Angela McCourt 0:00
Let's get ready for some serious shift. This is a podcast shifting Inside Out hosted by your quantum shifter Angela McCourt, we are diving into ways to empower and enable a quantum shift. Inspiring topics hacks and guest speakers take us on a journey around authenticity, challenging status quo, personal power and living a purpose filled life.

I am so excited to have Pat Johanna guest on the shifting Inside Out podcast today. I met Pat probably nine years ago now maybe a little longer. And she is just such a radiator. She is a total ivacaftor and collaborator and networker. And I model and mentioned her in my book when I talk about some of those gifts that I've seen her radiates over the years, including co founding with her the exploratory lab boot camp. And just watching her really makes such an impact in higher education, as well as that connection between community business and the higher education organizations. So I'm really excited for Pat to share her journey because it's been an interesting one, it was not one that was planned out. And these are some of the best ones to really model and understand that going with the flow of life sometimes is really what will end up driving you and what she has done so many times in our exploratory lab boot camp was explained to students how her passion led journey in her career was what opened doors to things that she never expected to experience from a job perspective from a skill building perspective. And just being able to have that confidence as well as the unknowns and being okay with that in her career and her journey. And so I really wanted to showcase Pat in this episode because she just has so much great wisdom to share. And I'm super excited that she is finally actually retiring so she can now focus on her many other passion projects. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this episode. As you listen. You can find me on LinkedIn at Angie belts McCourt on Instagram at Angie underscore McCourt or on Twitter at McCourt, Angie. So without further ado, let's hear from Pat.

Pat, welcome to shifting inside out. I am so beyond grateful to have you on this episode. To get started. Why don't you introduce yourself?

Pat Gehant 2:44
Well, Angie is it is a pleasure to be here. We've had a lot of fun and excitement together and you are a key part of my career and having lots of fun in my career. But let me start with an introduction. I am a recently retired as a workforce consultant. I used I did workforce studies in the area. I am a I'm a graduate of trend State College Teachers College in New Jersey with a master's from USF in St. Pete. And you probably wonder with those two degrees how I got into workforce well I'll talk about that a little bit later. But a lot of what I do about me is I am a the thing that is most rewarding is that I am a grandmother of two of the most wonderful girls, Maggie and sear she's two and six years old. They are the love of my life along with my daughter and her husband spent a lot of time traveling and visiting with them. I am also an amateur photographer. And I get a lot of fun out of taking pictures of both my granddaughters and mostly landscape artists and landscape settings. But one of the things I love most is butterflies. I raise monarch butterflies in my garden and if you come by we refer to it as the the yard with the meadow out front. And we have probably anywhere from 10 to 20 different species of butterflies out there. But I do bring in the monarchs and raise them in my own little monarch house so that I can see them grow from caterpillars to into a chrysalis and then bud into a butterfly. And then I release them into the yard. And right now I am preparing the house because my granddaughters are coming down and they wanted to know if we could see that. And I have it all set up ready for you to be here in two weeks so that I'm in all different stages, so we'll be ready for that. But the other thing I do is I do play tennis so When to keep me busy and keep me active. I play tennis right now I'm playing two to three times a week I play competitively, in a league, and last year, during the pandemic, my chore was to run the league, which was a, which was a challenge. It's about four to 500 Women on teen teams across Pinellas County. And we had to navigate besides all the rules that apply to women's tennis, we had to navigate COVID It was before the shots were out there. And I will say that we navigated quite well in that no one reported getting infected with COVID while on the courts tennis, due to low risk sport. And and what I found in that process is that it was one of the few opportunities that the women got together with other people and they went on outings. So we weren't going to restaurants, we weren't going to church, we weren't going to the office, everybody was working remotely and we're stuck in the house. And tennis is an outside sport. And I will say that some women came up to me and said I'm so glad you didn't cancel the lead because it's mental health for me he she said I would have been gone crazy without it. So know that the challenges we we in engaging in different aspects of our life. But tennis is one of the things I enjoy the most so you know that's that's pretty much who I am pretty positive person. I love doing different things. You know, love going to the mountains soon here have taken pictures from my, my deck. And I plan to write a book called late black lace and sunsets. And it is dangerous from my deck where the trees look like black lace right before the sunsets and sunrises in the morning. And then when the sun rises and Sun's over the mountains out there it is. It is glorious. It's another world experience. So that's, that's what I like to do. And that's a little bit about me,

Angela McCourt 7:27
pairing nice, I love it. And I just I can't, I will help you self publish if you want to self publish your book, because I now know how to do that. Because I absolutely love your photography. And I think you're very talented, even though you call yourself an amateur like, I'm like, no, no, she's definitely more than an amateur. Very talented photographer. So that's so big. And I'm not surprised by your creativity on keeping everybody moving through the pandemic and that many women organized and whatnot, because you're very skillful at really, really driving herds of people in the right direction. So not surprised by you doing that. So very good for everyone there. So I have a few quick round questions just to kind of get the audience to know you a little bit better. So the first question is, what is your morning ritual?

Pat Gehant 8:23
my morning ritual is, before I get out of bed every morning, I begin with a prayer of gratitude thanking God for the day I've had and, you know, focus on hoping that I could live a good life in His image for that day. Then I because I think gratitude waking up and being grateful for what you have and and each day is important to focus allows you to focus on the important things in the day. I also then, if I'm going to play tennis, I will do about 20 minutes of yoga, to stretch out so that I can run for that overhead behind my partner and get it back on the other side. I will then go out and every morning I kiss my husband Good morning. And I kiss him good night every night and tell him I love them. And I learned that when I got married to my husband. It's been 43 years. His mother said to us as advice she said never go to bed man. Always kiss your kiss each other and say you love each other in the morning and at night. And I have done that for 43 years. Even when I was if I was mad. I did it anyway. And the minute I did it. I wasn't so mad anyway. Yep. So my mother in law was a good mentor in that regard. And then I have my cappuccino And then once I have my cup of cappuccino, and I sit read the paper and enjoy my cappuccino, I am good to go for for the day.

Angela McCourt 10:10
Oh, fantastic. I love it. So you're very busy, even though you're so called retired, which I'm sure we'll get into that. How do you renew your energy?

Pat Gehant 10:23
So renewing my energy? That's an interesting question because I think it's important to make sure you know how you do this. And, and I like to exercise so I like to, to renew my energy if I'm not playing tennis, which always gets renewed the endorphins get build up, and, and I, you know, I get the energy to go on to the next task after I've done that. I will, if I'm not playing tennis I, since the pandemic, we bought bikes, I get on my bike, I bought a backpack thing for my bike so that I could take my camera with me. And I ride either downtown around the pier, or you go to sawgrass, and I watch, there's a gopher turtle that has a nest there that you can go watch. And sometimes she's at the front of the nest, and sometimes she isn't. But there's always the thing about having a camera and looking at the things around you to that, that I generate energy, it is that the same scene can look different each day based on lighting on who's there, what's the trees look like, you know, they change it changes every day. So it's you I get energy from looking at the beauty around me. If I'm not in town, I am in North Carolina, generating sitting on the deck. If I need, we recently went through a pretty tragic thing in the family. And after was all over, we went to North Carolina, I sat on the deck. And for three days, I sat and looked out at the scenery. And I took my camera and I took pictures of the light as it moved across the mouth. Look at those pictures, it is an amazing thing to see what you see out there because I get the energy from what I'm seeing the beauty of it. And when you take a picture you've taken a picture is an image of a point in time, that will never happen again, because of the lighting because of just the texture because of all the things that are around there. And that renews my energy to realize the eye to see the world around me more openly. And it relaxes me. And once I become relaxed and energized, I see more opportunity, I see more things that I can do. I actually, as I said, I'm an amateur photographer, I took my pictures to get developed down to a professional place down in St. Pete. And when I went to pick them up the I mean, these are all professional photographers, these are people that have been in the industry, the guy hand me the envelope, and he said, his pictures are really good, clear and crisp. And I said, Oh, thank you so much. And I went out into the car and I went, he liked my so I said to myself, you're a good photographer. So I you know, you get energy. Again, that gives me that gives me energy to go forward. And I think it's important to find, I find that thing that you can do for you then clean energy. And I will say that photography, I mean, I have one superduper camera that I spent a lot of money on that I had to get insured to use it. And then I got myself one that I actually put in my backpack and take around with me a smaller camera. But taking photographs and then looking at them and contemplating what you're looking at is is I find incredibly relaxing. And you know with cameras these days, they do so much that you don't you can have a lot of fun with them, too.

Angela McCourt 14:26
Oh, that's awesome. I love it. Okay, so what is your guilty pleasure?

Pat Gehant 14:33
My guilty pleasure is enjoying a warm cappuccino, which I found on my recent diet is a good thing when I have cappuccino with nonfat milk that it's a healthy drink. So it's like hey, that and so I love having a cappuccino with my daughter in New York City where she lives. I love having a cappuccino in the mountains with my friends tennis is just one of those rituals that I do it slowly. And I will tell you that I am drinking one right now. Because it's calming, and it is just, it just, I don't know, I like it.

Angela McCourt 15:17
Yeah, that's fantastic. I love it. I love it. It's so nice when you find something or multiple things that you can alternate and rotate that gives you that comfort that give you that zone to be in, which is amazing. All right. So I am so happy to have you on this episode, because it's interesting how so many people are going through major shifts right now. They're going through loss of identity with their company or with their job, they're going through new paths that they're may be afraid to take that they want to take, they're going through changes that they've never had to necessarily navigate through before in career in life. And I look at this in a positive way like this is an opening, this is something that is going to allow them to shape their life the way they want it to shape. But a lot of times people have had an expectation of a certain path they've been on or others have had an expectation of them. And so we're kind of stuck in this, should I be disappointed that this is happening? Or should I be grateful that this is happening, right? And how do we, you know, kind of navigate through the unknowns and the you know, unpredictability in our in uncertainty in our lives. And I just wanted to bring your story in because you have such an amazing journey of having navigated the good, the bad, the ugly, and you know, making life the way you want to make it and taking opportunities where you want to take them. And so I would love for you to share your journey, if you would. So my

Pat Gehant 16:55
journey does not fit nicely into a box. When I try to fit myself into the box of that was expected of me, I was miserable and probably would have failed because I didn't really stay there too long. My I used to think my career was more like playing pinball or is gone Bing Bing back and forth, back and forth, or a variety of different careers. But when I started when I met Angie, we'll talk about this in a little bit. But we started doing a program together. And part of that program was to talk about careers. And I did a retrospective of my career for part of that. And I realized I didn't have a pinball like, career, I had a Passion Driven career. I looked for that because my and the reason why I always thought I was doing it the wrong way because my peers were all they got accounting degrees, they became accountants, they were lawyer, they got a lawyer together being a lawyer, they all did. I got a teaching degree. And when I got done with my student teaching, I found out I hate this, I am not good at AI. It's not that I hated it. I actually liked it. I enjoyed my student teaching experience, but the school did not enjoy what I did. And I came into it thinking that, um, you know, here's the curriculum, I was. So my student teaching, I was supposed to teach the Articles of Confederation now who anybody on the podcast, remember Articles of Confederation? Probably not. Because it was the first form of government we used in this country. And then we move to the Constitution. And my job was to teach the kids about this. And then one kid said to me, finally, if we didn't do if we threw it out, why do we have to learn it? And I said, so you'll understand the Constitution. And when we started talking about the Constitution, we started talking about freedom of speech, and then we, the kids, and I said, where do you see freedom of speech, we start talking about long story short, instead of teaching the curriculum accordingly, according to what was scripted for me, I ended up bringing into the classroom a document of I did my student teaching in New Jersey, of students rights and responsibilities and in the New Jersey school system, that led the students to understand the Constitution where they had freedom of speech, and they had other freedoms guaranteed to them. And and it led to them. So I'm putting together a petition to get them into allow them a 13 year olds to see R rated movies. Mission was written by one of the students father who was a lawyer. We reviewed the rules and the human rights responsibilities. How how you did this. And they followed them to the tee. And this is when I was supposed to be being supervised in the classroom, but the teacher never paid. And now all of a sudden she shows up in the classroom and says, Pat, what are you doing? I said, Well, we're learning about freedom of speech and rights and responsibilities of citizenship. And she said, Well, this was not part of the curriculum. Where did you get, you know, and I tried to explain what I was doing. And she said, Well, we're going to have to get back to the curriculum and a fortunate unfortunate. That was on a Friday, and the next Monday, there was an epidemic of spiral meningitis at my college, which shut down the entire college, and I never finished my student teaching experience. And the teachers feedback on my teaching skills was mediocre. And she never was in the classroom. And I realized to myself, there are too many rules. i There's, I cannot that is not a comfortable role for me. So I loved history. I loved working with the students, but I knew that was not going to happen. And at the same time, I was taking a class on how to teach history, and I'm going into the teacher and I said to her, Dr. Helen McCracken Carpenter, was her name. I have no idea why remember her name? That actually was 1971. Of the names, I can't remember the person I met on Monday, but I can remember her name. She I, but it's the advice. She gave me the response to my question when I'm when you want to teach me how to teach history. And she said, Oh, I'm not going to teach you that. I'm going to teach you how to think I'm going to teach you how to find the answers. Because you're never going to know everything you need to know. You're never going to know the answer to every question you're asked. You have to know how to find the answers. That's what I'm teaching you, huh? And I thought to myself at the time, that doesn't mean anything. But in fact, it meant

Angela McCourt 22:13
everything. It's how you remembered her name.

Pat Gehant 22:16
When why remember, for me, it was everything. I always have to think so. My career path my degree, while it was considered a liberal arts degree, it taught me to think research, find answers, and using that skill. That's how I crafted My Passion Driven career because I was always looking for whatever job I got. It was what you know, look for how to make it better. What are we doing? How are we doing it? How are we doing it with analyzing how it work? And then if there were things that could be made better, I'd make recommendations and do that. It's not quite an easy path, because not everybody always agrees with you. But I so when I graduated after deciding that teaching is not the path I wanted to pursue. Now, I graduated from college in 1970. Oh, amen. I graduated college in 1971. So I was in Oh, I'm aging myself even more. I had Helen gray. Yeah, so I graduated 76. So in 76, women graduated, most women were expected to be teachers, nurses, social workers, accountant, you could be accountants, and you can be lawyers if you wanted to, but it was going to be a tough road to hoe women, they were I was still in what they thought were traditional women's roles. So I had no plan when I graduated from college. But looking back the way I created, crafted My Passion Driven career, I actually followed four principles. And I'm going to highlight those today. And the four principles are Know yourself. Know who you are, what you want, what what your skills are, what do you like to do? Where is your passion for something what, you know, can you become an accountant, if you don't want to sit there and run the numbers every day? That was a career that was suggested to me and I thought, Oh,

I would have died if I was an accountant. I'm not good at math, which would have been another problem, but

it doesn't matter. Have a calculator, I'm thinking nanana so know who you are. Learn new things. And I don't mean just taking a course and you know, learning a couple of new things. I mean, exploring many avenues about yourself who you are exploring different options with you know, of knowledge, just be open to anything, and then work collaboratively. We never succeed alone. There isn't a person who succeeds, I mean, some of my best times in my career, and GE is part of what I think is the best successful thing I've ever done and had the biggest impact, but I never would have done it without Angie. And and so we are always must be collaborative. And then the fourth principle is future oriented focus on the look to the future for the opportunities that you can pursue based on what you've learned and what you know about yourself. So those are, that's kind of a summary of my career. And I just go right into the talking about the principles.

Angela McCourt 25:39
Yeah, why don't you share a little bit, I would love for you to share about your IT director role. And some of the some of the navigation you did there, and just the, you know, putting yourself out there, and not necessarily being an expert, but becoming one.

Pat Gehant 26:00
That's, that is a study in a career. Um, so I was working at the juvenile Welfare Board, and three quarters of the employees were social workers. And, and I have to say, the client side of the Social Work Business was not I wasn't good at. So I stayed on the program and research side. And so in my capacity, I kept trying to, to push the company to get more information, we need more data, we need to use tools, we need to use computers to analyze stuff, we need to give them to me, because I'll figure it out. I introduced them to mapping software back in 98, software MapInfo. And GIS systems were just coming into play. And so I was exploring, experimenting with that I was experimenting, trying to get them to buy Excel, but they got me multi plan. Instead, they said here, multi plan is the software you need. And MultiPlan didn't even expand columns. So I am now trying to learn how technology to get through technology to try to bring the company introduced to the company more data. And so I volunteered to be they decided that we needed to upgrade our infrastructure, which was a server sitting in somebody's office that was not locked on the floor, and she put on top of the server. Even I knew that was a problem. And I wasn't even in the it. Suppose IT departments. We were all working off the server. And we used to, you know, God loved them, we had disabled workers come in doing the cleaning. And all of a sudden the entire network went down. And everybody was working late on a project and you hear screams across the road, the office, I go in. And there is one of the workers unplugged the main plug to the server took down the entire network because he needed to vacuum that room. And so we then there's nothing I could do. And it took 30 to 45 minutes to recycle and bring the computer back on. And I told the guy, you have to put your plugs over here, you know. And so I was more of a leader in addressing some of the issues. So then, when we decided to put the tech team together, I got on the team. And in the end, I was the only one that understood what the consultant said, I'm the only one that could read and translate the plan for the executive director, who was a wonderful individual and trusted me

a great deal and ended up saying that and then the consultant who recommended this transition plan used me to communicate back and forth to everybody. And and they recommended that I that I be the new IT director over the woman who oversaw the server. And because we were getting rid of that server so we weren't going to be using that server so I ended up getting the IT job with a liberal arts master's degree in social science education. And my my credentials were that I could communicate that I share that I could explain to different parties what they needed to do to implement this new system. And in my status as an IT director in government work. It's all about making the presentation to the board and gating for money and getting approved I was batting 1000, when I left after 14 years of always getting the money that I needed for the technology that we wanted to implement, because I had was able to use my liberal arts skills of communication, to negotiate between all parties and clarify what the issue was. But there was a that the problem was that I don't want not the problem. I also in the beginning, I hired good people, I hired network administrator and a database administrator and an A team. The network and database administrator were certified in everything. They had skills and talent, but they couldn't communicate. And one perfect example of why I was the IT director, and they were not, is when we implemented Citrix. And our printers didn't work. And our printers didn't print only certain fonts, we really narrowed it down to a font issue. And I said to the database, as a network administrator, I said, Now, figure out what we have to do to make a print that font because for some reason, this one person only wanted documents with that funded three months. And for three months, I was getting beaten down by everybody of why can't do this. And I waited, I couldn't work, I have to say, and finally I said, alright, we had a lot of other problems that we were dealing with. So finally, this was the only thing on the checklist. And I said, well get the vendor on the phone. And he said, we have I said get them on the phone right now. And I'm going to talk to him. And the network administrator starts explaining the, the problem, and I, I just shut them off. And I never, I never did that. I said, here's the problem. It doesn't print this one font. And the woman said, Oh, you just have to update your font library. And the network administrator said to me, it's not in the manual. And I said, I don't care. That's why you talk to people and you find a problem. I said, so we went and he updated it. And we never had the problem again. So that's why I became the IT director. But my The problem was, I innovated a little bit more than a lot of people wanted. And a state of the art network. We were secured, we were at a data center, when the power went out, we could run everything, including the phone system at a peak 10 Data Center in Tampa. And when no one knew what nothing was on site anymore, everything was over in the data center. But then they decided that's not what they wanted. And, and I decided that it was getting very tense. And I started looking for another job. The problem I ran into is now I am an IT director with at the time 10 to 12 years experience running and I could tell you, I could explain the entire network. However, what I did not do is I did not get certified in any of the software. And I did I took classes but I didn't take the certification test and pay for that I paid for that for my my staff to do that. Which I will say made them very marketable and they left and so I had to be number of times, but I believed in supporting I believe in in making them 10 You know, improving their talents. And so it just became a situation where I am now.

I got a lot of my jobs by so of the jobs I had, I only applied for two of the 14 jobs I had, I negotiated my way into all the other 12 jobs that I had, which included this IT job. So now I was trying to get into the business industry and I realized there was a difference in government and the creativity that I was afforded under the executive director that hired me, he gave me a lot of latitude. He left and a new person came in they didn't want to give me as much latitude and I found in business there wasn't as there wasn't that much latitude either. But your it was all about your credentials and I didn't have them. So now I am 58 years old and I had to decide what what am I going to do while I was at the AI at while I was at JW B as part of the i t i networked with tech people throughout Tampa Bay, I knew my staff would say, oh, you can't We can't go with you anywhere where you don't know somebody. And I thought I didn't think I knew that many people. But when you're looking for a job, you find people you do know, and how many of those people that you know, a really nice and I had a network of people that were very helpful. And basically told me, yeah, well, you have to start over Pat, you have to start in a different position, you're not going to get an IT director, you're not going to get any director position. Here's you're going to have to do. And I thought to myself, I didn't want to do that. So I thought, now what am I going to do so I stayed at Jade have been a little bit longer. And I ended up long story short, they remove me from the position of it and said, this project that I had developed Sammis, it was called the database. It was quite a unique collaborative of six Florida counties. And to get Florida counties to do anything collaboratively, is pretty unique. I worked with some outstanding individuals in a lot of counties on the East Coast. And we created a client information system, that client information system that managed $2 billion in state funding, and wanted to know where that state funding went, it was pull a report, it was seamless. And the numbers could be compared across the six counties. We could look at all the financial data, you could find the paperwork, everything 100% electronic system, and it was all housed at paetynn. It was at a data center. It was secured so that when Pinellas County had to evacuate for a hurricane, the system would stay up. When Fort Lauderdale and Palm Beach had to evacuate Martin County, the system stayed up that agencies could fund they could transfer funding to agencies post hurricane so that money could flow into the bank accounts of the not for profits. It was an amazing system. And it was so fun to work on. I worked on it for 12 years. And then when they said that's all you have to do, and now you're going to work from home, it became very clear that working from home, my energy came from working and collaborating with others. It came from working and collaborating. Even though I was on the phone with the people in the Sammis project. We did a lot of face to face meetings, we traveled and got together. And all of a sudden, you know, this Passion Driven career that I was thinking I was on a high when I was the IT director, it was so fun. There was so much energy in the staff and what we were doing. It was great fun. And that, oh that I decided I said to my husband. Alright, this is not me. I cannot do this any longer. And after six months, I

turned in my resignation and went to a meeting and turned in my resignation face to face. I've already talked to some people about it and said, I'm leaving. I love working with you guys. But I cannot do this. This is not fun. It's draining emotionally. I was so damaged from, you know, working it the last couple years at the previous AWB that, that it was more than I could handle. And I was really had no confidence in myself. And I thought okay, now what am I going to do? You know, I'll just quit. I'll leave and I'll just play tennis. And I thought, Oh, that'll be fun. And so, on my way home from resigning, I got a phone call from my friend Deb, who called me and said, Look, I know you've been looking for a job and I know you like what you're doing. But I got this job that somebody's looking for somebody to do a workforce talent gap study form. Would you be interested? And I said, Well, funny. Yes, I would. I said I told her I just quit. And I was ready. And she said to me and she and Devin been somebody who'd been a friend of mine, a good mentor and a friend through the tech industry. She's run peak 10 And so we she introduced me to a lot of people. And when she gave me this opportunity, I thought alright, this is networking. This is how it works. And I am indebted to her for it because it created the next shift in my life and Mike I now had an opportunity I went in and and met with the gentleman who was hiring me and I just sat there and he told me what the job was. And I looked at him and I said, Look, I can do this job for you. I said, I have hired and I, you know, this is what I was born to do. And I convinced him to let me do a talent gap study. And after an hour and a half interview, I walked out, I was in the towers in downtown Tampa, I walked out of that building, and I said to myself, how are you going to do this? What's your plan your pad, get a plan quick, because this isn't, you know, you don't know these people. They don't really know you, you know, you've just convinced them, you could do it. And I sat down, and I calmed myself down. And I sat down, and I got a piece of paper out. And I started doing what I always do when I have an idea. I started drafting the idea. And I came up with the idea. I said to him, actually, in the interview, I actually presented this, I drafted it before I got there, you know, I said, How are you going? I said, I need to interview people, I need to do an online search, I need to do a survey. And then I need to do focus groups. So I'm going to take the input I get, and we're going to do a focus group on it. And then we're going to do a report that outlines what they said, Now, this is where my independence and creativity, kind of buttheads with the people that hired me, they said, all we want to know, are the number of technical jobs open. I said, Okay, so I thought, that's good. And then I started interviewing people. And when I interviewed people, I said, I entered viewed

handke design. And they said to me, they need software developers. And I said, Tell me what skill set you need your software developers to have, other than you need them to have what what software, he goes, I don't care. He said, I can teach them software, send me a, you know, send me musicians. And music major, somebody can score music, I'll teach them program, send me somebody willing to learn, I'll teach them what I need to know, send me people who are smart and creative that can think and I will teach them what I need to know. So when I ended, at the end of this report, the report said, Here is a list of all the jobs that were open on the day I, I asked them, you know, they filled out the survey, which was a five month period. So within the last five months, these jobs were open. But that was almost meaningless. Because it wasn't about the jobs, it was how you fill the jobs. And I decided that you know, this a five month gig, and in the end, my name goes on the report. And I need, I need to make a difference here. And I said, it's not about the job. It's about finding the talent. And instead of going to the software engineering schools, you need to go to the psychology departments, where you get the people who know how to do analytics, and do business, and bring them into business analytics and start because that was a skill set they were looking for, bring us new musicians bring us people who understood foreign languages, those were the skills that they were looking for that they said they could translate, because the software itself changed so frequently and updated, that what they learned in school was not as current. And it wasn't the methodology that they were using in the workforce. So my job was to say, this is what they're looking for. And my report when I was done, I was very excited to report, I was very proud of my report. And one of the recommendations in that report was to go into colleges and high schools just start broadening the talent development by exposing students to different career options to do career exploration, to show them what identify what skills and passions ahead and show them that they can use them in a different way than they might think they can. And that turned into the exploratory lab bootcamp that you and I did together. But when my report was submitted, it sat on the shelf because they sat there and said, We only wanted to know the jobs. And I thought, okay, I had some great recommendations. And then I was that job led to me networking with the Tampa Bay technology forum. And they said, you know, we liked your recommendations. We want you to come over here and start working on these recommendations. And when we publish the report, I get a call from a woman who I didn't know and email that said, I'd like to talk to you about this report. I'm doing something for Girls Inc. Oh, my name is Angie McCourt, and I work for Tech Data. And I thought, wow, this is what what an opportunity. This is like such an opportunity that I was again sitting there. She's in corporate world, what am I going to say to Angie, how am I going to deliver this message to her. And it took me 45 minutes into the to the luncheon to say, you know, I got this idea. And she said, I like that idea. And by the end of the the luncheon, we had a plan to move forward to explore an idea that matched both of our passions intersected at that luncheon, and we loved this idea. This is the way to do it. And I thought, okay, here is shift the next shift, because now I have just shifted away from because the TBTF job was temporary as well, when that ended. I was what am I going to do. And I think that's when Angie and I started to work on the exploratory lab.

Project. And I just just to put it all together, that if I had not been an IT director, if I had not taken the risk, and asked to do a job that I really wasn't qualified for, because it didn't have the certifications. And if I didn't handle the job the way I did, I would not have learned the skills of communicating with tech people to understand, I knew what my tech people could do. And I knew where their communications skills lacked. But I also knew, when I talked to networked with the different people, I understood what the needs were. And I was able to well, that information, when I was the IT director was not applicable to my job. It was information that I learned and I gathered, I learned it, and I applied it at a later date. So it's it helped me make the shift into the X labs.

Angela McCourt 47:14
Yes. And that I think that lunch, I still remember that lunch, by the way, because it was amazing for me. That lunch was like nine and a half years ago. I remember correctly, I think it was like nine and a half years because we ended up doing 10 Boot Camps over eight years, I guess it was Yeah. And you know, the thing is, when you talk about passion led career, the reason I was like there with you in that lunch was your passion for this. It was I've tried to go talk to the colleges and universities. And while the leadership wants to integrate into the first two years critical thinking skills, and some of these other skills that the business was asking for. The faculty was like tenured and they didn't want to change anything they were doing. So they weren't going to put anything in place. So you came back to the drawing team, like I still believe in this, there is a way we can do this, there is something we can do here. And your passion is infectious. So the way you influence people through not only having that expertise and the experience, but the vision, because you're in my book of an evocative for sure. Like you have the big vision, you can see way out and way around, and how things need to move. And your collaborator skills are like incredible when it comes to presenting your ideas, getting people on board networking, and over the years, like you had bring so many different people to the table of supporting, you know, X labs, and I'm like, How does she even know all these people. So I think it's just been brilliant, how you've made those shifts, and how you've tackled things that, you know, you didn't know where it was gonna go, either. You just said, I, you know, I'm gonna do a good job at this. And then you realized how important that this was, and that this was a huge area of opportunity to make an impact and to you know, take and, and your passion grew from that and it grew into, there is something big that we can do here. Um, I just find it's just brilliant. And I just so appreciate your journey. And your journey, though. Have there ever been challenges where you had to basically say, I'm on this path? I think it's the right path. But I got to stop and make a decision here and change other than the IT director job, personal integration into the career, you know, what, what has happened in your journey along the way in that regard?

Pat Gehant 49:58
Well, you know, There are, um, there's actually a number of opportunities, things that occurred. But I think most the most recent one is, you know, I have over the last five years while I was doing the X labs, I was always already I was doing workforce consulting with my my pals in St. Lucie County. And, you know, I met my match in somebody who is enthusiastic and Passion Driven in the economic development area. P teshon. We hired me to do three studies over there and that community attire, it's a booming community, it is so nice. And I loved I love the work I was doing with them. But I will tell you that every shift with every shift comes something and I had to make decisions several times in my life. And I guess, let me tell you that before I tell you the, with the EDC, let me tell you about an early shift that I made, because this will resonate more with, you know, parents. When I was my daughter, My beloved daughter was four. I was so excited, I applied for a job at a promotion, it was a big promotion, I was going to get a big raise, but I was going to have to work on Thursday nights and run community forums, which I was going to love. I just loved the job. I knew I was perfect for the job. And so I went through the interviews and I knew the next day they were going to tell me I got the job. And that night, I say to my daughter, she's sitting there eating your spaghetti shoving it in her mouth. I say, you know, Erin, I'm going to get this job. And but I'm not going to be home on Thursday night, she'll be home just with dad, He'll put you to bed. And she looked at me and she said, So you mean, you won't spend three and a half hours a day with me? And I thought to myself, what does that mean? How does the three and a half four year old know how to tell time? Well, in fact, I spent three and a half hours a day with her. She woke up at seven, we brought her to she got to preschool by eight. I picked her up and five she was in bed by seven 730. And I sat there and I went in the next day and I said I can't take the job. I can't take the job. And it's been like 32 years, and I still tear up when I tell the story. Because that moment, I knew I had to be a mother, not a career that I had to I and people were mad at me when I didn't take the job. And I said to myself that, you know, that was knowing yourself. And that was a shift from being the one that had to you know, to just move forward. But it was the best thing, our best decision I ever made, you know, because then I actually everybody who got that job got fired. So I wouldn't have been the IT director and none of this other than the career path. All the other shifts I made were would not have been available to me. Yeah. So making that any. And I will tell you, it was not at all a hard choice. But it was a realization inside that that's was the right thing to do. And now I come to the to the future, right now current the present, because I am in a another shift. I am moving from working for people. My friend, Pete Tesh, and I'm working as I was saying, I worked for him for five years working and I've had more fun doing that. I've had more fun doing the exploratory labs. But both of these programs, both of these efforts have come to a point in the road where I've had to decide to make a shift. I've had some personal challenges recently, my little brother was very sick.

And we navigated him through a very, very difficult health situation and he is alive and well. And he his chances were very low when we started and the fact that he's alive is a blessing beyond belief. And and I realized that what is it I've been doing working for for the you know, I've been working for people I've been doing my I've been following a passionate career. I've loved what I've done. But now all of a sudden And then realized there are other things that I'm that have been in the back of my head that I've wanted to try. I want. I want to photograph the Northern Lights, who I have been talking about that for five years, as long as my friends have been saying, I've been talking about while I'm going to retire. I mean, I think I told Angie, I think I told you after six that, yeah, retiring next year is my friend said you've been saying that for five years. And, and every time I go into talk the financial analyst, he said, have you decided to retire or is that still next year? And I'd go it's next year? And because I think I was afraid raid to make the shift. Because what I've been working my whole life, what have I been working for? And I thought, so I this is new. As I told mg when we started talking about doing this podcast, I said, Okay, I have a different benefits. I'm now shifting to the next phase. And it is getting my camera and photographing the Northern Lights. I have been it's been a month, and I'm still in a little bit of turmoil. It's still real scary. Because it's like any new job. You have to figure out what what's the flow? No, do I need a list of things to do now that I'm not working? Well? Yeah, I do. Because that's I need to organize myself. Because I'm not just sitting here eating bonbons. Not just I want to watch, you know, a&e movies. I want to photograph the Northern Lights. I want to photograph my absolutely gorgeous granddaughters, but I don't I want to it's it's capturing the moment. It's not just taking the picture, it's capturing the moment and to do that you have to be there yourself to it. And I have to be able to I am now it is a it is a struggle, but it's a fun struggle to figure out what the next shift looks like. No, I've been planning this my whole life. And I guess like when I started my career, did I have a plan now just to be successful, and get my own apartment? Now, what is my plan? My plan is to be successful and keep my house, you know, so it's me and my house. So I, I have plans? And I have to I think it's it's putting it all together. That will be the next is my next shift.

Angela McCourt 57:37
Yeah. So I actually put a LinkedIn post out about I think two weeks ago about a study that was done in recently in a medical journal. And it basically stated that the most productive years of our lives are our 60s and 70s and even 80s. And the reason is, is because once you're not working for everybody else, you can actually focus on the things that you've put on the backburner for a long time, like publishing your book, like experiencing certain things that, you know, who knows what could come out of that, you know, the way you start something as you're open minded, and who knows what can come out of that you could end up doing some documentary about the Northern Lights, you know, like this, right? And it becomes award winning, and it you know, it inspires and impacts people because not everybody can travel now, right? So they can still experience what you experienced in that moment. Because your passion is what brings everything to life. And you know, it's it's amazing, because I didn't realize that. And one of the things about retiring is, you know, that was my whole goal, since I started working was all about retirement. And yeah, I you know, retired from the tech industry, but I am now doing my dream job, right. And I'm not stopping anytime soon. And I definitely want to write another book. And I want to continue this podcast because I really, really believe in providing this platform for you know, people that can bring their stories to the listeners. And you know, this is the mindset, I think, opportunity we have to shift is it doesn't stop life doesn't stop and it doesn't just become a playground. Like there are other things that we all want to do that we can contribute in different ways that we can volunteer, that we can be on boards that we can, you know, really provide our creative gifts to the world in a different way than just working for a company or working for someone else. We could start our own business, you know, you've done that as well.

Pat Gehant 59:47
Yeah. Well I think part of making a shift at any stage is is having is is having a well balanced life where you have a family life a social Life, a work life and a spiritual life, whatever that means to you spiritual, you have to have one. And if you are, if work is, is the focus of what you're doing, you have an imbalance and you're not seeing and feeling the opportunities that are coming your way. You're just stressed and working that way. I think when my daughter said, so you only got to spend three, less than three and a half hours a day with me. That was a moment where I had to balance my life. And put I put it in balance there. Because work was the focus at that point. And I realized, no, I got a four year old that is the sweetest thing in the world. And I'm going to spend my time with her. And so that decision was a no brainer. And I regretted it not one second. And, and the decision to shift to retirement was also not a it was a no brainer in that once I balanced myself and thought through what is how do I balance? When people tell you I sent him a Dear John letter and refers to me divorcing him, because, you know, I work very closely with the community. But I said, I have to do it. As much as I love working there and doing it, I have to do this. And and while I'm comfortable making the shift, it is scary. But I think I have balanced my life once again. And we'll move forward. So look for my book on the Northern Light.

Angela McCourt 1:01:40
Yes, it's so beautiful, maybe even a documentary. Like I can totally picture that. Totally picture that. That's awesome. I love it that it's been amazing. Thank you so much for all of your shares. If there was one kind of like billboard message that you would love to leave the audience with? What would that be?

Pat Gehant 1:02:02
Um, I think the billboard message would be to reclaim your sovereignty over your career with knowledge of who you are, what you want to do, and, and look creatively at what your opportunities are. And leave failure at the door. I mean, that's a whole other topic of dealing with failure, but, but leave it at the door. And there was when I was in college, on my freshman year, I was moving in and there was a young man who, um, there was a young man who was helping us move in and my dad said, so you go to college, here he goes, No, I graduated in June and I gotta get another job. But I got to get a job. But I, you know, he says, I don't know what to do. He said, You know, my whole life has been every four years I haven't, you know, a new landmark. I graduated from eighth grade, I graduated from high school, I graduated college, because now I gotta wait until I retire I he said, I don't know what to do. Well, you know what he needed to reclaim His sovereignty over his career, he needed to take control. And that's not what he was able to do. Because, you know, he didn't have to do it. And I think that's what Angie and I did with the exploratory lab boot camp that we worked on. And he gave sovereignty back to the, to the student to say, yeah, you have control and a number of the students I have heard back from, and we'll have to talk another time, but some of the great things that they have done so.

Angela McCourt 1:03:40
And yeah, it's been it's been impressive. I'm in touch with a lot of them as well. It's been really amazing to see, I wish that I had that kind of guidance. I was graduating from college or in college, you know, so can we, you know what, though,

Pat Gehant 1:03:56
in the end, it is regardless of what guidance you have, yeah. If you if you just believe in yourself, and and, and have the confidence enough. And here's what I'll leave you with, too. I think everybody should read the book, creative confidence by David Kelly. It's called unleashing the creative potential within us. Read that book. It's a you know, it's a quick read. Yeah, read that book. Read it three times if you have to. But that's the book that will give you the power to control your career and allow you to see what shifts you can make in your life to give you this Passion Driven career.

Angela McCourt 1:04:43
Yeah, it's so true. Do you have any other call outs since we're on that path any other books or organizations or products or anything that you would like to share with the listeners?

Pat Gehant 1:04:54
So I do have another couple of books that So I'm big on reading memoirs, and their stories of people who have really how they've done things, how they've shifted how they've made shifts. And one of the most interesting books that you never read about it in history, it's called a woman of no importance, the untold story of the American spy. This is an American woman who went over in World War Two, and was a spy for Britain. And it and she ended up she, she had an amputated leg. And the story of her escaping the Nazis and she was the number one target of the Nazis. During the French she was in the French Resistance. It is a story of endurance. It's a story that no matter what you're going through, you will understand this is a real story. Oh, this is somebody who really did it. And and the I would also say, the other story is opened by Andre Agassi.

Angela McCourt 1:06:04
Oh, okay. It I have not read that,

Pat Gehant 1:06:07
that that story. Again. He's you see him in the public world. This story shows you the, the, the, the traumatic life he led, what he over has overcome, and why the school in California that he and Steffi Graf support is so meaningful, and it's real. These are real people coming? Oh, coming through real things. I mean, we won't go through half of what these people went through. But no, I have friends, I have friends who I have a friend who walked in 1956 walked out of Hungary to avoid being go into reeducation camps by the communists with a six year old son in, in, in snow up to her shoulders, and other ones that swam the Danube to get rid of to get away from the Nazis in World War Two. And in Germany, I have friends who, who have done this and you hear their stories and Vietnamese who have you know, both people who are over here and you would never know this about their background, because they have overcome such amazing obstacles that we hear in this country. I mean, you know, half of the things that we go through, you know, these people don't talk about it, because they just did it. They just think Yeah, but I did. These stories tell you about people on how they did it and it's and it's just they're both inspirational on on on different things. So that's what I owe. And if you want good pizza, I will I will do a shout out to tournament to pizza, which is located at the Racquet Club of St. P. And they have a pizza diet. He apparently isn't world. No national nationally for his pizza diet. And he has breakfast pizza, lunch, pizza, and dinner pizza. Oh, wow. Very good. And he has top shelf liquor in his bar so I can get a sampler which is my other guilty pleasure. And some of the best Greek pizza I've ever tasted. It is delight. Wow.

Angela McCourt 1:08:20
Yeah. And that's probably a hidden gem because it's inside of the racket. Right? So yeah, look up

Pat Gehant 1:08:26
the racket class. It's right at the entrance to Placido bayou and it's open to the public and just, it's it's a good place to go. So that's my my product.

Angela McCourt 1:08:37
Love it. Love it. Pat, thank you so much for joining us. I just admire you so much. I love your energy. And yeah, I really, really feel like the listeners are going to gain a lot from what you shared with us today. So thank you so much. Appreciate it.

Pat Gehant 1:08:54
Well, thank you too, and you are part of my inspiration. So part of my career shifts and success so I thank you for having me

Angela McCourt 1:09:05
know