Shontavia Johnson (00:00):
What’s up, y’all. Welcome to The Shontavia Show, where my goal is to help you start a business based on your life’s vision. This ain’t gonna be your daddy’s business advice. I’m laser focused on entrepreneurship in the 21st century, vision and breaking the traditional mold. If you can get with that, you can get with me, be sure to visit shontavia.com for more episodes, blog posts, and other content. Thank you for listening. The show starts now.

Shontavia Johnson (00:28):
What’s up everybody. This is Shontavia Johnson, and this is another episode of the Shontavia Show, where I want to inspire you to build a brand, business, and life that you love. And I am thrilled to have with me Kanika Tolver. Kanika, thank you so much for joining me today.

Kanika Tolver (00:42):
Thank you for having me. How are you doing today?

Shontavia Johnson (00:47):
I am, you know, I’m staying alive. That’s about all I can say. Yeah. During this whole COVID-19 era. I don’t know if it’s Friday or Tuesday or whatever. It just feels like one big day.

Kanika Tolver (01:02):
It’s Friday.

Shontavia Johnson (01:07):
Well hey, happy Friday, everybody. Well, actually this will come out on Monday, but it’s Friday right now. So let me introduce Kanika to those of you who are listening. If you have issues or questions around your career, around personal branding, around what it’s like to transition from tech to entrepreneurship and back to tech and back to entrepreneurship and just balancing all these things seamlessly, Kanika Tolver is your woman. She is the CEO and founder of Career Rehab, LLC, which is based in Washington, DC and Kanika helps clients transform their careers with coaching programs, events, webinars, and digital resources to help people reach their career goals. I’ve seen Kanika just about everywhere–on CNN, CNBC, CBS, Black Enterprise, entrepreneur.com, The Washington Post– she’s appeared in just about every major media publication talking about her work as a coach consultant speaker, and thought leader around this concept of careers.

Shontavia Johnson (02:11):
She’s also the author of the acclaimed title, Career Rehab, Rebuild Your Personal Brand and Rethink The Way You Work. So Kanika, thank you again for being here. I’m excited about this conversation because I know so many people are working in jobs and they’re thinking about what’s next, especially during this whole coven area, so, or, or era/time. So thank you for being here.

Kanika Tolver (02:33):
Thank you for having me. I’m excited too.

Shontavia Johnson (02:36):
So could you talk a bit about your story? You have such an interesting background in tech and everything else and now in entrepreneurship. So could you talk about how you got here?

Kanika Tolver (02:46):
So I’m in the Washington DC area. I have a traditional bachelor’s degree from HBCU Bowie State University, where I got my bachelor’s degree in computer science. So I started off my career after college in the federal government. In the DC area, everyone–body works for the federal government. So I went into the federal government space and I pretty much started to find that I wasn’t happy. You know, I was getting promoted. I was growing in salary, but I wasn’t growing far as fulfillment. So I actually, in 2014, I left the federal government and I went to go work for private sector. So that’s kind of when I had to, like, I really didn’t even have the concept of Career Rehab established, but I felt like that was my time when I started to read a lot of branding books and I started to reinvent myself so I could actually get jobs in private sector and as a tech consultant, as a senior consultant. I went to go work for Deloitte. I was scared. Like I was like, man, like I’m leaving my good government job to go to private sector.

Kanika Tolver (03:52):
All my friends and family were in my ear, like, what are you doing? I did it. I accomplished so much. And it was just an amazing time for me to kind of find myself and found out what was working, what would work for me instead of listening to everyone else.

Shontavia Johnson (04:08):
That’s, that’s beautiful. I wonder what about your experience there, because I’ve heard you talk about your story before you’ve talked about being like in your mid twenties and making six figures and not feeling that satisfied in your career. Kind of like you mentioned just now. And that was my experience too. I was 25 making well into six figures and there was a point where I would drive to work every day and I would cry like in the parking deck on the way to work. And I just did not know how to get out of it. So I’m wondering how you decided to make this transition, especially when everybody’s in your ear saying like, what are you doing?

Shontavia Johnson (04:45):
Cause I had that too. So I’m just wondering how you got from being unhappy in this role to leaving. Cause so many people don’t, they just stay. Why did you decide to leave? What was the final thing and how did you get to that point?

Kanika Tolver (04:58):
Um I had four different managers within a five year period. I was working in a very toxic work environment. I had gotten promoted to the top level of being a project manager at that organization. And I just got tired of crying and leaving work crying. I really did get tired of talking to my husband and talking to people about how I was so unhappy. So I kind of was like, you know it was Christmas holiday. I remember it was Christmas holidays and I took that time off.

Kanika Tolver (05:29):
You know, when you get your little time off, when you go on Christmas, right? I took that time to redo my entire resume. I put my resume up there on the job board sites and then Deloitte and Booz Allen and all these companies, I had never even heard of Deloitte ever in my life because I was so focused on having a federal government career. I googled Deloitte and I was like, Oh my God, this company is huge. It’s global. So I said, you know, I’m going to do it. I’m gonna do it. And the recruiter called, me and her went back and forth and I was scared. And then she’s like, you don’t– if you’re not comfortable with doing it, don’t do it. And then I went back and forth. And when I got back after Christmas break and things hadn’t changed from the job, I called the recruiter back and I said, I’m ready to interview.

Kanika Tolver (06:12):
And then that’s, that’s kind of why I made my decision.

Shontavia Johnson (06:16):
I love that. Especially as black women. We go into these spaces. And frankly, when I took my first job, I didn’t really know older black people who liked their jobs. It was like something, you go do, you, you get your paycheck and then you go home and that’s where you have an enjoyable life. I didn’t know that you could actually work and like your job and enjoy the work you were doing. And I’m wondering if you had a similar kind of experience?

Kanika Tolver (06:44):
I did actually, when I was going through the exit interview process at my government agency some of the older women on my team, they were like in their forties, they were like, you’re ruining your career. You’re ruining your life. And I started to think about how could I take advice for somebody who had been at the same government agency for 20 years?

Kanika Tolver (07:05):
How would I know what the other side would really be like if I listened to somebody who only had one perspective. I said, if I don’t like it, I won’t withdraw from my retirement. I won’t take any of my money out of my, my 401k I’ll leave everything there. And I will come back. Cause I said, I didn’t have kids. I was still young. I wasn’t even 30 or maybe, you know, creeping up on 30. And I said, you know what, what is the, what is there to lose? If I don’t like it, the government is not going anywhere. It’s always going to be here. And that’s what I decided to stop listening to people that never walked in the shoes that I was going to walk in.

Shontavia Johnson (07:46):
I love that. I love that. So you stopped listening to other people, you take the leap, doesn’t it feel good that day when you walk out and you know, you never have to come back.

Kanika Tolver (07:57):
And I would never go back to that direct organization. I didn’t burn any bridges, but it was amazing to see how the white managers, when I told them that I was going to go work for Deloitte, they kinda like, Oh, like they looked as if like, Oh, you’re smart enough to even go work there. Cause like getting into Deloitte is like getting into Harvard. It’s a very rigorous interview process, but it also made me feel like, wow, I am very intelligent and smart. And the people that I was working with didn’t necessarily think the same. So why not try this new journey with someone that’s going to value my expertise and knowledge.

Shontavia Johnson (08:38):
Now that’s real, especially that part about realizing the value in yourself. Because I just remember when I left my first job, I don’t think I had any self-esteem left in terms of my own ability to do the work. I knew I was smart, but it just felt like, okay, well maybe I’ll just never be a good lawyer because I sucked at that thing. And I learned it wasn’t me. It was every– it was them. And it was the way that they were treating me. So how did you figure out, okay, I have something of value. I have something to offer and I can do it at Deloitte. I can be successful because there was a lot of mental chatter I had to get rid of. And I know you’ve done a lot of this work. What did you do? You mentioned reading books. What else were you doing?

Kanika Tolver (09:20):
I was, I remember that last year at my government agency. I just started to soak up all of these branding, personal branding books. You know, when you go to college, you don’t—nobody talks to you about personal branding. You get a resume. You get a job, right? You don’t even think about yourself as a brand. So I started to read a lot of personal branding books. And what I started to do is I started to re-evaluate the people that I was hanging around in my professional network. If I wanted to move into Deloitte, I needed to started connecting with what I kind of connected with a lot of black people first on LinkedIn. So I started to really maximize LinkedIn. And I started to connect with people who are already at the places I wanted to work at. You know, I had to leave the government and I’m not, I’m not dissing people that work at the government because there are a lot of amazing smart people.

Kanika Tolver (10:16):
But I had to build a network that was for my future and not for my past.

Shontavia Johnson (10:22):
Oh, that’s a– look that deserves to be on a tee shirt. That’s good. That is good.

Kanika Tolver (10:29):
We have to let go of those relationships, they are dead. They probably were dead for a long time, but I didn’t realize it. And the fear was it was taking over. So what I started to do, I started to connect with people at Amazon, Google, Facebook, Deloitte, Booz Allen. And I started to like connect with them and I’m like, man, if they can do it and they look just like me, I know I can do it too. So I would just connect with them through virtual chats and or I would meet up with them face to face and I would ask them like, what do I need to learn? What do I need to do? Who do I need to connect with?

Kanika Tolver (11:00):
And that’s when I became like this networking junkie. Like I was just addicted to connecting with people that were better than me.

Shontavia Johnson (11:07):
That is good advice. Especially people of color, black people, women, especially if you meet all those categories, it doesn’t always, you don’t always have people you can touch right in front of you. And so it’s smart that you talk about LinkedIn, leveraging social media, reading these books. I know now you can follow just about anybody on social media and see what they’re talking about. And that’s good advice, especially for people who may be in a small town or in a place where they don’t have immediate access to those folks. That’s that’s really, really, really, I need to write this down.

Kanika Tolver (11:45):
I think another thing that I wanted to add to that is that we’re so eager to seek for physical mentors that started to follow people online and I started to watch their moves and what they talked about, what they read and their lifestyle. And they’re kind of like virtual mentors or like my best friend in my head. And I never met them. They may have been an author or a thought leader, or they may have been a speaker or they may have just been somebody that post good content on LinkedIn. And the whole time I’m just studying. They don’t even know like I am like a fan. Right. But I’m also like taking everything that they’re doing and I’m applying it to my own career as well.

Shontavia Johnson (12:25):
Oh, that’s good too. See, I told y’all, this woman is a career expert and this is why. This is good. This is really good. So you got to Deloitte, you’re doing well in Deloitte. You are having all these different types of career successes in Deloitte. And at some point you decide, you want to write a book, is that right? Or you want to start a business? How did that all come about?

Kanika Tolver (12:45):
So what happened was I kind of stumbled into career coaching because in my area everybody wants a good government resume. So I would just do resumes for my family, my friends, my cousins, you know, people in my, you know, in my immediate family and they would get jobs. So then I was like, I should start hustling resumes. And I would go into all the, the DC, Maryland, Virginia, we call it the DMV. I would go into all of the unemployment Facebook groups. And I made like these flyers, you know? And I said, you know, I do resume writing. And I would charge like $150, $200 to do a resume. Now my prices, I don’t write resumes anymore by my old prices were way higher than that.

Kanika Tolver (13:30):
And then people will start getting jobs, but then they start asking the hard questions. Salary negotiation, toxic work environments, how to properly interview for a job, how to, you know, make sure that they’re ready, you know, for skills, the skill sets that they needed. So they would get the job. But then when they got the job, they were struggling. I noticed that the resume is not going to solve your problem. A good resume is not going to solve your problem. You have to become a student of your career. That’s going to solve the problems. So that’s when I kind of went like, okay, I guess I’ll do career coaching. And then that’s kinda like how people started to reach out to me for more services other than just doing their resume.

Shontavia Johnson (14:13):
I see. So you had your side hustle, you turned it into this growing practice. And at some point you decided to write a book you’ve written two books, right?

Kanika Tolver (14:22):
So my first book was Life Rehab. That was like more so like a self published book that I did me, just evolving and trying to find myself as a woman in my late twenties into, you know, into being 30. And then I said, you know, I want to get a major book deal. So I started to, I said, well, I’m going to call, I’m going to call my next book Career Rehab, just keep the rehab thing going, right. So I said, you know, since I kinda like left government went to private sector, I’m a senior consultant for this big Fortune 500 company I’ve been featured in CNN on why Google should hire more minorities. And things just started. I started writing for glassdoor.com as a, as a, you know, blogging for their career blog. So then I said, you know what? I’m going to start sprinkling some of this career rehab-ish stuff into my blogs, just to test, to see if people really liked the storytelling that I put into my blog posts. And then that’s kind of how Career Rehab got started.

Shontavia Johnson (15:24):
So that’s so interesting. So you have this degree in computer science, you’ve been working in tech. Did you always think of yourself as a writer and a coach or—

Kanika Tolver (15:32):
Oh no!

Shontavia Johnson (15:32):
Okay…

Kanika Tolver (15:35):
The coaching part– I would say yes, because always at most of my jobs, I’ve been project managers and I’ve been leading teams. So I’ve been leading, you know, contractors and federal employees. I always wanted to, when I was at my government jobs, I always wanted to, you know, I love mentoring the young interns. I always love helping, you know, people that had lower salaries than me. I would try to just nurture them and help them.

Kanika Tolver (16:00):
So just being servant leadership has always been a part of my heart and my soul, but I really never thought I was a writer. Cause I’m like, I’m in tech, you know, I’m managing like systems and building applications and mobile apps and websites and testing and things like that. So I was like, I’m like my writing skills are horrible, probably, you know? Cause I, I just never thought of myself as a writer, but when I started blogging and I started to see people reshare my Glassdoor blogs on Yahoo finance and on CBS and on all these different other–on Entrepreneur. And this was even before my partnership with Entrepreneur, I said, wow, people are attracted to the relatable advice. It doesn’t matter if I outsource my editing to someone and I got somebody to make it all nice. But,uyou don’t have to be a good writer to have good concepts and ideas and things.

Speaker 2 (16:58):
So I don’t want people to feel like they have to be a perfect writer to have a great idea.

Shontavia Johnson (17:03):
No, that’s, that is great advice because so many people feel like you have to be perfect at everything. You have to have a degree in blah, blah, blah. You have to have all these things. But I think the thing that I, so when I started following you, what attracted me to your work was, well, first of all, you were connected to lots of people who I followed. So you had social proof, lots of people know your dope and they follow you and they share your content. But also you’re authentic, right? It’s not like this highly manufactured. Let me give you my three bullet points at 11:00 AM every day. It’s like the real it’s like what real life looks like. And you know, so many people think they have to be some weird version of themselves publicly, but I love that you just say, look, this is me. This is what life looks like. It’s hard out here in some of these jobs and here’s what you have to do. And that is so important. And your story just proves that, right? That you can.

Kanika Tolver (18:02):
And I think it’s so important for us as black women, especially, is to stop trying to sell products and services and focus on being intentional about your truths that will easily sell a book or a coaching program. When we say sell, sell, sell, sell, sell, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy. I think that that turns people off. And another thing that turns people off is talking above them, trying to think of these, like— you PhD, you so college educated, you so this, if people really, they just want one, two, three, ABC. Okay. How do I get to the solution in a very, I want to say dumbed down approach. And if you want to talk in big terms, that’s cool too. But for me, I think I don’t learn that way because I like things broken down as small components.

Shontavia Johnson (19:01):
Yeah, so years ago when I first started writing publicly, I was writing for this group called The Conversation and The Conversation got me into Washington Post, into TIME, into, I mean like all these different places, but what they would tell writers, and they only worked with like PhD level writers, people who taught at universities or whatever, they would say write at the level of a smart 10th grader. And it’s not because people are not as, not smarter than that, but it’s what you just said that people just want to know, like, what is the real story? I don’t want to have to google every word to figure out what you’re talking about.

Kanika Tolver (19:35):
Plain language is what I live by. Like the plain language act is kind of what I live by. So I think that’s even how, for those that have the book, that’s one of the number one you know, types of comments or feedback that I get is that, wow, like this was an easy read.

Kanika Tolver (19:54):
Because career development is not the most exciting topic to talk about. So you gotta bring your own entertainment to it, so–

Shontavia Johnson (20:00):
No you’re right. So I would love to talk about your book a bit. And even before talking about the book, like I can see now, like hearing you talk, like you have a hustler mentality, but I’m wondering how you go from self publishing, your first book about life to getting a deal with a major publisher with Entrepreneur Press, the book came out this year in January, how did you manage to do that?

Kanika Tolver (20:28):
Girl, that’s a whole podcast episode right there. Publishing– so, so I would say to this is the short version, is that, I felt like in order to get your career right, your life gotta be right. So Life Rehab, I was just trying to get Kanika right. You know, so that’s what Life Rehab was really about, checking myself into Life Rehab and really getting true to loving Kanika. And then I could work on everything else that needed to be done career, you know business sometimes when our life isn’t right, our business and our career it suffers. So that’s what Life Rehab was all about. So to speed up to two years ago with the publishing deal. So, my agent had pitched me to like 20 to 30, I think maybe 30 different companies. And a lot of them said no, they didn’t like, they didn’t like it. They didn’t like it.

Kanika Tolver (21:24):
And Entrepreneur was one of our last people to, I got on the phone with them. They were one of the very– I only got on the phone with a few publishers– they, they were one of the ones that they said they wanted to have a phone call with me. So I got on the phone with them. It was like a summer, May. And I said, okay, I want to share my idea. They loved it. The marketing team, they loved it. They went silent for some months, like, like into like, you know, into the, into the summer and into the fall. And they went silent. I’m like, Oh, I guess don’t want to do the book deal. So then I was really depressed. I was real upset. And then I was being a full time entrepreneur at the time when I was trying to get the book deal.

Kanika Tolver (22:11):
So I was like, okay, I might as well go back to work. I’m not going to get this book deal. I’m really tired of hustling resumes and hustling, like, you know, doing websites and doing tech work, whatever. So then I got the job back working with the federal government. The same month I take the job, they come back and they want to do the book deal. And I’m like, no, I can’t write a book and work a job at the same time. I was like, so that December of 2000 and was it don’t quote me on it. But anyway, that, that the book came out at 2020, so 2000 and 2000, the end of 2018 going into 2019, they came back and they wanted to do the book deal. And I’m like, they were like, you still want to do it? They contacted my agent. And I say, yeah, but you know what challenged me the most, was being in the grind again as a professional going to work. So my blood, sweat and tears and writing a book was the whole first year of me being back at work. So I could feel just like the reader. If I wrote the book, being a full time entrepreneur, people wouldn’t probably like the book as much because my perspective would be disconnected.

Kanika Tolver (23:29):
So I’m back on the train I’m back in traffic, I’m back, trying to battle– juggle my side hustle, which I treat my, I treat my side hustle like my main hustle, but that’s kind of what happened. And I wrote the book all of 2019.

Shontavia Johnson (23:43):
Wow. That is an incredible story. And I don’t know how you survived it.

Kanika Tolver (23:50):
I don’t either. And I was trying to like be a good employee. You know, I’m on probation. I’m not even trying to let the job know that I’m writing this book. So I’ll write in the mornings from four to six, jump in the shower at six o’clock and then to get out of the house by seven. So I’ll get to work by eight o’clock and then I would write all weekends. So I dedicated six to six to eight months where all my weekends were at the library.

Shontavia Johnson (24:17):
Wow. Wow. So gosh, so many questions, but–

Kanika Tolver (24:22):
I’m sorry to tell a long story, but that’s what happened.

Shontavia Johnson (24:25):
No, that’s amazing. And I’m glad you did that because I know there are a lot of people listening to this show who are working full time, who are also grinding, treating their side hustle like their main hustle to me, I use the same tactics in my own life, and I know that they have the, they want to know these things. So this is amazing. Just one other question, if I could follow up about your agent, how did you get an agent? What was that whole process like? Because as I understand, it can be hard to find a good agent who understands you and your message and your story, especially when you’re a black person, a person of color or a woman. So how did you go about finding your agent?

Kanika Tolver (25:03):
So I had, at first I was trying to get Life Rehab as a major book deal, but because it was already published, it just didn’t work out, right. Because they don’t really want to publish something. And so then I said, I’ll do Career Rehab. I was working with another group of people and this particular agent was associated with that group. So, since she already was a part of the journey, I just kept her because she had already did the leg work to try to pitch Life Rehab. And then when Life Rehab didn’t get picked up and we pitched Career Rehab. I just, so it was kind of, I was connected to another organization and she was working on that team as, as, as the agent. She is a minority woman. She has been doing this for a very long time. I wanted somebody that could be patient with me because I’m crazy.

Kanika Tolver (25:51):
And I wanted somebody that also was willing to fight for me. I didn’t want, I didn’t want someone that was, cause I’m kind of like a pit bull in a skirt. I wanted somebody that knew the industry well enough. So yeah, I mean, she’s, she’s an amazing person. And I would say for those that are looking for an agent, you know, I think it’s also good to get with someone that already had and has an agent. So I’m always willing to refer my agent to any black female or any woman or anybody to say, hi, I’m an aspiring author. I will give you her information. So I think that’s, that’s my approach is to go through somebody that’s already a successful author and see if you can get with their agent because you build a relationship with that author, you can just kind of easily get in that way.

Shontavia Johnson (26:42):
That’s good. That’s that’s good advice. So your agent gets– helps you land this deal with Entrepreneur Entrepreneur, is it Entrepreneur Media?

Kanika Tolver (26:52):
Entrepreneur Press is their publishing sector, and then Entrepreneur Media is like the magazine, the website entrepreneur.com and you know, they have, I guess TV and you know, they’re media company.

Shontavia Johnson (27:06):
Right. So you get this deal with this major publisher and you write a book that tells people, “when you’re working for someone else, you should be thinking of yourself as a brand. You should be a brand, not an employee. You should do all of these things.” And I love that message so much and the way you define career rehab in the book is about your state of mind and your action plan. It will renew your career. And you talk in the book about how almost half of the people who are in the workforce are unhappy in their jobs.

Shontavia Johnson (27:42):
And so it makes sense for you to be writing for Entrepreneur Press, which I mean, it’s perfect really when you look back now and see all those things, but I’m wondering why you think so many people are unhappy in their jobs, particularly when this is what we’re taught as kids. You, you grow up, you get a good job and then whether you like it or not, and you stay in it. So, so why do you think so many people are unhappy right now in their jobs?

Kanika Tolver (28:07):
That’s a really good question is that people have been conditioned to, to feel conf– to feel like they have to submit themselves or serve the employer instead of serving themselves. You know, we feel like we have to go above and beyond to meet all these different performance metrics for a company that’s, you know, that stands for X or sells X and we’re forgetting to serve us. Like where’s our fulfillment coming in? And I think that we are, we are submitting to managers and to different deliverables and timelines and sometimes unrealistic timelines and toxic work environments. And we are really, really missing out on feeding ourselves and nurturing what we want to do as far as our career. So the things that we’re passionate about and the things that we’re, you know, naturally can do or do well, we’re not using them at work.

Kanika Tolver (29:03):
You know, if I love marketing and writing and I love speaking, but I’m like shoved into this cubicle and I have to do these daunting tasks and no one sees me. Then that makes me feel horrible. It makes me feel like I’m not valued.

Shontavia Johnson (29:18):
Yeah, no, that makes all the sense in the world. And for especially black women, you will walk into a room. You’re the only woman. You’re the only black person. If you’re young, you have that going against you too. So you get treated terribly on top of everything else. And, and one of the things you say in the book, and I think this is my favorite chapter, actually in your book, chapter five, when you talk about being a brand and not an employee, and shifting your mindset from having the employee mindset to the branding mindset, how do you do that and keep your job? For people who they can’t quite leave yet? How do you shift your mindset? So you’re thinking of yourself like a brand, but still keep your job.

Kanika Tolver (30:02):
So the first thing you want to do is you want to keep the performance, keep a track of your, of your performance metrics at work. Awesome brands like Starbucks and Apple and Beyonce and celebrities and athletes. They keep what statistics and data on what they’re accomplishing and what they’re doing. That’s how they’re able to continue to negotiate different new contracts for different things, or sell more products and services. We have to do the same thing at work. We have to on a daily or weekly or biweekly, whatever is a good timeframe for you, is to keep track of your performance. What are you doing? We have to do that. And we sometimes get all into our work and we forget to do that.

Kanika Tolver (30:42):
The second thing is we have to make the small thing, sound big, make the small things sound big. What I mean by that is, I mean like that, that report, that Excel spreadsheet that you do every week, that weekly report, that briefing, that presentation deck we need to talk higher of ourselves on our LinkedIn profile, in our resumes, so we can show that we are subject matter experts. We sometimes don’t give ourselves enough credit. We think, Oh, I’ve been doing this for the last 5 years. It’s just, it’s just the weekly report. It’s just, it’s just, it’s just, you know, it is what it is. No, you know that weekly report inside and out. I want you to call it out in a very, in a very persuasive and swagged out way, so that people think that you’re doing more than just what you’re doing now.

Shontavia Johnson (31:40):
That’s, that’s real. And also realizing that the things that you think might be small, like nobody else is doing them, you know? And they are big things. You know, like so many people of color in particular, you’re in the workplace, you’re doing all this stuff. You’re doing three different jobs and everybody else is doing their one thing halfway. And you think, Oh, well this is normal. Cause this is what I always do. But it’s like, nah, like you said, give yourself credit.

Kanika Tolver (32:05):
We don’t give ourselves enough credit. And the third thing is that I would say we have to continue to always show up through email, face to face meetings, web meetings, phone calls, presentations. Brands are consistent in their quality of communication, orally and through writing, because that allows you to shine. If they say like, wow, I can always depend on her every time I’ll call her or email her.

Kanika Tolver (32:36):
She, she, she got the information, she gives it to me right back really fast. And she knows exactly what she’s talking about. That’s going to separate you from everyone else who’s only doing that one thing. If you can do all the other things that you can do and interact with stakeholders, you’re the rock star.

Shontavia Johnson (32:53):
That’s, that’s good. That’s really good too. And as you’re talking about keeping your job, but also thinking of yourself as a brand, there’s a lot of overlap. Like, what you say in the book about having that brand mindset is thinking of your expertise and your knowledge, like a product or service. And we don’t do that often enough. We don’t about–. Like you did with the resumes and the Facebook groups, like package your content and put a dollar amount on it. That is smart. But how do you do that? So for somebody who’s at work right now and they’re thinking, I don’t know what I could possibly sell. I don’t know what my knowledge even is. How can you start to think about the work you do and figure out what things can be products or services, where should people start with that?

Kanika Tolver (33:44):
I think the first thing people should do is start off small and really testing their market through thought leadership as a professional. I think that is where if I didn’t write for Glassdoor, I would have never thought I could write this book. So start off with blogging, start off with LinkedIn polls, Medium, WordPress whatever you’re knowledgeable about, that gives you passion. Push content out there through video, through blogging, through tweets, because then you’re testing whether people are liking what you’re talking about. So that just helped me to revamp my coaching practice.

Kanika Tolver (34:25):
And once I started to see the strangers that I never met on the internet, like these articles, it made me alter my services a little bit more to say, okay. They like when I talked about video interviewing, so let me add video interviewing as a service to coach people on. So, so I would say start off doing that. And then you can start to create your services and products, based off that data that you get from your likes, your comments, or if you’re not getting likes and comments, then you need to reevaluate your content strategy to figure out what is an amazing topic to talk about online. I think people jump out there and they build products and services and they haven’t done a lot of surveying and a lot of observation of what people like. We could be both career coaches, but I’m not going to talk the same way you talk.

Kanika Tolver (35:19):
So there’s something that people are attracted to me that they love more about me than they don’t like about the next female black career coach, because I’ve created my own little twang, my own little, what? MVP, minimal viable product that’s just for Career Rehab.

Shontavia Johnson (35:37):
That’s real. That’s real. Especially when you think about, you know, like every career– every market is saturated, there’s a billion career coaches. There’s a billion lawyers, engineers, that’s right. So the thing that, I mean, you, you’re not going to be able to compete saying the same thing everybody else says, it’s got to be your own thing. So that that’s, that’s real. And the other thing you say in the book that I think is so interesting and when I’ve read it, actually, so my husband and I both are lawyers. My husband also has a PhD and we’ve had 20 different jobs in the past. I don’t know how many years, but you have a whole chapter about dating jobs. Could you talk a little about dating jobs and what that means and why you think people need to date jobs?

Kanika Tolver (36:24):
So the same way you dated your husband. I dated my husband. When, when we were not married and we were dating people they gave us, in the book, I talk about dating jobs and even dating people gives you unique experience and unique exposure, right? So when you date this guy, he’s going to give you this experience. And he’s going to expose you to these type of dates and these types of trips. Same thing with jobs, you’re going to get different experience and exposure based upon being in different corporate environments. You know? So I think it’s important to figure out, I’m not saying job hop. Cause people think when I wrote that chapter, I told people to job hop, no.

Kanika Tolver (37:07):
I told people to figure out what’s a good fit and you’re not going to know what is a good fit until you move around. And maybe every 12 to 24 months, if that’s not– if that job is not giving you a healthy relationship, then you need to move on to the next, to figure out what’s a good fit. Before I married my husband, I dated other men that weren’t a good fit, but I had to go through that experience to figure out what do I want? I know this Joe, he wasn’t right. He treated me like this. So these are the expectations and the things that I wanted out of my relationship for marriage. So that’s what I would say is that it’s so great for you guys to date jobs, to figure out what type of leadership you want, what type of pay you want, what’s type of tasks and projects you want to work on?

Kanika Tolver (37:49):
What type of people, culture is super important for black people because we don’t fit into every culture fit. But we’re not gonna know what works for us until we experience various types of roles with different organizations.

Shontavia Johnson (38:07):
No, that’s good. And that chapter lays it out so clearly about how to date jobs, when you know it’s not the right one, how to move on. And so for those of you who don’t have the book, you must get the book, I’ll drop some links in the show notes, both to the book, to Kanika’s website and some other things. And the final thing I want to ask you about in the book and you, you actually alluded to it earlier, when you were talking about as a black woman, connecting other black women with your agent, one of the things you do in your book, which is dope, which you don’t see that many people do is you highlight other people’s success.

Shontavia Johnson (38:43):
And you talk about your clients. You talk about other experts, authors, like maybe even some people who might be perceived as your competition and you know, a lot of people with– you do! You do, or your, your peers in the industry. And a lot of people don’t do that, especially when they have a large platform. It’s like, okay, well, this is my shine. You want some? You go figure out your own. And I’m wondering why you do that? Like, why do you think it’s important to support other people? I’ve been for the past three or four months as we’ve been watching protests on television or going to protests or participating in a lot of the light Black Lives Matter things. And just thinking about how to best support black people. You know, you do that in your book in a way that you just don’t see that often. And I’m wondering why that is your approach.

Kanika Tolver (39:40):
So part of it was from my word count for the book. That’s a little snippet for authors. If you want to interview people, their responses help your word count for your book. I’m just being funny when I say that. I did that intentional and my editor at Entrpreneur was like, man, everybody, you picked aligned with the chapters so nicely. And I said, the reason why I wanted to interview experts that are more knowledgeable in certain areas than me or some of my career culture clients that have had huge success landing jobs at Microsoft and Boeing, is that all of our expertise and knowledge, it counts. And if I just rely on me and my own understanding, then it doesn’t allow people to share their unique experiences and the things that they’ve gone through because I’ve gone through things at work that are different than some of the black men in the book that have gone through things. I wanted people to be able to say, wow, she’s had experts that were white in the book.

Kanika Tolver (40:46):
She had black men, she had black women, because I wanted this Career Rehab for one, to be a book that was universally sound for all people. And I wanted them to learn from people that had diverse backgrounds. I don’t want to be the only one to give all of the expertise and knowledge because there were things that my clients taught me as they experienced new things, as they took new jobs. You know, Minda, Minda Harts is in the book. You know, Mario Armstrong, who’s an amazing, amazing entrepreneur who transitioned from being a corporate professional to being a full time entrepreneur. I don’t have that knowledge. I still work a job. So why did I lean onto my understanding when someone else has already has had the blueprint for that? So I did that because I just wanted to also give other friends and family and peers shine on the Entrepreneur platform. More importantly, I did that because there are not a lot of people like us that are part of the Entrepreneur family.

Shontavia Johnson (41:52):
No, that’s real. I love that

Kanika Tolver (41:55):
I’m going to say that again, and Entrepreneur, they’ve been good to me, but at the same time, I want more minorities to be able to be a part of what I’m doing. So that was a big, big reason why I did that.

Shontavia Johnson (42:10):
No that’s that is a lesson I hope everyone gets. I hope that’s a lesson more people take a page out of, because sometimes it kind of feels like when people attain a level of success, they’re not so worried about leaving the door open for someone else. I’m, I’m glad and grateful that you are.

Shontavia Johnson (42:30):
So this has been an amazing conversation. I learned a lot. I’m going to listen back and take some notes.

Kanika Tolver (42:36):
Oh did you listen to the audiobook?

Shontavia Johnson (42:38):
No but I need to get the audio book. I bought the actual book. I’m saying, I need to go back and listen to this episode and take some notes because you dropped a lot of gems and some things that aren’t in the book that I haven’t seen other places, other than like, I follow you on Twitter and you talk a lot about a lot of these different topics. And so can you share with people where they can find you to learn more about you and about your work and get these tips and strategies from you?

Kanika Tolver (43:09):
Sure. So you guys can check me out on Twitter. Twitter is where I’m my most authentic self @KanikaTolver Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, all of my handles are @KanikaTolver. You guys can reach out to me for career coaching or speaking engagements at kanikatolver.com. So that’s just my first and last name dot com. And if you want to really read this amazing book called Career Rehab, you guys can purchase it at Amazon, Target, Books-A-Million. It’s an amazing book guys. Like I try my best to not give you no watered down advice, and if you enjoyed me, then you will enjoy the book.

Shontavia Johnson (43:53):
And the cover, the cover is beautiful.

Kanika Tolver (43:57):
Thank you! And I fought for that cover too.

Shontavia Johnson (43:59):
I saw you say that.

Kanika Tolver (44:00):
That’s another branding story. One thing I want to always educate authors that are getting book deals, is that it’s so important to fight how you want your brand to be presented. So yeah, we didn’t talk about that, but yes, I made sure that the cover represented something that I wanted to feel good. I wanted it to feel, feel good. But we went back and forth on that book cover for a while until it was right. But I think it’s right.

Shontavia Johnson (44:33):
It is. It’s definitely right. In fact, I was surprised when I saw you say that on Twitter. Because when I saw the book cover, not hardly knowing anything about what Career Rehab even meant, I thought I want that book because I love how it looks. It is a beautiful book cover. So I’m glad that you fought. That’s a good final lesson too for people.

Kanika Tolver (44:51):
Yeah. And I think that’s a good final lesson for us in the corporate spaces, whatever your heart desires, whatever you guys want. If you want good leadership, if you desire more pay, if you desire a diverse, diverse work environment, if you want more remote options, if you want more paid time off, we have to fight for what we want, have our checklists the same way we had our checklist for our man, have your checklist for your job. And there’s some things that are must haves and there are some things that you’re willing to, you know, you know, kind of like you no leave on the table, but if you want everything, it’s fine too. So when you have a business and when you have a career, we always, especially, especially as black women, we gotta fight for what we want our brands to feel and look like.

Kanika Tolver (45:39):
Cause we’re, we’re doing it for a bigger purpose than ourselves.

Shontavia Johnson (45:44):
That is a perfect way to end. Thank you so much Kanika for joining me. This has been an incredible conversation. If you’re listening or watching and you have questions, feel free to drop a comment below. Or if you are reading this on my website at shontavia.com, drop a comment, happy to chat with you more about this. If you follow Kanika, she’s always giving people amazing advice, things that she says on Twitter, I wonder if she should be charging for it, make sure.Mmake sure you follow her on Twitter and at all her other platforms. Thank you so much for listening and watching. And if you’re watching on YouTube, make sure you hit the subscribe button below. Thanks.

Shontavia Johnson (46:25):
Thank you so much for listening to this episode of The Shontavia Show. If you enjoyed this episode, please be sure to like, subscribe and leave a comment wherever you’re listening. You can find me on social media everywhere, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and wherever else @ShontaviaJEsq. You can also visit me at shontavia.com to find a transcript of this episode along with other show notes. While you’re there, please be sure to subscribe to my email newsletter.

Shontavia Johnson (46:56):
The information shared in this podcast and through my other platforms is designed to educate you about business and entrepreneurship and I love to do this work. While I am a lawyer, though, the information I provide is not legal advice and does not create or constitute an attorney client relationship.

Shontavia Johnson (47:14):
The Shontavia Show is a LVRG Incorporated original. The show is recorded on site in South Carolina and produced at Sit N Spin Studio in Greenville, South Carolina. Original music and sound design is by Matt Morgan and Daniel Gregory. Mixing and mastering is by Daniel Gregory and the video is by GVL Media.