Ep. 91 - Building a Career Mashup to Achieve Work-Life Fulfillment and Balance by Creating Your Compass - with Sabrina Woodworth

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There are times in life when things do go as planned. You realize that you want something more and life inevitably throws you curveballs where you have to adapt and adjust in order to get you to where you need to go.

For Sabrina Woodworth, there were personal and professional milestones along the way that forced her to reevaluate what she wanted to do. Sabrina is a Fortune 500 Project Manager, Career Strategy Coach, Bestselling Author and Founder of WorkLessons101. Sabrina’s path to creating her career mashup was one where she recognized the importance of setting a goal and mapping a way to achieve it. She learned this skill early on because early in her life, things weren’t so straightforward and it required trial and error to learn some fundamental skills.

In this episode, we learn about Sabrina’s career journey to parallel-pathing what she does today. And this story started by overcoming a learning disability which resulted in helping her develop one of her greatest skills.

Learning to Think Differently About Building Skills

In her childhood, Sabrina was diagnosed with the learning disability dyslexia. Early on, she says, “I could actually read and write... but I wrote perfectly backwards. So they actually had to really reprogram my brain to see and write normally and weed this dyslexia out of me, the way that my brain thought.”

As a result of Sabrina’s dyslexia, she became an astute listener and observer. So much so that this skill has become a valuable strength and advantage in her corporate job.

“One of my biggest strengths to this day is I can read a room and I can pick up subtle eye-rolls subtle slouches, subtle annoyances. That's maybe more in the negative sense, but I can also pick up when people are holding things back. So if you're in sales, for example, a lot of people say yes, when they mean no. So if you have that knowledge, these are the life skills that actually differentiate you highly in your career because they're super, super rare.”

Sabrina also developed a level of resilience along the way as she learned to develop and master a basic life skill. And it was her father who had employed an approach to help her learn to read and write so that she wouldn’t have to be held back in school. Although she resented the strict discipline early on, she ultimately understood the important lessons of constantly chipping away, sticking to a plan and persevering to the point where you can achieve a goal by a certain time frame.

Building a Career Based on a Vision

Coming from an immigrant family, pursuing a career that offered steady income was a focus. So Sabrina ended up pursuing an education in engineering yet she had aspirations to be a lawyer and go into politics. However an early experience changed her direction.

“So I had this whole plan about engineers make the best lawyers. So that's why I kind of convinced myself to do engineering. I was going to go off to law school. I was going to move up into a small town, become a crown attorney...I was going to represent criminal bad people and put them away or represent the government and put bad people away...I was going to get the next population in the small town to adore me. So they would vote for me and put me into Ottawa where our government is, and that's how I was going to become an elected official.

I had the plan step-by-step. So when I got this internship at the age of 21 in Ottawa to work in the government two years prior to graduating with my engineering degree, this was like a huge, “Wohoo!” I ended up having an amazing experience, but job itself, I hated. Oh my God, I did not want to be around politicians. Boy, did I get dinner served to me of reality compared to what I went in there thinking. I was super naive... So, I actually went hardcore into engineering.”

And so, Sabrina landed a job in engineering after receiving a strong reference from a professor, and she stayed in that career for the next 14 years. But her journey wasn’t all linear after that...

Realizing What Really Matters In Life

After spending several years in her corporate job successfully progressing up the ladder, she realized she wasn’t fully fulfilled. Even though she had achieved a lot and that executive track was what she had been working towards, there was a fundamental void. Personal events made her realize that she needed to do something more. And as someone who always inherently understood the importance of putting a plan together to achieve a goal, she subsequently outlined one that involved bringing to a book to life and ultimately a business.

That critical catalyst led Sabrina to creating Work Lessons 101. It was the near-death experience of her husband that suddenly shifted her perspective on what was most important in life. Her husband became ill and, based on his previous bout with cancer, the couple assumed the worst:

“It all came crashing in on me. I broke down, but I was kind of like I'm living in a different city. I moved from Vancouver. I was in the corporate headquarters at this point. So I had no family around me. I'm not ready to be a widow at 35 years of age. We had finally had a chance to have a baby and not, I could lose my husband. I don't want that. It was very clear that I did not want the executive track at this point. That's when he did when he got diagnosed... and we felt like we won the lottery that day because it wasn't cancer. He wasn't going to die, at least not today. So I was like, let's get the hell out of corporate. Let's go back to Vancouver. I didn't take a pay cut, but I stepped away from the executive track. For 11 years I worked towards that and in two weeks I turned it down. I didn't regret a single thing of it because that numbness disappeared when I did it.”

It was then she employed her compass - that strategic plan to help her build her business today step by step.
Creating A Compass to Guide Career Success

Following her son’s birth and new outlook on life, Sabrina used her maternity leave to begin to build a business. She knew where she wanted to go and created a plan to get there. It was called WorkLessons101.

“I want to spend time with my son, so I did it when he napped. I had to remain flexible cause little infants don't nap at the same time every day. So that's how I started building my social media presence. I posted content every day. I had a four-month plan to grow an audience and then move into the daily content and then move into engagement. So after a year I had a following of over 4,000. I had an email distribution list of 3,500 plus, and this was just little things I did every day.”

In time, her business grew to have tens of thousands of followers — all while continuing in her corporate job. All of these achievements were inline with the overarching growth plan Sabrina had created for herself. She was dedicated and stuck to it, while also being flexible and fluid when necessary. She wanted to help people and give back, she wanted time and location freedom so that she could raise her son, and she wanted financial freedom with diverse income streams so that she could always support her family. Having these goals in mind, she created her compass around those goals and was able to drive career success in the way that was most meaningful to her.

Many can relate to Sabrina’s story of feeling a void after some period of time in their careers and needing something more. And in today’s new world of work, often times, that road to fulfillment involves having multiple careers paths that we operate in parallel.

So as you begin your journey to create your own career mashup, remember the importance of developing your compass - that strategic plan - to help you get to where you want to go. And as Sabrina said, you need to know what time you’ve got to make that plan a reality and then live in that reality. Also realize it’s a living and breathing document because as your life evolves and you gain experiences, skills and meet new people along your journey, your plan will inevitably change.

Sabrina’s Career Advice:

You need to know who you are and what you're willing to do - understand your vision.
- To bring this vision to life, break this down into smaller action steps and then execute against it.
- Start to think about the many steps to help you get there to do it. Even break down one of those steps even into smaller ones to help you gain traction. And begin with little easy, low low-hanging fruit wins.
What that vision is will change but understand that this is just the start.
You need mentors and coaches that have had experiences similar to your situation helping you and holding you accountable so that you don’t give up prematurely.
There will always be variables in that destiny that are out of your control so don’t harp on them too much. The variables in the formula, the equation they're constantly changing.
So when you continue to push past your comfort zone, you're always learning and stumbling along the way, because you don't actually know really what you're doing and that’s okay.
Don't allow imposter syndrome to take over. That doubt is natural so use it as a strength instead of a deterrent..
Be humble and courageous enough to seek help when needed
You just don't know milestones are happening at the moment they're happening.
You need a plan. You need to know what time you’ve got to make that plan reality and then live in reality.

The work environment that has no instructions manual, no safety net for a lot of people.
If you say you suffer from lack of confidence, then a quick fix isn't going to get rid of that if it's seeped into who you are as a person. It's going to actually potentially take years to undo it or to put in proper coping mechanisms to eliminate it.
You're always in control of your destiny.
A career plan is a live document because there will always be variables that you just simply can't control.
If you don't remain flexible, you risk derailing yourself off your path.
You’ve got to stay open-minded and today's careers have parallel paths.
At some point, even your major strength won’t be able to save you at some point in your life. You're going to have to develop your weaknesses and either turn them into strengths or level the playing field by leveling up your skills level so that they're at least not holding you back anymore.
Failure's part of success.
- Career stumbles feed your career more than any easy success ever will.
- With an easy success you don't learn much because you don't create that mindset to really analyze what worked and what were bumps along the road.
- Train yourself to question and really dig deep into those stumbles.
Talent and skills help, but never substitute preparation and planning. The person with the plan, even if it's not a great plan and they execute it will still generally outperform the person without nothing.