(upbeat music) - You're listening to Let's Talk Jobs, where we give you practical insights into jobs and careers. I'm Tim Chen, and today's episode was made specifically for all the new grads entering the workforce. What happens when expectation meets reality and is not what you thought it would be?

If I were to ask my college self upon graduation, why I expect to achieve success, I'll probably say one of the following. Either I will outwork everyone because I struggled and I still graduated, or I'm streetwise and paired with some natural talents I know I can figure things out.

I would have said, "That's cute," pat myself on the head and said, "Good luck with that. "Let's talk again in 10 years." Because the reality of the situation was my expectation of success, what it looks like, and how quickly I believed I could achieve it was all way off.

And for high-performing graduates who enter the workforce with high distinction, the harsh reality of the job market and the lack of glamor in that first entry-level job could in itself feel like a failure. Let me tell you something right now. It's not. 10 years later, you will tell yourself that experience is experience, but being intentional about what you want to learn from each job you take is much more important.

So today, we're going to have a chat with Elizabeth Ingeley. She and I met when we were both at LinkedIn, and she was a part of the prestigious Business Leadership Program. We're going to talk about the highs and lows of early career experience, things we learned along the way, and advice we would give to new college grads.

All right, let's get started. Hey, guys, you're listening to Let's Talk Jobs. I'm Tim Chen. Joining us is Elizabeth Ingeley. Elizabeth, how are you doing? - I'm great. Glad to be here. - Thanks, Elizabeth. Today's episode is for anyone who is graduating college, entering their first job, or you're exiting your first job, going to your next one.

And it's a topic about reality meeting expectations. And so, Elizabeth, can you tell us a little bit about your journey? - Yeah. Wow, that's such a big question, Tim. (both laughing) Okay. So, where I actually like to start my career journey is with my personal journey, because personal and work are really not, really so interconnected.

So, I actually grew up on a farm in Southern Illinois, where there were two stoplights and 3,300 people. So, even though I'm white and I don't look diverse, I do consider my background to be very diverse from many of the folks that I'm working with, whose parents were probably in corporate jobs or somewhat similar jobs, and maybe grew up in the suburbs or the city.

So, I'm really thankful for that background in a way, because I feel like it was very playful. And I also learned the values of humility and hard work. So, when I went to the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign, which, by the way, is one of the best schools in the world, Go Illini, that was 13 times the size of my hometown.

And after my freshman year, I remember having a conversation with my mom and I was crying on her bed. And she was like, "Well, do you just wanna come home "and go to the local community college?" And I said, "No, I know this is where I need to be, "but it's just really hard," because I felt just like disconnected and that was such a big leap out of my comfort zone.

So, for anyone that's like in an environment where you're new and feeling like you're not enough or your background isn't enough, I would encourage you to stick it out for as long as you can, unless you're still feeling that tension after some time. But fast forward, had a great sophomore year, freshman year was a little bit rough.

And then I started a national nonprofit that educates girls in STEM called MakerGirl out of a social entrepreneurship class that I took for fun my senior year. And I know we're gonna talk about that later, but then I started my career in sales at LinkedIn in the business leadership program, which is how we met.

And I'm so thankful God brought us together. And that was never a job that I would have seen myself doing. Oftentimes at that point, when I told people I did sales, they were really, really surprised because I was like the introverted quiet girl on the side of the room.

And I still am much more introverted and more of like a curious observer. But I ended up loving that job in some ways because I mean, there's just so much I could say about working at LinkedIn that we don't have the time for, but it was such an amazing place to start my first job out of college because there were so many people there that could be their full selves at work.

And in sales, I learned the art and science of asking meaningful yet difficult questions, which I still use and consider one of my greatest superpowers to this day. And then I had always known that I wanted to go back to school. So I applied to get my MBA from like all of the top schools, like Harvard, Stanford, Kellogg, and I didn't get accepted.

And even I remember thinking that like I had to get accepted because I had hired a coach and the coach said like my essays were really great, but I ended up not getting accepted, but there was something better on the corner and that was getting my master's in human-centered design at the Institute of Design in Chicago, which is where I was living at the time.

And that was a much better fit for me. And then I worked at Deloitte and consulting for about 15 months. And now I'm at Walgreens as a service designer. So I think a lot of the themes of my story is that my career path is very unexpected. And like there are twists and turns all over and I'm pretty early on in my career, but every time I feel like in some ways like I failed or I didn't get what I wanted, there was something around the corner that was a much better fit for me.

So for anyone that may be struggling or may be surprised by where your career and your journey is taking you, know that it can all be meant for good and that you can find a lot of surprises in the journey. So I'm seeing you smiling, Tim, and I'm wondering if that resonates with you.

- It absolutely does. My academic career was absolutely winding. And I think it's one of those things where in college, and actually in high school, I was one of those super achieving people, right? Like the group of friends I hang out with, we were known for being both well-rounded in education as well as being highly active in extracurriculars.

And so there was a lot of expectation put on our groups in general, right? And from parents as well. And then you continue on to college and a lot of my friends went on to really big schools, right? And then for me, you know, I came into it thinking I was gonna be a doctor.

I love how the mind works. Psychiatry is where I wanted to go. And so again, I came in with this expectation that I'm gonna do pre-med and everyone expected that as me as well, right? And the reality is I am terrible at biology. I could not remember everything. I didn't realize how much memorization went into that, right?

And after two years, my grades just were just terrible. I was like, "Hey, I need to do a pivot." I feel like I've lost two years. School is really expensive. I was at Whitman College. And so I decided to go back to my local state university 'cause it's cheaper.

And then like, you think of all the stereotypes that an Asian person can go through. I was like, "Well, I'm not gonna do medicine. I guess it's engineering." Like that was literally the thought process. So I gave that a try. And I was like even more somehow terrible at engineering than pre-med.

And I went through that. And the only thing that kept my grade afloat was business school or business classes for undergrad. And so I kind of worked my way through that. And I kind of aged myself. I graduated in 2001 and that's the era of the dot-com bubble burst, right?

And so no one was getting hired in marketing. And my introduction into the workforce was having a degree in marketing that no one was hiring for. In a time where the market for jobs was really, really soft. And so it was very not glamorous. And as a matter of fact, I had to deal with two degrees.

Some of the shame of going to a state school, right? There's nothing wrong with state schools. It's just for my parents and friends, it's not what people had envisioned of me. And also the same that like us, I took all these part-time jobs. So I'm kind of curious for you, like maybe we're gonna start with LinkedIn because LinkedIn is, and companies like LinkedIn, it's actually very unique in that it values things like compassion, empathy and all that kind of good stuff, has a lot of employee resources and a lot of benefits, right?

But then when you leave that, so when that safety net is pulled away, that's really what the world is like. And so you came in, you mentioned BLP program, just for everyone listening to this, that's a very prestigious program. And so it's a very select few. Everyone who comes out of the program usually continues on to be very, very successful.

And so you kind of start your career at a company like LinkedIn with a lot of accolades and success. So can you tell us a little bit about that experience and maybe where you went from there and maybe like some of the roams, the roses and thorns of starting at a company like LinkedIn?

- Yeah, well, first of all, I wanna say that I really resonate with your comment about coming from a state school and feeling like you're not sure if you really fit in because I was so proud to go to U of I in Champaign being one of the first people in my family to go to a four-year university right after high school.

And then when I got to LinkedIn in San Francisco, I felt totally like a fish out of water in that there are cohorts of students fresh out of school. And out of my 30-person cohort, seven of them went to Harvard. And I just remember feeling like, again, like what am I doing here?

What is in this for me? And I, again, I'm so glad I stuck it out and I'm still very proud of my Illini background for the record. But LinkedIn, I mean, such an amazing place to work. I think what attracted me to the organization was just the sense of going through interviews and feeling like the person that I was getting in the interview was the same person that would go home and take care of their kids at night.

And in the other places, I just felt like there was this work persona and then maybe a personal persona. And even though I hadn't worked in that many places, that was something that was felt. And so for anyone that is early on in your job search, I would say definitely listen to your gut and listen to your intuition about a place.

And I know a lot of interviews are virtual, but I would really try to go into the office and have coffee with the team that you'll be working for. 'Cause there's just so much data that you can gather from actually being there, being with that person, observing how other people are working.

So that's why I chose to join LinkedIn, one of the many reasons. But I also just felt like I could always be safe with my managers, they were amazing. And we talked about like personal stuff and work stuff, which I think is important if you're fresh out of school and you're still like figuring out yourself as an adult, that year of being 22 or 23 and graduating college and being all out on your own is such a stressful, transformative year for a lot of people.

And I would say too that I just felt like I could bring all of my gifts to the workplace there. And what that means is even though I was in sales and I didn't feel like the typical sales person, I got to start the non-profit team at the non-profit account executive team under David Ellis and Ariana Unay and Sam Patel.

And they really helped me bring my experience and bring my non-profit experience into that team. And they recognize that I had all of this knowledge from building my own non-profit that I could bring there and they asked for it. And so they allowed me to bring all parts of myself into that job.

And I felt like if I ever had an idea for a workshop that I wanted to lead for my team, I could do that. So I was almost like thinking like an entrepreneur at LinkedIn. So that is really important. And for anyone that might be struggling or has an idea that would make you happier at work, I would say the onus is on you to bring that to the team.

It sounds really silly, but like when I was managing a Deloitte project, I felt like one of the rituals that I brought was like asking a fun question at the beginning of every team meeting. It allows you to just connect with your coworkers on such a deeper level. So I would recommend for anything that you're not getting in your environment, just ask yourself like how you can make it a little bit better and who you might be able to go to.

And I know that not all companies are like that where you have that ownership, but we do have a lot in our power to change. And so I think the flip side of that is that in a lot of organizations, unfortunately there isn't as much psychological safety and fun and free lunch.

It felt like every other week at LinkedIn on a Friday, there was like, oh, there's this flower arranging workshop or there's this company downstairs that is giving out free hats. And that is like 1% of workplace culture in companies. And that was like really fun and I'm so grateful for that.

But what I would recommend if you're starting a new job that is not like LinkedIn or maybe not like a typical tech company culture is to find those buddies really quickly in your first week or first or second week of onboarding that you can just be super real with about like what's really expected of me when it comes to my job itself, when it comes to meeting people and having coffee chats.

Because there are so many unwritten rules in an organization and working virtually makes that even harder to figure out those unwritten rules. So I would set up coffee chats to meet people, feel safe and also ask those questions about like what's expected of me that's not on my job description.

How do I meet people and make connections in a real way like versus like, and also just having a lot of leadership in your corner is important. One of my friends who had left consulting from grad school suggested that I meet with people who have since left that organization that I was joining.

And I wish I would have done that because I think people who have left that organization have already processed it and they're in a new environment where they can say this is what's real about this place and give you the full answer. And there's no stakes in it for them anymore and they're not drinking the Kool-Aid.

So that's a lot of my advice for starting a new job and also maybe transitioning to a culture that feels a little uneasy at times. - Yeah, and I wanted to add to that as well 'cause I think for your first job, especially if you come out with a really, like let's say really powerful degree that you're really proud of and it's kind of your bread and butter, oftentimes that first job may not necessarily be aligned to your education.

As a matter of fact, I would say everything I learned with marketing, I probably didn't use until like maybe six years into my career. The first season of my career was just trying to figure stuff out and discover who I am. And so I think for everyone coming out of college, I think you should expect that.

Unless your education is directly related to your work, like let's say if you're an academia-focused job or doing medicine, obviously that's kind of directly one-on-one. But for high-tech in particular, just know that it's not just the courses or your major you learned in school, it's how you talk to your students, your peers, how you talk to your teacher 'cause the communication part of it, you'll be using that one first.

And I kind of wish I knew this early in my career, which is going to every job with a strong point of view on what you want to get out of the job. 'Cause it's like, when I came out of college, the market was really soft. So I took a whole bunch of really random jobs as a part of unemployment or whatever it is.

And one of them was like content entry, right? And I was actually working for a house that we, basically I made sausages, right? And I was also IT. So it's all none of it's related, but from each of those in hindsight, I picked up something, whether it's how I deal with rejection.

Like I was on a call center for like Wells Fargo getting rejected every Monday morning 'cause no one wanted to talk to me 'cause they didn't want to learn that they overdrew their checking account and now they owe the big money. So like everything has a purpose. And so if you go into a job with that expectation of learning something, then no job is ever beneath you.

And the reason that's important is, especially for early career people, like especially with the ones that I've managed, the trait that I look for is either a kind of go-getter, entrepreneurial mindset where they're just, they're gonna do whatever it takes to figure it out. And the other one is looking at how they process things.

So it's less about the end goal, it's more around like their thinking process, how they arrive at a conclusion. And so I like your feedback around, your suggestion around talking to people or finding leaders or people who've left and now they have a different point of view. 'Cause that could maybe give you some insight on how maybe you should approach things differently within that company, which might be unique to their culture.

- Mm-hmm. - And I'm kind of curious, Elizabeth, LinkedIn is a fantastic place to work. I absolutely agree. As a matter of fact, a lot of my greatest friends were there, you included. And I think a lot of the really powerful life lessons I learned was only through LinkedIn.

But you're right, it's like a 1% thing where not every company is that healthy or encouraging or supportive of employees with all these resources, right? When you leave the safety net of a place like LinkedIn and you go on to your next adventure, and you mentioned there's MakerGurl, there's other things that you're doing as well.

Like what was the reality that met you once you left that? Did you learn anything about yourself that maybe you took for granted, that was there for you at LinkedIn and now you kind of need to lean on yourself a little more in other ways? - Yeah, that's a really good question.

So what I did right after LinkedIn was actually going into grad school and the human-centered design program at the Institute of Design feels very nurturing as well. So it almost was in some sense a continuation of LinkedIn, which also is a very nurturing environment to work. In terms of what I did next, so I worked in consulting, which is definitely a very different environment.

And I think that what I wish I would have done was done more reflecting on what it is about LinkedIn that made me feel so safe and seen and how can I get this in that next environment. So it's almost like doing a whole design thinking exercise on your own life and also just realizing that every job is temporary.

And there are some things that I really liked about consulting, some things that I really didn't like. And so I would say really just pull out those things that you really like and continue to ask yourself how you can get that in your next environment. So for me, like in this job, I wanted an environment where I felt supported and safe to bring up my own ideas because that is very important to me to feel like a sense of ownership over my work.

And I'm also in a process right now of creating my own personal definition of success. And I think that from our previous conversations, you're probably in that too, as you are thinking a lot about mentorship versus like moving up the ladder. So for me, right now I'm in a place where my personal definition of success or one of them at work is, how well do I really know my coworkers?

And how well can I speak into them and help them with whatever it is they're going through, whether it's at work or at home. And then as far as the work itself, I think like how well does this work live on beyond me? So I think just being really true and understanding your own definitions based on where you're at in your career and what it is that you really value versus other people.

And I know that that is a constant iterative changing definition based on where we're all at in our journeys. And social media and other platforms make it so easy to compare, but it is really important to be like very pigeonholed and say, this is the lane that I'm in right now and almost like envision a tunnel and be like, how can I do my best in this lane?

So that's something I've been thinking a lot about lately. - Yeah, that's a very actually mature outlook on stuff 'cause at your point in career and mine, I wasn't there. I was measuring my success by income or by title, which wasn't there for me, or friendships that I've built and whatnot.

And all those things over time kept changing, right? So if I decided to find success in a way that depends on people and they're gone, then I kind of had to start from square one again. And I think understanding your true values is kind of where I started maybe shifting my own lens on how I even look at success or whatnot.

'Cause I started realizing I work really, really hard, right? And that's gonna get rewarded in however the company wants to reward it. And sometimes it makes me happy and sometimes I can still work hard and the outcome is not desirable and I don't understand why. And then I start blaming myself or whatnot.

And I started realizing that I'm putting a lot of my control over happiness and success in someone else's hands, right? Their evaluation of my performance is now driving my sense of value. And so my big shift was, and you and I actually do this as well during our one-on-one sessions or when we just chat, is just kind of coming back to discovering your true self.

Like what is it that truly gives you joy? And what is it that you truly value? And sometimes you don't know, but the goal is to just discover who the real you is, right? And when you kind of come to terms with that, then when you look at the work environment, you can start to maybe digest or unpack why a certain situation caused you to have an adverse reaction.

'Cause maybe it actually directly conflicted with a personal value that you weren't thinking about and that inside a fundamental level, it bothered you. And for me, I'm on the other end of the career than you. I got several years on you in terms of age. And I'm realizing now that at this point in my career, so like it was at 25 years in, it's now a lot less about titles 'cause quite frankly, I don't care about that anymore.

And income, I don't care about that. Not that I don't need money. Everyone needs the income, but it doesn't define success. Kind of like you, it's landing on people. And what kind of impact do I want to leave my legacy or whatnot, and I've got kids as well. So I'm trying to set a good example for them.

Yeah, I think that's my kind of where I'm at right now too. - Yeah. Well, I am curious about that. So what, I guess like, how did you get to that place when I'm sure you're at a point in your career where people are buying second houses and have luxury cars and are like thinking about their children's education and spending as much on preschool as we did on college.

- Yeah. - How do you continue to stay true to that when I guess like the game of comparison only gets bigger and bigger and yeah. - Well, the game of comparison bundled with things like imposter syndrome are almost always there, right? I think the pivot point for me was, so in my career, I've actually early on, I've had a lot of really terrible managers, ones that really made me question my existence and values of human being.

Like it's really, there's a few that really broke me down to my core. And there was one instance at Logitech specifically where I had it. I was like, I know I'm more than this. I'm more than the work. And I was thinking about at the end of the day, I'm clearly disposable for in a company's eyes, right?

We're a number and we're there to solve a problem that the company needs to move forward. But at the end of my life, when I think of like, doesn't be really, really dark, but let's say the tombstone and people are gathering around and remembering who I was, no one's gonna remember me for how many projects I launched or no one's gonna remember me for how much revenue I generated for a company.

They're gonna remember me for how I related to them, right? Or my impact on them. And so that's when I started realizing, I was like, you know what? One of my core values I wanna be remembered for is like, you know what? Tim like just didn't give up. Like he just pushed through.

And so that's, at that point in my life, it changed my mindset of working for myself versus working for the company. And a lot of times they align 'cause obviously the harder I worked, the company benefited from it, but I'm working for myself now. - Yeah. - At this point in my career, then if you kind of evolve that thinking, like I'm thankful that I have an awesome wife who has a very stable job.

Quite frankly, I don't know how people do single income in California. It happens and I just don't get it. And so thankfully there's some stability there, especially when I was unemployed, we started feeling that, right? But some of that is just the math of knowing, hey, look, if we, our total cost is X, Y, and Z, and we know how much income we need to bring in, like, so you need to figure out the math.

Now, the things that affect the equation, like we have kids is like, okay, well, we will just eat out less. We're gonna buy one bulk thing at Costco and that's gonna last us for the week or whatever it is. So there's ways of adjusting your cost of living to make it work, which allows me to then, again, go back to detaching myself from the stress of finance.

If I was a single income earner though, which thankfully I have not experienced the same situation where I'm unemployed, I think my answer to you might be really, really different. I would, it'd be coming from a point of desperation, probably, because you've got to pay your bills and whatnot.

And how that would have been different during this period of unemployment, for example, like I gave myself like a month to just kind of figure myself out before I went back into it. And then almost, not to necessarily take the luxury, but giving myself a little grace period. Again, we did the math of how long I could be unemployed for.

And so allowed myself to try to find the best job. But if I were a single income earner and lost my job, I'd get the very first thing available to me, maybe take multiple jobs, right? But I think in the end, like I said before, knowing when I'm gonna get out of that experience, 'cause I'm gonna use that experience in my next interview for the dream job and say, "Hey, look, here's, I worked through that." Yeah, that's kind of how I do it right now.

- I'm also curious if you talked to your kids about what was happening during that time too. - Yeah, I did. You know, it's funny. It took me a while to first come to terms with it on my own, quite frankly, about unemployment. What I'm afraid of with my girls, 'cause they're eight and 10, and they jibba jabba with their friends.

And they're friends' parents, I know them, and they're all super successful Bay Area people, right? And so I wanted to control the narrative that came out of their mouths a little bit. But the narrative would be around, not only that daddy lost his job, but just the fear. It's like, "Oh my gosh, where the food is gonna come from?" All this kind of paranoia.

I wasn't ready to deal with the conversation yet. So I kept the unemployment part to myself for the greater part of a month. So they just assumed I went to work after dropping them off at school. So I would dress up decently as if I'm going to work. I'll drop them off at school, I'll come back home, dress down back into sweats.

And that was like my reality for a few months. Well, also try and launch this podcast. But when I was ready, I sat down and I talked to them. And as a matter of fact, so you and I, we're both people of faith. And so I was going through like at night, we go through our devotions together and kind of walking through some stuff and some stories of the Bible.

And one of them was like story of Job. Like Job was a guy who was known for being really dedicated to God, but then God allowed him to be tested, right? And so like all these crazy things happened to him, but at the end of the day, like he still prevailed.

When I shared that story and then kind of talked to the girls about how like prayers get answered or whatnot, that's the opportunity I used to be transparent to them. I was like, "Hey, by the way, "like this story is not just a story. "Like your daddy's kind of going through that too.

"Like I'm dealing with some stuff "for the past month I didn't tell you about." And I allowed myself to be a little vulnerable. I chose vocabulary that was appropriate for an eight and 10 year old, but I used a lot of illustrations to kind of illustrate how I'm processing things, trying to help them realize that daddy's not scared, so you shouldn't be scared.

And then more importantly, it was about helping them understand how I'm working through that, 'cause there's skills that they can use now, like resilience and being creative, right? Being resourceful and praying and relying on working with people to kind of help support you. So I did bring them into that journey 'cause I think there's a lot of things that they learn.

And so thankfully, I don't think they walked away that with a negative perception on the situation. They seemed like they really kind of took those lessons to heart. And that's kind of the stress of a parent, especially a dad where I just assume that eventually they'll project, whether the future partner happens to be a guy, I would assume that they would look for values similar to what their daddy had.

And so I kind of have to figure out how to be this larger version of myself in work and in personal. - Wow, there's so much there, but yeah, I want to acknowledge you. And I think that's something that I've always really appreciated about our conversations is that you're just so intentional for how you frame things to the audience that you're speaking to, whether it's me and taking yourself back to where you were at the point in my shoes or your daughter's.

And I'm sure you continue to do the same for other different folks in your life. But yeah, that's amazing that you're just thinking about the perception of not wanting them to be afraid because that sticks with you. - Yeah, I agree. I think, actually, you exhibit some things that I use you as an example with my kids with some things we talked about.

I didn't tell you about this. I didn't prepare you for this. You are awesome at asking questions. There's a degree of self-awareness that you have, which is really, really cool, even though you don't know all the answers. And what I mean is this. So early on after LinkedIn, you reached out and we decided, "Hey, let's do a monthly, "bi-monthly kind of just sync up and see how we're doing." And you're always good about asking questions.

And I'm kind of curious, where does that come from? How do you know at a given point in time, given what you're dealing with, how much you're willing to share, how much you were not willing to share with someone like me? Can you talk about your self-awareness piece? How do you determine how you're gonna bring someone in and utilize questions to get the most out of a mentor or someone like me?

- Thank you. Honestly, I do feel like that is my superpower. And I don't know where it comes from. I think we each have superpowers that are somewhat nature and nurture. Maybe that is from just feeling that sense of being different, given my background is very different than, like I said, other people's, and I'm sure everyone has a different background in some capacity, or yeah, they do.

And I think it is just from growing up in a place where, growing up in a place that felt small, I was always curious about, okay, like what is on the outside of like this little, this town that I'm in, or what, going to college, like, okay, there are all these kids from the Chicago suburbs.

What is their experience like right now that's so different than mine? And why am I not feeling the freshman year, like excitement that they're feeling? And then similarly, like then going to San Francisco, like another big pool where I'm like, oh, wow, how do people live here? And what are they thinking about in their career?

And how can I just continue to like learn from them? So I do think that that is somewhat just innate to me. And it's why I transitioned to being a design researcher and service designer, because that's what you get to do for a living. But over time, it's just, you asked about the relational piece of it.

And I think it's like, I really try to show up to conversations very prepared with the sense of what it is that I want to get out of it. And I think that like that five to 10 minutes of preparation goes a really long way. Just like looking at someone's LinkedIn profile, being like, oh, that's interesting.

Like, why did they choose to go to that university? Or what they wrote about this job is really unique. And like you working at a call center, I didn't know that before. But like now I'm curious, like as a service designer, we talk about the call center all the time and how that solves problems.

So I'm like, oh, that's really cool. So I think, yeah, that is one of my strengths is just going through life with a sense of curiosity. - Yeah, and I think taking the time to pause and reflect what you clearly do is important. I didn't do any of that earlier in my career.

And I actually went through probably the first 10, 15 years of my career without a mentor to remind myself how that's important. So I'm really excited to see you already having that self-awareness and doing that and having a core to who you are. And it's really smart what you said about taking the time to prepare for conversation, getting to know what's in someone else's either headspace or getting to know more about them before you engage within conversation.

That skillset will carry you out through all levels of organization, depending on where you go in your career. So that's really cool. - Thank you. - Elizabeth, I just want to thank you for today's conversation. I think it was just a great reminder for people coming out of college.

Look, you can take full control of your first job. I think having self-awareness, being able to ignite your passion, kind of discover who you are and just trying to figure that out and working relationally with people, that's all really, really important. So I'm thanking you for your time and hopefully we can have you on here again soon.

- Definitely. And can I leave the audience with a little, just like last few tidbits? - Absolutely. - Yeah. So we didn't get to talk about Make a Girl, but for anyone in their 20s, I would recommend starting something, whether it's like passion project where you just get people together like once a month or making a piece of art and showing it at the gallery down the street.

Definitely like put your work out there and put your ideas out there because that gives you a sense of ownership and an entrepreneurial, you'd think I would know how to say that word by now, mindset that you can bring to other places and people love new ideas and new ways of thinking about things.

So like that is super valuable. And I would also say just like sit in a posture of expectancy. If you're not where you wanna be, there is some level of ownership that you can take over that. But also there's some sense of, like if you're just doing good work and putting your best into it and continuing to learn, like you're doing great.

But just sit in a posture of expectancy of like, oh, like maybe I'm not exactly where I wanna be, but I do feel like this is going to lead me somewhere great and like something is around the corner. So I think that I wish I would have done that earlier on and I'm still like talking to myself about easing up on like the wheel of control, but just having that posture of expectancy and in the minor things, like what's gonna happen today and also in the major things of like, what's my next job gonna be is a really powerful place to sit.

- I'm gonna do an edit on this part. I'm gonna quickly record an introduction to that 'cause that's awesome. So I'm gonna remove that outro for a second. - What, what? - Oh, earlier I ended the podcast and you let in Maker Girl again. I'm gonna record something right now to, I'm gonna edit that out.

I'm gonna put this in. - But I can't say- - No, no, no, I'll do it for you. I'll do it for you. - Okay, cool. - All right. So Elizabeth, one thing you had mentioned earlier in our conversation is Maker Girl and that totally fascinates me for being someone so young in your position, starting something.

So can you tell us a little bit about what you learned from creating your own business at such a young age? Nice, I'm gonna edit that into that thing. Cool, yeah, but I just wanna thank you again so much, seriously, for joining the call. I think, yeah, your insights are really, really valuable and I think there's a lot that people can learn from what you said.

There's a lot of wisdom there. So thanks again. - Yeah, I wanted to thank you for just being there all the time. And like, I think from our lunches at LinkedIn in San Francisco to our continued conversations where I can just be real and vulnerable with you about the things that I'm feeling, it really, really goes such a long way.

So really appreciate you. - All right, thanks, Lizeth. Talk to you soon. - Bye. (gentle music) you