Navigating Difficult Career Conversations: How to Tell Your Boss You're Leaving, Talk to Your Spouse About a Career Change, and Negotiate Your Salary

Ask most professionals what salary they're targeting for their next career change and the answer comes from the paycheck they already have. That is how people settle before the search even starts. This episode breaks down how to set a salary target by working backward from the life you want to build, and why your income goal should come from your future instead of your current situation. What You'll Learn: Why the three most common answers to "what salary are you targeting?" all lead to settling, and what they have in common The difference between circumstantial decisions and intentional ones, and why your current salary is the wrong anchor The four-step process for reverse engineering an income goal from the life you want, starting with "someday" instead of a fixed timeline A live walkthrough using AI to estimate lifestyle costs, factor in inflation and taxes, and set income milestones for next year, five years out, and beyond How a real client defined an extraordinary life around caring for her parents and what that meant for her income target Our book, Happen To Your Career: An Unconventional Approach To Career Change and Meaningful Work, is now available on audiobook! Visit happentoyourcareer.com/audible to order it now! Visit happentoyourcareer.com/book for more information or buy the print or ebook here! Want to chat with our team about your unique situation? Schedule a conversation Free Resources What career fits you? Join our free 8 Day Mini Course to figure it out! Career Change Guide - Learn how high-performers discover their ideal career and find meaningful, well-paid work without starting over. Related Episodes Changing Careers (When You Don't Know Your Next Job Title) (Spotify / Apple Podcasts) How to Figure Out What You Really Want (Spotify / Apple Podcasts)

Laura liked her company. She just had no idea what to do next inside it. The posted internal roles were not what she wanted, and she could not find what she was looking for by browsing a job board. So she did something most people never think to try. She identified a problem the company had not solved yet, built a case for a role around fixing it, and proposed a job that did not exist. They said yes and four years later she did it again. If you have been assuming you need to leave to find work that fits, this episode will make you reconsider. What You'll Learn: Why the internal job board is not the universe of available options and where the real opportunities inside your organization actually live How Laura identified an unsolved problem, built a business case around it, and proposed a role that had never existed before she walked in with the idea The difference between networking for a job and genuine curiosity-driven conversations that surface invisible opportunities and build the relationships that make internal moves possible Why proposing a solution to a problem that people care about is dramatically more effective than asking your manager to help you find something new How Laura did this not once but twice and why that is not a sign something went wrong the first time but exactly how intentional career design is supposed to work Our book, Happen To Your Career: An Unconventional Approach To Career Change and Meaningful Work, is now available on audiobook! Visit happentoyourcareer.com/audible to order it now! Visit happentoyourcareer.com/book for more information or buy the print or ebook here! Want to chat with our team about your unique situation? Schedule a conversation Free Resources What career fits you? Join our free 8 Day Mini Course to figure it out! Career Change Guide - Learn how high-performers discover their ideal career and find meaningful, well-paid work without starting over. Related Episodes Figuring Out Your Perfect Career Match (Spotify / Apple Podcasts) Discover Your Strengths to Find Your Ideal Career (Spotify / Apple Podcasts)

Most career change stories end with someone leaving everything behind and starting over. Alanna's doesn't. She came back from her honeymoon certain she needed to change everything about her career. After two years, a baby, three volunteer boards, consulting work, and a run for legislative office, she found what she was looking for without ever leaving the organization she was already in. If you have been assuming a big exit is the only way to find work that actually fits, this episode is going to change how you think about that. What You'll Learn: Why the assumption that you need to leave your job to find meaningful work is often wrong and what to do before you make any major move What the basket approach to building career clarity looks like in practice and why experimenting broadly is more effective than searching for one perfect answer How proximity to impact works as a career requirement and why the same role can feel meaningful or empty depending entirely on how close you are to seeing the results of your work Why pausing a career change during a major life transition can be one of the most strategic decisions you make and how to use that time intentionally What it looks like to recombine existing pieces of your life into something that finally fits rather than burning everything down and starting from scratch Our book, Happen To Your Career: An Unconventional Approach To Career Change and Meaningful Work, is now available on audiobook! Visit happentoyourcareer.com/audible to order it now! Visit happentoyourcareer.com/book for more information or buy the print or ebook here! Want to chat with our team about your unique situation? Schedule a conversation Free Resources What career fits you? Join our free 8 Day Mini Course to figure it out! Career Change Guide - Learn how high-performers discover their ideal career and find meaningful, well-paid work without starting over. Related Episodes Should I Quit My Job? How to Know It's Time (Spotify / Apple Podcasts) Designing Career Experiments and Testing New Careers (Spotify / Apple Podcasts)

Most podcasts quit before they ever find their audience. This one just hit 13 years. Scott Anthony Barlow wanted to mark the moment the right way, and that starts with saying thank you to everyone who has listened, shared, and kept showing up alongside this show. Over a million downloads. Thousands of lives changed. And a mission that keeps getting bigger. To celebrate, the Happen To Your Career book is free. US listeners can get a physical copy for just the cost of shipping. Everyone else gets the audiobook at no cost. Both are worth having. The book took four years to build and it shows. It is filled with the kinds of stories that make you feel like change is actually possible because the people telling them were once exactly where you are now.

Stephanie was at application 91 with her work visa ticking down in London after a layoff. So she did what most people do when a job search starts to feel like a race against the clock — she applied to absolutely everything. She sent 54 more applications before something specific shifted in how she was approaching the search. Eight days after that shift, she had two offers. The real question is what changed between application 91 and application 145, and why applying to more jobs was the thing making her search worse. What You'll Learn: Why applying to more jobs when a search stalls feels logical and why the data consistently shows it produces significantly worse results What cognitive load is, how context switching between different role types and industries tanks interview performance, and why narrowing your focus fixes it How Stephanie went from 91 applications with zero offers to two offers in eight days by changing one thing about her approach without changing anything on her resume Why a visa requirement or any other constraint in your search is not a limitation to apologize for and how reframing it as a requirement changes everything about how you show up The one exercise to do this week with your last 10 to 20 applications that will show you exactly where your search is losing effectiveness Our book, Happen To Your Career: An Unconventional Approach To Career Change and Meaningful Work, is now available on audiobook! Visit happentoyourcareer.com/audible to order it now! Visit happentoyourcareer.com/book for more information or buy the print or ebook here! Want to chat with our team about your unique situation? Schedule a conversation Free Resources What career fits you? Join our free 8 Day Mini Course to figure it out! Career Change Guide - Learn how high-performers discover their ideal career and find meaningful, well-paid work without starting over. Related Episodes An Overthinker's Guide To Making Better Career Decisions (Spotify /Apple Podcasts) Changing Careers (When You Don't Know Your Next Job Title) (Spotify / Apple Podcasts)