110: Career Changes: How To Navigate What's Next

1. It’s OK to admit you don’t know what’s next. Taking time to sit with the unknown is an important stop along the pathway to figuring out your next step. 

2. Don’t limit yourself to only checking one career box. When you create optimal options for yourself, you may find that your skills fit many different roles and projects.

3. Your personal network determines your net worth. The more people you know, the more opportunities you can access.

Jeff Henderson on LinkedIn and Twitter   

What to Do Next by Jeff Henderson 

Get Started with BELAY

Jeff’s first episode of the One Next Step podcast

(3:26) Jeff explains why he decided to write his new book, “What to Do Next”

(5:37) Jeff shares how he’s learned to move forward without knowing what’s next 

(12:03) What are some common signs that you might be ready for a change?

(16:27) If you’re not building your personal network, you’re limiting your opportunities

(18:30) What does it mean to create optimal options? 

(24:43) Find your muse and then keep an eye on the path they’re taking

(26:35) How can leaders navigate transition more effectively? 

(30:32) This week’s download: Get a free preview of Jeff Henderson’s new book, “What to Do Next”

Ryan Fitzgerald:

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Jeff Henderson:

Your next step is probably going to come through your skillset. You’re not going to see me post on Instagram that I have launched a musical career in this new season, because it’s not part of my background. I’m not saying you can’t do that, but if I’m now in my late 50s, going to take up guitar lessons, it’s going to be quite a while for me to launch my new music on Spotify. But I am going to be a speaker, I am going to be a writer, and I am going to be a communication and leadership coach, because that’s part of my background.

Ryan Fitzgerald:

Welcome to One Next Step, the most practical business podcast in the world. You’re now one simple tip, practical tool, and small step away from growing your business. One Next Step is brought to you by BELAY, the incredible 100% remote organization, revolutionizing productivity with virtual assistants, bookkeepers, and social media managers. Accomplish more, juggle less modern staffing from BELAY, and now to your hosts.

Ryan Fitzgerald:

Welcome to One Next Step, the practical business podcast that helps you run your business, so it stops running you. I’m Ryan, and today I had the opportunity to sit down with my good friend, Jeff Henderson, and talk about his next book. His next book is called What to Do Next, and it’s all about kind of taking your next step forward, even when life feels uncertain.

Ryan Fitzgerald:

And I’m just telling you this conversation is incredible for someone who went through a kind of career change a little over a year ago, hearing everything that Jeff had to say, I was just so jealous that this book is going to exist and this information is available now, when I kind of had to figure a lot of this out. And I know for so many of our listeners, you’re either dealing with this with people on your team, they’re experiencing job changes. And I think a lot of this can help you understand how to be a great boss and a great kind of people developer. Or you may be experiencing it yourself, trying to figure out, Hey, what’s next for you? And what are you going to do?

Ryan Fitzgerald:

I think this book, and, honestly, this conversation we’re going to have next is going to be unbelievably helpful for you. Jeff is a incredible leader. He’s an author, he’s a speaker, and he’s a consultant. He’s been on the podcast before, so he joins our very elite two timers club. So you’re going to love this conversation. I cannot wait for you to hear it. If you’re in the middle of a transitional season or you feel ready to make a change in your life, but you aren’t sure how to start, then this conversation is for you. So let’s jump into it. It’s going to be awesome.

Ryan Fitzgerald:

Jeff, thank you so much for joining us today on the One Next Step. How are you doing? How’s your summer going?

Jeff Henderson:

I’m doing a lot better now that I see you, Ryan. It’s been way too long, and I can’t believe that I haven’t seen you in, gosh, maybe over year and a half or something. So I’m doing great and thanks for making time for me.

Ryan Fitzgerald:

Oh, I’ve been so excited about this conversation. You were now in, I believe, the multi guest club, the two timers club on the One Next Step podcast, which is awesome.

Jeff Henderson:

This is like Saturday Night Live, when they have the return guest host. So, maybe, is Steve Martin going to be here at some point, Tom Hanks? And-

Ryan Fitzgerald:

We have some secrets planned may or may not. But, yeah, no, you’re going to get your robe in the mail, I believe. Your two timers club robe, which will be great.

Jeff Henderson:

That’s great. That’s awesome. That’s awesome.

Ryan Fitzgerald:

Well, I’m so excited to talk about, you have a new book coming out and I believe it’s coming out next week, when this podcast is released. And I guess just before we kind of dive into some of those kind of strategies and the practices that we can really practically take away from the book, I’d love to just hear about your experience, that inspired you to write this book, and how you got here.

Jeff Henderson:

So about a year and a half ago, actually two years, really, it’s hard to believe, Ryan, I stepped away from Gwinnett Church and that’s been the fourth move in the last 20 years. And every move like that had some risk associated with it. And so I’ve gotten questions like, “Hey, how’d you know what was the next thing to do? And how did you eliminate risk?” By the way you can’t eliminate risk. “How did you know when it was time to leave and move on? And what did you do? What were the strategies that you used?” And I began to think, there are some strategies that are just intuitive that I use to help me make the best next decision.

Jeff Henderson:

And then as I was talking to people and they’re like, “I just don’t know what to do for the rest of my life.” And I thought, “You don’t have to figure out what to do for the rest of your life. You just have to figure out what to do next.” And so as people kept asking me, “Hey, how do I figure out what to do next?” That’s when I thought, I think I could… Now, I’m on the backside of 50s, there’s some advantages to that, looking back in your life and going, “There’s some things I’ve learned. There’s some mistakes I’ve made. There’s some things I would do differently.

Jeff Henderson:

And there’s some things, some decisions Wendy and I’ve made that we said, “You know what? That helped us in this decision.” And as you know, Ryan, and your client base is in the thick of this, many people are in a part of Resignation Nation, right? The Great-

Ryan Fitzgerald:

Yeah.

Jeff Henderson:

… Resignation and people are leaving and saying, I think one of the things that pandemic showed us is, “Hey, life is too short. I want to work and do something that has purpose and meaning and fills my skillset and my purpose and all that.” And so that, along with just a lot of conversations, I thought, I think this book might help people, because so many people that I’m talking to both in for-profit and non-profit world are trying to figure out what to do next.

Ryan Fitzgerald:

The whole idea of you don’t have to figure out what you want to do forever, what I have to do next, I feel like that’s been a big part of my journey and a lot of our listeners have heard me share kind of pieces of that as well. So for you, specifically, why did you decide to leave the something you started? Why did you decide to leave your last job at Gwinnett Church?

Jeff Henderson:

I have a personal advisory board, and that’s one of the questions I get a lot is, “Hey, how did you decide to come up with a personal advisory board?” I really kind of stole this idea from Jim Collins, the author of Good to Great, when he said, “Hey, if Coca-Cola has a board of advisors, you might need to have a board of advisors for your one and only life.” And so I was meeting with our board of advisors about three years ago, and they said, “Hey, when you and Wendy become empty nesters, what’s your plan? What are you planning on doing?” And I hadn’t really thought about it. And so they said, “Well, now is the time to start thinking about it.”

Jeff Henderson:

And when I wrote my first book, Know What You’re FOR? It really began to open up opportunities for me to speak and to serve other organizations and businesses and churches. And I kept saying, “No,” because I had a full-time job that I loved, and a staff that I loved. But as we began to look at this season, Wendy, and I thought, “You know what? We could go travel together.” And that’s what’s happened, in fact, the last seven days we went from Bay Harbor, Michigan to speak to Orlando, Florida, and then we’ll be back in Nashville in a few days, and we’re able to do that together.

Jeff Henderson:

So I think season of life is really, really important. But then as we began to think about our season of life, we began to say, “Okay, what’s this next season? What is the problem that we can help organizations solve?” And for me, a lot of that was around for and helping organizations and churches know what they’re for.

Ryan Fitzgerald:

That’s amazing. When you left Gwinnett, did you know what you were going to do next? Were you able to articulate that really clearly? Or were you still kind of forming that in the process?

Jeff Henderson:

Great question, Ryan, the book opens up with my last day at Gwinnett and Lauren Espy and the team had literally, this is COVID and we’re not able to gather inside, so they surprised me with kind of an outdoor farewell. And I’m walking literally toward this finish line and people are cheering and clapping. It was so emotional. And Wendy was there and my daughter was there, and my son was way at college. And the whole time I’m thinking, what am I doing? I mean, can I just pause and say, I’ve changed my mind, and this is crazy. So I didn’t have this articulate… Like when people ask me what I was doing, I would say, “Well, I wrote this book about, you need to know what you’re for, and it’s created some opportunities for me to speak.”

Jeff Henderson:

And as I had this meandering description, there’s a voice in my head that goes, “You don’t even know what you’re doing.” By the way, I don’t know if everybody talks to themselves, but I talk to myself. And I’m like, “If you can’t even describe what you’re doing to another person, how do you know that this is the right thing to do?” But I just then sometimes… I did what you were supposed to do. I got all wise counsel, and all of that, but we just knew this was intuitively the best move. But I wasn’t going from like one job to the next. I was going from one job to an idea.

Jeff Henderson:

But the good news Ryan is, I’ve kind of done this before. When I left Chick-fil-A to go and be a part of the early days of Buckhead Church, Buckhead Church was a huge risk, because this was one of the first churches that were doing video church where the preacher’s on video. I’m leaving a multi-billion dollar company for a church where the pastor’s on video, and trying to explain that to my parents and in-laws and friends. But we just knew that this was what we were supposed to do. So you have to shrink the risk as much as you can.

Jeff Henderson:

You have to look at your skillset, you have to get wise counsel, you have to do all that, which I talk about in the book. But what you’re in essence doing is you’re shrinking the risk from leaping over the Grand Canyon to leaping over a mud puddle. I might get wet and I might get muddy and it might not work out, but at the same time, it’s worth the risk.

Jeff Henderson:

And for me, Buckhead Church, the potential Buckhead Church kind of ruined my experience at Chick-fil-A, because I always thought, “If Buckhead Church works, and the reason I didn’t go for it was because I was afraid, if it does work, every time I drive by that building, I’ll think, ‘Oh, I could have been a part of that.'” Well, every move has kind of ruined where I currently am, because I’m like, “Oh, I’m so intrigued by what’s next that I don’t know quite if it’s going to work, I don’t know quite how it’s all going to play out, but I’m so intrigued that if I don’t go for it, I might regret it. And I don’t want to live in a pathway of regret.”

Jeff Henderson:

Now you got to be careful with that, because there’s risk. But sometimes the greatest risk isn’t leaving, sometimes the greatest risk is staying. And the other thing I think you need to ask yourself is, do you have room to grow? Do you have room to grow as a leader? Do you have room to grow? And if you feel like you’ve hit a ceiling and there’s not a lot of room to grow, when there’s no room to grow, it’s usually time to go.

Jeff Henderson:

And so a lot of factors played into that, but I really didn’t. And I had a friend of mine, Ryan, say, “Hey, it’s okay, when people ask you, ‘What are you going to do next?’ For you to go, ‘I don’t know, but I’m on the pathway of figuring it out.'” And that’s why one of the most pivotal moments happened actually, after I had left. After I had left, I took 30 days off just to kind of decompress. And then I spoke at a conference in Florida with John Maxwell.

Jeff Henderson:

And John spoke before me, so I’m sitting there and he said the statement that I’ve referred to about a million times, especially on sleepless nights going, “Is this going to work?” John said, “I never had a clear vision. I just kept moving forward.” And Ryan, I’m telling you, man, I just put my pen down, and you know me, tears came to my eyes and I’m like, “Oh, my goodness, that’s what I need to hear. I just got to keep moving forward.” And I’m like, I understand that I don’t have a clear vision, but if the leadership guru, John Maxwell, doesn’t have a clear vision that just made me feel better. And he just figured it out by keep moving forward. So that’s, for me, you got to keep moving forward.

Ryan Fitzgerald:

No, that’s so great. And I know for many of us and for our listeners, I got to work kind of in the same larger organization with Jeff for many years and watching somebody like you, who started something that really inspired so many people, I got to kind of follow in your footsteps, and helped start a Decatur City Church with Tinsley, the kind of lead pastor there. And we created this thing I was really proud of. And then the courage that it took to kind of take a next step, I gave so many of us permission to do the same when we knew that like, “Hey, that season’s probably over.”

Ryan Fitzgerald:

And what I’m so excited about this book is that same thing that I got to experience personally, because of my relationship with you and what I got to see up close and personal, so many other people are going to get to experience as well. And you’ve articulated a couple reasons, like a couple maybe signs that might indicate someone is ready for a change. The fear of missing out, or the just taking next step, whatever might be. Are there other signs that might indicate someone is ready for a change, that as you’re sharing this story with people, it’s probably led you read to write the book, that you’re sharing with them and guiding them along?

Jeff Henderson:

Sure. To that question, Ryan, this is why I’m a big believer in side hustles. So for example, the book that I wrote, one of the things I did is I went on a 25 city business breakfast tour with a lot of our partnership churches. So I would go and preach on a Sunday and then stick around and do a business breakfast on Monday, and share the content for the book. Part of the reason I wanted to do that is that those were churches that were doing for in their community, for El Paso or for Danville, for the Valley, those kind of things. And then I would stick around and I would share the content of the book. I wanted to test out the content, and if the content wasn’t resonating with the business community, I would go, “Okay.”

Jeff Henderson:

But I remember I was somewhere in Nebraska, Elkhorn, Nebraska, a partnership church, they do for Elkhorn. I know you’ve been there, Ryan, as we all have been. And person after person said, “Hey, can you come speak to our business and do this?” And I remember calling Wendy from Elkhorn Nebraska and saying, “I think I’ve found a pathway that we have to pursue.” I didn’t know exactly what it would look like, how it would work. But the reason I say that, Ryan, is that began to intrigue me toward, “Huh, I think there’s an opportunity for me to add value to more than one church.” At this point, Gwinnett Church had two locations, but I’m adding value to two churches, which is awesome. I love that. But now I’m able to take what I’ve learned in Gwinnett, in North Point, and just catapult it around to a variety of different organizations.

Jeff Henderson:

The reason I say that is that gave me something to look forward to. A lot of times people leave because they just want to get away. And I understand that. And sometimes it’s such a dysfunctional environment, you need to get away and I get that. But if you’re leaving to get away from something versus moving towards something, then that would put a yellow light in my decision making process. We’ve created a career risk assessment where you’d go through a series of questions and you get a red light, yellow light, or green light. A red light doesn’t mean you’ve failed, it just means you’ve got some specific work to do. A green light doesn’t mean that you’ve succeeded and you have to leave, it means, okay, you’ve done the work. Now, you can be making some decisions.

Jeff Henderson:

So if I was more focused on the angst and stress of where I am versus the anticipation of where I’m going, then that would give me a yellow light and go, “I got a little bit more work to do.” So I think being intrigued by what’s next… That’s why, based on my Chick-fil-A background, I get asked all the time, “Should I be a Chick-fil-A operator?” And my answer is, “I don’t know. But I know how you can find out. You go down to your local Chick-fil-A and you ask for a part-time job, and you work the drive-through and you work the kitchen. If you don’t like your part-time job at Chick-fil-A, you’re not going to like running the business, and owning the business.”

Jeff Henderson:

And sometimes I think we can get so paralyzed, Ryan, because next is so mysterious, I totally understand this. It seems so mysterious. It’s a challenging world out there. Maybe I just need to play it safe. And I get all that. And so this decision seems so monumental that we do nothing, that’s why we’ve got to take action.

Jeff Henderson:

So side hustles, one of the big parts of our business now is coaching communicators. Well, that was a side hustle for me that started 12 years ago. And now it’s become a big part of our business. And the other thing I would say is typically your pathway toward next is through your skillset and through kind of where you are. Does it mean that you can’t make a pivot? I love what Donald Miller has done, he’s pivoted from being a memoir writer to a business owner. That’s a pivot, but he already had the skillset for that. And that’s why I say in the book, “The pathway to your dream job often leaves through your day job.”

Jeff Henderson:

And so when I talk to people about how to figure out what’s next, we’ll do all this talk about the future. And then I’ll go, “Now go back to where you currently are and do your very, very best,” because that’s really a stewardship issue. And the other thing too is one of the most important things that we can all be doing. And it doesn’t matter right now, if anyone’s trying to figure out what to do next, we all need to be doing this. We need to be building our personal network. Our personal network just simply means the people we know. And if your personal network isn’t growing, and your contact list isn’t growing, that’s a warning light on the dashboard.

Jeff Henderson:

And so I talk about how to build your network and the reason that’s important is your personal network, largely determines your personal net worth. The more people that you know, the more opportunities that you’re going to provide in. And we know this, who you know is often more important than what you know. So there’s all these strategies that are in the book that we can all implement, but because next seems so massive and monumental, we kind of overlook these simple steps of building your network. And it’s going to take time. This is why, if you’re not currently thinking about what’s next, you should still be building your network, because it will always come in handy.

Ryan Fitzgerald:

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Ryan Fitzgerald:

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Ryan Fitzgerald:

You do talk about in your book, this kind of idea of when you’re in the waiting room season. And one of the steps, you mentioned that when you’re in that waiting room season is kind of create optimal options. And, obviously, I think those relationships are obviously a huge part of that. What does that phrase mean to you? And why are they so important? And are there other aspects of that as well?

Jeff Henderson:

So a way to think about this could possibly be this phrase, it’s okay to check more than one career box. It’s okay to check more than one career box. I didn’t know that. In college they say, “What is your major?” And they gave you one box to check. You can only check one box, which I think that’s a terrible question to ask somebody at 18 or 19, and you’re limiting them. Going back to side households, another optimal option is getting your financial house in order. So let me give you an example. So when I was at Chick-fil-A and only crazy people like me ever leave Chick-fil-A.

Jeff Henderson:

But Wendy and I got married, and the first thing we did is, okay, we’re taking these two financial entities and we’re merging them together. And so we went through two financial small group classes to get our finances together. And we got to a point where… And weren’t saying, “Down the road, if we ever have to take a massive pay cut to launch a church, we’ll be ready.” We weren’t doing that. We just knew that we need to get our finances together, merged together, and get in a position so that if other opportunities come before us, we’re able to move. And we’re not dictated by our financial situation, that we are financially free to make that decision.

Jeff Henderson:

Well, being financially free is an optimal option. What that means is, is when I’m at Chick-fil-A and I’m invited to a church leadership conference in Chicago. And while at that church leadership conference, I felt an inclination or a calling to help launch a church. When I got back home from Chicago and shared that with Wendy, we didn’t say, “Oh, we can’t do that, because we’re not in a financial position to do that.”

Jeff Henderson:

So we had done the hard work, which took a couple of years to be in a position financially that eventually, when the opportunity with Buckhead Church came about, we had to take a massive pay cut, but it was okay, because we were in a financial position to do that. And that’s an optimal option, getting your financial house in order, creating a side hustle, developing your personal network.

Jeff Henderson:

And then also being a better student of your personal gifts and talents. What are those? What do you do really well? Because, as I mentioned earlier, your next step is probably going to come through your skillset. You’re not going to see me. You’re not going to see me post on Instagram that I have launched a musical career in this new season, because it’s not part of my background. I’m not saying you can’t do that. But if I’m now in my late 50s going to take up guitar lessons, it’s going to be quite a while for me to launch my new music on Spotify. But I am going to be a speaker, I am going to be a writer, and I am going to be a communication and leadership coach, because that’s part of my background.

Jeff Henderson:

So all of those optimal options, writing a book was an optimal option, let me test this message out. The mistake I see some people make is, “I want to write a book, so I’m going to quit my day job, and become an author overnight.” That might work for some people, but that’s not what I would recommend. I would recommend an optimal option of working on a book, getting it published, marketing it, going out and speaking on it, and seeing where it leads. That’s an optimal option.

Jeff Henderson:

But the challenge with this, Ryan, and this is the pushback I get. And I understand this is, “Ah, it’s going to take time.” It is going to take time. That’s why you need to get started today. It’s not going to take as long as you think, but it’s going to take some time.

Jeff Henderson:

And the other thing, another optimal option, and people really don’t like this, is building your character. This is what I tell people in their 20s and 30s, and they hate this, “The fast track is slower than you think, and that’s a good thing.” Because while a lot of folks want to fast track opportunities, you can’t fast track character and you can’t fast track that kind of stuff. You can’t fast track integrity, and character building really happens in those stretching seasons.

Jeff Henderson:

And sometimes when I meet with people, I’ll just say, “Hey, you’re in a stretching season, you need to stay right where you are. You’re being stretched right now. And it’s not fun, but you’re going to look back and see where this has helped you grow.” And so, one of the optimal options is to work on your character and work on the inner work of who you are. Another optimal option is to continue to sharpen your skillset. So when I coach a lot of communicators, if they’re starting early out and I’ll say, “Hey, the main thing you got to get is you got to get reps. And you got to go to civic clubs and youth groups. And if you need to pay people to hear you speak, that’s good. You got to get reps.”

Jeff Henderson:

Well, that’s an optimal option, going out there and working and building your career. But what I see people doing is building a platform before they actually build their skill set. And it’s easy to build a platform by posting on Instagram. It’s hard to do the work of actually developing a message. If somebody builds a platform, but they don’t have a message, their platform’s not going to go very far. So those are optimal options for me getting your financial house in order, maybe part-time jobs, starting something, working five, 10 hours a week on something, writing a book, seeing if it works, putting some lines in the water, and see what bites out there.

Ryan Fitzgerald:

The world has changed so much now that these new opportunities, or it looks like people have success overnight, so much quicker, but that sustained long term success is really built in that kind of investing in the margin and building a foundation over time.

Jeff Henderson:

One of the things I write in the book, too, is find your muse. Who is your muse? And who’s your inspiration? For me, three of them in the season, four of them really have been in the season has been Stephanie Stuckey, who has taken over her family’s business, for those of you that grew up in the south, you’re familiar with Stuckey’s; Jeni Britton Bauer, who launched Jeni’s ice cream; Michael Hyatt and John Maxwell. Those four are kind of pathways for me to keep my eye on to follow their trajectory and where they’re going. And so when I get stuck or when I’ve had a bad day, I look at what they’re doing.

Jeff Henderson:

I remember, one time I went up to Michael hyatt’s office in Franklin, Tennessee, this is about four years ago. And don’t miss that statement, Ryan, that was four years ago. The fast track is slower than you think. I went up to coach their team and Michael on communication. And I saw that Michael walks to work. I mean, he had a successful business, but he really had a successful life. And I got home that day from Franklin, Tennessee, and I told Wendy, I said, “I don’t know how to describe this, but I think I saw a picture of what I want to do.”

Ryan Fitzgerald:

Oh, wow.

Jeff Henderson:

And I don’t know what it is.” So sometimes it’s not words. Sometimes it’s just a picture, I’ll be like, “I want to do something similar to what she’s doing or he’s doing.” Those images, those examples can help you when you can’t articulate it quite yet, in terms of what you want to do next.

Ryan Fitzgerald:

That’s so amazing. Being inspired by someone else, who’s farther along the path. I feel like that’s an example throughout your story, putting the advisory board together, you kind of show that like, hey, listening to wise counsel, seeing someone else who’s moved forward and done it before you, and getting to learn from that kind of drives your success in each season. And it’s grown your platform along the way.

Ryan Fitzgerald:

We’ve talked about quite a few of the principles in your book thus far, is there one more that you feel like maybe we haven’t woven into the conversation yet that you think is especially important to our listeners today, if they’re sitting the season trying to figure out what that change might look like for them in the future?

Jeff Henderson:

One of the most helpful decisions I made, and I know not everyone can probably find this person or do this, but I hired a transition consultant that helps me just bounce ideas off. His name was Bob Lewis, I mention him in the book, and this is what he does for a living. He helps people transition from one job to the next. And so my first meeting with Bob, I said, “Hey, I have three business issues and I have one emotional issue, just about the grief I’m feeling of leaving what I really love to start something new.”

Jeff Henderson:

So he said, “Let’s start with the emotions.” We spent the whole hour, just talking about the emotional grief of that. But the opportunity to bounce ideas and thoughts and questions and emotions to an expert in transitions, and for him to give me advice, and say, “Jeff, you’re not crazy, this is actually normal,” was so helpful.

Jeff Henderson:

I’ll give you an example, I write in the book, I get a call one day about a speaking engagement, which is great. I mean, early on, this is just a few weeks in, I’m still trying to figure out what I’m doing. In fact, Ryan, I’m still trying to figure out what I’m doing. So I get this really incredible opportunity. “Oh, this is going to work.” I get up out of my desk, I go to tell Wendy, and I’m just overcome with grief and emotion. And I just hit one knee and just start sobbing, just all the emotions. And so I had a meeting with Bob the next day and I said, “Okay. I think I’m losing my mind. On one moment, I’m like incredibly excited. In the split second, I’m just still grieving over the loss of my last season.”

Jeff Henderson:

And he said, “Jeff, the emotionally healthy person can hold joy in sorrow at the same time.” And that was worth the consultant fee that day and the whole time. So you don’t have to necessarily hire a professional transition consultant, but if there’s someone that you can be meeting with on a regular basis who understands this world, who understands the pain. Bob would have this diagram of kind of a halfpipe, and he would say, “Some days you’re going to have a good day, but then you’re going to swing back down. And some days you’re going to have a bad day and you’re not going to feel like you’re making any progress. What we want to do is to get so much momentum that eclipse this halfpipe and you get to the other side.”

Jeff Henderson:

And he said, “It’s going to take you longer than you think, but you’ll get there.” So hiring or you can just read what Bob showed me, there’s an old chapter about, about what he taught me in terms of that transition. But a lot of transitions are more internal than external, and that’s why you have to leave really well. And how you leave the organization is one thing, how the organization leaves you is another thing. That’s their responsibility. How you leave the organization is your responsibility. So leave well, do your very, very best to leave well. And then at the end of the day, look at what’s happening in internally, because the soft skills and what’s happening inside of you is really, really important. So hiring a transition consultant like that was a game changer for me.

Ryan Fitzgerald:

That’s incredible. So much of what you just shared explains the last year of my life. So I hope to our listeners that this was helpful for you too. At the very least, this was kind of my paid counseling session, so thank you. No, that was really incredible. I feel like we’ve covered quite a few things. The career risk calculator, that assessment, we’ve got the idea of a personal advisory board working on your next steps, creating optimal options, so many things that are clear next steps. But you lay out that in much more detail and quite a bit more in your book. How can people connect with you and learn more about your book, What to Do Next?

Jeff Henderson:

They can just go to jeffhenderson.com. They’ll see the free career risk assessment there, and then it provides next steps. And, yeah, just go to Jeff henderson.com. And if they’re currently frustrated where they are, I would encourage them to try to transition that frustration to action. And an action could be just going our website and taking the career risk assessment, and then we provide some practical, next steps for you to do. So action, action, action, and it’s simple things. It’s not this massive, like I said earlier, figure out the rest of my life. It’s simple steps such as, okay, maybe we need to get our financial house in order. Maybe we need to eliminate some debt, so that we can create some more optimal options. So I would just go to jeffhenderson.com, you’re going to see the resources there, and then an opportunity to get the book as well.

Ryan Fitzgerald:

Well, I encourage all of you to get it. It’s going to be so helpful for so many people. Jeff, your story, for years, has been so inspiring for people. And to our listeners, Jeff is going to stick around. He’s actually going to answer one more question in our kind of bonus next step. It’s going to be all about navigating unexpected change. So you don’t want to miss that. And to hear that you’re going to subscribe to our email list, and we’ll send you a link to our bonus content, or you can visit onenextsteppodcast.com where you can find a link to that in our show notes. Jeff, thank you so much. This was an unbelievable conversation and such a gift to so many people.

Jeff Henderson:

Thanks, Ryan. I’m such a big fan of BELAYs and so great to see you. And thanks for having me on the podcast, really, really appreciate it.

Ryan Fitzgerald:

Thanks, Jeff.

Ryan Fitzgerald:

What a fantastic conversation. I’ve known Jeff for many years and all of the work he’s done has just been incredibly inspiring to me. And honestly, the way that he left Gwinnett, something that he built, gave me permission to start imagining what I could do next as well. And I’m so, so grateful for that. I love specifically his conversation about, is your network growing? Is where you’re at right now are you growing with more people? More people are speaking into your life> his personal advisory board has been something that’s kind of driven so much for me as well. And I just hope that not only out of our conversation, but your opportunity to kind of pick up his book that you take away so much as well.

Ryan Fitzgerald:

And in fact, Jeff is generously offering up a free chapter of his brand new book, What to Do Next. You can head to our show notes to access the download and make sure to pick up your copy on August 23rd. You can pre-order it now, or you can buy that on August 23rd. That book is What to Do Next, and you’re definitely going to want to get it.

Ryan Fitzgerald:

So grateful for Jeff and him giving his time to have this conversation today. And I just want to thank you so much for tuning in for this week’s One Next Step. To make sure you never miss an episode, subscribe on Apple Podcast or follow us on Spotify. And if you’re ready to start accomplishing more and juggling less, go to belaysolutions.com. For more episodes, show notes and helpful resources, visit onenextsteppodcast.com.

Ryan Fitzgerald:

Next week we’ll be joined by BELAY’s own social media specialist, Jessica Doehling. Jessica, and I will be talking about the social media state of the union in 2022, including the dos and don’ts for small business leaders and entrepreneurs. Whether you’re overwhelmed by social media or you’re trying to be everywhere all at once, this episode will be full of practical steps you can take.

Jessica Doehling:

People don’t connect with brands, people connect with people. When you’re doing short form content and video form, people can see your face, and then they can see your authenticity, they can see your transparency. It builds more trust. It opens the door for more conversation and engagement. If you are creating content on social, you have to be thinking about the short form video content, and how you can transition into that.