0:02

Dan Holterhaus: Good morning. Hi, Liz. Liz Kennedy: Are you? Good? How are you?

0:07

Dan Holterhaus: Doing great. Still drinking my coffee, enjoying my morning?

0:12

Liz Kennedy: Yeah, it's a, it's a good morning here in Cedar

0:16

Rapids. Dan Holterhaus: Um, well, let's go ahead and talk about some

0:23

career stuff, which is what we do at quarter careers. February

0:27

6, is an important day, if you are a job seeker.

0:32

Liz Kennedy: And you're like, Yeah, I want to know,

0:35

Dan Holterhaus: you should go pick up a Gazette on Sunday,

0:39

February 6, because there's going to be a lot of

0:43

advertisements on it. And those advertisements are going to have

0:46

local employers that are hiring right now. And it's going to

0:50

talk about what jobs they might be hiring for. So February six,

0:56

Sunday, make sure to pick up your Sunday Gazette. And check

1:00

out who's hiring. Yeah. Liz Kennedy: I'm sure there's gonna be good to some good news

1:06

in there, too. Absolutely. And a Sunday crossword. So we're, you

1:11

can't go wrong there. Dan Holterhaus: Yeah, there's multiple multiple uses for it

1:14

right. Most importantly, you're gonna see a lot of employers

1:17

advertising open jobs. Sunday, February 6, so go, go pick that

1:23

up? Um, well, let's get into our topic today, which is going to

1:28

be visualization. So I, I think about so I'm a golfer. I played

1:38

a lot of golf growing up. And maybe if you're a golfer, you

1:43

can relate to this. But when I think about visualization, I

1:45

think about like seeing my golf shot before I hit the golf shot.

1:49

Yeah, I'm like trying to like picture what it's gonna look

1:51

like before I hit it. And most of the time, that does not

1:54

happen on the golf course. Ball goes the opposite direction of

1:59

where you want to go. But I think that's, like when I think

2:03

visualization, that's the first thing that comes to my mind. As

2:06

a job seeker. There are some different applications for

2:09

visualization. So would you like to go over those?

2:13

Liz Kennedy: Yeah, let's talk about a couple ways that creative visualization can help you as a job seeker. It's a

2:18

totally free method to improve your job search. And hopefully,

2:23

we'll give you some ideas. Or you can try this out today and

2:26

try it right after this. This podcast. Cool. All right, well,

2:30

let's just start with one. So here's, here's one way, so you

2:34

talked about being able to see the golf ball. One of the ways

2:38

that I've used creative visualization of the past, has

2:41

been through visualizing how I'm going to feel. And so here's

2:47

what I recommend for your golf swing is like, you know, when

2:50

you hit the perfect swing, what that feels like, So visualizing

2:53

yourself and kind of going through the motions, and it

2:56

helps to sometimes close your eyes, and like feel the feelings

2:59

that you would feel if you had that perfect swing. And so to

3:03

bring that back to the job search method, I think one of

3:07

the things that is difficult for job seekers these days,

3:10

especially with everything that's going on in the world, it was just anyone doesn't have to be a job seeker. Everyone's

3:14

dealing with anxiety and overwhelm right now, there's

3:17

just a collective sense of like, how heavy the times are these

3:21

days. And creative visualization can help with that a little bit

3:25

and give you a sense of control. Because when you're visualizing

3:28

something, it hasn't happened yet. And so you can control what

3:33

you think of when it happens, hopefully. And so, one thing

3:37

that you can do is like when you're in a relaxed state, so

3:39

let's just say first thing, when you're waking up in the morning,

3:43

you can say, Okay, I'm going to spend five minutes going through

3:45

a visualization today. And it could just be I'm going to

3:47

visualize myself sitting at my computer to start my job search

3:52

today. And we're going to visualize myself feeling

3:55

relaxed. And just imagining yourself feeling relaxed, and I

4:00

like to tie it to a trigger. So typically, if I'm doing a

4:02

visualization, I'll be like, okay, when I open the door to my

4:05

office, I feel relaxed. And then I go through kind of step by

4:09

step. So the first step would be open the door to my office. And

4:12

when I sit down to my chair, I feel relaxed. And then when I

4:15

open up my computer, I feel relaxed. Or if you're just

4:18

searching on your phone, before you look at your phone, I'd be

4:22

like, when I turned my phone on, I feel relaxed. And when I pull

4:27

up my you know, if I pull up Corridor Careers, let's say, I

4:32

feel relaxed. And I imagined myself seeing the perfect job

4:37

for me. You know, you can do kinds of fun. That's the

4:40

creativity part comes in, I see the perfect job for me that fits

4:43

my skill set that offers the position that I'm interested in

4:47

that has the compensation and benefits I'm looking for. I

4:49

mean, you can just imagine those things. If it doesn't happen,

4:52

you know, it's no sweat, but like, you can feel the feeling

4:56

that you would feel you know if you can do the same thing. Like

5:00

I win the lottery to know you can imagine yourself, you can

5:03

imagine, you can just go back to that childlike sense of wonder

5:05

that you can, you can imagine whatever you want, your brain is

5:08

a free playground. So I would recommend that because if you

5:12

imagine yourself feeling relaxed, what you've done is

5:15

you've rehearsed your brain to see those triggers, and trigger

5:20

a relaxation response instead of an anxiety response. Because

5:23

we're automatically overhyped, right now, we're automatically

5:28

overwhelmed, and more prone to feel anxious or fight flight or

5:33

fight syndrome, you know, when when a stressor, and it's very

5:36

stressful to search for a job, or do a job interview or any of

5:40

those things, but you can use creative realization, to imagine

5:44

yourself being successful. In that job interview feeling

5:48

relaxed. You could imagine yourself having the right answer

5:52

to the question, you know, you can do all those things. And so

5:55

I that's a really, I've found it to be super helpful in calming

5:59

my mind before a big interview, or just before tackling

6:04

something that's stressful. Dan Holterhaus: Yeah, yeah, a couple things. To piggyback off

6:10

that, I think one thing that came to my mind was, it's

6:13

almost, when you were going through talking about when you

6:16

you know, say open your computer, I feel relaxed, it's

6:18

almost just giving yourself little reminders all the time,

6:22

right, yeah. And so I've done this before, by just like, you

6:25

know, having a mark on my hand or something, or, you know, like

6:28

something, you know, writing a little note to myself, and like

6:32

a sticky note and having that on my mirror in my bathroom, or on

6:37

my computer, like, hey, just a reminder, like, you know, so I

6:42

think that was one thing that came to mind. The other thing

6:45

that came to mind, for me, it was just yeah, the heaviness of

6:49

just everything that's been going on, you know, we're almost

6:53

going on two years and a pandemic. And it's been rough on

6:58

everybody, and just just a reminder to, like, breathe, and

7:02

just know that, like, everything seems very heavy, right? But at

7:10

the end of the day, like, I don't think when we're all on

7:14

our deathbed, we're all gonna look back and like, think about

7:17

like, one specific day, like, wow, this was such a big deal in

7:20

my life. Like, you know, we're gonna, you know, think back

7:25

about, wow, that was a weird time through a pandemic, but I

7:32

don't think we'll necessarily focus on like, so I would

7:36

encourage people to kind of approach why, like, approach

7:41

life just with a little more, you know, freedom and like, less

7:45

anxiety. Like, it's not the end of end of the world. Right? Did

7:51

that make any sense at all? Liz Kennedy: Um, yeah. So you were talking earlier, we were

7:58

talking about how you use creative visualization for like,

8:03

just kind of regular old motivation. And so you want to

8:07

talk a little bit about that. So what you do in the morning?

8:10

Dan Holterhaus: Yeah, sure. So I, for about the last year and a

8:15

half, I have listened to the same 20 minute motivational

8:21

YouTube video from Earl Nightingale, who is old school,

8:25

if you look him up, he passed away like 30 years ago, but you

8:30

know, he did a lot of like tape recordings back in, like the

8:33

50s, which, which are still super relevant today. I mean, he

8:38

talks about some things that don't make any sense. Like, you

8:42

know, your, you know, income wise and stuff like that. But

8:46

one of the things he says in there is, begin to act as the

8:52

person you most want to become. So starting today, begin to act

9:00

as the person you most want to become, and you will eventually

9:03

become that person. Right. And I think there's a lot of tie ins,

9:08

whether just in your regular life, or in a job search, right?

9:12

Where if you begin to act or you can do this in a lot of

9:18

different ways, right? You can start to dress like the person

9:21

you most want to become. You can start to you know, comb your

9:25

hair like the person you come I don't know, like the take it as

9:29

you want to, but I think there's some good times with job

9:34

searching with that because we all have dreams and I posted

9:39

this to the corridor careers Instagram account yesterday.

9:44

That a dream is just a set of a goal, right? A dream can be

9:50

broken down into goals, which can be broken down into daily

9:53

habits and routines. So I gave the example in that post of the

9:58

dream is for a job seeker, maybe to come a human resource

10:02

manager. So that's the dream. So the goal, maybe for this year,

10:12

is to complete your PHR exam, which I, which is a human

10:17

resource exam that a lot of human resource managers have.

10:21

There's several of them, I think. And so what does that

10:25

daily habit that you could do today to start working towards

10:28

that goal and that dream? Well, you can start studying or you

10:33

can purchase a practice exam, right for your PHR exam. So I

10:40

think when you start to break it down into daily habits and

10:43

routines, what your big dreams are, and visual, like your long

10:48

term visualizations of what you want, you can, you know, break

10:53

it down into very simple daily habits and routines and just

10:56

moving each day just a little bit, like, will add up big time.

11:02

Over time. Liz Kennedy: Yeah, that's really good advice. Because it's okay.

11:09

It's okay to dream big, but unless you kind of craft that

11:12

dream into actions that you're going to take, it's, it's not

11:15

like it's gonna get dropped in your lap. So you're gonna have

11:20

to break it down. And actually, by breaking it down, you exert a

11:24

little more control over that potential. And you also set

11:29

yourself up for better success. And also, figuring out is that

11:34

dream actually what you want anymore? Because if you started

11:38

practicing for that exam and realized, huh, this is my dream

11:43

anymore, then then you you'll know, you'll know. And you'll be

11:46

able to shift and I don't know, I think that's a good. That's a

11:51

good plan. Dan Holterhaus: Cool. Yeah. process, right. Kinda, yeah, you

11:56

gotta fall in love with the process. And like, you alluded

11:59

to, like, if you don't love the process, maybe it's not quite

12:02

the right. So Liz Kennedy: It's hard to remember sometimes when

12:08

especially living through times like these that, that there are

12:11

unlimited possibilities. Yes, there really are. And the

12:18

perfect place to play in that space is in your mind, like open

12:21

your mind to the potential that there are unlimited

12:23

possibilities and just start to explore those things. And that's

12:27

free. The only one stopping you is your own kind of habitual

12:34

mind games that you play with yourself. So just break those

12:37

down. And let's, let's let's let go of those this year.

12:40

Dan Holterhaus: Yeah. I love that. All right. Anything else?

12:44

Before we sign off? I think I have one more thing, actually.

12:47

Yeah, you go. Um, when you when you just said that, I think a

12:53

great way to kind of get creative and get out of, you

12:57

know, get out of your thoughts. But you know, your daily where

13:03

you're going through on a day to day basis is just to get outside. Go, go get some fresh air, then I know it's snowing,

13:10

and it's been cold for right now. But get outside. You know,

13:17

get into nature. Like I think that's just a great way to kind

13:21

of reset. Yeah. Liz Kennedy: Yeah, you'll hear Some recurring themes on the

13:27

careers and coffee pod - that is one of them. Easier to follow

13:31

that advice in the summertime, but yeah, but you can get out

13:35

there and you know, you can also just go to the mall and walk

13:38

around. Dan Holterhaus: Yes, absolutely. You got to take that time for

13:42

yourself. Yep. If you're going to be creative, I think

13:47

Liz Kennedy: Alright, guys, well, hopefully this was helpful. Try these tips today and and good luck.