Speaker 2 (00:00.108)
Welcome to the.
PBL Simplified Podcast for Teachers, brought to you by Magnify Learning, your customized PBL partner. From over a decade of experience with you in the trenches, we are bringing you the top rated education podcast designed for inspired classroom teachers seeking to transform their classrooms with project-based learning. Live your why, transform your classroom. Teach inspired. Here's your host, Ryan Stoyer.
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Speaker 1 (00:29.518)
Today we've got a leadership guest episode, right? So on this podcast, PBL simplified for administrators, this one's ongoing. So every other week we're going to bring you info specifically for you, the leader of a classroom or a school or district, right? We want you, what's it look like to lead PBL? It's a little bit different than your classroom teacher, your classroom teachers. You want to send them to PBL simplified for teachers, or there's a binge episode for them. They binge PBL for teachers and they get 20 episodes.
that are 15 minutes or less and they can bust through those. We've actually had some districts that are using it as PD. So they'll go through one of those binge episodes as a teacher group, and then they'll talk about how they can apply it, which is a really great idea. Like we knew that people would like the binge episodes. You were kind of telling us that, but didn't really think about it for PD. So I love the innovation in our ecosystem. It's super cool. So as a leader, you might want that for your teachers. If you need a binge episode as a leader, we actually have that too.
So we have binge PBL for administrators. And wherever you're listening to this podcast right now, you can go to that same podcast player and just search binge PBL for administrators. It'll pop up, subscribe to that and come right back. But the same thing, 20 episodes, they're all 15 minutes or less. And it's going to give you a big picture view of what leadership looks like for project-based learning. But today we've got a leadership guest and you're going to love this, this interview. was super fun to do Jacob Karnes. He's the founder of waves business coaching.
He's the author of a book called Master Your First Job. And he brings his experience from Chick-fil-A being in the restaurant, but he also was at the corporate level. And then he's starting to talk about the art of team development. But the book, I think is super applicable for you leading a building because we want our learners to crush that first job, right? And even if you're kind of on the elementary side or middle school is like, how do we get our learners to advocate for themselves? How do we get them to feel empowered?
And if you're listening, you're leading a high school building, like you should probably just grab a copy. actually mentioned in here that if you reach out, we'll actually buy one of your teachers, a class set of master your first job. So you can go to pblshared.com. I'll talk about it in the episode, but pblshared.com and we'll get you a class. So check out the episode to figure out how you can do that. It's how do you master your first job? What do you, what skills can you learn? How do you get a promotion? Like how do we best set our kids up for success? Because
Speaker 2 (02:41.974)
site.
Speaker 1 (02:53.346)
We do, we want them to leave with a great GPA. We want to leave with employability skills. We want to be empowered. How about some specific ways to crush that first job out of high school or out of college? Either way, there are some very specific skills that go beyond like just building a resume and even interviewing. Well, it's like, once you get it, what do you do? And that's Jacob's kind of sweet spot. And I think you're going to love this conversation. Here we go. All right, Jacob, thanks for, thanks for coming on the podcast. really appreciate it with.
With all your Chick-fil-A background, do you still say my pleasure if somebody says thank you to you?
That's a great question. do. Whenever I worked for Chick-fil-A, I think with other Chick-fil-A people, I would say you're welcome because I didn't want it to seem ingenuine. But I think my pleasure is very nice and kind. And so I do use it with people every day now. It's definitely ingrained in the language.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I poke a little bit of fun there. so thanks for coming on the podcast. Your background with Chick-fil-A specifically and just kind of crushing your first job. I'm really excited to kind of pull the thread on that and help our teachers understand what we can provide for our learners as they're leaving our K-12 environments and even post-secondary so they can maximize that first job. You crushed that. So.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:10.72)
Appreciate it Yeah, thanks. I'm like I I worked the first job for ten years didn't plan on doing that I'm like happy to share more of that store if you want, but Yeah, I'm happy to help out teachers and have a lot of love for educators My mom works in education so happy to help this help students succeed in their first job I think it's an underutilized like weapon that you can use for the rest of your careers kind of killing that first job and doing a great job at it
Yeah, we're going to get into that story before we do, though. Every guest on the podcast gets the same first question, and that is, what is your why for the work that you do?
Great question. So my full-time job is a business coach. My side job is an author, hoping to write more books. I'm working on one right now actually, but why a business coach? Man, one, I'm really competitive. And as a part of that, I like to win. I turn every board game into a, must win tonight, even if it's a game based on luck. But with that, I love to help other people win. And I love seeing the reaction and the thank you and just like.
helping someone else get the result. And with that, I have a coach's mindset, feel like. I feel like the best coaches have a love for, like they're ultra competitive and they love watching other people succeed. And so as a business coach, I get to do that with small business owners. And so because I love to win and I love to see other people win, that's the why behind what I do.
Yeah, super good. And then one of the reasons I definitely want to have you the podcast is this idea of kind of crushing your first job. as educators, want to, you know, we want to have these light bulb moments for our kids. You want them to have more opportunities than they would have had, you know, if we hadn't been there to kind of stretch their mind and their, their ideas. But I feel like you maybe took this first job to the next level. Can you tell us about that?
Speaker 2 (05:39.992)
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:56.14)
Yeah, so I'm from the Atlanta metro area and Chick-fil-A is definitely a part of the culture here in Atlanta. And so a toxic part of my personality is if everyone's doing something, kind of am hesitant to do that thing. And I felt like all my friends, Chick-fil-A was their first job. So I was determined for that not to be mine. And so I applied to like three golf courses in the area, played golf like competitively in high school and none of them called me back. And here I was having a car that...
Needed to be paid for and needed gas to be able to run and needed insurance to be able to be street legal. and didn't have a job to do that. And so I had in hand walked into Chick-fil-A applied there and got a call back the next day and then interview the next week. And right. I stayed there for 10 years. So, my first job became a reluctant applying to Chick-fil-A, but as I worked there, I found stuff that I really enjoyed. I liked, I mentioned I'm competitive. I liked the competitive environment. I liked the.
high standard of excellence. I enjoyed the mission behind wanting to serve people well. It'd be a place where everything is elevated, even though at the end of the day, Chick-fil-A is fast food. As a former Chick-fil-A person, I'd say, we're not fast food, we're quick service, because it sounds better. But at end of the day, it's just chicken, right? But Chick-fil-A was doing that at an elevated level. And I found the job that I loved, and I got to move into leadership, and I saw things within the company that I had opportunities to do.
I mean, at my first job, I get to travel around the country and help open up other Chick-fil-A's. That was something that it's an opportunity for any team member at a Chick-fil-A restaurant. And that was really cool to me to get paid to travel and get this thing called Per Diem, which I thought was like, whoa, the coolest thing ever. Getting money to go go get food, whatever food I wanted. But leadership roles just fell in love with the company. And again, it was checking a lot of boxes that when I thought I didn't want to work at Chick-fil-A, it's because I viewed it very differently. But.
Long story short, through a number of years, I worked seven years in Chick-fil-A restaurants. And with that, knew there was opportunities to move up within the organization and ended up getting a job at the Chick-fil-A corporate office here in Atlanta. I'm at the support center. I worked in learning and development. And so shout out to teachers. You got to do that as a full-time role. I was a full-time facilitator and trainer with Chick-fil-A and got to support small businesses and adult learning principles, which I think are great for students too.
Speaker 2 (08:22.526)
I think they work all the same. Got to do that with Chick-fil-A. And really I credit to like having someone else help me give effort in my first job and having mentors teach me that like, hey, if you do this well, no matter what you do next, you can take that to your career. And was able to do that well in my first job. And all the way through this past year, I kind of wrote the book on how to crush your first job called Master Your First Job. mean, if you Google right now, like books for first time employees, you're going to find
some stuff on resumes, some stuff on like interviewing, and then a lot of leadership books. And I think there's this gap of, okay, but what about your average, just, you know, 17 year old who was like me walking into a job and saying, what do I do next? Well, I haven't figured out a lot in life, but I figured out how to do that well and build a career off of it. So I wrote the book on it and love helping students kind of unlock their potential and really build a career based on that first job.
Yeah. So let's talk about the book for just a second too. And we're going to get into some other tips and tricks that the classroom teachers can use, but this master year first job, I used to teach a first generation college student course and we had a book that we went through, you know, and then we'd go and we would look kind of virtually, we would visit these different colleges and it kind of opened their eyes, right? Even in, it was eighth grade to kind of, you know, what could be, like, Oh, didn't know that, you know, University of Indianapolis that's in our backyard was this thing.
So it sounds like maybe your book is like that for, you know, the first job. Like if, somebody is going to buy, just say a class set, so you're gonna buy 30 copies of the first job. Like what grade level do you think hits? It's this idea.
Honestly, I think you could read as a freshman. is for definitely if you're, ninth grade, like if you are at least thinking about what does working look like. So, think about age range here. guess I'm like, what's the federal age limit? 14, 15? So maybe eighth grade at the front end of like ready to read the book. It's definitely written at a level where anyone can understand it. I try not to use big language to make it confusing. I like to be as clear as possible, but.
Speaker 2 (10:30.993)
I'd start there all the way through I think 22. So like all the way through college I think it's all the same stuff is extremely applicable
Yeah, I love that. Cause I had, gosh, I had a lot of jobs, not a ton in high school, but in college, just everything from McDonald's to making bread. Yeah. So just all these different things. And it's interesting. Cause my wife and I talk about it all the time because I don't know why I did that. I wasn't like, I was trying to get ahead or, but I met so many different people. was in all these different cultures, right? The bread place. was like, you got about four in the morning to need bread. I was whistling and like, there was an old, there was this kind of grumpy lady there that had been there forever.
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (11:08.106)
Yeah. That guy whistling. Why is the where the whistling guy come from? So just how you navigate those things. Right. And it's hard that there's no textbook for that. So is that kind of where you're this book takes us?
Yeah, and definitely through the lens of how can I utilize this first job as a cornerstone to build a career off of, not just, I say from just a job to seeing it as an opportunity to invest in for the rest of your career. And what are some of these soft skills that if you practice now, you can take with you 25 years from now. And it's stuff that I don't think employers are honestly doing very well, which is where my business comes in to help employers do that and to develop first time employees.
But two, like kids and students and young adults are not doing these things well and they're getting into their first corporate job and being like, man, I feel like I should already have all these skills that I could have built at this other job when I was working part-time at McDonald's for 12 hours a week. I could have started doing this. So that's what the book focuses on. mean, I can go through the 10 chapters if you want as far as like what all I cover, but really to help people get the most out of their first job and build a career on the back of it.
Well, I like the intentionality of that, right? Like I worked all those jobs and I built fences in high school and that kind of thing, but zero intentionality, right? I was just getting 10 bucks an hour sweating like crazy over the summer. So I liked the idea that you're bringing intentionality. So I think you've got three steps about building a personal brand. You can stand out wherever you're at. Can you give us those three?
Yeah, so one, I'll say what's a brand. I think that's thrown around a lot. What I write about is not LinkedIn and how to have like an Instagram presence and what hashtags you should use, none of that stuff. To me, a brand is what do you think about whenever you see a logo or in your case, like whenever people see the name like Ryan, what's the first thought that comes to their head? That's your brand in a sense.
Speaker 2 (13:07.286)
Think that you should take control of that narrative and tell a better story and the thing is people are gonna have a thought whether you control it or not whether your intention and like intentional about it or not and so why not build a personal brand that represents the best version of yourself well and again Why not start that at your first job? so those three steps are one to discover your brand and a Very easy tool that I'm sure like the teachers listening have used or personality tests
I think there's a lot of good ones out there. There's a lot of free resources out there now. Thank you, technology. And it's a great starting point, right? Like you don't have to agree with everything in a personality test, but what I've done is like the Enneagram I love. I'm an Enneagram eight. I'm an INTJ, a Myers-Briggs. I'm a DC on discs. I worked for a company that loved it. So I've taken all of them. And what I did was I took those. I go into chat, GBT or your AI tool of choice.
And to help me discover my brand, I say, hey, give me 25 adjectives to describe an Enneagram type 8. And I read through some of these and I'm like, oh, competitive is one of them, right? Like driven is one of them. And I'm like, I want to be known to someone who's competitive. Like that's a strength I have. that's a that can be a good thing. Right. I want to be known to someone who's driven. I want to be known to someone who has a high standard.
of excellence and then, step two is refine your brand. So get all these adjectives, get a list of 100 if you want to and start reading through and thinking, huh, is that a word I wanna be known as? When people see my name written down on a shift scheduled for work, you know, or see my name on a roster somewhere, what's the thought that comes to their mind? I want it to be these three adjectives. So refine your brand is step two, get it down to three. Step three is represent your brand. So,
Share that with other people. Share it with a mentor if you have one. Share it with your employer. Share it with your teacher. Share it with a friend who can hold you accountable and say, you know what? I want to be known as someone who represents these three things. And again, this is not just something I did as a first time employee. I did this when I was 18 as a team leader at Chick-fil-A, but I even do it now for my business or like my three things as a business coach is one, coaches mindset. I want to be known as someone who helps others win, right?
Speaker 2 (15:26.52)
Like two, high standard of excellence. I think anything worth doing needs to be done with a high standard of excellence. And three, efficient. I wanna be known to someone who finds the best way to get things done. And so I have that written down here in my office behind the camera. And I wanna be known, like when I'm with clients, I'm representing those three things well. And I would hope that if I interview clients and said, hey, whatever you think of me, what comes to mind that one of those three things are said by them? And so by doing that,
I've controlled what my brand is. And again, if you can do that as a teenager, I can't tell you like how much of an impact you can have when you're looking for your first big time promotion job later on.
That's super good. Again, I'm kind of looking at it in the context of like, how would this fly in a classroom as a study or some piece like that? And I would love to have been in high school and I did a good job. Like I did all the things I was supposed to do, right? 4.2 as a three sport athlete, but I never thought about my brand and we all have one, right? Adults and kids. And you can go through your roster, your class roster and be like, whatever it is you would say about that kid. Like the first three adjectives, right? Like that's their brand. To do that intentionally.
That's your brain.
It can be pretty neat. It can be powerful.
Speaker 2 (16:41.774)
And I think the key there too is making sure other people know it, right? Like sharing it with someone else who can say, hey, you said you wanted to be known as efficient, but you've kind of taken a long way to do this, right? Because then you have someone else helping you actually build the brand and not just, it's three nice words that I wrote down, but no one thinks of those whenever they think of me. So that's definitely the key there. And doing that in the classroom, I think would be extremely powerful.
Yeah, you've got this other idea of overcoming the silent killer of performance. And you say there's two proven methods to fight apathy. Now, there's some apathy in classrooms every now and then. Yep. And I say it tongue in cheek, right? If I ask people to raise their hand at a workshop, yep, we've got some apathetic kids. What are those, how do we fight apathy, do you think?
Yeah, so apathy I think is dangerous because it's this lack of emotion, right? And so when I wrote the book, I interviewed a ton of employers and just said like, hey, your employees, especially your young employees, like what's the biggest issue? And this came up as the biggest issue consistently is just they just don't care. Like they're apathetic. And I'm sure in classrooms just the same, like they just don't care. It's apathetic. And I think there's two great ways. Of course, there's more, but you can fight apathy. One is be intentional.
about building community. I've heard it said like misery loves company. I think that's true. Joy loves company as well. And in order to get out of the apathetic hole, I think it's very difficult to do it alone. It's a lot easier if you have other people that are going through the same thing you are that can help you dig out of that hole. And so whether it's in the classroom, on the job, we have to find ways to help people build community outside of the scope of work that's normal.
so that they can connect with one another or build connections in the normal scope of work in the classroom. Like whether it's group projects, like again, teachers are a lot more creative than I am with ours, how to build community. But this aspect of community is the first big thing of it's hard to do it alone. You need to create connections between people to help them do it together. The second thing is, you ever read Man's Search for Meeting by Victor Frankel? Great book.
Speaker 1 (18:55.214)
Yep.
Very hard read, very deep. If you're listening and haven't read it, Victor Franco was a psychologist in the early 20th century and he argued with Sigmund Freud and Alfred Adler. Freud said man's innate desire is towards pleasure. Alfred Adler said that man's innate desire is towards power. And Franco argued that it's towards meaning and that when we have meaning,
When we don't have meaning, it's when we go searching for pleasure and power. Like meanings are this innate driver that human beings have, right? And I tend to agree with that, especially in my life, I've seen that. And one of his ways, so logotherapy was something he came up with to fight, you know, to help people get meaning in their life. And one of the ways he that was finding a project that takes your time and attention. And so whenever you have a project to work on that takes your time and attention,
That's gonna, you can't be apathetic when you're excited about something, right? So whether it's in the classroom and it's actual work to work on or like finding out like, what are your students good at? What could you give them an idea to like do something that again, if they have something going on outside of the classroom, I mean, you mentioned you played sports, I played sports in high school. I could get through the school day because I knew when the bell rang at 3.30, I was going out to the golf course to play golf. You know what I mean? Like that was a project that took my time and attention and.
That made seventh period a lot more enjoyable when I was in high school. so having a project to work on is the second way where when you have a project that you love that takes your time and attention, it's really hard to be apathetic. And it gives you meaning. And I think, again, that's a great thing as a human just to have meaning and something that takes your time and attention to do that.
Speaker 1 (20:36.91)
Yeah, I think so. And so that we preach that a lot here on the podcast with project based learning. And you said community, you might say culture, right? What's your classroom culture? Like, what are those good intangibles? And then the other, the other place where we kind of fight apathy, I think it's your same idea though, as we say authenticity. So we bring in authenticity to the projects that we're using, like we're solving real world problems. So that kids are excited about the work they're doing in the classroom, right? And they are buying in. So
That's huge. I'm curious when you see authenticity like with projects you're working on So you see a real-world problem. So not like we're gonna do this thing that you've never even heard of that You'll never encounter ever again. It's like let's actually make it real
Yeah, for sure. So elementary school in Indianapolis, there's a, it's called the, I'm going to forget the name of the store now. This is a store where they, they showcase work that's been done by individuals with some, some type of disability. Yeah. And so it's really the hope store. So the hope store is out there. And then these third graders said, Hey, we're going to work with the hope store to help them market better.
And now they've got this collaborative piece and they can see that their work is like literally affecting people in the real world while they're learning, you know, their technical writing skills and their math standards. Like, so all the same standard, but it's affecting work in the real world. And that's just, such a game changer. K-12 doesn't matter where you're at.
You know, you unlocked a memory for me. When I was in high school, I did something called the Mayor's Youth Advisory Council. And once a month, we got to leave school and go meet with the mayor. And one project we did was they gave us disposable cameras and they had us go take pictures, anything within city limits of like problems we found with the city and what we would do to fix them. And someone in our group took a picture of a bridge that goes over a lake that is, it's an old bridge and it's too narrow for school buses to go over.
Speaker 2 (22:26.584)
and there's neighborhoods that go to our high school where the school bus has to drive. It's like an extra three and a half miles that they have to drive because they can't go over that bridge to get to the school. Anyway, long story short, the city built a new bridge because of a student who found the problem and said, we could save X amount in gas. And they were like, well, let's just build a new bridge then. And it was because a student found a real problem. I thought that was really cool. So that's a cool thing. That's cool to do it.
Right. That's the work we're trying to bring into classrooms and that same feeling of, wow, it's really cool. And then every time you go by that bridge, like, like my classmate, like did this thing. That's right. thing in the world. So it creates a big, it's a big deal. So you've got a feedback method to Jacob. Yeah. We're huge on feedback and reflection. I think you call it the wind feedback method. You're going to gain clarity, trust and respect, which are words that we use around here as well. Can you talk to us about that a little bit?
Yeah, so feedback, especially at my last role at Chick-fil-A was huge. I'm sure in education, huge as well. I thought I was very good at feedback. And then I gave my first like session, training session at Chick-fil-A when I got to the support center. And immediately it's like you end your training and then you go off to the side and you do feedback every single time. It's just like, let's go do some feedback. It's like, And I'm like all excited because I thought I did a good job. And they're like, all right, what did Jacob do well?
I hear like two or three things and I'm like, yeah, it's great. And they're like, all right, what could he improve? And then it was like 15 more minutes of all the things I can improve. was like, man, I need to work on this. But feedback one, I think has a negative connotation. And if you talk about it a lot, hopefully it doesn't. But when I hear the words like, hey, Jacob, can I give you some feedback? My first reaction is not like they're going to praise me for the job I did. You know, it's like, man, what did I do wrong? But
Feedback is simply just a response to an action, right? And I don't think feed, but you can give positive feedback, right? So my two rules of thumb is, or one, try to get four times as much positive feedback as negative feedback. And one thing that does is whenever you tell someone or whenever you pull someone aside to give them feedback, their first reaction is that they did something wrong. It's just, hey, I hear from Ryan all the time and he's giving me high fives all the time. And hey, this one time he's telling me how I can get better.
Speaker 2 (24:43.48)
So you change the narrative whenever you focus on positive feedback too. then secondly, praise in public, criticize in private whenever possible, right? Like I know there's instances where you can't do that, but that helps build that trust and respect among like who you're giving feedback to and the respect to you as well. But the, the wind feedback method, far as how to do it well, the W stands for what? So what specifically did you observe? I give a Chick-fil-A example of
You know, if someone's putting food in bags, we call them the bagger. Very creative. If someone's bagging food and I say, great job bagging today, that's not really clear, right? Like that's not helpful. Even though it's positive, it's not helpful. So like what specifically did you observe? I could be more specific and say, hey, like great job. Like the order accuracy was awesome. Like I didn't see any wrong orders and you were super quick. Our speed of service was, you know, two minutes.
That's specific, right? So that's what I specifically observed. This also helps rule out any bias because you're not attacking the person, right? So if it were negative, I could say, hey, I noticed over lunch that we had two people come back for complaints because their order was inaccurate. I didn't say, Ryan, you're a bad bagger. I said like, hey, you had some inaccurate orders, right? So it's specific and it's focusing on the action. That's the first step. Two.
The I and when is illustrate. Illustrate why the feedback is important. So if it's not important and there's not a good reason why, then it's probably not worth giving. And if you are giving it, then illustrate why it is important that you're giving the feedback. So in the Chick-fil-A example, I could give the example of, you know, hey, it's important people have the right food, right? Like if you're in the drive through and you get the wrong order, you'd probably be not happy about it either. So, you know, that's a simple one, but obviously can get a lot more complex as far as, hey, why is this feedback important? You have to illustrate that for them.
if you want change to happen. And lastly, again, if you want action from the feedback and not just in one year out the other, the end is for navigate. Navigate the path forward. You need to tell them what to do next. People don't want to guess. People need clarity. And so tell them, hey, next time, double check orders. Whatever that next step is, just, hey, moving forward, you need to do this. And if this is positive feedback, the navigate the path forward can be, keep up the good work.
Speaker 2 (27:07.052)
And if you're doing this in public, you're telling other people a specific action that they can repeat in order to get praise later, right? Like people like being praised when they see someone else getting it and you're telling them, hey, in order to get praise, this person did this and I'm telling them to keep doing it. They're going to want to repeat that and you build that culture of feedback. So I'm glad y'all love feedback. I'm big on feedback. think that feedback is one of the few things that could dramatically change organizations. I would think implement a culture of it in the classroom as well.
Right? Like if you have a, if you have a culture of feedback in the classroom, imagine how collaboratively like those average test scores are going to go up.
Yeah. Yeah. That's a big deal. We think wording is important when it comes to feedback, just like you do. So we use likes and wonders. So you lead with your likes and then you go with wonders. Yeah. And it's like, I wonder is not, it's different than you did it wrong. Right. It's more like, wonder if you could, you could do this a little bit differently and you've got one more, I've got one more place I want to go. Cause we do have teachers that are working with kids that are, you know, they've, they're in high school, they've got a job and sometimes they're contributing to like the family income. Right. And
And that job is a big deal and they need to be there. And so you've got this idea of navigating raises and bonuses without relying on favoritism or desperation. so I just think sometimes as teachers, like we're helping students navigate like the interview process and like, how do you get a promotion or a raise or those kinds of things. Like what are some things that we can help them out with?
Yeah, it's great. So one, there's no gimmicks in here. There's not a there's not a say this and they have to give you a raise. So right. had some employers kind of raise an eyebrow at the chapter titles and I was like, wait, it's not it's not gimmicky. So as far as getting a raise in promotion, it's all about clarity. Right. So one, you've got to show intentionality, like go and meet with the boss, right? Go and meet with them. And it's kind of the same steps for both. But and like clarify.
Speaker 2 (29:05.26)
what value is for that business, right? So ask some questions about, like one, ask for feedback on your current role. Hey, how am I performing? How could I be better? Right? Two, get clarity around what is it they value? So if it's a raise, you know, maybe it's, hey, if we increase, you know, X metric, that helps us make more money. When we make more money, we can give raises, right? Like, and I think too, this is great because
One, you're gonna start learning about how a business works when you're asking your boss about like, hey, what do you value? Like, hey, and I have a list of questions in the book as far as like here's specific examples of what to ask in these kinds of conversations. So once you have clarity around what it is they value, and the goal here is to get specific metrics that you can have an impact on, the next step is to go and get those results. So again, no tricks here. It's, hey, go increase your personal value in the business.
and then come to your boss and show them on the back end and say, hey, you value this. I can show you exactly how I've increased the value in these areas. Therefore, I would like a raise or, you know, with the promotion, get clarity around what that next role needs, because a lot of times it's different than what your current role is. Right. Like just because you're an all star cashier doesn't mean you'd make a great team leader.
So go get clarity around what are these qualities, maybe it's not metrics, maybe it's soft skills and qualities that you're looking for in this next step if it's a promotion. And then again, go get results showing you're good at those qualities and then go ask for the raise and say, hey, I believe in the best person because you value A, B, and C and here's where I've done A, B, and C well on the job. So no tricks, it really is about, hey, go be a phenomenal employee, get clarity, right? Because sometimes people just work really hard and hope people notice them.
That doesn't happen in the real world, right? things happen because people make them happen. And by showing the intentionality and meeting with them to begin with and be honest, like, hey, I want to increase my personal value here. It's my goal to grow here. So how can I do that? Just be open and clear about it. I promise like bosses want that. And again, I wish employers would do this for employees. That's where I coach business owners to like, hey, just give them a clear growth path. Show them on day one how to get a raise in promotion. Wish more employers would do that. But if they're not,
Speaker 2 (31:27.874)
Go ask the questions and get it done for yourself, right? Like, too many opportunities are missed because people wait on something to just happen when things are made to happen by people. And so that's why I would go about getting a raise and a promotion.
Yeah, I like that. Cause I think there's a way to do that where it's not pushy or demanding. Yeah. You're right. There's a, there's still an attitude of reflection and feedback and continuous growth of like, Hey, boss, how could I do better? What do you think? Or Hey, if I wanted to get promoted, like, what do you think I need to do? And then whatever that boss says, like do one, two, three, right? Hey boss, did number one, I'm going for number two. How am I doing? And that's what employers want to see. I don't think.
That's right.
I think that that's a leg up that we can give our learners. Right. again, I'm kind of envisioning this master your first job class right now. I was like, Hey guys, cause it's not magic words, but it is kind of an attitude of just letting people know that you want to do a really great job and you're open to feedback. And I want to do better.
That's right. It really is the end of the day that simple. Again, there's no guaranteed results at the end of that, but you're setting yourself up for a lot of success by doing that.
Speaker 1 (32:35.554)
Yeah. And yeah, I think you're separating yourself in most jobs as well. know, Chick-fil-A does a real nice job, I think. And I don't know, I've never worked there, but on the, on the other end of the counter, it's like everybody's in a pretty good spot, but a lot of different jobs, like there's not because there is a lot of apathy in employees. So if you can show that you're not one of those apathetic employees, you can move pretty quickly, I imagine.
And if you're showing intentionality and the want to to be there and to get results, that might be the only quality they're looking for in a leader. Right. It's like, yeah, workplaces need leadership and they're you're sitting around going, man, I wish someone would just show me they want to be here. And the second you have the first meeting, they might just hand you the promotion right then. You know, no guarantees. But that's one of those things people are looking for. Right. Well.
,
enthusiasm and encouragement at an open house and this guy's like, yeah, I'll let you sell my house. What? But that attitude is such a big deal. And I think it can be learned. What do you think about that, Jacob? Do you think that attitude of kind of reflection and enthusiasm and a job can, we teach that?
Absolutely, you can teach it like that to me is not a you're born with this attitude of wanting to ride and do good, right? I think in by teaching it like or I guess how to teach it. You've got to show people the end result, right? I think people are motivated when they see this end result like telling the story of the 19 year old has has their own business I guarantee you that 19 year old had someone older and wiser poured into them and say hey You don't have to wait till you're 50 to own your own business. You could absolutely could do it if you have the want to
Speaker 2 (34:38.912)
I still believe in the American dream of like you can work hard and get things done for the most part, right? Like you can set up opportunities for yourself. And if we teach people how to do this and show them success stories of people that have, I think you're going to create this attitude of wanting to do more and wanting to work hard and contribute to society and we'll all be better for it, right?
Yeah, I think so. excited. I'm excited for the first person to reach out and say, hey, I'm ready to teach this class. In fact, if you're listening and you're ready to start the master your first job class at your high school, go to pblshare.com. It's pblshare.com and we'll buy you the class set of master your first job to get this class started. this is the game changer. when we go to, whenever we do a workshop,
You know, just like you got the first question, Jacob, we say, what's your why as an educator? And it's never like, gosh, I just really want kids to know complex sentences or compound complex sentences. It's like, we want our kids to have these opportunities that they wouldn't have had otherwise. And this is one of them, right? Like I think this is really one of them. The intentionality of that first job can be a game changer. So we'll put a link to the show notes in the show notes for your book for sure. What other, where other can, other places can we find you URLs or anything like that?
Yeah, I'll say if you want any copy of the book for free, you can go to masteryourfirstjob.com slash free and free book, even instructions how to download it to your Kindle if you have that. look, I'm just giving it away because I think it's valuable and I want it to get in the hands of the right people. And if you want a hard copy, there's a link to buy a hard copy there as well on that same link. So if you're a paperback fan like I am or a hardcover, I've got both options as well. My business is waves business coaching dot com. But heck of that first link.
Get the book for free no get in contact with me. I'm sure that
Speaker 1 (36:27.704)
Super generous. Thank you for doing that. So go get the free copy, get the ebook, make sure you love it. I think you're going to. And then we would love to get this course going, this course going to your class. So reach out and let us know and we'll help make that happen. Jacob, us, give us kind of one last maybe reason why this needs to be important for our classroom teachers, this idea of this first job.
Yeah, too many. I hear from too many first-time employees that their job is just a job. And honestly, I hear from too many employers that, you know, these young people are just lazy. They just don't care. And I think both are wrong. you know, on my business side, I'm working on the employer side, right? I'm teaching them that, things have changed. They're not lazy. You just got to put in some more effort, right? But on the teacher side with these students, you really can.
use your first job to build a career off of. That doesn't mean you did what I did and stay at that same company for 10 years, but you really can start to build skills that you will be using 50 years in your career. I had someone read the book who, like I won't say their age, cause I don't want to embarrass them, but they were like, even as they, say 50 plus year old, I found stuff to motivate me in my job right now. I'm like, now imagine if a 17 year old put that into practice.
My goal is that I want you to get a quote-unquote master's degree in your first job opportunity that you can put it on your resume and say hey this wasn't just a job at Chick-fil-A here's everything I learned or insert company here as teachers if you can help students do that you're gonna have such a huge impact in their life for years to come
Yep. Super good. Thanks for coming on. Shake up sharing Jacob. really appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (38:08.11)
Thanks for having me, Ryan.
All right, PBL simplified for teachers, listeners, thank you for tuning in today. You just got kind of the crash course on how we can help our learners kind of master that first job. They don't wanna waste that opportunity. It's probably not gonna be the job they have for the rest of their life. At least that's what the research is kind of showing us, but they could learn a lot from it and take it to the next job so they can level up, which is what we're really hoping our learners will do. So thanks for tuning in today. We really appreciate it. Go out and teach inspired.
you
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to my classroom.
Speaker 2 (38:56.276)
about that. review helps the
