John Neral, MA, CPC reawakens, energizes, galvanizes, and innovates the mind think of employees, corporations, associations, and systems. A celebrated executive/career and professional development coach and in-demand, mindset-shifting public speaker, John’s professional walk included a 25-year career in education and a longstanding corporate consultant for Fortune 500 giant, Casio America, Inc. He now leads John Neral Coaching, LLC, one of the most progressive, mindset-shifting professional and organizational coaching and public speaking firms in the U.S. He is the author of Your Mid-Career GPS – Four Steps to Figuring Out What’s Next and SHOW UP – Six Strategies to Lead a More Energetic and Impactful Career and the host of “The Mid-Career GPS Podcast.”
As a Master Practitioner in the Energy Leadership Index, John’s experience has made him an impactful and valuable coach to his one-on-one and group coaching clients and organizations. With Energy Leadership™, John identifies where people perform at their optimal levels and when they are under stress. Combining the Energy Leadership™ principles, a client’s workplace strengths, and their “unique professional value,” John helps his clients create their career GPS so they can take action toward achieving their professional and personal goals.
A former church organ prodigy, John is an avid traveler–having sojourned to 5 of the 7 continents, a professional bowler and the winner of a Professional Bowlers’ Association Regional Title (2010), and a game-show fan, having appeared on previous episodes of GSN’s Chain Reaction and Make My Day. John is happily married and lives with his spouse and their rescue cat, Amy Farrah Meowler (named after the Big Bang Theory character), in the heart of Washington DC’s Dulles Technology Corridor, Tysons Corner, VA.
You can visit his website at https://johnneral.com or follow him at Twitter, Facebook and Goodreads.
Can you tell us what your book is about?
Your Mid-Career GPS – Four Steps to Figuring Out What’s Next helps mid-career professionals navigate their next career transition so they can create their next advancement opportunity. John Neral guides the reader through four key steps to
address their attitudes, reasons, and motivation for changing positions, along with valuable tips about your resume and LinkedIn, as well as your networking and interviewing skills. Plus, you’ll explore what it means to you to SHOW UP from a place of value and service as you strategically communicate why now is the right time to advance your career.
Why did you write your book?
It’s often been some time since a mid-career professional has applied for and interviewed for a new position. Things have changed since they last interviewed, and the job landscape, mainly because of the pandemic, has made people re-evaluate their overall work-life balance. The process can be overwhelming. Your Mid-Career GPS provides four tactical steps to help the reader navigate to whatever is next for their lives and careers. I wanted to give them a resource that would help get them started and follow them through their career transition to create their next advancement opportunity.
What kind of message is your book trying to tell your readers?
We all have an internal GPS that guides us and helps us make decisions. The more informed and aware we are, the better our GPS leads us as we make decisions we believe to be best. Your Mid-Career GPS is an informative resource to help you make better decisions. There’s a lot of information out there, and this book helps narrow down the information into one valuable resource.
Who influenced you to write your book?
My clients influenced me to write this book. As an executive and career transition coach, my client’s biggest fear is being stuck and not navigating to a new position that aligns with their skills and expertise. They fear being stuck, and thus, never able to make a move. They don’t want to feel regret in their careers. So, writing this book was my opportunity to serve them and share my knowledge to help them improve their overall job satisfaction and recognize they can create their next advancement opportunity.
Is it hard to publish a nonfiction book?
I don’t believe it is hard to publish a non-fiction book. However, it isn’t easy to write one. There were many times I felt challenged to get this book over the finish line to my publisher because I wanted to make sure the book was “more than good enough.”
Which author(s) do you admire?
Simon
Sinek
Brene
Brown
(I tend to read a lot of autobiographies and biographies because I love authors who tell a great story.)
Have you suffered from writer’s block and what do you do to get back on track?
Yes. I scrapped the first version of this book because I didn’t like the direction it was taking. I trashed the first two chapters and their outline and started again. This time, I focused on what would be the most help to my clients who were navigating a career transition. From there, I generated a completely different outline, giving me a more precise direction I wanted this book to take. Once I had that new outline, my writing accelerated.
What would you do with an extra hour today if you could do anything you wanted?
I don’t get a lot of time to catch up on television shows I enjoy. I would take that hour, plop myself on the couch, and get caught up on some television show I like to watch.
Which holiday is your favorite and why?
I LOVE Christmas. I love the entire season and usually set up our Christmas trees (Yes, we have more than one) about a couple of weeks before Thanksgiving. I love watching movies, hosting parties, shopping, and seeing family and friends during this joyous season.
If we were to meet for lunch to talk books, where would we go?
We would go for Vietnamese food and have Pho. There’s something magical about a big bowl of Pho because you can’t eat it quickly. It takes some time, and when a meal isn’t rushed, great conversations happen.
What do you like to do for fun?
I love to travel. I’m blessed to have visited five of the seven continents and still have a few “bucket list” places on my list I’d like to see, such as Alaska, Hawaii, Australia, and the Maldives.
Can you tell us about your family?
My husband and I have been married for five years and together for 13. We have a rescue cat named Amy Farrah Meowler, after the character from The Big Bang Theory. We both come from small families, and our biological family is small, given all of our parents are deceased and have been for over ten years.
We truly cherish our “Family of Choice.” These are our friends who are genuinely like family to us. We travel with them and spend holidays with them.
What do you like the most about being an author?
When you publish a book, it because part of your legacy. Being an author is a chance to add value to the conversation and serve your audience. My heart is deeply warmed when someone shares what they liked about my book or how it got them to think about the topic a bit differently. If they learn something and it helps them, it’s a beautiful feeling.
What kind of advice would you give other non-fiction authors?
Your
book will help someone. Take the time to create an ideal reader or avatar that comprehensively
depicts who will read your book. Give them a name. Find a picture that
represents who that ideal reader is. Then, when you sit down to write your
book, write to them. Write as if you are writing to just one person and serve
them fully by putting the words together to help them with whatever you write.
It will help with your writing process.
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