Episode 4

full
Published on:

25th Jun 2024

Constraints Drive Innovation - From HR Leader to HR Founder and Podcaster - Matt Burns - #004

On this first episode of Quit and Switch with Adrian Daniels, Adrian welcomes Matt Burns, ex-Head of HR at Walmart, an experienced HR executive, founder of Bento HR and host of Thinking Inside the Box podcast.

We talk about:

  • Matt’s transition from HR leader to HR founder, tips for transitioning into HR and the digital transformation space, and how constraints can drive innovation.
  • We also discuss podcasting as a tool for building relationships in business, the impact of COVID on the workplace, and the importance of adapting to stay relevant
  • Adrian shares his own experience of disrupting his corporate career, and Matt gives advice on how to make the best of career, life, or business situation.

The episode emphasises taking action now and using available resources to develop new skills.

Timestamps

01:19 Matt Burns: HR exec turned podcaster

03:32 Matt Burns turned entrepreneur uses podcasting

10:05 Constraints driving innovation: Lessons

18:10 Plan for future career changes now

24:19 Kindness and community vital for success


About Quit and Switch Podcast

Introducing Quit and Switch with Adrian Daniels. A brand new podcast which focuses on careers, business and entrepreneurship, with a touch of self-development.

Since 2020, the world has never been the same; we have witnessed global phenomenons such as lockdowns, The Great Resignation, The Work From Home Revolution, The Artificial Intelligence Revolution and so much more. 2019 is but a distance memory. Most of all, the career and business marketplace is totally disrupted.

Quit and Switch hosted by Adrian Daniels, reveals stories and lessons of established or rising stars who have pivoted from a specific career, business or industry, so professionals and entrepreneurs in a transition, can gain actionable tips and insights to apply in their own journeys.


Share your quit and switch story with us or get in touch


Email: adrian@quitandswitch.co


Website: https://quitandswitch.co


Connect with Adrian


Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielsadrian/


Website: https://adriandaniels.co


Become a podcaster


Website: https://atozpodcasting.com


Community: https://atozpodcasting.com/community



Transcript
Speaker:

In this new era of work where big companies are going to become

Speaker:

increasingly challenged to perform the way they once did, they're

Speaker:

gonna be have to change dramatically the way they do their business, or they're not

Speaker:

gonna survive. And we've seen evidence of that already in the four years since I've

Speaker:

left the corporate world. Now, every meeting that I

Speaker:

set up in my calendar, if it was supposed to be a half an hour,

Speaker:

it's set up for 25 minutes. Why? Because most people are

Speaker:

from meeting to meeting, even in digital world, and they're all showing up late.

Speaker:

But I met with SIM Sukut. SIM Sukut is the former

Speaker:

CIO or Chief Information Officer for the Government of Estonia. Why is that

Speaker:

important? Well, about ten years ago, the government of Estonia launched what they

Speaker:

call an eresidency program. Hey,

Speaker:

quit and switchers. You're now listen to Quit and Switch, the show where we speak

Speaker:

to established or rising stars who have successfully pivoted from

Speaker:

one career, industry or business to another. So

Speaker:

professionals and entrepreneurs like us in a transition can learn tips

Speaker:

and insights that we can apply in our own journeys. I'm your

Speaker:

host, Adrian Daniels. If you are at the crossroads in work

Speaker:

or business, then get ready to quit and switch.

Speaker:

And remember, quitters never really quit. They

Speaker:

switch. Welcome to Quit and Switch. How are you doing today?

Speaker:

I'm looking forward to the chat. How are you? I'm great, thank you.

Speaker:

Quit and Switchers. Today we are joined by Matt Burns. He's an

Speaker:

experienced and award winning former HR executive who's worked for some

Speaker:

top companies including Walmart and J y. SK.

Speaker:

He's led a talented global team that won the coveted,

Speaker:

most innovative use of HR technology in 2017

Speaker:

and the Canadian HR Team of the Year Award in

Speaker:

2018. He's also the founder of Bento HR, a

Speaker:

digital transformation consultancy working at the intersection of

Speaker:

strategy, technology operations, and human capital to

Speaker:

accelerate value creation. Matt is also the host and producer

Speaker:

of the Thinking Inside the Box podcast, where they discuss the

Speaker:

innovative ways organizations and their leaders overcome

Speaker:

complex issues at work. In this episode, Matt and I will discuss

Speaker:

Matt's career in HR and how he's made a transition from being HR

Speaker:

executive to being a podcaster HR founder and an industry

Speaker:

analyst covering the world of work, including areas such as HR strategy,

Speaker:

digital transformation, and tech. Matt will teach you how you can

Speaker:

make the best of your career, life, or business situation.

Speaker:

And finally, you'll learn how podcasting has become a great way

Speaker:

for Matt to build his business, build an incredible network, and

Speaker:

raise his brand awareness during COVID Thanks to his show

Speaker:

Thinking Outside the Box podcast, head over to

Speaker:

quitandswitch.co/mattburns for the episode. Show

Speaker:

Notes That's quitandswitch.co/mattburns for the

Speaker:

episode show notes. The link is also in the description.

Speaker:

Thanks for asking. It's exciting journey, starting a brand new

Speaker:

podcast, trying to give a different angle to what's already

Speaker:

out there in the market as a

Speaker:

podosphere, as you would imagine, as a podcast yourself, which we'll talk

Speaker:

about. So I'm really excited. Thank you for spending some of your time with

Speaker:

me. Yeah, of course. Happy to help. Excellent. So, Matt,

Speaker:

let's go straight into it. So I want to find out from you.

Speaker:

Tell us a bit about your career in HR and your

Speaker:

transition from being a HR leader to becoming a

Speaker:

podcaster and a founder. Yeah, it's kind of funny.

Speaker:

Now it's 2023 and we've just gone through about three years of real

Speaker:

tumultuous times. I kind of feel like my career has

Speaker:

very much modeled what's happened in broader society, except that I've always made

Speaker:

the jump a couple of years before the inevitable change. Now, to be

Speaker:

fair, I didn't predict the pandemic, nor did I see that coming, but I knew

Speaker:

we were entering into a new era of work where skills were going to become

Speaker:

more transferable, where work was going to become more flexible.

Speaker:

At the time, I had spent 20 years in the corporate world, 15 of them

Speaker:

in HR. And Adrian, I spent a lot of years in HR roles, frankly,

Speaker:

architecting large transformational projects, which in plain speak

Speaker:

is I was helping organizations let go thousands of people.

Speaker:

That was my job. So I was supporting restructuring companies,

Speaker:

mergers and acquisitions. And a consequence of those activities often is

Speaker:

people lose their jobs. It's not pleasant, but it's the reality in

Speaker:

publicly traded companies in large sectors. Now, I'd done that for many,

Speaker:

many years and got to a place where I realized, while this

Speaker:

is certainly valuable work in the context of the

Speaker:

organizations, it wasn't really what I wanted to do with my career. It

Speaker:

wasn't really filling up my cup, as it were. And I also started to ask

Speaker:

myself, well, if I'm seeing a lot of people lose

Speaker:

their jobs because of no fault of performance or loyalty or

Speaker:

tenure, they don't really have the same flexibility. They find

Speaker:

themselves in the lopsters. They're stuck. And I also looked at myself in the mirror

Speaker:

and said, well, I'm not much different than them. The only difference is that I'm

Speaker:

the one building the spreadsheet, not the name on the spreadsheet. So I said to

Speaker:

myself, for the reasons of getting better purpose, but also to try and

Speaker:

create resilience in my career. It's a time for me to explore entrepreneurship

Speaker:

and learn some skills that are transferable in this new

Speaker:

era of work, where big companies are going to become

Speaker:

increasingly challenged to perform the way they once did, they're

Speaker:

going to have to change dramatically the way they do their business, or they're not

Speaker:

going to survive. And we've seen evidence of that already in the four years since

Speaker:

I've left the corporate world. And we need to have as leaders

Speaker:

need to build new skills, which what got us here won't get us there. So,

Speaker:

Adrian, I spent 50 hours a week, 60 hours a week, in

Speaker:

meetings, running meetings. That was my job. And I had a title, and

Speaker:

I had a team, and I had a mandate. But the reality was the actual

Speaker:

skills that I was practicing was starting a meeting,

Speaker:

taking down action items, delegating responsibilities, hosting the

Speaker:

meetings. That was my job as an executive. And I went, this doesn't

Speaker:

feel like a skill that's going to be super transferable in a world where there's

Speaker:

AI, where there's machine learning, where there's virtual reality.

Speaker:

So let me do what I do best, which is throw myself

Speaker:

into an opportunity without much air cover, learn some new skills as an

Speaker:

entrepreneur, and you know this yourself. Being an entrepreneur, you have to learn how to

Speaker:

be a salesperson and a marketer and an operations executive. You have to get right

Speaker:

down into the weeds. And I hadn't been in the weeds for so long, I

Speaker:

felt out of touch. So I said, okay, let's take the skills that I have

Speaker:

from the corporate world. I have relationships, I have knowledge, I have expertise.

Speaker:

But let me start my own business such a way that I

Speaker:

can learn some of these skills, translate them for the new world, and then

Speaker:

ultimately be of better service to those large companies that I ultimately worked in.

Speaker:

Because I bring the large enterprise experience for companies that are 10,000 and

Speaker:

above. But I also bring experience now in the startup world to say which of

Speaker:

the best ways are going about doing things, and I can bring both together. That

Speaker:

led to the podcast. The podcast, Adrian, came from two reasons. The first one was,

Speaker:

frankly, during the pandemic, I was struggling for human connection.

Speaker:

I lived by myself, didn't live with a family, and of course, we're

Speaker:

all locked down. And I said, well, one thing I missed about going to the

Speaker:

office, being in a corporate environment, was conversations.

Speaker:

So not only was I not in an office environment, I was now an entrepreneur.

Speaker:

So my team was very small, so I didn't have the same social connection

Speaker:

that I once did. Podcasts was a great way for me to have conversations, meet

Speaker:

interesting people. And let's be honest, Adrian, you know this. When we're having conversations

Speaker:

with people on LinkedIn or Twitter or Instagram, whatever it might be,

Speaker:

say to someone, hey, Adrian, do you want to have a chat on Friday at

:

00? You'd be like, but, hey, Adrian, do you want to hop on a

:

podcast at Friday 05:00? It's absolutely so

:

the podcast is a great way to start that and building my business. A great

:

way to raise brand profile, raise awareness, and ultimately use

:

it as a method to build relationships in a non threatening way versus,

:

let's have a sales conversation, or let's just meet for coffee on

:

Friday. Just a non threatening way to build relationships and fast forward four

:

and a half years later. It's been an absolutely incredible journey. I've met some amazing

:

people such as yourself and obviously learned a lot about the business world in its

:

entirety. So probably a longer answer than you expecting, but that's kind of my path

:

to get to this point and how podcast things kind of fit into all that.

:

Wow, that's a handful. Matt, I really appreciate you sharing that. You touched

:

on a lot of golden nuggets right there. Matt, you talked about

:

podcasting as how podcasting can

:

be a vehicle for helping out with

:

isolation, opening doors in terms of selling to people

:

in a relational rate rather than kind of like a cold way. And

:

also you talked about how just the world of work has

:

just pivoted a lot since COVID has gone through a lot of transformation,

:

remote working, work from home, the great resignation. I mean, there's a

:

lot happening as all and you were able to see that

:

firsthand when all of that was happening during COVID And it seems like

:

COVID was as bad as COVID was. It seemed like it was a blessing for

:

you, because what it did is that it created opportunities for you to actually

:

move out from the executive role you're doing into taking control

:

more of your business and being able to

:

give something valuable to the world, which is your podcast, which is your consultancy,

:

and so many other wonderful things that I've seen that you're doing, including advising

:

other executive businesses and individuals. Thank you for sharing that.

:

And what I want to know now is, okay, you know what, let's talk about

:

the podcast, because you should land it at that right at the end.

:

Let's talk about thinking inside the box. So I think

:

it's a no brainer name. I think the name kind of gives away what it

:

means thinking inside the box rather than outside of the box because it's all

:

about looking at work and culture issues inside the

:

organization rather than outside the organization. And could you tell

:

us a bit about the podcast and

:

some memorable conversations you've had?

:

I think if you told me why the podcast came about and just share

:

some memorable conversations you've had with some of your guests as well.

:

Congratulations on 146 episodes, by the way.

:

Thank you. I never thought I'd get there. I didn't know

:

that I get to 100, but now it keeps rolling and I'm looking forward to

:

continuing it for the Robin the rest of my professional life so we can touch

:

base when I've hit 1000 next time. For

:

me, it's an interesting journey. So thinking inside the box, the name does speak to

:

inside the box in the context of inside of organizations. So you hit that right.

:

And frankly, Adrian, most people miss that. What

:

I lead with publicly and what it means for in terms of the tagline is

:

constraints driving innovation. Meaning I've worked in environments

:

predominantly where we didn't have a lot of resources. So I mentioned before, restructuring

:

restructuring came as a result of businesses needing to fundamentally pivot

:

and shift the way that they did their business, because maybe the environment has

:

changed. So, a good example, I helped an organization transfer from

:

traditional brick and mortar retail to more of an ecommerce format.

:

Customers were increasingly buying groceries and products and services online.

:

This business traditionally had large, big box stores, and

:

that's where customers did all of their shopping. But moving to an online format

:

meant the business had to change the way they did things, they had to change

:

the way they sourced products, change the way their stores operated, and they had to

:

free up resources to be able to invest in their online business,

:

which, as you know, is a very different business model than

:

traditionally having a big box brick and mortar store.

:

That change is a constraint. The company has x

:

amount of dollars to spend, but they want to reallocate their spend to other parts

:

of the business. That requires an examination of the company and

:

requires them to use their finite resources more effectively for the

:

future. I once had a coach, really bright

:

guy, who said to me, matt, constraints drive innovation. And

:

I the context was kind of unique in which it came up, which was

:

one time I came down to his office and he said, matt, I want you

:

to lead this project. It's a high profile project, it's going to take you six

:

to twelve months, lots of visibility, high pressure,

:

and I want this done within this period of time. And I looked at them

:

and said, this should take two to three years. And I

:

think we don't have enough resources to be able to achieve the goals we've set

:

out. Can we talk about changing the timeline? Can we

:

talk about adding more resources, talk about negotiating so that

:

I can do the job really well, given what you've outlined as the

:

goals? And he looked at me with a smile on his face and said, matt,

:

constraint strides innovation, meaning figure it out.

:

So as a consequence, I went and said, okay, what

:

things can't I control? I can't control the timeline, I can't control the budget,

:

I can't control the resources. But what I could control is the

:

types of the way we went about doing the work and how we would partner

:

with people in the organization to ultimately realize the benefits of the project.

:

So it taught me a really strong lesson around, and this is a lesson we

:

all can apply both professionally and personally. Sometimes you can't change your

:

circumstances. You have fixed income, you live where you live,

:

you born where you were born, you were in the family you're in, but you

:

have to make the best of your situation. Constraints driving

:

innovation is a mantra that I've carried on in further careers and now on the

:

podcast, and it's meant to illuminate that people have the opportunity to do

:

more with what they have if they're willing to look at the problem through a

:

different lens. Now, the lens of which I apply, that is, to your point,

:

through large organizations, through companies. And I've been blessed to meet with a lot of

:

guests along the way that have told some really cool stories. And Adrian, you'll appreciate

:

this. Most of the guests that I meet, where I'm excited about who

:

they are, oftentimes I find underwhelming when I meet with them. It's

:

the ones that I don't have high expectations for that I go, wow, that was

:

a really cool conversation that came out of nowhere. That I'm like. That's a

:

life changing chat. A couple of examples. This one

:

probably bridges both, but I met with SIM Sukut. SIM Sukut

:

is the former CIO or Chief Information Officer for the Government of Estonia.

:

Why is that important? Well, about ten years ago, the government of Estonia

:

launched what they call an eresidency program, meaning that people from

:

all around the world can apply for eresidency in

:

Estonia, and then you can set up a business and have, essentially, a

:

digital nomad work permit, which was

:

unavailable in any other country and is still unavailable in our two countries

:

right now. You have to apply for residency, live in the

:

country, and then that's how you get a job permit. But in Estonia,

:

because it's a smaller country and because they're moving more to a digital interface,

:

they actually have more people applying for eresidency permits every year than

:

they birth children in the nation, because they've created

:

exactly. They've created less barrier to

:

entry. It's a completely innovative way of thinking about citizenship,

:

about thinking about work, about thinking about how to use technology

:

effectively. So we had an incredible hour long conversation where he talked about

:

where they came from, what drove the thinking, how they were able to move

:

this thinking through a government environment, which is bureaucratic, say the least,

:

and then prove the results, making it effective. And they're now a

:

leader, and Estonia is seen as a leading nation around the digital

:

use of governments. That's one I met with Oscar

:

Tromboli about three weeks ago. And Oscar is an expert on listening.

:

And I talk for a living. I don't listen for a living.

:

And for me, listening is a skill that I'm always trying to improve. And Oscar

:

had an incredible way of just talking about basic, practical,

:

pragmatic ways to listen, whether

:

as a leader, as a partner, as a brother, as a friend, so

:

that you could be more effective. And yes, some of it is common sense, but

:

some of it also was unique. I'll give you an example. Now,

:

every meeting that I set up in my calendar, if it was supposed to be

:

a half an hour, it's set up for 25 minutes. Why? Because

:

most people are running from meeting to meeting, even in digital world, and they're all

:

showing up late. So I start my meetings at five after either

:

the hour or the half hour. So if you're running from one meeting to the

:

next, you're never late for my meeting. You're always on time. And if you get

:

there on time, we have five minutes just to catch up and chill and relax.

:

And then I'll get you out of the meeting a couple of minutes early as

:

well so you can get to your next meeting on time. So I'm more thoughtful

:

in the planning around. Very simple. My Zoom meetings are 2025

:

minutes long, which gives you time back in your schedule. They're more efficient,

:

but ultimately people arrive on time. It's much more structured and

:

therefore much more productive versus back to back to back to back to back to

:

back meetings. Inevitably, you're going to stack up, being late over

:

consequent meetings over and over and over again, and then you're just playing catch up.

:

You're showing up to the meeting frenetic and stressed your mind's in five different

:

places. I set it up so that people can show

:

up, take a breath, be present, and then ultimately be

:

more infective in the short time that we have together. Oscar taught me that I've

:

already brought that practice into my business all over the place. So a couple of

:

examples of guests. There's 146 people. So, I mean, there's a lot of cool

:

stories amongst them, but those are two that for me, stand out right now. Very

:

interesting points you've just shared. There's a lot of value bombs

:

in there. We're definitely going to direct our listeners to your podcast

:

thinking inside the box. I'm sure there's a whole lot of value they can get

:

from there. I definitely got some value from your latest guest,

:

Wolfgan Bremmer, and he was talking about

:

intersection of designs and also he was talking about

:

how he'll have to design in such a way where when the

:

business scales, that him and his team able to grow the business as well. So,

:

some very interesting takeaways from that episode. I really enjoy that one. I want to

:

double tap Matt on what you said in terms of

:

constraints drive innovation. I think that's very true. When you

:

look at different perspectives in life, you hear the saying precious create

:

diamonds. There's also a previous guest of mine who's also a

:

podcaster Kwame Christian. He runs Negotiate Anything, the number

:

one negotiation podcast in the world. And one thing he loves to say

:

is the best things in life are on the other side of tough

:

negotiations. So I think this all kind of lines up with all these different

:

quotes and sayings that are going around. Matt, this is a very

:

fantastic conversation. I'm really enjoying. I want to move on and talk

:

about I want to talk about what

:

tips you would give to those that want to transition into

:

HR and the digital transformation space. Yeah,

:

it's a really interesting question because I think it's unfolding for all of us and

:

myself included. And we both came from an era, Adrian, where

:

it was acceptable and almost expected that you join a

:

career, you spend 20, 30, 40 years in a single profession, and then you

:

retire. That's completely changing now careers are happening

:

in smaller increments. Not only are you leaving jobs more frequently, but you

:

might actually have two or three or four careers over the course of your working

:

life. You may start as a graphic designer or a podcaster or a

:

copywriter, and then you become an accountant or you become a lawyer, and you go

:

back to them being an actor. Like there's people are taking on different chapters of

:

their career or they're managing multiple hustles at the same time.

:

That's very different than what it was even 1015 years ago. So I think

:

what I would say for folks is understand where you

:

are and this is where your friends, your colleagues, your family can

:

be really brutally honest with you. What skills do you have? What experiences do you

:

have? What passions do you have today? So what things fill

:

out your profile in today's world. Write that

:

list down. What do you want to do in the future and how

:

does that fit into where the world is going? And I get it. It's hard

:

to put on a crystal ball. It's hard to say, 20 years from now, here's

:

how the world's going to be. Because some things like the pandemic, we couldn't see

:

coming. But here's some things we do know that are going to happen. Artificial intelligence

:

is going to proliferate to the point where manual administration is

:

going to go away. It's already going away in a lot of careers now.

:

Bookkeepers construction, taxi

:

drivers, food and restaurant industry, cashiers and retail

:

locations, any of those jobs that were repetitive

:

administrative and tactical, a lot of those jobs are being automated

:

or they're being outsourced entirely. So if you're in one of those careers today

:

and you have 1015 years left in your working life, you may want to

:

consider, what's your next era? What's the next chapter of your career?

:

And make that decision now from an empowered place versus being

:

pushed out and then having to react to what's available to you in that moment.

:

So what I would do then is establish what skills that you have today,

:

what are your interests in the future, and then build the plan between the two.

:

And I get it. It's hard. We're all working way too many hours. We have

:

too much on our plate. So how are we going to find time for learning

:

and development? But you got to make the time, because if you don't make the

:

time now, you're going to be chasing your tail. Five,

:

6710 years from now, when you realize your skills are out of date,

:

you're lost touch with reality and that the market has passed you

:

by. That's a terrible situation, and you can't count on

:

governments and organizations and the people around you in a lot of

:

cases to prop you up. You're going to have to look after yourself.

:

And the great thing is, if you do that, in the short term, you can

:

leverage your network, you can leverage your skills, you can leverage the people around

:

you. Education is now also different than what it once was. You

:

don't have to go to school for eight years to be an expert at something.

:

You can go on YouTube and you can watch videos. You can take free courses

:

on coursera. You can get practical experience through volunteer work. There's

:

lots of things that you can do to round out your knowledge. Most of the

:

freelancers I talk to don't have professional certifications, but they have

:

experience. They've taught themselves. They've learned from their friends

:

on how to be copywriters or be graphic designers or

:

data scientists. They've learned on their own. So I would encourage folks to start to

:

think about what that next chapter of their career might be, and they start to

:

build the skills now while you have time versus

:

tomorrow, your job's gone. Now you have to

:

scramble and find something that makes sense. That was one

:

of the things that drove me to leaving the corporate world. So people say,

:

Matt, that's good feedback, but it's really hard to leave something that's comfortable.

:

I get it. I was a corporate executive. I was earning a very comfortable salary.

:

I had a very comfortable life. And I, out of

:

partly driven from this conversation, felt the necessity to disrupt

:

my own career. And as a consequence of that, my life has greater

:

flexibility than it ever did before. I'm more empowered than I ever have been before,

:

and I'm ultimately happier than I ever have been before.

:

And yes, I make more money as well, which is a nice consequence of that,

:

but it's not the most important thing. The fact that I can live and work

:

from anywhere that I can choose and live where I work from and who I

:

work with. Those are skills I didn't have and probably I didn't

:

have five years ago in the corporate world where you're told what to do, when

:

to do it, how to do it. Now I have much more flexibility. I wouldn't

:

have gotten to that place if I hadn't taken a step back, disrupted myself,

:

been vulnerable, made a ton of mistakes along the way, and then rebuilt

:

myself to where it actually is coming together. Now you're catching me at a good

:

time. Adrian I'm five years into the journey. If we talked four years ago, I

:

would have been looking a little bit more underslept and stressed out,

:

and my health wasn't always as good. And that was part of the consequence

:

of making that change of what was comfortable into what's less comfortable.

:

I did that because I was trying to accelerate my path through that plan. If

:

folks can do that, now and do so in a more thoughtful way. You don't

:

have to go through the same pains that I went through. Do it for yourself.

:

Powerful, Matt. I must say, this is one of the best interviews I've done in

:

my life. I will say that even though I've done more than 100 episodes

:

of my other podcast, this is absolutely powerful,

:

honestly. Thank you so much for coming on, Matt.

:

I want to say that there's a common theme in the conversation we've had today

:

is looking at what you can control and not what

:

you can't control. As you're talking about earlier on. You can't control the time, you

:

can't control the budget, you can't control the timeline, but you can control other

:

variables as well. And also, I think touching on what you said, Matt, just

:

double tapping on what you said also is for everybody listening, is to

:

really take advantage of all of the resources, the Internet, everything out there.

:

There's so much out there for you to learn in terms of moving

:

into a career transition or business transition. Matt has definitely done

:

that within the past five years, and look where he is today. So it's definitely

:

feasible for everyone to make the move into what career, business

:

or industry they're trying to transition into, and in particular, HR

:

and digital transformation. Matt, you've been a phenomenal, phenomenal guest.

:

Before I ask listeners to go and listen to your podcast and ask them

:

where they can find you, are there any final announcements or

:

words that you like to leave with the listeners? I think more than anything, and

:

this is advice I should have given myself over the five years that I've been

:

there, just be kind to yourself. The world is more

:

challenging today than it was five years ago. It's not just you.

:

It's not just that you're lazy or that you're not smart or that you

:

didn't make the right decisions. The world has gotten more difficult.

:

Things like income inequality, housing affordability, the

:

pandemic, the economic conditions. It's more difficult today

:

than it was to have success, even if you've made all the right decisions,

:

even if you've worked really, really hard, even if you sacrifice along the way.

:

So I would say be kind to yourself. Understanding that

:

kindness can be extended first within and then if you're

:

struggling at any point, whether it's with mental health or with

:

depression or with just struggling for motivation

:

to make sure you have a strong community around you that can lift you up

:

and that you can lift people up as well. I would not be where I

:

am today without a strong community around me that were able to help me in

:

some of those darker days. Give me words of encouragement, give me tough

:

feedback when I needed to hear it. Those kind of things allowed me to have

:

success, and I'm eternally grateful, which is why I try and give as much back

:

as I. Can now and try and pay that forward. So that it's my way

:

of saying thank you to the folks that helped me along the way, and I'm

:

looking forward to doing more of that in the future. So keep an eye on

:

what we're doing, thinking Inside the Box podcast or check me out on LinkedIn. I'm

:

on there pretty much all the time. We'd be happy to connect, have a conversation.

:

Matt, you've been a fantastic guest. Thanks for coming on the show.

:

Yeah, thanks for the invite. Hey, what's up? Quit and Switchers. I hope you like

:

that one. I think the biggest takeaway from this episode, as you heard me

:

say towards the end, is that we can't always control all the variables

:

in life, or as what Matt said, constraints drive

:

innovation. Sometimes we can't control the budgets we have at

:

work or in business, or sometimes you can't control the time that

:

you're in. You heard from Matt that he couldn't control certain things during his earlier

:

career when it was COVID, and as a result, he quit and switched to

:

launching his own business, which gave him more control and allowed them to make more

:

impacts in the lives of professionals and people. Once again, the episode Show

:

Notes are available on

:

quitandswitch.co/mattburns.

:

If you enjoyed this episode and got something from it, we would greatly appreciate

:

sparing a few seconds to leaving a five star review. If you're listening on

:

Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts and share

:

this episode with friends and family. This is the best way to thank us and

:

help us grow the show. If you prefer to watch interviews, we would like to

:

let you know that we are available on YouTube. Just search for quit and switch

:

with Adrian Daniels. I'm Adrian Daniels. If you've made it to the end of the

:

show, you are amazing. Until next time, take care. God bless.

All Episodes Previous Episode

Listen for free

Show artwork for Quit and Switch with Adrian Daniels

About the Podcast

Quit and Switch with Adrian Daniels
Since 2020, the world has never been the same; we have witnessed global phenomenons such as Lockdowns, The Great Resignation, The Work From Home Revolution, The Artificial Intelligence Revolution and so much more. 2019 is but a distance memory. Most of all, the career and business marketplace is totally disrupted.

Quit and Switch hosted by Adrian, reveals stories and lessons of established or rising stars who have pivoted from a specific career, business or industry, so professionals and entrepreneurs in a transition, can gain actionable tips and insights to apply in their own journeys.

About your host

Profile picture for Adrian Daniels

Adrian Daniels