The Best Of Graduate Theory

This episode contains some of the best segments from the entire Graduate Theory catalogue. These are the moments that listeners have loved, and those that have created a lasting impact.

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Popular Episodes
On Startups, Corporate and The Importance of Personal Branding with Dan Brockwell
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Content
00:00 Intro
01:14 Lidia Ranieri
17:25 Adam Geha 
25:33 Dan Brockwell
35:34 Michael Gill
42:35 Cheran Ketheesuran
47:04 Lacey Filipich
54:58 Josh Farr
58:43 Outro

Transcript

James: 0:06

hello, and welcome to graduate theory. Today's episode is a compilation of many different episodes that we've had in the past on graduate theory. I've gone back and looked through the archives and, and, and thought about, you know, what are the parts and what are, what are the segments in graduate theory that really resonated with me. And that, that I thought. Some of the best, uh, content on the show. And so what I've done today is I've found these pieces that I think are really, really special. And I've put them into this one episode today, we've got seven different people speaking. Uh, there's some serious, serious wisdom. Um, in this episode, this marks really some of the, some of the best content that has appeared on graduate theory over the last few months. I'm really excited to share this in one single location with you all today, if you do wanna connect with the podcast further and get more involved, you should definitely subscribe to the graduate theory newsletter on the newsletter there's content. There summaries from each episode that has been released previously every single week. I give you my thoughts and lessons from that week's episode. Definitely go and do that before we start right now. But without further ado, today, we're gonna hear from episode seven, Lydia ran air. Lydia is a former managing director at Goldman Sachs and currently works in her practice on purpose to help clients identify line with and act on purpose in their pursuit of excellence. Here's us talking about how you can find your purpose. one thing I want to ask you to follow on from that is, you know, how, is there any steps that you would take to find your purpose? I mean, it's something that is, you know, is difficult, but what would you, what would you say? How can we find that?

Lidia: 1:43

So when I work with people to explore this, um, you know, I want, um, I once had to do a whole presentation on this topic. And so I, you know, when I was putting together the slides for it. And, um, so this is sort of, uh, you know, one form of doing it with a visual kind of cue. The other is when I'm doing sort of, you know, um, coaching sessions, I sort of, um, encourage clients to sort of going to a place where they can visualize this for themselves. I threw up a whole heap of images that I've found of children. Um, you know, probably around the age of four or five. And, you know, one's dressed up as a doctor and one's dressed up as a superhero and wants dressed up as a little scientist in a science lab and the others standing on a stage singing and, and others, you know, getting ready, um, in their dance clothes. And the reason I throw out these images is because when it comes to output. When we go back and weigh on rebel it purpose is very strongly linked to two key things. What are our strengths? When we love to use our strengths, there are God-given talents. They innate. And when we give them expression, it feels really, really good. It feels natural. It feels like we're doing the right thing. So, um, purposes links linked to strengths and better. What's important to us. And what is it that we value? Why does one person valued doing a certain thing over another person who value something else? It all links into this intricate internal system that has this knowing. So, um, when I throw up those images or when I kind of encourage clients to come up with these images for themselves, for example, the child who's standing on stage performing. I invite clients to, um, think about a time when they might've had these images for themselves. And the point of the image and the, the metaphor of the child on stage performing is not, I want to be a singer or an actor or a performer necessarily. It may be, but it is a indicator that something within you really enjoys expressing it. To an audience. So you may need to find a role that allows you to do a lot of presentations because when you're presenting you feel on you feel energized, you feel vital. You love looking at the responses from the people that are sitting in the room in which you are giving your performance. Yeah. For others, it may be the kid in the science coat there. They may have curiosity as this burning feeling within them, and they need to work in a way that ignites that curiosity about the world. And so it's those in roads that really link to finding our purpose and the reason why childhood is a really first hole, a place to do some of this exploration. Is because when we see children at play and this has been studied by psychologists, children, and very naturally into what we call the flow state. And, um, you know, one of the, um, you know, the most renowned kind of researchers and psychologists in these, um, areas are gentlemen cold, um, Mikael, uh, she sent me hi and Hey, did you know a lot of research? Various other psychologists have sort of joined in on this area of, um, you know, sort of academic exploration. But what they've found is that when we enter a flow state, we are doing something that is truly engaging, but just challenging enough. And when we get to that place, we can do it for a very long period of time. Time actually doesn't even occur to us. So we kind of go into a timeless. And, um, we are very focused on the task and we're not focused on ourselves. And so the flow state is actually the state that we want to get high performing athletes into it's the state. We want to get, you know, a high functioning corporate executives into, but you can only enter flow state when the activity genuinely engages you. And it's called having some sort of intrinsic motivation around. So, you know, that's That's why childhood is such an interesting place to start exploring this because we don't have any of those. I should, I ought to, everyone says, I must all those other externalized conditioning, you know, kind of statements that create beliefs within us. We are just who we are. And so it enables us to go back and look at, yeah, I really love doing that. Of course then there's the practicalities of you know earning a decent income, et cetera. Um, so we you need to sort of start to then map some real world stuff over it. And the practicalities of those, you know, interior kind of, um, motivational states, but it's a really good place to start to find that.

James: 7:08

Hmm. No, that's really cool. And I think that's something that as well, that I've heard, like from some of my friends that have sort of gone down one path and then changed and gone somewhere else, you know, it was really a process of kind of winding back, you know, th their life almost to get back to stage. Uh, you know, they maybe made a key decision where they decided to maybe it was to study a certain thing and what to pick a certain set of subjects in high school or whatever it was. And then really go back to almost that crossroads and, and reassess, you know, was that the right choice there? And then maybe you can try, even though, you know, you've got to wind back a little bit to, you know, to start going somewhere else that, you know, maybe resonates a people. Um, with yourself. So I think that's, that's really interesting.

Lidia: 8:00

I was inside. I think that's right. You know, I think that life affords us so many opportunities where, you know, we come to a crossroads at various stages and they present themselves at different times for different people. But those crossroads emerge because we're being invited to answer that question, you know, what is it that I really want to do? And the deeper element to that. We think about it as, what do I want to do? Do I want to do this subject or that subject or this course or that course or this job or that job but underlying it, if you dig beneath that surface, it's what part of me needs expression here. What part of me do I want to give expression to in some outer world context where I'm applying myself to that every day. And so knowing what your strengths are and knowing what your values are. I can help you to navigate making those decisions so that you're more closely aligned to giving yourself that expression, because that's really what leads to from a psychological standpoint. That's what leads to fulfillment. That's what leads to life satisfaction. That's what leads to happiness.

James: 9:14

Yeah. Yeah. That's really cool. And just on the purpose and things like that, do you think it's possible to kind of find your purpose, like, like sort of holistically or is it kind of this thing that you've kind of getting closer to. But it's sort of this moving target where maybe it's changing, uh, over time and you. Trying to get closer and closer to it, but perhaps you never, you know, you never really get to that. You know, I guess I've, I know stories of people and even for myself sometimes where, you know, you think, okay, I'm going to find my purpose and I'm going to do this and okay. Yeah, this feels good. I'm going to keep going, but oh, maybe it's not quite right. And, you know, do you think you ever get to that stage where, you know, I've found exactly what I'm going to do? You know, this is it. I finally made it, um, you know, that kind of stage or is it, is it all. This yeah. This moving target situation where you're sort of getting closer to it and finding your way, but, um, yeah. W what do you think of.

Lidia: 10:13

Yeah. So I think that we burden ourselves with this idea that there is a purpose. Some Amazing individuals are born to a purpose as in one, you know, you might say that you might think that if you think back over the career of, you know, someone, some great sporting person is always a, you know, easy sort of way to understand this. You might think that Michael Jordan was born to the purpose of being one of the best ever, you know, basketball will players the world has ever seen. But then that would Rob him of having any purpose now. Right. Because he's not doing that anymore. So the way I like to think about it is that we have a purpose and that may be a staged experience. So my purpose in this role, and at this particular time may simply be. An apprenticeship. I mean a learning mode. That's my purpose right now, I'm in a skill acquisition mode. And that mode needs to be aligned with where I have natural interest where I can develop real competency because then I feel good about myself. Like I need to be doing something that I can actually see myself improving it. Otherwise I get demotivated. Purpose can be for this moment in time. This is the right place. And this is the right role for me. As long as I'm giving the fullest expression to things that make me feel bottled and engaged, when that has run its course, for reasons, you know, that we all have experienced, but who can explain it over a period of time, you suddenly stop whining in your interest. It's like, It's just not doing it for me anymore. I'm just not that intro into interested. And that is a sign that it's time for you to move into another phase. It's still your purpose because life's, as you say, you never get there. What's there, it's just a journey of giving yourself the opportunity to express yourself in your fullest capacity and at the highest functioning level that you can, some phases of. are learning some phases of that might be working on something to prepare it for the next stage. And they kind of like Lego blocks, right. They build on each other. You may then have a peak experience and that peak experience in your market Jordan is an example that lasts for a number of years. It may be something that, you know, is claimed or revered or, you know, kind of recognized. But maybe it doesn't have an outward recognition. Maybe it's just your own experience of it being like a golden era for you. And then it changes and then the purpose moves into something else. And so our purpose is interwoven through kind of a journey where we change in our wisdom and our experience. You know, how stage of. Also determines, you know, what it is that we're more attuned to. So I, yeah. I like to help people by, unburdening them of this idea that there's this one thing, there are many paths to getting there and they may all lead to this, you know, I think everyone wants what we're talking about is that peak expression. That golden moment. Yeah. And sustaining that. And so, you know, there are ways to then try and ensure that you sustain it. Um, you know, when I, when I talk to executives about, you know, peak performance and, you know, um, there's this idea that it's marked by certain external, still only recognized success kind of factors. And that can be a component of. But in truth, what peak performance is, is, you know, some level of optimized functioning and to, to arrive at your level of the most optimized functioning you need to, um, obviously, you know, we're assuming that, you know, you're competent, you're good at what you're doing. That's a given you have to work to the point where, you know, you've established that. Um, wow. To, uh, to sustain that really, really highly optimized functioning. We can't be constantly painting because when it comes to performance curves, they're kind of like this sloped hill, it might go up gradually and they may drop off really sharply. And at the top of the curve obviously is peak performance. And so you're building up to it. And then there's after your peak performance is a little extra sort of the other edge of the hill before you slugged down. And that's your stretch. And if you don't step back from peak performance in stretch zone and go back down the hill towards zone, you can't sustain the peak performance. The other side of the slope after stretch is just overwhelmed and the performance drops off very rapidly and sharply, and that is exhaustion, burnout, health issues, you know, just some kind of. Physical mental, emotional or spiritual crisis because we can't sustain ourselves in those peaks. So the idea about, you know, getting to our purpose, sustaining ourselves in these peak moments is, is kind of like this dance where we go there, we tasted, sometimes we have to then go back down the hill. And so in the context of purpose, we have these pictures. We're on, we're on fire. Everything's going our way. You know, we're winning deals where, you know, our businesses growing, where we're, you know, usually we're working long hours. Um, and you know, but it's a pleasure. We might work our weekends because we're engaged in some creative process and we're loving it. But after whatever it is, peaks in us and in the activity and in the event or in something being delivered, we have to stay. And go back and that's still our purpose. Our purpose can still be in that recuperation zone where it doesn't seem as on because we're getting ready to be able to reenter. There'll be a different set of circumstances. It will be a different set of people, different set of challenges, but it's still brig nights that fire. But if we don't, you can lose it. It's not lose your purpose, but you can lose your ability to engage.

James: 17:25

the second segment from today is from episode 20 with Adam Ghar. Adam Ghar is the CEO and co-founder of EG, which is a data driven investment manager and developer with over 5 billion of assets under management. This is a fantastic episode. And the section here today is us talking about boundaries around your time and time manage. that's cool. I mean, for me, I'm picking up a lot of things that even just like your really strong boundaries around your time, like, there's a really, like, something's got to be quite valuable to sort of get, get through the barrier, you know, get through that boundary. And I think that's, that's really important

Adam: 18:04

yeah, it's not rude by the way, to police your time. It's important to let your listeners know that it's not rude to police the boundaries of your time. It's actually an act of kindness to them and to you and to the. It's just, don't be gruff or rude about doing it. I'd tried to be always soft and delivery, but hard on content. And the, the point that I would make on policing your time is if people don't get the sense that your time is super valuable commodity, then you're sending the wrong signal to the world. They should immediately feel that when they're handling your time, they're handling something super valuable. So, when a meeting ends early, if the content is early, I go, are we finished? Okay. So can I now leave just because it's a half an hour meeting, if we've done it in 15 minutes. Fantastic. If I can hop out 15 minutes early and make a couple of phone calls when my wife calls me, I almost always answer. Or tell her that I'll call her shortly back, but I'll let her know I'm in a meeting. Is it important and show she'd? My wife during business hours never has a relaxed conversation with me because I'm sending her the signal that I'm on the field. I'm in the world cup. I'm playing. I don't have time for distractions. So if it's important, tell me what it is. If it's not, let's wait until after the game, when I've got the Headspace nuts with my wife. So, you know, but I will, I'll always take a call from my mom cause she calls me very irregularly and I worry about whether it's she needs my. Well, she's in a, in a, in a a bad spot. So, yeah, you know, you, you do need to take certain calls, but you need to be you need to be very clear with everyone who treats with your time that they're dealing with a valuable commodity.

James: 19:55

Yeah. Yeah. I think that's, that's a great pace for your boss. And I certainly, I liked how you use saying that kind of. You know, reflect psych your, how you value your time, you know, and how you let other people respect your time. And thinking into intertwines, I think is really, really powerful. I was rating race in my I was going through your LinkedIn and looking at all the wonderful places you have. And one of them was around you saying how the universe is a fractal and how like, you know, looking at one day is kind of almost looking at your whole year, looking at your whole life. And you know, I thought that was really profound and I, I can link this in the show notes so people can go and rate it. Cause I thought it was really fascinating. But like, what was your inspiration? You know, does this, do you remember this poster? Yeah, like what's the sort of inspiration. I wonder if you can kind

Adam: 20:44

of, I can guess of course I can. Okay. So I'm mystically inclined. So I'm very interested in transcendental meditation. The union that one gets in deeper realization that we are part of something far greater. I very much feel that my life is part of a broader tapestry. Human evolution as a species towards a higher consciousness. So I see myself as part of a great adventure of raising human consciousness to a level where it feels centeredness in a peace compassion, and non-judgment so from that context of often. Very fascinated with Eastern mysticism, which has lots of repetitive patterns in the way. For example, the thousand petaled Lotus is fractal. It's, it's a vision you get in deep meditation and it's signifies a feeling of union with the greater a stream of consciousness, which is the, the manifested creation. So I'm an admirer of trees. I'm an admirer rough cloud. And I take lots and lots of photos of trees and clouds that are Epiphanes for me. Especially when I'm exercising in the morning, I'm cycling. I'll pause. If I see a beautiful pattern of clouds or a beautiful tree I'll, I'll take detailed photos, both clouds entries on fractal. They are a symbol of how the universe is constructed and from the little. Comes the big, it is the pattern of the universe. And it is absolutely the case that if you live your day disciplines in thought and action. So too, will you be your year? So two will be your your life. And so be always faithful with the little, because from the little comes, the big.

James: 22:33

Yeah, well than that's really profound. I think Greg great advice there. I think certainly I want to ask again, you know, this idea of your time management, you know, you've probably, you know, you've been talking about the executive assistant and that's perhaps something that's only really come into your life, perhaps in the last, you know, recent period. I'm curious to how you. Time management has kind of changed over time because often, you know, some people might not have that or like, you know, I'm curious to, you know, how yeah. How, yeah. How, like, how that's changed for you. Like

Adam: 23:06

very much the changes as you get. So as you get older and more senior and with greater responsibilities. So just to give you an idea with. Um, managing, um, eight companies in some capacity. And and, and I've got two investments on personal account that involve that are companies and and three charitable foundations that I'm involved in. So there's 13 organizations that I make a meaningful contribution to at a strategic level. And there's a couple that I make a meaningful contribution to on an operation. So I'm always busy now. I don't have the luxury of not thinking about one of those 13 things when I've got a spare moment. Cause I know I can add value. It's really interesting life. But, but I need to obviously learn how to put boundaries on it so that my wife and my children also get access to me and vice versa. But to, to mention definitely your, your attitude towards time, you Revere time more as you get more senior. So I would love to be able to say to your young listeners, treat time. As though it is super precious while you're 23, because you will most certainly treat it a super precious when you're my age and you're 50. So why not commence that practice, knowing that it will become a, a reality of your life. Bring it early, make it a part of your life today. And you will get so much more. I just wish I had the disciplines that I have now when I was 23. And by the way, I've had a PA an EA that's been fully dedicated to me for about 10 years. She's in Manila. So it costs me a fraction of what. To hire an Australian executive assistant. I can actually afford to have two or three in Manila. And indeed I might well go down the path of getting a second executive assistant. Once I feel that the workload for the first is maxed out and it's every bit worth the investment. As soon as you can afford an executive assistant, whether it's paid for by your business or not, you should actually invest in that because that person's going to enable. To, to perform. I'm able literally to do two or three times the output of what my F my 35 year old self used to be able to do. And what's that worth millions of dollars.

James: 25:33

The third section today comes from episode 15 with Dan Brockwell. Dan is the co-founder and chief meme officer at early work. There's now over 3000 people, a part of the community he's previously worked at Uber, uh, Atlassian and a bunch of other places. Dan is a huge legend. And here's us talking about how you can get job offers without applying through the traditional process.

Track 2: 25:57

and just on that, on that, and you mentioned it rotted this, John, if you get lost on, so it was around, you reached out to this company code and you got a job there. And this is a topic that I really want to speak more about it. Cause it's. almost everyone doesn't do this. And like people that I now speak to who work places, they're like, yeah, this is actually kind of a good idea. Just reaching out to people, call it a, like, just meeting people that work at the company you want to work at. And I'm curious about your experience doing this kind of thing. That's not sort of the traditional way of getting a job, like, you know, waiting for the company to list a job, you know, to, to then apply and, you know, kind of go, go in and try and. Get the job POS like, you know, 5,000 thousands of other people, you know, you're just sort of going in as like really sort of putting more eggs in their basket and connecting to the people that work there and things like that. I'd love to hear, you know, your experience with that, and even you'll process that, that you've done. And maybe there's other people that, you know, that have done a similar, similar thing. Yeah. I'm really interested to hear your thoughts.

Dan: 27:00

Yeah, absolutely. It's just crazy. Like job listings are the tip of the iceberg of the job market. Like people see these little things and go, okay, I'll apply for those. And they sit and hope for the best. In reality. If you think about startups, they're always growing. They're always raising money. They're always hiring. And so many things just happen through referrals or ad hoc introductions or all these hidden job opportunities. And it's like, if you want to work at a startup Like startups by their nature, like proactive people. And so the best thing you can do is be proactive. Don't wait for the job listing, make the job listing. And yeah, happy to talk to your, kind of my experiences here. So I suppose, like I, I worked for three different startups in university. One kind of initially came when I was the first one was a startup called tilt, social payments startup. And my first. And originally I was conceptualizing an app with friends, called friends with deficits, and we were trying to like track deaths between friends at different currencies. Did some competitive research, found this company called tilt. I was like, damn, they've solved it all. But they have an ambassador group, but you wanna stop you. So I emailed the country manager in Australia. I was like, Hey, I'd love to join the ambassador group. He's like, yeah, sure, man. I opened up applications, joined the ambassador group, did that for a couple of months. And then that converted into a growth internship with them leading an ambassador program with a couple of hundred students across this. So a ton of fun there, but I think it kind of that came from, yeah. Number one, the proactive reach out. So cold email and then number two, being part of something related to the company before actually having the role. So an ambassador program is a great example, but it might be like, you know, maybe there's like an, a beta test as group. Maybe it's doing user research for the company. Maybe it's, you know, helping promote the company or something that there are ways that you can kind of get affiliated with the company without actually formally being a part of it. Yeah. I kinda internship number two was a fascinating one where there's a restaurant ordering style called table kind of essentially kind of like, you know, me and you or Mr. Young, where you could kind of like, order on your mobile in your, in the restaurant and then wait for a wider this one, I saw ads running for the salad on Facebook. I was like, and it was for a referral competition. It hadn't launched yet. I'm like, oh, this is super cool. I spammed it across a bunch of university discussion groups. Top 10 and referrals and like 24 hours or something. And then I reached out to the chief operating officer or chief executive officer on LinkedIn. I was like, Hey dude, like, yeah. Love the problem. You're working on super, super fascinating. I'm actually interning at a startup right now, but so are your thing. And I was like, oh, I'm just gonna share this with like a bunch of people ended up getting to this referral position at this time. If you're open to bringing on a marketing intern, let's have a chat. And meeting them at Westfield in Bondi junction, one meeting, and then work them for like six months. So that, I think that came from that there were two things. Number one called LinkedIn DMS just amazing. And with cold LinkedIn games, like the key thing is like, who, why, what, who are you? Why are you reaching out? And what's in it for them. So explain like who you are. And maybe like you're a student majoring in this interning at this place. Why are reaching out you came across them and really liked XYZ at about them. And what's in it for them. Are you open to taking on intern? Not, are you currently hiring an internal currently seeking, but just say you open because no one wants to be closed. People might not have a job listing and then you go, Hey, you open to an intern and like, oh yeah, maybe let's have a chat. So it's it's a good way to get, kind of get a foot in the door. And the other thing there is like adding value before you've even reached out. So I reached out after I'd gone and shared the app with a bunch of. And that shows that proactivity where sound goes, oh, cool. Okay. If we hire this person, we know we're not going to have to wait to give them instructions. They're just going to go and do things that help the company. So there's a cool piece there. Final one is an interesting one. There was a job listing, but it wasn't an internship. It was at a company called offload awesome. Like a road freight logistics startup in Australia. And they had a listing for a full-time operations. I was working at Amazon all the time. So it'd been deepening my interest in logistics, but I wanted to kind of go back and hop back into the startup world. And I'd seen this listing and I went, well, I can't do full-time, but I could do part-time. So I just applied and then I just messaged the chief operating officer. I went like, Hey man, like yeah, love what you're working on. And I've got no background, like Amazon Uber. So passion about logistics space. Context is, you know, I'm still wrapping up at uni. But would you be open to, you know, taking on someone. And I had several interviews with the team and eventually like, yep. Sweet. And so that was meant to be a full-time role, but turned it into a part-time role. I ended up going full-time there. So I worked there for probably six months. It was my last role before last year. Absolutely loved it. There really, the lesson is like sometimes a job description will tell you roughly when. But they're flexible. So sometimes it might say two plus years experience apply. Anyway, sometimes I might say full-time, if you want do part-time apply anyway it's, don't sell yourself out of the opportunity, have the conversation. And if they like, you they'll make space for you, if it's not the, if it's not the right fit and that's okay. Some people go, you know what? Sorry, we need someone full-time and that's totally fine. It's not a, not a personal insult, but I think with. Number of companies that you talk to these opportunities will start to pop up where you can create job opportunities where you thought previously job opportunities didn't exist. I think kind of like wrapping that up. Yeah. I think look cold LinkedIn DMS to like founders and hiring managers at startups. It's super, super powerful, but I'd say as well on the kind of like standing out to companies side beyond just kind of like doing like DMS on like LinkedIn, Twitter, whatever another cool thing you could do is like sending like a video resume or a video pitch to stand out for other things. So I'm seeing some candidates are called like loom videos before, which is super, super cool. And it gives that real personal flavor. Obviously you can go and refer people. You can, I have really cheeky pieces. Like you can actually give them like feedback on their app. Like you could say, Hey, I actually went through and redesign your website, or I went through and like rewrote the copy of your website. So being proactive and be like, here's what I would do to improve it and just sending it to them and just seeing what happens. It's. I think in general, again, I'm giving feedback on the product or writing about the company, like writing an article about like, you could write an article on, oh, like, you know, how eucalyptus has grown to become, you know, a billion dollar company by using Instagram marketing or something. I don't know if that quite a unicorn yet. You'll have to fact check me on that one. But yeah, the, the point is that I think there are so many ways to proactively stand out that a resume and then not a cover letter. If you want to stand out and you want to be in a job pool of one and not a 500, do something different.

Track 2: 33:08

Yeah, that's so important, so important. And I think, you know, even like something like a personal brand, like we split earlier, you know, things like that combined with a little bit, it's like, yeah, it's, it's really, really powerful when you going to apply for jobs like this.

Dan: 33:21

For sure. I think also like, I mean, coming back to that personal brand thread, it's really interesting because I think having a PESTEL Brennan one just creates luck. Like I've gotten lucky many, many times in my life. And I think a lot of my career success was almost used down to luck, but I do think that having a personal brand like amplifies. Just more lucky opportunities come up. For instance, like I was pretty active on LinkedIn. I was one of those Koreans, you know, LinkedIn names for career minded, teens type of people. And I would like make posts on LinkedIn and stuff. And I won some award in like the business consulting space made a post about it and actually ended up getting a message from a guy who was working at Google and he's like, Hey, like, love your profile. Would you have interest in internship at Google? I was like, And now this guy ended up moving to Uber. I think a couple months later, like we kind of lost touch and then reconnected. And he's like, Hey, actually, I'm not Reuben, but when I'm bringing on interns and like, we've got like one spot left, would you be interested? And I was like, Yeah, show up. That's awesome. And ended up getting an internship at Uber in sales, purely from just someone who had seen my content on LinkedIn. So that's what I'm saying. Like, is it like having the PESTEL brand it's yet? Not who, you know, it's who knows you and for what? They just encountered. Your content and that's kind of like the initial funnel into okay. Then opportunities with you. It's advertising for you pretty much.

Track 2: 34:34

That's cool. And it's exciting that everyone has this ability to, I think, you know, there's no wall barrier between you and, you know, doing lucky, having that story, like what you just mentioned, like getting people coming to ask you for jobs. Like there's absolutely nothing in the way. So yeah. It's so, so.

Dan: 34:49

Yeah, I think that's super important, right? Because like from an equity, diversity access inclusion perspective, you know, you look at traditional hiring and nutrition industries like consulting law and banking, and there's often been a perception of nepotism or like, you know, all, you have to have friends in the phone where you have to know people at the firm. I think the beauty of. Online content is anyone can do it. It's permissionless. You don't need to know anyone, you just start creating. And if you're creating good stuff and you're creating consistently, it'll attract people who care about those things. I think the really important thing there then becomes, okay, how do we actually help more young people, particularly people from underrepresented and disadvantaged backgrounds actually take advantage of the power of content creation for their careers. Because I think it just gives you a massive, massive.

James: 35:34

Section number four of today's podcast is with Michael Gill michael Gill, otherwise known as Gil worked at law firm, DLA Piper in Sydney for over 50 years, at different stages. He was chairman managing partner, and now a consultant he's been the president of the law society of new south Wales was the president of the law council of Australia. And he established the Australia insurance law association. He has some really interesting ideas about what it means to have a career. And here's us talking about work life balance.

Michael: 36:05

but just let them give us a question. They find my, what for you is work. How can you think of the word?

James: 36:17

Yeah, I think, work is almost sort of what you're employed to do in some sense, like, whatever your sort of job is, that's like, or even, doing things for an employer would be, would be work. And even, I guess you could maybe extend that if you were doing like this podcast for me is probably work as well. It's just a bit more, it's not more, it just is fun. So it doesn't feel like work. And even though it's not necessarily for anyone, I probably would still fall under that. But I think if you were looking at it from a career sense, then I would say, yeah, if it's for the employees, That's what

Peter: 36:53

I guess in a careers. And so I, I agree with Frisco, but I think. There are a lot of other ways you could on this, a bit of a lawyer answer, and most other ways you could interpret the word. I, I play soccer, that could be considered going to training, trying to improve. That's a type of work. I don't think it's limited to just rocking up then doing tasks for an employer, I guess. So there's lots of other ways you can interpret the word work, I guess. I don't know. It's however you want to think about it really? I don't know. I don't know if that really answers your question too much, Michael, but.

Michael: 37:34

Very good answers. And it's the sort of stuff that will be revealed to you personally, in your own circumstance with a lot of guys, all giants by news. Do you prefer James will freak out?

James: 37:45

James is, is fine. Two of my close friends can be out. Cause we have a few James is in our friendship group, so it's tended to be easier. Yeah.

Michael: 37:55

I must say

Peter: 37:56

yeah.

Michael: 37:57

I'm totally distracted by make the frigates.

James: 38:00

Yeah.

Michael: 38:05

So James, when you say do something for your employer, can you think of examples where you do something, which is only for your employer? In other words, you have personally nothing invested.

James: 38:29

Hmm. Oh yeah. I'd say, yeah, it's a good point. And I think, even if it's, I'm just thinking of like a basic task, like, sending some emails or things like that, you're still, it's still a mutually beneficial relationship in that. Like they're paying you to do that. So that there's something in it for you in that sense, but even in terms of a career progression web looking at it, I guess there's a ways in the things that you do as still driving a career forward and maybe make you more able to be employed. What I do other things for other people. So I guess there's growing as skillset is also something that is beneficial to yourself as well.

Michael: 39:07

Yeah, that was one of the woods I was hoping you would get to just to get the money for a while. But yeah, even things like a simple email has the potential to develop you around knowledge skills, and. Every interaction if you think of it that way. So coming back to my response to you in a funny sort of way, I don't see any more work-life balance because as I've had more time to read new things, since I retired from the partnership in 2008, I now see work very much as what you do whilst you waiting for the real joys in your life. And once you are in that space, I promise you, you will never think of it as work a guy. When you largely I'll answer a hundred percent, I've done like a, I have a book, but when you are a large. All of the thought that I really love doing this stuff. Yeah. This is Nate.

Peter: 40:15

Okay.

Michael: 40:16

I love the people that I'm with. I love the opportunities that it's giving me to develop as a human being. Yeah. It makes me return to my family every day, a really decent human being. I no longer have any notions of leaving the work at the front door. So it makes sense.

Peter: 40:43

Yeah.

Michael: 40:45

And it's,

Peter: 40:46

Strive forward.

Michael: 40:50

and it's not easy. It's odd because there's so much in life that completes without attainment of that spice. And, I could start to. Some of the awful challenges that fuel generation adds about lifestyle and getting the sort of money that enables you to live in a particular way, and then being locked in your selves and those close to your about whatever else I do in life. I need a job that returns me. I a minimum of X dollars every month. And when young, when young lawyers picks up your point, which is going to look for honesty to it, when young lawyers from big law firms come to me and stay all my STIs admission of five-year, this isn't really for me. And I had to tell my parents, a lot of y'all in the M and a department of three Hills. So Dale I pop or something. I hate it. I absolutely heightened. And I cited them having fought and this money too, because if money is not terribly important to you, it was a lawyer, the world's your oyster.

Peter: 42:08

Yeah.

Michael: 42:09

But if the first thing you have to do is get a tick on not less than a hundred thousand dollars a year or$200,000 a year, or being on that slippery ladder to chop the ship. What will that stop? If all of that's there, then all you've done is closed off a huge number of options, which might not even want to include your authentic stone.

James: 42:35

We're up to number five in the podcast today. And this, this part of the podcast comes from episode 35. The last episode with Shant Theran. He is a former investment banking intern at Macquarie. He, uh, currently interns at IR ventures and his incoming graduate at McKinsey. We spoke about, Sharon's lessons for people like university and his general lessons for approaching life. I've got one more question for you, Sean. And that is a question. I ask all the guests that come on the shot and it is if you could kind of let's let's even for yourself, go back to when you were first starting university and kind of add into this journey of discovering, um, you know, the different opportunities that are, that are awaiting you. And what advice would you give to someone that's perhaps, you know, now just starting out on their.

Cheran: 43:22

Yeah, totally. Um, I think I've seen a few things. Um, I've always had three things, um, have to keep it very structured as a future consultant. Um, I think the first one would be do things your own way. I've mentioned the phrase, hedonic treadmill a few times now, but it's very easy. And I know that I am a person who subjects this on others is you see the LinkedIn's the table and you say, oh, well, by doing this, you got to this. And by doing, they, he got to say, and, um, have a consciousness that there are a million ways to get to where you want to be and be driven enough that you pursue goals. And you know, if you are pursuing roles and titles and whatever it is, that's fine, but don't be so driven that you forget to SSA, smell the roses from the way. Um, and you forget about the race, why you've done that journey. And you know, I'm not ending up in banking, but I'm still glad I've spent one and a half years in banking because that's taught me a whole, um, skill set of things that if I was so focused on the outcome, I think that was a waste, which certainly isn't. So I'd say, firstly, do things your way. Second thing. Um, nobody cares. Um, and that sounds rather flippant. Um, that what I mean by that is genuinely, nobody cares about so many of the failures that we have on a daily basis. I remember, um, seeing this visual visualization once on. And if you imagine two concentric circles and you sort of have one circle and then you have a little small circle, um, in the middle of it, um, and that small circle is how much other people think about you and all the space around it is how much you think about other people thinking about you. Um, and that's just the reality yet. Literally nobody cares. Everyone has their own issues and problems to sort through. And it's very liberating once you realize that, because all of a sudden, you're just focused on your own happiness and your personal pursuit of your goals. Um, and that's all you need in life. I think life is already tough enough, um, without worrying about what other people think or, you know, what's going to be the impact of me not getting X or not being at this stage in life. Um, and especially when you surround yourself in a high academic shaving background of students and cohorts, as you know, the universities, you and I have been to, um, either it gets very easy to fall into that middle. And then the last thing I would say, um, is that life will generally be okay. Um, and I think this sort of links back to, you know, nobody cares, but, um, I've said this a lot too, you know, it's graduate season at the moment. A lot of students in the years below some students that I tutor at university has been really stressed and worried about, um, applications. And I think, remember that everybody's. Peaks at a certain period of time and that's not going to be 22 for everybody. And it'll be rather sad if you're picking a 22. So I think, just remember that the vast majority of your listeners and the people who are part of this community, um, have lived in a time, which has never been better than time before. Number one. Uh, and that second late, generally, everybody, if you work hard enough, if you don't that luck impact everything in your life, you will be okay. Um, and you will get to where you want to eventually, um, and that there's no rush in life in terms of reaching certain goals. I just, because it seems like the vast majority of people reach goals within a certain period of time doesn't mean that you have to be part of that as well, because there are countless numbers of people, you know, Reed Hoffman is a prime example, uh, period reached their peak successes and their Fest successes in their forties and fifties. So, um, That would be my three pieces of advice, do things here right away. Um, nobody cares and, uh, it'll all be okay, James. It'll all be okay.

James: 47:04

The sixth to section today comes from episode 29 with Lacey Phillip pitch, Lacey. was valedictorian university in her chemical engineering degree. And she's started work in the mining industry since then. She's released a book, given Ted talks, founded her company called money school. She's done all this stuff. It's, it's really, really incredible. Here's her advice to graduates, um, and she shares a great story about working for the right boss. if you had to restart your career kind of wind back to when you were first starting out working, is there anything looking back now that you would approach kind of your career progression and perhaps your finances as well? Is there anything that you would do differently knowing what.

Lacey: 47:44

Oh, well, there's one tiny thing in my finances that I didn't understand when I was a graduate. Um, but I, I know now that I go like, oh shoot, I should have done something about that. Um, when I was working for Western mining, BHB took us over. That was in my second year as a graduate. And we had been given options. We Western mining and I didn't understand what options meant. And so I didn't exercise them. Um, and now I know what options they I'm like. Ah, I was like that eight grand I could have had. Um, so when something happens financially at work where they have like a share plan or they talk about salary sacrificing or your superannuation matching and stuff like that, if you don't understand, take the time to get the support so you can make a good day. It's really important that if you, if you get an offer for something from work that you understand, whether it's the right thing for you or not, and that you take the opportunities that you can cause often things like those share plans and those options plans are designed to keep you with the company, but they are a leg up. They want, they are an advantage, but if you just sign without understanding them or ignore them because they're too hard, you can give up a lot. Take the time to learn would be by advice there. Um, the other thing I would encourage people to do, which I hadn't even at the time thought about. You can tell from my discussion that I'm quite a forthright person and I will fight for what's right for me. And something that happened to me when I was in that second year, I was a graduate, I was one of seven graduates and two of us were female. Now, the five women. And we were at a site where there was 10 women in total, out of 300 employees in Calgary, in Western Australia. Right. So that was the reality of going into mining in a remote location back then. It's very different. Now, you know, the next site I went to was 20% female versus, you know, 10 out of 300. So, um, that's not normal, but what often happens when you're the only woman on a site or one of the few is that you get the women's jobs, uh, which w for this particular case was my general manager had lost in the 18 months. I'd been there. He'd lost five executive assistants. That's not normal. Clearly, clearly that was a difficult role, but they couldn't find someone and they really needed someone. So they asked me to fill in and I had a massive tantrum, like not a, you know, throwing my fist, but I went into my boss's office and was like, you're just asking me to do this because I'm a woman and I'm not happy about that. There are five other graduates who are male. Any of them could do that role. Why did you pick me? Because I had a real bee in my bonnet about this. Like we always give the women the job of taking the notes and they always have to get the frigging tea and all that stuff. Anyway, it was a real thing that I had heard so much about, and I was really sensitive to it. And so I overreacted, but I was really like, it was a fair call. My boss said that is a fair call for you to say that, because this does happen. And he said, look, I promise you, Lacey, that's not the reason you were chosen for this. Can you just take my word from it? That you're going to learn something really important and. It's why you want to take this role. And I was like, okay, fine. I really liked the boss who was fantastic. Um, JP and I said, all right, fine, I'll do it. But I'm not happy that you've picked me because I'm a girl. And he's like, I'm not picking you because your girl stuff. Okay. I find fun. Anyway. So turns out it was when BHP was looking to buy Western mining. And I got to be part of the war room that got set up before the merger and acquisition. So I got to be in on the discussions with the executive team and hear how they would pitch the company, how they would persuade another company to buy them. I got to learn about M and a. Now letting that at 22. Is it unusual if you're not like in that kind of like for graduate engineer, who'd just come off the furnace in west west scruffy, you know, covered in dirt outfit to be in these meetings, listening to this because I could make grass because I could type. And they needed that to hear those conversations that were happening to understand how the Warren would get set up to learn. That was like some of the most invaluable experience I got in that graduate program. Like you couldn't, you couldn't have planned. So my boss had noted that I wanted to be a CEO. He had noted that. Cause I had told him he did. He's like, where do you want to go? Eventually I'm like, well, I'd like to be a CEO eventually. So I wouldn't do, you know, management stuff, but he was doing it so that I could get this amazing experience because I was the graduate who had said I'm interested in that stuff. So he was doing the right thing by me. The fact that I was female, neither here nor there, but if I hadn't listened to him and I'm just lucky that he didn't go, we'll find, I'll give it to someone else just as well. You know, someone else, I'm very lucky that he was understanding. And so my response, so that's the difference between having a good boss and a bad boss? Sorry, what did I learn out of that? Sometimes? You'll think it's because of some thing that it's not, you know, I, I had a bruise on my bottom, everything I looked at, I was like, they're asking me to do that. Cause I'm a girl on a freezing, uh, on principle because I'm a feminist and thou shalt not make me. Um, it's not always the same. It's just, That's your frame of reference. Okay. So you'd need to be willing to listen when people tell you that's wrong, sometimes you'll be right. Sometimes you won't be that's. I think the most important thing that the second thing that I learned out of this experience, that's something that's carried me through. My whole career is pick your boss wisely. There is no one who will have a bigger impact on how happy you are at work. Then your boss, the end, 80% of your satisfaction at work, I reckon comes from whether you have a good boss or an outside good boss. They have to have had not so good. Uh, to be able to understand what a good boss is, I think, and I've had only a couple in my time. I've been very lucky. I've had fantastic bosses, but I started to get very choosy very early on about who I'd worked for for that reason. I think there were times when I was younger, when I worked for, uh, I'm going to be blunt, a bad boss, he was shocking. Should not have been allowed to manage people, just cookie cutter for everything. Uh, no, no. Taking into account anyone's personal views, circumstances or preferences. Just know this is how we do it. You will do it this way. Or we never give people that, that high mark you only ever get, everybody gets an average like that. He was just, he should not be allowed to manage people. Um, recognizing that that's not, you necessarily, it's not your fault. I had a lot of, uh, that sort of like, cause when you knew him, what the workplace, you don't really understand whether, um, that's because you're not meeting expectations or whether you've just been lumped with a bad boss. it's a little bit of both. Um, so you've gotta be honest with yourself, but if you've got a bad boss, just accept that that's a bad boss and they're not right for you. Maybe they're good for other people, but not right for you and become choosy. So that's, I think something that I learned based on my youth experience going, I've gotta be really picky about who I work for and don't don't work for assholes. The end.

James: 54:58

To finish us off today. We have episode 22 with Josh far. Josh is the founder of the campus consultancy. He's worked with more than 20,000 leaders across schools, university nonprofits. He's given Ted talks. He's, he's one awards for his speaking. He is an incredible, incredible person. And today we're gonna hear again, his advice for graduates, uh, that are starting in the workforce today. what's some advice that you'd give yourself. If you were starting your career at the startup.

Josh: 55:30

oh, that's a good one. What advice would I give myself? I was restarting my career. Maybe preempting, probably that, or should I just said that would probably be it like thinking about the next five years. Who do you want to help? A practical way to do that is I think if someone's lost, try to answer this question. I think if you're lost and I'm sure I'm stealing this from someone, this is not an original. But the point of a career is to end unnecessary suffering. So if you're not sure what you want to do, try to end the unnecessary suffering. What does that mean? Find some suffering, find someone that's struggling, find something that shouldn't be suffering, like where we have a resourcefulness problem, not a resource problem. You know, like I looked on, I was telling you before we started recording, I booked an Airbnb today. And when I logged on the homepage of Airbnb said, you know, can we help that house 200,000 Ukrainian refugees or something like. Obviously there's more than that, but that was the number that was up there. I'm pretty sure it was 200,000 as it was a bunch of people on Airbnb who have a vacant place in different parts of the world who can say yes, actually I could put a family up for two weeks. I could actually go without two weeks of Airbnb income and I could put someone up for two weeks or two months or two years or whatever it is. And I could, I could do this. And it's a small sacrifice. My family's not going to staff. I could do this. Lots of people listening might not have a spare Airbnb to put up, but they might have a spare weekend. They might have a couple of hours. They might have 50 bucks a month that they can donate. So the question would be my advice to a younger self would be, find a problem that you care about. Find some suffering, as weird as that sounds try to find something with some leverage where it doesn't need to happen, where there is a solution where there are great organizations or great people. Yeah. Start getting involved in that space, like change your proximity. The thing that changed everything for me was proximity. It's the hardest advice that I'd give to my younger self, but it's really hard to say to people is like, I think you need to go to a place in the world where there are real problems and spend some time there. Now there are real problems in your neighborhood, right? Domestic abuse, all that sort of stuff. It's not like you've just got to go knock it around on the neighbors house. Like, is there any suffering happening in here? Like it's kind of, it's not the same, you know, so it's kind of. So it's either tap into what's happening in the local environment or go somewhere being in an environment where it smacks you. Like for me, I needed that smack of like, Hey, there are real problems out here and you can do something about that. And it's not overly like palatable, but it was really practical. And that gap between what I thought I wanted and what I needed became really apparent. So that would probably be my. out somewhere where there's a real challenge, be around people who are actually solving it. Like how has just in saw this crisis? And I didn't see anyone solving it'd be really depressing. But then I went to the refugee border crossing and I saw local families. Bakers, people had next to nothing, giving away everything, like closing their business and giving away all the bread to refugees who they didn't know who were from another country who didn't even have the same religion. Like some of the religions blatantly said, these guys are the enemy. And they're like, yeah, We're going to give our entire lives to helping them. I was like, that's religion. You know, that's what it's about. And it just, things like that, being around that, being around people who is so selfless, so generous, that that just changed my perspective. So I think a version of that rant is what I'd hoped to tell him about.

James: 58:49

Thanks for listening to this episode I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. If you want to get my takeaways, the things that I learned from this episode, please go to graduate theory.com/subscribe, where you can get my takeaways and all the information about each episode, straight to your inbox. Thanks so much for listening again today, and we're looking forward to seeing you next week.