Glain Roberts-McCabe, Founder, the Roundtable, Group Coach Academy

In this episode of The One Problem, Glain Roberts-McCabe talks about the great resignation, and how to assess things before you quit your job.

My name is Avil Beckford, and I'm the host of the One Problem Interview. We know that there are tons of important problems in the world, but why get overwhelmed? We're going to settle on one problem. So, most of my guests are people that I have some sort of relationship with. Today my very special guest is Glain Roberts-McCabe, and she is the founder of the Roundtable and the Group Coach Academy. Over to you Glain.

Glain Roberts-McCabe

Thanks, Avil. And it's so nice to be here. I was thinking about the big problem that I'm hearing a lot of people talking about lately, and that is this idea of the great resignation or the big quit. A lot of people are thinking after coming 18 months in a pandemic where they've had less commute time and more time to be at home, should I quit my job? Is now the time for me to quit my job? And so, I wanted to share having quit many jobs over the course of my career now, spending most of my time coaching leaders and people who have to make a lot of career decisions every day.

Here are a few of the things that I've learned and some things for people to think about if they're contemplating this question for themselves. I think one of the things that we have to be really aware of is that we never often make good decisions when we're tired, or we're fatigued or overwhelmed. And there's a really great quote that actually says fatigue makes cowards of us all. So before you do anything radical, what I would suggest people do is just pause, ask yourself, have you had a vacation lately?

Have you taken time off lately? I think one of the things that many of us did over the last 18 months because there was nowhere to go is that we didn't take our vacations, or we were having a staycation. And it's so important for us to rejuvenate and reflect and recharge because that's when we do our thinking. So I think before anybody does anything radical, do that and then see if you are still feeling the same way that you want to do something big with your job.

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Glain Roberts-McCabe

So if you landed on it, and you're like, no, I feel like I need to do something big. I'm ready for a change. I want to do something. What I noticed for a lot of people is that they can often get stalled. They don't really know what they want to do or in my husband's case, he'll often say, I think I just need to create chaos and just throw everything out the window and start from nothing. Having done that myself, I wouldn't recommend that path.

I think one of the things that you can start to do. There are a couple of techniques that I found really useful in the entrepreneurial world when you're an entrepreneur, and you can't get away from your job because your job is your life. And it's kind of hard to quit your company. And believe me, there are times when I wanted to quit my company. It's really important that you kind of anchor yourself into your why? Why are you doing what you're doing?

One of the techniques that's been incredibly effective for me that I actually recommend to my corporate clients all the time is this concept of doing a vivid vision.

And this comes from a gentleman named Cameron Herold, who was the former chief operating officer of 1-800-GOT-JUNK. Some of your listeners may be familiar with that company. So Cameron wrote a book called Vivid Vision. And so as an entrepreneur, I've been using it for about six years, but I really think anybody could take this concept and apply it. And here's how the vivid vision works really quickly. What you do is, you go out three years from now. Three years is a really interesting timeline. It's far enough in the future that you've got some time to put some things in action.

Glain Roberts-McCabe

And yet it's not so far as five years or ten years, which is really like you could just keep kicking the ball down the path on that. In three years, what do you want your life to look like? And what you do is you can kind of grab a cup of tea or a glass of wine, whatever you want, and you grab a journal and a pen, and you go somewhere quiet, and you just let it all flow out of you. What do you want your life to look like?

What kind of work do you want to be doing? What kind of activities do you want to do? And if you noticed, I said work, not what kind of job do you want to have? A lot of us get very fixated on things like titles and positions and things like that. And what that actually does is that it narrows our scope. And it narrows our focus. And what that does, is it eliminates possibilities. And when we're thinking about going through a life transition, we actually want to open ourselves up to possibility.

So, a three-year vivid vision, what do you want?

• What kind of things will you be doing?
• How will you be spending your day?
• Do you want to be working?
• Maybe you want to work four days a week?
• Do you want to work from somewhere hot and sunny instead of cold Canadian winters?

And you really paint that vivid vision for yourself. And one of the tips, so it would give you is as you're doing it, do not let that little nagging voice come into play that says, how are you going to make that happen?

Glain Roberts-McCabe

That's going to be impossible. That'll never work. You want to eliminate that. You really want to be thinking and really thinking about all the things you really love about your job right now. What are the things that give you energy that motivate you? And don't worry, if you can't think of a role that fits with that, that's not the point of the exercise. But after doing that, what I found for myself time and time again, is that I became clearer on what it is I want.

The One Problem Interview with Glain Roberts-McCabe Talking about The Great Resignation

What is it I want more of, and then you can come back into the present, and then you can think about, okay, over the course of the next twelve months, what are the actions I need to take to get closer to my vivid vision? What are the things that I need to do? Maybe I need to take a course. Or maybe I need to pick up a volunteer job that's going to give me some experience that I want to transition into. So those are some ways that, instead of just knee jerking right now, doing the big quit, jumping on the bandwagon, start to think about where you want to get yourself to in three years.

What does that start to look like? Then you can make some really clear choices. What you might discover is that, yeah, you're going to quit, but you're not you're not going to quit right now. You're going to quit in six months, when you've had a chance to build up your nest egg a bit more. Or when you've had a chance to do some research a little more. But the difference is, what you're doing is you're putting yourself really in control of your career. You're not allowing yourself to be a victim, because often we kind of get into victim mode a bit when we're unhappy in our jobs.

Glain Roberts-McCabe

I certainly know I have. And when I look back at those times in my career, I thought to myself, Gosh, I spent so much time moping and complaining and not liking my job, I missed all the opportunities that being in that company had presented to me at the time that actually would have helped me if I had a vision of what I was trying to move towards. That's my solution to the problem of should I quit my job and the big quit. And I hope that's helpful for people.

Avil Beckford

Thank you so much. I think it is, because everywhere you go on the Internet, you're hearing about this great resignation. I like the idea of the whole vivid vision. I've done visioning before, but I've never done something called a vivid vision. So this is something I'm looking forward to doing. So thank you so much Glain. And I know that my listeners and my viewers will love this.

Glain Roberts-McCabe

Thank you for having me. It was great to be here.