Clocking Out with Raymond Lee

Welcome. Welcome. Welcome to the Clocking Out Pod cast. I'm your host, Raymond Lee. And I have to first say that I'm sitting here.

I'm literally pinching myself right now because this project, this show has been a long time in the making. And quite frankly, I'm I'm surprised that I'm here today. But I wanna also say that I'm incredibly grateful to anyone who's sitting in their car, walking on a treadmill, listening to this podcast. I'm incredibly grateful that you're spending your precious time listening to me here today. Also, this podcast couldn't be possible without the support of Career Minds.

So I've often asked myself, why is it that people choose a career or stay in a job that they're not passionate about or or stay in a career that brings them limited or no fulfillment whatsoever. So why is it? Why does this occur? Is it is it fear of change? Is it the fact that some people get in a career and eventually become complacent in that job?

Or in some cases, is it the desire that they want to please someone else and choose a career out of just pleasing someone else. I recently read Open by Andre Agassi, who growing up as a kid, he was my favorite tennis player of all time. And as most of you know, Andre was regarded as one of the greatest tennis players of all time. He won eight grand slams. He won a gold medal.

And I have to tell you, the one thing that I learned about Andre in his book was he absolutely hated the sport of tennis. He hated the sport so much that he gave his tennis rackets away to the homeless. And he would cause disruption on the course every chance that he could get. So I guess the question is why is it that someone would pursue a career that doesn't bring them overall joy? Or even better, why do people stay in a career, get stuck, struggle with making a change that would ultimately bring them greater fulfillment?

The answer became vividly clear to me when my mom chose a career as a court reporter for pure financial reasons to provide for me, my brother David, versus her own personal fulfillment. She ended up tolerating a suboptimal career path for over two decades until she made the personal choice to clock out and make a change. But after twenty years, my mom made a choice. She decided that she was going to leave the field of court reporting altogether. A field that she disliked to pursue her dreams of becoming an archaeologist.

I often wonder, like, what does something like this look like? So my mom was entering her fifties, and she made the personal decision that she was going to go back to school. She was going to get her master's degree in archaeology. And what my mom would do is she would end up taking one class a semester while working a grueling court reporting schedule. But in her heart, her passion was archaeology.

Her passion was receiving this master's degree. And it's what really drove her to persevere over almost a decade of going back to school. So after a decade of going to school, my mom eventually graduated with her master's degree in archaeology. And not only was I proud of her, but she was also recruited to lead a high profile archaeological dig on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. And I think everyone remembers Hurricane Katrina.

This dig was the result of Hurricane Katrina where she led the dig of a French colonial site. This burial site gained national attention from the national media, archaeologists from around the world, and her work was later published in journals. Unfortunately though, shortly after graduation, in the completion of her dig, my mom was diagnosed with stage four lung cancer and she would end up leaving this world just a couple of months later. Over the next decade after her passing, I have to say I I personally struggled with understanding how something like this could happen so suddenly at the age of 60. And the one thing that I kept coming back to was how proud I was that my mom found her true career fulfillment.

And and she left this world doing what she truly truly loved, which was archaeology. This podcast is a personal dedication to my mom. Her life, her journey. She's inspired me to share my own personal story. And her story of adversity, change, and ultimately uncovering personal career fulfillment.

I'm excited to bring you this podcast where I'm planning to interview individuals who made a similar choice as my mom, a choice to make a change and pivot from a career that is not bringing you fulfillment. So I wanna just say thank you all so much for taking this journey with me. I'm excited to jump right in. So let's get started.