Are you keeping an open mind with your career, or feeling stuck? In this episode, meet Frank Winters from Schenectady, NY. After 35 years as a geographer, he made a big switch to teaching people how to speak in public through workshops, training, and his new book, 10 Little Rules for Sharing Your Story.
Feeling stuck in your career, or are you keeping an open mind? In this episode, Frank Winters from Schenectady, NY, shares his incredible career flip. After 35 years as New York State's Geographic Information Officer (GIO) and holding leadership roles like Executive Director of the Geospatial Advisory Council, Frank decided to pivot. Now, as the owner of WintersGeo Inc., he's all about public speaking workshops, communication coaching, and geospatial consulting.
Frank dives into the power of following your "North Star," making decisions that open new doors, and embracing curiosity to grow. His story is all about finding fulfillment through work that truly clicks with who you are.
He’s also the author of 10 Little Rules for Sharing Your Story, runs public speaking workshops, and even coaches a youth mountain bike team.
Episode Takeaways
Connect with Frank
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/frank-winters-gio/
Buy his book, 10 Little Rules for Sharing Your Story: https://10littlerules.com/
Jenny Dempsey (00:00.086)
If you live your life with day -to -day decisions that increase your options and reduce your regrets, you're on your path. Welcome to The Career Flipper, a weekly podcast featuring career change stories from people around the world in a bunch of different industries about how they get from point A to point B and all the twists and turns in between. I'm Jenny Dempsey, your career flipping host. After more than a decade working in customer service and experience leadership for tech startups,
as well as teaching to Udemy training courses and speaking at business conferences, I got laid off. And despite my experience, I got hundreds of job rejections. I just couldn't land a new job. And I really started to question my worth. What am I supposed to do now? Then a friend gave me an old junkie table. I saw potential. I binged YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram videos to learn how to fix it up. And I found joy in giving something unwanted.
a brand new chance at life, which really resonated with me after getting laid off and feeling unwanted myself. So this led me to start my furniture makeover and restoration business, San Diego Furniture Flipper, where I rescue and restore good furniture to keep it out of the landfill. You can follow along with the makeovers over on Instagram. Alongside furniture flips, I host this show, speak at events, and still do some small scale customer service consulting on the side.
So even after all the cool things I've built in last couple of years, I was feeling pretty lost and unsure about my new direction. I mean, it's hard, and who goes from the corporate tech world to being covered in paint and sawdust in their garage? So I reached out to a few friends who I knew had also put their careers, and hearing their stories really fired me up and it reminded me that it's totally okay to switch gears at any stage in life. And it turns out...
There are way more people who've made big career flips than I'd ever imagined, and I'm learning so much from every single one of them. It's awesome to be able to ask them questions along the way and learn from their mistakes. And I thought, if their stories are helping me feel less alone and a little more confident on my path, maybe they will help someone else too, like even one other person. So that's why I created this podcast, to share these incredible stories and offer support to anyone considering
Jenny Dempsey (02:23.266)
going through or having already been through a career flip. So wherever you are in life, I hope this podcast inspires you to keep dreaming and dream bigger. Learn from those who've changed their careers and how to embrace the changes and the risks that can help you grow beyond what you ever thought possible. In today's episode, you'll meet Frank Winters from Schenectady, New York. I hope I said that right. I practiced a lot before this.
After 35 years as New York State's Geographic Information Officer, Frank decided to pivot. Now, as the owner of Winters Geo Inc, he is all about public speaking workshops, communication coaching, consulting, and writing. Frank dives into the power of following your North Star, making decisions that open new doors and embracing curiosity to grow. His story is all about finding fulfillment through work that truly clicks with who you are.
He's also the author of the recently published 10 Little Rules for Sharing Your Story. He runs public speaking workshops and even coaches a youth mountain biking team. So whether you're thinking about a career change or just curious about making small meaningful shifts in your existing career, Frank's Journey is full of insights and you definitely won't want to miss it. Let's get into the episode now.
Hey Frank. Hey Jenny, how are you? I am great. Thank you. I'm so excited to have you on. You you found me in a very unique way and shared your story with me over a message and I would love the listeners to hear more about that because it's awesome. Yeah, it's kind of neat. And you know, it's kind of the best of social media. My interaction on LinkedIn has just been this community that grows. when I like somebody's thing, I just hit like. And if I have something to say, I just say it and it opens doors. So through a mutual
friend, Jeff Woser, had something about one of your posts and I just clicked on it and said, the wheels just started turning. So it's great to make these connections. I'm excited to be here. Love it. So excited to have you. And I just want to jump into it because your career flip story sounds so exciting and so interesting. all right, take it from here, Frank. Tell me your career flip story. Yeah, it's great. And it won't be chronological because I think we'll...
Jenny Dempsey (04:40.782)
We'll dive into this because there was a flip inside my career that seemed very linear, but then there was an external flip as well. But right now we're in graduation season and I'm going to a bunch of graduation parties and it's bittersweet because I coach a youth mountain bike team. Some of these kids have been working their butts off for 10 years with us and the team just won the state championship. In fact, I just mountain biked like I just got home like a half hour ago and the only people on the trail were me and two of my riders that are training for nationals.
So I'm going to these graduation parties and I come back to that time of life when my kids were really making these choices and I told them, don't try to do what I did. I remember my mission statement on my grad school application and it still holds up today and I had a super linear career. The mission statement was I want to learn everything I can about how geographic information is collected, analyzed and portrayed. And that's been what I've been doing for 31 years at the New York State, but
What I started to think about was, well, inside that, that career radically changed, and I was driving that change. And you would think someone that is in a civil service position and you're in this title and you're doing your job, that you're locked into a bureaucracy. But there was opportunities everywhere to change it. For instance, we had a risk manager get hired.
And they had this whole program on managing risk. And most people rolled their eyes, like, here's another exercise to identify our risks and have the risk mitigation plan. Well, I said, OK, what do we want? And what really are the risks? And I said, this is a fast changing environment. So one of the top risks I put down is that the advances in technology are happening faster than we can keep up with them. The risk is that technology is going to leave us behind. And how severe is the risk? Extreme.
And they come back and they say, what's your risk mitigation plan? I've got these three conferences that I have to get to. Right. So now in the in the official risk management plan are the opportunities to connect with people and drive the bus in the industry. Another really cool thing that happened was I was actually at a conference of the National States Geographic Information Council. And that's the brain trust of like state led geographers and computer mapping folks around the nation. And I was actually in the men's room at a journal.
Jenny Dempsey (06:59.158)
And the guy standing next to me was the president of NSJC. And he says, Hey, Frank, would you consider running as president elect next year? said, let me zip up and wash my hands. We'll go outside and talk about it. Right. So he saw something in me that I didn't see in myself. He and the president elect also. And it led to me saying, yeah, I'll look into that. I had to get approval through the governor's office and, and through all these folks. But the only way I was able to pull that off is about five years earlier.
During what would have been a functory kind of exercise, people roll their eyes at setting up for their annual review, you had opportunities to influence your own official job description. And I said part of my job description should be represent New York State in national matters of geographic information, including participation at NSJC. So now I could point to that in my job description and say, that's what I'm being evaluated at. And I got approval and went right on through.
Well, what happened was I became president of NSJC two months before the pandemic hit. Right before that hit, I sent a note to our attorneys and our public information officer asking for permission to speak on behalf of NSJC without coming back for permission every time. I know where the state business leaves off. No one knew the pandemic was coming, but I was the only, maybe the only government geographic information officer in that whole sector that had a voice.
everyone else's voice was shut down in the politics around the pandemic. So through that, I wound up chair of the National Pandemic GIS Task Force and kind of like teaming up with epidemiologists. Dr. Casey Rondalo is one of the country's top disaster epidemiologists. He and I teamed up and we got organizations together and we wrote the National GIS Pandemic Playbook, which is gonna put us in way better position. And it was just a matter of kind of lining things up.
seeing what had to happen and acting in service of others. That was all while I was in the exact same civil service title. So that was a flip in the career, even though I wasn't changing. So that was kind of neat. That was the internal flip. You're ready for the external? This is where it gets a little harder to follow. So during that pandemic, 2000, I lost my father in fall of 2000. And my mother died in fall of 2000.
Jenny Dempsey (09:26.222)
I'm sorry, 2020 my father died. 2021 and in the fall my mother died. After both my sisters and I, and I'm the lowest functioning one in the family. I have three brilliant sisters. My sisters and I spent a week together in a hotel talking about everything from what do you want in your taco to what is our parents legacy. And it really kind of galvanized this new North Star in my life. Well in 2022 I had retired from New York State. I stepped down as president in NSJC.
I stepped down as president of a not -for -profit, rope -toed ski area and, I got divorced. So it was really time for, it was a whole lot of loss. So it was time to kind of pump the brakes and reset. A friend of mine called me and she asked for my help. She owns a commercial construction company in Maine, and she asked if I would come help on a, and this huge chairlift build project. I had no idea how it would be useful, but.
one of the key nuggets was that I believed her when she said I would be useful. So I showed up and I wound up being the superintendent of the top terminal, meaning I was kind of running the job at the top of the mountain. So I was on the top of Jordan Peak every day before sunrise, almost four, two and a half months. It was a great reset, right? So it was pretty neat. I'll go back to the advice that I had given my kids because now my career is not
linear. Now it's a radical change. My youngest son, full -time student thing was not for him. And he came home after one year of college. It's pretty hard to come back to your parents' house after you've been away. And I knew I had to say something, but I didn't know what to say. So he was out in the garage working on his Jeep, and I just said a little prayer on the way out to the garage. And the words came out my mouth without being in my head. And I said, hey, if you live your life with day -to -day decisions that increase your options,
and reduce your regrets. You're on your path. And it just kind of simplified that whole thing. It just made it something he could do every day. He pulled himself out from under the Jeep. He looked me square in the eye and said, you have no idea how meaningful that is to me. He went and followed his dreams. He's living in paradise. He lives in Northeast Kingdom of Vermont. He can ride single track dirt to work every day. He's a full time, one of the top bike mechanics in the state, in our whole region. And he rides with pro level riders every day. You know, it's just like.
Jenny Dempsey (11:52.076)
He just went on his path. He just started making these decisions, saying, I'm going to reduce my regrets. If I don't do this, I'm going to regret it. And he's living in paradise. A little bit different story with my oldest son. My oldest son needed to hear something a little different. And he looked at a school that was going to be an absolute grind. He could handle it. But it was a private university, and it was a sweatshop. And I asked him what he thought about it. He said, I think I can handle it.
And he had this like dead look in his face, like he's no no light in his eyes about it. He was willing to defer his happiness. He was willing to gut it out for three or four years because there was something at the at the end of the rainbow he wanted. So my advice to him is do not defer your happiness. Play where you can win. By win, I mean play where you can experience joy. Find yourself a place where you can live in the moment. And Steve Gilliland is an author. His book Enjoy the Ride.
I met him at a conference 20 years ago. In fact, I just sent him a note today. And he had this metaphor where he said, if you're on a plane to Charlotte and there's 100 seats on the plane, and you were to interview everyone and ask them what they're doing, 99 of those people are going to say, I'm going to Charlotte. The happy person on the plane is saying, I'm reading a really good book right now. And guess what? They all get to Charlotte at the same time. that day to day decisions that increase your options, reduce your regrets and
Do not defer your happiness. Get on with it right now is a pretty cool thing. So back to how this all kind of comes together. so I'm just finishing up a book right now. It's called 10 Little Rules for Sharing Your Story. There's a reason I never even wanted to read a book, much less write it. had undiagnosed dyslexia as a kid. Reading was just exhausting. And here I am just finishing up doing final design edits on the cover. And it's going to be out in a matter of weeks now. And why did that come about? Well,
In the discussions back to the discussions with my sisters after my mother's in preparation actually for my mother's funeral, my mother had this thing when we went camping as a family. She said, you always leave the campsite better than you found it. And then she would further insist that we leave a courtesy pile of firewood for the next people who come. And she would make up stories about those people, give them names, give us details about people that didn't even exist. But as little kids, she instilled kind of the joy of stewardship and empathy.
Jenny Dempsey (14:19.314)
And as we started talking through my mother's legacy, it's like, she's really teaching us to leave the world better than you found it. So when I was up on the mountain in Maine, I was on top of a temporary building that we had built and had to waterproof the corners of this building so that the electrical equipment inside it wouldn't get wet. Whole building is wrapped in plastic. I'm lying down on the plastic and the wind is blowing underneath plastic, it's blowing my legs up in the air.
And I'm on top of this building just kind of bouncing around. Palms are sweating. And I hear this woman down below holler up, hey, we got to get that guy off that roof. So I say, hey, what's going on? She's like, we're going to blast here in three minutes. It's your three minute warning. And they were blasting for putting in new pipes. So I come down off. I get in the truck. I drive down. I'm like, OK, that's it for today. I'm done. It's like that was enough of my threshold. Jumped in the car, drove down to Boston.
got on an airplane, flew to London, and I had been invited to be the closing keynote in the Smarter Data Smarter World Conference. So was like, the world's colliding, you know, like from taking off my car hearts to putting on a black suit and jumping in that. And I started that presentation with a picture of the world, and I said, is the world a better place because you're part of it? And I just let the silence hang in the air. And some guy over to the side says, hell yeah. So I go over and high five him. Of course it is, because we're in this room working on something together.
But what do we do today? What do we do this week? And what do we do this year to maximize the extent to which that's true? Is today an inflection point? Why should it not be? Anybody have an answer? And that really became kind of what my new North Star was. So the thing that I can't get enough of is public speaking, which happens to be the thing most people dread. So I started to think about why is it that this is happening? What is it that's weird about me?
Well, I had started listening to Michael Gervais finding mastery podcast and I did. I started to understand sports psychology so I could be a better mountain bike coach. In fact, for some of these riders that I just ran into today on the trail. And that got me thinking about high performance psychology and got me thinking about neuroscience and psychology and anthropology and what it means to be an eight lead human. And I kind of unlock what it is that caused me to have such joy in public speaking.
Jenny Dempsey (16:46.956)
And I come into this without any answers. I just come in with all the right questions so you can unlock what is what is your secret sauce because you are uniquely you. So that's really what the book is about. And it's all tied together. You know, mountain bike coaching and working on a chairlift and giving a talk in my career and writing a book. It's it all is in the same.
we have this neat little subject line disjointed stew, right? This stew of these ingredients falling around, flopping around in our head. All of a sudden it makes something that is truly unique and you can look back at it go, wow, this can really help people. So that's one of the reasons I'm so excited is you don't write a book these days to make money. You write a book in service of others, you know, and that's what that's all about. So between that and finding other places where I can have just really kind of
maximize my impact and you might think I'm I'm sacrificing fun to do that. I'm having more fun than ever. I used to be focused on fun and then I got focused on happiness. Then I got focused on joy and now I'm like now I'm going for fulfillment. I'm going to peg the needle on my positive impact on the world and everything else can fall in line as it needs to. So I'm teaching national camp school for wilderness guiding for the Boy Scouts, right? Rewriting the curriculum, rewriting the curriculum for national.
mountain bike policy for the Scouts, doing some consulting in my field, but I'm really picking and choosing those things where I feel like impact can really scale. And it's all back to that same moment of clarity that we got as my mother's legacy is leave the world a better place. So it has to be in service of others. You have to find joy in it. And those things all come together to.
If it's a deliberate North Star and your North Star can be anything. If it's following some deliberate thing to shoot at, I tell you, it's just clicking. It's just falling in place. It's pretty neat. That's so neat. That's so neat. There were so many things where I'm like, I'm taking notes of this. I have so many things to say. First of all, thank you for sharing all that because what an incredible journey.
Jenny Dempsey (19:01.46)
email subject line disjointed Stu. It really is, but yet it all makes so much sense. And you described it and shared it so eloquently. And I can sense the passion in all of it. So the wonderful thing with your mom, the story and the firewood, when you were... And also, I'm kind of disjointed myself right now, but jumping back to what you said to your sons as well, because I want to touch on that.
Two questions, one, when you were about ready to go into college and you were, you know, considering, you know, this is the path that I want. Did you also receive similar advice or were you kind of told, you know, the traditional, but you get a job and you do the job? Like, what was that like for you then? Because to offer such advice to your son, I mean, I'm blown away. That's very, I mean, that's rare. Like I didn't get that from my parents. And so I'm curious, how did that start for you?
Yeah, so that particular, you the live your life with day to day choices. I believe that was an answer to a prayer. You know, I walked into that conversation open to whatever God wanted to come out my mouth, you know, so that's where that one came from. But it's a really good question. My father was a very philosophical man, and yes, he was very practical and he wanted.
me to invest in myself so that I could have a better life, better in his eyes, financial stability, job security, less stress about how you're going to provide for your family. He dealt with incredible stress to a point of a nervous breakdown in job insecurity. But he fell into it. He fell into a really good career path when I was kind of in my early teens. And we'd be around the table, and he would talk about what happened at work.
And he would always bring it back to some philosophical reason he wrapped up the way he wrapped up. And one of his sound bites is the people come first. Right. So those are the kind of things that I thought every 14, 15 year old kid was getting that kind of career philosophical, you know, discussion at the dinner table. And I realized, no, that was his gift. So just this idea that you can have a story, reduce it to a few words that someone can carry with them was just part of his training and part of his gift to us.
Jenny Dempsey (21:24.526)
Such a gift. It's a gift that gives to so many. Myself, everyone listening, just think that's, yeah, I mean, my dad was a Vietnam vet. And when he came back, all he wanted was stability and he worked the same job for almost 40 years and he worked so much. I didn't really get the chance to know him. And it was stress and all of the things that he just thought that's what you do, but that was better than what he was doing.
fighting and so on his deathbed, passed away in 2022. And I sat next him on his deathbed and something he said to me, which I've probably said in multiple episodes now, but like, it was just so impactful that I can't shake it and it feels very relevant. He looked at me and said, I wish I wouldn't have worked so much so I could have gotten to know you and your sister more. And it just stuck with me because how many opportunities and experiences and memories
because he was like, you go to college, you get a job, doesn't matter if you like it or not, it's stable, be stable, be stable, because he didn't have that stability for so long. And just the advice that we get and the path that we choose, and then the decisions we make when we hear something so impactful or, you know, I was very much on the path of having that stable job and I enjoyed it. You know, there were lots of things I enjoyed, but I definitely burnt myself out. So to hear the things that you shared with your sons, I mean, to have,
that early on in your career. And then to make these choices where you are successful and you can carve out that stability and still have so much joy is really inspiring. Yeah. Yeah. And your story with your father, well, two things come to my mind is one, he closed with something where it tightened the relationship and you had that closeness right at the end. mission accomplished with having the courage to say that. So that's great.
Yeah, he would have loved to said that a couple decades earlier probably, but nevertheless he said it. And two, really goes to things like Maslow's hierarchy of needs, right? And with our parents, and whether that's a gender role expectation that they have and their self -worth is wrapped up in how well they can provide, you know, that's really right down there at the bottom of that triangle, is food, shelter, clothing.
Jenny Dempsey (23:49.966)
And we would add, now move down, you know, love and belonging into those basic needs. And that's what they did and God bless them for it, right? They put a roof over our houses, our heads. But through that, there's an awful lot of, we can grow from that. That's a foundation we can step off from and not necessarily repeat because we don't necessarily have those same expectations and those same expectations really of ourselves.
Right? So if my youngest son were in the same living situation that my father did with three kids at his age, you know, he couldn't afford to be a bike mechanic and live in paradise, right? But he's made other choices and, you know, but he's on his path in a different way. So it's neat. We do have much more agency than we think we do to follow something. And you mentioned passion. Well, if you're not passionate about something, don't do it.
Right? It's not like find your passion. No, go be passionate and find the purpose about everything you do. He was going to a boot doctor school, which is a school where you learn to make custom foot beds for people ski boots. And I said, what's the bigger meaning for that? And he said, absolutely. If people's feet don't hurt when they ski, they're going to ski more. And when they ski more, they're going to ski longer. Maybe the family is going to ski together. That's good. But people that ski.
care about our environment. And maybe some of those people will be more considerate of climate change and those sort of things. So he connected all the way from learning how to make custom footbeds to some societal impact in a matter of, he did it quicker than I just described it, right? So those are the kinds of things you find your passion by just looking downstream and what's the impact potentially of this? Well, let's do it. Let's have huge impact. You know? Yeah. that's so true. And that resonates a lot.
The roles that I was in prior to being laid off before I started the furniture flipping and podcasting journey, were all customer service and customer experience roles at tech companies. And one of the companies that I worked at did phone numbers, like literally just like got business phone numbers. And it sounds very boring. And I turned it into the story in my mind where every day I'm showing up to answer questions for people about their phone numbers, because this is helping them connect with people. It's helping them connect with
Jenny Dempsey (26:10.552)
their grandma who may live far away with their new customers that they're going to get to support someone's small business with, you know, someone's phone number for a child's first phone and it has their name in it. And now this kid can go to school and tell the story of like, this is my phone number. You know, all of these fun stories become part of someone's life. And that is the impact. I went after I got laid off and I was looking for a new job with so many jobs out there. I read the descriptions and I'm like,
No, this doesn't resonate with me. Here's a role, I need a role, but I'm not gonna apply to this because this isn't, I can't, like this impact isn't gonna happen for me. I need to have something that makes an impact. And some people don't need that. I have talked with people who are like, I'm just here for a paycheck. And that's also totally fine as well. But I always feel that I can't just do a job. I have to make some type of tiny little positive dent on someone's life.
It doesn't have to be the world at large, but even just one person's life, that makes such an impact. And knowing that I'm doing that makes me want to work more. So that really resonates that you can turn it into that, but not everyone does. Yeah. Well, it's neat. I had two comments, one about millennials and two about self -storage. right. So millennials, people my age get in these conversations where they
roll their eyes and complain about millennials. I say nonsense, right? These folks, I don't like to generalize, but the positive characteristics that I see is that we're tending towards a workforce that has to have a greater purpose. And it's fantastic. know, so if you, if in a job ad, if you're hiring relatively people early in their careers and you're not being clear about the positive impact, you're leaving the best candidates.
on the table, not as part of your thing. And it's something I totally admire as a trait of a generation if there is such a thing. And the other thing is self -storage. I was talking to a woman, I forget even where I ran into her, but she owns self -storage places. And I said, that must really be interesting. Tell me about that. And she's like, yeah, it really is. And she said, everyone that is using self -storage, I shouldn't say everyone, most of the people that are coming in as new customers to self -storage are in some big change.
Jenny Dempsey (28:34.572)
some of it awful, some of it joyful, and people just got divorced and they're putting stuff in, or they're starting a new career and they're moving overseas, or they're just getting married, or they're just retired and they're going on a cruise for a year, whatever it is, there's all these like pivot points in people's lives. And she gets to interface with all those people and be a gracious business owner and hear their stories and empathize with them. So she's...
in service of others, just renting storage units. And it's like her ministry. It's so cool, you know? Whether you're doing taxes or whatever, know? In fact, the illustrator of my book, Nate Tice, he's a fantastic artist and he's working as a tattoo artist as a young, he's like 22 years old. And I said, you know what? Somebody's gonna come into your shop to permanently alter their body and they're gonna interface with you and you're gonna listen to them.
and you're going to put some fantastic art down there, but they're going to remember you and your impact on their life much better than, you know, think of your typical stereotypical tattoo artist, which I don't even know if that person exists. But I said, there's, there's your opportunity to connect with people and leave the world at a better place. He's like, thanks. You know, you know, so it's, it's like, there's, there's ways, cause these are all people. This isn't a video game. These people are interacting with the people behind those phone numbers. They're people.
Right, Exactly. It's so true. You can shift anything in any role of service. You are helping make an impact on someone's life. There's always an opportunity to shift it like that. And it frees up this, this, you know, the heavy burden of just going to work every day, knowing that you're doing something more. And speaking of work, one of the other things I heard you say, Frank was, you know, with the book, like, and you kind of preface it by, know, a lot of people would think writing this or, you know, this is a
It's hard work. And there's the kind of stereotypical quote that people throw out of like, when you love your work, you don't work a day in your life. And I personally, as much as I'm on this path of doing work that I love, there's still so much work to be done. And I feel like I love it, but there are still pieces of work. And it doesn't change the fact that I love it. But I think acknowledging that even though we're doing the things that we, carving out the path, they're bringing us joy.
Jenny Dempsey (30:56.896)
It's like any relationship, there's always going to be work, but it's work that we are driven to do and it's so worth it. Like most days I'm working more than I was when I was working for a company and I am thrilled, but it is still work and there's so much to do. And so I'd love to kind of like hear your thoughts on that of like, where do you kind of land when it comes to doing work that brings you joy, that it's still, there's still work.
That is such a such a great question, Jenny, and it's there's there's work so I have so many ways to answer that. There's one of the things that's really cool is by identifying radically different areas in my life where I'm still living to the same North Star. So I'm coaching youth mountain bike camp coming up in a couple weeks. I'm going to ride with one of the faster groups in in about seven days. We're going to do 30 ,000 feet of climbing. That's what I did last year.
So that's an Everest on mountain bikes, right? I better be ready to bring it. So yesterday at sunrise, I got on my road bike and I cranked four laps around the Saratoga National Battlefield until my legs actually hurt. And was it joyful? No, it was painful, right? But I did that in knowing that, yeah, I'm going to bring a bunch of leg and a bunch of heart to this mountain bike camp and that's going to be joyful. So it's not, it's a little bit like, you know, don't defer your happiness. Well,
I mentioned that we moved from trying to have, I moved from trying to have fun all the way to trying to find fulfillment. And when I'm after something that I know is fulfilling, the work becomes fulfilling too. And that pain in whether it's pedal on the bike or sitting there banging through edits or whatever it is becomes part of that fulfillment. And you get a, it's different. You get a little glow inside.
the editors, in fact, my sister is the one who started 10littlerules .com and she's my main editor. And she's like, as soon as we get editing this thing, don't take it personally, we're gonna tell you your baby's ugly. Like, not at all. You make every edit that I saw there was like, she and her coworkers are putting effort into making my story better. And every edit was like an act of love and service that they were giving me. And that's how I thought about it.
Jenny Dempsey (33:21.286)
So it's something that would have been drudgery. You can just look at it through a slightly different lens. That's so true. And active service too for feedback. I think that's important when we're kind of doing things maybe a little unconventionally too, taking this different path. And we'll get feedback from people that are aligned with what we're doing, just like with the book and offering that feedback. There's also times where we'll get feedback from people that are not aligned with what we're doing. And the feedback might not be
supportive or in active service. And I think being able to kind of like differentiate whether it's an actual, you know, work of a project or whether it's someone just sharing some of their thoughts with us, you know, around the family barbecue, you know, sometimes people will share things and feedback can be seen as such a positive supportive thing. I think when it's so aligned, just like, as you explained. Well, yes. And it can be processed as a threat when it's not. Yeah. And
That's something to really be careful of. And I think in our divisive media these days, so many people are certain. And we approach something with a sense of certainty. Now, dissenting view is processed in the amygdala, the threat response part of our brain, as if we're being attacked. And that's a big chunk of the first part of the book is if we have the same conversation, but instead of starting with a sense of certainty, we start with a sense of curiosity.
Now it's a, tell me more. I want to understand you. And you're not, I'm not letting you threaten my stuff. I just want to understand you. You know, so just switching from certainty to curiosity totally flips how you deal with feedback. I told my team at work, some of which brought brilliant people. They were all brilliant people. Some of them quite confrontational and very passionate about what they did. I told them your
opinions that are different than mine are the ones that are most useful to me. We just have to find a way to work through this so that we can productively get those opinions out. And let's all approach this with a tell me more kind of curiosity. It's so powerful. because that's processed in a whole different part of the brain, actually curiosity is in the neocortex and as from the amygdala where threat is processed as you can get. So all the creative thought happens when you stimulate
Jenny Dempsey (35:46.71)
the front part of your brain and all of the defensive, and, actually the biochemical response, happens in the part of the brain that we share with alligators. Right. So you can just change the vocabulary and it changes where the thoughts are processed in your own head. It's, it's incredible how well that works. Yeah, that's, it is incredible. I'm actually reading Brene Brown's book, braving the wilderness right now about that exact topic. And, know, she goes into detail of, you know, conflict or feedback.
from individuals and how to really stay true to where you are, but go from an angle of curiosity to understand, but you don't have to change your place. And I think for me as a semi -retired people placer, sometimes people will deliver feedback and it might not be positive, but I don't necessarily see it as a threat, but I think, this person doesn't like me. I need to change my ways because I want them to be, we can all get along. And that's how I've kind of been taught.
throughout my life, but going on this different path and hearing just how you said it with curiosity of like, I can look at the type of feedback that I receive and I can choose to just understand and be appreciative, but I don't necessarily have to change myself or my beliefs just to appease someone else. And I probably would not as someone who's worked in customer service for almost 20 years, like always, you know, the customer isn't always right. Sometimes they're wrong.
And that's totally OK. And we just have to kind of help them see it in a different way from a very kind way. But they see it one way and we can also see it a different way and we can all get along. Yeah, yeah. So a friend of mine is actually my son's age. My oldest son's age. Me is likely the youngest person to every visit to visit every county in the United States. Wow, just a total road work.
unbelievable task to do that. And he wrote a 10 page blog and the essence of the blog is I've got my strong beliefs and my strong views. But I did this this huge journey to gain understanding and not to gain acceptance. There are things that I understand that I do not accept because they're not healthy and they're not positive for our society. But yet I sort of I understand them better. now and so we did this whole
Jenny Dempsey (38:12.366)
just a several year quest to just go to the places and talk to people and places in the United States that are 150 miles from the nearest interstate, right? Just, you know, just off the grid, taking little private planes to all these little islands in Alaska that you have to charter your own flight to get there. And he just did that to gain understanding. It was brilliant. Wow. That's incredible.
Yeah, I'll give you a link to his blog about that. It's worth having a look at. Yeah, we'll definitely include that in the show notes. Well, Frank, I people to be able to connect with you. I know your book, as we're recording this, it's coming out soon. By the time it is launched, it sounds like people will be able to get it. So Frank, where can people find you? How can they connect with you? Yeah, that's great. So the book is actually available for
pre -sale right now on 10littlerules .com. And if you just go to the books, you'll see 10 Little Rules for Sharing Your Story. So that's the pre -sale discount price. connecting on LinkedIn is probably the most effective way to get me. It's just Frank Winters. And you'll find me as a geographer and author there. It should be really easy to find. And I'd love to continue the conversation.
I'm going to be doing public speaking workshops for corporations and for conference groups and whatnot. I'm going to be doing some personal communication coaching. So if there's a an important conversation or presentation that you'd like to tune your message on, I can give my insights there or even preparing for job interviews and and all the craft of sharing your story in that format.
So those are all the kinds of things that I hope to be putting out there just really in service of others, but also paying my bills and, you know, making a bit of a living to free up more time to do more of that kind of stuff. So LinkedIn and tenlittlerose .com for now, but the book will be available on Amazon relatively soon as well. Amazing. Thank you so much, Frank. It was an absolute joy to have you here. it was so much fun.
Jenny Dempsey (40:38.136)
Thanks for tuning in to this episode of the Career Flipper. Be sure to connect with Frank Winters using the links in the show notes. If this episode gave you little boost, share it with a friend who can also use some inspiration. Rating and reviewing the show helps more than you know, and hitting that subscribe button means you'll get more amazing flippin' stories like Frank's every Thursday. Your support helps me reach even more Career Flippers and those dreaming of making their own leap.
spreading all the good vibes and motivation we need on this journey. And if you're looking for a career flipping speaker for your event, want to sponsor the podcast or just want to drop a line and share your career flip story, pop over to thecareerflipper .com. I'd love to hear from you. So what I love most about doing this podcast is the hope that it might inspire you to go after what you're dreaming of. Even if it feels really unreachable and super scary right now.
I personally know it's hard to take that first step when the fear of the unknown is holding you back. But if I could ask one thing of you, it would be to tie your shoes or if you're not wearing shoes with laces, put on your flip flops or your boots, take a deep breath and just start. You never know where it might lead. And I know, I believe that you can achieve whatever you set your mind to. So keep on your path, my friend. What's the best that could happen?
Talk to you next week.