Let’s talk with a Remote Job Coach with Jordan Carroll | TNN30

Allen  

Welcome to The New Nomad. Today we have Jordan Carroll joining us remote career coach, remote job club founder, somebody who’s traveled to many different countries, I think we’re gonna have a really interesting conversation today. Anybody that I’ve read does any type of stand up comedy is always going to be interesting because it certainly has put yourself out there and some of the other interesting jobs that he’s had, but certainly want to talk about remote job coaching, etc today. But before we do that, like to bring Andrew into the conversation by coach Andrew Jernigan. And Andrew, we’ve been watching the weather recently. Heat advisories, flooding, fires, there were things in and too many of the people in our remote work environment, they pick locations that are bucolic and beautiful, but also either wooded or near rivers or near some of the things that we’ve seen. And we’ve had some inquiries about, you know, evacuation, natural disaster getaway kits, etc. I know you’ve been to many places, maybe some of your thoughts on what’s going on out there.

Andrew  

Yeah, that’s, that’s one of those things. Um, good point, Allen. And hi, everybody. Thanks for joining in today. You know, it’s it’s a, it’s a wild ride, when you’re, when your situation changes drastically due to weather and other unforeseen situations. When you’re in a beautiful place. I recall a time I was going through the mountains in, in Europe and had this little car it was this wonderful time. And all of a sudden, I landed, I drove through Endora. It’s like, oh, this is beautiful. But there was only one road in from one side of the country. And that road out through into, into France. And it started snowing the roads shot for both directions. And I was trapped. And, you know, I wasn’t watching weather ahead of time. It’s just one of those, you know, sure, cyclone, flooding in Germany, fires in Northern California and Oregon and things, different things immediately come, but the mind was natural disaster. But you know, even the thing of roads closing, and you’re stuck in a country longer than you anticipated. And that was our case. And it wasn’t tourist seasons. But most of the hotels were closed. In that that scenario I described, so yeah, having a plan and being aware of what to do and that new surrounding if the worst case scenario does happen.

Allen  

Yeah, you know, we talked about situational awareness and uncertainly, a lot of the tools that are presented to people nowadays, I mean, you’re on your phone, you should have a really great idea of what the weather is. Certainly other conditions out there, but I was just in St. Croix, people watch the weather constantly there. Because if a storm is coming, you might have to plan a week in advance to leave. It’s not like you can put the whole island on planes. There’s not a ton of ships, etc. I mean, it really is planning ahead. So I think it’s a really interesting topic. I know, we’ll pick up more on that. But really, to our audience out there, I guess the lesson we’re learning is, you know, you really have to be situationally aware. And I think people are very surprised at places that you really haven’t seen anything happen, you know, continue to happen. Now. I know Jordan will bring joy into the conversation, I think, Jordans in Northern California today. You know, there’s been there’s been issues and fires etc. I’ve got family in Southern California where it’s been hot and there’s a drought. So is there’s no rest for the weary but Jordan, welcome. We’d love you to give a little bit of your background. I know that while you might be perhaps in the states that you’ve been many different countries and been a remote job coach and worker and and you probably have a lot of interesting stories of your travels.

Jordan  

Yeah, Allen, Andrew, thank you so much, guys for having me. And yeah, like you said, I was actually in Chico, Northern California last last week for a bit of a time in my family from that area. Actually. Two of my family members lost their homes during a fire a few years ago. Really bad fire. They’re still waiting for payments from PG&E. Crazy, a crazy situatio. My family is fortunate enough to be you know, the force enough that they were forced enough to survive and everything but yeah, going on to my you know, my particular journey. Been doing the remote thing for over seven years. More recently, in the past four years or so started taking that internationally. So I started off at a at a corporate company, IBM, if you ever heard of it, so that was like my first my first gig and I negotiated my job to be remote one day A week. That was the start of my whole remote journey. And then from there, I went fully remote with IBM at one point unless I was at a customer site. I’ve worked in PR, I worked for remote year, a company that’s fully distributed throughout the world. I’ve worked for a dating coach before. As you mentioned, I’ve done stand up comedy that was more of a hobby. But yeah, now there’s like a lot of pressure for me to be funny. So I don’t know. What’s that? Yeah, I don’t want that to be the pressure of this. But all good, a lot, a lot of different, different unique situations I’ve put myself in. And I think that’s given me a very interesting perspective when it comes to trying to find remote work and helping people in that journey.

Allen  

Well, you haven’t touched upon, you know, it’s hard to be funny on demand. But you know, just having a good sense of humor is an important thing. And you’re smiling and feeling good and things like that. And certainly, you know, given your background, especially probably early on in your career, when you started telemarketing, you probably could make a comedy routine, just out of that experience alone. I was reading your LinkedIn profile, there was a couple funny little lines in there. You know, kind of take us through some of these these job progressions, and you know, what it brings to the table?

Jordan  

Yeah, I didn’t even know I was remote. My first job. It was like, my first remote job. I was looking on Craigslist for telemarketing. I already had two, two side jobs. I was working at the cafeteria on the campus. And I was working on those you have been into Costco. And you see those guys handing out the samples. Yes, those guys. I was one of those guys on. I did that on the weekends. And then during the week, I worked on campus in the cafeteria. And I was interviewing for this insurance company. Funny enough. And they were like, yeah, we’ve got this other candidate. He’s a great fit. He’s already a year out of college, he’s already got experience, we are worried that you don’t have enough sales experience. So I said, You know what, I’m gonna get some sales experience right now, right after the interview. I go on Craigslist. And this is when Craigslist was really a thing. Yeah. You didn’t maybe worry as much as you should have about being murdered. But yeah, I find this, I find this ad on there for telemarketing job and commission only it’s like, hey, you know, super easy onboarding, like, you know, probably could have been a scam in many different circumstances if I would have looked at it. And it was for helping artists like musicians get, quote, unquote, PR, so they get basically a placement on their website. And I would sell these, like 399 subscriptions, that would end up charging their card like $60 The next month. Gotcha. Oh, yeah. So I wasn’t I wasn’t on the up and up. But let’s just say that I learned my lesson. I worked. I did the telemarketing calls for a few months and in between, like my university course load and my other two part time jobs, just to try to prove it to that insurance company that I was willing to hustle. Yes. I didn’t get the job, by the way. They said that in the interview, I said the F word. And I do not remember saying that. But apparently I did.

Allen  

Well listen as it as an insurance executive, Mike. So we use the F word quite frequently, usually just among ourselves. It’s one of the thing I

Jordan  

mean, the guy comes in behind VP from Minnesota comes in, he gets loose jibber jabber, he start he was saying he was saying a lot of things that I you know,

Andrew  

no, no, see, you know, when you’re you’ve lived in a lot of different countries, and you weren’t now consulting those living in a lot of countries. And people are just beginning now. You know, I’ve worked remotely for years, Allen has as well, we need a remote company. And this is not new for many. You know, I’m talking to a friend of mine that has been working remotely for you know, Liberty Mutual Insurance major. Yeah. Global property and casualty insurance company. He’s been working remotely for 30 something years with him. Amazing. And it’s for many this is look normal. But yeah, a lot of other people. This is new, and they’re just looking into how can I do it? My company is saying let’s go back to the office. So they’re saying how can I get a remote job? How can I prepare you? And I think a lot of people think that the grass is going to be so much greener. But there’s a lot of oh, what would you know finding those words the self disciplines of the work skill, you know, when you are you do have that remote job. are you pouring 14 hours a day into it?

Jordan  

Yeah, aren’t you it’s not for everyone. Right. I think that’s it. I was reporting and wrote is not for everyone. And it’s okay if it’s not, like there’s all this pressure now on everybody’s like, you have to have a remote job. It’s like, no, not really like, there’s a lot of people who would like enjoy being in an office. And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. It all comes down to what you’re saying to Andrew is like self awareness. If I can learn about myself, and especially if you’ve learned about yourself, during the past year and a half during this pandemic, you’ve probably learned some things about what you’ve liked about remote work, but then you also don’t necessarily have the full perspective of what remote work is, if you hadn’t been doing it before this. Because it’s more than just being locked in your home and feeling like you can’t go anywhere and having that restricted freedom. So I deal with people that are all over that spectrum. And like you said, there’s so many people being called back to the office right now. That is what I’m getting the most is people that are like, I’ve had this taste, I’m never going back. And wow, we’re hitting this, I think we’re hitting this part of the innovation curve. And if you’re familiar with the innovation curve, where, you know, basically, you’ve got those early adopters. And I think we’re stout now starting to move a little bit more into that mainstream, where if a company is not working on some sort of flexible work policy, they’re going to get left behind.

Allen  

And we’ve heard a lot actually, right now, we think a lot of people are going to go into hybrid, but I also think about it this way, the employees mean, who wants to get in a car drive 45 minutes into a city to pay a higher tax rate, and then have to get in a car drive, 45 minutes home, pay for parking, I mean, all the things when you could be extremely productive at home. And I’m totally with you on that. When we were talking earlier, you talked to us about the concept of surrendering and kind of understanding. So could you could you share with our audience, your thoughts on that also, cuz I think it’s a really interesting concept. And I think it’d be good for you to share.

Jordan  

Allen, Andrew, I’ve been trying to control every damn thing in my life. For as long as I can remember, it’s, it’s the craziest thing, because you don’t even realize it. But there are these little micro moments in life where I feel like the other person, the thing, whatever has to happen in this specific way for me to be okay with it. And I’ve had some more recent experiences that have really proven to me that I need to just let go more, and I need to surrender to what’s happening. And I need to understand that everything’s gonna be okay. I had a recent breakup with someone who I was, you know, considering marrying and spending my life with. And there was an intuitive part of me that I that said, this isn’t the right thing for me right now. This isn’t the right chapter for me, I need to start something new, I need to work on myself, I need to figure some of these things out. And part of that experience was surrendering to that intuition. And saying, wow, like, this feeling is really strong right now. And if I don’t listen to it, I’m just going to continue to make myself more miserable, I’m going to resist against the universe. And that’s when you when you resist against the universe, that’s when problems happen. Right? It’s like, it’s like, that’s when your body starts getting sick. That’s when disease happening. All these things that we don’t want, are on the other side of that resistance.

Andrew  

Yeah, well, I was actually in Northern California, not too far from you, when I ended up having a heart attack and bypass surgery some years back. And I, you know, was later in South Africa picked up a book and it just, I summarized it just because the book was so impactful with the phrase hurry is my enemy. Yeah. And, you know, often I’ve gotten tell myself, you know, where it’s, life is very seasonal. Yeah. And we’ve got to be okay with who we are. And what that season is taking us through what we’re learning from it, the key people in it, and being willing to take that journey with us to slow down and learn and change and realize wow, I still have a lot to learn. Yeah, oh, was last year. Oh, no, I made a lot of mistakes. And I’m learning from them. And I get to say I’m sorry, I apologize. I wish I hadn’t done X or X and and we’ll do better next time. And I know it will. But it’s walking in that cadence of understanding when to say yes when to say no and when to turn around and just go slow.

Jordan  

That attachment piece to it is so tough too, because we just feel like at least it from my personal experience. It was like if I let this go Am I gonna regret it? If I don’t have this? And what do I have, and really everything that you have in need is already in there, it’s already inside. So for me to be able to walk away from that relationship, which is still still very fresh in my mind, and, you know, really respect and love her as a person and who she is, and all that stuff, and maybe she’ll probably listen to this, who knows. But it’s just, it’s interesting to see how, so my perspective has already changed from listening to myself in that way, even though from every outside perspective, it probably seems crazy.

Allen  

Well, you know, you hit upon something that we hear quite frequently in this podcast is constant exploration, you know, letting things go moving somewhere, doing something different getting a unique perspective on the world, you know, people are always searching. I mean, obviously, both of you have very introspective thoughts there, which means we’re constantly searching, there’s a lot of people don’t do that, that they may not have the cognitive dissidence, even to look back on that. So that I think that’s, that’s really important to do. And I think the people that listen, this podcast tend to do that more than typical, because they’re searching the world to don’t you don’t agree and and one of things I’ve mentioned, I thought was interesting you as a remote career coach. And I also was very impressed. You know, you have that remote job toolkit is, you know, a lot of this, probably when you’re coaching is about exploring deeper, what you want to do, yeah, share a little bit with your your remote job toolkit, and some of the coaching that you do that you think is really impactful. Because Because I think a lot of it comes from the heart.

Jordan  

Yeah, I’ll say this, a lot of people come for tools and tactics, but don’t realize that they don’t have the foundation, they don’t have the mindset to believe that they’re going to be successful, or they don’t have some sort of confidence in their ability to do it. And everything starts with that it all starts with you, literally being able to say, this is possible for me. And sometimes that’s tough because of rejection, right? You’ve been applying and not getting a response or not feeling like you have enough experience being told by your family that, you know, this isn’t something that you can do, not having any peers surrounding you that are doing the types of things that you want to do. I mean, all of us probably take that for granted now that you know, we’re in these nomadic communities, and we’d get to talk to interesting people and like, I feel like I could do anything in the world, right? Like, that’s great. But it’s sometimes I have to put myself in the in the frame of mind of I’m talking to somebody who is really down right now. They’re, they’re not feeling like they can do the thing that they want to do. So yeah, the offerings that I have, I have things that range from, you know, the free toolkit, where there’s a bunch of different ebooks that will teach you how to optimize your LinkedIn and use those keywords for those things, change the settings, so that your findable network, you know, some of the stuff that’s more strategic. There’s also, you know, a subscription service that I offer where people can subscribe monthly and pay and get coaching. To help them through that there’s an accelerator I have, that’s more like, I want to I want to do this fast, and I want to have high access to me, that happens over the course of two months. So I offer different options, depending on where people are at. The problem is I noticed a lot of times people don’t. They don’t they don’t they’re not able to classify their problem correctly. So like, you asked somebody, so what do you think is the issue in your search? And because they’ve been getting no feedback? And because they have no reference point? They’re like, Oh, well, like my resume. Isn’t that good? It’s like, okay, well, let’s take a look at that. 

What what might be going on deeper than just your resume is not good, because there’s so many other things if you’re using a very reactive Job Search Strategy, for instance, and all you do is 15 minutes, every couple of days, go on to a job board and click easy apply. That’s also a problem. Right? So it’s, it’s a lot of ways to try to diagnose that. We won’t go into all those but my high level answer to that would be a lot of people don’t really actually know what their problem is. And I offer a range of different things to try to help them get that awareness of what that issue really is.

Andrew  

Well, Jordan, you’ve been in this journey for a number of years, and you’ve you’ve helped people to the next steps in their journey. What’s known, this is a question that we ask every all of our guests and it really varies because it’s it’s a wide range of responses that you can give. What’s the one overlooks person plays? Experience book that’s, you know, that you feel like people should discover it could be Yeah, You know, that’s, that’s very

Jordan  

well, I got one, I definitely got one. I would throw a disclaimer that there are people who should not do it. And that people should always do their due diligence prior to doing something like this, but Ayahuasca (iowaska). I’ve done Ayahuasca seven times now. And it is the ultimate tool for me to be able to, it’s very much on theme with everything we’ve been talking about: learn surrender, learn self awareness, get us, you know, a sense into some of my blind spots, open up new perspectives, new portals to new dimensions, right? Like it’s, it’s, it’s an, it’s a crazy tool, if you’re able to do it in a controlled environment with people that you trust. So So I have a couple of spiritual guides in which I, I do at least one or two yearly explorations with Ayahuasca and if it does call you, I recommend figuring out if you’re healthy enough to do it, because there are certain health conditions that are not. But that would be my recommendation.

Allen  

Fantastic. Well, that this has been really enlightening. So why don’t you share quickly how people can find the remote job coach and stay in touch with you? And certainly you have a great LinkedIn profile. I figured that that would be a great place for people to start. But Jordan, where else can folks find you?

Jordan  

Yeah, LinkedIn is great at Jordan Carroll, but theremotejobcoach.com you can get every single link that I own possibly from there. So that’s like the central hub for everything.

Allen  

Great. Well, we appreciate your time today. Learned a lot and very, very interesting. And I think we went to a couple really interesting places. So Andrew, as we tie things together, what did we learn today and would love your your quick overview.

Andrew  

One of my takeaways is emotional control. I’m so glad Jordan, emphasize this because we are wrong with everything that’s happening around us with the pace that oftentimes roller coaster presents us. And sometimes we’re in that line, we don’t even realize it. So when I turn comes, we just get on that roller coaster. Not realizing that well, that was the line I was in. I thought I was in the line for the spa. Yeah, yeah. And all of a sudden, we’re on this roller coaster. So it’s the thing of, you know, meditating, taking the time out to calm yourself, to watch your breathing, to you know, find those make create those moments, every day. Just slow down. And I’m glad Jordan brought the different labor and because we’re also unique. I’m glad there’s not a cookie cutter because culturally and emotionally, psychologically, as we grow. I’m walking away with the things that re-emphasis control your emotions and meditate, read.

Allen  

Yeah, I mean, I picked up that really, and many of us talked about this as just a deeper exploration of ourselves. So a lot of people that listen to remote community out there, they explore the outside world by going to unique locations, doing unique things. But also you need to explore yourself and your motivation. So good stuff today. So great podcast, we want to remind everybody The New Nomad’s not just the podcast, it’s a community of people, ideas and spirit, helping you take advantage of that location independent lifestyle. We look forward to you looking in at us at TheNewNomad.net or InsuredNomads.com, but please stay well keep sharing your best adventure with others. We look forward to meeting you down that road. Have a great rest of your day.