Laura: Most inventions or innovation has happened because of someone being curious.
Laura: We never should underestimate curiosity.
Laura: It's one of the best things that you can have in your back pocket, and I think it's
Laura: going to serve anyone well.
Joseph: Welcome to the Career Relaunch podcast focused on helping you reinvent your career.
Joseph: My name is Joseph Liu, and I'm here to help you gain the clarity, confidence and courage
Joseph: to overcome the challenges of making changes to your career so you can do more meaningful
Joseph: work and enjoy your professional life.
Joseph: In each episode, I feature people who have stepped off the beaten path to reinvent their
Joseph: careers. We talk through their unique personal journeys, the challenges they
Joseph: overcame, and the lessons they learned along the way to help you understand what it takes
Joseph: to relaunch your own career.
Joseph: Today, my guest is going to share her story of going from an opera singer to a management
Joseph: consultant focused on business transformation.
Joseph: We'll discuss the importance of keeping an open mind and the hidden upside of uncertain
Joseph: transitions afterwards.
Joseph: During today's mental fuel, I'll talk about the role curiosity plays in uncovering career
Joseph: opportunities. Curiosity is something we're all born with as
Joseph: humans. Most of us come into this world with an immense amount of it.
Joseph: If you ever watch young children around a new set of toys, they'll excitedly try them
Joseph: out. Similarly, during the earlier stages of our careers, we're thirsty to explore,
Joseph: absorb, and learn as much as we can on the job.
Joseph: But over time, that curiosity can get dampened and even shut down because of work
Joseph: pressures, life realities, or societal expectations around how we should be spending
Joseph: our professional time.
Joseph: But keeping your curiosity alive is one way to open new doors throughout your career, and
Joseph: we're going to talk more about this right now.
Joseph: Today, I'm speaking with Laura McIntyre, a business transformation consultant focused on
Joseph: connecting people with solutions and empowering them to achieve their personal and
Joseph: professional aspirations.
Joseph: Originally from Lithuania, Lora began her career as a professional opera singer,
Joseph: performing in the UK, France and other European countries.
Joseph: After realizing her health and emotional well-being were taking a hit from the
Joseph: relentless pressures of performing, Lora decided to take a break from singing and
Joseph: explore some other career paths.
Joseph: She is now a consultant at Deloitte, one of the world's leading professional services
Joseph: firms, where she focuses on human capital consulting, digital transformation and change
Joseph: management. Now, I first met Lora when she reached out to me on Instagram to discuss the
Joseph: topic of personal branding.
Joseph: We later met up in London to collaborate on one of her projects focused on career change,
Joseph: and we've stayed in touch since.
Joseph: Coincidentally, my neighbor who lives right next door to us is actually a professional
Joseph: singer herself. But this conversation with Lora was really my first time getting a
Joseph: deeper, behind the scenes glimpse into what goes into professional opera singing.
Joseph: I think you're really going to enjoy hearing how Laura managed to pull off her radical
Joseph: career change, going from performing in front of audiences to now working in the
Joseph: corporate world. You can get all the show notes from today's conversation at Career
Joseph: Relaunch Net 104.
Joseph: Laura spoke with me from Kent, not too far from where I'm based myself here in the UK.
Joseph: Okay, Laura, welcome to the Career Relaunch podcast.
Joseph: Great to see you again and welcome to the show.
Laura: Thank you so much. I'm really glad to be here and happy to see you again.
Joseph: I want to talk with you today, Laura, about your transition from opera singing to
Joseph: consulting, why you left that behind, and also your career transition.
Joseph: But I would love to just start and get a glimpse into what you're focused on right
Joseph: now. Can you just tell me a little bit about what you've been devoting your energy to in
Joseph: your personal and professional life lately?
Laura: In my professional life, I've been devoting my time and my energy to my career as a
Laura: management consultant.
Laura: So just working on different projects.
Laura: Really enjoying it, experiencing, working with different teams.
Laura: I work predominantly across the public sector.
Laura: Really finding that interesting.
Laura: Lots of very challenging situations that I have an opportunity to dive into and support
Laura: my clients in.
Laura: It's a really diverse kind of portfolio of the work that I do.
Laura: And yeah, I'm just finding it really fun at the moment and in my free time.
Laura: I've recently started my gym journey, so I'm becoming an avid gym goer, so I'm devoting a
Laura: lot of energy and time into that.
Laura: And also I'm trying to keep up with my horse-riding skills as well.
Joseph: Oh wow. Okay.
Joseph: What kind of horse-riding do you do exactly?
Laura: I suppose it's
Laura: called just English riding.
Joseph: Are you, like, jumping over the hurdles?
Joseph: I don't know the exact terminology.
Laura: A little bit. I'm not quite there yet, but I'm taking some lessons and doing some kind
Laura: of hacking out into the English countryside as well.
Joseph: And on your LinkedIn profile, Laura, now, I think your jobs title says that you are a
Joseph: business change consultant at Deloitte, and I know that this term consultant and
Joseph: management consultant, it floats around out there.
Joseph: And it's kind of this, to the outsider, a bit of a black box.
Joseph: Can you just share a snapshot of like the sampling of the types of projects and clients
Joseph: you currently work with?
Laura: I mean, this is actually a really difficult question because really no one knows what a
Laura: consultant does, right?
Laura: I believe even the consultants themselves sometimes don't know what we do.
Laura: But to keep it neat and short, I predominantly go in to help clients with any
Laura: challenges related with people as their businesses or their organizations are going
Laura: through some sort of transformation.
Laura: So, for example, whether that would be a technology transformation, whether that would
Laura: be people related, culture related transformation, whether that would be a
Laura: strategic transformation, whatever it is at the heart of every transformation, there's
Laura: people. And my focus predominantly within management consultancy is kind of the human
Laura: capital side of things.
Laura: It's kind of a term, I suppose.
Laura: Used to talk about people as a resource and kind of having that people centered, human
Laura: centered approach to transformation.
Laura: And within that kind of one of my key interest areas is business change.
Laura: Specifically in our organization, we tend to think about professionals in a kind of a
Laura: T-shaped form, expertise on kind of a high level, broad library of various skills and
Laura: knowledge. But then we are encouraged to have kind of that t letter going downwards
Laura: into kind of one key area that you're perhaps really passionate about, or maybe
Laura: where you're kind of greatest talent lies in.
Laura: So that's why on LinkedIn profile I call myself a business change kind of specialist
Laura: within Deloitte.
Joseph: You haven't always been a human capital consultant focused on business change and
Joseph: business transformation.
Joseph: At Deloitte, you were a professional opera singer.
Joseph: You performed in the UK, France and other European countries, I think for about seven
Joseph: years, if I have that correct.
Joseph: Before we get to that though, Laura, I'd love to just go back in time a little bit
Joseph: further. And can you just tell me a little bit about you personally?
Joseph: Where did you grow up and what can you remember being interested in as a kid?
Laura: When I was growing up, music was always very close to our family.
Laura: My mum, she was a choir conductor for a while and then she transitioned into working
Laura: in school as a music teacher.
Laura: So I ended up going to a lot of her rehearsals, and music was always quite close
Laura: to my heart. My dad was also a musician, kind of more towards jazz side of things.
Laura: So he was also a composer and played in a band.
Laura: So I suppose music was always running in the family.
Laura: And then from a very early age I started playing some instruments and I ended up going
Laura: to sort of like an after school, after school club, but like an after school school
Laura: where you are taught various music subjects like music, history, solfeggio, as well as
Laura: playing an instrument of your choice.
Laura: And at the time, the instrument of choice was a piano, predominantly because there was
Laura: a piano in the house already.
Laura: So that became kind of the instrument of choice.
Laura: So I did that for many, many years, pretty much all the way up to when I graduated from
Laura: school.
Joseph: You played piano?
Laura: Yeah, I played piano for a while, and I sang in various kind of bits and bobs choirs,
Laura: Years ensembles in school as well.
Laura: So to be honest, a lot of my childhood and my kind of young years were spent doing
Laura: music.
Joseph: And can you remind me, Laura, where you grew up?
Laura: I grew up in Lithuania.
Laura: I'm the girl from the coast, so I grew up in a city called Klaipėda, and that's a port.
Laura: So we were very close to the beach and wonderful forests.
Laura: It's a very beautiful part of the country.
Joseph: I'm sorry I'm not that familiar with Lithuania just because I've never been there
Joseph: myself. Is music something that's quite well embraced in the education system in
Joseph: Lithuania? Is it encouraged?
Joseph: Is it part of the typical academic curriculum there?
Laura: At least back in my days, it was part of the general curriculum.
Laura: You would have a music lesson where you would be encouraged to learn about different
Laura: sorts of music composers, a little bit of music history, kind of that whole rounded
Laura: individual type of thing.
Laura: So not necessarily going too deep, but it has always been encouraged.
Laura: And every school has or at least used to have various opportunities for children and
Laura: young adults to get involved in various music activities, bands, orchestras, choirs
Laura: kind of pursue that passion.
Laura: The one thing that's really good, or at least used to be, I keep saying, used to be
Laura: because I feel like I'm so far removed from it right now.
Laura: So I kind of really speak into the situation with 100% certainty.
Laura: But we used to have music schools that were sort of after club, but they offered quite
Laura: serious music activities for children and for young adults to pursue in various
Laura: instruments and some of the other things that are already mentioned that I was able to
Laura: learn as well.
Laura: And it was quite a serious form of education, very well recognized across the
Laura: country. We used to have exams, I think twice a year, so it's quite a serious
Laura: approach to it.
Laura: The wonderful thing about that, that it's government funded and parents don't have to
Laura: spend loads and loads of money, which enabled a lot of children from less
Laura: privileged families to attend as well, because the fee was very, almost like
Laura: symbolic fee.
Laura: Majority of the costs were covered by the government.
Laura: So there's really an encouragement from the government to pursue these types of careers.
Laura: Same with the universities.
Laura: There's a lot of free spots or government funded spots for talented individuals to
Laura: apply for.
Joseph: So it sounds like this was a pretty big part of your upbringing.
Joseph: At what point did you decide that, hey, I might want to do this professionally?
Joseph: Like, do you remember when that occurred to you that this could actually become a career
Joseph: for you?
Laura: I kind of fell into it.
Laura: I did a couple of competitions in my last two years in school.
Laura: There were sort of singing competitions where I competed.
Laura: I won a couple of awards, and a lot of the feedback was that my voice would be really
Laura: suited for classical music and that I should really give it a go, so the feedback was
Laura: really positive. I kind of enjoyed doing it.
Laura: I didn't really have another thing that I was really settled on pursuing as like a very
Laura: serious career.
Laura: So when I was graduating from school, I thought, well, why not?
Laura: Let's give it a go.
Laura: So I applied to university audition type of thing.
Laura: I did that and I got the spot and I thought, well, great, let's give it a go.
Laura: And that's where it all started.
Joseph: And for somebody maybe who isn't familiar with the different types of opera singing
Joseph: paths, was there a particular range and type of performance that you eventually ended up
Joseph: focusing on?
Laura: So I think in the early years they avoided trying to put you in a box because when
Laura: you're still really young, your voice continues to form up until you're probably
Laura: about 25, I think.
Laura: So it continually grows together with you and it matures.
Laura: But throughout your journey, you start falling into your own kind of area of you
Laura: could call it vocal expertise, but yes, it's something to do with the range, the colour of
Laura: your voice, kind of where the quality of your sound really lies.
Laura: And at the time I was considered to be a mezzo-soprano, which is kind of the mid-range
Laura: vocal kind of performance.
Joseph: And what was your life like as a professional opera singer?
Joseph: Can you give a glimpse into the types of shows that you, or performances that you
Joseph: recall being a part of?
Laura: I think my early career was very much mixed with studying, so I was still kind of a
Laura: full-time uni student doing all the music lessons and singing classes and exams, and at
Laura: the same time I applied or auditioned for a couple of roles, and then the National Opera
Laura: House in Lithuania, and I got the roles.
Laura: So I was often kind of working and studying at the same time.
Laura: So I had, I think maybe up to 5 or 6 shows a year.
Laura: It wasn't much, but it was just the right amount as kind of a starting singer and to be
Laura: honest, all the way throughout my career, studying and working kind of always went hand
Laura: in hand because I think in singing you can rarely walk away from kind of singing
Laura: lessons. You continually require that improvement.
Laura: It's a little bit similar, I suppose, to sports.
Laura: You always stay connected to your coach.
Laura: You never really stop learning, you never really stop improving.
Laura: It always has been connected.
Laura: So after I did my undergrad studies in Lithuania, I then applied for a kind of.
Laura: It's called like a post-grad program in London.
Laura: And that's how I arrived here in the UK.
Laura: So I did a couple of years of that in the Royal Academy of Music here in London.
Laura: Some of the places that I used to perform the most was Opera Holland Park.
Laura: They did a lot of kind of seasonal shows, so that was one of my very frequent places that
Laura: I went to. I still had contracts back home in Lithuania, so I traveled between here and
Laura: there. Then I spent a year in National Opera Studio, which had created lots of
Laura: opportunities for me to perform with them on different stages in Leeds, in London as well.
Laura: And then I got a contract with Scottish Opera, and I spent about nine months living
Laura: and working in Glasgow, while at the same time performing in France, as I had a small
Laura: contract in France as well.
Laura: So we traveled lots of cities and with one of the productions it was Vichy, Versailles
Laura: and Lyon.
Joseph: How did things progress for you compared to maybe how you envisioned them transpiring for
Joseph: you? Like, if you think about the entry into the world of opera singing compared to the
Joseph: actual experience, was it what you expected?
Joseph: Was it different from what you expected?
Joseph: How would you describe your overall experience as an opera singer?
Laura: Even though the world is so broad and there seems to be space for everyone, it's quite a
Laura: competitive space.
Laura: It can be competitive in a good way, and someone perhaps critiques what you do.
Laura: And that's what the whole industry is built on, is on critiquing, reading reviews and
Laura: someone critiquing your performance.
Laura: Someone critiquing, not necessarily with bad intentions, but maybe they want to help you
Laura: out. Maybe they want you to improve.
Laura: And so I think very early on, I started noticing that it's really difficult to
Laura: separate what you do from what you are.
Laura: And therefore, whenever someone critiques what you do, it really affects how you feel
Laura: about who you are.
Laura: And that, I guess, was the more tough side of that particular career.
Laura: It has many positives, but it also had a few negatives, which I think I ignored for as
Laura: long as I could.
Laura: And then I suppose I had to come to a realization that perhaps I'm not necessarily
Laura: the right type of person to enjoy this type of career.
Joseph: Was there a particular moment when it dawned on you that you just had to make a change,
Joseph: and that this was not sustainable for you?
Laura: So one of the things that singers will often experience is something that comes with the
Laura: job is, you know, sometimes you fall sick.
Laura: Things happen to your voice.
Laura: It becomes way more sensitive because you're using it as an instrument.
Laura: So it's naturally way more sensitive.
Laura: And I've noticed that when I stopped singing, I stopped being sick, which is
Laura: miraculous. But I used to get colds all the time, and I kind of struggled with acid
Laura: reflux as well.
Laura: And perhaps I still get some of it now, but it's almost I don't notice it anymore.
Laura: Or maybe I get less of it as well because I'm not using my voice in that capacity.
Laura: It's not as demanding on my voice kind of day to day talking.
Laura: So my last year was quite a difficult one.
Laura: I fell into kind of this vicious cycle of you're sick and then therefore you're anxious
Laura: because when you're sick, you cannot perform.
Laura: If you don't perform, you lose money because you're not paid.
Laura: If you're not paid for a long time, you can't cover your bills.
Laura: And they can also cancel your contracts, because if you've been sick for a long time,
Laura: the show must go on.
Laura: It seems unfair, but it's also really fair.
Laura: It's a business. They can't just wait for you forever.
Laura: So you kind of get into that cycle of you're sick and therefore you're anxious, but then
Laura: also you're sick because you're anxious.
Laura: So I found myself in this continuous loop.
Laura: And I think there came a time when my voice was not doing very well.
Laura: I was determined to push through, and that was one of the biggest mistakes I made,
Laura: because I continued pushing through and I think the anxiety really got out of hand.
Laura: At one point I used to wake up, remember, in the middle of the night like 3 a.m., just to
Laura: check if I still have a voice, because any moment it could be gone.
Laura: And I felt really, really anxious, very, very stressed.
Laura: Which obviously didn't help my sickness either.
Laura: So it only created more acid reflux, kind of more hardship and performance.
Laura: And what started happening that sometimes I started losing my voice during a performance
Laura: that then added the trauma of hundreds of people looking at you while you're losing
Laura: your voice. So all of these things started piling up, and I think I was really
Laura: struggling to deal with it, like on a mental level.
Laura: And I think at that point I decided I need to just take a break.
Laura: So it wasn't like I decided I need to change careers.
Laura: I think at that point I understood that I have to step away from it, and it was a huge
Laura: hit for pride because suddenly you feel like you failed.
Laura: You failed at your own job, you failed as a performer, you failed as a singer.
Laura: And you know the constant thoughts of what are other people going to say?
Laura: And often people in the industry would say, well, you know, you failed because you didn't
Laura: have a good technique or, you know, you failed because of x, y, z.
Laura: So everyone has an opinion to offer.
Laura: And at that point in time, I decided I'm going to take a break.
Laura: I'm going to take it slow, continue taking the lessons and just use this time to
Laura: recover. What happened during that period was I very quickly realized that the recovery
Laura: needed to happen, not in my voice.
Laura: So there was nothing wrong with my voice.
Laura: There was nothing wrong with my body.
Laura: There was no physical issue.
Laura: The issue was a mental issue.
Laura: I think over that really stressful year, I built a lot of trauma in my head, which
Laura: started really inhibiting kind of my singing, and I think I faced a choice at that
Laura: point. How much time and how much of my life I'm willing to invest into this healing
Laura: journey, because it's not that difficult to heal from physical trauma.
Laura: It's much more difficult.
Laura: It's not necessarily much more difficult, but it's less predictable.
Laura: Healing from kind of mental trauma or like a psychological trauma.
Joseph: Yeah, I think that's what makes these sort of transitions so unsettling because there's not
Joseph: a clear start and end.
Joseph: What you just mentioned about your physical side.
Joseph: You kind of know when you've physically gotten better from an injury or something.
Joseph: But yeah, the psychological and emotional side of of making a transition or having come
Joseph: out of a really difficult situation is a lot less tangible.
Joseph: And so it's it's just kind of harder to wrestle with.
Joseph: And then that creates more anxiety.
Laura: Exactly. It's really difficult.
Laura: I think anxiety is one of the most difficult things to recover from because you're so
Laura: invested in your own healing journey.
Laura: You know, the stakes are high.
Laura: You must recover from this, and that only creates more anxiety.
Laura: So it's almost like you have to completely walk away from it in order to completely
Laura: heal. Because if you keep on pushing yourself with the pressure of I must heal
Laura: from this, it just doesn't work that way.
Laura: Or at least it didn't work that way for me.
Laura: So what I did, I stepped away from it all and then found myself in a in a funny
Laura: predicament of having cancelled all my contracts.
Laura: I had no income.
Joseph: Well, that'd be really interesting to talk about that now, Laura, this transition of
Joseph: yours. So it sounds like you need to take a step back.
Joseph: You're not sure if it's going to be a permanent step away, or just kind of a
Joseph: momentary pause.
Joseph: London is not.
Joseph: Or the UK in general is not a cheap place to live, so obviously you had to make ends meet.
Joseph: What did you do? Like what kind of jobs did you apply to?
Joseph: And I'd also be curious what sort of roles you took on.
Joseph: Maybe like temporary jobs you had to take on to make ends meet.
Laura: So during that time, I obviously thought, you know, I have to pay my bills, I need to find
Laura: a job. So I opened all the, you know, what they call the websites with all the job
Laura: opportunities. And I started scrolling.
Laura: It was a really discouraging time as well, because all I had in my education, kind of in
Laura: my little portfolio was music studies.
Laura: I barely had any other work experience.
Laura: I've only done music, which at the time seemed really not applicable to anything
Laura: else. So what I started is my application journey applying to loads and loads of
Laura: different jobs. I really was aiming low and when I say low, I mean where the requirements
Laura: were very basic.
Laura: So not necessarily that they're bad jobs, but where the requirements are completely
Laura: basic, like washing the dishes.
Joseph: Oh wow.
Laura: The only requirement you need to have is usually the ability to work in the UK.
Laura: And I don't even think they require anything else.
Laura: They usually just say as long as you can stand and you're physically fit to stand
Laura: there all day and wash the dishes, we're good.
Laura: So I applied for jobs like that, catering, waitressing, jobs.
Laura: So where the kind of the level of requirements for the entry-level was pretty
Laura: basic because I really saw myself as someone who doesn't have anything else to offer
Laura: regardless. And I just thought, well, that's going to be easy to get one.
Laura: I just thought anyone could get this.
Laura: I think I applied to close to maybe 80 jobs over the course of about four months.
Laura: I was rejected from all of them.
Joseph: Oh, wow.
Laura: Either didn't hear back or was rejected.
Laura: And I think progressively my applications were just going down.
Laura: Down to like just any kind of job will do.
Laura: If you pay me, I'll work.
Joseph: So for 3 or 4 months here, you're applying to whatever 80 jobs and you're getting either no
Joseph: response or negative response and oh wow.
Joseph: Okay. And like what was running through your head at that time?
Joseph: Were you thinking go back to opera or was that not.
Laura: Well, that wasn't an option either, because I wasn't in a place to actually do anything
Laura: with my voice either.
Laura: I was really surprised and like, puzzled because I thought, I don't know, why doesn't
Laura: anyone want me?
Laura: And I thought, well, surely I can wash the dishes.
Laura: And I remember I called my mum and she said, how is it going?
Laura: And I said, well, it's not going very well.
Laura: I said I keep on either hearing negative responses or not hearing back at all.
Laura: So basically nothing happened.
Laura: My mom said something quite profound, quite unusual to what she would normally say as
Laura: well. She said, you know, this is really strange.
Laura: I think it's because life is about to offer something very different to you, and it's
Laura: preventing you from getting anything else, because there is a plan in place and there's
Laura: a job for you that's waiting for you.
Laura: And it's not any of these jobs.
Laura: So it's basically the life itself is preventing you from getting it.
Laura: And I thought, whoa, that's a really strange thing for my mom to say.
Laura: She doesn't normally speak like that, but I think it encouraged me.
Laura: And what happened then was that maybe a couple of weeks later, I ran into someone who
Laura: I knew and they sort of asked, as usual, how is this singing going?
Laura: And I said, well, it's not going very well.
Laura: I kind of paused everything there.
Laura: And I'm actually now looking any kind of job because I need to kind of sustain myself.
Laura: And the person looked at me and he said, oh, well, I know someone who is looking for
Laura: people like they have a business and they're constantly looking for new people to join.
Laura: And in my head, I thought, oh, business.
Laura: I really don't know anything about business.
Laura: I'm definitely not a suitable candidate.
Laura: But out of kind of politeness, I said, yes, of course, I'll connect with them, I'll reach
Laura: out to them. And I did, and they told me about their business.
Laura: They told me they have.
Laura: They sent me a list of different roles that they have.
Laura: I looked at all of them and I obviously thought, well, this is I can't do any of
Laura: this. I know nothing about business.
Laura: I know nothing about any of these roles.
Laura: The one thing I spotted was a graduate position.
Joseph: Is this the customer service position?
Laura: Yes. And I reached out back and I said, well, for a graduate position, what's the time
Laura: period for that graduate in terms of I graduated many, many years ago.
Laura: Am I still, you know, could I still be a candidate?
Laura: And the guy said, yes.
Laura: Why not?
Laura: And I said, okay, I did.
Laura: And I said, does it matter where I graduated from?
Laura: And they were like, no, it doesn't matter.
Laura: Oh, okay.
Laura: Maybe it doesn't matter though.
Laura: And I applied and the position that I applied for was customer services because
Laura: again, I thought, I don't have much experience with any other things, but I do
Laura: have experience with people.
Laura: So I thought, that's what I'm going to hang on to.
Laura: And I applied and I.
Got the job.
Joseph: And how did that go for you?
Joseph: I think you spent a few years doing that.
Joseph: It sounds like you went from a place where you felt like you didn't have, I guess, the
Joseph: formalized qualifications to take on that role.
Joseph: But when you actually got into the role, what was your experience there like?
Laura: It was a really good experience, I think.
Laura: I did not expect to enjoy it as much as I did, and that is one of the reasons why I
Laura: never got back to singing.
Laura: I just really enjoyed the whole corporate environment and client services was a very
Laura: broad role.
Laura: It offered a lot of variety, lots of people contact.
Laura: I enjoyed so much learning about business, what they do, kind of the whole corporate
Laura: side of things.
Laura: Really, really loved it.
Laura: I think I did that for about a year, and then because it was a small organization,
Laura: kind of almost like a startup, that were going through a lot of restructuring, and
Laura: they kind of kept on changing their shape.
Laura: So they kept moving me kind of around different roles.
Laura: So I got to experience a lot.
Laura: I was offered a role as an analyst, data analyst.
Laura: And I thought, well, that's interesting, why not?
Laura: And basically from starting from customer services.
Laura: Associate moved my way up through data analysts, insight analyst into consultant.
Joseph: And then that takes us to the consulting chapter of your career, which is what I'm
Joseph: hoping to talk with you about now.
Joseph: You climb all the way up to becoming a strategy consultant, and then eventually you
Joseph: would make it to Deloitte.
Joseph: I was looking into the acceptance rates of applicants at Deloitte, and according to the
Joseph: Cambridge consultant, it's about 4%.
Joseph: Now, I'm not sure how precise that figure is, but it's very well known in the corporate
Joseph: world that landing a job at Deloitte or any of the big four professional firms, Deloitte
Joseph: or Ernst and Young or PwC or KPMG, it's really competitive to get into these places.
Joseph: As someone who didn't--at least before this latest role that you just described before
Joseph: that--didn't have a formalized business background, how did you approach landing a
Joseph: job at Deloitte?
Laura: Well, I'm surprised now too!
Laura: I didn't know these rates!
Laura: Yeah. It's competitive.
Laura: You make me surprised now too! Now.
Joseph: Yeah, you made it.
Laura: Oh my goodness. Feeding my imposter syndrome.
Joseph: I work with a lot of business schools, and I know that consulting is one of the esteemed
Joseph: target industries that a lot of business students try to get into.
Joseph: There's banking, there's consulting.
Joseph: Those are two of the most attractive and also the most competitive.
Joseph: And so a lot of people don't make it.
Joseph: And a lot of people wonder, how do you land a job at one of these big four firms or one
Joseph: of the big three firms?
Joseph: So yeah, I'm just curious how you did it.
Laura: I think a lot of it is also to do with being at the right place at the right time.
Laura: I think we cannot discredit that.
Laura: I know that things right now are really, really tough within the industry.
Laura: So it really depends on the time and the place.
Laura: What's the environment like?
Laura: What's the industry like?
Laura: It's not so much to do with what you bring.
Laura: Sometimes it's also being able to ride the tide.
Laura: But basically what happened in my previous job, and I'm forever grateful to them for the
Laura: opportunities that they provided me with.
Laura: I had so many opportunities just to learn on the job, and I think what really helped is
Laura: keeping that why not attitude.
Laura: Some of the roles I was quite certain at the time, this is not going to be my forever
Laura: role. I don't think this is my thing, but I used that time to kind of take as much as I
Laura: can from that role, from the responsibilities that I was given.
Laura: Some of them I did not thoroughly enjoy, but I think I tried to keep an attitude of what
Laura: can I learn from this and kind of put in my little library of skills.
Laura: One thing that did help was during Covid.
Laura: While I always say while other people were baking bread and kind of everyone found.
Laura: Everyone found their own thing . . .
Joseph: I was not one those people!
Laura: Lots of people were. And I have nothing against people who bake bread.
Laura: I'm just really bad baker.
Laura: That's the true reason behind it.
Laura: I decided that I also need to do something, you know, with my time, even though I was
Laura: still full-time working because our organization was working kind of in the
Laura: digital space. So we were not really affected by the whole kind of work from home.
Laura: What I did was I decided to do a little like a diploma.
Laura: It's not a university, it's not a college.
Laura: It's not any of those.
Laura: It's just like a certification.
Laura: But it's a full-year course with lots of assignments and it's still quite pretty
Laura: in-depth. The topic that I chose was actually Human Resources, even though I did
Laura: not necessarily have a desire to become a human resources specialist.
Laura: But I kept that passion for people and business because I never had that true
Laura: background in business.
Laura: After reading kind of the brochure of that certificate, I really enjoyed what they were
Laura: outlining. They were kind of really going on that human-centered approach to how to run an
Laura: organization through people.
Laura: And I just loved it. And I thought, why not?
Laura: So that's the thing that I did within Covid, which I think also helped me land the job at
Laura: Deloitte because I was able to offer almost like a niche expertise in addition to my more
Laura: general consulting skills.
Laura: I think the other thing that does help is if you know someone within the organization, it
Laura: can really help you almost tailor not necessarily lie or pretend, but tailor your
Laura: kind of focus of your application to what really matters to the organization as well.
Laura: So I was kind of blessed to have some people on the inside who told me a little bit about
Laura: the organization.
Laura: They recommended the organization as a good organization to work for.
Joseph: These are just. People in your professional circle network.
Joseph: Okay.
Laura: Yeah. So a couple of people in my network were in the organization.
Laura: So that really helped because it really gave me an insight into the application process,
Laura: understanding what are the priorities for the business, what can I speak into?
Laura: And it really helped me to also then tailor my CV, tailor my application, and even tailor
Laura: my interview approach to make sure that when I come in and I speak, they know that I
Laura: understand their business, I understand their challenges, I understand their clients,
Laura: I understand what they need, and I'm not coming in cold like I felt like one of their
Laura: own in a way.
Joseph: So it sounds like you investing the energy and the time into doing your side research,
Joseph: your side certification, and also just really customizing and tailoring your
Joseph: approach. It really sounds like that helped you stand out as a candidate.
Laura: I suppose it sounds a bit of a cliche, you know, don't go on an interview without having
Laura: read about the organization, but I think you'd be surprised how many people don't.
Laura: It's a surprising, shocking numbers as well.
Laura: And I think that's really the key.
Laura: If you can go into that room and talk their language.
Laura: Talk about the things that matter to them, kind of from the hiring manager all the way
Laura: into kind of their current year priorities.
Laura: That shows dedication.
Laura: You've dedicated your time to research these things, that shows interest.
Laura: You've shown interest in that organization.
Laura: You can show expertise and what you know about clients, and then you can bring your
Laura: own little niche expertise in something else that you do.
Laura: And I think all of that together makes you quite attractive.
Joseph: So it sounds like things are going well for you there at Deloitte.
Joseph: And one of the last things I was hoping we could talk about before we wrap up are just
Joseph: some of the lessons that you've learned along the way of your career change journey.
Joseph: When you look back on your career change journey, Is there anything in particular that
Joseph: you wished you had known that you now know about what it takes to make a pivot
Joseph: successfully?
Laura: I'm overall really happy with my transition, so I don't think there's anything that I'm
Laura: regretting. So it's probably not as strong of an emotion, but I really wish I would have
Laura: known sooner that I'm capable of so much more than I give credit to myself for.
Laura: I think it has been a really encouraging journey throughout, and I probably owe it to
Laura: a lot of people along walking alongside of me, who continually kept giving me
Laura: opportunities and opening doors for me because they believed in me when I didn't
Laura: believe in myself.
Laura: So I think, number one, surrounding yourself with those people again sounds really cliché,
Laura: but it's so important.
Laura: And then second thing, just believing in yourself and giving yourself more credit, I
Laura: think is important.
Laura: And I think the third thing would be I hear a lot of people saying, oh, I'm really not
Laura: happy in my current job.
Laura: I want to change, I want to do something else.
Laura: And they just sort of sit and wait until kind of the penny drops and they're going to
Laura: figure out their next big move.
Laura: Sometimes your pivot is not made out of one big move.
Laura: Sometimes it's made out of lots of little steps and moves, and sometimes you're going
Laura: to fall into things and that's okay.
Laura: Give it a go. Approach everything with the attitude of why not?
Laura: Let's just give it a go.
Joseph: Was that a major adjustment for you, Laura?
Joseph: I know we didn't really touch on this, but you go from being an opera singer in front of
Joseph: these. What I'm assuming quite large audiences in this sort of performance space
Joseph: to then being in an office, kind of dressed up in office attire, working with clients,
Joseph: sometimes behind a laptop, kind of in these meeting rooms.
Joseph: Was that a hard adjustment to make, or did you find that you kind of just fell quite
Joseph: naturally into that?
Laura: It wasn't too difficult, but there were some things to get used to.
Laura: Like, I think in the opera world you're way more active.
Laura: There's less kind of sitting down and your work is really split into kind of bursts of
Laura: energy. So you'll rehearse a scene, you have a little bit of time to hang around while
Laura: some other people are doing other things.
Laura: So like your work is more segmented and it's really stretched across kind of the day.
Laura: It's also much later in the day, so you don't really start as early, but sometimes
Laura: you do tend to finish really, really late.
Laura: So that adjustment was something to get used to.
Laura: So just being able to sit again from like 8 or 9 until five, it just reminded me of
Laura: school.
Joseph: Yeah.
Laura: And at first I think I really struggled to just keep my concentration going.
Laura: I had like back issues as well.
Laura: When I first started sitting for long periods, I wasn't used to it, but these are
Laura: kind of the only major, I suppose, adjustments.
Laura: It wasn't dramatic.
Joseph: And having been through this career change, Laura, what's one thing that you've learned
Joseph: about yourself?
Laura: One thing I learned about myself is that curiosity is my superpower.
Joseph: Yeah, it sounds like curiosity has really served you well in your career, from just the
Joseph: example you gave of not being able to answer maybe a client question, and then you going
Joseph: back and diving deeper into that, or you just allowing yourself to say yes to some of
Joseph: these opportunities when you weren't quite sure how they were going to work out.
Joseph: So it does sound like that's worked very well for you.
Laura: It really has. And I'm always very encouraged to hear the stories from around the world
Laura: that most inventions or innovation has happened because of someone being curious and
Laura: kind of going against the usual and thinking, why not?
Laura: Well what if.
Laura: And I think that's a really encouraging.
Laura: And I think we never should underestimate curiosity.
Laura: It's one of the best things that you can have in your back pocket, and I think it's
Laura: going to serve anyone well.
Joseph: And one more question before we wrap up with one of your side projects.
Joseph: Do you still sing?
Laura: I still do. Not in the same capacity.
Laura: I don't do opera anymore, but I kind of sing in my free time.
Laura: I sing in a kind of my local church sort of every other Sunday.
Laura: So I do have some opportunities for my creative outlet.
Joseph: I do want to wrap up speaking of outlets with one of your side projects, can you tell me a
Joseph: little bit more about Path Changer, which is actually how you and I first met and
Joseph: something I know you've been working on, wherever you can somehow find the time to
Joseph: work on it.
Laura: It's been such a busy time.
Laura: I haven't had a chance to do much on it in the last couple of months, but it is kind of
Laura: something that I call my soul project.
Laura: One of the things that I'm quite passionate for, having gone through this career change
Laura: journey myself is helping others.
Laura: Not calling myself a career expert and not a career advisor.
Laura: I'm not anything in that area.
Laura: However, I really wanted to create something that would allow people to get a glimpse into
Laura: various perspectives related to career change.
Laura: Hopefully with the view that they start seeing that things are possible.
Laura: Because I think one of the most frustrating things for me to see is when someone really
Laura: feels boxed in and without options, for the same reasons that I felt boxed in.
Laura: For that, I don't have the right certificate.
Laura: I don't have the right degree.
Laura: I don't have the right background to try something new, or to apply for this position,
Laura: or to have a different career to the one that I had before.
Laura: So I tried to create something, almost like an interview form, where I interview various
Laura: experts with viewpoints or expertise related to something that might be relevant to career
Laura: change. And yeah, and hoping that people can find that content interesting and then
Laura: ideally also then connect with those experts if they want to take that conversation
Laura: further.
Joseph: Well, and I've seen some of those video clips myself and they're very useful and very
Joseph: insightful. So I would encourage people to check those out.
Joseph: And speaking of which, if they do want to learn more about you, or if they want to
Joseph: check out some of the content you've been creating through your Path Changer
Joseph: initiative, where is the best place people can find you?
Laura: So I think currently the best place to find me would be either on LinkedIn .
Laura: . . so I'm Laura McIntyre on there or Instagram.
Laura: So if you do have Instagram, @pathchangerofficial is the handle.
Laura: And that's where I'll be sharing all things related to career change.
Joseph: Okay. And we'll be sure to include links to those profiles on our show notes.
Joseph: So thank you so much, Laura, for taking this time out of your busy schedule to tell us a
Joseph: little bit about your former life as an opera singer, your transition into the world
Joseph: of consulting, and also just the importance of being curious and open and how much that
Joseph: can really serve you in your career.
Joseph: So best of luck with your time there at Deloitte with Pat changer, and I also hope we
Joseph: can cross paths again soon.
Laura: Yes. Thank you so much for inviting me.
Laura: It's been really a pleasure to speak to you again.
Joseph: So I hope you enjoyed hearing Laura's perspectives on prioritizing your mental
Joseph: health, the power of your professional network, and believing in yourself.
Joseph: Now it's time to wrap up with today's mental Fuel, where I'm going to pick up on this
Joseph: topic of how curiosity can play an important role in your career change journey.
Joseph: Before we get to today's mental fuel, I wanted to thank Stubble and Co for supporting
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Joseph: stylish, durable and high quality bags made from recycled materials perfect for work and
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Joseph: Check out their full range of bags and accessories at career Relaunch net slash
Joseph: stubble. This is the part of the show called Mental Fuel, where I finished the show with a
Joseph: brief personal story related to one of the topics we covered today, and wrap up with a
Joseph: simple challenge to help you move forward with your own career goals.
Joseph: So for today's mental fuel, I wanted to pick up on something Laura mentioned about
Joseph: curiosity being her superpower.
Joseph: And when I think about curiosity in the context of career change, it's really about
Joseph: embracing an open, inquisitive mindset where you're more focused on learning,
Joseph: understanding, and exploring new ideas, skills, or perspectives, rather than getting
Joseph: too caught up with the outcome of those explorations.
Joseph: And while I wouldn't say that curiosity is my superpower per se, I've definitely seen how
Joseph: allowing myself to be curious about things has opened up professional doors that would
Joseph: have otherwise remained closed or undiscovered.
Joseph: I'll just share a couple of concrete examples, the first of which opened up a new
Joseph: career opportunity, and the second related to discovering interesting people.
Joseph: Many years ago, after I graduated from college, I was living in Hawaii doing a
Joseph: financial services internship at a company there, and I used to take the same bus to
Joseph: work every morning, hopping on at a very specific time and seeing the same bus driver
Joseph: every single day.
Joseph: I lived in Waikiki, and that bus originated its journey from the bus stop right next door
Joseph: to my apartment.
Joseph: So when I hopped on board.
Joseph: Sometimes I'd be the only one there with the bus driver waiting to depart.
Joseph: Now, I wouldn't call myself the most gregarious or chattiest person out there, but
Joseph: I would consider myself fairly friendly.
Joseph: So I'd chat with this bus driver every morning on my way to work, mostly to learn as
Joseph: much as I could about life there in Hawaii.
Joseph: Things to see, things to say or not say, and just the way of life there on the island.
Joseph: This guy's name was Yama.
Joseph: He was originally from Samoa, and I do remember that he was always reading the
Joseph: newspaper at a time when people read newspapers before setting off, so we'd sit
Joseph: there in the bus and chat about things in the news before he drove off.
Joseph: And we were chatting one day, and I was telling him about my confusion around what to
Joseph: do after I finished up that internship, whether I would head back to the US mainland
Joseph: or to stay there in Hawaii.
Joseph: And I wasn't quite sure what to do next, and he mentioned something that really planted a
Joseph: seed in my mind that would kind of forever change the trajectory of my entire career.
Joseph: He asked me if I ever considered going into radio news journalism.
Joseph: He knew I'd liked talking about the news, said I had a decent radio voice, and just
Joseph: posed the question.
Joseph: To be honest, I hadn't ever thought of going in that direction professionally.
Joseph: But a couple of weeks later, I found myself doing some informational interviewing with
Joseph: journalists there, one of whom eventually put me in touch with a guy running the Hawaii
Joseph: Bureau of National Public Radio there.
Joseph: And the next thing I know, I'm working there as a fill in classical music host,
Joseph: volunteering and eventually getting a job there, anchoring a daily news program.
Joseph: And this all started with me just being open to having a conversation with someone who I
Joseph: never would have imagined could help me come up with an idea of where to take my career,
Joseph: and also just being open to learning more about journalism opportunities in general,
Joseph: and just to jump forward a couple of decades and give a more current example now as a
Joseph: podcast host, where the seeds of this work really date back to that first experience
Joseph: being on air there in Hawaii.
Joseph: This entire show has emerged from my ongoing curiosity about how people navigate career
Joseph: changes. Sometimes listeners ask me how I find guests I feature on this show, and while
Joseph: there are people who apply to be guests, the vast majority of guests you hear on this show
Joseph: are just people I've informally crossed paths with, either professionally or
Joseph: personally. Just being curious about their stories is typically how I find most guests
Joseph: for this show.
Joseph: Now, because I'm a public speaker and I speak a lot professionally.
Joseph: I do plenty of talking myself, so in one on one conversations I tend to do more question
Joseph: asking than speaking myself.
Joseph: I try my best when I meet people in general, to ask them about them and how they ended up
Joseph: where they are today.
Joseph: Mostly because I'm just curious about it, and you'd be surprised once you probe a bit
Joseph: and give people some space to share their more personal stories.
Joseph: They do open up, and you very quickly come to realize a lot of people out there have
Joseph: gone through some sort of a major career or unexpected life change.
Joseph: So clearly I've seen curiosity play a role in my own career.
Joseph: Laura talked about how Curiosity's played a role in hers.
Joseph: What about you?
Joseph: When was the last time you just allowed yourself to pursue a new skill simply because
Joseph: it intrigued you.
Joseph: When did you last explore a new potential career idea?
Joseph: By taking a course, talking with someone in that sector, or reading a book or article on
Joseph: the topic? Or when did you make the effort to reconnect with someone you once met in
Joseph: passing, whom you felt could just be a nice person to have in your life?
Joseph: Sometimes just allowing yourself to be open to a new idea, path, or person can plant the
Joseph: seeds to an entirely new chapter in your career and life.
Joseph: This takes me to a quote from Elizabeth Gilbert, author of eat, pray, love.
Joseph: Curiosity is the truth and the Way of Creative Living.
Joseph: Following that scavenger hunt of curiosity can lead you to amazing places.
Joseph: So my challenge to you is to dedicate a few minutes this week to just learning something
Joseph: entirely new that you find intriguing right now.
Joseph: You could, for example, explore an emerging technology affecting your industry, or learn
Joseph: more about a skill that someone you admire possesses, or listen to a podcast episode
Joseph: about a topic you're curious about.
Joseph: I've been doing a little bit of learning and exploration myself recently, delving deeper
Joseph: into the world of AI to figure out the role it might play in my own workflow, the careers
Joseph: of my clients, followers and audiences, and also broader society.
Joseph: I've actually just finished the book Co-intelligence by Ethan Mallick, which I
Joseph: would highly recommend if you want to learn more about how to embrace and work with AI in
Joseph: your career and broader life, think about what step you'll take to allow curiosity to
Joseph: play a greater role in your career.
Joseph: If you want to share a step you've recently taken to explore something new in your
Joseph: career? Have a question you want me to address on the show, or just want to share a
Joseph: story of career change with others?
Joseph: I'd love for you to leave me a voicemail with your thoughts at career Relaunch dot net
Joseph: slash 104, where you can also find a summary of my discussion with Laura and learn more
Joseph: about her. Again, that's career relaunch.
Joseph: Net 104.
Joseph: If you've enjoyed today's show, I'd really appreciate you leaving a positive review and
Joseph: rating on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
Joseph: And be sure to hit that follow button so you can get the latest episodes of the show
Joseph: delivered right to your device.
Joseph: Thanks so much for being part of the career relaunch community, and a special thanks
Joseph: again to Laura McIntyre for sharing her story with us today from Kent.
Joseph: This episode was mixed by Liam Mackenzie.
Joseph: Today's music was curated by Jonathan Rinaldi pole and the career relaunch theme
Joseph: song was written and performed by electrocardiogram.
Joseph: I'm Joseph Liu.
Joseph: Have a great final few weeks of the year and I'll talk to you next time.