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Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Good Morning, This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.

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Speaker 1: Today's tip is to learn as much as you can

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Speaker 1: about any job before you pursue it. When you know

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Speaker 1: how people in that job spend their hours, you are

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Speaker 1: more likely to go in with your eyes open and

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Speaker 1: less likely to end up disappointed. Today's tip was partly

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Speaker 1: inspired by an idea I heard from Adam Bryant, author

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Speaker 1: of the book The Leap to Leader, How Ambitious Managers

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Speaker 1: Make the Jump to Leadership. On a Harvard Business Review

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Speaker 1: idea cast, Bryant was asked what advice he would give

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Speaker 1: an early career professional considering a role in leadership in

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Speaker 1: the future. He said, be clear about why you want

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Speaker 1: to do it, and do as much work as you

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Speaker 1: can to find out what job you are signing up for,

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Speaker 1: so that gap between the theory of the job and

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Speaker 1: the reality of the job is very small. Bryant went

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Speaker 1: on to say that for a lot of people, there

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Speaker 1: turns out to be a gap between what they thought

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Speaker 1: a leadership job would be and what it actually entails.

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Speaker 1: To avoid that, he advised, you need to take some

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Speaker 1: control and ownership for the fact that you should do

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Speaker 1: some detective work before you commit to a big new

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Speaker 1: chapter of your career. I like this framing of a

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Speaker 1: gap between the theory of a job and the.

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Speaker 2: Reality of a job. I think this gap exists not

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Speaker 2: just in leadership roles, but in all sorts of jobs.

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Speaker 2: In many cases, people don't think about exactly how they

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Speaker 2: will spend their hours in a certain job, and they

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Speaker 2: can quickly become disillusioned. Certainly this happens with people starting

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Speaker 2: out in their career. I know of a young person

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Speaker 2: who left medicine after realizing he would be having very

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Speaker 2: similar conversations with patients about the exact same condition dozens

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Speaker 2: of times per day. Medicine sounded prestigious and interesting. But

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Speaker 2: while he might still have been able to claim prestige

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Speaker 2: at his practice or in talking with people outside of work,

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Speaker 2: his particular area was just not going to be that

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Speaker 2: interesting to him. The same thing happens with law. It

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Speaker 2: sounds like a high paid thing you can do with

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Speaker 2: three years of school after getting an undergraduate humanities degree,

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Speaker 2: and it certainly can be. But many forms of practicing

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Speaker 2: law involve a very careful reading of documents. If you

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Speaker 2: thought you'd be in a courtroom or something yelling objection

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Speaker 2: every day because that's what you saw on TV. You're

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Speaker 2: going to be disappointed. So best to know how people

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Speaker 2: spend their hours. Unless you are inventing a job from scratch,

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Speaker 2: there is someone who is working in the same way

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Speaker 2: that you will likely be working in this future job.

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Speaker 2: So talk to them. Ask them to show you their

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Speaker 2: schedule for a week. Is the role you are considering

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Speaker 2: at that nonprofit going to involve working with people in

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Speaker 2: the field or will you be in meetings at headquarters

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Speaker 2: all day? Church leadership involves giving inspiring sermons, and it

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Speaker 2: also involves hours spent managing a team of people and

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Speaker 2: occasionally dealing with demanding parishioners and having meetings about the

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Speaker 2: budget and all that too. If you are considering a field,

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Speaker 2: or switching careers, or even looking at a new job

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Speaker 2: at a different company, become a detective. Talk to people.

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Speaker 1: Are they happy? What are they doing on Tuesday at

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Speaker 1: ten am? Is that what you'd like to be doing

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Speaker 1: on Tuesday at ten am? Look at their schedules, Ask

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Speaker 1: what they like the most and the least. Could you

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Speaker 1: live with the things they like least? There are a

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Speaker 1: lot of jobs. In this world, it can be easy

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Speaker 1: to romanticize certain jobs and what they look like from

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Speaker 1: the outside. Some jobs truly are wonderful. Most are fine.

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Speaker 1: But you want to make sure that there isn't a

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Speaker 1: big gap between the theory and the reality of a job.

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Speaker 1: If you go in knowing the reality, you're far more

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Speaker 1: likely to be happy on the other side.

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Speaker 2: In the meantime, this is Laura.

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Speaker 1: Thanks for listening, and here's to making the most of

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Speaker 1: our time. Thanks for listening to Before Breakfast. If you've

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Speaker 1: got questions, ideas, or feedback, you can reach me at

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Speaker 1: Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. Before Breakfast is a

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Speaker 1: production of iHeartMedia. For more podcasts from iHeartMedia, please visit

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Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to

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Speaker 1: your favorite shows.