Curating Career Life Stories: How Did I Get Here? Ep. 147 with TJ Hovel

Join me for the career reflections of TJ Hovel, sales executive, and coach. At the young age of 8 TJ knew he wanted to be a coach in a small town, just like his dad, who coached TJ in high school. Even though school wasn’t his thing, he earns a business degree and starts his own trucking business. After running it for 8 years, the 100-hour work-weeks leave little room for coaching, or anything else. He makes an aggressive life change -- sells his business, house, and car; gets divorced; and then couch surfs for a year while earning an associate degree in physical therapy. For about 3-4 years TJ loves being a PT. However, he can’t shake the call to coach and starts seeing a limiting future as a PT. After talking to a friend about what he really wants to do, the friend connects him to a coaching gig – 8th grade basketball! It’s a great start, where he makes valuable connections. Another friend connects him to a technology owner who is so impressed by “who” he is (values, work ethic, ability to transfer skills, etc.) that she makes an offer after 48 hours of meeting him.   Today, he's livin’ the dream! Doing work he loves that’s flexible for his lifestyle as a dad, strongman competitor, physical fitness trainer and coach of an elite high school basketball program! What’s served TJ best, two things: 1) “Hard work and discipline. Growing up on a farm I understand how the world works, how you have to put in a whole lot of hard work before results are seen.” 2) “If you know what your path looks like and you want something different, you have to do things differently or you will get the same results you’ve always gotten.” His words of wisdom: “If you can really understand yourself -- understand what drives you both good and bad – and understand what you ACTUALLY want -- not what you THINK it is you want -- but what you ACTUALLY want to do with your life, then you can make the decision and start taking steps to move forward.”