[{"content":"","date":"4 August 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/","section":"James Fricker","summary":"","title":"James Fricker","type":"page"},{"content":"","date":"4 August 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/","section":"Writing","summary":"","title":"Writing","type":"posts"},{"content":"A ring buffer aka circular buffer that holds some kind of data (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circular_buffer).\nThe requirements are that the buffer has some fixed size, and we have at least one consumer of events and one producer of events.\nThe consumer reads events if they exist in the buffer, and the producer will continue to produce events unless the buffer is full.\nIn this task, we seek to implement such a buffer in rust. We extend this to the multi-threaded version to deepen our understanding of rust and threading concepts in general.\nYou can see my complete implementation in this gist.\nRing Buffer # First, let\u0026rsquo;s implement the actual structure for our ring buffer.\nStruct # #[derive(Clone)] struct Job { job_id: u32, } struct RingBuffer { buffer: Vec\u0026lt;Job\u0026gt;, capacity: u32, size: u32, // always \u0026lt;= capacity write_index: u32, read_index: u32, } Here we have a buffer that we use to store objects, this is just a vector. We have a capacity which is effectively the max size. A size attribute to track the current size. We also need a read and write index to know where we are up to with current reads and writes.\nImplementation # ​ impl RingBuffer { fn new(capacity: u32) -\u0026gt; RingBuffer { let buffer = vec![Job { job_id: 0 }; capacity as usize]; // Initialize with capacity RingBuffer { buffer, capacity, size: 0, write_index: 0, read_index: 0, } } ​ fn add(\u0026amp;mut self, job: Job) -\u0026gt; bool { if self.size \u0026gt;= self.capacity { return false; } self.buffer[self.write_index as usize] = job; self.write_index = (self.write_index + 1) % self.capacity; self.size += 1; true } ​ fn read(\u0026amp;mut self) -\u0026gt; Option\u0026lt;\u0026amp;Job\u0026gt; { if self.size == 0 { return None; } let job = \u0026amp;self.buffer[self.read_index as usize]; self.read_index = (self.read_index + 1) % self.capacity; self.size -= 1; Some(job) } } In new, we need to simply create an empty buffer. In this case we create one with an empty first item.\nFor add, we need to check that there is room in the buffer. If there is, we add the item and increment the write index.\nFor read, it\u0026rsquo;s basically the same. If there is an item to read, then we read it and increment the read index, decrement the size.\nProcessing # Single Threaded # Next we move to our main function, where we can show the single threaded version.\nprintln!(\u0026quot;Single Threaded version!\u0026quot;); ​ let mut jq = RingBuffer::new(8); ​ // this is the single-threaded version for i in 0..5 { let j = Job { job_id: i }; if jq.add(j) { println!(\u0026quot;Added job with id: {i}\u0026quot;); } } ​ // read all the jobs from the queue while let Some(job) = jq.read() { println!(\u0026quot;Read job with id: {}\u0026quot;, job.job_id); } This is relatively straightforward. Write some items to the buffer and read them. Looks good to me.\nSingle Threaded version! Added job with id: 0 Added job with id: 1 Added job with id: 2 Added job with id: 3 Added job with id: 4 Read job with id: 0 Read job with id: 1 Read job with id: 2 Read job with id: 3 Read job with id: 4 Multi-Threaded # This is where things get a bit more complicated. How do we do multiple threads in rust?\nWe need a few things for this.\nFirst, we create a shared struct.\nstruct Shared { buf: Mutex\u0026lt;RingBuffer\u0026gt;, // protects the data not_full: Condvar, not_empty: Condvar, } Here we have our RingBuffer from before, but this time it\u0026rsquo;s wrapped in a Mutex. ThisMutex is used to ensure only a single thread can perform operations on the RingBuffer at a time.\nWe also introduce, not_full and not_empty. These are Condvar\u0026rsquo;s. A Condvar is a variable that represents the ability to block a thread. For example we can wait until not_full is true to continue writing items, or wait until not_empty is true to continue reading items.\nIn Python you have threading.Condition, C/C++ has pthread_cond_t and Go has sync.Cond.\nNow, we can create our shared object.\nprintln!(\u0026quot;Multithreaded version!\u0026quot;); ​ let number_of_jobs = 20; let num_producers = 2; let num_consumers = 2; // run the multi-threaded version ​ let shared = Arc::new(Shared { buf: Mutex::new(RingBuffer::new(5)), not_full: Condvar::new(), not_empty: Condvar::new(), }); It\u0026rsquo;s important that we wrap our shared object in an Arc (Atomically Reference Counted). This property enables us to share this object with multiple threads. In our case, we have a read and write index attributes. Using the Arc, we can share this object among our multiple threads.\nProducer # let mut producer_handles = Vec::new(); for prod_id in 0..num_producers { let producer_buf: Arc\u0026lt;Shared\u0026gt; = Arc::clone(\u0026amp;shared); let prod_handle = std::thread::spawn(move || { for i in 0..number_of_jobs { // create the job with desired number let job_id = number_of_jobs * prod_id + i; let j = Job { job_id }; // get the mutex let mut guard = producer_buf.buf.lock().unwrap(); // while full, wait while guard.size == guard.capacity { guard = producer_buf.not_full.wait(guard).unwrap(); } // now not full, so add guard.add(j); println!(\u0026quot;Added job with id: {} by producer {}\u0026quot;, job_id, prod_id); // notify that the queue is not empty anymore producer_buf.not_empty.notify_all(); } }); producer_handles.push(prod_handle); } Now to create our producers.\nWe first grab our version of the shared object. Then we create a unique job, wait until we have capacity to add, and then we add our item. Finally we also notify other threads that the queue is no longer empty.\nConsumer # let mut consumer_handles = Vec::new(); ​ for cons_id in 0..num_consumers { let consumer_buf = Arc::clone(\u0026amp;shared); let consumer_handle = std::thread::spawn(move || { let mut jobs_read = 0; while jobs_read \u0026lt; number_of_jobs { let mut guard = consumer_buf.buf.lock().unwrap(); // wait for things to not be empty anymore while guard.size == 0 { guard = consumer_buf.not_empty.wait(guard).unwrap(); } // not empty let job = guard.read(); consumer_buf.not_full.notify_all(); println!( \u0026quot;Read job with id: {} by consumer {}\u0026quot;, job.unwrap().job_id, cons_id ); jobs_read += 1; } }); consumer_handles.push(consumer_handle) } Our consumer also grabs the shared object, waits until we have items to read and then reads them. Once done it notifies that the buffer is no longer full.\nThreading # Finally, we join these handlers up together, and we have a multithreaded version working.\n// Join all consumers first for handle in consumer_handles { handle.join().unwrap(); } // Join all producers for handle in producer_handles { handle.join().unwrap(); } We can see that things look like they are working in the output:\nRead job with id: 11 by consumer 0 Read job with id: 12 by consumer 0 Read job with id: 13 by consumer 0 Read job with id: 20 by consumer 1 Added job with id: 21 by producer 1 Added job with id: 22 by producer 1 Read job with id: 21 by consumer 0 Read job with id: 22 by consumer 0 Added job with id: 14 by producer 0 Added job with id: 15 by producer 0 Added job with id: 16 by producer 0 Read job with id: 14 by consumer 0 Read job with id: 15 by consumer 0 Added job with id: 17 by producer 0 Added job with id: 18 by producer 0 Added job with id: 19 by producer 0 Read job with id: 16 by consumer 1 Read job with id: 17 by consumer 1 Conclusion and Extensions # So there you go, a multi-threaded ring buffer in rust.\nSome extensions that could be added\nring buffer supports a generic type\ncreate some benchmarks to inspect performance\nplay with external libraries like Tokio or crossbeam-queue.\nimprove performance by removing using of locks in a lock-free queue. Some discussion on potential data structures\n","date":"4 August 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/writing-a-ring-buffer-in-rust/","section":"Writing","summary":"A ring buffer aka circular buffer that holds some kind of data (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circular_buffer).\nThe requirements are that the buffer has some fixed size, and we have at least one consumer of events and one producer of events.\n","title":"Writing a Ring Buffer in Rust","type":"posts"},{"content":"BACK with some tech news and tech info.\nThis week is special! Thanks to Suno.ai, we have an official welcome song for this newsletter. (Recommend playing around, it’s free)\nListen Here\nWelcome to the newsletter. 🎉\nContent this week\nWrite Ahead Logs 🤖\nRye, Serverless/Diskless Kafka, Cloudflare Python Workers, and more!\nTheory # Write Ahead Logs # A write-ahead log is used in a database for distaster recovery purposes. The WAL is an append only log, that is written to before the database transaction actually starts.\nIf the database goes down during a transaction, the transaction can be redone by looking at the WAL if it is not already reflected in the database.\nThe WAL grows with each transaction, so it does need to be flushed after a certain amount of time. The flushing of the WAL is known as a checkpoint.\nIn summary, the WAL is used to increase the durability of a database.\nBigger, very complex discussion is found in Architecture of a Database System.\nNews # Rye # If you write Python, this might be interesting to you. Arguably the best Python linter at the moment is Ruff, the same team (Astral Labs) has also recently announced UV, which is a Python package manager. (Charlie Marsh, the guy behind Astral was recently on ‘Talk Python To Me’ to discuss uv).\nAlso recently, the team took over the Rye project. Rye was created by Armin Ronacher who is also the creator of the very popular Flask framework.\nThis set of tools (ruff/uv/rye) is set to come together to produce a much better Python development experience.\nAlthough I haven’t used much Rust, the folks behind these tools seek to create a similar experience that cargo is to Rust, for Python. Which I am here for!\nInstalling Python tools at the moment is very slow, there are many tools for linting, and Python versions are managed badly. Hoping to see these projects go big 🤞\nCloudflare Python Workers # Link\nPreviously, to run Python in edge compute, you’d need to compile it to Web-Assembly. This would also package a Python runtime like CPython. With these Python Workers, you can run Python directly in the browser, no wasm compilation step is needed. Each python worker can share the same CPython runtime. Sounds awesome!\nTwitter thread discussing this by the Tech Lead of the team that built it.\nReplit Code Repair and Replit for Teams # https://blog.replit.com/code-repair\nhttps://blog.replit.com/teams-beta\nThis thing just keeps getting better and better. These folks have some pretty insane features shipping.\nCode repair just fixes your code for you as you go 🤯. The demo is wild.\nReplit for teams looks insane too, it’s like going from Word to Google Docs. Would be very keen to give these things a go. I wonder if replit uses replit to develop their apps 🤔\nServerless Kafka With No Local Disks # Link\nGOAT’ed engineer Richie Artoul talks about his product Warpstream, and how they do exactly what it says on the label.\nHuggingFace Backdoor # Link\nSome folks uploaded a backdoored model to HuggingFace and managed to get root access to the entire HuggingFace K8’s cluster on AWS. An interesting read!\nUntil next time,\nJames\n","date":"6 April 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/walle/","section":"Writing","summary":"BACK with some tech news and tech info.\nThis week is special! Thanks to Suno.ai, we have an official welcome song for this newsletter. (Recommend playing around, it’s free)\nListen Here\nWelcome to the newsletter. 🎉\nContent this week\n","title":"🤖 WAL(LE)","type":"posts"},{"content":"Gm friends! It’s been a while 👀\nAfter some social pressure and a spurt of motivation - we are back!\nWelcome to the newsletter. 🎉\nSkip Lists 🧐 # The current Bradfield CSI module is ‘Data Structures for Storage and Retrieval’. In this module, we are looking at key/value databases, and the data structures used within them. Broadly, we want to have two main functions, Get and Put.\nWe started by asking how you would structure a basic in-memory database.\nThere are many ways you could do this, but one solution is to store the key/value pairs in a sorted linked list. There are a few issues with this.\nThe main one: it’s kinda slow.\nTo find a key, we need to traverse half of the entire elements on average. Same when we ‘put’ a new key into the sorted list.\nSo, to solve this slowness, we use what is known as a Skip List. (Original Skip List Paper).\nA skip list is essentially a multi-level linked list. Each element exists on the lowest level, less on the second level, even less on the third and so on.\nWhen we want to do a Get or a Put, we first search through the highest level. If we can’t find the key we need, we drop down a level and continue our search there. This then progresses until we find our desired key.\nBy using the multiple levels, we can traverse through the sorted list more quickly.\nConsider if we have 8 elements. We may have 8 on the lowest level L1, 4 on L2, and 2 on L3. Then, when searching for a key, we can start on L3 and effectively skip half of the list when searching.\nHow does this work when we keep adding keys? Do we need to keep rebalancing the list? It turns out, no we don’t.\nThe level that a key goes up to is decided by probability. Essentially a coin flip takes place, and if we flip heads, the key gets added to the above level. Four heads in a row means the key is on every level until level four!\nIn this way, the list is essentially self-balancing. Pretty interesting stuff.\nThis data structure is used in Redis, LevelDB and probably some other databases.\nWikipedia, in case you are curious.\nIn case I didn’t explain it well, here is an interactive visualisation.\nMojo 🔥 # An exciting programming language! This week the team open-sourced the standard library. It’s a step in the right direction, but many of us are still waiting for the holy grail - the compiler.\nMojo was on Hacker News this week.\nMojo is a programming language that is meant to be a superset of Python. It promises the easy syntax of Python with the speed of Rust.\nRecently the team presented the high-level details. I found this presentation quite interesting.\nOther Stuff I Liked This Week # The What, Why and How of Containers\nSBF went to Jail\nSocceroos beat Lebanon 5-0\nCybersecurity, Beginner To Expert Course (Free)\nExplain an entire industry with one book (some great picks here)\nABC says the income needed in Sydney to buy an average house is $290k\nSomeone messed with the Linux kernel and created a backdoor (big story!)\nI’m not very familiar with the details here, but this sounds like an interesting thing to read about Happy Easter! 🐣\nJames\n","date":"31 March 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/skipping-into-easter/","section":"Writing","summary":"Gm friends! It’s been a while 👀\nAfter some social pressure and a spurt of motivation - we are back!\nWelcome to the newsletter. 🎉\nSkip Lists 🧐 # The current Bradfield CSI module is ‘Data Structures for Storage and Retrieval’. In this module, we are looking at key/value databases, and the data structures used within them. Broadly, we want to have two main functions, Get and Put.\n","title":"⏭️ Skipping into Easter","type":"posts"},{"content":" Contents # Contents OLTP OLAP What is the difference between an OLTP and an OLAP database?\nOLTP # OLTP stands for \u0026ldquo;Online Transation Processing\u0026rdquo;.\nExamples\nPostgreSQL Google Cloud Spanner MariaDB MySQL OLAP # OLAP is \u0026ldquo;Online Analytical Processing\u0026rdquo;.\nExamples of OLAP databases\nApache Druid DuckDB Clickhouse ","date":"19 March 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/other/bradfieldcsi/databases/olap_v_oltp/","section":"Others","summary":"Contents # Contents OLTP OLAP What is the difference between an OLTP and an OLAP database?\nOLTP # OLTP stands for “Online Transation Processing”.\n","title":"OLTP v OLAP","type":"other"},{"content":"","date":"19 March 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/other/","section":"Others","summary":"","title":"Others","type":"other"},{"content":"It\u0026rsquo;s finally time.\nThe end of the year is a time to review the past and set a new vision for the future.\nPrevious Reviews\n2022 Review Mitch, Grandma, Me, Dad and Grandpa at Easter 2023 # A year of changes and hard work this year! I put lots of effort into my work this year, in which I learnt heaps. I also moved in with my partner, which has been great so far!\nGreat Things That Happened This Year # SSBA Completion Starting Bradfield CSI Google Cloud Architect Certification 100km Round The Bay (Bike Ride) ANZAC Day Service Concerts and Events: Robbie Williams, Paul McCartney, The Imperfects, Mamma Mia, Left North Left, Footy, Soccer, Swimming + more Toastmasters Experiences Queensland Trip Australian Open ANZAC Morning Service in Melbourne 2023 Goal Review # Now that the year is done, how did I do? Here are some of the goals I set at the start of 2023.\nReview: Top Goals for 2023\nGoal Status Become a Senior Software Engineer (or get pretty close) ❌ Run a half marathon ❌ Become President of SYTM ✅ Take More Photos ❌ Make more predictions ❌ Share More ❌ Speak at an event ✅ Turns out that I failed most of the things that I set for myself! On the one hand, it\u0026rsquo;s disappointing, but on the other, it\u0026rsquo;s somewhat expected. At this time of year, we typically make goals in our \u0026lsquo;best\u0026rsquo; state of mind, and we quickly fall out of this over the next few days.\nDespite this, I did achieve many things that I didn\u0026rsquo;t originally have on my list of goals.\nFor example, I didn\u0026rsquo;t run a half-marathon, but I did do the 100k round the bay bike race! I\u0026rsquo;d say this is a success.\nI didn\u0026rsquo;t take more photos or make more predictions. I\u0026rsquo;d like to do this more this year. One thing I am absolutely committed to is a weekly newsletter. I want to collect the things I\u0026rsquo;ve read, reflect on them, create space to think, and write. It doesn\u0026rsquo;t even have to be good! It can be short, long, whatever, but I think just doing it every week and sharing it will do a lot of things for me.\nThe Start of the 100k Round the Bay Lessons Learned From This Year # This year I learned:\n2024 # Top Goals for 2023\nWeekly Newsletter ","date":"31 December 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2023-review/","section":"Writing","summary":"It’s finally time.\nThe end of the year is a time to review the past and set a new vision for the future.\nPrevious Reviews\n2022 Review Mitch, Grandma, Me, Dad and Grandpa at Easter 2023 # A year of changes and hard work this year! I put lots of effort into my work this year, in which I learnt heaps. I also moved in with my partner, which has been great so far!\n","title":"2023 Review - 2024 Resolutions","type":"posts"},{"content":"The Internet is a fascinating and complex system. This article investigates one part of the internet through the program known as traceroute. After this article, you will know,\nWhat traceroute does What the IP protocol does What an autonomous system is What the BGC protocol does What is Traceroute # Traceroute is a simple program. To start run something like traceroute google.com in your shell.\nYour output will look something like this:\n❯ traceroute google.com traceroute to google.com (142.250.70.142), 64 hops max, 52 byte packets 1 10.5.0.1 (10.5.0.1) 3.216 ms 2.296 ms 2.283 ms 2 loop2021532200.bng.vic.aussiebb.net (202.153.220.1) 7.951 ms 7.202 ms 8.926 ms 3 10.241.5.114 (10.241.5.114) 6.562 ms 6.953 ms 5.793 ms 4 10.241.4.77 (10.241.4.77) 6.348 ms * 7.327 ms 5 142.250.165.14 (142.250.165.14) 6.821 ms 8.155 ms 7.637 ms 6 * * * 7 216.239.56.48 (216.239.56.48) 8.822 ms mel04s01-in-f14.1e100.net (142.250.70.142) 5.807 ms 172.253.53.97 (172.253.53.97) 8.352 ms What is happening here?\nSimply, traceroute is tracing the route of a packet from your local machine to the destination. In this case, google.com.\nWhat is IP? # IP stands for the Internet Protocol. There are two common versions of this protocol, v4 and v6.\nYou may have seen an IPv4 address before, it looks something like what we have above: 142.250.165.14. An IPv4 address consists of 4, dot-separated 8-bit integers. That means there are around ~4 Billion IPv4 addresses. There aren\u0026rsquo;t many, especially when we consider all devices on the internet.\nThis lack of space, and other reasons, led to IPv6. An IPv6 address looks like this: 2345:0425:2CA1:0000:0000:0567:5673:23b5. In IPv6, there are 8 groups of 4 sets of 4-bit, base 16 integers. This gives us about 340 trillion addresses. Should be enough for quite some time!\nHow do packets travel? # What is BGP? # ","date":"8 December 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/other/bradfieldcsi/computer_networks/traceroute/","section":"Others","summary":"The Internet is a fascinating and complex system. This article investigates one part of the internet through the program known as traceroute. After this article, you will know,\nWhat traceroute does What the IP protocol does What an autonomous system is What the BGC protocol does What is Traceroute # Traceroute is a simple program. To start run something like traceroute google.com in your shell.\n","title":"Tracing Traceroute: What I learnt about the Internet","type":"other"},{"content":"I hope you are well! This week we dive into Compilers.\nSystems Programming and Compilers # The mountain of compilation, from Crafting Interpreters.\nWe start on the bottom left and end on a different node at the bottom of the mountain.\nCompiling C for example, results in Machine Code, while Python results in Bytecode.\nOn the way we do:\nScanning, to convert our code into tokens.\nParsing, to convert our tokens into an Abstract Syntax Tree.\nAfter some optimisation of the tree, we convert the AST to either, another language, bytecode or directly to machine code.\nGo Compiler is written in Go? # I was very surprised when I first heard this. How can one language’s compiler be written in the same language?\nIt turns out, this is the case not just for Golang, but also for Java and others.\nThe secret lies in the first implementation of the compiler.\nWhen the language is first created, the compiler is written in an existing language, eg C. This can be used to compile the new language. Then, a compiler is written in the new language, and compiled with the C compiler.\nNow we have a working compiler written in the same language!\nThe next version of the compiler is compiled using the previous version, and so on.\nInteresting stack overflow post discussing this here.\nGo moved from a C compiler to a Go compiler in 2013. Some interesting readings on why they did this here.\nJust In Time (JIT) Compilation # A blog post from Mozilla on how JIT works. Our code starts executing, we run some kind of profiler to work out where we are spending the most time, then we compile those parts directly to machine code.\nAn interesting discussion here on why you might choose to not use JIT.\nOxide Computer # Oxide Compute was recently announced as generally available. Some big names in Computer Science are behind this initiative, will be very interesting to see where this goes.\nThe key idea for this company is that you should be able to buy cloud resources, not just rent them.\nI Love Go; I Hate Go # Interesting article about the pros and cons of Go. Personally, I enjoy Go and think it’s excellent!\nZero Allocation Protobuf Parsing in Go # Molecule is a Go library for parsing protobufs in an efficient and zero-allocation manner\nPretty interesting stuff! Looks like this makes sense when you need to unpack only a subset of fields from a large proto message.\nOn Trusting Trust # The 40th anniversary of the original paper, this is an interesting discussion on how to create a compiler to do nasty things to your code.\nAlso, this Numberphile video.\nEnd # That’s all for this week, expect to see learnings on systems programming and compilers next week!\n","date":"29 October 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/jittery/","section":"Writing","summary":"I hope you are well! This week we dive into Compilers.\nSystems Programming and Compilers # The mountain of compilation, from Crafting Interpreters.\nWe start on the bottom left and end on a different node at the bottom of the mountain.\n","title":"🏃‍♂️ Jittery!","type":"posts"},{"content":"After one week\u0026rsquo;s break, we are back again with another edition!\nLet’s dive in.\nSystems Programming and Compilers # After completing our networking mini-course, we start on Systems Programming and Compilers this Monday.\nSo far, I’ve learned about Abstract Syntax Trees, and how they are used to parse language.\nIn particular, I’m interested to learn more about Just-In-Time (JIT) compilation, and garbage collection.\nQuantization # This word has appeared more and more when it comes to LLMs and how to train these models efficiently. This lecture was shared with me recently, as a primer on how quantisation works.\nSeatle Data Guy # I’ve been following this guy for some time. He’s a data engineer from Seattle doing some pretty cool things. He’s hit multi-millions in revenue and runs his own consulting business.\nThis week, he released a newsletter about his journey.\nFrom Day One to 100: The Seattle Data Guy Journey in One Special Issue\nEnd # That’s all for this week, expect to see learnings on systems programming and compilers next week!\n","date":"21 October 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/the-return/","section":"Writing","summary":"After one week’s break, we are back again with another edition!\nLet’s dive in.\nSystems Programming and Compilers # After completing our networking mini-course, we start on Systems Programming and Compilers this Monday.\n","title":"🔙 The Return","type":"posts"},{"content":"I’ll be honest, it was a slow week this week.\nDespite this, I’ve read a few interesting things and shared them below.\nI hope you enjoy!\nWhat I Learned This Week # Why IPv6 Sucks # As the number of devices using the internet grows, society needs to migrate from IPv4 to IPv6. This article on IPv6 makes me chuckle, and I often share it with friends.\nNAT Traversal # A deep article on Network Address Translation, and how it works.\nPython 3.12 # Python 3.12 came out this week. I’m most excited about the improved f-string functionality and looking forward to improvements in linting.\nARP Chat # This one is pretty crazy. The author also wrote this article on ARP and how it works.\nHTTP/3 Adoption # A timely article and HN discussion on the merits of HTTP/3. It will be interesting to watch as HTTP/3 weaves its way into more use cases.\n🔚 # Thanks for reading,\nJames\n","date":"7 October 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/the-link-layer/","section":"Writing","summary":"I’ll be honest, it was a slow week this week.\nDespite this, I’ve read a few interesting things and shared them below.\nI hope you enjoy!\nWhat I Learned This Week # Why IPv6 Sucks # As the number of devices using the internet grows, society needs to migrate from IPv4 to IPv6. This article on IPv6 makes me chuckle, and I often share it with friends.\n","title":"🔗 The Link Layer","type":"posts"},{"content":"Week 40 of this year and into Q4, almost time for Mariah Carey to enter the radio waves.\nThis week, we seek to understand the difference between the Web and the Internet.\nWhat I Learned This Week # The Difference Between the Web and the Internet # What is the difference between the Web and the Internet?\nIs the web the same thing as the internet?\nIt turns out, the web is a subset of the internet.\nLoosely, the internet is the infrastructure that transfers packets between endpoints. HTTP is an application layer protocol that uses the lower layers of the internet, to provide content primarily to web browsers. HTTP is used for many things in addition to this primary use case. The web is powered by lower-level protocols and HTTP.\nIn contrast, the internet is more than just HTTP. There are other use cases for the internet and even other application layer protocols, like email (SMTP), peer-to-peer networks (torrents) and file transfers (FTP).\nReverse Proxies # A proxy server is a server that sits between your device and the internet. You might also have a company proxy where all of your organisation’s traffic is routed through that proxy. The proxy might do things like caching requests or blocking certain content.\nA reverse proxy is similar to this, but instead, it sits in front of your website’s server. Nginx is one example of a reverse proxy.\nAs of March 2022, Netcraft estimated that Nginx served 22.01% of the million busiest websites\nA reverse proxy will do many of the same things as a normal proxy like caching but also things like load balancing. Article on this from Cloudflare here.\nFixing the Web # Tim Berners-Lees is the original creator of HTTP, which many see as the incarnation of the Web. It’s not described in much detail during this interview, but the interviewees share some great points about the future of the web.\nCurrently, we have a problem where our personal data is quite siloed. We have data with Google, data with Facebook, and data with other companies. This data is all separate, and can’t be easily combined.\nImagine if you owned your data, and you chose to share that with a travel company, or when finding a place to eat. Your entire history could be seen, including previous travel, photos, reviews, friends etc. Perhaps this opens it’s own privacy concerns, but owning your blob of data gives you much more control over who you share that data with, and the quality of insights you can have by sharing it.\nTypescript Doco # Javascript was implemented in 10 days by Brendan Eich. Since then, people have realised that types are quite helpful. This is a documentary on the history of Typescript.\nHTTP2 Primer # Interesting (very) technical talk on HTTP2.\nIntroduction to Quic # Quic is a transport layer protocol, developed by Google, that powers applications using HTTP3. It’s not widely used yet, but I imagine we will see more of this in the coming years.\nPersonal # Completing the “Round The Bay” 100k bike ride next weekend (strava) 🔚 # Thanks for reading,\nJames\n","date":"1 October 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/the-web-and-the-internet/","section":"Writing","summary":"Week 40 of this year and into Q4, almost time for Mariah Carey to enter the radio waves.\nThis week, we seek to understand the difference between the Web and the Internet.\nWhat I Learned This Week # The Difference Between the Web and the Internet # What is the difference between the Web and the Internet?\n","title":"🕸️ The Web and The Internet","type":"posts"},{"content":"What is up friends and welcome to another edition.\nI missed last week because of life, but we are back on the train this week 🚂\nLet’s choo-choo right along to what I learned about over the last fortnight.\nThings I Liked and Learned This Week # Domain Name System # This week at CSI, we started our course on Computer Networking. I wrote a quick, short guide to DNS. We also wrote a small DNS client in Go. Good fun!\nOne interesting takeaway is that there are only 13 root servers in the world. All are owned and operated by US-based institutions. Crazy to think that the web is built on these kinds of foundations.\nGo For-Loops are fixed # In Go 1.22, they will fix an interesting for-loop issue.\nfunc main() { done := make(chan bool) values := []string{\u0026quot;a\u0026quot;, \u0026quot;b\u0026quot;, \u0026quot;c\u0026quot;} for _, v := range values { go func() { fmt.Println(v) done \u0026lt;- true }() } // wait for all goroutines to complete before exiting for _ = range values { \u0026lt;-done } } This will print “c”, “c”, and “c”, which is not expected.\nInterestingly, this issue also affects Python code. There is some discussion there, but it seems that the community has decided that the change will impact too much existing code, and will not be done.\nGolang, though, it’s full steam (🚂) ahead.\nI’ll admit I haven’t looked into this in great detail, but it’s something I’d like to come back to.\nA High Throughput B+tree for SIMD Architectures # Now this is something that seems very cool. I also have dug into this much, but I’m sure this kind of thing is extremely interesting.\nBun 1.0 # Bun 1.0 was released. This caused quite a stir on Twitter. It seems that this is a significant improvement on existing JS build tools. Keen to give this a try.\nGoogle Rust Course # One for the bookmarks, Google has their own Rust course.\nPretty interesting! Would like to give this a go at some stage.\nEnd # That’s all for this week, I’ll see you again next time!\n","date":"23 September 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/the-magic-number-13/","section":"Writing","summary":"What is up friends and welcome to another edition.\nI missed last week because of life, but we are back on the train this week 🚂\nLet’s choo-choo right along to what I learned about over the last fortnight.\n","title":"🚂 The Magic Number: 13","type":"posts"},{"content":"The Domain Name System.\nContents # Contents What is DNS The History of DNS The Hosts File A Need for DNS Current Day DNS Caching Conclusion and Further Reading What is DNS # You type in wikipedia.org into your browser. What happens next?\nFirst, your browser needs to work out which IP address corresponds to the domain name.\nThis is DNS.\nYou understand a hostname like wikipedia.org, but your device only understands IP addresses.\nDNS created a mapping between hostnames and IP addresses.\nThe History of DNS # The Hosts File # On your computer, you might have seen your /etc/hosts file.\nThis contains a mapping between a hostname and an ip addresses.\nMy /etc/hosts looks like this:\n\u0026gt; cat /etc/hosts ## # Host Database # # localhost is used to configure the loopback interface # when the system is booting. Do not change this entry. ## 127.0.0.1 localhost 255.255.255.255 broadcasthost ::1 localhost # Added by Docker Desktop # To allow the same kube context to work on the host and the container: 127.0.0.1 kubernetes.docker.internal # End of section What you might not know, is that the existence of this file goes back to the history of DNS.\nA Need for DNS # In the Development of the Domain Name System1, we know that way back in 1983, the way that users of computers would get the IP address of another computer, was by looking in the HOSTS.txt file.\nThis text file contained all computers on the internet. When a new device needed to be added to the internet, the IP address and the hostname would be added to the HOSTS.txt file, and the new version of the file would be distributed to all consumers.\nThis works well for a small number of devices, but not even the creators of DNS could have seen how large the internet would become.\nCurrent Day DNS # When you make a DNS request, you provide the hostname, and you would like to receive an IP address.\nYour device creates a DNS request according to the specs, described in RFC 1034 and RFC 1035.\nNext, your request is sent to a DNS server. This is typically your ISP, or you can also manually set this to something like 8.8.8.8 which is a service provided by Google.\nImage: K\u0026amp;R2\nSo, a DNS server has your request and wants to find the IP.\nLet\u0026rsquo;s say I want to find the IP address of my site, www.jfricker.com.\nTo do this, it needs to ask some questions.\nFirst, we ask the root servers, a question.\nRun dig to find the root servers.\n❯ dig ; \u0026lt;\u0026lt;\u0026gt;\u0026gt; DiG 9.10.6 \u0026lt;\u0026lt;\u0026gt;\u0026gt; ;; global options: +cmd ;; Got answer: ;; -\u0026gt;\u0026gt;HEADER\u0026lt;\u0026lt;- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 12373 ;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 13, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 1 ;; OPT PSEUDOSECTION: ; EDNS: version: 0, flags:; udp: 1232 ;; QUESTION SECTION: ;. IN NS ;; ANSWER SECTION: . 37713 IN NS g.root-servers.net. . 37713 IN NS e.root-servers.net. . 37713 IN NS i.root-servers.net. . 37713 IN NS k.root-servers.net. . 37713 IN NS f.root-servers.net. . 37713 IN NS d.root-servers.net. . 37713 IN NS m.root-servers.net. . 37713 IN NS j.root-servers.net. . 37713 IN NS c.root-servers.net. . 37713 IN NS l.root-servers.net. . 37713 IN NS a.root-servers.net. . 37713 IN NS b.root-servers.net. . 37713 IN NS h.root-servers.net. ;; Query time: 14 msec ;; SERVER: 192.168.0.1#53(192.168.0.1) ;; WHEN: Sat Sep 23 12:23:35 AEST 2023 ;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 239 There are only 13 root DNS servers worldwide, however, these are replicated across the world. So even though there aren\u0026rsquo;t many servers, we can still get a good response time.\nRoot servers contain the IP address of the top-level domain servers. These are the servers for .com, .org and more. The IP addresses of all these servers are hardcoded. So if you wanted to add a new TLD, you would need to add a new IP address entry into a root server.\nImage: K\u0026amp;R2\nThe NS records above\nNext, we want to find .com, from a root server. So we can try this command\n❯ dig @a.root-servers.net. com. NS ; \u0026lt;\u0026lt;\u0026gt;\u0026gt; DiG 9.10.6 \u0026lt;\u0026lt;\u0026gt;\u0026gt; @a.root-servers.net. com. NS ; (1 server found) ;; global options: +cmd ;; Got answer: ;; -\u0026gt;\u0026gt;HEADER\u0026lt;\u0026lt;- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 8679 ;; flags: qr rd; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 0, AUTHORITY: 13, ADDITIONAL: 27 ;; WARNING: recursion requested but not available ;; OPT PSEUDOSECTION: ; EDNS: version: 0, flags:; udp: 4096 ;; QUESTION SECTION: ;com. IN NS ;; AUTHORITY SECTION: com. 172800 IN NS e.gtld-servers.net. com. 172800 IN NS b.gtld-servers.net. com. 172800 IN NS j.gtld-servers.net. com. 172800 IN NS m.gtld-servers.net. com. 172800 IN NS i.gtld-servers.net. com. 172800 IN NS f.gtld-servers.net. com. 172800 IN NS a.gtld-servers.net. com. 172800 IN NS g.gtld-servers.net. com. 172800 IN NS h.gtld-servers.net. com. 172800 IN NS l.gtld-servers.net. com. 172800 IN NS k.gtld-servers.net. com. 172800 IN NS c.gtld-servers.net. com. 172800 IN NS d.gtld-servers.net. ;; ADDITIONAL SECTION: e.gtld-servers.net. 172800 IN A 192.12.94.30 e.gtld-servers.net. 172800 IN AAAA 2001:502:1ca1::30 b.gtld-servers.net. 172800 IN A 192.33.14.30 b.gtld-servers.net. 172800 IN AAAA 2001:503:231d::2:30 j.gtld-servers.net. 172800 IN A 192.48.79.30 j.gtld-servers.net. 172800 IN AAAA 2001:502:7094::30 m.gtld-servers.net. 172800 IN A 192.55.83.30 m.gtld-servers.net. 172800 IN AAAA 2001:501:b1f9::30 i.gtld-servers.net. 172800 IN A 192.43.172.30 i.gtld-servers.net. 172800 IN AAAA 2001:503:39c1::30 f.gtld-servers.net. 172800 IN A 192.35.51.30 f.gtld-servers.net. 172800 IN AAAA 2001:503:d414::30 a.gtld-servers.net. 172800 IN A 192.5.6.30 a.gtld-servers.net. 172800 IN AAAA 2001:503:a83e::2:30 g.gtld-servers.net. 172800 IN A 192.42.93.30 g.gtld-servers.net. 172800 IN AAAA 2001:503:eea3::30 h.gtld-servers.net. 172800 IN A 192.54.112.30 h.gtld-servers.net. 172800 IN AAAA 2001:502:8cc::30 l.gtld-servers.net. 172800 IN A 192.41.162.30 l.gtld-servers.net. 172800 IN AAAA 2001:500:d937::30 k.gtld-servers.net. 172800 IN A 192.52.178.30 k.gtld-servers.net. 172800 IN AAAA 2001:503:d2d::30 c.gtld-servers.net. 172800 IN A 192.26.92.30 c.gtld-servers.net. 172800 IN AAAA 2001:503:83eb::30 d.gtld-servers.net. 172800 IN A 192.31.80.30 d.gtld-servers.net. 172800 IN AAAA 2001:500:856e::30 ;; Query time: 119 msec ;; SERVER: 198.41.0.4#53(198.41.0.4) ;; WHEN: Sat Sep 23 12:25:41 AEST 2023 ;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 828 Here, we are querying for the NS records. The NS records in this case are those DNS servers that are authoritative for that domain.\nNote here that ANSWER: 0, we didn\u0026rsquo;t get an actual answer because we are asking who is responsible for the .com. top-level domain. .com. has no IP address, you can\u0026rsquo;t browse to this website.\nThe .com. servers know all of the hostnames in .com. They should know something about jfricker.com.\nTo continue our search, we can query one of these and ask about jfricker.com.\n❯ dig @a.gtld-servers.net. jfricker.com ; \u0026lt;\u0026lt;\u0026gt;\u0026gt; DiG 9.10.6 \u0026lt;\u0026lt;\u0026gt;\u0026gt; @a.gtld-servers.net. jfricker.com ; (1 server found) ;; global options: +cmd ;; Got answer: ;; -\u0026gt;\u0026gt;HEADER\u0026lt;\u0026lt;- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 40521 ;; flags: qr rd; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 0, AUTHORITY: 2, ADDITIONAL: 13 ;; WARNING: recursion requested but not available ;; OPT PSEUDOSECTION: ; EDNS: version: 0, flags:; udp: 4096 ;; QUESTION SECTION: ;jfricker.com. IN A ;; AUTHORITY SECTION: jfricker.com. 172800 IN NS karsyn.ns.cloudflare.com. jfricker.com. 172800 IN NS maciej.ns.cloudflare.com. ;; ADDITIONAL SECTION: karsyn.ns.cloudflare.com. 172800 IN A 108.162.194.194 karsyn.ns.cloudflare.com. 172800 IN A 162.159.38.194 karsyn.ns.cloudflare.com. 172800 IN A 172.64.34.194 karsyn.ns.cloudflare.com. 172800 IN AAAA 2606:4700:50::a29f:26c2 karsyn.ns.cloudflare.com. 172800 IN AAAA 2803:f800:50::6ca2:c2c2 karsyn.ns.cloudflare.com. 172800 IN AAAA 2a06:98c1:50::ac40:22c2 maciej.ns.cloudflare.com. 172800 IN A 108.162.195.42 maciej.ns.cloudflare.com. 172800 IN A 162.159.44.42 maciej.ns.cloudflare.com. 172800 IN A 172.64.35.42 maciej.ns.cloudflare.com. 172800 IN AAAA 2606:4700:58::a29f:2c2a maciej.ns.cloudflare.com. 172800 IN AAAA 2803:f800:50::6ca2:c32a maciej.ns.cloudflare.com. 172800 IN AAAA 2a06:98c1:50::ac40:232a ;; Query time: 25 msec ;; SERVER: 192.5.6.30#53(192.5.6.30) ;; WHEN: Sat Sep 23 12:35:04 AEST 2023 ;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 361 Here we go! Now we\u0026rsquo;ve got some information about jfricker.com. The site is hosted by cloudflare, and now we\u0026rsquo;ve got some servers to help us find the IP address.\nNext, let\u0026rsquo;s query one of these and get our site IP.\n❯ dig @karsyn.ns.cloudflare.com. www.jfricker.com ; \u0026lt;\u0026lt;\u0026gt;\u0026gt; DiG 9.10.6 \u0026lt;\u0026lt;\u0026gt;\u0026gt; @karsyn.ns.cloudflare.com. www.jfricker.com ; (3 servers found) ;; global options: +cmd ;; Got answer: ;; -\u0026gt;\u0026gt;HEADER\u0026lt;\u0026lt;- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 64879 ;; flags: qr aa rd; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 2, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 1 ;; WARNING: recursion requested but not available ;; OPT PSEUDOSECTION: ; EDNS: version: 0, flags:; udp: 1232 ;; QUESTION SECTION: ;www.jfricker.com. IN A ;; ANSWER SECTION: www.jfricker.com. 300 IN A 172.67.152.241 www.jfricker.com. 300 IN A 104.21.56.156 ;; Query time: 15 msec ;; SERVER: 108.162.194.194#53(108.162.194.194) ;; WHEN: Sat Sep 23 12:36:22 AEST 2023 ;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 77 There we go! We have two answers. One is 172.67.152.241, and if you navigate to that page, you will land at www.jfricker.com.\nFinally, this IP is returned to your ISP and you can start to create your HTTP request for the site content.\nCaching # If we had to query the 13 root servers for every DNS request, things would get pretty crazy.\nFortunately, each server has caches for requests.\nFor example, the root servers cache requests the TLD\u0026rsquo;s, so it will very rarely actually need to go into the database and grab a record.\nSimilarly, caching will occur at the DNS server completing the request. So even going to the other servers to fetch records will be rare.\nMappings between hosts and address can change though, so each record in the cache also has a TTL. To ensure that the cache can also be refreshed when the underlying records change.\nConclusion and Further Reading # DNS is a very interesting piece of software. It\u0026rsquo;s amazing that something designed so long ago is functioning so well today.\nFurther Resources\nMockapetris Paper Cloudflare on DNS Development of the Domain Name System: https://cseweb.ucsd.edu/classes/wi01/cse222/papers/mockapetris-dns-sigcomm88.pdf\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nComputer Networking: A Top Down Approach, Kurose and Ross (2021)\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"22 September 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/other/bradfieldcsi/computer_networks/dns/","section":"Others","summary":"The Domain Name System.\nContents # Contents What is DNS The History of DNS The Hosts File A Need for DNS Current Day DNS Caching Conclusion and Further Reading What is DNS # You type in wikipedia.org into your browser. What happens next?\n","title":"DNS","type":"other"},{"content":"Tweaking the newsletter this week. I’m hoping to keep going until I find a structure that works and feels good to me.\nAs always, if you have any feedback, let me know!\nNow, close your social media and let’s get to it.\nThings I liked this week # Smart People Doing Smart Things # Podcast featuring the founders of WarpStream, both worked at Datadog on Husky which is Datadog’s event store. These guys do some really difficult engineering and it’s interesting to hear how they came into these unique roles without a CS degree.\nDopamine Detox! # I’ve noticed that I’ve been in a rut recently, and feeling like I’m not contributing to my best ability. This video was a nice reminder of how and why we should get rid of dopamine-stimulating products, and get back to the basics.\nThere’s something very attractive about not using any social media and just detaching, but it is quite difficult to do. This week, I’m planning to delete all social media from my phone and hope that I regain some natural zen.\nEngineering Career Growth # Engineer’s guide to career growth: Advice from my time at Stripe and Facebook (firstround.com)\nInteresting article on career growth. A key takeaway was that your career can go much faster when the company you are in is also growing. As the author mentions, being early at FB or Stripe would set you up for growth simply because the company is growing so rapidly.\nThis idea is consistent with the career advice that suggests young people join Series B stage startups, as they are gearing up for these kinds of growth trajectories. Just make sure you pick the right one 😉\nThings I Learned About this Week # Exception Control Flow # We went through this idea in our CSI class this week. It’s an interesting concept and one that is fundamental to how your computer works.\nSimilar to the above, this article is recommended: What happens when you switch on a computer?\nKedro # Spent a little while learning about Kedro as a data pipeline tool. It has some basic primitives but seems to be capable of creating some cool pipelines. I’d like to dive into this further at some stage!\nLife Updates # The first module of Bradfield CSI is complete! Computer Networking will start later in September\nI’ve recently returned to my HouseAndRent repository where I’m scraping all the listings on flatmates.com.au. I’ve built a barebones model and frontend for it. The eventual goal at this stage is to turn it into an MLOps project\nThat’s all for this week! I’ll see you again next time\n","date":"9 September 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/end-your-dopamine-addiction/","section":"Writing","summary":"Tweaking the newsletter this week. I’m hoping to keep going until I find a structure that works and feels good to me.\nAs always, if you have any feedback, let me know!\nNow, close your social media and let’s get to it.\n","title":"End Your Dopamine Addiction!","type":"posts"},{"content":"Hey there, and welcome to James’ Notes.\nModule One: ‘Introduction to Computer Systems’ of the Computer Science Intensive is nearly complete.\n(Read all posts here)\nNew posts this week:\nPerformance\nLoop Unrolling\nMultiple Accumulators\nSIMD\nCaching\nLocality\nSRAM/DRAM\nInstruction and Data Cache\nSimulating the Cache\nPython Example\nOther things I’ve liked this week:\nNorfolk police pull over man with bull riding shotgun\nAustralian Fast Bowler - Tom Gleeson (video)\nHow I became a machine learning practitioner - Greg Brockman\n","date":"3 September 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/3-september-2023/","section":"Writing","summary":"Hey there, and welcome to James’ Notes.\nModule One: ‘Introduction to Computer Systems’ of the Computer Science Intensive is nearly complete.\n(Read all posts here)\nNew posts this week:\nPerformance\nLoop Unrolling\nMultiple Accumulators\nSIMD\nCaching\nLocality\nSRAM/DRAM\n","title":"3 September, 2023","type":"posts"},{"content":" Contents # What is a Cache Spatial and Time Locality Amdahl’s Law SRAM and DRAM How does the Cache Work? Cache Hits Cache Misses: Writing to the Cache Caching Reads and Writes How Does Data Move Between Caches Cache Access Times Data and Instruction Caches Simulating the Cache A Practical Example Resources What is a cache, and why do we have them?\nWhat is a Cache # Caching is a mechanism designed - What is a Cache\nBy introducing a cache, we are able to increase our program\u0026rsquo;s performance.\nInstead of always going to the main memory to fetch our data, we may be able to grab it from the L1 cache instead, which is a much faster operation.\nSpatial and Time Locality # The principle of locality\nPrograms tend to reuse data and instructions they have used recently1\nSpatial locality is the idea that items who\u0026rsquo;s addresses are near each other will be accessed close in time.\nTime locality is that those objects accessed recently will be more likely to be accessed again in the near future.\nThese principles guide us when creating and using caches.\nAmdahl’s Law # Amdahl’s law states that the performance improvement to be gained from using some faster mode of execution is limited by the fraction of the time the faster mode can be used.1\nIf I can speed up part of my program by 100%, but it only makes up 10% of my total running time, then I have only saved 5% of the total running time of my program.\nIf I increase parts of my program performance, the gain is limited to the portion of time my program spends running that code.\nIn fact, in the above example, eliminating any time in the small program would still only reduce the total running time by 10%.\nSRAM and DRAM # Static RAM (SRAM) is faster and more expensive and is used for cache memories. Dynamic RAM (DRAM) is slower and less expensive and is used for the main memory and graphics frame buffers2.\nHow does the Cache Work? # When a program needs data from cache level k+1, it looks for the data in cache level k.2\nIf we find the data in that cache, it\u0026rsquo;s called a cache hit, otherwise, it\u0026rsquo;s a called a cache miss.\nWhen a cache miss occurs, the data must be fetched from a lower level and written into the cache.\nCache Hits # How do we know if we found the data in the cache?\nThe cache doesn\u0026rsquo;t just contain the data. It also contains a Tag and a Valid bit3.\nThe Tag block contains information about what is contained in the cache block. We can search the cache for the relevant information, and if it is not there, we\nCache Misses: Writing to the Cache # When we have a cache miss we must do two things\nFetch the data place the data in the cache When we place new data in the cache, more data is moved than is required. Due to spatial locality, we assume that nearby data will also be needed in the near future. The size of the data moved is known as a cache line or a block. This may overwrite an existing line in the cache.\nThe transfer between cache levels is fixed between adjacent cache levels, and this gets larger the further we are from the CPU2. It makes sense to transfer more blocks into the cache the further down we are, to make up for the time taken to access this memory.\nCaching Reads and Writes # Caching a READ operation is fairly intuitive. The state of the memory and the state of the cache will be the same.\nWhat about caching WRITE operations? If we write to the cache, how is the memory updated?\nThere are two main strategies for managing WRITE operations in the cache, write-through and write-back 1.\nA write-through cache writes both to the cache and to main memory. The addition of writing to main memory is known as writing through the cache.\nA write-back cache only writes to the cache. When the cache memory is next overwritten, the cache will be copied back to main memory.\nBoth caching strategies use a write buffer, to allow processing to continue, even if the write to main memory has not been completed1.\nHow Does Data Move Between Caches # One of the questions I had was how data moves between caches. I know that when I write to some data not in the cache, I will write the new cache line to the L1 cache. I wanted to know how data ends up in the L2/L3 etc cache levels.\nThere are two kinds of caches, inclusive and exclusive caching.\nInclusive caching means that L1 contains everything in L2, which contains everything in L3 etc.\nExclusive means that data is only kept in the cache in one position.\nFor an inclusive cache, if data is found in L3, it will be written to L2, and then to L1. The writes to the smaller, higher level caches, will cause state data to be evicted.\nCache Access Times # A popular visualisation of cache fetch times is here.\nPer this diagram, an L1 cache hit will take about 1ns to return, while a main memory reference will take 100ns.\nOur program can run much faster by using the cache well!\nData and Instruction Caches # There are separate caches for Data and Instructions (Stack Overflow). Read this Intel post for some interersting specs.\nAnother stack exchange post on this topic.\nThe Data cache holds the data to be read or executed.\nThe instruction cache holds instructions to execute.\nThe data cache changes much more frequently than the instruction cache.\nSimulating the Cache # So how can I actually tell my usage of the cache when running my program?\nWe can use the valgrind option cachegrind for this. It can simulate cache usage, so we can get an idea of how well our program is utilising the cache.\nFor example, compile your c binary with some thing like clang hell_world.c and then use valgrind to simulate the cache.\nvalgrind --tool=cachegrind --cache-sim=yes ./a.out Then, view this with cg_annotate\nYou\u0026rsquo;ll be able to see a cache simulation, and see how well your cache levels are being utilised.\nA Practical Example # Python List Implementation:\ntypedef struct { PyObject_VAR_HEAD PyObject **ob_item; Py_ssize_t allocated; } PyListObject; So a Python List is implemented as a list of pointers to PyObjects. This means, that when we iterate through a python list, we need to get the pointer to the object, and then get the object. Since the PyObject we want could be anywhere in memory and not necessarirly sequential, we will have a low probability of cache hits.\nInstead, to have a more cache friendly Python List, we should use the array type. The Array type is better for our cache, since the elements in the array will be located in contiguous blocks in memory. When we fetch the first element, many of the subsequent elements will be loaded into the cache, which will increase our performance.\nRead more about the Python List implementation here.\nResources # https://fgiesen.wordpress.com/2016/08/07/why-do-cpus-have-multiple-cache-levels/\nComputer Architecture, A Quantitative Approach, Patterson and Hennessy, 2011, Chapter 2\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nComputer Systems: A Programmers Perspective - Chapter 6\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nComputer Organisation and Design, Patterson and Hennessy, 2013, Chapter 5\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"29 August 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/other/bradfieldcsi/intro_to_computer_systems/cache/","section":"Others","summary":"Contents # What is a Cache Spatial and Time Locality Amdahl’s Law SRAM and DRAM How does the Cache Work? Cache Hits Cache Misses: Writing to the Cache Caching Reads and Writes How Does Data Move Between Caches Cache Access Times Data and Instruction Caches Simulating the Cache A Practical Example Resources What is a cache, and why do we have them?\n","title":"Caching","type":"other"},{"content":"Programming can be hard. Programming in assembly is very hard.\nA compiler will take your code and output the assembly equivalent. It\u0026rsquo;s usually very good assembly, which is one reason we don\u0026rsquo;t usually write code using assembly.\nBelow is a quick guide to assembly, with some notes and tips that I picked up along the way.\nHello World # Hello World! in assembly.\nglobal _start section .text _start: mov rax, 1 ; system call for write mov rdi, 1 ; file handle 1 is stdout mov rsi, message ; address of string to output mov rdx, 13 ; number of bytes syscall ; invoke operating system to do the write mov rax, 60 ; system call for exit xor rdi, rdi ; exit code 0 syscall ; invoke operating system to exit section .data message: db \u0026#34;Hello, World\u0026#34;, 10 ; note the newline at the end That\u0026rsquo;s right, probably the most crazy hello world you\u0026rsquo;ve ever seen.\nThe Sum From 1 to N # Now, here is something a little more complex. The sum from 1 to n.\nsection .text global sum_to_n sum_to_n: xor eax, eax .loop: add eax, edi sub edi, 1 jg .loop ret Here\u0026rsquo;s how this works\ninput value n is provided via the %rdi or %edi registers the return value is expected in the %rax or %eax registers jg jumps to argument if %edi equals zero ","date":"19 August 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/other/bradfieldcsi/intro_to_computer_systems/assembly/","section":"Others","summary":"Programming can be hard. Programming in assembly is very hard.\nA compiler will take your code and output the assembly equivalent. It’s usually very good assembly, which is one reason we don’t usually write code using assembly.\n","title":"Assembly","type":"other"},{"content":"So you\u0026rsquo;ve heard of UTF-8, but what exactly is it?\nUTF stands for Unicode Transformation Format. UTF-8 is one way to represent Unicode characters.\nSetup # Ever wondered how emojis are represented in your computer?\nIf my computer is only 1\u0026rsquo;s and 0\u0026rsquo;s, how is 🤯 this represented?\nThis is the purpose of UTF.\nPreviously, computers only used ASCII characters. This was a limited set of characters, including some basic characters and the English alphabet.\nIf someone wanted to send you a message in Japanese or send emojis, this was simply not possible!\nEnter Unicode.\nUnicode gives us a unique code for each emoji, letter and anything else you need to write on your computer.\nHow it works? # UTF-8 encodes each Unicode character into between 1 and 4 bytes.\nFor example, the 🤯 from earlier\ninput_str = \u0026#34;🤯\u0026#34; utf8_encoded = input_str.encode(\u0026#39;utf-8\u0026#39;) utf8_bytes = [f\u0026#34;{byte:08b}\u0026#34; for byte in utf8_encoded] print(utf8_bytes) # [\u0026#39;11110000\u0026#39;, \u0026#39;10011111\u0026#39;, \u0026#39;10100100\u0026#39;, \u0026#39;10101111\u0026#39;] The first part of the Unicode sequence indicates the size of the incoming list. The subsequent parts starting with 10 indicate that they are subsequent bytes.\n11110 from the first byte indicates that the byte stream is of length 4. If the byte stream was length one, the first byte would start with 0.\nTo calculate what the actual Unicode value is, we strip these out, and also the 10 from the subsequent bytes. Append these together, and we will get the Unicode value.\nSo the value is:\n000 + 011111 + 100100 + 101111 = 000011111100100101111 = 129327 (base 10) This (U+1F92F), corresponds to the exploding head emoji 🤯.\nOther UTF-X # There are other ways to encode Unicode characters like UTF-16 and UTF-32.\nHere is the same emoji as earlier, but in UTF-16.\ninput_str = \u0026#34;🤯\u0026#34; utf16_encoded = input_str.encode(\u0026#39;utf-16\u0026#39;) utf16_bytes = [f\u0026#34;{byte:08b}\u0026#34; for byte in utf16_encoded] print(utf16_bytes) # [\u0026#39;11111111\u0026#39;, \u0026#39;11111110\u0026#39;, \u0026#39;111110\u0026#39;, \u0026#39;11011000\u0026#39;, \u0026#39;101111\u0026#39;, \u0026#39;11011101\u0026#39;] This one is a bit different.\nWhile UTF-8 sends each byte separately, UTF-16 sends two bytes at a time. This explains UTF-8 and UTF-16 (8 bits and 16 bits).\nThe first two bytes of the utf-16 decoded string indicate the endian-ness of the subsequent utf-8 characters.\n11111111 11111110 (or 0xFFFE in hexadecimal) indicates little-endian 11111110 11111111 (or 0xFEFF in hexadecimal) indicates big-endian Converting UTF-16 is a bit harder, so we won\u0026rsquo;t go into the details here.\nInterestingly, UTF-16 is the default for Javascript.\nConclusion # The Unicode and UTF pieces of code are very interesting. It\u0026rsquo;s cool to understand how my characters are actually being represented on the machine.\n","date":"12 August 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/other/bradfieldcsi/intro_to_computer_systems/utf/","section":"Others","summary":"So you’ve heard of UTF-8, but what exactly is it?\nUTF stands for Unicode Transformation Format. UTF-8 is one way to represent Unicode characters.\nSetup # Ever wondered how emojis are represented in your computer?\n","title":"Unicode Transformation Format (UTF-8)","type":"other"},{"content":"Today, I learnt about floats. I learnt about what they are, how they work, and why you\u0026rsquo;d use them.\n#Python factlet: Signed zeros are weird.\n\u0026gt;\u0026gt;\u0026gt; x = -0.0\n\u0026gt;\u0026gt;\u0026gt; x + x\n-0.0\n\u0026gt;\u0026gt;\u0026gt; x - (-x)\n-0.0\n\u0026gt;\u0026gt;\u0026gt; math.sqrt(x)\n-0.0\n\u0026gt;\u0026gt;\u0026gt; pow(x, 0.5)\n0.0\nInterestingly, all of this is necessary to comply with floating point standards.\n\u0026mdash; Raymond Hettinger (@raymondh) August 11, 2023 What is a floating point? # Most folks programming are familiar with floats. They are a type of number. Someone who doesn\u0026rsquo;t know much about floats might say something like\nI use int\u0026rsquo;s when I need a whole number, and a float when I need a decimal!\nThis is mostly true, and definitely, you will need to use floats to represent decimals.\nToday, we will go a layer deeper.\nWhat actually is a float?\nMotivation for Floats # I have a 32 bit integer. That means I have 32 1\u0026rsquo;s or 0\u0026rsquo;s.\nThe largest number I can represent here is $$ 2^{32} = 4,294,967,296 $$ Say I even go bigger, and I want a huge number, with 64 bits. $$ 2^{64} = 18,446,744,073,709,551,616 \\approx 1.8\\times 10^{19} $$ This is getting large, we are up to a quintillion. Large as it may seem, we might need even larger numbers, and our space use is starting to become a problem.\nWhat if we could represent even bigger numbers using less bits?\nThis is where floats come in.\nThe largest 32-bit float can represent is \\(3.8\\times 10^{38}\\). That\u0026rsquo;s twice the orders of magnitude as the \\(2^{64}\\) number, with half the bits!\nClearly, there is some benefit to the computer storing floats in this way.\nSo, how does this actually work?\nFloating Details # Floats were first described in IEEE 745 and consist of three parts\nsign exponent fraction (otherwise known as the \u0026ldquo;mantissa\u0026rdquo;) Each of these combines together to produce a floating point number.\nSee the below diagram, from Wikipedia.\nEach of these parts has an important role to play in describing the floating point number.\nThe float described in the diagram is a single-precision floating-point. That is with fields s=1, exp=8 and frac=23.\nIn a double-precision float, we would have s=1, exp=11 and frac=52 (64 bit representation).\nFloat Calculations # Float\u0026rsquo;s aren\u0026rsquo;t just bits, they do make base 10 numbers.\nTo convert a float to base 10, we can use the following formula.\nHere\u0026rsquo;s the formula to convert the bit representation to a floating-point number: $$ (−1) \\times sign \\times (1+fraction) \\times 2 ^{(exponent−127)} $$ Where:\nSign is the sign bit. Fraction is the value represented by the mantissa in base-2. Exponent is the value represented by the exponent bits in base-2 minus the bias (127 for single precision). This python code shows the conversion.\ndef bits_to_float(bit_string): # Make sure the string is 32 bits long assert len(bit_string) == 32 # Extract sign, exponent, and fraction bits sign_bit = int(bit_string[0], 2) exponent_bits = int(bit_string[1:9], 2) fraction_bits = bit_string[9:] # Compute the sign, -1 if sign_bit is 1, otherwise 1 sign = -1 if sign_bit == 1 else 1 # Compute the exponent exponent = exponent_bits - 127 # Compute the fraction fraction = 1.0 # start with the implicit leading bit for i, bit in enumerate(fraction_bits): if bit == \u0026#39;1\u0026#39;: fraction += 2 ** (-i-1) # Compute the float value float_val = sign * fraction * (2 ** exponent) return float_val # Example usage: bit_representation = \u0026#34;01000000101000111101011100001010\u0026#34; print(bits_to_float(bit_representation)) The exponent allows us to get very large numbers, while the mantissa also gets us some precision.\nWhy the -127? # We can get negative numbers with the sign bit, what benefit could there be to having the -127 bias in the exponent?\nAccording to CS:APP[^2], we do need this bias for a few reasons.\nWhen the exponent is all zero\u0026rsquo;s or all ones, it is considered to be in \u0026lsquo;denormalised\u0026rsquo; form. All zero\u0026rsquo;s indicates the number 0, and all ones indicates the NaN or infinity.\nNormalised numbers always have the implicit leading bit for the mantissa, so it is not possible to represent the number 0.\nAnother benefit of the bias is that it allows even greater granularity of numbers closer to zero, but does sacrifice some more range.\nWhy Not Floats # The below image is from CS:APP[^2].\n![image-20230812093157141](/Users/jamesfricker/Library/Application Support/typora-user-images/image-20230812093157141.png)\nFloats get less precise, the further they are from 0.\nIn fact, some numbers simply cannot be represented by a floating point.\nConsider the following.\nf = 0.1 + 0.2 print(f) What does this print? You might guess 0.3, and you would be wrong.\nprint(f) # 0.30000000000000004 Numbers like 0.1 and many others, cannot be exactly represented by a float.\nFloats are great for having larger range using the same number of bits, but they sacrifice precision.\nIf you need precision for decimals, consider using a Decimal type in your language, or using another method like an object to store two integers for the number and the location of the decimal point.\nConclusion # Floats are a great piece of technology. Knowing when is the right time to use them, is key to getting the most out of them.\nSources # ","date":"10 August 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/other/bradfieldcsi/intro_to_computer_systems/floats/","section":"Others","summary":"Today, I learnt about floats. I learnt about what they are, how they work, and why you’d use them.\n#Python factlet: Signed zeros are weird.\n\u003e\u003e\u003e x = -0.0\n\u003e\u003e\u003e x + x\n-0.0\n\u003e\u003e\u003e x - (-x)\n-0.0\n\u003e\u003e\u003e math.sqrt(x)\n-0.0\n\u003e\u003e\u003e pow(x, 0.5)\n0.0\nInterestingly, all of this is necessary to comply with floating point standards.\n","title":"Floating Point Numbers","type":"other"},{"content":" Contents # Performance Loop Unrolling Multiple Accumulators An Example SIMD Performance # How do we increase a program\u0026rsquo;s performance?\nWe would like to get the same amount of work done, in less time.\nThere are a few techniques that we can use to do this. We will discuss some here.\nLoop Unrolling # Loop unrolling refers to increasing the number of instructions completed per loop.\nFor example, take a regular for-loop expression.\nfor (int i = 0; i \u0026lt; 4; i++) { A[i] = B[i] + C[i]; } Now, consider using the loop unrolling technique.\nfor (int i = 0; i \u0026lt; 4; i+=2) { A[i] = B[i] + C[i]; A[i+1] = B[i+1] + C[i+1]; } Consider the unrolled for loop. For each loop we need to add some things, increment i, do a comparison and keep going.\nWhen the loop is \u0026lsquo;rolled\u0026rsquo; the increment of i and the comparison in the for loop occur less often since we are doing more work in each loop. This leads to less overhead, and we are able to complete the instructions more quickly.\nThis is a very simple example though, and unrolling may not always have a positive effect.\nThere is a short article by CS Professor Daniel Lemire on this topic here.\nAn interesting read is also this GitHub issue \u0026ldquo;cmd/compile: add unrolling stage for automatic loop unrolling #51302\u0026rdquo; for golang, where folks are discussing adding loop unrolling into Golang.\nMultiple Accumulators # Consider another simple example.\nsum = 0; for (int i = 0; i \u0026lt; N; i++) { sum += A[i]; } To speed this up, we can use multiple accumulators.\nsum1 = sum2 = 0; for (int i = 0; i \u0026lt; N; i+=2) { sum1 += A[i]; sum2 += A[i+1]; } sum = sum1 + sum2; Each time we do a loop, there is some overhead. We need to increment i, check the if case etc. If we can do more operations per loop, then we can speed up our program. Similar to loop unrolling where we do less loops by unrolling the loop, now we try to do more operations per loop.\nAn Example # When could we actually use multiple accumulators?\nConsider the following example, where we calculate the average age of users by unpacking a uint64 with 8 uint8 integers.\n// packing the uint64 packedAges := make([]uint64, (len(userLines)+7)/8) for i, line := range userLines { age, _ := strconv.Atoi(line[2]) // do the packing packedAges[i/8] |= uint64(age) \u0026lt;\u0026lt; ((i % 8) * 8) } And then unpacking using multiple accumulators.\ntype UserData struct { numAges int packedAges []uint64 payments []uint32 } func AverageAge(users UserData) float64 { var sum0, sum1, sum2, sum3, sum4, sum5, sum6, sum7 uint32 for _, packed := range users.packedAges { sum0 += uint32((packed \u0026gt;\u0026gt; 0) \u0026amp; 0xFF) sum1 += uint32((packed \u0026gt;\u0026gt; 8) \u0026amp; 0xFF) sum2 += uint32((packed \u0026gt;\u0026gt; 16) \u0026amp; 0xFF) sum3 += uint32((packed \u0026gt;\u0026gt; 24) \u0026amp; 0xFF) sum4 += uint32((packed \u0026gt;\u0026gt; 32) \u0026amp; 0xFF) sum5 += uint32((packed \u0026gt;\u0026gt; 40) \u0026amp; 0xFF) sum6 += uint32((packed \u0026gt;\u0026gt; 48) \u0026amp; 0xFF) sum7 += uint32((packed \u0026gt;\u0026gt; 56) \u0026amp; 0xFF) } return float64(sum0+sum1+sum2+sum3+sum4+sum5+sum6+sum7) / float64(users.numAges) } Clearly the code is not very nice to read, but it does have some performance benefits.\nUnderstanding your data is also key here. Using a uint8 is possible because we know that the maximum size of our data will fit in this range.\nSIMD # One of the fastest ways to get speedup for your program is to use what is called \u0026ldquo;SIMD\u0026rdquo; (Single Instruction, Multiple Data). These instructions allow us to conduct operations on multiple data with just a single instruction. If you\u0026rsquo;ve heard of things like \u0026lsquo;vectorisation\u0026rsquo; this concept is quite similar.\nAn interesting article here on the stack overflow blog, about multiple accumulators and SIMD (Single Input, Multiple Data) instructions.\nOpenBLAS is C library that utilises these SIMD instructions. Pandas/Numpy and other similar libraries use this to enable significant performance increases.\n","date":"10 August 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/other/bradfieldcsi/intro_to_computer_systems/performance/","section":"Others","summary":"Contents # Performance Loop Unrolling Multiple Accumulators An Example SIMD Performance # How do we increase a program’s performance?\n","title":"Performance","type":"other"},{"content":"In order to run code, we sometimes need to compile it. Some are compiled into machine code (C, Go), others are compiled into a bytecode format (Java, Python).\nToday, we look into some of these and how code from these languages actually runs on your CPU.\nPython Bytecode # When you run Python code, it is first compiled into bytecode, and then run directly on the CPU by the interpreter.\nThese operations are done by whichever Python installation you have, for example\nCPython: the standard (coded in C) Jython: for scripting Java apps (Java VM) IronPython: for scripting C#/.Net apps (.Net VM) PyPy: CPython for speed (JIT) Interestingly, Python code can also be compiled directly into machine code using Cython.\nJava? # People would describe Java as a compiled language because you need to explicitly compile it before running it. However, it does also have a virtual machine.\nWhy Virtual Machines # Virtual machines are beneficial because we do not need to worry about compiling code to run in a specific environment.\nIf I compile Java code, I can run my Java anywhere there is a JVM. This is the same with Python.\nIn C, I need to compile my code to run on specific architectures. Since the systems call available on each architecture may vary, running compiled C code on one machine might not run on another.\nForeign Function Interface # Another question I had was this. How can we run other languages code, eg Rust, in Python? This seemed quite common, but how does this actually work?\nI found a great blog post on this here.\nEssentially, to glue these languages together, there is this thing called FFI, the foreign function interface.\nIt allows Python to run C functions, and for Rust to export as C functions.\n","date":"10 August 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/other/bradfieldcsi/intro_to_computer_systems/python_vm/","section":"Others","summary":"In order to run code, we sometimes need to compile it. Some are compiled into machine code (C, Go), others are compiled into a bytecode format (Java, Python).\nToday, we look into some of these and how code from these languages actually runs on your CPU.\n","title":"Virtual Machines and Interpreted Language","type":"other"},{"content":"This year, I\u0026rsquo;m taking the Bradfield CSI program.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s an intensive, and designed to teach you everything you\u0026rsquo;ll need to know about the fundamentals of computers.\nHere, I\u0026rsquo;ll document my progress, write some short posts and try to teach some things.\nI make no promises at this stage, but hopefully this will help me, and you, to learn.\nI\u0026rsquo;ve grouped the content up into the relevant modules, to keep some ordering.\nI hope you enjoy!\nIntroduction to Computer Systems # Floating Point Numbers Unicode Transformation Format (UTF-8) Virtual Machines and Interpreted Language Performance Basics Assembly Examples Caching Computer Networks # Intro to DNS Systems Programming and Compilers # Operating Systems # Databases # ","date":"7 August 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/bradfieldcsi/","section":"Writing","summary":"This year, I’m taking the Bradfield CSI program.\nIt’s an intensive, and designed to teach you everything you’ll need to know about the fundamentals of computers.\nHere, I’ll document my progress, write some short posts and try to teach some things.\n","title":"Bradfield: Computer Science Intensive","type":"posts"},{"content":"So today, I passed the Google PCA exam. In this post, I\u0026rsquo;ll share my study approach and how I found the exam.\nYou can see my certificate for the exam here.\nTable of Contents # My Background Exam Structure Study Materials A Cloud Guru (ACG) Dan Sullivan Google Cloud Architect Learning Path WhizLabs ExamTopics Practice Exams During the Exam Lessons for Next Time Conclusion My Background # I finished university with a Maths degree and a Finance degree. I\u0026rsquo;ve been working as an engineer for over two years, one year using GCP.\nI started studying for the PCA exam at the start of 2023 and probably spent about 5-10 hours a week for about 2 months to get the certificate.\nFor more context about my situation before starting to study for the exam:\nI didn\u0026rsquo;t know the difference between Spanner and BigQuery I didn\u0026rsquo;t have a good understanding of a VPC was I had no networking experience I had no idea what Kubernetes was After studying for and passing the exam, I know my skills have improved greatly.\nExam Structure # My exam consisted of 50 questions, with about 15 of those relevant to two different case studies. Google has an exam guide that lists all the things you\u0026rsquo;re expected to know for the exam.\nStudy Materials # When I was at university, I knew the best way to get a good mark on exams was to do as many practice questions as possible. That was my approach with this exam too. I made sure to do as many practice questions as possible. By the time I sat the exam, I had done 500+ practice questions. I think that this approach was great in helping me to prepare for the exam.\nI also wanted to make sure I was understanding and remembering the content. I knew that spaced repetition would be the best way to commit learnings to memory. To do this, I took notes in a question format and put the questions into Obsidian and synced the questions to Anki.\nMy workflow was like this:\nWatch ACG videos Write notes in Obsidian in question form sync questions to Anki cards using the Flashcards plugin periodically review cards Once I was though most of the content, I began taking practice exams. I listed all my practice exam attempts and scores in the table below.\nI found the best resource for learning to be the A Cloud Guru course, and the best place for practice questions to be ExamTopics.\nA Cloud Guru (ACG) # The ACG PCA course was the only course that I went through end-to-end. ACG is known for having great content on cloud subjects, and I found this course to be really helpful in understanding the different services on Google Cloud and how they work.\nI made sure to revisit sections of this course when I needed to refresh certain concepts.\nThe course had 3x50 question practice exams, which were great and came with good explanations.\nDan Sullivan # I used two products from Dan Sullivan, the eBook and his Udemy course. I used the eBook as a guide when I wanted further clarification from the ACG course. There was heaps of detail here and it covered everything I needed to know for the exam.\nThe Udemy course could have been a double-up on existing material, but I got it just for the practice exam at the end. I didn\u0026rsquo;t watch any of the videos. The practice exam here contained questions I hadn\u0026rsquo;t seen before and was helpful for me in identifying gaps in my knowledge.\nGoogle Cloud Architect Learning Path # Google offers their own path for learning how to be a Cloud Architect. I did some of the courses, but skipped most of the content and only did the practice questions. I only used this resource very briefly and so can\u0026rsquo;t comment on its effectiveness.\nWhizLabs # As my exam date got closer, I wanted even more questions, so I purchased the WhizLabs course. This course came with 300 more practice questions. I did many of these and only 3/5 of the available practice exams. The questions in the practice exams were quite detailed and answers were backed up with links to documentation. There were some questions where it was hard to understand what the author meant, and some had grammatical errors. I found that these questions targeted slightly different material than the practice exams I had done previously, which was helpful. On the whole, these were done well and a useful addition to my study.\nExamTopics # I knew exam topics would be a good resource for my exam study. The PCA questions were the best guide for what questions would actually look like. The crowd-sourcing of solutions is great, although there were some questions where the community could not agree on the correct answer. There were nearly 300 practice questions here, and I found them to be the most relevant during the exam.\nPractice Exams # When I started the exam prep, ExamTopics had the most practice questions so I started with them. As I got closer to the exam, I reviewed some of the exams I had done previously.\nMy practice exam attempts are listed below. It\u0026rsquo;s nice to see the scores going up as I became more familiar with the material.\nGiven a large number of questions for ExamTopics, I split them up into 8 sets of T1 and 10 sets of T2. T1 was normal questions, and T2 were questions associated with a case study. Each T1 set had about 24 questions, and T2 only had approximately six each. I didn\u0026rsquo;t record when I did the T2 sets of questions.\nDuring the Exam # After doing the normal proctor setup tasks, my exam when really smoothly. Since I had done so many practice questions, I had a great understanding of how questions flowed and what parts of each question to pay attention to.\nLessons for Next Time # One thing is clear, sitting exams like this is quite detached from practical experience. I found studying for the exam to be really helpful in understanding the Google Cloud landscape, but nothing beats actually building using the tools.\nExams can be more focused on remembering rather than understanding. For this exam, I remember what a Daemon Set in K8\u0026rsquo;s does, but I have never created a Daemon set, so my knowledge is memorised rather than understood. This next level of understanding is hard to get from simply sitting the exam.\nPractice questions were definitely one of the best ways to study for the exam. If I study for more exams in the future, which is likely, I will take this approach again.\nConclusion # If you made it this far, thanks! I hope you enjoyed.\nIf you\u0026rsquo;d like to hear from me again, subscribe to my email list below.\nConnect With Me!I'll remind you when I post so you don't have to remember\nSubscribe​\nBuilt with ConvertKit ","date":"21 March 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/gcp-professional-cloud-architect/","section":"Writing","summary":"So today, I passed the Google PCA exam. In this post, I’ll share my study approach and how I found the exam.\nYou can see my certificate for the exam here.\nTable of Contents # My Background Exam Structure Study Materials A Cloud Guru (ACG) Dan Sullivan Google Cloud Architect Learning Path WhizLabs ExamTopics Practice Exams During the Exam Lessons for Next Time Conclusion My Background # I finished university with a Maths degree and a Finance degree. I’ve been working as an engineer for over two years, one year using GCP.\n","title":"Passing the Google Cloud Professional Cloud Architect Exam","type":"posts"},{"content":"It\u0026rsquo;s finally time.\nThe end of the year is a time to review the past and set a new vision for the future.\nBonnie Doon, 2022 2022 # This year was a fantastic year for me. After moving back to Melbourne from Adelaide for the second time in January and starting my third rotation at work, things started to pick up steam.\n10 Great things that Happened this Year # 52 Episodes of Graduate Theory Feature article on anz.com Adelaide Oval Roofclimb with my brothers Completing ANZ Tech Grad Program Corporate Members Speakers Lunch with Shayne Elliot (CEO, ANZ) Survived Covid twice Solo road trips to Bonnie Doon, Gisbourne and more Jack Johnson live World Cup night vs Tunisia at the pub Trips to Sunshine Coast, Great Ocean Road Near the 12 Apostles, Great Ocean Road in September 2022 Goal Review # Now that the year is done, how did I do? Here are some of the goals I set at the start of 2022.\nTop Goals for 2022\nGoal Status Roll off into ANZx at work ✅ Grow my relationship with T ✅ Read more books, a minimum of 40 this year ❌ Have 52 episodes of Graduate Theory ✅ Grow Graduate Theory audience. Have 1000 listens per episode ❌ Run a half marathon ❌ Continue on the board of SYTM ✅ Grow finances from xk to xk ✅ Review\nSo I ended up completing the grad program and continuing in my favourite role, which has been fantastic for my professional growth.\nI survived and thrived in a long-distance relationship for a year.\nI only read 16 books this year. In the past few years, I\u0026rsquo;ve read many, many books, and it\u0026rsquo;s something that I\u0026rsquo;d like to continue doing. This year, I found that sometimes I can lose interest in reading because the book isn\u0026rsquo;t very relevant to me at the time. I think reading to hit a number of books read is not a good reason to read, which is what I have found myself doing in the past and this year. Next year, I won\u0026rsquo;t set a book goal and read more for leisure or when the time is right.\nGraduate Theory was one of my biggest successes this year. I recorded 52 episodes with many inspirational and incredible people. I learnt much from conversations and growing the skills required to manage and grow the podcast. Creating a new episode every week for a year is an achievement that I am proud of. Although I didn\u0026rsquo;t hit my audience goal, I still made an impact, and I know there are people out there that found my episodes valuable.\nI didn\u0026rsquo;t run the half-marathon this year, but it\u0026rsquo;s something I\u0026rsquo;d love to take more seriously next year. A few years ago, my fitness routine was all about getting maximum muscle. Now, I see much more of the importance of cardio and staying in great shape in all aspects.\nI continued on the board of my Toastmasters club and am enjoying my time with the club.\nAdelaide Oval Roofclimb with my brothers Lessons Learned From This Year # This year I learned:\nAccountability is extremely important. I couldn\u0026rsquo;t have gone as far as I did with Graduate Theory without the help of others. Interesting people exist. This year I\u0026rsquo;ve met loads of interesting people. In the past, it has been difficult to find groups of likeminded people. This year I\u0026rsquo;ve met many people with similar ambitions, which has made me feel more confident in going after my goals. I am capable. Similar to the above point, through EarlyWork and Next Chapter, I\u0026rsquo;ve met many interesting and accomplished people. After speaking with these people, I realise that they are similar to me, and the fantastic things they have done aren\u0026rsquo;t so out of reach. 2023 # This year has been great. I\u0026rsquo;ve grown and learnt so much. I\u0026rsquo;m excited about the year ahead.\nIn setting my goals for the next year, I think it\u0026rsquo;s important to remember that achieving or not achieving the goal is not that important. What is most important is that I am becoming someone that I want to be and someone that I am proud of.\nTop Goals for 2023\nBecome a Senior Software Engineer (or get pretty close) Run a half marathon Become President of SYTM Take More Photos Make more predictions Share More Speak at an event Grow finances from xk to xk This year, I plan to build on Graduate Theory, and start building my personal brand. I plan to start a newsletter, to share more of what is happening in my life, and perhaps a youtube channel, so that I can also improve my public speaking and presentation skills.\nOne day, I\u0026rsquo;d love to speak at events more, and to have my own company. This year will be a big step towards this, and I\u0026rsquo;m looking forward to tackling the challenges that I will face along the way.\n","date":"24 December 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2022-review/","section":"Writing","summary":"It’s finally time.\nThe end of the year is a time to review the past and set a new vision for the future.\nBonnie Doon, 2022 2022 # This year was a fantastic year for me. After moving back to Melbourne from Adelaide for the second time in January and starting my third rotation at work, things started to pick up steam.\n","title":"2022 Review - 2023 Resolutions","type":"posts"},{"content":"I released 52 episodes of my podcast, Graduate Theory. This is its story.\nThe pandemic started in early 2020.\nAs I spent days and days sitting inside, I had an idea.\nWhat if I started a podcast?\nI had started to get to know some interesting people through my local Toastmasters club; perhaps I could interview them.\nOn March 26, 2020, I wrote my first note about my podcast.\nIt would be called the \u0026ldquo;E4 Podcast\u0026rdquo;.\nThe E4 Podcast Logo E4 is the most common starting move in a game of chess. I thought this aligned nicely with the topic I wanted to pursue: early careers.\nYour early career is the first move you make in the game of life.\nBy creating the podcast, I wanted to know how these interesting people became so interesting.\nHow could I have a career that I could be proud of and not one that I was ashamed of?\nSubscribeBuilt with ConvertKit The First Message # Finally, I decided. This was it.\nIt was time to start.\nMy first reachout It was the 24th of April, 2020. I had finally worked up the guts to message my friend, Ryan, asking him if he\u0026rsquo;d like to be interviewed.\nLuckily, he said yes!\nIt was time to get started.\nThe Weight # I recorded the episode with Ryan, and then I waited\u0026hellip;\nand waited..\nand waited\u0026hellip;\nThe episode never came out. I couldn\u0026rsquo;t work up the guts to edit and release the episode, or even ask another person if they\u0026rsquo;d like to be interviewed.\nLooking back, the social anxiety I felt around sharing something of my own to the world was overwelming.\nNow, I can\u0026rsquo;t believe that these thoughts held me back. It seems so silly!\nThe Resurrection # The podcast idea didn\u0026rsquo;t go away. It continued to stew away in the back of my mind until August 2021.\nI was in Melbourne at the time, doing a covid quarantine with my girlfriend.\nIt was during this period that I decided, enough was enough.\nI had still been thinking about doing a podcast. Would I ever do it?\nThe time came when I realised it was now or never. Starting the podcast today was going to be no easier than starting it at any other time. If I didn\u0026rsquo;t start today, I may never do it.\nI asked myself what I would think of this situation if I was 80 years old. What would I say to myself?\nI realised that I would be filled with regret if I reached that age and hadn\u0026rsquo;t pursued this ambition I had held for some time.\nSo my mind was made up. It was time to start.\nMy first steps were to purchase a microphone and a better webcam. I also began to build my dream guest list.\nThe First Graduate Theory Logo The First Episode # The first three episodes came out on the 6th of November, 2021. One was with Joe Wehbe, and two with my friends from Toastmasters, Darren Fleming and Wendy Teasdale-Smith.\nHere is the first post I made about the podcast. I posted on the 8th of November, 2021.\nInitial LinkedIn Post It turned out that the social anxiety I felt was still there. I was super nervous to post about it, and pleasantly surprised to see many positive comments from friends.\nIt turns out that \u0026ldquo;haters\u0026rdquo; don\u0026rsquo;t seem to really exist, and much of the pressure I felt about putting something out into the world was coming from internal beliefs, not reality.\nPod Crew # One of the best things about the journey was the friends that I made along the way. In particular, I had a great time with what was dubbed \u0026ldquo;Pod Crew\u0026rdquo;. This group of four of us met every Thursday night at 5:30 pm to chat everything about podcasts and life.\nThese chats served multiple purposes. They were a great time, and I was usually laughing about our chats after the sessions had finished. More importantly, though, they served as a great way for us all to keep each other accountable.\nComing to pod crew each week with a new update and sharing my learnings kept me interested and on the path to a great podcast.\nI\u0026rsquo;m very fortunate that I was able to share this time with my friends, Joe, Luke and Dom.\nThe Last Episode # The last episode of season one came out on the 18th of October, 2022. Nearly a year after the first episodes came out.\nThat was one episode every week for nearly a year. Not too bad!\nI am really proud of this achievement. I stuck at something for a whole year and had some great moments that I will remember forever.\nLowlights # Some of the hardest things about podcasting are scheduling and social media management.\nScheduling is tricky because there were times when I\u0026rsquo;d have a guest locked in, ready to record their episode for later in the week. Then the guest can\u0026rsquo;t make the session for any number of reasons. What do you do then? It can be quite stressful.\nMany times, I had to be creative and think about what I could post instead so that I could keep the cadence of posting one episode every week.\nI also found social media management to be quite tricky. Managing the podcast, guests and social media is a pretty big workload for one person. I was often out of ideas or had limited time to produce social media content.\nHighlights # My favourite moments of the journey were chatting with some incredible guests. I enjoyed all episodes, but some of my favourites are\nAdam Geha (CEO, EG) Lidia Ranieri (Former Director, Goldman Sachs) Brendan Humphreys (Head of Engineering, Canva) Mykel Dixon (Speaker) Lisa Leong (Broadcaster, ABC) There are so many amazing people out there, I feel so fortunate that I was able to meet and speak with many of them.\nWhat I Learnt # Social pressure is all in your head If you want to do something, make a list of the pros and cons. Cross out any con that relates to what people will think of you. Now decide.\nIf you don\u0026rsquo;t do it now, you never will This was a key belief that got me started on this journey. If I don\u0026rsquo;t start it now, I may never do this. Is that something I can live with?\nCapitalise on Momentum At times during the podcasting journey, I had built up some momentum, really smashing it with views and listens. I failed to build on this momentum. Next time, when momentum starts to pick up, go even harder.\nClarity is important Many times during the journey, I asked myself some variation of \u0026ldquo;What is the goal with this?\u0026rdquo;. I wasn\u0026rsquo;t totally clear on what I wanted Graduate Theory to become. Was it going to be a casual thing? Did I want to make money? Did I want to quit my job and pursue this full-time? Clarity with this would have helped me.\nConsistency is important Once the ball got rolling for weekly episodes, it was much easier to keep it rolling. Being consistent made it easier to be more consistent. Don\u0026rsquo;t break the chain.\nConclusion # I am so proud of myself and what I achieved with Graduate Theory. Although it\u0026rsquo;s nothing incredible, I pushed past my previous limits to achieve things I had not done before. For that, I am proud.\nI\u0026rsquo;m grateful to all those who supported me on my journey. This is not the end.\nUntil next time.\nConnect With Me!I'll remind you when I post so you don't have to remember\nSubscribe​\nBuilt with ConvertKit ","date":"11 November 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/one-year-of-podcasting/","section":"Writing","summary":"I released 52 episodes of my podcast, Graduate Theory. This is its story.\nThe pandemic started in early 2020.\nAs I spent days and days sitting inside, I had an idea.\nWhat if I started a podcast?\n","title":"What I Learnt from One Year of Podcasting","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"17 October 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/careers/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Careers","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"17 October 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/graduate-theory/","section":"Graduate Theory","summary":"","title":"Graduate Theory","type":"graduate-theory"},{"content":"","date":"17 October 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/series/graduate-theory/","section":"Series","summary":"","title":"Graduate Theory","type":"series"},{"content":"","date":"17 October 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/graduate-theory/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Graduate Theory","type":"tags"},{"content":"Lightly edited transcripts from the Graduate Theory podcast archive.\n","date":"17 October 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/graduate-theory/transcripts/","section":"Graduate Theory Transcripts","summary":"Lightly edited transcripts from the Graduate Theory podcast archive.\n","title":"Graduate Theory Transcripts","type":"graduate-theory-transcripts"},{"content":"","date":"17 October 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/series/","section":"Series","summary":"","title":"Series","type":"series"},{"content":"","date":"17 October 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Tags","type":"tags"},{"content":" Watch the conversation Graduate Theory Open YouTube ↗ Read the full transcript → This episode is the final episode of the first season of Graduate Theory.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s been a wild ride. We\u0026rsquo;ve spoken to some incredible guests and delivered some fantastic interviews.\nAs a newsletter subscriber, you have seen it all happen.\nI want to thank you for your support.\nTo mark the end of the first season, today\u0026rsquo;s episode is a reflection of the year gone by. The lessons learnt, and the memories shared.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s everything from my favourite lessons, what I\u0026rsquo;d do if I had to restart, and my advice for graduates.\nMore updates are on the way, stay tuned\u0026hellip;\nUntil next time, please enjoy.\n📝 Content Timestamps # 00:00 Intro\n02:03 Joey Intro\n04:05 Reflecting on One Year\n06:11 Expectations when Starting\n08:43 Standout People or Episodes\n12:58 Personal Development Through the Podcast\n16:22 Advice for People When Creating a Podcast\n19:17 Changes in Life Approach\n24:42 Things I Would Do Differently\n30:35 The Plan\n37:55 Advice for Graduates\n47:12 Conclusion\n49:20 Outro\n","date":"17 October 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/graduate-theory/52-the-end/","section":"Graduate Theory","summary":" Watch the conversation Graduate Theory Open YouTube ↗ Read the full transcript → This episode is the final episode of the first season of Graduate Theory.\n","title":"The End","type":"graduate-theory"},{"content":"← Back to episode 52\nThis transcript was generated from YouTube captions and lightly edited for readability. Speaker labels may be unavailable, and transcription errors may remain.\nIntro # Hello and welcome to Graduate Theory today\u0026rsquo;s episode is episode 52 of Graduate Theory which means it\u0026rsquo;s been about a year of Graduate Theory episodes we\u0026rsquo;ve had an episode come out every Tuesday for pretty much a year now it\u0026rsquo;s been a wild Journey there\u0026rsquo;s been so many guests on the show so much knowledge.\nThat\u0026rsquo;s been shared and so many learnings the things that I\u0026rsquo;ve learned myself I don\u0026rsquo;t know what the next steps look like perhaps we\u0026rsquo;ll do a season two but what I am sure is I\u0026rsquo;m going to try and find a way to summarize a lot of the content that we\u0026rsquo;ve had and the ideas.\nThat have been shared on the show if you want to keep up to date with that you want to find out um what exactly we\u0026rsquo;re working on please go to the description subscribe to The Graduate Theory newsletter and you\u0026rsquo;ll hear all about what is coming up soon but without further Ado I want to.\nIntroduce this last episode this is a really um a really personal episode I flipped the tables a little bit and got interviewed by a friend of mine Joe wiebe who you may remember or um I interviewed him for the first episode of the podcast so it was great to have him back on the.\nShow interviewing me and asking me what are the things that I learned what are my favorite moments of the podcast and just some general Reflections around starting podcasts generally things that I learned and how the podcast has affected my life so without further Ado we\u0026rsquo;ll pass it over to the episode but I.\nJust want to thank you everyone that\u0026rsquo;s that listens to Graduate Theory it has been an amazing journey so far and yeah just from the bottom of my heart I just want to say a big thank you for for listening to the show it does mean a lot to me um you know that I\u0026rsquo;m able to share.\nThis with you and that you\u0026rsquo;ll take the time and listen to the kinds of things I have to say um you know I feel really grateful so I just want to say a massive thank you um but that\u0026rsquo;s enough for me let\u0026rsquo;s get uh let\u0026rsquo;s get down to the episode and yeah.\nPlease enjoy I guess I wanted to do like a bit of a.\nJoey Intro # Reflection of what one previous step almost one here oh it\u0026rsquo;s probably over a year including preparation for the First episodes but yeah I think it would be nice to recap given that is you know 52 is a reasonable milestone it\u0026rsquo;s been an interesting year a lot of learnings both in and out of the podcast a lot of.\nGrowth a lot of lessons yeah so maybe we can uh introduce you um for those who haven\u0026rsquo;t those who have missed you on your previous appearances on the Pod baby do you want to share your uh quick bio thanks thanks Jay for having me back obviously I am for those who haven\u0026rsquo;t seen in the podcast before.\nI\u0026rsquo;m Joe wavy and uh I am a writer a podcaster myself I\u0026rsquo;ve done a bunch of other things I\u0026rsquo;ll save everyone a long story but I\u0026rsquo;ve done I\u0026rsquo;ve studied psychology done non-profit stuff in Nepal done a bit of real estate and also stuffina education but yeah kind of uh I guess love anything about creativity and a lot.\nOf stuff about you know a lot of the same topics that talk about the podcast like career and meaningful career and impactful and all that sort of things hover around the same conversations and often the books I write probably relevant to that and that\u0026rsquo;s probably very good oh you sound like well yeah absolutely.\nMate no it sounds like um it\u0026rsquo;d be yeah I\u0026rsquo;m Keen to do a bit of a reverse interview is that what they call it reverse interview that\u0026rsquo;s what professional podcasters would call it I don\u0026rsquo;t know something like that probably is that what they call yeah that must be your name yeah you can invent it you can coin that.\nThat\u0026rsquo;s good yeah yeah that\u0026rsquo;s right you heard it here first yeah very good well yeah I\u0026rsquo;d love to sort of dive into some of the um the history of the Pod um and we can kick it off.\nReflecting on One Year # Yeah well congratulations on a year for you but I\u0026rsquo;m sure it\u0026rsquo;s been a bit longer than that preparing how does it how does it feel because you\u0026rsquo;re a Mr consistency in our little community of podcasters James Franco\u0026rsquo;s missing and so you don\u0026rsquo;t miss a week unless I\u0026rsquo;m mistaken so 52 episodes on the dock and uh I don\u0026rsquo;t know.\nHow does it feel I think it feels good I think when I when I first started I\u0026rsquo;m not sure what I expected but um I feel I feel good that I\u0026rsquo;ve managed to come this far I think a lot of people when I when I say like I have a podcast and then then I say I\u0026rsquo;ve done.\n50 episodes they go like all podcast yeah cool 50 oh that\u0026rsquo;s really good yeah um uh you know so I\u0026rsquo;m proud of that I think that\u0026rsquo;s like obviously I\u0026rsquo;ve had a lot of help and support along the way but I think the um you know consistency is kind of hard not to crack uh it\u0026rsquo;s quite easy to start.\nBut doing it for a long time is um saying it\u0026rsquo;s quite hard to do so yeah I\u0026rsquo;m I\u0026rsquo;m very proud of that I think that\u0026rsquo;s something that probably I\u0026rsquo;ve in other projects I\u0026rsquo;ve done in the past probably like it\u0026rsquo;s been the one thing that you sort of struggle with it\u0026rsquo;s like um it\u0026rsquo;s easier to think of an idea and.\nStart it but the consistency is the one thing that you know sort of lets you down so yeah I\u0026rsquo;m I\u0026rsquo;m proud that it\u0026rsquo;s been a year and very consistent um and yeah I\u0026rsquo;m happy with how it\u0026rsquo;s going I think it\u0026rsquo;s been pretty good learning experience for me and for the people listening as well.\nI think a pair would provide a platform for some very interesting people that perhaps don\u0026rsquo;t have a big platform themselves um another Graduate Theory is a big platform but you know it just allows them to get there very big for someone who has no platform yeah true true um but you know these people like have.\nGreat messages and they often don\u0026rsquo;t get shown to um like a certain demographic because people and so it\u0026rsquo;s been cool to sort of highlight that.\nExpectations when Starting # Yeah that\u0026rsquo;s a very mature and selfless reflection I think but um did you have an expectation at all about when you started make did you was it I never even knew to be honest I was talking to you when you started of course but did you uh expect you were just trialing it or we did you.\nThink you would go x-far or you had I want to at least get to this point well I\u0026rsquo;m very curious yeah I don\u0026rsquo;t really know I think that like I think this question for me probably changed a lot and that like continues to fluctuate like at certain certain points I think oh it\u0026rsquo;d be cool.\nTo have this as like a side business where I\u0026rsquo;m like you know have all this stuff and like it\u0026rsquo;s all like this whole massive operation like that would be really cool or is it like um you know is it just more of a side thing where it\u0026rsquo;s I just interview someone every week and it\u0026rsquo;s a bit more.\nChilled um and I think I\u0026rsquo;ve fluctuated between those quite a bit during the process because yeah I\u0026rsquo;m thinking back I was thinking before this episode about like what led up to even starting the Pod and I remember and I think you would remember this chair I had an Instagram page which was like.\nUm or maybe what\u0026rsquo;s out like 18 months ago now um for probably four months-ish I had that and that\u0026rsquo;s a similar thing where I was kind of like what what is the expectation here and I\u0026rsquo;ve probably didn\u0026rsquo;t it didn\u0026rsquo;t really have one it was just I want to share and like um you know contribute and I guess.\nPotentially turn it into something more substantial um but perhaps that\u0026rsquo;s to my own undoing is that there\u0026rsquo;s not a sort of a clear thing there but I think regardless it\u0026rsquo;s been valuable yeah no I remember that very well well I guess it\u0026rsquo;s never never the at the end of the world it\u0026rsquo;s it\u0026rsquo;s funny when you say the.\nFluctuation I think it\u0026rsquo;s such a relatable um thing for podcasters because it can be the most casual thing in the world but also there\u0026rsquo;s there\u0026rsquo;s a lot of things that come through it I mean you must have enjoyed I\u0026rsquo;m sure and one thing you enjoyed is the people you kind of I think reached out to connected with.\nProbably a lot of podcasts to say it\u0026rsquo;s uh not necessarily like you get to meet the same people without a podcast that easy excuse it\u0026rsquo;s a very digestible ask you know kind of like a squashes some objections that people might normally have to just have in a conversation with someone.\nStandout People or Episodes # So I don\u0026rsquo;t know whoever who are those people you think you found a community that were like but you don\u0026rsquo;t have to say me I\u0026rsquo;m here James you\u0026rsquo;re already on the left side yeah audience knows but it\u0026rsquo;s hard for me um who are the uh who are those who do you think anyone Stand Out particular.\nYeah I think just on on the general point about having access to interesting people and I would extend that to interesting things I feel like there\u0026rsquo;s certain like because when I started like that was like probably when I started was when early work started to gain a lot of traction in the Australian.\nStartup space um you know so that was quite cool and then next chapter as well kind of started around a similar time I think and so access to these communities would be an example of like I probably wouldn\u0026rsquo;t have the access and know certain people inside those places um if I didn\u0026rsquo;t have the Pod so I think.\nThat\u0026rsquo;s been that\u0026rsquo;s been cool um and I think just interesting people I think like Adam gahar is a great example he\u0026rsquo;s very well connected and I\u0026rsquo;ve like uh you introduced me to him and then I\u0026rsquo;ve introduced him subsequently to other people so uh you know that\u0026rsquo;s been cool to sort of be able to have access.\nTo him and then for it\u0026rsquo;s it\u0026rsquo;s not even like a my benefit almost it\u0026rsquo;s like people who know me also kind of can can have access to some of these people as well um so yeah I think It\u0026rsquo;s probably hard to narrow it down to like a soft list of people but I think.\nGenerally it\u0026rsquo;s been quite interesting to like hear from different people and see what they\u0026rsquo;re doing um and kind of sit like just see the kinds of places and what interesting people are doing um I think it\u0026rsquo;s almost like broadened my horizons perhaps I probably couldn\u0026rsquo;t narrow it to like knowing a specific person like alleged.\nJust so that makes sense a lot of I think a lot of the value what you get from our conversations it can be very intangible you get a lot you get a lot of value from just talking to anyone like any of the people you mentioned or a lot of the other guests you had on but it can be.\nVery hard to actually pinpoint specific things it soaks into people on the layer much deeper Naval says this it\u0026rsquo;s like listening to podcasts all that sort of thing it\u0026rsquo;s kind of like there\u0026rsquo;s not it\u0026rsquo;s not totally conscious learning it\u0026rsquo;s it\u0026rsquo;s kind of like a soaking in effect because it\u0026rsquo;s very hard to pinpoint but.\nYou kind of uh I don\u0026rsquo;t project onto you my experience but you generally just feel you feel like you feel like wow I\u0026rsquo;m learning so much this is very stimulating I kind of think it I think it makes you think a bit differently at times it\u0026rsquo;s a natural very natural the same way you would be talking to anyone.\nAnd just softly learning from them so but yeah you\u0026rsquo;ve had some bumper episodes that\u0026rsquo;s for sure yeah for me even like the gaha one was very very good episode um obviously I Luke and I love the Gilly one that\u0026rsquo;s just that a lot listen to that a couple of times and um I know I haven\u0026rsquo;t even talked to.\nYou know like that way but you hear you hear them on an episode it\u0026rsquo;s a very I think it was very true that you gave uh he gave a lot of people like that an interesting a chance to tell their story and share some of their insights and I think that\u0026rsquo;s something you should be very.\nProud of and the beauty of it I think you did it so they\u0026rsquo;re up there forever yeah that\u0026rsquo;s right yeah so yeah yeah no you\u0026rsquo;re spot on I think that yeah there are many episodes tonight I enjoy doing I think those two definitely the Gilly one had an impact on on lots of people and probably more.\nThan I expected um which is which is um you know it\u0026rsquo;s pretty cool it I guess facilitate that um yeah I think there\u0026rsquo;s many episodes that I think even that are sort of underrated um that I personally had a great time and learn a lot um like the Michael Dixon one was like.\nWas really good that was a very good one.\nPersonal Development Through the Podcast # That\u0026rsquo;s right the very recent yeah so exactly because it\u0026rsquo;s recently he\u0026rsquo;s a good one yeah yeah yeah yeah how do you think how do you think you personally developed as the podcast went well the key areas are different about you now this is when you started yeah I think I think yeah I think a few things I.\nThink like on a sort of interviewing level I think I learned quite a bit I think from from the first one that we did it was that was with you I think the very interesting uh you know that was like it was a good in a good interview but I think I\u0026rsquo;ve progressed a lot.\nFurther since then I think I\u0026rsquo;ve kind of experimented with different approaches um you know and kind of landed on a good way of doing things it\u0026rsquo;s because I think when we when we was first starting it was like got no idea how this works have a crack see what happens I would have made you very nervous as.\nWell true strong character it\u0026rsquo;s not easy yeah no but uh and even well yeah I\u0026rsquo;ve not many points here but yeah so there\u0026rsquo;s like the actual interviewing which I think I there were periods where I was very like q a and I think that sort of uh come back to more conversational probably in the last certain amount of.\nTime I think you know I\u0026rsquo;ve kind of weaved around different um approaches of the actual interview I think I\u0026rsquo;ve landed somewhere that\u0026rsquo;s quite good um which is like a more relaxed way of doing things like no intro to start chatting I think that\u0026rsquo;s generally has worked the best um I think as well I remember the.\nSo I had Darren Fleming on like it yeah and so yeah yeah and uh at the end of the interview I was like hey man I know Darren like very well so I was like do you know anyone else like can I chat to them like whatever and he gave me like these two.\nGuys phone numbers it was um Oscar tromboli and ishan uh who I\u0026rsquo;ve interviewed both but when he gave me their phone numbers I was like my heart actually call this guy like I was like scared out of my mind maybe maybe I think everyone\u0026rsquo;s had at least some level of that experience but you.\nLike I really don\u0026rsquo;t want to call this number uh you know uh and so and things like that so I think like from a sort of guests Reach Out is um you know many people have said no to come on the show so I think dealing with that has been interesting and I think.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s helped me with like reaching out to people not for the Pod like it\u0026rsquo;s it\u0026rsquo;s seeing like the access that I can have to people for like Graduate Theory uh you know which is relatively unknown you know it really showed me just how reaching out to people you can you can speak to a lot of different people.\nUm you don\u0026rsquo;t necessarily need a podcast or something to chatter them on like I think people are just generally quite receptive and often like people that you know people who have big profiles obviously we can\u0026rsquo;t it\u0026rsquo;s hard to reach out to them but like there\u0026rsquo;s certain people that don\u0026rsquo;t have big profiles maybe it\u0026rsquo;s like the CEO of.\nYour company or like you know these kinds of people you can you actually get reasonably far um if you do want to speak to them and ask them interesting things.\nAdvice for People When Creating a Podcast # So do you have any advice or Reflections for people who are maybe they don\u0026rsquo;t have a podcast but if they feel like they want to reach out to someone internally is a big one like leadership at the company you\u0026rsquo;re at is one I hear about a lot or just someone whose work you find.\nInteresting I might be fishing in the wrong spot here but are there any lessons or takeaways you\u0026rsquo;d have for like yeah I did like I did a reasonable amount of like Research into cold emails and so I have like a template that I use yeah because I guess like I\u0026rsquo;m reaching out to enough people.\nLike you want to have somewhat templated but then before you do want to have a specific like ask and a specific reason why you\u0026rsquo;re reaching out to this particular person uh like if you just emailed over on the exact same thing obviously that\u0026rsquo;s not going to be very effective um so yeah I think I think you want to.\nTailor it to the person in that like minor I start with like try and mention something recent that they did so usually it\u0026rsquo;s on their LinkedIn I\u0026rsquo;ll try and see if they post or done anything recently comment on that and say cool hey doing this introduce yourself and then say why you\u0026rsquo;re reaching out so like.\nYou for in my case it\u0026rsquo;d be podcast I found you through this Avenue um and perhaps like some social proof like I\u0026rsquo;ve previously interviewed some of your friends and like in certain friends names um so that they know it\u0026rsquo;s not just like some not some very strange person like I have to have some credibility and then.\nI would then go here\u0026rsquo;s like three things I want to speak to you about and so this would be I would have already gone and looked at their profile things they\u0026rsquo;ve done and see what is what about this person that I want to actually ask about and like how would I find this interview.\nAnd then I\u0026rsquo;ll put that in and then I would um probably put like some kind of Link at the end and say if you\u0026rsquo;re interested here\u0026rsquo;s like the calendar whatever like link you want to go to you could probably put it there or wait for them to respond and say yes I\u0026rsquo;m Keen.\nThen send them the link but yeah that\u0026rsquo;s how that\u0026rsquo;s generally how I would do it I think you want like some sort of social proof and fairly specific about why you\u0026rsquo;re reaching out to them as well I think that\u0026rsquo;s very important yeah the I agree the um so that\u0026rsquo;s that\u0026rsquo;s very interesting on like the podcast.\nSide and what about uh because you know the theme of the podcast was The Graduate level kind of experience or thereabouts so I did it were there any big changes on that side of things for you like how you thought about your own career or things to do kind of differently but like I know it\u0026rsquo;s not just work in a like.\nA little container and it impacts the rest of life too around the theme of your career and work but there any any like.\nChanges in Life Approach # You\u0026rsquo;re at the same company that\u0026rsquo;s like you change your roles or anything that I\u0026rsquo;m allowed maybe internally changed but were there any any real any real noticeable changes in some of the like the ways you approach the working part of life if that makes sense yeah I think I think like before I started.\nInterviewing people I one of the biggest things I\u0026rsquo;ve learned is probably about startups I\u0026rsquo;m like before I started the part I was like never I don\u0026rsquo;t think I\u0026rsquo;d really sort of delved into this world before um and never really heard anything about it and so I think through interviewing people I like I\u0026rsquo;ve interviewed a number.\nOf like CEOs of stuff like um yeah it\u0026rsquo;s like Andrew and um um so I would say that has been interesting and even in terms of like how someone would uh like craft their career in like a 10-year time you know people talk about like what\u0026rsquo;s the optimal way to like structure things like when\u0026rsquo;s it a good.\nIdea when\u0026rsquo;s a good time to do this when\u0026rsquo;s it a good time to do this like things like that um and you know one of the one of the ways I\u0026rsquo;ve seen people do it is like corporate for like like get into a good grad program whatever for like two years-ish maybe more then go join a startup that\u0026rsquo;s like.\nYou know sort of try and pick a good one that\u0026rsquo;s um going places and if it goes places that\u0026rsquo;s great if not you\u0026rsquo;ve had corporate experience so it\u0026rsquo;s not too a story that I\u0026rsquo;ve heard a lot of times okay so the logic is that you\u0026rsquo;ve got enough experience and like experience in terms of skills and.\nExperience in terms of uh like a track record working in certain type of role that it\u0026rsquo;s easier for you to get another new job is that\u0026rsquo;s right yeah yeah yeah it\u0026rsquo;d be like going straight from you to a startup is like kind of hard because there\u0026rsquo;s a lot of yeah at least from what.\nI\u0026rsquo;ve heard because there\u0026rsquo;s just like so much to learn it\u0026rsquo;s like I kind of like you got thrown in the deep end of the pool it\u0026rsquo;s like you sort of need to be able to swim a little bit so you don\u0026rsquo;t try uh you know so and that\u0026rsquo;s hard to describe and so I think.\nLike so probably that\u0026rsquo;d be one reason why you\u0026rsquo;d want to have some experience first and then the second ways would be if the startup fails for whatever reason yeah that you have some proof that you are sensible and um you\u0026rsquo;ve worked it like a good place before you know so it\u0026rsquo;s like it\u0026rsquo;s less.\nRisky if you and it like went back there it went to a similar um did a similar thing yep yeah yeah I think that\u0026rsquo;s definitely one I think what else I think like I can\u0026rsquo;t like point to any specifics but I think there\u0026rsquo;s been many uh like and I\u0026rsquo;ll go and find these but there\u0026rsquo;s been a few.\nTimes where someone has said like questions they\u0026rsquo;ll ask of a company before they join or like how to know if the company is going to be a good fit for you or like what questions to ask um during the interview process things like that there\u0026rsquo;s been quite a few episodes where people will just go ask.\nBang bang bang like you know here\u0026rsquo;s like four and so um four or five or whatever so I think like compiling a list of that would be interesting to see get some good ideas for things to ask at these different stages yeah because I think things like that it\u0026rsquo;s kind of hard to think about like.\nHow do you know if a company is going to be a good fit for you like when you\u0026rsquo;re looking for your next role what is that um what does that process look like um things like that I think I\u0026rsquo;ve learned a lot about how different people have navigated this and that\u0026rsquo;s been quite interesting to me.\nAnd useful yeah I sort of remember it was the episode there I was at McKinsey yeah sure on I think sure on that one had a lot of very practical like uh yeah but for that world like uh what was it would you call it summer just internships in general to that kind of like yeah the language but.\nYeah when you\u0026rsquo;re at University age you\u0026rsquo;re looking to get roles in that southern neck of the woods that was very um it was a hell of a process yeah yeah proactive about it that guy yeah and uh yeah I think like when I was at work that\u0026rsquo;s the kind of thing that I just had.\nNo idea like how it even worked um because I wasn\u0026rsquo;t friends with anyone that was doing that process like there was just no one around me that I could see doing that um and so it\u0026rsquo;s really it was very interesting to hear like the level of detail and thought that goes into preparing for those.\nThings and like the interviews and whatever like there\u0026rsquo;s this whole culture almost around like really jobs at these places yeah um and so and a lot of it to me was unknown so it was yeah very interesting to hear how it all works yeah it\u0026rsquo;s a fascinating fascinating thing so the other thing I.\nWas uh curious about because we were talking a bit about this before in this episode but it is interesting I give guess given it\u0026rsquo;s been a year if you were to if you were to start over is there anything you would have done differently.\nThings I Would Do Differently # Looking back on this on this journey is there anything that you think about I think I think one of the things that I\u0026rsquo;ve haven\u0026rsquo;t met is good without as I would have liked is like like it\u0026rsquo;s sort of marketing the pod um you know through social media and other places I think there\u0026rsquo;s been.\nPeriods where I\u0026rsquo;ve done that well and the part has grown it\u0026rsquo;s like a decent amount during those periods but I think the consistency of episodes has been there but consistency of like the marketing and the social media posts and whatever hasn\u0026rsquo;t really been there entire time so I think if I could rewind I.\nWould try and be more consistent in those areas so I think that would have brought more eyeballs onto the Pod um how do you put it down to um probably like possible yeah no I think it is hard to do I think probably one would be the clarity that I uh we were talking about earlier.\nI think it would have helped if I had a clear idea of what exactly are it was aiming to achieve that would have made a lot of these things easier to like justify in my head perhaps um whereas like you know if you\u0026rsquo;re going from like Enterprise pod to like casual pod on the weekend yeah so it\u0026rsquo;s like you.\nKnow for one month I\u0026rsquo;m like let\u0026rsquo;s post every day twice a day like whatever let\u0026rsquo;s go really hard and then the next weekend it\u0026rsquo;s like yeah this is just like a chill thing like a week like we don\u0026rsquo;t even need to do or like or like whatever after no biggies kind of thing.\nUm so yeah I think the consistency on that side probably wasn\u0026rsquo;t there um but I think like and maybe in hindsight too I could have like dm\u0026rsquo;d some like like maybe I didn\u0026rsquo;t push the guests like I feel like I could have reached out to maybe some more high profile people and got some notes um yeah I felt.\nLike yeah I think reflecting now I feel like I could have you know tried some long shots a bit more like I think so I got some pretty good guests on but I think that there\u0026rsquo;s levels of the game and I think I could have yeah I could have chucked a few more like ambitious.\nAre there any big names on the dream in the Dr in the theoretical dream yesterday well someone that\u0026rsquo;s gone around a little bit is like Malcolm Turnbull and gets like he\u0026rsquo;s been on I\u0026rsquo;ve made a few different ones um I\u0026rsquo;m not sure if you have some things to say yeah I\u0026rsquo;m not sure if I did end up.\nEmailing someone like yeah I can\u0026rsquo;t remember I maybe did it in you know someone that was like I think I got his so like his LinkedIn page someone sent me like an email that\u0026rsquo;s like associated with it but it\u0026rsquo;s not his email it\u0026rsquo;s like someone else like it\u0026rsquo;s a different thing it doesn\u0026rsquo;t.\nHave like Malcolm or anything in the in the email and I think I maybe emailed that but I didn\u0026rsquo;t hear back so whatever you know but he\u0026rsquo;d be an example and like but say like um you know like the CEOs of atlassian or whatever and I think it\u0026rsquo;s one guy maybe it\u0026rsquo;s a CEO yeah the co-founders of.\nAtlassian um you know these kinds of people that are like sort of international um would have been quite interesting just to like like because that\u0026rsquo;s a like a macro point is it like they say no whatever like it doesn\u0026rsquo;t really matter um but you know you don\u0026rsquo;t really know kind of how far you can go until you\u0026rsquo;re.\nGetting those so uh I think perhaps I didn\u0026rsquo;t go go I could have gone harder there and got more of those and then I would have known a really sort of pushing the limits sounds like you need a bit more um David Goggins and yeah yeah while you were doing Outreach maybe yeah.\nAlthough you\u0026rsquo;re a man who has holds himself to very high standards I think you\u0026rsquo;ve done a good job but yeah it\u0026rsquo;s uh on paper it just always makes sense oh if someone says no what\u0026rsquo;s what\u0026rsquo;s the problem with that something in the world but I guess it\u0026rsquo;s another thing to um perceived rejection or whatever there\u0026rsquo;s.\nStill another thing entirely so yeah I think it\u0026rsquo;s almost worse people when people say yes and then they just don\u0026rsquo;t follow through that\u0026rsquo;s just like more frustrating it\u0026rsquo;s like yeah yeah why are we stuck here you feel like you\u0026rsquo;ve gotten something and make plans yeah yeah like you\u0026rsquo;ve already kind of celebrated the yes.\nAt least like at least that responded like a kid I think of my real estate days where you felt like you had someone who\u0026rsquo;s buying a home so that meant a lot of you know money or you know there\u0026rsquo;s a real not just like someone\u0026rsquo;s got on the podcast and then it falls through and.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s like the biggest roller coaster experience it makes everything else seem very small in in comparison so I guess that\u0026rsquo;s why it\u0026rsquo;s a bit it\u0026rsquo;s a bit anti-fragile in that way if you can get used to that sort of thing but it\u0026rsquo;s a bloody it\u0026rsquo;s a bloody world yeah that\u0026rsquo;s why you have to become pretty bloody um.\nStoic yeah it\u0026rsquo;s not it\u0026rsquo;s not always a fun ride yeah yeah I think I obviously a pod is like not like running a company but like there are like some parallels I think but maybe getting like a little too oh yeah any project like this is like a business like in a way so it does have a similar.\nDynamics even if it\u0026rsquo;s complexity is different um different type of thing but yeah you don\u0026rsquo;t think out of those moving parts yeah.\nThe Plan # You can\u0026rsquo;t get away from it so what\u0026rsquo;s the plan from here 52 where you see done the Year what\u0026rsquo;s your yeah the plan what\u0026rsquo;s the plan from here is we\u0026rsquo;ll see I think season two is um a potential at this stage um no I\u0026rsquo;d say like 50 50. it maybe it depends on like um.\nI think at this point like it\u0026rsquo;s Neil it\u0026rsquo;s it\u0026rsquo;s October we\u0026rsquo;ll leave it to the end of the year and see how they feel next year um I would say it\u0026rsquo;s likely that if I did come back to the Pod that it would be like season two would be a slightly different theme because I think things.\nLike this maybe have to follow my own interests on some level and I think that\u0026rsquo;s the interest of like a starting University or sorry starting work after University and like the university experience these are like not as interesting to me as they were last year so I think I would you know it would I think I think if I.\nWas going to go and do more podcasting it might be maybe it wouldn\u0026rsquo;t be called gradual Theory maybe it would I don\u0026rsquo;t know but you know what I mean I think I\u0026rsquo;d be more focused on the kind of like early to mid-career stuff like how do you become and maybe even more focused.\nOn like my career path even even um yeah so like how do you go from so for example I do engineering at work so like how did how do you go from like admit to senior level engineer like how do you become like CTO or something like that yeah those questions would be.\nMore interesting to me I think than um like like how do you get your first job after University yeah so yeah I think that\u0026rsquo;s the only selling you can talk about that yeah yeah and I think like probably part of the reason why um Keen to sort of stop things now it\u0026rsquo;s because yeah I feel like we\u0026rsquo;ve covered.\nThat topic to a deep like a decent degree and I think a lot of the guests I\u0026rsquo;ve had on with we kind of speak about more General things than than just that anyway like even most the officers aren\u0026rsquo;t even really aimed at like uni like like it\u0026rsquo;s it\u0026rsquo;s definitely more just general life advice.\nMaybe aim to the younger audience so I think there\u0026rsquo;s that yeah yeah well it\u0026rsquo;s something I think Gilly I think said to me wants to talk about a similar theme and he said that uh being alive in the 80s and things like that you notice when the concept of career coaches and stuff came into.\nBecome mainstream or started popping up and he hasn\u0026rsquo;t quickly the main flavor of them turned from career coaching to sweatlight but if you think of it life coaching stuff like that came from it was essentially connected to it\u0026rsquo;s connected to everything else that was a big theme in Gillies I mean heaps of people\u0026rsquo;s episodes but it was.\nDefinitely a theme in Gilly\u0026rsquo;s episode too so naturally it always jumps around you know some cement related things so and uni is the same like Uni\u0026rsquo;s connected too normally career um in most cases so when you\u0026rsquo;re at Uni you can see uni and there\u0026rsquo;s only so much you can optimize uni when really it\u0026rsquo;s trying to serve.\nSomething else you know so you\u0026rsquo;re just not over optimizing the uni experience maybe but you\u0026rsquo;re thinking about where does it go so it\u0026rsquo;s quite natural and then naturally I always think that the more like it\u0026rsquo;s very it\u0026rsquo;s it\u0026rsquo;s almost like the a good sign when you feel like you\u0026rsquo;re outgrowing something and if.\nThat\u0026rsquo;s the language you\u0026rsquo;d use but if it\u0026rsquo;s if you\u0026rsquo;re not outgrowing something it\u0026rsquo;s almost maybe opposite maybe it\u0026rsquo;s limiting yeah well it just depends like naturally you should evolve you shouldn\u0026rsquo;t get stuck in the one thing like in theory like a business evolves you know if they say that about Berkshire Hathaway like uh Charlie.\nMunger Warren Buffett like one thing that worked for Berkshire Hathaway this decade didn\u0026rsquo;t work for them in the in the next decade they keep Reinventing themselves of you know sporting teams like that right and I think that\u0026rsquo;s um you know someone who\u0026rsquo;s kind of watched you along this this journey I think it\u0026rsquo;s.\nBeen really great to watch and hopefully I speak for a lot of the other people who\u0026rsquo;ve listened and enjoyed watching alongside as well because it\u0026rsquo;s very it\u0026rsquo;s very rewarding and easy to underappreciate just watching someone who\u0026rsquo;s very honestly and open-mindedly going on the journey like I don\u0026rsquo;t I again this is just my.\nReflection of you but it\u0026rsquo;s not like I have all the answers or you know I have I have everything it\u0026rsquo;s just very open like there\u0026rsquo;s cool people um a regular kind of relatable thing I\u0026rsquo;m interested in making the most of my career my time I want to be intentional about it what can I learn from these people.\nAround me what is what is out there I know it\u0026rsquo;s just so I would say it\u0026rsquo;s just so relatable I think it\u0026rsquo;s just so relatable I think it\u0026rsquo;s interesting people still watching at this point that it can maybe they feel themselves evolving too who knows so nice they\u0026rsquo;re complex things right it\u0026rsquo;s.\nYou can\u0026rsquo;t really pin put one pin in it and if you could it\u0026rsquo;s probably not the best thing and a lack of uh when you talk about like Clarity and stuff I just think about that too sometimes it\u0026rsquo;s really good I always think of clarity like a set of circles like a ripple like.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s like a continual journey in yeah um it\u0026rsquo;s just ring by ring layer by layer and I don\u0026rsquo;t think it ever ends that someone who\u0026rsquo;s a little bit older I don\u0026rsquo;t know if I can pull the age card here but yeah I don\u0026rsquo;t know sorry that\u0026rsquo;s my rambling but no no I agree.\nYeah I think you know yeah I agree with what he is what you\u0026rsquo;re saying like you know there\u0026rsquo;s the idea of like Seasons you know some things are around for a season and then you go do something else and it\u0026rsquo;s all it\u0026rsquo;s not uh not necessarily bad you know to do something for a bit and then do.\nSomething else like it\u0026rsquo;s all in the pursuit of um enjoying the experience of Life yeah you know I think it\u0026rsquo;s happy to do that every now and then true you know and I think it\u0026rsquo;s been cool I mean yeah I\u0026rsquo;m not like some super fortunate person really like I think most people I mean there is some.\nElement of Fortune perhaps but I think like I\u0026rsquo;m not really special in any way so I think a lot of the things that I\u0026rsquo;ve done and the sort of Journey that I\u0026rsquo;ve had I think many people could um do something similar and hopefully it\u0026rsquo;s um hopefully my experience shows that it\u0026rsquo;s not that things like this are.\nWithin reach perhaps of um people can actually do this now there\u0026rsquo;s no um beauty of the internet is there\u0026rsquo;s no real barriers to this kind of thing you know like there\u0026rsquo;s no barrier to asking your company\u0026rsquo;s boss like out for coffee yeah um you know anyone can do that um so I think it\u0026rsquo;s.\nYeah I think it\u0026rsquo;s been cool it\u0026rsquo;s been yeah it\u0026rsquo;s been very cool I feel very fortunate I\u0026rsquo;ve been able to speak to so many interesting people that I\u0026rsquo;ve like yeah giving me their time and their lessons.\nAdvice for Graduates # Yeah well the one of the last things I just want to make sure I threw in there because you\u0026rsquo;re probably too modest to say it yourself and uh you know the word unspecial is a tricky one because there\u0026rsquo;s something here I get you like relatable and all that and not too.\nDifferent circumstances why there\u0026rsquo;s a lot of people out there but there\u0026rsquo;s something very special I think about what you\u0026rsquo;ve done but I told you this story and to bring it back to Gilly sorry but once again it was uh he was he was explaining to me how because he\u0026rsquo;s what 75 and he.\nHad these people from his ee group and for whatever reason one of his schoolmates was Googling his name and found this long interview that he was in and he um this guy his schoolmate you know 75 is a little bit of school what 50 something years before together um watched watched the whole interview.\nCouldn\u0026rsquo;t he said to Michael I couldn\u0026rsquo;t put it down I couldn\u0026rsquo;t stop watching it was so engaging just learning about his story and he insisted to all the people in their year I know they probably use email or something people of that age he said everyone has to watch this interview you know this look at what everything.\nMichael achieved and whatever and um I remember that episode again you know Luke and I talked about and I know people going through very difficult times in their career who found episodes like that very useful for them and uh I just wanted to mention that because I think it\u0026rsquo;s there\u0026rsquo;s minor look it from.\nThe outside sometimes but there\u0026rsquo;s been a lot of things like that and there might be more that you\u0026rsquo;re not aware of that are very special things to have done for people while you are humbly just looking to I guess enhance your own wisdom so I hope that you and other people who\u0026rsquo;ve been along for the journey.\nAppreciate things like that because that\u0026rsquo;s very special yeah absolutely and that\u0026rsquo;s what it\u0026rsquo;s all about is uh yeah stories like that and yeah episode there was a lot of like friends of ours like you said and watched it and it had it impacted them you know people have come and said certain things about.\nOther episodes to me and said you know this one was really helpful during this period like of my life and really helped me do this thing or whatever um I said that\u0026rsquo;s quite cool it\u0026rsquo;s it\u0026rsquo;s cool you know that sort of I\u0026rsquo;m able to have fun speaking to people who are hopefully having fun speaking to me and.\nWe\u0026rsquo;re able to share the conversation that\u0026rsquo;s able to you know help other people I think it\u0026rsquo;s just a win-win-win it really is yeah it really is wow do you have any other I mean I feel like turning your your own question back on you at this point around the advice you would give to Young graduates or.\nUnless I\u0026rsquo;ve butchered it I believe that\u0026rsquo;s the question or early version of yourself but is there you know not to put pressure on you mate but you\u0026rsquo;ve done 52 episodes you\u0026rsquo;ve talked to some incredible people including episode one with Joey really high caliber people a lot of wisdom more than probably more than 52 hours of.\nInsight and everything like that and stuff in between so no pressure but James out of all that distilling it in a single question to assess your worth um yeah and seriously what is what is top of mind right right now for you in terms of your your distilled like yeah I think answer.\nThat question yeah I think firstly it\u0026rsquo;s hard to sum up all the episodes right so I think there\u0026rsquo;s many like little pieces of advice that just wouldn\u0026rsquo;t fit and then I think are valuable but I guess like some some main points I would say is like even for myself starting things like the Pod or like.\nUh the Instagram page we spoke about that I had before the Pod you know things like that I really I had the desire to do things like that for some time before I did them and I think part of the reason why I didn\u0026rsquo;t do them earlier is upon reflection that I was in some way.\nSort of weighed down by um social expectations and like what other people were going to think of me and things like that and I think um it probably wasn\u0026rsquo;t even that I recognized that it was probably just like I just didn\u0026rsquo;t care anymore and that I was just gonna do it regardless I.\nThink that is a big thing um and I think so much of like how we live in the things we do are defined by our social group and who and this is like super cliche that you know The Five People You spend the most time with whatever because I think even for me that whole process probably the.\nInstagram page leading to the Pod was around the same time that I was connecting a lot with you and like constant student was kind of around a similar time and so for me it became like seeing all these people do stuff like that it was like okay this is now like the just the normal behavior of people.\nIs to do these things and so that made it almost created space for me to then go and do those things um whereas before before then it was a lot um you know I kind of wanted these things but I didn\u0026rsquo;t really feel comfortable owning them in in a way like so it\u0026rsquo;s like it\u0026rsquo;d be a part of me where.\nI\u0026rsquo;d be like chained to someone and we just wouldn\u0026rsquo;t talk about this this whole side of me the things that I was interested in well um and so I think that has been Pro yeah like a really great experience for me was that I think because now there\u0026rsquo;s I think one of the biggest learnings for me.\nThrough all of this has been um like things like that where I\u0026rsquo;m interested in things but I used to sort of not share with everyone so like that there were like so many things like I used to read Lots like no one knew that I read any books really like I maybe taught a.\nCouple of people but not my closest friends um things like I would do like weird things like read my news on like an RSS reader which is like very nerdy but like I wouldn\u0026rsquo;t I just never told anyone because I don\u0026rsquo;t want to be seen as like yeah like I wouldn\u0026rsquo;t want to be seen as.\nLike the weird guy that does the stuff um and there\u0026rsquo;s a whole list of things um you know even when I was at University early on I was like tried to start like a Shopify Drop Shipping thing you know where you like get the stuff yeah anyway so but like so I did that.\nAnd like I didn\u0026rsquo;t tell anyone because like I wouldn\u0026rsquo;t want like other people to know that I was into this kind of thing and so that was a part of my life for a long time and I think the Pod was like the first time that I like I posted you know on LinkedIn to.\nEveryone that like this is what I\u0026rsquo;m gonna do um and it was maybe like a bit nerve-wracking at the time but um now it\u0026rsquo;s I feel a lot more I\u0026rsquo;m not integrated probably the wrong word but I feel like now that I\u0026rsquo;m chatting to people I don\u0026rsquo;t have to hide this whole part of it that\u0026rsquo;s like interested in all.\nThis different stuff and I think that has been one of the biggest learnings for me in saying I\u0026rsquo;m grateful for and something that I think um if someone was like facing a similar challenge then I think they should um find ways to sort of overcome that feeling whether it\u0026rsquo;s by doing something in public or.\nUm you know if you are sort of hiding yourself in that way then I think um maybe it\u0026rsquo;s vague like you should try and find ways to not do that because I think it\u0026rsquo;s it\u0026rsquo;s a it\u0026rsquo;s a big shame if you\u0026rsquo;re gonna if when you\u0026rsquo;re hiding them yourself and your interests so yeah I would even say like go out and.\nTry and find people that where it\u0026rsquo;s okay to speak about things like that too because that\u0026rsquo;ll make it a lot easier beautiful answer beautiful answer I think morale could add to that story it\u0026rsquo;s been it\u0026rsquo;s been um yeah no but I\u0026rsquo;m I\u0026rsquo;m seriously grateful for like this whole the whole journey and perhaps that\u0026rsquo;s the Journey of.\nLife is sort of peeling back the layers um of the onion and like that in some way maybe um but yeah I\u0026rsquo;m grateful that I had this experience early in my life so that I can now go and like um bring my whole self to work and wherever it is um and like to work at home and wherever it.\nMight be and yeah that it\u0026rsquo;s not something after have to hide or um yeah and I\u0026rsquo;m very grateful I think it\u0026rsquo;s it\u0026rsquo;s been a very transformative experience for me so.\nConclusion # Well thanks for sharing it with us all thanks for letting people like me be part of it and be on the podcast and all that on behalf of all you\u0026rsquo;re lovely and wise and intelligent and caring guests and uh yeah thank you I think that\u0026rsquo;s just a beautiful message to end it on I think.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s so valuable and important and yeah I really don\u0026rsquo;t have anything to add to that it\u0026rsquo;s just very well incredibly well said and Incredibly well intentioned you can tell you really feel that it\u0026rsquo;s not happening much more than words and something you really mean and have learned on a deep level yeah no thank you Mana yeah I appreciate.\nUh your support through this whole journey and there are many others uh you know the name uh that I\u0026rsquo;ve been really instrumental in this as well um so I want to thank all uh everyone that\u0026rsquo;s been involved in the journey it\u0026rsquo;s been yeah it\u0026rsquo;s been a wild ride and um we\u0026rsquo;ll see if perhaps season two will.\nCome back and if it does I\u0026rsquo;ll be I\u0026rsquo;ll be stoked to share it with everyone well I hope there\u0026rsquo;s some form of something from you that everyone can well yeah that\u0026rsquo;s the kind of plan is to yeah we\u0026rsquo;re working on a small product to uh kind of summarize a lot of content um at least partially it\u0026rsquo;s hard to do it.\nJustice but I\u0026rsquo;ll try my best and um yeah we\u0026rsquo;ll see keep an eye out for that is there anything in case just in case I don\u0026rsquo;t think you need to communicate about where people do or don\u0026rsquo;t find you or reach out to you or find you or anything like that yeah I think the first link in the description.\nShould be the newsletter and that\u0026rsquo;ll be the best place to keep up to date with the goings-on um otherwise you can look at The Graduate Theory website or Graduate Theory LinkedIn is probably the best place to catch on social media YouTube as well um those would be the best places to go and keep up to date.\nAwesome thanks again for listening to graduate.\nOutro # Theory we\u0026rsquo;ve reached the end of the episode now so if you haven\u0026rsquo;t already please go and subscribe to The Graduate Theory newsletter that\u0026rsquo;s where you\u0026rsquo;re going to find out everything that\u0026rsquo;s going on after this episode I really are looking forward to seeing you there and letting you know what\u0026rsquo;s coming next but yeah I want to just thank you again for.\nListening uh to this show it means a lot to me that you\u0026rsquo;ve listened this far into the episode yeah thanks so much and hopefully this has been valuable for you it\u0026rsquo;s certainly been valuable for me so until next time we\u0026rsquo;ll see you around.\n← Back to episode 52\n","date":"17 October 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/graduate-theory/52-the-end/transcript/","section":"Graduate Theory Transcripts","summary":"← Back to episode 52\nThis transcript was generated from YouTube captions and lightly edited for readability. Speaker labels may be unavailable, and transcription errors may remain.\nIntro # Hello and welcome to Graduate Theory today’s episode is episode 52 of Graduate Theory which means it’s been about a year of Graduate Theory episodes we’ve had an episode come out every Tuesday for pretty much a year now it’s been a wild Journey there’s been so many guests on the show so much knowledge.\n","title":"Transcript: The End","type":"graduate-theory-transcripts"},{"content":" Watch the conversation Graduate Theory Open YouTube ↗ Read the full transcript → Everyone wants to get into startups.\nThey\u0026rsquo;ve become the new hottest thing.\nToday, we uncover what to look for when joining a startup.\nNan Meka is VP at Pet Circle and a Fellow at Afterwork VC.\n🤝 Connect with Nan # LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/nan-meka-8b5a5812/\n👇 Episode Takeaways # Interviewing the Startup # When looking for a startup role, you should be interviewing the company as much as they are interviewing you.\nHere are some things to look for:\nrigour of the business model market size (is the company in a growing market?) diversity team composition founder and exec team history product reviews and customer feedback You should research the company thoroughly, and ask even more detailed questions during the interview.\nIf your interviewers don\u0026rsquo;t give many details, take it as a sign that they may have something to hide.\nThe Fallacy of Fundraising Size # Startups that raise money are often in the news. We default to assuming that a big raise means a good company.\nThis is not always the case.\nCurrently, companies that recently raised lots of money are having to lay off workers.\nNan suggests taking the investment size with a grain of salt.\nWhat is more important than the amount of capital raised is whether the company has a product that people love and will pay for.\nChasing Compensation # As young people, we make mistakes often.\nNan says that one of the biggest mistakes we make is chasing compensation rather than learning opportunities.\nI think early on in your career you should definitely optimize for learning over earning a high salary and even the role as well. And I strongly believe that if you invest in learning first, you are gonna develop that highly sought-after skill set which translates into that valuable role, which a high salary is ultimately a byproduct of.\nEarning rather than learning may end up resulting in you earning less later in life.\nWhile you are young, pursue learning opportunities.\n📝 Content Timestamps # 00:00 Nan Meka\n00:33 Transitioning from Corporate to Startups\n07:45 Finding a good startup\n15:45 Learning and Career Progression\n19:58 Mistakes young people make\n23:57 Nan\u0026rsquo;s Advice for Graduates\n","date":"10 October 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/graduate-theory/51-nan-meka-choosing-startup-thats-right/","section":"Graduate Theory","summary":" Watch the conversation Graduate Theory Open YouTube ↗ Read the full transcript → Everyone wants to get into startups.\nThey’ve become the new hottest thing.\n","title":"Nan Meka | On Choosing a Startup That's Right for You","type":"graduate-theory"},{"content":"← Back to episode 51\nThis transcript was generated from YouTube captions and lightly edited for readability. Speaker labels may be unavailable, and transcription errors may remain.\nNan Meka # I think as somebody who\u0026rsquo;s entering into a startup you might get enamored with fundraising size but having been in a startup it\u0026rsquo;s actually not an indication of a successful product Market fit or commercial model or a great customer experience so that\u0026rsquo;s one metric I definitely ignore great to have you on the show I want to.\nStart by asking you did you worked in a lot of corporate jobs right you worked.\nTransitioning from Corporate to Startups # At KPMG Macquarie a bunch of other like really corporate places and now you\u0026rsquo;re you\u0026rsquo;ve been in startup land for a little while so I want to ask what was the initial transition there what kind of LED you out of the corporate world into the Corp into the startup scene was there any sort of moment that triggered.\nThat yeah earlier in my career I was on the other side so I was assessing investing in Internet businesses I was also in gaming spaces and working on developing commercial models supporting digital businesses on their strategies spent most of my like earlier career in consumer Tech space particularly on the corporate VC side a strategy M A as well.\nAs early stage startup and scale up company side in the land year as a non-technical person I really didn\u0026rsquo;t think there was a pathway for me into early stage startups especially with someone with my random background and I found out that was the furthest thing from the truth because there was like a pent-up.\nDemand for generalists who were like malleable learn fast solve problems have impact to scaling the business and effectively helping to create defensibility from both internal and external shots that an early stage constantly experiences through their Journey and the way I transitioned because it wasn\u0026rsquo;t so big and I don\u0026rsquo;t really want to show my age right now this is so big.\nBack in the day I think when Blackbird VC only just really started uh coming to fruition around that time and so it was a very nascent period for investing early stage investing in Australia and there wasn\u0026rsquo;t much of a community or or meetups around this space for me I had to just basically reach out to.\nFounders that I admired and identified problems that they were solving that deeply interested me and I think it was hard I\u0026rsquo;m not gonna lie to make that sort of leap because we\u0026rsquo;re going for a very structured and well-resourced environment to one that\u0026rsquo;s gray ambiguous chaotic all of the above like crazy and so luckily I did get my first foray in.\nStartups and that was about seven years ago when I joined a little online bus booking business which actually ended up scaling to about 200 million in gross sales a year and that ended up helping yeah millions of customers travel easier and so I was in an area called business operations and what is business.\nOperations the purpose and the role of my team was to drive growth of the business by either launching and scaling new initiatives or just even optimizing day-to-day operations or even just a mixture of both I was fortunate enough to work on a lot of different problems across products and marketing customer success and that was to ensure that the.\nBusiness is solving the right problems in line with the company level objectives and so some of the projects I would work on would be hey we need to we\u0026rsquo;ve got a bit of backlog with our customer queries how can we improve our customer experience which is deeply important in the online travel space.\nGetting that sort of real-time ability to connect with somebody and have your query answered because you\u0026rsquo;re about to miss your bus and it\u0026rsquo;s going to impact your journey and your experience um so looking at streamlining processes to handle these queries and looking to ways to improve like MPS I worked with marketing to launch loyalty programs to.\nImprove like retention rates and so there was a variety of stuff and I wasn\u0026rsquo;t an expert in anything but what I was deeply curious about how things worked and I had a very growth oriented and learning mindset like a baby just coming into the world and then more recently I was the head of.\nOperations at Simply Wall St which is a B2C SaaS app and we helped over 5 million retail investors make better stock decisions I don\u0026rsquo;t know if you\u0026rsquo;ve used it I have I did have a little I like a little bit of a player under the lead up to this but not yeah yeah it\u0026rsquo;s.\nGreat isn\u0026rsquo;t it\u0026rsquo;s and I think like for me I get attracted to not just any startup but a startups that\u0026rsquo;s solving a business problem or a or a or a problem that really hits like a bit of a personal note with me for me like I was actually a user of Simply Wall St.\nBefore because it helped my personal retail investing journey and I really had a lot of asymmetric information I didn\u0026rsquo;t have the clunky sort of Bloomberg terminal prohibitively expensive I believe they\u0026rsquo;re like 150 000 per terminal or per license something crazy like that which by hedge fund or a large company would have and as a result not.\nNot have that same sort of Level Playing Field and what I saw is that business and the founder Al deeply passionate about that space and he was leveling this access and he was simplifying the journey for the average Jane or Joe so that\u0026rsquo;s what really attracted me to that business and then now currently I\u0026rsquo;M\u0026amp;A VP.\nIn the finance team at Pet Circle which is obviously a leading online pet company in Australia and it was a tough decision actually leaving Simply Wall St because you\u0026rsquo;ve gone from an early stage business startup solving super interesting problems to a business that is doing exactly the same thing but it\u0026rsquo;s in its scale-up Journey as well and the.\nDecision really came to my skill set I wanted to level up I wanted to expand my toolkit I wanted to join a company during that journey and I fell in love with the founders stories and ambition to build a great enduring business that aims to solve all of our furry and scaly friends needs and that\u0026rsquo;s what really.\nExcited me about it and hearing that Vision through the interview process from Mike our CEO and our CFO and just the excitement really really brought me in and what I do there and my team does is help the business to make the best decisions possible and enable Business Leaders to make the right choices for.\nThe customer and the company and support existing business business lines like optimizing them help the business to plan better and look at new growth opportunities as well so entering in New Markets or it adjacent businesses in the pet space that\u0026rsquo;s super cool thank you so much for sharing because yeah I think you\u0026rsquo;ve done some really cool things in.\nYour career and it\u0026rsquo;s super cool to hear even there\u0026rsquo;s some of the details of what you do on a day-to-day basis but I would I don\u0026rsquo;t want to ask one thing in a bit more detail and so you can touch on a little bit through through that but if someone is looking to join a startup and.\nYou mentioned there some things attachment to the actual Mission how does it relate to your current skills and things like that but I wonder if someone\u0026rsquo;s looking to make the leap as you did what kind of things should someone be looking for when they\u0026rsquo;re going to join a startup are there any.\nFinding a good startup # Things that perhaps if you were like you know if you had to run the clock back and it\u0026rsquo;d be like yeah how would I do this what kind of things now would I look for in a startup that would you know that would maybe increase the odds it\u0026rsquo;s going to be a good experience.\nFor me what sort of things would you look for yeah that\u0026rsquo;s a great question I actually have started to do this a lot more in terms of interviewing the startup is interviewing me or interviewing a business that\u0026rsquo;s interviewing me and I think it\u0026rsquo;s important for people to spend the vast majority of your time like figuring out.\nIs this the right company for you to join above anything else because that needs to be aligned otherwise you\u0026rsquo;re just not going to be excited coming into work every day especially when things get really and so it\u0026rsquo;s really important so I would ask some certain questions before joining startup you could probably do a bit of desktop research as.\nWell but in particular testing the rigor of the business model is it a big Market size what does the team look like are they strong executors is it diverse are they creative are they good operators is diversity super important and in my experience I\u0026rsquo;ve optimized for companies that were operating in really big.\nGrowing markets so online travel is huge pets is a 15 billion dollar market just in Australia alone retail investing like Simply Wall St is tackling there\u0026rsquo;s about uh 300 400 million retail investors worldwide so those are huge growing markets more people are entering into that market as well more people are taking a note of it and also paying for.\nServices and goods in those marks I also try to get a sense of how the product was doing before it launched so before an interview I would just go and do that desktop research that I mentioned dive into customer feedback be a trust pilot or your Google reviews and this would give me a sense of if the customer.\nFeedback was really telling me that they\u0026rsquo;re solving a real pain point for a customer or that a problem has just been invented because it sounds cool but they\u0026rsquo;re not really but it\u0026rsquo;s not really a sustainable business and I think it\u0026rsquo;s also another thing which is what I\u0026rsquo;ve noticed about it and drives me crazy is that there\u0026rsquo;s a lot of.\nMarketing around fundraising and so I think as somebody who\u0026rsquo;s entering into a startup you might get enamored with fundraising size but having been in a startup it\u0026rsquo;s actually not an indication of a successful product Market fit or commercial model or a great customer experience so that\u0026rsquo;s one metric I definitely ignore so you see if a lot of.\nCompanies going wow we\u0026rsquo;ve raised like 100 million dollars we\u0026rsquo;ve raised 150 million dollars and now you\u0026rsquo;re seeing in the news oh wow we haven\u0026rsquo;t nailed our sort of Revenue targets or some of the metrics that we had planned to hit we\u0026rsquo;re letting go of 15 to 20 of the workforce and this is happening a lot now like I\u0026rsquo;m.\nSeeing a lot of stories come up in in the local news just even yesterday for this company that came out where there were Sac letting go of 16 of the workforce after they had just raised 125 million dollars was led by the atlassian sorry the atlassian founders yeah it\u0026rsquo;s important to just distinguish those two.\nAnd if there isn\u0026rsquo;t any information or little information because it\u0026rsquo;s very hard with startups that they\u0026rsquo;re private companies by the time you get to the interview I would ask my interviewees actually about these topics and I would ask them Point Blank and I have done this in interviews where I\u0026rsquo;ve asked hey what are your actual challenges as an.\nActivation that\u0026rsquo;s the issue is it acquiring customers is it retaining customers and really deep dive and whatever information they are able to give me and if they try to like gloss over it I would I would be like something suspect there so I think that\u0026rsquo;s really important for you to dig into that information and not be afraid.\nJust because they\u0026rsquo;re interviewing you doesn\u0026rsquo;t mean you cannot interview them back it\u0026rsquo;s a two-way and so for me I\u0026rsquo;ve been an angel investor I\u0026rsquo;m also an operator in startups and scale-ups and um I also Focus most of my attention on the founding and exec team because in early stage businesses Revenue might not.\nBe a metric that you can ascertain certain metrics might not be there I tend to look at other Founders the right people that are building the product in this market are they a customer do they know the customer well or they\u0026rsquo;re just doing it for bragging rights um do they have passion that can be.\nSustainable for decades it\u0026rsquo;s tiring building a startup you like there are more bad days than there are good days so you\u0026rsquo;ve got to have great and big bold Ambitions to change the world and help the customer and not just optimize for oh the financial return I\u0026rsquo;m going to I\u0026rsquo;m going to be a.\nMulti-millionaire out of this but I deeply love what you\u0026rsquo;re doing and do they care like beyond the product as well so do they care about the people and do they care about building a business that\u0026rsquo;s a generational business that will transcend time and effectively have long lasting impacts for their customers and so if that\u0026rsquo;s important to.\nLike distill and one red flag for me really is if they are covering up these challenges and problems that I\u0026rsquo;ve mentioned earlier I would just counter with what area of the business do you think that you can improve on and look at their response and their responses they\u0026rsquo;ve shown humbleness and real ownership of.\nProblems and that there\u0026rsquo;s work to do um they\u0026rsquo;re really grounded in reality and it is about collectively getting together and solving that rather than glossing it over and then everything blows up and then finally for me is this a team I can learn from and want to learn from and even though a founder or.\nA CEO has different skill sets to you there are these like important sort of meta skills beyond the technical and those hard skills that you can learn just by observing how they communicate how they prioritize how they handle stress and if you can observe those then it\u0026rsquo;s incredibly powerful to learn off them and also you don\u0026rsquo;t want to feel.\nLike the smartest person in the room when you\u0026rsquo;re with this team or the founding team and if you are then you\u0026rsquo;re not going to learn anything so I would avoid businesses like that as well yeah no I think that\u0026rsquo;s really great yeah I think like he was saying if the company is going really well and there are.\nThings to share then they\u0026rsquo;ll be more open to sharing them whereas if things perhaps aren\u0026rsquo;t going so well then maybe they won\u0026rsquo;t be yeah I mean with like how things are going so I think that\u0026rsquo;s a great way of working out without like perhaps getting a response but you can still get have an idea of what\u0026rsquo;s going.\nOn I think that\u0026rsquo;s really cool I think yeah there\u0026rsquo;s a lot of good things in there that I think are quite useful and things that I didn\u0026rsquo;t think about looking up the reviews and doing things that way to try and see what do people actually think about this an interesting point about funding because I feel like you.\nSaid there\u0026rsquo;s a lot of like media usually around like raises and stuff and it\u0026rsquo;s easy to get to think oh they raise lots of money must be a good company like like disregard a lot of the things that you did mention around is the customer having a good experience with this product like other Founders like going.\nTo stay in it for the long haul things like that yeah I like that a lot definitely definitely going to use some of those tips there yeah and if all veils watch a lot of True Crime because you get really good oh that\u0026rsquo;s amazing Yeah you mentioned it a little bit in there around you want to be in a team.\nThat is going to help you grow and learn and develop you don\u0026rsquo;t want to feel like the smartest person in the room I feel like this is something that you do really well you\u0026rsquo;ve done plenty of learning outside of outside of work you.\nLearning and Career Progression # Do the masters of Finance all these like different VC things I know you\u0026rsquo;ve done a few of those kind of almost like a boot camp style training things I\u0026rsquo;m interested to hear how you think about developing your skills both in your role and outside of that and how you\u0026rsquo;ve used those like external things and perhaps.\nYour current roles as well to progress I guess yeah that\u0026rsquo;s a great question I think for me like University can only teach you so much I think once you get into the workforce and you start actually interacting with customers interacting with various functions and with your team that\u0026rsquo;s when the real lessons start.\nTo occur and I think it\u0026rsquo;s just about being open and being like deeply curious and understanding why we do what we do and so if there\u0026rsquo;s any sort of skill that I would suggest getting is getting curiosity and I think that encourages sort of the learning the exchange of ideas we communicate better with one.\nAnother in our team builds deeper connection and empathy to what a team made or a different function is doing fuels Innovation and I think when we\u0026rsquo;re curious we look at tough problems in a more creative light and try to sit in the problem until we deeply understand why it\u0026rsquo;s so challenging so in my case I.\nWanted to learn more about product management and growth because at Simply Wall St for example I was interacting with a lot of those but the development of those strategies and building those teams and if and I didn\u0026rsquo;t have any depth of understanding of it just what I\u0026rsquo;ve read online but I didn\u0026rsquo;t want that superficial understanding so I.\nStarted to invest a lot more time just learning from others setting up catch-ups coffee catch-ups with people just to understand what do they do why does it drive impact to the business why is it so important breaking it up for me as well and then doing my own sort of investment after hours in in training so.\nI started doing those reforge courses which are a great way to level up your understanding of product and growth and understanding things around how product managers do their jobs and how strategies are set at that level how they even interview their users even from a growth perspective like how does how do you build like a growth model in.\nA tech business what does that look like how do you think about pricing monetization like all these various um tidbits of that makeup sort of growth which is like deeply complicated because it is very I would say a newer area and very different to your traditional marketing channels and so yeah for me it.\nWas just about investing a lot of time um in leveling up reading a lot subscribing to a lot of newsletters following people on Twitter as well to learn and effectively yeah just being really deeply curious about things and wanting to understand the why not because I wanted to execute that job but because it helped me to build more.\nEmpathy and understanding especially because I was on the leadership team and if we were supporting these teams in terms of growing them and building them and helping to Define strategies with them and I needed to have that understanding otherwise yeah it would just yeah I would add no value effectively yeah I think it\u0026rsquo;s interesting you mentioned.\nEarlier about aligning the company that you or the startup that you\u0026rsquo;re going to try and join or the company that you\u0026rsquo;re working for with something that is like a personal pain point or something that you\u0026rsquo;re actually interested in a product that perhaps you use anyway I think that really helps with the curios Curiosity.\nPeace right is if you if it\u0026rsquo;s something that hits you one of your pain points and you\u0026rsquo;re actually interested and then you also work there then I think that\u0026rsquo;s then obviously you\u0026rsquo;re going to be much more interested than having some pain points or whatever and then working somewhere that\u0026rsquo;s completely unrelated that\u0026rsquo;s going to be.\nYou\u0026rsquo;re going to have better odds at being interested right if you work somewhere that\u0026rsquo;s actually relevant to yourself so yeah I think that\u0026rsquo;s super good 100.\nMistakes young people make # Nice let\u0026rsquo;s continue on I wanna I know we\u0026rsquo;ve only got a little bit of time left so I want to touch on sort of your career more broadly rather than day to day and I want to ask career advice so you are I\u0026rsquo;m sure you\u0026rsquo;ve seen many sort of Juniors or Junior marketers growth.\nPeople whatever it might be product to come through different companies that you\u0026rsquo;ve worked at and I wonder what is some advice that you see these people what are some mistakes maybe that you see these people make that um you wish you could just tell everyone everyone that\u0026rsquo;s starting their career don\u0026rsquo;t make this mistake is there.\nAnything there yeah um I\u0026rsquo;ve had this kind of common career advice come my way and it\u0026rsquo;s really it\u0026rsquo;s really either from your parents or from respectfully older people I\u0026rsquo;m just gonna say and they\u0026rsquo;ve communicated this often hey you\u0026rsquo;ve you\u0026rsquo;ve got to know your worth when going for a role and when they talk about.\nWorth it\u0026rsquo;s effectively your compensation your total compensation and I do understand that it comes from a good place and it\u0026rsquo;s ensuring that you and others are valuing you and your time but the biggest mistake I see people make especially the ones that are trying to go from a corporate job into into a.\nStartup or a scale up is trying to optimize sort of their salaries and so I think early on in your career you should definitely optimize for learning over earning a high salary and even the role as well and I strongly believe that if you invest in learning first you are going to develop that.\nHighly sought after skill set which then translates into that valuable role which a high salary is ultimately a byproduct of and so just in my experience recruiting and interviewing candidates and you get to the office stage especially new ones coming in around the two to four year experience Mark and they\u0026rsquo;ve come from.\nLarge corporates and they think oh yeah like therefore I should be earning even more and so generally they want to try and get maybe five to tenk more which after tax is like totally immaterial or they want the role title in a startup because the one that they\u0026rsquo;re going for isn\u0026rsquo;t sexy enough.\nAnd so it\u0026rsquo;s all totally immaterial because your foregoing valuable steep learning curve the immense amount of ownership you get from day one and also the conviction you building yourself through many opportunities of being tested failing consistently and then learning and picking yourself up and being stronger for it which you just don\u0026rsquo;t get.\nThat opportunity at a larger organization because there\u0026rsquo;s just so much cushioning and protection so I would really caution people to really think about why they\u0026rsquo;re going for a startup role and not really like optimized for that earning because what might happen is because startups are resource constrained or scale-ups of resource constrained it might not be in the budget and then.\nYou might miss out on a an opportunity which you can\u0026rsquo;t get back into an opportunity which a lot of people are buying to get into yeah definitely I feel like you mentioned it but yeah today I feel like startups I guess the new like sexy thing to do right and so you want the nice title or.\nLike things like that but yeah I completely agree I think sometimes the learning particularly when you\u0026rsquo;re young is just important and I think you\u0026rsquo;ve said it quite well where you\u0026rsquo;re saying the learning or and the knowledge that you gained will lead to a high salary like sometime in the future you don\u0026rsquo;t necessarily need that right now in fact.\nSometimes choosing a high style when you\u0026rsquo;re young might like limit the growth in some cases where you\u0026rsquo;re being like overpaid to do nothing sometimes so yeah I completely agree I think it\u0026rsquo;s important for people to recognize that.\nNan\u0026rsquo;s Advice for Graduates # Cool I\u0026rsquo;ve got let\u0026rsquo;s do one more and this is a question for you about if you could rewind the clock it\u0026rsquo;s a question I ask all the guests and it is Nan where you are now rewind the clock back to when you\u0026rsquo;re just graduating University heading out into the world knowing everything that you know now is.\nThere anything that you would do differently or is there any advice that you wish you would have known then that you know now yeah I think I\u0026rsquo;ve definitely put my foot in it a lot I definitely wrote a lot of mistakes and I\u0026rsquo;m also really grateful for that so don\u0026rsquo;t shy away from failure absolutely.\nNot but having said that there are things that you can mitigate at least the impact because can often be very often when you get hit and you get constantly hit very demoralizing to your confidence and it often does take you a bit of time to pick up but realizing that things aren\u0026rsquo;t personal this is just.\nThe way of the world you don\u0026rsquo;t have the cushioning of the University you don\u0026rsquo;t have that protection anymore and so for me I wish I had developed self-awareness about myself my behaviors what I\u0026rsquo;m really good at what I\u0026rsquo;m terrible at and really being more open-minded in trying to unlearn the ones that were.\nHolding me back from growing and sometimes it can be a little bit humbling it can take your steps back but I think that\u0026rsquo;s okay but I think the way universities been set up and the way Society pits people against each other in terms of competition and all that kind of stuff it really does get into.\nYour head and that you want to move forward and for me I wish I had just taken a step back to address some of those areas and I can give an example but what one one thing that I one thing I did struggle with is but going from being like a really strong sort of.\nIndividual contributor to a people leader and what I found is it\u0026rsquo;s like a completely different job requiring new abilities totally new set of problems that require completely different muscle skills and tools and I had to really make significant changes from just going deep into my work and being really myopic and really good at like just.\nExecuting the task or building that skill set to looking at the bigger picture understanding communicating the context to the team in which we operate in and I went from being a master of my craft also to taking a step to trying to train others to be good at their job because.\nThat\u0026rsquo;s when you\u0026rsquo;re successful when you\u0026rsquo;ve actually been able to help others and I went from solving with what tools and resources I had to allocating resources and influencing others which became more important in this role going from like that functional mindset where you\u0026rsquo;re just thinking about your own function what\u0026rsquo;s required to do the job really.\nWell to what\u0026rsquo;s actually good for the company mindset and often you have to unlearn a lot of these things it takes a bit of time because it\u0026rsquo;s like you\u0026rsquo;re a computer you\u0026rsquo;re programmed a certain way because of a society external factors internally driven as well and for me like I sought a lot of help externally.\nAnd I wasn\u0026rsquo;t afraid that I was seeking help externally or internally or telling people I don\u0026rsquo;t know how to do this and I need to get better at this how do I go about doing this and showing that kind of vulnerability and some people might see it as weakness but it isn\u0026rsquo;t it\u0026rsquo;s so.\nPowerful to just be vulnerable because this weight just lifts off you and you\u0026rsquo;re like oh great I can learn without any sort of judgment and they\u0026rsquo;re probably thinking exactly the same thing and so I think yeah really focusing on trying to unlearn and having that self-awareness about yourself a bit more um your internal engineering effectively.\nLike your makeup spending a lot more time on on knowing yourself rather than knowing the business externally that can come second I wish I had done that a lot I wish I\u0026rsquo;d done an exercise where I was trying to figure out what actually motivates me rather than what my parents want me to do or when you graduate from.\nA University degree everyone goes into an investment bank or a big four or a consulting firm and that\u0026rsquo;s like a mark of success when it actually really isn\u0026rsquo;t there are alternate Alternatives career paths and because I\u0026rsquo;d been so conditioned I only thought success was through that path and it didn\u0026rsquo;t bring me any joy and that\u0026rsquo;s probably why I.\nChanged so many times as well because I was just getting deeply frustrated and I was like why am I getting frustrated but I just didn\u0026rsquo;t spend enough time on knowing myself knowing the creative side of myself knowing what problems I\u0026rsquo;m drawn to and now I\u0026rsquo;m more free and open about it I\u0026rsquo;m very honest.\nAbout it because I don\u0026rsquo;t want to you know keep switching for example I want to just solve a problem that I\u0026rsquo;m deeply passionate about and that I love doing day in Day Out no I think that\u0026rsquo;s so important and it\u0026rsquo;s great to see it like you go on that journey and you know.\nThe self-development journey that you\u0026rsquo;ve been on and learning more about yourself the self-awareness I think completely agree I think it\u0026rsquo;s almost like we\u0026rsquo;re all sort of somewhere you know trying to chasing something and so I think um it\u0026rsquo;s yeah cool that you can now look back and see how far you\u0026rsquo;ve come I think.\nI think you\u0026rsquo;re doing some really amazing stuff so um yeah really really unfortunately we\u0026rsquo;re able to hear your wisdom so thank you so much for sharing that with us um we might wrap it up there so I want to ask before we head off where can people go to find more about you and.\nConnect with you after this after listening is there anywhere that you\u0026rsquo;d like to send people yeah look I\u0026rsquo;m on Twitter I\u0026rsquo;m on Instagram but that\u0026rsquo;s more like my travel photos and food photos from LinkedIn yeah so do connect with me on LinkedIn always happy to connect with people a lot of startup meets I\u0026rsquo;m deeply.\nPassionate about the community and investing so if you want to get any I don\u0026rsquo;t know career advice I don\u0026rsquo;t know why you want to come to me or any of my sort of mistakes or War Stories I\u0026rsquo;m happy to share those and yeah like that\u0026rsquo;s the best place to catch me amazing well yeah thanks so much again.\nFor coming on the show now it\u0026rsquo;s been super like really really interesting and insightful to hear your thoughts and your journey so thank you so much for sharing it with us and yeah we\u0026rsquo;ll uh catch you around great thanks James for the insightful questions I feel like baby Yoda foreign thanks for listening to this episode I.\nHope you enjoyed it as much as I did if you want to get my takeaways the things that I learned from this episode please go to graduatetheory.com subscribe where you can get my takeaways and all the information about each episode straight to your inbox thanks so much for listening again today and we\u0026rsquo;re.\nLooking forward to seeing you next week.\n← Back to episode 51\n","date":"10 October 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/graduate-theory/51-nan-meka-choosing-startup-thats-right/transcript/","section":"Graduate Theory Transcripts","summary":"← Back to episode 51\nThis transcript was generated from YouTube captions and lightly edited for readability. Speaker labels may be unavailable, and transcription errors may remain.\nNan Meka # I think as somebody who’s entering into a startup you might get enamored with fundraising size but having been in a startup it’s actually not an indication of a successful product Market fit or commercial model or a great customer experience so that’s one metric I definitely ignore great to have you on the show I want to.\n","title":"Transcript: Nan Meka | On Choosing a Startup That's Right for You","type":"graduate-theory-transcripts"},{"content":" Watch the conversation Graduate Theory Open YouTube ↗ Read the full transcript → When I first started Graduate Theory, I was excited to learn more about professional life and to meet some fantastic people along the way.\nToday marks episode 50 of Graduate Theory.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s a special moment. One episode per week for 50 weeks.\nI\u0026rsquo;m proud of this effort, but I\u0026rsquo;m even more proud that this body of knowledge exists in the public domain, enhancing careers throughout Australia.\nThis week, you\u0026rsquo;ll hear the second part of the compilation series of the Graduate Theory guests answering: \u0026ldquo;What is some advice you\u0026rsquo;d give yourself if you were starting your career again today?\u0026rdquo;\nSome of my favourites:\nMykel Dixon Lacey Filipich Robby Wade Thanks again. I hope you enjoy.\nWatch this episode on YouTube.\n📝 Content Timestamps # 00:00 Intro\n01:16 26 - Abhi Maran\n03:43 27 - Kerry Callenbach\n05:54 29 - Lacey Filipich\n13:36 30 - Yaniv Bernstein\n16:25 31 - Gene Rice\n20:00 34 - Robby Wade\n22:02 35 - Cheran Ketheesuran\n26:09 36 - Max Marchione\n28:50 38 - Juliana Owen\n31:41 39 - Elizabeth Knight\n33:45 40 - Elaha Gurgani\n35:33 41 - Gabriel Guedes\n38:12 43 - Caleb Maru\n39:21 44 - Lisa Leong\n40:46 45 - Brendan Humphreys\n42:42 46 - Mykel Dixon\n48:05 47 - Dave Lourdes\n53:53 Conclusion\n","date":"3 October 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/graduate-theory/50-graduate-theory-compilation-part-two/","section":"Graduate Theory","summary":" Watch the conversation Graduate Theory Open YouTube ↗ Read the full transcript → When I first started Graduate Theory, I was excited to learn more about professional life and to meet some fantastic people along the way.\n","title":"Graduate Theory Compilation - Part Two","type":"graduate-theory"},{"content":"← Back to episode 50\nThis transcript was generated from YouTube captions and lightly edited for readability. Speaker labels may be unavailable, and transcription errors may remain.\nIntro # Hello and welcome to episode 50 of Graduate Theory what a fantastic Milestone 50 episodes It\u0026rsquo;s been a fantastic Journey so far thanks so much for tuning in so today\u0026rsquo;s episode is part two of this mini series where we are recapping all the episodes that we\u0026rsquo;ve done so just like last episode in this.\nEpisode we\u0026rsquo;re looking at episodes 26 to 48 um and each of these episodes I asked the guest what is some advice you\u0026rsquo;d give yourself if you was finishing University and starting your career today and this episode is a compilation of responses from right across these episodes some of the answers here are really.\nIncredible and it\u0026rsquo;s really cool to be able to compile these in such a nice way I hope you guys do enjoy this one if you want to see more if you want to get involved further go and subscribe to The Graduate Theory newsletter for the first link in the description you\u0026rsquo;ll get an.\nEmail update whenever something happens in fact there\u0026rsquo;s been some interesting developments in the last few days so I encourage you to subscribe to the email list so you can hear more about that but without further Ado let\u0026rsquo;s get started foreign.\n26 - Abhi Maran # About the clock to when you were just finishing uni and starting into into the Work World what things do you know now that you wish you knew when you would when you\u0026rsquo;re at that stage yeah I think I\u0026rsquo;d probably experiment a lot more with what for my career like I think what I.\nShould have done back then is probably like talk to a lot of people in the ecosystem and figure out like ways to get involved even if it didn\u0026rsquo;t seem like I would be able to get involved from the outside I should have sort of like been a bit more proactive I think and talk to.\nPeople like I think I was a little bit daunted by the fact that all of the people back then were just like really experienced people and I was like oh who\u0026rsquo;s going to talk but I think they they probably would have been nice enough to talk to me back then and so like I probably should have done that I.\nThink I think there\u0026rsquo;s a lot more opportunities for experimentation and I say this from like a privileged point of view as well like I think some uni students are really privileged in the fact that they still live at home they don\u0026rsquo;t have to pay rent they don\u0026rsquo;t have to pay for food blah blah blah and.\nSo for them like they can uh be pretty like they can take more riskier options in in their career so they can work at different startups for like two three month periods like intern at different places without really worrying about securing a grad job but other people also like who aren\u0026rsquo;t as as.\nLucky or in a privileged position for them what I think is really important is like to be able to sort of like secure a grad job initially um secure that gradual and then use that to leverage other opportunities and so like what I mean by that and I think this is becoming a bit more accepted now.\nActually because companies are really desperate for good talent and so you\u0026rsquo;re able to sort of like negotiate with them your start date so like push push your grad start date back like six months or a year or something like that and in that time go and experiment working for a startup or go and experiment with.\nDoing something that you\u0026rsquo;ve always wanted to do if that\u0026rsquo;s traveling all over the world like go and do that if that\u0026rsquo;s sort of like starting your own business like go and do that and you\u0026rsquo;ve got a bit of security there in that grad job and you can always like bring that forward I\u0026rsquo;m fairly certain.\nLike if you just talk to people like they\u0026rsquo;re they\u0026rsquo;re willing to help you help you out as much as possible but I think yeah like talking to people experimenting is probably like what I should have done a lot earlier in my.\n27 - Kerry Callenbach # Career one of the questions I Ask of all the guests that I had on the show is and maybe you can take this in a different direction giving giving your experience with lots of graduates but the question I ask is and if you had to restart your career and you know wind the clock.\nBack to when you were first starting out what kind of things would you do differently or what things would you tell yourself if you were in that environment again so no this um and I noticed because there\u0026rsquo;s a career change in myself multiple times it can feel really really overwhelming when you start something right.\nUm our education system is designed to go you go to Primary School High School university job right and so if you don\u0026rsquo;t follow that pathway you go I must have done something wrong or I haven\u0026rsquo;t succeeded as as to the point that I should have right and I had that myself you know I finished my sport.\nI then went into nursing and realized that I didn\u0026rsquo;t actually want to do nursing so what do I do and you can kind of have a little bit of an identity crisis around that my advice would be it is okay to not know what you want to do it is totally okay your life is not over.\nYour life is just beginning right it\u0026rsquo;s you\u0026rsquo;ve just at a road where you need to choose so I would say be okay if you don\u0026rsquo;t know and also if you go into a role or a company and it doesn\u0026rsquo;t feel right right you\u0026rsquo;re not being your best self don\u0026rsquo;t stay honestly don\u0026rsquo;t stay.\nUm if you are giving up eight nine sometimes ten hours of your life to a company right um you want to enjoy being there you want to actually go hey I\u0026rsquo;m really excited to get up to work today I\u0026rsquo;m excited to you know go hang out with my colleagues and if you don\u0026rsquo;t feel like.\nThat just take a moment to pause and say why not where am I not feeling fulfilled right can is there something about the role is there something about the way that their culture is with work is um and if you don\u0026rsquo;t like it don\u0026rsquo;t stay um it\u0026rsquo;s too many hours of your life to.\nSpend somewhere where you\u0026rsquo;re not getting fulfillment I\u0026rsquo;ve got one more question.\n29 - Lacey Filipich # For you today Lacey and that\u0026rsquo;s around you know obviously Graduate Theory career kind of focused podcast and I want to ask yourself you know have there been times or like if you had to restart your career and kind of wine back to when you were first starting out working is there anything Looking Back Now.\nThat you would approach kind of your career progression and perhaps your finances as well is there anything there that you would do differently oh well there\u0026rsquo;s one tiny thing in my finances that I didn\u0026rsquo;t understand when I was a graduate um that I know now that I go like oh shoot I should have done something about.\nUm when I was working for Western mining BHB took us over that was in my second year as a graduate and we had been given options with Western mining I didn\u0026rsquo;t understand what options meant and so I didn\u0026rsquo;t exercise them um and now I know what options need I\u0026rsquo;m like ah it\u0026rsquo;s like about eight grand I.\nCould have had um so when something happens financially at work when they have like a share plan or they talk about salary sacrificing or your superannuation matching and stuff like that if you don\u0026rsquo;t understand take the time to get the support so you can make a good decision it\u0026rsquo;s really important that we if you if.\nYou get an offer for something from work that you understand whether it\u0026rsquo;s the right thing for you or not and that you take the opportunities that you can because often things like those Share Plans and those options plans are designed to keep you with the company but they are a leg up they want they are.\nAn advantage but if you just sign without understanding them or ignore them because they\u0026rsquo;re too hard you could give up a lot take the time to learn would be my advice there um the other thing I would encourage people to do which I hadn\u0026rsquo;t even at the time thought about now you can tell from my.\nDiscussion that I\u0026rsquo;m quite a forthright person and I will fight for what\u0026rsquo;s right for me and something that happened to me when I was in that second year I was a graduate I was one of seven graduates and two of us were female now the five were men and we were at a site.\nWhere there was 10 women in total out of 300 employees in kalgoorlie in Western Australia right so that was the reality of going into mining in a remote location back then it\u0026rsquo;s very different now you know the next site I went to was 20 female uh versus you know 10 out of 300. so.\nUm that\u0026rsquo;s not normal but what often happens when you\u0026rsquo;re the only woman on a site or one of the few is that you get the women\u0026rsquo;s jobs uh which for this particular case was my general manager had lost in the 18 months I\u0026rsquo;d been there he\u0026rsquo;d lost five executive assistants now that\u0026rsquo;s not that\u0026rsquo;s not normal clearly.\nYeah clearly that was a difficult role but they couldn\u0026rsquo;t find someone and they really needed someone so they asked me to fill in and I had a massive tantrum like not a you know throwing my fist but I went into my boss\u0026rsquo;s office and was like you\u0026rsquo;re just asking me to do this because.\nI\u0026rsquo;M\u0026amp;A woman and I\u0026rsquo;m not happy about that there are five other graduates who are male any of them could do that role why did you pick me because I had a real B in my Bonnet about this like we always give the women the job of taking the notes and they always have to get the.\nFreaking tea and all that stuff anyway it\u0026rsquo;s a it was a real um thing that I had heard so much about and I was really sensitive to it and so I overreacted but I was really like it was a fair call my boss said that is a fair call for you to say that because this does happen and.\nHe said look I promise you Lacey that\u0026rsquo;s not the reason you were chosen for this can you just take my word from it that you\u0026rsquo;re going to learn something really important and that it\u0026rsquo;s you want to take this role and I was like okay fine I really like the boss it was fantastic.\nUm JP and I said all right fine I\u0026rsquo;ll do it but I\u0026rsquo;m not happy that you pick me because I\u0026rsquo;M\u0026amp;A girl and he\u0026rsquo;s like I\u0026rsquo;m not picking you because you\u0026rsquo;re a girl stop it okay all right fine fine anyway so turns out it was when BHP was looking to buy Western Mining and I got to be part.\nOf the War Room that got set up before the murder in acquisition so I got to be in on the discussions with the executive team and hear how they would pitch the company how they would persuade another company to buy them I got to learn about M\u0026amp;A now learning that at 22.\nIs it unusual if you\u0026rsquo;re not like in that kind of like for a graduate engineer who just come off the furnace in my my scruffy you know covered in dirt outfit um to be in these meetings listening to this because I could make grass because I could type and they needed that to.\nHear those conversations that were happening to understand how the War Room would get set up to when that was like some of the most invaluable experience I got in that graduate program like you couldn\u0026rsquo;t you couldn\u0026rsquo;t have planned it so my boss had noted that I wanted to be a CEO he had.\nNoted that because I had told him it is like where do you want to go Adventure I\u0026rsquo;m like well I\u0026rsquo;d like to be a CEO eventually so I want to do you know management stuff and he was doing it so that I could get this amazing experience because I was The Graduate who had said.\nI\u0026rsquo;m interested in that stuff so he was doing the right thing by me the fact that I was female neither here nor there but if I hadn\u0026rsquo;t listened to him and I\u0026rsquo;m just lucky that he didn\u0026rsquo;t go well fine I\u0026rsquo;ll give it to someone else just despite me you know someone else I\u0026rsquo;m.\nVery lucky that he was understanding and saw my response so that\u0026rsquo;s the difference between having a good boss and a bad boss so what did I learn out of that sometimes you\u0026rsquo;ll think it\u0026rsquo;s because of some thing that it\u0026rsquo;s not you know I had a Brill B in my body everything I.\nLooked at I was like they\u0026rsquo;re asking me to do that because I\u0026rsquo;M\u0026amp;A girl I\u0026rsquo;m refusing uh I\u0026rsquo;m principle because I\u0026rsquo;M\u0026amp;A feminist and thou shalt not make me um it\u0026rsquo;s not always the same it\u0026rsquo;s just that\u0026rsquo;s your frame of reference okay so you need to be willing to listen when people tell you that\u0026rsquo;s wrong sometimes.\nYou\u0026rsquo;ll be right sometimes you won\u0026rsquo;t be that\u0026rsquo;s I think the most important thing out of that the second thing that I learned out of this experience is something that\u0026rsquo;s carried me through my whole career is pick your boss wisely there is no one who will have a bigger impact on how happy you are at work than.\nYour boss at the end eighty percent of your satisfaction at work I reckon comes from whether you have a good boss or a not so good boss now you have to have had not so good bosses uh to be able to understand what a good boss is I think and I\u0026rsquo;ve had only a.\nCouple in my time I\u0026rsquo;ve been very lucky I\u0026rsquo;ve had fantastic bosses but I started to get very choosy very early on about who I\u0026rsquo;d work for for that reason I think there were times when I was younger when I worked for a I\u0026rsquo;m going to be blunt a bad boss he was shocking should not have been.\nAllowed to manage people just cookie cutter for everything uh no no taking into account anyone\u0026rsquo;s personal views circumstances or preferences just know this is how we do it you would do it this way I would never give people that High Mark you only ever get everybody gets an average you know like.\nThat he was just he should not be allowed to manage people um recognizing that\u0026rsquo;s not you necessarily it\u0026rsquo;s not your fault I had a lot of uh that it\u0026rsquo;s sort of like because when you knew in the workplace you don\u0026rsquo;t really understand whether um that\u0026rsquo;s because you\u0026rsquo;re not meeting expectations or whether you\u0026rsquo;ve just been.\nLumped with a bad boss um sometimes it\u0026rsquo;s a little bit of both um so you\u0026rsquo;ve got to be honest with yourself but if you\u0026rsquo;ve got a bad boss just accept that\u0026rsquo;s a bad boss and they\u0026rsquo;re not right for you maybe they\u0026rsquo;re good for other people but not right for you and become choosy so that\u0026rsquo;s I think.\nSomething that I learned based on my youth experience going I\u0026rsquo;ve got to be really picky about who I work for and don\u0026rsquo;t don\u0026rsquo;t work for the end I\u0026rsquo;ve got one last question for.\n30 - Yaniv Bernstein # You and even that\u0026rsquo;s a question I ask all the guests on the show and it\u0026rsquo;s it\u0026rsquo;s the question is this if you had to rewind the clock back to when you were first starting work uh knowing what you know now is there anything any advice you\u0026rsquo;d give yourself or anything that you do.\nDifferently in that situation yeah I think I\u0026rsquo;d back myself more and be more entrepreneurial and you know I suspect there\u0026rsquo;s a generational element to this uh where you go from you know a couple of generations back where it was kind of a you know lifetime employment sort of thing uh maybe to my.\nGeneration where there\u0026rsquo;s a lot more mobility in people\u0026rsquo;s careers but it still tended to follow uh you know path of full-time jobs you know from one to another uh to I think now when you know I\u0026rsquo;m seeing a lot of the sorts of communities like the one that you\u0026rsquo;re you\u0026rsquo;re serving right where people.\nAre really trying to be the architects of their own careers so when I say entrepreneurialism sure some of some of the time it means starting your own business um or it might mean starting a side hustle or a podcast or anything like that um and building a personal brand but it also means taking a more active control.\nOf your career and not being as passive and say well you know I\u0026rsquo;ve got my job now I need to work towards my next promotion or whatnot it\u0026rsquo;s it\u0026rsquo;s really a question of being you know the architect of your own career and understanding of course that uh you know the future is very difficult to predict but to have a.\nSet of goals and principles that you proactively set and then try to design your career around that I think I\u0026rsquo;m saying a lot more of that with you know the current generation of graduates and early career folks and I\u0026rsquo;m I\u0026rsquo;m really kind of in awe of that and a bit envious of that and I sort of think you know.\nIf I\u0026rsquo;d been more intentional in in designing my career you know where where could I have gotten to or could I have gotten to where I have earlier uh you know so that\u0026rsquo;s something that I feel that\u0026rsquo;s the advice I would have to myself is you know be intentional in in planning a career the tools that are.\nAvailable these days are incredible right um just from from things like this podcast to communities like like early work uh through to just the vast amount of resources online the ability to start side hustles fairly easily um the availability of capital for early stage startups that there is a lot of stuff around now that didn\u0026rsquo;t used to.\nExist and I think uh you know if I were around now I would hope uh that I\u0026rsquo;d be able to make more use of that stuff and really yeah be be intentional and mindful in designing my career.\n31 - Gene Rice # A question that I ask all the guests that I have on the show is if you could uh rewind the clock if you could go back to the days where you just finished University and you were going out into the world knowing what you know now and knowing that you know all the all the advice that you\u0026rsquo;ve.\nWritten what are some things that you would do differently or what is some advice that you would give yourself if you were back in your shoes uh you know in that situation you know it you know it\u0026rsquo;s it\u0026rsquo;s it\u0026rsquo;s funny James right I think I don\u0026rsquo;t know if I shared with.\nThis with you but you know my career was very different I started off owning rock and roll clubs in New York right I own two rock and roll clubs it only booked original music and had bands like the Ramones and the Stray Cats and Joan Jett and Bo Diddley and Richie Havens I left that business because the first.\nOne was extremely successful the second one was a failure and my wife would only marry me if if I got out of that business but then I went into Corporate America in Corporate America I was with a division of a Fortune 100 firm an international Fortune 100 firm Alcatel a French company and in seven years I was.\nPromoted five times I went from a sales rep to a sales manager to a general manager to a district manager my last job was heading up all East Coast operations with over a thousand people reporting to me I left that job and I was making a heck of a lot of money for one reason and one reason only I was.\nNever home at night I was traveling a great deal we had a young family and I was looking to have some Work-Life Balance I went into executive search James because I had used search firms myself I knew I could bring some value to it but I never knew what I would find I did it because I could be home at.\nNight now it went on to be extremely successful very fast but what I\u0026rsquo;m going to tell your audience what I would do differently I found purpose in executive Search so even though when my firm became one of the largest retained search firms in the world I never stopped leading the searches because I got purpose talking to the.\nExecutives talking to the clients and putting a good match together half of the people that I would place any c-level jobs had to pick up their families from one city and move them to another city for the role and I felt and if I\u0026rsquo;m going to pick this person\u0026rsquo;s family up and move them I have to make.\nSure that this is a good match and I found purpose in that I had passion I was excited I woke up in the morning and I couldn\u0026rsquo;t wait to go to work and do what I did uh so if I had to go back I think I would have tried to identify early on.\nWhere that passion was and that purpose and might have been a little bit more strategic and looking for it I got very very lucky and fortunate so many other people do not now it went on the other thing is you know this book that I wrote Every Financial reward that comes to me is going to be donated.\nDirectly to the charity my wife and I started the planet scene inspired Dream Foundation to help more kids pursue their passions you know so I\u0026rsquo;M\u0026amp;A big believer pursue your passions find purpose in your life if you if you can find that and you can make a career figuring out how to pursue those things you\u0026rsquo;re going.\nTo be healthier you\u0026rsquo;re going to be happier you\u0026rsquo;re going to smile more and that\u0026rsquo;s the message I want to leave your.\n34 - Robby Wade # Audience with so I\u0026rsquo;ve got one question left for you and that is uh it\u0026rsquo;s a question I ask all the guests that come on the show and it is if you were looking at the Robbie that\u0026rsquo;s just finished University and he\u0026rsquo;s about to sort of guide into the world and Tackle his job uh you know what advice would.\nYou give him sort of knowing uh what you know now and all the experiences that you\u0026rsquo;ve had so easy I would just say read and run every day like if you if you read books every day and run every day I guarantee you like your life will change forever like if you just do those.\nTwo things even if you started like a kilometer and a page um they\u0026rsquo;re just those two things are so unique uh in their capacity and I\u0026rsquo;ll be very brief on this like reading allows you to get mentors and knowledge and understanding and you sort of level up your education and whatever um running\u0026rsquo;s cool because running gets.\nYou outside getting outside every single day is really really important for like your circadian rhythm and just your mental well-being uh when you run and you run through space and your eyes move it relaxes you and it makes you incredibly calm um and then also uh when you do like cardiovascular exercise uh it can.\nActually form like a you get like neurogenesis in your hippocampus and allows you to have like a fluffy hippocampus which increases and improves your memory um so if you\u0026rsquo;re running every day your memory is going to be better if your memory is better you\u0026rsquo;re going to be learning more if you\u0026rsquo;re learning more.\nYou\u0026rsquo;re very likely to you\u0026rsquo;re going to be fit and educated like I it\u0026rsquo;s pretty hard to go it\u0026rsquo;s pretty hard for your life to go south if you just focus on those two things uh I think everyone can give you all these like weird anecdotes and statements and all those kind of things.\nBut practically like try to read and run at least once a day and I think your life would just transform from there you\u0026rsquo;ll learn what you need to do next just by doing those two things.\n35 - Cheran Ketheesuran # I\u0026rsquo;ve got one more question for you Sharon and that is a question I ask all the guests that come on the show and it is if you could kind of let\u0026rsquo;s let\u0026rsquo;s even for yourself go back to when you were first starting University and kind of out into this journey of discovering um you know the different opportunities.\nThat are that are awaiting you and what advice would you give to someone that\u0026rsquo;s perhaps you know now just just starting out on their Journey yeah tightly um I think a few things um I\u0026rsquo;ll probably say three things um have to keep it very structured as a future consultant um I think that the first one would be.\nDo things your own way um I\u0026rsquo;ve mentioned the phrase hedonic treadmill a few times now but it\u0026rsquo;s very easy and I know that I\u0026rsquo;M\u0026amp;A person who subjects this on others is you see the linkedins of people and you say ah well you know by doing this he got to this and by doing B he got to see and.\nUm have a Consciousness that there are a million ways to get to where you want to be and be driven enough that you pursue goals and you know if you are pursuing roles and titles and whatever it is that\u0026rsquo;s fine but don\u0026rsquo;t be sorry driven that you forget to I\u0026rsquo;ll say say smell.\nThe roses on the way um and you forget about the reason why you\u0026rsquo;ve done um that journey and you know I\u0026rsquo;m not ending up in banking but I\u0026rsquo;m still glad I\u0026rsquo;ve spent one and a half years in banking because that\u0026rsquo;s taught me a whole um skill set of things that if I was so.\nFocused on the outcome I would think that was a waste which certainly isn\u0026rsquo;t so I\u0026rsquo;d say firstly do things your own way second thing nobody cares and that sounds rather flippant um that what I mean by that is generally nobody cares about so many of the failures that we have on a daily basis I.\nRemember um seeing this visualization once on Twitter and if you imagine two concentric circles and you sort of have one Circle and then you have a little small circle um in the middle of it and that small circle is how much other people think about you and all the space around it is.\nHow much you think about other people thinking about you um and that\u0026rsquo;s just the reality that literally nobody cares everyone has their own issues and problems to sort through and it\u0026rsquo;s very liberating once you realize that because all of a sudden you\u0026rsquo;ll just focus on your own happiness and your personal pursuit of your goals.\nAnd that\u0026rsquo;s all you need in life I think life is already tough enough without worrying about what other people think or you know what\u0026rsquo;s going to be the impact of me not getting X or not being at this stage in life and especially when you surround yourself in a high academic achieving background of.\nStudents and cohorts as you know the universities you and I have been to um it gets very easy to fall into that mental trap and then the last thing I\u0026rsquo;d say um is that life will generally be okay um and I think this sort of links back to you know nobody cares but.\nUm I\u0026rsquo;ve said this a lot to you know it\u0026rsquo;s graduate season at the moment a lot of students in the Years below some students that I tutor at University have been really stressed and worried about um applications and I think remember that everybody Peaks at a certain period of time and that\u0026rsquo;s not.\nGoing to be 22 for everybody and it\u0026rsquo;ll be rather sad if you\u0026rsquo;re picking a 22 so I think just remember that the vast majority of your listeners and the people who are part of this community have lived in a time which has never been better than time before number one and that\u0026rsquo;s secondly generally everybody.\nIf you work hard enough if you don\u0026rsquo;t that luck impact everything in your life you will be okay and you will get to where you want to eventually um and that there\u0026rsquo;s no rush in life in terms of reaching certain goals and just because it seems like the vast majority of people reach goals within a certain.\nPeriod of time doesn\u0026rsquo;t mean that you have to be part of that as well um because there are countless numbers of people you know Reid Hoffman is a prime example um who reached you know their pick successes and their first successors in their 40s and 50s so um that would be my two three pieces of.\nAdvice do things your own way um nobody cares and uh it\u0026rsquo;ll all be okay James it\u0026rsquo;ll all be okay I\u0026rsquo;ve got like.\n36 - Max Marchione # Like last question for you and that is like but you\u0026rsquo;re in University currently let\u0026rsquo;s rewind perhaps back to the start of uni and thinking about who Max was at that stage know what you know now and all the things that you\u0026rsquo;ve done all the experiences that you\u0026rsquo;ve had if you could go back to Max who\u0026rsquo;s just starting out.\nWell he\u0026rsquo;s just left school let\u0026rsquo;s say what what advice would you give to yourself be more courageous take more risks break the rules University equals internships in other words like you use the time to um do internships and then like again be even more courageous um so that\u0026rsquo;s the advice I\u0026rsquo;d go back and.\nGive myself amazing yeah the courage out here is a really interesting one and that\u0026rsquo;s certainly I think uh I can be better many of us can be better at applying that one um yeah but I think I think I\u0026rsquo;m still like I actually still think it\u0026rsquo;s a weakness of mine I still think I don\u0026rsquo;t.\nTake enough risk um I still think I can can up courage um and it\u0026rsquo;s iterative right like the more the more you put yourself out there the more Courage the more the more things you do that are courageous um the more you build up build up by thick skin to it no longer feels like.\nBeing courageous just feels like the normal right and that\u0026rsquo;s why again going back I love next chapter because being around people in there makes things that used to be courageous just normal right just continue to like raise the bar and what\u0026rsquo;s what\u0026rsquo;s normal and that uh as humans I think winding up with that independence of.\nThought idea um our inite state is to copy others if you put two babies in a room with a thousand toys they will fight over one toy so our innate state is to copy others given that piece of information I want to be around others they\u0026rsquo;re in a community where if I copy others I end.\nUp in a really really damn good place um so I think that\u0026rsquo;s true of Courage as well if you\u0026rsquo;re around people who are off the bar on ambition and courage and proactivity even starting a podcast like what you\u0026rsquo;re doing right like a third of the community bloody Ryan podcast or something like that.\nUm it\u0026rsquo;s courageous it\u0026rsquo;s like it\u0026rsquo;s a bold move you put yourself out into the world um so I\u0026rsquo;d say that as well like as a closing piece of advice B be really deliberate about like trying to find people who lift you up and trying to be part of communities or collectives of people.\nUm that create a culture show where exceptional is normal I\u0026rsquo;ve got like one.\n38 - Juliana Owen # More question here for you Juliana that is around um you know a lot of the audience listening is kind of grads or early career people looking to sort of yeah start their career and start it off in the right Manner and I\u0026rsquo;d love to ask thinking about yourself and your journey if you.\nCould kind of wind back the clock to when you first graduated union and went went out into the world of work knowing what you know now and all the things you teach what would you go back in and is there any advice you\u0026rsquo;d give yourself um if you were if you\u0026rsquo;re in that stage.\nNow okay if I mean they stage now so going back to my first point look for someone that will guide you they will give you a full picture because it\u0026rsquo;s so much easier when you know where you\u0026rsquo;re going and I\u0026rsquo;m saying this because I\u0026rsquo;ve gone through that process myself here in Australia I\u0026rsquo;ve tried.\nUm you know a couple of times to get into the market um with the knowledge that I had back in the days I was well 23 24 years old um and I wasn\u0026rsquo;t getting anywhere once I hired someone and I said look this is where I come from this is the experience.\nI have so far this is where I want to go and this is what I would like to achieve how can I prepare to actually face The Challenge and actually getting there okay so we\u0026rsquo;re gonna have to work on CV cover letter LinkedIn we\u0026rsquo;re going to have to work on a mock interview what\u0026rsquo;s.\nYour interview style interview is one of the crucial points here right because the majority of the people think oh do you have a questionnaire that I can have a look or do you have a video on YouTube look not really because the worst thing you can do in an interview process is decorating answer and a question and.\nAnswer question and answer because when you\u0026rsquo;re in an interview obviously you will know more or less what they\u0026rsquo;re going to be asking you but more than that you need to build your thought process you need to learn how to build your topirosis because if the interviewer asks you something that is outside of your uh preparation let\u0026rsquo;s say.\nYou\u0026rsquo;re going to go blind you\u0026rsquo;re going to go oh and then you just answer whatever and after all the excitement you know went down you just go I shouldn\u0026rsquo;t have answered that oh I didn\u0026rsquo;t prepare for that oh the question that I decorated was announced so it is not about decorating it\u0026rsquo;s about you learning how.\nTo create credibility through you know your thought process how do you build that thought process how do you tell your story um so that comes on the mentorship as well right so if you know what you\u0026rsquo;re doing good on you get yourself ready go for it all the best luck if you don\u0026rsquo;t know or if you\u0026rsquo;re in.\nDoubt search for professionals search for someone that will you know clear the road for you so you can drive through and get to your final destination yeah.\n39 - Elizabeth Knight # Someone that is let\u0026rsquo;s say that finished high school and they\u0026rsquo;re starting their Journey uh out in the in the big wide world uh you know thinking and reflecting on your own journey and what advice would you give to someone that\u0026rsquo;s going through that right now the first thing that comes to mind is be.\nEmotional which is kind of strange but when I was younger I thought it was bad to be like passionate in a way I thought that you know young people kind of get this bad rap of being like too angry and too fired up or you know all the opposite they don\u0026rsquo;t care enough like uh I think.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s really important to not worry about perfection when you\u0026rsquo;re young because it\u0026rsquo;s just impossible to achieve and just feel things and act like impulsively somewhat and um really appreciate the good and the bad that comes with being a young person uh that you have to you have to go through all of that like it\u0026rsquo;s all really.\nPositive thing so that would be my first piece of advice and secondly to um be bold again the idea of how far are you willing to go alone you know don\u0026rsquo;t absolutely don\u0026rsquo;t let anybody else Define the path that\u0026rsquo;s in front of you if you don\u0026rsquo;t want to and you may you know have.\nA family of parents and who want a certain thing for you and think that\u0026rsquo;s what is best for you and you might agree with some of those things that\u0026rsquo;s totally fine but the key there is being able to ask yourself you know why am I doing this like what what\u0026rsquo;s really driving this this goal this step for me am I.\nJust going to University because I think I have to go to university or am I going because it\u0026rsquo;s actually the most purposeful step for me um so ask yourself why I\u0026rsquo;m really try and um think about that when you\u0026rsquo;re making choices and do your best to make those decisions in alignment with like who you.\nAre not not the rest of the world around you because honestly at the end of the day who cares what they think you have to live you have to live with it they they don\u0026rsquo;t yeah yeah that would be one more question for you.\n40 - Elaha Gurgani # A lot and that is a question I ask all the guests on the show and that is if you could think back to when you\u0026rsquo;re finishing uni and perhaps in your last year of uni kind of about to go out into the world and do these things we are trying to get a job at XY plays you know.\nKnowing what you know now and all the things that you\u0026rsquo;ve done what advice would you give yourself if you were at that stage again yeah I would say be bought um Tech risk and don\u0026rsquo;t be afraid of the unknown Parts I think for so long um growing up even with the society that.\nWe\u0026rsquo;re in it tells you to take this linear safe path it kind of lays down this path of like if you do X and Y then you will get z um and that\u0026rsquo;s how you\u0026rsquo;ll be successful um and for so long like management consulting or even like other roles I kind of was kind of chasing those the.\nPassover laid out to me because I was kind of afraid of taking risks I was afraid of the unknown paths um because if you do take unknown hats like let\u0026rsquo;s say a startup or entrepreneurship like you don\u0026rsquo;t know what lies ahead in five ten years it\u0026rsquo;s kind of unknown and very risky so if I.\nWere to look back and look at my younger self going through kind of graduate or university I would say take risk and don\u0026rsquo;t be afraid of the unknown because once you do explore the unknown paths where the path isn\u0026rsquo;t laid out to you but you enjoy it you\u0026rsquo;re curious about it you will meet the most interesting people.\nYou will be challenged and grow so much and the things that you always wanted the um the people the tribe the passion the things that you always create for it will come to you through those unknown paths that\u0026rsquo;s where the magic lies that\u0026rsquo;s where the growth lies so that\u0026rsquo;s what I would tell my younger self.\n41 - Gabriel Guedes # If you can sort of go back to the ggs probably in his last year of uni he\u0026rsquo;s about to go out into the world uh now that you\u0026rsquo;ve sort of experienced all this stuff what is some advice you\u0026rsquo;d go back and give yourself if you were in that situation again uh it\u0026rsquo;s hard to say and if if that was.\nUh serious proposition like okay you can go back in time and tell the young to do something I would probably actually would pass on the opportunity and I say that because you run the risk of saying something that over the 10 years or 15 years even when I was uni uh that gets.\nMisinterpreted and perhaps you end up chasing this thing because oh this this future me came from from the future just to tell me this one thing so that\u0026rsquo;s one thing might be super important and you might really misinterpret it um whatever the advice is right I can say oh everything\u0026rsquo;s going to be all.\nRight don\u0026rsquo;t don\u0026rsquo;t worry for instance and then perhaps the Young Gigi takes it too literally and doesn\u0026rsquo;t benefit his life and then change the course uh or you can say something like like work harder or whatever it is and then you just go to the wrong to the wrong tangent as well.\nSo I\u0026rsquo;ll probably just pass on the opportunity yeah yeah no fair enough yeah you don\u0026rsquo;t wanna I feel like that\u0026rsquo;s a that\u0026rsquo;s nice because it I guess it reflects like where you are now is is going super well for you and you\u0026rsquo;re really enjoying like where your life is at at the moment.\nSo um important not to I don\u0026rsquo;t want to mess that up by accident sure oh yeah if there\u0026rsquo;s what would some advice be that you\u0026rsquo;d give like just people generally maybe it\u0026rsquo;s University students in Australia that are kind of coming to the end and trying to work out what they want to do with their lives.\nUm is there is there any advice that you\u0026rsquo;d give those people uh I\u0026rsquo;ll probably say that your lives are not going to be decided then like I think at the at that stage many people think I\u0026rsquo;m making this big life decisions now uh but in the big scheme of things that\u0026rsquo;s a commitment.\nWhatever you\u0026rsquo;re doing that\u0026rsquo;s probably a couple years Commitment if that much and uh there\u0026rsquo;s so much more in your life in your career so don\u0026rsquo;t worry uh too much of overthinking these kind of things and uh there\u0026rsquo;s always a way to of course correct later if you\u0026rsquo;re not enjoying it.\n43 - Caleb Maru # I\u0026rsquo;ve got one last question for you Caleb and this is a question that I ask all the guests and it is if you were graduating or perhaps uh quitting University early again uh like this time like again again now right uh you know what would what advice would you give someone that\u0026rsquo;s kind of at that stage in.\nTheir life yeah um yeah I think the main thing is just like take it easy you have so much time ahead of you like your 20s are like mate you\u0026rsquo;re made to screw up like you\u0026rsquo;re supposed to screw up as many times as you want in your 20s as cool like as you.\nProbably louder I think here is like there\u0026rsquo;s there\u0026rsquo;s quite a lot of safety right like if everything goes wrong you can probably get a job somewhere or like you might have a support network to help you out so don\u0026rsquo;t worry too much if things don\u0026rsquo;t go well in your 20s like it\u0026rsquo;s meant to be kind of and also.\nLike really fun um and I\u0026rsquo;m definitely experiencing that now it\u0026rsquo;s like why don\u0026rsquo;t I have my together in like some aspects of my life I\u0026rsquo;m like it\u0026rsquo;s cool it\u0026rsquo;s cool um so yeah I think it\u0026rsquo;s just like have fun have as much fun as you can and just do things that you enjoy.\nUm yeah and just say yes to as much things as you can that like are helpful for you I\u0026rsquo;ve got one more question for.\n44 - Lisa Leong # You Lisa and that\u0026rsquo;s around um you know careers and young people more generally it\u0026rsquo;s a question I ask all the guests that come on the show and that is if you could like if someone was kind of graduating University again heading out into the world uh and you had the chance to give them some advice.\nYou know knowing all the things that you know now and the things that you\u0026rsquo;ve been through what what is some advice that you would give someone at that stage uh never listen to someone who gives you advice without asking some questions first is my piece of advice is that a head spin yeah yeah.\nUm uh the other one is you know don\u0026rsquo;t put too much pressure on yourself I think you find the right pathway James whatever Road you take at the fork at that time and I feel like you know there\u0026rsquo;s a lot of pressure make the right decision like it kind of all comes out.\nIn the wash at the end of the day and remember that if you make a misstep so if you accept a position that you absolutely hate then tick well done you\u0026rsquo;ve just learned something about what you don\u0026rsquo;t want next time right so take the pressure off you\u0026rsquo;re okay if every day is lab day you\u0026rsquo;re fine.\nUm so that\u0026rsquo;s one thing um as well.\n45 - Brendan Humphreys # I\u0026rsquo;ve got one more question for you Brendan uh and that\u0026rsquo;s the question I ask all the guests that come on the show and that is um advice for young people that have just graduated University perhaps young Engineers uh in this case like what advice would you give someone that\u0026rsquo;s fresh out of University and wants to.\nBecome a great engineer uh wow okay well look I think it\u0026rsquo;s uh it\u0026rsquo;s definitely the case that you want to find um mature engineering orgs to join where you can learn from exceptional individuals so you want to find that the engineering cultures uh in in the mature engineering teams where you\u0026rsquo;ve got these.\nUm mentors informal or otherwise that can teach you uh the art of software engineering and you can you can learn from so and you know we certainly deliberately set out to create a culture like that at canva um but you know like a lot of the big companies like Google Amazon uh Microsoft Apple they will all have that.\nAnd I think that\u0026rsquo;s you know that\u0026rsquo;s something to definitely aim for I think that there is a risk for grads in um and I\u0026rsquo;m not saying it\u0026rsquo;s don\u0026rsquo;t do it but I think there\u0026rsquo;s just some risks in in maybe joining smaller outfits where uh you can very quickly be uh the most knowledgeable and experienced person in.\nThe room and that can be dangerous if you if you just fresh out of uni you know so it can work it\u0026rsquo;s just a risk um I personally think that it\u0026rsquo;s better to join somewhere where you\u0026rsquo;ve got those mentors uh that help you see what great looks like and can help you get there I.\n46 - Mykel Dixon # Will have a last question for you Michael uh it\u0026rsquo;s something that I ask all the guests and you know Graduate Theory it\u0026rsquo;s sort of you know we\u0026rsquo;re about young people that are sort of perhaps around my age early career career perhaps at University I wonder if there\u0026rsquo;s any advice that you would hand it to people.\nThat are at this stage kind of looking to grow their career and ideally be in the sort of two percent that are still the creative genius when they\u0026rsquo;re a bit older you can\u0026rsquo;t you\u0026rsquo;ve got you can\u0026rsquo;t let the world get to you are going to be met with I hope it\u0026rsquo;s changing I really do I think it is I.\nThink it\u0026rsquo;s changing but probably still the next maybe 10 years might be a bit bumpy we\u0026rsquo;re trying to figure it out you are going to have people that are mean you can have people that talk about you behind your back you\u0026rsquo;re going to have people that actively try to you know withhold information from you or stunt.\nYour career or do all these kind of things don\u0026rsquo;t let them stop you know like you\u0026rsquo;ve got to you\u0026rsquo;ve got to trust yourself love yourself you\u0026rsquo;ve got to accept that you came here for a reason and it\u0026rsquo;s not better or smaller or grander or lesser than anyone else\u0026rsquo;s if you\u0026rsquo;re here you\u0026rsquo;re meant to be here and.\nYou have a voice and you have something you\u0026rsquo;re supposed to contribute to this planet and that could be your neighbors it could be your family that could be you know the colleague customers whatever you could be the another Steve Jobs you could be another Barry who lives in the suburbs who\u0026rsquo;s just a.\nRadical dude who says g\u0026rsquo;day to the postie every day it doesn\u0026rsquo;t matter you\u0026rsquo;re here for a reason and you just cannot let the world diminish you and make you feel less than how how much of a miracle you are and this might sound like a little bit you know Tony Robbins motivational speaking.\nBut we need that right now we\u0026rsquo;ve been told we\u0026rsquo;re not enough we\u0026rsquo;ve been told that we\u0026rsquo;re not going to make it that we aren\u0026rsquo;t this that we\u0026rsquo;re not as good as them that we\u0026rsquo;re no no no no you open up Instagram it\u0026rsquo;s just everyone\u0026rsquo;s better than you skinnier than you got more money than you blah blah blah blah blah.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s horrible and it\u0026rsquo;s all because all those people are worried and terrified and you know insecure and rarer you\u0026rsquo;ve just like my advice would be find people that you can trust and rely on and just hold this little unit of of kind of safety and sacredness where you value each other you support one another.\nYou remind each other hey we\u0026rsquo;re awesome because the next World the world that you\u0026rsquo;ll all be building is it\u0026rsquo;s gonna be better than the one that I inherited and the one I inherited was better than the one my parents did and the one that you know we\u0026rsquo;re getting better we\u0026rsquo;re on this journey.\nBut it\u0026rsquo;s it can knock you around man it can knock you around and it can it\u0026rsquo;s you know whether people mean to or not whatever you everyone that\u0026rsquo;s listening to this right now and you included James are extraordinary you\u0026rsquo;ve got just so many beautiful astonishing things to give to this world we don\u0026rsquo;t even know.\nWhat they are yet that\u0026rsquo;s the magic of it\u0026rsquo;s like wow who knows what James is going to do in five years time or 10 years or 20 years but if you start to believe a little story in your head that maybe James doesn\u0026rsquo;t have something special to give then you\u0026rsquo;re not going to.\nLaunch that next project and then we don\u0026rsquo;t get the benefit of that and that\u0026rsquo;s and this is the same is true which I try to tell as many people as possible when I\u0026rsquo;m doing a keynote or a session a leadership program etc etc look guys I really encourage you to share generously because I can talk at.\nYou for two hours three weeks nine months I can blah blah blah blah blah hey I hope that you get some value from that let\u0026rsquo;s let\u0026rsquo;s hope that there\u0026rsquo;s a little bit of insight in there but the real value is going to come from you all sharing your story your experience your perspective.\nHow you see and perceive the world you have no idea that the question you ask or the story you share or the Insight that you know that came to you that could be the thing that unlocks something for someone else and the whole reason they came to this event or this keynote or this program or whatever was.\nTo hear you say that thing not to hear me say it\u0026rsquo;s to you and so if you don\u0026rsquo;t lean in if you don\u0026rsquo;t share because you don\u0026rsquo;t think oh I don\u0026rsquo;t oh my question\u0026rsquo;s not good enough or I\u0026rsquo;m not as talented as the others or then you\u0026rsquo;re robbing that person of having what they need.\nDo you know what I mean like you\u0026rsquo;re you\u0026rsquo;re stopping them from getting the magic that they need to set their life on fire we\u0026rsquo;re all connected and it\u0026rsquo;s so Insidious and it\u0026rsquo;s so terrifying when we start to believe that we\u0026rsquo;re not enough or that we don\u0026rsquo;t have something amazing to contribute and that amazing thing to contribute.\nCould literally be hey I\u0026rsquo;m not sure I understand what\u0026rsquo;s going on put your hand up and ask that question fantastic there\u0026rsquo;s probably 17 other people that are thinking that but are too afraid to ask it and you\u0026rsquo;ve just got oh God thanks so much for asking that was awesome amazing that\u0026rsquo;s this is.\nWhat we want to weld like that and we\u0026rsquo;re just generous and we\u0026rsquo;re in it together and we\u0026rsquo;re just we\u0026rsquo;re all being ourselves and sharing ourselves as much as possible and that and that kind of place man it\u0026rsquo;s the world I wanna I Wanna Live in and it\u0026rsquo;s coming so hang in there team I\u0026rsquo;m with you.\nYou know what I mean we\u0026rsquo;re in this together.\n47 - Dave Lourdes # Question for you is I ask all the guests that come on the show this and we\u0026rsquo;ve got a Graduate Theory aimed at sort of uni students early professionals I wonder for yourself um looking back to who you were in in the early years of your career and thinking what you were like at that.\nStage is there any advice that you would give the day of Lords that you know that was sort of just starting out in his career or is there any advice you\u0026rsquo;d give young people sort of starting a career today have you got in time for another podcast because my my my whole career and life.\nHas been oh I was gonna say a movie a series of mistakes so I\u0026rsquo;ll tell you some of the ones I look back on that I I wish I changed I\u0026rsquo;m only grappling because I have so many so um thinking you shouldn\u0026rsquo;t speak up or participate because you\u0026rsquo;re too young or don\u0026rsquo;t know enough or it\u0026rsquo;s not.\nYour area of expertise um I think one of the most important things that um I wish I did earlier and more often was um scaling gratitude and empathy I don\u0026rsquo;t think you can ever say thank you enough and also caring about people I would say I was overly goal oriented when I started and.\nUm Wanted to um you know it was driven by ego to work on the big projects and um feel good about myself or work in these ridiculous hours um that was working hard not smart but having more of that empathy and understanding that everyone\u0026rsquo;s different um being more grateful um having an unhealthy ego.\nUm sometimes asking I wouldn\u0026rsquo;t ask questions because I go oh well that make me look stupid if if we all did that no one would ask any questions right and uh so I think asking questions early on um a little one actually is um attend work events like not attending work events um I think is a CLM I\u0026rsquo;m not attending.\nWork events um a CLM is a career limiting move um you\u0026rsquo;ve got you\u0026rsquo;re part of the team and you know it\u0026rsquo;s no different to social events sometimes you know you can\u0026rsquo;t be bothered or you\u0026rsquo;re tired or whatever it may be I think it\u0026rsquo;s important to make the time to do that um.\nUm I would have focused earlier and faster now I\u0026rsquo;M\u0026amp;A manic I love building relationships with people I\u0026rsquo;m obsessed in that and um I did that in my career as well uh but I would have started that earlier building genuine relationships and um I\u0026rsquo;M\u0026amp;A big believer and if you don\u0026rsquo;t schedule something that won\u0026rsquo;t happen so.\nIn this example if you say I\u0026rsquo;m going to read more unless you do it at a certain time I\u0026rsquo;M\u0026amp;A big believer and it won\u0026rsquo;t happen or someone says I\u0026rsquo;m going to exercise um so I know for me my exercise time Monday to Friday is 4 30 a.m and on Saturdays is 6 30 a.m I sleep in a.\nLittle bit and on Sunday I have a rest so actually scheduling stuff um I think one of the most powerful things you can say to people that I wouldn\u0026rsquo;t say back then that I wish I started saying earlier is I don\u0026rsquo;t know um instead of pretending I know or thinking I know and then having to go.\nAway and um research it or something like that I think that\u0026rsquo;s an important one um expect to get stuck you just expect that it\u0026rsquo;s going to happen it\u0026rsquo;s gonna happen it happens to all of us it happens to us now um I would have asked for um help earlier and faster uh it\u0026rsquo;s something that I definitely.\nDidn\u0026rsquo;t do um and also for is uh I\u0026rsquo;m gonna say don\u0026rsquo;t take a local issue and globalize it and what I mean by that is when you\u0026rsquo;re being stuck is temporary uh but it\u0026rsquo;s a stain it\u0026rsquo;s not a tattoo and um by the way I wish I knew all this back then um.\nThe other one that I learned actually from having a personal trainer I don\u0026rsquo;t know if you\u0026rsquo;ve ever had a personal trainer um that\u0026rsquo;s an industry you want to get into because a personal trainer when you think you\u0026rsquo;re dead they go five more and you hate them and you swear under your breath at least I do and then you give.\nThem money and come back next week but the trainer mindset in my mind is they\u0026rsquo;re always they always say come on just one more just one more and when I first got a personal trainer I remember his name was Michael that really stuck with me at banking year so whenever I think that I\u0026rsquo;ve reached my limit is just.\nOne more just one more and um yeah that\u0026rsquo;s helped me a lot and if I could only pick one thing James it would be um self-awareness is King um this I\u0026rsquo;ve already talked about emotional intelligence and within that they talk about four or five different markers of motion intelligence and for me.\nUm self-awareness is the beast that\u0026rsquo;s the one if you\u0026rsquo;re if you can master that you\u0026rsquo;ll you\u0026rsquo;ll master your life no knowing what excites you knowing what deflates you um knowing what throws you off track knowing what gets you back on track um knowing how you respond when you\u0026rsquo;re confronted uh and your confidence goes.\nDown so self-awareness uh if I could only pick one out of all those that was the one I wish I learned uh earlier for sure and I wish I got a coach earlier too you better stop me I\u0026rsquo;ll bring more wishes up thanks so much for listening.\nConclusion # To this episode of Graduate Theory like I said at the start if you do want to get involved further go and subscribe to The Graduate Theory newsletter where you get an email from me every single week with a new episode thanks again for sticking all the way through and we\u0026rsquo;ll see you again next week.\n← Back to episode 50\n","date":"3 October 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/graduate-theory/50-graduate-theory-compilation-part-two/transcript/","section":"Graduate Theory Transcripts","summary":"← Back to episode 50\nThis transcript was generated from YouTube captions and lightly edited for readability. Speaker labels may be unavailable, and transcription errors may remain.\nIntro # Hello and welcome to episode 50 of Graduate Theory what a fantastic Milestone 50 episodes It’s been a fantastic Journey so far thanks so much for tuning in so today’s episode is part two of this mini series where we are recapping all the episodes that we’ve done so just like last episode in this.\n","title":"Transcript: Graduate Theory Compilation - Part Two","type":"graduate-theory-transcripts"},{"content":" Watch the conversation Graduate Theory Open YouTube ↗ Read the full transcript → Hello there!\nI hope you\u0026rsquo;re having a great week so far (and enjoyed the long weekend).\nToday\u0026rsquo;s episode of Graduate Theory is a bit different.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s a compilation.\nAt the end of each episode, I ask the guest: \u0026ldquo;What is some advice you\u0026rsquo;d give yourself if you were starting your career again today?\u0026rdquo;\nIn this week\u0026rsquo;s episode, I\u0026rsquo;ve compiled all the responses to this question from the first 25 episodes.\nThere is some great content here this week. I hope you enjoy.\nSome of my favourite responses to look for:\n7 - Lidia Ranieri 15 - Dan Brockwell 22 - Josh Farr Watch this episode on YouTube.\n📝 Content Timestamps # 00:00 Intro\n01:07 1 - Joe Wehbe\n02:04 3 - Darren Fleming\n04:12 4 - Scott McKeon\n06:00 5 - Oscar Trimboli\n07:19 6 - Ishan Galapathy\n10:53 7 - Lidia Ranieri\n14:45 8 - Andrew Akib\n16:22 9 - Aiden and Eric\n21:25 10 - James Fricker\n23:40 11 - Haynes D\u0026rsquo;Souza\n26:47 12 - Adam Ashton\n29:19 14 - Ingrid Messner\n33:17 15 - Dan Brockwell\n36:01 16 - Michael Gill\n44:44 17 - Aaron Ngan\n49:01 18 - Warwick Donaldson\n50:55 19 - Penny Talalak\n53:45 20 - Adam Geha\n55:49 21 - Nimarta Verma\n57:28 22 - Josh Farr\n01:00:54 23 - Josh Reyes\n01:02:43 24 - Mel Kettle\nListen to the episodes # Joe Wehbe Wendy Teasdale-Smith Darren Fleming Scott McKeon Oscar Trimboli Ishan Galapathy Lidia Ranieri Andrew Akib Mentoring and Mental Health James Fricker Haynes D\u0026rsquo;Souza Adam Ashton Moving Interstate, SWE Interviews and Great Consultants Ingrid Messner Dan Brockwell Michael Gill Aaron Ngan Warwick Donaldson Penny Talalak Adam Geha Nimarta Verma Josh Farr Josh Reyes Mel Kettle ","date":"26 September 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/graduate-theory/49-graduate-theory-compilation-part-one/","section":"Graduate Theory","summary":" Watch the conversation Graduate Theory Open YouTube ↗ Read the full transcript → Hello there!\nI hope you’re having a great week so far (and enjoyed the long weekend).\n","title":"Graduate Theory Compilation - Part One","type":"graduate-theory"},{"content":"← Back to episode 49\nThis transcript was generated from YouTube captions and lightly edited for readability. Speaker labels may be unavailable, and transcription errors may remain.\nIntro # Hello and welcome to Graduate Theory today is a very special episode of Graduate Theory if you\u0026rsquo;ve been a listener for a while you\u0026rsquo;ll remember that at the end of every episode I asked the guests what\u0026rsquo;s some advice that they\u0026rsquo;d give people starting their career today today\u0026rsquo;s episode is a compilation of these things we\u0026rsquo;ve gone back into the.\nArchives found the first half of the Graduate Theory episodes so from episode 1 up to episode 24 I\u0026rsquo;ve gone back and found all these sections where the guest is giving some advice on what advice they would give to someone that\u0026rsquo;s about to finish or finish a university or start their career and that is what today\u0026rsquo;s episode is so it.\nJumps around a fair bit but I think there is some seriously good advice in this episode if you haven\u0026rsquo;t already please consider subscribing to The Graduate Theory newsletter it\u0026rsquo;s the first link in the description you get an email straight to your inbox every single week with a bit of a reminder of the gradual 3 episode.\nMy thoughts and my takeaways from each episode as well so thanks again for listening and please enjoy.\n1 - Joe Wehbe # The last question for you today Geo is if you were going to graduate University again or maybe even start my University you can choose uh let\u0026rsquo;s do one piece of advice yeah wow is like the question we asked a lot around the book is what advice you\u0026rsquo;d give your 18 year old self and I think I.\nCan say the same thing to both the version of me starting University and the vision of me ending University make the most of it don\u0026rsquo;t settle for any less yeah I like that because even leaving like whenever is coming next and that\u0026rsquo;s a big focus on what you have again make the most of it.\nWhatever you can access and start with make the most of it and if it was at University I didn\u0026rsquo;t make the most of it like I wish I could go back not really because I learned a lot which was applied making me more focused in life after and make the most of it I think.\n3 - Darren Fleming # That\u0026rsquo;s it good so the last question I\u0026rsquo;ve got for you Darren is wait we\u0026rsquo;ve got the audience of graduates here so one piece of advice that you would give to someone or if you were graduating University this year or one lesson that you would give to someone else graduating and wear a mask get vaccinated.\nAs silly as that sound it\u0026rsquo;s actually a lot deeper so what we\u0026rsquo;ve had since World War II and it\u0026rsquo;s been driven a lot by the US is the power of the individual okay all right my right I can do this I\u0026rsquo;m going to be the top blah blah blah the idea of covert and climate change these are all.\nExistential crisis that affect the whole world now I can put a mask on and I can get vaccinated and I can go like hippie don\u0026rsquo;t drive anything but I\u0026rsquo;m not going to stop covert by myself and I\u0026rsquo;m not going to change climate change by myself we need as a society to work together.\nSo the people who are going lockdowns are bad it\u0026rsquo;s not affecting me my business is going down the toilet you\u0026rsquo;ve got to change they\u0026rsquo;re missing the tectonic shift that is going on in society that is we are moving from a collectivist sorry an individualistic Society back to a collective Society where we rely on each other.\nThere\u0026rsquo;s an Ethiopian saying a traditional Ethiopian saying if you want to go fast go alone but if you want to go far go together and that\u0026rsquo;s where we are now that the mask and the vaccination is the metaphor for what we need to do this is all about coming together the knowledge that you have is great it\u0026rsquo;s common but.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s great your experience that you have from your life that have brought you here today is uncommon and needs to be shared it\u0026rsquo;s your knowledge that needs to be shared if I get vaccinated if for no other reason.\n4 - Scott McKeon # I built one last question for you Scott and that is if you were going to start a university again given all your experiences now with where you are you\u0026rsquo;re with your startup and your experiences all through University what is one one lesson that you\u0026rsquo;d give yourself if you were starting University again um at the start of next year.\nJoin the constant student honestly that is what I would say that looked at it without an absolute doubt that is what I would say that\u0026rsquo;s why that\u0026rsquo;s why Liam and Joey and I are working on it that\u0026rsquo;s why that\u0026rsquo;s why it exists there\u0026rsquo;s so much that you can learn right now if.\nLike universities being delivered online no the internet is imagine the Imagine for learning on the internet without the kind of University constraint of having to do subjects and coursework how about learning within you know 12 12 weeks or within one or two years within one year not only do you learn one year\u0026rsquo;s worth of information and content.\nBut you can actually then learn and earn and you can earn money for things that you\u0026rsquo;re learning and kind of really level up in multiple ways and same thing it\u0026rsquo;s the ecosystem the ecosystem is something that is it\u0026rsquo;s your platform to build upon so all of the things that are kind of benefited from are kind of Consolidated.\nWithin the constant student and that will still continue to grow over the years it\u0026rsquo;s the same thing get involved ask questions I think if people who are looking for the answers to be given to them rather than think of yourself like an adventurer you\u0026rsquo;ve got a you\u0026rsquo;ve got to discover it you\u0026rsquo;ve got to look through.\nAnd determine things you\u0026rsquo;ve got to ask you they\u0026rsquo;re going to try things people will always like people are always happy to help they\u0026rsquo;re always you know happy to guide you along the path and try things so if you have that mentality it doesn\u0026rsquo;t really matter what you do yeah because you\u0026rsquo;re doing things.\nAnd you\u0026rsquo;ll find the right answer.\n5 - Oscar Trimboli # Yeah so Oscar I\u0026rsquo;ve got one last question for you today and that is we\u0026rsquo;ve spoken about graduates a little bit now but if you were graduating again and you\u0026rsquo;ve had such a fantastic career you\u0026rsquo;ve worked with so many organizations if you were going to graduate again let\u0026rsquo;s say this year you\u0026rsquo;re going to start your career.\nNext year what is one one piece of advice that you would give yourself I would give myself two pieces of advice number one I would give back to my first year lecturers at University and go back to them and say can I do a guest lecture based on my workplace experience and how.\nI\u0026rsquo;ve applied what I\u0026rsquo;ve learned from you as a thank you to my lecturers and the second thing I would do is I would take more time to listen to Executive assistance and administrators in the organization they have the glue that holds the organization together they make everything run smoothly and if you\u0026rsquo;re in their dad books they can slow.\nEverything down for you as well so whether it\u0026rsquo;s a receptionist whether it\u0026rsquo;s an executive assistant or any kind of administrator these people are the glue that holds the organization together I\u0026rsquo;d invest more time in getting to know them.\n6 - Ishan Galapathy # And on a similar way to that question there\u0026rsquo;s one question that I\u0026rsquo;ll ask all the guests which is if you weren\u0026rsquo;t uh let\u0026rsquo;s say your ishan\u0026rsquo;s back in 1998 finishing University going to start his career what is what\u0026rsquo;s some advice um that you give yourself funny you should say that oh funny you should ask.\nThat James because I went to New South Wales University right as you said in in the introduction and I was living in randwick and I remember distinctively the very first day I arrived in Australia and I arrived in randwick and I remember on that Saturday afternoon in February 1994 walking the Belmore Street or Belmore.\nRoad I think or Frederick which is the main main street I had all these questions going through my head in terms of simple less how do I get to the uni and you know where\u0026rsquo;s my faculty how do I find my faculty to all the way from what\u0026rsquo;s my first job going to be who will.\nI marry where will I be all of that and recently my niece who is now studying engineering at the same faculty I had the pleasure of helping her to settle in in her apartment so my wife and I we\u0026rsquo;ve helped her to you know hire a flat and you know moved in and set up and as.\nPart of it this evening I had to basically go and grab something to eat so obviously you know we\u0026rsquo;re all familiar with the area you know we know the area the back of the hands and I quickly rushed out and went to Belmore Road and trying to find a cafe or something um to get something to eat.\nAnd in that moment it\u0026rsquo;s I could feel myself the ishan who was in 94 on that road it was as if I was watching this movie I was watching myself in third person walking the road for the first time and looking into the windows and I could feel the questions I had in.\nMy head at the time and I wanted to you know tell that ishan saying hey it\u0026rsquo;s gonna be okay it\u0026rsquo;s gonna be okay and it\u0026rsquo;s gonna be an enjoyable ride um is what I saw myself telling the 20 year old version of me and at the same time I also saw the 70 year old.\nIshan who had also been who had come there to tell the 40-something year old is John saying hey was you\u0026rsquo;ve now got questions about where to next you know will I be able to make a difference like I want to is the world going to be okay you know will we travel again and all that stuff.\nAnd again I heard the voice of the 70 year old ishan saying hey it\u0026rsquo;s gonna be okay and it\u0026rsquo;s going to be wonderful.\n7 - Lidia Ranieri # I\u0026rsquo;ve got one last question for you today Lydia and that is what question that I ask every guest and it is if you were graduating University again starting in the workforce right now or this year what are some tips uh some advice that you would give yourself the advice would be that you really do need to.\nTake the pressure of yourself from any expectation of having an answer today of what you need to do or should do because inevitably you will probably start out doing something and find yourself even you know 15 20 years down the track doing something completely different so you don\u0026rsquo;t have to have it all figured.\nOut I think it\u0026rsquo;s important to also understand your own kind of true nature in other words here people pursue that I\u0026rsquo;m just gonna do what feels like what I\u0026rsquo;m interested in and that\u0026rsquo;s a great place to start and others are a little bit more strategic well I\u0026rsquo;m going to go over here because.\nThese fields have utterly kind of leading seals in terms of you know economy and you know they pay well and all those things so all I would say is wherever you\u0026rsquo;re being lit in your thinking process it\u0026rsquo;s an indication of what indicator of what you value and what\u0026rsquo;s important to you and so you need to listen to that.\nAnd as long as you\u0026rsquo;re not only doing things because you think you\u0026rsquo;re going to get some Financial award and you know it\u0026rsquo;s just follow what it is that you know in a voice is telling you what to do because it will reach something else that leads to something else that leads to something else that.\nLeads to something else and storm really there\u0026rsquo;s no wrong turn because you\u0026rsquo;re accumulating knowledge and experience the wrong turn is when you do something that has no interest no appeal does not light you up does not in any way stimulate you that\u0026rsquo;s your long term and you need to be thinking about doing something else you.\nKnow I had that wrong turn very quickly in my careers my first job out of University I was working also and thought that I was going to pursue a career in law and within three months was going home and I had that feeling of it was a debt Theory and you I can\u0026rsquo;t do this.\nIt when I kind of told friends and family that I was you know you know aborting that mission they thought I was absolutely mad it was like can\u0026rsquo;t he\u0026rsquo;d finish the law degree got a great job with a great family you can\u0026rsquo;t do that and I\u0026rsquo;m like no no I definitely am doing that is not the.\nRight direction for me and because I knew I went home and I answered myself the question if I don\u0026rsquo;t want the partner\u0026rsquo;s jaw not in any kind of you know Machiavellian sense but just in an aspirational context if I don\u0026rsquo;t want the partners jaw then I\u0026rsquo;ve got nothing to aim for here.\nI can process steps don\u0026rsquo;t make sense to me so I need to go find something else that you know and for differentiator walls B the dynamism the different every day the unscripted way to work didn\u0026rsquo;t exist for me in that in that role and it existed in what I went on to do.\nAnd so it\u0026rsquo;s that really I mean have to be straw for broken no it could have been anything that allowed me to have that unscripted more Dynamic oops like working.\n8 - Andrew Akib # Yeah that\u0026rsquo;s really cool well I\u0026rsquo;ve got one more question for you Andrew this is a question that I ask all the guests and that is from your career where you are now let\u0026rsquo;s say you\u0026rsquo;re going back you\u0026rsquo;ve just finished University and you\u0026rsquo;re about to start your first job what advice would you would you give yourself now after.\nAll the experiences that you\u0026rsquo;ve had um yeah this is yeah okay I would tell myself that the things that you\u0026rsquo;re thinking about doing don\u0026rsquo;t just kick them you know don\u0026rsquo;t just kick the can down the road and keep thinking about doing it there\u0026rsquo;s something that you are thinking about doing just do it probably would have started.\nMaslow a couple of years earlier had I not been not not that I\u0026rsquo;d wouldn\u0026rsquo;t have been scanned but I should have just made the decision earlier but this is the case with a lot of things I yeah I think if I can can sum it up without kind of pointing too specific experiences just the thing that you\u0026rsquo;re.\nThinking about just started earlier because further down the track when you do reflect on that you\u0026rsquo;ll think to yourself you wasted time wait and that\u0026rsquo;s okay that\u0026rsquo;s gonna happen that there\u0026rsquo;s no harm in just starting a new thing if that\u0026rsquo;s what we want to do because you\u0026rsquo;re either going to start it.\nOr you\u0026rsquo;re not so you might as well start it the two years or the four years that the degree is going to take is going to pass anyway so you might as well do it or you\u0026rsquo;re you\u0026rsquo;re going to you\u0026rsquo;re going to progress in your career and kind of go on and get bored anyway so you might as.\nWell start the new thing now like it\u0026rsquo;s all totally okay so yeah if you\u0026rsquo;re thinking about doing something don\u0026rsquo;t.\n9 - Aiden and Eric # Wait what what is some advice that you would give someone starting their first job whether it\u0026rsquo;s could be to do with mental health and that\u0026rsquo;s obviously an important piece but is there anything that you would even if it was yourself when you were starting your first job what advice would you give yourself.\nThere maybe we\u0026rsquo;ll start with you Aid by something I would give I think back going back to my conversation about startups and corporates I\u0026rsquo;d probably say you know take the time to research all the options available to you and if it made sense go start you know join a startup or even better start a startup.\nYou\u0026rsquo;re young you\u0026rsquo;ve got time and it might work out really well for you the second thing you more specifically do to do with the mental health conversation is make sure that you\u0026rsquo;re taking the time to preserve your own mental health and one of the best ways of doing that is you know setting boundaries so if you think.\nWork is too much set a clear boundary to say this is overstepping the bounds that I\u0026rsquo;m comfortable with and therefore I\u0026rsquo;m not going to do it or communicate them clearly to other people around you as well so they know what you can do and what you can\u0026rsquo;t do and go from there and.\nI think the Third Kind of adhesive advice I would give and this is probably more General is when you start a new job as a graduate find out all the people that are going to be in your team and take every single person out for coffee once and make that a goal in the first.\nMonth I don\u0026rsquo;t care how many people it is it could be five it could be ten it could be twenty might be a bit expensive but just do it take every single one of the mouth for coffee and get to know them a little bit so ask him what makes him tick ask them you know what their kind.\nOf work experience is what they do a work in specifically and you know just get to know them and you\u0026rsquo;ll tend to find that hey they\u0026rsquo;re grateful because you know free coffee who doesn\u0026rsquo;t love that and B they get to know you on a personal level and because of that it\u0026rsquo;s a lot.\nEasier to get to grips with the team get to grips to work and you\u0026rsquo;ll have those actual connections formed within the best one whereas you know a lot of people tend to be quite introverted don\u0026rsquo;t really talk to anyone for you know a few weeks and you just need to break out of your shell a little bit to do.\nThat yeah yeah for sure Eric what about you any advice to you um you would give someone yeah absolutely so when I first or when I was supposed to graduate I have a mentor at the time one that I sort out like I went to a speech and we started meeting regularly and this is some advice that he gave me.\nThat I took two years to act on uh which is to build something create a visible Identity or content or something that you can be proud of outside for your raw whatever it happens to be and that does a lot of things right it gives you confidence it requires you to build the skills required to.\nBuild whatever you want to build it\u0026rsquo;s about a good thing and it means that you are visible so if and that\u0026rsquo;s something that we can now point to every week we both have our own online identities that speak for us and that\u0026rsquo;s something that we\u0026rsquo;re going to in the book as well but.\nIf I had started it earlier it would be so much better it would be so much so much more valuable that\u0026rsquo;s definitely something that I would better tell anyone who\u0026rsquo;s early on in their career or even still in unity build something you could point to and be like I built that it\u0026rsquo;s a demonstration of what I could do.\nJust to add on to that James you\u0026rsquo;ve pretty much done that hit that on the nail right yeah on the head I should say yeah with a Graduate Theory right there you go shining examples yeah that\u0026rsquo;s a great too Derek no certainly I totally agree with both of you and I think.\nThat\u0026rsquo;s really profound advice because yeah Eric were you saying about building like almost your personal brand I think is so important especially in today\u0026rsquo;s day and age where you can have things on the internet that are just there someone having to meet you or spend time with you they can see what you\u0026rsquo;re about and.\nThey can see the things that you\u0026rsquo;ve created I think it\u0026rsquo;s so important and right with you Aiden I think it\u0026rsquo;s a great advice too to connect with your team and even through the wider organization age you know really starting that networking is something that you do proactively and you know really creating a network you know as.\nMuch as you can especially when you\u0026rsquo;re early on I think it\u0026rsquo;s really really important too so if I could add on to what was what Aiden was saying before I think it\u0026rsquo;s important to acknowledge the caveats that come with setting boundaries especially when you\u0026rsquo;re starting out you want to be high achieving you want to make a good.\nOppression like we said before and it can be hard to say no or know how to say no and that can be that\u0026rsquo;s a difficult thing to navigate so you take the lot on but I will say that the first few years or maybe your 20s or your career or the time is the time.\nWhere you get to test your bandwidth to see how much work can you do how much can you take on before you affiliate yourself starting to burn out and then you stay in that range.\n10 - James Fricker # What is one tip you would give to new graduates your I believe that\u0026rsquo;s your final question yeah but what\u0026rsquo;s one tip you would give to new graduates today I think yeah I think yeah I think the main thing is be intentional about what you\u0026rsquo;re doing so and really that\u0026rsquo;s something that.\nYeah I think it\u0026rsquo;s so important it\u0026rsquo;s like let\u0026rsquo;s say it go like one o\u0026rsquo;clock 40 year what would make this year a successful year for you know and what things are you going to do this year that would be good like even if it\u0026rsquo;s coming to networking like be intentional about who you\u0026rsquo;re.\nNetworking with and make that something that you do to get involved participate really like life\u0026rsquo;s an adventure so you\u0026rsquo;ve got to go out and make stuff yourself like no one\u0026rsquo;s you know it\u0026rsquo;s coming back to even what we\u0026rsquo;re talking about before like No One\u0026rsquo;s Gonna Come and like make your experience great for.\nYou like no one\u0026rsquo;s gonna sit there and be like okay you know what this is the perfect opportunity for you here you go no like here\u0026rsquo;s like the perfect thing like you have to go and create that stuff yourself so you\u0026rsquo;ve got to go and meet the people you want to meet with.\nThey\u0026rsquo;re not going to come to you\u0026rsquo;ve got to go and seek opportunities that you want to do because no one\u0026rsquo;s going to come and bring them to you\u0026rsquo;ve got to really take life with both hands and go out and embrace embrace the world and go out and seek things yourself.\nI think that is the one lesson that you know that I try to apply and that I think uh that would be minus until you graduate as well it\u0026rsquo;s like yeah the lesson Adventure is a journey it\u0026rsquo;s it\u0026rsquo;s fantastic but you\u0026rsquo;ve got to get in there and to get make the most.\nOut of it get in the arena and go out and enjoy and really take life with both hands I think that is fundamental and something that will not only be useful through your graduate experience but it\u0026rsquo;s something that\u0026rsquo;s a fundamental principle I think through your entire life is to go out and just tackle stuff head on and get.\nInvolved I don\u0026rsquo;t just sit on the sidelines and mock people or just watch people that are doing cool stuff like get in there and do cool stuff yourself they get in there and meet people and participate and do stuff I think that is that\u0026rsquo;s something that I\u0026rsquo;ve grown into doing this yet and I think.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s something that I would recommend and to everyone yeah.\n11 - Haynes D\u0026rsquo;Souza # Well I\u0026rsquo;ve got one last question for you Hayes we\u0026rsquo;ve covered so much in this in this conversation a lot of value here but I want to ask one more and it\u0026rsquo;s a question I ask all the guests and it\u0026rsquo;s about if you were I graduated maybe let\u0026rsquo;s say starting next year you\u0026rsquo;re about to start your grad role what is.\nSome advice or maybe one piece of advice that you would give yourself oh well that is a good question I would say think broad just just I would I\u0026rsquo;ll tell myself that it\u0026rsquo;s important to keep my own personal interests and hobbies and not lose them when going to a grad sort of role I think the process of.\nGetting a grad job I think is well documented and there\u0026rsquo;s enough resources out there but I think what we don\u0026rsquo;t talk about is the importance of keeping your own personality in your your own Hobbies as you join your your sort of big company right I think it\u0026rsquo;s so easy and I\u0026rsquo;ve seen this so many times when you\u0026rsquo;re.\nYou go through University you\u0026rsquo;ve got all these hobbies and interests and passions and then you enter the workforce and then it\u0026rsquo;s all consuming right it\u0026rsquo;s known to fight but it\u0026rsquo;s not really nine to five right it depends on what role you work for or and what company you work for but you\u0026rsquo;ll be doing long hours.\nYou\u0026rsquo;ll you\u0026rsquo;ll find that you\u0026rsquo;ll sometimes working weekends and missed birthdays and dinners but why looking back actually my thing is you want to keep your passions and interests and hobbies with you for as long as you can and don\u0026rsquo;t let your work life basically take over your whole life because it\u0026rsquo;s easy to do that there is always work there.\nWill always be work but you know if you\u0026rsquo;re into sport or gym or dancing or teaching or mentoring or have a business or whatever whatever it is that gives you that joy and satisfaction in your life you need to keep that because you\u0026rsquo;ll realize that there are times when work isn\u0026rsquo;t great and whether you\u0026rsquo;ve had.\nA tough week or it\u0026rsquo;s you\u0026rsquo;re really stressed you do rely on your personal hobbies and interests to basically pick you up from that for a lot of people it\u0026rsquo;s their relationships with their partner or your faith or working out in the gym the crazier work gets the more important those parts of your life.\nBecome to keep you grounded and keep you sane if you do get to a point where your work is all-encompassing and there\u0026rsquo;s nothing else you\u0026rsquo;ll burn up very quickly you\u0026rsquo;ll also look back and realize that all you\u0026rsquo;ve done is work I think we\u0026rsquo;ve got nothing else to show for it so my my.\nAdvice sir for all these optimistic 21 year old grads is keep your hobbies keep your interests keep your passions what and have work to be around that yeah as opposed to just having work be the only thing that you have in life it also makes you so much more interesting knowledgeable and in the more senior you.\nGo I feel like new relationships become super important in the workplace and you\u0026rsquo;ll draw on those experiences traveling or having a business or working out you\u0026rsquo;ll draw on those parts of your life in order to build those relationships in the workplace the more senior you get so that\u0026rsquo;s that\u0026rsquo;s something I\u0026rsquo;d probably recommend.\n12 - Adam Ashton # And then one question that I want to finish with today Adam we\u0026rsquo;ve spoken about your great experience and the podcasts and things like that and I wanted to take it back to some some advice that you would give some graduates that are listening they might be their first year in the workplace knowing that all the things that you.\nKnow now and all the experiences you\u0026rsquo;ve gone through what is one or perhaps you\u0026rsquo;ve got multiple pieces of advice for people that are in that situation hmm I before we started I had three like three in mind that I want to mention um but I\u0026rsquo;m going to change it maybe we\u0026rsquo;ll have to do like in a year or two.\nWe\u0026rsquo;ll have to do a second app and I\u0026rsquo;ll give those those other three that I was going to give but maybe it\u0026rsquo;s changed by then but I\u0026rsquo;m actually going to change it on the Fly uh and combine the first answer I gave and the last answer I gave I\u0026rsquo;m talking about the whole grad experience I went through.\nThe first time where I saw it as a game in a competition and I thought I was in it so I had to do it and I had to beat everybody else and I this was just the path that everyone\u0026rsquo;s taking so okay I\u0026rsquo;m going to jump on this path and try.\nAnd do it better than everybody else because I have to because that\u0026rsquo;s what everybody does um that was the wrong approach obviously the right approach is that the want to approach that we kind of spoke about when it comes to reading like if you actually genuinely want to do it and you actually have a genuine curiosity about.\nIt and you see there are benefits um you\u0026rsquo;re reading books and you see that there are things that you can learn and apply to whatever it is you\u0026rsquo;re doing work career business relationships friendships whatever it is then you\u0026rsquo;re actually going to enjoy reading so if I actually flipped my perspective on work and saw it as something that I wanted to.\nDo and saw it as something where I can develop skills something where I can learn new things something where I can build some bit of a reputation or a bit of a brand or build a network or if I can if I actually saw all those benefits and it became something I wanted to do.\nThen it would have been a much better experience for me and I\u0026rsquo;m sure I\u0026rsquo;m sure right now if I was a grad I would be so much better as a grad than I was five years ago as a grad that\u0026rsquo;s for sure um I think the advice is not to quit your grad job and and start a business or.\nWhatever it is that you might be thinking I think it\u0026rsquo;s realizing that you can do both you can have the full-time job plus stuff on the side and they\u0026rsquo;re not competing with each other they can actually complement each other and just placing more value I guess on on how I saw the grad experience rather than just.\nDismissing it as I\u0026rsquo;m doing all this stuff on the side so this stuff is less important yeah cool that\u0026rsquo;s great to hear.\n14 - Ingrid Messner # And I\u0026rsquo;ve got one last question for you today Ingrid and that is about people starting their career you know people starting their career in 2022 is there one piece of advice or you know what advice would you give to young people starting their career in 2022 it was in 2022 or I feel with you.\nTo start your career now and because what what\u0026rsquo;s what\u0026rsquo;s happening it could be actually an advantage but usually starting a career is like a ride of Passage Point where you would have done certain things before that because of covet haven\u0026rsquo;t happened so what might be good to find some area where you really focus on further.\nDeveloping yourself your self-awareness and that could be in all sorts of ways it could be with meditation it could be with journaling it could be yoga it could be just conversations with other people so that you become more and more aware of who you are and what you want because the biggest thing will be in 2022 and most.\nLikely next year as well that you come in and everything is so uncertain and complex so it\u0026rsquo;s really challenging to say this is actually my vision or longer term thing it might be enough to say I would like to learn these five things in the next year and these are my passions and this is my.\nPurpose so how bring do I bring this together and find the right organization to work in this area and then during the year take it step by step and sort of check in is it still what you wanted to do or is it that suddenly other people have pushed you into something where actually.\nIn the beginning uh you didn\u0026rsquo;t see it coming but then over time it sneaked in and so you lose a little bit yourself and so it\u0026rsquo;s good to sort of when while you\u0026rsquo;re learning about yourself to put in like regular checkpoints let\u0026rsquo;s say every month or quarter where you check in is this really what I.\nWant and what\u0026rsquo;s the next step for it and then take it maybe in shorter bursts there are some people most likely finishing now have a long-term vision and goal and that\u0026rsquo;s great as long as they can hold it Loosely and say I might not get there in a straight line but I might take many detours but I.\nStill hold it there like a beacon like a lighthouse that I can sort of follow but I might not go straight I might go and do some detours and maybe while you\u0026rsquo;re on a detour you notice um actually this is much better and then that\u0026rsquo;s where the chicken pod comes in where you notice.\nActually now I know enough about myself I have the courage to say no I\u0026rsquo;m actually changing my goal and that\u0026rsquo;s fine so that\u0026rsquo;s how I would approach it this like long term visions and goals they are good but only if you hold them quite lightly yeah having said that you will find a few.\nPeople who do that and they\u0026rsquo;re brilliant for the majority I think it serves them better and their emotional and mental health if they said it\u0026rsquo;s okay to change and not know it\u0026rsquo;s okay to really not know and then take a break explore what\u0026rsquo;s around you decide something try it like an experiment and then learn.\nSomething from it and to the next step and that\u0026rsquo;s okay it\u0026rsquo;s it\u0026rsquo;s you don\u0026rsquo;t have to know everything impossible.\n15 - Dan Brockwell # I do have one more question for you and that is around you know people that are graduating are going into jobs at the start of this year that it\u0026rsquo;s 2022 they\u0026rsquo;re starting out in their career and what is some advice that you would give someone starting their career this year oh I mean yeah regardless of whether.\nThey\u0026rsquo;re going to a startup or a corporate I would say optimize for learning like and when I say optimize for learning optimize for the learning that you want if you like so not just like oh okay here\u0026rsquo;s the structured program at like you know your company but like find out the things.\nThat you want to learn and your your priority should be like how do I learn those things as quickly as possible you know how can I practice them how can I teach them how can I engage with them like maybe you want to become a really good public speaker maybe you want to.\nBecome a really good sales person a really good developer but I think like being very intentional about like the way you spend your time and it\u0026rsquo;s not every second of the day you always need breaks but like you know at work or maybe it\u0026rsquo;s like side projects yeah just just really thinking intentionally about.\nLike what like what am I learning and how fast am I learning it having a clear framework and plan there I think probably the other piece is as best you can try and find other people who care about similar things to you find other people as in like I mean that\u0026rsquo;s a.\nTwo-part one right number one and this is an ongoing question in life but start exploring like what are what are the problems you\u0026rsquo;d want to work on like 10 plus years in your career like one of the things you\u0026rsquo;re like wow that\u0026rsquo;s crazy like maybe it\u0026rsquo;s climate change or like nuclear warfare or you know artificial.\nIntelligence there\u0026rsquo;s all these cool areas and it takes time you know reading exploring but I think one of the best things you can do is just talking to other people like co-learning is such a beautiful thing so find people with good values who have really high aptitude who care about similar problems and are.\nDoing something about it and just try and learn from them teach each other like I look back at Uni and you know there are several friends like even that I have to this day and we\u0026rsquo;ve actually gone down quite different parts friends who went super deep into cryptocurrency friends who went very deep into the.\nLaw space friends who went into video game design friends who are doing you know their phds but kind of a Common Thread there is kind of like yeah I think like a really strong core set of values that\u0026rsquo;s shared and just a really really strong curiosity and intentionality to the way they live.\nTheir lives and so I think like just yeah finding people that you resonate with like the people you surround yourself with will just have a huge huge outsize impact on how your career progresses one more thing before I forget start creating content Now find the things you care about and just start creating newsletter Tick Tock social.\nMedia posts art whatever it may be it doesn\u0026rsquo;t even matter but when you create content you will find people who care about things similar to you um and that is just going to be a superpower for years and years to come.\n16 - Michael Gill # I\u0026rsquo;ve got one more question for Gilly to finish off the interview today and that is a lot of this podcasts around careers are around grads and it\u0026rsquo;s around people starting their career and so I want to ask you what advice would you give to people that are starting their career again or start at the starting their.\nCareer in 2022. so James when do you start your career in my head the notion is that when you sort of get your first full-time job oh so your tertiary education has nothing to do with your career yeah I think it does yeah it definitely does so what\u0026rsquo;s your question I think how about when they\u0026rsquo;re entering.\nThe workforce um if you read 18 and Lost Peter are you familiar with 18 and Lost James you are aren\u0026rsquo;t you yeah I\u0026rsquo;d even lost was a book written by a number of the constant students which has as a sub theme what we know at 26 or 27 that we wish we had known at 18.\nBecause the knowledge experience values skills that you take into the decision making for a university course is very much less than what you have at 26. when you have experienced one of the most important formation periods or life so the first lesson I think James to take out of that is keeping an open mind and an open heart.\nIs much more than just the glitzy saying of the moment it\u0026rsquo;s one of life\u0026rsquo;s most likely survival skills so Point number one is you haven\u0026rsquo;t wasted your education you haven\u0026rsquo;t wasted bursary stuff but keep your heart and your mind open as to how you\u0026rsquo;re going against that always and be prepared to question yourself.\nAlways don\u0026rsquo;t feel better still ashamed if you\u0026rsquo;re tempted towards thinking I\u0026rsquo;ve made a mistake no you haven\u0026rsquo;t made a mistake it\u0026rsquo;s like Michael in first year law you\u0026rsquo;re just learning and if you do that and you start understanding what turns on your ashes or your dumb lights coming from what you\u0026rsquo;re picking up which really seems to be the.\nAuthentic you as well doing it for yourself rather than your employer or your parents or other people or things that have an expectation of you your ability to break away from what do you feel from the bombardment of social media you know all the stuff you\u0026rsquo;re reading which is think forcing you in a particular.\nDirection somewhere along the way you\u0026rsquo;ll get will also kick in I\u0026rsquo;m not quite sure about that because it\u0026rsquo;s not my field of expertise but I say to everyone who wants to listen these days you have three very important ways of knowing and that\u0026rsquo;s your Edge out gotta keep them all in Balance you\u0026rsquo;re.\nGoing to listen to all of them and then it\u0026rsquo;s just walking down the path of life understanding that it\u0026rsquo;s all the process yes and it\u0026rsquo;s all about the journey it\u0026rsquo;s not so much about destination so what yeah it\u0026rsquo;s cliche but it\u0026rsquo;s completion stay in the present that gets hijacked by in three years.\nTime 101 years 0.5 years time I aim to be a senior associate at the LA guidance they\u0026rsquo;re all right to have out but it shouldn\u0026rsquo;t be totally pre-opted Melody of your plants I\u0026rsquo;ve got a lovely guy of my age uh retired land surveyor Jewish uh you know when people in our presence start talking about Miami Danny.\nAlways says if you want it here to go and laugh plan I love it yeah welcome the surprises yeah embrace the surprises knowing that I didn\u0026rsquo;t think that was gonna happen wow where did that bit of gift come from I thought I end up meeting a person like that at a night up at 11 30 PM in the.\nEvening and this is a person who may have a contribution to make to buy current curiosity about bike repair or something else where does this stuff come from well myself I would say pedial adverse yeah life is more than a single career life is about switching on the totality of your unique gift this.\nAll of them not played many of them on the show a lot of heat fights in the background no no that\u0026rsquo;s that\u0026rsquo;s yeah and that\u0026rsquo;s an awful lot to digest and I could give you a lot of other stuff about words like generosity but quickly you know if you\u0026rsquo;re in a business circumstance where there are.\nClients involved generous to it not because you want to have a reputation of some thought but because that people want generosity a neighbors yeah we all know that because we\u0026rsquo;ve all experienced it so that\u0026rsquo;s not hard is it when we know how we feel about people who will be genuinely generous in other words.\nThey\u0026rsquo;re not looking for anything in return they just do it because they want to do something for it and that turns on something within us which is exactly the science turns on within all other people in similar circles sure there can be some significance you can hear people say it why would they have done that.\nThey must think there\u0026rsquo;s something in it for there we\u0026rsquo;re going to try and rise above that because authentic people don\u0026rsquo;t eat them I understand what unconditional generosity gives that and you can feel it exactly the same way so in that work relationship Somalia generosity has exactly the same impact as in a personal relationship scenario.\nIf you\u0026rsquo;re in a personal relationship with somebody you know it might be somebody that you\u0026rsquo;re dating early stages you do something for that you may have to do it unknowingly that just means so much to them in terms of something generous might be waiting to take them out and you tidy up the kitchen.\nRather than sitting there watching that one of the Adelaide footy teams playing football on their televisions it\u0026rsquo;s just all of that sort of stuff the whole of life skills are exactly the same as the business life skills professional life skills personalized why or should only buy this and it\u0026rsquo;s not three of you it\u0026rsquo;s not one.\nThat puts on the tide that comes business another one who\u0026rsquo;s sort of looks on the basketball outfit becomes a basketball and then obviously also hear them being taking somebody out on a date he just saw an enclosure for all those skills we don\u0026rsquo;t we don\u0026rsquo;t put on outfits photos.\n17 - Aaron Ngan # I\u0026rsquo;m curious what would be some advice or some some really key principles that you would you would give to people going through this transition into that first like full-time role perfect the number one piece of advice I would give is share what you\u0026rsquo;re up to share it with your family share it with.\nYour friends share it with your network just tell people hey this is what I want to be doing this is the type of work this is the what excites me about share that with as many people as possible and inside of sharing it with people things are going to happen right like people.\nAre going to be like oh hey have you heard about this job opportunity have you heard about this volunteering opportunity have you thought about joining this hackathon have you seen this thing people who are in that same sort of Journey are going towards something else might be like hey I\u0026rsquo;m also doing this.\nLet\u0026rsquo;s catch up let\u0026rsquo;s connect let\u0026rsquo;s collaborate and you might learn from them you might contribute to them and inside of sharing what you\u0026rsquo;re up to and what you\u0026rsquo;re out to accomplish which could be like an early stage of careers like hey I really want to be an amazing product manager I really want to.\nBe an amazing systems engineer I really want to be an amazing uh junior HR manager I really want to be an amazing anything insert my career here like you can start to kind of get hey what excites me about this and it doesn\u0026rsquo;t have to be this big aspirational amazing sort of thing.\nRight it doesn\u0026rsquo;t have to be like hey I\u0026rsquo;m joining I\u0026rsquo;m joining Tesla to create the brand new Next like powered smart home battery motor motorcycle whatever it is right it doesn\u0026rsquo;t have to be this incredible that\u0026rsquo;s going to go to Mars by the way it\u0026rsquo;s not it doesn\u0026rsquo;t have to be that.\nAll right you could have a look at your early stage career I\u0026rsquo;d be like okay look like what I\u0026rsquo;m out to what I\u0026rsquo;m committed to is like hey I\u0026rsquo;m committed to really discovering the world of Finance so I can make a difference to the everyday people who use company X\u0026rsquo;s services right and as you share that as you start.\nTo explore that not really your two things will happen right like you will start to deepen your awareness of like hey what am I actually wanting to do so that\u0026rsquo;ll naturally happen you deepen it the more conversations you have the deeper it will get for you the more that you explain it or share with people.\nThey\u0026rsquo;re like oh like that\u0026rsquo;s interesting tell me about that the more you\u0026rsquo;ll it\u0026rsquo;ll be real for you and the more that your environment can kind of start to pull for hey James is the person who does that podcast of course I\u0026rsquo;m gonna like if I if someone comes up to me of course I\u0026rsquo;m going to recommend.\nDo it will just make sense because you\u0026rsquo;re sharing what you\u0026rsquo;re up to is the number one thing that influences your environment that could be a post that could be in conversations like hey what have you been doing or what have you been up to or how\u0026rsquo;s it going in Australia is the equivalent of.\nSaying hello but please don\u0026rsquo;t actually tell me how you\u0026rsquo;re actually feeling or what you\u0026rsquo;re doing the correct response actually is like yeah nothing much how about you but instead when you get asked that question hey what have you been up to you can actually talk about that you can just share hey like I recorded a podcast.\nIn the week the podcast guests actually flipped it on me started asking me questions for a little bit it was actually pretty cool and out of that look what I\u0026rsquo;m about to create for this podcast is like I\u0026rsquo;m really going to think about how do I create more and more value for people because I\u0026rsquo;m.\nCommitted that the listeners of Graduate Theory podcasts and that the community that we\u0026rsquo;re building really experiences having the best possible resources and the best preparation and the support and guidance that they need so that they can take the action in their lives to take their careers to the next step so that\u0026rsquo;s what I\u0026rsquo;ve been doing this.\nWeekend so that could be I just made that up for you for example yeah yeah people were like wow tell me about that yeah then it builds and then it builds yeah yeah I\u0026rsquo;ll share what you\u0026rsquo;re up to share what you\u0026rsquo;re up to.\n18 - Warwick Donaldson # But I\u0026rsquo;ve got one more question for you and it\u0026rsquo;s something that I ask all the guests and that is what advice would you give someone starting their career in 2022 build your network it may seem hard and a daunting task at the start and it is but it\u0026rsquo;s a marathon not a race and.\nThere are plenty of beautiful amazing people out there that want to talk to you and that want to share their experiences with you and don\u0026rsquo;t be afraid to ask them the worst they can say is in the whole literally that\u0026rsquo;s the worst that they can say and the best that they can say is hell yeah let\u0026rsquo;s go and have a.\nCoffee and then who knows what\u0026rsquo;s going to happen once that happens so you know it\u0026rsquo;s it\u0026rsquo;s a isometric risk and it\u0026rsquo;s an amazing thing and you really should be doing that and I understand that not everyone\u0026rsquo;s an extrovert and so it\u0026rsquo;s more difficult for others than it is for some of us.\nBut try to fight it or try to find ways that it can work for you know maybe it\u0026rsquo;s online maybe it\u0026rsquo;s like pinging someone and asking some questions you know it doesn\u0026rsquo;t always have to be face to face yeah face to face is great to build relationships but you know it doesn\u0026rsquo;t always have to be.\nThere there are other ways there\u0026rsquo;s always there\u0026rsquo;s always another way to solve a problem so try to innovate do some reading and figure it out but yeah I think those networks those relationship what will hold you strong throughout your career and your life and it\u0026rsquo;s I mean that your job doesn\u0026rsquo;t own you know when you leave.\nYou take that with you and that becomes some of your Capital that you can use to improve your life and improve your performance and your role and just have it you know have a nice alive it\u0026rsquo;s really good so.\n19 - Penny Talalak # Yeah but I\u0026rsquo;ve got one more question for you today Patty and that\u0026rsquo;s a question I ask all the guests and it\u0026rsquo;s if you are starting your career finishing the year you\u0026rsquo;re starting your first job again this year is there anything any advice that you would give yourself if you were restarting at your career.\nToday oh that is a hard one because I love my job like I\u0026rsquo;m doing really well I never have to go back and start it over again I would be panicking because the competition is way high all right like covert hit so many people out of jobs so many great designers out there.\nI think like if I didn\u0026rsquo;t get a job offer because like going through a job application again is exhausting going to graduate program I think for for sure I will not apply for graduate program I\u0026rsquo;m just done I\u0026rsquo;m done right now I\u0026rsquo;ll probably look for something more more entry-level personally and even though like the.\nBench is so high I\u0026rsquo;ll probably start a business if I\u0026rsquo;m gonna start my career again I\u0026rsquo;ll start a business and I\u0026rsquo;ll stop applying like I\u0026rsquo;ll apply but I wouldn\u0026rsquo;t be upset if I don\u0026rsquo;t get it because I\u0026rsquo;ll have my own things to do yeah yeah I think that\u0026rsquo;s cool and it\u0026rsquo;s certainly you know you\u0026rsquo;ve shown that.\nThere are plenty of opportunities out there for side hustles and four extra things to do if you if you could look for them and be interested in what problems need solving in the world so I think that\u0026rsquo;s that\u0026rsquo;s great advice and certainly I think we\u0026rsquo;re in the we\u0026rsquo;re in the period now where people are applying.\nThe grad roles for starting the next year so I think that\u0026rsquo;s great advice in a very timely advice as well so oh it\u0026rsquo;s stressful for them like I don\u0026rsquo;t want to go through that ever again like job application is way stressful than a breakup I\u0026rsquo;m sorry it\u0026rsquo;s so bad I just quote that yeah what.\nApplication rejection is way more stressful than a guy rejected absolutely and that\u0026rsquo;s it that\u0026rsquo;s funny because it hurts right like every day you\u0026rsquo;re checking your email you didn\u0026rsquo;t get a job you didn\u0026rsquo;t get a job like your life sucks and you\u0026rsquo;re surrounded by people who are making money and flushing their suit in barangaroo yeah so that\u0026rsquo;s.\nOne and I never get to experience that because it didn\u0026rsquo;t work in barangaroo but I\u0026rsquo;ve been like creating a job for yourself will help you get a job yeah and a lot of people don\u0026rsquo;t really like this yeah certainly I think that\u0026rsquo;s great advice and yeah absolutely I think doing those side hustles and things like that.\nSo I\u0026rsquo;ve been to anyone so if you can pay attention to the problems in the world and help people solve them then I think yeah you\u0026rsquo;d be setting yourself up in the right way absolutely and also know people I think like I wish if I went back more I wish I knew more people even.\nThough I know a lot of people I just I just want to know more people yeah like no more smart talented people yeah that is within Circle you need people like.\n20 - Adam Geha # That in your life and I\u0026rsquo;ve got one last question for you uh Adam just to finish off and that is you know lot of the listeners here are younger they\u0026rsquo;re perhaps starting their careers or in the first few years of their career and I wonder if there\u0026rsquo;s any advice or any lessons that you would you know even.\nThinking back to your own experience at that time any uh advice that you would give yourself if you were in in those in that position again yeah I think dream dream big be bold it takes just as much effort to achieve um big big goals as it does small ones so might as well dream big.\nUm and make sure you uh believe in yourself so I\u0026rsquo;m going to write a series of um micro blogs on self-belief because it\u0026rsquo;s becoming apparent to me that um a number of people that are beginning on the entrepreneurial Journey um they they just need to increase their self-belief and self-belief means no matter what.\nHappens no matter what task or challenge I\u0026rsquo;m up to the task I\u0026rsquo;m equal to and out to the task this type of self-worth this type of self-belief um and is absolutely indispensable to success and then I would just say go out and find a mentor or two you know I have two or three at any given time and I.\nMentor about six or seven because I believe the world is a big circle so you when you\u0026rsquo;re receiving you need to give and then the universe keeps giving you more and more mentors if you\u0026rsquo;re mentoring others and um so I would definitely say um you know believe in yourself dream big and surround yourself by one.\nOr two wise mentors um and go for walks in the park with them and put the problems of the week in front of them and ask them what they think you should do and if you do that often enough you\u0026rsquo;ll gain a lot of wisdom.\n21 - Nimarta Verma # I\u0026rsquo;ve got one last question for you no matter and that\u0026rsquo;s a question that I ask all the guests that come on the show and it\u0026rsquo;s almost a flip of the previous collection but you know like part of it graduate theories you know career advice and how can young people really grow their career and.\nWe\u0026rsquo;ve had some great advice from you tonight but yeah what\u0026rsquo;s some advice that you would give to young people who are starting their career today yeah I think really the biggest thing is like it\u0026rsquo;s not life and death and I\u0026rsquo;ll elaborate on that it\u0026rsquo;s like it\u0026rsquo;s not the end of the world like your.\nFirst career is not the career it doesn\u0026rsquo;t need to be the career you end up with for the rest of your life and you can change your mind and you can change your mind two thousand times and you can switch accessories and switch careers and say or be 10 years into a career go I\u0026rsquo;m.\nReally bored of that I\u0026rsquo;m gonna go do do a degree do a different degree and go to different routes I think there\u0026rsquo;s a lot of stress I see about you know 18 19 20 year olds trying to map out the rest of their lives you just can\u0026rsquo;t you don\u0026rsquo;t need to you don\u0026rsquo;t need to know.\nWhat you\u0026rsquo;re going to be doing for the rest of your life just you just need to know what\u0026rsquo;s the next day right then and there do that next thing if it fulfills you and you love it great keep at it if it doesn\u0026rsquo;t then you know don\u0026rsquo;t don\u0026rsquo;t settle go back and go okay well that doesn\u0026rsquo;t fulfill me.\nWhat what else should I be doing and don\u0026rsquo;t be afraid to change and switch and change your mind yeah one question I ask I know where it.\n22 - Josh Farr # Was out of time we\u0026rsquo;ll try and squeeze it in but something I ask all the guests is you know what\u0026rsquo;s some advice that you\u0026rsquo;d give yourself if you were restarting your career at the start of this year oh that\u0026rsquo;s a good one what if I started against myself I was restarting my career.\nMaybe preempting probably that which I just said that would probably be it like think about the next five years who do you want to help a practical way to do that is I think if someone\u0026rsquo;s lost try to answer this question I think if you\u0026rsquo;re lost and I\u0026rsquo;m sure I\u0026rsquo;m stealing this from.\nSomeone this is not an original idea but the point of a career is to end unnecessary suffering so if you\u0026rsquo;re not sure what you want to do try to end unnecessary suffering what does that mean find some suffering find someone that\u0026rsquo;s struggling find something that shouldn\u0026rsquo;t be suffering like where we have a.\nResourcefulness problem not a resource problem you know like I booked on I\u0026rsquo;m telling you before we started recording I booked an Airbnb today and when I logged on the home page of Airbnb said you know can we help that house 200 000 um Ukrainian refugees or something like obviously there\u0026rsquo;s more than that but.\nThat was the number that was up there I\u0026rsquo;m pretty sure it was 200 000. and so there\u0026rsquo;s a bunch of people on Airbnb who have a vacant place in different parts of the world who can say Yes actually I could put a family up for two weeks I could actually go without two weeks of Airbnb income and I could.\nPut someone up for two weeks or two months or two years or whatever it is and I could I could do this and it\u0026rsquo;s a small sacrifice my family\u0026rsquo;s not going to starve I could do this so lots of people listening might not have a spare Airbnb to put up but they might have a spare.\nWeekend they might have a couple of hours they might have 50 bucks a month that they can donate so the question would be my advice to a younger self would be find a problem that you care about find some suffering as weird as that sounds try to find something with some leverage where it doesn\u0026rsquo;t need to happen where.\nThere is a solution where there are great organizations or great people and start getting involved in that space like change your proximity the thing that changed everything for me was proximity it\u0026rsquo;s the hardest advice that I give to my younger self but it\u0026rsquo;s really hard to say to people is like I think.\nYou need to go to a place in the world where there are real problems and spend some time there now there are real problems in your neighborhood right domestic abuse all that sort of stuff but it\u0026rsquo;s not like you\u0026rsquo;re just going to go knocking around on the neighbor\u0026rsquo;s house like is there any suffering.\nHappening in here like it\u0026rsquo;s kind of it\u0026rsquo;s not the same you know so it\u0026rsquo;s kind of hidden so it\u0026rsquo;s either tap into what\u0026rsquo;s happening in the local environment or go somewhere be in an environment where it smacks you like for me I needed that smack of like hey there are real problems out here and you.\nCan do something about that and it\u0026rsquo;s not overly like palatable but it was really practical and that gap between what I thought I wanted and what I needed became really apparent so that would probably be my advice be around somewhere where there\u0026rsquo;s a real challenge be around people who are actually solving it like I was just in.\nIn saw this crisis and I didn\u0026rsquo;t see anyone solving it\u0026rsquo;d be really depressing but then I went to the refugee border crossing and I saw local families Bakers people who had next to nothing giving away everything like closing their business and giving away all the bread to refugees who they didn\u0026rsquo;t know who.\nWere from another country who didn\u0026rsquo;t even have the same religion like they\u0026rsquo;re some of the religions blatantly said these guys are the enemy and they\u0026rsquo;re like yeah but we\u0026rsquo;re gonna give our entire lives to helping them I was like that\u0026rsquo;s religion you know that\u0026rsquo;s what it\u0026rsquo;s about and it\u0026rsquo;s just things like that being around that being around.\nPeople who are so selfless so generous that just changed my perspective so I think a version of that rant is what.\n23 - Josh Reyes # I\u0026rsquo;d hope to tell my younger self you know one more question to ask you today around you know your career and the things you\u0026rsquo;ve done and we\u0026rsquo;ve had a really interesting chat today but people starting their career this year do you have any advice for graduates as they go into this world of you know crypto.\nRemote work all these kind of new trends that are coming up yeah I think I\u0026rsquo;ll probably push for crypto I think it\u0026rsquo;s very much the future the amount of talent rushing into this industry is simply like unfathomable uh coming from like a web 2 world from my full-time job just over a year ago and.\nNow to like back really be back into it and working and hiring and experimenting in this industry it\u0026rsquo;s crazy when me and Marcus actually started the company we said like this actually might be our last chance to be early and really to Define what our vision for what we want this industry um and this space to look like and that.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s actually the same thing for joining an early stage startup I had very like strong beliefs on how what work should be like and how you should run a team um from like reading books and talking to friends um and what what company culture should be like and I think I still have those.\nStrong beliefs about work but also like what I think the future of Web3 and crypto and the internet should be and I think if people do have these like morals and beliefs and if you want to apply them to this industry yeah it sounds maybe a bit crazy but I actually think it\u0026rsquo;s the last time these.\nNext three to five years will be the time when you can actually make an impact and actually spread your morals um and beliefs at a scale um where they\u0026rsquo;re impactful totally like millions and billions of people.\n24 - Mel Kettle # Oh yeah that um that\u0026rsquo;s going to be my last question and it\u0026rsquo;s something that I that like you\u0026rsquo;ve sort of already answered in some ways but something I ask all the guests at the end of the show is you know what advice would you give to someone that\u0026rsquo;s just starting out in their career like um you know given.\nAll that you know now if you had to do it so let\u0026rsquo;s go one back the clock and restart things yeah what\u0026rsquo;s your advice that you\u0026rsquo;d give you\u0026rsquo;d give yourself listen to your instincts because they are very rarely wrong that would be my number one advice if if your gut instinct is saying this.\nIsn\u0026rsquo;t quite right ask questions and listen to it yeah I think that\u0026rsquo;s important too I think yeah you know you\u0026rsquo;ve got the mind and the Heart yeah powerful things you\u0026rsquo;ve got to listen to both that mind Gap connection there\u0026rsquo;s so much research now that shows there\u0026rsquo;s such a close link between what happens.\nIn our gut and what happens in our brain and there\u0026rsquo;s some really good books none of which I can remember the names of um but there\u0026rsquo;s so much research around that like the last 20 years has just shown this really strong connection between the mind and the brain and the gut and so.\nIf you\u0026rsquo;re interested do some research and find out more but I really believe Listen to Your Instinct we\u0026rsquo;ve all got an instinct it\u0026rsquo;s like that sixth sense so you know pay attention particularly if it you know you might call it the Spidey sensors on it or the you know the tingles on the back of your.\nNeck or your spidey sensors but in my experience they\u0026rsquo;re not usually wrong not thanks again for listening to Graduate Theory please consider subscribing to The Graduate Theory newsletter it\u0026rsquo;s the first link in the description you get an email straight to your inbox every single week with a summary and my takeaways from that.\nWeek\u0026rsquo;s episode thanks again have a great week and we\u0026rsquo;ll see you next time.\n← Back to episode 49\n","date":"26 September 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/graduate-theory/49-graduate-theory-compilation-part-one/transcript/","section":"Graduate Theory Transcripts","summary":"← Back to episode 49\nThis transcript was generated from YouTube captions and lightly edited for readability. Speaker labels may be unavailable, and transcription errors may remain.\nIntro # Hello and welcome to Graduate Theory today is a very special episode of Graduate Theory if you’ve been a listener for a while you’ll remember that at the end of every episode I asked the guests what’s some advice that they’d give people starting their career today today’s episode is a compilation of these things we’ve gone back into the.\n","title":"Transcript: Graduate Theory Compilation - Part One","type":"graduate-theory-transcripts"},{"content":" Watch the conversation Graduate Theory Open YouTube ↗ Read the full transcript → Work-Life Balance reached a new record of searches in April 2021.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s a common thought: how can I achieve work-life balance?\nIn this episode, we unpack WLB and see what experts from across the world have to say.\nWatch this episode on YouTube.\n👇 Episode Takeaways # Dealing with Work Commitment Creep # It\u0026rsquo;s easy for work commitments to start creeping into our personal lives.\nHow can we deal with this?\nCreate clear boundaries for when you are working and when you aren\u0026rsquo;t. You aren\u0026rsquo;t letting people down by not being available 24/7.\nTreat weekends like vacations. Enjoy your time away from work, and do something creative and fun with your time away from the office. Relax and forget.\nAsk for more time. If work is interfering with your personal life, ask for more time so that you can complete the work in a way that is sustainable.\nWork-Life Harmony # Work and life are not two opposing forces, they are complementary.\nWhen you love your work, you will be better at home.\nWhen you are better at home, you will be better at work.\nWork and life do not need to be balanced, they are harmonious.\nSome People Don\u0026rsquo;t Understand # Work-life balance for one person is another\u0026rsquo;s nightmare.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s important to recognise that what you want out of life is different to other people.\nHave no shame in doing the things that give you energy, you can always change course.\n📝 Content Timestamps # 00:00 Work-Life Balance\n07:52 Part 1\n09:50 TED Talk\n14:57 Brian Tracy\n19:05 James\n21:46 Part 2\n23:09 Jeff Bezos\n26:07 Michael Gill\n30:39 Sinek\n33:28 James\n34:37 Conclusion\n","date":"19 September 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/graduate-theory/48-worklife-balance/","section":"Graduate Theory","summary":" Watch the conversation Graduate Theory Open YouTube ↗ Read the full transcript → Work-Life Balance reached a new record of searches in April 2021.\nIt’s a common thought: how can I achieve work-life balance?\n","title":"On Achieving Work-Life Balance","type":"graduate-theory"},{"content":"← Back to episode 48\nThis transcript was generated from YouTube captions and lightly edited for readability. Speaker labels may be unavailable, and transcription errors may remain.\nWork-Life Balance # Hello and welcome to Graduate Theory in today\u0026rsquo;s episode it\u0026rsquo;s just you and me we\u0026rsquo;re doing a deep dive into Work-Life Balance now Work-Life Balance in 2021 April 2021 Google tweeted that Work-Life Balance um hit its peak in terms of search in terms of the trend so Google Trends Work-Life Balance hit a peak 2021 at in.\nApril of 2021 the it had never been searched more than it had been at that time it is a topical problem people are struggling to find the balance between work and life how do I manage these things and then uh and how do I live in harmony perhaps in both my work and my.\nLife um Work-Life Balance I guess is this dichotomy between how much how much time do we spend at work and how much time do we spend uh in our life or not doing work and what is the kind of split that we choose for this so if you were sort of 100 on work imagine you know you.\nWorked you literally worked all the time there was no life then things would get probably it wouldn\u0026rsquo;t be the happiest the balance isn\u0026rsquo;t quite there but and so maybe you want to have dinner with your family some nights of the week maybe it\u0026rsquo;s maybe it\u0026rsquo;s a one night a week you know uh and we spend less time at work.\nTwo nights a week even less work three four five six seven uh seven nights a week less work so and then you can even dial this further and say maybe I should spend 50 50 work and non-work you know and this question of Work-Life Balance really is what is the optimal split between work and life and.\nHow can you divide these two areas up in a way that means that you are like it makes you the happiest that you can be right because I guess that is the underlying assumption is if you if your Work-Life Balance is off then you will be unhappy uh unfulfilled uh all of these kinds of.\nThings uh I\u0026rsquo;ve even seen through my research for this episode that Work-Life Balance can be something that you actually achieve so people will ask on forums you know how like how do I achieve Work-Life Balance or ask a particular person how did you achieve Work-Life Balance and this is interesting to me.\nBecause can you actually achieve Work-Life Balance probably not I would say it\u0026rsquo;s more of a thing that\u0026rsquo;s in flux all the time it\u0026rsquo;s it\u0026rsquo;s this delicate dance right between work and life and as you\u0026rsquo;ll see later perhaps these things are actually more related back perhaps there\u0026rsquo;s actually not much of a divide between.\nThese two things at all anyway in today\u0026rsquo;s episode we\u0026rsquo;re going to take a look at this stuff in more detail and I\u0026rsquo;m going to start with a personal story something that I think is irrelevant to this topic and from there we\u0026rsquo;ll kind of dive in to the details and hear from different people hear what they\u0026rsquo;ve got.\nTo say uh today\u0026rsquo;s episode we\u0026rsquo;re going to hear from someone like uh Jeff Bezos we\u0026rsquo;re going to hear from Brian Tracy TED Talks a previous podcast guest Simon Sinek all these people are going to be featured in this episode so super exciting um yeah I think this is an interesting topic it\u0026rsquo;s something that I think we uh.\nThere are some parts of this that we need to talk about more so let\u0026rsquo;s do it I want to start off with a personal story about Work-Life Balance and it\u0026rsquo;s something that happened to me a few months ago and something that I think is a good starting point for this kind of Work-Life Balance conversation so it was.\nA few months ago at work and I was just doing my thing got um how to chat with my manager and he assigned me to do this piece of work that I was quite excited by I was like this is really cool I\u0026rsquo;m super excited to tape on this thing and see what I can do.\nWith it so the day I got given this piece of work I was really excited I went I went and did heaps of work on it and then the end of the work day came and I was at the office and then I went home uh and you know had some dinner and.\nWhatever and then after dinner I was like you know I\u0026rsquo;m still thinking about this problem why don\u0026rsquo;t I just keep working on it and so that\u0026rsquo;s what I did I got my laptop back out and you know it was like seven o\u0026rsquo;clock at night or whatever it started doing more work uh and you know worked.\nUntil 9 30 or whatever and then it was time for bed and then I went to bed and uh you know then then on the weekend I did even more so then I was like well I\u0026rsquo;m still thinking about this problem I\u0026rsquo;m really enjoying it\u0026rsquo;s really sort of stretching me I feel like I\u0026rsquo;m getting a.\nLot of a lot out of this uh yeah let\u0026rsquo;s just keep going so I added even more um and you know that was it was really fun I really enjoyed it the project like it went really well and I learned heaps from doing it um but the problems for me came from.\nWhen I went to tell other people about this and I went and said to them um you know firstly I told my my manager was like how did you do all this work over when I only gave you this big task on Friday uh and I was like well yeah I did do some work over the weekend and he.\nSaid well this is good but you know probably best to not get in the habit of doing this because you know like you need some you need some life right we need to keep the Work-Life Balance split here make sure that you know work doesn\u0026rsquo;t take over too much of things because otherwise we\u0026rsquo;ll.\nWe\u0026rsquo;ll burn out perhaps um but on the other hand it\u0026rsquo;s it\u0026rsquo;s exciting that you uh wanted to do this and it wasn\u0026rsquo;t something that was expected and just making he made sure that this wasn\u0026rsquo;t so the expectation that I go and do extra stuff on the weekend which I absolutely uh new um so that was a good interesting.\nConversation and then another separate conversation came when I was telling friends about what I did on the weekend and I\u0026rsquo;d say to them this is what I did on the weekend I actually had this really fun project at work and I just decided to work on that on the weekend and everyone there is like what like why.\nAre you working on like on this piece of work you know on the weekend you shouldn\u0026rsquo;t be doing that uh you know what about your Work-Life Balance you know things like this uh in my head I\u0026rsquo;m like yeah I sort of see what you mean like I probably could have done other things.\nBut like there was nothing really that I preferred would prefer to do at that time other than work on this thing like this thing was genuinely exciting me uh and it was super cool and so I\u0026rsquo;m glad I did it but there was kind of this weird I don\u0026rsquo;t know people thought it was very strange.\nThat someone could enjoy work that much that they would choose to do it outside of work hours which I thought was interesting and so that\u0026rsquo;s the end of the story and it\u0026rsquo;s an interesting story it\u0026rsquo;s something I think about reasonably often but today\u0026rsquo;s episode is a good chance to dive into a lot of this content in more.\nDetail and so I\u0026rsquo;ve got two different uh things that I think we can split this story and Work-Life Balance generally into two sort of sub problems I would call them but Work-Life Balance and one of these is a Work-Life Balance problem where work is interrupting important things basically when you\u0026rsquo;re forced to work.\nMore than you would like and then the second problem is people who work lots are sort of seem to be a bit strange because they don\u0026rsquo;t have Work-Life Balance and this is a Work-Life Balance problem and so this would be Work-Life Balance when you\u0026rsquo;re not forced to work and so when you\u0026rsquo;re actually choosing to do it and then.\nThere\u0026rsquo;s there\u0026rsquo;s this more more of a cultural uh a problem perhaps that you have to face right and so I want to split it into these two and we\u0026rsquo;ll dive into these in more detail.\nPart 1 # So the first one is when work is interrupting important things and an example I guess a classic example of this would be the case where the husband is at the hospital and his wife is giving birth to a truck to their child and he\u0026rsquo;s there it\u0026rsquo;s all going really well and then he gets a phone.\nCall from a client and goes and has to take a call and he can\u0026rsquo;t be there with his kid and it can\u0026rsquo;t be there for this incredible moment where you know his wife is needs him there and the nope I have to sort of skip this because the client is calling me uh you know so that.\nWould perhaps be an example where the expectation of working is it clearly subtracting from your experience of life uh and when work is interrupting important things and so there\u0026rsquo;s Maybe and so there is versions of this that are more tame that\u0026rsquo;s an extreme example but things where you\u0026rsquo;re trying to have dinner with.\nYour family and the client calls and you\u0026rsquo;re expected to go and respond or you\u0026rsquo;re expected to go do this and that outside of work hours to the point where it\u0026rsquo;s interrupting the things you\u0026rsquo;d want to do uh you know to the point where it\u0026rsquo;s frustrating you and so today I\u0026rsquo;m not going to be the one giving advice.\nFor this because I\u0026rsquo;ve found people who are more smarter than me and better than me at explaining different things and so these people are going to give you some advice so we\u0026rsquo;ve got firstly a TED Talk uh where we\u0026rsquo;re going to hear three rules to create a better Work-Life Balance and secondly we\u0026rsquo;re going to hear from Brian.\nTracy Brian Tracy is very famous self-development coach figure and he has some really good advice for creating uh you know for turning your office life optimizing it so that you can have better Work-Life Balance but here\u0026rsquo;s those tips now.\nTED Talk # For so many of us myself included our days feel filled with a million small interruptions and this is true even of our days off maybe you\u0026rsquo;ve taken a call at the beach texted your boss from the grocery store or emailed a colleague while on a picnic with your family we\u0026rsquo;ve convinced ourselves that these behaviors.\nAre no big deal it\u0026rsquo;s just one email but there\u0026rsquo;s a real cost to these interruptions and there are smart strategies we can all take to better protect our time these moments seem so small at the time and yet research suggests they add up to a tremendous loss the constant creep of work into our personal lives can.\nIncrease our stress and undermine our happiness so just what is the cost in one study researchers recruited parents who are visiting a science museum with their kids some parents were told to check their phone as much as possible others were told to check their phone as little as possible after the visit parents who.\nUsed their phones reported that the experience was significantly less meaningful they also felt much lonelier in another study tourists who were asked to have their phones out while visiting an iconic Church remembered fewer details a week later and in my research employees who were paid for their performance spent increasingly less time interacting with friends and family and.\nMore and more time interacting with colleagues and clients these constant interruptions come at a cost to organizations too companies lose 32 days of productivity each year to employee depression which is often caused by the stress and burnout of our always-on culture despite knowing better I too have found myself focusing on urgent work distractions over important life.\nMoments most recently I found myself texting a client while in the middle of my first child\u0026rsquo;s first ultrasound happy client guilty mom to be when you add up all of these moments the sum total is a life shortchanged on meeting Joy connection and even memory as we remake our models of work in the wake of.\nThe pandemic now is our opportunity to create a new culture that respects time and the way to make this really big change is through small steps that we can take right now the first step that we need to take is to reframe rest reflect for a moment about what you think about when you hear the word rest.\nSounds amazing right but in my mind I immediately worry about not being productive enough or letting down my colleagues when we do have time off we need to find ways in which we can enjoy the present moment and Savor the leisure time that we have available as opposed to seeing it as an unproductive barrier.\nTo our work one specific strategy we can take is to treat our upcoming weekend like a vacation on Friday afternoon jot down how you would act and behave as if you were on a holiday maybe you and your partner will buy a bottle of wine and watch online clips of the Eiffel Tower.\nMaybe you\u0026rsquo;ll visit a local cafe and listen to some live music or maybe you\u0026rsquo;ll go for a long walk in the middle of the day with no phone and No Agenda the plan doesn\u0026rsquo;t have to be expensive or extravagant another strategy you can take is to create clear boundaries for your time off instead of saying I\u0026rsquo;m out of the.\nOffice feel free to slack me whenever say I\u0026rsquo;ll be offline call me only if it\u0026rsquo;s urgent to uphold these personal goals work together as a team set team goals for personal time do it publicly collect data and hold each other accountable these goals could sound like I will not check email between 6 and 8 PM I will.\nHave dinner with my family four nights a week or I will go for a jog midday check in on your team\u0026rsquo;s progress and see how everyone\u0026rsquo;s doing if you or your teammates are unsuccessful work together to help accomplish personal goals lastly you can negotiate for more time to prevent work from creeping into your.\nPersonal life in business school I teach students to negotiate for salary But realize I spoke almost nothing about negotiating for more time what does this look like in practice you can ask for more time on adjustable deadlines at work if your client asks for a deliverable Monday morning ask for an extension until Tuesday afternoon so.\nYou don\u0026rsquo;t find yourself working on your well-deserved weekend and don\u0026rsquo;t worry too much about reputation quality truly is the metric that matters most in my data employees who proactively asked for more time reported lower levels of stress and burnout and were seen as more committed and professional by their colleagues these are small but powerful changes to.\nNot only reframe rest but to reclaim it once you discover the profound impact that these changes can have you\u0026rsquo;ll feel empowered to demand that others respect and accommodate your approach to time maybe they\u0026rsquo;ll even feel inspired to piece together the fractured moments of their lives too hello I\u0026rsquo;m Brian Tracy.\nBrian Tracy # And today we\u0026rsquo;re going to talk about a big subject one that everyone seems to struggle with and it\u0026rsquo;s called Work-Life Balance the first thing to understand about Work-Life Balance is that most people have the wrong idea of what that actually means they think that their whole life should be balanced they think.\nThey should have a little bit of work and a little bit of play and a little bit of time on the weekends in order to improve the quality of their lives when thinking about your quality of life you have to ask yourself what do you really want to do with your life it\u0026rsquo;s a great question.\nSo here are four tips for time management that will help you to achieve a Work-Life Balance and improve your quality of life number one use the power of positive affirmations the positive affirmations are what they call positive self-talk are commands that you pass from your conscious mind to your subconscious mind that you.\nEither say out loud or say to yourself with emotion and enthusiasm to drive the words into your subconscious mind sort of like a pile driver it\u0026rsquo;s sort of like instructing yourself to follow new operating instructions Begin by repeating positive affirmations over and over to yourself such as I am excellent at time management I am.\nExcellent at time management or I already have a balanced work and life my favorite time management affirmation is I use my time well I use my time well I use my time well just say that over and over when you repeat positive affirmations over and over they are eventually accepted by your subconscious.\nMind as commands just like you\u0026rsquo;ve programmed it and then you\u0026rsquo;ll find that your external behaviors on the outside will start to reflect your new internal programming we say as within so without now tip number two in managing your time and achieving Work-Life Balance if there is such a thing is to visualize your.\nTime management skills mental pictures almost immediately influence your subconscious mind so begin to see yourself as well organized and efficient and effective in time management we say mentally fake it before you make it so recall and recreate memories and pictures of yourself when you were performing at your best and getting through enormous amounts of work through.\nPositive affirmations you can create a picture of the upcoming event and see it unfolding perfectly in every respect see yourself as calm positive happy and in complete control see the other people doing and saying exactly what you would want them to do if the situation was perfect play this picture of yourself over and.\nOver again on the screen of your mind tip number three is take action based on your visualizations now that you have concentrated on and visualized what your day and your future will look like with proper time management it\u0026rsquo;s time for you to put it into action you do this by working the entire time.\nYou\u0026rsquo;re at work when you walk into the office you should work the entire time you\u0026rsquo;re there be pleasant and friendly to your co-workers but get to work right away and work until you\u0026rsquo;re finished Peter Drucker says that if you spend more than 10 percent of your time socializing your time is out of control.\nNow by doing this going straight to work you\u0026rsquo;ll get on top of your work and we\u0026rsquo;ll walk away feeling accomplished at the end of your day when you don\u0026rsquo;t have lingering tasks to worry about since you\u0026rsquo;ll have worked as hard as you could have during your time in the office you\u0026rsquo;ll be left with plenty.\nOf quality time to spend with your friends and family super interesting.\nJames # Hearing those tips today I think one thing for me in facing this problem is like is having the boundaries there right we need to develop boundaries around when is West harm and when is not work time and I think if you if you say okay my work hours in nine to five and.\nThen if I can\u0026rsquo;t achieve the things that I\u0026rsquo;m being expected to achieve in that time then I say to them hey I\u0026rsquo;m currently occupied or my plate is currently full if you\u0026rsquo;d like me to take on this additional thing then I\u0026rsquo;ll need to subtract from the things that are already unmarked and so that way you can.\nKeep the nine to five or whatever your work hours are you can keep your work hours where they need to be and so let\u0026rsquo;s say you\u0026rsquo;re really busy you\u0026rsquo;ve got a few things on um and then someone comes to you and is like James you know I really want you to work on this project as well uh and you.\nSay and when you\u0026rsquo;re thinking in your head okay if I take this on I don\u0026rsquo;t really have enough time and so like that\u0026rsquo;s gonna make me very stressed and if I take this on I\u0026rsquo;m probably gonna have to work more I don\u0026rsquo;t really want to do that how do I say no to this person I.\nCan\u0026rsquo;t just be like no I don\u0026rsquo;t want to I can\u0026rsquo;t I don\u0026rsquo;t have time to work on your thing um so they\u0026rsquo;re perhaps a better way of going about this is saying hey thanks so much for thinking of me uh with this piece of work looks super exciting um I\u0026rsquo;d love to work on it but at the.\nMoment my flight is currently full I\u0026rsquo;ve got this this and this that I\u0026rsquo;m currently working on at the moment I don\u0026rsquo;t have I won\u0026rsquo;t be able to get the project that you\u0026rsquo;re saying done uh in in the in the right time frame or with the suitable quality so is it if I\u0026rsquo;m going to take this on is.\nThere anything that you think I should I can take off my plate you know to be able to take this on and do it well instead so some type of conversation like that to be had around like like that when it comes to boundaries I think that is going to uh you know that\u0026rsquo;s quite important in.\nProtecting yourself from this kind of seat that can happen where work just kind of the hours extend 10 minutes and then 10 10 10 it just kind of keeps on going and then before you know it you\u0026rsquo;re working sort of seven to seven perhaps and you know things and that\u0026rsquo;s not where you want to be here and.\nSo it\u0026rsquo;s different like we\u0026rsquo;re going to talk about next if that is something you actually want to do is work a 727 or whatever the hours that you want to work on you know it\u0026rsquo;s different if that\u0026rsquo;s not what you want to do but if it is what you want to do then we Face a different.\nProblem which brings us.\nPart 2 # To part two so part two as I mentioned right at the start was we kind of have this split between when Work-Life Balance when you\u0026rsquo;re forced to work outside and then when you\u0026rsquo;re not forced to work and so now we\u0026rsquo;re going to talk about when you\u0026rsquo;re not forced to work and this interesting idea uh that we as a.\nSociety where\u0026rsquo;s a culture have that work life and balance is uh means that you know people that work a long time have kind of got it wrong uh you know they\u0026rsquo;re there their Work-Life Balance is taking a hit that you know they might be working lots but oh their Work-Life Balance must suck.\nAnd it\u0026rsquo;s almost like this uh people who work while to seen as uh you know bad in some ways right because they\u0026rsquo;re working they\u0026rsquo;re working so much and it\u0026rsquo;s like well you know how can why would you choose to work that\u0026rsquo;s kind of weird uh I try and work as most people work as.\nLittle as possible choosing to work more is kind of strange so this one is more for those people that choose to work more and here\u0026rsquo;s some interesting thoughts perhaps about how Work-Life Balance isn\u0026rsquo;t perhaps what it sounds like right that working life are perhaps the same thing you know working life are perhaps in in.\nHarmony together and we\u0026rsquo;ll get to in a sec so now we\u0026rsquo;re going to hear from Jeff Bezos and we\u0026rsquo;re going to hear from some other people about Work-Life Balance here we go.\nJeff Bezos # How do you go about establishing that Work-Life Balance that everybody you know talks about and thinks about you\u0026rsquo;ve got I mean you live a big life right and how do you how do you I get this question a lot I get it I teach um senior executive uh kind of leadership classes at Amazon for our most senior uh.\nExecs and I also teach or not teach but I also speak to um interns so kind of all across the Spectrum and I get this question about Work-Life Balance all the time from from both ends of the spectrum and the my view is I don\u0026rsquo;t even like the phrase Work-Life Balance I think it\u0026rsquo;s.\nMisleading I like the phrase work-life Harmony because I know that if I am energized at work happy at work feeling like I\u0026rsquo;m adding value um part of a team whatever energizes you that makes me better at home it makes me a better husband a better father and likewise if I\u0026rsquo;m happy at home.\nIt makes me a better employee a better boss all the things it\u0026rsquo;s not about it\u0026rsquo;s not primarily about there may be crunch periods where it\u0026rsquo;s about the number of hours in the week but that\u0026rsquo;s not the that\u0026rsquo;s not the real thing usually it\u0026rsquo;s about do you have energy and is the is your work depriving you of energy or.\nIs your work generating energy for you and you know there are people everybody in this room knows people you who fall into these two camps you\u0026rsquo;re in a meeting and the person comes in the room some people come into the meeting and they add energy to the meeting other people come into the meeting and the.\nWhole meeting just deflates and those people just they they drain energy from the meeting and you have to decide which of those kinds of people you\u0026rsquo;re going to be are you going to add energy um the same thing at home and the same thing at home and it\u0026rsquo;s so it\u0026rsquo;s a wheel it\u0026rsquo;s a psych it\u0026rsquo;s a flywheel it\u0026rsquo;s a.\nCircle it\u0026rsquo;s not a balance because a balance that\u0026rsquo;s why that metaphor is so dangerous because it implies there\u0026rsquo;s a strict trade-off and you could be out of work have all the time for your family in the world but really depressed and demoralized about your work situation and your family wouldn\u0026rsquo;t want to be.\nAnywhere near you they would wish you would take a vacation from them and so it\u0026rsquo;s not about the number of hours not primarily I suppose if you went crazy with you know 100 hours a week or something yeah that made right maybe there are limits and probably I\u0026rsquo;ve never had a problem and I think it\u0026rsquo;s because.\nBoth sides of my life give me energy and that\u0026rsquo;s what I would recommend that\u0026rsquo;s what I do recommend to interns and execs.\nMichael Gill # So James when you say do something for your employer can you think of examples where you do something which is only or you\u0026rsquo;re in oil in other words you have personally nothing invested at all you did well yeah I\u0026rsquo;d say yeah it\u0026rsquo;s a good point and I think even if it\u0026rsquo;s I\u0026rsquo;m just thinking of like a basic task.\nLike sending some emails or things like that you\u0026rsquo;re still it\u0026rsquo;s still a mutually beneficial relationship in that like they\u0026rsquo;re paying you to do that so that there\u0026rsquo;s something in it for you in that sense but even in terms of the career progression the way of looking at it I guess there\u0026rsquo;s always in the things that.\nYou do it\u0026rsquo;s still driving your career forward and maybe make you more a would be employed or I do other things for other people so I guess there\u0026rsquo;s growing a skill set is also something that is beneficial to yourself as well yeah that was one of the words I was hoping you would get to.\nJust to get the money for a while but yeah even things like a simple email has the potential to develop you all around knowledge skills and value every interaction if you think of it that way to my response to you in a funny sort of way I don\u0026rsquo;t see any more Work-Life Balance.\nBecause as I\u0026rsquo;ve had more time to read and think since I\u0026rsquo;ve retired from the partnership in 2008. I now see work very much as what you do whilst you waiting for the real joys in your life and once you are in that space I promise you will never think of it as work again when you largely I\u0026rsquo;ll.\nAnswer 100 I don\u0026rsquo;t want to go overboard but when you are largely of the thought that I really love doing this love yeah this is me love people that I\u0026rsquo;m with yeah I love the opportunities that it\u0026rsquo;s giving me to develop as a human being yeah it makes me return to my family.\nEvery day I really decent human being I no longer have any Notions of leaving the work at the front door that makes sense yeah yeah something to drive for everybody and it\u0026rsquo;s not easy it\u0026rsquo;s bloody uh because there\u0026rsquo;s so much in light that competes with our attainment of that space and if I could start to talk about.\nSome of the awful challenges that your generation has about lifestyle and you know getting the sort of money that enables you to live in a particular way and then being locked in yourselves that those closest to you about yeah whatever else I do in life I need a job that returns me a minimum of X dollars.\nEvery month and when yups when young lawyers picks up your point Peter which has got to look honesty to it when young lawyers from Big Law Firm come to me and stay almost as admission of failure this isn\u0026rsquo;t really falling and I don\u0026rsquo;t know how to tell Mike Aaron I got it I\u0026rsquo;ve got.\nA job in the M\u0026amp;A department at Three Hills or daylight Bible or something I hate it I absolutely hate it yeah and I say to them how important is money too because if money is not terribly important to you it was a lawyer the world\u0026rsquo;s your oyster yeah but if the first thing you have to do is get a tick.\nOn not less than a hundred thousand dollars a year or two hundred thousand dollars a year or being on that slippery ladder for partnership all that stuff if all of that\u0026rsquo;s there then there\u0026rsquo;s a all you\u0026rsquo;ve got is closed off a ditch number of options maybe everyone include your authentic stuff yep.\nSinek # So I am uncomfortable with this concept of Work-Life Balance um because balance is achieved with two opposing forces and why should work and life be an opposition right and uh I don\u0026rsquo;t think there\u0026rsquo;s if you don\u0026rsquo;t have Work-Life Balance if you\u0026rsquo;re struggling to find Work-Life Balance no amount of yoga will fix that right.\nUm taking off an extra week of vacation and by the way vacation means you\u0026rsquo;re not working on the beach that\u0026rsquo;s just telecommuting from a beach um um but I believe in in uh that the that you\u0026rsquo;re able to build a life where work and personal life become uh not only you say interchangeable but.\nSmooth and what I mean by that is they\u0026rsquo;re not necessarily confined by hours in a day but rather where I choose to give effort so for example if it\u0026rsquo;s four o\u0026rsquo;clock in the afternoon technically part of the work day and you\u0026rsquo;re hankering for a run because it\u0026rsquo;s a day like this you can go for a run like that\u0026rsquo;s you.\nKnow and one of the things one of the mistakes that I\u0026rsquo;ve made was treating things that are important to my mind my body my spirit as stumped something that I\u0026rsquo;m supposed only supposed to do off hours or on weekends but just like I can\u0026rsquo;t decide when I have an idea sometimes it\u0026rsquo;s on Saturday and.\nSometimes it\u0026rsquo;s in the evening I also can\u0026rsquo;t decide when I need a break sometimes it\u0026rsquo;s something I feel that\u0026rsquo;s something I plan for and so we\u0026rsquo;ve gotten really good it\u0026rsquo;s imperfect you know sometimes responsibility takes precedence but we have gotten really good in our little company that if somebody wants to take an afternoon to be with their kids they.\nPut in their calendar with my kids a long time ago I used to have when I when I had um a different form of business before all of this stuff we used to have things called duvet days which I get I can\u0026rsquo;t remember we had like five duvet days a year or something and a duvet day.\nWas you wake up in the morning you just don\u0026rsquo;t want to come to work you\u0026rsquo;re totally healthy or it\u0026rsquo;s a beautiful day and I would rather go to the beach so you\u0026rsquo;d call up and leave a message at eight o\u0026rsquo;clock in the morning or seven o\u0026rsquo;clock in the morning like hey I\u0026rsquo;m taking a duvet day I\u0026rsquo;ll see you tomorrow.\nAnd no one would bother you right and people like that\u0026rsquo;s amazing that you do that sign I\u0026rsquo;m like people are doing that anyway it\u0026rsquo;s called hey I think I have a 24-hour bug I\u0026rsquo;m not gonna be at work today and they go to the beach so just call it out um you know schedule.\nTime at the gym in the middle of the day if that\u0026rsquo;s when you like working out and I just found the more seamless that we can make work in life um the more we start to enjoy both more because they\u0026rsquo;re not they\u0026rsquo;re not opposing.\nJames # Some great insights there and I love the Bezos piece about work life Harmony and about how you know working can make you feel better which makes you a better person at home which makes you better at work and it\u0026rsquo;s kind of this flywheel where all these things are benefiting the other uh I found a.\nGreat tweet Alex hamozi who\u0026rsquo;s a business Mogul uh offers a lot of great advice online and here\u0026rsquo;s his tweet he said Work-Life Balance assumes you\u0026rsquo;re not living when you work in my experience it\u0026rsquo;s been the opposite when I work I Loop and I think that\u0026rsquo;s a super uh fantastic tweet and something that.\nYou know that we that I guess those of us that want to want to work more and pursue things and work harder and Achieve Etc you know these things are not things to be ashamed of like choosing to work extra on the weekend is not something to be you know you don\u0026rsquo;t have something wrong with you.\nIf that\u0026rsquo;s something you want to do right if it\u0026rsquo;s something that you want to do then you should do it okay and don\u0026rsquo;t let the chains of your friendship groups Society Etc hold you back from the things that you want to do the things that you want to achieve.\nConclusion # Um kill well that brings us to the end of the episode today this one was an interesting episode I think we covered some good ground when it comes to Work-Life Balance it\u0026rsquo;s an interesting conundrum is this idea of how much time should we spend on work and life but I think what I\u0026rsquo;ve learned is that work and.\nLife are not distinct things they are related they have they have Harmony between between them and that working better and doing work that gives you energy will make you better at your life will make you feel better at life which will make you yeah and once you enjoy that life side of things that will.\nMake you better make you enjoy your work more which will make you enjoy your life more Etc and I think I think these are some great points so yeah hopefully this episode was useful for you the listener if you did enjoy this episode please consider subscribing to The Graduate Theory newsletter it comes out every single.\nWeek we\u0026rsquo;ve got many episodes lined up for you so please do that and yeah thanks again for joining us in this episode looking forward to seeing you next week.\n← Back to episode 48\n","date":"19 September 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/graduate-theory/48-worklife-balance/transcript/","section":"Graduate Theory Transcripts","summary":"← Back to episode 48\nThis transcript was generated from YouTube captions and lightly edited for readability. Speaker labels may be unavailable, and transcription errors may remain.\nWork-Life Balance # Hello and welcome to Graduate Theory in today’s episode it’s just you and me we’re doing a deep dive into Work-Life Balance now Work-Life Balance in 2021 April 2021 Google tweeted that Work-Life Balance um hit its peak in terms of search in terms of the trend so Google Trends Work-Life Balance hit a peak 2021 at in.\n","title":"Transcript: On Achieving Work-Life Balance","type":"graduate-theory-transcripts"},{"content":"This article was written by me. Subscribe to get updates to your inbox\nSubscribeBuilt with ConvertKit This article appears on my personal website, hosted with GCS and Cloudflare.\nWhat is a Static Site? # A static website is a website that uses pre-built HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.\nThis means that the website loads quicker, and it can be much easier to create.\nThis is in contrast to a dynamic site, which renders the website at the time of the request.\nStatic sites cannot offer some of the features of a dynamic site however they are often\nfaster more secure highly scalable There are many static website generators out there that make it easy to create a unique website.\nThe one that I use for my site is Hugo.\nWhy Use Hugo? # Hugo is a static site generator.\nThere are many great templates to create website with Hugo.\nHugo allows me to create a great looking site very easily and effectively.\nSetup # So, how does this work?\nTools used\nHugo Cloudflare Github Terraform Google Domains Github Actions My website is found here - https://github.com/jamesfricker/jfricker\nCreate Site # The first step is to create your website.\nStart by downloading Hugo, choosing a template and adding some content.\nCopy site to GCS # We need to copy your site into a GCS bucket.\nFirst, we need to create a bucket. (I\u0026rsquo;m assuming you\u0026rsquo;ve set up your Terraform and connected it to a backend)\nI had to create my bucket with the same name as my domain, www.jfricker.com.\nHere is my Terraform for this:\nresource \u0026#34;google_storage_bucket\u0026#34; \u0026#34;site_bucket\u0026#34; { name = var.site_bucket_name location = var.region storage_class = \u0026#34;COLDLINE\u0026#34; force_destroy = true uniform_bucket_level_access = true website { main_page_suffix = \u0026#34;index.html\u0026#34; not_found_page = \u0026#34;404.html\u0026#34; } cors { origin = [\u0026#34;http://www.jfricker.com\u0026#34;] method = [\u0026#34;GET\u0026#34;, \u0026#34;HEAD\u0026#34;, \u0026#34;PUT\u0026#34;, \u0026#34;POST\u0026#34;, \u0026#34;DELETE\u0026#34;] response_header = [\u0026#34;*\u0026#34;] max_age_seconds = 3600 } } # Make bucket public resource \u0026#34;google_storage_bucket_iam_member\u0026#34; \u0026#34;member\u0026#34; { provider = google-beta bucket = google_storage_bucket.site_bucket.name role = \u0026#34;roles/storage.objectViewer\u0026#34; member = \u0026#34;allUsers\u0026#34; } Next, let\u0026rsquo;s create your site.\nRun this command to generate your site\nhugo -minify Next, let\u0026rsquo;s publish your site to your GCS bucket.\nEdit your config.toml file in your Hugo site to contain a deployment block.\n[deployment] [[deployment.targets]] name = \u0026#34;DEPLOYMENT_NAME\u0026#34; URL=\u0026#34;gs://BUCKET_NAME\u0026#34; Next, run this command to deploy your site to the bucket.\nhugo deploy Now, check the bucket you created. Your site files should now be inside the bucket.\nCloudflare Domain Setup # I have used Google Domains to host my domain, but Cloudflare for my certificates.\nI connected my site to Cloudflare, and had to add the following rules.\nA DNS Rule Your domain won\u0026rsquo;t automatically connect to GCS, we need to set that up.\nSince I\u0026rsquo;m using Google Domains, Cloudflare already knows about my google services.\nWe need to add this DNS rule.\nCNAME www c.storage.googleapis.com This tells our site to look at Google Storage for the site content.\nWWW Redirect The \u0026lt;WWW.SITE\u0026gt; and .SITE are different. We need to create our site in such a way that these two sites are the same.\nWe use a forwarding rule.\nForward the https://SITE to https://www.SITE\nThis set up my site correctly.\nCI with GitHub Actions # The finally piece of the puzzle was to setup CI for the site.\nTo do this, we need\nGithub Actions Service account for Terraform I have one Github Action for building the Terraform.\nhttps://github.com/jamesfricker/jfricker/blob/master/.github/workflows/terraform.yaml\nAnd another for rebuilding my site\nhttps://github.com/jamesfricker/jfricker/blob/master/.github/workflows/hugo_deploy.yaml\nWhen we push to the master branch, our site is rebuilt.\nPerfect!\nConclusion # This project was a great way to get introduced to building a GCP project and hosting something.\nSee the full repo for all my code\nhttps://github.com/jamesfricker/jfricker\nAnd subscribe to get updates from me\nConnect With Me!I'll remind you when I post so you don't have to remember\nSubscribe​\nBuilt with ConvertKit Sites I Used # https://laptrinhx.com/setup-a-static-website-cdn-with-terraform-on-gcp-2434628250/\nhttps://realjenius.com/2019/11/25/cloudbuild-hugo-gcs/\nhttps://richrose.dev/posts/cloud/google-cloud/gcp-hugo-static-site/\nhttps://medium.com/google-cloud/deploy-a-static-html-website-to-google-cloud-storage-via-terraform-b26ce2fc582a\n","date":"14 September 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/hosting-hugo-on-gcp-with-terraform/","section":"Writing","summary":"This article was written by me. Subscribe to get updates to your inbox\nSubscribeBuilt with ConvertKit This article appears on my personal website, hosted with GCS and Cloudflare.\n","title":"Hosting my Hugo Site on GCP with Terraform","type":"posts"},{"content":" Watch the conversation Graduate Theory Open YouTube ↗ Read the full transcript → This man is incredible.\nNever have I heard so much wisdom packed into a single hour!\nIn this episode, you\u0026rsquo;ll hear gems like 👇\nbusyness is very different to achievement MLK didn\u0026rsquo;t say, \u0026ldquo;I have a plan\u0026rdquo; long term consistency always beats short term intensity well done is better than well said I\u0026rsquo;m excited to share this episode with you.\nWatch this episode on YouTube.\nDave Lourdes is a professional speaker, elite performance coach and facilitator. His experience exceeds three decades and over 700 workshops, seminars and special events, addressing more than 15,000 people in talks and seminars worldwide, from everyday employees to middle management as well as C-Level audiences.\n🤝 Connect with Dave # Website - https://www.davelourdes.com/\nLinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/davelourdes/\n👇 Episode Takeaways # Confidence # Dave says that confidence is one of the most important traits a person can have.\nThere are three things you need to be confident:\ncourage conscious choice consistency Decide to be confident.\nAct with courage.\nBe consistent.\nThree Kinds of People # Dave shared with me that he thinks there are three kinds of people:\nKnowers Learners Implementers Knowers like to know things. They know, and then they stop.\nLearners like learning. They learn things, reading books and doing courses. They know so much about everything.\nFinally, the implementers. They might not know as much as the knowers or have learned as much as the learners, but they are actually doing what they seek to do.\nAs Dave said, it\u0026rsquo;s one thing to learn about riding a bike, and quite a different thing to actually get on one and start riding.\nWhich one are you?\nPrinciples # Dave shared with me the four principles that he lives his life by:\nYou choose how you think You choose how you communicate You have the capacity to change You can always improve I love these and will make sure to come back to them.\nWhich principles do you live your life by?\nRecommended Books # Dave recommended some books during the episode. Here they are:\nEmotional Intelligence - Daniel Goleman The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People - Stephen Covey Think and Grow Rich - Napoleon Hill Mindset - Carol Dweck Man\u0026rsquo;s Search for Meaning - Viktor E. Frankl 📝 Content Timestamps # 00:00 Intro\n00:17 From Social Anxiety to Coaching\n08:26 10% of your income on skill development\n20:01 Improving your confidence\n26:43 Implementing Advice\n29:18 Unblock your performance\n38:56 Dave Advice for Graduates\n46:12 Outro\n","date":"12 September 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/graduate-theory/47-dave-lourdes-becoming-best-can/","section":"Graduate Theory","summary":" Watch the conversation Graduate Theory Open YouTube ↗ Read the full transcript → This man is incredible.\nNever have I heard so much wisdom packed into a single hour!\n","title":"Dave Lourdes | On Becoming The Best You Can Be","type":"graduate-theory"},{"content":"← Back to episode 47\nThis transcript has been lightly edited for readability. It may still contain transcription errors.\nIntro # Dave: I think about a little one, like if you think about Martin Luther king, he gets a million people to March in Washington, cuz he says, I have a dream.\nHe didn\u0026rsquo;t say, um, I have a plan like plans, four people\nFrom Social Anxiety to Coaching # James: One, one of the places I wanted to start was, uh, about your career as this kind of coach speaker, uh, team building high performance.\nEt cetera. And I wanna ask kind of how you first got into this space. Cause I know you were sort of in the corporate realm for a while and then, and then landed in this area. I\u0026rsquo;d love if you to just tell us, you know, where did this transition start? Like, was there a kind of moment where you realized actually, you know what, I\u0026rsquo;m gonna do this now and I\u0026rsquo;m gonna go a hundred percent into this direction.\nUh, I\u0026rsquo;d love to kind of wind back the clock and, and hear that.\nDave: A hundred percent. Okay, great. So what happened was, um, I. So there\u0026rsquo;s a, there\u0026rsquo;s a, there\u0026rsquo;s a, the test match version. I\u0026rsquo;ll give you the 2020 version. Just say doesn\u0026rsquo;t take up. So what happened was when I was a young fell, I was, um, uh, I, I didn\u0026rsquo;t know. Um, I was extremely shy. So when I\u0026rsquo;d meet someone, just, uh, I, I would freak out.\nUm, I would avoid any social contact, anything around people, apart from my family, I was became, um, excessively uncomfortable. In a way that was getting in the way. I\u0026rsquo;m not just talking shyness here, way beyond that. And then I started my career at, at a Z. And what would happen is every time we had training, I wouldn\u0026rsquo;t go to work.\nUm, it was that debilitating for me to be around people. And then I, I knew I had to do something to, um, fix it and, um, Because it was just ex it was beyond shyness. So I, um, um, back then there wasn\u0026rsquo;t, I didn\u0026rsquo;t know. Oh, I, and I think there was executive coaching and all that sort of stuff. So you won\u0026rsquo;t believe what I did.\nI looked up a, um, a psychologist. In the city where I worked, I worked at, uh, ANZ in Melbourne and I took my paycheck to her and I showed her what I was. And back then from memory, I was getting paid about 13 or $12,000 a year. And I said to her, I made a commitment to spend 10% of my wage on, uh, developing myself.\nHow many sessions will that by me? And she said, what do you, think\u0026rsquo;s wrong with you? And I started talking and then anyway, she told me I had something. Um, social anxiety disorder, uh, or social phobia. So what that means is, so when I\u0026rsquo;d meet someone, uh, like I said, just to shake their hand, I would have a visceral response.\nSo meaning in my body. So, you know, when you are nervous, you feel it in your tummy, for example, you get butterflies and what have you, when I\u0026rsquo;d meet someone? Uh, my tongue would expand in my mouth three times the size it is and I\u0026rsquo;d choke. So I always had to have, uh, water. I don\u0026rsquo;t need it. And I\u0026rsquo;d have to quickly and back then we didn\u0026rsquo;t have bottles of water.\nSo I was like a teenager carrying around a drink bottle. Like I was in grade one and I\u0026rsquo;d quickly drink the water and would make my tongue go back to its normal size. And so this social phobia was destroying me and then I. I was going to the psychologist. Um, and just to give you perspective, when you have social phobia, you are embarrassed of everything.\nSo my parents, until I got married, didn\u0026rsquo;t know I was going to the psychologist. I kept it as a secret. I was embarrassed. None of my friends knew no one knew. And I, I was. I was walking back from Collins street. Um, I was walking back to the office where I worked after an appointment and I saw there was there used to be a bookshop called Angus and Robertson, and they had a dollar bin there of these books that nobody wanted.\nAnd there was a book there called getting the best at yourself and others, and it was a dollar. So I bought it and, um, and I hadn\u0026rsquo;t read a book since high school and, uh, I read it in a day and a. I read it voraciously and it completely transformed everything about the way I carry myself. Um, my aspirations about what I want to do.\nIt changed everything. And, um, and I made a commitment with myself with everything that I read, I\u0026rsquo;m gonna practice it on people. So I used my work as a, as a living. The more and more. I did it the more, instead of getting, um, shy, being around people like any, anything around people drew me like a magnet and I just became obsessed in.\nUm, so I was 19 then and I made a commitment with myself. I\u0026rsquo;m gonna read 30 books every year, just on psychology. I wanna know why people do what they do. And I\u0026rsquo;ve kept that up. That habit. I do a minimum of 30, not saying it to impress you, just to impress upon you, what worked for me. And, um, and I found I was more and more massively intrigued by people.\nSo no matter what job I had at a Z, I. Uh, winning or more sales or project completions were nice, but, um, seeing helping people grow or change or get rid of a fear or transform an aspect of themselves, that\u0026rsquo;s holding them back. That completely floated my boat. So then I just turned it into a career. I actually started getting invited to internal ANZ team building functions to present and, um, And I started getting invited to a lot of those.\nI was a project manager and team leader and all that at the time, but, and then I started thinking, I love that bit of my job more than my actual jobs. So that\u0026rsquo;s how I started. I, yeah. Did I loved it? I was obsessed in it and, um, reading, um, I, I couldn\u0026rsquo;t get enough of it. I couldn\u0026rsquo;t get enough at helping people.\nAnd, um, people started to learn about it in a Z and I used to get phone calls from people. I didn\u0026rsquo;t know. And, um, they used to say, we heard you are the job whisperer and what I used to do. People get jobs and I loved it. So I co before I ever charged a dollar for my coaching, I coached over a thousand hours free.\nI\u0026rsquo;ve got it all documented. And all I did was help people, um, either how, you know, manage their nerves to get through an interview or have a conversation with their boss. Personal motivation. So that\u0026rsquo;s how I got into it, then it, and it became an obsession and I got known for it. And then for the last five years of my career, I actually did it as a career where I did, um, coaching team building personal transformation events.\nBut yeah. So ay gave me that opportunity in the last five years of my career to do that as\nJames: That was very cool story and like one, a few things I picked up there. So sometimes people talk about like, um, making your mess your message. I don\u0026rsquo;t know if you\u0026rsquo;ve heard that saying before, but it\u0026rsquo;s it\u0026rsquo;s you know where like you\u0026rsquo;ve, you\u0026rsquo;ve faced the, a problem. That\u0026rsquo;s. So difficult for you that others find easy, but then when you learn how to do it, you now have this perspective of how to approach the problem and, and things in a way that others really can\u0026rsquo;t appreciate.\nAnd so it makes you able to explain and teach those kinds of things, um, in a lot more depth because you\u0026rsquo;ve had to wrestle with it more. And so I think that\u0026rsquo;s definitely something that\u0026rsquo;s come out of your story. I feel is that like having to sort of tackle that challenge so much. Mm.\nDave: Hundred percent. I, I, I, I\u0026rsquo;m a big believer in, uh, rock bottom will teach you, teach you things that mountaintops won\u0026rsquo;t teach you. And when you\u0026rsquo;re at rock bottom, uh, which I was it\u0026rsquo;s. And unless, I mean, if, when people are hearing this, if someone\u0026rsquo;s got social anxiety or they\u0026rsquo;ve had social phobia, whatever you wanna call it, they\u0026rsquo;ll appreciate it is, um, Yeah.\nIt, it, it\nnegatively impacts every area\nof your life. So\nhaving to climb over the mountain\nof it, um, yeah, it was a brilliant teach. I wouldn\u0026rsquo;t take it back for a\nJames: Mm.\n10% of your income on skill development # James: No, it\u0026rsquo;s super cool. it\u0026rsquo;s it\u0026rsquo;s really cool to see, like see people take, like go from something that\u0026rsquo;s really inhibiting them and, and going from somewhere That\u0026rsquo;s. not great and then really transforming it, and, becoming almost a superpower. So well done. Uh, one thing you.\nhad mentioned there as well was like, um, you there\u0026rsquo;s a lot there, you know, reading the books. I think it\u0026rsquo;s really great. But, um, you mentioned, um, spending 10% of your income on things. Like, you know, growing your\nskills and, and whatever. Is that something that you still do or is that\nsomething that you did for a\nperiod and then like, how\ndoes\nDave: I still do it now. I\u0026rsquo;ve been doing, since I was 19. So I, what, and, and obviously I, I look at what I need, um, now. And so I have two categories. What do I need now? And what do I need next? And, um, it\u0026rsquo;s something I always recommend to all my private clients as, as well. Um, we actually have three categories.\nWhat do I need now? So what\u0026rsquo;s important now. What\u0026rsquo;s important next, and what\u0026rsquo;s important next plus long term. So I think about something I, I might need or that I wanna work. Um, or that I see that\u0026rsquo;s an issue for my clients. And my strategy is just to find someone who I\nthink is the best of the best\nand whether that means getting plane or buying their programs or getting coaching.\nUm, yeah, I do that. And I\u0026rsquo;m a big believer in that. Now, James, the reason I do it, I\ncan\u0026rsquo;t believe how people would lose a mobile phone or something will happen to their car. And they\u0026rsquo;ll just\nall of a sudden find the money and, and.\nFind the funds and wouldn\u0026rsquo;t blink, you know, to, to do that. But for ourselves, like people are go, oh, that book\u0026rsquo;s $40.\nYou know, I can\u0026rsquo;t, can I get it for five or 10? And I just feel like a lot of times I\u0026rsquo;ve got my observation is, um, the way we are in our careers or at work is the complete opposite to the way prof. Like when I think of professional, I think of sports. And I think we, my. Uh, drive is for people to flip that in their career.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s something that I did, because if we think about us in our jobs, we spend 90% on the field doing our stuff and playing, and 10% might be training. And then when we get that 10% training, we don\u0026rsquo;t want to go cuz we already know it. Right. And we are jaded and all the rest of it. Whereas in, in the field of sports, they spend 90%.\nCoaching reflection, fine tuning, tidying up those messy corners to make them absolutely elite. And then they\u0026rsquo;re 10% when they perform, they\u0026rsquo;re always improving, improving, improving. And I see the corporate world is the opposite to that. So I know in my own business, um, yeah, I\u0026rsquo;ve never let that obsession for, um, learning, um, I\u0026rsquo;ve I\u0026rsquo;ve just never dropped it, but I find it easy.\nI must admit as well, just cuz I enjoy it. And I just think that my observation is my perspectives or my insights or whatever I share here today. To me, it\u0026rsquo;s applicable whether you are early in your career, whether you are emerging, whether you are experienced or whether you\u0026rsquo;re established solid principles or solid principles in any weather and in any stage of your career.\nI think a lot of people, uh, treat their, my observation is their career is a bit like a hobby instead of a profession and professionals go to that nth degree to want to be the best. And, um, I get inspired by people like that, and that\u0026rsquo;s informed a lot of my own behaviors around that.\nJames: Yeah, no, I think that\u0026rsquo;s a great thought.\nAnd I think, uh, when you think about sort of investing, like let\u0026rsquo;s say, I like the 10% you\u0026rsquo;re investing in yourself is probably like. Disposable income in the sense that you can sort of do whatever, whether it\u0026rsquo;s save spend or whatever. So I think, uh, I\u0026rsquo;ve been thinking about this a fair bit recently where it\u0026rsquo;s like the 10% or whatever percent you choose do sort of save that, uh, and perhaps get like five or 10% or whatever in the stock market even, or is it something you invest in yourself and.\nCan you generate some kind of return. So particularly for yourself with like your own business and things like that, where, you know, like getting learning one extra thing might do some like some multiple, uh, on your business. Right. And so it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s be\nDave: Yeah, yeah. It\u0026rsquo;s order. It\u0026rsquo;s the, for me, the return is orders of magnitude. The beauty of obviously being, you know, a professional coach, speaker facilitator, like getting to work with people, uh, the result, the return can, can many times be instantaneous. So the return obviously have a commercial return that works for my business, but I\u0026rsquo;m in the people business say, say seeing the returns for them as well.\nSo if I know notice people are struggling with something and it not, it doesn\u0026rsquo;t necessarily mean coaching. So if I think. Um, when we all switched to doing zoom calls and everything went online, um, I used my 10% then to invest in a lot of equipment here. So, uh, when I do calls with people, I wanted to feel almost like I\u0026rsquo;m in the room.\nAnd I, so I actually got coaching on technical stuff about how to set up lights. Audio, all that sort of stuff. So it\u0026rsquo;s because a lot of my clients, I couldn\u0026rsquo;t get to them. I thought when we\u0026rsquo;re, even if we are on camera, it\u0026rsquo;s gotta be live. So it\u0026rsquo;s always looking for that. It\u0026rsquo;s hard to explain, like in my business, the returns or everything you do is almost, um, it\u0026rsquo;s dictated and it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s a need from your clients.\nand it\u0026rsquo;s good. Cuz it gives, it gives me things that I would never think about. I would never have thought about spending. So I need to spend $25,000 on equipment and I probably got ripped off. Cause I don\u0026rsquo;t know what I\u0026rsquo;m doing. So if someone says buy something, I just buy it. so, um, yeah, it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s a way to keep me on the edge.\nSo the more and more, um, things my clients are grappling with and the more complex they get, it\u0026rsquo;s something that. Okay. I\u0026rsquo;m gonna learn more about that now, or I\u0026rsquo;m gonna get invested in that, or I\u0026rsquo;m gonna find someone who\u0026rsquo;s good at that and get coaching from them. Yeah. So that\u0026rsquo;s how it works for me anyway.\nAnd I just wish more people did it in their career though.\nJames: Um, no, It\u0026rsquo;s an interesting, it\u0026rsquo;s an interesting perspective. What do you think when you were like, I think you said you were 19, right?\nWhen you first\nstarted that, that process, what are the kinds of things that you would, you would, look for at that stage? Was it just more like books and like, you know, you said you went to a psychologist, those kinds of things, like what sort of things were you looking to? Like skills to improve at that?\nDave: You know, what\u0026rsquo;s funny, James, what, what I was looking for\nback then, I still\nsee now in my clients and it was confidence. If I was to line up\na hundred of my clients. Uh, uh, and, and I coach and work with, um, diverse industries and diverse people. So some, um, I work with some people that are in the last two years of school, year 11 and 12, getting them ready for the corporate world.\nAnd I work with some people. Like I work with two CEOs. I work with people that run their own businesses, gyms, hairdressing, uh, a lot of people in banking law. They\u0026rsquo;re hugely diverse. And, um, whether it\u0026rsquo;s, and I mean, diverse in role in age, everything. And if I lined up a hundred of them, a hundred of them, the root cause of what people are working on is confidence and is what I was looking for early on when I had the social anxiety.\nAnd, um, I still see that is the number one blocker for people is. There\u0026rsquo;s three outcomes that I always recommend for people. Um, the out the first one is, um, really understanding and tapping into your innate strengths. The, the things that are almost like to use one of your words, your superpower. So to ask yourself, how do I show up as genuine standout talent?\nCause what I see with a lot of people, when they might start to feel a little bit stuck, they try to work their way, their way out of it. And that\u0026rsquo;s working hard, not. And the other end of that spectrum is what I would call, um, unleashing confidence. And that is still the number one thing, irrespective of where people are that I see people working on and that I was working on at the start, um, was many years of just confidence, confidence building.\nThe second outcome that I always, uh, recommend for people to look at is what I would call. It\u0026rsquo;s not just leadership is what I would call inspiring. Bold. When you are a leader, it\u0026rsquo;s about inspiring that boldness in people you think about. I, I think about a little one, like if you think about Martin Luther king, he gets a million people to March in Washington, cuz he says, I have a dream.\nHe didn\u0026rsquo;t say, um, I have a plan like plans, four people. And it sounds like hard work. He boldness in people. And what I mean by that is look, I hate the word team building to me, put five people in the room. You\u0026rsquo;ve got a team, right? The, to me for. To be a leader is asking yourself, how do I unleash\nfearless contributors that are driven by a purpose where people will, you don\u0026rsquo;t have to be there, cheerleading them and motivating them all the time they are.\nThey unleash this fearless contribution and they\u0026rsquo;re strongly driven by a purpose. As opposed to, and those sort of teams, um, move out of what I would call survival mode, where they start to really evoke the character in the team. And the third one is the one that I think people struggle with the most, at a bigger level, forget the internal blockage, which is change.\nSo be an intentional change maker. You\u0026rsquo;ve heard that saying if it ain\u0026rsquo;t broke, don\u0026rsquo;t fix it. I hate that. Like, if it ain\u0026rsquo;t broke, don\u0026rsquo;t fix. It\u0026rsquo;s ridiculous. Right? We wouldn\u0026rsquo;t. Uber and Airbnb and all these other things without that. And for anyone in a, when you\u0026rsquo;re in a role and no matter what you are doing is how can I create an impact that\u0026rsquo;s transformational.\nSo if you can create an impact, that\u0026rsquo;s transformational, you know, you know, that\u0026rsquo;s turning one. This is the, you know, um, caterpillar to butterfly, not, not a change, something that\u0026rsquo;s\ntransformational and that\u0026rsquo;s.\nyour, um, your litmus test or your scoreboard, you can\u0026rsquo;t go\nwrong. Uh, cuz they\u0026rsquo;re, they\u0026rsquo;re the people that, uh, are\nmore visible, more valuable and more connected in organizations.\nSo going from all effort in a job to now impact to really expanding your\ninfluence, cuz a lot of people are putting in a lot of effort, but\num, busyness is very different to achievement.\nSo. They\u0026rsquo;re the three outcomes for me that, um,\nthat, that matter most. And I, I find myself, your question was about how do I choose what I\u0026rsquo;m gonna work on and what I started, I started with confidence and I find those three areas around innate strengths, inspiring boldness, and being an intentional change\nmaker are the areas I\u0026rsquo;m always looking at for\nmyself and that my clients are always looking for or to do something in that realm\nImproving your confidence # James: Yeah. Yeah. Well, the confidence piece is interesting. I wonder. Like how, how would someone go about, uh, improving their confidence? Like what does that look like? Cause I think one of the things that, that I think about with that is like confidence. Uh, like, so maybe first comes courage. Then you can be confident after that.\nSo like, if you kind of need some, you know, once you\u0026rsquo;re courageous and you like, it\u0026rsquo;s like learning how to do something for the first time, like you can\u0026rsquo;t be confident in, uh, tying issues for the first time. Well, tying issues if you\u0026rsquo;ve never done it before. Right. So I think having the courage to do those things allows you to be confident but I wonder if you have any thoughts on, on that and kind of becoming more confident in the kind of strategies that someone can can take to,\nDave: Yep. So, so you, you are bang on with the first one. So there\u0026rsquo;s, to me, there\u0026rsquo;s three parts,\ncourage, conscious choice and consistency. So, first of all, so I\u0026rsquo;m just gonna pick public speaking because that\u0026rsquo;s the one, that\u0026rsquo;s the number one fear in the world. Right. And, uh, I know people can freak out some people having to, if your bosses away and they go, mate, can you run the team meeting?\nAnd you go, okay. And you\u0026rsquo;re thinking, I don\u0026rsquo;t wanna run the team meeting. Right. Uh, so if I look at a simple thing like that look is first of all, having courage. So, and what courage means is it\u0026rsquo;s actually courage to yourself. Again, acknowledging going, this is something I need to fix. Uh, you can\u0026rsquo;t change what you don\u0026rsquo;t acknowledge.\nIf you, I have to change this. And a lot of people know they need to change things, but to do something about it takes, you\u0026rsquo;ve gotta have the guts to do it. The next thing is you have to make a conscious choice. You have to, you can\u0026rsquo;t, you can\u0026rsquo;t sort of say, oh, I\u0026rsquo;ll, I\u0026rsquo;ll be courageous when I\u0026rsquo;ve had 10 hours sleep and it\u0026rsquo;s 22 degrees and there\u0026rsquo;s a slight breeze and I\u0026rsquo;m in a good mood.\nYou\u0026rsquo;ve gotta make the conscious choice to show up.\nAnd then, uh, the third one is consistency. I\u0026rsquo;m a big believer. And by the way, if you didn\u0026rsquo;t do the first two, do the third one, cuz it\u0026rsquo;s the most important is consistency. That\u0026rsquo;s how you build confidence. So as an example, if. We take public speaking for an example, you don\u0026rsquo;t just do one speech at your brother\u0026rsquo;s wedding and go, okay, I\u0026rsquo;ve got that nailed.\nNow that\u0026rsquo;s that\u0026rsquo;s one event that\u0026rsquo;s not gonna make, or if you wanna get fit, you don\u0026rsquo;t say, oh, I\u0026rsquo;ll do my quarterly gym visit. That\u0026rsquo;ll get that\u0026rsquo;ll. You know, that\u0026rsquo;ll really work for me. So, so long term consistency, always beats short term intensity. Short term intensity is getting fired up or watching.\nWhat was that? Michael Jordan, um, series that was on re um, the last dance watching something like that, or, um, you know, there used to be a show on television called the biggest loser.\nAnd I did some work in the fitness industry when the biggest loser came on, everyone went out and bought a treadmill,\nright.\nWhich they, which research shows people use between three and seven times ever.\nTreadmills are awesome to hang your clothes on. If you need more\nJames: Yeah,\nDave: Space, by the way\nJames: Expensive though.\nDave: People go and short term intensity, is that getting fired up? Cuz you saw something, uh, is the so that\u0026rsquo;s intensity or preparing cramming because you\u0026rsquo;ve gotta, you know, present at school or like I said, do a speech for your brother or whatever it may be.\nUm, Whereas consistency is, is doing the small things. When you really don\u0026rsquo;t feel like doing them. So it\u0026rsquo;s like, uh, I\u0026rsquo;m an early riser and go to the gym every morning. It is really hard in winter. It\u0026rsquo;s so easy in summer. Uh, so I get up, I get up at four 30 every day to, um,\nbecause that\u0026rsquo;s the only time I can fit my exercise in with, with two kids.\nAnd, um, man, it\u0026rsquo;s hard. You don\u0026rsquo;t want to not do anything. And then wait till November, when the weather gets good and go, oh, I better get fit in the last 30 days before Christmas. So consistency. I\u0026rsquo;m a big believer is the number one building block for confidence. But those three things, having the guts, I\u0026rsquo;ll give you another simple example.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s it\u0026rsquo;s getting fit. It\u0026rsquo;s just, no, it\u0026rsquo;s actually acknowledging to yourself. The courage is to acknowledge to yourself and go, I need to make a change. I\u0026rsquo;m UN.\nJames: Hmm.\nDave: The conscious choice is going to the gym and it\u0026rsquo;s easy to go to the gym and get a program. That\u0026rsquo;s what most people like about gonna the gym. They get their little fancy program and go, oh,\non Monday, I\u0026rsquo;ll do cardio.\nAnd on Wednesday I\u0026rsquo;ll do boxing.\nAnd the third bit about consistency, actually consistency is actually going to\nthe gym. There\u0026rsquo;ll be people listening to this\nand watching\ntheirs that have bought gym memberships and never\nused them.\nJames: Mm.\nDave: Cuz they got fired up. There was some intensity. So courage, conscious choice, consistency.\nThere simple ways to build courage. Having said that, um,\nwith anything to do with people, uh, one size fits a nun. That\u0026rsquo;s really the golden rule.\nUm, of course there\u0026rsquo;s some standard principles, uh, but the way people go about it, it\u0026rsquo;s a blend of those three things. But if I had to give one, it would be consistency.\nFind that thing\nand do it in a really small way and\nkeep doing it. Like I said, like getting fit.\nBeing healthy or eating right.\nOr meditating,\nJames: Yeah, like, like you said, it\u0026rsquo;s kind of like the gym, the gym analogy I feel can be applied. Many many, many things. Uh, you know, it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s all about like, there\u0026rsquo;s just so many, like don\u0026rsquo;t compare yourself to others, you know, be consistent, uh, like follow, like maybe track your progress as well. Uh, like maybe have some structure around like have some like time that you allocate towards doing it.\nYou know, if you can sort of apply those kinds of principles to other things, uh, then you know, you can have a similar, similar successes in, in other areas. I think, um,\nDave: The only thing I will say Z, you know how I said one size fits none. I always compare myself to\nothers.\nUh, because I, for me that inspires me. Um, I don\u0026rsquo;t get demoralized by it. So that for me works for me.\nJames: Yeah.\nDave: So when I see, and I\u0026rsquo;m always looking at, I think I\u0026rsquo;m worse than everyone at the gym. So it actually keeps me, I like, it keeps me motivated.\nYeah.\nJames: Yeah, no, that\u0026rsquo;s a good point\nDave: That works for me. That little one, anyway, that\nJames: Yeah.\nDave: For me tracking stuff. I track every, I track my whole life on apps. So yeah, that the tracking, all that stuff works. But like I said, it\u0026rsquo;s the combination. One, One,\nsize fits none with\nall this stuff. It\u0026rsquo;s finding the strategies, which ones work\nfor you.\nImplementing Advice # James: Yeah, no, it\u0026rsquo;s a great point, cuz yeah, I think there\u0026rsquo;s a lot of, uh, like a lot of even advice that gets given. I think it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s almost like you need a, like, like you, you mentioned earlier, like with the book that you were reading and, and sort of creating your life, this kind of experiment where you would, you know, read the content or whatever, and then go and actually try stuff and see what actually happened.\nAnd I think that. That\u0026rsquo;s critical instead of just, uh, reading something and being like, oh, that\u0026rsquo;s how you do that. Cool. Uh, like next thing, um, you know, but really sort of, how does this apply to me? Like, what\u0026rsquo;s my experience with this? Like, did it, did, did it work for, did it work for me? Because a lot of these things that might, you know, might work out out of a thousand people, it might work on average for most people, but, you know, uh, you, you still need to sort of try to test things at yourself.\nI think\nDave: I think readings the bit the implementing is the hard\nbit.\nJames: Mm. Yeah, I\nDave: Yeah, there there\u0026rsquo;s, there\u0026rsquo;s a lot of people that there\u0026rsquo;s two camps there. There\u0026rsquo;s what I call knowers. And there there\u0026rsquo;s three camps. Really? There\u0026rsquo;s the knowers, there\u0026rsquo;s the learners that just are obsessed in learning. Like it\u0026rsquo;s an addiction to insights.\nUh, the knowers already know everything they cuz they learned the on Instagram or. Then there\u0026rsquo;s the implementers and they\u0026rsquo;re the people that actually take it. It\u0026rsquo;s, you know what, I think it\u0026rsquo;s a simple thing. Like imagine reading about a bike, if you\u0026rsquo;ve never, ever, if you had not seen a bike in your life.\nUm, so I have a race I used to do long bike rides. If you\u0026rsquo;d never seen one in your life and I. Brought one up now on the screen and, you know, had these little thin tires. And I said, oh, and you and I wrote, and I go, and I\u0026rsquo;ve written a book about it. And the book says, um, you need to, you know, sit on the seat and equally distribute your weight on both sides of the frame and keep the pedals working at a good revolution.\nSo you don\u0026rsquo;t fall over. You can read about that for days. And if I left you with the bike, you\u0026rsquo;re not gonna be able to ride it. And on the other hand, you can then go. So that\u0026rsquo;s what the knowers do. The guy. Yeah, I know that now I read that. Doesn\u0026rsquo;t mean they can ride the bike, the learners of the type that they, um, they read their book and they go, now I\u0026rsquo;m gonna get another book.\nNow I\u0026rsquo;m gonna get another book. Now I\u0026rsquo;m gonna listen to a podcast and the implementers, they just get on the bike and have a crack and they fall over and they graze their knees and hopefully don\u0026rsquo;t do any too much damage, but they\u0026rsquo;ll be further in an hour. Then someone who can spend days and weeks researching something say implementing is critical.\nYou know, there\u0026rsquo;s, there\u0026rsquo;s an old saying, well done is better than well\nsaid. And, and that stuck with me. And I\u0026rsquo;m, I\u0026rsquo;m a big believer\nin that.\nUnblock your performance # James: No, that\u0026rsquo;s great. I\u0026rsquo;ll I\u0026rsquo;ll borrow that one. I think no, that\u0026rsquo;s pretty cool. I like it. Um, a question I have for you is around. Like, I know some of the stuff you, you teach and help people with this sort of performing well and high performance in the workplace. And I wonder, I know this is, it might be hard to distill this down, but you know, perhaps different people at different stages wanna become, uh, you know, they\u0026rsquo;re here and they wanna sort of they wanna go higher, take the next level, et cetera. I wonder if there\u0026rsquo;s any common. um, things between, between people, things. that they, Uh, should improve to sort of increase their performance or things that you, you help people with. Uh, we, we spoke about confidence being a big one, but I wonder if there\u0026rsquo;s there\u0026rsquo;s anything there that, you know, that things that if people sort of unblocked themselves in these particular areas that would sort of elevate their performance.\nDave: Yeah, yeah. I, I think the first one is.\nThere\u0026rsquo;s four really powerful\nassumptions, uh, that we should all make. Um, the, uh, and I,\nI dunno whether they\u0026rsquo;re leadership assumptions, but for me, they\u0026rsquo;re very powerful assumptions. Um, number one is, um, you choose how you think you, you\u0026rsquo;re not pre-programmed, um, this, the, then you, you choose how you communicate.\nSo you are responsible for the words that come outta your mouth. Say it\u0026rsquo;s thinking it\u0026rsquo;s communication. No matter where you are, you have the capacity to change is the third one. And, uh, the fourth one is I\u0026rsquo;m a big believer and you can always improve. So that\u0026rsquo;s the first assumptions. So, um, I choose how I think I choose how I communicate.\nUm, I can always improve and, um, I\u0026rsquo;ve got the capacity to\nchange. So, So, they\u0026rsquo;re the, for me, they\u0026rsquo;re the first four things. And in my experience, working with people over many years now, I\u0026rsquo;ve been, um, I almost fell into coaching, like I\u0026rsquo;ve shared with you already because I read books. I started, I was gonna say sharing with people, shoved it down people\u0026rsquo;s throats.\nCuz I was so excited about what I\nwas reading and then people started asking me advice. So I started falling into this coaching and mentoring just.\nAlmost luck or, or,\nor through sharing it with my\nfriends and I, and, and I\u0026rsquo;ve already mentioned this it\u0026rsquo;s, it seems to be people. So the goal for all of us in an organization or in a business is how do I become more visible, uh, more valuable and more connected.\nAnd so always asking yourself, how do I ever get more visible, more valuable, more connected, and the three areas to think about. Uh, so first of all, are your personal development? That is, that is hands down the. To focus on first. I\u0026rsquo;ll give you, I\u0026rsquo;ll give you in what I think in order. Um, and what I mean by personal development, you, you know, the one about, you know, you\u0026rsquo;re on the plane, there\u0026rsquo;s a loss of cabin, pressure and altitude, a mask drops from the ceiling, put it on yourself first, before you start trying to help everyone else and get involved in other things and say, Hey, can I ever drink and get yourself right first?\nUm, so that\u0026rsquo;s what I call, you know, great. And then the next one is the leadership part, which is, uh, the great, we so learn how to become a great leader. Now there\u0026rsquo;s so many things around leadership. There\u0026rsquo;s over 3000 leadership books produced, uh, every year. Uh, it\u0026rsquo;s probably more now with, um, self-publishing and I think the simple one for leadership is just to ask yourself if everyone did what I did, would the team be better off?\nThat\u0026rsquo;s a real simple. So, first of all, personal development, second of all, you work on your leadership. And then the third one is now start to expand and work on having an impact or changing or transforming what you do within your organization. Like we know I\u0026rsquo;m a big sports fanatic, and I love seeing these players that have completely transformed, um, the sport because of the way they are, whether it\u0026rsquo;s a certain type of football or the way someone goes.\nTheir cricket. Um, I, I, I was gonna give football\nexamples, but I\u0026rsquo;d only be giving Hawthorne examples. So I won\u0026rsquo;t do that. I\u0026rsquo;m,\nput people off. I\u0026rsquo;m a\nmath Hawthorne\nfan.\nSo, uh, who do you Barry for? By the way?\nJames: A Crow man.\nDave: Ah,\nJames: It\u0026rsquo;s unfortunate at the moment, but, uh\nDave: Well, you know what, when, when, when the crows played horse, I don\u0026rsquo;t know if you know, in 19, you weren\u0026rsquo;t born 1991. When the crows came into the\nleague, The first match they ever\nplayed at football park was against\nHawthorne. And I think we lost by\n85\npoints\nJames: Well, there you go.\nDave: And\nwe went, we went, on to win\nJames: Yeah.\nDave: That\nyears as\na side note. so, so I, I, so that third one, like I said, it\u0026rsquo;s first is about focus on some personal development.\nGreat\nme great. We, so team stuff and then us. So me, we, and then.\nSo focusing having your outward focus and it could be around, you could be doing something about shifting the way things are done in an industry or transforming the way just a process is being done. Um, but I\u0026rsquo;m a big believer in focusing on those three areas of the, um, personal leadership and then organizational or change, but always, um, yeah, start with yourself first.\nUm, and I\u0026rsquo;ve said this just tidy up the messy corners in your behavioral makeup. So that\u0026rsquo;s always the first step. And, um, if, if, and if I was to think about within personal development, um, one of the high selling social science books in the world is emotional intelligence by Daniel Goldman. Uh, I, I couldn\u0026rsquo;t think of a better, I\u0026rsquo;ve read over 700 books just cuz I\u0026rsquo;m a nerd and it is my top five books of all\ntime\nJames: Yeah.\nDave: And a great place to.\nJames: Mm. Yeah. That\u0026rsquo;s cool after, uh, get, get that one out and have a read but have to pick your knowledge\nDave: A really\nJames: Yeah. Which books you enjoy the most.\nDave: Look. The, the, I would, uh, the seven habits are highly effective people, um, by\nStephen Covey,\nemotional intelligence, uh, think and grow rich by Napoleon hill is another amazing book mindset by Carol Dweck. And there\u0026rsquo;s a. If ever you are feeling like life\u0026rsquo;s tough. There\u0026rsquo;s a book called man search for meaning by Victor Frankel.\nUh, he was incarcerated in Auschwitz just to read his story. Uh, that was transformational for me, reading that I\u0026rsquo;ve never felt like a victim again and never felt sorry for myself, but I always think what he went through is, is, is mind bending.\nJames: Mm\nDave: Um,\nyou know, coming back from adversity\nwas incredible.\nJames: Mm. No, no. I\u0026rsquo;ve, I\u0026rsquo;ve read that one, I think. Yeah. It\u0026rsquo;s an incredible story.\nUm, for sure.\nDave: I think someone just bought the rights to it. I dunno who\nthat wants to some famous\nHollywood person. They want to make it into a movie. An incredible,\nJames: Mm.\nDave: I don\u0026rsquo;t know about you. I never like to\nwatch a movie after I\u0026rsquo;ve read the\nJames: Yeah, true. Especially not one, not one like that If it\u0026rsquo;d be an interesting movie, I feel\nDave: Yeah. I dunno how they do it by the incredible book.\nJames: No for sure. That\u0026rsquo;s really cool. Uh, I think, you know, reading is so important. It\u0026rsquo;s something that I try and do, uh, as well, not as, not as consistently as you, but you know, I\u0026rsquo;ve tried to tried to read, I think it\u0026rsquo;s important to sort of get knowledge from, uh, you know, this there\u0026rsquo;s like the ways of learning.\nLike I can try and learn something myself, or I can ask a friend or I can, the, maybe the, the next best thing is reading about things and learning about things from people that are outside your, I. Circle.\nDave: Yeah. Yeah.\nJames: Of have the courses, books, these videos, whatever this kind of way of learning I think is, uh, can be really useful and you can sort of\nDave: And I, Ted talks a lot. I love watching them\nand learning things that I, I particularly love learning in from things that are completely outside,\nuh, my own industry or the industry that I\u0026rsquo;m, um, working with. So if I\u0026rsquo;m working with, um, I don\u0026rsquo;t know, BHP, even some mining thing or in a finance team. I like to find a example or story or inspiration from outside of\nthat. Um, look, I think like a little thing, like banking, like, I don\u0026rsquo;t know where the rule was that banks are only gonna be open between, you know, nine and four, Monday to Friday is making an assumption that people are gonna be there. And then when we got more service oriented\npeople from different backgrounds going, hang on.\nI can go and get a burger at 10 o\u0026rsquo;clock at night. And\nyou know, I, I, I work shifts. I can do this say I think taking things from other industries, or even if you think about, uh, well before your time, James, cuz you are too young.\nIf you like the song from an artist, you have to buy the whole CD. You don\u0026rsquo;t have to do that.\nNow it\u0026rsquo;s the playlist economy, right? You\u0026rsquo;re going, I want that one, that one and that one. I don\u0026rsquo;t want the risk and that\u0026rsquo;s what I\u0026rsquo;ll\nget. So I, I think finding examples from what other people. Doing in other\nindustries, you can always translate into going, right. How can I apply that to my career or my business or\nmy team?\nJames: Yeah, no, I think that\u0026rsquo;s where a lot of like innovation comes from is from\nDave: Yeah.\nJames: People doing things in one area and that gets applied to a new area. And then that\u0026rsquo;s, that\u0026rsquo;s like the ideas it\u0026rsquo;s not necessarily. Inventing something completely from scratch completely. There\u0026rsquo;s just nothing similar. Um, it\u0026rsquo;s, you know, usually it\u0026rsquo;s something that\u0026rsquo;s been iterated on in a, different area. and that\u0026rsquo;s now being used in a, in a, new way.\nUh, and that\u0026rsquo;s the new thing.\nMm.\nDave: It\u0026rsquo;s a hundred percent.\nDave Advice for Graduates # James: Yeah. Cool. Well, I\u0026rsquo;ve got a couple, well, maybe one more question for you, cause we\u0026rsquo;re nearly at time, but, um, the question for you is I ask all the guests that come in the show, this, and we\u0026rsquo;ve got Graduate Theory aimed at sort of uni students, early professionals. I wonder for yourself, um, looking back to who you were at in, in the early years of your career and, and, thinking what you were like at that stage, is there any advice that you would.\nThe Dave Lords that, you know, that was sort of just starting out in his career or is there any advice you\u0026rsquo;d give young people sort of starting their career today?\nDave: Have you gotten time for another podcast? Cause mate, my whole, my whole career and life has been a whole, I was gonna say a movie, a series of mistakes. So I\u0026rsquo;ll tell you some of the ones I look back on that I, I, I wish I changed. I\u0026rsquo;m only grappling because I have so many. So I\u0026rsquo;m thinking you shouldn\u0026rsquo;t speak up or participate because you\u0026rsquo;re too young or don\u0026rsquo;t know.\nOr it\u0026rsquo;s not your area of expertise? Um, I think one of the most important things that, um, I wish I did earlier and more often was, um, scaling gratitude and empathy. I don\u0026rsquo;t think you can ever say thank you enough. And also caring about people. I, I would say I was, I overly goal oriented when I started and, um, wanted to, um, you know, it was driven by ego to work on the big projects and, um, Feel good about myself.\nI work in these ridiculous hours, um, that was working hard, not smart, but having more of that empathy and understanding that everyone\u0026rsquo;s different, um, being more grateful, um, having an unhealthy ego, um, sometimes asking, I, I wouldn\u0026rsquo;t ask questions cuz I go, oh, well that make me look stupid. If we all did that, no one had asked any questions.\nRight. And, uh, so I think asking questions early on, um, a little one actually is, um, attend work events, like not attending work events. Um, I think is a cm, um, not attending work events. Um, a CLM is a career limiting move. Um, you\u0026rsquo;ve got, you are part of the team and. You know, it\u0026rsquo;s no different to social events.\nSometimes, you know, you can\u0026rsquo;t be bothered or you\u0026rsquo;re tired or whatever it may be. I think it\u0026rsquo;s important to make the time to, to do that. Um, um, I would\u0026rsquo;ve focused earlier and faster now I\u0026rsquo;m a manic. I, I love building relationships with people. I\u0026rsquo;m obsessed in that. And, um, I did that in my career as well. Uh, but I would\u0026rsquo;ve started that earlier, building genuine relationships.\nAnd, um, I\u0026rsquo;m a big believer. And if you don\u0026rsquo;t schedule something, it won\u0026rsquo;t. So in this example, if you say I\u0026rsquo;m gonna read more, unless you do it at a certain time, I\u0026rsquo;m a big believer in it won\u0026rsquo;t happen. Or if someone says I\u0026rsquo;m gonna exercise. Um, so I know for me, um, my exercise time Monday to Friday is 4:30 AM.\nAnd on Saturdays is six 30. Am I sleep in a little bit? And on Sunday I have rest. So actually scheduling stuff. I think one of the most powerful things you can say to people that I wouldn\u0026rsquo;t say back then, that I wish I started saying earlier is I don\u0026rsquo;t know. Um, instead of pretending I know or thinking, I know, and then having to go away and, um, research it or something like that.\nI think that\u0026rsquo;s an important one. Um, expect to get stuck. Just expect that it\u0026rsquo;s gonna happen. It\u0026rsquo;s gonna happen, happens to all of us. It happens to us now. Um, I would\u0026rsquo;ve asked for, um, help earlier and faster. Uh, it\u0026rsquo;s something that I definitely didn\u0026rsquo;t do. Um, and also for is, uh, I\u0026rsquo;m gonna say don\u0026rsquo;t take a local issue and globalize it.\nAnd what I mean by that is when you are being stuck is temporary. Uh, but it\u0026rsquo;s a stain, it\u0026rsquo;s not a tattoo. And, um, by the way, I wish I knew all this back then. Um, the other one that I learned actually from having a personal trainer, I don\u0026rsquo;t know if you\u0026rsquo;ve ever had a personal trainer. Um, that\u0026rsquo;s an industry you want to get into because a personal trainer, when you think you are dead, they go five more and you hate them and you swear under your breath, at least I do.\nAnd then you give them money and come back next week. Uh, but the train of mindset in my mind, They\u0026rsquo;re always, they always say, come on. Just one more, just one more. And when I first got a personal trainer, I remember his name was Michael that really stuck with me a banging year. So whenever I think that I\u0026rsquo;ve reached my limit is just one more, just one more.\nAnd, um, yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s helped me a lot. And if I could only pick one thing, James, it would be, um, self-awareness is king. Um, I\u0026rsquo;ve already talked about emotional intelligence. And within that, they talk about four or five different markers of emotional intelligence. And for me, um, self awareness is the beast.\nThat\u0026rsquo;s the one, if you are, if you can master that, you, you, your master, your life, not knowing what excites you, knowing what deflates you. Knowing what throws you off track, knowing what gets you back on track, um, knowing how you respond when you are confronted, uh, and your confidence goes down. So self-awareness, uh, if I could only pick one out of all those, that was the one I wish I learned, uh, earlier for sure.\nAnd I wish I got a coach earlier, too. You better stop me. I\u0026rsquo;ll bring more wishes up.\nJames: Well, we\u0026rsquo;re right at the end now. So I wonder, uh, firstly, I wanna say thank you so much for, for coming in sharing your wisdom. It\u0026rsquo;s been super, super fascinating and I\u0026rsquo;ve got so many takeaways from, from, from our chat, so really appreciate it.\nUm, well\nDave: Thank you Dave. It\u0026rsquo;s a hundred percent. My pleasure.\nJames: But before we go, though, I do wanna. You know, is there anywhere so people are listening, they wanna find out more about yourself, uh, is where should they go?\nDave: Uh, well, my website\u0026rsquo;s being done at the moment, but they can davelourdes.com. Uh, we can connect on LinkedIn.\nUh, and in Facebook I have a book called, I talked about using the, uh, my experience as, uh, as experiments before I have a private Facebook group called the, um, uh, the leaders lab. And. I post things regularly in the, in the leaders lab, it\u0026rsquo;s a private book on private group on Facebook. If they send me an invite, they accept them all.\nAnd, um, I post stuff in there. Just little free bits of information, usually related to something around personal growths leadership or, or change. So yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s some of the places they could, uh, yeah. Find out some stuff.\nJames: Fantastic. Well, yeah, thanks so much, mate. Appreciate it. Uh, and I, Hey, thanks is\nDave: Awesome.\nI love what you\u0026rsquo;re doing to help people. This is awesome. It\u0026rsquo;s awesome.\nOutro # James: Thanks for listening to this episode I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. If you want to get my takeaways, the things that I learned from this episode, please go to Graduate Theory.com/subscribe, where you can get my takeaways and all the information about each episode, straight to your inbox.\nThanks so much for listening again today, and we\u0026rsquo;re looking forward to seeing you next week.\n← Back to episode 47\n","date":"12 September 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/graduate-theory/47-dave-lourdes-becoming-best-can/transcript/","section":"Graduate Theory Transcripts","summary":"← Back to episode 47\nThis transcript has been lightly edited for readability. It may still contain transcription errors.\nIntro # Dave: I think about a little one, like if you think about Martin Luther king, he gets a million people to March in Washington, cuz he says, I have a dream.\n","title":"Transcript: Dave Lourdes | On Becoming The Best You Can Be","type":"graduate-theory-transcripts"},{"content":" Watch the conversation Graduate Theory Open YouTube ↗ Read the full transcript → Hey there, I\u0026rsquo;ve recently moved the Graduate Theory newsletter from Ghost to Beehiiv. You might notice a few changes in this email.\nThe Graduate Theory website has also been updated. You can explore every episode and newsletter here.\nNow, here\u0026rsquo;s this week\u0026rsquo;s edition 👇\nWould you describe yourself as a creative person?\nDid you know that 98% of five-year-olds are classed as creative geniuses?\nIn today\u0026rsquo;s show, we dive deep into creativity and discover how we can reconnect with the creative flows inside us all.\nThis article was sent to subscribers of the Graduate Theory newsletter.\nSubscribe Now\nWatch this episode on YouTube.\nMykel Dixon is an award-winning speaker, author, musician \u0026amp; globally recognised authority on creativity, leadership and the human future of work.\n🤝 Connect with Mykel # Website - https://www.mykeldixon.com/\nLinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/mykeldixon/\nInstagram - https://www.instagram.com/mykeldixon/\n👇 Episode Takeaways # Creativity Is Better for Everyone # When chatting with Mykel about creativity, we discussed how re-igniting your creativity is not just good for you. It won\u0026rsquo;t only make you feel better, love better or lead better, but it will also do the same for those around you.\nCreativity and good vibes aren\u0026rsquo;t just for your own benefit, but also for the benefit of others.\nDon\u0026rsquo;t be a dick about it # How do we manage creativity while working towards our goals?\nThis is a tough one. Mykel had this to say:\nYou can run and you can sweat and you can be in the gym longer than everyone else, but you don\u0026rsquo;t have to be a prick about it.\nWe can go and achieve the things we want in a way that lifts others up. Being someone that wants to achieve does not need to come at the cost of being a good person.\nHow to Re-Engage # We have lost some of our creativity. Lost some of the energy we once had as children.\nHow can we find this again?\nMykel says to find what inspires you and to let it affect you.\nIn fact, this is the purpose of the arts.\nThat\u0026rsquo;s the whole purpose and intent of art is to get you to think differently and open you up and connect ideas for you.\nCreativity won\u0026rsquo;t just come into your life without you changing anything.\nConnect with something, do something different, and take a different approach.\nTake one step toward creativity, and it will take many steps for you.\nGet in the Ring # The best way to improve creativity, public speaking or whatever else you would like to do, is simply to do it.\nMykel shared some great advice about public speaking, and how we can sit and strategise about the optimal way to improve our skills.\nThe best way, however, is simply to get started and get in the ring.\nStop strategising and get in the game!\nGet The Newsletter\n📝 Content Timestamps # 00:00 Mykel Dixon\n00:29 Creativity as we get older\n03:56 Why does creativity matter\n06:40 How can we re-engage with creativity\n10:26 The Shift in Work\n18:14 Change comes from you\n21:13 Thoughts to Reality is a Muscle\n25:16 Creativity is life or death\n32:01 You being at your best makes things better for everyone\n35:26 Balancing Fun and Work\n37:16 Re-Engaging with Creativity\n42:52 How to be a good public speaker\n50:25 Advice for Graduates\n56:51 Outro\n","date":"5 September 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/graduate-theory/46-mykel-dixon-rediscovering-creativity/","section":"Graduate Theory","summary":" Watch the conversation Graduate Theory Open YouTube ↗ Read the full transcript → Hey there, I’ve recently moved the Graduate Theory newsletter from Ghost to Beehiiv. You might notice a few changes in this email.\n","title":"Mykel Dixon | On Rediscovering Your Creativity","type":"graduate-theory"},{"content":"← Back to episode 46\nThis transcript has been lightly edited for readability. It may still contain transcription errors.\nMykel: If we\u0026rsquo;re not careful, this is the world that we\u0026rsquo;re in. It can be taken from us. Can be stolen from us. It can be, you know, but if we were to switch and go, well, what happens if we do engage with it?\nWhat happens to our life? What happens to our career? If we do make the time for it, if we invest in it, if we\u0026rsquo;d be courageous with it, if we, uh, tend to the garden, so to speak, oh my goodness, the opportunities, James\nCreativity as we get older # James: I wanna start, I wanna start with, there was this little, uh, statistic, so I, I did math at uni.\nUm, a very sort of that way inclined\nMykel: Two.\nJames: Yeah, four, five, no. Um, well, so I, you know, I love a great stat and so I was I\u0026rsquo;m I\u0026rsquo;m deep in the book and there was this one sat. I\u0026rsquo;m not, you may recall this, but they were doing this experiment about creativity in sort of children and how. Kind of goes, um, through their life and, and sort of measuring the creativity at different points.\nAnd I\u0026rsquo;ve got it written here. So I\u0026rsquo;m just gonna repeat kind of what\u0026rsquo;s in the book, but so 98% of five year olds, 98% classed as creativity, geniuses, and then this number drops down to 2%. By the time these people, the same people got to 30, um, Which was pretty insane to me, how that could happen. Uh, cuz presumably it happens to pretty much all of us.\nSo yeah, I\u0026rsquo;d love to sort of kick off and I know this is a big theme of yours is creativity in the workplace. Um, you know, and I mean, what do you think are the reasons why that, uh, something like this happens to people as we, as we get older,\nMykel: Look around, look at, look at the way we wor work. Look at the way that we consume information. Look at the way, you know, we\u0026rsquo;re at the tail end of the industrial revolution. We are, we have been shaped and influenced. Heavily and consistently, um, for decades. And so that piece of research is a guy called George land, who, um, he, he devised one of the first ever creativity tests for NASA back in the day to get, to get us to the moon.\nAnd, um, that test, you know, help them find the. The most creative minds on the planet. And he thought a few years after that, oh, this is successful. Why don\u0026rsquo;t I try it with a bunch of five year olds? And then the results came back. 98% of people, roughly speaking, generally speaking are born with this creative capacity.\nAnd then over time when they get to 10, it drops to 30. When they\u0026rsquo;re 15, it drops to 12. When they\u0026rsquo;re 30, they\u0026rsquo;re living in the suburbs, they got jobs and kids of their own it\u0026rsquo;s roughly 2%. And the, and the culmination of that research, George famously said, the research is conclusive. Noncreative behavior is learned.\nSo what he means by that is we\u0026rsquo;re taught out of our creativity. We\u0026rsquo;re influenced we\u0026rsquo;re conditioned out of a natural state. And then, and it\u0026rsquo;s not a bad thing. I\u0026rsquo;m not throwing shade at the education system. We\u0026rsquo;re not trying to make anybody wrong for this. It\u0026rsquo;s just that the principles that we valued or the principles that have driven, uh, most of modern society where we\u0026rsquo;ve got to today have prioritized.\nRational linear logical, pragmatic optimization, efficiency, productivity growth at all. Cost extraction, exploitation, et cetera, et cetera, et C. Much like a factory line, much like, um, yeah. You know, an industrial, how you produce products. You want to, you wanna shave off the edges, you wanna make it as tight a process as you can.\nYou want to use only the materials that you need, you wanna cost cut and make savings so that you can maximize profit. Well, the, the impact of that mindset has also, um, had a profound impact on us as human beings. So now we\u0026rsquo;re at this place where we need. We need to accept that. First of all, we need to recognize it and then we need.\nWhy does creativity matter # James: Hm. Yeah, no, it\u0026rsquo;s interesting. It\u0026rsquo;s interesting stuff. I mean, creativity itself. I wonder if you have any thoughts on why, like, that is a useful thing to sort of measure perhaps when it comes to like, you know, cause obviously you\u0026rsquo;ve seen a lot of, um, differences there when someone does engage in their creativity, that the wellbeing is kind of quite closely tied to that.\nUm, you know, why do you think creativity is really sort of at the heart of, of some of this stuff? And it seems to be quite an important.\nMykel: Why it matters now. and why it matters in work and why it matters in kids. It\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s how we create our world. Well, I, I, I define creativity. I like to define it as, as a life force. It\u0026rsquo;s an energy, it\u0026rsquo;s just this pure potential that is thrust into this momentum. And then it produces things as a result.\nAnd it\u0026rsquo;s it\u0026rsquo;s, um, It\u0026rsquo;s your natural self expression. It\u0026rsquo;s every individual on this planet. It\u0026rsquo;s that energy that gets them up and gets them imagining new possibilities. It\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s perceiving information, processing it in their mind, in their subconscious, in their heart, in their soul, in their senses, in their everything, and then creating something as a result of it, giving something back to the world, um, almost in gratitude for everything that we\u0026rsquo;ve been given.\nAnd you think about the world that we are in now. Everything that we use. We\u0026rsquo;re using this, this, um, Riverside tool right now to record a product, to record a podcast. It\u0026rsquo;s just, it\u0026rsquo;s the outcome of someone\u0026rsquo;s creativity. It\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s an idea that then has been iterated on. It\u0026rsquo;s been created code tested experiments with produced.\nHere we go. We get to see the benefit of that. The clothes we\u0026rsquo;re wearing, the food we eat, the cars we drive all. Is someone\u0026rsquo;s value that they\u0026rsquo;ve given to us given to the world. It\u0026rsquo;s all a creative process. The whole thing and that\u0026rsquo;s, and, and that\u0026rsquo;s a very natural process. And I think where we\u0026rsquo;ve got lost, or while we\u0026rsquo;ve got into this difficult is we\u0026rsquo;ve, we\u0026rsquo;ve stopped seeing it as an organic natural process.\nYou go to a rainforest, the whole thing is just pure creativity. It\u0026rsquo;s just fertile soil and then reaching for the sun and everything\u0026rsquo;s working together. And that takes the drops of rain. And it produces this for the mushroom to send information here. And it\u0026rsquo;s, it is just be. It\u0026rsquo;s this organic, you know, explosion of possibility constantly, and we\u0026rsquo;ve taken elements of that and gone, okay.\nWe just wanna grow this little bit here and we wanna make sure that goes there and let\u0026rsquo;s segregate that and put this in a box and move it all around and say it doesn\u0026rsquo;t work like that. Humans don\u0026rsquo;t work like that. Life doesn\u0026rsquo;t work like that. So we\u0026rsquo;ve gotta re return to, you know, that more organic sense kind of creativity that\u0026rsquo;s in us that we were born with.\nHow can we re-engage with creativity # James: Mm. Yeah, definitely. What do you think someone could do to say they\u0026rsquo;re? I mean, yeah, like we said, at the start, you know, most people have kind of lost this essence. Right. Uh, and it perhaps gets covered up by whether it\u0026rsquo;s education or social stuff or whatever, whatever happens. Like how can someone. Start to reengage with the part of themselves that still has this.\nRight. Cause presumably we all still, it\u0026rsquo;s not lost completely. Like it\u0026rsquo;s still, it\u0026rsquo;s just been sort of hidden by other stuff, right?\nMykel: What I\u0026rsquo;m interested. With you, Jimmy, what gets you going? What\u0026rsquo;s the thing that light lights you up. Something that you\u0026rsquo;re like, Ooh, I love that.\nJames: Yeah, I think, um, one of the things I, I, I, I would use, I guess, to measure that is like getting in like a flow state and, and things like that. I think if you, things that you can get into that state with, I would say those are things where I\u0026rsquo;m like locked in the zone. Like you look at the clock, it\u0026rsquo;s been four hours.\nHow did that happen? Kind of thing.\nMykel: What is it? Give me an example. What\u0026rsquo;s the thing that gets you in that.\nJames: Honestly, like when I sit like now and recently, like when I sit down and do programming and. Uh, things like that. It just, I find I can just get stuck into a problem, look at the clock and time\u0026rsquo;s just flown. Um, and it, and it\u0026rsquo;s, it is quite satisfying. I feel like I can get, get lost in, in that kind of stuff super easily.\nand that\u0026rsquo;s probably like quite a nerdy, big to be\nMykel: That\u0026rsquo;s awesome, man. Everyone\u0026rsquo;s got their thing. Yeah. But whatever moves you cuz that\u0026rsquo;s, that\u0026rsquo;s the access point. That\u0026rsquo;s the way back is that for anyone is to find that thing that moves them and inspires them. That could be listened to old rock and roll tunes from the fifties that could be going and people watching with a glass of wine in a cafe somewhere that could be old movies, new movies sci-fi that could.\nMucking around with your kids. Anything that just makes you go, oh God, life\u0026rsquo;s amazing. What makes you feel something? You know, we\u0026rsquo;ve lost our capacity to feel and, and our feelings are so they\u0026rsquo;re, they\u0026rsquo;re like neon sign for what matters to us. And they\u0026rsquo;re a, they\u0026rsquo;re this. Beautiful super highway, this gateway back to our creativity in our self expression and we\u0026rsquo;ve robbed and starved and suppressed so much of our feeling. That we, you know, we make fun of it or we, we don\u0026rsquo;t allow it or we say, oh, it\u0026rsquo;s not appropriate. Or it\u0026rsquo;s this and it\u0026rsquo;s that, or we don\u0026rsquo;t wanna, we don\u0026rsquo;t wanna look weak or whatever it is, but the feeling like being attuned to what moves us, what, what makes us feel something where we just go, God, that\u0026rsquo;s whoa.\nSomething about that. And for me personally, a lot of that is the arts it\u0026rsquo;s nature and the arts for me, I think that they\u0026rsquo;re both just so. Powerful as tools to affect you in a way beyond your thinking mind, they, they hit your body, they hit your emotions. They hit your soul, that stuff. If, if you can surround yourself with more of that and you don\u0026rsquo;t even have to do anything, just let it affect you, let it move you.\nThen something will come out of that. Like that\u0026rsquo;s the next step will present itself. I promise it\u0026rsquo;s um, that\u0026rsquo;s the beauty of it. You know, it\u0026rsquo;s such a, it\u0026rsquo;s a life giving force when it, when it comes for.\nJames: No. Well, there\u0026rsquo;s something special to think about, like going out in nature and going for a big walk or, or, you know, looking at the stars at night, or, uh, even like you said, with music, like when your favorite song comes on and you\u0026rsquo;re jumping around and like singing along in your room uh, or whatever it is.\nYeah. I\u0026rsquo;d totally agree. You sort of connecting to something there, um, that perhaps gets lost definitely in the, like a professional sense, um, you know, at the office or whatever, uh, you know, There\u0026rsquo;s definitely you kind of lose that. I feel, um, when it comes to that kind of really like, sort of pure joy that comes in those moments.\nUm,\nThe Shift in Work # Mykel: Can I ask you a question cuz you are, you are relatively newish in your professional career. So you\u0026rsquo;ve come into this big, big wide, you know, corporate vibe and it\u0026rsquo;s, I mean, it\u0026rsquo;s pandemic. Different. It\u0026rsquo;s interesting. It\u0026rsquo;s working from home, but you love coding. You just love maths. You love all of that stuff.\nNumbers and solving complex problems, all this stuff. Now you\u0026rsquo;ve got in the workplace. Has your, have your expectations been met? Like what you thought the workplace would be like when you were going through university or high school? Has it, has it been equal to what you were anticipating or are there, is it different to what you\u0026rsquo;re expect?\nJames: That\u0026rsquo;s a good question. I think. One aspect of it was completely different. And like, I remember thinking this, so when I was in my last uni, I was like super structured with how I went about studying and like doing all this stuff. So I would like, like I had this routine, it was, it was so good. and I would like definitely replicate this at some point.\nRight? Yeah. If, if I, if I had more like, control over my schedule, but essentially it was like wake up around six 30, uh, drive to uni, leave home about seven, get to uni. Like, or drive to uni, get out the car at about seven 30 walk to uni drive at about eight. O\u0026rsquo;clock do like deep focused study for like four or five hours.\nGo to the gym on the way home. And I\u0026rsquo;d be home by like two or three. And like, I just like was way ahead of all deadlines and it was just super good. Um, and so that was like such a good ex, like I just knew I was like this, this is how. This is how things should work. and I remember I was, um, I got this internship in, uh, uh, in, in my penultimate summer.\nUm, and I was chatting with the, the guy that was gonna be my supervisor and I. Like, I was completely oblivious at this point. Never really like, worked properly. And I was like, Hey man, like, you know, I really work best. Like, I\u0026rsquo;ll get in the office early. Like all good. Like, I really don\u0026rsquo;t wanna, like, I\u0026rsquo;ll get in the zone in the mornings.\nAnd, and then like we can have meetings and stuff in the afternoon cuz like, you know, my brain just works better then. So like all good. And then I just remember he didn\u0026rsquo;t really answer. He just kind of looked at me like like, what are you saying, mate? Like, this is like not how we do these. And like at that, at that point I didn\u0026rsquo;t really.\nUm,\nMykel: Wow.\nJames: I was kind of going into. Um, and then I was, then once I got there, I was like, oh, like, like I don\u0026rsquo;t really have much control over what I do. Like this kind of stuff that you sort of have to have to participate in and whatever, which isn\u0026rsquo;t all bad, but\nMykel: That\u0026rsquo;s so beautiful, man. That\u0026rsquo;s so good because there\u0026rsquo;s a guy called Aaron McKeon. He\u0026rsquo;s a friend of mine. He works at garden and he does a lot of this research globally. He works with, you know, lots of big organizations all around the future of work and how we, you know, HR space is a big influencer and et cetera, et cetera. and he\u0026rsquo;s speaking a lot, you know, a lot these days about how the pandemic has shaped the way of work and stuff. And he speaks about how we\u0026rsquo;re going through a transformation now equal to what happened when business finally woke up to the customer experience. At some point decade or two ago, business really went, oh my goodness, what are we thinking?\nWe can\u0026rsquo;t just send out one email. 500,000 subscribers. We need to start personalizing. We need to start getting curious about what our customer wants so that we can design experiences and products that are gonna better serve them. That\u0026rsquo;s gonna ensure that our customers buy from us is if we actually start listening and give them what they want.\nThat same. And in the beginning, that was the challenge for a lot of companies. They were like, whoa, I don\u0026rsquo;t know if I\u0026rsquo;m up for this, but that same thing is now taking place with the employee experience where businesses are now having to realize, huh? If we don\u0026rsquo;t get to know our people, if we don\u0026rsquo;t actually start designing a space that they want to be in.\nThey\u0026rsquo;ll go somewhere else. And it\u0026rsquo;s fascinating that your first instinct, um, coming out of, out of, you know, uni or whatever was to say, Hey, I\u0026rsquo;ve figured it out. I know myself really well. I know what works for me is if I get up early, I get that four hours of deep work. Then I hit the gym. I mean, sure. I would normally go home, but I can stay and we can do a few meetings.\nI\u0026rsquo;m still gonna be good, but I\u0026rsquo;m gonna, I\u0026rsquo;m gonna be so effective for you. This is gonna be. And to have someone that\u0026rsquo;s, you know, not no disrespect to them at all, but someone that\u0026rsquo;s already heavily entrenched in this system to just not even respond with like, oh, okay, mate,\nJames: Yeah.\nMykel: That is not what we do here,\nJames: Yeah.\nMykel: But what, like, that\u0026rsquo;s the opportunity where they would go, oh my God, fantastic.\nSo, you know what works best for you? Excellent. Then let\u0026rsquo;s design that because, because if we break down your employment, Like at, at the core of it is we want to get the best, the maximum value we can from you. And if you\u0026rsquo;ve already stood forward and said, I know how you can get the best value from me, then it feels like a pretty logical step for the company to go, oh my God, thank you.\nYou figured that out already. Well, then we\u0026rsquo;ll just work with you on that because you\u0026rsquo;re gonna get, you know, that\u0026rsquo;s, that\u0026rsquo;s the perfect equation. This is this, this shift we\u0026rsquo;re in right now where companies are not, most of them are not there yet, but they\u0026rsquo;re, but this is the shift it\u0026rsquo;s like, hang on. We need to find a better way.\nAnd if you\u0026rsquo;ve figured out what way works for you to be your most creative, your most innovative, your most productive man. If I was your boss, I\u0026rsquo;d be like, James, you do you. My. Here\u0026rsquo;s what we need done. Ideally in a couple of weeks go nuts.\nJames: Mm\nMykel: It\u0026rsquo;s really interesting.\nJames: Yeah, no, that\u0026rsquo;s pretty cool. Like, uh, about what you said, um, you know, with the, the email list and really customizing not only for the customers like of the, of the business, but the internal customers, which are like, you know,\nMykel: Mm-hmm exactly.\nJames: That sense. Mm. Yeah. I, I think that\u0026rsquo;s super cool.\nBecause, yeah, I think there\u0026rsquo;s a lot to be lot to be gained in that area. Cause I think, yeah, like you said, everyone, and everyone\u0026rsquo;s wired differently. Like what works for me might not work for someone else and might not work for someone else. Right. Um, but if you can find a way to connect the jigsaw sort of nicely, then I think, um, it\u0026rsquo;s really a win-win for everyone.\nCuz you can work in a way that you want to work and the business is kind of getting the most out of you as well. Um,\nMykel: And, you know, and, and I\u0026rsquo;d even say on that, that your. You and your tribe, I\u0026rsquo;d say to other people, maybe the listeners of this podcast that might be around a similar demographic that maybe you\u0026rsquo;re also just beginning their careers or five, 10 years in\nJames: Hm.\nMykel: Not to put responsibility on you because you didn\u0026rsquo;t ask for that.\nAnd certainly don\u0026rsquo;t deserve it. But I do see that there\u0026rsquo;s a tremendous opportunity for you to lead in that. You gotta get these guys and girls up the top to start to recognize, Hey, we\u0026rsquo;re ready. We\u0026rsquo;re willing. We want to be a part of this. We got value to contribute. We, we are hungry to climb the ladder to do whatever, but we also know a few things about who we are and we know what works best for us.\nAnd if you\u0026rsquo;re listening, we can help you create a space that is gonna make us thrive. And if that, if, if we can have that, then everybody wins, but they\u0026rsquo;re not, you know, paying necessarily paying too much attention yet. And it\u0026rsquo;s, um, Yeah, it\u0026rsquo;s kind of like, I feel almost like the whole world as well is in this a lot of people, whether it\u0026rsquo;s, you know, women in particular, people of color, anyone from, from, you know, some kind of social group or that is, that is seeking social justice.\nThat\u0026rsquo;s time to, for people to be account or held to account, but younger people as well, it feels like this shift in power. To be like, you know what? You\u0026rsquo;re gonna have to start listening the systems that are grinding that have brought us this far. It\u0026rsquo;s not serving everyone anymore. It\u0026rsquo;s only serving as select few people.\nAnd we kind of had enough it\u0026rsquo;s time to it\u0026rsquo;s time to shift the game. And I think you, where I\u0026rsquo;m going with this, James, is that you are gonna lead a revolution and you are gonna transform the whole world of work by Christmas.\nJames: We\u0026rsquo;ll see Christmas. Maybe let\u0026rsquo;s make it end of financial year\nMykel: Okay. Let\u0026rsquo;s\nJames: It.\nMykel: Give you that.\nChange comes from you # James: Amazing. No, no, I think that\u0026rsquo;s a one. I like what you said there, cuz I think, um, sometimes, and I like how you sort of put it on me there. Cause I think. Like myself and probably many others, like have these ideas where it\u0026rsquo;s around.\nI\u0026rsquo;d really like to work this way, or I think my workplace should do this or whatever, but I think, um, it is almost up to, up to us to kind of drive some of those changes and, and really say actually, If I want this to happen, then no one else is like, perhaps no one else is actually gonna come or there\u0026rsquo;s not gonna be this, uh, something like, like a COVID or some external event.\nRight. That\u0026rsquo;s gonna come and change things. So like, I don\u0026rsquo;t really have to do anything that\u0026rsquo;s gonna gonna take care of itself. you know, and I think that\u0026rsquo;s, that\u0026rsquo;s important as well.\nMykel: And this ties in so well, James, because if we don\u0026rsquo;t, if you don\u0026rsquo;t harness that energy, if you don\u0026rsquo;t feed that energy, like there\u0026rsquo;s a, there\u0026rsquo;s a youthful, there\u0026rsquo;s a power that comes when you\u0026rsquo;re young and you\u0026rsquo;re optimistic. You see the future there\u0026rsquo;s ah, if you don\u0026rsquo;t invest in that, if you don\u0026rsquo;t grow those seeds, they will wither and die.\nAnd then when we talk about these statistics, when people are 30 and beyond, there\u0026rsquo;s only 2% left it\u0026rsquo;s because they haven\u0026rsquo;t been investing in, they haven\u0026rsquo;t been tending to the garden of their self expression of their creativity, of that furious fascination. They have to make things in the world. And so it\u0026rsquo;s a, it\u0026rsquo;s almost, it\u0026rsquo;s an imperative to move the world forward, but actually it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s almost being responsible for your own.\nSuccess or your own, you know, capacity to thrive is to, is to stay hungry and to keep pushing and trying to change things and, and poke the bear. Even when you, you know, you\u0026rsquo;ll definitely get a few bruises and scratches along the way, but\nJames: Mm.\nMykel: It, it\u0026rsquo;s kind of like you, you develop more confidence and you, and you learn how to position yourself better and you get, figure out how to communicate better by being on the front lines.\nMixing things up, you doing this podcast? The perfect example of that, there\u0026rsquo;s a there\u0026rsquo;s, there\u0026rsquo;s probably 500, 6,000 people in Australia that are talking about doing a podcast right now. And 478,000 of them have been talking about it for more than three years. And you\u0026rsquo;re doing it. You know, you are, you are out there making it happen after work eight o\u0026rsquo;clock here we are 8:30 PM on a Thursday night making this happen.\nAnd it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s that hunger that\u0026rsquo;s gonna. Keep you young, funnily enough, but also keep you in the game. Keep you learning, growing, pushing, and then ultimately being someone that does change the game for others. So it\u0026rsquo;s very, it\u0026rsquo;s very cool. Now it\u0026rsquo;s important stuff.\nJames: Mm. No. I agree. I think it\u0026rsquo;s, yeah. I like what you said there about, um, you know, if you don\u0026rsquo;t kind of water the garden, uh, in metaphorically, then it\u0026rsquo;s gonna kind of, sort of slowly die off and you maybe will get to a point where it\u0026rsquo;s hard to like hard to sort of bring everything back to life again. Right.\nOr maybe you even forget how to water it in the first place.\nMykel: You\u0026rsquo;re right. Yeah. And then you just sad and old and lonely and bitter.\nJames: We don\u0026rsquo;t want that\nMykel: And an executive\nJames: Yeah.\nMykel: You know, uh,\nThoughts to Reality is a Muscle # James: I agree. I think it\u0026rsquo;s, yeah, I think it\u0026rsquo;s so important. And I think, you know, part of it too, is like, yeah. When you have these ideas and, and things that you wanna do, it\u0026rsquo;s like, Really like acting on them is, is so important. Right? Like turning the things you\u0026rsquo;re thinking into reality, even if it\u0026rsquo;s like, um, you know, going on a trip somewhere or like messaging that person or starting the podcast or the newsletter or whatever, uh, you know, all these kinds of things where you\u0026rsquo;re, it\u0026rsquo;s not just this idea that you have.\nThat\u0026rsquo;s like, oh, it\u0026rsquo;d be nice to do that one day. yeah, but you\u0026rsquo;re actually kind of really stepping into it and, and doing it, I think is, uh, it\u0026rsquo;s almost like a. Uh, maybe even a skill perhaps to, well, you know, something to, uh, yeah, like you said, if you, if you don\u0026rsquo;t, uh, do that consistently, it\u0026rsquo;s almost like a muscle that\u0026rsquo;s better analogy, you know, if you\u0026rsquo;re not really, if you\u0026rsquo;re not really working yet, then it kind of, um, it loses its uh, loses its value\nMykel: It really does. And it, and, and the, and the world is not in our favor. Like the odds are stacked against us because the world just wants us to be consumers. It just wants us to show up, to get in debt and then to work hard, to pay off that debt. And then we are just good little voting, consuming, you know, batteries that keep this whole machine running, but it\u0026rsquo;s really, you know, without being.\nBoohoo, conspiracy theory, whatever it\u0026rsquo;s, um, it\u0026rsquo;s a weird, strange little world that we found ourselves in. And so keeping that hunger alive and keeping that, that positive dissent, you know, being someone that is consciously and intentionally trying to. Disrupt things and shake the tree a little bit and keep people on their toes.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s just so important ma of mine\u0026rsquo;s he\u0026rsquo;s really into, you know, mythical stuff and he loves the archetypes and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And he always talks about the trickster and the trickster is that well, well, there\u0026rsquo;s the trickster archetype, but there\u0026rsquo;s also the, um, You know, like the court jester in a little bit, and the jest, a lot of the time is the right hand person to the king or the queen.\nSo they have, you know, the trust and they, you know, the king and the queen likes them and enjoys them and keeps them close and feeds them Andrah. But a lot of the jokes, a lot of what they\u0026rsquo;re doing, you know, they poking fun at them gently at the same time, they\u0026rsquo;re getting all, you know, all the village people, everyone else they\u0026rsquo;re showing them, Hey, listen, This thing is all made up here.\nThis thing doesn\u0026rsquo;t have to be this way. You know, we\u0026rsquo;ve gotta remember that we are playing, we\u0026rsquo;re allowing this game to continue. Do you know what I mean? And I think that\u0026rsquo;s a lot, I mean, I\u0026rsquo;m getting a bit deep here, but I think if we all realized how much we\u0026rsquo;re allowing this thing to continue. You know, it, we could, we could cause a whole lot of change very quickly,\nJames: Mm.\nMykel: But it\u0026rsquo;s, but they got us with convenience. You know, we want our, we want a nice, safe, clean little life. We wanna watch Netflix. We wanna, you know, order Uber eats. We want the creature comforts, but there\u0026rsquo;s, um, Yeah, we could, you know, we could change this game very quickly if we all realized, wow, hang on a second.\nWe\u0026rsquo;re all kind of playing along with this thing,\nJames: Yeah. Yeah. It\u0026rsquo;s like take the, the red pill, uh, in the matrix\nMykel: A hundred. What a, what a revolution that movie was, you know, when you really think about, I actually remember watching that in the cinema, in the, in the late nineties and. I went with a bunch of mates and we seriously walked out and went, that is gonna change like the course of the world. That\u0026rsquo;s wow. Like what a cultural it\u0026rsquo;s iconic.\nIt just shifted your mindset immediately. But then what happened? Like we, it\u0026rsquo;s almost like we became even more in the matrix, you know what I mean?\nJames: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, I think that\u0026rsquo;s really cool. And yeah. What a, what a movie, and I guess it\u0026rsquo;s still used in so many different, like analogies, like we use it then, but yeah, very cool. I think it\u0026rsquo;s a. It\u0026rsquo;s almost, um, going back to what you were saying before, it\u0026rsquo;s almost sort of a, a life or death.\nCreativity is life or death # James: Like, I mean, you\u0026rsquo;ve really gotta treat with some level of importance, I think, you know, cause it\u0026rsquo;s like, I think about this a lot. Like I see, um, you know, older guys at the office or whatever at some of the places I\u0026rsquo;ve worked and I go, like, I really. Really hope that I, like, I don\u0026rsquo;t end up like that, you know, uh, in, in the nicest way, like, I\u0026rsquo;m sure, I\u0026rsquo;m sure, like, you know, they have their own journey and experiences and, and whatever, but, uh, you know, sometimes I\u0026rsquo;m like really, like when I\u0026rsquo;m, when I\u0026rsquo;m that age, I really hope that I\u0026rsquo;m, you know, there\u0026rsquo;s something about me and, and I still have that kind of that zest and, and that creativity, that\u0026rsquo;s kind of the fire, I guess that\u0026rsquo;s inside.\nAnd hasn\u0026rsquo;t just been, been blown out and I think,\nMykel: James you\u0026rsquo;re on the money. So I was, I was fortunate enough. I mean, I played music out of uni and studied that and whatever else. And then I was a performer for 10, 15 years. Um, so I, the influences I had were quite. Groovy people. They were pretty cool. You know, there was, yeah, you\u0026rsquo;re hanging out. I was 18 20, 25, 28.\nYou\u0026rsquo;re hanging out with 42 year olds. You\u0026rsquo;re hanging out with 60 year old. You\u0026rsquo;re hanging out with 37, whatever different ages, but everyone was pretty cool. You know, they were living on the edge, they were outside of the square. So there was, that was the influence. And I just saw that as what you\u0026rsquo;d grow into, it was later that I ended up working in this, in the, in the corporate world, doing the work that I\u0026rsquo;m doing now.\nAnd it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s been quite staggering. It\u0026rsquo;s like, wow, this. This is it. This is what all the people do in these big buildings. Nine to five every week. This is, this is what goes on here. It\u0026rsquo;s, it was quite a wake up call when I first ended up, you know, checking it out because there\u0026rsquo;s a lot of. Sick unhealthy, burnt out tired, you know, disenfranchised, lonely people. And that sounds pretty harsh and brutal, but I mean, you know what, I just call it what it is really. And a lot of it is, um, I mean, that\u0026rsquo;s just, that\u0026rsquo;s terrifying and it\u0026rsquo;s so tragic. You it\u0026rsquo;s kind of gotta go, what are we doing here? We need to stop and, and look at this. And I think you\u0026rsquo;re absolutely right.\nLike there. It is a little bit life and death. There is there\u0026rsquo;s some urgency to this. Otherwise a decade goes by two or three, four, and then you\u0026rsquo;re looking at your retirement and you think what the F have I done?\nJames: Yeah.\nMykel: I\u0026rsquo;ve worked a few jobs. I stayed late. I don\u0026rsquo;t really know my kids. I have two houses, but so what, I never really traveled much or maybe I did, but I wasn\u0026rsquo;t present because I was on my phone the whole time.\nLike, whatever it. We kind of need to wake up.\nJames: Yeah. Yeah. I agree. I think, you know, and like a lot of the folks listening are probably younger. Right. But I. You know, time does go pretty quick. Not like I know that\u0026rsquo;s a bit of a, a, you know, a bit of a saying that people just say, right. But I think it\u0026rsquo;s like, I guess before, you know, it\u0026rsquo;s been a year and then it\u0026rsquo;s been another year and you know, you kind of get into the, the flow of doing the same thing at the same place and it kind of just boom and.\nAnd you\u0026rsquo;re somewhere you didn\u0026rsquo;t wanna be, uh you know, or somewhere that, you know, uh, you, you thought you\u0026rsquo;d be somewhere else. And I think, um, yeah, I think it, I think it honestly is, is at that point where it\u0026rsquo;s, you\u0026rsquo;ve really gotta take this, uh, the creativity and the energy and, and really stoke the fire and keep it going otherwise.\nUm, yeah, otherwise you\u0026rsquo;ll, you\u0026rsquo;ll end up somewhere that you don\u0026rsquo;t wanna go. And, um, You know, you\u0026rsquo;ll end up somewhere that just, yeah. Within not long, you know, you\u0026rsquo;re somewhere that, that you, you didn\u0026rsquo;t really wanna be, uh,\nMykel: A hundred percent and even, and even building on that, I mean, we\u0026rsquo;ve kind of talked about, we\u0026rsquo;ve started this conversation around creativity and then we\u0026rsquo;ve looked at, well, this is what happens. If we\u0026rsquo;re not careful, this is the world that we\u0026rsquo;re in. It can be taken from us. Can be stolen from us. It can be, you know, but if we were to switch and go, well, what happens if we do engage with it?\nWhat happens to our life? What happens to our career? If we do make the time for it, if we invest in it, if we\u0026rsquo;d be courageous with it, if we allow it in and we, we, you know, we, uh, tend to the garden, so to speak, oh my goodness, the opportunities, James, you know, the joy, the connections, the magic, I. Even in my own speaking through my own experience, my own life, creativity has served me more than anything else when the chips are down and, and life is difficult and you got two bucks to rub together and there\u0026rsquo;s not, I don\u0026rsquo;t know how I\u0026rsquo;m gonna get out of this.\nWhat do you draw on creativity when things are going well? You know, and, and it\u0026rsquo;s like, how can we make this even better? How can we, how can we bring even more to this and grow and blah, blah, blah, blah. It\u0026rsquo;s creativity. How can I position myself ahead of potential competitors or other colleagues or candidates?\nOr how can I get that gig? How can I get that promotion? You\u0026rsquo;ve gotta think outside the box. And I think that one of the best things that, that being creative or staying creative can do for you in your career is that it makes the journey. So much more fun. It\u0026rsquo;s less about this destination. You\u0026rsquo;re not, you\u0026rsquo;re not as fixated on, I need to get to X, which I think is a big part of why maybe in this old model and a lot of, a lot of people that are older now are struggling a bit, cuz they had this day, they had their eye on the prize that if they arrived at this particular place, everything would be better, but they sacrificed a lot to get there.\nAnd I think if you an you can anchor yourself in that playful, creative, curious, courageous space or state. Where you\u0026rsquo;re just in the game for the sake of the game, you\u0026rsquo;re having fun. You\u0026rsquo;re doing a podcast, you know, you\u0026rsquo;re trying this at work, you know, I\u0026rsquo;m gonna get up and do this, and I\u0026rsquo;m gonna put on an event at work.\nI\u0026rsquo;ve never put on an event before I don\u0026rsquo;t care. I\u0026rsquo;m gonna try it. I don\u0026rsquo;t care if three people show up, let\u0026rsquo;s do it. You know, the next time 30 people show up, you\u0026rsquo;re like, whoa, that\u0026rsquo;s crazy. How did that happen? Then 300 people show up. You\u0026rsquo;re like, this is insane. Now I\u0026rsquo;ve got a career. Like, it\u0026rsquo;s just a, you know, but if you do that, it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s almost like if you take one step toward.\nThe world in that way, it takes six towards you. It\u0026rsquo;s like, ah, right on, you are here to play. Well, then we will give you everything. You need to make the kind of magic that you are hoping to make. And I\u0026rsquo;ve just seen it time and time again. I mean, my own life is an example of that, but the people that I aspire to be more like the people that inspire me.\nThey just surrender and trust and lose themselves in that creative, in that flow state, not just in the particular time of day when they just they\u0026rsquo;re in it\nJames: Yeah. Yeah.\nMykel: From when they wake up to, when they go to bed, they\u0026rsquo;re just like, what do you got for me today? Universe, let\u0026rsquo;s go.\nJames: Mm\nMykel: And it\u0026rsquo;s such a departure from, well, I\u0026rsquo;ve gotta get there at nine because I\u0026rsquo;ve got a zoom session with, uh, Tony, and then I\u0026rsquo;ve got, you know, it\u0026rsquo;s.\nJames: Yeah,\nMykel: It\u0026rsquo;s difficult. Like they\u0026rsquo;re two completely different worlds, but, but I think we\u0026rsquo;ve gotta swing the pendulum back the other way.\nYou being at your best makes things better for everyone # James: Mm, no, absolutely. And like, like you said, I think part of, I, I feel like part of the reason why it\u0026rsquo;s. It does kind of open the doors up, like you said, and like six steps towards yours. You\u0026rsquo;re trying to start doing some of this stuff. I think, cuz like, I feel like having this, the fire inside and the energy is just so rare.\nThere\u0026rsquo;s when someone does have it, they\u0026rsquo;re just almost like a bit of a magnet. Right. It\u0026rsquo;s like people want to be around someone that\u0026rsquo;s after it and they\u0026rsquo;re um, you know, they\u0026rsquo;re just. Bring light to conversations and meetings, and they\u0026rsquo;re the person that\u0026rsquo;s, you know, does the meeting in a fun way. And it\u0026rsquo;s like super interesting and fun.\nUh, and it\u0026rsquo;s like, wow, I, I want some more of that. And so I think that\u0026rsquo;s a big part of it too, right. Is, is when you can, when you can engage that part. It\u0026rsquo;s, um, you know,, it\u0026rsquo;s fun for everyone else as well.\nMykel: Well, it\u0026rsquo;s beautiful, man. And, and it\u0026rsquo;s such a, such a, a, a, a really beautiful way of framing. It, like the difference that you can make to those around you by just being that guy or being that girl where you, or that person, where you just, you just, it\u0026rsquo;s fun to be around you. That doesn\u0026rsquo;t mean you have to make jokes all the time and you\u0026rsquo;d have to be gregarious and outgoing and extrover.\nBut it\u0026rsquo;s just like, man, it\u0026rsquo;s cool being around you. I like being on a project with you. I like having you in my team or I wish I was in your team or I want you to be in my team, whatever it is cuz they\u0026rsquo;re just, you know, you\u0026rsquo;re cool. And I think that\u0026rsquo;s gonna, that\u0026rsquo;s gonna be more and more the case moving forward is that we don\u0026rsquo;t have time for that person that.\nOn a one way ticket to like, I\u0026rsquo;m gonna get where I get and you can get, you know, elbows out and look at me. I\u0026rsquo;m awesome. I\u0026rsquo;ve got 50,000 followers in my LinkedIn, whatever who cares, where like I wanna hang out with a person that makes me feel good about who I am and someone that, that wants to play together and wants to share and wants, you know, me to contribute and wants to.\nHey, let\u0026rsquo;s just go and do something cool together. Yeah. What a great idea. That\u0026rsquo;s exactly what I want to do with my life. And that person I think, is gonna be, I think they\u0026rsquo;re gonna have a real advantage in the workplace because, um, it\u0026rsquo;s kind of like, you know, its weird and I don\u0026rsquo;t know if it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s a bit daggy to say, but if you\u0026rsquo;re picking teams like in a, in high school, you know, who are you gonna pick?\nYou\u0026rsquo;re gonna pick the people that make you feel good. Yeah. You might, uh, kind of wish that you\u0026rsquo;ve got the skills. Stuff like that, but I don\u0026rsquo;t know. We can learn the skills,\nJames: Mm.\nMykel: But if you\u0026rsquo;re a dude you\u0026rsquo;re in, if you are not you\u0026rsquo;re not\nJames: Yeah. yeah, no, no, absolutely. I think, I think that\u0026rsquo;s a good point. I think it\u0026rsquo;s um, yeah, it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s, uh, certainly real, like, yeah, it\u0026rsquo;s gonna be beneficial for everyone and like, you can bring so much joy everyone\u0026rsquo;s life when you are, when you are like that. Um, I think it\u0026rsquo;s like, it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s so important that yeah, that we kind of keep that, um, cuz.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s, you know, it\u0026rsquo;s almost a superpower to be connected to that energy, I think. And, and like you said, I think it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s kind of, there\u0026rsquo;s almost a bit of a trade off. I feel where it\u0026rsquo;s kind of like, perhaps on the one hand you do wanna be going after it in some sense. So you maybe don\u0026rsquo;t wanna completely lose that, but also you wanna do it in a way that it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s fun and you\u0026rsquo;re still kind of enjoying the right.\nBalancing Fun and Work # James: So I think, um, And that\u0026rsquo;s maybe a hard thing at times to, to balance, perhaps. I dunno if you have any thoughts on that. Like, you know, if you\u0026rsquo;re still just kind of real, like, if you are like, I really wanna be at this position or whatever, but it\u0026rsquo;s doing it in a way that\u0026rsquo;s still, you know, we\u0026rsquo;re still the creativity and the fun, all that kind of stuff is kind of still there as well.\nMykel: Yeah, I think it\u0026rsquo;s just being, being aware of the people around you and their, their situations, their, their aspirations, you know, what, what works for them. It\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s kind of just a courteous, thoughtful, considerate approach. You can still be hungry. Like if you metaphorically speaking, you wanna win some medal.\nYou want. Grand finalists. You wanna take home the premiership, whatever it is, you can get up at 4:00 AM and train all you want. You can be an asshole when you come to training or you can be a dude, but you can still push hard. You can run and you can sweat and you can be in the gym longer than everyone else, but you don\u0026rsquo;t have to be a BA you know, like a prick about it.\nForgive my language,\nJames: Mm,\nMykel: You know, you can still be cool. And, um, you can still push people and hold people to account without being mean.\nJames: Mm.\nMykel: I mean? Or without, without making people feel less than, or shaming them or, or isolating them, like it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s this inclusive, which again is very creative.\nLike creativity is all about collaboration and inclusivity and, and. Generous and generative, like it\u0026rsquo;s using whatever\u0026rsquo;s around you. It\u0026rsquo;s not judging going, eh, not that not you it\u0026rsquo;s like, Hey yeah, you come on, let\u0026rsquo;s do this together. Whatever it is. Let\u0026rsquo;s use that and build with that and put this here and off we go, you know?\nSo it\u0026rsquo;s um, yeah man, you know, pace, love and happiness.\nRe-Engaging with Creativity # James: Yeah, yeah. yeah, totally. No, I think that\u0026rsquo;s really cool. I mean, what have you give a lot of talks and, and like run heaps of staff around like bringing creativity back into the workplace. I mean, what have you like if someone is listening and they feel like they\u0026rsquo;ve, they\u0026rsquo;ve perhaps lost. Is there any like tips or, or things you would say to them to help them kind of perhaps get outta that route or kind of reengage with that?\nMykel: Again, I just say, get back to the things that you connect with that inspire you. It could be watching movies. It could be, um, listening to music. It could be going to events like you\u0026rsquo;ve gotta seek out what inspires you and then let it affect you. Like it\u0026rsquo;s. If, if what\u0026rsquo;s going in. Is directly related to what comes out.\nAnd if you are not feeling inspired, you\u0026rsquo;re not feeling creative. You\u0026rsquo;re not feeling like you not having these ideas and coming to you. And I don\u0026rsquo;t really know who I am or what I want, or et cetera, et cetera, go and find it, like get hungry for it. And even if it\u0026rsquo;s uncomfortable, even if you, you don\u0026rsquo;t like going to live events, figure out a way, like, just get, excuse me, get curious.\nAnd because, um, It\u0026rsquo;s not gonna, like you\u0026rsquo;ve G you\u0026rsquo;ve just gotta show a little bit. It\u0026rsquo;s not gonna come to you. If you\u0026rsquo;re sitting at home, you know, it\u0026rsquo;s not gonna come to you. If you are going to the same places, talking to the same people, listening to the same stuff, whatever it is, you\u0026rsquo;ve just gotta, if you just like that one little step closer, uh it\u0026rsquo;ll come.\nAnd, and as simply, as you know, we discussed before art fiction read a novel instead of a business magazine, like read, read things that. Are designed to ignite your imagination and then you just let your subconscious do the heavy lifting cuz a lot of the time. You just fill your brain with beautiful stuff, fill your brain with interesting people, go to a cool event, go to the theater, man.\nI\u0026rsquo;m a big musical B I\u0026rsquo;m, you know, I love it. Go and see the theater. The theater affects you in a way cause we just don\u0026rsquo;t do it enough. And that\u0026rsquo;s what we\u0026rsquo;ve done for thousands of years, we\u0026rsquo;ve gone and seen other humans tell stories live on stage. And when you do that, everybody comes out different.\nThey\u0026rsquo;re like, oh yeah. Wow. I forgot how much I liked that stuff. Honestly, they, they really do. You can take, you know, a trade there, you can take an engineer there, you can take a mathematician or a devil, whoever, oh, I\u0026rsquo;m not really into, you know, theater, March rara. And they sit through a show and they go, Jesus.\nYeah. I haven\u0026rsquo;t really thought about it like that before.\nJames: Mm.\nMykel: You know, this is wow. It\u0026rsquo;s made me think about what I\u0026rsquo;m doing with my life. And maybe that\u0026rsquo;s the, that\u0026rsquo;s the whole design of it.\nJames: Mm.\nMykel: That\u0026rsquo;s that\u0026rsquo;s the whole purpose and intent of art is to get you to think differently and open you up and connect ideas for you.\nSo get hungry for it, go and see some, go see something cool. You know, that, that affects you. And then it just it\u0026rsquo;ll it\u0026rsquo;ll come. I promise you it\u0026rsquo;s it\u0026rsquo;s that? It\u0026rsquo;s like, you know what I mean? Like you can sit there and strategize. Um, okay. What\u0026rsquo;s the best way that I can design my, um, lifting routine in the gym.\nLike how can I, okay. I\u0026rsquo;m gonna do push on Monday. I\u0026rsquo;m gonna do pool routine on Tuesday. I\u0026rsquo;m gonna do my legs on Wednesday. I\u0026rsquo;m gonna, and I\u0026rsquo;m gonna have my macros. You can spend hours on all that, or you can just go do some pushups and then like, Three minutes later, you\u0026rsquo;ve just, you\u0026rsquo;ve done a hundred pushups.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s just it\u0026rsquo;s there. You could, we can overthink this. We can overcook it. We can try to figure out something or you can just go on, listen to some music, go find some art, go, go to somewhere that is creative and let it just kind of wash all over you as a starting point. And it will, it, it, it just kind of.\nYeah, we don\u0026rsquo;t need to make it any more complicated than that. You know what I mean? It\u0026rsquo;s powerful. It\u0026rsquo;s a powerful thing. Like we don\u0026rsquo;t need to figure it out. We just need to let it in.\nJames: Mm. Yeah, no, I think it\u0026rsquo;s spot on there. I think even like what you were saying earlier was around, like, if you just take one step in this direction, Get one, you know, go like go to something like that, readable, you know, try something a bit different what\u0026rsquo;s outside of perhaps the routine. Cause I think that\u0026rsquo;s, that can maybe be something that, um, can perhaps be negative, uh, after a while is like the habits and routines and these kinds of things.\nLike while they perhaps. Beneficial in some ways, if it\u0026rsquo;s like, oh, you\u0026rsquo;re trying to build a habit of reading or like build a habit of going to the gym. Okay. That\u0026rsquo;s great. But I feel like, you know, at some point too, they become, it\u0026rsquo;s like a, it can become a negative as well. Can be, can be something that perhaps you depend on or it\u0026rsquo;s leading you into sort of somewhere that\u0026rsquo;s a bit stale and it\u0026rsquo;s not really, you know, giving you that the fun and the energy, um, anymore.\nSo then it\u0026rsquo;s worth looking at. in, you know, bringing, bringing it back, like switching it up, doing something completely different, like you said, um, you know, trying it in a different way, things like that. And I think it\u0026rsquo;s, um, you know, I\u0026rsquo;m, I\u0026rsquo;m really interested now to kind of go and look at the things in my life and see how I can, you know, flip them around or do it in this particular way or try something crazy that I, you know, that may or may not work, but just to give it a go, do you know what I mean?\nUm, and I think that\u0026rsquo;s, I think that\u0026rsquo;s really.\nMykel: Mm, awesome. You\u0026rsquo;re awesome, mate.\nJames: No. Thank you, man. Well, we\u0026rsquo;ve got like probably 10 minutes to go and there\u0026rsquo;s one that, there\u0026rsquo;s a few things I, I really wanted to ask. Um, so perhaps we\u0026rsquo;ll just fill the remainer\nMykel: Yeah. Great,\nHow to be a good public speaker # James: Some questions perhaps a little bit more, uh, more, uh, Tangible for housing and some of what things we\u0026rsquo;ve been speaking about, which I think are also really important, but one of the things was around, uh, public speaking and, and sort of presentations and stuff.\nCuz I know that you are really, really, really good at this and you\u0026rsquo;ve won lots of awards and things for the things that you do in this area. But I wonder, has it been something that you\u0026rsquo;ve tried to improve?\nMykel: Mm-hmm\nJames: Consciously. And if so, like we can kind of, where did you start in your journey with all this and how have you kind of evolved and what kind of learnings, I guess, have you learned along the way?\nMykel: Mm-hmm, I\u0026rsquo;d say, um, for anyone that\u0026rsquo;s gotta present, that\u0026rsquo;s another skill that we\u0026rsquo;re all gonna have to have, you know, and particularly if you wanna move up the ranks in whatever business, being able to communicate effectively, being able to influence from a stage presentation pitch, whatever it is, marketing sales, even getting buy in for your ideas.\nBeing able to communicate effectively to a, to a group of people or a large room of people is a. Crucial tool, but honestly, like we can get into the nuance of it again. I\u0026rsquo;m this is probably an oversimplified answer. It\u0026rsquo;s time on the court. The more you do it, the better you\u0026rsquo;ll get. There are ways to elevate, like to accelerate.\nMaybe, you know, you go deep into storytelling or you think about posture and breathing and you can the tonality of your voice and da, da, da, da. There\u0026rsquo;s a, there\u0026rsquo;s a whole range of things to. Get become more high performance, but in the beginning you just gotta do it a lot. Again, it\u0026rsquo;s me, you know, I\u0026rsquo;m going back to this, just do some pushups.\nJust go look at, listen to some creativity or be around a creative space. Go for a walk in Fitzroy, you know, co water, just be around the Crimmon. It\u0026rsquo;s all funky and cool. Now, you know what I mean? Similarly, with public speaking, take opportunities, find opportunities, create opportunities to speak in front of people.\nGet terrified. Throw up before it, if you have to freak out about it for three weeks, write 17,000 words for a two minute talk and delete it all and start again and stress about it. Go through that process as much. And as often as you can, because you will learn more than again, strategizing or thinking or looking for the three top tip tips or the six practical hacks.\nJames: Mm.\nMykel: This is, I think speaks to, again, you know, kind of in line with this whole conversation we\u0026rsquo;ve had today, the old there\u0026rsquo;s a way of looking at the world, which is how do I get there by doing X, Y, Z? Yeah. Cool. Or just do it, just get in the game, just play. And even if you, you will learn more in one presentation, one keynote, one speech, then you will in 50 practice runs. Like the moment you step up on stage, you\u0026rsquo;re just BA you are in the learning and you\u0026rsquo;re freaking out and you says something good. And then you see someone in the audience and they look at your particular way. And you\u0026rsquo;re like, oh my God, I suck. I gotta get off the stage. It\u0026rsquo;s horrible. Ah, you know, all of this is going on, but you\u0026rsquo;re learning in that.\nYou\u0026rsquo;re learning, learning, learning, learning, learning, and then you get off and someone, you go, oh my God, kill me. That was the worst thing that ever happened. Someone comes up to you and goes, that was amazing, James, thanks so much. I loved the way you did that. And you\u0026rsquo;re like, what the hell was I the same thing?\nJames: Yeah,\nMykel: You know, this is it\u0026rsquo;s and you\u0026rsquo;ve gotta go through that process and then you do it again, and then you get off one and you go, I nailed that. Like, I absolutely nailed it. And someone comes up and goes, Hey, man, that really wasn\u0026rsquo;t very good. And you\u0026rsquo;re like, oh my God, what is, I don\u0026rsquo;t even know.\nJames: Yeah.\nMykel: I don\u0026rsquo;t know anymore.\nYou know, I just, it\u0026rsquo;s just one of those things that. Just do it, do it as much as you can, as often as you can. And it starts as simple as putting your hand up in a meeting or unmuting yourself on a zoom call or a teams\u0026rsquo; call, you know, it\u0026rsquo;s so easy nowadays, just to, has anyone got any questions tumbleweed,\nJames: Mm.\nMykel: You know, uh, I\u0026rsquo;ll wait for them to ask.\nUh, I\u0026rsquo;ll wait for them to speak. I\u0026rsquo;ll wait. They\u0026rsquo;re the, normally the ones that do it. Oh no, it\u0026rsquo;s Tony. He\u0026rsquo;s the rara. They\u0026rsquo;re getting all the benefit. If you don\u0026rsquo;t jump in, you are, you know, they\u0026rsquo;re learning and they\u0026rsquo;re growing in their craft of being comfortable and confident speaking. So it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s kind of like, Hey, I wanna go too and see that sometimes.\nLike, I, I try to get people to raise your hand before you\u0026rsquo;ve got a question, you know, people say, does anyone have any questions? Yeah. Just raise your hand. and go, oh shit. And then they go, oh, Michael, would you, um, yeah. And you\u0026rsquo;ll surprise yourself. You will come up with something\nJames: Mm,\nlike people do. That\u0026rsquo;s what we do.\nWe\u0026rsquo;re so much more gifted and talented and creative and spontaneous than we give ourselves credit for. We just don\u0026rsquo;t put ourselves in the mix enough, know, we hold back and we now we\u0026rsquo;ve got screens and mute buttons, which we could hide behind even more.\nMm.\nMykel: When it used to be at least rooms where we were in the same room together, you kind of look around and, you know, you\u0026rsquo;d look down at the table and try to avoid eye contact to not get picked on.\nNow we can just UN take our, you know, screen down or whatever, take, turn our camera off and we can just hide.\nJames: Mm.\nMykel: And it\u0026rsquo;s like, well, won\u0026rsquo;t get any benefit from that. You won\u0026rsquo;t grow through that. So this is, I think there\u0026rsquo;s probably never been a better time to learn and grow how to speak in front of people in this kind of weird hybrid zoomy world, because you can just, you can just put your hand out, like just join in contribute, and then.\nDoes anyone want to lead this? Who wants to share? I will bugger it. You\u0026rsquo;re at a conference and you\u0026rsquo;re in a breakout table. Everyone\u0026rsquo;s like, oh, who\u0026rsquo;s gonna be the one that report I will, unless someone else wants to. And you can even say, look, I will, I don\u0026rsquo;t want to, but I want to get better at public speaking.\nSo I love to have a go at it, even though I really don\u0026rsquo;t wanna have a go at it. You say that and everyone on the table goes, oh, awesome. Go James. Yeah, we\u0026rsquo;re behind you. Sure. I wish I had the courage to do. And you could say, Hey, well, I\u0026rsquo;ll maybe I\u0026rsquo;ll do the first one. You do the second one then, and then everyone can grow and learn together,\nJames: Mm.\nMykel: You know, rather than, oh, Tracy, she always, I\u0026rsquo;ll just, let\u0026rsquo;s just let Tracy speak.\nJames: Mm.\nMykel: And we, we let ourselves off the hook, but, but yeah, there\u0026rsquo;s, there\u0026rsquo;s loads of stuff. There are so many things that you can do to really refine your public speaking and become, you know, you could bring all kinds of magic down the track, but to begin with like a starting point, I really think just. Often all the time.\nAnd these are things that I learned from my music career. A lot of the time, you know, there\u0026rsquo;s practicing at home, there\u0026rsquo;s doing scales, there\u0026rsquo;s PIOs, there\u0026rsquo;s, you know, listening to tunes, transcribing, working it out. But a lot of all of the guys that I looked up to that kind of helped me guided me on my way.\nThey say, just book a gig, man. Just get a gig. You\u0026rsquo;ll learn more on a gig, just book as many gigs as you can try and do as many gigs play to no one play on the street bus play in a shopping center where no one\u0026rsquo;s listening to you play wherever you can, because you\u0026rsquo;ll just, you\u0026rsquo;ll learn so much quicker by being in the game.\nJames: Yeah.\nMykel: So that\u0026rsquo;s my, that\u0026rsquo;s my tip on public speaking.\nJames: No, that\u0026rsquo;s really cool. I think it\u0026rsquo;s yeah, like the, I like the way yeah, you sort of, uh, landed that into the creativity. You\u0026rsquo;ve gotta be in the game as well. Right.\nMykel: Hundred percent.\nJames: So it\u0026rsquo;s a similar thing. Uh, you\u0026rsquo;re gonna best grow your and, and water, the garden of creativity., you know, if you\u0026rsquo;re in there and you\u0026rsquo;re playing the game and you\u0026rsquo;re testing things out.\nSo I think that\u0026rsquo;s super cool.\nMykel: You\u0026rsquo;re tying it all together. My friend, I like it.\nAdvice for Graduates # James: Amazing. Well, yeah, I\u0026rsquo;ve got, um, a last question for you, Michael. Uh, it\u0026rsquo;s something that I ask all the guests and, you know, Graduate Theory. It\u0026rsquo;s sort of, uh, yeah, we\u0026rsquo;re about young people that are sort of perhaps surround my age early career, perhaps at university. I wonder if there\u0026rsquo;s any advice that you would hand it to people that are at this stage, uh, kind of looking to grow their career and, and ideally be in the sort of 2% that.\nStill the creative genius. Uh, you know, when they\u0026rsquo;re a bit older.\nMykel: You? Can\u0026rsquo;t. You\u0026rsquo;ve got. You can\u0026rsquo;t let the world get to you. You are going to be met with, I hope it\u0026rsquo;s changing. I really do. I think it is. I think it\u0026rsquo;s changing, but probably still the next, maybe 10 years might be a bit bumpy. We\u0026rsquo;re we\u0026rsquo;re trying to figure it out. You are gonna have people that are mean you\u0026rsquo;re gonna have people that talk about you behind your back.\nYou\u0026rsquo;re gonna have people that actively try to, you know, withhold information from you or stunt your career, or do all these kind of things. Don\u0026rsquo;t let him stop here. You know, like you\u0026rsquo;ve got to, you\u0026rsquo;ve got to trust yourself, love yourself. You\u0026rsquo;ve got to accept that you came here for a reason and it\u0026rsquo;s not better or smaller or grander or lesser than anyone.\nElse\u0026rsquo;s. If you are here, you are meant to be here and you have a voice and you have something you\u0026rsquo;re supposed to contribute to this planet. And that could be your neighbors. That could be your family. That could be, you know, the colleague customers. You could be there another Steve jobs, you could be another Barry who lives in the suburbs.\nWho\u0026rsquo;s just a radical dude who says Gade to the posty every day. It doesn\u0026rsquo;t matter. You\u0026rsquo;re here for a reason and you just cannot let the world diminish you and make you feel less than. How, how much of a miracle you are? And this might sound like a little bit, you know, Tony Robbins, motivational speaky, but we need that right now.\nWe\u0026rsquo;ve been told we\u0026rsquo;re not enough. We\u0026rsquo;ve been told that we\u0026rsquo;re not gonna make it, that we aren\u0026rsquo;t, this, that we\u0026rsquo;re not as good as them. That we\u0026rsquo;re NA NA you open up Instagram. It\u0026rsquo;s just, everyone\u0026rsquo;s better than you skinnier than you got more money than you. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It\u0026rsquo;s horrible.\nJames: Hmm.\nMykel: And it\u0026rsquo;s all bullshit, cuz all those people are worried and terrified and you know, insecure and rah, rah, you\u0026rsquo;ve just like my advice would be find people that you can trust and rely on and just hold this little unit of, of kind of safety and sacredness where you value each other.\nYou support one another, you remind each other. Hey, we\u0026rsquo;re awesome. Because the next world, the world that you\u0026rsquo;ll all be building is it\u0026rsquo;s gonna be better. Than the one that I inherited. And the one I inherited was better than the one my parents did. And the one that they, you know, we, we\u0026rsquo;re getting better.\nWe\u0026rsquo;re on this journey, but it\u0026rsquo;s, it, it can knock you around, man. It can knock you round and it can, it\u0026rsquo;s, you know, whether people mean to, or not, whatever you. Everyone. That\u0026rsquo;s listening to this right now. And you included, James are extraordinary. You\u0026rsquo;ve got just so many beautiful, astonishing things to give to this world.\nWe don\u0026rsquo;t even know what they are yet. That\u0026rsquo;s the magic of it. It\u0026rsquo;s like, wow, who knows what James is gonna do in five years time or 10 years or 20 years. But if you start to believe a little story in your head that maybe James doesn\u0026rsquo;t have something special to give, then you are not gonna launch that next project.\nAnd then we don\u0026rsquo;t get the benefit of that. And this is the same as true, which I try to tell as many people as possible when I\u0026rsquo;m doing a keynote or a session, a leadership program, et cetera, et cetera. Look, guys, I really encourage you to share generously, cuz I can talk at you for two hours, three weeks, nine months.\nI can blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Hey, I hope that you get some value from that. Let\u0026rsquo;s, let\u0026rsquo;s hope that there\u0026rsquo;s a little bit of insight in there, but the real value\u0026rsquo;s gonna come from you all sharing your story, your experience, your perspective, how you see and perceive the world. You have no idea that the question you ask or the story you share, or the insight that you, you know, that came to you, that could be the thing that unlocks something for someone else.\nAnd the whole reason they came to this event or this keynote, or this program, or whatever was to hear you say that thing. Not to hear me. It\u0026rsquo;s you. And so if you don\u0026rsquo;t lean in, if you don\u0026rsquo;t share, because you don\u0026rsquo;t think, oh, I don\u0026rsquo;t, oh my question\u0026rsquo;s not good enough. Or, oh, I\u0026rsquo;m not as talented as the others.\nOr then you are robbing that person of having what they need. Do you know what I mean? Like you are, you are stopping them from getting the magic that they need to set their life on fire. We\u0026rsquo;re all connected and it\u0026rsquo;s so insidious. And it\u0026rsquo;s so terrifying when we start to believe that we\u0026rsquo;re not enough or that we don\u0026rsquo;t have something amazing to contribute.\nAnd that amazing thing to contribute could literally be, Hey, I\u0026rsquo;m not sure I understand what\u0026rsquo;s going on. You put your hand up and ask that question. Fantastic. There\u0026rsquo;s probably 17 other people that are thinking that, but are too afraid to ask it and you\u0026rsquo;ve just go, oh God, thanks so much for asking that.\nThat was awesome. Amazing. That\u0026rsquo;s this is what we, we want a world like that and where we\u0026rsquo;re just generous and we\u0026rsquo;re in it together. And we are just, we\u0026rsquo;re all being ourselves and sharing ourselves as much as possible and that, and that kind of place. That\u0026rsquo;s the world I want to, I wanna live in and it\u0026rsquo;s coming.\nSo, so hang in there, team I\u0026rsquo;m with you. You know what I mean? We\u0026rsquo;re in this together.\nJames: Amazing mate. That was, that was really fantastic. Thanks so much for the kind words and yeah, I think that was some serious wisdom there. Um, and really inspiring too. So I think I\u0026rsquo;ll be coming back to. Don\u0026rsquo;t listen to that. like many, many times. Uh, appreciate it. Well, thanks so much for coming on, Michael.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s been an absolute pleasure to have you on and hear your thoughts and, and get your wisdom. Um, but for folks listening, I wonder if there\u0026rsquo;s any places that you\u0026rsquo;d like to point them, uh, where they can find it now about more about you.\nMykel: Yeah, web, I mean, website Michael dixon.com, M Y K E L D I X O n.com. I\u0026rsquo;ve firing up the LinkedIn in the Instagram lately, because partly because it\u0026rsquo;s so. Terrible on there. you know, like we need more light and joy and not this, I don\u0026rsquo;t know. We need more alternative voices out there on, in the mix. So I\u0026rsquo;m kind of bringing that back with a bit of vengeance, which is hopefully fun.\nJames: Yeah, I\u0026rsquo;m\nMykel: Yeah, come and say hi.\nOutro # James: Thanks for listening to this episode I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. If you want to get my takeaways, the things that I learned from this episode, please go to Graduate Theory.com/subscribe, where you can get my takeaways and all the information about each episode, straight to your inbox.\nThanks so much for listening again today, and we\u0026rsquo;re looking forward to seeing you next week.\n← Back to episode 46\n","date":"5 September 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/graduate-theory/46-mykel-dixon-rediscovering-creativity/transcript/","section":"Graduate Theory Transcripts","summary":"← Back to episode 46\nThis transcript has been lightly edited for readability. It may still contain transcription errors.\nMykel: If we’re not careful, this is the world that we’re in. It can be taken from us. Can be stolen from us. It can be, you know, but if we were to switch and go, well, what happens if we do engage with it?\n","title":"Transcript: Mykel Dixon | On Rediscovering Your Creativity","type":"graduate-theory-transcripts"},{"content":" Watch the conversation Graduate Theory Open YouTube ↗ Read the full transcript → Today\u0026rsquo;s guest is a leader in his field. He has grown the engineering team at Canva from a startup to one of the best engineering workplaces in Australia.\nThis episode is an insight into managing and growing your engineering skills to a high level.\nThis article was sent to subscribers of the Graduate Theory newsletter.\nSubscribe now 👇\nSubscribe Now\nWatch this episode on YouTube.\nBrendan Humphreys is the Head of Engineering at Canva.\n🤝 Connect with Brendan # LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendanhumphreys/\nTwitter - https://twitter.com/brendanh\n👇 Episode Takeaways # Management is a Skill (and you can learn it) # Brendan spent much of his career before Canva as an individual contributor. He eventually sold a tool that he built to Atlassian, and then moved to Canva.\nHe spoke about the switch from individual contributor to management, and how it was absolutely something that could be learned. In fact, being an IC first can make it even easier to be a manager.\nif they\u0026rsquo;ve been individual contributors in the recent past, and they\u0026rsquo;ve stepped into engineering management, I think that gives them a high degree of empathy with the engineers that they are managing\nyou can learn to be a great manager\nAn understanding of the tools makes this easier\nUnderstanding Context using First Principles # I asked Brendan about common mistakes that junior engineers make, and he spoke about thinking through problems from first principles.\nit\u0026rsquo;s a bit of an anti-pattern in engineering to be in that mode of unconstrained ideation where you\u0026rsquo;re just \u0026ldquo;what if we did this? And what if we did that?\u0026rdquo; And my answer is always, \u0026ldquo;you tell me what, what if we did that?\u0026rdquo; Spend the time to figure it out\nOne of the best things junior engineers can do is try to understand the context of what they are doing in the organisation.\nComing up with new suggestions and new tools is great, but an understanding of how they would fit into the organisation is critical.\nEmpathy in Engineering # Brendan highlighted to me the importance of empathy in engineering.\nBeing able to steelman an argument and have a robust, considerate and understanding conversation is very important in facilitating collaboration amongst teams.\nbeing able to see a problem from different viewpoints [\u0026hellip;] is highly valuable in unlocking collaboration in teams.\nAs a way to practice this, Brendan suggested trying to \u0026ldquo;steelman\u0026rdquo; opposing arguments. Even if you disagree with something, try to present the argument in the best possible way, understanding it fully. Once this is done, consider the perspective and compare to your own.\nThis is an effective way to discuss difficult topics.\nGet the Newsletter\n📝 Content Timestamps # 00:00 Intro\n00:29 A Day in the Life\n05:11 Designing a Promotion Structure\n06:27 Did Brendan always want to be in management\n08:51 Measuring engineering teams\n12:51 What makes an effective manager\n17:31 10x engineers\n22:00 Skill improvement as an IC\n25:15 Tips for Junior Engineers\n34:58 Specialise vs Generalise\n38:21 Engineering traits that are undervalued\n43:01 Importance of startup journey\n49:29 Failure that ended up being a success\n51:45 Best investment of time or money\n54:37 Advice for Graduates\n57:25 Outro\n","date":"29 August 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/graduate-theory/45-brendan-humphreys/","section":"Graduate Theory","summary":" Watch the conversation Graduate Theory Open YouTube ↗ Read the full transcript → Today’s guest is a leader in his field. He has grown the engineering team at Canva from a startup to one of the best engineering workplaces in Australia.\n","title":"Brendan Humphreys | On Developing Your Engineering Career","type":"graduate-theory"},{"content":"← Back to episode 45\nThis transcript has been lightly edited for readability. It may still contain transcription errors.\nBrendan: Engineering is, and probably always will be a highly collaborative exercise. And so being able to see, uh, a problem from different viewpoints and to really, uh, to deeply build that skill of being able to do that is highly valuable in unlocking collaboration in teams.\nA Day in the Life # James: Okay. Let\u0026rsquo;s get started. So we\u0026rsquo;d love to hear Brendan, what a day in the life of Brendan looks like in terms of, um, like what, what is your day like today, your week? Like, is it, do you have like meetings all day? Do you still do much, uh, like programming and during the day, or is it all just meetings and stuff interested to hear\nBrendan: I do a fair few meetings, um, but I\u0026rsquo;m careful to defend my time. So, you know, one of the tricks you learn fairly early on, uh, is defensive calendaring where you kind of block out your calendar and you protect it so that, uh, people can\u0026rsquo;t just invade, uh, your calendar and, and. block out town time.\nSo if you create that space, uh, to do the deep thinking, that\u0026rsquo;s important. And I use that to do mostly reading. Like I read a lot of documents, um, internal, I read a lot of stuff externally, but, but mostly internally, um, just reading and approving proposals. Um, but look, when I\u0026rsquo;m in meetings, I\u0026rsquo;m dealing with a whole bunch of, um, uh, different aspects of, of running a big company.\nSo a lot of it is context sharing. I try to maintain a, a very broad view of what the hundreds of teams are doing. It\u0026rsquo;s necessarily broad, cuz there\u0026rsquo;s so many teams and there\u0026rsquo;s so much activity, but in my travels, in talking to people, I can, uh, hopefully spot opportunities for, you know, team team, a to talk to team B, cuz you seem like you\u0026rsquo;re doing something, uh, quite related.\nUm, also sharing context, uh, across teams. So, uh, teams can feel like they\u0026rsquo;re not getting the resources they need to execute on their goals or their, their, their work is not being prioritized or it\u0026rsquo;s, or they\u0026rsquo;re blocked. Uh, I can provide context around priorities. I can help unblock. Uh, I can. So it\u0026rsquo;s that kind of tactical work is quite important, but I, I. Try to focus also on some of the more strategic questions for Canver Canberra\u0026rsquo;s been growing, uh, exponentially as a company. And, uh, so there\u0026rsquo;s a lot of scale challenges that come with growing an org very, very quickly. We\u0026rsquo;ve been doubling our org every year, uh, year on year, uh, for at least seven years.\nAnd that means we have to kind of constantly evolve, um, the processes and the structures and figure out what what\u0026rsquo;s working. What\u0026rsquo;s not where are the gaps, um, and try to pragmatically put in place, uh, new processes and structures as we evolve and grow. Um, and try to think, you know, try to be future thinking in that, like where, where do we need to be in a year or in five years, and try to lay some tracks in those directions.\nUm, I spend a fair bit of time too, with escalations. So things that, that just, um, for there\u0026rsquo;s competing opposing views on, on whatever proposal and it\u0026rsquo;ll come to me and I\u0026rsquo;ll make a final call. Uh, I deal with a lot of approvals. So salary approvals, equity approvals, hiring plans, spending on tooling, and I spend a fair bit of time doing recruitment.\nSo when we are trying to recruit top talent, uh, I will be involved, uh, to try and, um, sell, sell, uh, high profile candidates on, uh, the joys of working at Canada. The challenges that are before us. Uh, another thing that takes a lot of my time is, uh, performance management. Like thinking about, uh, our career framework, adapting our career framework, interpreting our career framework so that our managers, uh, understand how to set expectations.\nUh, we have a system of promotions, so, or we don\u0026rsquo;t call them promotions. We call them role changes at Canva. So we run a process that, um, at a regular cycle we accept applications to, to be promoted. And we look at evidence, uh, of an individual\u0026rsquo;s, uh, output, uh, at see if it measures up for, for that promotion.\nAnd we put a lot of effort into that to make sure that we calibrate across the organization. So we are fair. Uh that\u0026rsquo;s that\u0026rsquo;s a lot of work.\nDesigning a Promotion Structure # James: It\u0026rsquo;s pretty cool. And when you think about like designing some of these things, like whether it\u0026rsquo;s the sort of, um, the structure around promotions and like you, you mentioned that the engineering size has growing quite rapidly, where do you look to, or like, how does, how do you sort of think about creating those things?\nLike, cuz are there, do you kind of borrow from other organizations that are in a similar situation or is it kind of like, let\u0026rsquo;s just think about this from first principles and try and design our own, like, or maybe it\u0026rsquo;s both, it sounds like it\u0026rsquo;s a kind of a tough thing, right? When things are growing that quickly,\nBrendan: Yeah, look, it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s a little from column a, a little from Colin B. We certainly go and look at prior art. Um, we study companies that are ahead of us on the growth curve. Um, we try to look at those companies kind of soberly. Um, and, uh, we use some as caution, retails and others as kind of exemplars that we might want to replicate.\nWe always wanna put our spin on processes and structures though, to make them our own. So we, we invest a fair amount of effort into kind of understanding what\u0026rsquo;s worked for other companies. And then distilling it into language that is familiar to, to Canva and feels very kind of Canva reque.\nDid Brendan always want to be in management # James: Mm. Yeah. Nice. Have a question too, around like your role at the moment. You\u0026rsquo;re obviously looking after lots of different engineering teams across the organization, but is that something that you always wanted to do? Like, did you always see yourself as someone that was like leading like lots of engineers or has it like perhaps been something more recently that you were kind of like, oh, this could be cool.\nLike, let\u0026rsquo;s give it.\nBrendan: It certainly wasn\u0026rsquo;t a career ambition at all. I, uh, I\u0026rsquo;ve always enjoyed individual contribution and engineering management, but mostly individual contribution. And across my career, I\u0026rsquo;ve mostly just been an engineer, uh, and, and building things I have had stints at being a manager in other organizations. I think that the difference with Canver is I joined very early.\nSo the level of commitment I have\nto is probably\nuh, higher than, than at any time in my career. And, uh, I\u0026rsquo;ve always had this philosophy of just doing whatever. And I think a lot of the, a lot of the early employees had this, uh, very early on of just doing whatever is needed. And so, um, as we grew, you know, it became more and more apparent that we need engineering management, uh, as well as individual contribution.\nAnd I kind of found myself kind of stepping more and more into that role at Canva, but I enjoy it. Um, I think the challenges are, and the challenges and the rewards are very different, but the rewards are still there and they\u0026rsquo;re still quite intellectual. It\u0026rsquo;s\nMm.\nit\u0026rsquo;s not, um, it\u0026rsquo;s not coding. I do get to do that occasionally, but very, very rarely.\nAnd it\u0026rsquo;s always a bit sobering when you, when you try, try and try and get back on the tools and realize, oh, it\u0026rsquo;s been a while. How does, how does, how does get work\nJames: See. oh, that\u0026rsquo;s funny. No, that\u0026rsquo;s cool. That\u0026rsquo;s interesting to hear that. Cuz I think, um, yeah, many people that are like senior and perhaps like even more senior than like the most senior people. Right. Have this clear thing without like from an early stage, I like I\u0026rsquo;m gonna pursue this a hundred percent. Uh, and then that\u0026rsquo;s kind of their vision and then it\u0026rsquo;s just a long time until they end up getting that.\nSo that\u0026rsquo;s interesting. I think it\u0026rsquo;s interesting to hear different ways people approach that.\nSure.\nMeasuring engineering teams # James: Excellent. Well, what about, um, let\u0026rsquo;s talk about like management and stuff there. You mentioned, um, how do you actually, when we talk about like an engineering team and the performance of those teams, I\u0026rsquo;m interested to hear how you think about the, like, measuring that performance, because it\u0026rsquo;s some, it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s something that\u0026rsquo;s perhaps hard to do.\nLike you could, there\u0026rsquo;s kind of maybe bad metrics, like lines of code or something like that, where it\u0026rsquo;s not really reflective of the actual work that\u0026rsquo;s being done. Like how does, how does that process work, um, for yourself? Do you have any ways you think about, uh, tackling that.\nBrendan: Yeah, it is a, it\u0026rsquo;s a really tricky thing in engineering. The ultimate measure is are teams delivering on their goals? Are they setting good goals? And are they able to break those goals down into milestones? And then are they able to deliver on those milestones, uh, in a, in a timely fashion? So we, we really try to look at the output of teams and individuals.\nUm, we don\u0026rsquo;t want that, that output to come at a personal cost though, for those teams. So we, we, we kind of talk about sustainable urgency. We want teams to go fast, but only as fast as, uh, they can while maintaining healthy work life balance and, you know, a sustainable work culture for the long term, you gave that example of measuring.\nVarious development metrics. And that is a really, um, dangerous road to go down. Um, we, we talk about good heart\u0026rsquo;s law at, at Canver quite a bit. Uh, we are striving to be a data driven company, but in, in being a data driven company, we want to always be mindful of good heart\u0026rsquo;s law, which is basically saying that as soon as you start measuring something via a particular metric, that metric tends to tends to lose its value is a good way of measuring anything.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s also really important to remember that. If you are totally focused on metrics, then there\u0026rsquo;s a risk of focusing on things that you can easily measure. And there\u0026rsquo;s a whole lot of really important things that are not easy to measure. Uh, so we just have to keep that in mind when we\u0026rsquo;re, when we are kind of constructing, uh, success measures for teams and ultimately it\u0026rsquo;s about delivery and that sustainable delivery.\nSo we look for that track record of delivery at individuals and teams, and we look for the health and wellbeing of the team to make sure that the team is, is happy in, in delivering.\nJames: Hmm.\nBrendan: Um, yeah. That\u0026rsquo;s it\u0026rsquo;s look, we could talk\nJames: Yeah.\nBrendan: On that. You know, your example of measuring commits, I\u0026rsquo;ve literally seen. I\u0026rsquo;ve seen, I\u0026rsquo;ve seen teams that are, that, you know, there\u0026rsquo;s a leaderboard of, you know, the, the top committers and it, and it, it drives perverse behaviors. You know, people figure out how to create commits or how to break their changes into smaller commits. So they write up the leaderboard and, you know, we, so you\u0026rsquo;ve really gotta be careful.\nUh, it also sends a message when you, when you focused on those, um, uh, code oriented metrics, whatever they are, that all of the other activities that are essential in running a team, aren\u0026rsquo;t as important. You know, we\u0026rsquo;ve got for engineering managers, there\u0026rsquo;s a lot of work that goes into expectation management of the team, running the cadences of the team, uh, discussing and reviewing technical approaches and all of that\u0026rsquo;s much harder to measure.\nSo if you\u0026rsquo;re focused on these hard kind of code oriented metrics, you can actually send the message that this other vital work isn\u0026rsquo;t as important. And that\u0026rsquo;s, that\u0026rsquo;s very dangerous.\nJames: Yeah, no, it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s an interesting take there. I liked the, um, you know, the urgency consistent urgency, I think, um, something like that, but I think that\u0026rsquo;s a great way of doing it. Right. Um,\nBrendan: Yeah, sustainable urgency\nJames: That\u0026rsquo;s right. Gotcha.\nBrendan: Yeah. The time that we\nWhat makes an effective manager # James: No, very good. Um, what do you think, like a lot of, lot of talk there about like engineering managers and, and things, what do you think are some traits that make effective managers in your experience?\nBrendan: Mm-hmm look our best frontline managers, uh, tend to be those who have some recent lived experience on the tools. In other words, there\u0026rsquo;ve been individual contributors in the recent past, and they\u0026rsquo;ve kind of stepped into engineering management. I think that gives them, uh, a high degree of empathy with the engineers that they are.\nManaging, we do expect our engineering managers to be technical contributors. Um, usually that\u0026rsquo;s through technical direction through reviewing and vetting technical designs. Sometimes it\u0026rsquo;s through direct technical contribution, but engineering managers, uh, are gonna be time pause so that\u0026rsquo;s, um, I guess the exception, not the norm. Um, it actually cuts both ways too, that, you know, it\u0026rsquo;s great for, even if you\u0026rsquo;re on the build or what we call the build track, uh, the individual contribution track in your career. It\u0026rsquo;s quite useful. I think to spend some time being an engineering manager and understand it\u0026rsquo;s very easy when you\u0026rsquo;re an individual contributor to have your headphones on and to think of the manager, you know, the pointy headed boss, um, Somewhat dismissively.\nBut when you, when you step into that pilot seat, uh, you get a real appreciation for the pressures there under, uh, for the challenges that they face, which are quite intellectual challenges often. And that rounds you out as an individual contributor, you might end up back on the individual contribution track.\nAnd at Canberra, we allow you to kind of pendulum back and forth, uh, quite deliberately, uh, but it gives you that, that appreciation. So, so you, you mentioned, I, I kind of went off on a philosophical tangent there, but you mentioned like, what are the skills we look for? Um, certainly it\u0026rsquo;s that technical pros.\nLike we wanna see, um, people who have technical competency in, in engineering management, but we, we wanna see some other, um, organizational skills. So the ability to understand a, a bigger goal, be able to break it down into milestones and tasks and then guide a team. And you. Basically leader team through the execution of those milestones and tasks.\nAnd that\u0026rsquo;s, that could be quite a challenging, uh, skill to learn. It is a skill though that you can learn it. Um, and then finally, uh, I guess engineering managers need to be able to set clear expectations. They need to be able to communicate explicitly to, to teams, what is expected of them, and then be able to hold those teams and individuals accountable to those expectations, which again is, that\u0026rsquo;s a skill that you can learn.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s not, um, it\u0026rsquo;s something that I think a lot of engineers struggle with because, uh, uh, they\u0026rsquo;re not, it can be, it can, it can feel like a, quite a Frank and uncomfortable conversation, but, um, it\u0026rsquo;s actually a skill that you can learn.\nJames: Mm. How like, is that something that you had to learn and, and like, how did you go about like, if, sorry, how did you\nBrendan: Oh, absolutely. I, I think that, um, uh, you know, a mistake that, um, that first time engineering managers make, uh, is, and, and, and it often gets touted as a, kind of a, uh, a leadership principle of kind of leading by example. But leading by example has real limitations. You know, do, as I do, uh, only works to some extent, uh, and it can a actually be an anti for an engineering manager, particularly one who\u0026rsquo;s kind of transitioned from individual contribution to engineering management, where they end up just doing a lot of work.\nAnd it\u0026rsquo;s not really, uh, clear to, uh, the team that, that they there\u0026rsquo;s an example being set. So you\u0026rsquo;ve gotta kind of step outside of that a little bit. And, um, instead of kind of implicitly setting expectations by working really hard and expecting other people to follow, um, you\u0026rsquo;ve really gotta be explicit to say, okay, let\u0026rsquo;s talk about the expectations of the role you, you have this set of tasks.\nUm, I\u0026rsquo;m here to. Uh, and, and really laying out what your expectations are quite explicitly. And that gives actually your direct reports, a lot of psychological safety. If they understand what\u0026rsquo;s expected of them, then that\u0026rsquo;s half the battle in them, uh, meeting the, the performance requirements of the job.\n10x engineers # James: Yeah, no, that\u0026rsquo;s interesting. I think the, the psychological safety in building that into teams is, is obviously like quite a, an important thing to have, um, make sure that people are kind of, sort of comfortable and able. Think and say things that they are thinking, you know, and, you know, being, being comfortable and able to say them very important.\nUm, perhaps we can switch from like management now to like an individual contributor or an engineer. Um, there\u0026rsquo;s this phrase of a 10 X engineer, uh, someone that is able to do more and contribute like 10 times more than sort of a standard engineer. I wonder if you\u0026rsquo;ve seen people like that. And if so, what kind of things that they tend to do better than, um, perhaps have not, not a 10 X engineer.\nBrendan: Yeah, look it\u0026rsquo;s that phrase is, um, I think it got its origin from some research. I, I don\u0026rsquo;t quote me, but I, I think it was an IBM, uh, research project from the, maybe even from the, from the 1980s. Um, look, it\u0026rsquo;s undoubtedly true that there are individuals, you know, there\u0026rsquo;s a wide degree of output in, in individuals, in teams and you do see, uh, the odd engineer who is capable of, you know, an order of magnitude more output than a, than a competent engineer.\nUm, It\u0026rsquo;s actually a really, really difficult thing to manage on a team though. Uh, it can set up all sorts of really unhealthy dynamics. If that individual is screaming ahead of the team, uh, it, it, it, it destabilizes the team because if it\u0026rsquo;s not managed well, because that individual they\u0026rsquo;re so far ahead of the team, they tend to be, uh, producing a lot of work that the, the rest of the team has to comprehend to be able to, to build on top of, or to work with.\nUh, and so that, that creates this kind of review burden for the rest of the team, uh, that they have, they\u0026rsquo;re constantly playing catch up to the sheer quantity of work that this individual is producing. And, um, As a consequence work work tends to back up behind these individuals. Um, because they\u0026rsquo;re the only people who know how the system works, they built most of it.\nAnd, uh, that\u0026rsquo;s that\u0026rsquo;s really can, can lead to some quite toxic situations. So, uh, we actually think that\u0026rsquo;s a bit of a pathology at Canberra. We, we do recognize these high output individuals, but what we value in, in, in that high output is someone who can uplift people around them. It\u0026rsquo;s so it\u0026rsquo;s not the they\u0026rsquo;re still individual contributors, but they take teams or groups of people along for the journey.\nSo they\u0026rsquo;re not only, uh, brilliant. Individual contributors, but they\u0026rsquo;re also excellent at mentoring, at educating, at directing others at quickly unblocking teams. And these, these people are worth their wedding gold. Uh, they\u0026rsquo;re the people who bring their, their teams along. They lift everyone around them, uh, to, to a higher level of execution through that technical communication through technical teaching.\nAnd they\u0026rsquo;re the ones that we really try to select for and, and try to, um, reward at Canberra rather than that first category of the, kind of like the person with the headphones on that\u0026rsquo;s just out at there\u0026rsquo;s just smashing code out. Uh, cuz that\u0026rsquo;s, that\u0026rsquo;s quite a dangerous, um, that\u0026rsquo;s a very hard thing for a team to manage in the long term.\nJames: Yeah. Wow. That\u0026rsquo;s a pretty good answer, I think. Yeah, definitely. Um, yeah, it\u0026rsquo;s a great point. I don\u0026rsquo;t feel I can see that happening. Um, but it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s I agree. It\u0026rsquo;s, that\u0026rsquo;s the sort of person that you want in the team is someone that\u0026rsquo;s gonna like bring the team up with them rather than just like, almost bring the team down, probably if they\u0026rsquo;re just going, going, um, one direction by themselves.\nMm.\nBrendan: Yeah. Now our, our career track, you know, we have an individual contribution career track, and it\u0026rsquo;s very much, uh, it\u0026rsquo;s very explicit in that, that as you rise in that track, the expectation is that you are spending more and more time sharing your knowledge and being a multiplier. So being a force multiplier, rather than being the individual who is just smashing out the, the code.\nSkill improvement as an IC # James: Yeah, definitely. Well, you were an, an individual contributor for a while. Like you mentioned, how does, like, I have a question about sort of upskilling and, and education. Cause I think there\u0026rsquo;s a lot of education now around like going from someone that doesn\u0026rsquo;t know any code to like knows are a little bit or know some, but then once you kind of get to the, the point where you are senior engineer, perhaps then the sort of learning, it\u0026rsquo;s not like you can just take a course and really, and then become, like, you know, someone that\u0026rsquo;s really specialized in and really good.\nSo I wonder if yourself, how do, how have you thought about sort of upskilling. And if you are going down, the individual contributed track, like getting to the, going from sort of senior to then like really sort of almost pushing the field forward, perhaps in some ways, um, like how do you think about that?\nBrendan: There\u0026rsquo;s I, yeah, look, it\u0026rsquo;s it, it depends on your individual learning style. For me, I learn through, through doing like it\u0026rsquo;s, I can read a textbook, um, but, um, uh, it stays fairly theoretical for me until I\u0026rsquo;m kind of, you know, got my hands dirty with the, with the technology. So, you know, I like to be, I like to be hands on in learning other people can, uh, absorb a lot, uh, directly from theory and then apply it.\nUm, there\u0026rsquo;s no shortcuts here in getting to that, uh, those upper echelons, you know, becoming an, you know, the ultimate is, you know, some kind of industry expert you\u0026rsquo;ve really just gotta put the hours and hours and hours of, of practice in and, you know, it helps to, to really enjoy what you\u0026rsquo;re doing to get, um, a lot of energy out of doing it.\nUm, I think it\u0026rsquo;s a. It\u0026rsquo;s also good in an individual contribution career to mix up the problem spaces to, because, you know, we have engineers who interview with us that, you know, that they\u0026rsquo;ve got senior engineer in their title. They\u0026rsquo;ve been, uh, you know, that maybe they have, you know, five, seven years experience, but when you get them into an interview setting, what you discover is they\u0026rsquo;ve been solving the same problem over and over again for a long time.\nUh, and so they haven\u0026rsquo;t been able to broaden their, their technical thinking. They haven\u0026rsquo;t been able to bra, um, they haven\u0026rsquo;t been able to, uh, build real depth because they haven\u0026rsquo;t been challenged. They\u0026rsquo;ve been in a kind of a comfort zone solving that same, same kind of problem domain over and over again.\nSo varying the problem domains, um, uh, finding, finding the ways to go deep. Um, I think that they\u0026rsquo;re the keys and, and just spending the hours doing it. So you kind of wanna, you hope that you, you love\nJames: Yeah.\nBrendan: You just doing the work to, to, to\nJames: Yeah, no, no, of course. I think it\u0026rsquo;s a great point. Um, and an interesting one as well, cause yeah, I think like, I think at the top of every field nearly like, it\u0026rsquo;s, you\u0026rsquo;d be surprised if someone\u0026rsquo;s there and it doesn\u0026rsquo;t really really love what they do. I think, uh, like. To sort of get to that stage. You can\u0026rsquo;t need that\u0026rsquo;s.\nTips for Junior Engineers # James: When was a pre prerequisite, I think, um, love to sort of specialize our chat around engineering it down into sort of the junior level, um, and junior engineers. Um, I wonder what, um, say there\u0026rsquo;s a bunch of new engineers joining Canada, they\u0026rsquo;re all juniors. What are some mistakes that you\u0026rsquo;ve seen junior engineers make, uh, int like perhaps they join the company and they\u0026rsquo;re like super keen to like go and do a whole bunch of stuff, learn heaps.\nUm, but perhaps they make a couple of mistakes and perhaps they don\u0026rsquo;t really get as far as they otherwise should have. I wonder if there\u0026rsquo;s any mistakes that you\u0026rsquo;ve seen junior engineers make.\nBrendan: Hmm. Um, look, I think the, the biggest mistake I see is, uh, um, people forgetting, um, the, the people not taking a first principle\u0026rsquo;s approach to, to learning and a little bit being a little bit too technology focused. So they come in they\u0026rsquo;ve they\u0026rsquo;ve learned maybe on the side, they\u0026rsquo;ve learned. Some cool tools or technologies they wanna apply them.\nAnd, uh, there\u0026rsquo;s a bit of a, kind of a shiny bubble effect of kind of like, oh, I learn, react. And, um, and I, I really wanna build, build stuff in react, uh, or I\u0026rsquo;ve learned some other shiny tool technique process, whatever it is. Um, one of the, one of the things we really drum into our, our grad engineers is taking the time to build context, like deeply understand the context of the systems that you\u0026rsquo;re building on top of, try to break that understanding down into first principles and then be able to reason about.\nWhatever proposal you have from first principles, uh, and then test that idea carefully. Um, first, first yourself, do some second order thinking around what you are, the, the solution that you\u0026rsquo;re proposing, uh, rather than just kind of, uh, having that blinkered vision of like I have, I, I know tool X and therefore I will apply it to problem domain, um, taking the time to really break the problem down, to understand the context of the system, uh, to build that domain knowledge, uh, and then being really kind of hyper rational about, well, what\u0026rsquo;s the best solution, uh, that puts you in good stead.\nThat\u0026rsquo;s a, that\u0026rsquo;s a hard skill to learn though, cuz people just want to code, right. They want to just build stuff. Uh, but it\u0026rsquo;s a bit of an anti patent in an engineering or to kind of, uh, To be in that kind of mode of unconstrained ideation where you\u0026rsquo;re just kind of like, oh, what if we did this? And what if we did that?\nAnd my answer is always, well, you tell me what, what if we did that? Like, you\u0026rsquo;d spend the time to figure it out. Don\u0026rsquo;t be burdening the senior engineers around you in answering those questions for you. You\u0026rsquo;ve got the, the ability to reason about this yourself. And if you can demonstrate building the understanding of the, and the context of the system that you\u0026rsquo;re working with and to answer those questions, uh, then that\u0026rsquo;s really valuable for, for your team, that you are able to do that discipline thinking.\nJames: Yeah. That\u0026rsquo;s that\u0026rsquo;s interesting.\nBrendan: The other thing I\u0026rsquo;d add is that, you know, it\u0026rsquo;s a little bit more of the same, but the shiny bubble syndrome is\nJames: Mm, Mmm.\nBrendan: In that, uh, every, every few years along comes some particular technology, which is presented either by industry thought leaders or by vendors, masquerading as industry thought leaders as, as the, the silver bullet.\nUm, and you know, it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s really easy for grads to be, um, to become enamored, uh, with that to, to kind of almost worship at the alter of the technology, rather than kind of taking a bit more of a clear eye view of like, well, how does this technology, what\u0026rsquo;s the value of this technology? How does it compare to its um, To its, uh, to prior art.\nAnd how is it, how is it actually directly applicable to the problem domain? I have, you know, the one that\u0026rsquo;s thankfully it seems to be losing its luster a little bit, but blockchain is something we hear a lot about at the moment. But if you, if you really think hard about blockchain, it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s kind of hard to find practical applications for the technology.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s a very cool tech. It\u0026rsquo;s very, it\u0026rsquo;s very exciting when you think about it\u0026rsquo;s a great intellectual exercise to think about it, but it\u0026rsquo;s practical applications that are somewhat limited.\nJames: Yeah, I agree. I think it\u0026rsquo;s, it, it probably in the last, maybe even this year or, or perhaps longer, I think it\u0026rsquo;s definitely lost a lit little bit of the shine that it perhaps had maybe four, three or four years ago. like, like,\nBrendan: I mean, like it\u0026rsquo;s not just, I\u0026rsquo;m not singling out blockchain because before it, there were, you know, there were other trends in technology that. You know, it used to be no SQL and, and, and people rushed into no SQL without really understanding the, the trade offs, uh, that need to be taken before that it was XML, XML was gonna solve everything.\nAnd, um, you know, I remember the group think that is that can emerge around these, uh, shiny fashionable technologies is very, very dangerous and, but very hard to resist\nJames: Yeah, definitely. Well, how do you think about like when a new tool, like, like something like blockchain or new SQL or whatever comes along, is there a way that you think about differentiating? What is like a new shiny thing versus something that is actually a genuine breakthrough and like, perhaps we should consider adopting this cuz like it is actually quite cool.\nLike, is there any way you sort of think about those.\nBrendan: Yeah, look, it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s a tough, that\u0026rsquo;s a really tough one because obviously, um, in amongst all of the, the new shiny fluffy ideas, there\u0026rsquo;s some really good ones that, that, um, you know, three years down the track, if you had hindsight, you would\u0026rsquo;ve adopted early. So how do you pick those winners? Well, look, we try to create space for engineers to tinker and to play with new technologies.\nUm, that\u0026rsquo;s, there\u0026rsquo;s a, there\u0026rsquo;s a balancing act there because we can\u0026rsquo;t have them in production. So we, we have, you know, I\u0026rsquo;m a big fan of the, um, the boring technology club, you know, mature technologies, uh, they have wards, but the, those wart are well understood. We understand the performance profiles and the deficiencies of those technologies.\nAnd we can engineer around them, um, bleeding edge tech, You know, it\u0026rsquo;s called bleeding edge for a reason you bleed when, when you adopt it. So what we tend to do, we have a fairly high bar for, for technology adoption at Canberra. Um, we wanna see, uh, a clear eye rationale for why a particular technology is a net benefit to us.\nWe also want to try always to not, uh, unnecessarily expand the surface area of technologies that we\u0026rsquo;re using. We try to keep the set of technologies we\u0026rsquo;re using relatively small, uh, that aids in mobility of engineers within the organization, because there\u0026rsquo;s not a huge diversity in technology that\u0026rsquo;s used across the org.\nIt helps even. In the day to day, uh, engineering, uh, comprehension, you know, the cognitive cost to engineers is lower. If you have a, a, a smaller set of technologies you\u0026rsquo;re using, uh, and you have familiar patterns that are being used across, uh, to, to solve problems in a similar way, the engineers can encounter, uh, different components in the, in the system and recognize and quickly understand how they work because they\u0026rsquo;re in a familiar technology using familiar patterns.\nUm, so in cer in, in service of that kind of keeping the set of technology small, if you\u0026rsquo;ve got some new, uh, technology that you think will uplift us, we certainly want to hear about it. Uh, but the burden of proof is high. So we want to understand. What is the total cost of adoption. And in saying that we, we really want to try and aim for a step change where we, we are not kind of forking our technology solution.\nWe don\u0026rsquo;t end up with an old way and a new way we end up with just one way and that one way maybe the new way. Um, but. We wanna see that total cost of adoption be factored in, uh, because you know, if you fork and you end up with two ways of solving a particular problem, then in a year\u0026rsquo;s time, there may be a, yet another new way.\nAnd then you fork again, and now you\u0026rsquo;ve got four ways or three, you know, you, you keep expanding and then you end up with this explosion of, uh, complexity as combinatorial, explosion of different technologies and, and solutions. And that\u0026rsquo;s, that\u0026rsquo;s very D that\u0026rsquo;s a very dangerous, it\u0026rsquo;s a, that\u0026rsquo;s an emergent complexity that becomes very, very difficult to manage and is a real impediment to, uh, maintaining an evolving and building on top of the systems that, that, uh, that you\u0026rsquo;re building.\nJames: Yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s really interesting. That\u0026rsquo;s really interesting to hear that. Um, I, I like that point about like keeping the set of tech that you use, uh, to a minimum. And then that means like engineers can kind of move around more easily. I think that\u0026rsquo;s a great point.\nSpecialise vs Generalise # James: Um, but what do you, what do you think about, um, Like specialization and like generalization, um, is there, like, what would you say to someone perhaps that is like, like starting their career even is I guess at any stage, um, is there like a preference that you\u0026rsquo;d have for either of those in terms of learning a whole bunch of things, perhaps it\u0026rsquo;s like some new and then old stuff or specializing into certain things.\nUm, like, like, and perhaps like when would you consider doing either of those? If there, if there was a difference.\nBrendan: Yeah, we look, we like our engineers to specialize. Um, but in saying that we subscribe to, you probably have heard the term a T-shaped engineer. So we like engineers to have a specialty where they, where they spend, you know, potentially years honing craft and building deep knowledge in a particular specialty.\nBut while they\u0026rsquo;re doing that, we want them to be, uh, aware and building knowledge of adjacent, um, uh, technologies, uh, adjacent skill sets, uh, and then hopefully building some depth in those. So that\u0026rsquo;s, that\u0026rsquo;s where the T shape comes in. You kind of broad, you get, you build out this broad knowledge base, but then you go deep on one or two, uh, specialties, um, in a career that\u0026rsquo;s, you know, might span 30 years.\nYou can probably expect to go deep on, on several. Um, but it. To, to the, the point I made previously going deep, um, usually requires a lot of execution, like a lot of, a lot of time. And so, you know, you\u0026rsquo;ve gotta, you\u0026rsquo;ve gotta choose carefully on what you go deep on. And again, to my point, you know, the shiny, shiny stuff, uh, sometimes it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s not the, the shiny, shiny fashionable technology, uh, that I would choose you, try and try and pick, uh, something that\u0026rsquo;s a little bit more stable, has the evidence of execution and, and success around it.\nUm, you know, I\u0026rsquo;d be very worried, uh, as an engineer, um, you know, doing a, doing a degree in blockchain that would, that would scare me right now. Cause I\u0026rsquo;m not sure that\u0026rsquo;s gonna be particularly particularly applicable\nJames: Yeah, definitely. I feel like, yeah, with the specialization, like you said, you\u0026rsquo;ve gotta be perhaps a little bit careful that you don\u0026rsquo;t specialize in a, in a trend rather than something that\u0026rsquo;s gonna be around for the long term.\nBrendan: Yeah, so you gotta try and pick the more fundamental technologies. Um, and you, you know, you\u0026rsquo;ve gotta be looking at where the industry\u0026rsquo;s going and, you know, look at companies like, like, like Canva, like Google, like Facebook and see what technology stacks they\u0026rsquo;re building on. Uh, and you know, that\u0026rsquo;s, they, they\u0026rsquo;re probably a pretty good sign that those technology stacks are, are in it for the long haul.\nAnd, you know, some of those technology stacks are gonna be pretty boring. Like we, we love Java cos you know, Java\u0026rsquo;s not exactly a fashionable language these days, but most of our back ends are built in Java. And uh, so I still think it\u0026rsquo;s a good language to get a grounding in.\nJames: Yeah, definitely. Oh, that\u0026rsquo;s, that\u0026rsquo;s pretty cool. I, I think that\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s an interesting, um, thing to think about. Definitely appreciate your insights there.\nEngineering traits that are undervalued # James: Um, what, what do you, when you\u0026rsquo;re looking to sort of bring engineers into the organization, um, what, what are, or perhaps amongst engineers generally when they go and do well at can, let\u0026rsquo;s say, um, what do you think are some traits that are undervalued by the marketplace or things that you think, um, you personally value, but are undervalued or like the market kind of doesn\u0026rsquo;t appreciate as much as you think they should.\nBrendan: Well, we mentioned critical thinking before, and I, I do think that\u0026rsquo;s an undervalued skill. Uh, you know, we see a lot of grads coming in, very technological, uh, a very technological focus. They\u0026rsquo;re very excited about their technical skills and the knowledge that they have, but I wanna see critical thinking applied, uh, Real engineering is, is problem solving.\nSo if you get good at problem solving, if you develop your critical thinking techniques, uh, you know, if you, if you develop your skills in how to reason about problems from first principles, uh, how to do higher order thinking, understanding logical, fallacies, et cetera. I think they\u0026rsquo;re, they\u0026rsquo;re great skills to have, and they\u0026rsquo;re pretty, pretty undervalued.\nUm, another, another one I\u0026rsquo;d list is, is more on the, what, what is traditionally thought of as soft skills, which is, you know, empathy in engineering is a, is a really important and underrated skill. And it\u0026rsquo;s a, when you mention the word empathy, people often think of kind of like a warm, fuzzy, emotional, uh, uh, innate trait, but really it\u0026rsquo;s.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s not that at all, it\u0026rsquo;s actually a skill that you can hone. And it, it\u0026rsquo;s just a skill of seeing, uh, seeing the world from, from other other\u0026rsquo;s perspectives and deeply understanding other people\u0026rsquo;s perspectives. And, you know, engineering is, and probably always will be a highly collaborative exercise. And so being able to see, uh, a problem from different viewpoints and to really, uh, to deeply build that skill of being able to do that is highly valuable in unlocking collaboration in teams.\nAnd there\u0026rsquo;s, you know, there\u0026rsquo;s really practical things that you can practice to, to achieve that. One of the great, um, Uh, techniques that, that I try and champion in, in young engineers is the unfortunately named, uh, steel Manning technique, which I, I\u0026rsquo;m not sure if you\u0026rsquo;ve, you\u0026rsquo;ve heard of, but it, you know, it\u0026rsquo;s the opposite of straw Manning, straw Manning be where you replace, you see in a technical discussion or any discussion, um, you see the discussion as an argument to be won.\nYou interpret someone else\u0026rsquo;s argument, uh, in an inferior form, and then you shoot that inferior form down that straw Maning. But steel Manning is doing the exact opposite where you see any technical discussion for what it is. People bringing diverse perspectives and viewpoints into that kind of collaborative problem solving space.\nAnd you\u0026rsquo;re able to take a step back from your own position. Really deeply understand someone else\u0026rsquo;s position, uh, and then understand it to the point where you can argue it for them and what you find when you can do that. Uh, one of two things can, one of many things can happen, but what, what can often happen is by really stepping into someone else\u0026rsquo;s shoes, arguing their point for them, and you have to do that genuinely.\nYou can actually change your mind. You can change your position. You can, you can, uh, convince yourself of their position. And that can be a really powerful way, um, of unblocking teams, where there are competing views of how to solve a particular problem. Uh, you can also, you know, uh, even if you think you are still right, you can be.\nBy demonstrating that empathy with, uh, with people who disagree with you. That\u0026rsquo;s a very disarming way to collaborate that disarms your, the people who, uh, you\u0026rsquo;re collaborating with. And it creates that constructive environment where you can move forward.\nJames: Yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s cool. I like that a lot. Yeah. I think that\u0026rsquo;s super important. It\u0026rsquo;s a, it\u0026rsquo;s a much, it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s much nicer to deal with someone that is like, can see the way that you are thinking about it and like is, is coming at it in a constructive way. Uh, versus someone that\u0026rsquo;s looking to sort of shoot the way shoot down the way that you are looking at solving it.\nImportance of startup journey # James: Um, definitely. I think that\u0026rsquo;s, that\u0026rsquo;s super cool. Um, I like that a lot, um, for yourself, I wanna sort of ask a couple of questions more generally about yourself and, and your career. Um, so when, when you, uh, uh, you\u0026rsquo;d worked a few software jobs and you, um, Founded co-founded the startup, seko uh, and you had a couple of guys there that you sort of co-founded that with, um, how, like how formative was that experience, um, yourself and in terms of like creating a, a product, um, you know, going out and doing things and, uh, without the sort of you almost like joining a startup in some sense, um, like, yeah.\nHow formative was that experience for yourself in your engineering journey?\nBrendan: Uh, very formative. Um, it, you know, having your own company, uh, it, it, it definitely removes the safety net. You know, there\u0026rsquo;s no, there\u0026rsquo;s no one to do the thing, but you, you know, there\u0026rsquo;s a company with four of us. Uh, there\u0026rsquo;s, there\u0026rsquo;s lots of work to be done and it\u0026rsquo;s not all coding. Um, so you get an appreciation for, for many aspects of running a business, not just, not just the engineering, uh, and.\nThe level of personal commitment is huge, right? You just have to commit, uh, if you don\u0026rsquo;t put the work in, if you don\u0026rsquo;t do the work, no one else is gonna do it. And so you\u0026rsquo;ve gotta be very committed. We were very, very driven. Uh, we called ourselves a lifestyle company, um, in that we kind of told ourselves that we could, you know, we could take time off and we can go at leisurely pace.\nBut of course, that, that doesn\u0026rsquo;t really happen. You tend to, to live and breathe, uh, company. Uh, and it\u0026rsquo;s it. You, I guess that\u0026rsquo;s a trap as well. You\u0026rsquo;ve gotta be careful, but it no very, very formative, uh, experience, very eyeopening, uh, in all aspects of, of software delivery, you know, not just the writing.\nJames: Yeah. Is there like what, what parts. That journey would you say have been most beneficial and perhaps most relevant into what you do today? Is there anything that you still like, anything that still has been really, uh, really like useful or, or a useful experience perhaps to go through, um, in, in that startup situation?\nBrendan: Um, I it\u0026rsquo;s it\u0026rsquo;s I think it\u0026rsquo;s, it was useful in understanding what it means to be an owner, like what it means, like you\u0026rsquo;ve really got skin in the game. So if you, if you, it gives you agency and your, and underst. You understand what it means to have agency and to create agency. And yes, one of the things that in any organization is a struggle.\nYou know, the bystander effect that you kind of think, well, you come in, you\u0026rsquo;re doing the thing. Uh, if you don\u0026rsquo;t do it right, someone else has got it. Or if there\u0026rsquo;s a decision to be made, you put it off because someone else will make the decision. And, um, when you own your own company and there\u0026rsquo;s no safety net, it gives you that agency.\nAnd that focus that you\u0026rsquo;ve got this, and if you don\u0026rsquo;t have this, then no one else does. And I think if you can carry that forward into particularly smaller companies, but you know, even larger ones, that sense of agency is really important. You know, the, the. The ability to kind of grab hold of something and own it entirely.\nAnd that\u0026rsquo;s not necessarily a system or a component could be a process, could be decision making around, uh, a structure or whatever. Uh, if you can show that you can grab hold of something and then drive it to completion, uh, with that agency, then that\u0026rsquo;s really, really powerful.\nJames: Yeah. I, I like that a lot. It\u0026rsquo;s the, uh, extreme ownership perhaps, uh, responsive taking responsibility, those kinds of things. I think that\u0026rsquo;s a, a good trait. Like, um, no matter where you are in the organization, too, whether you are someone that\u0026rsquo;s more senior and does kind of have the responsibility by default, or if you, even, if you are more junior and taking responsibility of your little piece of the puzzle, I think, I think that\u0026rsquo;s a, a good, great mindset to have definitely, um,\nBrendan: Um,\nJames: Perhaps thinking about yourself, um, as well, if we think about folks that are perhaps early in their career and want and, and have look at someone like yourself and say, man, I really wanna be the CTO, or I want to be the head of engineering.\nUm, is there anything that you would say that they like any advice, perhaps common advice that you think they should ignore when it comes to, uh, careers and things that are commonly, like commonly told to, to people at that stage?\nBrendan: Well, I mean, I, I think that, uh, you know, for me, I\u0026rsquo;ll talk about personally, what\u0026rsquo;s been my career philosophy.\nUh, I\u0026rsquo;ve always tried to work at companies with technology at their, at their center. Um, and that\u0026rsquo;s, that\u0026rsquo;s been important for me. Uh, I\u0026rsquo;ve also always tried to stay as technical as possible for as long as possible. Uh, just to build that, that deep technical expertise. I didn\u0026rsquo;t have a career destination in mind.\nI don\u0026rsquo;t fault those people that do, but for me, it was just kind of like just doing what I enjoyed. Uh, and, you know, as I said, I\u0026rsquo;ve been quite lucky in, in where I\u0026rsquo;ve ended up. Um, but you know, the, the side effect of staying technical for a long time is that you do see, you get exposed to a wide variety of team cultures, a wide variety of problem domains and a wide variety of solutions.\nAnd so that, that technical depth, uh, gives you a good grounding to go into engineering management at some point, if you, if you so choose, we do have, uh, and I have great friends who, you know, are 25, 30 years as, as technical contributors, as individual contributors. And that\u0026rsquo;s a, a valid career path as well.\nUm, but yeah, look, that\u0026rsquo;s, that\u0026rsquo;s worked for me, uh, survivor bias, uh,\nFailure that ended up being a success # James: Yeah. Nice. Well, I\u0026rsquo;d love to perhaps talk about a time. Uh, If there are any that you were maybe something more unlucky. And, and my question is, has there been a time in your career that you failed at something or something didn\u0026rsquo;t go to plan? Uh, but at, at the time it felt like it was sort of going wrong, but it later turned out to work out well.\nAnd perhaps later on it was something that was, yeah, it worked out well. Is there anything there that, that comes to mind?\nBrendan: Well, I, I graduated from uni in 1997 and the, the first tech bubble was just forming. And, you know, I did a, an honors thesis in distributed, uh, web indexing, um, before Google existed. And I still have regrets to this day. Um, not kind of. Uh, per grab, grabbing that opportunity in, in 97 when I graduated and kind of going and, and maybe taking a pun and moving to the valley and, and joining, uh, joining in on, on some of that action, uh, as the, as the.com bubble, uh, formed, you know, there\u0026rsquo;s a, obviously a lot of horror stories with companies that crashed and burned, but then there were also companies like Google that emerged at that time and are now household names.\nAnd if I was, you know, looking back, I would\u0026rsquo;ve, I would\u0026rsquo;ve pushed myself a little bit more to kind of step outside my comfort zone and, you know, I\u0026rsquo;d built up some, some pretty at the time, reasonably unique knowledge in thinking about how you index the web and in a distributed way. And, and, uh, that was all very novel and, and pretty hot, um, hot topic.\nAnd, uh, and I just. Went into a much more safe, uh, uh, safe engineering job at a telecommunications company. And maybe I, I should have, uh, pushed myself a bit harder to, to, to go and, uh, you know, try my luck at, at Silicon valley. No, don\u0026rsquo;t have too many regrets in that regard, obviously, cuz it\u0026rsquo;s kind of things have\nBest investment of time or money # James: Yeah, definitely, well, that\u0026rsquo;s definitely something that perhaps didn\u0026rsquo;t go, uh, so well at the time, but has ended up working out quite well. I would say, um, I wonder like when it comes to sort of engineering and, and your career as well, what has been, uh, saying that you, um, like has been your most worthwhile investment?\nUh, whether it\u0026rsquo;s an in. Of time, like maybe it\u0026rsquo;s a course you did or something that you participated in or, um, or whether it\u0026rsquo;s something that you invested with money or like maybe it\u0026rsquo;s a, something that you purchased or a thing that you attended that you paid for. Um, is there anything there that you think has was, was perhaps like really crucial in, in getting you to where you are today?\nBrendan: Uh, so look, I\u0026rsquo;ve always enjoyed building software on the side. So I\u0026rsquo;ve invested in, in doing that for myself, just, just to, and, and I haven\u0026rsquo;t approached it as a chore. It\u0026rsquo;s just a passion. Um, I, I don\u0026rsquo;t think I could do it if I, if I felt like it was a, a chore to brown to, to broaden my, my skillset. But, um, I\u0026rsquo;ve just enjoyed tinking tinkering with, with software and, and hardware.\nUm, and I think that\u0026rsquo;s been enormously valuable, you know, the company Sanur. Um, got its first income from a side project that I was just working on, uh, that we then turned into commercial product. Um, so that\u0026rsquo;s that worked really, really well for me and I, and I, I also really, and maybe I, I go overboard on this, but I really try to focus on having the discipline to see those projects through, to completion.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s very easy to kind of start side projects, but it\u0026rsquo;s much harder to see them through, to some logical, uh, conclusion. And in saying that, you know, I, I fail more often than not, you know, I\u0026rsquo;ve got, I\u0026rsquo;ve got hundreds of, of projects that, you know, have progressed very little. Uh, but it\u0026rsquo;s still something that I really try to do.\nUm, in saying that I don\u0026rsquo;t want to, you know, there\u0026rsquo;s a, I, I wanna acknowledge that. Not everyone has that opportunity. Um, For whatever reason, their own personal circumstances means it\u0026rsquo;s difficult. So I don\u0026rsquo;t wanna set that up as a kind of a prerequisite, um, you know, certainly, you know, grads or, or engineers that come to us.\nUh, they have all sorts of different life experiences and we don\u0026rsquo;t expect to see that kind of tinkering or, or, or side projects or, you know, open source contribution. Uh, it\u0026rsquo;s great when we do, but it\u0026rsquo;s certainly not a prerequisite.\nJames: Yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s cool. I think, uh, yeah, it\u0026rsquo;s interesting. Like the side projects, I think there\u0026rsquo;s many a story of those. someone working on something on the side that ends up becoming something quite cool. So, um, that\u0026rsquo;s really exciting.\nAdvice for Graduates # James: Um, I\u0026rsquo;ve got one more question for you, Brendan. Uh, and that\u0026rsquo;s the question I ask all the guests that come on the show, and that is, um, advice for young people that have just graduated university, perhaps young engineers.\nIn this case, like what advice would you give someone that\u0026rsquo;s fresh out of university and wants to become a great engineer?\nBrendan: Uh, wow. Okay. Well look, I, I think it\u0026rsquo;s, uh, it\u0026rsquo;s definitely the case that you want to find, um, uh, mature engineering orgs to join, where you can learn from exceptional individuals. So you, you wanna find that the engineering cultures, uh, in, in the mature engineering teams, uh, where you\u0026rsquo;ve got these, um, uh, mentors, uh, informal or otherwise that can teach you, uh, the art of, of software engineering and you, you can, you can learn from so, and, you know, we certainly deliberately.\nSet out to create a culture like that at Canva. Um, but you know, like the, a lot of the big companies like Google, Amazon, uh, Microsoft, apple, they will all have that. And I think that\u0026rsquo;s, you know, that\u0026rsquo;s something to definitely aim for. I think that there is a, a risk for grads in, um, and I\u0026rsquo;m not saying it\u0026rsquo;s, don\u0026rsquo;t do it, but I think there\u0026rsquo;s just some risks in, in maybe joining smaller outfits where, uh, you can very quickly be, uh, the most knowledgeable and experienced person in the room.\nAnd, and that can be dangerous if you, if you just fresh outta uni, you know, it can work. It\u0026rsquo;s just a risk. Um, I, I personally think that it\u0026rsquo;s better to join somewhere where you\u0026rsquo;ve got those mentors, uh, that, that help you see what great looks like and can help you get there.\nJames: Yeah, join a company like Canva I think. Yeah. yeah, amazing. Yeah. Yeah. Well, thanks so much for coming on the show today, Brendan. I wonder if people are listening and they wanna find out more about yourself or perhaps connect with you. Is there any, um, place that they should go and find out more\nBrendan: Uh, I am on Twitter. I tweet very, very infrequently. Um, but if people wanted to find me I\u0026rsquo;m Brenda, H B R E N D a N H on Twitter. I\u0026rsquo;m also on LinkedIn. Uh, although I get a lot of LinkedIn requests, so I may not be, um, uh, I may not reply, but, uh, but\nJames: Fantastic? Well, yeah. Thanks so much for coming on the show today. Appreciate you having along.\nBrendan: No worries, James. I\u0026rsquo;ve enjoyed the chat.\nOutro # James: Thanks for listening to this episode I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. If you want to get my takeaways, the things that I learned from this episode, please go to Graduate Theory.com/subscribe, where you can get my takeaways and all the information about each episode, straight to your inbox.\nThanks so much for listening again today, and we\u0026rsquo;re looking forward to seeing you next week.\n← Back to episode 45\n","date":"29 August 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/graduate-theory/45-brendan-humphreys/transcript/","section":"Graduate Theory Transcripts","summary":"← Back to episode 45\nThis transcript has been lightly edited for readability. It may still contain transcription errors.\nBrendan: Engineering is, and probably always will be a highly collaborative exercise. And so being able to see, uh, a problem from different viewpoints and to really, uh, to deeply build that skill of being able to do that is highly valuable in unlocking collaboration in teams.\n","title":"Transcript: Brendan Humphreys | On Developing Your Engineering Career","type":"graduate-theory-transcripts"},{"content":" Watch the conversation Graduate Theory Open YouTube ↗ Read the full transcript → Today\u0026rsquo;s guest is full of energy and full of wisdom. She\u0026rsquo;s a great example of following your talents to the fullest extent.\nI\u0026rsquo;m super excited to share this episode.\nThis article was sent to subscribers of the Graduate Theory newsletter.\nSubscribe now 👇\nSubscribe Now\nWatch this episode on YouTube.\nLisa Leong is an ABC Radio National broadcaster, media commentator and business consultant.\n🤝 Connect with Lisa # Radio Show - https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/this-working-life\nLinkedIn - https://au.linkedin.com/in/lisasleong\nBook - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/60395744-this-working-life\n👇 Episode Takeaways # Moments of Truth # Lisa spoke about this and it really stuck with me.\nShe spoke about how the everyday inertia of life is quite strong. One day just rolls into the next.\nIf we aren\u0026rsquo;t intentional about the things that we do, we can easily end up in places that we didn\u0026rsquo;t want to go.\nLisa says that to break this trance, we need a micro act of bravery.\nthe moments of truth, where you do need micros of bravery in order to change something\nWe need to step out and do something different.\nLisa has an incredible story, leaving a career in law to become a radio host (not something you see often!).\nHer moment of truth and micro act of bravery helped her to escape a career that was taking her energy, and get her to a place that fills her cup.\nLooking After Yourself # So all those boxes of success, the promotion, the work life balance with the Olympic distance triathlon, it was a big mistake because I was in bed, I was bedridden.\nLisa spoke about how, at one stage of her life, she was in trouble. She has serious health problems associated with her high stress levels.\nNow, she understands what living in a high-stress environment for a period of time can do to your body.\nShe now meditates regularly and makes sure she is operating within her physical and mental boundaries.\nEvery Day is Lab Day # Understanding who you are and what you want out of life is an ongoing process.\nLisa has the saying \u0026ldquo;treat every day as lab day\u0026rdquo;.\nThat means, treating every day as a new day to experiment and find out more about yourself and the things that engage you.\nThinking about your career in this way will help you find those things that give you energy and will sustain you over the long term.\nGet the Newsletter\n📝 Content Timestamps # 00:00 Lisa Leong\n00:21 Journey from Law to Radio\n10:38 Dealing with Pressures changing careers\n15:51 Creating your Values\n25:00 Biggest Learning from the book\n31:54 Undervalued pieces from the book\n38:32 A Failure that ended up being a success\n44:31 Lisa\u0026rsquo;s Advice for Graduates\n46:59 Outro\n","date":"22 August 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/graduate-theory/44-lisa-leong/","section":"Graduate Theory","summary":" Watch the conversation Graduate Theory Open YouTube ↗ Read the full transcript → Today’s guest is full of energy and full of wisdom. She’s a great example of following your talents to the fullest extent.\n","title":"Lisa Leong | On Moments of Truth and Pattern Discovery","type":"graduate-theory"},{"content":"← Back to episode 44\nThis transcript has been lightly edited for readability. It may still contain transcription errors.\nLisa: So all those boxes of success, the promotion, the work life balance with the Olympic distance triathlon, it was like a, like a big mistake because I was in bed. I was bedridden\nJourney from Law to Radio # James: Of, um, your experience. Like I know your re most recent, um, episode on your podcast was like around changing careers and stuff. Um, and so your yourself, I\u0026rsquo;d love to touch on that with you, cuz going from like law into like radio and, and a bunch of the other stuff that you\u0026rsquo;ve done, um, you know, is quite a, an interesting one.\nSo I\u0026rsquo;d love to just dive into that\nand hear about your experience\nLisa: Do you wanna hear about how I went from law to radio by the way, James, would you like to hear that one?\nJames: Yes, I would love to hear that\nLisa: So I just followed the path that you do when you come out of uni and then. Everyone said I should try and get articles in a law firm. So I got my articles in a law firm, and then you blink. And seven years later still working as a lawyer and I was really enjoying it and it took me to London.\nSo London picture the year, 2000. So we\u0026rsquo;re all excited about, you know, the year 2000. Inter, you know, the internet was suddenly just absolutely booming. And in that internet, which is now called an internet bubble, um, we had a lot of money being splashed around. So I followed the money trail to London and I started doing some incredible transactions, um, in the boom of the. But then came the bust and all the people who were funding, um, this amazing movement, they kind of lost their money. And so I stopped really doing these huge transactions and as an, a technology and eCommerce lawyer, I kind of got pulled into a different area and this area was mergers and acquisitions.\nWhich were still huge transactions, but the role of the technology lawyer is quite limited. So that was to review a due diligence. Um, all of the technology contracts filled these big companies just to make sure they\u0026rsquo;re all up, up to scratch. What had involved in those days was sitting in an airless windowless office for hours a day, reviewing piles and piles of these document.\nSo I basically slowly died inside as I was just reviewing these contracts, but a friend of mine said, Hey, have you ever thought about volunteering for hospital radio? The hospitals in London are so big. They have full blown radio stations for every single hospital. Yeah. And you get, so you, you volunteer, but you get trained up.\nSo you do your flying time in other people\u0026rsquo;s shows. So I did Monday night. Bingo. And then I read out all the, you know, like legs, 11 22, 2 little ducks quite. And every Monday night, you know, there I was anyway, I got my hours up and then you get training. So it was amazing. So they train you up in the panel.\nSo I\u0026rsquo;d practice, you know, with my pens, I\u0026rsquo;d practice, you know, pulling up the fader and talking and then pulling down the fader and turning it off. And then\nI got my own show. And so it was Thursday night therapy with Lisa Leon and I\u0026rsquo;d interview people like you do. Just anyone who I found. Interesting. So I\u0026rsquo;d say to my friends, oh, can you come and talk about this?\nAnd, um, I started really like getting a lot of traction, I would say as a radio show, maybe cuz of the captive audience. Cause it was a hospital, but um, grew an audience I fell in love with it and then I thought. How do I turn this into a career? So this is the part that I\u0026rsquo;m, I am really curious about, which is, okay.\nSo you\u0026rsquo;ve discovered that you love something. How do you actually turn it into a career? Now, looking back, what I did was. I didn\u0026rsquo;t just leap. Actually, I did a whole load of little things to, as Dory Clark says, so she\u0026rsquo;s a consultant and a coach and she says, optimize for interesting. Be very curious about this new thing.\nSo looking back, I just kept on volunteering for different hospitals, with different radio stations. I got myself, um, onto other people\u0026rsquo;s shows like in London. And then I also did a lot of research. I then, um, I just listen to hours and hours of radio analyzed it, read books, all of these things. And then I had a. And what this moment was is that I decided to write letters, attach it, my hospital radio show as a demo. And I sent them out to everyone everywhere. Now I know my strategy was spray and pray. It wasn\u0026rsquo;t very\nJames: Yeah.\nLisa: I got lots of rejection letters. So I got like so many rejection letters, James. And even though, you know, I can now say it like, yeah, I got lots of rejection letters.\nI must say at the time. feel very good because it was me saying, oh, do you think there\u0026rsquo;s something there? And everyone\u0026rsquo;s saying, no, there\u0026rsquo;s nothing here. and I thought, oh, what was I thinking? I\u0026rsquo;ve got a Bogan voice, you know, I\u0026rsquo;m crap. And I turned on myself and I lost a lot of confidence and I thought, oh, well, I\u0026rsquo;ll just be a lawyer.\nUm, but then there was the turning point is to say, and it was an empathy. If I was a program director, who\u0026rsquo;s making a big decision about the who I\u0026rsquo;m putting on air. What would my life be like really busy, to be honest. I don\u0026rsquo;t think that they listen to my demo tape and maybe I could do something else to, um, have a conversation with them.\nSo I found out that the program director for Liberty radio, one of the biggest radio stations in London, footprint wise, also presented. The weekend breakfast show by himself. so I basically decided to cold call him, but face to face, I took the first train out. It was sleeting, it was cold. And I went up to the door of Liberty, radio station unannounced. And in that moment, I decided to press that doorbell, press the door. He answered and I actually thought, oh, sh should I just run away? Cuz I got really scared because I thought, oh my God, he could actually call\nthe police on me. This is ridiculous. And I just\nJames: Mm.\nLisa: Thought, what is the worst that can happen? The worst that can happen, call the police or just reject me again.\nAnd I thought, oh, well, you know, I\u0026rsquo;ve been rejected. Let\u0026rsquo;s just give this a go. What if it works? So I said, hi, my name is Lisa Leon. I\u0026rsquo;m a radio DJ. Can I make you a cup of coffee this morning? Now mind you I\u0026rsquo;m 30 years old. You know, I\u0026rsquo;m not like 16 deciding to do this. Like I\u0026rsquo;m literally a corporate lawyer.\nCan I make you a cup of coffee? And he buzzed me in James.\nJames: Yeah,\nLisa: So I literally get buzzed in meeting a guy I\u0026rsquo;ve never met before. He doesn\u0026rsquo;t know who I am and he lets me in. I go in, I walk. I find the kitchen. I make him a cup of coffee. He Becks me to come in to his studio and then I just sit down. I sit there, look at him and then he talks and I\u0026rsquo;m like, wow, this is cool.\nAnd then when he stops talking, puts on a song, he goes, okay, who are you? Tell me your story. So I\u0026rsquo;m chatting with this guy, you know, he\u0026rsquo;s the dude. Right? And then, um, we, I leave and then next week, Ring the doorbell. Hi, it\u0026rsquo;s Lisa Leon on the radio DJ here to make your morning cup of coffee. He lets me in and this time in the studio, he puts me on the air with him. So then I\u0026rsquo;m chatting with Tom on the radio. Um, and I did it every weekend. he was so sick of me. He gave me my own show. on Sundays. I pulled in my friend, Zoe Mack. We put on a radio show together on Liberty radio, largest footprint in London. And, and that really was one of my biggest breaks because to have that commercial radio, you know, um, experience.\nAnd so he, you know, sort of, um, helped me with that. I got a better demo tape together. And then that one got me into the Australian film, television and radio school with three rounds of interviews and, and the like, and then I resigned from my law firm because, um, I think I found out that 95% or a hundred percent of the radio, um, graduates from the Australian film, television and radio school get jobs.\nSo that was enough for me to go, okay, I\u0026rsquo;m gonna do this. This is where I roll the dice. If I can get into afters, I will resign. So I resigned from my London job, and then I came back to Australia. So that pretty much set me on my radio path.\nJames: Yeah. Wow. That\u0026rsquo;s a pretty, super interesting story. A great story of, uh, like initiative and that kind of stuff too. Uh, cuz that\u0026rsquo;s pretty hard, right. Go and rock up to the office and like, hi,\nI think that\u0026rsquo;s quite bold\nLisa: Yeah, I think micro acts have. Bravery. Um, James, I think because there\u0026rsquo;s a lot of inertia isn\u0026rsquo;t there. So especially when you are, um, gaining experience, you know, there\u0026rsquo;s the, you just keep on going or do you pivot or what are those big career moments? What I call the moments of truth, where you do need micros of bravery in order to change something and understand that inertia\u0026rsquo;s pretty strong.\nSo every day can just roll onto another day. If you\u0026rsquo;re not purposeful or, you know, intentional\nDealing with Pressures changing careers # James: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. It\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s really cool. It\u0026rsquo;s I wanna ask about like, about the move here in particular, like, um, you know, you, you\u0026rsquo;ve sort of, you\u0026rsquo;re working at the law firm and then ready on the side for a bit. Like what do people kind of. Saying that cuz it\u0026rsquo;s prob I mean, I guess it might be things like, that\u0026rsquo;s kind of weird.\nLike why is she, like, doing stuff on a radio show while she\u0026rsquo;s working here, like it\u0026rsquo;s super random. Uh, and then going to like leave law fully as well to pursue radio is not like a, a classic. Thing that people do, right. It\u0026rsquo;s quite, uh, it\u0026rsquo;s quite out there. So how did you deal with kind of like, did you feel the sort of pressure there at all to sort of keep doing what you\u0026rsquo;re doing and, and even that the case of like, you\u0026rsquo;ve invested so much time into, into law, kind of the pressure there where often, you know, we do things for a while and then it\u0026rsquo;s like, oh, I, I guess I can\u0026rsquo;t do anything else because I\u0026rsquo;ve spent so much time doing this one thing.\nI mean, how did, how did all of that kind of thought flow\nthrough your mind at that.\nLisa: In a way, James, I think it\u0026rsquo;s easier now. Um, when we think about bringing our whole selves to work and people understanding that, you know, we don\u0026rsquo;t have to be a certain. Um, very narrow sense of the worker. And the reason why I say this is when we started doing remote working and obviously seeing into people\u0026rsquo;s, you know, houses.\nThat was one way in which we learned a bit more about each person as a whole person. The second thing is because of the internet and socials, you know, I can see that. You have different hobbies or past times you might have a side business or a side hustle that I can see, you know, as a graduate. Right.\nAnd so that is all a part of you. Now, back in the day, I would say that we had a very, you know, professional sense. So this is the nineties and we all sort of had a professional persona. I was kind of lucky. I, I joined a law firm in, um, That absolutely saw me as just kind of being me. And so I was like all singing or dancing, even in my when I was a casual, uh, worker and then, uh, at this law firm.\nAnd then when I became, did my articles, I mean, there was no, they absolutely knew that I was a lawyer, but I also, you know, I would host or chair their section meeting. And I would have like a little boom box where I would play intro music and I would put out two lounge chairs and I would say, come and sit on my hot seat.\nAnd I would do it like a TV show basically. So, you know, like I, I think they knew and they truly supported that. And I think it\u0026rsquo;s really important because a nurturing environment, which says, oh, that\u0026rsquo;s Lisa. She\u0026rsquo;s singing to the clients again.\nJames: Mm\nLisa: Right. So I never hid it. Um, they were really supportive and same with like my law firm in London.\nThey were like, wow, that\u0026rsquo;s unreal. You know, you\u0026rsquo;re becoming a radio DJ. Nobody has ever resigned to become a radio DJ\nJames: Yeah.\nLisa: They were awesome. So I think, I think if you are honest about it and authentic, Then people, you know, will be your greatest supporters. And I feel like the work environment is definitely, um, you know, able to see that we all come in different shape sizes and, you know, and in different modes.\nAnd it\u0026rsquo;s all really, um, really important. Now I think the work for each individual is to see every day as lab day. And every day is an opportunity to learn a bit more about yourself, particularly your superpowers and your values. So superpowers are your strengths, which are unique to you. And the more you play to those strengths, those superpowers, the more helpful you are at work.\nThe happier you are, the more likely you\u0026rsquo;ll be in flow and therefore doing your best work, that\u0026rsquo;s really important for you and for the organization that you belong to, because then you\u0026rsquo;ll be your best self, right. And you\u0026rsquo;ll be doing unreal work. Um, the other part about value. So this is the idea of understanding. How you wanna be in the world? Who do you wanna be in the world? So, you know, I had a few little, um, mishaps with my health. So health became one of my most important values over and above everything else. And then connection, curiosity, freedom. Like I\u0026rsquo;m just someone who needs to be quite free autonomous.\nSo whenever it is, my life is bumped up against. Value or I\u0026rsquo;m not playing to a superpower, like bad things happen, everyone.\nSo it\u0026rsquo;s, you know, you wanna kind of do the work on understanding yourself and therefore you can bring your best self to work.\nJames: Mm.\nLisa: How is that? How\u0026rsquo;s that resonating with you, James?\nCreating your Values # James: No. No, definitely. Definitely. I think one thing I\u0026rsquo;ve been thinking about recently is like this idea of like values and like your, uh, understanding kind of what yours are. I mean, and has that ever been like a formal process that you sort of went through where you were kind of like, okay, I\u0026rsquo;m gonna write down things that I value and like really have a deep think about it or has it just been something that\u0026rsquo;s kind of evolved and now you just have realized, oh, these are things our value.\nI mean, yeah. What does that look like?\nLisa: A bit of both. So I think it started off just understanding just a bit of. a, when I feel like aligned to an organization what\u0026rsquo;s happening there. Um, so there\u0026rsquo;s a specific exercise. It\u0026rsquo;s like the values solicitation process. And, um, so in seriously in, because I wrote this book, um, recently.\nJames: Mm.\nLisa: There\u0026rsquo;s a whole chapter on values.\nAnd we found, you know, one of the world\u0026rsquo;s experts, Greta Bradman, who happens to live in Melbourne in Australia, and she\u0026rsquo;s a, uh, psychologist. She\u0026rsquo;s also a classically trained soprano, um, a. Beautiful woman and a beautiful soul. And she\u0026rsquo;s done a lot of meta research bringing together all of the research on values and she shared her process with us and did it on us, did on us.\nAnd so there actually a list of values because it\u0026rsquo;s quite hard to pull it out of the ether. So she has a. Say 50 or so values and you just really go through it and you just mark the ones that you think, oh, this is jumping out. Yes. And this, and then crossing out the ones that are no, definitely. No. And you get a really good sense then you\u0026rsquo;ll have like 30 or 20.\nUh, and then from there, you know, you just go through a process of whittling it down. You probably want about. Um, and then you wanna really try and make it unique to you as well. So, you know, mine is curiosity. What does that actually mean for me though? So, you know, curious about people, um, I even ideas will come from a particular person and then I\u0026rsquo;ll be interested in why did this particular person get driven to go deeper on these ideas?\nSo for me, it\u0026rsquo;s all about people. Um, So that\u0026rsquo;s the values process, uh, and, and, and it\u0026rsquo;s really worthwhile doing it formally, but also it might change through time. Cause I would say that hedonism was a value of mine. when I was like about 20, you know, I was just like, follow the fun. Where\u0026rsquo;s the fun, like, and that was fine.\nI don\u0026rsquo;t really regret that. Um, and, and actually freedom has always been there. So, you know, I\u0026rsquo;ve traveled a.\nJames: Mm, nice. No, that\u0026rsquo;s super cool. It\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s interesting to hear that, cuz I think, yeah, once you have your kind of values mapped out, then it makes making decisions and like, you know, your decision, like. Moving from, from law to radio. For example, those decisions, I feel become easier once you have this kind of idea of like, what are the things I think are important and how can I sort of map those onto things I\u0026rsquo;m doing day to day?\nLisa: I\u0026rsquo;ve got another, do you want another, um, exercise, James.\nJames: Yeah, Yeah, of course.\nLisa: Okay. So another useful one and, you know, sort of keep this up your sleeve and, and do it periodically is something that I came up with in the year 2000 when I was thinking about, oh, what am I gonna do next? And. I thought that I\u0026rsquo;d created this, I called it the happiness graph.\nI\u0026rsquo;ve since found out that it\u0026rsquo;s a very well known exercise, but it\u0026rsquo;s called the lifeline exercise and in the book, um, it\u0026rsquo;s called the life flow exercise. So. Um, think of a graph and you\u0026rsquo;ve got like the horizontal line and you\u0026rsquo;ve got the vertical line and the vertical line is just like subjective levels of happiness or, um, sense of, you know, yay.\nAnd then on the horizontal line it\u0026rsquo;s time and you go back as far as you can remember, and then you go to today and you\u0026rsquo;re mapping out your life in terms of the highs and low. The peaks and the troughs of your life. So in childhood, you might have had a really amazing moment in your childhood that you remember.\nSo that\u0026rsquo;s a peak and then something, you know, you went to uni, you didn\u0026rsquo;t have great first year, so that\u0026rsquo;s a trough. And then you do you just seriously, subjectively just do this graph. So you got highs and lows and then for every peak. You go, what made this a peak experience? Who was I surrounded by? What was I doing?\nYou know, what\u0026rsquo;s the environment and then you do the troughs. Ooh, okay. This, this was a trough because of what, what was I doing? Who was I with? And then you take a step back and you\u0026rsquo;re trying to see if there\u0026rsquo;s a trend. What made these peak experience, so, so that you can be more intentional about building in maybe some more consistent peaks troughs happen in life.\nSometimes you just can\u0026rsquo;t plan to not have them. You\u0026rsquo;ll have like, it\u0026rsquo;s an ebb and flow of life.\nBut just, you know, rather than going blindly into accidentally hitting a trough every time, Ugh, that\u0026rsquo;s that learning, you know, everyday lab day, you don\u0026rsquo;t repeat the same experiment, right. That where, you know what the, the answer is, it\u0026rsquo;s a negative result.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s a experiment, fail. And example of this is, um, he, uh, a peak experience for me, 1999. Um, one of the banks. Your bank actually, uh, was creating this amazing division. And it was like we were creating internet banking basically. And I got asked to go on second comment to be the lead lawyer. The only lawyer for this division, it was a peak experience, all sorts of diverse creatives coming together to create something that nobody has ever created before.\nI was in heaven. Um, I have been doing long hours in the law firm. I got to five o\u0026rsquo;clock and everyone came up to my desk and they\u0026rsquo;re like, what are you doing? And I\u0026rsquo;m like, I\u0026rsquo;m working. And they\u0026rsquo;re like, stop working. Let\u0026rsquo;s go to the pub. And so we went down to the pub. And just had like the best time together.\nAnd so what I was valued for was the quality of my work, not the quantity. So that was a learning and just the best people, all really different people. So we had financeers and we had, um, advertising people and marketing people were just like project managers and I just loved it. So that was.\nJames: Mm,\nLisa: Trough.\nRemember when I was in the airless windowless office by myself effectively. So getting a theme here, people creating new things, peak trough by myself. Now this is where it\u0026rsquo;s useful. I get into radio like, and this is about curiosity, communicating unreal. But this amazing job that I got. Capital city, radio, commercial radio, everyone wanted this job.\nEveryone I kind of was like a Z list, celebrity celebrity in, uh, in this place, seemingly having it all. I used to do six hour stints on the air and then come out and then kind of cry. And then I look back and I go, why am I so unhappy? Oh, Six hours by myself in an airless windowless office, talking to myself because there was no, like, not a lot of interactivity.\nOf course there\u0026rsquo;s no human beings when you do weekend breakfast for six hours. Um, and so I was like, oh, I\u0026rsquo;ve made a terrible mistake. so then I just, I, you know, and then I applied for the ABC. Where you can work with producers, you interview guests that come into the studio with you. Can you see how that was a, like a learning that I needed to have that bit of objectivity to see?\nOh no, of it\u0026rsquo;s not about the industry actually. It\u0026rsquo;s about the environment.\nJames: Mm, that\u0026rsquo;s really interesting.\nThat\u0026rsquo;s quite an\nLisa: So there you go. The life flow,\nJames: Yeah., that\u0026rsquo;s a good exercise. Yeah.\nYeah.. Yeah.. Wow. I\u0026rsquo;ll have to go, go away and do those things. Um,, that\u0026rsquo;s pretty interesting. Well, we\u0026rsquo;ve spoken about your book a little bit already. Um, and I\u0026rsquo;d love to kind of dive into this a little bit more.\nBiggest Learning from the book # James: Um, and perhaps you could, uh, like what has been your sort of biggest learning from perhaps not even the book, but you know, the podcast you have or the, the show that you run is the same name. And I, I guess, like, you\u0026rsquo;ve been doing it for a while\nnow. What has been like the, the biggest learning or biggest learning.\nFrom from doing this whole thing.\nLisa: When we, um, we\u0026rsquo;d been going along for a little while doing the podcast and it\u0026rsquo;s broadcast as well on radio national, this working life. And we always set out to ask, you know, with curiosity, why do we work the way we work? How might we work differently? Um, How might we be more human at work as well? That was kind of underpinning a lot of our questions, James.\nAnd\nbefore COVID, you know, we\u0026rsquo;d ask these questions about, say remote working, and there was always, you know, a mix of answers, but mainly the gist was it\u0026rsquo;ll never work or it just is the way it is. Like, why question it through COVID. Obviously remote working became our big global experiment. And we found that yes, we could, but you know, of course each has its pros and cons, which we\u0026rsquo;re only learning about now, but we are more willing to ask that question.\nWhy do we work the way we work? How might we work differently? How do we become more human at work? And so suddenly we get this zeitgeist de traction, you know, and we\u0026rsquo;re all in it together. I call us a squat of explorers. So nobody\u0026rsquo;s the expert.\nUm, you know, we are there, you\u0026rsquo;ve got a bit of data there, James.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s different from my data points, but together we can kind of piece together, Hey, what\u0026rsquo;s happening? Right. So then my value of curiosity gets completely ignited. So suddenly this work life, the podcast and the show, um, being broadcast, you know, people are really along for the ride with us. It\u0026rsquo;s helpful, you know, we\u0026rsquo;re, we\u0026rsquo;re asking the questions at the right times, I think for people.\nAnd so it\u0026rsquo;s super rewarding, exciting, um, humbling. And then, you know, then I got a, a LinkedIn message from Arwin summers from hard grant saying, have you ever thought about, you know, a. until that time, I\u0026rsquo;d actually been, um, talking to a friend who\u0026rsquo;s a publisher about, you know, is there a book in this working life, but probably before, COVID, it hadn\u0026rsquo;t really formed for us.\nSo Arwin asking the question at the right time. I thought, you know what? I think there is a book here because I was starting to get emails from people saying, oh, you know, I\u0026rsquo;m just kinda dunno what to do about my own career. Kind of been in the job for 20 years. I don\u0026rsquo;t know what to do or I\u0026rsquo;m starting off and I don\u0026rsquo;t really know how to make these choices in such a crazy chaotic environment.\nAnd so the book kind of formed itself in this question of how do you navigate your career? In times of uncertainty, careers are no longer linear. You don\u0026rsquo;t just lock in and, and bunker down and go deeper and deeper and deeper into your E. So then, um, remember that learning. So the learning from the peak is don\u0026rsquo;t go alone.\nLisa Leon on don\u0026rsquo;t sit in an airless windowless office, you know, by yourself. So I thought, oh, writing a book. had luckily been collaborating with a wonderful ABC journal, digital editor, legend, Monique Ross. And I had noticed that she was an amazing writer. And so I cheekily asked her one day, come on, have you ever thought about writing a book? you seem to love writing? And she said, mm. And I said, will you like to write a book with me?\nJames: Yeah.\nLisa: Said, yes, You know, and not only was it collaborating with Mon, which was like the most delightful thing on the planet, but also with Arwin our editor. And then we actually created a soundtrack for a book.\nSo we got to work with a musician, little green. To, and then her manager and my husband, he did a video clip for the cause we released like an LP for the book. Isn\u0026rsquo;t that crazy. So we just kind of started collecting people and then we had, yeah. Um, you know, just everyone who\u0026rsquo;s involved with the book, which is everyone.\nUm, so many people, but all became part of our squad of explorers and you know, so I, you know, I think. It was, don\u0026rsquo;t get obsessed about the output as well. You know, you can get really fixated on the output. Oh, you know, will this book,\nyou know, what will the finished product be? But I said, you know, to Mon, Hey, let\u0026rsquo;s enjoy.\nAnd then let\u0026rsquo;s find joy in every moment. And so even the writing. Like it was joyous. Like, you know, we\u0026rsquo;d get our little thing and we\u0026rsquo;d come up with ideas together, then we\u0026rsquo;d get down. And then even the parts where we\u0026rsquo;re like, oh, does that work? We tried to make it like more like curiosity, ah, that, that chapter as a fail let\u0026rsquo;s just try again, but it was fine.\nI was fine for Mon you might need to interview her and say, if she also enjoy the process,\nJames: Yeah. at the interrogation.\nYou can\nbe in separate\nLisa: Yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s right. Lisa had a great time. Did you? No,\nJames: Yeah.\nLisa: It was terrible.\nJames: Oh, that\u0026rsquo;s\namazing. Um, I wonder like, yeah,, I\u0026rsquo;m glad it certainly looks really good and I haven\u0026rsquo;t got around to reading it, but I definitely will. Cause I think it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s relevant for\nLisa: Yay.\nJames: Like people in my audience and certainly put a lot of hard work and effort into it. And, um, it seems like it\u0026rsquo;s been received really well, uh, by everyone.\nFantastic job. Um, but I wanna ask as well. So some of the things that you like so, so there it is folks who are watching, amazing. Um, like, so some of the lessons that are in there and then lessons that you, that you have, like on the podcast as well. Are there any of those that you think people will like underappreciate or they, they undervalue, or you wish like more people would be interested in.\nUndervalued pieces from the book # James: Like you think this area is like really cool and important, but like, it doesn\u0026rsquo;t get a reception perhaps that you think it, it should. Is there anything there?\nLisa: Uh, just a funny one is that, um, when I started, my producer was very intrigued by the fact that I\u0026rsquo;m a bio hacker. Do you know this term, James?\nJames: I, I have heard about the stuff like this. Right. Is it like you it\u0026rsquo;s like the person that eats, like all this like foreign, green food it\u0026rsquo;s it\u0026rsquo;s like some herbs from like some\nEaton\nLisa: Yeah. Yeah. New\nJames: Um, that kind\nLisa: Yeah. So use science and\ntechnology science and technology to hack your body. Right. and I was doing a lot of bio hacking because I was traveling a lot. Before COVID and I would just do long haul, like a lot. So traveling to the us or traveling to New Zealand, I think it was nearly once a week to New Zealand.\nAnd though, you know, air travel just takes it out of your body. So I would an example of some biohacking is that I would shine light through this device, into my ears. Which, um, cuz there are photoreceptors on your brain that you can get through your ear canal and that would help me with jet lag. So I would shine it, you know, when I was meant to be awake, for example.\nUm, so that\u0026rsquo;s one example. Another example, an extreme one is cryotherapy it\u0026rsquo;s about minus 170 degrees and you go into a chamber as new as possible. for like three minutes. And it kind of recharges your body. Um, so that\u0026rsquo;s another example. So we did this series on me presenting my bio hacks to scientists and they assess whether or not I\u0026rsquo;m crazy and whether it\u0026rsquo;s worth doing so that was really fun.\nSo, you know, and we, we get to do really fun things on the show. So we do serious topics. Um, absolutely. And. But we also get to have quite a lot of fun in the show as well. So that was one of the things that I got to do, um, on this working life. Um, I think maybe one of the best career, um, ones was this one about portfolio careers.\nSo James a portfolio career. I mean, it absolutely helped me understand what my career is that instead of seeing yourself as I have my main career, and this is a side hustle, so, you know, at one stage I had a consultancy. ABC was my side hustle. Um, this week in life was my side hustle. You actually see a portfolio career like portfolios that you have when you\u0026rsquo;re an, in an.\nYou know, you diversify portfolio, but it all kind of makes sense together. So, um, every part of my career, cuz at the moment I do, you know, my ABC Sunday show, I\u0026rsquo;ve got this working life as well on radio national. I, uh, coach CEOs, executives, I, um, like facilit. Off sites, um, for organizations that could look a little bit like a hodgepodge or, which is my main thing, which is my side hustle, who am I, whereas a portfolio career is a really nice way of managing a whole career, but seeing it as being all additive and working together in harmony, and that\u0026rsquo;s kind of the approach.\nStory Clark, who I interviewed on the show to. And she\u0026rsquo;s the one who introduced me to the term, um, portfolio career. She actually came up with it because she was heavily reliant on one arm of her career, I think in her early days and, you know, lost her job. And so she was like, oh, that\u0026rsquo;s too many eggs in one basket.\nAnd certainly when you\u0026rsquo;re a freelancer, you know, having. Diversified portfolio means that yes, if a COVID in, you know, happens and you know, I can\u0026rsquo;t travel anymore, you know, do I have other aspects of my career that can help me sort of survive through that? Um, cuz that definitely happened to me. So I had to think about, okay, so what are other things that I can be doing here?\nOr I can just take a mini holiday for a little\nJames: Yeah. yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s cool. That, that\u0026rsquo;s a, yeah, it\u0026rsquo;s certainly an interesting way of putting, like, um, I\u0026rsquo;ve had that word mentioned, but it\u0026rsquo;s interesting how you can sort of frame even your things that just framing it differently perhaps makes it sound, uh,\nLisa: Mm.\nJames: Like. Yeah, more comforting, I guess if you, if you frame it in terms of portfolio and, and, and looking at like the ways that things intersect and, and like can, like each thing sort of incre gets more value because of the other things that you\u0026rsquo;re sort of doing at the same\ntime. Um,\nLisa: I think that\u0026rsquo;s important rather than destructive. So thinking that there\u0026rsquo;s a tension there, trying to see it as well. If I learn more. So even, um, between my ABC radio shows, one\u0026rsquo;s a live broadcast show. That\u0026rsquo;s ABC radio Melbourne on Sundays from 10 till 12, and then this working life highly produced weekly radio national show.\nWhen I, um, do my live radio broadcasting, rather than it sort of seeing like its intention with the other, it really helps me. With the way I present this working life, you know, being more conversational, um, even just, you know, listening better. Um, you know, I think it all for me is additive. And then when I do work in corporates, of course, that helps me with this working life because I\u0026rsquo;m with real people in the real world, it\u0026rsquo;s like being in the wilderness of work.\nAnd then I can, or coaching executives, I can sort of go, oh, that\u0026rsquo;s what they\u0026rsquo;re thinking and feeling. That is the zeitgeist at the moment, you know? And so, you know, very often in this working life, I\u0026rsquo;m like, okay, this is a, this is happening in the world of work. Let\u0026rsquo;s um, do outtake on it. So that\u0026rsquo;s what happens.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s like we gotta do this\nshow. Yeah.\nA Failure that ended up being a success # James: Yeah.\nThat\u0026rsquo;s cool. no, I like that a lot. I like that a lot. Um, one thing I wanna ask more general question for. But I wonder if there\u0026rsquo;s been a time in your life, um, perhaps a failure that, or something didn\u0026rsquo;t go to plan, but, uh, and at the time it seemed like it didn\u0026rsquo;t go to plan, but, uh, it ended up being a success like later on or something that at the time seemed like the world was crashing down and it didn\u0026rsquo;t go the way you\u0026rsquo;d expected, but later on, it actually worked out for the best.\nUm, I wonder if there\u0026rsquo;s\nany examples\nLisa: I\u0026rsquo;ve got so many. Uh so I seem to trip up a lot, James. So always learning, always learning.\nJames: Yeah.\nLisa: One of the, one of the ones which might be relevant to you is that I. Was doing really well in this kind of client relationship, business development role. And so I kept on it being promoted and it was really exciting until I got promoted to like, I just couldn\u0026rsquo;t say no to this amazing, uh, role.\nAnd it was to head up business development in Asia for a large organization. And it was like, oh, how sexy and fun is that? So with my husband and with my little daughter at the time, she would\u0026rsquo;ve been four or five, uh, we went over and moved to Hong Kong. So because I was covering all of Asia, I was flying around a lot, um, you know, sort of gallivanting around, uh, had a team of 18 amazing team, cross cultural and.\nSo I was really busy and we\u0026rsquo;re trying to do something pretty special. So calendar was full email box full. Lots of responsibility, absolutely loving it. High powered. Uh, also I thought, and then, um, I thought, oh, work life balance. I\u0026rsquo;ll train for an Olympic distance triathlon. So I was like running and I was like swimming and I was cycling and then I was working and then I didn\u0026rsquo;t really feel stressed, but I was certainly waking up at three.\nWith a lot in my head. And so I would do hours of work and then I\u0026rsquo;d kind of have an little nap and then I would go to work for the rest of the day and flying around, went on a holiday with some friends, no surprise. My body just completely, you know, when I\u0026rsquo;m, when you\u0026rsquo;ve been too much in adrenaline and all the adrenaline seeps away on a holiday.\nAnd then your body actually says, actually, I\u0026rsquo;m. Bang. So I get shingles, which I had no idea what it was, but it was, I thought it was like a medieval disease shingles. Oh.\nJames: Yeah.\nLisa: Um, so it\u0026rsquo;s like a bad thing. Rashi thing that happens, but mine, um, got complicated and I got secondary nerve damage and it\u0026rsquo;s called post Neuria and.\nGP said whatever you do. Don\u0026rsquo;t Google post heed neur. So I went home and I Googled it.\nJames: Yeah.\nLisa: Like horror stories of people who never went back to work. Never cause it\u0026rsquo;s nerve damage. It\u0026rsquo;s like searing pain.\nI was on seven different painkillers. Couldn\u0026rsquo;t hug. My daughter couldn\u0026rsquo;t hug my husband. I would just cry. And so anyway, I was crying and I was like, oh my God, I\u0026rsquo;ve stuffed up. So all those boxes of success, the promotion, the work life balance with the Olympic distance triathlon, it was like a, like a big mistake because I was in bed. I was bedridden. And so I actually managed to recover a friend suggested, um, meditation.\nOf which I\u0026rsquo;d said before, like why would I do that? But I did John Kabat sinces, uh, program called mindfulness based stress reduction. It\u0026rsquo;s scientifically, um, from Massachusetts hospital scientifically, um, I guess tested, and\nJames: Mm.\nLisa: It was hard, but you know what, it was really helpful for managing pain and then for managing stress and then for better, um, Sense of presence.\nAnd what presence gives you is my brother said, you\u0026rsquo;re so much nicer now., that was one thing. And then just to be there with another and to actually be present and focusing, uh, and then this idea of that was when I actually became like a bio hacker health, first person, James. Um, so I would\u0026rsquo;ve.\nQuite old by then, like 40 took me a while.\nI\u0026rsquo;m like a really slow learner. Um, so I was 40 and I was maybe 30 something. I can\u0026rsquo;t remember. I actually have no sense of time, 30 something say,\nuh, but then I was like, right. Health is so important. If you don\u0026rsquo;t have health, you\u0026rsquo;ve got nothing. Like bedridden is not good. So then I was like, okay, what does it look like to.\nHave health first for me. And so that\u0026rsquo;s when you know, morning routine and, um, a lot of my other practices. So even though I have freedom as a value, I am still disciplined and structure actually gives you freedom.\nJames: Mm.\nLisa: It\u0026rsquo;s like the right amount of freedom, you know?\nJames: Yeah. There\u0026rsquo;s like the, I don\u0026rsquo;t know if you\u0026rsquo;ve like familiar with Joco willing, but, um, he has like\nthis saying it\u0026rsquo;s like\nLisa: Commando, right?\nJames: I think he might even have, yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s right. Yeah. He\u0026rsquo;s like\na, I\u0026rsquo;ve forgotten\nLisa: I don\u0026rsquo;t have it tattooed on my chest though. Like he does\nJames: Yeah. one day. We\u0026rsquo;ll get there.\nwe need more discipline.\nLisa: Day.\nLisa\u0026rsquo;s Advice for Graduates # James: Yeah, amazing. Well, I\u0026rsquo;ve got one more question for you, Lisa. Uh, and that is around, um, you know, Careers and young people more generally is a question. I ask all the guests that come on the show. And that is if you could, like, if, if someone was kind of graduating university again, heading out into the world, uh, and you had the chance to give them some advice, knowing the things that you know now and the things that you\u0026rsquo;ve been through, what, what is some advice that you would give someone at that stage?\nLisa: Uh, never listen to someone who gives you advice without asking some questions. First is my piece of advice. Isn\u0026rsquo;t that a head spin.\nJames: Yeah. Yeah.\nLisa: Um,\nuh, the, the other one is, you know, don\u0026rsquo;t put too much pressure on yourself. I think you find the right pathway, James, whatever road you take at the fork at that time.\nAnd I feel like, you know, there\u0026rsquo;s a lot of pressure make the right decision. Like it kind of all comes out in the wash at the end of the day. And remember that if you make a misstep. So if you. Accept a position that you absolutely hate then tick well done. You\u0026rsquo;ve just learned something about what you don\u0026rsquo;t want next time.\nright. So take the pressure off you\u0026rsquo;re okay. Um, if every day is lab day, you are fine. Um, so that\u0026rsquo;s one thing, um, as well.\nJames: Hmm, fantastic. I think that\u0026rsquo;s a good attitude to have every day\u0026rsquo;s lab day, uh, and you know, experiment a bit and try and get closer to the things that give you energy that are the highs like you mentioned, and try and steer away from, uh, the, the, uh, lows where possible.,\nIf people wanna find out more about yourself and like connect with. Where\u0026rsquo;s the best place for them to go.\nLisa: So the best place is LinkedIn. And I think I\u0026rsquo;m under Lisa S. Leon. So you can find me on LinkedIn and it\u0026rsquo;s a really good place for anyone with a career. So I\u0026rsquo;d encourage you just to start off a basic LinkedIn page if you haven\u0026rsquo;t already. Uh, and then, uh, you can also follow me on Instagram as well. So that\u0026rsquo;s.\nLisa ESLE and you\u0026rsquo;ll see me there on Instagram. They\u0026rsquo;re the best places you can, um, connect with me and, uh, write to me there.\nJames: Amazing. no. Yeah. Thanks so much, Lisa, for coming on, it\u0026rsquo;s been very, very entertaining and ency chat.\nLisa: Thank you, James.\nOutro # James: Thanks for listening to this episode I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. If you want to get my takeaways, the things that I learned from this episode, please go to Graduate Theory.com/subscribe, where you can get my takeaways and all the information about each episode, straight to your inbox.\nThanks so much for listening again today, and we\u0026rsquo;re looking forward to seeing you next week.\n← Back to episode 44\n","date":"22 August 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/graduate-theory/44-lisa-leong/transcript/","section":"Graduate Theory Transcripts","summary":"← Back to episode 44\nThis transcript has been lightly edited for readability. It may still contain transcription errors.\nLisa: So all those boxes of success, the promotion, the work life balance with the Olympic distance triathlon, it was like a, like a big mistake because I was in bed. I was bedridden\n","title":"Transcript: Lisa Leong | On Moments of Truth and Pattern Discovery","type":"graduate-theory-transcripts"},{"content":" Watch the conversation Graduate Theory Open YouTube ↗ Read the full transcript → Today\u0026rsquo;s guest is passionate and doing great work in the world. Startups in Africa aren\u0026rsquo;t something you hear about every day, but today, you will hear exactly why they represent a fantastic opportunity.\nThe pod this week isn\u0026rsquo;t just about this, we also dive into what it means to reskill effectively and why accountability can be a secret weapon.\nThis article was sent to subscribers of the Graduate Theory newsletter.\nSubscribe now 👇\nSubscribe Now\nWatch this episode on YouTube.\nCaleb Maru is the Head of Programs at EntryLevel and a Partner at Proximity Ventures.\nHe is passionate about startups in Africa and writes about his learnings in his newsletter.\n🤝 Connect with Caleb # Newsletter - https://proximityvc.substack.com/\nTwitter - https://twitter.com/calebmaru\nLinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/calebmaru/\n👇 Episode Takeaways # The Africa Opportunity # Caleb\u0026rsquo;s energy and enthusiasm for Africa is infectious.\nThere were some things he said during the interview that got my attention.\nover half of Africa\u0026rsquo;s population is under 35 23% of people have their own business Founders can be extremely fast builders the culture is one of giving back and helping your friends These things, together with increased investment funding and increasing tech adoption make for a very interesting proposition.\nCaleb is doing great work in this space and is absolutely one to watch.\nEffective Reskilling # Caleb is a very effective operator. He has many skills in many different areas.\nAt EntryLevel, he helps people to reskill from one area to another.\nHere is what he had to say about those that manage this transition effectively\nA, a pretty firm commitment. I want this job, and so this is what I\u0026rsquo;m going for. B it\u0026rsquo;s being really particular about what things you need to learn. C is like learning those things and then like D is just like actively applying for roles the whole time.\nI think this applies to not only big transitions that are across industries or complete role changes, but also those changes that are more local like going for a promotion.\nYou must\nbe committed understand what you need to learn learn those things apply for the role Doing these things will make it hard to fail at what you desire to achieve.\nAccountability # Caleb spoke to the power of accountability in getting him to where he is today.\nHe attributed much of his progress to his Elephants group. (You can read about what this is here)\nAccountability is powerful. Saying your goals and ambitions in a public way, whether that is on social media or with friends is one of the best ways to stick to things that you want to do.\nUse it wisely.\nGet the Newsletter\n📝 Content Timestamps # 00:00 Caleb Maru\n00:11 Intro\n00:30 Start of interest in Africa\n03:34 Biggest differences in startup culture between Aus and Africa\n12:20 Undervalued parts of the African startup ecosystem\n17:35 The role of governments in Africa\n21:05 Personal Learning from Africa\n23:26 Caleb at Entrylevel\n25:26 Caleb\u0026rsquo;s reskilling journey\n27:12 Traits of successful EntryLevel learners\n32:32 Caleb\u0026rsquo;s Inspirations\n35:51 Most worthwhile investment of time or money\n40:41 Advice for Graduates\n42:02 Connect with Caleb\n42:46 Outro\n","date":"15 August 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/graduate-theory/43-caleb-maru/","section":"Graduate Theory","summary":" Watch the conversation Graduate Theory Open YouTube ↗ Read the full transcript → Today’s guest is passionate and doing great work in the world. Startups in Africa aren’t something you hear about every day, but today, you will hear exactly why they represent a fantastic opportunity.\n","title":"Caleb Maru | On African Startups and the Power of Accountability","type":"graduate-theory"},{"content":"← Back to episode 43\nThis transcript has been lightly edited for readability. It may still contain transcription errors.\nCaleb: It\u0026rsquo;s not about. How do I take, but it\u0026rsquo;s about like, how do I support and like help as much as I can.\nIntro # James: Hello and welcome to Graduate Theory. Today\u0026rsquo;s guest is the head of programs at entry level, and he\u0026rsquo;s a partner at proximity ventures.\nHe\u0026rsquo;s passionate about startups in Africa and writes about his learnings in his newsletter. Please. Welcome to the show today, Caleb Mau.\nCaleb: Hey, great to be here.\nStart of interest in Africa # James: Great. Welcome to the show mate, excited to chat to you today. Uh, all this experience that you\u0026rsquo;ve got in Africa with different African startups, et cetera. Um, I\u0026rsquo;d love to sort of dive into your experience there. And in particular, we can start off with how you kind of got started with everything in Africa.\nWhat was kind of your first, um, intro into the possibility of doing all this kind of thing? Um, in.\nCaleb: Yeah, such a good question. And yeah, definitely a big part of like, Of everything that I\u0026rsquo;m doing is, is the African background. So I think it started it, it didn\u0026rsquo;t really start as like, I want a career in Africa or, you know, this is a cool opportunity. Let me go over there. I think it was more, I, um, grew up traveling to Africa a lot to Ethiopia in particular.\nThat\u0026rsquo;s where my family\u0026rsquo;s from. And, um, When I was young, I\u0026rsquo;d just go there and it was fun. And I\u0026rsquo;d just hang out with my cousins and play around and like, you know, see all the, like the grandparents. But I think it was on a trip when I was 14, when I just like, I think it just clicked like, okay, these conditions are actually very different to Australia.\nAnd it used to seem really fun when I was like younger, but now I see it. And it\u0026rsquo;s like, actually just like so much worse. And these conditions leave these living conditions and the like level of opportunity and the level of. Basically access to just like human rights and resources, um, is so fundamentally different and it\u0026rsquo;s unacceptable.\nAnd so like when I, when that clicked, when I was 14, um, from then it was just a, okay, cool. Well, I have like, I should be trying to do something, um, to improve it and to like really like, make a difference in this region because it\u0026rsquo;s somewhere that I\u0026rsquo;m from. And like really, I just, I drew the, the luck lottery to be born in and raised in Australia.\nSo I think that was the start of it. And it wasn\u0026rsquo;t this like succinct or clear, but I just knew it when I was that when I was younger. And so I wanted to do, um, human rights law in Africa and ended up actually doing that for a while, had a stint, um, at a consultancy, which I ended up being partner of.\nCalled Matsu consult. And we did, um, peace and security policy and economic, um, policy across east Africa. And just like quickly realized it wasn\u0026rsquo;t as, um, as fast moving as I wanted it didn\u0026rsquo;t do the job that I wanted, which was like, how do you push the consonant further? And so what did that job was when I spent time with startups.\nAnd when I did that, I realized like, Hey, startups on the continent. Um, they\u0026rsquo;re not like. They\u0026rsquo;re not just like accessories or they\u0026rsquo;re not nice to haves. Um, they\u0026rsquo;re actually solving really hard problems and turning those into very profitable companies. And so you have like this really, um, really ambitious young population, plus like now, like the ease of adoption of technology.\nAnd so anyone can build something online. Um, and we\u0026rsquo;re just at this very exciting point in startups in Africa. So that\u0026rsquo;s how I ended. Um, doing startups and investing in startups in Africa. And, um, I think it\u0026rsquo;s just like the, the background that really got me inducted into, um, what realities are like and made me sort of purpose driven on, on fixing or like trying to help those, um, or just like improve conditions on the continent.\nBiggest differences in startup culture between Aus and Africa # James: Yeah,\nit\u0026rsquo;s pretty cool. It\u0026rsquo;s pretty exciting, mate. It\u0026rsquo;s a big, big challenge as well. Obviously Africa, huge, uh, continent. And it\u0026rsquo;s a pretty cool sort of journey that you\u0026rsquo;re on. And, and the challenge you\u0026rsquo;re undertaking. Um, I wanna ask, like, what are some of the biggest differences. In terms of like startup culture in Africa.\nI, I don\u0026rsquo;t know if they\u0026rsquo;re even like, I\u0026rsquo;m sure you\u0026rsquo;d probably be the most across this, uh, versus like here in Australia. Right. Is there, is there much of a difference there? Like, like what are the things that you think perhaps culture wise or whatever that African startups are just like, they do this really well.\nIs there anything,\nCaleb: Yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s such, that is such a great question. Um, culture wise, I don\u0026rsquo;t know if there\u0026rsquo;s that much. That\u0026rsquo;s too. I mean, like. I think the way that they think about startups and NBC and like building startups is quite similar. Um, it\u0026rsquo;s definitely like funnier. I think there\u0026rsquo;s like more like founders who are like, who I love, who are on Twitter, who just say loose, like loose shit all the time.\nAnd I\u0026rsquo;m just like, whoa, that\u0026rsquo;s wild.\nJames: Yeah.\nCaleb: Yeah. I think maybe what\u0026rsquo;s different is, um, there\u0026rsquo;s a few things. I think what\u0026rsquo;s different is speak. So like founders here, you know, move fast and get things done. But I think. Maybe some of the fastest founders that I know here in Australia is like kind of the standard, uh, in Africa, which is really interesting.\nUm, it\u0026rsquo;s and then like the fast founders there, like, um, who we, you know, who I talked to are just like crazy fast. And like, when I, when you look at the progress, like that was, that was like six months ago, you started this thing and like, look where you\u0026rsquo;re at now. Um, Speed is one thing. And then I think like, um, yeah, maybe a few structural things that are different, uh, that like in Africa, because it\u0026rsquo;s a, it\u0026rsquo;s a continent, right?\nLike you need to launch into different countries and you try to do that fairly quickly. Um, so you can get the lay of the land and then dominate that market. Um, and so. Founders are like always looking at expansion, um, and, and growing quickly. So that probably ties into speed as well. So if you have a founder, they\u0026rsquo;re like, oh, we just like, you know, we\u0026rsquo;re working on a launch in this country.\nUm, whereas in Australia, like you can take a while just like. Building in Australia and like building for the market here before you go and launch in the us. Sometimes it takes a while before you do that. So, um, that might be different. And then I think, um, they\u0026rsquo;re just like more frugal. Like I have not seen, I don\u0026rsquo;t know, like most of the startups are like, okay, we\u0026rsquo;re, we\u0026rsquo;re like, we\u0026rsquo;re a break even, or like we\u0026rsquo;re profitable and they\u0026rsquo;re raising.\nAnd you know, you think about the leverage that gives you is like, if you\u0026rsquo;re not burning cash, you\u0026rsquo;re making money. Um, you\u0026rsquo;re good. Like we invested in a startup that was like, we don\u0026rsquo;t need this round, but. We just wanna let some of our friends in, like, that\u0026rsquo;s sort of the mentality there because so many of them are doing so well.\nThey\u0026rsquo;re solving like core needs that they don\u0026rsquo;t actually need VC funding in the way that startups here do where you just burn cash until you\u0026rsquo;re eventually like, um, eventually like big enough and you can get like economies of scale and like, and it\u0026rsquo;s profitable. So those are probably the main D things.\nI don\u0026rsquo;t know if that speaks to the culture or like just the conditions there and the way that. Um, startups on the constant raise and think about, um, building, but yeah, it\u0026rsquo;s a fun place. It\u0026rsquo;s kind of, it\u0026rsquo;s just, it\u0026rsquo;s super fun. Um, you know, you think about, um, some of these societies and it\u0026rsquo;s just like, so tech enabled, um, but so different, like, um, in Kenya, right?\nLike every, no one uses cash anymore. Like everyone just like transfers money. And they\u0026rsquo;ve been doing that since 2007. Like that\u0026rsquo;s. Our bank transfers that have\nlike become hot and heavy in the last, like 10 years is just like standard\nfor them, like from 10 years ago. So it\u0026rsquo;s just like, yeah. I think tech is like much more ingrained into society.\nUm,\nyeah.\nJames: Yeah. Wow. That\u0026rsquo;s interesting. Yeah, it\u0026rsquo;s interesting. Cuz like probably we\u0026rsquo;ve had like, at least like in Australia, in, in the west, like tech, like probably for longer. Um, but it\u0026rsquo;s interesting to see that they it\u0026rsquo;s kind of so ingrained even, Um,\nearlier than we\u0026rsquo;ve had it. It\u0026rsquo;s kind of almost, uh, overtaken perhaps in some ways.\nCaleb: Totally. And like, I think, um, consumer adoption of like new technologies is so much higher there too.\nUm, which is really exciting. I think part of that\u0026rsquo;s also because Africa has such a young\npopulation, like most of the population, I think over\nhalf is like, Under 35 and that\u0026rsquo;s like, that is expected to just like balloon in the next 10 to 20 years.\nAnd so like, you know, they\u0026rsquo;re on a phone from a really young age they\u0026rsquo;re on the internet. And so they\u0026rsquo;re like, oh, like a new\napp or like a new product. Yeah. Let me try\nthat Um, so\nJames: Yeah. Wow. That\u0026rsquo;s cool. Well, yeah, one thing you mentioned there was around like, the speed and you\u0026rsquo;re saying like um, some of the African founders are like a lot faster perhaps than, than some of the guys here. What do you think? Why do you think that is.\nCaleb: Um, oh,\nthat\u0026rsquo;s a great question. Why is that? Um, I think it\u0026rsquo;s because they, there are like, that\u0026rsquo;s, that\u0026rsquo;s a really good question. Uh, let me think about that. I don\u0026rsquo;t wanna like.\nJames: Do you think it\u0026rsquo;s like.\na, yeah. That\u0026rsquo;s okay. Yeah. yeah, No no, no. Yeah. Yeah.\nWell, do you think it would be like, is it like, like a, do they just have more drive and it\u0026rsquo;s kind of personality driven or do you think it\u0026rsquo;s more of just like, there\u0026rsquo;s just more. Things that can be done. So it\u0026rsquo;s like, uh, almost easier to kind of just do stuff like from a more PR like in a more practical sense.\nLike, would it be either of those or if, yeah.\nCaleb: Yeah. So there, there\u0026rsquo;s a few, there\u0026rsquo;s a few threads here and like none of them are conclusive. So like in Africa, um, about\n23% of people, um, in Africa have their own business. Right. And so that\u0026rsquo;s how most people survive and live it\u0026rsquo;s because there\u0026rsquo;s like, literally just not enough jobs.\nSo you just start your own thing and you sell, right. So that\u0026rsquo;s like, it\u0026rsquo;s just so embedded. Like entrepreneurship culture is not just like a, it\u0026rsquo;s not like going from. Nine to five culture where like, now we\u0026rsquo;re seeing a shift of people being like, I wanna work my own hours or I wanna start my own\nthing.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s like, no, like everyone\u0026rsquo;s been starting their\nown thing forever. Right. That\u0026rsquo;s how you make it. And so being able to do that with technology, it\u0026rsquo;s just like that on steroids. Um, so there\u0026rsquo;s that thread. I think the other one\nis it\u0026rsquo;s kind of like, it\u0026rsquo;s a lot cheaper to build a team there. Um, so it\u0026rsquo;s\nlike easier to build a team there and it\u0026rsquo;s cheaper and it\u0026rsquo;s also.\nUm, because there\u0026rsquo;s just so such a big like consumer market, right. People up\nlike, um, will uptake new products and new services fairly\nquickly. So getting like your initial traction, isn\u0026rsquo;t that hard. And so you can just like reinvest that into like building a bigger team and we\u0026rsquo;re seeing that happen quite a bit.\nUm, yeah. And then maybe the other thread is like,\nI think it\u0026rsquo;s just harder. Like it is, it is harder being a founder in Africa, right? Like it\u0026rsquo;s harder than here. Um, if you think about it, it\u0026rsquo;s like, yeah, like you really want your startup to die, like to survive. You don\u0026rsquo;t want it to die. If your startup, um,\nIf you start up here dies, you\u0026rsquo;re probably all good.\nYou\u0026rsquo;ll get a job somewhere. Um, and you, you know, like you can hang out at your parents\u0026rsquo; house until like, you, you find the next thing there. It\u0026rsquo;s probably a bit different, right? Like the founders there, like they\u0026rsquo;ll probably be okay, but like, I think it\u0026rsquo;s like higher sense of urgency because it\u0026rsquo;s just like, conditions\nare not the same. Like, they\u0026rsquo;re not the same. And, um, to study company is like very difficult and like, you are sort of swinging with it. Um, cuz you want that to be the thing. Whereas here, like I feel like a lot of founders or entrepreneurs. That was a cool thing to do. Like I\u0026rsquo;m gonna just go like, you know, like live a normal life, a balanced life, which is a good thing, but like not really how.\nYou know, the Ultrafast entrepreneurs run. So, um, yeah. So maybe, maybe those are some threads on like why they move so quick. I guess they\u0026rsquo;re also just in love with it. Like they\nlove building, right? Like, um, most of \u0026rsquo;em are self taught devs or like they, like, we invested and founder recently who, um, taught himself to code and just like is building he\u0026rsquo;s shipped like in the last six months, like nine products and he\u0026rsquo;s built them all himself.\nWith a team of like, so he\u0026rsquo;s the only like back end and he has a team of two front ends and it\u0026rsquo;s just like incredible to\nwatch him like run. Um, and he is a CEO as well, and he is like fundraiser. So it\u0026rsquo;s just like, and he loves it. So I think it\u0026rsquo;s like, um, yeah, just like insane\ndrive. Yeah.\nJames: Yeah. There\u0026rsquo;s that, there\u0026rsquo;s that saying, like you know, burn the boats where you kind of if there\u0026rsquo;s no way back, then it will kind of, you know, and you\u0026rsquo;re sort of going all in then it\u0026rsquo;s you just have even more, um, you just have to punch like even harder. Right. Um, which is perhaps like part of the case there, like like you mentioned.\nCaleb: Yeah. I love that framework so much where it\u0026rsquo;s like, you burn the bridge entirely. Like you\u0026rsquo;re like, okay, like I\u0026rsquo;m moving, um, careers, or I\u0026rsquo;m moving fields. I\u0026rsquo;m not doing any more of that work. And like, I\u0026rsquo;m telling everyone I\u0026rsquo;m not doing any more of that work. And then it\u0026rsquo;s like, shit, I\ncan\u0026rsquo;t do anything else in that field. like, I have to go for\nJames: Yeah. Yeah,\nCaleb: Or I have to build\nthis company. Yeah.\nUndervalued parts of African startup ecosystem # James: Yeah. Yeah. Definitely it\u0026rsquo;s powerful stuff. um, another question I have around like the, the, the Africa stuff is us looking at, uh, at startups in Africa,. Um, and, and what are some things that you think like people are missing perhaps when it comes to this or things that like, big things that are happening there, or certain ways that they do things that people in, in the west are just kind of oblivious to That like yeah, like the, like there\u0026rsquo;s things that are really on fire, uh, and you know, people are smashing in, but, um, people here are just like, yeah, whatever. It\u0026rsquo;s just kind of they\u0026rsquo;re in Africa. Like no problem. Um, you know, is there any like aspects of the um, of the startup scene or like any particular, like, ways of doing things or even any particular?\nCaleb: Think I get you. Yeah. Like what what\u0026rsquo;s like\nunderappreciated, that\u0026rsquo;s going for the consonant, um, in the tech scene. yeah. Um, yeah, I think that\u0026rsquo;s quite a few things and it\u0026rsquo;s interesting because a lot of them\naren\u0026rsquo;t like, they\u0026rsquo;re kind of framed as.\nLike they\u0026rsquo;re originally problems where they\u0026rsquo;re actually opportunities, right?\nSo like, one of them is that you have just this massive population that\u0026rsquo;s been shut out of like a lot of access to a lot of government support and a lot of, um, a lot of like financial inclusion. Like they can\u0026rsquo;t get bank accounts because they don\u0026rsquo;t have the right verification or ID\nor the process to doing that\nis just so lengthy.\nUm, you know, the whole unbanked population is just massive in Africa. Like we don\u0026rsquo;t know specifically how many people\nit is, but like, It\u0026rsquo;s it\u0026rsquo;s like estimated to be around like 60 people, 60% of people aren\u0026rsquo;t banks in Africa. Um, there\u0026rsquo;s just like so many things that are\nnot working in Africa, which means that like, now that you have you add that with, um, a.\nSort of a class of people who now have access to phones like phone penetration, Africa is just skyrocketing. Um, and now they also have internet connection, um, and connectivity, right? And so they can access products on\ntheir phones. Um, when you have like these hard problems and like phone and internet penetration, you now have like an opportunity where startups can come in and build solutions to really hard problems or things that people have been shut out of that we have in the west that now.\nThose consumers can have. And you see that like sort of, you know, explode it\u0026rsquo;s like on fire, um, in Africa in some ways like, um, we invested in a startup called split and the problem they\u0026rsquo;re solving is in, um, in west Africa, you like, it\u0026rsquo;s really expensive to, um, to rent a place just to rent a place. Right.\nUm, and the reason for that is like, um, I think it\u0026rsquo;s like interest rates are just so high that like, it makes more sense to just pay for a house upfront, um, rather than get a loan. Right. Um, and so they, um, they make it so, and so like, landlords will require you to pay for a full year of rent. And in Australia that\u0026rsquo;s like $16,000.\nAnd I like cannot fork that out in one go, but that\u0026rsquo;s like reality there. Um, and so they have literally just made a verification mechanism for you to come on as a tenant and pay monthly. Something we take for granted here, um, online and then the, the landlord gets their cash up front. Um, and so they\u0026rsquo;re sort of like, it\u0026rsquo;s kind of like rent now pay later.\nAnd so you see like there\u0026rsquo;s like problems that just exist. Um, that like tech can solve and pretty easily, but like previously, um, this consumer class didn\u0026rsquo;t have access to those sort of solutions because they didn\u0026rsquo;t have phones. They didn\u0026rsquo;t have like internet penetration, internet. Um, and so there\u0026rsquo;s just like so many things that, um, that are unique problems there.\nLike another one is sending money across border. So between like say, um, Ethiopia and Kenya, um, costs a lot more than sending money from Ethiopias like the us or Australia. Um, and sometimes like the average, like amount of like it fee if it\u0026rsquo;s fees that it eats up is like 20% of the money you\u0026rsquo;d send. And that doesn\u0026rsquo;t work.\nIf you have like a family split between countries or you have friends in different countries or you\u0026rsquo;re working in different countries, Um, there\u0026rsquo;s a startup that like kicked off in 2018 called chipper cash, which you may or may not have heard of. It\u0026rsquo;s like a, now a $3 billion company, um, in just like four years, but basically they\u0026rsquo;ve dropped the fees down.\nSo you can now pay, um, in between like cross country, really cheaply, um, Like again, another problem that people couldn\u0026rsquo;t like fix, or like get over, get through, um, without technology and internet, but now they can. And so basically like anything that, like, people have been shut out of in these emerging markets that now they get access to is a huge opportunity.\nAnd I think there\u0026rsquo;s even more opportunity when you go for things that are like, um, maybe a notch down, right?. So like there\u0026rsquo;s all these problems that like now middle class can, can like, um, access, right? So they all have phones. They have like internet penetration, so rentals or like sending money across border, um, stuff like that.\nBut, um, I think the real opportunity is going for where like, um, not middle class, but like the sort of bottom of the pyramid, you know, less than $2 a day, less than $4 a day. Um, building products for them is really, really interesting, um, where you can actually access like way more people, um, and, and build a product that services way more people who aren\u0026rsquo;t middle class yet.\nUm, and who have been shut out of that and gives them access to like, Inclusion in that way. Um, so yeah, there\u0026rsquo;s like, there\u0026rsquo;s a lot of examples of that, but if I keep going I\u0026rsquo;ll, I\u0026rsquo;ll\nprobably ramble. So\nThe role of governments in Africa # James: Yeah, amazing. Ah, cool. I\u0026rsquo;m interested like, Yeah. Uh, you mentioned there are sort of like high interest rates to get a, to like get a mortgage and what, and whatever, interested to know, like your perspective on the role of like governments and like, um, central banks and things like that in Africa. Cause I guess the.\nPerhaps a stereotype is that there\u0026rsquo;s a lot of corruption and like this kind of stuff that kind of prevents a lot of, um, a lot of growth in these areas or like, you know, someone might try and do something cool, but then someone in the government like doesn\u0026rsquo;t let them do it or whatever. I feel like, uh, perhaps that\u0026rsquo;s a stereotype where you certainly, um, At least I feel that, that, that at least I\u0026rsquo;ve heard stories like that.\nRight. And I think that\u0026rsquo;s that\u0026rsquo;s not UN unreasonable to say. Um, but you know, what do you think the role is there and like have, how have you seen that, like change over time and has it progressed better? And do you think it\u0026rsquo;s like, what can, what can startups and companies do to kind of, um, support that situation?\nCaleb: Yeah, for sure that\u0026rsquo;s such a good question. Um, it is a stereotype, but I think like it. Makes sense. Cuz we have had instances where it\u0026rsquo;s been crazy like that, where like government\u0026rsquo;s been like, oh, you know what? Like we\u0026rsquo;re turning off the internet for a month. Like that happens. Um, and like, those are just like really, you know, they\u0026rsquo;re fairly big problems.\nUm, for founders, especially ones that are building in multiple markets. It\u0026rsquo;s also part of why like a lot of founders, like we need to get out of just one country. We need to be in multiple. Um, so it\u0026rsquo;s a F it\u0026rsquo;s like, it is a stereotype, but it is fair. Like it\u0026rsquo;s found, it\u0026rsquo;s founded in. What\u0026rsquo;s historically happened.\nRight. Um, I think that it\u0026rsquo;s a risk and we do need government on board, like for societal change, like if we\u0026rsquo;re gonna push a whole continent forward. Government needs to like be working along alongside tech and supporting tech rather than fighting it. Um, and we have some examples of where that\u0026rsquo;s happened, like Kenya, for instance, um, and like allowing Safaricom, which is like a massive telco provider to do, to use I Pesa, um, and get started on that in 2007, like really pushed it forward as a, as a.\nUm, and their economy has done like a lot better than a lot of the neighboring countries. Rwanda\u0026rsquo;s also an example where Kame, um, the president was, um, just like we need to rebuild. And so we\u0026rsquo;re gonna build up our tech scene and our, like our sort of infrastructure and make sure that this is a hub for like, um, tech.\nSo we\u0026rsquo;re seeing it work the other way, where like governments are, um, collaborating. I think that, um, We do new government on board. I do think that some of the best tech like moves too fast for government. And that\u0026rsquo;s kind of my hope is that like great technology and solutions to really big problems move so fast and grow so quickly that they like\nthey hit mass adoption and then like governments can\u0026rsquo;t really mess with them.\nUm, we\u0026rsquo;ve definitely seen that happen with like Facebook, um, and Amazon and Google. I would love to see that happen with more African founders who are just solving hard problems. Um, I dunno if that\u0026rsquo;s true though, like, I guess we\u0026rsquo;ll see. Um, but I do really hope that. Tech that solving like fundamental problems can sort of like, you know, sidestep government until it\u0026rsquo;s big enough that you can\u0026rsquo;t remove it.\nAnd you look at, in Pesa, for instance, in like, um, in Kenya, if you removed that from Kenya, Kenya would been a lot of trouble. Um, it\u0026rsquo;s like what the country runs on. So like, um,\nJames: Yeah.\nYeah. cool. No, that\u0026rsquo;s exciting. and yeah. Good to like, that was a great, uh, point there about. Uh, companies in the west, like going faster than to sort of the government\u0026rsquo;s able to kind of keep them down, I think? Yeah. I agree. Hopefully that, that we can start to see more of those examples in Africa as well.\nPersonal Learning from Africa # James: Um, one more question about Africa for you and perhaps more of a personal question. I mean, what have you, like, what has been your personal, like some of the biggest learnings that you\u0026rsquo;ve learned from, from operating there and seeing, seeing people work there, um, is.\nthere anything that you personally have kind of taken away from, from being, being a part of it?\nCaleb: Yeah, that is a great question. Um, what have my biggest\nlearnings been? Um, I think it\u0026rsquo;s just like Yeah. I don\u0026rsquo;t know. Like, I, it\u0026rsquo;s kind of hard to put to words, but it\u0026rsquo;s like maybe a few things around the sense of community there. Like, um, and I think that speaks to Africa as a consonant and like the different cultures in Africa where like, um, it\u0026rsquo;s really, it\u0026rsquo;s mostly like hospitality and caring first.\nLike that\u0026rsquo;s like one of the first things that matters. And so I see that with like the founders I talk to and the people on the continent and the people who are building on the continent, it\u0026rsquo;s all about like, you know, how not, it\u0026rsquo;s not about. How do I take, but it\u0026rsquo;s about like, how do I support and like help as much as I can.\nYou know, I thought that like, that culture was sort of limited to, um, just my family and I feel like that\u0026rsquo;s just been replicated, but like in my interactions with people for work. Cause that\u0026rsquo;s really cool. Um, that\u0026rsquo;s been really cool. Um, and then I think that\u0026rsquo;s something else there about like it, yeah, it was like a feeling I had when I went to Ethiopia and I think it\u0026rsquo;s like even more real now, but it\u0026rsquo;s just.\nThere\u0026rsquo;s so much potential for the continent. And there\u0026rsquo;s almost like if you, and you know, this is pretty privileged, but like, if you have the tools or the capacity, there is space to create whatever you want. And like our founders, like Testament to that, um, seeing what they\u0026rsquo;re creating. And I think like, as diaspora going back to the continent, it really feels that way as well.\nAnd I think like we\u0026rsquo;re seeing a really big movement of like great people who have lived in Africa, but moved overseas, like really come back and like build on the continent because they realize there\u0026rsquo;s so much untapped potential there.\nUm, and it\u0026rsquo;s just like a, you know, in some ways, a more hospitable place, um, than like other countries. And so, um, so I think we\u0026rsquo;re gonna see like a big sort of, um, ah, one of my friends put this really well, resurgence a big, um, I forgot what the word is, but like basically a lot of people coming back to the continent, um, and that\u0026rsquo;s gonna be really cool to see over the next, like five to 10.\nJames: Mm.\nCaleb at EntryLevel # James: Damn, that\u0026rsquo;s exciting. no, I love your energy about this kind of stuff. It\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s super cool. And it, yeah, certainly very excited to see a lot of the, uh, you know, a lot of, uh, growth and development happening there. I think it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s really cool. Um, one thing I do wanna touch on during the interview, uh, is around your, your role in entry level and around this, uh, kind of idea.\nReskilling, uh, you know, gaining skills, uh, transitioning career paths, perhaps things like that. Um, so I\u0026rsquo;d love if you could perhaps just give the two second intro into entry level and perhaps how, like this sort of story has unfolded. So.\nCaleb: Yeah. So entry level exists to like plug a gap. Um, so basically if you are looking for a job, um, especially out of uni or like going in between careers, it takes a while to find the right job. Right. Like it, it just takes ages. The recruitment process is like hard. Um, and if you wanna, it\u0026rsquo;s even harder. If you wanna reskill into a new job and you wanna learn new skills to sort of pivot careers.\nUm, in some cases like, you know, people think of their option is like going back to uni and studying study again, um, which just takes way too long. Then you have this problem where like, if you do formal education, you might learn how to become like a developer in three to four years. Um, by the time you finish the, you know, the coding language that you use is different.\nUm, and so like just us, our institutions right now just aren\u0026rsquo;t built for like mass reskilling. Um, and then on the, on the other side, like if you\u0026rsquo;re hiring for talent, it\u0026rsquo;s just, it just takes way too long to find talent. And so we think that there\u0026rsquo;s something in between that where you can, Resco people really quickly, um, teach \u0026rsquo;em how to.\nA job, like in 30 to 60 to 90 days. And at the end of that, they can get placed into a company or they can find their next\nthing. Um, and so we built this platform that teaches you how to do a job within like that period of\ntime. Um, and that\u0026rsquo;s where entry level\nis. It\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s a reskilling platform that\nteaches you how to do roles very quickly.\nCaleb\u0026rsquo;s reskilling journey # James: Yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s super cool. Yeah. How do you, I\u0026rsquo;d love to go personal again, but how do you. How have you done that reskilling process in your own, in your own life and learning new things? And what, like, how have you kind of, approached the reskilling process? Cause I know, you\u0026rsquo;re someone that\u0026rsquo;s, you know, is across a lot of things. you have a lot of skills. Right. But yeah. How have you kind of gone about the reskilling process in your journey so\nCaleb: Yeah. Um, I\u0026rsquo;m like kind of fortunate in that I never\ntook on a, um, fortunate. Yeah. I\u0026rsquo;m fortunate in that I never took on like a very\ntechnical role. So like, Um, a lot of the roles I did were just things that like didn\u0026rsquo;t require it. Wasn\u0026rsquo;t like data analysis where I needed like hard\nskills than that, or product management.\nUm, I did learn some no code stuff, but that wasn\u0026rsquo;t for a role that was more out of interest. So I\u0026rsquo;m lucky that I didn\u0026rsquo;t have like,\nbecause I\u0026rsquo;ve almost like never had up until recently. Never had direct clarity on my, like, where I wanted my job, like career to go. Um, I\u0026rsquo;ve never been like, okay, I need to reskill into this role and put my time and effort into that.\nSo, um, yeah, I think for me, it\u0026rsquo;s been cool because I\u0026rsquo;ve been able to learn little bits of things, but I\u0026rsquo;ve never felt like I\u0026rsquo;ve had a holistic like, experience where I\u0026rsquo;m like, now I\u0026rsquo;m proficient like this skill and can do this role. And so I think that\u0026rsquo;s where this comes\nin also. And it was part of my\nexperience at uni.\nIt was like, I was learning to do a law.. Um, but it was gonna take me like five years on top of\nmy, like bachelor of arts. And it\nwas just, it just felt like too long, right? Like at the, by the time, cause I left my law degree when I did that, I was like, this law degree is actually inhibiting. It\u0026rsquo;s\nlike preventing me from continuing with my career rather than enabling it.\nUm, cuz five years is ages like that\u0026rsquo;s so long. So, um, I think that\u0026rsquo;s where like the need really resonates. Like how do we do\nthis as quickly as.\nTraits of successful EntryLevel learners # James: Mm. Yeah. That\u0026rsquo;s. I think you\u0026rsquo;re, you\u0026rsquo;re a great example of that. Someone that\u0026rsquo;s gone out and done a whole bunch of stuff. uh, super cool. I\u0026rsquo;d love to like ask about as well, like entry level. and when we spoke recently, you were saying a lot of the guys that, well, a lot of the people that are sort involved are um, perhaps not even in Australia, right across the world, but I wonder if there\u0026rsquo;s Like I wonder if you are exposed to people.\nDo like are successful, I guess, through the, programs and kind of end up doing well and then getting jobs and whatever afterwards. And perhaps if you\u0026rsquo;ve thought about what are the common threads of these people. I wonder if there\u0026rsquo;s something that, someone that performs well in this, in, in the reskilling program and then goes off and, and gets a job anywhere. I wonder if there\u0026rsquo;s certain things, themes that these kinds of people tend to do well in.\nCaleb: Definitely. Yeah, there definitely are. So like, there\u0026rsquo;s quite a few examples. Like we get a testimonial. You know, we get like something coming up in our, like, um, we have a channel cuz like our whole thing is like reskilling a billion people. And so we have like a couple stories each week, which is like, oh, this person got a job here or this person landed a gig and they told us about it or they tagged us in this thing.\nUm, so we definitely see that. Um, I think from the people I spoke to who have like who I spent like quite a bit of time with at the beginning, trying to understand how they landed their roles. One of the learnings is that, um,\nI actually think this goes for anything, is that like when you\u0026rsquo;re transitioning jobs and you\u0026rsquo;re very serious about it, it comes with.\nA, like a pretty firm commitment. Like I want this job. And so like, this is what I\u0026rsquo;m going for B it\u0026rsquo;s like setting up like, um, or like being really particular about what things you need to learn. And then C is like, um, just actively applying, like learning, sorry, learning those things is probably C and then like D is just like actively applying for all the whole time.\nSo it\u0026rsquo;s like we capture someone and like, ideally. Yeah. So we capture someone at like one part of their reskilling process, but the reskilling process. Um, or like transitioning roles or getting into a new role, takes about six to nine months. If you\u0026rsquo;re starting from scratch, if you have no other skills. Um, and so those people are just like, basically they\u0026rsquo;re pretty PLA like they have planned it out, like planned out how they\u0026rsquo;re gonna learn.\nThey\u0026rsquo;re like take initiative and they\u0026rsquo;re just like\ntrying everything. I think the same thing goes for like, if you\u0026rsquo;re starting a company or like you are, you know, trying to get like trying to build something from scratch, it\u0026rsquo;s like, you just need to relentlessly try and throw like darts at the air, um, until something lands.\nSo I think that\u0026rsquo;s like what comes in common? Like that\u0026rsquo;s, what\u0026rsquo;s in, um, yeah. In common with the people who find roles yeah. From our program.\nCaleb: Yeah. I think it\u0026rsquo;s cool there. I think, um, one thing I\u0026rsquo;ve been thinking about a lot is like clarity on things that you, things that you\u0026rsquo;d like for your own life. And I think you mentioned that in, in that answer there, these people are quite clear about this with end state that they want.\nAnd even, I think earlier you mentioned that you were sort of been unsure about where your career was gonna go, but recently you\u0026rsquo;ve discover. Uh, or had some moments of clarity perhaps around like, okay, this is really where I want to take things. Um, how, like, I guess, like for those people listening that perhaps are in that state of like, they don\u0026rsquo;t necessarily have a certain thing they really wanna pursue yet.\nIs there any, and this is difficult cuz perhaps the journey is just different for everyone. But I wonder if you, if you do have any words of wisdom for those people. Still hunting for something that they\u0026rsquo;re really get excited.\nCaleb: Yeah, definitely. Um, and just to add to that point as well, I like there\u0026rsquo;s a really good book on productivity called. Getting things done by David Allen. And he\u0026rsquo;s like, one of his things is that like the very first thing you do, if you ever want to get anything done is just like, figure out exactly why. And like, who are you in the world?\nAnd what does this mean to you? Otherwise it\u0026rsquo;s like, almost like dissonance between yourself and the task. If you\u0026rsquo;re doing things for the sake of it, it doesn\u0026rsquo;t really like, you\u0026rsquo;ll never really like get into it in the same way that someone else does or you might, but then you\u0026rsquo;ll be like, why do I do that?\nSo I think it\u0026rsquo;s so important to understand what that is for you. Um, I like, yeah, I don\u0026rsquo;t know. I. For me, it was a combination of like what I care about in the world, what I think I can do. Um, and like what I\u0026rsquo;m good at. And then it was also, um, really just like a lot of. It was a lot of testing as well. Like it, to be honest, it\u0026rsquo;s just heap of testing.\nAnd I think maybe a better approach, like to like an approach that\u0026rsquo;s better than being like, I want to do this thing is like, actually just canceling out the things you don\u0026rsquo;t want to do. So like I tried law and I was like, I do not wanna do law. Like just, that\u0026rsquo;s\nnot like the field I want. And then I tried, um, I tried nonprofits and was like, Feels good, but it\u0026rsquo;s not a place I wanna stay.\nUm, I tried like policy and then I realized like this also isn\u0026rsquo;t like the place I wanna be in.\nUm, I don\u0026rsquo;t wanna build a career here. So I think like, it, for me was more of a process of elimination. Um, it\u0026rsquo;s like, I know why I\u0026rsquo;m doing it. So let me try all these ways to get there. And then like, I eliminated all the things that didn\u0026rsquo;t really work.\nSo, um, yeah, like don\u0026rsquo;t stress about finding the right thing. I think just like try as as many things as you can and then figure out. As many things as you can, that like, seem like they\u0026rsquo;ll be enjoyable and then figure out what works and what doesn\u0026rsquo;t. Um, cuz yeah, like you can\u0026rsquo;t really like think your way to like the next thing.\nLike you really just need to experience.\nCaleb\u0026rsquo;s Inspirations # James: Um, well we\u0026rsquo;re on a bit of a deep thread at the moment. I\u0026rsquo;d like to continue this. Um, so I wonder, so I\u0026rsquo;ve got a few more deep personal questions to finish off with. And one of those is, um, about inspirations. I wonder if there\u0026rsquo;s any person or thing that inspires you and perhaps it\u0026rsquo;s someone that you really look up to,\nor someone that is a mentor for you or someone that you really, um, you know, you look at them and kind of aspire to be like them.\nPerhaps. I wonder if there\u0026rsquo;s any one or anything, uh, in your life that, that fulfills that\nCaleb: Yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s a really good question. Um, to be honest, and this might sound really cocky, but like, there are definitely people who inspire me. Um, and I\u0026rsquo;ll get to that, but I think like when I used to put people on pedestals, I think I like.\nKind of realized that they were humans as well. Um, and so instead of being like, oh, I really like want to be like this person.\nI kind of, I kind of reframe it to think\nof like,\nthese are the traits I want from this person. I wanna be as good as like investing as them. And I actually, I think I turned it into like, not like I wanna be like this Veta or I wanna be like, I wanna have like the intellect of this person. I think I just made it more of like a, how do I have.\ndo I become a better invest in this person? Or how do I have more insight than this person? Um, I dunno if that makes sense, but I kind of reframed it from like, I really look up to you to like, I want that. So I\u0026rsquo;m just gonna like work towards that. Um, and so like the people who I look up to, I\u0026rsquo;m kind of competitive with in, in my own head.\nSo like, um, I don\u0026rsquo;t know if that sounds like cocky or not, but like that, that, that\u0026rsquo;s sort of the way I think about it. I think, um, there\u0026rsquo;s probably a hand.\nI think that actually like a lot of my own community, like a lot of the people I spend time with and hang out with,\nI really look up\nto, and that\u0026rsquo;s why I spend time with them.\nUm,\nyou know, they are like super empathetic or they\u0026rsquo;re super intelligent or they\u0026rsquo;re like brilliant investors or they\u0026rsquo;re like great operators. Like a lot of the people I surround myself with, um,\nFew of them you had you\u0026rsquo;ve had on the podcast. Like I think I really look up to, um, and they\u0026rsquo;re\nmy peers at the same time.\nSo yeah, I think like for me, it\u0026rsquo;s been really cool because I\u0026rsquo;ve, I\u0026rsquo;ve sort of switched it from like really looking up to people and\nidolizing them to being like, I actually wanna be more like them and just bring those\npeople in and like keeping them close. And I feel like I learn a lot\nfrom that.\nJames: Mm, I think that\u0026rsquo;s a great point. I think. Um, Yeah. I, I think that\u0026rsquo;s really cool. Cause I, I feel like if you idolize someone too much, then perhaps you\u0026rsquo;ll, you\u0026rsquo;ll almost never be as good as they are. Um, right. Cuz you\u0026rsquo;ll just, oh, I wish I was as good as them. Uh, I\u0026rsquo;m just, I\u0026rsquo;m just the little, little boy that can\u0026rsquo;t do anything.\nyou know, like I\u0026rsquo;ll never be that good, uh, that sort of thing. Whereas if you, if you view them more as like an, an equal and really striving. Actually be as good as them, like you said, it\u0026rsquo;s perhaps a, a slight reframe of that. Uh, then it\u0026rsquo;s much more of a, we are, we are both capable of the same things and I\u0026rsquo;m, I\u0026rsquo;m like working towards being as capable as you in a, you know, and I\u0026rsquo;m on\nthe journey that makes sense.\nCaleb: Exactly. Like, I mean, like idolizing, people\u0026rsquo;s fine, but like one frame of mind really like, like really pushes your own self belief. And I think I\u0026rsquo;d rather have that than be like, I really love this person. It\u0026rsquo;s like, well, like I\u0026rsquo;m striving to be that person or better, or have that person respect me even. Um,\nMost worthwhile investment of time or money # James: Yeah, definitely. No, that\u0026rsquo;s cool. I like that a lot. Um, one more question for you. Similar thread is, uh, this is a classic Tim Ferriss question, but I wonder for yourself getting to where you are today. What has been your most worthwhile investment of time? Or a money, uh, related investment. I wonder if there\u0026rsquo;s anything there that, uh, you\u0026rsquo;ve invested in that has, uh, you know, been something that has really propelled you,\nuh, looking back.\nCaleb: Yeah. Wow. That\u0026rsquo;s a good question. Um, for why has been the best investment I\u0026rsquo;ve made? There\u0026rsquo;s probably two. So. Yeah, there\u0026rsquo;s two and they\u0026rsquo;re kind of generic, so sorry. They\u0026rsquo;re not straight up answers, but one is just like in relationships. So like I invested, um, almost to a fault, like I invest a lot of time into like relationships and maintaining them and making sure that like I\u0026rsquo;m connecting with\npeople, um, and that I\u0026rsquo;m appreciating them and like, um, sort of.\nReally that I\u0026rsquo;m like present as well. Um, so I think that in itself is, has been one of the best investments, cuz tho those are relationships like bring about\nlike amazing opportunities. Like a lot of the opportunities I\u0026rsquo;ve had have just been from people I\u0026rsquo;ve known or people who have just like really appreciated that I\u0026rsquo;ve given them the time, um, or people who I have.\nLike sort of given as much as I could to. Um, and so those relationships in general have paid off a lot. Um, and it\u0026rsquo;s just like bought me sort of like people\nwho back me, um, and like really support me and who I really wanna support as well. So I think I\u0026rsquo;d just say like, honestly, my like group of peers and like, um, and people I, I work with and.\nYeah, my network is\nlike, is really like one of the\nbest\nthings you can invest in. Um, and then, yeah, I guess like the personal side, so one of the best investments I\u0026rsquo;ve made and like one of the best systems I\u0026rsquo;ve had. There\u0026rsquo;s probably two. So like one is, um, like one is the system called elephants, which is like a group.\nUh, you may have heard of it, but it\u0026rsquo;s\nlike, have you heard of it, James? Oh, okay, cool. Um, a lot of the tech scene is like familiar with it cuz uh, um, yeah, there was an article on it that went, that got pretty big, but it\u0026rsquo;s basically a system where you have, um, a group of people and you catch up every week, um, to talk about how you went basically in your week and you have goals that are like personal, sorry you have like professional, um, Uh, physical financial, like career, like all these different goals that you set and you set them like\n10 years, three years, one year, three months, one month.\nAnd then like, you sort of do these weekly reviews. Um, and so that long term view is just like, it just frames your goals. Right? And so you have this thing where it\u0026rsquo;s like, okay, that\u0026rsquo;s my 10 year goal. And like these, this is how it feeds in. And that weekly accountability with those people who you really trust is just.\nYou know, no, no bullshit like this, what happen this week? This is what I struggled with. This is what I\u0026rsquo;m like thinking right\nnow, um, that support network and that group of people that I do it with, um,\nare just like amazing. And that system\nhas just meant that, like, it\u0026rsquo;s not just me, who\u0026rsquo;s invested in my goals.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s like my team, like, um, and if I don\u0026rsquo;t do it, I\u0026rsquo;m not disappointing myself. I like I\u0026rsquo;m disappointing the guys. So like that has been one of the best investments I\u0026rsquo;ve made. Um, for sure. Like,\nJames: Yeah.\nthat sounds so good. like, yeah. I, I would, I would, uh, participate in one of those in a heartbeat. I think, I think cuz like I feel like one of the hardest things is like, um, creating a, a long term vision for yourself is, is quite hard. And I think breaking it down. To, like you said, the yearly monthly, whatever sort of breakdown makes things, you know, you\u0026rsquo;re sort of turning the dream into things you can actually do.\nUh, and, and the accountability as well is it\u0026rsquo;s um, yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s a high power, you know,\nextremely useful thing. Definitely. I think that\u0026rsquo;s\nCaleb: It\u0026rsquo;s so over accountability is like scary how high powered it is. It\u0026rsquo;s just like, if you have accountability on something, it just makes you do things. That\u0026rsquo;s why, like I only turn on the accountability trigger, like. When I know I need to do it otherwise. I\u0026rsquo;m like, no, no, I don\u0026rsquo;t need that yet. Like.\nJames: Yeah.\nYeah, yeah. yeah, That\u0026rsquo;s super good. Damn. I like that a lot. Yeah, there was, uh, we, we haven\u0026rsquo;t got much time left, but there was this one Ted talk. I, I\u0026rsquo;m not sure if it\u0026rsquo;s still up, but. It was probably a few years ago now it was called extreme productivity. And this, the guy that gave it had like bruises on his face.\nUm, and he was talking about like extreme productivity and like accountability, where to the point of like, Physical like physical punishment. Like if you don\u0026rsquo;t do something, uh, which is, that\u0026rsquo;s like why it\u0026rsquo;s called extreme, but\nCaleb: That\u0026rsquo;s so hectic.\nJames: Like, um, the guy had gone and done like some pretty cool stuff and obviously giving a Ted talk as well, which is, um, which is pretty cool.\nBut Yeah. Interesting Ted talk. I don\u0026rsquo;t, I don\u0026rsquo;t, I\u0026rsquo;m not sure if it\u0026rsquo;s still up, but I remember seeing that obviously.\nAdvice for Graduates # Caleb: That\u0026rsquo;s a extreme don\u0026rsquo;t don\u0026rsquo;t do this sort of thing.\nYeah, no anyway, that just, uh, uh, I just remembered that while we were talking, but anyway, Side sidetrack. Now we\u0026rsquo;ve got, uh, we\u0026rsquo;re right at the end now. So I\u0026rsquo;ve got one last question for you, Caleb. Uh, and this is a question that I ask all the guests and it is if you were graduating or perhaps, uh, quitting university early again, uh, like this time, like, again again now, right?\nUh, you know, what would, what advice would you give someone that\u0026rsquo;s kind of at that stage in their life?\nCaleb: Yeah. Um,\nHmm. Yeah. I think the main thing is just like, take it easy. You have so much time ahead of you. Like your twenties are like made, you\u0026rsquo;re made to screw up. Like you\u0026rsquo;re supposed to screw up as many times as\nyou want in your\ntwenties. And it\u0026rsquo;s cool. Like, cuz you probably like, I don\u0026rsquo;t know. I think here is like, there\u0026rsquo;s, there\u0026rsquo;s quite a lot of safety, right?\nLike if everything goes wrong, you can probably get a job somewhere or like you might have a support network to help you out. So don\u0026rsquo;t worry too much if things don\u0026rsquo;t go well in your twenties, like it\u0026rsquo;s meant to be kind of shit. And also like really.\nUm, and I\u0026rsquo;m definitely experiencing that now where it\u0026rsquo;s like, why don\u0026rsquo;t I have my shit together in like some aspects of my life.\nI\u0026rsquo;m like, it\u0026rsquo;s cool. It\u0026rsquo;s cool.\nUm, so yeah, I think it\u0026rsquo;s just like have fun, have as much fun as you can and, and just do things that you enjoy. Um, yeah. And just say yes to as much things as you can, that like are helpful for you.\nConnect with Caleb # Caleb: Um, yeah. Bang. no, that\u0026rsquo;s, that\u0026rsquo;s great advice. I think we\u0026rsquo;ve, you know, you\u0026rsquo;ve, you\u0026rsquo;ve given us a lot of wisdom in the chat today. Cal really appreciate it. Uh, but for folks listening, if they want to investigate more about yourself, find out more about what it is. You do follow you, uh, in various places. Uh, where should they go find out?\nCaleb: Yeah. So I share a lot of like what I\u0026rsquo;m up to in Africa on LinkedIn, um, which is just like Caleb\nMaru. Um, M a R U C a L E B Caleb.\nUm, and then I should post a bit on Twitter. So that\u0026rsquo;s also Caleb Maru.\nCaleb: So nice. you get around it folks? No, it\u0026rsquo;s been fantastic having you on the show to day. Caleb really appreciate you, uh, spending some time with us and yeah, we\u0026rsquo;ll catch around soon.\nCaleb: Thanks, James. This was super fun.\nOutro # James: Thanks for listening to this episode I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. If you want to get my takeaways, the things that I learned from this episode, please go to Graduate Theory.com/subscribe, where you can get my takeaways and all the information about each episode, straight to your inbox.\nThanks so much for listening again today, and we\u0026rsquo;re looking forward to seeing you next week.\n← Back to episode 43\n","date":"15 August 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/graduate-theory/43-caleb-maru/transcript/","section":"Graduate Theory Transcripts","summary":"← Back to episode 43\nThis transcript has been lightly edited for readability. It may still contain transcription errors.\nCaleb: It’s not about. How do I take, but it’s about like, how do I support and like help as much as I can.\n","title":"Transcript: Caleb Maru | On African Startups and the Power of Accountability","type":"graduate-theory-transcripts"},{"content":" Table of Contents # HashiCorp Terraform Associate My Background Resources for Study Terraform Associate Tutorial List Terraform Certified Udemy Course Terraform Practice Exams Exam Review Lessons for Next Time Conclusion HashiCorp Terraform Associate # Today, I sat and passed the HashiCorp Terraform Associate exam.\nAfter completing the exam, I hope to give guidance to others about how I went about studying for it and what worked for me.\nI passed the exam with a score of 73%. HashiCorp doesn\u0026rsquo;t publish the passing mark but it seems to be around 70%. Exams like this might have passing grades dependent on which questions you get too, but generally 70% is a good guide.\nHashiCorp is creating the next version of this exam currently. It\u0026rsquo;s scheduled for release later this year so keep an eye out for that.\nYou can find the full curriculmn for the exam here.\nMy Background # I decided to start studying for the exam on the 12th of August and sat the final exam on the 20th.\nI had seem some Terraform before, I\u0026rsquo;ve done some IAM related changes at work and also created some buckets and BigQuery instances in my own time. I would say I have some experience with Terraform, but definitely not an expert by any stretch.\nHashiCorp recommends that you have basic terminal skills and basic understanding of on premises and cloud architecture before sitting the exam.\nIt was a pretty quick turnaround for me to study for the exam (about 1 week), but I didn\u0026rsquo;t think the study material was too difficult and thought I had enough time in the end. The exam is an associate level exam and isn\u0026rsquo;t meant to test you at an expert or professional level. The Terraform Associate is the highest level exam you can sit for Terraform, perhaps in future a more advanced exam will be offered.\nResources for Study # I used the following to study for the exam:\nTerraform Associate Tutorial List # Rating 7/10\nThis is the official study guide for the exam. Everything you need is here, and it\u0026rsquo;s all provided by HashiCorp.\nSince they provide this resource, it has everything you need to pass the exam.\nI did some of the modules here but not all, I found it more valuable to read the documentation for certain pieces that I needed more information on.\nTerraform Certified Udemy Course # Rating 8/10\nThis course has some great info and goes beyond what is required for the exam. It\u0026rsquo;s much more of a practical approach to Terraform and was really valuable in helping me understand best practices and file setups etc.\nI didn\u0026rsquo;t go through the entire course before sitting the exam, I ended up just using the practice exams. However, I can see myself returning to this course again in the future.\nTerraform Practice Exams # Rating 10/10\nThis set of practice exams was easily my most valuable resource. I did the set of exams twice, so 10 practice exams.\nUnlike some exam courses on Udemy, this course is created by people that write the actual exams, so the questions are highly relevant to the exam material.\nAfter going through each exam twice, I then sat my lowest rated exam on the morning of the real exam.\nHere were my attempts and their percentage:\nAttempt Date Score Exam Number Improvement on Previous 12/8/22 45% 1 - 13/8/22 73% 2 - 13/8/22 82% 3 - 14/8/22 70% 4 - 15/8/22 85% 5 - 16/8/22 77% 1 171% 17/8/22 77% 2 105% 18/8/22 89% 3 109% 18/8/22 72% 4 103% 19/8/22 94% 5 111% 20/8/22 89% 4 124% As you can see, I started off fairly badly but by the end I was getting pretty good results. I felt comfortable once I was hitting 85%+, that meant I had some buffer in my marks to still get the 70% required for the certification.\nExam Review # The exam was very similar to what I had encountered in the practice tests. It wasn\u0026rsquo;t quite the same though and some things did trip me up.\nA bunch of my questions had terraform taint in them, which I thought had been depreciated so that confused me.\nThe practice exams that I did (written by the writers of the actual exams) also stated that some questions would require typing commands. None of my questions required this. This makes me think that perhaps I had some questions that were out of date, or the exam doesn\u0026rsquo;t actually require you to do this.\nAnyway I ended up passing the exam! My final score was 73% which was a bit lower than what I had been getting in the practice tests. Since I did use these as my primary method of study, it was expected that my learning material overfit on the practice tests and left some concepts that hadn\u0026rsquo;t been convered. That\u0026rsquo;s ok though because I ended up with a passing grade.\nLessons for Next Time # If I had to do this exam again, I would continue to make the practice exams a big focus of my study. One thing that I could have done better was not rely on the practice exams as much as I did. While studying using the practice exams meant that I was able to learn very quickly, I had still had some content in my final exam that I hadn\u0026rsquo;t seen before. Taking a more rounded approach and tackling the exams once I had learnt the material, rather than learning the material through the exams, would have resulted in a higher final exam mark.\nConclusion # Overall, it was a good experience studying and sitting the exam. I feel that my Terraform skills have dramatically improved as a result. I now have a much better understanding of the internals of Terraform and am more able to write effective Terraform code.\nIf you enjoyed this post, consider subscribing to my email list 👇\nConnect With Me!I'll remind you when I post so you don't have to remember\nSubscribe​\nBuilt with ConvertKit ","date":"11 August 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/hashicorp-terraform-associate/","section":"Writing","summary":"Table of Contents # HashiCorp Terraform Associate My Background Resources for Study Terraform Associate Tutorial List Terraform Certified Udemy Course Terraform Practice Exams Exam Review Lessons for Next Time Conclusion HashiCorp Terraform Associate # Today, I sat and passed the HashiCorp Terraform Associate exam.\n","title":"Passing the HashiCorp Terraform Associate Exam","type":"posts"},{"content":" Watch the conversation Graduate Theory Open YouTube ↗ Read the full transcript → Without a clear direction for your life, you will be swept up by people with a plan and end up in places you didn\u0026rsquo;t intend to go.\nWith a plan, you will make better decisions and have better life outcomes.\nThis depth of planning is a common thread amongst all guests in the previous 41 episodes of the show.\nThis article was sent to subscribers of the Graduate Theory newsletter.\nSubscribe now 👇\nSubscribe Now\nWatch this episode on YouTube.\nToday\u0026rsquo;s episode has no guest, rather it is a chat with me about the importance of creating a life and career plan for yourself.\n👇 Creating the Plan # Option 1 - Personal Mission Statement # The first way to think about your plan is with a personal mission statement.\nThink about this, you\u0026rsquo;ve just died and you are attending your funeral.\nCertain people get up to speak about you\na family member a friend a work colleague someone from your community What do they say about you?\nWhat do you wish they would say about you?\nUse this inspiration to create a mission statement for yourself.\nA constitution of you.\nBe creative, it doesn\u0026rsquo;t have to be written. It can be a song, a poem, or a vision board. Anything you can imagine.\nThe length is not important.\nOption 2 - The Life Vision # The second method is to create a vision for your life. You can start by thinking about what you want your life to look like.\nThese questions may provide you with inspiration.\nDo\nHow much control do I have over my schedule? What does my daily routine look like? What’s my work-life balance? What’s the importance of what I do? What hobbies do I have? Be\nWhat kind of friend am I? What do people know me for? How do other people think of me? How do I feel at work? How do I feel at home? How do I feel around my family? Have\nWhere do I live? What kind of house do I live in? How much money do I make? What kind of influence do I have? What’s my family like? What is my partner like? Give\nWhat do I help people with? What causes do I contribute to? This can be changed, updated, or revised in the future.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s important to have these things though\nFurther Reading # Books I would read to investigate this topic further 👇\nSo Good They Can’t Ignore You - Cal Newport Business Model You - Tim Clark 7 Habits of Highly Effective People - Steven Covey Be Your Future Self Now - Benjamin P. Hardy Get the Newsletter\n📝 Content Timestamps # 00:00 Lifestyle Career Plan\n00:59 Career Planning\n01:55 Why Career Plan?\n06:05 Career Planning Examples\n11:58 Critiques\n13:26 Creating the Plan\n15:28 Conclusion\n16:43 Outro\n","date":"8 August 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/graduate-theory/42-on-creating-a-lifestyle-career-plan/","section":"Graduate Theory","summary":" Watch the conversation Graduate Theory Open YouTube ↗ Read the full transcript → Without a clear direction for your life, you will be swept up by people with a plan and end up in places you didn’t intend to go.\n","title":"On Creating a Lifestyle Career Plan","type":"graduate-theory"},{"content":"← Back to episode 42\nThis transcript has been lightly edited for readability. It may still contain transcription errors.\nIntro # James: Here\u0026rsquo;s a question for you. If I gave you a bunch of jigsaw jigsaw pieces and asked you to complete the puzzle, what\u0026rsquo;s the first thing that you would do? The chances are, what you\u0026rsquo;ll do is you\u0026rsquo;ll grab the box and look at the image that you\u0026rsquo;re trying to create the image that you\u0026rsquo;re gonna connect the Jukes hole pieces, and you wanna connect them in such a way that it looks like what is on the box.\nNow here\u0026rsquo;s a. The jigsaw is much like your life,. The jigsaw is much like your life, right? Except most of us get given these jigsaw pieces, but we don\u0026rsquo;t know what the picture looks like. We haven\u0026rsquo;t developed a clear plan. So today\u0026rsquo;s episode of Graduate Theory. We\u0026rsquo;re gonna talk about career planning, why it\u0026rsquo;s so important, um, some different approaches that you can make to it.\nAnd I\u0026rsquo;m hoping that this will change your life and your career for the best.\nCareer Planning # James: So, what I wanna do first is I want to look into the common traits that I see in people that have come on the podcast previously, and the common traits are that lots of these people that I\u0026rsquo;ve had on the podcast, high achievers, they have high degree of initiative, a high degree of drive, um, passion for what they want to do.\nUm, but with that comes a clear. Aim, right. They, they, they have this level of initiative and drive, but they are aiming at a clear target. They have a clear vision, they have a certain amount of clarity around what exactly it is that they want to do. And this allows them to take initiative in ways that are effective.\nRight. And so reflecting on this, I was like, wow. Um, I was thinking, at least for myself, I don\u0026rsquo;t think I. A really detailed plan of, of my life and the things that I\u0026rsquo;m doing and, and how that kind of all aligns. And so this led me to discover this idea of career, life planning, et cetera.\nWhy Career Plan? # James: So, what is like, why do you actually need a plan? Why, why is this helpful? Well, the first reason why you need a plan is cuz it\u0026rsquo;s gonna make decision making a lot easier. So imagine in the following, you\u0026rsquo;ve finished university, you\u0026rsquo;ve been working for a couple of years and you are presented with the opportunity to go and do a masters, um, at, at the university.\nUh, and, and, and kind of you\u0026rsquo;re in this two minds about whether you should pursue the master\u0026rsquo;s degree or continue working in your, in, in your career and continue sort of doing your job now, which one should you choose? Now? This is, uh, a tough one, right? Perhaps both are good. You know, how are we going to decide though?\nAnd the key here, the key is understanding where we want to go in the future, what our lifestyle, what we want our lifestyle to look like. And then we can choose which of these options will get us closer to our desired life. without this desired lifestyle in place, what will happen in these situations?\nAnd it can, this is just one example. It could be, you know, do you become a consultant? Do you not? Do you, um, you know, go to join a startup or do you stay in corporate there\u0026rsquo;s any, any number of these types of questions can, can much more easily be answered if you have a desired end state in. Okay. If you know, like what you want your lifestyle to look like, and that excites you, then it\u0026rsquo;s much easier to choose between these options.\nIf you have a clear vision, the second, um, reason why this, this is a good approach is to do with the comparison of others. Okay. One of the things as young people, I think that we face a lot and certainly myself I face all the time is trying not to compare myself to other people.\nSo trying not to compare myself to other people who are about my age that have done cooler stuff than me. and certainly there\u0026rsquo;s plenty of those. And, and there will always be people that have done more than you have, but one of the ways that you can minimize this or clear the clutter when it comes to comparing yourself to others, Is being clear on what your vision for your own life is, and then it, it doesn\u0026rsquo;t actually matter what other people do then if I\u0026rsquo;m pursuing the things that I wanna do for the, for reasons that I\u0026rsquo;ve selected, then it, it matters to me much less what other people are doing and what other achievements people have.\nIf someone else is achieving more than them and more than me, then that\u0026rsquo;s fine because I\u0026rsquo;m pursuing things that I wanna. And, and, and, and that\u0026rsquo;s, that\u0026rsquo;s all, that\u0026rsquo;s kind of the end. There\u0026rsquo;s no real need to, to compare yourself fathers. And so I think having a career plan in place will certainly help with this comparison trap.\nAnd the third reason is this idea of getting lost and it, um, and, and this comes from a guy called Clayton Christensen, he\u0026rsquo;s business leader thought leader. Um, you know, he\u0026rsquo;s released a bunch of books and his, um, thought on, on this, he, he, one of his books is called, how will you measure your life?\nAnd you know, how will you actually decide what it is, um, that you want to do? And it\u0026rsquo;s it, it\u0026rsquo;s tangentially related to this topic we\u0026rsquo;re discussing today. But one of the things was, he was in his business class at Harvard and kind of, they everyone\u0026rsquo;s graduated and gone off to do amazing things. And then 10 years later, um, he, he\u0026rsquo;s kind of looking around and seeing where people.\nand many people have kind of gone down a corporate route, but then they\u0026rsquo;ve gone sort of too far, and they\u0026rsquo;ve almost lost their weight to the point where they\u0026rsquo;ve become. So, um, they\u0026rsquo;ve gone, they\u0026rsquo;ve sort of gone so deep in, in, into their careers that they\u0026rsquo;ve then, um, perhaps they\u0026rsquo;ve become divorced or like their family that like, they don\u0026rsquo;t really have a good family environment and it\u0026rsquo;s come at the cost of a lot of other things.\nAnd so what he\u0026rsquo;s saying is that pursuing these things isn\u0026rsquo;t necessarily bad. What can happen is that you can pursue things and kind of lose track of where you are in the grand scheme of things, perhaps having a, a good family and a good family life was something that you really wanted, but you got so lost in, in your career that you kind of lost track of like how that was all going.\nAnd so a key, um, one, one way to fix this problem, or at least help, um, reduce the risk of this problem occurring is by having a clear plan. For what you want your lifestyle to look like and really strongly not deviating from the plan. Like once you have the plan, not deviating from it. Right. So we can start to prevent some of these situations where perhaps you end up somewhere that you didn\u0026rsquo;t expect or want to be.\nCareer Planning Examples # James: So one of the things I noticed was that when we go back in and look at the schooling system and how we\u0026rsquo;re kind of taught about, uh, what we wanna do when we\u0026rsquo;re older, it\u0026rsquo;s often like, you know, oh, do you wanna be an engineer, a lawyer?\nUm, you know, a teacher, whatever it is, like there\u0026rsquo;s a bunch of kind of career paths that are laid out for you. And the idea is that you sort of choose one of these, uh, because it\u0026rsquo;s the one that seems the best at the time, you know, or I guess I enjoy math, so I\u0026rsquo;ll be an engineer or I guess I enjoy, uh, you know, reading or reading and writing.\nSo perhaps I\u0026rsquo;ll do law. whatever it is that\u0026rsquo;s kind of the extent of it. There\u0026rsquo;s no real planning outside of that. And, and one of the key switches that we can make is why don\u0026rsquo;t we think about the end state first and then answer these questions so we can ask first, what does my life, what do I want my life to look like?\nAnd then which career path are best suit me in getting to that career path. And this is a fundamental shift. And, and something that I think is quite beneficial.\nAnd I found three different places where this kind of takes place and where this gets mentioned, uh, three notable ones, at least.\nAnd it certainly gets mentioned in many more areas than just E three, but these are three areas that. That I\u0026rsquo;ve come across recently that I, that I thought was really interesting. The first one of these was in the seven habits of highly effective people. So the seven habits of highly effective people is a fantastic book.\nAnd I highly recommend that you read it, but habit number two in this book is called begin with the end in mind and this habit. Really the, the cornerstone of it is when starting a new project or a new thing begin with the ended mind, understand what it is that you want to do or what the goal looks like.\nAnd then reverse engineer that and work out what you need to do when, and this can be applied to like small scale things or in this case, large scale things like your entire life or like your entire career. So, um, and some really good thoughts. I\u0026rsquo;ve just read this and some really good thoughts in there.\nAll things are created twice. Right? All things are created twice. Once in the mind. Once in the mind and once in reality, okay. Things aren\u0026rsquo;t created in reality, but until they\u0026rsquo;ve been thought, so for example, what\u0026rsquo;s like Facebook, um, you know, was once a thought and now becomes reality, right?\nSo this desk that I\u0026rsquo;m now using, you know, was once a, a thought someone decided that they\u0026rsquo;re gonna make it. And now they\u0026rsquo;ve made it, this laptop, this Mac that I\u0026rsquo;m using, someone decided that they were gonna make an M one. And then now it has come into existence. Okay. So to take this to the career planning step, right?\nYour career, uh, plan, the life that you want, the career that you want cannot be realized unless you first understand, uh, and, and think about what exactly it is that you want. Okay. Uh, and so, so I think, uh, this is a crucial step and, and I think that was a great analogy and a great way to put it. Uh, the second place that I found this was in Jordan Peterson\u0026rsquo;s self authoring program.\nSo if you\u0026rsquo;re not familiar with Jordan Peterson, he is, uh, really famous psychologist. He\u0026rsquo;s, uh, uh, often in the media for. Uh, political, uh, controversial political things, but that is besides the point today, psychology is, is where he\u0026rsquo;s really good and certainly has a lot of good content around this. And one of his stellar programs is called the self authoring program.\nAnd in this program, you create what is your personal heaven? And your personal help. So you create an ideal state, what you really want your life to look like, begin with the end in mind, and you also create a personal help. Okay. So these are things that. Uh, you know, you really don\u0026rsquo;t want your life to look like and what would be a horrible experience for yourself.\nOkay. And these are unique to you and not necessarily universal. Right? So, and what creating both of these things does is imagine we have like two poles and then we\u0026rsquo;re kind of, you are, you are sort of in the middle here and we sort of wanna get you closer to the, the, the heaven and away from the hell.\nAnd so you can kind of see now there\u0026rsquo;s sort of two opposing forces pulling you. The, the heaven state, uh, and, and pushing you away from the health state. And so this is, this is an interesting approach. And it kind of combines the begin with begin with the end in mind, um, with perhaps begin with the reverse end in mind, begin with a, with a bad, um, state in mind.\nRight? Um, another similar thought on this is, is Charlie Munger. Um, who\u0026rsquo;s Warren Charlie, Munger\u0026rsquo;s Warren Buffet\u0026rsquo;s, um, second in command guy and, and he often says, you know, think about the way you wouldn\u0026rsquo;t do something and then do the opposite. To do then do the thing that you do want to do. Um, cuz it\u0026rsquo;s often easier to think about things you don\u0026rsquo;t want rather than things that you do want.\nSo. That\u0026rsquo;s the second place. I think that\u0026rsquo;s really cool. And another way of approaching things, the third place that I\u0026rsquo;ve seen, this is in Cal Newport. Cal Newport is someone that I really admire and respect. He is a, um, you know, an author, he\u0026rsquo;s a professor. He does all a bunch of things, but what he calls this, uh, approach and this idea of, um, career planning is called.\nHe calls lifestyle centric. Career planning. Okay. So you wanna begin with a life, certain lifestyle in mind, uh, of what you want your life to look like. And then from there you then plan your career. Um, and, and this makes things a lot easier for a number of reasons. So these are three ways and, and three different approaches that I\u0026rsquo;ve seen.\nI think it\u0026rsquo;s common amongst many of the guests that I\u0026rsquo;ve had on the podcast. It\u0026rsquo;s these three sources are, are all incredibly well respected sources, and they all say this. And, and there is many, many more that I, that I haven\u0026rsquo;t got the time to go through that also say the same thing, many successful people all have this in common.\nThey all know exactly what they want, and they all have lots of clarity around what exactly it is that they want to do.\nCritiques # James: Now there are some critiques of, you know, CR creating the plan. I, I think overall it\u0026rsquo;s quite a good approach, but one of the, one of. Ways you could perhaps look at this is, uh, left to right versus right to left planning. And so right to left planning would be on the right hand side, we\u0026rsquo;ve got kind of the end state and on the left, we\u0026rsquo;ve got the current state.\nAnd so right to left would be start with the end and then work work sort of reverse engineer back to where you are now and then left to right planning would be start where you are now and then work towards the bright\nI think it is kind of a bit more of a bit more serendipity perhaps in the career. Like they haven\u0026rsquo;t necessarily planned out the next career move. Exactly. Um, exactly. In a lot of detail, but I think still these people and you\u0026rsquo;ll notice in both right to left and left to right there is still the right.\nThe right hand side, which is the plan. And so I think the plan is important regardless of if you\u0026rsquo;re gonna take a more serendipitous approach to your career or whether you\u0026rsquo;re gonna sort of reverse engineer things quite, quite tightly, perhaps, you know, I think it\u0026rsquo;s hard to reverse engineer things in a lot of detail, far in advance.\nSo. There\u0026rsquo;s there\u0026rsquo;s one problem with it, but I think you must always, I think, I think at least for myself, I\u0026rsquo;m seeing that having a plan in place is going to be, um, incredibly useful and at least having a desired lifestyle state that you wanna get to is, um, is going to, it\u0026rsquo;s going to be extremely effective.\nCreating the Plan # James: So how do you actually do this? How do you actually go and create. Lifestyle plan. How do you actually do it? Well, there\u0026rsquo;s two different ways that I\u0026rsquo;ve come across and that I\u0026rsquo;ll be doing the first comes from this book and, and that is to create a mission statement. And so we\u0026rsquo;ve mission statement in, in the sense that we want to try and create something that is for you, like your own constitution.\nRight? So we\u0026rsquo;ve all heard of like the American constitution, you know, very, um, strictly followed.. And so what we wanna kind of do is do something like that for yourself. Like how would we best represent you? What would a mission statement of you look like or even think about things like perhaps the organization where you work has a certain mission statement, slogan, et cetera, like their mission, you know, what is the mission of you?\nYou know, what is your mission? What are you setting out to achieve? What values do you have? Um, you know, everything like this, you know, what do you want people to say about you? I think these are great questions to. And it\u0026rsquo;s important too, to be creative for this. It doesn\u0026rsquo;t necessarily have to be written.\nYou can make a song, you can make a view board, whatever. The, the point is that we are creating, we have some ideal state in our mind, and then we are gonna try and sort of stick to that. The second way of doing this is a way that I\u0026rsquo;ve, I\u0026rsquo;ve saw on, um, LinkedIn I\u0026rsquo;ve seen from a number of approaches, but recently it was Adam Gahar and LinkedIn as a previous podcast guest.\nAnd he recommended answering a bunch of questions. So, and, and writing out your answers in detail. Answering questions in four categories do B have give. Okay. So what things do you do? What things do you have? Who are you B like, like, you know, the B part, you know, what are, who are you, what do people know for et cetera?\nAnd then give, you know, what do you give back to the community, perhaps it\u0026rsquo;s financial, you know, how are you kind of involved in that way? What kind of things do you. and so that is super cool. And so what you can do is get clear on some of these questions, and if you wanna find a full list of these questions, I have them in the newsletter as a part of this episode.\nSo you can go there and find, uh, a list of good questions and techniques to get started.\nConclusion # James: But I think having this, having this idea is, is something that is super, super cool. Um, and something that I\u0026rsquo;ll be getting started on. Right. I. Things like this take a lot of time. And I think it\u0026rsquo;s UN you know, you can\u0026rsquo;t just sit down and in 10 minutes and write this.\nOkay. You can\u0026rsquo;t just, uh, at least like when I\u0026rsquo;ve been doing it, I\u0026rsquo;ve found it hard. I\u0026rsquo;ve found it. Um, you know, I\u0026rsquo;ve been, I\u0026rsquo;ve been trying to write it, but it, it does get difficult. Um, certainly, but yeah, I hope this helps cuz this, some of this stuff is what I\u0026rsquo;m going through right now. And this is things that I am actively. Looking at like, uh, yesterday I was actually doing a lot of this stuff. So at the time I\u0026rsquo;m recording yesterday, I was doing it at least. So, yeah, I think it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s super interesting and super fundamental.\nI think, at least for myself, I hadn\u0026rsquo;t, I\u0026rsquo;d flirted with this kind of ideas before in the sense that I\u0026rsquo;ve, I\u0026rsquo;d sort of seen. Oh yeah. That\u0026rsquo;s probably a good idea to do something like that, that hadn\u0026rsquo;t actually done it. And I think from what I\u0026rsquo;ve seen this activity, Likely one of the best activities that you can do to, uh, get real clarity around what exactly you want your life to look like and, and really help you make decisions from a career sense and, and sort of set you on a path that you\u0026rsquo;re both excited about. And interested in pursuing.\nOutro # James: Hopefully this episode helped everyone. If you really enjoyed this episode, please go to the newsletter. The link is in the description of this episode, and you can read a bit more about it and find some of those leading questions.\nThanks so much for listening to today\u0026rsquo;s episode. And if you did enjoy, please consider subscribing wherever you are. And uh, without further ado, we\u0026rsquo;ll see you in next week\u0026rsquo;s episode. Thanks.\n← Back to episode 42\n","date":"8 August 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/graduate-theory/42-on-creating-a-lifestyle-career-plan/transcript/","section":"Graduate Theory Transcripts","summary":"← Back to episode 42\nThis transcript has been lightly edited for readability. It may still contain transcription errors.\nIntro # James: Here’s a question for you. If I gave you a bunch of jigsaw jigsaw pieces and asked you to complete the puzzle, what’s the first thing that you would do? The chances are, what you’ll do is you’ll grab the box and look at the image that you’re trying to create the image that you’re gonna connect the Jukes hole pieces, and you wanna connect them in such a way that it looks like what is on the box.\n","title":"Transcript: On Creating a Lifestyle Career Plan","type":"graduate-theory-transcripts"},{"content":"Hey Richard,\nI\u0026rsquo;ve put your message and some thoughts below.\nLet me know if I can do anything else to help. I\u0026rsquo;m happy to have a chat via Zoom. Here is my Calendly.\nQuestion # There are so many opportunities in tech, and so many are interconnected. It\u0026rsquo;s difficult to decide which field would yield the highest return for me. I\u0026rsquo;m not sure where to get advice from and have been thinking about looking out for a mentor.\nDo you have any idea who to talk to what to read etc? Again really appreciate your help!\nMy Thoughts # There probably isn\u0026rsquo;t just one single career that you could choose that would \u0026ldquo;yield high returns\u0026rdquo;. As you said, tech is quite interconnected, so there are likely many paths to a high return. Perhaps one initial point is to be less concerned with which exact role or thing you end up doing, start with something you think is exciting and that you have some skills in.\nOne good quote to guide you with this is \u0026ldquo;Do what looks like play to you but feels like work to others\u0026rdquo;.\nAnother good exercise for life and career planning is to think about what you want your life to look like in the future.\nThis will help you to have a clear vision of your future, and from there, we can work back to decide which path is best for you right now.\nWrite down in detail things like:\nHow much control do I have over my schedule? How much money do I make? What’s the importance of what I do? What type of work? Where do I live? What kind of how do I live in? What hobbies do I have? What’s my social life like? What’s my work-life balance? What’s my family like? How do other people think of me? What does my daily routine look like? Get very clear on these.\nNow you have this, think about which direction you\u0026rsquo;d like to go that would best match to what you want your life to be like in the future.\nIs it a role in a certain industry? A certain kind of tech role? Is it a part-time or full-time role? Is it fully remote or in the office?\nOnce we have the end in mind, making choices about what you would like to do next becomes much easier.\nResources # Books I would read\nSo Good They Can\u0026rsquo;t Ignore You - Cal Newport Business Model You People to reach out to:\npeople doing things you are thinking of doing, ask them questions about what they do daily and what tools they use. To do this, you can just dm people on Linkedin, people are usually very helpful! As I mentioned, I\u0026rsquo;m happy to get on a call with you also if you\u0026rsquo;d like.\nIf you have any questions or thoughts about all this, please let me know!\n","date":"5 August 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/r/richard_pinter/","section":"Rs","summary":"Hey Richard,\nI’ve put your message and some thoughts below.\nLet me know if I can do anything else to help. I’m happy to have a chat via Zoom. Here is my Calendly.\nQuestion # There are so many opportunities in tech, and so many are interconnected. It’s difficult to decide which field would yield the highest return for me. I’m not sure where to get advice from and have been thinking about looking out for a mentor.\n","title":"Richard Pinter - Career Suggestions","type":"r"},{"content":"","date":"5 August 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/r/","section":"Rs","summary":"","title":"Rs","type":"r"},{"content":" Watch the conversation Graduate Theory Open YouTube ↗ Read the full transcript → Working in high-performance cultures like MBB is a tough gig. Today\u0026rsquo;s guest did it for 10 years, and he\u0026rsquo;s now on a mission to transform the pet care industry.\nIn today\u0026rsquo;s episode, we unpack his learnings from many years as an operator in the trenches.\nIf you haven\u0026rsquo;t already subscribed to the Graduate Theory newsletter, do it now 👇\nSubscribe Now\nWatch this episode on YouTube.\nGabriel Guedes (aka GG) co-founded Lyka Pet Food and currently leads its Operations.\nPreviously, GG was an Associate Partner at Bain \u0026amp; Company where he worked for over 10 years.\nHe is also an angel investor and advisor.\n🤝 Connect with GG # Lyka - https://lyka.com.au/\nLinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/kawao/\n👇 Episode Takeaways # Optionality is Great (but can be dangerous) # Building options early in your career is great.\nHaving more options is better because it means that if better opportunities arise, we are in a more advantageous position to take them.\nHowever, there are problems with having too many options.\nOne such example is that by seeking options for too long, you begin to lack depth.\nThere comes a time when having more options is not better, instead, having depth is what is important.\nGrow your skills and develop options, but be wary of creating too many options without enough depth.\nTransfer of knowledge # When GG looks at hiring new people, he doesn\u0026rsquo;t just look for how intelligent they are.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s also about how they can transfer knowledge from one field into another.\nWhen interviewing candidates, understanding how a candidate can transfer information is an important part of Lyka\u0026rsquo;s process.\nFailure and Risk # This part of the episode really stuck with me.\nI think failure is very important. If you cannot deal with failure, you\u0026rsquo;re never going to risk high enough. If you\u0026rsquo;re never fail means that you\u0026rsquo;re probably not stretching yourself enough. So failure is very important.\nWhen was the last time you failed at something?\nFailure is a sign that you are pushing your limits. It\u0026rsquo;s a sign of growth.\nIf you aren\u0026rsquo;t failing, you aren\u0026rsquo;t learning and growing.\nReframing the way we look at failure is key to maximising your performance.\nGet the Newsletter\n📝 Content Timestamps # 00:00 Gabriel Guedes 00:46 GG at University 04:10 Working in High-Performance Environments 05:39 Highlights and Lowlights of Consulting 09:00 Biggest Learnings From Consulting 12:55 Is consulting a good path to operations? 26:15 The Vision for Lyka 30:19 How would he restart Lyka 31:40 Advice for people starting companies 33:48 Biggest Learning From Startups 37:02 GG Extracurriculars 41:20 Failure that ended up being a success 44:13 Who inspires GG? 45:39 If GG could go back in time\n","date":"1 August 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/graduate-theory/41-gabriel-guedes/","section":"Graduate Theory","summary":" Watch the conversation Graduate Theory Open YouTube ↗ Read the full transcript → Working in high-performance cultures like MBB is a tough gig. Today’s guest did it for 10 years, and he’s now on a mission to transform the pet care industry.\n","title":"Gabriel Guedes | On Tales Of Spontaneity And The Perils Of Optionality","type":"graduate-theory"},{"content":"← Back to episode 41\nThis transcript has been lightly edited for readability. It may still contain transcription errors.\nGabriel: I think failure is very important, right? If you cannot deal with failure,, you\u0026rsquo;re not never gonna risk high enough. Meaning if you\u0026rsquo;re never fail means that you\u0026rsquo;re probably not stretch yourself enough. So failure is very important\nJames: Hello, and welcome to Graduate Theory. Today\u0026rsquo;s guest co-founded like a pet food and currently leads its operations. Uh, previously he was an associate partner at Bain where he worked for over 10 years. Currently. He\u0026rsquo;s also an angel investor and advisor at various startups across Australia. He\u0026rsquo;s affectionately known as Gigi.\nPlease. Welcome to the show, Gabriel. GEZ.\nGabriel: Thanks, James. Thanks for having me here.\nGG at University # James: Amazing mate. It\u0026rsquo;s fantastic to have you on the show. I\u0026rsquo;m so keen to sort of dive into your experience, uh, in such a wide variety of domains, but I wanna wind back the clock to start off with. And I wanna ask about, uh, when you were finishing university and kind of going into your career, uh, you ended up going straight into Bain.\nAfter university, but I wonder yourself. What was that sort of transition like between university and work and what opportunities and things did you initially have in mind to pursue at that time?\nGabriel: Yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s a interesting question. Um, actually, before joining consultancy tried to, um, go to the industry, like by trade I\u0026rsquo;m, I\u0026rsquo;m a production engineer. Um, so like, I think my career was supposed to be, uh, more, um, into industry driven and I did some internships in the era. So internet, for instance, the logistics department, uh, for Proctor and gamble. Uh, back in south America, uh, did some, uh, other smaller internships, um, as I did my master\u0026rsquo;s degree, uh, but I realized the more I did internships in engineering or, uh, in corporate, the less I wanted to be an engineer. And, um, And that\u0026rsquo;s what sort of took me to explore, uh, consultancy where I think there was a good blend between doing some of the analytical work that you would, that I would do as an engineer, but also, uh, explore, uh, strategy and business more.\nUh, and, uh, yeah, in the end, by time as, uh, is a, a junior internship as well in consultancy, which was much better than the time I had, uh, in the other areas. And for me was a no brainer. Then just continue exploring from there.\nJames: Amazing. Uh, that\u0026rsquo;s that\u0026rsquo;s pretty interesting. And I, I wonder like, um, Yeah. As you started at Bain and kind of got into things, what was sort of, what particularly drew you to, to consulting? Is there any, was there anything that you were like, I know you mentioned that you just sort of enjoyed it generally more, but was there any kind of particular things that, you know, you really got excited by in, in that, in that world?\nGabriel: Yeah, I think there, there are a few there. I think there are a few things. The first was the, uh, optionality, I think like, I didn\u0026rsquo;t wanna be an engineer. I realized that, uh, and, uh, have a little bit of a crisis. What do I wanna do? And then going to consultancy was, uh, I think a good way to sort of, uh, okay.\nI\u0026rsquo;ll park myself here for at least a couple years, uh, where I can. Have, uh, no guilt. about being working on this and, uh, the, the plenty of doors which will remain open. Um, but as I start doing the job, I really enjoyed, um, a few elements of it. For instance, uh, working of high performance environment, I think with a lot of, uh, uh, smart people tackling, uh, hard problems. I think it\u0026rsquo;s a bit underrated, how much, uh, the people you work with influence you and how much you can learn, which is the second part. Like learning has been, uh, fantastic in terms of, uh, uh, so many different dimensions, like from hard skills, like modeling and communication all the way to, um, Work problem solving and working, uh, like just working with others, which is something that might take for granted, but is skewing itself as well.\nWorking in High Performance Environments # James: Yeah. Nice. Yeah. Cuz what, what was that environment like you mentioned there that a lot of high performers and things, um, did that kind of like when you first started, was it kind of a bit of a shock and you kind of had to really sort of up your level a little bit, or, you know, how, how did you find that.\nGabriel: Uh, yeah, it, it is a bit daunting in the beginning to be fair. Like you, when you arrive, particularly as a, I sat as an intern, right? So I had done some internships before, but never work at, uh, full time. And, um, uh, oh, an internship in consult sometimes is more hours than than a full time job, somewhere else as well.\nSo that was also a shock in the. But I think the, the environment there is quite structured in terms of, uh, progressively teaching you and sort of helping you ramp up. There\u0026rsquo;s a lot of support, uh, both formally in terms of, uh, trainings and induction that happen that informally is an apprenticeship model where you end up learning from your people you work with.\nUh, and, um, they created this environment where it\u0026rsquo;s, uh, easy to ask questions, easy to work with people and, uh, learn.\nJames: Yeah. Nice. That\u0026rsquo;s pretty cool. It\u0026rsquo;s it\u0026rsquo;s an interesting, uh, certainly I feel like a lot of people, myself included, you know, think about these places and think they\u0026rsquo;re almost like, I don\u0026rsquo;t know. It\u0026rsquo;s it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s interesting speaking to people that work there or have worked there, uh, cuz it\u0026rsquo;s yeah. It\u0026rsquo;s it\u0026rsquo;s I don\u0026rsquo;t know.\nHighlights and Lowlights of Consulting # James: I D know how to describe it, but I guess like looking back on your experience there, you know, you were there for quite a long time. What. Looking back. What, what was the highlight? Uh, and, and perhaps even a lowlight or something that you, you didn\u0026rsquo;t like about, about working in consulting?\nGabriel: Yeah. well, I think there\u0026rsquo;s, Well,\nI stayed there for 11 years, so obviously there\u0026rsquo;s lots that I liked, otherwise, nobody last that long. Uh, and for me, the, the highlights definitely, um, um, Outset the, uh, the low lights I\u0026rsquo;ve, um, I think enjoy so much the working on this sort of a high stakes problems.\nLet\u0026rsquo;s say like, like companies higher consult is for a reason. And obviously it\u0026rsquo;s a very expensive service, which means that, uh, by definition, you end up having the problems that are the most important for those companies. And. Even from an early stage in our career, being able to work, um, such as strategic themes that are, uh, at the top of the agenda of the company, the CEO and the board, uh, definitely is very motivating. Also means your learning is, uh, uh, is accelerated, right? Cuz you\u0026rsquo;re exposed to such a big problems from the early stage in your career. Uh, the other part I enjoyed is the people, as I mentioned, like a lot of, uh, high caliber people and um, uh, The case of bang, particularly doing such a big emphasis on, uh, uh, well being high caliber, but also being low, low ego where you, everybody feels like, uh, friendly, welcoming.\nAnd most of my, uh, or my best friends is too. I either from bang or ex bang over the past 10 years that, uh, build those relationships of my partner. And, uh, I met her for bang as well. So I ended up. Uh, you can see that likeminded people in that environment of, uh, uh, is very conducive to also having fun meeting, uh, meeting lifelong friends, uh, and enjoying their job, uh, freely.\nUh, and I guess the last thing I think I enjoyed a lot was, uh, the, the type of work you the day to day of the work felt something that I really enjoyed. Uh, and that was consistent for the different, for the different tens. Like over the 10 years I spent there, uh, you sat as a, as mentioned, sat as an intern, uh, and left as an associate partner.\nSo the work changed a lot through the period, but the day to day across this whole 10 years had been very enjoyed for me. And that\u0026rsquo;s why, uh, I, I guess I stayed, uh, in terms of low lights, um, Obviously there\u0026rsquo;s the classic things you can say, like, okay, you have, uh, very long hours. Uh, you don\u0026rsquo;t have as much control of your personal life to an extent in terms of, uh, uh, lots of travel.\nUh, you might be all of a sudden staffed on a different case that sort of, uh, puts your, your routines upside down. Um, and, uh, you might be working very long hours. Like it depends on the. Uh, on the project, that\u0026rsquo;s a reality, uh, that, that said was not something that would make me, uh, regret or anything, I think was those intense spirits.\nThat\u0026rsquo;s where we learned a lot as well.\nBiggest Learnings From Consulting # James: Yeah, absolutely. No, it sounds like you, yeah, those kinds of things, I feel build a lot of resilience and, and things as well. So that\u0026rsquo;s super cool, but I want, yeah, continuing that thread, like, what are some of the biggest learnings that you had from that period, um, that perhaps you still kind of taken to work today as well?\nGabriel: Hmm.\nit\u0026rsquo;s interesting. Cuz if I were to plan my career, uh, to be where I am, I don\u0026rsquo;t think I would have thought that consultants would be the natural path. But now that I did that, I feel it was a perfect, uh, path that I tried to, to do what I do today. Uh, that was a bit by coincidence. I was never. To, um, deliberate or to precise about my trajectory, but did happen well and things like, uh, from the soft skills, like communication and, uh, dealing with, uh, uh, all types of stakeholders, like as a consultant, I think is the same as, um, a COO you can, you, you might need to deal with, um, uh, the, the COO the board investors, like high. Uh, high stake conversations or, or perhaps negotiations with key key suppliers, uh, all the way to working with the, uh, operations, like with the, the, the people, uh, on the, on the shop floor. And as a consult, you, you work for all this range. And my day job nowadays is a sign end up. So learning how to oped eight in such different, uh, environments that require different skills quite important.\nUh, other elements go in terms of, uh, uh, managing a team, I think, uh, As a consultant, or at least when you start being more senior consultants, you end up having to manage high performance team. And, uh, it\u0026rsquo;s interesting cuz managing high performance team, uh, on one hand is easier because all the high performers, they just get the job done by themselves, but on\nBut on the other hand also has challenge in terms of how to motivate and provide career opportunities, learning and development to that, uh, to that specific cohort. And, uh, that\u0026rsquo;s very valuable in, in, uh, startup because obviously people who want to start up are very motivated, keen, ambitious, uh, and have very big similarities, uh, with consult people who go to consultancy some of the NAX consultants as well.\nUh, so being able to bring that type of leadership to, uh, like now has been available for, for. And, uh, yeah, create mimicking a bit of this high performance environment within, within our, our, our company as well. Uh, what else as Stu used the, let\u0026rsquo;s say technical expertise that, that obtained like my career at bang was a bit of typical, I guess, from the regular, uh, person.\nLike I was much less of a generalist than many consultants. Are I specialize quite early in my career in operations. And, um, well, I\u0026rsquo;m doing operations on tune now. So, uh, many of the things that I learned on those days from, uh, manufacturing, supply chain, logistics, procurement, uh, contract negotiations, uh, are quite, are quite too useful.\nUh, and even the, I think less appreciated part of things like sort of talking about like org structures and, uh, uh Aing and how. How the backbone of a company works right, is the type of project that like org restructuring, that consultants don\u0026rsquo;t really like to do. But in the end of the day, those are very important.\nOnce you go, uh, leave consultants and go to work, uh, say PA startup where you\u0026rsquo;re buing a structure or, um, or corporate. So do you understand how the company works? So this, uh, Yeah, so these things are due today. Very relevant.\nIs consulting a good path to operations? # James: Yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s super cool. And if, yeah, I, I, you mentioned in there that if you like reflecting on where you are now, if you wanted to sort of get to where you are now, again, that you\u0026rsquo;d perhaps do a very similar path. Yeah. What would you, would that be your advice to someone that kind of, uh, you know, wants to be someone in operations that\u0026rsquo;s really across a lot of things and, and perhaps in the startup landscape, do you think, uh, like consulting, whether it\u0026rsquo;s at ban or a different kind of consultancy, you know, is that one of the best ways to sort of get where to get to where you are?\nGabriel: Yeah, well, it\u0026rsquo;s hard to say, cuz I, as I said, I was never very, um, uh, Mindful of my career. I just keep kept doing consultancy because I enjoyed and I kept the operations, uh, because I really enjoyed and, um, ended up moving to like, and we can talk about this later, but only moved to because like was founded my partner and sort of, uh, felt like, okay, it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s my startup to an extent, you know, it helped her co-founded uh, when, when we launched, that\u0026rsquo;s why I moved.\nOtherwise I\u0026rsquo;ll never have left, uh, consult. So there was no careful planning, which means that this is hard for me to tell somebody who just joining, uh, the workforce now. Oh,\nyou should be carefully playing. I think it\u0026rsquo;s, uh, to, uh, no looking back looks great. But when I was there having Muhammad is decisions, uh, do not feel like the, the same. So what. Do suggest is perhaps, um, have a mix between finding things that give option, like, uh, like a did of consultancy. I park in my career there for 10 years., uh, until I found my more works\u0026rsquo; life, uh, my life\u0026rsquo;s work, which is like a now, uh, but those 10 years were very, um, uh, no very proposed who I learned a lot and prepared me directly to do what I\u0026rsquo;m. Uh, doesn\u0026rsquo;t mean everybody needs to stay for 10 years doing something while you are waiting for your opportunity. Um, but I do think it was very helpful for me. And, uh, so that\u0026rsquo;s why, and second is, I think optionality is, is great, but can be dangerous. Like I think if you stay with too much optionality for too long, you might end up, uh, on a place where you know, a little bit about everything, but nothing, uh, too.\nJames: Mm-hmm\nGabriel: Uh, to an extent, some level of specialization or narrowing your path is important as well. Like for, for me, was working in operations, uh, through bank. I, I specialize area really like a. Pretty much nine 80% of my career has been computing in operation, uh, themes. And whenever I was doing something that was not really directly related, I would quickly try to jump back to something interested me more. Uh, but that in the end was made a natural course for me to went join likea to join as, as, uh, the company\u0026rsquo;s COO and CFO, uh, because of. Experience I accumulated, uh, doesn\u0026rsquo;t mean that if I had had a different experience, I wouldn\u0026rsquo;t be able to join like, but I do think that makes my life now much. because of expertise abuse over this time.\nSo striking the right balance is where, uh, perhaps it\u0026rsquo;s hard, but that\u0026rsquo;s where the trick is. Like finding things that enable you to jump between one interest and the other. But on the other hand, those jumps are not too far, uh, in terms of a capability. So you do have a, a specialization of sorts that give your competitive advantage.\nJames: Yeah, that was a good tip. Yeah. No, thanks for sharing that. Um, you mentioned there kind of the start of Leer and, and moving from BA and then starting to work there. What, what was the first time you heard about Leer and, and this being a possibility I\u0026rsquo;d love. If you could sort of dive into that story.\nGabriel: Yeah. Well, the, the story of like starts with, uh, uh, the story of like our dog. So we have a dog called Lea and, um, Like when she was about five, six years old, she was having some health issues and, um, Anna, uh, my partner, but also the founder of Leica, she was researching about why such a young dog was having some issues.\nLike her teeth was not great. Um, And, uh, the vet wanted to actually remove some. So she said researching realized, oh, the food is the problem. And, uh, that was eyeopening for us. So we start cooking for like, uh, at home and, uh, over time she improved and like, In a few weeks, not even too long, she was already much better.\nAnd her chief, uh, was looking better as well, even if was damaged. Uh, more than that, people, even the dog park would say, oh, she\u0026rsquo;s looking so much better. What happened to her? And, and we\u0026rsquo;ll talk about it. So, uh, we went through this for a couple years. Until Anna decided that, uh, the idea had enough, uh, sort of, uh, enough momentum behind it and sort of, uh, that should start up.\nPerhaps I should take this as more seriously than just cooking for like, but cooking for every dog. And she started researching and, um, realize that the market\u0026rsquo;s market speak was a great opportu. So she, uh, decided to quit consultancy to open, uh, Leica. Um, I, at the time took a, uh, a break, like a career break, like three months, three, four months to help her.\nSo together we launched Leica that was early 2018, just the MVP, very simple, uh, product from there. I came back to work at bang as a consultant while Anna I was running the. Uh, on her own, that was, uh, still a startup. So it was a small, my, um, was better for me to, um, work as a consultant and support as I, as needed on the weekends and so on and sort of find help finance the business while she took the, uh, the life of faith, sort of, uh, to quit and run the business full time.\nUm, we did like this for a couple years. Um, until we raised our proceed, then we raised our seed and that the business getting big enough and the amount of money that we, uh, raised was big enough. That was not me working at pain that will make any difference, uh, to the funding of the company. Um, the biggest vendor could add to the company would, would\u0026rsquo;ve been now to actually work, um, full time on it.\nSo. Uh, yeah, so we took this decision that was better for me to also jump, jump in, like, uh, all hands on deck. Um, and, uh, that\u0026rsquo;s been about two years now and, uh, Yeah, Have a look back\nJames: Yeah, amazing. Oh, it\u0026rsquo;s going super well. Uh, like at the moment and, and congratulations to yourself and, and to your partner. Cause I think, yeah, you\u0026rsquo;ve done something. Um, really cool. And it\u0026rsquo;s turning into a fantastic opportunity for yourselves. Um, one thing I wanna ask just about like generally is you, you were talking about like the high performance culture, uh, at Bain and kind of trying to recreate and use some of that knowledge.\nIn startups. I wonder, like for the, like, what would you then look for if you\u0026rsquo;re gonna sort of, cause obviously you have a decent size team now and there\u0026rsquo;s people in there, you know, if you\u0026rsquo;re trying to build the team, what kind of traits are you looking for in, in someone like that, that would sort of identify them as someone that\u0026rsquo;s gonna sort of fit into the culture and be someone that can solve things themselves like a high performer or whatever.\nIs there anything there that, that comes to mind?\nGabriel: Yeah. Uh, well, I think in, in a startup that is a bit harder to define than it is on consultancy. And I say that because. Startup has so many different roles right in, and every role requires different skill sets. And, uh, while in consultancy, the average consultants is much more uniform let\u0026rsquo;s say, uh, than it is a startup.\nSo for instance, I like we have all the capabilities that. A classic startup or a SaaS business would have you say you have our engineering team. We have customer care, have marketing product, but we also have all things that the e-commerce business has with, uh, fulfillment logistics, um, and everything that the manufacturing business has as well, because we also manufacture our food. So, if you try to put one single metric way to measure everybody, it\u0026rsquo;s hard to be as, um, uniform, as you\u0026rsquo;d be in, uh, consultancy, but a few things we do to try to, uh, nudge into this, um, high performance, um, world is we evaluate everybody on their subject matter. E. Uh, you, um, to work in certain areas, you need to know there, like first you wanna be a code, uh, a developer, you need to know how to code.\nRight. Um, and we, we\u0026rsquo;ll test that. We, uh, aside from this, we believe that people need to be gen generally, uh, not only subject matter experts, but generally smart, meaning that. They\u0026rsquo;re not just deep in one area, but somebody who whos smarts can enable them to learn things across, uh, different, uh, subject area, uh, subject areas. Uh, that\u0026rsquo;s very important for us because as you work on this complex environment where, um, you have such a virtual integration of our business, it\u0026rsquo;s important that somebody understands the context, not all of their work, but also the other areas and work well in between these area.\nJames: Mm.\nGabriel: And which is the third point, um, how this person fits in our culture in, uh, including, um, collaboration and, uh, be part of a, I guess, believe in our mission so that somebody who really is, um, mission driven that can, uh, Work well with others.\nAnd, uh, because we\u0026rsquo;re all here for the same mission. Everybody understands what they\u0026rsquo;re trying to achieve and everybody, uh, collaborates well together. That\u0026rsquo;s probably the hardest part to measure, cuz it\u0026rsquo;s much less, um, uh, tangible and, uh, well, it\u0026rsquo;s hard to get to know someone while once all you have is a few hours, uh, of interviews.\nSo we have. Uh, a few part, a few stages in our, uh, interview process that try to test for those skills as well.\nJames: Yeah. Cool. Uh, that\u0026rsquo;s interesting. Yeah, certainly it is. Uh, it\u0026rsquo;s a tricky, uh, nut to crack as like yeah. Trying to get to know as much as you can about someone in a short amount of time and, and trying to see if they\u0026rsquo;re suitable. Mm.\nGabriel: Yeah.\nAnd, and the part of what we do as well is try to get then to know like, uh, as much as possible for the process, because I think there becomes a. Well, we both interview each other, but we both can identify if it\u0026rsquo;s not really a good fit. Um, so we, we are very open about our vision, our mission, and the type of company we are, so that if somebody, they might even be high performance, but they might not be able to completely align in terms of, uh, um, our mission or the ethics or the way we work with the company.\nBut if they discover that it\u0026rsquo;s not a great match through interview process, Then it\u0026rsquo;s also a good sign, cuz then, uh, better to discover that they discover for interview process. Then discover six months later, uh, once they have some, uh, I dunno, conflict or issues in the company.\nJames: Yeah, no for sure. I totally agree with that. Yeah. I think when you\u0026rsquo;re interviewing at places, you should view it as much as a, uh, trying to get into the company. And, and, but, but also an interview, like it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s the company\u0026rsquo;s interviewing you as much as you\u0026rsquo;re interviewing the company. Right. Which I is, is sort of what you said there.\nYeah, totally agree. I think that\u0026rsquo;s important.\nGabriel: Yeah.\nJames: Um, there, you.\nGabriel: Now I was gonna say, uh, yeah, correct. And, um, the interview process end ups being very, uh, let\u0026rsquo;s say, high touch on length fee, multiple rounds of long discussions, but I think it\u0026rsquo;s worth the investment for both sides. Like if you are interviewing any company is important to. Spend the time to ask all questions you have, uh, to really understand what the company, um, is trying to achieve, what the role is, how the culture of the company is and so on.\nUm, and, uh, we might okay. Do 10 interviews that don\u0026rsquo;t work out, but then at least the, the one that does work out and somebody joins, like, I think we\u0026rsquo;re much more high confidence that person will be successful. Um, and, uh, To an extent, it saves us time, the time investments up front, save us time later in terms of, uh, onboarding and, um, uh, um, replacement rates of, uh, of people roles.\nThe Vision for Lyka # James: Yeah. Yeah, of course. Uh, you mentioned in there as well, like your vision for the company. I\u0026rsquo;d love to hear. Um, what your vision is and what the team\u0026rsquo;s vision is for wa a, uh, you know, in the next few years, like, what are you guys sort of sitting out to achieve?\nGabriel: Well, like likea is a pet wellness business. So that\u0026rsquo;s, uh, how, what we envision for the company nowadays, we started as. Dog food business. And that\u0026rsquo;s, um, I think start with food is, uh, a great starting point because it is the, the purchase, the pet owners, um, think the most about. And that\u0026rsquo;s because once the most expensive second is also, uh, if the dog doesn\u0026rsquo;t like the food is not gonna eat it.\nAnd, um, if it doesn\u0026rsquo;t agree, if it\u0026rsquo;s daily, it might actually be very messy. Um, So by building the trust on food and nutrition, like we do, uh, um, healthy pet food that does not like, does. The categories emerging now. So there\u0026rsquo;s not that many. And we are the, uh, the main voice in terms of a nutrition, uh, in the space.\nAnd, um, even vets like the typical vet, it is a generalist. So you graduate, uh, but then to become a, uh, nutritionist, you need to spend another couple of years is studying, uh, as a postgraduate program. But most vets end up doing surgery or big animals because that\u0026rsquo;s probably where they, uh, most of the money in the industry is, and there\u0026rsquo;s a gap in nutrition, so we can fill that gap.\nAnd, uh, through our, our knowledge here, we can. Earn the right to talk to these customers about other aspects of, of, uh, nutrition and then eventually on wellness. So we\u0026rsquo;re launching now our, um, supplements line, which is a compliment to, um, our, um, food that is, uh, uh, the first step into the therapeutics.\nThat goes beyond just food from there. We\u0026rsquo;ll do, um, vet, uh, our vet specific line. So a line of products that for, uh, pets that have specific diseases or conditions say like heart disease or liver disease and so on. So that enable us to further move into the, uh, wellness. And, uh, going forward from there, like wellness is a big, a big area.\nSo this sky\u0026rsquo;s the limit to an extent, but we could go things such as, uh, wearables for instance, where we can start tracking like, um, sleeping pattern and this movement gauge, uh, ness. and that enables us to, uh, be very, um, actionable about it. So if a dog is for instance, uh, eating too much, we can identify that and sort of help the owner through that problem, both with, uh, uh, advice that our.\nTeam has, but even with our product, so we can have a supplement that enables, uh, or reduces each nest. And, um, if you have the, all this information, the same spot you can, the, the customer can see the, the real time feedback of, Okay.\nI, my dog used to be itching has the, now the, um, the supplement not only can see is not teaching, but actually can tangibly monitor in the app.\nFor instance, that\u0026rsquo;s not. Uh, and from there we can continue going upstream into the, um, um, wellness space all the way, perhaps one day to have preventive care wellness clinics. But that\u0026rsquo;s probably not, uh, a few years away. It\u0026rsquo;s more like many years away.\nJames: Yeah. nice. That\u0026rsquo;s it\u0026rsquo;s it\u0026rsquo;s pretty exciting. It\u0026rsquo;s yeah,\nGabriel: And it would, uh, sorry. And it would go from dogs to cats as well, uh, down the road and, uh, eventually, um, go abroad as well from potentially to the nearby markets such as Southeast Asia or, um, Asian general.\nHow would he restart Lyka # James: Nice huge potential here. Definitely. There\u0026rsquo;s heap of different things you guys are exploring. That\u0026rsquo;s super cool. But one question I wanna ask is if you could sort of restart like, uh, or if there\u0026rsquo;s, if there\u0026rsquo;s anything that you would do differently, um, or perhaps anything that you would you\u0026rsquo;re really focusing on as a area that you\u0026rsquo;d like to improve at the moment.\nIs there anything there? Through your journey with, with startups and stuff so far. Yeah. Is there anything, I guess it\u0026rsquo;s a slow, tough question.\nGabriel: Yeah. no, I think there Is there\u0026rsquo;s obviously lots of small things here and there that you think, oh, I wish I knew this before, so it\u0026rsquo;d be, uh, a bit smoother. Um, but I don\u0026rsquo;t, I don\u0026rsquo;t think we have big regrets or anything that say, oh, this was completely wrong. We, we, we didn\u0026rsquo;t do it well. Um, obviously with, uh, Hindsight four years later, you learn so much that you think I could have.\nIf I were to do it again, it would be much smoother and faster, but I do think the strategic steps or the main, um, I mean the main decisions I think were we did it well and probably there\u0026rsquo;s some small things we could improve and fix. Uh, but that\u0026rsquo;s, again, always easy in hindsight.\nAdvice for people starting companies # James: Definitely. What about, let\u0026rsquo;s say someone wants to, uh, you know, they wanna start a startup and, and they want some advice from you. What are some of the key things that you\u0026rsquo;ve focused on in building the company that you think are super important for people like starting companies that, uh, you know, that have really like gone well for you in, in building liker?\nGabriel: Mm-hmm yeah. Well, I think in the beginning particular, the most important part is to listen to your customers and really understand then. So you find product market fit as soon as possible. I think, uh, There is the, I guess the tendency of, of, uh, founders wanting to scale fast. But if they don\u0026rsquo;t have, uh, the right product market fit, it, scaling will only means magnifying a problem. So really incentivize, um, founders or early stage founders to. Talk to customers understand what they\u0026rsquo;re doing, be a customer yourself. Uh, ideally you like, for instance, for Leica, it was very set of pages for us. But, uh, we, Anna just came across the idea because we used to be actually cooking for Leica and we understood this space.\nWe understood the customer, she was the customer. Right. Um, and that was very good, uh, in terms of, uh, being always ahead and thinking like the customer thinks, because we literally have the same mindset. And that can translate to, uh, better features, better, uh, uh, dunno, better ways to delight our customer by preempting their, all the expectations and, um, delivering that in a way that sort of feels natural.\nSo really understanding that from the beginning is important. And, uh, once you\u0026rsquo;re confident that is working, then you can start scaling the. Otherwise, I think there\u0026rsquo;s a lot of, uh, uh, wasted resources and, um, uh, and, uh, yeah, the, the more you end up putting to it, if it\u0026rsquo;s the wrong path, the hard that is later to, to turn it around.\nBiggest Learning From Startups # James: Mm. Yeah, no, that\u0026rsquo;s cool with interesting. And thanks for sharing that. Um, one thing I wanna ask too, is like, what has been, you know, you\u0026rsquo;ve been working in this, in this startup, like for a while, what\u0026rsquo;s been like your personal, like biggest learning, um, from this\nGabriel: Mm-hmm Ooh, there, I think there\u0026rsquo;s so many uh, I guess I, I guess the it\u0026rsquo;s hard, cuz there are many dimensions in terms of learning, right? I think, uh,\nJames: Mm.\nGabriel: There is when I\u0026rsquo;m tackling different problems here. I think there\u0026rsquo;s no problem what I can say. That I have no idea how to solve. I might not know the answer, but I would have a process to sort of, okay.\nI think I know the steps to get there, to, to solve with the problem, uh, which is something that I bring from, uh, being a consultant. But these steps, there\u0026rsquo;s so many different learners you can have. So that\u0026rsquo;s, uh, I think it\u0026rsquo;s a bit hard to. Point of view, uh, or peak only a few. I think there are many, it\u0026rsquo;s hard to just speak a few.\nI do. If I look at comparison comparing like working as in a startup versus working perhaps on a big corporation, like as through bang with working big companies, uh, then I can see there\u0026rsquo;s a big strike in difference in several aspects from, uh, you know, startup ends up. You are the, the last, the last sort of, uh, gatekeeper here, right?\nIf it, if you don\u0026rsquo;t do, if it don\u0026rsquo;t do something, that thing doesn\u0026rsquo;t get done. while if you\u0026rsquo;re in a big company, there\u0026rsquo;s always those invisible hands that sort of, uh, keep the machine going, um, in the, in the company. And you\u0026rsquo;re sort of attract to change things, change the strategy, change the, uh, I dunno, performance improvement or something.\nUh, But the day to day happens while when I start up, you really need to balance your time. Very well between thinking the big game, but also doing the day to day that if it doesn\u0026rsquo;t, uh, if you don\u0026rsquo;t do it, we\u0026rsquo;ll not get done. And as we growing now and becoming, um, uh, a scale up, I guess, uh, this mindset change a bit so needs again, to be changed, to becoming a big company where you sort of attract to put processes in place, hire more people.\nThere\u0026rsquo;s a structure that, um, enables the company to run without being too dependent on certain individuals. Um, so that\u0026rsquo;s been quite interesting for me, like to, as a learning, like. Step of the company requires different approach. Um, and, uh, when you think you\u0026rsquo;re learning, you\u0026rsquo;re getting comfortable, then you need to switch again to the next stage of the company.\nAnd then the next wave of learnings will come.\nJames: Hmm. Yeah. Cool. that\u0026rsquo;s interesting. And yeah, thanks for my next question is gonna be, what are the, the differences there between. Where you are and, and Bain, I think you answered that a little bit there. So appreciate that. It\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s pretty interesting to hear. Um, one thing I wanna ask too is you, you do a lot of things outside of, of Leica as well now.\nGG Extracurriculars # James: So you\u0026rsquo;re doing, you know, your, an advisor, like what was in the intro briefly? I mentioned, you know, you\u0026rsquo;re doing things like after work and some of these kinds of places, and then you\u0026rsquo;re also an investor as well at the moment. Like, how did that kind of start for you getting involved in, in these kinds of activities outside of work?\nIs does, yeah. Like how, how does one sort of start in, in these kinds of things?\nGabriel: Yeah. Um, for me it, I think to be completely honest, my, uh, I know my view on the startup world was quite limited before, um, uh, we start Leica. So until. Before 2017, when we were thinking about it. And then 18, when we got our chief into, it was quite limited. So it wasn\u0026rsquo;t too involved on it. But obviously when we start working on a startup, the whole, the hol system opens, opens for you.\nAnd then, uh, you start seeing everything that\u0026rsquo;s out there and talking to some founders and other founders, see other ideas that\u0026rsquo;s coming and actually end up. Conversations that could be, um, um, that could lead to investments, right? Because talking to some founders, the same fundraising and so on. Um, and that\u0026rsquo;s when I started, uh, basically having these sort of, uh, informal conversations and opportunities emerging.\nI also think that back in thousand 17, 18, the in Australia was much less sophisticated. There were, um, Uh, less funds, uh, and the funds were smaller than they are today. So the reliance on angels those days, I think was a bit bigger. Um, uh, therefore, um, these kind of opportunities end up coming more often than today.\nIf you\u0026rsquo;re just say I\u0026rsquo;m an angel. Okay. Fine. But not that many people necessarily gonna send a pitch text to you. Versus it was, uh, four or five years ago when the developed. So I progressively got more and more involved either by making small investments or being advisor to startups that, um, that I cross it paths with. Then I start getting involved in funds, like, um, after work, for instance, where I\u0026rsquo;m a fellow, uh, it\u0026rsquo;s a community based fund. So, um, we end up having shared a lot of experiences and, um, there\u0026rsquo;s a lot of learning there as well in how they approach thence, um, all the way now that, um, I\u0026rsquo;m a venture partner on meta Grove ventures, um, which is, um, another fund where, uh, my role is even, uh, more, um, I guess, uh, meaningful.\nSo I think there\u0026rsquo;s being a step by step to sort of, uh, becoming, um, uh, a VC that took there\u0026rsquo;s a journey that took me like four or five years.\nJames: Mm. Yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s cool. I think like have these, you mentioned there, obviously there\u0026rsquo;s a lot of interaction between founders and people at a similar stage. Like have you found these opportunities that involve with outside of work to have real, real benefit for yourself in, in building.\nGabriel: Ah, definitely like we have, um, I think obviously each startup will have different problems, but the main themes that are, um, quite translatable, right. And, um, many problems are. Issues mistakes that other founders have done. Um, it is, uh, highly applicable, obviously needs to be a bit customized, but they\u0026rsquo;re had applicable, like, as I say, it\u0026rsquo;s great to learn for all mistakes, but better if you can learn from others.\nso having, um, I think that having access to this community and network is quite important. You can have, uh, any issue pretty much. You can have, you can ask someone as someone, someone will have. A view on it or have tackled it before. And from there you already can start, uh, solving your problem on a, on a, with a, a bigger basis.\nI said, there\u0026rsquo;s no problem. In the beginning that I say, oh, I have no idea how to find the solution. Uh, partially it\u0026rsquo;s because, you know, you have access to certain people that will be able to help you. Uh, if a new problem comes, comes, comes through.\nFailure that ended up being a success # James: Yeah, definitely. That\u0026rsquo;s cool. Super cool. Um, another question I have for you is around the idea of failure and like many people have failed at different times. Um, but I\u0026rsquo;m interested in asking yourself, um, sometimes we have failures that, uh, seem like a failure at the time they end up in the future being something that worked out quite well.\nUh, and I wonder for yourself, if there\u0026rsquo;s any moments there where something seemingly. did not work out the way you wanted, but then later on it actually ended up being something that was, uh, you know, ended up working out well.\nGabriel: Yeah, no, I completely agree. And, uh, I, I think just to start say, I think failure is very important, right? If you cannot deal with failure, uh, you\u0026rsquo;re not never gonna risk high enough. Um, meaning if you\u0026rsquo;re never fail means that you\u0026rsquo;re probably not stretch yourself enough. Um, so failure is very important. I look back to situations like what you\u0026rsquo;re saying. I think there are planting my life, but even to think, for instance, uh, the, the story was discuss in the beginning, like as, um, I, I want to be an engineer and then I just realized that I, I was not for me, like the job sucked for me. Uh, therefore I was. I was like, okay, I\u0026rsquo;m here doing this engineering course.\nI\u0026rsquo;m three years in, out of five. Um, and, um, I really don\u0026rsquo;t wanna be an engineer anymore. What do I do? Right. And then I ended up becoming a consultant, um, later. Uh, but that at the time felt like a failure, right? Why I\u0026rsquo;m doing this, uh, complicated, long degree, if I\u0026rsquo;m not gonna actually be, uh, uh, using it. I do think though that if I hadn\u0026rsquo;t done it, I will definitely not be where I am today.\nEven physically, cuz the, I only made my way all the way to Australia because through my work at bank.\nJames: Yeah. Yeah. Cool. no, that\u0026rsquo;s interesting. Yeah. I think there\u0026rsquo;s, uh, definitely interesting times at university that, uh, yeah, that are quite influential and sort of finding out where you are, but I think most, most times that it does work out for the best. so glad to hear that it\u0026rsquo;s worked\nout like that yourself.\nGabriel: I mean, you, you, you\u0026rsquo;re never gonna know, right? like it\u0026rsquo;s, uh, perhaps if I did stay in south America, for some reason another path I would be here or be more successful, but that\u0026rsquo;s always, uh, uh, it\u0026rsquo;s just guesswork. Right. So I think, uh, it\u0026rsquo;s better to just believe that it happens for, for the best\nJames: Yeah, yeah, of course. no, absolutely. It\u0026rsquo;s um, yeah, important to see the, the best in situations. I think. Uh, definitely. Um, I\u0026rsquo;ve got one, maybe two more questions for you. Uh, and then, and then we\u0026rsquo;ll wrap it up. So one of those is, you know, you\u0026rsquo;re someone that does a lot of things. You\u0026rsquo;re, you\u0026rsquo;re a high performer you\u0026rsquo;re, you\u0026rsquo;re achieving.\nWho inspires GG? # James: Um, but you\u0026rsquo;re involved in a bunch of different things, but I wonder like who, um, inspires you. Is there anyone that you look up to and admire and think I\u0026rsquo;d love to sort of be like them? Is there anyone that, um, you really take their advice to heart? Is there anyone out there. Yeah, they truly.\nGabriel: Um, I, I think there are, uh, there\u0026rsquo;s several people outside, right? Like I think, uh, I\u0026rsquo;m a bit against sort of the cult of personality where you have like a, some like a fan of someone, and then you just go all the way to support the person, particularly as a public figure, like say I think for instance, Ella Musk has this coat of personality.\nEven when he\u0026rsquo;s doing the most horrible things, people still support him. Um, so I\u0026rsquo;m definitely not the type of person. Uh, but I do think that, um, every, or there are many people that have characteristics that are really admire or that are really helped me for the years. Uh, and obviously they, the old humans and all flawed the same way I am.\nUh, therefore there might be some things that are not great, but yes, the other elements that are fantastic. And, uh, yeah, I do collect or cultivate several relationships where, uh, I admire certain people for certain, um, skills or certain type of advice or certain things they have done. Uh, and they inspire me, uh, on those areas.\nIf GG could go back in time # James: Yeah, no, that\u0026rsquo;s a good, a good word that I think, uh, yeah, certainly. I don\u0026rsquo;t know. It\u0026rsquo;s it\u0026rsquo;s cool. Like the halo effect or something where you just, um, think things are much better than they actually are. Um, yeah, that, that\u0026rsquo;s an interesting piece. Yeah. Um, well, last one for you is around. It\u0026rsquo;s a question. I ask all the guests that come on the show and it is, uh, we\u0026rsquo;ve spoken about your time at university a little bit during the show today, but if you could sort of go back to, to, Gigi\u0026rsquo;s probably in his last year of uni, he\u0026rsquo;s about to go out into the world.\nUh, now that you\u0026rsquo;ve sort of experienced all this stuff, uh, what is some advice you\u0026rsquo;d go back and give yourself if you were in that situation again\nGabriel: Uh, it\u0026rsquo;s hard to say. And, and, and I, if I, if that was, uh, serious proposition, like, okay, you can go back in time and tell the young something. I would probably like actually. Would pass on the opportunity. And I say that because you run the risk of saying something that over the 10 years or 15 years, even when I was uni, uh, that gets misinterpreted.\nAnd, uh, perhaps you end up chasing this thing because oh, This future me came from from the future. just to tell me this one thing. So this one thing might be super important and you might really misinterpreted, um, whatever the advice is, right. I can say, oh, everything\u0026rsquo;s gonna be alright. Don\u0026rsquo;t don\u0026rsquo;t worry for instance.\nUh, and then perhaps. The young Gigi takes it too, literally. And, uh, doesn\u0026rsquo;t do anything of his life and then change the course, uh, or you can say something like, like work harder or whatever it is, and then you just go to the wrong, to the wrong, uh, tangent as well. So it I\u0026rsquo;ll probably just pass on the opportunity.\nJames: Mm. Yeah. Yeah. no, fair enough. Yeah, you don\u0026rsquo;t wanna, I, I feel like that\u0026rsquo;s a, that\u0026rsquo;s nice. Cause I guess it reflects like where you are now is, is, is going super well for you. And you\u0026rsquo;re really enjoying like where your life is at at the moment. So, um, Important not to don\u0026rsquo;t wanna mess that up by accident. Sure.\nwell, yeah, if there\u0026rsquo;s, what would some advice be that you\u0026rsquo;d give, like, just people generally, maybe it\u0026rsquo;s university students in Australia that are kind of coming to the end and try to work out what they wanna do with their lives. Um, is there, is there any advice that you\u0026rsquo;d give those people?\nGabriel: Uh, I\u0026rsquo;ll probably say that your lives are not gonna be decided then, like, I think at the, at that stage, many people think I\u0026rsquo;m making this big life decisions now. Uh, but in the big scheme of things, that\u0026rsquo;s a commitment, whatever you\u0026rsquo;re doing, that\u0026rsquo;s probably a couple years commitment if that amount much.\nAnd, uh, There\u0026rsquo;s so much more in your life, in your career. So don\u0026rsquo;t worry, uh, too much overthinking these kind of things. And, uh, there\u0026rsquo;s always way to course correct later if you\u0026rsquo;re not enjoying it.\nJames: Mm, amazing. that\u0026rsquo;s great advice. Uh, thanks so much for, for sharing that and thanks so much for, for coming on the show today, Gigi. Uh, but I wonder for people listening, if they wanna find out more about yourself and about the work that you\u0026rsquo;re doing now, uh, where\u0026rsquo;s the best place for them to go.\nGabriel: Well, I think, uh, about like itself, just go to like\u0026rsquo;s website, um, like, uh, dot com U um, a Y K that\u0026rsquo;s my life\u0026rsquo;s work. So that\u0026rsquo;s probably the best to, to see what I\u0026rsquo;m doing. Um, if you wanna connect with me, LinkedIn is probably the best way. So if you go, Gabriel gets on LinkedIn, I think probably I\u0026rsquo;m the only one there.\nOr my GM\u0026rsquo;s always open. So please reach out to you, um, if I can be of any help.\nAh, thank you, James. Uh, it was a pleasure to talking to you. It was, um, very good. Good, good and fun conversation.\nJames: Thanks for listening to this episode I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. If you want to get my takeaways, the things that I learned from this episode, please go to Graduate Theory.com/subscribe, where you can get my takeaways and all the information about each episode, straight to your inbox.\nThanks so much for listening again today, and we\u0026rsquo;re looking forward to seeing you next week.\n← Back to episode 41\n","date":"1 August 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/graduate-theory/41-gabriel-guedes/transcript/","section":"Graduate Theory Transcripts","summary":"← Back to episode 41\nThis transcript has been lightly edited for readability. It may still contain transcription errors.\nGabriel: I think failure is very important, right? If you cannot deal with failure,, you’re not never gonna risk high enough. Meaning if you’re never fail means that you’re probably not stretch yourself enough. So failure is very important\n","title":"Transcript: Gabriel Guedes | On Tales Of Spontaneity And The Perils Of Optionality","type":"graduate-theory-transcripts"},{"content":" Watch the conversation Graduate Theory Open YouTube ↗ Read the full transcript → Today\u0026rsquo;s guest is a great example of what you can achieve by putting yourself and your creations out into the world.\nIn this episode, we chat all about building a network and getting into startups through the third door.\nIf you haven\u0026rsquo;t already subscribed to the Graduate Theory newsletter, do it now 👇\nSubscribe Now\nWatch this episode on YouTube.\nElaha Gurgani is employee #19 at seed-stage tech startup, Relevance AI. She’s previously connected with and hosted events with thought leaders Sahil Lavingia and Sahil Bloom.\nSince moving to Sydney earlier this year, she has started a micro-grant fund for side projects and connected with people across the tech industry.\nShe recently started her own newsletter, aiming to curate lessons from thought leaders and tech.\n🤝 Connect with Elaha # Newsletter - https://heyelaha.beehiiv.com/\nTwitter - https://twitter.com/heyelaha/\n✋ Things Discussed # Earlywork Community (Tell them Graduate Theory sent you!)\nThe Third Door - Alex Banayan\nNever Eat Alone - Keith Ferrazzi\nRelevance AI\n\u0026ldquo;What feels like play to you, but looks like work to others?\u0026rdquo;@naval — Navalism (@NavalismHQ) April 21, 2022\nReid Hoffman\nAriana Huffington\n👇 Episode Takeaways # Relationship building requires action # We all know that building great relationships is so important.\nElaha is fantastic at doing this. She has built an amazing network in Sydney since she moved there.\nDuring the episode, she shared plenty of advice on building relationships.\nrelationship building is really a long term game and one that requires a lot of action\nRecognise it\u0026rsquo;s a long-term game building a good network requires massive action Exploring Curiosity leads to opportunity # Curiosity is an interesting thing.\nIt can lead us to interesting places.\nElaha shared that many of her opportunities have come from her exploring her curiosity.\nthe biggest opportunities that have come my way all come because exploring my curiosity\nSo many of us are curious about things but don\u0026rsquo;t explore them.\nToday\u0026rsquo;s challenge is to explore something that you are curious about. Ask a friend or a stranger. Perhaps attend an event. Do something outside your comfort zone.\nExplore.\nThird Door Strategy # There is a fantastic book called The Third Door.\nHere is the synopsis.\nThere\u0026rsquo;s the First Door: the main entrance, where ninety-nine percent of people wait in line, hoping to get in. The Second Door: the VIP entrance, where the billionaires and celebrities slip through. But what no one tells you is that there is always, always\u0026hellip; the Third Door.\nUtilising the third door approach will set you apart and allow you access to great opportunities.\nElaha uses this analogy when discussing her opportunity to work at Relevance AI.\nShe made a point of making sure that she stood out from other candidates.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s (thinking) how can you stand out? But also, how can you provide value from day zero\nThinking outside the box is the secret to outsized results.\nGet the Newsletter\n📝 Content Timestamps # 00:00 Elaha Gurgani\n00:54 Elaha\u0026rsquo;s Move Interstate\n10:14 Connecting with People that are more Senior\n12:27 Systems or Serendipity\n16:53 Networking Advice people should ignore\n21:08 Finding Jobs Through Networking\n25:51 Advice for people wanting to get into startups\n30:26 Setting Long-Term Goals\n34:20 Balancing Goal Setting and Fun\n42:12 Failure that ended up being a success\n45:02 Advice for Graduates\n46:54 Connect with Elaha\n","date":"25 July 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/graduate-theory/40-elaha-gurgani/","section":"Graduate Theory","summary":" Watch the conversation Graduate Theory Open YouTube ↗ Read the full transcript → Today’s guest is a great example of what you can achieve by putting yourself and your creations out into the world.\n","title":"Elaha Gurgani | On Exploring Curiosity and Building Your Tribe","type":"graduate-theory"},{"content":"← Back to episode 40\nThis transcript has been lightly edited for readability. It may still contain transcription errors.\nElaha: The things that you always wanted, the people, the tribe, the passion the things that you always create for it will come to you through those unknown paths. That\u0026rsquo;s where the magic lies.\nJames: Hello and welcome to Graduate Theory. Today\u0026rsquo;s guest is employee number 19 at the seed stage tech startup relevance, AI she\u0026rsquo;s previously connected with and hosted events with the thought leaders such as Sahi. Laia and Sahel bloom, uh, since moving to Sydney earlier this year, she started a microgram fund beside projects and made connections with many people right across the tech industry.\nShe\u0026rsquo;s recently started her own\nnewsletter, aiming to curate lessons from thought leaders and tech news. Please welcome to the street today. A Laha\ngani.\nElaha: So much for that lovely intro. Hi everyone. Thanks for having me, James.\nElaha\u0026rsquo;s Move Interstate # James: Fantastic to have your other show today, a Laha I\u0026rsquo;d love to dive in, uh, and start talking about some of your experience networking and kind of building a network from a place where, uh, you kind of have a clean slate to start off with.\nAnd so what I\u0026rsquo;m talking about there is you moved from Melbourne to\nSydney, uh, if that\u0026rsquo;s right, and yeah, I\u0026rsquo;d love to talk about\nwhat, um, your experience there and\nkind of what led to your move,\nuh,\nthere in the\nElaha: Yeah, I\u0026rsquo;ll have to take you back. Back to the pandemic two years ago at 2020 when I was in my last year at uni, um, I had like this big realization that, oh my God, like, I don\u0026rsquo;t really have much close friends. I think the world was hit by this like pandemic and everyone was inside and we had like a lot of time to just reflect and think.\nOur lives and major decisions. And as I was going through, uh, 2020, it was a very painful time because I kind of realized that I only have like one or two close friends, um, that I see at uni, um, that we see each other every three months to six months. Um, so my soul was craving this like connection. With, like finding my own tribe of like-minded people and all that stuff.\nSo I really took 2020, um, which was a peak of the COVID to really reflect on what I want out of relationships and friendships in my life. Um, Fast forward to the next year, 2021. That\u0026rsquo;s when early work came in, right? That\u0026rsquo;s when early work community slack debuted, which was a community of slack for, um, you know, early workers or people in tech or who are passionate about everything that we want.\nSo I was so of the subscribers for early work and one day they announced they\u0026rsquo;re starting this like slack, um, To meet other like-minded people in tech and I just jumped on it and I was like, whoa, this sounds so exciting. I would love to like, meet my tribe. And that just opened up a whole new world to me.\nRight. It\u0026rsquo;s like, whoa, all of these people, like there was an intro channel, uh, in the beginning and I was. Looking and reading everyone\u0026rsquo;s like intro and background their experiences. I was like, whoa, there\u0026rsquo;s like whole other world and perspectives and experiences out there that I wasn\u0026rsquo;t sure of. Um, so right away with the slack community as I was back in Melbourne, and this was a very like Sydney focused kind of like slack.\nSo I started to contribute as much as possible. I used to like kind of help with event side of things, kind of help the co-founders with giving feedback with the community. So. Start to like give, give, give, and as you\u0026rsquo;re contributing in this kind of community, people start to get to know you and see you everywhere in all the channels and how helpful you are.\nAnd that can help me build some friendships online. So that was like a really good tip. If anyone wants to start, like building their network or kind of connect with people, find friends, like start to just give freely and follow your curiosity. Where is it taking you? Is it taking to a particular group?\nUm, any particular interest and just like start contributing? Um, so that\u0026rsquo;s. Where I met, met most of my friends, but then the star meet fellowship also started while I was graduating uni. So star meet had this student fellowship, um, for getting students into startup, um, get exposure to startup and tech. And that\u0026rsquo;s where I that\u0026rsquo;s.\nThat opened a whole new world as well. That\u0026rsquo;s where you meet other people who are ambitious, passionate about building something. And I took that as an opportunity to kind of like take initiatives, like throw a workshop, but one of the biggest takeaways, or one of the biggest things that I did, um, during the star made fellowship was to build a book club.\nSo one day, I just wanted to read this book and I was like, it\u0026rsquo;ll be so fun to just like, share my knowledge with others. So I was like, and I just threw in one of the channels. I was like, Hey guys, I am, I wanna start a book club. And I\u0026rsquo;m reading this book who wants in. And like, everyone, like just got interested and like got attracted to that.\nSo I remember this was 20, 21 and. The pandemic was still like, we all were like home. Um, there was like, I think there were a lot of like restrictions happening and I was back in Melbourne. Um, so I did the online book club online on zoom, and we had like a weekly catch up on books and interest where we shared the, our favorite articles, our favorite books, and had a discussion.\nAnd that\u0026rsquo;s where I met. I would say 80% of my. because, you know, with clubs, like you\u0026rsquo;re forced to like see each other time to time. It\u0026rsquo;s not just like a one time thing. It\u0026rsquo;s like, you wanna see each other more than once. So that\u0026rsquo;s where I would say I built most of my friends online and they were mostly based in Sydney.\nSo I already had my network in Sydney just by being in Melbourne. But I was just like contributing with the, um, mingling with the Sydney community tech. Um, And then by that time, I got my role at relevance, AI as an ops, which was based in Sydney. So I made the move to Sydney. I already had my little bubble of network online that I came with.\nBut one day I was just like, I was just like, there has to be more, I wanna, like, I was in a very adventurous mood and I was very. Serious. I was like, I\u0026rsquo;m in my tech bubble. I\u0026rsquo;m in my tech little group on slack and all these star, my fellowship. I know these people. Um, and, but I wonder who else is out there that I can be exposed to?\nUm, so one day I jumped on Twitter. I wanted to go for brunch and none of, none of my friends who I knew were available. So it was like, Hey guys, I\u0026rsquo;m new to Sydney. I am throwing this branch on Sunday at 11:00 AM. Who wants to. And that tweet just blew up. It like got like 60 plus likes and retweets. And through that, I got to meet, uh, have a brunch with 10 people through Twitter.\nAnd most of them were like, Faceless profile that were like, Hey, I, I wanna come to your brunch. And I was in a very adventurous mode. Uh, so I was like, yeah, just yeah. Say yes. I say yes to everything.\num, and, and we ended up meeting on for brunch. And to this day, I\u0026rsquo;m still friends with all of them. Like I even work with one of them.\nShe BA who\u0026rsquo;s head of ops. Like we are collaborating on newsletters and stuff. So. Through that through just like being curious and saying yes and feeling adventures, um, that\u0026rsquo;s how I got to like meet all of these people. And right now what I\u0026rsquo;m trying to do is hold like a monthly meetups called meet new friends and tech, where I get to connect people that I already know with new people in the scene.\nSo that\u0026rsquo;s how I\u0026rsquo;m continuing building and connecting with people and relationship building as we go. Um, so that\u0026rsquo;s my story.\nJames: Yeah, amazing. Uh, that\u0026rsquo;s super cool. And it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s really, I think a key part of all, this is like, you know, showing the initiative and stuff to kind of do these things cuz uh, it\u0026rsquo;s almost like, you know, people talk about like building this sort of luck, um, surface area, right. And, and some of these kinds of things.\nMaybe some element of luck there, like the tweet blowing up, for example or whatever, but, you know, you kind of have to put yourself in the ring and like even suggest to do these things for like this kind of serendipity, uh, you know, to a car. And so I think that\u0026rsquo;s super cool cause I, yeah, there\u0026rsquo;s definitely a thread there of like all these different things that you\u0026rsquo;ve done have really come from.\nYou\u0026rsquo;re putting yourself out there and saying like, well, I\u0026rsquo;d\nreally love if this, this\nlike, existed and then it\u0026rsquo;s just like, okay, I wanted how to\ndo it. And\nthen, you know, like\nthe book\nup, for\nElaha: Absolutely. And I think what people. Under value and relationship building is that initiative like it does take initiative taking, it does take getting out of your comfort zone and reaching out to other people and being proactive. Um, cuz relationship building is really a long term game. Um, and it takes as so, and that requires a lot of action.\nSo if you want to meet others, follow your curiosity, take initiative and yeah, just go ahead with that.\nIs that.\nJames: Yeah, definitely. No. And I think like, if you, I think these kinds of things where you\u0026rsquo;re almost creating. heard. I don\u0026rsquo;t know if you\u0026rsquo;ve ever read\nthe book called never eat alone by Keith Ferrazzi, but there\u0026rsquo;s like, he he\u0026rsquo;s like quite good at this kind of thing. And he, one, one thing that he talks about is like the idea of like, and this is something that you\u0026rsquo;ve done well,\nlike sort of, I guess, without knowing, or at least maybe you\u0026rsquo;ve just come to the same conclusion as him, but there\u0026rsquo;s this idea of like a container event where you have you, you create, so for example, the brunch would be an example of that where you. I\u0026rsquo;m going to brunch and then like whoever wants to come, can you kind of come along and there\u0026rsquo;s no like, expectation. Like you don\u0026rsquo;t have to go, but like, if you don\u0026rsquo;t go and you see other people having fun, then it\u0026rsquo;s like, oh, like I should have gone to\nthe brunch.,you know, and it\u0026rsquo;s just kind of this\ncontainer where like anyone can come along. Um, and\nit\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s super easy to\nkind of\nget involved.\nElaha: That\u0026rsquo;s probably what I\u0026rsquo;m also doing with my meetups. Like guys, come, wanna come. That\u0026rsquo;d be great.\nJames: Yeah, no, exactly. And I think that\u0026rsquo;s super cool cuz it\u0026rsquo;s like, it\u0026rsquo;s just so open and, and really, because it\u0026rsquo;s even, it\u0026rsquo;s good for you cuz you\u0026rsquo;re kind of bringing all these\npeople together, but it\u0026rsquo;s good for other\npeople to come and meet the other people that are there, you know, perhaps meet people that they already know and connect with\npeople that they\nhaven\u0026rsquo;t met\nElaha: It\u0026rsquo;s also like very smart, right? If you are the organizer, like that\u0026rsquo;s how people will be drawn to you and like actually come to you to get to know you instead of like you getting like kind of reaching out DMing everyone. It\u0026rsquo;s like, it\u0026rsquo;s a good hack. Like just be the organizer. And that\u0026rsquo;s how\nJames: Yeah.\nElaha: Know people and people get to know you,\nbut yeah.\nGood\nConnecting with People that are more Senior # James: Yeah. A hundred percent. nah, I agree with that. One thing I wanna ask you as well is like, so this is kind of a cool thing for like meeting friends and kind of people let\u0026rsquo;s say in, in a similar field or perhaps in a similar age kind of experience level to yourself, how do you think about connecting and to networking with, with people that are like a few steps\nahead.\nSo like people that are kind of. You know, more senior or, or things like that. How have you kind of gone\nabout\nElaha: Yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s a great question and something that I\u0026rsquo;m actually very timely going towards as well. Cuz um, I am, I always am open to learning and especially for peoples who are, who are few years ahead of me and already done the things that I wanna do and the best advice that I\u0026rsquo;ve. Gotten for navigating those kind of dynamic senior and junior dynamic is view them as human.\nUm, they\u0026rsquo;re just human, like you and treat them just like a friend, um, cuz a lot. A lot of them, they, they are, they are keen to help you out. They are keen to just like be friends with you and connect with you as well. The question is like, okay, how do I view them? It\u0026rsquo;s not like putting them on a pedestal.\nLike, oh my God, they\u0026rsquo;re this person, how do I reach out? It\u0026rsquo;s like, how would I reach out to a friend that I really respected and honored? Um, and one of the ways that I kind of navigate that is kind of being initiative and kind of like reaching out to them and also. After our catch up coffee catch up, or we had a coffee catch or anything is sending, sending them through an article that I thought of, um, that they would be interested in.\nUm, and also with these kind of Dyna dynamics, people like that who are way ahead if you are busy. Um, so it\u0026rsquo;s okay to have that. Space of six months to two months where you have another catch up. Um, so unlike the peers that we get to see day to day, um, the people who are way ahead of you, um, it\u0026rsquo;s okay to have that space in between, but also like have touch points of like sending them articles that they\u0026rsquo;ve interested in.\nUh, when you think of something that reminded you of them, um, sending that, sending them a reminder, or even commenting on their post and supporting them. Right. Um, those things like that does like add up to that relationship building with seniors.\nSystems or Serendipity # James: Yeah. That\u0026rsquo;s cool. And do you think about this? I\u0026rsquo;ve seen like instances online where people will have like an actual system where it\u0026rsquo;s like, you know, you put the person\u0026rsquo;s name in it\u0026rsquo;s, like you haven\u0026rsquo;t reached out and. Two weeks, like, and this person\u0026rsquo;s like a high priority, like person in the network. So it\u0026rsquo;s like, you know, and you get like reminders, like, oh yeah.\nReach out to this person or whatever. I mean, do you like, think about it, like at all in that kind of a systematic way? Or is it very much just\nlike what you were saying there where it\u0026rsquo;s like, oh, this reminded me of this person. like\nI\u0026rsquo;ll just like send them like\nthe\nlink or,\nElaha: Yeah. And people, people usually have like, sort of like a CRM, right. CRM system of like keeping in touch with people. Um, which I really like, I\u0026rsquo;ve tried. But I\u0026rsquo;m just, it\u0026rsquo;s just hard to keep up. I\u0026rsquo;m like, I\u0026rsquo;m like,\nJames: Yeah.\nElaha: I\u0026rsquo;m someone who\u0026rsquo;s like a very lean startupy kind of person. I\u0026rsquo;m just like, how, what is the leanest way for me to keep in touch with people?\nAnd one of the best people that I know who are the best connectors in the scene or best relationship builders, it comes from a very place of like, um, how do you say it? Like authentic from a place of like, oh, if I connected with this person truly then. It\u0026rsquo;s not, it\u0026rsquo;s not, it\u0026rsquo;s just, it just vibes. It\u0026rsquo;s just like, there is no forcing.\nThere is no like reminders, like when, if it happens, like it does happen as you go. Um, so it\u0026rsquo;s all about. Authenticity and like the vibes that you feel, and if you truly feel connected, you will naturally like be drawn to like reaching out to the person again and again and again. Um, but there\u0026rsquo;s nothing wrong with CRMs.\nI, I, I would love to learn how to keep up with a CRM and like investment in relationships.\nJames: Yeah. yeah. No, definitely. Yeah. I think that\u0026rsquo;s cool. I think it\u0026rsquo;s almost perhaps can take away the authenticity to some degree\nif you\u0026rsquo;re like, oh,\nit\u0026rsquo;s the 90 day mark. like, I better send this person a message. I don\u0026rsquo;t know. I\nfeel like you know, I, I feel\nlike it\u0026rsquo;s\nquite cool\nElaha: It could also.\nJames: Can be quite AU.\nElaha: Positive from a positive point of view, it could be also like a form of investment, like, oh, I\u0026rsquo;m a busy person. And I don\u0026rsquo;t wanna forget about this person. So let me just set a reminder to just like catch up with them or have a touch point with them. But yeah, I, I think one thing that it helps with is definitely having that touching point where you do see the person reoccurringly every, let\u0026rsquo;s say increments two to three months, um, to really build that connection and, um, really help that space.\nSo it is a form of investment. If you think it from that point of view, Yeah.\nJames: That\u0026rsquo;s cool. Yeah. I\u0026rsquo;ll have to look into it. Cause I think people have done them in\nlike, even in like notion or like, you know, simple like tools like that. They\u0026rsquo;ve kind of got their\nown like\nCRM and\nthere it\u0026rsquo;s\nElaha: Lemme know how you go. If you do end up\nJames: Yeah., I\u0026rsquo;ll have to look it up. I think there\u0026rsquo;s some guys that have them, like, I don\u0026rsquo;t know if you\u0026rsquo;ve heard of the Derek scissors, um, before, but I think he has, he\u0026rsquo;s like a, I think he\u0026rsquo;s sort of like a Tim Ferriss type type guy.\nI don\u0026rsquo;t really know too much about him, but I do know that he. Some kind of a thing like that. where it\u0026rsquo;s like, I think he, he like categorizes people into that. There\u0026rsquo;s sort of like an, a, a, B or a C or like there\u0026rsquo;s certain degrees. And then like, there\u0026rsquo;s certain date, like, uh, maybe like the CS are like once a year, BS might be like, once, like twice a year.\nAnd then the A\u0026rsquo;s might be like once a quarter or like something like that. So it\u0026rsquo;s really quite like\nquite,\nElaha: So systematic\nJames: Yeah.\nElaha: Asked me in like a year or so. When, when my connections grow, I, I might have a different system\nJames: Yeah.\nElaha: On my memory.\nJames: Yeah, true. Well, that\u0026rsquo;s the thing, but, but then you have like your container event. So like people could still kind of, you can invite like 200 people at whatever it is like, and there\u0026rsquo;s no real like size, you know, maybe it\u0026rsquo;s it\u0026rsquo;s capped at like\nextreme levels, but certainly you can have like quite a big one and you know, you don\u0026rsquo;t necessarily have\nto meet everyone there\nfor them\nto still\nElaha: Yeah, but also like, even if you know, like five people and you have like close friendships with like two of them, I feel like that\u0026rsquo;s even worth it. Right. that\u0026rsquo;s like relationship building. It\u0026rsquo;s not about like the number of people that, you know, I mean, great. If like you have you authentically connect with them all, but even if you end up with like, knowing two good people and like you stayed in touch with them and you see them.\nEven that\u0026rsquo;s a big win in relationships, right? It\u0026rsquo;s about the quality and long term games rather than the quantity and how many people I, I can know of in terms of just names and not know their story. Right.\nthe\nJames: True.\nNetworking Advice people should ignore # James: No, I, I agree with that. Absolutely. Um, one, one thing that\u0026rsquo;s an interesting question is like, so common networking advice. I wonder if there\u0026rsquo;s any advice there. things that you\u0026rsquo;ve heard about how to approach being a networker that you would disagree with\nor perhaps\nsomeone that\u0026rsquo;s looking to build their network should not listen\nto,\ncertain\nadvice.\nElaha: I would start with not calling it networking to begin with and kinda like reframing it as connection, reframing it as making new friends, um, or reframing it as, um, relationship building. I think. A lot of these networking tips and stuff like they\u0026rsquo;re great. Um, but I feel like the best way to learn how to build those relationships or kind of like learn all these like networking tips and strategies is to just go out there and follow your curiosity when it comes to other people.\nSo when you do, uh, go out there, follow your curiosity with other people, end up chatting to them. Naturally, things will just unfold. Naturally. You will start to like build these relationships and you, you end up just using those tips or strategies that are out there when books kind of as a reference point, rather than.\nOh, this is like the holy guidebook of how I should react, which makes you very like robotic in the, in the sense that, oh, like that\u0026rsquo;s wrong. That\u0026rsquo;s that\u0026rsquo;s that\u0026rsquo;s right. It\u0026rsquo;s like, go out there. Like you will make mistakes, but you will also learn from it and grow and you will grow so much as a person. And those networking advice will just be a reference point rather than a guidebook.\nUm, so I would say reframe, networking as a word\nJames: Yeah. Yeah.\nElaha: And follow your curiosity.\nJames: A hundred percent. Yeah. I agree. Like the word networking almost. Yeah. It\u0026rsquo;s almost like a transactional type thing where it\u0026rsquo;s like, yeah, I\u0026rsquo;m building people that are gonna ask for favors\nand then that\u0026rsquo;s it, you know, which maybe is true on some level, but it\u0026rsquo;s not really the kind of Like not really how you wanna go about it.\nLike\nit\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s,\nElaha: Even like I even asked Sahi bloom when we had him on a panel, because he\u0026rsquo;s one of the best connectors and best people, person, community, person. And we asked him about networking and he was like, I hate the word networking. I. True. And he\u0026rsquo;s, he was a, also very big proponent and how he met his mentor.\nUm, the CEO of apple team cook was just being a curious person, um, just going to the gym 5:00 AM or in the morning sometime, and just having a chat with this person who ended up being team cook and just like being curious about him. Um, so it really, when, if you see, if you look at the patterns of people who are the best connectors or relationship builders, they\u0026rsquo;re very much like authentic, very much like.\nVery curious people, uh, about other people. And that really opens up another door and opportunities for them in life. So it\u0026rsquo;s really interesting to see that in patterns and people like that.\nJames: Yeah, definitely. Yeah. That\u0026rsquo;s quite good. I think like, yeah, the curiosity is, is an interesting part. I think, I think that\u0026rsquo;s where a lot of this stuff starts. Cause you, I, I guess in two, you probably don\u0026rsquo;t know, like, if you are in an event who you\u0026rsquo;re speaking to really, or like, you know, the curiosity or you don\u0026rsquo;t know at least like who\u0026rsquo;s gonna be someone that in six months you might be friends with.\nLike, it\u0026rsquo;s hard to know. So the curiosity can be quite cool when like just kind. Going going deep in trying to understand more about this person or what they do. Uh, it can lead\nto,\nuh,\nElaha: For sure. And we\u0026rsquo;re looking back like the biggest opportunities, or even like the things that have come away all come because. Kind of explored my curiosity. I was like, oh, what\u0026rsquo;s out there. Ooh. How, what can I help with, Ooh, who is this person? What\u0026rsquo;s their story? It\u0026rsquo;s like, curiosity is definitely one of the biggest things that kind of hits you with a luck or gives you that serendipity, um, as well.\nSo it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s just so underrated, but it\u0026rsquo;s like, it opens up so many doors and opportunities.\nJames: Thanks for listening to this episode of Graduate Theory. If you haven\u0026rsquo;t already subscribed to the Graduate Theory newsletter you can do so by at the links in the show notes, the Graduate Theory newsletter comes out every single Tuesday morning with my thoughts and lessons from each episode.\nBut without further ado, let\u0026rsquo;s get back into it.\nFinding Jobs Through Networking # James: Yeah. Yeah. Spot on. Amazing. Well, let\u0026rsquo;s, uh, change the, uh, the tone of this. I\u0026rsquo;d love to kind of talk about your. My experience with startups and in particular, I, it\u0026rsquo;s probably not even a, a topic change, but maybe just a different question., you know, so you, you got into relevance, AI, like pretty early on you, you know, you sort of in some way, networked your way into this role.\nI\u0026rsquo;d love to hear perhaps, like when was the first time you heard about,\nuh, this opportunity and then what were kind of the steps involved from, from then to ending up with a,\nwith, with,\nan offer\nElaha: For sure. Um, very good topic, um, change, cuz it\u0026rsquo;s related to kind of curiosity. so um, I graduated, so it goes back to me graduating uni, I studied finance and management and I was kind of just exploring my curiosity. So I was playing around with no code tools. Uh, I was just like geeking about no code and I kind of decided to.\nThrough a workshop of no code. And I posted on LinkedIn and I was like very active on LinkedIn. I was posting what I, what my interests were. And at that time it was no code. I was like, Hey guys, I\u0026rsquo;m drawing this no code workshop. And I, I made really cool graphics for people to just like join, um, the event.\nI was also at that time. Very. Much known for contributing a lot in the early bird community. So one of the founders, Jackie co, um, who\u0026rsquo;s a founder of relevance, AI. He reached out to me, he was like, Hey, I\u0026rsquo;ve been following your work for a while. Let\u0026rsquo;s have a chat. Uh, let\u0026rsquo;s see, what\u0026rsquo;s out here. We could do at relevance for you.\nAnd, uh, had a chat with, uh, with Jackie, loved his mission, loved the team. And I pitched him the role. I was like, Hey, I, I think I\u0026rsquo;ll be perfect for your biz ops role. Um, and I would love to just contribute and help you with that. What do you think? And he was. Let\u0026rsquo;s do it. let\u0026rsquo;s go. Um, so I, when I, if I reflect back on how I got this or how I broke into my first ops role, it\u0026rsquo;s following my curiosity and sharing, sharing it with in the public with, with other people.\nAnd people notice you people. Really do notice when you do start contributing, when you are a help helping person, it comes back to you in terms of opportunities and people reaching out for opportunities to you and you not being afraid to put yourself out there and letting that luck hit you, but also, um, pitching yourself just like I did this.\nJames: Yeah. no, that\u0026rsquo;s, that\u0026rsquo;s super cool. Yeah. Cause I, I think. Yeah, very syrup. What\u0026rsquo;s the word syrup serendipitous. serendipitous moment. uh, no, it\u0026rsquo;s super. I, I, cause I think many people like have a, have an interest in, you know, getting into SARS, obviously like especially early on and at and out of the startup.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s actually quite cool when it\u0026rsquo;s doing interesting stuff. Um, so it\u0026rsquo;s a pretty cool story. Um, yeah. How did you, when you were saying that, okay. I\u0026rsquo;m like, I think I\u0026rsquo;d be good at this particular role. How did you think\nabout like, which. Role you\u0026rsquo;d be best suited to, and perhaps like matching that with what you felt like the company needed at the time.\nWas there any\nsort of process\nElaha: Good question. Um, for me, I, by that point, I\u0026rsquo;ve had talked to a lot of people about what they do. From like management consulting to like, I don\u0026rsquo;t know, sales executive and all of that stuff. Um, and I was trying to figure out what I\u0026rsquo;d be good at. And one of the biggest things that I see myself doing was being a generalist.\nI was like, what\u0026rsquo;s a good generalist role that would help me figure out what I want, but also that I\u0026rsquo;m really good at. Um, so one of my friends that broke into a Bizos role, um, I just had a coffee chat with her and kind of figured out that, oh, This could be something that I would be interested in. So let me just, let me just try it out.\nLet me just focus and Bizos, or operations is a very generous role. It gives you the flexibility to kind of work across functions and kind of like zoom in and zoom out, zoom in and zoom out in each function. And that\u0026rsquo;s what I saw myself really contributing a lot of time, especially like starting out.\nWhere I\u0026rsquo;m trying to find my niche, trying to find out what is actually like what I\u0026rsquo;m good at. I mean, I am an all around generalist you can say, but also I have this T-shaped kind of strength that comes to community building. So that kind of helps me like stand out, um, in terms of what I can contribute.\nSo it\u0026rsquo;s all about like, Following your curiosity, trying different things out, talking to as many people as possible and just picking something and starting from there. And, uh, ops is a, is a good way to start, cuz it gives you exposure to all those functions, just like a management consulting, right.\nManagement consulting. You\u0026rsquo;re not tied to a specific industry, but you kind of become an expert one day and next in different industries, that\u0026rsquo;s like the startup version\nJames: Yeah,\nyeah,\nElaha: Yeah. Yeah,\nAdvice for people wanting to get into startups # James: Yeah. Cool. Well, I\u0026rsquo;m curious what advice let\u0026rsquo;s say someone is sitting there and they\u0026rsquo;re like, man, I really wanna do what Maha\u0026rsquo;s done and, you know, get into a startup at an early stage. And perhaps one that, um, you know, is perhaps slightly competitive or, you know,\nit\u0026rsquo;s maybe difficult to get into. if you had to kind of redo that. What advice would you give someone that\u0026rsquo;s yeah, kind of going\nthrough\nthat\nElaha: That\u0026rsquo;s a great question. Looking back what I could have done more. I could have done better. I would say, if I were to give advice for someone starting today, it would definitely be. Um, put, put, uh, put your share, share your learnings out there. Like try to put yourself out there. Like if you wanna get into, I don\u0026rsquo;t know, let\u0026rsquo;s say ops or be a generalist.\nStart to share articles or your learnings from articles online. You don\u0026rsquo;t know who\u0026rsquo;s looking at your content. You don\u0026rsquo;t know who\u0026rsquo;s gonna like give you the next opportunity. Right? That\u0026rsquo;s how you\u0026rsquo;re increasing your surface level. luck So first would be, don\u0026rsquo;t be afraid to share your learnings or put yourself out there in terms.\nof What you want to do are your career aspirations and all that stuff. The second thing, um, that is not as much talked about and I call it, um, kind of breaking into a role through a third door and this third door could be, Hey, you see a startup that you really like, let\u0026rsquo;s say there are an AI machine learning and startup, and you\u0026rsquo;re like this data scientist.\nSo something that you\u0026rsquo;re good at that you can help with. Coming up with a data science, data science kind of idea, or project, or helping them with something really to the data science. So in that situations, what you could do is kind of on a notion, go build a solution to a problem that they\u0026rsquo;re facing, have a coffee chat, find out what their biggest challenge is, and kind of like come up with a solution of like, Hey, this is what I think would be really best.\nHere you go. Here\u0026rsquo;s a solution.\nIf you were to pick someone with a resume, uh, or going through a standard application phase or someone who\u0026rsquo;s like already giving you like solutions or coming up with you and being proactive, of course, you\u0026rsquo;re gonna choose someone. Who\u0026rsquo;s already thinking like an employee, um, and being proactive like that.\nSo I would call that strategy as like the third door strategy. It\u0026rsquo;s how can you stand out? But also, how can you provide value from day zero and be like, Hey, this is what you can do. Um, I can think of a story of like, I, I was really. Wanted to break into this particular high growth startup. And I had a, and I through a warm intro, I had.\nUm, kind of like I wanted to connect with the founder and with the founder, I kind of like noticed this gap in their community building side. And what I did when, before we had a coffee chat, I kind of drafted on notion a community building strategy for them that they could really leverage. And I just.\nPitched it, uh, when we had the chat, I just pitched it to the founder. I was like, Hey, this is the gap I saw in your community building side. And this is where you could do better. And this is the outcome, most likely outcome out of this. Like if you do adopt this strategy and he was impressed, he was like, Do you wanna start like working with us? of course I couldn\u0026rsquo;t take the opportunity, but it, that experience taught me like, Hey, how can I add value from day zero? Um, if I wanted to get into the startups, but, um, caveat with this, it may, may not always work, but it does guarantee you standing out from like all these applications that are out. Yeah.\nJames: Yeah, a hundred percent. I think. Wait, folks are listening. Third door, Alex. Benay I think is the book. I think the third door that you\u0026rsquo;re referencing there. Um, but yeah, I, I totally agree. Cause I think that there\u0026rsquo;s so many, like there\u0026rsquo;s kind of this, the normal way of doing things. And in, in, in a lot of cases that is like the most competitive, most difficult way of doing things.\nLike it\u0026rsquo;s often the work around, or the somehow you managed to meet\nlike what you were saying, like meet the founder or like whatever it is, like these kinds of ways. And then being able to show that your, your value and.\nThrough something like pitching them something or whatever, um, you know,\nreally\nsets you apart.\nElaha: Exactly. 90% of the people will kind of apply group resume, which is okay, but your thinking should be, Hey, how can I stand out? Maybe it\u0026rsquo;s also like starting a side project that\u0026rsquo;s related to, I don\u0026rsquo;t know, machine learning AI, that\u0026rsquo;s your interest. And that happens to be the interest of the startup that you wanna work with as well.\nAnd that would win over a regular resume. Right? It\u0026rsquo;s like someone who is. Proactive who initiative builder, who has already started side projects within our interest bound. It\u0026rsquo;s like those little things, um, that you have done or accomplished will definitely set you.\nSetting Long Term Goals # James: Mm, a hundred percent. And one of the things I\u0026rsquo;m thinking a lot about at the moment is this idea of like really having a clear vision for yourself. Um, you know, what your, what you want your career to look like and then sort of working back. And I think, I think you\u0026rsquo;ve done this really well. Cause it\u0026rsquo;s like, you can really see.\nIn a lot of these cases, it\u0026rsquo;s like, I wanna work. Like really bad and so here\u0026rsquo;s what I\u0026rsquo;m gonna do to make sure I end up working here. Uh, and I think that\u0026rsquo;s really important to have some kind of a vision just so you can it\u0026rsquo;s it\u0026rsquo;s and then it allows you to be like proactive and you can go and start doing these things.\nCause it\u0026rsquo;s like, I want my life to look like this. What am I gonna do to get there rather than just like, oh, I wonder what\u0026rsquo;s gonna happen today. Like, you know, and kind of being reactive instead. I wonder has. Have you thought much about what, like\nthat kind of planning side of things where like,\nlike, do you think about that a lot?\nLike let\u0026rsquo;s\nsay where I want my career to be in five, 10 years\nor\nthings like\nElaha: That\u0026rsquo;s a great question. Um, I had a, actually a big, even though I\u0026rsquo;m a very proactive initiative builder to be wonderful. I did have this like, challenge of. Setting long term goals, because I was Al always afraid of like, what if I fail? What if I failed to achieve that goal? Um, that would kind of break my heart and something that is that, that challenge and how I\u0026rsquo;m going about reframing that is being surrounded by other ambitious people who are not afraid or very unapologetic about.\nWhere they wanna be in life. Um, I think that rubs off on you and also gives you the, not the ability, but gives you this unconscious permission to also be ambitious and unapologetic about where you want to be in life. For example, let\u0026rsquo;s say I wanna be a CEO in the next five years. Like. Okay, good on you.\nHow can you take the first step to make that happen? Right. But I did have, if I\u0026rsquo;m being vulnerable, a lot of like, kind of like I had, I had this feeling that I had to stay small. I can\u0026rsquo;t really say my goals otherwise, like I would fail and how, like I would be heartbroken. Um, so something that I\u0026rsquo;m navigating right now is definitely like, okay, this is where I wanna be in the next five years.\nUm, how can I own my ambition? How can I own. Goals and go after them. And something that has helped me, like I said, is being surrounded by other people who are also on the same path. Um, cuz you asked me about mentorship, but I think the most underrated form of mentorship is the peers around you that have the qualities that you have, um, have the qualities that you want to have, have the goals or have the roles that are two years ahead of you that have the wisdom that you want to adopt and cultivate within yourself.\nI think that\u0026rsquo;s the most underrated form of mentorship ever. That\u0026rsquo;s gonna help. Goal setting system in the long run.\nJames: I a hundred, like a hundred percent agree cause I, yeah, I think like, you know, if you were like deep inside, you were like, yeah, I really wanna be like the CEO of like this company or whatever, but like all your friends are like, nah, like I just wanna be, you know, like ground level and really have no aspirations, then it makes it very difficult for you to be vocal and say those kinds of things.\nCause it\u0026rsquo;ll, there\u0026rsquo;s no real. Like, what are you, what are you gonna do? Like, you know, makes things hard. But then if you\u0026rsquo;re friends with people that are like gonna do things like that, or they\u0026rsquo;re gonna even pursue goals that are even more ambitious than what you thought your ambitious thing was then it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s, it opens up a whole thing and totally gives you a lot of permission to say, Hey,\nactually, I\u0026rsquo;m gonna interview this person or I\u0026rsquo;m\ngonna get a job here, or I\u0026rsquo;m gonna try and do this with my\ncareer.\nUm,\nElaha: Yeah, it gives you that unconscious permission to also be great to also have the space to be ambitious, but also, um, yeah, just all, all around. Good kind. People who just support you along this journey of called through the goal setting process.\nJames: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. No, I think it\u0026rsquo;s so important. So important. Um,\nBalancing Goal Setting and Fun # James: Yeah. Cool, cool, cool. Cool. One thing I wanna ask too, is like how you balance, like, you know, this idea of goal setting and. Really sort of saying, Hey, in, in, in this amount of time, I wanna be doing this and working hard to getting that because it\u0026rsquo;s, when you, when you do have like ambitious targets and things you wanna do, you do need to, you know, be at least on some level, you do need to be a little bit serious about, okay.\nI need to sort of really like, try and do this thing, but how do you balance that level of like seriousness. Drive with also like the fun. And, and I wonder if this is a sort of thing that you\u0026rsquo;ve thought about, or,\nuh, you know, even like how you kind of balance those things where it\u0026rsquo;s having fun,\nbut also\nreally\nElaha: Yeah,\nabsolutely. I kind of see them both hand go hand in hand and I don\u0026rsquo;t see, don\u0026rsquo;t see them as separate things. Um, one of my favorite quote is from Naval is like, um, pick something that. is like play to you, but works what looks like work to others. Um, and something that I\u0026rsquo;m doing in my career right now, and what I\u0026rsquo;m pursuing, pursuing is something that\u0026rsquo;s like true to my nature and authentically I\u0026rsquo;m curious about and something that I wanna be best at.\nSo let\u0026rsquo;s say community building and ops, um, I pick those because those actually, I have the most fun doing them. I have the most fun getting shit done. I have the most fun bringing people together. So even though on the outside, people say, oh, ilaha, you\u0026rsquo;re like doing a lot. I\u0026rsquo;m like, for me it feels like play play.\nIt feels like fun. It feels like I could do this forever. And it gives you more energy to get to do more and more and more. So I would definitely say in terms of like how to navigate that or how to harmonize both is. Pick something or pick one or two things that feels like play to you. Even if you\u0026rsquo;re full-time job, it\u0026rsquo;s constrained and you can\u0026rsquo;t really do the things that is in your control.\nAnd you love to work on pick a side project that feels like play to you. That feels like you enjoy, even if you don\u0026rsquo;t get paid, uh, or monetize it, it\u0026rsquo;s like, I don\u0026rsquo;t care. Like this is what brings me joy and gives me energy. Um, so I\u0026rsquo;m really focused on picking things and working on things that feels like play to me.\nbut looks like work on the outside. that\u0026rsquo;s the trick. That\u0026rsquo;s the trick to\nbalancing clothes.\nJames: Yeah, definitely. No, I think that\u0026rsquo;s, that\u0026rsquo;s cool. And I, I love what you said there about like, even doing it, you know, without any sort of expectation or without. Uh, immediate reward, whether it\u0026rsquo;s like financial, um, in particular or, you know, perhaps it comes with different\nkinds of reward around like the joy and, and enjoyment and energy benefit of doing it.\nCause yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s\nequally,\nif not\nElaha: Yeah. And I do believe that we all have unique talents. We all have unique set of skills and all of that feels like play to us. That we\u0026rsquo;re, we can\u0026rsquo;t be the best at, um, something that I wanna be the best at is ops in community building. Right. And those feel like play to me. So going back to ambition and kind of like serious goal planning, like, yes, I am serious about like being an ops best ops person being the best in terms of intersection of ops and community building.\nBut also it feels like play to me. Like if I work, if I put a certain number of hours, if I work on it, like, it feels, it feels joyful. It feels like really fun. So I could do this forever. So that could be a really competitive advantage in terms of. Where you want to go in life and Naval is the best person to reference is like your competitive advantage is just being authentic to yourself and your skills.\nAnd I believe everyone has those unique set of skills or intersection of one or two things that they\u0026rsquo;re the, they can be the best at, in life.\nJames: Mm that\u0026rsquo;s.\nI like that a lot. I like that a lot. I wonder, like, you know, with, with all the things that you do, like these events and your newsletter and, and Twitter and things that you\u0026rsquo;re creating\nand, and your work and stuff, is there anyone that you look up to and, and perhaps inspires you, uh, uh, for\nthe things\nthat, all the\nElaha: Yeah. Um, two people come to mind currently, um, that I really love to emulate. It\u0026rsquo;s Reed Hoffman, uh, the founder co-founder of LinkedIn and Arianna Huffington, the founder of Huffington post. Um, I know those are like the celebrity or famous figures, but I believe that we live in an age of information where content from like people who are higher up or like, 2030 years ahead of, ahead of us who are like doing amazing legendary things in life.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s so readily available. Um, contents are so available to learn from. So I look up to people, um, like that, and the reason why I look up to let\u0026rsquo;s say Reed Hoffman, he\u0026rsquo;s. I\u0026rsquo;m really fascinated by how he, how important, even though he\u0026rsquo;s this tech person, he\u0026rsquo;s this tech king, he has this venture capitalist. He puts a lot of importance in terms of like relationship building.\nAnd he, I was listening to a podcast where he was talking about his friendships and how friendships are really important to him because it\u0026rsquo;s a very spiritual way. Kind of kind of cultivating or connecting to yourself because what we see in others or our friends that have the qualities that we want, we kind of grow from that and become the best version of ourselves through kind of associating with other people.\nUm, so I really look up to him, um, in terms of like relationship building and he is known as the ultimate connector. Um, and I think he\u0026rsquo;s done really good, uh, partnership kind of stuff. B back when he was like in PayPal mafia. So, so someone who\u0026rsquo;s like a Silicon valley figure who does have the same aspirations or same things that I like, which is relationship building authenticity, and like friendships puts importance on friendships.\nUm, so yeah, I, I\u0026rsquo;m like I\u0026rsquo;m geeking out on his stuff. I just like. I read, read Hoffman content. I listen to his podcast and absorb as much as I can so that I can kind of cultivate, um, the qualities I see in him, in myself that I naturally emulate. So Reed Hoffman and the other one was Arianna Huffington.\nUm, Look up to her because I see her as this leader, as this feminine leader, who\u0026rsquo;s like, I don\u0026rsquo;t know who has this, like she, so the story with her was like, she founded this like, um, kind of like almost multimillion dollar, like media company, Huffington post. Right. Um, she worked herself. Hustle culture. Uh, but one day she had a wake up call to look after herself and her health crisis through health crisis.\nUm, and she started thrive global and she\u0026rsquo;s the biggest advocate. I mean, she\u0026rsquo;s a very successful person, as you can tell, but she\u0026rsquo;s also a big advocate on wellness on taking care of yourself as you\u0026rsquo;re going through this drive and journey. And I don\u0026rsquo;t really see that in many leaders. So I\u0026rsquo;m really fascinated by the way she approaches success.\nUm, so I\u0026rsquo;m, I\u0026rsquo;m, I\u0026rsquo;m, we are really lucky to live in these kind of like in this age where people like that share their knowledge, share the way that different ways that they have built their success, um, and went through that journey. So those are the two people that I look up to Reed Hoffman, and a in Huffington.\nAnd if you mix them, you\u0026rsquo;ll hopefully get me.\nJames: Yeah, amazing. That\u0026rsquo;s super cool. I think that\u0026rsquo;s really interesting how you like try and almost like with Reid Hoffman, they\u0026rsquo;ve really sort of\ntaken in a lot of what he has to say and,\nuh, and really sort of picked him as like, this is someone that I really wanna be like And tried to absorb\na lot of\nthat.\nI think\nElaha: Yeah. And it\u0026rsquo;s like, I wish you could mentor me, but\nJames: Yeah,\nElaha: The best part of mentorship is the books and the content that he puts out. So I\u0026rsquo;m gonna make the best out of it. Yeah.\nJames: That\u0026rsquo;s it. Well, yeah, the sky\u0026rsquo;s the limit and maybe one day\nyou can like have\na virtual\ncopy with\nElaha: Oh, gosh,\nJames: Or even, I don\u0026rsquo;t know if ever, I don\u0026rsquo;t know if they, those kinds of people ever come to Australia. Like for any reason, maybe you go to America and see who knows.\nElaha: It. Yeah.\nFailure that ended up being a success # James: Yeah.\nthat\u0026rsquo;s amazing. Cool. One thing I\u0026rsquo;d love to ask too, is like a lot of times when we speak to people that have done really cool stuff, like, um, they it\u0026rsquo;s often this, this path that they go on where it\u0026rsquo;s like, I did this cool thing and then this cool thing, and then this cool thing, and now I\u0026rsquo;m doing this super cool thing.\nAnd it\u0026rsquo;s like, just is like, whoa, like nothing went wrong for them. um, and so I\u0026rsquo;d be interested to hear yourself if there was, has been a time. Things didn\u0026rsquo;t go so well, but ended up like working out well at the end, like where initially it, it was, it seemed like it, this was a disaster and like, oh no,\nlike what\u0026rsquo;s going on. And then perhaps\nas a result of\nthat, things ended up going, going fine. If not better later, like, is there any\nis there\nany stories that\nElaha: I would say, like, it goes back to one of my failures, which was when I was, uh, in the last year of my uni or the last two years, I was very focused on getting into management consulting. Um, and I was chasing that dream of like being a big forum management consulting. Um, When I look back and reflect on and I was chasing it for the wrong reasons, right.\nI was doing it because I thought it was prestigious. I thought that once I kind of reached the level of being a management consultant or those prestigious role, then I will be seen as the successful person. And during university, I try to like apply for the roles. Always got rejected. Like during application phase, like rejected literally.\nAnd I was an international student back then as well. So my chances of like getting into them was like, hi as hell. Um, so I was very heartbroken going through application process with management consulting. Um, but when looking back what it did, it. Those rejections really help redirect my focus on alternative pathways like startups.\nUm, I remember I had this mentor that I was kind of seeking help going through application and kind of like going the pathway of big four and one day he said to me like, Laha have you like considered startups? And this was back in 2019 where startups weren\u0026rsquo;t cool or sexy as they are now\nJames: Mm\nElaha: Or like a graduate or uni student.\nI was. I got offended. I was like, he thinks I\u0026rsquo;m gonna go into startups. That\u0026rsquo;s not prestigious. Um, but looking back, those rejections kind of redirected me to the path where I am today, um, which is so authentic to who I am. And it\u0026rsquo;s something that I enjoy doing every day. So that\u0026rsquo;s like one of my failures that kind of helped me switch to where I am today and getting\nwhere\nJames: Yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s super cool. that?\nElaha: Hmm.\nJames: That\u0026rsquo;s a nice story. I like that a lot. I, yeah, I think, yeah, it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s one of those things. Yeah.\nThat didn\u0026rsquo;t seem so good at the time, but has worked out probably better than if you stuck with doing like the\noriginal thing.\nso that\u0026rsquo;s\nElaha: Yeah. And rejection is redirection,\nAdvice for Graduates # James: Yeah, no, a hundred percent.\nThat\u0026rsquo;s it? Um, well, yeah, one more question for you. Laha and that is a question I ask all the guests on the show, and that is if you could think back to when you were finishing uni and perhaps in your last year of uni, kind of about\nto go out into the world and do these things where are trying to get a job at X\nplays, you know, knowing what you know now and all the things that\nyou\u0026rsquo;ve done, what advice would you give yourself if you were\nat that\nstage\nElaha: Yeah, I would say be bold, um, take risk and don\u0026rsquo;t be afraid of the unknown. I think for so long, um, growing up, even with the society that we are in, it tells you to take this linear, safe path. It kind of lay down this path of like, if you do X and Y, then you will get Z. Um, and that\u0026rsquo;s how you\u0026rsquo;ll be successful.\nUm, and for so long, like management consulting, or even like other roles that kind was kind of chasing those, the paths that were laid out to me, because I was kind of afraid of taking risk. I was afraid of the unknown paths. Um, cuz if you do take unknown paths. Let\u0026rsquo;s say startup or entrepreneurship, like you don\u0026rsquo;t know what lies ahead.\nIn five, 10 years, it\u0026rsquo;s kind of unknown and very risky. So if I were to look back and, uh, look at my younger self going through kind of graduate or university, I would say. Take risk and don\u0026rsquo;t be afraid of the unknown cuz once you do explore the unknown paths where the path isn\u0026rsquo;t laid out to you, but you enjoy it.\nYou\u0026rsquo;re curious about it. You will meet the most interesting people. You will be challenged and grow so much. And the things that you always wanted, the um, the, the people, the tribe, the passion, um, the things that you always create for it will come to you through those unknown paths. That\u0026rsquo;s where the magic lies.\nThat\u0026rsquo;s where the\ngrowth. So that\u0026rsquo;s what I would tell my younger self.\nConnect with Elaha # James: Cool. I think that\u0026rsquo;s cool. Have faith, the, uh, yeah, the magical eyes and the unknown. very cool. That\u0026rsquo;s a nice way to finish. Amazing. Well, thanks so much for coming on the show today. Laha, it\u0026rsquo;s been super cool hearing your story and, and your journey and all the things that you\u0026rsquo;ve achieved. Uh, but for people listening\nthat want to find out more about yourself and connect with you and perhaps get involved in your newsletter and\nTwitter and all that kind of stuff.\nI\u0026rsquo;d love If you, could just\nplug\nthat and tell\nElaha: Uh, thanks so much for having me. James Love your connect, curiosity. Um, love chatting with you, uh, where people could find me is I\u0026rsquo;m usually active on Twitter. I\u0026rsquo;m close to hitting one. K, so please help your girl out. I\u0026rsquo;m trying to be more active on LinkedIn. I\u0026rsquo;ll be posting more content and sharing my journey in tech and startups.\nAnd you can always subscribe to my newsletter as well, where I share my readings on thought leadership and people in tech and mindset and motivation. Thanks so much for having me, James.\nJames: Thanks for listening to this episode I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. If you want to get my takeaways, the things that I learned from this episode, please go to Graduate Theory.com/subscribe, where you can get my takeaways and all the information about each episode, straight to your inbox.\nThanks so much for listening again today, and we\u0026rsquo;re looking forward to seeing you next week.\n← Back to episode 40\n","date":"25 July 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/graduate-theory/40-elaha-gurgani/transcript/","section":"Graduate Theory Transcripts","summary":"← Back to episode 40\nThis transcript has been lightly edited for readability. It may still contain transcription errors.\nElaha: The things that you always wanted, the people, the tribe, the passion the things that you always create for it will come to you through those unknown paths. That’s where the magic lies.\n","title":"Transcript: Elaha Gurgani | On Exploring Curiosity and Building Your Tribe","type":"graduate-theory-transcripts"},{"content":" Watch the conversation Graduate Theory Open YouTube ↗ Read the full transcript → Do you know what you want in life?\nDo you know why you want it?\nIn today\u0026rsquo;s episode, we go deep into creating a more purposeful life.\nIf you haven\u0026rsquo;t already subscribed to the Graduate Theory newsletter. Do it now 👇\nSubscribe Now\nWatch this episode on YouTube.\nElizabeth Knight is the founder and director of Purposeful. She’s previously been a director at various startups and is now also co-founder of her no-code business, Next Revolution.\nHer mission is to help young people find their place in the world.\n🤝 Connect with Elizabeth # LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/elizabeth-knight-009757149/\n👇 Episode Takeaways # Define Your Values # that is key to living a purposeful life is not actually having any regrets because if you are truly being like authentic and doing your best to live by your values and make decisions that align with those values then you shouldn\u0026rsquo;t really regret anything\nWe spoke with Liz about vision boards, and how she has used them to create her vision for the next year.\nI thought it was really interesting how Liz went about doing this, finding artefacts and things that she wanted to achieve, but also taking the next step and aligning these things to her values.\nI can write a big list of the things I want or what I want my future life to look like, but I\u0026rsquo;m not so sure which of my values are driving these instincts and desires.\nI am certainly not clear on what my values actually are.\nAnd yet how can I set out to achieve something if I am not sure if it maps to the things that I value?\nIt\u0026rsquo;s an important distinction and one that I admire in the things that Liz has done. She has plenty of clarity on what exactly she wants, and how that maps to her values.\nThis enables her to live a life of authenticity, one without regret.\nBe Bold # If I could change anything from that process, it would just be to, be bolder, sooner in the journey and not wait for so much permission for things from people\nDo not wait for permission.\nAs the saying goes,\nI asked God for a bike, but I know God doesn\u0026rsquo;t work that way. So I stole a bike and asked for forgiveness.\nDo first, ask for permission later.\nDo things you aren\u0026rsquo;t \u0026lsquo;supposed to do\u0026rsquo;\nDo the things you aren\u0026rsquo;t qualified for.\nDo the things you shouldn\u0026rsquo;t be able to do.\nPush the boundaries.\nSpend Time With Yourself # the biggest differentiator when I look at my journey and the things that I started doing early on, [\u0026hellip;] was spending time with myself\nSpending time with yourself is vital.\nToday we spend so much time looking at screens, so much time \u0026lsquo;connected\u0026rsquo;, that we spend very little time thinking.\nDigesting what has occurred during the day and thinking about your plans for the future are two examples that both come from spending time in thought.\nLiz shared that this was something that was very beneficial to her, and yet it\u0026rsquo;s something that we are doing less and less.\nSpending time alone, going for walks and engaging with nature is something I strive to do more, to have more time to reflect and away from the chaos of the world.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s an easy thing to do, and Liz thinks it is something very powerful.\nGet the Newsletter\n📝 Content Timestamps # 00:00 Elizabeth Knight\n00:28 Intro\n01:13 Vision Boards\n09:52 Challenges Young People Face Today\n13:57 A New Education System\n18:59 What do students undervalue?\n26:13 The beginnings of Purposeful\n29:50 The Purposeful Journey\n34:55 Most Worthwhile Investments\n40:47 What does success look like?\n43:57 Advice for Graduates\n46:18 Connect with Liz\n47:01 Outro\n","date":"18 July 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/graduate-theory/39-elizabeth-knight/","section":"Graduate Theory","summary":" Watch the conversation Graduate Theory Open YouTube ↗ Read the full transcript → Do you know what you want in life?\nDo you know why you want it?\n","title":"Elizabeth Knight | On Defining Yourself and Your Mission","type":"graduate-theory"},{"content":"← Back to episode 39\nThis transcript has been lightly edited for readability. It may still contain transcription errors.\nElizabeth: I was jealous of people that had a passion. I didn\u0026rsquo;t have a passion. And, um, yeah, that, that\u0026rsquo;s the other thing. Now there\u0026rsquo;s like this pressure to not just do a career, but you have to be passionate about that career. And it\u0026rsquo;s like, oh my God, whole other layer added into that. So those, those expectations and ideas of success, um, whenever we\u0026rsquo;re tempting one over another it\u0026rsquo;s bad.\nIntro # James: Hello, and welcome to Graduate Theory. Today\u0026rsquo;s guest is the founder and director of purposeful. She\u0026rsquo;s previously been a director at various startups, and now is a co-founder of her no code business. Next revolution. Her mission is to help young people find their place in the world.\nPlease welcome to the show. Elizabeth Knight Elizabeth. Welcome.\nElizabeth: Thank you so much for having me. I\u0026rsquo;m super excited to chat.\nJames: Yeah, no, me too. It\u0026rsquo;s uh, you are certainly very inspiring and it\u0026rsquo;s really cool to see what you\u0026rsquo;re doing in the lives of young people, uh, in Perth and right across Australia. Um, I wanna ask though about, uh, I was listening and researching you before the podcast, and I found, uh, that you have this particular interest in vision boards.\nVision Boards # James: Uh, I\u0026rsquo;d lovely. If you could kind of explain to us kind of the history in your life, vision boards, perhaps when you started. Using these and what benefits that you\u0026rsquo;ve had as a result of creating these\nElizabeth: Yeah, absolutely. I think, uh, nowadays you see a lot of vision boards in January on Instagram and, you know, there\u0026rsquo;s sort of these like beautiful, like collage type things. And, um, and that\u0026rsquo;s the only time when people talk about their goals, like with other people and especially on social media, but that was something that I\u0026rsquo;d been doing for quite a while now.\nUm, so I, I actually. Quite consciously make a vision board most, every year. And I sit down usually at the start of the year and literally spend like two or three weeks, um, really resetting and connecting with myself again and thinking about the goals that I have. Um, usually to begin with, I don\u0026rsquo;t, it\u0026rsquo;s not particularly structured.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s just like a process of trying to get created again and tap back into the things that I really enjoy. And that can be anything big or small. So I\u0026rsquo;ll map out like, Full mind maps of, you know, all these different bucket list items and things I wanna achieve. Um, and then I spend time sort of refining those goals and figuring out which ones most align with by values and, uh, sort of most authentic or true to me.\nRight now in that moment, um, because there\u0026rsquo;s lots of things you might wanna achieve, but they might not really be the most compelling or like resonant goal for you in, in the, you know, here and now. Um, and then I go sort of like scrapbook style and I actually create a physical vision board that has my top five to sort of eight goals, um, anchored around the values that are most important to me.\nAnd, and that sits above my bed usually. So it\u0026rsquo;s the first thing that I see. Every day when I wake up and I love the idea of vision for people who haven\u0026rsquo;t actually, um, been familiar with that process at all, the idea is really to trick your brain into thinking that you\u0026rsquo;ve already achieved these things.\nUm, so you could do it again. And it\u0026rsquo;s a way of the, I guess, that idea of you seeing is believing and, and kind of trying to train yourself to think that these things that seem really lofty and ambitious that possible and within reach and. Hard to forget, because most of us write down our goals at the start of the year and then like, maybe don\u0026rsquo;t look at them again until next year when we start that process again.\nSo yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s like a really creative process for me as well. And, um, a really grounding sort of way of. Coming back to myself. And I, I sort of find that every like six to seven months, I have like a mini life crisis where I\u0026rsquo;m like, what\u0026rsquo;s my vision. What am I doing? And, and that actually really helps me to refocus and yeah.\nSo that\u0026rsquo;s vision.\nJames: Yeah. Cool.\nElizabeth: What all about.\nJames: Nah, that\u0026rsquo;s so good. Yeah, I think that\u0026rsquo;s really cool. I\u0026rsquo;ve. I\u0026rsquo;ve done some in the past. Um, but I\u0026rsquo;ve just done like a, sort of a word document where I just like find, even if it\u0026rsquo;s like certain people that I wanna be like, and just like put a photo of them there or like, um, you know, things like that.\nThat, yeah, I think it\u0026rsquo;d be so helpful there. Like you said, it\u0026rsquo;d be seeing it every day. It even just like reminds you that, oh yeah. These are the things that I\u0026rsquo;m like pursuing, uh, you know, or because like often it\u0026rsquo;s like, you know, start of the year you like write down like, oh, I\u0026rsquo;m gonna like run like three times a week, like for the rest of the year or whatever.\nAnd then it\u0026rsquo;s like, you might do it. And then you, you go off and then you just kind of forget like that you even like decided to do that. And I think that\u0026rsquo;s a big part of it too.\nElizabeth: Absolutely. And what I always am amazed by is that I\u0026rsquo;ll start with like a list of, you know, Probably like 50 to a hundred goals and they\u0026rsquo;re all different sizes of, of goals. And, um, I\u0026rsquo;ll only pick like five O to eight that I\u0026rsquo;m working on right. Consciously. But then when you look back every year, I\u0026rsquo;ve always actually achieved so many more of those goals than what I, what I had, you know, in my vision and what I was focusing on.\nUm, because so many of them. Sort of like next steps or, or follow ons from each other. And, um, that process of just consciously carving out time to set goals and dream. I think that\u0026rsquo;s something we don\u0026rsquo;t really talk about much with goal setting, but dreaming is so important. Um, like actually really letting yourself go, okay, like what would I do here if I couldn\u0026rsquo;t fail?\nOr if, um, time and money were no object, right. Or. If, whatever the barrier is for you, if it\u0026rsquo;s like confidence or skills or connections or, um, courage or whatever, like what would you do if that was no longer a barrier and giving yourself permission to think about things that aren\u0026rsquo;t, you know, necessarily necessarily realistic or that other people would approve of.\nThat\u0026rsquo;s such an important part of that process, not just having like goals that seem cool. That look cool to achieve. Um, you need to do that first part as.\nJames: Yeah, absolutely. I, I love that. And I\u0026rsquo;m interested to hear, like what sort of artifacts and things you actually put in here, like is, do you have a certain way that you go about doing it?\nElizabeth: Creating a vision itself, like,\nJames: Yeah. Or, or like, if you go on a let\u0026rsquo;s say, yeah, like we can use the example. Yeah. Let\u0026rsquo;s say I wanna run like three times a week.\nLike what would you put on the vision board?\nElizabeth: Yeah, sure.\nJames: Are there any like particular things that you use, like to sort of articulate the\nElizabeth: Yeah, absolutely. So it\u0026rsquo;s, uh, you have to almost get really silly with it, right? If, if you kind of cringe at, at what you create, that\u0026rsquo;s a good thing because it means it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s struck a nerve with you. It means it\u0026rsquo;s like actually resonant. I always say it should feel like you\u0026rsquo;re showing someone your diary when you show them your vision.\nUm, because it should be that personal to you. Um, so the, the types of things you could put, like once upon a time, one of my big goals was to meet Taylor swift. And I did achieve that goal, which was huge for my, uh, nine year old self. And I, for ages, you know, had like this, like really. Cheesy photoshopped kind of thing of like me with tele swift and I wanted to move to Sydney at the time.\nSo like the background was like the Sydney Harbor bridge and, and so it, it doesn\u0026rsquo;t have to be realistic. And I think that\u0026rsquo;s what people miss often it\u0026rsquo;s supposed to be about. Really getting yourself in the zone of what would it feel like, look like, um, be like to actually achieve that goal. So who would be around you, you know, where, how would you be getting to, if you were, you know, going to the concert to me, tell us if, like, how are you getting there?\nLike, do you have this dream car that you\u0026rsquo;re driving or who\u0026rsquo;s in the passenger seat next to you? You know, that\u0026rsquo;s coming on that journey with you and, and doing all these exercises to really flesh out what that moment could be like. Um, which seems really silly, but makes it all the more. To you, which is a really critical part.\nSo yeah, lots of cheesy kind of photoshopped, um, uh, things go on my vision board and that\u0026rsquo;s okay. Cuz it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s supposed to be fun as well.\nJames: Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, that\u0026rsquo;s really cool. And a nice segue here, but what is on your vision board for this year? Did you end up doing one?\nElizabeth: My, this year I have to admit is mine\u0026rsquo;s a little bit broken up, but that\u0026rsquo;s okay. I. Um, I\u0026rsquo;ve sort of like unsubscribed to doing it every year, necessarily. It\u0026rsquo;s when you need it. Um, my big vision for a long time now has to build, been to build a business that\u0026rsquo;s purposeful, um, sustainable and, and scalable.\nSo purposeful in that it. Actually creating an impact first and foremost. Um, and secondly, uh, sustainable in that it\u0026rsquo;s sustainable financially, but also sustainable for me personally and my team and scalable, and that I want to create something that has a legacy and lives beyond my time here, um, on this planet, cuz we just have no idea how long.\nThat is so where I\u0026rsquo;m concentrating most of my time is, is at purposeful, which is a startup, helping young people to find their place in the world and careers they\u0026rsquo;re passionate about. And as part of that, I really, my goal has been to make my first. Full time, hire this year and to, um, do a fundraise that enables us to actually build, um, a scalable platform to support young people in, in finding the right pathway with them, uh, for their, their, their future.\nUm, so that\u0026rsquo;s a huge vision item and it\u0026rsquo;s sort of why my vision has like encroached on multiple years at the moment. Cuz obviously there\u0026rsquo;s a lot to try and achieve in 12 months. um, but yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s, that\u0026rsquo;s one of the big ticket items this year.\nChallenges Young People Face Today # James: Cool. That is exciting, certainly. And I\u0026rsquo;d love to kind of dive into purposeful in a bit more detail. So my you, you\u0026rsquo;re going into sort of schools and, and helping young people understand what it takes, uh, or you know, what, what skills they need to live a more purposeful life. I\u0026rsquo;d love to hear kind of, what are the challenges that you see, like heaps of like common challenges that young people today are really grappling.\nElizabeth: Absolutely. I think whatever you were facing when you were in high school, it\u0026rsquo;s that, but times 10 already, um, the challenges that I faced when I was figuring out what I wanted to do have just become more and more amplified for this next kind of generation coming through. The number one question we get asked is always some variation of how do you find the right?\nYou know, how do I make the right choice? Like how do I pick the right career pathway? And I\u0026rsquo;m always really interested by that wording because it assumes that there\u0026rsquo;s like this wrong pathway that, you know, there\u0026rsquo;s like this one dream job out there, sitting there waiting for you somewhere. Um, and it\u0026rsquo;s your job.\nWork harder and study harder and try and get closer to actually finding that. Um, which I think is a big myth. We this idea of the future of work and that a lot of jobs don\u0026rsquo;t exist yet, um, is not something that means, you know, there\u0026rsquo;s these jobs that we just don\u0026rsquo;t understand and, and aren\u0026rsquo;t sort of tangible and we\u0026rsquo;re not able to actually like conceptualize what they could look like.\nIt, it means to me a lot more about actually being the curator of your own path and your own opportu. Actually identifying problems and creating employment opportunities potentially, um, around solving those problems that could be through a business, but also could be in your organization. And so I think that notion is what young people really struggle with.\nUm, because in school we\u0026rsquo;re taught to conform and the way that we actually need to be thinking about our careers. The opposite we need to have so much more agency in, in designing our own path and, um, and being much more proactive about that. But students that sort of just expect you to like, tell them, like, this is the right career for you and it\u0026rsquo;s here and you can do these 1, 2, 3 steps and you\u0026rsquo;ll get there, but it just doesn\u0026rsquo;t look like that.\nAnd I think that\u0026rsquo;s. Both the biggest failing of that education system, but also it\u0026rsquo;s a, it\u0026rsquo;s a really like hard realization for a 15 year old, too, that you get to call the shots, um, which is exciting, but also really overwhelming as we go.\nJames: Yeah. yeah, definitely. Yeah. I, yeah, I think that\u0026rsquo;s cool. I think it\u0026rsquo;s even sometimes hard for like someone that\u0026rsquo;s at that age to be like, all right, like you\u0026rsquo;re in charge of your, of your life. Like it\u0026rsquo;s, you know, take responsibility for everything. Um, it\u0026rsquo;s quite like. Be sort of wait, uh, to carry. Um, and it can be hard to think about, you know, like, especially when you probably get that station and even know like really what any of the options are, let alone like the best option\nElizabeth: Absolutely. And especially when you\u0026rsquo;re in school at the same time, you know, the there\u0026rsquo;s this tension I find in the work that we do in that we now have the privilege of being like the first interaction. A lot of young people have. In terms of thinking about their careers and their future. Um, not just careers, but like the path that they want to take when they leave, which is really exciting.\nBut also we are the first ones to introduce that idea to them that careers exist. And this is a choice you\u0026rsquo;re gonna have to make. So like we, you know, are trying to set them up with the best first step that they can, knowing that most young people don\u0026rsquo;t have a great first experience in careers. Like, um, but that\u0026rsquo;s a lot of pressure too, to make sure that experience.\nFun, but recognizing that careers are tough, it\u0026rsquo;s not, it\u0026rsquo;s not easy. It is kind of painful and there\u0026rsquo;s gonna be struggle there. Like there\u0026rsquo;s not a perfect way to do it. Absolutely.\nA New Education System # James: Yeah. Yeah. I definitely that\u0026rsquo;s. Cool. Well, I, I guess like to touch on, you mentioned their like education system and all that sort of stuff. Is there anything that like, It, I feel like it\u0026rsquo;s yeah, the education system, I guess, gets a lot of, uh, a lot of hate or whatever at the moment, but I guess if you had to like, make some tweaks or perhaps even, I don\u0026rsquo;t know if you\u0026rsquo;ve really thought about this in much detail about like, what if we could just create a whole new, like education system that like did stuff completely different to school?\nLike, do you have any thoughts there on perhaps like what schools could do better or about what, like your ideal education system would look like?\nElizabeth: Definitely. I think the number one change that I am passionate about is redefining what success looks like, um, in our system, because. We have this system now that, um, certainly in my experience, success looks like, you know, a certain ATAR or, um, and, and it prioritizes one version of success over another, which is so unhealthy and has like so many ripple effects, um, later on in life as well.\nWhen actually we need to shift towards. Why did individualized idea of success and, and what fulfillment looks like to each individual young person. And they have to be able to go through that self discovery process to work out what that looks like for them. Um, and the second shift is, is. Around that same notion, but it\u0026rsquo;s about expectations.\nUm, I go into schools and often talk with teachers and educators about the challenges we see young people facing and, and what they can do about them. And there\u0026rsquo;s often this sort of comeback that says, oh, you know, but like, don\u0026rsquo;t, we have a responsibility to make sure student\u0026rsquo;s like doing something that\u0026rsquo;s realistic for them.\nYou know? Like they\u0026rsquo;re actually possible, like they\u0026rsquo;re capable of. And I agree with that to some extent, but I think, you know, why is it such a bad thing to fail? Like why is it such a bad thing for someone to try that and then go, oh, that\u0026rsquo;s actually not right for me, rather than like having to make all these decisions based on outside influences and factors.\nLike when you\u0026rsquo;re 15, 16, 17, like the, it is about failing. It\u0026rsquo;s about making mistakes. That\u0026rsquo;s like what your whole young period of your life is about. Um, and we try and bubble. Kids from that. And so I think that\u0026rsquo;s a big problem because it means that they don\u0026rsquo;t know their own limitations. And it also doesn\u0026rsquo;t account for passion and purpose in, in sort of building skills and, and talents.\nLike if you are motivated about something as any founder knows, you have to learn all of these skills that. well, most likely you were not good at back in year 10 or year 11. Right. And, um, I, I have a cousin who\u0026rsquo;s about 16 years old. And when she was in year eight, I think it was year eight. She got like a letter home from the school basically saying, um, oh, like she\u0026rsquo;s on a vet pathway.\nLike already like year eight based on her year, eight grades. And that happened. That sounds terrible. But like that happens in so many schools that we see and narrowing. And sort of like pigeonholing kids into these past and definitions of what they can and can\u0026rsquo;t do. I just think so arbitrary and it, it limits people\u0026rsquo;s potentials in, in so many ways when we\nJames: Mm.\nElizabeth: Like that.\nJames: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I think it\u0026rsquo;s yeah. yeah, I agree. And even like, I remember when I was in school, I almost felt like, like, I definitely wasn\u0026rsquo;t someone that was like, oh yeah, I\u0026rsquo;m definitely gonna do like this particular thing, but almost you must, at least, I think I felt almost jealous of like, people that were like sitting there, like, oh, they know what they\u0026rsquo;re gonna do.\nLike, oh, like, I don\u0026rsquo;t know yet. Like that sucks.\nElizabeth: I was\nJames: Know what I mean?\nElizabeth: The same. I was jealous of people that had a passion. I didn\u0026rsquo;t have a passion. And, um, yeah, that, that\u0026rsquo;s the other thing. Now there\u0026rsquo;s like this pressure to not just do a career, but you have to be passionate about that career. And it\u0026rsquo;s like, oh my God, whole other layer added into that. So those, those expectations and ideas of success, um, whenever we\u0026rsquo;re tempting one over another it\u0026rsquo;s bad.\nEven if we\u0026rsquo;re saying now more young people should be entrepreneurs. Like that\u0026rsquo;s still bad in my opinion, because it again is like prioritizing one idea of success over another and not recognizing that not everybody\u0026rsquo;s gonna be an entrepreneur. Like it\u0026rsquo;s just not, that\u0026rsquo;s not the way that\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s not gonna happen ever.\nSo we shouldn\u0026rsquo;t do that. I don\u0026rsquo;t think,\nJames: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. No, you\u0026rsquo;re right. Cuz yeah. It\u0026rsquo;s like, we\u0026rsquo;re all sort of playing our role in the team. You know, it\u0026rsquo;s like a sports team, you know, not everyone can be. The full forward that kicks all the goals in the footy game, you know, there\u0026rsquo;s other people that play different just as important positions.\nWhat do students undervalue? # James: Um, yeah, spot on. Uh, one question I have is around like, um, around young people as well. Is there anything that you think that. You kind of wish that folks would just like, they would just, this one thing it would, it would really benefit them or perhaps things that they sort of underestimate the value of doing, um,\nElizabeth: Yeah, definitely. I, I think a key, honestly, the biggest differentiator when I look at my journey and the things that I started doing early on, and it wasn\u0026rsquo;t necessarily by choice, but it has paid off. In so many ways was spending time with myself. that sounds like quite an unlikely answer perhaps, but actually taking time to really get to know who you are and building that self-awareness and understanding of, um, not things that are super binary, like strengths and weaknesses, but just who you are.\nLike what, what drives you? What. You, what energizes you? What drains you? What, um, what are the goals that you have? Like, what things would you just really love to do and what, what things fire you up and frustrate you and building that self-awareness over time is something like building a muscle at the gym, right?\nLike we would love to go to the gym and have a six pack of abs. After 10 minutes, like amazing, but just it\u0026rsquo;s impossible. Sadly. And the same thing applies to understanding what you want, who you are, like your direction. It, you can\u0026rsquo;t do it based on just like 10 minutes thinking about it. And I think a lot of people put that pressure on themselves to go, oh, like I can\u0026rsquo;t, you know, I can\u0026rsquo;t do it in this already and now I\u0026rsquo;m gonna give up, like, there\u0026rsquo;s no point.\nAnd if they looked back, they\u0026rsquo;ve probably spent, you know, a total of like an hour actually consciously trying to work out. Who they are and what they want. Um, so it takes time and, but it\u0026rsquo;s so, so important because nowadays when you talk to any employers and. They don\u0026rsquo;t all recognize this, but absolutely the biggest differentiator between candidates.\nLike if you\u0026rsquo;re going for a job or just people who you meet and who you find interesting and compelling versus ones that you don\u0026rsquo;t connect with is always this ability to be authentically yourself and to be confident in being authentically yourself. And if you are. If you\u0026rsquo;re clever. And if you can sort of take that to the next level, actually create opportunities through being your authentic self.\nUm, for me, I did that through creating my own business. That\u0026rsquo;s like an extension of who I am in so many ways, and that\u0026rsquo;s now become a career pathway for me. Um, but there\u0026rsquo;s so many ways you can do that too. Like starting a podcast or writing or something creative, or it absolutely doesn\u0026rsquo;t even have to be creative, but that, um, notion of, of understanding your authentic self and practicing.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s so powerful. And it\u0026rsquo;s a form of like what I would call career capital, um, which is the assets that you sort of build up early in your career. We usually think about like 30 experience and, you know, good things on your resume, but there\u0026rsquo;s this other element of career capital, which is your personal career sort of capital, right?\nLike who you are. And, and can you actually tell a story that connects all. Experiences in a meaningful way. And if you can\u0026rsquo;t then what they\u0026rsquo;re not worth, they\u0026rsquo;re not actually worth as much as what we think. So, yeah. Authenticity, understanding who you are and, and devoting, you know, conscious time to working that out and not beating yourself up about it either because they\u0026rsquo;re not gonna work it out in 10 minutes, as much as you\u0026rsquo;d like to.\nJames: Yeah. And I\u0026rsquo;d love to just like continue that thread. Cuz recently I\u0026rsquo;ve been reading and all this stuff about like digital minimalism and like getting off your phone and like all that kind of stuff. Cause I think that is like, that is something really huge that prevents a lot of people from doing things like that is like when does a young person ever actually.\nSit down and just like, you know, it\u0026rsquo;s like, you might go for a walk, there\u0026rsquo;s a podcast in like, you go into the shops, like there\u0026rsquo;s music playing in the car, like, whatever it is, there\u0026rsquo;s just no, like, or at least like, perhaps like 20 years ago, there\u0026rsquo;s like, there\u0026rsquo;s now there\u0026rsquo;s almost no time. That\u0026rsquo;s like, there\u0026rsquo;s, there\u0026rsquo;s nothing like, you know what I mean?\num, and it just prevents a whole lot of those questions where it\u0026rsquo;s like, what do you, what do you like? Well, you know, I haven\u0026rsquo;t spent much time thinking about it because.\nElizabeth: Yeah. And.\nJames: You know, I\u0026rsquo;m going from here and looking at this and this thing and whatever. Um,\nElizabeth: And ironically, um, the time when I first started spending a lot of time with myself was when I was like super burnt out up to year 12. And like my high school boyfriend had dumped me and like all these things were happening at once. And I remember, I, I also sort of by chance did this like internship over summer and it was kind of boring, but I was literally the only young person there and it was at the university.\nSo I would. Sit and have lunch with myself like every day. And, and even just that act was, would\u0026rsquo;ve been really foreign to me, but over a period of sort of like three or four months, like all of these things happened that made me spend more time with myself. And, um, when we are like, we have this podcast and we\u0026rsquo;ve interviewed like lots of, you know, young people as well about that journey of finding purpose and almost all of them, um, found it after.\nSome sort of event that forced them to have take space basically. Um, and that, you know, might have been COVID more recently, which people can kind. Oh, yeah, that, that happened for me somewhat. Like I was forced to be at home and potentially alone, like for these extended periods of time. Um, if you can recognize that and create that space for yourself consciously, and you\u0026rsquo;re a hundred percent, right.\nYou have to, because you can be consuming content in different ways all the time and never stopping. And now that muscle and kind of awareness is in me. So I get really anxious and often overwhelmed. Don\u0026rsquo;t do that. Like, and that\u0026rsquo;s what being purposeful is to me is I need to like act on those feelings of like, you need to stop right now.\nYou need to like tune back in with, with what\u0026rsquo;s going on before you can just rush onto the next thing. Um, really, really challenging, cuz it\u0026rsquo;s, it goes against the entire way that we live right now. But if you can do it, it will just pay off you. So, so, so much.\nJames: Yeah, yeah. I agree. I think there is a serious value in yeah. Whether it\u0026rsquo;s like eating lunch without any. Any technology like nearby, like the TV is not on like there\u0026rsquo;s no phones anywhere or like going for a walk, like just going for a walk and like, that\u0026rsquo;s it. There\u0026rsquo;s no podcast or audio book playing or like, you know, just taking like simple time out like that I think is yeah.\nVery helpful. Or just deal with all like the things that might be going on, um, you know, in your day to day and have some time to just like think and like reflect and stuff. Yeah. I think for myself, it\u0026rsquo;s been like seriously beneficial. yeah. Cool. Well, let\u0026rsquo;s talk about your sort of journey as a founder, cuz you are a founder like purposeful is, is, is your thing.\nThe beginnings of Purposeful # James: And now you\u0026rsquo;re off doing your second business, which is this no code, uh, adventure. Um, like what, what was the sort of story like for starting purposeful? Was there sort of a tipping point there where you, you went from, like, this is a cool idea to like, okay, we\u0026rsquo;re actually doing this now.\nElizabeth: Yes, definitely. I, I like the idea of a tipping point because there\u0026rsquo;s like you said, like there\u0026rsquo;s lots of things that lead to starting a business, but what was the thing that actually made you do it like that made you kind of go and, and, um, I, I, I experienced this problem myself when I graduated and had like this shiny high ATAR and I had scholarship to university and had all of these traditional ideas of success ticked and done, and.\nI was so unhappy. Like I was so burnt out and so exhausted after high school finished, like burnout took a physical to on me and it doesn\u0026rsquo;t, you know, it expresses itself differently for everybody. But like I said earlier, it forced that sort of period of like pause and reflection. And I realized that so many young people feel.\nIncredibly lost, but don\u0026rsquo;t know how to talk about it. And don\u0026rsquo;t have, there\u0026rsquo;s not really any support once you leave school to actually like find a part that is right for you and fulfills you and drives you. So that was the problem that I wanted to solve. And I had this opportunity come up where someone asked me to run like a workshop on.\nSomething totally different like that I had been involved in, it was something more about leadership. And I said, Hey, like, do you mind if I try this, um, sort of purpose idea, like I just, I wanna do this session, how to find your purpose. And it was a 90 minute workshop and there were like 50 year 10, an 11 students on this camp.\nIt was like, first thing, Sunday morning, it was absolutely the graveyard shift. And. I didn\u0026rsquo;t, I did this crash course of it was super raw and super like unpolished in so many ways, but it was, the impact was huge. Like I probably have never run a workshop or a session that was like, as powerful as that first workshop in all honesty.\nUm, I have, I still have the feedback forms that we printed out and every single kid. Filled out this double sided feedback form and were like raving about, you know, the experience. And it, that was the moment when I realized that there\u0026rsquo;s a real need for this. And I, I can actually solve it. Like, I, I, I know what young people need and, and I can go on that journey to actually help them.\nUm, and still to this day, I have students that were in that session. And once afterwards, come up to me, you know, now, uh, I\u0026rsquo;m in the past at uni and say like, Hey, I remember you from that workshop, which is amazing to cuz it was the first really cool step, even though I didn\u0026rsquo;t know it at the time.\nJames: Yeah. Wow. That\u0026rsquo;s cool. that\u0026rsquo;s really cool. I think it\u0026rsquo;s yeah, having that impact is so special and it\u0026rsquo;s great to see that you\u0026rsquo;ve been out at like, Have the courage and, and all the things like that to actually go through with it and, and, you know, do more of that great work with young people as.\nSuper. Um, I have a question too. So you are like purposeful, you started when you were fairly young, right? So I think you were 19, if that\u0026rsquo;s right. When you started that, which is fairly young for like someone starting their own company and kind of doing all this super stuff, um, like what has that journey been like for you as, you know, as someone that\u0026rsquo;s really taking on a lot of responsibility, has that like, has it been really rewarding, I guess like really challenging, like, I guess your general thoughts on.\nThe Purposeful Journey # James: What the journey has been like, probably quite crazy, but like yeah. Interested to hear like how you sort of evaluate the journey so far.\nElizabeth: It\u0026rsquo;s a really interesting question right now, because I\u0026rsquo;m forced to confront the idea that it has been like four years, um, which is huge. Like since that first sort of session and opportunity, and I. In some ways I still like seem like, you know, in my head I\u0026rsquo;m like my 19 year old self that was on that journey, but I have to realize like all the ways that I\u0026rsquo;m so different and that things have changed so much and all that has been achieved since then.\nUm, so that\u0026rsquo;s like a really good amount of time. And it\u0026rsquo;s also such a huge amount of your. Life as a young person and really formative amount of time between 19 and 23. So I\u0026rsquo;ve grown so much personally through that process. I think the hardest thing, uh, I dealt with to begin with was my myself worth, ironically, because people would look at you and go, like, how did you have the confidence to start that?\nAnd I was confident, but when you\u0026rsquo;re. Founding a company, especially when you\u0026rsquo;re young, you don\u0026rsquo;t know anything like that\u0026rsquo;s the only given is that every day you\u0026rsquo;re gonna learn at least one thing, because you know, nothing about, about that process. So it can be really disempowering at times because you\u0026rsquo;re just every time you solve a problem, you\u0026rsquo;re just getting onto a bigger problem that you still know nothing about.\nSo. That, during that resilience and grit, I love that word. Grit is, has been the biggest takeaway, I think, um, from this journey that, um, no matter, you know, where I go next or, or how things eventually turn out, like that will always stick with me. Um, and I think additionally, Uh, when I began, I was really caught up about the idea of being a young person in this space and being a young female in this space and absolutely that, um, influenced like how I thought about things on what I thought I could do and what I couldn\u0026rsquo;t do.\nUm, I think if I could change like anything from that process, it would just be to. Bold up, um, soon up in, in the journey and, and not wait for so much permission for things from people to go like, you\u0026rsquo;re ready to ask for this now, or you\u0026rsquo;re ready to, you know, set this goal now. And that\u0026rsquo;s a bit more mainstream like that mindset.\nWe sort of accept. Now. We don\u0026rsquo;t really define people so much by their age, but absolutely it played a big part in my mindset at the beginning of going, am I allowed to do this? You know, Can I do this, will people, you know, think that I\u0026rsquo;m silly if I do this and you have to tackle that imposter syndrome, I guess that exists in, in the, when you\u0026rsquo;re in a, a job and a journey that puts you at the, the bottom of the food chain every, every day.\nYeah.\nJames: Yeah. Yeah. An interesting follow up is, you know, would you do all that again? If you could, if you could restart.\nElizabeth: Honestly. Yes. And that is key to living like a purposeful life is not actually having any regrets because if you are truly being like authentic, and doing your best to live by your values and make decisions that align with those values. Um, then you shouldn\u0026rsquo;t really regret anything because you. You\u0026rsquo;ve given that you\u0026rsquo;re all.\nAnd like you\u0026rsquo;ve committed to that process. Um, like an example would be, you know, there there\u0026rsquo;s so many things that I\u0026rsquo;ve obviously like passed up to take this path, like one getting a normal job. like getting paid to. And now I laugh. Like when I\u0026rsquo;m, when I\u0026rsquo;m most stressed. I, I know I\u0026rsquo;m most stressed when I\u0026rsquo;m like craving a real job, a real job.\nLike, I wish I could just go somewhere to work where you just get paid for working eight hours and then you go home. Um, which is like funny, obviously that, that is most people\u0026rsquo;s reality. Um, but I don\u0026rsquo;t regret that. I still don\u0026rsquo;t regret that. Like, I, you have to accept that with every choice you make, there are like thousands of things you\u0026rsquo;re saying no to in that moment as well.\nThat is. That is life. And, uh, yeah, I don\u0026rsquo;t, I don\u0026rsquo;t regret that journey, but I think there are definitely times, like I said, where I could have been more courageous or just like acted with even more conviction, especially when it came to like my values. Um, One thing that you could probably guess some of them, but purpose is, is really important to me.\nUm, authenticity is really important to me and as, as well, uh, as growth and, and wellbeing, and there are times when. Maybe I shied away from growth that, uh, actually would\u0026rsquo;ve been really helpful earlier on. Uh, but it always catches up with you eventually., you know, if we need to grow, then you have to like, you have to tune to that and actually run with it.\nEven if it\u0026rsquo;s scary.\nMost Worthwhile Investments # James: Yeah. Hmm. Yeah, definitely. No, that\u0026rsquo;s really cool. And yeah, I appreciate your, your authentic answer there. Definitely. One question I have for you is like through this journey, uh, you know, what has been something like your most valuable investment along the way? Like, whether it\u0026rsquo;s something that you did like, uh, whether it\u0026rsquo;s like a chance meeting with someone or, um, a course you signed up for, or perhaps you paid for something that is like, You know, being a huge impact on yourself.\nI wonder if there\u0026rsquo;s anything like any worthwhile investments that come to mind?\nElizabeth: Yeah, I love, I love that question. Um, and I\u0026rsquo;m awful at answering it. I think. Uh, to, to follow without repeating myself too much, like definitely that investment in myself. Right. And just that, that carving out conscious time, uh, invaluable, you know, that\u0026rsquo;s priceless and, and has paid off in so many ways, um, for my future self.\nSo doing that and, and continuing with that has been incredibly important. Um, I think any opportunity to shift your mindset is so powerful and, and that comes in so many different forms. One. This one kind of came during high school and my parents paid for it. But, um, that it was a worthwhile investment for them, I think was I did this, uh, leadership conference that.\nWas sort of like a Tony Robbs situation, but for high school students. So I was in Los Angeles and I\u0026rsquo;d never been to America at that point, um, in my life. So it was a very much a culture shock and we got there and they were, you know, they were like 500 other young people from all over the world. And like they were raving and dancing and it was super hyped and excited.\nAnd the guy that founded it, um, Dr. Bill Dorfman, he\u0026rsquo;s like a celebrity dentist. He was on the doctors, like on those, you know, daytime TV shows that\u0026rsquo;s him, right? He\u0026rsquo;s the, he\u0026rsquo;s the dentist. And so all his clients were not all necessarily celebrities, but they were the best at whatever that they did in their, in their fields, in the world, uh, most times.\nAnd he would bring them into this conference just to speak about like how they became successful and what, what their journeys were. And at the time, you know, as a 15 year old, you\u0026rsquo;re like, yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s, you know, we\u0026rsquo;ve heard this before now. Five people have said this already. Um, or it was like helpful, but you go, yeah, but you know, can I really do this?\nLike, how does this relate to me? And by the end of the week, it sort of clicked that, you know, they\u0026rsquo;re all saying the same things, because all these incredibly successful people do the same things. and we should absolutely listen to them because they, they know how to achieve great success, whatever success looks like to them.\nSo that, that experience. Literally paved the way for this growth mindset that I didn\u0026rsquo;t realize I got, I was given at that time that I could do anything, um, that literally anything was possible that you were the creator of your own kind of path and, and gave that overwhelming sense of agency that you don\u0026rsquo;t get in the classroom.\nUm, So I think ever since then I\u0026rsquo;ve craved any experience that kind of gives you that new, um, sense of, of purpose and just, uh, makes you feel small in a really, really good and healthy way and, and, uh, acknowledges that. Yeah. Anything is possible for you. Um, we all need that in our lives., so\u0026rsquo;s so\nJames: Yeah.\nElizabeth: Much more, so that would be my\nJames: Absolutely. Oh, that\u0026rsquo;s cool. Sounds like a very cool very cool experience. I mean, what, I don\u0026rsquo;t know if you can remember, but like, what are some of the key things that you like, remember that they, those guys were saying when it came to like achieving like really cool stuff.\nElizabeth: Yeah. The one quote that instantly sits in my mind was by a guy\u0026rsquo;s name. I don\u0026rsquo;t even remember, but he. Uh, a horrific story of, um, like he\u0026rsquo;d been in, in a, in a fire in this, in this horrible accident and, and lost like multiple limbs and, and, um, had all these disabilities as a result of the, the accident. Um, and he told this story about, you know, How far are you willing to go alone?\nUm, on anything that you want to achieve? How, how far are you willing to go alone? And that\u0026rsquo;s always stuck with me because in any like bold goal or like problem that you wanna solve or anything that you wanna achieve, like how far are you willing to go being the only person believes believing that can happen.\num, and really like letting that sink in because that\u0026rsquo;s huge, you know, we, as, as human beings, like we are trained biologically to, you know, um, have the support and love and care of people around us. And, and it\u0026rsquo;s not, it doesn\u0026rsquo;t make evolutionary sense to go out on your own all the time. So you have to really find that instinct to.\nDo what other people are doing and listen to other people and get their approval first. Um, when you\u0026rsquo;re founding a company. Yeah. How far are you willing to go and be the only person that believes in that thing? Um, that I think has been my biggest takeaway and, and is also the source of that, that grit to, to keep going.\nUm, and the other thing that he said quite humbly was, what more can I do? You know, we, we can live a. As smaller or as large as, as we choose in most instances and, um, you know, playing it safe and playing it small, it just is never going, fulfill you and realize the potential that you could have had, um, on the planet.\nSo I really like that idea too, of what more can I do? How, what more can I do to serve and, and give back, um, for the opportunity we have to be alive and be here. And in this time, um, in history as.\nWhat does success look like? # James: Yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s super cool. Super cool. no, thanks so much for sharing that. Um, I\u0026rsquo;d love to ask too one. Another thing you mentioned when you were talking about your trip to LA was like, um, working towards like what success looks like. For you. Cause obviously that\u0026rsquo;s different for everyone and it\u0026rsquo;s important not to get sort of, uh, someone else\u0026rsquo;s idea of success and, and kind of adopt it without thinking it through yourself.\nBut I\u0026rsquo;d love to know for yourself, what does success look like for you?\nElizabeth: Uh, it, it\u0026rsquo;s a, it\u0026rsquo;s an evolving answer, um, at the moment and as, as it should be right, because it, um, we grow and changes people to, um, at, at its core. It\u0026rsquo;s always been about fulfillment for me and, um, alignment with, again, my values, but, um, there\u0026rsquo;s. Part of when you\u0026rsquo;re trying to achieve success right. Of balancing where you are right now, and being able to like fully accept where you are right now and appreciate yourself and appreciate, you know, what you have and be grateful for.\nNow and balance that far off vision that you have in the future. And there\u0026rsquo;s always that tension that\u0026rsquo;s gonna be there. Right. But between balancing those two things, especially if you\u0026rsquo;re founding a company, because you\u0026rsquo;re pitching to this vision that\u0026rsquo;s super far in the future, but you also have to recognize, Hey, we\u0026rsquo;ve done well to get where we are here today too, but we can always be better.\nSo success is always about balancing those two ideas. I have lots of dreams and goals and ambitions for the future, but. It takes a lot of, a lot more work, I would say, actually, to be able to accept what you\u0026rsquo;ve achieved already. So that\u0026rsquo;s not, um, you know, an explicit kind of goal or thing that I\u0026rsquo;m trying to achieve, but it\u0026rsquo;s this thing that I\u0026rsquo;m trying to practice all the time in my life, because the reality is that we don\u0026rsquo;t.\nNone of us know, and this is really core to my thinking. If you know me well, is none of us know how much time we have on the planet. Like that\u0026rsquo;s absolutely not guaranteed for anybody like forbid. This could be my last day. And can you sit with yourself and the decisions you\u0026rsquo;ve made in this moment and accept that today, if that was the case.\nBut also, you know, you might have another 10, 20, 30, 40 years hopefully to be able to work harder. So you have to have both of those things, I think, to be really fulfilled. Um, that\u0026rsquo;s what success looks like to me is trying to, yeah. Be inspired to keep creating and doing, but also to be able to like look around me and go, this is awesome.\nLike, this is amazing. All the pain and, and the good POS positive and negative parts of right now. I\u0026rsquo;m really grateful for yeah. That\u0026rsquo;s success.\nJames: Yeah. Amazing. that\u0026rsquo;s really cool. Really cool. Yeah. I have to. Um, I\u0026rsquo;ll have to reflect on that. I think, I think you\u0026rsquo;ve, yeah, you\u0026rsquo;ve been really, you\u0026rsquo;re really great at sharing, um, in the last hour or so. So, I really appreciate, uh, you being so vulnerable and sharing with us. Um, but to finish off the pod today, I just have one last question for you, Liz, and that is around, um, advice you\u0026rsquo;d give to.\nAdvice for Graduates # James: Someone that is, let\u0026rsquo;s say they\u0026rsquo;re finished high school and they\u0026rsquo;re starting their journey, uh, out in the, in the big wide world. Uh, you know, thinking and reflecting on your own journey, kind of what advice would you give to someone that\u0026rsquo;s going through that right now?\nElizabeth: The first thing that comes to mind is be emotional, which is kind of strange. But when I was younger, I thought it was bad to be. Passionate in a way. I thought that, you know, uh, young people kind of get this bad rap of being like too angry and too fired up or, you know, all the opposite. They don\u0026rsquo;t care enough.\nLike, uh, I think it\u0026rsquo;s really important to not worry about perfection when you\u0026rsquo;re young, because it\u0026rsquo;s just impossible to achieve and just. Feel things and act like impulsively somewhat, and, um, really appreciate the good and the bad that comes with being a young person, um, that you have to, you have to go through all of that.\nLike it\u0026rsquo;s all really positive thing. So that would be my first piece of advice. And, and secondly, to. Be be bold again, that idea of how far are you willing to go alone? You know, don\u0026rsquo;t absolutely. Don\u0026rsquo;t let anybody else define the path that\u0026rsquo;s in front of you. If you don\u0026rsquo;t want to. And you might, you know, have a family or, or parents and who want a certain thing for you and think that\u0026rsquo;s what is best for you.\nAnd you might agree with some of those things. That\u0026rsquo;s totally fine. But the key there is being able to ask yourself, you know, why am I doing this? Like what what\u0026rsquo;s really driving. This goal, this step for me. Am I just going to university? Cuz I think I have to go to university or am I going because it\u0026rsquo;s actually the, the most purposeful step for me.\nUm, so ask yourself why I\u0026rsquo;m really try and um, think about that when you\u0026rsquo;re making choices and do your best to make those, um, decisions in alignment with like who you are, not, not the rest of the world around you, because honestly at the end of the day, who cares what they think you have to. You have to live with it.\nThey, they don\u0026rsquo;t\nJames: Yeah,\nElizabeth: Yep. That would be my.\nJames: Amazing. No, that\u0026rsquo;s really fantastic. Thanks for sharing that with us. Um, thanks so much for coming on the show. It\u0026rsquo;s been really insight to hear your experiences and, and everything to do with, you know,, I guess everything that you\u0026rsquo;ve shared, it\u0026rsquo;s super cool. And I think you\u0026rsquo;re on an amazing journey.\nConnect with Liz # James: It\u0026rsquo;s gonna be really exciting to see kind of where you end up in the next couple of years. So super keen to, to stay in touch, but the people who wanna find out more about yourself and really connect in with, with you, where is the best place for them to.\nElizabeth: Absolutely. Um, I\u0026rsquo;m pretty easy to find on LinkedIn and, and our website at purposefully. So send me a message. Make sure you let me know you had about. Me from here. Um, which is always nice to know and yeah, happy to, absolutely happy to, to chat to anybody. So thanks so much for this has been awesome. Really appreciate it.\nJames: Amazing. Yeah. Well, we\u0026rsquo;ll leave the links to, to all your social media and, uh, whatever down in the show notes. So if people can go and find you, um, but yeah, thanks so much for. Coming on the show today, Liz so great having you\nOutro # James: Thanks for listening to this episode I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. If you want to get my takeaways, the things that I learned from this episode, please go to Graduate Theory.com/subscribe, where you can get my takeaways and all the information about each episode, straight to your inbox.\nThanks so much for listening again today, and we\u0026rsquo;re looking forward to seeing you next week.\n← Back to episode 39\n","date":"18 July 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/graduate-theory/39-elizabeth-knight/transcript/","section":"Graduate Theory Transcripts","summary":"← Back to episode 39\nThis transcript has been lightly edited for readability. It may still contain transcription errors.\nElizabeth: I was jealous of people that had a passion. I didn’t have a passion. And, um, yeah, that, that’s the other thing. Now there’s like this pressure to not just do a career, but you have to be passionate about that career. And it’s like, oh my God, whole other layer added into that. So those, those expectations and ideas of success, um, whenever we’re tempting one over another it’s bad.\n","title":"Transcript: Elizabeth Knight | On Defining Yourself and Your Mission","type":"graduate-theory-transcripts"},{"content":" Watch the conversation Graduate Theory Open YouTube ↗ Read the full transcript → Coming to Australia and learning English is no easy feat.\nToday\u0026rsquo;s guest has done that, and now teaches people worldwide how to land the job of their dreams.\nShe\u0026rsquo;s a career and life coach with plenty of wisdom to share.\nIf you haven\u0026rsquo;t already subscribed to the Graduate Theory newsletter. Do it now 👇\nSubscribe Now\nWatch this episode on YouTube.\nJuliana Owen was voted Top 10 Career Coaches to be watched in 2021 by the Australian Business Journal. Originally from Brazil, she has over 2 decades of global experience working across strategy, people \u0026amp; culture, and recruitment.\nShe’s the founder of her brand New Mind Consulting.\n🤝 Connect with Juliana # Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/newmindconsulting/\nLinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/julianamarottamarques/\n👇 Episode Takeaways # Problems are opportunities # One of the things I really liked about our chat was Juliana\u0026rsquo;s view on the pandemic.\nThere was certainly a lot of destruction and negative outcomes from the pandemic. Fortunately, Juliana took it all as a positive.\nShe described the pandemic as being an opportunity for herself and her newly created business.\nMore generally, Juliana had this to say about turning problems into opportunities.\nSo if you look at the challenges you\u0026rsquo;re going to be facing as a platform for your success, not as a problem, it\u0026rsquo;s much easier for you to get motivated. So you, you actually own the challenge and when you own the challenge, your brain feels curious about what\u0026rsquo;s the final outcome.\nHer advice: own your challenges and seek the positives.\nAustralian Job Market is a Specialist Market # A surprising part of our conversation was when we were talking about the differences in the job market between Australia and other countries.\nJuliana mentioned that in Australia we have much more of a specialist market. When a role is listed, candidates are expected to fit the exact job criteria.\nIn other countries, this is not the case. For countries like Brazil, India and others, having a more generalist skillset and showing you can do what is on the job description plus more, is much more valuable.\nNetworking # Juliana shared that one thing that her clients undervalue is networking.\nOnce you are in an industry, you get known and you can land jobs simply by chatting to colleagues.\nBeing well connected and in communities with people working in places that you want to work will make the job search significantly easier.\nGet the Newsletter\n📝 Content Timestamps # 00:00 Juliana Owen\n00:19 Intro\n01:04 Juliana\u0026rsquo;s Journey from Brazil to Australia\n04:55 Going out on her own\n08:14 What does a day in her life look like?\n10:36 What Juliana helps people with\n14:01 Differences in Job applications in Australia\n19:00 Common Problems with Professional Applications\n23:49 Are cover letters less common?\n27:40 Undervalues parts of the application process\n32:04 Similar traits in successful job applicants\n38:06 Juliana\u0026rsquo;s Advice for Graduates\n41:00 Where to find Juliana\n41:45 Outro\n","date":"11 July 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/graduate-theory/38-juliana-owen/","section":"Graduate Theory","summary":" Watch the conversation Graduate Theory Open YouTube ↗ Read the full transcript → Coming to Australia and learning English is no easy feat.\nToday’s guest has done that, and now teaches people worldwide how to land the job of their dreams.\n","title":"Juliana Owen | On Building Your Career in the Australian Job Market","type":"graduate-theory"},{"content":"← Back to episode 38\nThis transcript has been lightly edited for readability. It may still contain transcription errors.\nJuliana: And people go, oh, but they are, you\u0026rsquo;re not well prepared.\nAnd then you create an illusion and, and, uh, you know, if you do not look for development in those areas, you\u0026rsquo;re just gonna become a victim of the system, right.\nIntro # James: Today\u0026rsquo;s guest was voted top 10 career coaches to be watched in 2021 by the Australian business journal. Originally from Brazil, she has over two decades of global experience working across strategy people and culture and recruitment. She\u0026rsquo;s the founder of her brand new mind consulting. Please. Welcome to the show.\nJuliana Owen. welcome to the show. Yeah. Yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s it. very nice. Well, I\u0026rsquo;d love to start the show today, Juliana, and talk about your, your journey and kind of the start of your career, cuz you, you did quite a big thing, which is moving from, uh, somewhere that doesn\u0026rsquo;t speak English to somewhere that does, uh, and then trying to work out everything that goes along with that.\nJuliana\u0026rsquo;s Journey from Brazil to Australia # James: Trying to find a job and, and all the, yeah, everything like that. I\u0026rsquo;d love to ask you, you know, how, what was that experience like and kind of what led you to come to Australia and, and start your career here?\nJuliana: Yeah. So I\u0026rsquo;ve started in, uh, recruitment and talent acquisition back in Brazil. I did, um, degree in psych. Which was, I guess my first, um, step into this, uh, world of person and professional development. Um, very, it\u0026rsquo;s very fascinating when you start understanding and learning, how does, you know, this software here works and how you can use this for your own benefit in terms of putting yourself in different environments?\nSo back in Brazil, I\u0026rsquo;ve worked for global businesses. Um, And, uh, I guess the highlight of my career, there was the bank, which was the largest outsourcing Latin America. Um, I also worked for a couple for the American business there, uh, where I had the opportunity to set up, um, you know, the professional side of the, the, the business with, um, Very senior people.\nUm, and that\u0026rsquo;s when I start learning a lot about recruitment strategies career, uh, and then the personal side comes with that because you\u0026rsquo;re dealing with people. Uh, so when you\u0026rsquo;re dealing with people, everyone pretty much wants to be, uh, majority of us wants to be successful in life in career. So then I start combining all.\nYou know, part of the psychology also with the part of the business, um, combined together. So I finished my degree in 2008, um, and, um, I had a very good opportunity in Brazil to step up on my career was working for an American business, but I needed to improve my communication skills. So I decided to come to Australia.\nDo a business for English course get my communication skills up to speed. And, uh, I did not have any plans to stay here for good. Um, but I fell in love with Sydney immediately. Um, how you\u0026rsquo;re not going to, right for me is the most beautiful place in the entire planet. I love it here so much. Um, so fell in love with Sydney.\nAnd then start kind of developing my communication skills and, uh, obviously looking for a job that would challenge me. Right? So here in Australia, what I\u0026rsquo;ve been doing across recruitment, uh, and also consulting and talent acquisitions. So I\u0026rsquo;ve worked for a large. Recruitment agencies. And I have also worked for consulting businesses.\nUm, and, um, my last two roles before I set up a new mind consulting, uh, was pretty much talent acquisition and head of talent, where I had to add my experience on the life side, on the personal self development side, and also, uh, the professional side, um, along this journey here in Australia for the past 13 years.\nI have done a lot of different courses. So I\u0026rsquo;ve Studi in neuroscience, relationship counseling, uh, cognitive behavioral therapy, um, uh, P and L as well. Um, neurolinguistic programming. Um, and this all obviously helped me to. Combine these skills give the best to clients, um, that I was working the corporate world.\nUm, and this was the spark to pretty much start thinking about your mind consulting, uh, which was a project that I had in mind for a long time. Um, and, um, you know, people naturally used to come to me, um, backing the days in, in Brazil and also here in Australia. Um, Asking for, you know, uh, uh, coaching, mentoring across these two main areas, um, life and career, they are much more interlinked than what we think.\nUm, so usually if you\u0026rsquo;re looking for your success in, at work, you will pretty much develop that much, uh, faster if you are, you know, well developed or at least you have a solid kind of base on your personal\nGoing out on her own # James: Yeah, no. Cool. That\u0026rsquo;s really cool. And I\u0026rsquo;d love to ask as well. So the going from you\u0026rsquo;re working in recruitment, different sorts of roles in, in big companies. And, and then you went to start your own thing. What was the. Was there a particular moment there that you were like, oh, yep. I\u0026rsquo;m gonna do this now.\nLike, and go out on my own or\nJuliana: Yeah.\nJames: The story behind that?\nJuliana: Yeah. So this, um, basically when the pandemic hit, I know there was a big shock for everyone around the world, right? Cuz people were being secure about their jobs. What\u0026rsquo;s gonna happen with the market situation, a lot of different, uh, uh, aspects of life itself. Uh, but I had this project turned on the back of my mind and I was.\nWorking, you know, towards the completion of this project. So when the pandemic hit, I was like, yes, that\u0026rsquo;s exactly the opportunity I was waiting for. Uh, because I wanted to go and service different people around the world. Um, because there are a lot of different nationalities that wanna come to Australia and be successful in this country.\nI do think Australia gives a lot of opportunities for everyone. Um, So working online would be the best, uh, way to go. So when the pandemic hit, I was like, perfect. So I\u0026rsquo;m gonna set up an online platform. I can connect with people around the world. People, they are looking to come to Australia. People, they are already here, but because we lock down, we cannot get out of our houses.\nUm, and, uh, I guess there was the perfect timing really, because I\u0026rsquo;ve been, I\u0026rsquo;ve been really busy since then, which is\nJames: Yeah. no, definitely. That\u0026rsquo;s interesting. Yeah. That you would, uh, kind of frame the, uh, pandemic as an opportunity. I think that\u0026rsquo;s really cool. Um, that you think of it like that?\nJuliana: Oh, look, James. I, I see everything that happens in life. This is actually one of the things that I work a lot with for my clients. Right. We all naturally when we see a barrier or a challenge that we need to overcome is straight away, because the way we\u0026rsquo;ve been, you know, set up in society straight away, we think, oh, that\u0026rsquo;s gonna be a problem.\nOh, that\u0026rsquo;s negative. We always go towards that side. My job is to, um, help people to change their mindset and make that become excited for them. So if you look at the challenges you\u0026rsquo;re gonna be facing as a platform for your success, not as a problem, It\u0026rsquo;s much easier for you to get motivated for you to get your determination for you to get into that without feeling pain.\nSo you, you actually on the challenge and when you are on the challenge, your brain feels curious about what\u0026rsquo;s the final outcome. Cause I\u0026rsquo;m on the challenge, but if you\u0026rsquo;re in the problem, you just go, wow, I\u0026rsquo;m in the problem. What am I gonna do here? Um, so yeah, I saw the pandemic as a fantastic opportunity for, for my\nJames: Yeah. No, definitely. That\u0026rsquo;s cool. I think that, yeah, it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s always, uh, exciting when people can, yeah. I, I feel like many people would look at yeah. The pandemic or something like that and be like, oh yeah, like you said, you know, this sucks. Like it\u0026rsquo;s like all the negatives of it. So I think that\u0026rsquo;s really cool that yeah, you can look at something like that and.\nObviously there are negatives, but you know, we can look at the positives and choose to take it as something positive. I think that\u0026rsquo;s really powerful. Um, one thing I wanna ask too is so someone like yourself as, as a coach and, and things like that, I\u0026rsquo;m interested to know kind of what you actually do and kind of what a day in your life looks like.\nWhat does a day in the life look like? # James: Um, cuz I feel like sometimes being a coach it\u0026rsquo;s kind of, or, or, you know, helping people with careers or whatever it might be. Um, it\u0026rsquo;s hard to kind of have some tangible, you know, okay. What does that actually involve? So perhaps, I don\u0026rsquo;t know, obviously we don\u0026rsquo;t wanna share like too much about what exactly you do, but I\u0026rsquo;d love if you could kind of give a bit of a glimpse about like perhaps what a day in Juliana\u0026rsquo;s life, uh, looks like\nJuliana: Okay. look, I would say busy really, really busy. Um, so usually my day starts around, uh, six. I do my exercise in the morning. I actually do what I preach to my clients. Right. Um, so it is, I think is all about leading by example as well. And, uh, once you go through the process, you can understand what your client will be facing terms of, uh, you know, difficulty to over.\nOne or the aspect of the, the, the process of self development. Um, so usually, um, I get up very early, do my exercise, do my meditation, have my breakfast, um, get myself ready for my first session. Usually my first session starts at seven in the morning. Uh, I also work around people\u0026rsquo;s availability. Um, so.\nThat\u0026rsquo;s another advantage about working online, uh, and working from home because I have clients, for example, in London, um, when they waking up at nine in the morning here in Australia, 6:00 PM. Uh, but I also have clients that finish work at six 30 and then that session will start at 7:30 PM. So my day starts at seven, finished around nine, really busy diary management is something that is very challenging on the database because people change.\nYou know, priorities meetings, kids whatever\u0026rsquo;s going on in their life and I\u0026rsquo;ll work around, um, around this client. But usually I like to get myself ready so I can give the best I have to my clients and they can make the most of the sessions. Um, the sessions usually go from, uh, 60 to 90 minutes. Um, depends what we are working on and which program the, the, the client is actually interested.\nWhat,\nJames: No. Cool. It\u0026rsquo;s uh, it\u0026rsquo;s interesting to hear what it\u0026rsquo;s like. Um, Definitely cause yeah, I, yeah, like I said, I think coaching, it\u0026rsquo;s hard to understand like, okay, what is? What do you actually do? Yeah,\nJuliana: What do they do,\nJames: Yeah, yeah. Well, yeah. I\u0026rsquo;d love to kind of get into that and kind of perhaps like the sorts of things that you actually help people with.\nWhat Juliana helps people with # James: And my understanding is a lot of the clients that you, you help are. I mean, generally it\u0026rsquo;s around career advice, but also people that are, you know, perhaps looking to do that in Australia and don\u0026rsquo;t necessarily have the. Having grown up in Australia and kind of have a, a different background. Um, so I\u0026rsquo;d love to understand kind of, what are perhaps some of the, like some of the challenges that, uh, that you commonly see, like what is, what is a classic case, uh, that Juliana is out there to fix?\nYeah.\nJuliana: Okay. So I would say in the career side, the, the biggest thing that comes to me, the majority of the time it is. Clients looking for some guidance in terms of understanding about the Australia market, right? The way recruitment works here, the way the market works here is completely different from south America, Asia, America, India.\nUm, so it\u0026rsquo;s very specific. Um, so the majority of the people come to Australia and go, oh yeah, I\u0026rsquo;m gonna do this. I\u0026rsquo;m gonna do that. And then they realize that ops, there is something that I\u0026rsquo;m missing. How does this works? What do these people are looking for? Um, So I would say understanding about the Australia market.\nUm, another thing that is also very common, it is when, um,\nuh, people basically want to know. Literally the aspects of how am I going to get into this market? So now I understood how this works. How am I gonna get into this? Right. And that\u0026rsquo;s when it comes the, the, the job that I do in the career coaching side of things. So, um, I\u0026rsquo;ve got programs where we can set up.\nThe professional portfolio, which is CV cover letter, LinkedIn, um, that are programs that have this combination and a mock interview as well. Uh, and other programs that I do a kind of more, uh, detailed report and assessment personality task. Um, and also I got a program there\u0026rsquo;s initial five to 10 weeks where I develop that according to the client needs.\nSo I\u0026rsquo;ve got clients in Australia already looking for career transition. Or changing markets or, um, looking to step up in their career. How can we do that? Um, But, but usually it is about understanding what the market is and how am I going to get there? Um, yeah, basically these in the career side, right in the life side, the life coaching side, cuz the areas are super interlink to, so I would say.\nConfidence, I would say relationship across the board family, um, you know, uh, friendship and working relationships as well is something that comes up very big. Um, especially because here in Australia, we got people from all over the world. Uh, and it\u0026rsquo;s very challenging from someone that comes from a specific culture to fit in the Australian culture, um, which I love because it\u0026rsquo;s very straightforward.\nPeople are very black and white. But there are people that don\u0026rsquo;t really understand why, or I went to an interview and the client says this and that, I don\u0026rsquo;t think he lied me. And I was like, no,, that\u0026rsquo;s actually standard. Um, you did very well. And then the person calls me back and says, I\u0026rsquo;ve got the second interview.\nUh, so it takes a little while for them to warm up. Right. Um, and, uh, basically having career and life interlinked, my job is always to have a positive impact on these people\u0026rsquo;s life. Right. Um, having the, the, the, the, the end result, I would say.\nDifferences in Job applications in Australia # James: Yeah, definitely. You mentioned there, there are some differences in Australia. like compared to sort of the rest of the world. What are some of those differences? Like where, where do we, where does Australia like, perhaps are they good and bad differences in your opinion? I don\u0026rsquo;t know. Um, yeah. What are some differences\nJuliana: I think it is actually fantastic. I really love the, the Australian culture. That\u0026rsquo;s why I love this country so much. Um, hear people, very black and white and very straight to the point. I think if you look across, um, You know, different markets, some professionals, they would think they\u0026rsquo;re being generalistic.\nIt is a very positive thing. Also I can do 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 different things. Look at how awesome I am. Well, great, wonderful. That you can do five different things, but here in Australia, the market is a specialist is not generalist market. So the client will be looking for. Specific, uh, skills. Um, there is specific mindset, perhaps there is specific attitude for you to develop that job and, uh, to add value to the business.\nUm, so a lot of my clients that come from overseas, um, They, they usually take a little, a little while, but that\u0026rsquo;s obviously the work, which is very rewarding afterwards when they can get the results. Um, but understanding that, uh, they need to focus in one area and their area is usually the area that they like the most.\nAnd that\u0026rsquo;s how you become a specialist. And that\u0026rsquo;s how you generate this value, um, to the company, to, to, to whoever you are working with. So I would say being more, uh, a specialist and generalist, um, it is one of the main characteristics.\nJames: That\u0026rsquo;s interesting. It\u0026rsquo;s interesting perspective because I guess like many of us and, you know, young people like myself, even like, you know, we haven\u0026rsquo;t really seen many other like sort of job, uh, like marketplaces or whatever that aren\u0026rsquo;t in Australia. So it\u0026rsquo;s interesting to hear that, uh, definitely.\nJuliana: Mm-hmm\nJames: Um, so like, what would your advice be? I mean, someone that\u0026rsquo;s coming in from, from overseas here and they have that more of a generalist, like approach to, to jobs where they\u0026rsquo;re, they are across multiple areas. What\u0026rsquo;s the next steps for them there? How can they like, do you, is it more of a framing of their experiences that they are a specialist in, in certain areas?\nOr is there an element of like upscaling where they do actually need to go and learn. Things so that I can actually become more of a specialist.\nJuliana: Yeah. So, so this is the thing, I think the first thing, um, my advice would be look for someone. That will know how, how this works. Right? Look, look for professional that will help you to, to understand that because, um, there are a lot of different, um, ways of presenting a CV, a cover letter, a LinkedIn, um, depending where you are.\nRight. So for example, uh, in south America, the cover letter, it is a more general overview about yourself. So you pretty much put everything in there. Right? A lot of details, a lot of different information here in Australia works completely different. When the job ask for cover letter, they are actually asking for you to highlight to the business, what are your abilities matching with the job that you can actually, uh, be able to provide to the company?\nSo they are looking for a reassurance that you would be a potential candidate for them to interview and not waste their time. And they\u0026rsquo;re not really interested if you like swimming, or if you like football, they just wanna know. First stage of the process. I wanna know, how can you actually add value to my business?\nWhat do you have that will help us to get to where we wanna get and how can we, as a business can help you to, you know, develop your skills further. Um, so, and, and obviously there are a lot of different areas in CV and LinkedIn as well that I can talk a little bit more in detail, but my first advice is if you don\u0026rsquo;t.\nWhere you are in terms of, okay. I understand about the market. I understand this. And if you don\u0026rsquo;t know, look for a professional, do not make a mistake of, I\u0026rsquo;ll see how you go. Uh, I\u0026rsquo;ll give it a go. Uh, because you regret the Austral markets, especially here in Sydney. Um, the markets is more. Right. And, uh, once we start putting a name out there, it is your reputation.\nYou will be known as James, uh, will be known as Juliana. And people will talk about you as you grow and you develop your career. So if you are specialist in the area, if you want understand what these people are looking for, you definitely gonna have a very successful career, but if you be on the, I\u0026rsquo;ll see what happens, I\u0026rsquo;ll CLC.\nYou\u0026rsquo;re actually wasting time. You\u0026rsquo;re actually burning your cards. Right. Cause you\u0026rsquo;re not creating that credibility that you should, um, when you are entering, especially if you\u0026rsquo;re a grad\nJames: Thanks for listening to this episode of Graduate Theory. If you haven\u0026rsquo;t already subscribed to the Graduate Theory newsletter you can do so by at the links in the show notes, the Graduate Theory newsletter comes out every single Tuesday morning with my thoughts and lessons from each episode.\nBut without further ado, let\u0026rsquo;s get back into it.\nCommon Problems with Professional Applications # James: Yeah, definitely. Oh, that\u0026rsquo;s, that\u0026rsquo;s interesting. And I\u0026rsquo;d love to ask too. You mentioned there the CV resume, that sort of thing. I\u0026rsquo;d love to kinda get in, in the weeds here a little bit with, uh, some of this into the details, uh, you know, and, and talk about kind of the, the approaches that, that you bring to these kinds of documents.\nCause obviously there, there are quite important. Yeah, cuz without having a good setup here, you won\u0026rsquo;t get to the interview until you\u0026rsquo;re getting sort of knocked out the first, the first round. Um, so I\u0026rsquo;d love to ask you, you know, what are some big, uh, perhaps you can start wherever here, but like some mistakes that you commonly see, um, with these types of documents, um, that, you know, people that\nJuliana: Hmm.\nJames: Commonly are like, okay, you just, you don\u0026rsquo;t have this right.\nLike, go like we need to fix this like straight away. Is there any like common. Like problems there that\nJuliana: Yeah, look very, very good question because, um, the, the structure of the CV is extremely important. Right? Why am I saying this? Um, so here in Australia, as I mentioned to you before I\u0026rsquo;ve worked in, in, in different areas of career development, recruitment, and,\num, you know, guiding professionals. So. Each company, let\u0026rsquo;s say, if you, if you\u0026rsquo;re talking about recruitment agencies, right. And you\u0026rsquo;re dealing with a recruiter, these people will be using a type of CRM to obviously collect that, that their CV. And, uh, we start developing the database. Let\u0026rsquo;s say this, the, the large organizations, they will have, uh, a recruitment area.\nUh, they will have a different type of CRM. The consulting business will have a different type of CRM. So each company will use that CRM, that database for a different purpose. A recruitment agency is much more specialized because that\u0026rsquo;s what they do. They map the entire market and they highlight talents to their clients.\nNot necessarily a consulting business will do the same, cuz they\u0026rsquo;re dealing with internal clients, not necessarily an internal recruitment business from a large organization will have the same CRM cuz they work internally. So why am I telling all this? Because a lot of people get caught up in the illusion because they do not have much understanding about what the market\u0026rsquo;s looking for and they just create, um, let\u0026rsquo;s say a CVE, a Canva, right?\nSo if you are in a, in a, in. UX design, if you are in a, in a very, uh, alternative area of work. Fair enough. But if you\u0026rsquo;re going to the corporate world and you\u0026rsquo;re putting a lot of tables, photos, uh, uh, different clicks, and once the CV is uploaded into the system, The information gets all confused and all messed up.\nThe majority of the time, these people do not get called for future opportunities, not just the one that they applied for. Cuz the intention when you are applying to a job inside a large organization is for you to be in, in, in their database and be called a little bit in the Fu further down the future.\nRight? You, you want people to identify skills when they\u0026rsquo;re doing the search, but if you\u0026rsquo;re CV or a lot of tables, photos, it\u0026rsquo;s too fancy. Too, too fancy, too much quantity, not much quality. You actually just create an illusion for yourself and then you\u0026rsquo;re just gonna be, oh, look, I\u0026rsquo;ve done this. You be amazing on can and I never get called.\nAnd then you come and work with a professional that we\u0026rsquo;ll develop a civic, tailored to your area, tailored to what you are looking to achieve tailored to your personality. What the market\u0026rsquo;s looking is specifically for those skills, cetera, et cetera. the person just get one CV out and they get 10 interviews.\nRight. Um, so that\u0026rsquo;s how it works. So again, if you do not have the knowledge, do not waste your time just on the illusion. Oh, I\u0026rsquo;ll see what happens because we\u0026rsquo;ll see what happens. We\u0026rsquo;ll pull you behind know ahead, right? Yeah. Uh, it\u0026rsquo;s very interesting when you actually, um, dealing with D when you are dealing with different personalities, cuz people go.\nCan\u0026rsquo;t believe it\u0026rsquo;s happening, but because there is a technique behind it, right. It\u0026rsquo;s not just, uh, put a photo, a little balloon, a little,\nJames: Yeah,\nJuliana: Yeah.\nJames: No, that\u0026rsquo;s interesting. Yeah. I\u0026rsquo;ve, I\u0026rsquo;ve seen that too. It\u0026rsquo;s I don\u0026rsquo;t know what the, the word they I\u0026rsquo;ve seen used to describe it, but yeah, it\u0026rsquo;s the, this software where like you put your resume into it and then like, things like that, like tables and images or whatever it is, like they just like, can\u0026rsquo;t read those things properly.\nAnd so then when. I don\u0026rsquo;t know, I\u0026rsquo;ve forgotten the name of this thing. It might be called an ATS or something, uh, where it\u0026rsquo;s like trying\nJuliana: Yeah. Mm-hmm\nJames: You and trying to sort of take your resume and extract like your skills and stuff. You can\u0026rsquo;t really do that if you are. Um,\nJuliana: Exactly right. Exactly.\nJames: So that it\u0026rsquo;s interesting.\nJuliana: Exactly. Right. Very important.\nAre cover letters less common? # James: Nah. Cool. that\u0026rsquo;s so cool. And what about the cover letter? Is there anything there? That\u0026rsquo;s like a similar, um, and perhaps one question too is like cover letters. Do you see them as being like really common? Have they sort of become less common? Cause I, I feel like now, I don\u0026rsquo;t know. I don\u0026rsquo;t see them. I feel like they\u0026rsquo;re getting less common but I\u0026rsquo;d love to hear kind of your thoughts and perhaps, uh, yeah.\nWhat someone could do to write good. Hmm.\nJuliana: Yeah. So from, from my experience, usually co letter, the jobs they\u0026rsquo;re asking for cover letter are the jobs that they are, uh, uh, very specific, right. Um, if I am not looking for someone in a specific, or if I just want to know who is available in the market, I usually don\u0026rsquo;t ask for cover letter. Because I wanna have the flow of, you know, potential candidates coming to my inbox, but if I am wanting to target their market or that type of individual, that type of, um, skills, um, I will potentially ask for cover letter because there will help my search.\nSo rather than going and analyzing three, four pages of CV, I\u0026rsquo;m gonna read the cover letter in that cover letter. The candidate must tell me why he\u0026rsquo;s good to do that job. And what are the skills that he has that actually matches with the job Des. so then I will have naturally, uh, an interest in interviewing this guy or an interest in reading that CV.\nSo the co ladder think about that. It is the, the, the main, uh, uh, is, is the book, um, uh, uh, main front page. Right? So when you are in the library or, or in, um, in a book shop, you\u0026rsquo;re gonna go say, oh, maybe this book\u0026rsquo;s good. I don\u0026rsquo;t know. Let me have a quick look. You\u0026rsquo;ll go. Oh, awesome. It\u0026rsquo;s everything I wanna read about.\nAnd then what do you do? You buy the book and then you read the cover letter helps, um, um, works pretty similar to that. Right? Cause you\u0026rsquo;re gonna read then you\u0026rsquo;re gonna go. Okay, great. That\u0026rsquo;s a potential candidate. Let me see more. And then you\u0026rsquo;re gonna go into detail on the CV. Um, But obviously that\u0026rsquo;s different for, you know, each company or, you know, recruitment agencies really.\nThey usually do not ask for cover letter because the, the, the candidates are the product, right? So you need to map the market and you become specialists in the market. So, uh, you need to understand who is there. Um, but for large company specific projects, they will be asking for it.\nJames: Yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s interesting. That\u0026rsquo;s an interesting, um, yeah. Interesting way to put it. I hadn\u0026rsquo;t thought about it like\nJuliana: Have you had that experience with co letter? Have you had\nJames: Uh, I, I think I maybe, yeah, like I haven\u0026rsquo;t applied like most of the recent jobs I applied for was when I was applying for graduate roles, which. two years ago now. Um, and so that was like for the last big batch of applications I did.\nAnd I think I maybe wrote a couple of couple letters, but vast majority of, of grad roles, um, were just very general. Sometimes it was only like some, some of those games that you have to play. I had you know, to test some skills I don\u0026rsquo;t know what exactly\nJuliana: Yeah, yeah, yeah,\nJames: But you know, that was kind of the main thing.\nSo certainly I would say maybe like, yeah, maybe 10% of the jobs. Required a cover letter. So it really wasn\u0026rsquo;t\nJuliana: That\u0026rsquo;s true. That\u0026rsquo;s correct. Yeah. That\u0026rsquo;s it. Because if you\u0026rsquo;re going for, for a grad job, right. Um, or graduate role, they, they wanna see different aspects of your personality. They want to, they wanna see if you have done perhaps a volunteer job, UHS your attitude towards a starting or career. Um, so it\u0026rsquo;s a completely different approach than when you\u0026rsquo;re dealing with, uh, a professional that has been the market for 2, 3, 4 years.\nUm, Plus, right.\nJames: Yeah, definitely. No, no. That\u0026rsquo;s yeah. That\u0026rsquo;s an interesting, yeah,, it\u0026rsquo;s an interesting way to look at. I like it. Um,\nJuliana: You\u0026rsquo;re listening to me. Just thinking about your experience. Okay. I\u0026rsquo;ve done that. No, I haven\u0026rsquo;t. Cool. Makes sense.\nUndervalued Parts of the Application Process # James: No, definitely. Well, what what\u0026rsquo;s, I\u0026rsquo;d love to ask too, kind of you, you seeing a lot of these people kind of apply for roles and, and helping them do that. What is one area of the, the process that you think people underappreciate or underestimate? Like just how valuable, like, you know,\nJuliana: Mm-hmm\nJames: Aspect might be, is there anything that, that comes to.\nHmm.\nJuliana: Yeah, very, very good question. I like that. So something that I think people underestimate is networking. Right. People don\u0026rsquo;t really see the value in networking, but the reality is once you are in this market for a little while, you will understand that it\u0026rsquo;s not only about what you know, but who, you know, so if you know the right people, these people will give you a shortcut Of the process. These people guide you and mentor you towards your goals. Um, and these people, they are connected with other people that will connect to, to other people. And that\u0026rsquo;s when you start creating their network and then you start kind of, uh, you know, getting into their market. You\u0026rsquo;re looking to, so, um, but also for you to do networking, you need to get out of your comfort zone, right?\nYou need to research for events you need to research for, um, Happy hour before, um, um, the pandemic, there were a lot of happy hour, uh, uh, uh, networking events or Thursday 5:00 PM beers that\u0026rsquo;s that\u0026rsquo;s someplace or da, da, da professionals, or if I don\u0026rsquo;t know it professionals or marketing professionals, right.\nIn, in one, one of these networking events, there you go. You can actually five, 10 people. That will lead you to another 10 20 and, and this story goes on, but people don\u0026rsquo;t necessarily focus on networking. Um, and, and networking is extremely important, right? Because if you don\u0026rsquo;t know the important people in the market, so.\nHow you\u0026rsquo;re gonna go about it. Yeah. We\u0026rsquo;ll develop your skills further. No worries. But it will be a little bit slower, right? If you\u0026rsquo;re not the right people, you get there a little faster, uh, and with a little bit of coaching and mentoring, um, you, you can stand out from the crowd for sure.\nJames: Yeah. Oh, that\u0026rsquo;s cool. I, I, I, I totally agree. And I think, yeah, knowing the right people is like, uh, yeah, a bit of a, yeah. I mean, every, everyone knows those kinds of people that kind of get jobs through their network. And it\u0026rsquo;s almost seen as like a, oh, like they\u0026rsquo;re so lucky. Like, you know, they like, just like, you know, they\u0026rsquo;re this person that they know gave them a job or whatever, but, um, you know, I guess you can sort of flip that and think, you know, who.\nis there anyone that, you know, in my network or who can I meet that I can have that kind of opportunity as well? Mm\nJuliana: Totally. And, uh, I see this, for example, now that I\u0026rsquo;ve been with new mind consulting since 2020, um, and, and being working the Australia market for 13 years now, my clients, right? The clients from the corporate world know, uh, uh, the clients that I have in new mind consulting terms of one on one sessions or, or, or workshops and stuff, um, They know the quality of the, the, the work or the way you operate and all that.\nSo if you go onto my LinkedIn profile, you\u0026rsquo;re gonna see all the recommendations I having. There. That\u0026rsquo;s a short list, ready to. Because you\u0026rsquo;ve got all people there that are extremely, uh, well qualified, but they\u0026rsquo;ve gone through the coaching process of what you\u0026rsquo;re expecting this market, how to position themselves, how to present a CV co later, LinkedIn, how are you going to verbalize your ideas and created that credibility through an interview process?\nUm, And all this helps. Right? So, uh, majority of my clients, um, the ones that leave recommendation on the profile is very interesting. Cuz they come back and say, oh thank you so much. I left your recommendation. So and so go in touch with me. I\u0026rsquo;m already in an interview and the client calls me and say, Juliana, By the way I\u0026rsquo;m, I\u0026rsquo;m hiring.\nSo and so wonderful. Right? The, the end result of the work that you do, uh, is extremely rewarding. You know, seeing people calling you afterwards and say, look, I\u0026rsquo;ve got a job by the way, that communication skills that we were working in, uh, in my life coaching sessions, they are now impacting on my career in my career because I\u0026rsquo;m dealing with my manager in a certain way that, you know, I had to communicate with my wife, perhaps.\nUm, so. Everything\u0026rsquo;s interlinked right. Life and career. So, um, but going back to your question, the network, it\nSimilar traits in successful job applicants # James: Yeah. no, definitely. No, that\u0026rsquo;s, that\u0026rsquo;s super cool. Um, I\u0026rsquo;d love to kind of, yeah, go into a bit more of a career general career questions, um, for you. And one of those is like out of, you\u0026rsquo;ve seen a lot of people kind of go from job seeker to re have a job. and kind of then progress into someone that sort of flourishes in the workplace.\nI\u0026rsquo;d love to ask you, you know, what traits do you see in these kinds of people that, um, you know, what traits allow people to succeed? Is there any traits there that you, uh, that are common across people that tend to find it like super easy? They, they got their job super easy and now they\u0026rsquo;re off doing amazing things.\nLike, are there any traits there that, that are perhaps similar across those kinds of people? Okay.\nJuliana: Okay. Super easy. Unfortunately, doesn\u0026rsquo;t really exist. It doesn\u0026rsquo;t really exist. The, the, the super easy, when you, when you\u0026rsquo;re talking about, uh, I\u0026rsquo;m, I\u0026rsquo;m just thinking about my experience when I first arrived in Australia. Right. I always knew about my potential. Uh, and, uh, but I didn\u0026rsquo;t know anything about Australia, especially about the market.\nRight? So when I started, I was doing what the majority of the people do. Oh, let me see what happens. I believe in my potential. I know I\u0026rsquo;m gonna get an interview. I know I\u0026rsquo;m gonna get a job until I got your appointed that I was like, hang on a minute. There is something I\u0026rsquo;m missing. What is it? And then I start looking for guidance.\nI worked with professionals in the market that were coaching me throughout the process that do the job that I do nowadays. And that became a little bit easier to create credibility because I knew what people were expecting from me, but not because I\u0026rsquo;ve done something, you know, outside of the world. I believe that, um, When you are looking to enter in the, in the Australia market, if you know how to set up your CV, Cator LinkedIn, and you know how to create credibility through that document.\nThe interview is pretty much the same approach, but the verbalization of what has created that credibility. Um, so once you understand that it is much easier for you to pass to a second stage of the interview and get an. Right. If you don\u0026rsquo;t, you might be answering something that people are not really expecting.\nAnd, uh, that\u0026rsquo;s when you fire, but you don\u0026rsquo;t know that because you haven\u0026rsquo;t had a professional guiding throughout that. And then you\u0026rsquo;re gonna be like, oh, maybe my CVS not good. Or maybe this, maybe that. And the reality is all about how are you going to verbalize your ideas and created that credibility. Um, you need to give a reason to your employer, why they\u0026rsquo;re gonna hire you, right.\nWhy, what can you do for my business? How are you going to add value to my company? What skills can you bring to the table? Oh, Juliana. But I\u0026rsquo;m a grad. I, I haven\u0026rsquo;t worked, I don\u0026rsquo;t have any experience in it in, you know, in, in, in a corporate job or in a pay job. No problem. You can do a volunteer work. You can do a unpaid work.\nYou can show to your potential employer, that you have the attitude to get out of your comfort zone, that you are meeting people in the market that you understand what they are looking for. That you have done your research in the. In the company webpage that you connected with. So and so on LinkedIn from the company.\nUm, so it is more about, uh, you developing the, the, the, the, the self, you know, knowledge and the life kind of aspect. And then you adding that into your career challenges. Um, It\u0026rsquo;s much as much easier. I wouldn\u0026rsquo;t say easier. I don\u0026rsquo;t like that word, but because nothing\u0026rsquo;s really easy, you need to work for everything you\u0026rsquo;re gonna want to achieve.\nBut once usually you\u0026rsquo;re, uh, uh, solid in that part of life, career flows and vice versa. Um, so my advice would be look for someone that can help you. So you\u0026rsquo;d be better guided and you were definitely going to achieve your results. Definitely. There is, there is no way you\u0026rsquo;re not going to, if I arrived here with no English, right.\nAnd no idea. And I\u0026rsquo;ve been building and working hard for all these years. If I go there, anyone can get there. Right. But you need to work hard. You need to work hard. You need to deal with frustrations. You need to deal with, um, you know, a lot of different aspects for you to get to a point that you go, cool.\nI know what I\u0026rsquo;m doing. Great. I\u0026rsquo;m ready to go for this, you know?\nJames: Mm. No, that\u0026rsquo;s super good. I, yeah, I totally agree with like, getting help and things like that. I think finding someone or something to help you, like understand the process and, and work out what it is that you need to do can really, instead of you trying to work it out yourself, like having someone or yeah.\nLike whatever it is, reading something course mentor like yourself or whatever it is like. Yeah. That can just shortcut a lot of time off the process.\nJuliana: Exactly. Exactly. And that comes all the, the, the, the personal aspects. Right? You need to have a determination, you need to be able to adapt. You need to, uh, uh, uh, pretty much back up what you\u0026rsquo;re saying. right. You\u0026rsquo;re going to the interview. Look, I can do, I can do this, this and that. Get you the job. And people go, oh, but they are, you\u0026rsquo;re not well prepared.\nAnd then you create an illusion and, and, uh, you know, if you do not look for development in those areas, you\u0026rsquo;re just gonna become a victim of the system, right. Or, and all my bosses, they are this, all the jobs that I go is like this, all the people that I work for. It\u0026rsquo;s not really about that. It\u0026rsquo;s about you understanding where the gap is working hard to amend that point, improve that point in your life.\nAnd you know, the, the purpose of, uh, new mind consulting here is build the best version of yourself because you will build right. It is a process you\u0026rsquo;re building every day is not boom. I\u0026rsquo;ve done a course. I\u0026rsquo;m ready to go. Um, I wish and I\u0026rsquo;m sure you wish\nJuliana\u0026rsquo;s Advice for Graduates # James: Absolutely amazing. Well, I\u0026rsquo;ve got like one more question here for you, Juliana, and that is around, um, you know, a lot of the audience listing is kind of grads or early career people looking to sort of, you know, start their career and, and started off in the right manner. And I\u0026rsquo;d love to ask thinking about yourself and your journey.\nIf you could kind of wind back the clock to when you first graduated union and. Went out into the world of work, knowing what you know now and, and all the things you teach, what would you go back? And, and is there any advice you\u0026rsquo;d give yourself? Um, if you were, if you were in that stage now,\nJuliana: Okay. If I\u0026rsquo;m in that stage now. So going back to my first point, look for someone that will guide you, that will give you a full picture, because it\u0026rsquo;s so much easier when you know where you\u0026rsquo;re going. And I\u0026rsquo;m saying this because I\u0026rsquo;ve gone through that process myself here in Australia, I\u0026rsquo;ve tried, um, you know, a couple of times to get into the market.\nUm, with the, the knowledge that I had back in the days, I was well, 23, 24 years old. Um, and, uh, I wasn\u0026rsquo;t getting anywhere. Once I hired someone and I said, look, this is where I come from. This is the experience I have so far. This is where I wanna go. And this is what I would like to achieve. How can I prepare to actually face the challenge and actually getting there?\nOkay. So we are gonna have to work on CV cover later. LinkedIn, we\u0026rsquo;re gonna have to work on a mock interview. What\u0026rsquo;s your interview style interview is one of the crucial points here, right? Cause the majority of the people think, oh, do you have a questionnaire that I can have a look? Or do you have a video on YouTube?\nLook, not really because the worst thing you can do in an interview process is decorating answer and, uh, question and answer, question and answer. Cause when you are in an interview, obviously you will know more or less what they\u0026rsquo;re gonna be asking you. But more than that, you need to build your thought process.\nYou need to learn how to build your process because if the, the interviewer ask you something that is outside of your, uh, uh, preparation, let\u0026rsquo;s say you are gonna go blind. You\u0026rsquo;re gonna go. And then you just answer whatever. And after all the excitement, uh, you know, went down, you just go, mm, I shouldn\u0026rsquo;t have answered that.\nOh, I didn\u0026rsquo;t prepare for that. Oh, the question that I decorated wasn\u0026rsquo;t asked, so it is not about decorating it\u0026rsquo;s about you learning, how to create credibility through, you know, your thought process. How do you build that thought process? How do you tell your story? Um, so that, that comes on the, the, the mentorship as well.\nRight? So if you know what you\u0026rsquo;re doing. Good on you. Get yourself ready, go for it all the best luck. If you don\u0026rsquo;t know, or if you in doubt, search for a professional search for someone that will, um, you know, clear the, the, the road for you so you can drive through and, uh, get to your final destination.\nSounds easy. Doesn\u0026rsquo;t it?. Yeah.\nWhere to find Juliana # James: That sounds easy. Perfect. Well, yeah. Thanks so much of your time today, Juliana, and I\u0026rsquo;d love to ask, you know, people that are listening, where they can go to find out more about yourself and hear about the things you do.\nJuliana: Okay, beautiful. So I\u0026rsquo;ve got an Instagram page is at new mind consulting. Uh, and I also have a website and new mind consulting.com and, uh, my LinkedIn page is Julianna OWIN. Uh, you find me there as well. And, uh, yeah, anyone looking for help to build the best version of themselves just get in touch would be a pleasure to.\nJames: Fantastic. We\u0026rsquo;ll have links to all that stuff in the show notes. Um, but yeah, thanks so much for coming on the show\nJuliana: Nice one. Thank you so much for your time as well. Pleasure.\nOutro # James: Thanks for listening to this episode I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. If you want to get my takeaways, the things that I learned from this episode, please go to Graduate Theory.com/subscribe, where you can get my takeaways and all the information about each episode, straight to your inbox.\nThanks so much for listening again today, and we\u0026rsquo;re looking forward to seeing you next week.\n← Back to episode 38\n","date":"11 July 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/graduate-theory/38-juliana-owen/transcript/","section":"Graduate Theory Transcripts","summary":"← Back to episode 38\nThis transcript has been lightly edited for readability. It may still contain transcription errors.\nJuliana: And people go, oh, but they are, you’re not well prepared.\nAnd then you create an illusion and, and, uh, you know, if you do not look for development in those areas, you’re just gonna become a victim of the system, right.\n","title":"Transcript: Juliana Owen | On Building Your Career in the Australian Job Market","type":"graduate-theory-transcripts"},{"content":" Watch the conversation Graduate Theory Open YouTube ↗ Read the full transcript → Welcome to the 37th episode of Graduate Theory.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s been a fantastic journey so far. The Graduate Theory archives now hold some seriously cool conversations with high-achievers across Australia.\nThis episode brings them all together.\nToday, we\u0026rsquo;ve compiled some of the best segments from the entire Graduate Theory catalogue. These are the moments that listeners have loved, and those that have created a lasting impact.\nIf you haven\u0026rsquo;t already subscribed to the Graduate Theory newsletter. Do it now 👇\nSubscribe Now\n👇 Episode Takeaways # Purpose # Something I\u0026rsquo;ve been reflecting on is the idea of purpose.\nDo we all have a purpose? How do we find it?\nOne of the best ways to have a fulfilling career is to be very clear on what exactly you want your life to look like, and then seek opportunities that lead to that outcome.\nBut what do we want our lives to look like?\nIt\u0026rsquo;s a difficult question to answer. How do we know what is the right thing?\nLidia and Josh both shared great insights into answering this question.\nLidia shares that our purpose changes over time. What we want our lives to look like is not fixed. Michael Jordan is no longer a basketball player.\nWith this in mind, starting somewhere is better than starting nowhere. We accept that this place for our lives will change over time.\nJosh shares another great way of approaching this. Look at what problems exist in the world and find ways to solve them. What problems do you see that you have the expertise and interest in solving? Making the world a better place is a great way to start.\nWork Life Balance # Cheran and Gilly both shared similar principles in their episodes.\nDon\u0026rsquo;t subscribe to what society says by default. Whether it\u0026rsquo;s an example like work-life balance or something else, it\u0026rsquo;s up to you to decide what to make of you life.\nPeople aren\u0026rsquo;t thinking about you as much as you think. You are free to decide things for yourself.\nMaking your own independent decisions on things like work-life balance and approaches to career will set you up well.\nJust like finding your purpose, things that you decide for yourself and things that you will stick to and utilise forever.\nGet the Newsletter\n📝 Content Timestamps # 00:00 Intro\n01:14 Lidia Ranieri\n17:25 Adam Geha\n25:33 Dan Brockwell\n35:34 Michael Gill\n42:35 Cheran Ketheesuran\n47:04 Lacey Filipich\n54:58 Josh Farr\n58:43 Outro\n","date":"4 July 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/graduate-theory/37-on-the-best-of-graduate-theory/","section":"Graduate Theory","summary":" Watch the conversation Graduate Theory Open YouTube ↗ Read the full transcript → Welcome to the 37th episode of Graduate Theory.\nIt’s been a fantastic journey so far. The Graduate Theory archives now hold some seriously cool conversations with high-achievers across Australia.\n","title":"On The Best Of Graduate Theory","type":"graduate-theory"},{"content":"← Back to episode 37\nThis transcript has been lightly edited for readability. It may still contain transcription errors.\nIntro # James: Hello, and welcome to Graduate Theory. Today\u0026rsquo;s episode is a compilation of many different episodes that we\u0026rsquo;ve had in the past on Graduate Theory.\nI\u0026rsquo;ve gone back and looked through the archives and, and, and thought about, you know, what are the parts and what are, what are the segments in Graduate Theory that really resonated with me. And that, that I thought. Some of the best, uh, content on the show. And so what I\u0026rsquo;ve done today is I\u0026rsquo;ve found these pieces that I think are really, really special.\nAnd I\u0026rsquo;ve put them into this one episode today, we\u0026rsquo;ve got seven different people speaking. Uh, there\u0026rsquo;s some serious, serious wisdom. Um, in this episode, this marks really some of the, some of the best content that has appeared on Graduate Theory over the last few months.,\nI\u0026rsquo;m really excited to share this in one single location with you all today,\nif you do wanna connect with the podcast further and get more involved, you should definitely subscribe to the Graduate Theory newsletter on the newsletter there\u0026rsquo;s content. There summaries from each episode that has been released previously every single week. I give you my thoughts and lessons from that week\u0026rsquo;s episode.\nDefinitely go and do that before we start right now. But without further ado,\ntoday, we\u0026rsquo;re gonna hear from episode seven, Lydia ran air.\nLidia Ranieri # James: Lydia is a former managing director at Goldman Sachs and currently works in her practice on purpose to help clients identify line with and act on purpose in their pursuit of excellence.\nHere\u0026rsquo;s us talking about how you can find your purpose.\none thing I want to ask you to follow on from that is, you know, how, is there any steps that you would take to find your purpose? I mean, it\u0026rsquo;s something that is, you know, is difficult, but what would you, what would you say? How can we find that?\nLidia: So when I work with people to explore this, um, you know, I want, um, I once had to do a whole presentation on this topic. And so I, you know, when I was putting together the slides for it. And, um, so this is sort of, uh, you know, one form of doing it with a visual kind of cue. The other is when I\u0026rsquo;m doing sort of, you know, um, coaching sessions, I sort of, um, encourage clients to sort of going to a place where they can visualize this for themselves.\nI threw up a whole heap of images that I\u0026rsquo;ve found of children. Um, you know, probably around the age of four or five. And, you know, one\u0026rsquo;s dressed up as a doctor and one\u0026rsquo;s dressed up as a superhero and wants dressed up as a little scientist in a science lab and the others standing on a stage singing and, and others, you know, getting ready, um, in their dance clothes.\nAnd the reason I throw out these images is because when it comes to output. When we go back and weigh on rebel it purpose is very strongly linked to two key things. What are our strengths? When we love to use our strengths, there are God-given talents. They innate. And when we give them expression, it feels really, really good.\nIt feels natural. It feels like we\u0026rsquo;re doing the right thing. So, um, purposes links linked to strengths and better. What\u0026rsquo;s important to us. And what is it that we value? Why does one person valued doing a certain thing over another person who value something else? It all links into this intricate internal system that has this knowing.\nSo, um, when I throw up those images or when I kind of encourage clients to come up with these images for themselves, for example, the child who\u0026rsquo;s standing on stage performing. I invite clients to, um, think about a time when they might\u0026rsquo;ve had these images for themselves. And the point of the image and the, the metaphor of the child on stage performing is not, I want to be a singer or an actor or a performer necessarily.\nIt may be, but it is a indicator that something within you really enjoys expressing it. To an audience. So you may need to find a role that allows you to do a lot of presentations because when you\u0026rsquo;re presenting you feel on you feel energized, you feel vital. You love looking at the responses from the people that are sitting in the room in which you are giving your performance.\nYeah. For others, it may be the kid in the science coat there. They may have curiosity as this burning feeling within them, and they need to work in a way that ignites that curiosity about the world. And so it\u0026rsquo;s those in roads that really link to finding our purpose and the reason why childhood is a really first hole, a place to do some of this exploration. Is because when we see children at play and this has been studied by psychologists, children, and very naturally into what we call the flow state. And, um, you know, one of the, um, you know, the most renowned kind of researchers and psychologists in these, um, areas are gentlemen cold, um, Mikael, uh, she sent me hi and Hey, did you know a lot of research?\nVarious other psychologists have sort of joined in on this area of, um, you know, sort of academic exploration. But what they\u0026rsquo;ve found is that when we enter a flow state, we are doing something that is truly engaging, but just challenging enough. And when we get to that place, we can do it for a very long period of time.\nTime actually doesn\u0026rsquo;t even occur to us. So we kind of go into a timeless. And, um, we are very focused on the task and we\u0026rsquo;re not focused on ourselves. And so the flow state is actually the state that we want to get high performing athletes into it\u0026rsquo;s the state. We want to get, you know, a high functioning corporate executives into, but you can only enter flow state when the activity genuinely engages you.\nAnd it\u0026rsquo;s called having some sort of intrinsic motivation around. So, you know, that\u0026rsquo;s That\u0026rsquo;s why childhood is such an interesting place to start exploring this because we don\u0026rsquo;t have any of those. I should, I ought to, everyone says, I must all those other externalized conditioning, you know, kind of statements that create beliefs within us.\nWe are just who we are. And so it enables us to go back and look at, yeah, I really love doing that. Of course then there\u0026rsquo;s the practicalities of you know earning a decent income, et cetera. Um, so we you need to sort of start to then map some real world stuff over it. And the practicalities of those, you know, interior kind of, um, motivational states, but it\u0026rsquo;s a really good place to start to find that.\nJames: Hmm. No, that\u0026rsquo;s really cool. And I think that\u0026rsquo;s something that as well, that I\u0026rsquo;ve heard, like from some of my friends that have sort of gone down one path and then changed and gone somewhere else, you know, it was really a process of kind of winding back, you know, th their life almost to get back to stage.\nUh, you know, they maybe made a key decision where they decided to maybe it was to study a certain thing and what to pick a certain set of subjects in high school or whatever it was. And then really go back to almost that crossroads and, and reassess, you know, was that the right choice there? And then maybe you can try, even though, you know, you\u0026rsquo;ve got to wind back a little bit to, you know, to start going somewhere else that, you know, maybe resonates a people.\nUm, with yourself. So I think that\u0026rsquo;s, that\u0026rsquo;s really interesting.\nLidia: I was inside. I think that\u0026rsquo;s right. You know, I think that life affords us so many opportunities where, you know, we come to a crossroads at various stages and they present themselves at different times for different people. But those crossroads emerge because we\u0026rsquo;re being invited to answer that question, you know, what is it that I really want to do?\nAnd the deeper element to that. We think about it as, what do I want to do? Do I want to do this subject or that subject or this course or that course or this job or that job but underlying it, if you dig beneath that surface, it\u0026rsquo;s what part of me needs expression here. What part of me do I want to give expression to in some outer world context where I\u0026rsquo;m applying myself to that every day.\nAnd so knowing what your strengths are and knowing what your values are. I can help you to navigate making those decisions so that you\u0026rsquo;re more closely aligned to giving yourself that expression, because that\u0026rsquo;s really what leads to from a psychological standpoint. That\u0026rsquo;s what leads to fulfillment.\nThat\u0026rsquo;s what leads to life satisfaction. That\u0026rsquo;s what leads to happiness.\nJames: Yeah. Yeah. That\u0026rsquo;s really cool. And just on the purpose and things like that, do you think it\u0026rsquo;s possible to kind of find your purpose, like, like sort of holistically or is it kind of this thing that you\u0026rsquo;ve kind of getting closer to. But it\u0026rsquo;s sort of this moving target where maybe it\u0026rsquo;s changing, uh, over time and you.\nTrying to get closer and closer to it, but perhaps you never, you know, you never really get to that. You know, I guess I\u0026rsquo;ve, I know stories of people and even for myself sometimes where, you know, you think, okay, I\u0026rsquo;m going to find my purpose and I\u0026rsquo;m going to do this and okay. Yeah, this feels good. I\u0026rsquo;m going to keep going, but oh, maybe it\u0026rsquo;s not quite right.\nAnd, you know, do you think you ever get to that stage where, you know, I\u0026rsquo;ve found exactly what I\u0026rsquo;m going to do? You know, this is it. I finally made it, um, you know, that kind of stage or is it, is it all. This yeah. This moving target situation where you\u0026rsquo;re sort of getting closer to it and finding your way, but, um, yeah.\nW what do you think of.\nLidia: Yeah. So I think that we burden ourselves with this idea that there is a purpose. Some Amazing individuals are born to a purpose as in one, you know, you might say that you might think that if you think back over the career of, you know, someone, some great sporting person is always a, you know, easy sort of way to understand this.\nYou might think that Michael Jordan was born to the purpose of being one of the best ever, you know, basketball will players the world has ever seen. But then that would Rob him of having any purpose now. Right. Because he\u0026rsquo;s not doing that anymore. So the way I like to think about it is that we have a purpose and that may be a staged experience.\nSo my purpose in this role, and at this particular time may simply be. An apprenticeship. I mean a learning mode. That\u0026rsquo;s my purpose right now, I\u0026rsquo;m in a skill acquisition mode. And that mode needs to be aligned with where I have natural interest where I can develop real competency because then I feel good about myself.\nLike I need to be doing something that I can actually see myself improving it. Otherwise I get demotivated. Purpose can be for this moment in time. This is the right place. And this is the right role for me. As long as I\u0026rsquo;m giving the fullest expression to things that make me feel bottled and engaged, when that has run its course, for reasons, you know, that we all have experienced, but who can explain it over a period of time, you suddenly stop whining in your interest.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s like, It\u0026rsquo;s just not doing it for me anymore. I\u0026rsquo;m just not that intro into interested. And that is a sign that it\u0026rsquo;s time for you to move into another phase. It\u0026rsquo;s still your purpose because life\u0026rsquo;s, as you say, you never get there. What\u0026rsquo;s there, it\u0026rsquo;s just a journey of giving yourself the opportunity to express yourself in your fullest capacity and at the highest functioning level that you can, some phases of.\nare learning some phases of that might be working on something to prepare it for the next stage. And they kind of like Lego blocks, right. They build on each other. You may then have a peak experience and that peak experience in your market Jordan is an example that lasts for a number of years. It may be something that, you know, is claimed or revered or, you know, kind of recognized.\nBut maybe it doesn\u0026rsquo;t have an outward recognition. Maybe it\u0026rsquo;s just your own experience of it being like a golden era for you. And then it changes and then the purpose moves into something else. And so our purpose is interwoven through kind of a journey where we change in our wisdom and our experience.\nYou know, how stage of. Also determines, you know, what it is that we\u0026rsquo;re more attuned to. So I, yeah. I like to help people by, unburdening them of this idea that there\u0026rsquo;s this one thing, there are many paths to getting there and they may all lead to this, you know, I think everyone wants what we\u0026rsquo;re talking about is that peak expression.\nThat golden moment. Yeah. And sustaining that. And so, you know, there are ways to then try and ensure that you sustain it. Um, you know, when I, when I talk to executives about, you know, peak performance and, you know, um, there\u0026rsquo;s this idea that it\u0026rsquo;s marked by certain external, still only recognized success kind of factors.\nAnd that can be a component of. But in truth, what peak performance is, is, you know, some level of optimized functioning and to, to arrive at your level of the most optimized functioning you need to, um, obviously, you know, we\u0026rsquo;re assuming that, you know, you\u0026rsquo;re competent, you\u0026rsquo;re good at what you\u0026rsquo;re doing.\nThat\u0026rsquo;s a given you have to work to the point where, you know, you\u0026rsquo;ve established that. Um, wow. To, uh, to sustain that really, really highly optimized functioning. We can\u0026rsquo;t be constantly painting because when it comes to performance curves, they\u0026rsquo;re kind of like this sloped hill, it might go up gradually and they may drop off really sharply.\nAnd at the top of the curve obviously is peak performance. And so you\u0026rsquo;re building up to it. And then there\u0026rsquo;s after your peak performance is a little extra sort of the other edge of the hill before you slugged down. And that\u0026rsquo;s your stretch. And if you don\u0026rsquo;t step back from peak performance in stretch zone and go back down the hill towards zone, you can\u0026rsquo;t sustain the peak performance.\nThe other side of the slope after stretch is just overwhelmed and the performance drops off very rapidly and sharply, and that is exhaustion, burnout, health issues, you know, just some kind of. Physical mental, emotional or spiritual crisis because we can\u0026rsquo;t sustain ourselves in those peaks. So the idea about, you know, getting to our purpose, sustaining ourselves in these peak moments is, is kind of like this dance where we go there, we tasted, sometimes we have to then go back down the hill.\nAnd so in the context of purpose, we have these pictures. We\u0026rsquo;re on, we\u0026rsquo;re on fire. Everything\u0026rsquo;s going our way. You know, we\u0026rsquo;re winning deals where, you know, our businesses growing, where we\u0026rsquo;re, you know, usually we\u0026rsquo;re working long hours. Um, and you know, but it\u0026rsquo;s a pleasure. We might work our weekends because we\u0026rsquo;re engaged in some creative process and we\u0026rsquo;re loving it.\nBut after whatever it is, peaks in us and in the activity and in the event or in something being delivered, we have to stay. And go back and that\u0026rsquo;s still our purpose. Our purpose can still be in that recuperation zone where it doesn\u0026rsquo;t seem as on because we\u0026rsquo;re getting ready to be able to reenter.\nThere\u0026rsquo;ll be a different set of circumstances. It will be a different set of people, different set of challenges, but it\u0026rsquo;s still brig nights that fire. But if we don\u0026rsquo;t, you can lose it. It\u0026rsquo;s not lose your purpose, but you can lose your ability to engage.\nAdam Geha # James: The second segment from today is from episode 20 with Adam Ghar. Adam Ghar is the CEO and co-founder of EG, which is a data driven investment manager and developer with over 5 billion of assets under management. This is a fantastic episode. And the section here today is us talking about boundaries around your time and time manage.\nthat\u0026rsquo;s cool. I mean, for me, I\u0026rsquo;m picking up a lot of things that even just like your really strong boundaries around your time, like, there\u0026rsquo;s a really, like, something\u0026rsquo;s got to be quite valuable to sort of get, get through the barrier, you know, get through that boundary. And I think that\u0026rsquo;s, that\u0026rsquo;s really important\nAdam: Yeah, it\u0026rsquo;s not rude by the way, to police your time.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s important to let your listeners know that it\u0026rsquo;s not rude to police the boundaries of your time. It\u0026rsquo;s actually an act of kindness to them and to you and to the. It\u0026rsquo;s just, don\u0026rsquo;t be gruff or rude about doing it. I\u0026rsquo;d tried to be always soft and delivery, but hard on content. And the, the point that I would make on policing your time is if people don\u0026rsquo;t get the sense that your time is super valuable commodity, then you\u0026rsquo;re sending the wrong signal to the world.\nThey should immediately feel that when they\u0026rsquo;re handling your time, they\u0026rsquo;re handling something super valuable. So, when a meeting ends early, if the content is early, I go, are we finished? Okay. So can I now leave just because it\u0026rsquo;s a half an hour meeting, if we\u0026rsquo;ve done it in 15 minutes. Fantastic. If I can hop out 15 minutes early and make a couple of phone calls when my wife calls me, I almost always answer.\nOr tell her that I\u0026rsquo;ll call her shortly back, but I\u0026rsquo;ll let her know I\u0026rsquo;m in a meeting. Is it important and show she\u0026rsquo;d? My wife during business hours never has a relaxed conversation with me because I\u0026rsquo;m sending her the signal that I\u0026rsquo;m on the field. I\u0026rsquo;m in the world cup. I\u0026rsquo;m playing. I don\u0026rsquo;t have time for distractions.\nSo if it\u0026rsquo;s important, tell me what it is. If it\u0026rsquo;s not, let\u0026rsquo;s wait until after the game, when I\u0026rsquo;ve got the Headspace nuts with my wife. So, you know, but I will, I\u0026rsquo;ll always take a call from my mom cause she calls me very irregularly and I worry about whether it\u0026rsquo;s she needs my. Well, she\u0026rsquo;s in a, in a, in a bad spot.\nSo, yeah, you know, you, you do need to take certain calls, but you need to be you need to be very clear with everyone who treats with your time that they\u0026rsquo;re dealing with a valuable commodity.\nJames: Yeah. Yeah. I think that\u0026rsquo;s, that\u0026rsquo;s a great pace for your boss. And I certainly, I liked how you use saying that kind of.\nYou know, reflect psych your, how you value your time, you know, and how you let other people respect your time. And thinking into intertwines, I think is really, really powerful.\nI was rating race in my I was going through your LinkedIn and looking at all the wonderful places you have. And one of them was around you saying how the universe is a fractal and how like, you know, looking at one day is kind of almost looking at your whole year, looking at your whole life.\nAnd you know, I thought that was really profound and I, I can link this in the show notes so people can go and rate it. Cause I thought it was really fascinating. But like, what was your inspiration? You know, does this, do you remember this poster? Yeah, like what\u0026rsquo;s the sort of inspiration. I wonder if you can kind\nAdam: Of, I can guess of course I can.\nOkay. So I\u0026rsquo;m mystically inclined. So I\u0026rsquo;m very interested in transcendental meditation. The union that one gets in deeper realization that we are part of something far greater. I very much feel that my life is part of a broader tapestry. Human evolution as a species towards a higher consciousness.\nSo I see myself as part of a great adventure of raising human consciousness to a level where it feels centeredness in a peace compassion, and non-judgment so from that context of often. Very fascinated with Eastern mysticism, which has lots of repetitive patterns in the way. For example, the thousand petaled Lotus is fractal.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s a vision you get in deep meditation and it\u0026rsquo;s signifies a feeling of union with the greater a stream of consciousness, which is the, the manifested creation. So I\u0026rsquo;m an admirer of trees. I\u0026rsquo;m an admirer rough cloud. And I take lots and lots of photos of trees and clouds that are Epiphanes for me.\nEspecially when I\u0026rsquo;m exercising in the morning, I\u0026rsquo;m cycling. I\u0026rsquo;ll pause. If I see a beautiful pattern of clouds or a beautiful tree I\u0026rsquo;ll, I\u0026rsquo;ll take detailed photos, both clouds entries on fractal. They are a symbol of how the universe is constructed and from the little. Comes the big, it is the pattern of the universe.\nAnd it is absolutely the case that if you live your day disciplines in thought and action. So too, will you be your year? So two will be your your life. And so be always faithful with the little, because from the little comes, the big.\nJames: Yeah, well than that\u0026rsquo;s really profound. I think Greg great advice there.\nI think certainly I want to ask again, you know, this idea of your time management, you know, you\u0026rsquo;ve probably, you know, you\u0026rsquo;ve been talking about the executive assistant and that\u0026rsquo;s perhaps something that\u0026rsquo;s only really come into your life, perhaps in the last, you know, recent period. I\u0026rsquo;m curious to how you.\nTime management has kind of changed over time because often, you know, some people might not have that or like, you know, I\u0026rsquo;m curious to, you know, how yeah. How, yeah. How, like, how that\u0026rsquo;s changed for you. Like\nAdam: Very much the changes as you get. So as you get older and more senior and with greater responsibilities.\nSo just to give you an idea with. Um, managing, um, eight companies in some capacity. And, and I\u0026rsquo;ve got two investments on personal account that involve that are companies and three charitable foundations that I\u0026rsquo;m involved in. So there\u0026rsquo;s 13 organizations that I make a meaningful contribution to at a strategic level.\nAnd there\u0026rsquo;s a couple that I make a meaningful contribution to on an operation. So I\u0026rsquo;m always busy now. I don\u0026rsquo;t have the luxury of not thinking about one of those 13 things when I\u0026rsquo;ve got a spare moment. Cause I know I can add value. It\u0026rsquo;s really interesting life. But, but I need to obviously learn how to put boundaries on it so that my wife and my children also get access to me and vice versa.\nBut to, to mention definitely your, your attitude towards time, you Revere time more as you get more senior. So I would love to be able to say to your young listeners, treat time. As though it is super precious while you\u0026rsquo;re 23, because you will most certainly treat it a super precious when you\u0026rsquo;re my age and you\u0026rsquo;re 50.\nSo why not commence that practice, knowing that it will become a, a reality of your life. Bring it early, make it a part of your life today. And you will get so much more. I just wish I had the disciplines that I have now when I was 23. And by the way, I\u0026rsquo;ve had a PA an EA that\u0026rsquo;s been fully dedicated to me for about 10 years.\nShe\u0026rsquo;s in Manila. So it costs me a fraction of what. To hire an Australian executive assistant. I can actually afford to have two or three in Manila. And indeed I might well go down the path of getting a second executive assistant. Once I feel that the workload for the first is maxed out and it\u0026rsquo;s every bit worth the investment.\nAs soon as you can afford an executive assistant, whether it\u0026rsquo;s paid for by your business or not, you should actually invest in that because that person\u0026rsquo;s going to enable. To, to perform. I\u0026rsquo;m able literally to do two or three times the output of what my F my 35 year old self used to be able to do. And what\u0026rsquo;s that worth millions of dollars.\nDan Brockwell # James: The third section today, comes from episode 15 with Dan Brockwell. Dan is the co-founder and chief meme officer at early work. There\u0026rsquo;s now over 3000 people, a part of the community he\u0026rsquo;s previously worked at Uber, uh, Atlassian and a bunch of other places. Dan is a huge legend. And here\u0026rsquo;s us, talking about how you can get job offers without applying through the traditional process.\nJames: And just on that, on that, and you mentioned it rotted this, John, if you get lost on, so it was around, you reached out to this company code and you got a job there. And this is a topic that I really want to speak more about it. Cause it\u0026rsquo;s. almost everyone doesn\u0026rsquo;t do this. And like people that I now speak to who work places, they\u0026rsquo;re like, yeah, this is actually kind of a good idea.\nJust reaching out to people, call it a, like, just meeting people that work at the company you want to work at. And I\u0026rsquo;m curious about your experience doing this kind of thing. That\u0026rsquo;s not sort of the traditional way of getting a job, like, you know, waiting for the company to list a job, you know, to, to then apply and, you know, kind of go, go in and try and.\nGet the job POS like, you know, 5,000 thousands of other people, you know, you\u0026rsquo;re just sort of going in as like really sort of putting more eggs in their basket and connecting to the people that work there and things like that. I\u0026rsquo;d love to hear, you know, your experience with that, and even you\u0026rsquo;ll process that, that you\u0026rsquo;ve done.\nAnd maybe there\u0026rsquo;s other people that, you know, that have done a similar, similar thing. Yeah. I\u0026rsquo;m really interested to hear your thoughts.\nDan: Yeah, absolutely. It\u0026rsquo;s just crazy. Like job listings are the tip of the iceberg of the job market. Like people see these little things and go, okay, I\u0026rsquo;ll apply for those. And they sit and hope for the best. In reality. If you think about startups, they\u0026rsquo;re always growing. They\u0026rsquo;re always raising money. They\u0026rsquo;re always hiring.\nAnd so many things just happen through referrals or ad hoc introductions or all these hidden job opportunities. And it\u0026rsquo;s like, if you want to work at a startup Like startups by their nature, like proactive people. And so the best thing you can do is be proactive. Don\u0026rsquo;t wait for the job listing, make the job listing.\nAnd yeah, happy to talk to your, kind of my experiences here. So I suppose, like I, I worked for three different startups in university. One kind of initially came when I was the first one was a startup called tilt, social payments startup. And my first. And originally I was conceptualizing an app with friends, called friends with deficits, and we were trying to like track deaths between friends at different currencies.\nDid some competitive research, found this company called tilt. I was like, damn, they\u0026rsquo;ve solved it all. But they have an ambassador group, but you wanna stop you. So I emailed the country manager in Australia. I was like, Hey, I\u0026rsquo;d love to join the ambassador group. He\u0026rsquo;s like, yeah, sure, man. I opened up applications, joined the ambassador group, did that for a couple of months.\nAnd then that converted into a growth internship with them leading an ambassador program with a couple of hundred students across this. So a ton of fun there, but I think it kind of that came from, yeah. Number one, the proactive reach out. So cold email and then number two, being part of something related to the company before actually having the role.\nSo an ambassador program is a great example, but it might be like, you know, maybe there\u0026rsquo;s like an, a beta test as group. Maybe it\u0026rsquo;s doing user research for the company. Maybe it\u0026rsquo;s, you know, helping promote the company or something that there are ways that you can kind of get affiliated with the company without actually formally being a part of it.\nYeah. I kinda internship number two was a fascinating one where there\u0026rsquo;s a restaurant ordering style called table kind of essentially kind of like, you know, me and you or Mr. Young, where you could kind of like, order on your mobile in your, in the restaurant and then wait for a wider this one, I saw ads running for the salad on Facebook.\nI was like, and it was for a referral competition. It hadn\u0026rsquo;t launched yet. I\u0026rsquo;m like, oh, this is super cool. I spammed it across a bunch of university discussion groups. Top 10 and referrals and like 24 hours or something. And then I reached out to the chief operating officer or chief executive officer on LinkedIn.\nI was like, Hey dude, like, yeah. Love the problem. You\u0026rsquo;re working on super, super fascinating. I\u0026rsquo;m actually interning at a startup right now, but so are your thing. And I was like, oh, I\u0026rsquo;m just gonna share this with like a bunch of people ended up getting to this referral position at this time. If you\u0026rsquo;re open to bringing on a marketing intern, let\u0026rsquo;s have a chat.\nAnd meeting them at Westfield in Bondi junction, one meeting, and then work them for like six months. So that, I think that came from that there were two things. Number one called LinkedIn DMS just amazing. And with cold LinkedIn games, like the key thing is like, who, why, what, who are you? Why are you reaching out?\nAnd what\u0026rsquo;s in it for them. So explain like who you are. And maybe like you\u0026rsquo;re a student majoring in this interning at this place. Why are reaching out you came across them and really liked XYZ at about them. And what\u0026rsquo;s in it for them. Are you open to taking on intern? Not, are you currently hiring an internal currently seeking, but just say you open because no one wants to be closed.\nPeople might not have a job listing and then you go, Hey, you open to an intern and like, oh yeah, maybe let\u0026rsquo;s have a chat. So it\u0026rsquo;s it\u0026rsquo;s a good way to get, kind of get a foot in the door. And the other thing there is like adding value before you\u0026rsquo;ve even reached out. So I reached out after I\u0026rsquo;d gone and shared the app with a bunch of. And that shows that proactivity where sound goes, oh, cool. Okay. If we hire this person, we know we\u0026rsquo;re not going to have to wait to give them instructions. They\u0026rsquo;re just going to go and do things that help the company. So there\u0026rsquo;s a cool piece there. Final one is an interesting one. There was a job listing, but it wasn\u0026rsquo;t an internship.\nIt was at a company called offload awesome. Like a road freight logistics startup in Australia. And they had a listing for a full-time operations. I was working at Amazon all the time. So it\u0026rsquo;d been deepening my interest in logistics, but I wanted to kind of go back and hop back into the startup world.\nAnd I\u0026rsquo;d seen this listing and I went, well, I can\u0026rsquo;t do full-time, but I could do part-time. So I just applied and then I just messaged the chief operating officer. I went like, Hey man, like yeah, love what you\u0026rsquo;re working on. And I\u0026rsquo;ve got no background, like Amazon Uber. So passion about logistics space. Context is, you know, I\u0026rsquo;m still wrapping up at uni.\nBut would you be open to, you know, taking on someone. And I had several interviews with the team and eventually like, yep. Sweet. And so that was meant to be a full-time role, but turned it into a part-time role. I ended up going full-time there. So I worked there for probably six months. It was my last role before last year.\nAbsolutely loved it. There really, the lesson is like sometimes a job description will tell you roughly when. But they\u0026rsquo;re flexible. So sometimes it might say two plus years experience apply. Anyway, sometimes I might say full-time, if you want do part-time apply anyway it\u0026rsquo;s, don\u0026rsquo;t sell yourself out of the opportunity, have the conversation.\nAnd if they like, you they\u0026rsquo;ll make space for you, if it\u0026rsquo;s not the, if it\u0026rsquo;s not the right fit and that\u0026rsquo;s okay. Some people go, you know what? Sorry, we need someone full-time and that\u0026rsquo;s totally fine. It\u0026rsquo;s not a, not a personal insult, but I think with. Number of companies that you talk to these opportunities will start to pop up where you can create job opportunities where you thought previously job opportunities didn\u0026rsquo;t exist.\nI think kind of like wrapping that up. Yeah. I think look cold LinkedIn DMS to like founders and hiring managers at startups. It\u0026rsquo;s super, super powerful, but I\u0026rsquo;d say as well on the kind of like standing out to companies side beyond just kind of like doing like DMS on like LinkedIn, Twitter, whatever another cool thing you could do is like sending like a video resume or a video pitch to stand out for other things. So I\u0026rsquo;m seeing some candidates are called like loom videos before, which is super, super cool. And it gives that real personal flavor. Obviously you can go and refer people. You can, I have really cheeky pieces. Like you can actually give them like feedback on their app. Like you could say, Hey, I actually went through and redesign your website, or I went through and like rewrote the copy of your website.\nSo being proactive and be like, here\u0026rsquo;s what I would do to improve it and just sending it to them and just seeing what happens. It\u0026rsquo;s. I think in general, again, I\u0026rsquo;m giving feedback on the product or writing about the company, like writing an article about like, you could write an article on, oh, like, you know, how eucalyptus has grown to become, you know, a billion dollar company by using Instagram marketing or something.\nI don\u0026rsquo;t know if that quite a unicorn yet. You\u0026rsquo;ll have to fact check me on that one. But yeah, the, the point is that I think there are so many ways to proactively stand out that a resume and then not a cover letter. If you want to stand out and you want to be in a job pool of one and not a 500, do something different.\nJames: Yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s so important, so important. And I think, you know, even like something like a personal brand, like we split earlier, you know, things like that combined with a little bit, it\u0026rsquo;s like, yeah, it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s really, really powerful when you going to apply for jobs like this.\nDan: For sure. I think also like, I mean, coming back to that personal brand thread, it\u0026rsquo;s really interesting because I think having a PESTEL Brennan one just creates luck. Like I\u0026rsquo;ve gotten lucky many, many times in my life. And I think a lot of my career success was almost used down to luck, but I do think that having a personal brand like amplifies.\nJust more lucky opportunities come up. For instance, like I was pretty active on LinkedIn. I was one of those Koreans, you know, LinkedIn names for career minded, teens type of people. And I would like make posts on LinkedIn and stuff. And I won some award in like the business consulting space made a post about it and actually ended up getting a message from a guy who was working at Google and he\u0026rsquo;s like, Hey, like, love your profile.\nWould you have interest in internship at Google? I was like, And now this guy ended up moving to Uber. I think a couple months later, like we kind of lost touch and then reconnected. And he\u0026rsquo;s like, Hey, actually, I\u0026rsquo;m not Reuben, but when I\u0026rsquo;m bringing on interns and like, we\u0026rsquo;ve got like one spot left, would you be interested?\nAnd I was like, Yeah,\nshow up. That\u0026rsquo;s awesome. And ended up getting an internship at Uber in sales, purely from just someone who had seen my content on LinkedIn. So that\u0026rsquo;s what I\u0026rsquo;m saying. Like, is it like having the PESTEL brand it\u0026rsquo;s yet? Not who, you know, it\u0026rsquo;s who knows you and for what? They just encountered.\nYour content and that\u0026rsquo;s kind of like the initial funnel into okay. Then opportunities with you. It\u0026rsquo;s advertising for you pretty much.\nJames: That\u0026rsquo;s cool. And it\u0026rsquo;s exciting that everyone has this ability to, I think, you know, there\u0026rsquo;s no wall barrier between you and, you know, doing lucky, having that story, like what you just mentioned, like getting people coming to ask you for jobs. Like there\u0026rsquo;s absolutely nothing in the way. So yeah. It\u0026rsquo;s so, so.\nDan: Yeah, I think that\u0026rsquo;s super important, right? Because like from an equity, diversity access inclusion perspective, you know, you look at traditional hiring and nutrition industries like consulting law and banking, and there\u0026rsquo;s often been a perception of nepotism or like, you know, all, you have to have friends in the phone where you have to know people at the firm.\nI think the beauty of. Online content is anyone can do it. It\u0026rsquo;s permissionless. You don\u0026rsquo;t need to know anyone, you just start creating. And if you\u0026rsquo;re creating good stuff and you\u0026rsquo;re creating consistently, it\u0026rsquo;ll attract people who care about those things. I think the really important thing there then becomes, okay, how do we actually help more young people, particularly people from underrepresented and disadvantaged backgrounds actually take advantage of the power of content creation for their careers.\nBecause I think it just gives you a massive, massive.\nMichael Gill # James: Section number four of today\u0026rsquo;s podcast is with Michael Gill\nmichael Gill, otherwise known as Gil worked at law firm, DLA Piper in Sydney for over 50 years, at different stages. He was chairman managing partner, and now a consultant he\u0026rsquo;s been the president of the law society of new south Wales was the president of the law council of Australia.\nAnd he established the Australia insurance law association. He has some really interesting ideas about what it means to have a career. And here\u0026rsquo;s us talking about work life balance.\nMichael: But just let them give us a question.\nThey find my, what for you is work. How can you think of the word?\nJames: Yeah, I think, work is almost sort of what you\u0026rsquo;re employed to do in some sense, like, whatever your sort of job is, that\u0026rsquo;s like, or even, doing things for an employer would be, would be work. And even, I guess you could maybe extend that if you were doing like this podcast for me is probably work as well.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s just a bit more, it\u0026rsquo;s not more, it just is fun. So it doesn\u0026rsquo;t feel like work. And even though it\u0026rsquo;s not necessarily for anyone, I probably would still fall under that. But I think if you were looking at it from a career sense, then I would say,\nyeah, if it\u0026rsquo;s for the employees, That\u0026rsquo;s what\nPeter: I guess in a careers. And so I, I agree with Frisco, but I think. There are a lot of other ways you could on this, a bit of a lawyer answer, and most other ways you could interpret the word. I, I play soccer, that could be considered going to training, trying to improve. That\u0026rsquo;s a type of work.\nI don\u0026rsquo;t think it\u0026rsquo;s limited to just rocking up then doing tasks for an employer, I guess. So there\u0026rsquo;s lots of other ways you can interpret the word work, I guess. I don\u0026rsquo;t know. It\u0026rsquo;s however you want to think about it really? I don\u0026rsquo;t know. I don\u0026rsquo;t know if that really answers your question too much, Michael, but.\nMichael: Very good answers. And it\u0026rsquo;s the sort of stuff that will be revealed to you personally, in your own circumstance with a lot of guys, all giants by news. Do you prefer James will freak out?\nJames: James is, is fine. Two of my close friends can be out. Cause we have a few James is in our friendship group, so it\u0026rsquo;s tended to be easier. Yeah.\nMichael: I must say\nPeter: Yeah.\nMichael: I\u0026rsquo;m totally distracted by make the frigates.\nJames: Yeah.\nMichael: So James, when you say do something for your employer, can you think of examples where you do something, which is only for your employer? In other words, you have personally nothing invested.\nJames: Hmm. Oh yeah. I\u0026rsquo;d say, yeah, it\u0026rsquo;s a good point. And I think, even if it\u0026rsquo;s, I\u0026rsquo;m just thinking of like a basic task, like, sending some emails or things like that, you\u0026rsquo;re still, it\u0026rsquo;s still a mutually beneficial relationship in that. Like they\u0026rsquo;re paying you to do that. So that there\u0026rsquo;s something in it for you in that sense, but even in terms of a career progression web looking at it, I guess there\u0026rsquo;s a ways in the things that you do as still driving a career forward and maybe make\nyou more able to be employed. What I do other things for other people. So I guess there\u0026rsquo;s growing as skillset is also something that is beneficial to yourself as\nwell.\nMichael: Yeah, that was one of the woods I was hoping you would get to just to get the money for a while. But yeah, even things like a simple email has the potential to develop you around knowledge skills, and. Every interaction if you think of it that way. So coming back to my response to you in a funny sort of way, I don\u0026rsquo;t see any more work-life balance because as I\u0026rsquo;ve had more time to read new things, since I retired from the partnership in 2008, I now see work very much as what you do whilst you waiting for the real joys in your life. And once you are in that space, I promise you, you will never think of it as work a guy. When you largely I\u0026rsquo;ll answer a hundred percent, I\u0026rsquo;ve done like a, I have a book, but when you are a large. All of the thought that I really love doing this stuff. Yeah. This is Nate.\nPeter: Okay.\nMichael: I love the people that I\u0026rsquo;m with. I love the opportunities that it\u0026rsquo;s giving me to develop as a human being. Yeah. It makes me return to my family every day, a really decent human being. I no longer have any notions of leaving the work at the front door. So it makes sense.\nPeter: Yeah.\nMichael: And it\u0026rsquo;s,\nPeter: Strive forward.\nMichael: And it\u0026rsquo;s not easy. It\u0026rsquo;s odd because there\u0026rsquo;s so much in life that completes without attainment of that spice. And, I could start to. Some of the awful challenges that fuel generation adds about lifestyle and getting the sort of money that enables you to live in a particular way, and then being locked in your selves and those close to your about whatever else I do in life.\nI need a job that returns me. I a minimum of X dollars every month. And when young, when young lawyers picks up your point, which is going to look for honesty to it, when young lawyers from big law firms come to me and stay all my STIs admission of five-year, this isn\u0026rsquo;t really for me. And I had to tell my parents, a lot of y\u0026rsquo;all in the M and a department of three Hills.\nSo Dale I pop or something. I hate it. I absolutely heightened. And I cited them having fought and this money too, because if money is not terribly important to you, it was a lawyer, the world\u0026rsquo;s your oyster.\nPeter: Yeah.\nMichael: But if the first thing you have to do is get a tick on not less than a hundred thousand dollars a year or $200,000 a year, or being on that slippery ladder to chop the ship.\nWhat will that stop? If all of that\u0026rsquo;s there, then all you\u0026rsquo;ve done is closed off a huge number of options, which might not even want to include your authentic stone.\nCheran Ketheesuran # James: We\u0026rsquo;re up to number five in the podcast today. And this, this part of the podcast comes from episode 35. The last episode with Shant Theran. He is a former investment banking intern at Macquarie. He, uh, currently interns at IR ventures and his incoming graduate at McKinsey. We spoke about,, Sharon\u0026rsquo;s lessons\nfor people like university and his general lessons for approaching life.\nI\u0026rsquo;ve got one more question for you, Sean. And that is a question. I ask all the guests that come on the shot and it is if you could kind of let\u0026rsquo;s let\u0026rsquo;s even for yourself, go back to when you were first starting university and kind of add into this journey of discovering, um, you know, the different opportunities that are, that are awaiting you.\nAnd what advice would you give to someone that\u0026rsquo;s perhaps, you know, now just starting out on their.\nCheran: Yeah, totally. Um, I think I\u0026rsquo;ve seen a few things. Um, I\u0026rsquo;ve always had three things, um, have to keep it very structured as a future consultant. Um, I think the first one would be do things your own way. I\u0026rsquo;ve mentioned the phrase, hedonic treadmill a few times now, but it\u0026rsquo;s very easy. And I know that I am a person who subjects this on others is you see the LinkedIn\u0026rsquo;s the table and you say, oh, well, by doing this, you got to this.\nAnd by doing, they, he got to say, and, um, have a consciousness that there are a million ways to get to where you want to be and be driven enough that you pursue goals. And you know, if you are pursuing roles and titles and whatever it is, that\u0026rsquo;s fine, but don\u0026rsquo;t be so driven that you forget to SSA, smell the roses from the way.\nUm, and you forget about the race, why you\u0026rsquo;ve done that journey. And you know, I\u0026rsquo;m not ending up in banking, but I\u0026rsquo;m still glad I\u0026rsquo;ve spent one and a half years in banking because that\u0026rsquo;s taught me a whole, um, skill set of things that if I was so focused on the outcome, I think that was a waste, which certainly isn\u0026rsquo;t.\nSo I\u0026rsquo;d say, firstly, do things your way. Second thing. Um, nobody cares. Um, and that sounds rather flippant. Um, that what I mean by that is genuinely, nobody cares about so many of the failures that we have on a daily basis. I remember, um, seeing this visual visualization once on. And if you imagine two concentric circles and you sort of have one circle and then you have a little small circle, um, in the middle of it, um, and that small circle is how much other people think about you and all the space around it is how much you think about other people thinking about you.\nUm, and that\u0026rsquo;s just the reality yet. Literally nobody cares. Everyone has their own issues and problems to sort through. And it\u0026rsquo;s very liberating once you realize that, because all of a sudden, you\u0026rsquo;re just focused on your own happiness and your personal pursuit of your goals. Um, and that\u0026rsquo;s all you need in life.\nI think life is already tough enough, um, without worrying about what other people think or, you know, what\u0026rsquo;s going to be the impact of me not getting X or not being at this stage in life. Um, and especially when you surround yourself in a high academic shaving background of students and cohorts, as you know, the universities, you and I have been to, um, either it gets very easy to fall into that middle. And then the last thing I would say, um, is that life will generally be okay. Um, and I think this sort of links back to, you know, nobody cares, but, um, I\u0026rsquo;ve said this a lot too, you know, it\u0026rsquo;s graduate season at the moment. A lot of students in the years below some students that I tutor at university has been really stressed and worried about, um, applications.\nAnd I think, remember that everybody\u0026rsquo;s. Peaks at a certain period of time and that\u0026rsquo;s not going to be 22 for everybody. And it\u0026rsquo;ll be rather sad if you\u0026rsquo;re picking a 22. So I think, just remember that the vast majority of your listeners and the people who are part of this community, um, have lived in a time, which has never been better than time before.\nNumber one. Uh, and that second late, generally, everybody, if you work hard enough, if you don\u0026rsquo;t that luck impact everything in your life, you will be okay. Um, and you will get to where you want to eventually, um, and that there\u0026rsquo;s no rush in life in terms of reaching certain goals. I just, because it seems like the vast majority of people reach goals within a certain period of time doesn\u0026rsquo;t mean that you have to be part of that as well, because there are countless numbers of people, you know, Reed Hoffman is a prime example, uh, period reached their peak successes and their Fest successes in their forties and fifties.\nSo, um, That would be my three pieces of advice, do things here right away. Um, nobody cares and, uh, it\u0026rsquo;ll all be okay, James. It\u0026rsquo;ll all be okay.\nLacey Filipich # James: The sixth to section today comes from episode 29 with Lacey Phillip pitch, Lacey.,,, was valedictorian university in her chemical engineering degree. And she\u0026rsquo;s started work in the mining industry since then. She\u0026rsquo;s released a book, given Ted talks, founded her company called money school.\nShe\u0026rsquo;s done all this stuff. It\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s really, really incredible. Here\u0026rsquo;s her advice to graduates, um, and she shares a great story about working for the right boss.\nif you had to restart your career kind of wind back to when you were first starting out working, is there anything looking back now that you would approach kind of your career progression and perhaps your finances as well?\nIs there anything that you would do differently knowing what.\nLacey: Oh, well, there\u0026rsquo;s one tiny thing in my finances that I didn\u0026rsquo;t understand when I was a graduate. Um, but I, I know now that I go like, oh shoot, I should have done something about that. Um,\nwhen I was working for Western mining, BHB took us over. That was in my second year as a graduate. And we had been given options.\nWe Western mining and I didn\u0026rsquo;t understand what options meant. And so I didn\u0026rsquo;t exercise them. Um,\nand\nnow I know what options they I\u0026rsquo;m like. Ah, I was like that eight grand I could have had. Um, so when something happens financially at work where they have like a share plan or they talk about salary sacrificing or your superannuation matching and stuff like that, if you don\u0026rsquo;t understand, take the time to get the support so you can make a good day. It\u0026rsquo;s really important that if you, if you get an offer for something from work that you understand, whether it\u0026rsquo;s the right thing for you or not, and that you take the opportunities that you can cause often things like those share plans and those options plans are designed to keep you with the company, but they are a leg up.\nThey want, they are an advantage, but if you just sign without understanding them or ignore them because they\u0026rsquo;re too hard, you can give up a lot. Take the time to learn would be by advice there. Um, the other thing I would encourage people to do, which I hadn\u0026rsquo;t even at the time thought about. You can tell from my discussion that I\u0026rsquo;m quite a forthright person and I will fight for what\u0026rsquo;s right for me.\nAnd something that happened to me when I was in that second year, I was a graduate, I was one of seven graduates and two of us were female. Now, the five women. And we were at a site where there was 10 women in total, out of 300 employees in Calgary, in Western Australia. Right. So that was the reality of going into mining in a remote location back then.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s very different. Now, you know, the next site I went to was 20% female versus, you know, 10 out of 300. So, um, that\u0026rsquo;s not normal, but what often happens when you\u0026rsquo;re the only woman on a site or one of the few is that you get the women\u0026rsquo;s jobs, uh,\nwhich w for this particular case was my general manager had lost in the 18 months.\nI\u0026rsquo;d been there. He\u0026rsquo;d lost five executive assistants. That\u0026rsquo;s not normal. Clearly, clearly that was a difficult role, but they couldn\u0026rsquo;t find someone and they really needed someone. So they asked me to fill in and I had a massive tantrum, like not a, you know, throwing my fist, but I went into my boss\u0026rsquo;s office and was like, you\u0026rsquo;re just asking me to do this because I\u0026rsquo;m a woman and I\u0026rsquo;m not happy about that.\nThere are five other graduates who are male. Any of them could do that role. Why did you pick me? Because I had a real bee in my bonnet about this. Like we always give the women the job of taking the notes and they always have to get the frigging tea and all that stuff. Anyway, it was a real thing that I had heard so much about, and I was really sensitive to it.\nAnd so I overreacted, but I was really like, it was a fair call. My boss said that is a fair call for you to say that, because this does happen. And he said, look, I promise you, Lacey, that\u0026rsquo;s not the reason you were chosen for this. Can you just take my word from it? That you\u0026rsquo;re going to learn something really important and.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s why you want to take this role. And I was like, okay, fine. I really liked the boss who was fantastic. Um,\nJP and I said, all right, fine, I\u0026rsquo;ll do it. But I\u0026rsquo;m not happy that you\u0026rsquo;ve picked me because I\u0026rsquo;m a girl. And he\u0026rsquo;s like, I\u0026rsquo;m not picking you because your girl stuff. Okay. I find fun. Anyway. So turns out it was when BHP was looking to buy Western mining.\nAnd I got to be part of the war room that got set up before the merger and acquisition. So I got to be in on the discussions with the executive team and hear how they would pitch the company, how they would persuade another company to buy them. I got to learn about M and a. Now letting that at 22. Is it unusual if you\u0026rsquo;re not like in that kind of like for graduate engineer, who\u0026rsquo;d just come off the furnace in west west scruffy, you know, covered in dirt outfit to be in these meetings, listening to this because I could make grass because I could type.\nAnd they needed that to hear those conversations that were happening to understand how the Warren would get set up to learn. That was like some of the most invaluable experience I got in that graduate program. Like you couldn\u0026rsquo;t, you couldn\u0026rsquo;t have planned. So my boss had noted that I wanted to be a CEO.\nHe had noted that. Cause I had told him he did. He\u0026rsquo;s like, where do you want to go? Eventually I\u0026rsquo;m like, well, I\u0026rsquo;d like to be a CEO eventually. So I wouldn\u0026rsquo;t do, you know, management stuff, but he was doing it so that I could get this amazing experience because I was the graduate who had said I\u0026rsquo;m interested in that stuff.\nSo he was doing the right thing by me. The fact that I was female, neither here nor there, but if I hadn\u0026rsquo;t listened to him and I\u0026rsquo;m just lucky that he didn\u0026rsquo;t go, we\u0026rsquo;ll find, I\u0026rsquo;ll give it to someone else just as well. You know, someone else, I\u0026rsquo;m very lucky that he was understanding. And so my response, so that\u0026rsquo;s the difference between having a good boss and a bad boss?\nSorry, what did I learn out of that? Sometimes? You\u0026rsquo;ll think it\u0026rsquo;s because of some thing that it\u0026rsquo;s not, you know, I, I had a bruise on my bottom, everything I looked at, I was like, they\u0026rsquo;re asking me to do that. Cause I\u0026rsquo;m a girl on a freezing, uh, on principle because I\u0026rsquo;m a feminist and thou shalt not make me.\nUm, it\u0026rsquo;s not always the same. It\u0026rsquo;s just, That\u0026rsquo;s your frame of reference. Okay. So you\u0026rsquo;d need to be willing to listen when people tell you that\u0026rsquo;s wrong, sometimes you\u0026rsquo;ll be right. Sometimes you won\u0026rsquo;t be that\u0026rsquo;s. I think the most important thing that the second thing that I learned out of this experience, that\u0026rsquo;s something that\u0026rsquo;s carried me through.\nMy whole career is pick your boss wisely. There is no one who will have a bigger impact on how happy you are at work. Then your boss, the end, 80% of your satisfaction at work, I reckon comes from whether you have a good boss or an outside good boss. They have to have had not so good. Uh, to be able to understand what a good boss is, I think, and I\u0026rsquo;ve had only a couple in my time.\nI\u0026rsquo;ve been very lucky. I\u0026rsquo;ve had fantastic bosses, but I started to get very choosy very early on about who I\u0026rsquo;d worked for for that reason. I think there were times when I was younger, when I worked for, uh, I\u0026rsquo;m going to be blunt, a bad boss, he was shocking. Should not have been allowed to manage people, just cookie cutter for everything.\nUh, no, no. Taking into account anyone\u0026rsquo;s personal views, circumstances or preferences. Just know this is how we do it. You will do it this way. Or we never give people that, that high mark you only ever get, everybody gets an average like that. He was just, he should not be allowed to manage people. Um, recognizing that\u0026rsquo;s not, you necessarily, it\u0026rsquo;s not your fault.\nI had a lot of, uh, that sort of like, cause when you knew him, what the workplace, you don\u0026rsquo;t really understand whether, um, that\u0026rsquo;s because you\u0026rsquo;re not meeting expectations or whether you\u0026rsquo;ve just been lumped with a bad boss. it\u0026rsquo;s a little bit of both. Um, so you\u0026rsquo;ve gotta be honest with yourself, but if you\u0026rsquo;ve got a bad boss, just accept that\u0026rsquo;s a bad boss and they\u0026rsquo;re not right for you.\nMaybe they\u0026rsquo;re good for other people, but not right for you and become choosy. So that\u0026rsquo;s, I think something that I learned based on my youth experience going, I\u0026rsquo;ve gotta be really picky about who I work for and don\u0026rsquo;t don\u0026rsquo;t work for assholes. The end.\nJosh Farr # James: To finish us off today. We have episode 22 with Josh far. Josh is the founder of the campus consultancy. He\u0026rsquo;s worked with more than 20,000 leaders across schools, university nonprofits. He\u0026rsquo;s given Ted talks. He\u0026rsquo;s, he\u0026rsquo;s one awards for his speaking. He is an incredible, incredible person. And today we\u0026rsquo;re gonna hear again, his advice for graduates, uh, that are starting in the workforce today.\nwhat\u0026rsquo;s some advice that you\u0026rsquo;d give yourself. If you were starting your career at the startup.\nJosh: Oh, that\u0026rsquo;s a good one. What advice would I give myself? I was restarting my career. Maybe preempting, probably that, or should I just said that would probably be it like thinking about the next five years. Who do you want to help? A practical way to do that is I think if someone\u0026rsquo;s lost, try to answer this question.\nI think if you\u0026rsquo;re lost and I\u0026rsquo;m sure I\u0026rsquo;m stealing this from someone, this is not an original. But the point of a career is to end unnecessary suffering. So if you\u0026rsquo;re not sure what you want to do, try to end the unnecessary suffering. What does that mean? Find some suffering, find someone that\u0026rsquo;s struggling, find something that shouldn\u0026rsquo;t be suffering, like where we have a resourcefulness problem, not a resource problem.\nYou know, like I looked on, I was telling you before we started recording, I booked an Airbnb today. And when I logged on the homepage of Airbnb said, you know, can we help that house 200,000 Ukrainian refugees or something like. Obviously there\u0026rsquo;s more than that, but that was the number that was up there.\nI\u0026rsquo;m pretty sure it was 200,000 as it was a bunch of people on Airbnb who have a vacant place in different parts of the world who can say yes, actually I could put a family up for two weeks. I could actually go without two weeks of Airbnb income and I could put someone up for two weeks or two months or two years or whatever it is.\nAnd I could, I could do this. And it\u0026rsquo;s a small sacrifice. My family\u0026rsquo;s not going to staff. I could do this. Lots of people listening might not have a spare Airbnb to put up, but they might have a spare weekend. They might have a couple of hours. They might have 50 bucks a month that they can donate. So the question would be my advice to a younger self would be, find a problem that you care about.\nFind some suffering, as weird as that sounds try to find something with some leverage where it doesn\u0026rsquo;t need to happen, where there is a solution where there are great organizations or great people. Yeah. Start getting involved in that space, like change your proximity. The thing that changed everything for me was proximity.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s the hardest advice that I\u0026rsquo;d give to my younger self, but it\u0026rsquo;s really hard to say to people is like, I think you need to go to a place in the world where there are real problems and spend some time there. Now there are real problems in your neighborhood, right? Domestic abuse, all that sort of stuff.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s not like you\u0026rsquo;ve just got to go knock it around on the neighbors house. Like, is there any suffering happening in here? Like it\u0026rsquo;s kind of, it\u0026rsquo;s not the same, you know, so it\u0026rsquo;s kind of. So it\u0026rsquo;s either tap into what\u0026rsquo;s happening in the local environment or go somewhere being in an environment where it smacks you.\nLike for me, I needed that smack of like, Hey, there are real problems out here and you can do something about that. And it\u0026rsquo;s not overly like palatable, but it was really practical. And that gap between what I thought I wanted and what I needed became really apparent. So that would probably be my. out somewhere where there\u0026rsquo;s a real challenge, be around people who are actually solving it.\nLike how has just in saw this crisis? And I didn\u0026rsquo;t see anyone solving it\u0026rsquo;d be really depressing. But then I went to the refugee border crossing and I saw local families. Bakers, people had next to nothing, giving away everything, like closing their business and giving away all the bread to refugees who they didn\u0026rsquo;t know who were from another country who didn\u0026rsquo;t even have the same religion.\nLike some of the religions blatantly said, these guys are the enemy. And they\u0026rsquo;re like, yeah, We\u0026rsquo;re going to give our entire lives to helping them. I was like, that\u0026rsquo;s religion. You know, that\u0026rsquo;s what it\u0026rsquo;s about. And it just, things like that, being around that, being around people who is so selfless, so generous, that just changed my perspective.\nSo I think a version of that rant is what I\u0026rsquo;d hoped to tell him about.\nOutro # James: Thanks for listening to this episode I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. If you want to get my takeaways, the things that I learned from this episode, please go to Graduate Theory.com/subscribe, where you can get my takeaways and all the information about each episode, straight to your inbox.\nThanks so much for listening again today, and we\u0026rsquo;re looking forward to seeing you next week.\n← Back to episode 37\n","date":"4 July 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/graduate-theory/37-on-the-best-of-graduate-theory/transcript/","section":"Graduate Theory Transcripts","summary":"← Back to episode 37\nThis transcript has been lightly edited for readability. It may still contain transcription errors.\nIntro # James: Hello, and welcome to Graduate Theory. Today’s episode is a compilation of many different episodes that we’ve had in the past on Graduate Theory.\n","title":"Transcript: On The Best Of Graduate Theory","type":"graduate-theory-transcripts"},{"content":" Watch the conversation Graduate Theory Open YouTube ↗ Read the full transcript → Today\u0026rsquo;s guest is incredibly humble and has fantastic insights into important topics.\nIn this episode, we chat about the importance of thinking for yourself and why questioning everything leads to great insights.\nIf you haven\u0026rsquo;t already subscribed to the Graduate Theory newsletter. Do it now 👇\nSubscribe Now\nMax Marchione is the Founder of the angel investing group Ultraviolet Ventures, the Founder of Next Chapter, has interned at Goldman Sachs and works part-time at venture fund GGV.\nHe is currently studying Maths and Finance at the University of Sydney.\n🤝 Connect with Max # LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/maxmarchione/\nNext Chapter - https://www.nextchapter.to/\n👇 Episode Takeaways # Independent Thought # The main thread through our conversation was the idea of independent thought.\nThinking independently is where original ideas and unique insights come from. As Max pointed out though, we don\u0026rsquo;t want people to be completely independent because that would make the world a little crazy.\nWhen I asked Max about how he thinks about independent thinking he said there were some things to keep in mind.\n1. Radical Open-Mindedness # The precursor to independent thinking is Radical Open-mindedness. Having unique thoughts about things comes from questioning everything.\n2. Question Everything # Max mentioned that most people assume that the things in the world are good by default, but he assumes that there is definitely room for improvement.\nRules exist to prevent us from doing anything wrong but also prevent us from doing anything exceptional.\nMax gave the example of studying at school. He chose not to do the homework his teachers set, and instead go about learning the content his own way. This is breaking the rules, but for a better outcome.\nConsider what rules you follow and how you could break them for better outcomes.\nCourage # One of Max\u0026rsquo;s ideas that hasn\u0026rsquo;t taken off as well as he thought was the idea that courage is more important than competence.\nThere are many competent people, but only a few are courageous.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s courage and being in the arena that brings luck and the probability of outsized outcomes.\nMany people could do something - but few have the courage to pursue the opportunity.\nBalancing Both Sides # One thing I learned about Max was that he has a great ability to balance both sides of an argument. When we were discussing things, often he would make a great point for one side and then make an equally great point about the other side.\nI think this general ability to be able to look at issues objectively and note the positives of alternative approaches is a fantastic skill, and one we need more of in an increasingly polarised world.\nThe Happiness Paradox # A topic I\u0026rsquo;ve been interested in recently is the idea of both enjoying the present while also striving for the future.\nThere are phrases out there like \u0026lsquo;Never Be Satisfied\u0026rsquo; which encourage us to continually push ourselves towards a better future.\nMax put this nicely when he said that striving for a better future and enjoying the present are not mutually exclusive. It is possible to perform well and also enjoy doing it.\nLessons for Peak Workplace Performance # Max gave some great tips for performing well in the workplace.\n1/ Pick Your Game\nTry to align your skills and personality with a suitable role or opportunity. Don\u0026rsquo;t be Lionel Messi playing basketball.\n2/ Overcommunicate\nTelling your manager and team where you are up to is not weakness, it\u0026rsquo;s proactive.\n3/ Reliability\nReliability helps us to compound those small things into big things. Reliability isn\u0026rsquo;t doing the best projects or being the smartest employee, it\u0026rsquo;s about doing something and doing it consistently well.\nIf people know they can count on you, you will be suitably rewarded.\nGet the Newsletter\n📝 Content Timestamps # 00:00 Max Marchione\n01:20 Max\u0026rsquo;s Journey\n03:53 Max\u0026rsquo;s Learning Gap Year\n07:41 How did learning how to learn affect Max\n11:24 How does Max go about being an independent thinker?\n18:21 Idea\u0026rsquo;s that Max thinks are undervalued\n25:46 Max\u0026rsquo;s best investment of time and money\n29:45 How Max approaches enjoying the present vs striving towards the future\n35:39 How does Max approach his career?\n41:23 How does Max think about high performance in the workplace?\n44:34 Max\u0026rsquo;s Advice\n47:34 Connect with Max\n47:48 Outro\n","date":"27 June 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/graduate-theory/36-max-marchione/","section":"Graduate Theory","summary":" Watch the conversation Graduate Theory Open YouTube ↗ Read the full transcript → Today’s guest is incredibly humble and has fantastic insights into important topics.\n","title":"Max Marchione | On Independent Thought And The Value Of Courage","type":"graduate-theory"},{"content":"← Back to episode 36\nThis transcript has been lightly edited for readability. It may still contain transcription errors.\nMax: I think some people\u0026rsquo;s default is that society, the way it is as good. My default is that society, the way it is bad and the underlying the underlying action or that the action that underpins that is break the rules.\nIs not break the rules to just like flunk stuff.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s break the rules. If you see like a more productive way of doing things.\nJames: Hello, and welcome to Graduate Theory. Today\u0026rsquo;s guest is the founder of angel investing ultraviolet ventures. He\u0026rsquo;s the founder of next chapter he\u0026rsquo;s intern at Goldman Sachs and he works.\nPart-time adventure fund GG B C on top of all this, he is currently studying maths and finance at the university of Sydney. Please. Welcome to the show, max mark.\nMax: Thank\nJames: Mate. It\u0026rsquo;s fantastic to have you on the show. You are someone that has accomplished so much and, uh, I\u0026rsquo;m really excited to kind of dig deep into. Get into your mind a little bit and learn more about how you think about, uh, approaching different situations in your life, but perhaps for the audience listening, I\u0026rsquo;d love to kind of do a, a brief recap of, of yourself and perhaps your university end of high school to university journey, um, finishing high school and going into, into university.\nWhat was that, um, experience like for you?\nMax\u0026rsquo;s Journey # Max: Yeah. So I\u0026rsquo;ll, I\u0026rsquo;ll give you the rundown of like high school university to now. And what I really want to make clear is that I wanna like glorify anything because I think there\u0026rsquo;s this tendency for narratives to be told retrospectively through like rose colored glasses. And it sounds all planned and structured and people see it at the end of the journey and they\u0026rsquo;re like, oh wow, this person\u0026rsquo;s amazing.\nWhereas I think 90% of people I know, including myself, our narratives were very iterative, right. We took one step at a time and then, and then kind of got to where we were from there. So after high school, um, I took a gap year and I call it a learning gap year. And the basic premise of this was to take a year off.\nTo learn things that you don\u0026rsquo;t learn in school. So that included reading like 70 books is included going to all these different, like conferences and events in literally every industry I could find and basically chatting with older people, right. Chatting with people that I got scared chatting with and really just seeing the world for what it was, um, next was university.\nSo I started by studying law at the university of Sydney. And I think the reason I did that is because it\u0026rsquo;s seen as like an optionality maximizing degree and. If, if you did decent in high school, the societal or the social default is to go into studying law. Right? So I fell into that trap. I don\u0026rsquo;t think I individually considered whether or not it was the right choice.\nSo I fell into that trap. I started studying law. I did. Well in law whilst I was at university, but the year in I decided hold up, I don\u0026rsquo;t wanna become a lawyer. I\u0026rsquo;m gonna be spending the next five years in uni studying law. Surely there are better uses of my time. So, um, even though I liked law and was doing well, I decided to drop out of law and I decided to put that time into.\nAll different other things. Um, so this was like called a year and a half ago. Right. And at this stage I\u0026rsquo;d literally done nothing. I think people might, might look at things I\u0026rsquo;ve done now and be like, oh, you\u0026rsquo;ve done like a fair bit. How did you do it? And I think what I really want to get clear is like a year and a half ago, I had done none of this.\nRight. So most of like a lot of the people who might be hearing this. We\u0026rsquo;re literally just in my shoes just a year and a half different. That\u0026rsquo;s the first thing I\u0026rsquo;ll say since then. Um, what are the things I\u0026rsquo;ve done? So I have interned at, after work ventures. I interned at Goldman Sachs. Now I run a series of global communities called next chapter.\nI\u0026rsquo;ve started an angel investing and run a syndicate called ultraviolet. Um, and then I was interning slash scouting for GGV capital as well. So, um, that\u0026rsquo;s kind of where I\u0026rsquo;m at now. Happy to dive into any of them.\nMax\u0026rsquo;s Learning Gap Year # James: Perfect. We it\u0026rsquo;s. It\u0026rsquo;s interesting to hear. I mean, a lot of things about that. One thing I wanna ask about is you, I feel like. Leaving school going into like a first, like your first year out of school, the learning year. Um, I think that\u0026rsquo;s how you describe it. Um, year of learning, you know, how it\u0026rsquo;s an interesting approach.\nI think, for me thinking about when I was at that stage I was kind of like, yeah, like let\u0026rsquo;s just go and do a bunch of random things didn\u0026rsquo;t really know at all. Like anything about anything. So it\u0026rsquo;s interesting, like, in, at that stage, did you have like a clear. Like, did you have sort of a vision for, um, what you were aiming to achieve or was, was it just kind of like, how did you sort of, did you just sort of stumble into that or was it like clearly, okay.\nI wanna learn these exact things like in this next year.\nMax: Um, so I, I, a theme I want to come back to a lot is the idea of break the rules. And what I mean by that is that there are like all these social defaults around us, right. Things that we are expected to do. And people really, really like stop to question whether they\u0026rsquo;re the right or wrong thing. So like after high school, there are two social defaults.\nOne of them is to go into uni. And if you did well in high school, you tend to study. Um, medicine or law and the other social default is if you don\u0026rsquo;t go into high school, then take a gap year to, um, to travel, right? Travel Europe, travel south America, wherever., but I don\u0026rsquo;t think they\u0026rsquo;re the only two options.\nRight? I, I question those defaults. I said, are these really the only two options? I\u0026rsquo;m like, no, I don\u0026rsquo;t want to just travel for a year because I get, um, a lot of, a lot of energy from learning, but I also don\u0026rsquo;t wanna go to university because I realize it\u0026rsquo;s another structured system where are kind of told what to do and you have set curriculum.\nSo my approach was. I\u0026rsquo;m aware of like all these different domains. I find interesting, I\u0026rsquo;m aware of this like concept of mental models and multidisciplinary thinking, which basically just means combining ideas from lots of different domains. And I wanted to take action on like, learning about those many different domains.\nThe idea was to, um, become a massive generalist in this gap here. I wanted to have like a 10% knowledge of as many different fields I could possibly find whether that was health, whether it was property, whether it was finance, whether it was neuroscience, whether it was psychology. The way I ended up going about that was largely through reading largely through online courses.\nAnd then also through like going through all these events, um, to your question, was it like pre mediad? Yes. And no. So the idea of like a learning gap year was, premedicated what I ended up doing on the year doing during the year.\nlooked actually a little bit different to what I was ex what I expected myself to do.\nI think when I was taking the gap year, I expected myself to start like a social media marketing agency. Um, and try and like make more of a business out of it. What I ended up doing was a lot more generalist and learning about all these different fields. And I think the basic idea there was the idea of like delayed gratification.\nI realized, Okay.\nyes. Maybe I can start this social media marketing agency and make a couple thousand a month, or I can sacrifice that. And I can put all the time into just becoming, um, a Jack of all trades, master of nun kind of person. And that\u0026rsquo;s where I started. And then like, hopefully in time, I\u0026rsquo;ll start to become a master of one trade, but I\u0026rsquo;m not quite there\nJames: Amazing. No, that\u0026rsquo;s interesting to hear and I wonder too, so you spent a whole year learning things and, and like only, you know, spending time learning stuff, which I think is really cool. And I guess that\u0026rsquo;s to some degree what universities were anyway, that, uh, we\u0026rsquo;ll skip that, but, um, how do you think about that now that you\u0026rsquo;ve, you\u0026rsquo;ve spent a lot of time, you know, like you said, reading courses, this kind of stuff.\nHow did learning how to learn affect Max # James: You\u0026rsquo;ve clearly spent a lot of time. Learning how to learn, perhaps how, how does that, how has that year of learning kind of impacted yourself now and how you think about, you know, learning new skills or, or whatever it might be.\nMax: Yeah. So I say, learn, do learn. And the idea is you start by learning a little bit, right? You start by getting a tiny bit of knowledge in the field. But then you need to actually do, and this is the most important step you need to take that little bit of knowledge you have and put it into action, battle, test it, so to speak.\nAnd then you use the battle scars, or maybe even the wins of battle testing it. And you learn from those. So That\u0026rsquo;s, kind of what I\u0026rsquo;ve done now. I think, um, if I think of myself almost as like my, a startup pro product, when you\u0026rsquo;re launching a startup, you start in products mode. And what I mean by that is you start by developing the products.\nYou make a really good product. You, you test it in like a closed alpha test with like a small group of users. Then you go to market, then you have go to market phase and growth phase. You start with product phase and then like go to market and growth phase. And I think like inadvertently, that\u0026rsquo;s kind of what I ended up doing.\nI think I started in that learn slash product phase. Right. I started with the learning gap year and now I moved to the growth, go to market doing phase. Um, and, and by doing I\u0026rsquo;ve realized just how much. More quickly you learn. Um, and, and doing for me, looks like a couple things at the moment. It looks like next chapter, which is, um, that, that collective of communities and the online media platform.\nAnd then it also looks like angel investing with ultraviolet and then a couple other things here and there. Um, so that\u0026rsquo;s, that\u0026rsquo;s how I\u0026rsquo;ve kind of thought about my learning from the gap year and then transitioning that into action, more practical learning nowadays.\nJames: Yeah. That\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s interesting to hear that, right. Um, cuz yeah, I think that I, I agree with what you\u0026rsquo;re saying. Like the, the action is, is so important and even I was listening or maybe reading to something recently and they were talking about. You know, learning in the sense that you just do so much, that you sort of have to learn to keep doing stuff and, you know, that becomes the hand break rather than just kind of, uh, you know, at some point, you know, learning for the sake of it is, is interesting, but yeah, really it\u0026rsquo;s what they\u0026rsquo;re doing is where the learning is, is really amplified and, um, and really solidified, I guess, too.\nUm,\nMax: Yeah.\nman, hundred, a hundred percent. Um, the catch is like the, the person who only does and never learns. Right? And I think there\u0026rsquo;s this, this balance of courage and competence. I always say that courage is scarce of incompetence and that courage is also more important than competence, right?, but if you have a person who\u0026rsquo;s a hundred percent courageous and never spends the time to become competent, that\u0026rsquo;s when you get someone, people call an idiot.\nRight. So yes, courage is like the, I think courage is probably one of the most important traits. Um, but it also needs to be tempered by an element of learning. Um, so I think I, I, I think we need a, we do like need a balance of them, but, um, that\u0026rsquo;s kind of how I think about that divide.\nJames: No, that\u0026rsquo;s a good take. I think one thing I wanna dive into a bit more is this idea of like independent thought that you mentioned earlier. And I feel like it is hard to be an independent thinker. I think most people to some degree aren\u0026rsquo;t, and it\u0026rsquo;s hard to kind of snap yourself out of like thinking what everyone else thinks and kind of have your own take and, and be able to sort of stand.\nHow does Max go about being an independent thinker? # James: Stand up with your, with your own take and be like, this is what I think here\u0026rsquo;s why and et cetera. I mean, how do you think about that? And, and how do you approach situations and, and trying to sort of stick your own independent thought onto a situation that might be happening?\nMax: Oh, man, it\u0026rsquo;s hard. I, I don\u0026rsquo;t think I have an answer, like a set answer for like how someone comes about becoming an independent thinker. Um, I think at, at. The fundamental level, it requires being radically openminded, that\u0026rsquo;s probably like the precursor of independent thought. And I have an article on my blog.\nUm, my blog\u0026rsquo;s just my first name, last name.com called, um, radical open mindedness. So I think that\u0026rsquo;s like the, the first part, I think the second part is. Adopting the default of questioning everything, right? Like I think some people\u0026rsquo;s default is that society, the way it is, is as good. My default is that society, the way it is, is bad and the underlying, um, The, the underlying action or that the action that underpins that is break the rules.\nRight. And I\u0026rsquo;ve, I\u0026rsquo;ve thought about like break the rules throughout my, my whole life in high school. Um, if I was given homework, I wouldn\u0026rsquo;t do homework. And the reason why was because I thought there were more productive uses of my time. If I wanted to get a good mark, it\u0026rsquo;s not. And like, what I want to emphasize is not break the rules to just like flunk stuff.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s break the rules. If you see like a more productive way of doing things. So in my instance, I. Well, I can dedicate this time to this particular homework task to something else. Um, and therefore it\u0026rsquo;s more productive and that I call independent thought, obviously that needs to be. Counterbalance against the risks of punishment.\nRight? And this is why punishment is like a really interesting, interesting thing, because when you break the rules, the consequence tends to be getting punished and that punishment serves a purpose. It\u0026rsquo;s the purpose it serves is to prevent people breaking the rules as flunking. But if you\u0026rsquo;re breaking the rules with the right motivation, if you\u0026rsquo;re breaking the rules to do better, rather than to do worse, then you can like slowly get away with it in time.\nSo like that homework example is one example. My gap here was another example, right? The rule was. Uni or, um, or like a travel gap year, whereas learning gap year was something different. I think another way I kind of broke the rules was like at university. The idea is if you wanna apply to somewhere like Goldman, Goldman Sachs, you need to be at uni for three or four years.\nYou need to have done like all these different internships, et cetera. And I\u0026rsquo;m just like, why is that the social default? I think part of it is because it makes it a little bit easier to get in the door. But like, realistically, if you, if you are very deliberate about telling your story in an interview and prepping for the interview and gaining, gaining the, the right combination of traits to interview, well, there\u0026rsquo;s no reason you need to follow that default of four years in unique common law student to go into investment banking.\nSo, um, one and a half years into uni, I\u0026rsquo;m like, well, I might as well interview interview for Goldman Sachs. I probably won\u0026rsquo;t get it, but I might as well, worst case, I just learn a lot. Worst case base case is that I fail and learn a lot. Um, so I think the overarching thing is like, don\u0026rsquo;t accept defaults, question, everything.\nUm, so that\u0026rsquo;s that\u0026rsquo;s and the precursor, all that is radical open minders. So I\u0026rsquo;d say they\u0026rsquo;re the pillars of like becoming a more independent thinker over time.\nJames: I think that\u0026rsquo;s really cool. And I think that\u0026rsquo;s a really good answer cause I think, yeah, the, the, the open mindness and the independent thought really sort of very fundamental, very important, uh, skills when it comes to doing anything. That\u0026rsquo;s. Really, uh, insightful, unique, uh, useful outside the mold, you know, any of these kinds of things.\nUm, really any sort of big innovation comes from independent thoughts. So it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s super important that we try and develop this kind of stuff. So, yeah, it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s great to hear that you are sort of, uh, you know, yeah, I think that was a great answer. I think I\u0026rsquo;m gonna be borrowing some of that insight.\nMax: I\u0026rsquo;ll jump in though, like we do. And we don\u0026rsquo;t with independent thought, like if the whole world with independent thinkers, nothing would get done. Right. And the ability to copy others and learn from others is what actually allows us to learn very quickly. That\u0026rsquo;s how we learn to walk. It\u0026rsquo;s how we learn to talk.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s how we learn to like interact socially. Um, like the, the, the most independent thinkers of all are people with Asperger. Um, that might make them good. Elon masks who are doing something that\u0026rsquo;s completely mind blowing, but like for the average person, you don\u0026rsquo;t want like a 100% independent thought. If you have a scale of like completely copycat to completely independent, you don\u0026rsquo;t wanna be a hundred percent at either end.\nRight. Um, and there\u0026rsquo;s always like, where do you wanna sit in the middle? And I don\u0026rsquo;t think we should, I don\u0026rsquo;t necessarily think we should idolize, um, Idolize a certain spot on the scale. I think it\u0026rsquo;s more, a matter of understanding of like what motivates us and what drives us, right. Where, where we don\u0026rsquo;t ever want to be is we don\u0026rsquo;t ever want to be the copycat that doesn\u0026rsquo;t realize they\u0026rsquo;re being a copycat.\nRight. The copycat that is going about life is a product of everyone else and never actually has the, the awareness to see it. Um, so I think, I think that\u0026rsquo;s like an inte an interesting, like temper to the idea of you have to be independent the whole time, because I, I don\u0026rsquo;t necessarily think that\u0026rsquo;s.\nJames: Mm, it\u0026rsquo;s a good, it\u0026rsquo;s a good counterpoint. it\u0026rsquo;s a good point. Generally.\nMax: Uh, I, I, I\u0026rsquo;ll argue both sides. uh, I just think like, something I\u0026rsquo;ll always say is like, there\u0026rsquo;s all this like productivity, This is how you should be advised. And I think like all of it is wrong and all of it is right. It just depends on like, is it fit for you? Right. It, it all has to be personal. I don\u0026rsquo;t, I don\u0026rsquo;t actually think there\u0026rsquo;s like one answer.\nWhat I say is like, what works for me?\nJames: No, I think that\u0026rsquo;s, I like that. I like that a lot. Yeah. I think even I\u0026rsquo;ve been reflecting a lot recently on like, um, having your own sort of what you, what you want your life to look like at some time period in the future, and then evaluating, you know, career decisions or life decisions, you know, based on, like you said, what, what makes sense for you rather than like, what is perhaps the, the popular.\nDecision to, to make it a certain time, whether it\u0026rsquo;s to like chase a job that pays more or is more like, uh, you know, has, is more like has more clout or like, you know,, whatever it might be. You know, sometimes those filters aren\u0026rsquo;t the right ones. Like for you, if you want to, like, if you are end goal is to like work fully remotely in a cabin in the woods.\nLike, and, and that\u0026rsquo;s kind of what you wanna do then like working 16 hours a day in the middle of the city, like is just not. Know what you wanna do. So yeah, I agree with that. That, um, yeah, we should, apply things, you know, to your own situation. Definitely.\nMax: Yeah.\nJames: Cool. Well, there\u0026rsquo;s a lot of different topics I wanna get to, so apologies in advance.\nI\u0026rsquo;m gonna perhaps like, just change things. uh, like if they\u0026rsquo;re a fair bit with my next few questions, um,\nMax: That, that, that\u0026rsquo;s how I roll. I\u0026rsquo;m I\u0026rsquo;m always, always down for jumping around multiple ideas in a\nJames: Yeah,\nMax: Time.\nIdea\u0026rsquo;s that Max thinks are undervalued # James: Perfect. Well, one thing I wanna ask is, so you, you\u0026rsquo;re someone that shares a lot, you know, LinkedIn to Twitter, various social media places use kind of everywhere. I wanna ask, uh, when you\u0026rsquo;re sharing things, what is a, a particular idea that you\u0026rsquo;ve shared that people didn\u0026rsquo;t, it didn\u0026rsquo;t really take off as much as you would\u0026rsquo;ve hoped or perhaps people kind of underappreciated or in your opinion, people just don\u0026rsquo;t don\u0026rsquo;t see the value in, in what you\u0026rsquo;ve said as much as you.\nMax: Yeah, man. I, I love this question. I actually think this is like a natural follow on from independent thought, because I think the pieces of content I\u0026rsquo;ve released are the most underappreciated. Tend to be the things that are the most independent, um, thinking, right? Because frankly, I think people often like to hear things they already kind of believe in.\nUm, so things that are under underappreciated, the things that are slightly more independent, um, there are probably three of them I\u0026rsquo;ll mentioned in particular. Um, one is the idea of courage is more important than competence. And I think if you, if you look at. People who start certain startups. Yes, they\u0026rsquo;re very competent, but there are thousands of people as competent as them.\nI was listening to Doug Leone who runs Sequoia capital, um, the largest, most successful VC fund in the world. Maybe not the largest, but the most successful in the world. And he said yes, he\u0026rsquo;s smart. Yes, he has IE high EQ, but there are thousands of other people who are just as competent as him. What enabled him to get to where he is, is a combination. of Luck and courage and the reason they say they go and they go hand in hand. And the reason why is that being courageous brings luck, right? You need to be in the arena for luck to strike. Um, so I think that\u0026rsquo;s like the first idea courage is more important than competence. The second idea, I often like say to people, um, I want to live to 100 and the response that I get back.\nWhat? No fuck. No, I wanna die at 80. And the reason people say that to me is like the, the, we have this trope in the world of you get to 80 and you\u0026rsquo;re a cripple. The last 20 years of your life really, really suck. I think a realistic vision of the future is people get to 70 years old instead of thinking, oh, I\u0026rsquo;m kind of decrepit.\nI\u0026rsquo;m not gonna do much for my next 10 years. Instead of that at 70 years old, you\u0026rsquo;re sitting there think. What meaningful experiences, what things am I going to create for the next 30 years of my life? Right? And to get to that point of 70 year olds, having that mentality, they need to be healthy, right? You need to have 70 year olds who look and feel like 60 or 50 year olds, and that\u0026rsquo;s perfectly possible.\nUm, there are these places in the world called blue zones and blue zones, uh, places where people live to. 100 years old or over a hundred years old. That\u0026rsquo;s like the average age. And the question is, okay, why do people live so long in these places? And it\u0026rsquo;s not because they\u0026rsquo;re meditating every day. It\u0026rsquo;s not because they\u0026rsquo;re wearing wearables or taking supplements instead.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s because culturally they sleep, they exercise, they eat healthy, they have good relationships. So I think like a large part of enabling. People to get to 70 and be healthy is like changing culture. Right. Having a culture where things like exercise, sleep, low stress, eating healthy are like cultural norms.\nUm, so like bringing that all together, that the second idea that I think is like somewhat underappreciated is that we can ensure think about living to 100. Um, the third idea I think is underappreciated. Um, And I\u0026rsquo;m just judging this based on like the very few Twitter reacts it got is that, um, professionalism is meme, innate and.\nI, I see a spectrum of like, it goes back to the independent, you have independent at one end. Um, and then you have copycat at the other end. Another word for copycat, um, is Matic. Matic is the, the idea that we inherit our desires now convictions from others. Right? So I think, I think a lot of how people engage in the world is copycat mode.\nMe medic mode, um, the mode of inheriting Des desire and convictions from others. I think professionalism falls into this Matic copycat bucket. Um, the most professional people in the world are call center, call center folks. And then you like kind of move down the chain. You might end up with like an investment making analyst as someone who\u0026rsquo;s somewhat Mitic right.\nThey\u0026rsquo;re well, they\u0026rsquo;re very professional. Whereas the, the investment banking managing director is normally less professional than the analyst. So I think professionalism is largely a matter of like copying others. Whereas if you go to the other end of the spectrum, um, nonprofessionalism you.\nhave founders, you have Jack Dorsey, mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Ryan blo, um, Steve jobs.\nRight. And I think. they have is an independence of thought. So I actually think nonprofessionalism equals independence. Whereas professionalism can often equal, can often equal conformism. Now it\u0026rsquo;s a balance, right? I\u0026rsquo;m not saying all of a sudden, just walk, walk into the office barefoot. I\u0026rsquo;m just saying, like, be aware of how you\u0026rsquo;re acting and why you\u0026rsquo;re acting a certain way.\nUm, so, so bringing that all together, that idea is the idea. The professionalism is Matic. It\u0026rsquo;s not innate. We\u0026rsquo;re not innately born with it.\nJames: Yeah. It\u0026rsquo;s some interesting food for thought there definitely.\nMax: Again, I don\u0026rsquo;t think it\u0026rsquo;s bad. Like, like I\ncould give you 10 arguments. Why, why professionalism really matters as well? So it\u0026rsquo;s not that I\u0026rsquo;m saying one\u0026rsquo;s bad or another, um, why one\u0026rsquo;s bad or one\u0026rsquo;s not bad.\nJames: Yeah, yeah, Definitely. I feel like, yeah. When you, when you, if you come into an organization, you sort of, yeah. Even just like adopt the culture that\u0026rsquo;s there. And so it\u0026rsquo;s almost like a. I don\u0026rsquo;t know, it\u0026rsquo;s difficult to kind of set like, you know what I mean? Like, yeah, like you said, you can\u0026rsquo;t just walk into the investment banking office with like no shoes on and like a t-shirt, uh, or whatever it is like in a single perhaps\nMax: No, but, but the MD can, the\nJames: Yeah,\nMax: Which is really\nJames: Yeah.\nMax: Which is really interesting. Right? It\u0026rsquo;s like, um, you get more freedom to be independent. The more senior you get. Um, that\u0026rsquo;s one way of looking at it. Another way of looking at it is that people who are more independent get further, um, that\u0026rsquo;s another way of looking at it.\nI also think it\u0026rsquo;s like a balance. Like there are, there are some people who, who interview and they\u0026rsquo;re like in robot mode, right? Robot mode is like a hundred percent professional mode. They won\u0026rsquo;t get ahead. In in the, in that interview. Whereas, um, some people enter the interview and they\u0026rsquo;re, yes, they have a balance of professionalism, but they also have human mode.\nRight. They have personality mode and personality can often be somewhat opposed to professionalism. If you\u0026rsquo;re, if you\u0026rsquo;re too bubbly, it can be non-professional. But typically in an interview, you need to balance it. You can\u0026rsquo;t be full robot. And obviously you probably don\u0026rsquo;t wanna be talking about your dating life though.\nI do have some friends who will do that. Um, if he, if he listens to this, he\u0026rsquo;ll know who I\u0026rsquo;m talking about. Um, but again, it\u0026rsquo;s like, it\u0026rsquo;s like a balance. It\u0026rsquo;s a spectrum. Both things need to be at play.\nMax\u0026rsquo;s best investment of time and money # James: No, I definitely. No. That\u0026rsquo;s interesting. Um, well, I\u0026rsquo;d love to like continuing this sort of unrelated questions, thread, um, and ask you, this is a Tim Ferriss classic question. Um, you know, what has been yourself, uh, in, in your journey, your most valuable investment, um, whether it\u0026rsquo;s time or an investment of money.\nMax: Okay. Um, I\u0026rsquo;ll start with time. And the reason why is, I think time is more valuable than money. Generally speaking. Um, you can\u0026rsquo;t buy time. You can make more money. You. In terms of time, two best investments for me. Um, one is next chapter. So next chapter is, is this series of communities I run. And the reason why that\u0026rsquo;s been really, really valuable is because, so what next chapter is we, we run a community of the most curious, ambitious kind, talented people.\nWe can find James. That\u0026rsquo;s how I know you because you are like in the next chapter community. Um, and the reason why that\u0026rsquo;s been like the best investment of time for me is. I\u0026rsquo;m a big believer in the idea that we, we are the average of the people around us. Right. And next chapter has been just like building this awesome tribe of people around me.\nUm, and that changes what\u0026rsquo;s normal. Right? I can be copycat mode, like I think at our human natural default human tendency is copycat mode. I can be copycat mode, but now the things I\u0026rsquo;m copying are really, really. Useful. Right. Um, so, so I think I don\u0026rsquo;t have to be as independent within next chapter. I can just copy everyone else now.\nI\u0026rsquo;ll probably do pretty well, um, so that\u0026rsquo;s like fir first, um, first investment of time. Second investment of time would be ultraviolet, which is angel investing syndicate. I started, um, and we are a group of founders and creator. Investing in other founders and creators means like podcasters, YouTubers, newsletter, riders, community managers, et cetera.\nUm, so they\u0026rsquo;d be the two best investments of time for me. Um, investment of money. Ironically, the investments of money I tend to like the most are the things that buy me more time. So they often look like productivity tools. They might look like a better laptop. They might look like air pods. So I can just like Chuck them on really easily and listen to podcast.\nWhenever they might look like a, I\u0026rsquo;ve got a 39 inch monitor in front of me. And that\u0026rsquo;s because it saves me time when I\u0026rsquo;m working, it makes me more productive. So I. A lot of my investments of money, um, are like productivity tools, best investment of money from like an actual investment perspective was pure luck.\nIt was an angel investment that went 15 X in like two months, but that is a fluke. And if, if you, if, if I make like 20 more investments, I\u0026rsquo;m probably never, ever gonna have that again. Um, so like bringing all that up, I think investment of time matters more than investment of money. Um, just because we, we can\u0026rsquo;t buy more time.\nJames: Yeah, no, I agree with that. Absolutely. And, and folks who are listening, if you haven\u0026rsquo;t already heard of next chapter, it\u0026rsquo;s it\u0026rsquo;s, um, it\u0026rsquo;s pretty incredible community. You guys are building over there and it\u0026rsquo;s been I\u0026rsquo;ve, I\u0026rsquo;ve loved, uh, being a part of it, met some super interesting people in there and it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s been super valuable.\nMax: Awesome man. Um, we are plug, we are opening, um, our intake soon. So if you. Follow me on LinkedIn. Um, follow next chapter on LinkedIn. You\u0026rsquo;ll see that, um, in a week or so we\u0026rsquo;re gonna be opening up the next intake of people into the community So\nyou can check it out, see if that\u0026rsquo;s the kind of thing you may or may not be interested in and yeah, go from there.\nJames: Sweet. Yeah. We\u0026rsquo;d love to see more people in there. I think it\u0026rsquo;s, yeah, pretty. It\u0026rsquo;s pretty cool. I, I don\u0026rsquo;t think I\u0026rsquo;ve even, I\u0026rsquo;m not sure. I\u0026rsquo;m not sure if I\u0026rsquo;ve even met anyone in person from there. And I feel like I\u0026rsquo;m still getting quite a lot of value out of it. So, um, I don\u0026rsquo;t know if that\u0026rsquo;s, if that says anything that certainly, I think if, uh, folks are interested, they should definitely consider being a part of it.\nHow Max approaches enjoying the present vs striving towards the future # James: Um, let\u0026rsquo;s continue, continue the thread here. So, one question I wanna ask you was around the idea of that there\u0026rsquo;s often this, you know, perhaps a paradox type situation where you\u0026rsquo;ve got let\u0026rsquo;s enjoy the present moment and, and just be really grateful for what we have. And then the, the flip of that is then like let\u0026rsquo;s not be okay with where we are and, and really drive towards some desired sort of future state.\nUm, and I\u0026rsquo;m curious to understand, like, how you think about that, uh, you know, that sort of enjoying the present while still chasing things that you want and, and things like that. I mean, yeah. How, how do you approach that? Uh, it\u0026rsquo;s quite an open question. I know, but.\nMax: Yeah. Yeah. Um, do both at once. And I, I don\u0026rsquo;t actually think they\u0026rsquo;re mutually exclusive. Like for me, I enjoy the process of working towards things. I get a lot of present energy by, by building. Right. And it\u0026rsquo;s not a Discontentment with the present. It\u0026rsquo;s like a complete contentment with the actual process of building in the present.\nUm, The other thing I\u0026rsquo;d say, cuz I think what that question kind of eludes that is that like idea of happiness that a lot of people talk about, right? There\u0026rsquo;s this, there\u0026rsquo;s this idea of maybe if you\u0026rsquo;re not present, you\u0026rsquo;re not happy. And the way I kind of think about happiness is you ideally want to get to the point where you don\u0026rsquo;t think about happiness.\nI actually don\u0026rsquo;t think the happiest people are actively thinking about happines. Instead, they just have routines that allow them to, um, maintain a baseline high level happiness. Like I think my baseline happiness, um, despite maybe seeming like someone who, who works hard. I think my baseline happiness is like seven or eight and it\u0026rsquo;s because I don\u0026rsquo;t think about it much.\nAnd what I mean, I just think about routines, so I make sure I sleep. I need to sleep. I need to exercise. Um, and I need to not use social media too much. If I do those three things. And then, and then I also like, see my family, um, at least a couple times a week, if I do tho those four things, I\u0026rsquo;m like guaranteed to be happy basically.\nSo that\u0026rsquo;s kind of how I think about it. Just like have, have these routines that, that are just like a routine part of how you engage with the world and then hopefully those processes take care of themselves. Um, so like going back to your question, I don\u0026rsquo;t think, um, I don\u0026rsquo;t think being future focused and present focused and mutually exclusive.\nI think they can go hand in hand.\nJames: Yeah, no, it\u0026rsquo;s a good take, I think. Yeah, certainly. Yeah. I think, I think that\u0026rsquo;s good way thinking about it cause yeah, I feel like, yeah, sometimes at least, at least for myself, you know, I kind of get, can get stuck in this thing where it\u0026rsquo;s like, oh, am I like desiring this like, future so bad that it\u0026rsquo;s like taking away from enjoying kind of the things I have now.\nUm, and certainly I think that\u0026rsquo;s a good.\nMax: I get what you\u0026rsquo;re saying. Like. They\u0026rsquo;re they\u0026rsquo;re not necessarily mutually exclusive, but they don\u0026rsquo;t perfectly overlap either. Right? You can have, you can have a, a, a situation in the world where you have present peers against future. And it\u0026rsquo;s like that Naval saying, which I think he appropriated from someone else, which is that desire is a contract you have with yourself to be unhappy until you get what you want.\nRight. Um, desires like this contract you have with yourself. To be unhappy. So he\u0026rsquo;s saying that desire and wanting more is like guaranteed to bring unhappiness, which is like true and untrue. It goes to like that Buddhist philosophy idea, which is that desire, like desire is the root of suffering. And I like.\nAgree and disagree. Um, but I don\u0026rsquo;t like, I, I think desire can lead to suffering. I don\u0026rsquo;t necessarily think all suffering is bad. And I think I\u0026rsquo;ve got like a kind of hot take on this. You\u0026rsquo;ll you\u0026rsquo;ll notice I probably like push back against all these conventional wisdom kind of points. And look, I can argue both sides, but I\u0026rsquo;ll argue this side, that suffering isn\u0026rsquo;t that bad.\nAnd I\u0026rsquo;ll give a couple examples. Um, Leonard Messey or, or Christiana Rano or Roger Feder, right? Or LeBron James. They suffer and go through more pain than basically anyone I\u0026rsquo;ve seen. Right. They work so damn hard for what they believe in. Society glorifies that, right? If you are working super damn hard, you\u0026rsquo;re sacrificing so much, you can\u0026rsquo;t drink.\nYou need to eat healthy. You, you have less time for family and friends. They sacrifice so much, but they\u0026rsquo;re glorified because of it because culturally it\u0026rsquo;s fine to glorify sports people, but then you might get someone like, I don\u0026rsquo;t know, mark Zuckerberg or Warren buffet, who, who sacrificed a lot, who worked really hard, who hustle.\nIn the business world, you can be Deni grade for working hard. You can be, you can be like, kind of put down for that for that little bit of some suffer. But I think it just depends on the game you\u0026rsquo;re playing, right? If you are messy, what you\u0026rsquo;re innately good at is football and exercising your talents to the best of the, your ability me exercising your or, or, or enlivening.\nYour sense of meaning means working really hard to be a good football player. Whereas if you\u0026rsquo;re Warren buffet, you\u0026rsquo;re a clear independent thinker who likes deep analysis, exercising your talents to the best of your ability means working really hard to be a very successful investor in business. Um, so I think, I think suffering is interesting because in some instances, people are like glorify it in some instances, people completely denigrate it.\nRight. So I think, um, yes, desire can lead to suffering. Suffering isn\u0026rsquo;t necessarily bad if it also is linked to something that brings you meaning, uh,\nJames: Damn. those deep. I like that a lot. Yeah. I haven\u0026rsquo;t heard that ex explain like that before, but yeah. Uh, I, I agree with that. Um, for sure. Like, and I definitely see what you mean with the yeah. The comparison there. Um, yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s really interesting food for thought. All right. Let. Let\u0026rsquo;s continue. the, the, the assorted questions list.\nHow does Max approach his career? # James: So one, one of these things, you know, we\u0026rsquo;ve been talking about like independent thought, that\u0026rsquo;s been a nice thread. That\u0026rsquo;s run through this. How do you think about like, Career, like, how do you, how do you approach your career in the sense of, and you perhaps already to some degree, you kind of started this where you are, you know, you did the learning year, Goldman, perhaps like a year or two earlier than you\u0026rsquo;re sort of supposed to do.\nUm, how do you think about like careers in a, I guess in a more macro sense, like, um, and, and sort of optimizing for the things that you want out of your career. I mean, how do. This is a very open question here, but I hope you have some ideas to answer, but yeah, I guess like, how do you think about approaching your career?\nMax: Yeah. So, Um,\non my website, I\u0026rsquo;ve got an article called career design manifesto or something like that. And I prevent, I present four heuristics or frameworks to help you decide what to focus on. And there\u0026rsquo;s not meant to be some like set way of piecing to you ever be frameworks instead it\u0026rsquo;s meant to be personal.\nUm, the first of the frameworks, this is the most important. match your career to your nature. So the idea of this is that if we match our career to our nature, we\u0026rsquo;re gonna be really good at it. And we\u0026rsquo;re gonna be energized for the long call. There are other ways of saying that Naval says, um, find what feels like play to you, but looks like work to others.\nIn my mind. That\u0026rsquo;s like another way of saying, match your career to your nature. Um, Sahi or bloom says, find your zone of genius, right? This is like the overlap of your interests, your talents, um, your, your skills that you\u0026rsquo;ve learned, um, et cetera. So I think like that match your career to your nature is the most important thing.\nRight? Um, I don\u0026rsquo;t think everyone should necessarily just like go for the biggest thing they can possibly do if that\u0026rsquo;s like not in their nature. second part of that heuristic is early on in your career. Optimized for learning and learning can be, um, what you learn. And also how fast you learn. Right.\nYou wanna do both, like you wanna learn very rapidly, but you also wanna learn the right thing. And the question is, okay, how do I know what the right thing is? And we don\u0026rsquo;t so early on, literally try everything, get a feel for everything. Um, I call, I say university equals internship. And what I mean by that is like the.\nIf you\u0026rsquo;re not doing like a professional degree, professional, meaning like medicine or engineering or something with a profession wrapped around it. If you\u0026rsquo;re not doing that, then engineering equals internship. And what I mean is that use university to do internships in every single area and work at one to learn and then to work out, which of those areas matches your nature.\nUm, and that will help you decide. Um, so as I say, one part of learning, then the other part of learning is actually just like pace of learning. So I think pace of like rapid learners have a huge career advantage because they can do more and less time and you can put them in a new scenario and they can get up to speed very quickly.\nUm, pace of learning. There\u0026rsquo;s an article on my blog, sorry to keep outsourcing this. Um, outsourcing this to the blog, but there\u0026rsquo;s an article on the blog called the most important skill. And the most important skill talks about how we can get much better at the pace of learning and how we can also choose what to learn.\nThe next part of like, um, careers is like this whole idea. The next like framework is the whole idea of optionality, right? Should we. Pursue optionality. Should we double down? And I think early on you want to pursue optionality. You want to be open to everything you want to say yes to everything, et cetera.\nThen when you find what you love, you stop you double down, you burn the boats, right? And once you find what you love, you need to stop pursuing optionality. Otherwise you\u0026rsquo;re just gonna be an optionality man for your, or man or woman for your entire life. Um, so there\u0026rsquo;s like that, that balance of optionality optionality is good early.\nFind what you like and then double down, right? Um, if, if you, if you know what you want pursue it. And then the final part of, of this like career guide is, uh, a central belief of mine is that we need to take more risk, particularly more risk when we\u0026rsquo;re younger. And the reason why is that when you\u0026rsquo;re young, the downside of risk is zero.\nTypically the downside is actually above zero because you learn a heap in the process, but let\u0026rsquo;s say the downside is zero. Whereas the upside can literally be almost unlimited. Um, So I\u0026rsquo;d tell you. Okay. Under arching belief I have with careers is take more risk, um, interview for jobs. You don\u0026rsquo;t think you\u0026rsquo;re qualified for start ventures or startups or societies that, that you, you don\u0026rsquo;t think you are, you are worthy of doing or qualified for doing.\nUm, so like bringing them all together. First one match your career to your nature. Second one, optimize for learning both speed and then also optimize for learning the right thing. Second one is optionality. Pursue optionality early on, then burn the boats and double down and get rid of all optionality later on.\nAnd then the final point is like, take risk. Take more risk when you\u0026rsquo;re younger.\nJames: That\u0026rsquo;s, that\u0026rsquo;s a good framework, I think certainly. And I think, yeah, I, I think if people can kind of use those, use those things to. Direct themselves even slightly better than I think those things, um, quite useful. definitely. Um, about, let\u0026rsquo;s talk about like performance, like in the workplace or at university or whatever it might be.\nHow does Max think about high performance in the workplace? # James: How do you think about like performing well in these different situations and, and perhaps are there any. Any things that you do, maybe let\u0026rsquo;s take the workplace as an example. Are there any, perhaps applying independent thought to this as well?, you know, are there any, like any things that you do, any, perhaps like rituals or techniques, things that you apply, um, in the workforce to, to like perform at your peak, um, or, or even, even like, how do you think about\nMax: Mm.\nJames: In, in, in the general.\nMax: First thing is game selection. So choose a game or choose a job. You are uniquely well suited to playing. Um, if you\u0026rsquo;re Lionel Messi you should probably play football instead of basketball because you are five foot six or whatever. Um, That\u0026rsquo;s the first thing, right? You want to actually choose the right job if you are, if you\u0026rsquo;re in the wrong job, no matter how talented you are, you\u0026rsquo;re gonna struggle to perform at a really, truly high level.\nSo that\u0026rsquo;s game selection. Um, second thing I\u0026rsquo;d say is communicate and overcommunicate. Um, Tell managers, what tell your managers what work you\u0026rsquo;re doing, tell them when you\u0026rsquo;ve done it. It, it alleviates pressure on your manager. If you\u0026rsquo;re constantly keeping them up to date with, with where you\u0026rsquo;re up to personally, I think I\u0026rsquo;m really bad at communicating.\nI think I can be slightly. To, um, to, I, I, I often feel like it\u0026rsquo;s communication. Oh, I\u0026rsquo;m pestering my manager to communicate. They have like better things to worry about. But I think the, the like mental switch that has to flick is the idea that no, you\u0026rsquo;re not pestering them. You\u0026rsquo;re actually alleviating. or making, you\u0026rsquo;re actually making their job easier because they don\u0026rsquo;t have to like keep mental tabs in you the whole time.\nSo that\u0026rsquo;s the second thing communicate. And then third thing it\u0026rsquo;s really, really trivial, but it\u0026rsquo;s like be reliable if you say you\u0026rsquo;re going to do something, do it. Um, Charlie Munger was asked, what if there\u0026rsquo;s like one. One trait you could like get rid of in people, or if there was one trait you wanted in people, what would it be?\nAnd, and he said reliability, which at the time I thought was really interesting. Like why would reliability matter? And I think the reason it matters is because like reliability compounds, if you, if you faithfully rock up day in, day out, that compounds are saying, I used to kind of live by, um, is the little things done consistently, are the big things.\nNow I\u0026rsquo;ve always kind of taken that approach. I don\u0026rsquo;t think I\u0026rsquo;m ever working. At like a hundred percent or even 90%. But I think I\u0026rsquo;m like constantly at that 80%, which means that my happiness is high. My energy\u0026rsquo;s always really high, but I\u0026rsquo;m like always there, like, and I enjoy that. Right. And it is that idea of like the little things done consistently are the big things.\nUm, so those, those three first one is like game selection, most important. And then like two more tactical things are like communicate and be reliable.\nJames: Yeah, I think that\u0026rsquo;s, those are great as well. Reliability. I agree with what you mean. Cause it\u0026rsquo;s like, if you, if someone asks you to do something, you do it well, they might ask you to do slightly more and then like you said, it just kind of compounds nicely. Um, so yeah, I agree with that. Absolutely. Um, cool.\nMax\u0026rsquo;s Advice # James: Well, I\u0026rsquo;ve got like one last question for you and, and, and that is like, so you\u0026rsquo;re in university currently, let let\u0026rsquo;s rewind, perhaps back to the start of uni and thinking about who max was at that stage, knowing what you know now and all the things that you\u0026rsquo;ve done, all the experiences that you\u0026rsquo;ve had. If you could go back to max, who\u0026rsquo;s just starting out where he\u0026rsquo;s just left school.\nLet\u0026rsquo;s say, what, what advice would you give to.\nMax: Be more courageous, take more risks, break the rules, university equals internships. In other words, like you used the time to. Um, do internships and then like, again, be even more courageous. Um, so, so that\u0026rsquo;s the advice I\u0026rsquo;d go back and give myself.\nJames: Amazing. Yeah. The courage idea is, is really interesting one and certainly I think, uh, I can be better. I think many of us can be better at flying that one. Um,\nMax: Man. I, I, I think, I, I think I\u0026rsquo;m still, like, I actually still think it\u0026rsquo;s a weakness of mine. I still think I don\u0026rsquo;t take enough risk. Um, I still think I can can up courage. Um, and it\u0026rsquo;s iterative, right? Like the more, the more you put yourself out, the more courage, the more, the more things you do that are courageous.\num, the more you build up build up like thick skin to it, no longer feels like being courageous just feels like the normal. Right. And that\u0026rsquo;s why, again, going back, I love next chapter because being around people in there makes things that used to be courageous as normal. Right. Just continue to like raise the bar and what\u0026rsquo;s what\u0026rsquo;s normal.\nAnd that, uh, a as humans, I think winding up with that independence of thought. Um, our innate state is to copy others. If you put two babies in a room with a thousand toys, they will fight over one toy. So our innate state is to copy others. Given that piece of information, I want to be around others or in a community where if I copy others, they end up in a really, really damn good place.\nUm, so. I think that\u0026rsquo;s true of courage as well. If you\u0026rsquo;re around people who, who are off the bar on ambition and courage and proactivity, even starting a podcast, like what you are doing, right? Like a third of the community bloody on podcast or something like that, um, is courageous. It\u0026rsquo;s like, it\u0026rsquo;s a bold move.\nYou put yourself out into the world. Um, so, so I\u0026rsquo;d say that as well, like, like as a closing piece of advice, B. Be really deliberate about like, trying to find people who lift you up and trying to be part of communities or collectives of people, um, that, that create a culture where exceptional is normal.\nJames: Yeah, no, I agree with that. And definitely folks again, next chapter it\u0026rsquo;s been really great. So, so yeah. Yeah. I think what next week you said max, so that\u0026rsquo;s exciting. Um, yeah. Cool. Well, if people wanna find out more about next chapter, find out more about yourself, where\u0026rsquo;s the best place for them to go\nConnect with Max # Max: Um, connect with me slash follow me on LinkedIn. Reach out at any time. And max marchione.com is my website as well. I, few of the stuff I\u0026rsquo;ve spoken about, I\u0026rsquo;ve written about and put on there. Um, I\u0026rsquo;ve. Other stuff I\u0026rsquo;ve spoken about that isn\u0026rsquo;t on there. I will soon write about and put on there because I\u0026rsquo;m passionate about it as you might be able to tell.\nUm, so yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s where you can find me. My door\u0026rsquo;s always open\nOutro # James: Thanks for listening to this episode I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. If you want to get my takeaways, the things that I learned from this episode, please go to Graduate Theory.com/subscribe, where you can get my takeaways and all the information about each episode, straight to your inbox.\nThanks so much for listening again today, and we\u0026rsquo;re looking forward to seeing you next week.\n← Back to episode 36\n","date":"27 June 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/graduate-theory/36-max-marchione/transcript/","section":"Graduate Theory Transcripts","summary":"← Back to episode 36\nThis transcript has been lightly edited for readability. It may still contain transcription errors.\nMax: I think some people’s default is that society, the way it is as good. My default is that society, the way it is bad and the underlying the underlying action or that the action that underpins that is break the rules.\n","title":"Transcript: Max Marchione | On Independent Thought And The Value Of Courage","type":"graduate-theory-transcripts"},{"content":" Watch the conversation Graduate Theory Open YouTube ↗ Read the full transcript → Today\u0026rsquo;s guest is seriously impressive.\nDespite being a university student, he has worked in both private equity and investment banking.\nNext year, he\u0026rsquo;s starting in management consulting.\nIn this week\u0026rsquo;s episode, we hear about what it takes to land these roles, but also the doubts and struggles that arise along the way.\nIf you like what you see, subscribe to this newsletter and get emails like this, every week.👇\nSubscribe Now\nCheran Ketheesuran is in his final year of commerce and law at the University of Sydney. He’s a former Investment Banking intern at Macquarie, current investment intern at OIF Ventures and incoming graduate at McKinsey.\n🤝 Connect with Cheran # https://www.linkedin.com/in/cheran-ketheesuran/\n👇 Episode Takeaways # Cover Letter # Cheran writes terrific cover letters. He says that in your cover letter, you need to answer three key questions\nwhy this company? why this industry? why you? if you can answer all three of those questions, to some degree of specificity and passion, then you automatically put yourself in the top 1-5% of applicants\nCheran says that questions 2 and 3 will remain very similar between companies. The biggest way to impress is to have a good answer to \u0026ldquo;why this company?\u0026rdquo;.\nThe key is to make sure you have something very specific to share.\n80% of candidates will look on the website, they might cite the mission of the company, which is still a lot more than a lot of candidates do, but finding a really specific reason why you want to work at that company is super important.\nTo get good results, get specific.\nResume # So we\u0026rsquo;ve heard how Cheran structured his cover letter. How about his Resume?\nCheran shares that he used the following sections\neducation professional experience leadership and extracurriculars skills and interests Within these sections, he mentioned two principles that we should follow.\n1/ Quantify Everything\nAnytime you have a number for something, use it.\nif you\u0026rsquo;ve screened companies, don\u0026rsquo;t just say \u0026ldquo;screened companies across the e-commerce sector in APAC\u0026rdquo; say, \u0026ldquo;personally screened 50 companies or a hundred \u0026quot;\nUsing numbers in your resume is powerful.\n2/ Personal Impact\nMake sure to state what you actually did as part of teams you\u0026rsquo;ve worked in.\nteamwork questions aren\u0026rsquo;t about the team they\u0026rsquo;re actually about you and how you work in the team. So you need to focus a lot on what your specific role is\nUncover your personal impact and make sure this is clear both on your resume and when you are asked behavioural questions in your interview.\n3/ Interests: The Most Important Line\nCheran shared that the line of interests in your resume is the most important. He shared with us a story of how in his final McKinsey interview, he ended up speaking about one of his interests, Longevity, for 15 minutes.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s important to make sure that you are confident speaking at length about whatever you put on your resume, even your interests.\nDecision Journal # Something that Cheran mentioned that I really liked was the idea of a Decision Journal.\nCheran\u0026rsquo;s process of choosing his graduate role was very comprehensive. He took six weeks of speaking to current and former employees to make his decision. All of his work was documented in his decision journal.\nKeeping records like this is a fantastic way to keep track of why you made certain decisions and provides a great resource to reflect on if you feel differently about that decision in the future.\nThere\u0026rsquo;s Always Someone Better # This idea is something that Cheran and I spoke about, and something that\u0026rsquo;s been on my mind recently.\nWhen you look at impressive people, it is very easy to feel down about your own accomplishments.\nIf someone is able to achieve so much, what does that say about me?\nSeeing someone doing things better than ourselves shines a light on our smaller and seemingly less \u0026lsquo;good\u0026rsquo; accomplishments.\nIt can be hard to deal with these feelings.\nWhat is comforting, is knowing that everyone deals with this. Even high performers like Cheran.\nIn these moments, I have found it helpful to keep in mind that we are all on our own journeys. None is better than the other. We all come from different backgrounds, do things in different ways, and have different goals and desires.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s difficult to stop comparing yourself to others.\nOne quote I love and that helps to ground me in situations such as these is:\nComparison is the thief of joy\nDon\u0026rsquo;t let comparison ruin your day. Let us be grateful and joyous for the things that we have.\nGet the Newsletter\n📝 Content Timestamps # 00:00 Cheran Ketheesuran 00:44 Cheran\u0026rsquo;s Intro to Finance 04:23 The Finance Job Process 07:46 Cheran Missing Winters 11:06 How to prepare for IB Internships 20:01 How did Cheran prepare more for Summer 27:16 Importance of your Network 33:27 The value of university clubs in creating connections 35:46 Common areas in job applications that people get stuck on 40:10 Cheran\u0026rsquo;s Biggest Learning 44:49 Cheran\u0026rsquo;s failure that ended up being a success 51:23 The Post Interview Decision Process 58:53 What questions did Cheran ask in his post-offer decision process? 1:02:40 What drives Cheran 1:06:24 Cheran\u0026rsquo;s Advice 1:10:33 Where to contact Cheran 1:11:34 Outro\n","date":"20 June 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/graduate-theory/35-cheran-ketheesuran/","section":"Graduate Theory","summary":" Watch the conversation Graduate Theory Open YouTube ↗ Read the full transcript → Today’s guest is seriously impressive.\nDespite being a university student, he has worked in both private equity and investment banking.\n","title":"Cheran Ketheesuran | On The Journey To Banking and Consulting Graduate Roles","type":"graduate-theory"},{"content":"← Back to episode 35\nThis transcript has been lightly edited for readability. It may still contain transcription errors.\nCheran: Now, if you think you can do that for 20 banks in three weeks and perform at your peak for each of those processes, then I want to make you because you\u0026rsquo;re Superman and superwoman\nJames: Hello and welcome to Graduate Theory. Today\u0026rsquo;s guest is in his spawn a year of colas of law at the university of Sydney. He is a former investment banking intern at McQuarry current investment intern at OIF ventures and an incoming grad at McKinsey.\nPlease. Welcome to the show. Sharon can discern\nCheran: Hi, James. Thanks for having me love what you\u0026rsquo;re doing with the, the grandchild costs and, um, yeah, really humble that you\u0026rsquo;ve had.\nCheran\u0026rsquo;s Intro into Finance # James: No, no, no problem with old man. Did you all, like, I\u0026rsquo;ve heard so much, so many good things about you and so many great things about the way you apply for roles and kind of how much of a role model you often wants of people that are currently going through some of this process at the moment. Um, I\u0026rsquo;d love to sort of one back the clock and stop perhaps from when you were first interested in going into sort of consulting banking, VC, like this kind of, uh, you know, very competitive fields and, and kind of, um, yeah.\nWhat was your first sort of intro, uh, into, into this kind of area?\nCheran: Yeah, Tyler. Um, it really was a bit of happenstance, I think. And some of it was probably, um, deleting options off my interest list that left me with commerce. To, to sort of set the scene. I remember in, in year 12, I think I was applying to Sydney uni wondering what degree I\u0026rsquo;d be doing. Um, I lo had always been a bit of an interest, and I remember if you, if you read my scholarship application from back in the day, it talks all about wanting to be a human rights lawyer and wanting to help people and commerce wasn\u0026rsquo;t even on the scientist interest really in my view.\nUm, and then eventually I sort of had some exposure to corporate Laura at Allen for a little bit through some of the sort of pre-internship programs realized that I sort of wanted to do a job where you have to wake up every morning and you do need to know what\u0026rsquo;s happened overnight. You do need to know what\u0026rsquo;s happened overseas in markets.\nThat constant stimulation was something that law really wasn\u0026rsquo;t going to. So I knew pretty quickly that law wasn\u0026rsquo;t going to be the path then arguably should have dropped by law degree there, but that\u0026rsquo;s, that\u0026rsquo;s a conversation for later. Um, spent some time over in DC doing government work had always loved government work.\nUm, I did a bit of banking and finance, um, over there too. And then when I came back to Sydney, um, I heard about this little state called the industry placement program, which was a program run by and still is a program run by Sydney uni, where essentially you do a unpaid internship at a, it can be a bank, it can be a private equity firm or any sort of commerce the house.\nUm, and it accounts is one of your subjects as well. And I thought that was a really cool process. I didn\u0026rsquo;t really have connections in the industry. Um, and I ended up applying, ended up getting a spot, um, and it ended up being at a mid market, private equity firm called CPS. And at that time, I had no idea what TP capita was at the time they were called champ private equity.\nUm, and I remember talking to one of my finance tutors who was a few years above. He was at Goldman at the time. I said, oh, I\u0026rsquo;ve got this gig at cha private equity. And here\u0026rsquo;s, you just looked at me and displayed saying, how on earth have you got it to chat private equity? And then I said, oh, it\u0026rsquo;s through, it\u0026rsquo;s through the IPP at Sydney uni.\nAnd then from there I thought, okay, well, I\u0026rsquo;ll probably do a bit of research and figure out who these guys are. And ever since then, that was my introduction. Um, and I guess, yeah, we can talk about the whole life cycle of my finance journey, but I definitely started at sort of the place where a lot of people end up type.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s only been going sort of backwards.\nJames: It\u0026rsquo;s pretty cool. Yeah. So do they surprise, uh, entry into, into commerce and finance? Um, cause cause then you sort of going through like, and you\u0026rsquo;re into the world of investment banking and financing, you know, this whole process around, uh, internships and you know, everything that goes along with that, I\u0026rsquo;d love to, I mean, I\u0026rsquo;m not super familiar with this process, so perhaps I\u0026rsquo;d love if you could sort of outline if someone wants to sort of a big graduate.\nThe Finance Job Process # James: You know, Goldman or wherever it is, uh, you know, what are the sort of steps required to do that? And kind of, when do you need to sort of stop thinking about the steps that kind of go into things?\nCheran: Sure. Um, it is very much a. I called the hedonic treadmill of internships sort of process, unfortunately. Um, but if you take it all the way to sort of, you know, how do I become a grad the festival? So this sort of, most of the investment banks, um, both Biogen boutique, there are sort of two ways to become a grad.\nYou either apply the year prior to your starting year as a grad immediately. So you might start say, you\u0026rsquo;re meant to start in February of next year 23, you would apply in February of 22 for grad spot. I\u0026rsquo;d say that probably is about 30% of the retro class positions come from there. The vast majority of positions, 60 to 70%, um, come from what\u0026rsquo;s known as the summer analyst role, which is essentially in your penultimate year of university.\nUm, so your second, last year of university, um, you do a 10 week. Ish internship over summer. So I sort of started in December, end up in February. Um, and from there, there\u0026rsquo;s sort of, you know, a conversion rate obviously, of, of people who due to some internship, um, and then ended up getting a return offer, then ended up starting at the bank and the following year.\nSo the best chance with candidates therefore is to become a, some analyst. Now, if we work backwards from there, what do we actually need to become a summer analyst? And I think this vastly depends, you know, on your background, on the various things you\u0026rsquo;ve done during university. I think for me, I knew that banking experience was essential.\nIt is pretty common to have done investment banking, internship of some sort prior to getting a summer analyst or a wind tunnel. Um, and for that raise that I think you\u0026rsquo;ll see a lot of students sort of do a internship at a boutique and a boutique is normally, you know, say five to maybe 15 people. Um, I personally would want to Greenstein partners and I was lucky in the sense that one of my best mates used to work at great partners told me that they were interviewing.\nAnd then I interviewed for the role with probably about 10 other people and ended up getting it. Um, but that was crucial to me. And, you know, ultimately. Uh, role at McQuarry because that sort of ticks the box of, okay, you\u0026rsquo;re interested in banking. Why? Well, you\u0026rsquo;ve spent a year in banking, so having stayed so long, there, there probably is a reason why you\u0026rsquo;re interested for that.\nUm, and then everything outside of that, I mean, you know, we can talk about these things and when you get to the interview process that, um, a lot of the things outside of that are building up your core finance skills at university. You know, there are still, you know, stem programs and alternative pathway programs that come through.\nUm, that, uh, as I\u0026rsquo;ve mentioned, the hedonic treadmill is definitely, you know, boutique internship, winter summer, and then a grad role. And I think that\u0026rsquo;s what you\u0026rsquo;ll commonly see on the LinkedIn progression of many\nJames: Mm. Yeah, sure. And it\u0026rsquo;s interesting with that. Um, there are many stories of, I mean, you know, I think this, this happened to yourself, right? Where, well, I\u0026rsquo;m just thinking through like, obviously the first step that\u0026rsquo;s going to help you a lot when it comes to the second step, which is going to help you a lot to get to the third step, you know, any kind of, if you perhaps.\nCheran Missing Winters # James: One of those steps or, you know, then, then it makes things a bit more difficult because then you\u0026rsquo;re sort of coming up against people that have, uh, you know, have, have done the steps in between, um, cause this, this happened to you, right? Like with the, with the winters, uh, I\u0026rsquo;d love to sort of dive into that and kind of how you, how you approach, like, you know, you\u0026rsquo;re, you\u0026rsquo;re then getting this summer internship, you know, following, following that.\nCheran: Totally. Yeah. So, um, I always had great assigned partners, you know, I started in light Tish 2020 and went through all of 2021. So we\u0026rsquo;re talking now, it\u0026rsquo;s say March, 2021, I\u0026rsquo;ve started applying for the winter programs. And, um, you know, the idea with the winter programs is that a lot of banks like the lockup candidates early on, um, before the summer rounds come, um, at some of the banks as well, you know, Goldman in particular bank of America, a few others, um, also gave sort of summer spots immediately quite early on.\nSo I remember applying to it would have been most of the winter banks. I think Jeffrey\u0026rsquo;s credit Swiss UBS, quite a few of them got to the final around for most of them, but there was a pretty clear deficiency in each of those. Processes that led to a failure. So, um, you know, for UBS, for example, it wasn\u0026rsquo;t really being as on top of technicals, as I should have paid, um, for CS, there was what they call it, not as much of an X factor with me.\nAnd, you know, we can talk about that in a second. Um, with Jeff raised, it was just a really poor cultural fit there. Um, so there was always a reason. Um, and I think I stepped back from that and said, okay, so I haven\u0026rsquo;t got editing for summer yet. Um, I\u0026rsquo;m going into the process, you know, having to apply for all 20, 25 banks essentially.\nUm, and what I realized was the importance of peaking at the right time. I think, um, he was really crucial for me not to view a lot of those winter failures as failures, but almost as practice funnily enough, because deep down I knew that I probably didn\u0026rsquo;t want to end up at a lot of those, um, various places.\nUm, and I think they knew that as well, and it sort of happened for a good raise and in that it forced me to ultimately. Okay, here are the banks actually want to be at, let me show really clearly through my CV cover letter behavior was what I want to be there. Um, and then by the time summers had rolled around, I knew to myself that I had, like, I could not have done any more work for the summer internship roles that it ended up working quite well.\nSo, um, those were definitely failures, no doubt. And I say this to a lot of students who are currently going through your process as well, but I sort of had the hindsight to say, probably didn\u0026rsquo;t prepare as well enough at the time. Um, there were really good things to work on and I really asked for feedback after each one of those failures as well.\nUm, because I knew that it wasn\u0026rsquo;t really important to me to peak a winter. I was important for me to take in summer with that where my future budget role was.\nJames: Yeah, no, definitely. That\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s really interesting to hear, um, hear this sort of thing. And so I\u0026rsquo;m interested to ask when you say like, um, you know, preparing for some of these roles and you mentioned some things there about like, uh, perhaps you can touch on like the X specter, you know, or like, you know, not knowing certain things as well as you would have liked, you know, what does it kind of look like to prepare for, for some of these things?\nPreparing for IB Internships # James: Like what sort of like, what are you, what are you even looking at when you are like, yeah, what is, I guess you guys, what does preparation look like when you\u0026rsquo;re applying that interested in applying for these kinds of things?\nCheran: Yeah, sure. Um, so if I take it back sort of macro. Level, let\u0026rsquo;s say you\u0026rsquo;re applying for 20 jobs, which is what I was doing. So I was applying, I didn\u0026rsquo;t have a summer gig. So I was applying to all the banks actually, which is about 20. Um, so I had a massive Excel spreadsheet, um, with sort of a bank on each row.\nAnd then each column was a different pilot application process. So it would be, you know, the date, the date it\u0026rsquo;s due, um, cover letter submitted, you know, video submission, psychometrics, and then first round, second round, so on and so forth. And then I had a column essentially of people I knew at the bank, um, and people who I wanted to reach out to, um, as well.\nAnd I feel like that really grounded me in terms of, okay, here\u0026rsquo;s all the work I need to do in order to potentially get one job out of this process. Um, and I think it\u0026rsquo;s really important in these processes and not to leave anything to your mind, um, make sure as much of it as down on the page so that you don\u0026rsquo;t have to remember.\nOkay. Did I apply for jobs and have I done the psychometrics for your credits wastes? So insightful. So that was my big platting ratio. Um, first and foremost, and then the next stage from there, you know, perhaps we\u0026rsquo;ll touch on sort of the CV cover letter side of things, um, attempts of coughing those. So I think the cover letter, um, is the big chance for people to differentiate themselves.\nI think people underestimate the fact that whilst your recruiting manager may not Raider your interview or often does. And it got brought up quite a few times in my interview and I had a really simple structure, um, to go through these, you know, you sort of get bookmarked by your intro and your conclusion.\nThere are three key questions to answer in every cover letter. The first one is why this company, the second one is why this industry. And then the third one is why you, and if you can answer all three of those questions, to some degree of specificity and sort of, um, passion, then you automatically put yourself in.\nthe top Like one to 5% of applicants. So in terms of why this company, you know, that\u0026rsquo;s the paragraph that changes for each cover letter. So even if you\u0026rsquo;re doing 20 cover letters, you know, 80% of that cover letter stays the same. It\u0026rsquo;s just that one paragraph that changes. Um, for that wise company paragraph, I really had three key reasons that, you know, I\u0026rsquo;ll always try to bring it out.\nI think praise a nice round number. Um, and I always made sure my last reason was something related to being at the company for a long time or creating a longterm career out of it. So, um, take McKinsey for example. McKenzie have this program called the fellowship program, or essentially after your first two years, you can go away and do a sponsored MBA or do an internship at a client company and so on, so forth.\nAnd I explicitly said, you know, pretty much quite quiet, you know, I could really see myself building a long-term career at McKinsey. And you know, whether you believe that or not, those are the things that are what a lot of these corporates banks consulting firms are looking to because churn is quite high in these industries.\nAnd therefore knowing that they can lock down people potentially for five, 10 years to pretty important. And then this wise company, um, question also comes back to the research you do on the company and it needs to be super specific. So, you know, 80% of candidates will look on the website. They might cite the mission of the company, which is still a lot more than a lot of candidates do, but finding a really specific reason why you want to work at that company is super important.\nEveryone is very aware of the fact that everyone is applying everywhere. Um, so, you know, specific examples at things like, you know, at Macquarie, I talk a lot about the head office advantage. So Macquarie banks had offices in Sydney compare that to a lot of the U S banks, you know, Goldman JPM, Morgan Stanley, their head offices are overseas, or if it\u0026rsquo;s APAC, they\u0026rsquo;re offering in Singapore, Hong Kong.\nSo there\u0026rsquo;s a lot more red tape if all involved in sort of getting decisions done. And if you, as a potential intern can highlight that, that\u0026rsquo;s pretty impressive to a lot of the seniors, um, who don\u0026rsquo;t think that research could have. Um, so I would say, you know, that\u0026rsquo;s really the prox, the cover letter as to sort of the wide it\u0026rsquo;s industry and sector and the why you, you really just linking it back to your personal experience, um, and, and your skills.\nAnd you mentioned the X-Factor feedback, you know, off my credit Suisse interview. Um, I said, she asked, you know, what, why didn\u0026rsquo;t I get a role in? And the response was, you know, you, you\u0026rsquo;ve done all these incredible things, which are referencing being a late in the FM society wanting to do with consolidating army cadets on so forth.\nUm, but they felt I didn\u0026rsquo;t have this quote unquote X-Factor. And what I realized was my X factor was having done all these bossy, disparate things. Um, but linking them all together somehow in a way that painted me as a super well rounded person. So that just sort of shaped the way I ended up. I ended up approaching the interviews and the process as well.\nSo that\u0026rsquo;s sort of the cover letter. And then the save is very similar. I\u0026rsquo;d say, um, obviously you want your CV not to, um, overlap too much of your cover letter, but I think firstly keep it to a page. Like if a CEO can keep it to a page, so can you, um, and I think there\u0026rsquo;s like, yes, the CEO obviously has a lot of brand equity.\nThey don\u0026rsquo;t need to put out all their achievements, but I got the comment numerous times. Oh wow. A one page CV. This is really nice to see. So clearly it\u0026rsquo;s something that it\u0026rsquo;s not. And then in terms of like the key segments, obviously education, professional experience, leadership and extracurriculars. And then the skills and interests component.\nI think the two big pieces of advice I\u0026rsquo;ll give here are one quantify everything. Um, and this is particularly the case for consulting and banking interviews. Like if it\u0026rsquo;s a banking interview and a banking CV, obviously anonymized things that can\u0026rsquo;t be public, but say things like, you know, we advised a X billion dollar company on the acquisition of a X million dollar asset.\nShow them that you have a knowledge of size and numbers. Um, talk if you\u0026rsquo;ve screened companies, don\u0026rsquo;t just say screened, you know, companies across the e-commerce sector in, in APAC say, you know, personally screened 50 companies or a hundred, whatever it was. I think it\u0026rsquo;s really important to show. And then the second piece of advice is what\u0026rsquo;s your personal impact.\nAnd I think that\u0026rsquo;s where so many people fall down on is that teamwork questions. Aren\u0026rsquo;t about the team they\u0026rsquo;re actually about you and how you work in the team. So you need to focus a lot on what your specific role is. And sometimes that can be really hard. Like if you\u0026rsquo;re a junior in an intern bank or a boutique bank, um, it can be hard to sort of overstate or properly state the role you\u0026rsquo;ve played.\nBut I think it gets pretty easy as a banker or consultant to see where a potential candidate is sort of fibbing and not saying exactly what their role was. And then the final piece of advice I\u0026rsquo;d have for, um, to say they, I might still stop there after this is, um, that final line of your CV which is probably going to be an interest line is the most important line in your entire CV.\nThat\u0026rsquo;s the differentiator between you and all the other candidates and it\u0026rsquo;s the opportunity to just essentially shine. Um, and I think a lot of candidates get told to keep it pretty tame, and obviously don\u0026rsquo;t put it interest in there that is obviously not kosher, but, you know, as an example, I\u0026rsquo;m heavily interested in the science of longevity and aging and the work of David Sinclair and Peter Attia and all these incredible people.\nAnd the last word on my CV is longevity because it\u0026rsquo;s the last interest on my interest section. And in my final round McKinsey interview, um, we spent 15 minutes talking with the managing partner about, you know, senescent cells and zombie cells and fasting and the impacts on organisms. And, you know, this was a final round management consulting interview.\nSo my point being is that you never know when these things will come up and, um, that interest side is probably the finest line of all.\nJames: Yeah, well, that is really cool. I think that\u0026rsquo;s, that\u0026rsquo;s what, uh, like taking notes and writing some of that down, cause yeah, I think that\u0026rsquo;s super valuable and I absolutely agree with a lot of that. I think like particularly, um, you know, the quantifying like using quantities or whatever in your resume, super important.\nUm, and then, you know, saying like, um, outcomes rather than things you actually did. So like I\u0026rsquo;ll, even if it\u0026rsquo;s like, I did this thing, which had this outcome, you know, that\u0026rsquo;s super important too, rather than just being like, I did this, like okay, cool. But yeah.\nCheran: And you\u0026rsquo;ll get asked that in your interview as well. Anyway. So if you can preempt that early on and it always.\nHow did Cheran prepare more than last time # James: Yeah, yeah, definitely. Um, I\u0026rsquo;m curious then, so all this self kind of applying for these, what, um, what did you do more.\nYou know, going from sort of the winters to repairing for summer. Is there anything that like, uh, you know, you said you did slightly more in preparing for summer, like what sort of things did you do more of to kind of clear out, you know, some of the things that you maybe didn\u0026rsquo;t do as much of in winter?\nCheran: Sure I think, um, so the saving and COVID let off all that fell off pretty quickly. Like once you get those in check, there\u0026rsquo;s only, there\u0026rsquo;s only so much you can do and you watch, if you hit that cap, you know, send it to 20, 30 different people as I did get that fade back and then you\u0026rsquo;re done. Um, I submitted those applications pretty quickly.\nI think the big difference between winter and summer. Was essentially pro you know, sounds cringe, but priming yourself for interview performance, I think, um, and in the same way that you wouldn\u0026rsquo;t rock up to the a hundred meter sprint in the Olympics without a whole lifetime\u0026rsquo;s worth of blooding, that sprint a billion times, um, practicing interviews, especially when audited, which was the age of virtual interviews, um, practicing interviews was super duper important.\nSo let me take banking for example. So, um, banking interviews, there are really four key buckets, and I think more broadly, actually, there are four key buckets of questions you get asked. Um, the first bucket is technicals. The second bucket is behavioral questions. So how do you work in a team? Um, the third bucket is general knowledge.\nAnd how much do you know about the world around you? And the fourth bucket is sort of company specific. So why do you want to work at this company? Do you know what the work, what type of work we do and those sort of things. So if I keep it specific to banking, um, you know, technical is, everybody knows there\u0026rsquo;s this mergers and inquisitions 400 question book that everybody has.\nUm, so I use that book, um, as well as after each interview I had during winter, I immediately, you know, I\u0026rsquo;d go to a bathroom, I\u0026rsquo;ll go to the lift or somewhere where I would be quiet and straightaway. I\u0026rsquo;d write down all the questions I got in that interview. Um, I never left it to memory to sort of go home and remember, I sort of immediately wanted to get them down.\nUm, and also that I had a repository of what maybe 50 questions or so, which to me were far more valuable than whatever\u0026rsquo;s in that MNI 400 book, because these were questions that were being asked. Um, and by the time I got to summer, a lot of those questions were coming up again. So I made sure I practice those.\nAnd in a sense, winter essential was backwards. Um, and I did the same thing for behaviorals as well. Um, what I essentially did was have a big document where I had all the questions listed out. I\u0026rsquo;d write a little paragraph for each question. Um, and then I bought myself sort of a 200 pack of Palm cards.\nAnd this would have been about three weeks before, um, the interviews and anyone who is going through banking interview process knows that the banking interviews are all over within three days. So it\u0026rsquo;s a very sort of concentrated time period. Um, so I had sort of 200 Palm cards on one side of the Palm card.\nI\u0026rsquo;d want the question on the other side of the Cod, I\u0026rsquo;d write a dot pointed version of the answer, and I sent you a student for my mural for a week. Um, and then just recited those over and over again, you know, obviously not 24 7 in that, uh, you know, an hour or so each night. To the point where I was comfortable enough that I knew the ads done.\nI understood the logic behind it, but not so concerned that it was sounding robotic. And like, I just memorize something and you need to find the balance. And I think this is where a lot of candidates fall down is that they\u0026rsquo;re either under-prepared, um, by meaning they don\u0026rsquo;t know their content, or they\u0026rsquo;re not aware of, you know, their various star methods for various behavioral questions, or they\u0026rsquo;ve prepared to the extreme where they they\u0026rsquo;ve either memorize something and they just say it verbatim.\nOr they hear a question here that it\u0026rsquo;s similar to a question they have practiced. And then just add to the question they\u0026rsquo;ve practiced rather than answering the question they get given, and you don\u0026rsquo;t want to be on either parts of those experience. You want to be somewhere in the middle. So practicing technicals and behaviorals in that manner, um, was really useful for me.\nAnd then the final two buckets around general knowledge and company specific things. I think firstly, on the general knowledge. Full banking. Um, it\u0026rsquo;s pretty common knowledge that you will get asked a, you know, tell me about a deal in the market. Um, and, or tell me about a deal that we\u0026rsquo;ve advised on. And I chose sort of three or four deals that covered off the price for banks that I ended up applying to in the end.\nUm, I just knew as much as I could about those deals, the, what the top sort of S lot of candidates do is that they provide a view on the deal and they provide a view on what\u0026rsquo;s happening in the market. Uh, and that\u0026rsquo;s something that people don\u0026rsquo;t do enough of because ultimately you\u0026rsquo;re being hired as an intern or a graduate analyst, not just to sit in the back of rooms and take meeting notes, but also to actively contribute and show that you have a view on what\u0026rsquo;s happening in the world.\nAnd if you can show that, you know, at an intern level or interviewing for an internship role level, um, that becomes infinitely valuable. And then the last part around company specific, I think, you know, probably two buckets to this, firstly, You know, rehashing the similar, why McKinsey, why Goldman, whatever you\u0026rsquo;ve written in your cover letter and CV and so forth.\nBut I\u0026rsquo;m not saying a cover letter. Um, but more specifically, once you find out who your interviewers are, if you\u0026rsquo;re lucky enough to do. Do your own due diligence on them. So, you know, people might think it\u0026rsquo;s talking whatever it is, but, um, you know, go on their LinkedIn, see what the news coverage has been like, what are their interests?\nWhat are their passions, which deals have they worked on quite recently? Um, not so much for the bank interviews, but for the consulting interviews, often a lot of your interviewers will have written articles and thought pieces on the company website. So, um, especially in a consulting context where normally the cases you get given up problems that your interviewers have actually already done in real life, you can get a pretty quick idea of what your problem is going to be based on, you know, oh, wow.\nYou know, Emily, my interview, I did a banking transformation. It\u0026rsquo;s actually it\u0026rsquo;s Asia. Okay. It might be something to do with banking. Um, and that\u0026rsquo;s sort of the comp you know, this is, you know, two, three days before your interview, that\u0026rsquo;s the sort of prep you want to be doing is that you\u0026rsquo;re tailoring, whatever you\u0026rsquo;re saying.\nJames: Hmm. Yeah. That\u0026rsquo;s super interesting. And thanks so much for sharing that because I think that\u0026rsquo;s even, I\u0026rsquo;m finding that valuable that I\u0026rsquo;m not, I\u0026rsquo;m probably not going to. Yeah. I\u0026rsquo;m obviously I\u0026rsquo;m going to grab any more. So I think that\u0026rsquo;s difficult and I think that\u0026rsquo;s advice that like you can apply, you know, no matter where it is that you\u0026rsquo;re sort of going for, you know, this, this level of depth and, and kind of the approach, a couple cover letters and things like that is, is pretty universal regardless of the industry or whatever.\nSo, yeah, I appreciate sharing that because I think that\u0026rsquo;s really useful.\nCheran: Absolutely. I\u0026rsquo;m like one even, you know, even before I met you sort of a month and a bit ago, um, you know, the one minute you spend finding out a person\u0026rsquo;s background makes the conversation infinitely more enjoyable. So that\u0026rsquo;s a, a common piece of advice, regardless of whether you\u0026rsquo;re applying for a job.\nImportance of your Network # James: Yeah, no, that\u0026rsquo;s really cool. I want to ask too around like the networking side of this, um, because like you mentioned, when you, you had, you had your Excel spreadsheet and you had sort of this job, this is like the data to like, and all these different columns. And then one of them there was like, who do I know that works here?\nUm, I\u0026rsquo;m curious to understand, like, did, was there any, like how do you go about sort of connecting with people, um, that work in these places and then sort of, what is the, I guess, how do you go about, uh, involving them in your, in your process to, to like, you know, when you\u0026rsquo;re applying for this kind of stuff?\nCheran: Yeah, absolutely. So I think network is a bit of a dirty word. At least it sort of has that connotation. Right. Um, the word networking is seen as transactional in many cases. Yes, I think it is transactional, but that\u0026rsquo;s what I think the differences between networking and relationship building. Um, and for me, especially for graduate students, I think it\u0026rsquo;s super important to separate the role of networking into two different values.\nFirstly, you have informational value and then secondly, you have outcome value. Informational value is unlimited. It\u0026rsquo;s untapped. There is never too much information that you can get from an individual or a group of individuals. Outcome value is capped. Once you get a particular role, that\u0026rsquo;s your outcome finished, you\u0026rsquo;ve ticked the box.\nUm, and if you start thinking about network building and relationship building from an information diet perspective, that\u0026rsquo;s going to make those relationships much more valuable to you, but it\u0026rsquo;s also going to mean people are much more likely to buy into helping you out as well. And those are two big things.\nI think I realize it\u0026rsquo;s the first time. People like to help other people generally. And if they don\u0026rsquo;t like to help other tables, that\u0026rsquo;s a good signal of the culture of the place and the individual. Um, and then secondly, people very easily get invested in other people\u0026rsquo;s success. And once you can get those connections going, it does help you out quite a bit.\nSo in terms of how I actually approached networking. So as you said, when I, you know, this probably would have been around January of the year and applications were in July, so big runway, and I think that\u0026rsquo;s quite important as well, but in January, February, around that period of time, I looked on my LinkedIn went on to H bank.\nAnd so who am my first degree connections. And most of those people were either peers who had actually just started as graduates or people who are in similar societies has may, um, and would therefore obviously foster way connections as well. So I pretty quickly could have a list of. Uh, maybe two or three, maybe five people per bank who I sort of view.\nUm, and in the festival, since I made sure to reach out to all of those individuals, um, you know, a lot of them, I knew pretty well anyway, so it wasn\u0026rsquo;t really a, Hey I\u0026rsquo;m meeting with you only to like it, it was also just a friendly connection anyway. Um, but that was sort of the first step. And then after that, I think the big mistake people make is they look at networking as a numbers game.\nIt is not a numbers game. I remember one of there\u0026rsquo;s a student I mentor in the year below who told me, oh, Sharon, you know, one of my mates was talking about the fact that I needed like a hundred minimum connections and absolutely not the case. Once you get into the interviews, the network, unless you somehow know the managing partner or managing director of a company, is it rod the, uh, Bizible in terms of your chances, what networking does is it\u0026rsquo;s firstly, a safety net in terms of it makes sure that you aren\u0026rsquo;t, um, left within the cracks between say submitting an application and getting a video interview or getting an interview. But to me, the network gave me informational value. So it allowed me to say really unique things that people wouldn\u0026rsquo;t know because McKinsey, for example, aren\u0026rsquo;t going to be advertising the day-to-day life of a consultant, both the good and the bad on the front page of a website. Whereas I can talk to a current third year consultant, for example, or an investment banking analyst at Macquarie, for example, understand what\u0026rsquo;s actually happening on a day to day basis.\nWhat are the new things that are coming out? That was where the value was? And that boosts to my interview chances. Cause I was saying things that made me sound like I was already a graduate at McKinsey, Goldman McQuarry, wherever it was. So I think that comes down to, you know, after you\u0026rsquo;ve done your first degree list, think about whether you really need to talk to more people.\nAnd if you do need to talk to more people. Firstly, don\u0026rsquo;t be sort of, um, coy about it. Feel fine to go talk to a hiring manager and say, Hey, um, I don\u0026rsquo;t know anybody at the firm currently. I would love if you can connect me with X and that\u0026rsquo;s exactly what I\u0026rsquo;ve I did for McKinsey. I was lucky enough that one of them it can be hiring managers also hired me at Macquarie.\nUm, but I didn\u0026rsquo;t know any consultants at McKinsey prior to applying. Hey margarita. Uh, I don\u0026rsquo;t know anyone at the firm. Could you, I get connected to one individual, him and I had a great chat. He was like, without me even asking, he was like, Shauna, I\u0026rsquo;ve got a really good match. I want, I want you to speak to him as well.\nAnd that\u0026rsquo;s no bull keeps going until you\u0026rsquo;ve met, you know, five, 10 people, but each incremental connection off of that needs to come from a place of, okay, we have this common background interest, or there\u0026rsquo;s a really specific reason why I want to talk to you as opposed to the other 30 grads I could\u0026rsquo;ve talked to.\nAnd that might be because they work in a particular team. They may come from a similar socioeconomic, you know, LGBTQ, racial, whatever background it is that showing that common interest is what really helps you get your network going from. Um, and ultimately now that I\u0026rsquo;m at the end of my grad process and everything\u0026rsquo;s done, I don\u0026rsquo;t think about outcome value anymore.\nAnd I\u0026rsquo;m very privileged in the sense that I had a positive outcome as to where I\u0026rsquo;ve ended up, that all of the people I\u0026rsquo;ve met are informational value people because even PayPal say at the Boston consulting group, but I ended up not going a lot of the people I\u0026rsquo;ve met. There are still very happy to grab coffee with me and so-and-so forth to help me as I leave with.\nThe value of university clubs in creating connections # James: Yeah, I think that\u0026rsquo;s really cool. When, w can you speak to like the importance of, cause I think like, like you said, a lot of the, the, the first degree connections that you had in different places you met, like at either at university or maybe through other people or whatever, you know, so how important do you think?\nUh, well maybe what, what is the value of like university clubs, uh, you know, at the university? Um, is, is there value in the actual participation or is it more of like a, you know, just a great way to sort of connect with people that are on a similar, similar journey to yourself?\nCheran: I think it\u0026rsquo;s a bit of both. I think without a doubt, the biggest value is the people you\u0026rsquo;ve made and the connections you make now, they may be your best friend. They may become your partner. They may just be a person you work in the future that, um, of course joined the local business society. I\u0026rsquo;ll plug the financial management association of Australia or 180 degrees consulting.\nAll of those are good ways just to meet a bunch of different people in your own year group. Now being part of the actual committees is probably where you then often get the next step of meeting people in the years of Bob who have also been through what you\u0026rsquo;ve recently been through and things like that.\nUm, but a lot of these clubs and societies do mentorship programs, where they connect you with people. Either one to two years old, older in university, or have recently graduated. Um, and for me it was invaluable. I would not be anywhere close to where I am now. Um, without having join the F AA or 180 degrees, um, not the clothes, those were things on my CV that, because I knew people who could help me out when the time was right and could give me advice.\nUm, so to me, those, those connections are invaluable. Um, and the incremental step up in terms of taking responsibility, I don\u0026rsquo;t think that\u0026rsquo;s a networking thing anymore. I think that\u0026rsquo;s more just, you know, you\u0026rsquo;re building your own teamwork skills and of course it gives you substance to talk about those behavioral questions.\nJames: Hmm. Yeah. That\u0026rsquo;s interesting to hear. Yeah. I was in 180 in my final year of university and suddenly I agree that like the kinds of people that I met there, you know, really super interesting people and, um, have gone on today, like really cool things. And so it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s great to sort of build your, uh, relationships in that light.\nCommon areas in job applications that people get stuck on # James: Um, yeah, definitely. Um, what do you think are some of the areas of the application process that people kind of underestimate the difficulty awful, like common areas that people like kind of get tripped up? Um,\nCheran: Yeah, I think, um, that\u0026rsquo;s probably a few things. I think the big one is underestimating the time it takes to perform at each stage of the application process to your peak. Now, what do I mean by that? Let\u0026rsquo;s say applications as they do for it, you know, some banking and I\u0026rsquo;m probably going to scare a lot of people who are listening, who are applying at the moment, but let\u0026rsquo;s say they\u0026rsquo;re close in the first week of August in reality, to have a chance you need to get your application in minimum two weeks, maybe three weeks prior.\nI\u0026rsquo;d say if it was me, I\u0026rsquo;d be getting in three weeks prior. So let\u0026rsquo;s say, you know, let\u0026rsquo;s say you, do you get it in three weeks prior? That means you have three weeks between when you click submit. And when you click your interview slot, if you lucky enough to get one, um, to do your psychometrics, do your video interview and start preparing for interviews without the knowledge of whether you\u0026rsquo;re going to get an interview or not.\nNow, if you think you can do that for 20 banks in three weeks and perform at your peak for each of those processes, then I want to make you because you\u0026rsquo;re Superman and superwoman. Um, so that was the big learning for me is. The psychometrics I failed and the video interviews I failed because I rushed to them and I.\nGive them the appropriate time of day and night, um, to, you know, take the steps to actually do the preparation required. And I think the preparation I do is probably a bit extreme for some things, you know, for the, um, philosophical metric tests, I\u0026rsquo;ll go find out what the providing company was. Normally it\u0026rsquo;s contrary some comments, other ones, um, and I\u0026rsquo;d go spend an hour watching YouTube videos of other people solving, you know, the games and going on Reddit and figuring out what trips other people up and doing all the practice tests and then treating it like an actual exam because people don\u0026rsquo;t realize how competitive these prices are.\nUm, and the barrier, the hurdle rate for surpassing, a lot of these tests is so high that people almost take it for granted. And then before you know it, oh, I\u0026rsquo;ve lost out at the psychometric stage. And, um, I\u0026rsquo;ve been on the wrong end of that numerous times. And those were the failures that it took for me to realize to actually take those seriously.\nSo I think, um, that would be the Fest thing. I\u0026rsquo;ll take people sort of forward. The other thing I\u0026rsquo;ll say, um, is when you get to the interview stage, um, there is a tendency to show that you are the best candidate for right now. Um, and the hard reality is that companies don\u0026rsquo;t care about rice. Now they care about 12 months time, 24 months, time, 72 months time, they\u0026rsquo;re priming themselves to pick a cohort of people who will peak in the future, not right now.\nAnd that means that it\u0026rsquo;s okay to say things like, I don\u0026rsquo;t know the answer to that question. Um, I\u0026rsquo;m not sure I made this mistake in this period of time. Um, I admit, are you going to show weakness is so crucially important to success in these interviews because it first shows coachability in the sense that, um, obviously most of the jobs that we\u0026rsquo;re talking about are team related jobs and therefore they want students who can show, you know, an ability to listen. People who have had more experience. Um, but secondly, as I said, the picking people who are going to take and who have potential, um, and once you get that into your head, it becomes, um, a humbling experience, but it also makes sure you don\u0026rsquo;t fall into the trap of being too cocky or too boasty. Um, which is where I think a lot of students fall away from because they have all this knowledge in their head.\nThey have all these experiences they\u0026rsquo;ve done and they\u0026rsquo;re bursting to show what it means. And that sometimes comes off the wrong way.\nJames: Yeah. That\u0026rsquo;s really interesting to hear, uh, what, like you had to say goldmine of information. So I don\u0026rsquo;t really have much to offer. Just interested just to keep asking you stuff.\nCheran: I say, you apply for a whole bunch of stuff.\nCheran\u0026rsquo;s Biggest Learning # James: Yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s it. Well, so now you\u0026rsquo;re at like kind of, you know, a lot of this sort of, a lot of time spent applying and all this kind of stuff is, is now in the past for you, uh, at least in the immediate term. Um, so I wonder what has been the biggest lining for yourself over the last, I guess what maybe year to 18 months kind of, as you\u0026rsquo;ve gone through this journey,\nCheran: Hmm, good question. Um, I think the biggest learning is to care less about I\u0026rsquo;m so conscious of the privilege and the statement, um, but to care less about the outcome, um, and to care more about the journey and the incremental task, um, that\u0026rsquo;s way more important than some job that you\u0026rsquo;re going to get. In 12, 18 months time.\nAnd I think I struggled, you know, I was deeply unhappy at various points of university because I thought I wasn\u0026rsquo;t keeping up on the hedonic treadmill of internships that other students were. And I already know, I can hear my own mates screaming at me, listening to this, say, you know, we all wish we were on your level of the tonic treadmill as well, but there\u0026rsquo;s always someone who\u0026rsquo;s further ahead.\nRight. Um, and I think that can eat away at you a lot if you aren\u0026rsquo;t careful with it. Um, so that would be my biggest learning. And, you know, we might end up talking about how I\u0026rsquo;ve gone from banking to consulting in the end that, um, that last experience is probably the one that\u0026rsquo;s told me that the most. I think the other thing. Being self-aware enough to know that luck is a huge, huge factor in these processes, both on the upside and the downside. Now that doesn\u0026rsquo;t mean I can\u0026rsquo;t say, you know, I deserve, or I worked hard enough to get X, Y, Z. Um, but that isn\u0026rsquo;t a mutually exclusive statement from, I was lucky to some extent, to not have been screened out, um, to have shown that I can do, you know, whatever it is.\nAnd you want to put yourself in that position where you recognize that luck is a factor. Um, and recognizing that is a factor you can sleep at night, knowing that there\u0026rsquo;s nothing else you could have done to have influenced the outcome. And if that\u0026rsquo;s the stage of. Yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s all you can do. But if you\u0026rsquo;re at a stage where you\u0026rsquo;re almost having to blame lock because of an unfortunate outcome, you don\u0026rsquo;t want to be at that stage because that\u0026rsquo;s where regrets starts 18 away.\nUm, and you know, that\u0026rsquo;s one bank that, you know, I was interested in and, and they didn\u0026rsquo;t go through, but I knew I could not have done anything else I wanted to do. And I knew the perception from that interview or that day. Um, what\u0026rsquo;s the reason why, and that\u0026rsquo;s perfectly okay. I\u0026rsquo;m at peace with that. Um, so if you can find peace in that journey, I think it helps you a lot.\nJames: Hmm. Yeah, definitely. I think that\u0026rsquo;s really cool. I guess like sometimes like, um, when, when Pepsi get a disappointing outcome or things like that, people can kind of blame. The, the downside on luck, but the, the outside is cause they worked hard,\nCheran: Always happens. Always happens. Yep.\nJames: You know, so it\u0026rsquo;s like, I got this job because I worked hard and I didn\u0026rsquo;t get it because the\nCheran: Oh, it\u0026rsquo;s unlucky. Yup.\nJames: Yeah.\nI was on lucky ride. Um, and so, yeah, so I, I, I think that\u0026rsquo;s a great point that like, uh, you know, taking ownership of like what you, what you did and kind of the outcomes that you\u0026rsquo;re expected and then kind of letting go of whatever happens after that. Uh, you know, we\u0026rsquo;ll be, we\u0026rsquo;ll be and, uh, yeah, I think, yeah, certainly it\u0026rsquo;s, it can be difficult to approach things like that.\nRight.\nCheran: It can be hugely difficult. Yeah. And I think after, um, having a string of failures, I have a winter last year, I sort of, I have this white board in front of me, which is sort of falling, falling by the wayside at the moment. But, um, I wrote up on the top, I can\u0026rsquo;t remember who said this quite a bit, basically.\nThey can\u0026rsquo;t ignore you essentially. Um, and that was a mentality I\u0026rsquo;ve taken throughout. A lot of life is do you know, be good enough? Don\u0026rsquo;t make excuses work as hard as, you know, you can work. And anything else that happens is outside of your control. Um, and that\u0026rsquo;s all you really need, um, sleep well at night.\nPlus, you know, a loving family, a loving friends and all those sorts of things.\nJames: Yeah, absolutely. It\u0026rsquo;s important. We\u0026rsquo;ve spoken about kind of the, um, the failures, finally, just, you know, kind of the things you, you hope to go. Well, I guess with regard to sort of the winters and things like that, but what has been, um, like something that didn\u0026rsquo;t go to plan along this whole journey that, that ended up being something that was really benefited.\nCheran\u0026rsquo;s failure that ended up being a success # James: Before you were the end. Is there any, like, perhaps it\u0026rsquo;s the winter\u0026rsquo;s situation there, or, um, I\u0026rsquo;m curious if that was perhaps another situation along the way that ended up, uh, you know, was, uh, something you, uh, uh, like frustrated by the time, but ended up being something that turned out really well.\nCheran: No, I\u0026rsquo;m really happy talking about this one, because I don\u0026rsquo;t think when I was going through this, um, process, um, I didn\u0026rsquo;t know anyone else who had been through the same. So, you know, I was at Macquarie capital web customer. Um, loved the experience there I\u0026rsquo;ve in the team met is what they call it. Um, the team at team, instead of technology media, um, entertainment and telecommunications, um, team, really lots of culture and the team.\nAnd I was pretty set on going back to Macquarie and most likely, um, afterwards, and I remember it was a, it was a Wednesday evening, um, around 5:00 PM. Oh, this is after the internship had finished a week after. Um, and I was doing my McKinsey application actually at the time I was doing my, um, my cover letter for McKinsey.\nUm, and I got a call from HR and HR said, she said, look, we\u0026rsquo;re really sorry that we aren\u0026rsquo;t going to be offering you a graduate position, um, at this stage. And I had sort of felt that in my gut for a few days. Cause I think I summarized it could just feel that I was coming, but that was a pretty big shock to me, a really big disappointment.\nUm, and obviously the sort of the freakiness nervousness nature kicked in straight away, you know, what am I going to do now? I\u0026rsquo;m not going to have a job as a grad job coming back, you know, exchanges off the cause. Now there\u0026rsquo;s no way I can be able to say he\u0026rsquo;s doing all these things. And um, it took me a while to sort of, uh, step back for a moment and say, okay, sorry, I haven\u0026rsquo;t got a graduate job now.\nUm, I\u0026rsquo;m in the middle of consulting processes. I have an option to apply for banking grads, um, in a few weeks time. And I sort of sent, um, one of my friends like him who you\u0026rsquo;ll know as well from next chapter, I sent him a message and I said, um, FYI, I\u0026rsquo;m going all in on these consulting processes. Let\u0026rsquo;s see what happens.\nUm, and I never I\u0026rsquo;d seriously considered consulting, but had always sort of thought I had a preference for banking having worked there for a year and a bit. Um, but ultimately with about two weeks left, but all the consulting firms, you know, a month later had a few offers luckily enough, um, and sort of took my time off of that, um, to really consider what did I actually want to go to banking?\nYou know, No rose tinted glasses per se. I did my diligence. I\u0026rsquo;d spent about six weeks and we can talk about this as well in terms of person to be decision-making. Um, that spent six weeks talking to bankers consultants, a whole bunch of people saying this is where I want to be in five, 10 years time, um, which is either on the investing side of things at a VC or as an operator.\nUm, and what\u0026rsquo;s going to be the best way for me to get there. Um, and after a lot of conversations, um, was pretty confident that consulting was the way to go. And I ended up not applying to banking again, um, for the graduate roles. Um, so. You know, I was always going to apply to McKinsey, BCG Bain, um, regardless of McQuarry, but I think Macari, the failure was Macquarie gave me a big kick up the top team to recognize number one.\nUm, you know, I didn\u0026rsquo;t agree with all of the raisins and outcomes that they gave me, but I learned a lot about, you know, the need for either communication and balancing numerous demands, working from home saying no, like there was a lot of valuable feedback I took away from the team. But I think the other thing is that, you know, we don\u0026rsquo;t talk about failure and us.\nAnd I think, um, when I was, when I got that initial call, you know, I called my buddy and I asked her, um, and she straight away said shrunk. There are people that, you know, at Goldman and Morgan Stanley, other banks who have also been through the exact same thing, um, that no one ever talks about it because they just don\u0026rsquo;t really want to.\nAnd, um, I think that\u0026rsquo;s, that\u0026rsquo;s the shame, you know, the failures don\u0026rsquo;t matter. As long as they\u0026rsquo;re manageable failures and Ray Dahlia always talks about sort of the idea of micro failures and macro wins. Um, and for me, this was a micro failure, like, okay, I didn\u0026rsquo;t get my graduate job at Macquarie, but I\u0026rsquo;m not looking back in five years\u0026rsquo; time.\nTalk, talking about it as a macro in essentially, um, a completely different path that might set me up at all. So, um, look, it\u0026rsquo;s hard to put a positive spin on failure sometimes that, um, a big learning curve for me and, you know, everything happens for.\nJames: Yeah, no, you\u0026rsquo;re spot on there. I think. Yeah. Well, I, I totally agree with what you said. I think it\u0026rsquo;s often, especially with these kinds of things, you know, you, you look out and it seems like everyone\u0026rsquo;s just had like the perfect journey, you know, nothing went wrong and they\u0026rsquo;re just like sailed through and everything went exactly to plan.\nUh, when, you know, like it almost done Western wise is not the case, you know? I think, yeah.\nCheran: Yeah. And you know, you got you on LinkedIn and you just see a progression of, of one thing to the next to the next. But I think if we all restructured our LinkedIns to say, okay, you got this job and then failed at five others in between, and then got this job, I think everyone would be feeling a little bit better about themselves.\nSo, um, it\u0026rsquo;s about high time that we just made that a bit more public.\nJames: Yeah, I\u0026rsquo;ve seen, I don\u0026rsquo;t know if you\u0026rsquo;ve seen this idea, but there\u0026rsquo;s this idea of like an anti resume where like you have like all the, all the places you didn\u0026rsquo;t get into and that\u0026rsquo;s like a separate thing,\nCheran: Yeah. I mean, Bessemer venture partners who, uh, one of the big, um, SAS spaces in the U S have an anti portfolio where they essentially, um, have on their page or list of companies that they didn\u0026rsquo;t invest, you know, that they passed on. Um, and I think some of them are, you know, I think a lot of other VCs have tried to do a similar thing.\nUm, but it reflects the same sentiment. Right. Um, let\u0026rsquo;s be more open about this. Let\u0026rsquo;s talk, talk about those failures. Um, because in reality, it\u0026rsquo;s not all the way up into the right curve. Um, you know, much like the market it\u0026rsquo;s up on day down the next. So, um, you know, it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s good to make that more.\nJames: Yeah, no, you\u0026rsquo;re spot on there and I appreciate you sharing, sharing that story. Cause it certainly it\u0026rsquo;s when, when you\u0026rsquo;ve worked so hard for something it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s hard to kind of. You know, face that, that I think, like you said, you overcame it really well and it\u0026rsquo;s ended up working potentially better than, uh, you know, been going down the original part.\nSo, so that\u0026rsquo;s really\nCheran: Out in a few years\u0026rsquo; time.\nThe Post Interview Decision Process # James: Yeah. Well, yeah, I\u0026rsquo;d love to sort of talk about, you were talking there about like the post interview decision process and kind of, um, what you went through there, speaking to heaps of people to try and work out. Like, what does this look like for me? I think one thing I want to mention is I think it\u0026rsquo;s really, really great that you have like a T this is where I want to be in 10 years.\nRight. Cause I think if myself, to some extent and, and many people out that don\u0026rsquo;t have that. And so it\u0026rsquo;s hard then to sort of filter which opportunities. Yeah, I good. And which maybe is if you get offered something, it, should you say yes or no, like having that as a filter, a way to decide things is, is really cool.\nBut, um, so I just want to mention that. I\u0026rsquo;m sure, like you can imagine as well, but yeah. I\u0026rsquo;d love to sort of dive into this process here of like what, what you did once he had some of the offers available.\nCheran: Off what you just mentioned. I\u0026rsquo;ll just qualify it to say it\u0026rsquo;s good to have a plan, but it shouldn\u0026rsquo;t have a be, you know, in stone. Um, I was fairly set. I was going to end up in investment banking and I look what\u0026rsquo;s happened there. So, uh, I mean the same way that I was fairly certain that I would end up in law and fairly, so I end up in politics.\nSo, um, these things all need to be sort of movable and, um, flexible, I think, um, you know, for me the post interview decision-making process. I have no doubt in my mind that I was probably one of the last people to sign, um, the McKinsey contract. And I took a long time, I think, 6, 6, 7 weeks in the end. And I think candidates should feel absolutely no pressure, um, to sign within deadlines.\nNow I know investment banking is a bit different sometimes. Um, they give you a week and that\u0026rsquo;s it. Know, Navarro Robert con um, you know, very famous Angela Investo sound evangelist talks about three big decisions in your twenties, um, where you\u0026rsquo;ll live, who you\u0026rsquo;ll be with, um, what your job is, and you should take your time on all three of those decisions.\nSo it doesn\u0026rsquo;t my actual process. Um, the first thing I did was I sat down and I thought about what mattered to me from sort of a rubric, you know, sense, um, and try to rank those. So it might be things like pay prestige, exit opportunities, opportunity to work overseas, you know, learning and development, um, training, any factor that you think is relevant.\nUm, and what you want to do is figure out what matters to you and what doesn\u0026rsquo;t matter to you. And I think the big, you know, for me and this massive privilege that I acknowledge and saying this for me pay was the bottom of the list. So, um, yeah. Yes, massive pay card. And one of the big things that people will always say finally enough bankers.\nA lot of the time I\u0026rsquo;m moving from banking to consulting is all you\u0026rsquo;re working similar hours for half the pay. And I was like, yeah, I am that. Um, if I\u0026rsquo;m going to have a material step change in wealth, um, it\u0026rsquo;s not going to be because I\u0026rsquo;ve earned an extra $300,000 in my first two years, it\u0026rsquo;s going to be because, you know, I\u0026rsquo;ve met a certain person or data set business.\nThat\u0026rsquo;s resulted in a massive step change in 10, 20 years time. Um, so I think, think about the factors that are matter to you. And I think this is really important for people to remember. You know, we talk about. When it comes to working out or otherwise, but short-term pain, long-term gain is a big thing.\nAnd I think we undervalue the effect of compounding a lot. And that\u0026rsquo;s why, you know, a short term cash stipend or the opportunity to go overseas immediately versus, you know, training networks development over five years, you know, you have to discount those back, um, whether you\u0026rsquo;re a discounted cashflow person or not, you have to discount those back to some present value and understand what that value means to you.\nSo that was the first stage. The second stage then was, you know, leverage your success, like talk to as many different people as possible. I probably ended up talking to about 50 consultants, um, across McKinsey and BCG, um, uh, You know, I sort of had three buckets of people I wanted to talk to, and this is how I phrased it.\nWhen I asked for connections, I said, number one, I want to talk to people who had received offers from both firms that had chosen one or the other. Um, two, I wanted to talk to people who had come from investment banking or previously been in banking, um, or considered banking and I\u0026rsquo;m come to consulting.\nAnd then the third bucket was, I want us to hope the people who had left this, um, so like alumni essentially. Um, and I was like, both consultants were happy to connect. You connect me with all those people. Um, and after a while, you know, you hear very similar things. You take everything with a grain of salt, cause obviously everyone has a vested interest in bringing you towards their company.\nUm, You, you know, I had like a 30 page document by the end of the six weeks with all the notes I\u0026rsquo;d taken from all those people. I sat down one Sunday afternoon. Um, I already pretty much knew my decision, but, um, I said, I went through all of those notes, link them back to my various decision factors and tick the box between the two firms.\nAnd it came up pretty overwhelmingly clear. So, um, that was my decision making process. You know, it is a very consultanty process. It doesn\u0026rsquo;t break. You get dad, um, completely aware that, uh, that, you know, I think for me it was really structured and, um, it links back to, I think I\u0026rsquo;ve taught, this is something I\u0026rsquo;ve started only in the last maybe nine months or so, but died.\nEuro decision journal, I think is so important because, um, whenever your, you know, say. Say I\u0026rsquo;m at McKinsey in 12 months or 18 months time. Um, and I\u0026rsquo;m going through a rough patch and I\u0026rsquo;m questioning why I\u0026rsquo;m there. I can go back to that decision frame, the notes that I talk and say, these were the reasons I chose this job.\nIs that still true? If it isn\u0026rsquo;t true. Why am I still here? And then make that decision again? Um, and it\u0026rsquo;s so important to have a decision journal for every decision in life, whether that\u0026rsquo;s, you know, if it\u0026rsquo;s who you want to date or what restaurant you want to go to or whatever it is, but ideally it\u0026rsquo;s the bigger decision to be alive.\nBut, um, I think for me, it was really important just to have that bolted down. So, you know, that would be my structured process, but, um, at least talking from a consulting perspective, you know, take your time. Um, and don\u0026rsquo;t be afraid to ask, um, because you companies who wants you and they will, if you\u0026rsquo;ve got an offer, um, they will be happy generally to, to connect you to the people you want to be.\nJames: Hmm. Yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s really cool. I think, yeah. It\u0026rsquo;s really interesting to hear how you fractions and certainly like yeah, having those, those criteria. I know I\u0026rsquo;ve done that. The big decisions that I\u0026rsquo;ve made, like go on and exchange. I, I did that where I was like, what are the pros and cons of this? And then like, uh, you know,\nCheran: Cotton\u0026rsquo;s empty bank account.\nJames: Yeah.\nYeah, yeah. Literally. Yeah. That was the only time basically. Like you have no money left, you got to see the world, all this fun stuff. Like, okay. I\u0026rsquo;m young. Like it makes sense.\nCheran: Exactly.\nJames: But yeah. Yeah. I agree. I think, and, and able to sort of tie it to perhaps a medium long-term vision of like what you want your life to look like as well.\nUm, you know, I think having that criteria sort of somewhere in there is a great way to evaluate important decisions like this, you know, whether it be like your first sort of job out of university, I think. Yeah. I think that\u0026rsquo;s, that\u0026rsquo;s really cool.\nCheran: Yeah.\nWhat questions did Cheran ask in his post offer decision process? # James: Um, One thing I want to ask is like, sort of what, what questions would you ask people in this process, like you\u0026rsquo;re meeting with, with other consultants that, that currently work or, or have recently left?\nAre there any, yeah, what\u0026rsquo;s the, what kind of themes? What, what are you trying to ask and perhaps, like, were there any good questions that you asked them to kind of learn more about, about the company? Cause I\u0026rsquo;m thinking as well, you could probably ask similar ones through the recruiting process as well.\nRight. Where you\u0026rsquo;re trying to learn about, um, about the company and the culture and, and the opportunities and, and all that kind of stuff.\nCheran: Yeah, absolutely. I think when it comes to. Like when it came to post decision making, obviously a lot of the questions and a lot of these consultants had already been debriefed. So they were like, okay. Shrine is considering between McKinsey and X unit. It convinced him to come to X and like that sort of the, you know, the flow of the conversation.\nBut that, that being said, the question is still quite similar, even before I had got offers. So, um, you know, a lot of the questions are wide. Have you come to X? You know, I saw you\u0026rsquo;ve done X previously. What was the framework around that? You know, why did you leave that job? Um, why you still here? Um, but I think, you know, the value for your listeners probably comes from some of the nature of questions to ask.\nAnd I had a few that I always asked, probably follows conversations after offers. Um, The first one I always asked was just, what were the decision factors that you were thinking about when you made your decision? Um, and you know, 90% of the time they aligned with the same things I was thinking about. So fighting a development offshore, um, pay if it was a material factor or not, but every now and then there would be one consultant.\nWho\u0026rsquo;d say some factor that I hadn\u0026rsquo;t thought of at all. And I\u0026rsquo;ll often it would be, you know, a very niche industry that they were interested in, for example, or, you know, um, McKenzie, you have to start at them, it can be health Institute. And there was one consultant who had come specifically for that. So all those sorts of things, um, as well, um, the question I always asked every person was, um, what are, and actually, this is the question I asked during the interview as well, which I think was quite effective, um, was what are the characteristics of the.\nUh, business analysts, which is the entry level position at McKinsey. Um, one are the best characteristics of the business analysts at McKinsey or the SRE sets a basic J or then there\u0026rsquo;s some backing analysts at Macquarie or Goldman or wherever. Um, and what that question shows is that firstly, you\u0026rsquo;re wanting to be the best, but secondly, that you\u0026rsquo;re thinking back two steps beyond what you\u0026rsquo;re actually applying for, because you know, you\u0026rsquo;re not just asking you about your internship.\nYou\u0026rsquo;re asking about, you know, I want to be an investment banking analyst at Macquarie growth. What are the best things or what are the characteristics that I could develop now to prepare me for that in 18 months time? Um, um, I think most of the times that question followed with about 15 seconds of silence because no one had ever asked them that before.\nAnd then they sort of thought, okay, well, yeah, this is one like junior to my team who I think he\u0026rsquo;s really great. And these are the things that he does. Um, and that was a really nice way to get that conversation going. Those would be a lot of the questions I would ask. And then the rest are just risks on personal life.\nAnd, um, there\u0026rsquo;s, I\u0026rsquo;m a big four wheel, one fat and there was one, um, there\u0026rsquo;s actually two consultants at McKinsey. One\u0026rsquo;s ex red bull one\u0026rsquo;s ex Ferrari. So we could just talk about that for ages as well.\nJames: Nice. No, that\u0026rsquo;s, that\u0026rsquo;s difficult and yeah, I think like asking the right questions is so important. And I think a question like that is, is great. Cause yeah, like you said, it shows you\u0026rsquo;re interested, um, you know, gives them answering. It gives you feedback around this sort of thing is that perhaps you could like turn it around and give them the example of like a time where you exercise those traits.\nWhat drives Cheran # James: Uh, you know, perhaps if you\u0026rsquo;re in somewhere in the interview, so yeah, I think that\u0026rsquo;s, um, yeah, I think that the thing that\u0026rsquo;s super cool. Um, I want to ask, perhaps we\u0026rsquo;re getting to the end, so maybe two more like things that I just like to ask you. And one is like, what, um, um, I\u0026rsquo;m interested just cause like why.\nYou\u0026rsquo;re you\u0026rsquo;re a high-performing person. Right? You, uh, you know,\nCheran: Appreciate that.\nJames: You do. Yeah. So you do a lot of things really well, like, um, and so I\u0026rsquo;m interested to know kind of what, uh, like what, what drives you like on a, on a daily basis? Like what, what, like, why do you go out and achieve, like, is there, are there any like sort of reasons that you can put to that is, well, yeah.\nHow do you, how do you think about that?\nCheran: Hmm. That\u0026rsquo;s a really good question. Um, I think if I\u0026rsquo;m being completely real, it\u0026rsquo;s a fear of mediocrity. I think that\u0026rsquo;s something that a lot of people can probably achieve with, um, that, you know, it comes from a place, you know, my parents both came from and not so great time in the world and fairly middle-class.\nI see how hard they were. Um, You know, there\u0026rsquo;s part of me, that\u0026rsquo;s like, well, you better ACE this life because you know, there\u0026rsquo;s only one chance to do it. And I think, um, if I were to look at myself and say, you know, much, like when we were talking about the concept of lock and lock is away, it\u0026rsquo;s going to exist in the world.\nBut if you put yourself in a position where there\u0026rsquo;s nothing more that you could have done, then you sleep well at night. And I think if you extend that out or if my entire life I\u0026rsquo;d want to wake up every day, knowing, um, that there have been no regrets and that I haven\u0026rsquo;t, you know, I remember when I was a. this is a complete tangent, but I remember in year five English or something, um, I, I didn\u0026rsquo;t get the English award for, for something. And I was pretty disappointed in it. And, um, I remember my year five teacher saying, you know, you\u0026rsquo;re, you\u0026rsquo;ve got so much potential. It would be worthless if you didn\u0026rsquo;t tap into it once in a while.\nAnd I think that\u0026rsquo;s where we stuck with me ever since, because that\u0026rsquo;s something you don\u0026rsquo;t really want, right. If you can perform at your best and that\u0026rsquo;s all you can do then I think, um, that\u0026rsquo;s what drives me every day. I think the other thing as well, I do just generally think I\u0026rsquo;ve a pretty deep satisfaction of eventually having a career in social impact and eventually having, um, I recognition and Chamath Palihapitiya, um, an American or Canadian investor talks about this a lot.\nUm, That money drives the world, whether you like it or not. And I think, uh, to affect social change in the world requires a command of capital, um, at some stage. And I think I have a big drive to eventually, you know, marry my interest in venture capital with an interest in longevity and, and biotech and life sciences.\nAnd, uh, being able to say that, you know, I\u0026rsquo;m, I\u0026rsquo;m not smart enough to do the chemistry or the engineering behind it that I potentially could help with the capital allocation process and those sort of things. Um, that\u0026rsquo;s what drives me every day is to take the skills that I have and to use that for the best influence of, you know, the people around me.\nJames: Oh, no, thanks so much for sharing that loss. Yeah. It\u0026rsquo;s super interesting to hear, uh, you know, inside your life and inside your mind and, you know, the things that you\u0026rsquo;re thinking about. And I think that\u0026rsquo;s, uh, you know, that\u0026rsquo;s really great. It\u0026rsquo;s like the, you know, having a positive impact on the world and, you know, really creating the ability for yourself to do that in the future, I think is, uh, is really cool.\nAnd I look forward to the, the positive impact that you will have eventually, uh, I look forward to following your journey, right?\nCheran: Come back to me in 30 years and we\u0026rsquo;ll say\nCherans Advice # James: Yeah. Fantastic. Well, yeah, I\u0026rsquo;ve got one more question for you, Sean. And that is a question. I ask all the guests that come on the shot and it is if you could kind of let\u0026rsquo;s let\u0026rsquo;s even for yourself, go back to when you were first starting university and kind of add into this journey of discovering, um, you know, the different opportunities that are, that are awaiting you.\nAnd what advice would you give to someone that\u0026rsquo;s perhaps, you know, now just starting out on their.\nCheran: Yeah, totally. Um, I think I\u0026rsquo;ve seen a few things. Um, I\u0026rsquo;ve always had three things, um, have to keep it very structured as a future consultant. Um, I think the first one would be do things your own way. I\u0026rsquo;ve mentioned the phrase, hedonic treadmill a few times now, but it\u0026rsquo;s very easy. And I know that I am a person who subjects this on others is you see the LinkedIn\u0026rsquo;s the table and you say, oh, well, by doing this, you got to this.\nAnd by doing, they, he got to say, and, um, have a consciousness that there are a million ways to get to where you want to be and be driven enough that you pursue goals. And you know, if you are pursuing roles and titles and whatever it is, that\u0026rsquo;s fine, but don\u0026rsquo;t be so driven that you forget to SSA, smell the roses from the way.\nUm, and you forget about the race, why you\u0026rsquo;ve done that journey. And you know, I\u0026rsquo;m not ending up in banking, but I\u0026rsquo;m still glad I\u0026rsquo;ve spent one and a half years in banking because that\u0026rsquo;s taught me a whole, um, skill set of things that if I was so focused on the outcome, I think that was a waste, which certainly isn\u0026rsquo;t.\nSo I\u0026rsquo;d say, firstly, do things your way. Second thing. Um, nobody cares. Um, and that sounds rather flippant. Um, that what I mean by that is genuinely, nobody cares about so many of the failures that we have on a daily basis. I remember, um, seeing this visual visualization once on. And if you imagine two concentric circles and you sort of have one circle and then you have a little small circle, um, in the middle of it, um, and that small circle is how much other people think about you and all the space around it is how much you think about other people thinking about you.\nUm, and that\u0026rsquo;s just the reality yet. Literally nobody cares. Everyone has their own issues and problems to sort through. And it\u0026rsquo;s very liberating once you realize that, because all of a sudden, you\u0026rsquo;re just focused on your own happiness and your personal pursuit of your goals. Um, and that\u0026rsquo;s all you need in life.\nI think life is already tough enough, um, without worrying about what other people think or, you know, what\u0026rsquo;s going to be the impact of me not getting X or not being at this stage in life. Um, and especially when you surround yourself in a high academic shaving background of students and cohorts, as you know, the universities, you and I have been to, um, either it gets very easy to fall into that middle. And then the last thing I would say, um, is that life will generally be okay. Um, and I think this sort of links back to, you know, nobody cares, but, um, I\u0026rsquo;ve said this a lot too, you know, it\u0026rsquo;s graduate season at the moment. A lot of students in the years below some students that I tutor at university has been really stressed and worried about, um, applications.\nAnd I think, remember that everybody\u0026rsquo;s. Peaks at a certain period of time and that\u0026rsquo;s not going to be 22 for everybody. And it\u0026rsquo;ll be rather sad if you\u0026rsquo;re picking a 22. So I think, just remember that the vast majority of your listeners and the people who are part of this community, um, have lived in a time, which has never been better than time before.\nNumber one. Uh, and that second late, generally, everybody, if you work hard enough, if you don\u0026rsquo;t that luck impact everything in your life, you will be okay. Um, and you will get to where you want to eventually, um, and that there\u0026rsquo;s no rush in life in terms of reaching certain goals. I just, because it seems like the vast majority of people reach goals within a certain period of time doesn\u0026rsquo;t mean that you have to be part of that as well, because there are countless numbers of people, you know, Reed Hoffman is a prime example, uh, period reached their peak successes and their Fest successes in their forties and fifties.\nSo, um, That would be my three pieces of advice, do things here right away. Um, nobody cares and, uh, it\u0026rsquo;ll all be okay, James. It\u0026rsquo;ll all be okay.\nWhere to contact Cheran # James: Amazing. No, that\u0026rsquo;s, that\u0026rsquo;s really, really cool advice. And thanks so much for sharing that with us, Sean, because yeah, I think, you know, if people can really take that to heart, uh, then yeah. Then I think it\u0026rsquo;ll really. Help them set them up for, for more interesting and successful life. So, yeah. Thanks so much for sharing that with us today.\nUm, if people listening want to go and find out more about yourself, perhaps I\u0026rsquo;ve now heard your fantastic advice on applying for roles in various different places, uh, where is the best place for them to go and find out more about you?\nCheran: Yeah, LinkedIn, uh, my name straight onto there, um, woman TROSA for dinosaurs. So please just message a message. If there\u0026rsquo;s anything that I can help with. Um, otherwise I\u0026rsquo;m on Twitter as well as strong K seven. Um, probably those two places.\nJames: Fantastic. Well, yeah, we\u0026rsquo;ll direct people there, but yeah. Thanks so much for coming on the pod today. Sean, it\u0026rsquo;s been really, really cool dogging into all the things you think about then. Yeah. Thanks so much.\nCheran: Thanks, James. This was fun.\nOutro # James: Thanks for listening to this episode I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. If you want to get my takeaways, the things that I learned from this episode, please go to Graduate Theory.com/subscribe, where you can get my takeaways and all the information about each episode, straight to your inbox.\nThanks so much for listening again today, and we\u0026rsquo;re looking forward to seeing you next week.\n← Back to episode 35\n","date":"20 June 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/graduate-theory/35-cheran-ketheesuran/transcript/","section":"Graduate Theory Transcripts","summary":"← Back to episode 35\nThis transcript has been lightly edited for readability. It may still contain transcription errors.\nCheran: Now, if you think you can do that for 20 banks in three weeks and perform at your peak for each of those processes, then I want to make you because you’re Superman and superwoman\n","title":"Transcript: Cheran Ketheesuran | On The Journey To Banking and Consulting Graduate Roles","type":"graduate-theory-transcripts"},{"content":" Watch the conversation Graduate Theory Open YouTube ↗ Read the full transcript → From Banking in Australia to Crypto advisory and now CEO of a startup in Silicon Valley, today\u0026rsquo;s guest has seen a lot.\nIn this week\u0026rsquo;s episode, you will learn about how hardships can shape you and build your character.\nIf you like what you see, subscribe to this newsletter and get emails like this, every week.👇\nSubscribe Now\nRobby Wade is a former banking manager, who is on a mission to revolutionise the industry of chat.\nHe’s a former COO of Vid, and Founding Partner at asset investment group, Nebula Partners, and now CEO and Co-Founder of ThisApp.\n🤝 Connect with Robby # ThisApp - https://this.so/\nLinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/robby-wade/\n👇 Episode Takeaways # It’s Nice to Know What Sucks # When speaking with Robby, he highlighted his experience working at McDonald\u0026rsquo;s.\nHe said that it was extremely difficult, even more difficult than his current role as CEO of his startup.\nHaving these difficult experiences allows him to have perspective when approaching situations in his life today.\nAnd so you kind of, it\u0026rsquo;s sort of nice to know what sucks. Those people that grow up in low socioeconomic environments, they\u0026rsquo;re incredibly hard and they appreciate what they have. I think you can kind of artificially create that by having a shitty job at some point in your life. It\u0026rsquo;s important to give you perspective later on when you\u0026rsquo;re working in different environments.\nHe expanded on this with his story of running. Running long distances and doing hard things like skydiving help Robby to put simple things like Zoom calls into perspective.\nDoing hard things helps us to make the hard things easier.\n“Hard choices, easy life. Easy choices, hard life.” - Jerzy Gregorek.\nBuild Your Relationship with Fear # Robby shared with us his struggles with anxiety. He said they were very difficult but also helpful in providing him insight into what it is like to deal with these kinds of problems.\nRobby struggled, but he used these experiences to stretch himself.\nHe began testing himself and pushing the limits of what he was afraid of.\nHe went from an anxious young adult to a solo skydiver.\nWhat a transformation.\nRobby is a great example of what we are all capable of. If there are things holding you back, you can push past them and create the life that you want.\nRead and Run # Robby\u0026rsquo;s final advice to us what that we should do these two things every day.\nRead Run Even if we just start at one page and one kilometre, it is a near certainty that your life will improve.\nYou will be learning from the best mentors in the world, while also getting yourself into excellent physical condition.\nA strong mind and strong body is a recipe for an effective and enjoyable experience in life.\nGet the Newsletter\n📝 Content Timestamps # 00:00 Robby Wade 00:18 Intro 00:51 Robby\u0026rsquo;s Journey from NAB to Silicon Valley 06:01 What Robby learnt from Crypto Advisory 08:24 Robby\u0026rsquo;s ThisApp story 16:11 What keeps Robby going 27:38 Robby\u0026rsquo;s Learning Journey and Engineering 34:41 Failures that turned out to be a success 45:22 Robby\u0026rsquo;s Advice for Graduates 47:24 Contact Robby 48:22 Outro\n","date":"13 June 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/graduate-theory/34-robby-wade/","section":"Graduate Theory","summary":" Watch the conversation Graduate Theory Open YouTube ↗ Read the full transcript → From Banking in Australia to Crypto advisory and now CEO of a startup in Silicon Valley, today’s guest has seen a lot.\n","title":"Robby Wade | On the Importance of Perspective","type":"graduate-theory"},{"content":"← Back to episode 34\nThis transcript has been lightly edited for readability. It may still contain transcription errors.\nRobby Wade: I run a startup now where you\u0026rsquo;re like, oh man, how do you take on all these stress? And. Running a shift on Friday night and like running, trying to keep the drive-through clear it\u0026rsquo;s like the most intense shit you could ever go through in your entire life.\nIntro # James: Hello, and welcome to Graduate Theory. Today\u0026rsquo;s guest is a former banking manager. Who\u0026rsquo;s on a mission to revolutionize the industry of chat.\nHe\u0026rsquo;s a former CEO of vid and a founding partner at asset management group at Nebula ventures. He\u0026rsquo;s now the CEO and co-founder of this app, an all in one chat platform that makes it easy to connect with anyone and organize anything. Please welcome to the show today, Robbie.\nRobby Wade: Uh, James, thanks for the kind intro, uh, in preparing that I really appreciate it. Uh, but.\nRobby\u0026rsquo;s Journey from NAB to Silicon Valley # James: Sure. Well, yeah, I\u0026rsquo;d love to sort of wind back the clock back to when you sort of left university and started working and you actually used to work at NAB and I\u0026rsquo;d be interested to hear kind of this whole journey of, you know, now the two CEO in Silicon valley, it\u0026rsquo;s quite a unique trajectory that you\u0026rsquo;re on.\nUm, but yeah, w w what was kind of the, the story there in terms of. Leaving NAB. And then going into some of these other things where you sort of ESOPs and trying a bunch of things, um, how did that story kind of stop? Keep.\nRobby Wade: Absolutely. I, um, I\u0026rsquo;ll go back a little bit just to offer some more context. Uh, my parents, uh, basically had a small business while we were growing up. And so. We kind of grew up in the factory where they work to driving around in forklifts and whatnot. They sort of sold gas, heaters and wood heaters in the winter and, uh, solar hot water and, and whatnot in the summer.\nAnd I kind of quickly realized that I never wanted to run a business. Um, in that sense we would be there seven days a week and, um, we\u0026rsquo;re working with them and helping them unload trucks and whatnot. So I, uh, I, I decided to go to uni and, um, I studied economics and finance and I went to. Three years, but I didn\u0026rsquo;t end up graduating.\nUm, I had about four or five subjects to go and I was working as a teller at NAB at the time and actually got a. Um, I got offered a job in the private bank and that required a degree to get into that job. And so I ended up in this weird position where I had a job that required a degree, but I didn\u0026rsquo;t have a degree yet.\nAnd then I just sort of kept getting promoted and going through my, my career. And it just got to a point where I was like, I don\u0026rsquo;t really know what I need the degree for, because I\u0026rsquo;d gotten. That the degree is to call to get you your first job, but then you get a job that requires a degree and no one ever asks you for it ever again.\nAnd so, um, I spent a lot of money and didn\u0026rsquo;t end up with the piece of paper and I did a lot of work. I wasn\u0026rsquo;t kind of like one of those romantic, uh, uni dropouts. I worked incredibly hard over three years to try to finish that off and. I mean, I got the job, which is the good part. And I went back to uni to ask them if I could, you know, do a test or something and just get my certificate.\nBut unfortunately that wasn\u0026rsquo;t the case. Um, but Yeah.\nto answer your question more directly, I, um, I\u0026rsquo;d been working at NAB for quite some time and I had been investing in cryptocurrency, a good friend, uh, got me into cryptocurrency quite early. And, uh, this was around, I think maybe it\u0026rsquo;d either have to be late 20, 15 or early 20, 60.\nAnd, uh, in the bank back then, you know, if you think cryptocurrency is controversial now, Back then it was even more for like drug, uh, you know, people who were buying drugs and then all of those kinds of things. Uh, so that was, you know, there was very few people in the bank that actually were involved in crypto and whatnot.\nAnd so my business partner that I founded ended up founding Nebula ventures with James coziness, um, actually started an advisory firm. He got an opportunity with a few clients, uh, overseas, and because I was the only other person. He knew that was new, something about crypto. He sort of invited me to join him in starting this advisory business.\nAnd what that meant was we were essentially advising cryptocurrency companies. Like making pitch decks and financial models and all of these kinds of things. And so, you know, one day I was working in the bank having the time of my life and living in Sydney. And, you know, I worked in at NAB, it was kind of the glory days of banking.\nThey sort of caught her. My, one of my old bosses said it wasn\u0026rsquo;t a job. It was a lifestyle. I was like, oh, we sort of went to lunch with clients and built really good friendships with them. And it was an incredible experience for me. Leading that, that experience there led to fundraising later as a startup, because my, I worked in the private bank and NAB, so I got to be around a lot of high net worth individuals.\nAnd I learnt how to interact with them and speak to them and build relationships with them. And, you know, you kind of realize that rich and successful people that just like you, they have the same problems as you, and you just kind of have to be normal around them and whatnot. So that, that was an incredibly important part of my journey.\nBut all of a sudden, I. Quit my job. And, uh, we, we, we were on a plane to the first client we had where we met them in Europe and we flew all around Europe and then went to Asia and, uh, you know, ended up in the states and did various different speaking gigs and worked with different clients who are launching tokens.\nAnd Yeah. it was an absolute whirlwind. Like I didn\u0026rsquo;t grow up as an, your typical entrepreneur. I was kind of the opposite. It\u0026rsquo;s not like, uh, I started selling Tisha or whatever it was like on my. We\u0026rsquo;re very entrepreneurial and I was sort of adverse to it because I grew up in an environment where you had just constantly, uh, working in the, in the business and, and whatnot.\nBut I, you know, it\u0026rsquo;s kind of like a, they have a saying, you know, um, mirror mirror on the wall. I\u0026rsquo;m like my father off the road or whatever, it may be in some capacity, uh, so that it was in my blood and they, once I sort of took that dive, I, it just never stopped. It just kept going. Um, and I can go. Do you want me to keep going through to how this app came to be?\nWhat Robby learnt from Crypto Advisory # James: Yeah. Well, I think maybe it was we\u0026rsquo;ll pause and ask you to go into some of that in a bit more detail. What, like traveling around and saying is saying that most people and stuff does that, like, do you still use like those kinds of skills and the things. Like you\u0026rsquo;d, like you said, now you learn a lot from like how to sort of operate around certain individuals.\nAnd then I guess like the pitching and stuff that you, that you saw when you were doing crypto\u0026rsquo;s rail as well, there\u0026rsquo;s a lot of that, that parallels to Aiden, what you do now as well. So it\u0026rsquo;s interesting how, like, you know, all the\nRobby Wade: Absolutely. Like, I mean, it\u0026rsquo;s actually not that different, like in terms of when you\u0026rsquo;re. Uh, like when you\u0026rsquo;re in the bank and you\u0026rsquo;re trying to get a high net worth individual to invest in one of the banks products, or you\u0026rsquo;re trying to get them to refinance their loans across to your business or restructure their family portfolio, or build a relationship with them.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s exactly the same set of skillsets that like I needed to use in order to get investors to invest in this app, for example, and you know, very recently we weren\u0026rsquo;t originally, we weren\u0026rsquo;t going to have. Um, we, weren\u0026rsquo;t going to introduce the concept of the token as early as we did in, uh, in this app. And then sort of Web3 had sort of accelerated over the last sort of like year or two in, in the venture funding space.\nAnd all of a sudden had. You know, ride some token economics and write a token paper and whatnot, but like, I\u0026rsquo;d done that in my advisory business. That\u0026rsquo;s what we used to do for companies. And we used to build their burn burn rates and their cap tables. And so bringing that into like a comp our company now, uh, like all of those skills have like, definitely transcended over.\nAnd, but the funny thing is like, along the way, you don\u0026rsquo;t really realize that\u0026rsquo;s actually happening in that sense. It\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s just sort of like slowly manifesting. Yeah, I have, I take a lot of pride in building very deep relationships with, uh, our investor base. And it\u0026rsquo;s kind of like an uncommon experience for them where I\u0026rsquo;ve gone out of my way to build very deep friendships.\nAnd I don\u0026rsquo;t do that. Um, I don\u0026rsquo;t do. For any other reason, then that\u0026rsquo;s just what I\u0026rsquo;ve always done. Like in the bank, our job was to maintain the relationships with these sort of high, high net worth individuals. And a lot of them have remained friends to this day. Uh, just because of the depth that you go to.\nSo it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s sort of just continued in the same process, uh, throughout that.\nRobby\u0026rsquo;s ThisApp story # James: Yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s super cool. Super cool. And then, yeah, tell me, I want to hear the story now of like starting this out. Cause you know, crypto and all that stuff. Really cool. But yeah. What was kind of the thing that happened to get you\nRobby Wade: Yeah. I mean, there\u0026rsquo;s a little, uh, I guess I\u0026rsquo;ll keep going in the story I was telling before, because it sort of leads into this app and there\u0026rsquo;s a, there\u0026rsquo;s a fair bit of context that needs to happen there.\nJames: Yeah.\nRobby Wade: So we, we did the advisory stuff for about a year and a bit and a year and a half. And then we met Adam, um, who you\u0026rsquo;ve interviewed on the podcast before.\nAnd Adam Kajara is an incredible person who has changed my life and my business partner\u0026rsquo;s life in a number of different ways. Um, and basically what Adam did was he kind of said to him, I think you two are great, like come and work for me. And we were like, look, man, like we just quit our jobs and traveled the world and did all these amazing things.\nLike, we don\u0026rsquo;t really want to work for anyone. And he was like, well, how about we partner with you? Um, and so we ended up partnering with Adam and Adam. What\u0026rsquo;s the most humbling thing in the world is Adam essentially invested in James and I, instead of investing in an idea. Um, so he basically just said, look, I really like you guys.\nI want you guys to go and find a business that you really like. And, um, and so we, we worked with Adam, um, and went around and worked with a lot of interesting projects during that phase. And, you know, in the end we didn\u0026rsquo;t end up partnering with Adam on a business. Um, and you know, He said he backed us for a couple of years and that\u0026rsquo;s an investment that I\u0026rsquo;ll sort of never forget.\nHe sort of invested in me as a human and I feel incredibly lucky to have had that opportunity because the experiences I had in that time, uh, you know, Unbelievable, uh, in, in many different aspects and you\u0026rsquo;ve met Adam, he\u0026rsquo;s an incredibly deep person and there\u0026rsquo;s a lot to learn from him. Um, and so we did that and then I ended up going into a startup that I\u0026rsquo;d known from the crypto time.\nIt was, that was beard. Um, I went into vid when there was only like, I guess, four or five people there. And we grew that team to over 50 people. And, um, we launched, uh, our token on a couple of exchanges around the world, but that was such a remarkable experience. I was a banker and then I went into advisory and then I, I was always sort of like on the other side of the table to the builders where vid was the first time I actually went in deep into a company and was involved in the product.\nAnd I was lucky enough to get the like, COO. Like chief operating officer, which, I mean, in an early stage startup is basically just like the operations dude. Like it\u0026rsquo;s a fancy title for somebody who does all the stuff no one wants to do. Um, but the it\u0026rsquo;s a glorified admin role essentially. But the good thing about being COO is my job was operations.\nSo I had to be involved in marketing, legal, product engineering and all these things. And because I didn\u0026rsquo;t have a preconceived notion or any sort of ego around what I already knew about. Immerse myself and learn to immensely and loved every second of it. Um, and the, the funny thing with vid was it was kind of like one of those Silicon valley experiences that you see, um, on TV.\nLike, I mean, we were in LA, but we had this kind of a big house where there was about 11 team members that live in. And we lived and worked in that house every single day, you know, 12 hours a day. And it was just an insane experience. There was influences coming to the house and, you know, people in the living room, making videos and coding and like doing all those kinds of things.\nAnd so those are really, really cool experience to actually live and work in a house with like all the people around you. The CEO lived in the house and all those sorts of things, and it was the best and worst experience of my entire life. Like, I mean, we, we didn\u0026rsquo;t start working ever, uh, because you\u0026rsquo;re around your work.\nUm, if you think remote works bad, you know, live in work is a whole different thing when you all live in the same house. Um, but Yeah.\nit was, it was great. And then it came to COVID, uh, the COVID bear market in crypto happened and that sort of, Um,\nthe DCO decided to end up selling the company to a private equity firm.\nAnd I, it was like, LA was a weird place when COVID was going down because like, you know, People were loading up on ammunition and doing, you know, that kind of like American things. And I was like, you know, um, I just go back to Australia for like two weeks. Um, and I ended up staying there for like 11 months, but I went home to Australia and I had a lot of time to sort of recover.\nUh, on everything, all the journeys I\u0026rsquo;d kind of been on in the last few years and being locked down. Wasn\u0026rsquo;t that bad for me, because like I just spent the last year and a half in the feed house, uh, basically locked in the house every single day working. So he wasn\u0026rsquo;t really that unfamiliar. And I took a few friends and we, uh, uh, like my family have a farm house, five hours south of Sydney in a place called mystery.\nUm, and so for my friends, we just went down there and lived down there. The population\u0026rsquo;s like 60 people. And so we kind of just got to enjoy our lives for a little bit. Uh, during that phase, we weren\u0026rsquo;t in like big cities, uh, where you had a lot of these like much tighter lockdowns and, um, the beaches were pretty empty down there and, and whatnot.\nUm, anyways, so Yeah.\nduring that trip, Uh, during that phase, I wanted to start something new and something that I\u0026rsquo;d noticed in the startup world is you have all these incredible tools in terms of like how you actually communicate. And it\u0026rsquo;s actually oftentimes easier to communicate with your work colleagues that are.\nTwo people in your real life and you end up just tending to spend more time at work, just cause it\u0026rsquo;s like easier. Um, you know, it\u0026rsquo;s easier for people to you and I to organize a podcast together in different times zones. And we\u0026rsquo;ve never met than it is for my mum to organize a call with me. Like, if you just think about that, like she should just be able to press my icon at the top of my, at the top of WhatsApp.\nSee what times entities for me put time in my calendar and catch up. And you know, people say like, oh, Your, your mom or your friends should just be able to call you out of the blue. Like, yes, that\u0026rsquo;s true. But if you call me and I\u0026rsquo;m, I\u0026rsquo;m in the middle of work or something, I\u0026rsquo;m not present, like, I, I focus to such an extent that it takes a little bit of unwinding to come out and focus on what someone\u0026rsquo;s saying.\nAnd I don\u0026rsquo;t know if you have a similar experience in that way. Like when someone calls you and you\u0026rsquo;re like in the middle of like coding something or. You\u0026rsquo;re not there. You\u0026rsquo;re like, Yeah.\nAnyway, like what\u0026rsquo;s up, but if someone\u0026rsquo;s with you, you stop all you\u0026rsquo;re doing to, to go and take that call. Right? Like I\u0026rsquo;ve been working all day.\nI saw that I have a call with you. I stopped what I\u0026rsquo;m doing so that I can be present with you and have a, have a proper conversation. I think that\u0026rsquo;s where scheduled conversations are kind of undervalued. Um, but we, we took that a little bit further. We were like, how do people organize events? How do people organize trips?\nHow do people actually get together? How do people communicate? And I was like, how do we bring some of these lessons? from the business world about how to run a really coherent team and then bring that into your sort of social and family lives. Like the, the depth of relationships you build in startups and, and, and work and stuff like that.\nThe reason is because you work on these projects together, you organize things together, you communicate efficiently together. And so was like, how can we take these lessons and sort of bring them down into this sort of consumer social world, not make it feel worky, but take these principles and distill them down into, into a.\nUm, and then, Yeah.\nI\u0026rsquo;d also spend a bit of time. Uh, we had, uh, a team in China at vid. So I\u0026rsquo;d used, we-chat a number of different times and I sort of saw how inferior the chat products were in the west camp compared to how we chat worked and took a lot of lessons from that. And then sort of brought that over.\nSo I know that was a long-winded answer, but I wanted to offer you the sort of like full context of how we ended up.\nJames: Thanks for listening to this episode of Graduate Theory. If you haven\u0026rsquo;t already subscribed to the Graduate Theory newsletter you can do so by at the links in the show notes, the Graduate Theory newsletter comes out every single Tuesday morning with my thoughts and lessons from each episode.\nBut without further ado, let\u0026rsquo;s get back into it.\nWhat keeps Robby going # James: Yeah, definitely. That\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s pretty interesting and suddenly like a really cool journey that you\u0026rsquo;re on and, um, you know, seeking to change chat is like, uh, no easy fate, right? It\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s kind of a thing to take on and I\u0026rsquo;m curious to ask, you know, how. So stay the course when you are taking on, like, I mean, what, from my perspective, this is like quite a big thing.\nOr I was trying to like, sort of become like, you know, like the best, um, chat app in the west, essentially, you know, how do you, like what drives you to sort of persist with this goal and, and, you know, in case.\nRobby Wade: Yeah, it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s a really interesting question because we\u0026rsquo;re sort of. Going against the grain of what you should do in a startup. Like everyone will always tell you, like, you know, um, pick one small thing and monopolize on that target audience. And then, you know, do it, pick one little niche and go into that niche.\nAnd we\u0026rsquo;re kind of doing the opposite to that. I kind of have a contrarian view. I think that\u0026rsquo;s an old idea, like in the sense, and there\u0026rsquo;s sort of also like lean startup methodology. Um, it\u0026rsquo;s like an old idea in the sense that, uh, if you think about. Well, there\u0026rsquo;s like hundreds of thousands of apps on the app store and you probably use five or six on a daily or weekly basis.\nRight. And if you look at the five or six that you use every single day, they probably do more than one thing. Um,\nin, in that sense, they, they usually multifunctional apps like. Whether it\u0026rsquo;s Instagram or Facebook or whatever, like they, they, they do two or three things or four things or whatever. And, you know, what\u0026rsquo;s tending to happen is their people are building these sort of smaller products.\nAnd then these bigger companies are just buying them. And I found like a lot of our products that were being built. They weren\u0026rsquo;t really businesses. They were features like it\u0026rsquo;s it\u0026rsquo;s, you know, for example, like I don\u0026rsquo;t see split payments is something that should be a whole app. It\u0026rsquo;s a feature to me. Um, I don\u0026rsquo;t see like a, uh, for example, Something like Calendly is weird to me.\nLike it\u0026rsquo;s a feature that should just be inside Google calendar. Like it\u0026rsquo;s a, I don\u0026rsquo;t understand how that\u0026rsquo;s a standalone product. It doesn\u0026rsquo;t make any sense. Um, and so I sort of had that methodology initially. Uh, I also, I don\u0026rsquo;t know. The size of it\u0026rsquo;s exciting. It\u0026rsquo;s like, what makes you want to wake up and do it every day?\nAnd you\u0026rsquo;re just like, it\u0026rsquo;s so incredible now that we\u0026rsquo;ve sort of designed the product out and I see it and I just know that it needs to exist. And you, you sort of, the core thing is it\u0026rsquo;s not like we\u0026rsquo;ve just picked these features out of thin air. And I\u0026rsquo;m like, oh, I want to have this balloon there. And this balloon there and whatever, like each of these features is kind of like in sync with the other.\nAnd like it\u0026rsquo;s the sum of their parts makes them all greater. It\u0026rsquo;s. The iPhone, isn\u0026rsquo;t just, um, the iPhone, isn\u0026rsquo;t just like a compass internet, an iPod and a phone, right? Like it\u0026rsquo;s, when you combine all of those feature sets, you sort of unlock these experiences that people have sort of never been able to, uh, produce before, because you didn\u0026rsquo;t have these like connections now, how do we stay on track?\nIt\u0026rsquo;s very, very difficult. Like, I\u0026rsquo;ll be direct with you. Like there\u0026rsquo;s a benefit where it\u0026rsquo;s exciting enough to wake up every day and do it where you\u0026rsquo;re like, yes, this is interesting. And you can tell people about the vision and investors get excited and whatever. And then it\u0026rsquo;s another thing to. Start to product, manage this beast and go, how are we actually going to get this done with our smaller team?\nAnd now, you know, tiny amount of funding that we\u0026rsquo;ve got compared to these juggernauts, like, you know, we\u0026rsquo;ve raised a decent amount of funding from my perspective, but some of these companies that are going up against have more money than, you know, the U S government. Um, and so that\u0026rsquo;s like a, that\u0026rsquo;s a, that\u0026rsquo;s an incredibly daunting task, but I don\u0026rsquo;t think that\u0026rsquo;s an excuse to, uh, shy away from that.\nAnd. You know, at the S you just keep going over these hurdles where you have that sort of Dunning Kruger effect right. At the start, you\u0026rsquo;re like, yes, this is a brilliant idea. And then you go down into the valley of despair and you\u0026rsquo;re like, oh my God, like, what have I got myself into? But you just hit milestone after milestone, you raise your first check, you get your first product out, you get your first user, you raise more money.\nYou, you hire more team members, you build more feature sets and you, you just keep solving problems to the extent where you\u0026rsquo;re like, wow, You, you, you generate so much momentum that it\u0026rsquo;s, you get to a stage where it\u0026rsquo;s harder to not do it than to do it. And that\u0026rsquo;s like a cool framework to get to where you\u0026rsquo;re in a position where it would right now would be harder for me to stop then to keep going in, in that sense, like we\u0026rsquo;ve built up so much momentum, uh, in terms of where we need to be, that I would have to work hard to go the other way, which is kind of a, a strange.\nUh, thing that you sort of ended up.\nJames: Yeah, no, it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s cool that you\u0026rsquo;re excited about what you\u0026rsquo;re doing and like that the passion is definitely there, which I think is so important. I think like often young people today, and I think it\u0026rsquo;s maybe a trend that\u0026rsquo;s, um, you know, starting to, to come off is like people. And now I think if they\u0026rsquo;re more concerned about, um, having a mission and having sort of having that positive impact on the world, uh, you know, rather than.\nYou know, being, uh, you know, managerial to bank, for example, you know, where, like, it\u0026rsquo;s not super clear, like what your, like, what do you actually, like, what benefit are you providing? You know what I mean?\nRobby Wade: My business partner and I used to call NAB the pit. Um, have you, like, you\u0026rsquo;ve obviously seen Batman, like the, I can\u0026rsquo;t remember which one it is, but the one with. and, uh, you know, where like Batman goes into the pit and like, he has to like get out of like the well or whatever. Um, like we, we can, like, you have to go and work at some of these big companies, because even though they suck. You learn so many lessons, like in terms of how to interact, how to read, how to write emails, how to raise money, how to interact with high net worth individuals. And, and you actually become the type of person that can, like, it\u0026rsquo;s one thing to have a mission, right. But it\u0026rsquo;s another thing to be the type of person that can actually fulfill that mission.\nRight. The mission is useless unless you\u0026rsquo;re the, unless you\u0026rsquo;re somebody who has the skills to actually be able to go and make that mission possible. And I think. Uh, you know, a lot of people have different views on Gary V I don\u0026rsquo;t follow him that closely, but one thing I do like about Gary V is his understanding of how long life is.\nAnd I always have to remind myself of this in the sense of like, sometimes when you\u0026rsquo;re young, you\u0026rsquo;re in such a rush to fulfill your mission in that sense where you don\u0026rsquo;t realize how long, 10 years. Like if I think about 10 years ago I was working at McDonald\u0026rsquo;s and like, like at uni and trying to like get by.\nAnd I was a manager at McDonald\u0026rsquo;s and, you know, going clubbing every second weekend or whatever it was. Um, and so you think about what happened over the next 10 years? And I\u0026rsquo;m like, man, like when I\u0026rsquo;m like 38, 39, that\u0026rsquo;s like another, that\u0026rsquo;s like that whole period, except I have all these lessons and skills.\nSo it\u0026rsquo;s like, you know, the compound interest of that is like an order of magnitude higher. Um, but at the time it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s so hard to see those things and to be able to think long-term in that aspect. And so, you know, I, I\u0026rsquo;ve been lucky to have really great mentors and work around people who have like supported me and backed me and taught me.\nAnd the problem is like, when you\u0026rsquo;re sometimes when you\u0026rsquo;re younger and you have a mission, you don\u0026rsquo;t know what you don\u0026rsquo;t know. Like you don\u0026rsquo;t actually realize in some capacities how. Sort of naive you out, how long life can be in some capacity and how hard certain things are and, and whatever it may be.\nAnd so I think a copy understated in terms of going and doing a shitty job sometimes like working at McDonald\u0026rsquo;s is literally like,\nand like, you\u0026rsquo;re doing like $10,000 hours or something like that with 14 year olds as your staff member who like, you know, are telling you to go.\nI don\u0026rsquo;t know if you\u0026rsquo;re allowed to swear on here, but like they\u0026rsquo;re telling you to go out basically. And, and they don\u0026rsquo;t, they don\u0026rsquo;t want to do anything. And you\u0026rsquo;re, you\u0026rsquo;re trying to like rally them up and they\u0026rsquo;re getting paid like 10 bucks an hour or something like that, flipping cheeseburgers. And you\u0026rsquo;re trying to get them excited about their job.\nUm, that\u0026rsquo;s hard, right? Like the end you have, you have people complaining to you that it\u0026rsquo;s taking you too long to like make orders and stuff. Excuse me, like, can you feed a family? I dare you to go home and try and feed your family of four and three minutes I dare you to do it and get yours your 12 year old son to do the cooking. Um, like it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s remarkable. And so I think these, I do like, I, every time I go into a McDonald\u0026rsquo;s store, I\u0026rsquo;m like solar that\u0026rsquo;s my job today is so easy, like compared to that. Um, so I think those things offer you a lot of perspective. Like a lot of people say, how do you deal with the stress? And like all that kind of.\nThis isn\u0026rsquo;t stressful to a Friday night compared to a Friday night shift. And McDonald\u0026rsquo;s, I think those kinds of perspectives are important and you only learn them from like, I always think about, you know, I\u0026rsquo;ve, I\u0026rsquo;ve an engineering, my team, who I hired basically straight out of here. And I think about Nolan a lot, like Nolan grinds, and he works his ass off, which is the most beautiful thing.\nBut like sometimes people get into these working for a startup is epic. Like, you know, you get these really good work-life balances and epic perks and like all these kinds of things that incredibly exciting and fun. You don\u0026rsquo;t, you don\u0026rsquo;t get that at McDonald\u0026rsquo;s so Napa whatever. And so you kind of, it\u0026rsquo;s sort of nice to know what sucks, like, you know, those people.\nUh, DRO up in like low socioeconomic environments and they, they they\u0026rsquo;re incredibly hard and that they appreciate what they have and, and whatever. Like, I think you can kind of artificially create that by having a shitty job at some point in your life. It\u0026rsquo;s kind of important to give you perspective later on when you, when you\u0026rsquo;re working in different environments by.\nJames: Yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s it. That was really funny and really interesting to hear.\nRobby Wade: I\u0026rsquo;ve never said that out loud. So thank you for drawing that out, but it\u0026rsquo;s important.\nJames: Yeah, no, definitely not. I think, yeah. I liked the point there, like you said about, you know, sometimes like doing things that aren\u0026rsquo;t so good gives you perspective and it allows you to kind of almost enjoy the good things more.\nUm, if you, if you\u0026rsquo;ve seen kind of, um, you know, things that aren\u0026rsquo;t so good, like working at a magazine or Friday night or whatever it is, I think\nRobby Wade: It\u0026rsquo;s so important, right? Like my job at McDonald\u0026rsquo;s was to make sure that like the back area. Enough mate and nuggets for the like enough meat and chicken and stuff. So that when we went into a rush that, you know, we, we wouldn\u0026rsquo;t run out and the order-taker had enough cash in her drawer and that they ought to take taker, had somebody taking orders as well.\nAnd we had enough people at the front and everyone was positioned. It\u0026rsquo;s not that different to a startup. Like I have to make sure that the engineers have all of their designs and the designers have all of their product specs. And the marketing team is interacting with the designers and engineers. And because like at McDonald\u0026rsquo;s you have to make sure all of those jobs come together.\nSo that you can produce a quality product at the end. It\u0026rsquo;s kind of just like a microorganism of like what you\u0026rsquo;re doing at a grand scale and a startup, except the end result is like a cheeseburger in a bag that you hand to somebody instead of, um, you know, producing an app in\nRobby\u0026rsquo;s Learning Journey and Engineering # James: Yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s really cool. Yeah. I\u0026rsquo;d love to talk about your engineering experience at work and kind of the, and not only that, the kind of the learning that goes along with, you know, going from now to where you are now and all the things you\u0026rsquo;ve had to learn in that, in that time, I know like one thing we spoke about before this was like learning your engineering stuff and kind of how you don\u0026rsquo;t come from, like, you didn\u0026rsquo;t study computer science at uni, but like having to learn that has been really beneficial and it had a really great part of what you do.\nUm, I\u0026rsquo;d love to just, yeah. Talk about. All the things you\u0026rsquo;ve had to learn over this period and kind of, um, you know, what has been some of the, like, looking back now, some of the really important things that you have learned on your journey to where you are now and, and kind of what those are and, uh, yeah.\nRobby Wade: Yeah.\nI\u0026rsquo;ll try to be specific in the engineering environment to start with. Um, my engineers would probably roll over laughing, um, that people would say that I\u0026rsquo;m, uh, I have some sort of an engineering base, but I, uh, the, I, I take it as an incredible compliment. I\u0026rsquo;ve spent a lot of time to try and have a deep enough understanding of that environment and, you know, I didn\u0026rsquo;t study as an engineer.\nI wasn\u0026rsquo;t trained as an engineer and, and all these kinds of things that I wouldn\u0026rsquo;t even call myself an engineer. But what I would say proudly is like, I\u0026rsquo;ve spent a lot of time to understand engineering. I\u0026rsquo;ve also done that in design as well. Um, that\u0026rsquo;s kind of the benefit of being a COO, as I mentioned before, you actually get to spend a lot of time in different environments, but I think a lot of us who don\u0026rsquo;t design or aren\u0026rsquo;t engineers, or don\u0026rsquo;t have those sorts of.\nUm, skill sets or backgrounds, or if you\u0026rsquo;re a designer and or if you\u0026rsquo;re an engineer, you might, we tend to have this kind of like imposter syndrome that we\u0026rsquo;re not smart enough to sort of understand what they do. And like sometimes people, uh, oftentimes you\u0026rsquo;ll find if you speak to people, they\u0026rsquo;ll doubt you and they kind of make it sound like more complicated than it might be. Um,\nI heard Jacqueline Novogratz talk about this and it really made a difference in my career is like she made a career out of asking like stupid questions. And you sort of like continue to pull the string, like in that sense, um, you know, I\u0026rsquo;m a pretty intelligent person. I wouldn\u0026rsquo;t say like I\u0026rsquo;m the smartest person in the world, but like if I read something or someone explain something to me, I can generally understand it.\nAnd so what I\u0026rsquo;ve learned in my life is if somebody can explain something to me, Then they either don\u0026rsquo;t understand it or they\u0026rsquo;re lying, right? The best people in the world who care and, uh, who are doing the right thing by you. If they know what they\u0026rsquo;re talking about, the definition of basically knowing what you\u0026rsquo;re talking about is that you could explain it to somebody else, right?\nLike if you know what you\u0026rsquo;re talking about, you can teach somebody. And so if somebody is not willing to teach you, you probably shouldn\u0026rsquo;t be around them anyway, or they\u0026rsquo;re lying to you or they don\u0026rsquo;t know what they\u0026rsquo;re talking about. And so it\u0026rsquo;s been like an interesting thing for me. Like, because the first principles are.\nDesign and engineering and all of these kinds of things. They have a lot of similarities and like, you don\u0026rsquo;t actually have to understand each line of code or whatever it is, but I\u0026rsquo;m taking a lot of taking a lot of time to understand why things are hard. What\u0026rsquo;s like, and then you, you start to draw these parallels when you\u0026rsquo;ve been doing it enough.\nYou\u0026rsquo;re like, Yeah.\nbut we did that speech bubble thing the other day that had meatier. And you said it was hard for this. So why would video be hard? Cause isn\u0026rsquo;t video just like moving pictures, I\u0026rsquo;m just giving like a dumb example. But my point, like you start to get your own understanding and you can challenge people on what they\u0026rsquo;re saying, because you\u0026rsquo;re like, hang on a second.\nI understood what you were saying before. Which means that if I understood that, the thing that you\u0026rsquo;re saying now doesn\u0026rsquo;t make any sense. Right? So, and you, you start to, the more questions you ask and the more inquisitive you become, you build up this knowledge base where you can actually be somebody who can have.\nLike bring an intelligent perspective to the conversation. And I think that\u0026rsquo;s, I think CEOs and people who would consider themselves non-creative or non-technical, they\u0026rsquo;re lazy when they don\u0026rsquo;t spend the time with their team and ask them why they\u0026rsquo;re making the decisions they\u0026rsquo;re making. Right? Like our whole product is design and engineering.\nIf I don\u0026rsquo;t spend time learning what it means to be a designer and an engineer, like how can I do my job? And also, how can I get my team to respect me, like, and not respect me in the sense that like I\u0026rsquo;m the later and you need to do what I say, but why, why should they care about what I think if I don\u0026rsquo;t understand what they do.\nUm, and so I think, I think that\u0026rsquo;s the really, really undervalued piece of the job. I think the other thing as well is like, if you\u0026rsquo;re not technical and oh, you\u0026rsquo;re not a designer and you don\u0026rsquo;t understand how hard things are, you can be that like, Ignorance CEO, where you like, get that done in two weeks. And I want to, Donald you\u0026rsquo;re fired.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s like you have like, where, like you just pulled that timeframe out of your ass. Like you actually have no idea how hard that is, what that person\u0026rsquo;s skill set is. What\u0026rsquo;s possible how many resources they need. You couldn\u0026rsquo;t have an intelligent conversation with them. Like you\u0026rsquo;re just being like a Titanic dictator and just throwing a random timeframe out, which is incredibly dangerous because.\nI, I, you, you have this sort of like romanticism in startups where everyone\u0026rsquo;s like you have that you say in the movies where they, they make their team work. Like, um, they make their team work like nine hours a day, seven days a week to like push out a feature set or something like that. You can think of that, about that romantically.\nRight. And I think about this, like I do a bit of long distance running. Okay. So like, if you say you\u0026rsquo;re training for a marathon, right. You might be able to do one marathon a month. Okay. So you burn your, and then you need a rest after that marathon so that you can recover, whatever you burn your team out, then you need to let them rest.\nOkay. Or they say, they say they do, they can do a marathon a month or they can do. Um, five Ks a day for 25 days, right. And marathons 42 kilometers, five Ks a day for 25 days, a hundred kilometers. I like in terms of, if you think about that is like the product evolution. I would rather them do a hundred kilometers worth of, um, product development.\nYou know, smash them to, to work aggressively for that, to push out that marathon effort. It\u0026rsquo;s more that consistent cadence, but in order to build a consistent cadence, you have to actually understand their job and be able to step out your product roadmap in a really sophisticated way. So I would never ever say that I\u0026rsquo;m an engineer or a designer or anything like that, but I can\u0026rsquo;t.\nProudly say that I\u0026rsquo;ve spent a lot of time understanding these sort of areas of the business so that I can be a good leader and work reasonably with my team without, you know, it\u0026rsquo;s offensive. Like when you question them on things that you have no idea what you\u0026rsquo;re talking about. You\u0026rsquo;re like, how is this done yet?\nWhy haven\u0026rsquo;t you done this in this timeframe? Like, what do you know? You don\u0026rsquo;t know anything like, you know, in that sense it\u0026rsquo;s like it, and you don\u0026rsquo;t want to be that guy is, is, is something to sort of think about. So I hope that answers your.\nFailures that turned out to be a success # James: Yeah, no, absolutely. It does. Definitely. Yeah, I think that\u0026rsquo;s a great, great point. I think one question I have for you is around. Like failures and things like that. And I wonder if, if there\u0026rsquo;s been any particular failures that you can think of that turned out to be a success later. So is there anything that comes to mind?\nYeah. Any, any times where you\u0026rsquo;ve failed at something, but it ended up out well, or it was\nRobby Wade: I think there\u0026rsquo;s so many, right? I mean, there\u0026rsquo;s values in everything that you do. Like I would say in previous relationships, like, you know, like, uh, romantic partners and stuff, I\u0026rsquo;ve failed certain romantic partners, but then became a better partner for every subsequent partner after that. And it\u0026rsquo;s assignment business.\nWell, you know, we\u0026rsquo;ve, we\u0026rsquo;ve done well in each business and my peers and family and friends and stuff like that would consider that we achieved things and we succeeded in whatever. And, but there were essences and elements of that, that I failed that we failed at. Um, uh, you, you fail in micro ways all the time.\nAnd I think those elements of, uh, that you keep them as a reminder to, to, to keep yourself on track in terms of huge, huge kind of like. Failures. I don\u0026rsquo;t, I don\u0026rsquo;t, I can\u0026rsquo;t think of anything specific, um, where it\u0026rsquo;s been a failure that has really crushed me as a person and, and, you know, send me into like a, a dark place that I\u0026rsquo;ve had to like recover from or where I\u0026rsquo;ve dramatically let people down or whatever it might be.\nFailure is a perspective, um, in, in, in many different ways, it depends on what your goal was. Right? Like, um, I always, um, one of my favorite quotes that I kind of live by is like, you\u0026rsquo;re entitled to the action and never it\u0026rsquo;s fruits. Um, and so like for me, if I wake up every day and. I live by my values and sort of like my, I guess you call it like code of ethics.\nAnd I do what I say that I\u0026rsquo;m going to do to the people that I, I, I promised that I would do those things by it\u0026rsquo;s a very difficult to fail.\nLike I was talking to a VC yesterday and this would be a good example. Um, for a lot of the entrepreneurs out there. I don\u0026rsquo;t know if you guys heard of fast. Um, it was an Australian startup that, you know, uh, ended up closing down very recently.\nThey raised a lot of money and then. And this where this particular investor had invested in fast, he was one of the early investors. And he said that Dom, the founder of fast is working on something soon. Um,\nand he was like, he\u0026rsquo;s going to show me. And I was like, would you invest again? And he was like, yeah.\nabsolutely.\nLike he was like the way that Dom had himself as the CEO during that time. Um, was incredibly impressive and he was respectful of his investors and he did what he said he was going to do at the board meetings. And it just didn\u0026rsquo;t work out like, you know, and like he, he didn\u0026rsquo;t lie and he end, you know, he was like, have you seen Rocky?\nLike Rocky doesn\u0026rsquo;t win the title in the first one. He wins it in the second one. And so it\u0026rsquo;s a, it\u0026rsquo;s an interesting dynamic, I would say one of it\u0026rsquo;s hard to say as a failure. One sort of segway that I could say where I\u0026rsquo;ve sort of brought myself up from the ashes was when I was in my early twenties, I suffered really bad anxiety. And it was incredibly difficult time for me, where I was a social person leading into that. And then I went into this place where like, I couldn\u0026rsquo;t even go out for dinner with my girlfriend and I couldn\u0026rsquo;t go to parties. And I found it incredibly difficult, um, to go outside the house. And I was somebody who had already been in the bank and I was having a lot of early stage success.\nAnd like, everybody was like, you know, you\u0026rsquo;re going to have a big career and you\u0026rsquo;re going to succeed heaps. And then, you know, I went into this bout of anxiety where like, I. Found it hard just to do like the meaning, just the day-to-day meaningless tasks in that sense. And so coming out of that has kind of, that was, I would, I guess I could call that a failure in some capacity, but it was a really important, it wasn\u0026rsquo;t a failure.\nI don\u0026rsquo;t know how to explain it. It just kind of ended up there. And I was saying to you before we, uh, it just came on randomly, but before we had this party, I always used to think that people had anxiety and depression just needed to kind of like get over it and whatever. And I\u0026rsquo;d studied a bit of psychology in uni and I didn\u0026rsquo;t really, but going through, it was an incredibly experience, a potent experience for me, because I can empathize with people now who have like different mental issues, because I would have never anticipated.\nI\u0026rsquo;d be the type of person that would have something like that. Um, but how I sort of came out of that was building a really strong relationship with fear and risk. A lot of my anxiety was around fear and I just started doing stuff that. Um, like I would feel like I was going to have a heart attack when I would go to the gym and different things like that.\nAnd so I started to just challenge myself where I was like, okay, I\u0026rsquo;m just going to go and run like 10 or 20 Ks. And you know, if we\u0026rsquo;re gonna have a heart attack, we\u0026rsquo;ll have a heart attack. We haven\u0026rsquo;t had it to now. I would, I used to have this concept of like me versus my mind. And I would like, my body would be scared about something and I would just go and do it.\nLike I would do the thing that I was terrified to do. Um, to the extent when I was in my early twenties. If you asked me to go like tandem skydiving, you couldn\u0026rsquo;t pay me a million dollars to do it. And like the epitome of that journey for me was during. I learned how to skydive solo and, you know, I have a parachute in my, in my closet now and go skydiving from time to time.\nAnd it\u0026rsquo;s one of my favorite activities, but that was kind of like the pinnacle of that journey with fear for me. Um, but it told me a really important lesson, uh, in startups in the sense that our bodies have fee for a reason to keep us alive. Right. So we have to fear something. And so if you don\u0026rsquo;t build a good relationship with fear, it\u0026rsquo;s going to hold you back in many different capacities.\nAnd so for some people what\u0026rsquo;s, what\u0026rsquo;s scary is people seeing them wearing the wrong Taisha ant or posting a photo on Instagram that doesn\u0026rsquo;t get any likes or whatever it is, but I\u0026rsquo;ve trained my body that what\u0026rsquo;s scary is being in 40,000 feet, jumping out of an airplane or, you know, being deep into like a really long raw marathon or a triathlon.\nLike it\u0026rsquo;s scary when you\u0026rsquo;re at, you know, 38 30. K\u0026rsquo;s and you feel like you\u0026rsquo;re going to die and like all these kinds of things. And so you, you teach your body what is actually scary, like in that sense. And I think it\u0026rsquo;s a, it\u0026rsquo;s an undervalued thing in terms of putting yourself in environments that are genuinely fearful.\nNow I don\u0026rsquo;t give a shit what people think about what I\u0026rsquo;m wearing or what I\u0026rsquo;m doing, or like the, you know, like people say, oh, like how, how you\u0026rsquo;re, you\u0026rsquo;re going on that investor call? Like, are you nervous? How do you. It\u0026rsquo;s not scary for me because like, I don\u0026rsquo;t even get that anxious, leading into an investigation because my body, like the level of anxiety that I felt sitting in a plane of 40,000 feet and seeing the door open and you have to jump out of an airplane, like getting on a zoom call with somebody is easy.\nLike, oh, you know, like thinking about doing a triathlon, you got to swim like three kilometers in, in a swim, two kilometers in like freezing water or whatever. When you do these things that are incredibly difficult and incredibly scary, these trivial things that people think is stereo no longer scary anymore.\nSo I think that\u0026rsquo;s important. Um, I\u0026rsquo;ll just end on that and it\u0026rsquo;s not an answer to your question of value, but I thought this was a funny thing that Jesse had said the other day, when, when you\u0026rsquo;re, uh, when you\u0026rsquo;re young, you tend to. Compare what other people are doing and worry about what other people think.\nAnd that\u0026rsquo;s an, that\u0026rsquo;s an important thing about doing a startup is everyone will tell you\u0026rsquo;re wrong and everyone will tell you a stupid, right? So you have to be able to get through that. Um, but Jesse, so was talking about how like, like how much people don\u0026rsquo;t think about you and everyone says this, right?\nEveryone\u0026rsquo;s like, no, one\u0026rsquo;s thinking about you, but he put it into perspective. I\u0026rsquo;ve never heard of before. I use my iPhone every single day. Right. Like I use it six hours a day, whatever he\u0026rsquo;s like, do you know how often I think about Steve jobs? Right. Like, think about that for a second. Like you use his product 24 7 and like he\u0026rsquo;s changed your entire life.\nHow often do you think about Steve jobs? Like Neveah and, and, you know, the Wright brothers invented the airplane, right. And that you think about legacy and all these kinds of things. Whenever you\u0026rsquo;re on an airplane. And you thinking about how amazing the Wright brothers are and how they created this airplane for, you know, you\u0026rsquo;re like sitting there like worried about, you know, whenever they\u0026rsquo;re going to bring a glass of water or I don\u0026rsquo;t know, whatever stupid movies on like, as men in black on, on the, on the TV or whatever.\nAnd so I think that\u0026rsquo;s an incredibly important mindset to get. Like in that sense, like, it\u0026rsquo;s easy to think about, like everyone always says no one cares about what you think, but think about the people that you actually think about. Like, and these people who have like fundamentally changed the world in its entire capacity, you don\u0026rsquo;t even think about them.\nLike, you know, it\u0026rsquo;s just like a, it\u0026rsquo;s like the last time you thought about Winston Churchill, right? Winston Churchill saved the world. Like. Disaster, like JFK saved the world from like nuclear disaster. What was the last time you were like, man, JFK, such a good dude. Never. So you, you, it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s really important to not take yourself that seriously, because no, one\u0026rsquo;s going to think about you, regardless of you\u0026rsquo;re going to, if I build ThisApp and I get a billion users and do all these things, no one gives a shit like in reality.\nSo that\u0026rsquo;s, that\u0026rsquo;s kind of like a relationship that you kind of have to.\nbuild\nJames: Yeah, no, that\u0026rsquo;s a really good way to put it in. Yeah. Thanks for sharing that. I liked, um, I think there\u0026rsquo;s like a bit of a thread there between like, you know, the hard things. You know, leading to good, um, or better experiences like you said, but they\u0026rsquo;re running and things like that, putting yourself in difficult situations.\nSo it\u0026rsquo;s easier. What, what\u0026rsquo;s not easy about, you know, it puts it in perspective, you know, these other situations similar to like the MCAS, you know, having that hard experience makes like, you know, the,\nRobby Wade: Well, if you think about it, most things, most things, aren\u0026rsquo;t that hard, right? Your perception of what it\u0026rsquo;s going to take. Like in theory, when you\u0026rsquo;re talking to a venture capitalist, you\u0026rsquo;re just having a conversation, right? You have conversations every single day. Like it\u0026rsquo;s just a conversation, but you\u0026rsquo;ve created a story around that conversation that makes it hard.\nSo in some capacity, most things are easier than you think it\u0026rsquo;s the, Anxiousness and procrastination and all that kind of stuff that you apply to it that adds the white in, in, in that capacity. I mean, there\u0026rsquo;s hard things, but like it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s T it tends to be funny, like the things that you obsess over usually on, on worth it in that capacity,\nRobby\u0026rsquo;s Advice for Graduates # James: So I\u0026rsquo;ve got one question. Um, Lyft flee. Uh, and that is a, it\u0026rsquo;s a question. I ask all the guests that come on the show and it is, if you were looking at the Robbie, that\u0026rsquo;s just finished university and he\u0026rsquo;s about to sort of guide into the world and, and tackle his job, uh, you know, what advice would you give him sort of knowing what you know now and all the experiences that you\u0026rsquo;ve had.\nRobby Wade: So easy. I would just say rate and run every day. Like if you, if you read books every day and run every day, I guarantee you. Your life will change forever. Like if you just do those two things, even if you started like a kilometer and a page, um, there just those two things are so unique, uh, in their capacity.\nAnd I\u0026rsquo;ll be very brief on this. Like rating allows you to get mentors and knowledge and understanding, and you sort of level up your education and whatever. Um, running is cool because running gets you outside. Getting outside every single day is really, really important. Yeah. Yes, Acadian rhythm and just your mental wellbeing.\nUh, when you run and you run through space and your eyes move, it relaxes you and it makes you incredibly calm. Um, and then also, uh, when you do like cardiovascular exercise, uh, it can actually form like a, you get like neurogenesis in your hippocampus and allows you to have like a fluffy hippocampus, which increases and improves your memory.\nUm, so if you\u0026rsquo;re running every day, your memory is going to be better. If your memory is better, you\u0026rsquo;re going to be learning more. If you learning. Very likely you\u0026rsquo;re going to be fit and educated. Like I, it\u0026rsquo;s pretty hard to go. It\u0026rsquo;s pretty hard for your life to go south. If you just focus on those two things, uh, I think everyone can give you all these like weird anecdotes and statements and, and all those kinds of things, but practically, like try to read and run at least once a day.\nAnd, uh, I, I, I think your life would just transform from there. You learn what you need to do next, just by doing those two.\nContact Robby # James: No. That\u0026rsquo;s really cool. Absolutely agree with that. Thanks for coming on the show today, Robbie, and where can people go to find out more about this app, the app you\u0026rsquo;re fielding, you know, your life in general, like where\u0026rsquo;s the best place for them to find out more?\nRobby Wade: Yeah.\nabsolutely. Um, so they can go to this app.com. Uh, so at the moment we\u0026rsquo;re in beta, so you kind of should download the app. We are looking to release it all. Uh, but if you go to this app.com, you can claim you use the name now. Um, so that way you can keep that forever. And it\u0026rsquo;s a good way to, to lock that down.\nSo jump over there. Um, you know, we, we were on all the, so she was like Twitter and tic talking, Instagram and, and all those kinds of wonderful things. Um, if you, if you do have any questions, feel free to reach out to me on any social platform. I\u0026rsquo;ll get back to you. Um, and, uh, yeah, look forward to seeing you all on board.\nThanks for taking the time James it\u0026rsquo;s.\nJames: Oh, no problem, man. Yeah, no, it\u0026rsquo;s been, it\u0026rsquo;s been really cool having you on and yeah. Hearing your background and your story. Uh, yeah. Thanks so much for sharing it with us.\nRobby Wade: Thanks man.\nOutro # James: Thanks for listening to this episode I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. If you want to get my takeaways, the things that I learned from this episode, please go to Graduate Theory.com/subscribe, where you can get my takeaways and all the information about each episode, straight to your inbox.\nThanks so much for listening again today, and we\u0026rsquo;re looking forward to seeing you next week.\n← Back to episode 34\n","date":"13 June 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/graduate-theory/34-robby-wade/transcript/","section":"Graduate Theory Transcripts","summary":"← Back to episode 34\nThis transcript has been lightly edited for readability. It may still contain transcription errors.\nRobby Wade: I run a startup now where you’re like, oh man, how do you take on all these stress? And. Running a shift on Friday night and like running, trying to keep the drive-through clear it’s like the most intense shit you could ever go through in your entire life.\n","title":"Transcript: Robby Wade | On The Importance of Perspective","type":"graduate-theory-transcripts"},{"content":" Watch the conversation Graduate Theory Open YouTube ↗ Read the full transcript → This week\u0026rsquo;s guest is different to most we\u0026rsquo;ve had on the show previously.\nHe\u0026rsquo;s passionate. He\u0026rsquo;s raw. He\u0026rsquo;s unfiltered.\nHe\u0026rsquo;s on a mission.\nThis week\u0026rsquo;s episode will leave you inspired and ready to take your life and career to the next level.\nSubscribe now to get content like this, straight to you, every week. 👇\nSubscribe Now\nJack Boxer is Founder \u0026amp; CEO of Golden Hour, a lifestyle design brand helping people to chase the uncommon life.\n🤝 Connect with Jack # Golden Hour - https://goldenhr.com.au/\nInstagram - https://www.instagram.com/itsgoldenhr/\n👇 Episode Takeaways # Just in Time vs Just in Case # Jack spoke about learning, and his learning journey to creating his business. During our discussion, he mentioned a great Tim Ferriss lesson that he had used.\nTo learn things just in time vs just in case.\nOften we find ourselves learning things that perhaps don\u0026rsquo;t immediately serve us. Learning is great, but this kind of learning can get in the way of learning things that will actually be useful to us right now.\nWhen learning things, consider if you are learning for just in time or just in case.\nThat Is Not the Way to Live # Jack is a man on a mission.\nHis mission is to help people escape those jobs that they hate, and find those that they really enjoy by providing resources to help them see that there is a way.\nHe tells us that if you\u0026rsquo;re at a job that doesn\u0026rsquo;t fill you up, you haven\u0026rsquo;t made a mistake.\nThe mistake is made when you know your job doesn\u0026rsquo;t fill you up but you do nothing about it.\nMake a change.\nConsistency Is Key # Jack told us that he lives by one key principle.\nConsistency.\nEveryone starts somewhere. Usually without knowing anything.\nThose who achieve great things and have big impacts on the world are those that stay the course, those who are consistent.\nWithout consistency, all else crumbles.\nGet the Newsletter\n📝 Content Timestamps # 00:00 Jack Boxer\n00:21 Intro\n00:53 Jack\u0026rsquo;s Origin Story\n06:55 Maximum Achievement Today\n09:54 Jack\u0026rsquo;s Current Reading Habit\n14:49 How Jack Thinks about Upskilling\n18:36 Facing Challenges and Courage\n24:18 How Jack learnt about building a business\n32:02 Jack\u0026rsquo;s Mission\n39:48 Who Inspires Jack\n41:51 Jack\u0026rsquo;s Advice for Graduates\n44:01 Connect with Jack\n45:32 Outro\n","date":"6 June 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/graduate-theory/33-jack-boxer/","section":"Graduate Theory","summary":" Watch the conversation Graduate Theory Open YouTube ↗ Read the full transcript → This week’s guest is different to most we’ve had on the show previously.\n","title":"Jack Boxer | On Waking Up and Chasing Your Dreams","type":"graduate-theory"},{"content":"← Back to episode 33\nThis transcript has been lightly edited for readability. It may still contain transcription errors.\nJack: And you\u0026rsquo;re like, like that, that sucks. That\u0026rsquo;s not a way to leave. Cause then you\u0026rsquo;re wasting five out of seven days. Which is like 71% of your life. It\u0026rsquo;s like, what, how did, how have we all let that be the normal thing that we do?\nIntro # James: Hello and welcome to Graduate Theory. Today\u0026rsquo;s guest is the founder and CEO of golden hour, which is a lifestyle design brand, helping people to chase the uncommon life. He is a blue belt in Brazilian jujitsu. Please. Welcome to the show today, Jack boxer, Jack. Welcome to. Cool. Yeah. I\u0026rsquo;d love to, like, I\u0026rsquo;m looking forward to chatting with you today, uh, and keen to sort of go back to the origin story of this, uh, utopia golden hour, all these kinds of things that you\u0026rsquo;re doing.\nJack\u0026rsquo;s Origin Story # James: Um, and when did this first, like when did this first start the idea that to sort of pursue these kinds of.\nJack: So basically, so we\u0026rsquo;ve got to go back. So I came out of high school, uh, went to uni in 2017. So I moved from port Lincoln to Adelaide to go to uni. Um, Always just thought coming out of school, that I was going to get one of the four jobs like physio teacher, um, tradies, something like that, that guys are just told out of scope or I sort of just like, oh, 50, $60,000 a year.\nSomething like that. That\u0026rsquo;s just, that is what it is. That\u0026rsquo;s work. Um, so I went to uni, started a bachelor of human movement. Did that first semester wasn\u0026rsquo;t for me. So I changed into a bachelor of business and property. Um, and then that\u0026rsquo;s where I got into doing real estate, like working at a real estate office.\nCause I saw the money, but real estate, I just could Mack. And I was like, oh, that\u0026rsquo;s like, maybe I could do that. Um, and then when I was working for this real estate agent, he just randomly one day, he just gave me two books on his table. Um, just saying that I should read them. One of them was maximum achievement by Brian. And I remember writing that book and that\u0026rsquo;s what changed. Like, it sounds corny, but it like changed my whole life in terms of like how I thought about success. And they\u0026rsquo;re just like showing me that success is in your mind, like how you think about yourself and what you can accomplish is what you will accomplish.\nLike always just thought, oh, you just work five days a week. You get a weekend. Like you just live, how everyone around you lives. But it that like opened my eyes to there\u0026rsquo;s so much more. Yeah out there for everyone. And it\u0026rsquo;s just up to us to seek out these ideas and ways of thinking, because like, if you believe you can do like wild, massive things, you can, you just have to, like, you just have to know that you can, like, you just have to be aware that it\u0026rsquo;s possible.\nAnd so I read this book, they opened my mind up to so many different opportunities and like a different way of living and how, like, it\u0026rsquo;s not actually that hard to find. Like substantial money and support everyone around you. So I was just like, that caused me to just like question what I was doing and be like, all right, like, is this really what you want to do?\nLike, um, and then all this getting uncomfortable in real estate. And I was just like, whining that it wasn\u0026rsquo;t for me. Like I was saying a lot of gray area in the industry and I was just like a little bit dirty. And I was like, ah, I don\u0026rsquo;t want to be involved in this. Like, I don\u0026rsquo;t want to be around. Like, I want to be honest when I have a clear conscience, like, I don\u0026rsquo;t want to be around any like gray area stuff.\nSo I was, I remember, I clearly remember like one time in Adelaide, I was in my car, parked on the side of the road, was pouring down with Ryan. I was bawling my eyes out because I didn\u0026rsquo;t know what I was going to do with my life. Like, just like beside myself. And I was speaking to me. And the foreign. Um, and yeah, I just didn\u0026rsquo;t know what I was going to do.\nAnd I was like, all right, well, I\u0026rsquo;m moving on. Like I\u0026rsquo;m coming back to Paul Lincoln. Um, and that\u0026rsquo;s when, before I came back, I started seeing a loft coach in Adelaide, who we had a few sessions together just to like try and work out what I\u0026rsquo;m interested in, what I could do with my life. Um, and we came up with the idea of like, why not just start sharing stuff.\nYou\u0026rsquo;re interested in, on social media. That\u0026rsquo;s when I started golden hours, main Instagram page, which is just at it\u0026rsquo;s gold now and now. Um, and that was just sharing. I was just trying to build an audience around my interests basically. Um, cause I was like, well man, I knew money followed attention. And I was like on eight attention to make money.\nThat\u0026rsquo;s what my mind wants. I was. So I was like, I\u0026rsquo;m going to build an audience now and I\u0026rsquo;ll figure it out monetizing later. Um, so I started building golden hours, Instagram focus for a year just to building. Um, call that to like 10,000 followers. They\u0026rsquo;re not, they\u0026rsquo;re not told everyone in my family and friends, like I was doing it fully sacredly. Um, total everyone, um, started selling like a couple of pieces of clothing. Um, and then I was like, all right, I need to work out how I can monetize this. So I wanted to make a personal membership, but I knew that my personal brand wasn\u0026rsquo;t strong enough yet. So I was like, can membership with everything that I\u0026rsquo;ve learned about like personal development and self-help and everything like this, everything that can help other people discover that like, life can be enjoyable.\nYou can make money doing what you love. Um, so that\u0026rsquo;s when I just started putting together all these resources that you see inside utopia now. Um, and yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s ended up being what your type here is now, which is just, yeah, a massive archive of personal development content by.\nJames: Yeah. Cool. No, that\u0026rsquo;s so good. Yeah. I\u0026rsquo;ve got heaps of questions to ask you about that, that journey to getting to where you are now. Um, one of them is, is the, so you\u0026rsquo;ve mentioned the first book on the table that you got given was maximum achievement. Do you remember what the second book was called?\nJack: No, I can\u0026rsquo;t. No, I can\u0026rsquo;t remember. I, I, ah, I was like, imagine if I had a choice, the other book,\nJames: Yeah,\nJack: I was like, fuck Jack, that, like, I just remember that because I just remember looking at him and I was like the other P Luke good toe. Like, it looked like a good book. Like I had a good cover and I was like, I don\u0026rsquo;t know.\nI think like he made a little comment about maximum achievement and it caused me.\nJames: Yeah.\nJack: I actually don\u0026rsquo;t know if I\u0026rsquo;ll be doing this. If I hadn\u0026rsquo;t read that book, like like that, that happens in your life and just changes like the whole course of your life. You\u0026rsquo;re like, whoa, is that like what? Yeah. I don\u0026rsquo;t know if it\u0026rsquo;s like sounds weird, but if it\u0026rsquo;s like fate or whatever, but it\u0026rsquo;s just like, shit, like that happens a lot and makes you question what is going on.\nJames: No, definitely. Yeah. What are some.\nMaximum Achievement Today # James: Like, it\u0026rsquo;s pretty incredible. How, um, you know, much of the impact that reading that book had on you is, are there any like lessons and things from that you sort of continue to use and sort of act on today? Or is it more of just like a, that was kind of paradigm shift and then now it\u0026rsquo;s just like opened your eyes to a bunch of other.\nJack: I think like initially it was the whole idea of seeing yourself as a successful person. Telling yourself, you can be successful and seeing it in your mind before you can see it in reality. Like that was the biggest thing. And that, that book caused me to start like visualizing in the mornings as well.\nLike you would think about like what I wanted in my life, like what I wanted to accomplish, like the things I wanted, like the house, it was like supporting my family. So I\u0026rsquo;d started to like, actually say that I could be successful in my mind. And then. I always say it\u0026rsquo;s like the law of attraction in the sacred.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s like, if you, if you believe it and you can say it and you work hard for it, like it\u0026rsquo;s going to happen for you. It\u0026rsquo;s just that they was just the first book that opened my mind to that. Like I\u0026rsquo;d never really correlated success and you\u0026rsquo;re more onset. Like I\u0026rsquo;d never really put the total. Oh, I was just like, we put eight hours into this job.\nGet paid, whatever hourly. Right. I mean, that\u0026rsquo;s it, it\u0026rsquo;s like, I\u0026rsquo;d never really, yeah. Correlated how you think and the amount of income you can make. Like, yeah, it was just mainly a paradigm shift. Like, I\u0026rsquo;ve read it, I\u0026rsquo;ve read it twice fully. And then just like going back through little bits, but yeah. It was one of those books, a lock.\nI don\u0026rsquo;t know if it would be as good now, like rating it, but just at the time, you\u0026rsquo;re like, yeah, it was massive. Like fully changed my life.\nJames: Yeah. Cool. No, yeah. Uh, I think it\u0026rsquo;s really cool. And I\u0026rsquo;ve, I think I\u0026rsquo;ve listened to it once and, and Brian, Tracy, I think it\u0026rsquo;s by him, he\u0026rsquo;s like a pretty incredible author and has a lot of good stuff on it. I was listening to, um, to him recently and actually he has, uh, it\u0026rsquo;s called the psychology of achievement, I think.\nUm, I dunno, it was on audible. It might be a physical book as well. Um, but it\u0026rsquo;s, I think it\u0026rsquo;s kind of a, a theory behind like maximum. And I was listening to it in the car recently and yeah, I just listening to it. I\u0026rsquo;m like, wow, this is like, it\u0026rsquo;s pretty incredible stuff. And he explains it quite simply as well,\nJack: Yeah, he\u0026rsquo;s a good author. Cause he wrote, um, is that eight that ate the frog, ate that frog or something like that? That principle, I haven\u0026rsquo;t read the book, but that principal\u0026rsquo;s like massive. Like he\u0026rsquo;s, he\u0026rsquo;s got some good ideas. Like he\u0026rsquo;s a good author. I need to read where it was. Books.\nJames: Thanks for listening to this episode of Graduate Theory. If you haven\u0026rsquo;t already subscribed to the Graduate Theory newsletter you can do so by at the links in the show notes, the Graduate Theory newsletter comes out every single Tuesday morning with my thoughts and lessons from each episode.\nBut without further ado, let\u0026rsquo;s get back into it.\nJack\u0026rsquo;s Current Reading Habit # James: Yeah. Yeah, definitely. No, I think, I think he\u0026rsquo;s, he\u0026rsquo;s so good. Um, because like reading that, I mean, and like his reading still, like there\u0026rsquo;s there\u0026rsquo;s books and stuff in utopia, like you mentioned, but is that still something now that you, you know, you really sort of spend a lot of time doing and it\u0026rsquo;s really, you know, something that you sort of.\nJack: Yeah. So in. So I started, I read that book in 2018. Um, and then from then on, I was reading just like avidly, like every day, probably like an hour a day, like half an hour in the morning, half an hour at night, uh, went through a period in like 2020 where I stopped for some reason. I can\u0026rsquo;t remember why just stopped.\nAnd then in 2021, I started again like just an hour a day, just burning through books and like, Yeah, I love writing now. It\u0026rsquo;s like with, when I was getting, when I got like really serious about you talking to you, like at the start of this year, around like February, March, I just like put everything. I was like, you need to just focus sole focus on this.\nYou need to like, cause I had the whole like day routine. So I\u0026rsquo;d like exercise. I would, um, write down 10 ideas and then I would like have cold shower, like have coffee, like all this like routine stuff. I was like, no, you\u0026rsquo;re just. Get rid of everything. And just you talk to your work. Is it like, you just need to focus on, cause like you say those graphs all the time where it\u0026rsquo;s like multitasking and then you end up with like all these tasks that are just mediocre.\nWhereas if you just focus solely on one thing, like it\u0026rsquo;s all those mediocre tasks in one. So it\u0026rsquo;s like, you can just get so much further. So I was like, all right, you need to just solely focus on this. So I eliminated rating as well. Probably pretty dumb. Um, but yeah, I\u0026rsquo;ve started again, like just re I probably read like half an hour every, every second day at the moment, but once I\u0026rsquo;ve got like all this utopia stuff, cause right now it\u0026rsquo;s just hectic, like getting,\nJames: Mm.\nJack: When you\u0026rsquo;re setting out something new, like building something new it\u0026rsquo;s.\nJust the amount of that little toss that pop obvious to just hectic by rating. Who definitely I love rating. Um, especially just like, yeah, like self-help stuff. I\u0026rsquo;m looking at my books now, like behind the camera and like, see how like self-help personal development, left finance, all that stuff. It\u0026rsquo;s interesting to me.\nJames: Yeah, absolutely. No, I think it\u0026rsquo;s important to, uh, you know what, there\u0026rsquo;s probably a bunch of sayings about reading, but I think it\u0026rsquo;s important to like, you know, keep your mind engaged with content like that. Um, you know, it doesn\u0026rsquo;t necessarily have to be. Only reading. And I think at times, and I\u0026rsquo;m guilty of it as well, where like reading, you know, I think it was a 2020, like I had this goal to read like 52 books in the year, uh, whether it was like reading or listening or whatever sort of mode. Um, yeah. But then, you know, and it was good and I, you know, I got through heaps, but then like, um, it sort of became this thing where I was just reading just for the sake of it. And it was like, not really. You know, it wasn\u0026rsquo;t like, I choose to read this book for this reason. And I\u0026rsquo;m like, I\u0026rsquo;m looking to get this out of it.\nIt was more dislike. I\u0026rsquo;ve got to like read this or even just like, have it, like, you know, I\u0026rsquo;d be driving somewhere, listening to the book. And then it\u0026rsquo;s like, you\u0026rsquo;ll just sort of be honest, like background noise. And then once I finished it, I\u0026rsquo;d be like, yep. Now the one down, like,\nJack: On all your main, it\u0026rsquo;s like reading for accomplishment rather than understanding, like I\u0026rsquo;ve, I\u0026rsquo;ve found that before as well. Cause you\u0026rsquo;re going to be like, oh, look at all these books I just read. And it\u0026rsquo;s like, well, tell me something about it. Like what, what was in it? That\u0026rsquo;s why. Yeah, because I used to read and just like, not holla or anything.\nI dunno if you hollow out or like dog ear pages or anything like that. But I used to read and just like, like not do anything, like just read the pages and then finish the book and then. You get like a couple months later and it\u0026rsquo;s like on eight a raid that again, I can\u0026rsquo;t like there\u0026rsquo;s no physical way to remember what was in that.\nSo now I just like highlight and doggy pages. So if I want to like revisit a book all after it, it was just go to certain pages for the best bits. And it\u0026rsquo;s like made it a lot easier to recall information.\nJames: Yeah, definitely. No, I think that\u0026rsquo;s a good way of doing it. Cause yeah, I think that you can kind of read, I think when you\u0026rsquo;re reading these kinds of books, you\u0026rsquo;re sort of reading with the intention of it, having some impact, like you\u0026rsquo;re reading, like how to do like X, Y, and Z so that you can go and do it. Uh, and so if you\u0026rsquo;re not like if it\u0026rsquo;s not having an impact at then yeah.\nThen it\u0026rsquo;s like, w yeah. Then you kind of need to risk. It\u0026rsquo;s like, wait, what you\u0026rsquo;re actually doing.\nJack: I\u0026rsquo;ve heard Tim Ferriss talked about, you would have heard it as well, where he says you want to read for just in time information, not just in case information. So like, just in case information is just like reading all the time. And then like your mind, if you run into a problem, you might remember what you learned, but just in time, information is like running into a problem.\nThen reading about the solution. Which is what I\u0026rsquo;ve heard, Sean period. Talk about that as well, but that was an interesting idea to me as well. It\u0026rsquo;s like, that\u0026rsquo;s, that\u0026rsquo;s good. Cause I definitely do like, just in case.\nJames: Yeah. Yeah, no, that\u0026rsquo;s such a good way of thinking about it. Yeah. Wow. That\u0026rsquo;s cool.\nHow Jack Thinks about Upskilling # James: Um, I want to ask you as well about like, sort of upskilling more generally, and in particular I wanted to ask about like getting the life coach situation and kind of what was like, what led you to decide to pursue that? Is it, is it.\nJack: So, yeah, that was mom. So I was, yeah, I was just like fully. I was having a proper light break down. Like I was like, like knowing just wasn\u0026rsquo;t able to put into perspective that I\u0026rsquo;m so young. Like I was like 20 years old. I think at the time wasn\u0026rsquo;t able to put into perspective that this is like the first fifth of your life.\nI thought like my life was over. I didn\u0026rsquo;t know what I was going to do with my life, like all this stuff. And mom\u0026rsquo;s just like, mom\u0026rsquo;s the best mom and is very good at. Calming down and just like, or what\u0026rsquo;s the next step? Like what can we do from here? And she was like, well, why don\u0026rsquo;t you look into. Um, getting someone to help you.\nThere\u0026rsquo;s people that do this for a job, like help you find what you want to do for a job. I was like, oh, I\u0026rsquo;d never really thought about it. And then I kind of like went through that stage of like, ah, fuck, I don\u0026rsquo;t want to be like, you know, like, I don\u0026rsquo;t want to go to a loss coach. Like, uh, like it didn\u0026rsquo;t really say benefit of it.\nAnd then mom, she buys me a lesson with the loft coach, like. She\u0026rsquo;s the best. She\u0026rsquo;s so good. And then, so she bought me a lesson. I go to this lesson and we just like got along really well. Like he was just like, he wasn\u0026rsquo;t trying to like sell any particular why? Like he just listened and then like, that\u0026rsquo;s that\u0026rsquo;s most of it, I think like them just listening.\nAnd then from that first interaction, he went away and like actually did the work. And I came back with like, all these options, like told me things. Well, I thought I knew, but I really wasn\u0026rsquo;t like thinking about like, he would just like tell you like, well, you\u0026rsquo;re telling me this, like, why are you doing this?\nAnd I\u0026rsquo;m like, what am I doing a lot, the obvious shit. I was like, oh God. But yeah. And he just, he just got, made a write down like 25 options as well. I think that\u0026rsquo;s the biggest thing. Like what I found anyway. It\u0026rsquo;s just, if you aren\u0026rsquo;t sure about something, sit down and just think about it. Like we don\u0026rsquo;t do it.\nWe like sit down with your phone, put your phone on for half an hour. Make yourself an iced coffee. And then put your phone away. Like put it, get it out of you, like no money and then have a pen and paper and just think like, just write down what you\u0026rsquo;re thinking. And you will come up with solutions for whatever problems you\u0026rsquo;ve got.\nLike, that\u0026rsquo;s been the biggest thing for me with anything in the past two years, that\u0026rsquo;s like that have just been causing me like mental problems. It\u0026rsquo;s like, just think about it. Like you\u0026rsquo;re, you\u0026rsquo;re just not thinking enough about it. Like you\u0026rsquo;re, you\u0026rsquo;re agonizing over stuff. You haven\u0026rsquo;t thought. And it\u0026rsquo;s like, that\u0026rsquo;s nonsensical.\nLike, if, if you, if you haven\u0026rsquo;t sat down for what about it, and then like, you still don\u0026rsquo;t have a solution then, but then you\u0026rsquo;ve done the work and, you know, it\u0026rsquo;s a tough problem, whatever, like, but if you haven\u0026rsquo;t actually sat down and thought about it, like you cannot complain every time I\u0026rsquo;ve sat down to think about something, if it\u0026rsquo;s not going to happen in that first session, but if you\u0026rsquo;re consistent every day, Sitting down to think about something and your record or your thoughts.\nUm, the next day you go back, you look over your past thoughts about like, what are you going to do? And like you just add to it every day, you will come up with solutions and like, you find what you want to do with your life. And like what makes you happy? Like a hundred percent. It\u0026rsquo;s just, it\u0026rsquo;s just putting in the time to like actually figure it out.\nAnd that was, that was one of the big things that loft coach told me.\nJames: Yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s cool. No, I agree with that. The get your brain is at. Like, it\u0026rsquo;s a very interesting and, uh, you know, powerful thing. And\nJack: Yeah,\nFacing Challenges and Courage # James: I, I agree with that. I think like, you know, certainly you can sort of, yeah, like you said, face challenges and then just not like, uh, you know, not consider any solutions and then just like, be like, oh, I have this problem.\nAnd then, and that\u0026rsquo;s kind of it there\u0026rsquo;s no, like how would you go about fixing this? It\u0026rsquo;s just know you just kind of accept that it\u0026rsquo;s there and then just, just persistence, like forever.\nJack: And then PayPal that\u0026rsquo;s when you say the paperwork to just complain about that situation. And it\u0026rsquo;s like, oh, like I hide my job and it\u0026rsquo;s like, well, don\u0026rsquo;t like do something about it.\nJames: Yeah.\nJack: Don\u0026rsquo;t complain. Don\u0026rsquo;t like, there\u0026rsquo;s plenty of jobs out there. You can do like, down and have a think about it. But I it\u0026rsquo;s like, oh, like, you know, like, I don\u0026rsquo;t know what I\u0026rsquo;ll do.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s like, you\u0026rsquo;re telling me exactly what you should do. You should just like, you need to just think like, but most people don\u0026rsquo;t want to do it. They just don\u0026rsquo;t want to put in the work to like improve their life. It\u0026rsquo;s like, because most people don\u0026rsquo;t want to get out of the discomfort of a bad job because it\u0026rsquo;s another Tim Ferriss quote, but most people prefer unhappiness or the uncertainty and it\u0026rsquo;s like, that\u0026rsquo;s yeah, it\u0026rsquo;s I get it.\nBut it\u0026rsquo;s like, You don\u0026rsquo;t want to be unhappy.\nJames: Yeah.\nJack: You don\u0026rsquo;t want to do that.\nJames: Yeah. Well, yeah, it\u0026rsquo;s like, um, maybe you would be more unhappy if you changed jobs and did something you didn\u0026rsquo;t like, but, uh, you know, it\u0026rsquo;s, uh, uh, in any case it\u0026rsquo;s still better than accepting that your things aren\u0026rsquo;t going well, where you\nJack: Exactly. You don\u0026rsquo;t want to get to light stage of life and be like, I never, what he fought did tag that chance. And then it turned out unreal like you, that regret fucking makes me feel like it literally gives me a feeling in the stomach where I\u0026rsquo;m like, I don\u0026rsquo;t want to fucking take it back. Cause you say it so much in paper, whether it\u0026rsquo;s just like old and like. Peter. And like you tell them about like what you\u0026rsquo;re doing and they\u0026rsquo;re like, oh, that\u0026rsquo;s probably not going to work. And it\u0026rsquo;s like, you just, didn\u0026rsquo;t never did anything. You never tried. And like, now you\u0026rsquo;re bitter that you don\u0026rsquo;t have the energy to, and like hide out. I don\u0026rsquo;t wanna, I don\u0026rsquo;t want that feeling like, yeah.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s doesn\u0026rsquo;t seem good. Doesn\u0026rsquo;t sound good.\nJames: Yeah, definitely. Yeah. There\u0026rsquo;s um, I don\u0026rsquo;t know if you\u0026rsquo;ve ever read the Alchemist. Um, but it\u0026rsquo;s like, like super popular book and it\u0026rsquo;s like a. Like fiction, fiction novel, um, like some interesting lessons. And one of the stories in those, like this, this guy\u0026rsquo;s like a shepherd. He starts working through this, this guy, um, and, uh, like this, this shop owner person has had his shop for so long.\nLike it\u0026rsquo;s like heaps and heaps of years. Um, and he is like complaining that he never got to go and do like the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca. I think it\u0026rsquo;s called, um, And he was saying like the, the only re like now the only thing that keeps me going is like the thought of, of, of like, thinking about going there is like, better than actually realizing it and going there, like, like if you actually went there, it would be worse than like hitting, like his imagination is the thing that\u0026rsquo;s sort of keeping him happy.\nUm, and I think for lots of people that is kind of, you know, the, the thought of having like a nice job and all that kind of stuff. Um, it\u0026rsquo;s a nice fantasy to have that like, to actually go in and try and realize it is like, is that\u0026rsquo;s like too much, too much pain to go through. And until it\u0026rsquo;s easier just to accept like the current situation,\nJack: Um, that it like, cause we S like you say it, like you, you\u0026rsquo;d probably say, you know, people like directly in your family and your life that have just led it, luck that doing stuff that doesn\u0026rsquo;t then like, if you weren\u0026rsquo;t paying them, they wouldn\u0026rsquo;t do it. It\u0026rsquo;s like, it\u0026rsquo;s like that. That\u0026rsquo;s not the way to live.\nLike you want to be doing something. Where, if you weren\u0026rsquo;t getting paid for it, you\u0026rsquo;d still do it. It\u0026rsquo;s just what you do. Like, it\u0026rsquo;s just what you\u0026rsquo;re interested in. So it\u0026rsquo;s like, yeah, I just don\u0026rsquo;t get people who settle for jobs that like, make them unhappy or settle for jobs where it\u0026rsquo;s like, it gets to Sunday and it\u0026rsquo;s like, fuck, like I gotta go to work tomorrow.\nAnd it\u0026rsquo;s like, you know, you\u0026rsquo;re sitting with your family and then you just remember you got to go to work. And you\u0026rsquo;re like, like that, that sucks. That\u0026rsquo;s not a way to leave. Cause then you\u0026rsquo;re wasting five out of seven days. Which is like 71% of your life. It\u0026rsquo;s like, what, how did, how have we all let that be the normal thing that we do?\nLike, cause that\u0026rsquo;s what most people do. And it\u0026rsquo;s like, who the fuck? Let that happen? Like this.\nJames: Yeah, no, I absolutely agree. And I think even sometimes, like if you see someone that is pursuing something that they want to do or something that they\u0026rsquo;re passionate about, um, then it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s almost seen as like, like a bad thing. Like they\u0026rsquo;re, they\u0026rsquo;re off doing something crazy or whatever. Um, when it\u0026rsquo;s like, um, it\u0026rsquo;s almost, perhaps it\u0026rsquo;s like a sign of like, people are almost a little bit jealous that someone can go and do that.\nUm,\nJack: Yeah. It\u0026rsquo;s like,\nJames: Of want to bring them down, like back on to, to our level, if that\nJack: Yeah. There\u0026rsquo;s another coil. It\u0026rsquo;s like the thought of your success heightens the feeling of stagnation in. Which is like, obviously not a good feeling. Like you don\u0026rsquo;t want to feel like you\u0026rsquo;re being left behind. And if people aren\u0026rsquo;t doing anything with their life, and I say, you sharing that, you\u0026rsquo;re doing stuff where you\u0026rsquo;re trying to better yourself.\nIt can make them feel bad. And like, they don\u0026rsquo;t want to feel bad. They want to bring you back down to their level. So you feel the same. It\u0026rsquo;s like, it\u0026rsquo;s not a good trait, but we\u0026rsquo;ve all got it in us in some, some degree.\nHow Jack learnt about building a business # James: Yeah, no, I definitely, um, I want to ask too about like your, so you\u0026rsquo;re building all these things, Instagram page utopia, all this kind of stuff. Like how do you, or pardon me? How do you think about, um, sort of upskilling yourself and learning about how to do all this stuff? Cause like when you\u0026rsquo;re building a business from scratch, You know, heaps of stuff you have to learn.\nAnd I wonder like, do you like how you\u0026rsquo;ve sort of gone about, you know, cause you, you went from real estate to this, which is, you know, there\u0026rsquo;s not heaps of overlap. Um, you know, so learning all this stuff is quite new for you. And I wonder like, w have you, have you sort of gone about approaching that.\nJack: Yeah. So basically. Yeah. So I think about learning, like, I just think that now that we\u0026rsquo;ve got the. There\u0026rsquo;s no excuse, like there\u0026rsquo;s no excuse to do whatever you want. I like to build whatever you want. It\u0026rsquo;s like, if you don\u0026rsquo;t know how to do something, just like go to YouTube or like Google it there\u0026rsquo;s like thousands of articles.\nAnd like every weird obscure question you\u0026rsquo;ve got about something, someone\u0026rsquo;s asked it on you on Google, like you\u0026rsquo;ll find an arts. So that\u0026rsquo;s what I\u0026rsquo;ve found with like website design and all that stuff. It\u0026rsquo;s just like, if you run into. The internet has a solution for you. Like there\u0026rsquo;s so much free content out there.\nUm, and I also like I\u0026rsquo;ve thought about like getting people to do certain things, like getting people to run the social media, getting people to run, or like design the website, getting people to like manage the apparel side of things. But I was like, I wanna, I wanna have a capable and like, Really good at all this stuff before I bring someone on to do it so that I know if they\u0026rsquo;re doing a good job, if you know what I mean, like, um, and I\u0026rsquo;ll also like, just knowing how to do things as well.\nLike I used to hate that feeling of like being a beginner and like, um, you know, like you\u0026rsquo;re the full, like I used to hate that I used to not like, it was just uncomfortable. It was like, I look like a loser. But I\u0026rsquo;ve come to learn through listening a lot to Joe Rogan. Like I listened to a lot of Joe Rogan.\nI listened to his podcast every episode. Um, but he talks a lot about, you have to be willing to be a beginner and be the full, if you want to be the master. And it\u0026rsquo;s like, there\u0026rsquo;s just no way around it. Like you can\u0026rsquo;t, you can\u0026rsquo;t be good at something without first being bad at it. So I just, I was just like, all right, that\u0026rsquo;s just is what it is.\nThat\u0026rsquo;s, that\u0026rsquo;s how you get good at stuff. So. I\u0026rsquo;m just letting myself be a full one. Like just laugh at yourself as well. Like, cause like, oh my God, the amount of mistakes of maybe like the Instagram and website and like just everything. Like I\u0026rsquo;ll just get to the stage where you\u0026rsquo;re an idiot,\nJames: No.\nJack: You just have to be at a lofi.\nSo, and just like realize that no one starts. No one starts as good. Like everyone starts as shit. You just have to realize that. And that\u0026rsquo;s fine. It\u0026rsquo;s just, that just is what it is. And yeah, you get better. It\u0026rsquo;s just the bit, one of the big things in my life is consistency. Like some are really trying to live my life by is like consistent effort.\nIf you\u0026rsquo;re seeing no results, you have to be consistent. And that\u0026rsquo;s the biggest thing with like learning stuff and learn new skills is just like, You got to suck and you\u0026rsquo;re not going to be better tomorrow, but if you just keep showing up and like learning and keep trying, you\u0026rsquo;re going to get better.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s like, it\u0026rsquo;s the most simple formula ever, like just consistent effort and like focused effort. You\u0026rsquo;re going to get better. It\u0026rsquo;s there\u0026rsquo;s no way around it. Like, that\u0026rsquo;s what I\u0026rsquo;ve found and yeah, it all just comes back to enjoying learning, like learn what you want. And you\u0026rsquo;ll love learning.\nJames: Yeah, no, that\u0026rsquo;s cool. I love what you said. The, you know, like everyone, like everyone starts from, from nothing in some, in some sense. Right? Uh, I think that\u0026rsquo;s important, uh, to recognize and keep in mind when you are starting something new.\nJack: And that\u0026rsquo;s like, cause like with jujitsu, like doing jujitsu, when you\u0026rsquo;re a beginner, you get, you get fucked up lucky you get strangled and squashed and. You just get like, you\u0026rsquo;re on the bottom, under this massive guy, who\u0026rsquo;s just putting your thoughts of who you were up. Like he\u0026rsquo;s just throwing them out the window.\nLike you thought you were a man, you thought you were like this big, tough guy. Like you thought you knew everything. And this guy\u0026rsquo;s like got your arm wrapped around your head and he\u0026rsquo;s like sitting on you and you can\u0026rsquo;t. I was like, this guy could do whatever he wants you right now. Like you\u0026rsquo;re dead. It\u0026rsquo;s like that.\nIt humbles you so much. And like makes you realize like, oh, that\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s one of the biggest, um, examples of like, you have to be a foal to be a master because when you\u0026rsquo;re starting out at a martial art, it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s a very good ego check. Like it\u0026rsquo;ll, it\u0026rsquo;ll match your match. You realize like you, you\u0026rsquo;re not always say it\u0026rsquo;s good for your brain.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s good for you.\nJames: Yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s so good. Yeah. I\u0026rsquo;ve heard very good things about Mahershala. Joining for awhile, but yeah, I think, yeah, it could be on the cards.\nJack: Yeah, it\u0026rsquo;s good. It\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s good. Fun. And it\u0026rsquo;s like hard exercise that you\u0026rsquo;re also learning how to defend yourself. So it\u0026rsquo;s like a useful form of exercise, which that\u0026rsquo;s what I love about it. It\u0026rsquo;s like, you\u0026rsquo;re exhausted. And you also just learnt how to defend yourself if, if you have to. And it\u0026rsquo;s like, oh, that\u0026rsquo;s so.\nJames: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. What was the inspiration for you to get started?\nJack: Mostly, it would have been Joe\nJames: Yeah.\nJack: If it\u0026rsquo;s not, if it\u0026rsquo;s not like, it\u0026rsquo;s just like subconsciously it would definitely would have been like listening to Joe Rogan. And just listening to him talk about the benefits of it, especially for your brain. Like I was saying, like for humbling yourself. Cause I had, I still do.\nI have a mad ego problem where like, I\u0026rsquo;m like, what\u0026rsquo;s better now because I\u0026rsquo;m. And I\u0026rsquo;m aware of it and I can like, be like, oh yeah, you\u0026rsquo;re act like that\u0026rsquo;s your ego. Especially in jujitsu class, in the Alec, if you have an ego and you\u0026rsquo;re trying to like over power a guy\u0026rsquo;s better than you, um, try and tap out a guy who\u0026rsquo;s better than you\u0026rsquo;ll get humbled real quick.\nLike he\u0026rsquo;s going to tap you out and he\u0026rsquo;s going to make it pretty brutal with your ego\u0026rsquo;s trying to like go really hard. So yeah, I did it to like pull my ego in check. Get fit, learn how to defend myself. And yeah, I just liked the idea of yeah. Being comfortable. Cause I, I used to feel like a bit of a bitch.\nLike if people said something to me, I always got scared. Like if I had a girlfriend or whatever, and then we\u0026rsquo;re walking down the street or whatever nightclub was selling and someone said something like, what am I going to do? Like, I don\u0026rsquo;t know. I don\u0026rsquo;t know how to do anything, but now I\u0026rsquo;m comfortable with like, all right.\nIf something happens, like I know what to do. you learn jujitsu, like if you do six months of jujitsu, you luck, you know, it\u0026rsquo;s all right. Like you\u0026rsquo;re going to be okay if you\u0026rsquo;re against someone, same size as you who doesn\u0026rsquo;t know what they\u0026rsquo;re doing, but hasn\u0026rsquo;t had any training, like you\u0026rsquo;ll do, you\u0026rsquo;ll be fine.\nYou\u0026rsquo;ll be fine. Which is, it\u0026rsquo;s a good feeling. It\u0026rsquo;s like, that\u0026rsquo;s a feeling I wanted. So.\nJames: Yeah. No. Yeah,\nJack: You\u0026rsquo;d love it. You\u0026rsquo;d love it.\nJames: Yeah.\nJack: It\u0026rsquo;s probably the best martial art for like, cause you can go as hard. Like when you\u0026rsquo;re wrestling, you can go to like a hundred percent, but you\u0026rsquo;re not getting knocked out. It\u0026rsquo;s not like boxing where like you can\u0026rsquo;t go a hundred percent and then you get knocked out and you can\u0026rsquo;t train for a month or so.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s really good for that. Being able to simulate what an actual flight would be like, and then just be on tap and just go again. So it\u0026rsquo;s yeah, it\u0026rsquo;s good.\nJames: Yeah. Great. Yeah. I\u0026rsquo;ll\nJack: Do it\nJames: Around it. Yeah. I\u0026rsquo;ve been convinced out.\nJack\u0026rsquo;s Mission # James: Oh, that\u0026rsquo;s a good, yeah. I want to ask you too, like, so what is like, you know, you\u0026rsquo;ve you finished real estate, um, and then there\u0026rsquo;s sort of, the world is sort of open to you for deciding what to do and what to do next. And then clearly this week, what you\u0026rsquo;re doing now, utopia golden hour.\nUh, this is kind of an underlying mission there. It\u0026rsquo;s like sort of things that you want to see in the world and kind of, how would you describe that? Um, with the kind of things.\nJack: Yeah, so utopia. What I tell people the easiest way to describe it. It\u0026rsquo;s like a gym membership for your mind and lifestyle. Like you get a membership to go to F 45 or go to 24 fit or whatever. This is a membership where you\u0026rsquo;re looking after your brain, you\u0026rsquo;re looking off the future and you\u0026rsquo;re looking after the lifestyle you live.\nUm, like you look out to your body, you want to look after, you know, like your, your future and your success. So I just say so many people, like we were talking about before that are just unhappy.\nJames: Um,\nJack: Don\u0026rsquo;t know, I don\u0026rsquo;t think it\u0026rsquo;s their fault. Like, I feel like it\u0026rsquo;s, um, the education system and how we taught through uni and through school is we\u0026rsquo;re taught from a perspective that came before the internet, where you didn\u0026rsquo;t have the opportunity to share your ideas through like YouTube or social media or blogs, or you could, you really, it was a lot harder to pursue your interests.\nUm, If, you know what I mean? Like the methods of distribution just weren\u0026rsquo;t there. Like now we\u0026rsquo;ve got so much free distribution through YouTube and social media and like websites. Obviously you have to pay monthly, but it\u0026rsquo;s not much like you can set up a blog for 10 bucks a month or something. Um, so. Yeah, there\u0026rsquo;s a lot more methods for distribution now to get your ideas out there.\nSo I wanted to expose people to people who had done that to pit. Like that\u0026rsquo;s what the mentor section in utopia is. People who have utilized the internet to get their ideas out there and shot like Croft bay income around the interests and what they enjoy. It\u0026rsquo;s it\u0026rsquo;s like blueprints for how we can all live and we can all do the same.\nUm, And yeah, like we talking about before, just so many people unhappy due to the way, like we\u0026rsquo;re brought up and like you say, like this isn\u0026rsquo;t a dig, but a lot of like girls coming out of, um, school, it\u0026rsquo;s like, you end up like nursing is just, like you say, like four girls in the same, same friend group ended up going into nursing. We\u0026rsquo;re very different people. It\u0026rsquo;s like, you\u0026rsquo;ve all four of you. I don\u0026rsquo;t think absolutely love nursing. That\u0026rsquo;s like your life\u0026rsquo;s passion. Like, that\u0026rsquo;d be very weird coincidence. So it\u0026rsquo;s like a lot of people just choose jobs and choose the lofts because like their friends are doing it or school told them this is a good job or whatever.\nAnd then they end up like resentful and unhappy and like, oh, I\u0026rsquo;ve gotta go to work. Like go to go to this job. It\u0026rsquo;s like, I wanted to expose people to ways where you don\u0026rsquo;t like, you don\u0026rsquo;t have to live like that. And that\u0026rsquo;s why we\u0026rsquo;ve got investing tips. We\u0026rsquo;re investing toes and investors to follow because I want to show people, you can make passive income, which can help you like escape the rat race.\nSo that\u0026rsquo;s where you want. You want to be making passive income that lets you do what you really love in your time. So you want, you want to like automate your income, which allows you, which just frees up your time and allows you to pursue like all your interests and whatnot. So. Um, and then yeah, when we get to like books and podcasts inside utopia, that\u0026rsquo;s, that\u0026rsquo;s the learning stage where you can learn how to start a business or how to be healthier, how to, um, you know, think better and all this stuff it\u0026rsquo;s utopia is basically just an archive of resources to help you become a better person and live a better life.\nUh, life that you actually want to live a life that\u0026rsquo;s like big siding to you. Cause I feel like a lot of people, when you say stuff like this to them, they\u0026rsquo;ll be like, oh, I\u0026rsquo;m happy, I\u0026rsquo;m fine. You know? Like, and it\u0026rsquo;s like, okay, you\u0026rsquo;re going to say that to me, but you have to go home and like get into bed. And like, is that, do you may not like, I dunno.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s like, that\u0026rsquo;s, that\u0026rsquo;s a question everyone has to ask themselves on the line in bed at night. It\u0026rsquo;s like, do I really enjoy my life? They\u0026rsquo;re not going to tell you. Everyone knows the answer and you know, I just want more people to enjoy their lives. That\u0026rsquo;s why I made that\u0026rsquo;s where, yeah, I\u0026rsquo;m mumbling on a little bit, but like, that\u0026rsquo;s why I\u0026rsquo;m at the time in model PI what you want, because I didn\u0026rsquo;t want price to be a sticking point for people.\nI just want, like, I really just want this to help and just get these ideas out there because they\u0026rsquo;re not promoted by the news. They\u0026rsquo;re not promoted by school and uni and everything. I want it to show people. There are different ways to learn. There are people who have done it this way, who are successful.\nNow you can invest. It\u0026rsquo;s not that hard. Um, you just have to know like what to do like, so here\u0026rsquo;s all these role models for investing and here\u0026rsquo;s all these tools you can use. That\u0026rsquo;ll help you get educated and, you know, make better decisions. And then, um, there\u0026rsquo;s also like life hacks, which is just 30 ways to upgrade your life.\nBasically. It\u0026rsquo;s very random, but I just feel like if S if you gave me a fresh person, like a blue, like just a fresh person, like 20 years old didn\u0026rsquo;t know anything. And he just gave him, you talk to you that they\u0026rsquo;re going to be okay. Like, it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s set up so that if you gave me like a fresh light load, all this information into them, they\u0026rsquo;re going to live a life.\nThey enjoy.\nJames: Yeah. Hi, it\u0026rsquo;s cool. It\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s an inspiring stuff. And certainly I think you\u0026rsquo;re tackling an important, important problem, um, that we have, uh, at the moment where people are just doing things that don\u0026rsquo;t fulfill them at all. And it\u0026rsquo;s, uh, it\u0026rsquo;s not even like a party. I like some of my job, like, hate all of it.\nUm, and you know, that\u0026rsquo;s no way to live. And I think this is, yeah, this is, this is a really cool, uh, you know, thing to, uh, I really appreciate what we\u0026rsquo;ve done with the sort of pricing model of things, where anyone can sort of go in there and, and digest these things. And you\u0026rsquo;ve made it really easy to digest the lessons that are in there.\nUm, so yeah, I think it\u0026rsquo;s really cool.\nJack: Yeah. And with that, with the pricing model, I just want to say something really quick as well. Um, so obviously that relies on the Goodwill of people. Like you kind of just in Squarespace, the website design platform that I use to create the membership, you can either choose to put a price on.\nWell, make it free, like a set price on or make it free. So I always want to stay power. You want, like, I wanted to put the power in people\u0026rsquo;s hands. So the only way I found to do that was to make access free. And then once you\u0026rsquo;re inside, you choose the price of your membership, which I actually thought was probably better because then people can look around, see what\u0026rsquo;s valuable, see how it\u0026rsquo;s going to help them.\nAnd then like make a judgment on value from there. Um, So far it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s like, I\u0026rsquo;m very grateful for everyone who has been supporting and what not it\u0026rsquo;s it is designed to be a paid membership.\nI know. I want to keep it as pay what you want because. Yeah. I don\u0026rsquo;t want people to say a price and just be put off and not even look at it. Like if you can\u0026rsquo;t afford it or if you don\u0026rsquo;t feel like it\u0026rsquo;s valuable, then yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s fine. But I do believe most people aren\u0026rsquo;t free riders and most people will choose a fair price if they say value.\nSo what can you do?\nJames: Yeah, yeah. Totally. No, I hope it goes well, certainly. And what you\u0026rsquo;ve put together is pretty valuable, so, uh, yeah, so, well done. I wonder, I want to ask you too, a couple of questions before we wrap up.\nWho Inspires Jack # James: And one of them is like, Who inspires you. And I wonder if it\u0026rsquo;s someone, uh, you know, like a Joe Rogan or someone that\u0026rsquo;s super famous like that, or if it\u0026rsquo;s people that are sort of more local and more connected in your network and things like that, like who, who do you look up to and who inspired?\nJack: Probably I posted about this a lot that I think Joe Rogan is one of the best role models in the world for men luck, a lot of paperwork. Who don\u0026rsquo;t listen to his podcast. We\u0026rsquo;ll sell it always. This is that, but Hey, a hundred percent is one of the best role models in the world for men, just in terms of being a healthy human and being a nice person and like giving yourself challenges every day.\nJust like just seeking happiness. He\u0026rsquo;s been a massive influence in my life, like the last couple of years and like, um, yeah, I\u0026rsquo;ll listen to his, every episode of his podcast. And I see him as a massive influence in my life. Um, definitely this is very cliche, but it\u0026rsquo;s it\u0026rsquo;s mom and dad, because just because like seeing them give back ma\u0026rsquo;am assistance, everything, like, I feel like they\u0026rsquo;re not regular parents.\nLike they give us a lot. They\u0026rsquo;re very, very supportive. Even if it\u0026rsquo;s coming out of. Their future. Um, and they believe in may a lot and like put a lot of trust in me that I know what I\u0026rsquo;m doing. So I really, really, really need this. Like, this is going to be successful for them. I\u0026rsquo;m going to give back to them.\nAnd that was just a decision I made. I was like, this, there\u0026rsquo;s no alternative. Like this is going to work out and I\u0026rsquo;m going to give back everything, tenfold to the paperwork supported me a lot. So that\u0026rsquo;s pretty much it.\nJames: Yeah. Cool. No, but, um, yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s, that\u0026rsquo;s really great. And then. And I think that\u0026rsquo;s so cool and certainly a really good way to give back to your parents. Um, yeah, not\nJack: They\u0026rsquo;re the best parents that parents are the best. Yeah. I don\u0026rsquo;t know. I know people have bad turns about if you get good parents, it\u0026rsquo;s a blessing.\nJack\u0026rsquo;s Advice for Graduates # James: Yeah, absolutely. We, I\u0026rsquo;ve got one last question for you, Jack, and that is a question I\u0026rsquo;ll ask or, uh, all the guests that I have on the show and it is if you, uh, sort of graduating university. Um, this year, you know, what advice looking back at, who you were at that stage, you know, what, what advice would you give yourself?\nJack: So if I get, so if I just graduated, what advice I give myself, like going out into the world after uni,\nJames: Yeah, yeah. Go.\nJack: Probably this is kind of specific, but. Sit down and double check your assumptions of what you want from your life. Because I feel like a lot of people, if they\u0026rsquo;ve just put in all this time at uni and got this degree, they feel like they have to pursue what that degree is. Even if they\u0026rsquo;re like two and a half years thrown in, they\u0026rsquo;re like, oh, I don\u0026rsquo;t want to do this anymore.\nBut they\u0026rsquo;ve invested so much. It\u0026rsquo;s like a sunk cost and they feel like they have to pursue it. They\u0026rsquo;ve spent all this money. I\u0026rsquo;ve got to get this job. Just double check because you don\u0026rsquo;t want to get stuck in a loft that you don\u0026rsquo;t enjoy. And it\u0026rsquo;s the trap of old traps. You only get one life. So you just do not let yourself get stuck doing something you don\u0026rsquo;t fully enjoy.\nAnd just ask yourself, would I do this? If I wasn\u0026rsquo;t getting paid, or if I had to pay someone to do this, like try and do something like that, we do laugh just, yeah. Double check it. Because it\u0026rsquo;s going to a few, like a few months of uncertainty and a few months of like, oh, I feel like I wasted that whole time at uni it\u0026rsquo;s.\nIf, if that leads to a life where you\u0026rsquo;re happy, that\u0026rsquo;s why better than, you know, just cruising into this job. That is just a job.\nJames: Yeah, no, that\u0026rsquo;s so cool. I think that\u0026rsquo;s great advice for people out there. I think I want to add, you know, read, read maximum achievement as well,\nJack: Yes. Yes. Get that book out.\nJames: Yeah.\nJack: I\u0026rsquo;ll show you what it looks like, everyone.\nJames: Ah, there we go. Perfect. Fantastic.\nConnect with Jack # James: Well, thanks so much for sharing all that with us today, jackets, it\u0026rsquo;s been a really great conversation and great to hear we\u0026rsquo;ve come from, and it\u0026rsquo;s exciting where you\u0026rsquo;re going to be, uh, you know, in the next few months and years, so, so good on you. Um, but before we wrap the podcast today, you know, where can people go to find out more about yourself and kind of things.\nJack: Yeah. So on. Most of my presence is on Instagram. So in mine, golden hour account is at it\u0026rsquo;s golden hour. So it\u0026rsquo;s golden. And then HR, uh, the utopia Instagram at Nutopia learning. And then my personal Instagram is just J boxer underscore it\u0026rsquo;s linked on those pages. Um, website\u0026rsquo;s goldenhr.com.au, just golden HR.\nThat\u0026rsquo;s the main goal now. So that way you\u0026rsquo;ll find my blog. Um, you\u0026rsquo;ll be able to subscribe to our newsletter, which we send out every week. Um, say what\u0026rsquo;s going on in the Instagram. By-peril all that kind of. You type his website is utopia learning.com dot I, you jump on there, have a look, um, create an account.\nIf you got any questions, just let me know. There\u0026rsquo;s all the contact details on those websites. Um, we\u0026rsquo;ve also got ticked off. We\u0026rsquo;ve just been flying up the tick-tock. So that\u0026rsquo;s, uh, the utopia page is at utopia learning golden hours, pages, golden HR official, uh, And then I\u0026rsquo;ve got an account as well. I think it\u0026rsquo;s just, Jackbox a throw, but I don\u0026rsquo;t post anything.\nUm, but that\u0026rsquo;s it mainly Instagram.\nJames: Nice. Well, yeah, I get around it. And yet, thanks so much for coming on the show today, Jack. It\u0026rsquo;s\nJack: Thanks. Thanks for having me, James.\nOutro # James: Thanks for listening to this episode I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. If you want to get my takeaways, the things that I learned from this episode, please go to Graduate Theory.com/subscribe, where you can get my takeaways and all the information about each episode, straight to your inbox.\nThanks so much for listening again today, and we\u0026rsquo;re looking forward to seeing you next week.\n← Back to episode 33\n","date":"6 June 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/graduate-theory/33-jack-boxer/transcript/","section":"Graduate Theory Transcripts","summary":"← Back to episode 33\nThis transcript has been lightly edited for readability. It may still contain transcription errors.\nJack: And you’re like, like that, that sucks. That’s not a way to leave. Cause then you’re wasting five out of seven days. Which is like 71% of your life. It’s like, what, how did, how have we all let that be the normal thing that we do?\n","title":"Transcript: Jack Boxer | On Waking Up and Chasing Your Dreams","type":"graduate-theory-transcripts"},{"content":" Watch the conversation Graduate Theory Open YouTube ↗ Read the full transcript → Successful people are all passionate about what they do. Did they start out passionate? Or are they only passionate because they are successful?\nIn this week\u0026rsquo;s episode, we uncover what it means to follow your passion, and if this career strategy will set you up for boom or bust.\nDon\u0026rsquo;t miss this newsletter, straight to you, every week 👇\nSubscribe Now\nThis video features Steve Jobs, Cal Newport, and Ben Horowitz in investigating whether you should follow your passion when choosing a career.\n👇 Episode Takeaways # This week, we learnt that following your passion isn\u0026rsquo;t the best idea for a few reasons.\nwe sometimes don\u0026rsquo;t have clear passions it\u0026rsquo;s hard to tell if you are more passionate for X or Y your passions change over time not a lot of good evidence that matching the content of your work to a pre-existing interest is a major driver of satisfaction you might not actually be good at your passion (see: talent shows) most successful people did not follow this advice very \u0026lsquo;me\u0026rsquo; centred view of the world What I\u0026rsquo;ve learnt through interviewing people on Graduate Theory is that most people do not start their careers following their passion.\nPeople often start with what they are good at, and find ways to develop passion for their work by providing value to society.\nWhen you are good at what you do, you can use your higher market value to secure a better job with benefits that suit you. This, as well as connection and mastery at work are the kinds of things that lead to lasting fulfilment in your role.\nWhen thinking about your career, don\u0026rsquo;t start with your passions. Start with what you are good at and then build your career on the parts of that which bring you joy.\nDon\u0026rsquo;t follow your passion, become passionate about what you do.\nGet the Newsletter\nContent # Here are the videos and content that I used to help create this video.\n📝 Content Timestamps # 00:00 #32 Don\u0026rsquo;t Follow Your Passion 01:29 Steve Jobs on Following Your Passion 02:08 Thoughts on Steve Jobs 04:18 Cal Newport on Following Your Passion 07:33 James on Cal\u0026rsquo;s Advice 10:08 Ben Horowitz on Following Your Passion 12:44 James on Ben Horowitz 16:31 Scott Galloway on Following Your Passion 18:13 Final Thoughts\n","date":"30 May 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/graduate-theory/32-dont-follow-your-passion/","section":"Graduate Theory","summary":" Watch the conversation Graduate Theory Open YouTube ↗ Read the full transcript → Successful people are all passionate about what they do. Did they start out passionate? Or are they only passionate because they are successful?\n","title":"On Why You Shouldn't Follow Your Passion","type":"graduate-theory"},{"content":"← Back to episode 32\nThis transcript has been lightly edited for readability. It may still contain transcription errors.\nSteve Jobs: And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven\u0026rsquo;t found it yet, keep looking and don\u0026rsquo;t settle as with all matters of the heart.\nYou\u0026rsquo;ll know when you.\nJames: Hello and welcome to Graduate Theory. On today\u0026rsquo;s episode, we are going to talk about following your passion. What does that mean? And is that advice really something that you should be. Following your passion is advice that\u0026rsquo;s given by people all across the internet, all across the world and it\u0026rsquo;s often, well meaning advice, but as we\u0026rsquo;ll see tonight, this advice is also a little bit. Today, we\u0026rsquo;re going to dive into where this actually comes from the idea of following your passion and some critiques that have come out in the last few years. People that have investigated this further as some general thoughts around why this might not be the best approach to making decisions in your career.\nWithout further ado, we\u0026rsquo;re going to dive into, uh, where this first came from. So where did the idea of following your passion really stopped from,. It\u0026rsquo;s been around for a little while now, but when it first became popular was during, the infamous Steve jobs, commencement speech back in 2005, this is a fantastic speech and has so many great points in it. But one of those was around following your passion and we\u0026rsquo;re going to play that part of the space for you. Now, he is Steve back in 2005.\nSteve Jobs on Following Your Passion # Steve Jobs: I\u0026rsquo;m pretty sure none of this would have happened. If I hadn\u0026rsquo;t been fired from apple, it was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it sometime life. Sometimes life\u0026rsquo;s gonna hit you in the head with a brick don\u0026rsquo;t lose faith. I\u0026rsquo;m convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved.\nYou\u0026rsquo;ve got to find what you love, and that is as true for work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life. And the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work.\nAnd like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking. Don\u0026rsquo;t settle\nThoughts on Steve Jobs # James: If you haven\u0026rsquo;t found it yet, keep looking. Isn\u0026rsquo;t that fantastic. What Steve shared with us there. And it\u0026rsquo;s certainly, it\u0026rsquo;s a very no pursuit, right? We all want to have a things that we do for work that we enjoy and that we love who wants to work somewhere and do something that they don\u0026rsquo;t love and they don\u0026rsquo;t enjoy it.\nRight. No one wants that. So obviously we all want this,, so let\u0026rsquo;s say the saying is absolutely right. You want to find something that you\u0026rsquo;d love to do, but the problem we get into here is that this advice now gets taller is something where you should stop, think of things that you love and then try and match your career to that.\nSo, for example, if I liked maths and Oxford have a job in maths here. If I enjoy, you know, going outside and exercising than perhaps I should be a physio or something, something like. No, these are all, um, you know, interesting applications of this advice where we should do something that we love. And so start with something you do love now and match your career to that.\nThat\u0026rsquo;s kind of what we get taught as what this advice means. When we think about this further, what we can realize is there are some flaws with this. And so what we\u0026rsquo;re going to do now is we\u0026rsquo;re going to investigate some of these floors more deeply. Yeah. I\u0026rsquo;m going to call on some colon, some people that have thought about this in more detail and we\u0026rsquo;re going to hear from them.\nAnd so firstly, we\u0026rsquo;re going to hear from Cal Newport and county board is something, someone that I really admire. He, um, he\u0026rsquo;s a professor at podcast and a writer. He wrote one book that investigates this topic in a lot of detail code is so good.\nThey can\u0026rsquo;t ignore you. And he wrote this back in 2012, so it\u0026rsquo;s now 10 years old, but he, um, recently on his podcast did a little recap of some of the cool messages in the book. And in this video, he explains this idea of following your passion and. What it\u0026rsquo;s meant to Maine and what we take it to me, and it\u0026rsquo;s slightly different.\nAnd how you can start to think about, um, you know, Y matching your passions to a job is perhaps not the right way to think about things, but I\u0026rsquo;m going to let Cal explain his thoughts and his, his rationale on this topic. And we\u0026rsquo;ll hear from him now.\nCal Newport on Following Your Passion # Cal Newport: And so I went and I researched and wrote this book as a postdoc at MIT, trying to answer the question, how do people end up loving what they do at the time?\nAnd continuing tell today, the common answer to that question was follow your. That\u0026rsquo;s by far the most common answer, especially in the American context, there are definitely some regional differences here, but definitely in the American context, it didn\u0026rsquo;t take much pushing the, realize that there are problems with this advice.\nNumber one, a lot of people. And by a lot, I mean, most don\u0026rsquo;t have clearly defined preexisting passions that they can identify to then follow real issue. If you talk to a bunch of, let\u0026rsquo;s say 22 year olds just coming out of school. And say, look, you got to follow your passion or you\u0026rsquo;re going to be, you know, a miserable, sad sack.\nAnd I say, well, what\u0026rsquo;s my passion. I don\u0026rsquo;t know. That\u0026rsquo;s a problem. Second, there is not a lot of good evidence that matching the content of your work to a pre-existing interest is a major driver of satisfaction in. We just assume that\u0026rsquo;s true. That advice is assumes that true. Oh, I like this thing. So if I do that for my job, I like my job, but we actually don\u0026rsquo;t have a lot of evidence that\u0026rsquo;s true.\nWe have a ton of evidence that other factors are much more important. Things like autonomy seems like mastery, things like impact things like connection. A lot of other things that are really important for job satisfaction, they have nothing to do with is the content of my work mashing, a preexisting interest.\nAnd we of course have plenty of counterexamples of people. Build jobs out of hobbies and are miserable. I mean, these are cliches that the baker, the amateur baker, who\u0026rsquo;s miserable as a professional baker, the amateur photographer, who\u0026rsquo;s miserable doing six wedding photography gigs per week. This is so common.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s a cliche that when you take what you love and say, let me make a job about it. You no longer love that thing. And that\u0026rsquo;s because the things that makes you really love a job is not me really like this time. MI job now has this topic in it. Me now, I really like my job is way more complicated than that.\nAnd the final issue I\u0026rsquo;ll throw in a third year that I noticed when I was researching so good. They can\u0026rsquo;t ignore you is that if you just go out there and grab a bunch of people who love what they do for a living and look at their actual stories, nine times out of 10, they were not following a clear pre-existing.\nI mean, if this is the universal advice we give, you would expect that it\u0026rsquo;s what most people who love their job did. That\u0026rsquo;s why we give this advice. Most people don\u0026rsquo;t. And the reality is when you just ask someone casually, who loves their work, what\u0026rsquo;s your advice. And they say, follow your passion. What they really mean is follow the goal of ending up passionate about your work.\nThey don\u0026rsquo;t mean. Identify and advanced what you\u0026rsquo;re passionate about mashed out to your job, and then you will love your work. That\u0026rsquo;s not really what they mean. It\u0026rsquo;s not really what they did. It\u0026rsquo;s just a shorthand, but we interpret it as meaning we\u0026rsquo;re wired to do one thing, match our work to that one. Then we will love our work.\nThat\u0026rsquo;s not actually the way it works\nJames on Cal\u0026rsquo;s Advice # James: Wow. Some really cool thoughts there from Cal and to summarize his points, there are things that he thought were not really, uh, no. Great about the folio passion advice. One was that we don\u0026rsquo;t actually have clear. You know, so most people don\u0026rsquo;t really know what they\u0026rsquo;re even passionate about. Um, well, especially when you\u0026rsquo;re young, you might not have anything that you have super passionate about.\nUm, number two is, you know, like you said, there\u0026rsquo;s not a lot of good evidence that notching the content of your work to a preexisting interest is a major driver of. And then number three, and this is something that I\u0026rsquo;ve really seen a lot of, as I\u0026rsquo;ve done a lot of podcasts now interviewed over 30 people on Graduate Theory.\nAnd you know, one of the key themes is, is exactly that is it. Most people don\u0026rsquo;t actually follow this advice. So most people that get up there and say, you know, follow your passion, um, you know, whatever, th they, they didn\u0026rsquo;t actually do that. You know, they, they sort of. Did something and ended up being passionate about it later, rather than starting with an existing passion and then matching a career to that.\nSo that\u0026rsquo;s something that I\u0026rsquo;ve absolutely picked up incitement even in my personal life is something that\u0026rsquo;s being true is, is things that I\u0026rsquo;ve enjoyed doing. Haven\u0026rsquo;t necessarily been something that I was passionate about before I started doing this. And certainly many successful people that you\u0026rsquo;d go, you go on, let\u0026rsquo;s take any successful person.\nChances are they didn\u0026rsquo;t do it this way. You know, they didn\u0026rsquo;t start out with some crazy passionate about a topic, um, or about a, about a career or a job. And then somehow turn that into the thing that they do for a living often passions come after. Off you decided to do something.\nAnother piece of advice that I found the line. Around this topic was a fantastic talk by Ben Horowitz. So Ben, our Horowitz is a co-founder of a 16 Z, which is one of the world\u0026rsquo;s biggest venture capital firms.\nUm, and he gave a talk to the graduating class of university, uh, at the university of Columbia in 2015. And this is a really, really fantastic talk. All of the, uh, links and videos that I\u0026rsquo;ve shared here will be in the show notes somewhere. So I encourage you to go watch this later, but this is fantastic in the, and he has some really good thoughts again, on, on passions and why following your passion isn\u0026rsquo;t necessarily the best side too.\nAnd kind of some, some points, some problems he thought with that and what you should do instead. Right. Um, because it\u0026rsquo;s important to know, right. If we don\u0026rsquo;t have, uh, if we\u0026rsquo;re not going to follow our passion, you know, what are we going to do in state? And so I liked what he had to say here. And, um, he has been sharing with us.\nBen Horowitz on Following Your Passion # Ben Horowitz: So don\u0026rsquo;t follow your passion. Now. You\u0026rsquo;re probably thinking that\u0026rsquo;s a really dumb idea because everybody who\u0026rsquo;s successful. And if you pull a thousand, people are successful, they\u0026rsquo;ll all say that they love what they do. And so the broad conclusion of the world is that if you do what you love, then you\u0026rsquo;ll be successful, but we\u0026rsquo;re engineers.\nAnd we know that might be true, but it all smells might be the case that if you\u0026rsquo;re successful, you love what you do. You just love being successful and everybody loves you. It\u0026rsquo;s awesome.\nSo which one is it? Well, I think to figure it out, you kind of have to go back in time. You have to back off when you were successful too. Like right now, when you\u0026rsquo;re graduating as the class of 2015, and the first tricky thing about passions are they\u0026rsquo;re hard to prioritize which passion is it. Are you more passionate about math or engineering?\nAre you more passionate, passionate about history or literature? Are you more passionate about video games or. These are tough decisions. How do you even know on the other hand, what are you good at? Are you better at math or writing? That\u0026rsquo;s a much easier thing to figure out. The second thing that\u0026rsquo;s tricky.\nIf you\u0026rsquo;re going forward in time with this follow your passion. Is that what you\u0026rsquo;re passionate about a 21 is not necessarily what you\u0026rsquo;re going to be passionate about at 40. Now this is true for boyfriends as well as career choices.\nThe third issue with following your passion. Is, excuse me, a little trouble with the throat is you\u0026rsquo;re not necessarily good at your passion and as anybody ever watch American idol. So you know what I\u0026rsquo;m talking about? Like, just because you love singing doesn\u0026rsquo;t mean you should be a professional singer. And then finally, and most importantly, following your passion is a very me centered view of.\nAnd when you get, go through life, what you\u0026rsquo;ll find is what you take out of the world over time. Be it, you know, whatever money, cars, stuff, accolades is much less important than what you put into the world. And so my recommendation would be follow your controversial. Find the thing that you\u0026rsquo;re great at put that into the world, contribute to others, help the world be better.\nAnd that is the thing to follow.\nJames on Ben Horowitz # James: That\u0026rsquo;s a really interesting pace that from Ben and what we heard from him, there was interesting distinction about it\u0026rsquo;s kind of this chicken or egg problem. Where is it? You follow your passion, uh, and then love what you do, or do you love what you do and then become passionate about it second. And I think that was a really interesting thing there.\nAnd certainly it seems from the paper that we\u0026rsquo;ve seen in things that we\u0026rsquo;ve had so far, it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s definitely more of the. And you, you become passionate as, as you, as you get better at what you do definitely seems to be the case. So to summarize kind of what, the things that Ben said there, which is a lot of similar things to what Cal had to say as well was, was, you know, reasons why you wouldn\u0026rsquo;t want to follow our passion and then decide what to do is that often we don\u0026rsquo;t have clear passions, um, our passions change over time.\nSo something you might be passionate about when you\u0026rsquo;re younger might not be when you\u0026rsquo;re older. So that makes it hard to. You know, have a career that\u0026rsquo;s based on your passion when it\u0026rsquo;s changing. Um, you know, you might not actually be good. And that was really good example about, uh, American idol or whatever talent shows that you might\u0026rsquo;ve seen.\nUh, people can be passionate about things and not very good at them. So certainly that might be a reason not to have it as, as your career, if you\u0026rsquo;re not actually good at your passion. And I loved what he, he finished with them, which was around, you know, let\u0026rsquo;s do something that can benefit the entire world and let\u0026rsquo;s do something that can put some good into the world.\nAnd perhaps you can be passionate about, you know, providing something great for the world and, and, and that can be something that you\u0026rsquo;re passionate about and build your career on. Okay. Rather than it being, you know, how can I get my needs met? Um, and so I thought that was really interesting and really, um, interesting piece there from him.\nAnd so I think we\u0026rsquo;ve, we\u0026rsquo;ve covered a lot of, a lot of ground here. I think it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s clear to me and. Through my experiences, people that I\u0026rsquo;ve spoken to an even more clear as I\u0026rsquo;ve been researching this topic and in hearing from these people, um, when I\u0026rsquo;m, when I\u0026rsquo;ve been researching this episode, that our passions that should not be what, what, uh, things that we use to decide what we\u0026rsquo;re going to do.\nYou know, things that we\u0026rsquo;re passionate about. Uh, things like, you know, sport and, you know, uh, and fun things. Right. Um, whereas things that we\u0026rsquo;re going to have a career for things that are meaningful, things that we can have a positive impact, you know, and we can develop passions for these things as we go on.\nAnd, and this is what\u0026rsquo;s really important. Cal Cal was explaining this well, I thought where he was saying. Following your passion isn\u0026rsquo;t necessarily starting with your passion and then finding a job it\u0026rsquo;s more about, we want to have the goal of becoming passionate about whatever it is that we decide to do.\nSo we want to have our passion. But it\u0026rsquo;s not, it\u0026rsquo;s not the place to start. I think that\u0026rsquo;s really interesting insight that we can all do is that we can all strive to become passionate about what it is that we do. And that can be by becoming better at what you do, perhaps that will give you more passion.\nIf you are better, you have more complements in the field. Perhaps it\u0026rsquo;s, you\u0026rsquo;re able to create a bigger impact and have a positive impact on, on others and on the world, perhaps that will increase your passion for what it is you do. But you know, these things are things that you can do and. It\u0026rsquo;s something that\u0026rsquo;s worth striving for is, you know, how can I become a passionate about the things that I do?\nUm, and certainly a way that you can increase your career satisfy. One thing I want to finish with as well, is this talk from Scott Galloway? Now Scott is a professor of marketing at the New York university school of business. He\u0026rsquo;s a public speaker, author, entrepreneur, et cetera. Um, and he had a really interesting piece to say on this topic of passion as well.\nAnd I think, um, he had similar thoughts to mind on, you know, what, what you should do. You felt follow your passion, you know, what else should you do instead? And we\u0026rsquo;ll hear from him now.\nScott Galloway on Following Your Passion # Scott Galloway: Uh, another one of my mentors told me that don\u0026rsquo;t follow your passion and that\u0026rsquo;s always stuck with man. Like, what do you mean? And he said, well, find something you\u0026rsquo;re good at. And in business school, what I noticed is that every speaker always says, follow your passion. That\u0026rsquo;s how they end their talk.\nWhat\u0026rsquo;s your one piece of advice for young. Follow your passion, what things that are passion, luxury, um, food, entertainment, sports, those are massively over-invested in a very small fraction, less than 1% of the people who find those things are passionate about. Those things are able to make a living at them and God blessed them.\nAnd there\u0026rsquo;s a lot of very well-published. Winds around people who follow their passion and became fabulously wealthy. But what\u0026rsquo;s so unusual about this is what I find is the people who elders are telling you to follow your passion are already rich. And they typically, and they typically got rich following their passion of software as a service for healthcare scheduling.\nAnd it\u0026rsquo;s like, oh, that was your passion. Let me tell you what their past. Anytime someone tells you to follow their passion. It means their passion was getting rich so they could buy a fat car and marry someone much better looking than them. That is their passion. What I would say is find something in your work that gives you joy and disproportionately allocate amount of time.\nYou can based on your credibility in the organization to that part of your job, that just gives you joy. I think that\u0026rsquo;s as bad as good as you can do. And then find something. So, so you can develop the economic currency to live a nice lifestyle and spend more and more time as you get older, following your true passions..\nFinal Thoughts # James: I think he\u0026rsquo;s absolutely right there with let\u0026rsquo;s start with the things you\u0026rsquo;re good at fondant. That is doing the things that you got up and then let\u0026rsquo;s try and get better at those. Let\u0026rsquo;s try and do the things or the parts of the job that you enjoy the most and try and build out your career to the point where you can have, you have some leverage to, you know, work less or get paid more or whatever it is so that you can then start to spend more times on the things that you\u0026rsquo;re passionate about outside of.\nAnd I think that is a fantastic strategy and a fantastic way to wrap up this episode. I think I hope that you\u0026rsquo;ve seen through this episode that perhaps following your passion as a starting point, isn\u0026rsquo;t really the best idea, but the end goal is really to be passionate about the things that you do. Okay.\nAnd whether the passion comes before the job or passion comes as a result of being good at what you do. Most successful people when most people that have the have great careers are passionate about what they do. And that is something that you should absolutely try and build.\nSo I\u0026rsquo;ll leave it there.\nI wish you all the best, uh, going out and building that passion for what it is that you do. Uh, thanks so much again, full of seem to the Graduate Theory podcast. If you have enjoyed this episode, please consider going to Graduate Theory.com where you can subscribe to the newsletter. You get my takeaways from each podcast episode straight to your inbox every single week.\nThanks again for listening and we\u0026rsquo;ll see you next week. Bye for now.\n← Back to episode 32\n","date":"30 May 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/graduate-theory/32-dont-follow-your-passion/transcript/","section":"Graduate Theory Transcripts","summary":"← Back to episode 32\nThis transcript has been lightly edited for readability. It may still contain transcription errors.\nSteve Jobs: And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking and don’t settle as with all matters of the heart.\n","title":"Transcript: On Why You Shouldn't Follow Your Passion","type":"graduate-theory-transcripts"},{"content":" Watch the conversation Graduate Theory Open YouTube ↗ Read the full transcript → Graduate Theory exists to provide graduates with tips and advice to go from uncertain uni students to thriving early career professionals.\nWe spoke with someone on the same mission this week, going from grad to grown-up.\nDon\u0026rsquo;t miss this newsletter, straight to you, every week 👇\nSubscribe Now\nGene Rice is Chairman Rice-Cohen International, one of the top executive recruiters in the world.\nHe has recently co-authored a book with his daughter Courtney called “Grad to Grown Up”, sharing 68 tips to Excel in Your Personal and Professional Life.\n👇 Episode Takeaways # This episode had plenty of gems, you\u0026rsquo;re going to want to write these down.\nEnsuring a good fit for yourself and a company # Gene had a set of questions that he would ask people to see if they were a good fit for a business.\nHere is that list 👇\nwhen have you been the happiest professionally? What was going on that made you feel that way? What do you enjoy most about your current role? If you were the CEO of your current company, what would you change about the company? What would you change about your role? If you could design your next ideal role, what would the company be like? What would the culture be like? What makes a good long-term fit between a person and a company? # Gene spoke about the traits he had seen in people that go on to do great things at companies.\nHere are some things to think about to ensure you have a good fit for your next role\nYou can add value In one year, you can say you have grown professionally You respect your boss Find Your Passion # One of Gene\u0026rsquo;s big points is that people should seek to find their passion.\nHere\u0026rsquo;s what he had to say:\nI think one of the greatest goals in life should be for every human being to find something that they sincerely loved doing, and then to do it well enough that you can create a career doing it Because if you can do that and if you can find that thing you love and you can make a living doing it, you wake up in the morning, not going to work, you don\u0026rsquo;t wake up in the morning, go into a job. You wake up in the morning going to something you sincerely love. My personal experience is your health is better, your personal relationships are better. The glass isn\u0026rsquo;t half full, it can be overflowing and you can have purpose in your life.\nBecoming a grandmaster of interviewing # One of Gene\u0026rsquo;s main areas of expertise is interviewing, and how to become what he calls a \u0026lsquo;grandmaster\u0026rsquo;.\nHere is his list of things that you should do, to become a grandmaster of interviewing.\nestablish chemistry ask for what\u0026rsquo;s most important (the answers to the test) don’t ask win-lose questions deal with concerns follow up Get the Newsletter\n🤝 Connect with Gene # https://www.linkedin.com/in/grice113\n👩‍🎓 Grad to Grown-Up # https://www.amazon.com/Grad-Grown-Up-Excel-Personal-Professional/dp/1637581920\n📝 Content Timestamps # 00:00 Gene Rice\n00:49 Intro\n01:38 Questions Gene asks to ensure a good fit\n13:10 Gene on asking for a pay rise\n24:47 How Gene would find his passion today\n34:17 Becoming a grandmaster of interviewing\n46:40 What parts of the book are underappreciated?\n51:21 Gene\u0026rsquo;s advice for Graduates\n56:03 Outro\n","date":"23 May 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/graduate-theory/31-gene-rice/","section":"Graduate Theory","summary":" Watch the conversation Graduate Theory Open YouTube ↗ Read the full transcript → Graduate Theory exists to provide graduates with tips and advice to go from uncertain uni students to thriving early career professionals.\n","title":"Gene Rice | On The Journey from Grad to Grown-up","type":"graduate-theory"},{"content":"← Back to episode 31\nThis transcript has been lightly edited for readability. It may still contain transcription errors.\nGene: There was a survey done recently from the conference board that said 25 to 35 year olds. 48%. Don\u0026rsquo;t have job satisfaction, 55 to 65 year olds. This is an America, 52%. Don\u0026rsquo;t have job satisfaction. That\u0026rsquo;s sad for me that said, you know, shame on the older people for not figuring it out. I want to tell you young adults. Figure it out. Find that thing you love. Don\u0026rsquo;t give up your dreams and figure out how to get a career doing it\nIntro # James: Hello and welcome to Graduate Theory. My guests that I is the chairman of rice Cohen international, and he\u0026rsquo;s one of the top executive recruiters in.\nAnd he\u0026rsquo;s recently, co-authored a book with his daughter, Courtney called grad to up where they share 68 tips to Excel in your personal and professional life. Please welcome to the show today, Jean Rice.\nGene: James, thank you for inviting me. And I look forward to our conversation. My friends.\nJames: Thanks, Mike, it\u0026rsquo;s great to have you on all the way from America as well. It\u0026rsquo;s, uh, you know, it\u0026rsquo;s fantastic to have these conversations with people like yourself. Um, I\u0026rsquo;d love to start the conversation today talking about some of your experiences in executive recruitment and trying to find connected people to jobs and, and all that kind of process.\nQuestions Gene asks to ensure a good fit # James: What sort of questions do you ask that person to kind of try and work out where they might best be suited?\nGene: You know, James, you know, the one thing my firm was an executive retained search firm. So the difference is, is that the clients would come to us and pay us a fee and we\u0026rsquo;d work exclusively for them. And we got paid, you know, whether we made the placement or not, we really became a consultant to the client.\nNow, thank God we made most of the placements, but, uh, when we would go out and we would interview. And try to see if it\u0026rsquo;s a good fit there\u0026rsquo;s questions that I would always include in our interview. And I\u0026rsquo;ve placed over a thousand C-level executives. My company has placed tens of thousands, right. Uh, but the questions that I would always ask someone upfront, even before I shared information about what my client was looking for, I wanted to make sure it was a good fit.\nSo I would ask them questions like this. I would say, listen, you know, tell me in your own car. When have you been the happiest professionally in what was going on that made you feel that way? Okay. Then I would follow up. The next question would be in your current role, what do you enjoy most about your current. If you were the CEO of your current company, what would you change about the company? What would you change about your role that kind of would give us insight James, in, in, into, you know, is there any pain, is there anything that, that they\u0026rsquo;re unhappy about? And then I would always say to them, listen, if I gave you a magic wand and I said, you can diagram the ideal next position for you. Tell me what you would create, what would the company be doing? What would the culture be like? What would your role be like? And by asking those simple questions and I encourage candidates ask themselves those questions, it gave me a snapshot to see, does this candidate have, uh, other things that made them happiest and the things that they enjoy most can my client. And if they can, then I\u0026rsquo;m going to go, well, you know, I called you about a specific client of ours that we\u0026rsquo;re doing a retain search. Let me share with you how they could match up with the things you shared with me, you know, and, and James, what I w what I would always encourage people to look. In the 30 years I\u0026rsquo;ve been doing executive search.\nI can tell you there\u0026rsquo;s three things that I\u0026rsquo;ve identified that will make for a good, not only a short-term fit between a candidate and a company, but more importantly, a good long-term fit. And I would always encourage people to look for these three things. The first thing I would tell them, even if, as an entry level role to a senior.\nYou should feel by joining this firm that I can come in and I can add value. I can make a contribution, right? You should feel like I can join this farm and I can add something here, but equally as important, if you join a new firm, you should be after a year down the road, be able to look yourself in the mirror and say, By me joining this company, I grown professionally in these ways.\nThere\u0026rsquo;s gotta be, you gotta, you have to contribute, but you also have to grow. And if a young adult needs that, that growing piece, that professional growth is, is, is probably more important. The third and most important thing. And this is where a lot of people go astray, James, especially young adults. And the first two can be there, but if the third is not there and then I\u0026rsquo;m going to strongly recommend, this is not the right place for you. You should not only respect the person you\u0026rsquo;re reporting to and the people you\u0026rsquo;re going to be working closely with, but you should like them enough personally, that if you had to go out and break bread with them and do a business lunch or a business dinner, it wouldn\u0026rsquo;t be something that you would. The personal relationships are critical.\nAnd for a young adult, that immediate supervisor is the most important, because if you go in there and you hate him, or you hate her in a very short period of time, you\u0026rsquo;re going to be unhappy and going to be looking for a new position. So those are the things that I would encourage your audience to look for.\nAnd those are the things that have helped me in my executive search career, as well as help people feel like, you know, it\u0026rsquo;s a good match.\nJames: Um, yeah, I think that\u0026rsquo;s a great checklist to go through there for people. And certainly I liked what you said about early, early days being important that the growth aspect of a role. Right. And being able to say that you\u0026rsquo;ve learned. You know, a certain amount through, uh, being in that company. I think that\u0026rsquo;s just, especially when you\u0026rsquo;re young, you know, and there\u0026rsquo;s a lot to learn if you\u0026rsquo;re not learning them, you know, something is, something is a little bit wrong, so yeah, certainly you should, you should look out for that.\nGene: I\u0026rsquo;ll add one other thing to your audience. And this is something that we would do. This is something my firm created. Uh, and you know, it\u0026rsquo;s funny, we\u0026rsquo;ve gone on the biggest search firms in the world, the Korn ferry, Spencer Stuart, and Heidrick and struggles. They\u0026rsquo;ve come to you. They use my firm and hiring some of their senior staff.\nAnd this is something that we\u0026rsquo;ve shared with them, but I would encourage your audience that if you\u0026rsquo;re going to go on. Before you go on that interview, you should identify what is it about this company in this positions? That\u0026rsquo;s attracting you? What are the reasons why you\u0026rsquo;re willing to take time to interview with this? You know, sometimes you don\u0026rsquo;t really know much, you know, before the first interview, but you can do your research. You can look online, you can Google the company, you know, you, you can look at their mission statement, you know, what the firm\u0026rsquo;s all about. And then after every interview, I would always encourage candidates to keep, uh, a sheet of paper.\nWe would do this. My search professionals would do that, you know, with our candidates. Tell me the reasons why you\u0026rsquo;re interested in this position. What\u0026rsquo;s attracting you. Okay. After every interview, we would say that those reasons hold true. Did any new reasons surface. We might say to them, what questions or what concerns must you have addressed before you\u0026rsquo;re in a position to make the best decision for you and your family around?\nIs this the right company for you? Right? So we might even get to a certain point where we might suggest some reasons to them that they didn\u0026rsquo;t mention, because we know it\u0026rsquo;s an advantage, maybe. They have a better pension plan. Maybe their vacation policy is longer. Maybe they have a new product coming out, but at the end of this interviewing process, if they\u0026rsquo;re on three, four or five, They should be 12, 13, 14 reasons why they\u0026rsquo;re interested now, money can be one of them, James, but if money is the only thing that\u0026rsquo;s driving you to, uh, uh, a new job, you shouldn\u0026rsquo;t take that job because as soon as someone else comes along and offers you a little bit more money, you\u0026rsquo;ll be leaving.\nAnd you all ended up being a ping pong ball and it\u0026rsquo;s going to affect your career. So I encourage them to identify what are the reasons why you\u0026rsquo;re taking the time to interview. And then at the end, what are the reasons why you want to join this firm in this position?\nJames: Yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s cool. I, yeah, I think that\u0026rsquo;s been really beneficial. Like you said. That list of things, reasons why certainly you mentioned one thing there about being a ping pong ball in terms of money and how that can be detrimental to your career. And that\u0026rsquo;s something that, uh, you know, we hear a lot about, uh, I guess as you know, changing roles can be good, you know, from a money perspective, particularly early on, but I\u0026rsquo;m interested to hear your thoughts on how that can be seen as a negative thing when perhaps you, as you do that.\nUm, uh,\nGene: Well, listen, it\u0026rsquo;s, you know, with the COVID what\u0026rsquo;s going on with. Some of the rules have changed, but only in my opinion, in the short term, James, I can\u0026rsquo;t tell you how many clients, when we would take on a retain search under their qualifications would say to us, I don\u0026rsquo;t care who the candidate is. I don\u0026rsquo;t care how strong the candidate is.\nIf they\u0026rsquo;ve had more than two jobs in a five-year period, I do not want to integrate. I am not interested now. Why is that? Because they feel the candidate doesn\u0026rsquo;t have any loyalty, the candidates going to leave as soon as someone comes along and offers them more money. So they want people cause in, in every position, no matter how great the company is, no matter how great the onboarding process is, there is a learning curve you have to go through, right.\nThere is, you know, And firms don\u0026rsquo;t want people that the first time there\u0026rsquo;s a challenge, they ended up leaving. They want people that are going to hang in there. Right. So that\u0026rsquo;s, that\u0026rsquo;s why I say that, you know,\nJames: Yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s interesting. And so like, do you think that applies, like, does that apply more so to like senior people or does that, like, what would your advice be to someone that is, you know, perhaps in the first few years of their career, should they still avoid, you know, doing things like that?\nGene: Listen, if they absolutely hate their job, if they hate their manager and they\u0026rsquo;re not growing professionally, then they have to look and they have to leave. But what I encourage them to do, you do not want to just your first job, my strong professional opinion. You got to hang in there for at least two years.\nAll right, you got an alert. Otherwise people think that you\u0026rsquo;re not, you know, that, that you\u0026rsquo;re going to bounce every time there\u0026rsquo;s any kind of difficulty. You have to get your feet, you know, under you and you have to stay there for a period of time. All right. And I think when you make decisions, you should be thinking, is this a place that I can spend the next five years of my career?\nBecause as you move up and as you progress, are looking for that. They\u0026rsquo;re not looking for someone that every two years goes on and takes a different, a different role.\nJames: Yeah.\nGene: And I think, you know, and I think Australia, New Zealand is very similar to the states in that I told you that, you know, I was invited because of, uh, you know, My firm and being recognized, I was invited to be the keynote speaker one year at the, the Australia New Zealand executive search conference in Christchurch, New Zealand.\nNow I couldn\u0026rsquo;t, I couldn\u0026rsquo;t accept the invitation and it\u0026rsquo;s one of my greatest regrets cause my kids were young, but, uh, you know, I think search is very similar, uh, you know, in Australia, New Zealand and you know, as it is here in north America,\nJames: Um, yeah, I, I guess I\u0026rsquo;m was saying, trying not to leave jobs when it gets hard, or if you\u0026rsquo;ve joined a company that perhaps isn\u0026rsquo;t the right fit. It\u0026rsquo;s important that if you are going to move like that checklist of things that you were saying earlier, you know, have at least the 10 things, 10 reasons why this company is, is a good place.\nAnd really being sure about, about that is, is really important. Um,\nGene: Yeah. And James, here\u0026rsquo;s the thing. And you know, and sometimes you can\u0026rsquo;t help making a move, right? Sometimes a company. You know, your company sold, right. Maybe things have changed. And if that happens and you had an, a move had to take place that was out of your control, I encourage when they put their resume or their CV together, that they list a reason why.\nSo people can see that, you know, instead of looking at, okay, you only spent a year here and you only spend two years here. If there\u0026rsquo;s reasons behind it, that back it up, I would put that right on the CV or the.\nGene on asking for a pay rise # James: Yeah, no, that\u0026rsquo;s interesting. That\u0026rsquo;s interesting. Um, what about, uh, I want to ask you too. Negotiating like a salary and perhaps like a pay rise and that kind of thing too. Cause I\u0026rsquo;m sure you\u0026rsquo;ve, you\u0026rsquo;ve, um, been involved in situations like that. Do you have any process, um, or recommendations to someone that is going through.\nGene: Yeah, well, his here\u0026rsquo;s the things I want to first make your audience aware of. Right. It\u0026rsquo;s okay. Upfront, you know, especially if there\u0026rsquo;s a search firm or recruiter involved, James, so let them know what you\u0026rsquo;re looking for. Right. You know, from a compensation perspective. But the thing that I\u0026rsquo;ve seen, especially with young adults is they\u0026rsquo;ll get the offer and they automatically accept the. I want you to know that if you\u0026rsquo;ve gone through an interviewing process and the company offers you a job, you trying to negotiate that offer is not going to jeopardize them, making you the offer. It will taking away the written offer. Right? So I always recommend that they get the offer in writing. And then I want to tell your audience.\nThat\u0026rsquo;s when that\u0026rsquo;s, when the rules of the games change. Now they\u0026rsquo;re in control. That firm wants them. Right. So it\u0026rsquo;s perfectly okay. If you feel, if you do it professionally to go back and that\u0026rsquo;s one of the chapters in the book grad to grown up, it talks about how to negotiate the offer. Once you get it, it\u0026rsquo;s perfectly okay, James, to go back and say, Hey, I\u0026rsquo;m really excited, but you have to do it the right way.\nSo you send the email back and say, you know, I am really excited about your company and here\u0026rsquo;s the reasons why I know, I, I know I can really contribute. And here\u0026rsquo;s the reason why. Thank you so much for your offer, but after reviewing it, I was hoping to get a higher base salary. And if there\u0026rsquo;s reasons for that, you say, you know, maybe I have to move, you know what, maybe I\u0026rsquo;m going to be commuting further or whatever.\nAnd if there is no reason to say, maybe because I know some of the other companies I interviewed with talking to me about a higher base salary, but if you can raise the base salary by this amount, I\u0026rsquo;m prepared to resign and start on such and such a date. Right? So you have to know how to go back and ask and how you go back and ask is you tell them, first of all, why you are attracted to their company, why the reasons why you believe you\u0026rsquo;re going to do a great job for them.\nAnd then you ask for what you want. But you tell them you offer them something. But if you\u0026rsquo;re willing to do this, I\u0026rsquo;m willing to, I\u0026rsquo;m ready to resign and start on this date. Now. Here\u0026rsquo;s what happens a lot of times they\u0026rsquo;ll come back and try, they\u0026rsquo;ll meet you in the middle. Right? A lot of times they might come back and say, I\u0026rsquo;m sorry, you know, you\u0026rsquo;re at the top of the range, but at least, you know, you try. And then you can go back again. If they won\u0026rsquo;t increase your base salary, maybe you can ask for things while if you can increase the base salary. Could you possibly, uh, you know, guarantee my bonus? Can you give me a review earlier than you normally would, which would then qualify me for an increase? Could you give me another week\u0026rsquo;s vacation?\nRight. So you go back and you ask again for other things that might not be based salary related. Right. And, and see what they say. And my experience has been probably 60 to 65% of the time they\u0026rsquo;ll increase the base salary. If they won\u0026rsquo;t increase the base salary, probably 20 to 25% on top of that, they\u0026rsquo;ll guarantee a bonus or they\u0026rsquo;ll do a early review.\nSo they can increase your base salary. And if nothing else, I would say they would give you an extra week vacation, but 95% of the time, my experience has been, if you do it professionally, that you can get more than what the company gave you in the awful lip. And I encourage people to do that. Okay. Does that answer your question?\nJames: Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Cause I think often it\u0026rsquo;s, um, it can be quite scary almost to like, well, never, I think definitely to go back and be like, Uh, you know, I really like it a little bit more or whatever. Cause yeah, you feel like if I say no, then like you could lose your job and all that kind of stuff.\nSo it\u0026rsquo;s\nGene: James. I want you audience to know they will not retract the offer. That\u0026rsquo;s what they\u0026rsquo;re afraid of. They will not retract the offer. Matter of fact, I\u0026rsquo;m going to tell you something, they\u0026rsquo;re going to respect you more for negotiating. They\u0026rsquo;re going to respect you now. There\u0026rsquo;s a way of doing. You just don\u0026rsquo;t go back and say, well, I was really hoping for a higher base salary.\nNo, you have to do it professionally. You have to thank them for the offer. You want to tell them why you\u0026rsquo;re so excited about their company. You want to tell them why, you know, you\u0026rsquo;re going to do a great job. Here\u0026rsquo;s the reasons why I know this is a great match. And when you ask for something, you got to give them something in return.\nIf you give it to me, I will resign immediately and start for you on such and such. Okay. That\u0026rsquo;s how you go back professionally. That\u0026rsquo;s how you address that.\nJames: Yeah. Cool. Yeah. Those are some really useful tips, I think.\nGene: Yeah. And you know, he, and he is what I want to tell your audience and you know, this is what I\u0026rsquo;ve experienced with people you\u0026rsquo;re already. James in, in, in, in, in my company, I think I told you that the book grad two grown up was based on 25 plus years of me bringing in four college interns every summer, right.\nFor eight weeks. And these were very, very bright, a large majority of the year. You know, students going into their last year of college, right? They competed for this internship against other candidates. So they were, they were bright and they were talented. And my experience is when I would bring them into my company, I felt they\u0026rsquo;re investing eight weeks in my firm.\nI felt important that I would spend some time with them. So once a week I spent two hours with them and it started off as jeans, life lessons, the things I wish I knew James going into my last year of university. Right. And what came out of it was all of their questions. All of, can you talk about this?\nCan you talk about this? And I was initially. Amazed how ill-prepared a large majority of the, more to not only start their professional careers with their personal careers and what came out of it is, and I got to tell you, my interns went on to be lawyers, doctors, accountants, engineers, professional athletes.\nOkay. a lot of them would come back to me years later. And they pursued their, their job or their career based on someone of influence the parent, the grandparents, a teacher saying, you should go into this field, you can make a good living. And how many of them went into it, James? And once they did it hated what they were doing. So they went to school for all these years. And then when they finally did it, they hate. I have two examples of two that went to two of the best law schools in America, NYU and Boston college, these two graduate in the top 25% of their class. They came out and worked for big law firms and a year into it.\nThey hated waking up in the morning and going to what they were doing. So there\u0026rsquo;s two things that I want to encourage your audience. Number one. If there\u0026rsquo;s something I want them to pursue their passions. I think one of the greatest goals in life should be for every human being to find something that they sincerely loved doing James, and then to do it well enough that you can create a career doing it, because if you can do that and if you can find that thing you love and you can make a living doing it.\nYou wake up in the morning, not going to work. You don\u0026rsquo;t wake up in the morning, go into a job. You wake up in the morning going to something you sincerely love my personal experiences. Your health is better. Your personal relationships are better. The glass isn\u0026rsquo;t half full. It can, it can be overflowing and you can have purpose in your life.\nSo I encourage your audience to do that. Now, when they find that thing, they think they\u0026rsquo;re passionate about, well, even if they want to be a lawyer or they want to be an accountant, I encourage. Not to do internships, even if it\u0026rsquo;s free internships. And I\u0026rsquo;ll give you an example. My daughter, who I wrote the book with, she went to one of the best universities here called Lehigh university.\nShe was a double major in English and economics graduated at the top of her class. With a point was a university. If she got a certain grade level, they would pay for her advanced degree. They paid for her advantage. She thought she wanted to be a lawyer based on my experience. I said, Courtney, let\u0026rsquo;s see if we can find a small law firm. We\u0026rsquo;ll tell them you\u0026rsquo;re willing to work for free. That will take you in this summer and expose you to what it is, being a lawyer. And she was able to find James, a small law firm where a partner took her. He exposed her to every part of being a lawyer, the research, the administrative part of it. He took her into the courtroom multiple times.\nAt the end of that summer, she had no interest in being a lawyer anymore. She was doing that because she thought coming out of this prestigious university, this is what she should be doing. Something like this. Her passionate always been being in the classroom teaching. And, but she thought that was under her education. Well, she became a high school English teacher. And when I tell you, she loves waking up and her students love her and maybe she\u0026rsquo;s not making as much money as she might\u0026rsquo;ve done as a lawyer, but she\u0026rsquo;s a lot happier and she has purpose in her life. So I encourage your audience to first of all, to follow the dreams.\nEvery great dream begins with. Do not give up your passions, try to find purpose in your life. And I encourage them strongly to do an internship before they graduate from university and say, this is what I\u0026rsquo;m going to do for the rest of my life. Okay. That\u0026rsquo;s my experience. And let me, let me tell you something.\nThere was a survey done recently from the conference board that said 25 to 35 year olds. 48%. Don\u0026rsquo;t have job satisfaction, 55 to 65 year olds. This is an America, 52%. Don\u0026rsquo;t have job satisfaction. That\u0026rsquo;s sad for me that said, you know, shame on the older people for not figuring it out. I want to tell you young adults. Figure it out. Find that thing you love. Don\u0026rsquo;t give up your dreams and figure out how to get a career doing it. Okay.\nHow Gene would find his passion today # James: Yeah. What do you have you thought about how you would go. If you, if you, as someone that was trying to find that passion, I think that the piece there about interning for free somewhere that you think you might like, and then sort of testing it out is, is a great approach. Is there anything else there that you would say if I was younger, how you would sort of think about trying to find your passion and something that really, really clicked with you?\nGene: Yeah, I\u0026rsquo;m going to give you a real life example because I mentor a lot of young adults, James, right? My wife and I started a charity that helps children between the ages of 10 and 18. Who are coming from underserved environments. Uh, but they have a passion, but don\u0026rsquo;t have the money to pursue the passion.\nWe have a charity called the planet seed inspired dream foundation that steps in James. And we will find the young person, uh, the teacher, the mentor, the coach, you know, so it could be, we, you know, guitar, singing lessons, every sport you could imagine, dance, gymnastics, whatever it might be. Uh, and then we\u0026rsquo;ll put them together.\nWell, another charity had heard about our charity and this charity, um, in, in America is called foster kids. I don\u0026rsquo;t know if you have that in Australia, James, but basically it\u0026rsquo;s it\u0026rsquo;s for kids that their parents either died or their parents gave them up and they live in forced to homes with other families and this and this charity.\nWould help to force the child get into college. And then if they went to college and they couldn\u0026rsquo;t get their first job, they would reach out to mentors who might be able to give them some guidance. So this charity called me cause they knew me from this other charity and said, we have this great young man graduating from temple university.\nUh, would you speak to him? He\u0026rsquo;s having a very, very hard time getting his first job. I said, okay. I scheduled a call with them. The first thing I asked them is what was your major? What did you major in? And he says, sports management, everyone in America wants to go into sports management, but there\u0026rsquo;s no jobs.\nAnd, and the few jobs there are James, you usually get them because you know, somebody, a relative, a family friend, it\u0026rsquo;s very, very difficult to break into the sports manager. Industry in America. I don\u0026rsquo;t know how it is in Australia, but it\u0026rsquo;s very difficult here. So I said to him, you know, how passionate are you about, about this?\nCause I am extremely passionate. I said, okay, because, you know, I said, what have you done so far? You know? And he goes, well, I\u0026rsquo;ve sent my resume out. He was in Philadelphia to the Philadelphia Eagles, the Philadelphia 76 is the Philadelphia. And the Philadelphia flyers. I said, well, what\u0026rsquo;s happened. He goes, no, one\u0026rsquo;s gotten back to me.\nI\u0026rsquo;m like, okay, well, let me explain rule. Number one, if they were looking for someone that had absolutely no experience, they\u0026rsquo;re going to reach out to you and the other thousand resumes they got. Right. You\u0026rsquo;re never going to get a job that way. Right. I said, but I\u0026rsquo;m going to ask you two questions. How passionate are you because I will help you, but we\u0026rsquo;re going to have to go on a journey together.\nAnd if we get lucky, you\u0026rsquo;ll probably end up in Des Moines, Iowa working for the lowest level baseball franchise there is. Are you willing to pick up from Philadelphia and move to the Moines, Iowa? He goes, I\u0026rsquo;ll move anywhere. I said, okay, fine. I said, now the second thing, I need you to tell me, plan B. If we go on this journey together, when we strike out, which we might, I want to know what other kinds of job you\u0026rsquo;ll take.\nWhat other kind of role would you be interested in? Cause I don\u0026rsquo;t want to start this without having a backup plan. And he said, I would take a sales role. I said, great. There\u0026rsquo;s a lot of different sales jobs that we can do. So here\u0026rsquo;s what we did. And here\u0026rsquo;s what I want your audience to understand. In my executive search career, James, because I was on a number of these top executive recruiters in the world list, I would get every single week between 80 and 120 resumes sent to me. I couldn\u0026rsquo;t even read them. And I couldn\u0026rsquo;t probably add to those hundred resumes. If I could help one person, it probably was a lot because the way the executive retain industry. You specialize in a vertical market, you become the top executive recruiter in this field. My field was management consulting and education technology, ed tech.\nSo if we placed the managing partner, McKinsey, the managing partner at KPMG, the CEO of Mercer consultant, right? If you came from that industry, I could probably. You could be the CEO of the best medical device company in the world. I\u0026rsquo;m not the right person. I can\u0026rsquo;t, my relationships are not there. However, James, twice a year on average, I would get an email from a young person like yourself and email will go, something like this.\nI have a passion for the executive search or the human resource industry. I\u0026rsquo;ve done some research and I know you\u0026rsquo;re a thought leader in the industry. Would you spend a few minutes with me and give me some guy. Now I would always respond to that type of email. I would always spend time with that young person.\nAnd I want you to know senior executives, 99% of them would do the exact same thing. Why for not for no other reason, you\u0026rsquo;d want someone to help you a family member. Right. I would always do that. So with this young man, the strategy that we follow. Right. As I had him do research and identify every C-level executive within a hundred miles of Philadelphia, I wanted them to start with the major, major franchises, the sixes, the Eagles, a union, then go down to AAA and AA and single way.\nAnd I said, once we strike out there, we\u0026rsquo;ll, they\u0026rsquo;ll expand in 300 mile radiuses. And if we get lucky, you\u0026rsquo;ll end up in Des Moines, Iowa, he did the research. He identified the C level executives names and got their emails. I helped him write the email. He sent the email, it calls me back and says the chief marketing officer of the Philadelphia 76 is says, I can spend some time with you on Friday. I said, great. I helped him prepare for that call with the chief marketing officer. I said, when that call is over, I want you to call me now. And after the call, he calls me and I said, how did it go? He goes, I think it went well. He invited me to meet four people on Tuesday and I\u0026rsquo;m like, wait a second. He\u0026rsquo;s inviting you into meet four people on Tuesday.\nThat means there\u0026rsquo;s a job. He\u0026rsquo;s not going to waste your time. And his staff\u0026rsquo;s time. If there wasn\u0026rsquo;t a job. Well, the end result, I prepared them for the how to conduct those interviews. He ended up getting hired in the corporate sales department of the Philadelphia 76. He\u0026rsquo;s now working for one of the big hockey franchises out in the west coast.\nSo to answer your question, I would tell your audience do not be intimidated, reaching out to a senior person and asking for guidance and asking for him. Be prepared for that call. Come in, come in with questions, ask him, does he have anyone? He knows that he thinks could be looking for someone, share with them.\nWhat you\u0026rsquo;re looking for. Ask if you can stay in contact with him, right. If it goes really well and there\u0026rsquo;s a position and he leads you in. You\u0026rsquo;re going to be received very differently within that firm than whether you sent your resume in blind. So that\u0026rsquo;s the first advice I would give. The second advice I would give you is I told you this, I believe one of the other goals in life is every person, you know, in, in, in chess is called a grand master.\nYou know, in, uh, in, in, in science it\u0026rsquo;s called a Nobel priests, a Nobel prize winner. I think one of the goals of every human being should be, should be to become a grand master of interviewing, learn how to interview like a Grandmaster. And why is that so important? Because when you\u0026rsquo;re interviewing for the job, you really want, you\u0026rsquo;re going to be interviewing against four or five other people.\nThe Grandmaster interview, it gets the job. Number one, and number two, he gets paid better. So learn and in the book, grad two grown up, we take them through how to become a Grandmaster interview. It\u0026rsquo;s a goal that I want every young adult. \u0026lsquo;cause he, you know, you know, he here in the states, what happens, James is all the kids are coming out of the universities and they go to the career center for advice.\nAnd the career centers don\u0026rsquo;t really have hands-on experience. So all preparing the students the same way, how to interview. So when they\u0026rsquo;re interviewing, they\u0026rsquo;re interviewing exactly the same way as every other kid coming out of university. So you, you wanna, you want to separate yourself. You want to become that grand Grandmaster.\nBecoming a grandmaster of interviewing # James: Yeah, definitely not those really good story that thanks for sharing. And I said, yeah, it\u0026rsquo;s interesting to hear, um, that, that process and knowing what you were able to achieve. Cause I think, um, it really shows that yeah, like you said, if reaching out is something that we can all do and something that can have really.\nIt can be life-changing if, if, if things go the right way. So yeah, really interesting to hear that story there. Um, like the, the, the Grandmaster of interviewing side of things, what are some things like, what are the key things that could really set you up? Is it like to do with like preparing in a certain way, or is it conducting yourself during the interview?\nThat\u0026rsquo;s that\u0026rsquo;s really important or what I\u0026rsquo;m interested to hear, what some of the key things\nGene: Let me take you through it, but I\u0026rsquo;ll take you through it, but you know, I\u0026rsquo;m not going to probably do it justice because. There\u0026rsquo;s five different chapters in the book on each step, each stage. But let me just take you through a James. First of all, you gotta do upfront research. Okay. You have to do your research before the interview, but there\u0026rsquo;s five key points to becoming a Grandmaster.\nOkay. And I\u0026rsquo;ll, I\u0026rsquo;ll take you through the five key points. And the first thing is, I\u0026rsquo;m going to ask you a question, James. Let\u0026rsquo;s fast forward 10 years now. You\u0026rsquo;re an executive would accompany and you have a key position that you have to hire. You interview five candidates. And at the end of the new process, there\u0026rsquo;s two candidates that everyone who interviewed you included say, both of these candidates are exceptional.\nBoth of them can do a phenomenal job. They have equal experience. They both want a job. Uh, and, but all you have is one job to offer, but you have two great candidate. What do you think if you were making that decision as the manager, what might make you pick one over the other?\nJames: Um, I\u0026rsquo;d say maybe like, which one do I get along best with? Would, would maybe be the one.\nGene: Absolutely. All ties will go to the candidate that made the best personal connection with. Okay. And that\u0026rsquo;s the first thing. The first step of air becoming a Grandmaster is being able to establish chemistry and report. With the person you\u0026rsquo;re meeting with now, how do you do that? Hopefully beforehand, you\u0026rsquo;re looking at their LinkedIn profile.\nYou\u0026rsquo;re Googling them. You\u0026rsquo;re getting as much background information as you can. You try to find out where they went to school, right? So will you go in, you have something to talk about? I would always coach the candidates. You don\u0026rsquo;t want to go right into the interview. Try to try to have a connect. Right.\nAnd if you can\u0026rsquo;t do any research before, when you go in steel with your eyes, look around the room. If there\u0026rsquo;s a picture with them, with their child playing soccer, if there\u0026rsquo;s a picture of them fishing, your, your, your role and your job is to establish report. All right, nothing else. Talk about the weather.\nTalk about how long they move with the company, but established chemistry because when the whole interview is over and you\u0026rsquo;re following up with an email to thank them within 24 hours, I\u0026rsquo;m going to ask you to put that personal connection in the email when you follow up. Right? So that\u0026rsquo;s the first thing to establish chemistry.\nAnd before the second step of the five step becoming a Grandmaster, let me ask you a question. When you went to school, much better would you do on a test? If you had the answers to the test before you took the test, you do a lot better. That\u0026rsquo;s that\u0026rsquo;s the second thing. What a lot of people assume James, right?\nIs they got a job description. They soar online when maybe they\u0026rsquo;re dealing with a recruiter who told them this is what they\u0026rsquo;re looking for. Right. And they assume that\u0026rsquo;s what they\u0026rsquo;re looking for. I want you already inside understand that when they\u0026rsquo;re putting together that job description is different people that are putting different parts of it in place.\nRight. You know, and then HR or talent acquisition is putting that job description together. They need to understand that everyone they\u0026rsquo;re meeting with in an interview we\u0026rsquo;ll have a little bit different twist or criteria. The direct boss is going to be looking for something very specific. From the HR person, the HR person is going to be looking for something very different from the peer, the senior executive who\u0026rsquo;s interviewing a candidate.\nThey\u0026rsquo;re going to be looking for something different than the direct boss or the HR person. So I encourage people early on after you establish rapport to ask a very simple question and the question goes, something like. I was very interested in coming in and meeting with you today. Uh, and, uh, you know, I know we have a limited amount of time together.\nWould you mind sharing with me and I\u0026rsquo;ve read your job description, but would you mind sharing with me what\u0026rsquo;s most important to you in the background of the candidate that you want to bring in to do this role and shut up and the first two or three things that they say to you? In that person\u0026rsquo;s mind, James, that is the most important things to that person.\nAnd your responsibility before that interview is over, is to share with that person, how you match to their criteria. So that\u0026rsquo;s the second, that\u0026rsquo;s the second step and becoming a Grandmaster. And you, you, you have to work on the words. Each person asked that question a little differently, but the second step is you.\nIf you can get the answers to the test before you take the test, try to get the answers to the test. Right now, the third step in every interview, you\u0026rsquo;re going to be asked a series of questions. Okay. could be behavior-based questions and that\u0026rsquo;s a real common way, you know, behavior base. I don\u0026rsquo;t know if you have had any experience with that, but you know, in, in the book read the grownup, it explains exactly what bait behavior based interviewing is the kind of questions to expect.\nBut you\u0026rsquo;re going to be asked a series of questions. You have to understand how to answer them professionally. Right. And we teach them how to do that, but then equally. There\u0026rsquo;s gonna come a time when they\u0026rsquo;re going to say, do you have any questions for me? And this is where a lot of young adults go astray.\nAnd I\u0026rsquo;ll give you an example. I had someone asked me if I would help this young man recently, who was, uh, an engineering graduate from one of the top universities. You have Penn state university. He had a great GPA. He, uh, looked like he worked, he walked out of GQ magazine, a very professional appearance, and he had nine interviews and got no office. And if you\u0026rsquo;re coming out of the school, he\u0026rsquo;s coming out of with an engineering degree in his GPA, he should have had four or five of those nine office. So when I was asking him, tell me, take me through the interviews. He was asking what I call, win, lose questions. Okay. When Lou\u0026rsquo;s questions and I want you audience to know.\nI want every question to be every question that someone has. I want every question answered before they accept or deny a job, but there\u0026rsquo;s a time and place to ask them. So he asked one, one company, uh, do you have any questions for me? He goes, yeah. I noticed your stock price has been declining. Can you tell me what. Listen, that\u0026rsquo;s a question you may want to ask, but we wait until you have the offer. Right? He asked another company. Uh, I did some background and I know that your CEO has some sexual harassment charges against them. Can you tell me why? How is that going? Like people are automatically thinking he\u0026rsquo;s feeling negative about the company.\nSo I go over when, when questions and your audience, I want them to. They can go to the website grad to grown-up G R a D T O grown-up dot com. And they can download for free win-win questions that they should ask in an interview. Right? What are they? And these, and these are very basic kinds of questions, you know, and, but they really make a difference.\nOkay. So that\u0026rsquo;s, that\u0026rsquo;s the third. That\u0026rsquo;s the third skill and becoming a Grandmaster, ask, answering their questions appropriately, and then being asked, being, being, asking the right questions. And then the fourth, the fourth, the fourth part of it is a lot of people will leave an interview and they think it went great.\nRight. But they leave the interview and they don\u0026rsquo;t even realize that the person they interviewed with might\u0026rsquo;ve had one or two concerns. I want your audience to understand James and everyone who does any type of interviewing will always have some sort of concerns about the candidate they\u0026rsquo;re interviewing. Sometimes the candidate is overqualified. Sometimes the candidates under-qualified, that\u0026rsquo;s an executive search professional. The only time I got concerned is when there was no concerns because the other bikes. So except the fact that they\u0026rsquo;re going to have concerns what\u0026rsquo;s not acceptable is you not having an opportunity to hear that, have that concern verbalized to yourself.\nAnd if it\u0026rsquo;s false, overcoming and getting agreement is no longer a concern, but if it\u0026rsquo;s real to minimize it and maximize your strengths. So let me give you an example towards the end of the interview, you want to say something like this. I was really excited about coming in and meeting with. And after spending time with you, I want you to know that my interest has gone up if that\u0026rsquo;s true, and here\u0026rsquo;s why it\u0026rsquo;s gone up also based on what you\u0026rsquo;ve shared with me around what you\u0026rsquo;re looking for in the candidates background, I believe I\u0026rsquo;m a really strong fit and he is, why do you have any concerns that I could add value to the ABC company in this role and shut up. And if they come back and the concern is false. You simply say, I can understand why you might feel that way, but let me share with you why I don\u0026rsquo;t believe that\u0026rsquo;s a concern and then address it and end by saying, does that make you feel better about that concern? Okay. You have to concern is real. Someone said to me, I\u0026rsquo;m completely bald.\nI need someone with a full head of hair. Listen, I can not grow anymore here. But what I do have is I have a work ethic. That\u0026rsquo;s second to none. I will be the first one in the office in the morning, the last one to leave. You\u0026rsquo;ll find nobody that will do research on his own. You\u0026rsquo;ll find nobody that will be more loyal to the firm.\nAnd you\u0026rsquo;ll find no one that the staff will enjoy working with more than myself. If given the opportunity for this role, I promise you, you\u0026rsquo;ll never regret that decision. You can\u0026rsquo;t change the real concern, but you can go back and talk about. Okay. That\u0026rsquo;s the fourth skill and becoming a grand master and the fifth and final skill.\nI don\u0026rsquo;t want anyone to spend time on an interview without understanding what the next step is. So we take them through and how to do that professionally. I also want your audience to know this. I believe anyone. If you had taken the time to interview, you have one goal and one goal only. Jane. To get the offer, whether you accept the offer or not, that\u0026rsquo;s your decision, but don\u0026rsquo;t go into an interview without saying, this is my goal.\nI\u0026rsquo;m going to do everything in my ability to get the offer on this. It\u0026rsquo;s perfectly okay to turn something down, but I want you to be in the driver\u0026rsquo;s seat, not the company.\nOkay. And then as a way of following up professionally, there\u0026rsquo;s a way of doing that. And you know, that\u0026rsquo;s all in the book.\nJames: No. That\u0026rsquo;s\nGene: Say that addressing\nJames: No, absolutely. Thanks so much for that. Yeah. I think, I think, uh, the people listing, certainly getting a copy of the book would be a really good mood because I think there are, uh, you know, you can explore these kinds of topics in a lot more detail. Um, but I have a question for you, Jane.\nWhat parts of the book are underappreciated? # James: And so you\u0026rsquo;ve spoken about the book a lot and lots of people have read it now, but I wonder if there\u0026rsquo;s any, are there any parts of the book that you think are under. Well, people don\u0026rsquo;t speak about it enough, or you wish people were more interested in, is there any parts of the book that, that fits that for you?\nGene: Yeah, let me just share with you. The book is 68 tips on how to create a professional and personal life that you can be proud of, right? It goes from everything. So. When the agent was, was shopping the book, James, all the publishers wanted me to do the entire book on career and job search. That\u0026rsquo;s not the book I wanted the right.\nAnd the re the reason why that\u0026rsquo;s not the book I wanted the right is my 30 years in executive search has taught me one thing. There\u0026rsquo;s no real professional success without personal success. So what the book goes into James is it goes into the first section is life right? Tips on life. There\u0026rsquo;s things about understanding and you know, a foundation, right?\nIt\u0026rsquo;s understanding, you know, what a linchpin is and, and the things you need to do every week to stay healthy mentally and physically, right. It goes into the importance of gratitude. And how do we establish that? Then it goes into job search. Then it goes into career, you know, you getting a job, but how, you know, how you need to show up, right?\nThere\u0026rsquo;s no elevator to success. James, you\u0026rsquo;ve got to take the stairs and we talk about that. Right? What does that mean? Taking the stairs, right. The fourth section, right. Is personal finance. How did I go about creating great wealth, great wealth and simple things. Simple things that they. Right on, you know, understanding the stock market, how I invested, what I did and mistakes I made, you know, the things I did.\nRight. And the last section was the hardest section. It was, it was health and relationships, you know, and, and I\u0026rsquo;ll, and I\u0026rsquo;ll share a couple of things with you because it might give you some, uh, some insight into the book. got an email two weeks ago, the book\u0026rsquo;s been out for one month. I got an email two weeks ago from a young lawyer in New York.\nAnd he had just read my book and he said, I, I just finished putting in this 14 hour day and I, I wanted to get a bite to eat. So I went into a restaurant by myself and I was eating, eating by myself. And I looked at the bar and there was an older man at the bar drinking by himself. And I just read your book.\nAnd one of the chapters in the book, James is talk to the oldest person in. And the chapter talks about how much knowledge and information a young person can get from a senior person. And the questions that you need to ask to open up that conversation. So you said, you know, I just read your book. So I figured what the heck I finished in.\nI\u0026rsquo;m going to go up and have a beer next to this guy and ask him some of your questions. You said two and a half hours. Right. I had one of the best nights of my life. The gentlemen was a retired, he was a senior writer on the Johnny Carson show. And without reading that chapter in your book, I never would have taken it upon myself to sit next to him and ask him some of those questions. Another young man at a Seattle wash. Read the book and he sends me an email. And in the last section, it talks about marriage and how important it is marrying the right person and how you happiness or unhappiness can come from that decision. And he was living with a young lady and she was putting a lot of pressure on him to go take to the next step. And he read the book and read that chapter and said, you know, it gave me what I needed to realize this wasn\u0026rsquo;t the person I wanted to spend the rest of my life with, you know? And that\u0026rsquo;s why I wrote the book. If someone can get out of those 68 tips, one thing like that, I don\u0026rsquo;t think I don\u0026rsquo;t care if anything else happens.\nThat to me is why I wrote it. And Courtney, my daughter. You know, what she did is she loves teaching. She was in a public school for eight years. It was a toxic work environment. She loved the classroom, but there everyone was resigning from the department. The boss was a nightmare, right. And after writing the book, it gave her what she needed to go out and interview and get a new job in this great private school that embraces her.\nThat is, she is so. You know, so those are the things that, uh, is some of the stuff that, you know, we didn\u0026rsquo;t talk about. That\u0026rsquo;s in the book that can help people.\nGene\u0026rsquo;s advice for Graduates # James: Yeah, no, I think that\u0026rsquo;s really cool. And it\u0026rsquo;s great to hear that it covers everything from Korea, but also everything else that you\u0026rsquo;d sort of want to know as a young person as well, and really generous of you to put it all in one place to table. Uh, I think this, um, Jane, we\u0026rsquo;re coming up to the end of the interview now, and a question that I ask all the guests that I have on this.\nIs if you could, uh, rewind the clock. If you could go back to the days where you just finished university and you were going out into the world, knowing what you know now and knowing that, you know, all the, all the advice that you\u0026rsquo;ve written, um, what are some things that you would do differently or what are some advice that you would give yourself if you were.\nBack in your shoes, uh, you know, in that situation,\nGene: You know it, you know, it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s funny, James, right? I think that, I don\u0026rsquo;t know if I shared this with you, but you know, my career was very different. I started. Owning rock and roll clubs in New York. Right? I own two rock and roll clubs. It only booked original music and had bands like the Ramones and the stray cats and Joan Jett and Bo Diddley and Richie havens.\nI left that business because the first one was extremely successful. The second one was. And my wife would only marry me if I got out of that business. But then I went into corporate America and in corporate America, I was with a division of a fortune 100 firm and international fortune 100 from Alcatel, a French company.\nAnd in seven years I was promoted five times. I went from a sales rep to a sales manager, to a general manager, to a district manager. My last job was heading up all these coast operations with over a thousand people reporting to me. I left that job. And I was making a heck of a lot of money for one reason.\nAnd one reason only I was never home at night, I was traveling a great deal and we had a young family and I was looking to have some work-life balance. I went into executive search James because I\u0026rsquo;d use search firms myself. I knew I could bring some value to it, but I never knew what I would find. I did it because I could be home at night.\nNow they went on to be extremely successful, very fast. But what I\u0026rsquo;m going to tell you, audience, what I would do differently. I found purpose in executive search. So even though when my firm became one of the largest retained search firms in the world, I never stopped leading the searches because I got purpose.\nTalking to the executives, talking to the clients and putting a good match together. Half of the people that I would place any C-level jobs had to pick up their families from one city and move them to another city for the role. And I felt, and if I\u0026rsquo;m going to pick this person\u0026rsquo;s family up and move them, I have to make sure that this is a good match.\nAnd I found purpose in that. I had passion. I was excited. I woke up in the morning and I couldn\u0026rsquo;t wait to go to work and do what I did. Um, So if I had to go back, I think I would have tried to identify early on where that passion was and that purpose and met. Might\u0026rsquo;ve been a little bit more strategic and looking for it.\nI got very, very lucky and fortunate. So many other people do not. Now it went on. The other thing is, you know, this book that I wrote, every financial reward that comes to me is going to be donated directly to the charity. My wife and I started to play the scene, inspired gene foundation to help more kids pursue their passions.\nYou know? So I\u0026rsquo;m a big believer. Pursue your passions find purpose in your life. If you, if you can find that and you can make a career, figuring out how to pursue those things, you\u0026rsquo;re going to be healthier. You\u0026rsquo;re going to be happier. You\u0026rsquo;re going to smile more and that\u0026rsquo;s the message I want to leave your already.\nJames: Amazing. Well, yeah, thanks so much for sharing that with us, Jean. Thanks so much for sharing your personal journey as well. It\u0026rsquo;s really interesting to hear how you\u0026rsquo;ve gotten to where you are. Um, where can people go? Um, following this episode to find out more about yourself, find out more about the book, you know, where\u0026rsquo;s the place.\nYeah.\nGene: You know, first of all, go to LinkedIn, Jean Rice, G E N E rice, R I C. Vice cone international. You can leave me a message. I\u0026rsquo;ll respond. We have a website for the book grad to grown-up G R a D T O grown-up dot com. You can download some free chapters. You can send me an email on the website. The book can be purchased anywhere, Amazon, um, you know, it\u0026rsquo;s got tons of reviews so far, the feedback has been really positive.\nI feel really good about. Walmart target anywhere.\nOutro # James: Thanks for listening to this episode I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. If you want to get my takeaways, the things that I learned from this episode, please go to Graduate Theory.com/subscribe, where you can get my takeaways and all the information about each episode, straight to your inbox.\nThanks so much for listening again today, and we\u0026rsquo;re looking forward to seeing you next week.\n← Back to episode 31\n","date":"23 May 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/graduate-theory/31-gene-rice/transcript/","section":"Graduate Theory Transcripts","summary":"← Back to episode 31\nThis transcript has been lightly edited for readability. It may still contain transcription errors.\nGene: There was a survey done recently from the conference board that said 25 to 35 year olds. 48%. Don’t have job satisfaction, 55 to 65 year olds. This is an America, 52%. Don’t have job satisfaction. That’s sad for me that said, you know, shame on the older people for not figuring it out. I want to tell you young adults. Figure it out. Find that thing you love. Don’t give up your dreams and figure out how to get a career doing it\n","title":"Transcript: Gene Rice | On The Journey from Grad to Grown-up","type":"graduate-theory-transcripts"},{"content":"← Back to episode 30\nThis transcript has been lightly edited for readability. It may still contain transcription errors.\nYaniv: So you say, I make my whole team 20% more impactful and more productive. So we go from 500 impact points to 600. Well, that\u0026rsquo;s how I get my 100 impact points as a manager.\nIntro # James: Hello, and welcome to Graduate Theory. My guest today is the founder and COO at his startup circular. He has over 10 years of work experience at Google and recently was VP of engineering and CIO at air Tasker. He\u0026rsquo;s also the co-host of his own podcast. The startup podcast, please welcome any of Bernstein\nThanks for having me\nIt\u0026rsquo;s great to have you on today, mate. You\u0026rsquo;ve had some really cool experiences through your career and it really, uh, you know, held some great positions and, and interacting with some really interesting people. I\u0026rsquo;d love to kind of wind back the clock a little bit to start with and talk about. Your early days in your career.\nAnd, and particularly like we, we discussed this just before, but some parallels with today and when you started your careers. So at the moment the markets and things are kind of on a downward trend, particularly in the last couple of weeks. And then w you were saying, you know, that\u0026rsquo;s kind of similar to when you finished a university.\nUh, back in the day. I mean, I\u0026rsquo;d love to talk about your experience kind of, um, looking for jobs at that stage and kind of weighing up your own opportunities, kind of what that was like going through that period back when you\u0026rsquo;re. Initiating.\nYaniv as a Uni Student # Yaniv: Yeah, for sure. So I did my undergraduate computer science degree and, um, Graduated or I finished studying at the end of 2001. Um, and that period was when the initial.com bubble had had burst around 2000, 2001, uh, what was called the tech wreck or the dot bomb, uh, where the NASDAQ was way off its highs, a whole lot of startups, cratered, or laid people.\nUh, and generally the economy in software development, uh, had really taken a turn for the worst. And, you know, one of the things that also happens in those situations is that, uh, grad programs tend to be one of the first things to go. Um, and one thing that was different from today is that there was a lot less information available in terms of, you know, early career groups, podcasts like this and so on.\nAnd I think I was, you know, your typical clueless university student, I hadn\u0026rsquo;t really. Thought about how to take my career into my own hands. And so I applied for a few standard grad programs. Um, I don\u0026rsquo;t think I interviewed very well back then either. And so basically, you know, a combination of those factors, I had good grades, but didn\u0026rsquo;t interview that well, and most significantly grad programs were massively tightened up.\nI actually didn\u0026rsquo;t get any job offers. Um, and so at the same time, I. Was made aware, I guess, you know, I hadn\u0026rsquo;t, I hadn\u0026rsquo;t been that thoughtful about it, but that I could do an honors program. And it\u0026rsquo;s, so it felt that with the lack of, of job opportunities, I may as well do the honors program, um, which I did.\nAnd I found myself enjoying that and enjoying research a lot more than I expected to. Um, and of course, honors only takes one year and the job market hadn\u0026rsquo;t massively improved in that year anyway. Um, and so when that ended, I decided to do a PhD. In computer science and, you know, I really enjoyed that. It was actually a nice time in my life.\nUm, but also what it did was give me the credentials and, uh, allow the market to recover to a point where I was able to go straight from that into a job at Google, uh, which I don\u0026rsquo;t think for a variety of reasons would have been open to me outside of my undergrad. So actually coming. Uh, you know, into the, into the workforce or graduating uni, when the job market was tough has sent my, my career on the course that it\u0026rsquo;s been on.\nI suspect if I\u0026rsquo;d gotten into a graduate program at a managed services company, uh, Have had is interesting career. Um, and so, you know, I\u0026rsquo;m, I\u0026rsquo;m sort of grateful in a sense for what felt like a bit of a misfortune at the time. And you know, of course it, it\u0026rsquo;s very hard to predict the future, but the markets are incredibly choppy right now.\nUh, check company layoffs, uh, in the news for the first time, since 2008. At the earliest at the latest rather. Um, and so it is worth thinking. People might be feeling a little bit nervous and understanding that when you look at things over a longer arc, uh, it\u0026rsquo;s very hard to predict, you know, which, which setbacks and you know, which opportunities actually end up working out.\nJames: Yeah. Like, yeah. I like what you said that it\u0026rsquo;s kind of hard to know in the moment, but it\u0026rsquo;s easy to know, looking backwards and it kind of makes sense. Looking back is, is doing a PhD and things like that. Something that you would, like you said, perhaps it\u0026rsquo;s partially contextual to like the market and the job market, like when you\u0026rsquo;re graduating.\nBut is that something that you would like, you were looking back, I\u0026rsquo;m really glad that you did and you perhaps do again, if you were a young person.\nDoing a PhD in 2022 # Yaniv: Yeah, it depends on your motivation. I would suggest that you shouldn\u0026rsquo;t do a PhD in order to get a leg up in the job market, unless you have very specific career goals that involve either obviously an academic career or maybe. Highly specialized data scientist, AI type person where, uh, having that deeper research credential, uh, can really get you ahead.\nUm, what I found when I did my PhD is that I enjoyed it. Um, and so, you know, if you really enjoy sinking your teeth into a problem, uh, it\u0026rsquo;s actually a quite nice halfway house or transition between university and work. Uh, you\u0026rsquo;re much more expected to do things on your own. You know, you\u0026rsquo;re sitting in a, in a lab, which, you know, when you were at doing computer science, it\u0026rsquo;s basically just an office.\nUm, and you know, you meet your supervisor once a week, once every two, three weeks, depending who you\u0026rsquo;ve got and the rest is up to you. Uh, and so it\u0026rsquo;s a lot like a job except with less money, but also, uh, you know, less, less pressure. In some ways people put a lot of pressure on themselves in a PhD. Uh, and there\u0026rsquo;s certainly a lot of work to it, but I found it was actually a really. Enjoyable time with my life. And I made good friends, uh, and, and connections there that, you know, and a number of whom I\u0026rsquo;m still in touch with. Uh, but if, if you want a, a more general career and you don\u0026rsquo;t think that you\u0026rsquo;ll enjoy doing the PhD for its own sake, uh, then you know, I find people who go in without that sense of enjoyment and curiosity just have a really miserable time.\nAnd, you know, they don\u0026rsquo;t get the benefit of.\nYaniv after his PhD # James: Yeah. No, certainly I totally, I totally see that. I think that\u0026rsquo;s really cool. Uh, let\u0026rsquo;s talk now about, so you finished your PhD and you kind of on the job market, looking for things to do. Was that a consideration there, or did you consider kind of continuing down the academic path?\nYaniv: I think I knew I was done then, and I was. I think I\u0026rsquo;d reached certain conclusions. You know, my, my research was broadly in the area of information retrieval or search. Uh, you know, by the time I finished, it was 2006, but then Google was already a pretty large, pretty significant company that IPO in 2004.\nUm, and what I saw during the course of my research was that. The best research was actually being done in those private companies anyway, and the big challenge that the academic sphere face. And I think this has only gotten worse in a lot of disciplines is. In order to do good research, you needed access to high quality data.\nAnd the high quality data had become proprietary. Right? So if you\u0026rsquo;re doing research on search engines and the best algorithms require access to click data and all sorts of stuff, uh, you know, high quality crawls on the web of the web and so on. Well, Google had all that stuff and they weren\u0026rsquo;t sharing it.\nAnd so in academia, we were forced to do research. Yeah. Somewhat artificial problems. And I just felt it, it started to become a little bit meaningless and, you know, I guess it was easy in a way doing research and search engines just when Google was becoming this abs. Based, uh, it seemed like an obvious place to go.\nAnd so I didn\u0026rsquo;t actually put too much thought into what to do next. It felt like somewhere where I could, in a sense continue the spirit of some of the work I was doing, but do it at a place where you could have meaningful, real world impact. And that\u0026rsquo;s pretty much how it worked out.\nJames: Yeah. Cool. And you, when you started at Google, did you, did you start like straightaway because I know you went overseas and worked in Switzerland for awhile. Did you, was that something where you were in Australia and you went straight over there?\nYaniv: Yep. And it was sort of that fairly typical Aussie thing where we kind of feel like, uh, you know, before you get too many attachments or commit kind of commitments, that might be fun to live overseas for a few years. And, uh, it probably would have been, you know, the obvious thing. And ultimately if I was making the decision purely on a career basis, I probably should\u0026rsquo;ve gone to San Francisco and, and worked at the headquarters.\nUm, you know, living in Switzerland in the center of Europe, it felt like it would be more fun. So I actually applied directly for the job in Zurich, just based on wanting to live in that part of the world. And yeah, I did have the job, like I\u0026rsquo;d applied for the job while I was finishing up my thesis. Um, but I took three months off and I basically traveled not exactly Overland, but we did a long slow trip from Australia.\nSwitzerland through China and central Asia and south Asia, which was a lot of fun.\nDid working overseas provide you with more breadth? # James: Yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s so good. It\u0026rsquo;s yeah. Good, good place to work to be outta yet. I travel around in west, do that classic sort of Australian European experience, but you\u0026rsquo;re there for a bit longer and you get to see you have your stuff. So lots of people have. Like their international experiences when they come back and there, they\u0026rsquo;re able to kind of look at problems in new and unique ways.\nHas it, was that the case, do you think for yourself as well, do you feel like being overseas and internationally gave you that a bit more breadth when looking at, um, like different problems that you\u0026rsquo;ve, that you\u0026rsquo;ve faced in your career?\nYaniv: I think there\u0026rsquo;s two things or maybe two and a half things. So one is the international experience itself, uh, where you just get to see how people live somewhere else. Right. And it helps you triangulate a bit, right? When you\u0026rsquo;ve got two data points, this is how we do things in Australia. This is how they do things in Switzerland.\nIt challenges some of your assumptions that is only one way of doing something and that\u0026rsquo;s certainly valuable. Um, the other thing, and this is sort of the Anaheim. Is that in the workplace, you get exposed to a lot of different cultures and different ways of thinking. Now, I only count that as a half, because quite often you get very international workforces in Australia.\nUh, but suddenly, you know, I got to spend a lot of time working with various people from European cultures and learning how to interact with folks like that. Certainly, uh, you know, it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s another kind of string to your bow. But the other thing, and this was less about working overseas as such and more about working at a company like Google is that there is still a lot of, especially, you know, I\u0026rsquo;m in technology obviously.\nUm, there are a lot of best practices, uh, you know, the sort of most progressive ways of, of doing things, you know, building tech software products that are not fully developed in Australia. And so working at a company that. Really does things to that standard, um, was really valuable. And, you know, if I may briefly plug my podcast, the startup podcast, that\u0026rsquo;s really, you know, our kind of byline there is to say, you know, we\u0026rsquo;re about how to build a startup. Silicon valley style, right? Which is how do you work? How do you work in a way that, that places like Google and Facebook and Airbnb and, and whatnot, uh, really did things. And even though I was never actually in Silicon valley, having worked for Google, whether it was in the U S or Switzerland, or even in Australia, I think really gave me a perspective that I wouldn\u0026rsquo;t have gotten if I worked for an Australian based.\nJames: Yeah, but that\u0026rsquo;s a really gone, so yeah, I think that\u0026rsquo;s super cool because I think sometimes it\u0026rsquo;s hard, you know, whether you\u0026rsquo;re an organization or even as a young person, or even as any person in your career, sometimes it\u0026rsquo;s hard to know kind of, you know, what is, what is a good version of this look like?\nAnd sometimes you can kind of just be, you know, trying stuff out and seeing what works well, but. Uh, like tight Honi leaps forward by bias understanding, okay, this is, this is the kind of bleeding edge way of doing things. Um, and like, yeah, I, I think that\u0026rsquo;s, that\u0026rsquo;s really cool.\nYaniv: Yeah. I mean, that\u0026rsquo;s right. Like, you know, you talk, they talk about standing on the shoulders of giants, right? If you want to be really good at your craft, uh, it\u0026rsquo;s incredibly valuable to be exposed to people who are. Doing it, you know, the best in the world, trying to bootstrap yourself and figure it all out on your own or, or even just by reading, to be honest, it doesn\u0026rsquo;t give you that same impact and that same pace of learning.\nWhat does Google do well? # James: Yeah, definitely. W what are some things that you think like that, but Google does, I mean, Google has been a big comp big company for a while now. And the big for like, obviously for a reason, what are some things that you think that they do well, and things that really, maybe from an organizational perspective that they, you know, they\u0026rsquo;re really like, uh, succeeding and, and, uh, and kind of allow them to continue to like, do good work and make great.\nYaniv: So I think there, there are two big things that come to mind. Uh, one is a focus on technical excellence and I don\u0026rsquo;t just mean software. I mean, across the board, there\u0026rsquo;s an expectation that. Things that we are bringing in people who are true experts at building large systems and understanding large systems, and that we\u0026rsquo;re not going to meaningfully compromise in terms of the quality of what we\u0026rsquo;re building.\nUm, you know, and that was something that, you know, as an engineer, especially, uh, the strength of that engineering culture and the quality of the talent that was brought to. Um, that I could learn from and along was incredible. And then related to that, the second point, which is not, not distinct completely is actually how loosely run Google was, which sounds strange.\nRight. But what you find with a lot of companies, especially, uh, Older companies that predated techno sort of the technology world is that they try to manage projects quite tightly. Right. So you\u0026rsquo;ve got things like, you know, strict roadmaps and a lot of business analysts and, you know, maybe agile frameworks that are mandated, maybe something like safe and so on.\nAnd that actually really squeezes a lot of autonomy and agility out of the teams, which is ironic. You know, a lot of these frameworks are call themselves agile frameworks, but they actually constrain teams very much in terms of how they operate. And, you know, at Google. We didn\u0026rsquo;t even really use scrum, but in particular, every team just figure it out for itself the right way it had to operate.\nUh, and that was a conversation within the team. And, you know, the team had a high level mandate. They set some okay as objectives and key results that, you know, they had to synchronize with with leadership. But again, the team had a lot of autonomy, autonomy in setting their own OKR relative to their mission and their mandate.\nAnd that gave them the. Ability to focus on building really significant software and solving big problems. Um, and you know, I think it is worth noting that Google has been, you know, it was and remains in a luxurious position of having a lot of cash, um, which makes life easier. It causes us problems as well.\nUm, but you know, I think what it did, especially in the early days is make intelligent use of that cash. By reinvesting it in the business. And I think often companies in Australia are very much focused on the bottom line rather than the top line. Right. Which is like, you know, making a profit, which is great, but that means that they don\u0026rsquo;t invest as heavily in building rent.\nGreat technology. As they could. And I think if you, again, view it over a long enough arc, you wouldn\u0026rsquo;t say that, you know, Google is spending billions of dollars on search technology on ad technology on maps was anything other than a really fantastic use of investors\u0026rsquo; money. So, uh, yeah, I, I think a lot of these things like they come from the top and I think as I\u0026rsquo;ve been in my career for longer, I have appreciated that more and more that. We got to operate as individual engineering teams at Google we\u0026rsquo;re based on how people at the very top of the company were thinking about things that seemed quite distant to me at the time, like capital allocation, uh, and how they think about product and how they think about accountability in the company.\nWhat things should a young person look for in a company? # James: Yeah. Yeah. I think that was really interesting. And then what are some things, you know, like, like those heaps of things there that Google does really well, what are some things, if you, uh, Perhaps a young person looking for a job now, like what are some kind of, what are some of those things that you would look for in an organization that you kind of want to see and say, whether it\u0026rsquo;s like talented, uh, talented employees or, you know, a good structure, like, like we just spoke about, is there anything that you would kind of really highlight is things that you\u0026rsquo;d really look for?\nYaniv: I mean, I think talented employees is kind of a gimme, like, yes, I think good people like working with good people. Uh, so that is definitely a big one. Uh, but in terms of the actual company structure and sort of company culture, I would say there are two things to look out for depending on the type of company.\nUm, so if it\u0026rsquo;s an older company, a, you know, a company say, you\u0026rsquo;re, you\u0026rsquo;re looking to join a, an insurance company or something like that. Someone that\u0026rsquo;s been around for awhile that sort of pre. Tech for want of a better term, then what you want to look at. And, you know, there might be undergoing a digital transformation or, you know, whatever they call it internally.\nWhat you want to look for is the degree to which the company is genuinely committed to that, uh, because it\u0026rsquo;s a profound change that needs to come from the top. And so you can\u0026rsquo;t really, in my view, kind of incrementally undergo a digital transformation because it\u0026rsquo;s actually. It\u0026rsquo;s not a technology transformation, right?\nIt\u0026rsquo;s actually a cultural transformation that is embodied in technology. Right. You need to start doing everything differently. And so you want to say is the company really, does it have the, the appetite and the courage to go through that? So that\u0026rsquo;s on the one side of things. That\u0026rsquo;s, if you\u0026rsquo;re working for an older, larger established. If you\u0026rsquo;re looking to join, say, I, I knew a company, a scale-up let\u0026rsquo;s say, you know, a company that maybe was founded 7, 8, 9 years ago, and now has a few hundred employees. You\u0026rsquo;re nearly looking for the opposite problem, which is. Have they done what it takes to mature. Right. Um, a lot of companies and, and, you know, this was actually one of the downsides I feel at Google.\nUh, you know, we talked about the upsides is you have what I call the sort of the Peter pan syndrome where they, they don\u0026rsquo;t want to grow up. Right. And they\u0026rsquo;re like, it was really fun when we were a startup and it was a bunch of people in a room eating pizza and drinking beer, and it was great and suddenly 200 people, and you\u0026rsquo;re still trying to run the company and the same.\nUh, and what happens if you, if you\u0026rsquo;re not careful as you get a lot of the worst things about being at a larger organization, uh, without the benefits, right? So what you want to do is, and you know, if you hear a bigger company saying, oh, we\u0026rsquo;re still, we\u0026rsquo;re still like a startup. Um, to me, that\u0026rsquo;s a yellow flag.\nYou wanna, you wanna dig in a little bit deeper because that\u0026rsquo;s sort of like, you know, a 40 year old saying I\u0026rsquo;m still like a teenager. It\u0026rsquo;s like, well, you know, are you not just embarrassing yourselves at that point? And. You know, you want to understand, like how\u0026rsquo;s, the company kept that spirit of innovation and agility of a startup, but actually lay it in the structures that allows them to effectively execute that scale.\nBecause otherwise what it becomes is I think it\u0026rsquo;s technically called a shit show and it, it might, it might seem great that there\u0026rsquo;s sort of no, no guidance and no accountability, but what it means is you end up with a lot of destructive interference where everyone\u0026rsquo;s going off in a different direction.\nAnd what that feels like is one no career progression and two, you don\u0026rsquo;t feel like you\u0026rsquo;re making progress, right? There\u0026rsquo;s a lot of activity, but not a lot of progress. Uh, and so those are the things I think I\u0026rsquo;d look out for is, you know, in a sense it\u0026rsquo;s sort of coming at it from opposite directions is, does that organization have that blend of maturity and agility that allows it to be a place where you can really grow in your career, uh, and have an impact on the way.\nWhat does Yaniv try and do for his company\u0026rsquo;s culture # James: Hmm. Yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s really cool. Does it useful tips? I think for people hunting for a job at the moment, um, what are some things that like, cause you have your own company at the moment and you kind of try to put it in some of these best practices, like in the early days. Are there any things that you really like now as you appeared in the company, you know, those sort of cornerstone things, are there any, are there any of those that you\u0026rsquo;re really trying to focus on?\nUm, in terms of. Creating that good culture and, um, and trying to, you know, get, have that foundation, um, you know, to build the company in the right way.\nYaniv: Yeah, I do. And you know, I think it is about. Values and alignment. So having shared values and you know, this is one of those things, it\u0026rsquo;s easy to be cynical about it. You know, so many companies have a set of company values and they make a nice poster and they stick it on a wall and everyone walks past and ignores the poster.\nBut if you have. Values and what we call a circular virtues as well, which are concrete behaviors that are aligned to our values that we say, this is how we behave is, uh, at this company. And, you know, that means like one of our virtues is ask why a lot. Right? So w we\u0026rsquo;re actually encouraging people to question stuff, right.\nAnd if we are explicit about that, and then we talk about it and we lead by example and. Uh, encourage and reward those behaviors. Then you creating a strong culture from the beginning. And one of the things about culture is it\u0026rsquo;s wise culture. Why does culture get spoken about so much? And it\u0026rsquo;s because it\u0026rsquo;s this force that is highly scalable.\nUh, and also that it, uh, w when I say Tyler scalable, what I mean is, as an organization grows it\u0026rsquo;s culture. Travels along with that growth, right? Because culture is imposed or. Transferred rather peer to peer. So if you have a strong culture, it\u0026rsquo;s not a few people in management or leadership, trying to get people to do things a certain way.\nYou join a company, you absorb the culture from the people around you. And so if you have a good culture as you grow, it\u0026rsquo;s one of the most scalable ways of making sure. Organizations still functioning well. Um, and then the other thing, which is very much a double-edged soul is that a culture has an immune system.\nI call it right, which is whatever culture you have is really hard to change. It resists change. So if you have a good culture, it will resist change. If you have a bad culture, it will also resist change. So trying to change a culture that has already deeply established itself, uh, in an organization is extremely different. It\u0026rsquo;s possible. Uh, but only in a very painful and expensive way. And so setting the culture correctly from the beginning is extremely high level. Uh, so that\u0026rsquo;s something that I try to do. And then alongside that, I mentioned alignment. Um, and again, that\u0026rsquo;s something, uh, that, that I was talking about, you know, about these companies that don\u0026rsquo;t grow up.\nUm, it\u0026rsquo;s really important early on when you can get everyone in a room or, you know, in a, in a zoom call easily, and everyone knows each other, well, you can just, you know, have stand-ups or sinks and you stay aligned that way. Uh, but you know, when you start hiring a lot of people and then you might have a few layers.\nManagement. It can be very easy, surprisingly easy for, not for different parts of the company to have different ideas of what\u0026rsquo;s important to do or the right way of doing things or, you know, what the priorities are for the organization. And that\u0026rsquo;s when, like I said, you start pulling in different directions.\nUm, and so again, perhaps earlier than a lot of other companies that circular we\u0026rsquo;ve made an effort to build this. Sort of scaled rituals for sharing alignment and context. Like even when there were just 10 of us, we had a weekly, all hands meeting where we\u0026rsquo;d go through all the company numbers and go through, you know, what our top priorities were as a company and taking questions and so on, uh, with 10 people, is it overkill to do that weekly maybe?\nUh, but now we\u0026rsquo;re 20 people and that\u0026rsquo;s scaled effortlessly. And if we get to a hundred people, it will still be. Abel, we will still be able to share context and alignment that way. So those are the sorts of things that I think about. And, you know, ultimately it is why I ended up co-founding a startup is because I see that so many of these things, really, these are, these are foundational things that need to be laid down at the beginning.\nUh, coming in later there\u0026rsquo;s much, you have much less ability to influence change. I think that\u0026rsquo;s true as, as a leader, but also as an employee. So, you know, I think if you look at my career, I\u0026rsquo;ve kind of gone backwards from very big companies like Google through to scale ups, like Airtasker, and now to my own startup and, you know, there are a lot of different ways to construct a career.\nAbsolutely. Um, I\u0026rsquo;m actually. And, you know, I didn\u0026rsquo;t plan it this way, but I\u0026rsquo;m quite happy with how that sequencing has worked out, uh, because it does give you that context to see how things are done well at a larger scale. And then you go backwards into an earliest stage and you kind of know a little bit of.\nWhat comes next and what those things are that you can bring, uh, to an earlier stage company. Whereas if you go straight into a startup, a lot of people, I admire do that and can do an incredible job, but in a way it\u0026rsquo;s harder because you don\u0026rsquo;t have anything to measure things pie, right. You\u0026rsquo;re just thrown into the chaos and need to figure it out.\nJames: Yeah, not cool. I think it\u0026rsquo;s really cool. I\u0026rsquo;ve done that as well. I think we\u0026rsquo;ve had some really like that variety of experiences, like you said, and knowing kind of the best, uh, great ways to do. Um, you know, helps a lot when you\u0026rsquo;re going into a place like a startup, because if you, yeah, if you, if you\u0026rsquo;re just trying to work things out, um, from the ground up, like we\u0026rsquo;ve spoken about when you\u0026rsquo;re in that startup situation, then, uh, things can, can get tricky.\nDifferences between producing and managing # James: I think, um, I\u0026rsquo;d love to talk about, yeah, like you mentioned that you\u0026rsquo;re experienced at air Tasker, so you started off there as, as the VP of engineering going from. Uh, I see him just like perhaps a team lead or a senior engineer. Um, what was kind of the biggest differences there between being an engineer, but to sort of the, the vice president at that way, you are kind of detached a little bit more from the actual engineering and any kind of having to manage people more so than the specific technology kind of what we at, what was the, what are the key things there?\nYaniv: Yeah. So when I left Google, I was already managing. Teams, but the, the real difference going from Google to Airtasker was going from, um, I guess, being a culture recipient to being a culture maker. Right. Which is to say, you know, I talked about Google, obviously, a very strong engineering culture and also a massive company.\nAnd I was a very small cog in that. Amazing machine. And so, you know, really, as, as a leader, there is your job to understand how things are done and apply them to your team specific context to the people, to the, to the teams, to the mission of those teams. Um, which was really interesting. But I think after a time I, um, I started to get my own ideas, which is always dangerous, right.\nAbout how things should be done. And so that, that became a bit of an itch for me that I needed to scratch. And so, you know, I, I think when I came to air Tasker, right, again, it was a scale up company that needed to mature its engineering culture to, to make it\u0026rsquo;s practices and ways of doing things match the stage it was at as a company.\nUm, and what that meant is it was my job. Take some of the things I\u0026rsquo;ve learned at Google and not recreate them at air Tasker because every company is different. Every scale is different, but to take what they\u0026rsquo;ve learned at Google and apply those lessons to. Think about the best way for air task is engineering to mature.\nAnd, you know, I, I found that both difficult and rewarding. Um, but you know, if you get the right team around you, that\u0026rsquo;s, that\u0026rsquo;s really exciting. But I actually think you were maybe asking a slightly different question, which is about the transition from being, I guess, handsome. With the tools as, you know, like as a senior engineer or whatnot, um, to more of a management and leadership position.\nUm, and you know, that really comes down to, um, changing the way you have impact. And, you know, one of the models that I\u0026rsquo;ve, I\u0026rsquo;ve heard of thinking about this, that, that I like is that you, you change from. Um, a model of being additive to one of being multiplicative, right? So if you\u0026rsquo;re an individual contributor, you can say, well, I, you know, the way I achieve a, you know, a set level of impact say, you know, 100 impact points is by doing a hundred impact points worth of work myself.\nRight. Um, and that can be, you know, you can build a whole career as an individual contributor and actually, um, It, now that you know that we\u0026rsquo;re going there, you asked me about what made Google special. Um, it was one of the first companies that built a proper individual contributor career track so that you could get, you know, extremely, uh, senior without having to move into management, which was, you know, really important.\nSo you could just keep getting that like, points that you add. You can just keep growing that and growing that and not be, not hit a glass ceiling in your career. And so, for example, I think, you know, terms like principal and principal engineer and distinguished engineer, uh, if Google didn\u0026rsquo;t actually come up with them, I think, uh, one of the first companies to implement that as a core part of it\u0026rsquo;s a career pathway.\nAnyway, so that\u0026rsquo;s an. Um, but whether I was going to say is when you move into management, uh, you suddenly become a multiplier factor, right? You\u0026rsquo;re managing a team of five people let\u0026rsquo;s say, uh, and you don\u0026rsquo;t get to do a whole lot of adding, right? What you do is instead say, okay, if we have five people and they\u0026rsquo;re each producing 100 impact points, and I, as a manager can make the right moves, which means in terms of, you know, leading coaching, Removing obstacles, whatever it is that I can have a multiplier effect across those 500 impact points.\nRight? So you say, I make my whole team 20% more impactful and more productive. So we go from 500 impact points to 600. Well, that\u0026rsquo;s how I get my 100 impact points as a manager. Um, which, which makes it sort of clear why in a lot of cases, management is the greatest. in terms of your career pathway, the way to have the greatest impact, because as you grow in your career there, you can apply your multiplier over a larger, in the larger number of people.\nRight? So suddenly, you know, if you\u0026rsquo;re. Responsible for a group of 100 people and you make them all 10% better, then that\u0026rsquo;s a huge amount of leverage, which is why. Yeah. You know, senior leaders do tend to be sought after and well rewarded, but, uh, it is quite a mindset shift, right? It\u0026rsquo;s harder to feel productive when, what you are doing.\nOne level removed when you are working to make other people more productive and kind of, you know, getting a share of the credit for that, uh, rather than being productive yourself.\nJames: That\u0026rsquo;s a fantastic analogy, I think. Thanks for sharing that with us. I think, yeah, that, that makes a lot of sense. Um, and I, yeah, I think it\u0026rsquo;s interesting to see now at the sort of individual contributor path, like you mentioned, kind of start to get into, into places and start to become a real viable, viable path.\nIncreasing your impact as a junior engineer # James: Certainly I think there\u0026rsquo;s, um, a lot of value in, in specializing, in being someone that\u0026rsquo;s true. You know, uh, proper expert. Um, and what you do. I want to ask more about someone that\u0026rsquo;s like a junior engineer or someone that\u0026rsquo;s a junior, someone that\u0026rsquo;s just starting, starting working. And perhaps in the engineering context, you know, we, you spoke about those a hundred impact points.\nAnd I wonder like, as a, as a junior kind of, what things would you recommend to someone that kind of wants to. W like how many impact points as I can. Um, you know, H like, is there any ways you think about that and perhaps things that principals that they should follow to kind of.\nYaniv: The biggest one that I can think of is to really. Try to understand the business and the product that you were working on. Uh, and again, coming in as an engineer, I think it can be, and, you know, I fell into this trap completely. Um, it can be very easy to see your job as being to write code and ship features.\nUh, But it\u0026rsquo;s not right. Your job is, you know, I use the term impact points deliberately. Cause I, I really don\u0026rsquo;t care how much work you do. It\u0026rsquo;s how much impact you have that matters. Right? And so if you want to have those impact points, you need to understand what\u0026rsquo;s. your customers or users or stakeholders, and ultimately to the company, and then ultimately to the business, if you\u0026rsquo;re working at a business, which, you know, I guess most people are, if you\u0026rsquo;re working in government or a nonprofit, you know, understand what the ultimate goals of that organization, uh, uh, and, you know, become a student of that because no matter what role you\u0026rsquo;re in. will be able to make better decisions. You\u0026rsquo;ll be able to prioritize your time better. You\u0026rsquo;ll be able to ask more intelligent questions. If you\u0026rsquo;re able to see the big picture and understand why your employer is asking you to do the things that you\u0026rsquo;re doing rather than simply doing what you\u0026rsquo;re told.\nSo, you know, and I feel like they\u0026rsquo;re going to engineering because it\u0026rsquo;s a technical role and as so much to learn about. Building software that there\u0026rsquo;s often this big missed opportunity to say that, you know, as, as a manager, I can tell you the most valuable engineers are in a vast majority of cases, the ones who have these so-called soft skills around communication, product, understanding commercial understanding, and are able to combine that with strong technical skills to have the maximum impact on the product.\nJames: Yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s cool. And understanding why something that, you know, it, it\u0026rsquo;s not super hard to do, but I guess you can, it has a large, large impact on what you\u0026rsquo;re doing. Just giving you, even yourself, that context of, you know, where, where does your role fit in with any organization and things like\nYaniv: Yeah.\nJames: Think is.\nYaniv: You know, this may not be possible in every organization, depending, you know, hopefully if you\u0026rsquo;ve got a good manager, it is possible. Like, I, I nearly set a principle for myself and, you know, talking about the values and virtues that I\u0026rsquo;m putting in, in circular. I\u0026rsquo;m, I\u0026rsquo;m trying to create this for everyone is you shouldn\u0026rsquo;t stop.\nDoing a piece of work until you understand why that piece of work is worth doing right. Which is to say, you know, the model of you are just a pair of hands and you are renting out your time. Uh, I think that\u0026rsquo;s outdated in most organizations, right? You are. It\u0026rsquo;s not like you\u0026rsquo;re trading your time for money.\nYou\u0026rsquo;re trading. Ability to deliver value for money, right? And so, in a sense, you need to take responsibility for making sure that your time is being used effectively and that you\u0026rsquo;re not wasting it. Um, and I think understanding the motivations of your manager or your leadership as to why you\u0026rsquo;re being asked to do a certain piece of work often gives you an opportunity to be more effective.\nUh, but at the same time, it doubles as a great way of learning. Right. You start to see how you\u0026rsquo;re fitting into a bigger picture. Um, and so it\u0026rsquo;s just a good principle, uh, understand the why of what you\u0026rsquo;re doing before you actually start doing it and be as insistent as is politically viable at your organization to have that understanding.\nWho does Yaniv look up to # James: Yeah, I don\u0026rsquo;t think, I think that\u0026rsquo;s really cool. Um, who are some people that. I\u0026rsquo;m curious like, yeah. Who are some people that inspire you and, or who are some people that, um, you know, that you look to and think that they\u0026rsquo;re setting a really good example for, um, for yourself, perhaps people that you aspire to be more like, is there anyone, is there anyone like that?\nYaniv: I mean from an it sort of company leadership point of view. I really love. Reed Hastings from Netflix. Uh, you know, he wrote a book last year, I think called no rules rules. Uh, his head of people wrote a similar book, um, cold, powerful a couple of years before that. And both of those were based in a sense on Netflix as famous culture deck, uh, which, you know, it\u0026rsquo;s something that they\u0026rsquo;ve been kind of building on for years.\nUm, and you know, I think Netflix is the best and bottom embodiment of this model of really. Uh, you know, they call it leading with context and not control. So hiring great people, uh, being somewhat ruthless in terms of your expectations of them, right? This is a pro sports team, not a family. Again, that\u0026rsquo;s something that I really believe in, in the workplace, uh, families, a great, but it\u0026rsquo;s just a different kettle of fish, right?\nFamilies don\u0026rsquo;t have a mission, they just are. Um, and so it\u0026rsquo;s not the right model. And then the third thing is. Leading with context and not control, which means you it\u0026rsquo;s really comes down to what I\u0026rsquo;ve just been saying. You don\u0026rsquo;t tell people what to do so much, as you tell people what needs to be achieved and you expect them to figure out the best way to achieve those things, because you\u0026rsquo;ve given them enough of that business and product context that they know everything you do as a senior leader, and they can apply it to the specific.\nProblem that they and their team have been charged with solving. Um, and so it\u0026rsquo;s, yeah, it\u0026rsquo;s a very kind of, you know, interesting combination. Yeah. Uh, in that I call it freedom and responsibility. So they\u0026rsquo;ve got nice slogans for all of these things, right? Which is you give people a huge amount of freedom and the, the context to exercise that freedom wisely.\nBut you\u0026rsquo;re also giving them a very heavy responsibility to deliver massive value with that freedom and that context that you\u0026rsquo;ve given them. Uh, and you know, I think. If executed well, that is really the type of company that, um, and the organization that I\u0026rsquo;d like to work for and, you know, be a part of building.\nJames: Yeah, cool. Well, I hope that circular can grow and, and have those kinds of values and really support, um, people and create that environment so that people can have that, that freedom to. To have a great impact as well. Um,\nYaniv\u0026rsquo;s Advice for Graduates # James: I\u0026rsquo;ve got one last question for you. And then that\u0026rsquo;s a question I ask all the guests on the show and it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s the question is this, if you had to rewind the clock back to when you were first starting work, uh, knowing what you know now, is there anything at any advice you\u0026rsquo;d give yourself or anything that you\u0026rsquo;d do differently in that.\nYaniv: Yeah, I think I backed myself more and be more entrepreneurial. And, you know, I, I suspect there\u0026rsquo;s a generational element to this. Uh, where you go from, you know, a couple of generations back where it was kind of a, you know, lifetime employment sort of thing. Uh, maybe two. To my generation where there\u0026rsquo;s a lot more mobility in people\u0026rsquo;s careers, but it\u0026rsquo;s still tended to follow a, you know, part of full-time jobs, you know, from one to another, uh, to, I think now when, you know, I\u0026rsquo;m seeing a lot of the sorts of communities, like the one that you are you\u0026rsquo;re serving, right.\nWhere people are really trying to be. Architects of their own careers. So when I say entrepreneurial-ism sure some of, some of the time that means starting your own business, um, or at my main starting a side hustle or, or podcast or anything like that, um, and building a personal brand, uh, but it also means taking a more active control of your career and not being as passive and say, well, you know, I\u0026rsquo;ve got my job now.\nI need to work towards my next promotion or whatnot. It\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s really a question of being. You know, the architect of your own career and understanding of course, that, uh, you know, the future is, is very difficult to predict, but to have a set of goals and principles that you proactively set and then try to design your career around that.\nI think I\u0026rsquo;m seeing a lot more of that with, you know, the current generation of graduates and, uh, early career folks. And, um, I\u0026rsquo;m really kind of in all of that and a bit envious of that. And I sort of think, you know, if. Been more intentional in, in designing my career, you know, where, where could I have gotten to, I could, I\u0026rsquo;ve gotten to where I have earlier.\nUh, you know, so that\u0026rsquo;s something that I feel that\u0026rsquo;s, the advice I would have to myself is, you know, be intentional in planning a career that the tools that are available these days are. Right. Um, just from, from things like this podcast to communities like, like early work, uh, through to just the vast amount of resources online, the ability to start side hustles fairly easily, um, the availability of capital for early stage startups, that there is a lot of stuff around now that didn\u0026rsquo;t use to exist.\nUh, you know, if I were around now, I would hope, uh, that I\u0026rsquo;d be able to make more use of that stuff and really be intentional and mindful and designing my career.\nConnect with Yaniv # James: Yeah, no, that\u0026rsquo;s really cool. And certainly there\u0026rsquo;s so many resources available tonight for people. And it\u0026rsquo;s great to hear your thoughts there about being more intentional, because I think that\u0026rsquo;s something that, yeah, like you said, with the things that are available, it\u0026rsquo;s something that we can all we can all strive to do more.\nUm, thanks so much for coming on the show today. Uh, you know, I have, uh, you know, I guess to finish off the show, where should people go to find out more about yourself and more about.\nYaniv: So I\u0026rsquo;m active on LinkedIn, so you can find me there. I\u0026rsquo;m also increasingly active on Twitter. So my handle there is at Y Bernstein, uh, slightly different. I, I post different sort of stuff, a bit more suitable for the, for the relevant platform. Um, I also have a newsletter called people engineering. So that\u0026rsquo;s newsletter dot people, enj.com, where I share my thoughts on how to build a scalable high-performing organization, which is part of what we talked about.\nNow. Uh, more recently, I also have a podcast called the startup podcast available in all the favorite podcast apps. Uh, collaboration with Chris sod. Who\u0026rsquo;s a well-known operator here in Australia. And, um, there we talk about, it\u0026rsquo;s nearly like a, a mini MBA talking about what you need to know about as someone working at a startup or as a founder at a startup.\nUh, and finally, but by no means, least is my own startups circular. We alive in Singapore and Australia, we\u0026rsquo;re hiring actively in Australia for a variety of roles. So check us out on now, circular.com/careers. Have a look at what\u0026rsquo;s going on. Um, and you know, we\u0026rsquo;re, we\u0026rsquo;re going to go into general availability in Australia shortly.\nSo if you feel like checking out the product, please.\nJames: Yes. Cool. I\u0026rsquo;ve I\u0026rsquo;ve actually had a look at Cirque. Yeah. Yeah. I think it\u0026rsquo;s super cool. What you guys are building and I\u0026rsquo;ll be hopefully on there. And when I need my next new device.\nYaniv: You do that.\nJames: You so much for your time today and yeah. Have a great week.\nYaniv: Thank it was a pleasure.\nOutro # James: Thanks for listening to this episode I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. If you want to get my takeaways, the things that I learned from this episode, please go to Graduate Theory.com/subscribe, where you can get my takeaways and all the information about each episode, straight to your inbox.\nThanks so much for listening again today, and we\u0026rsquo;re looking forward to seeing you next week.\n← Back to episode 30\n","date":"16 May 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/graduate-theory/30-yaniv-bernstein/transcript/","section":"Graduate Theory Transcripts","summary":"← Back to episode 30\nThis transcript has been lightly edited for readability. It may still contain transcription errors.\nYaniv: So you say, I make my whole team 20% more impactful and more productive. So we go from 500 impact points to 600. Well, that’s how I get my 100 impact points as a manager.\n","title":"Transcript: Yaniv Bernstein | On Engineering The Perfect Work Culture","type":"graduate-theory-transcripts"},{"content":" Watch the conversation Graduate Theory Open YouTube ↗ Read the full transcript → The world of engineering is constantly changing.\nThis week, we chat to an experienced engineer about what it takes to succeed as an engineer and how to find great companies to work for.\nSubscribe to the Graduate Theory newsletter to get emails like this, every week 👇\nSubscribe Now\nYaniv Bernstein is the founder and COO of his startup, Circular. He has 10 years of work experience at Google, and recently was VP of Engineering and COO at Airtasker. He is also the co-host of his own podcast, the startup podcast.\n👇 Episode Takeaways # What to look for in a company # Yaniv shared some great mental models to use when thinking about what is the right company to join.\nHe split this into both a larger business and an emerging one.\nHere are some things to consider\n1/ Larger Business: the degree to which the company is committed to tech / tech transformation\nCompanies these days are engaging in technology transformation, changing their older legacy systems into new systems using new technology.\nYaniv had this to say -\nAnd so you can\u0026rsquo;t really, in my view, kind of incrementally undergo a digital transformation because it it\u0026rsquo;s actually. It\u0026rsquo;s not a technology transformation, right? It\u0026rsquo;s actually a cultural transformation that is embodied in technology. Right. You need to start doing everything differently.\nWith this in mind, companies that are going about this digital transformation in the right way, fully committed, are those that you should hold in high regard.\n2/ Smaller company: Have they done what it takes to mature\nYaniv said that smaller companies can sometimes not actually mature. They may almost still wish to be a startup when they are no longer.\nthat\u0026rsquo;s sort of like, you know, a 40 year old saying I\u0026rsquo;m still like a teenager. It\u0026rsquo;s like, well, you know, are you not just embarrassing yourselves at that point? You know, you want to understand, like how\u0026rsquo;s, the company kept that spirit of innovation and agility of a startup, but actually lay it in the structures that allows them to effectively execute that scale.\nBeing an established company doesn\u0026rsquo;t mean that you need to forgo fast change and innovation. It does mean though that you should have established process for things and accept the reality of where the company is.\nWhen thinking about joining one of these types of companies, investigate further if the company isn\u0026rsquo;t a startup but is still awkwardly trying to be.\nFrom an individual contributor to a manager # I spoke to Yaniv about the main differences between being an engineer and a manager.\nHe said that the main difference is that you go from being additive to multiplicative.\nYou\u0026rsquo;re managing a team of five people let\u0026rsquo;s say, uh, and you don\u0026rsquo;t get to do a whole lot of adding, right? What you do is instead say, okay, if we have five people and they\u0026rsquo;re each producing 100 impact points, and I, as a manager can make the right moves, which means in terms of, you know, leading coaching, removing obstacles, whatever it is that I can have a multiplier effect across those 500 impact points. Right? So you say, I make my whole team 20% more impactful and more productive. So we go from 500 impact points to 600. Well, that\u0026rsquo;s how I get my 100 impact points as a manager\nIt\u0026rsquo;s interesting to think about a definitely a change in skillset from someone that is doing engineering to someone that is trying to unblock others.\nSucceeding as a Graduate # Yaniv has mentored and employed many young people in his time. He has the keys to what makes a successful graduate.\nHe says that in order to have a big impact, understanding the why is really important. Having big impact at your workplace doesn’t come from doing the most but from doing what matters.\nUnderstanding why also ties in with soft skills. As engineers like Yaniv, look to improve your soft skills to provide the most impact.\nI can tell you the most valuable engineers are in a vast majority of cases, the ones who have these so-called soft skills around communication, product, understanding commercial understanding, and are able to combine that with strong technical skills to have the maximum impact on the product.\nGet the Newsletter\n🤝 Connect with Yaniv # LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/ybernstein/\nTwitter - https://twitter.com/ybernstein\nCircular - https://nowcircular.com.au/\n📝 Content Timestamps # 00:00 Yaniv Bernstein\n00:16 Intro\n01:30 Yaniv as a Uni Student\n05:16 Doing a PhD in 2022\n06:53 Yaniv after his PhD\n10:03 Did working overseas provide you with more breadth?\n13:53 What does Google do well?\n18:06 What things should a young person look for in a company?\n22:13 What does Yaniv try and do for his company\u0026rsquo;s culture\n28:18 Differences between producing and managing\n34:14 Increasing your impact as a junior engineer\n38:37 Who does Yaniv look up to\n41:30 Yaniv\u0026rsquo;s Advice for Graduates\n44:20 Connect with Yaniv\n46:25 Outro\n","date":"16 May 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/graduate-theory/30-yaniv-bernstein/","section":"Graduate Theory","summary":" Watch the conversation Graduate Theory Open YouTube ↗ Read the full transcript → The world of engineering is constantly changing.\nThis week, we chat to an experienced engineer about what it takes to succeed as an engineer and how to find great companies to work for.\n","title":"Yaniv Bernstein | On Engineering The Perfect Work Culture","type":"graduate-theory"},{"content":" Watch the conversation Graduate Theory Open YouTube ↗ Read the full transcript → It\u0026rsquo;s time to tackle an important topic.\nFinance.\nIn this week\u0026rsquo;s episode of Graduate Theory, we uncover how to take the first steps to become financially free.\nGet the newsletter, every week 👇\nSubscribe Now\nLacey Filipich graduated as valedictorian in chemical engineering before starting work in the mines. Since then, she’s accomplished many things including becoming financially free, giving a TEDx talk, writing a book called “Money School” and founding a company by the same name.\n👇 Episode Takeaways # 3 Rules to Financial Independence # Lacey is financially free.\nShe said there are three things you need to do to get there.\nSave Buy Assets (Shares, Property) Avoid Bad Debt (Afterpay, expensive loans) Doing any of these things will get you closer to your goal, doing more will get you there faster.\nNegotiate Your Pay Often # Lacey negotiated her pay every 6 months.\nIn one case, she was promoted and her employer realised that she was already outside of the pay band for her new role.\nSound interesting?\nShe says that one of the things she did was to negotiate her pay every six months.\nBut I think when you\u0026rsquo;re in a role, so you\u0026rsquo;re in your job and you\u0026rsquo;ve got the same boss or whatever the point is, why would they pay you more? Because you\u0026rsquo;re adding more value and they either don\u0026rsquo;t want to lose you, or they want to share profits with you.\nThe steps to negotiating successfully?\nbe a productive and valuable employee keep a record of the things you have achieved ask for a raise, and cite your achievements If you don\u0026rsquo;t get a raise, ask why and take notes to improve (or leave) If you do get a raise, congratulations! Pick your boss wisely # Lacey left us with a final piece of great advice.\nThere is no one who will have a bigger impact on how happy you are at work than your boss, the end. 80% of your satisfaction at work, I reckon comes from whether you have a good boss or an outside good boss\nPick your boss wisely. Perhaps even more than enjoying what you do is enjoying the company of those around you and those in charge of you.\nPicking a good boss will both save you from misery and set you up for success.\nGet the Newsletter\n🤝 Connect with Lacey # Money School - https://www.moneyschool.net.au/\nLinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/laceyjfilipich/\n📝 Content Timestamps # 00:00 Lacey Filipich\n00:23 Intro\n00:55 The Start of Lacey\u0026rsquo;s Financial Journey\n02:02 Lacey and Financial Independence\n09:21 A Break from Work and Overseas Travel\n16:27 How did Lacey restructure her life?\n21:17 How to start your financial journey\n26:19 Learning to run her own business\n30:51 Saving More or Earning More\n39:56 Asking for Pay Rises\n50:01 Lacey\u0026rsquo;s Advice for Graduates\n58:14 Connect with Lacey\n59:01 Outro\n","date":"9 May 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/graduate-theory/29-on-negotiating-your-financial-future-with-lacey-filipich/","section":"Graduate Theory","summary":" Watch the conversation Graduate Theory Open YouTube ↗ Read the full transcript → It’s time to tackle an important topic.\nFinance.\nIn this week’s episode of Graduate Theory, we uncover how to take the first steps to become financially free.\n","title":"On Negotiating Your Financial Future with Lacey Filipich","type":"graduate-theory"},{"content":"← Back to episode 29\nThis transcript has been lightly edited for readability. It may still contain transcription errors.\nLacey: And even if you don\u0026rsquo;t get to that goal, even if you don\u0026rsquo;t reach the point where your assets are paying you enough to cover your living costs, you\u0026rsquo;re still going to be in a much better financial position than if you didn\u0026rsquo;t, your life will be easier and less stressful.\nSo why wouldn\u0026rsquo;t you take the shot?\nIntro # James: Hello and welcome to Graduate Theory. Today\u0026rsquo;s guest is a financial educator, founder speaker, and chemical engineer. She graduated as valedictorian from chemical engineering before starting work in the mines. And since then she\u0026rsquo;s accomplished many things, including becoming financially free, giving a TEDx talk and writing a book code money school at the county and company by the same name, please welcome to the show, the financial guru Lacy filled bitch.\nLacey: Yeah. Hi James. Thanks for having me.\nThe Start of Lacey\u0026rsquo;s Financial Journey # James: That\u0026rsquo;s great to have you on the show and I\u0026rsquo;m excited to talk about yeah. Everything to do with finance and kind of your own financial journey. Uh, perhaps we can sort of wind back the clock to, to the start of this journey that you\u0026rsquo;ve been on. And I wonder if that was, if there was a moment when you first started taking your finances a little bit more seriously and kind of realizing the potential that was.\nLacey: Yeah, I\u0026rsquo;m going to sound really strange right now and say it was when I was 10, so that\u0026rsquo;s quite young, but that\u0026rsquo;s when I first learned about compound interest. And I learned that money makes money when it\u0026rsquo;s in the bank. My mum had told me breeds like rabbits and my eyes just lit up. And from that moment I started saving half of every dollar I\u0026rsquo;ve ever earned.\nSo that\u0026rsquo;s nearly 30 years ago now. So that\u0026rsquo;ll dive me. Um, but yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s a long time to be saving, but I put that as the start of when I started getting interested in money and realizing that money could be wasted or used sensibly for a specific purpose. And so I thought, well, I\u0026rsquo;m going to. It\u0026rsquo;s been the half with impunity on what I want to spend it on it.\nAnd the other half I\u0026rsquo;m going to save and make the most of it.\nLacey and Financial Independence # James: Great. We ads pretty young age to get exposed, to like the idea of saving it and things like that. So it suddenly it\u0026rsquo;s, you know, it\u0026rsquo;s like compound interest idea. It helps to get started early and to get, you know, getting started that youngest is really cool. Um, really cool. And I want to ask it yet again a bit more because you have been on this huge financial journey.\nSo when was the moment then from you\u0026rsquo;d gone from just saving and then to realizing, Hey, I can actually, you know, put my assets in my savings to work and I can actually kind of set up a life for myself where perhaps I don\u0026rsquo;t have to work if I don\u0026rsquo;t want to. I mean, what was that kind of the transition like that?\nLacey: Well, this is really interesting point. So the idea of, um, becoming financially independent. So that\u0026rsquo;s like the goal that?\na lot of people aim for, which is where your assets. So you might have properties that pay rent or shares that pay dividend, or even, even cash in the bank that pays interest. You might have bonds that pay a coupon.\nAll those things are what make you financially independent. So all of a sudden you make enough money from those assets and you don\u0026rsquo;t have to work anymore. I didn\u0026rsquo;t actually do anything. They got me to financial independence thinking about that goal, which sounds ridiculous. Right? I just magically ended up there.\nThat\u0026rsquo;s not quite the case. It wasn\u0026rsquo;t magic. It wasn\u0026rsquo;t an accident, but I didn\u0026rsquo;t ever have that in mind as my objective to be able to choose not to work while I was doing it. So I think that\u0026rsquo;s really important for people to understand. It\u0026rsquo;s great if you haven\u0026rsquo;t got that goal, but it\u0026rsquo;s not why I did it. The reason I did it was because I wanted to make the most of my money.\nAnd I\u0026rsquo;m an engineer, chemical engineer and engineers hate. Waste is our enemy. I just didn\u0026rsquo;t want to see any of that money get rid away. So of course I\u0026rsquo;d learned about compound interest from us young. I had money in the bank and remember, this is back in the nineties when interest rates on savings were hitting nine and 10%, not compared to the couple of percent you get right now.\nSo you got really quick growth compared to what you\u0026rsquo;ve got right now. So I\u0026rsquo;d seen that happening. And my mum and my teens had helped me put some of that money instead into a mutual fund, which got better return than interest. So I was aware that you could invest, but I hadn\u0026rsquo;t been very active. You know, you just stick money in a mutual fund and it pays results.\nAnd then they, they take a fee. Um, what had happened was when I was about 17, we went to. And it was given for free at our local pub. And usually when you go to these seminars, their sales pitches, but somehow we were just super lucky. My mom and I, we went to this seminar and this guy was just talking about how to buy property.\nAnd he\u0026rsquo;s general principle, which has stuck with me to this day is buy quality undervalued properties. That\u0026rsquo;s what you\u0026rsquo;re looking for. Good quality paying less than the market price. And that was when I was 17. So it started learning about that. My mum gave me the rich dad, poor dad book, which like, I love that book, not.\na massive Kiyosaki fan.\nHe\u0026rsquo;s not my favorite person in the world. I would not recommend you go out and follow his advice anyway, but that books. That book, the principles in it and the way he explains the story, which apparently he\u0026rsquo;s made up, um, very effective way to learn. So that had all happened in my, you know, as I was leaving school.\nAnd then when I was 19, I had quite a whack of savings. And my mum, I was telling her that I was going to go buy a nice car. Cause all my friends, I don\u0026rsquo;t know, uni students is still the same. I\u0026rsquo;m assuming they are. We all drove terribly old, ugly, very cheap cars. That was pretty much the priority. You know, if you spent more than $1,500 in a car that was an expensive car.\nAnd I was going to go out and buy something flash, you know, and I said to my mum, Hey, look, I\u0026rsquo;m going to go buy a car. And my mum said, you know, that could be a deposit on a property. And I went, oh my gosh. And that\u0026rsquo;s when I started. Thinking back to all that stuff. I\u0026rsquo;ve been learning over the last couple of years about how property investing worked and how you use leverage and leverage is debt, right?\nYou\u0026rsquo;re borrowing money, pretty risky decision at 19 years old. Now I look back at it. I go, wow, that was gutsy. Um, it\u0026rsquo;s kind of, uh, it\u0026rsquo;s going to one of those things that you do when you\u0026rsquo;re naive that you might not do if you had too much information. But the fact that I did it at the time that I did, it was 2001 in Brisbane.\nI was just before we had property. I bought a little property, a little, two bedroom, one bathroom apartment. It was hideous. So ugly. Oh my God. Brown everything, brown carpet brown, brick walls, brown sailing across. And when I got the case and I got inside and I was like, wow,\nJames: Oh, well,\nLacey: Disgusting. Um, and 50 square meters Tawny.\nRight. You know, but it was the first property I bought in. I just got in before this boom. So the probably pressed doubled in two years, just luck that, that timing, if I\u0026rsquo;d waited two years till I had finished university and I had a steady job, because of course at the time I was only working, you know, during the week, about 12 hours a week and working about 30 hours to 40 hours a week on the S on the holidays at uni.\nUm, but I was getting paid reasonably well,\nBack then, you got paid about a hundred bucks a week as a, um, student engineer. That was pretty good, you know, at 20 years ago. And. That was the decision I made. And that was the beginning. And then, because I had seen that experience, I was about 21, my property prices doubled some equity had doubled and I hadn\u0026rsquo;t taken out a very big mortgage comparatively speaking, cause I had a great big deposit.\nUm, and I was paying the mortgage down. And so this is how it works. So that was really, I think the point at which I could, I realized I could do more with my money than just leave it in the bank and earn interest.\nJames: Yeah, certainly. I think it\u0026rsquo;s a, that\u0026rsquo;s a really cool story. And, you know, I guess a little bit of luck involved there, but you know, you\u0026rsquo;re really cool and certainly shows the power that you can do the things you can do with your money. Cause especially at the moment, like putting it, perhaps when you were looking at stuff too, you know, the, the interest rates at the bank, you know, on the best.\nSo it\u0026rsquo;s certainly, it\u0026rsquo;s it, it\u0026rsquo;s important to look at other other avenues and you know, places to put your money. So it\u0026rsquo;s not just getting the 0.0, zero five or whatever the interest rate\nLacey: As hot it\u0026rsquo;s hot, straight. So I\u0026rsquo;m going to go up, but it is, it\u0026rsquo;s this awful thing because you\u0026rsquo;ll never know what\u0026rsquo;s going to happen when you do the thing. I could only look back in retrospect and go, wow. My timing was great. The market could have stayed low for another two years and I might not have built that equity.\nUm, it could have gone backwards as property does do. I was very lucky, but what, what luck actually ends up being is circumstance plus being prepared. So you can\u0026rsquo;t control the circumstances in a lot of ways, we can\u0026rsquo;t control the life we\u0026rsquo;re born into. We can\u0026rsquo;t control. Um, our starting point, we can\u0026rsquo;t control what the economy is going to do, whether there\u0026rsquo;s going to be a war or a pandemic, we can\u0026rsquo;t control all of these things, but you can be prepared to grab an opportunity when it comes to.\nIf you wait until the opportunity\u0026rsquo;s there and you\u0026rsquo;re not prepared, it\u0026rsquo;s much harder than to get ready in time before the opportunity passes. That\u0026rsquo;s I guess what I\u0026rsquo;ve learned in the, in retrospect, the fact that I was prepared and able at that time to buy meant that I could do it. And it was still a risky decision.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s not necessarily something that every university student should consider doing. There\u0026rsquo;s certainly a lot of risk involved with it, but it paid off and I was lucky. Um, and so those two things together are what adds up to getting ahead, um, could have gone the other way, but it\u0026rsquo;s really important that you make sure you\u0026rsquo;re prepared because if you can be prepared, then maybe the opportunity won\u0026rsquo;t come along and that\u0026rsquo;s okay.\nBut if the opportunity does come along, then you\u0026rsquo;re ready to jump on it and you don\u0026rsquo;t lose the time that you would learn all those new things about to be able to be ready. And then the opportunity is gone. So that\u0026rsquo;s probably the learning I\u0026rsquo;ve had from that.\nA Break from Work and Overseas Travel # James: Yeah, definitely. No, that\u0026rsquo;s really cool. And that\u0026rsquo;s pretty good advice. Definitely. Um, I want to ask too about your, so you went, you were working full time for awhile. I know you mentioned this in your, in your Ted talk, right. You\u0026rsquo;re working for a bit, you\u0026rsquo;re kind of getting a little bit better out from working so much.\nAnd then you kind of one of these, this big trip, uh, you know, trying to almost escape work for a little while, you know, uh, talk to me about that and kind of the reasons why he went and then, and what you liked and what kind of reflecting on while you\u0026rsquo;re awake and how that impacted you when you were coming back.\nLacey: Yeah.\nSo I think everybody has a moment at some point in their life when they realize they\u0026rsquo;re not invincible anymore. A lot of your listeners probably haven\u0026rsquo;t had that moment. And maybe those listeners are saying it\u0026rsquo;ll never happen to me, which is normal, by the way, that\u0026rsquo;s human nature to think it won\u0026rsquo;t happen to me.\nBut at some point in your life, you\u0026rsquo;ll have this moment of crisis where you go, wow, I could die or I could get really sick or, you know, I don\u0026rsquo;t have complete control over my body\u0026rsquo;s response. And I think having that happened to me in my twenties, That\u0026rsquo;s quite young, have that moment. And a lot of people don\u0026rsquo;t have it until they\u0026rsquo;re later in life.\nSome people have it earlier. Some people are confronted by it, you know, in their youth. But, um, for me, it came in my twenties and what had happened was I had been working to. Which sounds ridiculous. Doesn\u0026rsquo;t it I\u0026rsquo;m completely the opposite now. But at, at the time I was doing a job that was really, really intense.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s called change management as a broad brush sort of thing. But my job was basically to go to mine sites and help them make more money with more money without spending money. So they had to make more tons to produce more it\u0026rsquo;s optimization, business improvement, all that kind of stuff. But when you\u0026rsquo;re dealing with a workforce that might\u0026rsquo;ve been there for 30 or 40 years, it takes almost like a force of personality to convince them to change.\nLike the, the big work is in sitting down with people and persuading them to do something that they\u0026rsquo;ve done the same for 30 or 40 years to do it differently. And it\u0026rsquo;s hard and it takes a long time. And when I say a force, a personnel, you really do need it. You need charisma, you need persistence. You need to be so annoying.\nUm, which turns out something I\u0026rsquo;m very good at anyway. So. I had done really well in this role and I was getting promoted and, um, they had decided to make me an internal consultant, because of course you pay a lot of money for consultants to do that. And the mining company I worked for wanted to have an in-house team and I was the Guinea pig.\nSo it started sending me to different sites. So you\u0026rsquo;re going to all these sites that are like really intense, it\u0026rsquo;s really full on work. And I just didn\u0026rsquo;t have a holiday for about 18 months, about a year in. I was like, I\u0026rsquo;m really tired to my boss. I\u0026rsquo;m like, I think I need to have a break. And my boss said to me, well, we\u0026rsquo;re doing this six months turnaround.\nYou can\u0026rsquo;t, you can\u0026rsquo;t have a break now. Sorry, you\u0026rsquo;ve got to keep pushing through. So I sort of knew I was feeling tired and I was like, oh, well I better do it. You know? And at this stage, I didn\u0026rsquo;t really understand. Um, I guess I was still coming to terms with what it\u0026rsquo;s like being an employee and a. And how the company\u0026rsquo;s needs come before yours in some cases.\nNow my boss was at had a very good explanation. I know you are listening to it, be able to see this, but it\u0026rsquo;s, you know, imagine two hands crossing fingers and joining together that you have to go hand in hand, the employees needs, and the bosses needs the boss representing the company has to go hand in hand, but in this case, my needs couldn\u0026rsquo;t be met.\nAnd as a result, I got really sick. I spent five weeks in bed, which at like 26 years old is quite shocking. And it was because I got a virus and so unavoidable. It\u0026rsquo;s not like I got chronic fatigue or anything, but the. hit me for six, because I was so rundown because I hadn\u0026rsquo;t been eating well. I hadn\u0026rsquo;t been exercising.\nI was all work, work, work, work, work. And that just really made me think, well, my gosh, like four weeks of lying in bed, surrounded by tissues, I was lying there going, am I ever getting out of bed again? Am I ever like, is my life ever going to be normal again? Um, and that was enough for me to go, oh my gosh, I really want to do this.\nSo yeah, I did run away, uh, you know, came back to work for a few weeks and I was better to tidy up and handover. And then I went for three months to south America with my partner. Who\u0026rsquo;s now my husband. And that was my moment of trying to get better and recuperate. And I spent a lot of time thinking and it was during that trip that I was like, this is stupid.\nWhy would I work myself to death? Why would I. Like, yeah, they\u0026rsquo;ll pay me a good wicket, but life\u0026rsquo;s too important for that. So that\u0026rsquo;s where I started thinking about, I don\u0026rsquo;t really want to Southern my guts out and look, I was on a, you know, they talk about the, um, high-performer program. It was on the high before former program.\nI was EMF to be a vice president within five to seven years. So, you know, like you want to hit these targets and they motivate you mostly through money, uh, effectively. Um, and I was like, this is not worth it. It\u0026rsquo;s not worth it. And I looked around at all the people who\u0026rsquo;d reached general manager level and vice president level.\nAnd I was like, this is about time served. Um, they\u0026rsquo;re the last people standing, other people tapped out. And when I can\u0026rsquo;t keep up, uh, much more than your capability. Uh, so I sound very cynical. I know,\nJames: No.\nLacey: But that\u0026rsquo;s what happened to me. And there\u0026rsquo;s lots of people who can do that. Well, there\u0026rsquo;s lots of people who. They promoted or do high stress work and they can manage their personal life. I\u0026rsquo;m just not like that. I\u0026rsquo;m a campaign worker. When I work, I work intensely and I\u0026rsquo;m very focused and then I have to stop and take a break. And that\u0026rsquo;s what I\u0026rsquo;ve learned about myself. I need to, I can do the intense work for a period of time, but I have to allow recuperation time.\nAnd Monday to Friday, 48 weeks a year, I ain\u0026rsquo;t going to accommodate that. So I do not suit working as an employee anymore. Um, so it was a big thing to realize when I was in my twenties.\nJames: Yeah, definitely. Well, yeah, we had, I know that, you know, male as well, and she had a similar. Uh, recently, you know, she said like a similar thing, she was just working so much and it just, you know, just everything kind of fell down after that. And she had to kind of put things back together. Um, but yeah, I think that\u0026rsquo;s, that\u0026rsquo;s really important to know and important for people to realize that you gotta pay attention to what\u0026rsquo;s going on as well.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s fortunate in some ways that you got, um, you got sick and were able to sort of realize what was going on. Um,\nLacey: Yeah, the silver lining for every cloud, right?\nJames: Yeah.\nLacey: Was pretty, pretty like, oh my gosh, my career plan to get to CEO by the time I\u0026rsquo;m 40, just disappeared. Do I don\u0026rsquo;t do that anymore? Um, what am I going to do? So it felt awful, but you\u0026rsquo;re right. It\u0026rsquo;s pivotal. And that does open so many other options that I hadn\u0026rsquo;t even considered.\nAnd when I look back now and I think I could have been slugging my guts out, putting my kids in childcare from 6:00 AM to 6:00 PM, what would be the point? Well,\nJames: Yeah.\nLacey: Going to do that, so I know, that I sound very judgy. There, there are people who that works for and they want to do that, but that\u0026rsquo;s not what I want.\nI want to be at home with the kids. I want to see them grow up. I want them to know me. um, and I want more satisfaction than, Um,\njust knowing that I helped some shareholders get an extra two or 3 cents on a dividend.\nHow did Lacey restructure her life? # James: Yeah, no, I think that\u0026rsquo;s really, really cool and important to it. Yeah, really cool. Because, so how did you approach that then? You know, you\u0026rsquo;ve gone from working a lot, you realize you want to change things. Like, what does that look like now? Is it like, did you change jobs at that point? Or how did you kind of go about restructuring things so that you could live life the way that you wanted to, um,\nLacey: Yeah. Yeah. This is a really important, I think thing that people would need to realize, and it\u0026rsquo;s this concept of mini retirements that really changed everything for me. I read the four hour workweek, a friend heard about me going, oh my gosh, life crisis. What do I do? And said, you need to read the four hour workweek by Tim Ferriss.\nThe four hour work week is the whole premise is design a business that you work on four hours once a week. So you can live in anywhere in the world. And it becomes like he calls it a muse at this. It\u0026rsquo;s just a cashflow for you. And the idea is then that you can take these chunks of time off working. If you set the business up.\nYou can take 3, 6, 12 months off and you do that when you\u0026rsquo;re young, you don\u0026rsquo;t wait till your sixties. Cause at the moment we sort of think of our life is divided into three segments, right? There\u0026rsquo;s education. When you\u0026rsquo;re young, there\u0026rsquo;s working through your twenties to sixties and then there\u0026rsquo;s retirement, which is you playing golf or whatever it is.\nYou\u0026rsquo;re going to do gray nomad travel the world. Look after the grandkids, whatever is your priority when you find a start working. So this is 40 years where you\u0026rsquo;re going to get four weeks, a year of leave and you\u0026rsquo;re going to maybe get long service leave if you\u0026rsquo;re hanging around, who does that anymore? Um, so you\u0026rsquo;re basically going to be working for 40. And when you\u0026rsquo;re not working, when you\u0026rsquo;re on holidays, you just trying to recover from that working. Um, his idea was no, have those breaks take that, take that, you know, it could be 10, 20, 30, 40 years, depending on how healthy and how long you live, break that up into smaller chunks and take them in your youth.\nAnd that was like, oh, that\u0026rsquo;s me. That\u0026rsquo;s what I need to do. I need to work really hard for six months and then have six months off. That\u0026rsquo;s what I want to do. I want to try that. And so that\u0026rsquo;s what I decided to do. Um, it took me a while to get to that point, by the way, I came back to work for another year and a bit after, um, after I finished my holiday around south America, took me a while to sort of say, oh yeah, no, I really want to do this.\nBut when I did resign, I resigned to take six months off to work on a business idea. Cause I was going to create this. And, um, it was, it was just recuperation if I\u0026rsquo;m honest for me. And it was the beginning though, I did write and self publisher children\u0026rsquo;s book called bunny money, which is about teaching kids about money.\nCause that\u0026rsquo;s the thing. I was like, oh, I really should work on this area. Can you talk a little bit about how I ended up picking that later? But, um, effectively what I ended up doing was spending the next three years, I\u0026rsquo;d work six months over winter and I would have six months off over the summer. And I did that by, instead of doing my job as an employee, I became a contractor and it turned out that the company that had trained me while I was an employee had a non-compete policy.\nSo while I was employed, they couldn\u0026rsquo;t make me a job offer. But once I resigned the next day, they called me like, Hey, would you like to be a consultant for us? Um, so there\u0026rsquo;s things like that, that you\u0026rsquo;re not aware of that are. And so I was able to take these six month contracts now because it\u0026rsquo;s intense work.\nAnd because the contractors get paid a lot more, I ended up making more than my annual salary in six months. So that was like a, I didn\u0026rsquo;t know that was going to happen, but it did. And I, my pay went up very quickly. So I was essentially making a lot more than I would have made if I\u0026rsquo;d stayed in the line, but working only six months, a year, four days a week, and then having six months off.\nSo did that for three years. And in those breaks that I was having mini retirements, we would go and live down in Margaret river, which is south of Perth. Um, and have a great time eat well, exercise, sleeping, throw the alarm clock away, um, all those wonderful things. And I would work on my idea for money school, which came about because all my friends were going, how come you don\u0026rsquo;t have to work full time anymore, Lacey, because they were all slugging their guts out.\nAnd I said, well, I\u0026rsquo;ve been buying properties and paying down the debt and I\u0026rsquo;ve been investing in shares and dividends. Uh, and I\u0026rsquo;ve been saying. So saving 50% of everything that I\u0026rsquo;ve been. So like me taking time off was nothing, you know, like I could\u0026rsquo;ve, I could\u0026rsquo;ve lived for five years off my savings alone without the income. And they were going, how did you do that? And I was like, well, I started saving when I was 10 and seven 50 when I was 19, like, what have you been doing? And of course they all have credit cards that they were paying off and they had Collins, but really fancy cars. And I was driving my crappy old car. It\u0026rsquo;s still safe, but crappy old car, but I didn\u0026rsquo;t have to work.\nAnd they were all going, this is not fair. How\u0026rsquo;d you learn about that? And that\u0026rsquo;s why I started working on money schools to try and teach people about that. So that, that will happen as I was starting to see quite a lot of wealth being developed. And I was still churning my money into that investing, but that was the point at which I was like, Hey, there\u0026rsquo;s an alternative.\nAnd I wanted,\nJames: Yeah,\nLacey: Yeah.\nHow to start your financial journey # James: That\u0026rsquo;s cool. Yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s really cool. And yeah. Uh, a really cool story. Um, certainly I wonder there\u0026rsquo;s a lot of like different things that I want to, I want to touch on. Um, and, and the first is perhaps like someone that wants to start, like, let\u0026rsquo;s say, let\u0026rsquo;s say someone is like three years into their career, you know, and they\u0026rsquo;ve heard this and they\u0026rsquo;re like, wow, I really.\nEmbark on this journey of taking my financial life a bit more seriously and kind of growing my, my finances towards the fire, you know, sort of movement, you know, I want to kind of be financially sustainable without necessarily having to work or working less or whatever that might be. Um, you know, what, what would be like the first steps that someone should take to sort of go down that path?\nLacey: So I, when I talk to people about how do you become financially independent? There are only three rules, only three rules. Okay. Safe buy assets, avoid bad debt. That\u0026rsquo;s it. So, so long as you\u0026rsquo;re applying those rules, the percentages don\u0026rsquo;t really matter how much you say. It\u0026rsquo;s about what you can afford and your personal circumstances, I could afford to say 50% of everything.\nI owned other people. Can\u0026rsquo;t some people can say more like if you want to get there really quick, there are people who save over 90% of their income and live on 10% of it. Right? So, so the percentages are kind of irrelevant. The principles are what matter. So as long as you save, as soon as you take most of those savings, you need to keep something.\nCash is like a buffer to get you through any emergencies. As long as you take the rest of those savings and buy assets with them and assets are things that put money in your pocket. As long as you don\u0026rsquo;t get sucked into bad debt. Now, when I talk about debt, bad debt, we\u0026rsquo;re talking you about car lines, credit cards, buy now, pay later, pay advances, all those kinds of things, anything where you are taking money from future you, because future you has to pay it back, but you\u0026rsquo;re not buying an asset with it.\nThat\u0026rsquo;s bad debt so long as you do those three things. You have a very good chance of getting to financial independence and it\u0026rsquo;s about how aggressively you do those. So if you want to get there quick, save more and investment, all right. That means you might be sacrificing some quality of life or something that you want to do earlier on.\nIf you don\u0026rsquo;t want to do that sacrifice, and you can only save a little bit, then it just takes you a lot longer, but you still get there. And even if you don\u0026rsquo;t get to that goal, even if you don\u0026rsquo;t reach the point where your assets are paying you enough to cover your living costs, you\u0026rsquo;re still going to be in a much better financial position than if you didn\u0026rsquo;t, your life will be easier and less stressful.\nSo why wouldn\u0026rsquo;t you take the shot? Um, so if you\u0026rsquo;re thinking about it, what you need to think about is how much can you save and if you can\u0026rsquo;t save anything right now, when do you think you\u0026rsquo;re going to be able to save? Is it when you get your first job out of uni? Is it when you go from being on probate to being permanent?\nUm, is it when you get a certain number of clients for your small business as a sole trader, but once you get that. Set it up so that you can\u0026rsquo;t stop saving, make it automatic, isolate your savings account, have it automated. So the transfers happen straight away. Get your payroll to pay into that savings account.\nDon\u0026rsquo;t have it connected to any spending and then make sure you do something for their savings and you will get there. So that\u0026rsquo;s my advice to everyone. If you can\u0026rsquo;t save right now, which is normal for a student, right? It\u0026rsquo;s normal for students to be on the bones of their bum and struggling and, and eating like beans or two minute noodles.\nThat\u0026rsquo;s fine. And that happens to everybody. It happens to, you know, I think about my mother who was a single parent and there was a good decade in there where she could not say anything. She was too busy, making ends meet and trying to support two kids on like 30 grand a year. That\u0026rsquo;s okay. Right. That, that happens to everybody.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s not your fault. It\u0026rsquo;s not a problem. All you need to do is be ready. When you finally do find you have extra money, you save it, you don\u0026rsquo;t spend it. Um, and make sure you start that the longer you wait to start that the longer it\u0026rsquo;ll take you to get there.\nJames: Um, yeah, definitely. I think that\u0026rsquo;s good. And, uh, I liked what you said there about yeah. You\u0026rsquo;re sort of going to get there eventually, if you just save like any amount, you know, but it\u0026rsquo;s just like how, how serious, like, you know, yeah. How much do you want to say it? And then how quickly do you want to get to that point?\nWhether it\u0026rsquo;s\nLacey: It\u0026rsquo;s just about speed then. It\u0026rsquo;s just about speed. You want to get that quick, but the people who get there, the quickest, like in under 10 years usually are the people who save, you know, like my saving rate sounds hot. 50%. There are people who routinely save 70 to 80% of everything and they just leave it super frugally if that\u0026rsquo;s, if that is okay for you and that\u0026rsquo;s how you want to live, go for it. I don\u0026rsquo;t want to give up nice holidays. I want to give up nice food. Um, so you don\u0026rsquo;t have to, but if you really are dedicated and committed and that\u0026rsquo;s what you want to do that. Okay, go ahead. Um,\nit\u0026rsquo;s really, it\u0026rsquo;s not a one size fits all answer. It\u0026rsquo;s a choose your own adventure. And so there\u0026rsquo;s just those three basic principles you\u0026rsquo;ve got to follow.\nLearning to run her own business # James: Yeah, definitely. That\u0026rsquo;s cool enough. I want to ask as well. So you like starting your business with money school and all that kind of stuff. Like how did, how did you, like, there\u0026rsquo;s a fair bit that goes into doing that sort of thing that you\u0026rsquo;ve got to learn, like how to market your product correctly. But I learned how to like, write and produce like all the content that\u0026rsquo;s there.\nLike there\u0026rsquo;s a heaps of different stuff. That\u0026rsquo;s what goes into that? How did you kind of get started on that journey and kind of aligning all those skills that are needed to do that kind of thing?\nLacey: Yeah. Gosh, if I had, if I had known then what I know now, Yeah. So I guess festival that four hour work week was useful in that it talked about things that will suck time in your business and why you need to thoughtfully design your business before you start. So, so that was an advantage because I think a lot of people build successful businesses and they spend enormous amounts of time on them and they suddenly go, but I can\u0026rsquo;t leave the business because it relies on me.\nAnd from the beginning I wanted to build something that didn\u0026rsquo;t require my time. So that was sort of a guiding principle. And that\u0026rsquo;s why I\u0026rsquo;ve never taken on investment. And I\u0026rsquo;ve never grown the business to have lots of employees because you can\u0026rsquo;t turn it off if that happens. Um,\nunless you\u0026rsquo;ve got a really good general manager that you trust to run it and then you can walk away.\nSo, and I didn\u0026rsquo;t want to go down that path. So everything I did was about how do I make this business so that I can switch it on and off. um,\nso that it could still keep producing value for people while I\u0026rsquo;m not physically working. And, and how do I work on that? So that was my guiding principle. Now that works for someone who\u0026rsquo;s a content producer and an educator, which is what I do. I produce educational financial content. Most of it is online and prerecorded, which I\u0026rsquo;ve been doing for years. It\u0026rsquo;s be great last couple of years because people finally like, oh Yeah. we love this. Um, so there\u0026rsquo;s a lot of that. And I\u0026rsquo;ve written a book obviously, which sells without me now, you know, like you read the book anytime, but I did the work for it back in 2019 and 2020.\nSo. It\u0026rsquo;s almost like having a passive income pond to set up for business. That\u0026rsquo;s the way I\u0026rsquo;ve sort of thought about it. I still exchange my time for money. I still get hired to deliver courses. Um, I get state governments, local councils, employer bodies. I get schools get all sorts of people, hire me to deliver workshops and they might be a bit more bespoke, you know, people will want, or we want these people to learn about debt or these ones I want to learn about shares or, you know, can you talk about superannuation for women?\nYou know, those sorts of things I get asked to do. So that\u0026rsquo;s more time dependent. Um, but you\u0026rsquo;re right. You have to learn how to do everything. Uh, absolutely everything you have to learn, how to be the accountant and the bookkeeper. You have to be the social media marketer. You have to be the person running the emails and the copywriter and all that stuff.\nIf you don\u0026rsquo;t want to build a big team, which I don\u0026rsquo;t want to do. So yeah. I have become a bit of a Jack of all trades, but the great thing is there\u0026rsquo;s lots of supportive communities out there where you can join, become a member and get involved. There\u0026rsquo;s lots of, uh, online information and short courses you can do.\nAnd I actually have learned the most just from copying people who do it well, you know, and I don\u0026rsquo;t mean like I copy and paste their content. I mean, if I get a really good email and I think that\u0026rsquo;s a great email, how have they done that? You know, I\u0026rsquo;ll analyze how they did the spacing, how long the sentences are, where they put the headline, how they chose the headline and then never in my industry to have people who have great industry, but you can learn just by observing.\nThat\u0026rsquo;s a lot of what I find myself doing and a lot of Googling. Um, but yeah, I\u0026rsquo;ve had 12 years now running my own business. So I do get lots of people ask me, where should I start? You know, that sort of thing. I think, um, starting with the end in mind is really important. The fact that I started my business, knowing that I didn\u0026rsquo;t want it to be. didn\u0026rsquo;t want to take investment because I don\u0026rsquo;t want a boss and I want to be able to turn it off. Has, has decided where I\u0026rsquo;ve spent my time and where I have learned, um, not everyone\u0026rsquo;s going to want a business. Like that just depends on what you want. Right. That was just, that was a priority for me. Um, but yeah, the resources out there are fantastic and just observing other businesses is great.\nYou can get, you can learn so much by watching who does it well and, and learning from their methods.\nJames: Yeah. No, certainly that\u0026rsquo;s really cool. And interesting to hear that. Yeah. A lot of it was from love, the things that you love or from picking up things from, uh, from other companies. I think that\u0026rsquo;s, that\u0026rsquo;s really going often. Yeah. Uh, yeah, I think that\u0026rsquo;s really cool. And I want to ask you continue down this kind of learning theme.\nSaving More or Earning More # James: And I want to ask about, um, often, you know, when we talk about like financial independence, you know, there\u0026rsquo;s kind of one side that gets a lot of attention, which is like, okay, I\u0026rsquo;m going to save X amount of how much I earn. And then there\u0026rsquo;s the other side, which is maybe less spoken about, which is if, if I just continue to say the same, but I earn more than I\u0026rsquo;ve also saved more by doing that.\nSo you can either save more, increase your income. That\u0026rsquo;s kind of two ways I want to ask yourself, you know, how did you, how do you think about that? And, and, and then in particular sort of, how did you. Like go about increasing your income at different stages.\nLacey: Yeah.\nright. So I find the side of earning more income vastly more interesting than. Uh, I don\u0026rsquo;t, I don\u0026rsquo;t have a budget, which is, sounds amazing for a financial educator. I have 50% of what I\u0026rsquo;ve earned in an account, and I spend it with impunity. I\u0026rsquo;m pretty good at mentally budgeting. I know how much my expenses are and I\u0026rsquo;m not like a frivolous spender.\nSo that works for me, but I don\u0026rsquo;t have a detailed line by line budget. I couldn\u0026rsquo;t tell you exactly where every dollar goes because I don\u0026rsquo;t have to, because I find that really boring. I really don\u0026rsquo;t get value out of it. I\u0026rsquo;ve tried it before. It works for a lot of people, but not for me. I have a lot more fun.\nHow do I make more? So I don\u0026rsquo;t care. That\u0026rsquo;s where if I\u0026rsquo;m going to spend my time, I spend 90% of my time on how do I make. And I certainly my whole, my whole life\u0026rsquo;s been like that. It started when I was a kid, um, you know, running my own business when I was 10, so that I could make money. Cause I couldn\u0026rsquo;t get a job that paid well because paper rounds were too cheap.\nUm, you know, started a business that ended up with five of my friends being employees, you know, like that sort of thing. Um, I chose my, my career at school. So when I was 13 years and nine months, which is the legal age, you could get a tax file number in Queensland at the top. So I could finally be an employee.\nI started working. Before and after school care and vacation care, and I got a coaching qualification in artistic gymnastics. I was the youngest qualified coach in Queensland at the time they usually make you wait to 16, but I got there at 14. And the reason I did that was because you earned like $15 an hour as a coach versus $5 60 an hour at McDonald\u0026rsquo;s at the time.\nSo all my mates were off burning $5, 60 an hour at McDonald\u0026rsquo;s sticking their arms into pickle barrels and coming home stinking. And I was coaching artistic gymnastics, and I would coach one hour and a half. And that would be like them working four hours so far from the beginning, I was aware that some jobs were paying.\nAnd that you had to look for jobs that were paid more. And that was a priority for me. Part of the reason I chose engineering is it\u0026rsquo;s super well paid. Like it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s a really well-paid job. I mean, it\u0026rsquo;s not like medicine, but I don\u0026rsquo;t like medicine and I don\u0026rsquo;t particularly want to work 24 hours in a shift, which is what they expect a lot of doctors and nurses today.\nSo I wasn\u0026rsquo;t interested in that, but engineering was a really good job, a really good job prospects at the time, you know, w this was like 2000 that I started university, and we were just about to come into a mining, boom and oil and gas, boom. And, um, you know, jobs are plenty. The other thing I\u0026rsquo;d also research was the fact that engineering was the most common qualification of CEOs in Australia after an MBA.\nUm, what\u0026rsquo;s engineers run big companies is cause we\u0026rsquo;re good problem solvers. And I was like, well, CEO\u0026rsquo;s well paid, well be an engineer. And then I\u0026rsquo;ll become a CEO. So my whole like career strategy, I loved chemical engineer love from somebody, but it was very much, I\u0026rsquo;m picking a role that I earn a lot of money.\nAnd that is what I spend so much of my time. These days, when I go to like women in technology WWI, we\u0026rsquo;re going to schools, we talk about setting stem. I say, girls, ladies, everyone present, you make a lot more money in stem careers than you do in everything else. On average, the end pick a stem career, right?\nLike if you want to be financially independent, pick a job that\u0026rsquo;s paid well. And I understand that there\u0026rsquo;s a lot of people who want to do caring roles and that\u0026rsquo;s far, our society does not pay caring. Well, you pick that role, getting a good income will. And you\u0026rsquo;ll have to fight for it. If you\u0026rsquo;re a guy with that, that\u0026rsquo;s fine.\nRight. But going with your eyes open there. So it sounds quite misery and I don\u0026rsquo;t like it. I think we should probably care is more, I think we should be paying all caring roles more. This is a mock of how society values people\u0026rsquo;s time. So that\u0026rsquo;s a big thing. I think people have got to acknowledge if you\u0026rsquo;re going to pick a career that doesn\u0026rsquo;t have good prospects for earning a solid income.\nAnd you\u0026rsquo;re picking that at the beginning, I think a little bit crazy because it doesn\u0026rsquo;t matter how much you love it. If you\u0026rsquo;re going to struggle financially, you\u0026rsquo;re going to induce stress on yourself. You\u0026rsquo;re going to have a huddle. Now, so that\u0026rsquo;s pretty depressing, sorry to ruin. Everybody\u0026rsquo;s, you know, excitement about those who, who was studying philosophy and we\u0026rsquo;re going to go live on a beach somewhere and, and, um, and, and relax, look, go for it.\nIf you want to do that, but go in with your eyes wide open, you have to be deliberate about what kind of cruise you choose. So I\u0026rsquo;ve always been like that. So when I was in engineering, I would ask for rise out of cycle. Every six months I went into the office because you get know pay, you\u0026rsquo;d have your review once a year, but I would go in, in between and be like, Hey boss, I\u0026rsquo;ve done really well.\nHere\u0026rsquo;s my list. I would like a pay rise. And so when I finally got promoted to superintendent, they were like, you\u0026rsquo;re already in the pay band of the superintendent. How did you do that? And I\u0026rsquo;m like, well, I\u0026rsquo;ve just been negotiating the whole time. Uh, High jump. And I was like, no, no, you, you still need to pay me more.\nI\u0026rsquo;m not going to be a superintendent that no. So they still had to give me a pay rise, but they were like, you are already outside the bed. Well, so I should, I\u0026rsquo;m very, very good at my job. You know, I say, like I say that I\u0026rsquo;m very much self-entitled attitude that really pisses employers off. But if you don\u0026rsquo;t ask, you will not get, it\u0026rsquo;s really important that you\u0026rsquo;re willing to ask.\nSo I\u0026rsquo;ve never, I\u0026rsquo;m not rude about it. And I come in with evidence and I strongly believe I\u0026rsquo;ve delivered the value and that\u0026rsquo;s why I get paid more. I\u0026rsquo;m not, I\u0026rsquo;m not nasty about it. Um, but you know, you can\u0026rsquo;t go in, if you haven\u0026rsquo;t done the job, you\u0026rsquo;ve got to be able to perform, but, um, you have to ask, so that just kept us doing.\nSo that was one of those employee. And then of course, one day. The Timo was on. So it was on this team as a internal consultant and someone was running SAP. SAP is affectionately known as suffer after purchase. It\u0026rsquo;s an online system that people use for all of the inventory control and invoice management in big companies.\nUm, so if you ever come across it, Yeah.\nenjoy that. But anyway, one of the guys on site had managed to look up the sub code for this project that we\u0026rsquo;re on. And it was five, five consultants working for seven months. And it was $2.2 million. And he and I sat down and we did the calculation. We were like, so these people are company.\nAnd this is back in like 2007 was pain like between three and $6,000 per day per consultant. And we went, oh my gosh, that\u0026rsquo;s ridiculous. Like, that was more than we would earn in weeks, you know, like it was.\nJames: Yeah,\nLacey: And we were doing the legwork and that would just chatting up. So that was asked going, holy am. I suppose that men.\nAnd of course, since then I\u0026rsquo;ve learned, yes, the type of consulting I do. I\u0026rsquo;ll get charged out at five grand a day. That\u0026rsquo;s what a company will pay for me for six months every day. So you make a lot more money. So you\u0026rsquo;ve got to go looking for those kinds of things. Cause it\u0026rsquo;s exactly the same skillset. I could be an employee doing that internally for that company and earn a quarter of what they would pay a consultant to do.\nI\u0026rsquo;m a bloody good deal. And I would think I was winning, but actually changing average consulting. Now, when you go into a big. Of course, they take a big cut, a very big cut. So, you know, you might be charged out at five grand, but you might only own two and they keep three. So you\u0026rsquo;ve got to find a company, so it would pay you more.\nSo I went looking for the companies that gave me a bigger cat and that\u0026rsquo;s, that was it. And that\u0026rsquo;s how I\u0026rsquo;ve approached it. Also, I, I sound very financially driven. I am not everybody cares about this stuff, but I\u0026rsquo;m sorry, those of you who say, oh no, just follow your passion and the money will follow, or I know, I know it\u0026rsquo;s not a well-paid job, but you should do it anyway.\nI think you\u0026rsquo;ve got to be pragmatic about whether you\u0026rsquo;re going to be able to sustain the lifestyle choices you want, if you can, that\u0026rsquo;s fine. But if you can\u0026rsquo;t, you are setting yourself up for a bit of misery. You need to acknowledge that. Um,\nand then if you\u0026rsquo;re like me, I\u0026rsquo;m the complete opposite end of the spectrum.\nI\u0026rsquo;m chasing the best pay I can get, um, and refusing to accept that. Um, and with my particular skillset, I can do that. And I\u0026rsquo;ve been very deliberate about building my skills and that\u0026rsquo;s part of why I became that consultant and focused on those skills is because I was like, wow, if I can charge that amount of money for my time, who would, you know, what, why would you not pursue that?\nEspecially when I loved it, that was the fortunate thing. I did love that type of work. Um, you know, but if you\u0026rsquo;re doing it for money, you might as well make the most. So that\u0026rsquo;s a very long answer, very cynical, very, there\u0026rsquo;ll be a lot of people out there who think that\u0026rsquo;s probably awful actually. Um, and that\u0026rsquo;s fine, you don\u0026rsquo;t have to do it my way.\nUm, but if you want to make a lot of money quickly, when you\u0026rsquo;re young, it\u0026rsquo;s worth thinking seriously about how you\u0026rsquo;re going to do that.\nAsking for Pay Rises # James: Yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s really interesting. And I want to touch on that pace. You, you mentioned about like asking for pay, right? Like I\u0026rsquo;ll cycle or every six months or whatever it, I think that\u0026rsquo;s, that\u0026rsquo;s really important because you need, like you say, you\u0026rsquo;ve got to do it in a certain way. Uh, you Thomas go there and you\u0026rsquo;d be like, hi boss, man.\nLike, please pay me more. And then just then that\u0026rsquo;s it. Like, don\u0026rsquo;t say anything else, I think. Yeah. Could you, um, I\u0026rsquo;d love if you could sort of elaborate on what you did that, because you did say, you know, I, I\u0026rsquo;ve got a list of things that I did and kind of how I\u0026rsquo;ve sort of outperformed or performed well in, in kind of what\u0026rsquo;s expected of me.\nUm, like how did, how did you sort of typically approach those situations?\nLacey: Well, so there\u0026rsquo;s, I guess, two things that are really important to think about pay rises, your greatest opportunity for getting a pay increases when you start a new role. So when you move from one role to another, within a company, but even more so when another company you move to another company, that\u0026rsquo;s, that is your biggest point of leverage before they get you, because they want you, they want you to fill that role and whatever you start on it.\nAnd the behavior you start on with, with money will set a precedent for how they\u0026rsquo;ll continue to treat you. But it is the time at which they are least likely to take you for granted. They are most likely to try and. yeah.\nof course, I experienced a lot of this during a boom when there was a lot of competition to employ people. It\u0026rsquo;s very different if you\u0026rsquo;re in an industry where your one of a hundred applicants, right. Or a thousand applicants, or in an industry where there\u0026rsquo;s a lot of slack, right? So there\u0026rsquo;s, you, you can\u0026rsquo;t necessarily do this in every role. You\u0026rsquo;ve got to be very cognizant of what\u0026rsquo;s happening in your industry. But if you\u0026rsquo;ve chosen a career and an industry where you know that currently it\u0026rsquo;s on the seller, the employee\u0026rsquo;s side, you know, that they, you know, you can, you can really push.\nAnd at that point, you need to think very seriously about how you do it. In my book, there\u0026rsquo;s a script that I got taught. I learned all of this through mentoring. I had consultants and friends at work who taught me this stuff, you know? Um, and it was nerve wracking to apply, you know, the first time that I said that\u0026rsquo;s not enough money and I want 50% more.\nI like chewed on my nails off, uh, sweated bullets for 24 hours. But like. Um, so it was worth doing, um, so you gotta be prepared for that. Um, and if you want to read that script, then borrow the book from the library or whatever, and have a look at that script. But I won\u0026rsquo;t share that here because it\u0026rsquo;s, um, want to work if we all do it and there won\u0026rsquo;t be everybody who, uh, who goes and, uh, reads the book.\nSo for those of you who are excited about that kind of a thing, go and have a look it up. But I think when you\u0026rsquo;re in a role, so you\u0026rsquo;re in your job and you\u0026rsquo;ve got the same boss or whatever the point is, why would they pay you more? Because you\u0026rsquo;re adding more value and they either don\u0026rsquo;t want to lose you, or they want to share profits with you.\nThat\u0026rsquo;s the way to think of it. Okay. You cannot get away with this. If you\u0026rsquo;re a slacker who doesn\u0026rsquo;t turn out to work or you don\u0026rsquo;t hit your deadlines. Okay. So if you\u0026rsquo;re that person you can try and they might give you more, more money, but it\u0026rsquo;s not a reasonable ask. It will then look in titled, first of all, you have to do your job. Right. But once you\u0026rsquo;re doing your job, well, then ask away and put it in the calendar. I think, um, a chat with your employer where you said, oh, can we talk about, I\u0026rsquo;d like to talk about an outer SoCo piracy, or, you know, I\u0026rsquo;d like to talk about other opportunities to request a piracy there. Things to remember is you don\u0026rsquo;t have to be all rude and pushy, make it a chat.\nAnd if that just say no straight out of the gate, you can say, oh, okay. But why, um, and when might you be able to do that? You know, it\u0026rsquo;s reasonable to ask for an explanation and to ask for a future date, what would you can do that if they\u0026rsquo;re just like, well, you\u0026rsquo;re never getting a pay rise and don\u0026rsquo;t ask me again.\nThen you got to think seriously about whether your career is going to progress there and whether it\u0026rsquo;s the right fit for you. however they\u0026rsquo;re like, oh, okay. Well, tell me why, why do you think you\u0026rsquo;re with you have a pay rise, Lacey, have your evidence. So I would have things that were not about necessarily milestones. So, those are important. It was about the actual value I delivered. So, Hey, we\u0026rsquo;ve seen a 10% increase in our production in my area, which adds up to, and at the time when I was leading one project, it was like $40 million a year. We were helping to add to the bottom line. Oh, one of those people, I\u0026rsquo;m not the only one, but I was leading.\nThe team is like, we\u0026rsquo;ve added 40 million bucks a year to your bottom line. That\u0026rsquo;s worth something. You know, like that\u0026rsquo;s, that\u0026rsquo;s, I\u0026rsquo;m doing a really good job, you know, so whatever it is in your job, whether it\u0026rsquo;s a client satisfaction, Reviews is it costs? Is it production? Is it something that you\u0026rsquo;ve done? Is it an improvement you\u0026rsquo;ve delivered?\nHave you made other employees lives easier? Whatever it is. Keep notes of that. I had a diary that I just used to write them in and highlight them. And then, so I would come to when I had that discussion and when I had that first sort of like, Hey boss, can we talk about this? And they turned around to me.\nHe said, well, tell me why. I\u0026rsquo;d be like, well, here are the five things I\u0026rsquo;ve done in the last six months that have added a lot of value that have gone above and beyond. And I think that means I deserve a paradise and most of the time they\u0026rsquo;d go, okay, let\u0026rsquo;s talk about it. And then it\u0026rsquo;s about negotiation. So, you know, they make an offer.\nYou say, oh, that\u0026rsquo;s not enough. And also the important part of that was about stuff that was lifestyle driven. We think about just the money, but it\u0026rsquo;s not just the money. Sometimes companies can give us things. Why not massive financial impacts on them. So I have to find extra money for salaries, but they might be able to give you more flexibility.\nThey might be able to offer you a car. They might be able to, you know, salary sacrifice something. This there\u0026rsquo;s lots of things I can do that are not necessarily just financial. So how have you landed your, of what would work for you? It might not just be money, but having that list there so you can talk about it and they can go back now recognizing as well.\nThat usually if you\u0026rsquo;re in a big company, there\u0026rsquo;s someone above there has to approve anything out of cycle. And it just depends on how I asked to go up. So having patients being polite, but also following up at agreed times. So if your boss says, look, I can ask and you can say, okay, well, can I, when can I check in with you?\nWould next Friday be okay for me to check in with you? And like, oh no, we wouldn\u0026rsquo;t have the meeting until the following Thursday. So can I meet with you the Friday after to find out, you know, don\u0026rsquo;t just let it go. Don\u0026rsquo;t expect them to do it. Be polite, but be reasonable and, and ask for what you want. Um,\nI think. There\u0026rsquo;s nothing to lose. I think from asking politely, if they go, there\u0026rsquo;s no way our company is suffering. Um, we\u0026rsquo;ve got laughs coming. Um, something massive has happened. Like I would just current, like, okay, that\u0026rsquo;s fine. You\u0026rsquo;ve asked if you don\u0026rsquo;t ask. You\u0026rsquo;ll never know. So you have to ask.\nJames: Yeah, certainly. I think that\u0026rsquo;s really good. And I think, yeah, like you said, even if they say no or, or whatever, you can ask why, and then that will give you like things to do. So that next time it comes around, you can be like, okay, you said to do this, like, I\u0026rsquo;ve done them. Where are we are now? Um, you know, and then it becomes like where, what you\u0026rsquo;re also saying around, like, you know, if they, if they\u0026rsquo;re just refusing to sort of budge, then you know, you need to kind of, if you\u0026rsquo;re, if that\u0026rsquo;s what you want, then obviously you\u0026rsquo;ve got to consider is that somewhere that you see yourself,\nLacey: Exactly. And Tommy is important here, right? So I\u0026rsquo;ve been in the mining industries since 2000 and I think one or two, and then I did my first vacation work. So I\u0026rsquo;ve been through a big boom, and then I\u0026rsquo;ve been through a down period and now it\u0026rsquo;s booming again, if you are in the up period, that\u0026rsquo;s when you really want to be trying to do this.\nBecause if I had tried that in like 2015, when everybody was getting laid off, I would have been laughed out of the building. um,\nyou know, it\u0026rsquo;s, you, you do have to be aware that it\u0026rsquo;s not going to work at every point in your career, and sometimes that\u0026rsquo;ll be because of you. Sometimes it will be because of circumstances beyond your. So you do have to be aware, but you should always be thinking about it and actively deciding is this a good time to do it or not? Um, and being willing to ask is a huge thing. You know, sometimes it\u0026rsquo;ll just be that your boss is too busy. I haven\u0026rsquo;t noticed, um, it can also be you might\u0026rsquo;ve had a look. The other thing that was worth doing is having a look at, uh, organizations like Hayes, which do H a Y S that do benchmarking.\nAnd we\u0026rsquo;ll tell you what typical bands are for your salary. You know, sometimes I just haven\u0026rsquo;t kept up. They\u0026rsquo;re too busy doing their job. If you go into it, assuming. That they have good intentions. And then if you\u0026rsquo;re not being paid as much as market, it\u0026rsquo;s not because they\u0026rsquo;re deliberately trying to undercut you it\u0026rsquo;s because I didn\u0026rsquo;t realize the market had moved or they didn\u0026rsquo;t realize that it was important to you.\nIf you approach it with that kind of, um, inquisitiveness and willingness to have a discussion, then you generally won\u0026rsquo;t get, um, a black mark against your name for it. It\u0026rsquo;s only when you walk in all bolshy, like I don\u0026rsquo;t know how to pay rise today. Cause I\u0026rsquo;m amazing. Uh, and just give it to me and I will not accept anything less.\nThat\u0026rsquo;s when you do create future problems for yourself, you do create, um, a, a belief within the management of the place where you\u0026rsquo;re working, that you\u0026rsquo;re problematic or that you are entitled. So you do have to think very carefully about how you approach it, but it\u0026rsquo;s worth doing.\nJames: Yeah, definitely. I think that\u0026rsquo;s really coincidences. It\u0026rsquo;s important. Right? Cause I think you can, if you\u0026rsquo;re not like testing the limit of like how much, um, you know, how much someone can pay you, then you\u0026rsquo;re, you\u0026rsquo;re leaving money, money on the table by not doing that. Um,\nLacey: You should feel a bit uncomfortable. It\u0026rsquo;s honestly, I still, when I do it get nervous, it\u0026rsquo;s perfectly logical to feel nervous, but I go with the premise of so long as you don\u0026rsquo;t make it impossible for them to say no, as long as you don\u0026rsquo;t give them an ultimatum, do this, or I\u0026rsquo;m leaving, then it\u0026rsquo;s a chat, right.\nThis is a negotiation in your represent. You\u0026rsquo;ve got to get the best for it. So, yeah.\nit\u0026rsquo;s um, it is worth trying to overcome those nerves.\nJames: Yeah, definitely. No, that\u0026rsquo;s cool. Yeah, I like that a lot.\nLacey\u0026rsquo;s Advice for Graduates # James: Um, I\u0026rsquo;ve got one more question for you too, that I see. And that\u0026rsquo;s around, you know, obviously Graduate Theory, Korea kind of focused podcasts. And I want to ask yourself, you know, have there been times, or like if you had to restart your career kind of wind back to when you were first starting out working, is there anything looking back now that you would approach kind of your career progression and perhaps your finances as well?\nIs there anything that you would do differently knowing what.\nLacey: Oh, well, there\u0026rsquo;s one tiny thing in my finances that I didn\u0026rsquo;t understand when I was a graduate. Um, but I, I know now that I go like, oh shoot, I should have done something about that. Um,\nwhen I was working for Western mining, BHB took us over. That was in my second year as a graduate. And we had been given options.\nWe Western mining and I didn\u0026rsquo;t understand what options meant. And so I didn\u0026rsquo;t exercise them. Um,\nand\nnow I know what options they I\u0026rsquo;m like. Ah, I was like that eight grand I could have had. Um, so when something happens financially at work where they have like a share plan or they talk about salary sacrificing or your superannuation matching and stuff like that, if you don\u0026rsquo;t understand, take the time to get the support so you can make a good day. It\u0026rsquo;s really important that if you, if you get an offer for something from work that you understand, whether it\u0026rsquo;s the right thing for you or not, and that you take the opportunities that you can cause often things like those share plans and those options plans are designed to keep you with the company, but they are a leg up.\nThey want, they are an advantage, but if you just sign without understanding them or ignore them because they\u0026rsquo;re too hard, you can give up a lot. Take the time to learn would be by advice there. Um, the other thing I would encourage people to do, which I hadn\u0026rsquo;t even at the time thought about. You can tell from my discussion that I\u0026rsquo;m quite a forthright person and I will fight for what\u0026rsquo;s right for me.\nAnd something that happened to me when I was in that second year, I was a graduate, I was one of seven graduates and two of us were female. Now, the five women. And we were at a site where there was 10 women in total, out of 300 employees in Calgary, in Western Australia. Right. So that was the reality of going into mining in a remote location back then.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s very different. Now, you know, the next site I went to was 20% female versus, you know, 10 out of 300. So, um, that\u0026rsquo;s not normal, but what often happens when you\u0026rsquo;re the only woman on a site or one of the few is that you get the women\u0026rsquo;s jobs, uh,\nwhich w for this particular case was my general manager had lost in the 18 months.\nI\u0026rsquo;d been there. He\u0026rsquo;d lost five executive assistants. That\u0026rsquo;s not normal. Clearly, clearly that was a difficult role, but they couldn\u0026rsquo;t find someone and they really needed someone. So they asked me to fill in and I had a massive tantrum, like not a, you know, throwing my fist, but I went into my boss\u0026rsquo;s office and was like, you\u0026rsquo;re just asking me to do this because I\u0026rsquo;m a woman and I\u0026rsquo;m not happy about that.\nThere are five other graduates who are male. Any of them could do that role. Why did you pick me? Because I had a real bee in my bonnet about this. Like we always give the women the job of taking the notes and they always have to get the frigging tea and all that stuff. Anyway, it was a real thing that I had heard so much about, and I was really sensitive to it.\nAnd so I overreacted, but I was really like, it was a fair call. My boss said that is a fair call for you to say that, because this does happen. And he said, look, I promise you, Lacey, that\u0026rsquo;s not the reason you were chosen for this. Can you just take my word from it? That you\u0026rsquo;re going to learn something really important and.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s why you want to take this role. And I was like, okay, fine. I really liked the boss who was fantastic. Um,\nJP and I said, all right, fine, I\u0026rsquo;ll do it. But I\u0026rsquo;m not happy that you\u0026rsquo;ve picked me because I\u0026rsquo;m a girl. And he\u0026rsquo;s like, I\u0026rsquo;m not picking you because your girl stuff. Okay. I find fun. Anyway. So turns out it was when BHP was looking to buy Western mining.\nAnd I got to be part of the war room that got set up before the merger and acquisition. So I got to be in on the discussions with the executive team and hear how they would pitch the company, how they would persuade another company to buy them. I got to learn about M and a. Now letting that at 22. Is it unusual if you\u0026rsquo;re not like in that kind of like for graduate engineer, who\u0026rsquo;d just come off the furnace in west west scruffy, you know, covered in dirt outfit to be in these meetings, listening to this because I could make grass because I could type.\nAnd they needed that to hear those conversations that were happening to understand how the Warren would get set up to learn. That was like some of the most invaluable experience I got in that graduate program. Like you couldn\u0026rsquo;t, you couldn\u0026rsquo;t have planned. So my boss had noted that I wanted to be a CEO.\nHe had noted that. Cause I had told him he did. He\u0026rsquo;s like, where do you want to go? Eventually I\u0026rsquo;m like, well, I\u0026rsquo;d like to be a CEO eventually. So I wouldn\u0026rsquo;t do, you know, management stuff, but he was doing it so that I could get this amazing experience because I was the graduate who had said I\u0026rsquo;m interested in that stuff.\nSo he was doing the right thing by me. The fact that I was female, neither here nor there, but if I hadn\u0026rsquo;t listened to him and I\u0026rsquo;m just lucky that he didn\u0026rsquo;t go, we\u0026rsquo;ll find, I\u0026rsquo;ll give it to someone else just as well. You know, someone else, I\u0026rsquo;m very lucky that he was understanding. And so my response, so that\u0026rsquo;s the difference between having a good boss and a bad boss?\nSorry, what did I learn out of that? Sometimes? You\u0026rsquo;ll think it\u0026rsquo;s because of some thing that it\u0026rsquo;s not, you know, I, I had a bruise on my bottom, everything I looked at, I was like, they\u0026rsquo;re asking me to do that. Cause I\u0026rsquo;m a girl on a freezing, uh, on principle because I\u0026rsquo;m a feminist and thou shalt not make me.\nUm, it\u0026rsquo;s not always the same. It\u0026rsquo;s just, That\u0026rsquo;s your frame of reference. Okay. So you\u0026rsquo;d need to be willing to listen when people tell you that\u0026rsquo;s wrong, sometimes you\u0026rsquo;ll be right. Sometimes you won\u0026rsquo;t be that\u0026rsquo;s. I think the most important thing that the second thing that I learned out of this experience, that\u0026rsquo;s something that\u0026rsquo;s carried me through.\nMy whole career is pick your boss wisely. There is no one who will have a bigger impact on how happy you are at work. Then your boss, the end, 80% of your satisfaction at work, I reckon comes from whether you have a good boss or an outside good boss. They have to have had not so good. Uh, to be able to understand what a good boss is, I think, and I\u0026rsquo;ve had only a couple in my time.\nI\u0026rsquo;ve been very lucky. I\u0026rsquo;ve had fantastic bosses, but I started to get very choosy very early on about who I\u0026rsquo;d worked for for that reason. I think there were times when I was younger, when I worked for, uh, I\u0026rsquo;m going to be blunt, a bad boss, he was shocking. Should not have been allowed to manage people, just cookie cutter for everything.\nUh, no, no. Taking into account anyone\u0026rsquo;s personal views, circumstances or preferences. Just know this is how we do it. You will do it this way. Or we never give people that, that high mark you only ever get, everybody gets an average like that. He was just, he should not be allowed to manage people. Um, recognizing that\u0026rsquo;s not, you necessarily, it\u0026rsquo;s not your fault.\nI had a lot of, uh, that sort of like, cause when you knew him, what the workplace, you don\u0026rsquo;t really understand whether, um, that\u0026rsquo;s because you\u0026rsquo;re not meeting expectations or whether you\u0026rsquo;ve just been lumped with a bad boss. it\u0026rsquo;s a little bit of both. Um, so you\u0026rsquo;ve gotta be honest with yourself, but if you\u0026rsquo;ve got a bad boss, just accept that\u0026rsquo;s a bad boss and they\u0026rsquo;re not right for you.\nMaybe they\u0026rsquo;re good for other people, but not right for you and become choosy. So that\u0026rsquo;s, I think something that I learned based on my youth experience going, I\u0026rsquo;ve gotta be really picky about who I work for and don\u0026rsquo;t don\u0026rsquo;t work for assholes. The end.\nJames: That\u0026rsquo;s great. Yeah, no, I think that\u0026rsquo;s certainly a good point to finish on. I think there\u0026rsquo;s, there\u0026rsquo;s a lot of great tips that you just gave us there. So I definitely agree with you about the boss situation, even, even though I\u0026rsquo;ve just sort of, I\u0026rsquo;ve done three different rotations at work and seeing three different bosses, but it\u0026rsquo;s clear to me and a lot of the other grads that yet definitely your boss, like you said, is super important part of satisfaction at work.\nUm, so I\u0026rsquo;m glad that I\u0026rsquo;m glad that you\u0026rsquo;ve found that as well.\nConnect with Lacey # James: Um, thanks so much for chatting today. If people are listening and they want to find out more about yourself, more about what you do, where should they wish.\nLacey: Well, head to money, school.org.edu. And if you had there, you\u0026rsquo;re fine. Everything I\u0026rsquo;ve got lots of free blogs is a free course on how to get out of ditch. Um, plenty of reading and you can find out how to get my book there as well. So obviously I consider the book to be like a financial education. So if this is something that\u0026rsquo;s interesting to you, you want to learn about money.\nYou want to get ahead quick. Then the books are a great place to start and you can grab it from your library, grab it from your favorite bookstore. It\u0026rsquo;s everywhere. Cause I went with penguins, so they were pretty mainstream. Um, and yeah, my school, I use the place to stop.\nJames: Fantastic. We are, we\u0026rsquo;ll have that in the show notes, if anyone wants to find that, um, down there, but yeah, thanks again, uh, Lacey for coming on today.\nLacey: Thanks for having me, James.\nOutro # James: Thanks for listening to this episode I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. If you want to get my takeaways, the things that I learned from this episode, please go to Graduate Theory.com/subscribe, where you can get my takeaways and all the information about each episode, straight to your inbox.\nThanks so much for listening again today, and we\u0026rsquo;re looking forward to seeing you next week.\n← Back to episode 29\n","date":"9 May 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/graduate-theory/29-on-negotiating-your-financial-future-with-lacey-filipich/transcript/","section":"Graduate Theory Transcripts","summary":"← Back to episode 29\nThis transcript has been lightly edited for readability. It may still contain transcription errors.\nLacey: And even if you don’t get to that goal, even if you don’t reach the point where your assets are paying you enough to cover your living costs, you’re still going to be in a much better financial position than if you didn’t, your life will be easier and less stressful.\n","title":"Transcript: On Negotiating Your Financial Future with Lacey Filipich","type":"graduate-theory-transcripts"},{"content":" Watch the conversation Graduate Theory Open YouTube ↗ Read the full transcript → Good morning Graduates!\nThis week, a special episode of Graduate Theory. This week, hear from Chris Dixon, Bill Gates, Tim Ferriss, Malcolm Gladwell and David Epstein on how to best approach your career.\nSpecialise early? Or be a generalist and specialise later?\nFind out in this week\u0026rsquo;s episode.\nDon\u0026rsquo;t miss the newsletter, subscribe now 👇\nSubscribe Now\n👇 Episode Takeaways # Short-Term Planning is a better approach # David had this to say on short-term planning\nthe dark horse project in the book, the common trait of people who find fulfillment in their careers, is it focused on short-term planning.\nAnd that resonated with me so much such that I ended up as a subject in the study, which I disclosed in the book. What they do is they all came in and would say, well, you know, don\u0026rsquo;t tell people to do what I did. I came through this weird path where I thought I was going to do one thing. And then I tried, I didn\u0026rsquo;t like it.\nSo Zig and zag and, and they all view themselves as having come out of nowhere, which is why the researchers called it, the dark horse project and their common trait is this short-term planning where they don\u0026rsquo;t look around and say, here\u0026rsquo;s, who\u0026rsquo;s younger than me and has more than me. They say, here\u0026rsquo;s who I am right now, here are my skills and interests, here are the opportunities in front of me. I\u0026rsquo;ll try this one. Here\u0026rsquo;s my hypothesis about what I\u0026rsquo;ll learn. And a year from now I\u0026rsquo;ll change because I will have learned something new and they just do that until they get to a spot where they can kind of uniquely succeed and feel fulfilled.\nHow interesting is that? Often we get told that we need a long term career plan about where we want to be. We get put onto a track like becoming a partner or a tech lead, without fully exploring possible other paths.\nIt turns out, those that who don\u0026rsquo;t plan actually tend to do better.\nBuilding a Broad Base # David had this to say when discussing the importance of building a strong base before specialising.\nLike, there was some recent research from LinkedIn that showed like people who become successful executives. One of the best predictors is the number of job functions they\u0026rsquo;ve worked across within an industry. Or again, to go to this obsession with precocity when Mark Zuckerberg was 22 and he said, young people are just smarter. MIT, Northwestern and the census bureau just has research out showing that the average age of a founder of a blockbuster startup on the day of founding, not even when it becomes a blockbuster is about 46.\nBecoming a successful executive, building a great startup and many other things don\u0026rsquo;t tend to happen until much later. Getting a broad experience may slow you down initially, but it is what will help you go further in the long term.\nEarly Specialisation is Counter-Productive # And the economist found a natural experiment in the higher ed systems of England and Scotland in the period he studied the systems were very similar except in England.\nStudents had to specialize in their mid-teen years to pick a specific course of study to apply towards in Scotland. They could keep trying things in university if they wanted to. And his question was who wins the trade-off the early or the late specializers?\nAnd what he saw was that the early specializes jump out to an income lead because they have more domain specific skills. The late specializers, get to try more different things. And when they do pick, they have better fit or what economists called match quality. And so their growth rates are faster by six years out, they erase that income gap.\nMeanwhile, the early specializes start quitting their career tracks in much higher numbers, essentially because they were made to choose so early that they more often made poor choices. So the late specializes losing the short-term and wind in the long run. I think if we thought about career choice, like dating, we might not pressure people to settle down quite so quickly\nAfter falling behind early, the late specialists have found something they really connect with. They then surpass those that specialise early.\nIf you are someone that still doesn\u0026rsquo;t know what to do, don\u0026rsquo;t fret. You are building very useful skills that will be transferred later.\nJust like dating, don\u0026rsquo;t think you need to settle down straight away.\nGet the Newsletter\n🤝 Episode Sources # 2020 Ted Talk\nWhy specializing early doesn\u0026rsquo;t always mean career success | David Epstein - YouTube\n2019 Conversation with Malcolm Gladwell\nDavid Epstein in Conversation with Malcolm Gladwell - YouTube\nShort clip of Epstein and Gladwell Discussing\nEpstein and Gladwell discuss “Range” at MIT - David Epstein - YouTube\nTim Ferriss on not liking the 10,000-hour rule\nTim Ferriss Scoffs at Gladwell\u0026rsquo;s 10,000 Hours - YouTube\nGladwell on 10k hours\nMalcolm Gladwell on the 10,000 hour Rule - YouTube\nGladwell explains 10k hours further\nMalcolm Gladwell Demystifies 10,000 Hours Rule - YouTube\nGladwell talks about outliers\nMalcolm Gladwell - Outliers - YouTube\nGates on 10k hours\nBill Gates on Expertise: 10,000 Hours and a Lifetime of Fanaticism - YouTube\n📝 Content Timestamps # 00:00 On the Specialist vs Generalist Dilemma 00:00 Episode Intro 01:57 Chris Dixon on Hill Climbing 03:33 The Two Approaches to Finding and Climbing \u0026lsquo;Hills\u0026rsquo; 04:48 The 10,000 Hour Rule 06:20 The Problem with the 10,000 Hour Rule 07:45 Bill Gates on the 10,000 Hour Rule 09:33 Tim Ferriss on the 10,000 Hour Rule 12:26 Range - The Tiger v Roger Problem 15:21 Adam Ashton on Range 19:24 Applications - Match Quality 22:56 Applications - Long Term Success Requires a Broad Base 25:23 Applications - Short Term Thinking 29:23 Application - Skill Intersections 32:22 Early Specialisation can be counter-productive 35:28 Outro\n","date":"2 May 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/graduate-theory/28-on-the-specialist-vs-generalist-dilemna/","section":"Graduate Theory","summary":" Watch the conversation Graduate Theory Open YouTube ↗ Read the full transcript → Good morning Graduates!\nThis week, a special episode of Graduate Theory. This week, hear from Chris Dixon, Bill Gates, Tim Ferriss, Malcolm Gladwell and David Epstein on how to best approach your career.\n","title":"On the Specialist vs Generalist Dilemma","type":"graduate-theory"},{"content":"← Back to episode 28\nThis transcript has been lightly edited for readability. It may still contain transcription errors.\nEpisode Intro # hello and welcome to Graduate Theory. Today. I\u0026rsquo;ve got a little bit of a different episode for you. An interesting thought exercise about careers is how to maximize your career potential. Some problems that we have when we start off Korea things like what, how do I know if what I\u0026rsquo;m doing is, is what I\u0026rsquo;m meant to be doing?. Am I doing something that, that is really matched to my skillset. Am I going to kind of maximize my potential by doing this thing long into the future?\nAnd that there are a lot of schools of thought and ways of approaching this problem, but today\u0026rsquo;s episode, we\u0026rsquo;re going to do a really deep dive into the different ways of looking at this problem and the different perhaps learnings that we can have and, and the things that we can take from these learnings and apply to our careers so that we can go about planning a career and being more effective in making decisions about which industry we\u0026rsquo;re going to go in and what sort of role we\u0026rsquo;re going to take, you know, so we can make those decisions more effectively. Um, today\u0026rsquo;s episode, we\u0026rsquo;re looking at the idea of a hill climb.\nAnd then we\u0026rsquo;re going to look at the 10,000 hours rule, uh, and how that applies and then funding them begin to finish off looking at range and how that is really the underpinning of a lot of these concepts that we\u0026rsquo;ll talk about in today\u0026rsquo;s episode. There\u0026rsquo;s a lot of value in this episode,\nand I\u0026rsquo;m a little of great takeaways that can help you in planning your career and in helping you decide, you know, what industry, what sort of job are you getting at this? You, as you go and start your career and wherever you may be. So let\u0026rsquo;s get started. And one of the things I want to start with today is this idea of the cold climate.\nAnd I mentioned it before. I who climb is essentially, we want to climb. Imagine we\u0026rsquo;ve got lots of Hills. We kind of want to climb to the highest hill, to explain this better, we\u0026rsquo;ve got Chris Dickson. Who\u0026rsquo;s going to explain this concept of a hill climb.\nChris Dixon on Hill Climbing # Chris Dixon: Number two, um, don\u0026rsquo;t climb the wrong hill.\nUh, uh, I speak a lot to, uh, Uh, young people who are thinking about joining startups and trying to sort of recruit them. And I see a very common pattern, which is, uh, people get stuck in fields, uh, that they don\u0026rsquo;t like, because they feel like they\u0026rsquo;re making incremental day-to-day progress. I think a good, um, analogy or for sort of, uh, understanding.\nThis concept is one that comes from computer science. It\u0026rsquo;s a sort of known as hill climbing algorithms. Um, describe this briefly, imagine a sort of landscape, the hilly landscape with various, some tall Hills and shorter Hills when your goal is sort of defined the highest still, and that might be, you know, whatever your, your personal goal is.\nUm, and, and, and what tends to happen, I think is that, um, especially as happens with ambitious people, is that. The lure of taking a step upward on the, on the current hill is very strong and it\u0026rsquo;s very hard to sort of step back and, um, go and explore and look at other Hills with computer science teaches you, is the optimal algorithm for finding the highest hill, uh, is to, uh, meander explore a lot, especially early on, uh, occasionally drop yourself into random places around the terrain.\nAnd when you find the highest hill, uh, pursue it, no matter how. Um, attractive the upward step of the current hill might appear\nThe Two Approaches to Finding and Climbing \u0026lsquo;Hills\u0026rsquo; # So we can split up the hill climbing analogy into two key things. Okay. The first is finding the hill. Okay. So which hill are you going to climb? Let\u0026rsquo;s first try and find the hill that. Kind of the highest Paik, uh, you know, and the pig in a sense is like her said, whatever out goal was off or accurate, you know, we kind of want to maximize whatever it is.\nIt might be money or status or whatever it may be that, or it might just be happiness, fulfillment, et cetera. Okay. And so the hill that the height of the hill kind of represents that. And the first part of this is working. Which hill was the highest. Okay. How can we go about doing that? And the second thing we can break this into is actually climbing the hill itself.\nOkay. Climbing the hill itself and half may go about doing that in order to climb the hill, one way to do this, that\u0026rsquo;s really become popularized in the last few years, is this idea of the 10,000 hour rule. So the 10th and 10,000 hour rule basically says that if you pursue something for 10,000 hours, you know, you will eventually become world-class at that thing.\nAnd, and, you know, you\u0026rsquo;ll have the rewards associated with that. This idea was first popularized by Malcolm Gladwell. And we\u0026rsquo;ve got him here to explain that for you.\nThe 10,000 Hour Rule # This is something actually, I spend a lot of time on and in outliers, um, this notion of how long it takes to be good. Cause a lot of psychologists have actually attacked this question and have discovered something.\nThe 10,000 hours rule, which says that when we look at a wide variety of cognitively complex activities, we find a very consistent pattern. And that is, it seems to be impossible to achieve any kind of true expertise unless you have practiced for 10,000 hours and 10,000 hours. If you think about it, think of that as four hours a day is 10 years.\nThe 10 year rule shows up in almost everything. For example, um, chess, grandmasters, there\u0026rsquo;s only ever been one chess Grandmaster in history who has achieved that level without having played chess for 10 years. And that was Bobby Fischer who became a Grandmaster after nine years, you can take, um, lovely studies of classical music composers.\nUh, you take the whole, and you, you see what is the first piece of music they wrote? That was truly great. That was one of their kind of signature pieces. And it is never been in the. That a truly world-class please piece of classical music has been composed before the composer was composing for 10 years and people always say, well, what about Mozart?\nWell, was Mozart composing in his, uh, 10 and 11 years old. Absolutely. Have you ever listened to the things he was playing? He was composing at 10, 11. They\u0026rsquo;re terrible. He wasn\u0026rsquo;t any good until he was 23 and writes concerto number nine to seven\nThe Problem with the 10,000 Hour Rule # So the core understanding and learning that we get from listening to Malcolm talk about the 10,000 hour rule is that if we want to achieve really high levels of success in a certain area, we need to be really focused on one thing for 10,000 hours. And this roughly quite stew, about 10 years of working on just that thing.\nSo the examples he gave were in music. You know, certain musicians had been working on their craft at least 10 years before they produced something that was truly, truly incredible. You know? And how do we apply this to careers? Well,, perhaps according to this methodology, you know, it\u0026rsquo;s going to take 10 years in your, in your job.\nSo w whether you\u0026rsquo;re a program or an analyst, or whatever, 10 years of you to become like a world class at that thing, is this the right approach? And does the 10,000 hour rule kind of apply across these fields like music and chess into something that is a little bit less well-defined uh, you know, like the word.\nYou know, it\u0026rsquo;s interesting to think about because certainly there is some merit, you know, if, if you\u0026rsquo;re going to do the same thing for 10 years, you\u0026rsquo;re going to be good at it. Right. Um, and it\u0026rsquo;s interesting to think about that, but I want to follow Malcolm\u0026rsquo;s pace up with some little paces now for bill gates and Tim Ferriss, and they have some interesting comments on the 10,000 hour rule.\nAnd we can start with bill gates and hear his thoughts. And then we\u0026rsquo;ll hear from Tim.\nBill Gates on the 10,000 Hour Rule # if somebody reads the book to say that if you spend 10,000 hours doing something, you\u0026rsquo;ll be super good at it. I don\u0026rsquo;t think that\u0026rsquo;s quite, uh, it\u0026rsquo;s quite as simple as that, what you do is you do about 50 hours and 90% drop out because they don\u0026rsquo;t like it, or they\u0026rsquo;re not good.\nYou know, you do another 50 hours and 90% drop out. So there\u0026rsquo;s these constant cycle. And you do have to be lucky enough, but also fanatical enough to keep going. And so the person that makes it to 10,000 hours is not just somebody who\u0026rsquo;s done it for 10,000 hours. There\u0026rsquo;s somebody who\u0026rsquo;s chosen and been chosen in many different times.\nAnd so all these magical things, uh, came together on cleaning who I know and that, that timing that, yeah. Um, you know, that\u0026rsquo;s very important when you look at somebody who\u0026rsquo;s good and say, could I do it like them? Uh, they\u0026rsquo;ve gone through so many cycles that it may fool you that, you know yes, yes. You could with the, with the right lock imagination and, and some, some talent\nSo what I pick up from what bill gates said, there was some things around, you know, 10,000 hours is a nice way of packaging this, but really if you\u0026rsquo;re going to spend 10,000 hours doing something, you probably have some high level of interest in doing something in that people might see you out for a certain amount of time, but then they\u0026rsquo;re just going to drop off and pursue something else.\nAnd it says more about them and their interest in their skills and abilities in this thing to just persist for that long. Um, rather than it just being around a simple number and that anyone, anyone can do it,\n. So I think it\u0026rsquo;s interesting now to hear from about what Tim Ferriss has to say. Um, cause again, he has some interesting thoughts and critiques about the 10,000 hour rule.\nTim Ferriss on the 10,000 Hour Rule # if you are through God-given skill, uh, capable of becoming the best in the world at X, I have, I feel typically people in the. Early on. I mean, if you\u0026rsquo;re tiger woods and you\u0026rsquo;re, you\u0026rsquo;re you\u0026rsquo;re instead of drawing pirate ships, you\u0026rsquo;re drawing trajectories of different irons.\nI\u0026rsquo;m not kidding. I saw this drawing. It\u0026rsquo;s like, yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s not normal. That\u0026rsquo;s not normal. Uh, but for most, for most people, I feel like they have the capacity to be exceptionally good in the top 5% in the world in many different areas, but they may not have, or be able to identify the raw attributes.\nAre going to push them into, you know, bobsledding because there are only so many things that you can try. Uh, and, and, and for me, I just to, to try to become, I could try to become perfect in Japanese, which of course will never happen because I\u0026rsquo;m not, I won\u0026rsquo;t be perfect in English, uh, or I could, I could get to the point where I can converse like this in maybe, you know, 20 languages by the end of my life.\nAnd it\u0026rsquo;s just more appealing\nI thought that was really interesting that Tim said, you know, most people can be pretty good at most things. Uh, you know, it\u0026rsquo;s just about deciding which ones and we can\u0026rsquo;t sample all of them. So I\u0026rsquo;m just going to pick a few and do it that way. And then I liked what he said about that. He, he thinks that becoming the best in the world at something is, is something that, you know, early on.\nAnd it\u0026rsquo;s something that he personally is not really that interested in doing it. You know, like with the language example, you know, he\u0026rsquo;d rather be. Conversational in many languages rather than, or really deep specialist on one language.\nI thought that was an interesting idea way, rather than, you know, Good at a lot of things rather than really good at one particular thing. And that\u0026rsquo;s what we\u0026rsquo;re going to talk about now is this idea of range and range. Is this idea that kind of, um, P like partially runs counter to the 10,000 hour idea.\nBut what we\u0026rsquo;re talking about now is, well, we\u0026rsquo;ve previously discussed, you know, music and chess. And how people that. Uh, successful in these fields have been working at them really hard for, for 10 years.\nAnd what we\u0026rsquo;re going to talk about now is more of a Tim Ferriss kind of approach, where instead of being really specifically, really good at one specific thing, we\u0026rsquo;re going to be kind of good at at more things and see how that, uh, that approach plays out. And, and someone has done a lot of research on this, on this idea of range Is David Epstein. And so he has a book called range. It\u0026rsquo;s a range, David Epstein. It\u0026rsquo;s a fantastic book. It\u0026rsquo;s one of my favorite books. And I\u0026rsquo;ve mentioned it in some of the podcasts episodes that I\u0026rsquo;ve done, we\u0026rsquo;re going to skip to him in a second. And he\u0026rsquo;s going to explain this idea and kind of how he, how he thinks about it.\nAnd, and it really one of the, one of the, one of the main examples that he uses to describe this idea.\nRange - The Tiger v Roger Problem # Okay. Build out Roger versus target. Cause there\u0026rsquo;s a beautifully simple way of illustrating this argument.\nOkay. So tiger woods, probably even, even for people who don\u0026rsquo;t know his story, you\u0026rsquo;ve probably absorbed at least the gist of it, which is seven months old. His father gives him a putter, not trying to train him to be a golfer, but just gives them a putter. He starts carrying it around in his baby Walker. At 10 months, he starts imitating a swing.\nHe was physically precocious, two years old. He\u0026rsquo;s on national television. Two years old, the CDC development benchmarks are stands on tiptoes and kicks a ball. And he went on television. Showed is driving off in front of Bob hope basically. Um, by three, his father was media training him. Um, at four, he started hustling people, basically, you know, he\u0026rsquo;s famous as a teenager by 21.\nHe\u0026rsquo;s the greatest golfer in the world. Roger Fetter, maybe the most famous development story in the history of anything. Um, Roger Fetter, meanwhile played about a dozen different spas, skiing, skateboarding, badminton, tennis, basketball, soccer, all these things. Um, mother was a tennis coach, refuse to coach him because he wouldn\u0026rsquo;t return balls.\nNormally she said it was no fun. Um, when his coach has tried to bump him up a level, he declined because he just wanted to talk about pro wrestling with his friends after practice. Uh, when he finally got good enough to warrant an interview with a local newspaper and the reporter asked him if he ever became a pro, what he would buy with his first paycheck, he said a Mercedes and his mother was appalled and asked if she could hear.\nYeah, interview recording. And he\u0026rsquo;d actually said mirror CDs and a Swiss German accent, you can just want it more CDs. And, and so then she was like, okay, we\u0026rsquo;re doing okay. His father had no rules just said, don\u0026rsquo;t cheat, don\u0026rsquo;t care, anything else? And he specialized year, he continued playing badminton, basketball, soccer, specialized years after, um, Roger Federer really only playing tennis.\nUm, mid-teen years basically, where he\u0026rsquo;s only doing tennis, but he still continues to non formally play soccer, even when he\u0026rsquo;s doing that. Um, and, and other informal sports continues with them even after that. Um, and the question basically was which one of these models is the norm. Like which one should we extrapolate from\nSome really interesting ideas there from David and this racer to the shed is, is really, really important, important for us. And when he talks about, you know, which, uh, which of these two scenarios should we extrapolate from kind of build our lives around, one of the common mainstream ideas is really this early specialization, 10,000 hours rule, right. Where we\u0026rsquo;ve got a specialized early like tiger woods. I mean, that\u0026rsquo;s maybe too early. He\u0026rsquo;s special. Lucky\u0026rsquo;s he knows this is going to be a golfer from when he\u0026rsquo;s quite young. Uh, you know, when he\u0026rsquo;s like a couple months old, basically.\nYou know, should we take this approach where early specialization or should we wait and do sort of more of the Roger Federer approach where we play around with a bunch of different things, and then we specialize lighter. You know, it\u0026rsquo;s an interesting, interesting idea. And one that I spoke about with Adam Ashton on episode 12 of the podcast, and he is his thoughts on this idea of range compared to the 10,000 hour rule.\nAdam Ashton on Range # Adam Ashton: The, yeah, so for me there was a real eye-opener and just seeing him. The specialist and the, and the generalist. Rebranded it into like going wide versus going deep. Like, yeah, if you want to S if there is an area that you want to specialize in and it does make sense that it is like more of a golf or more of a chess type of profession, where there is a clear.\nAnswering a clear way to do it. The way to achieve success is to be the best person at that, which means working the hardest at that one niche should a field and getting going really, really deep. And the books that kind of link with that is like that outliers by Malcolm Gladwell, talking about Anders Ericsson\u0026rsquo;s the 10,000 hours rule saying like that the violent violinists who had practiced for 10,000 hours achieved mastery So it\u0026rsquo;s saying, okay, if you want to go deep in something, get your 10,000 hours work really hard. Work more than everybody else learn more than everybody else achieve better things than everybody else. We also kind of LinkedIn grit by Angela Duckworth saying that, okay, well, along the path, it\u0026rsquo;s going to be bloody tough.\nSo you need a bit of grit to get through. You need to be picking the right thing to go deep at, and then using grit to get through to those 10,000 hours. And really the end of that journey, you do become a master in your field and you do become successful. If that\u0026rsquo;s the path that you choose. And it\u0026rsquo;s a very viable path to success, but it\u0026rsquo;s not the only path to success.\nI think a lot of people probably think that is the only path is to work really, really hard at one thing and become the best at that. But there is another way to achieving success, which is going wide, the generalist approach which we like the books range. As I said by David Epstein and originals by Adam Grant saying that it\u0026rsquo;s not just the one who works the hardest.\nMaybe it\u0026rsquo;s the one who\u0026rsquo;s done. Two years in this three years in this two years over here, another four years over here. And at the time it kind of looks like a weird path They\u0026rsquo;re jumping around from different things. They\u0026rsquo;re learning different skills that seem somewhat unrelated at the time, but then sort of magically at the end, they come around to this point where they find the intersection of all these different skills.\nThey find the synergies, they find the ways to stack all these things together so that they become the best in this one sort of niche intersection of all these different things that nobody else could possibly do. Because they haven\u0026rsquo;t built up all the different skills. And yeah, as you say, you\u0026rsquo;ve probably a bit more biased towards that.\nCause that\u0026rsquo;s kind of the path you\u0026rsquo;re on and that\u0026rsquo;s definitely made as well. But I think that it holds a lot of merit and I think that just knowing that there is a different path rather than just the peak one thing and work really hard at it, knowing that there is, if you do want to jump around from different things, make sure don\u0026rsquo;t just like jump around, quit something.\nCause you don\u0026rsquo;t like it, then try something else and quit it. Cause you don\u0026rsquo;t like it. You need that bit of intentionality around it around what different skills are you building? That then one day at the end. It seems like you might be a failure at the start. And then at the end you magically have stacked all these different things together to achieve your, your different.\nSo Adam did a great job. They\u0026rsquo;re breaking this problem down into kind of the specialists best vested generalist. So the specialist is kind of the tiger woods and the generalist is more of a Roger Federer type approach. And that\u0026rsquo;s not to say that the generalist doesn\u0026rsquo;t have actual skills cause certainly Roger Federer is still the best in the world of tennis, but he has more of that background.\nWhereas tiger woods is still sort of only a golfer. Whereas Roger Federer could probably play a few other sports and still be quite good. And so I want to dive into this idea further, you know, and, and, and the reasons why specifically this range idea and the idea of having some broader experiences.\nIs it a better approach than specializing early? Okay. Cause there are quite a few and we\u0026rsquo;re going to go through them now. So the first of these is something that David Epstein calls match quality.\nAnd then we\u0026rsquo;re going to talk about how, uh, long-term success requires a broad base. So, you know, being able to succeed in the long term requires a broad, um, you know, range of experiences. And the most is going to talk about, you know, short term thinking and how this plays out.\nIn the, in the context of range. So again, we\u0026rsquo;re going to hear from David a lot throughout and we\u0026rsquo;re going to hear from, from Malcolm Gladwell as well, who\u0026rsquo;s the guy behind the 10,000 hour rule.\nApplications - Match Quality # Uh, and the first thing we\u0026rsquo;re going to dive into is this idea of a match quality. And so a match quality is decided.\nYou know, let\u0026rsquo;s say, I, I play a sport, I play soccer and I start playing and I don\u0026rsquo;t really know which position I\u0026rsquo;m best at. So maybe I\u0026rsquo;m a good goalkeeper. Maybe I\u0026rsquo;m a good defender. Maybe I\u0026rsquo;m a good striker at another site. Maybe I start off as a defender. Yeah, I kind of go. Okay. Um, you know, maybe a specialist approach would be start as a defender the best way to be good as a defendant is just to deploy.\nOnly as a defender and get better. And the reason why I\u0026rsquo;m not good at it, it\u0026rsquo;s just because I haven\u0026rsquo;t spent enough time doing it, but alternatively, we can take the range approach and play a few different positions in the team, work out where the highest match quality of myself would be. So that might mean I play in the midfield applies.\nI play, uh, you know, scoring the goals and, and then from there we can say, okay, which of these was the best stat. Now we can start to specialize and start to take things a bit more serious. Then now that I\u0026rsquo;ve experienced a different variety of, you know, I\u0026rsquo;ve experienced the game more fully in the I\u0026rsquo;ve, I\u0026rsquo;ve seen what it\u0026rsquo;s like to be a defender.\nI\u0026rsquo;ve seen what it\u0026rsquo;s like to be a midfield. I\u0026rsquo;ve seen what it\u0026rsquo;s like to be a striker. I can put the position I\u0026rsquo;m in, in the broader context of the game. I understand all the different roles. And now I\u0026rsquo;ve also worked out where my skill was best suited. Okay. So let\u0026rsquo;s say I play as a striker and I find out that I\u0026rsquo;m really good at scoring goals.\nI can, you know, I can score goals quite easily. Okay. Then we\u0026rsquo;ve worked out that my match quality for being a strike is very high. I\u0026rsquo;m like, um, my skills and attributes, uh, matched are very high match for being. And so that\u0026rsquo;s what sampling allows you to do is it allows me to work out okay. Which position in the team am I actually best up and, and, you know, and, and then we can go from there.\nAnd so this is the first thing we\u0026rsquo;re going to talk about it. And David has his explanation on this year.\nSo having seen this sort of surprising pattern in sports and music, I started to wonder about domains that affect even more people like. And the economist found a natural experiment in the higher ed systems of England and Scotland in the period.\nHe studied the systems were very similar except in England. Students had to specialize in their mid-teen years to pick a specific course of study to apply towards in Scotland. They could keep trying things in university if they wanted to. And his question was who wins the trade-off the early or the late specializes.\nAnd what he saw was that the early specializes jump out to an income lead because they have more domain specific. The late specializes, get to try more different things. And when they do pick, they have better fit or what economists called match quality. And so their growth rates are faster by six years out, they erase that income gap.\nMeanwhile, the early specializes start quitting their career tracks in much higher numbers, essentially because they were made to choose so early that they more often made poor choices. So the late specializes losing the short-term and wind in the long run. I think if we thought about career choice, like dating, we might not pressure people to settle down quite so.\nReally interesting to hear that early specializes actually, you know, uh, less likely to enjoy what they do and like less likely to continue doing that thing. Um, whereas people that specialize later or choose the thing that they\u0026rsquo;re going to do to a deeper level later end up earning more and end up persevering more down that road as well, really, really interesting stuff.\nApplications - Long Term Success Requires a Broad Base # And the next part we want to talk about today is how success like building successful long-term success requires building a broad base, and then this idea we\u0026rsquo;re going to go deeper into.\nThis specialization, vest, general specialists and generalists ideas. Um, we\u0026rsquo;re going to understand that there are two kinds of environments. One is called a kind environment, and these are things like chess and music\nwe\u0026rsquo;re specializing early is actually beneficial. The tasks are repetitive. Uh, the tasks can kind of be easily automated. Um, and it and practice is really, you need to practice at that thing. Quite a lot. The rules are quite, um, well-defined, you know, things are quite, uh, set out quite well. Whereas if we look at wicked environment and this is what David Epstein calls, wicked invited.\nThese are environments where the rules are that clear things are constantly changing all the time. It\u0026rsquo;s not really a set field of play this, the stuff happening. Like the rules are changing. The game is changing all the time and, and in each of these environments, there\u0026rsquo;s certain strategies that work better.\nSo in a kind environment, things like. Uh, golf music in these environments. You know, the early specialization method is something that is, is, it is really useful and it isn\u0026rsquo;t necessary to achieve a high level of. But in environments that are wicked, the environments where the game is less well-defined, that\u0026rsquo;s where it\u0026rsquo;s important to have more of a breath, because you\u0026rsquo;re going to be applying skills in unique and novel ways.\nAnd so it\u0026rsquo;s important that you then have a larger amount of experiences, a larger amount of different experiences to draw on rather than just the same set of experiences. But yeah, here is that Epstein explaining this concept in more detail.\nLike, there was some recent research from LinkedIn that showed like people who become successful executives.\nOne of the best predictors is the number of job functions they\u0026rsquo;ve worked across within an industry. Or again, to go to this obsession with precocity when mark Zuckerberg was 22 and he said, young people are just smarter and MIT, Northwestern. And the census bureau just has research out showing that the average age of a founder of a blockbuster startup on the day of founding, not even when it becomes a blockbuster is about 46.\nYeah. Um, but like the tiger story, we just focus on the Zuckerberg story, but actually people have to zigzag usually quite a bit before they find that grant, because the goal isn\u0026rsquo;t initially clear, like it is in kind learning environments\nApplications - Short Term Thinking # David also has some thoughts on planning your career with this kind of mindset. Like if we are saying, okay, we\u0026rsquo;re going to try a bunch of different stuff. How does this actually work in terms of planning? You know, how do we go about thinking about things like a five or a 10 year plan and then kind of a longterm vision for our career and kind of the things that we want to be doing, the problems that we want to be solving for the longterm.\nAnd David simply says that from. He\u0026rsquo;s he\u0026rsquo;s purely a short-term thinker. He doesn\u0026rsquo;t actually consider much in the long-term and the short-term thinking and jumping to the kind of the thing that he\u0026rsquo;s most interested in or the next, you know, allows him to just naturally create this range along the way, and naturally allows him to have unique and really cool experiences.\nBut here\u0026rsquo;s him talking about it now?\nOne program, um, that I learned about was researching it\u0026rsquo;s called career academies that targets kids who, you know, are, are by traditional measures, not, not really headed to college and give them some sort of vocational training, basic or early exposure to types of work.\nAnd surprisingly, even when they often do not decide to go in to do anything with that career, they still do better overall, like in income wise, going to do something totally, totally different. And I think a little bit of that has to do again, they\u0026rsquo;re getting more significant sort of signal about themselves and about match quality than you often do in traditional classes.\nYeah. Yeah. When is, um, speaking of match quality, uh, presumably you can keep saying. Forever. I mean, I have no idea what I\u0026rsquo;m gonna do when I grew up. I literally have no idea what I\u0026rsquo;m gonna do now. Like no idea. I mean, when I was a teenager, I thought was gonna be the air force academy, be a test pilot and be an astronaut.\nAnd I\u0026rsquo;ve gotten like linearly less long-term goal directed. I don\u0026rsquo;t know whether, um, uh, whether you\u0026rsquo;re your particular position right now as a best-selling author is generalizable to the general public. Oh no. I mean, but, but this was in the, the, the, the dark horse project in the book, the common trait of people who find fulfillment in their careers, is it focused on short-term planning.\nAnd that resonated with me so much such that I ended up as a subject in the study, which I disclosed in the book. Um, what they do is they all came in and would say, well, you know, don\u0026rsquo;t tell people to do what I did. I came through this weird path where I thought I was going to do one thing. And then I tried, I didn\u0026rsquo;t like it.\nSo Zig and zag and, and they all view themselves as having come out of nowhere, which is why the researchers called it, the dark horse project and their common trait is this short-term planning where they don\u0026rsquo;t look around and say, here\u0026rsquo;s, who\u0026rsquo;s younger than me and has more than me. They say, here\u0026rsquo;s who I am right now.\nHere are my skills and interests. Here are the opportunities in front of me. I\u0026rsquo;ll try this one. Here\u0026rsquo;s my hypothesis about what I\u0026rsquo;ll learn. And a year from now I\u0026rsquo;ll change because I will have learned something new and they just do that until they get to a spot where they can kind of uniquely succeed and feel fulfilled.\nAnd so I\u0026rsquo;ve totally abandoned that, that longer-term planning in favor of these short-term proactive experiments. And, and why would you have to stop? You can keep doing that your whole life.\nReally interesting stuff there from David this idea of short-term planning almost runs a little bit contrary to modern career advice or, you know, things where it\u0026rsquo;s like, you know, plan out the next five years and then, you know, work out where you went from there, plan your next one year.\nAnd then from there plan this\u0026rsquo;ll this or whatever, like, and, you know, everyone wants to have that sense of security almost of, you know, where that kind of general life direction is headed. But I think this is really interesting, um, for him to raise that, you know, that a lot of people that actually find.\nYou know, success and fulfillment, et cetera. I really only thinking about what is the next best thing for them to do. And then that doesn\u0026rsquo;t necessarily have to be in the same field or in the same, in the same industry or whatever it might be. But, you know, jumping around and pursuing exciting opportunities is, is.\nYou know, is encouraged and it\u0026rsquo;s not necessarily the case where w where was saying, you know, disregard all else and continue down the path of specialization that you\u0026rsquo;re on. Cause, um, certainly it sounds like certainly from the research has shed, that\u0026rsquo;s not the most effective.\nApplication - Skill Intersections # Another really, really interesting piece to come out of this whole concept is this idea of skill stacking.\nAnd this is something that I spoke about with, uh, with Dan Brockwell and episode 15 of the podcast. We were talking about the benefits of range and kind of when you have these skills, It\u0026rsquo;s similar to what Tim Ferriss was talking about earlier in this episode where we\u0026rsquo;ve got certain skills booked up to a certain point, we might not necessarily be the best in the world at either at each of these individually, but if we can bond them together, then we can create something really special.\nAnd his dad explaining this for us.\nDan: Scott Adams was, you know what? He was a funny guy. He could tell jokes, but he wasn\u0026rsquo;t the world\u0026rsquo;s best. He was a decent, honest, he could draw, but he wasn\u0026rsquo;t the world\u0026rsquo;s best, you know, artists. And he worked in kind of like in a corporate culture and offices and all that, but like, it wasn\u0026rsquo;t like the best corporate worker, but the intersection of those three things allowed him to create a really unique intersection.\nIt allowed him to create like a humorous comic about office culture and. So just by being better than average at several things, he found the intersection of those things and then was able to get a really big win on the board. And so when it comes to being a generalist, like, okay, the range thesis, and I haven\u0026rsquo;t read Ryan trust.\nSo forgive me if I misinterpreted the thesis, I think like, yes, like it\u0026rsquo;s great. Like start off early, explore a lot of things, but you\u0026rsquo;ll find some things that you more naturally gravitate towards or some things that really, you really enjoy things really energize you. I think the magic comes from finding like, Two to three things you\u0026rsquo;re best at maybe three to four and thinking about, okay, what\u0026rsquo;s the intersection of those.\nAnd when I say best at it could be a skill or it could be an knowledge about a certain area. So maybe you\u0026rsquo;ve spent a lot of time in the sustainability space. Like you\u0026rsquo;ve been working on sustainability and maybe you also love making tick talks, right? As in like, you know, you\u0026rsquo;re a very avid users of social media.\nYou\u0026rsquo;re, you\u0026rsquo;re good at like, you know, short form content creation and go to doing funny stuff. You might then create like a sustainability Tik TOK channel. So it\u0026rsquo;s about like, I always think about intersections intersections in. Every person has such a beautiful, rich and complex story in a life. And we will all encounter different things and we\u0026rsquo;ll all be great at certain things.\nAnd so it\u0026rsquo;s like, how do you just tap into, you know, what your strengths are and combine them into? I think what\u0026rsquo;s a unique offering that no, one else can do it because no.\none else has you like James, you\u0026rsquo;re the best at being you, James specifically, there are other good James is. I don\u0026rsquo;t want to insult them.\nI have several friends named James But I, I think it\u0026rsquo;s such a, it\u0026rsquo;s such a fascinating pace that, right.\nReally interesting insights there from Dan. And it\u0026rsquo;s a great way to think about your career, right? And in terms of what are the things that I\u0026rsquo;m both interested in and good at, and where\u0026rsquo;s the intersection between those things. Um, and you know, what is something unique that I can provide to the world and it, and if you can think about those things, uh, you know, and, and perhaps grow certain skills, then you can really build something that is quite unique.\nAnd it\u0026rsquo;s something that only you can do. And so I thought that\u0026rsquo;s really good. And, uh, and that, that is enough. Another element of this, this idea of range and building a set of broad experiences so that we can bring unique insights and things that differentiate us into new areas.\nEarly Specialisation can be counter-productive # We\u0026rsquo;re coming close to the end of this episode now, and I want to finish off with a piece from David Epstein\u0026rsquo;s, Ted talk on this topic, and I\u0026rsquo;ll highly recommend watching the Ted talk and lots of the other content that I\u0026rsquo;ve shared.\nIf, if you\u0026rsquo;d like to go deeper on this concept, but. In this last pace he talks about.\nHow often in society, we are kind of pressured to become specialists early. You know, we\u0026rsquo;re often we\u0026rsquo;re told, you know, go and do this thing and, and become really great as fast as possible in this one specific area when in reality, what the world needs and what is often a better approach is to sample many different.\nUm, pursue multiple different things. And then, um, and then that way you\u0026rsquo;ll be able to see new new problems in unique ways. And you\u0026rsquo;ll be able to make the world a better place. Yeah. Here is David Epstein in his Ted talk.\nI think in the well-meaning drive for a headstart, we often even counter productively. Short-circuit even the way we learn new material at a fundamental level in study last year, seventh grade math class. In the U S were randomly assigned to different types of learning. Some got what\u0026rsquo;s called blocked practice.\nThat\u0026rsquo;s like you get problem type a BBB BB. And so on. Progress is fast. Kids are happy. Everything\u0026rsquo;s great. Other classrooms got assigned to what\u0026rsquo;s called interleaved practice. That\u0026rsquo;s like if you took all the problem types and threw them in a hat and drew them out at random progress is slower. Kids are more frustrated.\nBut instead of learning how to execute procedures, they\u0026rsquo;re learning how to match a strategy to a type of problem. And when the test comes around, the interleave group blew the block practice group away. Wasn\u0026rsquo;t even close. Now I\u0026rsquo;ve found a lot of this research, deeply counterintuitive, the idea that a headstart, whether in picking a career or a course of study, or just in learning new material can sometimes undermine longterm.\nAnd naturally, I think there are as many ways to succeed as there are people, but I think we tend to only to incentivize and encourage the tiger path when increasingly in a wicked world, we need people who traveled the Roger path as well, or as the eminent physicist and mathematician and wonderful writer, Freeman Dyson put it, and he Dyson passed away yesterday.\nSo I hope I\u0026rsquo;m doing his words honor here. As he said, for a healthy ecosystem, we need both birds and. Frogs are down in the mud, seeing all the granular details, the birds are soaring up above not seeing those details, but integrating the knowledge of the frogs. And we need both. The problem Dyson said is that we\u0026rsquo;re telling everyone to become frogs.\nAnd I think in a wicked world, that\u0026rsquo;s increasingly short-sighted. Thank you very much\nSo then we go, I think that\u0026rsquo;s a nice note to end this episode on. Specializing early can be useful. I mean, need people that do that, but certainly if you, if you aren\u0026rsquo;t specializing early and you\u0026rsquo;re taking more of the range route at taking in a diverse range of experiences in your career, that is certainly a very valid path to take.\nOutro # I want to thank you so much for listening to this episode today. It\u0026rsquo;s been great., being able to share this with you. If you did enjoy this episode. Give it a, like, give it a share., and what you can do is you can subscribe to the Graduate Theory newsletter at graduatetheory dot com, where you can get emails every single week with at, with each episode and my takeaways.\n, thanks again for listening to this episode today, and we\u0026rsquo;ll see you next week.\n← Back to episode 28\n","date":"2 May 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/graduate-theory/28-on-the-specialist-vs-generalist-dilemna/transcript/","section":"Graduate Theory Transcripts","summary":"← Back to episode 28\nThis transcript has been lightly edited for readability. It may still contain transcription errors.\nEpisode Intro # hello and welcome to Graduate Theory. Today. I’ve got a little bit of a different episode for you. An interesting thought exercise about careers is how to maximize your career potential. Some problems that we have when we start off Korea things like what, how do I know if what I’m doing is, is what I’m meant to be doing?. Am I doing something that, that is really matched to my skillset. Am I going to kind of maximize my potential by doing this thing long into the future?\n","title":"Transcript: On the Specialist vs Generalist Dilemma","type":"graduate-theory-transcripts"},{"content":" Watch the conversation Graduate Theory Open YouTube ↗ Read the full transcript → Good morning Graduates!\nThis is episode #27 of Graduate Theory. Rarely do we ever see behind the scenes of HR and what it takes to make it through competitive Graduate recruitment processes.\nToday, your questions will be answered.\nDon\u0026rsquo;t miss the newsletter, subscribe now 👇\nSubscribe Now\nKerry Callenbach has worked in HR for over 18 years in professional services, banking, health , sports and tech. A former nurse and professional athlete, she is passionate about developing people to be their best.\n👇 Episode Takeaways # Do Something Different # When applying for roles and creating your resume, a great way to stand out is to do something different to the masses.\nthere\u0026rsquo;s so many incredible resume templates, you know, on, on places like Canva and they\u0026rsquo;re all for free, right. And Microsoft in amazing templates, but guess what? They\u0026rsquo;re also available to everyone else.\nIf you\u0026rsquo;re really keen on a role, consider doing something different from the norm.\nUse the company colours somewhere on the page, submit something a little different. It may be what you need to get to the next step.\nMistakes Graduates Make in Applications # Kerry had some great insights into what mistakes graduates commonly make during the recruitment process 👇\nnot tailoring your application to the company not being prepared to have a conversation with a recruiter not contributing during group assessments not preparing for interviews Weather Chat Is Important # Often when you\u0026rsquo;re about to interview, there\u0026rsquo;s some weather chat. It can be a little bit awkward.\nKerry says to embrace this and to understand that building rapport in these situations is a really important skill to have.\nso that\u0026rsquo;s really important that walk to the interview room or when you log on for a virtual interview. Be comfortable to have some of those icebreaker discussions, things like, you know, Hey, how\u0026rsquo;s it going? How\u0026rsquo;s your week been? What\u0026rsquo;s been keeping you busy? What have you got planned for the Easter weekend?\nAll of those conversations points are actually relationship building conversation starters, right. And that\u0026rsquo;s really, really important whether you work in consulting, whether you work in a product company. The being able to converse and communicate with others and build rapport and relationships is really important. So don\u0026rsquo;t underestimate the importance and the impact that having weather chat conversation starters is in an intense\nBe Kind To Yourself # As a Graduate, we want to do well. We want to jump right into the thick of things and impress.\nKerry says that it\u0026rsquo;s important to be kind to yourself and understand that this level of intensity cannot continue forever.\nDon\u0026rsquo;t put too much pressure on yourself to succeed straight away, play the long game and don\u0026rsquo;t stress yourself out if things aren\u0026rsquo;t happening as quickly as you\u0026rsquo;d like.\nWhat Makes a Successful Graduate # Kerry had these things to say about what makes a successful graduate\nBe Kind To Yourself Be curious Be open to feedback Be willing to collaborate Get the breadth, but don\u0026rsquo;t forget the depth Get the Newsletter\n🤝 Connect with Kerry # https://www.linkedin.com/in/kerry-calle/\nkerry.callenbach AT mantelgroup.com.au\n📝 Content Timestamps # 00:00 Kerry Callenbach\n00:19 Intro\n01:26 Kerry having 20,000+ applications at Deloitte\n03:33 What does the application process typically look like?\n06:48 How many people actually get to the final interview stage from the initial application process?\n10:26 What steps can people take to improve their application?\n14:47 Tailor Your Application\n16:51 What Mistakes do Graduates make when applying for roles?\n22:56 Traits of Successful Graduates\n30:42 What would Kerry change about Graduate Programs?\n34:38 Kerry\u0026rsquo;s Advice for Graduates\n38:24 Contact Kerry\n39:24 Outro\n","date":"25 April 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/graduate-theory/27-kerry-callenbach/","section":"Graduate Theory","summary":" Watch the conversation Graduate Theory Open YouTube ↗ Read the full transcript → Good morning Graduates!\nThis is episode #27 of Graduate Theory. Rarely do we ever see behind the scenes of HR and what it takes to make it through competitive Graduate recruitment processes.\n","title":"On Finding and Thriving in Your Dream Graduate Role with Kerry Callenbach","type":"graduate-theory"},{"content":"← Back to episode 27\nThis transcript has been lightly edited for readability. It may still contain transcription errors.\nKerry: As a graduate or someone early near Korea, that your, your job is, is to learn right. And to learn from others. So I think being open and comfortable with feedback is also a really, really important one as well\nIntro # James: Hello, and welcome to Graduate Theory. Today\u0026rsquo;s guest has worked in HR for over 18 years in professional services, banking,\nhealth, sports, and now tech\nshe\u0026rsquo;s a former nurse\nand professional athlete and passionate about developing people to be their best. Please\nwelcome Carrie kallenbach.\nKerry: Hi, James water. What have intro? I was wondering whether you were\nreally talking about maiden.\nJames: No, it\u0026rsquo;s amazing what you\u0026rsquo;ve managed to achieve. And\ncertainly like you\u0026rsquo;ve had exposure in human resources across a wide\nnumber of domains\nand had some\nreally interesting experiences that I\u0026rsquo;m excited to chat to you about today.\nA place I wanted to start was you were telling me before the episode, That you used to walk into Deloitte and you\u0026rsquo;re in the Australia, like managing the work across australia and we had one year where you saved 20,000 applications for graduate positions. I\u0026rsquo;d love to just dive into this story.\nAnd then here you have crazy. That was and just all the aspects of this.\nYeah, I\u0026rsquo;d love\nto hear, you know, what, what\nyear was\nKerry having 20,000+ applications at Deloitte # Kerry: What a great place to start.\nSo I started I\nworked at Deloitte for,\nJust under 10 years or just story about around there and started being in graduate recruitment\nand, and\nsort of got to a point where I\u0026rsquo;m looking at from a national perspective for Deloitte Australia and I mean, big, full global consultancy.\nIt was a phenomenal place to be able to get a really good grounding on graduate\nrecruitment neoprene. Graduates play I guess, you know, in a work ecosystem and also some of the\nrichness that you\ncan get from being in, in be places like that, but being, be places like that does mean that it\u0026rsquo;s got a great brand and a great reputation.\nSo, you know,\nback then you\u0026rsquo;d\nbe out at the craze that you knew you\u0026rsquo;d be out of. Um, University society events, and we could all meet in person still.\nI think that\u0026rsquo;s starting to happen now and sorry, you would meet a lot of people along the way. And in that particular year,\nit was\nit was just a large\nintake year.\nI think. Bringing IIN. I want to say, I think it was around five or\n600 vacationers\nand graduates\nacross Australia. So that led\nto us, obviously having a really large number of applications as well. The Rawlings had changed as well recently with the international\nstudents, which\nmeant that\nnow we could actually\nlook at international students. With visas as well,\nwhich we hadn\u0026rsquo;t been able to\ndo before. So yes, we received\n20,000 just over 20,000 applications. And back then we had really\nstrict timelines as well. We open and\nclose\napplications.\nScreened them all by\ncertain date,\nwe\ntry to\nhonestly get them all done within three to four days.\nAnd then we would start our\nrecruitment process with it, with the group assessments. So it was a team, any Thai\nteam. They were a team of 12 of us and we would call \u0026rsquo;em\nup. Experienced interview is from each of the different service lines\nto come\nand help us screen or use applications. Sorry. Every single application gets looked at and rejected or.\nJames: Yeah. wow.\nKerry: So at the beginning of\nit.\nHow does the application process typically look? # James: So suddenly, wow. That\u0026rsquo;s pretty incredible. And then kind of, what does that look like? Because there are all these steps\nnow kind of when you\u0026rsquo;re applying, where you get to go through like\nthe automated testing, like the video interview and that kind of\nstuff. So like, does, does everyone do those things or like\nhow does it kind of work in\nterms of narrowing people down?\nKind of, when did I\nstart getting kind of okay. Getting the nose or.\nKerry: Really good question. And I think the digitalization of\nrecruitment\nhas become far more prevalent in the last couple of\nyears with the introduction of things like video interviewing you know, you\ncomplete the, the, coding test before you,\nyou we\u0026rsquo;ll\ntalk to you know, all of those things\nand really what they are ultimately, it\u0026rsquo;s a\nscreening tool, right. It\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s a way to\nfilter candidates\nout. So every employer will look for\nsomething. Ron and the best way\nyou can determine what are they looking for is two things. When you jump on the website, most, most,\nemployee is a pretty transparent about what makes a\ngood candidate. What\nmakes someone successful in\ntheir company?\nSorry..Have a look at things like values or principles as well because attributes and\ncapabilities will be intrinsically tied\nback through behaviors to values or principles as well. So they\u0026rsquo;re really good. Starting places to go. What does good look\nlike? What are the\nthings that\nthey\u0026rsquo;re\ngoing to be screening\nfor or filtering for in an application? But ultimately it is that will be using it to determine\nwhether they take you through to the next step. So your first point is always your resume or your CV, right? I kind of say that\u0026rsquo;s like your invitation to, to come into someone\u0026rsquo;s house.\nIs,\nit,\nyou, you pop it in the postbox and that\u0026rsquo;s their determination. Hey, you know what I like what I\nsee, I\u0026rsquo;d like to, I\u0026rsquo;d like to pursue\nthis conversation. So the first thing I always say is, make sure you\u0026rsquo;ve\ngot a CV. Some people still ask for cover\nletters. I hope we might move on for that, but make sure they, they they\u0026rsquo;re tied back to the. The success factors or the values of the\nprinciples. Are you referring to\nthem in\nyour cover letter? Have you highlighted\nthem or where you may have\ndemonstrated them prior\nin, at\nuniversity, at your work\nat your volunteer at church at sport, make sure that they are tied back\ninto your\napplication. Once you\u0026rsquo;ve got through that one, obviously then you\u0026rsquo;ll then have your different.\nTo what people\nlook for. So whether it\u0026rsquo;s a coding test, whether it\u0026rsquo;s an interview\nwhether it is you know, a inbox, tray,\ninbox, tray, exercise, they will. all then\nbe filtering.\nYour application based upon your ability to perform or show attributes to a certain level. So\nfor example, in a video interview, there\u0026rsquo;ll be\nlooking for communication skills.\nHow do you think on your fate, how you know, or they might\nask specific behavioral\nquestions. so it\u0026rsquo;s basically trying to\nshorten the all, you know, are you the, the time that they would spend to at a later point by looking in assessing\nthose attributes earlier on Does that kind of help. So I think\nthat the process will depend on the employer, right?\nBut each stage\nis ultimately a filtering or a screening\nscreening process for those attributes and capabilities, both technical\nand behavioral\nHow many people actually get to the final interview stage from the initial application process? # James: Yeah. Yeah. Cool. And what\u0026rsquo;s what kind of numbers,\nlike, I\u0026rsquo;m just curious, like, would we, would we be talking about in terms of\nlike how many people\nlet\u0026rsquo;s say percentages, maybe I getting positive video interview into them? Cause I\u0026rsquo;m guessing somebody, usually\nsome kind of group assessment then,\nor\nlike some kind of more\npersonal\nexperience once you\u0026rsquo;ve done Like that.\nLike how many people are kind of\ngetting to that stage?\nKerry: Yeah,\nthat.\nwas one of the most.\nso after questions or answers, I would get a lot on\ncampus. And here\u0026rsquo;s the reality\nE there is a number right. And it\nwill be determined on how\nmany places they\nhave in the program. So for example, if I take the 20,001, don\u0026rsquo;t quote me on\nthese. Exactly. And I can\u0026rsquo;t\nremember exactly how many they\nwere, but we would take, I think, you know, I\u0026rsquo;ll say 500 grads that year out of\n20,000\napplications would probably screen it down\nto about.\nAnd then from there\nwe would\nget a\nphone screen and we\nwould probably narrow that\ndown\nto\nmaybe seven, 600. Right. And then through there, you\u0026rsquo;d\nget the\nfiltering process\nthrough there, So every stage is cutoff and how that\u0026rsquo;s determined is generally from the\nprior year. So what happens\nyour team will sit down and say, oh, okay, last\nyear\nwe took 10 graduates.\nWe brought 20 people\nthrough the process cause we had a 50% decline rate. So knowing we have a 50% decline\nrate next year, we know we\u0026rsquo;re going to have to bring at\nleast\n20 candidates through. If we got. get 10 graduate CCS. So it is actually all based\nupon decline rates from previous\nseeds.\nJames: Yeah. That\u0026rsquo;s interesting. Yeah.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s interesting. Yeah.\nI mean,\nI don\u0026rsquo;t really\nlike some people I know that are out there, like getting\nmultiple offers\nand they\u0026rsquo;d have to decline these kinds\nof things. You\nknow, often, often people are kind of the reverse of that, web. if I have to have one that I\nlike, they get a yes at the end.\nBut no, I certainly,\nthat\u0026rsquo;s\ndefinitely something to think about.\nKerry: And look, that\u0026rsquo;s be a big\naccompanies. You\nsmell the companies might be a little\ndifferent, right? Smaller or medium size, just startups. They can be really\ndifferent. They\u0026rsquo;re they\u0026rsquo;re much more I used someone we can work\nwith. Right. And so the\ntechnical is important. Don\u0026rsquo;t get me wrong. But when you\u0026rsquo;ve got a\nsmaller\nteam where you go a smaller company working closely\nwith someone for eight, nine hours a\nday, you kind of want to\nknow,\nYou get along with them. Right. And, and I\u0026rsquo;m going to\nprefer\nmy, my. My, my boss at at mantle group, Caroline\nHinshaw has an\nairport\ntest and her airport\ntest\nis if you were stuck in an\nairport with that\nperson for four hours, would you want to just get on the first plane home or\nyou\u0026rsquo;d be like, cool. That\u0026rsquo;s\nokay. I feel really, really great about\nit. And I think when you\u0026rsquo;re\ngetting to a small place, that\nairport test is super important. So the bigger companies will use pharma.\nI think it\u0026rsquo;s sophisticated or advanced recruitment screening\nfiltering, and make it can be brutal. I\u0026rsquo;ll be really\nhonest.\nYou\nknow,\nwhat I mean? it wouldn\u0026rsquo;t get to the final point. It can come down\nto things such as attention to detail, grammar,\nspelling. On applications. I would always\nget\napplications where I would\nhave, you know, applying to Deloitte, but I\u0026rsquo;d have one of the other big four brand\nnames on it and that\u0026rsquo;s like height.\nRight.\nWe know you\u0026rsquo;re applying everywhere.\nAnd I think he\u0026rsquo;d\nbe pretty silly\nto think that people aren\u0026rsquo;t applying for multiple jobs, but ultimately if it then came down to two candidates, right. And\nboth had performed\nexceptionally well through the.\nprocess, you do have to go what what\u0026rsquo;s going\nto\nbe to\ndo.\nRight. And it kind of can come down. Unfortunately it can come\ndown\nto\nreally minor things like spelling and grammar and attention to detail.\nWhat steps can people take to improve their application? # James: Yeah. I\u0026rsquo;d love to continue that kind of what CA what things can people do to\nLike having pet a\nchance to get to\nthe end of sort of these processes, because you know, there is a\nlot of automation and things like that.\nNow, you know,\nwhat, like half the people\nkind of\nsit, like set themselves up\nthrough this\nprocess to have a\nbetter chance of getting into the end.\nKerry: Yeah,\nI think that is such a good point. And, and,\nand I think throughout my time in, and we\u0026rsquo;ve spoken about as well and why I\u0026rsquo;ve sort of done things a\nlittle bit\ndifferently at managerial groupies. I think sometimes we get a tendency. When you look at how many roles\nyou\nneed\nto recruit or bring through is we forget to humanize the process, right? And, and it\u0026rsquo;s brutal going through a\nrecruitment. It\u0026rsquo;s not\nnice. You have to you\nhave to stand there and talk about\nyourself and.\nyou know, put yourself up on a pedestal.\nAnd that\u0026rsquo;s not easy for a\nlot of people to do. And it\u0026rsquo;s not a natural thing. We\u0026rsquo;re not natural at talking\nabout ourselves to others to say how amazing we are. Right. It feels a\nbit funny. Sorry. I think a couple of things I would actually go my\nfirst one.\nGet comfortable with your own elevator pitch. Right? What is it? What is it why\nyou so think about how you\nwould talk about yourself and\nwhat you\u0026rsquo;re really good at or\nwhat you\u0026rsquo;re passionate about.\nYou know, or you to, to somewhat, so practice your\nelevator\npitch.\nThe best people you can do it too. Quite\nhonestly like your mom, your dad\npartner because they\u0026rsquo;ll give you the most brutal feedback, right? They\u0026rsquo;ve got nothing to lose. You\u0026rsquo;re still\ngoing to love them. Even\nif they say\nsomething cost. Sorry. I think that would be my first\npoint. The second one is see when you can, if\npossible.\nHumanized the process, go to events, go\nto meet ups, go to\nonline seminars, try to meet people\nfrom the company to get a bit of feel for it. I honestly,\nevery time we run a\nsort of campaign it I\u0026rsquo;ll, I\u0026rsquo;ll, get people from\nthe business\nmessage me. Hi, I just\nmet this person or this person reached out to me on LinkedIn. I had a really good chat\nwith them. And So you do you go, okay, great.\nYour Joe\u0026rsquo;s recommended James. So\nI\u0026rsquo;m going to have a\nlook for James\nhis application now. So\nreferral is always a\nreally, really good thing. So reach out, go go chat\nwith people from the company, go, to those events, go to those meet\nups\nand see if you can introduce yourself.\nWe\u0026rsquo;ll get\nto get to chat with someone from the company. I think the third one is Tyler, your\nreplication,\nright? Every company is different. Everyone is\nunique. And so really make sure that you represent that\nand you cover it up or\nyour application that you\u0026rsquo;ve demonstrated. You\u0026rsquo;ve done some\nresearch about the company, right?\nThat there\u0026rsquo;s an alignment\nbetween what they\ndo and\nwhat you want to do or where you want to\nwork.\nRight.\nAnd I think\nthat\u0026rsquo;s really, really\nimportant. So for example\nyou know, a bigger corporate company we\u0026rsquo;ll have\nyou traditional hierarchies and your structures and processes and policies\nin plights.\nIf someone was to write about how policies and\nhierarchies is really\nimportant for them to advance their career\nand they applied to manual. It wouldn\u0026rsquo;t work because we don\u0026rsquo;t have any\nof those things.\nI don\u0026rsquo;t have\nany HR policies. We have no performance\nreviews. We have no hierarchy. So you\u0026rsquo;ve got to tailor your\napplication to represent one. You\u0026rsquo;ve done some research, but actually it also\naligns to what\nyou\nwant to\ndo. That\u0026rsquo;s really, really important because we will look for those\nthings. So those annoying stock\nstandard\nquestions you have to\nput on an application, they get. They get.\nread, because it\nhelps us look to go, actually, you know\nwhat I can say that James actually is okay with a flat\nstructure or actually I can say James is\nself-motivated. So he\u0026rsquo;s not going to need KPIs\nin a performance review to, to guide him through. So there is things that are really, really.\nUltimately at the end of the day I won\u0026rsquo;t give absolute\nkudos to anyone who reaches out to me directly and says, can I chat? I\u0026rsquo;ve got a question I want to\nask.\nAnd look, I\u0026rsquo;m not might not get back to you\nstraight away. Follow\nup. Oh, wow. Right. Show you\npassion, show your DCS.\nAnd that would be my KTC elevate page.\nGo go out, meet people, humanize the\nprocess\nfor you And them, right. And then yet tailor your\napplication to reflect that you\u0026rsquo;ve done your research And then it does truly align with what you want to\ndo and how you want to.\nTailor Your Application # James: Yeah, I think that\u0026rsquo;s so important. Like tailoring your\napplication as well, because it can really separate.\nyou. Yeah.\nLike if you\u0026rsquo;re sending the same resume, for example, to all these\ndifferent companies. Whereas if\nhe had like I saw\nthis\nthing recently and\nsomeone had like made a new resume using the\ncolors\nof the company\u0026rsquo;s better platform.\nSo it was like a Spotify application and it had like\nthe grain,\nyou,\nknow, in certain places and like that gray\nthat\u0026rsquo;s\nthe dot Palo that\u0026rsquo;s on Spotify\nas well.\nI liked that. That would\njust do one bonus for you, right? Because it shows\nthat, Hey, you go\nKerry: Hundred percent. Yep. Hundred percent. If you\ncan stand out And look, you know, the challenge you\u0026rsquo;ve got is\nas well, there\u0026rsquo;s so many incredible resume templates, you\nknow, on, on places like can for things. And they\u0026rsquo;re all for free, right. And\nMicrosoft in amazing\ntemplates, but guess what? They\u0026rsquo;re also available to everyone else.\nRight. So if you\u0026rsquo;re using that amazing tip, like I\nguarantee you, other\npeople are using that tool.\nDo something really, really different. I\u0026rsquo;m thinking back\nto a time where,\nI had someone apply for a\nrole who sent their resume\nin,\nYou know, kept reverses the\nbox of chocolates\nand, and in each\nwrapper, Was an attribute that they thought\nthey had, right?\nSo you open up, um,\nso no chocolates\ninside dammit, But.\ninside\nwas, you know, like good communicator. I\u0026rsquo;m a good communicator. And now we\u0026rsquo;re\napplying for a role in, in\neducation. And\nthat emphasis was, teachers always get\nchocolates.\nIf you, you\nkeep your teacher a box of\nchocolates.\nAnd\nso her application\nwas well,\nhere\u0026rsquo;s\nmy box of chocolates to you.\nAnd I called her because I thought that was\nso\nclever. Right.\nIt was different. It\ncaught my attention. And I thought, this is someone I want to understand. I want\nto actually learn more about them\nbecause\nthis is so creative. And\nis creativity important to where I was working here at was\nso let\u0026rsquo;s chat.\nWhat Mistakes do Graduates make when applying for roles? # James: Yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s cool. That\u0026rsquo;s so cool. Um, what do you think are some mistakes that people make during this process?\nLike what are some things that you say that, uh, you know, people like it\u0026rsquo;s maybe easy things, you know, you would you\u0026rsquo;d improve so much if you fixed this thing. Is there anything that comes to mind?\nKerry: Yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s a good\nquestion. I\u0026rsquo;m sort of thinking, reflecting back on,\non kind of\nyou know, the. The is to say, what are some common mistakes or common\nthings that, I think all\nplays doctor that I think the big one would be is\nyet,\nI think we said, look, not tailoring the application. Right. Just wrong details,\nthings like that.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s just take the time\nto do that. I think the second\none would be, is not being prepared to have that conversation. Right.\nSo if you put in a\njob application, Expect to be cold, right. I think you should just expect to be\ncold.\nAnd so sometimes people answer the\nfarming and remember, that\u0026rsquo;s your\nfirst impression with your employer?\nRight? It\u0026rsquo;s It\u0026rsquo;s a horrible one, but it\nis. It\u0026rsquo;s your first impression to go?\nThis is me. I\u0026rsquo;m the elevator\npitch, so to speak. So be\nprepared to talk. Right. Because a lot of the time I you\nknow, I read sometimes I would\nspeak to people. Couldn\u0026rsquo;t couldn\u0026rsquo;t understand They\u0026rsquo;re like, where have I applied for?\nWhat do\nyou\ndo again?\nKind of thing. So it\u0026rsquo;s not a great\nfirst impression to make, So always be prepared if once you press\nsend,\nbeing ready to do elevator\npitch to it, my boss on that, if you\u0026rsquo;re\nnot ready, Right.\nMaybe.\nRight. Having, you, know, report, I know I\u0026rsquo;m getting ready\nfor fraud. I\ndon\u0026rsquo;t drink. So you, you, you study, right. And you\u0026rsquo;re in\nintense exam prep, right.\nJust say I\u0026rsquo;m So\nsorry. I\ncan\u0026rsquo;t talk right?\nnow. Is there\na time that I can\ncall you?\nThat is totally okay to do. Don\u0026rsquo;t worry. Don\u0026rsquo;t\npanic, but, but being\nready if you\u0026rsquo;re not ready to be okay to say I\u0026rsquo;m not ready right\nnow. Or, oh, I\u0026rsquo;m so sorry. I\u0026rsquo;m in the middle of something.\nSo I think that would be my biggest advice\nis it\u0026rsquo;s okay to say no, not now. The other one would be\nwhen you in the interview is or group\nassessment, particularly group assessment is you\u0026rsquo;ve got to control.\nRight. I, that was a number, one\nthing that used to always get people screened out\nis that they wouldn\u0026rsquo;t contribute.\nRight. And so what we want to say in a\ngroup\nassessment style thing\nis you\u0026rsquo;ll input your insight and your idea.\nRight. Whether they have brought a wrong\ndoesn\u0026rsquo;t\nnecessarily matter because you don\u0026rsquo;t get any assist for technical, It\u0026rsquo;s more the behavioral, the team\naspect, just you got to\ncollaborate and, and\ncontribute to that,\nIt was a number one\nways. And so that\nwould be my peak one. I will say a tip on that one\nis\noften perhaps if I had someone who\nwas really\ndominant in my group. Yep. You, you will. That will also happen in life, right?\nWhen you\u0026rsquo;re coming into a team or you go to a client meeting,\nthere\u0026rsquo;s\nalways\nsomeone who\u0026rsquo;s a little bit more dominant or a little\nbit\nmore votes\nin, in putting forward.\nSo you deal with that. It might be a gate high look. That was a really great\nsuggestion,\nJames. Thanks for leading that.\ndiscussion.\nRight. You can still contribute in ways. So\nhave I think about\nthings such as input counteraction or recognition\nin group, all of those things you consider\ncollaboration and contribution. I think the final one would been interview, be\nprepared, practice. Correct. Uh, Con I honestly can\u0026rsquo;t emphasize this enough\nis to actually sit down and\npractice interviewing and talking about yourself and drawing\nupon\nexamples from your\nlife work uni sport,\nwherever. To reflect what you\u0026rsquo;ve done. Okay. Or how\nyou\u0026rsquo;ve got particular skills or attributes and do your research about a company.\nI still, honestly, I\nthink every single\ntime we still, get people, I\ndon\u0026rsquo;t know what you\ndo. I\u0026rsquo;m not\nsure exactly what,\nwhat, what that company does or what are the different things? The\nbrands you\u0026rsquo;ve\ngot, so\nresearch, right. You\u0026rsquo;ll get a, you\u0026rsquo;ll get an invite in your jar or you\u0026rsquo;ll\nget\nadvance notice if you\u0026rsquo;ve got to interview. be prepared to talk and be prepared to show what you know about that\ncompany as well.\nJames: Yeah, certainly that the preparation is great. And I think even with sign with the resume, tailoring it to. The company, and it\u0026rsquo;s important to understand if you\u0026rsquo;re getting to that stage, you know, what are the company\u0026rsquo;s values?\nLike? You know, you\u0026rsquo;ve got to know show a little bit of interest in\nKerry: The thing I\u0026rsquo;m going to\nsay, ease.\nAnd I get so\nnervous in\ninterviews, right? It\u0026rsquo;s a\nsuperficial. Environment and\ninterview, right? It\u0026rsquo;s like, place stand here for an hour and tell\nme\nhow\namazing you are.\nRight.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s we don\u0026rsquo;t do that\nevery day. So nerves\nand\nfeeling uncomfortable, I think are all really\nnormal feelings, right?\nWhen\nyou\ngo into an interview,\nbut remember it\u0026rsquo;s\nalso a\ntwo\nway conversation.\nRight. So they\u0026rsquo;re there to\nsay,\nHey, is\nthis person someone I want to work with?\nAnd ultimately it\u0026rsquo;s\nalso an\nopportunity for\nyou to\ndetermine\nis, are they people,\nI want to hang\nout\nwith\neight hours of my life every\nday.\nright? It\u0026rsquo;s a two\nway\nkind of\nthing.\nI think spend some\ntime in non interview\nchat.\nRight. So that\u0026rsquo;s really important that, walk to\nthe interview room, or when you\nlog on for a virtual\ninterview.\nBe comfortable\nto\nhave some of those\nicebreaker\ndiscussions, things like, You know, Hey, how\u0026rsquo;s it going?\nhow\u0026rsquo;s your week\nbeen?\nWhat\u0026rsquo;s been keeping you\nbusy.\nHave\nyou got planned for the\nEaster weekend?\nAll of those\nconversations points\nare actually\nrelationship building\nconversation starters, right. And that\u0026rsquo;s really\nreally\nimportant whether you\nwork in consulting, whether you work in\na product company.\nThe being able to converse\nand communicate with\nothers and build\nrapport.\nRelationships is\nreally important.\nSo the orange underestimate\nthe\nimportance and the impact that having where the\nchat\nconversation\nstarters is in an intense.\nTraits of Successful Graduates # James: Uh, cool. I think that\u0026rsquo;s, yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s cool. Certainly. Um, I want to talk a bit more about now about, you know, if you\u0026rsquo;re a graduate, you\u0026rsquo;ve, uh, you\u0026rsquo;ve gone through this process and they actually inside the company and kind of what things you can do, you know, to, to do well and have a good experience once you\u0026rsquo;re actually in there.\nI wonder if there\u0026rsquo;s certain things. And graduates that you\u0026rsquo;ve saying perhaps some go on to do like really cool stuff and really thrive in that environment. What are some traits and some things that people like that tend to do.\nKerry: Yeah. that\u0026rsquo;s a really, it\u0026rsquo;s a really\ngood question.\nI think\nmy first bicep, I literally,\nI\nthink\nlast week I\nhad\nmultiple conversations and\nI will have a\nfew of our future.\nHopefully put up their hands are\nbeing SED carry,\nAround\nBe kind to yourself Right.\nI think\nyou put so much pressure on yourself\nto perform well.\nRight. And do\nreally Well, And you want\nto\ndo\nreally well.\nRight.\nBut being kind to yourself, don\u0026rsquo;t put too\nmuch pressure,\nit\u0026rsquo;s going to be a\nreally hard, slow right when you first\nstart in a job People tend\nto go\nreally fast.\nRight?\nCause you want\nto make the\ngood impression and You want\nto keep, you build\na\nreputation.\nyou\nwant to show\nthat\nyou great. right.\nSo you\ngo\nreally hard,\nright.\nThings\ncan\u0026rsquo;t keep\ngoing up\non\na projector like that. Right. What\nhappens if we keep going right you come down\nRight.\nEmotionally exhausted, physically exhausted. Right. So our brain\ndoesn\u0026rsquo;t\nwork\nat the same level.\nRight. So\nI think\nfirst\nup be really\nkind to\nyourself.\nI\nthink\npeople who recognize that\nit\u0026rsquo;s a\nlearning.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s where people who do really\nwell is that they understand\nthat they\u0026rsquo;re there\nto learn\nand they\u0026rsquo;re\ncurious and\nopen to learning,\nright? So they\nknow that\nit\u0026rsquo;s not going to be,\nI\u0026rsquo;m going to be day\none, straight\nout at a client, or,\nyou\nknow, in the back\nend of\na\nnon test environment.\nThose are\nthe\nones that.\nunderstand that\nObserving\nfor a while\nIt\u0026rsquo;s really\nimportant part of that\nSo\nthat curiosity is the\nsecond one people who\nwould genuinely curious, well, why don\u0026rsquo;t we\ndo things\nlike that,\nyou know?\nIs there a particular\nreason.\nIt ha\nit\nhappens this\nway, et cetera.\nSo showing curiosity to understand\nis\nalso a\nreally, really\nimportant trait\nand\nthose who\ndo,\ndo, really,\nwell,\nbecause\nit\nalso\nshows interest\nin others and other\nthings. And\nthat\u0026rsquo;s\nactually a really important part of\nbuilding a\nrelationship\nand\nbuilding trust with others. So\nthose people\nwho do\nshow\ncuriosity, tend\nto\nalso build relationships quicker as well.\nI think the other one would\nbe,\nWhat I say,\nI\u0026rsquo;ve\nsay\ncuriosity,\nSaid kindness to yourself.\nVery, very important.\nI think\nthe other\none is,\nOpenness to feedback.\nSo an\nactual willingness to go, how\ncan\nI be\nbetter? So\nthat course mindset,\nreally, if\nyou\u0026rsquo;re thinking about it,\nIs going\nI want some fade\nback\nto understand\nhow\nam\nI\ngoing?\nWhat am\nI\ndoing?\nWell,\nWhat could I be doing? differently? And that can be really\ntricky.\nI think when you\u0026rsquo;re a grad,\nbecause you\nopen yourself up\nto feel\nvulnerable.\nWhat\nif\nI\u0026rsquo;m\nnot\ndoing a good job? right?\nWhat if\nit\u0026rsquo;s not.\nBut\nas, as a graduate\nor someone\nearly\nnear Korea,\nthat\nyour\nyour job is, is,\nto learn\nright.\nAnd\nto learn from others. So I think\nbeing\nopen\nand\ncomfortable with feedback is\nalso a really, really important\none as well. And that\nwill most like build\nyour\nlevel\nof,\nI guess,\ncomfort and\nsafety\nin going it\u0026rsquo;s okay. if\nI don\u0026rsquo;t know\neverything is.\nAnd then I think the\nfinal one would\nbe,\nParticularly if you\u0026rsquo;re in a\nbigger\ncompany or\nis\nunderstanding what that\njourney\nlooks\nlike. What\ndoes good\nlook like? You know,\na\nlot of\nplaces have\nso many amazing career paths already mapped\nout,\nright.\nOr if you\u0026rsquo;re an associate level, these are sort of the\nattributes of the capabilities that make good. Right. Have a look at theories, understand\nthem, take some time to understand\nwhat does\nthat\nmean?\nIf it\nis showing. You worry, a willingness to collaborate with\nothers, spend some time to go. Okay. What does\nthat look like in\nreal life? It doesn\u0026rsquo;t\nmean I\u0026rsquo;m contributing in meetings. It doesn\u0026rsquo;t\nmean that I offer to take the minutes. Right.\nAnd so I think if you can understand those and either 3d manager, a people guide or HR, understand\nwhat that looks like in a small\ncompany, if you\u0026rsquo;re in a startup say or.\nSmall to me, they might not have\nall of\nthose sort of\nprocesses or frameworks in plates,\nactually sit down and maybe\nask someone who, you know, what does good look like? Who\u0026rsquo;s someone who\u0026rsquo;s. Right. What do they\ndo that makes them awesome\nat this company? Right. And so get an\nunderstanding of what are the things that. you could be doing was showing to, to help that, because I think once you\u0026rsquo;ve done that it\u0026rsquo;s really, really important. I think if you know\nthat then it helps you set some expectations around your own expectations\nas\nwell. So they\nwould be probably my key key\npoints. Around it, the probably the only other one is\nI\u0026rsquo;m going to be really honest and say, it is\npeople who have you want to do\neverything\nright? It\u0026rsquo;s so they want to\ndo everything\nwithout really understanding, going through.\nFirst they want the breadth without getting the depth. And I think\nthat\u0026rsquo;s, that\u0026rsquo;s great. Right? You can learn, You\ncan\nlearn lots of, lots of different things, but as you progress throughout your career, at some point, you\u0026rsquo;re\ngoing\nto have to be able to go deep in some topics.\nRight. And so.\nRight. They, patient is ESE\ncan absolutely learn lots of different things, but also recognizing that going deeper\nin some\nparticular topics or contents or specialist areas is also really,\nreally important as you progress throughout\nyour\ncareer.\nJames: Yeah, I totally agree that. Definitely. And yeah, I liked what you said there about like a role model or someone that\u0026rsquo;s like, you know, a few steps ahead kind of what are the things that they do well, and trying\nto model that, because I think, you know, often it\u0026rsquo;s hard to find, well, it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s what you make, right?\nAn Asian\norganization. Like the people that are doing well, probably slightly different. There\u0026rsquo;s certain traits that they have. you can\u0026rsquo;t just Google, Like you know how to succeed at this company, right? like it\u0026rsquo;s a bit more complicated. So I think something like that, where you saying, Hey, this, this is someone who I really aspire to be like\nwith someone\nthat you know, is in the role that I\u0026rsquo;m aspiring to have, you know, one of the things that they\ndo and really trying to get.\nLike improving skills. I think that\u0026rsquo;s a\ngreat way of\ndoing it\nKerry: And he\u0026rsquo;s right. And I think that\u0026rsquo;s the, I said, think about how you learned best as well. So we, um, we do these individualized learning plans at Metro group for our grads and one of the, um, I\u0026rsquo;m the white name, the person, but we\u0026rsquo;ve put in there is. That wouldn\u0026rsquo;t be more comfortable around a client. Right. And so within that learning plan, what we\u0026rsquo;ve done is we\u0026rsquo;ve recognized three people within their brand who will send testing at the client side.\nRight. You know, leading stand-ups do we, they\u0026rsquo;re going to shutter them for awake H right. Because to sit there they\u0026rsquo;re real observational learners. So they learn by watching. Cause then they\u0026rsquo;ll emulate it right. Doing that will bring. Far more richness to their learning and actually heisting that the opportunity to be good with clients rather than making them sit down and read a book or do a course on, you know, great customer service.\nSorry. I think being able to recognize where someone\u0026rsquo;s really good and go and shadow or go and sit down and go, you know, How do you, how did you deal with that? Why is that important? Why did you do that with the client? You know, um, why did you talk to them that way? Or why did you present it that way?\nWe\u0026rsquo;ll bring you absolute practical experience to.\nWhat would Kerry change about Graduate Programs? # James: Yeah, no, definitely. I think that\u0026rsquo;s really cool. And I think that\u0026rsquo;s really cool what you\nguys are doing with that as well.\nLike the personal learning plans and all that kind of stuff. And I\u0026rsquo;d love to ask as well, you\u0026rsquo;re someone that\u0026rsquo;s quite innovative or in the HR space and trying to do things a bit differently, trying to like, see\nwhat kind of ways we can improve kind of the more traditional graduate experience, you know, what are some things that you\u0026rsquo;d like to see you know, change or, you know, what\ndirection do you want us to pet in with this? Is there any things that you like I\u0026rsquo;d love to see change\nor, you know, in this area\nwith respect to grad\nKerry: Programs?\nKerry: Oh, gosh, how much time have we got? Okay. I think, um, for me, I think it\u0026rsquo;s just taking a moment to recognize, um, that they\u0026rsquo;re adults, you know, I think sometimes we forget that, um, you know, you, when, when students, um, You know, if we talk about students. Yeah. When students finish, they\u0026rsquo;re actually, they\u0026rsquo;re probably been adults for three or four years already, legally right.\nTurned 18 when they joined uni. But I think sometimes we forget and we removed that autonomy or that opportunity for them to behave like adults by labeling them as grads and bringing them in as such. So we removed the right for them to have that contribution or input, um, into their own. Um, and so I think it would be just to take a moment and reflect on all the richness and diversity that people bring into a role and studies.\nJust one of them, Brian. Studies one pathway into a career, but perhaps people have been working, um, you know, very, um, through it. And they\u0026rsquo;ve developed an enhanced, all these amazing skills. Um, perhaps they self taught and, and, and I think the rise of, um, online learning and, um, you know, Um, ha has contributed to a wealth of information that people have acquired by themselves, not through traditional educational pathways.\nSo I think it would be to recognize that they are adults and provide them the opportunity to contribute to that as well. Um, I think that the second one would be, um, don\u0026rsquo;t just think about opportunities rather than pigeonhole. Right. Is there an opportunity to expand out of that? Right. So you might\u0026rsquo;ve studied commerce at uni and you mentioned in accounting, right?\nThat doesn\u0026rsquo;t mean that you can only be an accountant. What are some of the skills that accountants bring and it\u0026rsquo;s things such as attention to detail, ability to problem solve? Right. So look at the skills behind a course, rather than label the person to what they started. I think would be a really, really great one.\nAnd you know what the U S still brilliantly, right? In the us, you don\u0026rsquo;t get recruited by your degree. Um, you know, that you\u0026rsquo;ve studied something and then they look at that and I really wish, um, and I would have hoped that we\u0026rsquo;d moved on from that, but we still tend to do that here in Australia. Um, I think the other one would be to really focus on building.\nHuman skills. I don\u0026rsquo;t like the word soft skills, human skills, um, and, and do a much more emphasis on that because they\u0026rsquo;re the skills that actually enable someone to be successful. Right. I don\u0026rsquo;t think in my whole career I ever, when, you know, you were sitting at the table doing promotions and seller reviews going, oh, wow.\nUm, what, but, but James studied at the university of Melbourne, so he, uh, he should get promoted, right? No one ever talks about that. Once you\u0026rsquo;re in a job, it\u0026rsquo;s actually based upon how you are performing. Right. And are you aligned to the way that we work and the culture and the attributes, right. So let\u0026rsquo;s focus on building those human skills that we then look at in a second.\nUm, throughout someone\u0026rsquo;s career and, and really talk with him early in the Korea, enabled them to be really grown and harnessed early and then support them later.\nKerry\u0026rsquo;s Advice for Graduates # James: One of the things that, like, I know we\u0026rsquo;re sort of running out of time now, it\u0026rsquo;s unfortunate because I\u0026rsquo;d love to chat to you. Um, but one of the questions I ask all the guests that I have on the show is, and maybe you can take this in a, in a different direction, given, given your experience with lots of graduates.\nBut the question I ask is, you know, if you had to restart. And then one, the quote, back to when you were first starting out, what kind of things would you do differently? Or what things would you tell yourself if you were in that environment? Again?\nKerry: Yeah. Oh, I so know this. Um, and I noticed because there\u0026rsquo;s a career change in myself multiple times. It can feel really, really overwhelming when you start something. Right. Um, our education system is designed to go. You go to. Primary school, high school, university job. Right. And so if you don\u0026rsquo;t follow that pathway, you go, I must\u0026rsquo;ve done something wrong or I haven\u0026rsquo;t succeeded as, as, as to the point that I should have.\nRight. And I had that myself, you know, I finished my sport and then we need to nursing and realized that I didn\u0026rsquo;t actually want to do nursing. So what do I do? And you, you can kind of have a little bit of an identity crisis around that. My advice would be, it is okay to not know what you want to do. It is totally okay.\nYour life is not over your life is just beginning, right? It\u0026rsquo;s you\u0026rsquo;re just at a fork in the road where you need to choose. So I would say be okay if you don\u0026rsquo;t know, and also if you\u0026rsquo;d go into a role or a company and it doesn\u0026rsquo;t feel right, right. You\u0026rsquo;re not being your best self. I\u0026rsquo;d stay, honestly, don\u0026rsquo;t stay.\nUm, if you were giving up eight, nine, sometimes 10 hours of your life to a company, right? Um, you want to enjoy being there. You want to actually go, Hey, I\u0026rsquo;m really excited to get up to work today. I\u0026rsquo;m excited to, you know, go hang out with my colleagues. And if you don\u0026rsquo;t feel like that, just take a moment to pause and say, why not?\nWhere am I not feeling fulfilled? Right. Can, is there something about the role? Is there something about the way that their culture is with WorkKeys? Um, and if you don\u0026rsquo;t like it don\u0026rsquo;t stay, um, it\u0026rsquo;s too many hours of your life to spend somewhere where you\u0026rsquo;re not getting fulfilled.\nJames: Totally. Absolutely great. Especially when you\u0026rsquo;re young, you know, that\u0026rsquo;s the time to. Take some risks go out and find that thing that you do really, really want to do. I think it\u0026rsquo;s so important. Um, you know, that you don\u0026rsquo;t say somebody that you can\u0026rsquo;t see yourself, you know, for at least some length of time, right.\nIf you can\u0026rsquo;t see yourself bad, then then it\u0026rsquo;s time to decide and take that leap and go do something else.\nKerry: Exactly. You know, I think this is old and I\u0026rsquo;m, I\u0026rsquo;m not going to cite correctly, but there\u0026rsquo;s an old adage about, you know, you can have friends for a reason, a season or last time, right. So maybe Korea, right? Sometimes you got to do a job for a reason, right? It\u0026rsquo;s maybe because I just need some money right now, or I\u0026rsquo;ve just graduated, I\u0026rsquo;m going for whatever I can.\nUm, you know, maybe it\u0026rsquo;s seasonal. Maybe it\u0026rsquo;s actually, you know what, I\u0026rsquo;m just going to do this for three to five years to work out what my next step is or where I want to go next. Or maybe it\u0026rsquo;s super lucky and you\u0026rsquo;ve worked out what that is right early on. And so there\u0026rsquo;s your vocation, you passionate about it.\nAnd you know, this is what you want to do. All of those things. Um, and I think that\u0026rsquo;s a really, really important thing to know if things right now are not as they want as you want them to be. They\u0026rsquo;re feeling hard wood, all of that is okay. Right. Um, focus on what you do. Love talk to people, build your networks, um, and, and start to set yourself up to align yourself to where, where you happy.\nUm, and, and where you feel like you, you can be.\nContact Kerry # James: Yeah, absolutely. Well, yeah, thanks so much. But the chatting today, Kay, it\u0026rsquo;s been really, really interesting to hear your experiences and kind of this whole grad process. Thanks so much for your time today. Um, if people want to find out more about yourself, if they want to connect with you further, where\u0026rsquo;s the best place for them to do that?\nKerry: Oh, I\u0026rsquo;d love to, well, first before I want to say thank you so much for inviting me on James. I\u0026rsquo;ve really loved our chat. Um, if people want to write chat, um, they are so welcome to send me a message on LinkedIn, um, or they can send a, an email to me, um, at, um, mantle group. It\u0026rsquo;s just Kerry dot Callan pocket mantle group.com that I knew and I\u0026rsquo;ve left.\nJames: Fantastic mobile, leave your details in the show notes, wherever people are watching, so they can find out more about yourself. But yeah, thanks so much for coming on today, Carrie, and all the best with everything that\u0026rsquo;s gone on at mantle group. It\u0026rsquo;s really exciting what you\u0026rsquo;re doing, and I hope that this year and, and, um, you know, things continue to go out.\nKerry: Thanks so much, James. Appreciate again.\nOutro # James: Thanks for listening to this episode I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. If you want to get my takeaways, the things that I learned from this episode, please go to Graduate Theory.com/subscribe, where you can get my takeaways and all the information about each episode, straight to your inbox.\nThanks so much for listening again today, and we\u0026rsquo;re looking forward to seeing you next week.\n← Back to episode 27\n","date":"25 April 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/graduate-theory/27-kerry-callenbach/transcript/","section":"Graduate Theory Transcripts","summary":"← Back to episode 27\nThis transcript has been lightly edited for readability. It may still contain transcription errors.\nKerry: As a graduate or someone early near Korea, that your, your job is, is to learn right. And to learn from others. So I think being open and comfortable with feedback is also a really, really important one as well\n","title":"Transcript: On Finding and Thriving in Your Dream Graduate Role with Kerry Callenbach","type":"graduate-theory-transcripts"},{"content":" Watch the conversation Graduate Theory Open YouTube ↗ Read the full transcript → Good morning Graduates!\nWelcome to episode #26 of Graduate Theory. Venture Capital is an interesting place to work, one that you don\u0026rsquo;t usually expect young guns to be operating. This week, we uncover what it takes to work in VC and how you can set yourself up for success.\nDon\u0026rsquo;t miss the newsletter, subscribe now 👇\nSubscribe Now\nAbhi Maran is an Investment Analyst @ Folklore Ventures. Out of hours, he is Co-Founder of Web3 group called DAO Under, Co-Founder of Brown Baddies - an NFT collection representing South Asian women in the Metaverse and Writer at Superfluid - tech newsletter focused on web3 and DeepTech.\n👇 Episode Takeaways # Write About Topics You Enjoy # One of the big mistakes people make when starting to write and learn in public is that they write about something they feel they \u0026lsquo;should\u0026rsquo; write about, rather than things they are actually interested in.\nAbhi shared with us that this particular point is something he thinks is really important.\nI always say like do things that you like doing. So if you really like writing about or talking about something, then just do that because it will make it easier to stick to that consistent schedule and you\u0026rsquo;re more likely to follow it through\nPick something you like, and follow through.\nThe Vertical in VC (and how to be the best) # When we spoke to Abhi, I asked him about what skills he thought were important to have as a VC and what he was doing to upskill himself in these areas.\nHe said that VC has three main verticals.\nVC has verticals to your skillset, like the community building side, the public facing side, there\u0026rsquo;s also the investment thinking side\nThe investment side includes working out what is actually a good investment and being good with the numbers. For this vertical, Abhi likes to read about other people\u0026rsquo;s investment decisions and try to learn about the mental models involved in these decisions.\nPublic presence is all about building up your social profile. This helps VCs find out more about the industry and get better access to deals. Abhi says a lot of it is just doing stuff and trying stuff out. He\u0026rsquo;s doing this by being active on LinkedIn and Twitter while keeping up with his newsletter.\nCommunity building is the final vertical. Being accessible to founders you are working with is important so that you can help them to grow their businesses. A win-win situation. Abhi is improving this by improving his abilities to give feedback, and always learning about different industries and processes to provide unique insights.\nThe main thing about each of these is that there is no one course you can do, no one place you can find all your answers. Practice in the real world is what is important.\nExperiment # Your early career should be all about experimentation and trying new things to work out those few things that you enjoy and can get paid for.\nAbhi had this to say when reflecting on his own career 👇\nFor my career, I think what I should have done back then is probably talk to a lot of people in the ecosystem and figure out ways to get involved. Even if it didn\u0026rsquo;t seem like I\u0026rsquo;d be able to get involved from the outside, I should have been a bit more proactive, I think.\nGet out there and start experimenting, get the breadth of experience necessary to help you find and succeed in something truly special.\nGet the Newsletter\n🤝 Connect with Abhi # LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/abhishekmaran/\nNewsletter - https://abhim.substack.com/\nDAO Under - https://twitter.com/dao_under\nEmail - abhi at folklore dot vc\n📝 Content Timestamps # 00:00 Intro 00:55 Abhi\u0026rsquo;s University Experience 07:32 What different strategies do VC funds have? 10:40 The difference startup experience makes as a VC 13:06 Skills You Need to Be a VC in Australia 18:03 How does Abhi upskill himself as a VC 21:14 What is Deep Tech? 23:05 Where does Abhi go to learn about new technologies? 24:18 What is Abhi\u0026rsquo;s advice for people thinking about learning in public? 26:56 Abhi on DAO Under 30:59 Where does DAO Meet Community? 33:48 Advice for people discovering web3? 37:34 Who does Abhi look up to? 39:17 Abhi\u0026rsquo;s advice for Graduates 42:23 Where to connect with Abhi 43:24 Outro\n","date":"18 April 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/graduate-theory/26-abhi-maran/","section":"Graduate Theory","summary":" Watch the conversation Graduate Theory Open YouTube ↗ Read the full transcript → Good morning Graduates!\nWelcome to episode #26 of Graduate Theory. Venture Capital is an interesting place to work, one that you don’t usually expect young guns to be operating. This week, we uncover what it takes to work in VC and how you can set yourself up for success.\n","title":"On Making a Career in Venture Capital with Abhi Maran","type":"graduate-theory"},{"content":"← Back to episode 26\nThis transcript has been lightly edited for readability. It may still contain transcription errors.\nAbhi: I think that\u0026rsquo;s, that\u0026rsquo;s super important and that\u0026rsquo;s like a lifelong journey, to be honest, it\u0026rsquo;s just always reading, finding people\u0026rsquo;s perspectives on things, challenging perspectives on things and like challenging your own perspective on things as well.\nJames: Hello and welcome to Graduate Theory. My guest today is an investment analyst at folklore ventures and out of hours. He\u0026rsquo;s a co-founder of Web3 group called Dow under he\u0026rsquo;s the co-founder of brown baddies. She is an NFT collection representing a south Asian women. In the metaverse and he\u0026rsquo;s also a writer it\u0026rsquo;s super fluid, which is his tech newsletter focus on Web3 and deep tech.\nPlease. Welcome to the show Abbey.\nAbhi: Thanks, James.\nJames: Thanks so much for coming on the show today, man. I\u0026rsquo;m excited to dive into your experience.\nAbhi\u0026rsquo;s University Experience # James: Three university often university and all this different, interesting stuff that you\u0026rsquo;re working on outside of work. But I\u0026rsquo;d love to start with your university experience and kind of, you mentioned a storyteller. Before we spoke about kind of your thoughts as you were going through university, kind of, what was your, what did you study when you first started at Dawn to union and kind of, what was your process as you went through your degree?\nAbhi: Yeah. Well firstly, thanks for having me. It\u0026rsquo;s an absolute privilege to be on your podcast. I\u0026rsquo;m a massive fan of your work and really awesome to see what, what you\u0026rsquo;ll do in the future. And hopefully I can play a small part in that, but yeah, I mean, I mean, I started uni back in 2015. So started off.\nBachelor actuarial studies did that for a couple of years and honestly was pretty bored by it. It was like pretty stats heavy. And like, even though I really loved mats, it just sort of like always felt like an arm\u0026rsquo;s length away from like practical applications. And so I ended up just dropping that and sticking with my applied finance degree and ended up graduating.\nMid 2018. While, so I was at uni, I ran like a small tutoring company was president of the student society and did like a few leadership things here and there, but always sort of had like an entrepreneurial itch. Even from when I was like a kids, I did like the paper on when I was like 10 or something like that and saved up and invested that money into McQuarry group shares and started like always into investing and like starting random side businesses.\nAnd that\u0026rsquo;s what. And so straight off to uni, I really wanted to get into startups, but at the time, to be honest with you, and this is like mid 2018, so not too long ago, but the startup ecosystem in Australia was like pretty underdeveloped from like a entry role perspective. Like I think they were like, Senior Trish roles or like, roles for people who, who had been in the ecosystem for like a couple of years, but from like just people pure straight out of uni, I felt it, it was harder to get in.\nAnd so I ended up going down the corporate route for a couple of years, working for a company called Cambridge associates. And so there, I effectively just worked with Institutional investors. So like super funds, family offices, endowments foundations to structure their investment portfolios. So these are portfolios with about, you know, anywhere from a hundred mils.\nTo about two, 3 billion in AUM. And so it was just investing those assets across all asset classes. And so whilst I was that, got to know that a lot more about the funds management industry and asset management as a whole. And so. One of my favorite things in that role was just meeting different fund managers and meeting people and, and understanding how they see the world.\nAnd especially the VC ones were always interesting. And so that\u0026rsquo;s actually where I met my boss at the moment Alice Coleman. And so he, he, he came to Cambridge one day when I just started, actually, it was like, really. And he came in, pitched a 10th as partners was, was the fund name before folklore.\nAnd so really liked what he had to say then. But unfortunately, like we didn\u0026rsquo;t invest in the fund at the time and that\u0026rsquo;s like one of the things that I didn\u0026rsquo;t really like about that role was like, we\u0026rsquo;d meet a lot of people, but not make a lot of investments. And these were people doing like some really interesting strategies, but the problem there is like, if you try something new, then you\u0026rsquo;re almost penalized.\nIf it doesn\u0026rsquo;t work out It was just like a mindset that I didn\u0026rsquo;t really appreciate. Just coming from like an entrepreneurial background or just even mindset really. And so did that for two and a half years. And then at the start of 2021, I was just like really disillusioned with it. And ended up just And so just before I quit, I spoke to about 30 startup founders just to sort of see if they had a role because I saw the startup ecosystem was a lot more developed now.\nEasier to get into. And so just sort of took that route. But before I did that, I actually had an interview with the folklore for an investment associate role. And the feedback from that interview was like, you know, you\u0026rsquo;re really enthusiastic about this stuff. You understand what VC is, but you don\u0026rsquo;t have startup experience or figure out a way to get that and would happy to w we\u0026rsquo;d love to sort of have you as part of the folklore team, That\u0026rsquo;s sort of like spurred me to go and meet these startup founders and talk to them and understand like what I could potentially do for them.\nSo I talked to 30 people few few were just sort of like me reaching out and understanding like where I might play in the ecosystem broadly. And then a couple were sort of like very targeted in terms of like, oh, I really want to work for this company. And so one of those was a it was a company called.\nWhich is an early stage FinTech business based in Sydney. And so what they do is. It\u0026rsquo;s kind of like cash rewards, but instead of getting cash back, every time you purchase something, you get a shares in the business that you purchased with. So for example, if you buy something that Willy\u0026rsquo;s, you get X percent of your order back in really stock, which is I think a pretty novel way of sort of getting on the investing ladder.\nAnd it helps people become more financially literate, which is something that\u0026rsquo;s you know, I think. Close to my heart in terms of helping people do that. I think it\u0026rsquo;s really important to be in control of your finances. And this is like one way that I saw could that could do it. And so work there in like a pretty.\nA wide ranging role. So did anything from product to B2B sales and everything in between. And so I was there for about five months. But during that time, the folklore team reached out and said, Hey, we\u0026rsquo;ve got like a more entry entry level role into VC if you\u0026rsquo;d be keen. And so that was the investment analyst position.\nAnd sort of, I just sort of jumped at that since working in VC was, was the logical for, for a while, but yeah. That, that was like a joint joined the team mid mid June, 2021. And so I\u0026rsquo;ve been a part of folklore. 10 months. We\u0026rsquo;re an early stage VC investor investing for the long run. We\u0026rsquo;ve got a team of about 18 people, eight of them investors, 10 operators.\nAnd so we really love to partner with businesses early and partner with them for the long run. So supporting, supporting them with whatever they need, really. So we\u0026rsquo;ve got a portfolio for about 18 companies now and looking to deploy our third fund, which is Yeah, like pretty, pretty exciting time.\nSo we\u0026rsquo;ve made a fair few investments out of that recently. And so I\u0026rsquo;ve been involved in that process and it\u0026rsquo;s been an awesome start to my career in VC, I guess. Yeah. That\u0026rsquo;s where we are today.\nJames: Yeah. Cool coats. Yeah. That\u0026rsquo;s a pretty extensive background than yourself. It\u0026rsquo;s nasty. Like, it was good to hear all that different stuff that you up on it. Yeah. A lot of questions yeah. What you do and things like that. I mean, Some are just books start off kind of randomly, but just around the VC space generally.\nWhat different strategies do VC funds have? # James: I\u0026rsquo;ve a few questions. So some of them, you kind of, I\u0026rsquo;m just going to ask you that what differentiates some of the VC funds and you kind of answered that a little bit and yours is more like really early stage for the long run. I mean, what are some alternative strategies that like a VC company might have.\nAbhi: Yeah, sir. So there are a fair few different strategies that people employ. So for us, like we, we like to partner really early on sometimes at ideation stage and, and really support entrepreneurs in their goal. Other people like to play in the latest stages, so maybe series beyond woods. And so, what they do, they\u0026rsquo;re more maybe latest stage investors slash growth equity investors.\nAnd so, they\u0026rsquo;ve launched, they\u0026rsquo;ve probably got bigger fund sizes, can deploy a lot more capital, but More risk of us. And so don\u0026rsquo;t play in the early stages where it\u0026rsquo;s a lot more riskier. So that\u0026rsquo;s one strategy. Another strategy is sort of like spreading your bets really wide and investing in a lot of startups are, like I said, we\u0026rsquo;ve got 18 companies in our portfolio.\nOur funds tend to be fairly concentrated, but we take pretty hefty bets in all of, all of our companies. And so we have high conviction. These are the right companies to back. Other funds might spread their bets, invest in 30 to 50 to maybe a hundred, a hundred companies in the portfolios. And so those funds sort of, go for an optionality strategy.\nSo do a small investment at the start and then try and follow on in subsequent rounds to maintain their ownership, stake, or scale it up as the startup starts hitting milestones and things like that. And then some funds are just like pure investment funds. And so we\u0026rsquo;ll just have investors in their tamp.\nOthers, like, like folklore will be, we\u0026rsquo;ll have more of a service model and we\u0026rsquo;ll have like a large ops team to support the startups. So for example, we\u0026rsquo;ve got a head of people in culture, so she helps our early stage startups sort of. The HR systems and programs and that sort of thing whilst also looking after our internal ones as well, but it\u0026rsquo;s just like a nice value add that we can sort of give to us startups.\nWe\u0026rsquo;ve also got like a financial controller, head of growth community and marketing associate. PIs or like we\u0026rsquo;ve got a fair few number of people who are all really talented in that individual fields who are literally that to help support a portfolio companies in whatever they need, as well as internal, but largely for portfolio companies.\nJames: Yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s interesting. Yeah, I\u0026rsquo;d add, I didn\u0026rsquo;t know that about VC companies and kind of yeah. That, even that ops side of things yeah, I thought it was mostly just the, just like, you know, invest in Ron kind of thing, but no, that\u0026rsquo;s, that\u0026rsquo;s good to hear that there\u0026rsquo;s that collaboration as well.\nAbhi: Yeah. It\u0026rsquo;s like an interesting shift that\u0026rsquo;s happening in VC now is to sort of like pursue this full service model. So like, I think for people who aren\u0026rsquo;t of an investing background, you should definitely consider like the other parts of VC. To look into that might be interesting. It\u0026rsquo;s sort of like semi sort of consulting style, I guess, because you\u0026rsquo;re working with different portfolio companies, but you\u0026rsquo;re also, you also have like your main company to sort of support as well.\nAnd so I think it\u0026rsquo;s like an interesting, like, those are all really interesting roles where you get a bit of variety, but also a lot of stability that you might not find at a startup that\u0026rsquo;s like continually growing. But yeah, like it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s it, th those are all like, really amazing roles and they\u0026rsquo;re all like super high impact as well.\nThe difference startup experience makes as a VC # James: Yeah. Yeah. Cool. And you mentioned that like, when you were applying for this position, you\u0026rsquo;re in now, like they kind of said, Hey, you don\u0026rsquo;t have SOC experience. That would be really helpful in doing this. Do you think now that you have that, can you say the difference between, so like someone that perhaps wouldn\u0026rsquo;t have that experience, but as is having.\nAbhi: Yeah, it\u0026rsquo;s a, it\u0026rsquo;s a really good question. And so there\u0026rsquo;s a bit of debate around this in terms of like, whether you\u0026rsquo;re a better investor, if you\u0026rsquo;ve had that experience. So whether you\u0026rsquo;re a better investor, if you haven\u0026rsquo;t done it. And like, I really don\u0026rsquo;t know the right answer, but for me, like how.\nExperience at ups street has really helped one from like an empathy perspective. So like, I can understand the struggles set in early stage founder would be going through, but also to just being able to sort of see like the product management approaches that were taken like the B2B sales side, like these sorts of like little tidbits or insights really help when sort of making decisions on whether you should back a company.\nSo for example, like at ups trade, some of the sales pro sale sales cycles were really long and we were dealing with like large, large companies to come onto the platform. And so what that sort of taught me, like it really gave me firsthand experience that, you know, dealing with these large companies is like an uphill battle for a startup.\nLike they\u0026rsquo;re not going to be willing to sort of just. You know, sign the contract and then help you do whatever you want. You\u0026rsquo;re going to have to sell to them for like three, four or five months. And it\u0026rsquo;s going to be like a pretty arduous battle to get them over the line. But when you do, like, it\u0026rsquo;s a really good thing, but to get there is like really tough.\nAnd so like, you know, when, when. Portfolio companies undergo that same struggle then like, I can say, Hey, like, you can do this, you can do that. Like try this sort of approach. Or even when I\u0026rsquo;m looking at a new company, then it\u0026rsquo;s like easier for me to understand what are the uncertainties with their business?\nLike who, who is their core customer persona? And like, what would the sales cycles look like? And so there\u0026rsquo;s like a few like little insights and tidbits that working at a startup sort of like gave me an insight into. And so like it\u0026rsquo;s helped me analyze other businesses, businesses, and then also like help help our own portfolio companies or anyone really in the.\nLike we do office hours, people sort of come up and say, Hey, like, I\u0026rsquo;m really struggling with this. And they\u0026rsquo;re not portfolio companies. They\u0026rsquo;re just found this out in the wild. And we just like to help wherever possible. And so it\u0026rsquo;s like, come in handy that like a few times it\u0026rsquo;s kinda surprising, but yeah, it was a good experience for me to go through.\nSkills You Need to Be a VC in Australia # James: Yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s good to hear that. It was well worth it. I think I could do that. You\u0026rsquo;ve got some application out of it. I\u0026rsquo;m curious to like, kind of extend that question and then say, yeah, that was a really great experience. Like what other traits and skills perhaps do you think would really benefit that will like someone going into VC at, in these kinds of roles that kind of would be nice to have essential perhaps.\nAbhi: Yeah. Yeah. So I think what people don\u0026rsquo;t realize is that being a VC is kind of like a sales. role You\u0026rsquo;re like prospecting for companies. You\u0026rsquo;re nurturing leads like it\u0026rsquo;s very sales focused. Like you have to sell. The firm that you\u0026rsquo;re working at. So like, I, I have to sort of like, you know, when when I\u0026rsquo;m whenever I\u0026rsquo;m talking to founders, like we sort of like sell ourselves as like really good investors.\nAnd my sales pitch is like pretty similar to what I said before. Like, we\u0026rsquo;ve got 18 stuff. Like we love partnering with companies like really early on. And so like, that\u0026rsquo;s my pitch to founders. And I think that\u0026rsquo;s like a pretty, pretty compelling offering. But you sort of have to like talk to a lot of people.\nNot everyone will want that. And so it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s like talking to a lot of people and so, you know, like I think people in sales roles. Would would probably do pretty well in BC. If you\u0026rsquo;ve got a bit of investing knowledge or now S that definitely helps. So I think that\u0026rsquo;s one thing that people probably miss out being in VC.\nAnd especially if you\u0026rsquo;re not at one of the brand name VCs, then it\u0026rsquo;s even harder to sort of get people to come and take your money. And so, like being a really good sales person is super important. I think another thing. That people don\u0026rsquo;t necessarily think of is probably just like a building, like a public presence of being like super accessible for people to like come up to you and ask you for help.\nYou have to be really accessible to people. And I was like, oh, what does that mean? It\u0026rsquo;s like, well, you\u0026rsquo;ve got to have a public presence. You\u0026rsquo;ve got to, you\u0026rsquo;ve got a. You know, like right in public, you, you\u0026rsquo;ve got to tweet, you\u0026rsquo;ve got to like talk to people, like just be at events and things like that.\nAnd so like, it can get a bit overwhelming if you\u0026rsquo;re like a private person. Like, I was a pretty private person before all of this, but I\u0026rsquo;ve sort of had to push that away and like embrace being in public and being like super accessible for literally anyone to sort of get in contact with me and ask me stuff, or like, you know, pick my brain about something or even just approach me to.\nYou know, brainstorm stuff like being accessible is super important as a VC. And, you know, you, you want to be as I\u0026rsquo;ve been in the ecosystem as possible. And so I think that\u0026rsquo;s something that can be done without being a VC as well. Like you can talk to. On LinkedIn on Twitter or wherever it is, right.\nYou can go to events, you can build your own name in the ecosystem. And I think that\u0026rsquo;s something that people can get started with literally today, if they go to the next event or even if they start tweeting about stuff, to be honest, like that\u0026rsquo;s a really easy, low barrier way to get in to the startup ecosystem.\nAnd then I think besides that maybe more on the investing side is just constructing your own investment thesis. And, and sort of like thinking critically about companies, either ones that have raised haven\u0026rsquo;t raised, like, I mean, you do your own digging, like use Crunchbase to sort of like find up and coming startups in Australia and think about, you know, What\u0026rsquo;s going good for this business where the specifics could go and like, where could it fail?\nAnd it\u0026rsquo;s even better if you sort of like DM the founder and just be like, Hey, I\u0026rsquo;d really love to chat about your business with 30 minutes. And then you get the firsthand input and then you can construct your own sort of investment memo. And it\u0026rsquo;s even better if you publish that publicly. Like if you\u0026rsquo;ve got like a pretty, pretty robust memory, like publish that publicly and that\u0026rsquo;s, that\u0026rsquo;s like the start of your content journey as well.\nSo. Like, I think those are a few different things that people could sort of implement today. And, and get started if they\u0026rsquo;re interested in becoming an analyst at a VC fund.\nJames: Yeah. Cool. Yeah. I think that\u0026rsquo;s interesting, right? It\u0026rsquo;s good to hear, you know, that there\u0026rsquo;s plenty of things that you can do,\nAbhi: Yeah.\nJames: To, you know, get involved, whether it\u0026rsquo;s, like you said, content creation, Twitter, like events, all this kind of stuff. Like you can, you can get quite involved by the challenge without having to actually be involved.\nIf that makes sense.\nAbhi: Yeah. But the, but the thing there is like, there\u0026rsquo;s a lot of things to do. So pick the ones that you like doing because that\u0026rsquo;s what will stick over time. Like if you really liked people and sorry, if you really like meeting people, that\u0026rsquo;s like the best thing you could do. Just go out there, go to networking events, just go and talk to people, be in places where founders congregate and just, and just get to know that like from a personal level to maybe a business level, I don\u0026rsquo;t know.\nBest thing you could do is like, just get to know these people. Yeah. Like you shouldn\u0026rsquo;t feel intimidated at all. But yeah, just like pick, pick something that, that comes naturally to you and just do it is my advice usually\nJames: Yeah. Great. That\u0026rsquo;s good. That should be easy, easy to fake what to do, hopefully.\nHow does Abhi upskill himself as a VC # James: How do you, how do you think about like upskilling yourself in this environment? Like what kind of things are you like? You know, there\u0026rsquo;s all these skills that you need and skills that you have already kind of, what are some things that you like, how really want to improve in this particular thing?\nAnd then how do you. Like, what is your method for doing that? Like, is it just, just get experienced and do it that way? Or are you like seeking external things to kind of do that as well?\nAbhi: Yeah, it\u0026rsquo;s a really, it\u0026rsquo;s a really good question. And, and like I sorta said, VC has like, Verticals to your skillset, I guess like this, like the community building side, this like the, you know, public facing side. There\u0026rsquo;s also like the investment thinking side, I guess. And so like if I think about it in that perspective, like, Thinking about investments.\nLike I really love reading other people\u0026rsquo;s writings and, and sort of like picking out the mental models there and like trying to apply that to the companies that I meet. I think that\u0026rsquo;s, that\u0026rsquo;s super important and that\u0026rsquo;s like a lifelong journey, to be honest, it\u0026rsquo;s just always reading, finding people\u0026rsquo;s perspectives on things, challenging perspectives on things and like challenging your own perspective on things as well.\nI think that\u0026rsquo;s, that\u0026rsquo;s super important. Unlike the public presence side. I think a lot of it is just like doing and trialing things out. So to be honest, like, like I always wanted to write like about. And I did a lot of it. I did a lot of writing for my tutoring start-up back at uni. Like I wrote blogs about HSE topics and that sort of thing.\nBut this is like a different style of writing. This is sort of like my opinion on something. And so it\u0026rsquo;s super fluid. What I sort of do is try to like unpack like complicated things. And so like, naturally it\u0026rsquo;s sort of got like a Web3 tilt because that\u0026rsquo;s like a really big interest of mine, but there\u0026rsquo;s also like some deep tech stuff.\nAnd deep tech is something that I\u0026rsquo;m like super new to, but I find really, really fascinating. And so I tried to. Breakdown. Some of these really cool deep tech topics into digestible pieces for people. And so that\u0026rsquo;s like me, one learning about something new, which sort of fits in the investment column, but also to writing about it, getting better clarity of thought, and then also like building a public presence and then.\nThe community side, it\u0026rsquo;s like me helping other founders with whatever they need or like connecting different people to each other, just being present and accessible. And so, like, that\u0026rsquo;s something that I\u0026rsquo;m also like improving upon, like how do I deliver feedback or how do I, how, how can I get better at like giving advice?\nOr like, where can I learn about something that would help someone else? Like, that\u0026rsquo;s also like a continuous journey. A lot of it is like in reading and doing I would say. You also need to like talk to people, get their perspectives on things. So like there isn\u0026rsquo;t like some like, cos I guess that you could do, unless you did one for like, let\u0026rsquo;s say if you wanted to be a better writer, you could do a course on that.\nOr if you wanted to get better at Twitter, I guess is like closest to that, that sort of thing. But a lot of it is like, self-driven just like a lot of reading. A lot of just thinking like, I\u0026rsquo;ll just like sit there and think about stuff. Like where could this possibly go or you know, What, what, what sort of logically makes sense in terms of next steps for this industry, like where the tailwinds are, like just doing research like that, I guess, and just thinking about it.\nWhat is Deep Tech? # James: Oh, yeah. Well, I\u0026rsquo;m curious now, like get a deep tech, obviously like why, but there is, it\u0026rsquo;s like people kind of across what that is. What is the state tech is like the best one I\u0026rsquo;ve heard about it and like, how is it different? How does it connect into that stuff?\nAbhi: Yeah. So like deep tech is literally you know, anything that\u0026rsquo;s like. Really scientific or like advance. And I think at face value, people sort of get like turned off by it if they\u0026rsquo;re not like scientific themselves. So not like really curious. But it\u0026rsquo;s actually really interesting. So a few like deep tech topics that I\u0026rsquo;ve written about in the past was one about longevity tech, which is like very biomedical specific stuff.\nSo like effectively, what are the technologies that are pushing people to live with? And healthier lives. And so that was like a really interesting deep dive. Another one was just like about space tech and like what\u0026rsquo;s sort of happening there. So there\u0026rsquo;s more to space than just sort of like sending rockets up into space to the moon or to Mars or whatever it is.\nRight. So there\u0026rsquo;s like different soundbites that there\u0026rsquo;s like, a whole bunch of stuff. That\u0026rsquo;s, that\u0026rsquo;s sort of like intricate in that sort of realm. And then another one that I\u0026rsquo;ve written about is this thing called metadata. And they\u0026rsquo;re effectively just like taking existing materials that exist today, putting it, putting them in unique structures.\nAnd then that gives that like end product, like unique sort of properties. And so it was just like different things like that, which you know, like sometimes hard to believe, but people are attempting it and it\u0026rsquo;s something that\u0026rsquo;s like really interesting to me as someone who\u0026rsquo;s like really curious about this stuff.\nLike it\u0026rsquo;s like fascinating to read. I read about all of this. Like it\u0026rsquo;s a bit like magic, I guess. But I think people, people get turned off by like the deep tech Monica because it just sounds hard to understand. And so like people just sort of shut off. But for me, that\u0026rsquo;s like when I start to like, get more interested in it, to be honest,\nWhere does Abhi go to learn about new technologies? # James: Yeah, no, that\u0026rsquo;s cool. And I\u0026rsquo;m curious to know too, you know, these kinds of trends that come up where places that you go to kind of have your finger on the pulse of kind of the trending technologies, kind of where the world.\nAbhi: Yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s a good one. You know, honestly, it\u0026rsquo;s like reading other people\u0026rsquo;s sub stacks. It\u0026rsquo;s like listening to podcasts, it\u0026rsquo;s reading news articles. So like the metamaterials, for example, like where I found that was listening to another podcast which featured one of the founders of Lux capital, which is a deep tech VC over in the U S so his name\u0026rsquo;s Josh Wolf Wolf, and he\u0026rsquo;s like an incredibly clear thinker really good at explaining.\nComplex concepts. And so he was like telling me about middle materials and like in a really brief, like two liner. And I was like, damn, that, that sounds like super, super interesting. Let me do a deep dive into that because. 99% of people don\u0026rsquo;t even know what this thing is. So I may as well write about it.\nOne firm, from my perspective, I\u0026rsquo;m learning about it, but then two, I can educate other people about it. And so like that specific article, like quite a few people have like come up to me and said like, oh, that was like super interesting. I had no clue that this existed which is, which is cool as a writer, like for people to do that.\nBut also like, it just, yeah. You know, for me, like if I learn about something that\u0026rsquo;s always like really good.\nWhat is Abhi\u0026rsquo;s advice for people thinking about learning in public? # James: Yeah, definitely. Yeah. I think that\u0026rsquo;s just, that\u0026rsquo;s super cool. And then kind of, what would you say to someone. that\u0026rsquo;s thinking about doing something like that, you know, being more public in the environment, posting things that they\u0026rsquo;re learning about, reading about kind of let\u0026rsquo;s, you know, I was like that back in the day, you know, where I was kind of on the fence, like, is like risky in some sense, like what people are gonna, like, I\u0026rsquo;m gonna have to like really put myself out there to do this.\nLike yeah. What would you advice you, what\u0026rsquo;d you say? What would you say to someone that\u0026rsquo;s in that position?\nAbhi: Yeah, it\u0026rsquo;s a, it\u0026rsquo;s a good question. I think. For me, like as like semi intimidated by it, but the fact that I\u0026rsquo;d done it before sort of help. And back then, it was like in the context of building a business, which is like completely different. And in this case, I like giving my opinion about things. And like, to be honest with you, like 99% of the reception has been like super, super positive.\nLike I doubt people are going to call you out on LinkedIn. If, unlike your opinion or something like that, they might just do like a friendly debate or whatever it is. So like pose a question, but they\u0026rsquo;re not gonna be. You\u0026rsquo;re stupid or you\u0026rsquo;re wrong, blah, blah, blah. I have actually had negative feedback for one of my articles, which I think was like, because I clicked beta did a little and it was like, just like a piece on like whether 10 minute grocery delivery services were sustainable and whether they were actually like good for the workers and that sort of thing.\nAnd so like, I dunno, some people had like really biased views on that. And so, you know, it just opens up a can of worms and in a nice, healthy debate. But to be honest with you, like. I think a lot of people are just like, happy to read what you put out, like happy to learn alongside you. And, and I think like the worst thing to do is sort of like obsess over the views.\nI think it\u0026rsquo;s that those are always a nice to have, but I think the best part about it is like, if you can get something out of writing that article, like. that\u0026rsquo;s great Like for the longevity tech one, I learnt a lot about longevity tech. I was able to sort of distill it into like, you know, a couple thousand words and that was like me fleshing out, like, I guess like a market landscape sort of piece where I was kind of like, okay, these are like the different parts of the value chain.\nThese are some interesting companies in that. Like, and so now, like if I come across a longevity tech company, I can sort of like go back to my article, look at what I was reading before. Look at if there were competitors in the space, or if these guys are doing something interesting, I\u0026rsquo;m able to sort of like come up to speed with what they\u0026rsquo;re doing a lot quicker.\nLike it helps from that perspective, if that makes sense. So, like, I always say like do things that you like doing. So if you really like writing about or talking about something, then just do that because it will make it easier to stick to that sort of consistent schedule. And you\u0026rsquo;re more likely to sort of follow it through\nAbhi on DAO Under # James: Yeah, I agree with that. Absolutely. I think that\u0026rsquo;s it. That\u0026rsquo;s really important. One of the things that you, that you\u0026rsquo;re really into as well as obviously Web3, and it\u0026rsquo;s a space that you like was saying trending tech, obviously Web3 is kind of like one of the vein main. Trigger points of this, of this space are one of the main things that\u0026rsquo;s going on.\nAnd it\u0026rsquo;s something that you\u0026rsquo;re involved with as well through things that you\u0026rsquo;re doing outside of work. You doubt on that. Could you, I\u0026rsquo;d love to hear more about kind of how the sort of origin story and then even more balanced kind of what it actually is and kind of what, what, what you sort of see it growing into in the future.\nAbhi: Yeah, sure. Yeah. I mean, so Dow and I literally started off as like me and my friend Jack. We were just chatting about, about crypto and Web3 and that sort of thing. And we were kind of like, oh, you know, like, it\u0026rsquo;d be awesome to do this with more people. And so we sort of reached out to 10 people that we thought would be interested.\nThey all sort of said yes. And so we just joined this group where like every, every Tuesday night at 8:00 PM, we would just talk about this stuff for like an hour, two hours, something like that. And so we started this back in November. And, and then that sort of snowballed and like people would invite their friends or friends of friends and things like that.\nAnd so we grew that group to about 50 people or so, and it, and it was like crazy, like, like, so we were on slack back then. And so we got to like, there\u0026rsquo;s like a slack limit of like 10,000 messages has got to that in like two weeks time. Like, it was kind of nuts. We had. 80%, weekly active users or something crazy.\nAnd so like that, that was really awesome. And so like over, over Christmas, what we were thinking about was like, okay, how do we sort of scale this up beyond just our friend group or like our like close, close circles, I guess. And so that\u0026rsquo;s sort of where Dow under was. What sort of like apex first Web3 community where, you know, new entrance builders, participants can all sort of congregate and, and learn from each other and build together.\nAnd so like why this sort of came across, it came up was just because like, All the people in our initial group was kind of like, this is amazing because everything happens in our time zone. So we sort of like, and this is something that I\u0026rsquo;ve seen for a long time, but it didn\u0026rsquo;t like fully click that this was like a huge pain point until a lot of people sort of set, set it to me was like everything in, in Web3 or crypto usually happens in the U S or in Europe.\nSo it\u0026rsquo;s always. 3:00 AM our time, like different calls or different events, always in the U S and so like Australia and APAC more broadly is just always left out. And so we were like, okay, how do we bring that experience? Here in our times where we don\u0026rsquo;t have to sacrifice our sleep to get involved in this sort of stuff.\nLike how can we sort of like help each other, build our own projects and that sort of thing, without having to go over that to the U S to build. And so that\u0026rsquo;s effectively what we\u0026rsquo;re doing. And so we\u0026rsquo;ve sort of like one deployed three or four projects building a couple of more at the at the moment, like incubating them, sorry.\nEffectively, what that means is like cross-pollinating teams with different talent. Like if, if an artist needs engineering talent, helping them there, if like dev needs, artists talent, helping them there. And so we\u0026rsquo;re just sort of like building this, like. Community from the ground up. And so we\u0026rsquo;ve got about 250 people or 260 people actually, I think in the, in the community.\nAnd we\u0026rsquo;ve got like 350 on our wait list. And so if like intentionally gated it for now, but where we\u0026rsquo;re hoping to open it up more broadly. Yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s sort of where we\u0026rsquo;re at today, where we want to go is a, is a bigger, bigger vision. And sir, at the end of the we want to be able to deliver a four-day conference called Keith down under where two days are sort of like panel speakers or like just sort of build this, talking about their project, showcasing their projects, that sort of thing.\nAnd then two days of hackathons. And so sort of bring that packer style, Silicon valley sort of. To Sydney. And so that, that, that\u0026rsquo;s sort of the goal. It\u0026rsquo;s a big vision. But, but I think we, we have the team and the right resources to sort of get it done. So that\u0026rsquo;s the goal there. Yeah.\nWhere does DAO Meet Community? # James: Cool. That\u0026rsquo;s exciting. Certainly. Where do you see the Dow is like, you know, this decentralized autonomous organization idea, like where do you see the actual, that, that side of things coming in and joining the kind of community.\nAbhi: Yeah. So we\u0026rsquo;ve already sort of kicked out at that. So within our community, we\u0026rsquo;ve got this thing called pods, so we\u0026rsquo;ve got an art pod research, pot design part develop a pot marketing pod and a community pod. And so all six of these pods, what we\u0026rsquo;ve sort of done is like instituted pod leaders that sort of put their hand up and effectively what the pod leaders are going to do.\nOr what they\u0026rsquo;ve already started doing is sort of like getting people are interested in those. Like segments I\u0026rsquo;m working on something. So for example, where like, we\u0026rsquo;ve, we\u0026rsquo;ve sort of let the design pod sort of. Takeover our initial design efforts. So in terms of like branding guidelines, our logo, like what our collateral should look like, what our much should look like.\nThat\u0026rsquo;s sort of in charge of that now. So we\u0026rsquo;ve like handed away control, control of that to them. And it\u0026rsquo;s sort of on them to sort of like work away on it. And so that\u0026rsquo;s like the first step to decentralization like me and my core team is sort of like built this. But like, how do we sort of disperse like, duties or tasks to like other people to sort of like, let them run with it and let the community build what they actually want.\nAnd so they\u0026rsquo;re sort of doing that. We\u0026rsquo;ve got a developer, pod pods working on like a decentralized jobs protocol and things like that. So these are just ideas that have come out from the. As well. So we\u0026rsquo;ve got like a long list. Like our research pod wants to sort of start writing, writing more about gamefied different sort of like advent advances in this space.\nAnd so we sort of given them like, you know, like the, the ability to go into that. We\u0026rsquo;ve enabled them to do that. Like, You know, by providing them the resources or connections wherever possible to, to go into that. And sir, you know, that\u0026rsquo;s, that\u0026rsquo;s sort of how we sort of make this a bit more decentralized than it is now.\nI think some sort of centralization is not about. Like otherwise nothing will likely get done. What we\u0026rsquo;ve sort of seen with other dials in the spaces. Like either they\u0026rsquo;re not really that organized or, you know, that it\u0026rsquo;s sort of lacking like a larger vision. And so, like, I think there is always going to be like a central nucleus, but what we\u0026rsquo;re hoping is like, we can get the community\u0026rsquo;s input into all of that.\nAnd as much as possible, we will hand over to the community and then just sort of like build together with. It is sort of the goal, but I think it\u0026rsquo;s something that was still fleshing out. Like what is the right balance of decentralized versus centralized is like a big debate in my eyes. And so like, I don\u0026rsquo;t know what the right answer is, but it\u0026rsquo;s something that we\u0026rsquo;re very conscious of and want to sort of, yeah.\nDoing a distributed fashion Fisher.\nAdvice for people discovering web3? # James: Yeah. Cool. That\u0026rsquo;s exciting. Certainly. And what, what advice, I mean, let\u0026rsquo;s say someone is kind of discovering Web3, know there\u0026rsquo;s all these different communities, things like, like yours and there are many others across the world. What are some like if you had to kind of restart and web. What would be, that would be sort of some places or some things that you would really like to kind of upskill yourself in this area as quickly as possible.\nAbhi: Yeah, sir. There\u0026rsquo;s a really good guide from, I think it\u0026rsquo;s like another doubt called crypto or crypto culture society. And so they\u0026rsquo;ve got like an intro to Web3 guide. I think that\u0026rsquo;s really good, but. If we were sort of picking away at one of the verticals that, that we have three is split into, sir, if you think about it from like a, a vertical perspective.\nSo there\u0026rsquo;s like NFTs, DeFi, normal tokens as, as like three main verticals and maybe game fires like a fourth vertical, but that\u0026rsquo;s sort of like under an FDS. And FDA\u0026rsquo;s might be the easiest one for people to wrap their heads around. Just because it seems a bit more tangible than, than the others. I think that\u0026rsquo;s an easy one or DeFi might be another easy one.\nIf you go through apps like Josh, Joshua is his Minke app, which I think Josh, you had Josh on, on the podcast a while ago. And so like, things like that are like easy ways to get involved and understand what\u0026rsquo;s causing. In the ecosystem, but I think largely it\u0026rsquo;s just sort of like jumping in headfirst into.\nAnd just sort of reading different people\u0026rsquo;s threads, like understanding who you should follow in the space, like just reading different people\u0026rsquo;s writing is the easiest way to go about it. And talking to people in person as well is a really good way of learning. Like, I think there\u0026rsquo;s only so much you can rate, but if you talk to people in person online, like in discord or wherever the community sort of based, I think that\u0026rsquo;s a really good way of getting involved and learning more about the space.\nI think it was just like all about practical application. So like, if you read about NFTs, go and buy an NFT. If you read about DFI, get stuck into a defined protocol and just like stake, a few tokens and things I thought like you just have to give it a go. Like, it seems pretty daunting. So do it with like a little bit of money.\nNothing that can ruin you, but like that\u0026rsquo;s how I got started. It was probably early 2017. I just bought a bit of a theory and just did a bit of reading, like read the white paper and that sort of thing. And it just like opened a larger world for me to just like keep diving deeper down the rabbit hole.\nReally.\nJames: Yeah, cool. That\u0026rsquo;s that\u0026rsquo;s exciting. And I think I liked now, you know, now it\u0026rsquo;s maturing as a thing slightly, you know, and now there is a lot of those like places where you can kind of get the low down or things that can explain. More simple terms now than perhaps they were\nAbhi: Yeah, for sure. Yeah. I mean, I think this space is still finding product market fit. Like it\u0026rsquo;s still incredibly alley. Despite how long it\u0026rsquo;s been around for like 10 years or like even longer actually for Bitcoin. But yeah, like it\u0026rsquo;s been around for awhile, but it\u0026rsquo;s still maturing. It\u0026rsquo;s still growing.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s still really early on in, in, in its journey and certainly. You know, even, I don\u0026rsquo;t know where it\u0026rsquo;s going to be in like six months time. Like no one really knows we\u0026rsquo;re all learning together. And so like, hopefully it\u0026rsquo;s not too intimidating for someone to just like, come in. One of the good things I think about what three is, like, everyone understands that.\nAnd so it was always enthusiastic to help more people get in. So like, just reach out to me or someone else like that you see who\u0026rsquo;s posting about Web3 or like talking about it and just. Like, I\u0026rsquo;m always willing to help people get involved and finding where they might fit within the whole, whole ecosystem.\nBut yeah, like I think anyone in this space is always willing to help people learn, which is, which is really awesome.\nWho does Abhi look up to? # James: No, definitely. It\u0026rsquo;s nice to have that in his space for sure. I wanna know. Take this conversation to a bit more of a macro level of, of yourself and your career. I\u0026rsquo;m curious to hear, you know, as someone that\u0026rsquo;s in VC and in all these different areas, are there any people that you really look up to and say, that guy does well, that guy go does something I really admire them for this thing, or, you know, someone that you really want to emulate and, and what would be a reason why you\u0026rsquo;d want to do why you look up to them?\nAbhi: That\u0026rsquo;s a good question. There\u0026rsquo;s a lot of people I look up to and there\u0026rsquo;s a lot of people. I have to thank for where I am today as well. And I, and I look up to all of those people. Probably one of the interesting ones. Hmm. Maybe Josh Wolf again, like, so founder of flux capital, like I, I found I found his writing ages and ages ago.\nWhen I was back at uni, like it knows like super fascinated by him as a person. Like the way he writes is like really, really clear. And I heard, like, my writing is like 1% as clear as his and, and the way he sort of like speaks on, on podcasts and in presentations and things. It\u0026rsquo;s just like incredible thing.\nHe\u0026rsquo;s just got like high level of clarity in his own mind. And then he\u0026rsquo;s also like a really forward-thinking person. And so like some of the stuff that Lux do is just incredible. So they incubate sometimes some deep tech companies, they back really amazing companies. And so like that, that\u0026rsquo;s always just like fascinated me.\nAnd like he\u0026rsquo;s been at the forefront of all of that. And so he\u0026rsquo;s someone that, that really inspires me. Hopefully I can meet him one day, but who knows?\nJames: Yeah. Yeah. Cool. No, I think it\u0026rsquo;s nice to have people like that. Certainly. And it\u0026rsquo;s it\u0026rsquo;s interesting that, yeah, he\u0026rsquo;s. Being someone that you\u0026rsquo;ve looked up to for so long as well. That\u0026rsquo;s really cool.\nAbhi\u0026rsquo;s advice for Graduates # James: I want to, you know, you\u0026rsquo;ve mentioned university and I\u0026rsquo;d love to kind of wrap on a question that I ask all the guests and you can take this wherever you\u0026rsquo;d like, but something I asked the guests is kind of, if you had to wind back the clock to when you were just finishing uni and starting into, into the work world, what things you know now that you.\nYou knew when you would, when you were at that stage.\nAbhi: Yeah. I think I\u0026rsquo;d probably experiment a lot more with what. For my career, like I think what I should have done back down is probably like talk to a lot of people in the ecosystem and figure out like ways to get involved. Even if it didn\u0026rsquo;t seem like I\u0026rsquo;d be able to get involved from the outside, I should have sort of like been a bit more proactive, I think.\nAnd, and talk to people. Like, I think I was a little bit daunted by the fact that all of the people back then were just like really experienced people. And I was like, oh, who\u0026rsquo;s going to talk. But I think they probably would have been nice enough to talk to me about that then. So like, I probably should have done that.\nI think I think there\u0026rsquo;s a lot more opportunities for experimentation and, and I say this from like a privileged point of view as well. Like I think some uni students are really privileged in the fact that they still live at home. They don\u0026rsquo;t have to pay rent, they don\u0026rsquo;t have to pay for food, blah, blah, blah.\nAnd so for them, like they can. Be pretty like they can take more riskier options in the career so they can work at different startups for like two or three month periods, like intern at different places without really worrying about securing a grad job. But other people also are like, who aren\u0026rsquo;t as, as lucky or in a privileged position.\nFor them, what I think is really important is like to be able to sort of like secure a grad job initially. Secure the gradual and then use that to leverage other opportunities. And so like what I mean by that, and I think this is becoming a bit more accepted now actually, because companies are really desperate for good talent.\nAnd so you\u0026rsquo;re able to sort of like negotiate with them, your start date. So like push, push your grad start date back like six months or a year or something like that. And in that time, go and experiment working for a startup or go and experiment with doing something that you\u0026rsquo;ve always wanted to do. If that\u0026rsquo;s traveling.\nAll over the world, like go and do that. If that sort of like starting your own business, like go and do that. And, and you\u0026rsquo;ve got a bit of security there in that grad job. And you can always like, bring that forward. I\u0026rsquo;m fairly certain, like if you just talk to people like they\u0026rsquo;re, they\u0026rsquo;re willing to help you help you out as much as possible.\nBut I think, yeah, like talking to people, experimenting is probably like what I should have done a lot earlier in my career.\nJames: Yeah, cool. I think that\u0026rsquo;s great advice. Certainly, you know, having those, that wide range of perspectives will really, really help and help you to decide and get more of those views and help you decide what you want to do more as well. I think it\u0026rsquo;s so important.\nAbhi: For sure. And I think, I think like people are open to it more now than they were before. And so like, why not make use of that opportunity? But yeah, it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s a, it\u0026rsquo;s a, it\u0026rsquo;s a super important thing is just like talking to people experimenting. I think like, if you\u0026rsquo;re not sure what you want to do that\u0026rsquo;s like the best way to like, But you might not want to do or what you will want to do for the rest of your life.\nWhere to connect with Abhi # James: Yeah, definitely. Yeah. I think that\u0026rsquo;s so important. And thanks for sharing that today. Where can people go to find out more about yourself? You know, can I do.\nAbhi: Yeah. So, I mean, you can find me on LinkedIn, just search my name, or you can find me on Twitter as well. But for the, some of the other stuff. So if a superfluid I write on sub stack, so I think the subset URL is Abby M dot subsect com for down under, you can find us on Twitter for east down under, you can find us on Twitter as well.\nFor brown patties, you can find us on Twitter. But yeah, and I guess. For, for folklore related items, you can book in office hours with me on, on our website, or just reach out to abhi at folklore dot vc. Like super happy to chat to anyone who wants to chat.\nJames: Great. Well, yeah, we\u0026rsquo;ll have all the links to all those places wherever you\u0026rsquo;re watching or listening to this show. Thanks so much for coming on the show today. It\u0026rsquo;s been really fascinating hearing from you and the things that you\u0026rsquo;re involved with. thanks so much for your time today.\nAbhi: Yeah, no worries. Thanks for having me on really appreciate it. And it was a lot of fun.\nOutro # James: Thanks for listening to this episode I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. If you want to get my takeaways, the things that I learned from this episode, please go to Graduate Theory.com/subscribe, where you can get my takeaways and all the information about each episode, straight to your inbox.\nThanks so much for listening again today, and we\u0026rsquo;re looking forward to seeing you next week.\n← Back to episode 26\n","date":"18 April 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/graduate-theory/26-abhi-maran/transcript/","section":"Graduate Theory Transcripts","summary":"← Back to episode 26\nThis transcript has been lightly edited for readability. It may still contain transcription errors.\nAbhi: I think that’s, that’s super important and that’s like a lifelong journey, to be honest, it’s just always reading, finding people’s perspectives on things, challenging perspectives on things and like challenging your own perspective on things as well.\n","title":"Transcript: On Making a Career in Venture Capital with Abhi Maran","type":"graduate-theory-transcripts"},{"content":" Read the full transcript → Hi all, today marks a special day for Graduate Theory, the 25th episode. It\u0026rsquo;s been nearly 6 months now of weekly content, many interviews conducted and many lessons learnt.\nToday\u0026rsquo;s episode is a little different to the ordinary. Today, I\u0026rsquo;ll be going through some of the things that I have learnt through speaking to many different people over the last few months. I\u0026rsquo;ve spoken to graduates, CEOs, thought leaders, and many more, each episode containing unique lessons. In this episode, I\u0026rsquo;m going to outline what I\u0026rsquo;ve learned, and add a bit of my personal touch along the way.\nThis is a summary of everything Graduate Theory so far (caution: long!).\nBefore we start, I also want to add a bit of a disclaimer. While, yes, we have spoken to 24 different people, the lessons in this post are subject to change (and likely will). I\u0026rsquo;m not perfect, and I don\u0026rsquo;t have a crystal ball of wisdom to get everything right. This post marks my current best attempt to uncover the principles that you need to follow to have a successful and fulfilling career.\nPS, if you haven\u0026rsquo;t already subscribed to the Graduate Theory newsletter to get emails like this every single week, do it now!\nSUBSCRIBE\nThe Five Keys 🔑 # I\u0026rsquo;m going to split this into five sections, each containing a significant lesson that is relevant for graduates.\nThese are 👇\nProactivity vs Reactivity\nTime Management\nNetworking\nTrusting Your Gut\nPersonal Branding\nI\u0026rsquo;m going to explain each of these in detail and use relevant context from interviews to drive the points home. After each, you\u0026rsquo;ll have some action items that you can take and use to create the career that you desire.\nProactivity vs Reactivity # Being proactive rather than reactive is the most important trait that I have picked up during the episodes. Proactive guests, proactive people, achieve so much more than those who are reactive.\nYou may have heard the saying \u0026ldquo;You\u0026rsquo;re either growing or you\u0026rsquo;re dying\u0026rdquo;. This idea is similar to what this lesson is about.\n≝ Definition # According to the dictionary, to be proactive is to \u0026ldquo;Act in advance to deal with an expected change or difficulty\u0026rdquo;. To be reactive is to \u0026ldquo;Tend to be responsive or to react to a stimulus\u0026rdquo;.\nIn our careers, we can either be proactive or reactive. We can anticipate what is going on in the world around us, seek out solutions to problems, or we can wait until the problem has arrived and then deal with it.\nOne of the most important traits of people that have been on the show is that they do not wait for situations to happen before they take action. They are constantly looking for new opportunities, new career paths and new adventures.\nFor example, if they aren\u0026rsquo;t happy in a job, they won\u0026rsquo;t wait for permission before looking at alternatives. If they want to do something, they go out and do it.\nThey don\u0026rsquo;t stagnate, they progress.\nThis feeling runs much deeper than just actions people take, it becomes a mindset that people have. Proactive people have a genuine belief that they can go and get what they want, if you didn\u0026rsquo;t think this, you wouldn\u0026rsquo;t even try.\nHaving this growth mindset that you can go out and change your circumstances is critical to having a successful career.\n📣 Examples and Tips # Dan Brockwell # The first example from this in the podcast is from Dan Brockwell. We will talk about Dan a few times during this piece, and I believe he is one of the best young people in Australia to take lessons and advice from.\nOne piece of Dan\u0026rsquo;s advice is for people in the process of applying to startups and even companies more broadly. He says that most jobs are filled through referrals or ad hoc introductions, and the best way to get the job you want is to be proactive and get involved with the company you want to work for.\nIn our episode, he gave an example of when he did this.\nOriginally I was conceptualizing an app with friends, called \u0026ldquo;Friends With Deficits\u0026rdquo;, and we were trying to like track debts between friends in different currencies.\nWe did some competitor research and found this company called Tilt. I was like, damn, they\u0026rsquo;ve solved it. But they have an ambassador group, at UNSW. So I emailed the country manager in Australia. I was like, \u0026ldquo;Hey, I\u0026rsquo;d love to join the ambassador group\u0026rdquo;. He\u0026rsquo;s like, yeah, sure, man. I opened up applications, joined the ambassador group, and did that for a couple of months.\nAnd then that converted into a growth internship with them leading an ambassador program with a couple of hundred students across Australia.\nWarwick Donaldson # The second example comes from Warwick Donaldson. Warwick used to work in the call centre at ANZ. He didn\u0026rsquo;t enjoy working there and wanted something more for himself. While he was working at ANZ, he would use the employee contact book and email employees in different areas across the bank.\nAnd so basically while I was there, what I did was every day I would get on the GAL, the global address list. And I would research people in ANZ that I thought were working in interesting departments and I\u0026rsquo;d send them emails and say, \u0026ldquo;Hey, I\u0026rsquo;m interested in what you do. I want to learn more. Do you have time to go and get coffee?\u0026rdquo;\nSo I found someone in treasury and he\u0026rsquo;s like, well, we\u0026rsquo;ve never had anyone reach out this is cool. Uh, we\u0026rsquo;re hiring a grad role as an analyst. Are you interested? I said, oh Yeah. Yeah, I did an interview and got my first, you know, \u0026ldquo;real\u0026rdquo; grad job.\n✍️ Actions # So, now you know what it means to be proactive rather than reactive, what steps can you take to become more proactive?\n(1) Understand Asymmetric Risks # In life we take risks.\nSometimes we make decisions that could end well or could end badly.\nPutting your money in the stock market is one example of such a situation.\nAsymmetric risk would be one where the probability of a positive outcome is the same as a negative one.\nAn asymmetric risk is one where the probability of a positive outcome is not the same as the negative.\nNetworking and creating connections are examples of asymmetric risk.\nLike the worst they can do is say \u0026rsquo;no\u0026rsquo;, The best they can do is say \u0026lsquo;yes\u0026rsquo;. And you ended up getting a job. There\u0026rsquo;s no downside, there are only upsides. It\u0026rsquo;s a pretty good risk to take If you want to call it a risk at all.\n(2) Understand What You Want # The second key to this working is that you must be clear on what it is you want to be proactive about. Dan had clarity in his desire for an internship, and Warwick had clarity in his desire for a role at ANZ.\nWhat do you want? If you ask for anything and get it, what would you ask for?\nWho could you ask today, to get closer to getting that? Unsplash\nTime Management # Time management is one of the most important skills that leaders must have today. With ever-increasing pressures on our time from meetings and social activities, knowing how to get things done effectively is extremely important.\nAs Adam Geha said in our episode\nIf you are not interested in the question of how to extract maximum from those 16 waking hours, in my view, you are not thinking straight and you\u0026rsquo;re frankly, you\u0026rsquo;re not even on the field in terms of a high-performance.\n≝ Definition # So, what is time management? According to Wikipedia:\nTime management is the process of planning and exercising conscious control of time spent on specific activities, especially to increase effectiveness, efficiency, and productivity.\nAs Adam said, we have 16 waking hours every day. To maximise what we can achieve and the experiences we can have, we must consider how to use these 16 hours most effectively.\n📣 Examples and Tips # Adam Geha # In the episode with Adam, he gave many examples of things he does to be more effective with his time. To be clear, Adam takes his time management extremely seriously and he has huge pressure on his time. These may not be necessary for you but are nonetheless interesting to see what a high performer like Adam does with his time.\ndon\u0026rsquo;t default to one-hour meetings\nhave a predefined wardrobe\nreverse your car in so you get out faster in the mornings\nbrush your teeth in the shower\nAdam says the following about using these techniques in the context of creativity. He says that people often mistake routines for hindering creativity.\nAdam spoke about how having routines to free up your mental bandwidth makes you more creative. He says not having a routine makes you less creative.\nSo if you\u0026rsquo;ve got tasks that are routine, you should have routines to deal with the routine tasks so that they don\u0026rsquo;t use RAM. You are going to get problems and tasks that are non-routine for which you need to consume genuine RAM.\nHis productivity hack is to complete routine tasks in a routine way.\nPenny Talalak # Penny is another very busy person. She also has tricks that she uses to get the most out of her time.\nsurround yourself with people who also have side hustles / are busy\nset your schedule\nuse a kanban board to track tasks\nbreak pieces of work down into small pieces\nplan your week in advance\nThese are all great tips, and relevant to my own experiences with time management and productivity.\n✍️ Actions # There are many steps you can take to improve your time management. There are powerful tips from Adam and Penny that, if used, will improve your output.\nSomeone else who knows a lot about time management is Cal Newport. He hasn\u0026rsquo;t been a guest on the show, but hopefully someday!\nHe has written several books about productivity, has a podcast on deep work and digital minimalism and is generally known as a productivity guru.\nI use my version of his productivity system, and I\u0026rsquo;m going to outline five of his unofficial seven baby steps below, taken from this podcast episode.\n(1) Time Block Plan # Every job needs time. Using your calendar, allocate time for each task that you need to complete. Try your best to follow this, but if you get knocked off the plan, just reset your calendar and build a new plan for the time remaining in the day.\nThis is what I spoke about in episode 10 of the podcast.\nInstead of using the to-do list, your actual implementation of the to-do list is your time. When you have that to-do list, you kind of like, well, yeah, like I\u0026rsquo;ll do this one usually by the end of the day. Maybe half or like this there\u0026rsquo;s always stuff left, you never finished the to-do list.\nAnd I think that process of even just planning my day deciding what to work on, brings a lot more clarity to what I\u0026rsquo;m supposed to be doing at certain times. I think that\u0026rsquo;s allowed me to get more done.\n(2) Task Boards # We need a place to keep track of tasks! Cal recommends that for each of your professional roles, you have a separate place to keep track of what you\u0026rsquo;re working on, what\u0026rsquo;s coming up, what\u0026rsquo;s blocked etc. You could use tools like Trello, Flow or Asana for this but the tool is not relevant, it is the concept that matters!\nI use Trello now to track my tasks. I keep notes inside each card and can add comments when the status of a task changes or needs updating.\n(3) Full Capture # At the end of each day, Cal suggests that we need a shutdown ritual. When you\u0026rsquo;re finished for the day, make sure that your tasks are all reviewed and that all the information for them is out of your head and onto the cards. You can sleep well knowing that the information you need won\u0026rsquo;t be ignored or forgotten.\nYou can place items that need to be captured in either your task board, your calendar or your email.\n(4) Weekly Plan # Now we\u0026rsquo;ve got our daily plans sorted, it\u0026rsquo;s time to consider our days in the context of our week. At the start of each week, look at your tasks and begin to schedule time in your calendar for when things need to be done.\n(5) Strategic Plan # Now we have our daily plan and our weekly plan, we add in the strategic plan. This is where we plan for long term goals. Perhaps it\u0026rsquo;s the things you need to do to get a promotion at work, or it\u0026rsquo;s your goals for the next quarter. I have a plan for the next quarter and some big goals of things I\u0026rsquo;d love to have achieved by then.\nOnce we have the strategic plan, we can look at this when we are doing our weekly plan. We see what our goals are for the quarter and then see how those map into what we are doing this week. This is a fantastic way of keeping yourself on track for those big goals.\nIf you aren\u0026rsquo;t already doing some of these, adding them to your week will significantly improve your productivity, as it has done to mine.\nNetworking # Networking is a dirty word! Joe Wehbe had this to say on networking\nNetworking can be a dirty word but it\u0026rsquo;s one I\u0026rsquo;m happy to use because every time I think about it, the way to do it most effectively is just at the end of the day, to become a better person.\nLet\u0026rsquo;s do it.\n≝ Definition # We define networking as the ability to connect with others. Someone good at networking is good at connecting with people and growing their network. Often networking is seen as something negative because growing your network can be done maliciously.\nAs we have already seen though, the best way to network is to be a genuinely good person.\n📣 Examples and Tips # Joe Wehbe # Joe is full of wisdom. When we spoke, he gave a great summary of Give and Take by Adam Grant. In this book, Grant outlines different archetypes of networkers, and which ones are most effective.\nSo takers are always what\u0026rsquo;s in it for me.\nSo that\u0026rsquo;s like there always has to be something in it for me, that\u0026rsquo;s obvious. For me to be willing to help.\nMatchers are like traders, has to be an even exchange of value in both directions. And obviously like pretty like at the same time.\nThird is givers and givers are like, all right here, I\u0026rsquo;ll come on the podcast or I\u0026rsquo;ll introduce you to this person without an obvious or tangible thing to come back.\nI think we\u0026rsquo;re all everyone\u0026rsquo;s benefit is linked to everyone else in the big picture.\nHaynes D\u0026rsquo;Souza # Haynes is an incredible guy. What he has achieved over the last few years is special, and he has great advice for reaching out to people.\nGiven his status, he often has people reach out to him. In our episode, he outlined two things that people can do to be more likely to get a response.\nYou have to be very careful about just cold emailing, cold reaching out to people and saying, can I pick your brain? Because folks are generally busy. And you have to be conscious of their time and their calendars. I think you\u0026rsquo;ve got to sort of structure that. I look for two things.\nOne is, is this person legitimate? If I say yes, will they take this seriously? And will they show up on time?\nAnd the second thing is, what is this person looking to get out of this. What do they mean by just picking my brain?\nSo I think when structuring this, be very clear on what it is you want to get out of it. I think you have to be sort of wary of people\u0026rsquo;s times.\n✍️ Actions # So, how can you be better at networking?\nSimilar to other points we\u0026rsquo;ve made on the show, don\u0026rsquo;t hesitate to reach out to people you find interesting. Like Warwick and Dan when they were being proactive, get out there and meet people that you want to meet. There is no risk in reaching out.\nSecondly, we want to reach out in a good way. Reaching out is great but our efforts will be wasted if we don\u0026rsquo;t do this effectively.\nAs Haynes mentioned, we want to be both conscious of the other person\u0026rsquo;s time, and clear on what we want to get out of our interaction.\nWhen I\u0026rsquo;m reaching out to guests for this podcast, I make sure I am clear on both of these things.\nThere are many different resources out there on the best ways to send emails to people, but one template that I use is this one from Dave Perell.\nDavid Perell\u0026rsquo;s podcast invite email from https://marketingexamples.com/ This email covers all the bases. Show interest, describe yourself and what you want to get out of this interaction.\nShort and sweet, but very effective.\nDan Brockwell also mentioned in his episode the following techniques when reaching out.\nMake sure you include:\nWho you are\nWhy you\u0026rsquo;re reaching out\nWhat\u0026rsquo;s in it for them\nAnd use the following techniques\nprovide value (write a post, suggest an improvement to the business)\nclear ask (\u0026ldquo;would you be open to \u0026hellip;.\u0026rdquo;)\nThese combined will make sure you\u0026rsquo;ve given value to the person you\u0026rsquo;re reaching out to, and make them much more likely to respond.\nTrusting Your Gut # We all have that feeling, something deep within us knows what to do. Do we listen?\n≝ Definition # As Michael Gill (Gilly) said to us during his episode\nyou have three very important ways of knowing, and that\u0026rsquo;s your head, your heart and your gut. You got to keep them all in balance.\nThe gut is that feeling inside your stomach, telling you to do something. A big theme on the podcast has been that people are either grateful that they did listen to their gut, or they wish they listened sooner. I\u0026rsquo;m yet to have a guest who is thankful they didn\u0026rsquo;t listen to their gut.\nListen to your gut, and do what feels right.\n📣 Examples and Tips # Lidia Ranieri # The first example of this is from Lidia. Lidia was about to work in law until her gut kicked in and she decided that she\u0026rsquo;d like to try something else.\nIt was my first job out of university. I was working law firm and thought that I was going to pursue a career in law. And within three months, I was going home and I had that dead feeling. I knew I can\u0026rsquo;t do this. it, when I kind of told friends and family that I was, you know, you know, aborting that mission, they thought I was absolutely mad.\nIt was like, you can\u0026rsquo;t just finish the law degree. You\u0026rsquo;ve got a great job with a great firm You can\u0026rsquo;t do that. And I\u0026rsquo;m like, no, I, I am doing that. That is not the right direction for me.\nAndrew Akib # Andrew is now the CEO of Maslow, a disability and accessibility startup. His advice? The time will pass anyway, follow your gut as soon as you can!\nThe things that you\u0026rsquo;re thinking about doing, don\u0026rsquo;t just kick the can down the road and keep thinking about doing it. If there\u0026rsquo;s something that you are thinking about doing, just do it. Probably would\u0026rsquo;ve started Maslow a couple of years earlier. There\u0026rsquo;s no harm in just starting a new thing if that\u0026rsquo;s what you want to do because you\u0026rsquo;re either going to start it or you\u0026rsquo;re not. So you might as well start it\nMel Kettle # Mel gave some great advice to me about what to do when you have this feeling in your gut. How do you know when is the right time to take action on it?\nShe has a great rule of thumb for these serious problems. If it keeps her up for 3 nights in a row, it\u0026rsquo;s time to take action on that thing.\nIs your job not great and keeping you awake at night? If it\u0026rsquo;s three nights in a row, it\u0026rsquo;s time to quit.\nif it was three or more nights in a row, then that\u0026rsquo;s a really big warning sign for me that something\u0026rsquo;s not right in my life.\nI\u0026rsquo;ve used that three-night rule, with boyfriends, with jobs, with clients. And I just think it\u0026rsquo;s such, it\u0026rsquo;s your body\u0026rsquo;s way of saying to you things aren\u0026rsquo;t right and you need to listen.\n✍️ Actions # Following your gut is intuitive. We all know when we get that feeling that we should be doing something differently, or we should be taking a different path.\nThe actions you can take from this are to listen to your gut and follow Mel\u0026rsquo;s rule. If you\u0026rsquo;re thinking about something so much that you can\u0026rsquo;t fall asleep for three days in a row, it\u0026rsquo;s time to act. Do that thing, quit that position, whatever it might be.\nLike Gilly says, your gut is one of your three ways of knowing. It\u0026rsquo;s worth paying attention to.\nPersonal Branding # ≝ Definition # Personal branding is about creating an avenue for people to get to know you. We want to shift from being someone that watches what\u0026rsquo;s going on, to someone that is in the arena. Someone that is sharing their opinions and getting known among your chosen community.\n📣 Examples and Tips # Dan Brockwell # Wise man Dan is back. One of the great things about Dan is he practices what he preaches. He gave me great advice on the importance of a personal brand, and it\u0026rsquo;s advice that he uses to create his brand. Dan is one of the most popular guys on LinkedIn, and if you haven\u0026rsquo;t already joined his EarlyWork community, I highly recommend doing so.\nHere\u0026rsquo;s Dan on personal branding\nI think having an online personal brand just allows you to get your story out to people in a much more scalable way. It\u0026rsquo;s like you do the work once. And then so many people find out about who you are and, you know, there\u0026rsquo;s that old expression, it\u0026rsquo;s not what you know, it\u0026rsquo;s who you know, the modifying factor there is it\u0026rsquo;s, who knows you.\nAnd the even further modification is it\u0026rsquo;s who knows you for what? Having an online personal brand is just like taking extra shots on goal, right? It\u0026rsquo;s like, you know, you could be a striker in soccer. You might be a shitty striker. Having an online personal brand just means more people are going to find out about what you\u0026rsquo;re doing and just, you know, with enough shots, you get some goals.\nEric and Aiden # I spoke to Eric and Aiden about the importance of mental health in careers. They had some great things to say, and when we were wrapping up the conversation, they left me with some great advice for graduates regarding personal branding. They\u0026rsquo;d been working on their book \u0026ldquo;New Job Code\u0026rdquo; and felt that this was something they wish they had started earlier.\nWhen I was close to graduating, I had a mentor at the time, one that I sought out. [..] Some advice that he gave me that I took two years to act on, is to build something to create a visible identity or content or something that you can be proud of outside of your role, whatever it happens to be.\nAdam Ashton # Adam hosts a podcast called \u0026ldquo;What You Will Learn\u0026rdquo; and it\u0026rsquo;s all about books. Adam and his co-host (also called Adam) review books and give readers their summaries. It\u0026rsquo;s a great way to get started with books, and a great way to get information from them without reading them the whole way through.\nAdam shared a unique perspective of his podcast that I think is great for aspiring content creators to understand.\nI think the good middle step between consumption and creation is curation, which is kind of where we went with the podcast. It\u0026rsquo;s kind of like, okay, well we\u0026rsquo;re learning all this stuff. And then we\u0026rsquo;re going to try and share that with people as well. We\u0026rsquo;re going to try and break that down and make it a little bit simpler for other people who want to consume, but probably don\u0026rsquo;t have the time to read a book every single week.\nDon\u0026rsquo;t want to keep being a consumer? Too hard to be a creator? Start with curation.\n✍️ Actions # So what action can you take to start or improve your personal brand?\nIf you haven\u0026rsquo;t yet got a personal brand, it\u0026rsquo;s time to start thinking about what you could post that you feel comfortable with.\nSome questions you could ask yourself include:\nWhat am I interested in?\nWhat do I tell people about?\nWhat do people ask me for advice about?\nIf I was a YouTuber, what would my videos be about?\nIf I had a Substack/was a writer, what would I write about?\nRemember that everyone who has a public image now previously did not have one. My podcast 6 months ago did not exist. Things change and grow over time and you can do the same.\nStep out and share your abilities with the world!\nResources Mentioned # EarlyWork\nNew Job Code\nWhat You Will Learn\nGive And Take - Adam Grant\nGraduate Theory Youtube Channel\nGraduate Theory Episodes Mentioned # #1 — On Networking with Joe Wehbe #7 — On Purpose and High Performance with Lidia Ranieri #8 — On Purpose Driven Business with Andrew Akib #9 — On Mentoring and Mental Health #10 — On Graduate Theory #11 — On The Graduate Experience and Careers with Haynes D\u0026rsquo;Souza #12 — On Books and The Importance of Range with Adam Ashton #15 — On Startups, Corporate and Personal Branding with Dan Brockwell #16 — On Building a Long-Term Career with Michael Gill #18 — On Asymmetric Risks with Warwick Donaldson #19 — On Designing a Side Hustle with Penny Talalak #20 — On Time Management and Leadership with Adam Geha #24 — On Avoiding Career Traps and Burnout with Mel Kettle ","date":"11 April 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/graduate-theory/25-the-quarter-century-review-with-james-fricker/","section":"Graduate Theory","summary":" Read the full transcript → Hi all, today marks a special day for Graduate Theory, the 25th episode. It’s been nearly 6 months now of weekly content, many interviews conducted and many lessons learnt.\nToday’s episode is a little different to the ordinary. Today, I’ll be going through some of the things that I have learnt through speaking to many different people over the last few months. I’ve spoken to graduates, CEOs, thought leaders, and many more, each episode containing unique lessons. In this episode, I’m going to outline what I’ve learned, and add a bit of my personal touch along the way.\n","title":"The Quarter Century Review with James Fricker","type":"graduate-theory"},{"content":"← Back to episode 25\nThis transcript has been lightly edited for readability. It may still contain transcription errors.\nJames: Hello, and welcome to Graduate Theory.\nToday\u0026rsquo;s episode is a special episode. No guests on the show today. It\u0026rsquo;s me and you.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s been nearly six months of weekly content.\nWe\u0026rsquo;ve interviewed, thought leaders, CEOs. And various other occupations from various different industries. There\u0026rsquo;s now quite a collection of people and interviews that we\u0026rsquo;ve, that we\u0026rsquo;ve created here as part of the show. So I thought today, what better way to kind of mark the 25th episode of Graduate Theory than to kind of do a bit of a.\nRight. I want to go back and I wanted to investigate, what have we have we done over the last few episodes and kind of what people have we spoken to what lessons have we really gained from a lot of these people that we\u0026rsquo;ve had on the show. So. Often, people have mentioned different concepts in different episodes.\nAnd I thought, can we collate a lot of these things, put them together and deliver them in one nice package for you, the listener. And that is what I aim to do in this episode. So in this episode, what we\u0026rsquo;re going to do is we\u0026rsquo;re going to go through. Five of the key lessons that I\u0026rsquo;ve learned so far from Graduate Theory, and I\u0026rsquo;ve summarized them as best I can.\nI\u0026rsquo;ve got insights from different guests that we\u0026rsquo;ve had in the show, different stories that they have been told along the way and different insights from my personal life and things that I\u0026rsquo;m interested in as well to kind of add some flavor and add some unique, a unique take on some of these to.\nBefore we get started today. I just want to thank my pod crew. Some of my friends that have been riding this wave along with me over the last six months Joe wadey with the withdrawal wavy podcast.\nLuke Smith, and Don Bullock and their podcasts with the chiefs and Liam Hounsell as well being massive support myself over the last couple of months and could not have got this far without you guys. So just wanted to mention you all the staff and that without, without further ado, let\u0026rsquo;s dive into this area.\nSo the five keys, the five lessons that I want to talk about today, we\u0026rsquo;ve got the first one productivity versus reactive.\nAlright, proactivity versus reactivity. Time management is the second one. How can we manage our time, better networking as well? What is the, what is your general practice around network and how can we be effective network is trusting your gut, right?\nWhat is the importance of doing that? How can we do that? Better, what are the pros and cons, I guess, of doing that as well. And finally, the fifth personal branding. Okay. How can you brand yourself? How can you gain opportunities? What are the, what are the kind of the steps? What does it take to brand yourself?\nRight. So these are the five things, and there\u0026rsquo;s been a lot of discussion on these five things across the episodes. And so today what we\u0026rsquo;re going to do is get into a bit of a summary and I think this is going to be quite powerful for those of you listening. It\u0026rsquo;s going to be quite interesting.\nCertainly it was very interesting for myself. When I was going through the content, trying to prepare a little, this, I think there are some really powerful lessons in here and really powerful anecdotes from guests as well. So we\u0026rsquo;re going to try and explain these as best as we can, like I said, using some of, some of the information that guests have provided to drive the points.\nAnd, and often woods as well, something I\u0026rsquo;m really big on is kind of what are the actions that we\u0026rsquo;re going to take from this what actions can I take and what things can actually do. It\u0026rsquo;s nice to have these concepts. It\u0026rsquo;s nice to have, all the cool ideas, but you know, what is the action that we\u0026rsquo;re going to take after this?\nThat\u0026rsquo;s something that Aaron gone says is. Let\u0026rsquo;s take some action on things and often everyone knows what to do, but no one actually does it. So to that, I\u0026rsquo;m going to try and dissect these concepts and distill them down into things that you can actually do today and things that will make a measurable difference on your life.\nSo I\u0026rsquo;m excited to share this is there\u0026rsquo;s been obviously a lot of time invested in in this podcast so far and. Really marks an important period, an important point in the podcast where I\u0026rsquo;m, I\u0026rsquo;m trying to summarize it kind of a lot of what\u0026rsquo;s being said. And really if you\u0026rsquo;re going to listen to any part of the show any episode of the show, this is the one to listen to for sure.\nSo let\u0026rsquo;s do it. Before we start as well, each of these points is going to be timestamped. Mm. The description of wherever you\u0026rsquo;re watching. So you can go in there and if you don\u0026rsquo;t want to listen to a certain potty, you can, that timestamp will be that. So you can skip around, come back to it. If you\u0026rsquo;d like, whenever you please.\nAlso before we get started. I just want to say, if you do enjoy this at any stage, it would make my day. If you could either leave us a review. If you\u0026rsquo;re on Spotify that has reviews. Now apple has reviews. Either of those would be great. And if you\u0026rsquo;re on YouTube, leave us a like subscribe to the channel.\nAnd one of the best things that you can do, folks is subscribe to the Graduate Theory newsletter. So it comes out every single week. The episode comes out, the newsletter comes out with it. It\u0026rsquo;s got my takeaways from the episode I go through and coach take away some of the really important things that I learned from the episode.\nAnd you get that straight to your inbox. It\u0026rsquo;s almost saving you having to listen to the episodes. It, it is quite good. And I do like the newsletter a lot. So if you\u0026rsquo;re not already on there, I\u0026rsquo;d highly recommend doing that co. Now this is enough Java, Java, James. It\u0026rsquo;s tough. To get started.\nProactivity vs Reactivity # James: So proactivity versus reactivity, this is the first point number one, proactivity versus reactivity.\nSo being proactive rather than reactive is probably one of the most important traits that I picked up during the episode interviews, proactive guests and proactive people achieve much more than those who are already. Well, those who wait for situations to occur, to act versus those that act before they need to this is a really critical distinction.\nPeople are, people say you\u0026rsquo;re either growing or you\u0026rsquo;re dying, and this is kind of what we\u0026rsquo;re talking about here. Proactivity versus reactivity. If you\u0026rsquo;re not proactive, then perhaps, you\u0026rsquo;re not living your life to the fullest that perhaps. So as a framework that we\u0026rsquo;re going to go through these, what kind of gun to kind of go through a definition of what, what it is, example of the, of the trait and then some actions to take, like I explained earlier, so if we\u0026rsquo;re going to define productivity and reactivity, so we\u0026rsquo;ve got some definitions for.\nThe encyclopedia here for you or encyclopedia? I don\u0026rsquo;t think it\u0026rsquo;s that it must be something else. What is it? Dictionary. That\u0026rsquo;s what it is. Okay. Dictionary. So to be proactive is to act in advance, to deal with an expected change or difficulty. And in contrast to be reactive is to tend to be responsive or to react to a stimulus.\nRight. So proactive we\u0026rsquo;re acting before the expected change or difficulty, right. We\u0026rsquo;re reacting as a response to this expected change or difficulty. So this, this applies in our careers. We can anticipate what is going on in the world around us. We can seek out solutions to problems or we can wait until the problem has arrived and deal with it.\nSo this is one of the key concepts, like I said, probably the most important thing that I\u0026rsquo;ve picked up from guests on the episode, they\u0026rsquo;re constantly looking for new opportunities, new career paths, new adventures, and new things for them. But for them to try their hand at new things that they could potentially be doing, if they\u0026rsquo;re not happy in a job that they won\u0026rsquo;t wait for permission before looking at alternatives they don\u0026rsquo;t stagnate that they continue to progress.\nAnd this almost becomes a mindset that these people have. They have a genuine belief that they can go. And get what they want. Cause if you didn\u0026rsquo;t believe that you wouldn\u0026rsquo;t even try to go out and get the things that you wanted, it\u0026rsquo;s almost like that growth mindset idea where they believe they can improve.\nSo they\u0026rsquo;re constantly looking for ways in which to test themselves. So let\u0026rsquo;s move on to the examples for. What examples do we have from the episodes? And the first of these is from Dan Brockwell. So Dan is one of the one of the most exciting guests that I had on the shows he\u0026rsquo;s very relevant to the audience.\nHe\u0026rsquo;s is just a fantastic plug and Dan\u0026rsquo;s advice. Was PayPal in the process of applying for startups and even companies more broadly. Right. So when we think about applying to companies, you typically have the job board that you can get a job through, and then there\u0026rsquo;s also refer. It was all like ad hoc introduction.\nSo like you\u0026rsquo;re a friend of a friend. You get into the company that way that\u0026rsquo;s kind of, that is a big part of it. Right. And I think like 80% of jobs are filled through like ad hoc introductions. It\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s really important to look at, but when I spoke to him, he said the following I\u0026rsquo;m going to kind of paraphrase what he said, but I\u0026rsquo;ve got it.\nI\u0026rsquo;ve got the quote here and I\u0026rsquo;m just going to kind of read it and, and, and, and summarize it as best I can. So he was when he was in high school, he was conceptually conceptualizing. With friends called friends with deficits, and they were trying to track debts between friends in different currencies.\nAnd they did some competitive research and found this company called tilt. And, he kind of saw the bed solved this problem, but they had an ambassador group at uni at the university of new south Wales. Yeah, this is Dan he\u0026rsquo;s now proactive. He\u0026rsquo;s he\u0026rsquo;s seeing this problem, but instead he\u0026rsquo;s boom, like what\u0026rsquo;s, what\u0026rsquo;s the, what is a way that I can turn this into a win?\nHe emails the country manager in Australia and he kind of said, Hey, I\u0026rsquo;d love to enjoy I\u0026rsquo;d love to join the ambassador group. And he said, the guy he emailed said shores, the country Madigan country manager said. Yeah, sure. And he joined the ambassador group, Dan. It was a part of the ambassador group and converted that into an internship where he was leading the ambassador program with a couple hundred students across Australia.\nAnd it\u0026rsquo;s just fascinating. Many people would first off, most people aren\u0026rsquo;t having ideas like that. But secondly, people who have those kinds of ideas, they\u0026rsquo;re pursuing these things often, they don\u0026rsquo;t have. You say the competitor and that\u0026rsquo;s kind of it. Okay. We\u0026rsquo;re done like time to stop but not dang, he\u0026rsquo;s seeing this, he\u0026rsquo;s turning it into a win.\nHow can we, what can I gain out of this? And he\u0026rsquo;s being proactive in the face of a challenge. I thought that was really, really interesting. The second example comes from work Donaldson. So work also works in, works in startups, but he used to work in the call center at ends at and he didn\u0026rsquo;t enjoy working out.\nIt wasn\u0026rsquo;t really his life\u0026rsquo;s goal to work at the call center, but what he did when he was. He would sit down and look at the gout, which is known as the global address list and kind of, it contains emails of like lots of people, lots of people. It contains the emails of everyone at ions ed. Yeah, you can just, you can just aim out pretty much anyone.\nSo what he would do, he was there for, I think, eight or nine months. He would, he would email people and he would say, Hey, I\u0026rsquo;m interested in what you do. Do you have time to go out and get coffee? And he worked his way through different, like credit risk market, risk traders, et cetera. And, people were really receptive to what he was.\nYeah. I\u0026rsquo;ve found that as well. When I reach out to people, they\u0026rsquo;re receptive of what I\u0026rsquo;m doing, which is you don\u0026rsquo;t think that when you, when you\u0026rsquo;re, when you\u0026rsquo;re not reaching out to people, but, he found that people were really, really receptive. He worked his way through ANZ ed and eventually found his way to the Asians at treasury.\nAnd they said, Hey, we\u0026rsquo;re hiring for a role actually. And then boom, he got a job there through just kind of emailing people and putting himself out there. And I think that is something. Well, he\u0026rsquo;s, he\u0026rsquo;s got this challenge that he\u0026rsquo;s facing where he\u0026rsquo;s not doing what he wants to be doing for the long term.\nAnd he\u0026rsquo;s proactive, he goes out and gets what he wants. And so I think that was really great. And these are two examples of people that, in the face of a challenge, they didn\u0026rsquo;t take a step back and, and kind of go into their shell. They expanded and, and were able to take on the challenge and, and approach things in a really cool way and get really cool results.\nCool. So the next step of this, and the way that we\u0026rsquo;re going to finish with these is we have actions, right? So what can you actually do now as a result of hearing this? Right. So proactive versus reactive. Yeah. I understand that James, that\u0026rsquo;s, that\u0026rsquo;s all well and good, but kind of what can I do now as a result of this?\nAnd the first thing that I would say is understand what an asymmetric risk is. Okay. This is important. And it\u0026rsquo;s something that I think is it\u0026rsquo;s a really cool. So we will take risks in life. Okay. We understand some things are risky. So the easy example to give here is like, you\u0026rsquo;re putting money in the stock market, right?\nThere\u0026rsquo;s some risk because you might lose money, but obviously there\u0026rsquo;s some gain. Cause like the stock might go up and you might make money. Right. So there is some, there is some possible way in and a possible loss there, but what was, and so this would be like the stock market is. Let\u0026rsquo;s say if we had an equal chance of going up in an equal chance of going down, which it doesn\u0026rsquo;t necessarily, but if you took that as an example, that would be a symmetric risk, right?\nBecause the risk of it going down and the risk of it going up is the same. And so the, the likelihood you lose or gain is the same. So that\u0026rsquo;s symmetric risk. And then there\u0026rsquo;s what we call an asymmetric. Right. Which is where the odds are stacked one way or the other. So you could have an asymmetric risk that there is not much upside, but there\u0026rsquo;s lots of downside.\nAnd then you could also have an asymmetric risk where there\u0026rsquo;s not much downside, but lots of upside. And the thing with networking and the, what these guys have done is these are examples of an asymmetric. And it\u0026rsquo;s the best kind of extra metric risk because there is no downside, it\u0026rsquo;s only upside. So if you think about asking someone for a favor or like work was doing emailing people and saying, Hey, I\u0026rsquo;m interested in what you do.\nAnd he\u0026rsquo;s, he\u0026rsquo;s got a job out of it, right? These are asymmetric risks because even if they said no work is still where he is, hasn\u0026rsquo;t lost anything. So there\u0026rsquo;s no downside to what he\u0026rsquo;s doing. The worst they could do is say no, the best they could do is say yes, there are only upsides. And if you even wanted to call it a risk, which necessarily it probably isn\u0026rsquo;t, it just feels risky to ask someone.\nBut in fact, there is actually no risk to doing some of these things. And I think. Understanding this and understanding the power of reaching out and this idea of, what\u0026rsquo;s the worst that could happen. It\u0026rsquo;s easy to say, but it\u0026rsquo;s hard to do, but if you could actually get in the habit of doing things like that, I think it\u0026rsquo;s really, really powerful.\nThe second thing, understanding what you want. Okay. Understanding what you want, Dan, and work both had quite clear intentions of saying, Hey, this would be cool. That\u0026rsquo;s something that. How can I go out and get it particularly with Warrick? He, he knew that he wanted to work at ANZ ed and in, in some kind of markets financial role, and he\u0026rsquo;s gone out and he\u0026rsquo;s achieved that, right.\nDan had clarity in his desire for internships and getting experience, and he was able to go and achieve that. So some questions to ask yourself, and these are quite deep Hobbs. You can. Actually, like I challenge the listener. I\u0026rsquo;ll challenge you to actually actually answer these. Cause I think that they\u0026rsquo;re quite cool, so ask yourself what is, what it is that you actually want. What do you want? And if you could ask for anything and receive it, what would you ask for, if you could ask for anything and get it, what would you ask? And then now that what you would ask for who could you ask today to get closer to that?\nWhat could you do today to get closer to getting that? And I think if you can answer these questions and give you a social, something to do today, then you\u0026rsquo;re one step closer to getting the things you want. And any undisturbed to understand that a lot of what is in the way is kind of in your head and not.\nA real legitimate problem. Although of course those exist, but oftentimes, and I know for myself, a lot of the time it\u0026rsquo;s been a mental game rather than it than I\u0026rsquo;ve been something I can actually do. A good thing to ask yourself is like, what would the best version. Doing this situation, or if Elon Musk was transport it into my body, what would you do in this situation?\nThat\u0026rsquo;s a kind of good way to get yourself out of those mental blocks, but anyway, we\u0026rsquo;re off topic, we\u0026rsquo;re off topic. So the next thing, so now we\u0026rsquo;ve finished, section one is done proactive, best reactive. That was little, great little segment there.\nTime Management # James: But what we\u0026rsquo;re going to talk about now is time management, time management.\nAnd I just want to mention as well, if you do want to read this later, it is available on the Graduate Theory website. So please. If you\u0026rsquo;re enjoying yourself so far, please go and listen and read this afterwards. Everything is written down. So don\u0026rsquo;t, don\u0026rsquo;t feel any pressure to sort of transcribe this yourself.\nAll this is written down, sorry. Graduate Theory.com. Episode 25. All right, I\u0026rsquo;m going to need some water. I\u0026rsquo;m talking a lot. Okay this is the second one. Okay. Second part of this episode, time management, probably one of the most important skills leaders must have tonight. We\u0026rsquo;ve all got constant pressure on our time, whether it\u0026rsquo;s meeting social activities, things we want to do outside of work, et cetera, knowing how to get things done effectively is extremely.\nAnd Adam jihad is w we had him on episode 20. He is really the pinnacle of, of, of kind of time management. He\u0026rsquo;s got fantastic processes around this. He\u0026rsquo;s extremely disciplined with his time, and he\u0026rsquo;s got a lot of things to say about how we can use our time more effectively. And, and he had this decide. He said, if you are not interested in the question of how to extract maximum value from those 16 waking hours, in my view, you are not thinking straight and you\u0026rsquo;re frankly, Not even on the field in terms of high performance, right?\nSo you\u0026rsquo;ve heard it, that flux, we need to get on the field. We need to take this issue seriously. This is not just some mumbo-jumbo productivity nonsense, right? This is what is going to separate you. This is what is going to take your career to the next level. If you can manage your time effectively, it is a skill that is going to last the rest of your life.\nAnd it is something that, you\u0026rsquo;re going to benefit from every single day. If you can get it down, pat. What actually is Tom James. So time management is the process of planning and exercising conscious control of time spent on specific activities, especially to increase effectiveness, efficiency, and productivity.\nRight? So that is Wikipedia is definitely. Of productivity, how can we do that? How can we manage our time? How can we exercise conscious control of our time? Right? As Adam said, we have 16 hours every day. And so we want to maximize kind of this 16 hours. We want to get as much out of it as we can be able to squeeze the juice out of it.\nSo some examples of this. So Adam Adam\u0026rsquo;s episode is fantastic. And if you haven\u0026rsquo;t already listened to what it is, is a really good episode, but in this episode, Adam, we\u0026rsquo;re in the episode with Adam, he gave many examples of things. He does to be more effective with his time. And he\u0026rsquo;s very serious with it.\nHe\u0026rsquo;s got a very strong boundaries around his time. And so these are probably more advanced techniques in what the grads need to know that certainly they give you some. Some perspective on kind of the way that a high performer treats their time. So he says, don\u0026rsquo;t default to one hour meetings, keep meetings as short as necessary.\nHe has a predefined wardrobe, so he\u0026rsquo;s wearing the same thing. Every day, you might have five of the same shirts, for example. So he does know he doesn\u0026rsquo;t have to waste time thinking about what he\u0026rsquo;s going to wear. He knows people that reverse the car in at night so they can get out faster in the mornings.\nIt does things like brushes his teeth and Michelle, I gratitude at the same time every day, et cetera. So he\u0026rsquo;s done a lot of these things to create routines in his life so that he can have more, more mental bandwidth to be able to do other things. He spoke about you doing this and using your routines.\nAnd he said, if you\u0026rsquo;ve got tasks that are routine, if you have routines to deal with them, you should have routines do deal with routine tasks so that they don\u0026rsquo;t use Ram. When he\u0026rsquo;s talking about Ram, he\u0026rsquo;s talking about five-year mental bandwidth, kind of what you can use your brain. So you\u0026rsquo;re going to get problems and tasks that are non-routine, but what you need to actually use brain power.\nYeah. So it\u0026rsquo;s important that you use, that you use routines to deal with the routine tasks. So. Another example of someone that is extremely productive and someone that really is great at time management is paid a lot.\nSo penny is extremely busy and, she has her own tricks that she uses to get more done. So, so her first thing was, surround yourself with people that are also busy and have, have side hustles. Like she does. And make sure you set your schedule using some kind of board or tracking system to track what you\u0026rsquo;re doing.\nBreak pieces of work down into small pieces and then plan your week in advance. And so these are all things that certainly you can do today and, and certainly things that. And I will you to get more done there the day. All right. So let\u0026rsquo;s talk about actions. What can you actually do?\nThis is a kind of a special pace of this episode because I\u0026rsquo;ve been, I think honestly, I\u0026rsquo;ve been on a massive binge of account Newport recently. And you have, if you don\u0026rsquo;t know who Cal Newport is, he is this productivity guru, digital minimalism, world without email, he\u0026rsquo;s kind of. He\u0026rsquo;s got a lot of advice as well for graduates and people in their early career university students to, he is he\u0026rsquo;s got a lot of interesting content and, he\u0026rsquo;s kind of known as the productivity guru, right.\nAnd so I\u0026rsquo;ve been binging through his podcast recently. In one of his recent episodes here, someone asked him, if you were gonna distill your productivity into, into kind of some steps, baby steps, what would they be? And so. That he goes seven, but I\u0026rsquo;ve kind of narrowed it down to five because I thought the up the last two weren\u0026rsquo;t super relevant.\nAnd I\u0026rsquo;m gonna like paraphrase the five that, that he, that he mentioned. Cause I think this is, this is the game-changer for your productivity. This is what I try and use in, in my, in my career and in my time management and I\u0026rsquo;ve found it to be very, very effective. The first one, the first out of these five baby steps that Cal mentioned is a time block plan.\nOkay. Time block plan, every job needs time. Okay. So using your calendar, you can allocate time for each task that you need to come. And, and if you get knocked off this time, you start a bit tiring time and race reset race at your plan for the rest of the day. So I actually spoke about this in episode 10 of the Graduate Theory podcast and kind of w it was this idea of often people use to do lists as their way to track what they\u0026rsquo;re doing and, and, and get things done.\nBut you\u0026rsquo;ll find that if you use that at the end of the day, you almost always have things left on the list, right? So you never really complete that today. But instead we can do is you can say, Hey, this task is going to take me 25 minutes and then I\u0026rsquo;m going to schedule 25 minutes in my calendar to complete this task fine.\nAnd then if, if at the end of the day, if I\u0026rsquo;ve planned my day, well, and I didn\u0026rsquo;t finish anything, what didn\u0026rsquo;t finish everything then, Hey, I still spent eight hours working. So I wasn\u0026rsquo;t able to achieve that. That\u0026rsquo;s totally fine. And I think this idea of time blocking and converting your task. And estimating how long it\u0026rsquo;s going to take.\nPutting that time in your actual calendar is, is way more powerful than it than just just taking items off of it to do list. And then it brings a lot more clarity to. Needs to be done at a given time. Certainly the second thing that Cal says is a task board. So you need a place to keep track of what it is you\u0026rsquo;re doing, right?\nYou need a place to keep track of kind of what things are on your plate, where are they out to keep some, some notes perhaps key recommends for each of your professional roles. You use some kind of board like Trello flow assigner, et cetera. Some kind of board system is what he recommends, but again, Not super important.\nWhat\u0026rsquo;s, what\u0026rsquo;s most important is that, you know, what\u0026rsquo;s, what\u0026rsquo;s happening and you have a place where that information is kept. So for me personally, I use Trello to keep track of what\u0026rsquo;s on my plate. I have comments on my cards when something gets updated, I have, I have my own system for doing that and it\u0026rsquo;s been very effective, right.\nBecause that means I can just return to the board. I can see what\u0026rsquo;s going on. I can see my comments of what I My updates on certain activities. And I think that\u0026rsquo;s really powerful. Number three is Cal says to have a shutdown ritual. So at the end of each day, once you finished, so it\u0026rsquo;s five o\u0026rsquo;clock, Workday\u0026rsquo;s done.\nI\u0026rsquo;ve I\u0026rsquo;ve after I\u0026rsquo;ve allocated time across the day. Now it\u0026rsquo;s time to shut down and kind of make sure that I\u0026rsquo;ve left everything in a place where I know it\u0026rsquo;s kind of been taken off. And I can leave my work and knowing that there\u0026rsquo;s no loose ends still hanging. So whether that\u0026rsquo;s, emailing, leaving comments in places, making sure that in my things are wrapped up, that is important, right?\nBecause we want to have a clear separation for when is the end of the day. You don\u0026rsquo;t want to have your work life seep into your personal life. So you want to have a clear end and say, Hey, this is the animal. No more. And so making sure all those loose ends are tied, whether it\u0026rsquo;s you\u0026rsquo;ve, you\u0026rsquo;ve you\u0026rsquo;ve, put emails in a certain place, allocated Tommy accounted for tasks, moved some tasks into a certain step, whether it\u0026rsquo;s moving tasks to dime or whatever it might be number four is having a weekly plan, right?\nWhat do I, what is my plan for the week? What things do I want to have achieved by the end of this week? Right. It\u0026rsquo;s important to have that. And that way you can, you can use that when planning, planning your week, blocking out certain times during the week to do a certain thing. So if you say at the end of the week, I will have achieved this big project.\nAnd like, I need this much time to do it. Perhaps you block out like three hours in and off. And it helps to do that at the start of the week before your calendar starts getting clogged up with, with a random stuff as, as the week goes on, people can\u0026rsquo;t just book time in there. It\u0026rsquo;s important that you take control of your calendar.\nAnd if you want to have time to yourself, book out time in your calendar so that no one else can book time in there. I think that is something. And the fifth part, the last part is having a strategic plan, strategic plan. This is something that I think is really cool and something that you can return to when you write your weekly plan, but let\u0026rsquo;s have a strategic plan for the quarter, right?\nFor the, for the half year or the year, whatever it is, whatever distance you choose. Personally, I use quarterly because it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s not so far. It\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s not so close that it\u0026rsquo;s like too soon, but it\u0026rsquo;s not so far away that I can actually, realistically, I can kind of see the end to a quarter and the ones well, with kind of the workplace calendar.\nSo, you\u0026rsquo;ve got a ride in here. What things do you want to have achieved by the end of the quarter? Right? What are your quarterly goals? What are your strategic goals? Put them in this plan and make sure that when you\u0026rsquo;re referring to them, I\u0026rsquo;ll make sure that you do refer to them JIRA. The weekly plan, during, when you\u0026rsquo;re planning your week, when you\u0026rsquo;re writing, when you\u0026rsquo;re fixing things in your calendar, make sure that you refer to this so that you can know, Hey, this is what I\u0026rsquo;m going to achieve this quarter.\nThis is the time that I\u0026rsquo;ve set aside to complete the tasks that here. I think, I think that is so important.\nNetworking # James: All right. Number three is networking, networking, right? So it\u0026rsquo;s networking is a bit of a dirty word, right? But in episode one, I spoke to Joe and he had Joe wavy. He had this to say about networking. He said, networking is a dirty word, but it\u0026rsquo;s one I\u0026rsquo;m happy to use because every time I think. The way to do it most effectively is just at the end of the day to become a better person.\nRight. So the way to be an effective network is just become a better person. I mean, that\u0026rsquo;s fantastic advice, right? We don\u0026rsquo;t want to be a snake oil salesman networker, right? Nobody wants that you will get found out. So it\u0026rsquo;s best to be genuine best to become as, as as best a person as we can be so that we can, continue to make connections and grow our careers.\nSo networking is kind of this ability to connect with others, right? Someone that is a good network. It\u0026rsquo;s good with connecting with other people, good at growing their network. But we don\u0026rsquo;t want to do this in a, in a nasty way or your left, the snake oil salesmen, white rot because like you can grow your network maliciously, like it can be done, but you know, we don\u0026rsquo;t want to do that.\nWe want to be January. And some examples of this. So I spoke to Joe Joe Weeby episode one, and he gave a great example out of the book, give and take by Adam Grant. And we will see in this book, Adam looks at different archetypes as networkers and kind of what what\u0026rsquo;s the most effective one. To, be someone in your career, what\u0026rsquo;s the most effective way to network.\nAnd it, there, there are three kind of archetypes that Jo Jo spoke to me about there\u0026rsquo;s givers matches and takers. Right. And Joe\u0026rsquo;s example, you gave some examples in the episodes, right? Takers are kind of what\u0026rsquo;s in it. Right. So what is in it for me, that\u0026rsquo;s going to be something for me to be willing, to help and then matches.\nI like, I like traders, right? There\u0026rsquo;s gotta be an even exchange of value. So it\u0026rsquo;s like you scratch my back. I\u0026rsquo;ll scratch yours. It\u0026rsquo;s gotta be 50 50, like I\u0026rsquo;ve got to be getting something and it\u0026rsquo;s gotta be equivalent to what you\u0026rsquo;re getting for us to continue. And that is a very common thing to do. And the third thing is give us someone that just gives with no expectation of receiving. Right. so Joe said, he, he said, he thinks everyone\u0026rsquo;s benefit is linked to everyone else in the big picture. But the fascinating thing I think about is if you expand your thinking and you think long term other, normally other people\u0026rsquo;s advantages become either. Advantages too. So I think that was really powerful.\nAnd it\u0026rsquo;s certainly interesting. Know if you think about yourself as a networker, do you expect something in. What are you with Kyla? Yeah. Are you someone that just contributes with no expectation of a return? And someone who does that? Someone who is a give-up is Hanes D\u0026rsquo;Souza. So Haynes was a massive help for myself early on in the podcast.\nWe had him on the show and it continues to be someone that. Almost mentors may in some sense, someone that is always watching what\u0026rsquo;s going on and giving me some advice. So I really appreciate him and his impact on the podcast. But when we spoke, he, he spoke about people reaching out to him.\nSo he is someone that he works at. Our Wallacks is kind of a well-known guy and people will reach out to him and ask him for stuff. And so, yeah, he gave this advice. He said, you\u0026rsquo;ve got to be careful when cold emailing and cold reaching out to people because. This is like one of the things about networking, right?\nIt\u0026rsquo;s like if I want to meet someone perhaps like for the podcast, I do it, emailing, reaching out to someone called, this is common and this is something that, we can only be more off, but there are things that you must abide by when you are. When you were reaching out to someone called Andy and Hanes says, you\u0026rsquo;ve gotta be very careful when you do this.\nAnd there are kind of two things that you should be careful of. And one thing that he looks for is, is this person legitimate? If they, if he says yes to what they\u0026rsquo;re asking, will they take it seriously? And will that show up on time? And the second thing is, is what they want to get out of it.\nWhy are they reaching out? Do they just want to have a coffee and get referred to a position or do they have some actual genuine. So he said, when you\u0026rsquo;re reaching out to people, please be clear on what it is that you want to get from people\u0026rsquo;s time. You\u0026rsquo;ve got to be wary.\nPeople are busy, what exactly do you want? Let\u0026rsquo;s get clear on that before we start reaching out to people. Sorry, how can we get better at networking? How can we get better at this? This is a very important skill and one that, it certainly pays to be better.\nSo I think a big part of this, and one of the angles I\u0026rsquo;m going to take is, how can we get better at reaching out to people that we haven\u0026rsquo;t necessarily met, but people that were. Okay. I think that is important, similar to work. And Dan, right at the start of this episode, we were talking about how they were reaching out to people that they didn\u0026rsquo;t necessarily know, or, they were reaching out with, trying like seeking opportunities.\nAnd I think getting good at that is really important and is a fundamental skill, when it comes to networking. So this is something that I do for the podcast. A lot of the guests that I\u0026rsquo;ve had on the show, I didn\u0026rsquo;t. Before reaching out to them and asking them to be on the show. Sometimes they\u0026rsquo;re referred, but sometimes, and usually they\u0026rsquo;re just people that I say, Hey, you\u0026rsquo;re interesting.\nWould you like to come on the show? And there\u0026rsquo;s certain ways to do that. There are effective. And one of the templates that I use to do this is from de Pere rails podcast. He has a podcast invite email, and it\u0026rsquo;s linked. If you want to go and look at this in on the blog post it is there. So what, what he does, when you\u0026rsquo;re reaching out to someone called in a start with a specific praise, what.\nWhat is something that I\u0026rsquo;ve done recently to that with blog out recently that did well, did something recently happened in their life, start with that shows some interest in them personally. Then, then you can introduce yourself, say what you are and what do you want from them? And then social proof.\nSo say. Something about, I had this person, or I know you through this person or whatever, some kind of proof that just shows, Hey, I\u0026rsquo;m a reasonable, I\u0026rsquo;m not just a random stranger. I actually do have something to offer here. And there is some level of proof that, Hey, I actually do know what I\u0026rsquo;m talking about.\nAnd the next part is a plan. Let\u0026rsquo;s have a plan around. Okay. Yes, I\u0026rsquo;m interested. What is the, what are the next steps? What are the next. And let\u0026rsquo;s, let\u0026rsquo;s talk about this. Why am I reaching out? I want to speak to you about this, or I want to do this with you, or I want to like discuss this or whatever it is.\nLike, that\u0026rsquo;s gotta be quite clear as well. And then the outcome, what is going to happen as a result? I\u0026rsquo;m confident that in here, it says confident I can provide this for you, confident that we can have a great discussion, whatever it might be, let\u0026rsquo;s finish with, with an outcome. So this is, this is a template that I use.\nWell, my podcasts when I\u0026rsquo;m reaching out, just to have those things that say, Hey, when I\u0026rsquo;m reaching out to someone, I want to say this, this, this, this first of all, because I want to be actually wanting to be genuinely interested in this person. Otherwise I don\u0026rsquo;t want to reach out to them.\nAnd secondly, I think it\u0026rsquo;s important that you treat the person like Hanes said, with respect, right? We want to respect people\u0026rsquo;s time.\nWhen I spoke to Dan Brockwell as well. He mentioned some tips when reaching out, probably he used some of them when he was reaching out to these guys at like we mentioned in the first point, but, he said, make sure you include who you are, why you\u0026rsquo;re reaching out, what is in it for you.\nKate and use the following techniques ride, provide value. So you could suggest an improvement to the business perhaps, or suggest suggested improvement to the app they building or whatever it might be. And then have a clear ask, what exactly do you want them to do and say it in a way that they can accept, right?\nSo like, would you be open to this? This is what Dan said, would you be open to having me as a marketing? Yeah, no one wants to be closed. So Dan said, so ask them, would they be open to doing this? That is an effective technique..\nTrusting Your Gut # James: Trusting your gut number. Number four, trusting your gut. Okay. What does it actually mean to trust your gut? Well, we spoke to Michael Gill on the podcast and he said you have three ways of knowing three ways of knowing that\u0026rsquo;s your head, your heart and your gut, okay. Your head, your heart and your gut.\nAnd you\u0026rsquo;ve got to keep them all in balance. Right? You\u0026rsquo;ve got to keep them all in balance. The gut, is that feeling inside your stomach that you get, when you\u0026rsquo;re doing something, you shouldn\u0026rsquo;t be, or. It\u0026rsquo;s things aren\u0026rsquo;t going as well as they could be. You\u0026rsquo;ve got to listen to your gut and, and some examples from the show, Lydia runny area is one such example.\nSo Lydia is used to work at Goldman Sachs, but it turns out that she actually initially started her career in law. She had her first job out of university. She was working at a law firm and she thought that she was kind of made to work in. And she, she was doing it for three months. And then, she knew she had that feeling of headcount that said, Hey, this is not for me.\nAnd she told her friends and family that, she wasn\u0026rsquo;t going to do it anymore. Cause she had that gun. They were all saying, you\u0026rsquo;re silly. Like you\u0026rsquo;ve got this fantastic career, have you, what are you doing? But Lydia pushed through followed her God. And then she went on to have a fantastic career at Goldman Sachs.\nAnd now she, she\u0026rsquo;s a coach and she\u0026rsquo;s got a fantastic career. So certainly following her gut. And she knew at that time, this is, this is something that is not. Act on it act on it is so important. Also spoke to Andrew Caven. Andrew is the CEO of Maslow, which is a disability and accessibility startup.\nAnd he said to follow your gut, follow your gut is so important. The things, this is what he said. So the thing you\u0026rsquo;re thinking about doing don\u0026rsquo;t just kick the, can down the road and keep thinking about it. If there\u0026rsquo;s something you\u0026rsquo;re thinking about, just do it. He said he would have started Maslow a few years earlier if you did this.\nRight. And he said, you, are they you either going to start it or you\u0026rsquo;re not right. You either will. Or you won\u0026rsquo;t. So if you are going to do it, you may as well start. Now. And, and I thought that was really great advice. And tell me from him, I, he, he, he really stressed how important it was that he trusted his garden.\nAnd he wished looking back that he had done that sooner because he had that feeling, but he pushed it away. And he\u0026rsquo;s glad that he went he finally acted on it that he wishes, he wishes it was in your shoes, the person listening to this, he wishes he was you. And he could go back and act on that thing today.\nSo another guest speaker. That God feeling, and that was Mel know, kettle was the previous, the most recent guest on the show. And, she had this role, it was called the three night rule where she was saying, if something is deep inside my gut and is keeping me awake for three nights in a row.\nIt is time to act on that thing. So if it\u0026rsquo;s keeping me up three days in a row, three nights in a row, then it\u0026rsquo;s time to either quit the job. Now leave that partner, do that thing, start that channel, whatever it is, three nights in a row that is the warning sign. Right. Your body\u0026rsquo;s going to tell you when things aren\u0026rsquo;t right, and this is a great rule of thumb that you can use to stop acting on this infant.\nSo, what are the actions from here? I would say pay attention to your gun. Right? And if it is I would honestly just use Mel\u0026rsquo;s rule. I think that was really, really great. Way of looking at it is if something is keeping you up for three nights in a row, folks, it is tight. To make a decision on that thing.\nIt is time to do it time to start at time, to quit it, whatever it is, you\u0026rsquo;ve got is super important, as Gilly said, you got those three ways of knowing and it\u0026rsquo;s important that we act on them. Okay. It\u0026rsquo;s important. Very important. Don\u0026rsquo;t be like Andrew, where, you\u0026rsquo;ve done.\nYou\u0026rsquo;ve had that idea for so long. And, and you haven\u0026rsquo;t acted on it. Do it now, folks do it. Now do it now.\nPersonal Branding # James: All right, we\u0026rsquo;ve got the last one here. Number five, personal brand.\nPersonal branding. Right? This is huge. And it\u0026rsquo;s something that now with the invention of modern technology, there is nothing stopping you from having your own personal brand. Okay. So personal branding is all about creating an avenue for people to know you, right? You want to shift from a consumer, someone that just watches, reads whatever, to someone that creates, someone that shares someone that is known amongst the community.\nAnd, we\u0026rsquo;ve had plenty of guests who have spoken on this topic and the first one is Dan and I keep referring to him a lot of the time. But Dan Rockwell is someone that does this extremely well. And, and the reason why one of the reasons I liked dance so much is that he practices what he preaches, right?\nHe is someone that doesn\u0026rsquo;t just give advice. He is living that advice day in and day out. Dan is, has an incredible personal. Lots of people on LinkedIn, follow him, his posts are extremely engaging. So if you\u0026rsquo;re not already following Dan, I don\u0026rsquo;t know what you\u0026rsquo;re doing, but you should get on LinkedIn, get into early work right now and follow this man.\nCause he is. And I, and we spoke to when I spoke to Dan here and he was speaking about the importance of a personal brand, and he was saying that a online, personal brand allows you to get your story out to people in a much more scalable way. Know it allows people to find out who you are. And he said, it\u0026rsquo;s finding out who you are, but there\u0026rsquo;s actually some switches to this, right.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s actually, who knows. Who knows you, that is powerful, who knows you. And then he said, there\u0026rsquo;s an even further modification to this who knows you for what, who knows you for what? Okay. This is so important. Ask yourself that who knows you and. Who knows you for what, having an an online personal brand will get you these extra shots on goal.\nYou have access to more opportunity. You\u0026rsquo;ll be able to get into certain places. You\u0026rsquo;ll be friends with certain people because of putting yourself out there and contributing to kind of the ecosystem of, of information and not. And that, and I think this can open up fantastic opportunities.\nDan had offers from Google just through his personal brand, not from any. If someone came and asked him to work at Google and not for any particular reasons. So aside from his personal brand, so powerful stuff, powerful stuff. Eric and Aiden as well, I spoke to them in episode nine and, and we, we spoke about like mental health and careers, but they had some great things to say about personal branding and in their book called the new job.\nThe new job code is, was their book that they wrote. And they had some great things to say about personal branding as well. So Eric said when I was close to graduating, he had a mentor at the time, someone that he\u0026rsquo;d sought out. And he some advice that this mentor gave him which he took two years to act on, which was to build something, to create a visible identity or something that you could be.\nOutside of your role, because it gives you confidence and it, it requires that you build skills to create that thing. And it means that you\u0026rsquo;re visible and, and Eric and, and Aiden said the same thing that they wish they\u0026rsquo;d started doing something like that. It\u0026rsquo;s these things that people wish they started doing earlier, that you have the power to do that today.\nFolks, you have the power to do that today. So get amongst it and start doing some of this stuff. And Adam, Ashton was he, he has a podcast called what you will learn. A book summary podcast. And they kind of read books him and his co-host has also called Adam, they, they read books and I get this summary.\nRight. And, and he had a really interesting insight into kind of the, why did you could start to create that wasn\u0026rsquo;t necessarily so much pressure. Like if you are someone that\u0026rsquo;s creating, it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s hard to go from zero to one. It\u0026rsquo;s hard to like, think of new ideas. Right. New audience has never been said it\u0026rsquo;s hard work.\nSo he had some really interesting inside where he said, I\u0026rsquo;m a good middle step between consumption, which is kind of the zero and creation, which is saying is kind of the one, right. Zero to one. He said the middle step between consumption and creation is curation curation. And he, this is what he said, like, this is kind of what I went with the podcast ride, so that they\u0026rsquo;re learning.\nAnd, and they\u0026rsquo;re curating the books so that the reader book and up here at the knowledge from the book and then release it. So it\u0026rsquo;s not like they\u0026rsquo;re creating something completely new, but they\u0026rsquo;re curating, what\u0026rsquo;s already out there. And that enables them to be effective and efficient creators without necessarily having a lot of the, the effort and the mental.\nIt takes a lot of, like, it takes a lot of effort to, to create something completely new. So I think curation is a really. Right. Why to get started on. So what actions can you take? What can we do now, folks, to start our personal brand? So many people don\u0026rsquo;t have some kind of personal brand. They haven\u0026rsquo;t really made many steps to start creating something like this.\nSo, I had some questions here, what can you ask yourself to start doing something, something like this, what steps can you take to start creating? And some of the questions I have here, what am I interested in? What are you interested in? What do I tell people about.\nWhat, what, what, what am I calling? What am I conversations about? What do people ask me for advice about? What do people ask me for advice about, if I was a YouTuber, what would my videos be? It down if I was Ichiba, what would my videos be about? And if I had a sub staff, what if I was around.\nWhat would I write about? So if I was a writer, what would my writing be about if I was a YouTube, what would my issue channel be about, what am I interested in? What do people come to for me to advice about? These are all great questions to kind of get the ball rolling and things that, you know, Hey, I forgot about this.\nSo I could write about that. And this is the, this is the stuff. Start doing something, start contributing something, and I think a great example of this is myself, right. It\u0026rsquo;s important to remember that people who now have some kind of public image, whether it\u0026rsquo;s Dan or people on this podcast, or myself included, those at one stage where they did not have what I have now, they, they started from zero, and, and I\u0026rsquo;m, I\u0026rsquo;m an example of that too.\nI didn\u0026rsquo;t have. No one really knew who I was and I\u0026rsquo;ve kind of gone out there and started contributing. I found an area that I was interested in and that, that was how can we empower and grow young people\u0026rsquo;s careers and, and that\u0026rsquo;s what I\u0026rsquo;m doing. And I\u0026rsquo;m trying as best I can. And doing that, contributing to the knowledge that is around and adding my little touch on to on to the world is.\nWe can all do it. You will have that place where you can add some value to someone and, and, and I think that\u0026rsquo;s really cool. And I, I, I\u0026rsquo;d highly recommend that people go out and, and start doing this, step out and share your abilities with the world, be proactive, be proactive, I think is so important.\nClose # James: Well, we\u0026rsquo;ve been chatting for a while now. It has been, you\u0026rsquo;ve done well. You\u0026rsquo;ve made it this far. Thank you so much. You\u0026rsquo;ve listened to me to nearly an hour. So thank you. Thank you so much for putting up with me this long. I really appreciate it, and I hope that you found some value in this, this podcast and there\u0026rsquo;s there\u0026rsquo;s we\u0026rsquo;ve, we\u0026rsquo;ve gone through a lot.\nWe\u0026rsquo;ve gone through a lot to be honest. So if you did miss it, if you want to recap some of the content that we\u0026rsquo;ve covered, Post this, all this information you\u0026rsquo;ve heard is in text format and it is on the Graduate Theory website. So please go there, find what it is you\u0026rsquo;re looking for and you can reread it, like do whatever you want.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s all there. And, and share this episode far and wide, if you did enjoy it as well. It would mean a lot to me. And like I said, at the start of this episode, please review the podcast on Spotify. Review it on an apple life and subscribe. If you\u0026rsquo;re on YouTube and wherever you are, please subscribe to the Graduate Theory newsletter.\nRight? You get emails like this episodes like this direct to your inbox, and it comes with my takeaway. So it\u0026rsquo;s not just the episode I\u0026rsquo;m going to go through. I analyze the episode, find some key parts that I thought were really insightful and I add them to the newsletter. So get on that, subscribe to that.\nYeah. And I just want to thank you again for listening. It really does mean a lot to me. If you, if you, if you\u0026rsquo;re still listening, email me let me know what you thought. My email james at graduatetheory dot com. So go there, send me an email. I\u0026rsquo;m happy to chat to anyone that has any thoughts. Yeah.\nThanks again so much. Yeah, we\u0026rsquo;ll see you around.\n← Back to episode 25\n","date":"11 April 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/graduate-theory/25-the-quarter-century-review-with-james-fricker/transcript/","section":"Graduate Theory Transcripts","summary":"← Back to episode 25\nThis transcript has been lightly edited for readability. It may still contain transcription errors.\nJames: Hello, and welcome to Graduate Theory.\nToday’s episode is a special episode. No guests on the show today. It’s me and you.\n","title":"Transcript: The Quarter Century Review with James Fricker","type":"graduate-theory-transcripts"},{"content":" Watch the conversation Graduate Theory Open YouTube ↗ Read the full transcript → Hello Graduates!\nThis is episode #24 of Graduate Theory. Burnout is something we hear about but probably haven\u0026rsquo;t had much experience with. Today\u0026rsquo;s guest shines a light on what she wishes she knew before burning out in her career.\nThese takeaways, direct to your inbox, every week 👇\nSubscribe Now\nMel Kettle is a communications expert with more than two decades of experience in strategic communication and leadership.\nShe has been recognised in the leadersHum 2022 Power List of the Top 200 Biggest Voices in Leadership and also has her own podcast titled ‘This Connected Life’.\n👇 Episode Takeaways # The Feather, The Brick and the Truck # Mel told this great story she had read recently.\nThe universe gives you signs and at first, it will send you a feather and then it will send you a brick and then it will send you a truck.\nFor Mel, the feather was that she was drinking lots of alcohol and her takeaway was on speed dial.\nThe brick was when she went to the doctor and they told her that if she didn\u0026rsquo;t change her behaviour, she would have a stroke.\nThe truck would have been having a stroke, but fortunately, she didn\u0026rsquo;t get that far.\nBut I really believe that there\u0026rsquo;s signs that come to us when things need to be different. And you need to listen and pay attention. And I really wished that I had done that sooner.\nThe Three-night Rule # If you can\u0026rsquo;t sleep because of a problem in your life, that could be something worth thinking about.\nMel has a great rule of thumb for these serious problems. If it keeps her up for 3 nights in a row, it\u0026rsquo;s time to take action on that thing.\nYour job not great and keeping you awake at night? If it\u0026rsquo;s three nights in a row, it\u0026rsquo;s time to quit.\nif it was more than if it was three or more nights in a row, then that\u0026rsquo;s a really big warning sign for me that something\u0026rsquo;s not right in my life. And, and I still have that. Um, And R I\u0026rsquo;ve I\u0026rsquo;ve used that three night rule with, with boyfriends, with jobs, with clients. And I just think it\u0026rsquo;s such, it\u0026rsquo;s your body\u0026rsquo;s way of saying to you things aren\u0026rsquo;t right and you need to listen.\nHow to Make Important Decisions # Mel spoke about how she wished she had done better at making important decisions early in her life.\nHer recommendation for big decisions was to sit down and write down the pros and cons of each choice. Making sure that you\u0026rsquo;ve considered both the short and long term effects of your decision.\nAnd even as something as simple as writing, getting two pieces of paper and writing on one piece of paper or the pros and the other\u0026rsquo;s piece of paper or the cons, and then ranking them what comes out of. really wish I\u0026rsquo;d done that. There\u0026rsquo;s a few decisions I\u0026rsquo;ve made life where I wish I\u0026rsquo;d done that.\nGet clarity, decide, act.\nGet the Newsletter\n🤝 Connect with Mel # https://www.melkettle.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/melkettle/\n📝 Show Timestamps # 00:00 Intro 00:57 Mel before she became a leadership expert 07:16 How did moving cities impact Mel 13:21 Does Mel have certain things that she likes in cities? 15:32 How do you escape 70 hour weeks? 18:15 The Feather, The Brick and the Truck 26:51 Ranking Decisions 32:02 How does someone become a communications expert 41:23 Mel\u0026rsquo;s book, Fully Connected 43:33 What stuck out to Mel while she was researching the book 49:41 Mel\u0026rsquo;s Advice for Graduates 51:24 Where to contact Mel 52:18 Outro\n","date":"4 April 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/graduate-theory/24-on-avoiding-career-traps-and-burnout-with-mel-kettle/","section":"Graduate Theory","summary":" Watch the conversation Graduate Theory Open YouTube ↗ Read the full transcript → Hello Graduates!\nThis is episode #24 of Graduate Theory. Burnout is something we hear about but probably haven’t had much experience with. Today’s guest shines a light on what she wishes she knew before burning out in her career.\n","title":"On Avoiding Career Traps and Burnout with Mel Kettle","type":"graduate-theory"},{"content":"← Back to episode 24\nThis transcript has been lightly edited for readability. It may still contain transcription errors.\nIntro # Mel: I went to the doctor\u0026rsquo;s one day and, um, he said to me, took my blood pressure and he said, I don\u0026rsquo;t know how you\u0026rsquo;re walking around.\nYou\u0026rsquo;ve got blood pressure that I\u0026rsquo;ve never seen that so high in someone who\u0026rsquo;s as young as you are, if you don\u0026rsquo;t make some major changes in your life, you\u0026rsquo;ll have a stroke before you turn 30\nJames: Hello, And welcome to Graduate Theory. My guest today is a communications expert with more than two decades of experience in strategic communication. and leadership.\nShe was recently recognized in the leaders of hum 2022 power list of the top 200 biggest voices in leadership. She also has her own podcast titled this connected life.\nPlease, welcome to the show today. Mel\nMel: Thanks so much, James. It is an absolute pleasure to be here today.\nMel before she became a leadership expert # James: That\u0026rsquo;s fantastic to have you on the show today, Mel, and I\u0026rsquo;m excited to dive into your career and the things that you\u0026rsquo;ve done, the things that you teach now as well. Um, but I want to start off talking about your experience.\nBefore you almost became what you are now. Now you\u0026rsquo;re a leadership communications but I want to talk, you know, what was your career like before you got into\nMel: Uh, I was, um, it took me a while to get my career going. I. Didn\u0026rsquo;t really know what I wanted to do. I started out studying economics at university and got two and a half away, two and a half years through a three-year degree and went, no, I don\u0026rsquo;t really like this dropped out, went, traveling, came back, did a degree in tourism management, loved it, finished that kind of went traveling.\nWhat else do you do with a degree in tourism? Um, came back to Australia in my mid twenties and I came back because I was offered a job. In a small business organizing conferences and that\u0026rsquo;s something that I\u0026rsquo;d always been really interested in. And so I took that job. I moved to Sydney and I absolutely loved it.\nI worked for this small business for three years and I really credit the owner of that business with helping me start my career in a way that would get me to where I am today. And every time I tell her that she\u0026rsquo;s highly embarrassed, but it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s how I believe she supported me. Um, she really believed in me, even when I didn\u0026rsquo;t and took a chance on me when I had zero professional work experience, all my jobs had been, you know, involving, um, money in some capacity.\nSo, you know, in a shop or in a department store or, um, as a waitress, so. She gave me this great opportunity. And because we were a small business, we all did everything in the business. So when it came to running conferences, we all had to run the lab, do the logistics and look at the operational side of it.\nBut we also had to do all of the client meetings and some of our clients where, you know, the senior leaders of Australia. So one of our co one of our conferences we ran was for the ASX. And, um, I don\u0026rsquo;t think there was anybody in the room. Who was lower than a vice president of one of the ASX, top 200 country companies in Australia at the time.\nSo really influential, powerful people. Um, she just had confidence that we would all be able to have conversations with these people. The other thing we had to do with all of the events was get bums on seats. And so this was in the nineties. So social media didn\u0026rsquo;t exist. The internet was just starting out.\nAnd which I know you probably find really hard to believe given that you\u0026rsquo;re quite a bit younger than I am. But there was a time when the internet didn\u0026rsquo;t exist. And so when we were marketing our events, we had to create brochures in hard copy and then post them. So at an international conference, we would be starting to work on two years before.\nAnd if we didn\u0026rsquo;t get that initial brochure out a year before the event, people wouldn\u0026rsquo;t have time to. Make arrangements to come to Australia for that conference. So I just, I learned so much in that job and I absolutely loved it, but after three years I wanted more and there was nowhere else for me to go in that organization because there were only four staff.\nSo I was headhunted. Um, to another, to a global marketing agency to run all of the events for one of their major clients who, um, was a major player in the tech industry in Australia and globally. And that was a really interesting experience for me. Um, I won that job over a lot of people that had a lot more experience than I did when it came to running conferences, but I got it because I had this all around experience that I\u0026rsquo;d earned working in my previous role.\nOne of the things that I wasn\u0026rsquo;t prepared for was how exhausting it is to run a 300 events in one year, um, with the team of six. And we basically had an event every day, like every Monday to Friday, every day, Monday to Friday for the year. And it was just, it was full on the demand. Uh, I can\u0026rsquo;t even explain how full on it was.\nUm, my team and I did an incredible job. Like they I\u0026rsquo;m so proud of the young men and women I worked with. I was the oldest, I was 29 and all of my staff were younger than me. Half of them were backpackers who wanted, you know, a cushy part time job, which they certainly didn\u0026rsquo;t get in this organization or with this\nJames: Well,\nMel: But it was, I learned a lot, but at the same time, I didn\u0026rsquo;t look after myself. So I was at the Beck and call of my client. I was at the Beck and call of my agency that I worked with. I, I reckon I worked an average of 70 hours a week. Um, I traveled a lot. And I was just exhausted all the time. And so I got partway through the year and I just started feeling a little bit unwell and then that sense of unwell.\nUm, I was eating the wrong foods. I was drinking too much alcohol. I was almost mainlining caffeine, which I knew didn\u0026rsquo;t agree with me, but I had really dodgy stomach. I had chest pains all the time. Um, And I was just completely stressed to the max and I went to the doctor\u0026rsquo;s one day and, um, he said to me, took my blood pressure and he said, I don\u0026rsquo;t know how you\u0026rsquo;re walking around.\nYou\u0026rsquo;ve got blood pressure that I\u0026rsquo;ve never seen that so high in someone who\u0026rsquo;s as young as you are, if you don\u0026rsquo;t make some major changes in your life, you\u0026rsquo;ll have a stroke before you turn 30. And my 30th birthday was, um, about three months. And so it was a wake-up call that I needed to start looking after myself a little bit more.\nJames: Yeah.\nWow. phenomenal.\nBut yeah, there\u0026rsquo;s a lot of things I want to unpack\nMel: I just did a big Blit. Sorry about that.\nJames: Yeah.\nno, that\u0026rsquo;s okay. But so much that, that, there\u0026rsquo;s a few things actually that I want to, I want to touch on. So the first of those and I\u0026rsquo;d love to like, continue your story from that because\nMel: Continue\nJames: We have to get to. the bottom.\nHow did moving cities impact Mel # James: There\u0026rsquo;s a few things I want to get to we continue down that path. First thing you said that you, uh, you moved to Sydney to start role. And like, I\u0026rsquo;ve done that myself and\nMel: Twice\nJames: Twice now Like moving to someplace to live for a somewhat\nYou know how. do you, how did that.\nImpact\nyou that, is that like the move itself has really beneficial. or do you the role cause You mentioned the role at that time as well. It was really great And that you got to sort of do a lot of different things. I mean, do you credit that the physical moves when you location, having new friends.\nknow, having to sort of recreate yourself in some way.\nMel: Um, I found living in Sydney really difficult. I\u0026rsquo;ve lived in a lot of places. Um, I moved to Sydney from Vancouver. I\u0026rsquo;d moved to Vancouver the before that. Um, when I was a child, we moved around a lot when I was a very small child before we settled in the house where I did a lot of my, um, primary school and high school years.\nAnd then. I traveled and moved around a lot in my early twenties. And so I don\u0026rsquo;t think I fully, um, Expect I don\u0026rsquo;t. I think I underestimated how hard moving to Sydney would be. I\u0026rsquo;d gone to high school in Sydney. So I knew a few people there, but I just found Sydney really difficult to become, to meet a friendship circle of people who I genuinely enjoyed the company of.\nUm, and that also, you know, I worked for a small business and I worked 70 hours a week. So when I wasn\u0026rsquo;t working all I wanted to do with sleep. And I also wasn\u0026rsquo;t earning very much money, so I didn\u0026rsquo;t actually have a lot of money to do things that a lot of the people I met could afford to do. Um, so the four years I was in Sydney, I, I was pretty miserable and I didn\u0026rsquo;t fully appreciate how unhappy I was and, you know, life in general until I left.\nAnd I loved my job and I love the people I met through that, but they weren\u0026rsquo;t people that I was becoming friends with for a lot of reasons, mostly because they were a lot older than I was. And we professional relationship. Um, When I left one of the things that I decided when my doctor said to me, if you don\u0026rsquo;t make some major life changes, you\u0026rsquo;ll have a stroke.\nI, that was just the catalyst for me to realize that not only did I hate my job, I hated living in Sydney. And so. I turned it back up at work after Christmas that year. And my boss said to me, or how was your break? And before I even knew what I was saying, I said to him, it was great. I quit. And he said to me, what, what are you sure?\nI must\u0026rsquo;ve, I didn\u0026rsquo;t think I\u0026rsquo;d say those words because that\u0026rsquo;s the furthest thing. From my conscious mind. Um, but the words came out. So yes, I stand by that. Um, and so I gave about six weeks notice, um, because I didn\u0026rsquo;t know what I was going to do. And in, within about a week of resigning, I decided that I\u0026rsquo;d leave Sydney and moved to Brisbane and moving to Brisbane was one of the best decisions I\u0026rsquo;ve ever made.\nI remember driving across the border of Queensland and new south Wales and thinking I have come home and I had barely ever even been to So it was just such an unexpected sense of calm. Amongst all of the chaos that my life had been for the previous sort of 12 to 18 months. And I loved it.\nLike I loved living in Brisbane. I met amazing people who became friends within the first week or two of moving there. And I moved to Brisbane 22 years ago. And there\u0026rsquo;s three friends that I made who I would still consider to be three of my closest friends who I met in that first week. I made, I would have, I had one really close friend who I met in Sydney.\nUm, but we met in the last year that I was there. And I couldn\u0026rsquo;t even tell you the names of anybody that I met in my first few years in Sydney, because I just found it really diff it was just such a different environment. Brisbane was so friendly and welcoming and supportive and people. And I think it\u0026rsquo;s because a lot of people had either moved to Brisbane or move.\nOr move back to Brisbane, having grown up here and left and come back that there were so many more people who understood was like to move to a place where you might not know anyone. And so I just felt the welcome mat was really rolled out. Hmm.\nJames: Yeah. Great.\nOh, That\u0026rsquo;s that\u0026rsquo;s good. And certainly, yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s so hard when you move to a new place.\nLike social is so important,\nMel: Said that\nI reckon today it\u0026rsquo;s easier than it was because I moved to Sydney in 2000. So again, internet was just starting, but there was no social media. There was no MySpace. There was no chat. There was some chat rooms, but I didn\u0026rsquo;t really understand what that was at the time. Now you\u0026rsquo;ve got social media, so you can get on your social media platform of choice and say, Hey, I\u0026rsquo;m moving to wherever.\nI\u0026rsquo;d love to meet some people who\u0026rsquo;s there. Where should I live? What suburbs should I look at? Um, where, what schools could I send my kids to? What cafes are great. If I don\u0026rsquo;t want to work from home or in my office, where should I go? Um, who were the sporting teams? there\u0026rsquo;s so many things you can create really strong friendships now on social media before you moved to a place.\nSo you\u0026rsquo;ve at least got some context and, and some friendly faces when you arrive, if you don\u0026rsquo;t know anybody, you know, in the real world.\nJames: Yeah,\ndefinitely.\nMel: Sign\nJames: So many of those types of things you\u0026rsquo;re available, now, like you said with the internet, like being able to connect with with new people is, is a lot easier. I\u0026rsquo;m wondering for yourself. you said that you, when you drove across the border, the Queensland.\nDoes Mel have certain things that she likes in cities? # James: Uh, you know,\nyou kind of realized okay, our home, this is the place for me. Like, especially once we actually arrived there, you certainly had that feeling,\nlike, what you, do you have some kind of a,\nchecklist\nor things that you like case this in Sydney was not very good, and this is why it\u0026rsquo;s better.\nBrisbane, right? There\u0026rsquo;s certain things for you that I really. like. This is what I want in a place. Uh,\nMel: Um, all I\u0026rsquo;ve wondered in a place was anything that wasn\u0026rsquo;t. I was not discerning in any other I wanted something that wasn\u0026rsquo;t Sydney. And I think at the time, my frustrations in Sydney with Sydney were that, um, everything was so expensive.\nI couldn\u0026rsquo;t afford, I wanted to buy a house and I couldn\u0026rsquo;t even afford to buy the crappiest little studio apartment in Sydney. I wanted to meet somebody and, you know, fall in love and have a relationship. And I worked every minute of the day. I\u0026rsquo;ve either worked or slept every minute of the day in Sydney.\nSo I didn\u0026rsquo;t have time that. Um, and the other thing I found really frustrating in Sydney is it just took so long to get anywhere. So I lived in Cammeray and I worked at Bondi junction and there was one particular day. It took me 90 minutes to get to work, to drive, to work. And it was 11 kilometers.\nAnd that was the day that I really thought life\u0026rsquo;s too short to stuck in traffic for this much of. And it, it just, all, I could just all sort of collapse in on me at once thinking I just don\u0026rsquo;t want to be here. And I also really didn\u0026rsquo;t feel that I had anyone. I didn\u0026rsquo;t feel like I had a lot of support in Sydney, which.\nMy family were in Gosford, so they weren\u0026rsquo;t that far away. And my brother was living in Sydney, so I had some support, but I think I just was so deeply unhappy and borderline depressed that I couldn\u0026rsquo;t the only option that I could see to get rid of everything was to move away from Sydney and start again and kind of reinvent myself again.\nAnd that.\nHow do you escape 70 hour weeks? # James: Yeah. Well, yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s great. Yeah, certainly it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s,\nYou\u0026rsquo;re working so much, you know, young, fairly burnt out, I guess, at that stage everything kind fell over. You know, what steps do you take now? And what did you learn from that experience when you were.\nMel: Working?\nJames: Working and trying to avoid.\nMel: That\nJames: That feeling right when you\u0026rsquo;re working 70, 80 plus hours a week, like you\u0026rsquo;re not exercising. you know? And then that means that you going to have takeout more often.\nAnd then you\u0026rsquo;re going to do other things John healthy more often. It just kind of always this downward spiral. What did you learn from\nMel: I\u0026rsquo;ve learned. I really need to put myself first and I need to listen to my gut. And if my gut instinct is saying. Or screaming, this is wrong. Do something about it.\nAnd it might even be like, it might just be sitting back and thinking, why am I feeling this? Um, and is it something that\u0026rsquo;s long-term systemic problem or is it a short-term problem? That\u0026rsquo;s going to go away. Um, in my previous job, yes, we ran a lot of conferences and events, but we took a six week break at Christmas and in the new job, but there was no Christmas break.\nWe ran events up until Christmas Eve or until the 20th of December. And then we started again on about the 10th of January. So it was just. It was constant and it was unrelated. The other thing I\u0026rsquo;ve learned, um, like I wasn\u0026rsquo;t sleeping very well at this time in my life. And I was, I would wake up every night in the middle the night thinking, oh, I haven\u0026rsquo;t done.\nAnd I\u0026rsquo;d write down a whole list of things I had to do. Cause I just was waking up panicked about everything that I hadn\u0026rsquo;t done. So I put, after that I put a really firm rule in place. If I had three consecutive sleepless nights worrying about work, it was time to quit that job and get something. else \u0026lsquo;cause that for me, you know, we all have sleepless nights on occasion about when we have, you know, small stressors or big stressors that keep us awake at night.\nBut if, for me, if it was more than if it was three or more nights in a row, then that\u0026rsquo;s a really big warning sign for me that something\u0026rsquo;s not right in my life. And, and I still have that. Um, And R I\u0026rsquo;ve I\u0026rsquo;ve used that three night rule with, with boyfriends, with jobs, with clients. And I just think it\u0026rsquo;s such, it\u0026rsquo;s your body\u0026rsquo;s way of saying to you things aren\u0026rsquo;t right.\nAnd you need to listen.\nJames: Yeah,\nMel: That\u0026rsquo;s\nJames: And certainly for people listening, it\u0026rsquo;s uh, it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s great to be able to take those things. And apply them.\nThe Feather, The Brick and the Truck # Mel: I read this story recently. We tried as love and it talks about, um, you know, the universe gives you signs and at first it will send you a feather and then it will send you a brick and then it will send you a truck.\nAnd so for me, with my stress and with my burnout, the feather, for me was um, Not sleeping was drinking too much. Wine was having my local Thai takeaway on speed dial and calling them three nights a week, um, was just constantly feeling really anxious and then getting chest pains. The brick was when my doctor said to me, if you don\u0026rsquo;t make a major change in life, you\u0026rsquo;ll have a stroke, you know, pretty soon.\nAnd I didn\u0026rsquo;t have the truck, but if I\u0026rsquo;d had a stroke that would have been the truck because. I think, you know, think about what is it that\u0026rsquo;s happening in your world and what are the signs that you\u0026rsquo;re being sent. And, you know, I\u0026rsquo;m not a woo woo person. highly practical, highly pragmatic, and have a very scientific, methodical brain.\nBut I really believe that there\u0026rsquo;s signs that come to us when things need to be different. And you need to listen and pay attention. And I really wished that I had done that sooner. Like, well, even before I took this job, I had a gut feeling that it wasn\u0026rsquo;t the right thing to do, but I was head hunted. I\u0026rsquo;ve never been head hunted before.\nAnd my ego just went and they offered me a lot more money than I was getting paid and pretty quickly realized the money wasn\u0026rsquo;t worth it. But it was too late then I felt like I didn\u0026rsquo;t have another, any other recourse, but to continue with this job,\nthe money is never worth it, by the way, the money\u0026rsquo;s never worth it.\nJames: Yeah. Yeah. Well,\nMel: It\u0026rsquo;s a lot.\nJames: A lot wisdom there and Yeah, no, I definitely. I think it\u0026rsquo;s, you know, these, You know, one of the whole aims at the podcast, right.\nMel: Where\nJames: Things where know, have your experience which is, you know, something that probably people don\u0026rsquo;t want to go you know, have that explain to someone who if may have faced these, you know, maybe there\u0026rsquo;s a pathway that you get to in your life where go down this path and electronic.\nto\nthis before because like\nMel: I had planned to move to Mexico for a year. And then this job came along and I cannot tell you how much I wish I had gone to Mexico for it. I still never have, but my priorities shifted, but I really believe that there\u0026rsquo;s many, so many times in our life where we have this fork in the road.\nAnd it\u0026rsquo;s like that sliding doors moment, you know, from the Gwyneth Paltrow movie, this, um, you can either take door A or you can take door B I think that, um, you know, you may end up ending up where you need to be, but the way that you get there can be really different. And I just think that when you have an opportunity to do something or when you have two opportunities and you have to make a decision think really carefully about which decision is right for you, not just today, but longer term as well.\nAnd think about. Like, I really wish that I\u0026rsquo;d thought more about how did my decisions in my twenties, how would they make me happy in my twenties? Because I made a lot of decisions in my twenties that made me deeply unhappy, and I can\u0026rsquo;t underestimate enough how important it is to feel joy and be happy with your life because we\u0026rsquo;ve got one life and you need to make the most of it.\nYeah,\nJames: That\u0026rsquo;s really not. That\u0026rsquo;s great advice, I think. And Yeah. Thank you so much for sharing because I think that\u0026rsquo;s really powerful and I that are listening, I really take that in because it\u0026rsquo;s, uh, you can tell it just comes comes from your\nMel: It does.\nJames: Um,\nMel: And it\u0026rsquo;s also really easy for me to say this with hindsight, like I\u0026rsquo;m in my fifties and I\u0026rsquo;m assuming a lot of your readers or listeners will be in their twenties.\nOr early thirties maybe. Um, and I know if someone had said that to me, when I was in my twenties, I would have just gone. Yeah. Whatever. But if you just take one thing away, then think about what makes you happy and how can you get more of that?\nJames: Yeah, I think\nMel: That\u0026rsquo;s Certainly.\nJames: Cool. Certainly. Yeah.\nMel: I think it\u0026rsquo;s really What\nJames: I think it\u0026rsquo;s really great what you\u0026rsquo;ve shed, Uh, definitely.\nUm, I\u0026rsquo;ve I\u0026rsquo;ve heard that, uh, like you were saying, you know, What\u0026rsquo;s going to make me happy in the next short time. here. It might not necessarily be the best option. You know, I\u0026rsquo;ve heard that described where if can just extend the time frame of decisions, even when it comes to.\nMel: Like productivity.\nJames: Productivity, Like know, I have to have this thing done by this time. Like okay. let\u0026rsquo;s, if we stretch the time on out to like five, 10\nthen now we can really see, okay, particular day where I didn\u0026rsquo;t maximize every single loss at a beetle, you know, where I\nMel: To that would\nJames: Took the job that would like really, know, I would have to work really hard, but it might for me or whatever. Like, you know, if you\u0026rsquo;re trying to get to a certain place in future if you just really look,\nthen these kinds of things where you\u0026rsquo;re taking. the.\nYou know, you\u0026rsquo;re taking certain roads, et cetera, becomes like, um, less important like taking it, taking. a certain,\nMel: What you just said there, I think is so important. I think it\u0026rsquo;s really, if you have to make a big decision, I think it\u0026rsquo;s so important to give yourself the time you need to make it and to make the decision when you, when you\u0026rsquo;re in the right head space.\nI, I used to be, um, one of my past jobs was a media manager in a government department, and I learned really quickly that whenever a journalist rang me looking for a quote, I would say to them, what\u0026rsquo;s your question. I\u0026rsquo;ll get back. So that I could think it particularly if it was something was, um, not great.\nAnd a lot of the media I did at the time was great. Um, I just wanted time to be able to craft a response that would put my agency in the best possible light so that, um, and if it was something that was emotional. I needed the time to think through what I, what was I going to say? Or what\u0026rsquo;s the most appropriate response that will satisfy them and satisfy them?\nAnd I think that with, and I really learned that it\u0026rsquo;s not only little decisions like that, that you should do that too, but all decisions, you know, big, well, big decisions, especially. And the other time, I think it\u0026rsquo;s important to delay a decision is if you don\u0026rsquo;t actually need to make it right now, like we, um, my husband and I moved from Brisbane to the sunshine coast last year, and we\u0026rsquo;d been talking a lot about what we would do.\nWhen my step son finished high school and we started having the conversation when he was in year seven. And just that, uh, you know, thinking through a few, just sort of brainstorming ideas, and then we just parked it and we said, well, we don\u0026rsquo;t actually need to make a decision for another five years or really even seven years or maybe even 10 years.\nSo let\u0026rsquo;s just, you know, touch base and think about where are we at every two or three years and just sort of assess. And then when the time came, we thought through lots options and we were a lot more clear on what we wanted, what we both wanted, that would work for both of us. And that\u0026rsquo;s an extreme example of delaying a decision.\nBut even if you get like, even if you get a job offer, if you get a job offer for a job that isn\u0026rsquo;t, that means you need to move, or you need to leave a company that you love, or it, it made some big change. Don\u0026rsquo;t feel that you need to say yes, immediately, like take some time, ask, get, ask for references of people who work in the organization, ask for, do your own due diligence before you make a decision.\nAnd even as something as simple as writing, getting two pieces of paper and writing on one piece of paper or the pros and the other\u0026rsquo;s piece of paper or the cons, and then ranking them what comes out of. really wish I\u0026rsquo;d done that. There\u0026rsquo;s a few decisions I\u0026rsquo;ve made life where I wish I\u0026rsquo;d done that.\nRanking Decisions # James: Yeah.\nYeah. I think, I think That\u0026rsquo;s a good strategy. And I\u0026rsquo;ve used that in the past.\nfor many decisions, but some one one I was deciding to go overseas on exchange when I was at university. And I was like, you know, like that it fairly big decision. Like, am I going to go do this thing? Like, it\u0026rsquo;s And that\u0026rsquo;s what I do I did go. Cause, on my piece of paper, I went to the UK, I went to Sheffield, I, yeah, Sheffield is like, um, near Manchester\nI\u0026rsquo;d seen in utopia. Um, but you know, I had my thing. And I okay, pros at this, like, it\u0026rsquo;s going to be fantastic experience. I mean, you get to like meet new people, go to Europe, travel around all that stuff. Um, you know, and then the cons is really. like,\nMaybe I won\u0026rsquo;t I won\u0026rsquo;t get to see my friends for six months, which I mean, I was like,\nsix\nmonths,\nisn\u0026rsquo;t really that long. and then and money, as well. I was like, okay, How am I going to pay for And that worked out well as well.\nSo then I was well, at\nMel: Fully\nJames: Clearly the white years, absolutely like this is you know, a rare opportunity. Like, of it. And So some sites I ended up going and which I think is good. with.\nhaving that time where you sit down you say, and these are the things. These are the pros. These are the cons of actually thinking about it\nrather than just being like, oh,\nlike going almost with the\nMel: Um, I\u0026rsquo;m really curious. You said you, one of your cons was leaving your friends. When you came home, had anything changed with your friends? Oh with your lot their lives.\nAnd I asked that\nbecause I was an exchange student. When I finished high school, I went for a year and I, it was something I always wanted to do.\nAnd I was, I changed so much in that year that I was in the state of shock when I came home and nothing had changed. I was just like, well, how come nothing\u0026rsquo;s changed? I\u0026rsquo;ve changed.\nJames: No. I certainly, I Honestly, I had a similar experience, when I wouldn\u0026rsquo;t want to exchange because you know, I went away and I was kind of,\nI was James and then I went there and I came back and I have this, I have an Excel sheet with my university grades on it. Okay.\nlike, I have this like, here, like James, and then James goes on exchange and then after Jens came back, it\u0026rsquo;s like completely different Like, uh, and it just affected so many of my life. And I\u0026rsquo;m honestly like super that I did it because it\u0026rsquo;s\nMel: Yeah.\nI\u0026rsquo;ll\nJames: Yeah.\nI\u0026rsquo;ll put it down to like, what,\nMel: I have to, mm it\u0026rsquo;s. My year I went to Canada. My year there was in the top five. Best years of my life ever. And maybe even in the top three, it just, it influenced so much of my life. And, you know, I went in 1988, so what\u0026rsquo;s that 33, 34 years ago. And it still influences my life today.\nLike decisions I make and that, that I would never have made had I not had that year. It just opened my eyes to the world in completely different way, different perspectives, different ways of seeing things, different ways of doing things, different lifestyles and Canada, and like the UK, Canada, UK, and Australia.\nThat really, they\u0026rsquo;re not that different from each other on paper until you get there and you realize they are.\nJames: Yeah,\nYeah, definitely. I think even for me, it was even, you know, getting. out.\nMel: Your\nJames: Routines.\nin lieu of speaking about that before before the show, you know, getting out of routines of the ways you do things at home uh, in your city or wherever are, and just having to reset those.\nAnd just you know, like they\u0026rsquo;re just completely gone. Um, you know, one of my uh, previous guests, explained it like this way, you\u0026rsquo;re sort of. you have a bucket of things and as you go through your life, you\u0026rsquo;re just kind of Putting things in, and then when you go overseas or when go to a whole new place, you kind of just empty. it out and you get to Put things\nMel: Yeah.\nJames: In west Redesign a lot of that, uh, you know, the ways that you run your and really reflect on, what you\u0026rsquo;ve done. Yeah. So\nMel: I think the other thing, the other thing that was so huge for me when I went is.\nI\u0026rsquo;d lived in the same community for, you know, most of a lot of my childhood and teenage years. And so there were people who\u0026rsquo;d known me for a long time who had preconceived ideas of who I was or who assumed that I was something because of how I was as a younger child. And. Going to a country or a city where you know, very few people and nobody knows you is really liberating because you can be whatever you want and you can do things that you would never do and take chances and risks that you would never take, because nobody knows you.\nAnd if it all goes pear shaped and you make a complete fool of yourself, you\u0026rsquo;re not there for very long. So they\u0026rsquo;ll forget by the time you leave. Yeah, but it\u0026rsquo;s such a great way to become, it\u0026rsquo;s such a great way to experiment with, you know, different aspects of life. I love it.\nHow does someone become a communications expert # James: Hmm. Yeah. no, definitely. Um, I\u0026rsquo;d love to you know, take this conversation to a different, different area.\nNow, one thing I want to ask about. is, Um, your current role, kind of what you do as communications leadership. This whole sphere is really, really amazing what you\u0026rsquo;re doing and obviously you\u0026rsquo;ve\ngiven some awards for this kind of stuff. So it\u0026rsquo;s really, really good at what you do, but how did you actually, and how does someone get into\nMel: Kind where you\nJames: Kind of stuff where you are, presumably you\u0026rsquo;ve gone from being employee somewhere and then now you all you\u0026rsquo;ve become this person.\nThat\u0026rsquo;s Hey, I\u0026rsquo;m a, I\u0026rsquo;m an expert in this area. I think can, go down this route. I mean, what was that catalyst fee that.\nMel: Um, when I moved to Brisbane, I worked for short time for a contract job, um, for the Brisbane festival, doing the marketing for that big arts festival in Brisbane that I did work for five years in the Queensland government. And I remember when I rang my dad and said, I\u0026rsquo;ve just got a job with the Queensland government.\nHe laughed so hard. He accidentally hung up the phone. Because he said, you\u0026rsquo;re not government material. Like you\u0026rsquo;re just, so you\u0026rsquo;ve come out of corporate and you\u0026rsquo;re not going to cope. And I said to him, I\u0026rsquo;m going to give a five years and I lasted five and a half. So I was quite proud of that, but I just needed a change.\nAnd I had seen dad go from government to consulting, to working for himself and watched him just blossom. And do think, do work that he loved every day. And he had, he and my mom both taught my brother and I that, you know, life is really short. You have to do what you love. And if you don\u0026rsquo;t do what you love with people you love, then you need to make some changes.\nAnd that wasn\u0026rsquo;t like, that was from big things like who you work with and the kind of work you do. Through to who you have friendships with and romances with. If you don\u0026rsquo;t genuinely love the majority what\u0026rsquo;s going on in your life, then you know, you\u0026rsquo;ve got control and you\u0026rsquo;ve got the power to make a difference.\nAnd so when our. Um, had reached a time in working for government and working for other people. I just thought there\u0026rsquo;s gotta be more to life than this drudgery of going to work every day. And I wanted to work part-time because I had a lot of other things that I was interested in and wanting to do. And I put an application in to work.\nPart-time the head of HR couldn\u0026rsquo;t understand why a woman in her thirties, without children would want to work. Part-time. So my application was denied. And so I left, so I just resigned and I\u0026rsquo;ve never looked back. So I\u0026rsquo;ve been working for myself for nearly 16 years, and I love that. It gives me complete freedom and flexibility to choose who I work with, the type of work I do.\nAnd when and how. Um, and all of those things have changed a lot in the almost 16 years I\u0026rsquo;ve been working for myself. Um, and I\u0026rsquo;ve also changed. I\u0026rsquo;ve become more experienced. I\u0026rsquo;ve become more confident. I\u0026rsquo;m more confident in asking for what I want. Actually. I know what I want. And I didn\u0026rsquo;t when I started. Um, and I think that comes with experience and age, you know, as you get older, you become more experienced and you become more confident and so, and you become more willing to, you know, you\u0026rsquo;re worth more and you know, what you value, um, I believe a lot more than you do when you\u0026rsquo;re younger, because again, it comes with experience.\nUm, so I today work with leaders and teams to help them become more. So that they can create real connection and sustained engagement and a really big part of the work that I\u0026rsquo;m starting to do with my clients is to help them become connected themselves because how do you lead others if you can\u0026rsquo;t lead yourself?\nAnd if you don\u0026rsquo;t lead yourself first, your not going to be as effective as you could be at leading a team of people or leading an organization.\nJames: Yeah.\nno,\nMel: Wisdom in\nJames: Wisdom in there. Definitely. And I absolutely agree with a lot of what you\u0026rsquo;ve said that, um, what about\nMel: Your\nJames: Your experience previously, you know, with this whole ban out situation,\nuh, and you know, that whole corporate lifestyle that you were living.\nyou know, Not, not where you want it to be, at all. how does that reflect now in, in what you\u0026rsquo;re doing, what you teach and, and share, is there much of a thread that carries\nMel: Yeah. You know, those\nJames: You know, those kinds of things\nMel: So in terms of what I do, I went for a swim at once time at the beach because I could, um, and I really try to live what I teach.\nI can, I\u0026rsquo;m not perfect at it, not by any stretch, but I really, um, what, I\u0026rsquo;m, what I would like. What I think is so important. Leaders are so busy today. Like leaders have so many pressures placed upon them, and it\u0026rsquo;s so easy to get caught up in the day-to-day busy and to get caught up in the demands and the priorities of other people that you forget to prioritize yourself.\nAnd I think COVID has really highlighted that for a lot of people that they, that they have. Some big aspects of their life that they weren\u0026rsquo;t happy with. Um, and I\u0026rsquo;m not saying that people were happy with lockdown, but I think that when you have to spend it, when you\u0026rsquo;re forced to spend time with yourself, you reevaluate.\nWhat you love and what you don\u0026rsquo;t love, and what\u0026rsquo;s important to you and what actually do you get up and go to work every day for, like, why is it that we\u0026rsquo;re doing that? What is it that what\u0026rsquo;s the big benefit or the ultimate that we want from that? And what do we want people to remember us by when we\u0026rsquo;re not here anymore?\nAnd I think that I really am trying to help my clients. You know, the broader world. Think of those things. if, if you were to die tomorrow, what do you want people to say about you? What do you want people to think about you? What do you want people to remember you for and is what they think view? And remember you.\nWhat you actually want to be remembered for, or do you want to be remembered as a workaholic who never had time to spend with his kids or who, um, was really grumpy at work all the time, because you were so stressed or do you want to be remembered as great leader who listened and who genuinely care?\nAnd who walked the talk, you know, who said, I don\u0026rsquo;t want anybody here after six o\u0026rsquo;clock and if you can\u0026rsquo;t do your job in, you know, the time that we\u0026rsquo;ve got, that\u0026rsquo;s a reasonable over the course of a week, let\u0026rsquo;s have a conversation and see what we can change about it. I want to be helping people understand the questions they need to be asking of the people in their lives, like questions.\nWhat do you need from me to do your job better? What do you need from me to be a better person? What do you need from me fit to fulfill your goals? And do you even know what your goals are? And if you don\u0026rsquo;t, what do you need from me to help you work out what that might look like?\nJames: Yeah. That\u0026rsquo;s I like? that a lot. Certainly. it\u0026rsquo;s a good way of at things. Right. It\u0026rsquo;s uh, you know, service first Robin, you know, how, How can I\nMel: Oh, absolutely.\nAnd as late as we hit a serve, like we don\u0026rsquo;t have a job leaders come. If leaders don\u0026rsquo;t have anyone to lead, they\u0026rsquo;re not leaders. So you don\u0026rsquo;t, you want the people that are under you in, and that\u0026rsquo;s not the right way of describing it, but don\u0026rsquo;t you want the people who you lead to be looking up to you.\nAnd to be saying, I want to be like that person. And I know we\u0026rsquo;ve all had, like, I can, I\u0026rsquo;ve had, I\u0026rsquo;ve had lots of different managers and leaders in my life and I there\u0026rsquo;s some of them that I just remember so clearly. And some of them, I remember really clearly because they were amazing and they supported me and they believed in me when I didn\u0026rsquo;t believe in myself and some of them, I remember because they were just.\nAnd I don\u0026rsquo;t want anyone to think of me as the awful later. Although I do know that I will have some pastor who will think of me like that because we all go through awful phases when we don\u0026rsquo;t we\u0026rsquo;re doing and we\u0026rsquo;re stressed and we\u0026rsquo;re overwhelmed. Hmm. Yeah, important.\nJames: That\u0026rsquo;s, that\u0026rsquo;s important, I think yeah.\nTo, remember that\nYeah. I mean, you\u0026rsquo;re not a leader, there\u0026rsquo;s no leader. I think great. Um, what, So you\u0026rsquo;ve got, you\u0026rsquo;ve got book coming out soon if I\u0026rsquo;m not fully connected. And I want to ask you about this and kind of tell us a little bit about what the book\u0026rsquo;s about and in particular. what to know for yourself if someone\u0026rsquo;s reading this book and going through it, what are some things that you really want someone to take\nMel: Like,\nMel\u0026rsquo;s book, Fully Connected # James: From it, like, what are the key\nmain key principles, um, with, like, but you\u0026rsquo;ve learned\nMel: So the book\u0026rsquo;s called fully connected how great leaders lead themselves first. And I look at why do we need to leave ourselves? Let ourselves first what\u0026rsquo;s in. What\u0026rsquo;s preventing us from doing that. And then I tell you three ways that you can lead yourself first. So you can do that by being more self-aware.\nUm, and by having a better understanding of what, what\u0026rsquo;s your purpose, what are your values? What does your, what are your attitudes and behaviors? What are your strengths and weaknesses and how can you capitalize on your strengths? Um, And how do people see you and perceive you? Like, are you, is your level of self-awareness so good enough that you have an understanding of how other people see you as a leader and a person.\nAnd then the second thing I talk about is how do you stay? How do you self motivate and, you know, motivation is terrific. But when it comes down to doing the work, motivation tends to take a hike. So what is it that you need to do to first be motivated? And I believe that people are motivated by knowing their purpose, um, and by seeing what their role is in, whatever it is that they want to achieve in the world.\nBut then how do you, um, what do you need to do to take action and how do you become disciplined enough? So that motivation. Helps you achieve your goals. And then the third part of it is self care. So what is it that you need to do to put, have a self-care toolkit so that you can look after yourself physically, mentally, and emotionally?\nUm, because if you, because when you, the more self care you have, so self-awareness leads to self care and self care leads to resilience. So if you look after your. Physically, mentally and emotionally when things are hard or when things, you know, turned to shit, you\u0026rsquo;re going to cope far better than if you haven\u0026rsquo;t been looking after yourself.\nYeah.\nWhat stuck out to Mel while she was researching the book # James: Yeah, I think that\u0026rsquo;s so important. Like you send us spiritually, physically all those three areas really, really Um, what has been, as you\u0026rsquo;ve been researching and writing this book, like what has been the most surprising thing that you\u0026rsquo;ve learned? Through this process and perhaps it\u0026rsquo;s something you\u0026rsquo;ve discovered recently. or, yeah. I\u0026rsquo;m curious to hear, like, what is something that really stuck out to you while you were\nMel: One of the things that I experienced in senior leadership roles was that I was really lonely and I thought that was just me and it wasn\u0026rsquo;t until I\u0026rsquo;ve had a whole heap of.\nPeople simulators and some clients and some friends also say to me, I\u0026rsquo;m really lonely at work that I just went, there\u0026rsquo;s a big problem here because we shouldn\u0026rsquo;t be. And so that was something that was really enlightening to me. How do we, how do we make ourselves less lonely, but also how do we make sure that our people feel like they belong at work?\nAnd what is it. We can do to help them feel valued and aligned to the organizational purpose and aligned to their own purpose so that they turn up at work. Able to do their best because it\u0026rsquo;s one thing to turn up to work and wanting your best, which I believe everybody does people don\u0026rsquo;t turn up at work going.\nI\u0026rsquo;m going to do a shitty job today. Just you look okay. There\u0026rsquo;s probably some people who do that, but for the most part, I don\u0026rsquo;t think people do that. And so I really believe that people turn up at work, wanting to be their best and wanting to do their best and wanting to succeed. I think sometimes I don\u0026rsquo;t know how, and they\u0026rsquo;re often not given the tools to do that because you can\u0026rsquo;t do your best.\nIf you\u0026rsquo;re not giving clear directions, you won\u0026rsquo;t do your best. If you don\u0026rsquo;t feel valued. And if you don\u0026rsquo;t feel that there\u0026rsquo;s compassion in the organization and you definitely won\u0026rsquo;t do your best, if you\u0026rsquo;re really stressed, feeling overworked, feeling overwhelmed and just exhausted. Because it\u0026rsquo;s not possible.\nJames: Yeah.\nI heard that foundation. Like describing, I think is, really really important Um, in so many areas, you know, whether it\u0026rsquo;s your work or just your life satisfaction. Generally, I think if you don\u0026rsquo;t have those three things, worked out, um, clearly then, you know, it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s an, accident waiting to happen almost so, so Really look into those areas and then thinking about what you\u0026rsquo;re doing keep them in good, condition and\nMel: Exactly. And it\u0026rsquo;s the same with all aspects of your life. You know, you can\u0026rsquo;t show up and be the best person you want to be for yourself, for your partner, for your kids, for your friends, if you\u0026rsquo;re exhausted or overwhelmed or stressed or tired or hungry or hung over, or, um, You know, uncertain, unclear. So my, you were asking me before, what would be my advice?\nI think, um, I\u0026rsquo;ve got two pieces of advice for people. Give yourself something to look forward to every day, because when you look forward to something and then it happens, you get this massive dopamine hit and you feel. So even if, and I asked, I got this idea from, um, a friend of mine during COVID, who was in Melbourne, in the endless lockdowns.\nAnd I said to her, how do you keep going? And she said every night before I go to bed, I think of something I\u0026rsquo;m going to do tomorrow that I love. And so I go to bed with this sense of anticipation and joy that tomorrow I\u0026rsquo;m going to do this thing that I love. And she said some days it might just be having half an hour, quiet time on my own without my husband and kids around reading a book that I\u0026rsquo;ve been wanting to read for a long time.\nOr it might be planning to spend, you know, some, some special time with one of my children or, you know, any number of different things. And she said, none of these things that I do that give me joy take more than half an hour. And, but that\u0026rsquo;s enough to keep filling my cup and refilling my cup. And so, um, I think that\u0026rsquo;s critical actually.\nThere\u0026rsquo;s three things. The other thing, I think if you haven\u0026rsquo;t been to the doctor in over a year, Going to have a health check because if there\u0026rsquo;s things going wrong physically, then that will manifest mentally, emotionally as well. But, you know, make sure that your body\u0026rsquo;s in good working order. There\u0026rsquo;s a whole bunch of different health checks you should be having, depending on how old you are and what your family history is and how long it\u0026rsquo;s been since you had the last one.\nSo if you haven\u0026rsquo;t been to the dentist or been to the doctor in over a year, Just, you know, have a checkup, get some basic blood tests and see that everything\u0026rsquo;s working and get a skin check because you know, we live in Australia and a lot of people have nasty skin cancers. And then the third thing is I talked earlier about the feather, the brick and the truck have a think about whether there\u0026rsquo;s any of those things happening in your life right now.\nAre there any feathers that you need to be aware of? Have has the feather turned into a break and is a brick on the edge of becoming a truck. So just have a think about what is it that you can do to look after yourself better, because life is really short and hopefully you want to have a really long life.\nThat\u0026rsquo;s filled with joy people you love doing work that you love.\nJames: Yeah, I like that a lot. And I like that. Yeah. I think that\u0026rsquo;s so important. And that analogy is\nMel: That\u0026rsquo;s a good one.\nJames: I that was actually,\nMel: I don\u0026rsquo;t know where I read can\u0026rsquo;t Sorry, if it\u0026rsquo;s you, who came up with the idea,\nMel\u0026rsquo;s Advice for Graduates # James: Well, yeah, that was going to be my last question. And it\u0026rsquo;s something that you\u0026rsquo;ve sort of already answered in some something I ask all the guests at the end of the show. is what advice would you give to someone that\u0026rsquo;s just starting out in their career? Like,\nyou know, given all\nthat, you know, Now, if you had to of go wind back clock and restart\nthe advice that you\u0026rsquo;d give you\nMel: Listen to your instincts because they are very rarely wrong.\nThat would be my number one, rice. If, if your gut instinct is saying this isn\u0026rsquo;t quite right, ask questions. And listened to it. Hmm.\nJames: Yeah, I think that\u0026rsquo;s important too. I think. uh, Yeah,\nknow, you\u0026rsquo;ve got the mind and heart and\nMel: That heart,\nJames: They\u0026rsquo;re powerful things. You\u0026rsquo;ve got\nMel: That mind got connection. There\u0026rsquo;s so much research. Now that shows there\u0026rsquo;s such a close link between what happens in our gut and what happens in our brain.\nAnd there\u0026rsquo;s some really good books. None of which I can remember the names of. Um, but there\u0026rsquo;s so much research around that. Like the last 20 years has just shown this really strong connection between the mind and the brain and the gut. And so if you\u0026rsquo;re interested, do some research and find out more, but I really believe listen to your instinct.\nWe\u0026rsquo;ve all got an instinct. It\u0026rsquo;s like that sixth sense. So, you know, pay attention. Particularly if it, you know, you might call it the spidey senses on the, or the, you know, the tingles on the back of your neck or your spidey sensors. But in my experience, they\u0026rsquo;re not usually wrong. Hmm. that\u0026rsquo;s\nWhere to contact Mel # James: I think That\u0026rsquo;s so important. And thanks so much for sharing that with today. Mel, thanks so much for this episode It\u0026rsquo;s been fantastic to have you on and to hear your thoughts? We\u0026rsquo;ve covered.. so much and So much, uh, you know, so much value, really so much wisdom that we\u0026rsquo;ve had from you today, Uh, if the audience wants to find out more about you and find out the things you\u0026rsquo;re working on where is the best.\nplace for\nMel: So my website is probably the best place. Mel kettle.com. It\u0026rsquo;s currently getting overhauled. So if you look at it in the next few weeks, come back about a month later and you\u0026rsquo;ll get to see it nice and shiny and sparkly and new. Um, I\u0026rsquo;m also really active on most social media platforms. So I love LinkedIn and I love Twitter.\nTrying to love Instagram a little bit more. So, um, yeah, just, if you just Google me, you\u0026rsquo;ll find me and I\u0026rsquo;m always happy to have a chat. If you have questions, want to know anything else, please just get placed to get in touch.\nOutro # James: Thanks for listening to this episode I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. If you want to get my takeaways, the things that I learned from this episode, please go to Graduate Theory.com/subscribe, where you can get my takeaways and all the information about each episode, straight to your inbox.\nThanks so much for listening again today, and we\u0026rsquo;re looking forward to seeing you next week.\n← Back to episode 24\n","date":"4 April 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/graduate-theory/24-on-avoiding-career-traps-and-burnout-with-mel-kettle/transcript/","section":"Graduate Theory Transcripts","summary":"← Back to episode 24\nThis transcript has been lightly edited for readability. It may still contain transcription errors.\nIntro # Mel: I went to the doctor’s one day and, um, he said to me, took my blood pressure and he said, I don’t know how you’re walking around.\n","title":"Transcript: On Avoiding Career Traps and Burnout with Mel Kettle","type":"graduate-theory-transcripts"},{"content":" Watch the conversation Graduate Theory Open YouTube ↗ Read the full transcript → Good morning Graduates!\nWelcome to episode #23 of Graduate Theory. Web3 is taking over the world, and today\u0026rsquo;s guest is right in the thick of it. Listen as we discuss Web3, culture and remote work.\nGet these takeaways direct to your inbox every single week by subscribing now 👇\nSubscribe Now\nJosh Reyes is a serial entrepreneur who recently raised a 650k pre-seed round to work on a web3 startup that he co-founded called Minke.\nHe was previously the first employee and head of growth at SmartrMail, where he scaled the team to $2M ARR and 20+ employees\n👇 Episode Takeaways # Starting from the bottom # Josh had an interesting approach to his career. Rather than joining a large company, as is the norm, he joined a startup as the first employee.\nWith this in mind, he gave his thoughts on starting at a startup in this way in comparison to working at a big corporate.\nSo going into an early stage startup, I was able to do a lot and it allowed me to actually explore what I wanted to do and like what\u0026rsquo;s my role and what my strengths were within a company.\nBig companies provide great training, but they also mean you don\u0026rsquo;t get to do as wide of a variety of tasks.\nBeing the first employee, Josh got to work across the entire business side of the company. This meant he had the unique opportunity to learn a wide range of new skills. More than he would have been able to at a big company.\nBe Proactive # Starting a new job fully remote can be tough. Josh gave some good advice for those of us in this situation when it comes to making new connections at work.\nEven though you might be in a remote company, this does not mean that people at work have no desire to socialise.\neven though you\u0026rsquo;re a grad and you have like a hunger to meet people, even people that are mid thirties they just don\u0026rsquo;t want to work all day at home and not talk to anybody.\nPeople want to talk (even on video calls). If you\u0026rsquo;re in this situation, get out there and start booking some time in calendars!\nLearn to Write (and share) # Josh had over 200+ applicants for his marketing intern position. Competition for Web3 jobs is extremely high.\nSo how can we go about differentiating ourselves in the marketplace?\nJosh says the keys are learning to write about web3 and sharing that in public.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s hard to explain what we do to everyday people and to make it approachable and transparent for them. And writing is such a strong, important skill to for us as companies to, to acquire. So just being public about your learning journey, if you\u0026rsquo;re, they can give, getting into web three and. Researching it yourself, just write about it. And when you apply for a job share, share it.\nWhen learning about Web3, go deep into rabbit holes, discover new things. Josh says that his team will check your wallets and see what you\u0026rsquo;ve been playing with in the ecosystem so they can see how much you know.\nGo deep, go wide and go far.\nGet the Newsletter\n🤝 Connect with Josh # https://www.minke.app/\n📝 Show Timestamps # 00:00 Josh Reyes - Multicam 01:22 Starting Work as the First Employee 04:34 Super Early Stage or Corporate? 07:01 What are the unique opportunities that you get from working at an early stage company? 08:31 What do people undervalue about early-stage startups? 11:50 The Remote State of Minke 13:01 How do they handle \u0026lsquo;all person\u0026rsquo; remote meetings? 15:01 Company Culture in a Remote First Org 20:48 What is the future of remote work? 25:37 Advice for Graduates joining remote companies 29:43 What does Minke Do? 31:26 How does DeFi yield work? 37:12 Hiring as a Web3 company 39:19 How to differentiate yourself when applying for web3 roles 45:12 Contact Josh 46:04 Outro\n","date":"28 March 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/graduate-theory/23-on-building-a-remote-career-in-web3-with-josh-reyes/","section":"Graduate Theory","summary":" Watch the conversation Graduate Theory Open YouTube ↗ Read the full transcript → Good morning Graduates!\nWelcome to episode #23 of Graduate Theory. Web3 is taking over the world, and today’s guest is right in the thick of it. Listen as we discuss Web3, culture and remote work.\n","title":"On Building a Remote Career in Web3 with Josh Reyes","type":"graduate-theory"},{"content":"← Back to episode 23\nThis transcript has been lightly edited for readability. It may still contain transcription errors.\nJosh: You\u0026rsquo;re really young. Like now I\u0026rsquo;ve been outside of uni for six to seven years and yeah, taking that risk early on, I think is if you\u0026rsquo;re going to do it, you should do it. Then\nJames: Hello, and welcome to Graduate Theory. My guest today is a serial entrepreneur who recently raised a 650 K pre-seed round to work on a Web3 startup that he co founded called Minke. He was previously the first employee and head of growth at smarter mail, where he scaled the team to $2 million of annual revenue and 20 plus employees.\nHe\u0026rsquo;s originally from. Please welcome Josh rise.\nJosh: Thanks for having me, James.\nJames: Thanks. It was great to have you on night. It\u0026rsquo;s exciting news yesterday. Your, your pre seed round got announced. So congratulations to yourself and congratulations to the team that\u0026rsquo;s involved. It\u0026rsquo;s a, it\u0026rsquo;s a big milestone. So.\nJosh: Yeah, it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s been great. It\u0026rsquo;s been read to finally get the news out there. Uh, we closed it back in December, so, yeah, having the congrats is always nice and yeah. To have people really excited about what we\u0026rsquo;re building and to be good to go and podcasts like yours is awesome.\nStarting Work as the First Employee # James: Yeah, definitely. No, it\u0026rsquo;s great to have you want to, and you\u0026rsquo;ve certainly had an interesting career in one that\u0026rsquo;s. I\u0026rsquo;m keen to dive in to some of this with you. The first question I have for you. So, like I said, in the intro you worked at somato and you were the first employee that. And that is somewhat unusual, especially at that time you were kind of early on in your career.\nI think it made manifest job, correct me if I\u0026rsquo;m wrong, but you know, you\u0026rsquo;re joining as the first employee. What was your rationale for doing that? And how did that call about.\nJosh: Yeah. It\u0026rsquo;s probably different from a lot of people that would get into that role. So I studied finance back in uni and in my last few semesters I was trying to find internships and looking for jobs. I\u0026rsquo;d always thought like, ah, I really like finance the topic. I really liked the subject matter.\nAnd that just seemed like the natural conclusion of what I\u0026rsquo;d work in. And I just found like, it didn\u0026rsquo;t suit me from like a cultural level in terms of what I believe like work should be. And it was also, I also grew up in, studied in Vancouver, which if you\u0026rsquo;re looking for a finance role, not being a finance hub, like New York or Toronto had limited roles and it was a lot more cutthroat with less opportunity.\nI started a few friends in graduate roles that were working in tech instead of, and they all seem really happy. They didn\u0026rsquo;t have super crazy hours. They seem fulfilled in what they were doing and they seem to be working on really exciting problems.\nAnd I was like, Hey, I need to do that. My finance skill set didn\u0026rsquo;t really match. So in my last semester, so if uni and then just in my free time, I taught myself marketing kind of from like a performance marketing and technical perspective and was able to get my first internship, which was helping actually a Shopify store build a customer.\nCalled it was called make, uh, it was a store in Vancouver and that a custom apps that you could print on, t-shirts like my own hair, or you could print on tote bags and things like that. And you could bring a design in and upload it. Or you could just upload it online. So I did a bit of experience working with Shopify and their API APIs and like building apps on it.\nI, that was more like marketing and like, Product management just like reporting bugs and things. But I\u0026rsquo;d understood how Shopify worked and how, I guess how API has worked and had just had like market for an e-commerce store. Really. And so I moved to Australia from Canada and my rationale was to actually think, I, I want something stable, which doesn\u0026rsquo;t really make sense going to in an early stage startup.\nBut I wanted something that I could pick up quickly and I thought like, If I go into a startup that I have know nothing about there might be a good chance I get fired, but if I go into something where I really understand the problem that they\u0026rsquo;re trying to solve, and I guess the software and the tech stack that it\u0026rsquo;s being built on I can really hit the ground running and make an impact.\nSo, I joined smart ML. Actually an intern, but the first employee they hadn\u0026rsquo;t raised any money. Had essentially zero users and yeah, over three months, scaled it up to, I can\u0026rsquo;t remember the user number now, but a significant amount that we\u0026rsquo;re able to start getting a little bit of angel investment on and was able to secure my first full-time role working in a startup as the first employee.\nAnd then, yeah, I grew that to something I\u0026rsquo;m pretty proud of now. Yeah, 20 plus employees. I think it\u0026rsquo;s serving, I think 25,000 merchants globally, all across the world, including a lot of small businesses.\nSuper Early Stage or Corporate? # James: Yeah, cool. That\u0026rsquo;s exciting. And certainly, you know, being the first one, man, and see that growth, I think is quite rewarding. Uh, you know, like you said, I\u0026rsquo;m curious to hear though. I wonder if you have any thoughts on that approach. W I compared to. What is probably the more common approach where you go join a big company as part of the grad program, or, you know, you do an internship with a large corporate place.\nI mean, I\u0026rsquo;m interested to hear your you\u0026rsquo;ve actually done, you know, you\u0026rsquo;ve gone the alternative way and done and done this. What are your thoughts now, looking back, do you think, do you think it was better to do the way that you did in, in terms of joining a really early stage style? Or do you think it would have been more valuable to work in a large corporate\nJosh: I think it really depends on what you want. So if you have a pretty good idea of what you want to work in, I think in a corporate role, or even like a tech role, whether that\u0026rsquo;d be like a certain silo, like marketing or product management or development a larger corporate has these great training programs.\nI think a very structured way of going about it. So if you are dead set on that and you actually know, like have had friends that seem really happy in that role, or maybe have done a bit of work experience. I think that would be a pretty good option, but from my perspective, I was going into this with, I just didn\u0026rsquo;t want to work in finance and I want to work in tech.\nI don\u0026rsquo;t even know if that was marketing marketing seem to be the easiest way to get into that industry from someone who had. Study or a technical knowledge, but it would something that you could essentially teach yourself. So going into an early stage startup, I was able to do a lot and it allowed me to actually explore what I wanted to do and like what\u0026rsquo;s my role and what my strengths were within a company.\nSo things I did included Actually I\u0026rsquo;m doing customer support and doing product management tasks. And by the time I left smart amount, I was head of growth, which was actually more, I would say, 80% product management and about 20% marketing. So I was able to take that early stage experience and really experience a lot of different things within a company.\nAnd I guess within tech and startups and, and find something that I really enjoyed. And I guess. The end of the thing now as a founder, I think what I really enjoyed was beings at that early stage and like really forming a company, forming a culture, forming a team, and then yeah. Going and executing.\nWhat are the unique opportunities that you get from working at an early stage company? # James: Yeah. Cool. I think, I think that\u0026rsquo;s great. I mean, what, what do you think the unique opportunities are for people working with. These early stage companies. I know that you guys have touched on that. What do you think are really some of the big pros of doing that?\nJosh: Yeah. W one, if you don\u0026rsquo;t know what you want to do, if you do, you can experiment with a lot. And I think you can be upfront. I generally, if you\u0026rsquo;re working on an early stage startup, you can expect a very high salary. But in return, I think the startup themselves, they are a good startup. They should give you an amazing learning experience, experience, and the flexibility to do what you want and explore.\nSectors off that company. So being really upfront and saying, Hey, either I don\u0026rsquo;t know what to do, or these are the things I want to experiment with or try my hand at. And then usually if the startup is open to it, that they\u0026rsquo;ll give you small opportunities in that space. And I think also just making an impact, like when you\u0026rsquo;re starting at zero adding one or two customers, Makes a huge impact, but if you\u0026rsquo;re working for a billion dollar company or like a traditional company, that\u0026rsquo;s been around for 50 years, your day to day impact while it might be felt within your team. It\u0026rsquo;s very hard to see it on a company wide scale, where as a startup, you really see that every single day. And especially at really early stage startup that has zero customers because every one of those customers have signs up.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s like a little party in the office because he just getting started and you\u0026rsquo;re just starting that like flywheel towards adoption.\nWhat do people undervalue about early stage startups? # James: Yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s great. Not that early stage fives, almost that you\u0026rsquo;re describing. I think that\u0026rsquo;s hard to bait, uh, you know, differently. Uh, it\u0026rsquo;s exciting. It\u0026rsquo;s exciting when you\u0026rsquo;re around that and when you\u0026rsquo;re growing and when you\u0026rsquo;re, when you\u0026rsquo;re doing stuff\nwhat do you think, like, what do you think people undervalue. About working at a company that\u0026rsquo;s in these early stages because often people will say, you know, oh, it\u0026rsquo;s so risky. Like working, like you\u0026rsquo;re the first employee. Like, what if it goes bad? Like, you know, at least, you know, what, why would I do that when I can join, uh, and be much more stable.\nThere\u0026rsquo;s, there\u0026rsquo;s less risk. If I\u0026rsquo;m joining a company, that\u0026rsquo;s got like stable revenues and things like that, you know? But what do you think people undervalue about, about working in release?\nJosh: I think they. Undervalue one, just their opportunity and their time first. Go into graduate role. You\u0026rsquo;re really young. Like now I\u0026rsquo;ve been outside of uni for six to seven years and yeah, taking that risk early on, I think is if you\u0026rsquo;re going to do it, you should do it. Then I wouldn\u0026rsquo;t recommend doing it at my age.\nOf course now I\u0026rsquo;m starting a company so that maybe it was even crazier. But yeah, it\u0026rsquo;s a lot harder to take. The older you get. You have family commitments. You have. Uh, mortgage, or you might have rent like a higher rent or just a higher standard of living from working at a corporate for a long time.\nSo that decision gets harder to make. And I think the best time to do it is when you\u0026rsquo;re really young, when maybe you\u0026rsquo;re still living at your parents\u0026rsquo; house or all your friends are still not making that much money and you\u0026rsquo;re going out to the cheapest place to eat on the weekends. So it doesn\u0026rsquo;t really matter if you\u0026rsquo;re making a low salary.\nSo I think people just undervalue like. Yeah, the opportunity and the time in their careers, where they\u0026rsquo;re able to make this decision. It\u0026rsquo;s I think from a rational perspective, when you are 21, 22, maybe up to 23, that is the time you can make it. And if the startup goes pear shaped, you\u0026rsquo;ve gotten a lot of experience.\nYou\u0026rsquo;ve hopefully learned how to better idea of what you wanted to do. And you\u0026rsquo;ve actually made an impact at a company. And you can show to get your next job and say like, this is what I did, and this is the result that it ha that it created where it\u0026rsquo;s really hard to show that in a big corporate, because you don\u0026rsquo;t know what the end result of that whole corporate strategy is.\nOr sometimes you might spend six, seven months doing it. And it didn\u0026rsquo;t result in anything and didn\u0026rsquo;t even get launched, right. Because of all the bureaucracy. So, I think it gives you like really, uh, valuable resume building skills. Resume building. I don\u0026rsquo;t have notches on, on, uh, I\u0026rsquo;m not sure what the term is, but that you can take throughout your career and there\u0026rsquo;ll be valuable in the next role.\nAnd it\u0026rsquo;s a super competitive sorry. It\u0026rsquo;s a super The competitive market for employers actually, like it\u0026rsquo;s really hard to find skilled employees these days. So, if the startup you join does go pear shaped room in a year. I don\u0026rsquo;t think the market\u0026rsquo;s going to change where you\u0026rsquo;ll have a hard time finding another job.\nYeah, there\u0026rsquo;s a lot of roles around.\nJames: Tre Tre knows it\u0026rsquo;s a good time to be a graduate\nJosh: Hmm.\nJames: For sure.\nJosh: Yeah.\nThe Remote State of Minke # James: As like people are starting their careers now you know, often in. Locations often, you know, away from the people perhaps has a distributed workforce where everyone\u0026rsquo;s everywhere. You know, is that the case for your company at the moment?\nAre you guys like in person at all or are you pretty.\nJosh: Yeah. W we have a hot desk space here in Melbourne. Some me and our current marketing intern are working there. Yeah. The goal with Minke is to never have an HQ. We want to be global from day one and how we market our product and how we, our product is available. And that\u0026rsquo;s the same for our company. Uh, we hire everyone regardless of where they live.\nWe don\u0026rsquo;t even consider. The time zones. We\u0026rsquo;ve learned to work asynchronously in our past roles. So yeah, right now we have eight of us and that\u0026rsquo;s spread across Australia, Portugal, the UK, Japan, and Brazil. And it seems crazy, I guess, from different time zones. And sometimes it does require flexibility, but actually at smart amount, we were remote from day one as well.\nThe two co-founders were in Melbourne and Adelaide, it\u0026rsquo;s a bit different than different countries, but in a way that\u0026rsquo;s the only way I know how to work. Yeah, I think, I couldn\u0026rsquo;t imagine myself not working like that.\nHow do they handle \u0026lsquo;all person\u0026rsquo; remote meetings? # James: Yeah. How do you guys actually structure like the asynchronous nature of that? Because, you know, often in sort of traditional agile or whatever style of working you use, you know, you have some kind of meetings where everyone\u0026rsquo;s there. Right. So how does it work then? Like how, like what approaches do you take that are different from that to make sure that everyone.\nBeing across everything.\nJosh: Yeah, so we do have all hands. So I guess the times that you actually can all get onto a zoom call or meet that is super valuable. And so you have to use a valuably and be really deliberate about what you\u0026rsquo;re going to use that time for. So, We have one all hands meeting once a week where we kind of go through company updates sometimes give each person, individual person we\u0026rsquo;ll give an update or, uh, an individual person might just present on something that they need to share with the team. But then day to day, it relies on a lot of tools to get it done. So slack is the big one. So just having like an instant messaging style chat that. Easily communicate with your teammates. But that, isn\u0026rsquo;t the only tool you need. The one that\u0026rsquo;s come up recently in the last few years is loom. So that allows you to take screen recordings with your face.\nSo you can actually talk through things. And that\u0026rsquo;s something that\u0026rsquo;s only been around the last two years, but working remote for the last six years, I can\u0026rsquo;t say. I imagine and how I used to work without it anymore. It\u0026rsquo;s just a must have in your toolkit because you can actually take the time and walk through things and exactly how you\u0026rsquo;re doing it and give it a personal touch as well, because your face is on the screen and, and then hand it off to the next person from when they start the day.\nAnd it\u0026rsquo;s really cool because he actually kind of feel like the company never sleeps. It\u0026rsquo;s not like a business that closes, uh, opens at nine and closes at five. Uh, it seems. The company is always getting stuff done at every time, at every time of day. And it makes it feel like it\u0026rsquo;s moving really fast.\nCompany Culture in a Remote First Org # James: Yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s cool. And I\u0026rsquo;ve actually, I\u0026rsquo;ve, I haven\u0026rsquo;t really used the loom a lot, but yeah, I\u0026rsquo;ve heard good things about it as well. So I might have to just test it out. How do you go about then, you know, you\u0026rsquo;ve got the one all hands every week. How do you go about like company culture and things like that?\nBecause it\u0026rsquo;s something that\u0026rsquo;s a little bit, is it more difficult? You know, when you\u0026rsquo;re not in-person then.\nJosh: Yeah, it is. And I think it\u0026rsquo;s a really good thing that graduates should be aware off, but because I think everyone wants to go at a few uni and then go to like a big corporate. And one of the good things about working at corporate is there\u0026rsquo;s a lot of people your own age, and you can make a lot of friends there.\nAnd you can kind of be part of this culture and it\u0026rsquo;s really hard to do in a remote environment where you just don\u0026rsquo;t have that. I think the remote companies that are doing it best have been doing it for a long time, whether that be base camp. The loom is another version of Zapier get lab. So while almost everyone is doing some version of remote since COVID there have actually been these really superstar company it\u0026rsquo;s that I\u0026rsquo;ve reached billion dollar valuations that have been doing it since their company birth.\nSo. One, I guess, picking a company that it\u0026rsquo;s actually done it for awhile because it\u0026rsquo;s hard to get. Right. And it actually really depends on your team and culture and like the people within it, because some people might really like meetings where some company cultures might not. And working with people that have done it before and know how to actually understand, like, understand that and to tailor.\nRemote experience exactly for that culture and team I think is really important. And I think that\u0026rsquo;s something that me and my co-founder Marcus are really good at because it was the same situation at smarter mouth. So yeah, we have these all hands, but. Do other things as well. So, for example, we have our public launch the app next week, so we\u0026rsquo;re doing a launch party and we\u0026rsquo;re doing it because the team is still pretty new.\nLike me and Marcus just started working on it, I guess in August last year, first pull request was in September. So while we\u0026rsquo;ve had whenever a new person has joined, they\u0026rsquo;ve have had an intro to kind of introduce themselves as a person, not just an employee. Uh, we haven\u0026rsquo;t. Really got the chance to like fully meet everyone in a sense.\nSo we\u0026rsquo;re doing things like trivia, so you can kind of do a trivia on yourself or kind of on your country because people are in different places that people can learn about where you\u0026rsquo;re from. And just like coffee meet upstairs. So. Either booking in an extra time, or maybe like every third or fourth time when we\u0026rsquo;re supposed to do stand up, just skip it, say, Hey, put a message on slack, on what you\u0026rsquo;re working on.\nAnd we\u0026rsquo;re going to spend the time just like going into small breakout rooms of two or three people and just talk about things that aren\u0026rsquo;t work. And yeah, if it\u0026rsquo;s light for you, maybe have a beer or if it\u0026rsquo;s early maybe it\u0026rsquo;s a coffee instead.\nJames: Yeah. Yeah. Cool. No, I think certainly you need those, you know, you can\u0026rsquo;t just take the in-person work environment and put it online and expect everything to still work well. So I definitely think like you guys have done, you need those certain things to be different. Like, you know, you need. Making time to catch up with colleagues or, you know, doing those extra things that you wouldn\u0026rsquo;t have to do if you were in person\nJosh: Yeah, and I think there still needs to be a physical element as well. At smarter mal we have. I think throughout my time, there, there was three retreats. So we had gone on one dev retreat to Lithuania, an old team retreat to Portugal. And then during COVID we couldn\u0026rsquo;t attend in Melbourne, but we had done like many retreats, one in Cyprus for the European team and another one and Rio in Brazil for like the south American and north American team.\nAnd the. In-person events while they have not that often. So generally, maybe once or twice a year are really important because one thing you don\u0026rsquo;t get on slack is really someone\u0026rsquo;s tone of voice. So starting a startup and being in high growth and having like sometimes really demanding conditions, sometimes things can get heated.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s just the reality. And not understanding someone\u0026rsquo;s tone. I can make you misunderstand the situation and their intent of how they\u0026rsquo;re saying things, but once you actually meet that person in real life, you get an idea of how they talk and you can kind of hear their voice when you see them on slack as well, or when they send a message on slack.\nSo, I think it\u0026rsquo;s actually a super important thing as well. And it\u0026rsquo;s our aim to yeah. W as we grow this year, having an in-person meetup for Minke as well and you can do it in some. In small bits too. So if you have your dev teams, I all in Europe and maybe your marketing team is all in the U S you can do one all team retreats once a year in one location.\nAnd then sometime during the year, just the dev team can meet up in Europe and just the marketing team can meet up, say somewhere in Canada. And it\u0026rsquo;s possible. And I think some times companies will say, oh, it\u0026rsquo;s really expensive. But office space is really expensive. And we found that if you run things efficiently, especially when you\u0026rsquo;re early stage and.\nAre okay. Being a little bit more comfy, maybe sharing all the same Airbnb in LA, where there might only be two bathrooms for 10 people, which is like, you could only do it. If you\u0026rsquo;re a close knit team, uh, it doesn\u0026rsquo;t cost that much. It might cost 20 to 25,080 to run a T or a trait and get everybody in one location.\nAnd that is usually how much you\u0026rsquo;re going to see. N even less than we\u0026rsquo;re going to spend actually on an office space in Melbourne for the year.\nJames: Thanks for listening to this episode of Graduate Theory. If you haven\u0026rsquo;t already subscribed to the Graduate Theory newsletter you can do so by at the links in the show notes, the Graduate Theory newsletter comes out every single Tuesday morning with my thoughts and lessons from each episode.\nBut without further ado, let\u0026rsquo;s get back into it.\nWhat is the future of remote work? # James: Yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s cool. It\u0026rsquo;s suddenly, it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s really interesting seeing the different innovations and things like that have come from that. Uh, they\u0026rsquo;re, they\u0026rsquo;re really explosion almost, you know, it might work out the last few years. Do you think people like, you know, you\u0026rsquo;ve said that, you know, the in-person element will you sort of made that in some ways and you\u0026rsquo;re keen to have retreats and made option and that kind of stopped.\nDo you think the future of work is this kind of mode where we\u0026rsquo;re saying. Yeah, we\u0026rsquo;ve kind of shot up like once a year. Well, a couple of times a year. And outside of that with whoever mode, or do you think it\u0026rsquo;s going to come back to let\u0026rsquo;s have the team in a certain city and then we\u0026rsquo;ll just, yeah, we\u0026rsquo;ll just work together on, on all the problems.\nWhat do you think.\nJosh: I think it depends on the business for sure. In tech. I think that\u0026rsquo;s generally the trend, I think, on a scale globally. It\u0026rsquo;s really hard to do it just from one location. It\u0026rsquo;s an advantage, having people from different cultures and different locations and different mindsets and different experiences that can actually bring that value to your team.\nAnd I think the teams that do it are going to be the ones that scale the fastest, uh, and scale the most efficiently too, because yeah. It\u0026rsquo;s Martin. Well, we always aim actually not sorry, Minke. We always aim to Kind of do location-based pricing. So while salaries might be very high in San Francisco or even Australia we don\u0026rsquo;t pay those salaries for remote employees, but we always aim to pay them at least above the market rate that they might get paid in Brazil or Chile.\nUh, but it\u0026rsquo;s still much lower than Australia. The talent, like talent is evenly distributed, just because someone\u0026rsquo;s in Chile or Brazil. That doesn\u0026rsquo;t mean they\u0026rsquo;re less skilled or less talented than someone in Australia. And they just haven\u0026rsquo;t been given the same opportunities. And if we can get three of those extremely skilled people in Brazil for the price of one in Australia, I think, and you actually have the structures in place where you\u0026rsquo;re building a remote company.\nI think we\u0026rsquo;re the ones that are going to be more competitive in the long run.\nJames: Yeah, I think, I think that\u0026rsquo;s interesting. That\u0026rsquo;s very interesting to be interesting to see over the next few years, how that kind of, you know, the talent, that\u0026rsquo;s almost hasn\u0026rsquo;t had access to opportunities or things like that. Them now getting access to remote companies really that don\u0026rsquo;t really care where you are. It\u0026rsquo;s going to be interesting to see how that plays out and sort of the global labor market really\nJosh: Yeah, I\u0026rsquo;m really excited to say it as well. Cause we\u0026rsquo;ve been hiring me and mark has been hiring remotely now for six years. We always kind of manage the hiring at smart ML as well. And actually to see the shift in the market too, like before, when they started there was you find a lot of devs, throughout Asia. But now that\u0026rsquo;s very much shifting what west, if you look good that way. So, Africa is a huge market, especially in Nigeria. Um, LA goes like it\u0026rsquo;s become a huge tech scene there. And it\u0026rsquo;s just exploded with like really quality candidates. And some of these bigger companies have come in and train people in those areas.\nAnd, and same with Latin America. It\u0026rsquo;s like this huge FinTech hub where. the banks, there might not be so trustworthy. There\u0026rsquo;s this huge explosion of local payment operators that have born local neobanks that people have worked for and really worked for them at massive scale. If you consider how big like countries like Brazil are in terms of population, and now they are able to work for companies like Minke or even like.\nCompanies like Revolut or bigger fintechs and take that skill and experience, which is actually very valuable and very hard to find in a market like Australia. Yeah. And help our companies grow.\nJames: Yeah. Yeah. I think it almost goes both ways. Doesn\u0026rsquo;t it with. now getting access to better talent ed, probably cheaper than they would have before, especially ones that are Western, you know, typically like Australia, U S and things like that. And then also people are able to access opportunities that they previously weren\u0026rsquo;t able to access.\nSo it\u0026rsquo;s really a, it\u0026rsquo;s a win-win for so many people around the world. I think this remote work\nJosh: Yeah. And I think sometimes people will think like, oh, it\u0026rsquo;s just going to be people in, let\u0026rsquo;s say the global south taking our jobs, but it also opens up a lot of opportunities as well. I\u0026rsquo;ve especially working in crypto. Friends that are kind of working for exchanges or kind of us or Asian crypto companies.\nAnd really in APEC it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s a huge, the market here is crazy. Like the amount of growth potential it has. And in Australia were perfectly positioned for, to serve countries like Indonesia and Malaysia and still like English speaking. And so we can connect with these teams in the U S so, there\u0026rsquo;s a lot of exciting opportunities.\nI think. Uh, for Australia in some interim mode perspective as well.\nAdvice for Graduates joining remote companies # James: Yeah, I think that\u0026rsquo;s interesting. What let\u0026rsquo;s say you\u0026rsquo;re a, you\u0026rsquo;re a grad, you know, joining a remote first company. Well, it just early career joining a remote company. What does, like, now that you\u0026rsquo;ve done this for a while and you\u0026rsquo;re hiring people that you\u0026rsquo;re into these kinds of roles, what are some tips that you like, or you would give to help someone like settle in?\nBecause I think it can be difficult perhaps to settle into a company that where you\u0026rsquo;re not with people. And then also like when you\u0026rsquo;re actually working kind of what things can they do to like, you know, get involved in the company and like, get to know people and kind of set themselves up. Well, there.\nJosh: Yeah. One is like be proactive, like as much as a team that has done it before it can help you with the cultural side and set up meetings for you. Realize everyone else is in the same situation, even though you\u0026rsquo;re a grad and you have like a hunger to meet people, even people that are mid thirties they just don\u0026rsquo;t want to work all day at home and not talk to anybody.\nEveryone is in the same situation and they\u0026rsquo;re more than up to have a chat at the end of the day, even just, yeah, knock off like half an hour early and have a beer and just hang Generally people are more efficient working at home, I think are working remotely. So we are very flexible the way we tell people like, Hey, if it\u0026rsquo;s end of day, Friday, or even just like during the week you don\u0026rsquo;t have these like water cooler chats that you\u0026rsquo;d have in a normal workplace.\nSo yeah. Just message someone on slack and say, Hey, do you wanna have a beer? Or did someone have a chat? And yeah, no one should feel any requirement to say, oh no, It\u0026rsquo;s not five or I haven\u0026rsquo;t worked eight hours yet. Yeah, the social aspect is part of work. And I think companies should be flexible in realizing that and allow yeah.\nPay people to be proactive themselves and just like, go take those opportunities. Yeah. Because yeah, everybody\u0026rsquo;s in the same spot. We all like social interaction.\nJames: Yeah, definitely. No, that\u0026rsquo;s cool. Yeah. I think that\u0026rsquo;s important too. I think you\u0026rsquo;ve got to, uh, I feel like. Remote, like for the first six month period recently. And, you know, I guess like, most people wouldn\u0026rsquo;t live in Melbourne to some extent. Right. You know, and that kind of, you know, it was, it was a sort of eye opener for that kind of stuff.\nTo be honest, you know where you\u0026rsquo;re saying, okay, There\u0026rsquo;s no real social, like no social contact is kind of forced, right? Like if you\u0026rsquo;re in the office, you\u0026rsquo;re kind of just forced to be social. But when you are remote, it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s kind of, like you said, you\u0026rsquo;ve gotta be proactive, go out and connect with your coworkers a bit more actively, so you can still have that social side to work.\nAnd you\u0026rsquo;re not just like, you know, taking off the JIRA thing, do your tickets and then leaving. And it\u0026rsquo;s just like a very, you know, and you\u0026rsquo;re not getting involved with, with the broader mission and the broader.\nJosh: Yeah. And one thing I\u0026rsquo;d say like on the proactive, but two is yeah. On the broader mission and company it is hard to find startups that have been doing it for a while or people that have been doing it awhile. I think it\u0026rsquo;s smart. Through the same accelerator. That main key is going through back in 2017.\nAnd we were the only remote company then and everyone thought we were crazy and they were asking us like, how do you do it? And now three years later, they actually no five years later there\u0026rsquo;s a lot of remote companies in our cohort, but even then, As founders sometimes it\u0026rsquo;s really hard to do this culture while building a high growth startup.\nSo actually get read like some books, like the base camp guys, like DHH and Jason fried. They\u0026rsquo;ve wrote written a book Call, I think it\u0026rsquo;s remote. Okay. Or, yeah, there\u0026rsquo;s a few like company culture and building a remote company. But actually just reading those yourself and trying to implement those within the team.\nAnd if you feel like, Hey, this company, isn\u0026rsquo;t doing something, just reach out. Like everyone generally at a startup wants to make a great working experience for everyone there.\nJames: Yeah, no, I agree in that it\u0026rsquo;s supposed to be, get good resources available, listening that are interested in, perhaps that you don\u0026rsquo;t even have to. All right. You have a company to, to have those. You could just start doing them within a team or whatever it might be. If you wear modes, that\u0026rsquo;s really useful.\nWhat does Minke Do? # James: I\u0026rsquo;ll uh, okay. Of them tonight. Good reads after the show today. Let\u0026rsquo;s talk a bit more about, about yourself and what you\u0026rsquo;re working on. So Minke is a app. Could you just give us a bit more information about what exactly you are working on? What is, what is the product? What benefits can we, can we gain for, for using.\nJosh: Yeah, definitely. So with Minke, we\u0026rsquo;re aiming to be the easiest way to save, earn, and invest with DeFi on mobile. And the product itself is a Web3 wallets. So similar to something like MetaMask that you might\u0026rsquo;ve used to buy your first NFT the last few years But it\u0026rsquo;s designed to look and feel like your favorite FinTech.\nSo whether that\u0026rsquo;d be Revolut, if you\u0026rsquo;re in the UK or globally, or I guess up banking is the popular one for young, young people in Australia. So rather than having a lot of this really like crypto native language and jargon, we actually take the view that, Hey, let\u0026rsquo;s look at something like a banking and totally power it with crypto and DeFi instead.\nAnd the benefit of doing that. In like a de-centralized way, we actually give people direct access to these lending and borrowing protocols. So with Minke you can save on protocols, like have a an M stable, which last year had a variable rate on average of 8%, which I think is 40 times higher than your bank.\nAnd even this year it\u0026rsquo;s trending given the macro. Economic situation with Russia and the Ukraine. So it\u0026rsquo;s trending a bit lower as less people want to take on leverage, but yeah, you can still save near three to 5%, which yeah, 10, 20 times higher than your bank is. And it\u0026rsquo;s a really great way to save because if you\u0026rsquo;re putting your money in a savings account given what inflation is really your money is going backwards.\nHow does DeFi yield work? # James: Yeah. I\u0026rsquo;ve, uh, uh, been met. People are botanical question for you, but how like, cause I, I don\u0026rsquo;t know a great deal about how this works. So how is it possible that you can, like, how does the yield work there? Like where is this the yield coming from in these situations and why is it so high compared to like a traditional.\nJosh: So, so we give access to these lending and borrowing protocols that essentially work like peer to peer lending. So like a bank would take your savings and lend it out to bars. You\u0026rsquo;re doing the same, but instead of a bank with a huge building and a hundred thousand plus employees, all it is, is a smart contract that enables this.\nSo your money goes into a pool. And then lenders can borrow from that pool. The reason why it\u0026rsquo;s higher, like one is just efficiency. You don\u0026rsquo;t have to have this whole like compliance and infrastructure, and I guess like physical infrastructure of a banking operation. But two is also the price that people are willing to pay for money or borrowing in the cryptos fear.\nWhen people are borrowing are generally looking for leverage to either buy more crypto or usually buy more crypto. So what they\u0026rsquo;re doing is they usually have a theorem or maybe some Bitcoin in the form of rapid Bitcoin and they D they want to donate to sell it so they can deposit it into these protocols as collateral and say, they can put a thousand dollars a Bitcoin in and they can borrow.\n$500 off your us dollar savings. And they can either use that to get some liquidity and buy some new boots or they can yeah. Use that to buy more Bitcoin and get more leverage.\nJames: Hmm. And how does it work then with like, perhaps someone takes a loan out of his pool, but then that, like, they\u0026rsquo;re unable to pay back, like as their default on that loan, how does it work? How does that, uh, work with.\nJosh: Yeah. Oh yeah, I guess I forgot to point on one aspect too. So the reason it is higher is because the people that are borrowing. They are essentially wholesale D banked from traditional finance. Like if you\u0026rsquo;re a crypto company, it\u0026rsquo;s really hard to get a bank account. Even for us, we were really lucky to get one.\nI won\u0026rsquo;t name which one, because I don\u0026rsquo;t want them to kick me off because the other three were unsuccessful, but it\u0026rsquo;s the same goes for borrowing and lending. So, because it\u0026rsquo;s so hard to get liquidity then, or yeah, leverage. Crypto companies are willing to pay more for it. So, whereas you can maybe get a mortgage for 3% as a crypto company, you can borrow at those same rates that traditional finance is borrowing at.\nSo, that\u0026rsquo;s why it\u0026rsquo;s in the air, like, yeah. Eight, 9%, for example. And yeah, so, and if you are unable to pay your loan, that\u0026rsquo;s all automated. It\u0026rsquo;s based on your collateral. So if your collateral, because everything is over collaterized. So if you want to borrow $500, so you actually have to put in a thousand dollars worth of collateral, but if say the price of Bitcoin, which is your collateral drops and reaches a certain point where.\nSay your collateral isn\u0026rsquo;t worth as much as the loan, then that collateral will actually get automatically sold back into the market. So, it\u0026rsquo;ll go up for sale. And 50% of that can be bought by people who went to buy Bitcoin and it sold at a bit of a discount too. So they have some arbitrage opportunity.\nSo I think it says 6% discount compared to whatever the market price is. And then yeah, you could, they can buy your collateral. And then now. will be used to re pay back your loan and then your loan will, again, we\u0026rsquo;ll be in good standing because some of your collateral was sold to pay that back.\nJames: Cool. All right. That sounds good to have, so put my settings for a house in crypto instead. Uh, maybe not, maybe it\u0026rsquo;s not a site who knows maybe one day.\nJosh: It\u0026rsquo;s it actually is. Safe. And in the sense that these protocols are really battle tested to put it in perspective right now, both our van compound, which are the two lending and borrowing protocols have over $20 billion locked in them, us. Which if you just look at assets, held by a bank would put them in the top 100 banks in the U S which they\u0026rsquo;ve only had.\nCome to prominence in the last two and a half years. And they\u0026rsquo;ve only been created five years ago, which is crazy when you consider that some of the banks that have been around have been around since like the beginning of time, like more longer than even we\u0026rsquo;ve been alive for, since he can remember.\nAnd, and really the first, I would say worthy competitor to traditional finance. So if you look at the last 20 years had, I guess the traditional world international companies completely flipped on its head by tech. Like the biggest companies used to be ExxonMobil, but now they\u0026rsquo;re Amazon apple, Microsoft it\u0026rsquo;s everything\u0026rsquo;s tech.\nBut if you look at the biggest banks, the largest banks in the U S and 1970s are still the largest banks today. And in Australia. It\u0026rsquo;s probably since banking existed, that the largest banks are more CommBank and a and Zed. So, that hasn\u0026rsquo;t changed by tech and it\u0026rsquo;s, they\u0026rsquo;re really these legacy institutions that are so ingrained in our day-to-day lives.\nBut now you have this solution that is so much better because of the efficiency that you have had with these like smart contract applications that I think, yeah. If, if $20 billion was to be lost, that would be a very horrible for DeFi. But I think it also shows like have battle tested. These particles are because if it\u0026rsquo;s been two and a half years, and these have gone from, in that time, like $1 billion locked in, all defined together to over a hundred billion dollars lock.\nIf people haven\u0026rsquo;t been able to get that piece of the pie and these like mega protocols, they\u0026rsquo;re obviously doing something right.\nHiring as a Web3 company # James: Yeah, no, that\u0026rsquo;s spot on. And speaking of, you know, Web3 where I\u0026rsquo;d love to talk to you, you know, you\u0026rsquo;re obviously you\u0026rsquo;re the founder of this company. You\u0026rsquo;re looking to hire people in, to work in, in your company. Tell us about what it\u0026rsquo;s like hiring in today\u0026rsquo;s day and age as a web, your company.\nJosh: Yeah, it\u0026rsquo;s really fun because it kind of reminds me of myself when I. First got my first role at smarter about essentially having no real marketing experience or a marketing background. And Web3 is this new industry where I think there\u0026rsquo;s a program at our MIT, but it\u0026rsquo;s very early stage. Like no one has studied Web3 or crypto.\nAnd nobody. Generally breaking in. There are some, I guess people now we\u0026rsquo;ve kind of been really building on it for five years. So there\u0026rsquo;s people moving between roles, but I would say the vast majority of people that are like getting a job or are in crypto for the first time. So. Yeah, it\u0026rsquo;s fun from that perspective.\nAnd yeah, I think I just enjoy like, people like rushing into an industry that I\u0026rsquo;m really passionate about. But also that they\u0026rsquo;re really passionate about too. I on our first marketing role that we hired for our marketing lead. That was, I think the first role we advertised for nobody really knew about us.\nAnd we had over 250 applicants hiring and web to, if we got that, they\u0026rsquo;d be like, wow, this is amazing. Like he would have had to spend thousands of dollars on job ads to generate that. But in crypto, in Web3, there\u0026rsquo;s this huge rush of people that are wanting to get into it. And then, yeah, it\u0026rsquo;s good.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s a blessing for us as a company.\nJames: Yeah. Yeah, definitely. No, that\u0026rsquo;s, that\u0026rsquo;s, that\u0026rsquo;s certainly cool. I mean, I\u0026rsquo;m curious to dive in more about this and the, you know, the amount of people that applied. I mean, how can you and your, your like, you know, Web3 in itself is relatively new and you space, right? So you\u0026rsquo;ve probably gone through this yourself, but how do you go about learning about these things in terms of perhaps someone wants a role at a Web3 company and really differentiating themselves from.\nHow to differentiate yourself when applying for web3 roles # James: Did you know, the masses that want to get into this field? Like what can you do to decide? Okay. I\u0026rsquo;m actually, I actually know what I\u0026rsquo;m doing in this area. I mean, is there anything that you could do in the lead up to applying for these positions\nJosh: Yeah. One is actually like, make your learning journey really public. I. Uh, be intentional, let\u0026rsquo;s say, Hey, I\u0026rsquo;m learning about this and maybe I\u0026rsquo;m running a blog or I\u0026rsquo;m running some LinkedIn posts, what I\u0026rsquo;m learning and maybe what are the new things every day. It doesn\u0026rsquo;t need to be completely right. But it\u0026rsquo;s good to see, I guess, from a hiring perspective, someone going down that rabbit hole and like yeah.\nSeeing their curiosity and also their writing skills, which I think being in an industry that. It\u0026rsquo;s very, very technical focused and has come from like really like developer and like crypto native focus. It\u0026rsquo;s hard to explain what we do to everyday people and to make it approachable and transparent for them.\nAnd writing is such a strong, important skill to for us as companies to, to acquire. So just being public about your learning journey, if you\u0026rsquo;re, they can give, getting into Web3 and. Researching it yourself, just write about it. And when you apply for a job share, share it. Even if he might be a little bit embarrassed about it because you\u0026rsquo;re new to it.\nWe really like seeing people who\u0026rsquo;ve done that and gone down the rabbit hole, just like we did five, six years ago.\nJames: Hmm. Yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s cool. I think, I think it\u0026rsquo;s important, right? Especially something like Web3 way. The it\u0026rsquo;s not like you there\u0026rsquo;s much barrier to, to learn. Like you can get quite active in the space and learn everything there is to know. You know, it\u0026rsquo;s not like, uh, a field that\u0026rsquo;s been established for awhile, like, like finance, for example, where going deep into it, you could go down any number.\nRabbit Holmes like endlessly. Whereas, you know, crypto is still this early thing where you can become reasonably knowledgeable, quite fast. And if you, if you\u0026rsquo;re willing to sort of get stuck in and, and dive into the communities and the tech and things like that.\nJosh: Yeah. And I\u0026rsquo;d say one thing too is just use the actual tools because the nature of the blockchain is that it\u0026rsquo;s public. Not only can you write about it, but we can actually. The hirers, we can actually see like a lot of that common trend now, and Twitter is to have your dot Eve in your Twitter name.\nUh, we can actually look at your dot E and see, like, this is what you\u0026rsquo;ve been buying. This is what you\u0026rsquo;ve been transacting with. This is the tools that are, that you\u0026rsquo;re using. It\u0026rsquo;s a bit harder now, like compared to when I started. The gas fees, which are the transaction fees on Ethereum were a lot lower because there wasn\u0026rsquo;t as much volume on the network.\nSo you might be spending like a few dollars to make a transaction, whereas now, and sometimes to buy an NFT or, uh, make a date five transaction on the Ethereum main net, it could be up to a hundred dollars, which if you\u0026rsquo;re a graduate that would be some pretty prohibitive to actually use it. But what there is now are layer two networks, which essentially maintain the security of Ethereum, but they allow you to transact at much higher speeds and lower transaction costs.\nSo you can actually go. And use a lot of these same protocols and DeFi, or even by NFTs on things like optimism, arbitrary and polygon. And for us, when we\u0026rsquo;re hiring, we actually look at that. We don\u0026rsquo;t just look at ether scan, which is kind of Ethereum. We actually look at all the different changes. Which one you\u0026rsquo;re on.\nAnd even if it\u0026rsquo;s on like say Binance chain or something that might not be as like decentralized as we like, and maybe isn\u0026rsquo;t so popular and the old OJI crypto sphere it\u0026rsquo;s good to see, like people actually use the tools and understand, and they\u0026rsquo;re just going on the journey because he had going on the journey and down the rabbit hole, I think is the most fun part.\nAnd yeah, we\u0026rsquo;re happy to help people. Get to the point where we are to.\nJames: Yeah. Great. Uh, I think that\u0026rsquo;s really cool. I\u0026rsquo;ve got one more question to ask you today around, you know, your career and the things you\u0026rsquo;ve done. And we\u0026rsquo;ve had a really interesting chat today, but people starting their career this year. Do you have any advice for graduates as they go into this world of crypto remote work, all these kinds of new trends that are coming up.\nJosh: Yeah. I think Uh, I\u0026rsquo;ll heavily push for crypto. I think it\u0026rsquo;s very much the future. The amount of talent rushing into this industry is simply like unfathomable, uh, coming from like a web two world from my full-time job just over a year ago and now to like really be back into it. And working in hiring and experimenting in this industry.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s crazy. When me and Marcos actually started the company We said like this actually might be our last chance to be early and really define what our vision for what we want this industry and this space to look like. And that was actually the same thing for joining an early stage startup.\nI, I had. Like strong beliefs on how, what work should be like and how you should run a team. Because I\u0026rsquo;m like reading books and talking to friends and like what company culture should be like. And I think I still have those strong beliefs about work, but also like what I think the future of Web3 and crypto and the internet should be.\nAnd I think if people do have these like morals and beliefs and you want to apply them to this industry, It sounds maybe a bit crazy, but I actually think it\u0026rsquo;s the last time these next three to five years will be at the time when you can actually make an impact and actually spread your morals and beliefs at a scale where the impactful totally like millions and billions of people.\nJames: Right. Well, there it is everyone, you know, your coal to get into Web3. I think it\u0026rsquo;s a fascinating space. And certainly an area that has, like you said, has a lot of talent, uh, going in that direction. There\u0026rsquo;s a lot of, you know, new things that are happening every single day. So. And it\u0026rsquo;s probably going to be that way for a while to come.\nContact Josh # James: So, certainly, yeah, I absolutely agree with you, Josh. Thanks so much for coming on today and sharing your wisdom. It\u0026rsquo;s been very interesting for myself to hear your thoughts on these different topics. If people want to find out more about yourself and what you\u0026rsquo;re working on after this conversation, where is the best place for them to go?\nJosh: Yeah, I\u0026rsquo;m on Twitter at events that he Reyes. So it\u0026rsquo;s like Vancity Reynolds. I think it\u0026rsquo;s Ryan Reynolds. His Twitter handle in Vancouver. So, you have like Vancouver\u0026rsquo;s of Ben city, so. Yeah on Twitter or you could just yeah. Find us on Minke.app. So M I N K e.app, I assume it\u0026rsquo;ll be in the show notes as well.\nSo, uh, jump on the sites. You can probably send a support to get, if you want to chat to me yeah. More than happy to chat or point you on your way. Okay.\nJames: Fantastic. Thanks again, you all should Spinney grad chat tonight and yeah, we\u0026rsquo;ll speak. Say\nJosh: Cool. Thanks, James. Yeah. Thanks for having me.\nOutro # James: Thanks for listening to this episode I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. If you want to get my takeaways, the things that I learned from this episode, please go to Graduate Theory.com/subscribe, where you can get my takeaways and all the information about each episode, straight to your inbox.\nThanks so much for listening again today, and we\u0026rsquo;re looking forward to seeing you next week.\n← Back to episode 23\n","date":"28 March 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/graduate-theory/23-on-building-a-remote-career-in-web3-with-josh-reyes/transcript/","section":"Graduate Theory Transcripts","summary":"← Back to episode 23\nThis transcript has been lightly edited for readability. It may still contain transcription errors.\nJosh: You’re really young. Like now I’ve been outside of uni for six to seven years and yeah, taking that risk early on, I think is if you’re going to do it, you should do it. Then\n","title":"Transcript: On Building a Remote Career in Web3 with Josh Reyes","type":"graduate-theory-transcripts"},{"content":" Watch the conversation Graduate Theory Open YouTube ↗ Read the full transcript → Hello Graduates!\nThis is episode #22 of Graduate Theory. This is a powerful episode, one that I learned so much from, and one that I recommend everyone listens to.\nGet all this goodness direct to your inbox every single week by subscribing now 👇\nSubscribe Now\nJosh Farr is the founder of Campus Consultancy. He has worked with more than 21,000 leaders across schools, universities, non-profits and corporates. He gives more than 300 presentations per year, including a TEDx talk and speaking at the Australasian Talent Conference Digital 2020.\n👇 Episode Takeaways # Strengths have sweet spots # Too little kindness is good.\nToo much kindness is not so good.\nWhere is the balance?\nIn the episode, Josh outlines the idea that strengths have sweets spots, and too much of something isn\u0026rsquo;t as good as it seems.\nHonesty is a strength. If you go to your local barista and criticize them for the cup of coffee, you\u0026rsquo;re just a jerk, right? Like too much. Honesty is not a good thing. Honesty is a good thing too little is not a good thing. So I think strengths kind of have this sweet spot.\nJust because something is a strength, does not mean you should dial your use of it up to 100.\nStrengths have weaknesses too.\nMost People Don\u0026rsquo;t Like Their Jobs # When I heard this it took me a moment to take it in.\nMany people across Australia do not love their jobs.\nthe Australian workforce data from Gallup says out of every five Ozzie workers, less than one of them under 40 loves. Like people need to know that if you look at, if you sit down with five of your buddies, statistically, four of them, and part of you, don\u0026rsquo;t like what you do as I\u0026rsquo;m like that\u0026rsquo;s depressing\nIf you don\u0026rsquo;t like what you\u0026rsquo;re doing, it\u0026rsquo;s important to ask yourself why you feel that way.\nThen, it\u0026rsquo;s important to act on that feeling. Just like Josh, you can get out of your comfort zone and seek a calling outside yourself.\nIt’s not about \u0026ldquo;Me\u0026rdquo;, it’s about \u0026ldquo;We\u0026rdquo; # Josh found great meaning in not just doing things for himself but doing things for the community.\nwhat if every day I was helping lots of as many people as I can in a meaningful way, and just nudging people along on their journey, whether that\u0026rsquo;s in leadership or career or handing out suppliers\nThis is a call for all of us. How can we go out into the world and make it even just slightly better for everyone?\nHow can you do that today?\nAnd so my metric for a meaningful career said, can I do something that\u0026rsquo;s just net positive, but who knows how much you can help people, but can I just do something that\u0026rsquo;s net positive [\u0026hellip;] and can I show up every day and try to help?\nLife 5 Seasons at a Time # how can we think about life in a way that sets us up for success? Josh\u0026rsquo;s tip is to think about life in terms of seasons.\nBreaking up a 40-year career into 5 seasons makes it less daunting, and you\u0026rsquo;re better able to prepare for the journey ahead.\nSo way to think about it is firstly, like what would I be really not, what do I want to be doing? But what would I be proud to have done in the next five years?\nThe next step, is how can we make this journey into one that we can\u0026rsquo;t lose?\nThe solution? Think about what experiences or skills you\u0026rsquo;d like to have that would make it a win no matter what.\njust in the next five years, who do I want to help? What could I learn about, like, what can I become a mini expert in, in five years? And then what skills or experience could I have? So I, this is a win for me, no matter what\nThe Reason for Careers # But the point of a career is to end unnecessary suffering. So if you\u0026rsquo;re not sure what you want to do, try to end the unnecessary suffering. What does that mean? Find some suffering, find someone that\u0026rsquo;s struggling, find something that shouldn\u0026rsquo;t be suffering, like where we have a resourcefulness problem, not a resource problem.\nThe Power of Proximity # One of Josh\u0026rsquo;s key learnings came when he was volunteering in Turkey. He saw real people facing real problems, and that changed his perspective.\nHis advice is to get out there and see problems first hand.\nLike for me, I needed that smack of like, Hey, there are real problems out here and you can do something about that. And it\u0026rsquo;s not overly like palatable, but it was really practical. And that gap between what I thought I wanted and what I needed became really apparent.\nGet the Newsletter\n🤝 Connect with Josh # https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshdfarr/\n📝 Show Timestamps # 00:00 Josh Farr\n00:56 Josh\u0026rsquo;s Grad Program Experience\n07:54 The Social Pressure of High Achievement\n17:31 Leaving his Career as an Engineer\n23:14 How Josh Found his Passion\n30:10 Josh\u0026rsquo;s Powerful Volunteering Experience\n36:59 What is Josh Working on Today\n42:18 What am I going to do with my life?\n46:37 Josh\u0026rsquo;s Advice for Graduates\n51:08 Outro\n","date":"21 March 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/graduate-theory/22-on-finding-your-mission-with-josh-farr/","section":"Graduate Theory","summary":" Watch the conversation Graduate Theory Open YouTube ↗ Read the full transcript → Hello Graduates!\nThis is episode #22 of Graduate Theory. This is a powerful episode, one that I learned so much from, and one that I recommend everyone listens to.\n","title":"On Finding Your Mission with Josh Farr","type":"graduate-theory"},{"content":"← Back to episode 22\nThis transcript has been lightly edited for readability. It may still contain transcription errors.\nJosh: And so my metric for a meaningful career said, can I do something that\u0026rsquo;s just net positive, but who knows how much you can help people, but can I just do something that\u0026rsquo;s net positive? And can I show up every day and try to help? And in one night, my entire view of that changed.\nJames: Hello, and welcome to Graduate Theory. My guest today is the founder of campus consultancy. He\u0026rsquo;s worked with more than 21,000 leaders across schools, universities, nonprofits, and corporates, and he gives more the 300 presentations per year, including TEDx talks and speaking at the Australasian talent conference.\nDigital in 20. He\u0026rsquo;s formally an engineer with an experience in graduate recruitment. Please. Welcome to the show, Josh.\nJosh: Hi, James. Thanks for having me.\nJosh\u0026rsquo;s Grad Program Experience # James: It\u0026rsquo;s great to have you on man. Thanks so much for coming on the show. Your experience in many areas is so unique and so exciting. I\u0026rsquo;m really excited to dive into all of this with you. But one thing I\u0026rsquo;ve picked up from your LinkedIn was this this thing that you did as part of your grad program.\nSo, correct me if I\u0026rsquo;m wrong with your, the grad program at Lend-Lease, which is. It sounds like a two year program that you\u0026rsquo;ve managed to kind of complete it in shorter, shorter amount of time. And kind of the typical experience. I\u0026rsquo;m interested to hear your experience as a graduate and, and how that kind of.\nJosh: Yeah, definitely. And again, thanks for having me on an excited to chat about it. So the punchline would lend leases. I got rejected from the grad program before I got into the grad program in the same year. I didn\u0026rsquo;t even get an interview to get into the grad program. So I\u0026rsquo;m always joked that maybe, you know, given I\u0026rsquo;m not an engineer right now, maybe they were very correct and not offering me a role.\nSo it\u0026rsquo;s definitely not a criticism. Yeah. So, I mean, it\u0026rsquo;s, Lily\u0026rsquo;s a massive company, right? They\u0026rsquo;re an ASX listed company. They\u0026rsquo;re a tier one engineering firm. They\u0026rsquo;ve got a market cap of three and a half billion dollars. Like they\u0026rsquo;re just an enormous, enormous organization. So I got in, I originally got, maybe I should say on the region.\nI sent in an application like everyone else does, you get to the end of uni and you write a resume and you write a cover letter and you hit submit. And they were like due to the high caliber of applicants, we are not going to progress. I was like Devin, another one, you know? And up until that point, I was kind of at uni, I did everything right.\nI got good grades. I was on a couple of different scholarships. I had work experience. I had 10 different volunteering roles. I had a nice little resume happened. And I, I just didn\u0026rsquo;t, I didn\u0026rsquo;t get in. I realized kind of, as I kept getting rejected that I didn\u0026rsquo;t really know how to get in. I hadn\u0026rsquo;t really done any career work.\nI\u0026rsquo;ve done loads of engineering work, but hadn\u0026rsquo;t really done any career work. I didn\u0026rsquo;t know really what I wanted to do. I was still jumping through hoops. A joke that at university, you know, when you hear you get to first year and first year is really tough. And then everyone\u0026rsquo;s like, don\u0026rsquo;t worry, second year.\nIt\u0026rsquo;ll get. like, okay. And then you get to second year and you\u0026rsquo;re like, this is hard. And then people go, don\u0026rsquo;t worry. Third, year\u0026rsquo;s going to get better. Right. And I was like, this is turtles all the way down. So eventually despite all these rejections, I actually went to an engineering camp. As a student, I was running the civil engineering society.\nI was the president. We ran a first year. And I went away to that camp and we brought in engineering grad, who was a friend of mine, Mike. And he gave this order like commencement speaks to the first years. And Mike is still with Lenley\u0026rsquo;s today and is like loves engineer. And he\u0026rsquo;s the poster boy for engineering loves it.\nAnd he eventually cut a long story. Short, got me a job in the back door. I actually went to work for a smaller company that then got acquired by Lenley. So I was in the Lend-Lease grad pro. But yeah, so met him, got the job company, got acquired. Baulderstone got acquired by Lend-Lease find myself in the Lendlease grad program.\nAnd all of a sudden I\u0026rsquo;ve gone from this sort of small agile company where you get tons of responsibility to, I still have the responsibility, but I also had the sort of bureaucracy of being in a huge organization that has, you know, dozens of. And they pretty much put this booklet down in front of me and said, here, there are 120 something things that you need to do to be certified as a graduate.\nAnd they said, you\u0026rsquo;ve got two years to do it. Good luck.\nJames: Yeah. That\u0026rsquo;s pretty crazy. And then what, what was your, I mean, that\u0026rsquo;s so interesting how you got rejected and then you\u0026rsquo;re back in there doing your thing. 120 things. That\u0026rsquo;s a, quite a unique way of saying like you finished the grad program, like tick all these boxes. Yeah, like sometimes it\u0026rsquo;s a, it\u0026rsquo;s a time based thing.\nYeah.\nJosh: Yeah, and it was a couple of years, but they basically said engineering is really hierarchical. So what did you study at uni?\nJames: I did maths and finance.\nJosh: Okay. Cool. So there\u0026rsquo;s probably like probably the most similar thing is like, say in a consulting firm where it\u0026rsquo;s like, you\u0026rsquo;re an associate then a senior associate and you kind of work your way up. And it\u0026rsquo;s engineering kind of works like that. But say for us, at least it was in construction. You\u0026rsquo;re an undergraduate engineer, a graduate engineer, a site engineer, a project engineer, senior project engineer, and then. It gets a bit crazy construction manager up until you kind of running your own job. So for me, I went from undergrad to grad and as a grad, you sort of had this two year program, but part of the program was you get assigned to like different sites where I was hired to do the job. I wasn\u0026rsquo;t hired to be in the program.\nSo I was kind of retrofitting this program to my actual role, which was a site engineering role. So I was kind of like. Playing above my pay grade a little bit, but also I had no idea what I was doing. So I had to figure all this stuff out. So the grad program sort of said, well, the way we take you off is you show us, you\u0026rsquo;ve got competencies across all these different areas.\nAnd because of the nature of the site, I was on, I was able to tick those off quite quickly. So I just treated it like a project that old phrase, like how do you eat an elephant one bite at a time? So I just took these 120 things and basically said, I\u0026rsquo;m going to come into work an hour to an hour and a half early, as many days a week as I can, like, cause you all have days where you wake up, it\u0026rsquo;s raining.\nYou\u0026rsquo;re like screw that. I\u0026rsquo;m going to sleep until five when I could actually, when I normally went to. So I\u0026rsquo;d come in early some days I\u0026rsquo;ll be in there at 4:00 AM and I just spend an hour or so on one of these competencies. So it was like demonstrate knowledge of blank. And if I didn\u0026rsquo;t know what blank was, I\u0026rsquo;d research it.\nAnd then I\u0026rsquo;d write it in my little diary. Or you have to say, for example, it would be, you\u0026rsquo;d have to have experience in, you know, to make it really simple, digging a big hole. There\u0026rsquo;s there\u0026rsquo;s not the technical language for it, but so I\u0026rsquo;m gonna be able to say like, you have to dig a big hole. Okay, well, I\u0026rsquo;m not digging any big holes right now, so I\u0026rsquo;d have to go through, I\u0026rsquo;d spend that morning, like going through the site documents and the plans, and I\u0026rsquo;d find the part of the site that was quote unquote, digging a big hole and I\u0026rsquo;d then that day go up to them and go, Hey, part of my grad program, I got to do this thing.\nLike, can I come out? I know in like three weeks, you\u0026rsquo;re planning on doing this piece of work. Can I come out and supervise, not supervise? Can I like shadow? Can I watch, can I take notes? Can I ask questions? I promise not to get in the way I\u0026rsquo;ll be helpful if I can. I just need to do it, take some photos, take this thing off.\nAnd one of the cool things I realized in the workplace was like, people were really receptive to someone wanting to learn, and they really respected someone trying to go above and beyond. So that process of breaking 120 dot point thing down into individual days, and then saying, okay, if I don\u0026rsquo;t have this skill, where can I go and get this skill was really, really helpful. And the same thing for people who want to start a business, launch a podcast, et cetera, it\u0026rsquo;s like big task, break it down into little tasks, find someone who\u0026rsquo;s already got that skill, learn off them. And I guess it was kind of like a metal learning. I learnt, I learnt how to learn that uni. I learnt how to learn from a book in this program.\nI learned how to learn from people, and that was a really big growth trajectory.\nThe Social Pressure of High Achievement # James: Yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s really cool. And I want to ask more about, you\u0026rsquo;ve got your doing this thing, presumably a lot quicker. Other people that are in a similar position to you. I mean, how did that feel at that time when you\u0026rsquo;ve got perhaps colleagues that are also in the grad program that are kind of doing, you know, they\u0026rsquo;re sort of going for the typical weekend, 24 month period, and here you are like smashing through it all so quickly.\nI mean, what did that feel like for yourself? Was there any kind of social pressure, like, you know, what did you feel like in that, at that stage with regards to what your peers were doing, did that impact.\nJosh: Yeah, so it was really a it was really on one side, a point of pride and then very quickly I screwed it all up. So I\u0026rsquo;ll tell you that story. So the fun bit first. So from your perspective, yes. You know, I\u0026rsquo;m doing this great program. I was thrashing it out. They do want this thing within these, where they get all the grads to.\nAnd we all sort of sit in a room for a day and they talked to us about one. I can\u0026rsquo;t remember what they talked to us about. And I was asked to present to the grad program. They were like, Hey, you\u0026rsquo;re doing kind of the coolest project out of all the grads. Cause I was on Sydney Harbor. Is it brand guru?\nIf anyone listening wants to search that if you type in brand guru I was on the Harbor. I literally would get to site and watch the sun rise through the Sydney Harbor bridge. Because it\u0026rsquo;s ACE and I was on the west of it. Like we literally watch it rise to the bridge. Yachts would go pass, like have on the water, beautiful project.\nLike the universe really helped me out. Cause it gave me the best project ever to realize, I didn\u0026rsquo;t want to be an engineer, you know? Like it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s so good. You know, like, you know, like\nJames: Yeah.\nJosh: You know,\nJames: Don\u0026rsquo;t like it now, then like it.\nJosh: Yeah. You know, it\u0026rsquo;s I got, don\u0026rsquo;t worry. It\u0026rsquo;ll get better when you\u0026rsquo;re a design engineer. I\u0026rsquo;m like, no, I\u0026rsquo;ve heard this thing before.\nSo, so I\u0026rsquo;m working on this beautiful project. I get asked to present and sort of caveat to this is because I broke the project down into 120 steps. Like two year grad program has 720 days, but I was like, there\u0026rsquo;s only 120 things. My, if I can do one a day and I was working six days a week, or if I can do one a day, I can smash this thing out.\nWhich was driven by. A strength in the shadow, the strength, there was a desire to grow and a desire to be my best self, which I still hold today. The shadow side of that was the desire to be better than other people. And I know I didn\u0026rsquo;t have this language at the time, but that\u0026rsquo;s what was kind of going with it.\nJungian sort of psychoanalysis says, whenever there\u0026rsquo;s a strength, there\u0026rsquo;s a shadow lurking behind it. Right? Like it\u0026rsquo;s like the tyrant king. We see it right now. What\u0026rsquo;s happening in Russia and Putin and stuff with great power. And then there\u0026rsquo;s this like dark, shadowy thing that follows it. So I believe that\u0026rsquo;s true for all strengths.\nAnd without going off on too much of a tangeant Honesty is a strength. If you go to your local barista and criticize them for the cup of coffee, you\u0026rsquo;re just a jerk, right? Like too much. Honesty is not a good thing. Honesty is a good thing too little is not a good thing. So I think strengths kind of have this sweet spot.\nSo I was doing that. I\u0026rsquo;d always been an achiever grow, grow, grow, achieve, achieve, achieve, and. Because of that, I smashed out his grad program. I got to go to this conference and speak to all these. I mean, we\u0026rsquo;re in a conference room, speak to all these grads about my project. And before I got up to talk about my project, they had someone else talk about their project.\nSo this was like the number two grad and James, this was his project. It was no criticism of this guy. It was no criticism of this job. But it was a road job. I\u0026rsquo;ve worked at road jobs before. I did find it. When I was at uni, this was his job along the side of the highway. There are sound walls. How sound walls are built is it\u0026rsquo;s like. column. Think about the telephone pole and then another one. And then I put a wall in between, right? And then another column. And then another wall. His job was to go down the side of the highway and every eight meters dig a hole, dig out the dirt, put a piece of steel in there, fill it with concrete, go eight meters again, do it again.\nAnd he just did that for kilometers.\nJames: Hmm.\nJosh: That was the entirety of the job. Right. And you need it, you need sound walls. But I was like, I would rather do anything than do that, like forever, you know, I just couldn\u0026rsquo;t and it wasn\u0026rsquo;t a criticism of him and we need sound more than whatever, but that\u0026rsquo;s what he taught.\nThen I got up and I just spent the last like year and a half giving presentations on my site. So, because our site was like on Sydney Harbor, it was this big precinct. We had like politicians and sort of influencers and all these people coming to our site. And part of my job was to give to us. So I had this like slick presentation with CGI and photos and behind the scenes and facts and stories like I\u0026rsquo;d given this presentation 20 or 30 times.\nAnd like I\u0026rsquo;d Moonlight off my job at work to like, if anyone was coming to site, they\u0026rsquo;d be like, Josh, do you want to give this presentation? I was like, yes, let me talk about it. I love talking about it. I just didn\u0026rsquo;t love actually building the thing. And so I had done this slick presentation. I had the jokes and the stats and all that stuff. And this poor guy sits down after going like click here\u0026rsquo;s another column, click here\u0026rsquo;s another column. He sits down and I get up and in my mind, like the lights dim, the rock music plays. And I just like, wow, the group with his presentation and the general sentiment at the end was like, screw you, buddy.\nLike you get to work on the Harbor with all this beautiful stuff. And the upside of that was like, I love talking about it. The downside was, I was like, yeah, look at me, look how great this is. And in hindsight, I realized it was a fair bit of ego there and the ego was driven. My belief is because I wasn\u0026rsquo;t truly happy.\nIt wasn\u0026rsquo;t that I was intrinsically loving what I was doing, but it looked good to the outside world. So the way I compensated for not being really happy at work was to kind of tell people about it. And I didn\u0026rsquo;t do it in like a I\u0026rsquo;m the best way, but I was like, look how great and beautiful this is. I was literally trying to convince myself that I liked what I did and I knew I did it.\nAnd so I get back to work. I smashed out this grad program. Then I learned a very valuable lesson. The head of our construction site was away on holidays and I\u0026rsquo;d like put in for this promotion because like, once you ticked off all the 120 things you could put in to basically get out of the grad program.\nAnd so guy came to my site and he sat down with me and he said it was like a senior guy in the company. And he\u0026rsquo;s like, so you want to finish the grad program? And it\u0026rsquo;s like, you know, eight months in nine months in at this time, I\u0026rsquo;m like, yeah, I finished it. Like, here it is. Here\u0026rsquo;s 120 page thing. Like tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, done it up. And he asked me, he said, what\u0026rsquo;s your end goal? And I was like, what do you mean? He\u0026rsquo;s like, you know, like super sane, you know, when someone asks you a question, you\u0026rsquo;re like, you\u0026rsquo;re like, I know this is a loaded question. I just don\u0026rsquo;t you\u0026rsquo;ll you have more experience than me. I don\u0026rsquo;t know how I\u0026rsquo;m being duped here.\nHe said, what\u0026rsquo;s your end goal? Like, what do you mean? He\u0026rsquo;s like, well, in your career, where do you want to go? Where do you want to end up? And I was like, oh no, one\u0026rsquo;s really asked me that before. I don\u0026rsquo;t know. And he said, do you want to be a construction manager one day? Which is like the head role on the job, right?\nHe\u0026rsquo;s like, do you want to be a construction manager? And my gut reaction was not her. And he asked me, he\u0026rsquo;s like, why not? Why don\u0026rsquo;t you want to, why limit yourself? Like, why don\u0026rsquo;t you want to go to the top? I said to him, like, I\u0026rsquo;ve watched construction managers and I don\u0026rsquo;t want that job. Like, it doesn\u0026rsquo;t look like the thing I want to do. And then his next question was like, well, what do you want. If you\u0026rsquo;re not super happy here and you don\u0026rsquo;t want to go to the top, like where in the middle do you want to finish out? You know?\nJames: Hmm.\nJosh: And I was like, oh, I don\u0026rsquo;t really know. I was just like, I just want, I just want more, I just want the next thing, you know, I, I didn\u0026rsquo;t know where to go.\nSo I was like, I\u0026rsquo;ll just keep going up. And I was just trying to say whatever I had to do to finish this grad program. I left that conversation realizing like, wow, I actually don\u0026rsquo;t know why I\u0026rsquo;m. I\u0026rsquo;m kind of pretending that I like this and I\u0026rsquo;m exhausted, but I\u0026rsquo;m working 12 hour days, six days a week. Like I\u0026rsquo;m not enjoying this.\nAnd I put in for this promotion, I get granted this promotion and then my construction manager comes back from holidays. Right. And so it was very kind gave me a job when I\u0026rsquo;d been rejected. Like, you know, it was just so great. Such like played a bit of a mentoring role in the early days and he. Furious like he\u0026rsquo;s gone.\nAnd then here\u0026rsquo;s this like young whippersnapper who\u0026rsquo;s gone for a promotion, kind of like outside of his scope and his ranks. And I just completely broken the chain of command. I\u0026rsquo;d sort of gone. Like he employed me. I was under him, his project, and then I\u0026rsquo;d kind of gone out into the corporate machine and then found my way around it.\nAnd I just had broken all those unspoken rules of like loyalty and patience and humility and the message that gave was. Here\u0026rsquo;s this kid, who\u0026rsquo;s a really high achiever, but he\u0026rsquo;s got a big ego. He doesn\u0026rsquo;t like following the rules. And he\u0026rsquo;s going to do what\u0026rsquo;s best for him. And all of that was true. The problem was the reason I was doing it was I was not happy and I just never articulated that to anyone before. And so when I realized, like I got this promotion, you know, I was teed up to earn a little bit more money and maybe get some more responsibility. I realized I didn\u0026rsquo;t actually want to be there and it wasn\u0026rsquo;t a criticism of the company or the job.\nIt was just that in that moment, I kind of realized when it\u0026rsquo;s like, Hey, you can have even more. I was like, I didn\u0026rsquo;t really want this. And learning that at 22 was a real gift because I realized I didn\u0026rsquo;t have to spend 40 years doing something I didn\u0026rsquo;t like. And then the Australian workforce data from Gallup says out of every five Ozzie workers, less than one of them under 40 loves.\nwhat they do Like people need to know that if you look at, if you sit down with five of your buddies, statistically, four of them, and part of you, don\u0026rsquo;t like what you do so I\u0026rsquo;m like that\u0026rsquo;s depressing. And when I realized that I kind of, wasn\u0026rsquo;t the only one who didn\u0026rsquo;t love what they did. I wanted to figure out, well, what do I do next?\nBecause everything I\u0026rsquo;ve done up until now has prepared me to be an engineer. And now I don\u0026rsquo;t want to be.\nLeaving his Career as an Engineer # James: Yeah. Wow. I think that\u0026rsquo;s super interesting. And I think it\u0026rsquo;s so great that you, like you said, Realize that so strong. And then we\u0026rsquo;re thinking, okay, what am I going to do next then? You know, rather than cause I, like you said, lots of people don\u0026rsquo;t enjoy what they do. They kind of, we\u0026rsquo;ll just, we\u0026rsquo;ll still just stay there and be like, well, the alternative is to take this huge job and go and do something a bit crazy about like, this is a much safer, I don\u0026rsquo;t want to, for whatever reason, I don\u0026rsquo;t want to go out and do these things.\nSo I think it\u0026rsquo;s yeah, really brave of you. And certainly maybe in some ways it gives that you. Realize that so early on, because like, if you find out later and perhaps you have some more responsibility and you\u0026rsquo;re doing these other things, then it\u0026rsquo;s like, the chains are really hard to get out of. I think, you know, like following your passion has a little bit more risk.\nSo I think that\u0026rsquo;s really cool. Hey, how you managed to do that? Because yeah, what, what, what\u0026rsquo;s the next step for you then? I mean, Well, things are not going great here. You\u0026rsquo;ve kind of realized maybe that some purchase a little bit, maybe by accident you know, you\u0026rsquo;re realizing you\u0026rsquo;re not super happy.\nYeah. Like, you know, what\u0026rsquo;s the next step for you? I mean, it\u0026rsquo;s like, cause you could go anywhere at this stage.\nJosh: Yeah, I mean, to be totally honest, I went a little bit, Peter pan. I just ran away to Neverland. I kind of didn\u0026rsquo;t know what I was doing. And it\u0026rsquo;s funny, this pops up in all in so many movies, like it\u0026rsquo;s what Simba did, you know, kingdom\u0026rsquo;s all a bit scary. Someone comes in, like I\u0026rsquo;m just going to run away.\nLike it, that con that kind of theme of that adolescents running away, escaping. I kind of did that. And I had a, my best friend at high school, his older brother, and his best friend when they was sort of at the age where out about 22, had gone over to Canada and went and did a ski season and just went and relaxed and had fun.\nAnd at uni I\u0026rsquo;d worked really hard. I never really had like holidays overseas. Some of my friends traveled during the holidays, but I was always working to pay for uni and whatnot. And so I kind of thought like, W what would a D leave? I\u0026rsquo;m not loving everyday. What would the opposite of this look like? Like how would I love every day?\nAnd I was like, maybe I could just go have this grand adventure. And I\u0026rsquo;ve been quite smart and I\u0026rsquo;d saved up money, which is my top tip, by the way, for anyone who\u0026rsquo;s not loving what they\u0026rsquo;re doing. Like if anyone\u0026rsquo;s listening as a grad, like save money is a really good idea because it gives yourself some cushion.\nSo you can take a month or two months or three months off and also two years in my case and figure out what\u0026rsquo;s next. But yeah, I kind of left. I went well. The decision I made was I can stay in a job. I know I don\u0026rsquo;t like where I can go and have an adventure, do a bit of a reset and try to figure it out. So it started by just having a bit of fun recruited my best mate, we both went overseas, went to Canada, went and lived and did a ski season in Canada.\nI just wanted to go do something different and have some fun. Met a lot of amazing people. And one of the big things I realized when we were in Canada was lots of people working there, tons of Aussies to start with, but lots of really qualified things. Those people who\u0026rsquo;d gone to great unis had great degree.\nHad graduated with all these opportunities and then had come to a similar realization. I don\u0026rsquo;t actually want to do this thing that I\u0026rsquo;m doing. And on one side that was really reassuring because around lots of other people who were in a similar position and travel\u0026rsquo;s kind of like this, like you meet lots of people who are all a little bit lost.\nBut the other side of that was after a while I sort of thought, well, I don\u0026rsquo;t just want to like wallow in being lost. Okay, this, this is fun. This is really cool, but I want to do something I want to, I want to move things forward. So after a couple of months in a ski season in Canada, which over around the U S had a bit of an adventure ended up in London, like did the Contiki around Europe, like the classic sort of six to seven months.\nAnd at the end of that, we\u0026rsquo;d been to a bunch of countries. We\u0026rsquo;d run out of money pretty much. And we had to start working again. And as I started to work, I\u0026rsquo;d realize that. Where I was developing skills quite quickly was in the nightclub industry. And my job was I realized that you could get paid to drink alcohol and party with people.\nMy job was basically promoting nightclubs and it was really fun. Like I had a great time. There were days where I\u0026rsquo;d wake up and like, my job was to go out and party with the groups of a hundred, to 200 people and be the life of the party. And there were days where I\u0026rsquo;d wake up where I didn\u0026rsquo;t have to drink the alcohol that day.\nAnd I turned to my housemates. I\u0026rsquo;m like, how excited are you not to drink alcohol today? Like, it was the opposite. You know, maybe a healthier relationship where you\u0026rsquo;d say, yes, it\u0026rsquo;s a Saturday, we\u0026rsquo;ve got a great party on today or a wedding or an engagement party. Can\u0026rsquo;t wait to have a glass of champagne. I would wake up and say, I can\u0026rsquo;t, I\u0026rsquo;m so excited.\nI don\u0026rsquo;t have to drink alcohol today. And then inevitably someone and say, Hey, there\u0026rsquo;s this party coming on? You should go. I was just living this lifestyle where I was like drinking and getting people drunk professionally for a living. And it was fun. Like we, people had a great time. Great photos, great memories.\nHilarious. But it was also kind of depressing. Like alcohol is a depressant. So after doing this for weeks on end, I got to this point where I was sort of just like spiritually, morally a bit bankrupt. And I started to think like, is this is this the rest of my life? You know, I wasn\u0026rsquo;t happy as an engineer.\nAnd I thought I\u0026rsquo;ll just go to the opposite artist party for a living. And then I realized, oh, I\u0026rsquo;m not actually super happy doing this. And then I started to think like, is there something wrong with me? Am I just not going to be happy? Like, is that how this story. And that was kind of terrifying and having that realization that, oh, okay.\nI\u0026rsquo;m not particularly good at making myself happy in the longterm. Like I can in the short term, like I can make today. Amazing. But can I make months on end amazing or will I keep wanting to leave? And I was like, how long can this go for? So yeah, I was kind of stuck in London, running pub girls, feeling a little bit like.\nHow Josh Found his Passion # James: Yeah, I think that\u0026rsquo;s a really interesting question to ask is like, you know, are you not enjoying what you\u0026rsquo;re doing because you just don\u0026rsquo;t like it or, you know, can you just like, are you just not appreciating. Like things for what they are almost. And is, is anything gonna feel that or is that just the way things are?\nI think, I think that\u0026rsquo;s interesting, but what did you do then? Cause like, you know, you\u0026rsquo;re kind of faced with it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s almost like sad, like reality slapping you in the face. Like, Hey, you know, you\u0026rsquo;re, you\u0026rsquo;re not going to like anything. Life just isn\u0026rsquo;t that great. You know, that\u0026rsquo;s quite, it\u0026rsquo;s just, yeah, it\u0026rsquo;s kind of sad when you, when you look at it, but like, you know, what was your.\nHow did you approach that then? I mean, w what was, yeah, I\u0026rsquo;m interested to hear how you kind of, you know, like how you, what you did after that. Cause it\u0026rsquo;s yeah.\nJosh: Yeah. And for anyone listening, if you are listening one, thank you for listening to don\u0026rsquo;t worry. This story has a happy ending, right? Like the reason I can go into the depths of the darkness of it all. Well, I can tell you, I screwed up at work. I was driven by my ego while I was getting people drunk for a living while I was feeling depressed.\nThe reason I can tell you that is because I\u0026rsquo;ve done the work to overcome it. And I think where a lot of people get stuck. And I did this in a future job, which I\u0026rsquo;ll tell you about a bit, but like I sat down with literally thousands of people and talked about their careers over two years. And so often. Wouldn\u0026rsquo;t admit that there was a problem. Like, I love the phrase. You can\u0026rsquo;t solve a problem. You\u0026rsquo;re not willing to have. And at the time I wasn\u0026rsquo;t willing to have any of these problems. You know, now in hindsight, I can look back on them and go, yeah, geez. Like how silly it was. I can\u0026rsquo;t believe I was doing this stuff, but at the time you looked at my Instagram, it looked the house have the best time in the world.\nLike I was probably actively making people more depressed about their lives by faking my life on Instagram, about how happy I was, you know, beautiful boys and girls like beautiful, exotic location. I went and bought a GoPro and that just leveled up my whole insti game. Like it was fire, you know? And I remember like I ticked over a couple thousand followers and people would start to treat you differently.\nSo this is like, this is seven or eight years ago. So the Instagram\u0026rsquo;s been around for a while, but it\u0026rsquo;s still, you know, if you had a couple thousand followers on social media, like that was a, that was a thing. Be out on pub girls and I knew the routine it\u0026rsquo;s, I\u0026rsquo;m going to come up to me and be like, so like, I\u0026rsquo;m gonna try it on my God.\nYou do this for a job. I\u0026rsquo;m like, yeah, dude, blah, blah, blah. I\u0026rsquo;ve been traveling for a year. You\u0026rsquo;ve been traveling for you. It\u0026rsquo;s so amazing. Like, yeah, it\u0026rsquo;s pretty cool, blah, blah, blah. I should add you on Instagram. And I\u0026rsquo;m like, sure, here\u0026rsquo;s my username. And then have me, like, you have thousands of followers and people would literally treat you differently because of these followers, which were just people who I was like faking my life.\nLuckily there was real, it was my life and the problem and it was, it wasn\u0026rsquo;t fake. It was real. It wasn\u0026rsquo;t the entire truth. You know, it was like, I, someone said to me once, look through someone\u0026rsquo;s Instagram account and look at what percentage of the time they\u0026rsquo;re smiling and it\u0026rsquo;s nearly a hundred percent and you look at someone\u0026rsquo;s normal life.\nLike, no one\u0026rsquo;s walking around like this all day. You face it\nJames: Yeah.\nJosh: You know, it was so it\u0026rsquo;s like, it\u0026rsquo;s a part of life, but I was projecting that and I was trying to convince myself I was happy, you know, like, and so I get stuck here. I realized this kind of isn\u0026rsquo;t working and. I had to figure out what to do.\nAnd one of the things I\u0026rsquo;ve been really lucky and I, I think like I\u0026rsquo;m a slow learner. I\u0026rsquo;ve been gifted in life by like really good opportunities and just completely coincidentally, a guy who had studied. I was doing engineering with who I was working with Lendlease at Nathan who\u0026rsquo;s awesome. Has a really big friendship group.\nAnd he was traveling around Europe at the same time with a bunch of friends. This is obviously way pre COVID and he ended up in Portugal. I didn\u0026rsquo;t know. I thought Portugal was in South Korea. And I was like, dude, I\u0026rsquo;m not catching a plane from London to south. He\u0026rsquo;s like, Portugal is, it is an hour away from you on a plane.\nI was like, oh, okay. Like, I\u0026rsquo;m sorry. No idea. Right. Oh, that\u0026rsquo;s cool. So I jumped on like a $50, Ryan air flight, super cheap international flights out of London. I go down to Portugal and I hang out with a friend. And I spend some time with him and a couple of mates and I go, they\u0026rsquo;re like, oh, you know, life looks amazing.\nI\u0026rsquo;m like, yeah, it kind of is. But I\u0026rsquo;m kind of getting sick of this whole partying everyday theme and long story short when I\u0026rsquo;m in. I decided that I just need to, I need to get out of London, the party scenes to hectic. Like it\u0026rsquo;s not a healthy place. I\u0026rsquo;m like, I\u0026rsquo;m going to move to a little beach side town and I\u0026rsquo;m going to set up there.\nSo I\u0026rsquo;m in Portugal. I get it. We\u0026rsquo;re walking to the beach. I pull into a hostel, I literally talk to the owner behind the counter. I get a job in this hostile, in Portugal a week later, I go back to London because it\u0026rsquo;s beautiful. It\u0026rsquo;s beachy. It\u0026rsquo;s not the city. Like it\u0026rsquo;s just. go back to London, I pack up my stuff, do one final pub crawl, finish a pool party at 2:00 AM, go direct to the airport, fly to Portugal, sat down in this little beach town.\nI\u0026rsquo;m like, I\u0026rsquo;m just going to be here and decompress and moved to Portugal. Spend some time there and just start thinking like, what am I going to do next? Like, that was my layover period. I was like, I\u0026rsquo;m just in this little beach town and go sit on a beach and think about what to do next. And at that time I started looking kind of beyond myself and it was.\nPete, this is 2015 at this point, peak of the Syrian refugee crisis. And so Nathan and his buddies and his friendship group at that point have moved out east. They\u0026rsquo;ve gone into Greece and they\u0026rsquo;re heading down into Turkey and, you know, naive enough young me was like, well, that\u0026rsquo;s kind of fascinating. I\u0026rsquo;ve never been to Greece or Turkey.\nAnd this is where all this stuff is like kicking off with Syria and people are moving through and it\u0026rsquo;s in the new. And I thought, well, why not? Rather than just reading the news headlines, like I\u0026rsquo;m here. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity. What if I kind of go there and see what it\u0026rsquo;s really like?\nAnd I moved towards Greece and into Turkey. And then I was in Turkey, a country. I knew nothing about right at the critical point when the refugees were moving up through Turkey. And so I remember we were in cities, in Turkey where the army would be going up and down the street because there were these protests against wars that were happening in Syria.\nThe government was being overthrown in Turkey while we were. And I was like, I\u0026rsquo;m in a, maybe not the safest place right now, but I don\u0026rsquo;t know what it was. I was like cold to it. I just needed to be somewhere where there was something deeper going on. And I don\u0026rsquo;t know if it\u0026rsquo;s necessarily a healthy or a safe way to think about it, but I was just looking for something deeper.\nI was looking for something that like was a real problem in the world and I wanted proximity to it, as weird as that sounds and the closer I got, the more I realized how painful and trap. that was happening in that region of the world was and then my question kind of became, well, can I do something about this?\nLike, what am I going to do? Take Instagram photos of like a refugee crisis. I was like, well, definitely not. I can\u0026rsquo;t do that. They don\u0026rsquo;t gel particularly well with my waterfalls and sunsets and boots and boat cruises to start with like, it\u0026rsquo;s kind of a different vibe, Josh, but I needed something different.\nSo I\u0026rsquo;m like, well, I\u0026rsquo;m not going to take photos. What can. And so I got on Facebook and posted and said, Hey I\u0026rsquo;m in Turkey, this is happening. I\u0026rsquo;ve got a couple of weeks. They\u0026rsquo;re like, if you were me world, what would you do? And I just kind of threw it out into the ether and someone wrote back and they\u0026rsquo;re like, Hey, why don\u0026rsquo;t you volunteer?\nI was like, sounds like a good idea. So I went about trying to find a way to help\nJosh\u0026rsquo;s Powerful Volunteering Experience # James: Yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s powerful. When I think like all those experiences and you know, this is all three, like you\u0026rsquo;ve almost got the sub layer of like, you\u0026rsquo;ve gone to escape through the corporate Australia and then now you\u0026rsquo;re escaping and you just kind of slowly going down, like peeling the onion almost right down into, you know, real, like serious like problems that are happening in the world.\nAnd seeing this firsthand at this stage as well, I think is you know, certainly very powerful and that, like, how did, how did that impact you in that stage? I mean, now you, you\u0026rsquo;ve kind of almost getting that tastes like reality here. It\u0026rsquo;s like, it\u0026rsquo;s, except this time it\u0026rsquo;s much closer to, to home almost. I think you know, how, how did, what came out of that?\nI mean, how has this volunteering experience.\nJosh: It\u0026rsquo;s a good insight. Like when you said escape in corporate Australia or escaping the nightlife, like I was really trying to escape myself. I was really trying to get away from, want to be happy and fulfilled. This is what I\u0026rsquo;m trying to do. It, hasn\u0026rsquo;t worked. I\u0026rsquo;m going to run away and try something else and be happy and fulfilled.\nYou can do that through pub curls. That\u0026rsquo;s not going to work. I\u0026rsquo;m going to run away. So I kept running away from, from that. And I, I guess what I was searching for. And what I found in ultimately volunteering. I\u0026rsquo;ve had a refugee border crossing between Massier Macedonia and Serbia, two countries, again, that I\u0026rsquo;d never been to.\nAnd one of the cool things about going to all these countries in a row, I hope like people listening, like this guy doesn\u0026rsquo;t have a clue about any of these countries. It\u0026rsquo;s like I did it. I\u0026rsquo;d been to all these different countries and cultures. I knew nothing about I was in Turkey for three weeks before I realized Turkey was in Asia, not Europe.\nI still thought I was in Europe, but I was in. I didn\u0026rsquo;t know, I literally did not continent. I was on like, I was just outside of myself, metaphorically and physically. And what I realized, I went through all these different countries where people are people and people were suffering. And that was the big thing was knowing that people are people everywhere.\nFirst, you see something in the news and it\u0026rsquo;s always like one perspective of people. Whereas people were rich and dynamic and generous and beautiful and loving and sad and suffering all at once. And when I found this refugee border crossing Macedonia and Serbia, I realized that I could just do.\nInstantly, like in the same way that I could find ways to be unhappy. I could find ways to be really happy and fulfilled in a moment. And, and there\u0026rsquo;s one nine with border crossing. We were on like the end of a train track. It hits the edge of Macedonia people. Didn\u0026rsquo;t have to get off the train, cross the border to go into Serbia.\nAnd what they were trying to do was to get into European countries that wouldn\u0026rsquo;t technically let them in, but once they were in, they were covered under like some UN refugee like treaties. So you had to sneak into these. Which is wild. Like I literally watched mothers, whole babies, sneaking them across borders, which in Australia is a weird concept.\nCause like we\u0026rsquo;re an island, so it doesn\u0026rsquo;t really happen. But imagine between Queensland and new south Wales, if there was like barbed wire, fences and mothers in the dead of night, holding babies like crawling under fences, trying to get in, it was just insane. It was insane to see. And in one night it was 6,000 people, literally 6,000 people in one night, get off a train.\nThat same. I forget who the prime minister was. This was back when we had like 17 prime ministers within a week of each other in Australia. But whoever the Cairo prime minister was had announced a policy that, you know, what\u0026rsquo;s happening in Syria is awful. We\u0026rsquo;re going to let 10,000 refugees into Australia.\nI might, I saw 6,000 in a night. Me, why was he so 6,000 in a night? And we\u0026rsquo;re going to let 10,000 into an entire country. I was like, this is a joke. And. When I was there and when I was helping out in that one night, it was just simple stuff. It was handing out bread and milk. It was giving water out to people.\nIt was giving people something to eat so they could continue their journey and you know, that bread or whatever wasn\u0026rsquo;t going. It was literally bread from a local bakery. Everything was donated everyone. There were volunteers, some people have been there for months and that bread wasn\u0026rsquo;t gonna last them a week, but it might lost them to the next refugee camp put up by the UN and. Sort of some of the profound realizations I had like one lots of people need help two the causes of the social problems that we see are really complex. Like it\u0026rsquo;s not simple. It\u0026rsquo;s not like I volunteered one night. I solved the problem. But the third thing was you can help people take one or two more steps on their journey.\nAnd that can literally be lifesaving, like sometimes providing someone a meal who doesn\u0026rsquo;t have one. Milk for a baby who doesn\u0026rsquo;t have access to it or water. That one little thing you do could be lifesaving and you have no idea. So I changed my view of like, what a good, what an impact was. And I said, well, what if it started not being about me?\nBut it was more about, wait, what if it was more about service? What if in one night I did more good than I probably have in my entire life. What if I did that the next night, the next night, the next night? And I didn\u0026rsquo;t stay at the refugee camp. It\u0026rsquo;s not, like I said, okay, I\u0026rsquo;m going to say it. This refugee camp.\nBut the idea that I took from that, and I think the idea is more powerful than the action is what if every day I was helping lots of as many people as I can in a meaningful way, and just nudging people along on their journey, whether that\u0026rsquo;s in leadership or career or handing out suppliers and everything that\u0026rsquo;s happened recently with the Queensland floods, you see that people going along in there, I was at my local kindergarten with a bunch of volunteers.\nWe\u0026rsquo;re taking out books and we\u0026rsquo;re sweeping floors and we\u0026rsquo;re moving furniture. Like we\u0026rsquo;re just nudging society along in a positive way. And so my metric for a meaningful career said, can I do something that\u0026rsquo;s just net positive, but who knows how much you can help people, but can I just do something that\u0026rsquo;s net positive?\nAnd can I show up every day and try to help? And in one night, my entire view of that changed. And I think about every day, like whenever I struggled to go to sleep, I was thinking about last night I was struggling with. And I think about lying on the concrete floor. Cause for that one night I slept outdoors on a slab of concrete.\nLike just on the concrete, no blanket, no, nothing like me, concrete. That\u0026rsquo;s where I slept. And anytime I struggled to go to sleep, I think about that. And it\u0026rsquo;s a trigger for me to remember like how fortunate we are, how much we have. And then for me, as soon as I realized how much we have, the next question is like, what am I complaining about?\nYou know, like my problems. Don\u0026rsquo;t exist relative, you know, like to the problems that I saw and that motivates me every day to say, well, what can I do? How can I serve? How can I show up? How can I try to make the world a better place? And then one night I was like, you know, when your iPhone has a software upgrade and it\u0026rsquo;s like being like all of a sudden it can do these things.\nIt couldn\u0026rsquo;t do. Well, like Tesla\u0026rsquo;s now, like they update overnight it\u0026rsquo;s software updates and you wake up and your Tesla can drive itself. Like, I don\u0026rsquo;t know, I didn\u0026rsquo;t have a Tesla, but so the story goes it was literally like that happened in my brain in one night. Like the next morning I woke up and was like, oh my God, I need to find a way to help people.\nLike it was just black and white.\nJames: Yeah.\nJosh: So yeah, it was pretty bad.\nWhat is Josh Working on Today # James: Yeah. That\u0026rsquo;s cool. That is really cool. And yeah, I think so many people are searching thought. Well, all they even need, you know, something like that to just like talk to wake them up. And it\u0026rsquo;s really, it\u0026rsquo;s really great to say that you\u0026rsquo;ve taken that experience. You\u0026rsquo;re using it. And then to have that same impact on, on people to try it.\nWake them up or to try and, you know, get the light switched on in their head that, Hey, you can do something like this too. You can go and create a positive impact. You can go and do a, make the world a better place, like you said. And I think, I think that is so cool. And let\u0026rsquo;s see, you\u0026rsquo;re really fortunate, I think, to have had that experience because I think it\u0026rsquo;s, and I\u0026rsquo;m so glad that we\u0026rsquo;re able to share it with people today.\nCause I think. You know, it\u0026rsquo;s so special to see those things firsthand, especially I think, you know, seeing real people suffer real problems and then being able to support and help is, is so cool. It\u0026rsquo;s great that you\u0026rsquo;ve been able to yeah. Transfer that into what you do today. Cause I know that you have a massive impact across Australia with people in university, people, wherever they might be in the, in the corporate or a nonprofit, wherever, wherever they are, whoever has come into contact with you.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s great to see that energy kind of being transferred through you and, and put out into the world, I think is really cool. One of the things I want to touch on during this interview is, is your, your writing and the things you\u0026rsquo;re working on at the moment, and kind of where that, that positive energy from you is coming from, you know, sharing, wanting to make the world a better place.\nAnd I\u0026rsquo;m interested to hear about what you\u0026rsquo;re writing, what you\u0026rsquo;re working on at the moment, and what are some key ideas that are going through your head at the moment that you\u0026rsquo;d want to get out and share with.\nJosh: Yeah. I love that Thanksgiving, this space to share it. So pro the writing your alluding to is the sum product of sharing this stuff in these insights every day on LinkedIn for six years, you know, I\u0026rsquo;ve been posting everyday sharing something. I\u0026rsquo;ve been learning reflections, telling us. And that\u0026rsquo;s thousands and thousands of posts, things that I put a lot of time into and I try to share and make practical.\nAnd what I realized after a while was running, you know, nearly a thousand workshops. Now, as you said, a couple of hundred a year posting every day, talking and writing that there were certain things that just kept popping up. And what was really cool was working with students over a couple of years, you\u0026rsquo;d sell something to a student one year, and then you get a new crop of students next year, and you tell them the same thing.\nAnd it was the first time they\u0026rsquo;ve experienced that. So I realized that there were just these ideas that were universal and I\u0026rsquo;ve been really lucky to tap into some of them. And I wanted to share them in another format. So this year I\u0026rsquo;m putting out a book, the first book called your leadership matters.\nAnd the principle is my philosophy is my belief. Is that seeing yourself as a leader, treating yourself like a leader, acting like a leader is the most empowering way to solve the inevitable problems that are going to come your way. And also the most empowering way to take advantage. The unlimited opportunities that are out there.\nAnd so the book\u0026rsquo;s broken into six parts. The first part\u0026rsquo;s all about groundwork and it talks about it\u0026rsquo;s broken into six GS to make it sort of simple. But the first G is about groundwork and about understanding who you are. So like you said, sort of peeling back the layers of the onion. So I take all the frameworks that I\u0026rsquo;ve learned now, having worked with thousands and thousands of people and read hundreds of books and podcasts and all that stuff and say, here are the tools I wish I had when I was 22.\nAnd I had no idea what I was doing. Like here are the questions I wished I asked myself, cause I remember literally sitting in a gondola in Canada, going up escape at a ski resort. And I was sitting there like rocking back and forth saying like, I must look like a crazy person. Like, what am I going to do with my life?\nWhat am I going to do with my life? What am I going to do with my life? I just kept asking that question and I realized it was a really bad question if I were to. ask What\u0026rsquo;s a problem out there that I care about, that I could do something about today. I can solve that question really easily. You know, I could find a problem I care about.\nAnd so just like that, the focus on ironically on understanding who I was actually not worrying about myself, but it was worrying about the things I cared about. Who did I want to help and serve. So yeah. Put the book together to go through these sort of six stages and the way. Any area that like you want to improve on whether it\u0026rsquo;s finances or career or relationships, or you just want to have more fun or joy or peace or love or whatever it is.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s like, you can treat this book like a bit of a field manual, lots of like fill in the blank, some questions to ask and a way to navigate from where you are to where you want to be in any area of life. So, yeah, I\u0026rsquo;m really excited about it. And yeah, I of wait for it to come out. I can\u0026rsquo;t wait for people to read it and hopefully see their impact on.\nJames: Yeah, no, certainly I\u0026rsquo;m excited to read, like, definitely. I think you\u0026rsquo;re such an interesting guy with so many unique experiences and I really, throughout this conversation, I really get the sense, like your, your view about like psychology and. Going looking at that level deeper, you know, like we spoke about the shadow values at the start and, and, you know, really like working out what is really driving you to a really cool level, I think is something that, yeah, something that we can all do better and something that is really, really important.\nSo I like, I really like that about yourself. And I\u0026rsquo;m excited to see like the different places that, that comes in into your book as well. Certainly because I think it\u0026rsquo;s a great message. I think, you know, like people can, can lead themselves, take control of your life and asking that a questions like the one you just write is I think is that\u0026rsquo;s a really common mistake and certainly I\u0026rsquo;m guilty of, of asking myself that.\nSo yeah, I think that\u0026rsquo;s really cool.\nWhat am I going to do with my life? # Josh: I was just gonna ask that, as you say, we\u0026rsquo;re running short on time, but I was going to ask you, what does that question sound like when you ask yourself, like, are you asking yourself, like, what am I going to do with my life?\nJames: Yeah, I think so. I think it\u0026rsquo;s like, what if, yeah. If I, if everything goes to plan, let\u0026rsquo;s say in 10 years time, what do I want to be doing? You know, and definitely it comes back to like the career sense. I want to get this position. I want to work in this type of company. I want to add this much money or, you know, whatever variable you want to use.\nAnd it\u0026rsquo;s often not like. Well, yeah, what problem, what is something that like, that I want to fix it\u0026rsquo;s perhaps, is it something that everyone faces and saying that this is really important that would actually really shift someone you know, in a positive direction and really change their life because it\u0026rsquo;s, you know, I know I\u0026rsquo;ve thought about it.\nYou know, sometimes you think about things a little bit, that you never actually. Yeah, like goes from an idea into something that you actually do. I don\u0026rsquo;t know if you found that as well, but you know, it\u0026rsquo;s kind of like, you just want to notice someone a little bit, especially early on in their lives so that then the trajectory can, can be significantly different.\nLater on\nJosh: Yeah. And I\u0026rsquo;ll give you a little technique for that, which I don\u0026rsquo;t know if it\u0026rsquo;ll resonate with you or the audience as well, but simple way to do that is to say, imagine you work a 40 year career, like I\u0026rsquo;ve been running over this, this sounds like five years, five. This is a bloody long time to work on something.\nI think about how long it felt to be at uni, like working on something every day, especially if you love it. Like five years is a long time. It\u0026rsquo;s also a short time, but it\u0026rsquo;s a long time, especially someone. You\u0026rsquo;re going to work a 40 year career. So it\u0026rsquo;s probably going to be longer 50 years, but let\u0026rsquo;s just say 40 conservatively. If you were to draw that into a straight line and break that down into five year chunks, that\u0026rsquo;s eight five-year chunks, right? So way to think about it is firstly, like what would I be really not, what do I want to be doing? But what would I be proud to have done in the next five years? So like pick a problem, something in the world, go to UN sustainable development goals.\nThere\u0026rsquo;s 17 of them pick one. Learn about a problem. Find organizations, people who are in the space, whatever, and get really deep in that say, okay, well, if I could work in this space, what would I love to do? Not where do I have to work? What do I have to do? But if I can make an impact, if I could help a thousand people or a hundred people or 10 people in five years, what would it be?\nAnd the second part of that is how do you set it up? So you can\u0026rsquo;t lose. So yes, you\u0026rsquo;re going to help people. But what skills would you like to develop or what experiences would you like to. have had So, is it an experience of travel? Is it working in a startup non-profit government? Corporate? Is it learning technical skills?\nIs it getting another degree? Is it starting your own business or what you\u0026rsquo;re doing with the podcast? And so if you were to look at that and say, okay, just in the next five years, who do I want to help? What could I learn about, like, what can I become a mini expert in, in five years? And then what skills or experience could I have?\nSo I, this is a win for me, no matter what. Cause then five years from now, how James May ask.\nJames: Yeah, I\u0026rsquo;m 23.\nJosh: 23. Right? So you\u0026rsquo;re 28, right? So you\u0026rsquo;re two years younger than me or the age nearly a year, young older than when I was, when I started my business five years from now, you\u0026rsquo;ve done all this great work. You become a mini expert in whatever the problem is in the world.\nYou\u0026rsquo;ve met all these great people. You\u0026rsquo;ve got all these great stories and you develop these skills and then you\u0026rsquo;ve got seven more mini careers ahead of you. And so. For some people who are like, no, I want the corporate thing. I want to be a lawyer. I want to climb the ranks. If they\u0026rsquo;re crystal clear and that great, most people who are listening to a podcast like this with your knee are not that sort of person.\nSo if you\u0026rsquo;re not take the pressure off of that 10 year degree career thing, because it\u0026rsquo;s going to change and say, if I could have a mini career for the next five years, what would be worth doing like what\u0026rsquo;s worth doing, even if it\u0026rsquo;s a horrible failure, you know? So like I went and worked in nonprofit education.\nLike I was a recruitment manager now I\u0026rsquo;d probably never want to be a recruitment manager. But it was a really good two years in non-profit and education. Cause I learned tons about ed and tons about recruitment. And so the skills of being a recruiter are really helpful to understand people in questions and the experience in education was helpful because then it was a launching pad into what I do now.\nSo like that little experiment that was only two years. But if I would have done that for five years, like I would like mastered some of those skills. So I encourage people if they are stuck not to say like, where do I, what do I want to be doing? But say, who do I want to help? What skills do I want? And then just shorten the time horizon because it can be a little bit overwhelming in that, you know, where do I want to be 40 years from now?\nIt\u0026rsquo;s like, oh my God, I\u0026rsquo;m gonna get one shot at life. It\u0026rsquo;s like, but you\u0026rsquo;ve got one shot at the next five years to like, just shrink it.\nJosh\u0026rsquo;s Advice for Graduates # James: Yeah, no, that\u0026rsquo;s great. That\u0026rsquo;s that\u0026rsquo;s really good. Good. Yeah. The word exercise. Definitely. One question I\u0026rsquo;ll ask. I know it was added to us when we tried to squeeze it in, but it\u0026rsquo;s something I ask all the guests is, you know, what\u0026rsquo;s some advice that you\u0026rsquo;d give yourself. If you were starting your career at the startup.\nJosh: Oh, that\u0026rsquo;s a good one. What advice would I give myself? I was restarting my career. Maybe preempting, probably that, or should I just said that would probably be it like thinking about the next five years. Who do you want to help? A practical way to do that is I think if someone\u0026rsquo;s lost, try to answer this question.\nI think if you\u0026rsquo;re lost and I\u0026rsquo;m sure I\u0026rsquo;m stealing this from someone, this is not an original. But the point of a career is to end unnecessary suffering. So if you\u0026rsquo;re not sure what you want to do, try to end the unnecessary suffering. What does that mean? Find some suffering, find someone that\u0026rsquo;s struggling, find something that shouldn\u0026rsquo;t be suffering, like where we have a resourcefulness problem, not a resource problem.\nYou know, like I looked on, I was telling you before we started recording, I booked an Airbnb today. And when I logged on the homepage of Airbnb said, you know, can we help that house 200,000 Ukrainian refugees or something like. Obviously there\u0026rsquo;s more than that, but that was the number that was up there.\nI\u0026rsquo;m pretty sure it was 200,000 as it was a bunch of people on Airbnb who have a vacant place in different parts of the world who can say yes, actually I could put a family up for two weeks. I could actually go without two weeks of Airbnb income and I could put someone up for two weeks or two months or two years or whatever it is.\nAnd I could, I could do this. And it\u0026rsquo;s a small sacrifice. My family\u0026rsquo;s not going to staff. I could do this. Lots of people listening might not have a spare Airbnb to put up, but they might have a spare weekend. They might have a couple of hours. They might have 50 bucks a month that they can donate. So the question would be my advice to a younger self would be, find a problem that you care about.\nFind some suffering, as weird as that sounds try to find something with some leverage where it doesn\u0026rsquo;t need to happen, where there is a solution where there are great organizations or great people. Yeah. Start getting involved in that space, like change your proximity. The thing that changed everything for me was proximity.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s the hardest advice that I\u0026rsquo;d give to my younger self, but it\u0026rsquo;s really hard to say to people is like, I think you need to go to a place in the world where there are real problems and spend some time there. Now there are real problems in your neighborhood, right? Domestic abuse, all that sort of stuff.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s not like you\u0026rsquo;ve just got to go knock it around on the neighbors house. Like, is there any suffering happening in here? Like it\u0026rsquo;s kind of, it\u0026rsquo;s not the same, you know, so it\u0026rsquo;s kind of. So it\u0026rsquo;s either tap into what\u0026rsquo;s happening in the local environment or go somewhere being in an environment where it smacks you.\nLike for me, I needed that smack of like, Hey, there are real problems out here and you can do something about that. And it\u0026rsquo;s not overly like palatable, but it was really practical. And that gap between what I thought I wanted and what I needed became really apparent. So that would probably be my. out somewhere where there\u0026rsquo;s a real challenge, be around people who are actually solving it.\nLike how has just in saw this crisis? And I didn\u0026rsquo;t see anyone solving it\u0026rsquo;d be really depressing. But then I went to the refugee border crossing and I saw local families. Bakers, people had next to nothing, giving away everything, like closing their business and giving away all the bread to refugees who they didn\u0026rsquo;t know who were from another country who didn\u0026rsquo;t even have the same religion.\nLike some of the religions blatantly said, these guys are the enemy. And they\u0026rsquo;re like, yeah, We\u0026rsquo;re going to give our entire lives to helping them. I was like, that\u0026rsquo;s religion. You know, that\u0026rsquo;s what it\u0026rsquo;s about. And it just, things like that, being around that, being around people who is so selfless, so generous, that just changed my perspective.\nSo I think a version of that rant is what I\u0026rsquo;d hoped to tell him about.\nJames: Yeah, really. That\u0026rsquo;s really cool. And I hope people listening really take, take that in as we hear from you. But Josh, thanks so much for coming on today. Where can people go to find out more about.\nJosh: Yeah. Cool. So great place to go. If it\u0026rsquo;s just connecting with me, jump onto LinkedIn type in Josh Farr F for Fred AWR. Or if you want to learn more about what we do as an organization, go to campus, consultancy.org. There\u0026rsquo;s a bit of an information about what we do. Yeah, as an organization there. So LinkedIn is a great one.\nAnd if you are listening today, if you did get something out of today, I\u0026rsquo;d love to hear from you send me a message on LinkedIn. Say I was listening to Graduate Theory. This is what I liked, or this is the question I have, or I\u0026rsquo;m stuck to, what do I do? And I\u0026rsquo;ll send you some cool resources or try to point you in the right direction.\nYeah.\nJames: Fantastic. Thanks so much for sharing your story and your mission with us today. Josh, it\u0026rsquo;s been really, really cool to hear about your experiences.\nJosh: Awesome. Thanks James. Thanks for having me.\nOutro # James: Thanks for listening to this episode I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. If you want to get my takeaways, the things that I learned from this episode, please go to Graduate Theory.com/subscribe, where you can get my takeaways and all the information about each episode, straight to your inbox.\nThanks so much for listening again today, and we\u0026rsquo;re looking forward to seeing you next week.\n← Back to episode 22\n","date":"21 March 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/graduate-theory/22-on-finding-your-mission-with-josh-farr/transcript/","section":"Graduate Theory Transcripts","summary":"← Back to episode 22\nThis transcript has been lightly edited for readability. It may still contain transcription errors.\nJosh: And so my metric for a meaningful career said, can I do something that’s just net positive, but who knows how much you can help people, but can I just do something that’s net positive? And can I show up every day and try to help? And in one night, my entire view of that changed.\n","title":"Transcript: On Finding Your Mission with Josh Farr","type":"graduate-theory-transcripts"},{"content":" Watch the conversation Graduate Theory Open YouTube ↗ Read the full transcript → Hello Graduates!\nThis wonderful week it\u0026rsquo;s episode #21 of Graduate Theory. It\u0026rsquo;s time to discuss resumes and cover letters.\nIf you\u0026rsquo;re not already growing your career, subscribe now so you never miss a beat 👇\nSubscribe\nNimarta Verma is CEO and Chief Strategist of Disruptor Brand. She helps brands and leaders to tell their stories louder and make marketing easier.\n👇 Episode Takeaways # Calling Out Nerves # We all know that feeling. You\u0026rsquo;re walking into the interview, sweating like the sun is walking right next to you.\nThese nerves can really affect your performance in an interview. When you want to look good, being nervous isn\u0026rsquo;t something that is going to help.\nSo what do we do in these situations?\nNimarta says to call it out.\nI feel like even just acknowledging that, oh man, I\u0026rsquo;m really nervous. Like that actually is such a great ice breaker. And sometimes as an interviewer, like I actually say to the person, I go, look, I get it. It’s normal to be a bit nervous, you know.\nNext time you\u0026rsquo;re in the interview and you\u0026rsquo;re feeling like you need to keep your nervousness a secret, don\u0026rsquo;t.\nAcknowledge it, accept it and tackle the interview as best as you can.\nApply Your Skills to Your Position # Often when people apply for graduate jobs, they don\u0026rsquo;t have much experience. In fact, almost no experience at all.\nThis can make it tricky to fill out your resume.\nNimarta tells us that even though we may not have direct skills in certain areas, we have skills that we have learnt that will carry over to new roles.\nhow has that experience, how does the skills I\u0026rsquo;ve learned through doing a job in retail, how will that benefit them in a job in accounting or in marketing, whatever the industry they\u0026rsquo;re in.\nEven though you may not have experience in the industry, it doesn\u0026rsquo;t mean that you don\u0026rsquo;t have useful skills for the organisation.\n🤝 Connect with Nimarta # https://www.linkedin.com/in/nimarta-verma/\n📝 Show Notes # 00:00 Nimarta Verma\n01:08 How has Nimarta\u0026rsquo;s Job Application process changed over time\n03:21 How Does Nimarta Structure her Resume?\n07:14 Do \u0026lsquo;humanised\u0026rsquo; resumes work?\n08:43 How can someone \u0026lsquo;humanise\u0026rsquo; their resume?\n14:20 Does a \u0026lsquo;humanised\u0026rsquo; resume polarise employers?\n15:13 What mistakes do people make in their resumes?\n18:36 Nimarta\u0026rsquo;s cover letter story\n22:20 Dealing with Nerves during interviews\n25:12 Traits of Good Interviews\n29:49 What has Nimarta taken from marketing and applied to herself?\n37:14 Nimarta\u0026rsquo;s Advice for Graduates\n39:00 Connect with Nimarta\n39:58 Outro\n","date":"14 March 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/graduate-theory/21-on-resume-writing-and-authenticity-with-nimarta-verma/","section":"Graduate Theory","summary":" Watch the conversation Graduate Theory Open YouTube ↗ Read the full transcript → Hello Graduates!\nThis wonderful week it’s episode #21 of Graduate Theory. It’s time to discuss resumes and cover letters.\n","title":"On Resume Writing and Authenticity with Nimarta Verma","type":"graduate-theory"},{"content":"← Back to episode 21\nThis transcript has been lightly edited for readability. It may still contain transcription errors.\nNimarta: And it was not a surprise that she did given that, you know, she really did stand out when she wrote it that way\nJames: Hello, and welcome to Graduate Theory. My guest today is a brand strategist and marketing trainer on a mission to disrupt the marketing world and help brands with the vision. Cut through the noise. She has grown businesses and their marketing across 50 industries in 10 different countries. She\u0026rsquo;s currently a CEO and achieved strategists of marketing consultants.\nDisruptive brand when my guests serves brands and the latest, tell this story louder and make marketing easier. Please. Welcome to the show. And in Malta, WIOA.\nNimarta: Thank you so much, Greg.\nJames: It\u0026rsquo;s great to have you here, Nevada. Today, I really want to dive into the job application process with you. Cause I know it\u0026rsquo;s something you\u0026rsquo;re quite passionate about and something that you\u0026rsquo;ve really tied in the marketing side of things through your career, into the way that you apply the jobs and that whole process.\nHow has Nimarta\u0026rsquo;s Job Application process changed over time # James: So I want to ask my first question. How has your experience in your attempts at getting a job with, with the resume and the coupler and things like that? How, how has that process for you change over time?\nNimarta: Yeah, really the question I think I started out and I dare say it\u0026rsquo;s probably similar to a lot of new graduates that stat up with their resume and. Job application process is that, you know, we, we find a template or we\u0026rsquo;re told that a certain template to follow and, you know, I write in a way that\u0026rsquo;s really professional and I use jargons.\nLike I\u0026rsquo;m enthusiastic, I\u0026rsquo;m a problem solver. I am responsible, you know, those terms like that go for interviews and just really. Say what answer and say what the other person wants to hear. And I don\u0026rsquo;t ask my own questions and my approach has really much been, I\u0026rsquo;m just grateful to get interviewed and hopefully they give me a job and I\u0026rsquo;m going to say anything to get the job.\nSo that\u0026rsquo;s really how it started and where, you know, where it\u0026rsquo;s evolved to now is that I\u0026rsquo;ve been able to inject. My own story and personality into my resume and cover letters. I brought, you know, authenticity to them and people really get a sense of who I am from reading those things. And when I am face-to-face with them, there\u0026rsquo;s still nerves.\nI think there\u0026rsquo;s always going to be nerves, but it\u0026rsquo;s now it\u0026rsquo;s conversation. It\u0026rsquo;s really about letting them get to know me and also me getting to know them. And it really is about. Two potties, both deciding, are we right for each other?\nJames: Yeah. Yeah. Cool. I\u0026rsquo;m so interested to talk about this with you, because you know, you do have quite a few. View on this and a unique process for doing this sort of thing. And what does your resume look like now? Cause I know that you, you have that marketing, like you said, you\u0026rsquo;d like to do things sort of a little bit unconventional with your resume.\nHow Does Nimarta Structure her Resume? # James: What are some of those things and like, how do you actually structure your resume?\nNimarta: Yeah.\nSo I, first of all, it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s, there\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s colorful, not too much color, but there\u0026rsquo;s a play with two colors. So I make it look, you know, there is that color element to it. I do put a photo of me. A lot of people say, don\u0026rsquo;t do it. It\u0026rsquo;s frowned upon. I just think that people might want to, you know, get a sense of who they\u0026rsquo;re speaking to.\nSo I put a photo of me smiling, not like a. You know, set photo like that actually like me smiling. And I start out with a little bit of a summary. A lot of people write in this summary, something like, you know, looking to Excel in a blah-blah-blah cluster, customer service capacity in a, and like something like that.\nYes. So what I write in my summary is something like, you know, marketing strategists. I\u0026rsquo;ve worked across these industries. I\u0026rsquo;m really looking to now widen my skillset into this area or that area. And you know, I\u0026rsquo;m interested in strategy. I love solving problems. I find you know, businesses really challenging and exciting, and you know, that those are the things that I\u0026rsquo;m passionate about.\nSo it\u0026rsquo;s really. Is a summary of me and my career and what I, what I want to be doing next. I\u0026rsquo;m not trying to sweet talk them that I\u0026rsquo;m here to serve them or anything like that at that point. And then I still structure it like a typical resume in the sense that it\u0026rsquo;s chronological, you know, stats from the latest job, my latest experience to the earliest experience.\nBut what\u0026rsquo;s different is that for each of the roles. I don\u0026rsquo;t just go, I don\u0026rsquo;t just write bullet points of roles and responsibilities. In fact, I, I don\u0026rsquo;t have anything about roles and responsibility. I write a few lines about, you know, in this role, he is what really, he\u0026rsquo;s what I did. He is what really excited me about this role.\nHe is why I left and he is what I\u0026rsquo;m most proud of. And I should tell that story consistently through each role. So you\u0026rsquo;ll see, you\u0026rsquo;ll, you\u0026rsquo;ll get a sense of you read the whole thing or, you know, the hiring manager will get a sense of, ah, she is working in this capacity and then she left for that reason.\nOr she did this, or, you know, this is why she made that choice. It really tells a story of my career before. And I also include things I\u0026rsquo;ve learned, Hey, from this role, this really challenged me. And here\u0026rsquo;s one of the most valuable lessons I learned was X, Y, Z. It, you know, so, so it really does tell the story of my career pretty much.\nJames: Yeah, definitely. Yeah. That\u0026rsquo;s quite unique. And certainly most people would be, you know, I guess almost everyone has like this sort of cookie cutter type prisoner, like T here. And he like, here\u0026rsquo;s my three that I did little like whatever. And so it\u0026rsquo;s interesting to hear that. You would do things quite differently.\nAnd it\u0026rsquo;s quite, I think, I think the way you\u0026rsquo;re doing it is a lot more personal, right. Because you\u0026rsquo;re actually\nJames: Like often\nJames: The your resume. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. Because the person reading it is a person too, and they probably have similar thoughts. Right. And they\u0026rsquo;re not just like, you know, so I think it does.\ndoes that. Hmm.\nNimarta: Yeah.\nabsolutely. They have bought to death. Oh, rating the same kinds of CVS. And over again, you just cover the name. It\u0026rsquo;s all the same. And everybody uses those Dagens and buzzwords and everyone puts little keywords on their CVS, you know? Yeah.\nSo I\u0026rsquo;ve been in that position as well to read CVS. Thinking to myself, like, oh, just give me something, just give me some sense of that.\nYou\u0026rsquo;re a human. I just want to know somebody.\nJames: Yeah, totally.\nNimarta: Yeah.\nso I try and I try and do that. The word is humanized my CV as much as possible.\nDo \u0026lsquo;humanised\u0026rsquo; resumes work? # James: And that\u0026rsquo;s cool. And do you think that has worked or do you think like over the times that you\u0026rsquo;ve used it? I mean, it\u0026rsquo;s probably hard to compare because you\u0026rsquo;re kind of it\u0026rsquo;s econ. I mean, other than if you ever have the, you know, the sort of AB testing, right. Where you might apply for five jobs using one and five using the other, and then maybe it\u0026rsquo;s still quite a small sample, but you could maybe see if there\u0026rsquo;s some difference.\nI wonder if it\u0026rsquo;s unlikely that have you done that, or I don\u0026rsquo;t know, but\nWhat was the outcome of that?\nNimarta: Look, as you say, right, it\u0026rsquo;s still a small sample, but I will definitely say that I got more of a response from the ones where it was more Call it like storified a CV and humanized CV compared to the template at one, you know, even if the response was, Hey, thanks for sending it through.\nYou know, we\u0026rsquo;re not, you\u0026rsquo;re probably not right for us, even if it was to reject me, but at least it was some kind of response versus a template w plan template at once. I found that I really didn\u0026rsquo;t get that many responses. It was just kind of, you know, you send a CV off into this vortex. Silence. Nothing.\nYou get nothing back.\nJames: Definitely. So if that\u0026rsquo;s the case, then, you know, what would, how would you take someone\u0026rsquo;s resume and make it more. Like more personalized, more like down to worth, you know, more storified, you know, like of, how do you take, someone\u0026rsquo;s raising my from this kind of coding cookie kind of thing into, and sort of turn it into that.\nHow Can Someone Humanise Their Resume? # James: Is there anything that you would, you know, you\u0026rsquo;d first look at it and say I\u0026rsquo;ve had, this is probably going to make the biggest difference and then like, we\u0026rsquo;ll of these other things, like, is there anything that you would, how you approach that.\nNimarta: Yeah,\nSo I\u0026rsquo;ve done this quite a bit because I have helped a lot of people with their CVS as well. So I start off with really just having them talk to me. About who they are and what they w you know, what they want, like who they are in life, what do they want, what do they believe in? What do they care about?\nLike, I want to get them out, right. Because a lot of people are so concerned. I\u0026rsquo;ve got to write the CV that everybody wants to see or wants to read. So they\u0026rsquo;re more thinking about what does the other person want to see? How do I say those kinds of the right thing to say? So I always try to get them out of the mindset of there\u0026rsquo;s no right thing to say.\nWe just want to tell your story. So I always ask them about them, you know, and I always ask them, okay, you did this role here. You know, tell me more about what was the, what did you do? What was that like? They\u0026rsquo;ll start to telling me. And I usually what really works is I ask them, you know, what did you really enjoy the most about that role? And they\u0026rsquo;ll say something. And I was like, that\u0026rsquo;s great. Write that down. And there\u0026rsquo;ll be like, really? I said, Yeah. write that down. So then they write that. Great. You know, what was, what was, what were you really proud about? What did you accomplish in that role that you were really proud of? Tell me, then they tell me it\u0026rsquo;s like, oh, that\u0026rsquo;s great.\nWrite that down. You know, was there anything you learned? Was there a lesson that was really valuable? Great. Write that down. So I really try and get their side of it. And I tell them to remove these like, you know, list of roles and responsibilities. Like, no, you don\u0026rsquo;t need to get into that. You know, if you wanna, if your job is really complicated, like you\u0026rsquo;re doing something with data processing and nobody knows what you do.\nYou could just say one line about it. You don\u0026rsquo;t need to list out everything you do. And, and rather tell the story of it, then, then do like lists. And then I also then look to remove any jargons. So for me, words that I see right away in they\u0026rsquo;re red flags and I just removed them right away. I words like enthusiasts, stick, passionate, responsible, strategic problem solver you know, excellent communicator team player, you know, any words like that.\nSpot. I like that. That\u0026rsquo;s got to go. Cause it\u0026rsquo;s just another cliche. It doesn\u0026rsquo;t paint a picture of who this person is.\nJames: Yeah. Yeah, I think that\u0026rsquo;s cool when it\u0026rsquo;s it\u0026rsquo;s it\u0026rsquo;s very interesting to hear. Hear that because I, yeah, certainly those kinds of things. I like most likely I can\u0026rsquo;t remember mine, but most certainly on mine and if not on almost every ones. So I think that\u0026rsquo;s really interesting. The kind of, yeah. Putting yourself using different words to describe yourself today, even, almost making your resume unique rather than one that looks almost the same as everyone else\u0026rsquo;s.\nyou\u0026rsquo;re\nsaying earlier with like the colors and stuff as well. Yeah.\nNimarta: Yeah, and I think especially your new graduate, right? Like a lot of new graduates that I work with. They don\u0026rsquo;t have a lot of relevant work experience yet. Right. So, you know, some, some of them have worked at cafes. They worked in retail. They\u0026rsquo;ve done internships, right? They are now want to apply for a job in their profession. Then we\u0026rsquo;ve really got to ride out those experiences in a way that. I tried to find a way to link it to there. You know, how, how has that experience, how does the skills I\u0026rsquo;ve learned through doing a job in retail? How will that benefit them in a job in accounting or in marketing, whatever the industry they\u0026rsquo;re in.\nSo I, I then focus on that, you know, I go, great. What are the skills you learned in retail? And they might tell me some things like, okay, great. So now you\u0026rsquo;re going to become an accountant. How do you think that\u0026rsquo;s going to help you as an account? And they might say, oh, you know, I can have, it\u0026rsquo;s going to help me like communicate better that.\nGreat. Okay. We\u0026rsquo;ll talk about that. So we want to find a way to make those connections because we\u0026rsquo;ve got a assume that the person reading is lazy. They\u0026rsquo;re not going to connect the dots. We\u0026rsquo;ve got to help them connect the dots. And then I then try and get, bring out more of the story in their summary. what what makes him passionate about that industry that they\u0026rsquo;re in or that, you know, why do you want to become a marketer?\nWhy do you want to become an engineer? Like, let\u0026rsquo;s talk about that. And usually there\u0026rsquo;s something about them ever since they were child, they were curious about something. So I try and bring that story out and tell that story from the, from the beginning and in the cover letter, in the summary, because as a new graduate, you don\u0026rsquo;t have a lot going for you in terms of. You know, as I said before, like the experience side of things, you just, it\u0026rsquo;s just the reality of being a new graduate. So how do you then tell your story and engage with people that way? And I think the mistake that a lot of new graduates think is that they think the grade or the e-com academy accomplishments is going to carry the day.\nAnd the reality is that\u0026rsquo;s not what hiring managers look for. They may glance at it, but they really are interested to hear. Who you are and whether or not your going to come into that company and really fit culturally and work well with them.\nJames: Yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s really cool. When I, I like what you saying?. You know, getting a job is like, know almost you want to enter into a relationship with yourself and the company. Right. And if the company isn\u0026rsquo;t right for you, then you don\u0026rsquo;t really want to work there either. I think a lot of this personalization and things like that, it\u0026rsquo;s really putting yourself out there a lot more.\nDoes a \u0026lsquo;humanised\u0026rsquo; resume polarise employers? # James: And so perhaps, you know, companies might not like it as much, but I think the companies that do like you are going to like your life. From that, just because you\u0026rsquo;re sharing more of yourself, I mean, yeah. Do you, is D do you agree with that?\nNimarta: Yeah, absolutely like yours. This is now you\u0026rsquo;re talking my language in terms of marketing. Right. I\u0026rsquo;m always telling my. Not everybody has to like you or what Dubai your brand. But those who do then those are the ones that you want and there\u0026rsquo;s room for everybody. It\u0026rsquo;s, you know, as long as we don\u0026rsquo;t have to think in terms of desperation and scarcity, which is not, there\u0026rsquo;s a, there\u0026rsquo;s a right job for everybody.\nThere\u0026rsquo;s a right role for everybody. We don\u0026rsquo;t, we don\u0026rsquo;t need to, you know, you can get a job in a company that doesn\u0026rsquo;t fit you. You\u0026rsquo;re going to be miserable or you won\u0026rsquo;t last long. Anyway. know, what\u0026rsquo;s the point.\nJames: Yeah, no, that\u0026rsquo;s\nWhat mistakes do people make in their resumes? # James: True. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. W what what mistakes do you think people make in their resume? And, you know, I guess we can use here. You mentioned that you were actually someone that was looking at people\u0026rsquo;s resumes, you know, I guess that perspective, and then also your own where you\u0026rsquo;re sort of helping people create those.\nWhat are some things that you\u0026rsquo;ve seen in people\u0026rsquo;s resumes way aligned? Okay. So definitely don\u0026rsquo;t do that. Oh, like, don\u0026rsquo;t do that. So whatever, is there any like general big mistakes you see people making?\nNimarta: Yeah. So what I said before about using the buzzword, like the jargons, like passionate, those kind of words making it really long in terms of, it\u0026rsquo;s not about the lens. Look, if you\u0026rsquo;re, if you\u0026rsquo;re really telling a story about. It\u0026rsquo;s it\u0026rsquo;s then not a turnoff. Like I think my CVS is like two pages or something, so it\u0026rsquo;s not like a short CV.\nBut there\u0026rsquo;s ones where it\u0026rsquo;s like just lists and lists of here\u0026rsquo;s all my roles and accountabilities. Like they probably took it from their job description and just dumped it on the CV and it really adds no value to the person reading it. So I wouldn\u0026rsquo;t recommend doing that. Lots of long lists about he is all of the skillsets that I like, like my proficiencies, you know, I\u0026rsquo;m a good communicator.\nI\u0026rsquo;m a good team player. I know these programs like, yeah, show some in some specializations you should list what programs, you know, and, and it\u0026rsquo;s of interest. But, you know, I see a lot of CVS, at least I know Microsoft word, Excel, PowerPoint, email. Excuse me. You don\u0026rsquo;t need to tell us that. Okay. So yeah, I think it resumes that are overloaded with detail is a mistake.\nAnd I don\u0026rsquo;t recommend it. Like the thing, I think the biggest mistake is the mindset more than anything. The mindset of when people write this CV, James and that mindset is that this CV is going to get me the job. And I always tell anyone I work with that. The CV is not meant to get you the job and they always have a shocked look on their face.\nWhat do you mean? And I go, the CV CVS meant to get you the interview, and I\u0026rsquo;m going to want to interview someone that intrigues me, that I want to learn more about. You tell me every little thing, every little detail about you in a resume. That\u0026rsquo;s already boring me to death. I don\u0026rsquo;t need to know more. And I may not even want me to feel the need to interview you.\nSo you want to leave a little bit of mystery, a little bit of intrigue, like, oh wow. That\u0026rsquo;s interesting. Leave them wanting more leave than wanting to talk to you about some of those things that you wrote about\nJames: Yeah, I think that\u0026rsquo;s really cool. I\u0026rsquo;m not certainly saying that in myself and I\u0026rsquo;m sure lots of people, you know, don\u0026rsquo;t consider is that yeah. The resume is not for like getting you to the end, you know, it\u0026rsquo;s just getting you to the next step of the process. I think that\u0026rsquo;s so in how you\nJames: Resume and that\nJames: Sort of thing, as you\u0026rsquo;re putting in there.\nYeah, definitely. I\u0026rsquo;ll like, perhaps we can talk about, you know, your own experience with this. And, you know, you mentioned you were doing some AB testing with your resume. I wonder if there\u0026rsquo;s any other times where you sort of played with this personal touch. Is there any, has there been any, you know, like you were saying, your people like kind of it\u0026rsquo;s obviously.\nNimarta\u0026rsquo;s cover letter story # James: Different to receive writers to get a resume. That\u0026rsquo;s a bit out of the ordinary, but has there been, have any interesting experiences with this personal touch?\nNimarta: Yeah.\nI, once I was looking for a job and I just got so sick of it and desperate, like not desperate to get the job, but I was just so sick of this whole process and I just. So fake, like, oh man, what am I doing with my life? And just this moment at like 10:00 PM at night, on a week, week not. And I just wrote this CV from a rope, his cover letter from scratch.\nSo this company and I was saying things like, look, I\u0026rsquo;m just going to tell you, first of all, some truths. And I said things like, I\u0026rsquo;m not a really good employee. I really don\u0026rsquo;t like being. It\u0026rsquo;s tied to a chair or sit in one place and being told what time to come and what time to leave. And I really hate that side of working.\nI really, I read your job at, and I don\u0026rsquo;t know. I don\u0026rsquo;t know if I believe it I\u0026rsquo;m skeptical. You know, you talk about a great culture. Everybody says that what\u0026rsquo;s the catch. And I said things like, you know, I really wish that the person reading this is just someone who is another human being like me, who.\nWhat a, what an ordeal it is to having to talk myself up to somebody that I don\u0026rsquo;t even know through this letter and how, how yucky that is and how much I just really want to find fulfillment, enjoy, you know, role. And, you know, you have someone who gets it, hopefully we can talk and really see if we\u0026rsquo;re a match for each other.\nAnd that was the most honest letter that I ever wrote. And I remember. Having like butterflies in my stomach as I emailed it off and I just went, wow, I don\u0026rsquo;t know what I\u0026rsquo;ve done. And I showed it to my husband just to kind of get a sense check. Like maybe it\u0026rsquo;s not too bad and he read it and he\u0026rsquo;s he was like, did you send this?\nI said, Yeah, I did. He was like, whoa. And I thought, oh man, what\u0026rsquo;s going to happen. And I sent it off like about 10:00 PM that night and the next day, my phone rings even before midday. And it was this company calling and it wasn\u0026rsquo;t just the manager who was hiring for that position. It was a CEO Callie. And he said to me, you know, the HR person forwarded me this, cut your letter and said, I have to read this.\nSo he said, I read it. And I read it a number number of times. And it\u0026rsquo;s the most incredible and honest thing that I\u0026rsquo;ve read ever in, in someone\u0026rsquo;s application. I don\u0026rsquo;t really think this role is for you, but I still want to talk to you and maybe we could create a role for you because I think you\u0026rsquo;d be a great fit for us.\nSo that was, that was a really cool experience. That was incredible to receive that kind of reassuring feedback from something that was so\nJames: Yeah, definitely. Yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s crazy. That is, yeah. That\u0026rsquo;s pretty incredible. Cause yeah, I\u0026rsquo;ll often, you know, I guess even myself I\u0026rsquo;ve thought of, you know, I\u0026rsquo;m probably my cover letter, perhaps I would just, you know, pass, we\u0026rsquo;ll just throw this way on writing you on where it\u0026rsquo;s just like, you know, this I\u0026rsquo;m James.\nI did it. It did it like, you know, kind of like you\u0026rsquo;re saying a bit more fun, a bit more. This is just who I am. Yeah. exactly. And I scrapped to hear that you had such a good experience with that because I think, yeah, it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s incredible. What what that stuff can do. Definitely. I want to perhaps talk a bit now about interviews and things like that.\nAnd I know like you, you know, you\u0026rsquo;ve done a lot of these and you probably help people with this kind of thing as well. You know, when you coming into an interview, lots of people will come. You know, they\u0026rsquo;ll have like the nervous butterflies, and they\u0026rsquo;ll even think that\u0026rsquo;s connects with negatively impact their sort of experience like, you know, in the interview.\nDealing with Nerves during interviews # James: Cause they\u0026rsquo;re so freaked out that, that like it\u0026rsquo;s, now they get asked a question and they\u0026rsquo;re like, oh, I can just, it, you know, you know, like preparing in that way is often unhelpful, you know, how have you dealt with that and the nerves and things like that in the past. And yeah, I\u0026rsquo;m interested to hear that because it was a, it\u0026rsquo;s a big problem.\nI think that people know.\nNimarta: Yeah, I think at the beginning, right. I just felt like I just really didn\u0026rsquo;t deal with it. Put on a show, like pretend that I was okay when I was really just sweating and nerves everywhere and trying to be cool. But then after you have to use now having done that and having been on the other side of it, where I saw that the candidates were really nervous and I was the interviewer and I thought, oh, that\u0026rsquo;s so funny.\nLike then over was, you know, I was on the, I used to be on that other set. So it gave me an understanding of what it feels like to be. On the interviewer side. And what I, what I now realize is that people can tell and people understand and empathize with that. It is a nerveracking experience. Like everybody has even the interview where you\u0026rsquo;re speaking to, they\u0026rsquo;ve also been interviewed.\nSo everybody understands it. And sometimes I feel like even just acknowledging that, oh man, I\u0026rsquo;m really nervous. Like that actually is such a great ice breaker. And sometimes as an interviewer, like I actually say to the person, I go, look, I get it. If it isn\u0026rsquo;t all, what\u0026rsquo;s a wee bit nervous, you know.\nyou want to do and have a glass of water.\nDo you want to take up your code? Like it\u0026rsquo;s okay. Just relax. Like it\u0026rsquo;s fun. And yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s fine. That you\u0026rsquo;re nervous. And I find that they are really appreciative that I\u0026rsquo;ve, that I\u0026rsquo;ve said that to them. So I then learned when I, now, when I have interviewed after that, Just to acknowledge it. Just be like, oh, I didn\u0026rsquo;t think I was going to be so nervous.\nI\u0026rsquo;ve done this a lot, but I\u0026rsquo;m still nervous. And the other person it\u0026rsquo;s like, it\u0026rsquo;s almost like this refreshing moment that you share with another human where they\u0026rsquo;re like, oh, I\u0026rsquo;m so glad this person\u0026rsquo;s honest. And it\u0026rsquo;s like, you\u0026rsquo;ve now addressed the elephant in the room and you just, it just stops being heavy.\nI promise you the minute you just go, oh, I\u0026rsquo;m feeling a bit nervous, but I\u0026rsquo;m excited to be here. It just stops being heavy and you just find yourself connecting with another human. So I think the biggest thing I recommend is just to own that you\u0026rsquo;re nervous. Don\u0026rsquo;t try and pretend you\u0026rsquo;re not. Don\u0026rsquo;t try and be cool and bake it just, just own it.\nJames: Yeah. Yeah. Cool. That\u0026rsquo;s really good advice and definitely calling it out while you\u0026rsquo;re in. There is something that perhaps can be hard to do, but certainly, you know, almost come through a lot of that, a lot of that nervousness as well. I mean, as if, as you, your experience interviewing and as you\u0026rsquo;ve interviewed, what are some interviews that you\u0026rsquo;ve done and interviews that perhaps that you\u0026rsquo;ve participated in with someone else that\u0026rsquo;s going for the job, what are some things that you\u0026rsquo;ve seen in those interviews?\nTraits of Good Interviews # James: Or what are some common things in good interviews? Yeah. That you\u0026rsquo;ve seen or, you know, and, and then how, what, like what could someone do I guess, to make their interview better? And yeah, I guess from your experiences in the past, you know, what things make a good interview for yourself?\nNimarta: Yeah. So I think that it\u0026rsquo;s always good to be prepared and I know it\u0026rsquo;s a cliche thing to say. But it really does offer some value. When you go in having done a little bit of research about the company. And not like you have to be able to recite back what this company does, but you at least come with some questions or some thoughts about this company or about how this company\u0026rsquo;s positioned in their industry or, you know, what you\u0026rsquo;ve seen them do.\nSo it always is. And it\u0026rsquo;s, I think a lot of people don\u0026rsquo;t know. Thinking that it\u0026rsquo;s, it will be impressive to do that. Like they want to impress the interviewer. I don\u0026rsquo;t look at it from that. That it\u0026rsquo;s impressive. I think it just offers a more, a rich conversation and a more honest conversation when you\u0026rsquo;re able to really, you\u0026rsquo;re not scared about what, what, what they\u0026rsquo;re gonna ask, because you kind of go look, I\u0026rsquo;ve read your website.\nHere\u0026rsquo;s what I understand so far. Here\u0026rsquo;s the parts I don\u0026rsquo;t really understand. At least you can have some conversation about it. So I think that\u0026rsquo;s the number one. Knowing, you know, being prepared and forming your own opinions about, oh, this is what I\u0026rsquo;ve you know, thought about your, what you, what you guys do, but he is what, you know, he has also what I\u0026rsquo;m curious about.\nSo being prepared and having your form, your own, your own views, I think really helps the discussion.\nJames: Yeah, definitely. I think that\u0026rsquo;s great. Cause I think often, yeah, reset. Obviously you want to know where you\u0026rsquo;re working before you apply that. Right. But I think too, like it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s useful to go that way a deeper, like you\u0026rsquo;ve suggested where you\u0026rsquo;re finding out perhaps what the values are of the company and kind of one of the that they do.\nAnd like you said, what are the. Perhaps you confused by and you want clarity on when you\u0026rsquo;re actually in the, I think that\u0026rsquo;s, that\u0026rsquo;s great at Boston and yeah. Certainly shows that you\u0026rsquo;re, you\u0026rsquo;re, you\u0026rsquo;re actually really interested in, in pursuing SNS things that you, you want to sort of work out with them as well.\nI think that\u0026rsquo;s really great.\nNimarta: And I think the other thing is will James, like not being afraid to ask questions? I said before, like earlier in my early years I was really scared to ask questions. Cause I just want it to be the good girl who ticked off the boxes for them. And, you know, they would always ask you at the end, do you have any questions?\nAnd I was like, no, no, no, it\u0026rsquo;s all good. Like being so eager. I think that\u0026rsquo;s actually not helpful because in the end it also doesn\u0026rsquo;t give you a sense. Well, first of all, you don\u0026rsquo;t have your questions answered, but flood them as well. Like it helps the hiring manager know your thought process. When you ask questions, it helps them understand, oh, this is where this person is thinking from.\nThat\u0026rsquo;s what the value. One of my recent interviews for a brand role and it was a pet food brand, and I\u0026rsquo;ve done some research and saw some negative reviews of this pet food brand and saw that, you know, some animals have had the, had the food and had a bad reaction to it and were hospitalized and didn\u0026rsquo;t have a good outcome.\nSo that was one of my questions. I said, look, I want to know about your product. I want to know about your quality control process. I read these reviews. Have you done anything to resolve it? Is it true? What what\u0026rsquo;s happened with this. And I said, you know, I love animals. I love dogs. I can\u0026rsquo;t work for a brand that I can\u0026rsquo;t have it be part of a company that produces food that makes animal sick.\nLike that\u0026rsquo;s the one. Okay. So, you know, I want to know. And in fact that was really like one of the memorable things that the interviewer then said to me, I ended up getting the job and she said to me, you know, I could tell you really cared. And I want someone like that and really does care, you know?\nJames: Yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s a great story. Certainly. I think there\u0026rsquo;s yeah. Liz must be a lot of value in, there is a lot of value. Yeah, going the extra step and you\u0026rsquo;re really being careful about, you know, the things you think and, you know, having your values aligned with the company values too, I think is, is really cool.\nthanks for listening to this episode of Graduate Theory. If you haven\u0026rsquo;t already subscribed to the Graduate Theory newsletter you can do so by at the links in the show notes, the Graduate Theory newsletter comes out every single Tuesday morning with my thoughts and lessons from each episode.\nBut without further ado, let\u0026rsquo;s get back into it.\nI\u0026rsquo;d love to touch on as well. Cause I know obviously marketing is something you\u0026rsquo;re really passionate about and it\u0026rsquo;s been something you\u0026rsquo;ve done your whole career. And I want to talk about that and kind of how that aligns with your, your personal brand. You know, branding yourself and things like that.\nWhat has Nimarta taken from marketing and applied to herself? # James: And even perhaps how that ties into your resume and things like that. I mean, what are some things that you\u0026rsquo;ve taken from marketing and then applied in these different arenas, like w Padilla, whether it\u0026rsquo;s personal branding or even, you know, back to the application process that we\u0026rsquo;ve been speaking.\nNimarta: Yeah, I think. A lot actually. So I\u0026rsquo;ll kind of say things, but one of the things definitely is around keeping in mind, like who\u0026rsquo;s the target audience, right? So from a marketing lens, I\u0026rsquo;m always looking at who\u0026rsquo;s the target audience for these? What are their frustrations? What are they really thinking? What are they really concerned about?\nWhat do they really care about? And when I create any marketing material or marketing communications, I\u0026rsquo;m always speaking to those concerns and addressing those concerns or acknowledging that. I know that these are your concerns level, blah. He is what we\u0026rsquo;re doing to resolve it, you know, with this brand, the same applies when I write CVS or help people with their CVS and cover letters that I always, first of all, ask them, you know, who\u0026rsquo;s, who\u0026rsquo;s hiring for this role.\nLike tell me more about the person hiring. So, okay. They are a you know, C level executive. Great. What, what are their frustrations? What really frustrates them? What are they looking for? What is it about the whole. Process of filling this role that has really frustrated them or what, what might be some things that they look for in this candidate of this role?\nSo when we start to look at it from that lens, we\u0026rsquo;re now writing our CV\u0026rsquo;s to address those things. You know, we were acknowledging that, Hey, these are the things that you\u0026rsquo;re worried about. He is, he is some of the answers. He has some of the things that I can say about that. And then you keep that in mind as well for the interview.\nAnd it allows you then to be able to talk to them from where they\u0026rsquo;re coming from and be more empathetic of their needs. So that\u0026rsquo;s really key. One key thread that I kind of pull across from the marketing world to the job application world. And the next part is really about telling the, telling the story and being, you know, differentiating myself. So as a brand, I\u0026rsquo;m working with clients to help different shades and help them stand out. So we\u0026rsquo;re always looking at, you know, what is it that makes them different? And it\u0026rsquo;s going to be a combination of things that I like rational things, you know, it may be like your skill sets and you\u0026rsquo;ve got this experience or you\u0026rsquo;ve worked in this company.\nThat\u0026rsquo;s a really good name. That\u0026rsquo;s really rare. And then it\u0026rsquo;s also going to be, then there\u0026rsquo;s another touch of it, which is like, I call it like the emotional side. So you know who you are, what you believe in. Same applies to a brass. I look at that in both in a person and go great. Let\u0026rsquo;s look at the, the experience and technical side of things that makes you different.\nLet\u0026rsquo;s make sure we tell that story. And now let\u0026rsquo;s look at, you know, you like you, what do you believe in, what do you care about? What matters to you? And let\u0026rsquo;s talk about that too. So we it\u0026rsquo;s a dance between those two things. And one other thing that. One of the techniques are really pulling out that differentiation is that some, not everybody has experiences that line up to exactly to the industry. You know, I was, I once helped someone who worked works in car works as a construction project manager. Like she wanted to find a role in construction, project management, and she had a background in accounting. And a lot of times people get intimidated by that like switching industries and what I did in that case for her was I said, okay, well, let\u0026rsquo;s have a look at, you\u0026rsquo;ve got this background in accounting.\nHow is that going to give you an edge over everybody else? Who\u0026rsquo;s only been a project manager and never had. Never\u0026rsquo;s done. Accounting. What do you have that you bring to your job? And she started to tell me she\u0026rsquo;s like, you know, project medicine, don\u0026rsquo;t look at numbers. I always look at the numbers and I always am able to flag it up front when the numbers don\u0026rsquo;t line up, because I\u0026rsquo;ve got that accounting brain.\nI\u0026rsquo;m like, that\u0026rsquo;s gold. We\u0026rsquo;re going to say that\u0026rsquo;s not in your CV at all. She\u0026rsquo;s like, oh,\nJames: Mm.\nNimarta: Like, yeah. You know, so we, so we find a way to tell these. Stories these gold nuggets of what makes you different, what you bring that nobody else can bring. And yeah, she ended up getting that job. And it was not a surprise that she did given that, you know, she really did stand out when she wrote it that way.\nJames: I think that\u0026rsquo;s really cool. And I love that point. You made about, you know, differentiating, differentiating yourself because you\u0026rsquo;re in marketing, you know, differentiating yourself in the market, but then, you know, how do we think about that in a career sense? And when we\u0026rsquo;re looking at your regimen and like you said, even with that example, like bring that, you know, the, the things that you can do that no one else can do and really bringing that to the forefront, I think is really, really cool and certainly a great use of, the marketing and that side of things.\nYeah. I want to ask you now, you know, a bit more about your career and the things that you\u0026rsquo;ve done, because you\u0026rsquo;ve been to many different companies. You\u0026rsquo;ve, you know, you\u0026rsquo;ve been all across a lot of industries and you\u0026rsquo;ve helped a lot of businesses within what you do. So you\u0026rsquo;ve certainly been to a lot of places I want to ask.\nHas there been a time in your career or something that You know, well, actually I\u0026rsquo;m gonna, I\u0026rsquo;m gonna go a different direction. You know, what\u0026rsquo;s some career advice that you\u0026rsquo;ve seen that is, is not very good advice that you would say to someone who\u0026rsquo;s sort of following a certain path again, that is not, you know, from, in my experience that you\u0026rsquo;re sort of making a mistake with that.\nIs there any bad advice that you\u0026rsquo;ve seen in the Korea spear\nNimarta: Oh man, I like that question. I have probably gotten a little better bus, so let me think through some of them. I think one went bad. One of us, I think is a better. People say things like I\u0026rsquo;ll just stick to it, stick to the job that you like. You don\u0026rsquo;t want to be seen as leaving a job too early. You want to work at least a year or two years.\nI remember wanting to quit my job and I was there for four years and still people around me were like, ah, but it\u0026rsquo;s going to show that you are not committed. It\u0026rsquo;s going to show blah, blah, blah. You know, if you look at my resume, I\u0026rsquo;ve never worked in any role for me. For years was the longest. And then now those were like six month contract, one year, two years.\nI don\u0026rsquo;t know things like that. So I think that whole thing about you got to stick to a job and work there for 10 years and 20 years, you know, I think that\u0026rsquo;s old school. I think maybe there was a time for that. Not certainly my mum did that and it worked for her and you know, a lot of people have seen in previous generations. Now is that, is that relevant? I don\u0026rsquo;t think people care about it that much.\nJames: Yeah, certainly. I agree. I think now, you know, Korea mobility. It\u0026rsquo;s even easier, even with things like remote work and things like that. When now we\u0026rsquo;re not even constrained to where we live as to where you can work. I think things like that up a lot more opportunities and it means that, you know, you can find new jobs a lot easier, even if it\u0026rsquo;s through like, you know, online job advertisements in assignments or, you know, reasonably racing.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s something sort of about maybe 15 to 20 years old is that kind of whole thing. So suddenly I think that, you know, the idea of job, my ability, and even being out of fond jobs that you can. Has really opened up a lot of doors, young people. Definitely. I\u0026rsquo;ve got one last question for you, Nevada.\nNimarta\u0026rsquo;s Advice for Graduates # James: And that\u0026rsquo;s a question that I ask all the guests that come on the show, and it\u0026rsquo;s almost a flip of the previous question, but you know, like part of the graduate theories, you know, career advice and how can young people really grow their careers? That\u0026rsquo;s some great advice for me to not, but you know, what\u0026rsquo;s some advice that you would give to young people who are starting their career today.\nNimarta: Yeah, I think really the, the biggest thing is like, it\u0026rsquo;s not life and death and I\u0026rsquo;ll elaborate on that. It\u0026rsquo;s it\u0026rsquo;s not the end of the world. Like. Korea is not the Korea. Doesn\u0026rsquo;t need to be the career you end up with for the rest of your life. And you can change your mind and you can change your mind 2000 times, and you can switch industries and switch careers and say, or be 10 years into a career and go, I\u0026rsquo;m really bored of that.\nI\u0026rsquo;m going to go do, do a degree, do different degree and go to different routes. I think there\u0026rsquo;s a lot of stress I see about. 18 19 20 year olds trying to map out the rest of their life. You, you just can\u0026rsquo;t, you know, you don\u0026rsquo;t need to, you know, need to know what you\u0026rsquo;re going to be doing for the rest of your life.\nJust, you just need to know what\u0026rsquo;s the next thing right then. And there do that next thing. If it fulfills you and you love it. Great. Keep at it. If it doesn\u0026rsquo;t then, you know, don\u0026rsquo;t, don\u0026rsquo;t say, oh, go back and go. Okay, well that doesn\u0026rsquo;t fulfill me. What, what else should I be doing? And don\u0026rsquo;t be afraid to change and switch. Change your mind.\nJames: Yeah, I think that\u0026rsquo;s great advice, certainly in certainly saying that young people today and, you know, can really take on board with thanks so much for your time today, Nevada.\nConnect with Nimarta # James: If people are listening and they want to find out more about yourself, I want to connect with you further. Where should they go to, to find out more about you?\nNimarta: Yeah. Look, I think LinkedIn is probably the best way to, come and. Find out more about me and read. So things that I share and connect with me, send me a message, add me as a connection. So find me on LinkedIn, look up new motto Burma. And you\u0026rsquo;ll see that I show up there. Or if you want to find out a little bit more about my consultancy side of things and the website is disruptor brand.com and you?\ncan check me out that way.\nJames: Great. We\u0026rsquo;ll leave all your links in the show notes and descriptions so that if people want to find out more, it\u0026rsquo;s just below wherever you\u0026rsquo;re listening. Well, yeah. Thanks so much for your time again today, Nevada and we\u0026rsquo;ll hopefully see your ancy.\nNimarta: No problem. It\u0026rsquo;s great to chat. Thanks for having me.\nOutro # James: Thanks so much for listening to this episode I\u0026rsquo;ll hope you got something out of it. And I certainly did. If you haven\u0026rsquo;t already please consider subscribing to the Graduate Theory newsletter. You get the episode and my takeaways straight to your inbox every single week.\nThanks so much for listening again today. And I look forward to seeing you in the next episode.\n← Back to episode 21\n","date":"14 March 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/graduate-theory/21-on-resume-writing-and-authenticity-with-nimarta-verma/transcript/","section":"Graduate Theory Transcripts","summary":"← Back to episode 21\nThis transcript has been lightly edited for readability. It may still contain transcription errors.\nNimarta: And it was not a surprise that she did given that, you know, she really did stand out when she wrote it that way\n","title":"Transcript: On Resume Writing and Authenticity with Nimarta Verma","type":"graduate-theory-transcripts"},{"content":" Watch the conversation Graduate Theory Open YouTube ↗ Read the full transcript → Hello Graduates!\nWelcome to episode #20 of Graduate Theory. This episode is with one of the most impressive guests we\u0026rsquo;ve interviewed so far.\nIf you\u0026rsquo;re not already growing your career, subscribe now so you never miss a beat 👇\nSubscribe Now\nAdam Geha has over 25 years of experience in the investment management industry. He is CEO and co-founder of EG, a data-driven investment manager and developer with over AU$4.3 billion in assets under management and a $3.9 billion development pipeline.\n👇 Episode Takeaways # I couldn\u0026rsquo;t stop myself so in this episode, I\u0026rsquo;ve got 7 takeaways for you.\nRoutines are Creative\nHard on Content, Soft on Delivery\nThe World Cup\nFrom the Little Comes the Big\nLeadership is Not Management\nAligning Dreams\nPublic Speaking and Leadership\nRoutines are Creative # Do routines limit your creativity?\nAdam spoke about how having routines to free up your mental bandwidth actually makes you more creative. In fact, he says not having a routine makes you less creative.\nSo if you\u0026rsquo;ve got tasks that are routine, you should have routines to deal with the routine tasks so that they don\u0026rsquo;t use RAM. You are going to get problems and tasks that are non-routine for which you need to consume genuine RAM.\nRoutine tasks like showers and cleaning should be made into routines. Non-routine tasks are those that you need actual mental bandwidth to complete. Use routines to save your brain for the tasks that matter.\nDeciding what time you will shower or what clothes you will wear is a decision and leads to what is known as decision fatigue. Using your willpower and decision making on things like this is not a good use of your time. Routine activities like this can be simplified so that your decision making and focus can be used on important tasks.\nAdam shares that he wears the same clothes and has the same personal hygiene routine every day. This routine saves him time and helps him use his brain for the tasks that matter\nBy doing routine in a routine way, you actually liberate your mind for the higher functions of creativity.\nHard on Content, Soft on Delivery # My high school\u0026rsquo;s motto was \u0026ldquo;Fortiter in re, suaviter in modo\u0026rdquo;.\nThis translates to Firm in principle, gently in manner. According to this translation, \u0026ldquo;To do unhesitatingly what must be done but accomplishing it as inoffensively as possible\u0026rdquo;.\nDuring my conversation with Adam, we spoke about having boundaries with his time. That he is firm in what he wants to do but gentle in its delivery.\nIf a meeting finishes early, he will be clear that he must leave to complete other tasks. If he receives an email that wasn\u0026rsquo;t necessary, he will let the person know that he should not receive them in future.\nHaving strong boundaries doesn\u0026rsquo;t necessarily mean that you transform into a raging ball of fire when these lines get crossed. As Adam described, be firm in principle but gentle in manner.\nThe World Cup # Adam has very strong boundaries with his time. He explained it to me in the following way,\nMy wife during business hours never has a relaxed conversation with me because I\u0026rsquo;m sending her the signal that I\u0026rsquo;m on the field. I\u0026rsquo;m in the world cup. I\u0026rsquo;m playing. I don\u0026rsquo;t have time for distractions. So if it\u0026rsquo;s important, tell me what it is. If it\u0026rsquo;s not, let\u0026rsquo;s wait until after the game, when I\u0026rsquo;ve got the headspace\nWhat are you like when you work? Are you always distracted, on your phone, not paying attention?\nOr are you treating your work like you are in the middle of a game at the world cup, with extreme focus and no distraction?\nIt was really interesting to hear how Adam approaches this, it\u0026rsquo;s clear that he has strong boundaries around his time and what he uses his time for.\nHe says,\nif people don\u0026rsquo;t get the sense that your time is super valuable commodity, then you\u0026rsquo;re sending the wrong signal to the world.\nYour time is valuable and people should appreciate that when interacting with you.\nFrom the Little Comes the Big # One of the things I like about Adam is the idea he shares of things called \u0026lsquo;fractals\u0026rsquo;.\nImagine you have an image and you zoom in, really far in. As you zoom in further, the larger image appears again and so on. Here are some examples of fractals in nature.\nThis idea from fractals can appear in our realities. In this LinkedIn post, Adam shared how you treat one day is how you treat your week, is how you treat your life.\nI asked him about this during our interview and he said,\nAnd it is absolutely the case that if you live your day disciplines in thought and action. So too, will you be your year? So two will be your your life. And so be always faithful with the little, because from the little comes, the big.\nFrom the little, comes the big.\nLeadership is not Management # Adam describes management as the following,\nManagement is about how to extract efficiencies from resources.\nAnd the difference between leadership and management.\nLeadership is not management. Management is about how to extract efficiencies from resources. I think it applies well to objects. So it\u0026rsquo;s applied well to inventory, to resources that are dug out of the ground. [\u0026hellip;] One shouldn\u0026rsquo;t manage people, one should lead people. And the reason you lead people is because they are living and they are functioning at a level of consciousness that should not be confused with an object. Human beings have feelings, they have dreams, they have aspirations and they need to be handled with wisdom and care. And and sadly, if you\u0026rsquo;re self-centered, you treat them as a resource. You treat them as a cog in your machine? No human being is a cog in your machine.\nAs leaders, we should see our people for who they are, real people. We aren\u0026rsquo;t just there to maximise their output, but to develop our team and grow together.\nAligning Dreams # From the previous point, we know that management is not leadership. What is leadership, then?\nThat’s leadership, how to align the people that are working with you, align their dreams with the problem you\u0026rsquo;re trying to solve.\nLeadership is about aligning dreams. Aligning the dreams of those in the team with the dreams of the organisation.\nPublic Speaking as Noise for Leadership # This was a massive call by Adam, and one that I believe is also true. People are often promoted at work for their excellent communication skills, but not necessarily their good leadership skills.\nWestern economics generally promote people into leadership based on public speaking and and their ego, their level of outward confidence. [..] it seems to be a glitch in the human mind, that it confuses leadership for public speaking ability and, and overt confidence.\nSo be wary of those that may be in positions of power simply because of their good communication skills.\nAnother way to look at this is that given the \u0026lsquo;glitch in the human mind\u0026rsquo; as Adam describes, working on your communcation and becoming confident may set you up for more opportunities. People are overvaluing communication, so if you want a successful career, it makes sense to be good at it.\nAdam\u0026rsquo;s Recommendations # Through this episode, Adam recommended a slew of different resources\nThe Art of Extra-Ordinary Confidence\nhttps://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30741498-the-art-of-extraordinary-confidence\nThe Way of the Peaceful Warrior\nhttps://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2255.Way_of_the_Peaceful_Warrior\nThe Celestine Prophecy\nhttps://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13103.The_Celestine_Prophecy\nThe War of Art: Winning the Inner Creative Battle\nhttps://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1319.The_War_of_Art\nThe Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable\nhttps://www.goodreads.com/book/show/21343.The_Five_Dysfunctions_of_a_Team\nGhandi - 1981\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gandhi_(film)\nGet the Newsletter\n🤝 Connect with Adam # https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamgeha/\n📝 Show Timestamps # 00:00 Intro\n00:44 How Important is Time Management\n02:16 Adam\u0026rsquo;s Time Management Practices\n07:38 Parts of Time Management that Adam thinks are under-appreciated\n11:37 Boundaries on Your Time\n14:01 Your Life as a Fractal\n16:25 Adam\u0026rsquo;s Thoughts on Time Management Changing over Time\n24:37 Adam thoughts on Bad Leadership advice\n25:54 Adam on Culture Building\n29:06 Adam\u0026rsquo;s Recommendations\n30:51 What Adam was like in his 20\u0026rsquo;s\n34:56 What has been Adam\u0026rsquo;s more worthwhile investment?\n37:34 Adam\u0026rsquo;s Advice for Graduates\n40:33 Outro\n","date":"7 March 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/graduate-theory/20-on-time-management-and-leadership-with-adam-geha/","section":"Graduate Theory","summary":" Watch the conversation Graduate Theory Open YouTube ↗ Read the full transcript → Hello Graduates!\nWelcome to episode #20 of Graduate Theory. This episode is with one of the most impressive guests we’ve interviewed so far.\n","title":"On Time Management and Leadership with Adam Geha","type":"graduate-theory"},{"content":"← Back to episode 20\nThis transcript has been lightly edited for readability. It may still contain transcription errors.\nAdam: It seems to be a, a glitch in the human. That it confuses leadership for public speaking ability and, and overconfidence\nJames: Hello, and welcome to Graduate Theory. Today\u0026rsquo;s guest has over 25 years of experience in the investment management industry.\nHe\u0026rsquo;s a CEO and co-founder of EEG, a data driven investment manager and developer with over $4.3 billion of assets under management. And at 3.9 billion development pipeline. He\u0026rsquo;s a thought leader and a philosopher at heart. Please. Welcome Adam.\nAdam: Thank you, James. Very nice to be with\nJames: You. Thanks, Matt.\nHow Important is Time Management # James: It\u0026rsquo;s great to have you on the show today, and I want to start by asking you things to do with your time management. It\u0026rsquo;s obviously a big focus for leaders today, and I\u0026rsquo;m interested to hear your thoughts. How important do you think time management is for leaders in 2022? I\nAdam: Think time management is always important.\nI think it was important since. Adam was a young boy, and that\u0026rsquo;s not speaking of me. That\u0026rsquo;s going back to China. And I think that any leader worth their salt in any era I dare say it was true for Kings in medieval times knows this very basic truth. We all have 24 hours in a day. It doesn\u0026rsquo;t matter how rich we are, how powerful.\nHow experienced we are. We still only have 24 hours in a day. And when you, if you\u0026rsquo;re sensible, a big chunk of that is sleep. So what remains typically 16 hours is the lot that we all are given each. To perform all of the important tasks of the day and that not only includes of course your business life, because that\u0026rsquo;s just one aspect.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s also needs to go to personal care and exercise. It goes to leisure and it goes to relationships most important of which is family. So if you are not interested in the question of how to extract maximum impact from the re from those 16 waking up. In my view, you are not thinking straight and you\u0026rsquo;re frankly, you\u0026rsquo;re not even on the field.\nAs in terms of a high-performance.\nAdam\u0026rsquo;s Time Management Practices # James: Yeah. It\u0026rsquo;s really interesting to hear like how, yeah. How important you place, time management. Certainly it\u0026rsquo;s, you know, it\u0026rsquo;s really an all encompassing thing. I\u0026rsquo;m curious to hear, you know, You know, how do you go about managing your time? Is there any like structures or practices that you have in place to help manage your time more efficiently?\nAdam: Yes, we all do. Or every high-performing person has thought deeply about time management and has developed certain routines that are adapted to their personality and needs. So the first law is that nothing is, you know, Human beings are unique. We have idiosyncrasies, we\u0026rsquo;ve got temperaments that are different.\nAnd we have preferences that are different. So some people are morning people, some people are night people. So I\u0026rsquo;ll just give you a smattering of things that work for me. And then hopefully it\u0026rsquo;s a smorgasbord for your readers to trial. The first thing is reveal a routine routine is your friend. I used to think of routine as that\u0026rsquo;s what the boring.\nUm, You know, I don\u0026rsquo;t want to be routined. I\u0026rsquo;m a creative person. I\u0026rsquo;m an inventor, I\u0026rsquo;m an entrepreneur. So some days I\u0026rsquo;ll stay up late. Some days I\u0026rsquo;ll go to sleep early. Some days I\u0026rsquo;ll brush my teeth in the morning. Sometimes I\u0026rsquo;ll brush my teeth at night. Some days I\u0026rsquo;ll exercise in the morning. Some days I won\u0026rsquo;t exercise at all.\nSometimes I\u0026rsquo;ll exercise at night, turns out this type of. Creativity is actually not creativity at all. It leads to a less productive life and it is less creative. I\u0026rsquo;ll come back to how it is less creative shortly, but it\u0026rsquo;s certainly less productive because you\u0026rsquo;re using Ram every day to invent a new routine.\nAnd so what happens is you\u0026rsquo;re having to use more brain power. To achieve the tasks of the day, which leaves you with less Ram to use for the unique problems of the day. So if you know, you\u0026rsquo;ve got tasks that are routine, you should have routines to deal with the routine tasks so that they don\u0026rsquo;t use rant because you are going to get problems and tasks than a non-routine for which you need to consume genuine ramp.\nSo I know of highly successful people, for example, who reverse park their car so that it saves them time in the morning when they\u0026rsquo;re getting out. So that, that I need to reverse out. I, I, for example, standardized what I wear. So I have 10 H shirts, 10 EG jackets, so that they\u0026rsquo;re always washed ready and just put a jeans on.\nI wear, I\u0026rsquo;ve got two pairs of the same shoe. So I\u0026rsquo;m never having to look for repair. And so I literally get ready in three minutes. Once I\u0026rsquo;m showered. I always showered the same time. I always brush my teeth in the shower. I\u0026rsquo;ve always shower. I always shave just before I go into the shower. So there are routines designed to save me time.\nThe same is true of my exercise routine. Same is true of my gratitudes. I always do. I always recite five or six things that I\u0026rsquo;m grateful for when I turned the tap on in the morning shower. So I\u0026rsquo;ve anchored my mind. The minute I turned the tap on, I start reciting the things that I\u0026rsquo;m grateful for. So my day is full of these anchors and routines designed to free up my time for the non-routine tasks.\nI\u0026rsquo;ve found that I\u0026rsquo;ve become more creative. By eliminating Ram being used for routine tasks. So if you are recreative, I\u0026rsquo;m here to tell you my experiences routine is your friends. By doing routine in a routine way, routine tasks performed in a routine way. You actually liberate your mind for the higher functions of creativity.\nSo that\u0026rsquo;s just one aspect. Another little tip would be I\u0026rsquo;ve learned that don\u0026rsquo;t default to one hour meeting. When people approach me say on LinkedIn, they want to have a coffee with me. I typically default to 30 minutes or 45, depending on the person\u0026rsquo;s profile. Because it\u0026rsquo;s a meet and greet. I don\u0026rsquo;t want to spend an hour meeting and reading somebody meeting and greeting typically takes me half an hour.\nAnd if the person and I can. There\u0026rsquo;s always the prospect for me to do another meeting. I think we\u0026rsquo;re lazy and the way we set meetings with default way too often to one hour meetings, we should think typically more half an hour to 45 minutes. You find that very little is lost between an hour and 45.\nAnd between an hour and 30 minutes, the bit that\u0026rsquo;s lost. The bond homie there, the wrap party, the introduct, the, this is soft stuff. So where I find that I don\u0026rsquo;t want to lose that, but if I\u0026rsquo;m meeting with somebody that\u0026rsquo;s well-known to me, I don\u0026rsquo;t have to have that preamble. I can go straight into the work that needs to be done and apologize for the fact that my, my busy schedule does not permit more time.\nAnd I still try and squeeze in five minutes at the end, which is more of a personal. Nature. Yeah, just a couple of tips. There\u0026rsquo;s literally a score of these. And you, you, you can, we could be talking for an hour just on time management. It\u0026rsquo;s that important?\nParts of Time Management that Adam thinks are under-appreciated # James: Yeah, certainly. Yeah. What aspects of time management do you think people under, like you have a great example there, you know, the routine.\nUnless you\u0026rsquo;re doing something that you, you know, you know, you need to set yourself up well for that. So you can focus your time and energy on the things that aren\u0026rsquo;t routine. But are there any other things that you think are undervalued or, or people sort of don\u0026rsquo;t take,\nAdam: I suppose the books aren\u0026rsquo;t written in that there are books written about time management and some of them are indeed excellent.\nThe area that I think probably people don\u0026rsquo;t talk about enough is Getting appropriate support for your three-year executive assistant or assistance. So, I\u0026rsquo;ve got a full-time dedicated executive assistant. Oftentimes there are pressures on her to be shared. I resist because I need her to be very focused on me to help liberate my time.\nAnd I think that\u0026rsquo;s a really good bang for the buck for the business, given the. You know, my time is my hourly rights is, is, is very high. So using that wisely for the business is, is a top priority for the business. So I get it to help me with personal stuff, because if I spend time during the business day working on.\nYou know, my, my daughter, my, my, the camp that I\u0026rsquo;m doing with my daughter through her school, I could do that. But if I delegate it, that\u0026rsquo;s better for the business. So I don\u0026rsquo;t have any reservations about using an executive assistant to liberate my time during business hours on personal stuff. Cause I think it\u0026rsquo;s off direct benefit to the business.\nShe also reads all my emails before I read them. So my inbox, I don\u0026rsquo;t reach. She takes about 10% of it and puts it into what\u0026rsquo;s called the important emails. And I tell all my staff, if you have, if you\u0026rsquo;re writing an email and my name does not appear at the front of the email, or you have a specific action item for me, I\u0026rsquo;m not reading the.\nYou\u0026rsquo;re just say, seeing me for comfort and I don\u0026rsquo;t have time to kind of be checking on what your work is and whether you\u0026rsquo;re doing it well, you know, your authority, you know, your limits in terms of what you can do without referring back to me. And if it\u0026rsquo;s not urgent, you have a meeting with me weekly, raise it, then don\u0026rsquo;t write me an email.\nI\u0026rsquo;m not interested in background. So I just say, if I\u0026rsquo;m being CC\u0026rsquo;d, I\u0026rsquo;m not reading. You have to specifically ask for an action item. For me, that happens. It goes into my important emails. If I feel that should not have been an email, it should have been raised in a meeting I\u0026rsquo;ll just politely and gently remind you to have brought me emails that I\u0026rsquo;d have time to read them.\nIf this can wait for the weekly meeting, batch your questions and ask them to meet at the weekly meeting. So there\u0026rsquo;s some things that I think are important. I think emails are a distraction. I encourage people to communicate with me through WhatsApp. And the reason for that is they then become briefer.\nThey, they WhatsApp because of the size of the text box. It subliminally encourages you to chunk your thoughts into sentences. That are short and sharp. And then I can literally respond to each component of your thoughts by, by responding to each sentence separately. And so I tell people unless you\u0026rsquo;ve got like a really detailed memo, in which case I think you should present it to me at a meeting where I can ask your questions.\nYou should just send me text messages through WhatsApp. That\u0026rsquo;s all I\u0026rsquo;m interested. Yeah. So unfortunately email encourages people to write three pages, two pages. I don\u0026rsquo;t have the time to read two pages. So I say do that with the rest of the people who like reading emails. That\u0026rsquo;s not my gig.\nJames: Yeah. Yeah.\nBoundaries on Your Time # James: That\u0026rsquo;s cool. I mean, for me, I\u0026rsquo;m picking up a lot of things that even just like your really strong boundaries around your time, like, there\u0026rsquo;s a really, like, something\u0026rsquo;s got to be quite valuable to sort of get, get through the barrier, you know, get through that boundary. And I think that\u0026rsquo;s, that\u0026rsquo;s really important\nAdam: Yeah, it\u0026rsquo;s not rude by the way, to police your time.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s important to let your listeners know that it\u0026rsquo;s not rude to police the boundaries of your time. It\u0026rsquo;s actually an act of kindness to them and to you and to the. It\u0026rsquo;s just, don\u0026rsquo;t be gruff or rude about doing it. I\u0026rsquo;d tried to be always soft and delivery, but hard on content. And the, the point that I would make on policing your time is if people don\u0026rsquo;t get the sense that your time is super valuable commodity, then you\u0026rsquo;re sending the wrong signal to the world.\nThey should immediately feel that when they\u0026rsquo;re handling your time, they\u0026rsquo;re handling something super valuable. So, when a meeting ends early, if the content is early, I go, are we finished? Okay. So can I now leave just because it\u0026rsquo;s a half an hour meeting, if we\u0026rsquo;ve done it in 15 minutes. Fantastic. If I can hop out 15 minutes early and make a couple of phone calls when my wife calls me, I almost always answer.\nOr tell her that I\u0026rsquo;ll call her shortly back, but I\u0026rsquo;ll let her know I\u0026rsquo;m in a meeting. Is it important and show she\u0026rsquo;d? My wife during business hours never has a relaxed conversation with me because I\u0026rsquo;m sending her the signal that I\u0026rsquo;m on the field. I\u0026rsquo;m in the world cup. I\u0026rsquo;m playing. I don\u0026rsquo;t have time for distractions.\nSo if it\u0026rsquo;s important, tell me what it is. If it\u0026rsquo;s not, let\u0026rsquo;s wait until after the game, when I\u0026rsquo;ve got the Headspace nuts with my wife. So, you know, but I will, I\u0026rsquo;ll always take a call from my mom cause she calls me very irregularly and I worry about whether it\u0026rsquo;s she needs my. Well, she\u0026rsquo;s in a, in a, in a bad spot.\nSo, yeah, you know, you, you do need to take certain calls, but you need to be you need to be very clear with everyone who treats with your time that they\u0026rsquo;re dealing with a valuable commodity.\nJames: Yeah. Yeah. I think that\u0026rsquo;s, that\u0026rsquo;s a great pace for your boss. And I certainly, I liked how you use saying that kind of.\nYou know, reflect psych your, how you value your time, you know, and how you let other people respect your time. And thinking into intertwines, I think is really, really powerful.\nYour Life as a Fractal # James: I was rating race in my I was going through your LinkedIn and looking at all the wonderful places you have. And one of them was around you saying how the universe is a fractal and how like, you know, looking at one day is kind of almost looking at your whole year, looking at your whole life.\nAnd you know, I thought that was really profound and I, I can link this in the show notes so people can go and rate it. Cause I thought it was really fascinating. But like, what was your inspiration? You know, does this, do you remember this poster? Yeah, like what\u0026rsquo;s the sort of inspiration. I wonder if you can kind\nAdam: Of, I can guess of course I can.\nOkay. So I\u0026rsquo;m mystically inclined. So I\u0026rsquo;m very interested in transcendental meditation. The union that one gets in deeper realization that we are part of something far greater. I very much feel that my life is part of a broader tapestry. Human evolution as a species towards a higher consciousness.\nSo I see myself as part of a great adventure of raising human consciousness to a level where it feels centeredness in a peace compassion, and non-judgment so from that context of often. Very fascinated with Eastern mysticism, which has lots of repetitive patterns in the way. For example, the thousand petaled Lotus is fractal.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s a vision you get in deep meditation and it\u0026rsquo;s signifies a feeling of union with the greater a stream of consciousness, which is the, the manifested creation. So I\u0026rsquo;m an admirer of trees. I\u0026rsquo;m an admirer rough cloud. And I take lots and lots of photos of trees and clouds that are Epiphanes for me.\nEspecially when I\u0026rsquo;m exercising in the morning, I\u0026rsquo;m cycling. I\u0026rsquo;ll pause. If I see a beautiful pattern of clouds or a beautiful tree I\u0026rsquo;ll, I\u0026rsquo;ll take detailed photos, both clouds entries on fractal. They are a symbol of how the universe is constructed and from the little. Comes the big, it is the pattern of the universe.\nAnd it is absolutely the case that if you live your day disciplines in thought and action. So too, will you be your year? So two will be your your life. And so be always faithful with the little, because from the little comes, the big.\nJames: Yeah, well than that\u0026rsquo;s really profound. I think Greg great advice there.\nAdam\u0026rsquo;s Thoughts on Time Management Changing over Time # James: I think certainly I want to ask again, you know, this idea of your time management, you know, you\u0026rsquo;ve probably, you know, you\u0026rsquo;ve been talking about the executive assistant and that\u0026rsquo;s perhaps something that\u0026rsquo;s only really come into your life, perhaps in the last, you know, recent period. I\u0026rsquo;m curious to how you.\nTime management has kind of changed over time because often, you know, some people might not have that or like, you know, I\u0026rsquo;m curious to, you know, how yeah. How, yeah. How, like, how that\u0026rsquo;s changed for you. Like\nAdam: Very much the changes as you get. So as you get older and more senior and with greater responsibilities.\nSo just to give you an idea with. Um, managing, um, eight companies in some capacity. And, and I\u0026rsquo;ve got two investments on personal account that involve that are companies and three charitable foundations that I\u0026rsquo;m involved in. So there\u0026rsquo;s 13 organizations that I make a meaningful contribution to at a strategic level.\nAnd there\u0026rsquo;s a couple that I make a meaningful contribution to on an operation. So I\u0026rsquo;m always busy now. I don\u0026rsquo;t have the luxury of not thinking about one of those 13 things when I\u0026rsquo;ve got a spare moment. Cause I know I can add value. It\u0026rsquo;s really interesting life. But, but I need to obviously learn how to put boundaries on it so that my wife and my children also get access to me and vice versa.\nBut to, to mention definitely your, your attitude towards time, you Revere time more as you get more senior. So I would love to be able to say to your young listeners, treat time. As though it is super precious while you\u0026rsquo;re 23, because you will most certainly treat it a super precious when you\u0026rsquo;re my age and you\u0026rsquo;re 50.\nSo why not commence that practice, knowing that it will become a, a reality of your life. Bring it early, make it a part of your life today. And you will get so much more. I just wish I had the disciplines that I have now when I was 23. And by the way, I\u0026rsquo;ve had a PA an EA that\u0026rsquo;s been fully dedicated to me for about 10 years.\nShe\u0026rsquo;s in Manila. So it costs me a fraction of what. To hire an Australian executive assistant. I can actually afford to have two or three in Manila. And indeed I might well go down the path of getting a second executive assistant. Once I feel that the workload for the first is maxed out and it\u0026rsquo;s every bit worth the investment.\nAs soon as you can afford an executive assistant, whether it\u0026rsquo;s paid for by your business or not, you should actually invest in that because that person\u0026rsquo;s going to enable. To, to perform. I\u0026rsquo;m able literally to do two or three times the output of what my F my 35 year old self used to be able to do. And what\u0026rsquo;s that worth millions of\nJames: Dollars.\nYeah. Yeah. That\u0026rsquo;s incredible. Yeah. I don\u0026rsquo;t know. That\u0026rsquo;s a great point too, because yeah. I didn\u0026rsquo;t even think of doing that. Like having someone that\u0026rsquo;s international you know, take care of that side. Yeah, because\nAdam: Fortunately for Australians th th the we can hire at a fraction of the cost overseas, and there\u0026rsquo;s lots of jurisdictions of the Philippines because of time sign and cultural and English speaking skill.\nFaith is amazing. She\u0026rsquo;s my EA. Her English speaking skills are better than some of the Australian stuff that we\u0026rsquo;ve got. She\u0026rsquo;s absolutely fluent. She\u0026rsquo;s got a beautiful speaking voice. So when she calls our clients to set up meetings, I\u0026rsquo;m always nice. She represents the brand in a very professional way, and she has a very beautiful nature and demeanor.\nShe\u0026rsquo;s highly intelligent and a very capable support for me.\nJames: Yeah, and that\u0026rsquo;s great. And it\u0026rsquo;s great to see how much value that someone like that can provide and you like working together, you\u0026rsquo;re able to achieve so much more. It\u0026rsquo;s really exciting.\nAdam: Yeah. It\u0026rsquo;s actually, you know, one, one of the most important people in my life, actually.\nJames: Yeah. Yeah, well, I, I wanna like talk about now, you know, a bit more of the leadership side of things. Cause I know this is something you\u0026rsquo;re really passionate about is leadership and the young ladies as well. You know what, I, I know you\u0026rsquo;ve said you\u0026rsquo;ve mentors and people you know, that are sort of up and coming leaders.\nI mean, what kind of advice and tips do you often give to people that are sort of starting out on that leadership journey? Is it. You know, similar things that you often share with those kinds of people that\u0026rsquo;s you know, you know, is there any similarities?\nAdam: I mean, I, I think you\u0026rsquo;re right the same. If you look, if you look at I think LinkedIn under the store six months worth of my posts, I, I started more or less a year ago to do two or three posts a week.\nI\u0026rsquo;m now re every week, I\u0026rsquo;ll do three posts Monday, Wednesday, Friday. If you were to look at the content about 70 to 80% of it is on the. And so I\u0026rsquo;ve got, I\u0026rsquo;ve got in the hundreds of messages in terms of what I believe leadership is about. If you asked me what is near and dear to my heart, to broadcast, to an audience.\nI would say that I\u0026rsquo;m the most. The thing that\u0026rsquo;s nearest and dearest to my heart is that corporate Australia. And I think this is true of Western economies generally promote people into leadership based on public speaking and their ego, their level of outward confidence.\nTh we, we seem, it seems to be a, a glitch in the human. That it confuses leadership for public speaking ability and, and overconfidence. This is a great lament for me because over and over again, I hear about leaders who are very confident, great public speakers, but self. And self-centeredness is a disqualifier for leadership.\nLeadership is not management. Management is about how to extract efficiencies from resources. I think it applies well to innate in, objects. So it\u0026rsquo;s applied. You know well to inventory, to, to resources that are dug out of the ground. But it does not apply one. Shouldn\u0026rsquo;t manage people. One should lead people.\nAnd the reason you lead people is because they are living and, and they are Functioning at a level of consciousness that should not be confused with an object, but I\u0026rsquo;ve got human beings have feelings. They have dreams, they have aspirations and they need to be handled with wisdom and care. And sadly, if you\u0026rsquo;re self-centered you treat them as a regional.\nYou treat them as a cog in your machine? No human being as a cog in your machine. Emmanuel Kant, a philosopher German idealist philosopher in the 19th century had a categorical imperative that said that people. Not a means to an end. They are an end in themselves. And that\u0026rsquo;s one of his ethical principles.\nWhen you treat human beings, as a means to an end, you are treating them as a cog in a wheel. You\u0026rsquo;re treating them as an object. You are treating them as subservient to your dream. You could commit a category error, and therefore you are committing an unethical. You are not a leader. You can only be a leader.\nIf you treat human beings as an end in themselves, they\u0026rsquo;ve got their own dreams. They\u0026rsquo;ve got their own aspirations and they need to, you need to manage, you need to lead them by aligning the problem you want to solve with the dream. They want to attain that\u0026rsquo;s leadership. How, how to align the people that are working with you, align their dreams with the problem you\u0026rsquo;re trying to solve.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s a spiritual vocation. It cannot, you cannot turn it into like a mathematical equation designed to maximize efficiency. That\u0026rsquo;s a tool, but leadership in the end is spiritual.\nJames: Yeah. Wow. That\u0026rsquo;s what I think that\u0026rsquo;s really profound. Definitely. Yeah. I liked that a lot. What is some advice then?\nAdam thoughts on Bad Leadership advice # James: Like, I don\u0026rsquo;t know if you\u0026rsquo;re across like leadership advice generally. Is there any leadership advice that you say that is like, okay, that\u0026rsquo;s not good leadership advice, you know, I\u0026rsquo;m like, I can\u0026rsquo;t understand why people are being told this, you know, that they shouldn\u0026rsquo;t be told that it should be something else.\nIs there any bad advice that, that you\u0026rsquo;ve heard that you think is.\nAdam: I don\u0026rsquo;t tend to focus on advice that I disagree with. I, I live my life by promulgating, what I believe in, I don\u0026rsquo;t think it\u0026rsquo;s helpful to criticize other people\u0026rsquo;s work because it just simply draws out a defensive posture and, and quite often, People will say you\u0026rsquo;ve misunderstood me.\nWhat I really meant was this and so on. So my attitude is not to focus on bad advice. The one area I would say is steer away from anyone who confuses ego. And public speaking ability. It was leadership. It\u0026rsquo;s just it\u0026rsquo;s a category error. You\u0026rsquo;re making a you\u0026rsquo;re, you\u0026rsquo;re confusing, the skilled public speaking and a temperament confidence.\nYes. Good leaders are confident, but they don\u0026rsquo;t have to be overtly confident. They don\u0026rsquo;t have, certainly don\u0026rsquo;t need to have a loud ego that can have a very quiet confidence. But certainly leaders need to be confident because if they\u0026rsquo;re insecure, They\u0026rsquo;ll project their insecurities onto their onto their team.\nYeah.\nAdam on Culture Building # James: Yeah. I think that\u0026rsquo;s, that\u0026rsquo;s fascinating. Definitely. And how do you go, like you\u0026rsquo;re a lady, a self, you know, you assigned, you\u0026rsquo;re running all these companies and helping out in so many different ways. How do you go about leading and in creating that culture where, you know, High-performing striving for things that are, you know, like you said, matching their own interests with the interests of the business.\nAre there, I know it\u0026rsquo;s quite broad, but are there any things that you, you know, any like principles that you turn to, or is there any like things that. Use in that process. Of\nAdam: Course. I mean, I mean, culture building is an essential function of leadership and culture is real and culture is very impactful and culture can be defined not only what we do around here, not only how we do it, but also why we do it this way.\nAnd so once you get the, what, the, how and the why and there are absorbed at a subconscious level. It\u0026rsquo;s extremely powerful guide to behavior. And over time, people actually change in the direction of the culture in which they live. Day-to-day so never underestimate the power of culture. It\u0026rsquo;s a hugely important behavioral guide and it\u0026rsquo;s It\u0026rsquo;s very much is the Supreme function and responsibility of a leader to lead the culture.\nThere are many things that we do on a cultural level. It\u0026rsquo;s worthy of a separate interview. We\u0026rsquo;ve got about 25 different policies. We\u0026rsquo;ve experimented with about 50 of them. We\u0026rsquo;re constantly innovating on culture. How do we send the message to people that we want them to be ambitious? And we also want them to be.\nAnd that means we need them to have a gross mindset. We need them to give a damn, we need them to honor their word. We need them to take risks. We need them to give back. We need them to value relationships. And how do we instill those values is a very creative endeavor. I\u0026rsquo;m forever coming up with new ideas.\nAnd we were constantly innovating in that regard, whether it be paid sabbaticals. We\u0026rsquo;ve got, you know, milestone celebrations where we take the whole team with us overseas for 10 days. We\u0026rsquo;ve got poppy program, you know, D you know, connected to additional annual leave. We make the hobby program alternate between sporting and cultural.\nWe paid for 70% of the hobby. We encourage. To do it with a work colleague. If you do it with a work colleague will pay for a hundred percent of it. If you we, we also encourage you to do your hobby with your family and we\u0026rsquo;d pay a full 70% of that. So we\u0026rsquo;re, we\u0026rsquo;re forever looking for ways to engage our staff.\nIn life and living the inspired life, not just being a high performer at work, but we also invest in training sessions. We\u0026rsquo;ve actually got one coming up on the art of extraordinary confidence. It\u0026rsquo;s a book that I recommend to people I mentor. And we\u0026rsquo;re doing a workshop around that. So yeah, absolutely.\nI mean, culture is, it\u0026rsquo;s the stuff of leadership.\nAdam\u0026rsquo;s Recommendations # James: Yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s amazing. I\u0026rsquo;m curious, you\u0026rsquo;ve mentioned that you have a book that you recommend to people. What, are there any, what kinds of things do you recommend to people that you mentor? Is there any,\nAdam: There\u0026rsquo;s a whole battery of them. And it depends on what is the, you know, the main tasks.\nSo if you want to be good at mentoring, you have to listen deeply to what does that person need at that particular time? And it\u0026rsquo;s a bit like a chess game. So the next move depends on where all the pieces are. So the first task is to find out where all the pieces are and then find out where that person\u0026rsquo;s got a bottleneck and, and that\u0026rsquo;s where their focus what\u0026rsquo;s where their reading and podcasting should be focused on liberating.\nThe bottleneck that they\u0026rsquo;re currently experiencing, because all you\u0026rsquo;ve got to do is get the next move. Right? The next move. Yeah, but to give you an example, I mean, like for people who are interested in spiritual thoughts, I often will recommend the way of the peaceful warrior and the soliciting prophecy, which helps you understand the world energetically.\nIf, for people who are wanting to pluck the courage to start the art, the war of art for for people who are looking to develop self-esteem, self-worth confidence, the art of extraordinary confidence is a great book. And there are many others, but are just for those who are interested in leading teams, the five dysfunctions of a team is an excellent book.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s actually the cultural Bible of, of H E\nJames: Yeah. Yeah, the festival to go, Dan, I think some of those resources will be really helpful for myself and for the audience.\nWhat Adam was like in his 20\u0026rsquo;s # James: I wanna like take a step back now into like what you were like when you were a bit younger, perhaps in your twenties. And I want to ask you, you know, did you have any like transformational experiences during that period or perhaps, maybe there were some, some failures in that period that, you know, worked out well and turned out to be things that were really quite valuable for yourself.\nIs there anything that comes to.\nAdam: Yeah, of course, a lot. I mean, I would say that in my twenties I already knew that I wanted to be a successful entrepreneur, so that always helps. I often say what made Madonna and Tom cruise successful? When I look at them even when I was 20, I used to say this the reason why they\u0026rsquo;re successful is because they knew at an early age.\nWho they wanted to be and what they wanted to achieve. And when you get that clarity of vision about your life, the world bends in the direction of your vision, the clearer it is, the more certain it is, the more the world bends in your direction. So that\u0026rsquo;s the first thing in terms of early experiences like this two that spring to mind the first day.\nI had a mystical experience when I was in my twenties. I, when I met my wife, I, I literally felt there was a hand pushing me towards her and insisting that I introduced myself to her. I basically, for the first time in my life, I walked up to her not knowing her and. Introduce myself cold. And this was her just exiting law school and I accosted her and I just never, I\u0026rsquo;ve never done that before.\nI\u0026rsquo;ve never done it since. It was a totally new experience to me. I felt I was being commanded to do it. And as a result of that, I\u0026rsquo;ve been extremely open to the idea that. Much in the unseen world. And that is real. And that, that should inform a wise and inspirational life. So I\u0026rsquo;ve always made sure to feed my spiritual self as well as my business mind and my physical body and my emotional self, et cetera.\nI feel like there\u0026rsquo;s a dimension that\u0026rsquo;s spiritual that needs to be nurtured, separate. And will and should be given command of all other aspects of your life, because it is actually the wisest part of you. So I would say that\u0026rsquo;s a Seminole experience. Separately, I suffered from chronic fatigue at the age of about 21.\nI was doing my honors year in, in economics. And that basically told me two things. One is that. I felt like my spirit was taking deliberately wanting me to take time out, to reflect on the meaning of the life that I wanted to live. So it was giving me the time to reflect. Secondly it was emphasizing to me the importance of physical routine and, and friendship, because I had become a bit disconnected from my friends that moved.\nTo the next academic year, I stayed behind with a small group of people doing honors. And so I became a little bit disconnected from my social network and I was, I felt out of rhythm with my exercise. So as a result, my body sent me the signal, all this not well, but I also felt it had spiritual import as well.\nSo for me, I\u0026rsquo;m a student of. So I look for whenever I see a pattern I look for what is the cause of the pattern and what do I learn from the course? How can I then now use this knowledge to create a more positive. Hmm, it\u0026rsquo;s fractal.\nJames: Yeah. Yeah. That\u0026rsquo;s really cool. I\u0026rsquo;m loving that thread, the CSMs to character, a lot of what you do, the philosophy and the fractals and, and these kinds of things.\nI think it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s quite a unique, and it\u0026rsquo;s really fascinating to hear how that really impacts him affects a lot of the decisions or things that you do. Yeah, very cool. I want to ask you, you know, I\u0026rsquo;ve got two more questions for you.\nWhat has been Adam\u0026rsquo;s more worthwhile investment? # James: One is. What has been like, what would you say has been your most worthwhile investment of time or money and perhaps it\u0026rsquo;s a course you did, or perhaps it\u0026rsquo;s a job that you had or a book that you\u0026rsquo;ve read, or maybe it\u0026rsquo;s an experience that you have?\nAdam: In my late teens, I became deeply interested in mysticism. I re I read the Bible for the first time. From scratch the, the, the four gospels. And if you do that with a sincere heart, you encounter a real person called Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ, whatever you may think of him was an extraordinary human being and a great leader.\nHe was bold. He was a great communicator, amazing communicator. He was decisive. He was purposefully. And I think because I got acquainted with him and was inspired by him, I would say that is probably the most significant investment of time that I\u0026rsquo;ve made in any particular task or book. Because it\u0026rsquo;s foundational.\nAnd to this day I draw inspiration from his life and his behavior and his mission and his principles. And I think it\u0026rsquo;s really important whether it\u0026rsquo;s Christ or someone else. I mean, I\u0026rsquo;m also very deeply inspired by my HUD by Ganti. His, his he\u0026rsquo;s my hero of the 20th century followed closely by Nelson Mandela and Einstein.\nThey\u0026rsquo;re three amazing people. And I read biographies, autobiographies. I read quotations from their journals. I\u0026rsquo;m constantly looking to learn from them because I think they\u0026rsquo;re amazing human beings.\nJames: Yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s really cool. Definitely. I think like, you know, people like that, that you know, have done amazing things are really worth investigating further.\nAdam: Yeah. And not also recommend to go for your listeners if they haven\u0026rsquo;t watched it. Watch the 1981 Mo movie at one an Oscar for best film called Ghana. So Ben Kingsley is act scanty and he\u0026rsquo;s so good in that role that you literally forget that he\u0026rsquo;s an actor and you, you literally start feeling it\u0026rsquo;s Gandy himself.\nAnd whenever I feel I\u0026rsquo;m a native inspiration, I watched that movie, the power of a person one individual with, with, with principles and, and a desire and, and, and the ticket sacrifice for the principal.\nJames: Yeah. Yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s great. Yeah. I\u0026rsquo;ll have to give it a watch.\nAdam: Should watch it. It\u0026rsquo;s an amazing movie.\nYou need a couple hours. Okay.\nAdam\u0026rsquo;s Advice for Graduates # James: Sure. And I\u0026rsquo;ve got one last question for you Adam, just to finish off. And that is, you know, a lot of the listeners here are younger that they\u0026rsquo;re perhaps starting their careers or in the first few years of that career. And I wonder if there\u0026rsquo;s any advice. Or any lessons that you would, you know, even thinking back to your own experience at that time, any advice that you would give yourself if you in, in those in that position again?\nAdam: Yeah. Yeah. I think dream, dream, big people that it takes just as much effort to achieve big, big goals as it does small ones. So might as well dream pig and, and make sure you. Believe in yourself. So I\u0026rsquo;m going to write a series of micro blogs on self-belief because it\u0026rsquo;s becoming apparent to me that a number of people that are beginning on the entrepreneurial journey they, they just need to increase their self-belief and self-belief means no matter what happens, no matter what task or.\nUp to the task equal to an up to the task. This is a type of self-worth this type of self belief and is, is absolutely indispensable to success. And then I would just say, go out and find a mentor or two, you know, I have two or three at any given time. And I mentor about six or seven because I believe the world is a big circle.\nSo you, when you\u0026rsquo;re receiving, you need to give. And then the universe keeps giving you more and more mentors if you\u0026rsquo;re mentoring others. And so I would definitely say you know, believe in yourself, dream big and surround yourself by one or two wise mentors. And go for walks in the park with them and put the problems of the week in front of them and ask them what they think you should do.\nAnd if you do that often enough, you\u0026rsquo;ll gain a lot of.\nJames: Yeah, I think that\u0026rsquo;s great advice. Certainly. It\u0026rsquo;s been fascinating chatting to you today, Adam uh, some uh, and value in he, I think for people around productivity, leadership and all those kinds of things we\u0026rsquo;ve discussed if someone is listening and I want to find out more about yourself and more about what you do, is it w where would you like people to go to find out more?\nAdam: My LinkedIn profile is the only place where I\u0026rsquo;ve played. About business in time, I will, I\u0026rsquo;ll also set up a separate log on spirituality and philosophy because I think they are hugely valuable in guiding a human life. But I haven\u0026rsquo;t begun that yet. It\u0026rsquo;s a separate website that I\u0026rsquo;ll set up. So my LinkedIn profile, Adam Gohari at each.\nAnd you can also find out a bit about EG by visiting the EG website, eg.com that I use. You\u0026rsquo;ll find out a little bit about our thinking, which is building good thinking how to integrate philosophical principles into the very fabric of your business.\nJames: Great. Thanks so much for sharing that with Austin.\nThanks so much for your time.\nAdam: It\u0026rsquo;s been a pleasure meeting you.\nOutro # James: Thanks so much for listening to this episode I\u0026rsquo;ll hope you got something out of it. And I certainly did. If you haven\u0026rsquo;t already please consider subscribing to the Graduate Theory newsletter. You get the episode and my takeaways straight to your inbox every single week.\nThanks so much for listening again today. And I look forward to seeing you in the next episode.\n← Back to episode 20\n","date":"7 March 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/graduate-theory/20-on-time-management-and-leadership-with-adam-geha/transcript/","section":"Graduate Theory Transcripts","summary":"← Back to episode 20\nThis transcript has been lightly edited for readability. It may still contain transcription errors.\nAdam: It seems to be a, a glitch in the human. That it confuses leadership for public speaking ability and, and overconfidence\n","title":"Transcript: On Time Management and Leadership with Adam Geha","type":"graduate-theory-transcripts"},{"content":" Watch the conversation Graduate Theory Open YouTube ↗ Read the full transcript → Hello Graduates!\nThis week we present #19 of Graduate Theory. On designing and side-hustling.\nIf you\u0026rsquo;re not already growing your career, subscribe now so you never miss a beat 👇\nSubscribe Now\nPenny Talalak is a UX/UI Designer @ BCG Digital Ventures, Freelancer, Speaker \u0026amp; Mentor.\n👇 Episode Takeaways # Speed is Key # Productivity is an ever-present problem.\nIt seems that we are always looking for ways to fit more in our days, to achieve more than we currently are.\nPenny explained to me that a major reason why she is able to do so much is that she makes fast decisions.\nDoing things very fast, that minimizes decision making time, if you decide something very slow, your life will probably be slow. If I want to do something, I\u0026rsquo;d do it straight away.\nPowerful people can quickly convert thoughts into reality.\nIncrease your power, make decisions faster.\nFail Fast to Learn Fast # Failure is seen as a bad thing.\nWe don\u0026rsquo;t want to fail because that would mean we didn\u0026rsquo;t succeed. We will look bad in front of our colleagues like we are not capable of doing a good job.\nIn reality, failure is the seed of all success. Every person that has succeeded has also failed.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s the learnings that come from failing that are powerful. The more we fail, the more we learn.\nit\u0026rsquo;s always better to fail faster. So then you learn faster as well, right?\nFail fast, learn fast and eventually, succeed.\nYou only have to be right one time - Mark Cuban\nThink Deeper # When completing tasks, we can often fail to understand why the task is being completed.\nDuring the conversation with Penny, we spoke about the example of designing a logo for a business. On the surface, it\u0026rsquo;s a simple task.\nThe company wants a new logo, we design one, job done.\nBut here, we have made a mistake. We failed to deeply understand the problem.\nBy failing to think deeper, we are providing a surface-level solution to a problem that is much broader than we anticipated.\nUnderstanding what a logo means to a business, how it affects their customers and their culture, the psychology behind a good design, can be what takes your work from good to great.\nYou can design, I can design, everyone can design a website. Right. But what people don\u0026rsquo;t realise is the psychology behind it.\nUncover the reason why something needs to be done, and realise the benefits.\nGet the Newsletter\n🤝 Connect with Penny # https://pennytalalak.github.io/\nhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/pennytalalak\n📝 Show Notes\n00:00 Penny Talalak\n00:00 Intro\n01:03 Penny\u0026rsquo;s First Side Hustle\n05:22 Commonalities in Penny\u0026rsquo;s Side Hustles\n08:07 Where Penny did Market Research\n09:23 What Penny Includes in Market Research\n11:40 Penny\u0026rsquo;s Current Market Research Method\n12:57 The Balance Between Market Research and Action\n15:14 Failing Fast\n17:48 Interests in the business Idea\n21:15 Penny\u0026rsquo;s Thoughts on Time Management\n27:45 Penny\u0026rsquo;s Time Management Tips\n31:13 The 5 Best Friends Rule\n33:29 Penny\u0026rsquo;s Thoughts on Becoming a Designer\n38:43 Attributes of Designing that Penny thinks are under-rated\n42:39 Penny\u0026rsquo;s Favourite Failure\n47:57 Penny\u0026rsquo;s Advice for Graduates\n50:59 Contact Penny\n52:38 Outro\n","date":"28 February 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/graduate-theory/19-on-designing-a-successful-side-hustle-with-penny-talalak/","section":"Graduate Theory","summary":" Watch the conversation Graduate Theory Open YouTube ↗ Read the full transcript → Hello Graduates!\nThis week we present #19 of Graduate Theory. On designing and side-hustling.\n","title":"On Designing a Successful Side Hustle with Penny Talalak","type":"graduate-theory"},{"content":"← Back to episode 19\nThis transcript has been lightly edited for readability. It may still contain transcription errors.\nIntro # James: Hello, and welcome to Graduate Theory. My guest today is a UX UI designer at BCG digital ventures.\nShe\u0026rsquo;s a freelance speaker and a mentor outside of working full time. If she sells t-shirts does food photography writes blogs and research has crypto known for turning hobbies into businesses. Please welcome the side hustle queen penny to allow.\nPenny: I love that injury.\nJames: Welcome to\nPenny: Like put a smile on my\nJames: Yeah. I, I don\u0026rsquo;t know if it was good, like it, I bet. Yeah. I must be a good wisely guest getting someone like saying all these nice things about you. I don\u0026rsquo;t know. It must, must\u0026rsquo;ve been so\nPenny: I think he\u0026rsquo;s just made me realize, like, that is a lot of being that I do. I\u0026rsquo;m just having someone said it all in one sentence. I\u0026rsquo;m just like, I need a.\nJames: Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Well, yeah, we know you\u0026rsquo;re a very, very busy young woman and you know, like you said, you\u0026rsquo;ve got a lot of things going on. And I\u0026rsquo;d love to touch on that at some point through this conversation,\nPenny\u0026rsquo;s First Side Hustle # James: But I want to take things back to start off with about, and talk about your experience with side.\nIt was in, you know, doing things outside of uni or work, whatever. And perhaps we can go back to your first experience with a sod house. And I\u0026rsquo;m curious to know, you know, what, what did you end up doing? Like what were you selling all and how old were you even kind of have that, that sort of counter that.\nPenny: Sure. So my first side hustles, some people might notice or might not know this was that.\nI used to sew juries when I was 17 years old. And I started when when I went back to Thailand during. The long, long, long holiday, you know, between your 12 and starting first year uni, it was like four months off.\nAnd because I was in Thailand, I didn\u0026rsquo;t have like a part-time job, but everyone was doing like a summer school or such. I was really bored. So I wanted to sell something and I was young. I didn\u0026rsquo;t go through like a full process of defining the problems or what are the user\u0026rsquo;s needs. Wanted to make juries.\nSo I didn\u0026rsquo;t really research that there was a need for it, but it was creativity and I love making things. So I started with making juries like bracelets, necklace handmade and got materials from Thailand. So it was very convenient for me to start off. The hustle and I didn\u0026rsquo;t mark it as much. I just pose on Instagram and, you know, always the first customer is friends and family.\nAnd from there, cause I started Instagram account. I\u0026rsquo;m already in Thailand, so I started a website for him and did some website design. I wasn\u0026rsquo;t a designer back then as well. So my design wasn\u0026rsquo;t as great, but I just needed something to do. I knew my cell, what I loved doing was selling. I love talking. I love I wouldn\u0026rsquo;t say like persuading people to buy stuff, but marketing, I love doing those kinds of things like advocating for what I love doing. That\u0026rsquo;s one thing. So you\u0026rsquo;ve got to believe in your products, so then you can sell them. And I love my products. I was really encouraging people to buy my juries. That\u0026rsquo;s what I\u0026rsquo;m good at. If I was to do sales, probably not. So Yeah.\nI really have to love the products to do it. Yeah. And I did it for three years.\nFast forward on. I started doing engineering. At university, I really wanted to be an engineer because it was kind of the early occupation that I knew, you know, that has the reputation apart from doctors, lawyers, accountants, like yep. Everyone knew what engineering was. So I started to doing engineering.\nI wasn\u0026rsquo;t really good at maths or physics as well. I just did it for the sake of that.\nSo I started before uni and then I kept doing it while studying engineering, which was tough. I was struggling in class as well as struggling to sell juries. I was just struggling in general and like nothing was going good. So I wanted to change the degree. It was either choose engineering or choose to go business side.\nI wanted to change to commerce, and I thought about it every single day. I work up and I thought, do I need a commerce degree to be an entrepreneur? Do I need a commons degree for another three years to have a business where I already have a business. And I kept asking myself this, and maybe I do marketing.\nMaybe I do design. Maybe I do like entrepreneurship. Cause so I ended up not doing it and dropping engineering and going into a design degree because engineering just wasn\u0026rsquo;t working. But during university that you want us w was really into startups and business vibe. So I had a lot of ideas that was really frustrating me because I was struggling in engineering.\nAnd so as my, my friends and I wish I knew that engineering wasn\u0026rsquo;t for me before I got into engineering. So I had a lot of a lot of ideas, like how can we. Future future students, future university students realize that passion and what the degree was like. So I started applying, you know, just ideas, competition, startup competition, like pitching competitions and just writing my ideas down without, you know, business plan or business model.\nI just had an idea cause it all started with an idea, right. And actually a little bit, the problem is that I would my frustrations and then I started actually researching into it. Like, is it just me? Or is this\nCommonalities in Penny\u0026rsquo;s Side Hustles # James: Has that been, has that been a problem? Like a, a common thing? Cause I know, you know, you, you, you said you\u0026rsquo;re doing the jewelry and there\u0026rsquo;s other things that you\u0026rsquo;ve done like, the time as that being a common thing where you kind of, it\u0026rsquo;s been a problem for yourself and then you\u0026rsquo;ve been like, okay, perhaps this is a problem for other people.\nAnd then it\u0026rsquo;s kind of started that way. Would you say that\u0026rsquo;s the case?\nPenny: Yes. Always thought a with me for, I was like, I\u0026rsquo;m always the problem. And then I kind of thought, am I alone? There\u0026rsquo;s got to be someone out there who is experiencing the same. So we\u0026rsquo;ll never, I come across a problem. That\u0026rsquo;s like a big issue that I see that maybe I\u0026rsquo;m not alone. I always do surveys and I would actually send out surveys, my friend, who, if they listening to this right now, So, well, and they\u0026rsquo;re so sick of my surveys and I make them do it.\nSo each surveys that I sent out usually get about like a hundred response, some of them that I would really need the response. I would push for it and get about 600 like surveys. I would just mourn for getting surveys. And so I have a lot of data on. The weakness was that I don\u0026rsquo;t know how to do data analysis.\nSo I just have a lot of raw data that I do, and I just read through it and just analyze it manually. And I found out it was a problem. And when you have the data back up, you are likely to be able to pitch it and use that data to tell the people, tell the investors that this is the problem. 600 people are facing something like that.\nOh, it helps a lot. And I was entering through these competitions. I pitched through it. I made people vote for me. And yeah, so it was more of like a startup without startup. Like obviously these ideas didn\u0026rsquo;t get through. It was just an idea. And I was, Yeah.\nUntil one of them reach out to me like one of the investment, like VC, like ventures they\u0026rsquo;ll have, oh, we really like your idea, but we\u0026rsquo;re happy to help you build it out and make it come to life.\nAnd I was so excited. Wow. My ideas coming to life, it\u0026rsquo;s like an app design and their proposal was about if we are going to do an app design for you, it caused about 10,000. And I was 19 years old and I\u0026rsquo;m like, no. way I don\u0026rsquo;t have $10,000. Yeah.\nno, thank you. I\u0026rsquo;ll just keep my ideas to myself. That idea now is actually be my existed.\nLike I say it out bad, like someone\u0026rsquo;s did it. And I was like, oh man, I could have done. It could have been made,\nJames: Oh,\nPenny: But I met the co-founder. I was like, oh, you know, five years ago I did the research on it. I was something like. It\u0026rsquo;s so common now. And on so many people are solving like similar problems that I went through, which is like bridging the gap between high school and university and choosing like the right degrees and such.\nSo that, wasn\u0026rsquo;t my big passion\nJames: Yeah.\nPenny: And now so many business does it.\nWhere Penny did Market Research # James: I\u0026rsquo;m curious, like you, you\u0026rsquo;re saying you went and did surveys and you got all that data and stuff. Like where did you go to get that? Is that just something that you posted on Facebook, like social media, different things, or is it, did you actually go into a specific place, like a specific community for that problem or something like that?\nPenny: So that one, because it was a problem, like, you know, high school and university students changing degrees and not knowing what they want to do. I spin it out to like you and SW discussion. And that?\npage alone has about 10,000 people. And then I had people posting, posting on Facebook and I also did for high school as well.\nSo a lot of my friends were tutoring high school. I just sent them out to them. I was tutoring as well. So I made my students do it and just sent them like, it was a lot of data. I was like, that\u0026rsquo;s why I reach about 600 of them. And Yeah. mainly Facebook. Yeah.\nPretty much direct message. So when it comes to surveys like bees, yes, I do posts on Facebook, but I always direct message people.\nSo that\u0026rsquo;s why, like my friends know me very, I was like, oh, another survey for penny, but I keep it really short and really smart so that it\u0026rsquo;s not like a boring surveys. So that\u0026rsquo;s why.\nWhat Penny Includes in Market Research # James: Yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s good. I was going to ask it. Yeah, that was going to be my next question was like, what\u0026rsquo;s the structure like? Cause it sounds like you\u0026rsquo;ve done a few of these and have kind of worked out perhaps what the best way is to do it. And yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s interesting if you keep it short and maybe the questions are quite you know, you have, I guess a pretty good think about the questions you want to ask.\nCause you don\u0026rsquo;t get that many to ask. Yeah. Is that like, how do you go about doing that?\nPenny: So, this is like when I was 18 doing surveys anonymously, like probably what\u0026rsquo;s made me a UX designer right now asking questions and interviewing people. I wouldn\u0026rsquo;t have known that I was a survey or back in the day the type of questions I usually keep within less than 30 minutes, something that you can do fast, where you can just answer.\nBullet points, not bullet points like boxes. I always use Google form because it\u0026rsquo;s cheap and it\u0026rsquo;s free. I\u0026rsquo;m sorry. Cause it\u0026rsquo;s actually phrased. So that\u0026rsquo;s one and the questions they actually quite long, but because the way that you introduced the questions, people start, people stop realizing the time and they just keep answering the questions because then it becomes like, oh, you know, I actually.\nI came across that problem. Like, I\u0026rsquo;m actually angry about it and completing the surveys and because you\u0026rsquo;re already halfway through, I think most people would just kind of finish it and always keeping it like one minute, like, you know, introduction. You\u0026rsquo;ve got like the classic never asked for the name.\nThat\u0026rsquo;s one thing and never asked for gender. I think like age range, I don\u0026rsquo;t think that\u0026rsquo;s kind of necessary as part, like you try to. amount of personal information as much as possible. So for me, like I had a year, or like, what are your in uni of years? Like that\u0026rsquo;s easy and try to make it most tick boxes and check boxes as much as possible.\nLike really. Typing time. So that was me because like checkboxes is quick. Right. And you can do that within seconds. So that was one, like the classic you know, what university do you go to? What year that\u0026rsquo;s like three seconds done. Next ones. Yeah.\nSo it was just like, what degree do you do? They can type that in.\nSo like do a survey, something that they already know and they don\u0026rsquo;t have to think a lot. That\u0026rsquo;s how you get people to do surveys quick and fast.\nPenny\u0026rsquo;s Current Market Research Method # James: Yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s a good point. And yeah, definitely good things to consider when you\u0026rsquo;re doing that kind of thing. Is that something, you know, you said you did them a lot when you were in university, do you like, do you, do you still do a survey or do you do like different kinds of market research now for the things that you\u0026rsquo;re doing?\nOr is it still do, do any market research or like, you know, how do you go about doing it now? Is it still survey or do you have other methods to go about it now?\nPenny: Oh, absolutely. Survey is like the easiest and cheapest way to do it now. So like type, form, easier to do, or that\u0026rsquo;s what we do at work and usually UX designers to surveys. But now we haven\u0026rsquo;t had a type of testing, which is in VAT testing, like testing with Facebook. Very easy, but very expensive, but you\u0026rsquo;ve gotta have a budget for it.\nAnd Facebook ads get a lot of data, you know, the kind of people who clicks in the kind of comments you might get, the kind of likes, like see, like who interacts with your ads. That\u0026rsquo;s another data to validate as well. But most of what I do now is probably use the interview, like actually talking to them one by one.\nSo that\u0026rsquo;s more, more intimate, but also more costly because you\u0026rsquo;re paying for their time. But also like. More detail, but less quantitative. Yeah. It\u0026rsquo;s more quarterly.\nThe Balance Between Market Research and Action # James: Yeah, Cheryl Ann, how do you think about the kind of balance between market research and then just doing something because you\u0026rsquo;re interested in it, because this is certainly a point where you can sit and do market research. You know, for ages and then not actually do the thing. Right. So how do you think about that?\nYou know, particularly thinking about some of the, some of the sun hustles you have at the moment, like, what do you think the right balance is between, you know, researching the market and then actually.\nPenny: This is a tough one, right? Because a lot of people, when they want to start something, they do so much research. And a great example is like selling things on Amazon, Amazon FBA, or like, starting an e-commerce business, studying whatever business you are, you do a lot of research and that\u0026rsquo;s fine. Like I do research too, but for me it\u0026rsquo;s all about, I\u0026rsquo;m a very practice person.\nLike this depends on type of people. You are like, you know, there will be a risk taker person, and then there will be like the risk of. Type, and that\u0026rsquo;s fine. Just one might be faster than the other one might fail faster than the other, but it\u0026rsquo;s always better to fail faster. So then you learn faster as well, right?\nWarrior\u0026rsquo;s like one might do so much research. No, exactly right or wrong. But when you put it into practice, it\u0026rsquo;s different or you maybe watching so many hours of Amazon FBA video. And I still watch it every day and it\u0026rsquo;s like, so using. And then when you actually do it, it\u0026rsquo;s different, right? Like that\u0026rsquo;s every video that you watch, like yes, you get an idea.\nBut as long as I think starting is a difficult one, even like creating an account would be a great start, but not many people realize that. So just taking like small step forward for me. I think that designers do have the advantage, but when I wasn\u0026rsquo;t a designer the way that I validate my ideas is just talking to. So I that\u0026rsquo;s part of market research already talking to friends, like maybe like five people. Once you get five and you see that it\u0026rsquo;s not really worth anymore. Like the ideas is probably like been existed. That\u0026rsquo;s when you stop.\nJames: Yeah. Yeah. That\u0026rsquo;s cool. That\u0026rsquo;s interesting. Cause yeah, I know that you\u0026rsquo;ve kind of built up based kind of, You know, who is sticks or like, you know, kinds of ways of doing things over time, because I know you did plenty of this stuff with that.\nFailing Fast # James: So that\u0026rsquo;s really interesting, but you mentioned something there about failing fast and, you know, kind of, if something\u0026rsquo;s not going to work, you should find out quite soon.\nI wonder if there\u0026rsquo;s been periods in your life and, you know, side hustles that you\u0026rsquo;ve tried where, you know, where\u0026rsquo;s the balance there as well between. It\u0026rsquo;s just early days, it\u0026rsquo;s still working on improving it, but you know, I\u0026rsquo;ll continue on versus like, it\u0026rsquo;s not going to work. I\u0026rsquo;ll stop. Like, I\u0026rsquo;m curious if you have any thoughts on like, when it\u0026rsquo;s time to stop versus like when it\u0026rsquo;s time to push through people, not liking it.\nCause it\u0026rsquo;s going to be good. One that, you know, that kind of balance there. I mean, yeah. Do you have any.\nPenny: Oh, there\u0026rsquo;s so many side hustles and business that is like at the back of my bed is just solid, like stacking up of ideas that I want to do this. I want to do that. But you got to remember like having a startup, I\u0026rsquo;m having your own. You really have to dedicate and worship it for like the rest of your life.\nThat\u0026rsquo;s when you know, it\u0026rsquo;s accessible. And I thought to myself, like, I don\u0026rsquo;t think I am passionate enough about this, or I don\u0026rsquo;t think I am liking this as much as like, I\u0026rsquo;ll probably like it at that moment. And then when I realized long-term like, are you really passionate about this? I\u0026rsquo;ll probably get bought like the next day already.\nAnd that\u0026rsquo;s when I realized, like to see. About it. But I did go through like a process, you know, the initial process, probably like talking to friends and seeing if there\u0026rsquo;s already something out there this should take like about half a day. Like you shouldn\u0026rsquo;t be like a week thing, like half a day, or maybe like just one day, just talking to different people, see what they think.\nAnd pretty much like that should already validate like some validation to your ideas. And if you see that\u0026rsquo;s an actual problem. That\u0026rsquo;s when I start like looking for competitors, if there\u0026rsquo;s already a solution out there and what are people using? And if there\u0026rsquo;s already a solution out there, it\u0026rsquo;s like, oh, should I really bother making a solution for it?\nBecause if like, let\u0026rsquo;s say Uber eats, right. And there\u0026rsquo;s another delivery app that I want to make. And there\u0026rsquo;s so many delivery apps right there. You have to be so passionate about delivering. no comment for like five, 10 years to beat Uber about it, Uber eats. And that\u0026rsquo;s just something that I am not ready.\nAnd that\u0026rsquo;s when I know before I even start that I\u0026rsquo;m not going to Yeah.\nJames: Yeah. Yeah. And that\u0026rsquo;s interesting too, like having your personal interest. As part of the thing that you\u0026rsquo;re doing, how do you think about that?\nInterests in the business Idea # James: Like, would you ever do something that, you know, you weren\u0026rsquo;t interested in, but it was a good business idea or is it like, or do you kind of, you know, you kind of noticed straightaway like, Hey, this is a cool idea, but I\u0026rsquo;m not like into that.\nSo like I\u0026rsquo;m not going to do it, you know? W what are your, how do you think.\nPenny: Oh, there\u0026rsquo;s so many ideas, right? That I think.\nit\u0026rsquo;d be great idea, but I\u0026rsquo;m not too passionate to actually do it. And I just hope that someone out there is fixing this one day. So I feel like ideas should actually be transparent and should be shared around the world because there\u0026rsquo;s no such thing that you can IP an idea.\nLike that\u0026rsquo;s stupid. Like you just say a word it\u0026rsquo;s like IP in a sense. So like, yes, you can Peyton a business idea, but you got to have a good full business plan about it. You know, when it comes to. Brainstorming, no one\u0026rsquo;s going to pay to the stickies or whatever they do. Like it costs a lot and who\u0026rsquo;s going to bother doing that.\nAnd if you\u0026rsquo;re actually going to bother doing that, you already waste so much time and money might as well just make an idea. So there\u0026rsquo;s a lot of people who are tight, like very conservative of their own ideas on how things work and solution. And I try to kind of encourage people to be more open about, you know, the ideas, you know, it doesn\u0026rsquo;t mean. That people are stealing ideas. Like so many people are talking about, or no, you stole my idea, like delivery room is the same as Menulog and also the same as Uber eats. So they still successful. Right. It\u0026rsquo;s still business. And I think like, yes, if you\u0026rsquo;re going to have a business and it\u0026rsquo;s already exist out there, I don\u0026rsquo;t think that should be.\nA stopping point. If you\u0026rsquo;re passionate about it, I just wasn\u0026rsquo;t passionate about it. I wasn\u0026rsquo;t like bothered to actually compete with Uber eats, but there will be some people who are bothered and very passionate about food delivery to come up with a new business idea, like milk run. For example, there was like a new business idea with like, I don\u0026rsquo;t even know a scalable business model that doesn\u0026rsquo;t scale.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s only like working in red fund Eastern suburbs doesn\u0026rsquo;t even deliver. So that kind of business idea that I feel like you need to really be bothered about it and passionate about it to build something. Hmm.\nJames: Yeah, I think that\u0026rsquo;s great. Great advice. You\nPenny: I list you have a lot of money to just throw out of high someone to do it. It\u0026rsquo;s like, yep. I acquired that and I sold it to other\nJames: Yeah.\nPenny: Easy.\nJames: That\u0026rsquo;s yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s a good point too, but I think that\u0026rsquo;s interesting. Yeah. Like your personal interest, it takes quite a high priority in the things that you do. Cause yeah, I guess that\u0026rsquo;s, what\u0026rsquo;s going to be carrying you over the long-term as well. If you like, if you\u0026rsquo;re not interested in it. And then even though it might be a good idea.\nYeah. Is it really worth doing that? If you\u0026rsquo;re just going to get bored, like pretty quickly?\nPenny: Well, you made a great point, right? It\u0026rsquo;s like, I don\u0026rsquo;t like doing this, but I make a lot of money and it\u0026rsquo;s a great thing. Oh, you\u0026rsquo;ll never be happy with it. I think at that point you will then realize that money doesn\u0026rsquo;t make you happy.\nJames: Hmm. Yeah.\nPenny: It\u0026rsquo;s always a saying.\nJames: We had, that\u0026rsquo;s a good point.\nthanks for listening to this episode of Graduate Theory. If you haven\u0026rsquo;t already subscribed to the Graduate Theory newsletter you can do so by at the links in the show notes, the Graduate Theory newsletter comes out every single Tuesday morning with my thoughts and lessons from each episode.\nBut without further ado, let\u0026rsquo;s get back into it.\nPenny\u0026rsquo;s Thoughts on Time Management # James: Perhaps we can talk a bit now I\u0026rsquo;m interested to hear your thoughts on sort of time management and productivity, as you think about doing these things on the side. Cause obviously you\u0026rsquo;re working full time at the moment and then you\u0026rsquo;ve got, I\u0026rsquo;m not even sure how many things on the side at the moment, but it\u0026rsquo;s quite a few\nyou know, I\u0026rsquo;m interested to hear, you know, how you go about managing your time and how you think about productivity.\nYou know, do you have a kind of a system that you follow, whether it\u0026rsquo;s, you know, like, do you have like your calendar, like fully planned out or do you know, are you put more of it? Just do what I feel like doing. I\u0026rsquo;m curious to hear like how you actually think about managing.\nPenny: Yeah.\nSo I would say like a lot of people know him as a very. Time management structure, plan person. When people want to see me, you have to book me in like two weeks in advance or I would be, I would know what I\u0026rsquo;m doing every single weekend. So there will be some months like February. I know what I\u0026rsquo;m doing up until like the NFV and next availability is like, mid-March that kind of thing.\nBut am I really that busy? Obviously know there will always be time, right? Like you\u0026rsquo;re not actually doing something eight hours a day. Like, there\u0026rsquo;ll be. You\u0026rsquo;re eating showering your on Facebook. I\u0026rsquo;m like on Facebook all the time on Instagram all the time. I have times when I post on my stories, I have time to watch Netflix. But why I\u0026rsquo;m doing these things, my mind is actually working and this comes to like multitasking and my tape spot is, is I\u0026rsquo;m sure. Replying things fast by doing things very fast and that minimizes decision making time, if you decide something very slow, your life will probably be slow, but that\u0026rsquo;s also, you know, like I\u0026rsquo;m a risk taker and I don\u0026rsquo;t really think much, like if I want to do something, I\u0026rsquo;d do it straight away.\nIf I want to reply, I reply straight away. So that\u0026rsquo;s for me, like reduced decision making in your life. And mark Zuckerberg did this. You know what he was telling us why he would always wear gray t-shirt because it reduces decision-making in his life. And the other writers stay for like five minutes to choose.\nLike when you were not like women, right. I always have two hours choosing like what I\u0026rsquo;m going to do like outside. So he made a really good point and that\u0026rsquo;s how I kinda like live through, you know, reduce your decision-making time. It doesn\u0026rsquo;t mean that you\u0026rsquo;re a risk taker and don\u0026rsquo;t make decision at all.\nLike, please don\u0026rsquo;t ever do that, but it just means that you gotta be very logical and smart in knowing if you do this, what\u0026rsquo;s the outcome. If you do this, what\u0026rsquo;s the outcome. So just, yeah.\nreduce that, like be a fast texter. That\u0026rsquo;s fine.\nJames: Yeah\nPenny: I\u0026rsquo;m always above texter, always on my phone. I\u0026rsquo;m always there for people.\nAnd one of the reason being that I\u0026rsquo;m always on my phone and be there for people is that if you\u0026rsquo;re not there every minute, you\u0026rsquo;re losing an opportunity. So taking, for example, if a friend\u0026rsquo;s upset and they texted you. not there because you\u0026rsquo;re just probably not on your phone. Maybe you\u0026rsquo;re busy or something, that\u0026rsquo;s fine. Then you\u0026rsquo;re already losing that opportunity to be, to be there for someone like to be there for her when she\u0026rsquo;s upset and she will go to other people and she will stop relying on you. And for me, like, I want to be the person who\u0026rsquo;s actually reliable and I want to create trust between people. And that\u0026rsquo;s where, like, you know, I feel like you\u0026rsquo;re being a good friend for it.\nSo that\u0026rsquo;s just, that\u0026rsquo;s more about like friendship kind of type. And then it just kind of. Grow on me that I\u0026rsquo;m just always a fast replier same as like job. Right? If, if, like, let\u0026rsquo;s say someone wants to do a website design and buy, if I\u0026rsquo;m a slow replier, I will lose that chance. And they will go to someone else who will apply like faster than you.\nSo it\u0026rsquo;s just that mentality. And that\u0026rsquo;s why, like, I\u0026rsquo;m always replying fast. Cause you gotta be first in the line and you gotta be fast in action because that will always be someone who will be above you and foster that. So, yeah, life is all about competitions and that\u0026rsquo;s like my time management. Yes. I have a calendar, but I do time box everything as well, except maybe Sunday.\nCause like I really do\nJames: Yeah,\nPenny: And I do a little more too. So that will be times where I don\u0026rsquo;t actually bring my laptop and apple watch, so I don\u0026rsquo;t get notifications and I use the way to chill, like just going out. yeah, Otherwise if I\u0026rsquo;m at home, I\u0026rsquo;m on like my laptop, like 24 7. And when I\u0026rsquo;m on my laptop, like I have three screens.\nOne screen is like work. The other screen is another work. The other screen is like another, another work. So always like looking at up and down and see what, what I need to\nJames: Yeah, well, yeah, it\u0026rsquo;s certainly, I know you\u0026rsquo;ve managed to accomplish a lot in one day, which is, which is really amazing. And I think, you know, going back to what you were saying there about the speed I\u0026rsquo;ve heard it described like once you make it, like, you know, you kind of have this feedback loop of, you know, observe REO.\nDecide act. I think it is. So you observed the situation, work out what you\u0026rsquo;re going to do. Maybe it\u0026rsquo;s less than that. Maybe it\u0026rsquo;s like, all right. Decide act, probably it will be, we\u0026rsquo;ll be fine. Like, you know, realize the situation, decide, act, and then get feedback when your decision and the quicker you can complete that loop.\nLike the quicker you can do things. So like, like what you were saying with the speed. If you finished something on, like, it took you a week to do something versus a few days or one day, then you\u0026rsquo;re able to like, Get feedback on the thing that you\u0026rsquo;ve done. So if you finished it on Monday versus like Saturday you know, then you would have the feedback, you know, mid-week versus like, you know, and then you can just see how that the loop would just speed things up quite quickly.\nSo I think that\u0026rsquo;s really interesting how you assign speed is something that\u0026rsquo;s quite important and making decisions quickly replying quickly. Yeah, I think, I think it\u0026rsquo;s really important for productivity. Yeah.\nPenny: Like for me, like I find it really easy to stop things. Like if I\u0026rsquo;m going to start a business, I\u0026rsquo;ll start it. Like in the next five minutes, if you want to start like a new idea or start like straightaway or like Gary thoughts at starting, but I find it really hard to end things. So when I start something the next day, I\u0026rsquo;ll have to think about how am I going to end this?\nAnd I break it down. And at like process, like phase one, it\u0026rsquo;s got to end phase two. It\u0026rsquo;s got to end. The my work, which is going like long, long, like this has been going on for five months. Why is it not ending? And they do tend to forget because I\u0026rsquo;m a very forward like future person. I don\u0026rsquo;t actually know like what happened in the past, which.\nPenny\u0026rsquo;s Time Management Tips # James: Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Well, I\u0026rsquo;m curious to hear, you know, what are some, if someone is working on a side hustle outside of work, are there any productivity or time management tips that you would give someone. Managing their side hustle or side hustles. In your case, you know, outside of work hours, is there any, you know, anything that\u0026rsquo;s worked well for you that you think, or any advice generally that you\u0026rsquo;d, you would give to someone in that.\nPenny: Yeah, I think. A lot of it is, I would say personality and characters. This is something that you probably can\u0026rsquo;t teach someone, right? Like motivations, ambitions yeah, time management. It\u0026rsquo;s something to practice, but a lot of people are, I think it\u0026rsquo;s the environment you\u0026rsquo;re in. So if you\u0026rsquo;re constantly with surrounding with people who.\nWho don\u0026rsquo;t have side hustles. You\u0026rsquo;re probably not going to have side hustles, but he was surrounding yourselves. He was like, you know, always like, get, go get her, have side hustles. Then you will feel like you are behind. And people don\u0026rsquo;t actually realize that until they got out of the circle and go into another circle and you feel like, wow, I am like the odd one out.\nI think some tips for me who already have side hustles. I think they know what they\u0026rsquo;re doing really well. And yes, you will have a mental breakdown. So please reach out to me. I do have mental breakdown. And it is. Okay. Yeah, some tips on this, honestly, I don\u0026rsquo;t really to have any tips. Usually it happens at Nichols.\nPeople who have side hustles don\u0026rsquo;t sleep before midnight. So yes, I will be up and I will be there for you. That\u0026rsquo;s one, but also multitasking. Just kind of set your schedule. I\u0026rsquo;m always using like Kanban board. To move things and it is so satisfying when you move things across. And so there will be some carts that will be there for months and months, and it\u0026rsquo;s annoying.\nRight. Cause you really want to move it. So where you can do is just kind of break down into like little cards. So you can just move it as like every single day because they breaking down a little task instead of having it as an own like little giant umbrella breakdown, like into step back. Even though, like you can do a step-by-step inside the car, make sure that step-by-step is like a separate card.\nSo that\u0026rsquo;s a smart way of me just moving things, because it\u0026rsquo;s a satisfaction that you\u0026rsquo;re moving. One thing to like done and it feels so good. Yeah. So that\u0026rsquo;s one I use notion for, to do lists Kanban board. And I would say I use Figma a lot to do calendar, so I\u0026rsquo;ve got a monthly calendar to see like. When things should be done for my side hustles and I have a weekly calendar.\nSo then I know like in one week what you\u0026rsquo;ve done is are on like Monday to Friday. So that\u0026rsquo;s more of like social calendar that.\nkind of\nJames: Yeah.\nPenny: So that\u0026rsquo;s how I found out. But for people who want to start side hustles, where they don\u0026rsquo;t know how that\u0026rsquo;s a hard one, because it\u0026rsquo;s about like motivation. It\u0026rsquo;s about like finding what you want to do.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s about like finding if you\u0026rsquo;re going to be passionate enough to keep up with it. Yes. You\u0026rsquo;re going to fail. But I would say the Mo the best way to get motivation is to be surrounded by the people who are doing the same thing.\nJames: Yeah, I think that\u0026rsquo;s, that\u0026rsquo;s good advice. It\u0026rsquo;s that whole thing, you know, surround yourself with like, you\u0026rsquo;re, you\u0026rsquo;re the average of your five best friends and even the surrounding yourself with people you want to be like all that kind of stuff I think\nPenny: Is\nThe 5 Best Friends Rule # Penny: That true with the five best friends? Like what if you only have like less than five?\nJames: Think, I think, yeah, the way I interpret that quote is. You fought best friends is maybe let\u0026rsquo;s say your closest friend probably has the biggest impact. And then it kind of goes down as like you\u0026rsquo;ll, the closeness goes down. And so then it\u0026rsquo;s almost the sum of all your inputs. And five is maybe just a good number to pick, but really, I think it\u0026rsquo;s the sum of everything.\nSo it\u0026rsquo;s like who your friends are, who your parents. You know, what\u0026rsquo;s kind of things. Do you watch on TV? Like, what are you actually use? Like, what do you actually use a time with? Like what kind of, what kind of outside things are coming into your environment and all those things together is going to either is going to really shape your motivation and your thoughts on things.\nAnd, you know, the five best friends is maybe yeah, a good way of, and the simple way of like, visualizing or understanding that. But I think for me, it\u0026rsquo;s more than just your friends. Like, obviously they\u0026rsquo;re important. I think it\u0026rsquo;s more, even the sum of like all those things coming in. Like, what are you watching?\nPenny: Yeah.\nJames: You listening to? What are you even doing with your time? Cause I think that even in itself is a, you know, it\u0026rsquo;s something that can, can help. Yeah, that, that\u0026rsquo;s the way I understand it, but I think, I think it is quite accurate because if you, if you look at someone. Doing like doing something, whether it\u0026rsquo;s even for me, like a lot of the guys that like I\u0026rsquo;m friends with other people doing podcasts, which makes it easier for me to do mine.\nLike if I was just doing it by myself, I didn\u0026rsquo;t even know anyone else doing it, then it would be a white Honda. And I\u0026rsquo;m sure for you as well, like you probably know people that like support you and you know, doing it like similarly, you know, cool stuff. Maybe a\nPenny: I am slightly different from my best friends.\nJames: Really.\nPenny: Yeah. The thing is like, I, I have multiple groups of friends for different purpose, which sounds really bad. But for me, If I have, like, let\u0026rsquo;s say 10 groups of friends by the time I get to the first one, I will see them like the next three months. So it\u0026rsquo;s like a rotation, which is it, which sounds really bad.\nBut yeah, just kind of think of that. It was like an interesting one. Five was his friends and I\u0026rsquo;m nothing like my five closest friends.\nJames: Hmm. That\u0026rsquo;s interesting. Maybe it doesn\u0026rsquo;t like then maybe it\u0026rsquo;s in me.\nPenny: Like maybe it has.\nJames: Yeah. That\u0026rsquo;s so funny.\nPenny\u0026rsquo;s Thoughts on Becoming a Designer # James: Well, I want to ask some questions around to your career as a designer because I know that\u0026rsquo;s something. Yeah. That\u0026rsquo;s something you do really well. And you\u0026rsquo;re working with a fantastic company and I want to understand more like how.\nYou got into the field of design and kind of what traits I know you mentor people in this space too. So I\u0026rsquo;m interested to hear, you know, what, if someone listening is into design and they want to become a designer like yourself, you know, what are some things that I can do to help them get into this field and even like grow their skills in this area.\nI\u0026rsquo;m interested to hear if you have any thoughts.\nPenny: Yeah, so I think first of all, design is such a broad term that you can be an engineer design. You can be an architecture, design, fashion design. So my field is called user experience and use the internet. is such a long name or in other words, like UX UI. And also no one kind of knew that acronym like explained to my grandparents, which is most difficult thing is still like, it\u0026rsquo;s been around for a while and we do it everyday.\nBut you know, having a job title like that is, you know, it\u0026rsquo;s coming up, it\u0026rsquo;s getting more known these days now, which is good. But there\u0026rsquo;s still like, you know, I would say 80% who don\u0026rsquo;t know what I do. You say experience design is what would you\u0026rsquo;re designing for user to have the best experience and people won\u0026rsquo;t be asking, like, what do you do?\nHow do you make user have the best experience? You know? Like how do you know someone\u0026rsquo;s going to have a good experience or not because you can\u0026rsquo;t always place everyone. And that\u0026rsquo;s the hardest part of my job, right. Because I have to please people and making sure that the design is right. Yeah,\nEveryone\u0026rsquo;s going through the same, but that will always be like 10% minority out there who will hate your design and things like this is not working and that\u0026rsquo;s totally okay.\nJust something like you have to accept it. Like not everyone likes Facebook, not everyone likes Instagram, but you get used to it. And it\u0026rsquo;s the pattern. So it\u0026rsquo;s a lot of psychology that you have to understand how the human works. What is their pattern like? I already out there, what is successful? What\u0026rsquo;s a good product.\nWhat\u0026rsquo;s a bad product. And it\u0026rsquo;s usually for digital design. So, you know, we\u0026rsquo;re moving along like digital experience. So that\u0026rsquo;s why, like I design a lot of apps, design, a lot of website design a lot for like web 3.0 and crypto stuff, which is really fun. For people want to get into this where, what I do, UX UI, first of all, you can. Have a UX background or have a UI background. So I came from graphic design and UI is more designed creative style. And you know, where things go is placement of text buttons, making things look pretty, but it might not be the best experience. And then there\u0026rsquo;s UX, which is amazing flow like Amazon has so addictive yellow button that uses keep on pressing by. That\u0026rsquo;s terrible, terrible UI, like terrible interface. It looks like it\u0026rsquo;s coming from like 1990s, but it\u0026rsquo;s working so well. So that\u0026rsquo;s like coming from UX and then you\u0026rsquo;ve got UI. So yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s like, people, a lot of people coming from like, there\u0026rsquo;s no, degree for it. You can essentially do any degree. And that\u0026rsquo;s why, like, I just want to graduate and self-taught UX UI myself, and I started with a UI just designing apps, designing.\nAnd website, and that\u0026rsquo;s the more you design and just copying like existing apps out there. The more you start to see the pattern, what\u0026rsquo;s the size of a button. What\u0026rsquo;s the size of a phone? Where should the button go? The terminology that people use, or how many screens should an onboarding process have? So the more you copy design, the more you understand like, yep.\nThis is how app works and that\u0026rsquo;s the same for website as well, like copy a lot of website. So then you finally figure it out. Oh, Yeah. Image should be placed here. Font of like titles should be like, this big button should be this big and you start to realize like the pattern for it. Like e-commerce right.\nWhy does the card always at the top and sticks to it? What happens only if you put the cart on the side? Like maybe it looks good, but. The user, like e-commerce website looks the same and there\u0026rsquo;s a reason behind it is because people will always be used to e-commerce website and sometimes like ask for designer who wants to like, go be yawn.\nThe pattern might be like difficult because everyone\u0026rsquo;s so used to it. So, but that\u0026rsquo;s a challenge like in our life is like, how do you break that pattern? And making people like buy differently without making them. Not knowing, not getting used to it. It\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s a really difficult job, but a lot of people see it as like a really easy job, because if you\u0026rsquo;re depends on if you\u0026rsquo;re good at it, like you do it so much, you can finish the work like really fast, like design really fast, like designing website, you know, your routine, you know, your speed.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s all about speed. Right. But even not good at it, like, you\u0026rsquo;re probably like taking a long time to create websites. And you\u0026rsquo;re thinking like, this is really ugly and you\u0026rsquo;re not happy with it. You\u0026rsquo;d do it again.\nJames: Yeah,\nPenny: I know I\u0026rsquo;m going off the topic of\nJames: No, that\u0026rsquo;s again.\nPenny: Into the industry, but I will say start copying design and looking at apps and website.\nAttributes of Designing that Penny thinks are under-rated # James: That\u0026rsquo;s cool. I\u0026rsquo;m interested to hear, you know, what are some things awesome skills of that are involved in being. Yeah. A designer, UI UX designer that you think are important that you think other people or the mark, like I think other, like other people underestimate the importance and perhaps you think their point, is there anything that you think people under-appreciate in terms of skills for this area\nPenny: Yeah. Well design like creative skills. The eye for design is already really hard to train. Like if you can\u0026rsquo;t like, honestly, like some base skills, creativity, some people are born with it. Like they great draws. They, they can draw, they, they know where color goes. They know the eye for design. It\u0026rsquo;s just really hard to train and.\nI used to be able to draw. I can\u0026rsquo;t draw anymore, but because I do design so much, like looking at exemplars or can website, I am able to kind of put it in my head where things goes, but some people who haven\u0026rsquo;t done that before, it can be really hard. And I think a lot of people appreciate that because they realize that, oh, I actually can\u0026rsquo;t design this.\nLike, wow, it looks so good. Because at the end of the day, everyone thinks that they are a designer.\nJames: Hm.\nPenny: To repeat that everyone thinks they are. You can design. I can design everyone can design a website. Right. But what people don\u0026rsquo;t realize is the psychology behind it. How do you design something that not really looks good because the word good right.\nIs different from everyone. You might think that this button looks great, but I might think that this looks terrible. So how do you actually prove, like what\u0026rsquo;s actually defined good. So in the industry, there\u0026rsquo;s no such thing as. Good design anymore, but more of like what\u0026rsquo;s usable and get validation from other people like the actual users and customers themselves. And that\u0026rsquo;s like a great proven point that if you\u0026rsquo;re designing an e-commerce website and it looks great, or actually, no, I don\u0026rsquo;t want to say it looks great. Like, let\u0026rsquo;s say you\u0026rsquo;re designing an e-commerce website as a designer. You might think it looks good for the customer that it looks really bad. So.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s not their fault. It\u0026rsquo;s like your fault that the commerce, that the e-commerce website is not making sales. So that\u0026rsquo;s something that I don\u0026rsquo;t think people notice, like a lot of people don\u0026rsquo;t hire designers because they feel like they can do it themselves. Like, you know, logo\u0026rsquo;s really easy to do. Now. You can get it for 10 bucks from like Fiverr or Upwork.\nAnd there was so many like freelancer, like.com that is marketing, like website design for 10 bucks logo design for five bucks. But there is a psychology behind it that you\u0026rsquo;re missing. There\u0026rsquo;s two types of designers, one the cheap one that just, you tell them what to do. And they just do it for you. The two, the expensive one, you tell them what to do, but they taken like a grain of salt and they give you suggestions and advice on how to make it better.\nSo a lot of people go with the first one, right? Because designers are very. just go for like, yep. This is what I want. I just need you to make it look pretty. And I have so many clients who\u0026rsquo;s asking for like logo design. I just needed to make it look pretty. But then there are also other clients who actually need my suggestions to it.\nLike I don\u0026rsquo;t care, but I know you can make it look pretty, but I want to know how to actually make sales and how to actually get more people visiting my website. That\u0026rsquo;s the, that\u0026rsquo;s the thinking behind it? That not many people appreciate.\nJames: Yeah. That\u0026rsquo;s, that\u0026rsquo;s real. I think that\u0026rsquo;s really interesting. Yeah. The psychology behind it is something yeah. That suddenly if you\u0026rsquo;re really interested, or if you were interested at all, you could really upskill yourself in those kinds of things and then improve as a designer quite.\nPenny\u0026rsquo;s Favourite Failure # James: I want to kind of start to wrap this conversation up and I\u0026rsquo;ve got two questions left around your career as a whole.\nAnd I\u0026rsquo;m the first one of these is, has there been a particular moment or is there something that comes to mind that was a failure for yourself or something that didn\u0026rsquo;t go to plan, but ended up being something that was a really valuable experience or it was something that. Yeah, it was almost a failure.\nYeah. If it ended up being something that you really appreciate now and something that has turned out really well. Is there anything that comes up.\nPenny: Yeah. Definitely when I was applying for graduate position a lot of my friends final year applying for internship and graduate position, and I went through a lot of interviews. Any other grads do a lot of interviews. Assessment center design challenge went through like last round and then just didn\u0026rsquo;t get awful.\nAs in like, I got zero offers where I would be listening to my friends, getting five offer, like, wow. And that point I felt so low and thought to myself that, why am I not good enough? Like, am I, is it my degree? That is my fault. Or like, what is it that is missing? My mark or is it of my degree is not aligning with what they\u0026rsquo;re looking for, or maybe that\u0026rsquo;s just other people.\nAnd that made me doubt my skills a little bit. Cause I really wanted to get into UX UI. Like I was so determined to get into UX UI, but there wasn\u0026rsquo;t many UX UI graduate program and I have some interviews. As well at a UX UI graduate program, but I didn\u0026rsquo;t get it. And I just felt like, oh, okay. Maybe this is the end of the industry for me.\nAnd I thought I was doing so well. I was doing so many app design and website. You might own time. I had a very smashing portfolio and which got me through like actual interviews and last round, but no, I just didn\u0026rsquo;t get it. And I started looking outside of graduate program and I got a job as like a junior entry level.\nUX UI designer instead of just graduate. So I went, I skipped the junior process and I just went through an entry level, just a normal UX UI designers. And I don\u0026rsquo;t think they were looking for juniors as well. Like the job title was looking for UX UI designers, and it says like maybe two to three years experience.\nLike I had like zero experience. Cause I just graduated. But. Lucky for my portfolio, because I\u0026rsquo;ve done a lot of practice of like UX UI. And I made my portfolio look like I have two to three years experience and I had the eye for design that I practice already. So even though like, you know, I got a degree that is on UX UI never actually had a UX UI job.\nI was able to land a role at like the legal tech firm and my manager back then explained to me. Why he actually hired me, which was hilarious. It wasn\u0026rsquo;t because I knew what I was doing. It wasn\u0026rsquo;t because that I was, you know, experienced in UX UI. It was because I didn\u0026rsquo;t know shit. And I was just bullshitting in interview and he was like, Yeah,\nshe\u0026rsquo;s easy to train.\nSo that was me being open-minded in the. And knew what I was doing, but I actually didn\u0026rsquo;t know what I was doing. And you found that pretty funny. So he hired me and train me up because he was looking for someone to actually mentor and able to train up. And I think that\u0026rsquo;s for everyone, for junior, like don\u0026rsquo;t expect to be the best, but going as your best self and like, you know, like all this shit.\nBut then at the end of the day, like they can see that you probably don\u0026rsquo;t know stuff. So that was a reason I\u0026rsquo;m like, oh, okay. That\u0026rsquo;s funny. And I grew a lot from there because I was open-minded I was willing to learn. I was like, Hit me like whatever you want. And I started from ground zero, like he trained you from like the beginning of how to use Photoshop and Adobe illustrator.\nAnd I was having like, this mental breakdown was the hardest job ever. Usually I just drop boxes, like making website. He made me like copy website in Adobe illustrator. And that\u0026rsquo;s like, you got to learn the hard way to be successful in the future. I. Yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s mental out there. I always mentioned him. He has my Instagram.\nHe\u0026rsquo;s probably listening to this, so yeah, that was one failure. But then it also taught me about salary negotiation. And that was the best, like, you know, a lot of graduates asking like, you know, that low is really pay attention. I\u0026rsquo;m actually very thankful that I skipped all the graduates program and got into the entry level at a higher salary even.\nAnd I was able to use that as a benchmark, to like jump to another company and skip that. So I felt like I didn\u0026rsquo;t have to go through junior process as much. I think it\u0026rsquo;s for me, like I still consider myself a junior. I\u0026rsquo;m still a junior at my company, so Yeah. you will always be a junior for. So that\u0026rsquo;s just me.\nLike, if you keep thinking yourself that you are a junior, then you will always have that mentality mindset that you\u0026rsquo;re not good enough.\nJames: Yeah, it definitely is. I think that\u0026rsquo;s a great store and yeah, I think it\u0026rsquo;s it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s really interesting to hear that you didn\u0026rsquo;t get a great offer and know look where you are now. I think it\u0026rsquo;s really you know, it\u0026rsquo;s been like, yeah, it\u0026rsquo;s worked out perfectly almost.\nPenny\u0026rsquo;s Advice for Graduates # James: But I\u0026rsquo;ve got one more question for you today, penny, and that\u0026rsquo;s a question I ask all the guests and it\u0026rsquo;s, if you were starting your career finishing uni.\nYou\u0026rsquo;re starting your first job again this year. Is there anything, any advice that you would give yourself if your race starting your career today?\nPenny: Oh, that is a hard one because I love my job. Like I\u0026rsquo;m doing really well on if I have to go back and start it over again, I would be panicking because the competition is way higher. Right? Like COVID hit so many people out of jobs, so many great designers out there. I think like if I didn\u0026rsquo;t. A job offer.\nCause like going through a job application again is exhausting going through graduate program. I think for, for sure, I would not apply for graduate program. I\u0026rsquo;m done. I\u0026rsquo;m done with that. Or I\u0026rsquo;ll probably look for something more\nmore entry-level personally. And even though like the bench is so high, I\u0026rsquo;ll probably start a. If I\u0026rsquo;m going to start my career again, I\u0026rsquo;ll start a business and I\u0026rsquo;ll stop applying. Like I\u0026rsquo;ll apply, but I wouldn\u0026rsquo;t be upset if I don\u0026rsquo;t get it because I\u0026rsquo;ll have my own things too.\nJames: Yeah, I think that\u0026rsquo;s co and certainly, you know, you\u0026rsquo;ve shown that there are plenty of opportunities out there for side hustles and for extra things to do. If you, if you can look for that. Yeah, and be interested in what problems need solving the world. So I think that\u0026rsquo;s, that\u0026rsquo;s great advice. And certainly, I think we\u0026rsquo;re in the, we\u0026rsquo;re in the period now that people are applying to grad roles for starting the next year.\nSo I think that\u0026rsquo;s great advice and very timely advice as well. So,\nPenny: Oh, it\u0026rsquo;s stressful for them. Like, I didn\u0026rsquo;t want to go through that ever again. Like job application is way stressed within a breakout.\nJames: Yeah.\nPenny: But like, it\u0026rsquo;s so bad. Like just quote\nJames: Yeah.\nPenny: Vacation rejection is way more stressful than a guy rejecting you. Absolutely. Yeah.\nbecause it, it hurts, right. Like every day you\u0026rsquo;re checking your email, you didn\u0026rsquo;t get a job, you didn\u0026rsquo;t get a job like your life stocks.\nAnd you\u0026rsquo;re surrounded by people who are making money and flashing the suit in Barangaroo. So That\u0026rsquo;s one, and I never get to experience that because it didn\u0026rsquo;t work in Barangaroo. But I think like creating jobs for yourself will help you get a job. And a lot of people don\u0026rsquo;t like\nJames: Yeah, certainly. I think that\u0026rsquo;s great advice and yeah, absolutely. I think doing those side hustles and things like that, so I can to anyone. So if you can pay attention to the problems in the world and help people solve them, then I think, yeah. You\u0026rsquo;ll be setting yourself up in the right way.\nAbsolutely.\nPenny: And also no people, I think like I wish if I went back more, I wish I knew more people, even though I know a lot of people, I just, I just want to know more people like no more smart, talented people that is within your circle. You need people like that.\nJames: Yeah, definitely. No, it\u0026rsquo;s so important. Absolutely. And so, thanks so much for the chat today, penny, it\u0026rsquo;s been really illuminating into your life and all the things you\u0026rsquo;re doing and all that amazing advice you have to share with us.\nContact Penny # James: But if people want to connect with you more, find out more about what you do.\nYeah. Where\u0026rsquo;s the best place for them to find.\nPenny: Literally like on my Instagram, I don\u0026rsquo;t really use LinkedIn anymore. I feel like that is so professional. You know, like the message. Hey, penny. Sam, like, wow. And I reply back like, Hey girl, you know, know, like I think in this world, there\u0026rsquo;s so much stress already. Like writing emails is already formal and then you go on LinkedIn and then you have to be formal again.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s like LinkedIn is on email. So I feel like yes, obviously LinkedIn to kind of communicate. And I, when you get to Instagram, right. You have my Instagram, I think like you feel personal connection and you feel invested in someone\u0026rsquo;s life and what I\u0026rsquo;m trying to do. Like, I want people to come on a journey with me because not a lot of people go through like what I do each day.\nAnd like, what is, what is the life of a side hustle, workaholic like, and yes, like there were mental breaks down. Like people are involved with my success. People are involved with my failure and the more you get personal, like I\u0026rsquo;m a very open person. It becomes more of like a friendship rather than like a professional relationship.\nAnd I don\u0026rsquo;t want to have that, you know, regards penny morph, like, Yeah.\nlet\u0026rsquo;s catch up penny.\nJames: Yeah, no, I think, yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s certainly very true. Well, yeah, we\u0026rsquo;ll have the links to your Instagram and all your, your website and all that kind of stuff in the show notes. But yeah. Thanks so much for chatting today. Penny, it\u0026rsquo;s been really fascinating hearing about yourself and your story. So yeah, thanks so much for your time today.\nPenny: Thank you for having me.\nOutro # James: Thanks so much for listening to this episode of Graduate Theory with penny to life. She\u0026rsquo;s started so many side hustles. She worked extremely hard at what she does, and it was really great to get her insight into different things that she\u0026rsquo;s doing and how she manages it on top of working full time.\nIf you haven\u0026rsquo;t already subscribed to the graduate through our newsletter, you can find my takeaways from this episode, as well as every other episode, they\u0026rsquo;ll come straight to your inbox every single week. Thanks again for listening to this episode and we\u0026rsquo;ll see you again next Tuesday.\n← Back to episode 19\n","date":"28 February 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/graduate-theory/19-on-designing-a-successful-side-hustle-with-penny-talalak/transcript/","section":"Graduate Theory Transcripts","summary":"← Back to episode 19\nThis transcript has been lightly edited for readability. It may still contain transcription errors.\nIntro # James: Hello, and welcome to Graduate Theory. My guest today is a UX UI designer at BCG digital ventures.\n","title":"Transcript: On Designing a Successful Side Hustle with Penny Talalak","type":"graduate-theory-transcripts"},{"content":" Watch the conversation Graduate Theory Open YouTube ↗ Read the full transcript → Hello Graduates!\nBack again with episode #18 of Graduate Theory, providing you with lessons and tips so that you can have a successful and fulfilling career.\nIf you\u0026rsquo;re not already levelling up your career, subscribe now so you never miss a beat 👇\nSubscribe Now\nWarwick Donaldson is a serial entrepreneur, problem-solver and country man. An active member of the Australian startup community, he has been a part of a number of capital raises and writes about startup funding in Aussie Startup Capital Nerd.\n🤝 Connect with Warwick # https://www.linkedin.com/in/warwickdonaldson/\n👇 Episode Takeaways # Asymmetric Risks # Life is full of risk. Sometimes we make decisions that could end well or could end badly.\nPutting your money in the stock market is one example of such a situation.\nA *symmetric *risk would be one where the probability of a positive outcome is the same as a negative one.\nAn *asymmetric *risk is one where the probability of a positive outcome is not the same as the negative.\nNetworking and creating connections is an example of *asymmetric *risk.\nLike the worst they can do is say \u0026rsquo;no\u0026rsquo;, The best they can do is say \u0026lsquo;yes\u0026rsquo;. And you ended up getting a job. There\u0026rsquo;s no downside, there\u0026rsquo;s only upsides. It\u0026rsquo;s a pretty good risk to take, If you want to call it a risk at all.\nThis example is so powerful. Reaching out to people and asking for what you want is one of the most powerful asymmetric risks that you can take.\nThere is no downside, no negative, only positive.\nI encourage everyone to reach out to more people and find new connections. As Warwick says,\nthe worst case is I say no, and the best case is up to your imagination\nThe Power of Community | Guanxi # Today\u0026rsquo;s world can be a solitary existence. We want to do things ourselves and prove to others that we can do things on our own. Warwick spoke about a contrasting idea in China called Guanxi.\nGuanxi is, is the concept of relationship and the power of relationship \u0026hellip; You know, you build your relationships, but actually you build your network. You should also be using those relationships and the those networks. And so they say it Guanxi is like, an arm, the more you use it, the more powerful it gets.\nThe key is that using your network is really important. In fact, it could well be our first place to look for answers, rather than looking for them without help.\nWarwick says he is seeing the benefits of this approach in his life already, and it\u0026rsquo;s something that I think we can all do better at.\nChallenge Yourself (Appropriately) # Warwick was stuck in a linear career path. Where he was going to end up in the future was not a place he wanted to go.\nI think I saw my life flash before my eyes. I kind of saw where I was going to be when I was 40 and 50, because you know, the, the progression seems rather linear or I did when I was there. I think that scared the shit out of me. And I was like, oh my God, what happens if I spend the next 30 years at ANZ or in banking? And would I be happy? Would I say that I\u0026rsquo;ve lived a full life?\nTo combat this, he took a big risk. He gave up his career in Australia to become an English teacher at a school in China.\nDespite this risk, Warwick was calculated and knew that even if this didn\u0026rsquo;t work out, he could simply move back to Australia and continue where he left off.\nNow, it\u0026rsquo;s powered his career and given him unique experiences and perspectives that allow him to have a greater impact in his role as a VC.\nGet the Newsletter\n📝 Show Notes # 00:00 Warwick Donaldson\n00:00 Warwick Donaldson\n00:35 Intro\n01:09 Warwick\u0026rsquo;s First Job\n05:22 The Power of Asking\n07:53 Warwick working Overseas\n12:28 Warwick\u0026rsquo;s Decision to Move\n15:48 Lessons that Warwick Took from Living in China\n21:00 Using your Network | Guanxi\n28:09 How did Warwick end up in Startups\n35:58 A failure that turned out to be a success\n42:05 Warwick\u0026rsquo;s Advice for Graduates\n44:58 Contact Warwick\n45:54 Outro\n","date":"21 February 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/graduate-theory/18-on-asymmetric-risks-and-the-power-of-asking-with-warwick-donaldson/","section":"Graduate Theory","summary":" Watch the conversation Graduate Theory Open YouTube ↗ Read the full transcript → Hello Graduates!\nBack again with episode #18 of Graduate Theory, providing you with lessons and tips so that you can have a successful and fulfilling career.\n","title":"On Asymmetric Risks and the Power of Asking with Warwick Donaldson","type":"graduate-theory"},{"content":"← Back to episode 18\nThis transcript was generated from YouTube captions and lightly edited for readability. Speaker labels may be unavailable, and transcription errors may remain.\nWarwick Donaldson # Hello and welcome to Graduate Theory on today\u0026rsquo;s episode you\u0026rsquo;ll hear about what it means to take an asymmetric risk and certain things you can do in your career that have unlimited upside we\u0026rsquo;ll talk about networking hacks from Chinese culture and we\u0026rsquo;ll also talk about what it means to challenge yourself appropriately if you haven\u0026rsquo;t already.\nPlease consider subscribing to the Graduate Theory newsletter you get takeaways and my insights from this episode directly to your inbox every single week without further ado please enjoy.\nIntro # Hello and welcome to Graduate Theory my guest today is a serial entrepreneur problem solver and country man he\u0026rsquo;s an active member of the Australian startup community and he\u0026rsquo;s been a part of several capital raises and writes about startup funding on his side Aussie Startup Capital Nerd he\u0026rsquo;s passionate about helping young people and growing the Australian.\nStartup ecosystem please welcome to the show Warwick Donaldson hey james uh thanks for having me I\u0026rsquo;m very excited great man I\u0026rsquo;m really really.\nWarwick\u0026rsquo;s First Job # Excited to chat as well before the podcast we were speaking about your first job and how it came about and I\u0026rsquo;m curious you know what was your your very first job and how did you how did you get that well I\u0026rsquo;ve actually had a few first jobs so it depends which first job we\u0026rsquo;re.\nTalking about so I\u0026rsquo;ll I\u0026rsquo;ll tell all three all three are kind of fun so my first job was actually when I was about six years old and I used to get I think one or two dollars a week pocket money from my parents and it wasn\u0026rsquo;t enough I always wanted to buy things and my parents wouldn\u0026rsquo;t give me.\nAny money and so I devised a way to make some more money and so basically my first ever job my first ever business was actually collecting sheep poo so I used to walk around picking it up put in bags and then I used to sell it to people in in town because I grew up on a.\nFarm so that was my very first and then I suppose I created that job my first job working for someone else was actually working on the farm for my dad and so that was when I was about 10 years old and he used to get me doing proper full days because I really wanted to do it so.\nHe used to pay me like you know half reasonably well he\u0026rsquo;s like well you do a full day\u0026rsquo;s work then you get paid like a you know a normal person and but my my first job which I think you\u0026rsquo;re referring to out of well maybe I\u0026rsquo;ll tell the backstory to that so basically ever.\nSince I was about 14 I was fascinated in finance and I really wanted to be in banking my idea was that banking was kind of the pinnacle of of I think capitalism and sophistication and I thought that I was going to be exposed to the most amazing things in the world there and.\nI\u0026rsquo;ll be challenged and I\u0026rsquo;ll get to I get to see billions of dollars and all this sort of stuff and so that absolutely fascinated me so ever since I was 14 I wanted to go into banking and so I went to uni and I studied banking finance and accounting and then.\nWhen I graduated I graduated with you know pretty average grades I didn\u0026rsquo;t fail anything that\u0026rsquo;s that\u0026rsquo;s probably my claim to fame out of my my uni degree but making my grades I don\u0026rsquo;t think we\u0026rsquo;re good enough to get into a grad position so I tried and didn\u0026rsquo;t get in anywhere but I.\nWanted to be in banking and so I said okay well I\u0026rsquo;m just going to get a job in banking doing anything and figure it out once I get there so I actually got a job in outbound credit card collections call center and so I spent about I think maybe about nine months there.\nAnd so basically while I was there what I did was every day I would get on the gal the global address list and I would research people in anz that I thought were working in interesting departments and I\u0026rsquo;d send them emails and say hey I\u0026rsquo;m really interested in what you do I want.\nTo learn more do you have time to go and get a coffee and slowly I worked my way through like credit risk market risk kind of you know the traders and all different parts of ANZ and everybody said yes and they they were really pleased that someone would reach out to them and ask them questions and.\nWant to learn about them and what they do and so I did that for about eight or nine months and each of those people would go and refer me to someone else who they thought was working in an interesting department based on what I would tell them about what I wanted to.\nDo and so I ended up kind of working my way through anz and eventually I made my way to anz treasury and so those of you are not familiar treasury is basically the bank\u0026rsquo;s bank and so they\u0026rsquo;re the ones who ensure that the bank is funded and they dish the funds out to the various.\nBusiness units and manage liquidity so I found someone in in anz treasury and he\u0026rsquo;s like well we\u0026rsquo;ve never had anyone find us uh this is actually really cool uh we\u0026rsquo;re actually hiring a grad role as an analyst are you interested I said hell yeah yeah and the interviews and got my first you know.\nKind of quite real grand job I suppose yeah which is ex which was an amazing opportunity.\nThe Power of Asking # Yeah that\u0026rsquo;s really cool I think that\u0026rsquo;s such a good story I think like it\u0026rsquo;s I think it really speaks to this idea of like you know you\u0026rsquo;re reaching out and then like people are so surprised almost to have someone reach out to them and then like this there\u0026rsquo;s it\u0026rsquo;s such a.\nValuable thing to do for yourself and like for them that\u0026rsquo;s just yeah I think like reaching out cold like that you know is it I think that\u0026rsquo;s a great example of how valuable that it can be because I think too many of us you know don\u0026rsquo;t do that I don\u0026rsquo;t think I think like you know.\nYou\u0026rsquo;re much worried like oh what if they say no or what if like this or this or this or whatever but like you know what if they said yes you know what I mean and it\u0026rsquo;s a that\u0026rsquo;s a great example of how it can work out if you if you know persist with that kind of thing.\nWell that\u0026rsquo;s the best bit right like the worst they can do is say no the best they can do is say yes and you end up getting a job like you know yeah there\u0026rsquo;s no downside and there\u0026rsquo;s only upside so you know it\u0026rsquo;s a pretty good it\u0026rsquo;s a pretty good risk to take if you want to.\nCall it a risk at all yeah yeah absolutely yeah I think yeah I was reflecting on this this idea like through probably the last week just how many people that I\u0026rsquo;ve met that have this like commonality of them you know look like their opportunity that\u0026rsquo;s you know been something that really changed their life was just.\nSomething that they wanted to do and they asked for it you know and then suddenly they were like you know off doing something incredible I just think it\u0026rsquo;s something that\u0026rsquo;s really really common and something that\u0026rsquo;s underappreciated or yeah people would just don\u0026rsquo;t do that enough and they don\u0026rsquo;t even realize perhaps what you can achieve just by.\nAsking yeah and I think I never underestimate someone\u0026rsquo;s willingness to talk about themselves and people love talking about themselves you know we gather a lot of experience in our life and a lot of people love to share that experience and you know that\u0026rsquo;s why I\u0026rsquo;m doing this this interview right.\nAnd that\u0026rsquo;s why like I take every cold outreach nearly that you know people make to me because I love sharing my experiences and hopefully someone can learn from me because you know I\u0026rsquo;ve done all this stuff and then hopefully I can short circuit some learnings for for the next person and that\u0026rsquo;s kind of what it\u0026rsquo;s all.\nAbout right so yeah yeah absolutely yeah I just think it\u0026rsquo;s so powerful and yeah it\u0026rsquo;s like people like yourself go so I\u0026rsquo;ve been turned to people reaching out as well is what you know what makes this work as well so I\u0026rsquo;m sure like I appreciate it and I\u0026rsquo;m sure other people that have reached out to you.\nAppreciate it as well I want to move on.\nWarwick working Overseas # Now with your career and move into you know your you went overseas in your career you went to talk us through that process and kind of what what led to you deciding to go to go over there yeah so I mean I was working at anz I had spent about two years in treasury at that.\nPoint in wholesale fund we were managing portfolio bonds it was about a bit over 100 billion dollars and it was crazy and we\u0026rsquo;re doing 25 billion dollars of of new issuance per year and it was absolutely insane right and I loved the work and and I loved the markets and all this.\nSort of stuff but there was really something missing and I think I saw my life flash before my eyes I kind of saw where I was going to be when I was 40 and 50 because you know the progression seems rather loony or I did when I was there anyway it seemed quite.\nLinear and and I think that scared the out of me and I was like oh my god what happens if I spend the next 30 years at ANZ or in banking like you know would I would I be happy would I say that I\u0026rsquo;ve lived a full life and up.\nUntil that point my life had always been about risk management so grew up on a farm you know farming is about extreme risk management and then you know studied banking finance and accounting which is also risk management right and so I felt that I wasn\u0026rsquo;t really taking risks with my life and you know part of that.\nIs to do with my privilege and then part of that is to do with like my the way I grew up and kind of you know Australia and all that sort of stuff and Australia is a pretty safe place to be and I wanted to experience a bit more about the world and I didn\u0026rsquo;t take a gap.\nYear or anything like that so I said okay it\u0026rsquo;s time for me to challenge myself like really challenge myself like what\u0026rsquo;s what\u0026rsquo;s the most extreme thing I can do to challenge myself without taking too much risk right like you know I\u0026rsquo;m still like a person who likes to manage risk and so I came up with this idea.\nOf moving to China I\u0026rsquo;d been there twice on on holiday and really enjoyed it and it kind of felt like a second home and but I didn\u0026rsquo;t speak Chinese I didn\u0026rsquo;t know a whole lot about Chinese society all I knew is that for some reason I was drawn to it and so I said okay well.\nLike you know it\u0026rsquo;s probably the biggest risk that I could take I talked to this guy who who moved there a couple years before he\u0026rsquo;s like just do it man like what\u0026rsquo;s the worst thing going to happen it\u0026rsquo;s like all right I don\u0026rsquo;t know about this and everyone else is like I don\u0026rsquo;t know why you would.\nBe doing that you literally have one of the best jobs in the world right now you know and so I did I decided I quit and I got a job teaching English in a primary school in kind of this suburban nanjing and nanjing\u0026rsquo;s basically I know a comparator is probably like.\nGeelong right it\u0026rsquo;s 10 million people but it\u0026rsquo;s still kind of like a big country town and I was right on the outskirts and the suburbs there and I went and taught English and that kind of started my my journey in China I ended up spending three years there and it was it was a crazy time and.\nAnd it was a time that really challenged me and it challenged me in in really good ways it challenged me to understand that there is a completely different world out there and the parameters that we don\u0026rsquo;t quite uh understand the parameters that guide us in say Australia in the west we think that.\nWe take for granted certain things that exist in Australia as like this is just the way it is and we don\u0026rsquo;t really challenge those things and then when you go to a place like China it\u0026rsquo;s complete it\u0026rsquo;s built on a completely different set of rules and technology and culture all of a sudden you realize all these.\nThings that you thought were just just had to exist no longer had to exist you know for example like I moved there in 2016 and everybody was on wechat and literally every payment was instant you know coming from Australia where like you know and just because the Chinese banking system is built on a.\nCompletely different set of rules and that\u0026rsquo;s what society demanded and they kind of skipped the pc age and went straight to the smartphone age and you know they\u0026rsquo;re just basic things that really challenge what you what we kind of accept here in Australia as as normal or like slow progression.\nWarwick\u0026rsquo;s Decision to Move # Yeah yeah I think that\u0026rsquo;s that\u0026rsquo;s really interesting to hear that and I\u0026rsquo;m curious to hear you know around your your decision to move is something that is interesting to me because it\u0026rsquo;s something that you know like you said you\u0026rsquo;re in sort of the typical like this is a great job like doing well in like.\nThe corporate kind of kind of sphere and then you yeah you\u0026rsquo;re giving that up to go and do something which you know people can say okay that\u0026rsquo;s probably not as quite I\u0026rsquo;m not as good of a job right be a teacher in sort of like a remote place in China like what is your.\nHow did you deal with that I mean was there any like did you feel like sort of social expectations on doing that like you know in sort of a or we just kind of like yeah like you know I mean I\u0026rsquo;m curious to hear with like did you doubt yourself at any point.\nThrough that process or we just kind of yeah whatever like we\u0026rsquo;ll just this is what I want to do so I\u0026rsquo;m just going to go straight for it yeah no I I it took me six months to like basically make the decision and figure out how I was going to do.\nIt with the least amount of risk possible and I doubted myself a lot and but I think you know that the fact that I was doubting myself a lot meant that I was probably taking the right level of risk and challenge because if you\u0026rsquo;re not doubting yourself then you\u0026rsquo;re probably not pushing yourself hard enough right yeah you\u0026rsquo;re.\nFeeling too safe and so you just kind of need to fight through it I mean really you know that the risk was pretty low because like worst case scenario like I end up leaving China after six months a year and I go back into banking like back to Australia into banking right best case scenario I discover and.\nEvolve and learn into this amazing person and have all these experiences which makes me a better person you know it\u0026rsquo;s not like like I can get a job in China teaching English it\u0026rsquo;s really easy and so the risk is relatively low but I did doubt myself a lot and you know I was.\nQuite conscious of the fact that people were judging me based on there so my dad\u0026rsquo;s like oh this is a really good idea yeah you know he doesn\u0026rsquo;t know much about China and you know that the reason why I was going is because like one of the reasons why I was going is because.\nChina\u0026rsquo;s in the paper every day and it\u0026rsquo;s this like massive influence on our society but I didn\u0026rsquo;t know anything about it all I knew was like you know how it was portrayed in the papers and obviously you know if anyone who\u0026rsquo;s ever traveled you know that how somewhere a culture a country or.\nWhatever is portrayed on paper is obviously extraordinarily different to how it is in in real life and that\u0026rsquo;s why we that\u0026rsquo;s why we travel right to challenge these these learnings these perceptions that we have and you know put some substance behind them and so then I it was yeah I doubted myself a.\nLot yeah whatever and now now I\u0026rsquo;m like you know now I\u0026rsquo;m this this white dude who can speak Chinese cruising around Australia and like you know I pull it out all the time and people like oh my god you can speak Chinese like speaking to Chinese people and it\u0026rsquo;s really nice and it\u0026rsquo;s.\nLike you know you can bond over it and they can understand a different culture and society and and I really appreciate that and it\u0026rsquo;s really propelled me as a person about a career yeah.\nLessons that Warwick Took from Living in China # Yeah I mean I\u0026rsquo;m interested to hear them today those you mentioned those the cultural differences there and obviously like going to a different different country you know that\u0026rsquo;s you know you get to see those differences but then coming back to Australia like I\u0026rsquo;m interested to hear like how you ended up coming back and then.\nEven you know what kind of lessons or what were the things that you really took from your that experience in China you know back pity to Australia yeah so I came back twice so the first time I spent two years there and I wasn\u0026rsquo;t progressing as fast as what I wanted to.\nAnd I was a little bit frustrated and I was like oh I\u0026rsquo;m going to be a teacher forever like this kind of really annoying I want to get back into doing some some the work that I love in finance and so I came back to Australia and so I came back to Australia actually.\nReally not knowing much Chinese because I kind of fallen into maybe what a lot of people do when they move overseas unless you really like want to challenge yourself you fall into the crowd that speaks kind of a common language and so you know I ended up spending a lot of time with.\nPeople who spoke English both locals and and expats and so I came back and I tried to make it work in Australia and I got a couple of you know really good jobs and I just wasn\u0026rsquo;t really settled and it was really hard coming back because I\u0026rsquo;d had this like crazy phenomenal.\nExperience and like you know the way that I lived and everything had changed forever and nobody could kind of understand that and you know everything was kind of the same here and so it was really difficult coming back and so I got a really really good job in in venture capital and after about.\nFive months they asked me they said so you know are you enjoying yourself do you see yourself here for for for a while and I said honestly no I don\u0026rsquo;t and they\u0026rsquo;re like oh and I couldn\u0026rsquo;t believe I was saying that because I really wanted to work in venture capitals you know I was working with.\nStartups I was working finance and I was get to talk to founders all day and all this sort of stuff and it\u0026rsquo;s great it was amazing but I just wasn\u0026rsquo;t excited about all I could think about was China and so end up leaving and going back to China and I said all right if I\u0026rsquo;m going to go.\nBack to China this time I\u0026rsquo;m going to talk properly I\u0026rsquo;m going to learn Chinese I\u0026rsquo;m going to take the time I\u0026rsquo;m going to put the effort in and so I went back but I went back and enrolled in university full-time studying Chinese and so we had five hours of class five days a week.\nAnd then would have probably another four to five hours of homework a day like wrote learning Chinese so it\u0026rsquo;s like literally writing Chinese characters and pronouncing tones and doing conversation and reading and like you know all those sort of stuff and it was really intense and I loved it and so I felt like I was kind of.\nGoing back to finish off something that I started that I didn\u0026rsquo;t that I didn\u0026rsquo;t do properly and it was amazing and then kind of 12 months in to studying I realized how long I was going to have to study to get my Chinese to a level where I could work like in the areas in the fields.\nThat I really enjoy and I was probably another three to four years and I really wanted to get back into that type of work and also it dawned on me that once I get my Chinese to that level that I would have to then rebuild my career in a different country with different rules and.\nSo I decided and you know all this is because like Chinese culture is a very old complex culture like any culture in the world right and so you\u0026rsquo;re not only learning the language but you\u0026rsquo;re learning the culture and so you need to understand that sort of stuff and so yeah anyway basically.\nAfter 12 months I kind of came to the realization that it was probably a little bit too long and I\u0026rsquo;d kind of got a lot out of the experience already and so it\u0026rsquo;s time to come home and so I actually flew back into Australia two weeks before covert was officially announced in in.\nChina so I flew back in on the 15th of december and 31st of december was when it was kind of announced or discovered and actually there were people with covert one week later where I was where I was working at the time um so I could have been patient zero yeah just like insane a thing right yeah.\nAbsolutely yeah yeah kind of cool yeah yeah that\u0026rsquo;s so cool and yeah it\u0026rsquo;s really interesting because yeah people often talk about like Chinese being sorry that\u0026rsquo;s like quite hard to learn like the language is something that you know you really got to be you know it\u0026rsquo;s like probably one of the hardest languages to learn and then you.\nKnow on top of that learning the culture and then you know doing all these other things I think um yeah I think it\u0026rsquo;s it\u0026rsquo;s a definitely great experience it certainly sounds.\nUsing your Network | Guanxi # Like it I\u0026rsquo;m curious you know what were some things that you when you came back in end of 2019 when you when you came back to Australia is there anything that kind of stuck from when you\u0026rsquo;re in China like is there any you know sometimes it\u0026rsquo;s like things like yeah there\u0026rsquo;s certain like cooking techniques that.\nThey use or like certain ways that you would like get ready or you know those cultural things that you know perhaps we you know the way we do things in Australia is like a bit different you know is there anything that you took back you know from there that you still do today.\nYeah a lot I mean it influenced my life so much like my choice of breakfast you know like I like to have a noodle soup for breakfast yeah a hot bowl of noodle soup on a hot day I like to drink warm and hot water picked up a lot of cultural things and as well as.\nActually on the networking side and I was going to let\u0026rsquo;s leave this till the end but in China they have something called guanxi guangxi is the concept of relationship and the power of relationship and so in China it\u0026rsquo;s extremely important and I think through you know a lot of a lot of asia.\nThey it basically rules society in a way you know that as I understand it and this idea that you know you build your relationships but actually you build your network but actually what you\u0026rsquo;re doing is you should also be using those relationships and those networks and so they say guanxi is like an arm the more you use.\nIt the more powerful it gets and I think this is a really important thing that kind of underpins what I how I conduct myself these days is I grew up in in Australia where we build networks but we use them as a last resort we don\u0026rsquo;t like to draw on our networks too much because we feel maybe a little.\nBit embarrassed that we\u0026rsquo;re asking for help we\u0026rsquo;re in China it\u0026rsquo;s a complete opposite you should be using that as as as you know one of the first one of the first ports of call and so I really picked up on this and so I\u0026rsquo;ve really been trying my best to apply that in my daily life and I\u0026rsquo;m.\nSeeing the benefits already you know I talk a lot with people the same people you know or try to build up a good network of people and help each other and help each other and I really feel that bond and relationship evolve and it gets more meaningful over time and it\u0026rsquo;s really enjoyable one.\nBecause you\u0026rsquo;re building relationships which obviously as humans is like a basic thing which is really nice but also you\u0026rsquo;re helping each other and that\u0026rsquo;s also really nice in a professional sense as well as in a personal sense yeah yeah definitely I think like what you said there about like often we turn to our network as a.\nLast resort certainly like when he said that I was like I definitely like I\u0026rsquo;m definitely guilty of that and yet certainly like even taking it back to what we\u0026rsquo;re talking about at the start with the reaching out and things like that you can achieve so much from from just asking and they\u0026rsquo;re often like yeah from what you\u0026rsquo;ve.\nJust said there like you can you can save yourself a lot of time try to work something out yourself when just asking someone could solve your problem really really quickly so yeah yeah I totally yeah I absolutely agree I think that\u0026rsquo;s something that I personally could do better and yeah likely a lot of.\nPeople could do better is you know not being so worried to just reach out to people and ask for things ask for help ask for you know if people can help you because yeah I think it\u0026rsquo;s it\u0026rsquo;s saying that could be beneficial for both parties like you said yeah and I think I.\nThink you know the I know definitely the part of Australia that I grew up in is definitely a more individualistic society and so we pride ourselves on doing everything ourselves right it\u0026rsquo;s like move out of home as soon as you\u0026rsquo;re 18 and like you know fight for your survival and blah blah blah you know not.\nReally fight for yourself it wasn\u0026rsquo;t that bad but yeah but but you know like really drive home this individual and I know I kind of rejected my family for a long time and it was only after and this is really another thing that it came back with was the importance of family and friends.\nAnd and you know Chinese society is very much centered around this family unit and and friends come within that and that\u0026rsquo;s really important and so that\u0026rsquo;s something that I came back from China with as well really drawing in my family and embracing it and really enjoying it which has been.\nReally nice and really refreshing and not like thinking that I have to do everything myself just because I need to prove that I\u0026rsquo;m like a big tough person who can make it in Australia by himself like it\u0026rsquo;s nice yeah yeah absolutely yeah I think that\u0026rsquo;s something that we can all do we can all do better and yeah certainly.\nLike I yeah I absolutely agree with that yeah it\u0026rsquo;s only at least the last time I\u0026rsquo;m like I could definitely improve in that area okay even like with the podcast I\u0026rsquo;m like you know people will say like oh yeah you should like reach out to this person like they\u0026rsquo;ll be able to help you with.\nThis area and then like part of me is like yeah that\u0026rsquo;s a good idea but I don\u0026rsquo;t know why it\u0026rsquo;s almost just like I almost like want to do it like it\u0026rsquo;s it\u0026rsquo;s probably it\u0026rsquo;s like clearly like not the best way to do it right is that I\u0026rsquo;m like yeah like I can do it all myself.\nLike I don\u0026rsquo;t gotta be with this person that has a newsletter that like they can share it with heaps of people like no I could you know this is like wow the amount of opportunities that like yeah that I had like that all of us have not just me but you know that are just.\nOne ask away that you just completely ignore because like to do it yourself I think is phenomenal yeah but also like you know it\u0026rsquo;s fun doing things by yourself and like making your own mistakes and like that\u0026rsquo;s okay but just making sure that you find a balance right and yeah and especially seizing opportunities that.\nAre really like that are really juicy and yeah yeah but also you know acknowledging the fact that you just don\u0026rsquo;t know where an opportunity is gonna lead and and so you may on the face of it an opportunity may not look that appealing or juicy but you know it may end up leading to.\nFor example a grad job like I got right and that was not what I was expecting but that was what happened and I suppose if I tried to judge that immediate opportunity from the outset I would have been completely wrong and actually most of the time I\u0026rsquo;m completely wrong when I try and judge outcomes of.\nOf meeting people people are very complex and they\u0026rsquo;re much more than their LinkedIn or their instagram profile or whatever and they have amazing networks and amazing knowledge and you just cannot ever predict where something is going to go or what you\u0026rsquo;re going to learn or like just their background and that\u0026rsquo;s the most beautiful thing yeah.\nLike it\u0026rsquo;s really daunting though because like you have to be prepared to like for anything to learn anything to be exposed to anything but that\u0026rsquo;s what makes it so beautiful especially if you have a love for learning right yeah yeah that\u0026rsquo;s yeah very wise certainly I think that\u0026rsquo;s yeah I think that\u0026rsquo;s like that\u0026rsquo;s so true I think yeah the.\nLove learning is so important yeah it\u0026rsquo;s something that we can we can all do better I\u0026rsquo;m sure I wanna I wanna talk.\nHow did Warwick end up in Startups # About now like your experience in the startup world because this is something that you said you worked in vc for a little bit in between your trips to China it\u0026rsquo;s something that you\u0026rsquo;re you know you\u0026rsquo;re really involved with with today you know how did you how did you stumble into that area and.\nAnd kind of what you know it\u0026rsquo;s the similar trend of kind of life lessons is there anything that you\u0026rsquo;ve really what it would have startups that would being in this space taught you yeah so you know as I said before I started my first business when I was like six and I had a few businesses since and.\nThen I started my first startup when I was 21 I think when I was just coming out of uni and I was I think I was I was studying at anz in treasury and I had an idea for a fitness marketplace and so I was like whatever let\u0026rsquo;s just try and build it and see what.\nHappens and so I convinced my dad to give me a little bit of money which he never saw again and he still teases me about today he\u0026rsquo;s asked me when I\u0026rsquo;m gonna read that yeah I better get on to that actually it\u0026rsquo;s a good reminder yeah so I started fitness marketplace and so.\nBasically went through the whole thing finding some developers and blah blah blah you know after a year it was kind of built and I basically had grand plans for it to be the biggest and best thing from day one and I launched it and nothing crickets I had no idea what I was doing.\nAnd I kind of came to the realization after a couple of months and I\u0026rsquo;m gonna have to get out and like pound the pavement and go and talk to people and all this sort of stuff and I actually didn\u0026rsquo;t care about a fitness marketplace I\u0026rsquo;m sorry I just don\u0026rsquo;t do not and did not care about fitness or.\nMarketplaces it\u0026rsquo;s just not not me right and so I kind of started this thing thinking I found like this this niche and I was going to be able to because I\u0026rsquo;M\u0026amp;A business person I can just like execute anything and like you know it\u0026rsquo;s irrelevant whether I care about it or not which is just not true for me and so.\nI end up shutting that down because I didn\u0026rsquo;t want to do the work and basically that\u0026rsquo;s funny so realization is coming out and then and then about a year later I started another startup called gober and warwick and so basically it was a custom men\u0026rsquo;s shoe um business and so it was.\nDesign your own shoe in the shoes in 3d it was modeled after shoes of prey which I saw some people at work using and I was like oh my god this is amazing and I was kind of playing around with like custom designed shoes at the time or going over to vietnam on holiday and.\nGetting them made and it was really fun and so I was like okay well I have to do this and so I started building that and that basically maybe for three years I was building this custom shoe business and then when I was in China I was still doing the same and.\nAnd I met my really good friend ola or gobba and we joined up together and he\u0026rsquo;s a designer and so we\u0026rsquo;re having a lot of fun building this this tech and then we found a custom shoe manufacturer factory in in China and we used to go there on weekends and play around with these designs and.\nAnd they thought we were absolutely crazy we would we were trying to get them to make the most crazy designs and we them you know we found that they had a laser in the factory and so we started like you know getting leather and laser and things on and then we\u0026rsquo;re getting friends with tattoo artists like tattoo.\nLeather and oh man like you know we\u0026rsquo;re doing all lots of crazy stuff we\u0026rsquo;ll die in these shoes like hot pink and like it always it\u0026rsquo;s just it was so much fun I\u0026rsquo;ve tried that for like three years and it didn\u0026rsquo;t really come off and I knew that I loved at that point I knew that I.\nReally loved change and innovation and startups and so I went into the space and decided to go and work for anyone that was in the startup space basically I just wanted to learn and so that kind of started my my startup career as a as a employee and yeah I\u0026rsquo;ve kind of.\nYou know now I work at tractor ventures and it\u0026rsquo;s an amazing place to work and I get to meet founders all day every day and I get to see all these innovations and you know whilst we\u0026rsquo;re also a startup ourselves we\u0026rsquo;re actually a fintech the name tractor ventures is a bit deceptive.\nWe\u0026rsquo;re we\u0026rsquo;re actually a fintech company and we also get to deal with startups who are innovating themselves so it\u0026rsquo;s kind of like the perfect job because it\u0026rsquo;s also finance so it\u0026rsquo;s kind of amazing but you know I was like before that I worked in a medical device startup and doing finance and.\nBefore that I worked in an ag tech sas startup called mobile doing growth and yeah and while I was in China I also did a lot of community work building the expat community and then started doing startup community work through startup grind and then came back to Australia and was also doing startup grind and has.\nReally enjoyed community building and um it was I don\u0026rsquo;t know what it is about it I like I think for me I get really excited when I see two people meet each other for the first time and start sharing stories and then all of a sudden you see something happen where they share some stories about problems.\nThey\u0026rsquo;re trying to solve and then the other person goes ah I did that six months ago and don\u0026rsquo;t do this this this go and do this this is and all of a sudden six months worth of learning has been shortcut over to the other person and they don\u0026rsquo;t have to spend six months.\nLike making mistakes right and there\u0026rsquo;s something beautiful about that all you have to do is like create this environment for these learnings to be shared and you\u0026rsquo;ve just saved hopefully someone six months of like trying to figure out some stupid problem you know and this I don\u0026rsquo;t know something electrifying about that.\nUh and seeing kind of relationships being built yeah and so I\u0026rsquo;ve kind of been doing community work on the side ever since it\u0026rsquo;s kind of morphed these days into finance community work where where I have my website Aussie Startup Capital Nerd.u and I publish investors on there investors and lenders for startups and so it\u0026rsquo;s been really.\nGreat for me to learn about the early stage capital market space industry and then I was like well there\u0026rsquo;s not really enough like you know it\u0026rsquo;s one thing having an investor list it\u0026rsquo;s another thing really knowing what to do with it or how to raise the money and so then I started doing analyst.\nAnd basically writing up reports for for founders on on metrics on capital raising metrics you know like how what\u0026rsquo;s the median seed size raise in Australia and how long between rounds like you know how how much capital should I be raising sure yeah 12 months should be 18 months should be 24 months and so yeah I kind.\nOf did that for still doing that today and yeah I find myself a tractor and then writing articles on my weekends and doing a little bit of community work here and there and I kind of forget what the question was so yeah that\u0026rsquo;s all right well yeah it\u0026rsquo;s it\u0026rsquo;s it\u0026rsquo;s really cool how you managed to like.\nCover so many different areas through like the like the bc and the startup uh ecosystem in Australia because yeah like you said you\u0026rsquo;re you\u0026rsquo;re contributing with startup funding you\u0026rsquo;re doing community events like helping founders like all this kind of stuff it\u0026rsquo;s really great great to see yeah and all that kind of comes back to literally.\nI just see a problem that\u0026rsquo;s not being solved some information that\u0026rsquo;s not being shared and I\u0026rsquo;m like okay well I might as well do this and like just see what happens and whatever and you know if it doesn\u0026rsquo;t work it doesn\u0026rsquo;t work everyone\u0026rsquo;s got a pretty short attention span these days they\u0026rsquo;ll forget yeah.\nTrue that\u0026rsquo;s such a good day that\u0026rsquo;s amazing I want to ask so you know.\nA failure that turned out to be a success # You touched on the custom shoe stuff like didn\u0026rsquo;t quite work out you know I\u0026rsquo;m sure you\u0026rsquo;ve seen many startups kind of start and be like yeah we\u0026rsquo;re going to be amazing and then things like didn\u0026rsquo;t really work out so well but I\u0026rsquo;m curious for yourself has there been a failure in your in your life that.\nTurned out to be something that was really beneficial was a failure that turned out to be a success in some way yeah good question so I think I think first it\u0026rsquo;s important to define what I think uh a failure is and so what I actually think of failure is I think.\nA fairly is when you try something but you don\u0026rsquo;t learn from it and I\u0026rsquo;ve only realized this after working in experimental environments which is like startups right so startups by the very definition are experiments in themselves and only after being in an environment that encourages failure have I been able to embrace it.\nAnd enjoy it and so very much what\u0026rsquo;s come out of that is that if you\u0026rsquo;re trying something if you\u0026rsquo;re experimenting and it doesn\u0026rsquo;t go the way that you hoped it would but you learn something from it then it\u0026rsquo;s not a failure like if you didn\u0026rsquo;t learn anything from it then it is a failure.\nAnd you\u0026rsquo;ve kind of just wasted a bit of time right and so for me that\u0026rsquo;s how I would define a failure and so with that in mind all of a sudden all these things that I\u0026rsquo;ve done in my life have actually not they\u0026rsquo;ve been successes because I\u0026rsquo;ve learned a whole heap of things and they\u0026rsquo;ve contributed.\nTo my career where I am today who I am as a personality you know as a person and my personality and where I\u0026rsquo;ll go in the future so however you know there are some failures that I have had some some failures as I define to find them and I think my favorite failure.\nI was reflecting on this last night and I was like digging really deep to like discover this you know you heard it first here yes [Laughter] my favorite failure is not actively listening and it\u0026rsquo;s really painful to say but you know I\u0026rsquo;ve been quite guilty of not actively listening in the past um.\nI don\u0026rsquo;t think I\u0026rsquo;m very good at it and I have been learning how to do it better and so you know the result of that has meant that there has been some really valuable information that has been shared with me that I have not retained and therefore it\u0026rsquo;s meant that I\u0026rsquo;ve gone and done.\nSubsequently done things that I should have known would not have worked out and so therefore I\u0026rsquo;ve actually wasted time and kind of you know failed an experiment as such as well I\u0026rsquo;ve by not actively listening I failed to have deeper conversations and therefore uncover more opportunities which could benefit both me and the person who are.\nIn that conversation or in that situation so I think for me not actively listening is my greatest failure yeah deep indeed yeah certainly yeah I think that it is it\u0026rsquo;s a tricky thing to you know to solve almost it\u0026rsquo;s like is that kind of thing wait you know listening and like yeah actively.\nListening can be something that\u0026rsquo;s quite you know seems like it you know on the outside seems quite hard perhaps to something that you can improve on or something that you can really really work on is there anything that like you know as a result of that you try and do now to sort of combat that.\nThat listening process yeah I try to make I try to slow down I like to move fast and think fast and and you know break things and all that sort of stuff and I love change and so it means that I am primed to be a poor listener and so I try to.\nMake eye contact more often I try to wait in a conversation and not not interject not get too excited also learn techniques not to annoy other people when I\u0026rsquo;m making maybe assertions in conversations one of my bosses once got a little angry at me because I was making some assertions and he\u0026rsquo;s like I.\nDon\u0026rsquo;t really know if you know that warwick like you know you maybe based on your experience but you know it may not be true like you know for the whole world and but you\u0026rsquo;re kind of asserting that it is and so you know he said I think a better way to make an.\nAssertion is to say in my experience this is blah blah blah blah and so rather than saying that this is true for the whole world I\u0026rsquo;m saying well based on everything that I\u0026rsquo;ve done today this is what I\u0026rsquo;ve learned and this is what I think the answer is and so you come across far less confident and more.\nLike you\u0026rsquo;re you\u0026rsquo;re sharing something and you know it\u0026rsquo;s a shared learning thing which is also part of relationship building so that\u0026rsquo;s really helped me reduce confrontation in conversations and allowed people to open up more and allowed us to go deeper as well yeah yeah it\u0026rsquo;s cool it\u0026rsquo;s a great that\u0026rsquo;s a great technique I think to.\nYou know to say what you\u0026rsquo;re thinking and open up the space for the discussion rather than like you know just saying what you think and leaving it there I think that\u0026rsquo;s yeah that\u0026rsquo;s really great because I\u0026rsquo;m an extrovert yeah so I have to be mindful of the fact that other people are not not everybody is an.\nExtrovert and so there\u0026rsquo;s some really important information that everybody has and experiences that everybody has and so you need to be able to give them the space um to do that yeah yeah definitely.\nWarwick\u0026rsquo;s Advice for Graduates # Well we\u0026rsquo;re we\u0026rsquo;re coming pretty close to the end of this interview work we\u0026rsquo;ve been time has absolutely flown but I\u0026rsquo;ve got one more question for you and it\u0026rsquo;s something that I ask all the guests and that is what advice would you give someone starting their career in 2022 build your network it may seem hard.\nAnd a daunting task at the start and it is but it\u0026rsquo;s a marathon not a race and there are plenty of beautiful amazing people out there that want to talk to you and that want to share their experiences with you and don\u0026rsquo;t be afraid to ask them the worst they can say is no literally that\u0026rsquo;s the worst.\nThey can say and the best that they can say is hell yeah let\u0026rsquo;s go and have a coffee and then who knows what\u0026rsquo;s going to happen once that happens so you know it\u0026rsquo;s it\u0026rsquo;s a asymmetric risk and it\u0026rsquo;s an amazing thing and you really should be doing that and I understand that not everyone\u0026rsquo;s an.\nExtrovert and so it\u0026rsquo;s more difficult for others than it is for some of us but try to fight it or try to find ways that it can work for you know maybe it\u0026rsquo;s online maybe it\u0026rsquo;s like pinging someone and asking some questions you know it doesn\u0026rsquo;t always have to be face to face yeah face to.\nFace is great to build relationships but you know it doesn\u0026rsquo;t always have to be there there are other ways there\u0026rsquo;s always there\u0026rsquo;s always another way to solve a problem so try to innovate do some reading and figure it out but yeah I think those networks those relationships what will hold you strong throughout your.\nCareer in your life and it\u0026rsquo;s something that your job doesn\u0026rsquo;t own you know when you leave you take that with you and that becomes some of your capital that you can use to improve your life and improve your performance in your role and just have it you know have a nicer life it\u0026rsquo;s really good so.\nYeah yeah I encourage everyone to go out and build their network and set yourself some goals like okay each week I\u0026rsquo;m going to meet one new person two new people in a certain area if you\u0026rsquo;re going out to learn about a new industry or a new job or you know a new topic set yourself some goals I want to.\nMeet one person every week for the next eight weeks and go and reach out to people and do it yeah yeah it\u0026rsquo;s great advice I think and certainly something that everyone can do and um you know and say that can really be be beneficial I think you have it in your your LinkedIn but it\u0026rsquo;s it\u0026rsquo;s something.\nLike you know worst case I won\u0026rsquo;t reply and that\u0026rsquo;s the case is up to your imagination and you know I think that\u0026rsquo;s a great way of putting it yeah yeah if you\u0026rsquo;re thinking of reaching out I put it by LinkedIn if you think you\u0026rsquo;re reaching out to me then yeah worst case I won\u0026rsquo;t.\nReply and best cases yeah yeah.\nContact Warwick # Congratulations yeah I think that\u0026rsquo;s so good like thanks so much for the chat today work I\u0026rsquo;ve learned so much about yourself and there\u0026rsquo;s so many lessons that we\u0026rsquo;ve spoken about today that I think are really really great for young people today but if people want to find out more about yourself and connect with you further.\nWhere\u0026rsquo;s the uh the best place for them to do that yeah jump on my LinkedIn I\u0026rsquo;m pretty active on LinkedIn I know some of you may be rolling your eyes but you know it\u0026rsquo;s just it\u0026rsquo;s it\u0026rsquo;s where I\u0026rsquo;m active so and have a look through you know I do a lot of posts on there and that will give.\nYou a bit of a flavor for what I\u0026rsquo;m interested in and if I might be helpful for you and yeah read through my profile and make make a decision from there fantastic yeah thanks so much for chatting today work.\nOutro # Thanks so much for listening to this episode with Warwick Donaldson I hope you got something out of it and I certainly did if you haven\u0026rsquo;t already please consider subscribing to the Graduate Theory newsletter you\u0026rsquo;ll get the episode and my takeaways straight to your inbox every single week thanks so much for listening again today.\nAnd I look forward to seeing you in the next episode.\n← Back to episode 18\n","date":"21 February 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/graduate-theory/18-on-asymmetric-risks-and-the-power-of-asking-with-warwick-donaldson/transcript/","section":"Graduate Theory Transcripts","summary":"← Back to episode 18\nThis transcript was generated from YouTube captions and lightly edited for readability. Speaker labels may be unavailable, and transcription errors may remain.\nWarwick Donaldson # Hello and welcome to Graduate Theory on today’s episode you’ll hear about what it means to take an asymmetric risk and certain things you can do in your career that have unlimited upside we’ll talk about networking hacks from Chinese culture and we’ll also talk about what it means to challenge yourself appropriately if you haven’t already.\n","title":"Transcript: On Asymmetric risks and The Power Of Asking with Warwick Donaldson","type":"graduate-theory-transcripts"},{"content":" Watch the conversation Graduate Theory Open YouTube ↗ Read the full transcript → Hello Graduates!\nWelcome to episode #17 of Graduate Theory, providing you with lessons and tips so that you can have a successful and fulfilling career.\nIf you\u0026rsquo;re not already levelling up your career, subscribe now so you never miss a beat 👇\nSubscribe Now\nThis week\u0026rsquo;s guest is Aaron Ngan. Aaron is an experienced entrepreneur, public speaking coach, and career skills expert. He is the CEO of Junior Achievement Australia, helping people across the country succeed in employment and entrepreneurship.\nIn this week\u0026rsquo;s episode, we focus on taking action and converting ideas and plans into things we can do TODAY.\n👇 Episode Takeaways # Smallest Actionable Step # A big part of this episode was talking about the smallest actionable step. Often when we look at our goals or plans, we can get overwhelmed by a big list of things to do. It can seem hard to make progress. What Aaron suggested was to break your problems down into the smallest actionable step.\nSo find that smallest actionable step. And then once you can find that and like ideally smallest, actionable step, just to give it some tangibility, you\u0026rsquo;re talking like five minutes to an hour, max. If it takes longer than that, then it\u0026rsquo;s not a small actionable step.\nThe journey is made up of small steps, we can\u0026rsquo;t know what the journey is going to look like until we get started!\nWhat You Get is What You Deserve # Are you ready to do that thing? To start that business? To go for that job?\nNothing gets accomplished unless you take action. And the results that you get from the action that you take are exactly precisely what you\u0026rsquo;re ready for. But we try to go in our head to find out, am I ready? Am I not? Take the action. You will find out.\nYou will only find out once you take action. Once you attempt something you will get feedback that lets you know if you are ready or not. Apply for a job and get rejected? You are not ready.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s important to keep taking action and keep getting this feedback so that you can see where you are and are pushing the limits with what you can achieve.\nShow Your Work # Aaron\u0026rsquo;s number one piece of advice.\nThe number one piece of advice I would give is share what you\u0026rsquo;re up to share it with your family, share it with your friends, share it with your network. Just tell people, Hey, this is what I want to be doing.\nYou never know what opportunities can arise just by telling people what you\u0026rsquo;re up to. Like Aaron said in the episode, don\u0026rsquo;t just reply to \u0026ldquo;how are you\u0026rdquo; with \u0026ldquo;good thanks\u0026rdquo;. Actually telling people what you did might surprise you just how receptive and helpful people are.\nGet the Newsletter\n🤝 Connect with Aaron # Message Aaron on LinkedIn and tell him we sent you\nhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/aaronngan/\n📝 Show Notes # 00:00 Aaron Ngan 00:51 Intro 01:25 What does Taking Action mean to Aaron? 10:03 Researching vs Using information 14:07 You will never feel ready! 16:50 Aaron\u0026rsquo;s experience with uncertainty when taking action 25:13 Going from 0 to 1 30:28 Mental tools for going from 0 to 1 35:51 Advice for someone having trouble taking action 39:38 Aaron Helps Talk about James\u0026rsquo; eBook 54:32 How Taking Action Relates to Careers 59:33 Aaron\u0026rsquo;s Career Advice for New Graduates 01:05:05 Connect with Aaron 01:06:02 Outro\n","date":"14 February 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/graduate-theory/17-on-the-importance-of-taking-action-with-aaron-ngan/","section":"Graduate Theory","summary":" Watch the conversation Graduate Theory Open YouTube ↗ Read the full transcript → Hello Graduates!\nWelcome to episode #17 of Graduate Theory, providing you with lessons and tips so that you can have a successful and fulfilling career.\n","title":"On the Importance of Taking Action with Aaron Ngan","type":"graduate-theory"},{"content":"← Back to episode 17\nThis transcript has been lightly edited for readability. It may still contain transcription errors.\nJames: Hello, and welcome to Graduate Theory. Today\u0026rsquo;s episode is all about taking action. How do we go from an idea, a thought into something that\u0026rsquo;s tangible and interactions that we can actually.\nToday\u0026rsquo;s episode, we dive into this framework of how to convert these things and these possibilities that seem so far off into tangible things that you can take action on today. During this episode, my guest, coach\u0026rsquo;s may through one of my own problems at the moment.\nAnd so I think this will be, we be a really great resource for you, so you can go and analyze some of your problems and the things that you\u0026rsquo;re putting off with this same framework that we discussed tonight, this was a really, really impactful episode for myself. And I\u0026rsquo;ll have you enjoy.\nIntro # James: Today\u0026rsquo;s guest is an experienced entrepreneur public speaking coach and career skills expert. He\u0026rsquo;s the CEO of junior achievement Australia, helping people across the country, succeed in employment and entrepreneurship. Please. Welcome to the show, Aaron. God.\nAaron: Hello? Thank you, James. It\u0026rsquo;s an absolute pleasure to be here. I\u0026rsquo;m excited to be on this podcast and share whatever I can. So I\u0026rsquo;m in your hands. Let\u0026rsquo;s go.\nJames: Perfect, man. Well, yeah, today I\u0026rsquo;d love to chat about so many things.\nWhat does Taking Action mean to Aaron? # James: There\u0026rsquo;s a lot of things that you do and you know, really closely related to careers and a lot of the themes around this podcast. But one thing I want to speak about first is this idea of taking action. Something we spoke about before you came on the\ntoday was around, you know, making that decision to not just sit on the sidelines, but actually to get in the arena and, and start doing something, start making something.\nSo it\u0026rsquo;s selling something, whatever that might be. And I\u0026rsquo;m curious, you know, what does that kind of process looked like for yourself in your life? There are any other times like that, where you really had to sort of dive in and, and make something happen.\nAaron: Absolutely. I\u0026rsquo;d say like on the, on the big picture, that idea of staying in the stands or getting into the arena, that\u0026rsquo;s, that\u0026rsquo;s incredibly critical because this is some of the, one of the things, which is I, all the times I\u0026rsquo;ve been held back all the times. I felt stuck all the times. I felt like I don\u0026rsquo;t know what I\u0026rsquo;m going to do.\nI don\u0026rsquo;t know, like, what action should I take? Or like, what should I try out? And, and these are, these are things when I speak with lots of young people, like in university, just out of university, even early in their careers, these are common sort of themes of what\u0026rsquo;s going on. Like what\u0026rsquo;s the right thing.\nEspecially like the world\u0026rsquo;s gone nuts. What do I do? Every single one of those things for myself and also for people I speak to like really I\u0026rsquo;ve noticed in those moments of being stuck, like what\u0026rsquo;s right there is that being in the stands, being the observer and what that really looks like is I need to do all the research.\nLet me, let me go get all the way sash done. Let me find out all the options. Maybe let\u0026rsquo;s chat to a bunch of people and let\u0026rsquo;s find out what the best thing is. Can I do this? Maybe? What if I create a plan like let\u0026rsquo;s like, we should create a plan. Like that\u0026rsquo;s what we need to do now. Let\u0026rsquo;s go create a plan all, wait, what all the different circumstances, what could go wrong?\nAll of this comes up and there\u0026rsquo;s nothing wrong with planning. There\u0026rsquo;s nothing wrong with doing research, but every time I\u0026rsquo;ve gotten stuck, like where I\u0026rsquo;m at is, I mean this word, if I\u0026rsquo;m not taking any action and this is where I have a big challenge as well, like sometimes. When I\u0026rsquo;m out there seeing different contents in different workshops seen different things for people to, to learn by people like students, like just like your listeners who are committed to really taking their career to the next level.\nOne of the things that I see missing the most is what are the actions to take? What are the actions today? Cause having all that theory, having all that background, having all that research, understanding why something works is, is incredibly fascinating. And it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s often really helpful and none of it gets any sort of impact unless someone takes action.\nAnd that\u0026rsquo;s why, I guess the, the core sort of idea that like, I\u0026rsquo;m super excited to share with people. Because like I do, I do public speaking coaching. That\u0026rsquo;s one of the main things that I focus on and I\u0026rsquo;ve seen so many articles. I\u0026rsquo;ve seen so many Ted talks. I\u0026rsquo;ve seen so many YouTube. All about here\u0026rsquo;s the theory.\nThis is how you stand. This is different ways to modulate your voice. You should pause to let things sink in for effect. And that\u0026rsquo;s all really nice, right? That\u0026rsquo;s all really nice. And what I used to do, and this is mirrored for almost everyone that I speak to is I\u0026rsquo;d be like, oh wow, that\u0026rsquo;s really nice. And then I\u0026rsquo;d like spike.\nI would save the YouTube video. I\u0026rsquo;d put it to a playlist of all my educational, YouTube videos so I can refer back to it later. And then I just not look at it. And maybe 2, 3, 4 years later, I look back at that place. So I\u0026rsquo;m like, ah, that\u0026rsquo;s nice. Maybe I\u0026rsquo;ll do something about it. And I realized if I\u0026rsquo;m honest, actually haven\u0026rsquo;t done anything.\nActually haven\u0026rsquo;t taken any action. And, and even though I\u0026rsquo;m someone now who I would say has, has has a decent amount of muscle and practice in taking it. I\u0026rsquo;ll still give you some examples. It\u0026rsquo;s not like I\u0026rsquo;m immune to it. It\u0026rsquo;s not like you ever get immune to it because the thoughts just come up. Like, how\u0026rsquo;s this going to work?\nCan I do this? Will people listen, will people sign up? And, and James, you\u0026rsquo;ve created your own podcast. You\u0026rsquo;ve created this podcast Graduate Theory. And there would have been a period of time between when you\u0026rsquo;re like, I\u0026rsquo;m going to do this. So when you actually started it, because there was a point where you\u0026rsquo;re like, I\u0026rsquo;m 100% going to do this.\nAnd then like, like for me, that was 20 17, 20 17. I was like, right. I got one or two people together. I\u0026rsquo;m like, I need to create like my own public speaking coaching program. I\u0026rsquo;ve been doing it unofficially. I\u0026rsquo;ve been doing it for various events. I\u0026rsquo;ve just had people in various competitions and workshops that I\u0026rsquo;ve run and I\u0026rsquo;d give them that coaching and they\u0026rsquo;d get great results.\nI\u0026rsquo;m like, I just need to put this into my own course. It\u0026rsquo;s 2017. Didn\u0026rsquo;t actually do anything about it. Didn\u0026rsquo;t get any customers. Didn\u0026rsquo;t put anything. Maybe did like one free workshop, which was really, if I\u0026rsquo;m honest, just like part of this other program which was doing, so I didn\u0026rsquo;t actually create anything extra or new to test it.\nI just kind of was like, Hey, just come to this. And it wasn\u0026rsquo;t till 2020, and we\u0026rsquo;re in the middle of everything\u0026rsquo;s in lockdown. No in-person meetings are happening and I\u0026rsquo;m like, you know what? Now\u0026rsquo;s now\u0026rsquo;s the time. Like why? Because there is no other time, like there isn\u0026rsquo;t, I could, I could wait for another three years and I was like, okay, I\u0026rsquo;m going to put together the first course, who am I going to get?\nLike, I was running two workshops back to back, like day after day, like Wednesday, Thursday for, for real skills education. They do like entrepreneurial training for engineers in, in universities. And they, they had me come in running to public speaking workshops. I\u0026rsquo;m like, you know what, at the end of it, I\u0026rsquo;m just going to pitch it.\nI\u0026rsquo;m going to see who shows up. I\u0026rsquo;m going to one. The first one is a pilot program. Three, three weekends in a row, 1, 2, 3, and over six weeks, like with the Fortnite Fortnite. Let\u0026rsquo;s just do it. And we had 12 people sign up and go, yeah, I want to do this. And I was like, wow. Okay. That\u0026rsquo;s that\u0026rsquo;s cool. And now I\u0026rsquo;m like, wow, I have to actually make this now.\nSo in taking the action in setting the dates in offering it and offering, it was really the biggest sort of thing. Cause I was like, I don\u0026rsquo;t know if this is going to flop or not. Then I discovered, okay, hold on. Now this is pulling me into action. So the action was pulling me into action because now I\u0026rsquo;ve got these people who\u0026rsquo;ve committed to taking themselves.\nAren\u0026rsquo;t expanding their public speaking skills. I\u0026rsquo;ve actually got to write this thing in a way. That\u0026rsquo;s going to make a difference for them in a way that they\u0026rsquo;re going to get to experience it in a way that, where they walk out authentically able to be able to speak confidently and effectively on any topic in front of any audience.\nCause that was like when I worked down the promise of the. I said, like, what\u0026rsquo;s the promise of this course? And like, that\u0026rsquo;s it, like, you will be able to confidently ineffectively present on any topic in front of any audience. And they walked out being able to do that. And I was like, okay, now I\u0026rsquo;ve got something.\nAnd then from that course, I had two more people. They brought their friends along, they shared it with their friends at two more people. My crap. Now I\u0026rsquo;ve got two more customers. I need to go fill the rest of the second course, but I\u0026rsquo;m so glad that I didn\u0026rsquo;t waste another three years. I was like, you know what, I\u0026rsquo;m just going to do this.\nOkay. What\u0026rsquo;s the action to take. So that\u0026rsquo;s kind of the overall theme. Cause when you take action, like I got to discover a whole lot of it. I got maybe two, three that whole two, three years. Like in those two weeks I learned more about putting together that course the structures. How do I get a payment structure in place?\nHow do I find out what they want to accomplish? I spent, I wasted a lot of time trying to like figure out like a website, just so I could get a sales page up at the end of the course.\nJames: Hmm.\nAaron: But I learned more in that two to six week period than I did in the three years of just going, yeah, I really want to do this.\nI\u0026rsquo;m definitely got the skills for it. I knew I had the skills for it. Logically, theoretically, I knew I had the skills, but I didn\u0026rsquo;t have any proof or evidence, but taking the, taking the actual step. Now I\u0026rsquo;ve got the, the theory and I\u0026rsquo;ve discovered, you know what, this is something which I can do. This is something which I really, I really am able to do. So I guess the first kind of takeaway or lesson for that is theory and the information and all the research that you might do, none of it\u0026rsquo;s bad. Like in fact, it\u0026rsquo;s often really helpful, but once you take the action, you get to know for yourself that this is something that you can do. And there\u0026rsquo;s a whole bunch of other learnings and benefits, which come with that.\nSo I guess that\u0026rsquo;s the key theme to start off with.\nJames: Yeah. Yeah. I think that\u0026rsquo;s really cool. There\u0026rsquo;s so many things that like, we can go off from there, but just on what you said, just to finish that about the information and things like that.\nResearching vs Using information # James: I mean, I\u0026rsquo;ve found even for myself, you know, I used to read a lot of books and that was almost like the thing that I did, like, you know, just try and read as many books as I could in a year.\nAnd then like, since starting a podcast and actually like doing something, you know, almost with that information, you kind of realize like, you know, I\u0026rsquo;ve read books on marketing, but like now I have to actually like market the thing, like market the podcast. And it\u0026rsquo;s just like, okay, I probably didn\u0026rsquo;t actually retain much of what I read and sort of reading it again.\nNow with this. Yeah, why that you would actually implement the advice, makes it a lot more effective, I think. And so I feel like you can get into an asset. They did got into that, just like reading and like researching like so much. And that almost like, like led me to not do the thing, like not use the information.\nAnd then I found like once I actually got having to use it, then like, you know, I\u0026rsquo;d almost prefer like, you know, starting like doing something and then using the information to kind of power that versus like making the information, like its own thing. I\u0026rsquo;ve certainly found that for myself. Like if I read a marketing book now the whole time, I\u0026rsquo;m like, Hey, how am I going to use this?\nHow am I gonna use this? Like, whatever. Whereas if I, if I don\u0026rsquo;t have something to use it for, then I\u0026rsquo;m like, okay, like nuts book, like cool concepts about marketing, like tick read. Do you know what I mean? So yeah, I think this. just from like a perspective of like being able to learn, having something, to like implement the things you\u0026rsquo;re learning just like makes you learn way more.\nEven from that perspective, not even from like the actual doing of the thing, which I think is also really cool.\nAaron: Yeah. And, and look like, I really want to emphasize that this isn\u0026rsquo;t a, what, like what my thoughts are, not that information or learning is bad on the country information or learning conceptual learning, theoretical learning is critical in so many different areas of, of like how we live in the world.\nRight. It\u0026rsquo;s critical. You don\u0026rsquo;t become a theoretical physicist. That\u0026rsquo;s calculating, how do we get to the moon? How do we get to Mars? Or how do we deal with some of these really complex challenges without an incredibly strong foundation on those underlying theories and underlying academic ideas. Okay.\nSo those are really critical. However, for like, what I would say is that for most people starting off their career, making that transition from. Primary school, high school educational systems into one of adult learning that experience, that taking action in the everyday aspects of our life. We\u0026rsquo;ve got it.\nWe\u0026rsquo;ve got it the wrong way around largely because the way that a lot of people, especially recent graduate soon to be graduates have it is I need to do all the research first, so that I\u0026rsquo;ll be ready. And what invariably happens is we do the research. We find out, we ask people, we look up websites, we jump on YouTube.\nWe find out all of these different things. Some of it\u0026rsquo;s confusing because some people are saying the same thing. Other people saying different things like my, my resume reviewed bias typically, but people often tell me the number one piece of feedback, which they give me is like, I\u0026rsquo;ve never heard anyone explain it or describe it, or put it into action in the same way that you have.\nI\u0026rsquo;m like, wow, like that blows my mind. But what you said is perfect because the moment you start getting into action, The moment you start taking action. You start actually experimenting, trying things out, discovering. Then you go back to those same resources. And now all of a sudden those, the actions that you take, pull forth, all of that value from those resources.\nYou\u0026rsquo;re like, okay, cool. I\u0026rsquo;m actually doing a podcast. Now I\u0026rsquo;ve actually got to do the marketing. Now I\u0026rsquo;m going to read this book and I\u0026rsquo;m going to get 20, 30 new ideas immediately because you actually taking the action and you\u0026rsquo;re taking the action in a way that allows you to discover a bit of that world. And the more that we can actually do that combination and give people a space to do that common combination, that\u0026rsquo;s incredibly powerful. And that\u0026rsquo;s where growth discovery development. That\u0026rsquo;s, that\u0026rsquo;s where it all starts.\nYou will never feel ready # James: Yeah. Yeah. That\u0026rsquo;s cool. Yeah. I liked what you said there about, you know, like, you know, waiting to be ready, like thinking you haven\u0026rsquo;t learned enough versus\nlike,\nAaron: Going to happen.\nYou\u0026rsquo;ll never be ready.\nJames: Yeah, yeah. I think that\u0026rsquo;s really important to recognize is that, you know, these kinds of things, whatever it might be like if you just dive in and like, you\u0026rsquo;re just going to learn so much.\nAnd you\u0026rsquo;re just going to be out of duty. Like, I don\u0026rsquo;t know, it\u0026rsquo;s hard to describe, but I think that once you\u0026rsquo;re actually doing it, then it becomes clear that things you have to blend and you know, you really under the, on depression to learn. And I think that really like brings out a lot more good than just, you know, sitting on the side and, and, and researching and learning.\nAnd not that\u0026rsquo;s inherently bad, but I think, you know, if you really want to maximize getting the good stuff out of these things, then it\u0026rsquo;s worth\nbeing, being involved.\nAaron: And, and, kind of taking the view of like, I\u0026rsquo;m actually never going to be very, for some people that\u0026rsquo;s incredibly empowering. Okay. Given I\u0026rsquo;m not going to be very ever. Okay. Why don\u0026rsquo;t I just go for it for some people you could get yourself in a bit of a binder, like, and I would assert that if you\u0026rsquo;re in a bit of a bind, we\u0026rsquo;re never going to be ready.\nThat\u0026rsquo;s all part of still wanting to be with. Another way to look at it inside of the world of taking action. Once you take the action, you then get to discover that you are, you are exactly as ready as you are because you\u0026rsquo;ve taken that action and you\u0026rsquo;ve achieved whatever result you achieved. So you will exactly ready.\nYou are perfectly ready to achieve that result. The difference is now that you\u0026rsquo;ve taken the action, now that you\u0026rsquo;ve achieved the result, even if the result is no one signed up or nothing happened, or it flopped. Now you\u0026rsquo;ve got a result that actually gives you some evidence it\u0026rsquo;s outside of your head. It\u0026rsquo;s in the world, you\u0026rsquo;ve got some results you can say, okay, awesome.\nI took the action and it worked out great. Or this is how many people signed up. Like for me, it was like, okay, 12 people are here. And then when I was first, and that was a, that was a free trial program. So pretty off the hook for me to be honest. But then when I offered it for the first time out of that first free program, and I like, they\u0026rsquo;ve got to invite their friends.\nLike three, four people came along. Two of them actually paid in registered. I\u0026rsquo;m like, okay, cool. That\u0026rsquo;s now the new result measure. And now I can kind of go, okay. Like I was ready for that. How do I know it? Because I did it. In fact, everything that you accomplish and notice nothing, nothing gets accomplished unless you take action.\nSo nothing gets accomplished unless you take action. And the results that you get from the action that you take are exactly precisely what you\u0026rsquo;re ready for. But we try to go in our head to find out, am I ready? Am I not? I don\u0026rsquo;t know. I don\u0026rsquo;t know. Take the action. You will find out.\nAaron\u0026rsquo;s experience with uncertainty when taking action # James: Yeah. I mean, that\u0026rsquo;s really cool. I\u0026rsquo;m curious to hear, cause I know that, you know, we\u0026rsquo;re talking about that sort of gap now between. You know, what\u0026rsquo;s the hesitation between you thinking that you\u0026rsquo;re not ready and then, and then doing it, I\u0026rsquo;m curious for yourself, if there\u0026rsquo;s been times where you have had that delay and you\u0026rsquo;ve sort of wanted to do something, but have had that doubt.\nAnd, you know, I think it\u0026rsquo;s a fairly common thing, but I\u0026rsquo;m curious to hear like your experience with that.\nAaron: Yeah. Like the biggest, biggest, well, the biggest and most, the most present example of that is like I mentioned before, like 2017, I remember distinctly I\u0026rsquo;m like, yeah, I\u0026rsquo;m going to do my own public speaking course. I\u0026rsquo;m going to do it. Like I\u0026rsquo;ve got the experience, everyone that I coach like one-on-one they do a pitch, they do a presentation.\nI give them the coaching and. They, they just kind of go from like, nervous to like, okay, cool. I can actually express myself naturally. Not like that fake today. We\u0026rsquo;re going to talk about none of that fake sort of presenting, which you kind of get taught in high school or, or, or school, but actual natural.\nSelf-expression like natural exuberance. I was always, I wasn\u0026rsquo;t really accomplishing that with people, just not in my own course, not in my own program. And I delayed that for yeah. Two to three years to 20 end of 2020. And if I have a look back, like a lot of that hesitation was okay, how do I structure the course? How do I, well, I don\u0026rsquo;t know if I\u0026rsquo;m going to structure it. Well, what do I put in? How am I going to find people to attend? How do I promote it? And if I really look back, I wasn\u0026rsquo;t actually dealing with any of those questions. Why? Because there is a form of action. I\u0026rsquo;m going to write down all the things, which I\u0026rsquo;m actually uncertain about.\nGet clear that in fact, you know what I am certain about something I\u0026rsquo;m certain about all those things about which I\u0026rsquo;m uncertain. Right? So I am certain about something I\u0026rsquo;m certain that I just don\u0026rsquo;t know a bunch of stuff. And then actually having a look, what is it going to take to resolve that? I didn\u0026rsquo;t do any of that.\nJames: Yeah.\nAaron: Of that. And this is powerful, right? Because it\u0026rsquo;s not like I didn\u0026rsquo;t know to do that. It\u0026rsquo;s not like I hadn\u0026rsquo;t done productivity courses or seeing like YouTube clips of like how to, how to live a productive life. I knew all of that. In fact, all of that theory knowledge has been out there for, for ages and it\u0026rsquo;s readily available.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s really accessible. So I knew where that lack of information wasn\u0026rsquo;t the key. It was just kind of like, whatever was there was like, I just didn\u0026rsquo;t take the action. And even when it came up to it, one of the things which One of the things which kind of led to that was, was the, was the ways of things we were talking about this before we started the right, like, so, so in 2020 as well, one of the things which I did was, Hey, I\u0026rsquo;ve worked in this world of coaching and supporting and empowering young people develop their career, develop entrepreneurial skills and entrepreneurship skills develop financial literacy.\nSo I\u0026rsquo;m very, well-versed in this space and I\u0026rsquo;ve spent five plus years doing it officially 10 plus years doing it unofficially or informally. And I was like, okay, well, we\u0026rsquo;re going to win a global pandemic. What\u0026rsquo;s something I can do. People are struggling with careers and jobs and things like that. So much uncertainty at that time.\nSo I was like, I\u0026rsquo;m going to put up on LinkedIn, get a free resume review and I will do it on zoom and all that sort of stuff. And anyone could, anyone can do it. I was, I was really focused. I was thinking, I just get a handful of people from the Sydney area. But I ended up getting people. I think 20% of people came from like one university in the states and I looked it up like, it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s a worldwide, like top, top 20 top 30 university.\nI was like, oh, I didn\u0026rsquo;t know you existed. But Gordon to one of the communities there, they started sharing it with all their friends. But inside of doing that, I was like, wow, this would be a cool idea. And even then from when I had that idea to, oh, like, and I had the idea like, wow, like that would, I just knew it was going to work. I just knew it was going to work. Even then I still hesitated for a good like month. And I started noticing myself going, ah, I\u0026rsquo;ll write the post tomorrow. next week. Oh, I need to figure out a scheduling system first so I can book people in. Cause I don\u0026rsquo;t want. Back and forth on, on LinkedIn with taper at the message.\nI just want to give them a link and they can book it in a, what do I do? Oh, what if I recalled them? What\u0026rsquo;s going on there? Like, should I create a template first? Should I create a template that I can give them at the end? So I just kinda noticed myself just getting caught up in all of this sort of stuff, which was just kind of delaying, delaying taking the action.\nAnd then finally, I was like, you know what, I\u0026rsquo;m going to put it out there. And I actually didn\u0026rsquo;t have the scheduling link ready. I didn\u0026rsquo;t have any of that, actually, that would turn that being really good because instead of posting on LinkedIn and saying, Hey, click this link. I told them, Hey, just comment down below in the chat, me, please.\nI want to, as you may view, where\u0026rsquo;s the main review place. Something like that. The unintended effect was as they commented, their friends saw it, more people saw people who liked the post sort, and it just kind of created this viral sort of. Vile on a small scale, but like, I, my first post had about like six to 7,000 views within the first like four days.\nAnd, and about like 50 plus interactions, likes comments, things like that. And within the first kind of like three, four hours of it, I was like, okay, people are starting to comment. I need to quickly. And then like all of that arming an ongoing, like what\u0026rsquo;s the right thing. It just got pretty simple really.\nCause I\u0026rsquo;m like, all right, I\u0026rsquo;m on a deadline now. And I went and created the link. I was like, okay, we\u0026rsquo;ve got Kevin leave, we\u0026rsquo;ve got acuity scheduling. We\u0026rsquo;ve got a bunch of these different things. I\u0026rsquo;m just going to pick one. And then I found one which would integrate really well with my calendar integrated with zoom I\u0026rsquo;m like here.\nAnd then I would have done about 10 to 20 different tweaks to, to that first post to the system to all that sort of stuff. But ultimately it was all kind of in the motion in the. So, and then end of the day did about 200, 250 of those over the course of a couple of months built up a bunch of networks.\nSo I built up a, an incredibly diverse range of just awareness of different careers different types of skills, different types of things. Nowadays I, I have people come to me and go, Hey, like, do do people pay you to do this? I\u0026rsquo;m like, yeah, absolutely. So like actually do it as a paid service now, instead of doing just the 30 minute, like we go on zoom and then I\u0026rsquo;ll let you go and take the, take the action yourself sort of thing.\nLike actually go, okay, cool. We\u0026rsquo;ll still do that. Cause I can do that incredibly fast now. And I\u0026rsquo;m going to take it away. I\u0026rsquo;m got to find out all the details, going to pull it out and we\u0026rsquo;ll send you a couple of drafts and you\u0026rsquo;re going to send it back. And then you have that and I\u0026rsquo;ll review it as many times as you need.\nAnd like the 14, the 14 day period. And now people pay me a couple of hundred bucks to do that. I\u0026rsquo;m like, that\u0026rsquo;s, that\u0026rsquo;s not bad. Like it takes me like one, two hours. Maybe like half an hour of initial face-to-face work and then another hour and a half of like just going off and just doing it. it\u0026rsquo;s something which I really enjoy.\nAnd it brings in like a bit of side cash as well. And I also had like a an old friend once a, once a business, which is pretty active targeting young people. And it was building a resume, build a sort of website. And it was like, oh, I saw that. I saw those posts. I was like, that\u0026rsquo;s really cool. Can you come in and record a series of short videos and w we\u0026rsquo;ll pay you to, to do those.\nSo I ended up getting a couple of grand just to do a couple of short videos that actually was like, wow. Now I get to create content as well. That\u0026rsquo;s cool. Cause that\u0026rsquo;s something I\u0026rsquo;ve been putting off as well.\nJames: Yeah, yeah.\nAaron: There\u0026rsquo;s no shortage of things that I put off, but I\u0026rsquo;ve also started to kind of go look, nothing ever happens without taking the. sometimes it\u0026rsquo;s just a case of, okay, well, what action am I going to take today?\nJames: Yeah. Yeah. That\u0026rsquo;s cool. That\u0026rsquo;s yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s really amazing. I think there\u0026rsquo;s so many things I want to, I want to go off from that,\nbut one\nof them,\nAaron: Go for it.\nGoing from 0 to 1 # James: One of them is like, August blind on that. Okay. One of the other ones was like, you know, as like I\u0026rsquo;ve heard startup people, they\u0026rsquo;ll kind of say, you know, zero to one is like the hardest part. One to 10 is like, you know, you\u0026rsquo;re still building and walking out like refining and then tend to a hundred. It\u0026rsquo;s like, well, the scale.\nKind of side of things. So it\u0026rsquo;s certainly something where, you know, often you can be put off at the start where it\u0026rsquo;s like, you\u0026rsquo;ve got to like go from there\u0026rsquo;s. No, there\u0026rsquo;s nothing at all to, okay. I find that like, I have something like for yourself, would that LinkedIn post, like, you know, you had, there was nothing.\nAnd then you had to like make the post and like, think of all this stuff. And that was almost the biggest step. But once you had the post, then it becomes like refining, you know, like you said, you made some edits to it, like, you know, working out like big calendar, that kind of stuff. Like now you actually have something it\u0026rsquo;s a little bit easier to then like change this and refine it and perfect it.\nAnd then once you have something that\u0026rsquo;s like, that\u0026rsquo;s working well, then it\u0026rsquo;s like, okay, how do we turn up the volume on this abandoned, make it into something that\u0026rsquo;s which isn\u0026rsquo;t much like what you\u0026rsquo;ve done, where you\u0026rsquo;ve turned it now into something that\u0026rsquo;s not just phrase paid and then like there\u0026rsquo;s people coming to you for this kind of thing.\nSo I think that\u0026rsquo;s really cool. Yeah. I mean, I\u0026rsquo;m curious to hear your thoughts on that. You know, that zero to one stage, if that\u0026rsquo;s something that you\u0026rsquo;ve seen in your own experience where like that\u0026rsquo;s just starting is often the hardest bit. And once you kind of emotion, then things that become a little bit more straightforward.\nAaron: Yeah, absolutely. There\u0026rsquo;s a couple of zero to ones in that. Right. And, and the first, the first sort of like when you\u0026rsquo;ve actually created something, when you\u0026rsquo;ve actually put something out there, that\u0026rsquo;s one version of like, from like, there was nothing there and now people know about it. Then there\u0026rsquo;s a next step was okay, cool.\nWho\u0026rsquo;s my first customer. Now, if your first customer, in my case, my first customer for the resume reviews, that was 200 of them, which were all for free. Right? So those were free customers. So I was getting my first free customer. Then the next zero to one was okay, who\u0026rsquo;s my first paid customer. So there\u0026rsquo;s different steps of the whole thing.\nAnd the moment you start to play it down, it actually becomes the, you get a bit of space with it. You get to actually kind of go, okay, you know what? I\u0026rsquo;m not. Actually having this, it would be inappropriate for me to start trying to deal with how do I get from this to making 200 K a year or, or 10 K a month or whatever.\nBecause that\u0026rsquo;s not, that\u0026rsquo;s not appropriate to the level you\u0026rsquo;re at now for all of those zero to ones. There\u0026rsquo;s the psychological difficulty of it. And then there\u0026rsquo;s the actual difficulty of it. And, and in my case, I\u0026rsquo;ve been very active on LinkedIn or I\u0026rsquo;ve been active on LinkedIn sufficiently that I\u0026rsquo;ve got like 8,000, 9,000 connections.\nLike most like majority of which I\u0026rsquo;ve personally met at various points over the last couple of years. And I\u0026rsquo;ve just been doing a lot in this space. So there\u0026rsquo;s a bit of that awareness there. Now that\u0026rsquo;s already built up. That\u0026rsquo;s a really bank like, so when I put out something like a Richmond review, people already are like, oh, that makes.\nBecause I built up that brand. So I actually already got a bunch of stuff there, but the difference was there was still that sort of block of like, okay, I\u0026rsquo;ll do it tomorrow. I\u0026rsquo;ll do it tomorrow. I\u0026rsquo;ll get around to it. I knew what it\u0026rsquo;s going to work, but when you can take that first step and then take that next first step, like, what I really had to kind of confront is like, okay, what do I actually need to do?\nI really like, what, what do I actually need to do? And I realized that the only thing I actually needed to do first up was put up the post actually didn\u0026rsquo;t need the, sort of, any of the scheduling. Like in fact, when\u0026rsquo;s the time that I need to sort of scheduling is when I\u0026rsquo;ve actually got the first and especially of interest, because then I\u0026rsquo;ve got someone to send the expression of interest to, if I wait and delay it then I\u0026rsquo;ve really just delay the amount of time that people have to actually find out about it.\nSo actually got it. Okay, cool. You know what, like I can just do the post now. Everything else I can do. When someone was like, Hey, I want to, I want to do this. I want to offer to a friend, but I wasn\u0026rsquo;t like that. They came to pay for it. Like, do you have this? I was like, yeah. And then I had to figure out, okay, what am I going to charge for it?\nWhat am I going to offer? Like, what\u0026rsquo;s the package going to involve? Now, if I had spent all this time early, I probably would have come up with something. But the chance that it would have been the right fit or the right sort of thing, would be actually like very close to just pure chance or at least just kind of guided by like what I think, as opposed to what I\u0026rsquo;ve known and experienced.\nBecause in that situation, I had someone coming to me going, Hey, we want this, we want this actual thing. We want revise me. And I\u0026rsquo;ve got to ask him, Hey, what specifically you after? What sort of job are you going for? What\u0026rsquo;s your sort of background and experience in getting all of that information by chatting to someone who is actually a potential customer, potential paying customer.\nI got to go, oh, that\u0026rsquo;s actually what they is. I\u0026rsquo;ve got to find that from them as opposed to kind of like trying to figure it out of my head. Right. If left to my own devices none of that was going to be figured out or if it was figured out, it would be unreliable because it\u0026rsquo;s my guest, as opposed to actually going, finding out from the actual people.\nMental tools for going from 0 to 1 # James: Yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s a good point. Definitely. And now I\u0026rsquo;m curious to hear, you know, you know, that, you know, like taking that leap, that\u0026rsquo;s zero to one, you know, what are some like tools or like mental things that you use to overcome that? Cause you know, is there anything that you sort of turn to in those situations or like perhaps like this like mental triggers that you have that kind of, you know, you sort of snap out of it and you\u0026rsquo;re like, wait, hold up.\nLike, I\u0026rsquo;ve got to actually do this now. Is there anything that they can go through in that process?\nAaron: Yeah. Probably. These are going to sound incredibly simple. So whenever there\u0026rsquo;s a feeling of like being stuck and I use this when I coach people as well in either personal productivity or Korea career things, or the entrepreneurship sort of, very, very early level startup space. Like the number one thing is okay, like start by writing down a list of, okay, what do I, what do I not know?\nAnd what do I need to know? Just list it all down and what are the actions? And that\u0026rsquo;s often like a kind of a step zero, then step one would be okay, listen down. What are the actions that I need to take to actually start doing that in any action, which seems particularly confusing or uncertain. Really you can actually get that.\nOkay. If there\u0026rsquo;s this step, let\u0026rsquo;s call it. Okay. I need to create a, I need to create a website. Like for a lot of people, that\u0026rsquo;s like, I don\u0026rsquo;t know how to do that. And including from Easter with us now put out like a bunch of different things. If that\u0026rsquo;s one of the steps, okay. I need to build a website and that\u0026rsquo;s step four for me.\nAnd I\u0026rsquo;ve gone through this. It\u0026rsquo;s like, how do I do that? Now, the next step is to kind of go, okay, so get clarity on that. What are the different steps that I need to take now? One of the most helpful things that I heard from someone? I forget who I am, which is really unfortunate, but it was there\u0026rsquo;s probably a book on it to be honest, was find the smallest, actionable step that you can do that takes you closer to where you want to go.\nSo find that smallest actionable step. And then once you can find that and like ideally smallest, actionable step, just to give it some, some, some tangibility, you\u0026rsquo;re talking like five minutes to an hour, max. If it takes longer than that, then it\u0026rsquo;s not like a smallest actionable step. The smallest actionable step might be like, I\u0026rsquo;m going to list out the three things which I need to go. find out And then you can actually go, okay, you know what, I\u0026rsquo;m going to take this step and then find out because all of the other steps, right? Like often you can find the, the first step or you can find the first couple of steps, but without actually taking those first couple of steps, you won\u0026rsquo;t even know the right questions to ask for how to get to that zero to one point, that one, that first step.\nJames: Yeah.\nAaron: The smallest thing you can do. And then just be like, schedule a time to do it and then do it.\nJames: Yeah, I think that\u0026rsquo;s useful. Yeah. Cause I think, you know, do you think, let\u0026rsquo;s say you haven\u0026rsquo;t started something and you\u0026rsquo;re looking to do something and then you\u0026rsquo;re looking at like, you know, set number 10, thinking like, oh, it\u0026rsquo;s going to be hard. Cause like I\u0026rsquo;m a lot. Am I going to do when that happens? Yeah.\nAnd then it\u0026rsquo;s just, it becomes tricky because you, you know, you don\u0026rsquo;t know what\u0026rsquo;s even going to be locked at that point, but like you\u0026rsquo;ve said, even if you just take this, like, like I\u0026rsquo;m just going back to your LinkedIn example, you know, creating the post and then. Creating the calendar stuff is like, step two.\nSo if you just do step one, which is literally just like, make a push on like Jane you know, that\u0026rsquo;s quite easy to do and, and thinking about like, how am I going to charge money when someone like, you know,\nthat\u0026rsquo;s\nAaron: Yeah, completely\nnot appropriate at that stage. That\u0026rsquo;s\nJames: Yeah. yeah. So, and, and, and sometimes like, you can probably get overwhelmed by thinking about that and, and just like, you know, looping on this thing and like, okay.\nOr, or maybe even like you think about it too much, and then it becomes a reason why you\u0026rsquo;re not even doing the first step. But I think\nthat, I\nAaron: Another thing you can do there is his thoughts are working out. Okay. Here\u0026rsquo;s a bunch of things I could do. And you know what, like, I\u0026rsquo;m going to keep on thinking about it. If left to my own devices, I\u0026rsquo;m just going to want it and all the things I could do and actually have a look. Okay. When would it be appropriate to now do those.\nIs it going to be based on time, for example. Okay. In two months time, I\u0026rsquo;m now going to have a look at that. Or is it based on circumstance? Like, okay. You know what, like when I, when I\u0026rsquo;ve done 100 of these Westmead views, then I\u0026rsquo;m going to start looking at how I can monetize it or how I can start offering it as a, as a paid service for people who want that.\nAnd then you can go, okay, I\u0026rsquo;m going to schedule it for that time. And I\u0026rsquo;m only going to look at it at that time, all the ideas I can\u0026rsquo;t, I might jot them down. I might get them out of my head onto paper, onto digital or somewhere to keep track of it in a, in a backlog or a task list somewhere. But I might say, Hey, this is the task list that I\u0026rsquo;m only going to do once a week, for example, 100 paid or 100 free customers.\nAnd then there might be another thing. Okay. Like once I\u0026rsquo;ve reached 100 paid customers, there might be some new things to do, including like actually now I\u0026rsquo;m here. Like actually have a look like, what do I actually want to do here? Because what you thought you would do at that stage and what, when you\u0026rsquo;re actually in that stage, they might be overlapped, but like chances are, you\u0026rsquo;re going to have a whole new world of like what you\u0026rsquo;ve discovered in that process that you have just a whole bunch more, probably even cooler stuff to look at.\nAdvice for someone having trouble taking action # James: Yeah. Yeah. Cool. And I\u0026rsquo;m curious to hear then, like, you know, we\u0026rsquo;ve like, what would your advice be to someone that\u0026rsquo;s, you know, let\u0026rsquo;s say they\u0026rsquo;re on the fence, they\u0026rsquo;ve got some idea that they want to pursue. You know, they want to like start doing something like that. And they\u0026rsquo;re sort of in the middle of, you know, deciding should I, should I not kind of thing?\nI mean, what would your advice be to someone in that situation?\nAaron: I mean, the generic advice, and I\u0026rsquo;d love to actually ask you, okay, what\u0026rsquo;s something where that\u0026rsquo;s just get it really practical and tangible for the listeners. So I\u0026rsquo;ll ask you in a\nJames: Yeah. Yeah.\nAaron: Something with your life having a hearing about. Cause then we can work through that. But the, the generic advice.\nAnd really like what I\u0026rsquo;d say to people, listening to this. I actually have a look at what is the thing that you\u0026rsquo;re um\u0026rsquo;ing and ah\u0026rsquo;ing about. Like, cause if you take this in, if, if listeners take this in like a theory or a concept, it\u0026rsquo;s not going to make a difference. Unfortunately, it\u0026rsquo;s going to be nice. Okay.\nYeah. I\u0026rsquo;ll, I\u0026rsquo;ll review that later. Maybe I\u0026rsquo;ll bookmark this podcast and come back to it when I finally want to do it. But if you have a look, everyone in their life, like, like people, we have all these things, which we are um\u0026rsquo;ing and ah\u0026rsquo;ing about. Like we don\u0026rsquo;t wake out wit at least I don\u0026rsquo;t wake up out of bed.\nAnd I don\u0026rsquo;t know too many people who wake up out of bed default, like decisive, knowing exactly what I\u0026rsquo;m going to do each certain day. Like that takes for most people, there was a subset for most people, an incredible amount of discipline and, and training and actual development to get to that stage.\nSo for most people, especially for most people, like w were young early in their careers including whilst they\u0026rsquo;re still at United. Don\u0026rsquo;t automatically aren\u0026rsquo;t automatically like that. So we do have these arms and ours. And what I would say is actually find out what\u0026rsquo;s stopping me. So you could write down a list.\nOkay. Like what\u0026rsquo;s, what\u0026rsquo;s stopping me. Like, what am I uncertainties wiped them all out. Number one, I\u0026rsquo;m uncertain about this. Will I have enough time, but will I be good enough? Will people listen? what if it doesn\u0026rsquo;t work? What if I embarrass myself? I, these are just some common ones, but like, everyone\u0026rsquo;s going to have their own sort of flavor.\nAnd then the second thing, and this is really powerful within startups sort of methodology is it\u0026rsquo;s really powerful to get that within a startup process. You\u0026rsquo;re not actually out for the answer. In fact, there\u0026rsquo;s no such thing as the answer, because the moment you get the answer, like it\u0026rsquo;s the only answer like this is. Can be done and this is how it should be done now. Like you\u0026rsquo;ve actually kind of closed off, like everything else that could have been possible. If you kept on asking, Hey, what else could I do? What else could I do? So my, my initial advice would be okay, what are some really small, easy experiments that I could do? Like a simple experiment might be, Hey, I\u0026rsquo;ve been thinking about launching some freeways. You may views with people just type in yes. In the comments. If like you\u0026rsquo;d be interested in finding out about that. Like, if I look back like, that\u0026rsquo;s like I could have put that post up and just put up a LinkedIn poll.\nYes, no,\nJames: Yeah.\nAaron: It just kind of saying, and now I also know who said, yeah, so I could actually contact them. Like in hindsight, that\u0026rsquo;s what I would\u0026rsquo;ve done. Cause that would\u0026rsquo;ve been so much easier than writing this. Like pretty ended up being a pretty long. I had to trim down from the, the maximum character limit for LinkedIn.\nI have to trim it down a couple of times would have been a lot simplified, just kind of led with that sort of initial proof of concept. But I didn\u0026rsquo;t, I spent all that time arming an Allan about it, but what\u0026rsquo;s the S the key thing is like, what\u0026rsquo;s the smallest experiment that I could do. How would I know that experiment succeeded?\nAaron Helps Talk about James\u0026rsquo; eBook # Aaron: And one of the really simple, easy actions I can take to have that experiment go live. Okay. And I\u0026rsquo;ll ask you, like, like what\u0026rsquo;s something for you that you\u0026rsquo;ve, you\u0026rsquo;ve been humming and hawing about.\nJames: At the moment, one thing that. Yeah, I\u0026rsquo;m considering doing is so often with this podcast, well, not often every episode of this podcast at the end, I asked the guests, you know, what\u0026rsquo;s some advice you\u0026rsquo;d give yourself if you were starting your career again, you know, the son of this year. And so they\u0026rsquo;ll come up with some kind of an advice for a new graduate, you know, kind of things that, you know, just like fairly generic tips almost that, that, that gives someone.\nAnd what I\u0026rsquo;m, what I\u0026rsquo;m thinking about doing is kind of taking those things and putting them into some kind of a resource that someone could then like go and use and, and whatever, and just having them all in enabled or something like that. I think that would be like know a good way to compile a lot of the advice, kind of get a lot of the good stuff without having to listen to like all the hours of podcasting.\nBut yeah, again, it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s this kind of thing where like, what\u0026rsquo;s the best way to do that. Like had I even like do that kind of thing,\ncause I\u0026rsquo;ve\nAaron: Yeah. Yeah, I get it. And how many, how many guests have you had on your podcast?\nJames: I think this episode we\u0026rsquo;re recording now is going to be episode 17. So probably I\u0026rsquo;ll be at 20, within the next couple of weeks. Yeah.\nAaron: Okay, great. So you love 20, 20 guests, like, so what\u0026rsquo;s something which you could do that would be an experiment where you could actually find out.\nJames: Yeah,\nit\nAaron: And we, we, we skip the step about what are you uncertain about, but like, if you want it, we can go through that. What are you inside of the bat? In fact, you said it automatically, you were like, I\u0026rsquo;ve never done this before.\nWhat else was there?\nJames: Yeah, I think\nAaron: I don\u0026rsquo;t know how to do\nit.\nJames: Yeah, I don\u0026rsquo;t know how to do it. I\u0026rsquo;m not sure if people would even, you know, if they would even download it or if it would just be a watch because it would, you know, it was obviously it\u0026rsquo;s a fair bit of time investment to make something like that, especially if it\u0026rsquo;s going to\nbe\ngood.\nAaron: A lot of effort. Will people download\nJames: Want people to know\nthat\nlike they\u0026rsquo;re going to get it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.\nAaron: Yeah.\nJames: Yeah, I think, yeah, that was a bit of a.\nAaron: What other concerns do you have? So those are the main ones. What other concerns do you have or just uncertainties? Like, I don\u0026rsquo;t know.\nJames: Yeah. I don\u0026rsquo;t know. Like perhaps what would be the best way to, to share it with people? Like, should it be, should I make people pay for it or should it just be free? You know, like what\u0026rsquo;s, what\u0026rsquo;s even like designing the actual book itself. Like how do you make it actually look good? And the aid and the writing itself, like, what\u0026rsquo;s the best way to convert.\nSomeone\u0026rsquo;s answering a podcast into a text format. That\u0026rsquo;s like, nice to look at it. Like, well, illustrated that kind of thing. Like, should I do that myself? What is like, do I get someone else to help? Like, you know,\nthis\nAaron: Yeah. How do I take out all of the, the ums and AHS? The, oh, I\u0026rsquo;m going to start a new sentence in the middle of this idea, because I just had this new idea, but\nJames: Yeah.\nAaron: Back to that old idea. All of that. How do I edit it? How do I illustrate it? How do I make it visually appealing?\nJames: Hm.\nAaron: Should I get people to pay for it?\nShould it be free if it\u0026rsquo;s free? What if they don\u0026rsquo;t value it?\nJames: Yeah,\nAaron: Okay, got\nit. yeah,\nThe, and there\u0026rsquo;s probably more right. You could probably come up with more\nJames: Definitely.\nAaron: Now, have a look, right. Just getting present to all of those different things. Now that you\u0026rsquo;ve actually acknowledged it. You\u0026rsquo;ve said it out loud. You\u0026rsquo;ve got it recorded.\nYou can go back and actually write down all of them. When you review this podcast later. What\u0026rsquo;s what are you noticing now that you\u0026rsquo;ve actually said them all out loud or actually just got, just got them out. You\u0026rsquo;ve communicated them. Like what\u0026rsquo;s what\u0026rsquo;s present now.\nJames: I think it becomes more clear on the things that are holding me back in there to come sort of a, not an invisible target. It becomes something that you can actually go out and investigate. So for example, like the illustrations\nof\nAaron: On for a second. Can I give you, can I give you some quick coaching now when you say awesome. Yeah. So when you say, I think it\u0026rsquo;s become less of an invisible target, like, is it, is it actually, or is it not like, cause I think is kind of. Thing, which we, we always say, oh, I think it\u0026rsquo;s going to work.\nLike, like we say that so that we don\u0026rsquo;t have to be on the hook for it will work or it won\u0026rsquo;t, or I just, I don\u0026rsquo;t know. Or it\u0026rsquo;s just kinda like, oh, I\u0026rsquo;m going to try and do it. Right. It\u0026rsquo;s like, that\u0026rsquo;s like the thing which we say when we don\u0026rsquo;t want to be on the hook for actually having to do it. Oh, I\u0026rsquo;ll try.\nJames: I\u0026rsquo;m very guilty of that. Definitely.\nAaron: So, so if you have a look okay. You\u0026rsquo;ve just acknowledged all of those different things. So what\u0026rsquo;s, how does it occur to you now? What\u0026rsquo;s it actually like for you now in terms of like in physical target, what\u0026rsquo;s now available and take out the, I think, cause everything you said before was perfect.\nJames: Yeah, I, yeah, it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s much more clear on what I have to do and it\u0026rsquo;s. The things that I would have to go through to have this thing finished and now much more outline and look more clear and it\u0026rsquo;s not yeah, it\u0026rsquo;s not so much this idea. That\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s not something like, yeah. Massive thing that, that is almost a bit scary.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s kind of this thing we\u0026rsquo;ve now outlined it. It\u0026rsquo;s I can see the things that, that I have to do and you can kind of mentally like, say to that possible to overcome almost as well.\nAaron: Yeah. And you was going to start talking about the illustrations. I mean, that\u0026rsquo;s a perfect one to look at. So now that you\u0026rsquo;ve had a look at it, I\u0026rsquo;ve got no idea how, like, how to make it look good. What are some actions that you could now take to a find that out or potentially even better, like outsource it so that you didn\u0026rsquo;t have to worry about that?\nJames: Yeah, I would probably start with fun. Well, at least seeing if there are other books that, or other resources that are similar and see how they\u0026rsquo;ve gone about like the way it looks. And then I could decide, you know, is this just a, like a word doc type thing where I can just provide it? Or is it something where, you know, I need to have like fancy illustrations and like cartoons and like all this kind of extra stuff.\nCause in that case you had perhaps then I would go on to like Upwork or Fiverr or one of those kinds of websites and just say what\u0026rsquo;s kind of the, the price range for this sort of thing would be and see if then it would be worth it. Or if it\u0026rsquo;s worth me just learning it and having a crack myself.\nOkay.\nAaron: Yeah. Yeah. Like, perfect. So like Y there you\u0026rsquo;ve, you\u0026rsquo;ve actually now got a couple of openings for action.\nJames: Yeah,\nAaron: So it\u0026rsquo;s like a quote compilation ebook,\nJames: Yeah,\nAaron: Just see what you find.\nJames: Yeah.\nAaron: Okay. Yeah. Perfect. And, and you could actually, and by the way, right, like this is the. A great example of how the questions will shape your answers.\nCause you\u0026rsquo;re quite one of your questions was one of your uncertainties. Was should it be free or should it be paid? Why? And then obviously you can tell that the bigger question there is, how much would it, how much should I charge? Because in the world of, should it be paid or not free is easy, free zero, but like pay.\nIt is like, should it be $5 should be $4 should be 4 95. Should it be $10? Should it be a hundred dollars? the actual appropriate sort of thing. Now you\u0026rsquo;ve got this whole other kettle of fish. But just notice that the question shapes the value of the information you\u0026rsquo;re going to get, because inside of that, should it be paid or not pay, there\u0026rsquo;s actually a third option.\nRight. And it\u0026rsquo;s probably more options, right? Like there\u0026rsquo;s a third option, which could be, Hey, do I let people pay what they want? Or do I, do I give this for free to people who are subscribers and they get.\nJames: Yeah, I think\nthe,\nAaron: Do I, do I give this for people who are going to give me their email address? So that can be part of the actual community.\nJames: Yeah, yeah. I\nthink,\nAaron: So you stopped, you stopped looking at payment purely and start looking at, okay, what\u0026rsquo;s the value\nJames: Yeah. Let\u0026rsquo;s do the valet. Yeah,\nAaron: With people?\nJames: Yeah, yeah. It\u0026rsquo;s an interesting way of looking at it. Definitely. Cause like, yeah. What\u0026rsquo;s it going to be worth to someone is probably, yeah. Better than just thinking about it from my side. Like what do I want to get out of it almost? You know, rather than like, while we\u0026rsquo;re like, how much is values in this sense that it\u0026rsquo;s worth to someone.\nAaron: Yeah. And starting from where you\u0026rsquo;re at is I is, is, is fine. It\u0026rsquo;s valid, right? Because then you know that, Hey, like this is gonna, it\u0026rsquo;s going to be aligned with what\u0026rsquo;s important. and what you said is perfect, cause it\u0026rsquo;s equally critical for the people who are going to be reading this for the people that this this product or this resource is going to make a difference too.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s equally critical to get what\u0026rsquo;s important for them and really understand that like, Hey, what do they want? What\u0026rsquo;s gonna make a difference. And you know what, we\u0026rsquo;ll also kind of have that sort of spring up. I mean, you\u0026rsquo;ve got all those snippets you\u0026rsquo;ve got to this podcast recorded. You could just kind of spend, like, I don\u0026rsquo;t know if it\u0026rsquo;s at the last five minutes of every podcast, you\u0026rsquo;ve got 20 podcasts in a couple of weeks time you could go, okay, I\u0026rsquo;m going to spend 20 podcasts.\nTime is five minutes. Don\u0026rsquo;t ask me to do mats on a, on a podcast. But like you could spend that time just listening through to it and actually just kind of going, okay, what are the different categories? What are the different pieces of advice? Like what if it is the same, what\u0026rsquo;s different and you can kind of go, okay, we\u0026rsquo;ve got like five, six distinct categories of.\nAnd some people might overlap to different sectors and you\u0026rsquo;d be like, okay, cool. That\u0026rsquo;s interesting. Who would benefit from this? Who would this make a difference to? And then you\u0026rsquo;d be you\u0026rsquo;d be in effect, you\u0026rsquo;d be taking some action, right? Because now you\u0026rsquo;ve got there, the bare bones, you\u0026rsquo;ve got the raw materials, you\u0026rsquo;ve got the podcast.\nThat\u0026rsquo;s ultimately like one of the, one of the extremely powerful value propositions for doing a podcast because you get to accumulate and you get to correlate incredible ideas altogether. And you can absolutely do that. And you can actually go, okay, it look like this, this resource was like, essentially coauthored.\nYou got to ask permission for this. But like, most people will be like, yes.\nYeah, with these people and they get their name on it and you can be like, Hey, do you want to share this out to your communities? I spread the word. Let\u0026rsquo;s get more. And more people aware of like different ideas, which are gonna make a difference for, for this whole.\nJames: Yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s a good idea. Hey, I didn\u0026rsquo;t even think of\nthat.\nAaron: I know. Yeah. So now, so now, like, so now you\u0026rsquo;ve seen it in action and by the way, this was perfectly did this. I want to thank you because that takes, that takes a level of courage to like live on a podcast, live on your podcast, kind of be the person who\u0026rsquo;s kind of like interacting. So I really acknowledge you, James and cause really we just took something from a theoretical concept because you asked me the question.\nI was like, yeah, happy to answer the question. I did answer the question, but it actually came to life for you. And even this example, because it\u0026rsquo;s a real example, it\u0026rsquo;s a real life example. It\u0026rsquo;s not hypothetical. It\u0026rsquo;s going to actually come to life for, for our listeners as well,\nJames: Hmm.\nAaron: Like in the actual doing it.\nBecause if we have a look like I asked you, what are the, what are the things you worried about? What are the things you are uncertain about? You listed it? We actually got, okay. Given that you\u0026rsquo;re uncertain about these things given you now. We didn\u0026rsquo;t physically write them down, but we list them out like, and it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s forever embedded in this podcast, so you can look back, right.\nAnd then you started to go, okay, hold\nJames: As well.\nAaron: Yeah, there is like, you\u0026rsquo;ve got, like, I kind of got this space now. It\u0026rsquo;s no longer this sort of vague vapid, elusive, invisible sort of task. It\u0026rsquo;s like, okay, this whole bunch of smaller things. And we actually started having a look. Okay. One example, creating, creating this resource, illustrating it specifically.\nWhat are some of the things I can do? We also explored payments and what that might even look like. So right now you\u0026rsquo;ve actually seen it in action. And now like, now let me ask you which, what action or one or two actions are you going to take in the next today? And make them as small as appropriate given the time you\u0026rsquo;ve got, because we don\u0026rsquo;t have, you\u0026rsquo;ve got, you\u0026rsquo;re a busy guy.\nYou\u0026rsquo;ve got stuff on. Right. But like what\u0026rsquo;s one or two actions, but you could take, what would, you will take not good. Good. It\u0026rsquo;s one of those of try sort of phrases, but what\u0026rsquo;s one or two actions you will take today.\nJames: Yeah. I think today I can have a look at try and finding some other books. I think that\u0026rsquo;d be a good place to start and just say kind of what\u0026rsquo;s the structure that they\u0026rsquo;re going for. What\u0026rsquo;s. Yeah, what\u0026rsquo;s the style. What do they like? I think that\u0026rsquo;d\nbe pretty informative. Kind of the things that I would want to do.\nYeah.\nAaron: Yeah. So you can do that, but all you\u0026rsquo;re going to do that. Nobody says, oh, I can do that. But like, what\u0026rsquo;s the action that you\u0026rsquo;re actually going to\nJames: Yeah. Okay. I\u0026rsquo;m going to do that\ntoday. I will. I\u0026rsquo;ll Google that. I think you got a good name for it, but you know, all the Ellie, Ellie Korea related eBooks\nand just the kind of structure that going full\nAaron: Yeah. Perfect. Another one you could Google it. Like podcast, podcast, quotes, compilations, ebook,\nJames: Yeah, yeah.\nAaron: Something like that. Like you could come up with a couple of them and just kind of do it. So yeah, like your action could literally be typing things into Google four or five times.\nJames: Yeah,\nAaron: Awesome. All right. So now you\u0026rsquo;ve got a clear first place to start and you don\u0026rsquo;t know if there\u0026rsquo;s anything bad.\nSo this some experiment to nature you\u0026rsquo;re going to get when you get and inside of taking that action. And you\u0026rsquo;ve told everyone at the podcast, by the time this podcast is out, you probably have done it. Well, you will have done it cause\nJames: Yeah,\nAaron: It today. Yeah. And that\u0026rsquo;s, that\u0026rsquo;s it in practice.\nJames: Yeah,\nAaron: Perfect.\nJames: Yeah. I, I,\nreally like this. Yeah. I think this is cool. And like, even the thing that you mentioned earlier was like, you know, what\u0026rsquo;s the smallest, like getting it down to the smallest action\nthat\nAaron: Yeah, what\u0026rsquo;s the smallest actionable step.\nJames: The smallest actionable step. Yeah. I think that\u0026rsquo;s really useful. Cause then it\u0026rsquo;s yeah, like we\u0026rsquo;ve said, having this whole list of things, that\u0026rsquo;s kind of vague and out there and yeah, it\u0026rsquo;s hard to imagine how you would even overcome some of those problems, but really breaking it down to.\nOkay. What is the next step that I can take? That\u0026rsquo;s something that\u0026rsquo;s achievable. I know how to do. You know, I can do that. And then it\u0026rsquo;s, and then the whole thing is really just the sum of all of those little steps. So yeah. Starting there will get you to the end eventually. So yeah, I think that\u0026rsquo;s, that\u0026rsquo;s really good.\nAnd it\u0026rsquo;s something that I\u0026rsquo;ll endeavor to apply more to the things that I\u0026rsquo;m doing. Yeah.\nAaron: Darren endeavored to imply more. Just say I\u0026rsquo;m going to apply it. I\u0026rsquo;m going to apply it.\nJames: Okay. I\u0026rsquo;m going to apply it more.\nYeah,\nAaron: No no more. Just I\u0026rsquo;m going to apply it. Yeah, I\u0026rsquo;m just going to apply it.\nHow Taking Action Relates to Careers # James: Yeah. That\u0026rsquo;s spot on. Well, I mean, yeah. Yeah. Well, I\u0026rsquo;d love to kind of, you know, take this, this action, this kinds of things we\u0026rsquo;ve spoken about and kind of relate that into a career kind of thing. And some of the things that your threads that are common in the podcast, particularly I think a lot of this stuff with taking action can be similar.\nLet\u0026rsquo;s say it\u0026rsquo;s mine, I\u0026rsquo;ll be starting a project, but it might be, I\u0026rsquo;m not liking where I\u0026rsquo;m working. I\u0026rsquo;m going to look for another. Yeah. It\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s a similar process where it\u0026rsquo;s like, okay, what is the next step? Okay. Maybe it\u0026rsquo;s maybe it\u0026rsquo;s like fixing up my resume a little bit. Maybe it\u0026rsquo;s, you know, down to look at my resume for me, you know, then it\u0026rsquo;s like, okay, good. I go and find other companies that I would want to work at. Maybe it\u0026rsquo;s like connect with some of them, but a lot of these things like, you know, seeing yourself the way you are and then walking somewhere, it was just to take one career example. You know, I think a\nlot of\nAaron: Well, maybe it\u0026rsquo;s.\nJames: Base things are quite simple.\nAaron: Yeah. And here\u0026rsquo;s something which doesn\u0026rsquo;t often get discussed is okay. Like, cause all of those things are a form of, okay, I\u0026rsquo;m going to leave the company, I\u0026rsquo;m going to leave the position. So I\u0026rsquo;ll throw one out there. Like, okay. Like what would it actually take to resolve the thing?\nAbout which I\u0026rsquo;m unhappy because if I\u0026rsquo;m, if I\u0026rsquo;m not liking my job, you could start by exploring, okay, what specifically am I not liking about it? What\u0026rsquo;s what\u0026rsquo;s there? Is it a, is it a person? Is it a situation? Is it a as a way or a system of doing doing business? What\u0026rsquo;s the actual thing. Cause often similar to, similar to when we looked at that hesitation and before, like the uncertainty is often, it\u0026rsquo;s this sort of vague sort of thing.\nWhy we actually, like, I feel uncomfortable, therefore it sucks. Right? And I\u0026rsquo;m not just disagreeing that it sucks. Right? It probably does suck. In fact, for a lot of people, it\u0026rsquo;s one of the, it\u0026rsquo;s a major cause of stress. Like not, not having that sense of happiness or fulfillment at work, it is a major cause of stress.\nRight. And actually having a look, okay, what\u0026rsquo;s actually there. What am I upset about? Who am I upset about? Like, what is it there? What are the questions? And then you could apply the same sort of things. Right. Okay. What are some of the things. That I could do, or if I don\u0026rsquo;t know what to do, what could I find out about how to resolve their situation?\nNow this would be let\u0026rsquo;s. If you actually do enjoy a couple of things about the business, cause most people don\u0026rsquo;t go to a company that they don\u0026rsquo;t have at least one or two things, which they enjoy about it. Like the majority of people are like, okay, cool. So it might be what the company does, what the company is out to accomplish might be the type of work so you can kind of get, okay, hold on.\nI did join this company for a reason. I should, I, should I up and go maybe, maybe like that is one of the options, right? I\u0026rsquo;m not discounting that, but having, having a look at okay, like what, what is it, what would actually, what would it actually look like? Not just for me to be able to tolerate this now, because there\u0026rsquo;s a certain level of like, it\u0026rsquo;s gonna start a sock that it\u0026rsquo;s going to bit.\nAnd you tolerate that as you go to the guest, the point of like, man, this is almost unbearable. I got to get up, got to do the west, make the, do this sort of stuff. And most people in that situation, their results also kind of going from here to like, ah, just like, as you, your dissatisfaction with work increases your productivity and output tends to decrease for the majority of people.\nNow, if you let that go on for too long that can have an impact on your future career, because if they call up for a reference and you haven\u0026rsquo;t been just kind of like doing what you need to be doing, then that can kind of cause this sort of downward spiral and it\u0026rsquo;s often talked about in the a let\u0026rsquo;s let\u0026rsquo;s get the new job, let\u0026rsquo;s do all that sort of stuff.\nI\u0026rsquo;m always happy to talk about that. In fact, that\u0026rsquo;s what most people talk to me about, but having a look at, okay, why am I unhappy? Why am I dissatisfied? Like, what is that actually about? And what could I actually explore? What are some of the options? What could I find out about resolving. Who could I speak to?\nWho can I share this with? What could actually get done? Because in a lot of situations, like in a couple of steps, like chances are someone doesn\u0026rsquo;t know that you upset. Someone doesn\u0026rsquo;t know that they you\u0026rsquo;re unhappy. And if you communicate like authentically and openly, Hey, it might still end up resulting in you leaving.\nBut now you\u0026rsquo;ve got the opportunity to actually shape your environment to how you actually wanted, what\u0026rsquo;s going to make a difference for you. So that\u0026rsquo;s, that\u0026rsquo;s something which I would actually recommend.\nJames: Yeah. Yeah. I think that\u0026rsquo;s really good advice. I think. Yeah. That\u0026rsquo;s this whole idea of like naming the things that you\u0026rsquo;re struggling with and working out exactly what they are is really critical. Like, regardless of whether it\u0026rsquo;s a taking action in the situation, or if it\u0026rsquo;s like, you know, these kinds of things where something isn\u0026rsquo;t going so well, you know, it really making those problems visible and you know, and what\u0026rsquo;s facing them directly is, is really important, I think.\nAaron: Yes, it\u0026rsquo;s super powerful.\nAaron\u0026rsquo;s Career Advice for New Graduates # James: Yeah, cool. I like this a lot. Yeah, I wanna, I know we\u0026rsquo;ve spoken for a while now and I want to ask, you know, we can probably wrap this conversation now, but I want to ask one more question before we go on. And that\u0026rsquo;s something, you know, we\u0026rsquo;ve spoken about with, with the, you know, what I do with all the guests to this question, right?\nIs, you know, you starting your career again today. I mean, you\u0026rsquo;ve done all this kind of stuff. Like public speaking, coaching, you\u0026rsquo;re an entrepreneurship leader you know, facilitating workshops, you know, you do all this kind of really wide range of, of, of things. And, you know, you see so many young people going through this stage from uni or from school to uni to work, you know, this whole you know, this whole period, I\u0026rsquo;m curious, what would be some advice or some, some really key principles that you would, you would give to people going through this transition into their first full-time role.\nAaron: Perfect. The number one piece of advice I would give is share what you\u0026rsquo;re up to share it with your family, share it with your friends, share it with your network. Just tell people, Hey, this is what I want to be doing. This is the type of work. This is what excites me about. Share that with as many people as possible. And inside of sharing it with people, things are gonna happen, right? Like people are going to be like, oh, Hey, have you heard about this job opportunity? Have you heard about this volunteering opportunity? Have you thought about joining this hackathon? Have you seen this thing? People who are in that same sort of journey are going towards something else might be like, Hey, I, I\u0026rsquo;m also doing this.\nLet\u0026rsquo;s catch up. Let\u0026rsquo;s connect, let\u0026rsquo;s collaborate. And you might learn from them. You might contribute to them and inside of sharing what you\u0026rsquo;re up to and what you\u0026rsquo;re out to accomplish, which could be like an early stage of creatives. Like, Hey, I really want to be an amazing product manager. I really want to be an amazing systems engineer.\nI really want to be an amazing a junior HR manager. I really want to be an amazing anything. And so like Korea here, like you can start to kind of get, Hey, what excites me about. And it doesn\u0026rsquo;t have to be this big aspirational, amazing sort of thing. Right. And it doesn\u0026rsquo;t have to be like, Hey, I\u0026rsquo;m joining, I\u0026rsquo;m joining Tesla to create the brand new next, like powered smart home battery, motor motorcycle, whatever it is, right.\nIt doesn\u0026rsquo;t have to be this incredible. That\u0026rsquo;s going to go to miles by the way. It\u0026rsquo;s not, it doesn\u0026rsquo;t have to be that light. You could have a look at your early stage career. It\u0026rsquo;d be like, okay, look like what I\u0026rsquo;m out to. What I\u0026rsquo;m committed to is like, Hey, I\u0026rsquo;m committed to really discovering the world of finance.\nSo I can make a difference to the everyday people who use company X\u0026rsquo;s services. And as you share that, as you start to explore that not earlier two things will happen. Like you will start to deepen your awareness of like, Hey, what am I actually wanting to do? So that will naturally happen. You deepen it.\nThe more conversations you. The deeper it\u0026rsquo;ll get for you. The more that you explain it or share it with people. They\u0026rsquo;re like, oh, that\u0026rsquo;s interesting. Tell me about that. The more you\u0026rsquo;ll, it\u0026rsquo;ll be real for you. And the more that your environment can kind of start to pull for, Hey, James is the person who does that podcast.\nOf course, I\u0026rsquo;m going to like, if I, if someone comes up to me, of course, I\u0026rsquo;m going to recommend him to him. It would just make sense because your sharing, what you\u0026rsquo;re up to is the number one thing that influences your environment. That could be a post that could be in conversations like, Hey, what have you been doing or what you\u0026rsquo;ve been up to?\nHow\u0026rsquo;s it going in Australia is the equivalent of saying hello, but please don\u0026rsquo;t actually tell me how you\u0026rsquo;re actually feeling or what you\u0026rsquo;re doing. The correct response actually is like, yeah, nothing much. How about you? But instead when you get asked that question, Hey, what have you been up to? You can actually talk about that.\nYou can just share, Hey, like I\u0026rsquo;ve recorded a podcast on the week. The podcast guests actually flipped it on me, started asking me questions for a little bit. It was actually pretty cool. And out of that, look, what I\u0026rsquo;m about to create for this podcast is like, I\u0026rsquo;m really going to think about how do I create more and more value for people because I\u0026rsquo;m committed that the listeners have graduate degree podcasts and the community that we\u0026rsquo;re building really experiences having the best possible resources and the best preparation and the support and guidance that they need so that they can take the action in their lives to take their careers to the next step.\nSo that\u0026rsquo;s what I\u0026rsquo;ve been doing this weekend. So that could be, I just made that up for you, for example,\nJames: Yeah. Yeah. I\u0026rsquo;m\nnot\npart of\nAaron: Will like, well, tell me about that.\nAnd then you, then it builds and then it builds.\nJames: Yeah.\nNow I\nAaron: Share what you\u0026rsquo;re up to share what you are.\nJames: Yeah. That\u0026rsquo;s that\u0026rsquo;s cool. Last certainly think, you know, we, we can all do better at that. I think, you know, just sharing what we were up to like developing on networks, you know, I think it\u0026rsquo;s really, really cool. Yeah. Great. Well, yeah, thanks so much for coming on today.\nAnd it was like, yeah, personally for me, so, so valuable, thanks so much for your, your questions and helping me out with that. And I think there\u0026rsquo;s a lot of great takeaways in there for people listening to this, whether it\u0026rsquo;s around, you know, the smallest the smallest possible action or, you know, this idea of, of sharing with your network, I think is your really, really great advice and some great takeaways there.\nConnect with Aaron # James: But if people want to get in touch with you and find out more about the things that you\u0026rsquo;re up to, where\u0026rsquo;s the best place for them to.\nAaron: The best place to connect with me is on LinkedIn type in my name. Aaron, no I\u0026rsquo;m into LinkedIn and you will find me or LinkedIn.com/i N Fords. Aragon, just one name, no dashes. That\u0026rsquo;s the best place to connect a and mentioned that you came from the Graduate Theory podcast. I\u0026rsquo;d love to connect with you and support you with anything to do with your career entrepreneurship skills, public speaking, being able to powerfully express yourself.\nAll of it. Please connect\nJames: Well, yeah, we\u0026rsquo;ll leave that for you and for everybody in the show notes below, but yeah. Thanks so much again for coming on today and yeah, we\u0026rsquo;ll be in touch.\nAaron: James. It has been an absolute pleasure. Thank you for having me. And I look forward to chatting with you more in the future.\nOutro # James: Thanks so much for listening to Graduate Theory. And if you want to find out more about Graduate Theory, please go to Graduate Theory.com. And if you want to hear more from me straight to your inbox every single week, please go to Graduate Theory.com/subscribe, where you\u0026rsquo;ll be able to get emails from me every single week containing my takeaways from each episode, I look forward to seeing you there and we\u0026rsquo;ll see you next week.\n← Back to episode 17\n","date":"14 February 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/graduate-theory/17-on-the-importance-of-taking-action-with-aaron-ngan/transcript/","section":"Graduate Theory Transcripts","summary":"← Back to episode 17\nThis transcript has been lightly edited for readability. It may still contain transcription errors.\nJames: Hello, and welcome to Graduate Theory. Today’s episode is all about taking action. How do we go from an idea, a thought into something that’s tangible and interactions that we can actually.\n","title":"Transcript: On The Importance of Taking Action with Aaron Ngan","type":"graduate-theory-transcripts"},{"content":" Watch the conversation Graduate Theory Open YouTube ↗ Read the full transcript → Michael Gill is a titan of the law industry in Australia. Since graduating from university in 1970, he has accomplished so much.\nMichael has worked at DLA Piper in Sydney for over 50 years, taking roles as Chairman, Managing Partner and Consultant\nHe has been the president of the law society of NSW, the president of the Law Council of Australia and established the Australian Insurance Law Association.\nMichael is also a life member of the law society of NSW.\nLevel Up Your Career\n🤝 Connect with Michael # Get in touch with Gilly via his email: Michael.gill at outlook.com.au\n👇 Episode Takeaways # Work is Life # During the interview, Gilly spoke about how when work becomes something you aren\u0026rsquo;t just doing to pass the time, it is really powerful.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s time we really sat down and actually thought about our work, not just as something that we have to get out of the way so we can get back to enjoying ourselves, but something that is actually enjoyable in itself.\nConquer Imposter Syndrome with Help # We spoke to Gilly about imposter syndrome. He was named a partner at his law firm after only 1 year, it\u0026rsquo;s likely that he would have felt entirely out of his depth! He said that what helped him was that he never felt alone. He always had people to call on to support him. This is something we can all do in times of doubt, call on those to help you through.\nIn the Zone # One really interesting insight I had from this chat with Gilly was his ritual before meetings. He would close his eyes and take himself to a place of calm before the meeting, and then conduct the meeting from his best self. This is a great practice that we can all adopt to be more present through the work day.\n📝 Show Notes # 00:00 #16 Michael Gill\n01:17 Intro\n02:32 Gilly\u0026rsquo;s Experience at University\n08:17 What are the articles of clerkship?\n12:57 The Start of Gilly\u0026rsquo;s Career\n17:06 Difference Between a Solicitor and a Barrister\n18:53 Gilly\u0026rsquo;s First Job in Law\n25:34 What is work?\n32:03 Gilly\u0026rsquo;s Favourite Lawyers\n36:29 When Money isn\u0026rsquo;t fulfilling you\n44:50 When Gilly Found Himself\n51:45 Gilly\u0026rsquo;s experience overseas\n58:52 Is Gilly Driven or Relaxed\n01:07:42 How Gilly Dealt with Imposter Syndrome\n01:15:52 Gilly\u0026rsquo;s Rituals and Practices\n01:25:30 The most interesting case that Gilly has worked on\n01:32:33 Gilly\u0026rsquo;s Advice for New Graduates\n01:41:47 How To Contact Gilly\n01:42:37 Outro\n","date":"7 February 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/graduate-theory/16-on-building-a-long-term-and-sustainable-career-with-michael-gill/","section":"Graduate Theory","summary":" Watch the conversation Graduate Theory Open YouTube ↗ Read the full transcript → Michael Gill is a titan of the law industry in Australia. Since graduating from university in 1970, he has accomplished so much.\n","title":"On Building a Long-Term and Sustainable Career with Michael Gill","type":"graduate-theory"},{"content":"← Back to episode 16\nThis transcript has been lightly edited for readability. It may still contain transcription errors.\nJames: Hello, and welcome to Graduate Theory. Today\u0026rsquo;s episode is a little bit different to an ordinary episode, for two main reasons. The first of these is it. It\u0026rsquo;s not just me hosting the show. I\u0026rsquo;ve brought on a friend of mine, whose name is Peter.\nAnd we, uh, we\u0026rsquo;ve been friends for many years and he has come on to help me cohost this show as he has a little bit more domain experience with our guest on the show today. The second thing that is different about today\u0026rsquo;s episode is that we have a much longer episode this episode. Yeah, it goes for about an hour and a half, which is a little bit longer than what they usually go for.\nThis episode can be split into kind of two parts. The first half focuses a little bit more on the law and what my guest has been able to do in the law. And in the second half, we focus a little bit more on the soft skills and the things that actually got him to, where he was able to get to.\nThis is a fascinating interview. This man that we\u0026rsquo;ve got on the show today. One of the, one of Australia\u0026rsquo;s most accomplished lawyers over the last 50 years., this is truly special and it\u0026rsquo;s fantastic to be able to sit down with him today, but without further ado, please enjoy.\nIntro # James: Hello, and welcome to Graduate Theory. Today\u0026rsquo;s episode is a little bit different. I have a co-host with me today and his name is Pete. He\u0026rsquo;s been a good friend of mine for many years and is a recent law graduate from the university of Adelaide. Please welcome pate to the show today.\nPeter: Thanks for having me on fricken looking forward.\nJames: Perfect. And to introduce the guests tonight, our guest today is a Titan of the law industry in Australia.\nSince graduating university in 1970, our guest has been here they\u0026rsquo;re in every way with regards to the war he\u0026rsquo;s worked at well now known as DLA Piper in Sydney for over 50 years taking different roles such as chairman managing partner and is now considered.\nHe\u0026rsquo;s been the president of the law society of new south Wales, the president of the law council of Australia, he established the Australian insurance law association is now a life member of the law society of new south Wales, affectionately known as Gilley. Please welcome Michael Gill\nMichael: Thanks, James. Thanks data.\nGilly\u0026rsquo;s Experience at University # James: Guide to have you on today. Gilly. Yeah, I\u0026rsquo;m really excited to chat. I know, paid us as well but one thing that we want to start off with is going way back, winding back the clock to when you\u0026rsquo;re in university and in particular talking about some of those challenges and you just your general experience at university.\nAnd are there any moments from university that really stick out to you?\nMichael: Well, yes, many. And just to set the scene a bit coming out of a working class background in Sydney and sort of procure Catholic schools with huge classes and lots of decisions. And being the first in my family to go to university got a good result at school, thanks to the brothers who told us.\nAnd our comms scholarship got into first year Lawrence in the university and at a pretty young age. But what I\u0026rsquo;m on pretty quickly was that studying at university was very different to studying in a very regimented disciplined hospital. You\u0026rsquo;re really on your own. And as a result of that and not having those learning skills and maybe some nights who like to visit the pub to match and play football, I managed the first year more.\nI got one subject out of four. I went to the news agency on the relevant morning and opened the Sydney morning, Herald devastated to see the result. I\u0026rsquo;m sure why I was surprised, but that\u0026rsquo;s an outreach. Had to go home and tell the folks of a more devastated the night. Shy to tell the night has all of those sorts of things, the broader family, but ultimately I decided to go back, give it another shot, pay the fees.\nSecond time round. Great grandmother helped me financially, which was good. And ultimately I came to appreciate one of the most valuable lessons in my life. And that is I had, yeah, doesn\u0026rsquo;t have to be, and I\u0026rsquo;m not suggesting you can sort of get to this really quickly or easily in your life, but there\u0026rsquo;s a great deal of learning in everything we do, including what we are tempted to only think of as embarrassing five years of time.\nAnd ultimately, hopefully we come to see them as, as positive things in a way that we can share with other people equally, importantly, positive things that can help shape the people that I am. We are because it\u0026rsquo;s not the only thing. In our lives, one failure would be incredible. I mean, that\u0026rsquo;s not capable of belief. It\u0026rsquo;s just not real. Is it? So the sooner you sort of get into loving yourself, including your fire ideas. Yeah. The more humongous a life. I think we have tried it, that didn\u0026rsquo;t quite work. Let me get on with it. Some other, otherwise that does that. And that I went through then, second year, third year, fourth year law, or a bit of a breeze.\nAnd so that was the start really of the academics of law. And of course in third year, Laura, I had to find articles of clerkship those coming from my background, that a guy in was a huge, huge challenge, which didn\u0026rsquo;t put me off that put a lot of resilience.\nPeter: Yeah, I think that\u0026rsquo;s a good thing, especially for people like Fricker and lock myself to hear kind of when you\u0026rsquo;re at the very start of your journey and in your career stuff, you might go it off those failures in your head to be the, be all and end all and kind of feel like the sky\u0026rsquo;s falling in. So it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s a good reminder of parcel to.\nJust remember that, the sun come up again and keep moving forward. And eventually, hopefully we will treat those failures kind of in the same way that you\u0026rsquo;ve come to treat them now as great learning experiences and things that you wouldn\u0026rsquo;t change. I\u0026rsquo;m sure you wouldn\u0026rsquo;t go back to first year university now and pass with flying colors.\nI feel like you, you\u0026rsquo;d think that having that experience made you into the person you are and helped your career be what it was.\nMichael: Yeah, it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s interesting that the next phase of uh, um, you know, articles of blockchain back in those days was like an apprenticeship. You had the third year and fourth year law, you needed a job in a law firm. And if you had lots of relatives who were lawyers and judges, or you went to one of those sort of GPS schools, sort of stuff, well networks, which tells you that they opposed them very, very quickly, but coming out of Morris brothers Paramatta, I think I wrote about 420 letters of application\ntogether job. I had about 42 interviews before I actually started the predecessor firm to my current one on 25th of March, 1968. So I started writing in August sixties. Evan bought the job towards the end of March 68, but the interesting thing was that the particular job I got. What\u0026rsquo;s the one that actually made arrest in my life. That would be Tom. I got a knock back or somebody did respond to a letter. I now see that it was more meant to be, it wasn\u0026rsquo;t meant to be until like February or early March 60. I, when I read the ad in the Sydney again in the Sydney morning, Herald from a little firm called franca Devonport in Banton, I applied to them, my actually got that job and that was one of the most crucial steps in my career and I\u0026rsquo;m old. So I look like I was my early and my early correspondence. And those earlier interviews, what I did is I would just not get appropriate for.\nWhat are the articles of clerkship? # Peter: Yeah. And can you\u0026rsquo;ve touched on it, but can you maybe explain. And a little bit for our audience what the articles of clerkship involved as obviously now that articles are no longer the process that law students and law graduates go through to start their career. So could you maybe just explain for some of our listeners that maybe don\u0026rsquo;t, aren\u0026rsquo;t fully aware what exactly was involved in articles of clerkship and kind of what lessons you learned from your articles that you think might still be applicable to law students and recent law graduates?\nMichael: Yeah, either in a simple expression, practical, legal training.\nPeter: Yeah.\nMichael: It was before we had institutes providing that colleges of law and. And so it was, it was very serious stuff. My master solicitor who\u0026rsquo;s only died recently. John meant, and I had to appear before the performance story of the Supreme court. And we were both sworn in to a very serious document, faulty article supply sheet.\nAnd it described what the, my master solicitor would do for me by way of training. And it described what I would commit myself to like, not pinching the stamps.\nPeter: Yes, important. One, two, a it\u0026rsquo;s.\nMichael: It was because it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s an example of honesty and integrity, which is just so critical. Well profession and John and his fellow partners 13 in the first line. The first Catholic that had ever employed, which was just interesting. but, I took very seriously their role and the most is Todd.\nHe had produced the little booklet, all the article, plot handbook, and page one had a heading called Agworld theme. And I think the last page had a heading called mills probate and administration. And between the two, you covered the practical aspects of everything. I was lucky because I took it seriously. Whereas I had other friends who spent two years in firms where they did nothing but discharge walk. Others spent most of their time doing photo copy or filing documents in outline that copying is for being those, if it\u0026rsquo;s part of a discovery process, it\u0026rsquo;s so important that it, yeah. And filing documents is important as well, but it\u0026rsquo;s not the full thing.\nAnd I really got the full thing from very, very generous people. And it only went out because it was an explosion of law graduate stores to late sixties, early seventies and not every lawyer was a good teacher. Doesn\u0026rsquo;t follow up. So we needed to find another way within the profession in new south Wales of giving this Bible practical, legal training.\nYeah. I set up the Leo custom Institute in Victoria. We set up the quality of Florida, new south Wales off this senior max Fisher old school, the whole at the university of Toronto, probably the bitch. I had it pretty well covered for you.\nPeter: Yeah. Yeah. And it is just interesting to touch on, I guess, because. You\u0026rsquo;re not myself. I\u0026rsquo;ve just finished practical, legal training last year, got admitted last year. So it\u0026rsquo;s just very different to what sort of the process was for me, but, and also hearing about it. It was still very similar. And even though that\u0026rsquo;s a bit paradox, I guess it\u0026rsquo;s more taking it away from the Institute while we still had our practical, work experience requirements.\nAnd I guess you just were doing that all the time kind of thing two years every day and getting real, working on real world cases, real world examples. And yeah, I think it would be good if we have that podcast star off, still a lot of law students today, the, from second, third year, even getting a.\nPositions as Clarks and farms. So they\u0026rsquo;re still getting similar sorts of experiences to that.\nThe Start of Gilly\u0026rsquo;s Career # Michael: So important to get the practical aspects for the early stage, because all of that training is equally important for your life as a whole. And I\u0026rsquo;ll just one of my very first jobs as an article clock was I was the load boy on the totem pole in one of the very first big corporate prime cases in Australia.\nIt involves the collection of a company called IHG. And I had three roles in that team where we were defending two of the directors obviously in charge of photocopying and I had to make nine copies of everything on eight Chan photocopy machine that all elect like. What type of whatever loss you got, the chemical stuff that disappeared off for years.\nBut I had to do all of that, the most terrifying of my roles. I mean, absolutely terrifying. Whilst at the morning tea adjournment, I had to go to the Queen\u0026rsquo;s council who was running the case, right. List to me. And I would say misdemeanors, what would you like to for lunch? Because I had to go across the road, Taylor square in Sydney to what was thought of as the best place to buy your sandwich, coffee, and being Sydney in the late sixties, traditionally, a Greek Catholic and Mr.\nwould always tell me what he wanted and then I\u0026rsquo;d get the other law. I\u0026rsquo;d have to flip out and make sure it was ready on there in the council room at one o\u0026rsquo;clock because we only had the hour and. So that was heightened to interrupt him because he was not happy to be around as well. And then when court adjourned at four or four 15, I had to hang around all the transcript of evidence to be typed down.\nIt was at about nine o\u0026rsquo;clock that evening that I would go to the court reporting branch, and I\u0026rsquo;d go back to the office to make nine copies of a transcript of evidence for the day. And then I would drop them off to all the lawyers and barristers involved in the case. And I\u0026rsquo;d be back to walk on that evening by about 11 or 1130 and on the trial, six 30 or seven the next morning.\nSo that\u0026rsquo;s like, sure. What? That was just the routine.\nPeter: Wow. That\u0026rsquo;s a sudden I\u0026rsquo;m in house myself. So it\u0026rsquo;s certainly not something I\u0026rsquo;ve yet been exposed to, but it sounds very, very full on not much sleep would have been happening in those days for you.\nMichael: Oh, no. And that, that was a big part of legal practice and still is for some people, but walking technology it\u0026rsquo;s it can be good to stop, but it has certainly taken a lot of the, the, the, the non-necessary torture out of the way we can have this school.\nPeter: Oh yeah, definitely glad that I feel all young law students, law graduates have to do their fair share of photocopying scanning and that sort of thing, but I\u0026rsquo;m glad it definitely, yeah, it was on a more modern machine. Then maybe if we could just jump forward a little bit to perhaps when you finished your articles what was sort of the process there?\nSo you still would have. Formal admission and informally become a solicitor embarrassed or of a Supreme court in new south Wales. And then kind of, where did your career go from there in those early, early days? Post admission.\nMichael: Well, you don\u0026rsquo;t leave where a non fusion state.\nPeter: Okay.\nMichael: So I was admitted as a solicitor\nPeter: I am.\nMichael: And brought that of the Supreme court of new south Wales. Not to be confused with a barista. Yeah. We get people who like to dress up in drag and other things. So\nDifference Between a Solicitor and a Barrister # James: And what\u0026rsquo;s, what\u0026rsquo;s the actual difference between a solicitor and Abass typically, I\u0026rsquo;m not too familiar with these things.\nMichael: Giant sexy, challenging question full with a slight degree of cynicism about them. But effectively about us, the signs, the role of the bar and spends most of their time being advocates before the courts. So listeners can do the same thing and forever have done it in the minor courts five years. But otherwise we are in the pulpit side of things, the documents of wills and pry bites and advice and writing advice as setting up corporations, all of that other sorts of stuff. I think in south Australia, when I started you probably didn\u0026rsquo;t have an independent bar back in the sixties and the seventies. It was, know, I think the bar associations in the fused like Western stridor in south Australia, you were all admitted to solicit. And only the best barristers were in the law for like, I have many of these people I still around, but yeah, Joan DUSA, for example, was in these fathers from the form Doosan, the Gregory, the a specialist barrister.\nThen I think the judge, they go for it. But others like Ted Molly gun and such like became judges largely thereafter because they barest.\nUh, but that, that was the big difference than the full white spade in this device, in the Australian professional about what\u0026rsquo;s the best system. I think they both go off to being admitted by the court and signing the court role that afternoon.\nGilly\u0026rsquo;s First Job in Law # Michael: We had a bit of a party at the law society where we will give them. And become members of the loss, the spot. And then I continued my work at the little thermos prank identity. I think I was admitted in August of 1917. And I, then I on a great leap forward in income. I mustn\u0026rsquo;t forget that pushed your articles were $7 a week. Second year I was $15 a week. Now you want us to Cilicia that was it. $5. So to this day that remains the biggest specific jump in income I\u0026rsquo;ve ever experienced.\nJames: That\u0026rsquo;s amazing.\nMichael: It was probably fortunate because about two months before I was admitted in August, 1970, like I was married on the 4th of July 19. As a 15 year in family dollar a week in club. So then I was working away, very broad range practice, but my master was, although John Wayne, my masters was developing quite a reputation in insurance for the whole plan, knew that he had a great love for town planning. Yeah, he\u0026rsquo;s real passionate in life was not the law, but it was his stats food. And then I think there was probably some sense of obligation there. His dad was a die hard member of the liberal party and John was a labor party. So the Columbia station. So, um, it put us in the early part of 1971, I think it was in about April.\nThat young John\u0026rsquo;s did to me, he was retiring partnership. It actually decided to make the big leap to go down and Britain for work for the national African development. And we should love, and in a funny sort of why I thought to myself, well, if this guy\u0026rsquo;s a lead source of my work will be blown. So I better start looking for a job in a couple of weeks life where he\u0026rsquo;s dead, pulled me around to his office, his office.\nHe said to me, he said, I understand, my son\u0026rsquo;s living the floor last week. Yes. He said, now I understand you think you must get another job last week. Well, I think that Patil clientele this week, he is not sure where they will go, but they said to me, well, I\u0026rsquo;ve spoken to, and he mentioned a couple of. And I said that they, more than happy to leave. They work for them as long as you are. So you go, went through the stale. I don\u0026rsquo;t know whether he was a suspect. I suspect he was totally bullshitting, maybe close. He didn\u0026rsquo;t want to have to go through the process of hiring somebody else. Well, my boy didn\u0026rsquo;t feel good.\nAnd what followed felt even better because he added without any prompting on my part. And I suppose if you\u0026rsquo;re going to take on that responsibility, you will need to be a partner.\nPeter: Wow.\nYeah.\nMichael: Yes. Mr. And, so, I would have been telling my wife who was about to give birth to our first child, which she did on the 3rd of July off rod became a plaque on the 1st of July,\nPeter: Wow.\nPretty good.\nMichael: Empty. Absolutely. And that job was also on the young lawyers committee at the law society. And they invited me to take his seat.\nSo my career thereafter in once you might loosely refer to as legal politics and related things also got to start from that. So if you go back to what I said a while ago, wasn\u0026rsquo;t that fortunate that I didn\u0026rsquo;t get the job offer when I did.\nPeter: Yeah. Yeah. It is incredible. Sometime those sorts of things, what you think, and it\u0026rsquo;s just a good lesson to anybody at the moment. I do friends. I know myself that might be getting disheartened a little bit. I\u0026rsquo;ve had a few knock backs from a few applications, both within the legal profession and outside the legal profession.\nBut yeah, it is just a good lesson to hear. I mean, I\u0026rsquo;m not sure. How many people are fortunate enough to that, the job that they do end up getting them being made a partner within a year of admission, but still it\u0026rsquo;s a good lesson that where, where you end up is where you\u0026rsquo;re supposed to end off every, every knock back is for a reason.\nAnd just, you\u0026rsquo;ve got to keep pushing forward and trusting in yourself and in what you\u0026rsquo;re doing. And it mentally, you end up where you need to be.\nMichael: At Pedro. I think it underscores the importance of patience\nPeter: Yeah.\nMichael: And the job professional career is not the totality of what your life is about. It goes on. We also learned in the decade of the seventies, that one of the things most valuable to me was variety. I needed to do a lot more than simply spend my time working for clients.\nFinding solutions to legal things.\nPeter: And I think that is, I mean, especially today, there\u0026rsquo;s a big push around them having a bit of a, a work-life balance, I guess. And so it\u0026rsquo;s interesting to hear as well. I mean, I\u0026rsquo;m based in Adelaide. So our perception of Sydney is that in Sydney, if you\u0026rsquo;re a partner in a firm in Sydney, you, you just work.\nThat\u0026rsquo;s all, that\u0026rsquo;s all you do with your life. So it\u0026rsquo;s good. I guess. I mean, I\u0026rsquo;m quite comfortable here. I don\u0026rsquo;t really have any plans or intentions to move at this point, but it is good to hear that either. Back then. And I\u0026rsquo;m sure today that, it is possible to have that sort of variety and balance in your life.\nYou\u0026rsquo;re not, I think it is very important to not, who you are in your career is obviously important, but it\u0026rsquo;s not the be-all and end-all of who you are as a person. You want to be Michael Gill, the great man, not just Michael Gill with a great lawyer.\nMichael: We, we shot used the word bright in sports. Not unless it\u0026rsquo;s in relation to YouTube, but just let them give us a question.\nWhat is work? # Michael: They find my, what for you is work. How can you think of the word?\nJames: Yeah, I think, work is almost sort of what you\u0026rsquo;re employed to do in some sense, like, whatever your sort of job is, that\u0026rsquo;s like, or even, doing things for an employer would be, would be work. And even, I guess you could maybe extend that if you were doing like this podcast for me is probably work as well.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s just a bit more, it\u0026rsquo;s not more, it just is fun. So it doesn\u0026rsquo;t feel like work. And even though it\u0026rsquo;s not necessarily for anyone, I probably would still fall under that. But I think if you were looking at it from a career sense, then I would say,\nyeah, if it\u0026rsquo;s for the employees, That\u0026rsquo;s what\nPeter: I guess in a careers. And so I, I agree with Frisco, but I think. There are a lot of other ways you could on this, a bit of a lawyer answer, and most other ways you could interpret the word. I, I play soccer, that could be considered going to training, trying to improve. That\u0026rsquo;s a type of work.\nI don\u0026rsquo;t think it\u0026rsquo;s limited to just rocking up then doing tasks for an employer, I guess. So there\u0026rsquo;s lots of other ways you can interpret the word work, I guess. I don\u0026rsquo;t know. It\u0026rsquo;s however you want to think about it really? I don\u0026rsquo;t know. I don\u0026rsquo;t know if that really answers your question too much, Michael, but.\nMichael: Very good answers. And it\u0026rsquo;s the sort of stuff that will be revealed to you personally, in your own circumstance with a lot of guys, all giants by news. Do you prefer James will freak out?\nJames: James is, is fine. Two of my close friends can be out. Cause we have a few James is in our friendship group, so it\u0026rsquo;s tended to be easier. Yeah.\nMichael: I must say\nPeter: Yeah.\nMichael: I\u0026rsquo;m totally distracted by make the frigates.\nJames: Yeah.\nMichael: So James, when you say do something for your employer, can you think of examples where you do something, which is only for your employer? In other words, you have personally nothing invested.\nJames: Hmm. Oh yeah. I\u0026rsquo;d say, yeah, it\u0026rsquo;s a good point. And I think, even if it\u0026rsquo;s, I\u0026rsquo;m just thinking of like a basic task, like, sending some emails or things like that, you\u0026rsquo;re still, it\u0026rsquo;s still a mutually beneficial relationship in that. Like they\u0026rsquo;re paying you to do that. So that there\u0026rsquo;s something in it for you in that sense, but even in terms of a career progression web looking at it, I guess there\u0026rsquo;s a ways in the things that you do as still driving a career forward and maybe make\nyou more able to be employed. What I do other things for other people. So I guess there\u0026rsquo;s growing as skillset is also something that is beneficial to yourself as\nwell.\nMichael: Yeah, that was one of the woods I was hoping you would get to just to get the money for a while. But yeah, even things like a simple email has the potential to develop you around knowledge skills, and. Every interaction if you think of it that way. So coming back to my response to you in a funny sort of way, I don\u0026rsquo;t see any more work-life balance because as I\u0026rsquo;ve had more time to read new things, since I retired from the partnership in 2008, I now see work very much as what you do whilst you waiting for the real joys in your life. And once you are in that space, I promise you, you will never think of it as work a guy. When you largely I\u0026rsquo;ll answer a hundred percent, I\u0026rsquo;ve done like a, I have a book, but when you are a large. All of the thought that I really love doing this stuff. Yeah. This is Nate.\nPeter: Okay.\nMichael: I love the people that I\u0026rsquo;m with. I love the opportunities that it\u0026rsquo;s giving me to develop as a human being. Yeah. It makes me return to my family every day, a really decent human being. I no longer have any notions of leaving the work at the front door. So it makes sense.\nPeter: Yeah.\nMichael: And it\u0026rsquo;s,\nPeter: Strive forward.\nMichael: And it\u0026rsquo;s not easy. It\u0026rsquo;s odd because there\u0026rsquo;s so much in life that completes without attainment of that spice. And, I could start to. Some of the awful challenges that fuel generation adds about lifestyle and getting the sort of money that enables you to live in a particular way, and then being locked in your selves and those close to your about whatever else I do in life.\nI need a job that returns me. I a minimum of X dollars every month. And when young, when young lawyers picks up your point, which is going to look for honesty to it, when young lawyers from big law firms come to me and stay all my STIs admission of five-year, this isn\u0026rsquo;t really for me. And I had to tell my parents, a lot of y\u0026rsquo;all in the M and a department of three Hills.\nSo Dale I pop or something. I hate it. I absolutely heightened. And I cited them having fought and this money too, because if money is not terribly important to you, it was a lawyer, the world\u0026rsquo;s your oyster.\nPeter: Yeah.\nMichael: But if the first thing you have to do is get a tick on not less than a hundred thousand dollars a year or $200,000 a year, or being on that slippery ladder to chop the ship.\nWhat will that stop? If all of that\u0026rsquo;s there, then all you\u0026rsquo;ve done is closed off a huge number of options, which might not even want to include your authentic stone.\nPeter: Yeah.\nGilly\u0026rsquo;s Favourite Lawyers # Michael: And if you\u0026rsquo;re the site, if we think about three of the lawyers I admire most in life and people think they they\u0026rsquo;re one of the choice to have the choices, to really see one of the lots as a bit strange.\nBut I liked them because two of them have got really nice. That\u0026rsquo;s my hat, my Gandy. Yeah. Mikhail, Gorbachev, and Nelson Mandela old, truly great loyal.\nPeter: And\nMichael: Y\nPeter: Interesting. Definitely not where I thought you were going with that to answer why\nMichael: Where did you think I was going?\nPeter: Not? I don\u0026rsquo;t know where I thought you were going, but it\u0026rsquo;s I guess there,\nMichael: Oh, this is Pedro. This is, this is alignment of candor and honesty. You can give me nines and I don\u0026rsquo;t get offended. But did you think I was going to mention people who were really successful in the corporate world or something?\nPeter: Yes. I thought probably my veins on the high court,\nMichael: Yeah,\nPeter: No, I honestly have no idea why. I know that I can understand why as a people, you wouldn\u0026rsquo;t mind, I\u0026rsquo;d be very interested to hear your, your reasoning as to why they are lawyers that seen.\nMichael: Well, because the law is a very special calling with privileged, hugely privileged. Yeah. We, we have the opportunity to stand up in the most serious of places where lives are at risk. I am speaking on behalf of another human bank I\u0026rsquo;m representing this person. Whatever is, even in basic pro bono work that we can do around the suburbs about apple cities. Yeah. That trusted exists. Hopefully still broadly the case, although our profession is always blind muscle. Perfect. Yeah, the, the right that the law gives us to keep straight forward what our clients tell us legal professional privilege and confidentiality are huge parts of what we do and recent, and not enough of a number.\nJust tell you the profession for what it is. Largely as a mail ticket to a significant and like to sit on a pedestal and be looked up to and to the hype is that we are some very sort of significant person entitled to praise and gratitude and all of that. It\u0026rsquo;s not, so\nthat\u0026rsquo;s not reasonable.\nPeter: No, I\u0026rsquo;ll do it. I\u0026rsquo;ll do it definitely with that point there. And I guess. Is a perception people have within the profession, but also outside of the profession. So we\u0026rsquo;d hope that over time, and as you touched on, it\u0026rsquo;s not always blameless and it\u0026rsquo;s not always without falling. I think particularly lately that\u0026rsquo;s been highlighted quite significantly in the media, but, hopefully I think that\u0026rsquo;s a great point for just, someone like myself to keep in mind as I progress throughout my career in the profession to, I\u0026rsquo;d tell them what you were saying before, just to make sure you\u0026rsquo;re in it for the right reasons.\nAnd if you don\u0026rsquo;t get enjoyment out of it, and if money\u0026rsquo;s not that important to you, you can find other opportunities apart from climbing the, the, from Stripe. So maybe if we could just touch on some of the things you\u0026rsquo;ve maybe done outside of the. On that topic kind of, or what advice you\u0026rsquo;d give to those young lawyers that come up to, and if they say that they\u0026rsquo;re not, money\u0026rsquo;s not that important to them.\nWhen Money isn\u0026rsquo;t fulfilling you # Peter: How, how do you, what sort of advice do you give them to perhaps looks outside the traditional firm structure to find fulfillment in the profession?\nMichael: Yeah. It comes back a little bit to what we\u0026rsquo;ve been talking about. I think the starting point must always be to willing to find our authentic selves and it don\u0026rsquo;t start with what\u0026rsquo;s available in the law. You stop with the doula, right? That\u0026rsquo;s an everyday question for all of us. Should you don\u0026rsquo;t get an answer like in a business plan where you say in the next month, I\u0026rsquo;m going to do an analysis of who I am.\nAnd then I will insert that into that paragraph before values mission, that sort of thing.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s, It\u0026rsquo;s, a constant quest for who am I? Why. That makes me the most joyful person I can be. And, you, you get the answer to that question. I say that an answer that\u0026rsquo;s not comfortable when you\u0026rsquo;ve done your study at university and you\u0026rsquo;ve started to practice the LOA and you\u0026rsquo;re getting an actual taste for what you\u0026rsquo;re doing. One basic thing is do I want to spend my life in a back room analyzing and producing Piper or actually walking with people? Well, I don\u0026rsquo;t want to spend yeah. Where I\u0026rsquo;m on most comfortable with. When do I actually get this feeling within myself that I can do? Not just the most good in some sort of hairy fairy sense, but what I can do, the stuff that really gives me the Lafayette. So that, you get to 74, like men, you can look back and say, well, I didn\u0026rsquo;t entirely wasted. You don\u0026rsquo;t actually waste anything because it\u0026rsquo;s all the learning stuff. But if I come very specifically to what you\u0026rsquo;re asking me, then yeah, obviously the world needs good practicing lawyers in private law firms who are going to experience a lot of pressure because the people who run those firms have different sorts of motivations.\nSome of them are very keen about the value of equity and whether they make $2 million a year, some of them are caught up with comparisons like that. The partners at Mallesons Mike Molden, the partners at allergens or something like that. I don\u0026rsquo;t know why that happens, but a lot of what happens with. A little bit of our sentence, selfishness and Wharton get, go, all that stuff. but then you get this great explosion that had in other spaces, you know, millions of lawyers around the world who put their lives on the line, the human lights. Yeah. The incarcerated kids in homeless wall. Yeah. The thousands of lawyers in prison in India, a lot of them alongside their colleagues who are academics at universities or or social workers.\nYeah. All the people you can go back to Soviet history, Nazi his, yeah. Who, most retina lodge degrades the members of this profession, even though others office, I helping them prop up their corrupt. Right. They\u0026rsquo;re facilitating that\u0026rsquo;s the power in many lives, it\u0026rsquo;s like the Donald Trump moods to ensure that he\u0026rsquo;s well, like try every day that the basic decency of those judges and their ethics and their response to our calling will come home to bite misses and chocolate. So that probably may be in appropriately give some a bit too much in politics, but again, I\u0026rsquo;ve got to share with ethanol that copy. Yeah. I didn\u0026rsquo;t think about the U S president.\nSo I think if somebody like, yeah, a lawyer who came from Springfield, Illinois, you can probably think of many famous lawyers from Springfield, Illinois.\nPeter: I\nPeter: Think I\u0026rsquo;ve got one\non\nmy head. Abraham Lincoln\nMichael: Absolutely. But do you remember anything he did or some lawyer?\nPeter: Narcissism.\nMichael: Nah. You remember something else and you don\u0026rsquo;t remember a single submission to a court, but you do remember the Gettysburg address.\nPeter: Yeah.\nMichael: And if you don\u0026rsquo;t remember the Gettysburg address and if you want to have a little offline the lesson in beautiful, the, a short writing go and look at it up a lot. Yeah. You think, I think of John Kennedy came in in 1960 and set up the peace Corps and I beautiful speeches about asking what you can do for your country rather than what companies should be doing for you.\nAnd I thought Neil Stryker understood that message last I\u0026rsquo;m doing about this. Yeah. Why couldn\u0026rsquo;t I do better. Rolling again. COVID test for excavation. Yeah, I\u0026rsquo;m a journalist on the, I, they say I\u0026rsquo;ve got the right to bitch about everything sort of is a human rights movement at the moment. Climate change, the lawyers who are caught up in this right.\nFighting for climate change and the role that the law play in that\nPeter: Yeah.\nMichael: I now, since I retired from the cognition of divisive myself explicitly, but without a doubt, it\u0026rsquo;s become probably by no teaching and then violence the certificate in the third world, countries of south east Asia. I absolutely loved it. I learned so much from those kids, but they weren\u0026rsquo;t able to, I can\u0026rsquo;t teach them the domestic war, but I can talk to them about the rule of law access to justice,\nthe role of pro bono place and all the skill stuff.\nPeter: Yeah.\nMichael: Yeah. You can go into government, you go into corporations, you can be an example. If you see examples of bad behavior, You can try and change it. If you can\u0026rsquo;t change it, you can resign and go and get another job somewhere else, making it clear to anyone who wants to listen. What your values and principles were the target at that point, bake out, being comfortable with the establishment.\nOne of the great things about lawyers is that we know the law. We can have a respectful conversation with a placement. When we think that long beyond their role, just talk through, we can stand up in the Courtney side with respect, your honor. I disagree with what you\u0026rsquo;ve just said.\nPeter: Yeah,\nMichael: Yeah.\nPeter: No. And I think you did touch on a very important point, especially for people and ourselves at the start of our careers that, the law can be involved with. Mentioned that the impact that the law can have on that I\u0026rsquo;m already in Adelaide, there\u0026rsquo;s a big focus on the space industry here.\nAnd what\u0026rsquo;s opening up here with the space agency. That\u0026rsquo;s going to open up here and that\u0026rsquo;s a big thing. If you\u0026rsquo;re interested in that, the field of space law, what governs, our relations in space, what governs, what you can do in space, where you can leave. It\u0026rsquo;s, there really isn\u0026rsquo;t any limit to what you can do.\nSo I think it is a very helpful advice that you\u0026rsquo;ve given. Just try and find out what it is that makes you, you, what drives you, what your values and core beliefs are, because if you want to make it happen, the law really can. It does touch every aspect of our lives.\nWhen Gilly Found Himself # James: Hmm. Yeah. And can I just jump in there, Gilly, I wonder if there\u0026rsquo;s any X times that you\u0026rsquo;ve had where you, you were doing something and you felt like it wasn\u0026rsquo;t, it wasn\u0026rsquo;t you and you like it was in speaking about that or authenticity and things like that. Was there any moments for yourself where you perhaps got involved with something and you will you realize it wasn\u0026rsquo;t for you and then you sort of got rid of it or that maybe there was something that you realized it was for you and you really pushed into it more. Is there any examples that you can give for that?\nMichael: A few. But maybe the one that might resonate a bit with your broader audience has to do with a job offer. Now in the mid nineties with a going through what was called the de mutualize nation of banks and finance company. Yeah, a lot about banks, life, insurers, general insurers, what Mutual\u0026rsquo;s, where they were owned by that account held as policy holders and suddenly some bean counter gurus kind along the city have got a free up the capital. So household nine in Australia, like the am play, for example, was suddenly no longer owned by the people who had policies, but they were converted in the spot. So if you had an I M P policy, you got lots of cash, but you no longer own the company. It was done by the shareholders. So to facilitate these very significant news there was a lot of change in the top and they decided that they needed to have what for Australia then was a little bit of an unusual character, full a general. And not just an in house lawyer, but somebody who was right up there at the elbow of the CEO for absolutely everything. And at the time I was in life club leading a very big team of insurance lawyers. A head hunter came to me after probably three or four weeks, and I tell them what was going on. And I was offered money. Like I was offered a million dollar chance, but anything else I\u0026rsquo;m not talking now like 20, I used the gap\nPeter: Yeah.\nMichael: And the stock options when it floated and all sorts of things, because at the time I was probably one of the best known insurance audience in the country, but doing a very careful due diligence. I came to a conclusion, which was about nine. It wasn\u0026rsquo;t so much about the company that it was going to behave potentially in ways that I may not be totally comfortable with. And of course I kept my wife info informed of all of these developments and my kids were getting older. They were born in 71 and in 73. So I knew the value of a shack a lot too. And I thought go to the offer that was on the table for me was just irresistible. But for me, ultimately, it was unacceptable. And I didn\u0026rsquo;t regret it for one second. I picked up somebody else into that role. My life went on in a sense financially very much for, I mean, very, very. I could have doubled my income in one step,\nPeter: Yeah. Wow.\nMichael: But it was just, there was something about it that I wasn\u0026rsquo;t really comfortable.\nAnd I\u0026rsquo;ve said to people at the, since, it\u0026rsquo;s not just about getting a job offer, it\u0026rsquo;s about getting a job offer, which is truly you that\u0026rsquo;s full thin, typically you, and you can be really at times desperate to get an a in chemistry, but for what you\u0026rsquo;re giving up from.\nJames: Yeah, I think that\u0026rsquo;s interesting how, like you would place that, doing things that are authentic and things that you\u0026rsquo;re okay with a much higher value than, money or, like you said, the things that you\u0026rsquo;re kind of, you\u0026rsquo;re trading for that it\u0026rsquo;s. Yeah. It\u0026rsquo;s really interesting how the importance that you place on that, that really, money can\u0026rsquo;t buy that kind of authenticity and that feeling that you get when you\u0026rsquo;re working on something that you\u0026rsquo;re really passionate about.\nParticularly as young people, you can kind of do exactly that and just checks the dollars and try and find the highest paying job or whatever it might be.\nBut I think it\u0026rsquo;s important to keep in mind, like the mission of the organization that you\u0026rsquo;re working for, like you were saying, how they\u0026rsquo;re actually going about achieving that and does that align with my personal values and other people I\u0026rsquo;m working with the kind of people that I sort of aspire to be like. And I think, I think, yeah, that was really interesting. Yeah. The importance he placed on that is as being the most important thing by a long\nPeter: Yeah.\nI just think it\u0026rsquo;s something a lot of graduates forget because it can be quite a brutal market to try and find your own your first job. But even with your first one, you does their research of the companies that firms, whatever, when they\u0026rsquo;re doing the application. So if you can see from the start at that stage, it\u0026rsquo;s not going to be a good one.\nYou, you don\u0026rsquo;t have to feel like you have to apply for every single thing that\u0026rsquo;s out there even at the start. And then when you do have that first job and you\u0026rsquo;re potentially looking to move somewhere else, it\u0026rsquo;s an important thing to keep in mind.\nMichael: And once you start compromising your core values and beliefs, you\u0026rsquo;re on a super slut. And know you finding the remodel plus examples all around the world at the moment, but probably no better one than some very fine lawyers who signed onto Donald Trump. And some of them have served time in prison like Michael. You\u0026rsquo;ve only got to read this stories of, of what they\u0026rsquo;ve really lost to sign on to something that was really off. Then you stop. Once you start to surrender your reputation yeah. Spot all the theories of forgiveness and still your time and everything else. It\u0026rsquo;s so hard to get it back.\nPeter: Yeah.\nMichael: And that\u0026rsquo;s not just in the law, although it\u0026rsquo;s very specifically,\nPeter: Yeah.\nMichael: So back to a happy topic.\nGilly\u0026rsquo;s experience overseas # Peter: I was going to potentially change tack a little bit and talk about obviously you born in Sydney and grew up in Sydney and started your career in Sydney. But you have had a lot of experience interstate and overseas kind of, could you tell us a little bit about how you, how those sorts of things and about for you to work in other jurisdictions and not specifically, doing court work or whatever, but being on trade missions to China and all these sorts of things, how did you kind of get involved?\nI feel like sometimes my perception in Adelaide is that sometimes Sydney and Melbourne can be a bit of a bubble when people get caught up in that. So it\u0026rsquo;s interesting to hear about, people can. Expand the horizons outside of those bigger markets\nthing.\nMichael: Yeah. It\u0026rsquo;s again, it comes back to who you are. Comes back to some patients and some black I used to nodding ID ID one, but I was president of the closest body of new south Wales. People used to say to be, you got like, I was young at the time. I was 33. And, it\u0026rsquo;s a bit of a novelty somewhat.\nSo the media would say, well, did you do wrong that it had done that? But I know why I\u0026rsquo;m sticking with war. And while you sticking with the stage now where I\u0026rsquo;m seeing the world at my client\u0026rsquo;s expense to have international groups with Jessica, but see, that\u0026rsquo;s always in the two, two arms. So I\u0026rsquo;m there as an insurance lawyer acting for the London insurance. At the four European insurers and reinsurers that thing for some of the American lock and developed a little bit of my reputation around this stuff. for example, nodding likes you forget that. Say the 74 75, I went to the Atlanta pockets post all my should be called apply because I\u0026rsquo;d been doing all of this stuff for a funny sort of group of insurance Lloyd\u0026rsquo;s of London to transact the business in a very special way, some extent.\nI really didn\u0026rsquo;t understand it. So I stepped to the pot, but I think I\u0026rsquo;m going to have to go to London because I\u0026rsquo;m going to court talking about how contracts have formed in a London pocket. One. I\u0026rsquo;ve got my fingers crossed. So I ended up going to London and I had some awful weeks there with some really good people, clients and nuclides or Isabelle. And at that stage, Australian insurance lawyers, didn\u0026rsquo;t gung to see their clients. And I became a little bit of a strange person. So, I started getting a lot more work when I got involved in really each light. I\u0026rsquo;d have to go to London for brief the park, take your shorts and pencil every now and then my wife Kathy will come with me and we would stream awake to his holiday on the end of the bench.\nYeah. That have all the boring, enjoyable pleasant, simply the case that she was at home raising children while I was on the gala venting. So it was all of that. And then like, coincidentally, Legal spikes like came off the young lawyers and the invitation of the 26. I think the average age of a member of the council at that stage was about 50. So I had some very strange ideas. I bet I should. But of course we were getting into that era where lawyers were being sued and professional negligence with important. And I was doing a lot of that work and it was getting a reputation in that field.\nAnd ultimately as a vice president also just taught me in the late seventies. I had a few others set up while also culture professional negligence. Okay. Well, outlaw some states full of law class. I think there\u0026rsquo;s one in Adelaide on the watch or what the south of striking both these guys little clients and having done that and done that you need to face with the state government and all that sort of stuff to both the guy short-circuits inflation, which were groundbreaking worldwide. Michael Kirby was then so James does Michael Kirby\u0026rsquo;s name meant something to you? Michael could be a Peterbilt nose, sinus high court judge, who is written many writing or judgments, a bit of a lifting. Who\u0026rsquo;s an amazing Monica. Also very gratefully, the first period, quote, judged about sky. And I knew him from when I started more because he and Marie Gleason, both junior theaters, when I stopped. Michael Kirby headed the Australian law reform commission set up this brand new legal regime around insurance. Well for Australia. So I had to do lots of trips out of the seas explaining to markets in other license, how this is different to what they with Mindy, with Bush, that scaled a lot of pockets, but it was the combination of all of those things that developed this reputation that had plenty of shore traveling a lot.\nAnd also speaking a lot because I became very comfortable with as a little society office bearer had training of the patient and I taught how to deal with the media and all that stuff. Sort of just my favorite wood stage in my life and everything it\u0026rsquo;s unconnected. So. And then it\u0026rsquo;s the knotless I set up the Australian insurance or association I\u0026rsquo;ll set up some insurance publications.\nUltimately I was president of the national insurance law association, lights, it ideal Nazi countries throughout the world, some clubs by accident. That was really how it happened. Then many of those bright clients in other places became very close to those friends as well. And it\u0026rsquo;s, the relationship becomes more than professional become supposed to.\nAnd then you have another dimension.\nIs Gilly Driven or Relaxed # James: Well, yeah, I have a question for you then Gilly. Sometimes when we, I speak to people on the podcast and people, wherever they might be, they often fit into sort of two categories and like, or maybe there\u0026rsquo;s two, two sides of two sides of the coin.\nAnd some people are very driven and that they\u0026rsquo;ll really chase after big goals. They\u0026rsquo;re very serious getting what they want. And then there\u0026rsquo;s kind of the flip of that, which is people that still managed to be successful, but they, they go about it differently. They\u0026rsquo;re much more relaxed and they\u0026rsquo;re much more sort of chilled in, in, in the way that they go about achieving the things that they want to do.\nAnd I want to ask you, were you on the sort of really driven side where it was sort of, I have this target and I\u0026rsquo;m going to do it by this day. Kind of thing or is it more of a relaxed, like this opportunity came up. That\u0026rsquo;s great. I\u0026rsquo;m going to do as best I can and see where it goes. I\u0026rsquo;m curious to hear what your thoughts on that isn\u0026rsquo;t perhaps which side perhaps you, you lean to more\nMichael: They make possible answer. The question is the one that everyone wasn\u0026rsquo;t given and that is, and it\u0026rsquo;s on the Tom, if your life and the circumstances, and we\u0026rsquo;re often not our best judges, it\u0026rsquo;s often the people closest to us who will have far more accurate pinions of that sort of thing. In my own defense, I would stay, I wasn\u0026rsquo;t driven. Well, I like wife, I have a very different feel about it as my, some of the people who were my partners. If you would sit determined Ralph Wilson river, I would have said, yes, I am a person of two, two, and I sh I\u0026rsquo;m not easily dissuaded from what I think, but as I progressed in life, I became a far better listener and a far better just the termination with me sometimes meant I had to get to the end very quickly. I have to know the answer. Whereas I now understand that the real value was in. Just that I think it\u0026rsquo;s a dried African 12 isn\u0026rsquo;t that a love and I can travel fast together. We can travel. Uh, And I think with my life, I\u0026rsquo;ve come to understand that much better. I hate categorizing people. If we think about, I don\u0026rsquo;t know what your favorite sports but if you were to think about like tennis or maximun in cricket, laid back relaxed driven C for my ear, or I would say that doggy Walters, the great Debbie voltage would between these innings sat in the room, smoking. Cigarettes back to back and playing poker and chewing on gun, came out to Sandra, never showed any sign of being driven, but was unbelievably tenacious. And then you get a lot solve Steve Smith and Michael Clark before all the world looked as though the most important thing was never getting out. And then you get the other Gilly. Adam Gilchrist is just heavily a batsman and for all the world look the, so at every moment he was having the greatest planned, absolutely determined, absolutely tenacious. Didn\u0026rsquo;t want to give the English. Micro millimeter. So, I think it\u0026rsquo;s good to be conscious of the state, but it\u0026rsquo;s also good for yourself not to beat yourself up about it. You think you have any, anything I would wonder about the wood driven and I have, I\u0026rsquo;m a bright, like catching some Wyatt\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s not really, it\u0026rsquo;s an etymology, which is the science of the meaning of woods. Anyway, we could go look up the wood driven and where it came from and drifting to me, connotes something that\u0026rsquo;s coming from outside of you. Well, nice. The little sense. If you\u0026rsquo;ve got no control over it, almost like a runaway motive or something, whereas if you aspire to something or you\u0026rsquo;re tenacious, Will you determine that always seems to be, so it\u0026rsquo;s coming more powerful if you five and you might have more control, that\u0026rsquo;s difficult.\nWhy? I\u0026rsquo;ll say it. I wouldn\u0026rsquo;t, I wouldn\u0026rsquo;t attribute Google bad or right or wrong to any of those things, because at times in our lives, it\u0026rsquo;s those things that represent the breakthrough scores or, I can see in my oldest grandson, a great deal of my, the patient, more importantly, most of the rest of the family says, Michael, he\u0026rsquo;s exactly the same issue. He\u0026rsquo;s just so determined about things, but he\u0026rsquo;s the most loving plus generous plus a spectacular basketball and rugby, but get that much for the team all about that. And it\u0026rsquo;s the other point. We\u0026rsquo;ve got a avoid single lines in ballot. Like you could look at a human being and if you\u0026rsquo;re just looking at one line in their balance sheet, your mom\u0026rsquo;s thing, the post at the same time, of course, as you\u0026rsquo;re maybe inappropriately judging, maybe doing some comparison stuff, go read Rene Girard. I don\u0026rsquo;t know whether you got studied philosophy, but it\u0026rsquo;s all about hopeless. You can look at somebody and sell off what a main person or maybe in that circumstance. I bought off the most wine, all of that\nPeter: Yeah,\nMichael: While I really understand what was happening in their life at that point in time. Why understand? What else did anyone get off the Sidebox Skilly you\u0026rsquo;re not here for that.\nPeter: No, it\u0026rsquo;s still, it\u0026rsquo;s just useful life, no advice, you never, I think the point you picked up on that, why you never train are what someone else is going through. And I guess you picked up on two points, really it\u0026rsquo;s important. Well, how other people perceive you? Like how, your grandson, just importantly to use that everybody can kind of tell you that he\u0026rsquo;s just like you, but it\u0026rsquo;s also, I guess, just important to keep in mind that we don\u0026rsquo;t always know the full story of what\u0026rsquo;s going on with someone else.\nPerceptions of what\u0026rsquo;s going on with them might not actually be accurate to the truth. And I guess, someone who\u0026rsquo;s annoying you or doing something to rub you the wrong way that might be, it might not just be because they enjoy doing that too. They might have other things going on. So just keeping an open mind and trying to be tolerant and respectful just goes a long way, not just in your work, but just in your life general.\nMichael: And they, when the other site he\u0026rsquo;s like, they\u0026rsquo;re quite more because I can see characteristics within him that in his age I would have died for, I would have loved to have had the courage that he has to be done in convictions. I would have loved people, felt able to my parents, in a respectful way as he does.\nWhereas, I was raised in an environment where you could not have those challenging. I love that sort of stuff. He and I, we love, and that\u0026rsquo;s why I say it\u0026rsquo;s only when you thing I take off as well.\nHow Gilly Dealt with Syndrome # James: One thing I wanted to ask you about. This thing that we call imposter syndrome, where you\u0026rsquo;re kind of in a position and you don\u0026rsquo;t feel like you deserve to be there or don\u0026rsquo;t feel like you are, you have the skills to perform the role, as well as you would expect someone to be able to do it.\nYou don\u0026rsquo;t really have that self belief, I guess. And I know the self you\u0026rsquo;ve been, we\u0026rsquo;ve spoken about you made partner like one year into starting your law career. And you\u0026rsquo;ve done various other things like becoming the president of different committees and things like that. I mean, was there ever points where you felt that you know that, or I\u0026rsquo;m not sure if I can do this, those kinds of thoughts running through your head and if so, I\u0026rsquo;m curious how, how you dealt with that and what your, what your thought process has kind of like during those sessions,\nMichael: I think I was the first thing I would excite James is that it\u0026rsquo;s the first time I\u0026rsquo;ve heard the expression imposter syndrome. And I\u0026rsquo;m probably grateful for the fact that when I was an imposter, I didn\u0026rsquo;t know it existed because I might not have tried, but a little bit more seriously. I can\u0026rsquo;t think of any serious circuits. In which I felt alone. Whatever I did that was pretty serious was always in the company of other people. It was all white. I might have been leading, but it was always with a team and people who were supported by the one day, the one, the mine, I wasn\u0026rsquo;t competitive. And that gives you a huge amount of confidence. Now, perhaps the one area, you feel a little bit alone or I did was if I was being interviewed, particularly by an aggressive. Or making speeches on insurance, law topics here and overseas, where perhaps in the audience there would be more knowledgeable people in. They challenged me on something or the other, yeah, just some tips around all of that. In, as I may have indicated before the late seventies within the law society, I got a lot of presentation and public speaking and media training because we were just as a legal profession, we were just moving into marketing for the first time, before that the ethics of the profession word, the shouting was a terrible thing.\nYou ask what could the ties or any of those. So suddenly he, we were having to sort of be out there with all those others torch people, undertook advertisement. I learned from one of the trainers that if you are selected, for example, to speak on something, because you are seen as an expert in the subject, then the audience is going to be about 98%, less knowledgeable than you. I know it was always the joke that the other 2% who might know more than you are probably too embarrassed to ask your question, fear of embarrassing themselves. So it sort of gave you a lot of confidence to do that sort of thing. And then as I went along from another very wise person, I learned the power of the question and the power of saying upfront and immediately, I that know the answer to that. And I\u0026rsquo;ve got to say and feed to write down whether your experience this year. Young lawyers who worked for me, probably hundreds of them reach the certain point in my estimation, my appreciation of them when for the first time I heard them say, Michael, I don\u0026rsquo;t know the answer to that question, but I\u0026rsquo;ll find out for you. Yeah. Lots of young lawyers, and I\u0026rsquo;m sure this applies beyond the law, think that they ended the marketplace possessive total knowledge, and more importantly, that they can\u0026rsquo;t in the presence of a sort of superior person confess to not knowing something.\nPeter: Yeah.\nMichael: It\u0026rsquo;s one of the most important tasks of maturing as a human being.\nLike, I don\u0026rsquo;t know\nthat.\nPeter: Yeah. Now, and I do relate to that a little bit. You don\u0026rsquo;t want to, I don\u0026rsquo;t know. I guess sometimes\nin,\nMichael: Yeah.\nPeter: My mind or I\u0026rsquo;m sure other younger, not just young lawyers, I\u0026rsquo;m sure it\u0026rsquo;s applicable to all, young professionals will just fear of looking stupid or something in front of their, their boss or their someone more superior.\nThey work with. That\u0026rsquo;s definitely something I will take on board this to it\u0026rsquo;s okay. To say you don\u0026rsquo;t know.\nMichael: Wow. It\u0026rsquo;s essential\nPeter: Yeah.\nMichael: Essential. Or what did he shoot the top of the things that in your engineer with as well? One other little thing, which was important for me, but has to do with my sort of Catholic background before I started any meeting that was of concern to me. I took about one minute then I would say to do a little bit of praying, but just to clear my head. To take myself into a more sacred environment, as a spice of calmness, a place where I can think to myself tonight, this might be a rugged meeting. You\u0026rsquo;ve got a couple of things on the agenda here, but at the end of the day, there were lumps of people around you. I ended up with abolish the death penalty. If you don\u0026rsquo;t get crucified, they need more in this country. So the worst that can happen is that yeah. What you want to see outcome, isn\u0026rsquo;t the outcome, but that\u0026rsquo;s not going to bring the world and justice sort of in those store. I don\u0026rsquo;t like that impossible word to be blood drives, but just didn\u0026rsquo;t that\u0026rsquo;s ice where you might feel a little bit out of your depth to be able to put soul back on dry land and say, okay, this is where we are.\nThis is one of 12 about in the overall, in the big scheme of things.\nSo.\nJames: Yeah. Yeah, definitely. I can definitely get a sense that yeah. Very humble, humble guy, yourself, Gilly. And I think even having that humility when it comes to being asked things that, you don\u0026rsquo;t know the answer to is really important. And then trying not to sort of act like you\u0026rsquo;re, you\u0026rsquo;re better than you are.\nAnd creating those situations where, know, you say, you know, something when you actually don\u0026rsquo;t and then It can get awkward. I think at that point\nMichael: It can backfire big time and it doesn\u0026rsquo;t matter what area of endeavor you are in it\u0026rsquo;s not all musty. It\u0026rsquo;s far easier to remember the truth, of life. It\u0026rsquo;s far easier to remember the checklist. Whereas if you\u0026rsquo;re guessing and you\u0026rsquo;re throwing stuff out, one of them, didn\u0026rsquo;t you tell me two weeks ago when we were talking about this, that, well, then trust, remember your lie can be tough. We can all identify with it. There\u0026rsquo;s nobody on this planet who doesn\u0026rsquo;t tell the fit from time to time and being pulled out.\nPeter: Yeah, definitely.\nGilly\u0026rsquo;s Rituals and Practices # James: Hm, Hm. Yeah. I\u0026rsquo;m interested to hear, I know you spoke just before about, you had that ritual before a meeting where you would kind of have that one minute of almost prayer to put yourself\nin a better space to, to start the meeting. I\u0026rsquo;m curious, is there any other things like that or any other principles that you follow through your career that you would say contributed to.\nYourself being able to do all the things that you\u0026rsquo;ve done because yeah. Many people would look at your career in sack. That\u0026rsquo;s what I want for me. I want to be able to, have all these things and do all this amazing stuff. I\u0026rsquo;m curious if there\u0026rsquo;s anything that you did, any habits or rituals or things that you did consistently that you would say, okay.\nThat was really important in getting to where I was able to get to\nMichael: Let\u0026rsquo;s just put ritual to one side because I see rituals are incredibly important,\nI think trust is incredibly important part of this, and it\u0026rsquo;s trusting people it\u0026rsquo;s to work out who are the most important people in your life. Who can you turn to? Who can you take your anxieties and your fears and worries too, because no stupid.\nMost of us have times of anxiety and depression to some extent. self-doubt and that\u0026rsquo;s in the personal space, it\u0026rsquo;s in the professional space, all the stuff around relationships and that sort of thing. And we all need those angles. Yeah. If we talked about sort of core values or belief, whether it\u0026rsquo;s a religious belief or something else, we all need some anchors, lot. And, it could pillow incidentally, be the people that you might like to be with on the occasional Saturday night, but it might be entirely different.\nBut I think just felt the topics, those personal relationships that are so important it\u0026rsquo;s because so much of the challenge is in isolation. And if you can\u0026rsquo;t find a why out of the isolation, know, you can get those other problems and the loneliness and the anxiety to the moment, that sort of thing, if you\u0026rsquo;re talking about a ritual.\nI often share with people that I mentor and a lot of them really struggled with the emotional side of their lives. I say to them now, when that your internal thoughts, personal or professional or business attending to the black side of things you do need to have rituals or, or ways to transition out of it.\nEverybody needs them. And I\u0026rsquo;ve always encouraged people to buy a helicopter and that normally evokes a smile or a loss.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s just a metaphorical helicopter, but you got to keep it front and set up because when that, when you\u0026rsquo;re totally. Volume internal documents. You need to jump in that helicopter and sort of Gallup about 200 meters, and then look down at yourself and say with a very loud voice, what the fuck\u0026rsquo;s going on down there so that you start to develop techniques or rituals around those out of body experiences. But yeah, you don\u0026rsquo;t need to read books. You\u0026rsquo;ll have a psychologist or psychiatrist. You just need to understand in a detached flight, what stupidity is going on within you now, stupidity, isn\u0026rsquo;t a nice thing to say because it\u0026rsquo;s real.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s real. So pull us there and say to you guys that I\u0026rsquo;ve just given you the heli, which is a technique to reshoot transmission really are. Do you need that? How do you handle it? How do you handle it when you personally get deflected negative thinking?\nPeter: I\u0026rsquo;ve got one. If you\u0026rsquo;re thinking for go not so much the helicopter, like on and off you said out of body experience, I don\u0026rsquo;t know if I\u0026rsquo;ve ever really had anything like that. Something I\u0026rsquo;ll try it because it sounds pretty cool. But for me, I like to just go for a drive. It\u0026rsquo;s a lot. I just go for a long drive down from where I\u0026rsquo;ll leave, locked down south close this place called civic space.\nAnd then I kind of just stop there and I\u0026rsquo;ll look at the beach on the, just try and empty mind kind of thing. Yeah. That\u0026rsquo;s drunk. I mean, this by Adelaide stands long drive, so it\u0026rsquo;s like 45 minutes by Sydney standards. That\u0026rsquo;s a, that\u0026rsquo;s a trip to the shops. Yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s kind of my, my thing. Just be in the car, have one of the music playing and then that\u0026rsquo;s why, well, I think.\nMichael: Yep. So you\u0026rsquo;ve got a technique that you\u0026rsquo;ve worked out for yourself, Dave and woods, which is excellent. And James,\nJames: Well, yeah, I would say similar to pate and then he gets out of the house and I think for myself, I\u0026rsquo;d prefer to go for a walk.\nSo near my house in Adelaide is a mountain husband. It\u0026rsquo;s like a really, really good lookout. You can see the whole city. So. I would walk there walk around and like, don\u0026rsquo;t take my phone or anything and just, just walk and just deal with what\u0026rsquo;s going on. Or even here in Melbourne.\nI\u0026rsquo;ll, we\u0026rsquo;ll home the Yarra for a bit, just do a big walk, get it out of my system. And then often not when I\u0026rsquo;m coming back in that sort of the last 500 meters back to wherever I\u0026rsquo;m staying, that\u0026rsquo;s kind of the refocus moment, now that we\u0026rsquo;ve done the big walk, it sound to get in the zone and get back into things. See, I find those to be helpful. Now you got\nMichael: I should probably applied it more in personal circumstances than professional or business circumstances, but and it may well be that in professional and business circumstances, you may have to vary it up. It depends how well the books those sorts of things, because often for example, if you\u0026rsquo;re in a serious mediation or court case you might not be able to jump in your car or go for that long, but you still might have played totally distracted by the unethical conduct of an opponent to the way you are thinking much more about that.\nThe leash trying to be resolved for the best benefit of the applied but that\u0026rsquo;s one example of it, but. I think if I were swayed straight in a total Gilly whole of life, that I am very comfortable with the notion that I know very little, I truly believe that we know very, very little about all of the issues and it\u0026rsquo;s probably never going to beat the case that we will know a huge amount. And that\u0026rsquo;s something I just must accept. I, I own that as part of who I am in my life. So I don\u0026rsquo;t beat myself up because there is something that\u0026rsquo;s evading my analysis ordinates. If that\u0026rsquo;s the way it\u0026rsquo;s supposed to be. That\u0026rsquo;s the what? So let\u0026rsquo;s accept that. Illness is a good example of it. I have lots of friends in my life looking brilliant at handling illness, probably the best one. It\u0026rsquo;s one of your, one of your favorites. At the lady, a great lawyer and my age Short\u0026rsquo;s lawyer, John fountain, and John has been struggling with leukemia since 2009. That has the most amazing way of dealing with them. I know other people who are in similar circumstances, we\u0026rsquo;re all wise as part of the conversation include one night. Why did it happen to me? Yeah. One of these things happen to kids. I don\u0026rsquo;t know, but if it\u0026rsquo;s me, I did, my wife died 70 years of age. Well, that\u0026rsquo;s life still happens. And I think when you bring it to your question giant, if, if the context, if the background. Is that sort of acceptance. Then a lot of these other things can be handled in a very much easier way.\nJames: Yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s flown. I liked that a lot. We all got a one question left in my head, but I\u0026rsquo;m curious, Pete, is there anything I\u0026rsquo;m sure you could almost go all day here with healing. But yeah. Is there any like, yeah. Is there anything else that you\u0026rsquo;d like to.\nThe most interesting case that Gilly has worked on # Peter: Maybe one for, again, a legal question. Just what, what is it\u0026rsquo;s really taught us what. One of the most interesting pieces you\u0026rsquo;ve ever worked on this. Just pure curiosity.\nMichael: It wasn\u0026rsquo;t a case.\nIs that all right?\nPeter: Yeah. We\u0026rsquo;ll follow matter or whatever.\nMichael: Well, it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s it\u0026rsquo;s easy for me because it\u0026rsquo;s only seven years ago. So 2015 I was asked by the insurance council of Australia to head up a task force, looking at the effectiveness of all of those pre-contract documents that have to be handed out when you\u0026rsquo;re arranging insurance and stuff like that. So I think James, just for the non-lawyers, it\u0026rsquo;s all about legal stuff in the consumer space that you get often inundated with when you\u0026rsquo;re opening up a bank account or taking out an insurance policy or doing anything else.\nAnd it\u0026rsquo;s all around this notion of the last. consumer rights, auric, financial literacy, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And it was an amazing exercise for me for a whole lot of reasons, but it was the very first time that I had been asked to work with an a funeral site. And the funny part of this story is that one of the youngsters from an insurance company, it was on the task force. When we were just about to submit our report to the board of the insurance council, rang me at the time and said, Michael, can we talk about what they\u0026rsquo;re going to call the report as well? And they told me that, you should be. Definitions of social media, like LOL for lots of love and all of that they said to me, they\u0026rsquo;ve just included an expression, which I think I\u0026rsquo;d like to think we can use as the name for our report. Well, what is it? He tell me what a boss and like bring my three daughters. And I told them what it was.\nThey\u0026rsquo;d never heard of it. So we pulled that report till semi-colon Dr. But everybody very excited all around the world. I even started in the Netherlands. And of course, the LDR is\nPeter: It\u0026rsquo;s been a long darn right.\nMichael: Right too long. Didn\u0026rsquo;t write. And that applies to just about every bit of consumer guff that goes out to people, hopefully helping them like wise decisions, but too long for them to be at least interested. So I gave a talk in the firm a few weeks after the report. And I said to all the lawyers there who have made lots of money for the firm drafting all of these documents for insurance companies, banks, everyone says, oh, the reality is that you don\u0026rsquo;t have light for the firms, Scots and Scots of money drafting documents that are absolutely fantastic for your plants and totally useless for their customers.\nPeter: Now.\nMichael: So I began to look a lot more clearly. The best outcome. Isn\u0026rsquo;t always a legal outcome.\nPeter: Yeah, I can ask you a plea. Went with that long with Noah Myron. A lot of how that it\u0026rsquo;s likable to me and off, off probably disclaimers or whatever for our customers that realistically one of reds, it\u0026rsquo;s a good lesson, trying to think about how can I write those things in a way that will communicate to that?\nYeah.\nMichael: Yeah. Connected with this is the banking Royal commission kind of time, the high court or former high court judge, she had it and he made it very clear that the legal outcome. Is it always the right guy. Yeah. Yeah. Corporations over the last 50 years for a whole series of reasons, we don\u0026rsquo;t have time to go into just want a legal spine off. I want lawyers in-house or externally to say legally, this is okay. And then senior management and the board will go ahead and do it. And it\u0026rsquo;s not been saying for about 15 years. And Hayne has said more recently to get a legal opinion about something is the start of the process. If they didn\u0026rsquo;t go to work out, what do you do in that point?\nPeter: Yeah. Yep. I\u0026rsquo;m definitely going to keep that one locked away. That\u0026rsquo;s good.\nMichael: And we\u0026rsquo;ll probably get back to that. And that applies James to every bit of relevant human. Yeah, every one of us is a consumer. We all know what it\u0026rsquo;s like to be kept on hole by Telstra. There was no coal is important to us. And when I get on the line and they say I\u0026rsquo;m being recorded for training purposes, I site I\u0026rsquo;m also being recorded for feedback purposes. And there\u0026rsquo;s a bit of style. Well, if my call was really important to you, you would have a more, and we know that is consumers. We know that it\u0026rsquo;s all done with broken teeth. That\u0026rsquo;s really true. But somebody in marketing says, oh, you\u0026rsquo;ve going to tell them that they call this important. And worry about how inconsistent your behavior is, as long as you tell them that too, before\nPeter: Yes,\nMichael: That\u0026rsquo;s a bit of carrier.\nyou got something out\nJames: Um,\nPeter: No.\nJames: No, it definitely. Yeah, no.\nGilly\u0026rsquo;s Advice for New Graduates # James: That\u0026rsquo;s interesting. I mean, so, I mean, if you\u0026rsquo;ll have to pay it, I\u0026rsquo;ve got one more question for Gilly to faceoff the interview today, and that is, a lot of this podcasts around careers around grads and it\u0026rsquo;s around people starting their career. And so I want to ask you, what advice would you give to people that are starting their career?\nAgain, all the stuff that\u0026rsquo;s just starting their career in 2022.\nMichael: So, James, when do you start your career?\nJames: In my head, the notion is that when you sort of get your first full-time job\nMichael: Your tertiary education has nothing to do with your career.\nJames: Yeah, I think it, it does. Yeah, it definitely does.\nMichael: So what\u0026rsquo;s your question.\nJames: I think how about when entering the workforce?\nMichael: So, if you read 18 and Lost Pedro, are you familiar with 18 and Lost James? You are aren\u0026rsquo;t you? Yeah, I didn\u0026rsquo;t lost was a book written by a number of the constant students which has us, it\u0026rsquo;s something what we know at 26 or 27 that we wish we had known that it, because they knowledge I\u0026rsquo;ve experienced values skills. Take into the decision-making for a university course is very much less than what you have at 20 steaks. When you have experienced one of the most important formation periods of your life. So the first lesson I think James to take out of that is keeping an open mind and an open heart is much more than it\u0026rsquo;s the glitzy sighing of the moment. It\u0026rsquo;s one of life\u0026rsquo;s most black and survival skills. So point number one is you haven\u0026rsquo;t wasted to do education. You haven\u0026rsquo;t wasted tertiary stuff, but keep your heart and your mind open as to how you\u0026rsquo;re going against that full lights and be prepared to extend yourself all the way. feel bad, restores shamed. If you\u0026rsquo;re tempted towards thinking I\u0026rsquo;ve made a mistake. No, you haven\u0026rsquo;t made a mistake. It\u0026rsquo;s like Michael in first year law, you\u0026rsquo;re just learning. And yeah, if you do that and you stop understanding what turns on your passion while you\u0026rsquo;re dumb lights coming from, what you\u0026rsquo;re picking up, which really seems to be the authentic you as well, doing it for yourself rather than your employer or your parents or other people, or things that have an expectation of you your ability to break away from what you feel. From the bombardment of social media, all the stuff you\u0026rsquo;ll reading, which is, I think, forcing you in a particular direction somewhere along the way, you\u0026rsquo;ll got the little so kicking. I\u0026rsquo;m not quite sure about that because it\u0026rsquo;s not my field of expertise, but I say way everyone who wants to listen these days, you have three very important ways of knowing, and that\u0026rsquo;s your head, your heart and gut. You got to keep them all in balance.\nYou got to listen to all of them. And then it\u0026rsquo;s just walking down the path of life, understanding that it\u0026rsquo;s all a process. Yes. And it\u0026rsquo;s all about the journey. It\u0026rsquo;s not so much about the destination. So yeah, this is luckily shy, but it\u0026rsquo;s what I\u0026rsquo;d want is, or in five years time, I am to be a senior associates at DLA. They will like to have out, but it shouldn\u0026rsquo;t be totally reoccupied. It shouldn\u0026rsquo;t be a lot of your clients. I\u0026rsquo;ve got a lovely guy of my age, retired land, surveyor Jewish people in have presence without talking about planning.\nThen the old Weiss is if you want to go and play,\nPeter: Hmm.\nMichael: I love it.\nPeter: Um,\nMichael: Slipping will come. The surprises now embrace the surprise. I didn\u0026rsquo;t think that was going to happen. Wow. When did that get a gift card? How about how did I end up meeting a person like that at a nightclub at 11:30 PM in the evening? And this is a person who may have a contribution to make to my curiosity about my career or something else.\nWhere does this stuff come from from a cell phone would cite that you diverse? Yeah. Life is more than a single career. Life is about switching on the totality of your unique gifts. All of them leave any of it on the show. I had planes in the background now, so that\u0026rsquo;s that\u0026rsquo;s. Yeah. And that\u0026rsquo;s an awful lot to digest. And I could give you a lot of other stuff about wounds, like loss. Typically, if you\u0026rsquo;re in a business, a circumstance where there are clients involved, generous to them, not because you want to have a reputation of some food posts. Yeah. People want generosity and I respond. Yeah. We all know that it goes with all experienced. So that\u0026rsquo;s not hard. Is it when we know how we feel about people who will be genuinely generous.\nIn other words, they\u0026rsquo;re not looking for anything in return. I just do it because they want to do something forth. And that turns on something within us, which is exactly the same as it turns on within all other people in similar circumstance. Sure. There can be some signal cynics. You can have people. Why would they have done that?\nThey must think there\u0026rsquo;s something in it for them, but we\u0026rsquo;re going to try and rise above that because what\u0026rsquo;s authentic people. Don\u0026rsquo;t understand what unconditional generosity gives them and you can feel it exactly the same. Why? So in that relationship scenario, generosity has exactly the same impact as the night.\nNo relationship scenario, if you\u0026rsquo;re in a personal relationship with somebody and it might be somebody that we\u0026rsquo;re dating early stages, you do something for them, you might\u0026rsquo;ve been doing and knowing it, but just means so much in terms of something generous. You might be waiting to take them out and you\u0026rsquo;re tidy up the teacher rather than sitting there watching. One of the Adelaide 40 teams playing football on their television. It\u0026rsquo;s just all that sort of stuff. It\u0026rsquo;s not the whole of life skills are exactly the same as the business life skills, the professional life skills, personal lives. Why Y we\u0026rsquo;ll show anyone this, and it\u0026rsquo;s not three of you. It\u0026rsquo;s not one that puts on the time they get out of this business.\nAnother one who sort of looks on a basketball outfit, becomes a basketball, and then tell me the ulcers. He hadn\u0026rsquo;t been taking some of the. Those are all life skills from that we don\u0026rsquo;t put on outfits.\nPeter: Yeah. Cool. I think that\u0026rsquo;s just not us on the, and the\ncar.\nJames: Yep. I agree. Yeah. Thanks so much for your time today, Gilly. I think, yeah, that was great. A great note to end on. I think I\u0026rsquo;ve learned a lot from this conversation, so yeah. Thanks so much for for sharing your time with us today\nHow To Contact Gilly # James:\nAnd, and then thanks so much. It\u0026rsquo;s well paid becoming on it was a good experience\nfor\nPeter: Asking me on and thank you, Michael, for yeah, just everything you\u0026rsquo;ve given us the last couple hours being really insightful and\nPeter: Interesting\nPeter: To chat with you.\nMichael: And lastly played to thank you for wearing the type was a nice reminder to me of what they just\nJames: Oh, I know. Yeah. And Gilly, I\u0026rsquo;ve just got one last, last thing to add is if someone\u0026rsquo;s listening to this and they want to find out more about you on or get in touch with you, where\u0026rsquo;s the best place for them to do that.\nMichael: Give them my email address.\nJames: Okay. Sure. Well, that\u0026rsquo;ll be, I\u0026rsquo;ll leave it in the show\nnotes so people can look fine to\nMichael: Not a problem, Not a problem,\nJames: Wonderful.\nOutro # James: Thanks for listening to this episode I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. If you want to get my takeaways, the three things that I learned from this episode, please go to Graduate Theory.com/subscribe, where you can get my takeaways and all the information about each episode, straight to your inbox.\nThanks so much for listening again today, and we\u0026rsquo;re looking forward to seeing you next week.\n← Back to episode 16\n","date":"7 February 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/graduate-theory/16-on-building-a-long-term-and-sustainable-career-with-michael-gill/transcript/","section":"Graduate Theory Transcripts","summary":"← Back to episode 16\nThis transcript has been lightly edited for readability. It may still contain transcription errors.\nJames: Hello, and welcome to Graduate Theory. Today’s episode is a little bit different to an ordinary episode, for two main reasons. The first of these is it. It’s not just me hosting the show. I’ve brought on a friend of mine, whose name is Peter.\n","title":"Transcript: On building a long term and sustainable career with Michael Gill","type":"graduate-theory-transcripts"},{"content":" Watch the conversation Graduate Theory Open YouTube ↗ Read the full transcript → Dan Brockwell is a Computer Science and Marketing graduate from UNSW.\nHe has worked in marketing, consulting, design, sales \u0026amp; ops at Amazon, Uber, Deloitte Digital, IBM + startups and is currently a product manager at Atlassian.\nOn the side, he is Co-Founder and Chief Meme Officer at Earlywork, which now has an audience of over 2,500 people and has been featured by the AFR, Startup Daily and Smart Company.\nHe is part of the angel investing program at AirTree Ventures, an angel investor and also an Advisor at NinetyEight, a cross-continent Gen Z marketing agency.\nLevel Up Your Career\n🤝 Connect with Dan # Twitter - https://twitter.com/DanBrockwell\nEarlywork - https://www.earlywork.co/\nEarlywork Substack - https://earlywork.substack.com/\nEarlywork Slack Community - https://earlyworkcommunity.slack.com/\n👇 Episode Takeaways # Content is King # Dan highlighted the importance of building a personal brand. Creating content requires no permission and can lead to great opportunities. Dan mentioned that he had been offered a job at Google through his personal brand.\nSkill Layering # Something we\u0026rsquo;ve spoken about on the podcast before is the idea of layering. Dan has had crazy experiences in marketing, consulting, design, sales \u0026amp; ops that all give him a new way to look at and solve problems. The best time to get this width is early in your career. Try things and get exposure. This will give you an edge later in your career.\nYou Don\u0026rsquo;t Need a Job Listing # One thing that I really wanted to discuss with Dan was the idea of getting jobs through unconventional methods in comparison to applying for a listed job.\nHe gave great examples where he had found opportunities simply by reaching out to people and asking if they were open to taking someone on.\nHe made some great points about the specifics of reaching out to people. In your contact with people, include the following 👇\nWho you are\nWhy you\u0026rsquo;re reaching out\nWhat\u0026rsquo;s in it for them\nAnd use the following techniques\nprovide value (write a post, suggest an improvement to the business)\nclear ask (\u0026ldquo;would you be open to \u0026hellip;.\u0026rdquo;)\nStartups vs Corporate # Dan spoke about the pros and cons of each of these. I\u0026rsquo;ve listed the benefits of working in either corporate or a startup\nStartups\nhigher breadth of learning, you are more likely to do multiple jobs\nwork more quickly, less red tape, unstructured learning\nmore autonomy and ownership\nworking on new problems vs iterating on previous solutions\nequity in the company as compensation\nCorporate\nBrand equity, people trust you will be good because you worked at X company\nThe big company structured training programs are better\nMentorship and structure\nProducts used by a larger audience, work makes a bigger impact\nHigher salary\nHigher job safety\n📝 Show Notes # 00:00 Dan Brockwell\n00:37 Intro\n01:35 Personal Brands in 2022\n04:27 How Would Dan Start a Personal Brand in 2022\n07:55 How to convert your personal brand into opportunities\n12:07 Startups and Corporate Comparison\n22:05 Dan\u0026rsquo;s Thought Process behind going from Corporate to Startups\n27:32 Getting Jobs without a job opening\n37:11 What Dan Thinks Of Range\n46:24 Dans\u0026rsquo; Advice to New Graduates\n49:14 Contact Dan\n50:29 Outro\n","date":"31 January 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/graduate-theory/15-on-startups-corporate-and-the-importance-of-personal-branding-with-dan-brockwell/","section":"Graduate Theory","summary":" Watch the conversation Graduate Theory Open YouTube ↗ Read the full transcript → Dan Brockwell is a Computer Science and Marketing graduate from UNSW.\n","title":"On Startups, Corporate and the Importance of Personal Branding with Dan Brockwell","type":"graduate-theory"},{"content":"← Back to episode 15\nThis transcript has been lightly edited for readability. It may still contain transcription errors.\nJames: Hello, and welcome to Graduate Theory. On today\u0026rsquo;s episode, we\u0026rsquo;ll hear about personal branding and the importance of that. As we go into careers in 2022, we\u0026rsquo;ll talk about corporate versus startups. And what are the pros and cons of working in an established corporate company versus working in a startup.\nWe also talk about getting jobs without permission, and these are really, really exciting concepts. I\u0026rsquo;m so, so excited for this episode.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s one of the best on Graduate Theory. So please enjoy.\nIntro # James: Hello, and welcome to Graduate Theory. My guest today is a computer science and marketing graduate from the university of new south Wales. He\u0026rsquo;s worked in marketing consulting, design sales, and operations at company. Like Amazon, Uber, Deloitte, IBM, as well as a few startups. He is currently a product manager at Atlassian on the side of all this.\nHe is a co-founder and the chief meme officer at early work, which now has an audience of over two and a half thousand people. It\u0026rsquo;s been featured by the AFR startup, dairy and smart company. He\u0026rsquo;s part of the angel investing program at edge revenge. He\u0026rsquo;s an angel investor himself and advisor at 98, which is across the continent gen Z marketing agency.\nPlease. Welcome to the show, Dan Brockwell.\nDan: James, Matt. Thank you so much.\n. I think we\u0026rsquo;re gonna have some fun today.\nJames: Absolutely. I\u0026rsquo;m flat out. This is going to be fantastic. I think there\u0026rsquo;s so much, I want to just discuss with you Dan.\nPersonal Brands in 2022 # James: And the first question I want to ask is around personal brand in 2022, and I think this is kind of something that\u0026rsquo;s evolving and changing all the time. You know, how important do you think it is to have an online, personal brand in 2020?\nDan: Yeah, super good question. I think kind of like to just kind of modifying questions, then it\u0026rsquo;s like, personal brand for whom like, as in, are you a startup founder? Are you a job seeker? Are you an investor? And then, yeah, like what do you want to use that personal brand for as, and you could have around very different policy.\nIt could be career related. It could be not career related at all. You might be a musician on the side and artists, et cetera. What I would say is that, like, you know, it\u0026rsquo;s only so recently in human history that you can, you know, write something and then that can get seen pretty easily by. You write something once that scales so easily.\nAnd I think having an online personal brand just allows you to get your story out to people in a much more scalable way. It\u0026rsquo;s like you do the work once. And then so many people find out about who you are and, you know, there\u0026rsquo;s that old expression. Like, it\u0026rsquo;s not what, you know, it\u0026rsquo;s who, you know, the modifying factor there is actually it\u0026rsquo;s, who knows you.\nAnd the even further modification is it\u0026rsquo;s who knows you for what? And so I You know, having an online personal brand is really just like taking extra shots on goal, right? It\u0026rsquo;s like, you know, you could be a striker in soccer. You might be a really shitty striker. Having an online personal brand just means more people are going to find out about what you\u0026rsquo;re doing and just, you know, with enough shots, you get some goals.\nJames: I love what you said that, and I think it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s important to, to like, oh, it\u0026rsquo;s a great idea that you know, today as well, the online technology and things like that, you know, the marginal cost of production, you know? Oh, how you, however you want to describe it.\nSo like, you know, giving your newsletter to one extra person, the cost of doing that is literally zero. So, you know, the ability for your newsletter to go to 10 people was the same as it is a thousand a million. You know, and, and sorry, if you like being able to scale that and really your personal brand is no limit to how many people that you can reach.\nI\nDan: Hundred percent, hundred percent.\n, I think like, yeah, and I think following up even further on that point of scalability, I know Navarro rabbit from, he was like the founder of angel list, kind of just like a tech Korea, his job site. I think he talks a lot about code and media as those two super scalable things where it\u0026rsquo;s like, no one you can write code.\nAnd that software scale to millions, number two, you can, you know, create content. And that can scale with millions. I think probably the third example there, which has been around for quite a while is. You know, you write laws once and I was going affect millions of people for a long, long period of time, but compared to content and code, there\u0026rsquo;s a lot more permission and a lot more hierarchy in order to effect change in the law.\nWhereas I think today, what you\u0026rsquo;re starting to see is like young people just creating Korea\u0026rsquo;s online, you know, writing content, building software, and they don\u0026rsquo;t have to wait for anyone to give them permission to do so.\nJames: Yeah, it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s really powerful. And like, how would you, like if you were going to start, you\u0026rsquo;ve got a pretty decent personal brand.\nHow Would Dan Start a Personal Brand in 2022 # James: I mean, w how would you go about starting it again today? Is there any avenues or topics, or how do you even decide what to speak about and where to put it in things like.\nDan: So, what does it say? You have the content and context, so what to speak about and where to put it, right. Like I think content. Yeah. I mean, the only thing I look back, I don\u0026rsquo;t have regrets, but like, I wish I\u0026rsquo;d started earlier as in like talking about like the things that I was learning as like, you know, a young person who just entered the tech and startup world in first year.\nLike my first role in uni proper role was going to start up role. So I think like w like documenting my journey early on, it would\u0026rsquo;ve been super, super fun just to like, share with other friends who were. in uni and maybe they didn\u0026rsquo;t even know about that sort of world. I think like the beautiful thing is like, you know, you can be young, you can be pretty inexperienced, but you\u0026rsquo;re still going to know more about some things than a lot of people.\nLike everyone in life has their own unique journey. And so you don\u0026rsquo;t have to be like, you know, world number one, but you might know about something a lot more than most of your friends, for instance. I mean, you might be able to tell your friends about, you know, how to run a podcast. You could literally start running commentary on that.\nRight. I think in terms of context, I think this is something I haven\u0026rsquo;t explored as much yet, but I think like one thing I would have been keen to experiment with more and will be experimenting with very actively is video content. Like I, I think I, you know, biased pretty heavily towards texts because like, I think like the value for money is really good.\nSo to speak like you don\u0026rsquo;t, there\u0026rsquo;s not that much kind of like effort in terms of production beyond kind of just the core writing. But you can scale that to a lot of people. I think the video is a really deep and rich. Format. It\u0026rsquo;s very engaging. It\u0026rsquo;s very human. And so I think, yeah, definitely an opportunity there that we\u0026rsquo;ll be exploring with early work, early talk on Tik TOK, stay tuned.\nBut yeah, I think like for someone starting out, like more generally in terms of like what content to choose, just getting specifically to that question. Choose things that interest you like things that you\u0026rsquo;re just learning about anyway, like all of us are most people in their spare time, often reading about things.\nAnyway, they often have little side hobbies and passions and just things that they\u0026rsquo;re fascinated by. And I think the best content comes when it\u0026rsquo;s something that you\u0026rsquo;re approaching with a genuine and authentic curiosity. I think coupling that with also then what are you experiencing that some other people might not be experiencing?\nSo maybe like. Podcost creation tips for instance. But kind of the intersection though, is like, what are your unique experiences or experiences that maybe few people have? And then one of the things you\u0026rsquo;re just very naturally drawn to, and very curious about trying to find the intersection of those, I think is magic.\nAnd I think ultimately, like I don\u0026rsquo;t, yeah, I have a certain perspective on content here, but I, I love the idea of content as a tool. Like what I\u0026rsquo;d be thinking about is like, okay, if you\u0026rsquo;re going to go and create. And put it out and give it to other people. What\u0026rsquo;s the, what\u0026rsquo;s the need that you\u0026rsquo;re solving for them.\nWhat\u0026rsquo;s the problem that you\u0026rsquo;re solving for them. Like, I love this idea of content as being very actionable. It\u0026rsquo;s like someone should be able to like.\nread a newsletter or listen to a podcast and they can actually apply that sort of thinking very directly in their life in the next week. So in any content that you create, like maybe it starts with just solving a problem for you.\nAnd then over time you realize other people have that.\nJames: Yeah. Well, yeah, I think it\u0026rsquo;s so powerful. I totally agree with you in independence and age and, and yeah, it was interesting what you were saying about, about BDO as well, because I think, you know, like being across all the different media landscapes can be, can be tricky, but you know, like the video is, is something that, yeah.\nIs it. It\u0026rsquo;s super cool. And even, even Tik TOK, I think you might\u0026rsquo;ve seen, it has like more views than Google, I think\nDan: Yeah, well, more mobile\nsearches.\nJames: And incredible.\nDan: Yeah. it just, cry.\nHow to convert your personal brand into opportunities # Dan: Yeah, how something like that has really grown so much,\nfor sure.\nJames: What would be the next step then from taking?\nSo let\u0026rsquo;s say, you know, you\u0026rsquo;ve you\u0026rsquo;ve started like your personal brand, you know, you\u0026rsquo;re, you\u0026rsquo;ve maybe you\u0026rsquo;ve got your sub stack where you put your Twitter or whatever it is. Well, it\u0026rsquo;s like, you know, what\u0026rsquo;s the next step from there? I mean, I guess it depends on why you\u0026rsquo;ve started to make it, but let\u0026rsquo;s say, you know, you\u0026rsquo;ve saw the kind of market yourself and, you know, you\u0026rsquo;re getting, you\u0026rsquo;re trying to get opportunities.\nI mean, how do you I wonder if you have any, any experience with that sort of converting this brand into opportunities? I mean, how do you, how do you sort of go back to.\nDan: Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, like I always had the thesis with early work of like building the customer before building the product. If you\u0026rsquo;re building a brand, whether that\u0026rsquo;s a personal brand, whether it\u0026rsquo;s around. With that comes an audience. And if you\u0026rsquo;re curating an audience of a certain niche with a certain interest, as that audience grows over time, that audience becomes valuable to each other.\nSo the community aspect and invaluable to.\nothers as well. And so what I would think about is like over time, like as you build a personal brand and you build a large audience, think about like, what does that audience have in common? What are kind of the common problems that they have? And then what can you do to provide solutions to those problems?\nSo early back, for instance, it started out as a sub stack newsletter. So I started off in September, 2020 curating a list of tech and startup internships and graduate roles for 10 friends just based around Sydney. Over time. I built that out to me. It was maybe you know, 600 subscribers at the time, or getting close to a thousand and under decided to launch a community based around that newsletter, along with my co-founders John marina.\nAnd I think kind of really the thinking there is, okay, you started with this content, it\u0026rsquo;s getting some traction, people are liking it, reading it. We had a small LinkedIn group of power users to be to white glove who would give us feedback and suggestions. But the thing I started to see was, wow, there\u0026rsquo;s really not a strong social fabric for young people in Australia who were interested in the tech and startup space.\nAnd so the next evolution of that initial content became a community around that content. And then you start to deepen your content from a one-way conversation where, you know, we\u0026rsquo;re just putting out information for free to a two-way conversation, where we\u0026rsquo;re talking with our audience, they\u0026rsquo;re talking with us and talking with each other and you start to build this Richard.\nJames: Yeah. That\u0026rsquo;s that\u0026rsquo;s that\u0026rsquo;s cool when it\u0026rsquo;s it\u0026rsquo;s yeah, it\u0026rsquo;s a great example of. That, that community or that thing that you had into a community into something real I think that was a great point about, you know, solving a problem for your audience because, you know, I guess once you hit that sort of critical mass size, that becomes those commonalities where, okay, you know, most people have this problem or most people want this, like for may or those kinds of things, then it becomes more clear on how to actually solve those problems for them.\nDan: Oh, for sure. For sure. I mean, look, if you started a newsletter about tricycles and you got to 10,000 subscribers and you know, you had 40% of your audience opening up. I guarantee you that a tragical company would love to do a sponsored placement and newsletter. You can get some great Freecycle sponsorships.\nThat\u0026rsquo;s not the number one problem space that I\u0026rsquo;m focused on, but the, the point there is it\u0026rsquo;s like if you build anyone, it builds an audience of anyone with a strong interest in just kind of certain niche or a certain area. There\u0026rsquo;ll be people on the other side of that interest, you can provide things.\nYeah. And so it\u0026rsquo;s about like, how do you kind of connect people together where there\u0026rsquo;s a kind of a coincidence of once where, you know, one party wants one thing. One party wants to be able to think, and by building and curating this audience, you can create like a beautiful system that helps those people get what they need.\nJames: Yeah, it\u0026rsquo;s really powerful. And I love what you\u0026rsquo;re doing with early work, you know, with this, with this theme, because it\u0026rsquo;s something that when I first heard about it, I was like, oh, this is so cool. Like all these people that think similarly to me, like, for the longest time, even like from like high school through uni, it was like, you know, I\u0026rsquo;m sure my experience isn\u0026rsquo;t one that I\u0026rsquo;ve just had, I\u0026rsquo;m sure there\u0026rsquo;s many people that have experienced it too, but you know, you\u0026rsquo;re just going out there trying to work out where are the people that I like doing cool stuff and like, you know, wanting to like make a stamp on the world and, you know, do interesting things.\nAnd, you know, it\u0026rsquo;s really amazing how they\u0026rsquo;ve just kind of managed to find the, all of them or like at least, you know, at least two and a half thousand of them and, you know, put them into one place. I think it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s fantastic.\nStartups and Corporate Comparison # James: Yeah, but I wanna, I wanna speak more about the startups. In Australia and things like that.\nAnd typically like when you\u0026rsquo;re a university, you know, a lot of people would have the goal of, you know, I\u0026rsquo;m going to get a good, good grades and, you know, get a good job and go into a successful big company. I mean, what would you say to someone that\u0026rsquo;s considering that path? You know, and whereas perhaps stops would be something that might be better or, you know, what would you say to someone that\u0026rsquo;s really\nDan: Is the advice\nJames: Fence might be better. Yeah.\nDan: Okay. Yeah, Chris, this is an interesting one around like, kind of like, you know what, your first job out of uni, let\u0026rsquo;s say you\u0026rsquo;ve had a couple internships and you kind of go, okay, first full-time job corporate or stuff. And I think like, you know, it\u0026rsquo;s, I don\u0026rsquo;t want to be prescriptive because I don\u0026rsquo;t think the answer is going to be the same for everyone.\nWhat I can do as someone who, you know, worked in startups then in corporate, then back to startups and back to corporate again and now building a startup is trying to shed some light on the patterns that I\u0026rsquo;ve noticed between. So when you look at let\u0026rsquo;s, let\u0026rsquo;s talk about startups, for instance, like let\u0026rsquo;s let\u0026rsquo;s first say, okay.\nWhy, why would you go to a stock instead of a big established company? Number one, I think is like, there\u0026rsquo;s a, a breadth of learning. I think, you know, the smaller the company, the broader your role, like you\u0026rsquo;re expected to wear many hats. And I think when you\u0026rsquo;re young, you want to just try and explore as many things as possible.\nAnd that allows you to think about problems. So, you know, I remember, you know, doing a role at offload awesome logistic startup, where I was doing, you know, recruiting market research, customer success, graphic design, copywriting email marketing, analytics, legal work, like just about everything under the title, operations and operations could be just about anything.\nSo I\u0026rsquo;d say that breadth of lending big advantage from startups, right? As a general rule of thumb, number two, I\u0026rsquo;d say as well with startups. And this is a big one that gets talked about. startups tend to work more quickly. There\u0026rsquo;s less approval systems. There\u0026rsquo;s less layers of hierarchy. What that means is you can create things more quickly, release things to customers more quickly and learn more quickly.\nAnd I think when you\u0026rsquo;re a young graduate velocity of learning is extremely, extremely important. So being in a fast paced team allows you to create more things, learn more things, and grow more quickly. I\u0026rsquo;d say I don\u0026rsquo;t think that I really liked about, you know, kind of like my time in startups is just the very high autonomy and ownership.\nI say on average, it tends to be higher and stops and big companies. And there are always exceptions to the rule, but I\u0026rsquo;d say in startups, like, you know, you might be a junior person and you might be only just the entire marketing function. And when you have a lot of autonomy and ownership, it actually gives you a lot of room to experiment, to fuck up and learn from that.\nAnd I think that\u0026rsquo;s really useful too, but it\u0026rsquo;s not always just about the. So definitely advantage from startups there. I think probably like, yeah. Final one. Maybe it\u0026rsquo;s two more, like, I think there\u0026rsquo;s a piece definitely around the problem space. And I\u0026rsquo;d say that by and large. Startups are more likely, not always more likely to be working on problems that are kind of genuinely unsolved versus iterating on things you\u0026rsquo;ve already kind of like found a solution, found a strong customer.\nAnd they\u0026rsquo;re kind of just tweaking. I like, at least for me as an individual, like yeah, working on solve problems as a ton of fun. And I think that\u0026rsquo;s more common, but not always a guarantee. And start-ups final, final call out there is maybe just from like a, if we\u0026rsquo;re talking like the salary perspective important to call it, like with a lot of startups, you get equity in this.\nAnd not every startup becomes an Uber. But there is kind of that skin in the game of like, you own a piece of this business and like by succeeding and growing it, you succeed in growing your own holding. And if there\u0026rsquo;s an IPO or an exit potentially down the line, that there\u0026rsquo;s an amazing opportunity to.\nBut I think with early-stage startups, it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s very hard to tell exactly how halogen. That\u0026rsquo;s so that\u0026rsquo;s the startup side of things. Right? So lots of advantages there. I had a ton of fun startups. I love startups. There are however, some advantages that you will see in big companies. And, and what I want, I want to hope that people do is like, think about these advantages and understand for them what makes sense in their career and where they\u0026rsquo;re at.\nI\u0026rsquo;d say like on the, like, you know, working for like, say like a big tech company, for instance, like number one brand equity. BR brand is used as a heuristic or surrogate indicator of your competence, like it or not. And I don\u0026rsquo;t think people should spend their lives working for big brands just to show everyone, Hey, look, I work for big brands, but when you\u0026rsquo;re young and just starting out, getting that stamp, like that seal of approval, like, you know, all you have to Google all you have to Facebook.\nPeople know that you\u0026rsquo;re like a certain caliber because no one you got through the interview process. And number two, you got trained up in the ways those companies work like big companies have been around so long and got to that point that they must\u0026rsquo;ve done something. So by being there, you\u0026rsquo;re kind of soaking up the processes.\nAnd I know I\u0026rsquo;ve soaked up a ton of that great tools from Alaska and from Uber, from Amazon, each of them has done certain things really, really well that allowed them, them to succeed. Whereas most other companies didn\u0026rsquo;t get that far. The caveat there is that you can get. Brand equity through internships.\nSo you could do internships to these big companies, but that doesn\u0026rsquo;t mean, and if you\u0026rsquo;ve done that, it doesn\u0026rsquo;t necessarily mean you have to go and then do a graduate role when those companies, it\u0026rsquo;s kind of a different consideration, but something to think about, right. I think number two, and this is kind of a big one that I hear from, you know, young people.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s like, you know, oh, I want to learn a lot starting off. You know, I, I\u0026rsquo;m still early in my career. I don\u0026rsquo;t know much is big companies. As a rule of thumb, tend to have more structured learning and mentorship, you know, and it lasts. And I\u0026rsquo;m very lucky. I\u0026rsquo;ve got a button. I\u0026rsquo;ve got a mentor is kind of like an APM kind of kind of like program guide as well, who kind of like helps us out got a manager.\nAnd so there\u0026rsquo;s lots of people there to support you. And we\u0026rsquo;ll have say, like, for instance, like sessions with. Senior product leaders or like founders of startups outside the company. So there\u0026rsquo;s a lot of events that are happening within the company that allow you to learn lots of like as well, like asynchronous, like video courses you can do through the company.\nSo I\u0026rsquo;d say in general, bigger companies tend to be stronger on it. Taking the time to build up and build up that library and talent pool of structured learning and resources. That being said some small companies, like I\u0026rsquo;ve worked at startups where, you know, I got to work directly with the founders and got a lot of mentorship from them.\nSo I would want to challenge like, you know, that structured learning, I think structure maybe is a little bit overrated. I think the mentorship is what\u0026rsquo;s really important, but I think a lot of young people can, if we\u0026rsquo;re given the right tools and resources can go and lend themselves. Yeah. But yeah, general patent.\nI\u0026rsquo;ve seen, I\u0026rsquo;d say I kind of, maybe to that point, like around like mentorship opportunities, it\u0026rsquo;s just kind of a really big strength there. When in big companies you\u0026rsquo;re joining a talent pool of so many smart young people where those people might be your investors down line. They might be your co-founders.\nThere might be your employees. They might be your future boss. a company like Alaska. And like, there are so many amazing product managers at this company. Like people I\u0026rsquo;m learning from people, I get to chat to see how they work, see how they think. So you get to soak up a lot of real interesting learning there just by being in a large talent pool of really smart people. I think as well, like, you know, the, the, the flip side to kind of the startups of like, oh, you know, working on unsolved problems, high ownership, high autonomy in big companies, you can work on a product that\u0026rsquo;s literally being used by millions. You know, if you think of, imagine someone who\u0026rsquo;s working on Google maps, for instance, like that\u0026rsquo;s a product that would be used by millions, if not billion people.\nSo being able to, you know, again, write code once and have that change, you know, that I suppose kind of task in someone\u0026rsquo;s life, you know, for millions of people is, you know, it\u0026rsquo;s a pretty cool and pretty attractive factor and startups take a lot of time to get to that scale. So there is an immediate scale of impact that you do get.\nAnd I, and then I think talking more to kind of like the Korea side. Finally, I think kind of the two elements there. Number one tends to be higher salary. Realistically, most startups, early stage startups tend to have like a little bit lower salary. Growth stage can actually sell them to be competitive with the big tech companies, but usually the mature tech companies.\nLike they they do a lot to try and keep you there. You know, they\u0026rsquo;re making a lot of money. They\u0026rsquo;re public, usually public listen to big companies and they\u0026rsquo;ve done. And because the building software, you know, the marginal cost of selling it to customers is very low. So very lucrative business model, they can afford to pay some pretty high salaries.\nThe other thing that from a career perspective is just, I suppose, safety. And I, I want to be very careful here when I say safety. I don\u0026rsquo;t mean Korea safety. I purely main job safety. I purely mean like if you join a big company, like an Atlassian and Amazon and Google the. The job just goes and gets made.\nRedundant is less likely if you join a start up, you know, could crash and burn in six months, a year, year and a half, but I want to decouple. Joel brisk from career risk. Like I think even joining a place where, okay, maybe it\u0026rsquo;s going to go under in a year or two, not necessarily bad for your credit in fact could be very good for your career.\nLike you\u0026rsquo;re working on very high responsibility things. You\u0026rsquo;re going to be learning super, super quickly. Get a lot of responsibility, deliver a lot of like really measurable impact. But Yeah.\nI suppose like for someone who\u0026rsquo;s like, if you\u0026rsquo;re in a very tricky financial sector, Then, you know, joining a big company, like, you know, maybe the safer option, that was a massive rant.\nBut Yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s kinda just like rattling off a list of like different considerations there. At the end of the day, it comes down to, you know, the problems you want to work on the skills you want to cultivate the environment you want to be in and your career goals.\nJames: Yeah, no, I thought that was like a fantastic and very well balanced view of these two different areas. I think it\u0026rsquo;s, I think, yeah. I think, you know, my experience with early work and as I saw more about the Australian startup ecosystem, is it, you know, Some of the stops probably like undervalued in terms of the good experiences that you can have there.\nAnd most people just kind of go straight towards big, secure companies. When, you know, there can be really great experiences that can be found in, you know, smaller startups. And I think, yeah, you raised some really great points that.\nDan: A hundred percent I think. And it really wasn\u0026rsquo;t quite there as well. And this is a factor, a lot of people don\u0026rsquo;t consider People go like, oh, you know, I want to go to, you know, a Google or Microsoft. Cause I want to learn from like really experienced people with really good skills. What people forget is that those people don\u0026rsquo;t always stay at those companies.\nThey often go and join startups. So if you were to go to a startup like eucalyptus or dovetail, for instance, you\u0026rsquo;re getting mentored by a lot of talent. That\u0026rsquo;s come from these big companies. It\u0026rsquo;s almost like that. Like the, the sweet spot it\u0026rsquo;s like you\u0026rsquo;re working in a very fast paced environment. with Very high ownership, but you\u0026rsquo;re still getting mentorship from people who\u0026rsquo;ve come from these, like, you know, really big, impressive companies.\nAnd so they\u0026rsquo;ve learned a lot of skills and processes there. So there, there is, there is an argument to be made that like, you know, that\u0026rsquo;s actually like a really good kind of starting option that like growth phase or breakout phase startup, where you\u0026rsquo;re interacting with a lot of talent from top companies.\nAnyway.\nJames: Yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s a great point.\nDan\u0026rsquo;s Thought Process behind going from Corporate to Startups # James: And I want to ask something too about your own experience, because I know you kind of started off and you\u0026rsquo;ve interned at a lot of these larger companies, and then you kind of went in and started working at sign-ups. Was what was your thought process behind that? Because I know there\u0026rsquo;s a lot of people listening are in large corporate, almost, you know, safe positions, and then going to a startup can be something that\u0026rsquo;s quite.\nIt was conceived quite risky. And you know, is it a thing\u0026rsquo;s going to work out and all these kinds of things? I mean, what was your thought process in doing things like that? Not only have you seen other people that have done stuff like that and you know, what was perhaps their process and doing stuff like that as well?\nDan: Yeah. In terms of like, what, what kind of gives you kind of that emotional safety to kind of take a leap into the startup world? I mean, I got lucky because my first role in uni was with a startup. You just kind of came from like a cold email, joined an ambassador program, ended up working for this stuff.\nTwo months in, we got acquired by Airbnb and I lost my job and I was like, oh, that\u0026rsquo;s awesome. Let\u0026rsquo;s do it again. And join another startup. So I had these internships pretty early on, I think like when you\u0026rsquo;re young, like I think particularly for people who were like spending a lot of time thinking about their careers and kinda like going the extra mile, doing side hustles, that sort of stuff Like you\u0026rsquo;re already going to be so far ahead of the pack in terms of your level of effort and care to what was your career? It in deciding, like, let\u0026rsquo;s say you\u0026rsquo;re working in a big company and you\u0026rsquo;re deciding, oh, do I go and join a startup? I mean, like for me, like, I\u0026rsquo;d be thinking about what problems do I really care about? like what, like, what are the most important problems I want to work on? Like what just really excites me. What would like, you know, I there\u0026rsquo;d be on the weekend just having breakfast, like thinking about how cool this problem is. So if you\u0026rsquo;re going to join a startup. Don\u0026rsquo;t just join it. Cause like, oh, you think, oh, maybe it will become big and I\u0026rsquo;ll get a lot of money.\nI think, you know, startups are easy. They can be hard. Sometimes the hours are good. Sometimes the hours alone, very vary depending on the setup. So I don\u0026rsquo;t wanna make a generalization though, but I\u0026rsquo;d be thinking that yeah, like what are the problems you want to solve? And like who in the Australian landscape is actually solving those problems.\nSo you can look at stuff some of the top venture capital firms. So you look at like, you know, kind of your Blackbird air, tree, square peg folklore, look at the companies that they\u0026rsquo;re investing. And then have a look. Okay. What are those companies doing? And then find the ones in the problem spaces that you care about.\nThat for me is such a huge consideration, I think, as well?\nso that like, Yeah, probably at the impact side, then there\u0026rsquo;s more the learning side of like, okay, going into a startup role, maybe I\u0026rsquo;ll make a big impact, really cool problem space. But then you put the learning of like, okay, like what am I going to learn?\nAnd how fast am I going to learn? So the velocity of learning and the type of learning it\u0026rsquo;s like, do you want to be cultivating technical skills? Do you want to be doing design stuff? Do you wanna get like a very broad-based strategic approach? Is it like product management, like being intentional at sort of skills you want to pick up and like going okay if I join this environment, am I going to learn those things?\nSo another kind of key consideration, so kind of learning your impact. I think the final thing, and this is so important is the comradery. It\u0026rsquo;s like, you know, when you look at the team, you look at the culture, you look at the manager or these people that you want to spend a lot of time with these people that you want to be more like, like if you\u0026rsquo;re surrounded by those people day in, day out, give it to become more like those people.\nAnd so I think if you\u0026rsquo;re considering leaving a big corporate join a startup, like you should be joining a great. Tackling a market that you really care about with a product that you think generally has a shot at solving the problem in a nuanced and differentiated way.\nJames: Yeah, that was really great. And those are some great questions to. When you\u0026rsquo;re going through this process or even just thinking about it. Cause I, yeah, I think asking the right questions in these situations is, is really, really important in, you know, getting good answers even for yourself, like, you know, things like I\u0026rsquo;ve had guests on the podcast before, you know, trusting your gut on these decisions as well.\nAnd we really really useful. Like if you all, if you don\u0026rsquo;t think the field in a company or the place you\u0026rsquo;re at. That\u0026rsquo;s your call to action to go in and investigate these types of opportunities. I think.\nDan: For sure. I\u0026rsquo;d start. And it\u0026rsquo;s actually something I really struggled with throughout uni was actually like on that point of like trusting gut, right? Like there were times where it\u0026rsquo;s like, I got a job offer and I would try to write down this really extensive pros and cons list of like, oh, like, this is a good opportunity because XYZ, but it\u0026rsquo;s a battle team because X, Y, Z. Internally at like an emotional level. I think.\nI knew like, oh, you know, I don\u0026rsquo;t really want this role, but I would get an opportunity like, oh, should I do it? And then go through this like ridiculous extensive analysis, talk to like 20 people, like analysis paralysis. I\u0026rsquo;m an overanalyze about nature. But Yeah. there is this fascinating list of like learning when to trust the gut. I think you should always go and collect data. So talk to people who are in positions that you want to be, you know, more like, Kelly go, go like go collect information and advice from a variety of. But place high, waiting on the people who are doing the sort of things you\u0026rsquo;re actually interested and the positions you want to be in.\nAnd then you kind of come back to kind of like your values, what you really care about gut feeling. And usually you will have the right answer within\nJames: Yeah. I mean, I think that\u0026rsquo;s important and I think that\u0026rsquo;s really great as well. Like, you know, don\u0026rsquo;t just trust your gut with no information. Like\nDan: Yeah. Oh, go, go and get the information.\nJames: And still make it, I can important choice.\nDan: Exactly. Like you might go and collect the information and then reject most of it. That might be the outcome, but you did the due diligence of collecting that information. And that\u0026rsquo;s useful because we all have our own blind spots. We all have our own biases. We\u0026rsquo;re all just dumb sometimes.\nSo it\u0026rsquo;s always good to get a second opinion. Like, there\u0026rsquo;s been so many decisions like where it\u0026rsquo;s like, my gut was like, oh, just go and do this. And I talk to people I\u0026rsquo;m like, what are you doing? I\u0026rsquo;m like, sure, sure. How to think that one through a bit more? Yeah, no get advice, but you don\u0026rsquo;t have to say.\nJames: Yeah, no, that\u0026rsquo;s true.\nGetting Jobs without a job opening # James: And just on that, on that, and you mentioned it rotted this, John, if you get lost on, so it was around, you reached out to this company code and you got a job there. And this is a topic that I really want to speak more about it. Cause it\u0026rsquo;s. Like almost everyone doesn\u0026rsquo;t do this. And like people that I now speak to who work places, they\u0026rsquo;re like, yeah, this is actually kind of a good idea.\nJust reaching out to people, call it a, like, just meeting people that work at the company you want to work at. And I\u0026rsquo;m curious about your experience doing this kind of thing. That\u0026rsquo;s not sort of the traditional way of getting a job, like, you know, waiting for the company to list a job, you know, to, to then apply and, you know, kind of go, go in and try and.\nGet the job POS like, you know, 5,000 thousands of other people, you know, you\u0026rsquo;re just sort of going in as like really sort of putting more eggs in their basket and connecting to the people that work there and things like that. I\u0026rsquo;d love to hear, you know, your experience with that, and even you\u0026rsquo;ll process that, that you\u0026rsquo;ve done.\nAnd maybe there\u0026rsquo;s other people that, you know, that have done a similar, similar thing. Yeah. I\u0026rsquo;m really interested to hear your thoughts.\nDan: Yeah, absolutely. It\u0026rsquo;s just crazy. Like job listings are the tip of the iceberg of the job market. Like people see these little things and go, okay, I\u0026rsquo;ll apply for those. And they sit and hope for the best. If you think about startups, they\u0026rsquo;re always growing. They\u0026rsquo;re always raising money. They\u0026rsquo;re always hiring.\nAnd so many things just happen through referrals or ad hoc introductions or all these hidden job opportunities. And it\u0026rsquo;s like, if you want to work at a startup Like startups by their nature, like proactive people. And so the best thing you can do is be proactive. Don\u0026rsquo;t wait for the job listing, make the job listing.\nAnd yeah, happy to talk to your, kind of my experiences here. So I suppose, like I, I worked for three different startups in university. One kind of initially came when I was the first one was a startup called tilt, social payments startup. And my first. And originally I was conceptualizing an app with friends, called friends with deficits, and we were trying to like track deaths between friends at different currencies.\nDid some competitive research, found this company called tilt. I was like, damn, they\u0026rsquo;ve solved it all. But they have an ambassador group, but you wanna stop you. So I emailed the country manager in Australia. I was like, Hey, I\u0026rsquo;d love to join the ambassador group. He\u0026rsquo;s like, yeah, sure, man. I opened up applications, joined the ambassador group, did that for a couple of months.\nAnd then that converted into a growth internship with them leading an ambassador program with a couple of hundred students across this. So a ton of fun there, but I think it kind of that came from, yeah. Number one, the proactive reach out. So cold email and then number two, being part of something related to the company before actually having the role.\nSo an ambassador program is a great example, but it might be like, you know, maybe there\u0026rsquo;s like an, a beta test as group. Maybe it\u0026rsquo;s doing user research for the company. Maybe it\u0026rsquo;s, you know, helping promote the company or something that there are ways that you can kind of get affiliated with the company without actually formally being a part of it.\nYeah. I kinda internship number two was a fascinating one where there\u0026rsquo;s a restaurant ordering style called table kind of essentially kind of like, you know, me and you or Mr. Young, where you could kind of like, order on your mobile in your, in the restaurant and then wait for a wider this one, I saw ads running for the salad on Facebook.\nI was like, and it was for a referral competition. It hadn\u0026rsquo;t launched yet. I\u0026rsquo;m like, oh, this is super cool. I spammed it across a bunch of university discussion groups. Top 10 and referrals and like 24 hours or something. And then I reached out to the chief operating officer or chief executive officer on LinkedIn.\nI was like, Hey dude, like, yeah. Love the problem. You\u0026rsquo;re working on super, super fascinating. I\u0026rsquo;m actually interning at a startup right now, but so are your thing. And I was like, oh, I\u0026rsquo;m just gonna share this with like a bunch of people ended up getting to this referral position at this time. If you\u0026rsquo;re open to bringing on a marketing intern, let\u0026rsquo;s have a chat.\nAnd meeting them at Westfield in Bondi junction, one meeting, and then work them for like six months. So that, I think that came from that there were two things. Number one called LinkedIn DMS just amazing. And with cold LinkedIn games, like the key thing is like, who, why, what, who are you? Why are you reaching out?\nAnd what\u0026rsquo;s in it for them. So explain like who you are. And maybe like you\u0026rsquo;re a student majoring in this interning at this place. Why are reaching out you came across them and really liked XYZ at about them. And what\u0026rsquo;s in it for them. Are you open to taking on intern? Not, are you currently hiring an internal currently seeking, but just say you open because no one wants to be closed.\nPeople might not have a job listing and then you go, Hey, you open to an intern and like, oh yeah, maybe let\u0026rsquo;s have a chat. So it\u0026rsquo;s it\u0026rsquo;s a good way to get, kind of get a foot in the door. And the other thing there is like adding value before you\u0026rsquo;ve even reached out. So I reached out after I\u0026rsquo;d gone and shared the app with a bunch of. And that shows that proactivity where sound goes, oh, cool. Okay. If we hire this person, we know we\u0026rsquo;re not going to have to wait to give them instructions. They\u0026rsquo;re just going to go and do things that help the company. So there\u0026rsquo;s a cool piece there. Final one is an interesting one. There was a job listing, but it wasn\u0026rsquo;t an internship.\nIt was at a company called offload awesome. Like a road freight logistics startup in Australia. And they had a listing for a full-time operations. I was working at Amazon all the time. So it\u0026rsquo;d been deepening my interest in logistics, but I wanted to kind of go back and hop back into the startup world.\nAnd I\u0026rsquo;d seen this listing and I went, well, I can\u0026rsquo;t do full-time, but I could do part-time. So I just applied and then I just messaged the chief operating officer. I went like, Hey man, like yeah, love what you\u0026rsquo;re working on. And I\u0026rsquo;ve got no background, like Amazon Uber. So passion about logistics space. Context is, you know, I\u0026rsquo;m still wrapping up at uni.\nBut would you be open to, you know, taking on someone. And I had several interviews with the team and eventually like, yep. Sweet. And so that was meant to be a full-time role, but turned it into a part-time role. I ended up going full-time there. So I worked there for probably six months. It was my last role before last year.\nAbsolutely loved it. There really, the lesson is like sometimes a job description will tell you roughly when. But they\u0026rsquo;re flexible. So sometimes it might say two plus years experience apply. Anyway, sometimes I might say full-time, if you want do part-time apply anyway it\u0026rsquo;s, don\u0026rsquo;t sell yourself out of the opportunity, have the conversation.\nAnd if they like, you they\u0026rsquo;ll make space for you, if it\u0026rsquo;s not the, if it\u0026rsquo;s not the right fit and that\u0026rsquo;s okay. Some people go, you know what? Sorry, we need someone full-time and that\u0026rsquo;s totally fine. It\u0026rsquo;s not a, not a personal insult, but I think with. Number of companies that you talk to these opportunities will start to pop up where you can create job opportunities where you thought previously job opportunities didn\u0026rsquo;t exist.\nI think kind of like wrapping that up. Yeah. I think look cold LinkedIn DMS to like founders and hiring managers at startups. It\u0026rsquo;s super, super powerful, but I\u0026rsquo;d say as well on the kind of like standing out to companies side beyond just kind of like doing like DMS on like LinkedIn, Twitter, whatever another cool thing you could do is like sending like a video resume or a video pitch to stand out for other things. So I\u0026rsquo;m seeing some candidates are called like loom videos before, which is super, super cool. And it gives that real personal flavor. Obviously you can go and refer people. You can, I have really cheeky pieces. Like you can actually give them like feedback on their app. Like you could say, Hey, I actually went through and redesign your website, or I went through and like rewrote the copy of your website.\nSo being proactive and be like, here\u0026rsquo;s what I would do to improve it and just sending it to them and just seeing what happens. It\u0026rsquo;s. think in general, again, I\u0026rsquo;m giving feedback on the product or writing about the company, like writing an article about like, you could write an article on, oh, like, you know, how eucalyptus has grown to become, you know, a billion dollar company by using Instagram marketing or something.\nI don\u0026rsquo;t know if that quite a unicorn yet. You\u0026rsquo;ll have to fact check me on that one. But yeah, the, the point is that I think there are so many ways to proactively stand out that a resume and then not a cover letter. If you want to stand out and you want to be in a job pool of one and not a 500, do something different.\nJames: Yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s so important, so important. And I think, you know, even like something like a personal brand, like we split earlier, you know, things like that combined with a little bit, it\u0026rsquo;s like, yeah, it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s really, really powerful when you going to apply for jobs like this.\nDan: For sure. I think also like, I mean, coming back to that personal brand thread, it\u0026rsquo;s really interesting because I think having a PESTEL Brennan one just creates luck. Like I\u0026rsquo;ve gotten lucky many, many times in my life. And I think a lot of my career success was almost used down to luck, but I do think that having a personal brand like amplifies.\nJust more lucky opportunities come up. For instance, like I was pretty active on LinkedIn. I was one of those Koreans, you know, LinkedIn names for career minded, teens type of people. And I would like make posts on LinkedIn and stuff. And I won some award in like the business consulting space made a post about it and actually ended up getting a message from a guy who was working at Google and he\u0026rsquo;s like, Hey, like, love your profile.\nWould you have interest in internship at Google? I was like, And now this guy ended up moving to Uber. I think a couple months later, like we kind of lost touch and then reconnected. And he\u0026rsquo;s like, Hey, actually, I\u0026rsquo;m not Reuben, but when I\u0026rsquo;m bringing on interns and like, we\u0026rsquo;ve got like one spot left, would you be interested?\nAnd I was like, Yeah,\nshow up. That\u0026rsquo;s awesome. And ended up getting an internship at Uber in sales, purely from just someone who had seen my content on LinkedIn. So that\u0026rsquo;s what I\u0026rsquo;m saying. Like, is it like having the PESTEL brand it\u0026rsquo;s yet? Not who, you know, it\u0026rsquo;s who knows you and for what? They just encountered.\nYour content and that\u0026rsquo;s kind of like the initial funnel into okay. Then opportunities with you. It\u0026rsquo;s advertising for you pretty much.\nJames: That\u0026rsquo;s cool. And it\u0026rsquo;s exciting that everyone has this ability to, I think, you know, there\u0026rsquo;s no wall barrier between you and, you know, doing lucky, having that story, like what you just mentioned, like getting people coming to ask you for jobs. Like there\u0026rsquo;s absolutely nothing in the way. So yeah. It\u0026rsquo;s so, so.\nDan: Yeah, I think that\u0026rsquo;s super important, right? Because like from an equity, diversity access inclusion perspective, you know, you look at traditional hiring and nutrition industries like consulting law and banking, and there\u0026rsquo;s often been a perception of nepotism or like, you know, all, you have to have friends in the phone where you have to know people at the firm.\nI think the beauty of. Online content is anyone can do it. It\u0026rsquo;s permissionless. You don\u0026rsquo;t need to know anyone, you just start creating. And if you\u0026rsquo;re creating good stuff and you\u0026rsquo;re creating consistently, it\u0026rsquo;ll attract people who care about those things. I think the really important thing there then becomes, okay, how do we actually help more young people, particularly people from underrepresented and disadvantaged backgrounds actually take advantage of the power of content creation for their careers.\nBecause I think it just gives you a massive, massive.\nJames: Yeah, totally.\nWhat Dan Thinks Of Range # James: And speaking of advantages, I want to dive in a little bit more about your, you know, we\u0026rsquo;ve spoken about all these different roles you\u0026rsquo;ve had and really you\u0026rsquo;ve covered so much ground in terms of you\u0026rsquo;ve done marketing, consulting, sales, tech, like all these areas, you know, how do you think that\u0026rsquo;s benefited you in, in getting to where you are now and having that range of experiences.\nDo you think that\u0026rsquo;s something that\u0026rsquo;s been really valuable in your.\nDan: Oh, it\u0026rsquo;s been mission critical. Like I just like, I thank my my youngest self for being so like, like ADHD and just like, oh, I\u0026rsquo;m just gonna try everything. Like it seemed to be like a wacky and uncoordinated at the time, I think. Yeah. I think pretty early on I had a thesis. I was like, okay. I have no idea what the fuck I want to do.\nSo why don\u0026rsquo;t I just try a little bit. And I think that helps in two ways. Number one, you uncover things that you do. And don\u0026rsquo;t like, like I tried, you know, sales, marketing, design, operations, project management, front-end web dev. And, and so you pick up a lot of different skills. You, you test out different things, you get to see the world in different ways.\nUltimately you\u0026rsquo;ll come to skills. You like more so for me, I think like what I loved most was kind of like product marketing, sales content, things that like very much have that human element. I think that\u0026rsquo;s what I was always drawn to less. So kind of like purely the tech side or the numbers side. But the other really powerful thing, I think like, if you want to start your.\nown thing someday, if you\u0026rsquo;re a CEO, CEO\u0026rsquo;s say, I don\u0026rsquo;t think you should like wish at the CEO title, but like if you\u0026rsquo;re starting something right, like creating something from scratch, going from zero to one, I think having that generalist skillset is advantage.\nAnd in particular, a holistic problem solving mindset, being able to see a problem from different angles, just like when I come to a problem right now with early or even. I\u0026rsquo;m not just thinking about it from like a, oh, here\u0026rsquo;s the technical perspective, you know, I\u0026rsquo;m considering the design because I\u0026rsquo;ve worked in design, I\u0026rsquo;m considering the customer side of marketing because I worked in marketing, even though the sales pitch I\u0026rsquo;ve worked in sales.\nSo when you\u0026rsquo;re young and you\u0026rsquo;re still just early in your career and you\u0026rsquo;re like, I dunno, what the fuck I\u0026rsquo;m doing? Like get a lot of different data points. And the more data you have, the more lenses you have, like all the angles you have of like, the same problem. You can just see it from different ways and that.\nI think allows you to come to on average, a more robust and more successful decision-making when it comes to solving problems.\nJames: Yeah, I think it\u0026rsquo;s so important to, and something I\u0026rsquo;ve spoken about on the podcast before is there\u0026rsquo;s a book code range and it\u0026rsquo;s by David Epstein and he\u0026rsquo;s kind of has this theory. That range is like the way to go in terms of, you know, traditional successful. Finding the right career and things like that.\nAnd that\u0026rsquo;s in contrast to the classic, like 10,000 hours rule where it\u0026rsquo;s like, you know, you\u0026rsquo;ve, if you want to be good at something, you\u0026rsquo;ve got to just do only that for like, you know, 10 years or whatever. And then like you\u0026rsquo;ve said, there\u0026rsquo;s this other way of doing it, where it\u0026rsquo;s. I\u0026rsquo;m going to have all these experiences in different areas.\nAnd then one, like somehow I\u0026rsquo;m going to do something and all these things, it\u0026rsquo;s just kind of going to interconnect and I\u0026rsquo;m going to have such an advantage of everyone. Cause I\u0026rsquo;ve had all these diverse things that just line up. And it just gives me, like you\u0026rsquo;ve said a much better perspective and you\u0026rsquo;re able to just look at things in a new way.\nAnd it\u0026rsquo;s it\u0026rsquo;s so.\nDan: Yeah, it\u0026rsquo;s a real interesting one. Like the specialist Fest generals thing. Cause I think there\u0026rsquo;s a balance here and people talk about, you know, the T-shaped model of being. G decent across a lot of things in great at like one or two things. And I think that\u0026rsquo;s broadly the, the model that I\u0026rsquo;ve subscribed to.\nI\u0026rsquo;ve I\u0026rsquo;ve always loved Scott Dilbert. What\u0026rsquo;s his name? Scott Adam. Sorry. Are you familiar with Scott Adams. The guy here at like a Dilbert comic. I might be getting his\nJames: Scott Adams.\nDan: Yeah, Cool, cool, cool.\nI mean, he, he, he is one of the, he is one of The best examples of the talent stack. He\u0026rsquo;s one of the best examples.\nScott Adams was, you know what? He was a funny guy. He could tell jokes, but he wasn\u0026rsquo;t the world\u0026rsquo;s best. He was a decent, honest, he could draw, but he wasn\u0026rsquo;t the world\u0026rsquo;s best, you know, artists. And he worked in kind of like in a corporate culture and offices and all that, but like, it wasn\u0026rsquo;t like the best corporate worker, but the intersection of those three things allowed him to create a really unique intersection.\nIt allowed him to create like a humorous comic about office culture and. So just by being better than average at several things, he found the intersection of those things and then was able to get a really big win on the board. And so when it comes to being a generalist, like, okay, the range thesis, and I haven\u0026rsquo;t read Ryan trust.\nSo forgive me if I misinterpreted the thesis, I think like, yes, like it\u0026rsquo;s great. Like start off early, explore a lot of things, but you\u0026rsquo;ll find some things that you more naturally gravitate towards or some things that really, you really enjoy things really energize you. I think the magic comes from finding like, Two to three things you\u0026rsquo;re best at maybe three to four and thinking about, okay, what\u0026rsquo;s the intersection of those.\nAnd when I say best at it could be a skill or it could be an knowledge about a certain area. So maybe you\u0026rsquo;ve spent a lot of time in the sustainability space. Like you\u0026rsquo;ve been working on sustainability and maybe you also love making tick talks, right? As in like, you know, you\u0026rsquo;re a very avid users of social media.\nYou\u0026rsquo;re, you\u0026rsquo;re good at like, you know, short form content creation and go to doing funny stuff. You might then create like a sustainability Tik TOK channel. So it\u0026rsquo;s about like, I always think about intersections intersections in. Every person has such a beautiful, rich and complex story in a life. And we will all encounter different things and we\u0026rsquo;ll all be great at certain things.\nAnd so it\u0026rsquo;s like, how do you just tap into, you know, what your strengths are and combine them into? I think what\u0026rsquo;s a unique offering that no, one else can do it because no.\none else has you like James, you\u0026rsquo;re the best at being you, James specifically, there are other good James is. I don\u0026rsquo;t want to insult them.\nI have several friends named James But I, I think it\u0026rsquo;s such a, it\u0026rsquo;s such a fascinating pace that, right. I, I think people go like, okay, so like, yeah, like I, I\u0026rsquo;m not sure people sometimes will go like, oh, I\u0026rsquo;m not sure like what my strengths are. I don\u0026rsquo;t know what I\u0026rsquo;m good at. What I\u0026rsquo;m bad at. There are a couple ways you can do this, right?\nYeah. You can go. Okay. Like what subjects do you enjoy most in school? What subjects do you do the best at, in school? But also what were the things when you\u0026rsquo;re a little kid that you were just drawn to, like things that you found fun or exciting and interesting. I got childlike self. gravitate towards trying to kind of reflect on that was really interesting.\nLike I actually remember, I\u0026rsquo;m not shitting here, here. I\u0026rsquo;m not joking. My friend and I in year three, we both wanted to be more. Well, we\u0026rsquo;re like, oh yeah, marketing advertising. That\u0026rsquo;s like, so cool. Like we saw ads on TV with like, hilarious, like so creative and like didn\u0026rsquo;t really find stuff. And I was like, yeah, I want to do marketing so bizarre.\nAnd then I, like, I ended up doing uni. I didn\u0026rsquo;t even start in marketing. I started off doing like finance and like biology. And I ended up in marketing anyway. It\u0026rsquo;s like, I almost came back around to the child self. I was like, I bet I\u0026rsquo;m so myself. I\u0026rsquo;m like, oh wait, I actually just love this idea of like, how do you like capture the story of why something is like a valuable solution for someone.\nThat, that paradigm is really fascinating, but I mean, another way to, this is like, you could ask your family and friends, like, like if you, if you don\u0026rsquo;t ask you a five closest friends, Hey, like what do you think? Like I\u0026rsquo;m much better at than most people? Or like what, when you think about like, you know, kind of like my skills and my strengths, like, what do you, what do you associate with that world?\nYou could also ask them for weaknesses to definitely do that. That\u0026rsquo;s a good one. It was good to get kind of feedback, but I\u0026rsquo;ll ask your family and friends, like, you know, like what your you\u0026rsquo;ll be surprised. You will see patterns. People will know, oh, James is just like, really. Hosting podcasts. I don\u0026rsquo;t know what it is.\nI think that, but yeah, th there will be, there\u0026rsquo;ll be several skills here that will just kind of come up as patents that like, even if you don\u0026rsquo;t get, have that, self-awareness the world around, you will have at least a perceived awareness of your strengths and skills. And so, yeah, I, I think for every young person, you know, when you\u0026rsquo;re trying to work out what the hell to do, it\u0026rsquo;s really powerful to be able to just try and find those.\nEarly intuitive strengths and inclinations, and then start to think about how to combine them massive ramps. But yeah. Harp that vibe was vaguely. What you\u0026rsquo;re looking for.\nJames: No, no, I definitely, I think, I think you\u0026rsquo;re spot on there in working out your strengths and you know, that squad. You know, stacking is a fantastic example and, you know, just shows that, you know, you don\u0026rsquo;t have to be, you know, the best, like, you know, someone\u0026rsquo;s always going to be better than you at most things.\nSo it\u0026rsquo;s just combining those things together and then working out where you can really thrive is, is a really, really cool. And you gave some great examples there of like finding your strengths and weaknesses, I think is so important to this is sometimes it can be hard to know that about yourself when you\u0026rsquo;re just going about your day.\nAnd it\u0026rsquo;s so useful to get other people. You know, thoughts on you? Cause yeah, sometimes you know, it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s so hard to tell like, oh, what am I like? Am I funny? Like, am I, you know, what am I, what am I good at kind of thing. It\u0026rsquo;s sometimes hard to know that. So, maybe I\u0026rsquo;m funny. It\u0026rsquo;s yeah, it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s really cool to, to be able to get other people\u0026rsquo;s opinions.\nDefinitely. I think that\u0026rsquo;s really what.\nDan: Yeah, I mean, that\u0026rsquo;s what the caveat of like, you know, other people will give you their opinions, but that\u0026rsquo;s not necessarily a reflection of like your energy internally. Like some things might just energize you and you might just love them. And maybe who haven\u0026rsquo;t seen examples of them, like you, for instance.\nOkay. You could be someone who\u0026rsquo;s like, you know, like done very well at math in school, but maybe you didn\u0026rsquo;t actually enjoy it. Maybe. Worked really hard and it\u0026rsquo;d be like, oh yeah, James, he\u0026rsquo;s like the math guy, but maybe that\u0026rsquo;s not, maybe you actually just love drawing and painting and like maybe a, not as good there yet, but you just have the passionate energy.\nAnd to be honest, like I back like the passion and the energy, like as like a long-term bet more so than just like, oh yeah. Like, you know, like I just happened to get like good grades in this thing. I mean, I think usually it tend to coincide like usually like the things that you\u0026rsquo;re really passionate about. And tending to do well at, because you\u0026rsquo;re just thinking about them a lot. It\u0026rsquo;s just the way your brain operates. But you know, it\u0026rsquo;s not always a one for one mapping. Yeah,\nDans\u0026rsquo; Advice to New Graduates # James: Yeah, totally. Well, yeah, I\u0026rsquo;ve got I\u0026rsquo;ve led so much through this. It\u0026rsquo;s been really, really fascinating and the so many takeaways for myself, but I do have one more question for you, Dan. And that is around, you know, people that are graduating and going into jobs at the start of this year, that it\u0026rsquo;s 20, 22, they\u0026rsquo;re starting out in their career.\nAnd what is some advice that you would give someone starting their career?\nDan: Ooh. And I mean, yeah, regardless of whether they go into a startup or a corporate, I would say optimize. Like I\u0026rsquo;m, when I say optimize for the learning that you want, if you like, so not just like, oh, okay, here\u0026rsquo;s the structured program, but like, you know, your company, but like find out the things that you want to learn and your, your priorities should be like, how do I learn those things as quickly as possible?\nYou know, how can I practice them? How can I teach them? How can I engage with them? Like maybe you want to become a really good public speaker. Maybe you want to become a really good sales person, a really good develop. But I think like being very intentional about like the way you spend your time and it\u0026rsquo;s not every second of the day, you always need breaks, but like, you know, at work or maybe it\u0026rsquo;s like side projects yeah, just, just really thinking intention about like, what, like, what am I learning and how fast am I learning it, having a clear framework and plan there?\nI think probably the, the other piece is as best you kind of try and find other people who care about similar things to you Find other people as in like, I mean, that\u0026rsquo;s a two part one, right? Number one. And this is an ongoing question life, but start exploring like, what are, what are the problems that you\u0026rsquo;d want to work on like 10 plus years in your career?\nLike, what are the things you\u0026rsquo;re like, wow, that\u0026rsquo;s crazy. Like maybe it\u0026rsquo;s climate change or like nuclear warfare or, you know, artificial intelligence. There\u0026rsquo;s all these cool areas. And it takes time, you know, reading, exploring, but I think one of the best things you can do is just talking to other people like co-learning is such a beautiful thing.\nSo find people with good values who have really high aptitude who care about similar problems and are doing something about it and just try and learn from them, teach each other. Like I look back at uni and like, you know, there are several friends, like even that I have to this day and we\u0026rsquo;ve actually gone down quite different.\nFriends who went super deep into cryptocurrency friends who went very deep into the law space friends who went into video game design friends who were doing other PhDs but kind of a common thread there is kinda just like, Yeah, like I think like, like a really strong core set of values, that shit, and just a really, really strong curiosity and intentionality to the way that And so I think like just, yeah, finding people that you resonate with, like that the people you surround yourself with will just have a huge, huge outsize impact on how your career progressions.\nOne more thing before I forget, stop creating content. Now find the things that you care about and just start creating newsletter, tick talk, social media, posts, art, whatever it may be. It doesn\u0026rsquo;t even matter. But when you create content, you will find people who care about things similar to you. Um, and that is just going to be a super power for years and years to come.\nContact Dan # James: Yeah, that is fantastic. There\u0026rsquo;s this episode\u0026rsquo;s been fantastic. There\u0026rsquo;s so much valley for me today, Dan. So thanks so much for coming on the podcast today, but before we let you go, I just want you to say, you know, where can people find you and where can they connect with you?\nDan: Yeah, absolutely. So on Twitter at Dan Brockwell, B R O C K WWL. I should post a lot there early work. My baby and my love is early work.co co as the website, our. Well, we write free career advice and resources on the future work for young people. Early work dot sub stack.com. So sub S T a C K.\nThat\u0026rsquo;s one of our newsletter. And like on the early work.co website, you?\ncan find our slack community. So we have a slack community of 1000, maybe 1,800 people. Young people across Australia and New Zealand co-learning and their careers across product management, marketing, design engineering stuff, like crypto sustainability.\nWe\u0026rsquo;re, we\u0026rsquo;re trying to build the number one community for young people creating the careers career tomorrow. So if you\u0026rsquo;re someone who wants to like, you know, do some really cool shit in your career, create your own things, like make a really positive impact. We\u0026rsquo;d love to have you in the community.\nSo I\u0026rsquo;ll see you there. Easy.\nJames: Thanks so much, Dan. Thanks for coming on. We\u0026rsquo;ll see you say.\nDan: Absolute pleasure, James. Thank you so much.\nOutro # James: Thanks for listening to this episode with Dan. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. I think there were so many nuggets of wisdom throughout this episode. If you want to get my takeaways, the three things that I learned from this episode, please go to Graduate Theory.com/subscribe, where you can get my takeaways and all the information about each episode, straight to your inbox.\nThanks so much for listening again today, and we\u0026rsquo;re looking forward to seeing you next week.\n← Back to episode 15\n","date":"31 January 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/graduate-theory/15-on-startups-corporate-and-the-importance-of-personal-branding-with-dan-brockwell/transcript/","section":"Graduate Theory Transcripts","summary":"← Back to episode 15\nThis transcript has been lightly edited for readability. It may still contain transcription errors.\nJames: Hello, and welcome to Graduate Theory. On today’s episode, we’ll hear about personal branding and the importance of that. As we go into careers in 2022, we’ll talk about corporate versus startups. And what are the pros and cons of working in an established corporate company versus working in a startup.\n","title":"Transcript: On Startups, Corporate and The Importance of Personal Branding with Dan Brockwell","type":"graduate-theory-transcripts"},{"content":" Image From Unsplash Recently, I started my podcast called Graduate Theory. I wanted to create a place to have meaningful conversations about having successful and fulfilling careers.\nI won\u0026rsquo;t go into the podcast too much here, but so far it\u0026rsquo;s been a great experience.\nThe focus for this post is on the TOOLS that I use to get things done.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s been an iterative process so far, but after 16 recorded episodes, I think I have optimised my processes and have created something valuable.\nThrough my process, I\u0026rsquo;ve tried to use as few tools as possible, for maximum impact. I do pay for many of these tools, so keep that in mind as you go along.\nTools # The main tools I use are (click to go to section)\nNotion (Guest and episode planning)(Free) Calendly (Meeting setup)(Paid/Free) Riverside (Recording)(Paid) Descript (Editing)(Paid) GetProspect (Guest email finder)(Free/Paid) Ghost (Website and Newsletter)(Paid) Buzzsprout (Podcast Hosting)(Paid) While you\u0026rsquo;re here, consider joining my email list 👇 SubscribeBuilt with ConvertKit My Podcasting Workflow Below, I\u0026rsquo;ll outline the tools and how I use them.\nNotion (Free) # Notion is a very well known database and knowledge management tool. It\u0026rsquo;s easy to use and has heaps of customisation ability so it makes sense to use it for episode preparation and review.\nHere is what my main Notion page looks like\nMy Notion Page I have this page filtered so that once I complete an episode, it is not shown. This means I can only see episodes that are on the way or still need my efforts in some way. This also works as a kind of to-do list as I can very easily see which part of my pipeline need my attention the most.\nIn this table, I keep track of\nguest name when I contacted the guest any notes about the guest I should keep in mind the stage the guest is at (Should Contact, Contacted, Date Set, Recorded, Edited, Completed) the date of our episode the number of the episode and its release date This has worked very well in keeping track of who I have spoken to and how my guest pipeline is coming along.\nWhat is great about Notion is that each of these rows is its page. What this means is that inside each of these pages I can have further, more detailed notes from when I prepare and what I\u0026rsquo;m going to say in the episode.\nIn the page, I embed 2 pages 👇\nPreparation Page\nnotes about the guest from LinkedIn, other podcasts, social media intro for the guest that I say during the episode questions that I want to ask the guest Review Page\nthings we discussed during the podcast to put in the show notes my top 3 takeaways and notes for the newsletter All of these things together means I have a very simple workflow for guest relationship management, guest research and episode planning.\nI have also turned this into a template that you can download and copy 👇\nPODCAST MANAGEMENT NOTION TEMPLATE # Calendly (Paid/Free) # Calendly is my reliable scheduling tool. I contact the guest, send them to calendly and everything is taken care of.\nIf you\u0026rsquo;ve never heard of Calendly, it allows people to book an available time in my calendar.\nWhen booking the time, my guests get asked some questions to help me prepare for the interview.\nDo you know that this is a video interview? What is one thing you\u0026rsquo;d like to speak about during the episode? Is there anything you don\u0026rsquo;t want to speak about? What are your accomplishments so that I can write an intro for you? Would you like a small video after our interview? Do you know anyone that would be a future guest for the show? My workflow also\nsets the location of our call to Riverside reminds the guest 24 hours and 10 minutes before the call of where to go So far this has worked an absolute treat. It\u0026rsquo;s professional, efficient and lets me find out more information from my guest.\nI paid USD 144 for 1 year of Calendly. (This is 12 USD / month). You can do some of this on the free plan but you need a premium account for the reminders.\nRiverside (Paid) # Riverside is where I record my episodes. There are several advantages to using something like this over another free service like Zoom.\nRiverside is better than Zoom for podcasters that want quality episodes.\nAnother article on why riverside is the best podcasting platform.\nRiverside.fm enables local recording of lossless audio and 4K video tracks independent of internet connection.\nWhen recording with Riverside, I can edit with the local recordings of my guests audio and video. On Zoom I am taking a cloud-based version that has been compressed and is of less-good quality.\nWhen it comes to podcast recording I want my audio and video to be the highest quality possible. It\u0026rsquo;s a no-brainer for me!\nI use the 29 USD/m plan that gives me 15 hours of episodes per month.\nDescript (Paid) # Descript is something I first heard about from Oscar Trimboli on episode #5.\nIt is my highest value tool by far.\nDescript is a fantastic video editor. It creates a transcript of the video and then I can edit the video by editing the transcript.\nIt contains features like\ndirect upload to youtube and podcast hosting platforms filler word removal with 1 click studio sound to remove background noise and polish audio automatically level the volume of clips These features make it VERY easy for me to edit my podcast. My editing workflow is usually like the following 👇\nAdd raw clips to project in Descript Create my sequence (descript timeline) with my clips Auto level volume (1 click) Add studio sound (1 click) Transcribe and create my composition (descript editing) (1 click) Remove basic filler words (1 click) Watch through on x2 speed and edit parts that need fixing (1-2 hours) record intro and outro (30 mins) Publish to Youtube and Buzzsprout (1 click) Done!\nIt\u0026rsquo;s very simple to edit a podcast with descript and more certainly worth the approx $40 AUD p/m, I spend on it. Before Descript I was taking hours and hours to edit my episodes. Now it\u0026rsquo;s fast and fun.\nGet Prospect (Free) # When finding new guests for the show, some come through referrals, but some come through cold outreach. A great way of doing cold outreach is with Get Prospect.\nGet Prospect allows me to go onto a person\u0026rsquo;s LinkedIn and get their email address. Then I can use this address to send them an email and see if they would be interested in coming on the podcast.\nThis tool is free for a certain amount of uses (about 100) and then you\u0026rsquo;ll have to pay.\nAlternative\u0026rsquo;s to this that I have been trying out are https://www.emailchaser.io/ and https://rocketreach.co/.\nGhost (Paid) # Ghost is where I host my website and what allows me to send my newsletter. All of this can be done directly in Ghost which makes it a great tool.\nI\u0026rsquo;ve purchased a theme to make my site look great.\nI use Ghost for my weekly newsletter that comes out with each episode, it includes\nyoutube video of the episode Spotify link for episode guest intro guest contact information my episode takeaways links to things we discussed during the episode timestamps of topics The newsletter then remains on my site as a page that can be viewed anytime.\nAn alternative to this would have been to use Substack, which in hindsight would have been a smarter and cheaper choice given the size of my audience. Regardless, Ghost does a great job of hosting all my content and giving me good insights into my audience.\nBuzzsprout (Paid) # Buzzsprout is a podcast hosting tool. It is the place that allows you to host on Spotify/Apple and many others.\nAlternatives to this are https://transistor.fm/ which seems pretty good and https://anchor.fm/ which is a free hosting site provided by Spotify.\nBuzzsprout and Transistor are quite similar and I\u0026rsquo;d personally be fine going with either.\nAnchor is free because Spotify will dynamically insert ads into your episodes. People also raise concerns about the podcasting landscape becoming too dominated by a single incumbent in Spotify and thus will support paid alternatives like Buzzsprout and others.\nAnchor is probably a solid choice but I have chosen Buzzsprout at 18 USD / m for 6 hours of upload time.\nConclusion # There is my complete stack for running my podcast. It\u0026rsquo;s not fixed and will certainly change over time.\nRight now though, it\u0026rsquo;s working a treat.\nConnect With Me!I'll remind you when I post so you don't have to remember\nSubscribe​\nBuilt with ConvertKit ","date":"26 January 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/my-podcasting-tools/","section":"Writing","summary":" Image From Unsplash Recently, I started my podcast called Graduate Theory. I wanted to create a place to have meaningful conversations about having successful and fulfilling careers.\nI won’t go into the podcast too much here, but so far it’s been a great experience.\n","title":"My Podcasting Tools","type":"posts"},{"content":" Watch the conversation Graduate Theory Open YouTube ↗ Read the full transcript → Ingrid Messner is a leadership expert with over twenty-five years’ experience. She was born in Germany and moved with her family to Sydney, in 2004. Passionate about the environment, she overcame extraordinary adversity in re-learning how to walk twice.\nHer latest book, Naturally Successful, is your guide to creating positive change for people and the planet\u0026hellip;and be well at the same time.\nLevel Up Your Career\n🤝 Connect with Ingrid # LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/ingridmessner/\nWebsite - https://www.ingridmessner.com/\nNaturally Successful - https://www.amazon.com.au/Naturally-Successful-Leaders-Influence-Positive/dp/198973720X/ref=sxts_rp_s1_0\n👇 Episode Takeaways # Nature is Important # Ingrid gave a great example of a study that she read. \u0026ldquo;The people in the prison where one part of the prison was looking out to a landscape, and one part was looking at concrete. The people looking out to the greenery were sick 25%, less often than those looking out to concrete.\u0026rdquo;\nIt\u0026rsquo;s important that we make time to get out and see some green during our days.\nContext is Key # When working, it\u0026rsquo;s important to know \u0026lsquo;why\u0026rsquo; you are doing what you are doing. It\u0026rsquo;s the same with leadership. Knowing what role your team plays and why your team is operating a certain way in the organisation is crucial to leading your team successfully.\nCheckpoints # I really liked what Ingrid said near the end of the interview about making check-ins with yourself. Make sure that you are on the path that you want to be on, and heading in the direction you would like. Too often we go along where we get taken and don\u0026rsquo;t make strong career choices.\nCheck-in with yourself.\n📝 Show Notes # 00:00 Intro\n01:29 Ingrid On Re-learning to Walk Twice\n11:30 Using Bad Experiences as Fuel For Compassion\n22:10 What is Bad Leadership Advice\n26:33 Connection To Nature\n38:29 People that Inspire Ingrid\n42:57 Ingrid\u0026rsquo;s Advice for New Graduates\n49:09 Outro\n","date":"24 January 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/graduate-theory/14-on-our-connection-to-nature-and-leadership-with-ingrid-messner/","section":"Graduate Theory","summary":" Watch the conversation Graduate Theory Open YouTube ↗ Read the full transcript → Ingrid Messner is a leadership expert with over twenty-five years’ experience. She was born in Germany and moved with her family to Sydney, in 2004. Passionate about the environment, she overcame extraordinary adversity in re-learning how to walk twice.\n","title":"On Our Connection to Nature and Leadership with Ingrid Messner","type":"graduate-theory"},{"content":"← Back to episode 14\nThis transcript has been lightly edited for readability. It may still contain transcription errors.\nJames: Hello, and welcome to Graduate Theory. On today\u0026rsquo;s episode, you\u0026rsquo;ll hear from my guest about her two major accidents and what she learned from those and how those have affected their life. Moving. You\u0026rsquo;ll hear about her book called naturally successful and the main lessons that she\u0026rsquo;s taken from being a leadership coach for over 25 years, you\u0026rsquo;ll also hear about her insights into nature and what it means to have a good connection to nature and how we can use, those things in our daily lives.\nIf you want episodes like this straight to your inbox, please click the link below and subscribe to the Graduate Theory newsletter to get episodes like this and my insights every single week. Thanks for listening. And I hope you enjoy.\nJames: Hello, and welcome to Graduate Theory. My guest today is a leadership expert with over 25 years of experience, she was born in Germany and moved with her family to Sydney in 2004. She passionate about the investment. My guest has overcome extraordinary adversity in relearning, how to walk twice\nhelping leaders better manage their energy, enabling them to develop greater influence and impact.\nPlease welcome Ingrid. Mesner welcome. Ingrid\nIngrid: Yeah, thank you for having me times.\nIngrid On Re-learning to Walk Twice # James: Dollar problem. I\u0026rsquo;m so excited to chat today. I want to ask this is kind of the elephant in the room for me. This, this whole experience. Yeah. You\u0026rsquo;ve. Well, relaunch to walk twice, once is a massive process to go through. But I really want to speak about this and perhaps you can tell the story of how these situations unfolded and then even, you know, what the learning or takeaways from those things.\nIngrid: Yeah. So when you learn to walk as a child, it seems to be very easy. You fall over and you try again and you don\u0026rsquo;t think twice, and you don\u0026rsquo;t remember anything about that. And then as an adult in 2017, I went on a Bush walk during an evening in Sydney. Broke my leg. It\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s not very spectacular how I broke it.\nI just tripped on the track and fell very badly. So, that in itself also would not have been too bad, but if you know, a little bit about, and that to me, it\u0026rsquo;s in your knee, there\u0026rsquo;s a part called the tibia plateau, which carries all your. And that part of my bone was literally shattered. So that meant there was no way I couldn\u0026rsquo;t get out of there.\nSo the group I went with there to call the emergency services and it was a big of a rescue because it\u0026rsquo;s actually, even though it\u0026rsquo;s in Sydney, it\u0026rsquo;s quite remote. So I had the full rescue with ambulance, fire, brigade, water police, and all of that. And it was Interesting to observe what happened afterwards, because the moment you enter the healthcare system, you become a part of it.\nAnd you really have to be careful that you still sort of take control and charge of your own healing and your own recovery, because there will be so many people telling you what\u0026rsquo;s best for you. And then. I see it from there quite narrow point of view. So for example, I had to have surgery. So the surgeon, obviously he did a great job and then said, I\u0026rsquo;ll go and see this physio. Which I was lucky was a physio that really understood what it means when you want to go back to sport. So at the physio, but that were like two people only. And I realized, oh, there\u0026rsquo;s so much more because it\u0026rsquo;s feels like, or it looks like, and many people talk about it. It\u0026rsquo;s just a broken bone. And yes it is.\nBut it also has an impact on your mental. And your emotional health and your whole social context. In my case, the whole recovery journey to walking again, was it like 11 months back to bushwalking, which is quite long, it\u0026rsquo;s longer than the usual six weeks of a broken bone. And so 11 months means you\u0026rsquo;re not part of a community.\nSo they\u0026rsquo;re in one night during the recovery, I woke up and thought, what are all the different elements of this? And I literally wrote down, like, there\u0026rsquo;s a lot about yourself, then there are some other people involved, but then there are also other things in work, like, even finances and money, because the whole thing costs quite a bit, even in Australia. So you have the different areas. And no one is really telling you about that. And there is no one person that\u0026rsquo;s like a navigator helping you to get through it. So I sat down and wrote all the elements down and then looked at it and thought, this is like business. It\u0026rsquo;s the same as in business, because in business, you very often facing adversity or a challenge and you have to make sure you\u0026rsquo;re okay, but you need a team around you and you have to deal with difficult stakeholders and then you have to take really care of the context and all the systems around you and bring all these three things together.\nSo that\u0026rsquo;s actually not very different when you learn to walk again. It\u0026rsquo;s a onerous pro process, but then in business very often it\u0026rsquo;s similar. So that, that was the learning and it was about then 2018. And I thought, oh, well that, that was a challenging experience. In the beginning of 2019, I had a viral infection, like an ear infection that killed of part of my balance system.\nAnd before that, because it\u0026rsquo;s last something on Yeah, it\u0026rsquo;s on autopilot for all the people. When you walk, it\u0026rsquo;s like your eyes, your years, your body, tendons, and muscles and your brain there, they all work together and create this system again, a system where they keep you in bed. And the brain tries to make sense of what it hears from the right right and left.\nAnd if one year gives a different signal, then the brain is totally confused and is going in overdrive and working very hard. So then that means that the brain. Totally exhausted. Can\u0026rsquo;t think can\u0026rsquo;t do anything and it can\u0026rsquo;t keep you upright for a wires. So what do you have to do is Richie retrain the brain circuits to say it doesn\u0026rsquo;t matter what this year says or this one just go with it, trust the rest of the body.\nAnd so it\u0026rsquo;s like a Lyft example of neuroplasticity where you really Notice much more what\u0026rsquo;s happening around you, how your body is, how you are in connection to the environment and with my love of nature. In the beginning, I had no way of even going out or connecting to nature because my brain was really self absorbed and it\u0026rsquo;s like all the peripheral vision causes.\nTo very litter. And then I had to work very hard to train, to open up again, and be able to connect to the environment and walk and do everything. And it\u0026rsquo;s a process where everything you learn ever about habits and tiny habits, it\u0026rsquo;s literally like a tiny, tiny exercise every day. You can\u0026rsquo;t push it. You just have to do it every day.\nAnd it\u0026rsquo;s very boring, but it\u0026rsquo;s like you create a little path in the brain and then over time it becomes more like a freeway. So that\u0026rsquo;s really repetition every time. So that taught me in a way, a little bit about, yeah, humility and also gratitude. And also again around you can only do it when you have the right support systems, the community, family, and friends, you have some financial matters so that it doesn\u0026rsquo;t stress you out, that you can\u0026rsquo;t work.\nAnd so these are the things that. We totally forget and a value. And then when COVID hit, I thought, ah, okay. It\u0026rsquo;s like over again. So another virus so viruses have been there all the time. It\u0026rsquo;s like, we never really paid attention to it. And the impact on different people is different. So that\u0026rsquo;s, and that\u0026rsquo;s a learning for my work in leadership where quite often by. Focusing too much on getting something done and fulfilling a task or finishing a project. You totally forget about the other people around us. And because we might be very passionate and really want to get it done quickly. We also don\u0026rsquo;t take care of our bodies, so really not enough self care.\nJames: Yeah.\nIngrid: So in a way it\u0026rsquo;s repeating itself, it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s always like, do you look out for yourself?\nDo you know, who\u0026rsquo;s your support system and team, and then what is happening around you in the context in the environment? And so there were very different experiences, the broken leg and the. I would have thought before that a virus audits a few weeks, but ultimately emotionally, it was much more challenging to deal with something that\u0026rsquo;s connected to the brain that something\u0026rsquo;s connected to the leg.\nIt feels a lot more substantial. And it\u0026rsquo;s also the difference between one thing could be seen. So everyone understood that and the other one is invisible and there are lots and lots of people around in business. And especially at the moment who face invisible challenges and we as in leadership or anywhere in business, we forget to ask people what\u0026rsquo;s going on for them internally. So, and then the intern. Would ultimately is projected to the outside world and impact how effective you can be at work and as a leader. So. You can\u0026rsquo;t really talk about or explain what\u0026rsquo;s happening internally, then it becomes really difficult to be there for your team, for example, or for other people, because if you not well, and you have a very short fuse, your anger might bubble up very quickly in a meeting.\nAnd it\u0026rsquo;s not because of the other person, but it is because you weren\u0026rsquo;t feeling well. So it\u0026rsquo;s a little bit, it\u0026rsquo;s a balance, but in a different way, because some people said, oh, there is no balance. I, I can tell you there\u0026rsquo;s a lot of, they\u0026rsquo;d be all heft, but because it\u0026rsquo;s automatic, we don\u0026rsquo;t notice it. So it\u0026rsquo;s absolutely necessary just that it doesn\u0026rsquo;t have to be there all at the same time.\nJames: Yeah, cause that\u0026rsquo;s one of those three areas that you have in the book. You know, self is a big is, you know, a whole section in there where we talk about. You know how lucky you\u0026rsquo;ve been saying how important it is to first, you know, look after yourself. So then you can go out and do things, you know, from a more centered place and just to touch on some of what you\u0026rsquo;ve just, we\u0026rsquo;ve just gone through.\nUsing Bad Experiences as Fuel For Compassion # James: I think it\u0026rsquo;s as challenging as those experiences where I think. It must do wonders for your, almost your resilience and like your self-confidence and belief that, you know, you\u0026rsquo;ve gone through these really, really difficult challenges and you\u0026rsquo;ve come out the other side and, you know, you kind of know that you can do these difficult things.\nAnd I think that must be really great as you go into, you know, your career and into the coaching and the things that you do. You know, when times get tough, you know, you know that you\u0026rsquo;ve done those things before is what do you, what do you think about it? Do you think it\u0026rsquo;s, do you reflect on those experiences and kind of use them as fuel almost to, to power on to what you do today?\nIngrid: Yeah. So I think it has led more often to. More curiosity and more compassion. So for example, if I coach someone and they are really struggling usually any good coach would not have any judgment, but it goes beyond that. It\u0026rsquo;s more that you really are much more aware. Everyone does the best they can at that moment in time with the resources that they have so that everyone does the best they can.\nBut if, for example, they just haven\u0026rsquo;t got the resources at the moment in time, there might show a really weird behavior. And instead of then sort of reacting to that, it\u0026rsquo;s much better to sort of explore and ask and face it with a bit of curiosity saying what, what might be causing this for this person what\u0026rsquo;s going on for them and how can I create an experience for them and hold a safe space so that they can discover a solution for them. Because whatever, even for example, if there\u0026rsquo;s another person facing the similar, let\u0026rsquo;s say the infection or the broken knee, what, what my healing journey was doesn\u0026rsquo;t mean that another person would have the same healing journey. So they, they might have maybe elements of it, but it\u0026rsquo;s not that I have the answer.\nAnd that, that\u0026rsquo;s also a thing that you realize very quickly, you don\u0026rsquo;t have the answer. And I have a lot of experience, obviously because of the years I\u0026rsquo;ve been doing this, but there might be still moments where I start out the conversation in coaching where I actually don\u0026rsquo;t really know. What the problem is, but it doesn\u0026rsquo;t also matter because I only have to be there and hold the space and give the person some questions that help them to figure it out. And so, and usually in business,\nJames: Hmm.\nIngrid: It should be a similar way. And I guess when you, and what I remember from. Came first and started work. You come in with uni and all your other experiences and internships and first work experiences. And you\u0026rsquo;re very much focused on, okay. I\u0026rsquo;m good. In these things. I\u0026rsquo;m like an expert in these areas and have learned a lot and that\u0026rsquo;s all true.\nBut there is a moment in time where you have to shift from being the expert to being more like a coach and a mentor and an Explorer, because I don\u0026rsquo;t mentally, no one will ever have all the answers, but some people never make the shift from letting go of their expertise to a degree like carrying that as their first impression.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s more important to have that. And then build on it with an open mind. Whereas a lot of people feel, oh, and I have this at the moment, I\u0026rsquo;m coaching some really junior people and they have the sense that I have to know. I have to have all the answers and otherwise I won\u0026rsquo;t be accepted. And when we talk a little bit, we find out is actually not true.\nYou don\u0026rsquo;t have to have the answers. You have to have good questions. That\u0026rsquo;s a very\nJames: Yeah.\nIngrid: Thing and like a genuine interest in the area and an honesty to say, okay, I know this, but I don\u0026rsquo;t know that instead of making it up, but what I\u0026rsquo;m good, I\u0026rsquo;m saying you also have to be in an environment that supports.\nType of culture. If, for example, you would have a boss that\u0026rsquo;s constantly putting pressure on you to have all the facts and figures and no, like everything like an expert, obviously you respond to that, but it\u0026rsquo;s only, it\u0026rsquo;s only good for a while because it keeps you trapped into this expert mode, which doesn\u0026rsquo;t really serve.\nAt the moment where everything is uncertain.\nJames: Yeah, absolutely. And you touched on some things there around asking the right questions. You know, you were saying, asking the right questions when someone is kind of in that place, where do you want to help them almost get out of a rock and, you know, asking the right questions to them so that then they can kind of get, get out of that brought themselves.\nAnd then also this idea where, you know, you don\u0026rsquo;t need to know everything. It\u0026rsquo;s about asking the wrong questions. That\u0026rsquo;ll help you to understand the problem better and you know, work with your team better and things like that. In those situations, you know, I\u0026rsquo;m, I\u0026rsquo;m just curious generally about this idea of asking better questions.\nCause I think asking better questions is something that is always tricky because you know, the, the right question. Can, you know, even if it\u0026rsquo;s that this interview, for example, the right question can give you a really interesting answer or is it like not very good questions can kind of. Give you just stand it all.\nThis is that don\u0026rsquo;t really give you much information. So asking the right questions, I think is really, really important. The, in these examples of, you know, asking better questions, is there any, can you think of any situations maybe where someone has gone about asking good questions in the right way or perhaps like the right question is unlocked something that\u0026rsquo;s.\nYeah, really, almost like a breakthrough moment or things like that. Is there anything that comes to mind?\nIngrid: But. The thing with ride questions across the board, right?\nJames: Yeah,\nIngrid: Already like a judgment where sometimes you ask one question and a certain moment in time to one person and nothing happens. And then there\u0026rsquo;s a little bit to different point in time and you ask the same question to the same person and they have their epiphany aha.\nMoment. Suddenly they\u0026rsquo;re like ready for it. Ready for change. So it\u0026rsquo;s a little bit like a trial and error to find this moment in time. When a question also might be appropriate. And then sometimes just sort of look out for the response, like how the person is reacting to it verbally, but also body language and all of that.\nAnd then obviously the content of the answer. And so quite often as a general rule of thumb, it\u0026rsquo;s better to ask questions that are opening. Like with an open answer and not, yes, no. Because yes, no, it was very much closing down. So whatever you can do, ask a question that opens up a space where you explore more and then you come to a point where you discover a few options and then you have to come to the point where you close it back again.\nAnd then they\u0026rsquo;re closing back. It might be a yes, no answer. Like, do I want option a or option B? But before it might be, I have like 30 different options. So what can help someone to open up their perspective and suddenly before maybe they were looking just in that direction. And then you ask the question, what what\u0026rsquo;s there on the other side.\nAnd they look there and say, ah, that\u0026rsquo;s another 10 options. So it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s a little bit like how do you move people actually to look around figurative fish speaking, and then once they explore what, what can they discover? And then the, the type of question that I usually scored is when it comes with the right intention that you want to create something for them, like an experience. Where they suddenly notice. Ah, okay. This is important for them instead of you wanting an explanation of it. So it\u0026rsquo;s like the answer they are giving. Is it more about for your servers or is it more in their service and then if it\u0026rsquo;s serving them or it\u0026rsquo;s serving like in your podcast, if it\u0026rsquo;s serving the audience, then it\u0026rsquo;s a great question.\nJames: Yeah.\nIngrid: And sometimes the other thing at the moment that I\u0026rsquo;m seeing more or less to everyone is we really have to remember to be kind kind to us and kind to all the people around us. So we will always get it wrong. All of us. At some point in time, there will be something that is stuff up and then to accept it and move on and be just kind when it happens to someone else. So it\u0026rsquo;s like, then a good question would be okay. Why or what caused, not why, but what caused this stuff up? What, what could we both learn from it? And then that might actually then elevate the relationship to another level because the other person suddenly feels heard and understood and acknowledged. Because you are together exploring, okay, what, what caused this whole, whatever it was a conflict or something, it could, it could be very useful in a project environment, for example.\nSo, so quick questions on art and a science.\nJames: Absolutely. Absolutely. I absolutely agree with that.\nWhat is Bad Leadership Advice # James: I\u0026rsquo;d love to, you know, talk a bit, we\u0026rsquo;ve touched on it a bit, but you know, about your coaching and things like that. And a lot of that is focused around leadership and you know, ways that we can lead better. I want to ask, is there any leadership advice.\nThat you think is bad leadership advice. Is there anything that you would say leaders should not do this?\nIngrid: Oh, the ignore the context. So in, in the context and things happening, so for example, usually you would hear, people would say are a leader. Shouldn\u0026rsquo;t be. Tell, but ask. So because the telling is quite the hierarchical, what we had and what\u0026rsquo;s still prevail and in the military are in conflict and it is there for good reason and in certain situations, but it\u0026rsquo;s not very useful in other situations. So then we quite easily forget when we judge the type of leadership. In what context did it happen? So some people there are different names for it. Some people call it situational leadership or adapting leadership, but the, the main point to remember is it never happens in a vacuum. So there is always something around.\nOr it was before time-wise or most likely it has a repercussion on the future. So whatever is around it. And if someone sort of, in terms of leadership development only focuses on like the here and now and only the person and maybe their team without really thinking about everything around it. It\u0026rsquo;s most likely not very effective.\nSo I would say it\u0026rsquo;s. So waste of training dollars in a way it goes, you\u0026rsquo;re not really connecting it back to the real world where it should be applied in a certain context.\nJames: Yeah, sure. I think that\u0026rsquo;s important. It\u0026rsquo;s almost like often as a, like, as a new person in an organization and things that I\u0026rsquo;ve heard is, you know, connecting what you\u0026rsquo;re doing to, you know, why the organization wants you to do that all like where does what you are doing fit in within the wider.\nYou know, the wider group.\nYeah, I think that\u0026rsquo;s important too, if you\u0026rsquo;re, I guess it\u0026rsquo;s the same thing. If you\u0026rsquo;re leading a team, like how does your team fit into the jigsaw of the organization and in a, not really forgetting that and treating it, like, it\u0026rsquo;s something that\u0026rsquo;s in a vacuum, like you said, by itself,\nIngrid: Yeah. Sometimes it gets the, the labor of the people working in silo. So you have one silo in an organization, another silo. If it\u0026rsquo;s a larger organization, if it\u0026rsquo;s a smaller one, it can be more conflicts between different other teams or different people. So whatever sort of separate. Instead of connects everything to everything.\nI think there\u0026rsquo;s a bit tricky. It has its place. When you have an absolute emergency and it\u0026rsquo;s time critical, then you might resort to another different leadership style for good reasons. But even today where quite a lot of people with COVID, everything is stressed them. In most cases, it would not justify an emergency leadership style. It\u0026rsquo;s not really delivering a solution. But there, there are areas where it absolutely has to be, but I guess Mo most of us and the people listening to adult that they will work in this area.\nJames: Yeah. Yeah, no, I agree. I think I think it\u0026rsquo;s important, like you said, it\u0026rsquo;s, you know, it\u0026rsquo;s coming back to that kindness. You\u0026rsquo;re talking about, you know, you know, treat everyone with respect and be kind, even if it\u0026rsquo;s in those situations. I think even too, it\u0026rsquo;s important that if you\u0026rsquo;re the leader of the group that you kind of are the one that kind of absorbs the you know, the, the, the roughness, all, you know, the, the problems that are going on and then kind of shelters the team from those things, and you still kind of turn it into kindness and then training a team with respect to things like that.\nActually.\nIngrid: Yeah.\nConnection To Nature # James: One thing I want to touch on as well is through your recovery processes and things like that. You mentioned, you know, you first, your first sort of broken leg experience was I was on a big walk and, and through reading a book it\u0026rsquo;s called naturally successful. And now I think part of that comes from, you know, the night share and things like that as well.\nCorrect me if I\u0026rsquo;m wrong, but I think that is part of it. And I\u0026rsquo;d love to touch on this cause I think it\u0026rsquo;s, it is quite interesting and it\u0026rsquo;s something that. You know, that connection to nature can sometimes get lost when you\u0026rsquo;re, you know, sitting in the office all day long or, you know, sitting in like, like work from home all day long or, or whatever it is.\nAnd I think that connection to nature, you know, is something that\u0026rsquo;s really interesting. So I\u0026rsquo;d love to speak a bit more about this with you. You know, when did you first start connecting or finding more about this connection to nature?\nIngrid: NA in, in a more, I always laughed biology and geography. So for me, it was always around. Geography was around traveling and discovering different lenses. And different countries and different people, how they respond to it. And then when I came first time to Australia in 2000, we did a tour in Kakadu national park with an Aboriginal ranger, explained to us all the, sort of the meanings, the stories, the users of like one type of tree.\nAnd I looked at the tree and. Ah, I\u0026rsquo;ve never seen a tree, like\nThe, in a way, like with all the connections and all the things around it. So the trees suddenly became a whole new, different meaning. And then that, that made me curious to explore more in the indigenous world. Like how do they see it? And then later on, I did a lot of like nature meditation retreats, where you\u0026rsquo;re on your own for several days in a row outdoors.\nAnd what do you notice when you\u0026rsquo;re outdoors there? And you\u0026rsquo;re in one spot, so you\u0026rsquo;re not moving around, like not push walking. Being in one area you notice that everything around you suddenly is connected and it\u0026rsquo;s working like a little ecosystem as such, which it is, but you, you notice that how you fit into it.\nAnd you also start to think a lot more about things like, for example, where do you get the water? Because you have to drink something or where does the water actually come from? What do you eat? How was this food grown? What is the, the oxygen? So you can\u0026rsquo;t really survive without breathing. So where does the oxygen come from?\nIt comes from a tree and then any other plant. And so, and you give back. So it\u0026rsquo;s like a circular movement again. And you notice that these connections, so that\u0026rsquo;s one more like the visual physical level. And then when I did some of their work with some of the indigenous paper walks and being outdoors, they had more of this understanding that all of that is familiar.\nSo you\u0026rsquo;re not alone because you\u0026rsquo;re with your family relation of some plant on NML also. And that\u0026rsquo;s connected to this specific area of land and it all has its place. It follows its rules and principles. And so all of these connection points. Ultimately underlying truth and all of this, what became very clear to me and it\u0026rsquo;s not rocket sciences healthy people, and these are the healthy place. So we can\u0026rsquo;t be healthy, relieve and functional well and perform well then at work, if our body is not well. So at the moment, for example, I think yesterday or so, so headlines, I haven\u0026rsquo;t read the article, but I saw headlines that all the micro plastic pollution in the air is in the food is in the water. So obviously then that comes into our board. And not, no one can really say what that\u0026rsquo;s going to do. So there is a connection there it\u0026rsquo;s just up to few years ago, we didn\u0026rsquo;t really notice most of like mainstream. And we also didn\u0026rsquo;t talk about it too, to see it in the front page of a newspaper now like a mainstream newspaper in always quite helpful and encouraging because you say you can\u0026rsquo;t really change something before you\u0026rsquo;re aware of. So at least now it\u0026rsquo;s looks like and hopeful, optimistic that more and more people would come aware. We have the sustainability development goals from the UN. And so if every business would integrate more of that into their normal business strategy and every person, every leader in every project that you do at least have a little bit of an element of it. That could create a big shift. So nets because without like wired on natural word there will be no, Schulmans\nJames: Yeah,\nIngrid: Not in the, in the way how we are today. Maybe we move.\nJames: No, definitely. And I want to ask too, for someone that\u0026rsquo;s, you know, working in the office nine to five, or perhaps, you know, they\u0026rsquo;re at home or wherever that working, what are some ways that you think that I can grow their connection to nature, you know, become healthy. You know, or even, you know, connect to these or sustainability, you know, missions and initiatives and things like that.\nWhat are some steps do you think that they could take to get involved?\nIngrid: Yeah. So it would be very different for each person because each of us had had very different experiences as a child. And also different opportunities from where you live at the moment. Most of our cities are not very conducive to real nature connection. However, sometimes it\u0026rsquo;s enough to find your favorite spot, maybe in a park.\nWhere you can sit just like a few minutes every day, or even walk through. And instead of listening to your phone or podcasts or something during that time, make an effort to be fully immersed in your environment at that point in time, because anything that you look at or you\u0026rsquo;re listening to let us not from that area, like all these, those nature sounds it takes it away to different speeds.\nSo to really notice what\u0026rsquo;s happening around you, even in a park, it can be a very small park to sit down on a lawn and touch the grass and be really there even that has an, a healing, a sect there there\u0026rsquo;s plenty of research, even if you were living in an apartment building, going to an office, which many people don\u0026rsquo;t do nowadays, but. You look out of the window and have a green greenery of some sort and landscape like natural enlightenment. You\u0026rsquo;re already better off than someone who looks on to the next, the concrete building. Or a concrete wall. So, and there\u0026rsquo;s research that they did with, for example, the people in the prison where one part of the prison was looking out to a landscape.\nAnd one part was looking more to the concrete in a pod. And the people looking out to the greenery were like 24, 20 5%, less often sick. And the other.\nJames: Wow. That\u0026rsquo;s amazing.\nIngrid: So in the simplest version you could do with a green screen saver on your computer, even that would\nJames: Yeah. Wow.\nIngrid: Be really take some things. For example, I have things on my desk here, like, like this is a rock someone gave to me on one of these nature events and it\u0026rsquo;s from Afghanistan.\nThat\u0026rsquo;s a fantastic color. And so every time I look at it, I sort of go back to where I got this rock as a gift. And it\u0026rsquo;s one of our ways to connect with nature is in memories and thoughts. And another, another F God is like, little stick. So, and from time to time, I just tag these and remember. What type of experiences I had when I got them.\nAnd so that is helping me because it feeds our innate need to enact nurse nature. It\u0026rsquo;s a, there\u0026rsquo;s a term for it by failure. The person who created the term sort of just passed away a few weeks or so ago. And by affiliation, Richie only means that humans have a need and, and like, being connected with nature. And I think it\u0026rsquo;s sort of, if you could label it like a survival instinct, but, but that\u0026rsquo;s my word. So it\u0026rsquo;s not scientific that they would label it like this, but that\u0026rsquo;s how it feels to me because if you are stuck somewhere, let\u0026rsquo;s say in a hotel room with no window opening, no fresh air, no greenery at all can be quite depressed.\nSo enter the Hales will definitely suffer. I think that\u0026rsquo;s what happened in hotel quarantine for a lot of,\nJames: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Like quarantine is, is pretty horrible. I totally agree. And I think that was great advice. Even having like green or like some kind of nature as your, like you\u0026rsquo;ve got your background, I can see is like, you know, nice and grain, you know, even things like having plants in your room.\nI know people that\u0026rsquo;s a bit of a craze at the moment is, you know, people buy plots and have them in their room. I think that\u0026rsquo;s, that\u0026rsquo;s great. Cause that\u0026rsquo;s kind of bringing that into your routine as well.\nIngrid: Yes.\nJames: Yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s really important, I think. And that was really interesting. I, I didn\u0026rsquo;t know that about that prison example that you gave, I think, yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s really cool.\nIngrid: It\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s actually interesting because it came from a book. This Dylan Harris lost connection. Where he researches the real causes of depression and a lot of people in business, actually the senior executives very depressed and anxious, anxious, lots of anxiety levels. And one of the courses, he talked about his loss of connection to nature. So it\u0026rsquo;s one among others. There are more reasons. But the good thing is it\u0026rsquo;s scientifically proven that it\u0026rsquo;s there and indigenous people that knew it anyway, or that wasn\u0026rsquo;t stuff years ago. And so if we can combine what they knew and what is possible in today\u0026rsquo;s environment and adapted a bit in a respectful way.\nAnd then I think we all would be better.\nJames: Yeah. Yeah, totally. Right. Okay. I think it\u0026rsquo;s really important and I\u0026rsquo;ve, I\u0026rsquo;ve seen other you know, research too, even just about getting outside. You know, getting into the sunlight is, is great as well because often, you know, when you\u0026rsquo;re in the office or whatever, you just, you know, like exercise, getting outside, all that kind of stuff, all comes along with this in some ways too.\nSo you can combine all this stuff together, like go, go for a walk through like your nearest park or something like that. I think, you know, those kinds of things do wonders. You know, for all of your health, like your mental, physical, everything.\nIngrid: Yes.\nJames: Yeah, I think, I think this is so important. Yeah. Thank you for raising those because I think that\u0026rsquo;s good.\nAnd after read that book, it\u0026rsquo;s been on my reading list for a little while.\nIngrid: Good. Yes.\nPeople that Inspire Ingrid # James: Cool. Well, yeah, I\u0026rsquo;ve got two more questions for you. And the first one out of these two is who do you think is a good example? Or are there any people that you look up to maybe it\u0026rsquo;s through a network or whatever, or, you know, people that you\u0026rsquo;ve come across that a good example?\nFour for young leaders and maybe there\u0026rsquo;s certain people that lead well or have good, you know, maybe it\u0026rsquo;s content that to, to find out more from, or is there anyone that, you know, that would be good for, for young graduates, who to find out more from.\nIngrid: There, they are different people that come to mind for different reasons. So I would not have. Like the one hero. It\u0026rsquo;s it\u0026rsquo;s more, I admire certain people for different things. So for example one of the founders of Atlas Yan my candidate. Because he is using his money to really bring the topic of climate change to the forefront.\nSo in a way, what he does, first of all, from all I know from the outside, and what I\u0026rsquo;ve read is at Les yarn has a really people focused culture. So I haven\u0026rsquo;t got any internal insights, so I can\u0026rsquo;t confirm it, but that\u0026rsquo;s how it looks. And then what he is doing with this. Is really based on, it looks based on his values and does something good for the environment.\nAnd he, because he has got a voice in the media, he can. Sort of create some influence at system level. So for example, with the solar battery storage plant in south Australia, where he hit the bed with Elan mask. So I think in on last would not have responded to many people, but on Twitter, but he responded to him because he challenged him.\nSo I think there is a good way. So it\u0026rsquo;s a little bit. Thinking outside of the box, but being true to your values and using your voice wherever you can. And as a young person in business that can be really that when you see something and it\u0026rsquo;s important for you and your values, and you think that is a moral issue, stimulate the conversation with like a few more senior people. I think if you stimulate the perm, the conversation, like in a respectful and well-informed way you can have quite a bit of influence on that.\nJames: Yeah.\nIngrid: So I would not underestimated in terms of other, so that is sort of, the business was. There are other like Paul Hawken\u0026rsquo;s with the project drawdown where they have brought together lots of scientists who found different ways of hold, how to solve all the climate change problems with the existing technology and some other methods and put it all together in one book.\nSo he, I think as a world leader, And then there are many, many really interesting people who are very approachable in the whole B Corp. And why are men? So all the smaller companies where people had an idea and were founding based on purpose and their ability. And so that, that I think would be a good place to start if you really want to work in this area and go to the big corporations in Australia and around the world I think there are so many good leaders and companies and from all different fields.\nSo you\u0026rsquo;re not bound to like one area and. There are also companies like who gives a crap with the toilet paper and, and she was suddenly during COVID became really famous. And she was the brilliant the way how they started was really built on. And if you look up all the videos from the very beginning when they had the, I think he kickstart or indigo campaign that there was really interesting.\nSo I\u0026rsquo;ve supported them from lied from the start and then seen how they grown. And now the subscription as you get your box of toilet paper and tissues and paper towers, and they have given already millions for. Folate and sanitary buildings. So that\u0026rsquo;s great. So there are many inspiring paper.\nIngrid\u0026rsquo;s Advice for New Graduates # James: Yeah. Cool. That\u0026rsquo;s great to hear. And I\u0026rsquo;ve got one last question for you today, Ingrid, and that is about people starting their career. You know, people starting their career in 2022.\nIngrid: Okay.\nJames: One piece of advice, or what advice would you give to young people starting their career in 2022?\nIngrid: In 20, 22, or I feel with you to start your career now and we post what what\u0026rsquo;s what\u0026rsquo;s happening. It could be actually an advantage. But usually starting a career is like a Rite of passage point where you would have done certain things before that because of COVID haven\u0026rsquo;t happened. So what might be good to find some area where you really focus further developing yourself?\nYou\u0026rsquo;re self aware. And that could be an oil sorts of ways. It could be, it was meditation. It could be with journaling, it could be yoga, it could be just conversations with other people. So then you become more and more aware of who you are and what you want across. The biggest thing will be in 20, 22 and most likely next year as well. You come in and everything is so uncertain and complex. So it\u0026rsquo;s very challenging to say this is actually my vision or a longer term thing. It might be enough to say I would like to learn these five things and the next year. And these are my passions and this is my purpose. How do I bring this together and find the right organization to work in this area?\nAnd then during the year, take it step by step and sort of check in. Is it still what you wanted to. Or is it that suddenly other people have pushed you into something where actually in the beginning you didn\u0026rsquo;t see it coming, but then over time it sneaked in. And so you lose a little bit yourself. And so it\u0026rsquo;s good to sort of, when you\u0026rsquo;re learning about yourself to put in like regular checkpoints, let\u0026rsquo;s say every month or quarter, or you check in, is this really what. And what\u0026rsquo;s the next step for it. And then take it maybe in shorter bursts. There are some people are most likely finishing now have a long-term vision and go, and that\u0026rsquo;s great. As long as they can hold it loosely and say, I might not get there in a straight line, but I might take many detours, but I still hold it there.\nLike a beacon, like a light. That I can sort of follow, but it might not go straight. I might go and do some detours and maybe while you\u0026rsquo;re on a detour, you notice, oh, actually this is much better. And then that\u0026rsquo;s where the check-in point comes in where you notice actually now I know enough about myself. I have the courage to say no, I\u0026rsquo;m actually changing my goal and that\u0026rsquo;s fine. So that\u0026rsquo;s how I would approach it. These like, long-term. Hmm, visions and goals. They\u0026rsquo;re they are good, but only if you hold them quite likely\nJames: Yeah.\nIngrid: Having said that you would find a few people who do that and they are brilliant.\nJames: Yeah.\nIngrid: My father, majority, I think it serves them better and their emotional and mental health.\nIf they say it\u0026rsquo;s okay to change and not know, it\u0026rsquo;s okay to really not know, and then take a breath. Explore what\u0026rsquo;s around. You decide something, try it like an experiment and then learn something from it and to the next step. And that\u0026rsquo;s okay. It\u0026rsquo;s it\u0026rsquo;s you don\u0026rsquo;t have to know everything impossible.\nJames: Yeah, no, it\u0026rsquo;s very true. And I, I liked that, that thing you mentioned about having those check-ins with the. Every so often to reflect on where you are and where you\u0026rsquo;ve been and where you want to go. And just checking if way, you know, the direction you\u0026rsquo;re heading in is still that someone that you want to go and really taking the time to consider that.\nCause I think it\u0026rsquo;s easy just to kind of flow down in one path and never really consider we\u0026rsquo;ll stop to think about the alternatives that could be the alternative things that you could be pursuing. So I think, yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s a really great,\nIngrid: Yeah.\nJames: Great point. Absolutely.\nIngrid: Yes. And one, one last thing I really recommend. So Joanne Hari has written another book called stolen focus, and I think every person should read it, especially people starting and younger people who use social media and use a lot because it sort of is contradicting what we just talked about because in a way it\u0026rsquo;s He\u0026rsquo;s writing about what, how, like, for example, big media companies, Facebook and the like stealing your attention by manipulating and tracking what you\u0026rsquo;re going to do and that you can counter that only so far with. But there has to be something else around it. And the first step to change is always just to be aware of it, not nothing wrong with them as such. And don\u0026rsquo;t say that social media is bad. It\u0026rsquo;s more to be aware that sometimes you might be slowly, slowly steered into a direction without noticing that someone is manipulating you. And then when you\u0026rsquo;re aware what you really want. And you can block out for awhile what\u0026rsquo;s happening around you. And most likely you\u0026rsquo;re better, often more happy and healthy for a longer period of time. I think the book is really good.\nJames: Cause I know it came out only only recently as well, so yeah, it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s on my to read list and so I\u0026rsquo;m really excited to get to it soon cause yeah. Yeah. I\u0026rsquo;ve been thinking about reading it for a while. I know he\u0026rsquo;s been hiding it for a while, so I\u0026rsquo;m excited to get my hands on it.\nOutro # James: But yeah, thanks so much for our chat today. Ingrid. I think it was really fascinating hearing your story. Yeah about your recoveries and you know about this idea of connecting with nature. I think it\u0026rsquo;s really fundamental in today\u0026rsquo;s day and age. So thanks so much for coming on the show today\nJames: Thanks so much for listening to this episode of Graduate Theory. If you\u0026rsquo;re interested in getting my takeaways from this podcast, please click the link in the description and go to Graduate Theory.com, subscribe to the newsletter, and you can see my top three takeaways from this episode. If you\u0026rsquo;re really interested, please click subscribe or wherever you may be listening.\nI hope you enjoyed this episode and I look forward to seeing you next.\n← Back to episode 14\n","date":"24 January 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/graduate-theory/14-on-our-connection-to-nature-and-leadership-with-ingrid-messner/transcript/","section":"Graduate Theory Transcripts","summary":"← Back to episode 14\nThis transcript has been lightly edited for readability. It may still contain transcription errors.\nJames: Hello, and welcome to Graduate Theory. On today’s episode, you’ll hear from my guest about her two major accidents and what she learned from those and how those have affected their life. Moving. You’ll hear about her book called naturally successful and the main lessons that she’s taken from being a leadership coach for over 25 years, you’ll also hear about her insights into nature and what it means to have a good connection to nature and how we can use, those things in our daily lives.\n","title":"Transcript: On Our Connection To Nature and Leadership with Ingrid Messner","type":"graduate-theory-transcripts"},{"content":" Watch the conversation Graduate Theory Open YouTube ↗ Read the full transcript → This episode is a compilation of three interviews I did with friends of mine from University.\nCooper Harrod is an Associate at Macquarie Group.\nOscar Harper is a Software Engineer at Atlassian.\nAlex Von Der Borch is a Graduate Analyst at Deloitte and former president of 180 Degrees Consulting in Adelaide.\nDuring each part of this episode, we speak about different parts of their career journeys.\nSkip below to the Important Timestamps to find the parts that most interest you.\nImportant timestamps # 03:28 Cooper Harrod on Moving Interstate for work\n09:41 Oscar Harper on the SWE Interview\n27:14 Alexander Von Der Borch on what makes a good consultant\nLevel Up Your Career\n🤝 Connect With The Guests # Cooper Harrod - https://www.linkedin.com/in/cooper-harrod/\nOscar Harper - https://www.linkedin.com/in/oscar-harper-adelaide/\nAlex Von Der Borch - https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexander-von-der-borch/\n👇 Episode Takeaways # Risk and Reward # Cooper\u0026rsquo;s experience is much like my own. Moving interstate, starting a new job and moving out of home all at the same time can be very challenging. However, with challenges comes growth and we both agreed that we have learnt so much through the process.\nI really liked his analogy of shooting shots. Moving interstate is an opportunity that you don\u0026rsquo;t get very often. While you\u0026rsquo;re young is the best time to take these kinds of risks. For Cooper and myself, it\u0026rsquo;s certainly been very rewarding.\nFailure as Fuel # Oscar gave great insight into his software engineering interview experience. These interviews are notoriously difficult, Oscar explained his process for studying and how he managed to get into his dream company.\nWhat I liked about this part was how Oscar reacted to failure. He was turned away when applying for an internship and instead of being down on himself, he used his near miss as fuel for getting a graduate job.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s an inspiration for us all that even though we may face setbacks, we can use these as momentum to get up and try again rather than giving up.\nTake Your Time # That was Alex\u0026rsquo;s advice for new graduates. He is a great example of someone that has taken things slow.\nSometimes we can get caught in trying to be as successful as possible as early as possible. What is important is to realise that we are all on our own path and that comparing ourselves to others is a fool\u0026rsquo;s game.\n📝 Show Notes # 00:00 On Moving Interstate, SWE Interviews and Traits of Great Consultants\n03:28 Cooper Harrod\n03:52 Cooper On Moving Interstate\n08:12 Cooper\u0026rsquo;s Favourite Quote\n09:41 Oscar Harper\n11:06 Oscar Harper\n12:33 Oscar on the SWE Interview\n27:14 Alexander Von Der Borch\n28:26 Alex on 180 DC\n29:35 Alex on Being a Great Consultant\n34:24 Alex\u0026rsquo;s Career Advice\n35:58 Outro\n","date":"17 January 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/graduate-theory/13-on-moving-interstate-swe-interviews-and-traits-of-great-consultants/","section":"Graduate Theory","summary":" Watch the conversation Graduate Theory Open YouTube ↗ Read the full transcript → This episode is a compilation of three interviews I did with friends of mine from University.\n","title":"On Moving Interstate, SWE Interviews and Traits of Great Consultants","type":"graduate-theory"},{"content":"← Back to episode 13\nThis transcript has been lightly edited for readability. It may still contain transcription errors.\nJames: Hello, and welcome to Graduate Theory. I met today\u0026rsquo;s guest a number of years ago at the university. He\u0026rsquo;s a very, very interesting young man. He was the president of the 180 degrees consulting branch based at other university. And he\u0026rsquo;s now. Graduated consultant at Deloitte in Adelaide. Please. Welcome to the show today, Alex, on their porch.\nAlex: That\u0026rsquo;s going to be on the show. Thanks for having me on I\u0026rsquo;m graduate analyst, not graduate consultant, just because it\u0026rsquo;s a bit right.\nJames: Okay. Sure.\nAlex: Um, yeah. Cool. Yeah,\nJames: Very nice. Well let\u0026rsquo;s, um, I\u0026rsquo;d love to dive into did Alex about your autonomy and invested obviously with each other for a while, but to give the audience a bit of a background about what, about what you did at university and, and that time, um, particularly I want to discuss your time at, at 180.\nUm, cause I think that is, for me, it was a fantastic experience. In terms of preparing myself for work and getting a good, good exposure to the way things similar to the way things work in real life, rather than just the normal university project. But one thing I do want to ask you first, before we get into all of that is, you know, what did you study at university and how, how did you end up deciding to study that?\nAlex: Um, well I studied bachelor of commerce, majoring in international business, and I chose that pretty much through a process of elimination. Um, and that\u0026rsquo;s because I didn\u0026rsquo;t, I knew I didn\u0026rsquo;t want to do raw accounting or finance because my math skills weren\u0026rsquo;t incredible, um, at that stage. So that\u0026rsquo;s sort of developed over the years, but definitely wasn\u0026rsquo;t something I wanted to do specifically for a career.\nUm, and then marketing was something that I found interesting, but again, it wasn\u0026rsquo;t something I wanted to do for a career. Um, and then management is good, but it\u0026rsquo;s not something I think that is useful to study. If you want to work for someone. Um, because not a lot of people are going to hire graduates straight out of university to manage something.\nThey want to have them with a few years of experience, uh, pretty much just left international business. So, um, yeah, and it was good cause it was quite a generalist field as well. So it\u0026rsquo;s a bit of more, a bit of economics and a bit of finance with accounting. And then, um, I did pretty much a minor in management as well.\nYeah.\nJames: Yeah. Cool. Cool. I think that\u0026rsquo;s, that\u0026rsquo;s great. I think that\u0026rsquo;s a good way to do it if you will working out what to study, but it would take you in your, at any stage. It\u0026rsquo;s like, let\u0026rsquo;s first get rid of the things you don\u0026rsquo;t want to do or things that don\u0026rsquo;t fit. Um, and then from there, decide what you want to do something that\u0026rsquo;s good now did on that to get, you know, something that you are really interested in.\nUm, Talking about like your, your experiences at university and things that you did. Um, obviously like 180 was a big part of your university career through the early and especially later stages. Um, was that the only thing that you\u0026rsquo;re into or did you explore a number of university, um, extracurricular activities through your time there?\nAlex: And what I was definitely the main thing that has involved in at uni. Um, I did a couple feet get involved in a couple other clubs to a small degree, but not very much, um, just cause it wasn\u0026rsquo;t quite as rewarding as what I could get at 180. And so I got a bit of experience around some political clubs, just because I wanted to have a bit of an understanding about what was going on, that sort of, um, you know, what is democracy and all that sort of stuff and how it all works.\nAnd. Business standpoint, it\u0026rsquo;s bit just to understand the two parties a bit. Um, so I got a little bit involved in that, but not too much. Um, and then a bit in all the generic, you know, business students, society, and, um, engineers, engineers, students, society for, um, or the pub crawls and that, so, yeah. Yeah, one idea was definitely the main thing.\nYes.\nJames: Wait, that\u0026rsquo;s where they go. And what for the viewers who don\u0026rsquo;t know what 180 actually is, could you give us a bit of insight and set while they do and how to ex\nAlex: Yeah, absolutely. Um, so 180 degrees consulting is a student led volunteer consulting, um, organization. So it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s global and it\u0026rsquo;s run through universities.\nUm, and it\u0026rsquo;s pretty much just getting some of the top talent. So I think opera and fed properly. 20% acceptance rate and stuff like that. And then only about 25% of the branches who applied to start actually yet through. So it\u0026rsquo;s, I\u0026rsquo;m trying to get that the university talent who really want to do really want to get some experience and hands-on experience working with clients and then marry that up by helping not-for-profits.\nSo you just need some really cheap or pro bono consulting advice to sort of become more efficient and effective with what. Yeah, just get students who want a bit of experience and get them to help charities and get people a bit of social impact leadership, but in students as well, so that when they go into the workforce, they are a bit more conscious of having a community impact rather than just, um, getting to a job and working.\nSo.\nJames: Yeah, no, I think that\u0026rsquo;s great. Like the whole club and, you know, your experience in my experience too, it\u0026rsquo;s just really cool match between uni students that really have the skills to get to do something cool, but don\u0026rsquo;t really have the opportunity to, and then also those, you know, non-profits or smaller companies that have, you know, something they want to do, but they can\u0026rsquo;t afford, you know, cranium or to pay like the dollars for some concerns.\nSo I think it\u0026rsquo;s, you know, it was really a fantastic operation, scary for both of us to be able to do that and learn those skills as we were going through uni. Um, what would you say, like for yourself, your, how long have you, were you involved in there and, and what were, what was really some of the main benefits that you got\nAlex: From being involved?\nUm, so I\u0026rsquo;ve started in 2017, I think. And then I did that all the way through to the end of day. Um, in 2019. And then again, when I did my post-grad, I was involved as well. I\u0026rsquo;m quite lucky to be involved in that through 2020 as well. So, um, yeah. And then I\u0026rsquo;m now in the global leadership teams also, still, still involve just different capacity.\nUm, I\u0026rsquo;m also sick publications.\nJames: Oh, w what were some of the main things that you, you know, some of the main things that you\u0026rsquo;ve like picked up, or like all of the main benefits that you get out of it? Cause you\u0026rsquo;re still involved at the moment. So what keeps\nAlex: You involved? Uh, well, what keeps me involved as being able to have that social impact component, because that\u0026rsquo;s why I originally started.\nOh, why I originally applied is because I wanted to, I wanted to get some sort of volunteering throughout uni just to sort of have that social thing. Um, people in the community, but it was always trying to find something that, cause it was a bit of a trade-off between being able to volunteer and have that community impact, but also knowing that you have to get a lot of work experience in order to get a job.\nUm, and sometimes it had to be, you have to pick one or the other. Um, so I\u0026rsquo;ve been involved for that reason. So that was one of the that\u0026rsquo;s pretty much the thing that keeps me involved at the moment is having that impact, um, or at least having the opportunity to create some sort of. Um, and the things I\u0026rsquo;ve learned was sort of like soft skills.\nSo communication, and then the big things is working with clients because at university you can try as much as you, as you want to get involved in a case study, but it\u0026rsquo;s still okay. Study. It\u0026rsquo;s not a live client experience with the project. And that was probably one of the main things I learned and is useful today in, um, risk advisory.\nUm, another thing was taking. So one thing that I learned, which is a bit difficult to do at uni, because when you\u0026rsquo;re doing projects with teams, it\u0026rsquo;s very difficult to sort of get everyone to work together. And there\u0026rsquo;s always some people who don\u0026rsquo;t really want to be there and stuff. So, um, in one Addie, everyone wants to be there and they\u0026rsquo;re really trying, and they\u0026rsquo;re all pretty good at what they do as well.\nUm, so you can get a quite diverse team from engineers, I think was a medical student. They now as well with. Um, maths, computer science, law, all the different sorts of business students, you can get, um, some philosophy and MBA. So it\u0026rsquo;s a really diverse cohort. So it\u0026rsquo;s working in the team and then learning how they solve problems.\nUm, and that was something that was really good to learn. Um, especially at an early point in trying to get a job is how important diversity is and teams. Um, just because it\u0026rsquo;s yeah, from a consulting stance. Um, what you study isn\u0026rsquo;t necessarily important. It\u0026rsquo;s the way you solve problems. So if you\u0026rsquo;re studying engineering, you\u0026rsquo;re going to have a more structured way to solving problems than an art student.\nWho\u0026rsquo;s going to be a bit more qualitative, so they might do like a big brainstorming. Um, they might do a big whiteboard session, whereas engineers might sit down and just come up with criteria to go through and solve problems. Um, so that was really good to learn. Um, and then, yeah, just PowerPoint and all the sort of technical stuff and how to do that is really good because it makes you feel a bit more efficient.\nSo you can get a lot more of the same work done in a shorter amount of time when you do get to your job, which is important, it gives you a bit more time back after United. Yeah.\nJames: Yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s really cool. I think that those skills, yeah, there\u0026rsquo;s so much mentioned there, but I think so much like, well, it\u0026rsquo;s such a good opportunity really, for someone that\u0026rsquo;s at university to gain all these skills, which typically like you were saying earlier, you really cannot.\nSome, one of the main ways is the black flyer, an internship or some kind of experience like that. We can get these skills, but having, being able to match that with. Giving back to the community and like being involved with the university is, is really unique and something that certainly is so valuable getting those skills, like you were saying, communicating with clients in a real life situation.\nThat\u0026rsquo;s not like, um, you know, some case study from 30 years ago, um, it\u0026rsquo;s something, that\u0026rsquo;s something that\u0026rsquo;s like super key and super important. Absolutely. Would have prepared you well, um, for what you\u0026rsquo;re doing.\nAlex: Yeah, exactly. And on that point about the case studies being about 30 years old, that is pretty accurate.\nThey\u0026rsquo;re always about five to 10, maybe. Yeah. Even 30 years old when they finally do make their way through, um, testing to get into, um, lectures and whatnot. So when you worked in client work, you\u0026rsquo;re actually working on current business problems for not not-for-profits. Um, and one really unique challenge about not-for-profit sector is the lack of resourcing, either financial or people.\nSo it\u0026rsquo;s being able to solve problems with very limited resources on the client side. Um, normally sometimes you might even have just one or two people that are running a charity and everyone else is just volunteering when they can. So there\u0026rsquo;s no set staffing or anything like that either. Um, it\u0026rsquo;s really cool to be able to work on that.\nUm, it\u0026rsquo;s such a difficult sort of climate, um, sort of helps you get a bit more creative,\nJames: So yeah. Yeah. Yeah, spot on. Um, one thing I want to dive into next is about your life. You\u0026rsquo;re involved in it. You\u0026rsquo;re still involved with the club, but definitely in the early days you started as a junior consultant or whatever, you know, start at the bottom end and you worked your way up to becoming the president, basically running the whole club.\nUm, I wouldn\u0026rsquo;t to talk about that journey itself and about. Growing those skills from becoming someone that was really sort of taking orders to someone that was giving orders to everyone. Um, you know, what was that transition like for you and how did you go about like growing that skillset? Because it is quite, it\u0026rsquo;s something that can be difficult where you go from, you know, being told what to do versus having to be a bit more creative and set the direction.\nAnd tell people what to do. How do you go about learning, how to do that? Was that something that you just kind of spoke to people about or yeah. What was your process for doing that?\nAlex: Yeah, so a bit of it is a bit of, um, self-learning so you have to go through and reading Harvard business review articles, and just trying to find anything that\u0026rsquo;s out there about how to do he could shop pretty much.\nUm, but he had just trying to stay one step ahead and just like, if you\u0026rsquo;re genuinely really interested in stepping up. And kept taking a more responsibility than Donald. Just be something that he can read and research in your own free time. And I won\u0026rsquo;t really feel like you\u0026rsquo;re doing any work for it. Cause it\u0026rsquo;s just interesting.\nUm, but then another really big component is having someone who\u0026rsquo;s more senior than you want me to take over their role. Um, and in what 80, it\u0026rsquo;s quite a unique sort of spear and it\u0026rsquo;s the same sort of thing with, um, university clubs as if I only got about a year in a role. And then you move on. So, no one\u0026rsquo;s really going to try and block you from moving up.\nEveryone wants you to move up. So you\u0026rsquo;ve got a lot of the people. So when I was a junior consultant, there were the senior consultants, project leaders and executive who were just always encouraging people to move up. Um, so it was very easy to get some advice or, um, get some feedback or just dowel generally just direct people and go, this is something you need to do.\nUm, so getting that feedback from people is really good. Um, and just being a bit open-minded to have. Critical critical. Feedbacking, it\u0026rsquo;s sometimes difficult to hear, but it\u0026rsquo;s really important to be able to hear it and then take that on board and make changes. And then yeah, step up a little bit and yeah, just repeat that process as you keep going up because he just needed, everything\u0026rsquo;s a constant learning, learning curve.\nYeah.\nJames: Yeah. For sure. With the, you mentioned there like, you know, Harvard business, the articles and things like that, what sort of places do you go to get, uh, your information from? Because so many people get them from so many different places and that\u0026rsquo;s one area that\u0026rsquo;s like, like I\u0026rsquo;m fantastic resource.\nWhere else do you go to get that kind of information?\nAlex: That\u0026rsquo;s a good question, because it is difficult to sort of pick your, your resources and the way you find the information, because especially today\u0026rsquo;s world, anyone can publish anything they want online. So it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s difficult to sort of sift through all of that.\nUm, but with career advice sort of stuff, I\u0026rsquo;d always go to McKinsey or BCG or Deloitte or anything like that and see what they\u0026rsquo;ve got published. Cause they have their own little research wings or people who are senior. Just follow those senior leadership that the people in senior leadership, um, and you can sort of pick up some stuff from them who are happy to sort of put out that information publicly and go, this is what I\u0026rsquo;m doing and you can sort of go, okay, I like this idea and I like this idea, but I don\u0026rsquo;t really like that.\nI think it sort of builds your own leadership style as you progress and based on what those leaders are doing. Um, and then yeah, stuff like Harvard business review, and then, um, there\u0026rsquo;s a whole bunch of different professional. Organizations like the governance Institute of Australia at the Institute of internal auditors, which is something for my field.\nThat\u0026rsquo;s important, um, to sort of look or get a bit of information from each different career path has their own sort of organization. That\u0026rsquo;s set up to develop people in that field. And so they really good places to start. And then you can branch out from there. And that\u0026rsquo;s something that he doesn\u0026rsquo;t push too much is the little professional development organizations, or I say a little bit, they\u0026rsquo;re quite massive.\nAnd some of them are global as well. So, um, yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s a bit of something that\u0026rsquo;s lacking from uni is just not really having that pushed as much as I think it should be. Um, just to at least look at them, not necessarily join them because there is a financial component to that, but, um, yeah, just at least looking at them, they\u0026rsquo;ve got a lot of free resources that are useful.\nSo.\nJames: Yeah, spot on. I think, I think you\u0026rsquo;d like developing yourself in these kind of soft skills is something that. Can be more difficult because there\u0026rsquo;s not really like, it\u0026rsquo;s, it can be harder to like, you know, improve your ability to take some feedback or something like that. Or like give feedback, for example.\nYeah. Like these things are quiet, you know, they\u0026rsquo;re not very tangible things. So it\u0026rsquo;s can be difficult to say, like, if you\u0026rsquo;re doing them better or worse than you worked previously, I think that makes it even more important to, for that to be something that\u0026rsquo;s a focus and something that you really. You know, pay attention to when you seek advice and seek these resources to improve, um, cause they can really, you know, the benefit yourself and your career in so many ways, if you can get good at these kinds of soft skills, definitely that\u0026rsquo;s something that, that you\u0026rsquo;ve found like as you\u0026rsquo;ve grown these skills that it\u0026rsquo;s really helped, um, in, in other areas of your\nAlex: Career.\nYeah, absolutely. I think soft skills are sort of the reason that people get. Um, there\u0026rsquo;s some careers that are definitely exceptions to the rule where it\u0026rsquo;s definitely exceptions. So for example, investment banking and consulting, you have to have very good technical skills to get a job there. Um, but if you don\u0026rsquo;t, it\u0026rsquo;s just, you\u0026rsquo;re not going to get hired.\nThis is that simple. Um, but in some of the slightly less intense fields. So for example, with risk advisory, with timing and internal audit, um, It\u0026rsquo;s really important to be able to fit into the culture of the team that you\u0026rsquo;re going to work with. Um, so the soft skills are quite important and especially with client facing work, um, and then the technical skills are just almost to help yourself more than they are to help the organization.\nUm, so if you\u0026rsquo;re really good with Excel and PowerPoint, then that\u0026rsquo;ll make it easier for you to do your job. You\u0026rsquo;ll be a lot more efficient and you\u0026rsquo;ll be able to. I either to take on more work and step up and get more responsibility faster, or you\u0026rsquo;ll just be able to get your work done slightly faster and, uh, meet all the deadlines and make sure that you\u0026rsquo;re not the reason that a projects lagging behind or, um, you might be able to help your manager or someone on another project, or even just some of the other graduates, um, but some of their work as well.\nSo then you can take that leadership role with some of the undergraduates without really having to do. Oh, I\u0026rsquo;m try to force it to happen so you can just sort of yeah. All help each other and then build each other up because everyone\u0026rsquo;s someone else is going to have something out that they know how to do that you don\u0026rsquo;t necessarily know how to do so then it\u0026rsquo;s good to be able to contribute.\nJames: So, yeah. Yeah, definitely. That\u0026rsquo;s yeah, I like that a lot. I know one thing you were saying, um, you, you were kind of talking about that briefly was, you know, people that, you know, can comment. Oh, the, with what they\u0026rsquo;re doing. Um, one thing I really want to ask you about is like the amount of graduates that you\u0026rsquo;ve seen through your involvement with the university with, with 180, what are some key things?\nOkay. You know, traits even that you\u0026rsquo;ve seen in people that end up, you know, succeeding in that kind of environment versus the people that kind of. Yeah, they kind of stumble, um, or they can say they\u0026rsquo;re not really cut out for, in a way that you\u0026rsquo;d like, or, or in a way that, you know, th you know, there\u0026rsquo;s clearly like, sort of an, a, to B class of people in a lot of ways.\nUm, so what is the, if you were going to say there\u0026rsquo;s two classes, let\u0026rsquo;s say we\u0026rsquo;re going to pick classes. The better, you know, what is the traits that you know that they have in?\nAlex: Yeah, let\u0026rsquo;s start with that. Yeah. Well, I think it depends on what the definition of success is. I don\u0026rsquo;t know how to live a quick look beforehand and Google defines it as the accomplish accomplishment of an aim or purpose and Cambridge as the achievement of desired results.\nAnd they\u0026rsquo;re pretty, pretty broad definitions. Um, whereas we typically think of success as like. There\u0026rsquo;s a definite financial component. There\u0026rsquo;s a social economic status where, um, you\u0026rsquo;re, you know, the classic partner at a big four firms sort of thing. Um, but it really depends on what each person defines as their own personal success and what that aim or desired result is for that person.\nUm, and that is probably the main thing that would make someone fall into a typically good or typically bad category for that as a consultant is because. What they think has success. Won\u0026rsquo;t be to be a very good consultant. It might be that they\u0026rsquo;re spending more time with their family or that they\u0026rsquo;ve got better grades.\nUm, so that really is what would be the difference between a good consultant at 180 in someone who might be as much of a high performer is just because their focus isn\u0026rsquo;t on that task. The focus was on something else. Um, and that\u0026rsquo;s the only reason they haven\u0026rsquo;t sourced people. Um, either leave or feel like they will.\nGoing to be doing well or sometimes the poor performance as well. It\u0026rsquo;s just that they weren\u0026rsquo;t applying themselves to 180 as much as they were to something else. Um, and it\u0026rsquo;s not necessarily, and they definitely weren\u0026rsquo;t bad. They were very good at what they did. They just didn\u0026rsquo;t have that time spare to, I find a 180 and that\u0026rsquo;s just sort of the, the challenge of conduits is to spend your time and make that decision with the best available information as to where you want to spend your.\nUm, cause I think there\u0026rsquo;s something called like Parkinson\u0026rsquo;s law, whereas like work expands. So as to fill the time available for its completion. So if you\u0026rsquo;re giving yourself one week to do an assignment, you\u0026rsquo;ll take a week to do an assignment. And if you\u0026rsquo;re giving yourself one hour to do 180, then you\u0026rsquo;ll only, you know, you might be really good with that hour.\nYou might be really bad at that house. So, um, yeah, but some of the typical, um, sort of traits that are find with people who are good and did apply themselves. Um, was obviously, yeah, they applied themselves and they both wanted to, and did try to actively try to learn new things. Um, so they weren\u0026rsquo;t sort of stagnating though, constantly asking questions and asking for that feedback about how can they do better, what are some tools they can use to perform better?\nUm, is there anything they can research and look at in their spare time to help be better at 180 and be a better consultant? And that\u0026rsquo;s when we can sort of steer them to certain, um, organizations. And YouTube channels and stuff. Um, they work well with other people regardless of whether or not they\u0026rsquo;re similar or not.\nSo, um, it might be the typical challenge of a law student and a business student where they\u0026rsquo;ve just got different ways of thinking, and they\u0026rsquo;re not really going wait together. Or I\u0026rsquo;m an art student against an engineering student where they\u0026rsquo;re both almost polar opposites in terms of hard skill and soft skills sort of work.\nSo, um, working well with other people regardless of their background is really important. And that sort of set people apart. Because we can\u0026rsquo;t work well as a team, then it\u0026rsquo;s sort of difficult to progress up in a leadership team with the team being the operative word, because especially in the client management, it\u0026rsquo;s, everyone\u0026rsquo;s sort of doing it in their spare time.\nSo you need to work with each other to manage it. You can\u0026rsquo;t do it all by yourself. So, um, as the president, I had it, I was very lucky to have a good one. Behind me as well to help support and that\u0026rsquo;s that leadership of the prompts as a whole, but everyone has their own different child, but it was sort of just, my job was to enable them to be able to be better at their job.\nUm, rather than me trying to do everything myself as a maniac. Um, and then there\u0026rsquo;s always the classic, you know, be professional dress appropriately within your own style. So what we\u0026rsquo;re seeing is a lot of organizations it\u0026rsquo;s removing dress code policy. Um, Deloitte is even gone as far as to remove working hours.\nSo you can work as long as you work. It\u0026rsquo;s done within the week and you\u0026rsquo;re not, um, leaving your team with too much other stuff to do then. Um, yeah, you can work whatever hours he wants to, some people start at six and finish at three. So they have more time after school where their kids, um, and some people start later because they\u0026rsquo;re just not really functioning in the morning.\nSo they might start at 10 and finish a bit later in the evening. Cause that\u0026rsquo;s just works for them. Um, yeah, just be well presented within your personal style. Um, and there is a sort of line that needs to be followed as well within consulting and, you know, just don\u0026rsquo;t rock up in a t-shirt unless you\u0026rsquo;ve got a client that only wears t-shirts sort of thing.\nAnd then yet again, this last things as they like working with clients and like solving problems, um, which sort of goes to do what you love and you\u0026rsquo;ll never work attain your life. So, yeah, which is a bit dry, but I think.\nJames: Yeah. Yeah. Well, there\u0026rsquo;s many like good, good tips in there. Um, you know, or things to kind of looked if you were going to go and say, okay, I want to really develop myself in this area.\nAnd many of those skills, um, great things to kind of focus on. I\u0026rsquo;m gonna, you know, improve, improve this or improve that. I think that\u0026rsquo;s. Th there was so much good stuff in that. So I really liked that particularly one thing that you said then about, you know, what it means to be successful and really the definition, I think you said something like, you know, achieving the thing that you wanted or like, you know, doing, doing what you wanted or, you know, setting a goal and achieving it or something like that.\nUm, I think that. It\u0026rsquo;s really important and something that even for myself, that, and kind of lose track of that in a way, but he kind of gets sucked into this thing where like, success means like I have to make this much money and like have a nice car and live in a nice big house and all that kind of stuff, but really it\u0026rsquo;s just having something that you want to do and doing it.\nAnd\nAlex: That\u0026rsquo;s it. Thank you so much more than that. Um, so yeah, the hook up was really. Hmm. I mean, there\u0026rsquo;s definitely a lot there as well, and it\u0026rsquo;s definitely not. You have a person doesn\u0026rsquo;t have to do all of this at the same time. It\u0026rsquo;s those are some traits that I found that were good within them. And that varying degrees to each, for each trait, as well as it\u0026rsquo;s not like one person has a hundred percent good skills, every single one of those things that sort of they\u0026rsquo;d have varying degrees of that.\nAnd they\u0026rsquo;re the typical traits maybe across maybe 50 people that the common traits within those 50 people that were doing well, we\u0026rsquo;d all have. Um, yeah, between the 50, not all of them at once. Just sorta clarify the other way, just in case someone\u0026rsquo;s going to try and make sure that they get the perfect model with all those traits.\nJames: Yeah. Yeah. And I think that, like, that goes to what you\u0026rsquo;re saying too, about what you were saying about the work hours and how, you know, you can choose your work hours, but supporting that within your personal style is to present yourself well and still do the best you can. So, and then, uh, you know, if you accept like that, you got to do things a certain way, as long as you\u0026rsquo;re, you know, you\u0026rsquo;re.\nYou know, putting itself in a good light and doing, going about things in the right way and, you know, having good communication skills or whatever it is within that, then nothing that\u0026rsquo;s.\nAlex: And I think mostly there\u0026rsquo;s a pretty, um, sensitive to that as well, where they know that the people who they\u0026rsquo;re trying to lead won\u0026rsquo;t be perfect.\nAnd they\u0026rsquo;re not expecting that either. It\u0026rsquo;s just, if they can see someone really trying and putting in their best effort and there\u0026rsquo;ll be a lot more likely to help them than someone who\u0026rsquo;s not trying to. At least that\u0026rsquo;s something I\u0026rsquo;m very happy to do as if I can see someone really trying to do well, but I\u0026rsquo;ll happily put a bit of time aside to help them with problems or give them a bit of a device, or even if they do.\nTalk out loud with someone and they solve their own problems. It\u0026rsquo;s just, if someone\u0026rsquo;s really trying, then I think a lot more, a lot of leaders are very happy to give them time, um, if they want it. So, yeah.\nJames: Yeah. I agree. That\u0026rsquo;s, that\u0026rsquo;s definitely been my experience, like in, at what I may as well, like, uh, leaders who are around, um, you know, you were interested in learning and growing then certainly almost everyone.\nYeah. Really keen to help you and take you, help you get to wherever it is that you want to go. Now, it\u0026rsquo;s just a matter of, of asking and putting that out there. And I don\u0026rsquo;t think something that you sit back all of, of wanting to achieve something and then, you know, and then going in that direction, that\u0026rsquo;s all it takes.\nAnd then this plenty of support there. And in most cases, um, For that stuff to happen, which I think is enormously beneficial for someone that\u0026rsquo;s going to go down whatever path it is. But seeking that advice from someone that\u0026rsquo;s, you know, 1, 2, 3 steps ahead. Um, it\u0026rsquo;s it\u0026rsquo;s like\nAlex: Enormously beneficial. Yes, exactly.\nThey\u0026rsquo;ve been there, done that. And, um, that\u0026rsquo;s the thing. We\u0026rsquo;re all people, we\u0026rsquo;re all human they\u0026rsquo;ve started in the same spot. So they would have faced the similar, like similar sort of challenge. Um, so they more than likely have solved that problem. And then can just give you a quick fix solution, um, or just can tips on how to solve it for you for.\nLet\u0026rsquo;s get you to just ask the questions.\nJames: Yeah, definitely. Yeah. I think that\u0026rsquo;s, that\u0026rsquo;s super cool. And one thing maybe on that, on that, on that topic, let\u0026rsquo;s say is, you know, setting a goal and achieving it was becoming the president of 180 and being where you are now, something that you always had in mind, or is that something that you just.\nLike full and into almost as time has gone on. And you\u0026rsquo;ve said like, yes, to like, you know, the next step without having that broader vision, or do you always have that in mind that this was a clear thing you want to go and you\u0026rsquo;re quite methodical about where it was that you wanted to go?\nAlex: Um, well, that\u0026rsquo;s definitely a good question. I think it\u0026rsquo;s something I definitely had on a to-do list or anything. It\u0026rsquo;s not something I really thought that I\u0026rsquo;d ever achieve either. It\u0026rsquo;s just. When I start something, I like to see how far I can get within it and what I can learn from it. So 180 was definitely something from that where I started with the social impact side of stuff.\nAnd then while I was in it, it was like, cool. I can definitely learn a lot from this and just wanted to see how much I could learn. And then, um, just got progressed as people left the organization or, um, there were vacancies, so it just sort of applied or got asked to step up and do that sort of stuff. So, um, you know, sort of a natural progression.\nUm, I definitely wasn\u0026rsquo;t trying for what I definitely very much appreciated being given the opportunities to step up. Um, yeah, yeah. Mostly just right place, right time. And yeah, good people ahead of me that wanted to see me succeed and sort of give me that extra responsibility\nto that is something I do enjoy is sorry. Um, Um, yeah, it\u0026rsquo;s definitely something I do enjoy as it\u0026rsquo;s being able to take on a bit more responsibility for things that I enjoy doing. So one idea was definitely part of, I was just, yeah, just trying to take on more responsibility and way more things. And the role progression just came with that.\nJames: Yeah. I like that. I think you\u0026rsquo;re spot on there and I think that speaks to something too. It is like, you know, the people you\u0026rsquo;re around in the organization you\u0026rsquo;re in is so important to getting. You know those opportunities to grow your career. Um, you know, and it\u0026rsquo;s something like, like w you know, 180 in that environment, it\u0026rsquo;s like, you\u0026rsquo;ve mentioned, it\u0026rsquo;s really encouraging that people are really encouraging to, you know, want to take you to the next step.\nAnd I think whether it\u0026rsquo;s the, at this university club or whether it\u0026rsquo;s in your career, it could be anywhere. Um, but you had that environment where people are constantly looking for ways to take that. Um, to the next level is something that\u0026rsquo;s, you know, something that\u0026rsquo;s really cool, um, to be able to offer you more responsibility, more opportunities, I think, um, you know, growth and admiring it, all that kind of stuff is so important in, you know, in any position that anyone can be really, um, you know, learning and growing is, is really almost what lots about.\nSo, um, yeah, having those opportunities. Is that super important and no doubt, like you kind of reap the rewards of that too, when you go and let people, um, you know, take advantage of those resources and grow themselves, uh, it\u0026rsquo;s better for both the organization and, um, of the individuals. So\nAlex: Yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s really, you get out of life and you get out of the things, what you\u0026rsquo;ve put into it.\nSo if you put a lot of effort in the neck and energetic and a lot of heck going to get a lot of rewarding, Um, if you put a minimal amount of effort, you\u0026rsquo;re not going to get a lot of reward out of it. So\nJames: Yeah. I get out what you put in spot on there. Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think great example of that, I think certainly applies to many\nthings. Yeah. So yeah, I think that\u0026rsquo;s a good, that\u0026rsquo;s great advice. Um, one other topic I want to ask you about too, outside of. Yeah, you were you\u0026rsquo;re at Deloitte at the moment. I want to talk about your, uh, you know, how you ended up there from university and what that kind of transition was like into, into your job.\nAnd how did you actually do that? Did you apply for like, like mine and my personal approach? I just kind of pushed out heaps of I\u0026rsquo;m sure this is very common where it\u0026rsquo;s kind of like your last year of uni find like any sort of company that sounds all right. Boom and smashed them into everywhere. Um, was that your approach if we\u0026rsquo;re getting the job where you are today or how, what was your kind of transition line from the end of\nAlex: University?\nUm, more originally applied to Deloitte, just not thinking of actually get any sort of author or anything. It was just sort of, it\u0026rsquo;s interesting. And, um, thought it might be cool and to see how far I get with it as well. Um, but I originally sort of only applied, so maybe one or two companies at a time. Well research that men figure out where I think I could work well and where I\u0026rsquo;d enjoy working.\nUm, so it\u0026rsquo;s definitely a bit, I think I\u0026rsquo;m more of the minority of people who definitely don\u0026rsquo;t apply it, use the shotgun method and just apply it to everything. Cause it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s got results. I mean, one of my friends applied to, I think almost every law firm in the country and he\u0026rsquo;s got offers from the top three and the top six as well, different city, different cities.\nSo it definitely works for. Yeah. And I took that approach the second time around when I was applying for grad roles. And when I applied to a couple of different ones, and that was on the advice of my mentor from my coach, from the vacation program, at the loop and where it was just apply to other firms.\nAnd then you\u0026rsquo;ve got a bit more of an option. And I think some of the bigger firms appreciate being able to have consult graduates who have multiple. Um, and make someone who has applied to different organizations, make it a bit more competitive on the hiring side. So they have to really try to get you to come on board rather than if you\u0026rsquo;re, you\u0026rsquo;ve only applied to that one firm and sort of, if they don\u0026rsquo;t want you, then you\u0026rsquo;re done, then if they want you, then it doesn\u0026rsquo;t feel like they really winning in that regard.\nUm, it doesn\u0026rsquo;t really feel like they\u0026rsquo;re succeeding in bringing someone across. Seizing that top talent. It\u0026rsquo;s sort of just, um, there\u0026rsquo;s one person then if we can take them, if you want to say, I definitely prefer the apply everywhere sort of thing, and then you can learn different stuff and it sort of goes to the fail fast sort of methodology, where if you apply to a bunch of places in your second to last year on your last year, um, you can learn a lot about being interviewed and sort of a lot about yourself.\nUm, when you\u0026rsquo;re going through all those assessment centers and, um, all the online testing and the interviews and stuff it\u0026rsquo;s failing early and learning more about yourself as you go, and then you can sort of narrow your target or your application focus to south view. Thank you. Like, based on that interviewing experience.\nUm, so yeah, I did more of a single firm application process. But it sort of wiped out in the end, but yeah, I think applying to a lot of other places is beneficial.\nJames: Yeah. No, I think that\u0026rsquo;s cool. I think, I think, um, you know, regardless of whether you\u0026rsquo;re going from university into a career, or even if you\u0026rsquo;re mid career going into it, you know, you\u0026rsquo;re looking for another job, I think, you know, Lackey said.\nUm, yeah. Applied for multiple different roles and having that, you know, being out of practices skills, being able to share it, you have multiple offers, um, is, is something that\u0026rsquo;s like Mexico. Good. And it\u0026rsquo;s also, yeah. Um, and obviously also, like in terms of, um, you know, applying, like getting different opportunities and stuff, it\u0026rsquo;s, it is helpful to have that confidence.\nIf this doesn\u0026rsquo;t\nAlex: Work out, then I have this or whatever. Um,\nJames: So yeah, I think I liked that a lot in other, uh, your experience is great too. Um, yeah, I like it a lot. I think w like, how have you found the transition from, you know, being involved in this university clubs and having those things in university to.\nNow you\u0026rsquo;re in your head, in a job, you\u0026rsquo;re doing things, you know, not to bother or whatever. Um, how do you find that transition? Do you think it\u0026rsquo;s on you to that bestie and your involvement with clubs and things like that? It has prepared you well\nAlex: For what you\u0026rsquo;re doing now. I think it should be quite well.\nAnd that sort of goes back to the Parkinson\u0026rsquo;s law before where it\u0026rsquo;s saying, if you give yourself a limited amount of time or a year, it\u0026rsquo;s up along the amount of time, you\u0026rsquo;ll take that. The amount of time you say is the amount of time it would take to do the. Um, and that\u0026rsquo;s probably one of the main things that I can apply within a nine to five, working on several projects at a time is, um, just not having that free time to procrastinate.\nUm, it\u0026rsquo;s not like you\u0026rsquo;ve got any insane time management tips or anything or tricks, or you\u0026rsquo;ve got a spreadsheet with all the different things you\u0026rsquo;re doing. It\u0026rsquo;s just simply, you\u0026rsquo;ve done a lot of stuff through uni. So it\u0026rsquo;s like, you know, working part time studying. Facing grades and then also doing clubs and extracurriculars, and then trying to be fit and healthy as well.\nAt the same time. Um, limiting the amount of time you have to do tasks is probably a really good way to prepare for uni. And that\u0026rsquo;s where the extra curriculars come in handy. And we only have such a limited amount of time to do them. And then you start getting used to being more efficient with your. Um, so that\u0026rsquo;s, what\u0026rsquo;s being really useful going into the nine to five.\nSo you can actually finish at five o\u0026rsquo;clock because you\u0026rsquo;ve got your tasks done because that\u0026rsquo;s, you know, that\u0026rsquo;s the cutoff. So it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s sort of a bit strange leaving a before and then we\u0026rsquo;re entering into a big four life. And then, um, being able to leave at five, it feels a bit wrong, almost considering all the, um, the jokes and the memes and everything.\nIt sort of feels almost. It\u0026rsquo;s um, yeah, if you can be efficient with your time and you\u0026rsquo;ve got a good team and they don\u0026rsquo;t assign you too much work, then, um, yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s been a really good, uh, that translates almost directly to, through working life. Um, I found, um, and that was also the teamwork component as well.\nSo doing the extracurricular and especially with 180, learn how a project team functions and you start learning the big picture about how projects. So, if you understand the pre project phase, the, the working phase, the post-project phase, and then actually sourcing clients, and then how it all works as a directorship position where you need projects to work well, then managing client relations.\nSo when you\u0026rsquo;re entering in as a graduate understanding what your boss does and what your bosses boss does, it means that you can better support them, which ultimately is your job as a graduate as to make your senior\u0026rsquo;s lives. Yeah. Um, cause you\u0026rsquo;ve just typically got more free time and they might have families or they\u0026rsquo;ve just got there.\nThey will have a much larger workload as well. Um, so you\u0026rsquo;re understanding how it all fits together in a big picture, sort of high-level position helps a lot. Um, and it would make, it sort of helps you perform a bit better and Mexican makes your boss like you. So yeah. Things it\u0026rsquo;s just not having is just being efficient with your time and understanding the big picture of your job.\nJames: Hmm. Yeah, I think that\u0026rsquo;s cool. But I think the time efficiencies while even while you\u0026rsquo;re saying that I\u0026rsquo;m like my head\u0026rsquo;s going off, all these things I can be doing to like, you know, use my time more effectively, uh, you know, especially when you\u0026rsquo;re at work and you got certain amount of things to do everything out of squeeze that in is something.\nYou know, valuable for yourself, because if you\u0026rsquo;re using your time better than, you know, it means you\u0026rsquo;ve got more time to do, you know, you can finish out five walk, go do other stuff after work, and it just\nAlex: Brings you up a lot more. So I think that\u0026rsquo;s a great skill to improve on and to grow. Yeah. And then, um, project work it\u0026rsquo;s time is quite literally money.\nSo if you spend too much time doing tasks, You ended up blowing out the budget and the project ends up almost being a failure because you\u0026rsquo;ve, you\u0026rsquo;ve gone over budget or you\u0026rsquo;ve gone over deadlines. So yeah, it\u0026rsquo;s really important to be efficient with your time or otherwise you might end up doing a bit of work for free sort of thing.\nSo, yeah, yeah,\nJames: Yeah. You\u0026rsquo;re spot on there. All right. I liked that. Um, one thing I, I do want to, to finish with now is let\u0026rsquo;s say you have. Starting university again, you know that you\u0026rsquo;ve added those experiences with your degree 180. Now you\u0026rsquo;ve done all these amazing things through your whole time. Um, yeah.\nWhat is one piece of advice that you\u0026rsquo;d give someone starting university? Let\u0026rsquo;s say it started next year.\nAlex: Um, I think because you\u0026rsquo;ve spent five years at union as well. Cause I\u0026rsquo;ve, I\u0026rsquo;ve done about five years at uni as well at the age of two. Yeah. So I think that\u0026rsquo;s probably one of the things I\u0026rsquo;ve learned more than anything is that, I mean, a career your whole lifetime and career is about 40, 50, 60 years of work.\nAnd at some little thing that often gets left out when you\u0026rsquo;re doing the, um, success talk is there\u0026rsquo;s a lot of pressure to succeed at a very early age. And so it\u0026rsquo;s sort of, you know, if you, I mean, I\u0026rsquo;m 24 now and I\u0026rsquo;m just starting as a graduate, only being there for three months. I still feel like I\u0026rsquo;m relatively young in the whole careers, Korea side of stuff.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s still got so much to learn, but there\u0026rsquo;s a lot of pressure to succeed. The typical definition of like, you know, um, social status and wealth and stuff at an early age. So, um, I just, the, the piece of advice would be really just to take your time. There\u0026rsquo;s absolutely no rush. Um, if he\u0026rsquo;s still getting into a decent job or getting into the workplace that you want to work at, or.\nThe organization or the job that you want to work in, um, before you\u0026rsquo;re 30, I think that\u0026rsquo;s still a really good achievement. Um, some people might not actually have a Kevin to the job they liked. So it says, take the time, learn some skills and just be easy on yourself because you\u0026rsquo;ve got 40, 50 years to work.\nSo you might as well enjoy the 20, enjoy your twenties while he can.\nJames: Yeah. Yeah. You\u0026rsquo;re spot on. That is so key and something that\u0026rsquo;s really common. Yeah. Through speaking to you today, it\u0026rsquo;s like, let\u0026rsquo;s just take the pressure off. Let\u0026rsquo;s just chill out a bit, take our time. And then from that, from there, now let\u0026rsquo;s go, you know, at that time now, from, from this kind of more of a relaxed, you know, less stress kind of place, let\u0026rsquo;s go on and do the things that we want rather than putting pressure on yourself to say like, Yeah, I have to do this or like how to do that.\nUm, or like, if I don\u0026rsquo;t get this job, then it comes to failure or things like that. It\u0026rsquo;s just not really not constructive at all. So I think, I think that\u0026rsquo;s great advice to take one second. Yeah.\nAlex: Yeah, exactly. I think there was a quote. I can\u0026rsquo;t remember exactly what it is. I might be paraphrasing, but the, the enemy of happiness is comparison. And I think that\u0026rsquo;s very powerful in your twenties when you\u0026rsquo;re trying to be successful for whatever that is for yourself. And trying to compare yourself to people who are more senior or older or more advanced in their careers, or might have just had different circumstances leading up to that as well, because we\u0026rsquo;ve all got.\nUm, personal lives and personal histories as well. So just do the best that each person can. And just try to just focus on what you\u0026rsquo;re doing and if you\u0026rsquo;ve improved from the previous year, then just be happy with that. Yeah.\nJames: Thanks. So, yeah, it\u0026rsquo;s been wonderful chatting with you today. Thanks so much for your time.\nAlex: Okay. Um,\nJames: Bruce, before you go, if someone was looking to get in touch with you, maybe they\u0026rsquo;ve watched this and you think that you\u0026rsquo;re a cool dude. Um, what is the best way to get in touch with you?\nAlex: Um, in terms of professional stuff, I\u0026rsquo;d probably just say LinkedIn, that\u0026rsquo;s probably the easiest way to go. My name is pretty unique, so it should be pretty easy.\nUm, yeah, I think that\u0026rsquo;s probably the easiest way, so yeah, just send a message or, um, HR to connect or something like that. So,\nJames: Oh, thanks for coming on that much. Appreciate\nAlex: It. And very good questions. Let me think of it.\nJames: Sweet.\nAlex: Okay. Wrap it up now.\n← Back to episode 13\n","date":"17 January 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/graduate-theory/13-on-moving-interstate-swe-interviews-and-traits-of-great-consultants/transcript/","section":"Graduate Theory Transcripts","summary":"← Back to episode 13\nThis transcript has been lightly edited for readability. It may still contain transcription errors.\nJames: Hello, and welcome to Graduate Theory. I met today’s guest a number of years ago at the university. He’s a very, very interesting young man. He was the president of the 180 degrees consulting branch based at other university. And he’s now. Graduated consultant at Deloitte in Adelaide. Please. Welcome to the show today, Alex, on their porch.\n","title":"Transcript: On Moving Interstate, SWE Interviews and Traits of Great Consultants","type":"graduate-theory-transcripts"},{"content":" Watch the conversation Graduate Theory Open YouTube ↗ Read the full transcript → Adam Ashton is an account manager by day and a co-host of the What You Will Learn podcast. With 5M+ downloads, the podcast is all about summarising the best lessons from books and interviewing some of the best authors in the world. In 2021 both hosts released their book, “The Shit They Never Taught You”, compiling the lessons the hosts have learnt from their reading.\nLevel Up Your Career\n🤝 Connect With Adam # LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamashton1/\nWhat You Will Learn (Podcast) - https://www.whatyouwilllearn.com/\nThe Shit They Never Taught You (Book) - https://www.whatyouwilllearn.com/theshit/\n👇 Episode Takeaways # The Importance of Range # A key concept from our chat was the best way to maximise your chance of career success. We looked at the two main schools of thought, 10,000 hours and Range.\nThe 10,000 hours camp is one that is most popular. It\u0026rsquo;s the idea that to get world class at something, you need to spend 10,000 hours doing it.\nThe contrasting idea is one of \u0026ldquo;Range\u0026rdquo;. This theory suggests that the way to success is by trying many different, unrelated fields. Over time, the connections between these unrelated fields will lead to extraordinary results.\nAdam and I are both fans of Range, and see it as a great way to grow your career. Get experience in many areas, and try to find where the crossovers lie so you can add you unique pieces of insight.\nThe 3 C\u0026rsquo;s # Most of us spend a lot of our day consuming content, whether it\u0026rsquo;s something like Netflix or even something like a book or a course.\nWhile learning in this way is good and sometimes necessary, it\u0026rsquo;s an age-old notion that learning comes not from watching, but from doing. With this in mind, it\u0026rsquo;s clear that becoming a creator would actually help you to learn a lot more.\nAdam shared a great tip on becoming a creator. He says there are 3 levels,\nConsumer\nCurator\nCreator\nWhat I took from this is that you don\u0026rsquo;t necessarily need to go straight from consuming something to creating your own, you can first become a curator.\nThis is what Adam has done with his podcast, \u0026ldquo;What You Will Learn\u0026rdquo;. They first started reading (Consuming) books, then sharing their thoughts and lessons (Curating) and now after 5 years of podcasting, they\u0026rsquo;ve released their own book (Creating).\nThe Worst-Case Scenario # Adam shared a great tip on deciding if a project or side-hustle is worthwhile.\n\u0026ldquo;If this project went nowhere, would it still be valuable?\u0026rdquo;\nThe example Adam gave was when he was starting to podcast. Even though no one was listening, he was gaining valuable skills in public speaking and communication. Even if it remained that way, it was a win.\n💭 Things Discussed # ANZ\nTony Robbins\nRange - David Epstein\nOriginals - Adam Grant\nOutliers - Malcolm Gladwell\nPeak - Anders Ericson\nThe Sunny Nihilist - by Wendy Syfret\nFour Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman\n📝 Show Notes # 00:00 Intro\n01:46 Adam\u0026rsquo;s Graduate Experience\n04:41 Comparing Yourself at the 10 Year Reunion\n10:38 Leaving a Graduate Role\n12:37 Tony Robbins and Career Exploration\n14:26 The Learning and Doing Balance\n16:59 Consumption, Curation and Creation\n18:45 The Start of What You Will Learn\n25:22 Cautions on Working on Side Projects While at Work\n35:05 Favourite lessons from The Shit They Never Taught You\n36:24 Range and Mastery\n42:37 What Drives Adam to be Successful\n48:49 How To Start Reading\n51:40 Adam\u0026rsquo;s Advice for Graduates\n55:51 Outro\n","date":"10 January 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/graduate-theory/12-on-books-and-the-importance-of-range-with-adam-ashton/","section":"Graduate Theory","summary":" Watch the conversation Graduate Theory Open YouTube ↗ Read the full transcript → Adam Ashton is an account manager by day and a co-host of the What You Will Learn podcast. With 5M+ downloads, the podcast is all about summarising the best lessons from books and interviewing some of the best authors in the world. In 2021 both hosts released their book, “The Shit They Never Taught You”, compiling the lessons the hosts have learnt from their reading.\n","title":"On Books and the Importance of Range with Adam Ashton","type":"graduate-theory"},{"content":"← Back to episode 12\nThis transcript has been lightly edited for readability. It may still contain transcription errors.\nJames: Hello, and welcome to Graduate Theory. On today\u0026rsquo;s episode, we cover a wide variety of topics. We go through comparing yourself to others and how to stop doing that. The importance of rating, what it means to read books and how you can get the most out of doing that\nand range and how that\u0026rsquo;s an important thing to keep in mind as you go through your career. This episode is really great. I\u0026rsquo;m really excited for this episode. So please enjoy.\nJames: Hello, and welcome to Graduate Theory. My guest today is a man of many talents. He\u0026rsquo;s had many side hustles, including tutoring, high school students, writing books and podcasting. He\u0026rsquo;s an account manager by day. My guest, co-hosts the, what you will learn podcast. It has over 3 million downloads and he\u0026rsquo;s interviewed some of the best authors in the world.\nThe podcast is all about the best lessons from books and has also resulted in his own book. The shit they never taught you. They came out early this year, compiling the lessons that the hosts have learned from their reading. My guest today is a very accomplished and definitely well read, please. Welcome Adam, Ashton,\nAdam Ashton: Thanks, man. I\u0026rsquo;m looking forward to it. We\u0026rsquo;ve had a lot in common. So I\u0026rsquo;m sure there\u0026rsquo;ll be a, there\u0026rsquo;ll be lots of talk about, oh, so I wonder where you get that three Millstadt. Cause I think we just cracked five. So I\u0026rsquo;ll have to update that wherever that is\nJames: Well, yeah, I think, I think I actually heard it from another podcast episode you\u0026rsquo;re on. So perhaps in the time that got that\u0026rsquo;s what I was trying, I was trying to go like at over 3 million, because I knew it would be like, at\nAdam Ashton: It is over\nJames: Yeah.\nAdam Ashton: Million.\nJames: Yeah.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s at least five to me now, which is even better.\nAdam\u0026rsquo;s Graduate Experience # James: Fantastic. Well, so I want to start off like with your, with your experiences at grand. Cause I know we, like you said, we\u0026rsquo;ve got things in common and I\u0026rsquo;m a grad at ANZ at the moment and it turns out you actually gravitated and it as well about five years ago now. So I want to ask about your experience as a grad.\nAnd I know you\u0026rsquo;ve done a lot of things on the side through through uni and even through to what you\u0026rsquo;re doing now. But I want to first, let\u0026rsquo;s dial into your experience as a grad. What was that like for you and, and kind of, what did you, what did you take from that into things you do today?\nAdam Ashton: Well, I went the, probably the fortuitous path where I was, I managed to JAG the internship first. And so it was like a eight week internship over summer, the year before. Finishing uni, so had do the internship and then it was kind of like a, a try before you buy some people got offered the graduate spot and then they\u0026rsquo;d go back and finish the year of uni.\nAnd then you knew, that you had that, that gig locked in for the following year. It was probably. Maybe 40 interns. I don\u0026rsquo;t know how many spots they were going for. They were trying to fill up in my specific area. There was 10 or 12 interns probably going for five or six spots. And it was funny.\nI actually met up with some of my mates from that internship just last month. And some of them were saying like, at the time, They were like, okay, Josh, I know he\u0026rsquo;s getting in Suroosh I know he\u0026rsquo;s getting in. They\u0026rsquo;ll like, well, it was good to see Adam over these, this eight week internship, but I don\u0026rsquo;t think we\u0026rsquo;re going to see him again.\nAnd then that will perplex perplexed the first day one, when I walked back in and they were just shocked that I managed to get that offer. So that probably gives you a little bit of an insight as to I probably wasn\u0026rsquo;t the best intern. And I definitely wasn\u0026rsquo;t the best grad but I probably knew enough to just kind of, obviously I did enough and knew enough to impress enough people to get that early offer for the graduate program.\nBut in all honesty, I probably just didn\u0026rsquo;t know what I wanted to do. Didn\u0026rsquo;t know what I should be doing. And I just kind of like that. The easy path, I guess, because I was doing commerce. Everybody was like applying for internships. So I was like, well, if this is the game, this is the competition who can get this spot.\nWell, I guess I like competing, so I\u0026rsquo;ll see if I can get this job offer. So I managed to get that job offer. And then I was like, okay, well, The game now is to compete to get this grad spot. So I did what I had to do to compete, to get that grad spot. So it was kind of just like each time the game was kind of evolving without really thinking about what game I was playing.\nI was just thinking, okay, well, this is what I\u0026rsquo;m doing. So I\u0026rsquo;m going to see if I can do it as best as I can without ever taking that step back to think about what do I want to do. So, yeah, if I. I wasn\u0026rsquo;t the best grad because the game then kind of disappeared. It was like, okay, well I\u0026rsquo;ve got the grad role now.\nWhat\u0026rsquo;s what\u0026rsquo;s the game now. And I didn\u0026rsquo;t really know where I was headed. Didn\u0026rsquo;t know what I was going to do. So I really didn\u0026rsquo;t do a whole lot in all honesty. And so it was a short-lived graduate experience. That\u0026rsquo;s for sure.\nJames: Yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s cool. When is that? Intentionality almost is saying that,\nComparing Yourself at the 10 Year Reunion # James: I\u0026rsquo;ve been reading a bit about recently. Is that something that you now. Like you\u0026rsquo;re saying you sort of in that competition of getting grad roles and you\u0026rsquo;re sort of doing the successful things at work or whatever, and then not really having that reason or really deciding to do that yourself.\nYou\u0026rsquo;re just kind of following along with no real direction. Is that something that you take in to the things you do now, more so than you did in the past?\nAdam Ashton: Definitely more now. Yeah. And I, I still I\u0026rsquo;d be lying if I said I didn\u0026rsquo;t get those, those pangs of of envy when you see other people were like, we were meant to have our 10 year high school reunion. But COVID kind of put that off. Cancel that a couple of times. So we haven\u0026rsquo;t had it yet, but still like at that 10 year, mark.\nWith different people, doing different things. So have climbed the corporate ladder. Who\u0026rsquo;ve got fancy titles and big salaries and traveling around the world. And there\u0026rsquo;s still those pangs of envy that if maybe if I had to stuck it out and worked harder at this specific thing and this narrow path, and I probably could have climbed up if I had chosen to do that.\nBut at the same time, there\u0026rsquo;s definitely no regrets. There\u0026rsquo;s definitely much more intentionality around sort of carving my own path and, and trying to work out my own way through as opposed to just following. The well-worn path that\u0026rsquo;s laid out in front of you.\nJames: Yeah. Yeah, I think that\u0026rsquo;s cool. I think that\u0026rsquo;s really cool. And I think that whole intentionality, really deciding what you\u0026rsquo;re going to do, I think is so important because it\u0026rsquo;s, even if it\u0026rsquo;s like, let\u0026rsquo;s say you even managed to get those, corporate, you\u0026rsquo;re 10 years in, you need the fancy title.\nLike you said, you might not even have enjoyed doing that. So it\u0026rsquo;s actually deciding to do it is really important. And having that interest in doing it as well as is important, because you.\ndon\u0026rsquo;t want to get in that situation where you\u0026rsquo;ve done that for so long. And then now you\u0026rsquo;re realizing, okay, I\u0026rsquo;m going to decide to like, take control over what I\u0026rsquo;m doing.\nAnd then you\u0026rsquo;ve got to almost, maybe not wasted, but it becomes harder to do that because you\u0026rsquo;ve just got so much time sunk into doing that same thing.\nAdam Ashton: Yeah, definitely. I wouldn\u0026rsquo;t have enjoyed it at all. I don\u0026rsquo;t think I would have enjoyed the path and I wouldn\u0026rsquo;t have enjoyed the destination either. So it\u0026rsquo;s good. It\u0026rsquo;s definitely good to know that. And obviously if it would have been better to know that even earlier, but It probably was a thing I had to do rather than now.\nLike if I had completely gone somewhere totally different from the start, I probably would\u0026rsquo;ve had more of the what ifs, but cause I kind of had started along that path and I knew what was lying ahead. It gives me I can sleep a bit easier at night knowing that I\u0026rsquo;m not missing out.\nJames: Yeah. Yeah. I think even going back to what you were saying about like the 10 year reunion, because I had my, I mean, when was my, I had my five-year one recently as well, when you can start to see that kind of come into things where this person is doing that, like, what have I done with my other five years?\nLike, have I just been like, I\u0026rsquo;ve been lazy, like, we would like, that whole thing where you\u0026rsquo;re sort of comparing yourself to everyone. Is there anything that you try and do to kind of stop that or, or. Right. Yeah.\nAny, yeah. How do you deal with that when you\u0026rsquo;re faced with those things where someone\u0026rsquo;s sitting there and they\u0026rsquo;ve done some cool thing, and then you really, it was almost, you almost shine the light back on yourself and thinking, oh, like, why haven\u0026rsquo;t I done something that\u0026rsquo;s, the same as that, even, even in your case where like you maybe didn\u0026rsquo;t even want to do that, but it\u0026rsquo;s still hard to be like, oh, like I could have done that if I wanted to, but I chose not to sort of thing\nAdam Ashton: Yeah, definitely. I think one, one part of it is, is recognizing that one part of it is, is recognizing that. Their goal is not your goal. They\u0026rsquo;re sort of, their position is not your position. Their trajectory is not your trajectory. They\u0026rsquo;re on their own path and you\u0026rsquo;re on your own path. That\u0026rsquo;s definitely one part of it.\nBut then I think the, probably even the better part of it is recognizing that, Hey, whatever they did to achieve their success, like they obviously worked hard or knew somebody or tried a lot of things or whatever it was that they did to get to where they are. You can probably do that as well. So not looking at.\nWith a sense of envy, but looking at almost like with a sense of sort of admiration and thinking, okay, well, good on them. They\u0026rsquo;ve done that. I could probably do the same thing if I wanted to emulate that. What can I do as well? So not looking at it as a poor woe is me. They\u0026rsquo;re up there and I\u0026rsquo;m down here more thinking, okay, well, they got there somehow.\nWhat can I take from them to then apply to my own sort of trajectory and my own journey and do that as.\nJames: Yeah, I like that a lot. I think it\u0026rsquo;s even saying, good on them for doing such a cool thing. Like, like, congratulations, like you\u0026rsquo;ve done so well, like, and kind of having that more of a collaboration type thing where it\u0026rsquo;s like, Good on you for doing this. That\u0026rsquo;s so great. Like, rather than it being this sort of competition where it\u0026rsquo;s like, oh, they\u0026rsquo;re, they\u0026rsquo;re up here and yeah, like you said, they\u0026rsquo;re up here and I\u0026rsquo;m down here and it becomes this kind of weird thing where you\u0026rsquo;re sort of comparing yourself and then it, I dunno, it could even affect the relationship almost because you\u0026rsquo;ve just got this thing in your head where it\u0026rsquo;s like, whenever you speak to them, it\u0026rsquo;s like, oh, you\u0026rsquo;re, you\u0026rsquo;re doing this and I\u0026rsquo;m doing this.\nAnd so I don\u0026rsquo;t feel worthy to speak to you now. Or like, I don\u0026rsquo;t like you because you\u0026rsquo;re, you\u0026rsquo;re like further ahead than me. And then it, whereas it could be something really great weather in this position and it\u0026rsquo;s, it could be a fantastic opportunity to meet, like to connect to them. And like you said, work out how they did that and, and take some of those lessons into what you\u0026rsquo;re doing yourself.\nAdam Ashton: Yeah, definitely most certainly. And I think then the other, it kind of works. It works multiple different ways as well. It works for other, your other friends who are doing different things. I think like the five-year it starts to happen. I think the 10 years really when it happens. Cause the five-year like people are probably.\nStill at uni or just finishing uni. Whereas the 10 years, I kind of, you got a few years of career under your belt. Some people have really accelerated some people haven\u0026rsquo;t and those differences start to appear. I think the one that\u0026rsquo;s worse for me is then looking down at people, who have, five years younger who have then accelerated past me.\nThat\u0026rsquo;s probably harder than the people who are at my level and went higher, but that\u0026rsquo;s, that\u0026rsquo;s probably a different story.\nLeaving a Graduate Role # James: Yeah. Oh, that\u0026rsquo;s so funny. Well, yeah, I want to, let\u0026rsquo;s talk a little bit more about your career and stuff. Cause you\u0026rsquo;re like you said, you were grounded and sandwiches, which is great. And then I\u0026rsquo;m curious to know, you kind of were talking about how you didn\u0026rsquo;t really enjoy that a great deal when you couldn\u0026rsquo;t really see yourself going further into sort of the most traditional.\nKind of path. What was, what happened after that? Did you change jobs or, what was the kind of thoughts at that stage?\nAdam Ashton: Yeah. So I\u0026rsquo;d got, so did that eight week internship. I did the first six month rotation, and then I got about halfway through the second six month rotation. And this, this whole time along like, even while I was in uni, I, I tried and started a couple of different businesses, just like small, small businesses, mostly my own sort of.\nLike may selling my time for money type of thing. And trying to scale that as opposed to like creating a product or creating an app or something like that. But so I\u0026rsquo;d done those. So I kind of always already had that itch and then I started reading books. So I kind of already had that itch as well.\nI was going to expose to a whole bunch of different ideas initially. I was just, I thought that was the path that I thought I knew was the only path there was, but then I started. There are all these different paths that were possible. And then I went to Tony Robbins as well, went to Tony Robbins, walked on fire unleash the power within.\nAnd that was probably the moment where I was like okay, well, I\u0026rsquo;m not liking this. I\u0026rsquo;m not going anywhere. The problem for me was like, I wasn\u0026rsquo;t doing it properly because I was, my mind was elsewhere that I wasn\u0026rsquo;t really focused. I wasn\u0026rsquo;t doing the job properly. I wasn\u0026rsquo;t learning anything. I wasn\u0026rsquo;t doing what I should have been doing.\nSo for me, the best thing was just to get out or to. And it was just kind of the circuit breaker I needed. I think I still, it wasn\u0026rsquo;t like, that was the moment where I quit and then everything became clear. It was still very murky and it probably still is a bit murky. But it was probably enough to then start to force intentionality, I guess, start to think a little bit more about what I want ahead.\nTony Robbins and Career Exploration # James: Yeah.\nthat\u0026rsquo;s really cool. And really interesting how you went to a Tony Robbins thing because I\u0026rsquo;ve seen them around as well. And like, well, like I don\u0026rsquo;t think he is, he wouldn\u0026rsquo;t have done them in person. Definitely not in Australia in the last few years, which is probably like the times where I would have started looking.\nCause I\u0026rsquo;ve, since, I\u0026rsquo;ve been working the last year. But that\u0026rsquo;s really interesting. What was the, I\u0026rsquo;m curious to hear your thoughts on doing those things, like paying for those kinds of courses and sort of almost upskilling, if you want to call it that or like those soft skill kind of experiences or, things like that.\nWhat was your process was kind of deciding to do that? was there anything that led you to seeing that as an opportunity and really wanting to be.\nAdam Ashton: I think it was just that I wanted I wanted more than what I was already getting as in, I wasn\u0026rsquo;t really content with the, with the job and the sort of the career path that I was on. So I wanted something else and, and it came in all different forms, obviously the F the free stuff, listening to podcasts all the time, trying to meet different people all the time.\nAnd then like the smaller paid stuff, which was the, the books mostly As you can say, got a shit load of books behind me. And so there was lots of buying books and then obviously the bigger stuff then as well was like the, the in-person events or the courses and things like that. It was just came from always wanting more, wanting to learn more, wanting to do something different, wanting to try out different things.\nWhich was at the time. Very, very good. But I think it comes to a point where you probably need to stop trying to take in more information and start doing stuff. So if you, if I was like, if fast forward five years, I was still going to all these different courses, trying to find the right thing, then I think that will be bad.\nBut when I\u0026rsquo;m in there for a little bit of that searching period, and then actually starting to make some decisions and some commitments and signed to take the next path I think was definitely.\nJames: Yeah, I think that\u0026rsquo;s interesting. Definitely\nThe Learning and Doing Balance # James: Cause I think that\u0026rsquo;s something that I found too, like what you sit there about, reading and, and doing like you almost learn. As like your full-time thing rather than sort of acting on the learning. And that\u0026rsquo;s something that I found it, I think was it 20, 20?\nI think I, I read 50, it was my goal to like read 52 books in a year. So I was like, yeah, I\u0026rsquo;m going to read a lot, like, read and sort of, sort of cheat by listening to audio books as well. But I was kind of doing that. And then as I got closer to the end of the year, I\u0026rsquo;d kind of, maybe had like six or seven to do in December.\nSo I was odd, like the pressure was on basically. It\u0026rsquo;s always just, reading as much as I could. And I just found that I was reading, not because I really wanted to, or because it was something that I was reading because like, oh yeah, I read this book and it will be valuable in this way.\nIt was kind of just to raise so that I could get to this particular number. I think that can kind of happen with the courses and even books as well. It\u0026rsquo;s like, you just, it\u0026rsquo;s like almost a mini achievement to read the book rather than getting the achievement from. Doing something with what\u0026rsquo;s in the book, which I think is probably it\u0026rsquo;s like way more important.\nAdam Ashton: I do think people can get addicted to learning and stuff and it, and again, it comes like another game or another competition. Like for me, that competition of like getting that job and then getting the graduate position, like it\u0026rsquo;s almost like a competition with yourself. How many books can you read?\nWithout the intentionality of what am I reading and why? So I did like some of those as well. I did the Seth Godin, the marketing seminar. I did the podcast workshop as well, and then coach the podcast workshop a couple of times as well.\nAnd so I\u0026rsquo;ve definitely seen people in those. Realms as well that like keep doing all the different courses compared to some people that do one or two courses and take what they\u0026rsquo;ve learned and actually go and apply it. So it\u0026rsquo;s, you definitely can get addicted to a learning, I think, which is it\u0026rsquo;s not the worst addiction.\nThere\u0026rsquo;s plenty of worse addictions out there. But if you can get over that learning addiction and turn it into a doing addiction as well, that\u0026rsquo;s probably even better.\nJames: Yeah, no, I totally agree. And not, that\u0026rsquo;s why I really like what you\u0026rsquo;ve done with your podcast and what you will learn and the book and everything like that, because it\u0026rsquo;s, you\u0026rsquo;re turning this thing. You have books if you were, if you were like just reading the books and taking notes and, as, as your only thing, which is obviously a massive part of the podcast, that by itself is kind of a bit of a, It\u0026rsquo;s not a waste of time, but it\u0026rsquo;s, you\u0026rsquo;re kind of in that wall with saying like the learning addiction type phase, where when you\u0026rsquo;re actually implementing it in the podcast and you are sharing that information in your sort of condensing it into something that\u0026rsquo;s valuable for people that makes what you\u0026rsquo;re doing really valuable.\nConsumption, Curation and Creation # James: And I think that\u0026rsquo;s, yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s a great example of taking, even if it\u0026rsquo;s something like you\u0026rsquo;re learning, but you\u0026rsquo;re repackaging it and, making a YouTube channel about it or something, I think that\u0026rsquo;s, that\u0026rsquo;ll teach you real skills\nand, Really convert that thing into something that\u0026rsquo;s\nAdam Ashton: It\u0026rsquo;s a good hack. It\u0026rsquo;s a good kind of middle ground.\nI think a lot of people go through, like the, a lot of people go through the learning phase. The, the consumption, the consuming phase where you\u0026rsquo;re reading books and learning books. And then a lot of people want to get to the creation phase, which is doing something, whether that\u0026rsquo;s, starting a business, whether that\u0026rsquo;s working really hard to get the promotion and the, the new fancy title at work whether that\u0026rsquo;s some kind of creative endeavor on the side, whatever it is, like people want to get to that point.\nI think the good middle step between. Consumption and creation is curation, which is kind of where we went with the podcast. It\u0026rsquo;s kind of like, okay, well we\u0026rsquo;re learning all this stuff. And then we\u0026rsquo;re going to try and share that with people as well. We\u0026rsquo;re going to try and break that down and make it a little bit simpler for other people who want to consume, but probably don\u0026rsquo;t have the time to read a book every single week.\nWe\u0026rsquo;ll kind of be that middle ground. It was a good. For them in that they didn\u0026rsquo;t have to read a book every week. They could listen to a 30 minute podcast episode on it and get 80% of the value out of it. But it\u0026rsquo;s also a good hack for us because we probably weren\u0026rsquo;t, we couldn\u0026rsquo;t jump straight to the creation phase of making our new stuff.\nSo this was a good middle ground where we didn\u0026rsquo;t feel as much pressure with it. Cause we weren\u0026rsquo;t trying to. Teach everybody all our own. We\u0026rsquo;re not these gurus is masters from the top of the hill preaching to everyone that we\u0026rsquo;re right and you\u0026rsquo;re wrong. And this is how you should do it. It was kind of like we\u0026rsquo;re in the middle ground of reading books and just sharing that.\nSo it was a not sort of halfway step, a good little hack, I think.\nJames: Yeah. Yeah. Haven\u0026rsquo;t heard it described like that before, and I think that\u0026rsquo;s, that\u0026rsquo;s really cool. That\u0026rsquo;s a good way of thinking about a different. I think that\u0026rsquo;s a good,\nThe Start of What You Will Learn # James: I\u0026rsquo;m interested to hear more about the podcast and that kind of stuff now. So what was the store and kind of the starting point of this whole podcast?\nHow did, how did It begin?\nAdam Ashton: It definitely started. That was probably the best thing that came out of the answer. Grad program actually definitely started as a, through the NZ grad program. Whereas me and my other mate also called it. We had just finished uni around the same time and we\u0026rsquo;d both started out big corporate jobs in the city at the same time, both started our grad programs.\nAnd we thought, okay, well, we\u0026rsquo;re sort of meeting up beforehand. And so let\u0026rsquo;s try and keep meeting up. And for us, it was also. And attempt to meet up with some girls as well for we\u0026rsquo;d have our Friday morning coffee and breakfast. And we invited, I think the first week there was probably five or six girls plus us, two guys, maybe one or two other guys as well.\nAnd then the numbers kind of dwindled slowly, slowly, slowly. And it just ended up just being me and Adam were the only ones left. And so, we just started talking about books and what we\u0026rsquo;re reading, cause we both liked reading. And then we thought, okay, well we\u0026rsquo;re, we\u0026rsquo;re kind of talking about books already, but we\u0026rsquo;re talking about different books that the other person knows nothing about.\nSo let\u0026rsquo;s try and sync up and read the same thing at the same time so that we can at least know what the other person\u0026rsquo;s talking about. And we can discuss it a bit more deeply together. And then it was just like, well, Meaning up once a week to talk about what books we\u0026rsquo;ve read. Let\u0026rsquo;s just like whack a microphone in the middle and hit record and see how it goes.\nSo that\u0026rsquo;s kind of the, the natural evolution of how it went. And then that was really, it was just we\u0026rsquo;d hit start, hit, like hit record talk shit that we normally would talk over coffees, but this time just with a mic in between us and then hit stop and then uploaded it and then gradually got more serious over.\nJames: Yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s a great store. And, I think starting things like that, where it\u0026rsquo;s very organic and it\u0026rsquo;s just something you would be doing anyway, is a great way to kind of even introduce yourself into, like you\u0026rsquo;re saying that, going from the consumer to the cure. Do they create a, it\u0026rsquo;s a great sort of first step where it\u0026rsquo;s like, yeah, we\u0026rsquo;re just doing this anyway. And it\u0026rsquo;s almost like that idea as well, where we\u0026rsquo;re not going to do it because we have this huge audience that\u0026rsquo;s going to listen to us and, and whatever, but it\u0026rsquo;s just even for your own your own resources. So you can go back in the future and you can come back and say, oh, what was that book we read?\nWhat did I think about it? Cause I found even for myself, that\u0026rsquo;s something, that\u0026rsquo;s one of the really main reasons why I would like write a blog post or do something like that is just so I can go back myself and see like later not, not really at this stage, at least for any massive audience that\u0026rsquo;s gonna watch as well.\nAnd I think that\u0026rsquo;s, I think that\u0026rsquo;s great. What you guys, th th th the starting story of that.\nAdam Ashton: Yeah, definitely. I think that\u0026rsquo;s that. I think that\u0026rsquo;s really what it was. We started out like, yeah, there\u0026rsquo;s probably dreams and aspirations of being the next Joe Rogan or Tim Ferriss or something. But but more realistically than that was just like, okay, well we\u0026rsquo;ll. Part of, it was, we\u0026rsquo;re not really adding a whole lot.\nWe want to do some kind of side thing. So, it was an easy entry point, but it was also then thinking about, well, It\u0026rsquo;d be nice if people listen, but if they don\u0026rsquo;t, what are we going to get out of it? And there are so many benefits of starting a podcast for us. Like there was the, the book element of it. It forced us to read more.\nLike now we\u0026rsquo;re reading. I think I just in 2021, I think I did like 75 books or something. Whereas at the time I was at like 25 or maybe 30 books a year. So it was kind of forced us to ramp that up to a book a week. Plus then the massive increase in retention because. A lot of those first 30 books that I read, I read them and they felt good at the time.\nAnd then there was probably some good stuff in them, but I couldn\u0026rsquo;t tell you what was in them whatsoever, but by like kind of dissecting the book, doing notes, preparing an episode, talking about an episode, editing an episode, listening back to an episode at forced us, forced us to retain so much more of what we will.\nThen there was also like the, the hard skill of podcasting. Like, what equipment do you get? How to your quarter, where does it go afterwards? So there was like the specific podcast skill, but then there was the more broad Meadows skills are things like communication listening speaking, public speaking, trying to reduce how many times you say um, trying to be clear and concise, trying to have some kind of arc with where you\u0026rsquo;re going.\nSo you don\u0026rsquo;t just like ramble on and on and on, but there\u0026rsquo;s kind of a point to what you\u0026rsquo;re saying. So there was kind of all these benefits. Of starting a podcast that even if nobody listened, it was going to be a great project for us. It was really no downside except for the time investment and, 25 bucks to buy a book.\nAnd really the upside was then maybe somebody listens one day.\nJames: Yeah. I think that\u0026rsquo;s such a good way to look at a side hustle or a project or whatever it is that like, even if this completely blew off and nothing happened, would it still be beneficial? And if it is, then that\u0026rsquo;s a great sign that, it\u0026rsquo;s, what\u0026rsquo;s what doing.\nAdam Ashton: I think if you go into it with the idea of, okay, we\u0026rsquo;re going to start a podcast. And then in six months time, we\u0026rsquo;re going to have a hundred thousand listeners every week and we\u0026rsquo;re going to be making 10 grand a month and we\u0026rsquo;re going to quit our jobs and, stick the finger up at the boss and go and run around.\nAnd then this is a full-time job. You\u0026rsquo;re almost definitely not going to or almost definitely not going to achieve that goal because. You\u0026rsquo;re going to be so focused about the end goal and the money and the listeners and trying to do all that stuff. That really, you\u0026rsquo;re not really in it for the right reasons.\nWhereas if you\u0026rsquo;re doing it with the downside is just personal growth and personal development and learning and improving yourself. And then maybe down the track, then maybe you do make all that money and have all those listeners and, and become the next Oprah Winfrey or something of podcasting and get massive then.\nThat\u0026rsquo;s great.\nJames: Yeah, I think that\u0026rsquo;s, I think that\u0026rsquo;s really important even, from that idea of sort of enjoying the process versus having some clear thing, that\u0026rsquo;s like, okay, yeah, this is definitely going to happen. And like, and then, then life will be good. Once I, once I quit my job and I\u0026rsquo;m earning this much money from the podcast, then it will be so good.\nRather than it being, like you said, this idea of. We\u0026rsquo;ll just do it because it\u0026rsquo;s kind of fun and if it ends up being something good, then that\u0026rsquo;s great. But if not, then that\u0026rsquo;s also fine. I think that\u0026rsquo;s really important.\nAdam Ashton: Yeah, exactly. It really is just that through different types of motivation, like either that the extra extrinsic motivation where you\u0026rsquo;re doing it for the money. Cause you want to get to the point where you\u0026rsquo;re making five, 10 grand a month. Then if after a month you\u0026rsquo;re of. $0 or probably negative dollars after you bought your Mike and stuff, then you think, well, this isn\u0026rsquo;t working, so I\u0026rsquo;m going to quit.\nCompare that to the intrinsic motivation. You want to do it cause you\u0026rsquo;re developing skills after a month. You\u0026rsquo;ve definitely ticked that box. You\u0026rsquo;re achieving those goals and you\u0026rsquo;re well, on the way.\nCautions on Working on Side Projects While at Work # James: Yeah. Yeah. I want to talk about w before the podcast, we were talking about some things that happened with the workplace and doing this kind of stuff on the side. Was there any kind of friction between, kind of engaging in this sort of commercial endeavor? Also being involved in their full-time work at the same time.\nW how did you go with, with navigating that?\nAdam Ashton: Definitely a lot of friction. And mostly self-inflicted as well, probably my own fault in the way that I did it. But I\u0026rsquo;m keen to hear yours as well. What\u0026rsquo;s how\u0026rsquo;s yours going with? I know, like I kind of half under the answered culture, I\u0026rsquo;d say have you gone inside the answer grad program? I was also doing a podcast on the side.\nLike, do you, who do you tell? What do you tell them? Does anybody know? Is it top secret? What\u0026rsquo;s the go what\u0026rsquo;s your side. And then I\u0026rsquo;ll, I\u0026rsquo;ll give you my version as well.\nJames: Yeah.\nI think at the moment, well, I was quite up front with it. Cause I\u0026rsquo;ve been told by people, I, even while I was kind of, I wasn\u0026rsquo;t sure what to do really, because I didn\u0026rsquo;t want it to become this. Like just like, just preparing myself in case it became something really big. And then I was devoting all this time to, I didn\u0026rsquo;t want to.\nHave it, I wasn\u0026rsquo;t sure how it worked with like sometimes when companies, if you work on something on the side, it like counts is the company\u0026rsquo;s property still. Like they own everything that you do. So I wasn\u0026rsquo;t sure if like how that even worked. So I emailed some of the HR gals. I was like, yeah, like this one I\u0026rsquo;m thinking of doing or like whatever.\nAnd then I had to put in this form that was kind of a, I\u0026rsquo;m not sure of the exact name, but it\u0026rsquo;s kind of a declaration of conflict or something. It\u0026rsquo;s similar to what you would do if your, you were employed in a high position and then like, your brother was like also the CEO of like another company that was like in the same field, like, like something, kind of that conflict.\nAnd they were just like, yeah, it seems pretty fine to me so that there was no issues with that, which was great. And then a lot of the grads in, and everyone knows about it. Some of them will be listening to this episode. I\u0026rsquo;m sure. And they\u0026rsquo;re all quite supportive of it, which is good, but yeah, I haven\u0026rsquo;t so far, I haven\u0026rsquo;t run into any problems, which has been great.\nAdam Ashton: Nice. Yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s good. So my first big flop, definitely the wrong way I went about it. It was when I was at ANZ ed and we started this podcast and we were reading all these books and learning all this stuff. And we were kind of thinking in read like the one minute manager with he called me and my boss is so shit, why doesn\u0026rsquo;t she read this this book?\nAnd she\u0026rsquo;d be so much better as a manager and then. So then, and then like, you\u0026rsquo;d think about all this other guy in my team. He\u0026rsquo;s so bad at time management. Why doesn\u0026rsquo;t he read, eat that frog. And he could actually be good at managing his time and he wouldn\u0026rsquo;t have to work so hard cause he\u0026rsquo;d get more done.\nAnd like, so it was probably that like the first 10 books of like the high and mighty. I\u0026rsquo;m so good. I\u0026rsquo;m better than you. Why don\u0026rsquo;t you read this stuff? Which was definitely like, I, I wasn\u0026rsquo;t like blatantly going up to my boss and saying, you\u0026rsquo;re a bad manager. You should read this book. But I think it was probably just that air of superiority completely unwarranted, like ridiculously unwarranted as well.\nJust that when you first started reading books, I reckon you get, everyone gets a little bit of that the first time. And then, like, I kind of started telling people about the podcast, like I was doing this podcast. Like it was so early on that it was ridiculous to think about that. Like, I\u0026rsquo;d get, we\u0026rsquo;d get a hundred downloads or something and like, yeah, it was impressive to us at the time, but to somebody else, so like, why, why should I care?\nLike, what\u0026rsquo;s the, what\u0026rsquo;s the difference? Like, you\u0026rsquo;re just like, why are you wasting all this time? Just do your job type of thing. So I kinda got the wrong one about the wrong way to answered and just, it was a ridiculous way to do it and completely your marched at the time as well. And then. We didn\u0026rsquo;t mention it, but I actually went to Linfox grad program as well after the Anzac grad program.\nSo I went to the Linfox grad program and I was like, okay, I did it all wrong last time, this time I\u0026rsquo;m going to do it, rod. I\u0026rsquo;m not even going to say anything, not going to talk about reading books, not going to talk about the podcast, not going to talk about anything. And so I was actually writing my own book as well.\nAnd the. It was it got to the point where I\u0026rsquo;d probably spend almost two years writing this book and then finally finished it and then finally got it done and sent off to the printers. And then I was getting 2000 copies, like shipped on a pallet, it was like, I dunno heaps and heaps of big boxes were coming to my place on like a Tuesday afternoon at 4:00 PM or something.\nSo. I managed to sneak out without telling you, I didn\u0026rsquo;t say I\u0026rsquo;m going to pick up this book that I just wrote. Because I was, I didn\u0026rsquo;t want to tell anybody. So I managed to sneak out, got home and I\u0026rsquo;d miss them by like 20 minutes. And they were like, okay, we\u0026rsquo;re going to have to come back tomorrow and get it.\nSo then I was like, oh shit, what do I do now? Th I should have just faked a sickie. But I call my boss and I was like, oh, sorry, I had to rush off. Cause I was getting, I had written this book and I got this book printed and I was getting 2000 copies and, and I had to get it, but I miss them. So now I\u0026rsquo;m going to have to stay home tomorrow to get this.\nAnd at the time he was kinda like, oh, that\u0026rsquo;s, that\u0026rsquo;s good. Bring us a copy in short round when the next day when he come back and it was kind of like, should I do that? And the answer was, no, I probably shouldn\u0026rsquo;t have at that time in that place. But I did the next day, I brought in a book and showed people and us, and I could tell from that moment again, that things kind of shifted again.\nAnd this is not to say this is going to be for every company for every situation. But for me at the time, the team I was in the people I was working with and probably the attitude that I was also carrying as well, it was it was a very horrendous mix. So that was like my, my stumbling block. So then like fast forward, maybe six weeks I could tell the boss had his perception of me had changed in the wrong way.\nAnd I was in a team of a lot of older people who had been at the company for a long time and who had probably been in the same role for a long time as well, who are a bit older and a bit slower. And they just, they knew what they had to do and they got it done and then went home at 5 0 1 every single day.\nWhereas I kind of come in with it a little bit more youthful, exuberance and energy, and. We\u0026rsquo;ll try to work a little bit harder after my first failure at ANZ ed. And then anyway, so I had to, I had to go see her one time. Cause she said that, that the boss had said a few things about me and she wanted to check that everything was okay.\nAnd she said that the boss had said to her. I think Adam\u0026rsquo;s working on another book on work time. I was like, what? And apparently the reason was that I was just typing too fast and I was working too hard and I was too enthusiastic at work. And I was like, well, is that a bad thing? She\u0026rsquo;s like, yeah, can you, maybe it will be a good idea if you just typed slower.\nI was like, what? So I do less work and that\u0026rsquo;s going to be better. And so it was just because like, like everybody around here was like old and slow and they just did what they had to do. They kept their head down, they stayed in there, they stayed in their lane. And that was that. Whereas I\u0026rsquo;d sort of come in and tried to do a few different things and, and that was a bad thing.\nSo you definitely have to be careful of who you pick and tell what you\u0026rsquo;re up to, how you do it when you do it, if you should do it whatsoever. But that was definitely another red flag and probably long story short. I also wasn\u0026rsquo;t in that grad program for too long either. Before leaving again,\nJames: Hmm. Yeah, I think that\u0026rsquo;s, I think that\u0026rsquo;s a cool story and I think it\u0026rsquo;s a lot, like you\u0026rsquo;re saying it\u0026rsquo;s important to, I guess now you\u0026rsquo;ve had this experience. It makes it easier. You wouldn\u0026rsquo;t like, it\u0026rsquo;s hard to know at the time. And if this is a useful lesson, I think for people listening, right. To make sure you care with what you\u0026rsquo;re sharing and\nAdam Ashton: I learned, I learned the lesson the first time, and then I just couldn\u0026rsquo;t, I couldn\u0026rsquo;t, I knew that I shouldn\u0026rsquo;t be doing it, but I couldn\u0026rsquo;t resist the second time. I was so proud of like, of doing this book at like 22, 23 years old. I\u0026rsquo;d done this book and I\u0026rsquo;d got 2000 copies. I was so kind of too excited to keep it to myself.\nBut but that\u0026rsquo;s not to say that everybody would have that same experience, but you definitely just do have to think about who you tell and how and when and why. And.\nYeah. I think like a lot of people, if you\u0026rsquo;re in the right place, a lot of people will be super supportive cause it\u0026rsquo;s great. And they know that, okay, if I\u0026rsquo;ve, I\u0026rsquo;ve done this podcast, it means that I\u0026rsquo;m learning a lot of stuff.\nIt means I can speak better. Maybe there\u0026rsquo;s some opportunity where then I can present something at a, at a meeting because I\u0026rsquo;ve improved these skills. I\u0026rsquo;ve written. Written this book on my own time, not on work time as, as I suspected, but in my own time, on the side, I\u0026rsquo;d worked hard to interview these people, to get all this information and collate it all down into a concise book that maybe there\u0026rsquo;s some opportunity that outside the normal job work and say, okay, well you\u0026rsquo;ve done this before.\nCan you do, I don\u0026rsquo;t know, media release or whatever it is, like, do something to use those skills that I\u0026rsquo;ve learned outside. So if you\u0026rsquo;re in the right place, I think they\u0026rsquo;ll recognize that doing things on the side. Dude your skills and it actually makes you more valuable, more useful to the organization and not tap into that.\nBut of course, if you\u0026rsquo;re in the wrong organization or in the wrong team or have the wrong boss then you probably gotta be careful with, they probably see it as a negative. They probably see it as detracting value. Like you\u0026rsquo;re improving over here. So you\u0026rsquo;re going down over in, in my team, which is convert or weird way to look at it.\nBut it\u0026rsquo;s definitely one way that a lot of people do look at it.\nJames: Yeah. Yeah. Well, let me, I think that\u0026rsquo;s I\u0026rsquo;m really glad you shared that because it\u0026rsquo;s something that I wouldn\u0026rsquo;t have even considered like that could be a possibility of happening. So it\u0026rsquo;s, I think that\u0026rsquo;s important. Yeah. For, for anyone doing something on the side, it\u0026rsquo;s important that you\u0026rsquo;re yeah. Kind of, I\u0026rsquo;ll be up front about it.\nin some ways, but also you want to be conscious of what kind of a team you\u0026rsquo;re in an environment consider if it\u0026rsquo;s going to be, if you want to work there in the longterm, is this going to be a good thing to share or not?\nWhich I guess in some cases you have got to be careful of that. Which is, like you said, probably unfortunate that a team wouldn\u0026rsquo;t want to support you, but yeah, I think it\u0026rsquo;s definitely something that you\u0026rsquo;ve got to keep your eye on.\nAdam Ashton: Yeah. Not most certainly, but it makes for a good story at least. Yeah.\nFavourite lessons from The Shit They Never Taught You # James: So writing that book in the office that you.\nshared with the guys at work, Now you\u0026rsquo;ve gone to write a second book or at least one on those real paths. It\u0026rsquo;s not your second. I know you do a lot of this kind of thing.\nAdam Ashton: Oh yeah. Second\nJames: Yeah.\nAdam Ashton: Probably second.\nJames: Like, Well, you\u0026rsquo;ve written, it\u0026rsquo;s called the shit.\nThey never taught you. And it\u0026rsquo;s a fantastic, obviously I was going to say a summary, but I know it\u0026rsquo;s much more than just a summary. It\u0026rsquo;s, you\u0026rsquo;ve combined things in such a nice way. It\u0026rsquo;s, there\u0026rsquo;s a lot of interaction even between the summaries and it\u0026rsquo;s, I mean, it\u0026rsquo;s a really great, and it\u0026rsquo;s probably one of the best books I\u0026rsquo;ve read, to be honest, that saving is, huge as well.\nSo it\u0026rsquo;s something that, yeah. Yeah. it\u0026rsquo;s something, a lot of thing you can always turn back to and, find that particular section to look at. But I\u0026rsquo;m curious for you, is there anything like any of these books that you\u0026rsquo;ve read in any of this kind of whole work around the book, are there any really key lessons that you, that you are really front of mind and things that you do today?\nAdam Ashton: Definitely. And definitely the, I think it\u0026rsquo;s. Less than seven. I think the various pods to mastery the first sort of the first lesson of our, our career section. And, and it\u0026rsquo;s the, the idea about the two different ways to achieving mastery are two different, the two different ways you can achieve success.\nRange and Mastery # Adam Ashton: And probably the biggest one that was a real face slapper, a real eye-opener for me. I think I read it. I read it at the very end of 2019 and then like, read it again. Two weeks later at the very side of 2020, it was like so good that I had to read it twice within, within a couple of weeks was a book that you\u0026rsquo;ve also mentioned a couple of times in the podcast range by David Epstein.\nDo you want to give you a quick summary of, of range and then I\u0026rsquo;ll give my sort of how to, how it applies to, or how I think about it?\nJames: Yeah, yeah, sure. Well, yeah, ranges I\u0026rsquo;ve know if it\u0026rsquo;s weather, like I\u0026rsquo;m kind of pursuing the range path as well. That makes me like it more. I\u0026rsquo;m not sure I have some biased. Yeah,\nAdam Ashton: That\u0026rsquo;s definitely me.\nJames: But Yeah, it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s kind of this idea that. Being more of a generalist can lead to sort of synergies down the line that can make you more effective rather than just picking one niche thing and just going, going at it a hundred percent.\nSo the example of that it gives in the book is kind of the Roger Federer and the tiger woods example. So tiger woods is kind of this guy who was, I don\u0026rsquo;t know the exact age, but the young guy, it must be like five or six or something signed to play golf. And he\u0026rsquo;s gone sort of a hundred percent on golf since like he was a young kid and then he\u0026rsquo;s obviously gone on to become the world champion, really famous and all that.\nAnd then you\u0026rsquo;ve got Roger Federer. Who\u0026rsquo;s kind of the, what\u0026rsquo;s the opposite in a lot of ways where he\u0026rsquo;s, he\u0026rsquo;s playing soccer, he\u0026rsquo;s doing all this other sport, and he\u0026rsquo;s really only starting to play tennis properly when he\u0026rsquo;s about 16. And so the idea is like, having those those experiences behind him allowed him to become much better at tennis.\nAnd he would have been, if he\u0026rsquo;d just sort of done the tiger woods thing. And so there\u0026rsquo;s this idea where you have the there\u0026rsquo;s different sort of things that you can do in life, where some things are kind of like golf and like chess, where it\u0026rsquo;s easy to, they\u0026rsquo;re kind of, it\u0026rsquo;s like a pattern recognition type thing where it\u0026rsquo;s easy to predict what\u0026rsquo;s going on and, and, and to get good at it, you really got to practice a lot and kind of go a hundred percent.\nAnd then there\u0026rsquo;s a lot of things which is probably more akin or at least that\u0026rsquo;s what David Epstein says in life is kind of more akin to like a tennis or something, whether the game is a bit more unpredictable. And so you need those variety of experiences to, to succeed more easily. So, yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s kind of my summary and it\u0026rsquo;s something, I guess, how that would impact even my career choices is like, let\u0026rsquo;s try and get a bit of a background in heaps of different areas.\nKind of it\u0026rsquo;s sometimes the crossover between areas that allows you to have those new insights or add more value than someone that\u0026rsquo;s just, only exposed to that one particular area.\nAdam Ashton: Yeah, definitely. That was a good summary. You should do a book\nJames: Yeah.\nAdam Ashton: The, yeah, so for me there was a real eye-opener and just seeing him. The specialist and the, and the generalist. Rebranded it into like going wide versus going deep. Like, yeah, if you want to S if there is an area that you want to specialize in and it does make sense that it is like more of a golf or more of a chess type of profession, where there is a clear.\nAnswering a clear way to do it. The way to achieve success is to be the best person at that, which means working the hardest at that one niche should a field and getting going really, really deep. And the books that kind of link with that is like that outliers by Malcolm Gladwell, talking about Anders Ericsson\u0026rsquo;s the 10,000 hours rule saying like that the violent violinists who had practiced for 10,000 hours achieved mastery So it\u0026rsquo;s saying, okay, if you want to go deep in something, get your 10,000 hours work really hard. Work more than everybody else learn more than everybody else achieve better things than everybody else. We also kind of LinkedIn grit by Angela Duckworth saying that, okay, well, along the path, it\u0026rsquo;s going to be bloody tough.\nSo you need a bit of grit to get through. You need to be picking the right thing to go deep at, and then using grit to get through to those 10,000 hours. And really the end of that journey, you do become a master in your field and you do become successful. If that\u0026rsquo;s the path that you choose. And it\u0026rsquo;s a very viable path to success, but it\u0026rsquo;s not the only path to success.\nI think a lot of people probably think that is the only path is to work really, really hard at one thing and become the best at that. But there is another way to achieving success, which is going wide, the generalist approach which we like the books range. As I said by David Epstein and originals by Adam Grant saying that it\u0026rsquo;s not just the one who works the hardest.\nMaybe it\u0026rsquo;s the one who\u0026rsquo;s done. Two years in this three years in this two years over here, another four years over here. And at the time it kind of looks like a weird path They\u0026rsquo;re jumping around from different things. They\u0026rsquo;re learning different skills that seem somewhat unrelated at the time, but then sort of magically at the end, they come around to this point where they find the intersection of all these different skills.\nThey find the synergies, they find the ways to stack all these things together so that they become the best in this one sort of niche intersection of all these different things that nobody else could possibly do. Because they haven\u0026rsquo;t built up all the different skills. And yeah, as you say, you\u0026rsquo;ve probably a bit more biased towards that.\nCause that\u0026rsquo;s kind of the path you\u0026rsquo;re on and that\u0026rsquo;s definitely made as well. But I think that it holds a lot of merit and I think that just knowing that there is a different path rather than just the peak one thing and work really hard at it, knowing that there is, if you do want to jump around from different things, make sure don\u0026rsquo;t just like jump around, quit something.\nCause you don\u0026rsquo;t like it, then try something else and quit it. Cause you don\u0026rsquo;t like it. You need that bit of intentionality around it around what different skills are you building? That then one day at the end. It seems like you might be a failure at the start. And then at the end you magically have stacked all these different things together to achieve your, your different.\nJames: Hmm. Yeah, I think it\u0026rsquo;s so important. And a lot of these books I think are fantastic and, giving you those insights into, the themes behind people that have done great things, and it\u0026rsquo;s important to get those perspectives, like you were saying, there\u0026rsquo;s sort of the range. Perspective and then this, even, the go deep in one area kind of perspective.\nI think it\u0026rsquo;s really, that\u0026rsquo;s why I think reading books and I\u0026rsquo;m sure you\u0026rsquo;re experienced too has been so good is because, getting those inputs and hearing about these stories from a heaps of different.\nangles can help you to formulate your own opinions on these things and to kind of then better choose the policy you want to go down.\nI think is really, really great. And I think, yeah, there\u0026rsquo;s so much like so much value to be gained out of these things, but also only if you actually act on what you\u0026rsquo;ve read as well. I think it\u0026rsquo;s really important.\nWhat Drives Adam to be Successful # James: One thing I want to ask you too, is about this idea of success and things like that. So a lot of the time when we talk about range and things like that, we\u0026rsquo;re saying, okay, I\u0026rsquo;m going to go down this range path of, in my career and become a bit of a generalist because that\u0026rsquo;s going to make me successful with it.\nAnd I\u0026rsquo;m really curious, what is kind of the driving factor for you behind sort of wanting to succeed and all that kind of stuff in the first place? Is there anything that, any motivations or any things that really stick out to you as the reasons why you want to go down that path?\nAdam Ashton: Yeah, it\u0026rsquo;s an interesting one. I think it\u0026rsquo;s probably just like that inbuilt competitive nature. Definitely. I think it\u0026rsquo;s probably a, to go a little bit introspective, probably like that. Do I do have a high opinion of myself and think that I\u0026rsquo;m very good. So I think that I should be working hard to, prove to everybody else that I\u0026rsquo;m as good as I think I am.\nSo there\u0026rsquo;s definitely that is definitely like that sort of, I guess, a societal norm or just the nature that\u0026rsquo;s kind of what everyone\u0026rsquo;s striving towards, that these are the types of things that are recognized. Sort of conventionally is what success looks like. So if I want to be successful, I\u0026rsquo;ve got to kind of achieve those things.\nI think I\u0026rsquo;ve probably somewhat matured a little bit in that. Obviously at the start of my career, success meant a fancy title and a good job and a big house and lots of money type of thing. Whereas now my things that I\u0026rsquo;m probably more working towards a lot more. Autonomy control freedom is probably too loose and too loosely used like financial freedom and stuff.\nSo it kind of is freedom, but I don\u0026rsquo;t really like that word more flexibility. I would say more choices, more options. And so I guess what I mean by that is like this financial year just gone was like the first time that mice. Income overtook my full-time income. So I\u0026rsquo;m still working full time, but also, still doing all this stuff on the side.\nAnd probably when I was 21, my goal was to be, make a million dollars, whatever. Um, whereas now the, the goal was just to have the options, knowing that, okay. Yes, I\u0026rsquo;m still working full time, but I\u0026rsquo;ve got this side stuff that is growing now at the time when I first quit aims at, I thought there was side income when there really wasn\u0026rsquo;t anything sustainable, but now it\u0026rsquo;s more about like the.\nThe flexibility around. I\u0026rsquo;d rather like it\u0026rsquo;s not just about, sitting at the desk at 6:00 AM and work until 8:00 PM and then and working really, really hard. It\u0026rsquo;s more like, okay, well, what can I do that actually provides a lot of value and is highly leveraged and is effective work where I can do, two, three hours of really hard work.\nAnd then go play golf in the afternoon. For example, so it\u0026rsquo;s not necessarily just about working, working hard to get more money and more status and more clients and more business and more success in that sense. It\u0026rsquo;s probably more about, okay, what can I do that actually adds value? But then use the rest of the time to do things that I actually enjoy, whether that\u0026rsquo;s, seeing friends, new hobbies, reading, learning, doing other stuff on the side.\nAnd a lot of the times the choice comes from the choice I make is doing extra stuff is doing more work. And not because I feel like I have to because I want to. But then there is that option to do the other things.\nJames: Yeah, I think that\u0026rsquo;s, yeah, I think that was a really good answer. I think.\nAdam Ashton: I think it was a good\nJames: Yeah. Yeah.\nI think it\u0026rsquo;s, I think it\u0026rsquo;s important to understand the cause. Like even for myself, I don\u0026rsquo;t really think about that very often. Like why I\u0026rsquo;m even, you know, why on I just playing video games all day, cause it\u0026rsquo;s probably like it and then it\u0026rsquo;s, maybe it\u0026rsquo;s not very fulfilling, these kinds of things.\nAnd I think, like you\u0026rsquo;re saying, it\u0026rsquo;s, you\u0026rsquo;ve got, we\u0026rsquo;ve got so much to offer. And it\u0026rsquo;d be a waste not to go out there and make the world a better place because of the things that we can do. And, and that goes not just for a year that goes through a round, even the people listening and, pretty everyone has something to offer.\nAnd so it\u0026rsquo;s important that, and that\u0026rsquo;s really unique and look at this from many, many angles, but I think it is important that you kind of consider why you\u0026rsquo;re even on the sort of success train or, whatever, why are you actually doing the things you want to do? And really, yeah.\nSort of, even that really intrinsic motivation and really getting clear on that, I think is important. Cause that even leads into, that intentionality and things like that as well. That\u0026rsquo;s going to help you make choices and career decisions and things like that based on like the life and the things that you want to do.\nBut, Yeah, I think it\u0026rsquo;s really\nAdam Ashton: Yeah, I definitely, I really like books that have like two, like you read one book, you\u0026rsquo;re like, oh my God, this is incredible. Here\u0026rsquo;s the answer. This is the one thing. This is amazing. And then you read another book and you\u0026rsquo;re like, oh my God, this is incredible. Is the answer. This is perfect. This is amazing.\nBut then you realize that they\u0026rsquo;re both saying opposite things, but both true. So. Like outliers and range. It kind of like saying opposite one saying work really hard. Get really good at this one thing, a range of saying go wide, get really good at a whole bunch of different things and then stack them all together.\nSo they kind of the opposites, there\u0026rsquo;s a whole bunch of other Other sort of, books that seemed like they\u0026rsquo;re both, they\u0026rsquo;re both a hundred percent, right. But they\u0026rsquo;re also 180 degrees opposed. I\u0026rsquo;m looking forward to getting into my next batch of those, which another friend who does a book podcast has been talking about two books 4,000 hours.\nSo. 4,004,000 weeks, 4,000 weeks. I\u0026rsquo;m saying like, you\u0026rsquo;ve got basically on average 4,000 weeks to live. And so it\u0026rsquo;s kinda like, well, life short, you\u0026rsquo;re going to die soon. So everything matters. You got to work through the hugs, everything matters. And then there\u0026rsquo;s another book she says is the sunny nihilist talking about nihilism in it and a more relaxed approach saying life\u0026rsquo;s short, you\u0026rsquo;re going to die.\nSo nothing. And they\u0026rsquo;re both kind of true. Like you can either go the man I\u0026rsquo;ve got so much limited time, I\u0026rsquo;ve got to work hard to achieve all these things. And that is true. Or you can say, well, I\u0026rsquo;ve got so much limited time. What does it matter? Then I can just kick, kick the feet up and get the video game path.\nAnd that\u0026rsquo;s probably also true as well. kind of thinking, okay, well, which of those should you pick?\nJames: Yeah, Yeah, I think, yeah, I think that\u0026rsquo;s a great answer. I think it\u0026rsquo;s great that we can, you can read a book and you can get those perspectives in that. Cause I think it\u0026rsquo;s so important to not go a hundred percent, one way and to realize there is an alternative and, and there\u0026rsquo;s actually a pretty good alternative.\nAnd it\u0026rsquo;s not just like, someone just thinking on a Sunday afternoon, some random idea, like someone\u0026rsquo;s actually, there is some merit behind, these alternative ideas I think.\nHow To Start Reading # James: Yeah, I think that\u0026rsquo;s great. W I wanna, I\u0026rsquo;ve got two more things. I really want to know. And one is kind of a more basic question, I guess, but a reading habit is something that perhaps people have signed to, maybe they\u0026rsquo;re listening to us speak and talk about all these books and I want to stop this rating rating journey.\nWhat advice would you give to someone that\u0026rsquo;s starting to rate and, and sort of developing that rating habit and that re interesting rating. And how would you go about developing that habit?\nAdam Ashton: Yeah, for me, it started from listening to podcasts and I\u0026rsquo;ll be listening to a Tim Ferriss or James Altucher or whoever I was listening to at the time. And there\u0026rsquo;ll be interviewing all these different successful people in all these different fields. It seemed that every single successful person had some book that they could point back to and be like, yeah, I read this book and it changed my perspective, or it gave me this one idea that revolutionized everything type of thing.\nSo I was like, damn well, if all these guys are reading books and all these successful people are reading books and all these powerful business women and men, and everybody\u0026rsquo;s reading books and thinking. I probably should start reading books as well. So that\u0026rsquo;s probably where I first had it. So it felt like I wanted to read books, not like I had to read books.\nCause if you\u0026rsquo;re listening to this and you\u0026rsquo;re like, oh man, Adam and James are saying that we should read books. I better go start reading books and it\u0026rsquo;s not going to work because that was high school. That\u0026rsquo;s, you got to read Shakespeare and Dickens and whatever, all this crap to cause you have to read it and you don\u0026rsquo;t want to, but if you actually genuinely want to read it.\nDefinitely the first step to developing that habit is doing it because you want to do it similarly, like picking the books that you want to read, that you\u0026rsquo;re genuinely interested in. That there\u0026rsquo;s a, a natural curiosity about not just because somebody says it\u0026rsquo;s the best book and you have to read it. So yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s probably the, the meta level is like wanting to read first and then picking books that you\u0026rsquo;re actually interested in.\nAnd then the rest is probably a little bit easier, but the more on the ground stuff is for me. Not viewing reading as this big task where you have to set aside an hour of pure silence with no distractions where you just gotta lie there and read. It feels like a chore then for me, it\u0026rsquo;s more just like, I\u0026rsquo;ve got a pocket for five minutes here.\nI\u0026rsquo;ll just read a couple of pages and then yeah. Okay. Yeah. Now I\u0026rsquo;ve got to, I\u0026rsquo;ve got a spare 12 minutes over here, so I\u0026rsquo;ll read a little bit here and then just trying to fit it in between the cracks of the day. And it seems easy as opposed to just saying this is, you got to block out this one specific big batch of time.\nThat\u0026rsquo;s your reading time.\nJames: Yeah, I think that\u0026rsquo;s been that idea that you said earlier about being interested in doing it first. I think it\u0026rsquo;s fundamental for, for so many things and I\u0026rsquo;ll just slowly, you don\u0026rsquo;t want it to be this thing where like, oh yeah, I have to read, like, if I want to become successful after read, like, and then force yourself through books.\nI mean, that\u0026rsquo;s just, you\u0026rsquo;re not going to get anything out of it. It\u0026rsquo;s going to be probably more of a waste of your time than if you just did nothing, because you\u0026rsquo;re, it\u0026rsquo;s probably more painful. But Yeah.\nso I think that\u0026rsquo;s great.\nAdam\u0026rsquo;s Advice for Graduates # James: And then one question that I want to finish with today, Adam, we\u0026rsquo;ve spoken about, your great experience and the podcast and things like that.\nAnd I want to take it back to some, some advice that you would give some graduates that are listening, it might be their first year in the workplace, knowing that all the things that you know now and all the experiences you\u0026rsquo;ve gone through, what is one or perhaps you\u0026rsquo;ve got multiple pieces of advice for people that are in that season.\nAdam Ashton: Hm. I, before we started, I had three, like three in mine that I want to mention. But I\u0026rsquo;m going to change it. Maybe we\u0026rsquo;ll have to do, like in a year or two, we\u0026rsquo;ll have to do a second app and I\u0026rsquo;ll give those out those other three that I was going to give, but maybe it\u0026rsquo;s changed about them, but I\u0026rsquo;m actually going to change it on the fly and combine the first answer I gave.\nAnd the last answer I gave talking about the. The whole grad experience. I went through the first time where I saw it as a game and a competition, and I thought I was in it, so I had to do it and I had to beat everybody else. And I, this was just the, the path that everyone\u0026rsquo;s taking. So, okay.\nI\u0026rsquo;m going to jump on this path and try and do it better than everybody else. Cause I have to cause that\u0026rsquo;s what everybody does. That was the wrong approach. Obviously the right approach is that the want to approach that we kinda spoke about when it comes to reading, like if you actually genuinely want to do it and you actually have a genuine curiosity about it and you see there are benefits.\nYeah. You\u0026rsquo;re reading books and you see that there are things that you can learn and apply to whatever it is you\u0026rsquo;re doing work, career, business, relationships, friendships, whatever it is then you\u0026rsquo;re actually going to enjoy reading. So if I actually flipped my perspective on work and saw it as something that I wanted to do and saw it as something where I can.\nDevelop skill something where I can learn new things, something where I can build some, a bit of a reputation or a bit of a brand or build a network. Or if I can, if I actually saw all those benefits and it became something I wanted to do then it would have been a much better experience for me.\nAnd now I\u0026rsquo;m sure I\u0026rsquo;m sure right now, if I was a grad, I would be so much better as a grad than I was five years ago as a grad that\u0026rsquo;s for sure. I think the advice is not to quit your dread job and, and start a business or whatever it is that you might be thinking. I think it\u0026rsquo;s realizing that you can do both.\nYou can have the full-time job plus stuff on the side, and they\u0026rsquo;re not competing with each other. They can actually compliment each other. And just placing more value, I guess, on, on how I saw the grad experience, rather than just dismissing it as, oh, I\u0026rsquo;m doing all this stuff on the side. So this stuff is less than.\nJames: Yeah, I think that\u0026rsquo;s great advice, certainly. All right. Well, I think, yeah, I think it\u0026rsquo;s so important to be conscious of the things that you\u0026rsquo;re going to enjoy doing and, and go down that path a little bit more and rather than trying to force yourself or just do things because someone told you to do it or because there\u0026rsquo;s going to be some kind of an outcome that you\u0026rsquo;re kind of waiting for.\nYeah. I think that\u0026rsquo;s so\nAdam Ashton: And I probably want to add one extra clarification on what I said as well. I\u0026rsquo;m not necessarily doing it. Doing it because you want to do it as in the sense of, find your passion and then and then follow your passion and do only do the things that you want to do. And don\u0026rsquo;t do anything else that you don\u0026rsquo;t want to do.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s probably more about realizing that there are opportunities everywhere and almost cultivating the passion, like finding a passion for it by doing it. Not just turning down a job offer. Cause you say, I don\u0026rsquo;t like banking. I\u0026rsquo;m not going to do banking or I don\u0026rsquo;t like law. I\u0026rsquo;m not going to do law. That\u0026rsquo;s probably the wrong approach, but realizing that, okay, you can, if you do it properly and you take it seriously and you recognize the benefits, then you actually will want to do it.\nSo it\u0026rsquo;s not necessarily about picking something because you want to do it, but wanting to do it because you\u0026rsquo;ve picked it. If that makes\nJames: Mm. Yeah, it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s kind of that cart before the horse sort of situation, which can be, can be tricky, but I think. Yeah, I think all that advice is, is really, really important. And it\u0026rsquo;s important that you even just be, take some time and thinking about how this kind of stuff impacts you to yourself and not just listen to this episode and okay.\nThat tick, like listen to the episode done, it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s about like, okay, this is what the guys said. How does this impact me? What things am I going to do as a result of this, I think is be intentional about listening to this episode too. I think. And then that piece of advice as well, I think is really important.\nOutro # James: Well, thanks so much for coming on today, Adam. I think we\u0026rsquo;ve had a fantastic chat, but if people are listening and I want to get in touch with you further, they want to hear about, more about what you do. Where\u0026rsquo;s the best place for them to go.\nAdam Ashton: I suppose me personally probably LinkedIn. You can find not that I\u0026rsquo;m active there at all, but actually, but I\u0026rsquo;ll check it at least. And then if you want to check out the podcast, what you will learn.com or search, you\u0026rsquo;re listening to podcast. I already said search for what you will learn. And then the books there as well, they never taught you.\nJames: Amazing. Well, yeah, thanks so much to today, Adam and dad, we have you on in two years\u0026rsquo; time to chat about\nAdam: Okay, I\u0026rsquo;ll give you those three answers. I was actually going to give you next\nJames: Yeah. Perfect. Well, yeah, see you then.\nJames: Thanks so much for listening to Graduate Theory and thanks for making it all the way to the end of this episode. If you\u0026rsquo;re interested in keeping in touch and hearing more about Graduate Theory, I\u0026rsquo;d really encourage you to subscribe wherever you may be.\nAnd if you want to find out more, if you want to get my insights, my deeper thoughts on the episode today, please go to Graduate Theory.com/subscribe, where you can subscribe to the newsletter and you can read my additional thoughts on today\u0026rsquo;s. Thanks so much again for listening today and we\u0026rsquo;ll see you in the next episode.\n← Back to episode 12\n","date":"10 January 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/graduate-theory/12-on-books-and-the-importance-of-range-with-adam-ashton/transcript/","section":"Graduate Theory Transcripts","summary":"← Back to episode 12\nThis transcript has been lightly edited for readability. It may still contain transcription errors.\nJames: Hello, and welcome to Graduate Theory. On today’s episode, we cover a wide variety of topics. We go through comparing yourself to others and how to stop doing that. The importance of rating, what it means to read books and how you can get the most out of doing that\n","title":"Transcript: On Books and The Importance of Range with Adam Ashton","type":"graduate-theory-transcripts"},{"content":" Watch the conversation Graduate Theory Open YouTube ↗ Read the full transcript → Haynes is a Finance Manager at Airwallex. He has worked at Goldman Sachs JBWere and PwC, where he worked in Silicon Valley on billion-dollar deals like the Uber IPO and Airbnb transactions.\nClick Here to Never Miss an Episode\n🤝 Connect With Haynes # LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/haynesdsouza/\n👇 Episode Takeaways # The Importance of the Side Hustle # Haynes is really passionate about side hustles. One of the big reasons why he is so passionate about them is risk-taking. He didn\u0026rsquo;t want to be at the end of his career and say that he never took a risk, that he never tried to have a big impact.\nHe described his story of living in Silicon Valley where people had their 9-5 jobs but also a 5-9.\nCreating real impact starts with creating something.\nGreat Questions to Ask When Moving Roles # During the episode, I asked Haynes what questions he would ask when moving roles.\nHe came back with some great ones 👇\nIs the company growing?\nWhat is the culture like?\nWhy is this role open? (Did someone leave? Why?)\nWhat is the vision of the founders/executives?\nDo people go out at the end of the week?\nDo people appreciate asking for help or is it more independent?\nWhere do people that work in this role usually end up in 5 years?\nWhat are your hours like?\nI thought that these were fantastic questions, particularly the one I have highlighted in bold. Asking good questions in these times of change is so important in getting good answers.\nThese questions will be very helpful when changing roles.\nYour Career is Not Linear # Often we can fall into the trap of thinking that we are on a strictly linear career path. A path where we go from analyst to senior analyst to manager and so on. What we fail to miss is that we might change careers, we might have a family and this linear career notion stops being useful.\nHaynes says that the key is to realise that our careers aren\u0026rsquo;t linear and actually embrace this fact. Embrace the fact that things change and may not go the exact way you plan. This isn\u0026rsquo;t bad, this is what makes life interesting.\n💭 Things Discussed # Trends\nTim Ferriss\nThe 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing - Al Ries, Jack Trout\nObsidian\nHow to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big - Scott Adams\nCharlie Munger\u0026rsquo;s Mental Models\nShow Notes 📝 # 00:00 #11 Haynes D\u0026rsquo;Souza\n00:00 Intro\n02:14 From Melbourne to Silicon Valley\n06:42 Tall Poppy Syndrome in Australia\n09:04 Lesson\u0026rsquo;s from Covid in New York\n14:14 What makes a successful startup\n18:01 The Importance of Timing for Your Startup\n22:47 Upcoming Trends\n31:06 Haynes\u0026rsquo; Favourite Failure\n37:54 Questions to ask when moving roles\n39:56 Your career is not linear\n43:12 Finding Mentors in Australia\n46:12 How to reach out to people\n49:18 Haynes\u0026rsquo; Advice for Graduates\n52:26 Charlie Munger\u0026rsquo;s Lattice Theory\n56:08 The Fancy Title Career Mistake\n01:00:33 Outro\n","date":"3 January 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/graduate-theory/11-on-the-graduate-experience-and-careers-with-haynes-dsouza/","section":"Graduate Theory","summary":" Watch the conversation Graduate Theory Open YouTube ↗ Read the full transcript → Haynes is a Finance Manager at Airwallex. He has worked at Goldman Sachs JBWere and PwC, where he worked in Silicon Valley on billion-dollar deals like the Uber IPO and Airbnb transactions.\n","title":"On The Graduate Experience and Careers with Haynes D'Souza","type":"graduate-theory"},{"content":"← Back to episode 11\nThis transcript has been lightly edited for readability. It may still contain transcription errors.\nIntro # James: Hello, and welcome to Graduate Theory. Today\u0026rsquo;s episode is a great episode. Today\u0026rsquo;s episode. We go really deep and with someone that is really passionate about graduates and he\u0026rsquo;s passionate about. You taking control and growing your career.\nOn this episode, we speak about overseas travel, starting a side project while you\u0026rsquo;re working full time, different cultures and how they work. We talk about all this different stuff relating to mentorship, ways to kind of plan and build out your career. There\u0026rsquo;s so much value. In this episode, we covered so many different angles of so many different things.\nSo this episode for me is one of my favorites. If you want to get this episode straight to your inbox, and if you want to read my insights and what I picked up from this episode, please go to Graduate Theory.com and subscribe to the newsletter on there. You\u0026rsquo;re going to get my thoughts and different things that I picked up from the podcast.\nYou\u0026rsquo;ll also find more information about different things that we spoke about on the episode today. Without further ado, let\u0026rsquo;s dive in.\nJames: Hello, and welcome to Graduate Theory. My guest today graduated with a bachelor of commerce from the university of Melbourne. In 2015. He has worked at Goldman Sachs and PwC, where he worked in Silicon valley on billion dollar deals like the Uber IPO, since returning to Australia at the start of this year, my guest has started working as the Australia and New Zealand finance manager for Alex with his, he works as a mentor at VC firm Blackbird and a startup mentor at textbook benches.\nOn top of all this, my guest runs his company, 87 advisory, where he helps small businesses perform financial due diligence over their M and a and venture capital process. So please welcome to the show. The highly accomplished Haines D\u0026rsquo;Souza.\nHaynes: Thanks, James. Thanks for having me on\nthat was a very warm and generous introduction. So happy feel free to keep going. That, that was great.\nJames: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, you\u0026rsquo;ve done so much and it\u0026rsquo;s going to be a great conversation today. I\u0026rsquo;m really excited to get into all the things that you\u0026rsquo;ve done in your career.\nFrom Melbourne to Silicon Valley # James: And one thing, when I was researching you, one thing that really stuck out to me, it was this move that you made from Australia over to America and into Silicon valley.\nAnd I wanted to ask, was there a key moment that led to you making that decision to go to Silicon valley?\nHaynes: Sure. So, right before, right before I moved over to SFI, I did two, two years in Canberra. I worked at the Australian national audit office. And two years in Canberra, like I initially started very optimistic about sort of government. I wanted to learn how government works.\nI wanted to learn how the military worked. Spent a lot of time looking at consulting and audit projects for the military and also the department of finance. But then I got to the end of two years and I just wasn\u0026rsquo;t, it wasn\u0026rsquo;t being challenged. I felt like I was. I was in my mid twenties and I looked at, people 5, 10, 15 years sort of older than me.\nAnd I didn\u0026rsquo;t really, find that. That trajectory was, was too challenging. And so I\u0026rsquo;ve always been a big believer, like I think all of these should, should go and work overseas. And so I reached out to a few networks at PwC where I worked in Melbourne for a bit and then said, look, I really want to go to San Francisco.\nPeople said, look, it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s a lot like Melbourne. The coffee scene is, is just as, just as good. It\u0026rsquo;s just as expensive. Interestingly it was either that or Germany that, that was sort of the thing. And I, I sort of hated German food anyway. So I made the move across to San Francisco and was yeah, therefore for about two years.\nAnd that\u0026rsquo;s sort of where I caught the tech bug. So worked on the Uber IPO and just met some amazing people and sort of work ethic of the entrepreneurial-ism and just changed my outlook on many things, not sort of just work-related, but sort of life more generally. And, you work overseas, you go there and you see folks that have gone to Harvard and Stanford and some of the elite universities and, and work in these amazing jobs.\nAnd you try to internalize some of those learnings and bring them back home. And that\u0026rsquo;s sort of what I\u0026rsquo;ve tried to do. Sort of being with Alex right now and doing a whole bunch of mentoring and advisory work as well.\nJames: Yeah.\nYeah, That\u0026rsquo;s really exciting. And were there any, are there any key, like you mentioned your value of connecting with the people that went to these like Ivy league unions, which is incredible, but are there any, what are the main lessons that you\u0026rsquo;ve taken from, connecting with those people and working on those projects?\nIs there anything that really sticks out to you as something that you\u0026rsquo;ve taken back?\nHaynes: Yeah, sure. Look, I think they like being in Australia, I think sort of growing up in Australia, we came to Australia when I was eight. And I grew up in the Northern suburbs of Melbourne and, for a long time, that was sort of the world on here, so the Northern suburbs of Melbourne, and then you, you meet other Aussies when you travel and you see that their perspectives are global, right.\nAnd your ability to make a difference is, is, is global. And so when, when I meet sort of folks in San Francisco, they\u0026rsquo;re the MERS, the biggest takeaway for me is that, like don\u0026rsquo;t be afraid of starting an idea or having a business that can have a global. Impact on things. And sometimes in Melbourne we can sort of get isolated room in Australia where we can get isolated being on this part of the world and, and sort of lose sight of what\u0026rsquo;s going on in the states and Europe.\nBut that\u0026rsquo;s sort of, that\u0026rsquo;s almost the emphasis of what I saw folks in San Francisco. They\u0026rsquo;re like, look, there\u0026rsquo;s a big problem. I\u0026rsquo;m going to try to fix it globally. And there is nothing that, you know and I\u0026rsquo;m going to, I\u0026rsquo;m not going to take no for an answer. So that, that relentless optimism, that relentless drive is what I saw in many Aussies in San Francisco.\nI, I many sort of, us folks out there as well and highly recommend all graduates all also the young adults to, to go over to the states experience it almost see that secret source of optimism, positivity relentless ambition, the drive to basically there\u0026rsquo;s a problem I\u0026rsquo;m going to try to fix it.\nThat, that, that grind, that hustle is sometimes w we lack that in Australia like, I\u0026rsquo;ll give you a really good example, like you, you go there and you meet folks that have second or third jobs in our grads, they\u0026rsquo;ll, there\u0026rsquo;ll be a grad at sort of PwC. And then, on the side, they\u0026rsquo;ll do tutoring or, there are nurse, but you know, on the side and on weekends and mine work sort of retail as well, which that\u0026rsquo;s a concept of having second and third jobs is very foreign, at least in, in sort of the circles that I hang around in Australia.\nAnd it, it\u0026rsquo;s not to say that\u0026rsquo;s a positive because there are a whole bunch of sort of social issues that, that are there that forces people to be in that position, but just that grit and that determination and that positivity and that relentless drive is something that really stood out to me when I was there.\nTall Poppy Syndrome in Australia # James: Hmm. Yeah. that\u0026rsquo;s really, that\u0026rsquo;s interesting. It\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s great to have that experience and take it back as well.\nHaynes: Yeah. And you sort of wonder why, we, we don\u0026rsquo;t really see that in Australia. And I was listening to this interesting podcast. This podcast episode called the Aussie startup playbook podcast. And I think that w one of the episodes there where they talk about, the tall poppy syndrome in Australia, and the fact that We, you always get pegged back a couple of notches in Australia.\nIf you are seen to be working a little bit harder and going and taking that extra risk and you get your mate saying, it\u0026rsquo;s a Friday night, why aren\u0026rsquo;t you going out and why, are you still working, why are you working here, your tutoring gig, or why do you have your business? Or what, why do you have X, Y, Z just come out with the rest of us whereas in the states is, especially in San Francisco, it is the norm, to just spend your weekends working on a on a side project, on a side hustle like that, that is seen as the norm.\nAnd maybe it is that sort of cultural difference where sort of in Australia, you know, being on the side of the world, being that lucky country where afford to, we, we can\u0026rsquo;t afford to be a bit more chill about things which, I never really saw in San Francisco, it was sort of go, go, go, or at all times,\nJames: Yeah. Yeah. I think that\u0026rsquo;s really interesting that cultural shift. And I\u0026rsquo;ve heard that as well about the tall poppy syndrome about, when, like you saying, when someone starts to do a bit more they people are kind of like, well, you shouldn\u0026rsquo;t be trying so hard. Like just chill\nman. Like,\nHaynes: Exactly, exactly. Right. So, sort of interested to, to hear, in your social group here to Hayden\u0026rsquo;s lack, H how many folks have a side hustle or like an e-commerce store or sort of a second source of lack, a side hustle that on, on top of this sort of nine to five,\nJames: Yeah, yeah.\nI don\u0026rsquo;t know really none that I can think of off the top of my head, I think. The most like hard working people. I know the ones that, maybe they work a few hours extra, like at their core or their job or whatever, maybe they work 10 hours a day or something. But Yeah. no many people have that thing that they\u0026rsquo;re getting like off to work, then they\u0026rsquo;re straight onto\nHaynes: Yeah, yeah,\nJames: Like clock out and like Netflix time\nHaynes: Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. I think one of my mentors back in, in SF, would tell me, look, everyone\u0026rsquo;s got their nine to five, but then everyone\u0026rsquo;s got their five to nine as well. W w which is something that sort of stuck with me and, and, it\u0026rsquo;s something that oh, you know, yeah.\nSomething, I encourage everyone. Those who can, should definitely look to, to at least learn another skill or the side hustle their way into something.\nLessons from Covid in New York # James: Yeah. Cause, cause on that, your, you have your own side hustles and things that you do. You\u0026rsquo;re obviously involved in a lot of things in the start world in Australia. Was there any kind of, and it\u0026rsquo;s this whole belief that you happy now around having a up and how great that can be, did that stem from, this time in Silicon valley or was there a key moment that you will like, okay, these, this is, this kind of thing is going to be really beneficial for people\nHaynes: Yeah. Absolutely. So, I, I stayed in New York for awhile right in the middle of the COVID pandemic and stayed in sort of lower east side right in the, in the middle of COVID then, third for the Australian sort of listeners listening to this. I don\u0026rsquo;t know if you guys remember, Cuomo, the governor coroner having his daily press conferences.\nAnd I was in, in Manhattan right in the middle of that. And I saw the impact that. COVID has on, on small businesses and that sort of stuck with me. Cause you know, you just picture this, you\u0026rsquo;re sort of living in sort of Manhattan and you\u0026rsquo;re surrounded by these like bodegas and delis and sort of family stores.\nAnd it\u0026rsquo;s an immigrant families coming to America, putting the whole life savings into this tiny little grocery or deli COVID happens. The entire city is deserted. Everything stops. Yet you see these business owners still trying to make a living and that\u0026rsquo;s. That visual stuck with me and a big part of what I, a big part of my values and what I\u0026rsquo;ve learned is, you, you should always try to out work and have that grit and determination to not just.\nHave your nine to five, but you know, have a business on the side. And that\u0026rsquo;s really sort of stuck with me. I\u0026rsquo;ve seen, going back to New York and, and seeing these delis with these family businesses that were closing down, they, their kids, these, kids of immigrant folks would go to school or would have their day job or would come back and work in their parents sort of business and help them out with inventory, with marketing and all these sort of things.\nAnd, I sort of took a step back and said, look, I can do, my nine to five Masa, corporate job. I\u0026rsquo;ve worked with folks that have done that and that\u0026rsquo;s certainly fine. Folks have kids and, and families and other commitments. And that\u0026rsquo;s certainly cool, but I, I saw the level of grit and drive and determination there and I thought, yeah, That\u0026rsquo;s really freaking amazing, right?\nLike we, I, I don\u0026rsquo;t want to look back at the end of my career, for grads listening to this and young folks, we\u0026rsquo;re probably going to work for about 40 to 50 years. I, I don\u0026rsquo;t want to look back at the end of that same. I didn\u0026rsquo;t take a risk. I didn\u0026rsquo;t go out and build something and, and have something that will last post my career.\nI really want to have an impact. So that\u0026rsquo;s, that\u0026rsquo;s sort of the fuel that is in me to, to go look. Yeah. You\u0026rsquo;ve got your day job, but then, where else can I add value? Where else can I like what are the challenges and projects that I can take on? So that, that sort of visual or being in the lower east side, the city is deserted.\nYou\u0026rsquo;ve got an immigrant family with a ton of debt paying a ton in the rent, still trying to make that work. That sort of grit not sort of stuck with me. The second part. I think in high school I had a really formative economic stager. I was sort of probably need 10 and 11 on, 16, 17 years old.\nDidn\u0026rsquo;t really know what to do. I, I, when I was a kid, I wanted to be a pilot. Turns out you have to be good at physics and I suck at physics, so that was out the door. And then I had this his name is Lucas Benda and, I had him as my economics teacher and he explained the world to me in, in through markets like demand and supply.\nI thought this is really interesting. And has I spent more time learning economics and, and sort of learning how markets work. It became really clear to me the power of owning. You need to bait you know, just informal different forms of resources, capital, labor, natural sort of learning economics.\nAnd even through a university. The big thing that stuck with me is you want to be in a position where you\u0026rsquo;re owning assets. And a big part of that was through, high school economics and, playing games like monopoly and realizing, looking at them. And if you own all the, all the properties that are monopoly and everyone\u0026rsquo;s passing by and paying your rent, then you\u0026rsquo;re in a, you\u0026rsquo;re in a good spot.\nAnd so that\u0026rsquo;s sort of stuck with me, right? It sounds really strange to say, but the ability of owning assets and building businesses and, and owning equity is something that stuck with me. So applying that now, You know, you work at a big bank or you work in an accounting firm, you\u0026rsquo;re sort of an employee.\nAnd I wanted to see at least the hard work that I\u0026rsquo;m putting in result in a commercial and financial. So the impact for myself as an employee, you don\u0026rsquo;t, you don\u0026rsquo;t necessarily see that because, you\u0026rsquo;re, you\u0026rsquo;re getting a wage for working those 40 hour weeks. But you, you don\u0026rsquo;t really see what the business is growing.\nHow, how am I directly being compensated for that? And so a big part of that was, owning assets and having equity and, to extend that a bit more well, if I were to start a business or if I invest in other companies and have that almost a rich dad, poor dad mindset which everyone seems to read now that sort of, that would help.\nSo those are probably the two things that kind of got me into this.\nJames: Yeah, I think that\u0026rsquo;s really killing. I think it\u0026rsquo;s great that you\u0026rsquo;re, your, you have that experience in those things that are driving you towards this, and then you\u0026rsquo;re also helping people on their part to do this as well.\nWhat makes a successful startup # James: I think it\u0026rsquo;s really great. What are some, like, I\u0026rsquo;m not Sure. Have you seen people go through this kind of setup period where, they\u0026rsquo;re creating that company and they want to turn it into something big.\nAre there any trends that you see in the people trying this? It perhaps makes them more likely to succeed than not.\nHaynes: Sure. Yeah, I think there\u0026rsquo;s, I\u0026rsquo;d say three things. In what I\u0026rsquo;ve seen recently, at least in Australia of folks starting their businesses and whether that takes off or not. I think one is this circle of competence. You are more likely to succeed in your business if the business that you\u0026rsquo;re in falls within an area that you\u0026rsquo;re either really competent in or really passionate about.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s no secret that being a business owner is, is tough and you\u0026rsquo;re working weekends, you\u0026rsquo;re working long hours. If you\u0026rsquo;re either not really, really competent or have a team that\u0026rsquo;s really competent, or you\u0026rsquo;re not really passionate about what you\u0026rsquo;re doing and then forget about it because you will be found out and, your short term sort of interest and enthusiasm lasts a couple of weeks or a couple of months.\nAnd then, you sort of, you, you find it very difficult start. So that\u0026rsquo;s one, I think the second thing is it\u0026rsquo;s all about I call it structural shifts. You, you, you want to have a business. Has tailwinds, structural and economic tailwinds. There\u0026rsquo;s no point now making in 2021 making sort of Kodak cameras right, because they\u0026rsquo;re just, no one\u0026rsquo;s going to buy them.\nSimilarly, you, you want to be having solving a problem, but also doing it in a way that, is commercially viable and there are structural tailwinds behind this. So there\u0026rsquo;s a really good website called trends that I R w w where they actually show you what people are Googling.\nThere was a show you what, on a retail side, like what, what are people interested in? Where, where are the conversations happening? Where are the structural sort of forces in the economy? Where, where are they shifting it? And what direction are the wind blowing? And you want to have a business that is almost going downstream as opposed to fighting.\nJames: Um,\nHaynes: So a couple of really good examples on this that I\u0026rsquo;ve seen recently is I was advising a company yesterday where, two founders are building a business very similar to Mr. Yum. Mr. Yam is an Australian sort of a it\u0026rsquo;s like a technology company. That\u0026rsquo;s helping restaurants take their menus online and ability to order by a QR codes and make reservations digitally.\nAnd that\u0026rsquo;s such a big sort of problem right now, right? So everyone is going into restaurants, they have QR codes and, th there is a structural shift and movement into using technology in restaurants. And so these guys are starting a business to take advantage of that. And they basically it\u0026rsquo;s so much easier because they\u0026rsquo;ve got this massive structural tailwind behind them, as opposed to doing something that is going against the wind.\nSo I hope that sort of, that analogy makes sense, Capital understanding and capitalizing structural shifts. Right now. And probably the third thing is, is sort of resources, but sort of capital resources and people. Again, sort of depending on what your business is as an have capital intensive or how technical it is, you\u0026rsquo;ve got, you\u0026rsquo;ve got to have the right people the right skills, the right financing, the right liquidity, liquidity survive, in, in startup world, we talk about zero to one, one to 10, 10 to a hundred.\nAnd each of those have different requirements from a resourcing perspective and undefined resources. People and financial and, and so in each of those, you have to sort of figure out, well, exactly what are the key skills I need to go from zero to one, 10 to a hundred the zero to one, one to 10, 10 to 100.\nWhat other skills do I need? Where am I lacking? And then sort of going from there. So those are probably the three things that I, that I see that sort of determine if something grows or not. In, in, in very sort of high level terms,\nThe Importance of Timing for Your Startup # James: Yeah. Yeah. I think those are really, really great pieces of advice. And I totally resonate with that. What you were saying about the tailwinds and things like that, because if you look at almost any company, really the timing of when they came out with their product is one of the most important things in their success.\nAnd that they\u0026rsquo;re always writing some kind of underlying trend. Like even if it\u0026rsquo;s something like Google and Facebook and things like that, they\u0026rsquo;re, they\u0026rsquo;re all riding, the, just like the growth of the internet\nHaynes: Sure. Yeah,\nJames: That\u0026rsquo;s Yeah,\nAnd even like, let\u0026rsquo;s say someone starts a YouTube channel, like being early.\nOn YouTube. It, even if you\u0026rsquo;re, not even that good at YouTube at being early in riding the trend of it, as, just as an example, it\u0026rsquo;s going to be a massive factor, even maybe more so than your actual skill in doing it. So, yeah,\nI totally agree with\nHaynes: Yeah, absolutely. And just to go through a few examples, extend this a little bit. It\u0026rsquo;d be like, let\u0026rsquo;s, let\u0026rsquo;s play, let\u0026rsquo;s have a hypothetical here with the Tim Ferriss podcast to be as popular today. Right. Has it is right now if it started today, right. Because right now there\u0026rsquo;s a multi, there\u0026rsquo;s so many podcasts.\nRight. And the Tim Ferriss show is probably the one that one of the most popular ones out there. Now he was one of the first sort of productivity performance coach sort of type podcasts. I probably guessed that if he started that now it probably won\u0026rsquo;t be as successful had, in, in sort of four or five years that, and what it has been right now, I think he was one of the first people to do it and do it well.\nYou also look at, a lot of, sort of social media companies a lot of tech companies where the timing is, right. You can be too early, you can be too late. Just finding that structural tail. And having that momentum where it all sort of comes together, all your ducks are in line.\nI think that\u0026rsquo;s, yeah, some of it\u0026rsquo;s skill and some of it\u0026rsquo;s just luck, timing the right place, right time.\nJames: Yeah.\nI think that\u0026rsquo;s, that\u0026rsquo;s really cool. And it\u0026rsquo;s a good point about the about Tim Ferriss, because there\u0026rsquo;s even a book that he, he spoken about. It\u0026rsquo;s called the 22 immutable laws of marketing, I think. And one of the things in there is about almost creating your own category or creating your own niche and things like that.\nAnd that\u0026rsquo;s the same idea where like, we\u0026rsquo;ll create our own. Yeah.\nIt will be the first podcast talking about productivity, which is almost what he did. And then he\u0026rsquo;s able to ride the trend of podcasts becoming popular, and then that\u0026rsquo;s enabled, as well as like his, his own growth, growing as is normally when you\u0026rsquo;re also writing.\nUnderlying trend as well growing. So like, I\u0026rsquo;ve even seen as this note no taking software, I use code obsidian and it\u0026rsquo;s this is nice way similar to the notion in many ways, but I started using it like in March last year and it was quite early on and there are certain people in there that were starting to do tutorials and things like that.\nAnd it\u0026rsquo;s the growth of that community has really enabled the growth of their own brand. Like probably more so than them actually improving and just growing it if the community was at the same, like the same level. So\nHaynes: Yeah, it\u0026rsquo;s sort of another example just to add to that is look at some of the early YouTubers, right? So I remember sort of Casey Neistat, Mr. Bass, all these really famous folks right now started, probably want to say five to 10 years ago if Casey Neistat started today. It\u0026rsquo;s so competitive now that I don\u0026rsquo;t think he would be where he\u0026rsquo;s at.\nIf he started sort of right now look at talk, the, the Dameliai sisters, right. If they jumped on Tik TOK now, would they be as successful as what, what they would have been recently? I know it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s an interesting hypothetical it\u0026rsquo;s sort of the point of you, timing is everything when, when starting a business.\nYeah, so it, it\u0026rsquo;s interesting to view businesses from a. From from what is a problem and how we can solve it to, how, what are underlying social trends that we can piggyback off of and sort of ride that wave and nothing lasts forever. Right. So, it\u0026rsquo;ll be interesting to see what some of the Aussie sort of tech companies especially your Atlassian, NGO, your canvas, how, how they ride that wave and, and, and a big part of that is also pivoting.\nOnce you realize, look, you\u0026rsquo;re in your first wave and that\u0026rsquo;s sort of that growth is starting to slow down, where can I pivot and switch to next? And sometimes you\u0026rsquo;ll find the pivot can be more successful than the original push as well. Good examples of this. So right now, apple, I feel like it is mid pivot where, they were computing company, but now they\u0026rsquo;re sort of pivoting into more of a services company with, with the whole bunch of products that have right now, so Twitter is another good one.\nIf folks like Google\u0026rsquo;s success, the company pivots yeah. Sort of just realizing that sometimes structural tailwinds change and sometimes it\u0026rsquo;s on your company to, to shift along with that. And not be sort of resistant to that change.\nUpcoming Trends # James: Are there any trends that you see at the moment that you think, yeah, we\u0026rsquo;re almost right at the side of like, similar to how we were talking about the internet and different communities and things like that.\nWhat do you think about the start of at the moment and what kind of things would you, would you almost bet on,\nyou know, to be popular, let\u0026rsquo;s say in five years.\nHaynes: Right. I think let\u0026rsquo;s, let\u0026rsquo;s shorten that. Let\u0026rsquo;s see where we\u0026rsquo;ve come from first in, in the last six to 12 months. And, and then sort of like, let\u0026rsquo;s draw, extend that out for the next few years or so. So at least in Australia and also globally, we\u0026rsquo;ve been in lockdowns, for as long as I can remember, I want to say sort of two years.\nAnd everyone is, is working from home. Everyone\u0026rsquo;s 80 from harm. Everyone\u0026rsquo;s waking up from harm. Everyone\u0026rsquo;s doing zoom calls now. I think there are, there\u0026rsquo;s a fundamental change in the way people interact. And I don\u0026rsquo;t think that we are going back to where we were previously, at least not to that same level.\nI think there is a greater, so in terms of like consumer behavior, I think there has been a structural shift and a greater acceptance for eating a car from getting your groceries delivered at harm working out at harm. And so that\u0026rsquo;s my one sort of takeaway is that we are more comfortable now to use technology, to, to get things delivered and work sort of remotely.\nI think the second big takeaway is, is that I\u0026rsquo;ve seen so many people now start up e-commerce stores, Shopify stores start blogs and blogs and kick talk. And w w the, the second shift that I\u0026rsquo;ve seen in the last sort of two years people are going away from content consumption to content generation.\nLike, I think it\u0026rsquo;s a lot more acceptable now for people to create content regarding like, whether it\u0026rsquo;s a Tik, TOK websites, YouTube, podcasts, whatever. I think that\u0026rsquo;s becoming more socially acceptable. So those sort of the two big trends I\u0026rsquo;ve seen recently. I now, so when I think when I, when I think ahead, yeah.\nHow, how, how will this play out in the next five to 10 years? So if you\u0026rsquo;re I, I, I love tech companies. I, I really believe in the power of technology to disrupt, dinosaur industries, but if you\u0026rsquo;re. In the space where you\u0026rsquo;re helping people take what was previously a outdoor function and you can help bring that indoors or, or even better do it remotely.\nI think there, there is a structural tailwind there. So what do I mean by that? So if your, a company that\u0026rsquo;s facilitating or enabling, food delivery remote working remote, like tele communications as well. I think that\u0026rsquo;s a structural tailwind there that\u0026rsquo;s a place where I think we will not go back to old ways of working because I think that\u0026rsquo;s just fundamentally changed.\nSo the, the winners of this are probably, your companies like zoom. The companies like Peloton the losers of this, commercial real estate Like I\u0026rsquo;d hate to be CVRE right now. And like, it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s interesting to see how that will or will work in, in the next, five or 10 years.\nSo I, yeah, definitely think if you\u0026rsquo;re, if you\u0026rsquo;re starting a company where you\u0026rsquo;re helping people to be more remote and helping them live their best lives in a geographically agnostic way, then I think that\u0026rsquo;s, you\u0026rsquo;re, you\u0026rsquo;re onto something there. I think that\u0026rsquo;s that principle. The second principle is, SARC that we\u0026rsquo;ve seen, that people are now being content creators as and that\u0026rsquo;s being okay and that\u0026rsquo;s being encouraged.\nWell, if you\u0026rsquo;re selling a business where you\u0026rsquo;re helping people, you\u0026rsquo;re advising people in terms of their marketing, their content creation whether it\u0026rsquo;s data analytics and how to improve understanding their audience metrics. I think that\u0026rsquo;s a big push there that a big structural tailwind that, you can sort of piggyback off in that, and it is now starting to become quite a congested space.\nLike there, there are a lot of folks there that are, sort of social media consultants and, it\u0026rsquo;s a very congested space, but I think that, even if you look at YouTube, for example, you get certainly nations in whether it\u0026rsquo;s, some, some examples in a property or, animals, or are the sort of nations which were previously, no one really logged, them buying a house, but now, I\u0026rsquo;m seeing so much of that.\nAnd, and, sort of figure out a way where you can be part of that space. I, I know what the answer is right now, but that, that is definitely a structural tailwind. It is becoming now more socially acceptable to be content creators, as opposed to just content consumers. So that\u0026rsquo;s another thing I think another shift that I\u0026rsquo;ve seen recently is again, going, touching back to what we talked about previously of people having multiple jobs.\nI really think that the future. Folks the, the future work model, I don\u0026rsquo;t think it\u0026rsquo;s necessarily five days a week, nine to five. I think that w COVID and lockdowns have shown that what people can actually get work done when, when they\u0026rsquo;re not in the office. And sometimes not even when it\u0026rsquo;s nine to five folks are in different time zones.\nI remember when I was in in the states, COVID hit a lot of people left San Francisco, New York, and decided to go to Midtown cities. It\u0026rsquo;s hard to go to Hawaii and Latin America, and I still got their work done. But the point I\u0026rsquo;m trying to make is this, this nine to five, you\u0026rsquo;ve got to be in the office.\nCulture, I think is, is yeah, I don\u0026rsquo;t think we\u0026rsquo;ll have that anymore. So what does that mean going forward and what are the tailwinds? It means that I think a couple of things, one, I think people are more likely to take on second and third jobs. Whether it\u0026rsquo;s, I\u0026rsquo;m going to work this job. And our four days a week, another job, one day a week, and another job, another half a day, a week, or I\u0026rsquo;m going to work three jobs.\nAnd I\u0026rsquo;m going to try to work part-time and all three. And it\u0026rsquo;s going to be five days a week, or leveraging sites like Fiverr and air Tasker, and being in that gig economy space where I\u0026rsquo;m not really an employee, but I\u0026rsquo;m still, I\u0026rsquo;m still working and, and I\u0026rsquo;m being part of the gig economy space.\nSo I think that\u0026rsquo;s, that\u0026rsquo;s another sort of takeaway that I\u0026rsquo;ve seen the last two years that I still think we\u0026rsquo;ll stick around for the next five or 10 years. And that will be a structural tailwind. So in terms of starting a business in this space, it\u0026rsquo;s, I think gig economy and understanding, well, okay, so you\u0026rsquo;re a contractor.\nWhat what are the skills that I have. And what are the gaps that are added out there that I can plug in and, and work on it. So, for example, if you\u0026rsquo;re an engineer, I can not take on freelance engineering, gigs if you\u0026rsquo;re a visual creator or visual artists in, in, in Columbia, CA can I take on a few tasks that, are in the U S or Australia and get paid in dollars, but, again, living in pesos, for example.\nSo I think you\u0026rsquo;ll see a lot of that coming through in the next few years. So yeah, I definitely think it\u0026rsquo;s not a good place to be if you\u0026rsquo;re a commercial real estate. Cause I think folks just working remotely and things are becoming very location agnostic. So I think those are some of the structural tailwinds that I was sort of talking about there as well.\nAnd I think, and, and just sort of, another point I\u0026rsquo;d like to add. Yeah. I think companies that are realizing the power of users\u0026rsquo; data. And I think my suspicion is a lot of these sort of large tech companies big structural tailwind that I\u0026rsquo;m seeing is that they\u0026rsquo;re realizing, they\u0026rsquo;re realizing that customer data is really valid.\nAnd then in acknowledging that they\u0026rsquo;ve decided to almost build platforms, I think, if you have a business where you are a platform where you\u0026rsquo;re connecting, but buyers and sellers or your, yeah, you\u0026rsquo;re a platform where you\u0026rsquo;re providing multiple products and services that are both interconnected in different ways, but you\u0026rsquo;re a platform that, and having that moat, I think that is a structural shift that I\u0026rsquo;m seeing where companies are now going well, how can I be a marketplace?\nHow can I be a platform? And you\u0026rsquo;ll see a lot of these companies where you\u0026rsquo;ll see a lot of investor pitch decks, where they talk about we\u0026rsquo;re a platform. We connect buyers and sellers. We rely on network benefits or we, we want to build a suite of products, not just sort of one. But we want to build a suite of products and try to get fill in that, that.\nGap from from sort of a low to all the way to, the nth degree. I think adding that sort of another change that I\u0026rsquo;m seeing.\nJames: Hmm. Yeah.\nI think it\u0026rsquo;s really exciting. All these things we\u0026rsquo;ve got to look forward to in the future. And some of those are, Yeah, I\u0026rsquo;m really excited to, for those to come to fruition.\nHaynes\u0026rsquo; Favourite Failure # James: I want to take this conversation into more of your career and things. Now I\u0026rsquo;m curious if there\u0026rsquo;s a particular failure that you\u0026rsquo;ve had in your career that you would say, okay, that\u0026rsquo;s my favorite failure.\nThat\u0026rsquo;s one that allowed me to do, or, really, having that experience led me to, to greater things. Was there any failures that almost are your favorites?\nHaynes: Yeah, absolutely. Look, I\u0026rsquo;ve got several James, I\u0026rsquo;ve got several. I, I\u0026rsquo;m trying to think of what, the, the one that\u0026rsquo;s sort of had the biggest impact. I joined PwC when, when I was 18 PwC Australia. I was a trainee. I applied when I was in high school. I barely knew to be honest, I barely knew what PwC was in high school.\nI just sort of applied. Cause I know, I think I came across a website and they were, they were looking for folks and I thought I\u0026rsquo;ll apply and see what sort of happens. And I was sort of lucky enough to, to join as a trainee and I was there for the, just under two years. And then, some of the, I think my biggest sort of feedback that I had was, that was my first job and sort of understanding how to communicate.\nCaught in a corporate way. I deal with clients in sort of corporate way. I had some really sort of strong feedback on, on, what Haynes this is. This is how you should think about dealing with clients and this, this is how you sort of put together a memo or the, in, in the audit world, this is how you put together a work paper.\nI mean, this is sort of how your, you deal with client relationships, all that was new to me, I was sort of end of first year uni that I started and was all new to me. And, I think the, the biggest sort of failure I had at that point, or it wasn\u0026rsquo;t so much failure, but, just having.\nA lot of really constructive feedback, which you never really get in high school or at university, because a lot of that feedback is just academic. You\u0026rsquo;ve got an essay you got to test, did you do well or not? And how could you have improved, but sort of in the corporate workplace. And this was my first job.\nAnd, I had some really really like constructive, but really strong sort of feedback on, if you\u0026rsquo;re in a meeting, they use us, this is sort of how you go about dealing with clients. So, if this is a client problem, this is how you should go about sort of fixing it.\nIf you\u0026rsquo;re sort of putting together a, an audit work paper, it gets very technical. No one really showed me how, how, the corporate world works. It\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s an interesting sort of skillset at that point. This is how you put together audit work paper, this is how you interpret and apply accounting standards and, and just sort of feedback along the way that was it, it showed me a couple of things.\nIt showed me one that We do it, like just generally, like, I, we do a really poor job of teaching folks and getting them workplace already and job ready. Right. And you go from high school to university and then, bang you\u0026rsquo;re in work and you\u0026rsquo;re wearing an oversized suit, in a and you\u0026rsquo;re in meetings that you don\u0026rsquo;t really know what\u0026rsquo;s going on.\nBut I think that sort of initial sort of training and, and I, yeah, I, I think that I\u0026rsquo;m sure it\u0026rsquo;s got a lot better now, but you know, that transition from high school straight into the workplace, that was a very steep transition for me. And I probably made a ton of mistakes in there as well. The second thing I learned was that audit was probably not, and still is not for me.\nI was an audit there and one of my first clients was a listed fund in a listed fund manager. It was an infrastructure infrastructure fund Hastings fund management. That was my first client there. And I think we quickly realized pretty early on that audit was not what I wanted to do.\nFor the next 40 years I had this sort of misconception when I first joined was that, your first job is basically what you\u0026rsquo;ll be doing for the next 40 years and your career is linear, but you know what, that\u0026rsquo;s not the case. And at that point I realized, you know what, audit, it\u0026rsquo;s not for me.\nI didn\u0026rsquo;t wake up every morning, say, this, this is what I want to do for the rest of my career. I wanted something a bit more engaging. It has a post to retrospective work and working for clients. I felt like I wanted to build my own thing. I want to do my own thing. And that was sort of the, the thing that I learned, but yeah, sort of biggest failure was, during sort of it wasn\u0026rsquo;t sort of one sort of thing, but it was just.\nHow to, how to think and how to communicate in a corporate way with sort of keeping your clients sort of first. I think that was a big takeaway. For me. But yeah, along the way, I\u0026rsquo;ve made so many mistakes. Like, I, I was, I think I was telling you this before, but you know, I remember the one time I was my first client one of my senior consultants told me to print, print a few files and print a few documents.\nAnd I was like, yeah. Okay, fine. It\u0026rsquo;s probably like my first week of joining PwC, I\u0026rsquo;ll go print some stuff. And walk around to the printers were, or, these massive corporate printers on, and I\u0026rsquo;m sure you know what I\u0026rsquo;m talking about. These massive printers I was used to having just a.\nSort of printer at home. And so I knew how that worked. And then I remember the senior telling me go print. This stuff has to be color double-sided and give me a whole bunch of stuff. I\u0026rsquo;m like, yes, yes, yes. I\u0026rsquo;ve got this. How hard can it be print some papers? And I\u0026rsquo;m done. I walk into the printers and I was just intimidated by this massive thing.\nIt was like you needed to have a cart to swipe in, in, in and, and use the printer. And it was, it was just nuts. And so I spent 45 minutes in the printer room, just trying to figure out how this printer works. And I was like, what am I doing? I can\u0026rsquo;t print this. And it\u0026rsquo;s taken me 45 minutes. Like, what does a senior consultant to think of me?\nI\u0026rsquo;m done this is not going to work. But yeah, I think, she came, she was like, what is Haynes doing? Why is he taking this long to print a few pieces of paper? And I think she sort of helped me out at the end, but that was sort of a big realization that there are, there\u0026rsquo;s so much that I don\u0026rsquo;t know.\nAnd I should. Be open and honest and say, look, I don\u0026rsquo;t know how to do this thing. You just help me out. I don\u0026rsquo;t think I\u0026rsquo;m the only one in this situation. I think there are a lot of grads listening to this, whether they\u0026rsquo;re like, okay, I\u0026rsquo;ve got these really dumb, silly questions that I should know how to do, but I don\u0026rsquo;t, because I\u0026rsquo;ve never experienced this before.\nLike my advice is just, suck it up and ask for help. It doesn\u0026rsquo;t matter how silly it is. Yeah, that, that was an interesting experience.\nJames: Yeah, yeah, I mean, that\u0026rsquo;s great advice too. And asking those questions and even getting in the habit of some people have told me, and it asked those questions earlier so that when, you\u0026rsquo;re six months into it, and you\u0026rsquo;re\nHaynes: Yeah,\nJames: Asked, they assume that you know what you\u0026rsquo;re doing by that point.\nSo it becomes difficult, even more difficult than to ask. So\nHaynes: Yeah,\nJames: Added to get them out.\nHaynes: Yeah. I always encourage people to ask questions upfront and early because the last, that\u0026rsquo;s, that\u0026rsquo;s much easier. And that\u0026rsquo;s a better outcome than waiting, right. Till the end. And then figuring out of, sorry, I didn\u0026rsquo;t know this. And so I\u0026rsquo;ve just wasted all my time, spinning my wheels.\nLike that\u0026rsquo;s, that\u0026rsquo;s something I advise all my teams and all my mentees just, be up front, just own your areas that you need help with because we were all, we were all grads at one point, so, you think about some of the most inspirational and intimidating folks that you might\u0026rsquo;ve worked with and just realize, look, everyone was an intern.\nEveryone was a grad, we\u0026rsquo;ve all been there. We sort of overthink things sometimes. Right. So yeah, just to remove that away and just be sort of direct in, in seeking help.\nJames: Yeah. Yeah. That\u0026rsquo;s, that\u0026rsquo;s really cool.\nQuestions to ask when moving roles # James: Speaking of questions and asking questions. You\u0026rsquo;ve like, you\u0026rsquo;re saying you\u0026rsquo;ve moved around a little bit, eh, even finding out all that wasn\u0026rsquo;t for you and things like that. Are there any questions that you, that you ask when you\u0026rsquo;re moving roles and when you\u0026rsquo;re in some way you don\u0026rsquo;t want to go and you\u0026rsquo;re looking for somewhere else to go, what kind of questions would you ask people to get ready to move into something that you might prefer?\nHaynes: Yeah. I think that\u0026rsquo;s a really good question because you don\u0026rsquo;t really know what something\u0026rsquo;s like and unless you\u0026rsquo;ve, I think you\u0026rsquo;ve experienced it, you can, maybe there\u0026rsquo;s a couple of things you can ask folks that are in that role or folks in that company before you join and say, look, w what is the career trajectory?\nLike? What\u0026rsquo;s the co is the company growing? What\u0026rsquo;s the culture? Like, why is this role opened as someone left? If so, why did they leave? What, what\u0026rsquo;s the, what, what, what\u0026rsquo;s the message that, what\u0026rsquo;s the vision that some of the key founders and executives have These are all some of your almost investigative questions that you\u0026rsquo;re asking to figure out something is the right fit for you.\nAnd, I think one of the things that\u0026rsquo;s really important to think about when you\u0026rsquo;re interviewing for jobs is, they\u0026rsquo;re interviewing you as much as you\u0026rsquo;re interviewing them. And so like, I understand what the culture is like understanding. Do folks go out at the end of the week, to have dinner at work or is it, everyone does their own thing, do to folks appreciate you asking for help or is it more independent? Is it a co is a big team? Is it a small team? What does career progression look like where, where do folks that work in this role end up in five or 10 years time? Those questions I\u0026rsquo;d ask and I think about.\nWhen I\u0026rsquo;m joined air wall X before I accepted the role, I was sort of lucky. I knew a couple of people there that, that already worked there and I reached out to them. And I said, look, I\u0026rsquo;m, I\u0026rsquo;m interviewing what\u0026rsquo;s the culture, like, do enjoy working there. What are your hours like?\nCause you\u0026rsquo;ll get the HR sort of spiel. Right. But you really want to figure out what\u0026rsquo;s going on. So, my advice is just reach out to folks that work there. If you\u0026rsquo;ve got mutual connections on LinkedIn, especially and just understand, where is the company growing and if you were in this role for the next five years, where would you end up?\nYour career is not linear # Haynes: And what are the skills that you want. And one thing, James, I\u0026rsquo;d probably wrap this with, with this context of your career is not linear and this is sort of touching back on what I said previously. When, when I first started, I, I thought a career is linear. It\u0026rsquo;s this linear trajectory.\nYou go from grad to, analyst to a senior analyst to a manager. And it\u0026rsquo;s not like that. I hate to break it to, to everyone. It\u0026rsquo;s it definitely doesn\u0026rsquo;t work like that. I think of it almost as a rollercoaster where, there are times where you, there are phases where you will go linear, but then, you might pivot into another company or you might change roles.\nYou might change careers. You might have a family, you might have kids, you might take some time off and you might take a couple of steps sideways. You might skip a couple of steps, the point I\u0026rsquo;m trying to make, it\u0026rsquo;s not linear. And, and I think career counselors do a disservice to everyone by telling folks that, okay, this is the job you want.\nAnd this is a linear path to get to that. I don\u0026rsquo;t necessarily think that\u0026rsquo;s the case. It, it\u0026rsquo;s more about experience developing your experiences and your skillsets, and, if you want to be an a, audit partner yes. It might seem linear, but you know, a lot of folks now are working in industry for a couple of years, and then coming back, if you want to be a CFO, it\u0026rsquo;s, there\u0026rsquo;s different ways of going about it.\nYou\u0026rsquo;ve got the banking road, you\u0026rsquo;ve got sort of the, the controller role, but the VP way of going about it or the FP and a way of going about it. So, I especially sort of type a personalities. They\u0026rsquo;re just about to enter into the workforce. They see things as linear. I, my strong advice is to not see it that way.\nYou will have kids at some point or travel or you\u0026rsquo;ll take some time off to, to go do your own thing or set up your own business. And that\u0026rsquo;s okay. And, and that\u0026rsquo;s sort of the, I was telling my sister this the other day, actually, and she\u0026rsquo;s applying for grad jobs right now. It\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s like, it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s not linear.\nYou\u0026rsquo;re allowed to not know exactly what you want. It\u0026rsquo;s okay to try different things and, and, almost sort of sample different jobs and see what you like and see what you don\u0026rsquo;t like. I\u0026rsquo;m a big fan of just reaching out to folks in the jobs that you aspire to get and picking their brain over coffee or reserve and say, look, I, this is why I want, this is why I\u0026rsquo;m interested in the role.\nI wanna understand what your day to day is. This is why I think I would be a good fit, but I like before I invest my time and, and, and some of my career, I want to understand if this is the right fit for me. And you\u0026rsquo;ll find that you\u0026rsquo;ll avoid making a whole load of mistakes. If you go down this sort of coffee chat sort of approach to understanding what a career is all about there\u0026rsquo;s that\u0026rsquo;s one sort of way of going about it.\nI spoke to another friend of mine food decided to do a master\u0026rsquo;s, you worked in investment banking. Didn\u0026rsquo;t realize that you didn\u0026rsquo;t really want to do that longterm. His passion was engineering, so he did his master\u0026rsquo;s in engineering and through the course of doing his master\u0026rsquo;s program, he realized, yeah, this, this is, this is actually what I want to do.\nIt, it validated to him what his interests and passions are and, and sort of confirm that, yes, this is what he wants to do. For, for foreseeable future. And now, yeah, he\u0026rsquo;s sort of working sort of in data analytics and sort of computer science and he really enjoys that. So that\u0026rsquo;s another option, taking the post-grad study of.\nFinding Mentors in Australia # James: Yeah.\nI like that a lot. I like that a lot. I think those questions, especially that one you mentioned would be there\u0026rsquo;s so much you mentioned there, but that, that question about where it is. If I get this role, where do I end up where the people that had done this previously go, I think that\u0026rsquo;s really great question.\nAnd I think what you were saying about sitting down with people for coffee, I think is really important too. Especially if they\u0026rsquo;re, you don\u0026rsquo;t necessarily have to know them before reaching out either. And I think that\u0026rsquo;s likely something that you\u0026rsquo;ve done too is, reaching out to people who work there, maybe like you said, you have just mutual connections with them.\nLots of people, especially like we\u0026rsquo;ll just happily sit down. Even if it\u0026rsquo;s nowadays you can just tee up a half an hour call like very easily. And most people will slightly go into their schedule, like, really easily. So yeah,\nI think that\u0026rsquo;s really great advice.\nHaynes: Yeah. It is amazing. It sort of amazes me how little that happens. Australia, right? Where w. Students or young grads sort of reaching out to folks and asking for a copy, like coffee to pick their brains like that it surprises me how little that happens. In the states they don\u0026rsquo;t, it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s almost a regular thing.\nYou\u0026rsquo;ll get your alumni or, other folks just reaching out to you and it happens almost every other day. Whereas here, I don\u0026rsquo;t know, it\u0026rsquo;s I don\u0026rsquo;t think that\u0026rsquo;s caught on yet. I also think like, in the states there\u0026rsquo;s a stronger a like, college alumni culture. So, if you went to a certain university, you will actively reach out to all of the folks that went to that university regardless of where they are now and sort of reach out, introduce yourself to them.\nWhereas in Australia it doesn\u0026rsquo;t really happen. It might be because, there are just fewer universities in Australia compared to the states. And people don\u0026rsquo;t really have that sort of Not patriotism, but like, feeling of like belonging for the university is that other thing that sort of happens in Australia, right.\nYeah, but definitely, if you\u0026rsquo;re a young student listening to this and then you\u0026rsquo;ll like, look I, I looked, I\u0026rsquo;m applying to this company and there, there are folks there that I\u0026rsquo;ve mutual connections with, or have gone to the same university that I\u0026rsquo;ve gone to, flick them an email worst case.\nLike they just leave you on read And that\u0026rsquo;s it, like they don\u0026rsquo;t respond, but that\u0026rsquo;s the worst case you haven\u0026rsquo;t lost anything. The, the best case scenario is that you have a really engaging conversation with them and, whether they steer you towards the role or away from it you\u0026rsquo;ll learn something about the role that you probably wouldn\u0026rsquo;t have known about, and in save you potentially a mistake.\nSo yeah, I think that\u0026rsquo;s something that I strongly advise people to.\ndo\nJames: Yeah. Yeah.\nI totally green. It\u0026rsquo;s. Okay. Really cool. Even from that perspective of reaching out for a lot, certain roles that you want to do, or even just mentorship in that if you want to improve at the current role you\u0026rsquo;re doing as well. I think that\u0026rsquo;s really big. And Yeah, I think like, because it is so underutilized, like you said in Australia, and I agree that like, many people done this, instead of doing this, there\u0026rsquo;s so much more value to get out of it because the people you are reaching out to don\u0026rsquo;t usually get things like this and that they\u0026rsquo;re more than happy to help.\nSo I think it\u0026rsquo;s important that you utilize that while it\u0026rsquo;s still something that is uncommon.\nHow to reach out to people # Haynes: Yeah, absolutely. And I can\u0026rsquo;t think of a better way to differentiate. From, the pool of graduates. And I, and probably grudges crowds, don\u0026rsquo;t none of this, but when you\u0026rsquo;re applying for a job, like your one in thousands of applicants and it\u0026rsquo;s just unrealistic for people to, go through thousands of applications.\nSo to the extent that you can and you can differentiate yourself that\u0026rsquo;s, that\u0026rsquo;s a huge plus. I think there was a Tim Ferriss podcast sort of about this and about networking and how do I approach people, but he sort of talks about it more from a entrepreneurial perspective. But I think the principles still apply.\nLike you have to be very careful about just cold, cold emailing, cold, reaching out to people and saying, can I pick your brain? Because folks are generally busy. And you have to be sort of conscious of their time and their calendars. I think you\u0026rsquo;ve got to sort of structure that. I look for two things.\nOne is, is this person legitimate? If I say yes, will they actually take this seriously? And will they show up on time? Do they, what do they have a past sort of background, whether tertiary or work experience to, to validate their interest you know, is personal legitimate. So that\u0026rsquo;s sort of number one.\nAnd the second thing is, what is this person looking to get out of this. D what do they mean by just pick my brain? Is it just, you just want to have a coffee chat and get a referral out of me? Or do you genuinely have a specific question that you, you would like me to help you out with?\nSo I think when actually structuring this, not gonna elaborate on this a little bit more, but when you are called reaching out to people, be very clear on what it is you actually want to get out of it. I think you have to be sort of wary of people\u0026rsquo;s times. And that\u0026rsquo;s something to think about as well.\nSo, if you are looking for referrals, I look, I, I want to learn more about the role, what some of the challenges are. And, and then, if you\u0026rsquo;re happy with this, can you refer me to someone? Or if your, if you have a specific question, actually like let them know. I think just being efficient in this is, is the name of.\nJames: Yeah.\nYeah,\nI absolutely agree with that. And I think, being genuine is, is so important. And I think too, like you were saying, being specific with the ask as well is it\u0026rsquo;s something that I try and do when I\u0026rsquo;m asking people to come on the podcast as well, which is a good exercise for this kind of thing where, you know, leading with some kind of value or something that\u0026rsquo;s going on with their life.\nAnd then maybe some context as to why you\u0026rsquo;re reaching out to them. And then then finishing with things that you specifically want to have the conversation about, I think is really important. And even it just shows that you\u0026rsquo;ve gone to more effort to investigate them and what they\u0026rsquo;re about and what they do and things like that because.\nIf they, it\u0026rsquo;s almost like if you put in low effort and they say yes, then like they\u0026rsquo;ve almost agreed to, that\u0026rsquo;s kind of the bar that they\u0026rsquo;ll accept to speak to people. And so people don\u0026rsquo;t want to set that so low that they\u0026rsquo;re going to say yes to anyone. That\u0026rsquo;s like, yeah.\nHey, can I speak to you? Do you know what I mean?\nThey\u0026rsquo;re going to set up a bit higher. So like are only speak to people that actually genuinely interested in what they\u0026rsquo;re doing. So I think that\u0026rsquo;s so important.\nHaynes: Yeah, absolutely. And know, you have to put yourself in their shoes, right? Yeah. Well, when you\u0026rsquo;ve got sort of a tight sort of schedule, you want to make it impactful. And the best way to do that, just being clear on what your objectives are and what you want to get out of it. Yeah,\nHaynes\u0026rsquo; Advice for Graduates # James: Yeah.\nGreat. Well, I\u0026rsquo;ve got one last question for you Hayes. We\u0026rsquo;ve covered so much in this, in this conversation, a lot of value here, but I want to ask one more and it\u0026rsquo;s a question I ask all the guests and it\u0026rsquo;s about if you were gr I graduated. Maybe let\u0026rsquo;s say starting next year, you\u0026rsquo;re about to start your grad role.\nWhat is some advice or maybe one piece of advice that you would give yourself?\nHaynes: Oh, that is a good question. I would say I think broad just, just, I would, I\u0026rsquo;ll tell myself that, it\u0026rsquo;s important to keep my own personal interests and hobbies and not lose them. When, when going into a Gregg sort of role I think that the person\u0026rsquo;s, I\u0026rsquo;m getting a grad job.\nI think it\u0026rsquo;s well documented and there\u0026rsquo;s enough resources out there. But I think what we don\u0026rsquo;t talk about is the importance of keeping your own personality and your, your own hobbies. Hasn\u0026rsquo;t joined your, your sort of big company, right? I think it\u0026rsquo;s so easy. And I\u0026rsquo;ve seen this so many times when your, you go through a university, you\u0026rsquo;ve got all these hobbies and interests and passions, and then you enter the workforce and then it\u0026rsquo;s all consuming, right?\nIt\u0026rsquo;s nine to five, but it\u0026rsquo;s not really nine to five. Right? It\u0026rsquo;s, it depends on what role you work for and what company you work for, but you\u0026rsquo;ll be doing long hours. You\u0026rsquo;ll find that you\u0026rsquo;ll sometimes work in weekends and miss birthdays and dinners. My, looking back at it, my thing is you want to keep your passions and interests and hobbies with your, for as long as you can.\nI, I don\u0026rsquo;t let your work life basically take over your whole life. Because it\u0026rsquo;s easy to do that. There, there is always work. There will always be work. But you know, if you\u0026rsquo;re into sport or gym or dancing or teaching or mentoring, or have a business or whatever, whatever it is that gives you that joy and satisfaction in your life you need to keep that because you\u0026rsquo;ll realize that there are times when.\nIsn\u0026rsquo;t great. And whether you\u0026rsquo;ve had a tough week or you it\u0026rsquo;s, you\u0026rsquo;re really stressed you do rely on your personal hobbies and interests to basically pick you up from that for a lot of people, it\u0026rsquo;s their relationships with their partner or your faith or working out in the gym. The, the crazier work gets the more important those parts of your life become to keep you grounded and keep you sane.\nIf you do get to a point where your work is all encompassing and there\u0026rsquo;s nothing else you burn out very quickly, you\u0026rsquo;ll also look back and realize that all you\u0026rsquo;ve done is work and we\u0026rsquo;ve got nothing else to show for it. So my, my advice or fall is optimistic. 21 year old grads is keep your hobbies, keep your interests, KP passions.\nWhat I have worked to be around that Yeah, as opposed to just having work be the only thing that you have in life. It also makes you so much more interesting knowledgeable and the more senior you go of the year, like you, relationships become super important in a workplace.\nAnd you\u0026rsquo;ll draw on those experiences, traveling or having a business or working out you\u0026rsquo;ll draw on those parts of your life in order to build those relationships in the workplace, the more senior you get. So that\u0026rsquo;s, that\u0026rsquo;s something I\u0026rsquo;d probably recommend.\nCharlie Munger\u0026rsquo;s Lattice Theory # Haynes: There were a couple of set of principles that I\u0026rsquo;d like to sort of cover as well, I think, one of the things that sort of stuck with me is like Charlie Munger\u0026rsquo;s mental models, I\u0026rsquo;m a big, big fan of Charlie manga.\nAnd for folks that don\u0026rsquo;t know who he is he\u0026rsquo;s sort of the almost the second in charge at Berkshire. So it helps out the Warren buffet and just one of the smartest people you\u0026rsquo;ll ever meet. And he\u0026rsquo;s got this interesting mental model called like, the lattice theory. And I think this is really relevant for grads and, and folks listening to the show and a lot of series all about, what are the developing nations in one area, but also working on developing experience and skill sets and another area that it\u0026rsquo;s totally unrelated.\nRight? And you put those together and you find where the overlap. And it\u0026rsquo;s in that overlap where you\u0026rsquo;ll have a lot of growth. So what do I mean by this? So for example, and this is a really good case for entrepreneurs as well. So if you\u0026rsquo;re an accountant, but you\u0026rsquo;re also interested in dance and the arts, figure out what the overlaps are between that, can I be a financial advisor for a creative dance company or we\u0026rsquo;ll figure out what, what the overlaps are, and you\u0026rsquo;ll find a ton of opportunities in those overlaps, if you\u0026rsquo;re an engineer but also are into design figure out what overlaps exist between those indices.\nAnd sort of dive in there if you\u0026rsquo;re a builder, but also, I really into cars, figure out what the overlaps are between that and dive into that. So it\u0026rsquo;s almost like I call it the ladder story. It\u0026rsquo;s this mental model of figuring out exactly what am I, current skills and interests and passions, and also try to develop sort of something else.\nThat\u0026rsquo;s totally unrelated. Also develop that skills and expertise in that area. And over time, you\u0026rsquo;ll figure out that the overlap in those seemingly unrelated areas you\u0026rsquo;ll find a lot of growth and opportunities in there as well. So a really good example, I sort of picked this up from this YouTube called.\nI\u0026rsquo;m not, I\u0026rsquo;m sure you\u0026rsquo;ve probably heard of him. I feel like a lot of people have, this, this is a YouTuber that combines, med and like being a medical student and being an entrepreneur. And he\u0026rsquo;s able to combine these seemingly unrelated things and, and do so well because he\u0026rsquo;s in a space that there aren\u0026rsquo;t many people right now.\nRight? So the ability to combine two or three different niches and find what\u0026rsquo;s the overlapping area, what and see if we can be in that space, you\u0026rsquo;ll find that you\u0026rsquo;re the only one there. And you\u0026rsquo;ll, you\u0026rsquo;ll do really well. So I\u0026rsquo;m not sure if that sort of makes sense, but that\u0026rsquo;s, that\u0026rsquo;s a mental model that stuck with me for a while.\nJames: Yeah,\nno, I liked that a lot enough. I\u0026rsquo;ve heard that even we\u0026rsquo;ve spoken about Tim Ferriss a few times today, but I\u0026rsquo;ve heard him describe that as well. And there\u0026rsquo;s a guy called Scott Adams. I don\u0026rsquo;t know if you\u0026rsquo;ve heard of him, but he talks about this too, where it\u0026rsquo;s like the stacking of things. And like you\u0026rsquo;ve said, Yeah, the crossover between things allows you to be, if you\u0026rsquo;re the best, like if you\u0026rsquo;re a good accountant and a good public speaker, for example, then maybe you\u0026rsquo;re a really good public speaker, a public speaker about accounting stuff.\nHaynes: Yeah, Yeah,\nJames: And then you can at once, as soon as you stack on like two or three of those, you can become really good at. And one of the best few people at that kind of niche thing, that there won\u0026rsquo;t be many people who are also good at that thing.\nHaynes: Yeah. I, I, I always give this advice for, a lot of my friends are sort of creatives, whether you\u0026rsquo;re a musician or you\u0026rsquo;re a chef you\u0026rsquo;re in that creative industry, if you can find another Skill set that your you don\u0026rsquo;t have to be an expert in, but remotely proficient see where the overlaps are and see if we can be in that overlapping space, because you\u0026rsquo;ll find that you\u0026rsquo;ll be there.\nThere are not many people in that space. And yeah, you\u0026rsquo;ll find a lot of opportunities there. So I encourage sort of grads to think about that as well.\nThe Fancy Title Career Mistake # Haynes: The, the other sort of point I wanted to discuss quickly is, I, I see a lot of, sort of, this misconception about working for fancy companies and fancy titles.\nI think there\u0026rsquo;s a, and that\u0026rsquo;s naturally not folks want to work for large companies are very prestigious and, and, with fancy titles, my advice is to do a 180 and veer away from that. I think you\u0026rsquo;re better off working for really competent managers, really inspirational people has opposed to the, biggest.\nThe biggest consulting company where your you know, like a small cog in a big, bigger sort of ecosystem. And, I think that\u0026rsquo;s, and that\u0026rsquo;s not to say that you won\u0026rsquo;t learn anything with joining the big banks or joining big consulting companies. You\u0026rsquo;ll get a fantastic grounding and understanding how businesses work.\nBut my, if I\u0026rsquo;m an intern or if I\u0026rsquo;m a person about to start my first grad job, I would place more emphasis on the person I\u0026rsquo;m working for. And the role and the skills and experience I will get as a purse to the name. When my CV, I, I am part of the early work community which is a slack group of like Ozzy founders and, and folks working in startup companies and startup companies most do.\nRight. And so if you work at one of these startup companies and you go to a dinner party, like, oh, I\u0026rsquo;m, I\u0026rsquo;m head of growth at this startup. No, one\u0026rsquo;s going to know what the company is, but that\u0026rsquo;s okay. Right. You\u0026rsquo;re learning a lot. You\u0026rsquo;re, you\u0026rsquo;re building all these skills. You\u0026rsquo;re, you\u0026rsquo;re better off at least sort of has a grad and early in your career learning as much as you can being challenged in as many ways as possible as opposed to working sort of in large.\nSo in my view, anyway, working in a large company where you\u0026rsquo;re doing the same thing repeatedly over and over and over again, Sure it might sound great on your CV. But I\u0026rsquo;m a big believer in, in developing your skills and having really interesting experiences. And I, my view is that you generally get that in smaller companies and in startups where you\u0026rsquo;re working on a million things at once, sure.\nYou\u0026rsquo;re an engineer, but you\u0026rsquo;re, for example, you might be a software engineer, but you know, in a startup with 10 people, you\u0026rsquo;re helping out with product design, you\u0026rsquo;re helping out with go to market strategy. You\u0026rsquo;re wearing multiple hats. And I think that\u0026rsquo;s where you get a lot of growth.\nWhen I joined anabolics we were a series C company. I sort of joined as a finance manager, but I did a whole bunch of stuff on tax on, on go-to market, on, on audit, on financial control, on budgeting, on, on FP and a, on like a whole bunch of stuff that you wouldn\u0026rsquo;t necessarily see at a bigger company.\nCause all at a bigger company, you\u0026rsquo;d have each person looking at each of them. Things individually. So yeah, I connected to that, find someone that inspires you and go work for that person. So if, if you want to go in a certain profession and there\u0026rsquo;s someone that\u0026rsquo;s absolutely killing it and is super competent that you admire and respect, reach out to them and say, look, can I shadow you for a week?\nAnd I can I work in your team? And, and see if we can make that happen. I really feel strongly about folks should be, stay clear away from working at a company, just for the name on the CV, but working at a company for the skills and experiences that you\u0026rsquo;ll develop along the way.\nJames: Yeah. I like that a lot. And I think there\u0026rsquo;s something we\u0026rsquo;ve spoken to, I\u0026rsquo;ve spoken to people about on the podcast previously about, generalization and specialization and a lot of the things I\u0026rsquo;ve read and in people online or different things like forums and stuff that I\u0026rsquo;ve read a lot of the people that you become more, like successful are those people that have the general.\nBackground. And then they become like, they\u0026rsquo;re almost a general, a generalized specialist, right? So they start off being a generalist and then they work to become a specialist in one of those areas, but they can still do like the whole they\u0026rsquo;re really still quite broad.\nHaynes: Yeah, absolutely. And I think there\u0026rsquo;s, I, I, the, the mental model on this, I think it\u0026rsquo;s called the T theory where you want to be a generalist sort of broad, but you want to sort of specialize. So go deep down in one area and sort of touching back on what we previously sled. If you can sort of go deep down one area or two areas and find where, where that overlap is between.\nThen you\u0026rsquo;ve got opportunities there that, you\u0026rsquo;ll that not many people will have because not many people are in those overlapping areas. So yeah, I mean, that\u0026rsquo;s, that\u0026rsquo;s something that\u0026rsquo;s worked well for me. And it\u0026rsquo;s something that, yeah. Hopefully I can encourage people to do this something similar.\nOutro # James: Yeah, I think that\u0026rsquo;s great advice, certainly. And I think some of these things we\u0026rsquo;ve spoken about today through the whole podcast around, mentoring, these kinds of mental models, generalization going overseas, seeking opportunities, finding the right boss or things like that are really fundamental things for a grad to know as they begin their career and really things that will save you a lot of time and a lot of headache, if you can, be conscious of them and hear them and then apply them early in your career to, see you\u0026rsquo;re on the right path as you begin your career.\nSo yeah, there\u0026rsquo;s so much value in here. Hanes. Yeah. Thanks so much for coming on the podcast.\nHaynes: Sure. No worries, James. This was great. Happy to be back on. And if anyone has any questions, feel free to shoot me a LinkedIn DM or find me at 87 Advisory. 87 is the number 87. The name of my sort of advisor business. So yeah, feel free to reach out to me.\nI\u0026rsquo;m always happy to, to help.\nJames: Great. Yeah. And we\u0026rsquo;ll have those links to all hands, his staff and his contact details and everything in the show notes. So, yeah. Thanks so much again, hands becoming old and yeah, we\u0026rsquo;ll see you around.\nHaynes: Awesome. Thanks James. Talk to you soon.\nJames: Thanks so much for listening to that episode with Hanes D\u0026rsquo;Souza I think he is so, so passionate about graduates and about graduate careers. And we covered so much in that episode and so many little nuggets that just, you know, CA can really make a big difference in your life and make a big difference in your career.\nIf you want to find out more about Hanes. Follow the links in the description. And if you want to find out more about this episode and might take aways, if you want to see them go Graduate Theory.com and find the link to this episode, the link will also be in the show notes. And if you want to get this kind of information, if you want to get my takeaways and different episodes straight to your inbox, please consider subscribing to the newsletter.\nAlternatively, whatever podcast platform you listening, or you can also subscribe there, listening and sharing this episode really help grow the podcast. So I would really appreciate it. If you could share this episode with a friend and get the good message out there.\nThanks so much again for listening today. And I look forward to seeing you in the next episode.\n← Back to episode 11\n","date":"3 January 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/graduate-theory/11-on-the-graduate-experience-and-careers-with-haynes-dsouza/transcript/","section":"Graduate Theory Transcripts","summary":"← Back to episode 11\nThis transcript has been lightly edited for readability. It may still contain transcription errors.\nIntro # James: Hello, and welcome to Graduate Theory. Today’s episode is a great episode. Today’s episode. We go really deep and with someone that is really passionate about graduates and he’s passionate about. You taking control and growing your career.\n","title":"Transcript: On The Graduate Experience and Careers with Haynes D'Souza","type":"graduate-theory-transcripts"},{"content":" Watch the conversation Graduate Theory Open YouTube ↗ Read the full transcript → James is the host of Graduate Theory. He studied Maths and Finance at the University of Adelaide, before moving to Melbourne in 2021 to start as a Technology Graduate at ANZ. He is passionate about all things careers and motivating people to squeeze the juice out of life.\nConnect With Me # LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-fricker-1795098b/\nSubstack - https://jamesfricker.substack.com/\nWebsite - https://www.jfricker.com/\nEmail - james at graduatetheory dot com\nEpisode Takeaways # Perhaps I am a little biased here since I was the one talking most of the episode! Here are some of my takeaways 👇\nClick Here to Sign Up\nLive by Design, Not by Default # One of the key things that we discussed is intentionality. Be intentional with what you do and don\u0026rsquo;t just do things for the sake of it.\nWhat this comes down to is crystal clarity on where you want to be in life. From this, you can derive the best path for you. Without this path, you lack clarity and intentionality.\nGet Involved # Life is not a single-player game. It\u0026rsquo;s up to you to get out there and create opportunities for yourself. No one is coming to save you. No one is coming to give you that perfect opportunity. It is on you to go out and take the life that you want.\nInspiration # Joe asked me what I want Graduate Theory to be known for. I want it to inspire people over Australia and around the world. I want people to look at the guests that I have on my show and see that what they have done isn\u0026rsquo;t actually that special and that you can do it too. I want people to know that the life they want is within reach and that with a little hard work and intentionality, you can live the life that you truly desire.\nThings Discussed # Indistractable - Nir Eyal\nDeep Work - Cal Newport\nHigh Performance Habits - Brendan Burchard\nShow Notes # 00:00 Intro\n03:07 Why Graduate Theory?\n06:39 What have you learnt from the podcast so far?\n11:07 Which interview has been your favourite?\n14:37 How to be productive\n20:08 My Favourite Book\n25:19 James\u0026rsquo; Favourite Failures\n39:44 How does James want to be described?\n41:55 How would younger James react to Graduate Theory?\n51:43 James\u0026rsquo; Tip For Graduates\n54:03 Outro\n","date":"27 December 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/graduate-theory/10-on-graduate-theory/","section":"Graduate Theory","summary":" Watch the conversation Graduate Theory Open YouTube ↗ Read the full transcript → James is the host of Graduate Theory. He studied Maths and Finance at the University of Adelaide, before moving to Melbourne in 2021 to start as a Technology Graduate at ANZ. He is passionate about all things careers and motivating people to squeeze the juice out of life.\n","title":"On Graduate Theory","type":"graduate-theory"},{"content":"← Back to episode 10\nThis transcript has been lightly edited for readability. It may still contain transcription errors.\nJames: Hello, and welcome to Graduate Theory. Today\u0026rsquo;s episode marks the 10th episode of Graduate Theory, and I thought, what better way to recognize this milestone then to get to know me a little bit more and get to know me in a bit more detail\nThe episode today is. I flipped episode. So in fact, I will not be the one asking the questions. I\u0026rsquo;ve got Joe from the very first episode of the podcast to come and interview me. So it\u0026rsquo;s going to be an interesting episode. You\u0026rsquo;re going to find out a lot more about me and things I like and my opinions on a lot of things.\nSo I hope this, this is insightful and I hope that this gives you a bit more context to what I\u0026rsquo;m like behind the scenes and what I\u0026rsquo;m trying to get out of this experience and out of this podcast\neven though on the one, doing all of a lot of the talking, I still think there are some useful career lessons in this episode. So I hope you enjoy. And I know Christmas is coming soon, TOSA or wishing everyone a very Merry Christmas. And if you want to get episodes like this straight to your inbox,\nplease go to Graduate Theory.com and subscribe to the newsletter. When you, that you get every episode and my thoughts and my takeaways straight to your inbox.\nI hope you enjoy this episode and finding out more about me.\nJames:\nIntro # James: Hello, and welcome to Graduate Theory. Today\u0026rsquo;s episode is a special episode it\u0026rsquo;s episode number 10. So I thought what better way to commemorate or recognize 10 episodes of the podcast to flip the tables a little bit. And instead of me interviewing people. Finding out more about them thought it would be nice to turn the tables and for the audience, for the listener for you guys to get some insight about me and perhaps what the context is behind me, starting this podcast.\nWhat are the reasons why I did that? Where do I actually come from? What do I, what do I do? What am I thoughts on, on life and all that kind of stuff. So to help me with this today, I\u0026rsquo;ve got on the wine here, geo wavy, who some people won\u0026rsquo;t remember from the very first episode of the podcast, Joe welcome to the show.\nJoe: Good to be back. Thank you very much special privilege\nJames: Fantastic. Yeah. It\u0026rsquo;s it\u0026rsquo;s great to have you on, but yeah, like I said, so tonight it\u0026rsquo;s going to be a flipped classroom or flipped podcast. So Joe\u0026rsquo;s going to be the one asking me questions today. So, thanks so much for coming on today, John, I\u0026rsquo;m excited to dive in with you and see, see where we go.\nJoe: Absolutely. Yeah. Well, it\u0026rsquo;s a good opportunity for me. I, my podcast is all solo side. This is I get to try interviewing for a change. We\u0026rsquo;ll see how we go. You\u0026rsquo;re very brave and giving me this platform very, very brave and I\u0026rsquo;ve listened to, I\u0026rsquo;m very sure I\u0026rsquo;ve listened to every episode that\u0026rsquo;s that\u0026rsquo;s out so far.\nSo I feel qualified in that sense and I think you\u0026rsquo;ve had an amazing, it\u0026rsquo;s been an amazing start. I think the graduate. Like the podcast is such a great, such a great thing. And it\u0026rsquo;s such a great caliber of guests already. So I think it is exciting for everyone listening to learn a little bit more about you.\nWhy Graduate Theory? # Joe: I reckon we just, we just jumped straight in. I think the easy place, the obvious place to start is uh, you know, what, what was the inspiration for it? Like what did that stop with the first Spock? What\u0026rsquo;s the first, if you timeline, whereas the first little speck of this on the road.\nJames: Yeah. Well, the first time I\u0026rsquo;ve thought about doing something like this was in, it was 2020, and I think it was around April. So it was during kind of the. Big lockdowns. I think they\u0026rsquo;re were all across Australia at that time. So we were locked inside and I was thinking, I was sitting there.\nI was in my final year of university. So yeah, I finished at the end of 2020. And so I\u0026rsquo;m sitting there and I\u0026rsquo;m, I\u0026rsquo;m thinking about, life after university, what is that going to involve? And I really was sitting there thinking, I don\u0026rsquo;t really know really anything about the workforce, how to go and like grow my career.\nHow does that even work? I knew nothing and I thought, there\u0026rsquo;s people that I could speak to, to, to find out about this and that there\u0026rsquo;s, there\u0026rsquo;s certain connections that I had at the time that I was like, okay, well I could speak to this person. I know they did. They\u0026rsquo;ve had a successful career.\nLike perhaps I could sit down with them and ask them some questions about it. And, and so I had a lot of these ideas floating around in my head. And then it wasn\u0026rsquo;t until. So, yeah. So I guess to, to go forwards a little bit, since that time, I put the podcast on pause. I honestly didn\u0026rsquo;t have really the guts to do it.\nI thought it wasn\u0026rsquo;t going to work. I thought it was going to be a failure. Really just lacking a lot of, well, I guess I have a lot of self doubt around this kind of thing. And if, if it was going to be worth my time, perhaps people wouldn\u0026rsquo;t listen, all that kind of stuff. So then if we fast forward what\u0026rsquo;s that probably a year and a half almost.\nI\u0026rsquo;d since in between that period, I\u0026rsquo;d got a job in Melbourne. I got a grad job in Melbourne and I moved. I was living in Adelaide and I moved to Melbourne. And through that period, it came up again. Cause we had the, the lockdowns again. It August now you locked down to just a recipe for deep thinking.\nI don\u0026rsquo;t know. Maybe\nJoe: And podcast\nJames: Yeah. Hopefully. Yeah. So we\u0026rsquo;re in one again, I\u0026rsquo;m thinking, well, this is something that I\u0026rsquo;m still thinking about and it had been on my mind a few times through yet and I was it sort of came to me. Okay. We found this. I keep thinking about and something that I feel drawn to but you know, am I really gonna go through with this or am I not?\nJames: And I think it was like, well, in five or 10 years, I\u0026rsquo;m going to wish that I at least tried this and, and saw how it went. And I think I\u0026rsquo;m really glad that I have done it. And I\u0026rsquo;m really glad for the lessons that I\u0026rsquo;ve taken from people that I\u0026rsquo;ve spoken to already. Having these conversations, it\u0026rsquo;s been a win-win because it means I get to speak to these people about things that I want to know about my, about growing your career and, these fascinating people, but then it\u0026rsquo;s also good for people listening because they can get getting on those conversations as well, which I, I think at the time, and I think, I think especially now there\u0026rsquo;s, growing that transparent.\nWith successful people is especially in Australia, because a lot of the things that I was reading and watching a lot of the podcasts you might listen to are people that are like in America and that they\u0026rsquo;re their stories aren\u0026rsquo;t as relatable. So I thought that was an, that was a good reason to do this as well.\nIs that there were, I found that there wasn\u0026rsquo;t, that, that place to go, where I could find people that had gone to the same uni as me or. Done the same uni graduate experiences being or things like that, that would just in this completely different environment. So I thought, that was another thing that I was okay, this, I don\u0026rsquo;t think this really exists, or at least I hadn\u0026rsquo;t been exposed to it.\nSo that was another reason why I was like, okay, I can be the one to do this and, and really drive this. So I think it\u0026rsquo;s been, I guess that\u0026rsquo;s my, that\u0026rsquo;s my reasoning for starting it. And I think it\u0026rsquo;s been a great success so far.\nWhat have you learnt from the podcast so far? # Joe: Yep. Very good. It\u0026rsquo;s fascinating. It\u0026rsquo;s the same things are really hard. Most people back from anything. I think it would be very relatable. Anyone listening to that, if they, maybe they\u0026rsquo;re not thinking about starting a podcast, so maybe the exact situation of maybe the next whether it\u0026rsquo;s the next promotion or going for a grad job or navigating the lightest stages of university and how many fi fear of Viking situations there are, or I\u0026rsquo;m not good enough kind of that, which is just a natural part of.\nProgression, like when you progressing on something, when you\u0026rsquo;re taking a step up, because it\u0026rsquo;s a growth and you\u0026rsquo;re not used to, there is always an adjustment. So there\u0026rsquo;s a way it\u0026rsquo;s normally doubt, I think is very powerful. Even just listening to your journey around the podcast that is there a, is there a, a.\nChange you\u0026rsquo;ve seen, I mean, it might be interesting for anyone listening to know a bit more about James outside of Graduate Theory. Like, you\u0026rsquo;re working in a typical graduate role to which I\u0026rsquo;m very aware of. And so how has the 10 episode or the nine episodes so far how\u0026rsquo;s that, has it impacted the way you\u0026rsquo;re thinking about things, your confidence?\nAre there any like noticeable changes? Uh, maybe, maybe not materially, cause it hasn\u0026rsquo;t been that long, like you\u0026rsquo;ve jumped industries or whatever, but have you noticed the way you\u0026rsquo;re thinking about work career and these kind of typical things we all navigate? Has it changed at all with the advice and lessons from the guests over\nJames: Yeah, I think one of the main things that I\u0026rsquo;ve, I\u0026rsquo;ve learnt, and even it comes back to what you were saying about this kind of idea of self doubt and stuff. It\u0026rsquo;s been something that\u0026rsquo;s been a common thread through. A lot of the guests that I\u0026rsquo;ve had on is something that they\u0026rsquo;ve, they\u0026rsquo;ve mentioned, they were doing something and they weren\u0026rsquo;t sure if they should do it, or they were having those things where they were doubting themselves or imposter syndrome or, all those kinds of words for really the same thing.\nYou don\u0026rsquo;t think that you can do something. And it\u0026rsquo;s been surprising that, I, I know I\u0026rsquo;ve had those experiences and really it\u0026rsquo;s been one of the things I\u0026rsquo;ve asked them is like, okay, I\u0026rsquo;ve had these things, like, do you have those? And if so, how, how did you deal with that? And it\u0026rsquo;s been, it\u0026rsquo;s been common across a lot of the guests.\nThey\u0026rsquo;ve all said, I\u0026rsquo;ve had, yeah, I had that experience in this situation. Or, whatever it was. And I think that\u0026rsquo;s been, that\u0026rsquo;s been insightful because it\u0026rsquo;s, it shows me at least that having those things where perhaps an opportunity comes up and you don\u0026rsquo;t feel confident to do it, or, you\u0026rsquo;re thinking of doing something, but you don\u0026rsquo;t feel confident to do it.\nLike all those things are very normal. It\u0026rsquo;s really a Andrew here\u0026rsquo;s, the guests, I most recently interviewed, he was talking about how that gets easier over time, as you recognize that you\u0026rsquo;re in that, in that mode of doubting yourself and then pushing through that. And I think that\u0026rsquo;s something that, having now started the podcast and almost. To some degree with starting it. And, and then combine that with hearing all the people in the guests, all my guests talk about that as well. I think that\u0026rsquo;s been something that really I\u0026rsquo;ve taken away is that self-doubt is, is something that\u0026rsquo;s natural and something that you can, you could push policy and having those kinds of moments where you\u0026rsquo;d have pushed past it successfully.\nThose can build up and really give you some momentum and, and allow you to continue to push yourself.\nJoe: Solo set. Andrew\u0026rsquo;s point. There is incredible. I feel the same thing, I guess he and I are probably the same age. So I think at that stage, you have gone through a couple of different always say like three times, once you go for the, any big challenge or anything you want to try, that\u0026rsquo;s new and you\u0026rsquo;ve got three different examples.\nYou\u0026rsquo;ve, you\u0026rsquo;ve gone through it enough times. Look back. I always doubt myself in the ways that you\u0026rsquo;ve established the pattern, but it\u0026rsquo;s hot. And I think even people your age or slightly younger, like typical listener it\u0026rsquo;s easy to hear that, I guess, in. Then until you, until you\u0026rsquo;ve actually gone through and done it, you haven\u0026rsquo;t really crossed that hurdle yet.\nAnd it\u0026rsquo;s very natural. And I think you must get so much value out of even the ritual of regularly talking to people who are just outside of your situation, even though they are more advanced they\u0026rsquo;ve maybe quote unquote achieved more. I\u0026rsquo;m sure that you must just really thrive off getting that. The chance to get, take a beat and get out of your day to day, talk to them and then remind get a reminder from their experience.\nI\u0026rsquo;m sure it\u0026rsquo;s been, it was very powerful for, for your life. And I\u0026rsquo;ll, I\u0026rsquo;ll save you the hard question, cause I know episode one was your favorite with, with Joe. Weeby the incredible author and thinker, but\nWhich interview has been your favourite? # Joe: Apart from episode one, right? What has been your favorite interview so far? What stood out.\nJames: Yeah, well, yeah, obviously episode one winner that not no, I think, I think of the episodes has some kind of unique value to it and that\u0026rsquo;s been cool that there\u0026rsquo;s been some element of crossover between all the episodes, but still each one has had some kind of differentiating factor that, I\u0026rsquo;ve been able to provide a unique Perspective on a particular problem or something that you might experience in the workplace.\nSo I think from that perspective, all the episodes have some, have some great value, I think, but I think for me, the ones that stick out is the one with Darren and w in that episode, we were talking about some of the, I don\u0026rsquo;t know if this is the right term, but it\u0026rsquo;s almost like a deeper psychology stuff. So it\u0026rsquo;s not just like, kind of surface level, like, productivity. T like hacks, things like that, like we\u0026rsquo;re really diving into. Yeah, It\u0026rsquo;s\nJoe: Underlying, almost spiritual.\nJames: And I think things\nJoe: Is, I know it is a bit of a hard\nJames: Yeah, yeah,\nJoe: People listened to that episode, though, it\u0026rsquo;s a very grounded, not fluffy kind of conversation.\nJames: Yeah, no, you\u0026rsquo;re spot on. And I think even though it does get, like you said, spiritual in some sense, really quite fundamental. I think some of that stuff and the more I\u0026rsquo;ve read about that kind of thing, the more I\u0026rsquo;m sure. Feeling like this is really the kind of thing to focus on to create lasting change in yourself.\nSo I think, and I think that episode was a great example when we did get quite deep into that stuff. So I think from that perspective, I think that one, and I definitely that whole of, Yeah.\nlike you said, spirituality, kind of stuff I think is\nJoe: Yeah, whatever it is. Yeah.\nJames: Hmm.\nJoe: It\u0026rsquo;s powerful. All, I\u0026rsquo;m, you\u0026rsquo;re preaching the converted to me on that stuff. I absolutely agree. And I think that you do have. It is important to canvas all those levels. So I think maybe sometimes the distinction, if this language is helpful is like tactics. I like specific day-to-day in the trenches.\nLike the tactics, the tactics normally serve a strategy. Like strategy is the overarching kind of game plan. And then I think some of those deeper things are more the, not that they\u0026rsquo;re strategic, but they are, they sitting higher level. Like they almost dictate what your goals are. Those things and they addicted to dictate the energy you approach things with.\nThat\u0026rsquo;s why they\u0026rsquo;re so powerful. And then things cascade down from there because once you\u0026rsquo;ve established, I want to, whenever I get a grad job at X company goal, then you like strategy, how am I going to get there? So I need context and stuff. Then you\u0026rsquo;d might start thinking about tech. And I think it does cascade down that way.\nSo at each stage, The information is helpful. And again comes back to like the value, probably the podcast approach that you\u0026rsquo;re taking, because you\u0026rsquo;ve got different people who probably specialize in different parts. Like Darren, that diamond conversation. I remember listening to that. I was like, wow, this guy\u0026rsquo;s just what the fool with me.\nI need to become a better guest, but, but then, but then you\u0026rsquo;ve got I loved OSCA when he told him about listening. I haven\u0026rsquo;t really heard too many people talk about listening. Listening is one of the most under respected. Skills, like everyone knows it\u0026rsquo;s important, but no one really appreciates like how important it is and the way he talked about in such depth and a really good like niche.\nSo I think that variety is really, really important, which is why I probably everyone\u0026rsquo;s got to show up every, every week, I guess, because you don\u0026rsquo;t know which, which thing. No about yet. Yeah, I think that\u0026rsquo;s fascinating. So maybe we\u0026rsquo;ll slide into some of those other smaller, not smaller, but like the low-level level stuff.\nHow to be productive # Joe: And unpack a little bit. So do you have yourself any kind of K maybe productivity tips, things that help you on the more day-to-day micro side of things that are top of mind that you want to share with the listeners?\nJames: Yeah. I think this has been something that. Done within, in the last couple of weeks to a month, there\u0026rsquo;s something they\u0026rsquo;re not the most rediscovered. And it\u0026rsquo;s this guy, his name\u0026rsquo;s near AOL. I think that\u0026rsquo;s how you say his name. And he wrote this book called indestructible and I was listening to him on a podcast actually.\nAnd he was talking about, I don\u0026rsquo;t know why for some reason when I listened to this particular time, because I\u0026rsquo;ve read his book in the past, but. Anyway, this particular podcast, for some reason, it just clicked with me a lot more. And w his kind of whole idea of productivity is to really calendarize a lot of your life.\nSo he doesn\u0026rsquo;t do quite extreme length where he\u0026rsquo;d collect. He, calendarize is literally everything. So where like every single minute of his day is in the calendar, he\u0026rsquo;ll have time to like, it\u0026rsquo;s like an hour to like, be with the kids, like an hour to do this or whatever. And I think that. That is quite rigid.\nSo I don\u0026rsquo;t do it to that degree, but I think that whole idea of not having a, to do list and not having, not just working through things, ad hoc, it\u0026rsquo;s more like, okay, I\u0026rsquo;m going to spend an hour on this. And however much I get done, that\u0026rsquo;s what it\u0026rsquo;s going to be. And I think that idea of time blocking is something that also Cal Newport talks about.\nAnd I was actually researching this a few weeks ago. He has a, it\u0026rsquo;s like a, this notebook thing. It\u0026rsquo;s like a day planning journal type thing where you can do this. Time-blocking in like a hard copy. And cause he talks about this exact thing as well, where instead of having to do so maybe you styled the to-do list, but then your actual implementation of the to-do list.\nIn your time. So let\u0026rsquo;s say you might spend 25 minutes doing this 25 minutes doing that and whatever. And I\u0026rsquo;ve found that recently has been something that has enabled me to get more done, because oftentimes when you have that to do list, you kind of like, well, yeah, like I\u0026rsquo;ll do this one usually by the end of the day.\nMaybe half or like this there\u0026rsquo;s always stuff left. Like you never finished the to-do list. At least that\u0026rsquo;s been my experience. So, whereas, whereas I always go through at this time. Yeah. So like having that time even saying, okay, this is like 50 minute block, I\u0026rsquo;m going to do this thing. And really consciously deciding that you\u0026rsquo;re going to do that, I think has been.\nAnd then by deciding that it\u0026rsquo;s also, I\u0026rsquo;m not going to do this other stuff.\nJoe: Hm.\nJames: At work, even I\u0026rsquo;ll say, okay, I\u0026rsquo;m going to spend an hour doing this, but that means during that hour, I\u0026rsquo;m also not checking my emails on my phone, that kind of stuff. So they would get like closed phone goes away because I\u0026rsquo;m not doing that stuff because I\u0026rsquo;ve decided to focus on this one particular thing.\nAnd I think that process of even just like planning my day deciding what to work on, bringing a lot more clarity to what I\u0026rsquo;m supposed to be doing at certain times. I think that\u0026rsquo;s allowed me to get. More done. And, even at work, it\u0026rsquo;s allowed me to participate in a lot more things because I can, do some work faster, which means I\u0026rsquo;ve got more time to do other extra things.\nSo that for me has been a bit of a game changer, I think, in the last, in the last month. And for anyone listening, I\u0026rsquo;d recommend looking into that kind of stuff, because I think it\u0026rsquo;s very rarely.\nJoe: Yeah, I\u0026rsquo;ve had I\u0026rsquo;ve similarly started adopting a bit, an approach that fits that sort of style myself. I think it has something to do with a lack of control. We have is hard to overcome with planning. That\u0026rsquo;s why I think that the time blocking. Approach you probably you\u0026rsquo;re allocating certain time, two things, which you can control.\nYou can control how much time you spend on things, but you can\u0026rsquo;t control how long they take to get done because that\u0026rsquo;s fluctuating and dynamic. And the whole concept of, as you\u0026rsquo;re talking all great points, the whole concept of productivity almost just makes me think that we have to acknowledge it.\nThere\u0026rsquo;s just like some total, a part of us that it\u0026rsquo;s so hard to actually get it, to do what. To do. And we have to really get creative and be very intentional and structured about how we get our in a total out to basically like, just do its work and whatever. It\u0026rsquo;s a very well, and also like a lot of the old takeaways from Lydia, Lydia is episode number seven, I believe about like how, where the athlete metaphor too, or the athlete comparison.\nI think that\u0026rsquo;s really good addition to that advice because you got to put in the time for. Rest recovery recuperation. We don\u0026rsquo;t really have that in the business or corporate weld, I think too.\nJames: Yeah. Yeah. I think for sad to that as well is like, even coming back to that stuff we talked about with down and like the spirituality self, you almost want it to get it to where you don\u0026rsquo;t actually, you don\u0026rsquo;t really need these techniques where it\u0026rsquo;s just, what becomes something you actually want to do, rather than like, you\u0026rsquo;re trying to.\nSet yourself time because like, that\u0026rsquo;s the only way you\u0026rsquo;re going to be able to do it. To where you actually find it fun to do the things. And I think that\u0026rsquo;s, that\u0026rsquo;s a game changer as well is happening make what you\u0026rsquo;re doing. Interesting and fun so, that you don\u0026rsquo;t actually need to, allocate two hours a week on the thing that you don\u0026rsquo;t want to do.\nCause like those don\u0026rsquo;t exist. It\u0026rsquo;s just, I mean, maybe they always will, but I think having a more of that rather than less than actually enjoying things you\u0026rsquo;re doing is. Important in, in just being productive as a natural state, rather than being it\u0026rsquo;s something that you would trying to force yourself into.\nJoe: Pretty appealing if it makes it enjoyable. Now, I think that\u0026rsquo;s pretty low risk for people. So definitely mindset worth embracing. I know. I, I certainly try my best. Okay, so then indestructible, it sounds like, I a good book and I\u0026rsquo;m gonna have to check it out,\nMy Favourite Book # Joe: Which is a nice segue because you like me a very avid reader.\nI know you have done, you\u0026rsquo;ve done stuff even about your rating before online and everything. I have to ask, I don\u0026rsquo;t know if I know this best book you\u0026rsquo;ve read.\nJames: It\u0026rsquo;s a tough question. Cause, cause yeah, I, I\u0026rsquo;ve had periods where I\u0026rsquo;ve been sitting down rating hates with books, so I\u0026rsquo;ve, I\u0026rsquo;ve gone through gone through quite a few. So yeah, like you mentioned, sort of in between we spoke earlier about, the original idea of the podcast and then of a year and a half later actually starting it.\nSo that was probably in September this year, but in between that period, I had an Instagram it\u0026rsquo;s still there. It\u0026rsquo;s called James notes and I was just. Writing and making stuff in there about different books that I\u0026rsquo;d read.\nWhich was a good experience, but, and I\u0026rsquo;m not really active in that anymore, but I think that was maybe one of the catalysts as well for signing the podcast.\nBut anyway back to back to your question, so favorite book of all time, and I think there\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s hard to narrow it down to one and I think even would, if I\u0026rsquo;m going to even recommend one to someone would depend on. The situation and things like that. But I think one that one that I really enjoyed was high performance habits by Brendan Bouchard.\nI think his name is yeah.\nJoe: I\u0026rsquo;ve heard of Brendon Burchard, but I haven\u0026rsquo;t, I haven\u0026rsquo;t read the\nJames: His book. Yeah. High performance habits. I think that is. That was really great to read and it\u0026rsquo;s all, it\u0026rsquo;s all about. Well, these, one of the main lessons I got from it was like, and I\u0026rsquo;m not like, I\u0026rsquo;m not a Messiah. I don\u0026rsquo;t like practice it all the time. Like I\u0026rsquo;m still human. Right.\nSo,\nJoe: Healthy. Hopefully.\nDisclaimer. Yep.\nJames: I felt like one of the things he talks about is like intentionality. So how can you be intentional in everything that you do? Or at least let\u0026rsquo;s say you come home from work and you\u0026rsquo;re about to go into like, see your family or whatever it is. What is that, like, what are you trying to get out of that experience?\nAre you trying to, who do you want to be? Like, maybe it\u0026rsquo;s as a data, as a partner or whatever. Who are you trying to be in that scenario? If you go into a meeting at work, like, who are you trying to be in that meeting and really reflecting on that idea of like, who. Even like, what\u0026rsquo;s your aim to get out of there.\nSo who do you want to be? Like, what do you want to be known as things like that? And just reflecting on that quite a lot before you go into, into different situations. So even if it\u0026rsquo;s like taking an again, I don\u0026rsquo;t do this really often, but it\u0026rsquo;s something that I\u0026rsquo;m trying to work in more. It\u0026rsquo;s it\u0026rsquo;s a good concept.\nAnd I think you can, you can even listen to it.\neven listening to what I\u0026rsquo;m saying, note that it would Be a good.\nidea to start doing. Like I think. I, I think that\u0026rsquo;s a really cool idea and it\u0026rsquo;s like, yeah, before you do something, what\u0026rsquo;s the actual aim of this. Why am I doing it?\nWhat I want to get out of this experience, even if it\u0026rsquo;s just something short, like a half an hour meeting. I think coming back to that often, it is a good exercise and one that can add that five, 10% on to everything that you do and really make sure your authentic self is shining through in central.\nJoe: Hun that fascinating because I know you\u0026rsquo;re very across Cal Newport and I\u0026rsquo;m sure you\u0026rsquo;ve read a lot of books around that concept of high-performance habits, all that stuff. So it sounds like that one stands out amongst that literature. And is that the reason I\u0026rsquo;m assuming, because of the emphasis on intentionality and just very explicit to them.\nJames: Cause yeah, I think, I think the intentionality idea comes into almost everything. Like whether it\u0026rsquo;s, we\u0026rsquo;re speaking about productivity just before. Deciding what you\u0026rsquo;re going to do, that\u0026rsquo;s being intentional, how am I showing up into certain places? How am I showing up to the podcast?\nHow am I showing up at work? Things like that. And really not letting yourself fall into this kind of haze almost where you\u0026rsquo;re just going through the day and just like, just doing whatever comes and like just, you\u0026rsquo;re not, you\u0026rsquo;re not really setting the direction of your life almost.\nAnd so. All right. He\u0026rsquo;s quite fundamental. I think in, and it lays into a lot of those ideas about like productivity, normal habits, a lot of, lot of other concepts I think are really rooted in, in this idea. And again, it\u0026rsquo;s, it is hard to bring it, remember that, but\nJoe: What a challenge. And it\u0026rsquo;s an is a bit par cause sometimes there\u0026rsquo;s also some level of things flow in life too as well. So it is not all just like. I\u0026rsquo;m on I\u0026rsquo;m on the mind. It\u0026rsquo;s all me pushing all this energy all the time. So it does combine with this matchable flow, maybe a bit, if you, for lack of a better term, some of the stuff Darren was talking about and it some sort of funny combination, but it is one of my favorite words, personally, intentionality.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s a good word to describe things. The, like the, the attitude and the posture you take towards things, isn\u0026rsquo;t it? Because it\u0026rsquo;s not specific to whatever your pursuit, your main interest is your career. Whatever cause there\u0026rsquo;s nothing, no matter what you\u0026rsquo;re doing, if you\u0026rsquo;re a stay at home parent or a CEO of Milhaud incorporated you, you can be intentional.\nIn fact, you probably should be intentional about what you\u0026rsquo;re doing, I guess, cause times Tom night. So if you\u0026rsquo;re not being intentional, like your agenda gets set by external factors rather than the fact as you\u0026rsquo;ve consciously chosen and opted into which. Very powerful, very important over the long run. Yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s fascinating.\nJames\u0026rsquo; Favourite Failures # Joe: I think so another thing I think we want to make sure we cover this, that look, it\u0026rsquo;s very easy to come on podcasts and talk show a lot interesting ideas, but I think you mentioned the word transparency before, and I think it\u0026rsquo;s really valuable to see where others that you\u0026rsquo;re listening to or digest. Maybe don\u0026rsquo;t, haven\u0026rsquo;t always been crash hot, or haven\u0026rsquo;t always been whatever host of Graduate Theory or whatever they\u0026rsquo;re doing.\nSo talking about like failure, I think was, was, would be interesting to go through it. And some of the, if there\u0026rsquo;s a failure that kind of stands out, you still super young, still early, early in that career journey, the typical career journey, but other other, at this point in time, any failures that come.\nStick out favorite, favorite moments? Maybe there were setbacks at the time that there\u0026rsquo;s been some sort of silver lining or key learning. Is there any flack that you can unpack?\nJames: Yeah, I think, yeah, like I, it\u0026rsquo;s a good question. And I think I haven\u0026rsquo;t had to really any failures that have been like life Ruina, like, something that\u0026rsquo;s really. Crushed\nJoe: Went broke had to start\nJames: Yeah. Yeah,\nJoe: You\u0026rsquo;re fired, kicked\nout.\nJames: Like I haven\u0026rsquo;t had any horror stories. My upbringing really has been quite good. Like I\u0026rsquo;m very fortunate in many regards, there are many aspects, at least.\nSo, I think for me, I think I\u0026rsquo;ve been thinking about this question even before the podcast, but I think I\u0026rsquo;ve got to actually choose two that are, that I think were,\nJoe: Allowed you\u0026rsquo;re out. of the\nJames: Yeah. So one of them, and maybe these aren\u0026rsquo;t one, even, like. Not like a particular moment. That was a failure, but it\u0026rsquo;s maybe something that I didn\u0026rsquo;t do as well as I would\u0026rsquo;ve liked and caused me to prove on in the future.\nOne thing was I really, through my first three years of uni I really just coasted by, and didn\u0026rsquo;t really, that whole idea we just spoke about intentionality and things like that. I wasn\u0026rsquo;t. Intentional about what I was doing. I was just doing almost the bare minimum, just coasting along and then it wasn\u0026rsquo;t.\nAnd that was something that in hindsight, I wish I did more and it wasn\u0026rsquo;t until I went on exchange. In the first semester of 2019, I went to Sheffield in the UK for six months and it was w I remember this, cause I, I threw the whole thing. I did like video, like video blogs or whatever, even just like that, like mode, video journals.\nI remember it was the night before I was coming back to Australia and I had my video out and I was recording myself on my phone, just like walking down the street. And I was just talking about, what I wanted to do when I arrived back in Australia, because I\u0026rsquo;d been away for so long. And it was the first time I\u0026rsquo;d been away from my family and my friends and everything for that long.\nAnd I was just reflecting on my experience at university and life generally. And I was thinking that this really hasn\u0026rsquo;t been as good as I wanted it to be. And it\u0026rsquo;s really been something that I know that I can get more out of this. And I know that when I, when I come back to Adelaide, I know that there\u0026rsquo;s more that I can be doing and, and things that I can do a lot better.\nAnd so having that experience and that time away really made me realize that I hadn\u0026rsquo;t been. Yeah. Almost like, yeah. Being as intentional as I, as I know that I could have been. And so that really, for me, it was a big catalyst going into, like, from that experience into my final three is three semesters of uni.\nFrom that point, like my grades were significantly better. Like I think I have on my website. I think I wrote a blog post about this, but I have, like, my university grades are on there and I have. It\u0026rsquo;s kinda like the grades are like this. And then once they\u0026rsquo;re like way up here, like the average grades.\nSo like once I came back from that, I did significantly better in grades and in life and everything. So I think that was, that was a great experience for me. And I think the second one again, probably wasn\u0026rsquo;t like a failure per se, but it was something that I think. Deal as well as I could have.\nAnd then it resulted in me doing things better. So the example would be, it was in that 2019 semester two. So this is the first semester after I\u0026rsquo;d come back from Sheffield. I didn\u0026rsquo;t like, so that\u0026rsquo;s when kind of internships and things were coming up for. Cause I was in my. Physical your penultimate. Yeah, no second to last year.\nI think that\u0026rsquo;s your penultimate yet? So I was in my penultimate year. You\u0026rsquo;re applying for internships that are sort of in the last summer before your final year. And I like, I really, I didn\u0026rsquo;t get into anything. Yeah, quite good or anything that I like I really wanted to get into. And yeah, it was very fortunate that there\u0026rsquo;s a company in Adelaide called the IAA, which is like your roadside assistance company.\nAnd I was really fortunate that they also had an internship and I got that one, which a really, really great experience, but I got it like, right at the end, it was after all the kind of major companies had already done this. And I had a great experience there and it was really good, but it got me thinking. This time, next year when I\u0026rsquo;m applying for grad roles, which is probably more important than the internships, need to take this process a lot more seriously. And so what I did was I then when it came to the grad roles, which was starting in like February the next year, I created my massive spreadsheet.\nI made sure I put in cause like every job that I applied for, where I was up to and things like that. So I could be a lot more, not a little more clear about. What I was doing and not one of the problems I had when I was applying for the internships was I was just almost talking crap to myself and really overstating what I\u0026rsquo;d actually done.\nLike I might be sitting there thinking, yeah, I\u0026rsquo;ve applied for so many jobs and whatever, but in reality, I\u0026rsquo;ve only applied for like five or something. And I really just kind of decide, do I have in my head of what I\u0026rsquo;ve done is not the same as what I\u0026rsquo;ve actually done. So I made sure that when I was doing it for the grad roles that actually had it all written down so I could see this is actually how many I\u0026rsquo;ve done.\nAnd this is the way things are going to go. So if you\u0026rsquo;re unhappy with the way this looks, then it\u0026rsquo;s on you to go and make this better. So it was, it was good that I had that experience because it meant, I had this spreadsheet and I was able to do that stuff a lot better. And then unfortunately, I got to grad role at ANZ ed, which is, which is where I\u0026rsquo;m at now.\nAnd so far it\u0026rsquo;s been really, really incredible. And, that was the reason why I moved to Melbourne. Like we spoke about at the start of this year, but I think and that has led to so many things. That. Yeah. Like everything that\u0026rsquo;s happened with moving and making me people and even Mel, you met yourself this year and this has been so much stuff that\u0026rsquo;s happened this year, that sled from those things.\nSo I think that, well, it wasn\u0026rsquo;t necessarily a failure and it was something that turned out really badly. It was something that gave me perspective on what I was doing and allowed me to improve. And, and then, for that to lead to better things, the following year.\nJoe: It\u0026rsquo;s powerful stuff, James. I want to touch both of those points. If I may. The first part I can speak to a bit more broadly. I think we\u0026rsquo;ve had this conversation that the travel experience in my little world and language, I use the metaphor of the bucket. We it\u0026rsquo;s good opportunity, especially for young people to empty everything they\u0026rsquo;re doing in their life and all the people around them through for a window, because it enables you to reflect on it.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s hard to ref it\u0026rsquo;s hard to. Situation when you\u0026rsquo;re, when you\u0026rsquo;re in there, like you can\u0026rsquo;t see the outside of a car when you\u0026rsquo;re inside it driving. Right. It\u0026rsquo;s good to be able to just get out and actually look at it. And when you travel, especially when you go on exchange and not, not just travel, but when it\u0026rsquo;s like exchange or immersion somewhere else, securing grind in another way of life, because a holiday, when you stay at whatever, if it\u0026rsquo;s hostels or, or whatever hotels you might not get, that it\u0026rsquo;s very common, very common in a lot of.\nBig famous entrepreneurs and their stories that traveling, especially in the east and stuff was really a real switch. And it\u0026rsquo;s not fine. That would be unconventional advice or university hacks or career hacks to when everyone\u0026rsquo;s trying to whatever, get the grades or get the best jobs, whatever the goal is.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s it seems like a counterintuitive idea, but I actually wanted to place emphasis on it. I think you\u0026rsquo;ve given a very powerful example of it. And I can, my observation of my own personal experiences, a bit more broadly building on that is very, it tends to have that impact. If it\u0026rsquo;s a true immersion like exchange experience.\nIt also answered another question I had, which is why you go for the blades. Now I know you\u0026rsquo;re actually in a Sheffield, that\u0026rsquo;s a soccer reference for those unfamiliar. And then the other pot, I think the way he talked about. The lack of intentionality, but then having the, the fire to basically rebound from that and really make good next time.\nI think it\u0026rsquo;s very big point. You, you made me you put great language to it. We, how often do we convince ourselves we\u0026rsquo;ve done a great job. On things, but we\u0026rsquo;ve actually, haven\u0026rsquo;t done much. I do that so often still, like, why not getting these results when I getting more of this, more of that I\u0026rsquo;m great.\nI\u0026rsquo;m doing great stuff. And then if it\u0026rsquo;s for work, it\u0026rsquo;s like, oh, I\u0026rsquo;m actually not promoting things very much. Like, what am I talking about? What am I complaining about? It\u0026rsquo;s actually me. There\u0026rsquo;s so often a our mind is this is really easily to see. Little tool, isn\u0026rsquo;t it like it\u0026rsquo;s so easily to saved into a state of like entitlement.\nBecause I think we normally, we have a resistance at first to doing the work, but that\u0026rsquo;s a great story of it actually getting you to get your, get into gear, to actually prepare and then see the results. And I think. 20 or 21 listening to that. It would right now it would find me up to just get proactive because why not?\nNow you\u0026rsquo;ve got the call to action right now. It\u0026rsquo;s not hard. It\u0026rsquo;s just process and you get the results. Like you\u0026rsquo;re a good example of that. And I think it\u0026rsquo;s, yeah, I think that\u0026rsquo;s very, I think you put that very, very well. I think that\u0026rsquo;s actually very, very powerful lessons and people can take the lessons.\nOr they can go make the mistakes themselves and then realize you got an option. Don\u0026rsquo;t you\nJames: Yeah, yeah. I think a lot of those things, like even, you\nknow, that exact. Um, where I didn\u0026rsquo;t get the kind of jobs that I was really, really wanting. If, if you\u0026rsquo;re not getting, if you\u0026rsquo;re not getting to places that you want to go, if you\u0026rsquo;re, if your work isn\u0026rsquo;t getting seen by the people that you want it to be seen by, things aren\u0026rsquo;t going the way that you want, then it\u0026rsquo;s actually on.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s not like the company isn\u0026rsquo;t making a mistake, like, and not seeing the greatness that you have or anything like that. Like maybe, maybe they missed you or like maybe they, there was an error or something like maybe, but it\u0026rsquo;s not helpful to, to put it on them. It\u0026rsquo;s really up to you. And if your work\u0026rsquo;s not getting seen by the right people, you\u0026rsquo;re not getting into roles that you want, then\nit\u0026rsquo;s your responsibility. Like no, one\u0026rsquo;s going to come and help you to like, no, one\u0026rsquo;s no one\u0026rsquo;s as passionate about yourself as you are.\nJoe: I think to consolidate there\u0026rsquo;s a cop-out answer, which is, they just don\u0026rsquo;t get my value and hands up, I\u0026rsquo;ve done that lots of times. So no moral high ground here. I think, but on some level, if you, if you go through all these situations and you\u0026rsquo;re failing to take any responsibility, that\u0026rsquo;s, that\u0026rsquo;s not helpful.\nSo you might flip this and talk about leadership. For example, when you see a great coach of any sporting team and the team puts out a terrible performance. You never see, you never see a good coach, go into the press conference and say, I gave them a great game plan. The boys let me down. Or the girls let me down today.\nThey\u0026rsquo;re rubbish James at right mid. He was terrible with Joe at centimeter. He was terrible. You just don\u0026rsquo;t say that. But how many times is that? Actually the case? but, but the coach seems to always take responsibility and take it off the place, like as an example of leadership. So you might consolidate that lesson you have into like leadership of yourself.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s like, yes, there are always politics accompanies. There\u0026rsquo;s a way in, so. Whenever there\u0026rsquo;s a constraint on hiring processes, maybe cause if it\u0026rsquo;s CVS and applications and not always, it\u0026rsquo;s not like everyone gets interviewed face to face all the time. So there\u0026rsquo;s storytelling involved and there\u0026rsquo;s interpretation.\nSo yes, there are some outliers that you can\u0026rsquo;t, there\u0026rsquo;s some factors that you can\u0026rsquo;t control. Uh, but at the end of the day, you don\u0026rsquo;t get to control that. Do you? And I think that\u0026rsquo;s why acknowledging what you can take responsibility for. Is really your point. Well, I know I found that the point of view your story, cause you also can\u0026rsquo;t guarantee someone will height as well.\nBut what you took control of is like a pretty good bet. Like you\u0026rsquo;re going to get somewhere when you take that approach, taking the approach of I did the work, they just didn\u0026rsquo;t appreciate me. Well, cool. You can take that mindset, but where\u0026rsquo;s that going? We\u0026rsquo;re just going to get that, get you, even if it\u0026rsquo;s true,\nJames: Yeah.\nJoe: Even if it\u0026rsquo;s true.\nThat was my interpretation of your story. I think it\u0026rsquo;s, I think it\u0026rsquo;s a very important part of like, just life. I think it\u0026rsquo;s a great thing to learn at a young age.\nJames: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.\nJoe: I don\u0026rsquo;t know if that makes\nJames: Yeah, no, I think it doesn\u0026rsquo;t. I think, yeah, I think it got across well, which is good, but yeah, I think, I think there\u0026rsquo;s a lot of those situations that can happen where it\u0026rsquo;s easy to blame other people for why you\u0026rsquo;re not getting to a certain place or why there\u0026rsquo;s like bad things happening or whatever.\nAnd it\u0026rsquo;s just, I think it\u0026rsquo;s so important to ask that question of how, what, what role did I have in this situation and how can I. You know, like how can I make this situation better? And what mistakes did I made in this? Even if you didn\u0026rsquo;t make it, maybe you can even make any mistakes, but like really taking as much like responsibility and like, cause everything that\u0026rsquo;s happening in your life is, is your fault almost.\nAnd, and, and try to shoulder that. And, and then and then doing things that way, I think is important. Cause yeah. like, like the key thing I guess is that no, one\u0026rsquo;s going to come. Fix your problems for you. Like you\u0026rsquo;d have to do it yourself. So yeah, no one\u0026rsquo;s going to give you no, it\u0026rsquo;s just going to come and ask you.\nYeah. Do you want a job at your dream company? Like, no, one\u0026rsquo;s good. No one\u0026rsquo;s ever gonna do that. So that\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s on you to go and get those opportunities yourself. And I think that is I think that\u0026rsquo;s something that I\u0026rsquo;ve learned and I\u0026rsquo;ll continue to learn. But I think it\u0026rsquo;s something that\u0026rsquo;s quite important.\nJoe: Yeah. Well, a great thing to keep top of mind and take away like very great.\nHow does James want to be described? # Joe: So moving on a little bit, do you consciously think about. So you\u0026rsquo;ve started this journey, right? You\u0026rsquo;re you\u0026rsquo;re well underway now with Graduate Theory, do you consciously think about sort of what, how you want to be described and how you want to be, I guess, seen for the work you\u0026rsquo;re doing, like it\u0026rsquo;s the values you\u0026rsquo;re bringing into it.\nLike, how do you want people to think about and describe you, if you get a choice to call them?\nJames: I think that\u0026rsquo;s, that\u0026rsquo;s a good question. I think that\u0026rsquo;s a, that\u0026rsquo;s a difficult question, but I think, I think often with something like a podcast, it\u0026rsquo;s. You could have kind of the brand, but really the, like the, the brand is almost just a reflection of myself and my values. And often that\u0026rsquo;s the case with, with companies is the company\u0026rsquo;s values are usually a reflection of who I was in charge and or people that are in like, that run the company.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s usually their values. They kind of filter down. So I think for me, like the way that the, the, I want to be known and the way that I hope it reflects in Graduate Theory is. I want to be providing inspiration. And I want to, I want to be an example for people that they can go out and do things too.\nAnd, and even coming back to the self doubt were speaking about the earlier in the episode, things like that, I want to be any self up for people that they can overcome. These things. And they can go and achieve things in their life if they want. And they don\u0026rsquo;t have to be held back by expectations or doubts or things like that.\nAnd that\u0026rsquo;s something that I hope comes through in the podcast and just things that I do more generally. Cause I think it\u0026rsquo;s hard to detach the podcast from my life. They\u0026rsquo;re it\u0026rsquo;s the same thing, really. So I think that is a big. That would probably be one of the main ones I think.\nYeah, I, I think this whole idea of like personal responsibility, like we spoke about too is really important. And I, that\u0026rsquo;s something that I try and do a lot of, and I think people can like, can take that and apply that to their own lives too. Where taking personal responsibility for all the things that are going on it\u0026rsquo;s something that I try and do in something that I hope comes across.\nHow would younger James react to Graduate Theory? # Joe: I\u0026rsquo;m curious. Do you have, do you think like the version of you, here\u0026rsquo;s the question? How do you think that version of you before you went on an exchange would have responded to this podcast? Like just listening to it as like. Not as like, not as like, oh, this is what I\u0026rsquo;m going to do in the future. Like, pretend it was Joe runs graduate through podcast and there, but Joe has obviously a huge overlap.\nLike, do you think this would have, what impact do you think this would have happened? Would you have listened to stuff like this at that time?\nJames: A good question. I think, I think I would have, but I think I would have just, it would have been one of those things, like I would have just listened and then that\u0026rsquo;s it. And I would have just died tick. I listened\nto it. Yep. Cool. Like I listened to a productivity podcast today, like cool. But there wasn\u0026rsquo;t that, that like connection to. Listened. And here\u0026rsquo;s the things I said now. Here\u0026rsquo;s how, here\u0026rsquo;s what I\u0026rsquo;m going to change. And the things that I do, I think that disconnect was definitely missing. And it\u0026rsquo;s something that I tried to be even now, even, even last year when I was reading heaps of books, like I\u0026rsquo;ve read books almost just for the sake of it.\nAnd there wasn\u0026rsquo;t like, there wasn\u0026rsquo;t that connection to, okay. I\u0026rsquo;m reading it. Even if it comes back to like, I\u0026rsquo;m not just gonna read it. Like rating is good. And like bill gates reads. so, like I should read it, it comes back to that. Okay. Here is a problem that I have now. Here\u0026rsquo;s what I\u0026rsquo;m going to do to fix it.\nAnd the brief things, the tools I\u0026rsquo;m going to use to fix the problem I\u0026rsquo;m going to listen to books, listen to this particular podcast, do these things, to fix this problem and coming at it that way rather than which I guess is. almost that intentionality, right? It\u0026rsquo;s like, let\u0026rsquo;s be intentional when I\u0026rsquo;m\ngonna, when I\u0026rsquo;m reading, when I\u0026rsquo;m listening.\nWhat am I actually trying to get out of this and what am I going to try and use from the things that I\u0026rsquo;m doing? So I think, Yeah. if I was Listening.\nto this years ago, I probably would have just there wouldn\u0026rsquo;t have been that connection and not something that I have comes across to. And, and what we speak about in the episodes is not only speaking about these topics, but also having that application of like, okay, we spoke about self. How do you do that? Because I think that there\u0026rsquo;s a lot of things I read and listen to that\u0026rsquo;s there\u0026rsquo;s no connection to that where it\u0026rsquo;s\nJoe: Don\u0026rsquo;t let self doubt hold you\nJames: Yeah. It\u0026rsquo;s kind of like,\nJoe: Thanks. I\nJames: Me. That\u0026rsquo;s great. But like there\u0026rsquo;s no. What do I actually do? Um, and, and, not like it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s hard to wipe that out, but I think having that actual action step is something that\u0026rsquo;s important and not only listening to the action step, but actually doing the action step as well is, is something that like many people, you could even just sit them down and be like, Hey, you gotta do this, this, this, and then you get this result and, and they still won\u0026rsquo;t.\ndo it.\nSo I think having that Having that there, at least for the people that do want to do this, the action steps is, is important.\nJoe: Yeah, I think that\u0026rsquo;s a big, I mean, if you want to talk about the self doubt bit and just riff a little bit for, I\u0026rsquo;ve got one more, probably one more question for you after that, but I feel like to avoid it being just yet blanket blanket, but. On a motivation pump statements. Like don\u0026rsquo;t let self doubt hold you back.\nDon\u0026rsquo;t be here. Don\u0026rsquo;t be afraid. Very talk is cheap. Right? My thinking is that you do overcome it, probably going back to what your reference to Andrew there before around, ah, you\u0026rsquo;ve gone through self doubt on a, maybe on a career or career risk level, a couple of times or creative risk level, couple of times.\nAnd then you get familiar and you get used to it, but it\u0026rsquo;s through proceeding through it. Like you said, action steps is a good word phrase. Sorry, like taking action steps to actually get on the other side of something, having gone through it. That\u0026rsquo;s actually the keto I\u0026rsquo;ve coming in in my mind.\nLike you\u0026rsquo;re taking the process, like your best example was I\u0026rsquo;m assuming stuff to do with Graduate Theory. And it\u0026rsquo;s probably things like I would assume like releasing it for the first. Maybe, because thinking I\u0026rsquo;s this weird to do, like do people, may he may interviewing people, those things, very common, maybe reaching out to guests as well.\nCause there\u0026rsquo;s a lot of like, oh, like there\u0026rsquo;s a lot of potential for, I don\u0026rsquo;t know, rejection or embarrassment and things like that. Am I bothering this person? Things like that. So maybe, I don\u0026rsquo;t know, reflecting on that. You can comment. But to me, those are the things. If people listening, wanting to. How do I overcome that?\nLike James seems to be certainly overcoming it. Cause, cause you\u0026rsquo;ve been there to me. I, I would say it\u0026rsquo;s those things, but I don\u0026rsquo;t know if you have any comments or anything else around\nJames: Yeah. Yeah.\nI think the self-doubt thing and something that I, I guess, like you said, there\u0026rsquo;s been instances where I\u0026rsquo;ve overcome that, maybe successfully we\u0026rsquo;ll, we\u0026rsquo;ll find out, but I think re like to take it back to the, the action steps there where it\u0026rsquo;s like, Hey, like the first thing is to notice that what you\u0026rsquo;re experiencing.\nSo. Like notice that you are having that self doubt is, is the first step. So let\u0026rsquo;s say one thing would be let\u0026rsquo;s say a new position comes up at work that you think you might like to do, but maybe you could apply to do it. And you\u0026rsquo;re not sure if you should, or even you\u0026rsquo;ve applied and you\u0026rsquo;re not sure if you\u0026rsquo;re going to get it.\nYou don\u0026rsquo;t think you don\u0026rsquo;t believe in yourself that you could actually do the role. That\u0026rsquo;s the first thing, notice that you\u0026rsquo;re actually experiencing that. And then the second thing is even ask why. Why are you experiencing that? Like where does it come from? Do you just not believe in yourself generally?\nOr like, does it come from, maybe there\u0026rsquo;s like linking back to like some kind of a childhood experience is something that, we could talk about as well, but we don\u0026rsquo;t have time, but is it an\ninteresting topic? Yeah. Or whether, yeah. Like I\u0026rsquo;ll ask you to experience.\nor whatever it is, why are you thinking that perhaps you can think of reasons why too, and then and then just trying to read it.\nYour confidence a little bit and say, okay, doing this is going to be good for these reasons. And, and even thinking about yeah, I think for, for myself, I guess if I take it back to starting the podcast, it was more of like, well, I\u0026rsquo;ve actually know Andrew, Andrew was saying, as he was saying, chances are, if you\u0026rsquo;ve applied and you\u0026rsquo;ve gone that far, you\u0026rsquo;re capable to do the thing.\nSo like, you wouldn\u0026rsquo;t have even. Like thought about doing it, if you didn\u0026rsquo;t, if you weren\u0026rsquo;t able to. So I think, I think that\u0026rsquo;s big and I think it\u0026rsquo;s really trying to develop that like recognize that feeling and just sinking into it. Even that\u0026rsquo;s something that Dan would say, it\u0026rsquo;s like, just sit there with it, feel where it is in your body.\nSit down, like close your eyes and just experience as much as much of it as you can. And then just let it, let it do its thing. Let yourself,\nJoe: He wants to be expressed. That\u0026rsquo;s what he said.\nJames: Because yeah, I found in my experience, like, there\u0026rsquo;s been times where that\u0026rsquo;s happened, where things have come up and I\u0026rsquo;ve put myself forward.\nAnd then even during that process, I\u0026rsquo;ve been like, oh, like I can\u0026rsquo;t do this. Like, they won\u0026rsquo;t pick me because like I\u0026rsquo;m not good enough or whatever it is. And I think if I could go back to those scenarios and even it\u0026rsquo;s, I\u0026rsquo;ve found as time\u0026rsquo;s gone on that, I actually would have been pretty good at doing these things.\nThat I perhaps opportunities that I didn\u0026rsquo;t get, or at least so seeing the people that, that are in these positions that perhaps I didn\u0026rsquo;t think I could do, that they\u0026rsquo;re not anything special and I easily could have done that as well. So I think I think it\u0026rsquo;s a definitely a difficult thing to get through that self doubt, but I think I think it\u0026rsquo;s still quite that, feel like, I feel like it\u0026rsquo;s something you gotta go\nthrough\nJoe: Is naturally none. It\u0026rsquo;s well, that\u0026rsquo;s that\u0026rsquo;s with giving people comfort over as well. It is vague because it\u0026rsquo;s very individual it\u0026rsquo;s very individual specific. Any high-level concept in my opinion is really hard to just talk. This is why there\u0026rsquo;s so many people in maybe the spaces of personal development and self-awareness and all this stuff.\nAnd from spirituality to practical career self, to product, there\u0026rsquo;s so much in there. And it\u0026rsquo;s good. You talked about yourself being a whatever, before you went on an exchange and this might\u0026rsquo;ve just gone over your head, but I think I notice about this kind of journey is that. And some level, the podcasts people stop by reading books and listening to podcasts.\nFirst, they start by consuming content before they take action, because then easiest step and they getting ready and then it all sinks in so that the podcast that just glossed over. Yes. Like there wasn\u0026rsquo;t like the thing you grabbed him implemented, but that prepared you for something that you had listened to in three years after he\u0026rsquo;d done exchange, you\u0026rsquo;d have listened to these podcasts.\nThe message is trying to get to you and it\u0026rsquo;s sinking in. So on a broader level, yes. There\u0026rsquo;s not something that you might hear in a one podcast episodes. It\u0026rsquo;s going to dissolve all the self doubt, but I would draw it out to zoom out and draw your attention to the fact that it is a pre. And James, you are, people have transparency on your story.\nNow they can see the process, how it went for you. And I think that\u0026rsquo;s, that makes it okay. Cause you\u0026rsquo;re just, you are at some point on that and you feel, if they\u0026rsquo;re listening to this, we know enough about someone listening to this, that they\u0026rsquo;re listening to this. So that means that they asked, they asked somewhere.\nThat journey. They might just be listening cause Graduate Theory, great podcast, all that might be facing this. And that might be part of the early career and natural. This everyone\u0026rsquo;s got self doubt. It\u0026rsquo;s very natural. There\u0026rsquo;s so much comparison. There\u0026rsquo;s so many measurable I did, or I didn\u0026rsquo;t get it. So, yes, it\u0026rsquo;s quite a journey.\nAnd, but I just think if you\u0026rsquo;re listening to this, you are somewhere on that journey, which means I don\u0026rsquo;t, we don\u0026rsquo;t, we tell you how long it\u0026rsquo;s going to take. And we can also, we can probably say it\u0026rsquo;s probably never going to be completely done, but you probably get used to it. It gets easier. And patients with patients and processor a big too, but ongoing journey, ongoing journey.\nThe last, the last thing I wanted to end on, if we could, was that. I have to have to give you a taste of your medicine.\nJames\u0026rsquo; Tip For Graduates # Joe: What is one tip you would give to new graduates? Your, I believe that\u0026rsquo;s your final\nquestion. I might\u0026rsquo;ve been misquoted at some a little bit, but what\u0026rsquo;s one tip you would give to new graduates today.\nJames: I think. Yeah, I think\nyeah, I think the main thing is, is be intentional about what you\u0026rsquo;re doing. So, and really that\u0026rsquo;s something that I think is so important. It\u0026rsquo;s like, let\u0026rsquo;s say, go like one plot 40 year. What would make this year, a successful year for you? And what things are you going to do this year?\nThat would be good. Like, even if it\u0026rsquo;s coming to networking, like be intentional about who you\u0026rsquo;re networking with and make that something that you do get involved, participate. Yeah. Really like life\u0026rsquo;s an adventure, so you\u0026rsquo;ve got to go out and, and make stuff yourself. Like, no, one\u0026rsquo;s coming back to even what we\u0026rsquo;re talking about before.\nLike, no one\u0026rsquo;s going to come and like, make your experience great for you. Like, no, one\u0026rsquo;s going to sit there and be like, okay, you know what? This is the perfect opportunity for you. Here you go. Now, like, here\u0026rsquo;s like the perfect thing. Like you have to go. And create that stuff yourself. So you\u0026rsquo;ve got to go and meet the people you want to meet with.\nThey\u0026rsquo;re not going to come to you. You\u0026rsquo;ve got to go and seek opportunities that you want to do because no one\u0026rsquo;s going to come and bring them to you. You\u0026rsquo;ve got to really take life with both hands and go out and embrace, embrace the world and go out and seek things yourself. I think that is the one lesson that you know, that I try and apply in that.\nI think that would be my lesson to new graduate as well. It\u0026rsquo;s like. Yeah, the Lawson adventures, that journey it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s fantastic, but you\u0026rsquo;ve got to get in there and to get, make the most out of it, get in the arena and go out and enjoy and really take life with both hands. I think that is fundamental and something that will not only be useful through your graduate experience, but it\u0026rsquo;s something that\u0026rsquo;s a fundamental principle, I think through your entire life is to go out and, Hmm.\nTackle stuff, head on and get involved. Don\u0026rsquo;t just sit on the sidelines and, and, mock people, or just watch people that are doing cool stuff, like get in there and do cool stuff yourself. Get in there and, and people in participate and do stuff. I think that is that\u0026rsquo;s something that I\u0026rsquo;ve grown into doing this year.\nAnd I think it\u0026rsquo;s something that I would recommend to everyone. Yeah.\nJoe: That\u0026rsquo;s it, James freekeh says ladies and gentlemen, get off your ass subsidiary and your hands and sees it.\nOutro # Joe: Okay. What else do you need to hear? Oh, well, powerfully put what a way to end. Thank you very much. James iPod met spec. And did, did the show, did the show justice big reminder for everyone?\nBest episode is episode one, of course. And get back to the start if you knew, but yeah. Remind them, of course, as this customer, where can they find you? Where can they,\nJames: Absolutely.\nJoe: Grabbing more?\nJames: Yeah. When you\u0026rsquo;re in the show notes of this episode is, would be the best place that\u0026rsquo;s going to have all the links. So you\u0026rsquo;ve got Graduate Theory.com, the website that\u0026rsquo;ll have everything. You can go and read more about the episode there as well. Otherwise we\u0026rsquo;ve got the Instagram, the LinkedIn, the YouTube as well, so in many places, but all the links will be in the show notes.\nGraduate Theory.com is the main place to find all that stuff. Yeah, thanks so much, sir, for coming on today as well. I think it\u0026rsquo;s we\u0026rsquo;ve had a good chat and we\u0026rsquo;ve gotten deep and I think hopefully that\u0026rsquo;s useful for all our listeners to find out more?\nabout about myself and about the podcast and things like that.\nSo I appreciate you coming on and speaking to me, cause I think we covered some interesting and useful concepts today. And hopefully almost as useful as having a guest on. So.\nJoe: Yeah, I certainly certainly thanks for the privilege until the next time.\nJames: Thanks for listening to this episode of Graduate Theory. I hope you enjoyed it. Listening to me, talk for a little bit longer than usual today. Hopefully some of those lessons that were useful and you can go and apply. Uh, in your own life, because we\u0026rsquo;re not about just saying the concepts and about giving you that motivation.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s also about what can you do to apply these things. So I hope you enjoyed the episode today. If you want to find out more, if you want to find out my insights and my takeaways from today\u0026rsquo;s episode, go to Graduate Theory.com. And on there, you can read the post about this episode, and if you want to get those posts straight to your email, Consider subscribing to the newsletter where you get that straight to your inbox.\nYou can also subscribe on whatever platform you\u0026rsquo;re listening on, whether that be podcast or YouTube. If you\u0026rsquo;re on apple podcasts, please consider leaving a review so that we can. More people listening to the great content that is in Graduate Theory. I hope you enjoyed, and I\u0026rsquo;m wishing every one of you, a very Merry Christmas.\nI hope you\u0026rsquo;re enjoying the Christmas break and whatever you might be doing over this period. Thanks so much for listening again today. And I look forward to seeing you in the next episode.\n← Back to episode 10\n","date":"27 December 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/graduate-theory/10-on-graduate-theory/transcript/","section":"Graduate Theory Transcripts","summary":"← Back to episode 10\nThis transcript has been lightly edited for readability. It may still contain transcription errors.\nJames: Hello, and welcome to Graduate Theory. Today’s episode marks the 10th episode of Graduate Theory, and I thought, what better way to recognize this milestone then to get to know me a little bit more and get to know me in a bit more detail\n","title":"Transcript: On Graduate Theory","type":"graduate-theory-transcripts"},{"content":" Watch the conversation Graduate Theory Open YouTube ↗ Read the full transcript → Aiden studied IT and finished his degree in 2016, previously worked at Apple and PwC and now works as a Technical Trainer at Microsoft. He is passionate about mental health.\nEric studied commerce at university and has worked in many roles across South East Asia in investing, business development, and communications. He\u0026rsquo;s now an editor at Newsweek.\nBoth guests are working on a project called MentorFold, where they aim to connect up-and-coming graduates with early-career mentors.\nConnect with the guests # MentorFold Eric Barker on LinkedIn Aiden on LinkedIn My Takeaways # Mental Health is Important # Often mental health is not associated with the typical \u0026lsquo;corporate grind hustle\u0026rsquo; culture. If you are working too hard, it\u0026rsquo;s important to take it slow and recharge. Don\u0026rsquo;t let work ruin your sanity.\nMentors are Important # If you know where you want to go, finding someone who knows how to get there will be a critical and important step on your journey. So many of the problems you wish you could get rid of have already been solved by someone else. Find them, and fix your problems.\nReach Out to Network and Get Mentors # Great mentors and great people don\u0026rsquo;t just appear in your life. If you want these people in your life, it\u0026rsquo;s up to you to go out and find them.\nThings Discussed # MentorFold\nBlackbird Giants Program\nNew Job Code\nReal Mates Program\nMind Care Club\nBeyond Blue\nHeadspace\nShow Content # 00:00 Aiden and Eric\n00:42 Intro\n01:36 What was the inspiration behind Mentorfold?\n05:22 What are the benefits of having a mentor?\n07:21 Friction of Reaching out to Strangers\n08:29 What problems do mentors solve?\n12:42 The New Job Code\n20:31 Challenges Graduates Face and How to Deal with Them\n24:46 Aiden and Eric on the Importance of Mental Health\n35:49 Checking in with people about their Mental Health\n39:10 Aiden and Eric\u0026rsquo;s Advice for Starting Your First Job\n44:13 Outro\n","date":"20 December 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/graduate-theory/9-on-mentoring-and-mental-health/","section":"Graduate Theory","summary":" Watch the conversation Graduate Theory Open YouTube ↗ Read the full transcript → Aiden studied IT and finished his degree in 2016, previously worked at Apple and PwC and now works as a Technical Trainer at Microsoft. He is passionate about mental health.\n","title":"On Mentoring and Mental Health","type":"graduate-theory"},{"content":"← Back to episode 9\nThis transcript has been lightly edited for readability. It may still contain transcription errors.\nJames: Hello and welcome to Graduate Theory. On today\u0026rsquo;s episode, we speak all about mentoring\nWe spoke about mental health and how it works in with hustle culture and how those things can coexist and how to really look after your mental health, how to make sure you look after other people\u0026rsquo;s mental health.\nAnd I think this is a really important episode. And given that we do cover some themes around mental health and things like that, if you do have any concerns or if you do want to reach out to people,\nthere\u0026rsquo;s links in the show notes, so you can find out more if you do need to. I think this is a really important episode. We\u0026rsquo;re speaking about important topics, so I hope you enjoy.\nJames:\nIntro # James: Hello and welcome to Graduate Theory. Today\u0026rsquo;s episode. We have not one, but two guests have both. Guests are working on a project called a mentor fault where they aim to connect up and coming graduates with early career mentors. My first guest studied it and finished his degree in 2016. He previously worked at apple and PwC.\nAnd now it works as a technical trainer at Microsoft is passionate about mental health. Please. Welcome to the show. Aiden, amazing. And the second guest today studied commerce at university. He\u0026rsquo;s worked in many roles in Australia and through Southeast Asia in investing business development and communications.\nHe\u0026rsquo;s now an editor at Newsweek. Please. Welcome to the show.\nWell, thanks so much for coming on today, guys.\nWhat was the inspiration behind MentorFold? # James: And now my first question for you both is around mentor fold. So you\u0026rsquo;re trying to connect mentors and mentees, but what was the reason and what was your inspiration for starting mentor fold?\nAiden: It\u0026rsquo;s kind of an interesting story because I\u0026rsquo;ve worked in quite a few corporate environments, right? So Microsoft and BWC, and it got me thinking. W one of the experiences that I went through at PwC made me kind of realize, you know, I don\u0026rsquo;t really have anyone to turn to.\nAnd in a corporate environment, when you generally get a mentor, there\u0026rsquo;s a lot of structure around it, right? There\u0026rsquo;s you go to the mentor or you talk to them. And the mentor is like, okay, this is how your career will look like at PwC. This is what you can talk about. This isn\u0026rsquo;t what you\u0026rsquo;re talking about.\nAnd it\u0026rsquo;s really tied around, you know, job progression and how you\u0026rsquo;re doing. But if you have problems, if you have issues that aren\u0026rsquo;t necessarily. Something that you can do with people at, you know, at work or maybe something to do at work, or it could be something like, oh, I\u0026rsquo;m thinking about moving to another job.\nI\u0026rsquo;m thinking about maybe trying a different career. Maybe you can\u0026rsquo;t exactly ask someone or a mentor at your job to do that because they\u0026rsquo;ll just be like, oh, why do you want to leave? What\u0026rsquo;s the whole rationale behind that? The other thing that really led me towards it was towards the end of my experience at PwC.\nI wasn\u0026rsquo;t having such a great time and I really thought to myself, it would be really great to talk to someone about this and really good to talk to someone who isn\u0026rsquo;t necessarily part of the company, but someone I can still get mental shift from. Now. I say that, but that was a long time ago. That was about three years ago, right?\nTwo, two years ago, roundabouts. And the idea for men to fall didn\u0026rsquo;t really take shape until literally a couple of months ago where I was in the shower. And I was thinking about this for some reason. And then I was like, wait a minute, nothing like this, actually. I don\u0026rsquo;t think anything like this exist and if it did, I would have a hundred percent used it.\nSo I immediately was like, okay, I need to get this down. I needed to write this down. I need to work through it. I need to figure out what\u0026rsquo;s going on here. And with that being the case, I hit upon this idea of metaphor, being a platform where you connect with a mentor, they\u0026rsquo;re not tied to any job, not tied to any university.\nAnd you generally get a mentor that sticks with you from career to career. From that point, he was an easy kind of thing. Cause I had that idea and I was like, okay, well I have an idea. I have a little bit of an idea of what it could look like, but I want to get some traction underneath it before I turned it into a proper startup.\nAnd I applied to the blackbirds jugs program with the idea and I was fully expecting not to get in. Cause it\u0026rsquo;s a very good, it\u0026rsquo;s a competitive process and there\u0026rsquo;s a lot of very talented people in the program. And then I got it and I was like, this is crazy. How did I get in this? Is this just doesn\u0026rsquo;t seem.\nTrue. You know, so at that point I was like, Okay. well, if I\u0026rsquo;m going to do this, I need to go work with someone to do this. Cause I definitely can\u0026rsquo;t take this upon myself to do it. And then I reached out to Eric cause you know, Eric and I we\u0026rsquo;ve known each other for how long has it been Eric? Over 10 years?\nProbably at this point. And I was like, you know, Eric and I have built stuff together for over the past couple of years. And I was like, it\u0026rsquo;s a negative. Kind of inclination to say, you know, what, if I\u0026rsquo;m going to build a salon, but someone, let me build it with someone that I\u0026rsquo;ve known for so long and who I\u0026rsquo;m close to, you know, even outside of working out of a Rocky relationship relationship and go from there really.\nAnd that\u0026rsquo;s how it really got started. Just my personal experiences combined with a bit of luck in a bit of a bit of Hardwick.\nJames: Oh\nEric: The best things to do.\nAiden: Exactly.\nRight.\nJames: Amazing what you can think of in the shower. Right?\nAiden: Yeah, I know it\u0026rsquo;s a top tip for this podcast. think of things in the shower.\nJames: Yeah.\nAiden: Goal. Do you want it?\nWhat are the benefits of having a mentor? # James: Yeah. That\u0026rsquo;s so cool. Well, Eric, what\u0026rsquo;s your relationship been with mentors and things like that. Have you had any in the past? One did one in the past.\nEric: Both. So when he brought this to me, it brought up a lot of thoughts of how I\u0026rsquo;d interacted with mentors and mentorship and. So I\u0026rsquo;ve, I\u0026rsquo;ve sought mentors out privately, and I\u0026rsquo;ve also been assigned them from a corporate perspective as well. So one of the companies that I was working with, because it was a, a larger international company, they\u0026rsquo;re like, you\u0026rsquo;re starting here.\nWe need to assign you someone. So you can ask questions who you don\u0026rsquo;t report to. So there\u0026rsquo;s not as much of a conflict and there\u0026rsquo;s more honesty, but like Aiden said, there is, after all of that, after all of that rhetoric, there is an. Loyalty to the company and risks associated if you don\u0026rsquo;t follow that as a mentor or a mentee.\nRight. So that was, that always seems to hamper via the level of connection that you could develop in that scenario. Whereas in my private life, like outside of a corporate kind of sphere, I went about mentorship a little differently. So I looked at who was doing exactly what I wanted to be. Maybe five or 10 years down the road from where I thought I was and I approached them, I sought them out.\nI said, I want to be doing what you\u0026rsquo;re doing. Can I learn from you kind of take you out to coffee. And that has been a much more fruitful and, and long relationship that I, that I continue with a few individuals get into this thing. So we\u0026rsquo;re trying to create that for like everyone else. Cause that\u0026rsquo;s been immensely helpful for both of us from a personal and professional stance.\nJames: I liked that a lot. One of the, one of the things that I think is really cool about that is you your initiative and going out and reaching, reaching out to people, which I think is a stopping point for a lot of people where it\u0026rsquo;s, there\u0026rsquo;s a lot of friction between. You, you, you know, maybe you\u0026rsquo;re, you\u0026rsquo;re sitting there, you really want you\u0026rsquo;re in the shower.\nFriction of Reaching out to Strangers # James: Maybe you\u0026rsquo;re thinking, damn, I\u0026rsquo;d really like a mentor. But then, you know, there\u0026rsquo;s, there\u0026rsquo;s this whole thing about, okay, who am I going to reach out to? Like maybe they won\u0026rsquo;t respond and kind of people can just talk themselves out of it or not even think that is something that can do. So I think that\u0026rsquo;s a great example, Eric, of using your initiative and getting out there.\nAnd it\u0026rsquo;s great to hear that\u0026rsquo;s been useful for you.\nEric: Yeah, it can be hard to reach out for a lot of people. And we acknowledge that. Like, that\u0026rsquo;s part of the problem that we\u0026rsquo;re trying to solve. Like, what is stopping you from making the first step, right? You need to be used or you don\u0026rsquo;t know how to reach out, or it\u0026rsquo;s just scary. But those are all valid points.\nAiden: We joke around and we say that we\u0026rsquo;re taking the friction out of like reaching out to strangers. Cause we do the reaching out to strangers for you. But you know, like it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s an important part of seeking mentorship, Right?\nYou need to go out and put yourself out there. And while we can take a fair bit of that away from the compensation, you still have to go out there and be like, okay, well I want to make a conversation with my mental or with my mentee, even in some cases.\nAnd in order to. I\u0026rsquo;ve just got to bare my soul a little bit and just, you know, form a connection that way.\nWhat problems do mentors solve? # James: Yeah. What would you say, say someone\u0026rsquo;s thinking about getting a mentor. I mean, what are the main things that you would want someone to take away from a mentor, like relationship or even Eric what\u0026rsquo;s things that you\u0026rsquo;ve taken away from that those.\nEric: So part of what we\u0026rsquo;re running up against, or we\u0026rsquo;re experiencing in building this community is that there\u0026rsquo;s a general lack of understanding around what mentorship is. Like a lot of people that comes up and it\u0026rsquo;s a buzzword. So to are under. But for our purposes, I guess it\u0026rsquo;s a combination of guidance, mentee driven, coaching, and problem solving guidance is when you, when you are looking for direction and you need someone to bounce thoughts off, who\u0026rsquo;s more experienced than you are mentee driven.\nCoaching is where you say I have a problem where I have a goal. I need to figure out how to get to point B. Can you help me? And it\u0026rsquo;s not up to the mentor to drive your coaching or to drive. your To drive your progress. You need to go to them as a resources, as an authority, someone who\u0026rsquo;s more experienced and problem-solving because you don\u0026rsquo;t know everything.\nAnd they\u0026rsquo;re going to have experience with problems that you will run into in your professional life and navigating your career and navigating even the workplace when you start work. And so for us, it\u0026rsquo;s a combination of all those three things with that definition. That\u0026rsquo;s what we want.\nJames: I think that\u0026rsquo;s interesting. Yeah. And I liked what you said there about, you know, you\u0026rsquo;ve got to know almost like where your point B is right before you. It\u0026rsquo;s a nice thing to have a mentor. And you\u0026rsquo;re like, yeah, I\u0026rsquo;ve got a mentor, you know, like I\u0026rsquo;m better than everyone, you know, sort of thing, but it\u0026rsquo;s like, okay, you need to like come to the mentor, what you need.\nAnd what\u0026rsquo;s the reason why you\u0026rsquo;re having someone there. Other than just as like, you know, just, it\u0026rsquo;s cool to have someone like to talk about your career stuff with, right. It\u0026rsquo;s kind of this, this thing where it\u0026rsquo;s like, okay, I have you around so that I can better get to this certain destination. And I, I think that\u0026rsquo;s\nEric: And if I might cut it, like, it\u0026rsquo;s good for the mentor as well. If you come to them with a point B, because if you don\u0026rsquo;t think of. Like, why am I meeting with this person? Is this a social visit? Do they want something from me? Or they trying to sell me something? Like, what is the purpose of this? And so if you go to them, like, this is my goal, this is my plan.\nThis is the difficulty. Can I buy you a cup of coffee? Or can I have some of your time to see what your experience with this has been all to see what your thoughts are with this, and then plan out a structure for the next week, two weeks month to see how we can get that.\nAiden: Just to add to that as well. I found that I\u0026rsquo;ve started to recently mentor people as well as be a mentee as well. And I found the best mentor, mentee relationships from my perspective have been, people have like literally DNV and LinkedIn and they\u0026rsquo;ll be like, Hey, I\u0026rsquo;ve seen your experience. I\u0026rsquo;ve seen what you\u0026rsquo;ve done.\nI really want to be in that same space. Do you mind if you take a couple of minutes to chat about it, and that\u0026rsquo;s always been really effective from a mentorship perspective, because you just say, okay, well I\u0026rsquo;ve been in that position before. I\u0026rsquo;ve definitely been that clueless graduate while I\u0026rsquo;m like, I have no idea what I\u0026rsquo;m doing.\nSo when you get to the point where you say, okay, well I have some experience now I\u0026rsquo;d really like to help other people in that same position. It, it\u0026rsquo;s a really great thing because you\u0026rsquo;re really just passing on that knowledge and people after you don\u0026rsquo;t have to make the same mistakes that.\nyou might\u0026rsquo;ve made. That\u0026rsquo;s one of the interesting things that I\u0026rsquo;ve meant to follow up is that we have a lot of mentors who\u0026rsquo;ve joined the platform and every single one of them are like, we just want to help other people. It\u0026rsquo;s nothing. Getting paid for it. It\u0026rsquo;s nothing about, you know, maybe building a following. It\u0026rsquo;s all about, I\u0026rsquo;ve learnt all this stuff through a lot of hard work and dedication and a ton of mistakes.\nAnd I just want to make sure that the people who come off to me don\u0026rsquo;t have to make those same mistakes. And it\u0026rsquo;s very altruistic that before.\nJames: Yeah, certainly like there\u0026rsquo;s like that idea of like, you know, paying it forward. And even once you\u0026rsquo;re, once you\u0026rsquo;re young and you\u0026rsquo;ve received advice or how to mentor. Yeah, unless you get that, get that feeling like I want to give back and, and give someone else that same experiences as what I had. So yeah, I think this is really cool when I, I liked this idea about removing the friction between a lot of getting a mentor.\nI think it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s really, really important.\nThe New Job Code # James: So, yeah, I wanna, I want to talk a bit about it now. I know you guys are releasing a book soon. Eric you mentioned that to me. Before the podcast. So is that, what\u0026rsquo;s the title of this book and is it related to this project?\nEric: It is it\u0026rsquo;s called the new job. We\u0026rsquo;re planning to have it come out in January, 2022. And we were positioning it as a guide to how the job market and the job getting processed has changed from before the pandemic to how it is now. There\u0026rsquo;s different ways to get a job, different ways to go about finding them building the online presence that you need to have these days online.\nAnd there\u0026rsquo;s, there\u0026rsquo;s a whole ton of different example. So it\u0026rsquo;s separated into seven chapters and we packed it full of like real life examples, like screenshots from every single step of the job, getting processed, including mentorship.\nJames: Yeah.\nAiden: Good to put that in that too. Yeah. but it wasn\u0026rsquo;t, it was really fun to write because we just spent. You know, hours upon hours just talking to each other and be like, Hey, do you remember that time that you did this? Or do you remember the time that you did that? Why don\u0026rsquo;t we put it in the book? Why don\u0026rsquo;t we just be authentic about it and want to just talk about what we did and how we got to where we got to.\nSo it was very one experienced writing and we both think that there\u0026rsquo;s a lot of really good information in there that people can really take away from it as well.\nJames: Yeah. Cause what, what let\u0026rsquo;s say, someone\u0026rsquo;s going to write this book. What is, what are some things that you want them to get out of it after reading?\nEric: We designed this book so you can pick it. Anger. Cool. These are actions that I can actually take that will get me results. It\u0026rsquo;s a really short book considering how long books on this topic can get, right? It\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s 80 pages, which is not a lot and there\u0026rsquo;s lots of pictures and screenshots.\nSo it\u0026rsquo;s all really accessible. And we like, we\u0026rsquo;ve tried to keep it that way as much as possible. So my algorithm for is for someone to pick it up, take a look at it, identify with the problems that we hotline. Few pages and then say, cool, this might actually work. Let\u0026rsquo;s give this a trial and then follow the steps as we go down.\nAiden: I think the best element of it is the fact that this action points at the end of each chapter. So even if you go to the action plan, Have I done this? Have I done this? Have I done this? And have I done this? And then you could probably get to the end of the book. And if you take through all those different action points, you can say, okay, I\u0026rsquo;m in a reasonably good place that I feel like I can get a job now, or I\u0026rsquo;ve been able to do this.\nI\u0026rsquo;ve been able to do that. I know what a resume looks like. I know how to write a cover letter. I know why people write those now what the purpose is of them. And then you get to a really good position where you say cool. I, I know how to look for the right jobs. I know how to create the resume and my cover letter.\nI know how to behave in an interview. I even know how to negotiate a job offer because that\u0026rsquo;s the one thing that I wrote in that book. And I was like, if I knew this, if when I was a graduate, I probably would\u0026rsquo;ve been in a much better position back then than I was. And it\u0026rsquo;s, like I said, it\u0026rsquo;s another form of mentorship in a way, because instead of talking to people about it, we\u0026rsquo;ve just written it down.\nand we say, Hey, take a look at this because you\u0026rsquo;re going to want to meet it when you\u0026rsquo;re in a negotiation position or when you\u0026rsquo;re applying to a job or something like that.\nEric: And they have a whole section on the different questions that you get asked in an interview and what they look like now, as opposed to like maybe two or three.\nAiden: Yeah.\nJames: Yeah, it\u0026rsquo;s important that those things are, and it\u0026rsquo;s good to hear that, that, you know, you\u0026rsquo;re on top of it and it\u0026rsquo;s really a modern, modern book because some of those things, you know, that the interview questions might be like 20 years old. It\u0026rsquo;s not really relevant for today\u0026rsquo;s day and age. Are there any concepts or.\nYou know, some of these action items and things from the book that you guys apply in your lives now.\nAiden: That\u0026rsquo;s a good one. Did you want me to go? Yeah. Yeah. there\u0026rsquo;s actually quite a few. There\u0026rsquo;s quite a few, I think from, and this is interesting because I\u0026rsquo;ve been applying this more and more recently, there\u0026rsquo;s, I\u0026rsquo;m really plotting out what your next move is or how to apply to a job or how to look for the right jobs for you.\nCause I\u0026rsquo;m, I\u0026rsquo;m not a very organized person by any means, but, but after writing new job code, I was like, you know what? I don\u0026rsquo;t really. Do this first bit, I should really make a conscious effort to sit down and make less than, you know, my wife she she\u0026rsquo;s fully organized. So I talked to her about it and she was like, why don\u0026rsquo;t you just make a, to do list?\nWhy don\u0026rsquo;t you do a pros and con list? Why don\u0026rsquo;t you do this? Why don\u0026rsquo;t you do that? And for the longest time, I was like, oh, I didn\u0026rsquo;t know. That\u0026rsquo;s not really my style, but now. A hundred percent. And I was talking to Eric about this a bit earlier. I had a pros and con list about something were talking about, I was like, this is how this looks like.\nThis is, this looks like, and I\u0026rsquo;ve got a whole mental framework around that now. So like allocate points based on how important it is to me and how non-important it is to me and I quite a nice lot score. And then based on the school, I can make a decision to be like, Based on all the numbers that I put together, this is the direction that I should go, and this is the direction I shouldn\u0026rsquo;t go in.\nAnd it\u0026rsquo;s a, that\u0026rsquo;s really been helpful. And that whole mental model piece has been great.\nJames: Yeah. Yeah. I liked that a lot. And I think that, that almost weighted matrix a weighted decision thing, or, you know, there\u0026rsquo;s probably a whole, you know, it could be. Number of different names for it, but yeah, that was something that I\u0026rsquo;ve used in the past. Not, not knowing that it was something that you can actually use, but like, you know, making it be choices.\nI remember I was going to go on exchange and I was thinking about if this was a good decision and, you know, having those things, I call it\u0026rsquo;s going to cost a lot of money. I\u0026rsquo;m not going to be around, like, it\u0026rsquo;s going to be like, I\u0026rsquo;m going to be going to a whole new city. Like I\u0026rsquo;m not going to know anyone.\nWhereas the pros are that I\u0026rsquo;m going to get to travel around. I\u0026rsquo;m going to maybe friends, you know, things like that. And then you try and do it as unbiased as possible. And then whatever you get that score or whatever at the end, like you were saying, and then that kind of takes your emotion out of the decision alleged.\nCause sometimes. You can be making these, these decisions. And then maybe it\u0026rsquo;s something that, you know, you get a bit of, more like emotional about, or it\u0026rsquo;s something that can be hard to decide as a having that written down in concrete can definitely make those decisions easier. Um Hmm. Eric, is there anything that you use or any key concepts from the book that you have.\nEric: Maybe I\u0026rsquo;ve absolutely adopted some of this without knowing about it because we\u0026rsquo;ve written the thing, right. There\u0026rsquo;s a section in there on networking and networking is like a dirty word. No one likes to do it. When you think about it, you want to gag a little bit. But part of my journey, I guess, has been reframing, networking as being about providing value wherever you can And if you look at it that way, and it\u0026rsquo;s not about what can you get from this person that you\u0026rsquo;re talking to, and then you feel like you\u0026rsquo;re harassing them. You have to scrounge around for a bit of time from them. And you\u0026rsquo;re like, there, is there anything I can help you with? Like, is there a need that I can see or connection that I can give you?\nThat\u0026rsquo;s going to be beneficial for you, even if you\u0026rsquo;re the CEO of.\nwherever So the way that translates into the messages that you send out, the emails that you send out, the proposal you make, the content you produce, it all comes together. I think that\u0026rsquo;s really important. If someone doesn\u0026rsquo;t already know that, then they need to learn it because that\u0026rsquo;s how things work\nJames: Yeah, I liked that a lot. I\u0026rsquo;ve been reading this book recently, code give and take by Adam Grant and it\u0026rsquo;s it\u0026rsquo;s about decide your bang, someone that\u0026rsquo;s. Versus someone that\u0026rsquo;s a tiger. And the idea of like, you know, like you were saying, offering value to people with kind of no expectation of them doing something back for you.\nWhich I think is really powerful concept, you know, like you saying, when it comes to networking and things like that, looking at people and saying where\u0026rsquo;s somewhere that I can offer value to this person, or how can I do something for this person and then creating a network that way. I think that\u0026rsquo;s really cool.\nChallenges Graduates Face and How to Deal with Them # James: One thing I want to ask too is let\u0026rsquo;s say someone is finishing a university, they\u0026rsquo;re starting a new job. What are some key challenges that you think that person would face? And even what are some things that you would maybe there\u0026rsquo;s concepts from the book or, or advice that you would give to that person to help with those challenges?\nAiden: It\u0026rsquo;s an interesting question because the stuff that you know now is not the same thing that, you know, when you first started at a job. Right. So if I was just starting out and I got into PwC, you know, like there I\u0026rsquo;d have been like, oh, go look at a big four.\nThere\u0026rsquo;s plenty of experience. You get to try different things, but being older now and looking back at that time, I would say to anyone who\u0026rsquo;s just graduated. University and looking for a job and haven\u0026rsquo;t quite got one yet. I would say don\u0026rsquo;t go working for a big company just because you think a big company is the best thing to do.\nYou know, for example, here in Melbourne that the startup scene is amazing now because it didn\u0026rsquo;t used to be that way two years ago, but after COVID the startups everywhere and everyone\u0026rsquo;s hiring and everyone\u0026rsquo;s got all this money from all the rounds that they\u0026rsquo;ve raised. And I would say that as a. As someone who might be just getting into a job, the best thing to do for you is you want to accelerate your growth.\nand you\u0026rsquo;re at that age where you can take a lot of risks. Don\u0026rsquo;t go work at a big tech company or a big four big law firm or whatever it is. Go work at a startup because at a startup there\u0026rsquo;s less people. So you\u0026rsquo;ve got more time with the people that make decisions. And at a startup, you get given more responsibility more quickly.\nAnd if you\u0026rsquo;re the kind of person who says I\u0026rsquo;m up for the challenge, and I want to take all that. on Then I\u0026rsquo;d say, go for it. Like you literally will be in a much better position if you can make it through. And you\u0026rsquo;ll be like, I\u0026rsquo;ve heard of people who, you know, they started at a startup and they worked in product and then two or three years later that the head of product.\nAnd then if they\u0026rsquo;ve decided to, they go to places like Lassie in Canva and they\u0026rsquo;re like a senior product manager. And then, you know, let\u0026rsquo;s say maybe 22 or 23 or 20. And meanwhile, the normal kind of pathway to get into a role like that would take you all the way up until about 28, 29, if you will, like really good at your job.\nRight. So my main kind of advice for someone who\u0026rsquo;s just graduating is don\u0026rsquo;t think about it properly, make sure that you\u0026rsquo;re doing the best decision for you. And of course, if you\u0026rsquo;ve got other things you\u0026rsquo;ve got to think about, of course, think of those as well, but if you can take the risks and if you offer.\nMaybe forgo, working for a big company and go join a startup and see what that can do for you.\nEric: I\u0026rsquo;d like to build on that into ways because I absolutely. Specifically for any role. First thing is when you join, ask as many questions as you can, while they still think he don\u0026rsquo;t know anything about the role, because you won\u0026rsquo;t have that chance again, because they\u0026rsquo;ll expect you to know your shit.\nAnd the second point on deciding what kind of company to join it\u0026rsquo;s about knowing your limits as well, and figuring out where those are, and that ties into mental health. So if you joined. Professional services. If you join a big four, anything, be prepared to work very long hours. And if that\u0026rsquo;s the kind of work that you want to do and the kind of schedule you want to keep then fantastic.\nBut if you want to join somewhere where things are a bit more flexible and you can help shape the culture and the role that you\u0026rsquo;re in, then maybe go for a smaller company.\nJames: Yeah.\nEric: The considerations that have been important to both of them.\nJames: Hmm. Yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s powerful. When I think it\u0026rsquo;s. Like you were saying, Aiden at the start-up scene really across Australia almost is becoming something that\u0026rsquo;s a lot larger and it\u0026rsquo;s creating a lot more opportunities for things like that. Where if you\u0026rsquo;re someone that\u0026rsquo;s you know, graduating, maybe you think you\u0026rsquo;re nuts and talented, you can go and get a good role somewhere.\nYou never really looking at that other side and saying, okay, I don\u0026rsquo;t actually have to go and work at a big established company where I\u0026rsquo;m just to. You know, in a role like somewhere, but I can actually come and join a startup of a few people and yeah. And like you were saying Eric really shape the culture of the company and really build something in there.\nSo I think that\u0026rsquo;s really cool. I want to touch on as well.\nAiden and Eric on the Importance of Mental Health # James: You guys are both quite passionate about mental health and it\u0026rsquo;s something that you mentioned before the podcast. How, like, how do you guys become passionate about something like that? And how does that was there any kind of inspiration or any story behind your passion in that area?\nEric: Just personal experience, I guess. So mental health has always been something close to my heart and I can say the same for Aiden as well. Through both personal experience and what we\u0026rsquo;ve seen in our PSRs. So we had a mutual friend of ours passed away when we were all about 23 years old. And at 23 years old, no one knows how to handle that.\nNo one knows how to talk about it. And so you have to figure it out as you go along and you can\u0026rsquo;t compare compartmentalize. It really, it affects everything. And when those kinds of experiences start to stack up, when those stack with stress. That you acquire from the workplace, from your family life and your personal circumstances or whatever you happen to be going through.\nYou don\u0026rsquo;t fit the mold of what is expected in a corporate environment. And so it becomes your responsibility to figure out how to take on what you can take on and set what\u0026rsquo;s appropriate. If you\u0026rsquo;re on backwards, at least from a work setting on a personal side, that\u0026rsquo;s a whole other, a whole other question that you need to.\nAiden: Just to add to that. This is like a pestle story as well, but so when it happened and this was back in 2016, And I remember cause it was towards the start of the year and it\u0026rsquo;s bent into my memory a bit. And it\u0026rsquo;s one of those things where, you know, it\u0026rsquo;s a 23 year old, you go through quite a significant amount of change at that point in your life.\nThe kind of the cusp of maybe early twenties into your mid twenties and you going from uni to a full-time job and things like that. So I was in my final year of university and I was doing my final year project and I was dealing with a lot of personal issues at the same time, a lot of family issues.\nAnd I had all of those things build on each other on and on and on and on. And then. When my friend passed away and long, long is his name when he passed away. That was kind of like if you\u0026rsquo;re playing a game of gender and I know this is probably a bad kind of a metaphor, but it\u0026rsquo;s like, I gave a gen gender and someone\u0026rsquo;s gone for the bottom piece and just yanked it out.\nAnd the whole thing falls over. Right. And that\u0026rsquo;s basically what it felt like for a long time. And, you know, Eric can attest to this as well. Like I went through quite a significant amount of problems at that point. Cause I was like, Yeah, work is stressing me out. I was working at apple for quite a long, like I was four days at apple, three days at uni.\nDidn\u0026rsquo;t really have time to. myself, had a lot of other stuff going on at the same time. And then all of that combined with, you know, the trauma that you go through when, you know, a close friend of yours passes away and it breaks you and you just think, okay, well, what do I do now? I don\u0026rsquo;t really care about anything.\nI don\u0026rsquo;t really want to reach out to anyone. I just want to sit at home and not do anything. And I think that this is why mental health is such an important topic for the both of us, is that we know what that looks like. And to be completely candid, I\u0026rsquo;ve had anxiety from back then as well. And I\u0026rsquo;ve continued to have it for quite a while after that.\nAnd I was diagnosed with it and I took medication for it as well. And we know what it\u0026rsquo;s like to be in that position. And we know exactly what it\u0026rsquo;s like to feel a bit lost and a bit hopeless. And. It\u0026rsquo;s that. And that\u0026rsquo;s just really the reason why we really got into mental health afterwards, because we were like, if someone else goes through something like this, and if it can help just one other person, you\u0026rsquo;ve brought a lot more net good into the world, haven\u0026rsquo;t you?\nBecause you\u0026rsquo;ve really helped someone to dig themselves out of that kind of hole that they might\u0026rsquo;ve settled into. And yeah, it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s just one of the reasons why we\u0026rsquo;re just so passionate about mental health, just that and other things and friends around us also going through. Issues as well. And it\u0026rsquo;s also, it\u0026rsquo;s been a very interesting experience looking at that.\nEric: There\u0026rsquo;s not a lot of spaces in the discourse Around the startup space around hustle culture. There\u0026rsquo;s not a lot of space in that for mental health. You, you look on Instagram on corporate accounts of startups or you look on LinkedIn and everything\u0026rsquo;s shiny. Everyone wants to put the best foot forward.\nAnd these are people that go through things and to, to deny that. Is to misrepresent, I guess, the reality of what it means or what it means to, to, to work\nAiden: Yeah.\nEric: Don\u0026rsquo;t like to talk about that.\nAiden: Exactly. And it\u0026rsquo;s just one of those things, I guess this is going on a often, a bit of a tangent, I guess, but when you look at things like social media and stuff like that, and you look at the very curated feeds of people and you say, oh, this person\u0026rsquo;s killing it. They got a job at so-and-so. This fence is killing it.\nThey got married or they bought a car or they bought a house is other stuff, but it\u0026rsquo;s a near on a lot of stuff that\u0026rsquo;s happened. In their own personal lives. And I can attest to that because, you know, if you looked at my LinkedIn at the time that all of that will happen, they\u0026rsquo;re like, oh, he he\u0026rsquo;s in this degree, he\u0026rsquo;s going to get a job here at all.\nEverything\u0026rsquo;s looking pretty cool for him. But internally I was like, I don\u0026rsquo;t really know what I\u0026rsquo;m doing. I\u0026rsquo;m stuck. All this stuff has happened to me. And it\u0026rsquo;s just something that we don\u0026rsquo;t talk about a lot.\nEric: Yeah. So to take it back to the topic at hand, I guess, you know, when you\u0026rsquo;re 18, 19 20, 21, and you start a new job and it\u0026rsquo;s, full-time, it\u0026rsquo;s a massive period of upheaval. And you know, you, you go through the process that I finished uni, I\u0026rsquo;m going to get it. Everything\u0026rsquo;s sorted. Just try and keep it together and do well at my job, but there\u0026rsquo;s a whole other side to it.\nYou have to manage that personally and navigating that change can be really hot, especially if you have other stuff.\nJames: Hmm. Yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s a, that\u0026rsquo;s a great story there. Is there any things that you guys are involved with or any things that you do to. Can you continue that, you know, involvement and interest in this mental health space and really trying to help people, you know, as they go through that transition, starting your first job in and switching that, is there anything that you guys are involved with or anything that you do to, to help with.\nAiden: So at work, I\u0026rsquo;m part of what\u0026rsquo;s called the real mates program and it\u0026rsquo;s not just Microsoft specific. It\u0026rsquo;s it\u0026rsquo;s actually a program that was developed outside of Microsoft, by someone who used to work there and then left to pursue it. But yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s definitely something that I presume. From a personal perspective, it\u0026rsquo;s just a matter of reaching out to people and having those uncomfortable conversations.\nCause the worst goodness, the worst that could possibly happen is you reach out to someone you say, you know, how you actually going is everything okay? And it just might be like, yep, everything\u0026rsquo;s perfectly fine. Thank you for asking, you know, but occasionally there\u0026rsquo;ll be that one person will be like, no, no everything.\nIsn\u0026rsquo;t okay. And do you mind if we talk about it for a couple of minutes and. That\u0026rsquo;s that\u0026rsquo;s that opportunity. That\u0026rsquo;s the opportunity of being able to say, Hey, I\u0026rsquo;m in a position where I can talk to this person and let them know about my experiences. And they\u0026rsquo;re in a position to put themselves out there and they say, yeah, I\u0026rsquo;m willing to listen and I\u0026rsquo;m willing to talk.\nAnd you might, you know, avoid a situation. Like what happened to us when we were 23 with.\none of our friends, like, it\u0026rsquo;s really just a matter of making yourself just a little bit uncertain. But you don\u0026rsquo;t know what you could do. You might end up saving a life\nEric: And that seems like a pretty stock juxtaposition to talking about how do I get my first\nAiden: Yeah, it really does.\nEric: Mentorship,\nAiden: Uh, but\nEric: It needs to be part of the company.\nAiden: It does. Yeah, I look up part of meant to fold. Isn\u0026rsquo;t just the fact that you\u0026rsquo;re mentoring people through their careers, but there\u0026rsquo;s also other problems that arise. And one of those big issues that happens when you look for a job, you move to another job, or you\u0026rsquo;re not sure what\u0026rsquo;s happening is your mental health, you know, and it\u0026rsquo;s really good to be able to talk to someone and say, Hey, I\u0026rsquo;m struggling mentally with this decision I have to make, or this thing that\u0026rsquo;s happened at work.\nAnd just being able to talk to someone about it. Yeah. So much more than what used to happen back in that day. And that\u0026rsquo;s one of the things I really love about kind of our generation and the generation that follows us is that we just see more open to talking about mental health and talking to people about it.\nWhereas you didn\u0026rsquo;t see the kind of thing, you know, 10 years ago when people would speak, Hey, I\u0026rsquo;m not doing so well or I\u0026rsquo;m going through this and it\u0026rsquo;s good. It\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s, there\u0026rsquo;s a lot of positive change that I really enjoy.\nEric: Specifically, I guess one of the initiatives I\u0026rsquo;ve been involved in recently, there\u0026rsquo;s a, there\u0026rsquo;s an app called mind care club. That\u0026rsquo;s currently, it\u0026rsquo;s grown up the last year and a half around Southeast Asia, specifically in the Philippines. It\u0026rsquo;s a telehealth counseling app, counselors, registrar on it. And people sign up and they can go on their phones and just call someone.\nI think it\u0026rsquo;s like a subscription service. Actually, it was started by another friend of mine who also died, but that was his legacy. He knows something. I helped him. I plan out a little bit. So that\u0026rsquo;s something I try to stay open.\nJames: Yeah, I, yeah, I think it\u0026rsquo;s a, it\u0026rsquo;s a great ad. A great point. And I think it\u0026rsquo;s. Something that, yeah, like you guys have both said that needs to be discussing, you know,, like kept in the dialogue rise, especially when let\u0026rsquo;s say you go into a startup or you\u0026rsquo;re working at a consulting company or wherever, wherever it is.\nAnd you\u0026rsquo;re working, you know, 60 hours a week or whatever, and you\u0026rsquo;re really grinding. You want to, you know, like you were saying, I put your best foot forward and, and, and show the world what you can do, but you don\u0026rsquo;t want that to come at the cost of. All of your mental health and, and really like keeping that kind of idea of, you know, Korea you know, doing well in your career, being physically healthy and mentally healthy.\nAnd that\u0026rsquo;s what makes it a good, a good career almost is having all those things in good, in good condition, right? Because one, one of those not quite bad, it makes things, makes things difficult. And it\u0026rsquo;s important that like you guys were saying those, those people that. Yeah, it\u0026rsquo;s hard to get that out of someone, right.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s important that you check in on your friends and make sure that they\u0026rsquo;re doing okay. Yeah, I think, I think it\u0026rsquo;s yeah, it\u0026rsquo;s a really special story and I think it\u0026rsquo;s. It\u0026rsquo;s important that, you know, like, it\u0026rsquo;s great to hear that you guys are both involved with things like that too, to improve the dialogue around this kind of thing.\nCause as much as much has been done in the last few years, and like you were saying, Aiden, you know, our generation is pretty good at it, but you know, there\u0026rsquo;s still work to be done. I think around even just people being more open with sharing their mental health and it not being seen as this week. Thing to do too, to share how you\u0026rsquo;re going. Cause I think sometimes it can be like, well, I\u0026rsquo;m not a tough guy. If I you know, if I tell people that I\u0026rsquo;m not having a good day or my home life, isn\u0026rsquo;t very good or things like that. So yeah, I think it\u0026rsquo;s really cool that you guys are helping to create that space and, and helping to improve that.\nChecking in with people about their Mental Health # James: Yeah. Yeah. I think it\u0026rsquo;s really cool. Well, yeah, one thing I want to touch on as well is I guess your experience with this mental health area what, what, what tips do you have for someone to check in with someone? Is there any like you\u0026rsquo;re saying you send a message. Is there any other things that you guys do or any, even things to look for in someone that you know, they\u0026rsquo;re not doing okay, how can we you know, how can we realize that.\nAiden: It\u0026rsquo;s a good question. And, you know, when I speak about this, I\u0026rsquo;m not speaking in any professional capacity whatsoever. I\u0026rsquo;m not going to claim that or anything like that. But the way that I usually look out for signs of someone possibly going through things is it\u0026rsquo;s usually kind of the obvious signs, right?\nSo maybe not reaching out as often, maybe you\u0026rsquo;ve noticed and not spending time doing the things that they actually like doing. Even things like you\u0026rsquo;ve reached out to them and you make plans and they say, Hey you know, they\u0026rsquo;re going up until the date. And then they bail and they\u0026rsquo;re like, oh, you know, I\u0026rsquo;m just so busy with everything else.\nOne thing that I\u0026rsquo;ve noticed, especially for people who tend to be, you know, type a, got to get stuff done, got to finish everything. One thing that I really noticed to what they do when it comes to mental health issues is they buried themselves. So there\u0026rsquo;ll be like, oh, I\u0026rsquo;m too busy. I\u0026rsquo;ve got to build this thing.\nI\u0026rsquo;ve got to build that thing. I\u0026rsquo;ve got to do this, I\u0026rsquo;ve got this other, the meeting. And if you\u0026rsquo;ve noticed that they\u0026rsquo;re doing well more often than not, then that\u0026rsquo;s a good sign to be like, Okay.\nwell, is it that you\u0026rsquo;re actually busy? Or are you just trying to give yourself a lot of busy work to distract yourself from something else?\nSo really, you know, once again, it all just boils down. Just ask them, just ask them a simple question. Hey, are you actually okay. And if you\u0026rsquo;ve got a good enough relationship with you and if you don\u0026rsquo;t, they might just be like, you know what? I\u0026rsquo;m actually not. And you goes from there.\nEric: I will say also that I\u0026rsquo;m not professional, but neither of us are, we just have personal experiences and there\u0026rsquo;s ample literature on this from, you know, resources like beyond blue or Headspace. If you\u0026rsquo;re really interested, you can go and look up yourself and become acquainted with, you know, what the S what the science looks like, what the symptoms of depression and anxiety and other, and other conditions look like that people may be going through, whether they admit it or not.\nBut something that\u0026rsquo;s not talked about that often is not coming across as performative without. And so not asking that question out of the blue, I got you. Okay. Without first building a sense of vulnerability.\nAiden: That\u0026rsquo;s very important. Very important.\nEric: This is one of the problems that I see sometimes with initiatives like the R U OK. Day. Right? If you ask the question just for the sake of asking it, because it\u0026rsquo;s that day, no, one\u0026rsquo;s going to give you a straight answer, but if you take the time to build a relationship and create a space where they feel like I\u0026rsquo;m not going to suffer ramifications of this, like if you talk to HR at work or something like that, and it\u0026rsquo;s a conversation.\nborn out of genuine connection and that\u0026rsquo;s usually a lot more.\nconducive\nJames: Hmm. Yeah. Yeah. I think that\u0026rsquo;s so important. I totally agree. Definitely. One thing. I\u0026rsquo;ve got one more question for you guys before we, before we wrap up and that is, you know, we\u0026rsquo;ve spoken about this mental health and how that\u0026rsquo;s so important, and it\u0026rsquo;s important to check on your friends and things like that.\nAiden and Eric\u0026rsquo;s Advice for Starting Your First Job # James: What, what is some advice that you would give someone starting their first job, whether it could be to do with mental health and that\u0026rsquo;s obviously an important piece, but is there anything that you would, even if it was yourself when you were starting your first job what advice would you give yourself? Maybe we\u0026rsquo;ll start with the.\nAiden: That\u0026rsquo;s good. There\u0026rsquo;s a lot of advice I think I would give I think that going back to my conversation about startups and corporates, I\u0026rsquo;d probably say, you know, take the time to research all the options available to you. And if it makes sense, go still, you know, join a startup or even better start a startup you\u0026rsquo;re young, you\u0026rsquo;ve got time and it might work out really well for you.\nThe second thing more specifically do to do with the mental health conversation. Make sure that you\u0026rsquo;re taking the time to preserve your own mental health. And one of the best ways of doing that is, you know, setting boundaries. So, if you think work is too much set a clear boundary and said, this is overstepping the bounds that I\u0026rsquo;m comfortable with and therefore I\u0026rsquo;m not going to do it or communicate them clearly to other people around you as well.\nSo they know what you can do and what you can\u0026rsquo;t do and go from there. And I think that. Kind of piece of advice I would give. And this is probably more general is when you start a new job as a graduate, find out all the. people that are going to be in your team and take every single person out for coffee once and make that a goal in the first month. I don\u0026rsquo;t care how many people it is. It could be five, it could be 10, it could be 20. It might be a bit expensive, but just do it take every single one of them, out for coffee and get to know them a little bit so Ask them what makes them tick ask them, you know, what, their kind of work experience is what they do a work in specifically and, you know, just get to know them.\nAnd you\u0026rsquo;ll tend to find that a, the grateful cause, you know, free coffee, who doesn\u0026rsquo;t love that. And they get to know you on a personal level. And because of that, it\u0026rsquo;s a lot easier to get to grips with the team, get to grips with the work and you\u0026rsquo;ll have those actual connections formed within the first month.\nWhereas, you know, a lot of people who tend to be quite introverted, don\u0026rsquo;t really talk to anyone. You know, a few weeks and you just need a break out of your shell a little bit to do that.\nJames: Yeah. Eric, what about you? Any any advice that you would give.\nEric: Yeah, so early. So when I. But when I was close to graduating, I had a mentor at the time, one that I sought out, I went to a speech and we started meeting regularly. And this is some advice that he gave me that I took two years to act on, which is to build something create a visible identity or content or something that you can be proud of outside of of your role, whatever it happens.\nAnd that, that does a lot of things, right? It gives you confidence. It requires you to build the skills required to build whatever you want to build. It\u0026rsquo;s about a building and it means that you are visible. So if, and that\u0026rsquo;s something that we can now point to, I mean, we both have our own online identities that speak for us, and that\u0026rsquo;s something that we go into in the book as well.\nBut if I had started it earlier, it would be so much. Okay, thank you so much. So much more valuable. That definitely something that I would never tell anyone who\u0026rsquo;s early on in their career, or even still at uni\nthere was something you can point to and be like, I built that it\u0026rsquo;s a demonstration of what I can do.\nAiden: Just to add onto that. James, you\u0026rsquo;ve pretty much done that. Hit that on the nail right there on the head. I should say,\nJames: Yeah.\nAiden: With a Graduate Theory, right? There you go. Shiny example.\nJames: Yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s a great tool. Very good. No, certainly I, I totally agree with both of you in that. I think that\u0026rsquo;s really profound advice. Cause yeah, Eric, will you saying about building almost your personal brand, I think is so important, especially in today\u0026rsquo;s day and age where you can have things on the internet that it just there Someone having to meet you or spend time with you, they can see what you\u0026rsquo;re about and they can see the things that you\u0026rsquo;ve created.\nI think it\u0026rsquo;s so important. And like with you aid, and I think it\u0026rsquo;s great advice to, to connect with your team and even through the wider organization, you know, really starting that networking is something that you do proactively and you know, really creating a network you know, as much as you can, especially when you\u0026rsquo;re early on.\nI think it\u0026rsquo;s really, really important to\nEric: So, if I could add onto what was, what Aiden was saying before, I think it\u0026rsquo;s important to acknowledge the caveats that come with setting boundaries, especially when you\u0026rsquo;re starting out and you want to be high achieving. You want to make a good impression, like we said before, and it can be hard to say no, or know how to say no.\nAnd that can be that\u0026rsquo;s a difficult thing to navigate. So you take a lot on, but I will say. The first few years of maybe your twenties or your career the time is the time where you get to test your bandwidth and see how much work can you do? How much can you take on before you feel yourself starting to burnout, and then you stay in that.\nOutro # James: Yeah, I think that\u0026rsquo;s spot on. I think, you know, one of the keys around that is like, okay, yes, I\u0026rsquo;m going to take on that extra task, but that means that I\u0026rsquo;m going to do this other task slower. You know, so not necessarily having to say no, but making your manager and whoever\u0026rsquo;s giving you work. You know, you do have plenty to do.\nAnd I think that\u0026rsquo;s so important too, cause you don\u0026rsquo;t want to become someone that just says yes to everything. You know, you need that space for yourself. Absolutely. I totally agree. Well, yeah. Thanks so much for coming on today, guys. It\u0026rsquo;s been a really cool conversation and a really important conversation too, I think.\nBut before we go, I want to ask you, where is the best places to connect with with both of you and even to find out more about mentor, fold and find out about this book that\u0026rsquo;s launching.\nEric: So you can visit our the MentorFold website. We\u0026rsquo;re growing much faster than we thought. So we\u0026rsquo;ve onboarded mentors from Google, Microsoft Bain company, Deloitte KPMG\nAiden: Telstra. Quite a few. Yeah. There\u0026rsquo;s a lot of big\nEric: Than we anticipated. So anyone who\u0026rsquo;s in university. Even just after university. I think this is a great resource that I wish we had when we were starting out as well.\nAnd the book will be on there as well. If you sign up, we\u0026rsquo;ll send it out to everyone in our list and on social media,\nAiden: I\u0026rsquo;m speaking of social media, you can get in contact with us on LinkedIn. Cause we\u0026rsquo;re both on LinkedIn. We can drop a link. I\u0026rsquo;m guessing I\u0026rsquo;ll\nJames: Yeah. Yeah. I\u0026rsquo;ll put all the, yeah, all the links I\u0026rsquo;ll put in the show notes. So if you are interested in connecting with these guys yeah. We can do it in that.\nEric: Yeah, I\u0026rsquo;ve been to connecting or answering any questions. Really?\nThe baby.\nJames: Amazing. Got thanks so much for the chat today, guys.\nJames: Thanks so much for listening to Graduate Theory. I hope you enjoyed this conversation with Aiden and Eric. I certainly got a lot out of it. So if you want to find out more, if you want to get involved with graduate dairy, what you can do is you\ngo to Graduate Theory.com and there you can read my takeaways and what I learnt from this episode,, if you enjoyed this episode, consider subscribing on whatever podcast platform you\u0026rsquo;re on. And if you\u0026rsquo;re on apple podcasts, if you could leave a review, that would also be really appreciated.\nIf you want to get new episodes into your inbox every single week, please go to Graduate Theory.com, subscribe to the newsletter and that you get the new episodes and my insights delivered straight to you.\nThanks so much again for listening today. And I look forward to seeing you in the next session.\n← Back to episode 9\n","date":"20 December 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/graduate-theory/9-on-mentoring-and-mental-health/transcript/","section":"Graduate Theory Transcripts","summary":"← Back to episode 9\nThis transcript has been lightly edited for readability. It may still contain transcription errors.\nJames: Hello and welcome to Graduate Theory. On today’s episode, we speak all about mentoring\nWe spoke about mental health and how it works in with hustle culture and how those things can coexist and how to really look after your mental health, how to make sure you look after other people’s mental health.\n","title":"Transcript: On Mentoring and Mental Health","type":"graduate-theory-transcripts"},{"content":" Watch the conversation Graduate Theory Open YouTube ↗ Read the full transcript → Watch This Episode on YouTube\nAndrew is the Co-Founder and CEO of Maslow. Maslow is a voice-enabled rehabilitation assistant for young people living with paralysis. Andrew is a musician and artist at heart and says that is how he learned to be a leader, innovator, and problem solver.\nMy 3 takeaways from this episode:\nThe importance of transdisciplinarity. Andrew says that his experiences across multiple domains allow him to connect with those from a wide variety of disciplines and produce better outcomes for his business.\nThe benefits of purpose-driven companies. Andrew highlights the sense of fulfillment and responsibility that comes with working on a purpose-driven business.\nThe value of trusting your gut. Andrew tells us that if he had trusted his gut, he would have started Maslow much sooner. He says if he could go back, he would trust his gut and take action. This is a theme we have heard on the podcast before. If you have that feeling in your gut, take the leap before it\u0026rsquo;s too late.\nWatch This Episode on YouTube\nConnect with Andrew https://www.maslow.io/\nAll links in one place https://linktr.ee/graduatetheory\nDirect Links # https://www.graduatetheory.com\nhttps://www.graduatetheory.com/buzzsprout\nhttps://www.graduatetheory.com/instagram\nhttps://www.graduatetheory.com/youtube\nEpisode Content # 00:00 Andrew Akib\n00:29 Intro\n01:34 How did Andrew Get into Consulting from Music\n08:11 Music not seen as a traditional consulting degree\n08:50 What Artists are good at\n09:43 How Andrew ended up in the disability space\n17:45 Noticing and Taking Opportunities\n19:05 Passions and Identity\n21:16 Transdisciplinarity\n24:27 Range\n26:48 Purpose-Driven Businesses\n30:17 Excitement for Purpose-Driven companies\n33:52 Companies and Founders that Inspire Andrew\n35:53 Dealing with Self-Doubt\n39:14 Advice for Early Career\n42:12 Connect with Andrew\n","date":"13 December 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/graduate-theory/8-on-purpose-driven-business-and-transdisciplinarity-with-co-founder-and-ceo-andrew-akib/","section":"Graduate Theory","summary":" Watch the conversation Graduate Theory Open YouTube ↗ Read the full transcript → Watch This Episode on YouTube\nAndrew is the Co-Founder and CEO of Maslow. Maslow is a voice-enabled rehabilitation assistant for young people living with paralysis. Andrew is a musician and artist at heart and says that is how he learned to be a leader, innovator, and problem solver.\n","title":"On Purpose-Driven Business and Transdisciplinarity with Co-Founder and CEO, Andrew Akib","type":"graduate-theory"},{"content":"← Back to episode 8\nThis transcript has been lightly edited for readability. It may still contain transcription errors.\nHello, and welcome to Graduate Theory. On today\u0026rsquo;s episode, you\u0026rsquo;ll hear about transdisciplinarity. You hear about music and how that can be an unconventional way to add great value in consulting and other fields. You\u0026rsquo;ll hear all about purpose and what it means to be a partner of a purpose driven company. I\u0026rsquo;m really excited about today\u0026rsquo;s episode and I hope you enjoy.\nJames:\nIntro # James: Hello and welcome to Graduate Theory. My guest today graduated from the university of technology in Sydney in 2014, with a bachelor of sound and music. Since then he\u0026rsquo;s worked at companies like Commonwealth bank, Bain and essential. And in 2019, he co-founded this company, Maslow, Maslow is a voice enabled rehabilitation assistant for young people, living with paralysis. It empowers young people to independently manage rehabilitation and is challenging the systematic norms in disabilities.\nMaslow has hundreds of users with disabilities registered across Australia and us therapists, remotely managing clients in Australia for this great work. In 2019, my guests received the young social pioneer of 2019 award by foundation of young Australians for making an impact in the disability and accessibility space.\nPlease welcome to the show, Andrew.\nHow did Andrew Get into Consulting from Music # James: Welcome to the shine. I didn\u0026rsquo;t feel someone that\u0026rsquo;s had a really interesting career story and is doing some really great work in the disability space. But one thing before we dive into all that, I want to ask you about your transition from university into your career and kind of your first few jobs, because you studied music at university and went into consulting, which is really an, almost an unusual, uncommon.\nSo I want to ask, was there a particular moment in that transition, that led you from music into\nconsultant?\nAndrew: First of all, thanks for that really interesting intro. I\u0026rsquo;m,\nHearing, hearing you call out some of the Trinity points. It\u0026rsquo;s actually just refreshing my memory and I\u0026rsquo;m just remembering even some of those experiences that I may have slightly forgotten. So that\u0026rsquo;s really interesting, but yeah, to answer your question th th the context is that I was, I was studying music at university and really looking at that intersection between music, technology, and culture.\nI really enjoyed just making, making technology for music, whether it be for stage, whether it be for print production, whether it be the studio whether it be to help bands promote into. It was just something that I enjoyed and something that I\u0026rsquo;ve dabbled in and had a sense of play in.\nBut I remember starting to get towards the end of my university degree and maybe had, I was maybe in a final semester and I thought to myself, oh shit, like I\u0026rsquo;m while I\u0026rsquo;m a student. And while I\u0026rsquo;m at university, I might as well take advantage of any of the resources that I\u0026rsquo;ve got here. So I started just signing up to whatever was on and Willy nilly problem solving courses, leadership and communication workshops.\nJust anything that I saw on the events calendar that even remotely looked interesting. I just find out for it got to the point that I was running around the university. I just, I just been to the gyms or was there any kind of tracking down some looking really, really scruffy.\nAnd I was going to turn up to a workshop that I had. That I\u0026rsquo;d applied for. And I was in the new UTS building, which I didn\u0026rsquo;t really know my way around. The one that looks like a cheese grater now. So they\u0026rsquo;d just built it with shows my age and I was running around and I saw a sign on the door and it said digital, something, something.\nSo I thought, oh, this must be the room I\u0026rsquo;m in. So I opened up the door thinking I was 15 minutes late and I walked in and there\u0026rsquo;s no one else around. So I thinking I\u0026rsquo;m late to this, this is a little bit strange. There\u0026rsquo;s no. There was one guy at the front wearing a suit and he looked at me and he said, mate, what are you doing here?\nAnd I said, I\u0026rsquo;m here for I\u0026rsquo;m here for a workshop. And I didn\u0026rsquo;t really know what I was going to then just signed up for everything he said, okay, no worries. Tell me a bit about yourself. So my name is Andrew. I\u0026rsquo;m studying music and a build technology got chatting and he said, oh yeah, you should really, you should sit down and join this workshop.\nAnd we I\u0026rsquo;m thinking, well, yeah, I signed up for. What I noticed was on the table. There were named cards and of course mine wasn\u0026rsquo;t there. But I sat down and people started filing in and they were all wearing suits and button ups and ties. And I\u0026rsquo;m thinking, I think I might be in the wrong workshop, but I all sit down very quietly looking at me like, what the hell is this guy doing here?\nAnd the first, as everybody sits down, the man that facilitated the course, the first thing he asked is who here did not study commerce or business or engineering or. And I put my hand up and he said, what did you study? I said, I studied music and everybody in the, in that room law. But he then went on to say, well, you all know why you\u0026rsquo;re here.\nAnd I\u0026rsquo;m thinking, I don\u0026rsquo;t know why I\u0026rsquo;m in this workshop. I don\u0026rsquo;t know what\u0026rsquo;s going on. And he said, you\u0026rsquo;re here for the case interview for a strategy consulting for strategy consulting role. And I\u0026rsquo;ve thought to myself, okay, I\u0026rsquo;ve just walked into an interview. That I didn\u0026rsquo;t apply for that. I didn\u0026rsquo;t get into that.\nEverybody else here had actually gone through a number of other screening interviews to get into that was reasonably competitive. And he said, the format of this interview is we\u0026rsquo;re going to give you a case question and you\u0026rsquo;re going to use the subject matter experts in the room to ask questions, to diagnose, to try and get to the answer, to solve the problem that we\u0026rsquo;re presenting to you.\nAnd he said, the problem that we\u0026rsquo;re going to present is a little bit different to what you\u0026rsquo;re used to in an economics degree, a business degree or an engineering degree, or the typical types of roles that fields of study that jet tend to go into consulting. And he said, the case question is how can we help emerging musicians break above the clutter of the digital market in order to create a sustainable arts industry worldwide.\nThinking about this whole group had laughed at me for studying music. I just thought to myself, well, who\u0026rsquo;s laughing now. The context of the interview was, we spent, we spent 45 minutes interviewing subject matter experts. And at the end of we all had to pitch our solution based on the information that we\u0026rsquo;d discovered.\nAnd because I\u0026rsquo;d already been enjoying working in the music industry and really, really enthusiastic about that and thinking about changes in audio culture and digital streaming services and the things that I just enjoy. I really thrived in this interview. I enjoyed talking to the subject matter experts and when it was time to pitch, I thought to myself, look, I\u0026rsquo;m just going to get this out of the way.\nI\u0026rsquo;m feeling really uncomfortable because everyone was laughing at me. I was actually really anxious at the time. I didn\u0026rsquo;t know what was going on. And I pitched a solution, talked about my background in the music industry and said, all right, cool, I\u0026rsquo;m going to go now. But as I left one of the facilitators of the interview chased me down and said, Andrew, I have to introduce you to somebody.\nAnd. Introduced me to the partner of this kind of strategy practice that was\nheading up the media entertainment vision. And, yeah, they invited me to become a strategy consultant\nwith them and help them help themselves to some of their new music industry clients. So, it was all it was all a very, very serendipitous event and it was very, very much the first episode of suits, if you\u0026rsquo;ve ever seen That\ncouldn\u0026rsquo;t have been.\nJames: Yeah.\nAndrew: That\u0026rsquo;s how I accidentally walked into the wrong room and became, became a consultant.\nJames: Wow. Yeah. That is amazing. That is seriously such a special story. And how things are turned out after that as Like getting to where You are I know, really life changing almost and probably,\nAndrew: Like one of the biggest things I will say about that is at the time, I didn\u0026rsquo;t know what was happening at the time. I didn\u0026rsquo;t know where any of that was would lead and more so at the time I felt really uncomfortable about all of these people from, wearing suits and ties from traditional career paths, like laughing at me because they didn\u0026rsquo;t think that a musician could become as consultant. but on the other side of that, it, it made sense and people supported me along the way and embraced those skills. And it was all just about\nbeing myself and embracing what I enjoyed\nJames: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And I see what you mean, what, like your example of when you speak.\nMusic not seen as a traditional consulting degree # James: You got laughed out because he was studying music or whatever. I feel like there\u0026rsquo;s definitely a bit of a stigma around some of the arts, people think it\u0026rsquo;s not that traditional kind of career, but certainly in my experience in your grades sample there are absolutely people in that are doing great things.\nAnd, that\u0026rsquo;s that kind of stigma that I see. And perhaps, I don\u0026rsquo;t know if you\u0026rsquo;ve noticed that. Having that diverse skillset and being able to count problems for interview wise. I mean, that is really unique it\u0026rsquo;s something that,, it\u0026rsquo;s great to say that you\u0026rsquo;re an example of that, that you can take that skill set.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s not traditional to those consulting kind of roles and you can still have that positive impact. I think.\nWhat Artists are good at # Andrew: Yeah, definitely. I think just commenting on that, I think that artists are incredibly good at a few things that business innovators are really seeking. And that is what artists really understand is how to craft together a highly emotive and engaging experience on a very, very minimal budget and kind of pulling things behind the scenes that might really be scrappy and like just MVP essentially.\nBut then on the front kind of on the front facing side and the audience side is, beautiful curtain performance and that\u0026rsquo;s that lean MVP approach to, well, especially in entrepreneurship, especially in innovation, especially in that.\nkind of like build test break and kind of iterate type of cycle. Yeah. And artists are fundamentally really, really good at that. leaning into the emotional connections with the audience and achieving that through consumer products. these are the types of mindsets that my business innovators are looking for, that artists have had down pat for centuries\nHow Andrew ended up in the disability space # James: Yeah, I think that, that is really exciting. One thing I want to talk about now is, you\u0026rsquo;ve transitioned into the corporate world into this kind of consulting role. How did you actually end up in this disability support? You\nknow, this whole disability thing, which you\u0026rsquo;re obviously a startup is in that.\nHow\u0026rsquo;d you then\nfall into\nthis\nAndrew: Th th the great thing about being in a consulting role is you do get to dabble in quite a lot of different industries, and you do get to become a little bit of a subject matter expert or enough of a subject matter expert, and then move on to the next thing.\nI was, I was lucky enough to work in the media and entertainment industry of course. But also. And have worked in social enterprise across Southeast Asia. So it did strategy and product work for a number of Southeast Asian social enterprises. And then was also lucky enough to work on healthcare systems, major healthcare systems in Australia designing product and kind of understanding that consumer experience.\nSo, I\u0026rsquo;ve got to pick up this kind of set of skills. Yeah, across kind of social impact and then across healthcare and then across that digital music experience, but the actual, to be honest with you, the actual kind of trigger point of what made us say, Hey, we shouldn\u0026rsquo;t start a business.\nOurselves was through an event that a friend of a friend of friend of ours, of my best friend in mind that. I was studying at university and I\u0026rsquo;m training for a triathlon and he slipped and hit his head and suffered a traumatic brain injury. And it was after that he spent nine months in rehab hospital after being paralyzed, losing his memory.\nAnd he was surrounded by therapists that rural teaching anymore. About all of the things that he would need to do when he got home pressure care, and how to manage support work is and what your exercise physiology is going to look like and how to train, how to change a catheter and how to, how to manage your mobility.\nAnd it\u0026rsquo;s a lot for somebody to take in if they have um, you know, if they\u0026rsquo;ve suffered a brain injury and they\u0026rsquo;re paralyzed and they\u0026rsquo;re going through this traumatic experience. So when he was discharged from the rehab hospital, huh? He, he and his family forgot a lot of what they learned, which made it really, really challenging to stay on top of all of those therapy programs and manage attainment, support workers, and beyond just doing like the minimum care and rehab things that they educated you on.\nLike just to do things that make the human life go back to your university or find a job. There was no time to do any of that because he was spending so much of his time managing his physiological health, but it made it so much harder. I enjoy being human. And he was re-admitted back to hospital with infections and publications and all of these things that could have been avoided.\nAnd my background in kind of product and kind of product and user experience combined with my best friend\u0026rsquo;s background as a therapist, actually, and looking at this kind of experience that our friend with. We really thought to herself, they wish that there has to be a way to address some of these challenges through technology.\nThere has to be a way to address the access to information and challenges because that\u0026rsquo;s what technology has always been amazing at helping people access information. There has to be a way to address these management of a care team kind of challenges because again, you technology is amazing at connecting and coordinating.\nAnd that also has to be a way to use technology, to help him remotely access things from home. Because look at us right now, we\u0026rsquo;ve never met each other in person and we\u0026rsquo;re having a conversation online. So, that for us was really that, like that Spock that made us say, Hey, this is worth solving and we didn\u0026rsquo;t just go in and stop Maslow, like off the back of that.\nWe didn\u0026rsquo;t go, all right, let\u0026rsquo;s create a company. There\u0026rsquo;s a, there\u0026rsquo;s a challenge. Let\u0026rsquo;s figure this out. The start of, it was actually a kind of a slower testing. The waters experienced for an entire year before, before quitting kind of my job as a consultant. We connected with, hundreds of people, young people with spinal cord injuries, all across Australia all the way over in Perth and Northern territory and pretty much every great city.\nAnd we spoke to them and we didn\u0026rsquo;t try and jam a solution down. Anyone\u0026rsquo;s kind of input, put a solution in anyone\u0026rsquo;s face or recommend anything. We just listened and that\u0026rsquo;s it. And we listened to try and understand whether the experiences of young people with spinal cord and traumatic brain injuries across Australia was similar or different to what our friend experience.\nAnd we listened and co-designed and procreated what they asked for. And there were prevalent things. People found it hard to stay on top of their therapy programs from home, they all were frustrated by verbally educating their support workers every single day. And they all said that they wished that they could just have a platform where they could do all of this in the one place and remotely access all their content because I was sick of traveling to their clinical appointments for really basic needs.\nSo it was through 2019 that. Immersing and researching and listening but also prototyping and testing with this group. So the result of that was we built a community already, before we even launched that knew exactly what they wanted, knew exactly what we were delivering and that we knew exactly what their kind of set up was.\nBut it wasn\u0026rsquo;t actually until March, 2020, that. We\u0026rsquo;re forced to try and push something live. And that was because the community that we were co-designing with already had access issues to technically come to healthcare that already had challenges, regulating and managing their support workers. And already we\u0026rsquo;re looking for digital solutions that their therapists weren\u0026rsquo;t willing to provide.\nThey were all locked out of their clinics because of COVID. And a lot of people may not know this, but you know, people with severe disabilities. We\u0026rsquo;re at the highest risk at that time. And we\u0026rsquo;re having a lot of the how do I say this? We\u0026rsquo;re probably some of the ones that held the most fear because it wasn\u0026rsquo;t like your eye where we could think about this and go, okay.\nThis may not affect us that badly. I mean, for somebody living with respiratory issues they thought about, COVID as something that could genuinely having severe negative impact on their\nand wellbeing at a young age, So the relationship changed\nfrom, Hey, we\u0026rsquo;re prototyping this virtual solution with\nthese guys to them going, Hey, that prototype that you guys have been working with us on.\nWell, I could really use it right now because I need remote access to my my therapist. And\nI need to be able to regulate my support because activities around all the COVID productions.\nSo yeah, we were\nforced to push it live in March,\n2020, and, things\njust, I guess,\nJames: Yeah, well, that\u0026rsquo;s, that\u0026rsquo;s another really fascinating story, to go along with this story earlier, I think as well, this is another one of those kind of events it\u0026rsquo;s really thrust you into this whole new world.\nAnd has, I\nmean a great things as well. Which\nI think is really\nAndrew: Yeah, I think I think with both of those though, that I reflect on this a lot. Yeah. No, I don\u0026rsquo;t want it to sound like there was some golden goose or golden opportunity that was presented with at the time. Because again, honestly, in both of those scenarios, they didn\u0026rsquo;t make sense at the time. It\u0026rsquo;s only in hindsight that I\u0026rsquo;m able to say how it all hangs together.\nEven with Maslow. For example, that first year 2019, where we went out and did research, we didn\u0026rsquo;t know what we were doing. We didn\u0026rsquo;t know we were going to build and we weren\u0026rsquo;t fully sure of what problem we were even solving. back then I can talk about it now because I\u0026rsquo;ve gone through the experience and kind of had those learnings, but back then we were, making it up as we were going along and learning to\nbe entrepreneurs.\nWe didn\u0026rsquo;t go, Hey, we\u0026rsquo;re going to be startup founders. and they\u0026rsquo;re immediately possess the skills and capabilities and maturity and expectations. It was just, naivety, and an intent\nto do it.\nBut it\u0026rsquo;s actually been the experience since then that and, and, and embracing what\nwe\u0026rsquo;ve learned. That\u0026rsquo;s enabled us to say, Hey, this is why we did it.\nAnd this is what we\nwanted, and this is what we needed to do.\nNoticing and Taking Opportunities # James: Yeah, absolutely. And one thing that comes up, I think through these two is it\u0026rsquo;s one thing to have those opportunities presented or thrust upon you or, whatever, you want to use to describe them. And it\u0026rsquo;s another thing to be able to tak e that opportunity act on it and\nseize that opportunity, which I think\nis something that\nAndrew: Yeah, absolutely. Just, just commenting on that. Even before that it\u0026rsquo;s one thing to even be able\nto notice those opportunities\nIn the first example of, just luckily turning up to that consulting case interview. Well, I mean, that\u0026rsquo;s not actually the case. I was, I was in a panic mode of my life where I didn\u0026rsquo;t know what I was going to do when I graduated.\nSo I was panic\u0026rsquo;dly signing up for everything that I could possibly sign up or to just turn up and see what, see what happened. And had I not been doing that, that opportunity one wouldn\u0026rsquo;t present itself to me. And secondly,\nhad I not been doing that, I wouldn\u0026rsquo;t have possessed\nthe skillset to actually\nexecute on that when I executed on it. And yeah, had I not\nalso possessed the naivety to not leave the class after I realized it was the wrong\ngroup, then I wouldn\u0026rsquo;t have been able to hold on to that, so a mixture of\nluck, naivety,\nwhich is actually a great thing. But\nalso of, being able to\nenjoy the discomfort of the opportunity, but also see\nit um when It arises\nJames: Yeah, definitely. Yeah. I think it\u0026rsquo;s really cool.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s, definitely comes through the initiative\nPassions and Identity # Andrew: I do just want to point\nto another element of\nthat, which like, it feels really intangible when, when people tell you about it, but often people will tell you about it being important and like just, laugh if you will, but that\u0026rsquo;s passion.\nSo, passion has a really interesting role in creating opportunities. And it\u0026rsquo;s very logical in like non fluffy, kind of like asking the universe will deliver ways that manifests itself. And you get an example when you\u0026rsquo;re passionate about something, you take it on as part of your\nidentity.\nAnd for me that may have been music and technology or web design or some things that sat around that. And because I\u0026rsquo;d taken that on as my identity, when I meet someone and get into a conversation about what do you do, or, what do you care. For me, the conversation tended to steer towards music, music technology, or that kind of thing.\nAnd being like, Hey, I\u0026rsquo;m actually really interested in that. And if you made a hundred people and they all remember you as the music technology person, then all of a sudden 100 people are your eyes and ears for opportunities that might make sense for you. And they might meet someone who has an opportunity now remember, oh yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s right.\nAndrew was the music technology person, and I\u0026rsquo;m going to introduce\nthem to that person. And so there\u0026rsquo;s very tangible ways that manifests.\nAnd for me that could have, that was that when I walked into that room and met a stranger and was scared when I was wearing tracky dacks and looking really scruffy, no wearing a suit and\nlooking really well curated. And I asked who I was and what I did, the first thing that\nI said to them\nwas I\u0026rsquo;m Andrew. And I\u0026rsquo;m a\nmusician. And I also\nmake music technology. How do I not present at that passion? probably would have\nbeen\nbooted out of there.\nJames: Yeah, I think that\u0026rsquo;s really cool. Or it\u0026rsquo;s definitely, having that passion and creating that passion is as you said, can lead to really interesting opportunities yeah. In that area. One thing I wanted to ask too is, you\u0026rsquo;ve had these pretty diverse music consulting now you\u0026rsquo;re in the disability space.\nHow do you. you. know, having that really sort of generalist almost approach, not, not the, you know, not that you\u0026rsquo;re complete generalist, but you know, having that diverse set of experiences, how do you think that enables you to see problems in a different way and, to produce like in, like you were saying that artists in unit, creating those innovative solutions, you think that\u0026rsquo;ll we\u0026rsquo;ll\nTransdisciplinarity # Andrew: Yeah, definitely.\nI mean, there\u0026rsquo;s this, there\u0026rsquo;s this there\u0026rsquo;s this kind of like world and thought leadership and concept that people like to describe as like transdisciplinary. And it sounds really buzzwordy when you just say it out loud and say transdisciplinary. Or a cross-functional collaboration or any variation of that, that different industries talk about.\nAnd then you got to ask yourself what actually is that, and I think something that naturally happens with various different industries, skillsets, especially kind of data skillsets, whether they be scientific, mathematical engineering whether they be whatever they are. The deepest someone tends to get in that skillset in kind of conventional fields, the less capable they are collaborating with people from other skillsets at that same depth.\nAnd so you have, you have a lot of these things and these silos being built into industries, and I\u0026rsquo;ll give a really good example of that in the healthcare community. So in healthcare, hospitals, hire clinicians They hire clinicians to run their businesses and run their kind of technology and run their whole practices.\nThey don\u0026rsquo;t hire digital transformation experts. And so the only people that design that were designing solutions, especially before COVID in the hospital space where clinicians, so they\u0026rsquo;re very clinically oriented and that\u0026rsquo;s great. But as soon as the world shifted into being okay, we\u0026rsquo;ve got to be completely remote.\nAll of a sudden the healthcare system we needed to catch up. And the only people that were able to. To guide. And from that transition where people that had enough expertise in the clinical space and enough expertise in say the digital space or whatever, all this space to aid with that collaboration and aid would like getting the most out of both worlds.\nSo I guess what I\u0026rsquo;m saying is, for me personally, Touching on a lot of different topics, but you know, just enough has enabled me to collaborate with a very, very large scope of people. Whether they be artists, whether they be technologists, whether they be clinicians, whether they be designers, whether they be anything right.\nAnd the value of that has been that it\u0026rsquo;s always going to take a number of different skill sets in order to get something new off the ground or in order to create something. And frankly, in terms of that transdisciplinarity conversation, the magical things in this world happen in between disciplines and they happen in between industries.\nSo for me, getting that kind of quite diverse experience, the value of that has been that I can very quickly build a team and work, work, and gel with everyone and get everyone to work in gel with one. Because I understand enough about the different ways that people work in different industries or in different skillsets to create cohesive collaboration. and you also understand what, how people think, what they\u0026rsquo;re motivated by and how they solve\nproblems. So I guess, yeah, that, that kind of sort of, so to answer\nyour question, the value of how.\nBeing an expert generalist, still\ntouching on different things or having varied experience. It\u0026rsquo;s quite unique has been that the output of that is\nunique and you can collaborate with a unique set of people and therefore\nfundamentally create a new.\nRange # James: Yeah. Yeah. I think that\u0026rsquo;s really cool when there\u0026rsquo;s, I dunno if you\u0026rsquo;ve heard of or read about\nit, but there\u0026rsquo;s this book called range.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s got with David Epstein and it\u0026rsquo;s all about this idea. That whole thing like specialists and generalists, and really who comes out on top homeless, different scenarios in the wetter, you know, new discoveries come from and, and who like almost from a career sense, you know, should you set yourself up as a specialist or as a generalist and yeah, he found that a lot, what you those new, new creations. Often come from those people that are looking, from a particular domain across domains, rather than someone that\u0026rsquo;s really deep in a single domain. And I think that\nhe\u0026rsquo;s just, he has some, it sounds like something, that\u0026rsquo;s what\nyou\u0026rsquo;d found as\nAndrew: Yeah, absolutely. And I think the other part of that\nis, even if you have a diverse\nexperience, like in two completely separate fields, or you do a career change, some people hold this attitude. If I change careers, I\u0026rsquo;m losing all of this knowledge that I have that specialized in a certain field. And I\u0026rsquo;m going into something as the underdog and starting from zero.\nBut other people have this kind of perspective of if I change careers, I\u0026rsquo;m bringing in a type of thinking that is completely new to an industry that hasn\u0026rsquo;t experienced that before. And that\u0026rsquo;s actually a competitive advantage and something that you can use as a platform rather than. as a hindrance And so I think that\nfor people that do have varied experience and not just in the workplace, but\nlike from sport to music, to art, to your hobbies, to even religion and science and\nphilosophy, if you really think about how you can leverage and use what you already know as a strength to\ninform something that it may not have been\nexposed to\nbefore and use that\nanalogist\nexperience, then all of a sudden diversity\u0026rsquo;s a superpower\nrather than.\nJames: Yeah. Yeah. I think that\u0026rsquo;s really cool. Definitely.. Something that does not try to do in my own life and something that I would absolutely recommend it. Something that you\u0026rsquo;ve experienced too is, getting that well, it doesn\u0026rsquo;t even have to baby go and jump careers or it can be, let\u0026rsquo;s a side hustle that\u0026rsquo;s in an unrelated.\nSomething that interests me. That\u0026rsquo;s unrelated to work well, let\u0026rsquo;s, pick up a hobby or whatever it is just to give you that, that, contrast. He\u0026rsquo;s, he, I think is cool.\nAndrew: Yeah.\nPurpose Driven Businesses # James: Yeah. One thing, one thing I want to ask about, which I think is really cool as well, is this idea of a purpose driven company and that has, really comes through with, with Maslow is that, we\u0026rsquo;re creating this. Have gone. like yourself, you\u0026rsquo;ve gone. from what is traditionally in Western lucrative kind of thing consulting and very traditional kind of field. go on into this, this idea where, okay, we\u0026rsquo;re going to do we\u0026rsquo;re going to make the world a better place by creating this product and really helping people, on personal level.\nI want to ask you. how has, how\u0026rsquo;s your experience been like this purpose first approach? Is that\nsomething that you would recommend to more people.\nAndrew: Yeah, I\u0026rsquo;m\njust Relating\nthat\nback to something that we spoke about earlier around, around passion. I didn\u0026rsquo;t know this was going to manifest itself in this conversation as well, but just like your individual passion attracts people and attracts opportunities and that people can get around because it makes sense to them and they can latch on to it\u0026rsquo;s similar for a really purpose-driven.\nWhen, and again, people talk about it in really fluffy ways, but I\u0026rsquo;m going to explain how this actually manifests itself in very, very literal and logical ways. So when you run a purpose-driven business, what that actually means is that you, as a business leader or employee or anybody, or customer or partner are able to come to the table and say, I\u0026rsquo;m truly passionate about what this solves, how it solves it and what the outcome and vision.\nWe are all collectively working together to create. And for Maslow, that happens to be, to make it as easy as possible for people with disabilities to manage their care in their rehab at home. That\u0026rsquo;s a fundamental purpose. It\u0026rsquo;s not just my purpose. It\u0026rsquo;s there because it\u0026rsquo;s out all about audience and our community\u0026rsquo;s purpose.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s our employee\u0026rsquo;s purpose. It\u0026rsquo;s our partner\u0026rsquo;s purpose. It\u0026rsquo;s our investor\u0026rsquo;s purpose. And everybody gets around. And it\u0026rsquo;s been shaped up by everybody as well. I told you about that year that we spent just immersing ourselves with the lives of young people with severe spinal injuries. This is the purpose that they want and were just on the journey with them.\nSo the way that manifests itself is that just like when you speak about passion or purpose the right employees are attracted to. you People want to collaborate on this because they\u0026rsquo;ve seen it before the right investors are attracted to you because they understand how important it is from a purely altruistic standpoint.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s not just a per a profitable standpoint. It makes it easier to make design and strategic decisions because you actually have a centralized point to refer back to. It\u0026rsquo;s not just, making a quick buck. And it also keeps your team, your partners, and everybody grounded and in. unity Which makes it easier to have tough conversations because when it comes to needing to make compromises somewhere, you can always come back to purpose and whether it does, or it doesn\u0026rsquo;t help achieve this purpose.\nSo, I mean, and that\u0026rsquo;s that kind of war cry or that rallying cries so much louder and so much stronger than, a I\u0026rsquo;m not gonna name any names here, or point point into any particular industries, but you know, a purely for\nprofit, just, a company\nthat doesn\u0026rsquo;t have as tangible and impact on people.\nIt doesn\u0026rsquo;t\nhave as tangible community impact. I mean, yes, every company along the way, figures out a rationale about how they make impact, but there are certainly different flavors of that and certainly different degrees of separation of that. And when it\u0026rsquo;s very real\nand it\u0026rsquo;s very tangible and you can really\nspeak about\nit and you bring the right people to the\ntable around it, you find motivated\npeople that are truly willing to\nsucceed.\nExcitement for Purpose Driven companies # James: Yeah, I think that\u0026rsquo;s, I think it\u0026rsquo;s really cool when it\u0026rsquo;s something that, I don\u0026rsquo;t know if you\u0026rsquo;ve seen. And what about those sorts of companies you\u0026rsquo;re sort of company, know, become more common? Especially with the younger people. We, really trying to get out of corporate world and want to try and even this whole thing that\u0026rsquo;s going moment, everyone\u0026rsquo;s moving jobs and there\u0026rsquo;s all this talk about, the job Xs and things like that because people are struggling to find that meaning in what they do you and, and find that purpose in what they\u0026rsquo;re doing. And so is that something you\u0026rsquo;ve seen, you And these kinds of things. And\nI does that get\nAndrew: Yeah, I think that does get me excited. So\nI think it\u0026rsquo;s going to go into a very philosophical discussion here. But one of the things that makes me particularly excited about that. There are a lot of things in the world that are worth facing. I think we all know that right now, there are a lot of things.\nAnd if you look around that are really worth fixing and what a mass Exodus of people that are leaving, like not to say that the corporate doesn\u0026rsquo;t have purpose, right? Not to say that fundamentally doesn\u0026rsquo;t have that risk, but a mass Exodus of people or great resignation or whatever you want to call it.\nIf people that are moving over to, I want to tangibly see the grassroots impact of what I\u0026rsquo;m doing. And the change in the consumer market to go, I will make consumer decisions on products because they make a tangible impact to the world means that there\u0026rsquo;s going to be like an accelerating surgeons of like impact driven businesses, whether that be for climate change, whether that be for like social dialogue, whether that be for, whatever it is.\nBut as that becomes normal, then. And as people as consumers stop making consumer decisions to support companies like this, then all of a sudden, like the entire ecosystem enables purpose-driven businesses. And we end up with a world where people have the strongest voice. People aren\u0026rsquo;t just in careers because a corporation exists that they can get a reasonable salary from and hopefully buy a house with a picket fence and all of that, like companies that exist that can support employees.\nTo make an impact on the world and therefore the world will change rapidly. And therefore we have a better chance of addressing major things that we face as as humanity climate change or misinformation and social divisiveness. And these are all good things and they get me really, really excited.\nI want to hear about more people, stepping into the world of purpose-driven business. And I want to tell people that purpose and profit aren\u0026rsquo;t mutually. If there\u0026rsquo;s a genuine problem that needs to be solved and you\u0026rsquo;re passionate about it. It\u0026rsquo;s probably going to be thousands, if not millions of other people that want that solved to either as collaborators or as customers, or as partners or as investors.\nAnd if your war cry about that as loud enough, they will hear you and they will come and help you out. So, yeah, I wanted, I wanted if anyone wants to take anything away from this, if you\u0026rsquo;re thinking about. Starting a purpose driven business and you don\u0026rsquo;t know what to do. Like good. Do it start because I didn\u0026rsquo;t know what I wanted to do.\nI didn\u0026rsquo;t know what, I\ndidn\u0026rsquo;t know what the other side of the fence looked like. Nobody does, but you can only figure that out by\nactually going through that door and figuring out what\u0026rsquo;s on the other side of\nthe fence. And if it doesn\u0026rsquo;t work out, that\u0026rsquo;s fine. You probably learned a lot from it and you can take those skills elsewhere.\nThen you can take those analogous skills\nelsewhere. But if it does work out then great, you\u0026rsquo;ve done something that\u0026rsquo;s creating impact, And brought people together. So, yeah. To answer your\nquestion. Yeah. It gets me very\nexcited.\nCompanies and Founders that Inspire Andrew # James: Yeah. Yeah. That\u0026rsquo;s great. And are there any companies in particular or founders?\nDifferent people maybe in your network or do people you\nrespect. Are there\nany companies that you look to as a great\nexample of\nAndrew: Yeah, definitely. I think.\nI\u0026rsquo;ll I\u0026rsquo;ll I\u0026rsquo;ll list off a few. Hopefully I\u0026rsquo;m allowed to list all of them, but number one I think in Australia higher up higher up is disability support worker platform for hiring disability support workers. And they\u0026rsquo;ve completely shifted the way that people think about hiring disability support.\nAnd their leadership has been making purpose driven decisions from the start that have attracted good teams, good funders, good partners, good value proposition, and a good a good positioning in the market. They\u0026rsquo;ve certainly sometimes taken the less profitable decision than the, but more purposeful decision.\nAnd I think it\u0026rsquo;s paid off in the long run, so kudos to Jordan O\u0026rsquo;Reilly from higher up in the team. I think also some of the surgeons is of neobanks that focus on impact investment, I think is also a positive as well. Seeing the way that our young people\u0026rsquo;s capital can be put to good in impact investment, where using impact investment as an investment instrument, as opposed to, more traditional investments that superannuation funds might be leaning into.\nso kudos\nto. Some of those companies Naomi\nto list probably one of my favorite ones. That\u0026rsquo;s N E O M I got\nbuyer. So yeah, I think for me, the\nones which are closest to hot, especially in Australia are, the disability tech landscape, which we are part\nof. And I think the impact, the impact lending landscape, which, I believe, is a way of the future and is another one of those things that\nshould fuel the purpose-driven businesses.\nJames: I think that\u0026rsquo;s really cool. And this, this whole space that you\u0026rsquo;re in is, is something that, you know yeah. Like you get so excited by it. It\u0026rsquo;s almost infectious. Cause it\u0026rsquo;s, like you can just see the good that it\u0026rsquo;s coming out of. It\u0026rsquo;s kind of thing. And it\u0026rsquo;s, like anyone can look at this thing and be like, okay, that is, that is something that I want to be a part of.\nThat is like you\u0026rsquo;re saying purpose driven business and I\u0026rsquo;m excited for, for what the future holds. You\u0026rsquo;re going to go out and trade. I think it\u0026rsquo;s very, very exciting.\nAndrew: Thanks.\nLikewise.\nDealing with Self-Doubt # James: Yeah. Well, one thing I want to ask, well, I want two more questions for you actually is one is about this kind of idea. It\u0026rsquo;s a thing that has come through. Many of my podcast episodes is this idea of self doubt. And like when you going, even though. We\u0026rsquo;ve discussed some different examples with the already that, you\u0026rsquo;re sitting in the interview, you\u0026rsquo;re not sure what to do.\nYou\u0026rsquo;re really doubting yourself perhaps. And even, even this whole startup journey, I\u0026rsquo;m there\u0026rsquo;s plenty of sort of self development and self growth that has come along with it. What\u0026rsquo;s how have you had any really big examples of doubting yourself? Do you have a kind of process or how have you dealt with that?\nAndrew: Yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s a good question. I think it\u0026rsquo;s this self doubt or like that kind of imposter syndrome or being scared of what\u0026rsquo;s on the other side. These are all things that are definitely going to happen no matter where you are. And no matter who you are, either, if you take on an endeavor, that feeling is going to come it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s absolutely inevitable.\nYour relationship with that feeling is what\u0026rsquo;s really important and learning to become comfortable navigating the MUB. And navigating leaning into that unknown or leaning into that space that is uncomfortable is essential. And in terms of overcoming that, like I said, no it noticing that it\u0026rsquo;s happening.\nThis is probably very I don\u0026rsquo;t know, meditation, ESCO, or that kind of, one of. I think it\u0026rsquo;s first and foremost important to know that it\u0026rsquo;s happening. Know when you are feeling experiences of self doubt and go, okay. That feeling there, that uncomfortable feeling, that thing that\u0026rsquo;s causing me to question myself or whatever.\nThat\u0026rsquo;s just a feeling of fear and self-doubt, and it\u0026rsquo;s going to happen. The second part is finding your your cheerleaders and your friends and your people that you trust that can help you build the confidence And challenge the, the flawed logic that\u0026rsquo;s coming from that self doubt and, really sit with and talk that through with people, because at the end of the day, you probably are good enough.\nThat\u0026rsquo;s why you\u0026rsquo;re even thinking about an opportunity. Now, if you\u0026rsquo;re in a position of doubting yourself, you\u0026rsquo;ve been presented with an opportunity and if you\u0026rsquo;ve been presented with that opportunity, you\u0026rsquo;re probably good enough to take it. You may fail. That\u0026rsquo;s also very, very true. That\u0026rsquo;s okay. But if you don\u0026rsquo;t try then you\u0026rsquo;re never even going to have the option to succeed or fail.\nSo, yeah, I guess there\u0026rsquo;s a few little elements in there. the first beam know when it\u0026rsquo;s happening and know that is just a natural feeling that as a human being, it means you\u0026rsquo;re leaning into the unknown that you are good enough. Cause you\u0026rsquo;ve been presented with the\nopportunity, leverage the people around you that support you\nand motivate you and get out\nof your own head and know that. We have no way of knowing what the\nopportunity could look like if you don\u0026rsquo;t just lean into it. and that feeling is going to happen in.\nJames: Yeah, I think that\u0026rsquo;s really, really great advice. Something that, I know you, you faced that I\u0026rsquo;ve faced that I haven\u0026rsquo;t met a single person that hasn\u0026rsquo;t faced that kind of feeling and it\u0026rsquo;s, yeah. It\u0026rsquo;s something that, you just gotta work through and really try to overcome that.\nAnd I think it\u0026rsquo;s something that I think and has given you, as you\nAndrew: Yeah, it does get easier.\nThe more you do it\nthough, as well, like you start recognizing the pattern more and more you start not going,\nokay.\nThis is actually just the feeling and treating it and changing\nthe relationship that.\nAdvice for Early Career # James: Yeah. Yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s really cool. Well, I\u0026rsquo;ve got one more question for you, Andrew. And this is a question that I\u0026rsquo;ll ask all the guests and that is from your career where you are\nnow. Let\u0026rsquo;s say you were going back. You\u0026rsquo;ve just finished being the best being you\u0026rsquo;re about to start your first. What advice would you, would you give yourself\nnow after all the\nexperiences?\nAndrew: Hm. Yeah, this is,\nyeah. Okay. I would tell myself that the things that you\u0026rsquo;re thinking about doing, don\u0026rsquo;t just kick them. Don\u0026rsquo;t just kick the, can down the road and keep thinking about doing it. If there\u0026rsquo;s something that you are thinking about doing, just do it. Probably would\u0026rsquo;ve started Mosler a couple of years earlier.\nHad I not been in. What, not, not that I, what wouldn\u0026rsquo;t have been scared, but I should\u0026rsquo;ve just made the decision earlier. This is the case with a lot of things. I, yeah, I think I, if I can, I can sum it up without kind of pointing to specific experiences. Just the thing that you\u0026rsquo;re thinking about just start it earlier, because further down the track, when you do reflect on that, you\u0026rsquo;ll think to yourself, you, you wasted time waiting.\nAnd that\u0026rsquo;s okay, that\u0026rsquo;s going to happen, but there\u0026rsquo;s no harm in just starting\na new thing if that\u0026rsquo;s what you want to do, because you\u0026rsquo;re either going to start it or you\u0026rsquo;re not. So you might as well\nstart it the two years or the four years\nthat the degree is going to take is going to pass anyways. So you might as well do it, or, you\u0026rsquo;re, you\u0026rsquo;re going\nto, You\u0026rsquo;re going to progress in your career\nand kind of go on and get bored anyway.\nSo you might as well start the new\nthing now. Like it\u0026rsquo;s all totally.\nOkay. so yeah, if you\u0026rsquo;re thinking about\ndoing some in darn white,\nJames: Hm. Yeah. Like I absolutely agree with that advice and it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s something that, even I\u0026rsquo;ve experienced. starting this podcast, I wanted to start it, but if a year and a half before I actually did and I finally got there in the end, but you one of the things, well, there\u0026rsquo;s a few things that I think it\u0026rsquo;s, let\u0026rsquo;s just be to what\u0026rsquo;s inside, trust your gut.\nI think quite a bit. that\u0026rsquo;s, that\u0026rsquo;s a theme that\u0026rsquo;s come podcast too, is feeling, it\u0026rsquo;s telling you something and you could really go for it. And the thing is around this idea of using death to get yourself to do that. And it sounds kind of morbid And strange or whatever, but it is that it was a bit of a thought exercise for me. And it was kind of like, okay, I have this feeling. I want to do this thing or not.\nI like self doubt, whatever, but Hey, listen, I\u0026rsquo;m going to be old one day and I\u0026rsquo;m going to look back on this exact time. And act on this. I\u0026rsquo;m going to be older\nand I\nAndrew: You get a\ndime\nanyway,\nJames: Going to yeah,\nAndrew: So, like\nevery year that you\nput off doing\nsomething, and that\u0026rsquo;s a year, you never going\nto get back. So\njust, I mean, don\u0026rsquo;t be hard on yourself when you don\u0026rsquo;t, but\nJust give it that shot.\nJames: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Suddenly has helped me with a lot of perspective on things and, even like yourself, like getting out there opportunities and really squeezing the juice out life, I think is it\u0026rsquo;s really fantastic and it\u0026rsquo;s great to\nsee.\nAndrew: Yeah, thanks.\nConnect with Andrew # James: I think we\u0026rsquo;ll, we\u0026rsquo;ll wrap up the interview for you. And before we head off, I want to give you the opportunity is where can people go to find out more\nabout what you do\nand connect with you perhaps? Or where, where\nwould you like.\nAndrew: Yeah. If, if you want to follow\nthe journey of Maslow as a brand on Instagram, we do tell stories about customers. We do shed a light on this hidden world of people living with disabilities that a lot of the general public. Necessarily understand our experience and our goal is to deconstruct that and break the stigma and just normalize that ensure that people living with disabilities are just trying to live their life as well.\nJust like anybody else. So you can go to our Instagram at Maslow for people, right? That so Maslow for people and give us a follow there.\nIf you are a.\nSupport worker, somebody living with a disability, a caregiver, or a caregiver, or the elderly parent that has support workers. You can actually go to mosler.io\nas lo.io and sign up to use the platform to help better reconnect you, your family, your loved ones to their therapists, their support workers and everything.\nThey need to better\nmanage their care. And we have.\nJames: Amazing. Well, thanks so much for your time today, Andrew\nThank you for listening to that episode with Andrew, a kid. I think Andrew is a great example of someone that has taken an unconventional degree from university and applied it in so many unique ways and really being able to create unique insights., throughout his career. I think he had great thoughts on what it means to be a part of a purpose driven company and something that I see a lot of and something that is really great to be involved with. My three takeaways from this episode were when we were speaking about trans disciplinarity. And that is something that I am. Really really big on. Is this idea of becoming a generalist rather than a specialist. I\u0026rsquo;ve found in books that I\u0026rsquo;ve read and things that I\u0026rsquo;ve seen and certainly Andrew\u0026rsquo;s experience again today. I was a great example of how often Applying skills in unconventional ways can lead to really cool insights and really cool discoveries. The second thing that I picked up from Andrew was this hot here. A purpose driven company and something that,, in today\u0026rsquo;s day and age, when you\u0026rsquo;re working for a large organization sometimes, and not always, but sometimes you can feel disconnected from that purpose. And I think having something like Maslow that Andrew runs that\u0026rsquo;s so close to that purpose, I think is really great.\nAnd it feels really good to be part of something that is, that is I really.. Purpose fast company. But the thing that I picked up from today\u0026rsquo;s episode was this idea of self doubt and trusting your gut. And that\u0026rsquo;s something that we\u0026rsquo;ve spoken about a few times now on the podcast,. But it\u0026rsquo;s something that came up again today with Andrew. And something that he said, trusting your gut is really important.\nThat\u0026rsquo;s something that I think we can all pay attention to. So, thanks so much for listening today. If you do want to keep in touch, if you want to follow the podcast on a deeper level, if you want to get involved more, please follow all the links in the show notes. They will take you here, there, and everywhere. If you want to subscribe to the podcast on whatever platform you\u0026rsquo;re on, that\u0026rsquo;d be great.\nThat way you won\u0026rsquo;t miss an episode. If you want to get really deep, if you want to go to the next level, please go to Graduate Theory.com and subscribe to the newsletter. That way, you\u0026rsquo;re going to get insights from me. You\u0026rsquo;re going to get reminders and new episodes straight into your inbox. So if you really came, please go there. Sign up. Did he great to have you on board as we go and learn about all things to be with careers and career growth. So thanks so much for, again, for listening today, and we\u0026rsquo;ll see you in the next episode.\n← Back to episode 8\n","date":"13 December 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/graduate-theory/8-on-purpose-driven-business-and-transdisciplinarity-with-co-founder-and-ceo-andrew-akib/transcript/","section":"Graduate Theory Transcripts","summary":"← Back to episode 8\nThis transcript has been lightly edited for readability. It may still contain transcription errors.\nHello, and welcome to Graduate Theory. On today’s episode, you’ll hear about transdisciplinarity. You hear about music and how that can be an unconventional way to add great value in consulting and other fields. You’ll hear all about purpose and what it means to be a partner of a purpose driven company. I’m really excited about today’s episode and I hope you enjoy.\n","title":"Transcript: On Purpose Driven Business and Transdisciplinarity with Co-founder and CEO, Andrew Akib","type":"graduate-theory-transcripts"},{"content":" Watch the conversation Graduate Theory Open YouTube ↗ Read the full transcript → Lidia was a Partner at Reunion Capital Partners and previously a Managing Director at Goldman Sachs. She has over 25 years of experience in the finance industry, predominantly in the capital markets. Lidia also holds a Masters of Science in Coaching Psychology from The University of Sydney and is an Associate Member of the University of Sydney Coaching and Mentoring Alumni. She founded On Purpose to help clients identify, align with and act ‘on purpose\u0026rsquo; in their pursuit of excellence.\nIn this episode we speak about:\nwhat is your purpose\nimportance of recovery\ncreating relationships\nand much more.\nWatch This Episode on YouTube\nMy top 4 takeaways from this episode:\nYour purpose changes over time. It\u0026rsquo;s important to recognise this and not get the idea that you have one purpose for your entire life\nMany roles and careers can make you feel the way that you want. Often we want a purpose so that we can have that feeling of \u0026lsquo;making it\u0026rsquo;. In reality, many careers and many things that you could do would get you to this feeling. It\u0026rsquo;s all about finding one that also matches things we need in the real world like money and time.\nRest and recovery are important and are things that aren\u0026rsquo;t emphasised in the corporate world. Take time to make sure your physical and mental health are in good condition\nTrust your gut when making career choices. At the end of the episode, Lidia tells a great story about how she\u0026rsquo;d started a new career in Law and how within 3 months she knew that it wasn\u0026rsquo;t for her. She speaks to the importance of listening to your gut, and to asking yourself an important question. If you can\u0026rsquo;t see yourself doing your bosses job, then are you in the right place?\nConnect with Lidia https://www.onpurpose.com.au/\nWatch This Episode on YouTube\n","date":"6 December 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/graduate-theory/7-on-purpose-and-high-performance-with-former-md-goldman-sachs-lidia-ranieri/","section":"Graduate Theory","summary":" Watch the conversation Graduate Theory Open YouTube ↗ Read the full transcript → Lidia was a Partner at Reunion Capital Partners and previously a Managing Director at Goldman Sachs. She has over 25 years of experience in the finance industry, predominantly in the capital markets. Lidia also holds a Masters of Science in Coaching Psychology from The University of Sydney and is an Associate Member of the University of Sydney Coaching and Mentoring Alumni. She founded On Purpose to help clients identify, align with and act ‘on purpose’ in their pursuit of excellence.\n","title":"On Purpose and High Performance with Former MD Goldman Sachs, Lidia Ranieri","type":"graduate-theory"},{"content":"← Back to episode 7\nThis transcript has been lightly edited for readability. It may still contain transcription errors.\nIntro # James: Hello, and welcome to Graduate Theory. My guest today graduated university in 1994 from the university of technology in Sydney with a bachelor of business and a bachelor of law. In that same year, she started working as a research analyst at investment bank city group later, moving to a small company equity sales.\nAfter working at Citi for nearly 10 years, she moved to credit Swiss, where she continued to work with small companies. And in 2006, my guest took a new role as executive director of small company equity sales at Goldman Sachs four years later becoming the managing director of that same year. In 2013, she started work as a partner at reunion capital partners and in 2018, completing her masters of coaching psychology in early 2020, she started her current coaching brand titled on purpose.\nOn purpose supports leaders and teams to effectively operate in today\u0026rsquo;s complex business environment. Teaching conscious leadership. My guest today helps leaders work on their inner game towards self-mastery and wisdom to act with authenticity, integrity, courage, and compassion. So that breakthrough performance and results can be achieved.\nPlease. Welcome to the show. The wonderful Lydia.\nLidia: Hi, James. Thank you very, very much for that lovely introduction. And I\u0026rsquo;m really looking forward to our chat.\nWhat Does it mean to be \u0026lsquo;On Purpose?\u0026rsquo; # James: Amazing. Well, it\u0026rsquo;s clear you\u0026rsquo;ve had an outstanding career. Well, one thing I want to ask you first is your coaching brand is called on purpose. So what, what does it mean to you to be on path? Is.\nLidia: So the name came to me because trying to think of business name that captured a number of things. So on purpose to me means doing something on purpose. So doing something with intention, and if you\u0026rsquo;re doing something with intention, then you\u0026rsquo;re doing something consciously. So I wanted to bring that in, but I also wanted to overlay this idea that, stage in our lives, whether it starts in teenagers, The sum, whether it starts in early adulthood, we kind of yearned for this connection to our purpose, whatever that may be.\nAnd it\u0026rsquo;s this kind of vague thing. We never, people have real clarity around their purpose and it\u0026rsquo;s not something that you can know with your head. It\u0026rsquo;s something that you feel. And so, done the uh, Masters in coaching psychology. I really became interested in working with people to ensure that whatever it is that they\u0026rsquo;re doing, they feel that connection to, yeah, this is right.\nThis is my path. This is what I meant to be doing. Or alternatively, when you\u0026rsquo;re in a role and you\u0026rsquo;re doing it for a whole lot of extraneous factors, but inwardly you\u0026rsquo;re suffering or inwardly, you\u0026rsquo;re waking up with that dread of, I just don\u0026rsquo;t want to go in today or I don\u0026rsquo;t want to do. Then helping people to have the courage, to explore with intention and consciously what it is that feels more like their purpose.\nyeah, that was the reason behind.\nHow do you find your purpose? # James: Yeah, I really liked that. And that\u0026rsquo;s something that\u0026rsquo;s. In a few of the episodes I\u0026rsquo;ve done so far is, that idea of like almost following your gut in what you\u0026rsquo;re doing. And, and I guess that comes back to what you were saying really it\u0026rsquo;s, something that\u0026rsquo;s kind of hard to describe and something that, you never really find it and, you know, when you have it, But it\u0026rsquo;s difficult to, to find that and following your gut is absolutely, it\u0026rsquo;s something that has come up a lot and it\u0026rsquo;s something that, is quite important.\nOne thing I want to ask you to follow on from that is,, is there any steps that you would take to find your purpose? I mean, it\u0026rsquo;s something that is, is difficult, but what would you, what would you say? How can we find that?\nLidia: So when I work with people to explore this had to do a whole presentation on this topic. And so I, you was putting together the slides for it. And this is sort of, form of doing it with a visual kind of cue. The other is when I\u0026rsquo;m doing sort sessions, I sort of, clients to sort to a place where they can visualize this for themselves. I threw up a whole heap of images that I\u0026rsquo;ve found of children. around the age of four or five. And, you know, dressed up as a doctor and one\u0026rsquo;s dressed up as a superhero and wants dressed up as a little scientist in a science lab and the others standing on a stage singing and, and others, ready um, dance clothes. And the reason I throw out these images is because when it comes to output. When we go back and weigh on rebel it purpose is very strongly linked to two key things. What are our strengths? When we love to use our strengths, there are God-given talents. They innate. And when we give them expression, it feels really, really good.\nIt feels natural. It feels like we\u0026rsquo;re doing the right thing. So, links linked to strengths and better. What\u0026rsquo;s important to us. And what is it that we value? Why does one person valued doing a certain thing over another person who value something else? It all links into this intricate internal system that has this knowing.\nSo, I throw up those images or when I kind of encourage clients to come up with these images for themselves, for example, the child who\u0026rsquo;s standing on stage performing. I invite clients to about a time when they might\u0026rsquo;ve had these images for themselves. And the point of the image and the, the metaphor of the child on stage performing is not, I want to be a singer or an actor or a performer necessarily.\nIt may be, but it is a indicator that something within you really enjoys expressing it. To an audience. So you may need to find a role that allows you to do a lot of presentations because when you\u0026rsquo;re presenting you feel on you feel energized, you feel vital. You love looking at the responses from the people that are sitting in the room in which you are giving your performance.\nYeah. For others, it may be the kid in the science coat there. They may have curiosity as this burning feeling within them, and they need to work in a way that ignites that curiosity about the world. And so it\u0026rsquo;s those in roads that really link to finding our purpose and the reason why childhood is a really first hole, a place to do some of this exploration. Is because when we see children at play and this has been studied by psychologists, children, and very naturally into what we call the flow state. And of the um, renowned kind of researchers and psychologists in these um, areas are gentlemen cold um, me hi and Hey, did you know a lot of research?\nVarious other psychologists have sort of in on this area of um, exploration. But what they\u0026rsquo;ve found is that when we enter a flow state, we are doing something that is truly engaging, but just challenging enough. And when we get to that place, we can do it for a very long period of time.\nTime actually doesn\u0026rsquo;t even occur to us. So we kind of go into a timeless. And are very focused on the task and we\u0026rsquo;re not focused on ourselves. And so the flow state is actually the state that we want to get high performing athletes into it\u0026rsquo;s the state. We want to get, you know, a functioning corporate executives into, but you can only enter flow state when the activity genuinely engages you.\nAnd it\u0026rsquo;s called having some sort of intrinsic motivation around. So, That\u0026rsquo;s why childhood is such an interesting place to start exploring this because we don\u0026rsquo;t have any of those. I should, I ought to, everyone says, I must all those other externalized conditioning, of statements that create beliefs within us.\nWe are just who we are. And so it enables us to go back and look at, yeah, I really love doing that. Of course then there\u0026rsquo;s the practicalities of you know earning a decent income, et cetera. you need to sort of to then map some real world stuff over it. And the practicalities of those, interior kind of motivational states, but it\u0026rsquo;s a really good place to start to find that.\nJames: Hmm. No, that\u0026rsquo;s really cool. And I think that\u0026rsquo;s something that as well, that I\u0026rsquo;ve heard, like from some of my friends that have gone down one path and then changed and gone somewhere else, it was really a process of kind of winding back, th their life almost to get back to stage.\nThey maybe made a key decision where they decided to maybe it was to study a certain thing and what to pick a certain set of subjects in high school or whatever it was. And then really go back to almost that crossroads and, and reassess, was that the right choice there? And then maybe you can try, even though, you\u0026rsquo;ve got to wind back a little bit to, to start going somewhere else that, maybe resonates a people.\nWith yourself. So I think that\u0026rsquo;s, that\u0026rsquo;s really interesting.\nLidia: That\u0026rsquo;s right. You know, that life affords us so many opportunities where, you to a crossroads at various stages and they present themselves at different times for different people. But those crossroads emerge because we\u0026rsquo;re being invited to answer that question, is it that I really want to do?\nAnd the deeper element to that. We think about it as, what do I want to do? Do I want to do this subject or that subject or this course or that course or this job or that job but underlying it, if you dig beneath that surface, it\u0026rsquo;s what part of me needs expression here. What part of me do I want to give expression to in some outer world context where I\u0026rsquo;m applying myself to that every day.\nAnd so knowing what your strengths are and knowing what your values are. I can help you to navigate making those decisions so that you\u0026rsquo;re more closely aligned to giving yourself that expression, because that\u0026rsquo;s really what leads to from a psychological standpoint. That\u0026rsquo;s what leads to fulfillment.\nThat\u0026rsquo;s what leads to life satisfaction. That\u0026rsquo;s what leads to happiness.\nJames: Yeah. Yeah. That\u0026rsquo;s really cool. And just on the purpose and things like that, do you think it\u0026rsquo;s possible to kind of find your purpose, like, like holistically or is it kind of this thing that you\u0026rsquo;ve kind of getting closer to. But it\u0026rsquo;s this moving target where maybe it\u0026rsquo;s changing over time and you.\nTrying to get closer and closer to it, but perhaps you never, you never really get to that. I guess, I know stories of people and even for myself sometimes where, you think, okay, I\u0026rsquo;m going to find my purpose and I\u0026rsquo;m going to do this and okay. Yeah, this feels good. I\u0026rsquo;m going to keep going, but oh, maybe it\u0026rsquo;s not quite right.\nAnd, do you think you ever get to that stage where, I\u0026rsquo;ve found exactly what I\u0026rsquo;m going to do? This is it. I finally made it that kind of stage or is it, is it all. This yeah. This moving target situation where you\u0026rsquo;re getting closer to it and finding your way, but yeah.\nW what do you think of.\nLidia: Yeah. So I think that we burden ourselves with this idea that there is a purpose. Some Amazing individuals are born to a purpose as in one, you might say that you might think that if you think back over the career of, you some great sporting person is always a, you sort of way to understand this.\nYou might think that Michael Jordan was born to the purpose of being one of the best ever, will players the world has ever seen. But then that would Rob him of having any purpose now. Right. Because he\u0026rsquo;s not doing that anymore. So the way I like to think about it is that we have a purpose and that may be a staged experience.\nSo my purpose in this role, and at this particular time may simply be. An apprenticeship. I mean a learning mode. That\u0026rsquo;s my purpose right now, I\u0026rsquo;m in a skill acquisition mode. And that mode needs to be aligned with where I have natural interest where I can develop real competency because then I feel good about myself.\nLike I need to be doing something that I can actually see myself improving it. Otherwise I get demotivated. Purpose can be for this moment in time. This is the right place. And this is the right role for me. As long as I\u0026rsquo;m giving the fullest expression to things that make me feel bottled and engaged, when that has run its course, for reasons, we all have experienced, but who can explain it over a period of time, you suddenly stop whining in your interest.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s like, It\u0026rsquo;s just not doing it for me anymore. I\u0026rsquo;m just not that intro interested. And that is a sign that it\u0026rsquo;s time for you to move into another phase. It\u0026rsquo;s still your purpose because life\u0026rsquo;s, as you say, you never get there. What\u0026rsquo;s there, it\u0026rsquo;s just a journey of giving yourself the opportunity to express yourself in your fullest capacity and at the highest functioning level that you can, some phases of.\nare Learning some phases of that might be working on something to prepare it for the next stage. And they kind of like Lego blocks, right. They build on each other. You may then have a peak experience and that peak experience in your market Jordan is an example that lasts for a number of years. It may be something that, you claimed or revered or, you of recognized. But maybe it doesn\u0026rsquo;t have an outward recognition. Maybe it\u0026rsquo;s just your own experience of it being like a golden era for you. And then it changes and then the purpose moves into something else. And so our purpose is interwoven through kind of a journey where we change in our wisdom and our experience.\nYou stage of. Also determines, you know, it is that we\u0026rsquo;re more attuned to. So I, yeah. I like to help people by unburdening them of this idea that there\u0026rsquo;s this one thing, there are many paths to getting there and they may all lead to this, you know, I know, I think everyone wants what we\u0026rsquo;re talking about is that peak expression.\nThat golden moment. Yeah. And sustaining that. And so, ways to then try and ensure that you sustain it. when I talk to executives about, you know, performance and, this idea that it\u0026rsquo;s marked by certain external, still only recognized success kind of factors.\nAnd that can be a component of. But in truth, what peak performance is, is, you know, level of optimized functioning and to, to arrive at your level of the most optimized functioning you need to obviously, you know, assuming that, you know, competent, you\u0026rsquo;re good at what you\u0026rsquo;re doing.\nThat\u0026rsquo;s a given you have to work to the point where, you know, established that. To uh, sustain that really, really highly optimized functioning. We can\u0026rsquo;t be constantly painting because when it comes to performance curves, they\u0026rsquo;re kind of like this sloped hill, it might go up gradually and they may drop off really sharply.\nAnd at the top of the curve obviously is peak performance. And so you\u0026rsquo;re building up to it. And then there\u0026rsquo;s after your peak performance is a little extra sort of the other edge of the hill before you slugged down. And that\u0026rsquo;s your stretch. And if you don\u0026rsquo;t step back from peak performance in stretch zone and go back down the hill towards zone, you can\u0026rsquo;t sustain the peak performance.\nThe other side of the slope after stretch is just overwhelmed and the performance drops off very rapidly and sharply, and that is exhaustion, burnout, health issues, you just some kind of. Physical mental, emotional or spiritual crisis because we can\u0026rsquo;t sustain ourselves in those peaks. So the idea about, you know, to our purpose, sustaining ourselves in these peak moments is, is kind of like this dance where we go there, we tasted, sometimes we have to then go back down the hill.\nAnd so in the context of purpose, we have these pictures. We\u0026rsquo;re on, we\u0026rsquo;re on fire. Everything\u0026rsquo;s going our way. You know, winning deals, where, businesses growing, where we\u0026rsquo;re, usually we\u0026rsquo;re working long hours. it\u0026rsquo;s a pleasure. We might work our weekends because we\u0026rsquo;re engaged in some creative process and we\u0026rsquo;re loving it.\nBut after whatever it is, peaks in us and in the activity and in the event or in something being delivered, we have to stay. And go back and that\u0026rsquo;s still our purpose. Our purpose can still be in that recuperation zone where it doesn\u0026rsquo;t seem as on because we\u0026rsquo;re getting ready to be able to reenter.\nThere\u0026rsquo;ll be a different set of circumstances. It will be a different set of people, different set of challenges, but it\u0026rsquo;s still brig nights that fire. But if we don\u0026rsquo;t, you can lose it. It\u0026rsquo;s not lose your purpose, but you can lose your ability to engage.\nHow can we avoid burnout? # James: Yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s really, really cool. And when do you, like, you was talking about, climbing the hill and getting close to falling off the hill when you get to the tall, how do you, are there any, like, how do you know when you\u0026rsquo;re getting to that point? Is there any, it\u0026rsquo;s like, cause you\u0026rsquo;re sort of like, guess you\u0026rsquo;re at the top, you\u0026rsquo;re in the zone, things are going, well, then you are, like you\u0026rsquo;re saying quite close to, working yourself too hard and then, and then crashing, What are you, how, how can we avoid this sort of falling off the back of the hill and, and rolling back down so we can just, so we can come back up and sustain that performance for longer.\nLidia: Yeah. So, self-awareness is a huge, huge differentiator amongst people who are able to sustain themselves to some degree. been conditioned to sort of success through what I think is quite a narrow lens. We just look at the outcomes, but, we rate. I can sit up the markers and the criteria for success.\nThen we can sort spread the base a little bit so we can still keep the outcomes as the objective. to get this promotion. I want to deliver this project. I want to win this deal. I want to break into this market, whatever, there\u0026rsquo;s the outcome. But if you set along side the outcome, your other intentions, I want to be able to do it and maintain my. I want to be able to do it and still have good relationships with the people that are closest to me. I want to be able to do that and, my mental health, you know, through giving myself the opportunities to have some mindless moments. Right. So, because when you\u0026rsquo;re engaged, you\u0026rsquo;re just so on that the mind really does get, you know, utilize.\nsometimes even sleep isn\u0026rsquo;t enough. Well, you may be, you on your sleep. So what we need to do is we need to set up other goals that sit along side, the outcome goal, and then you have the opportunity to creatively. Think about how do you solve all of those things. If I\u0026rsquo;m going to go really hard on this, then I need to give myself a day, that.\nWhere I just take whatever it is, 20 minutes for a meditation. And I must do that. And where it, you know, when listen to really, high-performing people talk, there is a real discipline to performing and recuperating, a term they certain um, researchers have called.\nFor executives and they call them corporate athletes. And the difference between professional sporting athletes and corporate athletes is corporate athletes. Don\u0026rsquo;t have an off season. They don\u0026rsquo;t have a team of, of masseur\u0026rsquo;s ready to help them condition for their recovery, but they need it just as much.\nAnd if you don\u0026rsquo;t structure it into your own performance plan, then that other side of the hill You know, learn now, you know, youth forgives a lot of ills and we all know that in youth you can party really hard and you can go all night. You can get up and do it the next day. But even though that is doable, your performance, you D you don\u0026rsquo;t actually know how much better you could be with rest with recovery, with good food, with all the things that go into what we do to support athletes we also should be doing to support ourselves. We need to think about ourselves in that way. When am I on, when do I need to be really on and how do I prepare for that performance? Well, I need to take care of my health, sleep, water, you know, things. It\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s no different it\u0026rsquo;s there.\nJust the difference between an athlete and a corporate athlete is the playing field is different, but the, the physiological expression of pre. And dealing with the performance demands of your environment physiologically.\nJames: Hmm, that\u0026rsquo;s really cool. One. That\u0026rsquo;s a really great analogy. I think because between, The, the physical, the athletes, the traditional athletes, I guess, versus the corporate ones where there tends to be not really as much of a focus on, that recovery and, making sure your mental health is okay and, and, working on your physical health and things like that.\nSo I really liked that. Definitely answer that\u0026rsquo;s really, really cool. And it\u0026rsquo;s, I guess it\u0026rsquo;s important, as you go through your career that you pay attention to these things, like we just spoke about so that you don\u0026rsquo;t burn yourself out and you don\u0026rsquo;t, maybe ruin friendships and, you keep those things in a good place.\nCommon threads when working with High Performers # James: So I, I, that was really cool. One thing I want to ask you too, is about. The coaching that you do at the moment coaching these, quite high performance people, what are some things that you sit down with them?\nWhat are some common problems that they have, and, and even what are some common things that you, some tools that you use to kind of extract. Even higher performance.\nLidia: Yeah. So, you know, get even more performance out of a high performer? guess, you know, it comes back to we define a high performance if we\u0026rsquo;re only defining it by outcome? Then there are ways, you know, can push yourself out. You can, you executive context, there are simply ways where you can turn down the volume on everything else in your life and just focus on that outcome.\nNow you might get hot before. Question is how sustainable it is. And the question is at what price. So when I work with clients really, you know, to facilitate. I\u0026rsquo;m not there to dictate. It really comes down to what they want to achieve. I might challenge them and question them. that, you at the very high and synchrony of level not often surrounded by people who tell them, well, that\u0026rsquo;s a bad idea, right?\nThey usually surrounded by people who go. Yes, I think that\u0026rsquo;s fantastic. part of being in an executive coach at those high levels is having a safe place to be challenged helping an executive to open up to other perspectives, which, which they might not otherwise get standard day to day role.\ngetting more. comes down to the big role of self-awareness. So if you think about, you know, I use these sporting analogies because it\u0026rsquo;s so easy for us to relate to them, as opposed to me helping you relate to what an executive might face in their day to day work. But, think about, you know, professional golfers that have two. Step up to the grain and take a shot in that moment. They\u0026rsquo;ve been preparing and preparing and preparing for this moment, figures and the difference between a great shot and a Porsche. Isn\u0026rsquo;t so much their skill. They highly skilled at this point, the differences what\u0026rsquo;s and again, what\u0026rsquo;s your self-talk, is it positive?\nOkay. Are you telling yourself, oh my God, I\u0026rsquo;m going to throw this, I\u0026rsquo;m going to flunk it. I\u0026rsquo;m not feeling good. Or I\u0026rsquo;m really pissed off with somebody in my life. And I\u0026rsquo;m allowing that to have traction inside of me in this moment. Right. So what\u0026rsquo;s going on internally is the differentiator between.\nThe performance in that moment and that\u0026rsquo;s what applies to executives. So at that level, it\u0026rsquo;s no longer really about, you your, a master of your fields, skill industry, you or, you know, politics. It\u0026rsquo;s not about that anymore. It\u0026rsquo;s about your self. Your ability to dial down the distractions so that you can, in the moment, when you have to focus, you only focus on the task.\nAnd when it comes to high performance, the real subtle shifts occur between good performance and great performance. The difference is those who can forget in the picture of performance themselves. So they no longer self-focused, the self has actually disappeared from the frame The only thing they\u0026rsquo;re thinking about is the task.\nAnd so when you get to, kind of superior performance, the kind of goals that you set up and not outcome goals or. Hit that shot and we\u0026rsquo;ll pop that short into, you a make, you that short in one. It\u0026rsquo;s not about that anymore. It\u0026rsquo;s about the process. So the process goal becomes I\u0026rsquo;m going to approach that shot in a calm and relaxed day.\nI\u0026rsquo;m going to consciously take a moment to ensure that I get into a relaxed state. So whatever cues I need to give myself to trigger that run, that relaxation response. I will work on those. Some people have words. Some people have images, some people channel feelings to instantly get their physiology into a more relaxed state.\nWhen I approached that shot, I\u0026rsquo;m going to drop my shoulders. I\u0026rsquo;m going to clear my mind. I\u0026rsquo;m going to take a breath. I\u0026rsquo;m going to filter out every bit of background noise. There is. That\u0026rsquo;s how you get into those moments. Truly extra performance from what\u0026rsquo;s already very harmful from this. Does that make sense?\nJames: Yeah, absolutely. I think that\u0026rsquo;s, that\u0026rsquo;s something that, yeah, I\u0026rsquo;ve, I\u0026rsquo;ve heard similar things before as well, where, let\u0026rsquo;s not focus on the outcomes of what we\u0026rsquo;re doing. Let\u0026rsquo;s focus on, doing it the best way we can or, having the right process and then the outcome will just take care of itself.\nHow does Lidia achieve high performance? # James: I think that\u0026rsquo;s, that is really cool. Absolutely. And I, I wonder as well, How do you do that in your purse or in your own life, with these processes, are there any sort of rituals that you have to extract that high-performance out of?\nLidia: Yeah, look so, personally, I\u0026rsquo;ve been on a, alone journey kind of deliberate and clear. Cultivation of self-awareness. And so, that means is, you we are trying to do anything, whether it\u0026rsquo;s being in conversation with somebody else or, something that\u0026rsquo;s maybe challenging also maybe difficult.\nWe, we kind of can go into the default state is we get frustrated. We get annoyed. You of all these thoughts or feelings emerge that actually are counter productive to what we want to do or counterproductive to allowing the best part of ourselves to be expressed. So that journey of self-awareness is like a muscle that you build where you notice what\u0026rsquo;s shifting and changing.\nOh, I feel that frustration rising. Oh, I feel I\u0026rsquo;m getting defensive in this conversation, you know? the skill of almost becoming, yourself a, as an external entity, right? You sort of outside yourself. And so as you notice those things, you develop tools and skills to help yourself stay in a neutral space of curiosity.\nOh, I\u0026rsquo;m getting frustrated in this conversation or in this experience. I wonder what that\u0026rsquo;s about. And so you, you stay more open to information and cues in your relationships, in your working life. helps you also go, ah, I\u0026rsquo;ve taken on this work and I should have known that this, this, and this about it.\nAren\u0026rsquo;t things that actually, you well with. So it\u0026rsquo;s this hyper awareness where you become far more attuned to noticing your own ego and keeping it in a place where it doesn\u0026rsquo;t get control of your reactions and your defensiveness, so that you can get more information. You can make more conscious choices.\nAnd from that you can sort of aligned. Ah, okay. So I\u0026rsquo;m going to say no to this. It\u0026rsquo;s okay to say no to this or. Ah, this person\u0026rsquo;s telling me something really important. I need to actually be open to this and listen, because I can learn something. And so you don\u0026rsquo;t approach life in this. I need to be right.\nAnd I need to know you approach it more from a, I don\u0026rsquo;t know, everything and that\u0026rsquo;s okay. It doesn\u0026rsquo;t have any, it doesn\u0026rsquo;t make any statement about me being inferior or lesser than they\u0026rsquo;re all the kind of judgments of the ego. If I can stay in a state of openness and curiosity, I can probably gather more information to help me to keep shoring out a foundation of feeling confident, good about myself, aligned with what my values are using my strengths.\nSo, self-awareness as a journey and as a tool is the bedrock falls of how you operate in your personal. It\u0026rsquo;s the bedrock of great leadership. It\u0026rsquo;s the bedrock of creating high-performing teams. It\u0026rsquo;s you know, it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s that?\nHow to grow self awareness # James: Hmm. Yeah. That\u0026rsquo;s cool. And are there any ways that you like, have you, do you think you\u0026rsquo;ve always been. Self-aware or has it been something that you\u0026rsquo;ve improved over time? And if so, how, how did you actually do that? Was it something like, did you meditate or like journal or any of those things, or did it just come with experience where, you know, as you did more things, you kind of realized, I feel this certain way because of this situation and things like that.\nLidia: Definitely meditated on and off throughout my life there, you know, times when it just falls away back to my comment about, you know, come and they\u0026rsquo;re there for time and they\u0026rsquo;re there for a purpose and then they naturally move, move away. And then you come back. But I think, I think for everyone, the opportunity to be self-aware and increase your yourself awareness is there for me, I would say that my self-awareness leaps I sort to go and study psychology.\nSo before that the leaps in self awareness always came through crisis or some setback or some challenge or disappointment. And so, rather than. Glossing over or staying in anger or avoiding thinking about those experiences. I would dive into them and, and look around because, you know, I\u0026rsquo;d always believed, you know, dark cloud has a silver lining and I\u0026rsquo;d go looking for the silver lining.\nAnd if you do look, it is there, there is always some learning often about yourself you can incorporate. And if you take that with you, then, you know, start to, to build up your, your own kind of interior, about yourself, about, you like, what you don\u0026rsquo;t want. Your venues are, who you are, who you want to be, what things you want to avoid.\nJames: Yeah, I think that\u0026rsquo;s really cool. And I heard this analogy recently and this guy was talking about, requiring, deeper roots so that the tree can, can grow higher. And certainly resonate with that idea where, going through those challenges or setbacks, allows you to kind of Polish the diamond almost through that pressure.\nAnd then to grow, to grow even further. I think that\u0026rsquo;s really cool.\nDoes Lidia consider herself to be a high performer? # James: I want to ask you too, are you like, do you consider yourself, I know you\u0026rsquo;ve had this, really successful career is, is incredible. The things that you\u0026rsquo;ve done and continue to do, but like yourself, do you consider yourself to be a Harper?\nLidia: Guess my answer to that, he\u0026rsquo;s when it comes to. You need to take yourself out of the picture in some sort of way. So the way I kind of view myself and in life and how I approach it is through this lens or what is it that I want to do? And once I\u0026rsquo;ve determined, what direction I want to go in or what task I want to take on or what, what you thing I want to move towards, then I set up within myself, the. goals that are really what I call kind of mastery goals. I want to do this and I want to get really good at it. And so rather than being focused on achieving a title or a promotion or an outcome, I get really focused on like, you know, mid days when I was working in um, business banking career, my corporate career. My goals were about building really good relationships. Like that\u0026rsquo;s what really mattered to me. And in every way, doing things that helped my clients served my clients ensured that I was a very trusted partner for them was, in integrity. Those were the things that I set up, whatever came of that came of that, you I, you know, up X goals, process goals for me, where, wanted to put in the extra hour at the end of the day to review things, to write up a report, to, you consolidate my thinking.\nIt would have been easy to just, of hit home at that point in time. But so it\u0026rsquo;s those sorts of things rather than, oh, I\u0026rsquo;m, this is where I\u0026rsquo;m going. And this is, this is, aiming for. I never arranged for a specific outcome. really, I used to do a really, really good job based on what mattered to me.\nSo, and I was never, you know, very competitive field. A lot of people get caught up in, in the, in the S you know, advisory world, you know, relationships you on is this whole idea of owning a relationship. And I always found that a bit attractive.\nYou own a relationship. You have a relationship when you invest in a relationship and you support a relationship. And if there is some thing of value in there, then that will be. So, you know, it was trying to take the ego and the ego is fear. Right. there\u0026rsquo;s this fear of, oh my God, I\u0026rsquo;ve got to make sure that this person sitting at this firm who is in this position of power likes me.\nAnd so when you\u0026rsquo;re coming from a place of ego, there\u0026rsquo;s a lot of fear behind making sure that person likes you. And of course, in the finance industry, there\u0026rsquo;s lots of. Party tricks of restaurants and bars. And, you a big expense account that you usually allow to sort of, you know, build relationships.\nAnd, thing was that I was quite reluctant, always in that way. It\u0026rsquo;s not to say that we didn\u0026rsquo;t take clients out for lunch or, out and have a great night or whatever we did. But I think all my clients knew that just wasn\u0026rsquo;t really how I wanted to build our relationship.\nThey were byproducts of already having a good mutual respect for one another. always had to focus on having some genuineness. They, if I was building a relationship, I\u0026rsquo;d always look for something in that person I really liked and could respect and relate to so that when I was dealing with them, I was coming from a place of authenticity in dealing with.\nthan all, you\u0026rsquo;ve got a really important job and you need to make you like me. I don\u0026rsquo;t know if that makes sense.\nJames: Yeah, no, no, it definitely does. Yeah. I think, it\u0026rsquo;s almost similar to what you were talking about with the, the goals versus processes. Like, let\u0026rsquo;s not try and use, I\u0026rsquo;m going to be friends with this person and like, let\u0026rsquo;s focus on that. I\u0026rsquo;m going to like be a nice person.\nI\u0026rsquo;m going to do things the right way. And as a result, we will have a good relationship and not trying to go straight to it. Although I think that\u0026rsquo;s really cool.\nWhat lessons did you take from IB? # James: Is there anything like, anything like that, that, that relationship building or other things that you\u0026rsquo;ve learned from your time in investment banking that you use in your, in your practice or just in your general life?\nLidia: Gosh, that\u0026rsquo;s a good question. I mean, look, I\u0026rsquo;m sure there are, you a, it was an outstanding, like time in my life and time that it was right for me to be there, I loved it. And the thing that I, I learned from it about myself more so is I really liked to work in a way that started.\nI like to work in a way where the dyes are on scripted. So when I turn up, I don\u0026rsquo;t really know what the day is going to have, but I get to respond to it and made it. And so I like to work in a way that quite stimulating that way in that dynamic respect realize that. When I have a lot of autonomy rather than being told what to do.\nSo I always ended up going for an indeed ended up, I didn\u0026rsquo;t know this at the time, but the roles where I really excelled and roles that I loved were where it was a blank slate. And I got to within the parameters of what was expected of that role, just decide how it would be played out. So when it comes to, you career now as an executive coach same thing plays out.\nYou know, when sit down with a client I\u0026rsquo;m not starting a session with them in any scripted way. have some vague ideas about been talking about these things. It might be helpful to now move in this direction, but that\u0026rsquo;s a very loosely held plan because I really have to be so present in the moment to whatever\u0026rsquo;s coming.\nAnd it may just be that they\u0026rsquo;ve had something completely unexpected unfold in their world. And so I\u0026rsquo;m meeting them in that, that moment of, wow, okay, what is this? We need to look at this and, and what is happening for them and what might be the best responses that they can make. So it\u0026rsquo;s extremely dynamic.\nlearned that. Even in the world of investment banking and stopped working. And even when I was research analyst, I love deep thinking. I loved being an analyst. I loved exploring. love relationship building. Like I actually really do love it. so that carries into what I\u0026rsquo;m doing now.\nLike I really enjoy building those trusted, you know, trust-based relationship. And I\u0026rsquo;m genuinely curious about people, even when I was working in banking, like the deal and whatever was happening, whatever was going on in the market at the time, I loved very interesting and gripping. But I enjoyed understanding why.\nAnd this is what kind of got me interested in leadership. it was, you amongst my clients is funding. Or amongst the companies that will clients or the firms that we might\u0026rsquo;ve been, you some kind of transaction for. I was really fascinated to see what was, what were the different differentiating components of what made a good leader why.\nAnd I would always be interested to see how other people responded, particularly to a CEO or CFO that were, you know, their rounds, trying to sell an IPO, for instance, You fascinating to say which people responded positively and well, certain people that displayed qualities and characteristics versus those that didn\u0026rsquo;t because ultimately every investor is answering that question.\nCan I back this goal guy? And, you know, are all these subtle things that we do when we sizing somebody up to work out, reliable? Are they good at what they do? Can I deliver. pro solve problems, I actually place in, in, in the context of large sums of money, my faith in, in this person delivering these outcomes.\nSo, those things kind of still apply to what I do, because I\u0026rsquo;m still looking at that in terms of, you know, those executives that have that gravitas and have that ability. So deliberate and it always comes down to, self-awareness always those that actually have their measure that know themselves well, that know what they can promise.\nthose that I\u0026rsquo;m really hoping, you know, real difference between kind of, I hope this sounds good, but inwardly is not this really rock solid foundation versus those that are coming from such a solid place of, of kind of no. What they can deliver, even with an, you a very slow and externally.\nJames: Yeah, yeah. Those lessons that you take in a really cool and that you take them into, into your personal life now, I think is amazing.\nLidia\u0026rsquo;s advice for graduates # James: I\u0026rsquo;ve got one last question for you today, Lydia, and that is one question that I ask every guest. And it is if you were graduating university again, starting in the workforce right now, or this year, what are some tips, some advice that you would give.\nLidia: The advice would be that you really do need to take the pressure off yourself from any expectation of having an answer today of what you need to do or should do. Inevitably, you will probably start out doing something and find yourself even, you 15, 20 years down the track, doing, something completely different.\nSo you don\u0026rsquo;t have to have it all figured out. it\u0026rsquo;s important to also understand your own kind of true nature. In other words, you people pursue that. I\u0026rsquo;m just going to do what feels right, what I\u0026rsquo;m interested in, and that\u0026rsquo;s a great place to say. And others are a little bit more strategic.\nWell, I\u0026rsquo;m going to go over here because these fields, have kind of leading fields in terms of, you know, economy and she knew they pay well and all those things. So all I would say is wherever you\u0026rsquo;re being led in your thinking process, It\u0026rsquo;s an indication of what indicator of what you value and what\u0026rsquo;s important to you.\nAnd so you need to listen to that. And as long as you\u0026rsquo;re not only doing things, because you think you\u0026rsquo;re going to get some financial reward you know, Yeah, just follow what it is that, you inner voice is telling you, you want to do, because it will lead to something else that leads to something else that leads to something else that leads to something else.\nAnd no really there\u0026rsquo;s no wrong term because you\u0026rsquo;re accumulating knowledge and experience. The wrong turn is when you do something. that Has no interest, no appeal does not light you up, does not in any way stimulate you that\u0026rsquo;s your wrong turn And you need to be thinking about doing something else, you know, had that wrong term very quickly in my career.\nIt was my first job out of university. I was working law firm and thought that I was going to pursue a career in law. And within three. months I was going home and I had that feeling of it was a dead feeling. I knew I can\u0026rsquo;t do this. it, when I kind of told friends and family that I was, you know, you know, aborting that mission, they thought I was absolutely mad.\nIt was like, you can\u0026rsquo;t just finished the law degree. You\u0026rsquo;ve got a great job with a great firm You can\u0026rsquo;t do that. And I\u0026rsquo;m like, no, I, I definitely am doing that. That is not the right direction for me. And because I knew I, I went home and I answered myself the question if I don\u0026rsquo;t want the partner\u0026rsquo;s job, not in any kind of, you know, Machiavellian sense, but just in an aspirational context, if I don\u0026rsquo;t want the partners.\nThen I\u0026rsquo;ve got nothing to aim for here. I process steps don\u0026rsquo;t make sense to me. So I need to go find something else that, you know, and, and the differentiator was, you me, the dynamism, the different every day, the unscripted way to work didn\u0026rsquo;t exist for me in that, in that role. And it existed in what I went on to do.\nAnd so it\u0026rsquo;s. Really, I mean, have to be stopper stockbroking? No, it could have been anything that allowed me to have that unscripted more dynamic or turn on this whiteboard.\nJames: Wow. That is really cool. And suddenly at the theme that, through this whole podcast has been listening to your gut listening, having that self-awareness about things that you\u0026rsquo;re interested in paths you want to go down and like you were saying, it\u0026rsquo;s not necessarily that there\u0026rsquo;s one path that would get you those feelings and that end result it\u0026rsquo;s, there\u0026rsquo;s many ways to get to.\nThat feeling of wholeness and that feeling of satisfaction.\nOutro # James: So I think we ended the podcast there today. But thank you so much, Lydia, that has been a fascinating conversation and so much value in there. I think for the listeners today,\nLidia: Thanks so much, James.\n← Back to episode 7\n","date":"6 December 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/graduate-theory/7-on-purpose-and-high-performance-with-former-md-goldman-sachs-lidia-ranieri/transcript/","section":"Graduate Theory Transcripts","summary":"← Back to episode 7\nThis transcript has been lightly edited for readability. It may still contain transcription errors.\nIntro # James: Hello, and welcome to Graduate Theory. My guest today graduated university in 1994 from the university of technology in Sydney with a bachelor of business and a bachelor of law. In that same year, she started working as a research analyst at investment bank city group later, moving to a small company equity sales.\n","title":"Transcript: On Purpose and High Performance with Former MD Goldman Sachs, Lidia Ranieri","type":"graduate-theory-transcripts"},{"content":" Watch the conversation Graduate Theory Open YouTube ↗ Read the full transcript → Listen # Apple Podcasts\nSpotify\nOvercast\n\u0026ldquo;Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.\u0026rdquo; Soren Kierkegaard\nIshan Galapathy is a renowned Operational Excellence expert in the food industry. Ishan has worked with global ‘big boys’ such as Campbell Arnott’s and Kellogg’s for over a decade, harnessing hidden opportunities and making the most of their existing people and processes. He now shares his expertise and insights with businesses wanting to grow and become dominant players in this sector.\nThe conversation brings Ishan\u0026rsquo;s work in process improvement down to a personal scale. His approach is deliberately simple: identify the habits that matter, make them easy to repeat and use a visible prompt to keep the commitment alive.\nEpisode takeaways # Productivity systems should reduce friction rather than become another task to manage. Tiny habits compound, but they need a reliable prompt and a simple way to track progress. Careers often begin through serendipity and gain meaning as we look back and connect our experiences. Ambition works best alongside an honest understanding of what is—and is not—within our control. Watch This Episode on YouTube\nFollow Ishan # https://ishangalapathy.com/advance/\nFollow Graduate Theory # https://www.graduatetheory.com/youtube\nhttps://www.graduatetheory.com/linkedin\nhttps://www.graduatetheory.com/instagram\n","date":"30 November 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/graduate-theory/6-on-personal-productivity-and-growth-with-founding-director-capability-unlimited-ishan-galapathy/","section":"Graduate Theory","summary":" Watch the conversation Graduate Theory Open YouTube ↗ Read the full transcript → Listen # Apple Podcasts\n","title":"On Personal Productivity and Growth with Founding Director - Capability Unlimited, Ishan Galapathy","type":"graduate-theory"},{"content":"← Back to episode 6\nThis transcript has been lightly edited for readability. It may still contain transcription errors.\nJames: Hello, and welcome to Graduate Theory., my guest today is from Sri Lanka and moved to Australia to complete university. He graduated from the university of new south Wales in 1998 with a bachelor\u0026rsquo;s of mechatronic engineering, and then began work as a process engineer for about seven years. And over this time he also completed his MBA at Sydney\u0026rsquo;s graduate school of man. In 2004, seven years after graduating today\u0026rsquo;s guest moved to Onnit, who are the manufacturers of shapes, Tim Tams, and my personal favorite, the Monte Carlo. He then started work as a production manager and two years later moving to a continuous improvement manager. And two years after that, Became a manufacturing manager where he managed 115 employees and oversaw that process of two biscuit lines from raw material to finished goods. My guest next major role was at Kellogg\u0026rsquo;s and you might know Kellogg\u0026rsquo;s for cereals like crunchy, nuts, and special K all foods like Hershey\u0026rsquo;s and Pop-Tarts at Kellogg\u0026rsquo;s. He was the continuous improvement manager for the Asia Pacific region, responsible for supporting the three biggest sites in the. Australia, South Africa and India, since 2015, he has been the founding director earth. His company capability unlimited where he works with manufacturing businesses. To help them move from chaos to excellence. My guests latest work is his second book called advance advance provides a 12 step practical framework to implement strategies, easily improve productivity, meaningful. And engage employees effectively. Please. Welcome to the show. Ishaan gala.\nIshan: James Love to be here and truly can just tell your guests that you did all that work by yourself. So, most people ask for some introductions about,, the participants or, you know, to make it easy, but I\u0026rsquo;m really impressed mate, but,, The level of detail and the accuracy you\u0026rsquo;ve gone into is outstanding.\nSo, well done and,, yeah.\nJames: Now, thanks so much, Sean. And certainly,, it was very, very interesting, while I was researching you. So definitely not a burden to look into someone like yourself. So really, it was so interesting when I was researching you, you know, about this whole idea of organizational productivity, improving processes, um, and really, you know, with that whole supply chain, things like that, really getting those processes efficient. But I want to start off with a question that ties in with your personal productivity. And I want to ask you, is there any principles from this whole world of process improvement that you have taken and now applied to your own personal practice?\nIshan: Oh dear. All right. You jump into the most difficult one for you. You might be familiar or your listeners. No in, in, in coming days and months and years, that there\u0026rsquo;s a thing called the irony of the expertise. And that is the plumbers. Taps are leaking, the electricians lights,, art working the cobbler\u0026rsquo;s sons you know, the shoes aren\u0026rsquo;t perfect.\nSo, So yeah, from corporate productivity to personal productivity,, luckily,, in this case I do take a little bit of my own medicine. So,, yeah, there is one principle,, that I do take, and that is to track the most important things, the habits, because it is the habit that actually turns into a process from.\nThe corporate perspective, but in our day to day, from a personal perspective, these are the habits. So tracking these habits is something that\u0026rsquo;s so useful., and it\u0026rsquo;s something that\u0026rsquo;s easy to do., I was recently reading a book called tiny habits by,, professor BJ Fogg.,, fog is the founder of the behavioral lab.\n, At Stanford and he\u0026rsquo;s come up with this theory,, that w that we\u0026rsquo;ve used in manufacturing,, from a different context, but it is do the little things that matter because they all stack one of his students at James clear, also had written a fabulous book called atomic habits which is also around how do these.\nTiny habits then go to make massive differences. So having said that, how do I attract my daily habits as a way of improving productivity or at least staying productive? Let me just grab this off the wall, James, can you say.\nJames: Yes. Yes\nIshan: Don\u0026rsquo;t you want to just explain what you\u0026rsquo;re seeing? Obviously you\u0026rsquo;ll\nbe able to see, but let\u0026rsquo;s see how good\nof a yeah.\nHow well you can explain this.\nJames: Yeah, sure. So I\u0026rsquo;m seeing it\u0026rsquo;s a big table when I\u0026rsquo;m seeing each row kind of has its own habit. And then I\u0026rsquo;m seeing some, I think there\u0026rsquo;s might be days of the week across the top. And then in each sort of each row and column, you\u0026rsquo;ve got a green dot there for I\u0026rsquo;m guessing when the habits been done and then a red one where it hasn\u0026rsquo;t been done. And so, yeah. Is it.\nIshan: Absolutely well done, mate. Sorry. I\u0026rsquo;ve just, I\u0026rsquo;m throwing you into the deep pen. So. It\u0026rsquo;s one of the other principles that are believing, and this is probably the one principle that goes through and through. Particularly with my work with my clients is a simplification. So I tend to do everything in the most simplest way, because.\nWe\u0026rsquo;re all time poor. Right. So we don\u0026rsquo;t need that extra app or the extra portal to log into. And, and so I tend to do things extremely in a simplified way. So this is a great basically yeah, as you said, based on the month, so it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s a monthly. Where I\u0026rsquo;ve created some of the habits that are want to maintain, and me personally, and obviously there are different categories.\nYou know, like from yet there is the mind body, soul kind of, you know, do I do the daily meditation too? Are, do the daily exercise. No, I do a little bit of daily reading to continue my education. And then from a business perspective, what are the things that I need to do to kind of make sure that I\u0026rsquo;m staying on top?\nBut also you will notice that there are two categories right at the bottom. The second last one is family and the very last one is gratitude. So, it\u0026rsquo;s about trying to stay on track on a daily and a weekly basis on. You know, be grateful for something or someone you know, that has done. So practicing gratitude is something I\u0026rsquo;ve been doing consciously over the last five years.\nBut the answer to your question is yeah, so I maintain this grid. There\u0026rsquo;s about again there\u0026rsquo;s about a dozen little activities that I mentioned. On a daily basis and it\u0026rsquo;s a red dot or a green dot simple red dot means that I\u0026rsquo;ll just make a conscious note. And I tried to get on top of it immediately, the next day.\nThat\u0026rsquo;s all it is. And, and yeah, so, that\u0026rsquo;s the one thing I\u0026rsquo;ve taken from corporate life into my own uh,\nJames: Yeah, for sure. Well, I think that\u0026rsquo;s so cool. And I liked what you were saying about, you know, that whole simplification of the process, because certainly there are heaps of those apps on app stores for track your habits here or whatever, like do this better by using this track, all these things. Like, whatever you name it, that it\u0026rsquo;s on the app store somewhere. I\u0026rsquo;m all for building those habits. And economically you can get, you know, very taxing on yourself to have to go into all the apps, to tick, tick it off. It\u0026rsquo;s almost a whole separate task to remember to tick the habit off, you know, which is taking away from actually doing.\nIshan: And there you hit the key point. Right. So, yeah, so, I\u0026rsquo;m a gen X-er and that means I\u0026rsquo;m one of those real pen and paper kind of guys. Right. But the millennials you know, you\u0026rsquo;re probably younger than a millennial James, right? Probably not in to pen and paper and they probably use the phone almost as an extension of their fingertips.\nRight. And, and they\u0026rsquo;re probably you know, feel comfortable using technology and apps. But the point is, it\u0026rsquo;s not about the piece of paper or it is not about the app. That\u0026rsquo;s just a simple preference, but what is it that\u0026rsquo;s going to prompt you to do the. tracking That\u0026rsquo;s the key point, right? Because yes, I can have a piece of paper.\nYes. You can have an app, but what\u0026rsquo;s going to be the prompt. And so it\u0026rsquo;s the habit that\u0026rsquo;s going to take kind of a snowball onto the other habits. Right. So, as I say you know, committing is easy, but committing to the commitment is hard. So how do you build. Uh, Practice so that you know that you\u0026rsquo;re going to stay on top.\nSo for me, it\u0026rsquo;s very easy to have this piece of paper right next to my desk. I see it because the very first thing I do when I wake up in the morning, I\u0026rsquo;ll go through my morning ritual of doing a bit of exercise, doing a bit of meditation, not. Do a bit of journaling and focus on what do I need to work on today?\nAnd as soon as I, I finished that, I know my very next thing is to do the red.green dot for the previous day. So that is the ritual. And by creating that ritual. It\u0026rsquo;s easy to kind of track those habits and be the person you want to be. So, it\u0026rsquo;s not about the app or the piece of paper, but then what\u0026rsquo;s going to be the trigger that\u0026rsquo;s going to remind you to complete the habits.\nJames: I agree that is so important. And it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s, you know, like you said, it\u0026rsquo;s up to the individual to, you know, to work out something that works for them in terms of, what\u0026rsquo;s going to remind you to remind you to do the thing almost. Um, yeah, I think that is really cool. It definitely, it\u0026rsquo;s one of those things where you want it to be sort of as frictionless as possible.\nSo I liked what you said there about having. Right next to your bed and you see it every single day at the same time, you know, it can\u0026rsquo;t be something that, you know, it\u0026rsquo;s like, know, if you want to ride your bike, keeping the bike somewhere, that\u0026rsquo;s easy to get. And not in the shed around the corner, that\u0026rsquo;s locked by three different things and you need two keys to get in there, you know, which one\u0026rsquo;s going to make you ride the bike\nIshan: Exactly. And it\u0026rsquo;s that reducing the friction to get the things done right. Or BJ Fogg in tiny habits, you know, he talks about removing that friction. So that exactly, as you said if you just want riding the bicycle EMS. The, bicycles, easy to access make sure the shoes are probably, you know, that you find the shoes and the socks and you keep it by the door.\nRight. So all these little things, what it does is it just removes the friction in the morning. When you want to Get started. And once you get started, what will happen is it becomes kind of a positive snowball effect where you\u0026rsquo;re really happy. The fact that you\u0026rsquo;ve done the one key thing that you wanted to do, and you\u0026rsquo;re going to get a.\nRelease of dopamine and oxytocin and all those wonderful chemicals in your brain. And what, what you\u0026rsquo;re doing is you\u0026rsquo;re actually starting with feeling good, feeling happy. You\u0026rsquo;ve ticked off the first one. And with that mindset, you then try to focus on what you want to do as your next activity. So you\u0026rsquo;re starting the day on a positive cycle, as opposed to working.\nTrying to turn on, your phone and trying to figure out what\u0026rsquo;s gone wrong in the world, or who needs you and what fires you might need to put up today. That is a really bad way to start the day because you know, the, the emotions and what goes into your head straight out of. All negative emotions and I hate to be in that place and I don\u0026rsquo;t do it at all.\nAnd I don\u0026rsquo;t turn on my my computer, my email, my phone until a good hour and a half or two hours. After my.\nJames: Hmm. Yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s really interesting. And I\u0026rsquo;ve heard, you know, people say that you shouldn\u0026rsquo;t look at social media definitely, you know, in that first hour of your day. Cause it\u0026rsquo;s, so it\u0026rsquo;s almost priming your brain for the rest of the day.\nIshan: It\u0026rsquo;s something that I\u0026rsquo;m really interested in right now. And it\u0026rsquo;s a little bit premature to talk because it\u0026rsquo;s a half baked idea for my next next book. The part that I can share is there\u0026rsquo;s a lot of work that\u0026rsquo;s been done about the brain patterns and there are different brainwave states or states of brain from a, from a functioning point of view that, that we go through on a day-to-day basis.\nRight. So, we\u0026rsquo;re kind of in that. deep Sleep state And then there\u0026rsquo;s a state that we are pretty much at the peak, like right now. We are, we are very conscious. We are pretty much at the peak of our brain functioning. But as the day progresses, it kind of obviously kind of slows down. And then there is a phase between the slowing down phase and the deep sleep phase where we kind of.\nin that What people call as that hallucinating, you know, you\u0026rsquo;re not asleep yet, but you know, you\u0026rsquo;re not fully away as well. And we go through that state when we go into sleep, but as we were coming out of sleep and we go through that phase as well it\u0026rsquo;s good and bad. The good is that\u0026rsquo;s a really good state to be in that, that semi semi-conscious state where.\nIf you\u0026rsquo;re, if you\u0026rsquo;re into positive thinking, if you\u0026rsquo;re into a reprogramming, your subconscious mind, a lot of people would say, that\u0026rsquo;s the state that you want to do your work. So that\u0026rsquo;s the positive side. Then the negative aspect is. The reprogramming also works. If you start reading all the bad things, that\u0026rsquo;s the, you know, and if he\u0026rsquo;s reacting to all the negative things from the newsfeeds and if the mindset that you\u0026rsquo;re dealing with is, oh, it\u0026rsquo;s going to be a terrible day.\nAnd you know, I don\u0026rsquo;t know how to face the world. And if that\u0026rsquo;s the state you wake up with. Then that gets reinforced. And you know, how many times do people, you know, kind of start off the day bad, and then you keep cursing for the rest of the day thinking, oh, you know, there\u0026rsquo;s another thing going wrong and the other thing gone wrong and you don\u0026rsquo;t know why you feel this, you know, you\u0026rsquo;re kind of feeling bad and you don\u0026rsquo;t know why.\nRight. And it\u0026rsquo;s because of long-term reprogramming of your subconscious mind. In that hallucinating stage of going to sleep coming waking up of reading all the negative from negative stuff, I guess. So, that\u0026rsquo;s as much as I want to share only because that\u0026rsquo;s not a stead it is an area that is of interest to me right now, and it\u0026rsquo;s an area that\u0026rsquo;s going to impact this thing that I\u0026rsquo;m researching for my next book about how do people work?\nReally productively. And I think there\u0026rsquo;s a state of the brain that helps us to really get that 110% surge productivity out. And I really want to understand you know, can we force ourselves like almost in a meditative state for a short term to get the best work out, but more on that perhaps next year.\nJames: Yeah, perfect. Well, I\u0026rsquo;ll look forward to it cause yeah, certainly that, that kind of stuff about, you know, almost like optimizing your performance and, you know, truly, really trying to extract the best out of yourself,,, is so interesting. And, you know, any of these kinds of tips about improving productivity, you know, making sure you do the things that you want to do. Um, because really that\u0026rsquo;s, that\u0026rsquo;s what it all is at the end of the day is. Yeah, doing the things you want to do more than doing the things that you know, you know, that you shouldn\u0026rsquo;t do. You know, I think is, is really, really cool. But I wanna sort of change the, change the topic now from this productivity, which is, which is so interesting, but I want to go into more of your career.\nCause I know you\u0026rsquo;ve had a really amazing one. You know, starting out as an engineer to becoming someone that was leading, you know, an entire region in, in many aspects. So I want to speak to, you know, even where you are now as a, as an author and a speaker and things like that. Did you always have this where you are now in mind is some way that you wanted to end up well, has it been kind of, sort of an iterative process through your career where you\u0026rsquo;ve kind of just jumped to what\u0026rsquo;s the next best thing, and then you\u0026rsquo;ve just ended up where you are.\nIshan: Hmm. I think there\u0026rsquo;s a bit of both coming out of university. I think it\u0026rsquo;s kind of this serendipitous moments of you just fall into something in some workplace and for many, you know, that carves what your career path is going to be. You know, that may not necessarily be true to everyone, but that is the.\nCommon way it\u0026rsquo;s it literally happened to my dad. You know, he took on the world of HR and I fell into process improvement. I, I could say quite by accident or, you know, just by reading a little advert on the on the university notice board somebody had placed this advert requesting for a student to come and work at their workplace. So I wanted some work experience and I applied and I went to work there and that turned out to be Pretty much the start of my process improvement role with the very first company, what started off as a casual job for three months as a student turned out to be a full-time role the following year.\nSo that was quite by accident. But then during my time at Arnett and time at uh, Yeah, I\u0026rsquo;ll be, you know, I was kind of trying to pave my career towards something that I want to achieve and yeah. You know, we, we all dream of, then what\u0026rsquo;s my career ladder and you\u0026rsquo;re getting advice from you know, your senior leaders and you\u0026rsquo;re going through a lot of projects and programs and leadership development and you know, you\u0026rsquo;re doing everything you can to.\nExplore the world, learn how the world works, learn how organizations work. And yeah, so trying to then take it to a place you want to. So, I think\nthat\u0026rsquo;s a common story of you fall into something and then you\ntry to make something.\nJames: No, I definitely think it is. And it\u0026rsquo;s something that, um, there\u0026rsquo;s a book. I don\u0026rsquo;t know if you\u0026rsquo;re familiar with, um, Cal Newport. Um, he, he wrote the book deep work, which I guess is maybe it\u0026rsquo;s the most famous for that, but he has another book called so And this is before, before he\u0026rsquo;s written deep work and it\u0026rsquo;s about this idea where you.\nUm, you know, maybe your your passions don\u0026rsquo;t come first. They come second. So you, you don\u0026rsquo;t do something because you\u0026rsquo;re passionate about it. You get good at, and then you become good at your passion. It\u0026rsquo;s actually the other way around. So you become good at something and then you become passionate about it later. And so your story is one that, you know, similar to ones that I\u0026rsquo;ve heard before, where, you know, people almost their first job out of uni, they kind of just get thrown into this whole new area that, you know, maybe they had never heard of it even while they were doing uni and they\u0026rsquo;re in this whole new place. And then it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s probably not something that they were passionate about when they were in uni. They\u0026rsquo;re like, okay, I\u0026rsquo;m going to become a continuous improvement engineer. You know, it\u0026rsquo;s probably not something that crossed your mind, but you know, as you\u0026rsquo;ve gone on and as you\u0026rsquo;ve become some. Actually, you know, is good at what you do now, the passion starts to come in because you know, it\u0026rsquo;s something that you\u0026rsquo;re good at something, you know, and then you know, you can go and tell people about.\nAnd I think that is really interesting. Um, yeah. What Is that? Something that you\u0026rsquo;ve seen in other things.\nIshan: And I think absolutely. \u0026lsquo;cause what happens is when you hit your fourth decade in life. So that\u0026rsquo;s your forties, right? You, you, you got few years to go, James. What happens then is this thing about your personal perspective changes and many start questioning about why am I here? As in not why am I here with this organization, but what\u0026rsquo;s my purpose on planet.\nSo many, and I don\u0026rsquo;t want to say on your 40th birthday, you\u0026rsquo;re going to wake up with that question. Overused kind of in that kind of, you know, the 40 to 50 kind of decade, right? It\u0026rsquo;s a, it\u0026rsquo;s a common thing for people to start wondering about. How they can help mankind, how they can help the planet what is the purpose you know, that they can help with.\nSo at that point, what we\u0026rsquo;re trying to do is we are trying to look back at the lived and learned experiences we\u0026rsquo;ve had through our career and through and in our lives. And we are actually trying to make meaning back. And we\u0026rsquo;re looking through a lens of productivity in my case. It could be sales if that\u0026rsquo;s what somebody has done.\nSo we were trying to figure out what does this mean? And therefore we\u0026rsquo;re trying to connect a few dots in. In your life. And then all of a sudden you\u0026rsquo;re making meaning out of it. And all of a sudden then an obsession comes out of it because yeah, it\u0026rsquo;s not about the it\u0026rsquo;s not about the manufacturing productivity.\nIn fact, maybe it is about helping individually. To be more productive beings. Maybe that\u0026rsquo;s why I\u0026rsquo;m being put on this planet earth. So I just had to work myself through the manufacturing productivity field because that\u0026rsquo;s one of the most hardest, you know, one of the areas or sectors that work quite diligently in this sector.\nSo if you believe. The story of you being put on planet earth to serve a purpose. And, you know, if, if that\u0026rsquo;s the narrative that you\u0026rsquo;re happy to believe in then it\u0026rsquo;s quite a useful way of looking back thinking, okay, how do I utilize my experience, then be fired up in your belly about that. And then trying to provide a service to the world is quite a.\nQuite a peaceful and a wonderful way of\nliving and making an, and making a living as well.\nJames: Um, yeah, I think that\u0026rsquo;s, that\u0026rsquo;s very wise. Yeah. and I,\nI\nthink one thing, one thing, actually I heard you say or heard you on a podcast say when I was researching you, was it, you know, life can be understood in looking back, but you\u0026rsquo;ve got to play it in forward. So, you know, and I think\nIshan: Yeah. And, and that\u0026rsquo;s that\u0026rsquo;s not my statement, I read that in a book. So yeah, it\u0026rsquo;s quite profound, isn\u0026rsquo;t it? That uh, life makes\nsense in backwards, but you\u0026rsquo;ve got to live it forwards.\nJames: Hmm. Yeah, absolutely. I think that\u0026rsquo;s really cool when,, you know, just like what you were saying there about, creating that meaning and that purpose and how that as your life goes on, I think,, Is, it is really interesting too., One thing I want to talk about now is, you know, in your career, you know, you\u0026rsquo;d maybe be considered sell on that sort of a, a high performer in some regard, right. You\u0026rsquo;ve become sort of this person that\u0026rsquo;s in charge of so much, so much stuff. Do you, do you consider yourself to be a high performer?\nIshan: Well, we can be the hardest critics of ourselves. So I see a lot of areas that, you know, I want to improve on and, you know, there are times when, yeah, I\u0026rsquo;ve caught myself, you know, 10 YouTube videos later on going, like, how did I end up here? And then you know, Self-reflective thing of Asian, you know, you should know better.\nRight. So there are those moments and, and similarly, there are other areas where you know, I feel like, oh geez, you know, what did I achieve today? So the thing is not about well, in, in, in my belief, it\u0026rsquo;s not about saying, yeah, I\u0026rsquo;ve got there. I have achieved there, but being conscious. Of what is it that you want to do?\nAnd how do you do that in the most effective way? So, for example for, for the weekend, I want to make sure that the weekend work we do, but me and my wife, as, as a family turns out to be the most productive weekend, right. So I want to make sure that we get the most done from the weekend. Whereas, so I want to preplan it, right?\nWhat are we doing Saturday morning? What are we having for Saturday lunch? And now we, you know, are we taking it easy on Saturday afternoon or we\u0026rsquo;ll be doing some things. So, you know, I\u0026rsquo;d like to kind of put into major buckets. Whereas my wife is kind of high. I would just wake up Saturday morning and we\u0026rsquo;ll see how it goes, shadowing.\nAnd when we wake up, go like, oh yeah, we need to go shopping because this is what we\u0026rsquo;re doing for lunch. So it\u0026rsquo;s almost that. Just taking life as it is. Whereas if I want to have free time, it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s almost like I want to put in the calendar free time and I and then I\u0026rsquo;m\nJames: Hmm.\nIshan: Was like, oh, okay, now, now it\u0026rsquo;s my free time.\nSo I\u0026rsquo;ll, I\u0026rsquo;ll relax. So, but it is with the view of. I want to make sure so that we get the best out of the, the, the, the, the time that we\u0026rsquo;ve been given wrong, because I think that is the most limiting factor, and I don\u0026rsquo;t want to stress about it. But I also don\u0026rsquo;t want to just waste it. So of course, you know, I spend a lot of time with my boys.\nYou know, I love cooking with them. You know, I want to go for walks with them, but I want to do that in a planned way where. Yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s the most productive and the best use of my time. You know, maybe I\u0026rsquo;ll go for a walk with the boys after lunch, you know, when I\u0026rsquo;m feeling slightly lethargic. You know, I, I make sure that I\u0026rsquo;ll do a bit of reading or do something more productive in the morning because I know that\u0026rsquo;s what I\u0026rsquo;m firing on all cylinders.\nSo it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s more than. Planning and getting more done. So, if, if that\u0026rsquo;s a way of then saying yeah. You know, achieving a lot then good. But do I consider myself as a high achiever? Don\u0026rsquo;t know, as, as I said we tend to be the hardest critics\non ourselves, so I don\u0026rsquo;t think I\u0026rsquo;ll give myself, that tick just yet.\nJames: Well, I certainly think you are, so I\u0026rsquo;ll give you a big tip., another Question I have to something that I\u0026rsquo;ve seen and heard, you know, about people in the workforce people in. When I go and get promotions and move up the up the career ladder, um, there\u0026rsquo;s kind of this idea that, you know, you\u0026rsquo;ve gotta be really set on, okay, this is what I have to do to get to the next position. These are the things I\u0026rsquo;m gonna, you know, I\u0026rsquo;ve got to take all these things and then, you know, really sort of a goal setting type, very driven, let\u0026rsquo;s get to the next stage person. And then I think on the other hand, perhaps I\u0026rsquo;m wrong, but I think there must also be. Like, uh, let\u0026rsquo;s just do the best I can and wherever I end up, that\u0026rsquo;s where I\u0026rsquo;m going to be, you know, a bit more still doing their work well, but a bit more laid back. And I\u0026rsquo;m curious, you know, which side of that do you think you\u0026rsquo;d be on? Are you more of a, you know, set goals and, you know, very direct do like, you know, what needs to be done, smash it, or are you more of a, you know, a little bit more laid back? Um, Take things like one step at it.\nIshan: No, I was definitely a goal. And, and then trying to hit it, the, get the results, get the goals. But you, you got to be you got to be at ease with the fact that trying to get to that next career goal is a goal, but it\u0026rsquo;s not maybe totally within your sphere of. Right. Whilst you might have all the right credentials, the experiences the, the results you\u0026rsquo;ve delivered, the way you work.\nSo all of those things could be tick, tick, tick, but if the opportunity hasn\u0026rsquo;t risen, then you\u0026rsquo;re still\non a holding pattern, waiting for the opportunity and right. So, yeah, so I was very much a clear communicator with my managers in terms of here\u0026rsquo;s what I\u0026rsquo;m planning to do with my career.\nHere\u0026rsquo;s where I want to head to What do I need to do to get there. Right. But as the next role, but also on a longer term as well. So I\u0026rsquo;ve been very fortunate that I\u0026rsquo;ve had managers who have supported me, who have guided me and provided me with opportunities to ensure that aren\u0026rsquo;t ready to move on to those roles when they become available.\nSo, yeah, so I think it\u0026rsquo;s good to be.\nBut it shouldn\u0026rsquo;t be to the detriment that, you know, you\u0026rsquo;re knocking on that you\u0026rsquo;re impatient. Right. So yeah, so you got to hold\nonto it tightly, with an open hand\nJames: Hmm. Yeah, no, I think that\u0026rsquo;s a great analogy because you, I, I love what you said about, you know, it\u0026rsquo;s not always in your control, so it\u0026rsquo;s important to. In some sense, like want it really badly and do what you can do to get to where you want to go, but also have that patient as well and understand that, you know, you\u0026rsquo;re not the one that\u0026rsquo;s deciding these things.\nSo, um, you know, and have that humility almost as well.\nIshan: Oh look. Absolutely. And I\u0026rsquo;ve seen where. It works the other way. Like if you\u0026rsquo;re impatient and if you\u0026rsquo;re trying to get ahead of the other person, you know, there\u0026rsquo;s always this, you know, you\u0026rsquo;re, you\u0026rsquo;re trying to elbow the person next to you. And it becomes a toxic culture then, you know, that\u0026rsquo;s when people talk about not hang on you know, people aren\u0026rsquo;t getting along in this organization because, you know, Everyone for themselves.\nThat\u0026rsquo;s not the way organizations work to be highly productive, to work in a, in a great working place. So yes, it\u0026rsquo;s good to be driven. But at the same time, you\u0026rsquo;ve got to know how to balance your your inspiration and your desire to progress versus what\u0026rsquo;s the team culture and. People better suit it more experienced for those roles more than you.\nSo, yeah, so good to be driven, but you\u0026rsquo;ve got to be\nmindful, you know, look at your side view mirrors as well, and you look, look sideways.\nJames: Hmm. Yeah. really liked that. Um, one thing I want to talk about as well with you is, you know, learning or pardon me, learning more things as you go through your career. And one thing that you did, um, you know, fairly early on was, you know, you did your MBA. Really sort of four or five years after you graduated, which is, you know, from, I don\u0026rsquo;t know many people that have done as, at that age.\nSo for me, it seems like you did that fairly early on., is that something that, you know, doing that extra study and doing those things, has that been something that was really a focus for you at that time and\nof.\nIshan: Yeah, I\u0026rsquo;ve always known that I wanted to do post-graduate studies. MBA made sense because I was kind of in a, in a management kind of role and I knew that\u0026rsquo;s where I want to do head to. So although my undergrad was in mechatronics and engineering It was more around the people and working with people was something that I really enjoyed.\nSo, I knew that I wanted to do post-graduate studies. MBA made sense that point in time. And personally, we knew that we also wanted to start a family as well. Pretty soon. So, I guess, you know, you\u0026rsquo;re trying to do. Get few things out of the way and kind of planned life, you know, and how do we support the, the career?\nAnd the good thing is the company supported me. The company that I was working for at the time they supported me. So they sponsor. Right. So, that was good. And even some of my other training programs that I went through again there were major change management programs that were going through the organization at the time.\nSo it was helpful for me to go through those training programs, go through the MBA during that time, because I dunno, it just felt like the stars or. Lined up from companies sponsoring it. I knew I wanted to get it out of the way to start a family. It makes sense because I could apply the learnings at work because of the programs and things that were happening at work.\nSo, it was, yeah. It just, the stars aligned. So, I yeah, I\u0026rsquo;m, I\u0026rsquo;m one of those people where when opportunities present are.\nJust welcome them with arms wide open and I\u0026rsquo;ll just grab it. And then.\nJames: Hmm. Yeah, I think, I think it\u0026rsquo;s really\ngood. And I\nthink there to, you know, realize that was something that you wanted to do more often and get on top of that early. Um, And really, you know, something that I\u0026rsquo;ve spoken to all the guests about is sort of following your gut and your intuition. It\u0026rsquo;s like things that you see yourself doing in the future. So I think, you know, acting on that early has really S you up, um, for you know, later opportunities and later things that. you ended up doing., another question for you is about, you know, career advice and things like that. Um, Do you have any career advice that people should ignore or any bad career advice?\nIshan: The only thing that you should ignore. Obviously don\u0026rsquo;t do anything, do abuse and you know, th th you know, that goes without saying, right. But other than that, if it doesn\u0026rsquo;t feel right to you in whatever sense, if, if, if you can\u0026rsquo;t be congruent to yourself, if, if there\u0026rsquo;s a little voice inside you that tells you when something\u0026rsquo;s not right, this is not for me.\nThen no matter what the others say, listen to your inner voice. Don\u0026rsquo;t second. Guess your first instinct and learn to trust yourself and back yourself up. That\u0026rsquo;s not to say shy away from great opportunities because you thought that you\u0026rsquo;re not worthy of it, or you can\u0026rsquo;t do the job. I\u0026rsquo;m not saying. that But if there\u0026rsquo;s something that\u0026rsquo;s fundamentally not right, you don\u0026rsquo;t want to move internationally to get that great job because something tells you no, wait here, something else might happen.\nOr you know, or anything else, if there\u0026rsquo;s something not right then just don\u0026rsquo;t take it. But if there are opportunities where you feel like. I don\u0026rsquo;t know if I\u0026rsquo;ve got enough to step up to the expectations of the company. You know, if you\u0026rsquo;ve got limiting beliefs you know, I don\u0026rsquo;t have enough experience and expertise learn to back yourself up because when you\u0026rsquo;re feeling that big knot in your stomach, when you\u0026rsquo;re feeling the butterflies in your stomach, that means you\u0026rsquo;re going through.\ngrowth As an individual, so learn to embrace that, knotted feeling and the only way is to go right through it. And on the other side of that experience, you\u0026rsquo;ll see you, you come out as a different individual on the other side of that experience is growth. So it\u0026rsquo;s good to know what that feeling is and learn how to manage it and deal with it.\nI remember, I can give you two examples. One was a small one where when I started the continuous improvement role, that art and it was a program that I was kind of initiating for the Sydney site. So I was leading the whole program. The very first improvement project came on the team time line and the team time.\nWhat was the line that I was a production manager and I knew the line very well. I knew the people, I knew the processes. I knew the machines. It was a line that I was fairly comfortable with. So when I had to lead a team to improve, I forget what it was, but whatever it was like, let\u0026rsquo;s just say improve the throughput of the team times.\nI felt quite comfortable leading these cross-functional team because I, I. I thought that when I\u0026rsquo;m leading a project, I thought that I had to have all the answers. I, I, you know, what, if they ask me about whatever, you know, some technical questions, then I\u0026rsquo;ll be able to answer some, you know, not all of it, but a fair bit.\nWe went through the pro the project and we solved it yet. Great. The second project that I had to lead was on this alarm. I knew nothing of about the processes on the Salada liner. I knew nothing about the people or the machines or the processes, right. East based biscuits versus sweet biscuits, almost, almost having nightmares going well, how am I going to leave this project?\nYou know, I don\u0026rsquo;t know anything about days. And then. The voice of my teacher who was teaching me how to do structured problem solving, you know, what he said, was he showing you need to trust the process? So I was kind of channeling my my teacher at the time were like, okay, well Harry said, trust the process.\nSo I\u0026rsquo;ll trust the process and kind of went through it. And, and I learned so much on what. To trust the process and lead a team to solve a problem from that more so than going through the TeamTime problems. So, that was a moment of growth much later on almost at the point of leaving Kellogg.\nWhen I was leading the region for continuous improvement, one of the other roles I was involved with, all other projects that I was involved with at Kellogg was developing. The global supply chain excellence program. So I was part of the global team that developed essentially the, the, the framework, the blueprint on how all Kellogg factories around the world operated and improved year on year.\nAnd as part of it I was given the opportunity to lead continuous improvement globally. Lead the continuous improvement center of excellence globally. And I had to lead you know, facilitate meetings with quite senior people. You know, seeing people with titles of senior director vice-president global for for regions.\nAnd there were this moment of, again, I\u0026rsquo;m going, like, I\u0026rsquo;m just the Asia. Operational excellence manager, you know, how am I going to globally lead and facilitate and come up with this part of the framework? And again, I just had to learn how it\u0026rsquo;s not about me. But it is about what I bring to the table.\nThen it\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s just trusting the process and they\u0026rsquo;re being the team because they are the experts. And my role is to lead. And hold that space. So, again, whether it was the simple on site, so that I was as team at Tam or on a global scale, the, the advice I want your listeners to take in is learn to back yourself, trust your instinct, and go through those moments of this company.\nbecause on the other side is the growth\nJames: Yeah, well, I think that\u0026rsquo;s really cool when\nI think I\u0026rsquo;ve heard it described, you know, you have that, catapult where you\u0026rsquo;ve got to go, got to go. Do. to have the ops as well. I think that\u0026rsquo;s, that\u0026rsquo;s really profound. Um, and then on a similar vein to that question, um, is one question that I ask all the guests, which is, if you, uh, uh, let\u0026rsquo;s say your issuance back in 1998, finishing university going to start his career.\nWhat is, what\u0026rsquo;s some advice, um, that you\u0026rsquo;d give.\nIshan: Funny, you should say that or funny, you should ask that James. Because I went to new south Wales university, right. As you said in, in the introduction and I was living in Randwick then and I remember distinctively. The very first day I arrived in Australia and I arrived in Randwick. And I remember on that Saturday afternoon in February, 1994, walking the Biltmore street or Biltmore road, I think, or Frederick, which is the main, main street.\nAnd I had all these questions going through my head in terms of.\nSimple less. How do I get to the uni? And you know, where\u0026rsquo;s my faculty, how do I find my faculty? To, to all the way from what\u0026rsquo;s my first job going to be, who will I marry? Where we live B all of that. And recently my niece who is now studying. Engineering at the same faculty. I had the pleasure of helping her to settle in, in her apartment.\nSo my wife and I, we helped her to hire a flat and you know, moved in and set up. And as part of it this evening, I had to basically go and grab something. So obviously, you know, we all familiar with the area, you know, we know the area in back of the hands and I quickly rushed out and went to Belmont road in trying to find a cafe or something to get something to eat.\nAnd in that moment, it\u0026rsquo;s I could feel myself that the Ishaan who was in 94 on that road, it was as if I was watching this movie, I was watching myself in third person. Walking the road for the first time and looking into the windows and I could feel the questions I had in my head at the time. And I wanted to, you know, tell that issue and saying, Hey, it\u0026rsquo;s going to be okay.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s going to be okay. And it\u0026rsquo;s going to be an enjoyable ride. Is what I saw myself telling the, the 20 year old version of me. And at the same time, I also saw the 70 year old Ishaan who had also been, who had come there to tell the 40 something year old Shan saying, Hey, was, you\u0026rsquo;ve now got questions.\nWhere to next, you know, will I be able to make a difference? Like I want to is the world going to be okay? You know, we travel again and then all that stuff. And again, I heard the voice of the 70 year old Shawn saying, Hey,\nit\u0026rsquo;s going to be okay. And, it\u0026rsquo;s going to be.\nJames: I think that\u0026rsquo;s very, very specially Sean and the\nfantastic story. And it\u0026rsquo;s something, that\u0026rsquo;s something that\u0026rsquo;s really, really special. And I really appreciate you sharing that story with us. Yeah, you can tell just from, from watching you say that\u0026rsquo;s very close to your heart. So thanks so much for sharing that. with us today.\n, think that\u0026rsquo;s a fantastic note to, to send people out into their day,, listening to that. So,, thanks so much for your time today., and,, thanks so much for your advice as well. So I think it\u0026rsquo;s,, very, very simple.\nIshan: Oh, you\u0026rsquo;re very welcome, man. James, I loved it. And Yeah. If anyone is interested in reading anything about productivity, not from a personal perspective because that book hasn\u0026rsquo;t been written yet. What I can share is if you\u0026rsquo;re interested in learning about organizational productivity or the corporate productivity, the team productivity head to advanced.\nBook.com.edu, advanced book.com.edu. And you will notice that there\u0026rsquo;s a free PDF that you can download with a full introductory overview of my entire book. So you\u0026rsquo;ll understand my simplified version of how these mega companies operate. It\u0026rsquo;s a simplified version of. Kind of what I helped Kellogg to develop as that supply chain excellence framework, but in my simple mind, what does the simplified version look like?\nSo you\u0026rsquo;ll be able to read all of that and more and also pick up on\nthe things that really interests me. So, yeah. Advanced book.com.\nJames: Amazing. Yeah. Thanks so much for your time today, Sean, please, everyone go and check out your Sean. He\u0026rsquo;s a fascinating guy., So again, thanks so much for your time today, Sean.\n← Back to episode 6\n","date":"30 November 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/graduate-theory/6-on-personal-productivity-and-growth-with-founding-director-capability-unlimited-ishan-galapathy/transcript/","section":"Graduate Theory Transcripts","summary":"← Back to episode 6\nThis transcript has been lightly edited for readability. It may still contain transcription errors.\nJames: Hello, and welcome to Graduate Theory., my guest today is from Sri Lanka and moved to Australia to complete university. He graduated from the university of new south Wales in 1998 with a bachelor’s of mechatronic engineering, and then began work as a process engineer for about seven years. And over this time he also completed his MBA at Sydney’s graduate school of man. In 2004, seven years after graduating today’s guest moved to Onnit, who are the manufacturers of shapes, Tim Tams, and my personal favorite, the Monte Carlo. He then started work as a production manager and two years later moving to a continuous improvement manager. And two years after that, Became a manufacturing manager where he managed 115 employees and oversaw that process of two biscuit lines from raw material to finished goods. My guest next major role was at Kellogg’s and you might know Kellogg’s for cereals like crunchy, nuts, and special K all foods like Hershey’s and Pop-Tarts at Kellogg’s. He was the continuous improvement manager for the Asia Pacific region, responsible for supporting the three biggest sites in the. Australia, South Africa and India, since 2015, he has been the founding director earth. His company capability unlimited where he works with manufacturing businesses. To help them move from chaos to excellence. My guests latest work is his second book called advance advance provides a 12 step practical framework to implement strategies, easily improve productivity, meaningful. And engage employees effectively. Please. Welcome to the show. Ishaan gala.\n","title":"Transcript: On Personal Productivity and Growth with Founding Director - Capability Unlimited, Ishan Galapathy","type":"graduate-theory-transcripts"},{"content":" Watch the conversation Graduate Theory Open YouTube ↗ Read the full transcript → Oscar Trimboli is an author, host of the Apple award-winning podcast Deep Listening and a sought-after keynote speaker. He is passionate about using the gift of listening to bring positive change in homes, workplaces, and cultures around the world.\nOscar\u0026rsquo;s framework expands listening beyond simply hearing another person\u0026rsquo;s words. The conversation covers five levels—from listening to yourself and the content through to context, what is unsaid and the meaning beneath it—and shows how small changes can make conversations more useful.\nEpisode takeaways # Listening begins with noticing your own distractions and internal dialogue. Electronic notifications are a common barrier to being fully present in a conversation. Shorter, less biased questions give other people more room to explain what they mean. Strong listeners pay attention to context, patterns and what remains unsaid—not only the words they hear. Follow Oscar # Take Oscar\u0026rsquo;s listening quiz Oscar Trimboli\u0026rsquo;s website Follow Graduate Theory # https://www.graduatetheory.com/\nhttps://www.graduatetheory.com/youtube\nhttps://www.graduatetheory.com/linkedin\nhttps://www.graduatetheory.com/instagram\n","date":"22 November 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/graduate-theory/5-on-listening-with-author-and-speaker-oscar-trimboli/","section":"Graduate Theory","summary":" Watch the conversation Graduate Theory Open YouTube ↗ Read the full transcript → Oscar Trimboli is an author, host of the Apple award-winning podcast Deep Listening and a sought-after keynote speaker. He is passionate about using the gift of listening to bring positive change in homes, workplaces, and cultures around the world.\n","title":"On Listening with Author and Speaker, Oscar Trimboli","type":"graduate-theory"},{"content":"← Back to episode 5\nThis transcript has been lightly edited for readability. It may still contain transcription errors.\nIntro # James: Good morning and welcome to Graduate Theory. Today\u0026rsquo;s guest is a podcast host author and keynote speaker with over 30 years of experience in operations, marketing, and sales. He now works with organizations across the world, teaching them how to be better listeners bringing us impact beyond words.\nPlease welcome, the deep listener himself, Oscar Trimboli. Oscar, welcome to the show.\nOscar: James, looking forward to listening to your questions. And I\u0026rsquo;ll be curious to listen to the questions we can\u0026rsquo;t hear from the audience as well, because a lot of the time it\u0026rsquo;s, what\u0026rsquo;s not said that\u0026rsquo;s the difference between good conversations and great conversations.\nJames: Absolutely. And I\u0026rsquo;m so interested to dive into all this with you.\nHow did Oscar find listening? # James: Listening is really one of those skills that I previously had no idea that it was a skill that, you could even have it really.\nThe first question I\u0026rsquo;ve got for your Oscar is about it\u0026rsquo;s about this world of listening. And I want to ask you, how did you actually end up in this world of listening?\nBecause like we\u0026rsquo;ve said, it\u0026rsquo;s something that, really, most people have never heard of improving their listening. So how did you end up in this world of.\nOscar: I think it\u0026rsquo;s three wise. I think about it. The first one is when I was 13, I had basically a werewolf jaw. I\u0026rsquo;ve had a very protruded jaw and most people who get braces get it for one or two years, I had braces for five years.\nSo I never really wanted to draw attention to myself. And how do you do that? When you\u0026rsquo;re talking to someone, just ask them questions and the attention goes back on them. So I think that was very early days. I wasn\u0026rsquo;t aware that I was listening well, but it was a defensive strategy for me. And when I was in high school as well, we were a school with 13 different nationalities and everybody from Asia or Eastern Europe. And we used to play this Italian card game, but I couldn\u0026rsquo;t speak any other language. So the Argentinians would form a team and speak in Spanish and Polish teams would form a team speak in Polish and Occasionally they\u0026rsquo;d be a player short, but because I didn\u0026rsquo;t speak any other language, I had to get really good at looking at body language.\nI got really good at noticing what happened to people\u0026rsquo;s eyes and eyebrows when they got a particular set of cards and figured it out. But where it really tipped over is when I was in a budget setting meeting at Microsoft, between Singapore, Seattle, and Sydney. And at the 20 minute mark, my vice president looked me straight in the eye in the Sydney boardroom and said, Oscar, I need to see you immediately after this meeting.\nI quite honestly switched off James. From that point on, all I could think about is how many weeks salary have I got left in the bank account? Because. When Tracy said that, I just thought I was getting fired. The meeting finished and Tracy asked me to close the door and I was sitting at one end of a very long boardroom table.\nAnd she asked me to come and sit next to her. And I was walking up this long boardroom table. She said, you have no idea what you did at the 20 minute mark, do you? And the only thing going through my head is great. I\u0026rsquo;m getting fired and I have no idea what a. She sat me down. She looked me straight in the eye.\nShe said at the 20 minute mark, you changed the way the room listened to itself. If you could code the way you listen, you could change the world. And despite the fact twice, he said something so profound, the only thing answered my head, James is five. So I didn\u0026rsquo;t think anything about what she said. I literally zoned out because I was so relieved that I wasn\u0026rsquo;t fired.\nAnd then a week and a half later, the finance director, Brian said, can you come to the budget setting, meeting for Australia and audit my list? And I said, Brian, you\u0026rsquo;ve been talking to Tracy, I got a $32 million uplift in my budget. I\u0026rsquo;ve got to figure out how to do that. I haven\u0026rsquo;t got time for this little listening.\nGaper can I just go out and figure out how to do it? And he said, let me make it simple for you. You are coming to the meeting, you will audit my listening. And here\u0026rsquo;s a tip. If you\u0026rsquo;re a graduate, make brains with the finance department, if you\u0026rsquo;re not good at. If you come from an arts or a different area, partnering with finance is one of the most influential things you can do in the workplace because they are the people who pay salaries.\nBut more importantly, they\u0026rsquo;re the people who approved business cases. So James, I had to sit down and watch Brian listen, and he did a okay. But I was really curious. I had nine people in the meeting, only three spokes, I thought, it\u0026rsquo;s not listening to everybody. And he asked really long questions. So here\u0026rsquo;s a tip for listeners out there.\nIf you ask a question, that\u0026rsquo;s got more than eight words, it\u0026rsquo;s a bias question. In fact, it\u0026rsquo;s not even a question. It\u0026rsquo;s a statement despite the fact. Having an inflection on your voice at the end. So from then on, I\u0026rsquo;ve been on a quest to create a hundred means. I\u0026rsquo;ve listened as in the world, before I leave the planet.\nThat\u0026rsquo;s how it stop.\nJames: Yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s a great story because yeah, I think that is so special and it\u0026rsquo;s really exciting what you\u0026rsquo;re doing. Bringing light to this, this skill that we can all really improve at. Yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s really cool.\nHow distractions impact listening # James: One thing I want to ask too, is when you\u0026rsquo;re sitting down with Brian, to tell him about his listening, what are some things, and maybe not just Brian, maybe if the people that you still coach today, what are some things that.\nThat you look for too, when like to improve someone\u0026rsquo;s listening. How do you, what\u0026rsquo;s your process for going through\nOscar: That? Yeah, so there, there are five levels of listening and the first thing you want to do as a listener is not to focus on the. Listening starts by actually listening to yourself first.\nSo if you\u0026rsquo;ve got a whole bunch of noise going on in your head about the last meeting, the next meeting, what you need to eat for lunch, what you didn\u0026rsquo;t eat for breakfast? I haven\u0026rsquo;t had enough coffee. Gee, Oscar talk slow. I wish you hurry up and get to the point. There\u0026rsquo;s a whole bunch of noise going through you.\nSo there\u0026rsquo;s five levels of listening and the first level of listening is listening to yourself. So the things that we\u0026rsquo;ll ever won, we need to be aware of. With research over 1,410 people we\u0026rsquo;ve been tracking them for nearly four years now. And the number one barrier to people\u0026rsquo;s listening is electronic notifications, whether that\u0026rsquo;s from a mobile phone or your desktop computer, whether it\u0026rsquo;s a Mac or a PC, whether your phones Android.\nAll or an iPhone, whether you\u0026rsquo;ve got a tablet or not. The number one barrier that gets in people\u0026rsquo;s way when it comes to listening is notifications. So whether you\u0026rsquo;re on a Mac or a PC, whether they\u0026rsquo;re on an iPhone or an Android, you can just push the button that says stop notifications while I\u0026rsquo;m in a conversation.\nMeaning. Now, this is easy to say, but it\u0026rsquo;s very difficult to do because quite honestly, a lot of people are addicted to the red dots that give you notifications to the buzz, to the beam, to the slack channel, the teams message, the email notification. And I\u0026rsquo;ve worked in the technology industry. I know the research behind the app industry was derived from the research in slot machines or poker machines in Las Vegas.\nThey hired a bunch of psychologists to figure out how to keep people mindlessly pressing the button and putting more money into the poker machines. And they adapted that research into putting red dots on devices and having notifications that blink to get your attendance. Now fires off dopamine in your system.\nThat\u0026rsquo;s the drugs. When you\u0026rsquo;re in love, all the world is beautiful, but it fires off the same thing. When a red dot comes up and you go, oh, gee, somebody wants to talk to me. But what it means is you\u0026rsquo;re not available for the conversation you\u0026rsquo;re in right now. Now, if you\u0026rsquo;re in a medical profession or emergency of respondent, please don\u0026rsquo;t switch your notification.\nThat\u0026rsquo;s your job. So everybody else, though, if you\u0026rsquo;re in some kind of workplace where you work with computers and you don\u0026rsquo;t have patients that you need to see, or you\u0026rsquo;re not at the end of a manufacturing line and ensuring people\u0026rsquo;s safety as ticking notifications on James, when I say switch your notifications off, a lot of people feel like a drug addict and I\u0026rsquo;ve just taken away their drugs.\nDistractions and Notifications # Oscar: What\u0026rsquo;s your relationship with notification?\nJames: Yeah, I think I like most people, it can get really tricky to switch your phone off and put it to the side. Cause even what I\u0026rsquo;ve sometimes even the last few days, what I\u0026rsquo;ve resorted to is I would turn my phone off completely. But before I go to sleep and then I\u0026rsquo;ve gone to another room in the house and then I charge it in there and then I\u0026rsquo;ll come and do my work.\nAnd usually I won\u0026rsquo;t turn it on. And. Until lunchtime, just because I find that\u0026rsquo;s what I have to do to keep that phone away from me. Cause I find as soon as it goes on, it has become so hard to, once you first looked at it almost you\u0026rsquo;re locked in it now it\u0026rsquo;s hard to look at it once and then have it away for a few.\nSo absolutely great. It the phone and even all notifications, because I find it even when you are, let\u0026rsquo;s say you\u0026rsquo;re in a call for work, you\u0026rsquo;ve got your emails that are there. The teams chat is open. All these things are still want some level, those kinds of slot machine type things where someone sends an email bang, I\u0026rsquo;ve got to read it straight away, otherwise the, I was going to answer, so those things can really impact.\nIf you\u0026rsquo;re innovating with someone, having these things around. So I think, I\nOscar: Feel like here\u0026rsquo;s your challenge. Just go to settings on your computer. And switch those notifications off as well. You\u0026rsquo;ll find them. I\u0026rsquo;m curious. Do you find yourself a little bit more productive now that you\u0026rsquo;re not addicted to that phone and that reactiveness that comes about through, just responding quickly to what\u0026rsquo;s on the phone?\nWhat\u0026rsquo;s your experience been last week? Yeah,\nJames: I definitely think that I\u0026rsquo;m like in the mornings. Definitely. I\u0026rsquo;m much more. I can, I find it\u0026rsquo;s easier to work, find out how to better concentration, because what I found before I started doing this was, I have the phone next to my bed and then, you wake up your phone\u0026rsquo;s right there.\nOkay. I\u0026rsquo;ll spend 20 minutes looking through Instagram, then I\u0026rsquo;ll go on YouTube, watch the videos, or go on Facebook or, any number of social media. And then starting off my day I just found that I was almost just flat for the rest of the day. And then when I would be asked to do something that, maybe required some effort or like something that I didn\u0026rsquo;t want to do, I would just find it so hard to go and do it, that thing, even if it was something like, Someone wants me to go take the bins out or do so normal household job.\nI would just feel I would struggle to have the motivation to do those things and I\u0026rsquo;d be like, oh, I don\u0026rsquo;t really want to take the dental. Like I just want to look at the phone. And, I found that in the mornings of, I started my day off like that it would carry through the entire day.\nWhereas if I can delay that a little bit, then it helps to choose saying that. And it means more able to interact with the world. Enjoy those regular activities, more so than, having that constant constant domain, like you mentioned, just from all those apps constantly attacking your brain, always\nOscar: Use the technology.\nDon\u0026rsquo;t let the technology use you.\nJames: No, I think that\u0026rsquo;s great. \u0026lsquo;cause. Yeah. It\u0026rsquo;s so easy for that stuff to take control. Cause yeah even like you were saying, the poker machines and stuff, and I\u0026rsquo;m sure there\u0026rsquo;s that Netflix Netflix show, I forgotten the name of it now, but yeah, that one, like when I watched that, I was just amazed because even the guys that, run these companies don\u0026rsquo;t let their children use the apps because they know that like the impact that it can have, like not only.\nWe did Doug and things like that, but it also your opinions and how like you can, cause that was really a big theme through that show, as well as how you can end up in echo and changes and, it can really impact. Yeah, your whole life to a large degree. Yeah, so I think, in particularly with listening, it\u0026rsquo;s so important to, be conscious and that\u0026rsquo;s something that was speaking about before the episode today.\nLike being able to be conscious when you\u0026rsquo;re listening to someone and conscious as you go through your day. I think not having those patients around is so important. Is that something. Is that something you\u0026rsquo;re big on, being conscious when people are listening.\nThe 5 Levels of Listening # James: And what about like some, we spoke about level one of of the five levels of listening being on yourself.\nWhat about the other levels? Can you talk us through those?\nOscar: Sure. So let\u0026rsquo;s just talk about all of them together and then we\u0026rsquo;ll split them apart. So level one is listening to yourself. Level two is listening to the content. That\u0026rsquo;s what people say, what and what you sent. What\u0026rsquo;s the emotion coming through in their words, a level three is listening for the context.\nThis is about the backstory. This is about patterns. And this is about the difference between listening to symptoms versus listening to systems. Something you\u0026rsquo;re doing right now in your work right now is how do you listen systemically across data as an example, but when you don\u0026rsquo;t listen to systems, you have Royal commission.\nWhether that\u0026rsquo;s in the industries in aged care, whether that\u0026rsquo;s in the treatment of children or in banking and financial services, level four is listening for Watson said, when you understand the neuroscience of all listening, I speak at 125 words per minute, but I can think at 900, that means the first thing that somebody says.\nThey\u0026rsquo;ve said 5% of what they mean. So if you can listen to the next 125 words in the next 125 boards, you can listen to what they haven\u0026rsquo;t said. And then finally, level five is listening for what the person means, not just what they say. So for a lot of people, what they\u0026rsquo;re trying to express. They\u0026rsquo;re struggling to get it out the first time because of that 1 25, 900 rule.\nAnd so each of those levels of progressive, if you don\u0026rsquo;t have the foundation of listening to you, It\u0026rsquo;s very difficult to access the higher levels of listening based on our research, we know only half of 1% of the working population can listen at level five. So for many of us just doing the basics really well, switching off our phone.\nOh switching the notifications off drinking a glass of water before every conversation and drinking a glass of water every half an hour. And at that, that will send a signal to the body, says everything. Okay. Thinking about breathing properly at level one is really important. Once you\u0026rsquo;ve.\nMastered your own breathing. Just take a few deep breaths before you enter a conversation. And then if you get distracted during a conversation, here\u0026rsquo;s two really basic tips. If you get distracted brief set your distraction by going what\u0026rsquo;s the color of the person\u0026rsquo;s eyes. I\u0026rsquo;m speaking. What\u0026rsquo;s the color of the person\u0026rsquo;s size.\nSo with me, it\u0026rsquo;s actually quite difficult because one color of my eye is different from the other color Jane. So if you\u0026rsquo;re playing that game right now, you might notice a little difference there. The second tip is when you get distracted and you have noticed the person\u0026rsquo;s eye color, but you\u0026rsquo;re still distracted.\nAnd the next part of the conversation, just take a really quick, deeper. In through your nose and out through your mouth, it doesn\u0026rsquo;t have to be like an Olympic weightlifter. The person won\u0026rsquo;t even notice you\u0026rsquo;re doing it. And then once you\u0026rsquo;ve mastered that noticed the speakers breathing as well. So they\u0026rsquo;re taking short breaths, so they\u0026rsquo;re taking long breaths and you not even noticing their breathing as well.\nSo that\u0026rsquo;s the level one there, all the kind of practical tips when it comes to listening, then we can go through each of the levels. Which one would you be most curious about learning tracks? I think\nJames: One thing, one thing that\u0026rsquo;s interesting is going talk to me about what\u0026rsquo;s unsaid. And I think that is so interesting because it\u0026rsquo;s so easy to hear someone speak and then, just listen to what they\u0026rsquo;ve said and then continued conversation or, get some information from what they have said.\nListening to what is unsaid # James: But I think that is really important to listen to what they didn\u0026rsquo;t say. Perhaps there was important information that, was left out, maybe that was on purpose. So listening to those things is so important. So yeah. What are some things that, some experiences maybe that you\u0026rsquo;ve had where listening for what\u0026rsquo;s on set has been something that\u0026rsquo;s, can you really use.\nOscar: Yeah. Actually, the story comes from a workshop I did in Melbourne in 2015, there was 12 liters in a room and it was. 20 minutes to one or thereabouts. And the reason I knew it was close to lunchtime because the CEO was tapping their finger on the table to get my attention and pointing to their watch and going, we are going to finish them.\nWe were doing this really simple exercises. What animal is this organization and everybody 11 out of 12, people had spoken and said, it was an Eagle, it was an Osprey, it was a C goal. It was a Seahawk. It was all this fast, moving fluid, but there was one person who hadn\u0026rsquo;t spoken Eileen and Eileen was right at the end of the table and probably a card carrying member of the introvert club.\nAnd I lane hadn\u0026rsquo;t spoken. And so I just turned and gestured to her. I didn\u0026rsquo;t say anything, but I sense that Eileen didn\u0026rsquo;t get to speak much in this group. And as I turned to her, I could feel the laser beam of the CEO\u0026rsquo;s eyes. If it was a cartoon movie, it\u0026rsquo;d be exploding my head let\u0026rsquo;s he wanted to eat.\nThat\u0026rsquo;s all he was interested in. And I just stopped. I paused, I turned slightly towards her and I didn\u0026rsquo;t say anything. And she said, I thought we were a snack.\nAnd you could feel the tension rising in the room now giants. When I say snake, what goes through your mind? What\u0026rsquo;s the characteristics of snakes.\nJames: Yeah. My mind goes to venomous by quite sneaky things like that. It\u0026rsquo;s not really a Pathi fun at all. It\u0026rsquo;s,\nOscar: So I just paused and waited for Eileen to finish.\nWhat you don\u0026rsquo;t know about Eileen is that her historical family culture comes primarily from China and in China, the relationship with a snake is very. It\u0026rsquo;s actually a revered creature. But what she said was I think where a snake, because we\u0026rsquo;ve forgotten to shed our skin and we\u0026rsquo;re holding onto practices and we\u0026rsquo;re not listening to customers and we\u0026rsquo;re not evolving in the way we had in the past.\nAnd the tension in the room changed completely. And there was this very big conversation about shedding skin around bad processes in the business shedding processes that weren\u0026rsquo;t helpful for customers. Now that only came about because someone in the room took the time to listen to what wasn\u0026rsquo;t said, which was, I lame talking about a snake.\nNow the snake is about adaption and it\u0026rsquo;s about change. But in the west, we have this mindset that snakes are bad. In fact, in Christian story traditions, snake as part of the origin story. Christian religions, the temptation in the garden of Eden by a snake to eat the apple and forever humans have to work for the rest of their lives.\nSo they don\u0026rsquo;t have great relationships with snakes, but for all of you listening right now, it\u0026rsquo;s a really good example of listening filters or biases that you have. So if you\u0026rsquo;re wanting to learn more about what gets in the way of your listening, you can go to listening quiz.com. You can take a 20 question quiz.\nGet a five page report. That\u0026rsquo;ll tell you what gets in your way. Now the conversation James did not finish till 20 past one. The food was in the room, but nobody was. And in too many workplaces, the opinions that are ignored are the people who don\u0026rsquo;t naturally want to speak up because the host or the meeting organizer doesn\u0026rsquo;t create enough space.\nNow, if you\u0026rsquo;re in a one-on-one conversation is three really simple tips you can use to listen to what\u0026rsquo;s unsaid. You can listen for what they trying to say. What they\u0026rsquo;re really thinking. The first phrase is. Tell me more\nthen next prize is. And what else? So please don\u0026rsquo;t use these immediately after each other, in a conversation. Otherwise the person will probably get a little bit annoyed with you. So the first phrase, tell me more the second fries and what else? And some of my clients just abbreviate that to say. And the third phrase, quite possibly the most powerful when you use these phrases will happen for the speaker.\nThey\u0026rsquo;ll take a breath in and they\u0026rsquo;ll use and their spine will straighten up. And they\u0026rsquo;ll say words like, actually, now that I think about. I haven\u0026rsquo;t told you about this issue. I haven\u0026rsquo;t told you about this person. I haven\u0026rsquo;t told you about this department. I haven\u0026rsquo;t told you about this financial model or whatever the case may be.\nSo question number one, tell me more question number two. And what else? And question number three, quite possibly the most powerful question you can pose use this carefully, use it skillfully, use it with empty. Don\u0026rsquo;t use it to intimidate the other person. Here\u0026rsquo;s price number three.\nNo, don\u0026rsquo;t worry. My video. Didn\u0026rsquo;t freeze silent and listen. Have exactly the same letters. And in the west, again, we have this. Awkward relationship with silence. We call it the deafening silence. We call it the awkward silence. We call it the pregnant pause. And a lot of us want to fill the space when it comes to silence, but in our indigenous communities with our Maori cousins and our Polynesian neighbors silence is a sign of wisdom, respect and authority.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s a sign of. Elders and building tribes that matter end in high context cultures like China, Japan, and South Korea. And the poles is a sinus seniority in the room is. So tell me more and what else, and then just pause and you silence for a lot of people starting off early in their career. That\u0026rsquo;s difficult because I feel like they are paid for the speed of their answers.\nAnd I would say to you. Just take a little bit longer. I think about the quality of your response. When somebody asks you a question rather than getting the fastest response in the room, introverts are amazing synthesizers of group conversations. So check-in or regular. With an introvert and ask them what themes are you noticing in the group and what themes are you sensing or absent?\nAnd all of a sudden you\u0026rsquo;ll be able to expand what\u0026rsquo;s unsaid so that you don\u0026rsquo;t have to rework things because people didn\u0026rsquo;t fully understand what everybody asked. Initially.\nI\u0026rsquo;m curious what you\u0026rsquo;re thinking right now, James.\nJames: Yeah, I\u0026rsquo;m just reflecting on what you said there about, the introverts in the room and even that example that you gave where you\u0026rsquo;ve got the one girl that, hasn\u0026rsquo;t really said anything or meeting.\nAnd I think that\u0026rsquo;s, that\u0026rsquo;s something that\u0026rsquo;s really interesting where it\u0026rsquo;s just sometimes the people that don\u0026rsquo;t really say anything are the ones, in their head, it\u0026rsquo;s just their heads spinning. They\u0026rsquo;re really thinking about everything that\u0026rsquo;s going on. Often, although they don\u0026rsquo;t say much or, sometimes in meetings, they don\u0026rsquo;t say their opinions as loudly as maybe other people too often, they do have very good insights and they need to be, even like we were saying, listening to, what\u0026rsquo;s not said, let\u0026rsquo;s be aware of the room and these people that don\u0026rsquo;t save all, maybe they have valid opinions and they really should be shared.\nMaybe they don\u0026rsquo;t have the confidence or or belief in themselves. And so being able to bring out those opinions is something that can be really\nOscar: Beneficial lapse. And I would say, be careful with labels for those of you listening. I think labels are really good on food jars and pharmaceutical products, but they\u0026rsquo;re not good on people.\nI think in a room of actuaries and accountants, I would be considered an extrovert yet in a room full of actors. I would be considered an introvert. So I think labels. Useful until they\u0026rsquo;re not so focus on the behavior rather than saying that person is. And then behavior shows up sometimes with people who are more reflective and that\u0026rsquo;s okay.\nThat I think the skillful. So the person is to encourage those people to participate and to offer opinions earlier in a conversation where people get frustrated with the deep thinkers and the introverts is they listen to the whole of the meeting. And the five minutes before the end, they drop a hanger and aide saying, you do realize you haven\u0026rsquo;t spent any time talking about our customers.\nAnd the whole room got something. Why wouldn\u0026rsquo;t they have said that earlier? So for many of us we just need to be conscious of in various situations, our behavior listening is situational. It\u0026rsquo;s relational. It\u0026rsquo;s contextual. You\u0026rsquo;ll listen differently to appear than your will to your mouth. You\u0026rsquo;ll listen differently at home compared to work.\nYou\u0026rsquo;ll listen differently to somebody you\u0026rsquo;ve known for a long period of time compared to somebody you\u0026rsquo;ve just met. And all of us, when it comes to our listening. One thing to think about is this there\u0026rsquo;s two ways you can do. Give attention, or you can pay attention now neither is right or wrong. But right now, some of you are giving attention to this conversation between James and I.\nAnd some of you are paying attention because you\u0026rsquo;re on a bike in a gym or you\u0026rsquo;re on a treadmill, or you\u0026rsquo;re doing some gardening or you might be committing. And you\u0026rsquo;re paying attention. It\u0026rsquo;s background audio, but some of you are giving attention. Your sitting down, you\u0026rsquo;re listening to this. You may be taking notes or you may be overlaying this with the context that you\u0026rsquo;re working on.\nSo there\u0026rsquo;s different ways. We show up with our listening. Now you can\u0026rsquo;t be a deep listener all the time. We\u0026rsquo;ve all got listening. Batteries, James, no different tour phone. And for some of us by lunchtime, our listening batteries are drained. Some of us, by the time we finished workout, listening, batteries are drained.\nWhenever you\u0026rsquo;re listening, batteries are drained. That really quick way to reset it. Listen to a song or some music for between two and three minutes and that\u0026rsquo;ll help your brain to relax, catch up and help you be able to listen to the next conversation. I\u0026rsquo;m curious, James, where do you think you struggle the most in your life?\nJames: That\u0026rsquo;s a really good question. I think my initial thoughts are, w what we\u0026rsquo;re even talking about before about the distractions and things like that. And perhaps it\u0026rsquo;s an, that distraction it\u0026rsquo;s your phone or your email or something like that. But even, for myself, like smaller than that works.\nNo, the distraction of what\u0026rsquo;s for dinner tonight, wireless when speaking, or things that aren\u0026rsquo;t necessarily caused by something outside being distracting me, but it\u0026rsquo;s rather than just like the focus can sometimes, when you\u0026rsquo;re speaking to someone, sometimes you can start to think.\nHabits of Great Listeners # James: Things like what\u0026rsquo;s nice downside today. What\u0026rsquo;s dinner. That person said that to me yesterday. What did they mean? Things like that, and that could really affect it too.\nOscar: Yeah. So just be aware of the difference between a good listener and a great. Is not that they are not distracted.\nPeople often ask me at the beginning of workshops or webinars, how do I stop being distracted? And I go the good news and the bad news, you will never be destroyed, not be distracted. So we talked earlier on about the 1 25, 900, all the difference between my speaking speed and my thinking speed. The 1 25 400.\nIs the difference between my speaking speed and your listening speed. So you can listen at 400 words. So every conversation you have with a human is too slow. So you will be distracted. The difference between a good listener and a great listener is not that they get distracted it\u0026rsquo;s that they notice they\u0026rsquo;re distracted quicker and come into the conversation as a bridging strategy.\nA lot of the people I\u0026rsquo;ve worked with get a little uncomfortable with using this phrase, but when they have the courage to do it, amazing things open up. If you just say to the speaker, I don\u0026rsquo;t know, James, have you ever been in a situation where you\u0026rsquo;re distracted and they said something important and you go if I just listen a little longer, Bits of the jigsaw puzzle will fall into places that ever happened for you.\nJames: Yes, that\u0026rsquo;s definitely\nOscar: Listening on the podcast. James is nodding his head, furiously the situation. So rather than being out of integrity with the speaker, just pause and go look. I\u0026rsquo;m really sorry. I got distracted. Do you mind saying that. And what the do it create an amazing connection between the two of you?\nBecause you\u0026rsquo;ve signaled to them that what they say matters, but that you are human and you did get distracted. And the reason why they will never have a problem doing anything other than saying that again is because it\u0026rsquo;s happened to them. That\u0026rsquo;s happened to the cup with I\u0026rsquo;ve drifted off. Now you can\u0026rsquo;t do it three minutes in a row and say, sorry, I got distracted.\nGoodness, say that again. Sorry. I got distracted. You know that God\u0026rsquo;s just this person doesn\u0026rsquo;t care about what I\u0026rsquo;m saying. So that\u0026rsquo;s simple phrase to look up and it\u0026rsquo;s surprise. I use surprisingly more often than people imagined, but it relaxes them because they go, oh, okay. He\u0026rsquo;s going to be honest with me in a conversation.\nI can be maybe a little bit more honest with them as well. So that simple phrase, look, I\u0026rsquo;m really sorry. I got distracted or my apologies. I just got distracted by, the red car that drives past or the coffee machine or whatever it is and just say, do you mind repeating that again? I think it\u0026rsquo;s important.\nYeah.\nJames: I think that was really good because yeah, there\u0026rsquo;s been times definitely where, you\u0026rsquo;re sitting in a meeting and then the person running, it\u0026rsquo;s sorry, James, what do you think of this? And then they\u0026rsquo;re like, oh, I can put you in this, that, and I think that\u0026rsquo;s great. Let\u0026rsquo;s be honest and just say, okay, I lost you there.\nCan you please repeat the question? Things like that. I totally agree. It\u0026rsquo;s better to be honest about it rather than, and you build that trust rather than just saying, something that comes, we\u0026rsquo;re trying to make yourself almost look like a bit silly when you\u0026rsquo;re trying to answer a question and you don\u0026rsquo;t even know what the question was.\nYou just say something that\u0026rsquo;s, you\u0026rsquo;ve completely missed what they ask. It\u0026rsquo;s much better yet. Like what you\u0026rsquo;re deciding yet. Genuine. Let\u0026rsquo;s just reset and go from there.\nOscar: Absolutely. Yeah. And it also gives a spike at permission when they\u0026rsquo;re listening to you to do the same, right?\nJames: No, absolutely. One thing I want to ask you about too is, we\u0026rsquo;ve spoken about the five levels of listening and all these different things that are involved when you\u0026rsquo;re sitting down with someone and coaching, let\u0026rsquo;s say you\u0026rsquo;re with them, or maybe they\u0026rsquo;re at like a.\nYeah, lovely to listener. Do you want to try and improve their listening and what are some things that you sit down with them and you really work on to get them up to like working towards that level five listening where we\u0026rsquo;re really listening for the meaning behind what they\u0026rsquo;re saying as well.\nCoaching lessons for improving your listening # James: What are some key lessons that you coach people to improve their listening?\nOscar: Yeah. Keep in mind. Most people, 86% of people are at level one or level. The aspiration for level five is like a kind of social runner who runs park runs wanting to do a marathon. And only half of 1% of the Earth\u0026rsquo;s population has ever run a marathon.\nAnd that, that takes a high level of commitment having run six myself and feeling it, feeling long-term injuries as a result of it. I can understand where, when we\u0026rsquo;re at level two, One of the things I really want people to become conscious of is are they listening to reload their argument or are they listening to help the speaker make sense of what they\u0026rsquo;re thinking?\nSo for many of us, we think we need to understand everything the speaker is saying. And yet one of the things we can be really helpful with at level two is to start to notice some patterns in the way the speaker is explaining a problem. Now, all the research I\u0026rsquo;ve done, James is in the workplace. So the examples I\u0026rsquo;ll give accordingly are in the workplace as well.\nSo a really simple example of this is a client of mine. Was telling me about a situation. And they met up with a peer and they said to the pier, I\u0026rsquo;m really struggling with my boss. Now. They hadn\u0026rsquo;t finished what they were about to say. And the other person said, oh, you think you\u0026rsquo;ve got a bad boss? Let me tell you about the worst boss I ever had.\nAnd they spent the next 20 minutes jumping on this other person about the boss. Now what that person in that moment wanted the listener to do was actually to listen and not to solve. We\u0026rsquo;re not to compare. So level two, one of the first things we want to do is help the speaker make a little bit of sense of the patterns that they\u0026rsquo;re talking about.\nSo when you\u0026rsquo;re listening at level two, I encourage you to notice, do people talk about mainly the past. Did I talk mainly about the present or the future? Do they speak about themselves or do they speak about the team or others? Are they mainly internally orientated or they mainly externally oriented?\nDid I speak in stats or they speak in stories? Do they speak in detail? So they speak in big pictures. Now, the reason we want you at level two, to start to notice how the other person speak. Is that you can start to match the why that I speak. So I imagine I\u0026rsquo;m a very elaborate storyteller. My, I love the whiteboard and drawing on the whiteboard.\nIf you continue to talk to this person only with the sequential rational details, there\u0026rsquo;s gonna be a mismatch in the why you are speaking and listening to it. Yes. So you need to dial into their stories and tell them how, what you\u0026rsquo;re trying to say to them is irrelevant. So for many of us, we don\u0026rsquo;t even know the adjectives people use the pronouns for people use the nouns or the verbs that people use pitcher this.\nIs a fries that somebody would love to tell a story is about to set you up with. So your job is not to cut. The story off mid sentence is to let them finish. Where somebody says to you? It really sounds like we\u0026rsquo;ve got an issue here. These people have a preference around auditory and usually about detail.\nSo when you\u0026rsquo;re listening here at level two, you want to notice how people are expressing themselves, not what they say that\u0026rsquo;s important, but also how. By saying it. And when you do they feel more comfortable because they can go relax into their normal styles. Now, particularly when you\u0026rsquo;re early on in your career, this is something that you go, oh this is difficult enough.\nI\u0026rsquo;m trying to learn my profession. I\u0026rsquo;m trying to learn the organization. And now you\u0026rsquo;re telling me to learn, to listen to the way my manager is speaking. If you do, your likelihood to get promoted is much higher. The likelihood they\u0026rsquo;re going to trust you with more interesting and complex projects is much higher.\nThe likelihood you\u0026rsquo;re going to be working on projects that have more senior visibility is much higher. The difference. I rebuilt the graduate program at Microsoft, by the way. I didn\u0026rsquo;t mention that to you, James. And it got exported to 26, Microsoft subsidiaries around the world in my time there. So I\u0026rsquo;ve got a really big focus on next generation leaders and what separated people who moved from graduate to higher roles in Microsoft.\nWasn\u0026rsquo;t their technical skills. And was that communication effectiveness. So if you do want these, this is a super power you can build and you\u0026rsquo;ll accelerate your career more if you\u0026rsquo;re perceived as a better listener.\nJames: Yeah yeah, I think that\u0026rsquo;s really. Really true, really and, with regards to the communication stuff, I think, it\u0026rsquo;s all in good to work on your speaking and your writing and think that is really important that this listening is something that almost that you\u0026rsquo;ve made people haven\u0026rsquo;t even considered, improving listening as part of that really whole portfolio of communication skills and something that, you can really work on.\nAnd I think those tips he gave me. Whether it\u0026rsquo;s, paying attention to your smoke wisely, you yeah. Paying attention to how they say things, not just what they say. All of these things that are really fundamental to know growing that whole better communication skillset. And I think that\u0026rsquo;s really interesting that, communication is really something that\u0026rsquo;s driving.\nYour role in the organization rather than your actual technical skill is definitely out there. I in my own workplace, once you know your technical role that\u0026rsquo;s that\u0026rsquo;s good, but once you get out to leading the team, even, which is almost like the first, the next step, really, your communication then becomes really important.\nAttributes of Successful Graduates # James: And so I think. That\u0026rsquo;s really interesting to hear. And were there any other, any other things that you picked up from, designing that grad program and just generally saying people go from the grad programs through the organization, were there any like other common threads between people that really pushed on and, progressed really well versus those people that, perhaps don\u0026rsquo;t have these communication skills, ironed out as well.\nYeah. Can you speak to.\nOscar: Yeah. I feel like the grandfather of these graduates, because the lot moved to China, they\u0026rsquo;ve moved to the U S they\u0026rsquo;ve moved to Western Europe that moved to the UK that moved to Singapore that moved to south America. And it\u0026rsquo;s really amazing to see them. And there\u0026rsquo;s a couple of common threads in the people who took on more responsibility.\nI\u0026rsquo;m not saying that\u0026rsquo;s the definition of career success. Just the definition of career success. So number one learn the business, not your department, that they were really good at that would volunteer for projects that were cross organization rather than projects that weren\u0026rsquo;t. Inside their department.\nSo they got to learn the customers much better for some of them that meant that they negotiated with their manager for one hour, a week to listen to the customer calls from a contact center. So if you\u0026rsquo;re in a really large organization that\u0026rsquo;s something that you would need to discuss with your manager, but it will give you a much broader perspective of the.\nThe second thing that distinguished the graduates, the moved on that they understood the economics of the organization they were part of and the outputs they\u0026rsquo;re trying to create. So particularly if you\u0026rsquo;re in government departments, it\u0026rsquo;s very output driven. What\u0026rsquo;s the policy? How does that connect to our citizens and what are the budgets and policies that support that?\nAnd in commercial businesses, it\u0026rsquo;s understanding. The revenues, the costs and how those things come together. So the second thing is they were relatively commercially astute and the third thing was they were courageous. They were happy to reach out to the most senior people in the organization and say what advice would you give?\nAnd a lot of them would book in half an hour coffees anywhere in the world with people, LinkedIn\u0026rsquo;s an amazing tool that these people use to connect with people who weren\u0026rsquo;t necessarily in their own organization, but had the skills. That they aspired to. So number one, network outside your department, understand what really matters to the whole organization.\nNumber two, understand the commercial or the output requirements of the organization. And three, be courageous, reach out to somebody. It\u0026rsquo;s rare that they\u0026rsquo;ll say. But what they might say is I\u0026rsquo;m not the best person to support you on that. Can I make an introduction to somebody else who can, and James, you\u0026rsquo;re a perfect example of that based on a referral, you gone from common friend and here we are having a conversation about listening.\nJames: Yeah. Having that task. That\u0026rsquo;s really interesting. And the referrals really great. And I think networking the outside of your organization. Something that, like at least myself, I know that now working within the organization is quite easy. Cause I can just go and look someone up and send them a message, quite quickly.\nBut it\u0026rsquo;s, outside of the organization, that organization lives in the same field or organizations that you\u0026rsquo;d like to work someday or something like that. It\u0026rsquo;s definitely possible to do things like that. And I think, this is an example of, reaching out to people that you don\u0026rsquo;t know directly, but you can you can network around very easily.\nAnd I feel like, especially if you\u0026rsquo;re a graduate, someone that\u0026rsquo;s a bit younger, people are often really supportive in helping you. Like giving you advice and trying to help you get to the places you want to go. I\u0026rsquo;ve found genuinely yeah. Once received, like not many people are gonna say I\u0026rsquo;m not interested in helping you at all.\nAnd I\u0026rsquo;m not going to let you know who else to speak to. I think that\u0026rsquo;s quite rare. I think most people are quite genuine and they do care about you quite a lot as he trying to.\nOscar\u0026rsquo;s Tips for Graduates # James: Yeah. So I\u0026rsquo;ll ask you, I\u0026rsquo;ve got one last question for you today, and that is, we\u0026rsquo;ve spoken about graduates a little bit now, but if you were graduating again you\u0026rsquo;ve had such a fantastic career.\nYou\u0026rsquo;ve worked in so many organizations. If you were going to graduate again, let\u0026rsquo;s say this year, you\u0026rsquo;re going to start your career next year. What is one, one piece of advice that you would give your.\nOscar: I would give myself two pieces of advice. Number one, I would give back to my first year lecturers at university and go back to them and say, can I do a guest lecture based on my workplace experience and how I\u0026rsquo;ve applied, what I\u0026rsquo;ve learned from you as a thank you to my lecturers.\nAnd the second thing I would do is I would take more time to listen to. Executive assistants and administrators in the organization, they are the glue that holds the organization together. They make everything run smoothly, and if you\u0026rsquo;re in their dad books, they can slow everything down for you as well.\nSo whether it\u0026rsquo;s a receptionist, whether it\u0026rsquo;s an executive assistant or any kind of administrator, these people are the glue that holds the organization together. I\u0026rsquo;d invest more time in getting to know.\nOutro # James: Yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s great advice. And this conversation has been absolutely fantastic. There\u0026rsquo;s so much value that\u0026rsquo;s there.\nYou\u0026rsquo;ve got it inside. Your head are together. Thanks so much for proceedings out of me today. It\u0026rsquo;s been really special and thanks so much for your time. If people are looking to connect with you at different places, where is the best place for them?\nOscar: Just visit listeningquiz.com.\nThat\u0026rsquo;s got all the information you need, whether you want to take the quiz and find out what your listening barriers are, or you want to connect with me via LinkedIn. All the details are there at listeningquiz.com.\nJames: Wonderful. Thanks so much for your time today, Oscar.\nOscar: Thanks for listening.\n← Back to episode 5\n","date":"22 November 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/graduate-theory/5-on-listening-with-author-and-speaker-oscar-trimboli/transcript/","section":"Graduate Theory Transcripts","summary":"← Back to episode 5\nThis transcript has been lightly edited for readability. It may still contain transcription errors.\nIntro # James: Good morning and welcome to Graduate Theory. Today’s guest is a podcast host author and keynote speaker with over 30 years of experience in operations, marketing, and sales. He now works with organizations across the world, teaching them how to be better listeners bringing us impact beyond words.\n","title":"Transcript: On Listening with Author and Speaker, Oscar Trimboli","type":"graduate-theory-transcripts"},{"content":" Watch the conversation Graduate Theory Open YouTube ↗ Read the full transcript → Scott McKeon is the co-founder of Espresso Displays. In this episode, he reflects on the university experiences that helped him move from civil engineering into the startup world.\nExchange, extracurricular projects and nonprofit work in Nepal gave Scott room to explore interests beyond his degree. His story is a practical example of initiative compounding: one experience built the confidence and relationships needed to pursue the next, eventually helping him commit to Espresso.\nEpisode takeaways # University can be more valuable when it becomes a place to test interests, not only complete subjects. Exchange can create the distance needed to reset routines and see new possibilities. Asking whether an opportunity can be adapted to your interests can be more powerful than waiting for a perfect option. Small, self-directed projects can build the confidence needed to take a much larger professional risk. Follow Scott # Espresso Displays Scott McKeon on LinkedIn Follow Graduate Theory # https://www.graduatetheory.com/youtube\nhttps://www.graduatetheory.com/linkedin\nhttps://www.graduatetheory.com/instagram\n","date":"15 November 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/graduate-theory/4-on-university-and-initiative-with-co-founder-of-espresso-displays-scott-mckeon/","section":"Graduate Theory","summary":" Watch the conversation Graduate Theory Open YouTube ↗ Read the full transcript → Scott McKeon is the co-founder of Espresso Displays. In this episode, he reflects on the university experiences that helped him move from civil engineering into the startup world.\n","title":"On University and Initiative with Co-Founder of Espresso Displays, Scott McKeon","type":"graduate-theory"},{"content":"← Back to episode 4\nThis transcript has been lightly edited for readability. It may still contain transcription errors.\nJames: Would you please welcome to the show tonight,\nScott the camp.\nScott: Thanks for having me on Graduate Theory.\nIntro # James: Perfect.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s fantastic to have you on mate. You certainly had such a diverse and unique experience at universities. I think hearing from you is going to be incredible for some of the guys listening.\nHow Scott decided what to study # James: One thing I really want to dive into is just your university experience generally. Cause yeah, we\u0026rsquo;ve spoken before the podcast. It\u0026rsquo;s super interesting. So one thing that maybe I\u0026rsquo;ll ask you first is what did you study at university and what was your decision making process to get to that? And How, like, how did you decide what you.\nScott: So the course I studied is called a bachelor of civil engineering and a diploma of engineering practice at UTS. And it\u0026rsquo;s one of those things where you can talk in hindsight with so much kind of clarity that at the time it was always making decisions just around pretty much, de-risking a bad decision rather than trying to make the perfect decision.\nAnd the way I went about that was in about year 11, when you\u0026rsquo;re having to make these decisions. I was really, I had no idea where to start. I had no idea what I wanted to do. Or what life after school looked like. And during year 11, my sister was currently doing a gap year over at YMC in, in the UK having a great time.\nAnd to me, finishing school, having a year off and traveling and seeing the world and doing just exploring just sounded amazing. However, I saw some of those programs and they seemed like just nothing seemed really exciting enough to, put off, say a year of uni or whatever kind of tertiary path I wanted to take.\nAnd felt a bit more like a year in limbo. And that wasn\u0026rsquo;t something that I was really interested in and I was very interested. I didn\u0026rsquo;t know what I wanted to do. And I wanted to do something that would help point me in that direction. And that direction was more kind of start something and figure that out.\nAnd if I had to change later down the line, then I would do that less, delay that decision. Which kind of how it at least felt to me I\u0026rsquo;m sure like, my, my sister is now taking a career path based on that gap year. So contradicts at least my thoughts, but that\u0026rsquo;s what I thought at the time.\nSo for me, it was really choosing something and it was something around a new, I was like maths and analytically minded or at least that\u0026rsquo;s what I thought I was.\nAnd someone said to me at one of these careers fairs, engineering\u0026rsquo;s about problem solving. And there was something around that really just struck me.\nAnd I knew I liked the built environment. So I was also considering like a bit of project management and construction management, those types of roles and degrees. And it was really the I was choosing around that and I went to a careers advisor to follow on with that. And she said engineering at UTS usually a four year course at UTS it\u0026rsquo;s five years, because in your second year, they actually get you to leave university for six months and work full time in that industry.\nAnd to me, I\u0026rsquo;m just thinking of One that\u0026rsquo;s pretty much that second year gap you that I was thinking about too. How about, I just start that internship really early and I ended up starting it a week after first year exams and I was like, then I can travel to Europe for the European summer and I\u0026rsquo;ll be, I would\u0026rsquo;ve had six months worth of full-time work in money.\nSo I could spend that. And pretty much for me, that was the entire game plan for getting into tertiary education. And the thought around that was, I\u0026rsquo;m going to have one year of university understanding how university works. Like just how, how a semester works, how the subjects work, make friends go through all those, all that first year, just figuring things out.\nAnd then after that I would have six months of professional work experience. Like I would actually see the job of what a engineer does and then I\u0026rsquo;d actually get to travel, which is what I wanted to do anyway. So to me that sounded like such a good way to not really dive too much into a particular.\nBut also give something a real solid go that, I was very open-minded if I wanted to change into say a commerce or economics degrees, I know those are where I was thinking a backup might be. But I, so I knew, okay this might not be right for me, but but I had a very kind of good action plan to get started.\nAnd that was the plan from about pretty much as soon as I got accepted into that course and pretty much followed it, my, I was going to networking events and first couple of weeks of university and pretty much trying to figure out how to get a professional internship which obviously one of those challenges now, what that really was useful for was that pretty much as an 18 year old, I was able to one get professional mentor ship from pretty much just my boss, my colleagues, people in the professional environment from such an early age and that kind of compounds over time.\nThe second thing was. I was a kind of really complimented any theoretical studies I was doing because I was there like, doing the practice in the industry as my casual job. And then I\u0026rsquo;d also be studying that too. So it kind of made the whole, that was pretty much the starting point to my tertiary education.\nAnd then I think everything else just built off that platform.\nJames: No, that\u0026rsquo;s really, cool when I think so many people, even myself,\nlike getting to the end of the university, Same people like that and fantastic opportunity at UTS to be able to do that, but to get that experience so early on, it was always something that I had, had certain friends that were doing that and I was like, so jealous because I was like, I really wish that I could have got something like that early on, just even, to get a taste of the actual job you\u0026rsquo;re going to be doing before, like you finished university and then go and do it is so important. So you can work out. Is this something I enjoy? is there something I don\u0026rsquo;t enjoy things like that. Was that your experience too? How did you find that and how did that even support your university studies as you continued on\nHow did working while studying improve his experience at university # Scott: Yeah.\nAnd that\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s so true as well because when you start to feel like you\u0026rsquo;re in a role and the variables are, you have this industry, and then you have any given role at any given company is just a slice of a particular industry or a particular field. And then you have the team that you\u0026rsquo;re in and, are you in a great team?\nDo you have a great manager? Do you not have a great manager? All those things when you\u0026rsquo;re really just getting started make a big difference. And for me, it was, I was always assessing that. And I think the first team I had was really good, both like both. I was in two main teams during my undergrad years on two projects.\nBoth those teams are really supportive. Like I would ask for some experience on say the environmental engineering team, and I\u0026rsquo;d get, half a morning or a couple hours, one or two days a week or something like that to, to have that breadth. So I, I was really lucky in that sense that I had that support, but it\u0026rsquo;s also one of the best positions you have is as a student, because everyone just wants to help you expose you to those different opportunities to support you in that way, because there\u0026rsquo;s.\nObligation like a full-time job, a full-time job you\u0026rsquo;re hired to do full-time resourcing as a uni student. You\u0026rsquo;re pretty much like a casual staff to help out in a couple of ways like here and there and whatever. I think I was lucky but I also utilize that to get a couple of diverse experiences, but coming back to university, when it gets to like third year, fourth year, fifth year, you and all of your uni friends have all had internships, probably at some different places.\nSome of you had worked together or insane companies on different projects and whatnot. So like just your not even on the individual basis, but on your cohort basis, everyone\u0026rsquo;s talking about what\u0026rsquo;s going on. You\u0026rsquo;re speaking to friends who had great internships and you\u0026rsquo;re thinking, oh wow, that industry is probably pretty good.\nI never would\u0026rsquo;ve known about that. You might\u0026rsquo;ve had people that had, pretty much terrible internships and you\u0026rsquo;re like, wow, okay. Stay away from that. That\u0026rsquo;s not what I like. That\u0026rsquo;s not right for me. Or you might just hear about other people liking stuff. You just not for me. So it\u0026rsquo;s like that, that learning vicariously through your cohort, I think was also that to me, that just it just upped the level of the types of conversations you would have.\nYou could talk professionally about what\u0026rsquo;s going on in the industry. People did have opinions about particular projects about particular things. And that kind of I wouldn\u0026rsquo;t necessarily call it like a professional environment because you\u0026rsquo;re still uni mates. You\u0026rsquo;re still getting coffees. You still getting beers after class and whatever else, like it\u0026rsquo;s still very casual, but it\u0026rsquo;s casual, but you\u0026rsquo;d learning about this stuff together.\nAnd I think that, that just made all of us way more informed about what type of pathways we wanted to take, but also what opportunities, I think one of the first ones in first year when my sister was in third year uni, cause she\u0026rsquo;s two years older she was doing, she studied a bachelor of architecture, so same at UTS but there was one of these overseas trips that you could go on and UTS would give you a scholarship. She told me about it. I applied the day\nBefore applications closed and I got awarded that as well. So she had it and I had it, we both went to Banda RJ in Indonesia, which is that Northwestern point where the boxing day tsunami, was like the focal point for where, for all the tsunami kind of hitting Indonesia.\nAnd it was a one week social project and I was like, wow, like what university people can send you overseas to do some social impact project and, it\u0026rsquo;s paid for, and, but you get to learn so much during the time and you get to learn, you get to meet, 10 other people from UTS, from all over campus to do this stuff.\nWow. How cool is that? And yeah, I ended up doing kind of multiple different projects like that. And of course, I\u0026rsquo;m, from the ground up in the pool with Joe. And but that even back then was very early, but, the, like our friends and cohort were telling each other of these types of opportunities that came up in third, fourth, fifth year.\nBecause that was the type of, that were the things that we\u0026rsquo;ll talking about. I think if you have that peer group who are, all identifying what\u0026rsquo;s going on and where the opportunities are, particularly if you\u0026rsquo;re friends and what each other likes I think that\u0026rsquo;s always really powerful as well.\nSo it\u0026rsquo;s really, I guess it always comes back down to who your community is and, and where does that information like local information get past.\nJames: Yeah, definitely agree\nThen even in my own experience at university with when it comes to the example, like moving degrees, like you were saying, like economics was your backup option, but things like that, where, you only really hear about what that degree, for example might be like, if you know someone doing it or these kinds of things\njust helps so much.\nwith Just knowing what\u0026rsquo;s out there knowing what opportunities you can pursue, because often that\u0026rsquo;s sometimes like a bit of a blocker. is you don\u0026rsquo;t even know what you could do. Like it\u0026rsquo;s not that you like it. It\u0026rsquo;s not that you don\u0026rsquo;t want to do it. Or, you just have no idea, but it\u0026rsquo;s if I like knew that the opportunities could exist and even your example of going and exchange all your trip to Indonesia, like it\u0026rsquo;s fortunate that you found out about that, so then you could decide that you wanted to go.\nSo I think, like we were saying that who you\u0026rsquo;re friends with in that community that you\u0026rsquo;ve built around through university I can really shape the opportunities that you see in the opportunities that you pursued. And it\u0026rsquo;s so important in creating like yourself as you go through uni and who you end up being as you go into your career.\nExploring extra-curriculars during university # James: I want to ask you then we\u0026rsquo;ll continue to university timeline. So you\u0026rsquo;re going, you\u0026rsquo;ve started this second year program, You gone on exchange. Your third and\nfourth year, how did those shape up? Were you continuing to explore other extracurricular things. And what did that kind of look like\nScott: Yeah. So when I was in Europe, that was really. So I was mid second year. That was where I was really asking myself, do I continue with engineering particularly civil engineering, or do I consider doing something else? And just using your first year subjects as electives or transfer subjects, no harm done.\nAnd ultimately I came down to the decision of, I had a lot of momentum. I had a lot of momentum in the course I had a great group of friends. I had a great team and the internship that, where we\u0026rsquo;re there for when I came back to Sydney and wanted a job again. And to me, like the potential of another path even if I wasn\u0026rsquo;t set on say civil engineering that momentum I thought would be would be too good to give up for a unknown path.\nSo I was pretty much. I didn\u0026rsquo;t really think twice about it. I was like, this is, I\u0026rsquo;ll see where this can go. This is pretty good. So what happened in the end of second year was really, was great because all of my friends, the second half of second year is when it\u0026rsquo;s actually scheduled in your course to take the six months off.\nSo all my friends had taken six months off with their internships. So I had to meet a whole bunch of students that were like off the set timeline the set course timeline and people just follow it to a T I kind of front-loaded internships.\nAnd then after that happened, then I was always optimizing the timeline for how many days I could work and things like that. But it was great because I always had the Cole group of friends, but I was also meeting mature, aged students, people from here and there, people who transferred from other degrees and.\nThat was really good breaking out of that initial kind of starting year one and just follow the same group of people, each part like each semester. Because I also got to learn through them what they did, what they didn\u0026rsquo;t, someone took two years off to do a ski, like ski seasons and go do ski seasons, in Australia and then overseas and everything else like that.\nSo I got to hear about kind of those types of stories and journeys as well as refined. How did you end up landing back in engineering or someone who was studying teaching to teaching degree and then transfer it to this? Someone who studied engineering went to do nursing was nursing for 10, 15 years, and then came back to engineering.\nThose are the types of people that I met. And I think that those types of stories, right at that time, as I\u0026rsquo;m coming back from Europe contemplating, whether I want to continue this path that really grounded. My constant thinking around what am I doing? W what am I liking? What can I do? What can I try to figure out new things? Third year I\u0026rsquo;d probably say it was more seeing really sinking into the university ecosystem. I was got, I got in, I was still had that job at the internship that was still a casual job. I had my core university work and I was involved in uni games.\nThat was a lot of fun.\nAnd I don\u0026rsquo;t think too much else happened. I think I was just re calibrating really third year is probably the toughest year in, in, in the course. So I think I wasn\u0026rsquo;t really doing too much beyond that. But I had planned to do in fourth year, do my due exchange for six months.\nSo it was pretty much like. Ground myself and really follow through with the degree. So I don\u0026rsquo;t really recall too much from third year of note, but it was in fourth year where I did exchange for six months in the states. And then from there I came back and that\u0026rsquo;s where I started getting involved with, from the ground up.\nI started getting involved with UTS. I, I started getting involved in a whole range of other activities. Yeah. And I think that was really the changing point. The other thing I was trying in third year was actually a year of that was when I was trying to get internships at startups.\nI was I was emailing kind of consultancies and things like that to see what I could do pretty much for my second internship. I knew I was going on exchange, but then after I came back, I was doing my second internship. That was pretty much a big time of trying a whole bunch of different things, but nothing really came out of it.\nBut there was certainly a lot of things that were tried. There was a social payments company that I was one of the kind of brand ambassadors full for a couple of weeks. And then they go to bought by Airbnb and that kind of shut down. One of my friends was starting like a cleaning platform startup and, I was trying to get a job help out with that, but had No, idea what to do that didn\u0026rsquo;t really go anywhere.\nSo though, even whilst I was at uni and I was and I did have a casual job in the industry, I was still trying a whole bunch of other things, or at least I was looking for the right opportunity to then say, yes, let\u0026rsquo;s try it. But then obviously all that kind of came to a pause when when I was going on exchange and you pause life for six months and you go overseas and traveled during that time.\nAnd I think in on exchange was really cool because I didn\u0026rsquo;t know engineering subjects. I\u0026rsquo;ve obviously have a lot of a lot of interests beyond just the civil engineering.\nThis was my kind of opportunity to explore it. So did psychology film studies, public speaking and then a marketing subject, and those are they\u0026rsquo;re all introductory subjects, but I think just learning entirely different things that are not a part of any engineering, coursework that was that combined with obviously living in a different place and also not having the internship and same lifestyle.\nAll of that was a really good kind of like breather from back home engineering. But I think that, and I think that is that was really good because when I came back home that actually energized me to feel like, getting back to work, like getting back to the business reaching out to Joey saying, Hey, Joey, I think I can help.\nHow can I help, the famous I said to Joel, just be a fly on the wall. Don\u0026rsquo;t know what I can do, but I want to be involved and, see what happens same thing with UTS. So it\u0026rsquo;s almost that cause I had momentum then when I pulled back, I became more hungry to dive into things.\nAnd I think that\u0026rsquo;s always help very healthy to pull back from what you\u0026rsquo;re doing. Sit back, let it let the hunger build up again so you can go full steam.\nJames: No, I absolutely agree with that. And\nI really want to dive into this experience. that you\u0026rsquo;ve had on exchange more because I know even from my own personal experience, when I went on exchange, or if you weren\u0026rsquo;t a jumper at the moment I went to Sheffield in the UK and it was a similar sort of thing.\nwhere Like I went away and then it was a good, like opportunity to reset and really consider like where I was going at uni and what I was doing with my life, essentially. And when I came back similar to what you\u0026rsquo;ve said, I was like really energized. My grades went way better. I was, joining more clubs in participating in things.\nGoing on exchange # James: I was actively seeking out opportunities much more than I had done before I\u0026rsquo;d been there. And I just think honestly, one of the best things I\u0026rsquo;ve ever done. would you agree with that? And how do you think that really shaped was there a clear kind of before and after moment?\nScott: The main benefit I got was I feel as life goes on, you accumulate more things, you accumulate responsibilities and like things get set, you have this casual job and, you don\u0026rsquo;t have to opt in to that job anymore. You pretty much have to say do I not want to work here anymore?\nI do. I quit. Otherwise you have to continue. I don\u0026rsquo;t have to opt into this university degree anymore. I pretty much have to say am I going to continue with it? Am I going to finish it? Or am I going to quit? And I think that, those types of things you accumulate in your life we refer to it as a bucket that like, everyone\u0026rsquo;s holding a bucket and there\u0026rsquo;s responsibilities that are just being constantly put into that bucket until it\u0026rsquo;s full, and then when there\u0026rsquo;s still more responsibilities It\u0026rsquo;s like, you\u0026rsquo;re walking down a beach and these responsibilities are like shells in the bucket, but now you found like a really nice shell, your buckets full, but there\u0026rsquo;s the nicest one that you\u0026rsquo;ve seen. What do you, do you find something in the bucket and you say, I don\u0026rsquo;t want that anymore.\nYou\u0026rsquo;re going to take out that, this responsibility that you no longer want to be a part of, there\u0026rsquo;s a committee or something else that is taking some of your time that you\u0026rsquo;re not really enjoying or something anymore. You take, you take that out and you put this new thing in exchange.\nAt least for me was tipping that bucket out entirely like life\u0026rsquo;s on hold for six months. I\u0026rsquo;m going overseas. Work uni, like you are doing exchange subjects, but you would know that it\u0026rsquo;s not as academic as what you\u0026rsquo;re used to in a normal semester. You\u0026rsquo;re not working a new group of friends.\nSo all of that to me was very like for. As well as even the space to explore beyond engineering as well. It wasn\u0026rsquo;t just like I had this narrative in my head that I am a civil engineer. This is what I\u0026rsquo;m doing. And that is the narrative I had first year, second year, third year uni, that I\u0026rsquo;m going to give civil engineering who would shut.\nI had this always had in the background. You know what? This may not be the case, have a plan B plan C, but I was pretty much give engineering a solid go. Like this is prove to yourself that this isn\u0026rsquo;t for you by doing a good job of it.\nAnd I think that was very freeing for me actually to have then gone and said, all right, Scott at the end of the day, you\u0026rsquo;re not civil engineer.\nYou\u0026rsquo;re Scott. And Scott can be interested in, in, in a lot of things. And that was my time to really explore it. And I really got into it. I was probably some of those subjects that I didn\u0026rsquo;t exchange, even though they\u0026rsquo;ll pass fail, and didn\u0026rsquo;t really matter I was studying for more than what I needed to, to.\nGet by because I was liking it. I was, found myself speaking to lectures after class. Just about the topic of the day for the no reason. So I think that\u0026rsquo;s really that kind of like intrinsic motivator, but then that\u0026rsquo;s at, towards the end of it. That\u0026rsquo;s where you come back and integrate back into normal life.\nAnd that\u0026rsquo;s the, to me that was before I stopped putting these responsibilities back in the bucket, I have to think about, all right is this, what do I want to commit myself to, and that\u0026rsquo;s where, and w is what I currently have, enough for me to be satisfied.\nAnd, that\u0026rsquo;s why, Joey and doing this from the ground up Nepal project. I loved overseas projects. Yeah.\nI\u0026rsquo;d been traveling to Indonesia and other parts of Asia and. I\u0026rsquo;m studying civil engineering, the built environment, and this is building schools and health centers and an infrastructure after an earthquake, so you can see that\u0026rsquo;s a very natural thing for me to want to be interested in given what I\u0026rsquo;d been doing. And that was just the opportunity to help out. And I think that because I came back if I had, if I didn\u0026rsquo;t have that break and I didn\u0026rsquo;t have that like reset, then there probably I would have always said, I\u0026rsquo;m too busy. I\u0026rsquo;ve got this thing coming up, sorry, Joe, maybe something else. But because it was actually like, I came back from exchange and I told work and not starting work for another bit of time. In the university, like the mid SEM break or the in between semester break.\nSo you had that time and when you had that time, then you can see that those natural things for you to be interested.\nYou have that opportunity to do it. So I think that\u0026rsquo;s that gap was good, but then at the same time from the ground up, grew with responsibilities and UTS grew with responsibilities and the engineering job grew with responsibilities and it all starts to accumulate again.\nJames: Yeah. Yeah, I think that\u0026rsquo;s cool.\nThat was fantastic analogy about like, you had things in the bucket and Alright, good shows in the bucket and things like that. that\u0026rsquo;s like, that\u0026rsquo;s really cool and a great way to think about it. Definitely because yeah. I yourself and feminine for me as well. I think, having an opportunity to like the bucket, and things in that you really want and things,\nYou can really dive\ninto the things that you really are interested in rather than things you\u0026rsquo;ve just picked up along the way almost by accident.\ncertainly like a life-changing thing really and just can take you down a path it\u0026rsquo;s closer to things that you really want to be doing rather than the things you\u0026rsquo;ve always done. So I really liked that. One thing I wanted to speak to you about is this this thing you\u0026rsquo;ve done in Nepal, the non-profit work.\nNon-Profit work in Nepal # James: Could you just describe what was actually involved? You did a little bit there and then what were the main, like learnings from that? What was your, would the real benefits for yourself from that\nScott: Yeah. I played a very small role. I would probably say. 90 99, 90 8% was a guy Nick Abraham, who was living over in the pool for three and a half years. And yeah, so he, it was pretty much, he was going over to Nepal. He\u0026rsquo;s a cop and up a builder and he was going over there to build himself and Joey and him got connected.\nAnd Joey is pretty much just supporting him. And then next thing, Joey was going over to Nepal to help. And so then Joey was involved and I kind of saw it at a distance, but I was like, you know, I\u0026rsquo;m going to work on exchange soon. Same thing I had that like inertia of a call, it\u0026rsquo;s called that.\nJoey\u0026rsquo;s doing that. yeah, Joey and I had been close friends since high school. So very accessible, but I didn\u0026rsquo;t know that it was going on at a distance. And then it was really one of those things where I came back from exchange. yeah. it said I\u0026rsquo;m keen to help out.\nI\u0026rsquo;m not sure what I can do. I\u0026rsquo;ll be a fly on the wall. And then over time I just started helping out more and more. It was about seven or eight months later. Yeah, it was August 2016 and then March, 2017. I was over in Nepal, where I met Nick, for the second time, but for the meantime, since being involved and so Joey went over over to Nepal and, he got quite sick quite quickly.\nSo he was like, you know what I\u0026rsquo;m going to help you from Australia. So you keep doing your good work, I\u0026rsquo;ll help all the backend around running the nonprofit, helping support with fundraising and anything else that you really need. And pretty much I was helping Joey will with what was going on.\nAnd, but I guess. The goal was Nick, was there living in this community about two hours out of Katmandu, the capital of Nepal. And whilst what we\u0026rsquo;ll try and do was initially build a school because that\u0026rsquo;s what we were being told, what people needed. But ultimately over the time whilst they do need the core infrastructure the two main things that we saw that they needed that wasn\u0026rsquo;t being served by other nonprofits, as well as by um, the local governments, the local governments were also kind of building schools.\nWhen we come in, we\u0026rsquo;re also competing with the local governments for building their own infrastructure. So you can see how it gets a bit messy coming in from Australia to try and build, locally government infrastructure.\nBut what the people did need, which Nick could give them was one.\nLike an increase in education around construction methods and quality of construction so that whenever the next earthquake happens,, there wouldn\u0026rsquo;t be as much devastation because the building quality is a lot higher.\nThe second thing is that not only giving them the education, but also giving them the platform through employment, that they can practice that as well, as earn a sustainable income within their local community and not have to do what most people, not most people, but a number of people in in Nepal and in parts of Asia where they kind of go overseas and they send money back back to Nepal.\nAnd I would have known this number. This statistic has lost me now because I haven\u0026rsquo;t been involved for a number of years now. But one of the big contributors to, I think it\u0026rsquo;s like the GDP of Nepal is actually money being sent back. From overseas family members, I guess a significant contributor to the,\nnot sure if it contributes to GDP or whether it like another metric of how money flows into Nepal.\nBut it is statistically significant. And I think through doing that, we transitioned from a nonprofit where we did a lot of incredible work. We built two schools, we built a health center and we built over a hundred toilet blocks in this particular region. But we also started a social enterprise business and a brick factory.\nSo it was a construction contractor and a brick factory that next door runs to this day, as well as he also has a Australian branch of the same business as a builder.\nThat was all really exciting. And what my journey was from that, it was really two things,\nThe two big lessons would probably one, it was a self-directed project that we had Nick kind of boots on the ground, leading it and us supporting, but there was no set goal. This is what we\u0026rsquo;re doing. It was pretty much we\u0026rsquo;re here. We\u0026rsquo;re here to help. Nick\u0026rsquo;s really a part of the community.\nHow can we help them? And we had various advisors and mentors and people around, but ultimately it was our own, it was like our own decision that we had to move things forward with. And I think that\u0026rsquo;s something that is very not that there\u0026rsquo;s very few opportunities.\nI actually think the opposite. I think there\u0026rsquo;s plenty of opportunities like that. To do self directed projects. I think that\u0026rsquo;s certainly what\u0026rsquo;s what we\u0026rsquo;re doing with the constant student. But I think that in the more traditional sense outside of That entrepreneurial world. There are very limited opportunities and what I was doing, working in a very big kind of engineering and construction company, as well as being at university, you\u0026rsquo;re just being told what to do the entire time,\nrather than this whole, what\u0026rsquo;s the goal deciding a goal and then working towards it.\nSo that was that just conceptually, like that gave me so much of the confidence that I needed to go into espresso, leaving university with no prior industry experience.\nI had done the reps of setting a goal and working towards it, even if I didn\u0026rsquo;t know what the exact path was.\nAnd I was doing that with Nick and Joe and a few other people. The other thing that it was doing was it gave you a lot of experience around, around all the nuances and challenges. When you aren\u0026rsquo;t, when you don\u0026rsquo;t know what to do, who do you ask? When you how do you build like a supportive mentor network around you?\nAnd it was also the platform, so it was the platform to get mentorship. It was a platform to get advice.\nIt was the platform to then get these opportunities that came up like UTS.\nSo UTS, then goes, oh you\u0026rsquo;re doing this in the poll thing. Or how can we, how can the university then support that your workplace, how can the workplace support the work that you\u0026rsquo;re doing?\nAnd I think that having projects as a platform in the same way of having a podcast that you can then go and reach out to people to then interview for that podcast,\nLike the, I think the platform mentality of having your own project is something that you can you can learn a lot from it\u0026rsquo;s just really great to have for pretty much anyone.\nJames: Yeah. Yeah. I really loved what you were saying there about thinking independently in that kind of shift that happened when you were working on this project, like going from, working in a team where sort of the manager or whoever says please do this. And then you just a bit of a, like almost a robot sort of thing where you\u0026rsquo;re like, yes, I\u0026rsquo;ll do it.\nAnd then you do it. And then, that flipped between doing stuff like that and then deciding for yourself I want to achieve this Okay. do I do that? And then, and this whole thing is certainly important to be like, particularly for what you\u0026rsquo;re doing, but even just as a general life skill, really is being able to think independently and go after the things that\nyou\u0026rsquo;ve decided that you want.\nComing back into university # James: Super, super important. One thing you mentioned there, as well as your experience with UTS and how that Nepal experience was able to integrate back into university\nexperience,\nDo you mind like diving into that and how that what was the situation that. came up there\nScott: So when I was for me at university, I always I always knew approximately what marks I were going to, I was going to get, I had a couple of techniques and tactics around, if there\u0026rsquo;s an easy assignment aimed to get high distinction go for a hundred percent, do things like that.\nIt was, always ask one of the things, if you had an an assignment that was given out. The day that it\u0026rsquo;s given out, do three, four hours make your template do as much as you can. They\u0026rsquo;re really map out what the actual assignment entails. And then pretty much the classes, each class lecture, tutorial, come with a couple of questions to ask that help you answer the assignment.\nSo it\u0026rsquo;s quick, it\u0026rsquo;s efficient. The lecture likes you. Cause you\u0026rsquo;re asking one, you\u0026rsquo;ve started an assignment way before everyone else. And you\u0026rsquo;re asking questions around it. So you can say just a couple of like cheeky tactics set, like a very good use of time. And I always knew how to do that.\nUniversity subjects were tough and I certainly thought around exams when you don\u0026rsquo;t know, you think you might have tanked an exam. And you\u0026rsquo;re very worried after that, like high variability. Usually say with an assignment, you, you said, the quality that you\u0026rsquo;re going to submit. If you\u0026rsquo;ve seen past papers, approximately how you\u0026rsquo;ve performed in other stuff.\nSo for me, it was always like, pretty reasonable. I don\u0026rsquo;t, I never really had to like, complain about marks or anything like that. And when I came back from exchange around the same time when I started with Nepal, one of my friends was messaging me cause it was around exam time around, oh, I, thought I was going to get this good mark.\nAnd I put so much effort in, but I ended up getting this mark, I\u0026rsquo;m really disappointed. It wasn\u0026rsquo;t fair. Like the, I was always just interested around like the student experience of university and how, I was always, cause I did have like industry experience and I did have, I was still a student like, 20, 20, 21 at that age.\nAnd I can kind of see both sides. I was like. Th there are gaps and barriers where, you know, where the student experience could certainly get delivered better, like where it could be. You can learn more, it can be easier. Everyone can get better outcomes, but also at the same time, the student experience of, oh, the academics should be doing everything, it\u0026rsquo;s not easy, it\u0026rsquo;s unfair type stuff.\nI was oh, I can see how you feel, but also that\u0026rsquo;s not necessarily the answer either. So I was interested in that. So I started emailing a bunch of pretty much just subject coordinators of subjects that I\u0026rsquo;d done saying, oh, I\u0026rsquo;m interested in learning a bit more about the shooting experience.\nAnd eventually I got forwarded to a guy who runs teaching and learning in the faculty of engineering, which is the looking at the course level about student learning outcomes and learning. And I had a coffee with him and I was telling him about about some of these stories and how I approached university group assignments.\nI had a method for that as well. And from that he, he just started inviting me, to, Oh, we have a faculty offsite once a semester. How about you come? There\u0026rsquo;s always a student panel around, the student experience. And I remember going there and I felt a bit like an outsider, not because I was a student, but every other student there was president of this society has done this, involved in X, Y, Z, all these credentials.\nAnd\nthey\u0026rsquo;ll everyone was asking me as if, oh yeah.\nSo what do you do within the university environment? I was like, pretty much nothing. I turn up, I do my classes. I have friends, I have an internship. That was, I\u0026rsquo;d just, I was only stopped with just starting it.\nAt the non-profit that was only just getting started then, or maybe not even at that stage. But I remember that feeling weird that I\u0026rsquo;m around all these people and I\u0026rsquo;m not why am I here being a student voice? Why was I there because I was interested,\nSo it\u0026rsquo;s just the question. Why did why did that staff member want to invite me? Because I was interested, and even to flip that whilst I was feeling weird about not being president of a particular society or a group or all these other things, like if anything, maybe I was there because I was most interested in that specific topic, not because I did have these accolades and with the accolades, you become the person that gets invited to all these particular things.\nYou just turn up.\nAnd I think it\u0026rsquo;s it\u0026rsquo;s funny to con the comparison around that, because. My grades, like what you said, my grades were going quite well, And I ended up doing really well in one subject in particular, that was also related to Nepal. We had to design like a concrete and brick mix, which was actually what we were doing in Nepal at that time.\nSo that was really cool where after class, I could speak to the subject coordinator around that specifically. So this is the whole platform conversation. So doing good marks, the mark to also related to the work I was doing, and the other parts of the subject was actually related to the work I was doing with the engineering internship.\nSo you can see all of this just starts to stack up together. Very serendipitously. And then once that subject was like, once I got my marks back and things like that, I w I pretty much went to the subject coordinator and I said, Hey, can I help you teach this subject next semester?\nBecause work experience did well on the subject, Nepal. How can I do that? And I had no. idea whether I even could, whether he even had spots or anything like that. I just thought to ask Yeah.\nEventually\nlike I, I did get a job pretty much as like a tutor or teacher\u0026rsquo;s assistant, just being in the class, helping students sign really easy.\nBut then once I was comfortable with that, I was saying I can run these tutorials. You don\u0026rsquo;t, you can spend, you can have this two hours or three hours without me. Cause I did the first two classes. I think I did the first class where I just hung in the corner and kind of answered questions for students.\nAnd then the second class I slowly went in and said, oh, Hey, can I can can I actually run that class? And you can just supervise instead. And he\u0026rsquo;s okay, sure. And then did that for two classes and eventually said, you know what? I\u0026rsquo;m fine. Like I\u0026rsquo;m there for you if you need me, but I know the content, I know all of that.\nAnd he\u0026rsquo;s just I\u0026rsquo;ve seen you do this for two classes, so I sure. So then it\u0026rsquo;s they\u0026rsquo;re very much these incremental just let me do this, let me do this. And then and being able to do it. And I, I loved doing that because I loved like what I what I very rarely got as a student was relate-ability to the teaching staff,\nParticularly in engineering.\nAnd what I really liked as being like a student tutor was that relate-ability, that I could on one side say the course curriculum. Here\u0026rsquo;s what it is. You\u0026rsquo;ve got to get through this, but I\u0026rsquo;m not also not going to dress it up and say, you need to know this cause yada yada, like I could speak to the students in a way that is understanding, okay, this is the information you need to get through the course.\nAnd here\u0026rsquo;s how it\u0026rsquo;s related. Based on my work experiences, I was related, based on this non-profit work. And that was really enjoyable. And then once I was involved in that subject, there were other subjects and other opportunities that came up one of which was when UTS was transitioning from semesters to trimester.\nWhich basically shortened and changed the timeline of the both core\nsemesters. As well. as this new summer trimester opened up and there were no subjects to fill it because people were always went on holidays. Academics used to do a lot of their research during that time because the teaching semester is really hard for them to do the real body of their research.\nSo\nthey were looking for subjects and whose who\u0026rsquo;s who\u0026rsquo;s one of the people that naturally when they\u0026rsquo;re trying to see who should I speak to? I will. What about that Scott Guy? Like he might have a subject that you might be able to do and That\u0026rsquo;s what happened. Yeah, and that was really good. Joey was the he was the client representative of, from the ground up and I was the UTS representative and to top it all off, I even got the engineering company. I was doing an internship to sponsor a industry prize for that subject as well. So the real trifecta, but yeah. and it was really good then.\nAnd that\u0026rsquo;s What was speaking about earlier was that\u0026rsquo;s those types of things, as well as when I was talking about leaving university and that graduate sloppily know graduate employees still think that, you don\u0026rsquo;t, they expect you not to know all that much about the industry when you graduate from this three, four five-year course. That\u0026rsquo;s why I ended up creating my engineering capstone degree project of kind of the aligning and redesigning parts of the engineering course to be in alignment with the graduates, with a very clear university ramp and an off ramp to graduate life.\nJames: Yeah, no, I think that\u0026rsquo;s,\nthere\u0026rsquo;s so much to unpack there.\nThat\u0026rsquo;s incredible. Just like all that initiative that you\u0026rsquo;ve shown like through these things, which like you were saying slowly built up all these experiences that you were having that led you to, basically create your own subject at uni. I think that\u0026rsquo;s an incredible story and certainly shows the, the value in, continually like pushing your case forward, because so many people would not do that.\nShowing Initiative # James: They would oh, I know no one would accept me.\nIf I asked this, were not, I would say yes, faster. and they count\nthemselves out straight away before even asking. And I think that is a great example. And really through most, a lot of the things you\u0026rsquo;ve done and said tonight so far, is these things.\nwhere you\u0026rsquo;re pushing it forward and maybe they say yes, maybe not, but regardless let\u0026rsquo;s continue on. And I think as I guess you can see with your own life, like so many doors have opened just by, just being out there and being in it to win it. So a fantastic story. And one thing I really want to dive into there as well is you\u0026rsquo;re talking about this sort of ramp between being like a graduate in the company and then leading university in this kind of mismatch that can occur between the things that the workplace expects you to know to be effective.\nAnd then the things that you get taught at university, can sometimes not match. Was that your experience and how did you find that when you were coming up to graduating, did you have any discussions with people about this\nScott: Yeah.\nthat firstly, I was in a very like non-typical position where by the time I started in my first year, know the end of first year uni a week after first year exams. And that\u0026rsquo;s when I started my professional experience and that carried through to four and a half years until I graduated.\nAnd I think that, like I knew, like I was onboarding and, doing all the introductions for all the graduates who started and then the level up from the graduates. Like I knew that exact pathway and I knew the level and the quality of those particular roles on that, in that job, in that profession, because I worked there like for years.\nSo you gather a degree of proficiency and that many people, it was a big project, like 400 people in the project. So you get to see the breadth of people and their experience and, and the work that they\u0026rsquo;re able to do. And you could determine where you work compared to them type, like in, in what you could do on a day-to-day basis. So I understood that quite well, And that, to me, there was a lot of uncertainty coming towards, cause I was doing all these great projects, but I really didn\u0026rsquo;t know what was next. And the first thing I was doing is I was trying to figure out pretty much someone sell me a job that looks great.\nLike just excite me about something. The company that I was at was not doing that at all.\nUnfortunately. And I was trying, I was asking, I was having meetings with, the site-based HR was having meetings with the company, the corporate HR about\ngot, I got shown a couple of opportunities that they weren\u0026rsquo;t really that interesting.\nAnd I was also one of the things that they were doing was they were trying to create a grad program and I\u0026rsquo;m like, awesome. This is like the to me, honestly, I was like, that was the thing that I wanted to do. I wanted to create them a grad program because. Undergrad for so long. My university thesis was partially redesigning part of the civil engineering course to have that kind of graduate on-ramp, and I knew the company since I was 18 now 23.\nAnd then they\u0026rsquo;re trying to create a grad program anyway and so I obviously had opinions on all of this stuff and for me, that was what I was really aiming for. And what ultimately happened on that path was that you find that, one, it was pretty much, we\u0026rsquo;re going to put this in the HR bucket and from HR.\nAnd I remember sitting down and okay, can I have a conversation with so-and-so from HR? And based on I, for them, it was, I\u0026rsquo;ve got 10 things to do on my to-do list at the moment. That\u0026rsquo;s one of them, that\u0026rsquo;s it. And I, and here I am let me do it. Let me do. And so that was one path.\nThe other path was I was speaking to a bunch of other kinds of graduate employees\ntrying to find a kind of role that I liked. And then to various, standard programs that you enter into,\nAnd then the final thing was this kind of entrepreneurial course I was doing. There was a bit of a, there was a side project that was coming out of that.\nPretty much started off, a second screen for a laptop. And that same thing was gathering a lot of momentum. It was a lot of excitement around it. We\u0026rsquo;ll started making prototypes very quickly. We\u0026rsquo;ll both very keen to see what was next and see what was going to happen.\nAnd I was also being offered more jobs from from UTS to teach more subjects, to be involved in some other casual. Teaching teaching and learning, like some of the curriculum work following my my capstone. And so I there\u0026rsquo;s a few things going on there and ultimately what I said I gave myself to the end of, from, I think like August to like the end of October when my actual graduation ceremony was so I never accepted a full time full-time graduate graduate contract or anything like that because because I didn\u0026rsquo;t want it.\nUm, but eventually it came to like my graduation ceremony. And I was just like sorry, I end on this date. And I said, Hey, look, I\u0026rsquo;m interested in doing this grad program project. I go, I\u0026rsquo;m not interested in anything else. And then ultimately it was like, no, sorry, don\u0026rsquo;t really want to, we, can\u0026rsquo;t get involved in this right now and stuff.\nAnd then eventually it just that, that led me to say one, I\u0026rsquo;ve got all these, I got this UTS work too. Let\u0026rsquo;s see where espresso displays can go as well. And really dive into kind of startup world in startup land, which was really, which was really exciting.\nFrom the outside of wow, the possibilities and, even at the right, at that time, right at the beginning, we\u0026rsquo;re already flying to China to visit manufacturers and learn about, how do you actually develop a product? You had, I had that journey just starting to open up, and at the same time, I\u0026rsquo;m having to fight really hard to try and do something that makes sense for the person like me to implement that project.\nAnd, I just relate it to big corporate, hard to get things done. Everyone has to stick in their lane. It\u0026rsquo;s hard for one of the most important things is getting the people who are the most interested working on the things that they\u0026rsquo;re passionate about.\nAnd I think that it\u0026rsquo;s just so hard to do that within a big corporate organization, unless the culture is really there. And I don\u0026rsquo;t think that was the case. But an opportunity lost opportunity gains.\nJames: Yeah, no, totally. I think that\u0026rsquo;s, yeah, very interesting story. And\nI\ndefinitely a gray line. We\u0026rsquo;d like to big corporates that can, there can be that kind of it\u0026rsquo;s not slow moving, but there\u0026rsquo;s a lot of. You\u0026rsquo;ve got to ask this person to ask this person.\nthat just sometimes can go around a bin for someone like yourself as an example, who\u0026rsquo;s got the initiative and got the drive to just\nGo on and just smash\nthings like straight away. You can certainly see\nhow this, like from\nWhat I\u0026rsquo;m thinking. Yeah. You don\u0026rsquo;t really, it just would not see you at all.\nCause you want to just go there and do the thing and there\u0026rsquo;s all these barriers almost in the way. So\nStart up\nScott: Right.\nJames: Perfect for you Yeah, it definitely\nScott: But I didn\u0026rsquo;t know that at the time as well. I hadn\u0026rsquo;t, all that was the only world I knew. And I didn\u0026rsquo;t know,\nScary startup world, but now yeah, in a couple of years later, it\u0026rsquo;s definitely where I belong a lot more.\nJames: Yeah.\nCool. No, it\u0026rsquo;s a\ngreat story. And one thing I want to ask too is, as\nyou\u0026rsquo;ve gone through this startup, that you\u0026rsquo;ve now been a part of, for a few years. How have you gone\nabout doing that? What are some real challenges that you\u0026rsquo;ve\nfaced that you\u0026rsquo;ve overcome\nalong the way?\nFacing challenges with Espresso # James: How have you dealt with those challenges? There\u0026rsquo;s no doubt in a stock, you facing some like proper chart, like real, like serious challenges that, you wouldn\u0026rsquo;t face if you were just to graduate in a company. So what are some of those that you\u0026rsquo;ve faced so far and have you dealt with them?\nScott: Yeah. One of the first things like. That espressos is at a stage now where it\u0026rsquo;s growing quite fast and I\u0026rsquo;m learning so much every day and learning more like at an increasing rate. And I think around, right at that early stage, that the kind of first six months, first 12 months, like very, you know, efficient with what I was doing very much, like not focusing on the right things very much.\nIt was good that we had pretty much two very clear goals. One make a prototype that we can pre-sell and to pre-sell and launch a Kickstarter campaign. Everything else was pretty much non essential. And so there was a lot of non-essential stuff going on.\nAnd which is it at the earliest stages?\nThis is why, what I wish I had back then was, the constant student that I could have someone I wish I could have, project feedback session. People who are a couple steps ahead to go and say, not just give you the pat on the back, but also tell you what are the skills that you can spend the time now actually developing that will pay itself off in the future and other things that you can work on.\nSo I guess the answer is at the early stage is get very clear on what you want to try and achieve. And then the second part is, create your own kind of learning, learning curriculum. What are the things based on the amount of time that you have, and also based on the resources that you have if you\u0026rsquo;ve got money to spend, you can get pretty good advisory, like pretty early on.\nI, one of the things that I didn\u0026rsquo;t do, which I probably could have done is I probably have, probably could have got like an expert advisor and paid them, a couple hundred dollars a month just for one or two check-ins. And then that is if they didn\u0026rsquo;t want to do it for free, and just because they are supportive of the of what you\u0026rsquo;re doing This there\u0026rsquo;s a lot of different things. A lot of software tools that I wish I got better at, that I would have had I had at the time back then, but I don\u0026rsquo;t have now that I wish I dove into. But you can always look back and as you learn things over time, you can always look back and see how you can do things better.\nI think the, but that\u0026rsquo;s what the importance is like really having that clarity of what are you trying to achieve? And then creating forced milestones which allow you to get, get more done quicker or, go to where you\u0026rsquo;re going faster. And I think that\u0026rsquo;s pretty much the challenge the big difficulty that we opted into was with espresso, we launched, we launched a crowdfunding campaign based off a prototype.\nNot knowing, entirely about the whole manufacturing process. A lot of people actually launched Kickstarters, right? As the manufacturing processes ready to go. And just that final order, we just had a prototype. So we\u0026rsquo;ll very much biting off more than we can chew.\nBut then as that campaign went really well, we sold over a thousand units in that first 40 day campaign that, we had to then figure out how do we actually manufacturer the product.\nAnd then during that process, that\u0026rsquo;s when the initial kind of COVID pandemic started in China first where we were manufacturing\na wheel, my co-founder was in, in Shen Shinjin as all that was happening as the whole country was in lockdown\nand then struggled to get back just before the borders shut.\nYeah there\u0026rsquo;s a lot of challenges, a lot of things like that, but yeah, and this is what kind of coming back to say from the ground up and the professional work experience and everything else,\nthe momentum and the confidence, reveals itself. You just need to keep on pushing and keep on making that next step.\nLike it doesn\u0026rsquo;t matter, which, it doesn\u0026rsquo;t matter what startup you\u0026rsquo;re working on. Doesn\u0026rsquo;t matter what the current milestone or objective you\u0026rsquo;re looking for. You need that kind of perseverance. I think if you listen, read or hear about anything related to this type of work or kind of trying to make something from nothing that perseverance is pretty much the number one.\nJames: No, I think that\u0026rsquo;s\nreally cool.\nLike absolutely great in, in this slide. The Iran, whereas like heaps of stuff happening, being able to persevere and even with the things you\u0026rsquo;ve been doing through university, getting nos and whatever, but persevering anyway, I think is a fantastic way to go about things.\nDefinitely. One thing I wanted to ask about where you are now,\nhow do you think what are some key things\nthat you think the university has prepared you for really well in what you do now? Do you think the university has done a good job of prepping\nyou? Or has it been more\nof these other things you\u0026rsquo;ve done, your working experience Nepal?\nDo you think university prepared you well? # James: Um, other things you\u0026rsquo;ve done, what would you say as a fit to do more and even within let\u0026rsquo;s say university, how well do you think that\u0026rsquo;s prepared\nyou for what you\u0026rsquo;re doing,\nScott: Yeah university is one of, one of the best educational ecosystem products and it isn\u0026rsquo;t education equals. That\u0026rsquo;s the product, the product isn\u0026rsquo;t the curriculum is the excuse. It\u0026rsquo;s, that\u0026rsquo;s the thing you enroll in. It\u0026rsquo;s the actual ecosystem. It\u0026rsquo;s the people, the friends that you\u0026rsquo;re doing, these things with, there\u0026rsquo;s no internship without the degree, in, in my case.\nBut also, the yeah. the prompt for getting the internship was that, the prompt for traveling during that particular time, because it was in between university semesters the prompt for exchange, you have to you have to exchange somewhere, you gotta be part of the university to exchange somewhere,\nright?, because I was involved in those types of things, that\u0026rsquo;s how I got involved in, from the ground up because I was a student, I got involved in university and the teaching and learning and everything else like that, within the university, there was this entrepreneurial course that I was interested in. yeah.\nYeah.\nThat\u0026rsquo;s where the first idea for espresso started. So you\u0026rsquo;ve to really think about what do I get out of it? Was that any given subject, any given class, any given syllabus dot point? No. And I think it was really, the ecosystem is the value. That\u0026rsquo;s why, I guess I, I feel so much for first year, second year, third year uni students over the last year and this year because they, all they have is the curriculum and they don\u0026rsquo;t have any of the ecosystem.\nThe ecosystem is remote. And that\u0026rsquo;s why, same thing. That\u0026rsquo;s why one, the 18 and Lost our recent book is pretty much supposed to be, the eight different stories around what people have done, how they\u0026rsquo;ve navigated through this time, just to give reassurance. I feel like for people at that age and stage.\nThen you don\u0026rsquo;t really know what to do, and there is no perfect answer. There\u0026rsquo;s no perfect path. But if you actually start hearing, in-depth a number of other stories, it makes you feel empowered that you\u0026rsquo;re on your own story and you can make decisions on a daily basis that help put you on the right path.\nAnd the goal of the book is to have people think about their path and their decisions like that. And then I think the other thing is the constant student, which is what are the best parts of the ecosystem and let\u0026rsquo;s remove the worst parts of the product,\nwhich, you would know as a as a participant, as a member that there\u0026rsquo;s no curriculum, absolutely no curriculum.\nAnd it\u0026rsquo;s just the ecosystem and any of the programs that are being run through it. They\u0026rsquo;re not being run because here\u0026rsquo;s your certificate here. Something, here\u0026rsquo;s something that you can show everyone else. It\u0026rsquo;s here are techniques that help you do more of what you want to do.\nAnyway, this is the prompt, the reason that everyone has their goal, their six week programs that you\u0026rsquo;ll get from point a to point B and make a tangible difference during that time. So I think that\u0026rsquo;s what that\u0026rsquo;s what I\u0026rsquo;ll take away is that think of university as an ecosystem, it\u0026rsquo;s a great ecosystem that you can get a lot out of.\nAnd that\u0026rsquo;s why, anyone who\u0026rsquo;s just going to their classes and not really getting involved much beyond that. I think there\u0026rsquo;s a lot more.\nJames: Yeah. No, I think that\u0026rsquo;s, that is a fantastic way to put it\nCause it\u0026rsquo;s so me, I don\u0026rsquo;t know if myself, the amount of benefit that I got from being a university was much, much more magnified.\nOnce I started getting involved with your university clubs and, doing exchanges and going to class and meeting my housemates and, doing stuff with them and all these kinds of things that are associated with uni but aren\u0026rsquo;t necessarily the actual university process itself. I think that\u0026rsquo;s, yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s way to put it.\nin. Certainly, it does describe quite well the value that you can get during the university. I\u0026rsquo;ve got one last\nquestion for you, Scott. And that is if you were going to start\nuniversity again, given all your experiences. Now wave where you are, you\u0026rsquo;re with your startup and your experiences all through university.\nWhat is one, one lesson that you\u0026rsquo;d give yourself if you were starting university again, at the start of next year,\nOne lesson to those starting university # Scott: Join the constant student. Honestly that is what I would say that without it, without an absolute doubt, that is what I would say. That\u0026rsquo;s why, that\u0026rsquo;s why Liam and Joey and I are working on it. That\u0026rsquo;s why that\u0026rsquo;s why it exists. There\u0026rsquo;s so much that you can learn right now. If like university is being delivered online, the internet is imagine the, imagine learning on the internet without the kind of university constraint of having to do subjects and coursework.\nHow about, learning within the 12, 12 weeks or within one or two years? Within one year,\nnot only do you learn one year\u0026rsquo;s worth of information and content, but you can actually then learn and earn and you can earn money for things that you\u0026rsquo;re learning. Really level up in multiple ways. And same thing it\u0026rsquo;s the ecosystem.\nThe ecosystem is something that is it\u0026rsquo;s your platform to build upon. So all of the things that I kind of benefited from are kind of consolidated within the constant student and that will still continue to grow over the years. It\u0026rsquo;s the same thing. Get involved, ask questions. I think if people who are looking for the answers to be given to them, rather than, think of yourself like an adventurer, you\u0026rsquo;ve got to, you\u0026rsquo;ve got to discover it. You\u0026rsquo;ve got to look through and determine things. You\u0026rsquo;ve got to ask you to go try things. People will always like, people are always happy to help.\nThey\u0026rsquo;re always happy to guide you along the path and try things. So if you have that mentality, it doesn\u0026rsquo;t really matter what you do. Just because you\u0026rsquo;re doing things and you will you\u0026rsquo;ll find the right.\nanswer\nJames: Wow. That\u0026rsquo;s amazing advice, like very profound so I really appreciate it. And certainly, yeah. That\u0026rsquo;s very valuable, So thanks so much for your time today.\nIf people are listening and I want to find out what you do and connect\nwith you further, where\u0026rsquo;s the best place from, to go.\nScott: So to find me at a suppressor, the espresso website is a suppressor E S P I S dot. So, You can find me on LinkedIn as well. So Scott McEwen on LinkedIn and yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s pretty much it.\nJames: Cool. Thanks so much for your time, Scott mush. appreciate your wisdom.\nAnd yeah,\nwe\u0026rsquo;ll wrap it\nScott: Awesome. Thanks so much.\n← Back to episode 4\n","date":"15 November 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/graduate-theory/4-on-university-and-initiative-with-co-founder-of-espresso-displays-scott-mckeon/transcript/","section":"Graduate Theory Transcripts","summary":"← Back to episode 4\nThis transcript has been lightly edited for readability. It may still contain transcription errors.\nJames: Would you please welcome to the show tonight,\nScott the camp.\nScott: Thanks for having me on Graduate Theory.\n","title":"Transcript: On University and Initiative with Co-Founder of Espresso Displays, Scott McKeon","type":"graduate-theory-transcripts"},{"content":" Watch the conversation Graduate Theory Open YouTube ↗ Read the full transcript → Wendy Teasdale-Smith is the former CEO of the South Australian Tertiary Admissions Centre. Her career has spanned teaching, school leadership, executive roles, board work and public-speaking coaching.\nThis conversation looks beyond job titles to the work that prepares someone for leadership. Wendy argues that progression usually starts before a promotion appears: by taking initiative, contributing outside a narrow job description and building evidence that you can accept greater responsibility.\nEpisode takeaways # A successful career does not have to mean climbing a management ladder; doing valuable work well is an equally valid ambition. People who want to lead should begin practising leadership before they have the title. Senior roles involve less hands-on delivery and more accountability for people, budgets and outcomes. A portfolio career can combine several kinds of meaningful work instead of relying on one defining role. Wendy\u0026rsquo;s links # What\u0026rsquo;s the Stuff? Wendy Teasdale-Smith on LinkedIn Graduate Theory # https://www.graduatetheory.com/youtube\nhttps://www.graduatetheory.com/linkedin\nhttps://www.graduatetheory.com/instagram\n","date":"6 November 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/graduate-theory/2-on-career-progression-and-leadership-with-former-satac-ceo-wendy-teasdale-smith/","section":"Graduate Theory","summary":" Watch the conversation Graduate Theory Open YouTube ↗ Read the full transcript → Wendy Teasdale-Smith is the former CEO of the South Australian Tertiary Admissions Centre. Her career has spanned teaching, school leadership, executive roles, board work and public-speaking coaching.\n","title":"On Career Progression and Leadership with Former SATAC CEO, Wendy Teasdale-Smith","type":"graduate-theory"},{"content":" Watch the conversation Graduate Theory Open YouTube ↗ Read the full transcript → Darren Fleming is a behavioural scientist and peak-performance strategist who coaches people to communicate, sell and ask better questions.\nThe conversation connects public speaking, imposter syndrome and recurring patterns in our lives. Darren\u0026rsquo;s central idea is that difficult emotions are not problems to suppress or perform for other people; we can experience them, let them pass and respond with more intention.\nEpisode takeaways # Most people experience uncertainty in unfamiliar roles, even when they appear confident from the outside. Public speaking matters because good ideas cannot travel if we are unable to communicate them. Repeated frustrations can be clues to patterns in our own behaviour, not just evidence that everyone else is at fault. Feeling an emotion without suppressing or amplifying it can create space for a calmer response. Darren\u0026rsquo;s links # Darren Fleming\u0026rsquo;s website Darren Fleming on LinkedIn Graduate Theory # https://www.graduatetheory.com/youtube\nhttps://www.graduatetheory.com/linkedin\nhttps://www.graduatetheory.com/instagram\n","date":"6 November 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/graduate-theory/3-on-patterns-and-letting-go-with-behavioural-scientist-darren-fleming/","section":"Graduate Theory","summary":" Watch the conversation Graduate Theory Open YouTube ↗ Read the full transcript → Darren Fleming is a behavioural scientist and peak-performance strategist who coaches people to communicate, sell and ask better questions.\n","title":"On Patterns and Letting Go with Behavioural Scientist, Darren Fleming","type":"graduate-theory"},{"content":"← Back to episode 2\nThis transcript has been lightly edited for readability. It may still contain transcription errors.\nJames: Hi there and welcome. My name is James and welcome to Graduate Theory. My guest today is a former high school principal she\u0026rsquo;s since become the CEO at the South Australian tertiary admissions center. Now, today she is involved with many academic institutions. She\u0026rsquo;s on executive boards across South Australia.\nHer main thing is What\u0026rsquo;s the Stuff? What\u0026rsquo;s the Stuff, Wendy Teasdale Smith. Please welcome yourself to the show. It\u0026rsquo;s great to have you on\nWendy: Thankyou, great to be on. I\u0026rsquo;m really looking forward to it.\nJames: Excellent. One thing I do want to delve in you\u0026rsquo;ve had such a fantastic career you\u0026rsquo;ve gone, through really the whole chain from right at the bottom to right at the top.\nSo I want to ask you first, how did you end up in your current executive coaching, public speaking coaching role? How did that come about\nWendy: Okay. No worries. That\u0026rsquo;s actually something that I did later in my career. So in some senses, I consider myself almost post-career cause I\u0026rsquo;m semi retired. So the actual public speaking coaching is something I\nchose to do after I, technically at least finished full-time work and it was really a hobby or an interest. So I\u0026rsquo;m in a position now where I\u0026rsquo;m not looking, I don\u0026rsquo;t need to own a really big salary and all those sort of things. And I don\u0026rsquo;t want to work quite as hard as I used to or to be under as much pressure as I was when I was executive roles.\nSo that\u0026rsquo;s really how I got to do that. Someone at the time was talking to me about consultancy in general and not to be education. People go into consultancy. And that really means they\u0026rsquo;re not doing much at all. Anyway, this person said to me, Wendy, I think you could be a public speaking coach. And I thought, oh yeah, I reckon I\u0026rsquo;d enjoy that.\nSo it\u0026rsquo;s one of the things I\u0026rsquo;m in what I call a portfolio career now. So I\u0026rsquo;m actually doing several different things. So I do public speaking coaching. I\u0026rsquo;m involved in women on boards and I lecture international students in an MBA course. So lots of different things now, rather than one big gig, like I used to have.\nJames: Sure. One thing I wanted to ask you about too, is public speaking is one of the ways that I\u0026rsquo;ve connected with you and something that you\u0026rsquo;re definitely. Very good at you\u0026rsquo;ve received multiple awards for, different public speaking things that you\u0026rsquo;ve done. Is that something that you\u0026rsquo;ve tried, that you\u0026rsquo;ve improved at really through your whole career?\nIs that something that, really in, maybe recently that you\u0026rsquo;ve really paid close attention to that it\u0026rsquo;s\nWendy: Actually followed me throughout my career, to be honest with you. I remember being able to do things like two bites really well at high school. And that was just. Back confidence, I think.\nAnd being able to ask your point. So I used to get A\u0026rsquo;s in those, but I didn\u0026rsquo;t think about it much until I started more when I started just out of my first permanent job and I\u0026rsquo;ve got put, send to Port Augusta as the teacher, my then principals and new and really up and coming person. And he was all over the media, which was unusual in those days, because it was way before social media, as we know it now.\nBut he spoke really well. I remember that he used to just, and he was really good at speaking to staff and engaging and getting the message across. And I remember from really early in my career thinking that\u0026rsquo;s something to get good at and really practicing and looking at how different people speak and then looking for different ways in which to improve that.\nAnd what made someone come across as credible and what made another person. Not come across as not credible. So really started looking at that sort of thing very early. I was basically my first full-time job as a teacher. So quite early on,\nJames: Yeah. Official and talk to me about your early days. When you started teaching and things like that, is that something that you.\nReally had a passion for when you were going through sort of high school university, things like that, or is that something that you just ended up in and your kind of your passion grew over time as you got more involved?\nWendy: For, I think of part of my story, part of my narrative is actually about the fact that I was born in Elizabeth for the people are not familiar with that.\nSo very working class past. South Australia, Jimmy bands grew up there and that\u0026rsquo;s from the, where the song working class man comes from. But for poor background, fair housing trust house, and not a lot of aspirations or not a lot of leaders around in the community that we knew. My dad was a refrigeration mechanic and my mum went to the cafeteria.\nThat was then Harris Scarfe seminar, where you call great paid jobs. So the idea of leadership wasn\u0026rsquo;t actually part of the game at all. What was a strong emphasis of my father\u0026rsquo;s was university. He\u0026rsquo;d always, obviously himself wanted to get a degree, was never in a financial position to do so he really pushed me and my sister.\nTo go on and do get a university degree and teaching was the thing, because in those days in Port Augusta in particular or working class prices as a woman. You had two options. Career-wise one was nursing and the other one was teaching and the, I didn\u0026rsquo;t like blood.\nSo it was teaching. So really that was how the decision was made. I had wondered after I\u0026rsquo;d gone in, become a qualified teacher and started teaching. And then as you get promoted in teaching, it\u0026rsquo;s one of those things where you get moved outside of the classroom. So the more you get promoted for what you\u0026rsquo;re good at.\nThe more you do less of it. And I look back for many years and wondered whether it really was for me, or is it just something that worked at K or was it something that I had a passion for? And I really wasn\u0026rsquo;t certain until I started lecturing at captain business school, which is with international students.\nAnd then I realized just how much of a passionate was, and hadn\u0026rsquo;t actually went how great it felt to be back in the classroom again. But it could, but it wasn\u0026rsquo;t a tool then to, I really appreciate it. That yeah. Teaching was something that was meant for me. And then I was in the right job. I think it comes into that broader category of being an altruistic kind of person.\nSo I get a really strong sense of satisfaction from when my students. And so I drug them up to satisfaction and making a profit. I get lots of satisfaction about those sort of things. And so that\u0026rsquo;s the type of person that\u0026rsquo;s going to be good at teaching the same as people that in any type of service industry, it\u0026rsquo;s about giving and getting.\nFrom other people. That\u0026rsquo;s the sort of thing that wakes me up in the morning and makes me feel enthusiastic. So it turns out to be the right career. But though a few times I\u0026rsquo;ve thought perhaps not,\nJames: No, I think that\u0026rsquo;s really cool. And certainly great story that you like, you almost locked into something that you really ended up being so passionate about.\nWendy: I don\u0026rsquo;t quite know how that happened or whatever, but throughout career, in some ways it was what we didn\u0026rsquo;t expect me to do more. remember my dad saying look, take typing at school at you 10, just in case you don\u0026rsquo;t become a teacher, then you can become a secretary. So the idea that I would do anything well, it wasn\u0026rsquo;t anything else to do.\nIt was far outside, that kind of view their worldview wasn\u0026rsquo;t there. There were a whole lot of opportunities out there did not occur to them. And so they didn\u0026rsquo;t share that with me at the time.\nJames: Yeah that\u0026rsquo;s it that\u0026rsquo;s really cool. Another thing too. So you\u0026rsquo;re starting work as a teacher and then you\u0026rsquo;re going along this thing where you\u0026rsquo;re like you\u0026rsquo;re getting promoted within the school.\nYou\u0026rsquo;re going up and up. Getting almost like what you were saying, the further you going up, you getting more like outside of the classroom. One thing that really interests me is, people that kind of can continue this progression and then there\u0026rsquo;s other people that kind of struggle at certain points.\nOr maybe they just, some people just aren\u0026rsquo;t interested in going out, which is totally fine, there\u0026rsquo;s certain people like yourself that managed. Continue going up and up. And then, some people maybe they get stuck at a certain level or some, some, maybe they want to go up, but there\u0026rsquo;s kind of something in their way.\nHave you seen examples of that in your situation? Was there anything that you did in particular to get past those.\nWendy: I mean for me, I had to have a career. I didn\u0026rsquo;t really realize that even when I was younger, I didn\u0026rsquo;t realize that.\nAnd I wouldn\u0026rsquo;t have been happy unless I had, but it isn\u0026rsquo;t for everyone. And you don\u0026rsquo;t want or need a world where everyone wants to, climb a career ladder. You want some people who want to do their job really well. And that\u0026rsquo;s actually the really important thing. So when I was a principal, there were times where I approach it and we had some sort of leadership position, maybe an acting job or something like that.\nAnd I\u0026rsquo;d talk to one or two of my really good teachers. and say look have you thought about going for this coordinator role. Have you thought about doing this and they\u0026rsquo;d sort of go and then they\u0026rsquo;d say look Wendy I really love teaching. And I said, great you stay in the classroom and you do that Cause that\u0026rsquo;s where I need people. Like you, people who really love teaching and want to stay there and want to make a difference. I think it\u0026rsquo;s really important that it\u0026rsquo;s not for everyone and that\u0026rsquo;s not a measure of your success or. Oh, what contribution you make to the world? it\u0026rsquo;s not just about whether or not are a career kind of person.\nThere are times I\u0026rsquo;ve wished in a way I was less driven than I am, there\u0026rsquo;s a couple of times when I though it\u0026rsquo;d be nice to have a bit of a break, but it isn\u0026rsquo;t. I actually, it\u0026rsquo;s interesting because yes, I think there are a real qualities that make you a leader and make you the sort of person that\u0026rsquo;s bound to.\nDo well in life in terms of what we call traditional success. Things\nlike get a career and move forward and earn more money. And so on those types of things. Yeah. And I see some of those traits in other people younger people now, and I\u0026rsquo;ll comment and say, look, you\u0026rsquo;ll be fine. I know you\u0026rsquo;re frustrated at the moment, but you will be fine because you\u0026rsquo;ve got the drive.\nYou really do have to be somewhat driven. It took me a while to get used to those ideas. Yeah. I would want to share at the moment it\u0026rsquo;s something about being, being a feminist, being a woman is something that is different in terms of how you look at this. So words like driven and not good women words.\nThey\u0026rsquo;re words that we talked about. They\u0026rsquo;re words that I always say that you never hear the word ambitious and woman in the same sentence, and it\u0026rsquo;s meant as a compliment. So often you\u0026rsquo;ll see the stereotypes on television, about women who are successful and then nearly are always unhappy or not likes them.\nSo that itself is not a lot of really positive things. They, it is an object that view or the way that\u0026rsquo;s portrayed, but it\u0026rsquo;s still there. It\u0026rsquo;s still around, even though that the devil wears Prada is a great example, a hugely successful woman, and yet she\u0026rsquo;s betrayed in a really atrocious way.\nA particular movie and that\u0026rsquo;s actually commonly the way it is. So I think that you don\u0026rsquo;t always get rewarded for those things, but the sort of qualities that do make people successful are certain driven types of qualities and they are the sort of things, like the people that will continually look at ways to make themselves better.\nSo those who will think of different things and who will put extra things in and do extra ahead of time. So I\u0026rsquo;ve had circumstances where people have wanted to be a leader. So same as school scenario. Cause it\u0026rsquo;s easiest for me to talk about somebody suddenly one day they will say to me, teacher oh I want to go for this coordinator\u0026rsquo;s job and they would have done nothing.\nextra except teach. And like I said before, there\u0026rsquo;s nothing wrong with that, but they were not on a one extra committee. They didn\u0026rsquo;t help out on P when we had sports events and they didn\u0026rsquo;t do, they never a minute longer, they drive into the carpark Last minute so that they won\u0026rsquo;t be late for class start and they leave as soon as they can, then all of a sudden they\u0026rsquo;re going oh, I\u0026rsquo;ll want to be a leader and I think really. So the people who are successful are those who have already done a heap extra of those kinds of. things Way ahead of time. They\u0026rsquo;re not the ones that just sit around and wait for things to come so that when you go for a leadership position you\u0026rsquo;ve already done a whole lot of things that you can talk about when they say, how do you inspire people?\nHow do you motivate. You can talk about when, you were running this event or you\u0026rsquo;re running a fake, I\u0026rsquo;m going to use education examples, because in my mind, you run the fate for the school or you won some sort of sports day or something like that. And how you got these people on side.\nIf you haven\u0026rsquo;t done those How are you going to talk about how you do those? And the sort of people that show those qualities who become successful nearly always have that type of personality. But I did one of the I don\u0026rsquo;t you if you\u0026rsquo;re familiar with Myers Briggs, it\u0026rsquo;s one of those personality tests you can do to sort some cities, areas of rag.\nWebsite\u0026rsquo;s not terribly valid, but I do any one of those kinds of tests.\nAnd I remember really doing one of those points and said, look, it doesn\u0026rsquo;t matter what background you\u0026rsquo;ve got. You won\u0026rsquo;t be happy in this to your leaders. So just get on with it. And so that\u0026rsquo;s true for me. And it\u0026rsquo;s interesting because as we know each other from Toastmasters and this year I\u0026rsquo;ve picked up the president\u0026rsquo;s rocks and I\u0026rsquo;ve chosen to never do before and cause I\u0026rsquo;m loving it because it\u0026rsquo;s a lead role.\nSo I was actually attracted to that kind of thing. And the people who become leaders are the ones. That go out of the way. Like I had a client recently and, because she hasn\u0026rsquo;t been minute of time and she\u0026rsquo;s in one of the big, the big four companies in those types of professional services companies and she\u0026rsquo;s working her way up that actually get paid a lot in the early phases.\nShe was meeting me on a weekend to get coaching in public speaking. And, she obviously scraping together a bit of money in order to do that. That\u0026rsquo;s the sort of person that is going to achieve Not the one that waits for their their, their organization to pay for them or to recommend someone she wanted to, she wouldn\u0026rsquo;t sort that out herself got that happening.\nThose people that show that sort of initiative are the ones that become successful and leaders and all those other things.\npeople say it\u0026rsquo;s luck sometimes, but it\u0026rsquo;s not really, it\u0026rsquo;s usually have work and being ready to take chances and put yourself out there and seek things. Like you\u0026rsquo;re doing this broadcast sing, you\u0026rsquo;re probably not making lots of money out of that is my guess.\nSo you\u0026rsquo;re choosing to do extra things and that\u0026rsquo;s a risk. That\u0026rsquo;s what people choose to do.\nJames: Yeah, that was a really amazing answer that it\u0026rsquo;s so many things to dive into. Yeah. I definitely agree with what you\u0026rsquo;re saying about when you\u0026rsquo;re going for a role at, so you almost want to get put on and then become the thing once you\u0026rsquo;ve been given the opportunity, rather than like being ready for the opportunity first and then going into it like afterwards.\nSo it\u0026rsquo;s no, this idea with, one example the way I think about it is like a soccer team or any sort of sports team. Like you get into the team once you good enough to be in the team. Get put into the team when you\u0026rsquo;re not ready. And then they\nWendy: Expect you to, there was, it might make you captain of a team like that and not necessarily the same ones that would get you into the team.\nSo the sort of things that get you onto the team up, technical, the technical skill associated with playing sport. But what will make it get you into the captain\u0026rsquo;s role will be leadership skills and it\u0026rsquo;s time for it. I think it\u0026rsquo;s a piece of advice that I would give that I think is important.\nParticularly the higher you go. The things that you make you good at the first job at, or that will get you a job at a certain level. They are what will get you promoted? Cause if you think about it, the next level skills are different things. So you need opportunities to learn those and take chances and make mistakes in that so that you can talk about that.\nJames: It\u0026rsquo;s like that whole thing about, there\u0026rsquo;s the hard skills can you do an Excel spreadsheet to me program this thing, but then like to chain the whole other stuff, it\u0026rsquo;s like the soft skills. Can you get the team to finish this project on time and make it a good project?\nThat\u0026rsquo;s sort of soft skills, so important. And one thing I, one thing I wanted to ask you about as well, you were talking about like leadership and drive and things like that. Is that something that you\u0026rsquo;ve always had through your career or is that something that you\u0026rsquo;ve potentially leadership as well?\nIs that something that you\u0026rsquo;ve grown your abilities and your interests in that area as your career has gone on? But look,\nWendy: I think I did have it, but I didn\u0026rsquo;t realize. Early on. So I was actually a contract teacher, first of all, and I wanted to get permanency. In order to get permanency, had to do again, a lot more than just be your average teacher.\nSo also my teachers teaching backgrounds, home economics. So it\u0026rsquo;s not the most powerful subject in the school. It\u0026rsquo;s not considered naturally like that. Most people go to a school in Australia or whatever, the home economics here at step out with tech standards is that the back of the school, the front of the school, this is all about power.\nIf you look at the classrooms that are closest to the front office area, that\u0026rsquo;s where maths is taught. So you know how far out you go in the school is the same with any office set up, by the way, physically close to you there. We\u0026rsquo;ll say something about you the further, the way is how powerful you aren\u0026rsquo;t.\nSo I\u0026rsquo;m X way out there and everyone forgets it doesn\u0026rsquo;t mean it\u0026rsquo;s terribly important. So I had to go immediately go out and about, and make myself known to the principal and be seen to be contributing, seem to be doing things. And in a way, if I look back on it, when we were going through they\u0026rsquo;re teaching us about how much teaching. They actually talked about a lot of these things. And when I look back now, I realized that was actually leadership teachings because they would talk to us and we\u0026rsquo;d have to write papers and things like that on. Okay. So you get called in the principal\u0026rsquo;s office and he\u0026rsquo;s going to, say that no student beyond Euro has to do home economics.\nHow are you going to change his mind, how you\u0026rsquo;re going to influence them to think something different. So that was part of what we were taught, but anyway, Circumstance when I first became a permanent teacher. So they\u0026rsquo;re always busy as it, as a casual teacher, our contract teacher proving my worth all the time and all those and being visible.\nAnd I\u0026rsquo;ve thought it was just about there. I thought I was doing that because I had to do that to get a permanent job. When I became permanent, those sent to Port Augusta, that was part of the duty to become permanent. The then principal said to me, so he took me off probation and I remember the day he was sounding off to say extra couldn\u0026rsquo;t have teacher to become permanent because frankly, when should that.\nCan never, almost never be sacked. So it\u0026rsquo;s a big deal to become a permanent teacher in the education department, in any of the departments in Australia. Anyway, he said to me, so when are you going, basically, when you\u0026rsquo;re going to go for promotion that missed the long short of it is what he was asking me because I was up and I said well, Motion and either do you mean, he said you\u0026rsquo;re ambitious.\nOf course. Like of course, and, but I\u0026rsquo;ve never been so offended in my life. I was just oh, I haven\u0026rsquo;t even hit enough. I am not,\nIt\u0026rsquo;s not compliment, ambitious is not a compliment. It\u0026rsquo;s not a good woman word, and he just laughed hard enough to be just so young and naive, and he said actually you are. And when you get your head around that, come back and talk. A flare and stuff.\nI still thought, but obviously going back to people that, that he said to me, Yeah, fucking pick something up. So it wasn\u0026rsquo;t a tooth. I came to terms with the around that and realized that I was a sort of person that once I\u0026rsquo;ve mastered something or I need to do more, I\u0026rsquo;ve got to do more.\nI\u0026rsquo;ve got to get more involved. I\u0026rsquo;m interested. I\u0026rsquo;m motivated. I\u0026rsquo;m gung ho around that top of thing. So I w did have those qualities for really early on. Going for jobs from really early on. And I did think, and I\u0026rsquo;ve thought about things like tic going at some of the education department. So even when I did leave the education department, that was quite shocked, lots of people around the place, because most people don\u0026rsquo;t, they stay in the education department forever and I\u0026rsquo;ve thought I want to go and try something else.\nAnd it was very brave and courageous, to go into a different kind of employment where you are. You\u0026rsquo;re not a permanent person anymore and you can get the sack and all those types of things. It was definitely always there for me but I didn\u0026rsquo;t really think for one, I was going up the ladder.\nSo my sort of career was a traditional ladder career. And by that, was teacher, then I was a coordinator. Then I was an assistant principal and then I was a deputy principal. And then I was a principal say, straight up. Top of idea. When I was in deputy principal, I did originally think now I think I want to be a printer.\nThe day, the principal\u0026rsquo;s role is very highly organizational go to the timetable, things like that. And I was very good at that sort of thing. And I thought, I don\u0026rsquo;t think I want to. And it wasn\u0026rsquo;t, it was quite of circumstance, but my then boss got another job at background at Thomas Dunn thinking, what am I giving that transit was step for trial.\nSo she went off for another job and I got an acting role and actually went once I was in there and got comfortable in the role, then I thought, yeah, this is unload for this job. And it was about the comfortable bit is about how high up you go. So when I met up, when I was going up to deputy role, I\u0026rsquo;m still teaching like about 85% of the time.\nSo I\u0026rsquo;m actually still in the classroom a lot. And I\u0026rsquo;m doing other things like I\u0026rsquo;m doing a time and I\u0026rsquo;ve got your lungs to organize, and I\u0026rsquo;ve got this leadership role in the organization, but the next step up to principles, like going into a CEO role, you do, you actually go out of the doing and you start the thinking.\nYou start this stuff about where\u0026rsquo;s the organization going to be in five years? How am I going to position my score so that it can beat their school up the road so it\u0026rsquo;s hard at first because. When you\u0026rsquo;re doing things like a tank, top timetable or whatever, those tasky jobs that are part of work, whether it\u0026rsquo;s, finishing financial report or whatever it\u0026rsquo;s done, and you\u0026rsquo;ve presented it and you\u0026rsquo;d go tick.\nI\u0026rsquo;ve done that when you\u0026rsquo;d doing vision and driving a school to organization and trying to or an organization and bringing people on board. It\u0026rsquo;s not quite so obvious when you\u0026rsquo;ve achieved something. So that takes a bit of a challenge to think differently. So there are these jumps, so they\u0026rsquo;re not all even jumps.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s the point I\u0026rsquo;m trying to make in a career ladder. So if you think about the organizations you\u0026rsquo;ve, you\u0026rsquo;re reading, when you do the first step up in the role, it\u0026rsquo;s usually like a team lead. So you usually person that you do know the expertise of the people in that they do the job, you\u0026rsquo;ve done it. And your supervisor, people who, when they\u0026rsquo;re doing or not doing their job, because it\u0026rsquo;s a job you\u0026rsquo;ve done, then you go up a couple levels and then you get distracted.\nYou start supervising people who you\u0026rsquo;d not done that. And if they were way you couldn\u0026rsquo;t step in and do it, and that\u0026rsquo;s his biggest step up, and there was a step up to the stage where you really don\u0026rsquo;t understand people\u0026rsquo;s roles and it is tricky. So I\u0026rsquo;ve been in circumstances where for example, when I was at Sci-Tech, I would be supervising people that were serious software developers.\nAnd we would, we were doing bespoke software development at the time. Like I\u0026rsquo;m a home-ec teacher by trade. I don\u0026rsquo;t even know here I am overseeing the software development project. That was huge. And it was spur spoke. We weren\u0026rsquo;t even implementing that one off the shelf. We would, we were making our own.\nThere\u0026rsquo;s depths of leaps there that are much more significant than just a little lit, first of all, the student steps out. So. But sometimes it is where you are until way different world dealers sat in the neighborhood.\nJames: One thing I want to ask about that is, how do you go from, like, how do you go about learning those things when you\u0026rsquo;re going into these roles where, like that\u0026rsquo;s a great example of where you\u0026rsquo;re going to the CEO role.\nYou\u0026rsquo;re running this software project. Where you yea you know don\u0026rsquo;t have the background at all. What are the steps you\u0026rsquo;re taking in those times\nWendy: So I think depending on the lip, cause we know your tone graduates itself as your major market. So they beat them much earlier in their career than people not mother could sell early on. You can actually usually see that we have to have a position description or anything like that.\nSomeone else\u0026rsquo;s job in those levels. So one of the important things to do is just have a look at that job in person specification or whatever you call it, their organization, position, description of that next level, and maybe the next level up and have a look at what it says in there in terms of the sort of jobs you have to do.\nBut also the sort of words that, that they will use to describe those. Cause I will move from very tasky to higher level. So they\u0026rsquo;ll do things like first of all they might talk about supervise, oversee, manage something. The higher you go up what they\u0026rsquo;ll do is that we start using terms like drives Take full accountability for assume responsibility. And that is the step. So they\u0026rsquo;re not just about skews, the higher you are. The more the buck stops with you and those types of things about taking accountability means that you have got responsibility for that. Even though I can say I got a software background.\nIf it falls over how much no, the bottom line is it\u0026rsquo;s my job. And I just had to take responsibility and accountability for that. One of the things I did though, that I think is important. To raise now is that I worked out because this sort of happened during the time I was at Sci-Tech this change. So it wasn\u0026rsquo;t very much an ITC or kind of role, but it became that during my time there, I was there for five years and I picked up that change was happening when, because you were moving this way.\nWe suddenly got this amount of money to manage this project. And I\u0026rsquo;ve never managed anything like that. And there was actually one of my staff members who had just finished his masters in project management, and he was one of the key team members. And I said to him, do you think I need to go and get a qualification in project management?\nAnd I\u0026rsquo;d already at that stage in my masters. And he said, yeah, I think it\u0026rsquo;s time. You actually do so when you sit and he said, actually, when they want to talk to you about a mortgage, you\u0026rsquo;re not the only one that needs it now. So we ended up doing a small group of staff, a graduate diploma in project management, and I organized it through the workplace.\nSo it\u0026rsquo;s important to know when you\u0026rsquo;ve got to up-skill as well. I think that\u0026rsquo;s really important to pick up. So there\u0026rsquo;s a variety of ways to learn that. What\u0026rsquo;s the person do at the next level up. And can you do that or not is really quite important to do if you, in bigger organizations, they usually a lot better at having really well a developed person specifications and things like that.\nAnd for example, when I used to run SATAC, my staff were actually hired by the university of Adelaide. And if someone wanted to get reclassified from a certain position, they said, but my job\u0026rsquo;s bigger than that. Now to another level, there was all of this background information you could look at and say at this level, this is what you\u0026rsquo;ve been doing at a level four.\nThese were your responsibilities at a level five. You will need to do these things, can you do those things? So it was really very clear. And I\u0026rsquo;d usually go through those with staff and say, see the different words here. These are about different levels of responsibility. The other thing that I wanted to highlight, and it even it\u0026rsquo;s once again, something about women and mentorship and the women that will listen to this, but not totally only the women.\nAnd that is not to get women for our core women\u0026rsquo;s ghetto jobs. If you\u0026rsquo;re a career person by that I mean real leadership roles have two really critical things in there. They have staff you\u0026rsquo;re responsible for staff and you\u0026rsquo;re responsible for money. So any job that doesn\u0026rsquo;t have that in there is questionable, whether it\u0026rsquo;s a real leadership role So you can sit and used to have a variety of those. For example, when I was around in education system here in south Australia, I could have gone from my principal level job where I had a hundred staff a really big budget. And I was responsible for the curriculum and outcomes of students, but I was responsible for the facilities for it.\nI was responsible to a board, all these high-level responsibility. And I could have gone off to another job within the education department where I got the same money, or maybe a little bit more, and I\u0026rsquo;d be doing my own typing and I\u0026rsquo;d have no staff and no money. They are what I would call a women\u0026rsquo;s get our jobs.\nSo we wouldn\u0026rsquo;t often get moved into those. No one sits around necessarily. And does it with some evil intent, but you can find yourself easily moved into those. And they\u0026rsquo;re not real leadership roles because the tough, the hard stuff is people and the next hard stuff is the money. And that\u0026rsquo;s really where real leadership rolls out.\nAnd if you haven\u0026rsquo;t got those, I question whether it is a leadership role or not.\nJames: Sure. I think that\u0026rsquo;s a great advice. Yeah. Cause you at some level as well, I feel you have to be a little bit strategic about, what roles you were saying, what roles you go for and what roles you get into.\nSo you can prepare yourself to keep that community going down. I don\u0026rsquo;t\nWendy: Want it to be. Be a home economics coordinator. This is back obviously when I was a teacher and I kept saying, I wasn\u0026rsquo;t going to do that job. And I did end up doing it for a variety of reasons, but not for long, but that didn\u0026rsquo;t matter because actually I kept wanting to go into another coordinator\u0026rsquo;s job that didn\u0026rsquo;t have supervision of staff.\nAnd it was a really tough time. I was having this. We have group of staff to work with and all sorts of issues in that school, but I learned a lot. And I\u0026rsquo;m glad I did it. Cause then I realized I had just had damn hard staff worship to lead which I was a bit naive about before that I thought I\u0026rsquo;d been asked to them and they\u0026rsquo;ll be nice to me.\nthink I was young and naive, then it doesn\u0026rsquo;t always work that way. So I learned that by doing and you\u0026rsquo;re right in terms of strategic things. And I think you need to think about. What you\u0026rsquo;re good at, because if you do what you\u0026rsquo;re good at, you won\u0026rsquo;t feel like work. And so that\u0026rsquo;s really important if you ended up in a job that you really hate and when you stop and think about it and you think, actually I hate this job it\u0026rsquo;s often because it\u0026rsquo;s so sing set.\nYou don\u0026rsquo;t like it. So for example, I\u0026rsquo;ve never not doing finance. I make myself do it, but I really don\u0026rsquo;t like it much. And for variety of reasons, I ended up in this job that turned to in a different kind of job. So I was actually doing finances about 80% of the time. And when my husband said you\u0026rsquo;d never would have chosen that job.\nAnd I thought you\u0026rsquo;re right behind it because it\u0026rsquo;s something that really turned off. And that\u0026rsquo;s when it feels like a lot, lots of really hard work. I think\nJames: I agree with that. And even around that strategy and stuff was. Did you ever set goals and have mentors and things like that along the way.\nAnd how do you think those sorts of things impact. Your direction and your ability to go places that you wanted to go.\nWendy: I\u0026rsquo;m definitely a goal setting kind of person. It\u0026rsquo;s just the nature of who I am. I\u0026rsquo;ve always set my goals and I\u0026rsquo;ve always worked, cause I\u0026rsquo;m really like that tonight.\nI\u0026rsquo;m also, I tenacious. So I don\u0026rsquo;t necessarily get things happen really quickly, but I\u0026rsquo;m not the person that can work towards something and middle steps for a long period of time. So goal setting goals for me really worked quite well. So I\u0026rsquo;ve nearly always, but I always set goals every year and review those.\nI often do a review around the financial change of view cause it\u0026rsquo;s an important thing to do. So I\u0026rsquo;ve always done that. And I have looked at. What do I need? What sort of things do I need to do? Or could I do that would give me those extra skills for the next job. Disinteresting now because I\u0026rsquo;m in a different position, even where I\u0026rsquo;m in terms of being an academic and actively saying, I don\u0026rsquo;t want to leadership role.\nAnd it\u0026rsquo;d be easy for me to end up in those. I still try, I still choose to do different things that I would have one stage. To put on my CV, but now it is because I\u0026rsquo;m interested in the engage, a different part of my brain around that. I certainly had a variety of different mentors for an informal in my career, and I\u0026rsquo;ve learned an awful lot from it for a variety of people.\nI\u0026rsquo;ve also, I\u0026rsquo;ve had a picked a company. Coach\u0026rsquo;s where I\u0026rsquo;ve actually gone and paid people to coach me around different types of things. So one of those, for example, when I was thinking of leaving decks, which was a big decision, the department of education, I\u0026rsquo;ve got a coach to help me with that transition.\nAnd part of the job was to help me work on. What are actually wanting to trans transition to. So that was a really clear role, but really clear job. Now what she needed to help me do. If you go and pay for someone, I think that\u0026rsquo;s really important because you need to the best of that she was an operating coach versus a mentor role, but they\u0026rsquo;re quite similar, but then it\u0026rsquo;s really focused about what you want to achieve.\nAnd not the circumstance when always working. I, part of the principals association here in Australia and it was a tough group of men and also men when I started. And it was all real ma. It didn\u0026rsquo;t necessarily want to woman at the time. And I\u0026rsquo;ve found them very hard to get along with and influence.\nAnd I remember going to a male, another male principal colleague of mine who had been involved in the past. And I asked him to mentor me in order to have. How I was managing myself at that table because I said, whatever it is, sometimes it\u0026rsquo;s not working very well. And I just want to get him to help me with that.\nAnd that worked quite well as well. So sometimes those trying to put yourself outside the comfort zone around that top thing, I think is really important as well. Certainly the form one, they\u0026rsquo;re more they\u0026rsquo;re informal in terms of having someone that\u0026rsquo;s amended. I\u0026rsquo;m always just also noticings.\nIf you know what I mean, it\u0026rsquo;s always been the person that I\u0026rsquo;ll be watching. When I was a deputy noticing a principal from another school or something like That\u0026rsquo;s not what we have some work variable when they do that, or actually that managed that really well. Look how they do that.\nThat\u0026rsquo;s really good. I\u0026rsquo;ve always been observant of people around that type of thing in life as well. So that\u0026rsquo;s definitely, you also learn, you learn what not to do. But by having mentors as well, but they also of course make mistakes and make, you can look at things, I\u0026rsquo;m not gonna do that cause they weren\u0026rsquo;t that you can work through that.\nAnd I\u0026rsquo;ve also had this circumstance, which other people would have had to where you outgrow your mentor, but that aren\u0026rsquo;t really wanting to let go of you, and it\u0026rsquo;s partly they still. You be telling you what to do. So we\u0026rsquo;ve and even after I became a principal sat one of the principles that no one, since when I was early days, even then he was telling me what to do and stuff.\nAnd I remember saying to him, you\u0026rsquo;re not my boss. And cause you should say, why haven\u0026rsquo;t you done it yet? Excuse me, Excuse me. I know, I see my boss, I try not to you. I thought it was good about Tamara reflecting what you said and her son, and I didn\u0026rsquo;t want him doing that. He was honest.\nAnd so you came into those circumstances that. Good to get out of that kind of scenario or to call it like I did, which is, you\u0026rsquo;re not my boss anymore. That\u0026rsquo;s not how this game\u0026rsquo;s plight. Because sometimes you can certainly get to those circumstances as well.\nJames: Yeah, I think that\u0026rsquo;s very cool. And I think that\u0026rsquo;s great, like great point about outgrowing your mentors, if always be aware of who you\u0026rsquo;re getting advice from and how relevant is that to your situation.\nLike you don\u0026rsquo;t want to be getting advice from. Like my mom\u0026rsquo;s not going to give you advice on technical things I\u0026rsquo;m doing at work in the same way. Like someone, the person, people, you take advice from have to be, people. Yeah, the advice, something right in that area, you just\nWendy: Said something that we\u0026rsquo;d like to follow up then too.\nI think it\u0026rsquo;s important to mention, because I chose a career that I went from a specialist to a generalist, that sort of thing. But there is another career, which is really much more like a, a small field or a type field and knowing that really well and knowing that really deeply. And so that you often get that within the team.\nFields. So certainly that\u0026rsquo;s another career path that works for other people. Where they become the top state, top financial person in an organization and that\u0026rsquo;s but this year, and I still very much know their world in detailed knowledge and understanding that intuitive side, different career than someone like me who moved into a general, more of a generalist, taught a lot to have lots of things, under my responsibility.\nRather than a specialist\nJames: Yeah, I think that\u0026rsquo;s definitely interesting the way that, I\u0026rsquo;ve heard it described like the T shaped a person, so you can have the depth, which is the specialization. And then there\u0026rsquo;s also like the top of the T, which is the more general.\nAnd I feel like definitely as you go into a role where, you\u0026rsquo;re the CEO or you\u0026rsquo;re a senior, you definitely have to be very general in terms of. You know that you have to be looking after all these different areas. It\u0026rsquo;s, I guess naturally it\u0026rsquo;s just not a specialist at all. Yeah, it makes it difficult if you\u0026rsquo;re like really into this one tiny area when you\u0026rsquo;re trying to, when you also want to take over the whole organization and lead the\nWendy: Way and you can lack.\nIt can be really tricky to move from a role, for example, like a chief information officer into a CEO role, because you\u0026rsquo;re moving from such or such an expertise area into what is reported role and not everyone might say transition very well.\nJames: No, definitely. One thing I wanted to ask you about the mentors and things we were just speaking about is when, like when is too early to get a mentor or when is the right time to start getting one?\nIs there. I know you, you yourself are nice on some level of Korea coach mentor, how early would you say is too early or when is there a right\nWendy: Time? There\u0026rsquo;s never really a, to a cause really in, and I don\u0026rsquo;t know, but they\u0026rsquo;ll always, would\u0026rsquo;ve considered the mentors. That\u0026rsquo;s probably another, that depends on me to call them that, but.\nA lot of things from people I started teaching with really early and some of them were senior people and have a managed, really difficult classes, which we certainly had important gusta. Those types of things were really I learned a lot from other people watching their teaching practice or hearing them talk about it and the things they did really well now that wouldn\u0026rsquo;t have been called Ben tours, but, essentially they were It\u0026rsquo;s also tied up with whether or not you formerly have a mentor, so different organizations sometimes have that process where you have a mentor or you seek someone out that you might want to learn from.\nIf you\u0026rsquo;re seeking a mentor, it\u0026rsquo;s usually because you are. Looking for a promotion of some sort at some stage. So you really are declaring that, I think by seeking out a mentor around that type of thing.\nAnd there\u0026rsquo;s nothing wrong with that. It just, I think you need to be clear that is what you\u0026rsquo;re doing usually around that condom role. So don\u0026rsquo;t really know of this too early. I think that it\u0026rsquo;s yeah, I don\u0026rsquo;t think there\u0026rsquo;s too much. In terms of that kind of thing, that just think it\u0026rsquo;s, it is naturally happens.\nJames: Sure. That\u0026rsquo;s good.\n← Back to episode 2\n","date":"6 November 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/graduate-theory/2-on-career-progression-and-leadership-with-former-satac-ceo-wendy-teasdale-smith/transcript/","section":"Graduate Theory Transcripts","summary":"← Back to episode 2\nThis transcript has been lightly edited for readability. It may still contain transcription errors.\nJames: Hi there and welcome. My name is James and welcome to Graduate Theory. My guest today is a former high school principal she’s since become the CEO at the South Australian tertiary admissions center. Now, today she is involved with many academic institutions. She’s on executive boards across South Australia.\n","title":"Transcript: On Career Progression and Leadership with Former SATAC CEO, Wendy Teasdale-Smith","type":"graduate-theory-transcripts"},{"content":"← Back to episode 3\nThis transcript has been lightly edited for readability. It may still contain transcription errors.\nIntro # James: Hello, and welcome to Graduate Theory on Graduate Theory. We\u0026rsquo;re all about providing resources and lessons for graduates so they can have a successful and fulfilling career. And on today\u0026rsquo;s episode, I speak to someone who is a really funny guy and someone that really has a lot of experience speaking to people who operate at a very high level.\nIn this episode, you\u0026rsquo;re going to hear me laugh quite a lot. You\u0026rsquo;re going to hear some great insights. We speak about so many things in this episode, all the way from imposter syndrome, how do we deal with situations that we feel like we don\u0026rsquo;t deserve, also, how we deal with emotions?\nHow can we deal with unpleasant things that happened in the office? How can we deal with roadblocks that might be keeping us down and how can we deal with situations that seem to keep reappearing in our lives. Today\u0026rsquo;s episode a little bit spiritual in some ways, and is certainly one that I really enjoyed recording.\nAnd one that I feel has so many really deep lessons, if we can truly receive what is in this episode. So thanks so much for tuning in today, and I hope you enjoy\nhello and welcome to Graduate Theory. Today\u0026rsquo;s guest is a sales coach turned behavioral psychologists. He coaches people how to sell, how to speak and how to ask better questions. He\u0026rsquo;s written books such as don\u0026rsquo;t be a Dick and more sales, more profits. Please welcome to the show today. The mindset master Dan flooding.\nGood. I\nDarren: Joined. How are you doing?\nJames: You\u0026rsquo;ll someone who\u0026rsquo;s had a fantastic career and has gone many different places, explored many different habits. I want to stop asking you, we can delve into these details of where you\u0026rsquo;ve actually been the way gone, but\nDid Darren expect to be a performance coach? # James: Did you expect to be where you are when you first started at university?\nDarren: Did I expect to be here? No. Did I want to be? Yeah, absolutely. I worked with the C-suite. I coached them. I train salespeople pre COVID. I was doing that right around the world. Then COVID but did I expect to be here? I hoped like, hell I would.\nBut I certainly wanted to be yeah. Yeah.\nJames: And tell us a bit about your career story in general. So you\u0026rsquo;re a coach, like you just mentioned the C-suite coach and doing all these things like sales mindset, all this kind of stuff. When did your career\nDarren: Start from? When I left school way back in 1992, I reckon that was before you were born.\nThe prime minister at the time was Paul Keating and he said, this is the recession. We have to have a, so I entered the employment market in 1993. Unemployment had a double digit sort of thing. Interest rates were about 10%. The economy was like, somehow I got a job in one of Sydney\u0026rsquo;s top law firms.\nThey were Paying me to go to uni that I pay my uni fees. I was assisting barristers in court. Fly me around the country. Life was really good. And then one of my external to the law firm mentors said to me, Darren, just remember no one ever calls their lawyer and says, Hey, I\u0026rsquo;ve had a great day.\nCan I tell you all about it? So I stopped studying. They sacked me. The only job I could get was selling vacuum cleaners door to door. Now I\u0026rsquo;m not going to say that job sucked cause that\u0026rsquo;d be a terrible pun, but it was not a lot of fun. I did that for 12 months, then graduated and did two years of telemarketing.\nThen three years of telephone debt collecting. I have had all of the good jobs and along the way, I\u0026rsquo;ll rep for multinational companies with a multi-million dollar budgets reporting to the overseas sales office. I was working in a company in Melbourne called. Alfa Val and the CEO who was in the company, his job was to turn the company around, was either start making money or one, the company up and send the money back to Colin in Denmark.\nAnd he\u0026rsquo;d been there for 12 months or so. And he brought everyone in for a conversation. This is what has happened. He\u0026rsquo;d got rid of underperforming people and products, and somehow I was still there and he called everyone in and he stood at the front of the room and started droning on about what he\u0026rsquo;d planned to do for the next five years.\nI looked at him and I thought you are awesome at what you do, but you suck at selling it to. So as a mature age student, I went back to uni, got myself a degree in psychology, combined it with what I knew about thinking, speaking, and selling. And now I get to hopefully when the borders open up again, I\u0026rsquo;ll get to travel the world again, clever people, how to communicate and how to sell and sought their mindset out.\nSo that\u0026rsquo;s my 92. I left school as 2021. So that\u0026rsquo;s 30 years old. Will you be the stage one, one day two. Yeah,\nJames: No, you\u0026rsquo;re spot on, there and I think it\u0026rsquo;s fantastic. It\u0026rsquo;s just fascinating to say like how your career has transitioned over time. And you\u0026rsquo;ve been able to go really deep into multiple different areas. I think it\u0026rsquo;s, they\u0026rsquo;re all intertwined to create this really awesome,\nDarren: Awesome value.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s a great Steve jobs, commencement speech, I think it was in 2005. He gave it. Have you seen that at all?\nJames: I think I\u0026rsquo;ve seen snippets of that.\nDarren: Steve jobs, commencement speech, I think it\u0026rsquo;s for Harvard or Yale or one of them. And he talks about how he dropped out of school and went off and did dumb things and blah, blah, blah.\nAnd 30 years later when he produced the first computer, it had beautiful graphics in it, which literally changed the world of computing. Cause you could never do things on the computer worldwide changing. And the reason that happened is because he went to a calligraphy class at Reed college when he dropped out of his degree and it just stuck with him.\nSo my journey has been everywhere. I didn\u0026rsquo;t think selling vacuum cleaners door to door or telling marketing or telephone debt collecting would be one of the mainstays and strengths of my practice. But it is because I\u0026rsquo;ve been there, I\u0026rsquo;ve done it. It gives me street cred. And I draw on what I learned in those times and share it with my clients for a fair commercial exchange.\nJames: No, I think that, that is really cool. And it\u0026rsquo;s great to hear that, you started from like the warfarin, selling vacuum cleaners, I\u0026rsquo;m sure. Yeah. Getting to where you are today. Very stark difference. And it certainly. Definitely opens your eyes. What you can achieve for you are\nDarren: One of Sydney\u0026rsquo;s top law firms, a boutique law firm, but a very well placed one.\nIt doesn\u0026rsquo;t exist anymore. Yeah, that was humbling. I think they call it in retrospect. I don\u0026rsquo;t think it was at the time.\nJames: Yea sure,\nI think one thing I want to ask you too, is you\u0026rsquo;re a lot of what you do at the moment is a solo or, some of them are self-employed with a load of things you do.\nHow has that shift going from being an employed and, doing sales, like you\u0026rsquo;re saying the board meetings and things like that versus going out on your own and then having to get your own clients and managing your own business and everything like that. What was that transition like?\nAnd what led you to decide to do that?\nDarren: Yeah. What was it like long? What was it like hard. It\u0026rsquo;s character building. So I always wanted to do what I do now, the reality is when you graduate from high school at the 1819, no one wants to employ an 18 year old, 19 year old to learn your lessons of life, better off knowing what\u0026rsquo;s actually, even when you graduate from uni at 22, 23, you know, squat, like you got a piece of paper, what do you do?\nGive me 20 years in the workplace, then I\u0026rsquo;ll listen to you. I was in June, 2011 when I went out on my own, but I had my practice for a number of years before that. And I would work during the day and my day job. I used to work at the bureau of statistics. It was my last job. I used to count the number of people who went to libraries, art galleries and museums don\u0026rsquo;t fall asleep.\nIt was a lot more exciting than it sounds because we had to count archive as well. Pardon me? That was a boring job, but it was a great place after a divorce. So Hey, So I would work full time. And then at night I would work on my practice. Then I went from full-time down to, I think, about 92% FTE, my wife and I, we both worked long days. And under the guise of one day, a week off, we would look after the children because like back in the day we were paying more in childcare than we were on our mortgage.\nAnd, we bought a house in the burbs and it was like, it was 1200 bucks a fortnight or a month for two kids in childcare. And I think that was a fortnight yeah, stupid amount of money. So we worked long, really long day. I would run Edwards and people would send me inquiries. I talked to him, I would go to work at the abs on Monday and I would, I\u0026rsquo;d have to write an article or something stupid.\nLike the number of people using libraries across regional Victoria. Blow your brains out boring or o\u0026rsquo;clock I would leave. I was the bottom run four o\u0026rsquo;clock I would leave. I would go to the airport, I\u0026rsquo;d get on a plane. I\u0026rsquo;d fly to Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne, wherever, staying like this really swish hotel.\nAnd then, I was even allowed to have room service or breakfast in the restaurant. Like this was like, holy Molly, where am I? I would spend the next day with the CEO of some company telling him what I knew then I would, and he would make plenty of notes or she would make plenty of notes and I\u0026rsquo;ll do this, I\u0026rsquo;ll do this.\nI\u0026rsquo;ll do this Then I would get back on a plane, fly to Adelaide Wednesday morning, go to work at the bureau of statistics. And they say, now, Darren, this article about people visiting the library, or you\u0026rsquo;ve got your comma\u0026rsquo;s in the wrong spot, like this was my life for about 18 months.\nJames: Wow.\nDarren: So how did this do your heading Talk about imposter syndrome so at work you\u0026rsquo;re being treated like a, numpty like someone who doesn\u0026rsquo;t know squat, or you put the comma in the wrong spot. You don\u0026rsquo;t know how to analyze numbers. Probably don\u0026rsquo;t didn\u0026rsquo;t really care. And then, oh my goodness, this person who and I was on, I don\u0026rsquo;t know, back in the night, I think when I left there, I was on 70 grand a year.\nSo when I would go in a planes, stay in a hotel, this CEO would listen to me. I would be sitting there going home. He Molly, what if I\u0026rsquo;m don\u0026rsquo;t know what I\u0026rsquo;m doing? Oh shit. And what I found out over the last 10, 12, however long I\u0026rsquo;ve been doing what I\u0026rsquo;ve been doing, everybody\u0026rsquo;s feeling that everybody\u0026rsquo;s thinking outside of physics, chemistry, biology, everything is made up, literally everything is made up.\nWhat do we drive on the left-hand side of the road? Someone at some point in the past decided we would, yeah. Why do we have a prime minister, not a president, a bunch of old white men sat around and decided. It\u0026rsquo;s all made up. It\u0026rsquo;s all bullshit. The laws, the governing our country, they\u0026rsquo;re made up.\nThere\u0026rsquo;s no divine thing coming down and they just all made up. And what happens is you go somewhere and you\u0026rsquo;re going well, I don\u0026rsquo;t know what to do you, the reality is you don\u0026rsquo;t realize everyone else is thinking that too. I do a lot of public speaking presentation skills training for everywhere from frontline staff, right up to the exec team.\nAnd what I know is they all sit around the table because I have one-on-one conversations with them and they\u0026rsquo;re all sitting around the table thinking, oh, I wish I was as good as that person. Oh, I like the way she speaks. Oh man. She\u0026rsquo;s awesome when she stands up and speaks, I wish I could be as good as that.\nAnd every person is saying that about everybody else, but we\u0026rsquo;re sitting there going, oh my goodness. I\u0026rsquo;m no good Everyone wants to be as good as you, but because you\u0026rsquo;re on the inside, you\u0026rsquo;re looking out you don\u0026rsquo;t see that sometimes we\u0026rsquo;re too close to ourselves to see how good or not we are. That\u0026rsquo;s why we have people who are absolutely useless.\nI may see some of them in our federal parliament they know what they\u0026rsquo;re doing and other people who are incredibly amazing what they do, scientists for argument\u0026rsquo;s sake holding back, or I\u0026rsquo;m not quite sure because you\u0026rsquo;re not always in the best position to judge what you need to do or how good you are.\nJames: Yeah. I think that\u0026rsquo;s very true. There\u0026rsquo;s this article it\u0026rsquo;s cold, but someone described that as almost like the spotlight effect where like you think that everyone\u0026rsquo;s watching what you\u0026rsquo;re doing all the time and everyone\u0026rsquo;s paying all this attention to what you\u0026rsquo;re doing. Yeah. Everyone thinks that, so everyone\u0026rsquo;s out there thinking that everyone\u0026rsquo;s paying so much attention to them that because everyone\u0026rsquo;s thinking that in reality, no, one\u0026rsquo;s really thinking what you\u0026rsquo;re doing.\nDarren: I\u0026rsquo;ve got teenagers, 14 aged kids and they think everyone\u0026rsquo;s watching them. I can\u0026rsquo;t wear that to school because everyone will see it. And everyone is thinking that everyone thinks the world revolves around them. But it doesn\u0026rsquo;t, I\u0026rsquo;m still going to have on my tombstone, who will a real world revolve around now.\nJames: Oh, that\u0026rsquo;s amazing. One thing I wanted to ask you about too, is public speaking. You mentioned it just then has been something that I know that cause I know you well, you\u0026rsquo;ve really, that\u0026rsquo;s been a cornerstone of a lot of your life almost. You\u0026rsquo;ve been a part of public speaking to some degree for a long time.\nWhen did you start doing that and how do you think that has shaped. Your career and allowed you to get you to where you are today.\nDarren: So in year 12, so 1992, I was going to John Terry Catholic high school in Campbelltown, in Sydney. It used to be out in the boondocks.\nNow it\u0026rsquo;s in a city. You almost, and the mind maths teacher was also the religion coordinator. And he said, Darren, at the end of the year, you, at the end of this school, EMS, you will be doing a rating. I said, no, I\u0026rsquo;m not Mr. Price. I\u0026rsquo;m not doing it. He said, yes, you are. No, I\u0026rsquo;m not your site. I ended up doing it probably only 200 words or something I had to read out, but I was shitting myself about it.\nI walked up on stage and put it down on the altar. I kid you not my legs. You could just be out here. The bones shaking. I was that nerves. I was holding onto the alter or the lectin or whatever they call it and church. I mumbled out what it is that I was reading and I got to the end of it.\nAnd I said, please stand. And 300 people stood up and I went, oh my God. They\u0026rsquo;re listening to me, because I always get at school. It was the punching bag. I didn\u0026rsquo;t have many friends at school. I wasn\u0026rsquo;t one of the cool kids. And so I went through the response or is, I would say something and then they would chant back.\nAnd by the end of the item, might\u0026rsquo;ve been on stage for three, four minutes, whatever. And by the end of that, I knew where I wanted to spend my life. I wanted to spend my life on the stage. I was shit scared of speaking, but I knew the person on the stage had the power. How has that changed my life? I was the kid at school who didn\u0026rsquo;t have any friends or many friends.\nDidn\u0026rsquo;t have lots of confidence, but I said about learning public speaking. One of the greatest things you can do is learn to speak in public because you can have the greatest ideas, but if you share, they go nowhere and you look at that nutcase, Barnaby, Joyce, all right. Not a thing between the ears, but he\u0026rsquo;s got the platform speak.\nAnd now he\u0026rsquo;s the current acting prime minister. God help us all.\nJames: Oh, that\u0026rsquo;s hilarious. So you were speaking about, how you coach people in public speaking and that sort of something that\u0026rsquo;s definitely intertwined with what you do. What are some things that are common tips that you give out and what are some common mistakes that you see people making that you\u0026rsquo;re like, okay, that you can fix it by doing X,\nDarren: Common tip is have fun.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s a lot of fun being at the front of the room. You may not think that, but it actually is a second common tip. I\u0026rsquo;ve been giving this one out a lot more of light is I believe that everything in life is happening right now, perfectly for you to progress to the next game in life. Yeah. I don\u0026rsquo;t know what video games are like these days, but when I was a kid, I used to pug in it.\nYou wouldn\u0026rsquo;t even know what a cassette is. Would ya bloody hell. Yeah. So you get the computer looked a little, it was just a key pad and you\u0026rsquo;d plug it in your TV. This is where we\u0026rsquo;re going up and you play the game and you\u0026rsquo;d go through and you play the game. And I remember the one we had was hunting of some sort or other.\nYou had to Dodge the species as well. This is 1980s. When the native throw, imagine this sort of shit, the right to grow up with, and then you run towards, and all these speeds keep coming at you. And if you get past that level, you get into the next level and you get to run up the side of the pyramid and they roll bone was Danny had to go left.\nHe had to go, and if you died in that second level, you went back to the start of that level. You didn\u0026rsquo;t have to go back through the speed. You just had to go through the boulders and you get through the boulders and you\u0026rsquo;ve got the snakes. And that\u0026rsquo;s the way it was. I assume games are still the same these days.\nThat\u0026rsquo;s all wrong. The way I reckon life is you go through, you get to a level. And at this level that you\u0026rsquo;re at, you need to overcome certain problems and the universe goes, okay, Jane, do you want to get to the next level? Awesome. You have to be able to conquer these issues and everything happens for you in life.\nSo you do so person in on who\u0026rsquo;s listening to this podcast or quad casts or whatever you, young people call it. Shit is happening in your life. It might be public speaking. It might be the crap of divorce or a relationship breakdown of who knows what terrible stuff you car was stolen. Your partner cheated on you.\nThis is shit you have to move through to get to the next stage of life. And if you don\u0026rsquo;t move through it, it will continue to turn up time and time again, we see this with people, with the patterns that they have in their life. You ever noticed someone who keeps constantly having financial problems, there\u0026rsquo;s just enough money to get to the end of the month.\nIf something else happened you\u0026rsquo;re buggered and, you can decide for six months you\u0026rsquo;re save. And then all of a sudden something goes wrong. And the cost to fix that just happens to be the same amount of money you\u0026rsquo;ve got saved away. And there it goes. Why? Because there\u0026rsquo;s some shit you got to work through around your money.\nHow does it relate to public speaking and presentation skills? So the N so what happens when were these events happened to us? We have an energetic rushing us. It might be fi it might be anger. It might be excitement. We need to let that energy out. Sorry. We need to experience that energy, letting it out.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s not the goal we need to experience. It is the goal and the way we experience it is to just feel it. You have to stand up and do some public speaking. The person is speaking and you\u0026rsquo;re going to go up and speak next and you\u0026rsquo;re over on the side and you\u0026rsquo;re home. My God. This is scary.\nYou just let that energy experience it don\u0026rsquo;t try and push it down. Don\u0026rsquo;t suppress it. I\u0026rsquo;ll just look at a mob picture of naked or I\u0026rsquo;ll just push it down and I\u0026rsquo;ll get through or don\u0026rsquo;t express it. Oh, I\u0026rsquo;m no good at public speaking. Please bear with me now. Just experience that energy. And once you\u0026rsquo;ve experienced it, the computer game goes tick.\nYou can move to the next level. This is the seat. This is actually one of the secrets to life, man. I wish I\u0026rsquo;d have known this 24, 3 feeling that you have is to help you move to the next level. And you must experience that energy and let it go. Even for the things that you like. You have a loved one.\nShe\u0026rsquo;s beautiful. He\u0026rsquo;s beautiful. That energy you got to let it go. Just experience it. And when they\u0026rsquo;re not there, you don\u0026rsquo;t feel it. That\u0026rsquo;s fine. When they come back. Do you feel that again, experience it because if you hold onto it, what happened is by the time you get to my age, Jane, you turn around and you look at the way, love was today.\nWhen you met someone, you\u0026rsquo;ve known him for two years and there\u0026rsquo;s lots of drinking and sex partying. You get to my age and the idea, maybe you just want to watch a seven 30 in use and go to bed at eight o\u0026rsquo;clock on awesome night. And you\u0026rsquo;re doing that. And then you look back and you go it was a lot more fun back then.\nThere\u0026rsquo;s loves different. Maybe I don\u0026rsquo;t love her anymore. We\u0026rsquo;ve grown apart. And then you end up leaving. No, that don\u0026rsquo;t do that over 20 years, your love is going to change. It has to change. We all see those sad, pathetic individuals who are my age. You still go out to the nightclubs until two, three in the morning, every Friday and Saturday night, try and pick up the young girls.\nWhy? Because they haven\u0026rsquo;t let go of that part of life. Let that energy go. And you\u0026rsquo;ll see that the energy that you have in the relationship when you\u0026rsquo;re my age, you think it\u0026rsquo;s good now when you\u0026rsquo;ve been with someone you love for that length of time? Oh my goodness. It\u0026rsquo;s just amazing.\nBut you can\u0026rsquo;t see what\u0026rsquo;s coming in. If you\u0026rsquo;re holding onto what was So let go, what is today? So you can get what is happening tomorrow.\nJames: You think that was a great point about the yeah, like about the partners that, that can sometimes run our decisions and run our relationships and, maybe we\u0026rsquo;re running into at work, running into the same kind of situation where it\u0026rsquo;s, like we nearly get something, but we talk ourselves out of it or whatever it might be.\nI think that was really cool about exactly all that technique you have of letting go of, because I think that\u0026rsquo;s just it, like you said, it really fundamental in terms of breaking through those barriers that can happen in many different areas of life.\nDarren: I one of the earlier jobs that I had, so I was at law firm for 18 months.\nI was At another company caught all merchandise selling like furniture, hardware. That was a really good job. I was there for about 18 months, two years, tele marketing, and all these jobs were around the 18 month, two year mark. And I was talking to one of my mentors and he, I said, I keep picking dickheads to work for, after 18 months I just can\u0026rsquo;t stand them.\nI highlight him and he was wise, I\u0026rsquo;m Andy stroke, his beard, Darren, what\u0026rsquo;s the commonality between all of those jobs sales and they\u0026rsquo;re here, they\u0026rsquo;re in this energy, that energy, you said that you\u0026rsquo;re the only commonality between each job. Something\u0026rsquo;s going wrong at each job. And it\u0026rsquo;s a similar sort of thing, it\u0026rsquo;s you.\nAnd when you realize that you go, ah, that means I\u0026rsquo;m actually in control of fixing it.\nJames: I think that\u0026rsquo;s really cool. I\u0026rsquo;ve heard a similar analogy where someone was saying like, yeah, I\u0026rsquo;ve been in five times accidents this year, everyone on the road is such a terrible driver, but it\u0026rsquo;s okay, who\u0026rsquo;s the telephone driver, if you\u0026rsquo;re getting in that many activities and it\u0026rsquo;s similar to what you were just saying commonality.\nYeah, exactly. And I think yeah, like you said, it was saying like the letting go stuff, in terms of, realizing you have that barrier, even for your example, what were the steps you took then you\u0026rsquo;ve realized now that, okay, I\u0026rsquo;ve had these different bosses and I get annoyed by all of them.\nSomehow the problem is something to do with me. What were your steps after that to did you like, did you ever work through that?\nDarren: Yeah. Worked through it. The beautiful coach out of Sydney, her name\u0026rsquo;s Lorna pattern. I only started working there about four years ago. Basically she beat into me like with brutal honesty, no, Darren, your, the problem.\nNo. More, ex-wife\u0026rsquo;s doing this and the kids are doing that. And that\u0026rsquo;s what no, Darren, you\u0026rsquo;re the problem. You\u0026rsquo;re the Keno. But don\u0026rsquo;t you see at work? These have no Darren, your, the problem she did built into me for this 12 month coaching program that I was the cause of everything.\nAnd when you accept that, that\u0026rsquo;s a beautiful thing because what it means if I\u0026rsquo;m causing all this shit, I can change it. So if you go back into the world of psychology, back to Freud in days, so this is late 18 hundreds. Vienna Freud was the father of modern psychology and he had the theory And basically an ideological view of personality and what\u0026rsquo;s going on today.\nHis theory was basically, you are the person you are today because of what happened yesterday. The way you carry on today is because you can get a hug when you were a five-year-old sit down and tell me all about it let\u0026rsquo;s work through it And at the same time was Adler and he had a tele illogical view of what life was about, which is looking into the future. He said, you\u0026rsquo;re acting the way you are today. So you can be the person you want to be in the future. Now, I don\u0026rsquo;t know whether Freud\u0026rsquo;s 80 logical view or Adler\u0026rsquo;s tell you a logical view.\nEither one is correct, but I reckon Adler has a great position. That is, it gives you control. If you look at fraud, you\u0026rsquo;re a victim. If you look at Adelaide, you\u0026rsquo;re in control and I reckon there\u0026rsquo;s a wonderful way. View.\nJames: No, I definitely, I think, you can\u0026rsquo;t really solve a problem until you take responsibility and, once you take responsibility, then you can go and change things.\nIf things that happen, aren\u0026rsquo;t your fault and it\u0026rsquo;s something that\u0026rsquo;s external, it\u0026rsquo;s something that will just continue to happen. Then you can\u0026rsquo;t like until you accept responsibility for those things, it\u0026rsquo;s difficult to get. Then, be the one that decides to change it when the thing that\u0026rsquo;s happening is out is like literally by definition, not inside your control.\nWhereas when you take responsibility, it\u0026rsquo;s now in your control and then you can go and work through those things. I think that\u0026rsquo;s a great way to look\nDarren: At mark when you outsource control to other people, when you know what other people have got planned for you. Not much, I don\u0026rsquo;t care about you. We humans have such a weird ass relationship with control.\nWe don\u0026rsquo;t control what. We try to control what we shouldn\u0026rsquo;t and then we take responsibility for things that we don\u0026rsquo;t control. Have you ever been fishing? James? Have you caught a fish? Have you caught a fish now?\nJames: I\u0026rsquo;m not efficient on usually I\nDarren: Believe you have caught a fish. Say what happened did you got in the boat?\nYou went out the person through the pick over you, put the hook on the rope and on the wire and the string and whatever. It\u0026rsquo;s gold twine on the line. You put the worm on it, you threw it over. And then the fish went bit you reeled it in and said hey I caught a fish. But to me, the defining factor in there was whether or not the fish bit, the hook, if the fish didn\u0026rsquo;t bite the hook, you wouldn\u0026rsquo;t have caught a fish.\nTrue. So that\u0026rsquo;s you trying to take credit for things you have no control. over You didn\u0026rsquo;t determine whether or not the fish bit the hook. It says it\u0026rsquo;s its own sentient being, it will decide whether or not it wants to bite Now, how does this apply in the real world, particularly for salespeople or people, managers, we try and control things that we don\u0026rsquo;t have the right to control.\nWe, as sales people say, I sold that to the customer. How can I get them to buy more? You didn\u0026rsquo;t sell it to the customer. The customer bought it. Oh no. Darren, you don\u0026rsquo;t get it. Darren. I stalked him on LinkedIn for six weeks. Then I approached them. I spent three months trying to get in through the door.\nI sent them gifts. I did that. I followed them on LinkedIn and blah, blah, blah. And I put forward and they looked at it. We negotiated terms, great conditions. They signed it. I sold it to them. Yeah, all of that happened, but it was the customer who decided to buy not sales person who sold So the reason this is important is for the second thing of control, we try and control things that we can\u0026rsquo;t, we can\u0026rsquo;t control other people.\nSo when we say, how can I get them to buy more from me? You\u0026rsquo;re asking the wrong question. You\u0026rsquo;re better off to ask the question. How can I be worth buying more from, and can you see? how that is so different.\nJames: Yeah, definitely. I think that something similar that I\u0026rsquo;ve heard before this book called atomic habits about there\u0026rsquo;s this distinction between goes, yeah.\nJames clear difference between a goal and a process where, something like, whether let\u0026rsquo;s say you\u0026rsquo;re in sales and your goal might be, I want to sell a hundred thousand dollars of this autumn of this year. Whereas that\u0026rsquo;s something like you were saying, that\u0026rsquo;s I want to get the fish to get on my hook.\nLike this many times when that\u0026rsquo;s something that\u0026rsquo;s not in your, you can\u0026rsquo;t control that. But what you could control inefficient example is I can put my line in the water a certain amount of times and I can do it at the best that I can. And then the fish will decide to bite the hook or not. So in the sales example, you would say the process is I\u0026rsquo;m going to call, 15 to 20 people or whatever the number is every single day.\nAnd that\u0026rsquo;s my goal. Something that you have direct control over.\nDarren: That\u0026rsquo;s true, but it doesn\u0026rsquo;t, it as someone who has spent a lot of time, tele marketing, I know that just straight numbers doesn\u0026rsquo;t work. So in my last year of psychology, I had a job with my cleaning services selling. Carpet cleaning. So he called people in the neighborhood.\nAnd how long Mr. Jones, we were in the area. You want to buy some carpet clinic, no bang in a three hour shift for sales on average, I would get one, maybe two. Yeah, not good. If you\u0026rsquo;re in selling and you need to make a budget on the Monday, I got into work this Monday and the boss came up to me.\nHe said, Darren, you figured that they\u0026rsquo;ve been terrible if you can\u0026rsquo;t get up to where they should be by the end of the week, but you have to let you go. I was at uni, my wife to be was at uni, no money. I remember what that was like. Smile and dial smile and all over the three hour shift I got one sale.\nCame back on the Tuesday, smile and dial three hour shift, got to Lisa number, the hidden in the right direction. I was only working three days or three shifts a week. And then the last session I thought I\u0026rsquo;m going to go in and got nothing to lose. Cause this is my last shift. And I went in and I thought I\u0026rsquo;m going to apply one of these techniques that I learned in this rapport building course that I did and what it was, it was about being welcoming for the person on the other end of the line.\nSo I was worth talking to, and the way that I did that, and I just simply matched their voice. Smile and dial the phone gets picked up and a little old lady goes, oh, hello. I instantly dropped my energy. Hello, Mrs. Smith. It\u0026rsquo;s Darren from my cleaning service, blah, blah, blah. And what I found is people bought because I was worth talking to.\nBecause I met them where they were, you know, if I called Mr. Jones and Mr. Jones answered. Hello, Mr. Jones, I would say hello, Mr. Jones, Darren from my cleaning service here, and then moving down in that last shift, I got nine sales. So more in one shift than I should have gotten in the whole week. As Atlanta come back the next week or at 12 and 13.\nSo I went from being the guy being sacked to the guy being held up as be like him. Why? Because I changed what I was offering. Just simply hitting the numbers, isn\u0026rsquo;t going to work. How could I, instead of how can I get them to buy more carpet cleaning? How can I be worth buying carpet cleaning from\nso we try and take credit for things that we don\u0026rsquo;t control. I caught a fish, we try and control things. We have no right to control. You buy more and the third is we don\u0026rsquo;t control things. Yeah. How long do you brush your teeth for? Do you brush your teeth for two minutes?\nBecause that\u0026rsquo;s what the Australian dental association says we should do. Or do you brush your teeth until the electric toothbrush vibrates at you and said you\u0026rsquo;ve done it for long enough? Or do you brush your teeth until they\u0026rsquo;re clean? You see That you see the difference. We\u0026rsquo;re outsourcing what it is for how long we brush our teeth.\nAnd what time do you leave to go to work? You\u0026rsquo;ll get you\u0026rsquo;re working from home. Do you leave for work normally at say seven 30 or 7 45, whatever it happens to be, or do you leave for work? When the alarm on your phone says, leave for work. And do you get that when you leave based on the alarm, you\u0026rsquo;re outsourcing control of your morning, ordinarily it\u0026rsquo;s do all your tasks, make your lunch, you get dressed, all that sort of jazz, keeping an eye on the clock, leave on time.\nWhereas the other one is just keep working until you\u0026rsquo;re told to go with. We need to take control of everything in our life, otherwise our outsourcing at all.\nJames: Yeah, I think that\u0026rsquo;s really cool. And I think that goes back to what you were saying earlier about, literally if you just take control of everything, which can be difficult, but there\u0026rsquo;s all these little things, taking control of as much as he can.\nIt brings a lot of the power back to yourself and it means that then you can go and those areas that you want to improve in that you can now go and do.\nDarren: One of the programs I run with my client is radical responsibility. How do you remove the blockages that prevent people? Formance every trainer in the market, James clear, what\u0026rsquo;s he about?\nHe\u0026rsquo;s about habit stacking. You want to get fit well, every time you go to the toilet, flush, wash your hands, go outside, do two pushups. If you\u0026rsquo;re down there doing two, you probably can do 3, 4, 5, go to the toilet five times a day, you\u0026rsquo;ve done 1500. Or Milton Fogg. He\u0026rsquo;s all about the smallest discernible part, which is you want to go to the gym tomorrow morning.\nWhy don\u0026rsquo;t you put out your gym clothes before you go to bed? So there\u0026rsquo;s less friction. What all of these trainers and everybody else does it. What all the training is about is you\u0026rsquo;ve got a heel in front of you. You\u0026rsquo;ve got to get over. So let\u0026rsquo;s scaffold you to get over. We\u0026rsquo;ll put all these systems in place, so you can get over your hill.\nAnd we do this in business by, you\u0026rsquo;ve got to put in your weekly report. We go out, we monitor people and we actually have people managing the people, making sure they\u0026rsquo;re doing the things that support their job. And you gotta do all these tasks before you actually start doing your job.\nAll right. You\u0026rsquo;re exhausted before you even get to work for process. So instead of scaffolding you over the hill, why don\u0026rsquo;t you just get rid of the hill? The Hill\u0026rsquo;s not there. You don\u0026rsquo;t need all that scaffolding shit. So why do we need all these scaffolding? Why do we need milton Fogg. The smallest discernible parts. The reason for it is we have an internal resistance. How is that resistance felt? Or you want to do something you want to go to the gym, it\u0026rsquo;s been a long day. How do you feel the resistance internal feeling of, ah, couldn\u0026rsquo;t be bothered.\nCouldn\u0026rsquo;t be staffed. I\u0026rsquo;ll go tomorrow. And you have this feeling of feeling as yeah, I don\u0026rsquo;t really want to if everything in life is perfect and happens for a reason, you are experiencing this for a reason, and that is an energy will come up in you. And then you can experience that energy, the energy of, I couldn\u0026rsquo;t be asked and then you\u0026rsquo;ll hear you\u0026rsquo;ll feel it, and then you\u0026rsquo;ll find it much easier to go because there\u0026rsquo;s an energy within, inside you that stopping you.\nDoes that make sense\nJames: I definitely I think it does. I think I totally agree with you that there\u0026rsquo;s some things like whether it\u0026rsquo;s, getting a new guest for the podcast or whether it\u0026rsquo;s editing these afterwards or whether it\u0026rsquo;s, doing the reading, read a book every day or like meditating is a big one where I know there\u0026rsquo;s many people, it sounds like amazing thing and you can do it for a week or two, and then it slowly just dies off and you get that exact feeling where it\u0026rsquo;s oh yeah, I should meditate right now.\nBut then you just never do it. And I think, yeah, I think that whole resistance is something. If you can get over that, it\u0026rsquo;s really big\nDarren: Steven Pressfield, he need his book, the war of art talks about, and he calls that the resistance that is that feeling with inside you of I\u0026rsquo;m not good enough.\nThe imposter syndrome, the feeling of I\u0026rsquo;m not going to go through this. And he talks about people who amateurs let the resistance control them. Whereas the professional controls the resistance and their discipline and their all these things. And that\u0026rsquo;s true. I love the book. I think it\u0026rsquo;s awesome. But what he doesn\u0026rsquo;t tell us is how do you move from being an amateur to being a professional and they, the way you do that is by letting that energy go.\nSo I\u0026rsquo;m\ncurious with that letting go what are some maybe you have an example of when you\u0026rsquo;ve done that or what\u0026rsquo;s like your actual process for something like that, because it is like hard to describe, do you know what I mean? Like feeling the energy and then letting it go. It\u0026rsquo;s quite an abstract concept, I guess once you\u0026rsquo;re doing it regularly, you know what it\u0026rsquo;s like, but yeah.\nJames: Is there any kind of technique that you can put to\nthat?\nDarren: Yes, there is. I\u0026rsquo;ll tell you what, this is something that is so simple. Like it is breathing air simple. It\u0026rsquo;s so simple that we make it difficult. And what it requires us to do is the opposite of what we normally do. So you normally have an energy come up with. So for argument\u0026rsquo;s sake, you have to edit these videos. That energy comes up.\nAnd what do you do? You go, there\u0026rsquo;s sort of a fuck this is really hard work except of course for this one, because like you\u0026rsquo;re interviewing me\nOr, you\u0026rsquo;re at work, you\u0026rsquo;ve got to do your monthly report and you\u0026rsquo;re just that report. And then bosses know they have this and they chase you every month for your figures. And if you\u0026rsquo;ve done this and you\u0026rsquo;ve got that job that sits in your in-tray, like they used to be physical in trays, not like inboxing trains like physical in train and everything goes on top of it.\nYou get to it and you push it to the bottom of the queue because every time you go to it, you get that energetic rush. What we do with that energetic rush is one of three things. You avoid it. Oh, I\u0026rsquo;m just going to do the job later. I\u0026rsquo;m going to go to morning tea. You suppress it. Oh God. I just hate that.\nOh, I\u0026rsquo;m just going to do it. And I\u0026rsquo;m not going to enjoy Paul, George, you express it. Why do I bloody well have to do this monthly report? It\u0026rsquo;s garbage, which all that does is just let off steam. So you can then suppress it. Or as we mentioned earlier, you possess it or you feel something that is so good.\nYou just want to hold onto it. An example of that is something comes in to your, in tray and you go hot love doing this. I\u0026rsquo;m just going to jump onto the rules. And we express that energy. That\u0026rsquo;s what we normally do, but that is actually doing something I want you to do nothing the way you do nothing is.\nThat thing comes on your desk tomorrow, you have to edit this webinar. You have a feeling about that instead of suppressing expressing possessing or avoiding, just experience that feeling, just sit there. And what does it feel like? Is it a weight in your stomach that\u0026rsquo;s pushing down? Is it is a sense of that\u0026rsquo;s welling up with inside you?\nDo you feel it in your left ear or right here as it happens to be? Do you feel it in the center line of your big toe? Where is this energy? This energy is inside you and pay attention to it. Because if you don\u0026rsquo;t read any of the Buddha\u0026rsquo;s work the Buddha\u0026rsquo;s work as though he wrote a couple of books you\u0026rsquo;ve got a podcast tuning.\nWhat he talks about is send scars, which are blockages in our system, come up in the form of sensations. And all they want to do is to be felt. When you feel, when you experience it, it\u0026rsquo;s released, it\u0026rsquo;s gone. It\u0026rsquo;s off in the wind. But when you push it down, when you avoid it, when you were suppressed, when you express or when you hold onto it, it doesn\u0026rsquo;t get released.\nAnd therefore it can\u0026rsquo;t be replaced with something different. So when you have that energy come up for something you don\u0026rsquo;t want to do, simply experience the energy, just experience. Is it a burning? Is it a sensation? Is it running? Is it moving? Is it spinning? Experience it for as long as it wants to be experienced, it will eventually subside the nature of the universe.\nOne of the immutable laws of the way the universe works is impermanence The Buddhist term for it is a nature. Everything rises and falls. There was a time prior to your birth where you did not exist. You are on this planet for a period of time and then you would leave and then you will not exist anymore.\nSame for the building. You\u0026rsquo;re in same for the computer way using the country, the land mess, where on it rises and it falls. So just experience that energy. And it will dissipate. And when it dissipate, you\u0026rsquo;re going to be in a clearer position to determine whether or not you actually do want to edit, or whether you do want to go to the gym or do you want to do whatever?\nAnd if you\u0026rsquo;ve got to do it by a deadline, it\u0026rsquo;s not going to be a chore. It\u0026rsquo;s just going to be something you do. It is so simple. We make this difficult. Yeah.\nJames: I think that\u0026rsquo;s very powerful. And it\u0026rsquo;s certainly something that I know in certain areas of my life. I have that resistance to things.\nAnd then in other areas I don\u0026rsquo;t have it. I think that\u0026rsquo;s where I have that thing that I really want to do and have that desire. And I think that, letting go of those, even if it\u0026rsquo;s a good sensation, bad sensation, letting go and being present, I think that\u0026rsquo;s yeah. Really just, it\u0026rsquo;s just life-changing\nDarren: To be honest, if you get electrocuted, it\u0026rsquo;s not the current or the voltage that.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s your resistance to it. That kills you. It\u0026rsquo;s the same in everything in life. Your resistance kills you stop resisting. Now that doesn\u0026rsquo;t mean you become a walk over and everyone puts stuff on your desk. It just means you don\u0026rsquo;t resist the energy associated with it. When someone puts some shit on your desk, your guru has turned up as that shit.\nYou\u0026rsquo;re learning a lesson from it. There\u0026rsquo;s triggered something within you. Let it go and just get through it. But the energy go. Yeah, I think that\u0026rsquo;s\nJames: Key. Let the energy go. And then once that\u0026rsquo;s done, then decide and want to do, rather than even what you were saying earlier about reacting to what time when your alarm goes off and things like that instead of the stuffing putting your desk and then you straight away oh, like getting angry, frustrated, whatever.\nYeah. Sit with it for a bit and let it go. And then, from a better place to decide what to\nDarren: Do. Important to do in the moment, the best bodies to do it in the moment you\u0026rsquo;re having a conversation. You\u0026rsquo;re in a meeting your bosses, ragging on you, or there\u0026rsquo;s some stress, you can feel the energy coming up and flowing and you just let it go.\nJust let it go while you\u0026rsquo;re having the conversation, just experience it. And what you\u0026rsquo;ll find is there\u0026rsquo;s James back here seeing the world going on and also noticing the experience. And when you can picture James back here experiencing what\u0026rsquo;s going on and interacting with the world, you\u0026rsquo;re present to the present moment, which is what all the gurus teach.\nAnd it gets rid of the sanskaras, which means you\u0026rsquo;ll get through that level and the video game. So you can progress to the next level. How many levels per video game, who knows depends on how good you were in your previous one. And this one,\nJames: I think that\u0026rsquo;s a great mental model as well, to look at, if there\u0026rsquo;s saying like bad things happening or, maybe it\u0026rsquo;s relationships or you\u0026rsquo;re losing lots of money or whatever it is, it\u0026rsquo;s a great lens to kind of place those things into to realize that, this isn\u0026rsquo;t the end of the world, this is just another challenge that I\u0026rsquo;m going to overcome, then I\u0026rsquo;m going to continue, like it\u0026rsquo;s just a time for me to upgrade almost.\nCause I know you said at the very start of this thing, you lost your job at the more from, starting at your company on your own. Those were difficult times on some level, I\u0026rsquo;ve heard it described, it\u0026rsquo;s almost like a catapult where the time it goes down, can really be the thing that pulls back and lets you launch and go further.\nDarren: Yeah.\nJames: Yeah, I think that\u0026rsquo;s, that\u0026rsquo;s really going combined with these letting go techniques and, in doing things that you do from a place of calmness and a place of, rather than reacting and frustration and anger and all these things, I think that can help you make better decisions and things like that.\nI think it\u0026rsquo;s really fundamental,\nDarren: Protesting around the country about lockdowns, right? All they\u0026rsquo;ve got is this energy running through them and they go I\u0026rsquo;ve got to go off and spend this energy. I\u0026rsquo;ve got to go protest because their voice in their head is telling me that I\u0026rsquo;m right. Don\u0026rsquo;t lose that voice in your head is not, you don\u0026rsquo;t listen to it.\nAnd what happens if they just simply experienced, sat down for five minutes and experienced that energy, they wouldn\u0026rsquo;t want to go off. Being a protest for cause what Dan Andrews, ah, the approaches are far. We better let\u0026rsquo;s pull the plug on these lockdowns, go off. We were wrong. 300 people, protein. We must be wrong.\nOkay. I didn\u0026rsquo;t even w in Western Australia, where in Primark, McGowan has closed the border. They haven\u0026rsquo;t had any COVID at all. They had anti lockdown this over there. Why I\u0026rsquo;ve got no idea, as he said, grow a brain. But what happens in this energy is running through them and they\u0026rsquo;ve got to do something with it and they don\u0026rsquo;t know.\nYou can never just sit there and experience it. If you sit there and experience it, it will be dissipated. And you won\u0026rsquo;t feel as though it\u0026rsquo;s stupid or you won\u0026rsquo;t feel as though it\u0026rsquo;s necessary to go off and do something stupid, like a protest. Then what you\u0026rsquo;ll be able to do is put that energy and focus into something you want to do to move to the next level of your video game.\nThat is life. So you can achieve on her investment property or in shares. Go write a poem or whatever it is more productive for you as an individual and therefore probably society at large. No, I\nJames: Definitely agree with that. So one thing as well, I wanted to ask you about something that you teach in your mindset mastery course, and something that I\u0026rsquo;m sure you teach him, whatever it is that you\u0026rsquo;re teaching is around this idea of like self doubt.\nAnd we touched on as well imposter syndrome and things like that, these kinds of thoughts that can come into your head, let\u0026rsquo;s say the example of a role comes open at work and it\u0026rsquo;s a promotion. And then you think about applying for it, but you can talk yourself out of going for it.\nOr you can talk yourself out of seeking your opportunities or doing a certain thing, even though that you could do it or you should do it even. What are some tips that you\u0026rsquo;d give to someone that\u0026rsquo;s thinking through those things?\nDarren: That voice in your head. It\u0026rsquo;s not, you don\u0026rsquo;t listen to it.\nWhat the hell do you mean that voice in your head? He\u0026rsquo;s not using it. It is an evolutionary throwback from when we were amoebas. Not you and I personally, but other people were look at plants. When like life started on this planet, about 1.3, 1.2, 1.3 billion years ago, plants were the first form of life and everything in the world, everything in the university is measured in energy.\nHow to plants get their energy. They stand in the sun, photosynthesis, light happy days. They don\u0026rsquo;t have to do anything to get their energy happy days. Somehow I wasn\u0026rsquo;t there at the time. So I don\u0026rsquo;t know exactly, but singled cells, celled organisms turned out. And they had to get energy and they had to develop a way to remember, because if you think of an amoeba, a single cell organism would go off and it would eat something subsumed into itself and it would die or get sick and had to remember to not, if he got sick to not eat that.\nAnd then to go off and eat this bit of thing over here, that was, life-affirming had to remember to eat that life affirming, donate that life tonight. How did it do that? And it\u0026rsquo;s assumed that this is where the ego comes from the voice inside your head tells you to do stuff that you know will be safe. It is a trouble predicting machine.\nIt will find anything that could go wrong and tell you as though it will go wrong. And that\u0026rsquo;s why when that job comes up for you. That you\u0026rsquo;d be perfect for it screamed at you because you may not get it. Therefore you\u0026rsquo;re safer here where you are. So don\u0026rsquo;t listen to it, right? Sounds fence. But you know, There\u0026rsquo;s, my voice told me what to do.\nThat voice does not have your best interest at heart. Have you ever been sitting down on the couch? Watch TV, enjoying the show, whatever. And these things called ads came on every seven and a half minutes, like annoys the shit out of your facility ship. And in the evening, what would happen if you\u0026rsquo;re sitting there on the couch? Not a want in the world, everything\u0026rsquo;s happy.\nYou\u0026rsquo;re holding hands with your loved one, like good meal, happy kitchen\u0026rsquo;s clean. I can rip a life. Sweet. And then an ad for some ice cream. You hadn\u0026rsquo;t thought of anything watching your that\u0026rsquo;d be nice. So my ice cream in the fridge, I wouldn\u0026rsquo;t mind Amazon now trying to lose weight. Yeah. But nice.\nWouldn\u0026rsquo;t it. You ever done this? You have an argument with yourself for 20 minutes, whether or not you should have some ice cream you weren\u0026rsquo;t even thinking about. And then you come up with all of these excuses. You\u0026rsquo;ve been working hard while we\u0026rsquo;re in lockdown on the ladder of tree, buddy got all this beans half week.\nIf I can, I\u0026rsquo;m going to do it. So you go over next to ads. Come on. So you go and get the ice cream. And because you\u0026rsquo;re hardcore, you\u0026rsquo;re sprinkle a bit of Milo on top. And then you come back, sit down on the couch and you start eating it and it tastes beautiful. You get to the end, you\u0026rsquo;ve reclined, the chair, you reach down and you put the thing on the floor.\nAbout a minute later, that voice in your head goes, why did you eat that ice cream? You\u0026rsquo;re trying to lose weight, all that exercise you did during the week. And it starts ragging on you for doing what it wanted you to do. All that he wants to do is have your attention, because that way it feels in control.\nDon\u0026rsquo;t listen to it. It doesn\u0026rsquo;t have anything useful for you most of the time.\nSo what\u0026rsquo;s the obvious question.\nHow do you not listen to it when it\u0026rsquo;s so present\ngood question. I\u0026rsquo;m glad you asked.\nWhat do you reckon the answer is? I think\nJames: One, one on law days would be, you\u0026rsquo;re saying earlier about, building the scaffolding to get over the mountain. And I feel like it\u0026rsquo;s a similar situation where instead of just trying to avoid these points in your head, why can\u0026rsquo;t we just get rid of it?\nAnd so it\u0026rsquo;s not there in the first place, but I don\u0026rsquo;t know if that applies.\nDarren: I don\u0026rsquo;t think you\u0026rsquo;ll ever get rid of it. But if you spend two or three lifetimes meditating, like I only eat anyhow, you might\nonly one technique my friend. And that is to let the energy behind it go. So the aware, so there\u0026rsquo;s three things we\u0026rsquo;ve got the body, we\u0026rsquo;ve got our mind and we\u0026rsquo;ve got our awareness of the two our awareness goes to the mind, to the voice. The awareness goes to the voice when it fears the emotions and the feelings.\nSo the sensations that we have in our body, which are always there, you and I, we are made of atoms and atoms made of quarks quantum physics tells us this, that it\u0026rsquo;s just a little trickle impulse going backwards and forwards. It\u0026rsquo;s not even solid. Doesn\u0026rsquo;t that do your heading, everything in the world is made up of, but yet solid.\nBut does he hit him with, by the particle in a wave at the same time and acts as the same thing. So in your body, there is always sensations, but we have this concept in psychology that we called habituation. So you\u0026rsquo;ve been sitting down for the last half hour or last hour, and you can\u0026rsquo;t even feel the chair that you\u0026rsquo;re sitting on until I\u0026rsquo;ve brought it up.\nThere\u0026rsquo;s always that sensation. There, there is sense that you can\u0026rsquo;t even feel your shoes when your feet in your shoes, when you\u0026rsquo;re walking around. Until you decide to pay attention to it. We block all these signals out. So when we hear the voice saying, eat the ice cream, made the ice cream sense in your body for where is the energy sense that energy and just experience it and let it go.\nAnd if you do that, the voice will go well stop talking about ice cream anyway. Or if it does want to talk to you about ice cream, you\u0026rsquo;re not going to have the energy behind it to get you out of the seat and walk over and invest in a diabetic coma.\nDoes that make sense?\nJames: Yeah, I think it does definitely. I think, trying to quiet the voice or at least listen to it, hear what it has to say and just take away that, that charge that can sometimes be that.\nDarren: But just type the energy for surrender to the energy. So you\u0026rsquo;re at work and a promotion has come up, you hear it, you go has another 15 grand a year.\nHow cool is that? And I\u0026rsquo;ll get a bit of travel and the borders were open. Exciting job. I\u0026rsquo;ll be able to use my degree happy days. I\u0026rsquo;m not going to be able to do it. They\u0026rsquo;re going to choose someone else, just search out in your body where their energy is and experience it. It may get more intense.\nMay not. You might feel it as heat. You might feel it as tingling. You might feel it as a sinking feeling. You might feel it as a euphoric field. I don\u0026rsquo;t know whatever you feel it as is right for you. You\u0026rsquo;re in your body. I\u0026rsquo;m not. And then once that energy has passed, You\u0026rsquo;ll be in a position where you\u0026rsquo;re much clearer and able to see what your next best step would be.\nNow, it may be that you look at it and you, without all those emotions running, you determine though it would not be worth your time in blind for it. If you want the job, I\u0026rsquo;ve always thought. Never apply for a job you qualified for you\u0026rsquo;ll only be bored and let them determine whether or not you\u0026rsquo;re qualified for it.\nNo, I think\nJames: It, that\u0026rsquo;s a great way to look at it too. I think, putting yourself out there. It\u0026rsquo;s certainly great. And I, and all of these tips, like absolutely fundamental, cause I think one of those, another thing that I\u0026rsquo;ve heard is today\u0026rsquo;s day and age, everyone can know all the things that you need to do any job, or you can know all the knowledge, but it\u0026rsquo;s these things now it should becoming more and more important is how can you deal with your emotions and situations?\nHow how can you remove these resistance to certain things? It becomes a lot more important. So yeah, I totally agree with what you\u0026rsquo;re saying.\nSo the last question I\u0026rsquo;ve got for you, Darren, is when we\u0026rsquo;ve got the audience of graduates here. So one piece of advice that you\u0026rsquo;d give to someone, if you were graduating university this year, or one lesson that you would give to someone else graduating.\nDarren: Get vaccinated now, as silly as that sound, it\u0026rsquo;s actually a lot deeper. So what we\u0026rsquo;ve had since world war two, and it\u0026rsquo;s been driven a lot by the us is the power of the individual. Okay. Oh my rights. I can do this. I\u0026rsquo;m going to be the top, blah, blah, blah. The idea of COVID and climate change. These are all existential crisis that affect the whole world.\nNow I can put a mask on and I can get vaccinated and I can go like hippie don\u0026rsquo;t drive anything, but I\u0026rsquo;m not going to stop COVID by myself. And I\u0026rsquo;m not going to change climate change by myself. We need as a society to work together. So the people who were going lockdowns are bad. It\u0026rsquo;s not affecting me. My business has gone down the toilet.\nYou\u0026rsquo;ve got to change. They\u0026rsquo;re missing the tectonic shift that is going on in society. That is, we are moving from a collectivist, sorry, an individualistic society back to a collectivist society where we rely on each other. There\u0026rsquo;s an Ethiopian saying a traditional Ethiopian saying, if you want to go fast, go alone.\nBut if you wanna go far go together. And that\u0026rsquo;s where we are now that the mask and the vaccination is the metaphor for what we need to do. This is all about coming together. The knowledge that you have is great. It\u0026rsquo;s common, but it\u0026rsquo;s great. Your experience that you have from your life that have brought you here today is uncommon and needs to be shared as your knowledge, that needs to be shared.\nI get vaccinated. He for no other reason we don\u0026rsquo;t get either.\nJames: No, he was born there. And I think that\u0026rsquo;s a fantastic note to finish today on get accidental. Everyone. Thanks so much for your time today, Dan. Fantastic lessons in there. Yeah. Thanks so much. Cheers buddy.\nThanks so much for tuning in to our episode today with Diane as I\u0026rsquo;m sure you\u0026rsquo;ve worked out by now, he is a wealth of knowledge and it was fantastic recording this episode with him.\nIf you\u0026rsquo;d like to connect with Darren further, you can do so via the links in the show notes his website, Dan fleming.com. If you\u0026rsquo;re listening on any kind of podcast platform that has some kind of comment or review system, I\u0026rsquo;d really appreciate it. If you could leave us a review or a comment, these reviews go a long way to helping the podcasts get out there so they can have more listeners and share this knowledge with more.\nIf you\u0026rsquo;ve got any comments on the podcast itself, we just want to get in touch with me. My email is also in the description of the show. So please send me an email or send me a message, whatever you please. If you want to check more stuff out to do with the podcast, please visit Graduate Theory.com and you\u0026rsquo;ll find it all there.\nPlease follow us on social media and please subscribe to the show. If you haven\u0026rsquo;t already. Thanks so much for listening. I\u0026rsquo;ll see you in the next episode.\n← Back to episode 3\n","date":"6 November 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/graduate-theory/3-on-patterns-and-letting-go-with-behavioural-scientist-darren-fleming/transcript/","section":"Graduate Theory Transcripts","summary":"← Back to episode 3\nThis transcript has been lightly edited for readability. It may still contain transcription errors.\nIntro # James: Hello, and welcome to Graduate Theory on Graduate Theory. We’re all about providing resources and lessons for graduates so they can have a successful and fulfilling career. And on today’s episode, I speak to someone who is a really funny guy and someone that really has a lot of experience speaking to people who operate at a very high level.\n","title":"Transcript: On Patterns and Letting Go with Behavioural Scientist, Darren Fleming","type":"graduate-theory-transcripts"},{"content":" Watch the conversation Graduate Theory Open YouTube ↗ Read the full transcript → Joe Wehbe is the co-founder of Constant Student and the co-author of 18 and Lost, a collection of lessons about navigating the years after high school.\nOur conversation starts with the story of how Joe earned an endorsement from Seth Godin for the book. It becomes a broader discussion about networking: not as a transactional hunt for favours, but as the patient work of building genuine relationships and leaving people better off.\nEpisode takeaways # The strongest networks grow from mutual trust and a genuine interest in helping other people. Generosity does not mean saying yes to everything; good relationships still need boundaries. Opportunities often emerge long after an introduction, so relationships are best treated as long-term investments rather than immediate exchanges. University is a useful time to experiment, meet people and become comfortable with uncertainty. The episode also explores Adam Grant\u0026rsquo;s idea of givers, matchers and takers, the role of personal branding, and the urgency that comes from remembering that our time is limited.\nJoe\u0026rsquo;s links # Joe Wehbe\u0026rsquo;s website 18 and Lost Graduate Theory # https://www.graduatetheory.com/youtube\nhttps://www.graduatetheory.com/linkedin\nhttps://www.graduatetheory.com/instagram\nContact Me james@graduatetheory.com\nThings discussed # 18 and Lost Akimbo, co-founded by Seth Godin Give and Take by Adam Grant Gary Vaynerchuk The Comfort Crisis by Michael Easter ","date":"5 November 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/graduate-theory/1-on-networking-with-founder-and-author-joe-wehbe/","section":"Graduate Theory","summary":" Watch the conversation Graduate Theory Open YouTube ↗ Read the full transcript → Joe Wehbe is the co-founder of Constant Student and the co-author of 18 and Lost, a collection of lessons about navigating the years after high school.\n","title":"On Networking with Founder and Author, Joe Wehbe","type":"graduate-theory"},{"content":"← Back to episode 1\nThis transcript has been lightly edited for readability. It may still contain transcription errors.\nJames: Hello, and welcome to Graduate Theory, please. Welcome to the show, Joe Wehbe.\nJoe: Thanks very much, James. Good to be here. Yeah,\nJames: It\u0026rsquo;s fantastic to have you on mate. You\u0026rsquo;re certainly someone that I look up to and someone that\u0026rsquo;s really inspired the creation of this podcast. So it\u0026rsquo;s very cool to have you on and hear your insights because he is certainly very knowledgeable.\nSeth Godin\u0026rsquo;s Endorsement # James: We\u0026rsquo;ve done a lot of things. So looking forward to this. One thing I want to start off with is the book that\u0026rsquo;s just come out 18 and Lost fantastic achievement. I want to ask about the name or the blurb on the back. Seth Godin is on there. So I want to ask just, we can talk about the book and all that stuff, but I want to start with there is that perfect.\nI want to start with sure. I want to start with, like, how did he get this guy on a back? What was your kind of process What\u0026rsquo;s the whole story behind it is because it is quite cool to have him on the back there. Yeah.\nJoe: Yeah. It is. It is very cool. Yeah very lucky. I\u0026rsquo;m very lucky, but it wasn\u0026rsquo;t accidental obviously to and I don\u0026rsquo;t have a personal rule.\nWithin the final one is not familiar with him. Seth Godin is very prominent as a thought leader in marketing, in education, in like post-industrial kind of world and careers and work and written like 20 bestselling books start a bunch of kind of cool companies has a very kind of clear and meaningful message.\nSo that\u0026rsquo;s who he is. If anyone hasn\u0026rsquo;t heard of him and. Yeah, and I guess we got it. I did a course at the organization that he co-founded they co-founded think all the MBA and then this other organization Akimbo evolved around it, I believe. And it\u0026rsquo;s like very alternative education, a company.\nAnd I did a course there and I did the course thinking you know, I\u0026rsquo;d meet great people and I knew that people like him were behind it. So I figured there\u0026rsquo;s lots of relationships actually, before. With this organization beyond just like learning some good stuff in the one week course it was called the emerging leaders program.\nIs that if I hadn\u0026rsquo;t done it, I wouldn\u0026rsquo;t have. Yeah. Like I met, Liam is a mutual friend of ours and collaborator, and that\u0026rsquo;s how I met you. So there you go. And yeah, in the same way, I knew we were working on the book cause I cared about education at the time going into it. And I was curious to see how they did things.\nSo it was a learning opportunity for me in that sense, like the model they did and then. I knew that yeah, they have so many people in their community that are like useful. I knew that going in. So I was like, I always planned to do the course and then see what it was like, and then add value to their.\nOrganization where I could. And that was like I did I hosted catch up calls after gave a lot of feedback. Letter generous feedback, obviously stayed in touch with people there. And in the end just had good context, at the organization. And I explained to them, they knew about the book and I explained to them the mission and why I thought, because it was an education that someone like Seth\u0026rsquo;s endorsement would go a long way, help us like catalyze the book.\nLike endorsement like that doesn\u0026rsquo;t really sell books necessarily. It\u0026rsquo;s like people hear about that and then they come find the book. Not really, but it helps like the credibility helps a lot. And it was also like really nice because we did it with a group of people. Yeah. Yeah, but that was basically like the process.\nAnd I don\u0026rsquo;t know if everyone\u0026rsquo;s now going to go start doing a bunch of Akimbo courses now that I\u0026rsquo;ve said that maybe they will. But they, yeah. Also just got very lucky because there was no incentive sorry, not no incentive, but no guaranteed. And that\u0026rsquo;s why I was very strategic about that, obviously, but you like being genuine along the ways like integral, like I just genuinely enjoyed, I got so much out of it.\nLike how I met you and everything again, that was one of the beautiful things that came out of that.\nJames: Yeah. No, that\u0026rsquo;s super interesting story. How you and I guess it\u0026rsquo;s like those things where you do one thing, it\u0026rsquo;s like that stuff you talk about with the doors, right? It\u0026rsquo;s like this kind of doing this course opens up opportunities that maybe you didn\u0026rsquo;t expect when, or maybe you didn\u0026rsquo;t expect when he first signed\nJoe: Up.\nI suspect maybe I suspect. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. That\u0026rsquo;s cool. No, I definitely. And that\u0026rsquo;s what I think if I was just trying to do the whole thing. Oh yo, hold on. I know that guy\u0026rsquo;s in that company or they know people and I\u0026rsquo;m only going to do it for. Then there\u0026rsquo;s a bit of risk in that, because if it doesn\u0026rsquo;t come off, then whatever you put into whatever effort you put in.\nYeah. Maybe unless you learnt something, it\u0026rsquo;s but if you, yeah, you get a lot out of the experiences you do, and they help you kind of meet people who can move what you care about doing further that\u0026rsquo;s, that\u0026rsquo;s what I concentrate on. Cause it\u0026rsquo;s very holistic.\nYou get a lot out of it. Not just. Gutting for that one thing.\nJames: Yeah. Yeah. That\u0026rsquo;s interesting. Yeah, I agree there and I think that\u0026rsquo;s cool. A good point about the genuineness of asking something like that and being involved, you, you joined the course because you wanted to get value and then.\nThis, these kinds of things come out. It\u0026rsquo;s almost, not as the real reason why you joined, but it\u0026rsquo;s an extra effect afterwards.\nJoe: Yeah. I think the whole idea really is like, you want to be in rooms with like great people. That\u0026rsquo;s what I\u0026rsquo;ve learned. Like I just I really, I rarely used to take up things like that when I was a bit younger. Like things like that experience.\nAnd it\u0026rsquo;s not always the right time. And like the theme of this podcast, right? The name is pretty indicative. So for people who are like, early career in the, maybe in the gap between finishing and getting into the workforce, if that\u0026rsquo;s the average listener, there\u0026rsquo;s a. There\u0026rsquo;s this it\u0026rsquo;s very different to position.\nMaybe I\u0026rsquo;m in now where I have specific things that are my focus, like education. I work on things that are like relate to education and careers. And so I like it\u0026rsquo;s deliberate, but then it always makes sense to be in good rooms with people who. Or also care about that and being able to like, find more people who who like agree and align with what you care about is always like useful.\nLike you just don\u0026rsquo;t know in the field three years later, five years later, you don\u0026rsquo;t know, like, when something will happen, like a relationship is such a good investment, and I knew that I was going to get a lot of relationships out of it. That\u0026rsquo;s what attracted me to it. And that was probably one of them was like, That\u0026rsquo;s like a moonshot that is Seth Godin and very lucky he helped.\nCause I didn\u0026rsquo;t speak to him. It was all through the and stuff, but in general just, I got so many great relationships out of it. So I knew I was going to get that for myself, but also the concept of adding value. If I\u0026rsquo;m in there adding value, being genuine, they\u0026rsquo;re going to get something out of me.\nAnd so it\u0026rsquo;s mutual and it\u0026rsquo;s not like mutually exclusive, like you can just reciprocal, like you can both, it should always be two ways, like actually really obvious idea. Yeah. Yeah. I get something out of it for yourself, but also make sure they get something out of it too. Leave everyone better off for having talked to you and you will get a lot back to\nthat\u0026rsquo;s really my approach to everything. And it so far, it really, it moves things faster. Like things like. Yeah. Yeah, it\u0026rsquo;s interesting to\nthink\nJames: About that\u0026rsquo;s cool because yeah, I feel like particularly with networking and stuff like that, I was thinking about this today.\nThat sometimes when people are like, oh, you\u0026rsquo;re going to go out there and network of people, it\u0026rsquo;s you\u0026rsquo;re trying to almost trick them to become friends with you. So you can ask if. And then just leave them yeah. You\u0026rsquo;re trying to get up this ladder of who, you know, and just so you can be like yeah.\nThe winner at the end sort of thing. Yeah, exactly. Whereas, it\u0026rsquo;s when it comes from that kind of place, I think it\u0026rsquo;s easy to, it\u0026rsquo;s easy to spot almost when someone\u0026rsquo;s trying to. Use you just like to get a favor and they\u0026rsquo;re not offering anything. And it\u0026rsquo;s much easier to be like friends with someone when they\u0026rsquo;re helping you and you\u0026rsquo;re helping each other.\nAnd it\u0026rsquo;s just like much more natural that way.\nJoe: It really is. It\u0026rsquo;s not always easy to like networking. I heard a podcast as a podcast listen to the other week and those, the guy had someone on and he\u0026rsquo;s oh, you\u0026rsquo;re the gun at networking? Don\u0026rsquo;t call me that because everyone hates that word. I don\u0026rsquo;t think of it that way.\nAnd like networking has connotations, like different people will think different things than they hear the word networking, but like stripping it back. The fundamentals of like people are the ultimate kind of resource is like at the core of it, for me, people are the ultimate resource is what I strip it back to.\nAnd honestly I\u0026rsquo;ll just be honest. I\u0026rsquo;ve told you the story about that example and like my approach, always trying to be very, add value in LA. But I definitely think I look at, if I\u0026rsquo;m on Twitter or something like that, or I hear a name or I definitely think, oh, damn. If I knew that person, I could be able to do this.\nLike I could get the message out better. I could get the book out better. Like it\u0026rsquo;s hard. Switch that off. It\u0026rsquo;s actually pretty human. I\u0026rsquo;ll be very honest that those thoughts, I definitely have those thoughts, but it\u0026rsquo;s funny that then you start moving towards all right. Let\u0026rsquo;s start to be strategic about how could I, get in touch with it.\nAnd then it\u0026rsquo;s ah, I\u0026rsquo;d have to create value for them. Yeah. And so you always reminded, and I think as long as your actions, you are your actions, not your thoughts. So as long as you like come back to the healthy way of doing it and again, like you said the filter is and the feedback loop is like, You almost don\u0026rsquo;t have a choice.\nCause it\u0026rsquo;s actually really hard to get things by being transactional. You want to call it that like transactions, like just exchange for goods. Like you don\u0026rsquo;t need to love the baker, the local baker. They\u0026rsquo;re just happy. If you give them money, they\u0026rsquo;re happy to give you bread. Like it\u0026rsquo;s transactional.\nIt doesn\u0026rsquo;t have to be a good relationship, but it can be. So like when it\u0026rsquo;s transactional, like people know and it\u0026rsquo;s like a Tinder, like a transactional thing? Is it a hookup? There\u0026rsquo;s an exchange of goods or is it like, genuine and like you can\u0026rsquo;t ask for too much, too soon inundating interaction, you gotta break it down into steps.\nThey\u0026rsquo;re not ready to marry you or anything like when someone meets you straight away. So if you just cold suggest to people that you have this kind of deep relationship. Or whatever, and they get bombarded with requests like that, then, it\u0026rsquo;s just, you just get ignored. Whereas if you break it down into steps and meet people where they\u0026rsquo;re at one sec, all right what would interest someone like this right now?\nOr what\u0026rsquo;s something simple that they can say yes to, and that\u0026rsquo;s that\u0026rsquo;s opening the door then it\u0026rsquo;s very much similar to that. It\u0026rsquo;s so easy to leverage people and leverage can be a dirty word to like networking. Yeah, great advantage and resources out of people who you have a relationship with.\nAnd it doesn\u0026rsquo;t have to be an exchange because your friends. Yeah. And cause like you mentioned my real estate experience and even in real estate, because like any business, you get people happy to refer clients gold because you don\u0026rsquo;t have to pay people necessarily to refer you clients like it\u0026rsquo;s gold word of mouth and referral partnerships.\nAnd just what I found doing that is like the people who really ended up giving me business were great friends. I became great friends with them, the ones who like we were doing, weren\u0026rsquo;t really that tight with. And we just didn\u0026rsquo;t align. Then it was like never as effective because like you like someone, you also have trust with them.\nAnd trust is like really important when you\u0026rsquo;re handing over someone. Know I don\u0026rsquo;t need, I don\u0026rsquo;t need to be paid for, I just look after them, if you make an introduction to someone all right. Just be respectful to that person. Things like that. And yeah, so I just think things like that are really it\u0026rsquo;s like just what I learned through experience.\nThe ultimately like the most productive relationships you have, you actually just end up getting along really well with them. That\u0026rsquo;s what actually makes it sticky. Yeah. In the same way, you can ask a friend for something that you can\u0026rsquo;t ask a stranger for because you have a relationship, but then online, the online world kind of dilutes that a little bit.\nAnd sometimes we forget, but it all comes down to like genuine relationships and genuine relationship building.\nJames: Yeah, no, that\u0026rsquo;s so cool. I think that\u0026rsquo;s a great point because yeah, you can\u0026rsquo;t be, it\u0026rsquo;s like what you were saying about the relationships. Like you\u0026rsquo;re not going to ask someone like to get married on the first day, whereas once you get along and you both like each other, then it\u0026rsquo;s, now we can start to ask more things and we can do more stuff together.\nThere\u0026rsquo;s a, there\u0026rsquo;s many like business. Networking, whatever parallels I think between dating and yeah. I\u0026rsquo;d realized. Yeah. So yeah, I think that was a great example.\nAdam Grant: 3 Kinds of People # James: One thing we S we spoke about before the podcast was that. Adam Grant\u0026rsquo;s book, and you were talking about this idea where there\u0026rsquo;s three types of people in networking or it friendships or whatever there\u0026rsquo;s kind of givers and takers and things like that.\nCould you elaborate on that a bit further?\nJoe: Yeah, I\u0026rsquo;d love to. Yeah. The book, give and take by Adam Grant that you mentioned. I thought it was really good lined with a lot of things I\u0026rsquo;ve thought and written about too, which is why I loved it. And he talked about givers matches and takers, as you said. So takers are always what\u0026rsquo;s in it for me.\nSo that\u0026rsquo;s like there always has to be something in it for me, that\u0026rsquo;s really obvious. For me to be willing to help. So for example, if you said to me, present example, like a joy come on the podcast. If I was a taker and I couldn\u0026rsquo;t see anything clear in it for me oh, am I going to get more clients?\nAm I gonna get more leads? Am I going to get more exposure? Are I, am I going to get some of those things? All right. Yeah. I\u0026rsquo;ll come on like a taker and they\u0026rsquo;re trying to take the. Value they can out of you without little regard for it goes in the other direction. So it\u0026rsquo;s I don\u0026rsquo;t really care about like this James Guy.\nI\u0026rsquo;m just like, whatever, if I can go on there, get some more credibility with business client, whatever matches or like traders, like has to be an even exchange of value in both directions. And obviously like pretty like at the same time. So we\u0026rsquo;re doing some promotion for the book at the moment and a guy the other day going.\nLike I, someone introduced me to him. He has a podcast, I thought, all right, can we have a conversation? This is what I care about. So what I\u0026rsquo;m trying to do. And he said all right you can come on my podcast, but I see you have a podcast too. And then maybe I can come on your podcast. So that\u0026rsquo;s like a matcher, like, all right, I\u0026rsquo;ll let you come to mind if I can come on yours.\nAnd I was like, actually, my podcast is solo. Like I don\u0026rsquo;t do guests. Unfortunately, won\u0026rsquo;t be able to do that. And you guys, my podcast is slowing down at the moment so I can do it, but I\u0026rsquo;ll send you the audio to edit or something. I was like, yeah, nah, not interested. That\u0026rsquo;s an example of matcha, right?\nIt has to go even an exchange and it has to happen at that point in time. Mainly, and then third is give us and give us a like, all right here, I\u0026rsquo;ll come on the podcast or I\u0026rsquo;ll introduce you to this person without a really obvious or tangible thing to come back.\nIf I know someone who could be an incredible guest here that might not respond to you directly, I can just introduce them to you and be like, but what\u0026rsquo;s in that for Joe, how does James podcast relate to me and all that? That\u0026rsquo;s the thing. I think we\u0026rsquo;re all everyone\u0026rsquo;s benefit is linked to everyone else in the big picture.\nThe people don\u0026rsquo;t really think about it. So even the giver thing, I, it\u0026rsquo;s probably not too different to the others as we think. But yeah, it\u0026rsquo;s generally like a generosity that seems unattached to anything coming back. No expectation of it being repaid, giving and, but also not selfless, not completely like being a doormat and letting people walk over you there\u0026rsquo;s like the selfless giver.\nAnd then there\u0026rsquo;s Kind of pragmatic give out, which is yeah, I can give this. Or I can\u0026rsquo;t do a wake of podcasts with you, James. I\u0026rsquo;ve got a busy week, like at the end of the day, I\u0026rsquo;ve got to protect some stuff that I got to. Yeah. So that\u0026rsquo;s the traditional concept of givers in that book.\nBut the fascinating thing I think about is really, if you expand your thinking and you think long-term, and you think very broadly normally like other people\u0026rsquo;s advantages become your advantages to. All right. So part of the context is right. You\u0026rsquo;re a member of our community, right? The constitute and the better you go, like the more people can understand oh wow.\nThere\u0026rsquo;s, there are communities out there that you can tap into that will help you just bounce things off and help you get set up with a project or anything like that. And then that is good. And then that\u0026rsquo;s the kind of world I want. When people do that.\nAnd also I, it\u0026rsquo;s very enjoyable and meaningful. So I contribute to someone who has like direction and stuff like that, and ambition and, dreams or anything like that, just across the board. Very meaningful to so I do get something out of it. Anyway, if you help, if I help someone like that.\nAnd I know that people have felt the same way about me. So even though the giver thing is almost a bit tricky because it\u0026rsquo;s actually it\u0026rsquo;s almost like just the, probably what changes is like the delay or how clearly you can relate the benefit received by the giver to like the gift given by the giver.\nI don\u0026rsquo;t know if that makes sense, but I gave it my best shot and see that philosophy makes all my behaviors make sense because actually we\u0026rsquo;re all rising tide lifts, all boats. Like we\u0026rsquo;re all have aligned interests.\nJames: Yeah. Yeah, for sure. And I\u0026rsquo;ve heard that like similar thing, like with the giving, even just as a kind of business idea, like gay, these had that book called a jab jab, right. hook or something. It\u0026rsquo;s something like that. And there\u0026rsquo;s a lot of businesses do that. Whether it\u0026rsquo;s on social media or whatever, where they like, just give you like free videos on YouTube or like three. Content about this topic or whatever, to develop the relationship. And then that has there\u0026rsquo;s no expectation of a return with those.\nLike they\u0026rsquo;re not expecting you to come and darn it the money like afterwards, but they are secretly hoping, I guess that when they actually do release something that you like care about them and you\u0026rsquo;re invested in what they\u0026rsquo;re doing enough, so that you\u0026rsquo;ll go and buy their course or sign up to whatever it might\nJoe: Be.\nYeah. The other thing with that, you can come back to dating and it\u0026rsquo;s oh, would you like to go on six dates with me? Or if you say that to someone they\u0026rsquo;re like, do I want to go on six dates with this guy? I\u0026rsquo;m not sure if I want to do that, but you want to go on one date, no expectations of a second, third or fourth.\nYou like, hi, I can commit to that. And so what that strategy does, Inbound marketing and all that sort of stuff. Is it just it\u0026rsquo;s that way is what relationship building is. It\u0026rsquo;s breaking things down to a small enough step that someone can commit to. If it\u0026rsquo;s a, if it\u0026rsquo;s a significant person like in the business world or something that you\u0026rsquo;re trying to get in touch with almost like giving them a LinkedIn message or an email that they can just reply to, that they would reply.\nIt was almost like a great first step. It\u0026rsquo;s almost better than having nothing and sending him like a big pitch and a dump. That\u0026rsquo;s interesting to think about. And even with those, even the ones you\u0026rsquo;re talking about, even the people like, yeah, I\u0026rsquo;m sure they do hope that they pay the, even the ones that don\u0026rsquo;t end up paying, like probably still spread awareness of that person\u0026rsquo;s brand like, Hey Seth Godin or Gary V has this free video.\nIt should be done. I just send you the YouTube. And you\u0026rsquo;ve never heard of Gary V before, he, you\u0026rsquo;re now aware of him and you\u0026rsquo;ve got a relationship with him. It\u0026rsquo;s familiarity. How often do you land on a website and spend a thousand dollars with someone you\u0026rsquo;ve never heard of a product you\u0026rsquo;ve never heard of, not that often, but if you\u0026rsquo;ve heard of them before and stuff like that, you\u0026rsquo;ve got that familiarity then.\nOh, you\u0026rsquo;re more likely to buy at Gary V. Like I see that guy everywhere. He must be. I\u0026rsquo;ll buy his course or whatever. I\u0026rsquo;ll pay him to be my media marketing manager, whatever. And again, you come back to relationships, it\u0026rsquo;s the same thing. Like you see someone around a lot, you have a couple of touch points with them, build the builds trust.\nJames: Yeah, definitely. I think that\u0026rsquo;s super cool. And I think even myself, I\u0026rsquo;ve, you can relate it. Personal brand like, is how not only are you perceived on in, in person or whatever, like online on your, maybe you have your own personal Instagram for like business related stuff or whatever.\nMaybe you have your own website, but your personal brand is also how you interact with people? What do you like when you go and watch the footie at someone\u0026rsquo;s house? Or stuff like that. So this kind of giving thing. Yeah. Not just for like, when you\u0026rsquo;re trying to network with someone or like online advice or like even in your, in a business, like offering value by releasing content or whatever.\nYeah. It\u0026rsquo;s definitely about Yeah, this person said they were interested in coming along to this event that I\u0026rsquo;ve previously been to let\u0026rsquo;s connect them with the organizer or things like that, that you can really like positively impact people.\nJoe: Yeah. Majorly, like I believe the one, the way you do one thing is the way you do everything, and I noticed that in so many ways, like even when I look at people, I play soccer with. And like I realized the similarities between maybe how they play soccer. Cause a lot of them are school friends or my brothers. And I noticed similarities between the way they play soccer and the way they like their work ethic and everything like that.\nAnd it\u0026rsquo;s hard to switch things on and off. And it\u0026rsquo;s very hard to do it for a long. So it\u0026rsquo;s funny, even though networking can be a dirty word. It\u0026rsquo;s one I\u0026rsquo;m happy to use. Cause every conclusion I think of every time I think about it, the way to do it most effectively is just at the end of the day, become a better person.\nJames: Yeah. Holistically. Yeah,\nJoe: Definitely. One of the cleverest books of all time is obviously how to win friends and influence people. For that reason, the title is Ooh, how do you get all these dirty tricks and get your away?\nIt would be your way. And then not to spoil the book. The whole premise of the book is unfortunately you gotta be genuinely interested in them and not even expect something when you just show interest in them with that. That\u0026rsquo;s it. And start with this and start there. And then things can snowball because it\u0026rsquo;s oh, that person\u0026rsquo;s just interest.\nSo that\u0026rsquo;s it\u0026rsquo;s it\u0026rsquo;s funny, but it\u0026rsquo;s also it\u0026rsquo;s relieving cause so much you feel like, oh, I\u0026rsquo;ve got to get in touch and I\u0026rsquo;ve got to advance my career and this and that. And then you realize, oh, the whole way along, I can just be myself who actually be the most effective, which is not not easy, especially today.\nBecause the environment we\u0026rsquo;re in there\u0026rsquo;s always a shiny objects dangling, so it\u0026rsquo;s not always like easy, but it\u0026rsquo;s, I like, as often as you can be reminded of that, I think is powerful. But yeah, I think the general call to action is like the G word, like genuine just makes things flow and it\u0026rsquo;s effortless.\nCause you just.\nJames: Yeah. Yeah, totally.\nHow you do anything is how you do everything # James: And I liked what you said there about like how you do anything is how you do everything. I\u0026rsquo;ve had that before and I think that it\u0026rsquo;s just is really key. Cause I\u0026rsquo;ve heard like this one podcast, I first heard that many years ago now the guy was saying like when you go to the.\nLike how do you like to leave the bathroom when he finished in there? Do you make sure it\u0026rsquo;s all like cleaner than when you left it? How do you like go wash the dishes? Do you do a good job or do you just do them good or not? So the next person will have to deal with your problem.\nAll these kinds of things are like, it\u0026rsquo;s not just going to be a once-off thing. Someone that cleans the dishes really well, it was probably also going to do or other things in their life, like really well. And so I think that\u0026rsquo;s super important because it\u0026rsquo;s something now that I like watch out for.\nDoing like even menial tasks, like, how am I doing this? Because this is reflective of like how I\u0026rsquo;m going to do things like at work or like, how am I going to complete a project? Because there might be little things that you just audit need to do that. Cause oh, that\u0026rsquo;s fine.\nI\u0026rsquo;ll just skip that bit. But it\u0026rsquo;s putting things away in the right place. Are we going to when you finish a project, you\u0026rsquo;re going to check what it is like a few times before you send it off that there\u0026rsquo;s no spelling errors and make sure like everything\u0026rsquo;s in the exact right place, things like that.\nJust doing like that at one, 2% extra, in every little thing adds like a lot to everything that you do. I think so. Yeah. I like, I\u0026rsquo;m a big fan of.\nJoe: Yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s a great thought. You\u0026rsquo;ve prompted me to rethink that for myself and get better at it. So thank you so late. Be paying attention to everything.\nJames: Obviously you got think of it all the time, but I think there\u0026rsquo;s absolutely but it\u0026rsquo;s\nJoe: A, it\u0026rsquo;s a very. Frame. It\u0026rsquo;s a very good a frame. And even if someone listened to this and did that for the next day, that\u0026rsquo;s a very positive, because I did feel like all these positive attitudes, if you want or approaches, like you, I\u0026rsquo;m going to do more of that and you don\u0026rsquo;t always follow through, but I think over time they all kind of sink in and they all add up.\nYeah, that\u0026rsquo;s better that long-term long-term trend is trending towards being been better yeah. In that way. So that\u0026rsquo;s honestly a really great attitude, I think.\nJames: No, I definitely agree.\nHighlights from 18 and Lost # James: So let\u0026rsquo;s go back to your book. Now let\u0026rsquo;s talk about you feel this is quite a unique concept. I\u0026rsquo;d haven\u0026rsquo;t heard of a book written like this before, where you\u0026rsquo;ve got.\nSometimes there\u0026rsquo;s like the one author. And then there\u0026rsquo;s a couple of guys that like, do like the forward. So there\u0026rsquo;s three authors on the front of whatever, but this is not that this is there\u0026rsquo;s. I think you have eight different people that are each written, a section of the book. Tell us about how that can.\nJoe: Yeah. And we, I guess Scott is my high school friend who ended up doing, we did like nonprofit work together, and then he did his own startup espresso, which is a great up and coming Ozzy company. And we like have always been interested in education from starting to do our own self directed, very self-directed projects, like things we\u0026rsquo;re choosing for ourselves to do.\nAnd we just found where we learned so much. There are great places to live. You got a lot. We both went to uni. He loved uni. I\u0026rsquo;d have the best time, but you undoubtedly still learn things. But I think the most effective ways to learn, especially in this day and age, where you can create things easily more easily than ever before is projects and picking your own challenges to do.\nI guess our mission together is to try and help catalyze that approach to education and making it more accessible because there\u0026rsquo;s a lot of pieces to pull together, but it\u0026rsquo;s logistically easier. So it\u0026rsquo;s not packaged up for people is the problem. Like your podcast, you have to decide to do it. Then you have to find the guests.\nYou have to figure out how to do it. And you just at the start you\u0026rsquo;re right. So how do you package it up and make it easier? That was the inspiration for the. So we cared about education. We\u0026rsquo;ll theme the book around like something useful for young people when they\u0026rsquo;re leaving high school.\nCause that\u0026rsquo;s like a pretty big social problem. Yeah. We want to make it a learning experience for us in the co-authors. And I wanted to learn myself. It\u0026rsquo;s the first book I\u0026rsquo;ve published and will be self published. And I went to learn like, all right, how do I do this self publishing thing? What\u0026rsquo;s involved.\nI really didn\u0026rsquo;t know. I knew been writing stuff for ages. It was like, As good for me too. Yeah. And we just found basically friends, literally just people we knew who we thought. Yeah. They\u0026rsquo;d be interested in doing this. People were just intentional all young people or young Australians, like if I\u0026rsquo;d known you a year ago, I might\u0026rsquo;ve asked you for example maybe in the future.\nSo is literally like that just like showing you back. Yeah. Really anyone can do it and then 18 and Lost. So it\u0026rsquo;s about obviously that awkward journey after leaving high school, most people have a lot of it, lot of challenges or things to think about and process, even if you get through it unscathed.\nBut it seems like everyone goes through a bit of something at that time and kind of big problem to be. We are not very good at ferrying people across from the high school environment. The rest of the world, they\u0026rsquo;re in where we really we let them swim across a very choppy waters and just see who survives.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s just not the kind of the world I want to live in. Yeah. So that\u0026rsquo;s probably the broader ambition is alright, what\u0026rsquo;s good for that. Sharing people\u0026rsquo;s stories like eight very different people. And there\u0026rsquo;s a surprise ninth as well, all those different stories.\nAnd getting them shared gives you like, oh wow. That\u0026rsquo;s what it was like for those people, cause you can\u0026rsquo;t summarize everyone\u0026rsquo;s experience. There\u0026rsquo;s no one experience or one way of doing things, but by giving eight or nine different examples, we thought that can help, maybe it\u0026rsquo;ll resonate with someone.\nLike one of those stories will resonate. Like I felt that way too, for example, and it\u0026rsquo;s not just. \u0026lsquo;cause we don\u0026rsquo;t talk about things like that in depth. Very often. So I wrote about leaving high school, my struggles at university, not really pursuing the things I was actually interested in, but trying to take a safe road and how that felt.\nAnd I called it like six out of 10 life. Like not so bad that you make a change, but not so good that you\u0026rsquo;re enjoying things. You just really riding the middle. Yeah. And to be honest, like a lot of my family and friends wouldn\u0026rsquo;t know that stuff until they read it. Yeah. Cause like it doesn\u0026rsquo;t really come up for sure.\nAnd that\u0026rsquo;s the thing. That\u0026rsquo;s why we wanted to take a storytelling approach. But yeah. Ultimately like the concept was pretty cool. We\u0026rsquo;re pretty proud of it. Cause it was like we gave everyone like five weeks to write their chapter and that created the accountability and get through writing a book.\nReduce the workload, because you just got to deliver one chapter. It was their stories, which for most people is pretty intimidating I think the group really helps with the follow-through cause like when you got to do things and other people are relying on, you creates way more incentive.\nIf it\u0026rsquo;s just me on my own, if I don\u0026rsquo;t do this, no one\u0026rsquo;s gonna, no, one\u0026rsquo;s gonna mind. As books often are and. Yeah, the writing, I believe the writing very proud of everyone\u0026rsquo;s chapters. So I really it\u0026rsquo;s. One of the things I care about a lot is helping more people learn what they\u0026rsquo;re capable of through, through writing books.\nA good one, because it\u0026rsquo;s very tangible, I did this and I became an author, so it\u0026rsquo;s a really great journey to go on and I\u0026rsquo;m sure. And encourage as many kind of, especially young people to take up that challenge or, and we\u0026rsquo;re trying to facilitate it in our work too. Like more people doing this sort of stuff,\nJames: For sure.\nDoes it, so with the book, were there any key themes between people leaving, high school in uni, whatever it is because obviously, yeah, like you said, it\u0026rsquo;s a very choppy time leaving high school. You got to pick one thing to do, which is. Yeah, almost everyone is like, I\u0026rsquo;ve got no idea,\nWhat are some key themes from the book and even common problems that people had and how do they go about dealing with those?\nJoe: Yeah. Great question. I in the, towards the conclusion, I unpack. The five big ones I noticed. But I also encourage, I\u0026rsquo;d love to hear, like when people read it, what things they picked up that I didn\u0026rsquo;t pick up, but it\u0026rsquo;s one of the things one of the key things was that the people who are not super true to like their, maybe their internal.\nWhich is this is what I feel like I should be doing. Like what their real interests are at that time. And things like that. The authors that didn\u0026rsquo;t follow those kinds of key interests. Looked like they struggled a bit like really like an emotional cycle, somewhat psychological level. For example, me wanting to be a filmmaker ended up studying psychology.\nDidn\u0026rsquo;t do much film. Cause I was like just lacked confidence and lacked, I don\u0026rsquo;t know. It didn\u0026rsquo;t know how to go be proactive about getting experience and always yeah, lots of reasons. And I didn\u0026rsquo;t feel great at that. Because there\u0026rsquo;s a gap between what I felt like I should be doing and what I was actually doing with my time.\nSo when that happens, you kinda like smelly, normally you don\u0026rsquo;t feel great. Whereas say someone like Scott, who\u0026rsquo;s his story in there? Yeah. The best thing for him he realized was probably to start with engineering and he really made that choice himself. Whereas I was looking for a safer path so that there\u0026rsquo;s kind of some of the stories falling into.\nMore a bit more like Scots, where they chose their way. And some were a bit like mine, where this is what I think I should be doing. Yeah. Not what do I really want to do? And this is not even the top thing I\u0026rsquo;d pick to do, or I picked it for the wrong reason. Like I picked it for an extrinsically motivated reason, which is the motivation comes from outside.\nIt\u0026rsquo;ll impress everyone. If I\u0026rsquo;m a ex, if I\u0026rsquo;m an engineer, I\u0026rsquo;m a psychologist. I\u0026rsquo;ll make a lot of money. That\u0026rsquo;s extrinsic, like a reward that comes from outside. Whereas intrinsic is aren\u0026rsquo;t so into like psychology or I\u0026rsquo;m selling to engineering or, I love the people I\u0026rsquo;m meeting doing this.\nThat\u0026rsquo;s much more kind of intrinsically derived that\u0026rsquo;s it? So that, that was probably like the biggest. Take away. And then I think what other things the other one, the best one is no one predicted what they\u0026rsquo;d be doing by the time they were sitting down writing the book. And that includes Jordan was our oldest author.\nHe\u0026rsquo;s a 27 and he\u0026rsquo;s got a, he\u0026rsquo;s got a chart. He drew a nice graphic in the book about all the different things he\u0026rsquo;s done. The most diverse career of any person I\u0026rsquo;ve ever seen ever. So he definitely didn\u0026rsquo;t predict what he\u0026rsquo;d be doing and even Gabby, who\u0026rsquo;s our youngest author. I think she intended to go on a gap year, last year, but COVID so start studying law and then didn\u0026rsquo;t anticipate becoming author of a book at 18.\nSo the unpredictability of it is nuts. Like no one, like I didn\u0026rsquo;t -predict I\u0026rsquo;d end up trying to do entrepreneurial projects. I left school wanting to be a filmmaker. So no one actually had the clear idea. It\u0026rsquo;s kinda like the big lie. Like you\u0026rsquo;re picking something, thinking this is my path. And it\u0026rsquo;s unlikely to be your path because most people take some sort of pivot.\nAnd that\u0026rsquo;s probably the healthy thing. If you take a pivot because it means you\u0026rsquo;re discovering things, that\u0026rsquo;s good. Like you\u0026rsquo;re not growing. If you\u0026rsquo;re not discovering things you didn\u0026rsquo;t anticipate. If you can see everything ahead and that\u0026rsquo;s when we learn, that\u0026rsquo;s the age I\u0026rsquo;m going to get. Promotion and that\u0026rsquo;s that like completely linear and no surprises.\nLike it feels safe, but it\u0026rsquo;s not really what you want. It\u0026rsquo;s what you think you want. And so actually, like not knowing is a bit healthier, but feeling comfortable, not knowing is the challenge. Whereas the people who are like dead set, like lays it in yeah, I\u0026rsquo;m just going to do that. And that\u0026rsquo;s.\nI\u0026rsquo;m going to be a doctor or I\u0026rsquo;m going to be, or whatever, like they might end up doing it. But I just think you should always have your eyes open to other stuff, because you will learn and you can always keep doing whatever, being a doctor or being a lawyer or being a builder or whatever it is, but discovering new things with them.\nIs really what makes it a journey makes it exciting. And so everyone, the other pattern is probably everyone comes out. Like you said, thinking, what do I want to do? And having some anxiety over that, because I guess we put them in an environment where we make them feel like they should know that\u0026rsquo;s what our culture is.\nNow. Everyone is made to think that they should. That\u0026rsquo;s actually the problem knowing is not actually the problem, in my opinion, it\u0026rsquo;s feeling like you think you should know, which is a bit of a mouthful is like actually most concerning. And to bring this full circle. I don\u0026rsquo;t, I couldn\u0026rsquo;t tell you one year from.\nWhat ventures I\u0026rsquo;ll be involved in where I\u0026rsquo;ll be at how much money I have in the bank or any of that. I can\u0026rsquo;t predict it. All the things I\u0026rsquo;m doing have such open loops. There\u0026rsquo;s so much that could happen. Some I don\u0026rsquo;t know, maybe the prime minister will read the book. And so I want you to do this program or, I don\u0026rsquo;t know.\nI know, but I don\u0026rsquo;t like, or it could be negative things. It could be like, I don\u0026rsquo;t know every, all the business stuff I know crashes and I don\u0026rsquo;t know, but I\u0026rsquo;m not really worried about it because I guess I\u0026rsquo;ve had enough experiences that have taught me that the worst things that can happen, you can\u0026rsquo;t learn so much from, and life is actually pretty simple at the end of the day.\nSo everything. All the achievements we go for it just like scoring an extra goal, but you\u0026rsquo;re already ahead. It\u0026rsquo;s my philosophy. So like it\u0026rsquo;s actually that not much to be that worried about because I guess I quite, I feel very, normally feel very like satisfied with who I am and how I treat people and try to remember that\u0026rsquo;s actually the most important thing, not like where I\u0026rsquo;m at by 26 or 27 or any of those things, all that kind of nonsense.\nIt makes it just okay. It makes whatever happens to be pretty okay. Like in the long run and so that\u0026rsquo;s the difference between someone who\u0026rsquo;s maybe 18 right now and thinking shit, what am I going to do with my life? Or finishing uni going shit. What am I going to do with my life? And I\u0026rsquo;m sitting here, then you\u0026rsquo;d go, oh, I wonder what I\u0026rsquo;m going to do with\nJames: My life.\nYeah. That\u0026rsquo;s a great way to put it.\nJoe: Yeah. Yeah. I don\u0026rsquo;t have any more certainly than they do. This is the point.\nJames: Yeah. That\u0026rsquo;s really cool. And I think I liked what you\u0026rsquo;re saying there, because I think, there\u0026rsquo;s like distinction almost between having like your eyes open and like kind of the light, like the light in your head or whatever switched on.\nAnd like you\u0026rsquo;re like seeking things and you\u0026rsquo;re discovering stuff. Even if that is just in your job or wherever you are in uni seeing what\u0026rsquo;s out there and going and exploring rather than just this is what I\u0026rsquo;m doing, that\u0026rsquo;s it like? And just close off to all possibility, because I think the world is open and ready for, to be discovered almost.\nYeah. I think it\u0026rsquo;s much more fun and, it makes it much more interesting when you can go out there and. And trust often, and you have some passions and interests. Yeah.\nJoe: Definitely it\u0026rsquo;s probably a bit different as well, like the generations. So say our parents\u0026rsquo; age, it\u0026rsquo;s just much more different, but we got a cultural hangover.\nSo it\u0026rsquo;s not necessarily worse. In a lot of instances, they had less choices, maybe definitely less choices on average. And so it\u0026rsquo;s just pick a pathway. If I can go to uni, that\u0026rsquo;s pretty good. Cause that\u0026rsquo;s what normally is going to get you a good job. And so that makes sense. Now it\u0026rsquo;s so different.\nThe uni stuff is still there, but then you\u0026rsquo;ve got 500 million other things that like can be done. And the internet changes like what your capabilities are, but there\u0026rsquo;s like a fraction of the awareness. There should be about that. And. And also, because of like the way the future is changing, everything like that and technology and AI and all those scary buzzwords that are in older, how all your jobs are going away, that which, change like things will change and adapt, but I don\u0026rsquo;t think it be, I think we\u0026rsquo;ll be at people will be able to adapt.\nSo I just think th there\u0026rsquo;s a real opportunity now to approach it as a discovery period. Not like. Feel successful and safe as quickly as possible period. Cause that is constraining, which I don\u0026rsquo;t find that healthy. And there\u0026rsquo;s definitely like a broader set of possibilities, but obviously that can be intimidating.\nThat can be overwhelming. And so it\u0026rsquo;s not like it\u0026rsquo;s hard to come up with a linear, set sets, endorsement, you know that he wrote this blurb on the back of the book or read it. The big lies that people have figured out their future in this powerful illness book, you\u0026rsquo;ll discover that it\u0026rsquo;s a journey, not a plan, and that you can lean into the possibilities that lie ahead.\nI just think that\u0026rsquo;s just so well put, that\u0026rsquo;s a great quote on its own irrespective of the book. It\u0026rsquo;s a journey, not a plan, like at the end of the day, I always say like, when I look back, I measure like my quality of life in store. Yeah. Obviously not money because in the end there\u0026rsquo;ll be an end.\nI don\u0026rsquo;t know when, and I won\u0026rsquo;t be counting like how many dollars I\u0026rsquo;ve got in the bank or, things like that. But what really is like the best currency is just having all these stories and all this cool shit. But you look like you went back and did, and obviously having enough money to eat and do stuff and reinvest into other things.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s like pretty, pretty good too, along the way. It\u0026rsquo;s just, it\u0026rsquo;s part of that picture. And so I\u0026rsquo;m writing a book, which is my life, but just forwards. Yeah, that makes sense. Like a story\u0026rsquo;s to be interesting.\nJames: Yeah. Yeah. No, that\u0026rsquo;s so cool.\nYou are going to die # James: And I like what you touched on it briefly there about you\u0026rsquo;re gonna die someday.\nSo you want to have these stories that you have to tell and I think, yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s something that I think about often too. And I think when you think about. I was listening to this in a book actually the other day it was called the comfort crisis.\nSo it\u0026rsquo;s about this sky. It\u0026rsquo;s a great title of a book. Yeah. So what he does this guy he\u0026rsquo;s does this massive challenge where he pretty much goes into the forest with two of his hunting friends. Like some snacks and like heaps of like luggage and tents and whatever. And I would their mission is just to go out there and like hunt, like an animal.\nI think it\u0026rsquo;s, they call it a caribou. I don\u0026rsquo;t really know what that is. I\u0026rsquo;m guessing it\u0026rsquo;s like similar to a deer.\nJoe: But everything similar to what do you\nJames: Know, I get this thing and bring it back and eight, eight, that is like the pretty much the sole source of food. And then I come back after a month.\nVery interesting. One of the things he was saying was these cultures, I think that\u0026rsquo;s actually a country in, I think they have quite a low like wealth, the GDP kind of index, but they\u0026rsquo;re one of the happiest countries in the world and one of the theories around the reason why is because they get taught about this idea of death, promise that they just get reminded that you can die. So like some people be this particular country who was saying they really focus on it. So they have a plan for where they want to die. What\u0026rsquo;s it going to look like? And they\u0026rsquo;ve really considered it in great depth.\nWhereas some people will, maybe in the Western world get right to the end and then they\u0026rsquo;re like, oh that\u0026rsquo;s what happened that ended up here. And so I think it\u0026rsquo;s so key to call it instead of, cause I think, whether it\u0026rsquo;s what career you\u0026rsquo;re going to choose who are you going to seek out?\nWhat kind of things you can, what are you going to spend your time doing? If you reflect on that your plan at your life and you\u0026rsquo;re going to die someday that, there is actually some kind of urgency to doing these things and they\u0026rsquo;re just going to happen themselves. I think that it brings a lot of clarity and especially what you\u0026rsquo;re saying about like the.\nExtrinsic and intrinsic motivations. I like, I think some of the extrinsic ones might start to fade away a little bit when you realize strips them back.\nJoe: Yeah. Def strips them back completely. My, I don\u0026rsquo;t know if you\u0026rsquo;ve heard this, but my favorite question is what would you do if you had five years to live?\nWhat would you do differently? Like how would you live differently? It\u0026rsquo;s my favorite question. Not everyone always asks if you had a data live yeah. Okay. Obviously I, say hi to James. Tell my mom, I love her. Go to the beach, have a party. Like it\u0026rsquo;s so easy. But when it\u0026rsquo;s five years, you still got like finances to manage and ration out over that time.\nAnd, but it\u0026rsquo;s so close. You can\u0026rsquo;t ignore it too. And you got time to do something like meaningful that. Impact things after you\u0026rsquo;re gone, because you\u0026rsquo;ll be very conscious of the fact that you\u0026rsquo;re going to be gone. And, it sounds a little morbid, but I think it\u0026rsquo;s actually the opposite.\nI think it\u0026rsquo;s more so what we do in the west is put death out of the picture and deny it exists. We live, most people are living as if they\u0026rsquo;re never going to die. That\u0026rsquo;s like when I look around most people in the west living as if they\u0026rsquo;re never going to. Their behavior. Doesn\u0026rsquo;t make sense to me considering that there\u0026rsquo;ll be dead one day which is struggling for 10 years just to get a mortgage.\nIf that\u0026rsquo;s an, if that\u0026rsquo;s an eighth of your life or a 10th of your life. And that was the only thing you got towards that time at expensive. Everything else. That\u0026rsquo;s good about life. But that five-year question like everyone I\u0026rsquo;ve asked, like it just strips back all the extrinsic stuff.\nCause you\u0026rsquo;re not worried about, how people are gonna look at you everything about human nature is about constraining attention to something that\u0026rsquo;s like we have finite attention. And so why so many people struggle, even though this is logical, is that.\nIn the world, we\u0026rsquo;re in the environment, we\u0026rsquo;re in like all the shiny objects and everything. Just, it sucks our attention into that in the same way. Social media will always direct your attention to what\u0026rsquo;s in your feed, even though, I don\u0026rsquo;t want to just be scrolling my phone right now. So there\u0026rsquo;s we don\u0026rsquo;t have that discipline is like really hard.\nIf you want to apply it to everything you\u0026rsquo;re looking at all the time, it\u0026rsquo;s again, like it. And I remind myself, don\u0026rsquo;t think about that and think about that. And so obviously death is just like everything else. Constrains your focus. That\u0026rsquo;ll probably constrains your focus better because it\u0026rsquo;s the reality death is the reality that we\u0026rsquo;ll have to face at some point.\nYeah. You can\u0026rsquo;t lie about that. And anything contrary is actually the big kind of fluff ball, like that\u0026rsquo;s like the distraction. So yeah I think that I\u0026rsquo;ve heard that sort of story about the different cultures that do actually centralize it and normalize it and, make it like, yeah.\nOkay. This is the constraints. These are the constraints, so what are you going to do? And, it just changes everything. That question for me, just changes everything. And this podcast, geared towards career and probably, and we talked about networking today.\nIt absolutely impacts how you think about those things. It absolutely impacts how you think about those things. Cause You think about, oh I\u0026rsquo;m not going to focus on doing everything in a transactional way. If I\u0026rsquo;ll, if I won\u0026rsquo;t be here in five years, I want to, you wanna, you want that journey.\nYou like be meaningful and you want it to like, be worthwhile good relationships that you work with and you don\u0026rsquo;t have also, you don\u0026rsquo;t have time for people who are not that. Yeah. To oh, I just want to hang out this person. Cause they can get me this or that. You don\u0026rsquo;t have time for that because you\u0026rsquo;re gone in five years.\nSo I, I try to remind myself of that question, like as often as possible, because it is a massive release. It\u0026rsquo;s just a massive release. Even thinking about it again now thank you for prompting me like unintentionally, but everything like launching a book at the moment, all these things. And I just right now, just for.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s calming it\u0026rsquo;s so fascinating. And yeah it\u0026rsquo;s definitely like missing from Western culture in a big way. We don\u0026rsquo;t, it\u0026rsquo;s not normally in the career guidance books and all that sort of stuff and high school. And, but I have a feeling I can next coming decades. It might because.\nThings are going to change so much with technology and the world and the digital world and crypto and all these things. Just going to shift things around so much flying cars and it\u0026rsquo;s coming and it\u0026rsquo;s coming. And so that\u0026rsquo;s going to force us to rethink the way we do a lot of things. So it\u0026rsquo;d be fascinating to see.\nHow big those changes might be. Yeah. Yeah.\nJames: No, totally. Totally. Yeah. I think that\u0026rsquo;s, I think that\u0026rsquo;s super cool.\nJoe\u0026rsquo;s advice for those starting university # James: All right. And the last question for you today, geo is if you were going to graduate university again or maybe even starting university, you can choose what\u0026rsquo;s your one piece of advice.\nJoe: Yeah.\nWow. It\u0026rsquo;s like the question we asked a lot around the book is what advice you\u0026rsquo;d give your 18 year old self? And I think I can say the same thing to both the vision of me starting university and the version of me ending university. Make the most of it don\u0026rsquo;t settle for any less. Yeah, I like that.\nCause even leaving, like whatever\u0026rsquo;s coming next and that\u0026rsquo;s a big focus on what you have again, make the most of it, whatever you can access and start with, make the most of it, and if it was at university, I didn\u0026rsquo;t make the most of it. Like I wish I could go back in.\nNot really because I learn a lot, which is applied, made me more focused in life after, make the most of it. I think that\u0026rsquo;s it. Good\nJames: Question. Perfect.\nOutro # James: Yeah, thanks so much, Joe, for coming on today. Fantastic conversation and much appreciated. So people are going to come and find you on social media purchase your book, all that stuff.\nWhere\u0026rsquo;s the best place.\nJoe: Yeah, I\u0026rsquo;m someone with many internet links. So I\u0026rsquo;m always very careful with this. I\u0026rsquo;ll concentrate on the book. It\u0026rsquo;s 18 and Lost.com.edu. And it\u0026rsquo;s just a N D and that\u0026rsquo;s, yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s just the best place with everything to do with the book. And that\u0026rsquo;s a good kind of a door open that everything that I\u0026rsquo;m involved in working on.\nAnd then I guess, Other than that, I have a website and I have a podcast. They both got the same name with Joey. And my last name is w E H B E for Weeby and yeah. Podcasts and that name and a website there for people on the land there. Which has links to any social things too. So yeah, I\u0026rsquo;d concentrate on those cause it\u0026rsquo;s easy to I\u0026rsquo;m not very good at consolidating it all.\n← Back to episode 1\n","date":"5 November 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/graduate-theory/1-on-networking-with-founder-and-author-joe-wehbe/transcript/","section":"Graduate Theory Transcripts","summary":"← Back to episode 1\nThis transcript has been lightly edited for readability. It may still contain transcription errors.\nJames: Hello, and welcome to Graduate Theory, please. Welcome to the show, Joe Wehbe.\nJoe: Thanks very much, James. Good to be here. Yeah,\n","title":"Transcript: On Networking with Founder and Author, Joe Wehbe","type":"graduate-theory-transcripts"},{"content":"Note: In this post I refer to \u0026lsquo;reading\u0026rsquo; as the reading of predominantly non-fiction/self-help books\nWhen we sit down to eat a juicy, fresh steak, we rarely eat it without some kind of topping. Be it salt and pepper, or something more extravagant like truffle sauce, the spices we have with steak make it taste significantly better.\nI heard this analogy recently on Youtube. There are some things in life that we make the metaphorical \u0026lsquo;steak\u0026rsquo; when they should only be the \u0026lsquo;spice\u0026rsquo;.\nFor example, gossip.\nSubscribeBuilt with ConvertKit Gossip - The Spice? # It\u0026rsquo;s ok to gossip, everyone does it. We can\u0026rsquo;t help to talk about other people behind their backs. This is normal human behaviour.\nBut the key question we have to ask is, \u0026ldquo;Is it the Spice, or is it the Steak?\u0026rdquo;\nGossiping should be the spice of life, it\u0026rsquo;s something we do every now and then to make things a bit more interesting, but it\u0026rsquo;s not something we do often. It is not a part of our core being.\nWe do not want to be around those people where gossiping is the Steak. Those people that only talk about others behind their backs. Those people that come to us with juicy info on someone, while we know fully that they would share the same gossip about us.\nGossip should be the Spice in your life, not the Steak.\nReading # This Steak and Spice metaphor can also be applied to reading.\nRecently I\u0026rsquo;ve been considering my reading. Last year I read 52 books and in 2021 I was aiming to read 60 books.\nAs the year has gone on, I have found that this reading has become something I am less interested in. Not because of the content in books, but the way I was going about reading them.\nI have realised that reading a book is, in itself, not an accomplishment.\nSure it is cool to read and learn more about the world. A great and necessary pursuit.\nBut reading huge amounts has less and less of a payoff. Reading books for no particular purpose is meaningless.\nMeaning in Reading # I would read books just for the sake of it. The only purpose being to finish the book and add another number to my count. I was reading with no goal or aim to get something out of the book. I had no desire to learn anything from the knowledge in those pages. I only wanted some key lessons I could repeat and add a number to my count.\nOn the contrary, reading with a goal in mind, with a problem to be solved, is a worthy cause. Reading to enhance your knowledge on a particular topic so you can go out and create, make an impact. Not just for the numbers. This is what I want. This is what reading and gaining knowledge is all about.\nWith my reading becoming something more for the numbers than actual knowledge, I felt that it was becoming the Steak of my life when reading should be the Spice.\nReading should be something that enhances or improves the things you already do. It gives you a new perspective, content ideas, practical insights, qualified opinions. It should not be the main thing.\nReading in itself is not a valuable skill. Knowing lots of things but not doing anything with that knowledge is in many ways worse than not knowing and not doing. If you know what to do but still don\u0026rsquo;t act, you have no excuses.\nStockpiling knowledge is only useful if you use the knowledge you have gained. If you don\u0026rsquo;t use this new knowledge, it is useless.\nWhen I first started reading, books changed my perspective. I had found this whole new world of things that I could learn and digest. Slowly though, I found myself still in the same place that I had started. Books did not seem to have a measurable impact on my life.\nThey made me feel like I was making progress in my life, giving me the illusion that I was taking steps towards success.\nIn reality, they were just a side quest, not really helping with the main mission. Reading books and chasing numbers was something that I thought was a valuable use of my time. I know now that it is not.\nIf someone watches self-help or interesting content on youtube all day long, but does nothing with it, we would describe this person as a time waster and someone that is mentally masturbating to self-help content. Yet for some reason we do not apply this logic to reading books. People cheer us on for reading 50 books in a year. In self-help circles, it is \u0026lsquo;cool\u0026rsquo; to read a high number of books. What we fail to realise is that reading books with no purpose and no action is the same as consuming any content but doing nothing with it. It is simply a waste of time, and completely contrary to what the purpose of the content is.\nIf someone is teaching you a lesson, you don\u0026rsquo;t just go and tell others the lesson to feel good about yourself. You implement the lesson in your life.\nBecoming The Spice # Just like the gossiping analogy, reading had become something in my life akin to the Steak, when it should be the Spice. I could tell you so many cool facts or so many lessons from books and stories that I have read. But where has that got me? Not much further than if I had stopped reading entirely. The lack of intention behind my reading is clear. I have been eating Spice, thinking it was the Steak. It\u0026rsquo;s time for reading to go back to where it belongs.\nThis is not to attack reading books. Reading books and learning from others is one of the best ways to learn. My opinion is that reading is not an accomplishment. Reading with the aim of learning, and using that knowledge to improve your actual life however, that is an accomplishment.\nIf you haven\u0026rsquo;t read any books of this genre, I think they can help immensely. Reading about social skills and psychology should be required reading for everyone. Just don\u0026rsquo;t fall into this trap, thinking that reading your 47th book for the second year straight is having an impact.\nSpice dramatically improves the taste of a Steak. In the same way, reading can have a massive impact on the things you do in your life. I think it\u0026rsquo;s important to acknowledge this, that reading is not, and should not be the main thing. It is a great supporting act, a cherry on top, a little bit extra. This is where reading has its place, not as the Steak.\nReading # With this in mind, I continue to read, but I read intentionally.\nI read with an aim in mind.\nI read without thinking about how many books I am going to read this year.\nI read to solve a problem.\nI read to learn new skills directly applicable to my current situation.\nI read because I enjoy reading.\nI read less, but I implement more.\nThis kind of reading is valuable. This kind of reading will intentionally enhance my life, the lives of my friends and all my future pursuits.\nAs Brendon Burchard says in his book \u0026lsquo;High Performance Habits\u0026rsquo;, being intentional about the things we do both makes us get more out of the things we do and also enjoy them more. Asking and reflecting on WHY we do certain things is important to avoiding this lack of intention problem in the future.\nJames\nConnect With Me!I'll remind you when I post so you don't have to remember\nSubscribe​\nBuilt with ConvertKit ","date":"3 August 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/the-steak-and-the-spice/","section":"Writing","summary":"Note: In this post I refer to ‘reading’ as the reading of predominantly non-fiction/self-help books\nWhen we sit down to eat a juicy, fresh steak, we rarely eat it without some kind of topping. Be it salt and pepper, or something more extravagant like truffle sauce, the spices we have with steak make it taste significantly better.\n","title":"The Steak and the Spice","type":"posts"},{"content":"Welcome to James’s Newsletter by me, James Fricker.\nReading, learning and sharing about all things Technology, Data and Finance\nSign up now so you don’t miss the first issue.\nIn the meantime, tell your friends!\n","date":"23 July 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/coming-soon/","section":"Writing","summary":"Welcome to James’s Newsletter by me, James Fricker.\nReading, learning and sharing about all things Technology, Data and Finance\nSign up now so you don’t miss the first issue.\nIn the meantime, tell your friends!\n","title":"Stupid Simple","type":"posts"},{"content":" In today era, secure communication and privacy are more important than ever. Keeping our communication secure is done with this thing called \u0026lsquo;Cryptography\u0026rsquo;. Basically some smart calculations with prime numbers that mean we can secure and verify things easily, but it\u0026rsquo;s hard for a bad actor to come and steal the information.\nAs bad actors become more and more complex, so does the underlying Cryptography that keeps us all safe. One important and recent discovery in Cryptograhy is that of a Zero Knowledge Proof.\nWell what is that?\nA Zero Knowledge Proof basically means that I can prove something (proof) without giving away any information about what that thing is (zero knowledge).\nA zero-knowledge proof is where a prover (Alice) can prove that she knows information x to a verifier (Bob) without communicating any other information to Bob other than the fact that she knows x.\nNow this might not sound very cool, but it is!\nYou\u0026rsquo;ve probably heard words like blockchain and cryptocurrency recently. Zero Knowledge Proofs can be used in these things to provide complete anonymous transactions.\nWhat happens in a blockchain is that each transaction is recorded and added to the end of the chain. What ZKP\u0026rsquo;s allow us to do is to have this information be completely anonymous. It can still be looked at and verified by anyone, but we get Zero Knowledge about who is doing what.\nThe classic example of a ZKP is the cave example. Consider a circular cave with a door in the middle.\nCave Example # Now lets say I want the key to the cave. I want to be able to go all the way round this circle.\nMy friend Tash has knows the code to get through the door. She can go all the way round the cave.\nI want to buy this code from her, but I can\u0026rsquo;t be sure that she knows it!\nSo we set up a Zero Knowledge Proof. I wait outside the cave, and Tash goes in. Importantly, I don\u0026rsquo;t see which way Tash goes inside the cave.\nI then call out to her and ask her to come out on side A.\nNow if Tash knows the code to get through the door, she can come out side A if she went in though side A or side B. But if she doesn\u0026rsquo;t know the code, she will have to come out from the side that she came.\nSo let\u0026rsquo;s say she doesn\u0026rsquo;t know the code but luckily picks the side of the cave that I chose. She has a 50% chance of picking the correct way just by guessing. This isn\u0026rsquo;t great odds for us because we need to be certain that Tash knows the code before we pay her for it.\nTo be more certain that Tash isn\u0026rsquo;t just lucky but does in fact know the code, we repeat the experiment. We keep going until I can be almost certain that Tash is telling the truth that she knows the code.\nIf we do the experiment again and she manages to pick the pick the correct side again. We can be more confident that she knows the code.\nIf Tash manages to pick the right way 10 times in a row then I know she is telling the true with probability. $1-0.5^{10} = 1 - 0.000977 = 99.90%$\nSo after 10 correct guesses we can be pretty sure she is telling the truth. I can be sure she knows the key and I can then purchase it from her.\nZKP Principles # There are three main prinicples that underly a ZKP.\nCompletenes Soundnes Zero-knowledgeness If we use the example of Tash and the secret code above, we can illustrate these principles.\nCompleteness means that I can be sure that Tash knows the secret code.\nSoundness means that Tash can only convice me she knows the code if she is telling the truth. She couldn\u0026rsquo;t convince me if she didn\u0026rsquo;t know the code.\nAnd Zero-Knowledgeness which means that I gain Zero Knowledge about the code, only information that Tash knows the code.\nApplications # Everything on a blockchain is public. Anyone can see what is on there.\nFor example if I buy a bitcoin, you can go onto the blockchain and see who I purchased my bitcoin from.\nNot everything needs to be public though, some things are better in private.\nZKP\u0026rsquo;s allow things to be anonymous because now I can Prove what you did, while having Zero Knowledge of your identity.\nVoting Systems # One cool use case of blockchains is in voting systems. Blockchains can keep unchanging, permanent, public records of who cast each vote and when.\nWhat if we wanted to keep the information about who voted anonymous? This is where we would use a ZKP.\nVotes can still be verified and are still unchanging, but using a ZKP we can verify that someone voted without giving away their identity.\nTransactions # The main way blockchains are used at the moment is for crypto currency, and some currencies are designed for anonymity.\nThese currencies use ZKP\u0026rsquo;s to keep the identities of these people private.\nWhat we can do with ZKP\u0026rsquo;s is prove that a transaction is valid without knowing any information about the parties involved.\nOne such example of this is a currency called ZCash which you can read about here - https://z.cash/.\nConclusion # ZKP\u0026rsquo;s will fundementally change the way blockchains work. Being able to keep things on a blockchain verifiable and yet private opens up many more use cases, and many that we are not aware of yet.\nThe blockchain and cryptography space is one that is very exciting and I am looking forward to how these technologies will change our world for the better.\nUseful Sources # Below are some sources that I found useful to learn about ZKP\u0026rsquo;s and used to create this article. Use them if you\u0026rsquo;re interested in learning more about this topic.\nZero-knowledge proof https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-knowledge_proof\nZero Knowledge Proofs: An illustrated primer https://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2014/11/27/zero-knowledge-proofs-illustrated-primer/\nWhat Are Zero-Knowledge Proofs? Complete Beginner’s Guide https://blockonomi.com/zero-knowledge-proofs/\nExample of A Good Zero Knowledge Proof https://101blockchains.com/zero-knowledge-proof-example/\nWhat are Zero Knowledge Proofs? https://decrypt.co/resources/zero-knowledge-proofs-explained-learn-guide\n3 Real World Applications of Zero Knowledge Proofs https://www.coinbureau.com/adoption/applications-zero-knowledge-proofs/\nAnonymity in blockchain part 2: zk-snarks https://medium.com/newtown-partners/anonymity-in-blockchain-part-2-zk-snarks-df0cf0a0337b\nPrivacy Coins and zk-SNARKs: How Do They Work? https://decrypt.co/resources/privacy-coins-and-zk-snarks-how-do-they-work\n","date":"12 June 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/beginners-guide-to-zero-knowledge-proofs/","section":"Writing","summary":" In today era, secure communication and privacy are more important than ever. Keeping our communication secure is done with this thing called ‘Cryptography’. Basically some smart calculations with prime numbers that mean we can secure and verify things easily, but it’s hard for a bad actor to come and steal the information.\n","title":"Beginners Guide to Zero Knowledge Proofs","type":"posts"},{"content":"The following article was written in preparation for a Toastmasters speech. The aim of the speech is below\nThe purpose of this project is for the member to learn about different communication styles and identify his or her primary style.\nThis sounds super boring so I\u0026rsquo;ve just taken the communication bit and decided to talk about what I want more of in my communication.\nCommunication Inspiration # Today we are talking about communication styles, and my communication style. More importantly, I want to talk about the way in which I want to communicate.\nI think that there are many parrallels between companies and people. A company is also a living and evolving organism, facing challenges and growing. It can be interesting to look at companies, take the lessons from them, and apply these lessons to our own lives.\nRadical Transparency # Bridgewater # Have you ever heard of a guy called Ray Dalio?\nRay Dalio is the founder and manager of the worlds largest hedge fund, Bridgewater. Ray started Bridgewater in 1985 and is now one of the premier examples of not only a successful hedgefund, but a successful company.\nThere are many things that make this hedgefund unique, but one thing in particular that I would like to focus on is the management style, and they way in which they make decisions. At Bridgewater, everything is based on principles.\nA few years ago Ray released his book entitled \u0026lsquo;Principles\u0026rsquo;, in which he described his and his companies principles. Principles for his personal life, principles for making decisions in the business, principles for everything.\nEach decision that is made by someone at the company must reflect the companies principles. Whether it is investment decisions or new company hires, each process has principles that must be followed. As time progresses, these principles are subject to change and evolve, to become better over time.\nOne particular set of principles that operate at Bridgewater, that makes this company so unique, is it\u0026rsquo;s committment to authenticity and opennesss. Ray describes this as radical transparency.\nThese set of principles mean that\nall meetings are recorded and can be viewed by anyone in the company Team changes and criteria are known to all Each person has a strengths and weaknesses \u0026lsquo;card\u0026rsquo;, like an attributes card in a video game. These can be seen by anyone at the company These rules for radical transparency mean that nothing is kept a secret, that all problems can be dealt with and discussed in the public arena of ideas. This means that it\u0026rsquo;s easier to create an idea meritocracy, a place where the best ideas win.\nAn idea meritocracy is like a hierarchy, except for ideas. The idea of having such an open and honest culture is so that the best ideas will rise to the top. Problems can be openly discussed, and good ideas always win.\nTransparency in Creating # Another example of this radical transparency was shared with me through a book call \u0026lsquo;Show Your Work\u0026rsquo; by Austin Kleon. In this book Austin describes in detail how not only is your creative work something worth sharing, but also the way in which you learnt or produced that thing. Teaching someone how to do what you do adds value to what you do, it doesn\u0026rsquo;t take from you.\nHe shows many examples where companies and creatives have gone about teaching their methods. One in particular was a BBQ place in America. This venue had secret cooking techniques that they were well known for in the area. Once the company opened up and started showing and teaching others their special methods, they began to generate more customers and interest. Instead of losing market share because they had lost their competitive advantage, they flourished. Sharing their secrets was a risk, but it enabled the company to grow much more than they otherwise would.\nBeing more transparent with your methods may be scary but does not subtract from what you do, it adds to your uniqueness and value.\n(Un)Radical Transparency # If we contrast this radical transparency view to the standard corporate environment we see big differences.\nWhen searching for jobs, most of the time there is no pay range visible. This is kept within the company to increase their power during the hiring process.\nBudgets are unknown to those not in positions of leadership. Promotion criteria can make no sense and is kept a secret.\nIn my opinion, these kinds of secret tactics allow much more room for untrustworthiness and resentment to grow. When we don\u0026rsquo;t understand the reason why something happens, we can begin to doubt those in charge.\nAnother example of similar behaviour is when we are in relationships and something starts annoying us. It is absolutely important that you voice your concern and let your partner know of this difficulty. In the same way as the companies, hiding your resentment means it will not be dealt with and can only grow.\nStarting to see a pattern?\nSo, communication styles # I think there is one main idea from these companies and stories that I want to apply to my communication and that is honesty and transparency.\nIt seems to me to be very clear that while being more transparent can be scary and difficult, it also comes with rewards. Being able to trust others, and have them trust you is related to how transparent you can be with them.\nI want to be honest and transparent with the people that I meet and with those I love. I want people to know what I am and am not about. When someone does something I don\u0026rsquo;t like, I want to be honest.\nThis is especially important when it comes to feedback in both a personal and professional setting. I want to both give and receive completely honest feedback. Like Bridgewater, this will help me to become the best version myself that I can, and the good feedback that I need to hear will not be hidden and kept in secret.\nLike Austin Kleon wrote, sharing what I am doing and my inner thoughts may seem like it can drag me down. Sometimes I don\u0026rsquo;t want to share the things that are important to me. As we have seen, sharing has potential to bring you up rather than down.\nOne example of this working in my life was me sharing about attending Toastmasters. When I first started going, I didn\u0026rsquo;t want to tell people. When they asked what I was up t on a Tuesday night, I\u0026rsquo;d say \u0026lsquo;yea not much\u0026rsquo;. Slowly I began to be more transparent and tell people what I was actually doing. As I have done this, I have found others have supported me more, and the people that did not support me have faded away.\nJust like Ray\u0026rsquo;s idea meritocracy, the people that I want most have risen up the hierarchy to become my closest friends.\nSo the goals of my communications style, and something that I see real benefits in is being more open and honest.\nRadical Transparency.\nThanks for reading this far, subscribe to my email list below.\nConnect With Me!I'll remind you when I post so you don't have to remember\nSubscribe​\nBuilt with ConvertKit ","date":"17 May 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/communication-styles-radical-transparency/","section":"Writing","summary":"The following article was written in preparation for a Toastmasters speech. The aim of the speech is below\nThe purpose of this project is for the member to learn about different communication styles and identify his or her primary style.\n","title":"Communication Styles - Radical Transparency","type":"posts"},{"content":"It was the 31st of December 2019. I got my phone out to record another video journal.\nAs I sat on my balcony, wondering what the past year had meant to me and all the things I had done. I couldn\u0026rsquo;t help but think about what the future might hold.\nI had always had this feeling that I wanted to move. To get out of my house and experience a new city. To take the leap and go out into the unknown.\nThis is my story.\nMy 2019 # In 2019 I had done just that. I stepped out of my comfort zone and travelled to Sheffield in the UK for a semester long exchange.\nMy time away was incredible, easily the most life-changing period of my life so far.\nI met so many amazing people and did so many cool things. Visited cool places across Europe like the Louvre in France and the beaches of Spain. These times created so many amazing memories.\nThis period of travelling definitely got me more interested into what it would be like to move. In fact, I even recall telling people while I was away that I would probably end up moving to Melbourne once I had finished uni.\nBalcony Moment # It just so happened that during my year review, sitting on my balcony at the end of 2019, I also mentioned that I would probably be getting a job in Melbourne in the coming year.\nWhat a thought that proved to be.\nScreenshot from my 2019 Review Journal The Offer # In May 2020, after applying for over 50 graduate jobs, I finally had an offer. This one was at a big bank, based in Melbourne.\nThis was so exciting for me. I had secured a great job at a great company, in a city that I knew I was always going to end up in.\nI accepted the offer, and waited until 2021 for the fateful moving day.\nSubscribeBuilt with ConvertKit Thought I\u0026rsquo;d plug my email signup here. Subscribe so I can send you the occaisional email about what I\u0026rsquo;m up to.\nThe Move # Moving cities crept up on me. I knew for most of the year that I would be moving so I had time to mentally prepare, but I would be lying if I said that it wasn\u0026rsquo;t difficult.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s a big thing to leave my close friends, my girlfriend and my family. Unknown when I would see them again.\nSome of my close friends had been my close friends for about 10 years. Given that I am only 22 years old, that\u0026rsquo;s nearly half of my entire life catching up with these people on a regular basis. Telling them my thoughts and feelings, going on my life\u0026rsquo;s journey with them. It\u0026rsquo;s hard to leave them behind.\nWhen you think about these things deeply, on the one hand it is sad that we leave these people behind. All those memories built up together feel like they are being lost. On the other hand though, it also opens up great opportunity to add new people into your life, to get many new experiences and to grow as a person.\nI\u0026rsquo;ve never really understood people that are friends with the same people year after year, until they grow old. Sure I\u0026rsquo;m not going to stop being friends with people for no reason, or just because I\u0026rsquo;ve moved, but I think that there is so much to be found by meeting new people and expanding your social circle.\nOne quote that I really like on this topic is,\nYou are the average of the five people you spend the most time with\nAnd yet this quote doesn\u0026rsquo;t stop there. I heard one author say that what this quote also means is that \u0026ldquo;if your friends aren\u0026rsquo;t changing, then neither are you\u0026rdquo;.\nWhen I first heard that it really hit home. When I\u0026rsquo;m older I want to be better and more able to care for my family and those around me. I see that as my primary mission in life. In order to do that, I must grow and evolving friendships is a good sign of growth.\nMe sitting in my car talking about moving - 25th of Jan D-Day # It was the 31st of January, 2021. My Dad and I drove for about 8 hours one day, and arrived in Melbourne the following day, on the 1st of February.\nHow rare is it that you get to spend an entire day doing nothing else but chatting to your father? Listening to him talk did get annoying at times, but what a trip, and what an amazing experience to share with my Dad. This felt like a passing of the baton moment. The moment where I would say goodbye to my Dad and my family, and begin my own journey, taking charge of my life.\nIt felt so surreal to be leaving the city I had spent my whole life in so far, to travel to what would be my new home. Not just for a holiday, but for the forseeable future.\nMe sitting on my car before we head off - 31st of Jan Settling In and Isolation # When I arrived in Melbourne the place was still \u0026lsquo;waking up\u0026rsquo;. The lockdowns of 2020 were only recently finished and many restrictions remained. I was working from home, and not really having the best time.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s quite isolating when you move to a new city where you don\u0026rsquo;t really know anyone, and you can\u0026rsquo;t meet people at work. Besides having my wonderful girlfriend over for a week to help me settle in, I had almost no face to face contact outside of my housemates for about 3-4 weeks. Add in a 5 day lockdown on the second weekend I was there, and it\u0026rsquo;s not a great recipe.\nThis kind of isolation is very hard to deal with. There\u0026rsquo;s no way to escape except going for long drives, walks or visiting the gym. Fortunately for me, all three of these were an option and were fully utilised.\nI strongly believe that without the gym during this period my mental health would have been in very bad shape. I am so thankful that I go to the gym regularly and that there is one nearby. I would say that the gym and personal fitness have absolutely improved my life in every single possible area, and I am very grateful.\nOpening a present in Melbourne - matching shirt and sheets! - 12th of Feb Homesickness # I\u0026rsquo;m not sure if I felt homesick or just unhappy that I had not much social contact. There were days that I was sad, days that I cried and days where I wondered if I had made the right choice. Reflecting on this now, some weeks later, I know that I did.\nI knew that these feelings of sadness and resentment would fade, and that in the long run, this decision to move would be one of the best choices I have ever made. Slowly but surely, that is turning out to be the case.\nMy Reality # It\u0026rsquo;s now been months since I moved from Adelaide to Melbourne. I\u0026rsquo;ve been back to see friends and family many times, and there are plans for people to come and see me too.\nI\u0026rsquo;ve met many fantastic people through the grad program at work and through other social activities. As time goes on, I\u0026rsquo;ll only meet more people and things will only get even better.\nMe speaking at my brothers 21st birthday in Adelaide - 20th of March My Reflection # Family and Friends # I think that this entire process has been made so much easier with the love I have recieved from my family, friends and girlfriend. Knowing that there is people around me supporting me all the time has meant that moving hasn\u0026rsquo;t been that bad at all. I have been back home multiple times already, and family have come to visit me too which has helped immensely.\nOne key theme I\u0026rsquo;ve noticed through writing this is how important people are in my life. When I am down, it seems that the people around me are the ones that help me the most. In my opinion it is absolutely worth being careful about who you let into your life and who you surround yourself with. These people are so important in helping you through hard times and shaping your life. I am very fortunate to be blessed with such amazing close friends and family. This is a luxury that not many people have, and I am so grateful. Without these special people, moving my life like this would simply not have been possible.\nStepping Stones # Another reason why this process was easier for me was that I have had various stepping stones leading up to this moment in my life. I was talking to a friend about this recently.\nWhen we were in Year 8 at school, we took a whole week called Unley week. This meant that our class could go out and complete tasks in the suburb of Unley. This was a big step for me at the time.\nIn Year 9 we did city week, which meant that this time we were now free to explore the CBD of Adelaide.\nIn Year 11 I did an exchange to Germany. I lived with another family for 2 months in the city of Hamburg. Again, at the time, this was a big step for me, but yet again my comfort zone was being stretched.\nAs I mentioned earlier, in 2019 I went on a semester exchange to Sheffield. Another big step.\nUpon reflecting on all these things that I have done, I have come to realise that this experience of moving was just the next step in the process. Continually pushing out my comfort zone and proof that I can handle these kinds of situations. Once again, without the loving support of my family, these situations would not have been possible and I may not be where I am today.\nSunset in Adelaide - 5th of April My Advice # So, now you\u0026rsquo;ve read about my experience, what are some tips that I would have for someone undergoing the same or similar journey?\nStay in Touch # As I\u0026rsquo;ve mentioned, remaining in touch with close family and friends was very important in the initial stages of moving. I moved from having a great social circle to not having any friends around. It takes time to find new friends, and I think during this period of creating new friendships it\u0026rsquo;s essential that you remain in touch with those people that you love.\nExplore # One thing that I have done, and one thing that I will do more of, is to explore.\nNow you have moved it is your time to try all those things that you didn\u0026rsquo;t do because your friends didn\u0026rsquo;t think it was cool. It\u0026rsquo;s time to shake off that social pressure and do what you want because you want to do it.\nSome examples for me in this area are\nwriting this post and this blog starting an instagram page about books going to random gym classes because you want to try new things driving to cool places because you want to see what\u0026rsquo;s there Your chance to finally do these things has arrived, so I encourage you to make the most of it.\nEnjoy your own company # I think this is super important. Over the first few weeks, I spent a lot of time with myself, not doing anything.\nThis was really insightful for me. When you sit doing nothing for so long, you start to go a bit crazy. Things pop into your mind that you don\u0026rsquo;t expect.\nIn my opinion, these things have been around for a while, but you are only now just noticing. Take in what comes to you and realise that these feelings are just that, feelings, you are safe and loved.\nI think in enjoying your own company you need to be ok doing things yourself. Going on trips yourself, going out for lunch yourself. These are things I have had to do and definitely things that I now enjoy. Doing things with other people is also fun, but learning to enjoy these simple things just by yourself is very valuable.\nConclusion # During my move I doubted myself, I was scared, I learnt a lot and I overcame difficulties. As I have always known, moving cities is one of the best things I will ever do and I look forward to what the future holds.\nJames\nConnect With Me!I'll remind you when I post so you don't have to remember\nSubscribe​\nBuilt with ConvertKit ","date":"17 April 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/moving-interstate/","section":"Writing","summary":"It was the 31st of December 2019. I got my phone out to record another video journal.\nAs I sat on my balcony, wondering what the past year had meant to me and all the things I had done. I couldn’t help but think about what the future might hold.\n","title":"Moving Interstate","type":"posts"},{"content":"It\u0026rsquo;s something I always wondered.\nI\u0026rsquo;m a decent student, I\u0026rsquo;ve done some cool things. I\u0026rsquo;m applying to these cool jobs.\nAnd I\u0026rsquo;m hearing nothing back.\nSometimes I\u0026rsquo;d even get a rejection email the same day that I sent my application.\nHow can this be? I didn\u0026rsquo;t think I was that bad?\nThis article will finally shed some light on what a good graduate looks like.\nAustralian Financial Review (AFR) # The AFR is a prominent news producer for everything in the professions sector. From finance and commerce to law, this publication has you covered.\nRecently they released an article where they list the graduates that were hired this year at a consulting company called Kearney.\nThis article is the focus of this post and you can read the article here.\nKearney # This is a management consulting firm from America. According to Wikipedia:\nKearney has consistently earned top places among global management consulting firm rankings, such as Vault\u0026rsquo;s Consulting 50 and Consulting magazine\u0026rsquo;s \u0026ldquo;Best Firms to Work For\u0026rdquo;.\nThis is a highly competitive place to get a job.\nThe Kearney Graduates # So, what are all these fresh graduates like?\nHave they created and sold their startups? Have they been to the moon?\nNot quite, but they are still impressive.\nTo save you going through this entire article, I\u0026rsquo;ve compiled some stats from the article on these people.\nThe Statistics # Of 1200 applications, 10 graduates were hired. That means 0.8333% of applicants recieved an offer.\nOf the 10 graduates the average age is 24.4. The minimum was 22 and the oldest was 29.\n8 of the 10 did double degrees. 5 of the graduates did Law, 7 did Commerce or Economics and 4 did some STEM variant like Maths or Engineering.\nHalf of the new graduates did an Internship at Kearney, with 6 of them completing 2 or more internships in total before being hired. This extends to 8 if you include the 2 people that went away and worked in politics for a time before being accepted as a graduate.\n2 of the 10 were president of a club at University.\nAnalysis # When I said that these roles were competitive, I meant it. 10 graduates out of 1200 applicants is a very low acceptance rate. It speaks to just how competitive these roles are, and what kind of a calibre you need to be in order to get an offer.\nThe average age also surprised me. Most people leave uni at about 21-22 years old. The average age for an offer at Kearney is older than that at 24.4. It seems that these high calibre graduates spend longer in university and in work getting experience and better internships than regular students.\nOne thing that wasn\u0026rsquo;t covered in the analysis above is the quality of these internships. Most of the graduates where interning at Big 4 consulting firms or places like Macquarie. Multiple internships at this level will provide a very competitive resume, especially combined with other extra-curricular activities.\nAdvice # All of these people employ a kind of snowball effect. What happens in these jobs is that it can be like a kind of snowball, you get a few wins early and these leads to bigger and bigger wins.\nIf you are aiming for these kinds of competitive jobs, you need to get the snowball rolling early. Get good grades, and get yourself an internship as soon as you can. This will make getting your second one easier, and then your third one etc. Just like the graduates we have seen here have done.\n50% of these graduates interned at Kearney before recieving an offer. Interning at your desired company is one of the best ways to get a job there. Once you start applying for graduate roles, things get much more competitive. Securing internships at those companies you want to work at is absolutely vital if you want to land a good role like the ones discussed here.\nConclusion # There are some really proficient graduates out there. In order to get yourself into a position to land these high quality roles, employ the snowball effect early in your university time to get good internships to set yourself up for success.\n","date":"12 March 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/what-does-a-great-graduate-look-like/","section":"Writing","summary":"It’s something I always wondered.\nI’m a decent student, I’ve done some cool things. I’m applying to these cool jobs.\nAnd I’m hearing nothing back.\nSometimes I’d even get a rejection email the same day that I sent my application.\n","title":"What Does a Great Graduate Look Like?","type":"posts"},{"content":"By James Fricker. See more about me here.\nWhy would you like to be a 2021 Graduate Representative? (108 words) # I am always looking to learn. From reading books to researching topics in my spare time, I am always looking to learn more about the world around me. This desire and hunger to discover new things has absolutely helped me land a role at ANZ.\nOften, I look for areas in which I can share new knowledge and my passion for learning. When I first heard that ANZ had a knowledge committee, I knew it was the opportunity for me.\nBeing able to connect my colleagues with experts and provide them with valuable learning experiences is something that really excites me, and I would love to be involved.\nWhat will you bring to the role? (145 words) # I am passionate about learning. I expect that this passion will rub off on my colleagues and that together we can provide an excellent learning experience to our fellow grads.\nDespite our unique start to our grad program in 2021, I have managed to connect well with many graduates, and see this connection as vital in seeing what my colleagues actually want from KnowComm.\nI also think my approach to events and tasks is unique. Submitting my application in the form of a website or post is an example of something that is not the normal approach. I am always looking for ways to improve, to do things differently and to make things better. I think that this approach will lead to benefits in sourcing and delivering KnowComm events, as well as the main goal which is making the KnowComm experience one that is invaluable.\nWhat are you curious about? (100 words) # I read a lot of books and these are one of my main sources of learning. I\u0026rsquo;m also interested in public speaking and I attend my local Toastmasters club.\nWhen I read books, I do read mostly non-fiction. I am really interested in psychology and books like Psycho-Cybernetics and The Alter Ego Effect, I read about finance and economics with books like The Deficit Myth and Meltdown among many other genre\u0026rsquo;s and titles. You can see all the books I read last year and a quick summary here.\n","date":"10 March 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/r/knowcomm/","section":"Rs","summary":"By James Fricker. See more about me here.\nWhy would you like to be a 2021 Graduate Representative? (108 words) # I am always looking to learn. From reading books to researching topics in my spare time, I am always looking to learn more about the world around me. This desire and hunger to discover new things has absolutely helped me land a role at ANZ.\n","title":"Knowledge Committee 2021 Graduate Representative Application","type":"r"},{"content":" Contents # Is Experiencing Yourself that Bad? Solitude as a Tool The Difference Refrigerator Hum Summary SubscribeBuilt with ConvertKit Rarely do we spend time alone with ourselves.\nWhenever space frees up in our calendar or we get some free time, we don\u0026rsquo;t tend to just enjoy the moment. We quickly fill any spare time with things like watching TV, checking our phones or scheduling catchups with friends. Sometimes these activities still aren\u0026rsquo;t enough and we block this experience even further with things like drugs and alcohol.\nOutside of any meditation practice, we don\u0026rsquo;t just sit and experience what it is like to be ourselves.\nOne reason that we might not like to do this, is that experiencing ourselves can be pretty scary.\nIs Experiencing Yourself that Bad? # “All of humanity\u0026rsquo;s problems stem from man\u0026rsquo;s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.”\n― Blaise Pascal, Pensées ( 1670)\nSolitary Confinement is one such example of the negative effects of solitude. Last year the UN declared that solitary confinement for 15 days is a form of torture and has been banned from prisons1.\nAnother study on solitary confinement wrote that \u0026ldquo;a robust scientific literature has established the negative psychological effects of solitary confinement\u0026rdquo;, leading to \u0026ldquo;an emerging consensus among correctional as well as professional, mental health, legal, and human rights organizations to drastically limit the use of solitary confinement.\u0026rdquo;2\nIn a recent study3, a quarter of women and two-thirds of men would rather suffer an electric shock than be alone with their thoughts.\nEven in my personal experience, having nothing to do or people to see for extended periods can make me go a little crazy.\nPeople go to EXTREME lengths to avoid solitude, but how bad can it be really? Is spending time with yourself and experiencing what it is like to be you really that bad?\nSolitude as a Tool # Fortunately, there is hope.\nOften times when we have these extended periods without communication, we are experiencing what we really think, what we are really like. That can be pretty scary.\nA 2003 study4 tried to look at the positive effects of solitude.\nThey found the following\npeople are more free (obviously) When you are by yourself, clearly you\u0026rsquo;re not worried about what other people think of you, and you can begin to express yourself and do things in the ways that you really want.\nCreativity When you are alone, your creativity can be sparked. Studies have also found that younger people that have difficulty being by themselves often stop enhancing creative talents.\nThe development of the self This is the one that I am most interested in. Solitude allows us to have a period of self-examination, to have some spiritual growth. To really discover what we really think about things.\nMany figures from the Bible spent time in solitude in order to get closer to God. Moses and Jesus both had periods where they spend 40 days away from society (probably fasting as well).\nOther spiritual people like monks and enlightened beings will remove themselves from society just to experience the bliss that is the present moment. These people don\u0026rsquo;t just shy away from solitary confinement, they actively seek it out.\nHow is it possible that being alone with yourself can have such different outcomes? It can literally be used as a torture technique, but also the exact opposite as a way to connect yourself to God and to your spirituality.\nThe Difference # While solitary confinement can be both torturous and spiritual, there are some key reasons why that could be the case.\nAccording to Kenneth Rubin, a developmental psychologist at the University of Maryland, solitary confinement can be torturous when\nit\u0026rsquo;s not optional you can\u0026rsquo;t stop when you\u0026rsquo;d like you don\u0026rsquo;t have positive relations outside you can\u0026rsquo;t regulate your own emotions well Alternatively, when solitude is optional and the other conditions are met, the experience can be quite enlightening.\nRefrigerator Hum # When all distractions are taken away, all we have left is ourselves. We might get angry or fall into a state of apathy, like nothing matters.\nWhatever you feel during these times of silence are feelings that are not unique to the silence. It is simply the case that now we have removed all distractions, we can experience what we are really feeling.\nThis is kind of like the background hum of a refrigerator. You never really notice that it\u0026rsquo;s there, but if you listen for it carefully, you can hear it.\nIn the same way, when we take time in solitude to feel our emotions, we are listening to the refrigerator hum of our lives. These feelings that we feel are with us all the time. They carry into all interactions and experiences of our lives.\nNegative emotions don\u0026rsquo;t just disappear when you check your phone.\nSo when you sit down with no distractions, is that scary? Do you need to find a way to escape your negative self-talk?\nOr do you enjoy the experience of being by yourself, free to enjoy the calmness and beauty of everyday life?\nWhatever you feel, these are things that you feel unconsciously all the time. For this reason, I see being in solitude, as a way to connect with my real self. To be able to see what I am really thinking. To fully experience those negatives thoughts and feelings that are always playing on my mind.\nSummary # In today\u0026rsquo;s world, we rarely spend time by ourselves.\nSolitude can be both a torture method and a spiritual experience.\nSpending time with yourself can be scary but also allow you to fully overcome emotional experiences. This allows you to live life in a more positive and vibrant way.\nConnect With Me!I'll remind you when I post so you don't have to remember\nSubscribe​\nBuilt with ConvertKit Hart, Alexandra; Cabrera, Kristen (23 January 2020). \u0026ldquo;Why Some Experts Call Solitary Confinement \u0026lsquo;Torture\u0026rsquo;\u0026rdquo;. Texas Standard. Retrieved 3 September 2020.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nHaney, Craig (3 November 2017). \u0026ldquo;Restricting the Use of Solitary Confinement\u0026rdquo;. Annual Review of Criminology. 1: 285–310. doi:10.1146/annurev-criminol-032317-092326. ISSN 2572-4568.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nhttps://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/07/people-prefer-electric-shocks-to-being-alone-with-their-thoughts/373936/\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nLong, Christopher R. and Averill, James R. “Solitude: An Exploration of the Benefits of Being Alone.” Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour 33:1 (2003): Web. 30 September 2011.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"21 February 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/solitude/","section":"Writing","summary":"Contents # Is Experiencing Yourself that Bad? Solitude as a Tool The Difference Refrigerator Hum Summary SubscribeBuilt with ConvertKit Rarely do we spend time alone with ourselves.\n","title":"Solitude","type":"posts"},{"content":"So here we are. The end.\nProgress was very slow to non-existent near the end of this challenge. I nearly completed all of the blog posts, but missed the last 12 posts.\nBusiness is no excuse but I was getting ready to move interstate to begin work in Melbourne.\nThis was obviously a decent process that meant it was difficult to find time to write my blog posts.\nAlthough I didn\u0026rsquo;t finish this process as I would\u0026rsquo;ve liked, I think it\u0026rsquo;s still very important to reflect on this experience.\nAs Ray Dalio says, Pain + Reflection = Growth. Not that these posts were painful to write, but there is something that is always difficult about stepping outside your comfort zone. Now, it\u0026rsquo;s time to reflect.\nReflection # I created 58 blog posts since my exams finished near the end of November.\nI\u0026rsquo;d like to think now that I have some coherent ideas in my head, and that I now have a much better idea of how to write and structure a post.\nCreating this many blog posts forced me to constantly be searching for ideas to write about. I found that really rewarding. I realised that many things that happened to me during my regular life were note-worthy and great to share. Even though some things may be mundane to me, they can definitely be useful to others.\nMany ideas that I had were lost because I forgot to write them down. I think if I was to do this more regularly, I would need some kind of note taking device on me at all times.\nAs the challenge came to an end I began telling more friends about what I had been doing. I found that even though I showed friends onto my site and they briefly read some of the posts, they didn\u0026rsquo;t sign up to the mailing list. This could be because either the content wasn\u0026rsquo;t engaging enough for them, they didn\u0026rsquo;t want to support me or the sign-up boxes were not obvious enough. I think it\u0026rsquo;s most likely to be that the content wasn\u0026rsquo;t engaging enough for them. Next time I do something like this, I think that it would be really important to specify exactly who the content is for, and make sure that the right demographic is seeing that content.\nOne thing that was very useful was taking notes of everything that I read or listened too. This made the creation of the blog post very easy as I could simply pull information that I already had access to, rather than try to remember exactly what was said. Things like quotes and cool concepts would be very useful to keep for this purpose.\nhttps://www.goodreads.com/quotes is a great place to grab quotes from books.\nWhat Next? # I am very keen to continue this process of blogging and sharing my life with others.\nI think next time I will plan to target a specific group with ideas that I have some specialisation in. For example, I have a good graduate job. Showing others my process for getting a job and how I went about doing it would be something that I could definitely do.\nI think some of the best mediums for this are blogging and youtube videos. The best way to do this may be to write a post, and then create a youtube video which is just me speaking about my blog post content. This way I can get 2 pieces of content for 1 amount of work.\nSummary # Overall I am very happy I undertook this challenge. It has been very cool for me to write down my thoughts and express myself in a way I had not done previously.\nBack soon.\n","date":"4 February 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/other/blog-challenge-posts/20210204/","section":"Others","summary":"So here we are. The end.\nProgress was very slow to non-existent near the end of this challenge. I nearly completed all of the blog posts, but missed the last 12 posts.\nBusiness is no excuse but I was getting ready to move interstate to begin work in Melbourne.\n","title":"Wrap up and Reflections","type":"other"},{"content":"I was in the gym with a friend recently.\nHe didn\u0026rsquo;t know what workout he was going to do when he arrived.\nHe wasn\u0026rsquo;t tracking his lifts.\nI am no gym expert but it was very obvious that he wasn\u0026rsquo;t maximising his gains in the gym.\nHe didn\u0026rsquo;t realise how easy it would be for him to make significantly more progress.\nThis is probably what rich and successful people feel like when they see people around suffering in horrible corporate jobs. They don\u0026rsquo;t even realise how easy it is to do better.\nThis got me thinking, in this gym scenario, I can easily tell where my friend was making mistakes.\nBut where are those areas in my life that I am making mistakes? Places where I am leaving gains on the table?\nPerhaps I need to find others that could give that advice to me. Those people that would tell you where you are making mistakes.\nFood for thought.\n","date":"19 January 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/other/blog-challenge-posts/20210119/","section":"Others","summary":"I was in the gym with a friend recently.\nHe didn’t know what workout he was going to do when he arrived.\nHe wasn’t tracking his lifts.\nI am no gym expert but it was very obvious that he wasn’t maximising his gains in the gym.\n","title":"Leaving Gains On The Table","type":"other"},{"content":"I\u0026rsquo;m moving to Melbourne pretty soon. In 13 days to be exact.\nI\u0026rsquo;ve noticed changes in my personality already.\nI once heard this story.\nThis boy is offered an opportunity to be a monk in a cave with a older man for 10 years. There is no going back once he has left.\nIf the boy accepts, he has already completed his training.\nThis sounds kind of strange, but let me explain.\nIf the boy is really willing to give up 10 years of his life to meditate. Then he is already well on the way to understanding the beauty and power of his practice.\nIn the same way, in my preparations for moving to Melbourne. I am already well on the way to the personality changes that will occur during my trip. I have already begun the hero\u0026rsquo;s journey.\n","date":"18 January 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/other/blog-challenge-posts/20210118/","section":"Others","summary":"I’m moving to Melbourne pretty soon. In 13 days to be exact.\nI’ve noticed changes in my personality already.\nI once heard this story.\nThis boy is offered an opportunity to be a monk in a cave with a older man for 10 years. There is no going back once he has left.\n","title":"Personality Changes","type":"other"},{"content":"It\u0026rsquo;s sometimes hard to think of ideas.\nLike you just can\u0026rsquo;t put something on the page.\nBut ideas are all around us.\nInspiration is everywhere.\nInstead of pushing to be inspired, let the inspiration come to you.\n","date":"18 January 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/other/blog-challenge-posts/20210117/","section":"Others","summary":"It’s sometimes hard to think of ideas.\nLike you just can’t put something on the page.\nBut ideas are all around us.\nInspiration is everywhere.\nInstead of pushing to be inspired, let the inspiration come to you.\n","title":"Thinking of Ideas","type":"other"},{"content":"The other night I was chatting with some friends.\nWe were talking about controversial topics like what\u0026rsquo;s happening at the moment in America.\nThere are some topics like this that are very polarising.\nWhen people hear these things being said, they instantly go to one side and prepare to fight against the other.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s a difficult thing to manage in a conversation.\nHow can you have these interesting and heated discussion, without offending the other people?\nI think the solution is in asking questions.\nIf you are genuinely curious about what people think, then you are just seeking to learn and not on anyone\u0026rsquo;s side.\nThis means you can still have a great discussion, but you come away having learnt some things, rather than feeling divided.\nIn todays age, controversial conversations like these happen all the time. In my opinion, it\u0026rsquo;s best to approach them with a questions first attitude.\n","date":"18 January 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/other/blog-challenge-posts/20210116/","section":"Others","summary":"The other night I was chatting with some friends.\nWe were talking about controversial topics like what’s happening at the moment in America.\nThere are some topics like this that are very polarising.\nWhen people hear these things being said, they instantly go to one side and prepare to fight against the other.\n","title":"Questions First","type":"other"},{"content":"A problem I often fall into is not being happy right now, and saying that I will be happy when another event happens.\nI will be happy when\u0026hellip;.\nThe Problem # When you say this, you are getting this temporary kick of how it feels to experience that event. You are using that future event to feel good now.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s like this story from The Alchemist.\nThe Story # There is a trader who\u0026rsquo;s dream it is to one day go to Mecca. To complete the Islamic pilgrimage.\nHaving this dream to look forward to is the only thing in his mind that keeps him going in the day-to-day activities.\nWithout this potential future event, his life is meaningless.\nIf he was to actually achieve the dream, he would have to face his life with no hope.\nAs they say, the only thing worse than never getting what you want, is getting what you want.\nWhat Then? # To avoid this thought process, get into the habit of enjoying what is in front of you right now.\nEnjoy walks to work.\nEnjoy the trees.\nEnjoy dinners with family and friends.\nEnjoy the now.\nDon\u0026rsquo;t lose your ability to enjoy and have fun right now.\n","date":"18 January 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/other/blog-challenge-posts/20210115/","section":"Others","summary":"A problem I often fall into is not being happy right now, and saying that I will be happy when another event happens.\nI will be happy when….\nThe Problem # When you say this, you are getting this temporary kick of how it feels to experience that event. You are using that future event to feel good now.\n","title":"I'll be happy when","type":"other"},{"content":"I was chatting to a friend last night. He was looking at all the content that I\u0026rsquo;ve produced over the last few weeks.\nHe asked me, \u0026ldquo;How do you stay motivated?\u0026rdquo;\nI gave him three reasons.\nThree Reasons for Motivation # The first is that I am currently on holidays and don\u0026rsquo;t have much to do. This of course makes spending a few minutes on this every day very easy.\nThe second is that I\u0026rsquo;ve been thinking about doing something like this for quite a while so I had quite a few idea\u0026rsquo;s in the bank ready to write out. This makes writing about certain topics seem very easy. I\u0026rsquo;ve had the post in my head for sometimes months before I had written about it in this period.\nThe third reason is that I want to improve my communication skills and writing every day presents a great opportunity to improve these skills. I\u0026rsquo;ve been a part of Toastmasters this year as well, and that has helped me a crazy amount with improving my public speaking skills.\nThe Key to Motivation # I find that trying to motivate yourself into doing something can be extremely difficult. This kind of forcing yourself to do things can work for a time, but you are fighting a losing battle.\nA much better approach is to have that intrinsic motivation. The kind of motivation that makes the work feel effortless. This is the kind of motivation I have with this blog. Writing a post is something I get kind of excited about, it\u0026rsquo;s not something that I need to force myself to do. In the long term, this is the only way you will stick to those things you want to do.\n","date":"14 January 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/other/blog-challenge-posts/20210114/","section":"Others","summary":"I was chatting to a friend last night. He was looking at all the content that I’ve produced over the last few weeks.\nHe asked me, “How do you stay motivated?”\nI gave him three reasons.\n","title":"How to Stay Motivated","type":"other"},{"content":"I just finished reading the book \u0026ldquo;Show Your Work\u0026rdquo; by Austin Kleon.\nIn this book, Austin outlines how showing your work is beneficial for yourself and your brand.\nMany of us only show the finished product, the final result. We don\u0026rsquo;t tell our audience all the things that we did along the way. All the mistakes and achievements.\nThis is part of the process, this is the work.\nAustin shows us that showing this side of your work is not only cool for your fans to see, but also a way to further connect and enhance your brand.\nGiving away your tricks of the trade may seem like you are giving away your competitive advantage. In reality, you are letting people really see what it looks like to produce high quality work, and this will make you stand out from the crowd.\nShowing people your tricks won\u0026rsquo;t make your stuff less valuable, it will make it more valuable.\n“Forget about being an expert or a professional, and wear your amateurism (your heart, your love) on your sleeve. Share what you love, and the people who love the same things will find you.” ― Austin Kleon, Show Your Work!: 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered\n","date":"13 January 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/other/blog-challenge-posts/20210113/","section":"Others","summary":"I just finished reading the book “Show Your Work” by Austin Kleon.\nIn this book, Austin outlines how showing your work is beneficial for yourself and your brand.\nMany of us only show the finished product, the final result. We don’t tell our audience all the things that we did along the way. All the mistakes and achievements.\n","title":"Show Your Work","type":"other"},{"content":"There\u0026rsquo;s this thing known as the growth mindset.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s the mindset that a person has, they believe that they can improve.\nIn Carol Dweck\u0026rsquo;s book \u0026ldquo;Mindset\u0026rdquo;, she shows the research that has gone into this mindset and how people who think in this way typically have more interesting and fulfilling lives.\nI think it can be taken one step further.\nSome people have what I think it \u0026ldquo;The Best\u0026rdquo; mindset.\nThis in one step further than the growth mindset.\nInstead of merely thinking that they can improve, people with this mindset think that they can be the best.\nThe best student, the best chef, the best anything.\nWhatever environment they enter, they think they can, and expect to dominate.\nWhenever I do a regular task, try to make yourself the best person at it.\nBecause how you do anything is how you do everything, and this mindset will mean you try to become the best in every area of your life.\n","date":"12 January 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/other/blog-challenge-posts/20210112/","section":"Others","summary":"There’s this thing known as the growth mindset.\nIt’s the mindset that a person has, they believe that they can improve.\nIn Carol Dweck’s book “Mindset”, she shows the research that has gone into this mindset and how people who think in this way typically have more interesting and fulfilling lives.\n","title":"The Best Mindset","type":"other"},{"content":"Typically when my room gets messy, it\u0026rsquo;s during times that I\u0026rsquo;m either\nsuper busy, or in a bit of a mental low Having a messy room seems to be also correlated with having a messy mind. When my room is messy I typically have\na hunger for sweet foods a desire to watch movies and play video games a desire to watch pornograhy and explicit content These things are considered \u0026rsquo;low energy\u0026rsquo;. They are all negative and unsustainable activities.\nDuring these times its much more difficult to be present and enjoy each moment.\nWhat I find, is that cleaning my room is extremely beneficial.\nCleaning your room also cleans your mind.\nThe state of your room is also a reflection of the state of your mind.\nIt lets you reset yourself and begin anew.\nA messy room is a messy mind.\nA clean room is a clean mind.\n","date":"12 January 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/other/blog-challenge-posts/20210111/","section":"Others","summary":"Typically when my room gets messy, it’s during times that I’m either\nsuper busy, or in a bit of a mental low Having a messy room seems to be also correlated with having a messy mind. When my room is messy I typically have\n","title":"A Clean Room is a Clean Mind","type":"other"},{"content":"Politics is probably the most divisive it has ever been at the moment. People from both sides of the spectrum cast hate towards the other side, with a complete lack of empathy for another persons circumstances.\nPeople seem absolutely incapable of changing their opinions or even questioning their own.\nEven considering an opposing point is something that is not done by either side.\nViolence and chaos has ensued with the President of the \u0026lsquo;greatest country in the world\u0026rsquo; now being banned on all major social media sites.\nI watched the Social Dillemna earlier this year. All the people in that documentary were claiming that social media was causing politics to become even more divisive and push people to the fringes of both sides. They said, that a civil war was the most likely outcome.\nWith the violence and drama that we have seen over the last few days, it seems that we are well on the way to even more violence.\nThe solution - forget about politics.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s very easy to get fired up about politics, but here\u0026rsquo;s the thing. Each time a new president or prime minister is elected, they change almost nothing about your day to day life. The effect of the powers that be on your life is very minimal.\nIn my opinion, it makes very little sense to pay close attention to politics. All it will do is stir up your emotions for no reason.\nRise above the hate.\n","date":"10 January 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/other/blog-challenge-posts/20210110/","section":"Others","summary":"Politics is probably the most divisive it has ever been at the moment. People from both sides of the spectrum cast hate towards the other side, with a complete lack of empathy for another persons circumstances.\n","title":"Politics","type":"other"},{"content":"In 2009, Beyonce released her hit song called \u0026lsquo;Halo\u0026rsquo;. In the song Beyonce is singing about her love for a person with this magical Halo, about how this Halo is her saving grace.\nHalo\u0026rsquo;s are also associated with Angels and religious figures. A Halo being that little circle on an a head indicated that it that thing is somehow sacred or divine.\nHalo\u0026rsquo;s being associated with perfection, love and good times is nothing unusual. In fact, there is a psychological phenomena called the Halo Effect that explains how we can place metaphorical Halo\u0026rsquo;s on other people and things.\nThe Halo effect is\nthe tendency for positive impressions of a person, company, brand or product in one area to positively influence one\u0026rsquo;s opinion or feelings in other areas.\nThe original discovery of this effect came from studying the effect of attractiveness on other characteristics.\nConsider the following example,\nWe have person A and person B.\nA is not very attractive. A shows up in clothes that are ragged. They have a horrible haircut and smell.\nB on the other hand is a specimen. They are very well groomed with nice shoes and a slick haircut.\nWho do you think is more intelligent out of these two people? Despite having no information about their educational background or previous performance, we all assume that the well dressed people are more intelligent.\nThis effect is the Halo Effect.\nThe Halo effect is present in many areas of our lives, but in particular in Relationships, Investments and Wealth.\nRelationships # We create Halo\u0026rsquo;s around people and things that we have a positive impression of.\nIt also means that, in those people we think well of, we ignore bad attributes and only focus on the good ones.\nWhen you first start dating someone, things are going very well. It seems as though the person we are with has no flaws at all. That is, until around the 6 month mark when the Halo effect around that person starts to wear off. Instead of forgiving the other persons bad attributes, they now get noticed much more. While there may have been no disagreements or arguments until this point, this is where they can start to creep in.\nInvestment # When people invest more they get more out of it because the Halo Effect is being triggered by the investment.\nWhen someone pays 10k for a course or thing, they now have skin in the game to want that thing to be good. They use it often and seek to get the most out of it. This concept is clear when we consider things that are paid vs free.\nRecently a course was given to me and my club at University. Since we recieved this for free, participation has been very low and even now I think everyone has forgotten that they were even enrolled in it. If we had to pay to get into the course, we would likely all have paid much closer attention and aimed to get a lot more out of it.\nWealth # There is a Halo Effect of relative wealth, you think that those things hold the keys to your happiness.\nWhat we don\u0026rsquo;t notice is all the potential negatives that come with more wealth. Things like higher demands on your time and higher stress may make the juice not worth the squeeze.\nThe Halo effect means your first impressions are key! Make them count.\n","date":"10 January 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/other/blog-challenge-posts/20210109/","section":"Others","summary":"In 2009, Beyonce released her hit song called ‘Halo’. In the song Beyonce is singing about her love for a person with this magical Halo, about how this Halo is her saving grace.\nHalo’s are also associated with Angels and religious figures. A Halo being that little circle on an a head indicated that it that thing is somehow sacred or divine.\n","title":"The Halo Effect","type":"other"},{"content":"“Life is a journey, not a destination.” ― Ralph Waldo Emerson\nSo often we look forward to the weekend. Look forward to the day that we will finally have X item.\n“Excellence/Perfection is not a destination; it is a continuous journey that never ends.” ― Brian Tracy\nI have written about this before.\n“In this world there are only two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it.”\n― Oscar Wilde\nIf you don\u0026rsquo;t get what you want, you can still dream about how good your life would have been if you had that thing.\nIf you actually DO get what you want, now you have nowhere to hide. You realise that getting that thing you so badly wanted doesn\u0026rsquo;t fill the void at all. You are left so confused, wondering what to do with you life now that you have everything you could want, and yet you still feel horrible on the inside.\nThe solution to this problem, is to actually fix what is going on, on the inside of yourself.\nSee and notice all the beauty and wonder in the world that is all around you everyday.\n","date":"8 January 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/other/blog-challenge-posts/20210108/","section":"Others","summary":"“Life is a journey, not a destination.” ― Ralph Waldo Emerson\nSo often we look forward to the weekend. Look forward to the day that we will finally have X item.\n“Excellence/Perfection is not a destination; it is a continuous journey that never ends.” ― Brian Tracy\n","title":"Life is a journey, not a destination","type":"other"},{"content":"I\u0026rsquo;m constantly running in to vegans who claim that meat is horrible for you and that a nice steak is going to send you to an early grave!\nFortunately for us meat-eaters out there, there is actually nothing wrong with some meat, and there\u0026rsquo;s science to back it up.\nVegans have to take supplements just to have a balanced diet.\nBecoming vegan basically means you need to become your own nutritionist. You need to be so careful about what you eat and how much of it. Is claiming not to hurt animals really worth the negative health implications of this?\nWe have things called pesticides. Animals are killed all the time in the creation of every single kind of food. If you care so much about not eating animals then you may as well just not eat any food, because eating food means you are killing animals somewhere along the way!\nI will now present a bunch of studies that show meat is NOT bad for you! (Incredible!)\nYou can show these to your vegan mates to get them to pipe down.\nI\u0026rsquo;ve split them up into general studies and ones that focus more on mental health. The emphasis on words is mine.\nGeneral Meat Studies # Unprocessed Red Meat and Processed Meat Consumption: Dietary Guideline Recommendations From the Nutritional Recommendations (NutriRECS) Consortium\nhttps://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M19-1621 This paper is by Gordon Guyatt who is the creator of evidence based medicine!\nThe panel suggests that adults continue current unprocessed red meat consumption (weak recommendation, low-certainty evidence). Similarly, the panel suggests adults continue current processed meat consumption (weak recommendation, low-certainty evidence).\nReduction of Red and Processed Meat Intake and Cancer Mortality and Incidence\nhttps://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M19-0699\nOf 118 articles (56 cohorts) with more than 6 million participants, 73 articles were eligible for the dose–response meta-analyses, 30 addressed cancer mortality, and 80 reported cancer incidence. Low-certainty evidence suggested that an intake reduction of 3 servings of unprocessed meat per week was associated with a very small reduction in overall cancer mortality over a lifetime. Evidence of low to very low certainty suggested that each intake reduction of 3 servings of processed meat per week was associated with very small decreases in overall cancer mortality over a lifetime; prostate cancer mortality; and incidence of esophageal, colorectal, and breast cancer.\nThe possible absolute effects of red and processed meat consumption on cancer mortality and incidence are very small, and the certainty of evidence is low to very low.\nIncredible stuff, 6 million participants and the effect of meat consumption on mortality is extremely small!\nRed and Processed Meat Consumption and Risk for All-Cause Mortality and Cardiometabolic Outcomes\nhttps://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M19-0655\nOf 61 articles reporting on 55 cohorts with more than 4 million participants, none addressed quality of life or satisfaction with diet. Low-certainty evidence was found that a reduction in unprocessed red meat intake of 3 servings per week is associated with a very small reduction in risk for cardiovascular mortality, stroke, myocardial infarction (MI), and type 2 diabetes. Likewise, low-certainty evidence was found that a reduction in processed meat intake of 3 servings per week is associated with a very small decrease in risk for all-cause mortality, cardiovascular mortality, stroke, MI, and type 2 diabetes.\nThe magnitude of association between red and processed meat consumption and all-cause mortality and adverse cardiometabolic outcomes is very small, and the evidence is of low certainty.\nFood consumption and the actual statistics of cardiovascular diseases: an epidemiological comparison of 42 European countries\nhttps://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5040825/pdf/FNR-60-31694.pdf\nThe most significant dietary correlate of low CVD risk was high total fat and animal protein consumption\nA high fat and animal protein diet was in fact found to be the most significant correlate of DECREASED cardiovascular disease risk!\nShould dietary guidelines recommend low red meat intake?\nhttps://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10408398.2019.1657063\nWe argue that claims about the health dangers of red meat are not only improbable in the light of our evolutionary history, they are far from being supported by robust scientific evidence.\nControversy on the correlation of red and processed meat consumption with colorectal cancer risk: an Asian perspective\nhttps://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29999423/\nFurthermore, most studies conducted in Asia showed that processed meat consumption is not related to the onset of cancer. Moreover, there have been no reports showing significant correlation between various factors that directly or indirectly affect colorectal cancer incidence, including processed meat products types, raw meat types, or cooking methods.\nTotal red meat intake of ≥0.5 servings/d does not negatively influence cardiovascular disease risk factors: a systemically searched meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials\nhttps://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27881394/\nThe results from this systematically searched meta-analysis of RCTs support the idea that the consumption of ≥0.5 servings of total red meat/d does not influence blood lipids and lipoproteins or blood pressures.\nMeat and Mental Health # Meat and mental health: a systematic review of meat abstention and depression, anxiety, and related phenomena\nhttps://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10408398.2020.1741505\nThe majority of studies, and especially the higher quality studies, showed that those who avoided meat consumption had significantly higher rates or risk of depression, anxiety, and/or self-harm behaviors. There was mixed evidence for temporal relations, but study designs and a lack of rigor precluded inferences of causal relations. Our study does not support meat avoidance as a strategy to benefit psychological health\nThe Difference in Depression and Anxiety Rate between Vegetarians and Non-Vegetarians: A National Study among Icelandic Adolescents.\nhttps://skemman.is/bitstream/1946/22496/1/KarenGr%C3%A9ta_skemman.pdf\nResults suggested that there was no significant difference in depression and anxiety between vegetarians and nonvegetarians when both meat and fish consumption were examined. However there was a difference between the groups when meat consumption was looked at separately. Those who did not eat meat had significantly higher scores on the depression scale than those who ate meat\nVegetarian diet and mental disorders: results from a representative community survey\nhttps://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3466124/\nThe analysis of the respective ages at adoption of a vegetarian diet and onset of a mental disorder showed that the adoption of the vegetarian diet tends to follow the onset of mental disorders.\nNutrition and Health – The Association between Eating Behavior and Various Health Parameters: A Matched Sample Study\nhttps://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3917888/\nOur results revealed that a vegetarian diet is related to a lower BMI and less frequent alcohol consumption. Moreover, our results showed that a vegetarian diet is associated with poorer health (higher incidences of cancer, allergies, and mental health disorders), a higher need for health care, and poorer quality of life.\nConclusion # Incredible stuff here folks.\nOne of the main points of all this is that we can find studies that point to both the benefits and negatives of meat consumption. What this means is that\nMeat is likely not bad for you The method by which these finding are created is not accurate It\u0026rsquo;s definitely worth considering your own personal circumstances rather than some very general studies.\n","date":"7 January 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/other/blog-challenge-posts/20210107/","section":"Others","summary":"I’m constantly running in to vegans who claim that meat is horrible for you and that a nice steak is going to send you to an early grave!\nFortunately for us meat-eaters out there, there is actually nothing wrong with some meat, and there’s science to back it up.\n","title":"Is Meat Bad for You?","type":"other"},{"content":"Most people aren\u0026rsquo;t very happy.\nThey get mad easily.\nThey get \u0026lsquo;road rage\u0026rsquo;. Someone pulling in front of them is enough to ruin their day.\nThey go to the supermarket and yell at the workers.\nThey always find something to be annoyed or angry about.\nIn my opinion, this behaviour is just about one of the stupidest things you can do.\nSure, sometimes anger is warranted.\nBut most of the time, let it go, and stop letting these moments ruin your day.\nNo matter what happens, what things you get, where you go. Your experience of life will be approximately the same.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s not getting any better.\nYou happiness and experience of life is much more down to how you percieve it than to what kind of material possesions you may have.\nAmazing Experiences Aren\u0026rsquo;t That Amazing # I remember hearing people talk about the magnificent streets of Rome, the wonders of Europe. The beautiful streets of Croatia, the amazing beaches in Spain.\nThen I went there. I experienced all there was to experience in Europe.\nAnd you know what happened.\nI felt the same.\nWaiting for the bus to take me to another part of London had me feeling the same way I feel waiting for the bus to take me to just another day at school back home.\nThe Mona Lisa didn\u0026rsquo;t fill me with joy or wonder, it was just another painting.\nNow am I numb to happiness and appreciation? Maybe.\nHappiness and Appreciation # But the more and more that life goes on, I realise that this happiness and appreciation isn\u0026rsquo;t specific to certain items that society had deemed to be \u0026lsquo;special\u0026rsquo;.\nThis happiness and appreciation carries over to all other aspects of my life.\nAppreciating a great paiting in the Louvre is the same process as appreciating the beautiful trees on your walk to work in the morning.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s all the same.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s all what you make of it.\n","date":"6 January 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/other/blog-challenge-posts/20210106/","section":"Others","summary":"Most people aren’t very happy.\nThey get mad easily.\nThey get ‘road rage’. Someone pulling in front of them is enough to ruin their day.\nThey go to the supermarket and yell at the workers.\nThey always find something to be annoyed or angry about.\n","title":"The Pursuit Of Happiness","type":"other"},{"content":"I see people doing great things.\nThey set the bar higher.\nDo the impossible.\nBut is this due to actual skill? or just dumb luck?\nSomeone could buy a lottery ticket and win $1 Million on their first try. Is that an act of genius?\nSometimes in the case of successful people, it can be difficult to distinguish if the person has their success as a result of luck, or of skill (or maybe both).\nIt\u0026rsquo;s worth keeping in mind though that not all successful people have some crazy talent or skill. They just put themselves in a place to get lucky.\nThrough all the biographies and stories I have read about successful people achieving great things, I know the following is true.\nYou can\u0026rsquo;t get anywhere without taking risks.\n","date":"4 January 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/other/blog-challenge-posts/20210105/","section":"Others","summary":"I see people doing great things.\nThey set the bar higher.\nDo the impossible.\nBut is this due to actual skill? or just dumb luck?\nSomeone could buy a lottery ticket and win $1 Million on their first try. Is that an act of genius?\n","title":"Risk Taking and Success","type":"other"},{"content":"I read a lot of books last year. 52 to be exact.\nSome people might ask, why on earth would you read that many? Surely you can\u0026rsquo;t use knowledge from all of them? Surely they haven\u0026rsquo;t helped you do anything?\nI think for me, the reasons I read books are the following.\nThey change my identity.\nWhen I am reading books, I get known as someone that reads books. This makes me also interested in other personal development topics and makes me generally interested in a wide range of topics.\nIt also means that I can connect better with those people that I want to meet. Typically, those other more succesful people, also read books. From all the people I\u0026rsquo;ve seen online, it is very rare that a successful person has not read books like \u0026lsquo;How to Win Friends and Influence People\u0026rsquo; or \u0026lsquo;Think and Grow Rich\u0026rsquo;.\nExposure to a wide range of topics\nLast year alone I read books about Finance, meditation, spirituality, global history and technology. This constant stream of interesting inputs makes me a much more interesting person. I am able to talk to people about a wide range of topics on a deep level.\nIt means that when I am faced with challenges, I can reflect on all those examples of people that I have read about, and can consider paths forward that I would not have considered on my own.\nSo that is why I read books. I find it\u0026rsquo;s much more interesting to spend my time doing that rather than listening to music or watching gaming videos on youtube.\nJames\n","date":"4 January 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/other/blog-challenge-posts/20210104/","section":"Others","summary":"I read a lot of books last year. 52 to be exact.\nSome people might ask, why on earth would you read that many? Surely you can’t use knowledge from all of them? Surely they haven’t helped you do anything?\n","title":"Why Read Books?","type":"other"},{"content":"This is a short post reviewing the lessons that I learnt during 2020.\nwanting things too much will push them away This happened to me a few times this year.\nI wanted things to happen so bad. Too bad.\nI was sitting at my desk getting ready for a video interview. This was the final interview for the job application process.\nI was very keen to get this job. Too keen.\nThe interview was progressing well.\nMy internet started getting slow.\nThe interviewers asked if I could turn my video off as it was making the call slow down.\nEven though I had done all my video calls from this exact position, my setup had let me down.\nI didn\u0026rsquo;t get the job.\nAnother time.\nI had a girl coming over to my place.\nI wanted her to come over really bad. Too bad.\nHer car broke down on the way over.\nShe never made it.\nI think sometimes we can want things to happen to badly that the thing doesn\u0026rsquo;t actually eventuate. For example consider someone really needy in a relationship. They want it to work so badly that the other person is actually getting turned off by their enthusiasm. Or consider a business context where you offer someone all they could want, and more, but they end up pulling out of the deal because it seems too good to be true.\nThis year, I will focus on the process, more than the outcomes. I will make sure that I am not focussed on certain events happening, but more on my present experience and enjoying each moment.\nwork hard and you can get results In 2020 I did pretty decent at university. I had 5 High Distinctions and 3 Distinctions giving me a GPA for the year of 6.6/7.\nThis was my best full year at University ever.\nIt showed me that I do have the capacity to get good results. That I can achieve very good things if I set my mind to it.\nJames.\n","date":"4 January 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/other/blog-challenge-posts/20210103/","section":"Others","summary":"This is a short post reviewing the lessons that I learnt during 2020.\nwanting things too much will push them away This happened to me a few times this year.\nI wanted things to happen so bad. Too bad.\n","title":"Lessons from 2020","type":"other"},{"content":"So much of goal setting this new year is about what THING you want to achieve. Rarely do we ask what we must become in order to get those things that we want.\nThe reality is, that if we were the kind of person that could get what we want, then we would already have it. Changing you habits and fundemental personality traits to attain your goals is the only way to achieve your goals.\nConsider the following from \u0026ldquo;Design Your Best Year Ever - Darren Hardy\u0026rdquo;\nGoal: I am earning an extra $100,000 in income this year.\nQuestion: Who do I have to become to achieve this?\nAnswer: I am a smart, confident, and effective leader.\nI am a master of time efficiency. I focus solely on high-payoff and high-productivity actions.\nI wake up an hour earlier and review my priority objectives each morning.\nI fuel my body properly so I am energetic and highly effective each work hour.\nI am influential and passionate.\nThis answer can now be used as an affirmation to yourself everyday as you chase down your goals.\n","date":"4 January 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/other/blog-challenge-posts/20210102/","section":"Others","summary":"So much of goal setting this new year is about what THING you want to achieve. Rarely do we ask what we must become in order to get those things that we want.\nThe reality is, that if we were the kind of person that could get what we want, then we would already have it. Changing you habits and fundemental personality traits to attain your goals is the only way to achieve your goals.\n","title":"Who do I have to become to achieve this?","type":"other"},{"content":"This year is a big one. 2021.\nThis year I have structured my goals according to the following plan. If you haven\u0026rsquo;t done something similar already, I highly recommend it.\nStep One # Pick 3 goals.\nMy three goals for this year are\nRead 60 Books Bench Press 100kg Earn money online Step Two # Outline the 2/3 biggest things you can do to achieve those goals\nRead 60 Books\nListen to audiobooks in the car and during commutes Read 25 minutes every day Bench Press 100kg\nGym regularly (4/5 times per week) Track workouts Track Diet (myfitnesspal or similar) Earn money online\ncreate something every day (~1 hour) Publish the things that I create Step Three # Create a day plan for how you will use your time to achieve those goals.\nGonna leave this out here, but as I\u0026rsquo;ll be starting full-time work I now have much more stability in my schedule and this should make routines easier to create.\n","date":"1 January 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/other/blog-challenge-posts/20210101/","section":"Others","summary":"This year is a big one. 2021.\nThis year I have structured my goals according to the following plan. If you haven’t done something similar already, I highly recommend it.\nStep One # Pick 3 goals.\n","title":"New Year - New Me","type":"other"},{"content":"View my 2020 Reading challenge on Goodreads here.\nHere are my top 5 books that I read this year (in no particular order):\nHigh Performance Habits by Brendon Burchard The Ride of a Lifetime by Robert Iger Range by David Epstein The Alter Ego Effect by Todd Herman The Dictator\u0026rsquo;s Handbook by Bruce Bueno de Mesquita A Year of Books # This year was an incredible year. For the first time in my life, I managed to get through 52 books in a single year. On average, one book per week.\nI have learnt so much through this process. It\u0026rsquo;s been amazing to hear from so many amazing people and gain insight from so many different perspectives.\nBelow is a complete list of each book I read or listened to this year.\nThe vast majority of these books were listened to either while I was in the car or on walks. Most books go for about 8-10 hours. If you listen on 2x speed that doesn\u0026rsquo;t affect your comprehension and means you can listen to a book in 4-5 hours. If you commute to work for 20-30 minutes a day. You can listen to a book every week just during your commute.\nEven though this might not be the most optimal way to take in the information from a book, it\u0026rsquo;s still much better to listen to a book than to be listening to music or some other meaningless activity.\nThe Future # Next year I\u0026rsquo;m going to step it up a notch. The goal is to get through 60 books in 2021! Hopefully more Digital and Physical books than I read this year.\nIf you\u0026rsquo;re interested in staying up to date, drop your email in the subscription box at the bottom of this post.\nThis wouldn\u0026rsquo;t be a complete list without listing those books that I want to read next year. Here are some of the books that I am most keen to read!\nThe Practice: Shipping Creative Work Boundaries: When to Say Yes, How to Say No to Take Control of Your Life Hannibal and Me: What History\u0026rsquo;s Greatest Military Strategist Can Teach Us About Success and Failure The Immortality Key: Uncovering the Secret History of the Religion with No Name Reality Transurfing Steps I-V 2020 Book List # So now onto the books. The books I most recently read are at the top, descending down to the books I read at the beginning of the year.\nThe brackets () indicate how the book was read. (Audio) means I listened to it, (Physical) means I read a physical copy of the book and (Digital) means I read a digital version of the book.\nOf the 52 books, 41 were (Audio), 3 (Physical) and 8 were (Digital).\nDecember 2020 - 6 Books # Raise Your Game by Alan Stein Jr. (Audio)\nA book about the stuff needed to operate at a high level. A lot of interesting concepts about what it takes to lead in a team.\nTurn your \u0026ldquo;have to\u0026rsquo;s\u0026rdquo; into \u0026ldquo;get to\u0026rsquo;s\u0026rdquo;\nMeltdown by Thomas E. Woods Jr. (Audio)\nA book about the 2008 financial crisis in America. The author argues from an Austrian economics view that the federal reserve is negatively impacting the free markets and that it\u0026rsquo;s intervention in these kinds of crises generally makes this worse and not better.\nAlthough we can\u0026rsquo;t really change what government does, it\u0026rsquo;s cool to see how things work and here perspectives on why things aren\u0026rsquo;t operating as optimally as they could be.\nGreenlights by Matthew McConaughey (Audio)\nA wonderful autobiography by the man himself, this book gave me a great insight into the rise from popular schoolboy to Oscar-Winner. I didn\u0026rsquo;t know much about Matthew but hearing him on podcasts talking about his book got me really interested. He is a great example of always pushing the boundaries and sticking to your guns.\n“We all step in shit from time to time. We hit roadblocks, we fuck up, we get fucked, we get sick, we don’t get what we want, we cross thousands of “could have done better”s and “wish that wouldn’t have happened”s in life. Stepping in shit is inevitable, so let’s either see it as good luck, or figure out how to do it less often.” ― Matthew McConaughey, Greenlights\nThe Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (Physical)\nA cute little book about a Little Prince. Many small lessons in here but the main one for me was appreciating what we have. Choosing to love those things that are all around us even when there are better options.\n“All grown-ups were once children\u0026hellip; but only few of them remember it.” ― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince\nThe Ride of a Lifetime by Robert Iger (Audio)\nMagnificent book about the life of the CEO of Disney. Iger transformed Disney and has successfully lead them to success in the digital age. He is a great example of leadership and making things happen.\n“Optimism. One of the most important qualities of a good leader is optimism, a pragmatic enthusiasm for what can be achieved. Even in the face of difficult choices and less than ideal outcomes, an optimistic leader does not yield to pessimism. Simply put, people are not motivated or energized by pessimists.” ― Robert Iger, The Ride of a Lifetime: Lessons Learned from 15 Years as CEO of the Walt Disney Company\nThat Will Never Work by Marc Randolph (Audio)\nA great story of the founding of Netflix. The founders had setback after setback and still continued. Netflix is now an immensely successful company. A story about perserverence and overcoming challenges, as well as self-belief.\n“As you get older, if you’re at all self-aware, you learn two important things about yourself: what you like, and what you’re good at. Anyone who gets to spend his day doing both of those things is a lucky man.” ― Marc Randolph, That Will Never Work: The Birth of Netflix and the Amazing Life of an Idea\nNovember 2020 - 4 Books # Being Mortal by Atul Gawande (Audio)\nThis was a book about aged care, and about how the way we deal with the dying in the western world isn\u0026rsquo;t necessarily optimal.\nWhen someone is old and going to die soon, what do you do? Do you give them treatment to extend their life by a few months, or let them die peacefully?\nThis book is all about coming to terms with death and how medicine can improve that process.\n“In the end, people don\u0026rsquo;t view their life as merely the average of all its moments—which, after all, is mostly nothing much plus some sleep. For human beings, life is meaningful because it is a story. A story has a sense of a whole, and its arc is determined by the significant moments, the ones where something happens. Measurements of people\u0026rsquo;s minute-by-minute levels of pleasure and pain miss this fundamental aspect of human existence. A seemingly happy life maybe empty. A seemingly difficult life may be devoted to a great cause. We have purposes larger than ourselves.” ― Atul Gawande, Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End****\nHell Yeah or No by Derek Sivers (Digital)\nThis was a book that is a compilation of blog posts. There are some excellent short ones in here. One of my favourite ideas was that everybody\u0026rsquo;s ideas seem obvious to them. There are things that I know that seem obvious that others would love to learn how to do.\nMany great bits in this book.\n“People often ask me what they can do to be moresuccessful. I say disconnect. Even if just for a few hours. Unplug. Turn off your phone and Wi-Fi. Focus. Write. Practice. Create. That’s what’s rare and valuable these days.\nYou get no competitive edge from consuming the same stuff everyone else is consuming.” ― Derek Sivers, Hell Yeah or No: what\u0026rsquo;s worth doing\nHow Will You Measure Your Life? by Clayton M. Christensen (Digital)\nThis was a great book about how to measure success in your life. Is financial success worth the negative impacts it may have on your family life? These are topics well worth considering and are discussed at length in the book.\n“It\u0026rsquo;s easier to hold your principles 100 percent of the time than it is to hold them 98 percent of the time.” ― Clayton M. Christensen, How Will You Measure Your Life?\nCrucial Conversations by Kerry Patterson (Audio)\nAn excellent book about how to conduct yourself in high pressure conversations and situations. I learnt that it\u0026rsquo;s always better to put your ideas forward into the \u0026lsquo;pool of knowledge\u0026rsquo; rather than leave them in your head.\n“People who are skilled at dialogue do their best to make it safe for everyone to add their meaning to the shared pool\u0026ndash;even ideas that at first glance appear controversial, wrong, or at odds with their own beliefs. Now, obviously they don\u0026rsquo;t agree with every idea; they simply do their best to ensure that all ideas find their way into the open.” ― Kerry Patterson, Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High\nOctober 2020 - 4 Books # The Deficit Myth by Stephanie Kelton (Audio)\nA book about modern monetary theory and how the government running a deficit is not a problem at all. Governments that create their own currency face not actual limit on how much currency they can produce. The only real limit is the inflation of the currency.\nWith this in mind, the author suggests creating a jobs guarantee. This means that everyone without work can have a job working for the government in some community role. Since this just means the economy would be operating at capacity the wages for these people should not create inflation.\nA very interesting book about some economics that is increasingly being spoken about in policy discussions.\nThe Innovators by Walter Isaacson (Audio)\nInnovations come from all kinds of places. This book was all about the progression of computers from simple calculators in the 19th century up until modern day smartphones that we have today. I found it really cool to hear how various innovations occurred and how things really came to be as they are in the world of computing.\nOne thing that struck me in this book is the amount of collaboration that has gone on in computing. There are many parts of computing, like the internet for example, that there is no single \u0026lsquo;inventor\u0026rsquo;. A group of people, each who contributed their own small part eventually led to the creation of many of the technologies we have today.\n“But the main lesson to draw from the birth of computers is that innovation is usually a group effort, involving collaboration between visionaries and engineers, and that creativity comes from drawing on many sources. Only in storybooks do inventions come like a thunderbolt, or a lightbulb popping out of the head of a lone individual in a basement or garret or garage.” ― Walter Isaacson, The Innovators: How a Group of Inventors, Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution\nFahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury (Audio)\nImagine firefighters except their job is to burn all the books in the world. This is what this book is about. It contains many lessons about knowledge protection and about how history must be learnt from and not destroyed.\n“Why is it,\u0026quot; he said, one time, at the subway entrance, \u0026ldquo;I feel I\u0026rsquo;ve known you so many years?\u0026rdquo; \u0026ldquo;Because I like you,\u0026rdquo; she said, \u0026ldquo;and I don\u0026rsquo;t want anything from you.” ― Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451\nThe Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb (Audio)\nMost of the risks we face in life and markets are not those we consider, but those that come from out of the blue. This entire book is about how you can\u0026rsquo;t be prepared for every scenario, a black swan event could be right around the corner.\n“Missing a train is only painful if you run after it! Likewise, not matching the idea of success others expect from you is only painful if that’s what you are seeking.” ― Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable\nSeptember 2020 - 3 Books # Shoe Dog by Phil Knight (Physical)\nThe story of Nike and how it came to be. Like some of the other books I have read, the story details Knight\u0026rsquo;s journey of stuggle and near bankruptcy. An excellent read of how to create a wonderful company and enjoy the ride along the way.\n“Life is growth. You grow or you die.” ― Phil Knight, Shoe Dog\nThe Road Less Traveled by M. Scott Peck (Audio)\nA short book about understanding yourself and how to manage your emotions.\n“Until you value yourself, you won\u0026rsquo;t value your time. Until you value your time, you will not do anything with it.” ― M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual Growth\nHow to Get Rich by Felix Dennis (Audio)\nFelix seems like a wonderful character and this came across in his book. He details his stories of his various magazine companies and how these principles can be applies to other business ventures.\n“Having a great idea is simply not enough. The eventual goal is vastly more important than any idea. It is how ideas are implemented that counts in the long run” ― Felix Dennis, How to Get Rich\nAugust 2020 - 7 Books # Discipline Equals Freedom by Jocko Willink (Audio)\nAnother short book by the great and powerful Jocko Willink. This book is all about managing discipline in the mess of life.\n“Don’t expect to be motivated every day to get out there and make things happen. You won’t be. Don’t count on motivation. Count on Discipline.” ― Jocko Willink, Discipline Equals Freedom: Field Manual\nScrum by Jeff Sutherland (Audio)\nScrum details what has become the agile methodology of project management. This process means teams work in short sprints of getting things done rather than draw out projects. This style of working has meant that teams are significantly more productive and the people in those teams are much happier.\n“No Heroics. If you need a hero to get things done, you have a problem. Heroic effort should be viewed as a failure of planning.” ― Jeff Sutherland, Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time\nIron John by Robert Bly (Audio)\nThis is a book all about masculinity and the way society has suppressed it in recent times. The themes are told through a story about a wild man which makes it an interesting read.\nMost American men today do not have enough awakened or living warriors inside to defend their soul houses. And most people, men or women, do not know what genuine outward or inward warriors would look like, or feel like.” ― Robert Bly, Iron John: A Book About Men\nThe Tactical Guide to Women by Shawn T. Smith (Audio)\nThe landscape of relationships is a complicated one. With divorce rates at very high levels, it\u0026rsquo;s more important than ever to understand how to mitigate risks in relationships. This book outlines the main ways in which men can reduce their risks in life and with women.\nPower vs. Force by David R. Hawkins (Digital)\nThis book claims that everyone is operating at a certain energy level, and that everything around us is also operating with a certain frequency. I learnt that a thought of love is immensely more powerful than a negative one, and now I seek to reduce negative thought patterns as much as possible. I seek to replace them with \u0026lsquo;higher energy\u0026rsquo; thoughts.\n“We change the world not by what we say or do but as a consequence of what we have become.” ― David R. Hawkins, Power vs. Force: The Hidden Determinants of Human Behavior, author\u0026rsquo;s Official Revised Edition\nBreath by James Nestor (Audio)\nEver thought about your breathing? It turns out that breathing through your mouth is incredibly bad for you, and breathing through your nose is much better. This book outlines the authors journey to discover better breathing techniques.\n“the greatest indicator of life span wasn’t genetics, diet, or the amount of daily exercise, as many had suspected. It was lung capacity.” ― James Nestor, Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art\nFooled by Randomness by Nassim Nicholas Taleb (Audio)\nAnother one of Taleb\u0026rsquo;s books on how randomness can fool us. An important idea is that we need to be able to distinguish between what is lucky and what is skillful, it is not always obvious.\n“Heroes are heroes because they are heroic in behavior, not because they won or lost.” ― Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets\nJuly 2020 - 2 Books # Sell or Be Sold by Grant Cardone (Audio)\nI haven\u0026rsquo;t had to do much selling in my life but this book was an excellent guide on how to do that. Cardone is fanatic about making deals and this book is an excellent guide on how to sell more.\n“Become so sold, so convinced, so committed to your company, product, and service that you believe it would be a terrible thing for the buyer to do business anywhere else with any other product.” ― Grant Cardone, Sell or Be Sold: How to Get Your Way in Business and in Life\nThe Alchemist by Paulo Coelho (Audio)\nAn excellent story about a young man uncovering his personal legend. There are so many lessons in this book, I will definitely come back to read this in the future.\n“It\u0026rsquo;s the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting.” ― Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist\nJune 2020 - 4 Books # The Third Door by Alex Banayan (Audio)\nI couldn\u0026rsquo;t stop listening to this book. Alex has an amazing story of meeting people and finding a way to get what he wants, against the odds. The main idea of this book is that lots of successful people didn\u0026rsquo;t take the conventional route, they didn\u0026rsquo;t go through the main entrance or even the VIP entrance. They found the third door.\n“Maybe the hardest part about taking a risk isn’t whether to take it, it’s when to take it. It’s never clear how much momentum is enough to justify leaving school. It’s never clear when it’s the right time to quit your job. Big decisions are rarely clear when you’re making them—they’re only clear looking back. The best you can do is take one careful step at a time.” ― Alex Banayan, The Third Door: The Wild Quest to Uncover How the World\u0026rsquo;s Most Successful People Launched Their Careers: The Wild Quest to Uncover How the World\u0026rsquo;s Most Successful People Launched Their Careers\nBanker to the Poor by Muhammad Yunus (Digital)\nThe Grameen bank was started to provide micro-lending services to the poor. Now it is an extremely successful bank providing services all around the world. This book was the story of how it was created and grown.\n“People.. were poor not because they were stupid or lazy. They worked all day long, doing complex physical tasks. They were poor because the financial institution in the country did not help them widen their economic base.” ― Muhammad Yunus, Banker to the Poor: Micro-Lending and the Battle Against World Poverty\nMaximum Achievement by Brian Tracy (Audio)\nA typical self-help book. This book contains so many useful nuggets of wisdom. In particular I really liked the power of positive thinking.\n“Positive expectations are the mark of the superior personality.” ― Brian Tracy, Maximum Achievement: Strategies and Skills that Will Unlock Your Hidden Powers to Succeed\nOn Power by Gene Simmons (Audio)\nThe lead singer of KISS writing a book! One thing I really got out of this book was that your work and the rest of your life are not seperate, they are the same. There is no point trying to seperate your life in these ways. Another point the author makes is that the best way to provide for your family isn\u0026rsquo;t to be there for them and lot\u0026rsquo;s of time with them, the best way to provide for your family is to produce.\n“So much of our popular mythology focuses on the negative aspects of power that we forget that gaining power is, perhaps, the only way to enable ourselves to make a difference in our lives and in the lives of others.” ― Gene Simmons, On Power: My Journey Through the Corridors of Power and How You Can Get More Power\nMay 2020 - 3 Books # Range by David Epstein (Audio)\nRoger Federer played many sports before finally choosing tennis at age 16. Tiger Woods became a golfer when he was about 5. Which path is better? Epstein argues that getting a range of experiences and becoming a generalist is the way to go for a more successful life. He says that although early specialisation can put you ahead of the pack, it\u0026rsquo;s often a variety of experiences that leads to new discoveries.\n“Modern work demands knowledge transfer: the ability to apply knowledge to new situations and different domains. Our most fundamental thought processes have changed to accommodate increasing complexity and the need to derive new patterns rather than rely only on familiar ones. Our conceptual classification schemes provide a scaffolding for connecting knowledge, making it accessible and flexible.” ― David Epstein, Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World\nIf You\u0026rsquo;re Not First, You\u0026rsquo;re Last by Grant Cardone (Audio)\nGrant discusses how to dominate your market and your career.\n“Problems are opportunities, and conquered opportunities equal money earned.” ― Grant Cardone, If You\u0026rsquo;re Not First, You\u0026rsquo;re Last: Sales Strategies to Dominate Your Market and Beat Your Competition\nHow to Become CEO by Jeffrey J. Fox (Digital)\nMany useful tips in here like how to manage office politics and to move up in your organisation.\n“Nothing gives one person so much advantage over another as to remain cool and unruffled under all circumstances. —Thomas Jefferson” ― Jeffrey J. Fox, How to Become CEO: The Rules for Rising to the Top of Any Organization\nApril 2020 - 3 Books # E-Myth Revisited by by Michael E. Gerber (Audio)\nA book about how people wanting to start a business can end up just doing their job for themselves rather than running the business. Doing your job and running a business are distinct skills and it\u0026rsquo;s important to realise this before striking out on your own.\n“The difference between great people and everyone else is that great people create their lives actively, while everyone else is created by their lives, passively waiting to see where life takes them next. The difference between the two is living fully and just existing.” ― Gerber Michael E., The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don\u0026rsquo;t Work and What to Do About It\nSubliminal by Leonard Mlodinow (Audio)\nFilled with many wonderful examples of how our subconscious mind runs our decisions.\n“We believe that when we choose anything, judge a stranger and even fall in love, we understand the principal factors that influenced us. Very often nothing could be further from the truth. As a result, many of our most basic assumptions about ourselves, and society, are false.” ― Leonard Mlodinow\nEfficiency by Wall Street Playboys (Digital)\nI found out about this book on twitter. It\u0026rsquo;s all about how to make your life as efficient as possible for money, girls and fun.\nMarch 2020 - 8 Books # Design Your Best Year Ever by Darren Hardy (Digital)\nA book that I will probably read again at the beginning of 2021. Filled with excellent advice about goal setting and acheiving the things that you want.\nNever Eat Alone by Keith Ferrazzi (Audio)\nA really cool book about creating a social circle and connecting with those people that are interesting and can help you.\n“Success in any field, but especially in business is about working with people, not against them.” ― Keith Ferrazzi, Never Eat Alone: And Other Secrets to Success, One Relationship at a Time\nThe Magic of Thinking Big by David J. Schwartz (Audio)\nThis was an outstanding book on the power of belief. Similar to the growth mindset, believing you can do a thing dramatically changes how you look at scenario or opportunity.\n“Believe it can be done. When you believe something can be done, really believe, your mind will find the ways to do it. Believing a solution paves the way to solution.” ― David J. Schwartz, The Magic of Thinking Big\nThe Dip by Seth Godin (Digital)\nA great book on knowing when to quit. Using the 80/20 principle we know that people at the top get way more rewards than those in the middle. It\u0026rsquo;s important, then, to consider which things we can make it to the top and discard the rest.\n“Quit or be exceptional. Average is for losers.” ― Seth Godin, The Dip: A Little Book That Teaches You When to Quit\nThe Winner Effect by Ian H. Robertson (Audio)\nWinning makes you win more! This was a super interesting insight into what makes winners and how winning has such a profound effect on your ability to win again in the future.\nHard Times Create Strong Men by Stefan Aarnio (Audio)\nStefan is a great example of masculinity and getting what you want in life. He outlines how society is getting weaker due to the presence of weak men, and how this will open the door for strong men to take back control.\n“The power of fasting to rebalance a man is usually combined with prayer and was used by powerful men such as Aristotle, Socrates, Jesus, Mohammad, Ghandi, Moses, Marcus Aurelius, and many others. These men would fast for up to 40 days on just water, and this was a major source of their spiritual power, clarity, and reasoning.” ― Stefan Aarnio, Hard Times Create Strong Men: Why the World Craves Leadership and How You Can Step Up to Fill the Need\nUltralearning by Scott H. Young (Audio)\nA really interesting insight into what makes a fast learner. Scott managed to go through an entire 4 year MIT degree in just one year, using the principles outlined in the book.\n“By taking notes as questions instead of answers, you generate the material to practice retrieval on later.” ― Scott H. Young, Ultralearning: Master Hard Skills, Outsmart the Competition, and Accelerate Your Career\nThe Alter Ego Effect by Todd Herman (Audio)\nAn insane book about Alter Ego\u0026rsquo;s. Many people use alter-egos like Elton John and Beyonce. These allow people to step into character and break through performance and creative barriers.\n“Cary Grant once said, “I pretended to be somebody I wanted to be until finally, I became that person. Or he became me.” ― Todd Herman, The Alter Ego Effect: The Power of Secret Identities to Transform Your Life\nFebruary 2020 - 5 Books # The Effective Executive by Peter F. Drucker (Audio)\n“It is more productive to convert an opportunity into results than to solve a problem - which only restores the equilibrium of yesterday.” ― Peter F. Drucker, The Effective Executive: The Definitive Guide to Getting the Right Things Done\nHyperfocus by Chris Bailey (Audio)\nA very interesting book about the benefits of complete focus, as well as the benefits of scattered focus time.\n“how important it is to choose what you consume and pay attention to: just as you are what you eat, when it comes to the information you consume, you are what you choose to focus on. Consuming valuable material in general makes scatterfocus sessions even more productive.” ― Chris Bailey, Hyperfocus: The New Science of Attention, Productivity, and Creativity\nLetting Go by David R. Hawkins (Physical)\nAn amazing book about energy levels and how letting go of your attachment to things can help you to transcend them.\n“The other person merely mirrors back what we are projecting onto them.” ― David R. Hawkins, Letting Go: The Pathway of Surrender\nThe 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey (Audio)\nA classic book. My favourite habit is the \u0026lsquo;seek win-win\u0026rsquo;. When I am coming to an agreement with people I know how important it is to work with them and create a winning scenario for both parties.\n“to learn and not to do is really not to learn. To know and not to do is really not to know.” ― Stephen R. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change\nFactfulness by Hans Rosling (Audio)\nContrary to popular opinion, the human race is in the best place it has ever been. We are all safer and more connected than ever before. This book outlines all the ways that we are living the best human lives ever.\n“Forming your worldview by relying on the media would be like forming your view about me by looking only at a picture of my foot.” ― Hans Rosling, Factfulness: Ten Reasons We\u0026rsquo;re Wrong About the World—and Why Things Are Better Than You Think\nJanuary 2020 - 3 Books # The Dictator\u0026rsquo;s Handbook by Bruce Bueno de Mesquita (Audio)\nEver wondered how on Earth the next soccer World Cup is being held in Qatar? This is clearly the result of corruption, and this book outlines exactly why that is the case. This book contains great insight into how politics and money actually work, and what the incentives are for people to stay in power. Things like foreign aid were super interesting to me.\n“This is the essential lesson of politics: in the end ruling is the objective, not ruling well.” ― Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, The Dictator\u0026rsquo;s Handbook: Why Bad Behavior is Almost Always Good Politics\nIndistractable by Nir Eyal (Audio)\nDistractions are all around us. In particular things like phone usage can really destroy your productive working time. This book outlines how to become \u0026lsquo;Indistractable\u0026rsquo;.\n“The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.” ― Nir Eyal, Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life\nHigh Performance Habits by Brendon Burchard (Audio)\nThis book was incredible. There were so many insights that I gleamed from this book, the most important one was about being intentional with your actions. So many times we go to work or go out with friends with no aim for what we want to get out of the evening or the event. We just kind of go along with everything. Setting a clear intention with what you want to get out of things before you enter a situation will set you up much better for getting what you want.\n“Be more intentional about who you want to become. Have vision beyond your current circumstances. Imagine your best future self, and start acting like that person today.” ― Brendon Burchard, High Performance Habits: How Extraordinary People Become That Way\nThanks for getting this far! Please connect with me below.\n","date":"31 December 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/52-books-in-a-year/","section":"Writing","summary":"View my 2020 Reading challenge on Goodreads here.\nHere are my top 5 books that I read this year (in no particular order):\nHigh Performance Habits by Brendon Burchard The Ride of a Lifetime by Robert Iger Range by David Epstein The Alter Ego Effect by Todd Herman The Dictator’s Handbook by Bruce Bueno de Mesquita A Year of Books # This year was an incredible year. For the first time in my life, I managed to get through 52 books in a single year. On average, one book per week.\n","title":"52 Books in a Year","type":"posts"},{"content":"View my 2020 Reading challenge on Goodreads here.\nHere are my top 5 books that I read this year (in no particular order):\nHigh Performance Habits by Brendon Burchard The Ride of a Lifetime by Robert Iger Range by David Epstein The Alter Ego Effect by Todd Herman The Dictator\u0026rsquo;s Handbook by Bruce Bueno de Mesquita A Year of Books # This year was an incredible year. For the first time in my life, I managed to get through 52 books in a single year. On average, one book per week.\nI have learnt so much through this process. It\u0026rsquo;s been amazing to hear from so many amazing people and gain insight from so many different perspectives.\nBelow is a complete list of each book I read or listened to this year.\nThe vast majority of these books were listened to either while I was in the car or on walks. Most books go for about 8-10 hours. If you listen on 2x speed that doesn\u0026rsquo;t affect your comprehension and means you can listen to a book in 4-5 hours. If you commute to work for 20-30 minutes a day. You can listen to a book every week just during your commute.\nEven though this might not be the most optimal way to take in the information from a book, it\u0026rsquo;s still much better to listen to a book than to be listening to music or some other meaningless activity.\nThe Future # Next year I\u0026rsquo;m going to step it up a notch. The goal is to get through 60 books in 2021! Hopefully more Digital and Physical books than I read this year.\nIf you\u0026rsquo;re interested in staying up to date, drop your email in the subscription box at the bottom of this post.\nThis wouldn\u0026rsquo;t be a complete list without listing those books that I want to read next year. Here are some of the books that I am most keen to read!\nThe Practice: Shipping Creative Work Boundaries: When to Say Yes, How to Say No to Take Control of Your Life Hannibal and Me: What History\u0026rsquo;s Greatest Military Strategist Can Teach Us About Success and Failure The Immortality Key: Uncovering the Secret History of the Religion with No Name Reality Transurfing Steps I-V 2020 Book List # So now onto the books. The books I most recently read are at the top, descending down to the books I read at the beginning of the year.\nThe brackets () indicate how the book was read. (Audio) means I listened to it, (Physical) means I read a physical copy of the book and (Digital) means I read a digital version of the book.\nOf the 52 books, 41 were (Audio), 3 (Physical) and 8 were (Digital).\nDecember 2020 - 6 Books # Raise Your Game by Alan Stein Jr. (Audio)\nA book about the stuff needed to operate at a high level. A lot of interesting concepts about what it takes to lead in a team.\nTurn your \u0026ldquo;have to\u0026rsquo;s\u0026rdquo; into \u0026ldquo;get to\u0026rsquo;s\u0026rdquo;\nMeltdown by Thomas E. Woods Jr. (Audio)\nA book about the 2008 financial crisis in America. The author argues from an Austrian economics view that the federal reserve is negatively impacting the free markets and that it\u0026rsquo;s intervention in these kinds of crises generally makes this worse and not better.\nAlthough we can\u0026rsquo;t really change what government does, it\u0026rsquo;s cool to see how things work and here perspectives on why things aren\u0026rsquo;t operating as optimally as they could be.\nGreenlights by Matthew McConaughey (Audio)\nA wonderful autobiography by the man himself, this book gave me a great insight into the rise from popular schoolboy to Oscar-Winner. I didn\u0026rsquo;t know much about Matthew but hearing him on podcasts talking about his book got me really interested. He is a great example of always pushing the boundaries and sticking to your guns.\n“We all step in shit from time to time. We hit roadblocks, we fuck up, we get fucked, we get sick, we don’t get what we want, we cross thousands of “could have done better”s and “wish that wouldn’t have happened”s in life. Stepping in shit is inevitable, so let’s either see it as good luck, or figure out how to do it less often.” ― Matthew McConaughey, Greenlights\nThe Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (Physical)\nA cute little book about a Little Prince. Many small lessons in here but the main one for me was appreciating what we have. Choosing to love those things that are all around us even when there are better options.\n“All grown-ups were once children\u0026hellip; but only few of them remember it.” ― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince\nThe Ride of a Lifetime by Robert Iger (Audio)\nMagnificent book about the life of the CEO of Disney. Iger transformed Disney and has successfully lead them to success in the digital age. He is a great example of leadership and making things happen.\n“Optimism. One of the most important qualities of a good leader is optimism, a pragmatic enthusiasm for what can be achieved. Even in the face of difficult choices and less than ideal outcomes, an optimistic leader does not yield to pessimism. Simply put, people are not motivated or energized by pessimists.” ― Robert Iger, The Ride of a Lifetime: Lessons Learned from 15 Years as CEO of the Walt Disney Company\nThat Will Never Work by Marc Randolph (Audio)\nA great story of the founding of Netflix. The founders had setback after setback and still continued. Netflix is now an immensely successful company. A story about perserverence and overcoming challenges, as well as self-belief.\n“As you get older, if you’re at all self-aware, you learn two important things about yourself: what you like, and what you’re good at. Anyone who gets to spend his day doing both of those things is a lucky man.” ― Marc Randolph, That Will Never Work: The Birth of Netflix and the Amazing Life of an Idea\nNovember 2020 - 4 Books # Being Mortal by Atul Gawande (Audio)\nThis was a book about aged care, and about how the way we deal with the dying in the western world isn\u0026rsquo;t necessarily optimal.\nWhen someone is old and going to die soon, what do you do? Do you give them treatment to extend their life by a few months, or let them die peacefully?\nThis book is all about coming to terms with death and how medicine can improve that process.\n“In the end, people don\u0026rsquo;t view their life as merely the average of all its moments—which, after all, is mostly nothing much plus some sleep. For human beings, life is meaningful because it is a story. A story has a sense of a whole, and its arc is determined by the significant moments, the ones where something happens. Measurements of people\u0026rsquo;s minute-by-minute levels of pleasure and pain miss this fundamental aspect of human existence. A seemingly happy life maybe empty. A seemingly difficult life may be devoted to a great cause. We have purposes larger than ourselves.” ― Atul Gawande, Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End****\nHell Yeah or No by Derek Sivers (Digital)\nThis was a book that is a compilation of blog posts. There are some excellent short ones in here. One of my favourite ideas was that everybody\u0026rsquo;s ideas seem obvious to them. There are things that I know that seem obvious that others would love to learn how to do.\nMany great bits in this book.\n“People often ask me what they can do to be moresuccessful. I say disconnect. Even if just for a few hours. Unplug. Turn off your phone and Wi-Fi. Focus. Write. Practice. Create. That’s what’s rare and valuable these days.\nYou get no competitive edge from consuming the same stuff everyone else is consuming.” ― Derek Sivers, Hell Yeah or No: what\u0026rsquo;s worth doing\nHow Will You Measure Your Life? by Clayton M. Christensen (Digital)\nThis was a great book about how to measure success in your life. Is financial success worth the negative impacts it may have on your family life? These are topics well worth considering and are discussed at length in the book.\n“It\u0026rsquo;s easier to hold your principles 100 percent of the time than it is to hold them 98 percent of the time.” ― Clayton M. Christensen, How Will You Measure Your Life?\nCrucial Conversations by Kerry Patterson (Audio)\nAn excellent book about how to conduct yourself in high pressure conversations and situations. I learnt that it\u0026rsquo;s always better to put your ideas forward into the \u0026lsquo;pool of knowledge\u0026rsquo; rather than leave them in your head.\n“People who are skilled at dialogue do their best to make it safe for everyone to add their meaning to the shared pool\u0026ndash;even ideas that at first glance appear controversial, wrong, or at odds with their own beliefs. Now, obviously they don\u0026rsquo;t agree with every idea; they simply do their best to ensure that all ideas find their way into the open.” ― Kerry Patterson, Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High\nOctober 2020 - 4 Books # The Deficit Myth by Stephanie Kelton (Audio)\nA book about modern monetary theory and how the government running a deficit is not a problem at all. Governments that create their own currency face not actual limit on how much currency they can produce. The only real limit is the inflation of the currency.\nWith this in mind, the author suggests creating a jobs guarantee. This means that everyone without work can have a job working for the government in some community role. Since this just means the economy would be operating at capacity the wages for these people should not create inflation.\nA very interesting book about some economics that is increasingly being spoken about in policy discussions.\nThe Innovators by Walter Isaacson (Audio)\nInnovations come from all kinds of places. This book was all about the progression of computers from simple calculators in the 19th century up until modern day smartphones that we have today. I found it really cool to hear how various innovations occurred and how things really came to be as they are in the world of computing.\nOne thing that struck me in this book is the amount of collaboration that has gone on in computing. There are many parts of computing, like the internet for example, that there is no single \u0026lsquo;inventor\u0026rsquo;. A group of people, each who contributed their own small part eventually led to the creation of many of the technologies we have today.\n“But the main lesson to draw from the birth of computers is that innovation is usually a group effort, involving collaboration between visionaries and engineers, and that creativity comes from drawing on many sources. Only in storybooks do inventions come like a thunderbolt, or a lightbulb popping out of the head of a lone individual in a basement or garret or garage.” ― Walter Isaacson, The Innovators: How a Group of Inventors, Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution\nFahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury (Audio)\nImagine firefighters except their job is to burn all the books in the world. This is what this book is about. It contains many lessons about knowledge protection and about how history must be learnt from and not destroyed.\n“Why is it,\u0026quot; he said, one time, at the subway entrance, \u0026ldquo;I feel I\u0026rsquo;ve known you so many years?\u0026rdquo; \u0026ldquo;Because I like you,\u0026rdquo; she said, \u0026ldquo;and I don\u0026rsquo;t want anything from you.” ― Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451\nThe Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb (Audio)\nMost of the risks we face in life and markets are not those we consider, but those that come from out of the blue. This entire book is about how you can\u0026rsquo;t be prepared for every scenario, a black swan event could be right around the corner.\n“Missing a train is only painful if you run after it! Likewise, not matching the idea of success others expect from you is only painful if that’s what you are seeking.” ― Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable\nSeptember 2020 - 3 Books # Shoe Dog by Phil Knight (Physical)\nThe story of Nike and how it came to be. Like some of the other books I have read, the story details Knight\u0026rsquo;s journey of stuggle and near bankruptcy. An excellent read of how to create a wonderful company and enjoy the ride along the way.\n“Life is growth. You grow or you die.” ― Phil Knight, Shoe Dog\nThe Road Less Traveled by M. Scott Peck (Audio)\nA short book about understanding yourself and how to manage your emotions.\n“Until you value yourself, you won\u0026rsquo;t value your time. Until you value your time, you will not do anything with it.” ― M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual Growth\nHow to Get Rich by Felix Dennis (Audio)\nFelix seems like a wonderful character and this came across in his book. He details his stories of his various magazine companies and how these principles can be applies to other business ventures.\n“Having a great idea is simply not enough. The eventual goal is vastly more important than any idea. It is how ideas are implemented that counts in the long run” ― Felix Dennis, How to Get Rich\nAugust 2020 - 7 Books # Discipline Equals Freedom by Jocko Willink (Audio)\nAnother short book by the great and powerful Jocko Willink. This book is all about managing discipline in the mess of life.\n“Don’t expect to be motivated every day to get out there and make things happen. You won’t be. Don’t count on motivation. Count on Discipline.” ― Jocko Willink, Discipline Equals Freedom: Field Manual\nScrum by Jeff Sutherland (Audio)\nScrum details what has become the agile methodology of project management. This process means teams work in short sprints of getting things done rather than draw out projects. This style of working has meant that teams are significantly more productive and the people in those teams are much happier.\n“No Heroics. If you need a hero to get things done, you have a problem. Heroic effort should be viewed as a failure of planning.” ― Jeff Sutherland, Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time\nIron John by Robert Bly (Audio)\nThis is a book all about masculinity and the way society has suppressed it in recent times. The themes are told through a story about a wild man which makes it an interesting read.\nMost American men today do not have enough awakened or living warriors inside to defend their soul houses. And most people, men or women, do not know what genuine outward or inward warriors would look like, or feel like.” ― Robert Bly, Iron John: A Book About Men\nThe Tactical Guide to Women by Shawn T. Smith (Audio)\nThe landscape of relationships is a complicated one. With divorce rates at very high levels, it\u0026rsquo;s more important than ever to understand how to mitigate risks in relationships. This book outlines the main ways in which men can reduce their risks in life and with women.\nPower vs. Force by David R. Hawkins (Digital)\nThis book claims that everyone is operating at a certain energy level, and that everything around us is also operating with a certain frequency. I learnt that a thought of love is immensely more powerful than a negative one, and now I seek to reduce negative thought patterns as much as possible. I seek to replace them with \u0026lsquo;higher energy\u0026rsquo; thoughts.\n“We change the world not by what we say or do but as a consequence of what we have become.” ― David R. Hawkins, Power vs. Force: The Hidden Determinants of Human Behavior, author\u0026rsquo;s Official Revised Edition\nBreath by James Nestor (Audio)\nEver thought about your breathing? It turns out that breathing through your mouth is incredibly bad for you, and breathing through your nose is much better. This book outlines the authors journey to discover better breathing techniques.\n“the greatest indicator of life span wasn’t genetics, diet, or the amount of daily exercise, as many had suspected. It was lung capacity.” ― James Nestor, Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art\nFooled by Randomness by Nassim Nicholas Taleb (Audio)\nAnother one of Taleb\u0026rsquo;s books on how randomness can fool us. An important idea is that we need to be able to distinguish between what is lucky and what is skillful, it is not always obvious.\n“Heroes are heroes because they are heroic in behavior, not because they won or lost.” ― Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets\nJuly 2020 - 2 Books # Sell or Be Sold by Grant Cardone (Audio)\nI haven\u0026rsquo;t had to do much selling in my life but this book was an excellent guide on how to do that. Cardone is fanatic about making deals and this book is an excellent guide on how to sell more.\n“Become so sold, so convinced, so committed to your company, product, and service that you believe it would be a terrible thing for the buyer to do business anywhere else with any other product.” ― Grant Cardone, Sell or Be Sold: How to Get Your Way in Business and in Life\nThe Alchemist by Paulo Coelho (Audio)\nAn excellent story about a young man uncovering his personal legend. There are so many lessons in this book, I will definitely come back to read this in the future.\n“It\u0026rsquo;s the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting.” ― Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist\nJune 2020 - 4 Books # The Third Door by Alex Banayan (Audio)\nI couldn\u0026rsquo;t stop listening to this book. Alex has an amazing story of meeting people and finding a way to get what he wants, against the odds. The main idea of this book is that lots of successful people didn\u0026rsquo;t take the conventional route, they didn\u0026rsquo;t go through the main entrance or even the VIP entrance. They found the third door.\n“Maybe the hardest part about taking a risk isn’t whether to take it, it’s when to take it. It’s never clear how much momentum is enough to justify leaving school. It’s never clear when it’s the right time to quit your job. Big decisions are rarely clear when you’re making them—they’re only clear looking back. The best you can do is take one careful step at a time.” ― Alex Banayan, The Third Door: The Wild Quest to Uncover How the World\u0026rsquo;s Most Successful People Launched Their Careers: The Wild Quest to Uncover How the World\u0026rsquo;s Most Successful People Launched Their Careers\nBanker to the Poor by Muhammad Yunus (Digital)\nThe Grameen bank was started to provide micro-lending services to the poor. Now it is an extremely successful bank providing services all around the world. This book was the story of how it was created and grown.\n“People.. were poor not because they were stupid or lazy. They worked all day long, doing complex physical tasks. They were poor because the financial institution in the country did not help them widen their economic base.” ― Muhammad Yunus, Banker to the Poor: Micro-Lending and the Battle Against World Poverty\nMaximum Achievement by Brian Tracy (Audio)\nA typical self-help book. This book contains so many useful nuggets of wisdom. In particular I really liked the power of positive thinking.\n“Positive expectations are the mark of the superior personality.” ― Brian Tracy, Maximum Achievement: Strategies and Skills that Will Unlock Your Hidden Powers to Succeed\nOn Power by Gene Simmons (Audio)\nThe lead singer of KISS writing a book! One thing I really got out of this book was that your work and the rest of your life are not seperate, they are the same. There is no point trying to seperate your life in these ways. Another point the author makes is that the best way to provide for your family isn\u0026rsquo;t to be there for them and lot\u0026rsquo;s of time with them, the best way to provide for your family is to produce.\n“So much of our popular mythology focuses on the negative aspects of power that we forget that gaining power is, perhaps, the only way to enable ourselves to make a difference in our lives and in the lives of others.” ― Gene Simmons, On Power: My Journey Through the Corridors of Power and How You Can Get More Power\nMay 2020 - 3 Books # Range by David Epstein (Audio)\nRoger Federer played many sports before finally choosing tennis at age 16. Tiger Woods became a golfer when he was about 5. Which path is better? Epstein argues that getting a range of experiences and becoming a generalist is the way to go for a more successful life. He says that although early specialisation can put you ahead of the pack, it\u0026rsquo;s often a variety of experiences that leads to new discoveries.\n“Modern work demands knowledge transfer: the ability to apply knowledge to new situations and different domains. Our most fundamental thought processes have changed to accommodate increasing complexity and the need to derive new patterns rather than rely only on familiar ones. Our conceptual classification schemes provide a scaffolding for connecting knowledge, making it accessible and flexible.” ― David Epstein, Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World\nIf You\u0026rsquo;re Not First, You\u0026rsquo;re Last by Grant Cardone (Audio)\nGrant discusses how to dominate your market and your career.\n“Problems are opportunities, and conquered opportunities equal money earned.” ― Grant Cardone, If You\u0026rsquo;re Not First, You\u0026rsquo;re Last: Sales Strategies to Dominate Your Market and Beat Your Competition\nHow to Become CEO by Jeffrey J. Fox (Digital)\nMany useful tips in here like how to manage office politics and to move up in your organisation.\n“Nothing gives one person so much advantage over another as to remain cool and unruffled under all circumstances. —Thomas Jefferson” ― Jeffrey J. Fox, How to Become CEO: The Rules for Rising to the Top of Any Organization\nApril 2020 - 3 Books # E-Myth Revisited by by Michael E. Gerber (Audio)\nA book about how people wanting to start a business can end up just doing their job for themselves rather than running the business. Doing your job and running a business are distinct skills and it\u0026rsquo;s important to realise this before striking out on your own.\n“The difference between great people and everyone else is that great people create their lives actively, while everyone else is created by their lives, passively waiting to see where life takes them next. The difference between the two is living fully and just existing.” ― Gerber Michael E., The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don\u0026rsquo;t Work and What to Do About It\nSubliminal by Leonard Mlodinow (Audio)\nFilled with many wonderful examples of how our subconscious mind runs our decisions.\n“We believe that when we choose anything, judge a stranger and even fall in love, we understand the principal factors that influenced us. Very often nothing could be further from the truth. As a result, many of our most basic assumptions about ourselves, and society, are false.” ― Leonard Mlodinow\nEfficiency by Wall Street Playboys (Digital)\nI found out about this book on twitter. It\u0026rsquo;s all about how to make your life as efficient as possible for money, girls and fun.\nMarch 2020 - 8 Books # Design Your Best Year Ever by Darren Hardy (Digital)\nA book that I will probably read again at the beginning of 2021. Filled with excellent advice about goal setting and acheiving the things that you want.\nNever Eat Alone by Keith Ferrazzi (Audio)\nA really cool book about creating a social circle and connecting with those people that are interesting and can help you.\n“Success in any field, but especially in business is about working with people, not against them.” ― Keith Ferrazzi, Never Eat Alone: And Other Secrets to Success, One Relationship at a Time\nThe Magic of Thinking Big by David J. Schwartz (Audio)\nThis was an outstanding book on the power of belief. Similar to the growth mindset, believing you can do a thing dramatically changes how you look at scenario or opportunity.\n“Believe it can be done. When you believe something can be done, really believe, your mind will find the ways to do it. Believing a solution paves the way to solution.” ― David J. Schwartz, The Magic of Thinking Big\nThe Dip by Seth Godin (Digital)\nA great book on knowing when to quit. Using the 80/20 principle we know that people at the top get way more rewards than those in the middle. It\u0026rsquo;s important, then, to consider which things we can make it to the top and discard the rest.\n“Quit or be exceptional. Average is for losers.” ― Seth Godin, The Dip: A Little Book That Teaches You When to Quit\nThe Winner Effect by Ian H. Robertson (Audio)\nWinning makes you win more! This was a super interesting insight into what makes winners and how winning has such a profound effect on your ability to win again in the future.\nHard Times Create Strong Men by Stefan Aarnio (Audio)\nStefan is a great example of masculinity and getting what you want in life. He outlines how society is getting weaker due to the presence of weak men, and how this will open the door for strong men to take back control.\n“The power of fasting to rebalance a man is usually combined with prayer and was used by powerful men such as Aristotle, Socrates, Jesus, Mohammad, Ghandi, Moses, Marcus Aurelius, and many others. These men would fast for up to 40 days on just water, and this was a major source of their spiritual power, clarity, and reasoning.” ― Stefan Aarnio, Hard Times Create Strong Men: Why the World Craves Leadership and How You Can Step Up to Fill the Need\nUltralearning by Scott H. Young (Audio)\nA really interesting insight into what makes a fast learner. Scott managed to go through an entire 4 year MIT degree in just one year, using the principles outlined in the book.\n“By taking notes as questions instead of answers, you generate the material to practice retrieval on later.” ― Scott H. Young, Ultralearning: Master Hard Skills, Outsmart the Competition, and Accelerate Your Career\nThe Alter Ego Effect by Todd Herman (Audio)\nAn insane book about Alter Ego\u0026rsquo;s. Many people use alter-egos like Elton John and Beyonce. These allow people to step into character and break through performance and creative barriers.\n“Cary Grant once said, “I pretended to be somebody I wanted to be until finally, I became that person. Or he became me.” ― Todd Herman, The Alter Ego Effect: The Power of Secret Identities to Transform Your Life\nFebruary 2020 - 5 Books # The Effective Executive by Peter F. Drucker (Audio)\n“It is more productive to convert an opportunity into results than to solve a problem - which only restores the equilibrium of yesterday.” ― Peter F. Drucker, The Effective Executive: The Definitive Guide to Getting the Right Things Done\nHyperfocus by Chris Bailey (Audio)\nA very interesting book about the benefits of complete focus, as well as the benefits of scattered focus time.\n“how important it is to choose what you consume and pay attention to: just as you are what you eat, when it comes to the information you consume, you are what you choose to focus on. Consuming valuable material in general makes scatterfocus sessions even more productive.” ― Chris Bailey, Hyperfocus: The New Science of Attention, Productivity, and Creativity\nLetting Go by David R. Hawkins (Physical)\nAn amazing book about energy levels and how letting go of your attachment to things can help you to transcend them.\n“The other person merely mirrors back what we are projecting onto them.” ― David R. Hawkins, Letting Go: The Pathway of Surrender\nThe 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey (Audio)\nA classic book. My favourite habit is the \u0026lsquo;seek win-win\u0026rsquo;. When I am coming to an agreement with people I know how important it is to work with them and create a winning scenario for both parties.\n“to learn and not to do is really not to learn. To know and not to do is really not to know.” ― Stephen R. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change\nFactfulness by Hans Rosling (Audio)\nContrary to popular opinion, the human race is in the best place it has ever been. We are all safer and more connected than ever before. This book outlines all the ways that we are living the best human lives ever.\n“Forming your worldview by relying on the media would be like forming your view about me by looking only at a picture of my foot.” ― Hans Rosling, Factfulness: Ten Reasons We\u0026rsquo;re Wrong About the World—and Why Things Are Better Than You Think\nJanuary 2020 - 3 Books # The Dictator\u0026rsquo;s Handbook by Bruce Bueno de Mesquita (Audio)\nEver wondered how on Earth the next soccer World Cup is being held in Qatar? This is clearly the result of corruption, and this book outlines exactly why that is the case. This book contains great insight into how politics and money actually work, and what the incentives are for people to stay in power. Things like foreign aid were super interesting to me.\n“This is the essential lesson of politics: in the end ruling is the objective, not ruling well.” ― Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, The Dictator\u0026rsquo;s Handbook: Why Bad Behavior is Almost Always Good Politics\nIndistractable by Nir Eyal (Audio)\nDistractions are all around us. In particular things like phone usage can really destroy your productive working time. This book outlines how to become \u0026lsquo;Indistractable\u0026rsquo;.\n“The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.” ― Nir Eyal, Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life\nHigh Performance Habits by Brendon Burchard (Audio)\nThis book was incredible. There were so many insights that I gleamed from this book, the most important one was about being intentional with your actions. So many times we go to work or go out with friends with no aim for what we want to get out of the evening or the event. We just kind of go along with everything. Setting a clear intention with what you want to get out of things before you enter a situation will set you up much better for getting what you want.\n“Be more intentional about who you want to become. Have vision beyond your current circumstances. Imagine your best future self, and start acting like that person today.” ― Brendon Burchard, High Performance Habits: How Extraordinary People Become That Way\nThanks for getting this far! Please connect with me below.\n","date":"27 December 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/other/blog-challenge-posts/20201231/","section":"Others","summary":"View my 2020 Reading challenge on Goodreads here.\nHere are my top 5 books that I read this year (in no particular order):\nHigh Performance Habits by Brendon Burchard The Ride of a Lifetime by Robert Iger Range by David Epstein The Alter Ego Effect by Todd Herman The Dictator’s Handbook by Bruce Bueno de Mesquita A Year of Books # This year was an incredible year. For the first time in my life, I managed to get through 52 books in a single year. On average, one book per week.\n","title":"52 Books in a Year","type":"other"},{"content":"At Christmas we played a fun game.\nIf you could have 3 people over for dinner, who would you choose?\nThere are plenty of good options here.\nI chose:\nSteve Jobs. Apple is such an outstanding company and Steve was such an extraordinary man. I think learning from him and hearing his stories would be incredible.\nRoger Federer. Few athletes are as dominant in their sport as Federer has been in Tennis. For so many years now he has dominated the court, all while being the epitome of sportsmanship. His class and elegance on the court are unmatched, and he would make a great guest at the table.\nThe last one is a difficult decision. There are so many choices. We\u0026rsquo;ve covered business and sport with the first two choices, but where do we turn next?\nNames like Joe Rogan, Sam Harris, Owen Cook, Yuval Noah Harari and many other interesting people come to mind.\nI think I\u0026rsquo;ll take a different approach.\nBusiness and sport are covered. Not music.\nI think I\u0026rsquo;d invite Hans Zimmer to the table. He is another example of complete superiority in his field. Almost every good movie soundtrack is produced by this man. What an inspiration.\nWho would you have at your table?\n","date":"27 December 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/other/blog-challenge-posts/20201230/","section":"Others","summary":"At Christmas we played a fun game.\nIf you could have 3 people over for dinner, who would you choose?\nThere are plenty of good options here.\nI chose:\nSteve Jobs. Apple is such an outstanding company and Steve was such an extraordinary man. I think learning from him and hearing his stories would be incredible.\n","title":"3 People at Dinner","type":"other"},{"content":"Lately I\u0026rsquo;ve been thinking about this concept of getting more than you deserve.\nSometimes we get things that we don\u0026rsquo;t feel like we deserve, and we \u0026lsquo;self-sabotage\u0026rsquo; to return back to our original state.\nWe have this view of ourselves and what we deserve. When we get more than that, it seems too good to be true and the good thing that we had is often lost.\nConsider the following example.\nYou sit a test and get a 90% score.\nIs this good or bad?\nMaybe you see yourself as a good student, but not that good. So you think that now, since you have a great score on the first test, you can take it easy for the remainder of that subject.\nMaybe you see yourself as an excellent student, and a 90% is actually lower than what you expected. Now you much study extra hard to make sure you don\u0026rsquo;t do so badly on the next one!\nYou see this grade on the test can be seen in many different ways depending on your view of yourself.\nThere are many sayings out there like \u0026lsquo;you get what you think you deserve\u0026rsquo;, and I think these are very accurate.\nThis idea is similar to the Growth Mindset idea first popularised by Carol Dweck.\nThe idea is that certain people have a view of themselves that they can improve in certain situations. That there exists opportunities to succeed and not possibilities to fail.\nIt seems to me that our view of ourselves can have a huge impact on our lives.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s something worth considering and how your view of yourself impacts your life on a daily basis.\nYou could also consider how you can change your view of yourself to change areas of your life.\nFor example, become someone that gets good grades and maybe you won\u0026rsquo;t be so happy with a 90% on the test.\nHow you view yourself is a very interesting idea and something I\u0026rsquo;d love to learn more about in the future.\n","date":"27 December 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/other/blog-challenge-posts/20201229/","section":"Others","summary":"Lately I’ve been thinking about this concept of getting more than you deserve.\nSometimes we get things that we don’t feel like we deserve, and we ‘self-sabotage’ to return back to our original state.\n","title":"What You Think You Deserve","type":"other"},{"content":"Today I was investigating how to run cron jobs on my mac laptop. I wanted to automate the upgrade of my homebrew packages.\nThe process is extremely easy.\nFirst run crontab -e and press enter.\nInside this file you place your bash commands with a little trick.\nThe jobs are stored in the following format\n[minute] [hour] [day_of_month] [month] [day_of_week] [user] [command_to_run]\nSo to run our bash command every day we use 0 0 * * * followed by the desired command.\nFirst we need to write the bash script.\n#!/bin/bash /usr/local/bin/brew upgrade This runs the command brew upgrade. The reason we need /usr/local/bin/brew is because when a cron job runs, it doesn\u0026rsquo;t have your PATH defined so commands like brew won\u0026rsquo;t work. We need to specify the exact directory to be able to run them.\nNext we need to make this script executable.\nchmod +x b_up.sh Now we can setup the cron job.\nMy job looks like this\n0 0 * * * cd Documents \u0026amp;\u0026amp; ./b_up.sh \u0026gt;\u0026gt; b_log.txt 2\u0026gt;\u0026amp;1 So every day we first cd to the Documents folder and run the b_up.sh script. The output is appended to the b_log.txt file.\nThe 2\u0026gt;\u0026amp;1 command means that we don\u0026rsquo;t get mail about this job.\nOne problem I ran into here was that cron didn\u0026rsquo;t have sufficient permissions to run.\nWhat I needed to do to fix this was to add cron into my Full Disk Access in the settings of my mac. A tutorial to do so can be found here\nNow my cron job is working perfectly!\nOne improvement to this process would be to first check if there are any updates before running brew update as this does waste unnecessary resources.\nUntil next time.\n","date":"27 December 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/other/blog-challenge-posts/20201228/","section":"Others","summary":"Today I was investigating how to run cron jobs on my mac laptop. I wanted to automate the upgrade of my homebrew packages.\nThe process is extremely easy.\nFirst run crontab -e and press enter.\nInside this file you place your bash commands with a little trick.\n","title":"Automating Homebrew Upgrade with Cron","type":"other"},{"content":"There are so many different things to learn, and not enough time.\nWith all this information around us, there is always something new to learn, something more interesting to master.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s difficult to dedicate time to completely finishing something when there is so much out there that hasn\u0026rsquo;t been started yet.\nI think that even with this constant stream of information that hits us every day, its more important than ever to be selective about what information we take in.\nSpending time looking for new courses to go through is not the same as actually doing a course.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s much better just to stick to one topic and move on than it is to keep rotating between topics.\nYou get stuff done by actually doing work not by thinking about all the different topics you are yet to learn about.\nBe selective.\n","date":"27 December 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/other/blog-challenge-posts/20201227/","section":"Others","summary":"There are so many different things to learn, and not enough time.\nWith all this information around us, there is always something new to learn, something more interesting to master.\nIt’s difficult to dedicate time to completely finishing something when there is so much out there that hasn’t been started yet.\n","title":"Too Much Information","type":"other"},{"content":" Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker is a great book, and contains many gems about sleep and it\u0026rsquo;s affect on us.\nWhile Walker has come under some criticism for some of the claims in the book, the idea that sleep is incredibly important is something that most people miss.\nIt turns out that sleep is one of the most important things that we do. It\u0026rsquo;s up there with food, water and reproduction.\nI was reading this book and found an interesing section on alcohol and it\u0026rsquo;s affect on learning.\nAlcohol is one of the most powerful REM sleep inhibitors. REM sleep is where your memories are processed by your brain.\nConsistent consumption of Alcohol can cause a severe backlog of missing REM sleep, and mean that people can begin hallucinating while they are awake.\nThe next part about learning really stuck with me.\nThe researchers did an experiment with 3 groups.\nEach group learnt a new memory task, the exact kind that REM sleep is good for. On the first day, each group had about 90% accuracy.\nThe groups were again tested after 6 days.\nThe first group consumed no alcohol.\nThe second group consumed 2-3 shots of vokda and orange juice before bed (standardised for bodyweight).\nThe third group consumed this same alcohol but on the 3rd night instead.\nAfter testing on the 7th day, the results astounded me.\nThe second group had forgotten 50% of what they had learned.\nEven the third group had forgotten 40% of what they had learned. This is amazing to me as they started drinking days after the original knowledge was obtained.\nSo, nightly alcohol like nightcaps will mess up your learning and your sleep.\nThis is why I don\u0026rsquo;t like to drink much through the year and especially not during periods of intense learning like exam periods.\n","date":"27 December 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/other/blog-challenge-posts/20201226/","section":"Others","summary":" Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker is a great book, and contains many gems about sleep and it’s affect on us.\nWhile Walker has come under some criticism for some of the claims in the book, the idea that sleep is incredibly important is something that most people miss.\n","title":"Alcohol and Learning","type":"other"},{"content":"Lately I\u0026rsquo;ve been thinking.\nI\u0026rsquo;m kinda successful in the gym.\nI\u0026rsquo;ve built a fairly decent body.\nI get compliments regularly.\nMy progress in the gym came quite easily. I didn\u0026rsquo;t feel like I was trying that hard.\nI just went to the gym, lifted, and went home.\nThen I realised.\nThere are certain principles that I use in the gym that are also applicable to real life.\nThings that I have used for success in the gym that can be applied to get me success in other areas.\nPerspective # Comparison is the thief of Joy\nThis is so important.\nImagine going in to the gym for the first time, and getting on the bench press.\nYou can only bench 30kgs. But it\u0026rsquo;s your first time, so not bad.\nYou leave the gym feeling dejected that you can\u0026rsquo;t bench 100kgs, and that you don\u0026rsquo;t look like those guys on instagram.\nThis is a losing formula. You must have perspective.\nFirstly, the guys on instagram and social media in general all do fitness for a living. It is literally their job to look as good as possible.\nYou don\u0026rsquo;t think some of them are using some naughty substances to maintain their physique?\nI think that it is extremely rare for someone to be fully natural and a social media influencer. Most natural bodybuilders don\u0026rsquo;t even compare to those on gear. It\u0026rsquo;s not worth comparing yourself to these people. They are not in your league.\nAll you are doing by this comparison is making yourself feel bad.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s the same with how much weight you lift.\nInstead of focussing on how today was yet another day that you couldn\u0026rsquo;t bench 100kg, look at it differently.\nYou hit a new record which means you are one step closer to the 100kg bench.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s all perspective.\nStart framing things in a way that is comparing you to YOU, not to some elite people online.\nAfter all, you will always want to be someone else, and someone else will always want to be you. It\u0026rsquo;s best just to drop these comparisons entirely, focus on yourself and enjoy each moment.\n\u0026lsquo;Enough\u0026rsquo; for me is someone else\u0026rsquo;s drop in the bucket, and another person\u0026rsquo;s wildest dream.\nConsistency # If you are willing to do only what’s easy, life will be hard. But if you are willing to do what’s hard, life will be easy.\nBeing consistent in the gym is absolutely vital to making good gains.\nI\u0026rsquo;ve found that you really need to be going 3x per week or more to maximise the output of your body.\nThis year, due to covid, I missed about 10 weeks of the gym. Granted I was doing some hybrid workouts at home, but I still lost a lot of muscle.\nWhen I started back in the gym, my lifts were probably around 70% of what they were before the break.\nImagine this taking place regularly. You will never get anywhere.\nYou need to be consistent.\nPart of this means setting a reasonable schedule too. You don\u0026rsquo;t want to be going 7x per week for 2 weeks and then miss a month because you are burnt out.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s much better to be in there less, but consistently.\nThink about being in the gym for the next 10 years of your life.\nHow would you structure your training then?\nImprovement # “Let the improvement of yourself keep you so busy that you have no time to criticise others.” ― Roy T. Bennett, The Light in the Heart\nEven if you follow the previous two principles. You might not get anywhere.\nWe want to improve, every single time.\nSomething I do in the gym is track my workouts. I know exactly how I did last time, and therefore exactly what I need to do next time to improve.\nSometimes I can\u0026rsquo;t improve. Maybe I had a rough day, or didn\u0026rsquo;t get enough sleep. This is not a problem.\nActual improvement is not that important. What\u0026rsquo;s most important is that you are actively chasing it.\nEach time I step into the gym I know what I need to do, and will give 110% to try and beat what I did last time.\nIn my opinion, anything less than this is a waste of time.\nIf you aren\u0026rsquo;t striving for improvement you should consider using your time in a different way.\nLife is all about improvement. Breaking new ground. Setting higher expectations.\nApplication # So how can we apply these two principles.\nLet\u0026rsquo;s use an example of starting a youtube channel.\nFirst of all, don\u0026rsquo;t compare yourself to others.\nYour first videos will not be good. It is of no benefit to you to look at an established youtuber and say \u0026ldquo;Oh no I should really stop now because my videos aren\u0026rsquo;t as good as theirs\u0026rdquo;.\nObviously you aren\u0026rsquo;t as good. You haven\u0026rsquo;t practiced enough yet.\nUse their content to learn, study what they do. But don\u0026rsquo;t compare yourself. You won\u0026rsquo;t get anywhere by doing that .\nThe next thing is consistency.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s much better to be consistent with your channel, than to be sporadic.\nFortunately we have tools available to us on social media that mean even if we create 5 videos in a single day, they can be scheduled out over time.\nBut while this feature can be useful. For your youtube channel to be successful you need to practice creating on a regular basis. Refine your techniques, and seek to do better every time.\nThis brings us to the last principle. Do better than last time.\nEach video you make, you should analyse your previous content and consider how this video can be better than the last one.\nEven if you make only tiny progress every time, it is inevitable that you will eventually start producing good content.\nBy following these three principles you will have a successful time. I have no doubt.\nConclusion # The three gym principles I use, that can be used in other areas are\nPerspective Consistency Improvement Consider how you can apply them to different areas of your life to achieve better results.\n","date":"13 December 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/gym-principles-in-life/","section":"Writing","summary":"Lately I’ve been thinking.\nI’m kinda successful in the gym.\nI’ve built a fairly decent body.\nI get compliments regularly.\nMy progress in the gym came quite easily. I didn’t feel like I was trying that hard.\n","title":"Gym Principles in Life","type":"posts"},{"content":"Merry Christmas!\n","date":"9 December 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/other/blog-challenge-posts/20201225/","section":"Others","summary":"Merry Christmas!\n","title":"Merry Christmas","type":"other"},{"content":"I was watching this video yesterday.\nSomething was said that really resonated with me.\nSay you\u0026rsquo;re going into a new partnership, maybe a romantic partner or a business partner for example.\nAsk them what they think of their previous partners, and what they rate their life out of 10.\nChances are, this is how they also rate YOU.\nFor example, consider someone that always thinks they are being screwed over.\nThey will begin to see this everywhere!\nEven if you are a better partner, or your business is better. People are addicted to these emotions and will continually seek them out and project their feelings onto you.\nBut this doesn\u0026rsquo;t end here.\nThe key now is to consider how you are doing this in your own life.\nYou are addicted to some kind of emotions. What are they? What things do you see in others all the time? What trends do you see in your life over and over again?\nWhat someone says about you is really what they say about themselves.\nWhat you say about others, is really what you think about yourself.\nThis was super interesting to me and I hope you go out and take a minute to consider what emotions you are addicted to!\n","date":"9 December 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/other/blog-challenge-posts/20201224/","section":"Others","summary":"I was watching this video yesterday.\nSomething was said that really resonated with me.\nSay you’re going into a new partnership, maybe a romantic partner or a business partner for example.\nAsk them what they think of their previous partners, and what they rate their life out of 10.\n","title":"Addictive Emotions","type":"other"},{"content":"You know that feeling.\nYour alarm goes off. You feel sluggish as you reach to stop that annoying sound.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s another poor start to the day.\nThe reality is that simple alarm clocks suck at waking you up.\nA much better alternative is waking up to the sunrise.\nYour body slowly wakes up, and instead of feeling sluggish and annoyed when you wake up, you feel refreshed and ready to go.\nThis is what has happened to me since I started using a sunrise alarm clock.\nMy body gets to wake up over a 30 minute period rather than a 5 second one.\nThe alarm clock shines light into my eyes that slowly gets brighter as the time gets closer to my alarm.\nThe clock then releases a gentle alarm noise at my dedicated time.\nThese clocks are something that has made my mornings much better, and made myself feel much better when I wake up.\nI highly recommend.\n","date":"9 December 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/other/blog-challenge-posts/20201223/","section":"Others","summary":"You know that feeling.\nYour alarm goes off. You feel sluggish as you reach to stop that annoying sound.\nIt’s another poor start to the day.\nThe reality is that simple alarm clocks suck at waking you up.\n","title":"Sunrise Alarm Clocks","type":"other"},{"content":"Fasting is the process of not eating food.\nFor example, someone may choose to undertake what is called One Meal A Day (OMAD). This is where a person only eats one large meal per day, and does not consume any calories at any other point in the day.\nOther popular routines are the 16/8 which is where the person has an 8 hour window to consume food, and the 16 hours of fasting per day.\nThere are many positive effects of fasting.\nInsulin Resistance # When you eat food, your pancreas releases a hormone called insulin into your body. This moves glucose from digestion into your bloodstream so your body can use it as fuel. The excess is stored in your liver as glycogen. When your liver is full, the excess is stored as body fat.\nBeing resistance to insulin means that your cells require more insulin that normal to force glucose into your bloodstream. This process then continues and means that your body ends up storing more fat.\nWhen you fast, the pancreas stops releasing insulin. It depletes the glycogen stores of your body and means that your body starts to use fat as fuel.\nOnly 11-12 hours of fasting are needed for this process to begin.\nMuscle # Some people are worried about losing muscle when fasting.\nIt turns out that when you fast, your body releases more adrenaline and growth hormone. Both of which support your body holding on to its muscle.\nMy Fasting Experience # I have done OMAD over a few periods in my life, usually in summer when I\u0026rsquo;m trying to slim down to show off the beach body.\nI tend to get a bit hungry but that is what happens when you are trying to lose weight.\nI have found that I lose really no muscle at all, mostly because my body fat is not getting to a really low percentage.\nI find it much easier to lose weight this way as I can limit myself to eating in certain parts of the day much easier than limiting my portion sizes for each meal. For example if I didn\u0026rsquo;t want to eat at work then I just wouldn\u0026rsquo;t take food with me to work and eat when I arrive home. It makes things quite simple.\nConclusion # For a deeper look at fasting and other links have a read here:\nhttps://www.reddit.com/r/fasting/wiki/fasting_in_a_nutshell\n","date":"9 December 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/other/blog-challenge-posts/20201222/","section":"Others","summary":"Fasting is the process of not eating food.\nFor example, someone may choose to undertake what is called One Meal A Day (OMAD). This is where a person only eats one large meal per day, and does not consume any calories at any other point in the day.\n","title":"Benefits of Fasting","type":"other"},{"content":"An Operating Systems is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs. -Wikipedia\nAn operating system provides applications access to hardware devices.\nI\u0026rsquo;m taking Introduction to Operating Systems on Udacity at the moment. In the course they state the three purposes of an OS.\nhide hardware complexity resource management provide isolation and protection Various operating systems include Windows, Mac, Linux, Android and iOS.\nThe Udacity course draws parrallels between a store manager and an operating system.\nA shop manager\ndirects operational resources enforces working policies mitigates difficulty of complex tasks The manager does these three things by\ndirecting use of employee time/tools etc Enforces safety, cleanup and fairness rules Optimises the shop by deciding on workloads These features of a manger are very similar to those of an operating system. In fact, the operating system completes these same three goals by the following:\nOS controls the use of CPU and memory OS limits access to resources. For example the maximum amount of files a process can open OS allows for system calls that make accessing the hardware easy for software applications Operating systems are one of the most interesting and detailed parts of your computer!\n","date":"9 December 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/other/blog-challenge-posts/20201221/","section":"Others","summary":"An Operating Systems is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs. -Wikipedia\nAn operating system provides applications access to hardware devices.\nI’m taking Introduction to Operating Systems on Udacity at the moment. In the course they state the three purposes of an OS.\n","title":"What is an Operating System?","type":"other"},{"content":"The process calls the fork() system call, which the OS provides as a way to create a new process. The original process is known as the parent and the new process is known as the child.\nThe child process that is created is almost an exact copy of the original process. To the Operating System, there are now 2 copies of the process that can both return from the fork() system call.\nThe child process doesn’t start running at main(), it just comes into life as if it had called fork() itself.\nAthough the two processes are essentially the same. They return different values to fork() so that we can differentiate them.\nThe following C++ code from \u0026ldquo;Operating Systems: Three Easy Pieces\u0026rdquo; illustrates this very well.\n#include \u0026lt;stdio.h\u0026gt; #include \u0026lt;stdlib.h\u0026gt; #include \u0026lt;unistd.h\u0026gt; int main(int argc, char *argv[]) { printf(\u0026#34;hello world (pid:%d)\\n\u0026#34;, (int) getpid()); int rc = fork(); if (rc \u0026lt; 0) { // fork failed; exit fprintf(stderr, \u0026#34;fork failed\\n\u0026#34;); exit(1); } else if (rc == 0) { // child (new process) printf(\u0026#34;hello, I am child (pid:%d)\\n\u0026#34;, (int) getpid()); } else { // parent goes down this path (main) printf(\u0026#34;hello, I am parent of %d (pid:%d)\\n\u0026#34;, rc, (int) getpid()); } return 0; } Returns the following output\nprompt\u0026gt; ./p1 hello world (pid:29146) hello, I am parent of 29147 (pid:29146) hello, I am child (pid:29147) prompt\u0026gt; ","date":"9 December 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/other/blog-challenge-posts/20201220/","section":"Others","summary":"The process calls the fork() system call, which the OS provides as a way to create a new process. The original process is known as the parent and the new process is known as the child.\n","title":"Operation Systems fork() Method","type":"other"},{"content":"The Little Prince, first published in 1943, has sold over 140 million copies worldwide.\nThe story of the Little Prince.\nThe Little Prince lives on a planet far from Earth.\nOn his planet he doesn\u0026rsquo;t have much, only a single rose.\nThis rose is his most prized possession.\nHe\u0026rsquo;s grown up with the rose, and spent his entire life with it.\nOne day, the Little Prince goes to Earth.\nHe sees that, in fact, there are MILLIONS of roses!\nHere he is, thinking that his rose is so special, when in fact there are so many just like it. His soul is crushed.\nBut the Little Prince has an epiphany.\nThe Little Prince comes to realise that even though there may be many roses just like his rose. He can choose to love his rose anyway.\nEven though his rose might not be the best, it might not be the prettiest. He can still choose to love his rose anyway.\nIsn\u0026rsquo;t that just a wonderful story.\nSo what does this mean for us?\nEven though other people might have better stuff, cooler friends, more money etc. You can choose to love yourself anyway.\nYou can choose to love yourself and your life for what they are, despite comparisons to others.\nComparisons in life are something that is very difficult to avoid. We are always doing them over social media and in person.\nThese comparisons are ulimately very unhealthy.\nNext time you find yourself comparing things in an unhealthy way. Think of the Little Prince, and how, despite your imperfections, you can choose to love yourself anyway.\n","date":"9 December 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/other/blog-challenge-posts/20201219/","section":"Others","summary":"The Little Prince, first published in 1943, has sold over 140 million copies worldwide.\nThe story of the Little Prince.\nThe Little Prince lives on a planet far from Earth.\nOn his planet he doesn’t have much, only a single rose.\n","title":"The Little Prince","type":"other"},{"content":"I\u0026rsquo;ve been learning about Docker through the course Docker in a Day\nDocker allows programmers to create \u0026lsquo;containers\u0026rsquo; around different environments.\nConsider the following example,\nYou want to create an environment with Python 3.7 and Nginx.\nYou have different environments as part of your development like your staging server for example, and all of these use different operating systems.\nHow can we easily setup and use this environment in all of these stages of production without setting up each individually?\nThe answer is containers with Docker.\nThe Docker containers creates a wrapper around your application and its dependencies.\nThe Docker engine then runs the container.\nThe host operating systems only needs to know Docker. It\u0026rsquo;s doesn\u0026rsquo;t need to know all of the different dependencies (Docker takes care of them).\nThe container will always provide the same environment regardless of the underlying operating system.\nIn order to setup Docker on my mac I used this guide.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s very interesting learning about what is a popular and important tool in software engineering.\n","date":"9 December 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/other/blog-challenge-posts/20201218/","section":"Others","summary":"I’ve been learning about Docker through the course Docker in a Day\nDocker allows programmers to create ‘containers’ around different environments.\nConsider the following example,\nYou want to create an environment with Python 3.7 and Nginx.\nYou have different environments as part of your development like your staging server for example, and all of these use different operating systems.\n","title":"What is Docker?","type":"other"},{"content":"In terms of success and achieving goals. People often get praise for where they currently are.\nIf you just finished a cool degree, were offered a cool job or a promotion. These are all things that get praise.\nWhat I think is more important is the trajectory of a person.\nIf you don\u0026rsquo;t have that much current success, you can frame your journey in terms of a trajectory.\n2 weeks ago, I attended my schools 5 year reunion.\nIn these cases, its clear to see what trajectory people have been on since high school.\nSome are on track to be successful, some are lazy and some are already obese.\nThe question to ask here is what kind of trajectory are you on?\nIf you repeated this year of your life for 5 years, where would you be?\nDo you like that? or does that scare you a bit?\nIf you put on 5kgs this year. It doesn\u0026rsquo;t seem like much, but soon this problem will be much harder to deal with.\nSoon you\u0026rsquo;ll be 20kgs overweight and wondering where the time went.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s much easier to fix these trajectories which you are in the early stages.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s much easier to have the self-awareness of what your trajectory is, and where it is taking you.\nTodays challenge: Consider your life trajectory, and where you are currently headed. If you don\u0026rsquo;t like that, consider what you can do to change it.\n","date":"9 December 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/other/blog-challenge-posts/20201217/","section":"Others","summary":"In terms of success and achieving goals. People often get praise for where they currently are.\nIf you just finished a cool degree, were offered a cool job or a promotion. These are all things that get praise.\n","title":"Trajectories","type":"other"},{"content":"The Ride Of A Lifetime\nThis book was very good.\nRobert Iger has been the CEO of Disney for over 15 years, and in this book, he gives his story and the things he learnt along the way.\nA key theme from the book is that a company reflects it\u0026rsquo;s leaders values. If you want your company to act a certain way, you as the leader, also need to act in that certain way.\nThere were three main things that I got from this book. Optimism, Innovation and Courage.\nOptimism # “Optimism. One of the most important qualities of a good leader is optimism, a pragmatic enthusiasm for what can be achieved. Even in the face of difficult choices and less than ideal outcomes, an optimistic leader does not yield to pessimism. Simply put, people are not motivated or energized by pessimists.” ― Robert Iger, The Ride of a Lifetime: Lessons Learned from 15 Years as CEO of the Walt Disney Company\nThis was a key theme throughout the book.\nNo-one can be led by a pessimist.\nEven in the face of challenges, leaders must remain optimistic.\nInnovation # “The path to innovation begins with curiosity” ― Robert Iger, The Ride of a Lifetime: Lessons Learned from 15 Years as CEO of the Walt Disney Company\nOne of the coolest things I noticed about the author is that he is very innovative.\nIt seems like as soon as he started as CEO, he put things into motion. It seems like he knew what to do.\nHe burst onto the scene by acquiring Pixar, and various other companies after.\nThese are very innovative moves.\nEven his eventual move into the digital space by creating Disney Plus was seen as very forward thinking, but it has paid off.\nThis innovation was absolutely key to his success, and leads me to my next point.\nCourage # “Don’t be in the business of playing it safe. Be in the business of creating possibilities for greatness.” ― Robert Iger, The Ride of a Lifetime: Lessons Learned from 15 Years as CEO of the Walt Disney Company\nThis man is very courageous.\nHe knew when he started that the average time a CEO spends in charge is about 4 years, and set his sights accordingly.\nIn all of his decisions, he trusted his gut instinct and showed courage.\nSome of the decisions he had to make are some of the biggest deals that have happen this century. When smart people don\u0026rsquo;t agree with you, especially in these situations, it would be easy to give up.\nRobert trusted his gut, and it brought him much success.\nConclusion # It\u0026rsquo;s difficult to summarise this book into three short points.\nIt was incredible to hear the first hand experience of such a successful person.\nI highly recommend this book to everyone.\n","date":"9 December 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/other/blog-challenge-posts/20201216/","section":"Others","summary":"The Ride Of A Lifetime\nThis book was very good.\nRobert Iger has been the CEO of Disney for over 15 years, and in this book, he gives his story and the things he learnt along the way.\n","title":"The Ride Of A Lifetime - Review","type":"other"},{"content":"“I can honestly say that I have never gone into any business purely to make money. If that is the sole motive then I believe you are better off not doing it. A business has to be involving, it has to be fun, and it has to exercise your creative instincts.” ― Richard Branson, Losing My Virginity: How I\u0026rsquo;ve Survived, Had Fun, and Made a Fortune Doing Business My Way\nWhat is an entrepreneur?\nAn ideas man?\nExecutive?\nFast car driver?\nToday an entrepreneur has become a pseudonym for a rock star.\nEveryone wants to be rich and famous.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s very rare to meet a person that has everything that they want.\nSo many people want to look better, more money or more status.\nThe entrepreneur personifies this.\nThey are all rich, famous and have lots of status.\nIn reality this is not the case.\nImagine grinding by yourself for many years while being told that you are wasting your time by everyone you know.\nThis is the price you pay.\nThis is the price most people will not pay.\nAnother consideration is the risk involved.\nWe all know the standard risk and reward mantra. High Risk = Potential High Reward\nEntrepreneurship is exactly that.\nHigh risk, in exchange for a higher potential reward.\nUnfortunately this reward is not guaranteed (as much as people online seem to think otherwise).\nWhat I think the key is to attaining more looks/status/wealth is to\nnot care about that stuff as much (difficult) do your best at whatever you are doing and the rewards will come Letting go of the result is so important, but is a topic for another day.\nTo conclude.\nEntrepreneurship is the equivalent of becoming a rockstar.\nEveryone wants to do it, but not many are willing to pay the price.\n","date":"9 December 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/other/blog-challenge-posts/20201215/","section":"Others","summary":"“I can honestly say that I have never gone into any business purely to make money. If that is the sole motive then I believe you are better off not doing it. A business has to be involving, it has to be fun, and it has to exercise your creative instincts.” ― Richard Branson, Losing My Virginity: How I’ve Survived, Had Fun, and Made a Fortune Doing Business My Way\n","title":"What makes an Entrepreneur?","type":"other"},{"content":"The following was my answer to this question on Quora.\nLink to question\nThis depends on the person.\nFor me, I prefer to study first thing in the morning. I find that as the day goes on, my ability to focus goes down dramatically. My ‘worst time to study’ would be at night.\nOthers can work well in the evening, but this depends on the person.\nSomething you could look into for yourself is something called a ‘Sleep Chronotype’. Your body has a natural tendency to perform best/worst at different times of the day, and this is genetic.\nThere are 4 different kinds, and each one has a different ‘worst time to study’.\nThese are a Bear, Lion, Wolf and Dolphin.\nI prefer to work in the morning, so I am a Lion.\nBears and Dolphins do better in the middle of the day, and Wolves at night.\nYou can read more about these here:\nWhat\u0026rsquo;s Your Sleep Chronotype? How to Decode Your Circadian Rhythm\n","date":"9 December 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/other/blog-challenge-posts/20201214/","section":"Others","summary":"The following was my answer to this question on Quora.\nLink to question\nThis depends on the person.\nFor me, I prefer to study first thing in the morning. I find that as the day goes on, my ability to focus goes down dramatically. My ‘worst time to study’ would be at night.\n","title":"When is the time not appropriate for students to study?","type":"other"},{"content":"Lately I\u0026rsquo;ve been thinking.\nI\u0026rsquo;m kinda successful in the gym.\nI\u0026rsquo;ve built a fairly decent body.\nI get compliments regularly.\nMy progress in the gym came quite easily. I didn\u0026rsquo;t feel like I was trying that hard.\nI just went to the gym, lifted, and went home.\nThen I realised.\nThere are certain principles that I use in the gym that are also applicable to real life.\nThings that I have used for success in the gym that can be applied to get me success in other areas.\nPerspective # Comparison is the thief of Joy\nThis is so important.\nImagine going in to the gym for the first time, and getting on the bench press.\nYou can only bench 30kgs. But it\u0026rsquo;s your first time, so not bad.\nYou leave the gym feeling dejected that you can\u0026rsquo;t bench 100kgs, and that you don\u0026rsquo;t look like those guys on instagram.\nThis is a losing formula. You must have perspective.\nFirstly, the guys on instagram and social media in general all do fitness for a living. It is literally their job to look as good as possible.\nYou don\u0026rsquo;t think some of them are using some naughty substances to maintain their physique?\nI think that it is extremely rare for someone to be fully natural and a social media influencer. Most natural bodybuilders don\u0026rsquo;t even compare to those on gear. It\u0026rsquo;s not worth comparing yourself to these people. They are not in your league.\nAll you are doing by this comparison is making yourself feel bad.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s the same with how much weight you lift.\nInstead of focussing on how today was yet another day that you couldn\u0026rsquo;t bench 100kg, look at it differently.\nYou hit a new record which means you are one step closer to the 100kg bench.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s all perspective.\nStart framing things in a way that is comparing you to YOU, not to some elite people online.\nAfter all, you will always want to be someone else, and someone else will always want to be you. It\u0026rsquo;s best just to drop these comparisons entirely, focus on yourself and enjoy each moment.\n\u0026lsquo;Enough\u0026rsquo; for me is someone else\u0026rsquo;s drop in the bucket, and another person\u0026rsquo;s wildest dream.\nConsistency # If you are willing to do only what’s easy, life will be hard. But if you are willing to do what’s hard, life will be easy.\nBeing consistent in the gym is absolutely vital to making good gains.\nI\u0026rsquo;ve found that you really need to be going 3x per week or more to maximise the output of your body.\nThis year, due to covid, I missed about 10 weeks of the gym. Granted I was doing some hybrid workouts at home, but I still lost a lot of muscle.\nWhen I started back in the gym, my lifts were probably around 70% of what they were before the break.\nImagine this taking place regularly. You will never get anywhere.\nYou need to be consistent.\nPart of this means setting a reasonable schedule too. You don\u0026rsquo;t want to be going 7x per week for 2 weeks and then miss a month because you are burnt out.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s much better to be in there less, but consistently.\nThink about being in the gym for the next 10 years of your life.\nHow would you structure your training then?\nImprovement # “Let the improvement of yourself keep you so busy that you have no time to criticise others.” ― Roy T. Bennett, The Light in the Heart\nEven if you follow the previous two principles. You might not get anywhere.\nWe want to improve, every single time.\nSomething I do in the gym is track my workouts. I know exactly how I did last time, and therefore exactly what I need to do next time to improve.\nSometimes I can\u0026rsquo;t improve. Maybe I had a rough day, or didn\u0026rsquo;t get enough sleep. This is not a problem.\nActual improvement is not that important. What\u0026rsquo;s most important is that you are actively chasing it.\nEach time I step into the gym I know what I need to do, and will give 110% to try and beat what I did last time.\nIn my opinion, anything less than this is a waste of time.\nIf you aren\u0026rsquo;t striving for improvement you should consider using your time in a different way.\nLife is all about improvement. Breaking new ground. Setting higher expectations.\nApplication # So how can we apply these two principles.\nLet\u0026rsquo;s use an example of starting a youtube channel.\nFirst of all, don\u0026rsquo;t compare yourself to others.\nYour first videos will not be good. It is of no benefit to you to look at an established youtuber and say \u0026ldquo;Oh no I should really stop now because my videos aren\u0026rsquo;t as good as theirs\u0026rdquo;.\nObviously you aren\u0026rsquo;t as good. You haven\u0026rsquo;t practiced enough yet.\nUse their content to learn, study what they do. But don\u0026rsquo;t compare yourself. You won\u0026rsquo;t get anywhere by doing that .\nThe next thing is consistency.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s much better to be consistent with your channel, than to be sporadic.\nFortunately we have tools available to us on social media that mean even if we create 5 videos in a single day, they can be scheduled out over time.\nBut while this feature can be useful. For your youtube channel to be successful you need to practice creating on a regular basis. Refine your techniques, and seek to do better every time.\nThis brings us to the last principle. Do better than last time.\nEach video you make, you should analyse your previous content and consider how this video can be better than the last one.\nEven if you make only tiny progress every time, it is inevitable that you will eventually start producing good content.\nBy following these three principles you will have a successful time. I have no doubt.\nConclusion # The three gym principles I use, that can be used in other areas are\nPerspective Consistency Improvement Consider how you can apply them to different areas of your life to achieve better results.\n","date":"9 December 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/other/blog-challenge-posts/20201213/","section":"Others","summary":"Lately I’ve been thinking.\nI’m kinda successful in the gym.\nI’ve built a fairly decent body.\nI get compliments regularly.\nMy progress in the gym came quite easily. I didn’t feel like I was trying that hard.\n","title":"Gym Principles in Life","type":"other"},{"content":"That Will Never Work\nThat\u0026rsquo;s what the founder of Netflix heard when explaining his idea about selling DVD\u0026rsquo;s as rentals.\nNetflix then overcame many obstacles and eventually the mighty Blockbuster. It is now one of the largest and most prestigious companies in the world.\nIn the book, Marc Randolph outlines his role in the creation and early stages of Netflix before his exit in 2002.\nThe one thing I took from this book was the following: Don\u0026rsquo;t be afraid to start.\nMaybe your idea does suck, but you\u0026rsquo;ll never know until you try.\nSo many of us get stuck at the stage of not even trying our idea. We never get to even see how or where our idea is wrong.\nPart of the process is starting with a bad idea but finding ways to make it work and then, after much persistence, coming out on top.\nNetflix is a fantastic example of hurdles that continue to arise but people continually rise above.\nA lesson to us all about perseverance and faith.\nBelow is a great excerpt from the book\n“What do they all say? That will never work.\nBy now, I hope you know what my answer to that line is. Nobody Knows Anything.\nI only get to write this book once. And I’d feel like I missed an opportunity if I ended this story without giving you some advice.\nThe most powerful step that anyone can take to turn their dreams into reality is a simple one: you just need to start.\nThe only real way to find out if your idea is a good one is to do it. You’ll learn more in one hour of doing something than in a lifetime of thinking about it. So take that step.\nBuild something, make something, test something, sell something. Learn for yourself if your idea is a good one.\nWhat happens if your idea doesn’t work? What happens if your test fails, if nobody orders your product or joins your club? What if sales don’t go up and customer complaints don’t go down? What if you get halfway through writing your novel and get writer’s block? What if after dozens of tries – even hundreds of attempts – you still haven’t seen your dream become anything close to real?\nYou have to learn to love the problem, not the solution.\nThat’s how you stay engaged when things take longer than you expected.”\n― Marc Randolph, That Will Never Work: The Birth of Netflix and the Amazing Life of an Idea\n","date":"9 December 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/other/blog-challenge-posts/20201212/","section":"Others","summary":"That Will Never Work\nThat’s what the founder of Netflix heard when explaining his idea about selling DVD’s as rentals.\nNetflix then overcame many obstacles and eventually the mighty Blockbuster. It is now one of the largest and most prestigious companies in the world.\n","title":"That Will Never Work (The Story of Netflix)","type":"other"},{"content":"Today I spoke with a friend. Like me, she is moving interstate for work.\nFor both of us, this move represents some of the biggest challenges we have faced in our lives so far.\nIt was interesting to see the progression from our younger years.\nBack in year 8, our school did something called \u0026lsquo;Unley Week\u0026rsquo;. This was where our year group completed tasks in the nearby suburb of Unley.\nThe next year, Year 9, we did \u0026lsquo;City Week\u0026rsquo;. This was basically the same as Unley week except now it was in the city. We faced the daunting task of catching a public bus into the city for the first time.\nIn year 11, we both travelled to Germany as part of an exchange program. This was a very structured thing. We stayed with families and people that we both had met beforehand. Still, at the time, it was a very scary but rewarding experience.\nIn 2019, we both travelled overseas. I travelled to Sheffield in the UK to complete a University semester. This experience was one of the most daunting things I had done in my life. I was going overseas for about 6 months, not knowing anyone in my destination. Upon reflecting on my experience, it was one of the best things I ever did.\nAnd now, the interstate move. We both don\u0026rsquo;t know many people where we are going. To make matters even more serious, we aren\u0026rsquo;t going on a holiday. We are going for real. Moving our entire lives to a new city with no prospect of return.\nThis is by far the most daunting thing I have done to date. However, if my past experiences are anything to go by, it will also be the most rewarding.\nThe key to the reward is getting out of your comfort zone. Embracing the unknown and charging forward. Gaining new experiences and perspective.\nThis is growth.\nThis is what makes life exciting.\n","date":"9 December 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/other/blog-challenge-posts/20201211/","section":"Others","summary":"Today I spoke with a friend. Like me, she is moving interstate for work.\nFor both of us, this move represents some of the biggest challenges we have faced in our lives so far.\nIt was interesting to see the progression from our younger years.\n","title":"Progression","type":"other"},{"content":"The following is a speech I gave at Toastmasters.\nHeroes .\nHeroes are all around us. Whether they\u0026rsquo;re in film, movies, books or in real life. Heroes are everywhere.\nThey show us the way.\nWe look to them like the beacon of light\nEveryone aspires to be like famous heroes heroes like\nluke skywalker jacinta ardern henry ford princess diana All these people are famous and have done great things. We all aspire to be like them\nOne thing you might not know though, is that heroes all have something in common.\nBack in 1949 Joseph Campbell wrote a book called \u0026lsquo;A Hero with A Thousand Faces\u0026rsquo; and in this book he outlines the 17 different phases that go into a hero\u0026rsquo;s journey.\nThese are consistent across every single kind of hero that there is, but they\u0026rsquo;re most commonly found in in film or books.\nThese 17 phases consist of three main acts which are,\nthe departure the initiation the return The departure act this is where the hero is beginning their journey. You know, the start of the movie. The hero doesn\u0026rsquo;t really know what\u0026rsquo;s going on, they\u0026rsquo;re a bit shy and then they leave this place that they\u0026rsquo;re from and they begin the journey.\nThis is like in the lion king where Simba\u0026rsquo;s dad dies and he leaves the pride and goes on his journey. Or in Star Wars where Luke Skywalker is asked by Obi-Wan to leave his home planet and travel to Alderaan. Or in Harry Potter where Harry gets the letter to travel to Hogwarts.\nThese are all scenarios where the hero is asked to to rise up to something greater than themselves.\nThis act is also typically accompanied by some kind of mentor or friendship group that allows the hero to step up.\nNext, the initiation.\nThis is really the meat of the story. This is where the hero begins to learn more about the world. They get exposed to things that are outside of their previous world view.\nIn the Lion King this is where Simba is traveling through the forest with Timone and Pumba discovering all these things that he never thought existed. This is like Star Wars where Luke Skywalker is going out to the death star. He\u0026rsquo;s rescuing Leia, he\u0026rsquo;s seeing clones he\u0026rsquo;s doing all these amazing things. This is like Harry Potter, where Harry is in Hogwarts discovering all these things about magic, he\u0026rsquo;s discovering all these new things he never never knew existed.\nFinally, the last phase the most important: the return.\nThis is where the hero achieves some amazing goal, they do something great and then they return back to where they\u0026rsquo;re originally from as a changed person having undergone some sort of transformation.\nSo, the Lion King. Simba comes back to the pride, defeats Scar and rises up as the new leader of the pride, the new hero of the land. In Star Wars, Luke Skywalker blows up the death star and returns to the resistance as a hero of the rebel alliance. Or Harry Potter where Harry defeats Voldemort and returns back to Hogwarts as a new hero.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s pretty incredible. I\u0026rsquo;ve just done three movies but these principles apply to every almost every single movie. One thing that\u0026rsquo;s one thing that\u0026rsquo;s very interesting is the the transformation that goes on with the character.\nSimba is a great example. He starts off the movie as this naive young thing, doesn\u0026rsquo;t really know what he\u0026rsquo;s doing.\nHe goes on this huge transformation and returns to the pride as someone that\u0026rsquo;s completely different. He can\u0026rsquo;t really relate to what he used to be. He\u0026rsquo;s undergone this psychological transformation.\nWhat\u0026rsquo;s important with this with model of the hero\u0026rsquo;s journey is that it\u0026rsquo;s not just some technique to apply to like storytelling, it\u0026rsquo;s not like \u0026ldquo;I\u0026rsquo;m going to write a novel I better follow these 17 phases and then someone will read it and they\u0026rsquo;ll be hooked and it\u0026rsquo;s going to be amazing\u0026rdquo;.\nThat\u0026rsquo;s not really what it\u0026rsquo;s about, it\u0026rsquo;s much more than that.\nThe Hero\u0026rsquo;s Journey is a framework by which people analyse stories. This is the way that you relate to stories that happen in real life and in novels and stories and it\u0026rsquo;s a way that you can look in your own life.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s a way that you can look at things that you do and you can frame them in this context of the hero\u0026rsquo;s journey.\nFor example, in my life, next year i\u0026rsquo;m traveling to Melbourne to begin work. So right now in the context of the heroes journey i\u0026rsquo;m right at the start. I\u0026rsquo;m in the departure stage.\nIf you frame that in terms of the hero\u0026rsquo;s journey, I know that there\u0026rsquo;s going to be challenges and things I need to face and no doubt be somewhat difficult to get used to living in. I also know that at the end there\u0026rsquo;s the return. There\u0026rsquo;s the psychological transformation. There\u0026rsquo;s this new person that will be created at the end of this journey.\nSo i encourage you all to to apply this to your own lives. The Hero\u0026rsquo;s Journey does get used in in psychology. If someone\u0026rsquo;s facing trouble they can frame it in terms of the hero\u0026rsquo;s journey. How they\u0026rsquo;re going through struggle and how that relates to them being the hero of their life. How they can help resolve that struggle by staying in that frame.\nSo I encourage you all to to look at your life through the hero\u0026rsquo;s journey context.\nRemember that YOU are the main character of your life. YOU are the hero of your journey.\n","date":"8 December 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/the-heros-journey/","section":"Writing","summary":"The following is a speech I gave at Toastmasters.\nHeroes .\nHeroes are all around us. Whether they’re in film, movies, books or in real life. Heroes are everywhere.\n","title":"The Hero's Journey","type":"posts"},{"content":"Are we living in a simulation?\nMaybe.\nBut does it really matter?\nWhat aspects of your life would change if you knew that we were living in a simulation?\nQuestions like this are ones that are interesting thought experiments, but provide no use for us. There is nothing about our lives that would change if we knew the answer.\nInstead of questions like this, focus your energy on questions and people that do matter. Things that, if you knew the answer, you\u0026rsquo;d do something differently.\n","date":"30 November 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/other/blog-challenge-posts/20201210/","section":"Others","summary":"Are we living in a simulation?\nMaybe.\nBut does it really matter?\nWhat aspects of your life would change if you knew that we were living in a simulation?\nQuestions like this are ones that are interesting thought experiments, but provide no use for us. There is nothing about our lives that would change if we knew the answer.\n","title":"Simulation","type":"other"},{"content":"The Interesting Number Paradox states that every natural number is interesting.\nEvery number is interesting! Wow.\nThis is a mathematical paradox, and can be proved by contradiction.\nConsider we have a set of numbers that are all not interesting.\nOne of these numbers is the smallest, and this makes that number interesting!\nThis means that number is now no longer a part of our set of non-interesting numbers, so we remove it.\nWe then use this process to remove all numbers from the non-interesting set and conclude that all numbers are in fact interesting.\nThis can extrapolate to other areas.\nAll days are interesting.\nAll people are interesting.\nAll moments are interesting.\nWho would have thought.\nSo take a moment today, to see all the interesting moments all around you.\n","date":"30 November 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/other/blog-challenge-posts/20201209/","section":"Others","summary":"The Interesting Number Paradox states that every natural number is interesting.\nEvery number is interesting! Wow.\nThis is a mathematical paradox, and can be proved by contradiction.\nConsider we have a set of numbers that are all not interesting.\n","title":"Interesting Number Paradox","type":"other"},{"content":"The following is a speech I gave at Toastmasters.\nHeroes .\nHeroes are all around us. Whether they\u0026rsquo;re in film, movies, books or in real life. Heroes are everywhere.\nThey show us the way.\nWe look to them like the beacon of light\nEveryone aspires to be like famous heroes heroes like\nluke skywalker jacinta ardern henry ford princess diana All these people are famous and have done great things. We all aspire to be like them\nOne thing you might not know though, is that heroes all have something in common.\nBack in 1949 Joseph Campbell wrote a book called \u0026lsquo;A Hero with A Thousand Faces\u0026rsquo; and in this book he outlines the 17 different phases that go into a hero\u0026rsquo;s journey.\nThese are consistent across every single kind of hero that there is, but they\u0026rsquo;re most commonly found in in film or books.\nThese 17 phases consist of three main acts which are,\nthe departure the initiation the return The departure act this is where the hero is beginning their journey. You know, the start of the movie. The hero doesn\u0026rsquo;t really know what\u0026rsquo;s going on, they\u0026rsquo;re a bit shy and then they leave this place that they\u0026rsquo;re from and they begin the journey.\nThis is like in the lion king where Simba\u0026rsquo;s dad dies and he leaves the pride and goes on his journey. Or in Star Wars where Luke Skywalker is asked by Obi-Wan to leave his home planet and travel to Alderaan. Or in Harry Potter where Harry gets the letter to travel to Hogwarts.\nThese are all scenarios where the hero is asked to to rise up to something greater than themselves.\nThis act is also typically accompanied by some kind of mentor or friendship group that allows the hero to step up.\nNext, the initiation.\nThis is really the meat of the story. This is where the hero begins to learn more about the world. They get exposed to things that are outside of their previous world view.\nIn the Lion King this is where Simba is traveling through the forest with Timone and Pumba discovering all these things that he never thought existed. This is like Star Wars where Luke Skywalker is going out to the death star. He\u0026rsquo;s rescuing Leia, he\u0026rsquo;s seeing clones he\u0026rsquo;s doing all these amazing things. This is like Harry Potter, where Harry is in Hogwarts discovering all these things about magic, he\u0026rsquo;s discovering all these new things he never never knew existed.\nFinally, the last phase the most important: the return.\nThis is where the hero achieves some amazing goal, they do something great and then they return back to where they\u0026rsquo;re originally from as a changed person having undergone some sort of transformation.\nSo, the Lion King. Simba comes back to the pride, defeats Scar and rises up as the new leader of the pride, the new hero of the land. In Star Wars, Luke Skywalker blows up the death star and returns to the resistance as a hero of the rebel alliance. Or Harry Potter where Harry defeats Voldemort and returns back to Hogwarts as a new hero.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s pretty incredible. I\u0026rsquo;ve just done three movies but these principles apply to every almost every single movie. One thing that\u0026rsquo;s one thing that\u0026rsquo;s very interesting is the the transformation that goes on with the character.\nSimba is a great example. He starts off the movie as this naive young thing, doesn\u0026rsquo;t really know what he\u0026rsquo;s doing.\nHe goes on this huge transformation and returns to the pride as someone that\u0026rsquo;s completely different. He can\u0026rsquo;t really relate to what he used to be. He\u0026rsquo;s undergone this psychological transformation.\nWhat\u0026rsquo;s important with this with model of the hero\u0026rsquo;s journey is that it\u0026rsquo;s not just some technique to apply to like storytelling, it\u0026rsquo;s not like \u0026ldquo;I\u0026rsquo;m going to write a novel I better follow these 17 phases and then someone will read it and they\u0026rsquo;ll be hooked and it\u0026rsquo;s going to be amazing\u0026rdquo;.\nThat\u0026rsquo;s not really what it\u0026rsquo;s about, it\u0026rsquo;s much more than that.\nThe Hero\u0026rsquo;s Journey is a framework by which people analyse stories. This is the way that you relate to stories that happen in real life and in novels and stories and it\u0026rsquo;s a way that you can look in your own life.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s a way that you can look at things that you do and you can frame them in this context of the hero\u0026rsquo;s journey.\nFor example, in my life, next year i\u0026rsquo;m traveling to Melbourne to begin work. So right now in the context of the heroes journey i\u0026rsquo;m right at the start. I\u0026rsquo;m in the departure stage.\nIf you frame that in terms of the hero\u0026rsquo;s journey, I know that there\u0026rsquo;s going to be challenges and things I need to face and no doubt be somewhat difficult to get used to living in. I also know that at the end there\u0026rsquo;s the return. There\u0026rsquo;s the psychological transformation. There\u0026rsquo;s this new person that will be created at the end of this journey.\nSo i encourage you all to to apply this to your own lives. The Hero\u0026rsquo;s Journey does get used in in psychology. If someone\u0026rsquo;s facing trouble they can frame it in terms of the hero\u0026rsquo;s journey. How they\u0026rsquo;re going through struggle and how that relates to them being the hero of their life. How they can help resolve that struggle by staying in that frame.\nSo I encourage you all to to look at your life through the hero\u0026rsquo;s journey context.\nRemember that YOU are the main character of your life. YOU are the hero of your journey.\n","date":"30 November 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/other/blog-challenge-posts/20201208/","section":"Others","summary":"The following is a speech I gave at Toastmasters.\nHeroes .\nHeroes are all around us. Whether they’re in film, movies, books or in real life. Heroes are everywhere.\n","title":"The Hero's Journey","type":"other"},{"content":"TCP is a protocol of the internet. It ensures the safe transfer of information between clients and servers.\nTCP is a bidirectional process, which means that a connection between A and B can facilitate data transfers from A to B and also B to A.\nThis is established with what is known as the syn-syn/ack-ack process, called a three way handshake.\nFirst the application A sends a sync requenst to B. B then acknowledges the request (ack) and requests a sync to A which then sends the final acknowledgement (ack).\nTCP is unique in that the order that information is received is checked. If something doesn\u0026rsquo;t come in the correct position, or doesn\u0026rsquo;t arrive at all, the TCP protocol will wait until all the information has arrived in the correct order.\nTCP sends data in segments. Each segment has a maximum segment size which defines how much data can be in each segment. Each segment has a header, and various other information that defines aspects of that segment.\nAn example can be seen below1.\nTCP is used for the following protocols\nhttp https ftp (file transfer) smtp (email) Kurose, J.F. and Ross, K.W., Computer networking: A top-down approach (pp. 607967-5). Addison Wesley.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"30 November 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/other/blog-challenge-posts/20201207/","section":"Others","summary":"TCP is a protocol of the internet. It ensures the safe transfer of information between clients and servers.\nTCP is a bidirectional process, which means that a connection between A and B can facilitate data transfers from A to B and also B to A.\n","title":"What is TCP","type":"other"},{"content":"Read this article if you\nDon\u0026rsquo;t know anything about BASH Want to learn some basic BASH commands BASH stands for Bourne-Again SHell, as it was written to replace the Bourne shell.\nBASH commands can be directly written into a shell, or can be placed into a .sh script.\nA shell is basically just your terminal. You will need a unix shell for these commands to work, which means either using MacOS, Linux or using WSL for Windows.\nBASH Commands # Very simple commands that are pretty cool are things like cal which returns a calendar, whoami which returns your username. Other ones like cd, ls, date are also useful.\nThese can be combined to create cool things.\nLet\u0026rsquo;s look at creating a hello world script like hello_world.sh\nAll we need to write is the following\necho hello world This prints \u0026lsquo;hello world\u0026rsquo; to our screen, perfect!\nBASH can do other incredible things. In fact, it\u0026rsquo;s almost just as good as any other programming language.\nHere we can see a list of cool things you can do in bash: https://github.com/awesome-lists/awesome-bash\nThings like\nminesweeper small http servers Are just a small example of the things you can do in BASH.\nYou can even use something call cron to automate your BASH scripts to run at certain times.\nThis is really useful for things like\nupdating package managers backing up files In fact, pushing information to this blog could very well be done as a cron job in BASH.\nIf you\u0026rsquo;d like to learn more about BASH functions etc, there is a useful tutorial here\n","date":"30 November 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/other/blog-challenge-posts/20201206/","section":"Others","summary":"Read this article if you\nDon’t know anything about BASH Want to learn some basic BASH commands BASH stands for Bourne-Again SHell, as it was written to replace the Bourne shell.\nBASH commands can be directly written into a shell, or can be placed into a .sh script.\n","title":"Basics of BASH","type":"other"},{"content":"It\u0026rsquo;s like you\u0026rsquo;re going fishing.\nYou get all your fishing gear, get in the boat, and find yourself a spot.\nYou set up, put your rod in the water, and begin to fish.\n\u0026lsquo;Success\u0026rsquo; in this case, is getting a fish. But so far, all that has happened is hard work leading up to the result.\nWe know that getting your gear, getting in the boat etc are things we need to do to catch the fish.\nYet when the fish finally gets stuck onto the hook and we reel it into the boat, the success of catching the fish appears to be instantaneous.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s the same when attempting a maths problem. At first you might not get it. Maybe after a few days you still don\u0026rsquo;t know how to approach it.\nEventually, you might have this \u0026lsquo;a-ha\u0026rsquo; moment, and you will realise how to complete the problem.\nSo often you hear about projects that appear to have had huge breakthroughs, and it can seem like this is not going to be possible for us.\nWhat we all need to understand is the work and thought that goes on behind the scenes to create this apparent, instant success.\nChances are, that anyone that is successful had been applying themselves in some way for many years before they reached their \u0026lsquo;success\u0026rsquo;.\nThis is also important to think about in the context of your own life.\nEven though you may be plugging away, doing what seems to be meaningless tasks.\nYou never know how these can turn around to help you catch that fish of \u0026lsquo;instant success\u0026rsquo;.\n","date":"30 November 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/other/blog-challenge-posts/20201205/","section":"Others","summary":"It’s like you’re going fishing.\nYou get all your fishing gear, get in the boat, and find yourself a spot.\nYou set up, put your rod in the water, and begin to fish.\n","title":"Non-Linear Nature of Progress","type":"other"},{"content":"Windows used to be bad for programming, but not anymore.\nOne of the main drawbacks for Windows is that it doesn\u0026rsquo;t have a unix shell.\nMacOS and Linux, are both unix based operating systems, and they both have a unix shell.\nA unix shell means that the user has a much wider array of terminal commands that can be used. For example BASH commands.\nThis means that, from a programming perspective, MacOS and Linux are superior.\nDespite lacking unix shell commands, it seems that windows is not actually that bad for programming.\n2019\u0026rsquo;s Stackoverflow report for OS usage put Windows at 49.3% for \u0026ldquo;Professional developers\u0026rdquo; with MacOS at 29.2% and Linux at 25.3%. So about half of software developers still use windows.\nOne piece of software that has enabled this is known as WSL and WSL2.\nWSL stands for Windows Subsystem for Linux.\nprovides a Linux-compatible kernel interface developed by Microsoft, containing no Linux kernel code, which can then run a GNU user space on top of it, such as that of Ubuntu1\nThis means that programmers can get both the benefits of programming, with the stability and support of Windows.\nPreviously I\u0026rsquo;d been told that Windows was basically just a piece of junk for programming and that your best bet would be to partition your hard drive and install linux. Now it\u0026rsquo;s possible to have a linux kernel interface inside your windows installation.\nMagic.\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Subsystem_for_Linux\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"30 November 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/other/blog-challenge-posts/20201204/","section":"Others","summary":"Windows used to be bad for programming, but not anymore.\nOne of the main drawbacks for Windows is that it doesn’t have a unix shell.\nMacOS and Linux, are both unix based operating systems, and they both have a unix shell.\n","title":"Is Windows Bad for Programming?","type":"other"},{"content":"I missed a day.\nToday I\u0026rsquo;m writing this on the 4th of December.\nThis post was suppossed to be out yesterday, on the 3rd.\nThis is a minor hiccup.\nThe most important thing in this situation is to continue from where I left off, and not let this derail me.\nYou see I wasn\u0026rsquo;t very motivated to even write this post.\nThe thoughts in my head were things like \u0026ldquo;you already missed one, who cares\u0026rdquo;, \u0026ldquo;no-one even reads these posts anyway\u0026rdquo;.\nIf I\u0026rsquo;m going to build an audience then it shouldn\u0026rsquo;t actually matter if people read what I write at all. My motivation to write and share my knowledge comes from within, not from the external.\nThe second point is of missing one post, now I can miss another. The \u0026ldquo;you already missed one, who cares\u0026rdquo;.\nMissing one post has kind of ruined the momentum that I had early last week.\nBut as we know from the great film Rocky Balboa\nBut it ain\u0026rsquo;t about how hard you hit.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward; how much you can take and keep moving forward.\nThat\u0026rsquo;s how winning is done!\nSo by missing a post, I have taken a minor hit.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s time to keep moving forward.\n","date":"25 November 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/other/blog-challenge-posts/20201203/","section":"Others","summary":"I missed a day.\nToday I’m writing this on the 4th of December.\nThis post was suppossed to be out yesterday, on the 3rd.\nThis is a minor hiccup.\nThe most important thing in this situation is to continue from where I left off, and not let this derail me.\n","title":"Keep Moving Forward","type":"other"},{"content":"Updated 3/12 with completed grades information.\nToday, I was given all of my university grades for the past semester.\nOf the grades I got back, I have 3 High Distinctions and 1 Distinction.\nI am very pleased with my work, and this result means I will finish my degree with a \u0026gt;6 GPA (Distinction Average).\nThis excellent performance this semester wasn\u0026rsquo;t always the case for me.\nTake a look at this image with my average grades for my entire degree.\nThe first two bars are my grades from my previous degree before I changed to Maths and Finance. The EXCH bar is from when I went on exchange to Sheffield.\nAs you can see, there has been dramatic improvement in my grades over time.\nAnd while it\u0026rsquo;s crucial to not rate your university performance solely on your grades, I think there has been improvement across my whole life.\nI\u0026rsquo;ve learnt to take tasks more seriously, and do the best I can. Sometimes in my past I would just coast through subjects and not really try. But now I have learnt to grind out good results much more effectively and efficiently.\nThis trend gives me hope.\nIt also means to me, that even in the areas of my life that I struggle with right now, like writing. That there are ways to improve and see results. All it takes is some hard work and dedication.\n","date":"25 November 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/other/blog-challenge-posts/20201202/","section":"Others","summary":"Updated 3/12 with completed grades information.\nToday, I was given all of my university grades for the past semester.\nOf the grades I got back, I have 3 High Distinctions and 1 Distinction.\nI am very pleased with my work, and this result means I will finish my degree with a \u003e6 GPA (Distinction Average).\n","title":"Continuous Improvement","type":"other"},{"content":"The following was my solution to my University Data Science Exam. In this question we were expected to explain our chosen model to someone with a non-statistics university degree.\nFor this question I chose a decision tree, alternatively known as CART.\nMy answer is listed below.\nData Science: Exam Question 3 # Outline # CART stands for Classification and Regression Tree. The CART model is a tree based model that can be used for both regression and classification. Regression is useful where we\u0026rsquo;d like to consider a numerical value, like what the temperature will be tomorrow. While classification is when we would like to predict a category, for example if it is going to rain tomorrow (yes or no). Fortunately, CART models can be used for either of these problems.\nA tree based model is one that uses nested if/then statements.\nConsider the example of predicting if you should take an umbrella to work tomorrow. A tree based model could consider answering this question in the following way,\nIs the forecast for MORE than 30 degrees tomorrow? Then I don\u0026rsquo;t need an umbrella\nIs the forecast for LESS than 30 degrees tomorrow? Then I need to ask if it\u0026rsquo;s going to rain.\nIs it forecast to rain tomorrow? Then I will need an umbrella.\nIs it NOT forecast to rain tomorrow? Then I will NOT need an umbrella.\nFrom this example, one can get an idea of how a tree based model works.\nImage from Towards Data Science1\nThe above diagram showcases another, well illustrated example, of how a tree based algorithm works.\nIn more complex terms, what is occurring at each step is a split of the set into 2 groups so that the error is minimised. This occurs until the maximum tree depth is reached.\nNext there can be a pruning stage. This process assumes that the tree has probably fit the data too well, and won\u0026rsquo;t do well on a test set. In this case the tree will be pruned and the least important branches will be removed. This means that the final model is more simple and will likely extrapolate better to unseen data.\nAdvantages and Disadvantages # There are many advantages to tree based models such as CART.\nThey are easy to explain. Trees can also be put into diagrams, such as the one above, that make understanding the conclusions of the model very simple. The approach is similar to how a human would approach the problem. In the umbrella example above, the way a person would use that logic is very similar to how these algorithms work. However there are also some disadvantages\nTrees may not have the best accuracy Trees can change dramatically based on small changes in the data set In order to solve these problems, more complicated tree methods are often used like Bagging, Boosting and Random Forests.\nTuning # Tuning parameters are those that are not provided by a formula, but must be given by the user. In a CART model, the parameters that can be tuned are the tree depth and the cost.\nThe model would be tuned by fitting CART models to the data using different tree depths, and considering which model has the lowest error rate. For example a CART with depth 1 would be fit, then depth 2, all up until depth 10.\nIn the case of classification, the best model could be decided by the mis-classification rate, that is, what percentage of outcomes were classified correctly from the total.\nIn the case of regression, the best model could be decided by one that has the lowest RMSE. That is, the lowest squared error between the predicted values and the actual values.\nThese error rates are taken after the model is fit using cross validation. The data is first split into a number of parts. The model is then fit on all parts except for 1, and the error rates obtained. The model is then fit and tested in the same way for all parts. If the data is split into $K$ portions, then there would be $K$ error samples. This means there is a much better idea of how the model is performing, rather than just testing on one training and testing set.\nIn the same way as tree depth, cross validation can also be used to find the optimal cost parameter $\\alpha$.\nThe final model will then be fit using the best parameters found during the tuning process.\nhttps://towardsdatascience.com/https-medium-com-lorrli-classification-and-regression-analysis-with-decision-trees-c43cdbc58054\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"25 November 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/other/blog-challenge-posts/20201201/","section":"Others","summary":"The following was my solution to my University Data Science Exam. In this question we were expected to explain our chosen model to someone with a non-statistics university degree.\nFor this question I chose a decision tree, alternatively known as CART.\n","title":"What is a Decision Tree","type":"other"},{"content":"We all have these things. Things that we \u0026lsquo;want\u0026rsquo; to do, but we don\u0026rsquo;t have time so we will do that later.\nThings like\nstarting a blog starting a youtube channel learning that new skill meditating I have found that one simple truth holds for all of thes kinds of activities.\nYou will never have time. It\u0026rsquo;s just a matter of priorities.\nIf you don\u0026rsquo;t start that youtube channel because you \u0026lsquo;don\u0026rsquo;t have time\u0026rsquo;, don\u0026rsquo;t try to trick yourself. It\u0026rsquo;s because you think its a kind of cool idea, but you don\u0026rsquo;t want to start it bad enough. You like the idea more than actually doing it.\nI was listening to one of my heroes Owen Cook recently1, and he was talking about how when it comes to your goals, you should rather die than not do them. That is, you are so certain that you will put in the work that you would rather die.\nHe uses the example of going to the gym. Even if he arrives home from holiday, late at night, so ready to go to sleep. He goes to the gym. Because the goal is so important that he would have to die before he missed a session.\nWould you let your child be hit by a car? Absolutely not. Would you miss a day in the gym?\nThe reality is, if you can\u0026rsquo;t do these simple tasks, then how are you going to be able to live your dreams?\nThis blog is an excellent example of that. I\u0026rsquo;m now one week into this. I could easily give up and miss a day or two which would then spiral into me giving up this entire process.\nBut I would rather die than miss one of these blog posts.\nThis kind of conviction has been lacking for me in the past. I have thought of grand ideas that sound excellent, but the follow through was never there. Because I didn\u0026rsquo;t believe enough in my abilities and let my progress slip.\nNow that has changed. I understand that missing a blog post also means that I am giving up on my dreams. These may not seem like the same thing, but they are. If we can\u0026rsquo;t do these simple tasks like showing up and writing a short blog post, how can we be expected to lead people to a better life.\nEven the small and insignificant things you do are all practice for the big show.\nFood for thought.\nJames\nThis talk is called \u0026lsquo;The Truth About Success - Why You Should Rather Die Than Miss A Day In The Gym\u0026rsquo;. I\u0026rsquo;m not sure if it\u0026rsquo;s still online but it is excellent and I highly recommend it.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"25 November 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/other/blog-challenge-posts/20201130/","section":"Others","summary":"We all have these things. Things that we ‘want’ to do, but we don’t have time so we will do that later.\nThings like\nstarting a blog starting a youtube channel learning that new skill meditating I have found that one simple truth holds for all of thes kinds of activities.\n","title":"There Will NEVER Be Time","type":"other"},{"content":"Today marks the first day of what may be my last ever trip with my family.\nI\u0026rsquo;ve been very lucky over the years to go on trips with my family to places all over Australia. We\u0026rsquo;ve been to many places and experienced many good times together.\nNext year I am leaving Adelaide to begin working in Melbourne. I\u0026rsquo;m moving out of home and beginning a new journey.\nThis means that this family holiday could be the last one ever.\nThe last time I can experience my family on an adventure together.\nThis does seem like a special moment, but the reality is that these. moment are happening around us all the time.\nA few weeks ago, my youngest brother turned 18. Last year my Grandpa had his 80th birthday. Last week I finished my university degree.\nAll of these moments are special, unique and deserve to be remembered.\nI really want to be able to treasure these moments, enjoy the company of my family and take everything in.\nI don\u0026rsquo;t want to be particiapting in these occaisons and be distracted with things that are going on in my life, that really are not important compared to the events taking place in front of me.\nI think one of the keys to being more present is meditation.\nBeing able to shut your mind off and experience the moment fully, to be fully present, is exactly what I want to do in these moments, and exactly what meditation helps you practice.\nMeditation is also one of those things that get forgotten from your routine. It\u0026rsquo;s one of those things that sounds good, but never really gets done.\nI want to experience these important moments more fully, so I plan to meditate much more consistently.\nOne app that I use is Sam Harris\u0026rsquo; Waking Up. I\u0026rsquo;ve found it has absolutely improved my practice and ability to be present. I highly recommend it.\nI think that being present is very important. So go and Take in Every Moment!\n","date":"25 November 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/other/blog-challenge-posts/20201129/","section":"Others","summary":"Today marks the first day of what may be my last ever trip with my family.\nI’ve been very lucky over the years to go on trips with my family to places all over Australia. We’ve been to many places and experienced many good times together.\n","title":"Take In Every Moment","type":"other"},{"content":"On completing my university studies\nSo my time in university is over. Unless I return to do a masters degree, I won\u0026rsquo;t be back in a university for some time.\nI have now completed 5 years at university, graduating with a Bachelor of Mathematical and Computer Sciences with a Bachelor of Finance.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s time to do a short reflection on my time at uni.\nCould I have done better with my grades? Probably\nCould I have used those 5 years better? Maybe\nShould I have just dropped out and self-taught myself everything? Potentially\nDid I have a good time, meet amazing people, learn about things and learn about myself? Definitely.\nExperiences # One thing that is really good about university is meeting other people who are in the same stage of life as yourself. I met many new friends through university, many of whom will be my friends for many years to come.\nChanging Degrees # At then end of my first year at uni, I changed degrees from Mechanical Engineering.\nI initially started this degree because most of my friends were also doing it. It\u0026rsquo;s a fairly decent idea considering I had no idea what I wanted to do when I left school, but I found myself not really enjoying things and wanted a change.\nI was researching financial topics when I decided that I should just study finance at uni! A very good idea!\nPlus I also wanted to do something to sound smart so I kept on doing Maths as well. What a great combination!\nFortunately for me, this combination has given me many opportunities and has set me up very well for many different, lucrative, career paths.\nStudying Overseas # From January to June in 2019 I studied overseas at the University of Sheffield in the UK. This was a fantastic experience for me.\nI got out of my comfort zone, and into real life. I was finally able to live my life on my own terms.\nWhile my focus when I was away was certainly not on my academics, I excelled in other areas.\nIn fact, my first semester back, my grades improved by 25%.\nI came back with a renewed confidence and new desires to achieve the things I really wanted.\nDo it again? # In today\u0026rsquo;s world I see so much about how university is garbage and no-one should do it.\nI see posts like \u0026lsquo;don\u0026rsquo;t go to uni! just teach yourself at home in 1 year!\u0026rsquo;.\nThis is definitely possible, and I really think the education system will change incredibly over the next 10-20 years.\nAt the same time though, the opportunities that I took and the people I met along the way have absolutely made my life more fulfilling and enjoyable.\nYou can\u0026rsquo;t go back and change time, and I am very grateful for the experiences that I have been afforded.\nAnother blog containing all my university tips will come out soon!\nJames\n","date":"25 November 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/other/blog-challenge-posts/20201128/","section":"Others","summary":"On completing my university studies\nSo my time in university is over. Unless I return to do a masters degree, I won’t be back in a university for some time.\nI have now completed 5 years at university, graduating with a Bachelor of Mathematical and Computer Sciences with a Bachelor of Finance.\n","title":"Completing University","type":"other"},{"content":"The following is my solution a practice exam paper with the following brief\nAn important part of a data scientist’s toolbox is the ability to clean data. To assess your ability to do this, you are required to explain the key goals of data cleaning and how it is applied in tidymodels.\nWrite a brief report explaining data cleaning and how to apply it in tidymodels. The report should be less than two pages.\nData Cleaning # Why Data Cleaning # Cleaning data, removing skewness and outliers can result in significant increases in model performance. Some models, like tree based models, are not as affected by the irregularities of the underlying data as is a linear regression for example. It\u0026rsquo;s important then that the data cleaning is done with the chosen model in mind.\nReproducibility # All data cleaning steps should be reproducible. A simple way to record and create a reproducible set of actions is through a recipe in the R library tidymodels.\nMissing Data # Data may be missing from the dataset for a few reasons. We can define 2 types of missing data as missing at random (MAR) and missing completely at random (MCAR). MCAR is associated with the data collection process. When data has gone missing in this way, it is completely random and has no relation to any other feature. Assuming the features are missing completely at random, there are a number of ways of proceeding 1\nDiscard observations with any missing values. Rely on the learning algorithm to deal with missing values in its training phase. Impute all missing values before training. (1) is a good option if there is only a limited amount of missing data. We want to maximise the amount of data that can be used so this would not be a good choice if there is a large amount of missing data. (2) This only applies to some models and thus isn\u0026rsquo;t always an option (3) This is the most common option. An easy way to impute missing values is through replacing them with the mean or median of the non-missing values of that feature. Another alternative is to create a new model to predict the missing values of each feature. For example using the CART method. Once the data has been imputed it is treated as though it has been observed.\nActions that can be added to the recipe include step_meanimpute() for numerical variables or step_modeimpute() for categorical variables.\nVariable Conversion # When the dataset is first recieved it is also important to make sure the features are encoded properly. For example using the term in R as.numeric will convert a column to a numeric variable. Commonly, a feature of type \u0026lsquo;character\u0026rsquo; should be converted to a factor using the command mutate_if(is.character, factor).\nOther problems that may occur during this process could be a large number of factors or mis-labelled ones that can cause problems. For example 4wd and 4WD should be considered as the same factor. There may also be multiple sub-types that are not useful, or overcomplicate the analysis. For example front 6 and front 4 could both be considered front wheel drive in order to simplify the model. To do this we could use code like the following\ncars2010 %\u0026gt;% mutate( drive = case_when( str_detect(drive_desc, \u0026#34;Front\u0026#34;) ~ \u0026#34;front\u0026#34;, str_detect(drive_desc, \u0026#34;Rear\u0026#34;) ~ \u0026#34;rear\u0026#34;, TRUE ~ \u0026#34;4WD\u0026#34; ) ) This kind of strategy is also useful to fix data that has been entered incorrectly. One big problem that can occur during the data collection process is that data is entered differently or incorrectly to what it should be. For example if you have two different people that are typing in words like \u0026lsquo;Front WD\u0026rsquo; and \u0026lsquo;Front\u0026rsquo; as their input for \u0026lsquo;Front Wheel Drive\u0026rsquo;. This would lead to many different factors in R, that should be identical. This would need to be fixed in the data cleaning process, and can be done using the techniques displayed above.\nData Transformations # The model may also contain variables that are skewed or variables that are unstable for the model. In the case of skewness the box-cox method can be added to the recipe. The box-cox method identifies the best transformation of the data to minimise the skewness. This can be added to the recipe with step_BoxCox() Other transformations like centreing and scaling the data can also be useful, but also make the results more difficult to interpret as the units have been changed2. These can be added to the recipe with step_center() and step_scale(), but they can both be done in one step with step_normalize()\nT. Hastie, R. Tibshirani, and J. Friedman. The Elements of Statistical Learning. Springer, New York, 2009\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nM. Kuhn and K. Johnson. Applied Predictive Modeling. Springer, New York, 2013\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"25 November 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/other/blog-challenge-posts/20201127/","section":"Others","summary":"The following is my solution a practice exam paper with the following brief\nAn important part of a data scientist’s toolbox is the ability to clean data. To assess your ability to do this, you are required to explain the key goals of data cleaning and how it is applied in tidymodels.\n","title":"The Data Cleaning Process","type":"other"},{"content":"When elite sportspeople win their events, you can see the emotion in their eyes.\nI encourage you to watch the short video below.\nThis video is an incredible example of someone that has given everything they have to reach their goal.\nThe chase has finally paid off. They\u0026rsquo;ve done it.\nYears and years of hard work has finally paid off. Now, they bask in a wirlwind of emotions and the joy of victory.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s amazing to see people that overcome obstacles to win, and also to see people push the limits of human achievement.\nSo what? # Recently I was having a conversation with a friend about this topic.\nWe were sitting in a pub, watching some sport, and I asked him what would cause him to get that excited and emotional.\nWhat is he chasing at the moment that would give him that rush, and that taste of victory?\nAt the time my friend was actually pursuing a big goal, so he had a good answer.\nBut I didn\u0026rsquo;t.\nSo it got me thinking, why don\u0026rsquo;t I have some lofty goal that I am gunning for and trying to achieve. Why is my life so boring that I\u0026rsquo;m not chasing anything!\nBecause in my opinion, life is all about the chase.\nThe chase of gains in the gym.\nThe chase of learning.\nThe chase of a better life.\nSo I ask you, reader, what exactly are you chasing?\nWhat goal do you have that is so great and mightly that if you achieve it you would fall on your knees and begin to cry?\nWhat goal do you have that is so extraordinary that you will put in hard work for an extended period of time to achieve?\nWhat is your gold medal moment?\nI have found it very difficult to answer these questions. However, I know that answering them will provide meaning and purpose to my life that is unparalleled.\nSo I challenge you, reader. If you don\u0026rsquo;t already have a lofty goal that you are chasing, go out and get one!\nAfter all, the juice is almost always worth the squeeze.\n","date":"25 November 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/other/blog-challenge-posts/20201125/","section":"Others","summary":"When elite sportspeople win their events, you can see the emotion in their eyes.\nI encourage you to watch the short video below.\nThis video is an incredible example of someone that has given everything they have to reach their goal.\n","title":"Gold Medal Moments","type":"other"},{"content":"The infinite field of creativity.\nThree days ago, I set myself a challenge. To create one blog post for every day until the end of January. This would make 10 weeks of blog posting, 70 posts in total.\nDespite it being only 3 days. I have been reinvigorated with the prospect of creating.\nI\u0026rsquo;ve been thinking about all those times that I had created in the past, and how I excited I had been to create and release my work to the world.\nThe Creativity Experience # In my early high-school days I had a youtube channel with a friend, and we created videos of us playing Call of Duty. I remember being so excited to release a new video, looking forward to my creation going out into the world. Despite not getting many view at all (I think we had around 100-200 subscribers and about 10-100 views on each video) I enjoyed the process so much.\nI used to sit down and plan my youtube videos. At one stage I was recording myself playing this obscure game called Raze 2. I remember playing through the entire game and recording all of it, having my videos planned out for the weeks ahead. It was super exciting.\nI remembered back to when I was in a band in my later years of high school. I would sit down with my guitar and try to create music for our next album. Despite the fact that we didn\u0026rsquo;t have any fans or that my music was never really heard by anyone, I thoroughly enjoyed making music.\nEven now, as I write these posts, I am planning ahead, excited for what I can write about in the future. Excited to see the potential come to fruition.\nThe Creativity Trap # During school I was never any good at art. I was always more into numbers, science and technology. I was much better at these subjects too.\nI\u0026rsquo;m not sure how it happened by I think I mistook this poor performance in classes like art, to mean that I wasn\u0026rsquo;t very creative. That I couldn\u0026rsquo;t invent something exciting or new.\nAs I reflect on my experiences, I don\u0026rsquo;t think this is very true.\nThe Creativity Instinct # I wonder if there is something there, something that is inside us that enjoys creating.\nSomething that enjoys tapping into the infinite field of creativity, and finding something incredible.\nBecause even though no-one may be watching, it\u0026rsquo;s still worthwhile.\nI didn\u0026rsquo;t need people watching my youtube videos in 2012 to have fun.\nI didn\u0026rsquo;t need people listening to my songs in 2014 to have fun.\nAnd you certainly don\u0026rsquo;t need people watching you in order to get started.\nWe are all on a journey. Feel the rush, and CREATE!\n","date":"25 November 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/other/blog-challenge-posts/20201126/","section":"Others","summary":"The infinite field of creativity.\nThree days ago, I set myself a challenge. To create one blog post for every day until the end of January. This would make 10 weeks of blog posting, 70 posts in total.\n","title":"The Creativity Instinct","type":"other"},{"content":"So it begins.\nI\u0026rsquo;ve really wanted to step out of my comfort zone recently. In particular, I\u0026rsquo;ve wanted to start creating content vs just consuming.\nI see this challenge as my first step towards making this a habit.\nYou see, I\u0026rsquo;m just about to finish my university studies, and am facing yet another 10 week period where I don\u0026rsquo;t have much to do. This time, I\u0026rsquo;m going to make the most of it.\nEvery single year the summer holidays begin and I always have grand plans about what exactly I\u0026rsquo;m going to do. All these plans to create and learn, but they often never come to be as I\u0026rsquo;d hoped.\nI see this blog and content creation in general being that opportunity to flex this creativity muscle, and get myself into a creative mindset, rather than just mindlessly consuming information.\nSo TODAY marks the beginning of this journey.\nMy plans for the next 10 weeks will be as follows\nUpdate the main blog section every day with my progress and adjusted aims Create at least one Youtube Video per week (minimum 10 across the 10 weeks) Learn Stuff! Docker is something people in Dev-ops use that I want to learn more about: Docker in a Day Functional Programming. My friend has started a functional programming meetup that I\u0026rsquo;ve been attending. It\u0026rsquo;s time to learn about how that stuff actually works I never did Mathematical Analysis at University so I\u0026rsquo;m really keen to learn some of the basics from here and here It\u0026rsquo;s not an exhaustive list, and it won\u0026rsquo;t take up my entire holidays, but these courses I think will be both interesting and useful to go through.\nOne thing that I really want to focus on overall is this idea of creation. Going through these courses or whatever it is that I might be doing needs to be accompanied with some form of documentation so that I can produce some content. This creation is how I will learn more and get the most out of these experiences.\nAfter all, almost everyone I look up to on social media or in real life is a producer. People I aspire to be like all produce content on a regular basis. This is what I will do these holidays.\n","date":"23 November 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/other/blog-challenge-posts/20201123/","section":"Others","summary":"So it begins.\nI’ve really wanted to step out of my comfort zone recently. In particular, I’ve wanted to start creating content vs just consuming.\nI see this challenge as my first step towards making this a habit.\n","title":"A New Start | 23 Nov, 2020","type":"other"},{"content":" What is Kubernetes? Post about the Seth Godin podcast on Tom Bilyeu? Routines The power of walking as cardio nature of innovation Efficiency vs stability FIRE the best mindset how does afterpay make money? University GPA (does it matter?) Japanese housing crash placebo effect ","date":"23 November 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/other/blog-challenge-posts/ideas/","section":"Others","summary":" What is Kubernetes? Post about the Seth Godin podcast on Tom Bilyeu? Routines The power of walking as cardio nature of innovation Efficiency vs stability FIRE the best mindset how does afterpay make money? University GPA (does it matter?) Japanese housing crash placebo effect ","title":"A New Start | 23 Nov, 2020","type":"other"},{"content":"So you\u0026rsquo;ve decided on your model for your dataset. How can we now go and see how good that model is?\nMaybe we can find the error rate for our training set, or the error from our test set.\nA better way to test the error of the model is through cross-validation.\nCross Validation (The Elements of Statistical Learning, Friedman) First we begin by partitioning the data up into $K$ sets of approximately equal size. Then for the $k$th part, we fit the model to the other $K-1$ parts and calculate the prediction error. This processes is completed for all $K$ sets.\nThere is a special case of cross validation where we have that $K = N$. That is, the number of sets is equal to the number of data points. We would therefore be leaving one item out in each training/prediction cycle. That is why this is known as Leave One Out Cross Validation (LOOCV).\nThis LOOCV is often not used because\nwe have to fit the model N times so it is very computationally expensive The models will be very similar which means we will have high correlation between samples and therefore high variance of the estimates It\u0026rsquo;s much more convenient to choose $K=5$ or $K=10$ for the cross validation. Although the accuracy of the estimate may be less since we are using less sets, the variance of the estimate will also be lower. This trade-off between bias and variance is known as the bias-variance tradeoff.\nBootstrap # One other very interesting statistical technique that is used to measure the accuracy of estimators or methods is the bootstrap.\nImagine we have a set of $N$ data points. We then create multiple sub-samples by sampling $N$ points from the main data set with replacement. So that means when we choose something from the set, we can choose that item again.\nWhat happens then is we have created our bootstrap samples.\nA quick look at the mathematics with proof here shows that about 63% of the data points will be contained at least once in each of the new samples.\nA very useful aspect to this bootstrap method means we can now calculate and get information about relevant statistics.\nFor example using the sample we can usually get a mean and standard deviation with no problems. Now, with the bootstrap, we can calculate the standard error for other statistics such as the median, which normally isn\u0026rsquo;t possible.\nWe can do this by getting the mean median for each bootstrap sample, and then calculating the standard deviation in the usual way.\nConclusion # I learnt the material for this blog post as part of my studies in Data Science at the University of Adelaide. The final exam will be completed on Friday the 27th of November! My last University exam ever.\n","date":"23 November 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/other/blog-challenge-posts/20201124/","section":"Others","summary":"So you’ve decided on your model for your dataset. How can we now go and see how good that model is?\nMaybe we can find the error rate for our training set, or the error from our test set.\n","title":"Data Science: Estimating Model Performance. Cross Validation and the Bootstrap","type":"other"},{"content":"Quick Links to my favourite posts\nGym Principles in Life 52 Books in a Year The Hero\u0026rsquo;s Journey You Will NEVER have Time Completing University Automating Homebrew Updates with Cron This is the homepage for my blog challenge over the summer break. My aim is to have a new blog post every single day (for 10 weeks). The last post will be made on the 31st of January, 2021.\nSome will be good, some will be bad. What\u0026rsquo;s most important to me is creating on a regular basis.\nThere are a few rules!\nNo minimum post length Posts must be written before or on the relevant day - no retrospectives Posts will relate to anything I am working on or what is going on in my life at that time The posts are listed in descending order below.\nSubscribe to my email list below\nSubscribeBuilt with ConvertKit Final Post - Wrap up and Reflections # Week 10: 25th January - 31st January # Week 9: 18th January - 24th January # 19 Jan, 2021: Leaving Gains On The Table\n18 Jan, 2021: Personality Changes\nWeek 8: 11th January - 17th January # 17 Jan, 2021: Thinking of Ideas\n16 Jan, 2021: Questions First\n15 Jan, 2021: I\u0026rsquo;ll be happy when\n14 Jan, 2021: How to Stay Motivated\n13 Jan, 2021: Show Your Work\n12 Jan, 2021: The Best Mindset\n11 Jan, 2021: A Clean Room is a Clean Mind\nWeek 7: 4th January - 10th January # 10 Jan, 2021: Politics\n9 Jan, 2021: The Halo Effect\n8 Jan, 2021: Life is a journey, not a destination\n7 Jan, 2021: Is Meat Bad for You?\n6 Jan, 2021: The Pursuit Of Happiness\n5 Jan, 2021: Risk Taking and Success\n4 Jan, 2021: Why Read Books\nWeek 6: 28th December - 3rd January # 3 Jan, 2021: 2 Lessons from 2020\n2 Jan, 2021: Who do I have to become to achieve this?\n1 Jan, 2021: New Year - New Me\n31 Dec, 2020: 52 Books in a Year\n30 Dec, 2020: 3 People at Dinner\n29 Dec, 2020: What You Think You Deserve\n28 Dec, 2020: Automating Homebrew Upgrade with Cron\nWeek 5: 21st December - 27th December # 27 Dec, 2020: Too Much Information\n26 Dec, 2020: Alcohol and Learning\n25 Dec, 2020: Merry Christmas!\n24 Dec, 2020: Addictive Emotions\n23 Dec, 2020: Sunrise Alarm Clocks\n22 Dec, 2020: Benefits of Fasting\n21 Dec, 2020: What is an Operating System?\nWeek 4: 14th December - 20th December # 20 Dec, 2020: Operation Systems fork() Method\n19 Dec, 2020: The Little Prince\n18 Dec, 2020: What is Docker?\n17 Dec, 2020: Trajectories\n16 Dec, 2020: The Ride Of A Lifetime - Review\n15 Dec, 2020: What makes an Entrepreneur?\n14 Dec, 2020: When is the time not appropriate for students to study?\nWeek 3: 7th December - 13th December # 13 Dec, 2020: Gym Principles in Life\n12 Dec, 2020: That Will Never Work - Netflix (Book Lessons)\n11 Dec, 2020: Progression\n10 Dec, 2020: Are We Living in a Simulation?\n9 Dec, 2020: Interesting Number Paradox\n8 Dec, 2020: The Hero\u0026rsquo;s Journey\n7 Dec, 2020: Basics of TCP\nWeek 2: 30st November - 6th December # 6 Dec, 2020: Basics of BASH\n5 Dec, 2020: Non-Linear Nature of Progress\n4 Dec, 2020: Is Windows Bad for Programming?\n4 Dec, 2020: Keep Moving Forward\n2 Dec, 2020: Continuous Improvement - University Grades\n1 Dec, 2020: What is a Decision Tree - Exam Solution\n30 Nov, 2020: You Will NEVER have Time\nWeek 1: 23rd - 29th November # 29 Nov, 2020: Take In Every Moment\n28 Nov, 2020: Completing University\n27 Nov, 2020: The Data Cleaning Process\n26 Nov, 2020: The Creativity Instinct\n25 Nov, 2020: Gold Medal Moments\n24 Nov, 2020: Data Science: Estimating Model Performance. Cross Validation and the Bootstrap\n23 Nov, 2020: A New Start\n","date":"23 November 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/blog-challenge/","section":"Writing","summary":"Quick Links to my favourite posts\nGym Principles in Life 52 Books in a Year The Hero’s Journey You Will NEVER have Time Completing University Automating Homebrew Updates with Cron This is the homepage for my blog challenge over the summer break. My aim is to have a new blog post every single day (for 10 weeks). The last post will be made on the 31st of January, 2021.\n","title":"Blog Challenge","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ever since I wrote my first program, I\u0026rsquo;ve been interested in computer systems and computer programming. One thing that I felt was missing from my computer knowledge was that deeper understanding of computers. At university I had only taken subjects relating to Algorithms, Data Structures and Problem Solving, but never things like Computer Architecture, Networking or Operating Systems.\nRecently, I embarked on a mission to solve this problem.\nOutline # Outline What Was the Challenge? {#challenge} Motivation Why did I decide to do this? {#decide} What did I learn? {#learn} What would I do differently? {#different} Should you do this? {#you} What Was the Challenge? # In order to learn these missing pieces of my computer knowledge, I decided to go through the entirety of CS162 in a single week. CS162 is an ~18 week course on Operating Systems offered at the University of Berkeley. Completing this course would give me a great understanding of how Operating Systems work and give me a deeper insight into what happens when I run various programs.\nFortunately for me, the course materials and lectures are all available for free online (course material, lectures).\nI was aiming to complete this course during the last week of my university holidays. That is, an 18 week course in only 1 week. This was going to happen with a few constraints\nI don\u0026rsquo;t need to complete the projects I will sit the final exam on the last Sunday of the week Motivation # In order to really motivate myself, I created a contract with my brother. The contract stated that I was to sit the final exam on Sunday the 26th of July and if I didn\u0026rsquo;t achieve a passing mark (50%), then I would donate a sum of money to charity. If I didn\u0026rsquo;t sit the exam at all then I would need to pay an even bigger sum.\nI don\u0026rsquo;t suggest this motivation technique for everything but it definitely has it\u0026rsquo;s place. For me, I knew that having this social pressure to learn would help me to learn much more over the week than I would have if I just tried to learn on my own. There are some sites that will do this for you automatically like Beeminder\nWhy did I decide to do this? # The first and most obvious reason of why I did this is that I have a high level of interest in learning, and I thought that learning about Operating Systems would be both useful and interesting. Interesing in the sense that I would have a better understanding of computers and useful in that when I begin my first job at ANZ next year, I\u0026rsquo;d love to get involved with some programming there. My idea is that having background like this will make it easier to learn new tools and to have a much more well rounded view of computer systems.\nAnother reason why I wanted to try this was to see how much I could learn in a week. I recently read the book \u0026ldquo;Ultralearning\u0026rdquo; by Scott Young. A few years ago, Scott undertook what he calls the MIT Challenge. He did an entire MIT 4 year degree both in one year, and using material available for free online.\nThis inspired me to also undertake something similar. I\u0026rsquo;ve got a massive stack of online courses that I want to do some day, but this presented a great opportunity to try one out and see how I\u0026rsquo;d go.\nWhat did I learn? # So now on to the actual fun stuff, what did I actually learn. Well to put it simply, the course and learning didn\u0026rsquo;t pan out like I had expected.\nI began the first few days by reading the relevant text books for the course and taking notes. This strategy was working really well in terms of learning, but not so well in terms of speed. In order to get through the course, I\u0026rsquo;d have to go through much quicker.\nAt this point I changed tack and began watching the lectures on 2x speed. This was a fairly decent strategy, however as I got closer to the end, I realised I was still going to fall short of watching all the lectures. 26 lectures at 1:30 each takes quite a while! (Surprisingly 3x speed didn\u0026rsquo;t really help me that much).\nSo in the end I realistically made my way about 50% of the way through the course.\nI successfully learnt about things like:\nKernel Abstraction Dual Mode Operation OS Scheduling techniques The fork() method Locks Process and Threads Virtualisation of memory These things are super interesting and I am very happy I spent the time learning them.\nWhat would I do differently? # In hindsight there are a few things that I would change.\nObviously the main problem that I encountered was that I wanted to get through the entire course in the week and I didn\u0026rsquo;t manage to do that. I don\u0026rsquo;t think that came down to the amount of work specifically, I think the mistakes were mostly down to a lack of awareness and planning.\nMy initial stages of reading the textbooks rather than watching lectures was a good initial strategy, but I also think the lectures provided adequate explanations and were more time efficient. If I had this challenge again, I\u0026rsquo;d stick to the lectures where possible and only use the textbook for further clarification when needed.\nI also think I didn\u0026rsquo;t plan for this as well as I could have. I underestimated the amount of work I would have to do and perhaps started a bit too confident in my learning abilities. One thing I would do next time would be to plan ahead more. Me spending 4-6 hours a days trying to learn meant I could only get through so much material in a day, when in reality, I had a lot to get through and need to spend more time if I was going to get through everything.\nShould you do this? # Overall I think this experience was worthwhile. While I didn\u0026rsquo;t complete the course like I had imagined, I still focussed more than I would have had it not been for the challenge. Sometimes when you have a week to do nothing, the week can quickly fade into a slump week. I am very happy that my week had purpose and I was able to gain something from it.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s unrealistic to expect a full time employee to commit a week of solid work to a course like this. I am really lucky to be in university and to have this free time. It\u0026rsquo;s much more likely that someone would undertake these courses in their spare time after work or on weekends. I think that while learning is good, it\u0026rsquo;s also important to have something to show for it. One thing I would recommend is to make sure you use the course to create something, be that a blog post like this or a project that you can create that will showcase your understanding of the topic. Without this, your new knowledge isn\u0026rsquo;t as useful.\nOnline learning is something that will become much more common in the future, and it\u0026rsquo;s amazing that we have such resources like MITOCW and these courses from Berkeley available for free. I\u0026rsquo;d highly recommend finding something that interests you and diving in. Also be careful though about window shopping for courses. Sometimes you can feel like you are learning when you are just finding lists of courses to try one day. It\u0026rsquo;s important to remember that the actual work comes in doing the course, not just looking at the outside or watching the intro videos.\nEven if it\u0026rsquo;s not this specific course that I took, I think using your free time to learn new things is a great idea. I am really happy about what I learnt during this week and no doubt will be sitting through some more online courses in the future.\n","date":"23 August 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/completing-cs162/","section":"Writing","summary":"Ever since I wrote my first program, I’ve been interested in computer systems and computer programming. One thing that I felt was missing from my computer knowledge was that deeper understanding of computers. At university I had only taken subjects relating to Algorithms, Data Structures and Problem Solving, but never things like Computer Architecture, Networking or Operating Systems.\n","title":"Challenge: CS162 in 1 Week","type":"posts"},{"content":"View my video about this topic below.\nNavigation # Why Typing Speed is Important {#imp} Increasing Your Speed {#inc} Alternate Keyboard Layouts {#layouts} Practice! {#prac} Summary {#S} Imagine being able to type twice as fast as you can now.\nImagine being able to type as fast as you can speak.\nOne day I was with a friend and we were doing some work together. I noticed that his typing speed was incredibly fast, so I asked him about how he managed to do it.\nThis article will show you what it takes to increase your typing speed, and the exact methods to do so.\nWhy Typing Speed is Important # Typing speed is something that almost never gets spoken about, yet it is so vital to our use of computers. Every day, many of us spend 8+ hours in front of a computer screen, with the vast majority of that time spent either reading or typing.\nWith this being the case, if you are at all interested in efficiency in front of computers, then increasing your typing speed will be very useful.\nBeing able to type\nFast with minimal mistakes without looking at your hands is something that will carry over through your entire career and working life. That is, until we no longer need to type at all (probably not far away).\nIncreasing Your Speed # Most people can type between 30-50 words per minute. Someone that types \u0026lsquo;fast\u0026rsquo; should really be anywhere from 80wpm+.\nThe first step in increasing your speed is to make sure that your hands and fingers are in the correct position.\nQWERTY Finger Layout See the above image. Each colour represents the keys that each finger should touch. For example your left pinky should only be touching the letters Q, A and Z. Your left middle finger should only be pressing E, D and C.\nBefore I improved at typing, I was using my right index finger to hit a wide variety of keys. This is grossly inefficient and means that you need to lift your hands up and move them every time you want to touch a new key.\nA very easy way to improve this delay is to make sure that all of your fingers partitipate in pressing the keys. Spreading the work out amongst all of your fingers means that your hands move less overall, and you will be able to type faster.\nAlternate Keyboard Layouts # Continuing on with the \u0026lsquo;moving hands less\u0026rsquo; theme, there exists a number of alternate keyboard layouts that aim to reduce this time.\nA sample of these can be seen here https://www.keybr.com/layouts\nQWERTY Frequency Here we can see the QWERTY layout. The size of the purple balls represents the frequency of each letter.\nAn optimal layout will mean that the hands must move a minimal distance. Typically this can be measured by the use of the \u0026lsquo;home row\u0026rsquo;. The home row is the middle row of the keyboard, that is, the row to the right of the caps lock button. Keys on this row require less movement, and so it makes sense to have the most common letters there.\nA major problem with QWERTY is that this is not the case. Letters like E, T and O, all require decent hand movement. This is not optimal from a speed perspective, and also the wear it can place on your hands over time. This problem stems from the fact that QWERTY was originally made for typewriters so that the keys wouldn\u0026rsquo;t get jammed. It has no relation to optimal typing speed.\nConsider the alternative layout that I am using, the Colemak layout.\nColemak Frequency On this keyboard, the most common letters are placed on the home row. This means that my fingers and hands need to move a minimal amount of distance to press each key.\nThere are some problems with these new layouts. First, they take a while to learn. It took me a few weeks to get decent with Colemak, to the point where I felt comfortable typing.\nThe second is that of keyboard shortcuts, in particular terminal use. Fortunately on Colemak, C and V are in the same position as QWERTY which makes copying and pasting very easy. However some other commands are much harder. For example the (h,j,k,l) navigation on vim is not in the same place so that would need to be modified. Other basic commands like cd and ls are easier on a QWERTY keyboard. This is something to keep in mind.\nPractice! # The final step in your typing speed journey is that of actual practice!\nI use 2 different sites to practice.\nThe first is https://www.keybr.com/\nThis site will get you much better at typing common phrases like \u0026rsquo;tion\u0026rsquo; etc. I found the statistics and ability to track my progress to be very rewarding.\nSome sites get you to type random letters with no clear reason why. I\u0026rsquo;ve seen sites that get you to type phrases like \u0026rsquo;luy\u0026rsquo; or \u0026lsquo;qwf\u0026rsquo;. There is almost no point in learning these, so Keybr does an excellent job at making this practial adjustment.\nThe second site is https://10fastfingers.com/\nI prefer Keybr, but 10 fastfingers has an important feature that I use. That is, the 10 minute test. You can create a custom test that lasts for 10 minutes, which will really help with your endurance. Another added benefit is that, on this site, you are typing actual words and not just shortened versions.\nSummary # To summarise, the process to getting better at typing is as follows.\nrealise your hand positions and make sure that your fingers are pressing the correct keys consider changing to a different layout to improve efficency Practice! I hope these tips helped. If you have any questions or addidions please email me at jamesfricker98@gmail.com\n","date":"5 July 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/increase-your-typing-speed/","section":"Writing","summary":"View my video about this topic below.\nNavigation # Why Typing Speed is Important {#imp} Increasing Your Speed {#inc} Alternate Keyboard Layouts {#layouts} Practice! {#prac} Summary {#S} Imagine being able to type twice as fast as you can now.\n","title":"Increase Your Typing Speed","type":"posts"},{"content":" Navigation # Introduction Lessons I Learnt Books I Read Things I Bought Introduction # What a month we have had in March. In Adelaide, March is comically called ‘Mad March’ as we have several festivals and car races in our city. This Mad March was ‘Mad’ for much more than that.\nThis month we have seen COVID19 take over large parts of Europe, the US and Asia. Measures have been put in place to protect people and slow the rate of transmission. These measures have effectively left most people locked inside their houses and will no doubt have very large impacts in the months to come.\nCOVID-19 is not only a lethal virus, it has also caused the markets to crash. The ASX200 has dropped from approx 7000 points at the end of January to below 5000 and approaching 4500 near the end of March. Aside from the virus itself, the crash has dumped even more stress onto those with large super accounts and savings as well as heaping large pressure onto small businesses.\nIn this testing time, I hope all of you can try to find some positives and continue to make the world a better place. Now that people are at home more, we can spend more time with family and more time just with ourselves. I encourage you to make the most of this time and use it to bring your families closer.\nLessons I Learnt # Dopamine Control # Alex Becker - This Rewired My Brain To Be Successful (Game Changer)\nhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLLTFy7LtRc\nI first watched this video by Alex Becker earlier this month, and saw the concept rehashed by other youtubers. This concept is that of dopamine control.\nDopamine is that chemical that your brain produces for motivation. When something feels good, dopamine will tell your body to keep doing it.\nThis is really good for us, but also not so good in a number of ways. For example when you use your phone, you likely get some notifications and interactions that make you feel really good. This, in turn, makes you want to use your phone even more. When you watch Netflix, you enjoy it and thus want to continue.\nThis principle was seen in the classic rat experiment. In this experiment the rat is provided with two levers, one for cocaine (as a massive dopamine hit) and the other as food. The rat will learn to press the cocaine levers so much that it eventually doesn’t eat and dies.\nThe power of your dopamine responses can literally overpower basic functions.\nThis is what is happening with your phone and other exciting apps or devices.\nSo how can we turn this around to use our dopamine for good?\nThe solution is to minimise the use of phones and exciting apps to the point where your actual work becomes the dopamine hit. When you get a dopamine spike from writing an article or reading a textbook, then you can do these things and find enjoyment in them.\nThis will make you insanely productive.\nSo what I have done, is to limit phone use until later in the day. That is, I don’t look at my phone until I’ve done heaps of work or absolutely necessary. Usually my phone won’t be turned on until after 3pm. This means I can get 6+ hours of work in before my dopamine gets hijacked.\nI have been using a ‘burner phone’ as my device to listen to audiobooks early in the mornings. This phone has nothing on it except the audiobook players like iBooks and audible. This means I can get some benefits of phone use, without being exposed to a big stream of emails and other push notifications.\nSo far I’ve found great success with this and I recommend you give it a shot.\nKey Takeaways # Use your phone and other high dopamine activities as little as possible Don’t forget to eat Creating the Shadow # Jordan Peterson - How to Develop your Shadow https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBet_lgh4wc\nCreating the Shadow is something I’ve come across from Jordan Peterson who I believe compounded on the idea from Carl Jung.\nYour ‘shadow’ is essentially the dark side to your persona. It can do things you didn’t know you were capable of. Very bad things.\nYou see, all heroes are only heroes because they could cause massive destruction if they wished, but they don’t, so they gain the respect of people. For example, Superman could destroy most of Metropolis if he wished and yet he chooses to be good. It is his ability to be bad if he wanted to, that makes him good.\nIn the same way, you can cultivate your shadow. You can develop the mean and nasty part of yourself with the understanding that you must do that to defend yourself properly.\nKey Takeaways # Don’t be afraid of dark thoughts - they are necessary Become someone capable of evil (but be good) Books I Read # Hard Times Create Strong Men - Stefan Aarnio # This book was pretty insane. I can tell just by listening that this man is an absolute savage.\nThis book was about men in the world today, and how most of them are pussies. Men today can no longer stand up for what they believe in, they give up too easily and can’t take feedback.\nStefan argues this cycle of good times create weak men which create hard times which create strong men. I also believe this to be true.\nHe goes on the say that the US is currently in a big state of decline and it wouldn’t be surprising to him if it crashed and burned in the next 50 years. I also agree with him.\nReading this book, Stefan became a bit of an inspiration to me. To do hard things, become a strong man and take control of your life. I was amazed when he says that he undertook 18 day fasts in a secluded area where he wrote this entire book plus more. This is something I hadn’t considered before, and one day I will try it (maybe not for that long though).\nKey Takeaways # Find ways to be a strong man is today\u0026rsquo;s world Watch for ways that the Western World is falling The Dip - Seth Godin # This book is about that time when you are learning something that becomes hard, and you aren’t sure if you should continue. These things that are required to take your career and life to the next level, but are really difficult. This is called ‘The Dip’.\nSeth says that the dip can be really hard to get through, but is well worth it. In some cases the dip can be very difficult which is why Seth goes on to say that when picking projects you should only begin those things that you can become the best in the world at. Seth goes on to share essentially the 80/20 rule, where people at the top get exponentially more than those in the middle.\nKey takeaways # Hard things all have a dip - something you must get over Only do things you can be the best in the world at The Winner Effect - Ian Robertson # The winner effect is one of those books that has such a cool idea but is executed somewhat poorly. I really would’ve got more out of the book if I didn’t get bored of it through the middle and end.\nThe winner effect is all about winning and how that impacts you. In sports, typically the home team wins. Robertson argues that this is because they have the home crowd, which raises their testosterone more than the opponents.\nPeople who are winning are more likely to win again. In boxing, the term ‘Tomato Can’ is given to a fighter that is sent into the ring to give his opponent an easy win. This easy win will cause the better fighter to gain some momentum and make his next win more likely. This was seen with Mike Tyson, who had a run of losses and was set up against a Tomato Can. This easy win then sent Typson on to winning his next few fights.\nThe same thing applies in social situations. When you can’t seem to get a word into a conversation and you feel more nervous than usual, it’s likely that your winner effect is down. To combat this, you should seek to get involved in small easy ways, which will boost your winner effect and allow you to be more involved later.\nKey Takeaways # Winners keep winning - create winning situations in your life Keep testosterone high to increase chances of winning The Magic Of Thinking Big - David Schwarz # “Got a good idea? Then do something about it.” - D Schwarz\nThis book is all about believing in yourself and what you are capable of. When people offer you opportunities, it is easy to say no and continue your normal way of life. What you need to realise is that there are opportunities all around you, and when you get offered something, to take it with both hands. Believe in what you can do, and good things will follow. I see a lot of parallels in this book with ‘Mindset’ - Carol Dweck and ‘Think and Grow Rich’ - Napoleon Hill. Believing you can do something is always the first step to actually getting it.\nKey Takeaways # Believe in yourself Take opportunities when they are presented Never Eat Alone - Keith Ferrazi # This book is all about connections. How to make them and how to use them to get what you want, without being sleazy. Keith is a master networker, and has had instances of networking through his entire life. ‘It’s not what you know but who you know’ is a massive theme throughout this book, it is clear through Keiths life that many opportunities are not available to people simply because they don’t have the right connections. Therefore, making and sustaining these connections is extremely important if you’d like to get what you want.\nKey Takeaways # Stay in touch with as many people as possible Make sure to periodically check in with those people you know but don’t see often Create container events to meet more people Work and personal life doesn’t need to be seperated Things I Bought # Focus Mate # I recently bought the ‘turbo’ version of FocusMate. This is a website that allows you to work with others through a video call. This premium version allows you to book unlimited time slots.\nThis site has been a game-changer for me. Since COVID19 has me working at home rather than university, having someone to work with is amazing.\nThe best part about the call is that at the beginning of each chat, you each outline what it is you aim to get done in the next 50 minutes. You then do what you need to do, and at the end you come back together to review what you got done.\nEven thinking about what you would like to do is something that gets easily lost, and has allowed me to get so much more work done than had I been doing it myself with no help.\nHighly recommended.\n","date":"31 March 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/march-newsletter/","section":"Writing","summary":"Navigation # Introduction Lessons I Learnt Books I Read Things I Bought Introduction # What a month we have had in March. In Adelaide, March is comically called ‘Mad March’ as we have several festivals and car races in our city. This Mad March was ‘Mad’ for much more than that.\n","title":"March Newsletter","type":"posts"},{"content":" Navigation # Meetings Focussed Work Data Quality Data Process My Work Summary At the start of this year, I began my first internship as a Data Scientist. I was offered this role by the RAA, one of South Australia\u0026rsquo;s largest companies.\nThe RAA does many things, the main thing it is known for in South Australia is it\u0026rsquo;s road service program, where the RAA vans will come out to help you if you and your car run into a tricky situation. The RAA also offers a number of home insurance options, and now they are branching into travel planning and agency services.\nThe newly reformed travel section of the RAA was where much of my focus was during my weeks in the business.\nThe Interns (I\u0026rsquo;m on the right) What Did I Learn? # My supervisor asked me on my final day, how I would summarise my internship, and I honestly struggled to find an answer. I learnt a LOT, and most of this wasn\u0026rsquo;t to do with data.\nMeetings # As part of any business, people attend lots of meetings. My experience was no different. I attended and organised many meetings, and there were many aspects to this process that I will take into meetings in the future.\nMeetings can easily turn into a big waste of time, so setting a clear direction for the meeting beforehand is very important. Tracking the meeting using minutes, and setting actions for people during and after the meeting is also a great way to hold people accountable, and to ensure the project gets finished on time.\nThis process can be easily applied to my university meetings, to make them more efficient. One really important part for me, is that people who are more prone to not getting stuff done, can be held accountable.\nThis meeting process doesn\u0026rsquo;t have to happen only during meetings with other people either. I feel that this process of setting an intention and accountability can be easily transferred to our own lives. Setting an intention for what you want to do and when you want to do it by, with some form of accountability, is exactly how good habits and progress are made.\nFocussed Work # After reading books like Deep Work and Hyperfocus, I have a real strong connected with highly-focussed work. I try my best to integrate this style of work into my university study as I feel that I can get so much more done when I am in the zone.\nOne thing that I noticed while working is that this level of concentration seems to be very rarely achieved by people. This may have been RAA specific due to their open place and hot-desking situation, but I feel that other companies would also run into this problem. Constant meetings and coffee runs have such a big impact on how much work someone can do in a certain time frame, and this absolutely has an impact on overall productivity.\nI understand it can be difficult to fit these times for deep work into a work day, but I also feel like businesses are missing out on a huge productivity boost by not making this more of a focus. For example, the way I structure my uni day is to arrive at 8am, to do focussed work until around 12-1, and then relax, watch lectures and begin to wind down. Businesses could easily take a similar approach by setting loose rules like \u0026rsquo;no meetings before 12pm\u0026rsquo; or similar. This allows people to really get the most out of their day by having set times for focussed productivity.\nThere may be some limitations to this approach as it\u0026rsquo;s really only knowledge workers that gain from this. The HR department for example doesn\u0026rsquo;t have nearly as much use for deep work time as the Data and Analytics area for example.\nme practicing for our group presentation on Reward and Recognition software Data Quality # Another problem that I hadn\u0026rsquo;t really been exposed to before this internship was that of Data Quality. If someone like me wants to complete some analysis on some data, it is super important that the data is correct, and there is as much of it as possible.\nThe travel data that we were using had a number of errors throughout, these errors meant less data could be used, and the data that was being used may still have some mistakes. These were mainly due to consultants inputting the data, having free text fields to put their information in.\nFree text is a Big No No!\nFree text makes it a nightmare to match data, as people often have different styles of inputting. Data Quality issues generally stem from the input source, so maximising the quality of the data really starts from the collection process.\nData Process # The full data process is something that I had heard about but didn\u0026rsquo;t really have a full grasp of. The data process involves the full process of collection, storing and using the data.\nOne big area is that of data engineering. Collecting data and placing it in a database in such a way that it is easy to access for people like me is a very important part of a business. SQL in particular is something that I hadn\u0026rsquo;t really been exposed to at all before, and now I realise how much of a vital role it plays in business, particularly in one of the size of the RAA. This is definitely an area I would love to learn more about.\nMy Work # So now we\u0026rsquo;ve gone through all the things that I\u0026rsquo;ve learnt, it\u0026rsquo;s time to get into what I actually did.\nI was tasked with creating a model to predict a members next travel destination. I did this using software called \u0026lsquo;Knime\u0026rsquo;. It makes the entire data science process very easy to understand for those with no programming background. It\u0026rsquo;s really popular at the RAA, so that\u0026rsquo;s what I created my model in.\na Knime example I was going to use machine learning to create my prediction, so I needed to find all the variables I thought would have some correlations to someones travel destination, and use those in my model.\nI\u0026rsquo;m not sure how much detail I can go into so I won\u0026rsquo;t give out what data and columns I used. In the end though, I created a model to predict a members next travel destination with 70% accuracy. Not too bad.\nSome limitations I had were that there weren\u0026rsquo;t many people in the database, and that each person only had a limited number of trips. These together made it hard to predict exact destinations, so I ended up predicting their travel region instead.\nI used a Gradient Boosting model, which was really cool. This led me down the path of learning about XGBoost, and how gradient boosting algorithms actually work.\nSummary # Overall, I learnt heaps about businesses, how they operate, and the role that data plays. I learnt heaps about what roles a data scientist can do, and this has me really excited for the future.\nThanks for reading! If you\u0026rsquo;d like to contact me please hit me up on Linkedin, or email me at jamesfricker98@gmail.com\n","date":"22 February 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/my-first-data-science-internship/","section":"Writing","summary":"Navigation # Meetings Focussed Work Data Quality Data Process My Work Summary At the start of this year, I began my first internship as a Data Scientist. I was offered this role by the RAA, one of South Australia’s largest companies.\n","title":"My First Data Science Internship","type":"posts"},{"content":"I created a Sudoku Solver. You can view the app here.\nThere are a few important aspects of the program I thought it would be useful to talk about. These are the general process of solving a board, as well as the process of creating a board to be solved.\nSolving a Sudoku # The method that I used in this case is the backtracking method.\nSudoku is a very good game to demonstrate this algorithm. When you play sudoku, you often run into the situation where a cell may contain more than one possible value. This is a problem, and is solved by backtracking. In this situation, the algorithm will place one of the possibilities in the cell, and continue to solve the sudoku. When it reaches a contradictory position, it will walk back to one of these situations with multiple possibilities, choose the next possibility and continue.\nThis process repeats until all the cells of the sudoku are filled.\nFurther reading: https://www.101computing.net/backtracking-algorithm-sudoku-solver/\nCreating a Sudoku Problem # Another problem I came across is that of creating a sudoku to be solved. I found that there are many different ways to do this, but I have chosen a fairly simple method.\nSwitching rows and columns will not affect the ability to find a solution of the sudoku. However this only occurs if you switch rows and columns in each set of 3, for example switching rows 1-3, 4-6 and 7-9. These rows and columns can be randomly switched to generate a problem.\nFirst a sudoku is solved, in my case I just solve an empty sudoku. Next the rows and columns in each group of 3 are switched randomly to create a new solution. The final step is to pick n different numbers to be displayed as the problem. This creates a valid and likely unique starting sudoku for the person to solve.\nOther methods can include testing for a unique board, and taking the solution where there is only one possible solution, rather than many. This method can create situations where if one number was taken from the board, the sudoku would be unsolvable.\nI found this link to be very helpful: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/6924216/how-to-generate-sudoku-boards-with-unique-solutions/7280517\nThere are many different possibilities with sudoku! I hope you learned something from my post.\n","date":"16 February 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/sudoku-solver/","section":"Writing","summary":"I created a Sudoku Solver. You can view the app here.\nThere are a few important aspects of the program I thought it would be useful to talk about. These are the general process of solving a board, as well as the process of creating a board to be solved.\n","title":"Sudoku Solver","type":"posts"},{"content":" YouTube | 2019- # I post YouTube videos occasionally.\nRBA Rate Watch | 2026- # See the market-implied forecast and interest rate probabilities for upcoming RBA meetings.\nTable Topics Simulator | 2024 # Simulate a Toastmasters Table Topics Experience.\nGraduate Theory | 2021-2022 # Podcast to discover common early career advice and it\u0026rsquo;s applications\nChess AI | 2020 # The AI will play chess against the player. The game can be setup to watch the computer play against itself.\nSudoku Solver | 2020 # The site will generate and solve Sudoku puzzles using the backtracking method.\nModelling Wine Data with XGBoost in R - Report | 2020 # This report was completed in Semester 1, 2020 as part of \u0026lsquo;Statistical Modelling III\u0026rsquo; at the UofA. Allowed a maximum of 8 pages, the report details the XGBoost model and how I used it to model wine data. The aim was to produce a model that could predict wine quality the best. I produced one of the best models in the class.\nCryptanalysis of the Vigenere Cipher - Report | 2019 # The report explains the process of decrypting a Vigenere Cipher, submitted as a University subject called \u0026lsquo;Cryptography III\u0026rsquo; in Semester 2, 2019. The subject taught about different cryptographic techniques and how they are used today.\n","date":"2 February 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/projects/","section":"James Fricker","summary":"YouTube | 2019- # I post YouTube videos occasionally.\nRBA Rate Watch | 2026- # See the market-implied forecast and interest rate probabilities for upcoming RBA meetings.\n","title":"Projects","type":"page"},{"content":"I’m James Fricker, a quantitative developer and software engineer based in Sydney.\nI work at the intersection of markets, data and systems. I’ve worked across quantitative trading, data engineering, machine learning and software engineering—building everything from real-time trading tools to analytics for cancer genomics.\nI’m particularly interested in market microstructure, distributed systems, machine learning and understanding how complicated technology works beneath the abstractions. Most of the writing and projects on this site come from trying to understand something properly by building it myself.\nEarlier in my career, I worked at ANZ and studied Mathematics and Finance at the University of Adelaide. I also created Graduate Theory, a podcast about careers and the transition from university into work.\nOutside work, I run, read, play guitar and support Sheffield United and Adelaide United.\nYou can find me on LinkedIn or email me at jamesfricker98@gmail.com.\nFollow my work # I occasionally write about markets, software, machine learning and whatever I am currently trying to understand.\nSubscribe to receive new posts by email.\nSubscribeBuilt with ConvertKit ","date":"2 February 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/about/","section":"James Fricker","summary":"I’m James Fricker, a quantitative developer and software engineer based in Sydney.\nI work at the intersection of markets, data and systems. I’ve worked across quantitative trading, data engineering, machine learning and software engineering—building everything from real-time trading tools to analytics for cancer genomics.\n","title":"About","type":"page"},{"content":"View my Chess AI in action here\nChess is one of the most popular games on the planet. Many people have tried to create a chess AI, that can play chess at a high level. The best attempt so far was AlphaZero by Google. The software managed to learn how to play chess in a number of hours, and defeat some of the best computer players such as Stockfish.\nDuring my free time these university holidays, I thought it would be a great idea to create my own chess AI. While I certainly wouldn’t be able to reach the levels of Google and Stockfish in my short time available, it seemed like a decent challenge.\nCreating a chess AI in the conventional manner essentially means creating a list of all possible moves, and choosing the best move for the player. This is basically what chess algorithms tend to do, but they also have many different tricks that are applied to make this process much more efficient. Several of these were applied to my algorithm such as, the evaluation function, min-max and alpha-beta pruning.\nEvaluation Function # The evaluation function is how the program views the board. For my program I used a very simple method for this calculation. The program finds all pieces on the board, and gives them a certain value, based on their importance. For example, a Queen is worth 1000 points while a Pawn is only worth 100. The sum of all of the current players pieces, minus those of the opponent create a value for the board. The goal of the program is to increase the value of the board by taking opponents pieces and keeping its own pieces alive.\nMin-Max Algorithm # When maximising the value of the board, it’s important that the best option is taken for the long term. For example there is no point taking a Pawn with your Queen, only to lose your Queen immediately after. Therefore the min-max algorithm is used. This algorithm looks at possible futures of the board, and finds the board that maximises the worst possible board. This helps to prevent the program from making bad decisions.\nAlpha-Beta Pruning # Alpha-Beta pruning is a very useful tool, it means that there are many branches of the search tree that do not need to be looked at. For example, if the min-max of one part of the tree is greater than the maximum of another part, then there is no way that the new part of the tree is better than the min-max has already found. This means that this part of the tree does not need to be searched, and can be skipped.\nSummary # There are many ways to improve this algorithm. All of these improvements result in the algorithm being able to search further into the tree of possible moves. Other techniques to be used include:\nA hash table for your evaluations Move ordering. Iterative deepening Quiescence search There are even ways to include machine learning and neural networks into the algorithm.\nThese parts may be included in my chess game, feel free to check back to see if I have made any progress!\nThe sources below were a very big help in learning about this topic:\nBuilding a Simple Chess AI\nhttps://www.freecodecamp.org/news/simple-chess-ai-step-by-step-1d55a9266977/\nhttps://www.chessprogramming.org/\n","date":"18 December 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/creating-a-chess-ai/","section":"Writing","summary":"View my Chess AI in action here\nChess is one of the most popular games on the planet. Many people have tried to create a chess AI, that can play chess at a high level. The best attempt so far was AlphaZero by Google. The software managed to learn how to play chess in a number of hours, and defeat some of the best computer players such as Stockfish.\n","title":"Creating a Chess AI","type":"posts"},{"content":"This page contains a project I worked on as part of a University assignment. The project was for a subject called “Portfolio Theory and Management” and the aim was to provide a fund with a diverse portfolio, earning a target of 5.5% real return per annum. The fund would also like to make real donations of 5% per annum.\nThe lecturer loved that I used python to code up more portfolio samples, it\u0026rsquo;s definitely not a typical thing to do!\nWe created a Risk Parity portfolio, as well as a portfolio created by the solver function in excel. My part of the group assignment was to stress test both portfolios.\nA risk parity portfolio is created by each asset having a weight such that it\u0026rsquo;s risk is equal to all other assets. That is, each asset contributes an equal amount of risk to the portfolio.\nIn my extension of this, I wrote some code to analyse different spend rules and rebalancing methods.\nThe portfolio’s consisted of 5 different asset types. I created a Monte Carlo simulation for each of these, and simulated the portfolio, using the asset weights calculated from both the Risk Parity and Solver Portfolios.\nThe following charts show the difference between Range and Quarterly rebalancing on spend completion rates. The range for a rebalance was 10%. This means that when an asset has weight in a portfolio above or below 10% of its initial weighting, a rebalance occurs, re-weighting all the assets. For example, if equities make up 30% of the portfolio initially, when the equities grow in such a way as to make up 40% of the portfolio, a rebalance would occur. This range rebalancing is different to quarterly rebalancing. In quarterly rebalancing, the portfolio is rebalanced at the end of every quarter.\nThe spending rule, as stated earlier, is that the fund wants to spend 5% per year, but the key part is they can only do so if the portfolio value is above the initial value. This enables the fund to recuperate losses much better and allows them to spend more in the future.\nAs part of my simulations, I created some charts to show some useful information\nSolver Portfolio: Spend Completion Rates using Range Rebalancing Solver Portfolio: Spend Completion Rates using Quarterly Rebalancing As you can see from these figures, the range rebalanced portfolio allows much more consistent levels of spending.\nSpending Rates for Range Rebalanced Portfolio Spending Rates for Quarterly Rebalanced Portfolio The first figure title should be “Range Rebalanced Spends”. The same situation again unfolds, that the range rebalancing portfolio allows a spending completion rate much higher than the quarterly rebalanced portfolio.\nThe rate is not 100% as some portfolios drop below the initial real value of the portfolio and hence can’t complete the spend.\nAnother aspect to analyse in the rebalancing rates. This is important to compare the two portfolio’s and see how often any asset goes outside the allowed range.\nAs can be seen in these images, the rebalancing is roughly the same per year, at around 0.25-0.3 rebalances per year. Tighter ranges would mean more rebalances per year.\nFurther analysis could include possible modifications to the spend rule to maximise spend completion rates, and optimal rebalancing ranges to maximise portfolio value.\nIf you\u0026rsquo;d like to read my code, please email me at jamesfricker98@gmail.com.\n","date":"12 October 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/portfolio-rebalancing-and-spend-rule-analysis/","section":"Writing","summary":"This page contains a project I worked on as part of a University assignment. The project was for a subject called “Portfolio Theory and Management” and the aim was to provide a fund with a diverse portfolio, earning a target of 5.5% real return per annum. The fund would also like to make real donations of 5% per annum.\n","title":"Portfolio Rebalancing and Spend Rule Analysis","type":"posts"},{"content":" Advanced Systems Questions # 1. Operating Systems # Process vs. Thread Model [Easy]\nWhen and why would you choose a process-based architecture over a thread-based one? Discuss overhead considerations, memory usage, and concurrency trade-offs.\nVirtual Memory Internals [Easy]\nExplain how modern operating systems implement virtual memory and the role of paging. How do page tables, TLBs, and multi-level paging work together to manage memory efficiently?\nKernel vs. User Space [Easy]\nDescribe how system calls transition from user space to kernel space. What happens at each step in the journey of a typical read or write system call?\nScheduling Algorithms [Medium]\nIn a system that requires both real-time responsiveness and high throughput, how would you design a scheduler? Discuss trade-offs and real-time constraints such as latency vs. throughput vs. fairness.\nSynchronization \u0026amp; Concurrency [Medium]\nCompare and contrast different synchronization primitives (mutexes, semaphores, spinlocks, lock-free data structures). When would you use each and why?\nFilesystem Design [Medium]\nHow do journaling filesystems (e.g., ext4, XFS) ensure data consistency and integrity after crashes? What are the trade-offs between journaling vs. copy-on-write filesystems like ZFS or Btrfs?\nResource Isolation [Medium]\nHow does a hypervisor-based virtualization differ from container-based isolation (e.g., cgroups, namespaces in Linux)? Discuss performance and security implications.\nDeadlock Conditions and Avoidance [Medium]\nOutline the four conditions for deadlock and how operating systems might detect or prevent them. Provide concrete examples of algorithms or techniques used to mitigate deadlocks.\nMicrokernels vs. Monolithic Kernels [Medium]\nDiscuss the architectural differences between microkernel and monolithic kernel designs. How do factors like security, modularity, performance, and complexity play into these two approaches?\nInterrupt Handling \u0026amp; Context Switching [Medium]\nWhat are interrupts, and how does an operating system handle them at the hardware and software levels? Explain how context switching works and the role of the Interrupt Service Routine (ISR).\nDriver Development \u0026amp; Kernel Modules [Medium]\nOutline the steps to create and load a kernel module. What are common pitfalls when writing device drivers, and how can they be mitigated?\nMemory-Mapped I/O \u0026amp; DMA [Medium]\nWhat is memory-mapped I/O, and how does it differ from port-based I/O? Explain how Direct Memory Access (DMA) improves performance and the OS’s role in configuring DMA operations.\nPower Management \u0026amp; CPU Frequency Scaling [Medium]\nHow do operating systems manage power consumption across CPUs and devices (e.g., ACPI states, DVFS)? What are the main trade-offs between power saving and performance?\nNUMA Architectures [Hard]\nIn a Non-Uniform Memory Access (NUMA) system, how does memory placement affect performance? What strategies exist in operating systems for optimizing thread and memory placement?\nOS Debugging \u0026amp; Profiling [Hard]\nYou have a kernel module that occasionally locks up the system under heavy load. How would you go about debugging and profiling to pinpoint the root cause?\nI/O Scheduling \u0026amp; Buffer Management [Hard]\nHow do modern operating systems schedule I/O requests to improve throughput and latency (e.g., CFQ, BFQ, or Deadline schedulers)? What role does buffer management play in performance?\nHigh-Performance Networking Stack [Hard]\nHow do operating systems optimize network throughput and reduce latency (e.g., zero-copy networking, NIC offloading)? Describe the trade-offs in designing a high-performance networking stack.\nSystem Security \u0026amp; Secure Boot [Hard]\nWhat is secure boot, and how does it protect the integrity of the OS from early-stage attacks? Discuss the role of trusted platform modules (TPMs) and how they enforce security guarantees.\nOS-Assisted Debugging \u0026amp; Tracing Tools [Hard]\nDiscuss kernel-level tracing and diagnostic tools (e.g., ftrace, perf, eBPF). How can these be used for deep inspection of scheduling, memory usage, and system calls?\nReal-Time OS \u0026amp; Deterministic Scheduling [Hard]\nWhat distinguishes a real-time operating system (RTOS) from a general-purpose OS? Discuss hard vs. soft real-time constraints, latency guarantees, and typical scheduling strategies in RTOS environments.\n2. Languages and Systems Programming # Type Systems \u0026amp; Type Checking [Easy]\nHow do static and dynamic type systems differ in terms of safety guarantees and developer workflow?\nWhich kinds of errors can be caught at compile time vs. runtime, and how do languages decide what to enforce?\nInterpreter vs. Compiler Internals [Easy]\nCompare the high-level design of a simple bytecode-based interpreter with a JIT-optimizing compiler.\nHow do their execution pipelines and performance characteristics differ?\nMemory Safety [Easy]\nWhat language features or runtime checks enforce memory safety in languages like Rust, Swift, or Java?\nHow do borrow checkers or runtime checks prevent common memory errors?\nIntermediate Representations (IR) [Medium]\nExplain why compilers often translate source code to an IR (e.g., LLVM IR).\nWhat are some examples of high-level optimizations that become easier once you have an IR?\nRuntime Reflection [Medium]\nDiscuss how languages implement reflection at runtime (e.g., method lookups, dynamic invocation).\nHow might such features impact performance and security?\nVirtual Machine Architecture [Medium]\nWhat are the roles of stack-based vs. register-based VMs?\nCompare their instruction sets, performance trade-offs, and typical use cases.\nCode Generation \u0026amp; Optimization [Medium]\nDescribe common compiler optimizations (e.g., loop unrolling, inlining, constant folding).\nHow do these optimizations translate into real performance gains, and when can they backfire?\nEmbedding \u0026amp; Extending [Medium]\nIn languages that allow embedding (e.g., Python, Lua), how do you integrate C/C++ to extend functionality or optimize performance?\nWhat pitfalls can arise with ref-counting, memory, or ownership?\nPolymorphism \u0026amp; Generics Implementation [Medium]\nHow do languages implement generic types or polymorphic functions under the hood (e.g., type erasure vs. reification)?\nWhat trade-offs arise in terms of code bloat, performance, and runtime checks?\nLinkers \u0026amp; Loaders [Medium]\nHow do linkers resolve symbols from multiple object files or libraries?\nWhat role do dynamic loaders play at runtime, and why is symbol resolution crucial for shared library compatibility?\nCross-Compiling \u0026amp; Multi-Architecture Builds [Medium]\nWhat considerations must be made when targeting multiple architectures (e.g., x86, ARM)?\nHow do you handle endianness, word size, and platform-specific ABIs during cross-compilation?\nSelf-Hosting Compilers [Medium]\nWhat does it mean for a compiler to be \u0026ldquo;self-hosting\u0026rdquo;?\nDiscuss the benefits, challenges, and bootstrapping process of a language compiler that is written in the same language it compiles.\nGC Algorithms [Hard]\nContrast mark-and-sweep, stop-the-world generational, and concurrent garbage collection approaches.\nWhat are the key trade-offs in throughput vs. pause times?\nException Handling in Low-Level Systems [Hard]\nHow do low-level languages (e.g., C++) implement exceptions under the hood (e.g., table-based vs. setjmp/longjmp)?\nWhat are the implications for performance and memory?\nABI Compatibility [Hard]\nExplain how Application Binary Interfaces (ABIs) affect interoperability between different languages or compiler versions.\nIn what scenarios does ABI compatibility become critical?\nLanguage Concurrency Approaches [Hard]\nCompare different language-level concurrency paradigms (e.g., Erlang’s actor model vs. Go’s goroutines vs. shared-memory threads).\nWhat runtime support is needed to manage scheduling, synchronization, and message passing effectively?\nPartial Evaluation \u0026amp; Dynamic Specialization [Hard]\nWhat is partial evaluation, and how does it optimize runtime performance by precomputing known parameters?\nHow might a JIT compiler dynamically specialize code based on usage patterns?\nMulti-language Interoperability \u0026amp; FFI [Hard]\nHow do languages communicate through Foreign Function Interfaces (FFIs)?\nWhat are the biggest challenges for memory management, exception handling, and data type conversion when bridging multiple language runtimes?\nCode Security \u0026amp; Sandboxing [Hard]\nHow can runtimes or VMs sandbox user code to prevent malicious or accidental breaches (e.g., capability-based security, WASM sandbox)?\nDiscuss the overhead and complexity of isolating code in a secure execution environment.\nJust-In-Time (JIT) vs. Ahead-of-Time (AOT) Compilation [Hard]\nHow do JIT and AOT strategies differ in terms of startup time, runtime performance, and optimization capabilities?\nWhat design decisions do language authors need to make when choosing between or blending these approaches?\n3. Computer Systems # Endianness \u0026amp; Data Encoding [Easy]\nHow does endianness impact cross-platform data exchange? Provide examples of data-structure pitfalls when transferring binary data between systems of different endianness.\nFloating-Point Representation [Easy]\nDetail how IEEE 754 floating-point numbers are encoded. What pitfalls can arise from floating-point precision in high-performance or financial applications?\nException vs. Interrupt [Easy]\nContrast synchronous exceptions (e.g., divide-by-zero, page fault) with asynchronous interrupts (hardware interrupts, timer interrupts). How does the CPU handle and prioritize them?\nAssembler \u0026amp; Machine Code [Easy]\nWhat is the relationship between assembly language and the machine instructions actually executed by the CPU?\nExplain how assembly instructions map to opcodes, registers, and addressing modes.\nCPU Microarchitecture vs. Instruction Set Architecture [Easy]\nHow does a CPU’s microarchitecture differ from its ISA (Instruction Set Architecture)?\nDiscuss why multiple microarchitectures can implement the same ISA but achieve different performance.\nMemory Hierarchy [Medium]\nHow does each level of the memory hierarchy (registers, L1–L3 cache, main memory, disk) affect performance?\nDescribe how caching policies (e.g., write-through vs. write-back) influence design.\nPipelining \u0026amp; Superscalar [Medium]\nExplain how modern CPUs use pipelining and superscalar execution to increase instruction throughput.\nWhat is out-of-order execution and why is it beneficial?\nAtomic Operations [Medium]\nDescribe how atomic read-modify-write instructions are implemented in hardware.\nHow do they support higher-level synchronization primitives?\nContext Switch Mechanics [Medium]\nWhat happens during a context switch between processes or threads?\nDescribe how CPU registers, program counters, and stack pointers are handled at the OS level.\nMemory Protection [Medium]\nHow do segmentation and paging protect memory access in a modern OS?\nWhat is the difference between privilege levels, and how do ring transitions occur?\nSpeculative Execution [Medium]\nHow does speculative execution work, and what are potential security implications (e.g., Spectre, Meltdown)?\nWhat can be done at the hardware or software level to mitigate these risks?\nBranch Prediction [Medium]\nHow do CPUs predict the direction of conditional branches to avoid pipeline stalls?\nDiscuss common branch prediction algorithms and their impact on performance.\nSimultaneous Multithreading (Hyper-Threading) [Medium]\nWhat is simultaneous multithreading, and how does it differ from simple single-thread-per-core designs?\nIn which scenarios does SMT help or hurt overall performance?\nBus Architectures [Hard]\nHow do internal buses (e.g., front-side bus, point-to-point interconnects) and external buses (e.g., PCIe) transfer data between CPU, memory, and peripherals?\nDiscuss latency, bandwidth, and scalability considerations in modern bus architectures.\nCache Coherency Protocols [Hard]\nIn a multi-core system, how do protocols like MESI or MOESI ensure data consistency across caches?\nDiscuss potential performance bottlenecks with false sharing.\nNUMA \u0026amp; HPC [Hard]\nWhat is Non-Uniform Memory Access, and how does it impact performance on large multi-CPU systems?\nDiscuss common strategies for optimizing memory locality in high-performance computing (HPC).\nHardware Virtualization Extensions [Hard]\nHow do modern CPUs (e.g., Intel VT-x, AMD-V) support virtualization at the hardware level?\nWhat mechanisms exist to trap and virtualize privileged instructions efficiently?\nReal-Time \u0026amp; Deterministic Execution [Hard]\nIn what ways do real-time or safety-critical systems require deterministic execution?\nHow do specialized scheduling, cache partitioning, or hardware isolation help meet real-time constraints?\nCPU Security Features (SGX, TEE) [Hard]\nHow do hardware-backed security features like Intel SGX or Arm TrustZone provide isolated execution environments?\nDescribe the threat models these technologies aim to address and the overhead they introduce.\nHPC \u0026amp; Parallel Computing [Hard]\nHow are multi-CPU or multi-GPU systems orchestrated in large-scale parallel computing (e.g., supercomputers, clusters)?\nDiscuss communication models (e.g., MPI, shared memory) and key hardware factors for scaling performance.\n4. Databases # ACID vs. BASE [Easy]\nContrast ACID properties (Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation, Durability) with the more relaxed BASE approach (Basically Available, Soft state, Eventually consistent). Where does each fit best?\nNoSQL vs. RDBMS [Easy]\nCompare and contrast NoSQL systems (e.g., document stores, key-value stores, column-oriented) with traditional RDBMS solutions. Under what workloads would each be preferable?\nIndex Structures [Easy]\nDiscuss the design of common indexing structures (B-Trees, B+Trees, Hash indexes). In what scenarios would you choose each, and what are their space/time trade-offs?\nData Modeling \u0026amp; Schema Design [Easy]\nHow do you decide between normalized and denormalized schemas?\nWhat factors drive schema evolution in relational vs. NoSQL databases?\nOLTP vs. OLAP [Easy]\nWhat are the primary differences between Online Transaction Processing (OLTP) and Online Analytical Processing (OLAP)?\nHow do their workloads, data sizes, and performance goals compare?\nOver-Indexing vs. Under-Indexing [Easy]\nWhy can too many indexes hurt performance (especially on write-heavy workloads), and why is having too few indexes just as problematic for read performance?\nHow do you strike a balance?\nIsolation Levels [Medium]\nExplain the differences between READ UNCOMMITTED, READ COMMITTED, REPEATABLE READ, and SERIALIZABLE. What anomalies can occur under each isolation level?\nMVCC (Multi-Version Concurrency Control) [Medium]\nHow does MVCC allow readers and writers to proceed concurrently? What complexities arise in managing older snapshot versions of data?\nSharding and Partitioning [Medium]\nHow do you decide on the sharding strategy (range-based, hash-based, etc.)? Discuss the trade-offs of each approach and how rebalancing can be handled.\nReplication \u0026amp; Consistency [Medium]\nDescribe how databases handle replication (synchronous vs. asynchronous). What challenges arise in multi-master replication, and how can conflicts be resolved?\nTransaction Logging \u0026amp; Recovery [Medium]\nHow do Write-Ahead Logging (WAL) and checkpointing mechanisms ensure durability? Provide an example of how a database recovers after an unexpected crash.\nQuery Execution Plans [Medium]\nHow does a database generate and optimize query execution plans? Outline the role of the optimizer and how it leverages statistics, heuristics, or cost-based approaches.\nPerformance Profiling [Medium]\nYou have a query that runs significantly slower under load. Which database metrics and profiling tools would you use to diagnose the bottleneck (I/O, locks, CPU, memory, etc.)?\nCAP Theorem [Hard]\nWhat does the CAP Theorem state regarding Consistency, Availability, and Partition tolerance?\nHow do various databases choose their trade-offs?\nConnection Pooling \u0026amp; Concurrency [Hard]\nHow do connection pools help manage concurrent database requests?\nWhat happens if the pool is exhausted, and how can timeouts or queueing strategies mitigate this?\nLSM-Tree-based Indexing [Hard]\nWhy do some databases use Log-Structured Merge (LSM) Trees instead of traditional B-Trees?\nWhat are the read vs. write performance characteristics of an LSM-based system?\nColumnar Storage \u0026amp; Compression [Hard]\nHow do column-oriented databases organize data differently from row-oriented systems?\nWhy does this layout often lead to better compression and faster analytical queries?\nDatabase Instrumentation \u0026amp; Monitoring [Hard]\nWhat metrics and logs are most critical for diagnosing performance issues (e.g., slow queries, lock contention, replication lag)?\nHow do tools like slow-query logs, query tracing, or real-time dashboards help?\nDatabase Deployment in a Distributed Environment [Hard]\nWhat challenges arise when deploying a database cluster across multiple data centers or regions?\nDiscuss latency, consensus protocols, and partition management for large-scale systems.\nDatabase Security [Hard]\nHow do databases enforce Role-Based Access Control (RBAC), encryption at rest, and auditing?\nWhat are the main vectors for SQL injection or privilege escalation, and how can they be mitigated?\n5. Distributed Systems # CAP Theorem [Easy]\nRecap the CAP theorem (Consistency, Availability, Partition Tolerance). Why can’t a system guarantee all three simultaneously, and how do real-world systems balance these trade-offs?\nEventual Consistency [Easy]\nHow does eventual consistency differ from strong consistency? Provide examples of systems or data structures (like CRDTs) that achieve eventual consistency in distributed environments.\nService Discovery [Easy]\nDescribe how a large-scale microservices architecture might handle service discovery (e.g., DNS-based, Consul, Zookeeper, Eureka). What are potential failure modes?\nID Generation \u0026amp; Monotonic Counters [Easy]\nIn a distributed setting, how do you ensure unique or sequential identifiers (e.g., Snowflake IDs, Zookeeper-based counters)?\nDiscuss potential bottlenecks, latency concerns, and fallback strategies.\nLoad Balancing \u0026amp; Failover [Easy]\nExplain how distributed systems can dynamically rebalance workloads when some nodes become overloaded. What are typical failover strategies in a cluster?\nCircuit Breaking \u0026amp; Rate Limiting [Easy]\nHow do circuit breaker patterns and rate-limiting strategies protect services under heavy load or partial failures?\nProvide real-world examples (e.g., Hystrix, Envoy) and discuss their trade-offs.\nMicroservices vs. Monolith [Medium]\nWhat are the advantages and disadvantages of decomposing a system into microservices vs. maintaining a single monolith?\nWhich organizational, deployment, and scaling factors typically drive the decision?\nScalable Pub/Sub [Medium]\nDiscuss how systems like Kafka, NATS, or RabbitMQ handle high-throughput messaging. What patterns are used to ensure durability, ordering, and consumer scalability?\nData Partitioning \u0026amp; Replication Strategies [Medium]\nHow do systems like Cassandra, Dynamo, or HBase partition data across nodes? Discuss replication factors, consistent hashing, and handling node join/leave events.\nNetwork Partitions [Medium]\nWhat happens when a major network partition occurs? How do you design your system to degrade gracefully or automatically recover when connectivity is restored?\nDistributed Tracing \u0026amp; Monitoring [Medium]\nIn large distributed architectures, how do you pinpoint bottlenecks or errors? Discuss the role of correlation IDs, trace context propagation, and tools like Jaeger or Zipkin.\nAt-Least-Once vs. At-Most-Once Delivery [Medium]\nHow do message delivery guarantees differ in distributed queues or streaming platforms?\nWhen would you favor at-least-once delivery vs. at-most-once, and what are the implications for exactly-once processing?\nGeo-Distributed Deployments [Medium]\nHow do you architect systems that span multiple geographic regions or data centers?\nWhat latency, consistency, and cost considerations arise in cross-region communication?\nService Mesh Approaches [Medium]\nWhat is a service mesh, and how do sidecar proxies (e.g., Istio, Linkerd) help manage observability, routing, and security in microservices?\nDiscuss potential performance overhead and operational complexity.\nLeaderless Replication \u0026amp; Dynamo-Style Quorums [Medium/Hard]\nHow do leaderless systems handle writes and reads with quorum-based approaches?\nDescribe how hinted handoff, read-repair, or sloppy quorum strategies help maintain availability.\nDistributed Transactions [Hard]\nHow do two-phase commit (2PC) and three-phase commit (3PC) protocols coordinate distributed transactions? In practice, when are they too expensive or risky?\nSagas \u0026amp; Orchestration in Distributed Systems [Hard]\nWhat is the Saga pattern, and how does it coordinate long-running transactions across microservices?\nCompare orchestration-based (centralized controller) vs. choreography-based (event-driven) saga implementations.\nByzantine Fault Tolerance [Hard]\nHow do systems like PBFT handle nodes that act arbitrarily or maliciously (beyond simple crash failures)?\nDiscuss the overhead and typical use cases for Byzantine-resistant protocols.\nConsensus Protocols (e.g., Raft, Paxos) [Hard]\nWalk through how Raft (or Paxos) handles leader election and log replication. What are the main failure scenarios and how does the protocol recover?\nChaos Engineering \u0026amp; Fault Injection [Hard]\nHow do practices like chaos engineering (e.g., randomly killing nodes, injecting latency) help validate system resilience?\nWhat tooling (e.g., Chaos Monkey) and metrics can guide improvements in fault tolerance?\n6. System Design # Design for Failure [Easy]\nWalk through how to design a system that gracefully handles failures (e.g., circuit breakers, bulkheads, retries with exponential backoff). Provide real-world patterns.\nAPI Gateway \u0026amp; Microservices [Easy]\nHow do you design an API gateway layer in a microservices architecture? What features (e.g., request routing, authentication, rate limiting) should it provide?\nEvolution of Services (Versioning \u0026amp; Backward Compatibility) [Easy]\nHow do you roll out new versions of a service without breaking existing consumers? Discuss strategies for versioning, feature flags, and canary releases to maintain backward compatibility.\nCache Invalidation \u0026amp; Consistency [Easy]\nWhat are common caching strategies (write-through, write-back, write-around)? How do you handle cache invalidation to ensure data consistency at scale?\nObservability (Logs, Metrics, Traces) [Easy/Medium]\nIn a large-scale distributed system, what logging, metrics, and tracing infrastructure do you need? How do you ensure that critical debugging information is easily accessible?\nSecurity \u0026amp; Access Control [Medium]\nHow do you design a system that enforces fine-grained access control across multiple services? Discuss an approach using OAuth, JWT, or a custom token-based system.\nRate Limiting at Scale [Medium]\nIn a high-traffic environment, how do you implement global rate limiting? Discuss token bucket algorithms, distributed counters, and the difficulties of synchronization.\nAPI Throttling \u0026amp; Governance [Medium]\nHow do you prevent downstream overload by controlling inbound request rates?\nDiscuss how governance policies can shape API usage, versioning, and third-party integrations.\nDatabase Sharding Strategy [Medium]\nGiven a rapidly growing dataset, how would you shard and scale the database? Discuss re-sharding and the operational complexities of horizontal scaling.\nFeature Flags \u0026amp; Canary Releases [Medium]\nHow do feature flags help decouple deployment from release?\nDescribe a canary release strategy that tests new functionality with a small subset of users before rolling out broadly.\nEvent-Driven vs. Request-Driven Architectures [Medium]\nHow does an event-driven approach differ from synchronous request-driven designs?\nDiscuss advantages, drawbacks, and typical use cases for each.\nLoad Balancing \u0026amp; Traffic Splitting [Medium]\nHow do you distribute requests across multiple servers or data centers?\nDiscuss different algorithms (round-robin, least connections, etc.) and how you might dynamically route traffic based on health checks or latency.\nStreaming Data Pipeline [Medium/Hard]\nDescribe how to design a fault-tolerant, near-real-time data pipeline (e.g., using Kafka, Spark/Flink, or similar).\nHighlight the challenges in ensuring exactly-once semantics.\nGlobal Deployment [Hard]\nYou need a system that is globally available with minimal latency. How would you distribute workloads across multiple regions and handle data replication?\nData Modeling for Microservices [Hard]\nWhen each microservice owns its own data store, how do you handle cross-service queries, data duplication, and referential integrity?\nDiscuss strategies to keep data loosely coupled yet consistent.\nDistributed Configuration Management [Hard]\nHow do large-scale systems manage shared configuration (e.g., feature flags, system settings) across services and regions?\nDiscuss potential tools (Consul, Zookeeper, etc.) and consistency trade-offs.\nMulti-Region Failover \u0026amp; Disaster Recovery [Hard]\nWhat strategies allow a system to continue functioning when an entire region fails?\nHow do you handle data synchronization, DNS failover, and stateful workloads?\nResilient Messaging with DLQs (Dead Letter Queues) [Hard]\nHow do you design messaging systems to handle unprocessable messages (e.g., poison messages)?\nDiscuss how DLQs enable retries, triage, or manual intervention.\nSecurity \u0026amp; Compliance at Scale [Hard]\nHow do you manage encryption, key rotation, audit logging, and adherence to regulatory requirements (e.g., GDPR, HIPAA) across a large distributed system?\nComplex Orchestration \u0026amp; Scheduling [Hard]\nHow do systems like Kubernetes, Nomad, or Mesos schedule workloads across clusters?\nDiscuss bin packing, resource constraints, and handling transient failures or node churn.\n7. Networking # OSI Model vs. TCP/IP Model [Easy]\nHow do the OSI and TCP/IP models differ in terms of layers and abstractions?\nWhich layers map to one another, and how are they commonly used in practice?\nSubnetting \u0026amp; CIDR [Easy]\nWhat is CIDR (Classless Inter-Domain Routing)?\nExplain how subnet masks are determined and why they matter for efficient IP address allocation.\nTCP Congestion Control [Easy]\nDescribe how TCP’s congestion control algorithm (e.g., Reno, CUBIC) adapts to network conditions.\nHow do slow start, congestion avoidance, fast retransmit, and fast recovery interplay?\nDHCP \u0026amp; DNS Fundamentals [Easy]\nHow do DHCP servers assign IP addresses to clients, and why might you use static reservations?\nDescribe the role of DNS resolvers, authoritative name servers, and caching in name resolution.\nNAT vs. Proxy [Easy/Medium]\nWhat are the conceptual differences between Network Address Translation (NAT) and an application-layer proxy?\nIn which scenarios would you prefer one over the other?\nAAA \u0026amp; RADIUS [Medium]\nHow do Authentication, Authorization, and Accounting (AAA) protocols like RADIUS work?\nDiscuss where they typically fit in an enterprise network and how they integrate with LDAP or Active Directory.\nSNI (Server Name Indication) [Medium]\nExplain how SNI works within the TLS handshake, why it’s necessary, and how it’s used by CDNs and modern hosting environments to enable multi-tenant TLS.\nPacket Capture Analysis [Medium]\nYou notice intermittent network timeouts for a critical service. Which low-level tools (e.g., tcpdump, Wireshark) would you use to diagnose the issue, and what patterns might you look for in the captured packets?\nTLS/SSL Handshake [Medium]\nWalk through the TLS handshake in detail. Where do security guarantees come from, and how is forward secrecy ensured with modern ciphersuites?\nAdvanced NAT Challenges [Medium]\nIn large enterprise or carrier-grade NAT scenarios, how do you deal with port exhaustion and session tracking?\nDiscuss the potential pitfalls for real-time services or high-traffic applications.\nZero Trust Networking [Medium]\nWhat does a zero-trust model entail in terms of access control and micro-segmentation?\nHow do policies get enforced across disparate network segments and devices?\nNetwork Virtualization [Medium/Hard]\nDiscuss how VXLAN or Geneve protocols encapsulate Layer 2 frames over Layer 3 networks.\nWhat issues do they solve compared to traditional VLANs, and what are the trade-offs?\nLoad Balancing at Scale [Medium/Hard]\nHow do large-scale load balancers (e.g., Layer 4 vs. Layer 7) handle massive throughput?\nDiscuss consistent hashing, connection tracking, and the performance overhead of deep packet inspection.\nIPsec \u0026amp; VPN Tunneling [Hard]\nHow does IPsec provide confidentiality and integrity for IP traffic?\nCompare site-to-site vs. remote-access VPNs, and discuss IKE negotiation steps.\nBGP (Border Gateway Protocol) Nuances [Hard]\nIn a complex autonomous system setup, how do route flaps get handled, and what is route damping?\nHow can misconfigurations lead to global routing table instability?\nLow-Latency Networking [Hard]\nIn systems like high-frequency trading or real-time media streaming, how do you minimize latency?\nDiscuss kernel bypass (e.g., DPDK), RDMA, and specialized network hardware.\nSDN (Software-Defined Networking) [Hard]\nHow does OpenFlow or other SDN controllers interact with network hardware?\nDescribe the control plane vs. data plane separation and how it impacts network programmability.\nHTTP/2 and HTTP/3 (QUIC) [Hard]\nCompare and contrast HTTP/2 with HTTP/3.\nHow does QUIC address the head-of-line blocking problem inherent in TCP, and what complexities does it introduce at scale?\nWireless Performance \u0026amp; Channel Bonding [Hard]\nHow do 802.11 standards (e.g., 802.11ac/ax) achieve higher throughput with channel bonding and MIMO?\nWhat are typical interference issues, and how do deployments mitigate them?\nMulticast Routing \u0026amp; IGMP [Hard]\nHow is IP multicast different from unicast or broadcast?\nDiscuss how protocols like IGMP, PIM (Sparse/Dense Mode), and MSDP coordinate to distribute multicast traffic in large networks.\n8. Python Internals # Memory Management \u0026amp; Reference Counting [Easy]\nDescribe Python’s memory management strategy. How do reference counting and the cyclic garbage collector complement each other, and where do they fall short?\nGIL (Global Interpreter Lock) [Easy]\nExplain how the GIL affects multi-threaded Python programs. Under what conditions can threads still achieve concurrency, and what are the best practices to work around the GIL’s limitations?\nBytecode \u0026amp; Execution Model [Easy]\nDetail the Python execution model from source code to bytecode to execution by the CPython virtual machine. How does the dis module help you understand Python’s bytecode?\nPython’s Import System [Easy/Medium]\nWhat happens under the hood when Python imports a module? Discuss sys.modules, import hooks, and the process of finding, loading, and caching modules.\nInterned Strings \u0026amp; Immutable Objects [Easy/Medium]\nPython internally interns some strings. How does this work, and why can it be beneficial? Discuss how immutability of certain objects (e.g., strings, tuples) can improve performance.\nDescriptor Protocol [Medium]\nHow do __get__, __set__, and __delete__ work under the descriptor protocol?\nShow examples of how they power core features like @property, methods, and staticmethod.\nMetaclasses \u0026amp; Class Creation [Medium]\nProvide an overview of how metaclasses in Python can alter class creation.\nWhy would you use a metaclass instead of a decorator or a class factory function, and what are common pitfalls?\nC-API \u0026amp; C Extensions [Medium]\nHow do you write and integrate native C extensions into Python, and why might you do it?\nDiscuss the CPython ABI, reference counting in extension code, and performance trade-offs.\nConcurrency with asyncio [Medium]\nHow does the asyncio event loop schedule tasks, and how does it differ from preemptive multi-threading?\nDiscuss how coroutines, tasks, and event loops interact behind the scenes.\nMemory Profiling \u0026amp; Debugging [Medium]\nIf a large Python service suffers from memory bloat over time, how would you go about isolating leaks and understanding object growth?\nMention relevant tools, the tracemalloc module, and patterns for diagnosing memory usage.\nThreading vs. Multiprocessing [Medium]\nCompare Python’s threading and multiprocessing libraries.\nIn which scenarios does one excel over the other, and how does the GIL influence this decision?\nContext Managers \u0026amp; the with Statement [Medium]\nHow do Python context managers work under the hood?\nDescribe how __enter__ and __exit__ enable resource management and how the contextlib utilities expand this pattern.\nPython Interpreter Variants [Medium]\nCompare CPython, PyPy, Jython, and IronPython.\nWhat are the trade-offs in terms of performance, compatibility, and ecosystem support?\nExtensions with Cython or SWIG [Medium/Hard]\nHow do tools like Cython or SWIG simplify building extensions versus writing raw C code against the CPython C-API?\nDiscuss differences in performance, developer ergonomics, and maintenance overhead.\nPython Object Model \u0026amp; Slots [Hard]\nHow does Python store object attributes internally?\nExplain how using __slots__ can reduce memory usage and why it might break some expected behaviors.\nInterpreter Hooks \u0026amp; Profilers [Hard]\nHow can you use the built-in sys.settrace or sys.setprofile hooks to monitor function calls, exceptions, or line-level execution?\nWhat overhead do these introduce, and how can they be used responsibly?\nMemory Fragmentation \u0026amp; Allocators [Hard]\nHow does CPython organize memory in different arenas, pools, and blocks (the pymalloc allocator)?\nDiscuss potential fragmentation issues and how large object allocations get handled.\nGarbage Collection Tuning [Hard]\nWhat environment variables or runtime hooks can you use to fine-tune Python’s GC (e.g., gc.set_threshold)?\nGive examples of scenarios where tuning the thresholds improves performance or avoids memory issues.\nAST Manipulation \u0026amp; Code Generation [Hard]\nHow can Python’s Abstract Syntax Tree (via ast module) be used for metaprogramming or custom DSLs?\nDiscuss compile() for on-the-fly code generation and the security implications of dynamic code execution.\nSubinterpreters \u0026amp; Embedding Python [Hard]\nWhat does it mean to run multiple subinterpreters in a single process, and how do they differ from separate processes?\nExplain how Python can be embedded in other applications, and the challenges in sharing state or objects between subinterpreters.\nAdvanced Python Project Ideas # Below are five additional items illustrating small projects or demos that showcase advanced Python internals knowledge:\nA Custom Bytecode Transformer [Hard]\nBuild a tool that reads Python bytecode (using the dis module), modifies instructions, and dynamically executes the transformed code. This project will require an in-depth understanding of Python’s bytecode format and safe code transformation. AST-based DSL Processor [Hard]\nCreate a mini domain-specific language (DSL) in Python by parsing source strings into an AST (via the ast module), transforming it, and compiling back to executable code. Emphasize metaprogramming, handling security concerns, and ensuring robust error handling. C Extension for Performance Critical Code [Hard]\nWrite a native C extension for Python to speed up a core algorithm (e.g., a tight loop or CPU-bound processing). Focus on proper reference counting, memory management, and debugging with tools like gdb or valgrind. Custom Garbage Collection Hooks [Hard]\nExperiment with Python’s garbage collector by customizing thresholds (gc.set_threshold) and hooking into collection events. Gather performance metrics to see how changes in GC behavior affect a memory-intensive application. Embedding Python in Another Application [Hard]\nCreate a minimal C/C++ program that embeds the Python interpreter and executes Python scripts. Demonstrate how to initialize subinterpreters, exchange data between C and Python, and gracefully shut down the embedded interpreter. These small projects can highlight your ability to navigate Python’s internals, manipulate bytecode or ASTs, handle memory at a low level, and optimize performance-critical code. They also showcase advanced debugging, profiling, and architecture choices that go beyond standard application development.\n9. Cloud \u0026amp; DevOps # Immutable Infrastructure [Easy]\nHow does immutable infrastructure (e.g., baking AMIs, container images) differ from the traditional mutable approach? Explain the benefits for deployments, rollbacks, and reproducibility. Infrastructure as Code [Easy]\nWhat are the advantages and potential pitfalls of using Infrastructure as Code (IaC) tools (e.g., Terraform, CloudFormation, Pulumi)? How do you manage versioning and rollbacks in practice? Microservices Deployment Strategies [Easy]\nIn a microservices architecture, what are common strategies for deployment (blue-green, rolling updates, canary releases)? Compare trade-offs in complexity vs. risk mitigation. CI/CD Pipelines [Easy]\nOutline a high-level design for a continuous integration/continuous deployment pipeline. How do you ensure adequate testing, security scanning, and rollback capability? Secrets Management [Easy]\nWhere do you securely store secrets (API keys, passwords, certificates) in a cloud environment? Discuss the use of systems like AWS Secrets Manager or HashiCorp Vault. Cost Optimization [Medium]\nIn a high-traffic environment, how do you analyze and optimize cloud spending? Discuss reserved instances, spot instances, and architectural trade-offs. Scaling Strategies [Medium]\nHow do you decide between vertical scaling vs. horizontal scaling in cloud environments? What metrics and thresholds typically trigger autoscaling? Serverless Architectures [Medium]\nWhat are the benefits and drawbacks of serverless platforms (AWS Lambda, Azure Functions, Google Cloud Functions)? Give examples of use cases that are well-suited vs. ill-suited. Multi-Cloud or Hybrid Cloud [Medium]\nWhat challenges arise when deploying workloads across multiple cloud providers or a hybrid cloud environment? How do you handle networking, data consistency, and governance? Disaster Recovery \u0026amp; Backup [Medium]\nHow would you design a disaster recovery strategy for a mission-critical application? Discuss RPO (Recovery Point Objective), RTO (Recovery Time Objective), and data replication approaches. Release Management \u0026amp; Feature Flags [Medium]\nHow do you coordinate release schedules across multiple teams in a DevOps environment? Discuss how feature flags enable progressive rollouts and quick rollbacks. Observability \u0026amp; Alerting [Medium]\nWhich metrics, logs, and traces should be collected in a cloud-native environment? How do you prevent alert fatigue while ensuring critical incidents are surfaced promptly? Chaos Engineering [Medium/Hard]\nWhat does chaos engineering aim to achieve, and what are the key tools (e.g., Chaos Monkey)? How do you safely introduce controlled failures to validate resilience? GitOps Workflow [Medium/Hard]\nHow does GitOps extend the IaC paradigm to manage application deployments? Discuss the benefits of declarative configuration and automated reconciliation. Cloud Networking \u0026amp; Security Groups [Hard]\nHow do you design secure VPCs and subnets across multiple regions or accounts? What are best practices for configuring security groups, NACLs, and load balancers in the cloud? Configuration Management vs. Containerization [Hard]\nWhat roles do configuration management tools (e.g., Ansible, Chef) play when most services run in containers? How do container orchestration platforms like Kubernetes change the approach to config management? Complex Deployment Pipelines [Hard]\nIn a monorepo or polyrepo context, how do you manage dependencies, build artifacts, and environment-specific configurations? Discuss pipeline stages from code commit to production deployment. Blue/Green vs. Rolling Deployments [Hard]\nHow do you decide between blue/green and rolling strategies for zero-downtime updates? What are potential risks for each, and how can they be mitigated? Kubernetes Operators [Hard]\nWhat is the Operator pattern in Kubernetes, and how does it encapsulate operational knowledge into custom controllers? Give examples of advanced Operators that manage complex applications (e.g., databases). Policy as Code \u0026amp; Governance [Hard]\nHow can tools like Open Policy Agent (OPA) enforce governance policies across multiple clusters or cloud accounts? Discuss the trade-offs between flexible policy definitions and operational complexity. 10. Security # Threat Modeling [Easy]\nWalk through the steps of a typical threat modeling exercise. How do you identify assets, threats, and mitigations, and how do you prioritize which threats to address first? Encryption in Transit and At Rest [Easy]\nHow do you implement end-to-end encryption for data in transit (TLS, IPsec) and data at rest (disk encryption, database encryption)? How do you manage and rotate keys? Compliance Frameworks [Easy]\nDiscuss how organizations handle compliance with frameworks such as GDPR, PCI-DSS, HIPAA, or SOC 2. What processes and controls are essential to maintain compliance at scale? Security Incident Response [Easy]\nWhen a security breach is detected, what are the key steps in an incident response plan? Outline containment, eradication, recovery, and post-incident analysis. Password Policies \u0026amp; MFA [Easy/Medium]\nWhat are best practices for storing passwords (e.g., hashing + salt)? How does multi-factor authentication (MFA) improve security, and what common MFA methods are used? Zero Trust Architecture [Medium]\nWhat is zero trust networking, and how does it differ from traditional perimeter-based security? What technologies and practices enable a zero trust model? Identity and Access Management (IAM) [Medium]\nHow do you handle user authentication and authorization for internal services at scale? Discuss role-based access control (RBAC) vs. attribute-based access control (ABAC). Application Security Testing [Medium]\nWhat tools and methodologies do you use for security testing (static analysis, dynamic analysis, fuzzing)? Give examples of common vulnerabilities uncovered by these methods. OAuth and JWT [Medium]\nExplain how OAuth 2.0 works in a microservices environment. How do JSON Web Tokens (JWT) facilitate stateless authentication, and what are potential security pitfalls? Container Security [Medium]\nIn a containerized environment, how do you secure the container lifecycle (image scanning, runtime security, isolation)? What’s the role of tools like Aqua, Twistlock, or Falco? Intrusion Detection \u0026amp; Prevention [Medium]\nHow do you design an IDS/IPS system for detecting malicious activity in real time? What are the trade-offs between signature-based and behavior-based detection? Security Logging \u0026amp; Monitoring [Medium]\nWhich logs and metrics are critical for detecting anomalies (e.g., login attempts, privilege escalations)? How do you use SIEM (Security Information \u0026amp; Event Management) tools to correlate events? API Security \u0026amp; Rate Limiting [Medium]\nHow do you secure public APIs against abuse, such as credential stuffing or DDoS attacks? What role does rate limiting, IP allowlisting, or WAF (Web Application Firewall) play? Network Segmentation \u0026amp; Micro-Segmentation [Medium/Hard]\nWhy is network segmentation crucial for limiting lateral movement? How do you implement micro-segmentation in a hybrid or cloud-native environment? Security-Oriented Design Patterns [Hard]\nWhat design patterns (e.g., Policy Enforcement Point, AAA) do you see in secure architectures? How do these patterns integrate with existing CI/CD pipelines and DevSecOps practices? Hardware Security Modules (HSMs) [Hard]\nWhat is an HSM, and why are they used for storing cryptographic keys? Discuss performance considerations, key ceremonies, and integration challenges. Insider Threat Detection [Hard]\nHow do you detect malicious or negligent insider activities? Discuss monitoring strategies, least privilege enforcement, and behavior anomaly detection. Secure Coding Standards \u0026amp; Code Review [Hard]\nHow do organizations enforce secure coding practices (e.g., OWASP Top Ten) across teams? What role does automated code scanning play in a mature security program? Advanced Persistence \u0026amp; Lateral Movement [Hard]\nOnce an attacker gains initial access, how do they establish persistence or move laterally? Discuss techniques like DLL injection, pass-the-hash, or token impersonation, and how to defend against them. Emerging Threats \u0026amp; Zero-Day Exploits [Hard]\nHow do organizations stay ahead of zero-day exploits or advanced persistent threats (APTs)? Discuss bug bounty programs, threat intelligence sharing, and rapid patch management. 11. Machine Learning \u0026amp; Data Engineering # Data Engineering # Data Modeling Fundamentals [Easy] What is the difference between conceptual, logical, and physical data models? How do normalization and denormalization impact data integrity and query performance? Partitioning \u0026amp; Bucketing [Easy] How do partitioning and bucketing strategies help optimize queries on large datasets? In which scenarios would you choose one approach over the other? Data Pipeline Architecture [Easy] Original Question #1 How do you design a robust ETL pipeline for both batch and real-time data ingestion? Discuss the role of messaging systems (Kafka, Kinesis), data processing frameworks (Spark, Flink), and storage layers. Workflow Orchestration Tools [Easy] How do tools like Airflow, Luigi, or Prefect coordinate multi-step data workflows? What features (e.g., DAGs, scheduling, retry policies) make these tools essential for production pipelines? Data Quality \u0026amp; Governance [Medium] Original Question #4 What measures do you take to ensure data quality (schema validation, anomaly detection) and governance (lineage tracking, PII handling)? Why are these critical for ML success? Columnar vs. Row-Based Storage [Medium] How do columnar storage formats (e.g., Parquet, ORC) differ from row-based formats (e.g., CSV, JSON)? In what scenarios does columnar storage provide a significant performance boost? ACID vs. Eventual Consistency [Medium] Compare fully ACID-compliant systems with eventually consistent datastores. Where do CAP theorem trade-offs influence the choice of database consistency? Data Lake vs. Data Warehouse [Medium] Original Question #8 Compare the roles of a data lake (unstructured or semi-structured data) and a data warehouse (structured, schema-on-write). In what scenarios is each approach more suitable? ETL vs. ELT Approaches [Medium] How does ETL (transform before load) differ from ELT (load then transform)? Discuss typical technology stacks for each and trade-offs in scalability. Data Versioning \u0026amp; Lineage [Medium] Why is it important to track data versions and transformations over time? Which tools or frameworks (e.g., DataHub, Amundsen) assist with lineage tracking? Handling Slowly Changing Dimensions [Medium] What strategies (Type 1, Type 2, etc.) exist for managing dimensional changes in data warehouses? When do you apply each strategy, and what are the storage implications? Streaming Frameworks \u0026amp; Windowing [Medium/Hard] How do streaming frameworks like Spark Structured Streaming, Flink, or Storm handle windowing operations? Discuss event-time vs. processing-time windows and their impact on correctness. Orchestrating Data Pipelines at Scale [Hard] How do you manage large, interdependent DAGs spanning multiple teams or domains? Discuss approaches to handle upstream failures, partial reruns, and versioned deployments. Scalability \u0026amp; Performance Tuning [Hard] How do you profile and optimize SQL queries, Spark jobs, or Flink pipelines? Discuss common bottlenecks (I/O, network, shuffle) and typical tuning strategies. Data Catalog \u0026amp; Metadata Management [Hard] Why is a data catalog essential for discoverability and governance? How do you integrate automated metadata extraction into your pipeline? Real-time Aggregations \u0026amp; OLAP [Hard] How do systems like Druid or Pinot provide low-latency OLAP queries on real-time data streams? Compare these to traditional batch-based OLAP cubes in terms of architecture and use cases. Data Governance \u0026amp; Compliance [Hard] Beyond quality, how do you enforce data usage policies, access controls, and retention rules at scale? What role do data stewards or committees play in governance? GDPR \u0026amp; Data Privacy [Hard] How do regulations (GDPR, CCPA) affect data collection, storage, and deletion? Discuss techniques for pseudonymization, anonymization, and user consent management. Data Security \u0026amp; Classification [Hard] How do you classify data (public, internal, confidential) and apply appropriate encryption or access controls? What processes ensure compliance with internal policies and external regulations? Cross-Platform Data Flows [Hard] How do you transfer data between on-prem systems, multiple clouds, or hybrid environments? Discuss latency, egress costs, and consistency concerns for cross-platform pipelines. Machine Learning # Supervised vs. Unsupervised Learning [Easy]\nWhat are the main differences in data requirements and outcome types between supervised and unsupervised learning? Give examples of each and typical algorithms used. Feature Engineering [Easy]\nOriginal Question #2 In a production ML pipeline, how do you manage feature extraction and transformation at scale? How do you ensure consistency between training and inference? Model Serving [Easy]\nOriginal Question #3 What architectures can serve ML models with low latency and high throughput (e.g., TensorFlow Serving, FastAPI, Docker-based microservices)? How do you handle versioning of models? Evaluation Metrics [Easy]\nHow do you select the right metric (e.g., accuracy, F1, ROC AUC) for a given problem? When might a single metric be insufficient? Hyperparameter Tuning [Medium]\nWhat methods (grid search, random search, Bayesian optimization) are commonly used to tune ML models? How do you balance exploration vs. exploitation in your search space? Cross-Validation Strategies [Medium]\nWhy is k-fold cross-validation often preferred over a single train/test split? How do techniques like stratification, nested CV, or repeated CV address model evaluation pitfalls? Regularization Techniques [Medium]\nWhat are L1 (Lasso) and L2 (Ridge) regularization? When would you use each, and how do they impact model coefficients and overfitting? Monitoring ML Models [Medium]\nOriginal Question #5 After deployment, how do you detect concept drift or performance degradation in ML models? Describe the metrics you track and how you automate alerts. ML Experiment Tracking [Medium]\nOriginal Question #9 How do you keep track of experiments, hyperparameters, and model performance? Discuss the role of tools like MLflow, Weights \u0026amp; Biases, or internal solutions. Ethics \u0026amp; Bias [Medium]\nOriginal Question #10 Machine Learning systems can perpetuate biases. How do you detect and mitigate unintended bias in your training data and model outputs? Feature Stores [Medium]\nWhat is a feature store, and how does it centralize feature definitions for consistency? How do you handle real-time feature updates vs. batch feature ingestion? Distributed Training [Medium/Hard]\nOriginal Question #6 How do large-scale deep learning frameworks (e.g., PyTorch, TensorFlow) handle distributed training across multiple GPUs or nodes? What pitfalls can arise with data parallelism? Online Learning \u0026amp; Real-Time Inference [Medium/Hard]\nOriginal Question #7 Discuss scenarios where online learning or streaming inference is required. How do you manage dynamic model updates without disrupting service? Explainability \u0026amp; Interpretability [Hard]\nWhy are SHAP, LIME, and other interpretability methods important for complex models? How do you balance model accuracy with the need for transparency? Active Learning [Hard]\nWhen is active learning beneficial for labeling efficiency? Discuss pool-based sampling strategies and the operational complexity of incrementally retraining models. Transfer Learning \u0026amp; Fine-Tuning [Hard]\nWhat are the advantages of transfer learning in deep neural networks? How do you choose which layers to freeze vs. retrain for specific tasks? ML Model Compression \u0026amp; Optimization [Hard]\nWhat techniques (pruning, quantization, knowledge distillation) reduce model size and inference latency? How do you balance accuracy loss with computational gains? Federated Learning [Hard]\nHow does federated learning train a global model using data distributed across multiple clients without centralizing the data? Discuss the privacy and communication challenges involved. AutoML \u0026amp; Neural Architecture Search (NAS) [Hard]\nWhat is AutoML, and how does it automate tasks like feature selection or hyperparameter tuning? How do advanced techniques like NAS discover optimal network topologies? Reinforcement Learning in Production [Hard]\nWhat are the main challenges of deploying RL systems (exploration vs. exploitation, safety constraints)? Give examples of real-world RL deployments and how they handle continuous learning. 12. Low-Level Performance \u0026amp; Profiling # Performance Testing Methodology [Easy]\nHow do you design a rigorous performance test? Consider load generation, instrumentation, capturing metrics, and ensuring reproducibility. Profiling Techniques [Easy]\nWhat tools and techniques do you use to profile CPU, memory, and I/O usage in a high-performance application? Provide examples of using perf, gprof, or instrumentation frameworks. Microbenchmarking \u0026amp; Pitfalls [Easy]\nHow do you measure function-level performance accurately? Discuss typical pitfalls like CPU frequency scaling, warm-up effects, and compiler optimizations. Latency vs. Throughput [Medium]\nHow do you balance latency and throughput in an application designed for high concurrency? Give examples of trade-offs in network processing or I/O handling. Lock Contention \u0026amp; Concurrency [Medium]\nHow do you detect and resolve lock contention issues in multi-threaded applications? Discuss strategies like lock striping, lock-free data structures, or read-write locks. Memory Alignment \u0026amp; Caching [Medium]\nWhy does data alignment matter for performance on modern CPUs? Discuss cache line sizes, false sharing, and how to structure data to reduce cache misses. Asynchronous I/O \u0026amp; Event Loops [Medium]\nHow do asynchronous I/O frameworks (e.g., epoll, IOCP, libuv) differ from multi-threaded approaches in managing concurrency? Explain event loops and callback-based or async/await approaches. Vectorization \u0026amp; SIMD [Medium/Hard]\nHow can compilers and libraries take advantage of SIMD instructions (e.g., SSE, AVX) for performance gains? What are typical pitfalls in writing vectorized code? Compiler Intrinsics [Medium/Hard]\nIn performance-critical C/C++ code, how might you use compiler intrinsics to optimize loops or atomic operations? Why would you sometimes bypass language abstractions? Memory Pooling \u0026amp; Allocators [Medium/Hard]\nIn high-throughput systems, how can custom memory allocators or pooling strategies reduce overhead from frequent allocations? Illustrate typical patterns or libraries used. Hardware Counters \u0026amp; eBPF [Hard]\nExplain how hardware performance counters and eBPF can provide deep insights into kernel-level behavior. Describe a scenario where these are critical for troubleshooting. NUMA Optimization [Hard]\nIn a Non-Uniform Memory Access system, how do you design data structures and threads to minimize cross-node access? Explain how OS scheduling impacts performance. Real-Time Systems [Hard]\nWhat are the unique constraints of real-time operating systems (RTOS)? How do you guarantee upper bounds on latency, and what scheduling algorithms do they employ? HPC \u0026amp; Parallel Algorithms [Hard]\nIn High-Performance Computing (HPC) settings, how do you design parallel algorithms for large-scale problems? Discuss domain decomposition, load balancing, and scaling on clusters or supercomputers. Kernel Bypass \u0026amp; DPDK [Hard]\nWhy do some applications bypass the kernel networking stack using frameworks like DPDK or RDMA? Discuss the performance benefits and programming complexity trade-offs. Large-Scale Caching Strategies [Hard]\nHow do you design and manage large-scale caching layers (e.g., memcached, Redis) to maintain consistent performance? Discuss replication, sharding, and eviction policies. Lock-Free \u0026amp; Wait-Free Data Structures [Hard]\nCompare lock-free vs. wait-free concurrency approaches. What are the trade-offs in complexity, throughput, and correctness guarantees? Low-Latency Networking [Hard]\nIn systems requiring microsecond-level response times, how do you minimize network stack overhead? Discuss specialized NICs, driver tuning, and network protocols optimized for latency. GPGPU Offloading [Hard]\nHow do you leverage GPUs for general-purpose computation to accelerate performance-critical workloads? Discuss memory transfer overhead, concurrency models (e.g., CUDA, OpenCL), and common pitfalls. JIT \u0026amp; Bytecode Interpreters [Hard]\nHow do just-in-time compilation techniques (e.g., LLVM, Graal) or bytecode interpreters optimize runtime performance? Provide examples of dynamic optimizations or profiling. 13. Linux # Basic Shell \u0026amp; Filesystem Commands [Easy] Which commands would you use to list files, create directories, and inspect file contents? How do relative and absolute paths differ? File Permissions \u0026amp; Ownership [Easy] How are permissions (r, w, x) and ownership (user, group, others) set on files and directories? How do commands like chmod, chown, and umask work? Process Management [Easy] How do you list running processes and terminate them? Explain how signals (e.g., SIGTERM, SIGKILL) and process states interact. Package Managers [Easy] How do package management tools differ across distributions (e.g., apt, yum, dnf, pacman)? How do you install, remove, and update packages? System Monitoring [Easy] Which tools (e.g., top, htop, vmstat, iostat) help monitor CPU, memory, and disk usage? What insights can logs in /var/log provide about system health? Users, Groups \u0026amp; Sudo [Medium] How do you manage users and groups (e.g., /etc/passwd, /etc/group, usermod, groupadd)? When and why would you configure sudo for privilege escalation? Shell Scripting \u0026amp; Automation [Medium] How do you write and execute a basic shell script? Discuss common scripting constructs (loops, conditionals, environment variables). Init Systems \u0026amp; Services [Medium] Compare SysV init vs. systemd. How do you enable, disable, start, or stop services (e.g., systemctl, service)? Networking Basics [Medium] How do you configure IP addresses, gateways, and DNS (e.g., ip, ifconfig, /etc/resolv.conf)? Which commands help troubleshoot connectivity (e.g., ping, netstat, ss, traceroute)? Filesystem Hierarchy \u0026amp; Mounting [Medium] How is the Linux filesystem structured (e.g., /etc, /usr, /var)? How do you mount and unmount filesystems, and what are typical filesystems (e.g., ext4, XFS)? System Logging \u0026amp; Journaling [Hard] How does syslog or journald collect and store logs? How do you configure log rotation and persist logs for auditing? Linux Scheduling \u0026amp; Priorities [Hard] How does the Linux scheduler decide which process to run next? What do nice and renice do, and how do priority classes impact CPU time? cgroups \u0026amp; Namespaces [Hard] How do control groups (cgroups) manage resource limits? What role do namespaces (PID, net, mount) play in isolation (e.g., containers)? Virtual Memory \u0026amp; Swapping [Hard] How does Linux manage virtual memory, including paging and swapping? How do you configure swap and tune parameters (e.g., swappiness)? Firewall \u0026amp; netfilter/iptables [Hard] How does netfilter work under the hood to filter packets? How would you configure iptables or nftables rules for common firewall scenarios? SELinux or AppArmor [Hard] What problems do mandatory access control systems (SELinux, AppArmor) solve? How do you configure SELinux policy or AppArmor profiles to lock down services? Kernel Modules \u0026amp; Device Drivers [Hard] How do you list, load, or unload kernel modules with lsmod, modprobe, rmmod? What are the basic steps for writing a simple device driver? eBPF \u0026amp; Tracing [Hard] What is eBPF, and how does it provide low-overhead tracing and networking capabilities? Describe a scenario where eBPF programs give insights that traditional tools cannot. Performance Tuning [Hard] Which sysctl parameters commonly improve performance (e.g., network buffers, kernel scheduling)? How would you methodically profile and benchmark a high-load server? Kernel Compilation \u0026amp; Customization [Hard] Why might you compile a custom kernel, and what are the main steps (e.g., make menuconfig, modules, etc.)? How do you manage kernel patches or apply real-time patches for specialized workloads? 14. Observability \u0026amp; Monitoring # Metrics, Logs, Traces [Easy]\nWhat are the differences between metrics, logs, and distributed traces? Why is each important for diagnosing system issues? Logging Best Practices [Easy]\nIn a distributed application, how do you ensure consistent, structured logs? Discuss correlation IDs, log verbosity levels, and log aggregation strategies. Instrumentation Standards [Easy]\nHow do frameworks like OpenTelemetry standardize metrics, logging, and tracing? What advantages do you gain by adhering to these open standards? Dashboards \u0026amp; Visualization [Easy]\nHow do you design effective dashboards for real-time monitoring? Discuss best practices for data visualization, grouping metrics by service, and enabling drill-downs. Alerting \u0026amp; Thresholds [Medium]\nHow do you determine which metrics to set alerts on and what thresholds to use? Discuss the trade-off between too many alerts vs. missed critical issues. Service-Level Indicators (SLIs) \u0026amp; Objectives (SLOs) [Medium]\nHow do you define and measure SLIs (latency, error rate, throughput), and set realistic SLOs? What role do error budgets play in operational decision-making? Synthetic Monitoring [Medium]\nHow does synthetic monitoring differ from real-user monitoring? In what scenarios would synthetic tests (e.g., ping tests, transaction scripts) be most valuable? Distributed Tracing [Medium]\nOriginal #6 Explain how distributed tracing tools like Jaeger or Zipkin capture request flows across microservices. How do you interpret trace data to pinpoint performance bottlenecks? Monitoring in Serverless Environments [Medium/Hard]\nWhat challenges arise when monitoring serverless applications (short-lived containers, ephemeral compute)? How do you instrument and collect metrics or logs in this model? Capacity Planning [Medium/Hard]\nWhat data do you collect to forecast future capacity needs? Outline a simple approach to projecting required resources based on historical load patterns. Push vs. Pull Monitoring [Medium/Hard]\nWhat are the differences between push-based (e.g., StatsD) and pull-based (e.g., Prometheus) metric collection? How do you decide which approach fits your environment best? Black Box vs. White Box Monitoring [Medium/Hard]\nContrast black box monitoring (external tests) with white box monitoring (application internals). When would you rely on each method, and how do they complement each other? Chaos Engineering [Hard]\nHow does chaos engineering help validate the reliability of your monitoring and alerting setup? Provide examples of experiments you might run to ensure systems can handle failures gracefully. eBPF-based Observability [Hard]\nHow can extended Berkeley Packet Filter (eBPF) provide deep, low-overhead insights at kernel level? Discuss examples where eBPF-based tools (e.g., BCC, Cilium) reveal issues that traditional logs/metrics might miss. Observability as Code [Hard]\nWhat does it mean to manage observability configurations (dashboards, alerts, instrumentation) as code? How does this approach improve consistency, collaboration, and repeatability? Security Monitoring \u0026amp; Threat Detection [Hard]\nHow do you monitor logs and metrics for potential security breaches (e.g., anomalous traffic, repeated login attempts)? Discuss the role of intrusion detection systems or SIEM platforms. Root Cause Analysis \u0026amp; Automation [Hard]\nOnce an alert fires, how do you quickly move from symptoms to root cause? Discuss approaches to automate part of the RCA process (e.g., runbooks, diagnostic scripts). Incident Response \u0026amp; On-Call Integration [Hard]\nHow do you integrate monitoring alerts with incident response systems (PagerDuty, Opsgenie)? What processes ensure on-call engineers handle alerts effectively? Multi-Cluster / Multi-Region Observability [Hard]\nHow do you collect and correlate telemetry across multiple clusters or regions? What strategies handle network partitions, different time zones, and partial outages? Scalable Telemetry in Distributed Systems [Hard]\nHow do you handle high cardinality metrics or logs at massive scale (e.g., 100K+ containers)? Discuss strategies like sampling, data partitioning, or hierarchical aggregations to manage data volume. 14. HFT Market-Making # 30 Interview-Style Questions # 1. Market Microstructure # Order Book Dynamics\nHow does a central limit order book (CLOB) process orders, and what factors influence priority (price-time priority, FIFO queues, etc.)?\nLiquidity \u0026amp; Market Impact\nWhat is the difference between being a liquidity taker vs. maker, and how do transaction fees or rebates shape market-making strategies?\n2. Exchange \u0026amp; Protocol Knowledge # Exchange Protocol Nuances\nHow do proprietary protocols like ITCH, OUCH, or FIX-FAST differ from standard FIX, and why are they often faster?\nMarket Data Handling\nIn a high-throughput environment, how would you handle incremental order book updates vs. full snapshots efficiently?\n3. Ultra-Low Latency \u0026amp; High Performance # Reducing Latency Jitter\nWhat OS-level tunings (e.g., CPU pinning, interrupt affinity) can help achieve consistent microsecond-level latency?\nLock-Free Data Structures\nWhen and why might you use lock-free or wait-free data structures in an HFT environment? What trade-offs come with this approach?\n4. Hardware Acceleration \u0026amp; FPGAs # FPGA Offloading\nWhich parts of the trading pipeline (e.g., feed parsing, risk checks, strategy logic) are most commonly offloaded to FPGAs, and why?\nFPGA vs. Software Latency\nIn deciding whether to implement a feature in FPGA vs. C++/Rust, what performance benefits or development overheads must be considered?\n5. Time Synchronization \u0026amp; Clocking # Precision Time Protocol (PTP)\nHow does PTP achieve sub-microsecond clock synchronization, and why is that level of accuracy critical for HFT?\nTimestamping Mechanisms\nWhat are the implications of hardware-level timestamping (e.g., NIC-based) on accurate latency measurement and event sequencing?\n6. Concurrency \u0026amp; Language Considerations # Choosing C++ or Rust\nIn an ultra-low-latency system, what language features make C++ or Rust more suitable than garbage-collected languages like Java or Go?\nMemory Models \u0026amp; Barriers\nHow do you ensure correct ordering of memory operations in multi-threaded HFT code, and what role do memory fences play?\n7. Algorithmic Trading \u0026amp; Strategy Development # Market-Making Basics\nHow do market makers manage inventory risk, and what signals might prompt them to widen or tighten their quotes?\nLatency vs. Alpha\nIn HFT, how do you balance the pursuit of minimal latency with the complexity of an algorithmic model that might require deeper computation?\n8. Risk Management \u0026amp; Regulatory Constraints # Real-Time Risk Checks\nHow do you implement sub-millisecond pre-trade risk checks to prevent runaway trading or fat-finger errors?\nCompliance \u0026amp; Audit Trails\nWhat regulations (e.g., MiFID II in Europe, SEC/FINRA in the US) impact HFT systems, and how do you maintain accurate millisecond- or microsecond-level audit logs?\n9. Networking in HFT # Kernel Bypass\nHow do technologies like DPDK, RDMA, or Solarflare’s Onload reduce latency compared to standard socket-based networking?\nMulticast \u0026amp; Market Data\nWhen consuming real-time market data via multicast, how do you handle packet loss or sequencing issues to maintain a consistent order book?\n10. Advanced Testing \u0026amp; Simulation # Historical Replay\nHow would you design a test harness that can replay historical order book data at accelerated speeds to stress-test your trading system?\nLatency Benchmarks\nWhat metrics or methodologies do you use to benchmark and compare the latency of different components (feed handlers, matching engines, strategy modules)?\n11. Observability \u0026amp; Profiling in Low Latency # High-Precision Instrumentation\nWhat strategies do you use to capture and store microsecond-level latency metrics without adding excessive overhead?\nHardware Counter Profiling\nHow can tools like perf, ftrace, or eBPF help you pinpoint performance bottlenecks in kernel space for an HFT application?\n12. Data Storage \u0026amp; Post-Trade Analysis # Tick Database Design\nHow do you store massive volumes of tick-by-tick data for retrospective analysis, and what indexing techniques ensure fast queries?\nPnL \u0026amp; Risk Calculation\nHow do real-time vs. end-of-day risk calculations differ, and why might a market maker need both high-frequency and batch-level analytics?\n13. Team \u0026amp; Process Considerations in HFT # Deployment Strategy\nHow do you handle production deployments in a zero-downtime environment where any delay could cause missed trades?\nCross-Functional Collaboration\nWhat’s the typical collaboration model between quants, traders, and engineers in an HFT firm, and how do you ensure alignment on requirements?\n14. Disaster Recovery \u0026amp; Failover # Exchange Disconnects\nWhen an exchange feed goes down or your connection is lost, how should an HFT system handle failover to backup routes or fallback logic?\nActive/Active vs. Active/Passive\nWhat are the pros and cons of running multiple geographically separated co-location sites in active/active mode vs. active/passive?\n15. Additional Considerations # Tail Latency \u0026amp; Jitter\nHow do you measure and mitigate tail latency (the slowest 99.99th percentile events), which can be just as important as average latency in HFT?\nExchange-Specific Optimizations\nDifferent exchanges may have unique matching rules or order types (e.g., midpoint peg, hidden orders). How do you adapt your strategy engine to exploit these nuances efficiently?\n","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/drafts/advanced-systems-questions/","section":"Drafts","summary":"Advanced Systems Questions # 1. Operating Systems # Process vs. Thread Model [Easy]\nWhen and why would you choose a process-based architecture over a thread-based one? Discuss overhead considerations, memory usage, and concurrency trade-offs.\n","title":"","type":"drafts"},{"content":" Containers In Depth # Today we learn about containers, what are they, where do they come from, how do they work and why would you want to use them?\nWhat is a Container # You\u0026rsquo;ve probably heard of things like Docker or Podman, these are tools to help you run containers. First you create an \u0026lsquo;image\u0026rsquo;, this is created from a file, usually a Dockerfile or similar. A running instance of this image is called a container.\nA container allows you to run software in a fully \u0026lsquo;containerised\u0026rsquo; environment on a host. It has it\u0026rsquo;s own process id\u0026rsquo;s, it\u0026rsquo;s own storage system and can even have it\u0026rsquo;s own limits to memory and cpu.\nVirtual Machines and Hypervisors # Before containers, there were already things that let us run multiple pieces of software separately on the same hardware. These are virtual machines. The hypervisor is a program that runs on the host operating system, that \u0026lsquo;hosts\u0026rsquo; virtual machines. In this way, you could run your software on the same underlying hardware, but in a completely separate way. The hypervisor virtualises the underlying hardware, so that to the host vm, it still seems like it\u0026rsquo;s running on actual hardware.\nAn example hypervisor is VMware, which you could use to host any kind of vm, perhaps a linux vm.\nWhy Containers # The origins of Docker and containers go way back, we could have an entire article here. Originally things started by wanting to run binaries from external sources in a safe way. If you give me some software, I don\u0026rsquo;t just want to run it in my usual way, I want to run it in such a way that if it breaks something or is malicious, then it\u0026rsquo;s only constrained to a particular process. An example of this is a [Jail]1 from FreeBSD.\nOther benefits soon emerged, for example now we could use containers not just to run other potentially malicious software, but just other normal software. This increases hardware utilisation rates. Instead of needing a vm for every application, you can run multiple applications on the same hardware. The [original paper introducing containers to linux]2 has this usecase in mind.\nToday, containers are using to rapidly create and scale workloads across machines globally. Kubernetes emerged as a way to manage containers at scale.\nContainer Comparison # While hypervisors virtualise hardware, containers do not need this. Containers can (and should) be run directly on the metal (Brian Cantrill has a great [talk]3 on this. There is no requirements for extra layers of virtualisation.\nSoftware running without extra layers of virtualisation is generally more efficient and performant, so in the general case, containers are superior.\nInterestingly, when you run an EC2 instance on AWS you are actually getting a VM, not a container. This seems counterintuitive due to the potential performance issues, but also sensible when you consider that customers might want stronger guaranteers around isolation. Microsoft recently released [HyperLight]4, which enables running singular functions on top of a hypervisors. The performance here is pretty crazy, and it\u0026rsquo;s an interesting read. One of the reasons why you\u0026rsquo;d go for a container is that it\u0026rsquo;s more lightweight, but Microsoft seems to have nearly solved the overhead for spinning up new vms. Enabling users to use VMS not only for workloads, but individual functions like lambdas.\nHyperlight is able to create new VMs in one to two milliseconds.\nThis space is a kind of undercurrent to application development, so it will be interesting to see how software deployment practices change over the coming years.\nHow do Containers Work? # Containers are native to linux. If you\u0026rsquo;re running docker and not on linux, then docker is actually running some kind of VM to virtualise a linux operating system so that it can run your containers.\nThe linux requirement exists because there are a number of linux system calls that make containers work. You won\u0026rsquo;t find these in MacOS or Windows.\nChroot # [Chroot]5 means \u0026ldquo;Change Root Directory\u0026rdquo;. This system call changes the root directory of the calling process.\nThis effectively gives us a way to start a process in any location, which is a desired attribute of containers. We don\u0026rsquo;t want every container to have the same starting location. Ideally we want this location to be completely separate from what the rest of the processes can see.\nYou can escape the chroot jail by chrooting to another directory from within your container.\nNamespaces # https://www.man7.org/linux/man-pages/man7/namespaces.7.html\nThere are global system resources like process ids, networks etc. We want to be able to wrap these so that within the container it appears they have their own isolated instance of this global resource.\nhttps://www.man7.org/linux/man-pages/man7/mount_namespaces.7.html\nhttps://www.man7.org/linux/man-pages/man2/pivot_root.2.html\nCgroups # https://www.man7.org/linux/man-pages/man7/cgroups.7.html\nPreviously we created ways to isolated the file system and resources, cgroups allow us to place hardware / memory limits on processes.\nExtras # System Call Blacklisting https://docs.docker.com/engine/security/seccomp/#significant-syscalls-blocked-by-the-default-profile Thread Pulling # Can I run a Windows Container on Linux, and vice-versa?\nWindows containers require the windows kernel. Linux can be run on windows using docker desktop, which provides a linux vm.\nHow can I run a operating system container different to the host on linux?\nUbuntu etc is just a set of files. The containers share the same kernel, so can only use the same system calls.\nContainers built on x86_64 will not run on an arm os.\nRefs\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FreeBSD_jail\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nhttps://lwn.net/Articles/199643/\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=coFIEH3vXPw\t\u0026ldquo;Run containers on bare metal already! - Brian Cantrill\u0026rdquo;\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nhttps://opensource.microsoft.com/blog/2024/11/07/introducing-hyperlight-virtual-machine-based-security-for-functions-at-scale\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nhttps://www.man7.org/linux/man-pages/man2/chroot.2.html\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/drafts/containers-in-depth/","section":"Drafts","summary":"Containers In Depth # Today we learn about containers, what are they, where do they come from, how do they work and why would you want to use them?\n","title":"","type":"drafts"},{"content":"-\u0026ndash;\ntitle: \u0026ldquo;Why C is Faster than Python\u0026rdquo;\ndate: 2023-04-22T07:19:31+10:30\ndraft: True\nEverybody knows: C is faster than Python.\nBut why is this? How can one language be faster than another? If the instructions tell the computer to do exactly the same thing, how can the run-time be different?\nLet\u0026rsquo;s unpack this.\nHere, I have c code that loops 100,000,000 times. On my computer, it runs in about 0.1 seconds.\n#include \u0026lt;stdio.h\u0026gt; #include \u0026lt;time.h\u0026gt; int main() { int operation_count = 100000000; struct timespec start_time, end_time; clock_gettime(CLOCK_MONOTONIC, \u0026amp;start_time); for (int i = 0; i \u0026lt; operation_count; i++) { ; }; clock_gettime(CLOCK_MONOTONIC, \u0026amp;end_time); double secs_passed = (end_time.tv_sec - start_time.tv_sec) + (end_time.tv_nsec - start_time.tv_nsec) / 1000000000.0; printf(\u0026#34;Time taken: %.2f seconds\\n\u0026#34;, secs_passed); } The equivalent, in Python, looks like this.\nimport time start = time.time() for i in range(100000000): pass end = time.time() print(f\u0026#34;elapsed time: {end - start:.2f} seconds\u0026#34;) On my computer, this runs in about 2 seconds.\nWhy is this the case? How can there be about a 20x speed increase by using c? If this is the case, why aren\u0026rsquo;t all applications just written in c?\nWhy C is Faster than Python # ","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/c_and_python/","section":"Writing","summary":"-–\ntitle: “Why C is Faster than Python”\ndate: 2023-04-22T07:19:31+10:30\ndraft: True\nEverybody knows: C is faster than Python.\nBut why is this? How can one language be faster than another? If the instructions tell the computer to do exactly the same thing, how can the run-time be different?\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/categories/","section":"Categories","summary":"","title":"Categories","type":"categories"},{"content":"","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/drafts/","section":"Drafts","summary":"","title":"Drafts","type":"drafts"},{"content":"Last updated: July 2026\nI’m currently volunteering with Hartwig Medical Foundation Australia, helping build software for exploring cancer-genomics data.\nOutside that, I’m spending my time learning more about distributed systems, machine learning and quantitative markets. I usually do this by building small projects rather than only reading about them.\nI’m also training for the Melbourne Marathon in October, with the goal of running under 3:15.\nTash and I are getting married in Sydney later that month.\nThis page was inspired by Derek Sivers’ Now page.\n","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/now/","section":"James Fricker","summary":"Last updated: July 2026\nI’m currently volunteering with Hartwig Medical Foundation Australia, helping build software for exploring cancer-genomics data.\nOutside that, I’m spending my time learning more about distributed systems, machine learning and quantitative markets. I usually do this by building small projects rather than only reading about them.\n","title":"Now","type":"page"}]