Keeping the End Goal in Mind and Stepping Out of Your Comfort Zone (DF#140)

Ryan Maruyama [00:00:00]:
But this is a prime example of I'm not coming back to the goal, like, can mess you up. Right? It's so important to do that. You're gonna learn these things. You're gonna go out, but you have to pull yourself back, pull yourself back to reality and like, why am I doing all of this? Why am I doing this? I have to remember that I'm doing this to get a job. I have to remember that I'm doing this to make money. Is it nice to have a 1,000,000 views? Is it nice to go viral? Sure. But if it doesn't lead to any money, then what's the point? Like, what's the point of doing it? Aloha, folks, and welcome back to Degree Free. I am really excited to have you here today, Still in Hawaii, still in the temporary studio here.

Ryan Maruyama [00:00:44]:
So same things apply. If you hear the background noises or anything like that, we are trying our best to get it out of the recording as much as possible. Before we get into today's episode, if you have a question, go to ask.degreefree.c0forward/question. Ask your question there. I wanted to talk about a couple of things today, and I will just jump right into it. Recently, I've been having a lot of conversations with people that are saying, I need a job, or I hate my job, I need a new one or I gotta get my first job, what do I do? Some version of all of those things. My next question is always, like, what have you done so far? How many jobs have you applied for? Some version of those two questions. And usually, I ask both of those questions like, what have you done or what have you been doing? How many jobs have you applied for? Because if the goal is to get a job, you need to apply to some to then get some.

Ryan Maruyama [00:01:42]:
What I've been noticing, and which is why I'm making this episode today, is the answer that I've been getting back from all of these people is some form of the following, right? Oh, I'm studying for x right now or I'm studying x right now, my Google certification. I am studying for my Salesforce certification. I'm studying for my ServiceNow certification. I'm studying for my HubSpot certification. Whatever it is, I'm getting my resume and my cover letter together. It's always like together instead

Ryan Maruyama [00:02:13]:
of, like, I'm revamping it or I'm creating it. I was like,

Ryan Maruyama [00:02:16]:
I'm getting it together. I don't know what that means. I'm still researching what job I want and what field I want to get into. Oh, I haven't applied to any jobs yet because of and then fill in the blank, whatever the excuse is. I'm not done studying, I'm not qualified. I don't feel like I'm qualified. People are just gonna deny me anyway. I haven't found any jobs that fit my needs, whether that's how much money you need to make or whatever.

Ryan Maruyama [00:02:43]:
Oh, I have a few job applications out there, but I haven't really gone full force into it yet. If you wanna vent, then cool. If you just want somebody to say, hey, that sucks. Like, I'm sorry that this is happening to you. I'm sorry you don't have a job or I'm sorry that you've been struggling to make your career change, or you can't help your kid get a job. If you're just trying to vent, then right on, and and I'm totally here to hear that. But if you actually wanna change your situation, then keep listening. The harsh reality is that you have to do work.

Ryan Maruyama [00:03:16]:
It's specifically work that makes you feel uncomfortable. For a lot of these people, the reason why they haven't done the hard work is because they don't like to feel uncomfortable, and then also they don't know what they don't know. So I'm gonna talk about both

Ryan Maruyama [00:03:29]:
of them real quick before I get into

Ryan Maruyama [00:03:31]:
the second thing that I wanna talk about today. Look, I'm not trying to be mean, but so many people give up before they even begin. They get down on themselves and on their situation before they ever begin. And then so many people are asking me, what do I do to get out of my situation? And I have a really simple answer for everybody listening. And it's not gonna be an answer you like, but it's the truth and it's very very simple. The simple answer, do something different than what you're doing right now. Now, it's super simple and it might be super dismissive, and you might shut this off right now, and if that's the case, then shut this off. But if you really think about it for a second, it's so simple that it makes so much sense.

Ryan Maruyama [00:04:11]:
And so, I'll explain really quickly. If you want your life to be different than the life that you have right now, then you have to start taking different actions because it is your current actions that have gotten you to the place that you are right now. It doesn't necessarily need to be, like, the overarching everything, like, you could have a amazing personal life and an amazing relationship life but you're just not satisfied with your career. It may might be vice versa for you. Could be that you have an amazing career life but you don't have a great personal life or whatever. But whatever actions that you've been doing in that bucket of your life has gotten you to where you are right now. All of those actions have landed you in the situation that you're in. So you have to start making different decisions that lead to different actions.

Ryan Maruyama [00:05:01]:
If you don't have a job right now or you're in a job you hate, think about the actions you're taking right now to keep you in the position you're in, to keep you in that job that you hate, to keep you from getting the jobs that you're applying to. If you're in a job that you hate, you're probably going to work every day, living life, day in, day out. Maybe you've actually been applying to job, but nothing's worked. 1, how many jobs did you apply for? And whenever I usually ask this question, it's always, oh, like 10. Dude, 10? You gotta be applying to dozens, hundreds of jobs. Put the numbers up before you start getting down on yourself. And I know that it's difficult. I know that it sucks, but this is the work that you have to do to get there.

Ryan Maruyama [00:05:43]:
But it only takes 1. It only takes 1 application. It only takes 1 interview process to that your job and then to be out of the situation that you're in. And 2, if you have been applying for Hodgester's job, when's the last time you've changed up your tactics? When's the last time that you've changed up something that you're doing? Whether or not it's the job search materials, whether or not it's the way that you're approaching the interview, if you're actually getting through that phase and you're getting to interviews, but you just can't seal the deal, whether or not it's the way that you're reaching out to people, whether or not you're not doing cold outreach, whether you are, but you're not getting any responses, whatever it is, it doesn't make sense to apply for 800 jobs, hear nothing back, and then keep applying in the same fashion as you were to another 800. This just doesn't make any sense. If you're learning a skill, so many people say, oh, well, I'm learning this skill or I'm learning that skill. I need to complete the skill learning certification license, whatever it is, to start applying for the job. How do you know that? Have you applied? And if that certification takes, like, a really long time to get or you are taking a really long time to get that certification, like, does it really require it? I mean, if it legally requires it, then sure, get that thing.

Ryan Maruyama [00:06:56]:
Hurry up. Get it quicker. Change up your study tactics. But if it doesn't legally require it, maybe you just going through the motions right now, maybe you've built up a portfolio, maybe you just applying to those jobs, interviewing, maybe you land that role and you're just doing something different than what you're doing right now. I don't mean this to be preachy and I don't mean this to be discouraging because when I talk to other people about this, they feel very deflated once I start to say this. The reason why they start to feel deflated, the reason why they start to, Wow, this is super not useful, is because they don't know what to do. And how can you? If you don't know what you don't know, how can you know what to do to get to a place that you've never been? That's a very good question. My answer to that is you don't know what to do to get there, but you know the actions that you're doing right now are not getting you to where you wanna be.

Ryan Maruyama [00:07:49]:
You might not know the actions that it takes to get to the destination, but you do know that whatever actions you're taking right now is not getting you to your destination, and that also has value. It has value because you just start changing one thing. You start changing 2 things, you test it. See, okay, well, I'm gonna change my resume. I'm gonna change these few lines on my resume. I'm gonna change interviewing this way. I'm gonna change the subject line on my cold emails. I'm gonna change the things that I talk about in my interview.

Ryan Maruyama [00:08:21]:
And then, you do that, you test, you see if you get a different result. You get a different result. If it's better, keep doing more of that. If it's worse, stop doing that. Go back to the one before. I had to do this when I started interviewing for jobs. I was so horrible at job interviews when I first started that one of my interviewers literally told me at the end of the interview that he's like, you gotta get better at this. Super helpful, but also super not helpful because same thing that I'm telling you.

Ryan Maruyama [00:08:53]:
Right? Oh, you gotta get better at this. Like, what does that mean? I don't know what better is. If I knew how to be better at it, I wouldn't have interviewed so badly just now. So bad to the point that you have to tell me that I have to be better at it. So I thought about it. I didn't know what that meant. And so I had to do more interviews. So I kept applying for jobs and I'd land some interviews.

Ryan Maruyama [00:09:13]:
Sucked at all of them. Got the interview, loved the interview, didn't get hired. I asked myself, like, okay. Well, what am I talking about in the job interview? I asked myself, what am I talking about in the job interview? And this analysis is gonna be super crazy simple. So if you're like, this is above me, then cool. I get it. But I looked at all of my prep materials for my interview and I noticed that I was always talking about myself and it's not like I wasn't preparing, like I prepared a lot. I was always talking about what I could get out of the job or how I would love to have the job.

Ryan Maruyama [00:09:51]:
All of my interview prep material and everything that I said in interview was around how I'd love to join the team, and I'd love to get the job. I didn't know what else to talk about. I didn't have any experience at any of these jobs that I was applying for. Now I don't know how being a dishwasher or being a server at a restaurant fits in with your organization. I'm just not sure, so I just love to get this job. You're like, I'm super enthusiastic to work for you. I can't wait till I start. Like, this is gonna be great.

Ryan Maruyama [00:10:23]:
I'm super excited to get my first start. All of these things that I said during my interviews. But then I realized, okay, well, this is obviously not working because I had whatever, 10, 12, 20 interviews. Still wasn't hired. So I started talking about my experience and what I could bring to the team. Really, just what I could do that was kinda similar towards that job. And this is why Hannah and I hold the opinions that we do is our job as job seekers, is our jobs as career changers, is our job as the people that want the job to make it as easy as possible for the hiring manager to be like, oh, okay. Well, that's how you fit into my organization because you've done this, this, and this, and I need this, this, and this done.

Ryan Maruyama [00:11:05]:
Like, perfect. Alright. That makes a lot of sense. You're hired. That was the major unlock for me is to think about and talk about how I could help their organization and not about how I'm not qualified to have this job. Once I started doing that, I actually started getting second interviews. I started getting some job offers. For this story, I'm talking about interviews, but this goes into everything.

Ryan Maruyama [00:11:28]:
This goes into your job search materials, resumes, cover letters. It goes for your cold outreach emails. If you're not getting the desired replies that you want, then change up the headline. And this type of testing and not knowing what to do, but looking at what you're doing right now and then doing something different, this applies even more if you go into business. Right? If you decide to go into business, which is degree free pathway number 4, build a business, then you're gonna have to try a lot of things, see what works, and see what doesn't. I still use this thinking today in my business because I don't know what I'm doing. Go back to the first episode of this podcast, like, I'll link it in the show notes. Degreefree.c04/podcast.

Ryan Maruyama [00:12:14]:
Didn't have a business plan. I had no plan to monetize this podcast and, largely, I still don't. But each step of the way in entrepreneurship, I didn't and I don't know what I'm doing, and I don't know what to do. And I'm sick of where I am, and I know that I want to be somewhere else. But do this exact practice still to this day, I look at what actions we're taking as a business, what I'm taking as an entrepreneur, what Hannah's doing as a business owner, what my team is doing. I look at those things and I say, okay. Well, I'm not where I wanna be. We are not we want to be, but I don't know how to get there.

Ryan Maruyama [00:12:52]:
So I say, okay, well, we're doing these actions right now. I'm going to take a guess that maybe it's this or maybe it's that. And then we have to change those things. Maybe some of them could do a complete 180 or stop doing that thing entirely because all of these actions have got us here, and then we do something else. How do I know that these current set of actions is not gonna get me where I wanna be? Because it got me here right now. This is super, super, super simple stuff, and each leg of the journey is always uncomfortable. Right? And it's going back to what we were talking about before, we just have to be okay with doing uncomfortable things. We have to be okay taking these actions because for me personally still, especially in

Ryan Maruyama [00:13:32]:
the business, every step of the way it gets unlocked, it

Ryan Maruyama [00:13:36]:
gets different for me. And Hannah and I get uncomfortable again because we don't know what to do because we've never been there. We just have to be like, I'm not okay with where we're at currently and so but I am comfortable with the actions that I'm taking because those are

Ryan Maruyama [00:13:52]:
the things that I know. But I

Ryan Maruyama [00:13:54]:
know that if I want to get to the next level, I have to be uncomfortable again. And I have to start sending emails for things that I never send emails for. I have to start asking for more money or I have to start sending more cold outreaches. Maybe for you, it's you have to go and start sending more job applications. Maybe you have to change your resume. Whatever it is, like, you just have to go and do those different things. Super simple stuff, but when you really start to look at it, you'll see that it's super, super powerful. Like, what am I doing now? Okay.

Ryan Maruyama [00:14:27]:
That's what got me here. Let's do something different. The last thing I wanted to talk about is something tangential to everything that we're talking about. When you're going through this process, it's really important to keep the goal in mind. Right? Like, the main mistake people make is forgetting what the goal is. And I make this same mistake myself. It's like, you get so caught up in making these changes, and then you start learning about these change, whatever the change is, and then you start getting some feedback, some positive feedback on that change. But that positive feedback might not be in service of your main goal.

Ryan Maruyama [00:15:05]:
It's just in service of the actions that you're taking. So let's talk more about this. Right? So you'll be trying, like, 8 different things, and you start to see something work, then you'll get caught up on how that thing is working, but it might not actually be working. Like, a really common example is learning new skills to make a career change or to get your first job. And I've seen people at all ages, all ages and throughout all, you know, levels of their career make this mistake. It's 16 years old to 60 years old. Right? I still make this mistake. So you start learning a new skill and you'll get really caught up in learning that skill.

Ryan Maruyama [00:15:44]:
You want to master it. Right? Like, master it. You wanna master it so much that once you learn that one particular skill or get that one certification, you start to see how you don't have proficiency in x skill now, the next skill. You don't have proficiency in that. And so now you have to learn the next skill. So, like, let's just say that you're trying to learn front end web development, HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. And so you learn those three things and then you're like, oh, well, I don't know whatever server side stuff now. And then

Ryan Maruyama [00:16:15]:
so now you gotta go learn those things. But really, what you need is a job. Right? Like, what you need is to reach your goal, whatever your goal is. And most people listening to this, their goal is to

Ryan Maruyama [00:16:26]:
get a job. The skill you just learned might be good enough to get you that job, but you don't know because you didn't apply. Instead, you went from learning x skill to learning y skill, then most people that do that then go into learning z skill, and they'll look up a year later and say, well, I worked so hard on all this and I haven't gotten anywhere. You've learned x skill, y skill, z skill, and you're like, I still don't have a job. It's like, Yeah,

Ryan Maruyama [00:16:52]:
Bz, you haven't applied. You might have been able to do it before you even learned x skill.

Ryan Maruyama [00:16:57]:
You might have been able to do it at the very beginning and had somebody pay for you to learn x skill, but you didn't keep the goal in mind. At every station, you have to remember, like, okay, are these actions going to help serve the ultimate thing that I care about? And for most people listening to this, that's getting a job. It's a very common mistake that I hope all of you can avoid. And now that you know it, hopefully, you won't run into it. And then just like, you know, from my own life, from Hannah and my own life, like, we've had some major success. This is, like, in quotes, a success of all relative. We had some major success on TikTok, maybe some different campaigns we've done. Maybe we've got shout outs from big creators or whatever.

Ryan Maruyama [00:17:39]:
And remember when we were first starting, especially when we

Ryan Maruyama [00:17:41]:
were first first starting, we were like, Okay. We would post something and then

Ryan Maruyama [00:17:46]:
it would go viral. And, Wow, this thing got like a 1000000 views and that's crazy. But it didn't lead to the ultimate thing that we cared about, which is sales. But we got so hyper focused on, like, how do I make more of this content that gets me a 1000000 views? But then it didn't really serve the actual thing that we cared about, which for you is probably getting a job. For us, it was making money. It didn't serve that purpose. We didn't make any money from it. Nobody bought anything from us.

Ryan Maruyama [00:18:10]:
I mean, we got a 1,000,000 views, but that's, like, just good stroking our ego. Like, that's great. And a 1,000,000 people saw this property. A 1,000,000 people saw this video. Hopefully, it helped them. Hopefully, it got our ideas out there, and hopefully, it changed their life. And that's not for nothing, but for us, the direct impact that we had on our business was to make more sales and to make money. But then you lose sight of that, and you start heading down that rabbit.

Ryan Maruyama [00:18:36]:
I was like, how do I make that video again? How do I make that video again? But really, you don't wanna make that video because that video didn't lead to any sales. Why why are

Ryan Maruyama [00:18:43]:
you gonna make that video? It doesn't matter.

Ryan Maruyama [00:18:46]:
And that's just kind of similar. It's the same thing. It's like learning the next thing, learning the next thing, learning the next thing. Getting a positive feedback on something that doesn't matter. Just to drive this home, Hannah and I have a good friend that just graduated from a full stack dev boot camp 15 weeks or whatever. And they have

Ryan Maruyama [00:19:02]:
a small portfolio of work, they understand the concepts, and we told this person, awesome,

Ryan Maruyama [00:19:09]:
great job. Now, just start applying for jobs. Better yet, we told her that while she was in her program still that she should apply so that she has some job prospects going for when she graduates. We even helped her with a few leads and some jobs. What did she do? And she said, oh, well, I was talking to some of the guys in the boot camp and then some other people and they said, I'd really need a master's degree to be competitive in today's job market. So I signed up for a 2 years master's program. This is a real story that just happened like a couple of weeks ago. We're like, What? Like, What are you talking about? Is it the goal of this whole thing to get a job? Was it the goal at the beginning of your 15 weeks, 17, whatever, however many weeks boot camp to get a job as quickly as possible? Isn't that still the goal? If so, how is going into a master's program for 2 years going to help you get a job right now? Like, how is signing up for a master's program and however many tens of 1,000 of dollars that it's gonna cost you I mean, never mind the money.

Ryan Maruyama [00:20:18]:
Right? Like, who cares? Because maybe it's free. But how is spending that time going to get you a job right now? Isn't the thing that's gonna get

Ryan Maruyama [00:20:26]:
you a job right now applying to jobs? And the simple answer is that it won't get you there. You forgot your goal. You forgot where you're going, and you got caught up in all of this. And this person didn't apply for a single job, not a single job, and they'll be starting their master's program this next upcoming year. That's a real story and now this person is going to wait to the beginning of school year, wherever, in the fall, not apply to a job, and enter a master's program when the goal 16 weeks ago or 15 weeks ago or whatever was to get a job. And they could probably get a job if they applied themselves. And if I remember to keep you updated on this saga, I will. Just remind me, you know, in a year or 2, Ping me.

Ryan Maruyama [00:21:08]:
YouTube comments, Spotify comments, whatever. But it's a prime example of not coming back to the goal, like, can mess you up. Right? It's so important to do that. You're gonna learn these things. You're gonna go out, but you have to pull yourself back to reality and, like, why am I doing all of this? Why am I doing this? I have to remember that I'm doing this to get a job. I have to remember that I'm doing this to make money. Is it nice to have a 1000000 views? Is it nice to go viral? Sure. But if it doesn't lead to any money, then what's the point? Hey there.

Ryan Maruyama [00:21:37]:
I hope you're enjoying this episode of the degree free podcast. At degree free, we wanna help everyone thrive and succeed without needing a college degree. And the only way to truly reach everyone is with your help. If you're getting value out of this episode or if this is your second, 3rd, or 4th episode that you're tuning into, if you could just ship this to a friend, just click that one button and share it with someone in your contacts or on your stories. It would mean the world to us. And more importantly, get our message out to more people who need help getting out of their current situation. If you could do that right now, that would mean a whole lot. And what's the point of doing it? And the last thing I'll say real quick is that it's okay for that goal to change over time.

Ryan Maruyama [00:22:21]:
Because if you remember at our last episode, the person that you are right now is going to change when you reach those goals because the person that you have to become to achieve those goals is going to be different. So it is okay over time for those goals to change, That's totally fine. Really, what I'm just hoping that you do is that you are able to recognize that the goals have changed. At least for yourself, you have a good reason. Now, this makes sense. I'm gonna get a master's degree because it's legally required to get one for the job that I am going for. And I have a, basically, have a guarantee that I'm gonna get this job even though I've never worked in the industry. Like, that's what this person that we know would have said.

Ryan Maruyama [00:23:06]:
Like, that would be their good reason for doing that. I mean, that's totally not the case, but, you know, at least knowing that be like, okay. Well, at least you know. At least you've got your head screwed on about that whole decision, and now you've changed your goal. But the main thing is we wanna make sure that we did the goal changing intentionally and that we're moving the goalposts intentionally and for the right reasons. And if you come back and you're realizing, no, my goal is to still make money, my goal is to still get a job, then okay, then you should be still doing actions that are congruent with that goal. It's not, like, to just keep hiding behind doing useless inaction, and those things can get very comfortable or, like, doing those actions can get very comfortable. I know.

Ryan Maruyama [00:23:49]:
I mean, I've done it. You're like, okay. Well, I'm just in this learning phase, you know, for this person that went to the web dev boot camp, you're in this learning phase, you're in this learning phase and you just don't wanna get out of it because it's comfortable because you know that, okay, well, I know how to do this. I don't know how to apply for job. I've never done an interview to be a developer. I don't know how that's gonna go, and so I'm just gonna keep doing what I'm comfortable with. Once again, right, like, look at your actions and your actions are the things that got you here. And it's going to be uncomfortable to say, like, okay, I'm gonna do things that I've never done before to get somewhere that I've never been before.

Ryan Maruyama [00:24:21]:
And that's uncomfortable, but you just gotta be okay with that and then do it and then execute on it. And that is my TED Talk. Thank you so much for tuning in. I have thought about this for a while because I've been having so many of these conversations. How do I get this job? Or I'm sick of this job. What do I do? And then just when I ask, what have you done? And the answer is like, nothing. We're like, a lot of it boils down to, like, I don't know what to do. Well, now you do.

Ryan Maruyama [00:24:45]:
Now you do. You know what you're doing, don't do that. Make changes and when you make changes, when you start seeing results, just remember to remember your goal. Go back to your goal. Is the actions that you're taking now, 2 weeks from now, 3 months from now, 6 months from now, a year from now, if that's still your goal, are your actions still congruent with it or did you get caught up in seeing something else? Did you get caught up in trying to just chase viral videos and not make any sales for your company, or did you get caught up in trying to be the best developer possible without ever being a developer, without ever being a professional developer, never holding one of those jobs? Yeah. And that's pretty much it for this week. If you have any questions, go to ask.degreefree.coforward/question. Ask me there, and then review on Spotify, review on Apple Podcasts, and leave your comments, Spotify, YouTube, you know what to do.

Ryan Maruyama [00:25:34]:
Until next week, Allah.