In this powerful episode of Spark & Ignite Your Marketing, Beverly sits down with Stephen Shortt, a career and talent strategist who’s helped tens of thousands of people find fulfilling, purpose-driven careers. From growing up in a family business to designing a global career matching system, Stephen shares his unique IDEAL framework for discovering the work you’re meant to do and why career clarity matters more than ever for individuals and businesses. Whether you’re struggling to attract the right talent, feeling misaligned in your path, or ready to rediscover your “why,” this conversation is a must-listen.
Three Key Topics Discussed:
- The IDEAL Career Framework: Stephen breaks down his IDEAL model as a practical tool for helping people find the right-fit career or role that leads to long-term fulfillment.
- From Family Business to Life-Aligned Work: Stephen shares his courageous journey of buying (and eventually selling) his family’s ESL school business and how a kitchen table moment transformed his relationship with his parents and career forever.
- The Power of Self-Awareness in Business Growth: Beverly and Stephen discuss how entrepreneurship, like career fulfillment, starts with self-awareness. When you know your strengths and what lights you up, you can build a business around what truly matters.
Follow Stephen:
Stephen Shortt | LinkedIn
Stephen Shortt | YouTube
Stephen Shortt | Website
Listen to last week’s episode here!
Transcript:
Beverly:
Did you know that 83% of employers say it’s difficult to find the right talent with the skills they need? At the same time, over 70% of professionals feel disengaged in their roles leading to a disconnect between employees and organizations that impacts productivity, retention, and even business growth. I’m your host, Beverly Cornell, founder and fairy godmother of Brand Clarity at Wickedly Branded. I have over 25 years of experience helping hundreds of purpose-driven entrepreneurs awaken their brand magic and boldly bring it to life so that they can magnify their impact on the world. And today we are talking all about the world of career fulfillment, talent strategy, and future proofing businesses with an incredible guest, Stephen Shortt. Stephen is a career and talent strategist who has helped tens of thousands of professionals find meaningful careers while assisting companies in hiring and developing top tier talent. He is the author of two upcoming books, your Future Career and the creator of the Happy Work Life map. With a deep background in family business, succession planning, leadership development, and global workforce strategies, Stephen is on a mission to make the world a better place, one fulfilling career at a time. Stephen, welcome to the show.
Stephen:
Beverly, thanks very much for having me. It’s an exciting time.
Beverly:
Yeah, it sounds like it. You’ve been busy.
Stephen:
Yeah. Anyone who knows me well will know that if I’m not busy, that’s when trouble starts. People like to keep me busy.
Beverly:
Just for our listeners, if you hear a little accent, Stephen is in Dublin, Ireland, and we are filming this the week of St. Patrick’s Day. So it’s so appropriate that you’re here this week. So you grew up in two family businesses?
Stephen:
I was born in the Middle East, born in Saudi Arabia. My father worked for an American company in Saudi Arabia. My sister and I were both born there. And we drove home in the early eighties in the middle of an oil crisis. And there was days that we had to sleep in the car while we were waiting for petrol to be delivered in petrol stations, which was wild. So grew up in the two family businesses. The one that I was involved in most from an early age was an English language school. We had an ESL school, English as a second language. And I know you used to teach ESL so we did that. I bought that from my folks a good 10 years before we sold it. And then I bought the other business, which is now what we do.’cause I sold the language school just before Covid and I bought this business two years before that. And it’s all about career guidance and psychometrics and selection.
Beverly:
What was the sparker transition that happened from ESL or language school to career development? What changed Stephen?
Stephen:
For me, it was interesting. We spent a year living in Spain. My wife is Spanish and we lived in Spain good eight years ago now. And then I spent a lot of time with the start with why I was just before I turned 40. I dabbled with a lot of stuff, but because I was day to day in a lot of the stuff in the business, I’d never had time to really properly spend time reflecting on it. So because I had that time, I was able to figure out this is what I want to do. And there were a lot of challenges in the language travel business. There were changes in the way it was, and it really wasn’t fulfilling my why, my core purpose anymore, even though I hadn’t articulated what that was. But I knew that it just wasn’t. There was something that was changing, that wasn’t the way it was. It was more work and study as opposed to helping people to elevate their careers kind of thing. And then I went through that whole process and I decided actually the career guidance and the psychometrics, that’s more in line with what I want to be spending my energy and my time doing. That’s what we did.
Beverly:
Did the psychometrics help you find this particular career?
Stephen:
So the psychometrics, so I’ve grown because I’ve grown up with a psychologist as a father, I’ve always been doing these psychometrics, so it was always like entrepreneurship, marketing, presentations. Even we’ve developed our own software for career guidance where anybody can get a list of their ideal careers and things like chacho host or journalist and marketeer and entrepreneur. All of these things come up in my assessments all the time.
Beverly:
We love that you knew that your purpose and your why was beyond something that you were at and you weren’t willing to compromise that, which is, it’s a hard road. Was your dad alive when you sold the business?
Stephen:
Oh, he is still alive. My parents are both still with us. Funny enough you mentioned earlier on about how many people are not happy in their careers. The other thing, the other statistic, which is really important in all of this conversation is if that 60% of our waking time is spent either at work or thinking about working as entrepreneurs. It’s way more.
Beverly:
Yes
Stephen:
but that 40% that also includes like not wanting to get inappropriate, but bathroom time, shower time, cooking, time shopping for food like that 40. So 60% of your waking time is spent either at work or thinking about work. Yep. So if you’re not happy doing it, that’s the majority of your life. That’s the majority of your time. So why spend that doing something you’re not enjoying doing? But to talk about my parents, it’s both my parents are the founders of the business. So my mother is a strong entrepreneur as well, and they both founded both businesses. But before I bought the language school I was really going through a tough time disagreeing. We had different vision on what we were wanted to do with the business and we were arguing, we couldn’t agree on the marketing, the products, the technology, the, this, that and the other. And there was one day that I sat down at the kitchen table when I came home from work one day and just for the first time said out loud, I need to leave the family business. My wife was pregnant with our second child and my first child was playing, my wife was finishing dinner. And I sat down at the kitchen table and said, I gotta leave the family business because otherwise my parents will never be able to spend time with their grandkids because we won’t be able to be in the same room as each other. And then as soon as I said that, I had a visceral, my whole body reacted no. This is not what we want. This is not the plan. This is not what we signed up for. And that’s when I started this whole process of figuring out this whole successful succession. But if we fast forward, then it was probably 11 years after that. My wife and I, we sold our home and we moved into my family home. So it’s a big house because we used to have our offices downstairs, so my parents now live downstairs and we live upstairs. So not only, I went from saying I need to leave the family business’cause we’ll never be able to be in the same room as each other. We all now live together. Yeah. That kitchen table that I sat at is in our kitchen, and we have regular dinners altogether in our family there. Thankfully it came full circle.
Beverly:
What I’ve seen is so many second generation or third generation of family businesses, they struggle because it was not necessarily their why or their purpose. So I think it takes a lot of self-reflection and courage, Stephen, to say, this is not for me, and what can we do to make this right in this way? Yeah. So I don’t think you’re alone in that, but I think a lot of people have struggled with that. So talk a little bit about how you help individuals and companies rethink their approach to career fulfillment. The 60% of the time that we’re all living in our careers. And the talent development of that, because when you were talking, I was really contemplating, my husband has said a couple times to me, Beverly, from the time you were little, you had a career that you wanted to do. Like you had a vision of who you were and where you were gonna go. There was something really strong in you that drove you through your career progression. And for him, he just had jobs. Yep. And he said it’s so much less fulfilling when you have jobs as opposed to having a career. So I think so many people are spending the 60% at JOB.
Stephen:
Yep.
Beverly:
And not at a career. So how do you help this career development or this career fulfillment, and even talking about it from a career level to this talent development to get people to be more satisfied and even dare I say, happy at work?
Stephen:
Yeah. So there’s a couple of things. I’m a big believer in frameworks, and I use a lot of acronyms and frameworks to help people because it allows people to hang their life on some of the different aspects of it. So we have this thing called Finding Your Ideal Career. And Ideal is a framework. If you take I-D-E-A-L, so they’re three letters. So what we need to do first is the is the I, your interest, your ability, and the demand. So that’s the a ID bit. So your interest, what are the things that you’re interested in? What are you passionate about? What are you curious about? What do you wanna spend your time doing? Then you have the ability, what are you good at? What are you naturally inclined to do? What are you not so good at? What do you think you should be good at, but you’re not? And then d, the demand, is there a demand for what you’re talking about? So if you imagine a three circle Venn diagram if you have the interest in something and the ability for it, but there’s no demand. That’s a hobby. There’s not a demand for you to earn money.
Beverly:
You have to cross all three sectors in the center of the vendor
Stephen:
if you have the ability. And there is demand for it, but you’re not interested in it. That’s a job. If you have the interest in it and there is a demand, but you don’t have the aptitude, or the ability for it, that’s a dream. Now you can move into each of those places, perhaps a hobby can come become a career if the demand grows or if you’re able to develop your ability from your dream into your career, or if you’re able to develop your interest from the job, then that can become an ideal career. But actually what we want to do is to help you to identify where those three circles already intersect. That’s your ideal career. That’s the nucleus of where we wanna start. Then the e is enthusiasm. So if you imagine a bigger circle around those three, what are you actually excited about? When you start looking at those careers, when you start looking at the description and go, actually, that sounds amazing, that sounds phenomenal. In our software, for example, on my list, when we were testing this out, I got two that were quite similar. One is a journalist and one is a chat show host. So you can see where there’s an awful lot of overlap in that. It’s talking to other people, sharing their stories, finding out their stories, but then you have that extra bit of, do you wanna be in front of the camera or the microphone, or do you wanna be behind the screen? Like, where do you feel most comfortable? I was much more enthusiastic about the chat show thing and talking to people and being on camera or being on recording and going with it and feeling the flow of it as opposed to the really structured area of writing. Then once you have that shortlist, if you look at it through four different lenses, each of the careers through four different lenses, one is learning, are you interested in learning more about it? Second is lifestyle. Is there a big demand on this that you’re just not interested in doing, like massively long hours? Or is it something that actually I would love to be making a difference, or I’d love this fits into my lifestyle. Then we have leadership. Are you looking to develop yourself into a leadership position in this or are you looking to be a team player? Are you looking to be, what is it and how important is that to you? And then longevity, is this a short term thing or is a long-term thing? Can you see yourself doing this for 5, 10, 50 years? So once you are able to start filtering down all of the information through that I-D-E-A-L ideal, you’re able to find your ideal career. And that’s the framework that we’ve built to help people with that. Now, our software will actually give you those 16 to start with the enthusiasm and the lenses. So it helps you through the process, but you can do this by yourself and listing down all the things you’re interested in, and having a real objective view of what you’re good at.
Beverly:
I just wanna really take a minute because it’s so important. When my husband says I have a career versus he has a job, I think about, when I was a kid, I used to sing jingles around the house. And I was actually more interested in the commercials sometimes on the TV show.
Stephen:
This is something that my wife still says to me that I pay more attention to the ads at ad breaks because I’m interested in the story. And I get really annoyed with with a lot of Netflix shows now. The really good at reeling you in really good at building up the tension and then the ending is just such an anti-climax. You’re like, you could have finished that much stronger.
Beverly:
Yes.
Stephen:
Because it’s the story arc and it’s the storytelling.
Beverly:
It is, it’s the storytelling of it. I use this example often that Coke is just brown sugar water, right? Like you really break it down. It’s just brown sugar water that has some fizz in it. But they have done such a great job sharing stories around it that it makes you feel something. And that powerful feel is what differentiates it from another brown sugar water.
Stephen:
Yeah. But didn’t Coke also do this thing where they had such strong connection with the sound and the feeling and the energy of this, that they could play a radio ad of literally, of Coke being poured into a glass. Just the sound of it. And people recognize it as Coke.
Beverly:
Yeah,
Stephen:
as opposed to any other carbonated soft drink.
Beverly:
That is wild, right? There’s so much that they have done. To tell a story. They have a long history, a brand they’ve built over, decades and decades. But that is the power of the story in all of that, right? Like the whole experience of drinking a coke from the snapping of the tab to the pouring of it, to the what happens around the table when you have a Coke to Christmas memories. It’s just such a evolved brand. And, certainly what I thought I was gonna do when I was a kid to what I do now, has evolved tremendously. I never thought I was gonna be an entrepreneur. Some opportunities existed where I was able to step into that role and if you have ever been in marketing, know marketing. It has evolved tremendously over the last 25 years. What I went to school for and where it does now is very different. Absolutely. Some of the psychological theories, things like that, are very much the same, but the tools and tactics we use are very different. But I love that.
Stephen:
To put that in other contexts. So I, we used to go to a lot of conferences to promote the English language business. And I remember back in the days getting a printed copy of the attendance list and having to send faxes and say to somebody, oh, we’d like to meet you at this slot. And then they don’t reply back to you. And you go, okay, we’ll meet you. Somebody else. Then two weeks later we go, okay, can we meet you at this slot? And I remember once my father and I were both at the desk and we both had our agendas out and, we both asked two people and none of them answered. And we had an empty slot. And my father said, he is gonna go get a coffee or something. And I remember then he had just gone to get the coffee and all four of the people just showed up and go, oh, we have an appointment now. So like before the days of all of these automatic trackers and gone, yes, I would take it. And I blocked that slot and everything else. I’m a big fan of technology now that can make our lives easier.
Beverly:
I would agree with you. So speaking of stories, Stephen. Talk about a story or share a story of how you’ve really helped someone find their ideal career and change their life, and what does that look like for them?
Stephen:
There’s a guy who, son of a friend of mine, an entrepreneur, his father has a logistics company trucks moving goods all around Ireland and the uk. And the son had grown up in that business and knew it and liked it, but his real passion, he just loved car racing Formula One and nascar, anything that had to do with Fast Cars. So we were having a conversation and he did our assessments and sure enough he got logistics was one of the careers because he has an interest in it. He is good at it, and it’s something that comes up. We’ve got 1,272 careers, I think in our database right now. We do get very specific. So he did get logistics manager or something like that as one of his roles, but he also got formula One something I can’t remember exactly what the title was and we were talking about, and he’s oh yeah, I’d love to do that, but what about this and what about that? And then we came to the realization, you know what all of these Formula One races
Beverly:
have a logistics,
Stephen:
they have a logistics company, they have logistics divisions that moves everything from place to place. And it was almost like the clouds parted and sunbeams came straight down on him and he started applying and he got a job working in Europe with one of the logistics companies that were moving the pieces around. And he is delighted with himself. I think what a lot of people get as well when they’re starting out is when I was in school a lot of career guidance counselors would give you, like not wanting to be sexist about it, but the women would all get like nurse, teacher, civil server, like there’d be a limited number of careers. And for the guys it was, if you like maths, you should be an engineer. If you like science, you should be a doctor. There was only like 20 careers that were regurgitated for a class of 150 people. Now, 1,270 odd careers, it has never been easier to make a full-time living doing something that you’re really passionate about. Yeah. So people now, young people today get a bit of target confusion because they can do, they have so many options straight away start. So actually having that short list Yeah. Really helps’em to focus in,
Beverly:
I felt overwhelmed with the opportunities at college. What do I actually do with my life? There’s so many opportunities. My mother was exactly that when she went to school was nurse, librarian. Teacher But for me, I felt actually overwhelmed’cause I was one of the first generations that had so many opportunities. Yeah. And I didn’t wanna limit myself. I was like, I don’t wanna limit, I wanna try them all because I’ve never been able to try them all. So I think that it can become very overwhelming. So having a testing or to limit and give you a little bit tighter of a circle to make some choices from is great. One thing that I think is really powerful and what you’re saying, and it translates really well to entrepreneurship, is we are living a time, Stephen, where you can create a business exactly that you want. Yep. I love the guy who loves Formula One is really good at logistics and decides he can go and do that job. So I’m thinking out loud because my husband is in the army and his MOS his job, his logistics, and he loves football, so maybe he needs to do logistics for a football team. Like I could totally see that.
Stephen:
I have a friend in the US who is a consultant for, I can’t remember how many hundred non-food based franchises. And he says an awful lot of the people who are really successful are actually ex-military because they’re very process driven. They’re able to follow the procedures and because everything is laid down. I suppose the misconception that people have about being an entrepreneur is you have to be a specific type of person in order to be a successful entrepreneur. But actually. You can be any type of entrepreneur, you can be process driven, you can be thought leadership, you can be people focused, you can be product focused. There’s all kinds of nuance that exists now. Yeah. And it has never been easier, as I said, to be successful. Being yourself.
Beverly:
Being exactly who you are, loving exactly what you like to do and what you’re really good at. And to design your career your work around what works for your life, like to actually balance your life in some of that. So maybe it’s not 60 40, maybe it’s 50 50, you get some choices in how you develop your business. And when I say that to our clients, it’s like a revelation for them. You’re right. Like why have I never thought that I can create exactly the business that works for me?
Stephen:
Because the old school thinking on entrepreneurship is the old school thinking and family businesses, it’s not about the impact that you’re having. It’s about how many hours you’re putting in. That’s how people value. And that’s just not true anymore in the world we live in now. That’s not the KPI.
Beverly:
No, I would agree with you. And especially like the younger generations, they don’t accept that anymore.
Stephen:
Yeah,
Beverly:
They are very vocal about So you’re in an interesting time for your business Stephen because you’ve gone from I read this, two and a half employees to nine employees. So first tell me who the half employee was.
Stephen:
She was part-time. When I took over just during Covid, we had two full-time and one part-time employee. Okay. The part-time employee had been with us for 24 years. One of the other employees been, she’s still with us and she’s been with us, I think it’s 20, 28 years now. We have another employee who’s been with us six years, seven, actually seven or eight years now. She’s just on maternity with her second child. And then we have two other people who’ve joined from the other business that we sold, the language school who were with me for 11 years in that business who are now here for two or three years. So we have longevity, but we also have people who are a couple of months old as far as we’re concerned.
Beverly:
So what’s been the biggest challenge in scaling and how have you navigated that?
Stephen:
The biggest challenge is, so we use EOS, the entrepreneurial operating,
Beverly:
so do we.
Stephen:
So I’m the visionary and I have, the integrator is the guy who’s worked with me for same with 14 years in the other business. So probably the biggest thing is I have, potentially, two big plans for where we have now and stretching myself and others may be a little bit too thin and stretching our finances a little bit too thin. So really scaling up is being able to make sure that we’re able to do things properly and not go off on these tangents. Because they’re, Ooh, look at the shiny penny over here. And keeping focused. And that’s really what EOS helps us to do.
Beverly:
Entrepreneurs are notorious builders. So they, when they see something like, oh, we could build that. And it’s hard not to get pulled into that idea. Yep. And to stay focused. Yes, indeed.
Stephen:
Actually, when I spent that year in Spain, going through the start with why stuff, I had this enormous mind map of ideas and because obviously they’re my ideas, they’re all genius, they’re all amazing, of course. But actually, when I started refining it through what ultimately became, and making the world a better place with happy people and fulfilling, rewarding careers, the very first version of that and the iteration of that was, I want to help people to help themselves. I wanna do stuff that helps people to help themselves. And even looking at that mind map through that lens, which was the version one of my why, it was amazing. I’d say 70% of the ideas were like, okay, that’s a great idea. Yeah, but it’s not for me. This is what I’m doing. And then refine and refine and cut down. And cut down. Now, because we’re entrepreneurs, that just means that I’m creating more ideas within the framework, which to push up against it. But I need to also look at what our capacity is.
Beverly:
When you have a right and left limit, it does keep you more focused on what you should be doing. With a lot of the clients that we work with, we do help them focus that, like here, if you live within these six content buckets, and you can go deep as you want. This is gonna make you, I. Really stay focused, but also help you be known for these things. So if you start going all over the place, people won’t know who you are. But if you start to really get clear and focused on these six areas, that is what you’ve described to us of where your zone of geniuses, then we wanna really go and lean hard into those six areas so that you can become known for those things. So that focus, that left and right limit is really helpful for helping business decisions. Does it fit in there? Yeah. No. Okay. Then we need to move on mind, map it for later when this is off and running and really super successful. Then maybe you go over here, but I feel like, it is hard as an entrepreneur’cause we do love to build things. There’s absolutely no question.
Stephen:
I have this mind map, there’s two main nodes on the mind map. One is what’s on my plate, so what’s on my plate right now. And then I have future platters. So everything that’s a future dish on the other side.
Beverly:
That’s good. So I do some things with my team. They’re a younger team and they are not American. They come from a lot of third world countries. So their opportunities are limited. And the way I structure my business even is I’m like a real estate firm or like a law firm where I’m the umbrella and they have their own like micro business under me. And as a leader, I help them push into the areas that they would like to pursue. And one thing that I’ve done with them is I’ve had them write their eulogy so that they can. Look and see the kind of person they want, the kind of life they want to live, and then work backwards to how do we make the changes today, the steps today to get to there. And we’ve done vision boarding and we’ve done some goal mapping for this year. And all the things that need to happen as you go further out to this eulogy that you’ve created. And every three months we have a quarterly review. It’s not really even review. They review themselves. I don’t really review them. They review themselves and they look at their personal plan of what they want out of their life. And they have things on there like traveling to Ireland and they’re like, they wanna get married and all kinds of things. And we talk about what’s going on right now? Where are you at with this? Is this is your plan and does it need to be on there? Is their core values on There is like a mission statement for their life. Like they have some things like that. But for me, as a leader of this particular organization, it’s really important for me to see them as humans first and how this career path helps them fulfill their life purpose. And to make them happy, secure, adjusted humans so they can support their families, they can support their communities. What does that look like for them? Because this opportunity is something that they’ve never had before. And so it’s life changing and how do we change their life in a way that they feel really good about at the end of the day. And that’s, for me, has been one of the biggest evolutions for me as a leader, is I’ve, we have processes. We’re EOS, all that stuff is there, but really leaning into them as humans has been a huge shift for me, the last three or so years on how I approach my team and their dreams and goals and things that make them happy. And I hope the world is moving towards that more than, like you said, the productivity of the hours.
Stephen:
So this is another framework I built called, it’s part of the Happy People Project, so okay. Happy people. project.com and happy to me is an acronym. Again, it’s a framework. So if you’re looking out on your life in 20 years time, 30 years time, I do this with a lot of young people as well. They can’t think 20, 30 years out, so what’s the next 10 years out? Think about that and look backwards. H what are the highlights? What are the things that you want to have accomplished in that time? Whether it’s travel, whether it’s business, whether it’s relationship or whatever. What are the highlights? What do you want to have done? What do you want to have accomplished in those time? In that time, when you finish looking forward, then you need to look back and a is appreciation. Who are the people and what are the moments in your life, both positive and negative that have helped you to get to where you are? Because tough times teach us an awful lot more about ourselves and than good times. So yeah, what are the things that we’ve come through and appreciate what has brought us to here. The first P is progress. What are the skills? What are the habits? What are the trait? What are the things that you need to build or you want to build in yourself? Do you want to be a public speaker? Do you want to be a marketeer? Do you wanna be a graphic designer? Do you want to learn how to play the saxophone? Whatever it is, what are the things that you need to do in order to help you get to your highlights? Yeah. The second P then is people, because as you say, we’re all about people. There’s two things in people. One is who are the people that you actually want to spend your time with? A lot of the time, we spend time with people who really shouldn’t be spending all that much time with, and neglecting the people that we do want to spend time with. So who are those people and why? But second, who are the people that you don’t know that you admire? Yes. Because more often than not, when we admire things about other people is because we want those traits for ourselves. So what do we want to build in ourselves? Yeah. And then why is your contribution? We’re not here to take, we’re here to be part of society. So what are you gonna put out of the world? That can be, I’m gonna build a business and employ people. That can be, I want to make music, or I want to make art. That can be, I want to be a team player in this event, or I want to put food on the table from my, whatever it, whatever is your contribution. That’s your contribution. And then you see the golden threads that are running through it. And then you create your map, which is your measurable action plan. So one year, three years, five years, tenure, years, whatever it is. How, what are the steps that you need to take to get to there? So that’s a happy work life map, which is a, that’s so great. A workshop that I do.
Beverly:
I love the idea of appreciation as well, being grateful for the things and experiences you’ve had.’cause I think when you sit in gratefulness, you do more of those things for yourself. Like you invest in those things because you know it’s important to your happiness. Good reminder, Stephen.
Stephen:
One of the things at the end is I challenge people, especially young people who aren’t maybe as versed in this kind of stuff, to go, okay, pick somebody from your appreciation list at the end of our workshop. Pick somebody and send them a message that you’re thinking of them. The amount, I nearly break down in tears every time when people come back to me. If we’re, if there’s a dinner or a lunch after the session go, I did, I said this to my dad and I haven’t been able to talk to my dad in ages about any of this stuff and we got a big conversation going on the family WhatsApp. And it’s so impactful.
Beverly:
So good. Stephen, I oftentimes will remind our listeners if somebody has influenced them positively on their career to entrepreneurship or inspired them or taught them or mentored them or took time for them to send them a note and tell them, because so many entrepreneurs don’t know that they’re making a difference in people’s lives. And I just a little note of appreciation. It can be two sentences, Stephen. It’s just a huge. Confirmation for them, but also a way for you to give something back to somebody who has given you something. So I have suggested that a few times, but I love the idea of as a person, just taking that time, that framework is so good. To my listeners, this is an incredible insight. If you’re loving this conversation, don’t forget to leave us a review and let us know how we’re doing. It really helps more people discover the magic of this episode and what Stephen has to share, and maybe somebody else will be inspired to write a note or to be appreciative of someone in their life and how that it’s or positive or tag
Stephen:
somebody in the comments
Beverly:
that they, yeah, tag someone. If you’re appreciating them, tag them and let them know you appreciate them. It’s a great opportunity to shout out to people who have affected your life. Okay, Stephenven, this season’s big question is how did you awaken your brand magic? What was the moment where everything aligned and you saw the unique magic you had to bring to the table?
Stephen:
I dunno if it was a moment, it was more of a daunting and a realization because like we do the career guidance, we do the selection, we do the psychometrics, we do coaching for individuals, we do personality profiling. I do family business coaching, just as a personal thing, not as part of the business because I’m so passionate about family businesses. So there was a lot of things and it felt confusing. And you talked about it like how do you put the blinkers on? How do you be known for one thing? And that’s when we started brainstorming, because I’m the face of the company. I’m the one who does the podcast and the keynotes and the books and all the rest of it. So the title that we started coming up with was a Career and talent strategist. So I help people with careers and help people with talent. And those kind of overarching that’s what we want to do. We want to help people with their careers and we want to help companies with their talent. And that’s really where that branding came from and that idea, that title came from. But really it all stems back to making the world a better place with happy people and fulfilling, rewarding careers. So long as I can let people know that’s what I’m about, I think that then what I do flows from that, because that’s so core to who I am and what I do.
Beverly:
Really understanding your passion and your purpose is so key to that. Yes. So what’s the hardest thing about marketing for you?
Stephen:
Oof. The hardest thing about marketing, you might have guessed at this stage I talk a lot. Being maybe concise and specific in my messaging sometimes can be a little bit challenging. So being able to just break down the core message sometimes to be able to cut through that noise to the target market. And I have a friend who has a community called Love, not Fear, and to do stuff outta love and set outta fear. And it’s a phenomenal community. And he talks about the fact that he used to be fearful of when he was giving a keynote or giving something else, but actually when he looks at it from a lot, he loves the information that he is giving and he wants to give people the opportunity, the information that you have. And he loves it. Now he can get past that and he can move past it. So understanding where you’re coming from and why you’re doing something. I think is a key part of being able to figure out what your message is and how you can make it authentically and uniquely yours because you’re different from everybody else. You are special in different ways. I have this is a poster that I love. You might not be able to see it because it’s slightly blurred, but it’s, everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its life thinking. It’s foolish. So everybody has different skills and attributes that are naturally suited to something that is ideal for them.
Beverly:
Everybody has a life experience that has helped prepare them for exactly where they are.
Stephen:
Yeah.
Beverly:
And I think that includes so much of, like our childhood and even trauma and things like that has really informed who you are and leaning into all those experiences holistically to figure out how you can best serve other people and be the perfect guide for them is where your unique value proposition sits. And sometimes you have to do a little bit of work like to get there.’cause you might have to look at some of that trauma and things like that will help you understand exactly how your niche is gonna feel. And when you can speak exactly to how they feel, the same pains, the same obstacles, the same fears, the same aspirations, and you speak their language. So here comes the ESL side of it when you speak their language. It connects and they determine at that moment, you are the exact person who needs to help me with this problem because you get it. So you don’t have to be everything to everyone. If you have only 100 people who really get it and say, oh my gosh, you’re exactly it, you can have a very successful business, Stephen. So there’s no question to me that you are exactly onto something that you really have to understand who you are, an awareness of who. You can be a fish, but if you’re not in the pond, that’s gonna be a problem. So if you’re in the tree and not in the pond to sit exactly in your unique value proposition, exactly who you are. And you were made, I don’t know if you believe in God or the source or whatever, but you were made to do this thing. And this thing helps other people. It helps you serve the world and solve this problem for people.’cause these people are having the same exact fears you’ve had. So helping them solve it is such a gift. So it’s, that’s where the magic happens. It’s just beautiful. It’s beautiful. So I have a magic hat round where I have all kinds of questions in the hat, Stephen. Okay,
Stephen:
cool. Okay. Quick fire
Beverly:
it’s more of a rapid fire.
Stephen:
No problem. I’m not shy.
Beverly:
What core values guide your business decisions, interactions with your customers?
Stephen:
We have three core values which again, when we did this exercise with people who were in the other family business and this family business, I was really delighted to see that they aligned between the two. So they are actual core values of ours. It’s do the right thing, inclusively, empathetic and humbly proud. That’s how I live and that’s how the companies work.
Beverly:
So good. What’s a book, a podcast, or an entrepreneur that has made a lasting impact on your entrepreneurial journey?
Stephen:
Oof. The start with why was one of these things like the Simon Sinek book that’s gone back a while. There’s actually a fantastic book. You might not have heard of it. It’s by an English standup comedian. He’s actually Irish family, but he’s English. He called Jimmy Carr. He’s a little bit controversial sometimes. He’s a little bit inappropriate. Makes a lot of inappropriate jokes, but actually his passion for stagecraft and his passion for learning everything around the business. He wrote a book life and Laughter, I think it’s called. I can’t remember exactly the title, but it’s a phenomenal, like semi autobiographical, semi life lessons. Really good. A recent book. And I’m in the process of finishing the Elon Musk autobiography, the one that’s 127 hours long.
Beverly:
If you could wave a magic wand and solve one current challenge in your business, what would it be?
Stephen:
One current challenge in my business. The age old thing of just resources, to have a bit more resources to hire a few more people. There’s a great book called Who Not How. And it’s getting who’s instead of how’s and having the resources to be able to take in that expertise, I think is really important too.
Beverly:
What’s been your biggest aha moment as an entrepreneur?
Stephen:
Having a core purpose, actually understanding what I’m here for, like what I’m interested in doing, and being able to shed everything else.
Beverly:
What’s the most WTF thing that has ever happened in your business? Good or bad
Stephen:
Was a bit thrown by whenever the interviewer starts giggling before they ask a question, I’m always a bit, oh, where’s this gonna go? The WTF I can’t think of anything that’s completely out bounds. There’s plenty of stories about students in the ESL school with people who decided they’re coming to a foreign country without speaking the language very well, that’s when they should stop taking their antipsychotic drugs and things like that. So we’ve had some of those kind of scenarios That was a bit WTF, but more about pastoral care and looking after people.
Beverly:
Yes. What fear have you had to overcome to grow your business?
Stephen:
Imposter syndrome. I think it’s so prevalent. I’m involved in entrepreneurs organization around the world. The amount of entrepreneurs that I meet on a daily basis that suffer from this is unbelievable. And it’s so unuseful.
Beverly:
It’s so unuseful. It only gets in your own way of success. Yeah, for sure. Yes. What was the moment, if there’s been a moment that you realized your business was successful?
Stephen:
Again, with imposter syndrome. I don’t know if I’m able to actually articulate that.
Beverly:
Thank you for being so honest.
Stephen:
In my sense, I think, I travel quite a bit for speaking, for workshops and doing like strategy workshops and things like that in different countries. The fact that I’m able to travel so much and still be in touch and still be like in sync with the team and completely trusting the team, I think that’s a real measure of success for me.
Beverly:
Agreed. Technology has changed everything. That is my last question in the magic hat row. Stephen. I’ve never actually pulled out the WTF question before, so that was the first time. That’s why I chuckled because that’s a good question. Sometimes I get the same questions. Really interesting. I get the same question two or three times in a row. So it’s fun when a new question gets popped out. So I actually do have a magic wand today.
Stephen:
Okay.
Beverly:
And we’re gonna travel through time and we’re gonna do a little bit, I think, like the happy exercise, just a little bit like on the periphery of it. And I’m going to wave my wand and we are going to go back to the high school graduates. Stephen, and we’re gonna have a conversation with him. And we’re gonna give him some advice. What advice would you give to 18-year-old Stephen just entering the workforce career, or maybe not even outta college, whichever is easier. What advice would you give him that you wish he’d known earlier?
Stephen:
So the flippant answer is buy all Bitcoin early and then you never have to do anything again. The thing that I wish there was more of in the world is curiosity. Because I think when we’re curious about stuff, we start to empathize more. We start to understand more. So if we had more curiosity and self-awareness, I think the world would be a better place. So I would encourage me to be, I’ve always been curious, but I think more self-aware what I actually bring to the table and what I’m good at, what I’m not good at. And owning the fact that I’m not good at it. It took me maybe a little bit longer than it should have to really come to terms with some of that stuff. So yeah, I think curiosity and self-awareness are two things that I would try to instill more in myself because I think it’s something that the world needs more of.
Beverly:
What would Stephen think of you now?
Stephen:
Jesus. He looks old. So there’s one thing, and I talk about this in the happy work life map exercise. I started off with a phrase that a friend of mine told me a long time ago, which is the definition of hell is on your last day on earth, you meet the person you could have become now. He has that as a, oh my God, what if I meet the person who’s much more successful, much more X, Y, and Z? My argument on that is, if you are actually living the life that you want, if you’re designing your own life, because my wife used to always say, if it wasn’t for her and the girls, I’d probably be flying all over the world doing all of these like talks and success and yeah. Workshops and everything else, and wildly successful and have a yacht on a plane. And, my argument is okay, the stuff that would like more resources, would like to be able to build slightly bigger business, to have more money, to have more X, y, and Z, all the the usual kind of trappings, but I’m living my life the way I want to live my life. So if on my last day I met that other version of me that didn’t have my wife and kids and had all of those successes, I’m not so sure that I would consider him to be the better version of me. My view on that, of, on the last day on Earth, you meet the person you could have been. It’s not necessarily a better version of you. If you’re living your life by design, if you’re living the way that you want to, their version of hell is meeting you.
Beverly:
I think living your life with intention and purpose being proactive versus reactive changes everything. That’s an interesting conversation. For those of you who’re listening, if you’re loving this conversation, please hit that follow button so you don’t miss another episode of this kind of inspiration and wisdom that Stephen’s talking about. So many entrepreneurs feel so alone in their journey. These are great tidbits of wisdom to make us think differently about our purpose here and the work that we’re doing with people. Please stay on the journey with us and join us for more episodes of the Spark Ignite Your Marketing podcast. Okay. So I’m gonna wave my wand and we’re gonna go a lot in the future.
Stephen:
Okay.
Beverly:
Decades and decades. Stephen,
Stephen:
I thought you were gonna tell me to talk to my toddler self first further by,
Beverly:
get that sugar outta your mouth. No, I want you to go into the future. I want you to be sitting at your funeral. And I want you to listen what people are saying about you. What is the most significant legacy or impact that you’ll make in this life?
Stephen:
So I did an exercise on this as part of the happy thing, one of the reasons I made the Happy People Project is because I had a pretty tough time a couple of years ago. And one of the things I built the 20 things that I want to accomplish in my life and the 20 things that I want to have an impact. And the first thing was that I want to have a loving, supportive relationship with my wife, my kids, and their future families. Everything else is secondary. Yeah, I would love the big house, but again, the big house only. So it has space for the family and friends to come over to socialize. It’s not to have the big house. And this is means goals versus end goals. And my end goal is to be connected with people that I love and care about. Whether that’s in a big house in. Miami on the beach, or whether that’s in a space that I can have host people in the back end of Ireland somewhere. So long as I’m connected with the people that I care about that’s the most important part of it. Plus they have a nice house and a nice car.
Beverly:
As far as your work, what impact and legacy do you want people to have?
Stephen:
Really the ultimate future vision for me is to help millions of people to find their ideal career, and to help people live a happier life with fulfilling, rewarding careers.
Beverly:
So I would love a magical tip from you for small business owners or people who are aspiring entrepreneurs, speak to them and give them one tip one actionable step. It could be a itty bitty step, Stephen that they can put into action right now to help them find their purpose, to awaken their brand magic further today or this week.
Stephen:
So to find their purpose. I think it is really to start thinking about what do you ultimately wanna do If it’s just to help them to be happier, to be better in themselves. Take the time to do some reflection, whether that’s doing some psychometrics and personality profiling, whether that’s talking with mentors, whatever and being as self-aware as you can. What are you good at? What are you interested in? That’s what you spend your time doing. And you partner, hire, subcontract, whatever other people who are good and interested in the bits that you’re not interested in or are good at and build something.
Beverly:
Stephen, this has been a really incredible conversation. Thank you so much for sharing your journey, your magic with us. I know our listeners are gonna walk away with a ton of things to do that help them take action. Let everyone know where they can find you. Learn more about you and your projects and your books. Where can people connect with you directly?
Stephen:
The easiest is probably stephen shortt.com. And there, there’s links to everything. Finding your ideal career.com, hiring the right people.com, happy people project.com, all the dot coms. But if you go to stephen shortt.com, everything is there,
Beverly:
and we’ll list that in the show notes for those that are listening. So thank you again, Stephen, for spending time with us today. I really have enjoyed this conversation so much.
Stephen:
Likewise, Beverly. Thanks a million for having me.
Beverly:
I hope that today’s episode little bit of a fire under each of you, my listeners, gave you some ideas that most of all inspired you to take some action, to really lean into who you are, your life, where you deserve to be in this world. Because here’s the thing, your message matters and your work matters. And the world needs to hear what you have to say. So marketing isn’t just about visibility, it’s about impact. And Stephen’s making a great impact. It’s about connecting with the right people, those most favorite customers, that feel true to you. So keep showing up, keep sharing your brilliance and keep making magic in this world. And hey, if you ever feel stuck, you don’t have to do that alone. We’re here to help you turn that spark into a wildfire. Until next time, keep sparking and igniting.
