Job Search, Promotion, and Career Clarity: The Mid-Career GPS Podcast · John Neral

333: Give Yourself Permission To Have the Career You Want with Mitch Matthews

January 27, 2026·33 min·2 clips

Mitch says leaders should answer, 'I don't know, but let's figure it out together.'

Momentum can fade before the month is over. The conversation begins with that familiar slide, when fresh goals start losing ground to the same habits that keep work feeling stuck. John Nerrell gives the listener room to breathe. Career growth is not treated like a sprint, and Mitch Matthews brings the idea of permission down to something usable. Permission means letting yourself learn, dream, think, be challenged, and fail while asking what might change if you stopped holding yourself back. Mitch keeps it small on purpose. Fifteen minutes a day, five days a week, adds up to sixty hours across a year, more than a full work week for many people. That is the part that makes the advice land. Those minutes can go toward intentional listening, a useful podcast, coffee with someone who gives you energy, or time with a mentor, whether real or virtual. The goal is not a dramatic reinvention. It is steady experimentation that gives a capable person space to notice what still has life in it. Sean Askinos gives the episode its clearest example. Mitch describes him as a wildly successful trial attorney whose work still looked strong, even as his deeper fire was fading. He did not begin with a big declaration. He gave himself permission to try night classes and cooking classes outside his usual professional identity, and that path eventually led him toward chocolate. The detail works because it feels reachable. Again and again, the episode pulls the listener away from stuckness and back toward one concrete move. Near the end, John names simple options. Talk with a spouse, loved one, work bestie, or trusted colleague about how happy you are and what you want to do differently at work. Speak up in a room where you usually stay quiet. Career clarity has to be named before the Mid-Career GPS can point anywhere useful, one mile or one step at a time.

As heard by us

Permission, not perfection, is the message here.

The episode treats career uncertainty as a matter of permission: permission to learn, dream, think, be challenged, and fail. Mitch Matthews and John Nerrell keep the focus on mid career professionals who feel stuck, undervalued, or unsure what comes next, and the advice stays…

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Why you'd press play

You need a reset that makes career clarity feel doable again.

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