Building The Skill Of Adaptability In Your Career With Jenny Blake (Ep. 24)
Jenny Blake is one of the most skilled people I know when it comes to adapting to new situations and challenges.
As a professional speaker, business coach, published author, and the founder of Life After College – a site that both helped and inspired me as a freshman in college – Jenny is a pro at wearing a lot of hats and, as she’s very fond of saying, pivoting.
In addition to her entrepreneurial ventures, Jenny also spent five years working for Google. There, she took the initiative to learn new skills and take on new responsibilities – a strategy that’s much better than simply waiting for a promotion to come.
In this episode, Jenny and I talk about her journey from college to Google, the birth of Life After College, and her current work in urban farming (it turns out hydroponics is pretty cool).
You’ll also learn how her planning skills and insanely huge spreadsheets helped her get through college quickly and get her book published.
Things mentioned in this episode:
- Jenny’s website
- Life After College – the blog
- – the book
- Lucent – Jenny’s new meditation app
- Speak Like a Pro – a free virtual conference on public speaking happening August 25-29, 2014
- Beeminder
- Unroll.me
- Connect with Jenny on Twitter
Resources of the Week:
- The Tool: Rare Candy – an iPhone app that lets you track your goals, gain experience, and level up. Also try Habit RPG or Lift.
- The Learning Resource: Cosmos – Neil deGrasse Tyson’s rebooted version of Cosmos has been a mainstay in my mornings for over a week now. Highly recommended.
New Segment: Listener Tip of the Week
From now on, I’ll also be featuring a listener tip on each episode before I dive into the main content. Want to be featured on the podcast? I’m looking for tips in each of these categories:
- General college tips – learning, studying, productivity, etc
- Jobs and internships
- Money management
If you’d like your tip featured on the show, email it or tweet it to me!
Also, remember to leave your name – and if you’d like me to give a shoutout to something of yours (your website, twitter profile, etc), mention that as well.
A couple great quotes from our conversation:
“The more you can systematize and organize, the less decision fatigue you’ll have.” | Tweet This
“Do, drop, or delegate.” | Tweet This
“The mid-life crisis is a relic of the past; with the pace of change in today’s world, we can expect to pivot every few years.” | Tweet This
If you enjoyed this episode, give the CIG podcast a review on iTunes!