Many people have changed or lost jobs during the COVID-19 pandemic, making it awkward when people ask, “what are you doing now?”

Online business expert Jenay Rose joined Annette Hamm on Morning Live with a simple formula to follow when answering that question.

Whether you are starting your own business or taking the next step in your corporate career, Rose said to explain it to people using this statement: “I help this person to get this result.”

For example, if you have experience working in human resources but now you are a consultant who helps people find jobs, you might say “I help people improve their resume to find higher-paying careers that they love.”

“You want to practice making this concise and tangible so that anyone can understand,” Rose said.

If you use this formula to explain the work you are currently doing but family and friends do not seem supportive, Rose said to remember it’s because they may be afraid of the unknown.

She pointed to a theory called the crab-bucket effect, which helps to explain human behaviour. Put simply, if there are multiple crabs in a bucket and one crab attempts to climb out, the others will try to pull it back in.

“Your friends and family might do the same thing,” she said after referencing the analogy.

Rose said she also experienced a lack of support at first when she transitioned from a yoga teacher to an online business mentor.

“It took my friends and family three years and over a million dollars in revenue to understand what it is that I do and that I can make a living from it,” she said.

She is now a self-made millionaire who helps people build profitable online businesses through coaching and courses.

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