How To Approach Career Reinvention with Jaclyn Mullen

What happens when you decide to reinvent yourself—both personally and professionally? Join us on this episode of Epochal Growth as we explore the transformative power of reinvention, featuring an inspiring story of a friend who successfully negotiated her worth. Her journey underscores the value of self-advocacy and the courage it takes to ask for what you deserve. We expand on the concept of reinvention, exploring career shifts and personal growth while highlighting the necessity of intentionality and purpose. Get ready to tackle imposter syndrome head-on and discover why it might just be a sign of untapped potential waiting to be unleashed.

Meet our guest Jaclyn Mullen, whose fascinating career journey takes her from the music business to becoming a key player in the tech industry. From her roots in her grandparents' jewelry store to an unexpected pivot into HR tech and customer marketing, Jaclyn's story is a testament to adaptability and continuous learning. We discuss the challenges and opportunities presented by the rise of AI in customer support, emphasizing how unexpected career paths can lead to deeply fulfilling professional journeys. Through Jaclyn's experiences, we highlight the importance of building strong customer relationships and staying open to new opportunities.

Customer support roles are evolving, becoming more inclusive and essential as business differentiators. Learn about the shift towards valuing skills over college degrees and the impact of generative AI on support operations. We discuss the need for leadership to remain adaptable and recognize customer experience as a competitive edge. Finally, we emphasize the significance of constructive feedback and clear communication within teams, noting how empathy and self-awareness can drive both personal and professional growth. Don't miss out on these insights and strategies to empower your journey of ethical growth and reinvention.

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Chapters

• 0:03 Introduction to Epochal Growth
• 12:08 Career Journey and Reinvention
• 25:49 Support Industry Paradigm Shift
• 40:46 Constructive Feedback and Communication Styles
• 51:36 Communicating and Connecting for Growth
• 1:02:06 Empowering CX Professionals for Leadership

Transcript

Sarah Caminiti: 0:03

How many times have you thought there has to be a better way? Welcome to Epochal Growth, a podcast where we invite industry leaders and change makers who thought that very thing and realized that, yeah, a better way to lead or to grow or to build does exist. And once they trusted themselves enough to discover what's possible, they created the foundation for a new era that's revolutionizing the landscape of success. The word ethical refers to these very moments in time, because when you commit to being better, the impact will last for generations to come. I'm your host, Sarah Caminiti. Join me to uncover practical insights and strategies that will empower you to be the change that you seek. This is ethical growth. I'm so happy that you're here.

Sarah Caminiti: 1:02

Hey, it's Tuesday. What does that mean? We got a new episode. I actually am delivering on time. Welcome to Epochal Growth. I am so happy that you're here.

Sarah Caminiti: 1:22

A couple of quick housekeeping things reviews, ratings you can do this on wherever it is that you listen to your podcast. I want to know what you think about what we're doing here at Epochal Growth, how it can be better. If there's things that you really are loving, I want to be able to do more of it. So please, please, please, let me know, make sure you're following on wherever it is that you listen to your podcast, because sometimes I don't deliver on Tuesdays and sometimes I deliver more than just one episode in the week, so don't miss it. Follow, get notified before anybody else does, before I even have a chance to put it on LinkedIn or wherever it is that I share the news to send you all flocking to your podcast apps. And also we have YouTube, where I've got clips sprinkling in from all of the fantastic mic drop moments that our guests here at Epochal Growth share with us. So, please, if you don't have time to listen to the full episode, I get it. Life is nuts, but sometimes we need that little boost of empowerment in our life, in our day, and you can find that on YouTube, so make sure you subscribe so you can find us. Now I also want to just take a moment to celebrate someone very special in my life who fought for her value.

Sarah Caminiti: 2:36

Too often we are quick to accept whatever monetary number we receive from our employer, and it is really hard to get the courage to ask questions and demand more in a way that is respectful and transparent and has opportunity for growth and definition. This was a long, long fight and a very, very earned victory. That should never have been more than a quick conversation to right or wrong, but she stuck with it. She knew what she was worth and she kept fighting and I am so proud to know her. Remember that nobody else gets to define your worth, and money is weird and it makes for awkward conversations, but it still does not mean that you do not get to ask questions or develop a plan or strategize or just learn why. We all deserve great things. We all deserve to be paid what we're worth. Having the confidence to approach those conversations in a way that you're proud isn't always easy, so congratulations to this special person.

Sarah Caminiti: 3:42

So what are we talking about today? We're talking about reinvention. Reinvention is very similar to eras. There's a lot of overlap. The difference lies in understanding the purpose behind it.

Sarah Caminiti: 3:53

When you're thinking about reinvention, you can start thinking about asking yourself some questions. What are you actually trying to reinvent? Is this a personal reinvention? Is this a career reinvention? Are you moving into a different field? Are you going to school for something? Did you just get a degree? Are you moving into leadership? These are all opportunities for reinvention. However, no one ever talks about the how. How do we even start to think about reinvention? It's essential to focus on the purpose and be intentional when you're trying to reinvent yourself, because when you're intentional and you understand the purpose and you've defined it, you're able to build that foundation for the new era that you're entering into. I'm so excited to introduce you to Jaclyn. Jaclyn is a builder, she is a connector and through this she validates what's possible. Let's be honest about reinvention. This is a very vulnerable thing that you are entering into. Even just starting to question the definition of what this reinvention is in your life is a vulnerable place to find yourself in. You need to intentionally step into a place where reinvention is on the table. Doing so involves a blend of risk and curiosity self-reflection In the episode that just aired last week with Jen South and we briefly touched on imposter syndrome.

Sarah Caminiti: 5:20

Because of this, I've been contemplating the concept of imposter syndrome a lot. It got me to think about shifting our perception of imposter syndrome, stopping ourselves from thinking it is this negative thing that is just eating away at our potential for success. Instead, we see it as confirmation that we're capable of what we fear we're going to fail at. So I've been having this email exchange with someone recently. I don't know what it is about this person, but they have given me an opportunity to reflect in a way that I don't think that I have had the space for in years, and he's shared with me different quotes, and the crazy piece about it is how perfectly timed these quotes are.

Sarah Caminiti: 6:05

This isn't a person that I see on a regular basis. This isn't a person within my company. The conversations are not linear to what I'm thinking about at the moment in my regular day to day life, but the quotes that he does share with me end up connecting to exactly where I am in that very moment. So he shared this quote by Charles Bukowski the problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts, while the stupid ones are full of confidence. Think about that for a second.

Sarah Caminiti: 6:34

Those who are incapable of reinvention or incapable of risky, meaningful ethical growth, never talk about imposter syndrome. The ones that are capable of this, that are worthy of everything that they are being asked to do or promoted to or dedicating time to, those are the ones that feel the imposter syndrome. Jaclyn validated what's possible as I entered into my current era of taking up space. Even before I knew her. She was the very first person to connect with me who didn't know me, and she acknowledged the golden rule when she sent me the message on LinkedIn. I remember exactly where I was when I got this request from her and reading the message, and I think I talked about it with my husband for a week straight. She validated what's possible and what happens when you allow connection into your life. We need people like Jaclyn before we even know that we need them. She effortlessly validates possibilities because she has taken these risks and she survived. Each reinvention has given her more introspection and purpose, guiding her into the next era of growth and change.

Sarah Caminiti: 7:45

In this episode, you're going to learn about the power of community and how community solidifies a brand and a company's identity. You're going to learn about how to reinvent yourself and how to reflect on reinvention in a way that drives personal growth. You'll also learn about how to lead a team that's collaborative but still focuses on the numbers and the results. And, finally, we're going to talk about untapped potential and how to capitalize on that within your career and how to recognize that it exists inside of you. Listeners, I am so excited to start this episode. This is ethical growth how to approach career reinvention with Jaclyn Mullen. This is ethical growth. How to approach career reinvention with Jaclyn Mullen. You didn't expect it, but, hi, I am like so pumped for this.

Jaclyn Mullen: 8:34

So pumped for this I am too. Thank you Really. Thank you so much, and I just appreciate the opportunity. I think this is a testament to the power of connecting you know and us, even though we're remotely distributed, not, you know, staying like holding ourselves back from reaching out to people and forging true, genuine relationships thinking about how full circle this is.

Sarah Caminiti: 9:02

You were one of the first people to reach out and connect with me, and you were the first person ever to acknowledge the golden rule bit that I had in my LinkedIn profile, and it just was like you were the start of realizing how much I've been missing by not connecting with folks in this community, because you are my people, your kindred spirits, and it's people like you and what you did for me that made it happen. So thank you. Oh my gosh.

Jaclyn Mullen: 9:32

Sarah, you're making my week. It's been a little bit of a crazy one, but I'm like, okay, I was not expecting that.

Sarah Caminiti: 9:42

Really. No, you really ignited something in me, uh and uh, yeah, it was empowering, so thank you oh yeah, no, that's.

Jaclyn Mullen: 9:52

That's what we're here to do today, right? So help others find that same sort of spark, if you will. The tender, which I didn't realize. That's what a tinder is, sarah. I used to live right by Tinder offices in West Hollywood and Tinder literally stands for like the spark that the two logs create.

Sarah Caminiti: 10:12

I had never made that connection before. You're right, we need. Tinder to flame. Yeah yeah, good on them. I mean that was a good name pick, but they needed to do a better job at connecting those dots, because that's really good.

Jaclyn Mullen: 10:28

Yeah, yeah, the fun things I will share with you, the random fun facts that will be picked up today.

Sarah Caminiti: 10:34

Hey, I am a lover of the random facts because they make the conversations that much better. But, yeah, let's do the thing that I'm terrible at, which is actually saying let's start the podcast.

Jaclyn Mullen: 10:49

So I hi everybody. I'm Jaclyn Mullen, I'm head of marketing for the Loops AI and you know I'm here today because obviously I'm number one. Sarah and I connected over LinkedIn and live in different coasts of the United States and I think us having this conversation is just the testament to. It's really easy in a digital day and age for us to get very busy with our lives, especially if we're a part of CX. There's a never ending list of things we're trying to accomplish and do in those day to day functions and like, yeah, there's something called our customers.

Jaclyn Mullen: 11:26

So I think it's important, you know, to speak to what's possible when we step outside of that busy hamster wheel and forge real, true, genuine relationships. And the other side of that coin, too, is that I know sometimes marketers get a bad rap and so anything I can, anything I can do to debunk not all marketers you know are the same. Not all AI is the same. I'm looking forward to the conversation, sarah, because I think if we can help people you know create some cool paradigm shifts, I'm all here for that.

Sarah Caminiti: 12:00

So so happy that you're here, so, so happy that you're here here for that, so so happy that you're here, so so happy that you're here. Just a quick little backstory Jaclyn and I have never had a one-on-one conversation. I had a call with the Loops and got to see the awesome stuff they were doing and thankfully I mean, I got so lucky that she decided to join the call so we could finally meet. But this was our first. This is our first actual chance to get to know each other on a different level and ask the questions that we've been wanting to ask each other, not on a chat, and so this is a special day and I'm really excited for this. So thank you very much for coming here.

Jaclyn Mullen: 12:43

Yeah, there's been a lot of slacks. So I would say, Sarah, we are Slack buddies and that's the beauty of this from Slack to real chat.

Sarah Caminiti: 12:53

I know it's good. It's good. So I think that what I want to know about the most is I've been fortunate enough to gather little bits and pieces of your career journey. Enough to gather little bits and pieces of your career journey, but I'm dying to know how you came into where you are and what happened before.

Jaclyn Mullen: 13:14

Yeah, I want to share a quick CliffsNotes version because we never know who's listening. I went to school for music business so I thought, yes, I actually am a singer by trade loves, you know, grew up, um, grew up on MTV, you know. Song and dance were really, really, really key aspects of my life. So I share that to say that I always did have marketing running in the background, because MTV showed me how important it was for artists to build a brand and to have merchandise and I wanted to understand the mechanics of that business. But I grew up with immigrant grandparents on my maternal side that came here with $5 in their pocket, didn't speak English, went into the jewelry trade, started two jewelry stores, one first in Long Island, new York, before I was born, the other in Vero Beach, florida. And the reason why I also mentioned that is because during my summer breaks as a child I spent my time in my grandparents' jewelry store and that's where I first understood that like the power of connecting with your customer. So flash forward to you know I go to junior college first, which I think is also an important thing to share, to break down this whole stigma of everybody needing to go to like a four year school or what have you. I actually moved and uprooted myself from where I grew up to go be close to my grandparents and live in their town and spent two years of junior college because I knew that that time with them was very precious. And then the rest of like once, once, you know, I hit like my professional career. I knew that there was like no going back.

Jaclyn Mullen: 15:00

So I didn't end up in the music industry, as you can wager, a little thing called technology, it seems like occurred overnight and I graduated and I actually started off working for an HR tech company which back then, like SaaS, wasn't even around. And you know they were like look, you're going to do a little bit of marketing, you're going to definitely do some sales. We really need you to understand our customers and that's that's. That was like the stepping stone for how my career in this aspect of like content marketing, what we now call in customer marketing, started. I would go and talk to our customers and try to understand what their pain points were and my sales team would say, hey, this is what they need and I'm like that's not what they're saying.

Jaclyn Mullen: 15:49

So the rise of the internet. You know, I worked for that company for three years. And then, sarah, it was just sort of like off to the races. I left where that, where I was, which was in Florida. I moved out to the West Coast, lived in Los Angeles and all these platforms were kicking off. Twitter was kicking off, facebook had just started. So, little by little, I started working in tech and that's how I got into this industry. And then, yeah, how I started at the Loops I could talk about later or whatever, but I never saw it coming.

Sarah Caminiti: 16:24

Essentially, oh, that is great. I'll be honest, Jaclyn, like that is a pretty common theme, though, for people that are in the support industry, that make it a profession, especially in the tech space. I mean, of course, in the tech space, but it is. But it was the unexpected space. It was realizing where your skills are and how you can create a positive impact within the company, but also for the customer, and how that translates to different things. I mean, it sounds like you were creating a voice of customer program in that first place and that is so necessary, but not talked about at all at that point in time. And it's, it's, it's, that's.

Sarah Caminiti: 17:16

This is one of the things that I love about these conversations. It's. You see, this journey like when you're young, when you're trying to figure your stuff out you have no idea where life is going to take you and where it can go is so cool because we never would have dreamed that this space was possible that we get to build a career out of creating marketing for supporting customer folks through AI and using that for the good of the customer experience Like dang, it's so cool.

Jaclyn Mullen: 17:49

Well, the other thing, too, I think that's so key is you know, I've had to do this multiple times. So I think when I was younger, I would have thought, oh, I would only have to reinvent myself or acquire, like the next set of skills, maybe once or twice. And I think what we're being shown in today's economy is that, like again, I came into the loops not having ever worked in AI before and, as people are hearing, you know there's AI has its own language, so I very I hadn't worked with Zendesk or Intercom before or understood, you know, some of the stuff under the hood very quickly had to learn and upskill, and so we talk about upskilling this current year as if it's this new thing. But I think all of us need to remember that the ability to reinvent ourselves we have it. I know that you know there's a lot of nuance to you know we have to pay our bills and you know a lot of nuance to you know we have to pay our bills and you know there's a the job market's crazy.

Jaclyn Mullen: 18:48

But I think what my grandparents modeled for me was, you know to stay open to learning and that I have to take that initiative, and almost I always say, like, get comfortable with being uncomfortable, because they learned how to speak English and read English by looking at the words in a book or watching TV. Nobody sat down and taught them. And I think it's the same thing for what we're seeing happen today with technology. Now colleges have programs and certifications. I didn't have that back then, and you're right. Voice of the customer. I'm laughing at how much I would go to my leadership team back then and I would say this is what our customers are saying that they want. And it was like oh, but we can save them all this money with HR and workers compensation. And I'm like but they care about trusting us, referring us to their family members that are also business owners, so on and so forth. Right, like, anyway, it's really cool just to remember that. You know, we're always probably going to be needing reinventing ourselves in this day and age.

Sarah Caminiti: 19:54

Yeah, it's true. I think that's such a great point too, because, in support, it's not like this is something you can get a degree in. This isn't something that we have all of this training and preparation for to be successful in using data in a way that is hopeful and purposeful and wanted by other departments. It's a blind spot. I mean, we don't have a history of using these sorts of things. It's not like we've been taught, it's not like someone sat us down and said this is what you need to do.

Sarah Caminiti: 20:31

And so, in order to be successful right now, in order to have an impact and in order to do more than just put out fires, you have to just take that deep breath and remember your power and your abilities and just say screw it, I'm going to try, I'm going to try and if I fail, I fail and hopefully I learn and I'll ask questions about it. But I'm hurting myself to not do it, I'm hurting the customer to not do it, I'm hurting my team to not do it, I'm hurting the company to not do it, and it's on you. You've got to.

Jaclyn Mullen: 21:10

Yeah, and bringing your unique skills, you know, like the music piece for me. You know, there are things that I use from that foundation every single day in my day to day job. I may not be singing into a microphone I obviously bring a lot of energy to public speaking and presenting but a lot of you know kind of out of the box thinking or you know just different ways of problem solving or picking up, like reading a virtual room. It lights me up, sarah, when I look on LinkedIn and I see support leaders that have started their career from a variety of different ways. Right, either like I've seen people that said, hey, you know, I worked at Starbucks as a barista and then that was where I got my customer facing experience and parlayed that into getting into a support role and then moving up into support leadership. I've seen people that have a music background and I'm like, yes, fellow musicians, my point in sharing that is I've had to remember that not to kind of like become a sheep, you know, and and to like water myself down as I've entered this sector and I think for support, you're so right.

Jaclyn Mullen: 22:28

People, you know have these misconceptions about. You know what support does and how essential it is to the organization and support is very procedural to a point. Right, we have to get things done in a certain amount of time to ensure that the customer is having a great experience. But I would say to anybody that's listening go back to what makes you different. Go back to like your thumbprint and ask yourself how am I bringing this into work today? Right, whether that be an artistic talent or a hobby or a passion. And I think that's why the communities that we participate in have such strength, because we're not connecting based on our job titles, we're connecting based on like interests, and you know like you and I are both moms, right, and so we're like we get it.

Sarah Caminiti: 23:17

It's so true. You need to have a place. You have to have a place where you feel like you are able to be yourself and find people that are going through similar things and, uh, and kind of throw out ideas together or just commiserate together. But you, you're right, everybody comes from so many different places. I was a musician too. I sang in a traveling folk band for years. It's how I met my husband I was singing backup and his roommates on his roommates album. He's a musician and he was in support, and so it's. There's a performing aspect to it, though. I mean, we have to put on a show in every interaction that we have, and it makes sense that you went into marketing, because you have to put on a show and you have to do it in a way that's that's exciting, and marketing is a great space for that, and to do it in a place like the Loops, which is such an awesome celebration of support, must be very exciting.

Jaclyn Mullen: 24:25

Yeah, I mean with the rise of AI, with to your point, I think what excites me is how do we help support leaders, how do we empower support leaders to better tell their story around what they're doing and the impact that it has? And for those that may not be aware, the loops is an AI platform where you bring in not just your support data but other customer data that's really critical to be able to look at and in real time, rather than relying on, you know, a data analyst or extracting all that information. Have a very clear understanding of what's happening across customers, agents, issues trending, so on and so forth. And so one of the first things I did I never knew that I would work in AI. I never knew that I would serve the support community. I came from ed tech and was actually helping people re-skill, and these people had worked in restaurants, hospitality, were educators and they wanted to get into SaaS sales the other side of the house, right, the pre-sales side of the coin. So I came from that world into this world of post-sales and now you've got the customers. But how do you keep the customers happy? How do you help the customers uncover that time to value right?

Jaclyn Mullen: 25:49

And one of the first things I did when I was interviewing for the Loops is I went and I wanted to understand how support opened doors for people. What was the career progression? How many people worked in? You know, of course, the data across the Bureau of Labor Statistics blends service and support together, sarah, right, but I wanted to understand you know just how many people work in the support and role and what's the growth trajectory.

Jaclyn Mullen: 26:12

Now, this is all pre, you know, 2023, when Gen AI became this huge thing. But, believe it or not, one of the most validating signs to me was that, you know, I saw that support. You could have a college degree. You weren't necessarily required to have a degree and I was like, yes, this is awesome, because I think that that's too black and white and thinking sometimes, right, and then the numbers were showing that this was expected to grow and that people did get into support and that they did have clear career progression. Now, the more I learned about AI, helping people with that on the operation side right, not the deflection and all that chatbot stuff side I was like, okay, this is really cool, it's a paradigm shift for people, but it's really cool.

Sarah Caminiti: 27:01

So cool, so cool. And what have you found with the conversations that you've been having with others within the support industry but also, I'm sure you've had a lot of conversation with folks outside of the support industry that the support professionals have to get buy-in from? What kind of conversations has this opened up? Because I feel like the loops ignited these conversations, of the realities of being a support professional, the skills of how we are actually spending our time and analyzing data. So have you noticed a change?

Jaclyn Mullen: 27:35

I've noticed a lot. So you know, coming from prior to working at that ed tech company in between that payroll company I worked for and then getting into marketing, I did a stint with adult learning and I actually started teaching adults marketing right, as not a background educator traditionally speaking, but doing more what we call like apprenticeship style hands-on learning. And the reason why I bring that is you start to learn frameworks around how adults learn new behaviors, how adults learn new tools right and how to get that buy-in. So I had this unique lens that not a lot of marketers have from how do I help people in acquiring new skills, and particularly doing that in more of a communal fashion, to like wanting to understand, you know, what are some of the limitations or blocks, because we all have them when we're trying to learn something new, which AI is right and how do we, you know, take that and then understand perhaps, how to reframe what the technology can do or is capable of? So I'll start with you know, answering the second question which you said what's happening for those outside of support at a leadership level, maybe even within, like the customer success or the product department? I'm seeing the epiphany of oh my gosh, cx is a differentiator. If somebody has a bad experience, they're going to go write about it on G2 or one of these review sites, maybe even Reddit, which is anonymized, but they're going to go slam us. Cx and support are our competitive advantage.

Jaclyn Mullen: 29:25

Well, yes, going back to even my grandparents' business, I knew that before technology, we've always known that customer support is a huge differentiator. It's just in a day and age in which people look at things very logically, looking at it from numbers, they, and so it might. It's starting to be a little bit of it's not too little, too late yet, but that's why you're getting all of this push for top down. Let's implement AI, because now we want to support support, we want to help support people burn out less right. We want to help support people and we, selfishly, at the top, want to get these insights on our customers so we can understand what do they really truly think about our business?

Jaclyn Mullen: 30:21

That, to me, is very fascinating, because you're talking about something I think it goes back to the beginning of the conversation, sarah where, even at the leadership level, sarah, where even at the leadership level, you have to stay open, as a leader, you can get so focused on the path of you put money in, you get this much money out, and people aren't like that, businesses aren't like that, pandemics aren't like that. So that's a huge paradigm shift where business owners are really having to understand, breaking out of that set thinking. It's always been this way. It's disrupted, right?

Jaclyn Mullen: 31:00

I think at the support side, what I've seen, which is very valid, is people are a little bit nervous, and rightfully so. Support is continuing to be this area where, again, with that cut and dry thinking, they're like we know if we can handle this many tickets and keep this many customers, then we'll have this much revenue. Unfortunately, other departments, like Success, are getting the brunt of let's cut success, right. And so I think support is sort of seeing all of these things happen at once while just trying to do their job and take on these new tools, and that's a lot to try to take in all at once, right? So I don't know, you tell me, is my assessment spot on or?

Sarah Caminiti: 31:51

not, it's so spot on. It is so spot on. And I love the connection to success because success has seen a hit recently. But I think it's another situation where it's just misunderstood and often it's maybe poorly laid out from a leadership standpoint of creating an actual space for them to be successful and not taking the time to create a structure that represents their customers and their needs. But it's an easy point to the person and or the department or the team and say no, no, you're not doing it and it's because they're not taking the time to understand the nuances of it and the opportunities within it.

Sarah Caminiti: 32:37

And support's been feeling that for years and those are just so many different transitions to have to go through and to process and the trauma. I think behind being a support professional, I think there is a little bit of trauma of the realities of where you are within the company's ecosystem and the value that you are seen to have within the space. And so you start seeing all of these conversations happening and people going towards the shiny things and saying really tempting, crazy ideas, saying really tempting crazy ideas, and while they will all backfire terribly, support knows it and support sees it and they understand the implications and it's scary because they know that their voice usually isn't heard. That's why I got so excited about the loops, because it was taking AI for good and it was saying no, you're not supposed to do it that way. That's a terrible idea. This is what you could do with it.

Sarah Caminiti: 33:41

But, Jaclyn, I would love to know, because you just talked about so many different incredible transitions that people have to go through, like you were talking about, going from sales to support to marketing, from music. I mean, those in and of itself, are transitions, but the people that you've been leading and interacting with throughout your career, they're all experiencing so many different levels of transitions and those that you're seeing in the loops community crazy transitions. And so what have you learned from it? From a leadership perspective of you as a human, of of providing support to these individuals? What have you taken away from that?

Jaclyn Mullen: 34:25

Yeah, I mean I'll go back to you know, this idea of what I got from the classroom right. My learning and development and facilitation experience really showed me, sarah, number one as a leader, I have to get I co-create with my team right. So I have to get buy-in from my team and, you know, create a safe space. You know. So I always, I would say, most of the people that report to me, you know, know that I do have a friendly, empathetic demeanor. With that said, I also let them know I have high standards for the work we're going to produce here and for what I expect of you. Right, I will model for you how, every day, I'm trying to bring the best version of myself, and what I did yesterday is yesterday. Today I got to bring bring the best version of myself, and what I did yesterday is yesterday. Today I got to bring the next best version of myself. I will model for you commitment. I think you know, and this is one of the things that I do see modeled from my CEO, somya. You know we are far more capable of doing, like we can do, more than what we believe ourselves capable of doing, and you know I've never been one. So, going back to with that in mind.

Jaclyn Mullen: 35:41

You know, depending upon the type of company you've come from, depending upon even just our own unique strengths, everybody's got different modes of communication, different modes of operation, different modes of peak performance. Some people want to be working at night. I like to work in the morning. I'm like do not bother me at night, my brain just doesn't work that way. So I think, as a leader, you know you have to be able to understand. Empathy starts with taking those inputs into consideration. In the same token, you know you have goals that the company has to meet. So I am a big believer of like what gets measured, gets managed and that's why, again, you know, support is seeing the shift right With AI it's like, hey, we've always measured these three things. Well, those necessarily don't translate to the bigger overarching picture of the business.

Jaclyn Mullen: 36:33

So I think, sarah, you know, traditionally maybe for other generations leadership and management was like one set way to operate. You had to be more authoritarian and you know you had to like, really, you know control things and you know kind of make sure you had all these like checklists and whatnot, not necessarily admit that you to make mistakes and I bring to the fold, you know, in my day to day is like look, we're all human, you know we make mistakes, but do we learn from them? Do you spot the mistakes before I? Do you know? Do you hold yourself to a high degree of performance and standard? Do you think outside of the box? I think that's the other thing where I will push my team to don't come to me. I'm not going to give you the answer, and I had to learn that.

Jaclyn Mullen: 37:28

My last COO said to me you got to read this book Multipliers, because you already have the answer, based on your experience, to how things can be done. Give yourself, give your people the opportunity to do it their way, even if it's different from the way you've done it, and I hated hearing that, but it was really helpful to hear, right, like fine, and I think, yeah, that when we talk about empathy in customer support, it's our customers. Every single day, every single one of them are going to be having a different type of day, a different type of experience. Someone may have just lost a loved one unexpectedly. Somebody may be so excited and want to increase their service line with your business. You can't treat all of your customers the same. You can't treat all of the people on your team as if they're the same.

Sarah Caminiti: 38:18

Man, you have just said so many incredible things that make me so excited.

Sarah Caminiti: 38:24

I could spend seven hours talking to you about each of those things, but to start from, one of the first things you said was something that I have found myself to be one of the biggest mindset changes when I approached leadership and really when I had sort of interactions with the customer too.

Sarah Caminiti: 38:44

It's my job as a leader, or it is my job as a support professional, to create a safe space, because if you don't create a safe space, they're not going to be telling you the full story, you're not going to understand the context, they're not going to allow you to have conversations because they're scared or they're hesitant or they're not having the confidence that they deserve to have. And you drop all of the balls when those things start happening and you miss out on so many opportunities. And then there's churn, and then there's employee turnover. That comes with it too, but it sounds like such a soft. You know, oh, I'm going to create a safe space. Here's a warm blanket type of thing, but no, it is a foundational practice that you have to commit to and show that you're committed to it every single day by doing all of those things that you're doing, Jaclyn, with just being transparent about life and work and what's required and giving them a chance to try and fail.

Jaclyn Mullen: 39:53

And be open to feedback. I mean to be. So. What I like about what you're mentioning, it's a warm blanket. With permission of look, you're gonna learn here how to take feedback. I'm going to give you feedback. That is inevitable, and I always preface that warm blanket and setting the stage with you need to know my personality right. If you give me something, I am going to find three or four things that can be improved upon it. It's not personal. You know again that drive for are we putting our best work out there? Or, you know, is this work that we can? That's that marketing. That creative, that artist, right, like this is our art. Are we putting our autograph on this? And if not, we're not going to, you know, swirl too much around it, but we're going to create another version very quickly. And I think it's key that the warm blanket doesn't mean that we aren't going to point out areas of opportunity for growth, or here's what I think you know.

Jaclyn Mullen: 40:55

People always talk about the feedback sandwich or the shit sandwich. It's like you know, look, at the end of the day, we don't know what people have going on behind closed doors. Is it really going to hurt you to freaking? Have the self-awareness to say here are two or three things that I think you do exceptionally well and here are two or three areas where I know that you can push yourself to do a little bit more, or what's blocking you, rather than coming at somebody with, like that's what you learn as a teacher and instructor.

Jaclyn Mullen: 41:25

If you're not doing this correctly, what's happening? Help me understand I always use that phrase like help me understand what's like stopping this from moving forward, or like what's the blocker here? Help me understand how I can help. And I think those, those, those are the keys right, because, again, the one thing my leader emulates for me is that it can't always be roses and sunshine. You're not going to grow because you have blind spots if you can't see where the areas of opportunity are, and we get that in data. If we get that feedback from our customers, we should be able to get that feedback from our leaders too.

Sarah Caminiti: 42:05

Oh man, yes, I think that all of this, I'm going to end up needing to make like so many promos and clips of this because it's just, it's so good, it's it's. It is incredibly valuable to be able to have a constructive conversation with someone, and if every single time you interact with your team, it is for a negative reason, then all of their walls are going to be up, they are going to be defensive, they are going to start thinking that everything they do is undervalued. If you make it a point and this was something that I started doing and it made such a difference I make it a point to say one nice thing to each person in my team every day. It doesn't have to be anything crazy, but it's just person in my team every day. It doesn't have to be anything crazy, but it's just. I see you, I acknowledge you, I am happy that you're here and I'm pumped to see what you're doing. And then, if something comes up, it takes a little while for folks to get used to it, my husband included, but I will go to them immediately.

Sarah Caminiti: 43:12

Because why stress, why allow yourself to start going down a spiral? But I ask why did you do it this way? Why did you do this today? Because you got to know what part in the journey did things fall apart and then you can see is this documentation, is this capacity? Are they just overloaded and stressed? Is this knowledge gap? Who knows? But if you approach it of a, I'm here to make you better and this is our chance to talk about an opportunity to make us as a team better. And if you're impacted by something, you know there's going to be other people that are going to be impacted by it, then you can have such cool conversations.

Jaclyn Mullen: 44:00

And the same goes for our customers. We would never not want our customers I think that's like the parallel that I just keep going back to with support In support. You know, good CX is, let's understand where the block is, that the customer is experiencing, and we don't take that feedback from them personally. You know, we kind of take it at hand. We were very open minded and curious as to why is this happening, what can we learn from this? And I think that same approach can be brought into, you know, management and even reporting to a manager. Right, just understand that more often than not I've had some bad managers. I will say where I was like all right, I disagree with this assessment. You know, and I had to come to terms with, not every manager is going to be, you know, my dream manager. Everybody's got their own journey that they're on and the stuff they're working on. But, like, can you just take some of that data and that input and feedback for what it is?

Jaclyn Mullen: 45:05

One of the pieces of feedback I got once oh, you'll hopefully appreciate this the COO of a company was like why can't you talk like an engineer and literally use that tone with me? And you know the feedback was hey, I, I am a marketer, I am a performing artist. I do talk with my hands. I can, you know, perhaps not be as succinct as need be. That really pissed me off. I definitely let that person know at a latter time that that was not an appropriate way to address me and I, rather than stewing over it, right, I just was like I'm not an engineer, I'm freaking a communications person and I don't need to be an engineer. Can I? Can I learn how to get to be more directional with my point or to maybe not hop on a conversation with no coffee in my system? Sure, but I don't need to become something. I'm not just because of a piece of feedback from somebody else who's just got a different communication style.

Jaclyn Mullen: 46:12

There's a book that I'm looking for to see if I'd have on my bookshelf. It was so helpful to understand expressive communication, which, hello, you know, people that are more drivers and assertive communicators versus people that are more um. There there's like the. I'll get the name of this book and share it with you, but until I understood that, it's not me, it's just different communication styles, you know I would have. It's not me, it's just different communication styles, you know I would have probably read that person the riot act being the expressive and instead was just like okay feedback. They're this type of personality. When I interact with them, I need to have bullet points and be super tight. That's it.

Sarah Caminiti: 46:48

Yep, yes, and that's going to happen.

Sarah Caminiti: 46:52

So much, and I think, as support professionals, as women, we are in spaces of needing to go outside of our comfort zone and share information with others and communicate with others within the company, and it's frustrating to have that sort of an interaction with someone where, yeah, they've got a different communication style, but you took this as an opportunity to try something different and navigate it, which, for the person that you're talking to but also it's the other person's responsibility to acknowledge this didn't help me.

Sarah Caminiti: 47:39

This would help me, and I think that that is something that support professionals or folks that are in this CX space understand on such a high level that I'm hoping that, since these conversations are starting to happen and people are being a little bit louder about it, you'll start to see that shift, hoping in other departments, because what a missed opportunity. Instead of lashing out and then just shutting the door and not letting you come back and share information because you're not an engineer and they're never going to appreciate it, why couldn't you take that as a learning opportunity? Why couldn't you make them better?

Jaclyn Mullen: 48:24

Yeah, it's really. It's really fascinating. Like you said, you know what I've seen. You know in terms of adoptions to this. People started putting together these documents. Everybody's departments and roles are so different.

Jaclyn Mullen: 48:39

I started seeing this first in the product marketing world, right, sarah, where somebody that I followed on LinkedIn, who's a very prominent voice in product marketing, was like I put together this document for things to know about working with me, and I was like piqued out of curiosity. I was never going to work with that person. But I go, let me go read this document and, for what it's worth, they just broke down. Like you know, I can't have back-to-back Zoom meetings. You know, that will really deplete my energy. I'm good at like three meetings a day. Right, this is the type of feedback I will give you what feels like very blunt feedback, and so there were a couple of other things that they included in that document, but it's almost like a process, right, that you're documenting for your customer. Here's how we handle you know this. You know, here's how we handle this. Right, go read our FAQs.

Jaclyn Mullen: 49:32

And just reading that document was very eyeopening, where I was like I wonder in the future? You know, when I have time, cause at a startup, you're always very busy. If that might be helpful for that expectation setting. Or you know my direct reports Right, and I've seen a couple of other leaders model that very thing. Here's what to know about working with me. I won't sit here and plug your roles into the product, the project management tool. I expect you, as somebody that we're hiring, to know once we discuss your deliverable to that. You're going to run with it and you're going to have a timeline, and I'm not going to micromanage you. But when that timeline comes up, I'm going to expect to see the completed work in a version that we can publish and I'm just like, wow, you're SLAing, you know your internal operations, that's pretty darn cool.

Sarah Caminiti: 50:19

Yeah, that is exactly like support documentation, a process, an SOP for somebody. It is a. It's an opportunity also to point back to it so that if the first time you encounter this, the first time you have to have that rough conversation, you can say, okay, remember, this is who I am. And if we need to talk about what this means now that you've actually seen it, that's great. But I let you know it is documented. We can reference it as much as we need to. I'm coming from a good place. My intentions are clear and that's why I shared this with you to remove the opportunity for miscommunication.

Jaclyn Mullen: 51:03

Yeah, and one of the most recent ones that I read on that note did say that feedback is a two-way street. So I'm here as your leader to get feedback from you on what I'm doing great, where I'm failing just as much as I'm here to provide feedback as well. And so I thought again goes back to creating that safe space. We create that safe space with the customer. It's why we're seeing all of this disruption. If you will across support landscape disruption. If you will across support landscape. No, you know customers.

Jaclyn Mullen: 51:36

I remember hearing the first time I got into this side of the house where it was like pay attention to how many times the customer has to repeat themselves when they have an issue. And, sure enough, I have an issue and I'm filing a ticket and I'm uploading the screenshots and like gathering all my stuff and spending about 20 minutes that I didn't have and then I freaking get a response back. Can you explain to me what happened? And I'm like why did I just do everything I did, you know? And so in general, I think you know we're learning ways to be more empathetic and to streamline things so that people don't feel like there's wasted efforts or there's these like bait and switches. My leadership seems so nice and all of a sudden they're reading me the riot act for you know, presenting information to them this way, so on and so forth.

Sarah Caminiti: 52:24

But I think what it really boils down to is no matter the technology, it is communication at the end of the day, yeah, yeah, and boundaries, and I think that in support, we see that as a requirement to do our job well, and that's why the documentation exists, that's why we have all of those knowledge base articles internally and externally, and that exists everywhere within the company. That is not just a support thing. You have to have clearly defined when it gets to this, we need to do this, and when this happens, we have to do this. And when you share this, do this. If you are asking someone to do something, it is your responsibility to give them the tools that they need to be successful. It's what we do with our customers. Why would we not want to do it with the people we're investing in and inviting into our space?

Jaclyn Mullen: 53:17

Yeah, yeah. And again, going back to you know all those things are there foundationally. What can you bring from you and your unique self right, your unique talents, hobbies, experience that are going to make that even much more impactful?

Sarah Caminiti: 53:35

Yes and find ways to remind yourself that you should be proud of what you've accomplished. Reflect and think about what you've done and use that as a driver to make a space within your team or within your community, because you have no idea what's possible unless you try. And personally, I've spent my whole life staying away from social media, aside from an Instagram account for my kids, and that's a private one, mostly it's just for, like, family members that I always forget to update anyway. But anyways, it's the. Why would anyone want to listen to random things from me? And that's not even necessarily a negative way to look at it, it's just a what's the point. And instead change that to fuck it. And instead change that to fuck it, fuck it. I'm just going to share, I'm just going to say what I think is valuable to say out loud, and you'd be so surprised how quickly things change for you your career journey, the people that you meet, the conversations you get to have I mean saying I'm a Golden the conversations you get to have.

Jaclyn Mullen: 54:56

I mean saying I'm a golden rule advocate brought me to you and uh, and it's powerful, yeah, sometimes, the things that we're doing in service of other people, we're a part of that priority list. You know everything that you were just describing from my experience self-doubt, and you know self-doubt, self-criticism those are two areas where I've had to really work on number one, acknowledging that they're there, running in the back of my mind, and number two, that because they're there, so subconsciously, they can hold me back from just trying right, trying without judgment or without worry of what others might think about me, and staying open to learning. So I'm glad that you model that. I feel like ever since you've put yourself out there, it's like I mean, sarah, I'm going to flip the script on you, like tell us you're in the elevate masterclass, right? You're doing this podcast now. Like what else has happened since you decided to kind of quell that self-criticism or that self-doubt?

Sarah Caminiti: 56:06

Yeah, Jaclyn, it's been nuts. It has been the most bonkers. I've been using that word so much and I've never used it in my entire life, and it is the only thing that I can think of to describe these past few months. It has literally been three months and within that time I have found myself the time and the permission to reflect on my skills and be proud of what I've done and gotten my head out of the weeds to take a step back. And also I have spent the last six years either trying to get pregnant, being pregnant, recovering from pregnancy, starting the IVF journey all over again. You know, like it is a, it is a different headspace when that is where you are like you. That is your purpose right now. Right now, and while thankfully, like my career, stuff was outside of that, I didn't have the space or the capacity to think about integrating into the community. And now that I finished that phase of my life and felt proud of that phase of my life and proud that it was, I knew it was done and it was time for me to be me and see what was possible. It's just been wild.

Sarah Caminiti: 57:38

I mean this podcast I've got some cool stuff cooking with Neil. Outside of this, it's got the masterclasses. I'm working with Sarah Hatter on some other stuff. I mean, it's just I'm asking questions. Is what it comes down to? I'm asking questions, I'm giving myself time. I'm having a. Is what it comes down to? I'm asking questions, I'm giving myself time, I'm having a lot of conversations and it's a bummer that it took me this long. But I think that it took me this long for a reason, so that I can really appreciate it.

Jaclyn Mullen: 58:05

And it's part of that. You're just it's. People say. You know whether the analogy is it's just the next chapter or you know we go back to this idea of we're always going to be reinventing ourselves. This is the epitome of growth. Growth doesn't just happen when we tackle one area of our life.

Jaclyn Mullen: 58:25

I remember one time we'll try to get for everybody that's listening like a printout, but I to like a session for women in business where they were like how balanced is your life? I'm like my life is balanced. You know, I go to yoga, I work for myself. Well then, sarah, they gave you this wheel of life and within that wheel it was almost like little pieces of a pie friends, family, relationship, you know finance and then there was like a one through five rating and you had to like fill in and circle right within that wheel. And so I remember like one thing was like a two, if I was being honest with myself. One thing was like a four.

Jaclyn Mullen: 59:04

Well, lo and behold, you have to connect the dots and, rather in an ideal scenario, your wheel becomes a wheel. Mine was like a giant diamond and it just gave me the opportunity to say to see, oh, okay, there's some areas in my life where I would have never consciously friendships, family, you know um stopping to slow down and be mindful and present for my family. It wasn't until I saw that wheel that I realized how engrossed I was in work, that I was able to kind of create a next chapter, if you will. So we're not static, you know, and it's beautiful to see your reinvention. Thank you very much.

Sarah Caminiti: 59:47

Thank you very much. It's been such a cool time to talk to people that really are trying to make a difference in the world and they're doing it by planting seeds in their spaces and acknowledging their faults and trying to be better. And it's working. It really is working. There's a sea of change and you are a huge part of that and you have done such an incredible job of promoting women and CX and opportunities, and I hope that you give yourself that time for reflection too, because you should. You're a mom too. I mean it's not like. I mean your wheel is packed full and you're still making change.

Jaclyn Mullen: 1:00:31

Yeah, I needed to hear that today, going back, we're our own worst critics. So, yeah, no, this has been great, sarah Jaclyn this has been an honor.

Sarah Caminiti: 1:00:41

Like truly, thank you for your time, and I know this won't be the last conversation, though, so get ready world.

Jaclyn Mullen: 1:00:49

Yeah, we'll be slashing in between and, as if anything's evidenced here, I'm very definitely very busy, but I'm never too busy to answer a LinkedIn connection request or learn a fun fact about somebody and hi, neil. Neil and I are also Slack buddies and LinkedIn friends, and so it's just. You know, you guys are both a true representation of like the whole like, attract, like. So I love it.

Sarah Caminiti: 1:01:15

Thank you. Thank you very much. Well, I'll let you get back to your crazy wednesday, but uh, thank you for this and uh, yeah, I hope you have a great day. You've just listened to ethical growth how to approach career reinvention and I would love to know if you are feeling empowered to reinvent yourself and what reinvention means to you and how it's impacted your career journey. Did you know that you can text me? You can text me by going to Epochal and clicking on the text button within the episode link. I want to know what you're thinking. I want to hear from you. I also want to know if you have any questions that you want me to address while we're on the show. I would love to have a Q&A section at the end of each episode, but I can't do that without you, so please ask me questions. Thank you so much for spending this time with us and for being open to change. We can't wait around to see change happen and for being open to change. We can't wait around to see change happen when you feel it in yourself that a better way exists. You owe it to yourself and to those around you to try, because great things happen when you do. Thank you again to Buzzsprout. Thank you to Elevate CX for building this incredible community that connects me to people like Jaclyn. Did you know that Elevate CX has events that empower CX professionals to be the leaders that they want to be?

Sarah Caminiti: 1:02:37

The next one is in September. It's in Denver. Make sure that you're getting your tickets. We also have one on November 8th in the UK. I'm going to be speaking at that. It's in London. It's one day. Please, if you're feeling like you want to go and travel across an ocean with me to talk about leadership and customer experience, come to London on November 8th. If you live in Europe and if you live in the UK, please come to London on November 8th. Remember that small things ignite change. You're capable of more than you even realize. Thank you again for spending time with me. Thank you to Jaclyn Mullen for trusting me on this journey and for gifting me with your time. I'm Sarah Caminiti. Have a great day.