Janet Matta, Rock Star Career Coach On The Alternative Paths We Fail To See

[00:30] Paul: I just got my copy last week and it's pretty epic.

[00:34] Paul: It's a book for the fans of The Pathless Path. It's a collectible edition for those people and also a book for the people that may just want to support my journey in this crazy path I'm on, or that love beautiful objects and books. You can learn more about this project and see the book in all its glory at pathlesspath.com/hardcover or check the link in the description. Welcome to The Boundless Podcast. I'm Paul Millerd, and I created this podcast because I'm passionate about making sense of the future of work and having conversations with the innovators, creators, and thought leaders who are carving their path in today's fast-changing world. You can check out the podcast and more on boundlesspod.com.

[01:32] Paul: Janet, I'm excited to be talking to you today. So I stumbled across your profile, I think on LinkedIn, but I was excited because I think we share a similar belief in people and just an urge to kind of help people throughout their careers. I really enjoyed your background. I think on your website, you describe yourself as somebody with 3 major career changes in your 20s: a dance teacher, an oil spill responder, and a career counselor. So, I'm excited to dig into that today, but first wanted to start to just give you an opportunity to introduce yourself, but maybe kick it off with the question of when did you first start thinking about careers?

[02:14] Janet Matta: Well, it's great to be talking with you, Paul. I'm excited about this. I first started thinking about careers, oh my gosh, probably way back in college. So I originally planned to be a teacher. I wanted to teach high school history, um, and the problem that I quickly ran into is I talked to so many unhappy teachers and I was like, oh no, you know, what am I going to do? This career path that I've been super excited about does not seem to be like a good idea.

I also kind of had this rebellious streak in me. I've always been kind of an unconventional person. I, um, designed my own curriculum in high school and college and went to school in Canada because I didn't want to worry about the crazy US tuition. And I've always sort of been a person who's looking for loopholes and looking for ways to do things differently. Um, and so I began to sort of approach my career that way too, as soon as I discovered that, you know, my gosh, all these teachers are really unhappy, they're not getting paid enough, they're sort sort of change to this curriculum that isn't theirs. I was like, that is clearly not for me.

So that sort of sparked this desire to look for something different and to start thinking about what could I do that's going to satisfy my interests but not be something typical and not be something that's going to stick me into a traditional pathway. And that, I think, was the seed of, of that realization, was just thinking like, Okay, this, the conventional path isn't going to work for me. What can I do instead?

[03:50] Paul: So walk me back to high school. You go, are you walking into a teacher, a counselor and saying, I want to make my own curriculum? Cause I imagine you probably got some pushback at first.

[04:03] Janet Matta: Oh yeah, for sure. No. So I thought, um, this whole idea of having like a standardized general curriculum, I just thought was really dumb. I was like, why, why should I study all of these things that other people want me to study? Why can't I just study what I'm interested in? Um, and so I basically, I talked to a whole bunch of teachers at my school and was like, look, I don't want to take PE.

I want to take social studies. I want to investigate these really big questions about why people do what they do. I was fascinated by religion and politics. Um, and also thought it was kind of dumb that I was forced to take all of this math and science. And I was like, look, I just really don't want to pursue math and science, uh, as a career path. So why should I take calculus and all of these other these other topics.

I do kind of regret actually not taking advanced math now, but, but really sort of convinced the school to swap out some of the standard curriculum requirements for independent study classes. So I went to some of my favorite teachers and I said, will you do an independent study topic on history or on social science or on politics with me? And got some of my teachers to agree. So my last 2 years of high school really got to tailor the curriculum, even though I was in a public school, to exactly what I wanted to study. And that, that was sort of— I was hooked at that point. I was like, oh, there's a way to do this differently.

It's just a matter of being creative and asking for what you want and proposing a solution that could potentially work.

[05:39] Paul: Did— so did you get any pushback from people? Did people call you crazy for doing this?

[05:45] Janet Matta: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think the school was really frustrated with having to deal with me, right? Because I wasn't, wasn't, um, kind of the— and I was a good student, I just didn't want to do it their way. Um, so I remember having meetings with the school administration. I remember, you know, roping my parents into those conversations, and I remember them being really reluctant, sort of rolling their eyes that they'd, you know, they had this rebellious daughter who wanted to go and do this different thing. Um, I got some pushback from my friends who didn't really understand, you know, why I wasn't showing up in the typical classes and why I was doing these independent study projects.

Um, yeah, it is, it's, it's hard, right? You have to sort of be able to, uh, move forward in the face of that if you're going to be successful.

[06:37] Paul: Fascinating. So you also probably got some evidence that said, okay, I don't really need to follow this default path. So the first thing you do is say, all right, I'm going to take my talents to Canada.

[06:51] Janet Matta: Absolutely. Yeah. So I— this is another great example of this. I was looking at colleges being in high school, and my parents told me, look, we're happy to pay for college as long as it's an in-state school, because tuition was a lot cheaper, right, um, at an in-state school. And I looked around and I thought, I don't want to stay here. I don't want to— I don't want to go to an in-state I don't want to be in debt.

And I, um, so what other options do I have? So I started looking at schools overseas. Um, I looked at schools in Europe. I looked at schools in Canada. Um, it was ultimately my grandmother's brother who, uh, really got me hooked on the Canadian university idea because he was a professor at a Canadian institution. Um, and he said, you know, the tuition is a lot cheaper.

In Canada, even for international students, you should really look into it. And sure enough, I did and found that at Canadian colleges I could pay the equivalent of in-state tuition but still get this really cool experience. I could go to a different city, go to a different country, um, live there for 4 years and have kind of a cool experience. In addition, Canadian schools typically do not have the 2 years of general education that are required in U.S. colleges, they allow you to select your major on entry and then just study in your major for those 4 years. And I knew that I wanted to study social sciences.

Um, and again, I was like, well, it doesn't make any sense for me to go to college and study all this stuff that I don't want to, you know, I'm not that interested in. I want to, you know, devote my 4 years to subjects that I'm really excited about. And the Canadian schools let me do that. Um, so it was a super big win on my part. I got to pay much less tuition. My parents were able to cover the cost.

The exchange rate was phenomenal. We had money left over, and I got to study just what I wanted to study and not what everyone was expecting me to do.

[08:51] Paul: I love the story. It's, it's probably more relevant than ever now. I imagine the gap between tuition there and here is even bigger today.

[09:02] Janet Matta: Yeah, absolutely. It's interesting actually how much it is changing. So tuition is rising globally. It's rising in Canada and also Australia. Right. Which is another place where you could do this kind of thing.

But what's fascinating is there are still lots of European countries where tuition is free or very, very inexpensive. And a lot of students and young people don't think about it, but it is very possible to go and study overseas and to save a lot of money doing that.

[09:29] Paul: Fascinating. So when did you start helping other people trying to hack, hack life, if you will?

[09:36] Janet Matta: Yeah, good question. So after college, I settled into a nice career as an environmental consultant. I was doing oil spill response, really liked it, but had kind of fallen into it through a family connection. I needed an internship and that company happened to need an intern, and so it worked out and I got hired full-time. But I just couldn't shake this sense of wanting to do something different. And I thought, well, I'm still called to do something around education.

I'm really passionate about helping people, um, learn and grow and, and do something different with their lives and lives and pathway. And so I thought, well, I'll go back and do a master's in education, and maybe I can work with college students since, you know, high school teaching wasn't really going to be a good fit for me. So I did that. I went and did a master's in education and sort of discovered career counseling. I had taken some classes in counseling and really loved it, and I thought, oh my gosh, this career counseling, career advising is perfect for me because I am a person who has always struggled with what am I going to do career-wise. It's a question that just like really ate away at me in my 20s and, and earlier.

As I said, you know, I was really struggling with like, how do I do things differently? And I thought, this is perfect. I can help other people kind of carve out their own pathway and, and draw the connection between what they're interested in and what they want to do professionally. Um, so got an internship working for the University of Washington doing career counseling, loved it. Um, that turned into a full-time job, and then eventually that turned into my own business, um, doing this work. And it's just absolutely perfect for me.

[11:27] Paul: That's great. So what, uh, it sounds like you stumbled upon a path like accidentally, right? You, you were taking these different approaches to looking at high school and college, and yet you still kind of ended up in that full-time path. What, what gave you the confidence to say, okay, I need to try something new or something different? Do you think in a sense you might have even gotten lucky? Landing at, uh, Washington with that master's program?

[11:57] Janet Matta: Yeah, you know, there's so much of life and career— you and I have talked about planned happenstance as a way of looking at kind of career pathways and, and chaos theory of careers. And planned happenstance basically is a theory that says, you know, we can only plan so much in our lives, and actually the successful lives come about by planning for coincidence, essentially. So putting yourself in the right place at the right time. And I absolutely attribute my career progression to planned happenstance and kind of embracing opportunity and a little bit of chaos and, and taking those opportunities when they come to you. So yes, there's, there's certainly a capacity for luck there. Um, I think too At all of the times when I've had to make really tough decisions, um, or to make really big changes, it's been done because I felt like this is just something I have to do.

I'm a, I'm a pretty deep thinker. I can really, you know, think on something for way too long. I really ruminate and get like really down in the weeds on when I'm trying to make a decision. And I think a side effect of that is sometimes I just get to the point where I've thought about something too much, so much that there's no other thoughts to think around it, and I just need to take action. And so there's this moment that often just kind of clicks for me of, uh, it's just time. It's time to do something different.

I'm going to take this big risk, uh, or make this change. Yeah.

[13:36] Paul: And then what do you do after that moment?

[13:42] Janet Matta: I think, I think that, uh, that spurs action, you know. So I'll think, think, think about things forever and get so tired of thinking about them that I kind of have to act. And something in that moment of decision around, okay, look, I'm tired of thinking about this, I just need to make a decision, I need to act on something, kind of inspires the first step, and then that starts this chain reaction of change, essentially.

[14:13] Paul: Yeah. So thinking about the career coaching, um, you're set up under, if anyone wants to go there, it's careerjanet.com, right?

[14:22] Janet Matta: And that's correct.

[14:23] Paul: What was the first thing you did to put the career coaching out into the world as your own idea, or just even to test, can I do this on my own?

[14:33] Janet Matta: Yeah. So the first thing I did was start a blog. I had been career counseling for university students, and people kept telling me, hey, you're a really good writer, you should write a blog, you should write beyond just the walls of the university. And I thought, well, that's, you know, I do enjoy writing, that's a pretty good idea. So two of my coworkers helped me set up a blog, and I did that, and I started just publishing there for fun. kind of as I had a topic that I wanted to write.

And I noticed that I was starting to get some pretty steady traffic. And then I thought, well, that's interesting. I wonder if people would want to meet with me for career advising outside of the university as well. So, um, I started to offer that service. I put that on the blog website, and I started to tell people that I was offering this. And right away I had two parents of people, recent college graduates, contact me and say, my son is really struggling with what he wants to do in his career.

Would you meet with him? And so I thought, well, this is really good validation that there's a need for what I'm doing and that I could make a business out of this. And it's kind of grown from there. It's been pretty amazing.

[15:51] Paul: Yeah. So I'd love to dig into that. I— we've talked about this before, and I'm fascinated with this. That you target parents to help them think about the careers of their kids. I'm not sure if this should be a red flag about the preparation of the next generation, including our generation, or it shows that there really is such opportunity out there and people that want to help them think in different ways.

[16:22] Janet Matta: Yeah. So the parents, The parents' perspective is really interesting. So you and I can identify with this. Like, it's one thing to be a young adult and to be confused about your pathway, but if you think about parents of people like us, they are also under a lot of stress. They, you know, if I think about my parents, they paid for my college education, they are very well educated, they're professionals themselves, right? They really want me to also be successful.

They've sort of raised me with, with these expectations about what I would do in my life. And they are very concerned about how, what success is going to look like for me, what pathway I'm going to take. And they are more than willing to do whatever it takes to help me get to whatever that definition of success is. And this is really true among a lot of parents. So anybody who has invested a lot in their kids' education or pathway or trying to kind of set life up just perfectly so that you'll thrive, your parents are really invested in ultimately what professional outcomes you have. And so it's not that surprising when I think about it that way, that parents are coming to me and saying, hey, my son or daughter is struggling.

I'm really happy to do something to help them, but I don't know what that is and you do. So how can we work together?

[17:52] Paul: That's awesome. So I'm wondering, tying it back to, you were talking about before the planned happenstance and chaos theory of careers, and I'll definitely link up to those, but I feel a big disconnect when I talk to people. So people say, people are still operating under the illusion that there are these paths, there are these set tracks, everything can be planned. Is a lot of your coaching work end up trying to convince them that you actually can't plan this and you need to take a different mindset?

[18:25] Janet Matta: Yes, absolutely. So having a plan actually work out is really rare. Um, and even when it does actually work out, what I find is people will get to that point and suddenly be really lost. Everything I've worked up to this point has worked exactly the way I expected, but now that I've landed in my career pathway or in my job, I don't feel the way that I thought I was going to feel. That's really, really common, right? So, um, the challenge absolutely is helping people understand that you can, you can plan, and sometimes things will even go to plan, um, But you must still have this mindset of adaptability, of embracing some sort of happenstance or chaos or opportunity, because it's really rare that things go exactly the way you thought they would all the way to the very end.

Life just doesn't happen that way, right?

[19:24] Paul: Yeah, that's interesting. I think I've, I've faced that same issue of people that actually have a plan and it works out. Almost end up more lost than the people without a plan, um, because it hasn't forced them into that state of uncertainty where they have to think about these things. I think, uh, a lot of, uh, incidentally accountants, uh, there's a lot of job growth and there's certain tracks you can follow, which make it very easy to get promoted and kind of follow a path. And then you end up at this, uh, certain age and you're like, 'What the heck am I doing? This doesn't make any sense.' Uh, yeah, and I'm seeing a lot of that, and, uh, it's, uh, it's such a big opportunity for people to start thinking about these things earlier in their career, even in college.

[20:14] Janet Matta: Yeah. Oh, I completely agree. You're right, you see it a lot with accountants, you see it with consultants, um, I see it a lot in tech actually, people who think, 'Oh, I want to get into tech because it's this new growing career path,' and they get in and 2 years in that, you know, they have the job that they've been going for for the last 4 to 6 years, but they're not happy and they can't figure out why. And you're right, people who, who go into kind of a career search or a career development pathway thinking, I'm just going to see what's out there and seek opportunity and notice where I'm needed and what I'm interested in, are a lot more resilient and capable of seeing where they could potentially go with that pathway next than people who kind of start out with that really strong intention and then suddenly encounter an obstacle.

[21:03] Paul: Yeah, I've seen that with consultants too, and it's actually something that fascinates me because a lot of what you learn in consulting gives you great skills to do a lot of different things, but there is such an easy track to follow that has such high benefits that a lot of people, it's, it's actually painful to step off that track and try to define different definitions of success. Rethink your financials. I know we've talked about this in the past, but walk me through how you have thought about some of those things, maybe like rethinking your definition of success or how to spend your money and finances around that.

[21:45] Janet Matta: Yeah, good question. So, when I encounter somebody who is starting to ask those questions of like, "Wait, how did I get here and what's really important to me?" I start with 3 different things. So the first is what's wrong with your current situation? What, what is making you unhappy or what is the dissatisfaction that you're feeling? And this could be really varied, everything from, you know, I don't actually have as much time to do things that I want to do as I thought I would. Like, I don't have time with my friends or time for my hobbies or sleep.

And then the next place we go is, What is working for you? What is going well? What do you like about where you are? And then the third place we go is values. So usually after people look at what's wrong, what do I like, that, that really helps to sort of begin to crystallize what's truly important to you. And I use a tool for this called My Life Values.

It's an online kind of questionnaire that helps you rank values, but it's not the questionnaire that really matters, it's the process of thinking about what's truly important, right? And from there, then we talk a little bit about, okay, what's the vision for what you want to do instead? Now that you know what isn't working, what is working, what your values are, we can begin to kind of construct a vision for what is going to happen next. Um, and I think then the most important part of the process is the ability to think creatively and to not get stopped by obstacles like, I don't want to take a pay cut, or how am I going to pay my, my rent on my awesome apartment with a view if I quit my job?

Then we have to start thinking about, okay, well, what's— go back to those values, go back to what's working, and what are some creative possibilities that we can employ for you to be able to have the income that you truly need while also still having a life that works for you so that you're not stuck.

[23:45] Paul: Yeah. Have you— so I often get that pushback, right? I can't afford to take a pay cut or make less than I'm currently making. Do you have examples of people that have taken creative solutions to solving for that?

[24:01] Janet Matta: Yeah, I do. So I have a colleague who— or a good friend who recently went and joined Remote Year. So that's a really good example. So he'd been living in San Francisco. He'd been making really good money as a software developer, was not happy, did not want to continue down this current pathway. Um, and so started to think creatively, like, what do I really want to do?

And he realized, I really would love to travel. Um, I'd like to meet some new people. It's time for me to kind of get out of my bubble. Um, and came across Remote Year, decided to join up with that program. And this has been amazing for him because he is actually saving money by, by doing this. So the cost of Remote Year is less than the cost of his regular living expenses in San Francisco.

He was able to keep his job and do that remotely while he traveled. So I think that's kind of a perfect example of thinking creatively about how you don't have to sacrifice quality of life for making a different kind of choice with what you're going to do?

[25:08] Paul: Yeah, so it's definitely something I've done in my career too. I, I know when I took the leap to becoming a freelancer, I kind of started from a bottoms-up approach of saying, what does a good life cost? And I came to the conclusion that it actually didn't cost that much as long as I was flexible in terms of like living, living location. Niceness of apartment, like not having things like cars, long-term financial obligations. Do you have any examples of how you've kind of integrated some of that thinking in your own life as well?

[25:45] Janet Matta: Yeah, for sure. So, you know, a big one for me was moving to Australia. So I moved from Seattle to Sydney. Sydney is one of the most expensive cities in the world to live. It's very, very high cost of living. Um, but one thing that's really nice about Sydney is the salaries are also much higher.

So I took a job working for a university and immediately got a 30% pay increase. Um, even still though, that wasn't enough for me to comfortably afford the exact same kind of lifestyle that I was living in Seattle. I couldn't get my own apartment on the salary I was earning. I couldn't buy a car. So what I did instead was kind of embrace— in Sydney, it's really common for people to share apartments, much like New York. It's just so expensive that you always have a roommate.

Um, in Seattle, that's much less common because the market hasn't hit that point yet. Um, so moved to Sydney, and I thought, well, this is a great opportunity for me to meet people. I'm gonna go and like share apartments and share houses with folks and, and be part of a community and have roommates for the first time since college. And, but it'll be a great way for me to meet people. Um, so I found this fantastic apartment on the beach, uh, sharing with my roommate at the time. My commute was a little bit longer, um, but being able to share the apartment and do that long commute is what kind of let me make the trade-off of living on the beach for an affordable amount of money that I wouldn't have been able to do otherwise.

So I think you just, you kind of want to look at what's the really, what's the definition of a good life? Like what, what elements do I want are going to make me happy? For me, I thought I want to really embrace this Australia lifestyle. I want to be close to the beach. So then the question is, well, how can I make that happen? What do I need to do to be able to do that and not be stuck with a gigantic rent payment?

Every month.

[27:49] Paul: Got it. So given your perspectives on— I mean, you've lived in Canada, Australia, now you're in Seattle. How do people in these different areas think about careers differently?

[28:03] Janet Matta: Oh, good question. You know, I think what is common among all of them, to not directly answer your question yet, is We all have this cultural assumption of success. So success in all of these places career-wise still means kind of climbing a ladder or earning a certain amount of money, right? I think what's different, um, with the U.S. compared to both of those other countries is the way that we are consumers first in the United States, where we're big on spending money here. It's a patriotic duty to spend money and to contribute to our economy, right?

We have so much access to consumerism here that people, you don't really understand how different that is in other places until you go to other places and realize how much money we spend. So in Australia, for example, Well, like I said, salaries are generally high, but people don't spend as frivolously as we do here. And it means that it's much more possible to save, which is a huge definition of success in Sydney and in Melbourne and some of the big Australian cities. People have to save for a really long time to afford a down payment on a house. Real estate investing is really common. Stock investing is really common.

Even for young people. It's a much more— it's a culture much more focused on do you have security to live as opposed to do you have objects that show you're successful. In Australia too, I would say there's a much greater appreciation for life outside of work. So people don't work nearly as much or as hard as we do here in the US, and that can be a frustration for Americans who go there.

[30:04] Paul: Yeah.

[30:04] Janet Matta: Um, but for me, you were happy to get back to the beach. Yes. Yeah, exactly. It's, you know, for me it was so refreshing to be able to take, you know, a 4-week vacation is common in Australia. Um, and that you'd go to Europe and you'd travel around for 4 or 5 or 6 weeks and you won't check email during that time. Um, that's unheard of in the US, in most work cultures here.

So I think the way that success differs, particularly in Australia, is, um, you know, saving for security, saving for investment, being able to have a strong financial foundation, but also really loving and living into life outside of work. Work does not define you the same way as it does here in the US.

[30:54] Paul: Yeah, that's, that's an interesting point. I think I'm, I find a lot of people I talk to that a lot of their identity, and I know for me this was true too, a lot of my identity was wrapped up in it's my job. And that's where a lot of your worth comes from. And then maybe you face an uncertain situation, you get laid off, or even jumping into an alternative career. It's it's really hard to kind of rebuild that foundation and establish, like you said, going back to the work you do with your clients, is what are those values and what does success look like? So this is a roundabout way of saying, how are you defining success these days?

[31:36] Janet Matta: Yeah, good question. So success for me is all about my energy and my levels of joy. So my biggest question each day is Am I happy? Am I experiencing joy? Am I satisfied with how I feel, my levels of energy? If my energy is low, I know something needs to change.

That could be that I need more sleep or more exercise, or I've been working too hard, or maybe I'm not focusing on the right thing in my business. Maybe I'm getting kind of dragged down by expectation as opposed to being excited by what I really want to do. So I pay really close attention to my levels of energy. And as long as I'm feeling energetic and joyful, I'm on the right track and the rest will absolutely take care of itself.

[32:26] Paul: Yeah, that definitely resonates. I think, uh, to put on my cynic's hat, I know I've gotten the challenge of, oh, you're just one of those millennials that wants to feel happy. But I imagine, and this could be wrong or right, but a lot of your energy is probably coming from the fact that you are actually doing a lot of work with other people. Um, is that true or false?

[32:48] Janet Matta: Yeah, I think that is true. I also happen to get energy from helping people. It makes me feel really great to do work that is meaningful, right, and makes a difference. Um, so that knowing that about me, um, means that the work that I do is going to be impactful because it naturally brings me joy. I, I also think there's something really powerful about being happy in what you're doing tends to make other people want to be around you and want to work with you. People who are happy and satisfied in the work that they do see a lot more opportunity than people who are unsatisfied because they're naturally kind of drawing more to them.

And that is what kind of enables actual success, financial success or business success. When you're— when you start with, I want to do something that brings me joy, or I want to be positive or be happy in my life, that actually produces this kind of snowball effect.

[33:49] Paul: Awesome. So how are you deciding to spend your time these days?

[33:55] Janet Matta: Yeah, so again, listening to my energy. So we were just— before we, we started this conversation, I was, I was saying, you know, man, I'm kind of sleepy these days. Uh, it's It's dark winter in Seattle. It's kind of the season for hibernation. So what I'm realizing is if I'm, if I'm in Seattle, I need more sleep. I've got to like be really well rested.

I kind of succumb to the darkness. So making sure that I'm getting really good rest is kind of top priority for me right now. Then the next one in terms of how I am deciding to spend my time, I'm really focusing on um, how can I add value? What can I do that's going to help people? Because that's what brings me energy and joy and makes my business successful. Um, so I'm really looking at, okay, what products can I be developing over the next few months, or services?

How can I position those services that are— they're really going to be effective to the people I want to work with? And that's how I want to be spending my time. And making choices about that.

[35:03] Paul: Awesome. So what would be a message you would give to people in college or even high school today?

[35:11] Janet Matta: Ah, good question. Um, it would be take action to explore what excites you. Um, don't worry so much about what's expected of you, and instead spend time exploring what is interesting, what are you curious about, and to not just think about those things but to actually look for opportunities to act on those things in the real world. So that could mean a volunteer project or building some sort of technology or starting a blog or traveling to some place or even asking somebody out for coffee or visiting a museum exhibit. I don't know what it, what it could be, but kind of get out of your own head, get out of— out from under expectations, and explore a little bit of what is exciting to you.