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PM-Mastery's Top Five Episodes of All Time - 2024

• Walt Sparling • Season 1 • Episode 61

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In This Episode:

This is a special milestone issue. 2024 has been a crazy year for many with various life and career transitions. I wanted to do a special milestone issue with the top five most downloaded podcast episodes as of October 2024. I was able to get back four out of the five top guests to do a catch up episode. Amanda Sherman co-hosted this episode with me. Links to the original episodes and other materials for each interviewee are provided below.

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Intro/Outro:

Welcome to the PM Mastery Podcast. This podcast is all about helping you master your project management skills by sharing tips, tricks, tools and training to get you to the next level, while sharing the stories of other project managers on their journey in project management. And now here's your host, walt Sparling.

Walt Sparling:

Welcome everybody to the current edition of PM Mastery. And today I have a panel of guests. And today I have a panel of guests all former interviewees on the podcast. In fact they are the top five most popular episodes on the podcast. Since the beginning of the podcast the interviews happened anywhere from, I'd say, a year and a half to over two years ago a year and a half to over two years ago and very consistent downloads and ahead of quite a bit of the other episodes. So you guys were like super popular. So we do have a couple that could not make it this evening. One is still trying on the road and one had a last minute work conflict. So I'll talk a little bit about them while they're not here and then hopefully she'll forgive me. So with us today we have, in no particular order, kayla McGuire, melissa Chapman, joseph Phillips and missing we have Teresa O'Hanlon and Nicole Caputo, and then I have my occasional lovely Amanda Sherman, who co-hosts some episodes with me. Welcome all of you.

Mellissa Chapman:

Hello, glad to be here.

Walt Sparling:

So what we're going to do is just this is great. You guys were the most popular, so you've got some magic, and I thought we'd just celebrate that and talk a little bit about what's happened since the last time you were on the podcast. So I know each of you just I follow you all on LinkedIn and I know that you've made transitions since you were last on, so I thought we'd talk a little bit about that and see where it takes us that and see where it takes us.

Walt Sparling:

So I'm going to start with Kayla. Yay, okay, I'm so excited, so tell us a little bit about from when you were last on the podcast, which, according to my notes, was in 2023 2023.

Kayla McGuire:

You are correct, june of 2023 uh-huh and I I think that was actually the first podcast I was ever on and now you're famous.

Walt Sparling:

see, I don't just coming on here can make a huge difference. It jump-started my career. Everything's changed. Yes, and I think you had four to go, and I just looked at your subscription list yesterday and you're almost 4,000.

Kayla McGuire:

So I am. Thank you and I remember that. I remember that conversation with you and I was so excited to hit a thousand. I thought that's just going to be it and yeah, now I'm at. I think 3683 is the number I see.

Walt Sparling:

And that's pretty good Cause I looked at it yesterday and it was 3670. So you bumped a lot just in the last day.

Amanda Sherman:

Yeah.

Walt Sparling:

Now, when you first came on, you were doing uh, pm consulting. You were also you were doing a course on four individuals that were interested in getting into consulting and you had started a blog in the beginning and then you switched to the YouTube channel. You're very active on LinkedIn and you have a huge following on LinkedIn as well. Linkedin, and you have a huge following on LinkedIn as well. A bootcamp that's what you were doing. A bootcamp for PMs.

Mellissa Chapman:

Yeah.

Walt Sparling:

So is that? Are you still doing all that? You're doing anything else?

Kayla McGuire:

Well, life evolves, it changes, so I am still doing a lot of that, but sort of in different capacities. So when we talked in 2023, I was doing very specific project management consulting, project management work, and for the past year and a half, I've been doing more fractional operations strategic consulting for business owners, so a little bit more holistic type of work there, rather than just focusing on the project management, although I still love project management and I seem to come at everything with a project management framework which I'm sure so many of my fellow project managers can relate to. But, yeah, I've been doing this fractional operations strategic consulting. It's been great. I've learned a lot still on LinkedIn, like you mentioned, and yeah, I've shifted my LinkedIn strategy a little bit too to talk more about I don't know just the nuances of working in life, rather than being solely focused on project management.

Kayla McGuire:

After a couple years, I got almost tired of talking about project management all the time. So, yeah, I've been leaning into that with my LinkedIn. Youtube has been happening, been doing a lot of interviews with some really great folks on YouTube, because I got tired of doing these monologue videos where it's just me talking to the camera, so I started inviting other experts and industry leaders onto my channel. So that's what's happening on YouTube, and I don't do the bootcamp anymore. I spun that off into a course which is available on demand. It has all the same information that I use with my clients and that I've learned through my own experience and have helped others with in boot camps and one-on-one coaching. So, yeah, oh, and I was able to participate in a book project called Executing Excellence with 10 other project managers. That was a fun project that came my way. I guess that was in 2023. So lots of really exciting stuff happening.

Walt Sparling:

Good deal and welcome Teresa. Teresa just joined us. I know she was stuck in traffic. Are you still stuck in traffic, teresa?

Teresa O'Hanlon:

Oh, now Can you hear me.

Walt Sparling:

Oh, now we can hear you.

Teresa O'Hanlon:

Okay, it's been a while since I've been on Zoom. Yeah, I am home now. We just got home. It took about an hour to go, like five miles, so it was a rough day on the road.

Walt Sparling:

I think it was a Florida issue, because Amanda and I were both about an hour.

Teresa O'Hanlon:

Yeah, traffic's been bad today.

Walt Sparling:

Welcome on.

Teresa O'Hanlon:

Thank you.

Walt Sparling:

So, kayla, exciting stuff. Now let's see who are we going to jump to next? I guess right at right across from you is melissa, so we're going to jump over to melissa sounds good so, melissa, I believe you followed kayla a couple months it was august, yeah, august of last summer and you have a very interesting path in that you used to be a teacher and then you decided to go into project management.

Walt Sparling:

You saw some parallels. You put together an application and you applied and they said uh-uh. And you said uh-huh and you went back and redid your application and they audited you again, but I believe you were then accepted. Sure was. And now you're doing that, or have been doing that for quite a while helping other people, especially transitioning teachers, get into project management.

Mellissa Chapman:

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, so we were. We had our conversation in August and the timing of that I was thinking back to that. Shortly after that, I released an ebook on the PMP application process and kind of shared that whole process that you just explained how I was audited and denied and then audited again and then reapplied and all those things, and so, yeah, I created a resource that I now help other people think through the experience that they have that isn't official or I would call traditional project management experience. They maybe didn't have the job title of project manager, but have experience. You could talk to administrative assistants, you talk to nurses, school counselors, teachers all kinds of people who have project management experience. So, anyway, I wrote that e-book and that came out not too long after you and I spoke and I started coaching also.

Mellissa Chapman:

So all of these things were things that I didn't really seek out.

Mellissa Chapman:

I didn't make this list of, oh, I'm going to do this and then this, but these opportunities kept falling in my lap and so I started coaching, because I kept getting asked if I coached and I thought I'll give it a try and then started working with a lot of transitioning teachers, either pivoting into project management or just trying to leave the classroom and helping them find clarity and update their resume and how to translate whatever experience they have in teaching or other industries into project management or somewhere else.

Mellissa Chapman:

So I've been doing a lot of that have the opportunity to work with Better Career and create a project management learning module where a whole program where people who are looking to pivot into project management have never heard of project management have a five module course where they can learn about how to do that, learn about project management and have job seeker resources. I'm very excited about that project that I also stumbled upon and other projects that are coming in the future. So very excited about just the last year and all the opportunities that have come from yeah, being a middle school teacher at one point and now I'm working with all kinds of people, so this is pretty exciting.

Walt Sparling:

Yeah, You've. You've also put together quite a list of followers on LinkedIn.

Mellissa Chapman:

Yeah.

Walt Sparling:

It's.

Mellissa Chapman:

It's also been one of those things I have a mix of again, a lot of transitioning teachers.

Mellissa Chapman:

Every time I write Kayla and I actually talked about this not too long ago you know, when I go out, when I set out to like write a post on LinkedIn and I've done all this research and I have stats or this or that those posts do not do well.

Mellissa Chapman:

When I just write one on a whim in two seconds and like throw it on LinkedIn, those things they'll go viral. I have people like those get shared like tons of times, and most of the time the ones that do really well in my network are anything to do with changing careers or transitioning teachers. And I think it's because I have a network of not only project managers but also educators, and a lot of project managers have either their own kids in education or know someone who was a teacher, and so it resonates with a lot of people who are concerned about education in our country, and so it's an interesting place to get to straddle that line and be able to. Some days I wake up, like Kayla said, some days I wake up and I feel like I want to write about project management, and then other days I write about teaching and how to support people who are looking for jobs. So I just kind of write what I feel like, and I don't really have a LinkedIn strategy. It's just whatever I feel like.

Walt Sparling:

That's your strategy.

Mellissa Chapman:

That is my strategy.

Amanda Sherman:

I had a question for Melissa. How is like when you transition fellow teachers over to project management, what's your, what's the feedback that you get from them? Like they're you know once they've been in it for maybe about a year or so. So it's always interesting to see that or to hear about people's experiences in general. So what's kind of your feedback that you've gotten from your, the folks that have transitioned?

Mellissa Chapman:

Yeah, you know you hear this a lot, but the biggest thing is work-life balance. Teachers are just overworked and underpaid and I know that's a cliche, but it's very true. There's a real thing called the Sunday night scary, and that's not just, you know, isolated to teachers, but a lot of teachers feel that and I felt that a lot. And so just having this experience where I get excited about my job on Monday morning and I'm not like waking, I'm not like dreading Sunday because of having to be on and feeling guilty if I'm not grading papers and not constantly doing work, and so that was the most significant change and my kids noticed it, my friends and family noticed it, and when I work with transitioning teachers, the thing I hear the most often is my family and my friends and my kids notice that I'm a different person, I'm able to give more to my family because I've left, and so, unfortunately, that's the reality for a lot of teachers is that it's just so draining that when they leave it's a significant, it's very noticeable, yeah wow, that is interesting.

Mellissa Chapman:

My own daughter said to me, mom, you're like I was three weeks out of out of the classroom. Mom, you're so much less stressed than you used to be. I mean like right away she noticed so that's.

Amanda Sherman:

That's really telling, because I really feel like project management. Um, it has its ups and downs, but it does seem like a like it can be really stressful.

Mellissa Chapman:

Oh, it can be. It's not to say, it's not, it speaks volumes for our teachers.

Amanda Sherman:

Well, it speaks volumes because now I mean I think everyone in the room can attest to some project management stress moments, but that really speaks volumes about the pressures on our teachers. Yeah, interesting.

Walt Sparling:

Yeah, good question so I'm going to let amanda ask some, some more questions, and she's on a roll you're moving on the plot.

Amanda Sherman:

Well, I wanted to talk with teresa because teresa, it's been a minute since we caught up and stuff. But, um, so I, if I'm recalling right, I feel like you were probably you were one of the first 10, I think, podcast interviews that Walt, that Walt held, you know, back in the day and you're and um, I feel like your story is pretty inspiring. Um, because theresa and I work together, so we um, I got to see her just shoot up there because she is most awesome in the the topics that she spoke about. Um, so it was a one note was your um, your tool of choice and um and calendar blocking? So I would ask like, have you? I'd be curious is if you what other tools you might use now or that you might share with us.

Teresa O'Hanlon:

Yeah, absolutely yeah. I would say. My latest tool of choice is Smartsheet. I don't know if anyone else on the call is using Smartsheet.

Teresa O'Hanlon:

It's. It's a really interesting take on Excel. It's a little bit more interactive and I think it's actually a project. It can potentially be a project management tool and I think it's actually a project. It can potentially be a project management tool. You can use it for that to track schedules, but it can also be used to like as an intake form. You can use it to interact with people that are outside of the technology and they can use a form to submit data. There's just a lot of different ways to use it and we found, I would say, a handful of ways to use it with my team. That's definitely helped improve efficiency and workflows and automations and things like that. So that's the latest one. I'm still in OneNote, though I use that heavily for playbooks and just my own personal note-taking. Calendar blocking is key to stay on track, I know. For me personally, I actually probably got that more from Walt than I got from my own toolkit, if you will. But yeah, smartsheet is definitely the number one thing for me right now.

Amanda Sherman:

Interesting. You'd be so proud of me now and how developed I have become with OneNote. I was, um, when she said I was struggling and I'm actually a teacher, where I am right now a little bit yeah, I use it a lot now for sure, um, so it's been a while since we caught up. So you have grown in your job and just maybe if you could tell us a little bit about it, because you started out in project management as a project coordinator project coordinator, which, I have to say, I knew she wasn't going to be there this long, that long because she was awesome at keeping, at corralling all the project managers in our department and keeping them on track and everything like that. She was the best. So I know you moved up and out and where are you now?

Teresa O'Hanlon:

Yeah, yeah, so I still interact with the project managers. But I work in a department called the Center of Excellence and we're kind of similar to a PMO, you know, project management office. But we support all of the different facets of our account team. So we also have, like, facilities management. We have a workplace strategy which has occupancy planning and lease admin. There's, you know, the RPM team relocation, project management and moves. So we kind of go in to support the different teams in whatever way they need in terms of process improvement, playbook creation, documentation, and then I also help with communications for the account. But yeah, I went from project coordinator to like a strictly a governance and process improvement role and now I'm in change management communications specifically for internal team.

Walt Sparling:

Now I happen to remember where you did a short stint as a project manager just to get a feel for it, and after the end of that you're like, yeah, I'm good.

Teresa O'Hanlon:

It was fun. I just think my where I really like shine and where my strength is is working with process and finding better solutions to like what people are currently doing and it's not to say that anything that they do today is bad. I just like to find ways to make people more efficient and to help them. You know, if they can take something they do and it takes them an hour and we can cut it down to 10 minutes, like I think that's a huge win and it helps with the work-life balancing right, because if you can take something that's an hour and chop it down to 10 minutes, like I think that's a huge win and it helps with the work-life balancing right, cause if you can take something that's an hour and chop it down to 10 minutes, then maybe you can spend, you know, a little bit more time with your kids or take a walk or you know whatever else they want to do.

Walt Sparling:

Great stuff.

Amanda Sherman:

Sounds like. Sounds like somebody else. I know if I'm pointing the wall so I do.

Walt Sparling:

I do remember, I mean all the fun times working with theresa. Back in the day and I was just looking your interview was actually in 2021, so you were in the early days and it was a. It took off that. Your episode took off right away. It was just like for I think for over a year and a half you were number one. It's just crazy how popular it was Like we were just talking about it before you got on, too is project coordinator roles. It's, I think it's like an entryway into a lot of positions which it was for you. You came from. You were a I'm trying to remember the title you had before you came over. You worked for a manufacturing company, didn't you?

Teresa O'Hanlon:

Yes, yeah, electronics manufacturer, and I kind of bumped around into different roles at that company. They were pretty small, but I was in business development when I left the company when I left the company.

Walt Sparling:

So it's good to see you.

Teresa O'Hanlon:

I happen to catch wind of all hands today and I think I saw your name popping up a lot in there. Yeah, yeah, we have an employee of the quarter and I happened to win it, and along with another colleague it wasn't just me and it's all based off of our internal recognition program. It's just how many recognitions you get from this program in the quarter, so it was definitely objective. I promise it wasn't subjective. I say that because I also helped to run this meeting. So yeah, it was fun for sure.

Walt Sparling:

It was fun for sure. Good deal Glad to have you on and to have you in the top five, thank you. Of course we don't want to skip past Joe here. Joe is also in the top five. He's like the thorn among all the roses here. I have to say I am amazed at all of you know all but Joe in the top are women and very successful and, I would say, powerful women. And I I'm amazed. When I got into project management, it was I more on the male side and I started working with some incredible female PMs and then I met Amanda, who was awesome and, I believe, still is. I don't work with her now, but was a great PM and on our team we are, I think we have three guys and four ladies, so there's a lot of professional pms out there that are women and doing a incredible job.

Mellissa Chapman:

So I'm excited to see that I don't think any of us ladies are surprised. Walt, of course not did I say surprised?

Walt Sparling:

I just, I just am impressed. I think it's awesome because i't know, like in the early days it was just like I think when I first talked with you, melissa, I thought differently of teacher transitioning.

Mellissa Chapman:

Yes, I remember us having that conversation.

Walt Sparling:

I was like, come on, teachers can't be project managers.

Mellissa Chapman:

I'm like wait a second. Let me tell you all the things, walt.

Walt Sparling:

And we went down through all the lists and the parallels and I'm like, well, you know what that actually makes a lot of sense, yeah.

Mellissa Chapman:

So I think the biggest one is they're used to dealing with children and what do we do every day?

Amanda Sherman:

Cat herding, cat herding yeah.

Walt Sparling:

So, children, joe, tell us a little bit about you when I let's see, the last time you were on, we were reviewing a book of yours and I believe it was it might. Was it the capm? I have it here on my shelf. Uh, no, pmp. Oh okay, I remember we had a lot of detailed conversation about how heavy it was and how cool the cover was, and we actually got into.

Joseph Phillips:

Thank god they didn't put my picture on it. Yeah, I've been, um, very fortunate. Well, first off, to say I'm really humbled to be, you know, in this group. I mean, all y' all have such depth and a lot of cool things you're doing. So, yeah, I might be the only guy, but what an impressive group of people. So thank you for having me on, walt.

Joseph Phillips:

As always, my career's been just a conglomerate of things, you know consulting, writing and teaching. And then I really moved from, you know, adult education and not like little kids. I mean, let's be real, what is it that? My best advice I ever got was on a book of matches keep dry and away from children. So, yeah, but adult education. So I started teaching at a college and then I went to online education and then recorded. You know, that's really the last six years have seen my audience. Just, we just broke through a million people in my classes this year. So that's really humbling.

Joseph Phillips:

When I was traveling to Arkansas a couple weeks ago, I was grabbing a sandwich and this lady was like Joseph Joseph. I'm like I don't know this lady and she's like I'm in your class, I want to get a picture. I'm like, all right, of course, it was kind of cool. And then I had a similar experience playing golf and I got paired with this guy and at the end of the round he was like I know, I know you, I'm in your class. It's like oh, what did I just say the last four hours? So it's, I'm the luckiest guy. I know for sure, have had just a tremendous amount of luck of being at the right place at the right time, having really really good people to help. So since we talked I haven't written any more books. In fact I passed on one of my titles on the CAPM. I opted not to do that just time-wise. It just didn't make sense for how the other one performed.

Joseph Phillips:

But I'm looking at revamping the PMI ACP, as that's changing here in a few days with PMI and their crafty ways. So it'll be interesting to see what comes of that certification and the discipline agile. So I'm keeping an eye on that and I've been working on a top secret project which a few of you know about. That is taking me about a year to get to this point, or just over a year, and we're looking to go live at the end of the year or January and all of you will hear about this. I'm sure, if you're not already involved, I think three of you are involved, so it's been kind of an evolution of ideas to get to this point.

Joseph Phillips:

I don't want to let the cat out of the bag or spill the beans or any other cliche you can think of, but it's something I'm really excited about. It's kind of getting back to the realistic expectations of projects, and I think there's a lot of fluff in theory and navel gazing that happens in projects. So this is more about core project management and getting things done, like Teresa, using practical tools. I think that's exactly what we have to do. You can know all the theories in the world and talk about Pareto, but if you can't get things done, what difference does it make?

Joseph Phillips:

So I'm a big advocate of Smartsheets as well. I think it's a really good, really good app. So yeah, so I've been just kind of chugging along. Business is growing. I partnered with O'Reilly this year to do some courses for them, working on another course for them now and still just banging out content for YouTube and LinkedIn. But I have a tremendous team now, a good, really good group of people. So I'm I'm really blessed, really lucky, and who knows what this next year is going to going to hold. I'm pretty excited about this project, which you'll see in December, early January.

Walt Sparling:

We'll be talking about it on the podcast. I can tell.

Joseph Phillips:

Yeah, a little teaser there of things to come.

Walt Sparling:

Awesome, that's my shtick I want to say real briefly and anybody can chime in but Nicole, who couldn't make it today. She had a work conflict and would have loved to have her on. She actually works in the environmental world and she does kind of part-time project management with what she does. But she's a very techie person when it comes to environmental stuff and sad that she couldn't make it tonight, but I might get her on another episode. Just catch up with her because it's been a while since we've chatted on on the podcast. Do you guys have any questions for each other? I know a few of you intermingle quite a bit, like especially kayla and melissa, and I know we're all in similar groups and Joe on LinkedIn. So what do we got? Who's got? What are you?

Joseph Phillips:

what are you been doing?

Walt Sparling:

Well, oh, oh, yeah, I did say I was going to share some stuff, didn't I? Yeah, but you have a spot. So it was 2024, 2024 was a big transition year for me. I changed jobs. I was with another account I'm on, I work for a large international real estate company and we I work on the uh project development side where we do accounts, and I was on an energy account which Teresa is still on same one. That's how I met her and I trans, transitioned over to a huge international banking organization and I stepped down. I was a regional lead and so I managed a team of PMs and they burnt me out. They just I had to get out of it. I think it was just more of the account and everything going on and I switched. Now I went back down to a senior PM role and it's freed up a ton of my time and I get now I'm like focused on other side things that I never had time to do before, cause at the other place I was coming home and just wanting to crash. So I am actually working on a book, I am working on setting up some coaching, which actually I talked to Melissa about last week and maybe some training, but I did have a PM reach out to me that I used to work with to do some mentoring for them. So starting to do more or kind of get in the practical stuff and work with some PMs to help them grow along, I did.

Walt Sparling:

This is not a big deal compared to some of you, because I looked at your followers on LinkedIn and I'm hoping this episode gets me a few more, but I think we have a couple in the 20s 20,000s. Joe, I think you're around 40,000. And I just hit like just shy of 3,100. So I have a big family, but I but I'll tell you what I part of it is what you guys do is being consistent and out there and I know you talk about sometimes you write serious stuff and sometimes you just say whatever you want. And I I know Kayla I've seen her post transition over the last year or so and so good organic growth and I'm hoping to do that once I start getting into these other areas and get a book out there and get this secret project out there, and I'm excited about all the stuff that's going to come in 25, which is right around the corner. So that's kind of what's going on with me. So back to everyone else.

Amanda Sherman:

I got a question that posed for the group and Walt you included, because you're part of the folks that have kind of transitioned, kind of doing your own thing, kind of transition, kind of doing your own thing.

Amanda Sherman:

But Joey mentioned the supportive people you know around him that helped him succeed and they kind of made me question, like some made I think all of us have, but some have made like a really big jump. Like you know, melissa went from teacher to project manager, kayla, you, girl, your story was like wow, like a really big jump. Like you know, melissa went from teacher to project manager kayla, you, girl, you your story was like wow because you went and did your own thing. And it made me ask like, um, there's people who are thinking about doing this and thinking about going into project management but scared to do it and like, so what made you go? Okay, I can do this, I'm, I'm just gonna go and like. So Joe, you know, mentioned people that you know really supported, you know, circle of friends and family. Um, I know that's not all of it, it's just, but you know what's there, you know what kind of made you go or helped you make that step to go, do that.

Joseph Phillips:

Well, I always ask myself what's the worst that could happen, I mean the really, really ultimate worst that could happen. So if you want to take on a role and you're scared to do it, what's the worst that could happen? I mean, if you fail, what's the worst that could happen? I mean, if you fail, what's the worst that could happen? And you begin to put things in perspective that it's really. It might be scary because you don't want to fail. I mean, obviously no one wants to fail. You want to do a good job.

Joseph Phillips:

But when you go into something intimidated, I think it becomes harder to perform, to have that confidence, and then you get that whole imposter syndrome of I don't really belong here. So I think there are two things that an individual can do. One is education. Education. When you know what you're talking about, you're more confident.

Joseph Phillips:

And the second thing is exactly what you hit on is that you need other people, and I think a lot of project managers, because they don't want to fail and they feel so much pressure they put on themselves that they want to do everything themselves. And it's like if you ever watch a surgery, the surgeon's not doing everything. You have the med tech and the anesthesiologist, the other nurses. You need a team, you have to delegate and then to trust people is something that you just have to do as a PM and you know trust but verify, but you have to let go. So I think, where all of us come to some extent as an education background, that you get confidence through knowledge and then you apply that knowledge, you get confidence, confidence by learning, and it's just a snowball effect.

Kayla McGuire:

So that's I would I would add to that too to say like to remember that confidence is built over time. It doesn't just happen like you're saying you might get that from education, whatever. So for me I think it was little stuff being brave enough to take one little step and realizing that I could do it, and then taking a little bit bigger step and you just keep going and you prove to yourself that you can do it.

Joseph Phillips:

Yeah, absolutely. And the whole snowball effect that confidence breeds confidence.

Kayla McGuire:

Yeah, yeah.

Walt Sparling:

Well, when you talk about you know Joe was talking about supportive people. When I first started I was doing design work and I was a project manager for design projects. But I decided I wanted to go out and be like a full-time PM, real, real PM, get my certification, and I started looking into PMI and doing that. And then a friend of mine I'd known for 15 years we had worked together with three other firms called me up and said, hey, they're looking for a senior PM where I work and you'd be perfect. And I'm like no, I'm not a senior PM, I'm still kind of learning to be a PM. And she used an expletive word. It's send your word, resume and apply. So I did and that kicked off a whole new career for me. By doing that, I interviewed and was accepted and I worked with her for about another six years in that job and so, yeah, encouragement. People say you know, they know you and they go you can do this, just go do it.

Mellissa Chapman:

I think it's helpful to have people who have done it and I think you know part of you know, as I was mentioning coaching and these things that sort of kept happening is because people want to see someone two or three steps ahead of them. And so I was a teacher and I started on LinkedIn looking for a job and I documented every step of the way and all of my failures and all of the hundreds of jobs and then, as I documented how I changed my resume and started getting interviews, and people I think really resonate with seeing someone else be successful and hearing their story, and so I think being able to share that and talk about that and document that people are, it's helpful. When you have your own imposter syndrome, I mean the day that I applied to the PMP application and I got denied, I literally took the rest of the day off. I was in my classroom and I left, which never happens ever, like you never take a day off but I was just so devastated, had such real imposter syndrome, like what am I doing?

Mellissa Chapman:

What am I possibly thinking I could be doing here, regrouped, you know, went back at it kind of like no, I can do this, and having that confidence to say you know what, I'm going to keep trying. It's like a bit of perseverance, right, and being able to share that story. And now I help other people who are in that same imposter syndrome phase where they're like I don't know what can I do, what could I do? What happens if I fail? What happens if I get rejected? I'm like, well, I'm here to tell you that's not the end of the story. You can keep pushing forward and so just being able to share that story and encourage others I think everyone here has versions of that that we can share.

Teresa O'Hanlon:

That's a great point, melissa. I took a training once that was about imposter syndrome and they said one way to combat that is to put yet at the end of your sentence. So you know, in your case I don't have my certification yet but I will get it. You know I can't do this yet but I will get you know there at some point. So I think that's really really valid, like failures can happen, but you know you can get through them.

Teresa O'Hanlon:

And the other thing I would mention for me personally when I took my role, is I kind of became a yes person for a while and I said yes to a lot of things. I said yes to a lot of things I normally would say no to because I felt like I either couldn't do it or I wasn't maybe confident to do it. But I knew that saying yes would would kind of push me into a growth perspective instead of getting stagnant. So so that's led to kind of where I'm at today and it's helped. I mean, now I'm kind of in a position where maybe I can say no to some things because you know you start to become that yes person and you may get too much on your plate and you got to know, you know, when it's time to stop and just let yourself, you know, handle what you have. But that's kind of how I, at least, was able to get the confidence to kind of move forward, you know, and to be where I'm at today.

Walt Sparling:

Okay, kayla had to drop. Thanks, kayla, if you're still here, I understand, and I know this is.

Kayla McGuire:

Got to go. Got to go, thank you, but my little girl's home.

Walt Sparling:

All right, thanks, kayla.

Kayla McGuire:

Good to see you, guys, thank you.

Walt Sparling:

Good to see you guys. Thank you, good to see you, and I think, melissa, I know you also have responsibilities I know we get a little late start today because of the Florida traffic, so three of us were late, but I want to thank all of you for coming on. This was it was great to see you guys again. I mean other than just seeing you on LinkedIn. It's great to have everyone together. Any final thoughts or did anyone have a? Did you know they can share?

Amanda Sherman:

I was going to say we got to have a signature one. Did you know? Before we leave here.

Walt Sparling:

I didn't plan on it. Did you know what I got? One cool, very Florida, very Florida-esque.

Amanda Sherman:

Did you know what I got? One Cool, Very Florida, very Florida-esque. It's about our mosquito, our state bug and one did you know that mosquitoes have teeth, teeth. That's what I said. And then teeth, yeah, what I said. And then yeah, and 47 at that. So Wow. I didn't feel he was thinking about it.

Mellissa Chapman:

I might have nightmares tonight.

Teresa O'Hanlon:

I just thought it was those little probes.

Amanda Sherman:

I thought, so too.

Kayla McGuire:

I don't know.

Amanda Sherman:

Did you know, mosquitoes have 47 teeth.

Teresa O'Hanlon:

I know.

Walt Sparling:

All right Well thanks again for all of you coming on, you top five rock stars, and we, or I, look forward to hopefully seeing many of you again back on other future episodes. So enjoy your evening and for everyone else. We'll see you on the next episode of PM Mastery.

Joseph Phillips:

Thank, you Walt Nice to see everyone All right.

Intro/Outro:

Nice to meet everyone. Thanks for listening to the PM Mastery podcast at wwwpm-masterycom. Be sure to subscribe in your podcast player. Until next time, keep working on your craft.