The Can Do Coffee Chat with Mike O’Connor, A College Dean turned Career/Executive Coach

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[00:00:41] international speaker, podcast host and author. Known as The Can Do Coach, I thrive on enabling leaders to step up, shake it off and shine. Welcome to my podcast, The Can Do Way. My guests from across the globe have can-do stories of growth, resilience and success to share.

[00:01:04] Tune in and be inspired by these individuals who have developed a strong can-do approach. Each one of their stories is unique. Each one of their stories has a key message. In this episode of The Can Do Way, I'm delighted to be talking to

[00:01:24] college dean turned career executive coach Mike O'Connor. Now, Mike has helped thousands of people connect with meaningful career opportunities and build lives of purpose through leadership roles at the world's top liberal arts institution and a C-suite higher ed executive.

[00:01:43] Along the way, he's side hustled as a consultant, advisor and investor, while helping hundreds of the best organizations on the planet source talent. Mike started his company, The Actualised Self, to expand his clientele and passion for coaching. So welcome to the show today, Mike.

[00:02:05] Thanks so much for having me, girl. It's good to be with you. Fantastic. So let's take a walk through your life for a moment then, Mike. If you can give the listeners just a glimpse of your background

[00:02:17] and what really drives your passion for the work that you do today? Yeah. Yeah. I think in a quick summary, I had the great privilege of working and helping a lot of students find and connect with meaningful work at some really great schools.

[00:02:38] And working in partnering with organizations is really source talent and help young people navigate what I thought was a pretty important decision, which is what's the first place that I'm going to work and how does this shape my life through directory?

[00:02:55] And I think ironically what I found in terms of climbing that ladder and getting higher up in organizations and eventually moving to the number three role at a university, I think just the politics and the focus of where your work as a leader

[00:03:20] started to just sort of pull away from the things that I really liked doing and some of the reasons that I got into the work in the first place. So having sort of gone through pandemic and seeing I think some,

[00:03:36] I think a lot of challenges with losing some family members and seeing work-life balance kind of disintegrate a little bit and start to kind of feel a little bit disconnected from the things that I was really

[00:03:51] wanting to influence or leverage my skills for and really sort of drive outcomes for people. I sort of reconnected to the thing that I had done for quite a long time and found new ways to do it. So I was really fortunate to have a great

[00:04:14] boss in support system and started just sort of slow building a clientele and some courses and some other offerings to help people navigate some of the transitions that I was going through

[00:04:28] and step into a new life in a sort of new world. And I think what I've found through that is the world is changing very, very fast for now for all the reasons that you well know

[00:04:46] and helping people come up with a mental framework and an anchor to will also sort of anchor into the things that they like to do and that they find passion in and find purpose in as I think for me sort of just become increasingly fun and valuable

[00:05:06] in all of that. So it's been a really fun journey for me personally to sort of do or reconnect with some of the things that I've done for a long time and do them in a completely different context

[00:05:18] with a lot more sort of challenge and the privilege of working with people with more layered life circumstances. Amazing and quite a transformation for you as well as you've said and

[00:05:32] I guess what I'm hearing from you Mike is that it was really all about awareness because you had to tap into what was going on, what was inspiring you and sparking that joy in you to do the

[00:05:47] work you did but then that disconnect you talked about as well of going through your own lived experience of the pandemic and now you're on this new path at the other end. So thinking about the name of your company and how that relates the actualized self could you

[00:06:07] tell me a little bit about that? Yeah, yeah I think what there's there's a few reasons that really sort of sparked that but what I always felt or what I sort of felt in

[00:06:20] my role and the work that I was doing was that happy career decisions I think are a byproduct of leveraging your skills and your unique talents in ways that are sort of helping the organization and that are serving a purpose that is bigger than yourself and when

[00:06:44] there's growth and there's support and you feel like your unique gifts are sort of moving the needle forward on something important you find that fulfillment and you find that bigger thing and if you do that enough over time and keep leveraging your talents and step into this

[00:07:05] sort of best version of yourself you're eventually becoming actualized. Now very very very few people ever reach that scene or find it or sort of find that thing and I'm not confident or cocky enough to pretend that I'm the person that is going to sort of hit

[00:07:26] that right but I love the concept of of aiming for that and aiming in that direction and trying to sort of you know leverage the sort of unique fans and that was my personal journey

[00:07:40] was really sort of searching for that and then the more I started kind of testing different names and working with some you know some people that I was doing at that time it was just for free

[00:07:51] just to kind of feel like feel out like hey do I really have the chops to do this and help people in this different you know completely different life circumstances I started just kind

[00:08:02] of throwing out different names and that was the one that people just seemed to connect to you know most like hey that you know that seems interesting to me right or you know I'm this

[00:08:11] high achiever and I didn't you know I I'm not feeling that the things that have sort of worked my whole life for are are no longer sort of in alignment with the person that I want to be

[00:08:28] and it's it's time to really sort of make a make a switch and and that I think feeling and sentiment was one that I just started to kind of feel in the in the ethos of the culture more and certainly

[00:08:38] with the people that I was working with and that for whatever reason that naming convention just seemed to kind of stick with with a few of the people that I was working with and

[00:08:48] and that's how it came to be. Fantastic and I love that backstory because it really really resonates with the whole can-do approach that we're talking about in the podcast today because it's it's giving people a chance to say there's that that goal that I can work

[00:09:08] toward you know that actualized self as you say it's the ideal and it could be termed as perfection for some people but at the same time very few if ever anyone ever reaches that pinnacle

[00:09:21] but we can always think what can I do more of or how can I be more as I am developing myself reshaping reconnecting unlearning learning all of those wonderful things that you and I

[00:09:35] both do in the work that we do but the name really really positions that in such a powerful way so you know as you've been exploring and on this journey you've been helping young people moving into working with organisations and individuals that you do now you know you

[00:09:55] champion others on your journey and you support them in their growth but who was your first champion in your life Mike? Yeah you know for me personally it was my my father you know I

[00:10:11] watched you know he grew up in in Queens New York and his father who was also a really incredible person my grandfather you know that lost his wife like relatively early in life you know my dad grew

[00:10:25] up you know his his mom dad when he was like relatively young and he had this sort of this combination of resilience and strength but also like I think a real sort of like love and affinity

[00:10:42] for life that was also sort of baked into this and a sort of a deep caring that you know I think maybe wasn't sort of readily apparent to everybody that met him initially but when he got to know

[00:10:54] him you know you really sort of like felt that and you know for me I just saw you know I was so fortunate to just have a really great male role model and you know come from and at the same time

[00:11:08] you know I think a really great you know mother too and just have you know have somebody that I really sort of like looked up to and you know watching him navigate careers and do it with

[00:11:20] you know do it with integrity and you know do it in a way where sort of money was I think you know an important factor but the most important factor was really the family I think was a really sort of like a grounding thing and you know

[00:11:38] as as I sort of watched and had the sort of benefit of seeing that I noticed in myself like the because he died when I was about 30 years old and I immediately noticed myself sort of gravitating to these other mentors that

[00:11:55] you know sort of replicated I think him you know him in different ways or that had a sort of some similar archetypes to him so he was the first one and then I've been fortunate too to have a

[00:12:07] few champions that I think sort of live in similar archetypes. It's interesting that you say as well when you when your father passed that you sought those similar mentors that obviously his inspiration the guiding the he listened to you all of those key

[00:12:27] things that those champions do for us so what would you say now is showing up in your style of delivery as that coach and that consultant how are you showing up as those aspirational attributes of your father's? Yeah you know I think the the style I've

[00:12:49] I've cultivated I think just sort of like through my own strengths and you know through just the different sort of spaces I've worked in I think is a byproduct of in some ways of

[00:13:01] having like a high volume and low time is I feel like you know being I think very sort of very direct and very straightforward in style I think very pragmatic and you know really sort of

[00:13:19] cutting to the chase and but I think doing it in a way that is you know received well by the person and you know just sort of knows his and get into and have had to sort of really sort of

[00:13:31] work on you know saying things in ways that landed with this sort of person and that really sort of create that that dire you know desired action. I think other things that have

[00:13:44] really sort of helped me quite a bit so I think you know layering on and sort of leveraging I think the styles of those good people around me and learning to sort of you know sort of say

[00:13:55] things in more emotionally intelligent ways and ways that people sort of actually sort of respond and take that the desired action has been a big thing but another I think big thing

[00:14:05] for me that I think has become you know a bit of a competitive advantage is learning to go a little bit deeper in some of these areas of specialty and really sort of working with those and some

[00:14:19] of the work I'm doing right now is in this sort of sort of like helping people sort of like up their personal brand space right so and what I've noticed just as a sort of competitive

[00:14:29] advantage or thing that I'm sort of bringing that other people can't is yeah let's talk about your website and let's talk about your online presence but I can do this for you right and

[00:14:40] and I could either coach you and do it and walk through the archetypes of what this looks like and how to sort of think about your ideal customer and all of that and give you really

[00:14:50] I think helpful frameworks for that or if you want you know you can give me the information and I can build it for you and do it quick and easy so I think that's been a bit of a

[00:15:00] competitive advantage too right it's you know so if leveraging some of those sort of strengths and that sort of coaching end to sort of you know say things in a way that sort of people respond to

[00:15:11] and that sort of move the needle and that like really sort of work for them but then it's maybe going two to three steps deeper to really find that pain point or the thing that we're struggling

[00:15:21] with and then sort of solve that for them so that they can then do the things that they do best and and it's sort of I think it's trying to sort of like close that gap for them more it's

[00:15:31] like trying to ask the questions that elicit like what are the things that you're really struggling with and what I'm noticing more and more um you know particularly with the people that I'm working

[00:15:42] with that are you know like 50s so brilliant like so many sort of accomplished careers is like they've built this sort of position of leverage and and things to sort of like let their judgment

[00:15:57] and all of these things sort of built up a lot of people underneath them to do work and now they're unable to sort of like do some of the technical skills or do some of these sort of

[00:16:10] things that but they have all this incredible information and knowledge and they just need help with a few of the insane so I think it's been really helpful to sort of like for me to sort of go a little bit deeper to learn the skills that

[00:16:24] people really need to thrive in you know a very very quickly changing world. That's that's a great point because I think you know as a coach that's about deepening your listening as well because you're you're hearing what's not being said and that's what I'm hearing from you

[00:16:44] because you're helping really support those people but at the same time you're you're helping them to step beyond their comfort zone because it's pushing you as well and that's that whole can do part of the way that you're leading yourself so that others can say

[00:17:01] you know I can take these risks and I can think more about who I want to become or what I really want to be doing but at the same time you're encouraging that in others to do the same thing

[00:17:14] so wonderful wonderful path that you're that you're walking on at the moment you know I just wanted to talk for a moment we've been talking about that championing inside of your business a lot and you mentioned in your introduction about the challenges that you

[00:17:34] faced going through the pandemic where you said you were kind of a bit disconnected and you had some tragedies with family as well so I just wanted to ask about when you go through a

[00:17:48] challenge and then come out the other end in a position of change but also fully embracing that change just talk us through one of the challenges you did face and what you had to do to get

[00:18:01] through it to be able to fully embrace the change at the end yeah yeah such a such a great and thoughtful question if for me what I found myself in in my last position or the position I

[00:18:17] was recruited for is I had this for a long story short this very I think intense sort of recruitment to come to this school and lead a career and a few other things and was recruited for it I think

[00:18:33] I felt special and validated and you know all those things that say hey come out here we really sort of need your help with this kind of specialty and rolled out the red carpet and

[00:18:43] everything and we moved to our family across the country to come do it 10 months in pandemics and we're at home with two small kids you know which I think is a very relatable story for

[00:18:55] you know for millions and millions of people and but the pressures of the job were only sort of increasing and you know particularly I think for people who were situated to to have

[00:19:09] broad skill sets and work in a lot of different spaces and and were good at navigating ambiguity and what it meant to sort of be like fully online for a university you know we were leaned on

[00:19:23] a lot right just just by need right and not by any sort of ill intent or anything but you know I think what I quickly found myself in was you know a lot of people that were struggling

[00:19:37] to lean on somebody and I kind of felt that personally I okay well I'm a strong person I'm a resilient person I have that you know that can do attitude and that's just you know

[00:19:49] sort of who I am so I felt a lot of people you know increasingly sort of leaning on me and what I as this was happening my you know my mom was dying I certainly had a lot of guilt about

[00:20:02] being halfway across the country and not you know not being with her we had a few other family members who who ended up passing and we had just all these other things happening with like my youngest daughter was having these developmental delays which were a little bit

[00:20:17] of think of a byproduct of you know her just being that I've had too much or just not having that same care and attention and things that that you know two working parents could really sort of like give

[00:20:29] to her all the time she was young so you know so we're struggling with all these individual pieces and I found myself in this position where I essentially just kind of said you know

[00:20:44] it's time for me to leave I I've been really cautious about my money I've been really careful with these different things but I was essentially sort of like just banking up to just have like a

[00:20:56] just in case fund because I was like you know for my own mental health I have this can do attitude I know I can do it but the balance of things just doesn't feel as good and to make a really long

[00:21:08] story short I actually got offered the as I said I was leaving I got offered the number three role at the university took it and don't regret that at all it was great and I got to add I think add

[00:21:24] unique value and built skills in different ways but then found myself and I think in a very similar position a year later right which is I think maybe not all that on top right so

[00:21:35] it was I think a big learning experience to go through and find myself in a very similar position again but ultimately you know I as I started to kind of look at the whole matrix of different

[00:21:51] things I realized okay I'm adding a lot of value here here here the only thing that is better in my life as a result of all doing this I'm not building skills that I really want or need

[00:22:06] I'm not growing in the ways that I that I want to or feel like I can I'm just making more money and you know if I if I take a step back and maybe sort of look at this bigger picture and

[00:22:17] and prioritize the things that are important to me and maybe sort of step into the the role of these other great mentors that I've had like we spoke about before what would they do I realized

[00:22:30] it's time to do something different and time to step into a new space and enroll and just fortunate to kind of start to build some skills and figure out some things and and make that make that

[00:22:44] transition knowing that it would be hard and knowing that it would be challenging but but I think it really was that I mean that can do attitude of like well you've done hard things

[00:22:55] before and you know you've got this stack of proof that says you've done these kind of things this is how you coach people this is how you would coach somebody else to do it it's time to

[00:23:04] do that for yourself yeah brilliant brilliant and a great working example of you walking your talk to become that actualized self as well you know you had to go through the hard parts

[00:23:18] you had to work it all out and then come out with a new perspective well a refreshed perspective and then you could create the work that you are now doing so thank you for sharing that with the

[00:23:32] listeners so Mike if there's three hand-do tips that you live by what would they be and could you share them now yeah yeah I think one of the ones that I've I think I've come come to more sort

[00:23:49] of fruition to recently is doing the hard thing and and I think running towards the thing that is that is hard and but you know what what I'm learning is that there's this I think I sometimes

[00:24:04] would conflate the hard thing with the the thing that um actually maybe I didn't say that particularly right but you know I think sometimes I would sort of make the mistake of conflating you know something

[00:24:17] that was sort of difficult with being the sort of right decision and you know I think running towards the things that I'm scared of more often than not you know tends to sort of yield the

[00:24:27] better results and when I was sort of really looking at sort of this broader landscape of jobs and things that I could do next there was more fear and sort of starting out on my own I've worked

[00:24:40] for somebody since I was like 14 years old so stepping into the best of self employment even though I'd done bits of it for you know for quite a number of years and was taking on different

[00:24:49] things um you know that lack of I think that circularly blanket or or that sort of stable income was was really scary but as I really started to kind of spreadsheet things out and

[00:25:03] and and face those fears um and really sort of called myself out on doing the hard thing I realized okay like this is this is the move that I need to make and this is how I have

[00:25:14] the most sort of control and autonomy and this is really sort of what fits uh the different things um so that would be a big one is you know do the do the hard thing

[00:25:22] and uh you know another another one that I've really liked um is uh is this exercise called finding your superpower and it's essentially a and I've got on my website the actual self.com

[00:25:40] you can sign up for my newsletter and this is free exercise in the ebook that that walks you through it but it's very simply you're talking to three to five people that know you

[00:25:50] particularly well um you know old core workers and you're asking them like what's the thing that you'd steal from me was the thing that I do better than 99% of people out there and I find it like

[00:26:00] a really sort of empowering um exercise for for people to do because you you discount the things that you're really good at and you oftentimes value the things that other people are really good at and it's just a really sort of round perspective on what is my unique

[00:26:17] contribution and gifts and those types of things um so that's a big one that I've found a lot of value and people doing to just hear what other people are really sort of liking and value in them

[00:26:28] that is great stepping stone to to further explanation um and the third thing which I sort of referenced a little bit was uh creating an evidence folder um you know I think imposter syndrome is something that um uh you know working at some some elite places you know

[00:26:46] see in everybody it's not just um you know it's not just just women or um you know underrepresented people I think they have sort of unique challenges you know and feeling those for sure uh but I

[00:27:00] think you know imposter syndrome is something that most people deal with in one way shape or form or or another um and and it's sort of buried and manifest in very very different ways but

[00:27:11] um if you create a a simple folder or or a document or whatever of your wins and you sort of go through you know the things that you know when odds were stacked against you or when you didn't think you

[00:27:25] could do it and you and you were able to do it having that like stack of undeniable proof I think is just so empowering for for people um and it helps you in everything right it helps

[00:27:38] you if you're speaking to a client or if you're speaking to uh you're in an interview and you're trying to sort of answer one of those sort of really silly and silly questions it just helps in so many

[00:27:48] sort of different settings but I think but one of the biggest things is it helps with yourself and really sort of staring down yourself and just kind of saying yeah I can do this or I

[00:27:57] can sort of push through and I um yeah I am sort of more stronger and resilient than I than I think so uh so those would be my three thank you so much they're brilliant so do the hard things

[00:28:08] find your superpower and create an evidence folder it's all very very empowering for the listeners so my final question for you then is how would you describe the opportunity of a can do mindset

[00:28:25] yeah it's such a such a great question um this is one this is what I was I was thinking about sort of before the interview um but I think it's I think it's growth I think it's really sort of

[00:28:37] growth mindset and you know seeing all these sort of bumps in a road all these challenges that we face seeing them as lessons seeing failures as lessons and trying to really sort of like

[00:28:50] live that and breathe that is as much as you can and and that's hard uh you know and I think anybody that sort of steps into a new endeavor or a different thing you know most things

[00:29:01] are going to take way more time attention and energy and effort than you think they will but I think if you know that going in uh and you have a little bit of that sort of psyche

[00:29:12] awareness and you sort of see these sort of lessons as failures and all these things and you're able to sort of like really live that um the ripple effects are are really really big um

[00:29:24] and you know so for me it's it's you know staying staying optimistic trying to sort of see the positives you know living in gratitude um but really seeing failures and and challenges and

[00:29:37] all of these things as lessons as has been a I think a really sort of big reframe and something that allows me to sort of think in longer time frames and zoom out when things

[00:29:50] are getting hard and uh you know sort of detach from that I think that sort of like emotional sort of base the energy just kind of being a little bit more zen zen within some so for me it's

[00:30:02] I think it's it's zooming out and sort of stepping into that sort of resilience and that uh that growth mindset fantastic fantastic and you know it's again walking your talk but I think it's

[00:30:15] clearly evident that you are really embracing this whole new path that you're going in as your it's a journey you know it's it's not about the goal it's it's sorry it's not about the

[00:30:26] destination it's the journey along the way isn't it and so by becoming this actualised self and helping others to explore and identify what that means to them as well um the lesson I take

[00:30:40] away from what you've shared then is that the lessons are what teaches us the most in life the lessons of what pushes beyond the comfort zone and we when we choose to learn from them and not

[00:30:54] make the same mistakes but see them as a growth opportunity um it's that's the can do way and it's an absolutely incredible way to live and to think because um it's what what makes this

[00:31:08] such a special show and and that's why I love having guests on like you who extol the virtues of that power that superpower that we all have which is our brain um and so your story is is really one

[00:31:25] that I know will touch the lives of my listeners as well and I hope they take away those key points that you've talked about but and as they explore and journey on their path toward their actualised

[00:31:37] self so thank you so much for being my guest today on The Can Do Way it was it was great speaking to you and it's such an honour to share the story um but but thank you this was really fun thanks very

[00:31:49] much Mike thank you for listening to my podcast The Can Do Way do you live and breathe the can do attitude since 2019 my podcast has gifted listeners across the globe access to an incredible selection of guests with stories to refresh your perspective bring you joy and inspire

[00:32:11] can do positivity always curious and with an insatiable appetite for a good yarn I invite you to be a guest on my weekly show if you have an inspiring perspective a life changing experience

[00:32:26] for an intriguing story to share then drop me an email at gailmgibson.com until next week show do share the inspiration of The Can Do Way podcast with your friends colleagues and clients

[00:32:41] and wherever you are listening from in the world remember to make every day an amazing can do day