Work In Progress Podcast

WIPp 030 Happy One Year Old to Work In Progress Podcast

• Dana & Angela

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Email: workinprogressblogs@gmail.com 

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A year ago, we published our first episode. It was a short introduction to what we want to achieve with this podcast. A year later, we look back, reflect and plan ahead.
So far, we've interviewed 28 amazing people who switched careers to be closer to what makes them more fulfilled. Among the careers they transitioned into, there are three major groups (characters are limited, the comprehensive list is on our blog: 

1. Entrepreneurship 

2. Coaching 

3. Tech


There are more so please stay tuned!









Music used with permission. Credit: Happy, MBB https://soundcloud.com/mbbofficial
Creative Commons — Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported  — CC BY-SA 3.0

Dana :

All right, welcome back, ladies and gentlemen to our podcast just in case you didn't notice, this episode is going to be a little different, because today we're going to talk about our one year anniversary on this podcast. First is to sing ourselves a little song to celebrate our one year anniversary. And second, we want to talk about what we did in the past year, obviously reflect on that a little bit. And lastly, we want to talk about what we want to do moving forward.

Angela :

So something we've been thinking about incorporating into these episodes is we want to talk about or ask our guests what they're drinking. And technically, you know, because of our love for coffee, we're asking what kind of caffeinated drink of choice Are you drinking at the moment while you're recording with us, but it does not need to be caffeinated. So today to celebrate the occasion, I got the ever so popular Starbucks pumpkin spice latte. And it's definitely caffeinated. But I did why didn't finish the first one I kind of modified the number of shots there are in terms of the pumpkin syrup, so it's not super sweet and stuff like that. And I added my own decaf because it's kind of late in the day. And I still feel like some warm beverage. So that is my drink of choice today. What are you drinking?

Dana :

Well, I because considering how late it is today, right now currently, it's 6:30pm. So I decided to not drink any caffeinated drinks. And instead, I'm drinking a green smoothie. Because for the past few weeks, I have been really lagging behind on my fiber intake. So I feel like a really need to, you know, take better care of my body and my health. And smoothie is just a very easy way to put all the greens together and just put it in a drink, and you get hydrated all at the same time. So yeah, that's what I'm drinking today. So anyways, now we get that out of the way. Let's talk about the main topic of this episode. Obviously, we turned one year, on September 16. That was actually when we published our first episode online. And that was super exciting. I remember being so nervous and just really scared about you know, what's gonna happen, you know, maybe I feel like, what if the world collapsed or something like that? Or what if we started to get hate messages. But none of that happened really. And it was a really short one, too. We talked about ourselves. And I know the sound quality is was horrible. But that was our first episode that we put online. And I remember just being super excited, but also very, very nervous at the same time. So we're going to do kind of a reflection of what we did in the past year. And obviously talk about what we want to do in the future. So first, I checked all the episodes that we've published in the past year, and I found that we have interviewed 28 amazing humans so far. And they've switched careers, and they share their personal journeys with us. They share their fears and their journeys, their learnings, their lessons, and all the very, very precious experiences that they went through. And I'm just really, really happy that we got the chance to talk to these 28 amazing people.

Angela :

Yeah, and I think not all of them are professional bloggers or people that are actively putting themselves out there on the internet. So, you know, kind of get getting together the courage to kind of share their story somewhat online, in a way takes, you know, some courage and also like, you know, the mindset of being open to opportunities and being open to sharing where they've been through or what they've been through where they were coming from and where they're going. And I think it's really interesting looking back up 28 episodes that we have so far and you know, just doing kind of an inventory check. And interestingly enough, we have 18 out of 28 people we spoke with are some kind of an entrepreneur now. And 10 out of 28 people we spoke with our coaches of some sort. So there's all kinds of different fitness career business life coach and yoga instructor. So there are coaches now and kind of just being where we are in the Bay Area. Nine out of the 28 people we spoke with are in some kind of a tech industry or tech company tech role right now after their transition. But also another thing I kind of just realized as we are actually only spoke to, I believe two men out of episodes. And that could be our very strong internal bias going on. And maybe we feel a little bit easier and more comfortable reaching out to women. I don't know. But that's something I think we should work on.

Dana :

Yeah, definitely. I feel like men are underrepresented in this in this podcast. And we really need to change that next year. So yeah, so that's a good, that's a good observation. And I do think that it's very interesting that we're able to group things into like a couple of categories. And we actually found so many, so many people that actually ended up spark starting their own businesses, which is very inspirational. And also just a lot of coaches in general, and lots of people in tech, you know, given where we are, so we do get a lot of people working in the tech industry, or with some tech roles in non tech industry. So it's really interesting to see that break down. And the second thing is that, since you know, we're in 2020, COVID, is a big problem. And we've actually spoken with a number of people who share their experiences going through 2020, going through COVID, and just all these difficult things that just compounded together. And it's very, very interesting to learn about their experiences going through COVID, and how they're coping, and whether their careers or businesses are negatively or positively affected by COVID. So I definitely think that it's been a very, very interesting and eye opening experience for me, because for myself, and equals one or my friends, you know, I know how they're doing, I know how I'm doing. But we're all kind of largely in like one or two industries. But if I didn't have this podcast, if I wasn't, you know, asking strangers online with a bunch of random questions, career and personal questions, I really wouldn't have known how some other people are doing out there. So it's been a very interesting learning experience for me as well.

Angela :

Yeah. And I mean, we talked to Vanessa, who switched from being a very successful lawyer, you know, spending eight years in law to teaching yoga now, and actually, she was originally from Brazil. Just imagine that transition, how amazing that is. And he was offering free online yoga lessons, just because you know, of COVID, all of the yoga studios had to kind of shut down temporarily, and she wasn't able to kind of get her business anywhere else other than being online. We also talked to Brittany, who is a career strategist, she worked Lori yell, and I think at the moment still works there. But she has a lot of experience, kind of just transitioning from different Well, from role to role by really successfully networking with people that are within her own company. And you know, she is now expanding her own business outside of her corporate corporate job, just because COVID is hitting so hard that she is seeing that a lot of people are needing help, you know, I'm getting a little bit of an updated kind of strategy, if you will, when it comes to looking for a job during COVID. And we also have Emily, who started her own tutoring company, who was previously a co owner of a company with her fiance. But her tutoring company kind of combines her past experience as a teacher, and also heard essentially passion for building a community where now she is helping kind of parents that have students that are learning from home and having to deal with these all sorts of distance learning challenges that are quite new to probably all of us right now we're all of the parents are the moment by kind of connecting her network of teachers with parents on need some kind of a teaching assistance or supplemental education courses that are outside of like a traditional classroom setting. So I think these are all really interesting stories that are really related to the biggest thing that's happening currently in our world, which is COVID. But it's amazing to see how people are able to adapt to, you know, like, a huge curveball like COVID. And overall, just really excited to see and be really happy and really inspired by that.

Dana :

Yeah, I definitely agree with you. And I think that it's also very encouraging to know that not everyone is negatively impacted by COVID. And some people are, you know, even if they are, they're trying to be creative and trying to think of other ways to to make a living. And some people are actually benefiting from it, not from the disease itself, but people are reaching out to them because they have a specific skill set that can benefit a lot more people so it's definitely very, very Interesting to see how things turn out for for some people.

Angela :

Yeah, for sure. I think also a very interesting interview that we had with Ashley who was a physician assistant, they're successful, then decided that she transitioned and wanted to become a homeschool parent. And that was

Unknown Speaker :

such a different

Angela :

change, but in some ways happened almost in a very good timing in the sense that the whole world was shutting down and being in quarantine. And, you know, because of her decision to transition to be a homeschool mom, she was already very used to having to do a lot of these Distance Learning Assistance for her kids and homeschooling her kids. And I think it's amazing that she has her own podcast now sharing all kinds of tips and tricks and all of the things that you can do if you are a parent, that's considering homeschooling your kid. So I think a lot of the times, you know, like when life gives you lemons, you make lemon juice, right. So like you think of all kinds of ways and how to kind of pivot from your current situation. And it's not necessarily all bad. So it's definitely very, very inspiring hearing all these different stories.

Dana :

Yeah, just bringing things back into the topic today, the topic of this episode, which is our podcast, I kind of wanted to talk about what I enjoyed doing and what I didn't enjoy doing so much in this past year. So first is what I liked. Obviously, I think the most, and the most exciting thing that I got to do in the past year, is to connect with our guests and to learn about them. You know, I feel like almost it almost feels like an out of body experience where you talk to people and you actually learn about their childhood, their memories, and just what they did in the past all the happy moments and the challenges that they went through. Because these stories are coming from these stories, these stories are really raw and real, and they're coming from our guests. So whenever I feel like I'm talking, whenever I'm talking to them, I just feel like I actually get to experience what they experienced before. And I think this is such a wonderful thing to, to have it in my life. So that's something that I really, really liked about this podcast. And also, I really like the feeling of being able to create content. For example, editing the podcast is, is fun. I mean, it's a very long process. But I really did enjoy this. And also trying to come up with, you know, some kind of artwork or writing the the blog post that accompanies these, these interviews, these are very fun things for me to do, I feel like whenever I'm creating something, is when I actually get to be in like the state of flow, as they call it. And these are the moments that I really enjoy. But there are also some things that I don't quite enjoy about, you know, creating the podcast and writing the blog. And the biggest thing is that writing to me doesn't come naturally. So it takes me a long, long, long, long time to to get started. And after I get started, it takes me, you know, another, I don't know how many hours to just to finish my thought. And then sometimes I could do rails, sometimes I have to come back and fix what I wanted to say. And it's this whole process is very, very long for me. And because writing is just something that doesn't come naturally to me. So this part is something that I wish I can do better. But I've noticed that with the number of posts that we put up, and these things are becoming easier and easier. But still, it's not as easy as I would like them to be. But I noticed that I'm making some sort of improvement and practice makes perfect. So I have I have hopes for the future.

Angela :

Yeah, I think I have to echo with you on like, what I like about this whole podcast experience really is to, you know, be really given the opportunity to kind of go through people's journey with them as they kind of recount what happened. And as they share all of the emotions, and really, the emotions come through very, very clearly, even though we don't, we're not seeing we're not talking to them in person, but I think just like the power of words and also their voice and you know, their choice words. All of the above combined really like bring you back to all of the significant like a memorable moments of you know, maybe what triggered them to make that decision and what it was like going through some of the harder and more emotional times that they shared with us. What I think is difficult, is also kind of related to what you just said basically is to kind of edit the content down to a way so that it is Is it guess efficient in the use of words, for example, and then also without changing kind of the meanings and emotions behind? And overall, just how do you pick the best way to deliver the message and some of these emotions that we heard in more conversational terms, but also still packaged it into a format that is digestible and suitable for, you know, some of the different kind of platforms that we put our content on, for example, like medium, and we're also kind of exploring with putting podcast episodes on YouTube. But because right now we just have the audio and, you know, there are still a lot of things that we're trying to figure out. And in terms of having, like, actual video, visual format for that. So those are all like the things that we're kind of learning in terms of technology, like I didn't know how to edit anything, like video or audio wise. So I think there's definitely a learning curve there. And it does take a lot of time, and you just have to be very dedicated, and really allocate time, your your own time, well, unless you're doing this full time, which neither of us are doing that. But, um, if anything, I think, yeah, that's like, definitely a really good learning experience, because you do learn over time. And there are a lot of resources online, as long as you kind of like try to be resource, be resourceful look things up, and kind of just teach each other.

Dana :

Yeah, absolutely. And the last thing I think we should talk about is what we should do next, in the next year. I mean, and obviously, you know, first and foremost is that we want to continue to do more interviews, because these are the these are the part about this podcast that I enjoy the most is to actually talk to people, learn about them, learn what makes them tick, and all that. And I think I have some ideas on what we can do next. So I'm just going to throw it out there. And then you can join in if you have more ideas, Angela. But first, I think that, since we were just categorizing our interviews based on, you know, the kind of the careers that people changed into, I think it'll be I think it will make our podcast even more informative. If we can group the interviews into let's say miniseries, where we cater towards specific careers, if people have preferences, they can let us know. Or if we can just choose based on, you know, what we think is important, or what we think is careers that a lot of people want to know about. And we can start doing some book reviews, if they're helpful. There are a lot of books and resources out there on careers, and specifically changing careers. And obviously, there are some blogs out there and podcasts out there that talk about similar things that we do. And I think that it's important to share the good content out there and not to be nervous about, you know, someone else is doing something similar to us. And I think that if we think that some content is good, then we should definitely share it with our audience. So that's something that I have in mind. And we can also do more targeted conversations with, let's say, hiring managers or HR managers. And so we can learn about what they go through when they hire people, especially if they're hiring people coming from a different background, then the role that they're trying to apply for. And I think that this can be very informative and very illuminating for for us and specifically for the audience, because usually we're on the receiving end of these interviews and selection screening process. So a lot of times we don't know where they're thinking, we don't know, we don't know why we got interviews, we don't know why we got rejected and all kinds of things. So I think it will be very informative to get behind the scenes and just learn the why and the why nots.

Angela :

Yeah, I think, you know, definitely, I feel like I'm seeing a lot of coaches, kind of, almost everywhere, all kinds of different coaches. And I think personally, I am really curious, and I'm still learning a lot about like the kind of the value and the benefits of working with a coach and how do I find one and what kind of coach Do I need and things like that? So, um, you know, I have some ideas about maybe grouping some of quests, some of the questions that we're getting, if there are any, you know, particularly maybe about being an entrepreneur, maybe some kind of maybe life coach questions or like fitness nutrition related questions, because we've also interviewed coaches that are specialized in those areas, and then we can turn those into some kind of a series, whether it's actually a formal podcast or something that we do on social media, I think those would be pretty fun as well. Just really in the spirit of sharing more information and, you know, getting all of our kind of ideas together. To learn more from each other in a community format. So something we're also thinking about and kind of, you know, I think this is going to be definitely more of a long term strategy that we're thinking is we are hoping or at least I am hoping to use technology to build something so that we can help people transition careers more easily. I think nowadays, it's definitely already been a lot easier than maybe, let's say 10 years ago, and so many people are doing it. So it's almost like, if you are curious, there are a lot of resources, and people are open to the idea of, you know, helping others out and also sharing their experience. But I just don't think that there is definitely a way to kind of use technology to build something in terms of product. Until we're able to do that, though I think something that's a little more near term that we can work on is really getting to be getting people together, forming communities of people that are interested in changing careers, and whether it is from a specific career as career B, or it's from any kind of career going to career scene. We're still thinking about, like, the exact format that we want to run this, but I think, you know, just creating these communities where we have people that are interested in the same end goal, working together, sharing resources, and whether learnings are and, you know, keeping each other cheered up and encouraged during the process, and their journey, I think would be really, really valuable.

Dana :

Yeah, that's, I think that's a good idea, honestly. And we should definitely look into it, because part of helping people, like the value is the human interaction. So you can provide and I think that if you just give someone the recipe to, you know, do XYZ, they may know how to do it, because they have the recipe, but sometimes they just need a little bit of like a human interaction to help them go along. Or maybe they need some kind of encouragement. Or if they run into some obstacles, then they need someone to kind of cheer them on sort of like a cheerleader, kind of thing situation. So I think that there's a lot of value in what human interactions can provide. And that is why these communities can be very helpful. So yeah, I think that's a great idea. And we should really look into it.

Angela :

Yeah, and I think something we just want to mention something we learn from Ico, hopefully at that is how you pronounce your name Ico. Yeah. So Ico was a very successful manager at a very, very young age early on in her career in financial services and management, decided to transition to become a conservation biologist, I believe, and is, I'm pretty sure at this point, finishing up her very interesting internship and then getting her master's in conservation biology, shared that, you know, even though her transition is so unique, and very different, she gathered up the courage to share her story with us, because she said that even if she's able to help just one person, she's still finding that to be valuable. And I think that really is kind of the North Star of why we're doing this is if we are just inspiring one person, or at least making that one person's day and helping them one person feel like the whatever it is that this person is, is doable, it is possible. And there's more people and other people out there that are also trying to do similar things, if not the same. So yeah, hopefully, you've enjoyed all of the interviews we've had so far and are looking forward to more that are coming in the coming year. Find us on all kinds of I think platforms where you're listening to podcasts and can find podcasts, I believe you'll be able to find us. Give us a rating subscribe on iTunes or Apple podcasts and let us know what you want to hear next.

Dana :

Yeah, thank you so much for sticking with us for one year. It's been a very amazing journey. And I think we're really just getting started. There are so many things that we want to do that we haven't even got started. We are really, really thankful that you found us and really looking forward to be talking to more people and bringing more perspectives to to you guys. So thank you guys so much for listening, and we'll talk to you next time.