Our Journey of Transformation with Career Chrysalis Team | E7

In this season finale, we reflect on our journey as a fun and fearless team! What started out as an idea formed over coffee, has now transformed into a full podcast series. 

We remember our journey of creation and innovation- a process that stretched our thinking beyond our everyday. It opened our eyes to new ways of working, learning new technologies, and forming new networks. 

Through this journey, we appreciated more profoundly the complex human emotions present during career transitions- the worries, anxieties, hopes and joys. We experienced the innate strength within each one of us to transform at critical moments in life and career. 

Our journey of a thousand miles began with one small step. We hope that our journey of exploration will inspire you to take that one small, courageous step forward towards your dream.

Connect with us on LinkedIn:

· Vanessa Iloste (Host)

· Vanessa Teo (Host)

· Aaron Wu (Producer)

Transcript

[00:00:00] Vanessa I: Hi everyone, welcome to our new episode of Career Transition. We are your hosts Vanessa Iloste and Vanessa Teo.

[00:00:14] Vanessa T: And today's a pretty special day for us as it marks the end of Season 1 of Career Transitions Podcast. And we thought we'd use today as an opportunity to reflect on the various experiences that we've had throughout season one.

[00:00:27] Vanessa I: Can you believe it? We started this journey late last year, 2022. And I still remember Vanessa sitting at the cafe with you discussing how we could bring together our work experiences to share it with other professionals. 

[00:00:42] Vanessa T: Ah, I remember that fateful day when we sat in that cafe, I remember brainstorming through so many different topics around human resources, leadership, diversity, and inclusion.

And we mulled over this for a few months and we finally landed on this topic, career transitions. And it became further solidified in our minds as both of us were going in some ways we were all going through different forms of career transformations.

[00:01:09] Vanessa I: That's right. I also remember wondering how we would figure out this technical piece of podcast hosting. How do we do the recording? How do we edit and publish? It felt daunting. Then, of course, we met Aaron through our network and he was magic. He helped us during this journey to make this dream coming to life.

[00:01:30] Vanessa T: So, I'd like to introduce our producer, Aaron Wu, who has been doing his magic behind the scenes. We're so grateful, Aaron, for your support, and we really wanted to hear your perspective on this experience too. 

[00:01:42] Aaron W: Yeah, hello to the both of you. Well, firstly, thank you for including me in this small project of yours.

I'm glad to be part of this journey, right? I recall meeting Vanessa T to discuss this idea that you two had of starting a podcast. Well, I have not produced one myself, so I was open to the idea of exploring further. And guess what, 6 episodes have flown by since, and we are now wrapping up season 1. So just by deciding to be open about it, I've not only tried something new that was interesting, but uh, I have also expanded my mindset through listening to your conversations from behind the scenes.

Along this journey, we have seen every guest bring something different to the table, and I'm sure we have all gained valuable insights from them. Don't y'all agree? 

[00:02:24] Vanessa I: I do agree. I think that there are many, many things we have learned, and now that I'm looking at all the episodes we have recorded, I've realized that the topic is much bigger than what I sought originally.

And this is interesting because I think Vanessa T and I have been both practicing human resources for many years, and we have helped many career transition. But I think personally, I needed this conversation to go beyond the individual cases and to see the patterns across them. 

[00:02:56] Vanessa T: Indeed. And I also witnessed a number of, um, very interesting changes for myself too.

Just learning through this entire journey, the importance of experimentation, um, is so important, especially when we're trying to endeavor and doing something brand new like this. So even though many times things weren't perfect, we didn't always have the answers. We didn't always have the perfect content or the perfect script or the perfect questions to ask or the perfect way of, of even pulling together this podcast. But we boldly decided that we would still do our very best and still bring some really important content to our audience. So I felt really proud that we were able to do this. 

[00:03:40] Vanessa I: I'm indeed proud of ourselves, the three of us.

Now let's reflect on our last five episodes. What struck you from these episodes? Which one is the one that actually took you to the heart? 

[00:03:53] Vanessa T: Well, thinking through the last six episodes that we did, one of the patterns that I noticed across all of our conversations was the need to really take time to be with yourselves, particularly when you're going through some really crucial career transitions, taking time to intentionally reflect.

Be mindful and to always be grounded in your purpose. Um, we saw this through the different episodes in episode two with Jean Balfour in episode three with Gaston Smith and in Dr. Wendy Tan's episode six where they all spoke about the need for us to be intentional in order to ultimately elevate our sense of self awareness.

And the importance of going slow. in order to accelerate faster later on. 

[00:04:39] Aaron W: So to add on, I think that it's also important to enjoy the journey, right? At the end of the day, it's not a sprint, but more of a marathon, and it's good to sometimes take a pause to see how much we have grown over time. Another important theme that struck me is the need to be clear on our purpose when making transitions.

Tamara shared that when our purpose, values, and North Star are clearly defined, we can move through the different changes with greater confidence. 

[00:05:07] Vanessa T: Indeed.

[00:05:08] Vanessa I: I would like to talk also about the journey of self discovery in the process of career transition. All of our guests have been very honest and authentic about what they have discovered about themselves, sometimes to their surprise.

And while I was listening to them, I realized that in my own career transition, I had also discover so much about myself. 

[00:05:29] Vanessa T: Indeed. And finally, the importance of being bold when breaking boundaries and, and Karen Chan in episode five shared a lot about this with us, how she had the courage to take calculated risks and ultimately being able to break glass ceiling.

So. Very interesting patterns, I believe that we've seen throughout our different episodes and, um, great conversations that we've had with our guests. So what do you think we can look forward to in our next season? Aaron, what do you think? 

[00:06:03] Aaron W: Well, the journey for season one has been a fruitful one.

I believe we are just scratching the surface, we have a great guest lineup, and I'm looking forward to what this next season brings. So stay tuned. 

[00:06:14] Vanessa T: And I look forward to bringing even more diversity in the guests and experts who will bring different points of view to our show. 

[00:06:22] Vanessa I: I'm also enjoying this discovery process so I'm ready to learn even more about my new favorite topic, career transition.

By the way, Vanessa T, are you still my friend after all these hours of recordings? 

[00:06:35] Vanessa T: Of course we are! And Aaron, are you game for another season? 

[00:06:39] Aaron W: Yeah, let's continue this journey together and we will see you in the next one.