11. The awkward moment that shattered and rebuilt how I think about pursuing an education (Interviewed by Kapil Ghai)

Jette Stubbs: okay. So today we're going to be doing things a little bit differently.  I'm going to be sharing with you a podcast that I recorded pre pandemic. I was a guest on a podcast and it is about the moment where my idea and concept of education was just shattered.

[00:00:18]  You're listening to the happy career formula with Jette Stubbs where we talk about how to find what you love to do and turn it into ways to make money, whether that's a job, freelance service or a business, so you can live life on your own terms.  

[00:00:33]And this is going to be the start of a series about how to rethink how you think about education, how if, and when you should go back to school  how you could pursue education effectively. And some of the underlying issues with the way education is currently structured, but we're not going to go too much into the theory.

[00:00:52] We're more so going to focus on how you can work around education, even with its current structure. But we're going to start with stories because stories are a way that we connect with each other stories, help us live through each other's moments.  

[00:01:07]just sit back, listen, and enjoy 

[00:01:10] Kapil Ghai: Welcome everyone. My name is Kapil Ghai and you're tuned in to the finding perspective podcast, where we share stories and get into deep conversation with the intent of educating our listeners to new insight, new ways of thinking, and of course, new perspectives. Hello everyone. And welcome to another episode of the finding perspective podcast.

[00:01:45] On today's episode, we have a special guest with us named Jette Stubbs. Jette is a live storyteller as well as a professional career coach. We're going to do things a little differently on today's episode. Before we go into my interview with jet, we're going to play for you all a live story. That Jette had performed at a storytelling event in Toronto, in early 2019.

[00:02:14] So without further ado, here's a story from Jette stubs. 

[00:02:20] Jette Stubbs: I was about eight years old. As I prepare to walk into the police station. I held my mother's hand tightly as the police officer explained, there'll be six men. If you see the man pointed them out to us and tell us which number he is wearing. I pulled my mother with me as he led me to the door.

[00:02:37] No, you have to go by yourself. He said, you'll be all right. They can't see you only. You can see them. They won't see her at all. Are you wearing, are you sure the mirror works? My mother said he nodded her lips shaking as tears ran down her cheeks. I released, I released her hand and walked in. I was outside my parents' house on an Island in the Caribbean.

[00:03:00] It was late in the afternoon. And my brother and I were trying to build a tent the way we saw the white people doing on TV. We had, I had a clothesline rocks and my mom's good sheets, but the, but kept blowing our tend to sheets down. We were getting frustrated and we started fighting about how to keep the tent up.

[00:03:22] Eventually my brother got angry and went inside to sit on my mom's lap and play computer solitaire with her. I knew I was right about how to build a tent. I stayed outside until the evening to finish building the tent, to show my brother and to spite him as it got dark. I finally stood between two sheets, forming a tense peak along the clothing line.

[00:03:44] Only slightly waving in there. I knew I was right about how to build a tent. I turned to the house to get my brother. I saw two mass men walking up to the front door, dressed in all black and hiding behind the banana tree that led to the patio and my front door. They crouched under the banana tree. Pull your mass down.

[00:04:05] The one with the gun, whisper to his partner. I froze and took a deep breath under the clothesline. I was still hurting, hidden by the tent. If I backed away slowly without being heard, I could follow the secret path along the wall to the neighbor's window and ask them to call the police. I took a step back and leaves crackled under my feet.

[00:04:25] Both men looked over at me in the dark. I thought you said the kids were inside, set the mast one with the gun. And I told you to pull down your mask. I thought everyone was inside. The other man said, as he pulled down his mask over his mustache. As I watched them watch me. I opened my mouth shout to my parents, but nothing came out.

[00:04:47] I opened my mouth wider, nothing. My feet were frozen and heavy. Grab her and take her to the bushes until I'm done set the man with the gun. Every lecture my mother ever gave me about things men could do to you in the bushes slash in front of me, I knew it was time to fight. I opened my mouth wider, just screened one of my parents and barely heard my own muffled squeak.

[00:05:10] As his large hands covered my mouth. He pulled me back into his chest, silencing me. I kicked frantically, but my feet struggled to touch the top of the grass. I tried to scream again. He tightened his grip to grip over my mouth. And this time he covered my nose too. He made it about two steps and suddenly my feet hit solid ground.

[00:05:30] I pushed, I pushed back with all my, my. She doesn't want to go to the bushes. She's fighting me, said the man with the gun, grunted and frustration, bring her inside. Then my son hung inches above the ground. As he carried me across the patio, the front door open and waiting for me, the man with the gun walked in first.

[00:05:50] And from the far corner of the room, daddy looked up from his newspaper. My brother was still on mommy's lap, playing solitaire at the computer, their backs to the door. She turned around. Holy shit. I get both of my hands over his one hand and pulled down as hard as I could. His arm didn't even budge. It was like, he couldn't even feel me.

[00:06:13] The one with the gun walked toward my father. We're here for the money. Take me to the safe. My dad cleared his throat. I felt my eyes widened as I struggled to breathe and I kicked and pulled up the mustache man's arm. I looked at mommy, as I felt two tears run down my cheeks. She was watching the man with the gun.

[00:06:32] I kicked once to catch her eye. Oh my God, you're suffocating or you're suffocating, or please stop. Put her down, please. She looked me in the eyes when arm clenched, my brother and the other reaching for me and in the distance, his muscles relax. And my feet finally touched the floor as he released my mouth and nose and turned my face up and to the left to look at his.

[00:06:55] I saw his eyes widened through the holes of his mass. I'm so sorry. Are you okay? He said, as I gasp for breath, are you okay? I nodded and gas confused, looking at his mask. Mommy's voice shook. Can she come and sit with me, please? Give me my child. I ran to my mother and brother at her desk. My father stood up on the other side of the room.

[00:07:16] Don't do anything stupid. The leader said, as he tapped out his stomach with a gun. Then he said to the mustache, man, go get a knife from the kitchen and stay with the wife and kids. He returned with a butcher's knife and sat next to us. He'll stay with them. The li leader said, while you take me to go get the money, stay calm and don't do anything stupid.

[00:07:37] We're here to deal with you. My father, not as slowly in response, the room was suddenly very quiet. My mother's legs were shaking us as we sat on her lap. The leader, poke daddy's stomach with the gun a few times and let him into the kitchen. The mass man tapped the butcher's knife against the word of the desk.

[00:07:56] Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap. All three of us stared down at the tile floor. My mom was trembling all over. Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap. Mom pulls my brother and I closer to a chest. One of us rent, one of us wrapped in each arm. Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap. She continued to look down at the floor as she nervously blurted. I don't want to upset you, but the tapping of the knife is making me nervous.

[00:08:20] Please stop. I can't take it taught to us at that time. And then I froze in the air. I'm sorry. Ma'am I didn't mean to upset you. The mustache man said his words falling over themselves. Don't worry. We're not here to hurt you. He said she took a deep breath. I know you say that, but it's hard to believe as you tap a knife in front of me.

[00:08:40] The mustache man turned his chair towards us with the knife still in his glove. Right hand. Where do you go to school? He asked me,

[00:08:51] yeah, my mother shook me not to respond, but he asked again. It's okay. I won't hurt you. Do you both go to the same school? My brother and I nodded, what do you want to be when you grow up? Yes, my brother and I looked at each other in silence and then up at our mothers faces eyes wide. I don't know. I said, and we both struck shrugged our shoulders as our mother's lap shook beneath us.

[00:09:15] Please don't hurt my children. Take what you want, but don't hurt my children. She said, No, ma'am, that's not what I came here to do. I just want the money. He said, as he looked her in the eyes, she watched him rest the knife down on the desk, away from us. Are they getting good grades, miss? Then he turned to us.

[00:09:35] You two need to stay in school

[00:09:41] so you don't end up like me. I didn't choose this life. This isn't what I wanted to do, but I didn't pay attention in school. So when I finished, I didn't have any opportunities. Now, my grandmother is sick and I have to do this to afford the medication stay in school. He looked up at my mother and back at us.

[00:10:01] Your parents are paying a lot of money for you to go to, for you to get an education, education leads to opportunity, get a good education. I don't want to see you be like me, my brother and I nodded and glanced at each other from the corner of our eyes. The man with the gun came back into the office with my father.

[00:10:19] They didn't have it. The safe was empty. My parents ran a car and Villa rental company from home. And apparently Roma had started that they kept $30,000 in the safe in the house. The truth was the safe, just had old papers and a combination. They frequently forgot. Are you sure there's nothing else old, man, the man said to my father who had his hands in there, his left hand was missing his gold watch and ring.

[00:10:44] The gun poked him in the back. As the robber returned him to the desk, stay quiet and don't call the police for 10 minutes. If we hear sirens, sirens, we'll have to come back. He shook his head. You don't want us to have to come back. The mustache man got up and they left. Daddy asked us, are you okay? The three of us nodded, as my mom asked you, he nodded back and we sat in silence for a few minutes.

[00:11:11] When he felt it was safe. My father picked up the phone and called the police a mix of plain clothes and uniformed officers arrived and separated us for questioning. I saw a real guns for the first time. These guns seemed as though they would do real harm, as opposed to the robbers gunge would seem to ornamental.

[00:11:29] My mom told them I had seen one of the robbers. My dad said, she's a talented artist to the officer and turned to me. Why don't you draw him? I felt pressured by eventually drew a quirky Hitler S drawing of a mustache that I knew was useless. The officer took it, looked at it and said, good job. Thank you.

[00:11:54] A patronizing attitude. I knew it wouldn't help him. And then, and then the next day with school as usual. Two weeks later, they call my mom to come in with me to the police station. As we drove to the police station, I sat in the front seat. I don't want you to identify the man. She said it was opposite of everything.

[00:12:14] Daddy and my brother was saying, while I was a teller at the bank, the bank was robbed. I saw his face just like you and I went into court and testified against him, but he saw me when I testified. At his sentencing, as the officers were carrying him away, he looked at me in the eyes and promise me, I'm going to find you.

[00:12:37] And I'm going to kill you. When I get out my testimony, put him away. She glanced at me and said, it feels weird saying this, but I was lucky. He died in jail a few years into it. If he hadn't, I'd be living every day in fear. I don't want that for you. But this robber wasn't like that. I responded not the one I saw.

[00:13:01] He was nice.

[00:13:05] You testify, he'll see your face. And if he goes to jail, even if it's for a decade, you'll only be in your teens when he gets out. I just don't want you to live your life in fear, but I need you to listen. It's important. You don't tell anyone. I told you this, the police can Sam obstructing justice, and I can get in trouble.

[00:13:23] The decision is up to you. A few minutes later, I stood in front of a one-way mirror with the nice robber, clean shaving we're in wearing jeans on a sh and a shirt on one side. And me and the two officers on the other take your time. Officer said, look good. I sit in silence for a few minutes. Then I slowly walked the length of the mirror.

[00:13:51] I figured this would be the only time I'd see this room in my life. The officer's watching. And I asked UCM, I looked at the Robin's face one more time and then looked at the officers in the eyes and said, Nope, I don't see him.

[00:14:18] Kapil Ghai: Oh, wow. Well, thank you for sharing that story. That was absolutely incredible. So, how old are you at the time and where in the Caribbean does this story take place? 

[00:14:29] Jette Stubbs: So. I actually intentionally left out where it was in the Caribbean because I find that people tend to make assumptions about certain countries and I'm talking about robbery.

[00:14:42] And so I intentionally left that out to be vague. And I found, I also didn't mention the ethnicity or race of the robber. Yeah. And that was intentional too, because I wanted it. To leave it vague. And the first time I told the story, I had people caught to me and asked me like some envisioned a white man, some envisioned a black man.

[00:15:02] And I was intentional about that because I know people have biases and I didn't want to play into that. No, that's 

[00:15:08] Kapil Ghai: very, that's really interesting. I didn't even see it  from that perspective. I was just, you know, I was just interested. So has this, how have you seen a different reception from your story when you do leave out those details?

[00:15:19]Jette Stubbs: I've only done it. Where I've left it out. So I would say, yes, I get a lot of questions because people come up to me and they tell me what they envisioned and they envisioned different things based on where they're coming from. Right. So I've had some people like say they, they see a white man.

[00:15:36] Other, some said, someone said they saw an Indian man, but they were, that was their background. They were projecting their own worldviews to the image of what that robber looks like. And The way he presented in the world, which I found interesting. And that's what I was aiming for. So I achieved my goal.

[00:15:52] I just focused on eye movements and the fact that he had a mustache, which was very memorable. And he like when his mask was up, he presented as. What I think, and the society at the time would have been like very clean shaven. Like while groomed, if he had on a nice shirt, you would have thought he was a young professional.

[00:16:13]But he talked about how life circumstances. Led him on a path. He didn't do well in school. And he actually, he said more than I sat in the story. He, he told me that he didn't do well in school, but when he graduated, he realized to become a lawyer or a doctor, things that would make money on a small Island in a small Island country that you needed a good education.

[00:16:36] And so he felt like he hadn't realized he, people were telling him that he should have focused in school, but he didn't realize the importance of it. And then he felt limited in his career options. And it really made me think about. Like that was the first time that somebody had exposed me to really thinking about like labor market demands and thinking about the way we construct our careers and his conversation.

[00:17:06] Of course, as someone that was holding a weapon was very memorable, but. The sincerity of it. And in the way he was giving my brother and I advise to stay on the right track and to take advantage of every opportunity my parents were giving us was powerful. So 

[00:17:26] Kapil Ghai: in regards to this man that was holding onto you he had given you his reasons for being, for being a thief because he didn't have any money and he needed to provide for his grandmother.

[00:17:35]It felt though that you did have some empathy for 

[00:17:37] Jette Stubbs: this man. For sure. I thought he was very nice. I didn't want him to go to jail. I wanted him to have a second chance. He, I had no idea. I didn't think he would stare to hurt us. Right. And he said that multiple times. So I, I wouldn't say I felt safe, but I didn't feel like I was in any danger, even though he was holding a knife, he seemed just as nervous as my mother was.

[00:18:03] During the whole process, he was shaking and that's one of the reasons why the knife was tapping against the word. And it didn't seem like it was something he was comfortable doing, but he felt like he was stuck and he took the time to give my brother and I advice so that we wouldn't end up in that situation.

[00:18:21] Kapil Ghai: So if you could go back to that, that situation for a second. When, when this man had asked you, where do you go to school? And, you know, he started giving you all this advice, where are you? It feels like a story kind of takes like a comedic turn in a way. It's a serious situation, but like you can't help, but to kind of laugh inside when you see this happening.

[00:18:38]Were you very confused when this was happening as a kid? 

[00:18:41] Jette Stubbs: I think when you're a kid, you read people's, you read people by the way they're interacting with you, right? So, yeah. When he apologized for like accidentally suffocating me, I could tell that he wasn't trying to hurt me. Like he seemed genuinely apologetic.

[00:18:59] He didn't, he wasn't there to hurt me. So, As we, as we were speaking and he, as he started to ask me about school, I felt comfortable talking to him because it just seemed like any other adult asking me how school was going. And because I could tell he was so nervous. I think my mother was so focused on the fact that he had a gun and, or the other Robert had a gun and that it was a robbery and she was so nervous that she wasn't noticing how nervous he was as well.

[00:19:27] And my brother and I, I don't think we, we thought we were the target of the robbery. Clearly they were there to Rob our parents and we were just sort of bystanders in the process. And so we could. Be more aware of everybody's responses. And as I saw how nervous he was, I thought it was just a conversation.

[00:19:47] So I felt comfortable talking to him, but my mother tried to stop me from telling him which school I went to. I think it was a year or two prior, we had somebody kidnapped from their school from our school. So it was, it was a parent that had kidnapped the child. But I think she was just worried that we could potentially be followed or like used for ransom or something like that, which I mean is not a common occurrence at all.

[00:20:11] But in that situation, your mind goes to the worst. 

[00:20:14] Kapil Ghai: Yeah. So did you feel like this event had a big effect on parenting and the way your parents had parented you and your brother moving forward? 

[00:20:22] Jette Stubbs: No, not at all. No. Growing up, my dad was probably robbed about 20 plus times. It's but that wasn't.

[00:20:32] Based on like the country or the environment. It was based on his own situation. He didn't like to lock doors and he liked to walk around and relaxes and use a drive a Benz and leave the car door open and just live his life as though if somebody were to Rob him Often, what he did is if he could he'd have a conversation with the person.

[00:20:53] So after my dad passed last year and we had people come up to us and tell us stories. And one of the stories was somebody was stealing from my father and he was in his teens. And instead of my dad, like reporting him or getting him in trouble, he. Basically told him you can steal from me or I can teach you how to build your own wealth, really.

[00:21:14] And so he, my dad took him under his wing, helped him pay for his university education and. Just sort of changes trajectory for his life. And I didn't even know, my dad did a lot of these things. At his funeral we had like politicians go up and say, I wouldn't understand half the things I knew about finances, if it weren't for your father.

[00:21:37] And he helped some like prominent businessmen sit down and strategize how they were going to pay for their university education. But he was not university educated. He stopped school at like grade eight or nine or so. He grew up, he was born in 47 and back then he lived on a very small Island, probably had less than a couple thousand people.

[00:21:55]And it wasn't common for people to go all the way up to high school, like finished high school, like to grade 12. So. He he, but he realized the importance of education he grew up in. He grew up supporting my grandmother is like convenience store. So he understood like how a business worked.

[00:22:13] And he used those principles, built, all bent, built on them and self-taught himself, everything he knew about finances. And then went on to teach a lot of other people. And he worked in a bank for 30 years and. Developed a very strong reputation for helping people build their businesses and get on their feet.

[00:22:32] And he. Was that he was adamant about passing that on to his children and giving them any sort of educational opportunity that would help them get their, get to where they want to go. 

[00:22:43] Kapil Ghai: That's that's thank you for sharing that. I mean, that's what this show is all about is seeing people's perspectives and how they've used certain situations.

[00:22:50]You know, so that's why sometimes when you hear about something on the news and you see a headline, like so-and-so robbed or so-and-so. So certain things are happening. You know, you, I often question, like, why is this happening? Why are people going to these lengths to do this? But it seems that, you know, with your experience, you've, you've kind of understood that as well.

[00:23:07] And I think, you know, we're very fortunate to be living in Canada and not to say robbery doesn't occur here, but does your story ever make you think, think about the measures that certain people have to take in other parts of the world to make, to make their ends meet? 

[00:23:21] Jette Stubbs: Yes, for sure. Like, as I travel and as I live in other parts of the world, I can definitely see things that people take for granted in terms of safety.

[00:23:33] But I can also see that the people that ended up robbing you although I would never say like, robbery is a good thing. Like I. I saw that the police officer that came at the end of that robbery to help us and those robbers could have grown up like a block away from each other. And yeah. It was just different advice that they were given different things like different tipping points that sort of sent them in different directions.

[00:24:05] And from that age, I started to question like, what, what makes one, the police officer, what's a gun and the other, the robber was a gun and. Eh, that that's led on a journey in and of itself. Yeah. But it's, it definitely made me evaluate the, the privilege that people can have. Right. And when it comes to safety and thinking about your environment and thinking about the people around you and just.

[00:24:36] Like, what do people have access to like in Canada with like universal healthcare, his, his mother or his grandmother would have been able to access medication. Right. And he may have been able to use Osaka to go to school and doctor's visits and all 

[00:24:52] Kapil Ghai: of that. And it makes you, it really makes you think that like these, these everyday small occurrences quote, unquote small have a larger.

[00:25:02] There's a larger reasoning as to why, you know, these things are happening. And then of course, the fact that they have has a Marsh larger effect on the people around us and our society. For sure. So we, yeah, we don't, we don't think about it that, you know, perhaps if you had better infrastructure, people wouldn't be doing this and that or because people get desperate and they, they, you know, desperate times call for desperate measures of course, but I mean, you were, you were pretty young when this happened.

[00:25:24] Is it, was it Everett. Is it painful for you to ever revisit this story or revisit this, this situation? 

[00:25:31] Jette Stubbs: No, no, I wasn't. I wasn't scared by the end of it. I was scared initially when he was going to take me to the bushes, but then once he apologized for suffocating me, I could just, you can sense. People's intentions.

[00:25:46] And I could tell that he didn't really mean any harm. So I revisiting it is fine. It's a story that I've told to my close friends sort of, as you know, there's times where it comes up and you're like, Hey, do you have any interesting stories? This, this is one that would come up. I've never really told it in as much detail as I have now.

[00:26:07] Right. 

[00:26:08] Kapil Ghai: So this is kind of like the backstory, what happened beyond that? But, but what I'm curious to know, Jay is, you know, how did this situation shape you as an adult? I mean, it seems that, you know, you took a lot out of it and it, you, you learned quite from it, but you did this cause any sort of traumas or anxieties for you growing up.

[00:26:26]Jette Stubbs: No, not this particular incident. There were other times where my parents were robbed and it was more traumatic. And that led to me being more afraid, like as I walk around a corner, is there going to be a where potentially there, and it had to do with the fact that my parents ran a business from home.

[00:26:46] So they. Where they had a car rental company, they had 30 plus cars on the lot, plus their personal cars. And they also had about 10 properties that they were renting across the Island. So people knew that they would have a cash flow. And the, they would come trying to get money and we would often have our door open because we had employees and the business was from home.

[00:27:12] So we had like a mechanic, a plumber for the property. So people would be in and out and didn't make sense to lock the door. And we'd just lock it as it got dark at night. And historically that would have been fine, but crime was increasing as economic inequality increases. Right. And So when robbery started to happen a bit more frequently, when my parents developed a reputation for having more money, then it was a little bit scarier, but still the focus was never on me.

[00:27:46] Like it was on robbing my dad in particular, not even my mom, they would just leave us alone. And they would focus on him and it would just be a conversation. And usually he seemed okay. Relatively calm. He knew they were just there for money. Yeah, so it was, it was fine. It was weird because the next day I would just get up and go to school.

[00:28:06] Like even if they, I remember one morning they were robbed about six, 6:00 AM in the morning. And so when I got up at like seven 30 to head to school They just said we'd been robbed this morning and go get ready for school.

[00:28:25] Kapil Ghai: So have you ever shared this story and has some someone come up to you in the audience saying that, Hey, I've been through something similar? 

[00:28:32] Jette Stubbs: Yes, I have. In, it was a Canadian woman She, I don't want to share her story, but she just, she just opened up and said like, I can relate to what you're talking about.

[00:28:46]Not in my father's attitude towards things, but just in the fact that it, it had happened and her story, really, my story really resonated with her and she wanted to connect. I had a few people reach out to me more so that they could really visualize it as it was happening more than. It resonating with them on a personal level because of lived experience.

[00:29:07] I would hope not as many people live through this, but you never know. 

[00:29:15] Kapil Ghai: And that's why I brought you onto the podcast because it was when I first saw you do this some earlier in the year, I, I. I said to you, I'm like, man, I could see this being a short film. Like I could, I could see every part of it, especially like the top, top, top.

[00:29:28] Like I could see that happening. And I could even like visualize like the background music and everything that gets, it's interesting, like the way you, the way you give all the specific details it sells very well. Well put together. What do you, what do you plan to do next with the story? 

[00:29:41] Jette Stubbs: So it's been published in stories.

[00:29:44] We don't tell. As a book 

[00:29:47] Kapil Ghai: what the stories we don't tell for those of our listeners who don't know 

[00:29:49] Jette Stubbs: stories where you don't tell is a storytelling event based in Toronto, where you tell the stories that you wouldn't typically tell from your day-to-day life. And yeah. They're the two co-founders Paul and stuff and help you workshop your personal stories so that you can present them in people's homes.

[00:30:07] So people then open up their living rooms and you just stand up in a group. I think when I told this story is about 55 or 60 people in a living room So they they've been doing that event for five years now and they've published 61 of their favorite stories, or I guess some of the most compelling, they curated a list of stories and it's been published in there.

[00:30:31] And then I'm also using it in my own book. That is. More aligned along the lines of what I do now, which is career coaching and business coaching. But I incorporate my personal stories and how I learned some of the lessons that I've learned along the way, because a book should be engaging 

[00:30:49] Kapil Ghai: and we're going to get to that as well.

[00:30:50] Yeah. So you also run your own business as a career slash business coach. And your business is known as the happy career. How long have you been operating as a coach for and how did this idea come to life? 

[00:31:03] Jette Stubbs: So I was an international student, Canada. I went to a, after I graduated from university, I decided that I wanted to stay in Canada and it was 2011 middle of her session.

[00:31:18] And I. Really, I wanted to find a job and I sent out 200 applications and I got zero responses. The first time around I had studied I did a double major in business in sociology with a certificate in community development. And by the time. I graduated like my dad's business, wasn't doing well with cashflow.

[00:31:42] So he said, if you want to stay in Canada, here's $500. You have to figure it out after that. 

[00:31:49] Kapil Ghai: Well, like a week of rent. 

[00:31:50] Jette Stubbs: So I had 90 days to figure things out and I was going to run out of cash before the 90 days was over. So after I sent out 200 applications, And I got no responses. I was like, okay, I have to rethink this.

[00:32:04] Like, I know I have skills. I had worked, I had done a bunch of internships. I had volunteered actively. And so I knew the issue was that I wasn't marketing myself effectively. So I went on a ton of workshops. I read a bunch of books and I got to this point, I think after about maybe 15 to 20 days of like 16 hour days, just learning how to market myself.

[00:32:27]I sent out. 10 applications to 10 jobs within the GTA. I D I narrowed it down to like where I want to live the type of job that I want to do, like how I can really add value. And then I created these super tailored resumes and cover letters. I sent out 10 applications and I got seven interviews and the.

[00:32:51] Job that I really wanted was helping other students learn how to do this for themselves, how they can market themselves more effectively. So I ended up working in experiential education, which is helping students bridge the gap between employment and academic theory. So like it's like co-ops and just different service learning methods that they use in universities.

[00:33:13]So I did that for a few years. But because in my first 18 months, I went from being the assistant in the office to leading the office. And I was 22 at the time. And so not only had I, when, when they talked about working in the university, usually what they refer to was as young were employees that were 25 to 30 here, I was like 22 and I was working with a team of people.

[00:33:38]And people started asking me how I did it. And so I started giving them advice for career coaching. And from there initially I gave it to people, the advice for free and people came back to me and said, you know, I really want to pay for your services. So I started giving, they started giving me like gift cards.

[00:33:55] Then I had too many gift cards. So like there's no point in using, like I had Amazon gift cards and I didn't want to buy anything off of Amazon. And so, yeah. I decided I should just accept cash and it started there. And then I branched out into entrepreneurship because I realized my dad had taught me so much.

[00:34:16] My parents had both taught me so much about starting their own business. They both grew up I wouldn't say poor. My dad was a bit poor than my mother, but. They both grew up without much. They didn't go off to university and they made a multi-million dollar business from scratch. So they taught me all of the principles to do that.

[00:34:34] And I thought those principles were common knowledge. And I realized that they weren't. And so when I started career coaching people and they were really struggling with their careers, I started to say, did you know that you consider, could consider entrepreneurship as an option and you may be able to make more money doing exactly what you do, like as a psychologist or whatever.

[00:34:51]If you were an entrepreneurial  rather than working for somebody and you could set your own hours and you can build a career that helps to meet your life goals. And so I really focused on Building a career that allows you to align with who you are as a person? My first year that I was working at the university I faced a few obstacles.

[00:35:15]My, my initial supervisor was racist. My mom was stabbed in a robbery. And this was back home. Yeah. And there were a lot of like suspicious sort of circumstances around it. She lived, she, she lived up, but she was stopped 17 times. So there was a lot of. I was in, I was in the city alone. I didn't have any friends that were living in the city.

[00:35:46] So I started to realize having a career isn't just about having a job that makes good money. It's about having a job that gives you or doing work that allows you the flexibility to live the life that you want, and to be able to support the people that you want. Like, I was able to go home for a few weeks and I was able to support my mom and just be there first in the hospital.

[00:36:08] She wasn't in the hospital very long and then just stay with her and like help her. She had like night terrors and things like that. But when I came back, I started to get really sick and like I was stressed, vomiting, and that's when I really started to evaluate the idea of not just making money, but aligning that with.

[00:36:29] Doing the things that you want in life and creating a life where you, you are able to like really pursue your life goals and able to fund them in a way that you enjoy with the flexibility that you need. 

[00:36:42] Kapil Ghai: No, that's that, that, that that's That's amazing. That's amazing that you were able to take, you know, channel these these, these not so great situations and put them into, into, into your career and into your business.

[00:36:54] You find ways to incorporate your storytelling into your coaching strategies. 

[00:36:58] Jette Stubbs: Yes. So a lot of people that come to me and they want career coaching because it's called a happy career. They are usually looking to create more happiness with their work, whether that is a career or a business And they would open up about the things that they were experiencing, but sometimes they'd be hesitant.

[00:37:16] And so I started telling people about my own life experiences and how I started my business and what my mother went through and how that affected me in branching out to become an entrepreneur. And from. There. I realized that those stories help people feel more comfortable talking about their own experiences.

[00:37:37] If you're going through something difficult, like one of my clients she's there, she shares her story in like a review. So I feel comfortable talking about it. She, when she came to Canada from New Zealand, Her husband was injured in a construction accident. And he was the only breadwinner in the family.

[00:37:59] So she, she was looking for work. She was well-educated. She had a PhD, but she wasn't marketing herself effectively. And she found herself in a situation that was just very demoralizing. And I started to talk to her about my experiences with both immigration, with dealing with my mother being stabbed and trying to support her through that while trying to like navigate work.

[00:38:22] And I just started to see how beneficial those stories were for my clients. And S and then I started to write them down. Through storytelling and now I'm incorporating them into a book. So the goal is through the book, people will hear a lot more about my personal story. I also have like an online course where people can learn the strategies and tools that I use.

[00:38:46] So the way I explain it to people is if you want a career, if you want a job or a business, you are still an entrepreneur, it's just, you have one client or do you have many clients? You need to know how to market yourself. You need to know how to control the value that you're offering. And you need to understand how to get people from point a of, I have a problem to point B.

[00:39:09] That problem is solved. Cause that's how that's when they start to refer you. That's when they are excited to pay you. That's when they are excited to work with you again and again. And when you're doing that for a company, you have one client and you're solving that problem that they've hired you for within your job, right?

[00:39:25] But you can also transition that so that you can solve that for many people and branch out to having your own business, where you have multiple people paying you so that you're not as dependent. If you lose that one job if you lose one client, you are, you didn't lose all of your money like you do with a job.

[00:39:41] Kapil Ghai: What I really liked Jay is the fact that you're channeling your life experiences and putting it all into. Your your work when I really liked that strategy. And I think that, I think more of us need to do that. I think more was need to do that and don't see the value in doing that. Just don't even, you know, it D it doesn't even cross our minds.

[00:40:02] So, I mean, if you could give me like a top three, what, what types of challenges do you feel most people struggle with when figuring out what type of career. Is ideal for them.

[00:40:16] Jette Stubbs: A lot of people don't think that you should think about your happiness when you think about a career. So when I talk to clients, the first thing that they ha I have them do is I set goals for the different areas of their life. And so many people have pushed back and they're like, what does this have to do with my career?

[00:40:36] And. The way I explain it, as I say, your career funds, your life goals, that like a career that you will love helps you, you to do the things that you want in life. And that's what makes it happy. So you have to know what you want out of life. You have to set your goals. Like how much time do you want to be like pursuing your hobbies?

[00:40:53] How much time do you want to be like spending with your loved ones? How much money do you really need to live off of and like travel and do the things that you. Want to do. And then that helps you set your income goals and then you should reverse that math and. Try and figure out ways that you can break that down so you can achieve those income goals.

[00:41:12] So how many, if you are making, if you make a thousand dollars per client, you and you want to make $6,000 per month, you need six clients paying you per month at minimum. How do you keep that income flow coming through? How, what sort of marketing initiatives would you do? If you were to start your own business, for example the second thing that I would say people struggle with is.

[00:41:34] They don't realize that they like a career, no matter what you're doing from a cashier all the way up to a CEO, you're taking somebody from like point a of, I have a problem to point B, that problem is solved. So many people focus just on the task that they do. And they say, Oh, you know, will I track expenses?

[00:41:54] Or like I process cash. But what you're really doing is you are solving some kind of problem. If somebody's paying you, that means that you're solving a problem in which you. Which you want to be doing is focusing on solving high value problems so that you're willing to make more money. I mean, you're capable of making more money.

[00:42:12] So a high value problem would be something that people really care about. So for an individual, if you wanted to work in health, for example, or like nutrition if you, if you wanted to do nutrition for a 25 year old, that was already healthy. They're not going to find that as valuable if you're as it.

[00:42:32] As compared to working with like a 50 year old that has diabetes, where you're going to help them live an extra 10 years because you're solving like. It's like a dying concern for them. So no matter what you want to do, who would benefit most from it and how can you solve problems that really matter to people and takes them, like, what is their point a, how would they describe that in their own words?

[00:42:55]So that you can make them feel like you're sort of in their head and you get it. And then how do you get them from a to point B of that problem is solved. And then the third thing that people struggle with is marketing themselves. So most people feel uncomfortable talking about themselves. They feel like they are being salesy or sleazy by saying can you pay me.

[00:43:18] For this they don't feel comfortable asking for what they think they're worth. And so I help I help clients see that you can have a genuine conversation with somebody where you were authentically talking about what you do, why you love it and how you help. And that person will come to you and ask you how much do you charge for this?

[00:43:38] And I teach them how to talk about what they do in a way that feels authentic to who they are while allowing them to market themselves effectively. 

[00:43:47] Kapil Ghai: A lot of us, I feel want to become entrepreneurs. I mean, that just sounds so appealing. Why does the grass away? And I've always asked entrepreneurs this question, but why does the grass always seem greener on the other side?

[00:44:00] And what sides of entrepreneurship are we not seeing? 

[00:44:04] Jette Stubbs: So the beginning is always difficult. It also depends on the type of product or service that you are offering. I find there's a lot of talk about like passive income. If you're in like an entrepreneurship circle, I've heard that a lot. So passive income is money.

[00:44:19] That in theory, you're not working for, like, if you make your rental income, it's just coming in every month and you're not exchanging your time, like hour for hour for pay. And it's great to have passive income, but what people don't see is to own that rental property, you have to have accumulated that cash and it's all the work that goes upfront.

[00:44:39] So to start a business, it's about putting that. Work upfront to make the systems work. And it can be a learning curve if you don't have the right guidance. But at the same time you can have, at the same time, you can attract clients to work with you early on. So you can, before you even even created your product, like.

[00:45:01] Initiatives like Kickstarter or Indiegogo show you that you can attract people to pay you for an idea. And so there's two sides to that. Like, yes, to have passive income, you need to set up all these systems and have, have it in place. So it's working and you don't have to exchange your time for money, but at the same time to start a business, you can have people pay you for an idea and start it like that.

[00:45:27] And I think people. Like where the money is coming from is always the biggest question. And people are the slowest to answer that part of it. I think that's the hardest part because once there's a steady cash flow to your business, you have the time and you have the time to make it grow and you'll have the resources.

[00:45:48] Does that make sense 

[00:45:50] Kapil Ghai: to some degree? I had to go back and listen to this one more time to. 

[00:45:53] Jette Stubbs: Yeah, I could probably explain it a bit clearer. 

[00:45:57] Kapil Ghai: No, it's I mean, I think that, and also I think that it's, it's, that's why consultations are consultations are very important. So you can kind of understand the individual on a one-to-one basis and understand where their needs are, because like you said not everyone needs to be an entrepreneur when needs to be in, you know, in a job.

[00:46:16] Yeah. Whatever, but that's, what's, it's one of those things that AIDS. It's a bigger conversation and it can't be solved with a five minute. 

[00:46:25] Jette Stubbs: Absolutely. And I find a lot of people think that I can solve their career problems in a five minute conversation. And I said, if you haven't known what you wanted to do for like the last 10 years, how am I supposed to give you a solution in five minutes?

[00:46:40]But I, I do give people like exercises that they can work through where they think about the skills that they have, the values that they have, like their, what they want out of life and how they can buy, can combine that with me, ways to meet others' needs and solve problems so that they can create a career that they want.

[00:46:57] Kapil Ghai: Amazing. So, I think that, you know, this, this, this interview was great. I mean, we went from you sharing your story to talking about your story, to how you channeled him. That's just, we've kind of gone through your life journey, which is amazing. So, so thank you for for, for sharing your information with us.

[00:47:15]Now before we go, jet is how can we find you on social media and how can we learn more about the happy 

[00:47:21] Jette Stubbs: career. So it's a happy career on Instagram. It's the happy career.com for the website. It it'll be the happy career I'm gonna, I'm going to start my own podcasting YouTube in the new year. So it'll be the happy cur there as well too.

[00:47:36] So it's the hobby career one word. 

[00:47:39] Kapil Ghai: Well amazing. Thank you, Jette, for joining me today and thank you for listening.

[00:47:47] Thank you all for tuning into this week's episode of the finding perspective podcast. If you enjoyed this week's episode and learn something new, please hit subscribe and share this podcast with your friends and family. To stay up to date with all things, finding perspective, you can follow us on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook at finding perspective podcast, you can also find me on Instagram at underscore to Kapil Ghai.

[00:48:17] Hope you had a great week until next time. .

[00:48:20]  if you want to learn more, go and find the finding perspective podcast, wherever podcasts are available. 

[00:48:27]One thing that I would like to share with you are some thoughts. So I'm going to be jumping back into reading a section of the audio book or book that I'm working on. It's secret number 22.

[00:48:40]Jette Stubbs: We are not taught how to build careers that align with who we are until now. How do you create a career that aligns with who you are when you have limited opportunities? We're told to work hard in school, get a good education, find a good job. Get married, have kids save for retirement.

[00:48:59] And this will be our quote unquote happy life. When I met the mustached man, this idea of the whole life plan. Came crumbling down and I was left with questions. It's really hard to forget a man who apologizes while calling your mother MIS and holding a knife towards you.

[00:49:20] It is even harder to forget the situation of being robbed while the thief tries to share wisdom with you in order to make you feel more comfortable. But what really sticks out in my memory are the questions that a situation like that leaves with you. I didn't know it then, but that robber made an impact on how I saw life and dealing with difficult circumstances.

[00:49:41] If I were in his shoes, what would I do? Forget whether I think he was wrong or right for stealing, what are my options to survive? What I watch my grandmother die without medication. What would you do? What if you didn't focus in school because you had distractions in life or at home, what if you were dealing with real problems in your childhood, like illness, abuse, molestation, family members with drug addiction, and so many other things that go wrong early in life, beyond your control as a child.

[00:50:15] What if you couldn't afford an education? If you had quote unquote bad grades for any of these reasons, should you then have to struggle for the rest of your life and have society try to limit you into lower paying jobs. And because you don't meet the quote-unquote minimum requirement for a university degree, should you have to struggle?

[00:50:39] In a lot, if not most cases, a university degree has very little, if any correlation to your actual potential to perform the job, if taught the skills, getting a university degree has so much more to do with opportunities, obstacles, or lack of obstacles and money or debt you had access to in youth, she would happen to you as a child, follow you for the rest of your life.

[00:51:02] When I think about it now, I think he was right in so many ways. We lived on a small Island and most of the good jobs required a good education or knowing someone in the industry in order to get the job legally immigrating to another country with more opportunities is hard. With more opportunities is hard when you don't have an education or money.

[00:51:26] What if he had already, what if he already had a criminal record for a minor crime too? I don't know. What would you do? This is the blueprint that most of us can relate to working hard. Plus education equals success, but there are so many people who graduate from university with good grades who still struggled to find work.

[00:51:46] There are so many people who feel as if their degrees are just pieces of paper that are useless. Many have debt from school while they struggled to find work. Many never worked in the field. They studied for four years or more. Here's why. The blueprint we should have been taught is to solve problems that people or companies care about and ask for money or find and financial benefits in return or money and benefits.

[00:52:10] The benefits don't have to be financial. And when you do these two things to solve problems or help others achieve goals that they care about and then ask for money and benefits in return, that is the key to financial success. Use education as a tool education, as a tool to explore the different types of problems in the world.

[00:52:32] Education does not typically teach you how to solve the problems. So let's do some story time. You go to school and learn skills, then you graduate and are expected to make money, but the skills you learn in school feel unrelated or even worse, useless for making money. Why? Because making money is a separate skill.

[00:52:54] Maybe you go to university and you were told university education is a key to a successful job. So many of us were sold on that lie in many higher paying jobs. A university degree is a minimum requirement, but when you graduate, you'll start to see a trend where big companies start saying we no longer require degrees research shows.

[00:53:15] There's no correlation between having a degree and success on the job. As a fresh graduate, you start to think about your next step in transitioning from a student into a professional where you finally start making and saving more money. You're excited, but there's one issue. You don't know what you want to do, and you don't know how to get a job.

[00:53:39] You learned all these skills and knowledge about your field, but we're never taught how to apply those skills to make money. In other words, you have a general knowledge of the subject you studied, but you don't know a specific problem you want to solve related to that subject. Every job, career or business is based on solving a problem for a person or a company yet after years.

[00:54:03] Of school often as a fresh graduate, you don't even know what problems exist within your industry, within the industry. You studied. If you want to be successful, your goal is to find a problem you can solve. So you can make a person's life better or increase a company's growth when you graduate. We are almost, we are all are we are almost all smart souls.

[00:54:29] A smart soul knows what you want out of life, your desires, you know what you want out of life. You know what you want that to look like? You have this vision of what your future can look like and what you thought you'd be able to achieve after you graduate. But we are missing, you are missing an understanding of other problems, other people's problems or company's problems that you can solve.

[00:54:52] You're missing the skills needed to help solve those problems. Because you know, you have skills, you know, you can add value, but you're not sure why people aren't hiring you. You're not sure why companies are rejecting you and it's because you don't know how to explain how you can help to solve their problem.

[00:55:08] You're writing. A resume. That's a history of what you've done before and a history of all the things that you've done that you thought would add up to them, seeing that you have the potential to help that you thought would add up to them, seeing that you should at least be paid a living wage because you, you know, you worked hard, you went to school, you did what you think you were supposed to do, but it's not adding up to that job that you want.

[00:55:34]So, if you remember the Venn diagram that I taught in lesson, in episode two of the podcast, there were three things, desire, demand, and skills. So typically when we graduate, we just have what we desire. We have some skills, but we have no idea how to tie it to people's real world demands. And so we send out like potentially hundreds of applications and we don't get the jobs that we want.

[00:56:01]We should be taught. Instead, we should be taught to spend our youth finding problems. We enjoy solving why? Because education is a tool to learn about the problems that exist around us. The truth is many of you worked hard and received good grades or worked hard and still struggled in school because you didn't see the point.

[00:56:22]In one way or another, you ended up asking yourself these questions. I don't understand why I'm doing this. What's this got to do with real life. I feel like that is a big one. When you study some of the science and math stuff, like what does this have to do with real life? Why am I learning this advanced math equation?

[00:56:42] When I don't understand how to balance a checkbook or I don't understand some of the basics of life. Right. So then he'll start to say, if I put the effort in to do it well, what will I really get out of it?

[00:56:56]and then the final question that I find, we often end up asking ourselves, and you may be asking yourself too, is I see people who worked hard and still struggled. So what's the point. If you know, people who worked hard, who got great grades, who got this education and are still struggling to access opportunities, you would be asking yourself, what's the point?

[00:57:18] Cause it started, you started to think like, does this even make sense? Why am I really doing this?

[00:57:24]The model you were taught does the model you were taught for success does not work now. You're learning. What does.

[00:57:33]You're listening to the happy career formula 

[00:57:35] with Jette Stubbs 

[00:57:36] where we talk about how to find what you love to do and turn it into ways to make money, whether that's a job, freelance service or a business, so you can live life on your own terms. 

[00:57:47]this is a career and business podcast, but my two main goals for what I want to offer you are: one  the tools to build a career that aligns with who you are.

[00:57:59] So you can make money in a way that funds your life goals and the lifestyle that you want to build for yourself. Two, to have healthier relationships with yourself and others. 

[00:58:09] Because I think that if you have your financial resources together and you have good people around you, you can live a happier life.

[00:58:18] Subscribe and leave a review if you are enjoying the podcast.

[00:58:23] if you know somebody who you think may find this useful, please feel free to share it,

[00:58:28] with a friend.