In this episode, Mike Gardon chats with Sonja Price. Sonja “Dynamo” Price has 15+ years of experience in Career and Leadership consulting. She has worked with a wide range of clients including Amazon, AT&T, Facebook, Google, HBO, Microsoft, Nordstrom, Starbucks, T-Mobile, and numerous other organizations.
She has a Master’s Degree in Leadership and Organizational Development and is a Certified Career and Executive Coach. She trained with Al Gore to become a Climate Reality Leader and is actively engaged with the Seattle Board of Conscious Capitalism.
She is passionate about empowering professionals to accelerate their career to success, to become financially free, and to make a positive impact around the world. In her downtime, she enjoys skiing, playing piano and geeking out over strategy board games.
IN THIS EPISODE, YOU’LL LEARN:
- Sonja’s background
- Sonja’s thoughts on the future of higher education
- The Great Resignation - what’s driving it, Sonja’s thoughts on what’s coming next
- Work-life boundaries/integration and burnout
- What is career strategy? Why do you need one? How your career strategy can help you attain your dream job
- Common short and long term goals of clients Sonja works with
HELP US OUT!
Help us reach new listeners by leaving us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts! It takes less than 30 seconds and really helps our show grow, which allows us to bring on even better guests for you all! Thank you – we really appreciate it.
BOOKS AND RESOURCES:
- FREE GIFT: Dynamo Salary Negotiation Calculator
- FREE GIFT: Does Your Work = Work for You? (Quiz)
- Connect with Sonja on her website and LinkedIn.
Disclaimer: The transcript that follows has been generated using artificial intelligence. We strive to be as accurate as possible, but minor errors and slightly off timestamps may be present due to platform differences.
Michael Gardon (00:00):
Hi everyone. And welcome back to another episode of CareerCloud Radio. I'm your host Michael Gardon. I'm on a mission to help job seekers build thriving careers of their choosing. And to do that, I try to have interesting conversations with people that approach the idea of career a bit differently. Today's guest is Sonya Price. Sonya has 15 years of experience in career and leadership consulting. She has worked with a wide range of clients, including Amazon at and T Facebook, Google, HBO, Microsoft, Nordstrom, Starbucks T-Mobile, and numerous other organizations. She's a master's degree in leadership and organizational development and is a certified career and executive coach passionate about empowering professionals to accelerate their career success, to become financially free and to make a positive impact around the world. In this episode, Sonya and I discussed the biggest problem career professionals have in developing their careers and coming up with a holistic career strategy. I found her backstory to be helpful to all of us, struggling to figure out what we want to do. Sonya was able to find her calling through trial and error and ultimately following her heart to help people the best career and her perspective. This perspective of consistent reinvention is what is most helpful to her clients. I hope you enjoy this episode with Sonya Price, Sonya, welcome to the podcast. How are you today?
Sonja Price (01:16):
Hey, I'm doing good. Thank you, Mike. Thanks for having me.
Michael Gardon (01:19):
Excellent. Excellent. I'm really excited to dig in your background. Have a, I think we can have a really wide ranging conversation here and, and hear your perspective on a lot of different things. You've got this kind of mix of, of things that you do, right? I've got career strategists, salary advisor, and leadership coach. And I wanna dig into all of that, but I also love a really good background story and I love seeing kind of the arcs of people's careers and the decisions that they make. So I wonder if you could start by just kinda giving our audience some background and an overview of you yourself and kind of maybe where you started and how you got to where you are.
Sonja Price (01:54):
Yeah, sure thing. So when I went to college, I really did not have any clear idea of what I wanted to do. And I changed majors multiple times. It actually took me six years in seven different colleges to finish my college education, my undergraduate education, and about three quarters of the way through, I was just thinking, what the heck am I doing? You know, and I put myself through college. So it was, it got pretty expensive over time. Cause I was just taking out all these two, a checks from Sam about three courses, the way through, I decided to take a break and get a job. And I got a job working for a very cool startup company. I was employee number two. So it was literally just me and the founder. And then the founder started hiring, you know, a whole bunch of different tech people.
Sonja Price (02:40):
So it very first I was hired as like a glorified admin assistant, but the company grew very quickly. And so I used that as an opportunity to kind of springboard into new positions and new opportunities and gain more responsibility. And that ended up being probably the absolute best job that I could have had like my very first professional job. So that really helped put my career on the map. I did end up finishing college and then I just had a wide variety of different jobs after that. So I consider myself to be a pretty dynamic individual, just meaning that I'm very curious and I like to explore new things. And so I myself has single handedly reinvented my career at least a handful of times. And this is really what led me to becoming a career coach because I did a wide variety of different things.
Sonja Price (03:29):
I was a product manager, you know, I eventually moved into product management. Then I got into usability engineering where we would bring in like customer or representatives. And we would do eye tracking tests, you know, to see where people's eyes went on the screen and monitored them through their buying process and that sort of thing. Then I decided to get into marketing and business development. And then I also tried my hand at consulting. So I was doing change management consulting. So I've done a really wide variety of different things. And I did go back to school. I got a master's in leadership and organization development. I've spent a lot of money on my education and I'm really proud of my education. It feels good to have that. However, what I found is that the education wasn't really what helped get me the jobs when I wanted to change between different roles and responsibilities, really what mattered was learning have to be more creative in how I position myself and how I leverage my past base work experience and my skills to kind of move in this new direction.
Sonja Price (04:29):
So what led me to doing what I'm doing today is that each and every time that I made one of those moves in my career, not only was I making significantly more money, but I was also taking on higher leadership responsibilities, and generally aligning myself with organizations that seem to be a better fit for me and my values and the impact that I wanted to have in the world. So I had people in my life who started to take notice of this and they were like, how the heck are you making these different changes in your career? And can you help me learn how to do the same thing? So, you know, moving into year in leadership, coaching was really kind of born by accident through my own career journey. You know, I started working with friends and family and then I was getting referrals and referrals from referrals. And then eventually I was like, you know what? I actually really, I enjoy doing this more than I do my full-time job. And so I made the leap and I now I've helped thousands and thousands of professionals do similar things that I accomplished in my own career. You help find them jobs, making more money, finding things that are more in alignment with their values, things that are really, truly fulfilling that gives them that sense of satisfaction of, you know, the work that they're doing on a day to day basis.
Michael Gardon (05:40):
Really, really good, cool story. Uh, parallels with myself. I was getting some chills. Like I have reinvented my, as my listeners know, I have reinvented my career many times I didn't, uh, go to college for, or I didn't go to seven different colleges. That's gonna be interesting, but it's also kind of why I do what I do today as well. I think that experience of reinventing myself gives me a perspective. So I, I have a couple of follow up questions on your story. So the first is, I guess, how did you make the decision to finish college, given that you took this pretty good break and developed a bunch of skills that were marketable? I'm curious as, as to how that went, because I do think that there's a, a good segment of our audiences. Maybe even thinking at least if not, for them, maybe for their kids, does college make sense anymore? And I think perspective is kind of interesting in that you did a significant amount of work and then stopped, went into the real world and then went back and finished.
Sonja Price (06:43):
Yeah, that certainly is a hot topic today. So I finished college in 2007, so the landscape is very different today than it was when, when I was in school. I think for me, it really just gave me a sense of, you know, of completing something. And when I went and got that job and then I needed, then I decided to go back and finish. I really only had, like, I ended up craming all of my final remaining requirements into one semester, which was the craziest semester of my entire life. But I just felt like I had gotten so far along in the journey that if I didn't finish it, all of those student loans would've been, you know, a huge waste. So for me, I think it was just, it was helpful. You know, I think the professional landscape is changing, but I do think that employers definitely still prioritize candidates who have at least a bachelor's degree and sometimes a master degree as well, depending upon the role.
Sonja Price (07:41):
I don't think a master's degree is required, but sometimes you will see it on job descriptions where it says desired. And so I think it really depends, you know, for people who are listening to this, I think it really just depends upon what do you want to go into and, you know, what are the general requirements for that particular job role? Or what are you looking to accomplish in your career? If you want to get into technology and be a developer, you can go to a coding bootcamp and get started pretty quickly. So if there are boot camps and certifications and things like that, particularly Google has a whole bunch of certifications. They keep coming out with more. You think some of those can help you become employable fairly quickly. And then I think you just kind of have to like start to go towards like follow what moves you follow, what excites you, what motivates you?
Sonja Price (08:33):
And if you want to have that sense of accomplishment from having a degree, go for it, if you like the certifications and boot camps and various to different things that are out there, cool. Do that and then test the market. So like do something, put your resume out there, start going on interviews. See if you get some bites, you know, see if you get some bites from employers, see if you can get the interviews, books, see how far you get with the interviews and then go from there. I will say that I've worked with some incredibly smart people, you know, directors and VPs who did not have, uh, college degrees even. And, you know, they were earlier on than I was in the timeline. So I don't think that it's an absolute requirement, but I think it, the, as it continues to speak to the fact that you really have to know how to market and position yourself, and are you getting your foot in the door in the right way, are you being seen for the right skillset that they need to see to know that you're capable and competent for that position? And then, you know, some people just like having the degree, sometimes it just feels good to have that. So, and think it's a case by case basis, depending upon what matters to you as an individual, but also what is the market looking for?
Michael Gardon (09:41):
Yeah, I totally agree. I think, I think this is just my opinion. I think in terms of master's degrees, if you have a, a kind of a specialized master's degree, that's better than a general. So like take MBA. For instance, I have an MBA, I think a master's in finance or a master's in accountancy or something like that is more, it is, is a better bang for your buck. I think the MBA type program is watered down at most institutions and a lot of the value comes from the alumni network. So I like, I advise people to like, if you're not gonna get in into a top five to 10 business school and you want an MBA, like you might wanna think, you know, think about a different kind of route. That's just been my, my experience. But I, I agree with what you're saying. There it's a big hurdle, right? It's a big check box to check that if you don't have it and it's desired, like you're not gonna get prioritized for that job. It's just the way that it is. So it's definitely still hugely important. Obviously
Michael Gardon (10:43):
You figured out a way to do what you're kind of called to do and to find a career that gives you great satisfaction. I think that there's a lot of people right now after COVID and we, you know, we hear about the great resignation as a, a thing, right? That are part of it's driven through obviously job cuts and, and all this kind of stuff and work from home versus not. But I think it's also driven by people's desire to find more meaningful work and instead, and, and finding that they have options. What's your view on maybe what's driving some of the dynamics to the, regarding the great resignation as we
Sonja Price (11:21):
About it? Absolutely. Well, I think there's been a huge shake up in the world of employment over the last two years, and I don't think we're done yet. It's been a very interesting time since the pandemic hit, you know, initially there were some layoffs and companies were very scared to hire. So, you know, for that first, probably year of the pandemic, there wasn't really a whole lot of hiring going on. And I think people were scared and just kind of holding on to the jobs that they did have. I think through the second year of the pandemic of at least what I've experienced so far is that, you know, the job market really heated up companies started hiring again and they needed to refill all those positions that they let go or the hiring that they would've naturally done anyways, got put on hold. So there was, you know, a lot of hiring that happened.
Sonja Price (12:10):
Not only that, I think people really least started to become fed up with people have liked working from home. I think that is true across the board. Most people are really enjoying having remote work. However, people are significantly more burnt out than they were. If we look at burnout rates from, you know, 2019 to 20, 20, 20, 21, and it now into 2022, the burnout rates just keep climbing higher and higher. And I think part of like people have liked working from home, but I think it's also diminished the boundaries between work and life. And so I think that's contributed a lot to that burnout and then many people are deciding to change roles. So there's a big switch AOO happening in the job market right now. That's what I see happening is a lot of people are just moving to new companies. So there's kind of musical chairs effect that's happening right now.
Sonja Price (13:02):
And I think that we're gonna continue to see this because now that hopefully fingers cross the pandemic is kind of starting to wean off here. I am hearing a lot of employers are starting to call their, the, our employees back into the physical workplace. And so that'll be really interesting to see what happens and how that unfolds over the next several months. I think companies are a little timid to do that, but they're kind of testing the waters and seeing, you know, how, how is that gonna work when they call employees back in? And I think that we'll continue to see, you know, even, and more changes in the job market because once people go back into the physical office space, if they're required to, I think some people are gonna be like, you know, no, I really want this a hundred percent remote thing, you know, permanently moving forward.
Sonja Price (13:48):
So I think employees are gonna continue to want to look. And I think employers are really gonna have to figure out what is their remote work policy going to be, and how is that gonna look like for them on a longer term perspective? Cause we now have a very big demand for that from employees and employers are trying to figure out how to handle this, cuz they have very expensive office space that they've been paying for for a while now and who knows what they're gonna do with this space or, or who knows. Maybe people will enjoy being back in the, the office again. But I think the work world, as we know, it has changed permanently and we're still trying to define exactly what that looks like.
Michael Gardon (14:27):
Yeah. And defining that is, is a trial and error process. So there has to be a lot of flexibility and I guess, tolerance for getting wrong, built into the system. It is interesting what you said about burnout and going back to the office. Like I, because my point of view, I guess how I see it is when companies are calling people back to the office, I feel like that's gonna drive more people to change jobs. Again, I'm biased. I run a remote company and we were remote well before the pandemic ever happened. But what you said with about burnout is, is interesting to me and, and it strikes me as, I guess, more a problem of people or employees not being able to set boundaries more than that is like the actual work. But what do you think about that?
Sonja Price (15:14):
Well, yes. I think it's a combination of things because yes, it could be boundaries, but now as employees have had to learn how to put those boundaries in place or may maybe that didn't quite exist in the same way before, you know, if you're driving back and forth to the office space, maybe that was a good way to switch off work at the end of the day. However, we've had like the online kinds of jobs all the time. So it's not like just because you drive home at night, doesn't mean that you, you might not still check your email or work on some projects in the evening. But the other thing that I've seen happen a lot through the pandemic is that haven't had like a home office set up in such a way that allows them to keep those boundaries. I know a number of people and families that their kitchen table became their office space and their kids were running around the house all day long.
Sonja Price (16:04):
So I think that has also contributed to burnout because it's just kind of like, you know, everybody's been piled on top of each other for quite some time core, depending upon what your home life is like and you know, who lives in the home with you. But I do agree with you that it is up to each of us individually to know how to create better boundaries around between work and life. A lot of people are calling it work life integration. That's been a, a theme for a number of years now that there actually really is no balance. It's just about learning how to integrate them together. And I think that trend is probably gonna continue for a very long time to come, but it really is up to each of us to figure out those boundaries. And that might mean, you know, having a different physical space that can support for that too.
Michael Gardon (16:46):
Yeah, it makes sense. I I'm fortunate. I do have a home office and, and have for a long time, as I said. Uh, so that, that certainly helps separate things with my kids and my family. So that's a really great point. Hmm. All right. I wanna start talking a little bit about one of the things that you obviously do is kind of a career strategist is help people find meaningful. And I think again, like I said before, I think that plays into what we're seeing with the great re nation. So people have invested thousands of dollars in degrees, like as we talked about, or they're kind of still stuck in a, in a lesson stellar job or something that isn't bringing them meaning, and they don't really have the skills or, or know how to go about kinda landing that dream job. So why is that such a problem? Do you think
Sonja Price (17:34):
That more people are not going after their dream job
Michael Gardon (17:37):
Or they, or they, or they, yeah, if you, if you feel like they don't know how or that they just aren't doing it, I'm just
Sonja Price (17:43):
Curious. Here's what I see as one of the biggest contributing factors to that. And I, I, I agree with you with, with, uh, kind of what you're framing up here. What I have found is that most people do not really look at their career strategy. Many of us work for businesses and maybe we participate in roadmap planning, you know, the beginning of the year business creates their goals for the year. And what are our key initiatives and what are we gonna be working on? Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4, how often do each of us do that for our own career though? I think that many of us are not even aware that maybe we should be doing that, that we should be looking at our short and long term career goals that we should be looking at. What's the desirable skillset that we obtain right now.
Sonja Price (18:27):
And if we wanna continue to stay really relevant in the marketplace, moving forward, like what's the other skillset that we need to be learning on, uh, working on learning and growing into. And so, you know, some of the work that I do with clients is really help them create a very comprehensive career roadmap where we have crystal clear strategies on, okay, what are your short and long term career goals? And what's the compensation plan to go along with that as well? I think a lot of people are not necessarily aware of the fact that they could be earning more money if they knew how to strategically approach the job marketplace. One of the things that I talk about a lot is employees should change jobs every two to three years. And that helps people stay really relevant, you know, because if you're constantly moving around, not only are you usually making significant jobs with your income, but you're usually getting assigned to more interesting projects or you're staying aligned with the things that matter to you, hopefully if you're choosing consciously, you know, but maybe you're choosing companies that are more on the leading edge or have more innovation or the technologies that you wanna align yourself with, or maybe there's particular projects you wanna be working on that will help you grow your skillset in a certain type of way.
Sonja Price (19:44):
So I find when people stay with companies for too long, oftentimes their careers just start to become stagnant because maybe they stay with the same team. They work on the same projects, it just becomes kind of this repeatable process. And they're not really learning and growing at the rate of what they could or need to, to like continuously accelerate their career, keep things moving forward and really having that sense of fulfillment and also really kind of having the impact that you wanna have in the world. And I find that most people kind of need something new and interesting to sink their teeth into and something to keep them engaged and challenged over time. We all know we've, we've heard all the stats about engagement and how most employees are not really engaged in their job. I think when you switch, switch things up more often, even if it's moving to a new team and you're saying organization, I think that can help keep you more engaged and more fulfilled. And of course, one of the things I talk about with clients a lot is how do you make more money? How do you continuously maximize your earning potential and really make sure that you are kind of like getting the best thing for your buck throughout your entire career?
Michael Gardon (20:49):
Yeah. So I, I agree with a lot of the positives you've set, you've kind of laid out, I think, on your website or, or in some of your materials, you say that, that the average, when you change jobs, you're like the average increase in pay is around 20%. Am I, am I getting that right?
Sonja Price (21:04):
Yep. Um, that's true.
Michael Gardon (21:05):
So I think from that standpoint mean, you know, it makes sense and everything you said around changing it up and, and being fresh and, and understanding where you're at in the marketplace. I think that makes sense. But what do you say to somebody that I'm hearing like a lot of older pushback on well, but if you change jobs every two years, you're gonna look like you're just cycling through everything. There's gotta be maybe a it to some of that. How do you see it?
Sonja Price (21:30):
You know, I have heard that a lot. I do have a lot of recruiter, friends, and I've spent time talking about that with recruiters and hiring managers as well. I mean, I think especially in the early part of your career, I think it's perfectly fine to switch roles maybe even more frequently earlier on in your, a career. Maybe every one to two years. I think two to three years in a role is good. And I have heard recruiters and hiring managers say that they, they would like to see a good five year stent for a particular candidate. But I also don't think that it necessarily can hold you back. Yes. If it looks like you just are a job, hopper are here, there everywhere. Sometimes that can raise a red flag, but I think you wanna be taking the full picture into consideration where it's like, what is that doing for you?
Sonja Price (22:18):
When you look at your resume, what does the comprehensive story say about you? What were your various different roles? And were you moving up in that timeframe? Were you taking on greater ability? Did you have a more senior level title? Were you moving into leadership? You know, were there things that were showcasing that you were moving into bigger and better things, or does it just look like you couldn't handle that particular work culture? And so you needed to move on and do something new and different, but you're just kind of basically doing the same over and over again with a different company. That's how I would tend to look at it. And that's what, how I think recruiters and hiring managers would look at it as well.
Michael Gardon (22:56):
Great. So kind of taking that strategy and moving it up a level like into your overall career strategy, like how do you start someone on the path of thinking about the types of the types of opportunities that, that make them tick? Like how do you, how do you kind of guide somebody into finding the, the right area to start with, to begin with before you kind of really layer in, you know, some of the, the, the tactics?
Sonja Price (23:23):
Yeah, sure. I think it kind of depends upon where the, where the client is, uh, starting to begin with. Do they have a fairly clear idea of what they enjoy doing? Do they kind of wanna stay on the same track? Do they have, you know, the things that we tend to look at is what's the industry you want to be in. What's the type of organization that you want to be in. And then what would your job title role and responsibility look like? Those are the kind, those are the things we like initially start to zero in on. So sometimes people have a pretty clear sense of that to begin with. And it might not be super crystal clear, but that's kind of where we start. Other times I come across folks that are like, I don't even know what I wanna do. I, and in that case, it's like we're throwing spaghetti against the wall.
Sonja Price (24:07):
We're gonna start to see what sticks in that case. Sometimes I do utilize some career assessments just to start to get data on the page. And then we can start to cross things off the list and start to narrow it down to the things that truly are of very good option. The assessments that I use, it helps, you know, showcase different job roles, titles, and responsibilities. It would be a good fit for people based on what they enjoy doing the skillset that they already have, you know, with some of their passions and interests. So it does get like some good options up on the table to begin with, but then we need to start kind of combing through that and picking away the pieces of things that, that don't work, how we do that, you know, across the board, whether you're clear on what you wanna do or not is then I start to do a lot of salary research and start to look at, okay, what is the wide variety of different options that could be, that could be a good fit for people.
Sonja Price (24:59):
And we want to showcase, you know, all the different options, what is the earning potential and why you might want to move in one direction versus another. And of course, it's usually a conversation to understand what's really important to that individual. Where do they want to go? Where do they see themselves going both in the short and the long term and the more clarity that they can have on the long term, the better, because then that can help us kind of create a backwards plan to understand in what should be doing now or next that can kind of help build that skillset and get you prepared for, you know, longer term positions as well.
Michael Gardon (25:35):
You can take short or long term, but what are some of the common goals that people are coming to you with regarding their career?
Sonja Price (25:42):
Hmm, well, I mean, sometimes I have folks who are like, I wanna be a VP. I wanna be a, in the C-suite by the time I'm 40, 45 whatnot. Right. So then there's a specific strategy for that. Other times people wanna, you know, be focused on a particular technology. Like they have worked inside of Salesforce or Tableau, and they wanna become more of a master in that, you know? So then it's like, matter of looking at, at what are the different job titles that could surround those types of technologies or like AWS is a really good example. Let's see. I mean, I work with a lot of program managers, product managers, project managers, you know, folks like that. So then, you know, it's like, okay, well, are there specializations in those area, in those areas? Right. Like some folks will come to me and they're like, you know, know I've been working in product management, but I want something new and different. Well then it's like, okay, well, you know, let's look at the industry and the types of companies and the different types of products that you might wanna be focused on and kind of zero in moving in that direction.
Michael Gardon (26:43):
You noticed a change in the like shift in attitude or how people tend to phrase goals since the pandemic. Is there any been anything around, not necessarily moving up the ladder, but creating more balance as, as we kind of talked about before?
Sonja Price (27:00):
Yes. I've definitely pretty much most of the folks who come to me these days, probably 90% of them are looking for permanent remote positions. Okay. Um, that seems to be a, a pretty central theme of what I'm hearing. I also think people have been reflecting a lot more in life and, you know, they do want more balance. I've heard a couple P people come to me and they're like, you know, I'm starting to look towards retirement, even if that might be, if maybe if a far distance for them, they're like, I want to maximize my earning potential so that I could retire early. So I think maybe people are wanting to think less about work and more about know other aspects of life, but also still have interesting work that keeps them engaged.
Michael Gardon (27:49):
It's always interesting to me, I think people talk about assets and money and all this kind of stuff, but I rarely hear at least in when I'm talking with people and trying to advise them on, on their career path, I rarely hear people talk about their ability to earn a dollar as their largest asset. And the idea of that's kind of the engine in figuring out how, how to invest in yourself to grow your earnings potential. Right? So it's not just hopping jobs, there's all sorts of, of paths and ways to put in time, money, effort to increasing your ability to earn a dollar. And I, I'm pretty sure you have some resources and you probably have a pretty good point of view on like a holistic approach to that. How do you get people to focus on all of the different things that go into being able to earn more money over a career?
Sonja Price (28:43):
Hmm, well, it really is. It's kind, the career roadmap that I was speaking to earlier is just helping individuals get the whole map completely laid out, or you can look at all of the various different aspects. So, I mean, that's something that we look at and we do, we do salary research to look at the wide range of different options available. I have a list of decision making criteria that I go through with people to help them identify what are the most important things to them? You know, is it compensation? Is it work culture? Is it remote work opportunities? Is it relationship with your manager? Is it, you know, have a long list of different things that we kind of go through and we evaluate it and we create what are the thresholds of what people would be willing to accept? What's their ideal range.
Sonja Price (29:29):
And then what's the minimum so that if they do get an offer and it's below that minimum, it's just a hard, no. So, I mean, there's a number of different things to look at, to help people evaluate what could be a good fit for them. If I may share, I do have a free assessment that I can offer people, and it's kind of the initial phase of this. So if you go to dynamo, careers.com/quiz, Q U I Z, there's a really nice, it's like a five minute assessment and it just kind of goes through and asks some questions about what's most important to you, what's least important to you. And then at the end, it'll give you some helpful guidance of things that you might wanna be thinking about as you move forward in your career. So it's initial assessment that can be a great way to get started.
Sonja Price (30:14):
And then, you know, just continue to evaluate many of the things that we're talking about here today and making sure that, that you are looking at all, all the things that are important to you and that you're also kind of ranked prioritizing them in the order of importance of, you know, is it money or is it work culture or is it what maybe it's the product or service offering, maybe it's the impact that you wanna have in the world. And I find that every individual's a little bit different, so you really have to figure out what's most important to you and then make sure that you're including that in your overall career strategy.
Michael Gardon (30:44):
Great. So we we'll make sure we link to that quiz for, in our show notes for our audience, uh, if, if they want to start down that path. I think these, uh, quiz assessments are fantastic ways to start the process of being much more intentional about what we're gonna spend all of our time in our life doing, which is work. And that's kind of, one of my missions is to get people to start thinking more intentionally about that. So we'll make sure we definitely link out to that for our audience. You know, Le why don't you leave them with where they can learn more about you in particular and the work that you do.
Sonja Price (31:23):
Sure. Thank you. Yeah, my name's Sonya price. I own dynamo careers. You can go to my website, take a look at all the resources and everything we have available. That's uh, dynamo careers.com. It's D Y N a M O careers.com. Check out all the information there. You can contact me on my website or look me up on LinkedIn. Love to connect with you. Be friends and share a post with each other on LinkedIn. You can look for me under Sonya price, O N J a P R I C E.
Michael Gardon (31:55):
Well, we'll make sure we link to all of that as well. Uh, as a resource for our, for our listeners. Sonya, is there anything that I didn't ask you that I should have asked?
Sonja Price (32:04):
Oh my gosh. I dunno. This has such a great conversation. I'm sure we could keep talking for hours about, about all of this, but, um, great fun conversation just to the listeners, everyone who's here, like to have a meaningful career, do what you want, go after what you want. It's probably not as hard as you may think, if you think that it's hard, it's probably not as hard as you think that it may be. And you know, there's plenty of help out there. There's lots of great mentors and coaches and guides and various people who, you know, I think all of us who have had any success in life, we've gotten help from other people. So if there's something that you want go after it and find the right people who can help you get there.
Michael Gardon (32:42):
Excellent, fantastic. I echo all of that and I think we live in a time that it's been easier than ever for the money to follow what lights you up and you're gonna spend so much time working. And so you might as well do something that you love and you can figure out with the help of mentors and coaches, how to make the numbers work. I really appreciate the conversation. Thank you so much for coming on and, uh, look forward to following you and talking again with you soon.
Sonja Price (33:09):
Same to you. Thank you, Mike. Really appreciate it.
Michael Gardon (33:12):
Take care.
Outro (33:12):
CareerCloud Radio is a production of CareerCloud.com. Please review this episode on iTunes. We really appreciate it a lot. And thank you for listening.
