Episode 2: My Jerry Maguire Moment (Creating a Manifesto)

00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)

00:00:02.580 | All right, so it's day two.

00:00:09.160 | Well, it's not technically day two.

00:00:10.880 | It's a few days since my last video.

00:00:13.400 | So I decided that to make this podcast real,

00:00:19.720 | I need to have a Jerry Maguire-like mission statement

00:00:23.800 | or manifesto or something.

00:00:27.200 | And so I decided, I just started writing things

00:00:29.360 | that matter to me, like unemployment is one,

00:00:33.840 | developing skills is another.

00:00:35.440 | And then I realized that I need to find people

00:00:42.080 | as I'm interviewing them who have the same passion

00:00:45.380 | as I do about this topic.

00:00:47.000 | And I want my vision to be easily understood

00:00:51.440 | as I'm kind of conveying what the scope is.

00:00:54.960 | And so I decided to write a letter to my future guests-to-be

00:00:59.960 | and the idea is kind of like cold call.

00:01:04.320 | I've got my Rolodex of people that I would love to speak to

00:01:08.000 | and as a part of my outreach,

00:01:09.520 | I want to send them this letter

00:01:10.720 | so they know what I'm trying to do, right?

00:01:12.240 | And they want to be a part of it.

00:01:13.360 | Awesome, and then we're on the same page.

00:01:14.880 | They don't, no harm, no foul.

00:01:17.720 | And so I probably wrote this letter,

00:01:20.080 | like rewrote it like probably 15 or 20 different times,

00:01:24.360 | starting from like a three pager down to like a paragraph,

00:01:29.280 | realizing that's too short and then expand a little bit

00:01:32.160 | and finally landing at a happy place.

00:01:34.320 | And I'm really proud of it.

00:01:37.080 | I wanted to read it to you

00:01:39.000 | 'cause I think this is gonna be the foundation,

00:01:41.080 | like my source of truth where if I'm having a rough day

00:01:44.680 | or I find myself veering off course,

00:01:47.280 | I can always go back to this letter to reground myself

00:01:51.400 | on why I'm doing this and to not deviate

00:01:55.360 | from the true or honest nature of what I'm trying to solve for.

00:01:58.680 | So let me read it to you.

00:02:01.120 | A letter to my guest speakers.

00:02:06.000 | When I graduated from high school,

00:02:09.480 | my impressions of my career options were pretty limited

00:02:13.240 | or heavily influenced by perceptions impressed upon me

00:02:17.240 | by my family, peers, and in many cases, my culture.

00:02:21.640 | And their intention was to set me on a course

00:02:24.120 | to achieve maximum job security or income

00:02:27.400 | through what was popular at the time,

00:02:29.480 | medicine, law, engineering.

00:02:30.840 | However, when lack of college academic success

00:02:35.200 | closed the door on all of them,

00:02:37.800 | it left me floundering and ashamed.

00:02:40.960 | Pride annihilated.

00:02:45.160 | As I picked up the pieces

00:02:46.600 | and took on any job that I could find,

00:02:49.120 | I leaned on the one thing

00:02:50.840 | that does not distinguish me on the resume,

00:02:54.360 | relationship building.

00:02:55.480 | If I could go back in time

00:02:58.040 | and give myself one piece of advice,

00:03:00.040 | it would be simply this,

00:03:01.960 | keep your head up, explore all your options,

00:03:05.880 | intentionally learn something from each job experience,

00:03:09.280 | and one day, your experience will catch up

00:03:13.240 | and relationship building will become your greatest asset.

00:03:16.960 | That in a sense is what I want our viewers

00:03:19.360 | to take away from these videos.

00:03:21.360 | There is hope and there is a path to get there.

00:03:24.280 | There are a lot of people in the job market today

00:03:27.080 | who have had their sense of self-identity

00:03:29.720 | crushed through layoffs and closed opportunities.

00:03:33.360 | They're looking at the job that has left them

00:03:35.360 | and wondering what they should have

00:03:36.920 | or could have done differently.

00:03:38.920 | They are wondering what their options are

00:03:41.080 | but are frightened about change.

00:03:43.240 | For early career individuals,

00:03:45.120 | they may not know all the options available to them

00:03:47.720 | or they may have misconceptions

00:03:49.440 | about what any particular job function is.

00:03:51.680 | The purpose of these videos

00:03:54.200 | is to help them understand what their options are

00:03:56.880 | to get a true, unbiased, and genuine perspective

00:04:00.480 | from seasoned experts like you

00:04:02.560 | on what it takes to succeed in your role.

00:04:06.000 | To help them understand what skill sets are needed

00:04:07.960 | should they decide to transition to your field

00:04:11.920 | or learn from you so they can grow further

00:04:14.760 | in the role you are representing.

00:04:17.000 | Thank you for joining me on this mission

00:04:19.760 | to create more economic opportunity for our global community.

00:04:24.040 | Humbly yours, Tim Chen.

00:04:26.120 | I thought I would share that.

00:04:28.760 | That's as far as I've gotten.

00:04:30.440 | Next up is the Rolodex conversation.

00:04:35.720 | I have my list of people I want to speak to.

00:04:39.840 | What I've done is I've looked at all of the job functions.

00:04:43.760 | Again, starting in high tech.

00:04:45.320 | So like digital marketing, search and optimization,

00:04:49.040 | market research, operations, sales, comms,

00:04:53.600 | demand generation, insight sales,

00:04:57.680 | design.

00:05:01.600 | Categorically, I'm just making sure

00:05:03.000 | that I have all of those identified

00:05:06.360 | so I don't miss anything.

00:05:07.480 | So there's obviously more than that.

00:05:09.400 | Product management is one I added last night.

00:05:11.720 | And so I have names now to each of those.

00:05:15.080 | And each of those functions,

00:05:16.720 | I have around two to three names.

00:05:18.920 | Hopefully at least one of those names

00:05:20.560 | will take me up on it.

00:05:22.000 | And we'll see where it goes.

00:05:23.480 | I created a rough outline

00:05:25.440 | on what our conversation flow would be.

00:05:28.360 | So I created a little quick video details spreadsheet

00:05:33.360 | that I sent to them where I talk about

00:05:36.400 | my primary audience, my secondary audience,

00:05:39.400 | give them some advice on what attire

00:05:41.640 | they would want to wear, how we're recording.

00:05:44.000 | We'll be using Zoom.

00:05:45.480 | And then more importantly, the content outline.

00:05:48.680 | And it's pretty straightforward, again,

00:05:50.360 | because I want these to be as organic as possible.

00:05:53.640 | So broadly, the first topic will be,

00:05:57.400 | tell us about your job function,

00:05:58.880 | how to do it, and why it matters.

00:06:01.280 | The second one will be around skill sets

00:06:03.360 | or experience or education required.

00:06:05.400 | And then the third category would be around

00:06:08.960 | what you should know if you're considering

00:06:11.240 | a new career in this field.

00:06:13.000 | And I think I'm gonna ask a lot of questions

00:06:15.000 | around understanding their own career journey.

00:06:17.280 | Was it linear?

00:06:18.120 | Was it choose your own adventure, right?

00:06:19.640 | And did it do this like mine did?

00:06:22.400 | And then what did they learn along the way?

00:06:24.880 | And then the last one is like,

00:06:27.200 | what are the career growth path

00:06:29.600 | for people who are currently practicing that function?

00:06:31.920 | So again, I'm trying to cover the spectrum

00:06:33.520 | of early career, mid, and senior.

00:06:37.080 | And so that's generally kind of how I'm gonna be doing this.

00:06:42.000 | We'll see how it goes.

00:06:43.440 | Wish me luck.

00:06:44.320 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

Episode 2: My Jerry Maguire Moment (Creating a Manifesto)

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