It is not that easy to do a career change, especially when pivoting to a completely different industry. What does it take in terms of skills and mindset for you to be successful in such a huge shift in life? Career coach EB Sanders works with creative individuals who need guidance in this regard. She talks with Melanie Parish about her work on career development, which is now mainly done through virtual platforms due to the pandemic. EB also emphasizes the challenges faced by women, people of color, and members of the marginalized sector regarding career opportunities which, despite the increasing awareness, continue to be a problem in modern society. 

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EB Sanders On Pursuing A Career Change The Right Way 

I’ve been thinking about my own leadership in my organization. I’ve been trying to think about what are the jobs, what is the work that’s mine to inhabit fully? Some are tasks and figuring out how I can delegate those or bring those to a team as part of my work as a leader. I’ve been thinking about where am I best suited? One of the crazy places I find myself is as a spokesperson for my brand, speaking on the podcast, doing social media, creating videos for my courses. I’m an unlikely spokesperson. 

I’m middle-aged, chubby, little shy, but I’ve realized that I’m the only person that can play that role. I can’t afford to hire a celebrity, and they wouldn’t have the lifetime of knowledge and learning that I’ve had by being a coach for many years. I find it humorous. I chuckled to myself sometimes because I don’t think I’m particularly great at it, but I am real with it. I do understand that it’s my leadership journey. I wonder where you find yourself an unlikely leader. I’m curious to have you think about why you’ve ended up inhabiting that unlikely leadership role. 

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I’m here with EB Sanders, who’s a career coach who helps creative types ditch their fears and design their careers so they can achieve the fulfillment they want. She went from college professor to recruiting, and staffing specialist to a career coach, all in the name of helping people find their thing. She’s a sought-after coach and staffing consultant, serving creative individuals, companies and organizations. When she’s not coaching or consulting, she’s busy filming weekly videos, chockfull of no-nonsense, actionable career advice. In her words, “I want everyone to be happy in their careers like belting out Beyonce into your organic loofa in the shower on Monday mornings happy.” 

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EB, I am excited to have you on my show. 

Thank you so much for having me. I’m excited too. 

We’re going to have a blast talking. I have that feeling already. I want to start by asking you, what are you up to in your work? What are you doing? 

I’m working with one-on-one clients. I’ve got a course available and enrolling in a group program, which is one of my favorite things to do. It’s all about helping women, people and marginalized people gain the confidence to do anything they want to do and make that career change they’ve been longing for too long. 

I know lots of coaches. I know they’re thinking about a group program. I’d love to pick your brain. What have you learned? What have you experimented with? What’s worked? What hasn’t? What have you learned to do that? 

It’s my favorite part of my practice. I love my one-on-one clients. They’re amazing, but there’s an energy around a group program. You get more people, you get more energy. I have found that it works so well because there are many different points of view. Each person can act as a sounding board for another. They can all support each other and help each other out. Most of us do better in community settings. When we feel that we have that scaffolding, we have that support. Because groups are that, but they’re smaller, the vulnerability is a little bit more laid out easily. People feel more comfortable being honest, which is where the real work happens. 

You’ve got to get in, get deep, to see them support each other, lift each other up, and get honest about what they need. Doing the uncomfortable stuff to get uncomfortable asking for that within those groups is amazing to me. I love watching it. I love being part of it. I love that I’m very much not the only voice in the room. I can go through a whole group session and maybe have spoken for three minutes. It’s so much fun, supportive, changing to watch it happen. 

I’ve learned a lot though. In the entrepreneur world and coaching world, you’re told, “You have to have a Facebook community and these types of thing. You have to have all of these things.” I have found that my group joiners want none of that. They don’t want to have to get on Facebook. They don’t want to have to download three different apps. They don’t want to have assignments that they share with a bunch of anonymous people behind a screen. They want to join with a few other people going through the same experience as them and dig deep, face to face. I have found that to be a big surprise but also wonderful. 

What’s the magic number for how many people are in your group? 

The smallest group I have done has been about 6 and the largest is 12. I wouldn’t go larger than fifteen. At that point, it gets easy for people to hide. It’s the people that hide that need the most help. For me, I know there are very successful group programs, many more than that. For me, I want to be able to give people the attention they need. I love that smaller setting. I love that they can then feel comfortable. You start to feel much less comfortable when it’s a larger and larger group. I would say the magic number for me is somewhere between 10 and 14. 

I noticed that I’m making an assumption that you’re doing virtual groups. Is that right? 

It is. I have done an in-person workshop day, which I love because the energy there again is different. I came from an academic background, standing in front of a classroom, and it felt very familiar to me. It’s fun and doable, but I did find that with virtual groups very early on prior to it being a necessity. It made it more accessible for more people. It was lovely to have people who put their kids down for bed and they were coming from their night time. Show up to class with a glass of wine. The list goes getting off work and had very different energy within a minute. I enjoy that. It’s something even after it’s not necessarily any longer, I will continue to do. I would love to have an in-person workshop again as soon as possible. 

I’m curious about the platform. I’m assuming Zoom, but have you experimented with platforms at all for your groups? 

I get to used Zoom from the very beginning. A few years ago, I would tell clients or group members, “We’re going to use this platform.” They were like, “I have to download another thing. I don’t want to download a thing. What is this?” It’s comical to me now. Everyone is on it. It has made the platform better. I did try several years ago to run a group via Facebook and do it on Facebook Lives. I’ve never been a great Facebook proponent. I am a ghost on there for all intents and purposes. I found that I had people who didn’t want to be on Facebook because it’s very much something they actively didn’t want to be involved in. I learned that was not a platform. Since there is so much security around Zoom, I found it too much better for my clients. They feel much more secure and comfortable with it. 

I’m curious because you’re creating a community with your groups. Where are you housing those communities? 

It’s interesting because I don’t have a big brand community. Because of the feedback that I got from these groups very early on, they didn’t want that. They didn’t care about that. Very early on, they were like, “There’s only eight of us in this group. Let’s exchange emails and do this old school. Let’s have each other’s phone numbers. We can text each other if we need something.” Some very techies are like, “Let’s get on Boxer and we’ll send each other voice messages.” It was low–fi, but it has worked. They feel like it’s one less thing on their to-do list. It’s one less thing they feel like they got to be involved in. Especially now, everyone’s got so much screen fatigue. They’re like, “Please don’t give me more things to do online.” People have responded to the fact that I don’t have that component. If they want to join the conversation, I’m on Instagram. We can have it there. If they want it to be a little bit more personal, they can ask to reach out to me personally. 

I have found in my groups that they connect with each other super organically. I run on a platform called Teachable. All the videos are there, all their assignments, they can gather there. They can comment on things for each other within that platform as well. It also is nice that you can leave a comment for someone, but they can choose to take it or leave it without any pressure. It’s been nice and felt very organic. I’ve done it that way because, in one of the very first groups I had, half the members were like, “Please don’t make me sign up for Facebook to do this.” I like that aspect about it. I like that I don’t have this big cumbersome community that doesn’t feel real. 

Career Change: It’s the people that hide that need the most help.

I know you’re an experienced career coach. I coach a lot in tech and do a lot around helping people. Tech people move around all the time. I’m figuring out their next leave and their next salary, and all of that is something that I swim in the water on. I also am committed to equity and giving BiPAP voices, platform, and also asking all of my guests to think about women and BiPAP voices when I interview them. I’m curious what you might say about how women need to think about their own career development? What’s specific to women as you contemplate a career in inflow? 

It is unfortunately different. We have to think about these things in ways that our typical male counterpart parts may not. Not to say that males of color don’t have some of the similar issues. It is an underlying thing that we have to wake up thinking about, put the energy behind, advocate for ourselves. We have all had the experience of that mediocre white male manager who has fallen up. We don’t find that within the female–identified community as much. A lot of it comes down to, I don’t like to use the word syndrome, but the imposter stuff, we’ll keep it clean for your show. It’s societally constructed. It’s not just women. It is all people of color and all marginalized people are now being allowed to “sit” in this system, but this system was not created for us to succeed within. 

We now have to not just scramble to be a part of it, but be conscious about how do we even attempt to succeed in a system created to keep us from doing that thing. It’s so much mental energy. It’s so much work. For my clients and me, it all starts with them defining success on their own terms because if they are following the definition of success that that system was created on, it’s going to fail them. I have them start with defining what success means for themselves, and then we work within the system or try to work dismantling that system. 

The thing that keeps going through my head after what you said is, “Trans women never fail up.” They don’t fail right up the ladder, which is heartbreaking that they struggle at that level of assumption in our organizations. What are you experimenting on now? 

I am experimenting with changing how I work with people. My whole road career for myself, I’ve been through two major career changes myself. I very much started my practice with, “I’ve done this. We do this. Here’s the brass tax. Here are the nuts and bolts you need. Here’s what your LinkedIn profile needs to look like.” I’ve now stepped back from that and realized that, “I can shepherd someone into helping them get a new role somewhere, but I am so much more focused on making sure that they’re doing something that jives with their values, who they are, and what their long-term life goals are beyond, ‘What does their resume look like?’” I’m experimenting with how do I blow their worlds wide open from the very beginning and get them to think about the big questions and how they want to show up in the world. 

It’s new for me. It’s something I love doing, but codifying it into a process that someone can work within in a coaching program has been interesting because they’re big questions. They’re not black and white answers. There’s no spreadsheet you can fill out, but I can spit out an answer and hand it to you on a silver platter, as amazing as that would be. It’s been interesting and fun. As a coach, it’s all about questioning. I’m questioning my process, how I did that, and forcing my clients to think in new questioning styles. It’s been so much fun. The results have been amazing. I’m loving watching them bloom, but I’m finding my ex–recruiter brain is turning on like, “Let me show you what you need to do to get that application perfectly.” I need to rein that back because I can’t be all things to all people. I need to put all my energies into the stuff that I’m finding fascinating to me. That’s a little bit of a struggle, but it’s been fun. 

I love that you’re grappling with what’s the meaning for each person because we can’t produce the Cheat Sheet: Five-Ways To Have A Transformational Life because it’s so individual for each person. As a coach, one of those challenges is the individual journey that people take to find their own meaning. 

A lot of it comes down to language. In a group setting, I’d get eight people. Let’s say one is a trans woman and one is an older black woman. If they say the same word, it might have two entirely different definitions. If I asked them, “What are your core values?” They both say, family. What do they mean by that? I can guarantee you are not the same thing. I find that it goes down to that base level of linguistics. What do you mean when you’re talking? I have found that to be eye–opening. 

I want to talk about self–care because you’re somebody who supports lots of people. You’re an emotional support worker in many ways. What do you have to take care of yourself? 

I hadn’t ever framed it that way for myself but I do play, unfortunately, the unofficial therapist quite a bit. My brother is an actual essential frontline worker. He’s a nurse. I knew that it’s different, but I do my best to make sure that I come to my client’s work as my best self and my most energetic self so that I can take on a lot of their struggle because I’ve been there. I know the feeling that they’re feeling. I know how emotionally taxing is for them. I know that I need to be there for them emotionally. I do a lot of very stereotypical things. I’m a big believer in taking a hot bubble bath, reading an old book and taking time out for yourself. 

While doing that, I make sure that the bath products that I buy are created by an entrepreneur of color that’s running a small business. I’m very much concerned with things like that. I also don’t view self–care for anyone. I’m a huge pro nap advocate. I don’t believe that these types of things are outside of our work. I believe that they are a part of your work. They should be part of your workday. You going to yoga class should not be considered a luxury. It makes you do your thing better than you could ever do it without those moments of care. I don’t view them as outside the workday. I don’t view them as non-essentials. I consider it all the same. Answering the emails is the same as taking that twenty-minute nap. 

That is something that I’m struggling to get my clients to understand because we’re in this work–a–day world. I’m located in Silicon Valley. It’s very much an added layer of pressure. I was talking to someone and he was joking, “I figured the barrier seems to have a side hustle. You guys are as cold zero side hustlers.” I was like, “Yes because we’ve got exorbitant rents to pay. It’s not necessarily an option.” People are stressed here. Work is so much at the forefront of who we are as an identity. Unfortunately, I find that for many people, that rings true and taking those moments for yourself to wind down. If you don’t do that, you will snap. It’s very much like clockwork. If you keep winding it, it will break. I don’t look at it as separate. It’s very much the same. For me, it’s those stereotypical things. I live in a very urban area, but I planted a little garden in my tiny little space. I’ve been out there checking my strawberries that are getting pummeled by the storm we’re in the middle of, but little things that are grounding. 

I want to shift gears and I want to ask you about imposter syndrome. I’m not asking you to tell me your deepest, darkest secrets, but you work with people who have grappled with it. I love asking people what they’ve noticed, what they’ve learned as they’ve walked that journey with others? 

Imposter syndrome is such an interesting concept because it is one of those things that the only people who don’t have it are the actual imposters. Unfortunately, what that means is that everyone else has this idea that there’s something wrong with them. Even the language around it, we call it a syndrome as if it’s a medical condition. That tells us there’s some part of us that is broken. There’s something wrong that needs to be fixed. It’s culturally created. You will find that it is much more intense with women, people of color, and marginalized peoples because you are forced to not only be good at your job but to convince other people that you’re good at your job. There are so much added layers of emotional work there that then sometimes your actual job may start to suffer. You start to believe, “You’re right, I’m not as good as I thought.” 

It circles back on itself like the ouroboros, the snake eating itself. I have found that the best thing for my clients as they’re working through it is to stop when they start to hear those voices, when they start to feel that pit of the stomach feeling, when they start to truly believe, they don’t know what they’re doing is to physically stop whatever it is you’re doing, you can take a step back unless you’re onstage giving you the presentation, then you got to push through it. To step back and take stock in the exact moment of what has triggered those thoughts for you, what has started disbelief? I have people write it down, keep track of it and keep a log. 

For most of my female clients, it turns out that it’s someone speaking over them in a meeting. It’s asking them to prove that they know what they’re doing instead of trusting them to do the job they’ve been hired to do. They realize it in these outside forces. It’s not that their skill level is low. It’s not that they are cognitively deficient. It’s that there are outside forces that they cannot control, telling them they are not enough. When they see it written out on paper, they can realize how made up it is. They can realize that it’s not a real obstacle. They will never go away. We are trained to doubt ourselves. It will not, but to be able to step back and say, “Most of this is not.” 

Career Change: Humans are trained to doubt themselves. The only way around it is to take a step back.

When they do come up against a true obstacle, something they do need to learn, something they do. You need to brainstorm around, they understand that’s different than generally “not knowing” what they’re doing all of the time. It sounds simplistic, but I found that it works. It’s been interesting to see. It’s hard to watch people struggle through that, especially during a career change, or try and move up the leadership ladder because your confidence is already so thin and a little afraid. If you’re trying to switch careers, you’re already usually at your wits, nerves, anyway, and all of these feelings double and triple down on themselves. It’s been interesting to see how something simple as writing down why you feel that way can change. 

Where can people find you? 

They can find me simply at EBSanders.com. I’ve got a lot of free resources there. Your audience is more than welcome to them. All my social links are on there if they’re more of a social crowd. 

It’s been such a pleasure to have you on my show. It’s been so much fun. It’s nice to meet you. Thank you for being here. 

Thank you for having me. I enjoyed it. 

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I love how EB talks about how people of color and women need to carefully consider their career trajectory. They don’t fail up. It’s powerful to think about differences, what’s the same and try to find the path forward. Experimentation can be a good way to start to learn about what works and what doesn’t. I also love how she talks about imposter syndrome and how taking a moment to pause, consider what the facts are, and to understand that your reality may not be based on some shortcoming in yourself but maybe the perception of others. It may be something that’s institutionalized. It’s been a joy to be with EB. I love her sense of humor. Go experiment. 

Important Links: 

• EB Sanders 
• Teachable 

About EB Sanders

EB Sanders is a career coach who helps creative types ditch their fears and design their careers so they can achieve the fulfillment they really want. She went from college professor to recruiting & staffing specialist to career coach all in the name of helping people find their ‘thing.’

Today she is a sought-after coach and staffing consultant serving creative individuals, companies, and organizations. When she’s not coaching or consulting she’s busy filming weekly videos chock full of no-nonsense, actionable career advice.

In her words: “I want everyone to be happy in their careers! Like belting out Beyonce into your organic loofah in the shower on Monday mornings, happy.”

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