Second Act Success Career Podcast: Career Change Advice, Job Search Strategies, and Personal Development Tips

Learn Tools To Help Build A Career You Want With Author Mark Herschberg | Ep #52

January 20, 2023 Mark Herschberg, Shannon Russell Season 1 Episode 52
Second Act Success Career Podcast: Career Change Advice, Job Search Strategies, and Personal Development Tips
Learn Tools To Help Build A Career You Want With Author Mark Herschberg | Ep #52
Show Notes Transcript

Do you have the right tools to build the perfect career? Mark Herschberg graduated from MIT, starting his career off as an engineer. He took the startup route, progressing quickly to become CTO. During his time as CTO, he recognized a gap in skills in his team and built a skills development program, focusing on building essential business skills, such as negotiating, networking, communicating, and leadership. He has been teaching career skills programs at MIT for more than 20 years, written a career book, The Career Toolkit, launched two career skills apps, all while serving as CTO for multiple companies. Mark shares his knowledge with Shannon on today’s marketplace, where it’s headed and what people need to do to succeed in their careers. 


SHOW NOTES FOR THIS EPISODE
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CONNECT with Mark:

Website – www.thecareertoolkitbook.com 

Career Toolkit Book - https://www.thecareertoolkitbook.com

Resources - https://www.thecareertoolkitbook.com/resources

Brain Bump App - App Store (apple.com) | Apps on Google Play

Career Toolkit App - the App Store (apple.com) | Apps on Google Play

Email - contact@thecareertoolkitbook.com 

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https://www.linkedin.com/in/hershey/

https://twitter.com/CareerToolkitBk

https://www.facebook.com/TheCareerToolkitBook

https://www.instagram.com/thecareertoolkit/


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Second Act Success Podcast
Season 1 -Episode #52 -  Tools To Build A Dream Career | Ep #52 
Guest: Mark Herschberg
Transcription (*created by Descript and may not be perfectly accurate)

[00:00:00] Mark Herchberg: You have a job offer for $60,000, you've learned how to negotiate and you go back and say, I would like to get 61,000. Five minutes of negotiation. You get the 61, you take the job, and you sit in that job for 30 years. You've just earned yourself a thousand dollars more for 30 years. $30,000 with one single five minutes of negotiating.

[00:00:22] Shannon Russell: Are you at a crossroads in your career? Ready for a change, but you're not sure how to get there. Don't worry. We are about to produce your best life together. Welcome to the Second Act Success Podcast. I am your host. Shannon Russell. I am a former Television Producer turned boy mom. I left my dream job to find family balance and in doing so, I produced my dream life. Now I am a Business Owner, Podcaster, and Career Coach. My mission is to help other women, like you, find what they are truly meant to be doing. If you are ready to start over in your career or pivot to a new purpose, then get [00:01:00] ready to be inspired by stories of women who have done just that. We will share advice and actionable tips to motivate you as you move along on your path. It is time to shine. So let's start producing your balanced life of abundance today. This is Second Act Success. 



[00:01:22] Shannon Russell: 

Hi, my friend. Welcome to the show. I'm your host, Shannon Russell. I've got a question for you. Have you heard of the Career Toolkit? It's a book by Mark Herschberg and I've got him here with me today. Mark is a graduate of MIT as well as a CTO for numerous startups. 

after growing countless companies, mark wrote the Career Toolkit where he breaks down the tools you need to create the career you want. Whether you have the perfect career or you're searching for a new one, the tools and information in this book are so incredibly helpful and I'm really [00:02:00] excited to have him here. 

He will be sharing his expertise on all things, careers with us. So let's dive into the episode.

Hi Mark. Welcome to Second Act Success. How are you?

[00:02:11] Mark Herchberg: I'm doing great. Thanks for having me on the show today.

[00:02:13] Shannon Russell: Very excited to get your insight on careers and second Act and all of that. You have quite a background. You wanna tell us kind of where you went to college and what your journey has kind of been like since then?

[00:02:24] Mark Herchberg: I've had this very interesting dual career. I went to M I T in the nineties and got my undergrad and graduate degrees there, and very quickly I began going into startup companies. It was kind of right place, right time, fell into it, and in the startup world, it was easy to advance. I knew I wanted to get into management. I wanted to become a C T O, a Chief Technology officer. I wanted the challenges that came with leading people and not just engineering challenges. And because it was such a high growth area, I could quickly move up. [00:03:00] Now as I was doing so I realized that to get to that top level, to become the C T O, it wasn't just about being the best engineer, there were all these other skills I needed. Leadership, communications, team building, negotiating. No one ever taught me these skills, so I had to develop them in myself as I was doing. So I realized these skills are not just for executives, they are for everyone. So I developed training programs to our tra my teams. And as I was doing this, m i t had been doing surveys of companies and found out companies were asking for these very same skills. They recognized a skills gap. And when they say they want these skills, I don't just mean among M I T students or among college students or engineers universally, these are the skills companies want. but they can't find, so m i t wanted to create what's now known as the Career Success Accelerator. When I heard about it, I said, you know, I've developed some training material. I'm happy to give it to you. I thought it'd be a one and done. But [00:04:00] instead they asked me to help create some new content as well, and then asked me to help teach it alongside professors from Sloan and the schools of engineering. I had this amazing opportunity unplanned. So in parallel to my career building tech startups and helping Fortune 500 s innovate, I've also helped to create this class, and I've been teaching at this class at M I T for the past 20 plus years, which then turned into the book, the app and speaking. But I still build tech startups as well. So I have these dual career.

[00:04:31] Shannon Russell: So you graduate from MIT, and you know that you want to be on the management level of these companies. You wanna be a CTO, but how did you get there? You didn't just get that overnight, talk to me about that process till you became, the CTO that you wanted to be. .

[00:04:46] Mark Herchberg: I investigated what does it mean to be a C T O? And this is something very important we need to do in our planning, is understand what that means. A classic example, lawyers, if you ask someone what a lawyer do, you can [00:05:00] ask to have a 10 year old. 10 year old knows what a lawyer does. We've all seen them on tv. They're the people who go to court and they argue things. But if you actually look at what a lawyer does, if you talk to most lawyers, they're not in court. Even the ones who do aren't there very often. They're in their office, they're doing research, they're writing things up. It's a very solitary profession. And that drama and excitement where someone chows, you can't handle the truth. I want the truth.

[00:05:28] Shannon Russell: Right.

[00:05:29] Mark Herchberg: That doesn't happen. But that's what we see, that's telegenic. And so we have this very warped impression of what law is and what we find as many people say, oh, I wanna go into law. It looks exciting, it looks interesting. And then they find it's a lot of meetings and paperwork and it's not what they thought.

So it's very important that we understand what exactly do I do? And it's not just what's in the job description, it's how much of each of those things in the job description do you do? that's important to understand. So I [00:06:00] really started to investigate, to understand what do I need to do and what are the skills that would make me effective and put me on this.

[00:06:07] Shannon Russell: Like you said, you're learning what different job professions are as you're growing up, and then all of a sudden it's time to go to college and you're supposed to pick this major and go work towards this field. And I'm noticing, I don't know about you, but just in the past few years, a lot of people are graduating with degrees and they don't want to go into that field. Do you think it's because people aren't prepared with the proper toolkit to know what that job that they're working towards actually entails?

[00:06:33] Mark Herchberg: I don't think we explain the jobs very well. Consider medicine. That's another one. We all know what doctors do. How much time do you think doctors spend doing paperwork? It's a huge amount. You, again, don't see that on tv. That's not the exciting part of it. And if you talk to doctors, doctors generally love helping people and they lament all the paperwork. And you have to ask yourself, is it worth all the paperwork? It's important to really [00:07:00] understand, again, not just here's the job title, here's generally what the job entails, but really that particular mix, and then are your skills aligned to that mix? If you don't like public speaking, and that's fine, taking a role where you're going to a conference every other week in speaking is probably not the right job for you.

[00:07:18] Shannon Russell: Right. So it's really learning all that. It encompasses you went to school for engineering. A lot of engineers don't wanna be a C T O, they don't wanna be managing teams, they just wanna be focused on the project , so that's quite interesting that you took maybe the same degree that someone else did and you just added on. 

[00:07:35] Mark Herchberg: I didn't know it at the time, and that's okay. As much as I'm a person who says in my book, you need to plan, you need to be proactive. It's okay if you don't have answers to your questions.

It's okay if you explore and try a little, particularly in your early twenties, or even if you're doing a pivot and you are in a position where you can say, I can try a few jobs. Right now I have financial stability, either because of savings or a spouse. I'll [00:08:00] explore a bit and that's okay because that's going to help us uncover our preferences. For some people, you can do it by reading, by speaking to others. For other people, you need to actually do. and both are acceptable. 

[00:08:11] Shannon Russell: So now talk to me about the Career Toolkit book that you wrote and put together and, and that whole.

[00:08:18] Mark Herchberg: For years, we've taught these skills at m i T and we know that they work. The skills, by the way, come from research. We've done research of what corporations want. Research from some of our professors at places like Sloan who understand how should we think about leadership, how should we think about negotiating? We've been using them with my teams, with others. So we know what the skills are. We also know how to teach them. We've really developed some great content. I want us to reach a larger audience. And I originally thought, I'm just gonna write up notes for the class. I thought I was writing 20 pages of notes, 20 pages became 40, became 80, and pretty soon I said, I think I have a book. So I [00:09:00] turned into a book and the corresponding.

[00:09:03] Shannon Russell: So how was that when you said, okay, I have a book now. Did you know how to proceed in getting that book out there to the world?

[00:09:10] Mark Herchberg: I didn't know how to do that, the first thing I did is I called my friend Dorie Clark. Dorie is one of the top business book writers in the country. He's had multiple bestselling books. I reached out, thankfully because I've built this great network over the years. I said, Dorie, I think I'm writing a book. Can I take you to dinner? And she kindly said yes. So we went out to dinner and she gave me some great advice on how to get started. 

[00:09:33] Shannon Russell: It's so helpful because not everyone can go to MIT and take this programming and be a part of this. So you're really bringing that MIT program to the world to who, whatever student wants it.

[00:09:44] Mark Herchberg: Exactly. And again, this is not engineering, these are not engineering skills or science specific. These are universal skills that apply to everyone no matter what your industry or what your.

[00:09:55] Shannon: Hey, it's Shannon. If you are enjoying this podcast, then you will [00:10:00] love my weekly newsletter. It's full of career advice, productivity tips, and of course inspiring stories of women who have launched a new career that they. Just go to second act success.co to sign up. Plus you'll get the My Success Vision Board to help you with your 2023 planning as well. Now it's back to the episode. 

[00:10:21] Shannon Russell: who is the ideal reader of this book?

[00:10:24] Mark Herchberg: Anyone who says, I want to be more effective in my career, that might mean you're saying I need to create a better, more proactive career plan. Cause I feel like I'm just wandering around and being inefficient. There might be a particular skill where you say, I want to be better at networking or negotiating or communicating. How do I get better at this? All of that is in the book. The book itself, there's 10 chapters and it's not necessarily that you have to read it cover to cover. It's a toolkit. You can open it up and say, I wanna get better at networking. Go right to chapter eight. Read that chapter, put it down for a bit. [00:11:00] Then you want to work on creating your career plan. Go to chapter one so you can jump around. This is not a book you read once you go back to it and it takes you only about 30 or 40 minutes to read a chapter so you can just jump in, read it, get it. Focus on that. Come back to it again when you need it. 

[00:11:18] Shannon Russell: A lot of us who wander aimlessly I mean, we all go through that at different periods in our life. You went through that when you were trying to figure it out After school. I've been there. A lot of our listeners of the podcast are in a place where they feel a little bit stuck and unsure of maybe how to navigate. Maybe they do know what they want to do next and they don't know how to make that shift. They're not sure how to use the skills that they currently have to make a pivot or a transition to something new. So what advice would you give just to our listeners now that are sitting there in that place of uncertainty and they just wanna know how can I put one foot in front of the other just to make a step a movement.

[00:11:57] Mark Herchberg: Let's look at the two most common cases. [00:12:00] First, I don't know exactly what I want to do. I know I want to leave where I am, but you don't want to go from something. You want to go to something 

[00:12:08] Shannon Russell: Mm-hmm. 

[00:12:08] Mark Herchberg: that starts with these questions. And they're questions You ask yourself about what you want. Again, not do I want to be a doctor or an accountant, but what do I like? How much time do I wanna spend in meetings? Do I want to work individually or as a team? Do I want to be in an office or at home? These are the important questions you need to ask in addition to, do I think I wanna do medicine or finance? That's part of the joke, but that's the obvious one. Start with these questions and talk to people in the fields.

Talk to your friends, when someone says, I know I spend half my time in meetings, but I love it because I love the people I'm with, and you think, oh, maybe meetings aren't so bad if I, like my coworkers, get personal preference. But talking to different people will help stimulate ideas and help you explore and understand all the subtle different dimensions of what you want in a job. That's gonna give you some focus. Once you figured out [00:13:00] what you wanna do, you need to create a plan to get. . You need to think if this is where I want to be in a few years, I knew I couldn't go from engineer to CTO overnight. There were some intermediate steps. So map those out. Figure out what are those steps. So you're not taking this giant leap, but you're hopscotching step to step to. . And when you think of it that way, it becomes a lot more manageable. Very importantly, this is not set in stone. You're going to check in and readjust just like we do with our project plans. When you think about my story, I'm someone who said, okay, I know what I wanna do and here's my plan. And then when M I T reached out to me, all of a sudden, wait, here's a new opportunity I was not expecting, I was not looking for, but here it is and let me think about what is it I want? Does this fit into it? And now I have this parallel career, so it's okay to adjust as we go.

[00:13:53] Shannon Russell: This is such great advice, and just to go back to the app, so you have The Career Toolkit book, but there's an app that's [00:14:00] associated with that as well.

[00:14:01] Mark Herchberg: There's two now. There is the Career Toolkit app, and what that has is highlights from my book. The things that you would literally highlight when you read them, they're all in the app completely free. You use it one of two ways. Either you are about to go into, let's say a networking event thinking, what were those great tips?

Well pull out the app, open up, go the networking tips, and you've got them right in your pocket for that quick refresh right before you need them. The other way it works is it will pop up one of the tips at a time you set to help keep it top of mind cuz it's far too easy to read a book and then forget all as soon as you turn the cover. And so I want you to help retain this and it just, each day pops it up. You look at swipe it away, takes you two seconds, but it helps you retain what you've learned using a technique of space repetition. So that's the Career Toolkit app. 

We also put out another app, Brain Bump under Cognosco Media. Same idea, but it's like a Kindle version. [00:15:00] It has content, not just from my book, but from other books, podcasts, blogs, talks, and classes. So you can get highlights from additional content. Same thing. Open it and get as you need, or get that push notification to help you.

[00:15:14] Shannon Russell: . So much good stuff and so many great free resources. Between the book and the apps a lot of people are gonna get a lot of great information from all of this.

What trends are you seeing in the workforce for students that are graduating from college now? Are there any trends that you're seeing as far as what career paths are going into or what advice they're looking for?

[00:15:33] Mark Herchberg: That's a tough one. When we talk about remote work, for example, I often get the question is remote work here to stay? And the answer is probably, Now I'll note I was running remote teams for many years. I ran a hybrid team starting in 2017. We were in the office for about two and a half, three days a week. So this is not new to me and I've been a big fan of it.

Will hybrid work stay? It depends. If we keep it up [00:16:00] for another roughly two to three years, then yes, it is here to stay. We need to be doing this for at least two or three more years for it to really be institutionalized and fossilized into how the labor market works. And if it doesn't last that long, it may not stay. There's always that debate. Now we know it works in the short term. you can produce the report each week and remember to put the TPPs cover on it and great, that can be done.

Does it work longer term? Can you build the relationships that are important for long-term innovation and. Jury's still out. I'm not saying it can't work, but we haven't actually done it. There's the tactical and strategic, and we've only seen the tactical. We're going to see echoes of we can work from home or it's not working, or we're saying this, but then people are leaving to a company with a different policy or then going back. We're gonna see echoes for a number of years to come.

[00:16:54] Shannon Russell: Good points. I agree I work with a lot of women who are moms, and I think a [00:17:00] lot of my listeners are in that situation where now they have kids, things are changing. They don't want that really long commute. So remote work is a wonderful option for them. I can see even more changes coming if we revert back to the long commute and having to be in person. A lot of people are looking to either do remote work or find different businesses that are online, whether it's creating an Etsy shop or, forming their own business that's digital. I think that's a great option for people. What career options would you maybe suggest for them to look into that gives them that flex?

[00:17:37] Mark Herchberg: Let's first understand some of the interesting challenges, we do know that women and certain minorities tend to have more home responsibilities than the traditional white male. And so this creates a certain bias in our workforce. So there's a couple challenges. If we let people pick their own work from home, do you wanna be here two [00:18:00] days a week? Three days a week? The worry is white men will be in the office more women and others will stay home more. And therefore we're gonna have a bias that just by proximity we're going to promote more men creating a D E I problem.

Okay? Simple solution. We are going to require everyone in the office for the same amount of time. Done. Wait a second. My office wants everyone in three days a week. I'd really prefer two days a week. . Well, you know what? That other company across the street, it's only two days a week I'm going there. So now this company that mandated a fixed number of days a week, they're going to lose the people with home responsibilities. Women minority groups. Again, you have a D E I problem.

[00:18:42] Shannon Russell: Mm-hmm.

[00:18:42] Mark Herchberg: That's a challenge. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. And We don't know how this will play out. So there are some really subtle challenges here. One of the other things to look at is how much do you need to be in the office? What we're finding is a lot of older [00:19:00] people, and by older I mean forties, fifties, established, they know what they're doing. You don't need to be in the office as much. You generally are living in the suburbs. You've got longer commute. You'd rather be home more. Someone who's 25 being in that office at Learning by Osmosis. is important, just being around learning from senior people, but that doesn't work if the senior people aren't in the office. Now, if you're changing into a new company, a new career, you might also need to focus on some of that relationship building, and it really depends on where you're going. If you're saying, I'm gonna be an individual contributor, I'm gonna do this job, you might not need a lot of relationships. I certainly do recommend building them at work. Internal networking is very important, but it might be sufficient to do that while remote. If you're saying, I wanna get into this job, I wanna get on the fast track, I wanna get those promotions, you absolutely need to build those relationships and it will be faster and easier in the office. So it depends on your intention and what you need to do.[00:20:00] 

[00:20:00] Shannon Russell: I'm thinking back to when I was in my twenties working in New York City and you wanted to go out every single night afterwards with your coworkers cuz that was just such a part of getting to know people and building your reputation at work and it was all about the networking, but it's very different when you are in your forties and you have different responsibilities at home. It's really just that juxtaposition of manager, senior level, and then the newer, younger people coming up in the ranks. It's just really difficult to make everybody happy and give everyone a similar experience. If you are creating an online digital company of your. Maybe it's an Etsy shop or you are designing websites, whatever it might be. There are other ways for you to network online Now, and just different communities. There's so much in social media between Instagram and Clubhouse and all of these different apps that you can actually network and meet people digitally online, which is a wonderful thing for people who do need to be home and need that remote work,, option. So you're right. It's tricky on all [00:21:00] accounts, at all levels.

[00:21:01] Mark Herchberg: And if you are a solopreneur, doing something else on your own, having those other people around, it's important for your mental health. It's important to learn. Other things I mentioned when I was doing a book, books are kind of solo activities. You sit there and you write, But I first reached out to my friend Dory. I said, I need help. I don't know what I'm doing. And I'm now part of certain author communities. I'm part of speaker communities, I'm part of other groups with other people who are in the same boat as me. And we can share ideas. We can learn from each other. And most people in these communities aren't going to say, oh, you make scarfs and I make scarfs. And ooh, you're, you're my competitor. I hate you. Say, you know what? There's a lot of people who need scarfs. Neither of us will dominate the market. Let's work together. Let's share ideas. Let's help each other. And you'll find there's a lot more support than competition among people doing what you do. So find those communities, whether online or local, and that's gonna be really important again, for your mental health [00:22:00] as well as for your.

[00:22:02] Shannon Russell: So true. I totally agree. And I just, since starting the podcast, I'm in a ton of podcaster groups, made so many friends where we guest on each other's podcasts. We're planning to meet up at conferences. It really is something that can feel so lonely, but that you find those people that even if they live in a different country, you can chat online and help each other grow. It's all about lifting each other up in, you know, whatever industry you're in. 

In the book, you claim that someone can make $30,000 with your advice? That's a really bold statement. Can you explain where that came from?

[00:22:37] Mark Herchberg: It is, but I will back it up for you right

[00:22:40] Shannon Russell: Okay. 

[00:22:41] Mark Herchberg: Let's suppose you read my chapter on negotiations, and by the way, if you don't wanna read my chapter, go read a different book on negotiations, but learn negotiations somehow.

Now, you go in for a job offer. Let's suppose you're 30 years old, you have a job offer for $60,000, but instead of taking a [00:23:00] job, you've learned how to negotiate and you go back and say, I would like to get 61,000. Here's why. And you use the techniques. Now 60 is 61,000. That's not a huge lift. That sounds pretty doable if you do nothing else, five minutes of negotiation. So you get the 61, you take the job, and you sit in that job for 30 years. You've just earned yourself a thousand dollars more for 30 years. $30,000 with one single five minutes of negotiating. It's really that easy. Now, of course, you're thinking, wait a second, I'm not going to stay in a job for 30 years.

I'm going to have other jobs and promotions and raises, and probably I can negotiate for more than just a thousand dollars. If you learn to negotiate, you can add tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands of dollars to your lifetime income, and we're just talking about your direct compensation.

You'll get things other than just money. You'll negotiate with people other than your manager. You'll negotiate with [00:24:00] suppliers and customers. You negotiate all the time with your coworkers. It's not about money, but it's about dividing up work. We negotiate with our spouses, with our children, we negotiate with lots of people, and getting better has a huge impact.

And by the way, here's the even bigger secret. Getting just a little bit better at not just negotiating, but at leadership or communicating or networking has the same type of returns. No one's going to say, oh, well, you're a slightly better communicator.

Here's a thousand dollars more. But being that slightly bearer communicator, you're going to stand out, you'll get noticed, you'll be put on bearer projects. You'll come across better in interviews, and that will lead to better opportunities and better returns. The key takeaway is all of these skills, it's not about being the best in the world, it's getting just a little bit better, one, 2% better, and it can have a huge return on your overall effecti.

[00:24:57] Shannon Russell: So simple and so brilliant. You're right. [00:25:00] What are your thoughts on people having a career plan straight out of college? Should they have a plan before graduation?

[00:25:07] Mark Herchberg: If you know what you want to do, then yes, create a plan to get there. If you don't know exactly where you want to go, particularly out of college during a transition, and you can spend a little time exploring. , and certainly we think about it, 22.

You've got your fallback, you still have your parents. So take that time to explore. Take that time to try out. I think that's totally fine.

[00:25:29] Shannon Russell: And if you are our age and you're thinking of changing to something else, do you suggest having that plan before you just jump and say, okay, I don't have anything else. I have no way of making money tomorrow, but I need to start fresh. Is a plan necessary?

[00:25:47] Mark Herchberg: I think so. If you're in a position where you say, I hate showing up to work. It is harming my health. I have to get out of here. Okay, maybe you just need to jump and you'll figure out how you'll land later. [00:26:00] For most people, if you're not in that extreme situation, Ideally, you should have some savings.

My parents always taught me have six months of cash in the bank, and this way, no matter what happens, you get laid off tomorrow, you're fine for six months. If you are cautious, you can stretch that further. Okay, that's a good safety net. But if you can start to look before you leap and have those conversations with others, try to create a plan.

Know the plan isn't going to be perfect. You're not gonna follow the plan as written, but you have the plan and you're going to adjust as you go. If you've got some larger safety net, if for example, you have a spouse who can support the family for a bit, then maybe you say, you know, for the next two years I'm going to explore, I'm going to do maybe some consulting jobs.

I might even do a little free work just to get my foot in the door and try something else. Or I'm gonna go back to school and take a class, and you spend a little more time exploring. Now, one important thing is to understand when you're [00:27:00] doing all these kind of short things, , how's someone gonna see this on your resume? If you go back into the corporate world, if you were at a job for six years and before that 10 years, and you're showing long duration and then you have two years of maybe a little volatility, or just say various things, say, yeah, I was exploring. But they look, say, well, you're someone who stays somewhere for a while and now you figured out what you want.

Yeah, I'll hire you if you've been changing jobs every 18 months for the past 15 years, and then I just see you keep doing it. Well, you know, you're probably gonna leave my job in a few years anyway. So it depends how you're perceived. Now, certainly if you're doing your own business, you might say, I'm going to spend the next year trying a few different things. Each quarter, I'm gonna try something different, see what is I like, and then I'm gonna commit next year. That's fine too. So it really depends on where you are and what paths you're capable of doing given the support system you have in [00:28:00] place.

[00:28:00] Shannon Russell: That's great. I love that. And it brings up a question about burning bridges for me, like I always think. , you should create relationships at work no matter what job you're at, and carry those with you to the next one, to the next one in. Whether you're changing industries altogether or not. You have your network of people. So if I decide tomorrow that I wanna write a book, you know who I'm gonna call, I'm gonna call you, mark, because you did it and now we might've just met today, but you are someone in my network that I can call upon and ask for advice. So what are your feelings about maybe not burning bridges when you do leave a job because you wanna keep that network intact?

[00:28:40] Mark Herchberg: Absolutely do not burn bridges. I always tell people, jobs are short, careers are long. Now, very important. We often talk about the importance of a first impression and whether we're meeting in person on the street and you're making that judgment in some number of seconds, or I'm new to work, and of course the first couple weeks [00:29:00] you're seeing, how am I, am I responsible and am I committed? Am I smart? It's also important on the backend because people remember how you leave. When we leave, we want to leave on good terms. We want to not just drop our projects like, well, I'm out of here. You guys, finish it up. Hey, I patches this up for you. I left some things. If you have a question, call me. You know, I'm still here to help you. Let's keep in touch. So make sure you exit on a good note.

[00:29:30] Shannon Russell: Yep. Because industries are small. They might be big, but they're small and everyone kind of knows each other and yeah. Great, great advice. 

So where can our audience connect with you?

[00:29:40] Mark Herchberg: You can go to my website, thecareertoolkitbook.com. There. Of course, you can get the book from Amazon and elsewhere. You can follow me on social media or again, touch with me. You can go to the app page and I'll take you to the Android iPhone store. We can download the Free Companion app. I put out articles every week, and then the resources page with a [00:30:00] bunch of free resources, including the questions in chapter one about how to think about what you wanna do next. Completely free all of this at thecareertoolkitbook.com.

[00:30:10] Shannon Russell: So much good stuff to check out. And I thank you so much for being here and trying to help our listeners try to figure out you know, where they really need to be. So, thank you so much.

[00:30:21] Mark Herchberg: Thanks for having me on the show.

[00:30:22] Shannon Russell: Mark is such a wealth of knowledge. And there are just so many tips that I've taken from our talk today. I really hope that you have two notes on everything we discussed will be in the show notes for this episode. So just go to secondactsuccess.co/52, or head over to the careertoolkitbook.com. If you would like to leave me a message about what you'd like to hear on an upcoming episode of the podcast. You can leave me a voice message at speakpipe.com/secondactsuccess. 

Thanks for joining me today. I'll be back again next time for more career advice, [00:31:00] inspiration, and of course, Second Act Success stories. Bye for now. 

[00:31:05] Shannon: 

Thank you for joining us. I hope you found some gems of inspiration and some takeaways to help you on your path to Second Act Success. To view show notes from this episode, visit secondactsuccess.co. Before you go, don't forget to subscribe to the podcast. So you don't miss a single episode. Reviews only take a few moments and they really do mean so much. Thank you again for listening. I am Shannon Russell, and this is Second Act Success.