would do or could do. I always knew that I wanted to go into business for myself. I just didn't have a solid business plan or idea So I was just like I'm going to park myself somewhere safe where I can learn and make some money, build some savings, and figure something out.
And it was a really good learning experience. I get what I came in for. I think I had an experience that is representative of a lot of people, which is that it wasn't all good and it wasn't all bad. When we picture career change often it's sort of like taking a hard left like, I'm going to quit in grand style. I'm going to tell my boss where to shove it. And then I'm going to go and become a sheep farmer in New Zealand.
This is one of the fantasies that I have at the height of some of my satisfaction. And my parents had to talk me off of that particular ledge. But the truth of the matter is when I meet with somebody for the first time, they are always, almost always in a position of their current career a partial match, because if it was a full match, they wouldn't be talking to me. And if it was a full mismatch, they probably wouldn't be talking to me either because they would have already left.
The decision would be clear and it would be a much different exercise than helping me figure out what I want to be when I grow up. And I can deeply empathize with that like middle ground tension, because that pretty much defined my entire corporate career, where I was, one day, I would walk in and I'd be like, this is amazing, I'm so respected, people value my opinion and my contributions, I'm being promoted, and then the next day I would walk in and I'd be like, I need to get the hell out of here and everything about being in this place is driving me up the wall.
[00:06:11] Aneta: Do you find that when people come to you they have a hard time? You said that you knew that you were somewhat dissatisfied, but you didn't know what you wanted to do instead. And I had the same experience where it's like, I know this isn't right, but I don't know what else I'm going to do.
So I'm just going to do what I know how to do and I'll stay until I figure it out, which is hard to do on your own, I think. So do you find that when people come to you, they have a hard time visioning? They have a hard time sort of thinking beyond whatever society's definition of success, whatever their parents told them might be a great path, whatever their teachers, whatever assessment told them, you're good at this.
We use all these external tools sometimes and feedback to guide us, but it's being able to tap in internally and figure that out for ourselves that sometimes is the hardest, but the most rewarding too.
[00:07:01] Anthony: It is, and that is the sweet spot where I exist in the career coaching world. You're right. There are all these tools out there. I use them. I use personality assessments in my work. And the thing that matters most is you. It's what you want. It's what makes you thrive and how you define that for yourself.
And I think one of the biggest traps that we collectively fall into is when we follow somebody else's template. For what career means, whether it's your very well-meaning parents or a guidance counselor, or in my case for a couple of years, I was following my boss's template. He saw a vision for me, how he could progress.
And I followed that for a few years. It works great. I got a couple of promotions, but I was kind of like after a year or two of this, I was like, well, this isn't doing it for me anymore. And the sticky thing about that is when it works, it feels like an empty victory. I climbed up the corporate ladder. I had all the trappings of success. I was the picture of the poster child of the American dream where the child of an immigrant comes and makes it into the upper middle class and I had a house, I had the car, I had everything.
I'm very fortunate to have had that. And also I was kind of like, I reached the goal and I was left depressed in my home by myself, kind of going, is that it? Is this seriously all there is?
[00:08:36] Aneta: It's so interesting having done this podcast, having lived through my own experience, how often people have the same response. It's that, I'm here, but is this it? No, this can't be it. And it's that empty feeling. It's almost like you work so hard, you run so hard, you get to the end and then you're not euphoric. You're not celebrating the success. You just go, Oh...
[00:09:06] Anthony: it's anticlimactic, isn't it?
[00:09:08] Aneta: It is. And then I feel, I know myself and others. I don't know if you've ever struggled with being so grateful, but also being not content at the same time.
[00:09:20] Anthony: One hundred percent.
[00:09:22] Aneta: And then there's like the guilt of wait, I should be grateful. Like you said, I'm also an immigrant. I came with my parents and it's like, I did all the things I was supposed to do. I followed the rules. I did all the stuff and I got to this point why do I not feel Happy and proud joyful or any of these things? So there's a lot of guilt sometimes and even shame with that because we're constantly reminded of how lucky we are, which is true. So how do you help your clients with those feelings or how did you deal with it yourself?
[00:09:54] Anthony: It is a super common phenomenon so much so that I've diagrammed out the cycle. And I call it the misery cycle where it's that like the interplay of things is, I'm not happy. But look how amazing things are. I should be grateful. Let me put that in my gratitude journal.
And then you get the attitude adjustment. The thing about this, the wonderful and horrible thing about this is that it works. And you give yourself that dose of positivity, you're grateful, and then what? You don't change anything. You remove the impetus to do anything about it.
And then so what happens next is that a week, a month, however long later, the same thing happens and you go through the cycle again and again, and nothing changes. And so one of the first things that I help people do is take a pause and listen to their dissatisfaction because it is as uncomfortable as it is as culturally stigmatized it is to sit in the negativity, it's a really important source of information. We have that response of I'm not happy. Things aren't working for a reason.
It's like when you're trying to take care of a plant and you look at it and its leaves are brown and crisp up, you know there's something wrong and that something has to change or else this plant's going to die. And so that's the first thing we look at is what's going on. Why are we even talking?
[00:11:20] Aneta: Yeah. I love that. What else do you do with your clients? Could you walk us through what that process looks like?
[00:11:27] Anthony: Yeah. So the process goes through three major stages and it's kind of like an end-to-end process where you start like, I'm unhappy. I don't know why. And I don't know where I would want to go anywhere up to landing in the career that you're excited to wake up for.
And how it starts is we have to understand you. We have to understand the person who's doing the career, especially because you're the one who has to live with the consequences of whatever decisions you make. And so in the first stage, we develop what I call a care card, which is kind of derived from when you buy a plant in the store and, It almost always comes with a little tag on it that's like, this is how much water I need, how much light I need to make sure I'm well drained or else I'll get root rot and stuff like that.
But basically, it's an instruction manual, on how to help this creature thrive, not just survive, but do well and thrive. And so what if we could develop that for ourselves? What if we could elicit from you an instruction manual that's very specific and it is possible and it's revealing? And this helps immensely because it takes away that fog of uncertainty.
One of the biggest challenges that people face and I face myself, and I imagine you have as well, is that you're unhappy and you just don't know why, and you don't know what to fix, and you feel like you're just throwing darts at a board.
And then you're paralyzed by fear that if I make a change, I don't want to make things worse. So you don't do anything. On top of all the whole, like, shame and disappointment and I should be grateful and all of that that we kind of just talked about. So there's a lot kind of keeping you stuck.
And this is one of the first pieces that starts to dislodge things and get them moving. When we start to figure out what we need, it very naturally bubbles up the next question of, okay, where can I find that? And that's the second part of the process is setting your destination. Sometimes you don't know what you don't know, and it's just a matter of exploring.
And sometimes what happens is that you realize that the hypotheses that you had before actually weren't very good ones, they were based on a fantasy, and they weren't rooted in your care card, in what you need. So the difference in the process I take people through is that we use the care card as the starting point.
I say this is what you need. Where can I get it? Another key difference is that we don't presume you have to change your job because job change, career change is stressful and it's really expensive and time-consuming in all ways. It's one of the most stressful things you can do to yourself is change careers.
And so, what we're looking for is the most efficient path to satisfaction. And sometimes it's just setting boundaries with your boss. Sometimes it's looking for an internal move to a different team within the same organization. And sometimes, yes, you do need to leave the entire organization or the entire industry, the entire profession but kind of right-sizing your approach as opposed to what I was very tempted to do was move entire countries and that's just an escape hatch.
[00:14:35] Aneta: Yeah. And at some point, I think that Organizations should also, I think they are paying attention that their people are leaving and that especially folks later in their career who might be really strong performers are like, yeah, this isn't doing it for me. Something has to change. Are you seeing any changes within organizations to try to keep folks more engaged?
[00:15:00] Anthony: The good ones do. So like anything else, there's a broad range. Some organizations really can give two rats asses and they're the exploitative ones that I teach my clients how to avoid because there are pretty telling red flags in just even how they write the job descriptions.
You can kind of smell them a lot a mile away. And then there are the really good ones that I had the good fortune of working for where they had a strong HR function that did their job beyond just protecting the company or extracting the maximum value that was very interested in talent development and retention, and they did a lot of really good things.
Not least of which was paying close attention to the people they were most interested in keeping at the company. It's one of the reasons why I stayed incorporated for as long as I did. I already knew four years and I was like, I'm out of here. But I stayed an extra four years because they kept me happy enough.
And anytime I was starting to get kind of wobbly about it. They'd be like, hey, we noticed that it might be really good for you to get this kind of experience. Would you like this opportunity? So they are proactive about it.
[00:16:07] Aneta: That's good. And keeps us distracted. Sometimes you're like, okay, new opportunity. So how long do people typically work with you? What are the types of programs or services that you offer?
[00:16:18] Anthony: It ranges. Sometimes it's a finite job. Where somebody already knows, they kind of know what they want, but they don't know how to get there. They don't know how to create the narrative for a career pivot. Those are usually pretty short-term, like two to four months.
And then there are the broader questions of, I know I don't want to do this, but I don't know what's next. And that can range. That can be a much broader question to explore.
Depending on the nature of the career, that could be anywhere from six months to a year or sometimes even more. In the cases where it's more, it usually ends up looking like the first six to nine months are the exploration, the transition itself.
And then once you land in the new role, that's just the beginning. Because I often say that career satisfaction is a choice to make over and over again. It's not just snap your fingers and I arrived and everything is perfect now. You have to set the right expectations.
You have to advocate for yourself. You have to tend to your care card, It's not like you water a plant once. And that's it.
[00:17:29] Aneta: Right. Do you find that most of your clients are in a specific age group or do you have clients kind of across?
[00:17:36] Anthony: Across the board. I work for people who are in their last year of college and kind of panicking
[00:17:42] Aneta: Yeah.
[00:17:42] Anthony: That they don't know what they want up to approaching retirement and wondering about legacy and what to do in their retirement because that's a whole nother ball game, but, the fundamental question is the same because it's how do I engage my personality in what I do?
And the only difference is the context and what resources and levers you have available. A 20-something-year-old is going to have way more freedom and a lot less responsibility. But also a lot less power in the marketplace and vice versa for somebody who's more seasoned.
[00:18:18] Aneta: How do you work with the young adults, especially either of those who are about to embark on their career and maybe are stuck? Don't know what they want to do. They've finished a degree and now they have to start applying. What are some of the things that you do specifically with that age group?
[00:18:35] Anthony: So do you remember when in the early days of the internet, when you had to like download a high-resolution image, it would kind of come in like layers where the first layer was super blurry? So when you're early in your career, you kind of only get the low-fidelity image.
And so the first thing is just getting comfortable with you're not going to know everything. And part of the task is just to get real-life experience to figure out whether you like something or not. And so with my younger clients, I'm a lot more encouraging of moving on with a fuzzy sense, as opposed to a very precise, refined, understanding of yourself and what you need in a career.
Because, honestly, it's just, I don't know, go try it. Maybe you like it. Maybe you don't. And if you like it, great. And if you don't, that's also great. We just learned something really important.
[00:19:28] Aneta: Yeah, it's so important to get that experience. I think that we try to intellectualize everything and we want to think our way into the right answer, but you cannot unless you experience it. And I also tell my clients it's all information. It's not a failure if you don't like it, it's great information. You just know this isn't it.
And it's also great to figure out. This does kind of light me up. Let me see if I can explore this a little bit more. So what about legacy? What are some of the things that are important for people that are near the end of their career and they want to maybe make a shift?
Maybe they want to continue to add value in a greater way than they have before. What are some of the things that you work with them on?
[00:20:13] Anthony: Yeah. So here is where it becomes more about satisfying someone at the core of their personality. And at this point in someone's life, they generally have a pretty well-formed personality. You may not or may not have a firm understanding and ability to articulate it, but the personality is baked in.
And so it is about extracting the essence of the care card and decontextualizing it from any particular work, project, or environment. Because your legacy is your personhood, ultimately. It's who you are is how people remember you for and so it could be yes, if you've had a long and successful and fulfilling career then yes, a good portion of your care card is going to be met through that.
But also it's not the only way. And so when I'm working with people who are exploring how to move in a different direction and do so at a different pace and for much more for their satisfaction and interest rather than having to make a paycheck and pay off the mortgage then you have a lot more options and then you can start to explore like, well, my care card was met through the job, capital J, but I could also meet it by becoming a ski instructor.
A ski instructor and also do some sculpting on the side. Just for fun. And I mean, I love skiing. And I can't tell you the number of people I've met on the slopes who are like, In their sixties, they've had a successful career and they just do like the ski patrol thing because they love it.
[00:22:08] Aneta: Yeah. Right. It's so interesting to open yourself up when you can open yourself up to thinking beyond the predictable, suddenly new ideas and new opportunities come in. And I love that you said it doesn't have to be just one binary choice. You could do a lot of different things and fulfill what lights you up from within.
So what would you say to someone who's listening and maybe they're like, I know I'm not satisfied. I know that I could be doing something different, but I'm scared to make a change or the timing doesn't seem it's right. Or I don't know if I want to make them work with someone. What would you say to them?
[00:22:46] Anthony: First of all, that fear is valid. I see it a lot and I've experienced it and you kind of have a choice to make and, either side of this choice is right. Or it can be right. You can decide that the fear is louder than the desire to do something different, or you can decide that the desire to do something different is louder than the fear.
And there are really good reasons to land on either side of that fence. But the most painful place to be is on the fence. And so I tell this to everybody that I speak to when they're meeting with me for the very first time and exploring, should I work with you? Should I not? I say my job in this conversation is not to sell you on, come work with me.
My job is to help you come to a decision and I'm not attached to whether you work with me or not, I have a pretty robust referral network of specialists who do stuff that I don't do as well, or I don't like doing and so if you're in one of those categories, I will happily send you to the right person. You don't need to work with me.
I'm just a really big believer in getting off the fence. I know that's a lot easier said than done. But coming to terms with which side of the fence you are on comes with a lot of relief.
[00:24:12] Aneta: Absolutely. If folks are interested in learning more about you and your services, what is the best way that they can find you?
[00:24:21] Anthony: My website is untamedcareer.com. And that is my handle on all of my social media. I'm on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram. I think that's it.
[00:24:31] Aneta: How did you come up with that name?
[00:24:33] Anthony: Well, it was originally Empowered Nerd, which was more about me and less about what the feeling that I wanted my clients to have, which is that, when you're untamed, It's your life on your terms.
[00:24:48] Aneta: Yeah. That's right. I love that. Anthony, one of the questions I ask all my guests is what does it mean to you to live the width of your life?
[00:24:57] Anthony: Well, I think we alluded to it a little bit. I think that work isn't and shouldn't be the one thing that defines you and that might be a little weird coming from somebody who focuses his career on talking about career. But I think that it is healthy to develop rich interests in a rich life outside of work.
And for me, that looks like right now I'm really into training for a triathlon.
[00:25:23] Aneta: That's exciting. What are you most excited about? Which part, if any, do you like this is probably my weakest of the three.
[00:25:31] Anthony: Yeah so I grew up swimming, so I feel very comfortable with the swim, which I know gives me a leg up on a lot of triathletes because most don't come from a swimming background, but jokes a little bit on me because I'm a very beginner cyclist. I rode bikes as a kid, but I never did like serious cycling of any kind.
And I originally thought sure, that's kind of when it can coast and whatever false. Cycling is the part that hurts the most. And so I've been mentally preparing myself to be the first out of the water. And to like come to a full corral of bikes and then after the bike leg to still come to a full corral of bikes, because I'll have been passed by everybody else.
[00:26:15] Aneta: Well, I wish you so much luck and success in it and just be safe because those things can get intense. My friend has done the mini ones. I forget what those are called, the sprints.
[00:26:26] Anthony: Yeah, that's what I'm doing. Yeah.
[00:26:28] Aneta: Yeah. And people are intense in the water. She said she's a strong swimmer. She's like, I had to get out because some people are intense and pushing you down. So if you're a strong swimmer, I think that that's a really good starting advantage.
[00:26:40] Anthony: Yeah. Positioning in the waters is a thing. Yeah. You get kicked in the face if you're not careful.
[00:26:47] Aneta: Exactly. Well, thank you so much for sharing so much of your wisdom. The work you're doing is just so important that so many people are disengaged or dissatisfied. And we'll include all of your links in the show notes and I thank you so much for your time today.
[00:27:03] Anthony: Thanks so much for your interest and your wonderful questions.
[00:27:06] Aneta: Yeah. Continued success to you.
[00:27:08] Anthony: And to you.
[00:27:09] Aneta: Thank you for listening to today's episode. If today's conversation inspired you to dream again, break out of your comfort zones, or reflect on what it means to you to live more fully, then please follow this podcast because every week you'll hear more stories from people just like you who took imperfect action towards their goals, created more joy and are living the life that they always dreamt of living.