Career Advice to College Grads: When Expectation Meets Reality

00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)

00:00:02.580 | - You're listening to Let's Talk Jobs,

00:00:09.040 | where we give you practical insights into jobs and careers.

00:00:12.800 | I'm Tim Chen, and today's episode was made specifically

00:00:15.920 | for all the new grads entering the workforce.

00:00:18.480 | What happens when expectation meets reality

00:00:21.940 | and is not what you thought it would be?

00:00:23.920 | If I were to ask my college self upon graduation,

00:00:26.640 | why I expect to achieve success,

00:00:28.800 | I'll probably say one of the following.

00:00:30.880 | Either I will outwork everyone

00:00:32.600 | because I struggled and I still graduated,

00:00:34.820 | or I'm streetwise and paired with some natural talents

00:00:38.120 | I know I can figure things out.

00:00:39.960 | I would have said, "That's cute,"

00:00:42.680 | pat myself on the head and said, "Good luck with that.

00:00:45.240 | "Let's talk again in 10 years."

00:00:47.640 | Because the reality of the situation was

00:00:50.340 | my expectation of success, what it looks like,

00:00:54.120 | and how quickly I believed I could achieve it

00:00:56.920 | was all way off.

00:00:59.400 | And for high-performing graduates

00:01:01.160 | who enter the workforce with high distinction,

00:01:03.800 | the harsh reality of the job market

00:01:05.600 | and the lack of glamor in that first entry-level job

00:01:08.520 | could in itself feel like a failure.

00:01:11.020 | Let me tell you something right now.

00:01:13.360 | It's not.

00:01:14.200 | 10 years later, you will tell yourself

00:01:17.260 | that experience is experience,

00:01:19.640 | but being intentional about what you want to learn

00:01:21.880 | from each job you take is much more important.

00:01:26.120 | So today, we're going to have a chat with Elizabeth Ingeley.

00:01:29.520 | She and I met when we were both at LinkedIn,

00:01:31.280 | and she was a part

00:01:32.100 | of the prestigious Business Leadership Program.

00:01:34.860 | We're going to talk about the highs and lows

00:01:36.880 | of early career experience,

00:01:38.840 | things we learned along the way,

00:01:40.800 | and advice we would give to new college grads.

00:01:43.760 | All right, let's get started.

00:01:45.960 | Hey, guys, you're listening to Let's Talk Jobs.

00:01:48.480 | I'm Tim Chen.

00:01:49.520 | Joining us is Elizabeth Ingeley.

00:01:51.360 | Elizabeth, how are you doing?

00:01:53.000 | - I'm great.

00:01:53.840 | Glad to be here.

00:01:55.520 | - Thanks, Elizabeth.

00:01:56.840 | Today's episode is for anyone who is graduating college,

00:02:01.160 | entering their first job,

00:02:02.560 | or you're exiting your first job, going to your next one.

00:02:06.000 | And it's a topic about reality meeting expectations.

00:02:09.800 | And so, Elizabeth,

00:02:10.640 | can you tell us a little bit about your journey?

00:02:12.440 | - Yeah.

00:02:14.800 | Wow, that's such a big question, Tim.

00:02:17.020 | (both laughing)

00:02:19.720 | Okay.

00:02:20.640 | So, where I actually like to start my career journey

00:02:25.640 | is with my personal journey,

00:02:28.800 | because personal and work are really not,

00:02:32.800 | really so interconnected.

00:02:34.240 | So, I actually grew up on a farm in Southern Illinois,

00:02:39.240 | where there were two stoplights and 3,300 people.

00:02:43.680 | So, even though I'm white and I don't look diverse,

00:02:49.440 | I do consider my background to be very diverse

00:02:52.400 | from many of the folks that I'm working with,

00:02:54.800 | whose parents were probably in corporate jobs

00:02:57.600 | or somewhat similar jobs,

00:02:59.640 | and maybe grew up in the suburbs or the city.

00:03:04.120 | So, I'm really thankful for that background in a way,

00:03:07.400 | because I feel like it was very playful.

00:03:12.400 | And I also learned the values of humility and hard work.

00:03:16.560 | So, when I went to the University of Illinois

00:03:18.880 | in Urbana-Champaign, which, by the way,

00:03:21.520 | is one of the best schools in the world, Go Illini,

00:03:25.600 | that was 13 times the size of my hometown.

00:03:30.760 | And after my freshman year,

00:03:33.560 | I remember having a conversation with my mom

00:03:36.280 | and I was crying on her bed.

00:03:38.960 | And she was like, "Well, do you just wanna come home

00:03:41.160 | "and go to the local community college?"

00:03:43.080 | And I said, "No, I know this is where I need to be,

00:03:48.360 | "but it's just really hard,"

00:03:49.920 | because I felt just like disconnected

00:03:52.080 | and that was such a big leap out of my comfort zone.

00:03:54.400 | So, for anyone that's like in an environment

00:03:59.400 | where you're new and feeling like you're not enough

00:04:05.040 | or your background isn't enough,

00:04:06.360 | I would encourage you to stick it out

00:04:08.760 | for as long as you can,

00:04:09.800 | unless you're still feeling that tension after some time.

00:04:12.840 | But fast forward, had a great sophomore year,

00:04:18.040 | freshman year was a little bit rough.

00:04:20.320 | And then I started a national nonprofit

00:04:23.440 | that educates girls in STEM called MakerGirl

00:04:26.440 | out of a social entrepreneurship class

00:04:28.280 | that I took for fun my senior year.

00:04:31.600 | And I know we're gonna talk about that later,

00:04:34.120 | but then I started my career in sales at LinkedIn

00:04:37.480 | in the business leadership program, which is how we met.

00:04:41.680 | And I'm so thankful God brought us together.

00:04:46.880 | And that was never a job

00:04:50.120 | that I would have seen myself doing.

00:04:52.200 | Oftentimes at that point, when I told people I did sales,

00:04:57.000 | they were really, really surprised

00:04:59.160 | because I was like the introverted quiet girl

00:05:01.920 | on the side of the room.

00:05:04.440 | And I still am much more introverted

00:05:07.200 | and more of like a curious observer.

00:05:12.040 | But I ended up loving that job in some ways

00:05:17.040 | because I mean, there's just so much I could say

00:05:22.720 | about working at LinkedIn that we don't have the time for,

00:05:26.400 | but it was such an amazing place

00:05:28.720 | to start my first job out of college

00:05:31.160 | because there were so many people there

00:05:33.920 | that could be their full selves at work.

00:05:36.000 | And in sales, I learned the art and science

00:05:40.640 | of asking meaningful yet difficult questions,

00:05:43.240 | which I still use and consider

00:05:45.720 | one of my greatest superpowers to this day.

00:05:49.040 | And then I had always known

00:05:52.880 | that I wanted to go back to school.

00:05:57.360 | So I applied to get my MBA from like all of the top schools,

00:06:02.360 | like Harvard, Stanford, Kellogg, and I didn't get accepted.

00:06:09.480 | And even I remember thinking that like I had to get accepted

00:06:14.480 | because I had hired a coach

00:06:17.360 | and the coach said like my essays were really great,

00:06:20.520 | but I ended up not getting accepted,

00:06:22.480 | but there was something better on the corner

00:06:24.240 | and that was getting my master's in human-centered design

00:06:27.640 | at the Institute of Design in Chicago,

00:06:30.560 | which is where I was living at the time.

00:06:32.560 | And that was a much better fit for me.

00:06:36.800 | And then I worked at Deloitte and consulting

00:06:39.640 | for about 15 months.

00:06:41.880 | And now I'm at Walgreens as a service designer.

00:06:44.880 | So I think a lot of the themes of my story

00:06:49.320 | is that my career path is very unexpected.

00:06:52.720 | And like there are twists and turns all over

00:06:56.080 | and I'm pretty early on in my career,

00:06:58.680 | but every time I feel like in some ways like I failed

00:07:03.440 | or I didn't get what I wanted,

00:07:04.640 | there was something around the corner

00:07:06.760 | that was a much better fit for me.

00:07:09.920 | So for anyone that may be struggling

00:07:14.920 | or may be surprised by where your career

00:07:19.200 | and your journey is taking you,

00:07:20.680 | know that it can all be meant for good

00:07:23.880 | and that you can find a lot of surprises in the journey.

00:07:28.240 | So I'm seeing you smiling, Tim,

00:07:31.080 | and I'm wondering if that resonates with you.

00:07:34.160 | - It absolutely does.

00:07:36.200 | My academic career was absolutely winding.

00:07:40.880 | And I think it's one of those things where in college,

00:07:44.120 | and actually in high school,

00:07:45.200 | I was one of those super achieving people, right?

00:07:48.040 | Like the group of friends I hang out with,

00:07:50.160 | we were known for being both well-rounded in education

00:07:54.680 | as well as being highly active in extracurriculars.

00:07:57.480 | And so there was a lot of expectation

00:08:00.240 | put on our groups in general, right?

00:08:01.880 | And from parents as well.

00:08:02.960 | And then you continue on to college

00:08:04.960 | and a lot of my friends went on to really big schools, right?

00:08:07.080 | And then for me, you know,

00:08:09.760 | I came into it thinking I was gonna be a doctor.

00:08:11.680 | I love how the mind works.

00:08:13.040 | Psychiatry is where I wanted to go.

00:08:15.600 | And so again, I came in with this expectation

00:08:18.880 | that I'm gonna do pre-med

00:08:19.720 | and everyone expected that as me as well, right?

00:08:21.960 | And the reality is I am terrible at biology.

00:08:26.680 | I could not remember everything.

00:08:28.160 | I didn't realize how much memorization went into that,

00:08:30.200 | right?

00:08:31.800 | And after two years, my grades just were just terrible.

00:08:34.600 | I was like, "Hey, I need to do a pivot."

00:08:36.600 | I feel like I've lost two years.

00:08:39.240 | School is really expensive.

00:08:40.520 | I was at Whitman College.

00:08:41.960 | And so I decided to go back to my local state university

00:08:45.400 | 'cause it's cheaper.

00:08:46.920 | And then like, you think of all the stereotypes

00:08:49.440 | that an Asian person can go through.

00:08:51.120 | I was like, "Well, I'm not gonna do medicine.

00:08:52.280 | I guess it's engineering."

00:08:53.240 | Like that was literally the thought process.

00:08:55.800 | So I gave that a try.

00:08:57.040 | And I was like even more somehow terrible at engineering

00:09:00.200 | than pre-med.

00:09:02.200 | And I went through that.

00:09:03.920 | And the only thing that kept my grade afloat

00:09:05.800 | was business school or business classes for undergrad.

00:09:08.560 | And so I kind of worked my way through that.

00:09:11.040 | And I kind of aged myself.

00:09:13.320 | I graduated in 2001

00:09:15.440 | and that's the era of the dot-com bubble burst, right?

00:09:18.520 | And so no one was getting hired in marketing.

00:09:20.800 | And my introduction into the workforce

00:09:24.280 | was having a degree in marketing

00:09:26.440 | that no one was hiring for.

00:09:28.120 | In a time where the market for jobs was really, really soft.

00:09:31.880 | And so it was very not glamorous.

00:09:35.360 | And as a matter of fact, I had to deal with two degrees.

00:09:38.160 | Some of the shame of going to a state school, right?

00:09:42.280 | There's nothing wrong with state schools.

00:09:44.400 | It's just for my parents and friends,

00:09:47.920 | it's not what people had envisioned of me.

00:09:50.040 | And also the same that like us,

00:09:52.000 | I took all these part-time jobs.

00:09:53.360 | So I'm kind of curious for you,

00:09:54.560 | like maybe we're gonna start with LinkedIn

00:09:55.880 | because LinkedIn is, and companies like LinkedIn,

00:09:59.400 | it's actually very unique in that

00:10:01.440 | it values things like compassion, empathy

00:10:06.000 | and all that kind of good stuff,

00:10:07.200 | has a lot of employee resources and a lot of benefits, right?

00:10:12.120 | But then when you leave that,

00:10:13.640 | so when that safety net is pulled away,

00:10:16.720 | that's really what the world is like.

00:10:18.520 | And so you came in, you mentioned BLP program,

00:10:21.640 | just for everyone listening to this,

00:10:24.160 | that's a very prestigious program.

00:10:26.160 | And so it's a very select few.

00:10:28.240 | Everyone who comes out of the program

00:10:30.160 | usually continues on to be very, very successful.

00:10:32.160 | And so you kind of start your career

00:10:34.280 | at a company like LinkedIn

00:10:35.240 | with a lot of accolades and success.

00:10:37.040 | So can you tell us a little bit about that experience

00:10:39.840 | and maybe where you went from there

00:10:42.960 | and maybe like some of the roams,

00:10:45.080 | the roses and thorns of starting at a company like LinkedIn?

00:10:48.080 | - Yeah, well, first of all,

00:10:51.080 | I wanna say that I really resonate with your comment

00:10:56.080 | about coming from a state school

00:10:59.040 | and feeling like you're not sure if you really fit in

00:11:02.800 | because I was so proud to go to U of I in Champaign

00:11:07.800 | being one of the first people in my family

00:11:10.320 | to go to a four-year university right after high school.

00:11:14.360 | And then when I got to LinkedIn in San Francisco,

00:11:18.520 | I felt totally like a fish out of water

00:11:20.800 | in that there are cohorts of students fresh out of school.

00:11:25.800 | And out of my 30-person cohort,

00:11:28.840 | seven of them went to Harvard.

00:11:30.920 | And I just remember feeling like, again,

00:11:33.920 | like what am I doing here?

00:11:36.040 | What is in this for me?

00:11:38.680 | And I, again, I'm so glad I stuck it out

00:11:42.120 | and I'm still very proud of my Illini background

00:11:45.160 | for the record.

00:11:48.400 | But LinkedIn, I mean, such an amazing place to work.

00:11:53.200 | I think what attracted me to the organization

00:11:58.120 | was just the sense of going through interviews

00:12:02.120 | and feeling like the person that I was getting

00:12:04.960 | in the interview was the same person that would go home

00:12:07.600 | and take care of their kids at night.

00:12:10.120 | And in the other places,

00:12:11.360 | I just felt like there was this work persona

00:12:14.080 | and then maybe a personal persona.

00:12:17.120 | And even though I hadn't worked in that many places,

00:12:20.720 | that was something that was felt.

00:12:23.240 | And so for anyone that is early on in your job search,

00:12:28.200 | I would say definitely listen to your gut

00:12:31.080 | and listen to your intuition about a place.

00:12:33.880 | And I know a lot of interviews are virtual,

00:12:38.520 | but I would really try to go into the office

00:12:42.400 | and have coffee with the team that you'll be working for.

00:12:45.520 | 'Cause there's just so much data that you can gather

00:12:48.160 | from actually being there, being with that person,

00:12:51.920 | observing how other people are working.

00:12:54.120 | So that's why I chose to join LinkedIn,

00:12:58.680 | one of the many reasons.

00:12:59.920 | But I also just felt like I could always be safe

00:13:04.480 | with my managers, they were amazing.

00:13:07.680 | And we talked about like personal stuff and work stuff,

00:13:11.340 | which I think is important if you're fresh out of school

00:13:14.960 | and you're still like figuring out yourself as an adult,

00:13:18.320 | that year of being 22 or 23 and graduating college

00:13:22.640 | and being all out on your own is such a stressful,

00:13:27.240 | transformative year for a lot of people.

00:13:30.920 | And I would say too that I just felt like I could bring

00:13:41.600 | all of my gifts to the workplace there.

00:13:45.160 | And what that means is even though I was in sales

00:13:49.920 | and I didn't feel like the typical sales person,

00:13:53.120 | I got to start the non-profit team

00:13:55.560 | at the non-profit account executive team

00:14:00.060 | under David Ellis and Ariana Unay and Sam Patel.

00:14:05.060 | And they really helped me bring my experience

00:14:11.480 | and bring my non-profit experience into that team.

00:14:14.920 | And they recognize that I had all of this knowledge

00:14:17.560 | from building my own non-profit that I could bring there

00:14:20.800 | and they asked for it.

00:14:22.000 | And so they allowed me to bring all parts of myself

00:14:25.440 | into that job.

00:14:27.000 | And I felt like if I ever had an idea for a workshop

00:14:30.280 | that I wanted to lead for my team, I could do that.

00:14:33.120 | So I was almost like thinking

00:14:34.240 | like an entrepreneur at LinkedIn.

00:14:36.800 | So that is really important.

00:14:40.000 | And for anyone that might be struggling

00:14:41.840 | or has an idea that would make you happier at work,

00:14:44.400 | I would say the onus is on you to bring that to the team.

00:14:48.340 | It sounds really silly,

00:14:51.040 | but like when I was managing a Deloitte project,

00:14:56.040 | I felt like one of the rituals that I brought

00:15:00.800 | was like asking a fun question

00:15:02.360 | at the beginning of every team meeting.

00:15:03.960 | It allows you to just connect with your coworkers

00:15:06.860 | on such a deeper level.

00:15:08.080 | So I would recommend for anything

00:15:10.040 | that you're not getting in your environment,

00:15:12.520 | just ask yourself like how you can make it

00:15:15.600 | a little bit better and who you might be able to go to.

00:15:18.960 | And I know that not all companies are like that

00:15:21.280 | where you have that ownership,

00:15:23.280 | but we do have a lot in our power to change.

00:15:27.080 | And so I think the flip side of that is that

00:15:35.520 | in a lot of organizations,

00:15:37.320 | unfortunately there isn't as much psychological safety

00:15:41.320 | and fun and free lunch.

00:15:42.880 | It felt like every other week at LinkedIn on a Friday,

00:15:47.280 | there was like, oh, there's this flower arranging workshop

00:15:50.560 | or there's this company downstairs

00:15:53.200 | that is giving out free hats.

00:15:55.480 | And that is like 1% of workplace culture in companies.

00:16:00.480 | And that was like really fun and I'm so grateful for that.

00:16:05.480 | But what I would recommend if you're starting a new job

00:16:15.160 | that is not like LinkedIn

00:16:18.400 | or maybe not like a typical tech company culture

00:16:22.240 | is to find those buddies really quickly in your first week

00:16:27.240 | or first or second week of onboarding

00:16:29.960 | that you can just be super real with

00:16:31.760 | about like what's really expected of me

00:16:35.520 | when it comes to my job itself,

00:16:38.520 | when it comes to meeting people and having coffee chats.

00:16:41.480 | Because there are so many unwritten rules

00:16:45.600 | in an organization and working virtually

00:16:48.560 | makes that even harder to figure out those unwritten rules.

00:16:52.160 | So I would set up coffee chats to meet people,

00:16:57.560 | feel safe and also ask those questions

00:17:00.080 | about like what's expected of me

00:17:02.840 | that's not on my job description.

00:17:04.920 | How do I meet people and make connections in a real way

00:17:09.080 | like versus like, and also just having a lot of leadership

00:17:13.880 | in your corner is important.

00:17:15.480 | One of my friends who had left consulting from grad school

00:17:22.280 | suggested that I meet with people

00:17:24.720 | who have since left that organization that I was joining.

00:17:29.720 | And I wish I would have done that

00:17:31.320 | because I think people who have left that organization

00:17:33.920 | have already processed it

00:17:35.080 | and they're in a new environment where they can say

00:17:38.280 | this is what's real about this place

00:17:40.920 | and give you the full answer.

00:17:44.000 | And there's no stakes in it for them anymore

00:17:46.920 | and they're not drinking the Kool-Aid.

00:17:48.600 | So that's a lot of my advice for starting a new job

00:17:54.440 | and also maybe transitioning to a culture

00:17:58.120 | that feels a little uneasy at times.

00:18:02.120 | - Yeah, and I wanted to add to that as well

00:18:03.840 | 'cause I think for your first job,

00:18:07.320 | especially if you come out with a really,

00:18:09.400 | like let's say really powerful degree

00:18:12.600 | that you're really proud of

00:18:13.760 | and it's kind of your bread and butter,

00:18:15.960 | oftentimes that first job may not necessarily be aligned

00:18:19.640 | to your education.

00:18:21.480 | As a matter of fact, I would say

00:18:24.000 | everything I learned with marketing,

00:18:25.360 | I probably didn't use until like

00:18:26.680 | maybe six years into my career.

00:18:28.400 | The first season of my career

00:18:31.240 | was just trying to figure stuff out and discover who I am.

00:18:33.600 | And so I think for everyone coming out of college,

00:18:36.720 | I think you should expect that.

00:18:39.080 | Unless your education is directly related to your work,

00:18:43.000 | like let's say if you're an academia-focused job

00:18:45.680 | or doing medicine,

00:18:46.520 | obviously that's kind of directly one-on-one.

00:18:48.320 | But for high-tech in particular,

00:18:51.040 | just know that it's not just the courses

00:18:54.680 | or your major you learned in school,

00:18:56.680 | it's how you talk to your students, your peers,

00:19:00.200 | how you talk to your teacher

00:19:01.480 | 'cause the communication part of it,

00:19:03.240 | you'll be using that one first.

00:19:04.800 | And I kind of wish I knew this early in my career,

00:19:10.040 | which is going to every job with a strong point of view

00:19:15.040 | on what you want to get out of the job.

00:19:18.200 | 'Cause it's like, when I came out of college,

00:19:20.160 | the market was really soft.

00:19:21.320 | So I took a whole bunch of really random jobs

00:19:25.080 | as a part of unemployment or whatever it is.

00:19:26.680 | And one of them was like content entry, right?

00:19:28.600 | And I was actually working for a house that we,

00:19:32.000 | basically I made sausages, right?

00:19:34.000 | And I was also IT.

00:19:35.680 | So it's all none of it's related,

00:19:38.320 | but from each of those in hindsight, I picked up something,

00:19:42.240 | whether it's how I deal with rejection.

00:19:44.320 | Like I was on a call center for like Wells Fargo

00:19:47.920 | getting rejected every Monday morning

00:19:49.440 | 'cause no one wanted to talk to me

00:19:50.440 | 'cause they didn't want to learn

00:19:51.800 | that they overdrew their checking account

00:19:53.000 | and now they owe the big money.

00:19:55.200 | So like everything has a purpose.

00:19:56.720 | And so if you go into a job with that expectation

00:19:59.760 | of learning something, then no job is ever beneath you.

00:20:03.560 | And the reason that's important is,

00:20:05.040 | especially for early career people,

00:20:07.600 | like especially with the ones that I've managed,

00:20:10.000 | the trait that I look for is either a kind of go-getter,

00:20:14.840 | entrepreneurial mindset where they're just,

00:20:17.040 | they're gonna do whatever it takes to figure it out.

00:20:20.320 | And the other one is looking at how they process things.

00:20:24.040 | So it's less about the end goal,

00:20:25.840 | it's more around like their thinking process,

00:20:27.720 | how they arrive at a conclusion.

00:20:29.360 | And so I like your feedback around,

00:20:32.440 | your suggestion around talking to people

00:20:34.960 | or finding leaders or people who've left

00:20:37.600 | and now they have a different point of view.

00:20:39.360 | 'Cause that could maybe give you some insight

00:20:41.080 | on how maybe you should approach things differently

00:20:42.720 | within that company,

00:20:43.720 | which might be unique to their culture.

00:20:46.120 | - Mm-hmm.

00:20:47.360 | - And I'm kind of curious, Elizabeth,

00:20:49.200 | LinkedIn is a fantastic place to work.

00:20:51.840 | I absolutely agree.

00:20:52.680 | As a matter of fact, a lot of my greatest friends

00:20:55.040 | were there, you included.

00:20:56.680 | And I think a lot of the really powerful life lessons

00:20:59.080 | I learned was only through LinkedIn.

00:21:01.720 | But you're right, it's like a 1% thing

00:21:04.440 | where not every company is that healthy

00:21:07.880 | or encouraging or supportive of employees

00:21:10.520 | with all these resources, right?

00:21:12.600 | When you leave the safety net of a place

00:21:15.440 | like LinkedIn and you go on to your next adventure,

00:21:19.360 | and you mentioned there's MakerGurl,

00:21:20.800 | there's other things that you're doing as well.

00:21:22.560 | Like what was the reality that met you once you left that?

00:21:25.840 | Did you learn anything about yourself

00:21:27.800 | that maybe you took for granted,

00:21:30.160 | that was there for you at LinkedIn

00:21:31.760 | and now you kind of need to lean on yourself

00:21:33.080 | a little more in other ways?

00:21:34.480 | - Yeah, that's a really good question.

00:21:39.360 | So what I did right after LinkedIn

00:21:43.600 | was actually going into grad school

00:21:46.800 | and the human-centered design program

00:21:51.240 | at the Institute of Design feels very nurturing as well.

00:21:56.240 | So it almost was in some sense a continuation of LinkedIn,

00:22:01.840 | which also is a very nurturing environment to work.

00:22:04.960 | In terms of what I did next,

00:22:10.200 | so I worked in consulting,

00:22:11.520 | which is definitely a very different environment.

00:22:13.800 | And I think that what I wish I would have done

00:22:18.800 | was done more reflecting on what it is about LinkedIn

00:22:27.120 | that made me feel so safe and seen

00:22:32.160 | and how can I get this in that next environment.

00:22:35.280 | So it's almost like doing a whole design thinking exercise

00:22:39.960 | on your own life and also just realizing

00:22:44.000 | that every job is temporary.

00:22:47.440 | And there are some things

00:22:49.040 | that I really liked about consulting,

00:22:50.680 | some things that I really didn't like.

00:22:52.960 | And so I would say really just pull out those things

00:22:57.960 | that you really like and continue to ask yourself

00:23:01.520 | how you can get that in your next environment.

00:23:03.720 | So for me, like in this job,

00:23:07.440 | I wanted an environment where I felt supported

00:23:11.400 | and safe to bring up my own ideas

00:23:15.400 | because that is very important to me

00:23:17.160 | to feel like a sense of ownership over my work.

00:23:21.120 | And I'm also in a process right now

00:23:23.760 | of creating my own personal definition of success.

00:23:28.600 | And I think that from our previous conversations,

00:23:32.280 | you're probably in that too,

00:23:35.120 | as you are thinking a lot about mentorship

00:23:39.000 | versus like moving up the ladder.

00:23:41.680 | So for me, right now I'm in a place

00:23:44.680 | where my personal definition of success

00:23:46.880 | or one of them at work is,

00:23:48.440 | how well do I really know my coworkers?

00:23:50.960 | And how well can I speak into them

00:23:56.840 | and help them with whatever it is they're going through,

00:23:59.560 | whether it's at work or at home.

00:24:03.760 | And then as far as the work itself,

00:24:06.040 | I think like how well does this work live on beyond me?

00:24:11.640 | So I think just being really true

00:24:15.400 | and understanding your own definitions

00:24:17.680 | based on where you're at in your career

00:24:21.000 | and what it is that you really value versus other people.

00:24:24.600 | And I know that that is a constant

00:24:28.960 | iterative changing definition

00:24:31.160 | based on where we're all at in our journeys.

00:24:33.280 | And social media and other platforms

00:24:36.400 | make it so easy to compare,

00:24:38.080 | but it is really important to be like very pigeonholed

00:24:42.000 | and say, this is the lane that I'm in right now

00:24:45.080 | and almost like envision a tunnel

00:24:47.440 | and be like, how can I do my best in this lane?

00:24:50.560 | So that's something I've been thinking a lot about lately.

00:24:55.000 | - Yeah, that's a very actually mature outlook on stuff

00:24:58.560 | 'cause at your point in career and mine, I wasn't there.

00:25:03.200 | I was measuring my success by income or by title,

00:25:07.880 | which wasn't there for me,

00:25:09.320 | or friendships that I've built and whatnot.

00:25:12.080 | And all those things over time kept changing, right?

00:25:14.040 | So if I decided to find success in a way

00:25:17.160 | that depends on people and they're gone,

00:25:18.480 | then I kind of had to start from square one again.

00:25:22.160 | And I think understanding your true values

00:25:27.160 | is kind of where I started maybe shifting my own lens

00:25:31.640 | on how I even look at success or whatnot.

00:25:33.840 | 'Cause I started realizing I work really, really hard, right?

00:25:38.840 | And that's gonna get rewarded

00:25:41.840 | in however the company wants to reward it.

00:25:43.800 | And sometimes it makes me happy

00:25:45.080 | and sometimes I can still work hard

00:25:46.920 | and the outcome is not desirable

00:25:49.240 | and I don't understand why.

00:25:50.200 | And then I start blaming myself or whatnot.

00:25:52.560 | And I started realizing that I'm putting a lot of my control

00:25:55.800 | over happiness and success in someone else's hands, right?

00:25:59.640 | Their evaluation of my performance

00:26:01.400 | is now driving my sense of value.

00:26:03.360 | And so my big shift was,

00:26:06.480 | and you and I actually do this as well

00:26:08.480 | during our one-on-one sessions or when we just chat,

00:26:11.160 | is just kind of coming back to discovering your true self.

00:26:15.720 | Like what is it that truly gives you joy?

00:26:18.720 | And what is it that you truly value?

00:26:20.560 | And sometimes you don't know,

00:26:23.400 | but the goal is to just discover who the real you is, right?

00:26:27.960 | And when you kind of come to terms with that,

00:26:31.040 | then when you look at the work environment,

00:26:33.280 | you can start to maybe digest or unpack

00:26:36.400 | why a certain situation caused you

00:26:40.200 | to have an adverse reaction.

00:26:41.640 | 'Cause maybe it actually directly conflicted

00:26:45.280 | with a personal value that you weren't thinking about

00:26:47.320 | and that inside a fundamental level, it bothered you.

00:26:50.360 | And for me, I'm on the other end of the career than you.

00:26:55.360 | I got several years on you in terms of age.

00:26:58.640 | And I'm realizing now that at this point in my career,

00:27:02.240 | so like it was at 25 years in,

00:27:04.560 | it's now a lot less about titles

00:27:08.280 | 'cause quite frankly, I don't care about that anymore.

00:27:11.080 | And income, I don't care about that.

00:27:13.280 | Not that I don't need money.

00:27:14.520 | Everyone needs the income, but it doesn't define success.

00:27:18.520 | Kind of like you, it's landing on people.

00:27:21.280 | And what kind of impact do I want to leave my legacy

00:27:25.040 | or whatnot, and I've got kids as well.

00:27:26.800 | So I'm trying to set a good example for them.

00:27:29.040 | Yeah, I think that's my kind of where I'm at right now too.

00:27:34.040 | - Yeah.

00:27:35.600 | Well, I am curious about that.

00:27:39.480 | So what, I guess like, how did you get to that place

00:27:44.480 | when I'm sure you're at a point in your career

00:27:48.280 | where people are buying second houses

00:27:52.560 | and have luxury cars and are like thinking

00:27:56.880 | about their children's education

00:27:59.240 | and spending as much on preschool as we did on college.

00:28:04.240 | - Yeah.

00:28:06.760 | - How do you continue to stay true to that

00:28:10.320 | when I guess like the game of comparison

00:28:14.680 | only gets bigger and bigger and yeah.

00:28:18.680 | - Well, the game of comparison bundled

00:28:21.080 | with things like imposter syndrome

00:28:22.800 | are almost always there, right?

00:28:25.520 | I think the pivot point for me was,

00:28:29.200 | so in my career, I've actually early on,

00:28:31.840 | I've had a lot of really terrible managers,

00:28:34.600 | ones that really made me question my existence

00:28:36.880 | and values of human being.

00:28:38.040 | Like it's really, there's a few that really broke me down

00:28:41.040 | to my core.

00:28:41.880 | And there was one instance at Logitech specifically

00:28:46.640 | where I had it.

00:28:49.000 | I was like, I know I'm more than this.

00:28:51.120 | I'm more than the work.

00:28:52.320 | And I was thinking about at the end of the day,

00:28:56.320 | I'm clearly disposable for in a company's eyes, right?

00:29:00.520 | We're a number and we're there to solve a problem

00:29:03.560 | that the company needs to move forward.

00:29:05.520 | But at the end of my life,

00:29:08.080 | when I think of like, doesn't be really, really dark,

00:29:11.640 | but let's say the tombstone

00:29:13.120 | and people are gathering around and remembering who I was,

00:29:16.080 | no one's gonna remember me for how many projects I launched

00:29:18.480 | or no one's gonna remember me

00:29:19.480 | for how much revenue I generated for a company.

00:29:21.800 | They're gonna remember me for how I related to them, right?

00:29:26.560 | Or my impact on them.

00:29:28.520 | And so that's when I started realizing,

00:29:29.600 | I was like, you know what?

00:29:31.080 | One of my core values I wanna be remembered for

00:29:33.720 | is like, you know what?

00:29:34.560 | Tim like just didn't give up.

00:29:36.240 | Like he just pushed through.

00:29:39.320 | And so that's, at that point in my life,

00:29:42.000 | it changed my mindset of working for myself

00:29:44.360 | versus working for the company.

00:29:45.600 | And a lot of times they align

00:29:46.960 | 'cause obviously the harder I worked,

00:29:48.520 | the company benefited from it,

00:29:50.360 | but I'm working for myself now.

00:29:53.000 | - Yeah.

00:29:53.840 | - At this point in my career,

00:29:56.080 | then if you kind of evolve that thinking,

00:29:58.200 | like I'm thankful that I have an awesome wife

00:30:01.160 | who has a very stable job.

00:30:02.520 | Quite frankly, I don't know how people do

00:30:04.040 | single income in California.

00:30:06.080 | It happens and I just don't get it.

00:30:08.720 | And so thankfully there's some stability there,

00:30:12.720 | especially when I was unemployed,

00:30:13.800 | we started feeling that, right?

00:30:16.920 | But some of that is just the math of knowing,

00:30:19.080 | hey, look, if we, our total cost is X, Y, and Z,

00:30:24.080 | and we know how much income we need to bring in,

00:30:26.040 | like, so you need to figure out the math.

00:30:28.120 | Now, the things that affect the equation,

00:30:30.200 | like we have kids is like, okay,

00:30:31.240 | well, we will just eat out less.

00:30:33.280 | We're gonna buy one bulk thing at Costco

00:30:34.920 | and that's gonna last us for the week or whatever it is.

00:30:36.800 | So there's ways of adjusting your cost of living

00:30:39.800 | to make it work, which allows me to then,

00:30:43.280 | again, go back to detaching myself

00:30:45.440 | from the stress of finance.

00:30:46.880 | If I was a single income earner though,

00:30:49.960 | which thankfully I have not experienced

00:30:51.800 | the same situation where I'm unemployed,

00:30:54.640 | I think my answer to you might be really, really different.

00:30:57.560 | I would, it'd be coming from a point of desperation,

00:31:00.960 | probably, because you've got to pay your bills and whatnot.

00:31:05.160 | And how that would have been different

00:31:07.080 | during this period of unemployment, for example,

00:31:09.920 | like I gave myself like a month

00:31:11.520 | to just kind of figure myself out

00:31:13.120 | before I went back into it.

00:31:14.640 | And then almost, not to necessarily take the luxury,

00:31:19.320 | but giving myself a little grace period.

00:31:21.240 | Again, we did the math of how long

00:31:22.440 | I could be unemployed for.

00:31:23.520 | And so allowed myself to try to find the best job.

00:31:27.520 | But if I were a single income earner and lost my job,

00:31:30.960 | I'd get the very first thing available to me,

00:31:34.720 | maybe take multiple jobs, right?

00:31:37.080 | But I think in the end, like I said before,

00:31:39.240 | knowing when I'm gonna get out of that experience,

00:31:40.560 | 'cause I'm gonna use that experience in my next interview

00:31:42.520 | for the dream job and say,

00:31:44.400 | "Hey, look, here's, I worked through that."

00:31:46.920 | Yeah, that's kind of how I do it right now.

00:31:49.080 | - I'm also curious if you talked to your kids

00:31:52.160 | about what was happening during that time too.

00:31:57.160 | - Yeah, I did.

00:31:58.840 | You know, it's funny.

00:31:59.840 | It took me a while to first come to terms with it

00:32:03.600 | on my own, quite frankly, about unemployment.

00:32:06.480 | What I'm afraid of with my girls,

00:32:09.600 | 'cause they're eight and 10,

00:32:10.680 | and they jibba jabba with their friends.

00:32:13.040 | And they're friends' parents, I know them,

00:32:15.920 | and they're all super successful Bay Area people, right?

00:32:19.760 | And so I wanted to control the narrative

00:32:22.280 | that came out of their mouths a little bit.

00:32:24.640 | But the narrative would be around,

00:32:28.040 | not only that daddy lost his job, but just the fear.

00:32:31.440 | It's like, "Oh my gosh, where the food is gonna come from?"

00:32:33.600 | All this kind of paranoia.

00:32:34.760 | I wasn't ready to deal with the conversation yet.

00:32:37.160 | So I kept the unemployment part to myself

00:32:40.200 | for the greater part of a month.

00:32:41.080 | So they just assumed I went to work

00:32:44.080 | after dropping them off at school.

00:32:45.120 | So I would dress up decently as if I'm going to work.

00:32:47.560 | I'll drop them off at school, I'll come back home,

00:32:49.520 | dress down back into sweats.

00:32:51.160 | And that was like my reality for a few months.

00:32:54.160 | Well, also try and launch this podcast.

00:32:56.120 | But when I was ready, I sat down and I talked to them.

00:33:00.040 | And as a matter of fact,

00:33:01.640 | so you and I, we're both people of faith.

00:33:03.280 | And so I was going through like at night,

00:33:06.280 | we go through our devotions together

00:33:08.080 | and kind of walking through some stuff

00:33:09.360 | and some stories of the Bible.

00:33:11.600 | And one of them was like story of Job.

00:33:13.840 | Like Job was a guy who was known

00:33:16.360 | for being really dedicated to God,

00:33:19.480 | but then God allowed him to be tested, right?

00:33:22.000 | And so like all these crazy things happened to him,

00:33:23.480 | but at the end of the day, like he still prevailed.

00:33:25.960 | When I shared that story

00:33:28.600 | and then kind of talked to the girls

00:33:29.720 | about how like prayers get answered or whatnot,

00:33:32.520 | that's the opportunity I used to be transparent to them.

00:33:35.160 | I was like, "Hey, by the way,

00:33:36.400 | "like this story is not just a story.

00:33:38.600 | "Like your daddy's kind of going through that too.

00:33:41.560 | "Like I'm dealing with some stuff

00:33:42.960 | "for the past month I didn't tell you about."

00:33:44.720 | And I allowed myself to be a little vulnerable.

00:33:47.880 | I chose vocabulary that was appropriate

00:33:49.640 | for an eight and 10 year old,

00:33:50.560 | but I used a lot of illustrations

00:33:52.200 | to kind of illustrate how I'm processing things,

00:33:56.080 | trying to help them realize that daddy's not scared,

00:33:58.360 | so you shouldn't be scared.

00:34:00.000 | And then more importantly,

00:34:01.640 | it was about helping them understand

00:34:03.440 | how I'm working through that,

00:34:04.480 | 'cause there's skills that they can use now,

00:34:06.640 | like resilience and being creative, right?

00:34:09.920 | Being resourceful and praying

00:34:12.560 | and relying on working with people

00:34:15.120 | to kind of help support you.

00:34:16.680 | So I did bring them into that journey

00:34:17.960 | 'cause I think there's a lot of things that they learn.

00:34:19.160 | And so thankfully, I don't think they walked away

00:34:21.760 | that with a negative perception on the situation.

00:34:24.440 | They seemed like they really

00:34:25.880 | kind of took those lessons to heart.

00:34:27.280 | And that's kind of the stress of a parent,

00:34:28.840 | especially a dad where I just assume

00:34:31.680 | that eventually they'll project,

00:34:35.360 | whether the future partner happens to be a guy,

00:34:40.120 | I would assume that they would look for values

00:34:41.760 | similar to what their daddy had.

00:34:43.000 | And so I kind of have to figure out

00:34:44.760 | how to be this larger version of myself

00:34:47.360 | in work and in personal.

00:34:49.520 | - Wow, there's so much there,

00:34:53.720 | but yeah, I want to acknowledge you.

00:34:58.720 | And I think that's something

00:35:02.840 | that I've always really appreciated

00:35:04.760 | about our conversations

00:35:06.040 | is that you're just so intentional

00:35:07.800 | for how you frame things to the audience

00:35:11.400 | that you're speaking to,

00:35:12.440 | whether it's me and taking yourself back

00:35:16.040 | to where you were at the point in my shoes

00:35:20.360 | or your daughter's.

00:35:23.000 | And I'm sure you continue to do the same

00:35:24.920 | for other different folks in your life.

00:35:27.600 | But yeah, that's amazing that you're just thinking

00:35:31.920 | about the perception of not wanting them to be afraid

00:35:36.440 | because that sticks with you.

00:35:38.040 | - Yeah, I agree.

00:35:40.160 | I think, actually, you exhibit some things

00:35:42.440 | that I use you as an example with my kids

00:35:45.040 | with some things we talked about.

00:35:46.320 | I didn't tell you about this.

00:35:47.560 | I didn't prepare you for this.

00:35:49.360 | You are awesome at asking questions.

00:35:53.920 | There's a degree of self-awareness that you have,

00:35:56.280 | which is really, really cool,

00:35:57.280 | even though you don't know all the answers.

00:35:59.400 | And what I mean is this.

00:36:00.560 | So early on after LinkedIn, you reached out

00:36:02.400 | and we decided, "Hey, let's do a monthly,

00:36:05.160 | "bi-monthly kind of just sync up and see how we're doing."

00:36:08.680 | And you're always good about asking questions.

00:36:12.400 | And I'm kind of curious, where does that come from?

00:36:15.120 | How do you know at a given point in time,

00:36:18.840 | given what you're dealing with,

00:36:20.520 | how much you're willing to share,

00:36:21.520 | how much you were not willing to share

00:36:23.120 | with someone like me?

00:36:24.160 | Can you talk about your self-awareness piece?

00:36:28.280 | How do you determine how you're gonna bring someone in

00:36:32.440 | and utilize questions to get the most out of a mentor

00:36:35.560 | or someone like me?

00:36:36.600 | - Thank you.

00:36:40.000 | Honestly, I do feel like that is my superpower.

00:36:46.400 | And I don't know where it comes from.

00:36:49.720 | I think we each have superpowers

00:36:53.920 | that are somewhat nature and nurture.

00:36:57.680 | Maybe that is from just feeling that sense

00:37:02.680 | of being different, given my background is very different

00:37:06.720 | than, like I said, other people's,

00:37:08.640 | and I'm sure everyone has a different background

00:37:10.400 | in some capacity, or yeah, they do.

00:37:14.040 | And I think it is just from growing up in a place where,

00:37:24.480 | growing up in a place that felt small,

00:37:26.760 | I was always curious about, okay,

00:37:28.280 | like what is on the outside of like this little,

00:37:33.280 | this town that I'm in, or what, going to college,

00:37:37.880 | like, okay, there are all these kids

00:37:40.560 | from the Chicago suburbs.

00:37:42.760 | What is their experience like right now

00:37:44.560 | that's so different than mine?

00:37:45.960 | And why am I not feeling the freshman year,

00:37:50.120 | like excitement that they're feeling?

00:37:53.320 | And then similarly, like then going to San Francisco,

00:37:55.960 | like another big pool where I'm like, oh, wow,

00:38:00.600 | how do people live here?

00:38:03.800 | And what are they thinking about in their career?

00:38:08.800 | And how can I just continue to like learn from them?

00:38:13.360 | So I do think that that is somewhat just innate to me.

00:38:18.360 | And it's why I transitioned to being a design researcher

00:38:22.440 | and service designer,

00:38:23.560 | because that's what you get to do for a living.

00:38:26.600 | But over time, it's just,

00:38:31.320 | you asked about the relational piece of it.

00:38:33.160 | And I think it's like,

00:38:34.160 | I really try to show up to conversations very prepared

00:38:39.160 | with the sense of what it is that I want to get out of it.

00:38:43.240 | And I think that like that five to 10 minutes of preparation

00:38:47.680 | goes a really long way.

00:38:50.200 | Just like looking at someone's LinkedIn profile,

00:38:52.400 | being like, oh, that's interesting.

00:38:54.320 | Like, why did they choose to go to that university?

00:38:59.120 | Or what they wrote about this job is really unique.

00:39:04.120 | And like you working at a call center,

00:39:06.480 | I didn't know that before.

00:39:08.360 | But like now I'm curious, like as a service designer,

00:39:13.080 | we talk about the call center all the time

00:39:16.560 | and how that solves problems.

00:39:19.320 | So I'm like, oh, that's really cool.

00:39:21.720 | So I think, yeah, that is one of my strengths

00:39:26.320 | is just going through life with a sense of curiosity.

00:39:29.720 | - Yeah, and I think taking the time to pause and reflect

00:39:34.560 | what you clearly do is important.

00:39:36.600 | I didn't do any of that earlier in my career.

00:39:38.480 | And I actually went through probably the first 10,

00:39:40.960 | 15 years of my career without a mentor

00:39:43.600 | to remind myself how that's important.

00:39:45.360 | So I'm really excited to see you

00:39:48.000 | already having that self-awareness and doing that

00:39:50.080 | and having a core to who you are.

00:39:51.840 | And it's really smart what you said about taking the time

00:39:55.320 | to prepare for conversation,

00:39:56.560 | getting to know what's in someone else's either headspace

00:39:59.040 | or getting to know more about them

00:40:00.560 | before you engage within conversation.

00:40:02.520 | That skillset will carry you out

00:40:03.880 | through all levels of organization,

00:40:05.200 | depending on where you go in your career.

00:40:06.720 | So that's really cool.

00:40:08.680 | - Thank you.

00:40:09.520 | - Elizabeth, I just want to thank you

00:40:10.680 | for today's conversation.

00:40:12.200 | I think it was just a great reminder

00:40:14.120 | for people coming out of college.

00:40:15.960 | Look, you can take full control of your first job.

00:40:20.520 | I think having self-awareness,

00:40:22.160 | being able to ignite your passion,

00:40:25.120 | kind of discover who you are

00:40:26.520 | and just trying to figure that out

00:40:27.760 | and working relationally with people,

00:40:29.960 | that's all really, really important.

00:40:31.040 | So I'm thanking you for your time

00:40:32.840 | and hopefully we can have you on here again soon.

00:40:35.520 | - Definitely.

00:40:36.360 | And can I leave the audience with a little,

00:40:39.160 | just like last few tidbits?

00:40:41.120 | - Absolutely.

00:40:42.640 | - Yeah.

00:40:43.800 | So we didn't get to talk about Make a Girl,

00:40:46.480 | but for anyone in their 20s,

00:40:50.440 | I would recommend starting something,

00:40:54.760 | whether it's like passion project

00:40:57.720 | where you just get people together like once a month

00:41:00.240 | or making a piece of art

00:41:03.480 | and showing it at the gallery down the street.

00:41:07.880 | Definitely like put your work out there

00:41:11.880 | and put your ideas out there

00:41:13.160 | because that gives you a sense of ownership

00:41:15.960 | and an entrepreneurial,

00:41:17.360 | you'd think I would know how to say that word by now,

00:41:21.960 | mindset that you can bring to other places

00:41:25.080 | and people love new ideas

00:41:28.760 | and new ways of thinking about things.

00:41:30.400 | So like that is super valuable.

00:41:34.960 | And I would also say just like

00:41:38.600 | sit in a posture of expectancy.

00:41:42.560 | If you're not where you wanna be,

00:41:44.760 | there is some level of ownership

00:41:49.080 | that you can take over that.

00:41:51.520 | But also there's some sense of,

00:41:54.800 | like if you're just doing good work

00:41:57.080 | and putting your best into it and continuing to learn,

00:42:00.760 | like you're doing great.

00:42:02.480 | But just sit in a posture of expectancy of like,

00:42:06.200 | oh, like maybe I'm not exactly where I wanna be,

00:42:08.840 | but I do feel like this is going to lead me somewhere great

00:42:13.840 | and like something is around the corner.

00:42:18.520 | So I think that I wish I would have done that earlier on

00:42:22.640 | and I'm still like talking to myself

00:42:25.560 | about easing up on like the wheel of control,

00:42:29.640 | but just having that posture of expectancy

00:42:32.760 | and in the minor things, like what's gonna happen today

00:42:37.560 | and also in the major things of like,

00:42:39.800 | what's my next job gonna be

00:42:41.800 | is a really powerful place to sit.

00:42:44.760 | - I'm gonna do an edit on this part.

00:42:48.360 | I'm gonna quickly record an introduction to that

00:42:50.160 | 'cause that's awesome.

00:42:51.000 | So I'm gonna remove that outro for a second.

00:42:53.880 | - What, what?

00:42:54.960 | - Oh, earlier I ended the podcast

00:42:57.000 | and you let in Maker Girl again.

00:42:58.520 | I'm gonna record something right now to,

00:43:00.200 | I'm gonna edit that out.

00:43:01.040 | I'm gonna put this in.

00:43:02.280 | - But I can't say-

00:43:03.600 | - No, no, no, I'll do it for you.

00:43:05.480 | I'll do it for you.

00:43:06.600 | - Okay, cool.

00:43:08.040 | - All right.

00:43:11.840 | So Elizabeth, one thing you had mentioned earlier

00:43:14.400 | in our conversation is Maker Girl

00:43:16.160 | and that totally fascinates me

00:43:18.080 | for being someone so young in your position,

00:43:20.360 | starting something.

00:43:21.200 | So can you tell us a little bit about

00:43:23.600 | what you learned from creating your own business

00:43:25.920 | at such a young age?

00:43:27.040 | Nice, I'm gonna edit that into that thing.

00:43:31.560 | Cool, yeah, but I just wanna thank you again so much,

00:43:34.280 | seriously, for joining the call.

00:43:35.840 | I think, yeah, your insights are really, really valuable

00:43:38.760 | and I think there's a lot that people can learn

00:43:40.680 | from what you said.

00:43:41.520 | There's a lot of wisdom there.

00:43:42.360 | So thanks again.

00:43:43.640 | - Yeah, I wanted to thank you

00:43:46.360 | for just being there all the time.

00:43:50.960 | And like, I think from our lunches at LinkedIn

00:43:55.960 | in San Francisco to our continued conversations

00:44:00.440 | where I can just be real and vulnerable with you

00:44:03.720 | about the things that I'm feeling,

00:44:05.200 | it really, really goes such a long way.

00:44:08.240 | So really appreciate you.

00:44:10.640 | - All right, thanks, Lizeth.

00:44:13.120 | Talk to you soon.

00:44:14.600 | - Bye.

00:44:15.440 | (gentle music)

00:44:18.020 | you

Career Advice to College Grads: When Expectation Meets Reality

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