Suzanne Proksa:
Welcome to the Suzanne show with me, Suzanne Proksa, HR and business strategist, former featured Etsy seller, plant addict, concert lover, gardener, landscaper in training, and human straight up obsessed with helping others and cheering on women. Here, we talk a little business, personal development, women's health, and a whole lot about things that matter, help people, and give them joy. Grab your coffee or your wine, Break out one of your hundreds of notebooks. Light that soy candle, and let's dive in. Hello, everyone. Welcome to another episode of the Suzanne show. Today, I am talking with Mabel about ditching the rat race and finding a career that works for you. Mabel is a career transition specialist and well-being coach whose journey of career fulfillment has taken her across the world from the UK to Bulgaria, the Netherlands, India, and now the little town of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where she runs her coaching business, helping clients all over the globe, find purpose and happiness from their work.
Suzanne Proksa:
After leaving her international business development career in 2019, Mabel went on to study career transition coaching at the Life Purpose Institute, traveled across India to study fulfillment, created the career compass method, a framework to take people through every step of their career change journey, trained in mindfulness, teaching the time magazine features wellness works in schools and coach dozens of clients into new careers. And most importantly, out of the rat race and into a career that feels fulfilling and energizing. Mabel, welcome to the show. I am so glad that you are here. Please feel free to clean up, add to my intro.
Mabel Machini:
Hello. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here. I love the work that you do. I think this platform that you've created and the way that you support people through it is just beautiful. So I'm really excited to be here, and that was a fantastic introduction. Hearing it hearing you say it, it really made me go, oh, that's been a busy 4 years. That's been a really good 4 years and and a really nice moment of my my role and what I do when I work with clients is to help them find the real them.
Mabel Machini:
Like, not the should them, not the I'm supposed to be x y zed them, but the real them. And I think to do that, you have to practice what you preach. So hearing that introduction was a nice moment of, hey. I'm really happy with what I'm doing over here. So excited to be here. Thank you for having me on. I'm so excited for this conversation.
Suzanne Proksa:
Thank you so much for adding to that intro. So Mabel, tell me about your career background. You left your previous career in 2019. What made you know it was time to leave?
Mabel Machini:
Oh, it was a journey. Yeah. So I I think in a similar way to a lot of the people that I worked with, I went to school. I tried really hard in school. I actually I'm I'm dyslexic, and so that was hard to do well in school. But I tried really hard, Got good grades, went on to college because that's what you do if you're someone who wants to work hard. This was the kind of the upbringing that I got brought up with. Went to college, studied business because I think I I liked receipts.
Mabel Machini:
I was when I was a kid, I'd loan my we lived in England, so I'd loan my parents 50 p, and then I'd write this little journal. I'd say, well, that's got 20% interest on it. So you buy if you give me that on Tuesday, did it so I just I liked money, liked receipts. So went to school, studied business, always felt a little bit not at home there, kind of like these weren't my people, then went straight from business school into a business development career. And the whole time just kind of thought, oh, this doesn't feel right. I feel like there's this part of me that's really important that I'm hiding so that I can fit in. I'm in meetings, and I'm not really enjoying the meetings. I'm kind of thinking something else creative instead that doesn't really have a place in this meeting.
Mabel Machini:
And so I did that job for almost 2 years and, you know, progressed in it. People said I was good at it, but I just had this feeling inside that was like, I'm never gonna be that great at this because it's just not me. So I really grappled with that for a long time. I I even knew it when I took the job. When I took the job, I remember thinking, this is not me, but do I do it? And so I did. And I think that I noticed this with people. So I'll I'll work with people who are thinking about leaving their job, and they're saying, oh, I wanna do that, but, you know, what do I do next? And then I work with people who are like, I'm done. I'm over it.
Mabel Machini:
I'm ready to leave and go find something else. And there's a real difference between that kind of feeling like you might be ready to leave and really being ready to take action and doing it. And for me, I was in that stage of, oh, I wanna leave, but I just don't know how for a really long time. And the time that I knew it was time to leave was when the kind of a bit like the dial kind of changed direction. And I was like, okay. Now I'm ready to take action and actually go. It was a feeling of tasks becoming so boring, I just couldn't put the effort into doing them. And it was also this feeling of the fear changing.
Mabel Machini:
So the fear of staying became bigger than the fear of leaving. And so even though I didn't know what I was gonna do, I knew that kind of looking for something else and jumping into something new was less scary than staying where I was. And I think that that is a big moment that I notice with people that I work with that it's when the the fear tips, and, actually, it's scarier to stay where you are and face the future there than it is to jump into the unknown and try something new. That is when I see people really being able to take real action. And that was what it was like with me too. So then I jumped. I quit my job, went traveling. And during that time, I think I was on I was on a bus journey to Ukraine.
Mabel Machini:
It was like this 36 hour or something trip to Ukraine. This was in 2019. So, like, we we got to see Ukraine, you know, before everything that's happened there, which is now really amazing to reflect on that. I was on this bus. I was reading this book and reading that book. I just had this kind of light bulb moment of, okay, this is the career I wanna go into. I wanna go into coaching. So that is that's kind of what my career background looks like.
Suzanne Proksa:
It is always so brave to make that move. Thank you so much for sharing your experience. What were some of the hardest things that you encountered in your own career transition?
Mabel Machini:
I have noticed there's this thing that I think people often overlook in career change, which is going through an identity crisis. So your job might not be everything to you. It might not be your entire identity, but when you lose it, frequently, I think we are faced with a big crisis of who am I? What is my value in the world? What is my social standing in the world? What will people think of me? And we really kind of melt and have to reshape into this new identity if we're having a serious career change. You know? This is not, like, from kind of one similar position to the next. This is a real big career change where we're, like, reevaluating our life. And so that is exactly what I had. It was really challenging. I had been living in Bulgaria when I was working in business development, and I decided to leave that job.
Mabel Machini:
I did something that I do not recommend people to do unless they have a big support system to allow them to do it, which is what I had, which was leaving your current career with no idea exactly what you want to do next. That is exactly what I did. So I was in Bulgaria. I left Bulgaria when I left my job, and I moved back in, with my dad actually, into England temporarily, short term. It was always gonna be short term. And one of the reasons why I did that was because I had had a friend in England who had just had a baby, and I wanted to be there for her when she had the baby. But during that time, I kind of started from scratch completely and went from full time job, busy, busy, busy, to full time reevaluating what I wanted to do with my life. And I remember talking to my friend.
Mabel Machini:
I was on the phone to my friend in the kitchen, and he was like, are you okay? And I was like, no. I'm not okay. I think I think a lot of women, we want to work really hard. We want to be successful. And when we don't know where to put that energy, we can feel really like we're lazy, like we're not working hard enough. And that often happens if you don't know where you wanna put your energy into your next career. So total identity crisis, that was a really big thing that I had, worked through it, and kind of wrapped up in that identity crisis was people's opinions of me. That was really challenging as well.
Mabel Machini:
I think we often have this idea in culture that the right path is to go to college, and then it's to get a good kind of entry level job and then build up, build up, build up from there. And so when we go against that and we do something different and we kind of take a break to reevaluate things, I think a lot of the time, we are at least scared that people will look at us and say, what? Your life's just a mess. No. It's a mess. You're clearly not on the road to anything successful. You should've stayed in that job. So I had all of these kind of fears of different people's opinions. I had always been someone who had worked really hard and was doing the exciting thing with living in a different country, was doing the challenging job, and then all of a sudden, I was at home.
Mabel Machini:
I took a part time waitressing job at home with my dad doing a part time waitressing job, and the whole identity that I had built for my whole life felt like it wasn't valid anymore. So that is a big thing that I think we just have to grapple with in career change because you need to let go of your old identity that is tying you to ways of doing things that might not be truthful to the real you. We need to kind of let go of that and be in the discomfort, I believe, to really move forward with our careers in a way that is very truthful and is very meaningful to us. So people's opinions, identity crisis, feeling like my life looked like a mess. And then the second thing that came from that that was a challenge, and I I see this with people that I work with too, is sometimes it's it's different ways that we find the thing, the thing that we want to do, our next career. So sometimes you have a light bulb moment. Maybe you're reading something or you're researching or you have an experience, and that situation wakes you up to, oh, I, like, I get the feeling. This is what I wanna do.
Mabel Machini:
That was what happened to me. The other times, and this is frequently much more the way it goes, it it's not quite as clear. And you have a few ideas, and you have a feeling about the kind of thing you want it to be. And then you just, like, hit the road and you research and you do a lot of long term research and you put yourself you know, you shadow different careers. You really learn about them. And then slowly through that, you go, oh, I think this is the right thing for me. So that is frequently the road that I notice people go down. But for me, it really was a light bulb moment of I want to work in coaching.
Mabel Machini:
I wanna work in coaching. I want to help other people find careers that, you know, aren't aren't just careers, but really get to be something that they are excited about and is meaningful to them and allows them to live a life that is really meaningful and true to them. So it really clicked with me what I wanted to do, but then the challenge was having no idea how to do it. So, okay, cool. I I wanna be a coach. Remember I told my dad And we come from a very, I suppose you could say, like, humble upbringing in England, and so people weren't coaches. And so I said to my dad, I I I wanna be a coach. This is what I want to do.
Mabel Machini:
I wanna work in career transition. And he was like, alright. Well, that's alright. But what what am I gonna tell the boys at work then? You're you're a life coach. You help people find meaningful careers. He just, like, wasn't within his worldview. So that was a real challenge, having this idea that felt so meaningful to me That was what I wanted to do, but not having the support system to really help me see how to do it. And I noticed that with a lot of people that I work with too.
Suzanne Proksa:
You often talk about shedding the layers and beliefs that we've been socialized to believe so that we can find a career that's true to who we are. Can you tell us a little bit more about that, though? You know, what does that mean?
Mabel Machini:
So there is this fabulous, brilliant writer called Martha Beck, and she talks about this idea of these these two selves that we have inside us. So inside us, we have our essential self. That's who we are born as. That's who we are in our soul. That's who we really, really are at our core. And then we have our socialized self, which is the self we have learned to be based on everything we've been exposed to ever since we were a child. As soon as we start start kind of seeing things in the world, we started to become this socialized self. So that might be from the culture that we were exposed to, our family beliefs, things and experiences that we had along the way of our life that made us think a certain way and have a certain set of beliefs.
Mabel Machini:
And so if we want to, 1, find a career, but, 2, just find a life that is so true to us, where we get to really be ourselves, where we don't have to feel like we have to hide a part of ourselves when we show up to work each day. If we want to find that, we have to pull back the layers of this socialized self, analyze what in the socialized self is true and what is actually false and what is actually not what we really think so that we can rediscover our essential self. So that's gonna look like analyzing all of the beliefs that you have that make you feel trapped or make you feel like you don't have opportunities or make you feel like you can't do something or make you feel like doing something is bad. Analyzing all of those beliefs and then just discovering, well, is is that really true for me? Do do I really think that? What what's one what's the evidence that that is actually true? What's the evidence that it's not true? And then how do I really feel about that? And if we can do that and we can get to this essential self, who we really are, then that is where our magic lies. That's where our, like, real career potential lives lies because those are the things that we are really truly passionate about and naturally talented at. So, for example, for me, in my old business development career, I was kind of socialized. As we all know, we're we're all just socialized by the culture that we're exposed to because we're human social creatures. I was kinda socialized to think that it was good to get a stable job and a job that looked successful.
Mabel Machini:
So I went into this business development job because it met those criteria. But while I was there, what I've learned on my own career discovery journey is that I didn't really get to use the skills and talents that are part of my essential self, the things that I'm really good at. And so as a result, I I couldn't even do that amazing in this business development job. Going through my own career transition, what I learned, and and by career transition, I also mean pulling apart these socialized beliefs and getting closer to the essential self. From doing that, I learned that some of my best skills within my essential self are connecting with people, being super empathetic, helping people in a way where they feel really seen and heard. And I didn't get to do that in my old business development job. And so now I know that I kind of have the information to really excel in my career because I know what I am essentially good at, what I am innately good at. So that is why it is so important to to find that essential self, to pull back those layers to who you really are.
Suzanne Proksa:
Thank you so much for that clarification. That really helps. Now we're gonna pick on you. What layers did you have to shed in your own journey?
Mabel Machini:
Oh, there were, there were a few. So there was this idea of kind of, you know, inverted commas, a successful career, a career with a good job title, with a job title that other people recognize and people risk that. I had to pull that apart, and I had to unsubscribe to that idea because what I do now you know, my my career title a few different titles. I do a few different things, but career transition specialist, people don't look at that and instantly go, oh, this person is x y zed. I trust them. I had to pull that back. Another one was having a stable salary job. So I come from this culture, I suppose like a like a humble culture, where it was really important to have a job with a good salary and a stable salary so that you had safety.
Mabel Machini:
I remember my my grandparents saying, you should be an accountant because accountants earn lots of money. And then kind of pulling back those layers of me and figuring out the real me, the essential self me. My learning is but, actually, I'm I'm such an impact driven person, such a kind of meaning driven person that to me, having a salary that a paycheck that is a bit different every month doesn't doesn't really matter to me. Because what matters to me and where I feel like my real self is when I get to do something that feels really impactful in a way where I'm getting to learn my use my best skills. Another one was this belief about the the wellness industry is lame. When I told my dad I wanted to, like, go into this industry and help people find really fulfilling careers, I think his answer to that was, alright. You wanna do that, do you? He's like, well, what am I gonna tell the boys at work? What what am I gonna tell them your job title is? And so really kind of having to get over the feeling that what I was doing was lame to some people. It it was just new to some people that hadn't been exposed to it.
Mabel Machini:
Getting over that and also getting over that without necessarily a big support system of lots of other people saying, this is great, Mabel. Go for it. So, you know, sometimes when we have these big moments of kind of this is who I really am, this is what I really wanna do, If we've been living in this socialized self, the kind of like the should self, this is how I should be. And then if we transition into, well, this this is really me. This is what I really wanna do. We might not have that support system of people who get it, who understand it. And so sometimes we have to look for new people when we're going through this journey to find people who will get it and who will support it. So a lot a lot of layer shedding that I've done.
Mabel Machini:
And and, honestly, I still do. And I I think one big important thing to note about career transition and finding a really fulfilling career is that it's not a kind of one and done light bulb moment, we're finished thing. It's a continuous journey of, oh, I'm noticing this thing that I've always thought my whole life, and now it's holding me back. And actually, maybe that's not the real me. So it's a continuous journey of kind of shedding these beliefs.
Suzanne Proksa:
Thank you for being a good sport with that question. How is your approach different to other career specialists? I know there's a lot of people out there helping with this right now and a lot of people making moves. Right? So how is your approach different than what other people are doing?
Mabel Machini:
Yeah. We had the great resignation over the pandemic. I think it kind of helped a lot of people wake up to, oh, is this is this really what I wanna be doing? And so there there are a lot of career coaches out there, and I respect everything that they're doing. And, also, it's not necessarily the way I might do it. So I always say to someone on a sales call, if we're if we're talking about whether we wanna work together, I say, this this is not a quick fix solution. This is not, like, 3 months and then complete forever. That there is no quick fix to long term career fulfillment. This is a total discovery of who you are, who you really are, what kind of life you really want, what kind of life will really make you happy, letting go of how you think you should be and discovering what you really want, and then finding the kind of career that fits into that.
Mabel Machini:
So I always say as I I think a lot of the time, we'll kind of go on LinkedIn or whatever, and we'll look at job descriptions, and we'll say like, well, hey. That looks a bit like me. I'll kinda fit myself into that. Like, I'll I'll mold my shape so I can fit into their key shaped hole. Okay? You might get some of the things that you want, but maybe you don't get to be your full self there. So then what we do is kind of the opposite approach. We say, well, let's design your puzzle. So one of the first things we do is a big self discovery, and I call it finding all of the puzzle pieces for you, who you are, and the kind of life that you want.
Mabel Machini:
We kind of create that puzzle of what is your fulfilling life, and then within that, your fulfilling career. And then what kind of jobs fit you? What kind of jobs fit your shape? So the work that I do is very fulfillment based, and it's really about figuring out what's long term, what do you want for your life, and then where can we find that in a career? And then the other way in which it is a little bit different that I do things, people get this. They're like, really, Mabel? Do we have to do this? When we do get to that point of going out and looking for the job, it is not about getting on job sites and applying to 1,000,000 jobs and sending out 1,000,000 resumes. It's about meeting people and learning from them and building relationships and growing your network, learning the skills to do all of those things, and finding the jobs that are never even listed publicly on the market. Because that's, like, 70, 80% of jobs are never even listed on a job site. So that way is more challenging in a sense because you have to really get out there and, like, be who you really are in front of people. That's scary, but the reward is just so, so, so much greater.
Suzanne Proksa:
All right. Here is the question that is going to probably help a ton of people. And that is if someone's in a situation where they hate their job and they know that they have got to get out of there, what is the first thing that you recommend they do?
Mabel Machini:
Oh, that is a good question. So number 1, listen to those feelings. Know that they mean something. They matter, and know that you deserve a career that is wonderful, that is exciting, that is fulfilling. So if you ever question, you know, oh, these feelings, I should just suppress them and keep on rolling with this job that I hate, listen to your feelings know they matter. The next step is to do an evaluation on how much that job right now is burning you out, is making you feel distressed. Because the career change Proksa, I I always say to people, like, it's it's not an overnight fix. If you want a long term fulfilling career, it takes some time.
Mabel Machini:
Right? So I generally say to people, can you stay in that job for another 6 months? Because it's gonna be at least 6 months for you to do the discovery work and then researching different opportunity work. So it's gonna take you at least that amount of time until you will be ready to go into a new job that is really like, the job is the career path change. So can you stay in it for 6 months? If the answer is no, that is okay. What I recommend is that you go into something called a bridge job, And a bridge job is a job that is not the final job. It's not the thing you're gonna do forever, but it is a job that allows you to have more mental and emotional energy free when you get home from work so that you can go and actually do the career discovery and the career clarity work that you need to do to find that long term fulfilling career. So do the evaluation. Can I stay in this job for 6 months? If the answer is yes, then you're ready to move on to the next step, which is the clarity. I'll talk about that in a sec.
Mabel Machini:
If the answer is no, look for a bridge job so that you have the mental and emotional space to do the work. That's step 2 then is to start following what really excites you, what excites you, what makes you feel alive, something you've always wished you could do but have never started. So that could be a new hobby. It could be starting a new habit. It could be, you know, exploring, drawing a 10 mile radius from where you live and exploring new places. What you want to do is start exposing yourself to new stuff, you know, big or small, doesn't matter, that can help you learn new things and be exposed to new things because we always say action creates clarity. So if you've been doing the same job for a number of years and it hasn't been working, what you need to go is out there and start experiencing new stuff. And it sounds really crazy, but that new stuff can be so random.
Mabel Machini:
Like, if you have always wanted to go and do a hula hoop class, then go do a hula hoop class and just notice what you enjoy about it. You know, in doing that, you might notice, hey. I really enjoy being on my feet. That makes me feel more energized. So maybe I want a job that is less desk focused, not sure I get to move around or, hey. I love this performance thing. Performance is so cool. I just feel so alive when I'm doing performance stuff.
Mabel Machini:
Maybe I want to go into a job that isn't necessarily being a hula hooper, but has some kind of performance element. So whenever you follow something that makes you feel excited, makes you feel alive, makes you feel true to you, you will start learning information about the kind of career that is your career, that is the career that you are meant to have. So do the evaluation. Can I stay in this job for 6 months? And then go into a bridge job if you can't, and then begin to explore little things that excite you, a hobby, trying something new.
Suzanne Proksa:
Okay. Awesome. Super helpful. So I'm assuming then that once they take those first steps that they need to take, that that's where you can come in and help them. What does that look like? How do you offer to help people? And, of course, also, how do they reach out to you? How do they find you? What programs do you have available?
Mabel Machini:
Yeah. So if you have begun the career change journey or you are wanting to begin it, but you just feel really overwhelmed by how to do it. Maybe you are reading a lot of articles online that's saying, do this, do this, do this, but the path still just doesn't feel clear to you, then that is where I come in. My job is to give people the path, give people the road map with all of the steps, and then help them through it and help them along the way. Identify this essential self, identify this real self, overcome the beliefs that might make us say, I can't do it. Overcome all of that stuff so that they can actually get towards the end. So the kind of coaching that I do is 1 on 1. I just I really enjoy connecting people 1 on 1.
Mabel Machini:
So I mainly work with people in a program called the career compass method. It's my baby. And it's a really lovely kind of mixture of 1 on 1 coaching where we get to really talk about, you know, what's your individual challenge, what's your individual journey, because everyone is so different, and this is all about finding your unique path. So we get to do that together. And, also, then they get the curriculum online, which really gives them the road map and the steps and all of that stuff. So a lot of the work that I do is through the career compass method. So if you are that person and you're thinking, hey. Like, now now is the time.
Mabel Machini:
I'm I'm done waiting in this job that sucks, and I actually really wanna move. And I just don't know how to do that by myself, so I think getting help from someone is the right thing for me, which is awesome, by the way. The, this, the culture I grew up in in England was so, like, anti help. You, you don't spend money on getting people to help you. That means that you're weak or you failed. And then when I was studying coaching, Someone said something that I never forget, and they said, well, successful people have coaches. And I was like, That's true. So I have coaches that help me with a load of things.
Mabel Machini:
So whenever I meet with someone, we'll always have a free session, and we'll just talk about if we feel like it's right for both of us. So the best way to get in touch with me is via Instagram, via LinkedIn, all of the details on my website, and then we'll just connect and help that person really figure out what the next right step is for them.
Suzanne Proksa:
Okay, Mabel. So you've got some great things available to help peep work their way through this. And, you've talked about the first steps they need to take. You've talked about your own career transition. Some of the things that you've dealt with and ran into. What are 2 or 3 things that you really want people to walk away with today from this episode, if nothing else?
Mabel Machini:
Yes. Okay. Top 2 or 3 things would be, number 1, know that you deserve a really fulfilling career. You are so special, so full of value, and so I think sometimes people question whether they deserve that. It happens a lot. Oh, you know, am I am I really good enough for that? Why me? Know that you deserve something really fulfilling that's gonna make you happy, and, in fact, that's where you're gonna be at your best. That's where you're gonna find your magic and where you're gonna be able to do something that works for you and, like, brings all this magic to the world. You deserve it.
Mabel Machini:
Number 2, know that you don't have to have the career you thought you had to have, the career that your parents think you have to have. There are about 12,000 careers out there. There's thousands of careers. So you can find one that works for you. And my encouragement there would be if you feel like your current group of friends or support system or family is is kind of different to where you think your truth actually is in your career. So, you know, maybe you have friends and family who just only know about, let's say, for example, like, a set of 20 different jobs, and you feel like, actually, you're looking for something a bit different and they might not get it. Go and search for friends or a network that can support you in your journey. You know, being around people who have done the thing that you want to do is so powerful because they know the steps.
Mabel Machini:
They've done it. They can say this is how you do it. So know that you don't have to have the career that your parents had or that you've been exposed to so far. Go and look for the network that will show you how it's possible. And then I think, finally, the place to start figuring out what your career clarity is is to start following what excites you, what makes you feel happy, what makes you feel alive, and following it kind of without any reason. Like, it doesn't have to be useful for what you're doing. You're doing it simply because you're exploring what you enjoy and what lights you up. So follow the thing that excites you even if it seems super random or pointless or unproductive.
Mabel Machini:
Just follow the thing you want to follow and explore it.
Suzanne Proksa:
Thank you so much, Mabel. I appreciate your time being on the show, sharing this information. Because as I said in the beginning, this is a really hot topic and it still is. People aren't talking as much about the great resignation and all of this, but it's it's still going on out there. It's still going on y'all. So thank you so much for being here. I appreciate your time, and I look forward to talking to you again soon.
Mabel Machini:
Thank you. It's been so lovely spending this time with you. It's it's just been the best. It's been so lovely. And, yeah, you're right. You know, like, the great resignation happened a while ago now, but it really it really woke people up. And I'm really excited for people being more aware too. I I I guess I can find something that I'm actually really excited about, and so I am so happy about that.
Mabel Machini:
I'm really happy to come on here and talk with you about it, and here's to doing the brave thing and getting out there and doing what is scary to find what you love.
Suzanne Proksa:
I hope that you loved this episode. If you did, give me those shout outs, show me some love on iTunes, give me a rating. And, hey, if you wanna know where to find me, you can find me on pretty much all social media at Suzanne. That's suz anneproxsa and you can also head over to my website suzanneprosa.com. Until then, I'll see you in the next episode and here is parte music for you.
