162. Balancing Act: Gen Z Insights on Work and Life with Hannah MacDonald-Dannecker – PART2

[00:00:00] Welcome to episode 162 of Girl, Take the Lead where each week we explore womanhood and leadership.

[00:00:12] And I'm your host, Yolani. This is part two of a two-part series with Hannah McDonald,

[00:00:19] where she covers her thoughts about job searching and skills to obtain particularly around AI,

[00:00:27] a super interesting topic. And if you didn't listen to part one yet,

[00:00:32] Hannah is the author of four books, which she has published, a sought after public speaker to help

[00:00:39] others connect with Gen Z workers and as a partner in her family business about staffing called

[00:00:46] The Better Together Group of Companies. Enjoy the listen. Here you go.

[00:00:55] Pre-COVID, it was an employer's market. They had all of the control and then COVID happened

[00:01:01] it was an employee's market and they had all the control. And now we're shifting somewhere

[00:01:07] in between and we're trying to find a balance, but the employees have gotten a taste of what that

[00:01:15] feels like. And so they're desperately trying to hold onto it. And then the employers are

[00:01:22] used to what the norm is for them having that 100%.

[00:01:28] And they're frustrated by the others who are now experiencing some of the alternative.

[00:01:34] And so it's not only, is it a battle of who gets what, but it's a battle against

[00:01:40] if either side should have anything. So it's a really funny, like,

[00:01:44] people are mad at each other and people are mad that people are mad.

[00:01:48] So it's a great insight to just save. Those are great insights, Anna. Those are really,

[00:01:55] really good. I think you have because of your business and your clarity about who you are,

[00:02:04] you can definitely see some ways for people to navigate and to move. I'm wondering what

[00:02:10] you would tell younger generations about finding employment today? What advice would you give them?

[00:02:22] What do you mean? Do you mean how to get a job, how to show up or how to approach

[00:02:31] careers? Because there's a couple different things I could take that way.

[00:02:36] I kind of like the career, like how to build their career because younger generations are,

[00:02:44] like my strategy was I got really good at doing new products and branding was my way to go.

[00:02:56] And I became very good at that. With younger generations-

[00:03:03] Quite impressive. The purple hair, might I say? My word.

[00:03:09] But I think younger generations in building their careers have, I mean,

[00:03:17] I guess I could say I followed my passion, but they have an opportunity to not just

[00:03:25] build their careers based on earning money and earning more money at the next job,

[00:03:33] which can also be a strategy for moving. I mean, some people move around because of that,

[00:03:39] but I'm just wondering what advice career-wise you would say?

[00:03:48] I've got so many different pieces. Okay, let me give you like tiny snippets of a couple

[00:03:56] different areas. The first thing I would say is branding is so important as a personal employee.

[00:04:06] Just what you said is so true. A company's Instagram page is not the same as your

[00:04:13] Instagram page. A company's LinkedIn profile is not the same as your LinkedIn profile.

[00:04:19] And so you as a human have so much power to grow and build your own brand and network.

[00:04:27] Right now, that is insane. So take advantage of that while you can,

[00:04:31] no matter what field you're in. Second thing I would say is if you've never considered a trade

[00:04:38] before, look into trades. There is going to be a really, really scary, and I'll use that word,

[00:04:50] scary shift in the white collar world in the next decade, the next two decades,

[00:04:59] the next three decades. I have no idea what it's gonna look like. As AI continues to

[00:05:03] transition and form, so many of these jobs are going to be completely changed forever.

[00:05:11] And so trades specifically, there is a lack of tradespeople in this world, and they are paid

[00:05:18] so well, and they get the opportunity to have so much flexibility and balance in their own life

[00:05:26] that's really important that people take the opportunity before this all happens to look at it

[00:05:33] and go, maybe that would be really good for me. Because I remember when I was in high school,

[00:05:37] I looked at everyone who was in body shop. I looked at everyone who was in wood shop,

[00:05:41] and I was like, what are you doing? How lame, how boring. And now as someone who works in

[00:05:46] staffing, I can tell you those are the best jobs to have. People are always looking for

[00:05:51] someone with a red seal of any sort, and you'll be in demand forever.

[00:05:57] The last thing I would say is be creative about how you're approaching your job.

[00:06:09] There are so many people applying for jobs right now. It is an employer's market. There

[00:06:17] are way more employees looking for work than there are jobs available.

[00:06:22] And so come at it with a very creative perspective, meaning don't just send in

[00:06:30] a cover letter and a resume like you're doing to hundreds and hundreds and hundreds

[00:06:34] of job applications every day because that's sitting at the very bottom of a pile,

[00:06:39] and it's getting read in unison of 100 other resumes that look just like it.

[00:06:44] And that is so easy to get lost up in the mundane of everybody else's verbs and nouns

[00:06:52] and just words screaming at your recruiter through pages. But rather, I would encourage

[00:06:59] you to put a picture in there. Let's say for example, I love the example of a receptionist.

[00:07:05] Seems like such a very basic simple job. You're like, I hate this term. Just a

[00:07:11] receptionist. You're never just in anything. You were a receptionist and you had the opportunity

[00:07:16] to make a difference in that company while you were there. So what did you do? Did you

[00:07:22] recordinates their file folders? Take a picture of it. Is it beautiful? Put on your resume,

[00:07:27] bring it in with you. Of course, assuming that it's not confidential information,

[00:07:31] you're not ruining lives here, but like take that piece of information, move it forward and

[00:07:36] showcase it. Make it beautiful and make it stand out for what it genuinely was rather than

[00:07:42] letting it go to waste side in your last job. And then I actually have one more additional

[00:07:47] piece because just an extra bonus. If you're not going to look at trades and you're

[00:07:54] so focused on a white collar job of some sort, any type of office role,

[00:08:00] I would encourage you to be functional in AI and functional with people. As we progress forward,

[00:08:07] it's going to be so, so, so easy for people to choose one or the other, but people who have

[00:08:13] both are going to create much more stability for themselves in the future. Sorry, that was

[00:08:19] like real rapid fire. I'm like fire hydrant, you know? But yeah, those are kind of the tips

[00:08:25] that come to the top of my mind. Yeah, because I, you know, I've, some people I talk to

[00:08:32] are so fearful of AI and yet I'm having a blast with it. I use it to help me

[00:08:41] get titles of my podcast episodes. And I had a friend tell me recently,

[00:08:45] you don't really like your titles. And I'm like, yes, I know I have a secret weapon,

[00:08:50] you know? But I mean, sometimes your brain's just too tired to think anymore and you just

[00:08:57] need a little help. So absolutely. Absolutely. I'm the worst speller on the planet for an author.

[00:09:05] It's ridiculous. It's like embarrassing, but Chachi PT, my great friend, she auto-checks

[00:09:11] everything for me. It's great. I know it's like those little things that it's like super

[00:09:17] beneficial. Don't be scared of it. Just learn to use it. I also think like for doing presentations

[00:09:23] and for outlining key points, it can help you think through things. I mean, it's a,

[00:09:32] but I can get what you're saying. You know, we have to follow what's happening and

[00:09:39] I, I'll have to send you this in case you haven't seen it already, but there's a comedian

[00:09:46] who's doing, um, interviews with like Homer Simpson using AI.

[00:09:59] Really? The voice, like the situation is she must plug that into to get the persona. And

[00:10:08] her podcast is only like a minute long, but she's got these interviews that are all AI generated.

[00:10:17] And it cracks me up, you know, because it's like them talking about, well, you know,

[00:10:22] what do you think of when Marge did that? Did that hurt your feelings? You know,

[00:10:29] you have to remind yourself that this is, this is made up, you know, that this is,

[00:10:34] this is, but to me that was like, Oh, I love this idea. You know, there's going to be,

[00:10:40] I guess, because I love the creativity and the, you know, the curiosity. And I,

[00:10:46] I think what I also hear is like, those are important skills to always have in your repertoire,

[00:10:53] no matter your career or your business or whatever you, those to me are the ones to

[00:11:01] really invest in if you can. And then they lead to courage and a lot of other things as well.

[00:11:08] Yeah, I really like that. One of my first managers who, I mean, a massive impact on kind of how I

[00:11:14] try to lead things. He said, always go to curious, just never assume anything. It's funny,

[00:11:20] my eighth grade teacher shared something with me that I can't share now because it's not

[00:11:26] appropriate, but if you spell it out, there's three words in it. There's one that is the

[00:11:33] assume and there's the you. And then it's between, it's don't assume because it's going to make a

[00:11:40] fool out of you and me. And it's just so funny. It's like always go back to curious. If you

[00:11:48] ever assume something like it's just, it's never going to leave you in a good place. But if you

[00:11:52] start with curiosity, it's like, it just opens up so much room for so much more conversation.

[00:11:58] So, so I mean, what did you think of this idea of using AI to interview somebody in a podcast?

[00:12:09] I think that humans have much more interesting conversations because we have emotions,

[00:12:18] but I think that there is a time and place for everything. And it's offering information

[00:12:23] to people or if it's funny, or if it's entertaining in some sort of way, then

[00:12:30] all the power to it. But I would be very curious to understand how

[00:12:35] loyalty is behind that work. I don't even know. That's so curious.

[00:12:39] Because I went, but I guess if it's AI generated, there isn't copyright

[00:12:46] issues or anything like that. I don't know, but it gets complicated, doesn't it?

[00:12:49] That questions that come up. It does. I attended a seminar about that recently,

[00:12:54] and he was talking about just like the differences of every single,

[00:12:58] I think it was every province because I was in Canada, but how every province and every state

[00:13:03] are so different and everybody's regulations on it are different. Like we don't understand

[00:13:07] anything about this. I know. It was very scary. So my darling. Oh, real quick. I mean,

[00:13:14] maybe you can tell our listeners about your podcast because I think they'd love to check it

[00:13:18] out. Yes, talk about trying to connect people to information. So I think that the staffing world

[00:13:27] has opened me up to so, so many different kinds of jobs. And the examples that I love to give are,

[00:13:33] oh my gosh, there was this one time I heard about a job where it was a truck driver running

[00:13:37] through a chicken coop, trying to catch the chickens to put on the truck to drive across

[00:13:42] the country. And I was like, what kind of job is that? Or the other day I was talking to somebody

[00:13:51] who was a scuba diver who goes from pool to pool to pool across Florida, just trying to inspect

[00:13:56] for leaks. And I'm like, oh my gosh, that person just gets to swim and be in the sun all

[00:14:00] day. How amazing. And as a kid, I never heard about any sort of jobs that were crazy like

[00:14:07] this. We were still strictly a driver agency at the time, and that's really all I knew. So outside

[00:14:13] of that, the world beyond that staffing industry, I was like, there you can be a doctor,

[00:14:18] you can be a teacher, you can be a firefighter, or you can be a cop. And that's like, those were

[00:14:22] the ones that I had kind of always thought about because those are the ones that are pushed

[00:14:25] in front of children forever. So I wanted to create a resource where people could go and learn

[00:14:31] about lots of different types of jobs. So I've done two series now. The first one was on

[00:14:36] women in male dominated industries. That was really, really cool. We did, oh my gosh,

[00:14:41] really interesting ones with a pilot, we did one with a public speaker, we did one with

[00:14:47] a truck driver, we did like they're so cool and so exciting to sit and talk to these women

[00:14:53] just about the craziness that they're taking in their industry. I talked with one of my

[00:14:58] best friends from childhood who's currently a nuclear scientist and I broke down in tears on

[00:15:04] the podcast because I was like, I can't believe she works on writing cures for cancer. And he's

[00:15:10] like, this is so cool, but children don't know about any of these things and all of the

[00:15:16] insaneness that they could be doing. And then the second one was all about gen Z's in the

[00:15:21] workplace. So as I've kind of gone through different presentations in different places,

[00:15:26] I've had lots of questions about the next generation, who they are, what they do, and

[00:15:30] why they do it. And so that was kind of who that was for. It was all about the gen Z's,

[00:15:37] why they're making the decisions that they're making, what they're going to do about the

[00:15:41] decisions that they're making and how that kind of impacted their life moving forward.

[00:15:44] And then to just kind of try and debunk some of those myths. So it's all about employment,

[00:15:50] but with some different series through the way. Yeah, so interesting. And I know it's on

[00:15:54] Spotify. So make sure you check that out. I think you've given our younger generations

[00:16:01] terrific advice, but what would you tell your own 20 something self today?

[00:16:10] I think that I would tell my younger self, Oh, you know what? I read this quote today

[00:16:16] and it was really, really good. Your life is being written out in chalk, not in ink.

[00:16:24] And it can feel like life is an ink all the time. Like the decisions that you're making,

[00:16:31] you can never step away from, but realistically, you can always pivot one way or another. And so

[00:16:39] just take it one day at a time because as intentional as you can be as crazy as

[00:16:44] you can be and I am crazy and intentional about everything in the future. That's where

[00:16:48] I'll have everything mapped out to the day that I die. But also if something changes,

[00:16:54] yeah, something changes. Like that's so outside of my control. And so just do what you can do,

[00:17:00] but don't freak out. Life's not an ink. Yeah. Do you think you'll do another book?

[00:17:09] Get another book in you? Oh my goodness. Yeah. So I'm actually,

[00:17:12] I published one last night at 1 30 in the morning ironically.

[00:17:17] Whoa. Yeah, which is super exciting. That one was a smaller leadership course book that helps

[00:17:25] walk people through what it means to be an accidental leader. So that was just all about

[00:17:30] like, people go through life and they kind of fall into leadership. People tend to come to

[00:17:35] them. They've maybe never had leadership training in their life, but they're like,

[00:17:39] people are always depending on me and coming to me and I just don't know what to do about

[00:17:43] it. So this is for them, that person just to kind of give them the little snippets and pieces

[00:17:49] of information that can support them along their journey. And then I've actually done two other

[00:17:54] books as well. One all about how to find a job, how to find a place to work that you love

[00:18:00] every day, just kind of tips and tricks through. And then one was just a workbook

[00:18:05] for employers, all about how to find an intentional, intense and integrity filled candidate.

[00:18:14] And so that was kind of the other ones. I guess I'm at four now, but I would love to

[00:18:18] write another memoir, like another like thick boy for sure in the future.

[00:18:25] Oh, I would love that. I mean, I just think it's so terrific because

[00:18:29] once we pass through those years, we don't see it the same way.

[00:18:35] And when I'm going to write at, you know, my birthday is coming up and I'll be 70.

[00:18:43] So when I'm going to write at 70, it's so different when I go back and look at

[00:18:48] my journals from when I was 20 something myself. And I mean, I was so preoccupied with boys

[00:18:57] dating and broken hearts, recovery from them. And you're not that anymore. You're like you,

[00:19:09] your person is revolving all the time. So if you can capture that moment in time for yourself

[00:19:17] and just kind of nail it down on what's happening in your memoir at that point,

[00:19:22] I think that's wonderful to do. Then your story, you have an account of the story from that

[00:19:30] particular point of view. Yeah. And I think that that's actually like a really good note as well

[00:19:38] because I've been able to do a bunch of stuff in the last few years and it's been phenomenal.

[00:19:44] I can genuinely say that if I had not been with my person through that, I don't think I

[00:19:50] would have been able to do any of it because before finding Grayson, who's my husband,

[00:19:56] I was very scared of being seen as too much. I was like boys and they were boys,

[00:20:08] won't be able to take me. I was like, they can't handle this. Like somebody wants to own

[00:20:12] a business, someone who wants to write a book, someone who wants to do this and that

[00:20:16] and start public speaking and do podcast, whatever it was at the time, whatever it is today.

[00:20:20] I was like, they're not going to like that. And so I was so, so scared to be my fullest self

[00:20:27] in those moments. And then once I found somebody and felt secure in that, I was like,

[00:20:33] I can be anything I want to be. That's crazy. And I felt this freedom and sense of excitement

[00:20:41] to go out and be exactly who I was. But maybe actually I would change my answer from ink and

[00:20:50] chalk to what was I doing? Trying to chase boys, my word, that's embarrassing. No,

[00:21:01] don't let anything like that. Don't let the perception of what you want other people

[00:21:08] to think about you. Stand in your way of doing what you need to do. That's definitely what I

[00:21:15] would change it to. Absolutely. I agree. I think that's a great one and probably a great

[00:21:21] place to end our episode today. Hannah, we could go talk longer. I mean, we could have

[00:21:26] gone for hours here. I think so too or bring your girls in next time. We'll have a

[00:21:32] big chat across the board. This was so fun. Thank you for having me on.

[00:21:36] Thank you. Thank you for joining us. Thank you for listening today and we sure hope you enjoyed

[00:21:42] this episode. And if you did, please leave a comment wherever you listen to your podcast,

[00:21:48] tell a friend about us, join our public Facebook group, Girl Take the Lead, or visit our website,

[00:21:55] girltaketheleadpod.com. We also have a YouTube channel where your subscription

[00:22:02] would be appreciated once you're on YouTube search at Girl Take the Lead. And we've recently

[00:22:07] expanded to YouTube music where you can see the video version of this episode.

[00:22:14] And here are the three takeaways from the series. One, remember the three I's

[00:22:20] from Hannah's dad, intensity, intentionality, and integrity. Two, imposter syndrome doesn't need

[00:22:31] to be a stop sign, but can be a warning light to be cautious and intentional. And three,

[00:22:39] don't let the perception of what you want other people to think about you

[00:22:45] stand in your way of doing what you need to do.

[00:22:50] Our next episode will involve returning a guest to the show, Nicole Trick Steinbach.

[00:22:58] You may remember Nicole from episode 113, and that was titled Dare to Be Brave,

[00:23:04] Conquer Fear, and Learn Bravery as a Skill. You might also remember that she has a very

[00:23:11] successful podcast called Build Your Brave Career. One of the great things about

[00:23:18] podcasting is I get to meet incredible people like Nicole. And she mentioned in one of her

[00:23:24] newsletters that she loved the book Quit, The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away by Annie Duke.

[00:23:32] So I got it. And she accepted my invitation to return and discuss some of the key points

[00:23:39] from the book together for this episode. Adam Grant had this to say about Annie Duke's book.

[00:23:47] Quote, will help you figure out when to persist and when to pull the plug. And Seth Godin said,

[00:23:57] quote, there aren't many times you will say this book has changed my life. This is one of

[00:24:03] them. And boy did Nicole and I have great fun diving in finding our own insights and then

[00:24:11] discussing them together. So don't miss this juicy episode. Thanks for being here and talk to you soon. Bye.