0:23

Hey everyone. Thanks for joining me

0:24

for another episode. I'm your host, Jesse Butts.

0:29

Today, I'm chatting with Laura

0:29

Stef-Praun, a PhD in Victorian

0:33

literature, with a focus on

0:33

the history of disability

0:37

in the 19th century, from

0:37

the University of Chicago.

0:41

Laura now has turned

0:41

into a content marketing

0:43

strategist and ghost writer. She owns her own small agency,

0:45

Sharp Storylines, and she

0:50

also offers career coaching

0:50

for grad students, interested

0:53

in transitioning to jobs

0:53

outside of the academic world.

0:57

Laura, welcome to the show. Thanks for joining me.

1:00

Thank you so much, Jesse, for having me. I'm so excited to be here.

1:04

So glad you could make it. So Laura, before we chat about

1:05

your move from that PhD in

1:10

Victorian British literature

1:10

to content marketing strategy,

1:14

can you first just tell us a

1:14

little bit about what you do?

1:18

What exactly is content

1:18

marketing strategy?

1:22

Yeah, of course. I'd love to talk about

1:23

content marketing.

1:26

I like to talk about content marketing in general, not just strategy.

1:30

And so maybe we start there. Content marketing is a type

1:32

of marketing that is focused

1:35

on creating, publishing and

1:35

promoting digital content

1:38

for a targeted audience. It can take many forms,

1:41

such as articles, blogs,

1:45

podcasts, video, you name it.

1:48

But the important part is to

1:48

reach and engage your audience.

1:53

Engagement is really key,

1:53

because successful content

1:56

marketing speaks to a

1:56

specific audience ,and it's

1:59

very different from academic

1:59

writing in that respect.

2:02

When you write your dissertation

2:02

or any kind of paper, you do

2:06

have an audience, but you don't

2:06

care so much what they think.

2:09

You're also writing for your

2:09

own purposes and to display your

2:13

research and your expertise.

2:16

Content marketing is

2:16

the opposite of that.

2:18

Right? So basically you want people

2:18

to read your stuff, share it,

2:21

promote it, stay on the page. That's one of the very important

2:23

metrics for content marketing.

2:27

So there are three sides you

2:27

need to think of when you

2:30

think about content marketing. There's content creation,

2:32

one, which is the actual

2:35

writing, editing, recording,

2:35

filming, you name it.

2:38

This podcast is

2:38

content creation.

2:41

We're doing that right

2:41

now, creating content.

2:43

Then there's the content

2:43

optimization, which

2:46

really thinks about, Okay,

2:46

now I have the content,

2:49

what do I do with it? How do I measure

2:50

how it performs? How do I improve it?

2:53

How do I make more people

2:53

read my stuff, basically.

2:56

And of course I left the

2:56

best for last, but it

3:01

should always come first. It's the content strategy

3:02

itself, which is the planning

3:06

before you wanna start creating

3:06

anything, you really wanna

3:09

think about why you're doing

3:09

it, plan it, do the preliminary

3:13

work, know everything you

3:13

can about your audience, your

3:16

competition, your market,

3:16

what you're selling, the

3:20

topics that you create content

3:20

on, what are the best media

3:25

to promote that content? Where is your audience?

3:28

What channel, what

3:28

do they engage in?

3:31

Are they on Facebook,

3:31

Instagram, LinkedIn, whatever.

3:33

You wanna put the content where

3:33

people will find it and read it.

3:37

And you wanna constantly

3:37

think about that.

3:40

So that's content strategy. So, you know, my day to day

3:42

is actually nowadays mostly

3:46

spent on creating content.

3:48

So content development. And what I do is I focus

3:50

on thought leadership.

3:55

And what that really means

3:55

is creating some form of

3:58

content based on research. And I am a ghost writer.

4:02

So that also means that

4:02

I sell my brain power

4:08

and let other people put

4:08

their name on my work.

4:11

And that's fine with me. As long as they pay me,

4:13

that works fine for me.

4:15

So I create a lot of

4:15

content for other people,

4:17

and that's what I do. And then they contribute to it.

4:21

I often interview them. They have their own expertise,

4:22

but I put it together.

4:25

I create it, I package it,

4:25

I give it back to them.

4:28

They put their name on it.

4:30

For Sharp

4:30

Storylines, your, your

4:33

agency, what's that component

4:33

of your business like?

4:38

Yeah,

4:38

Sharp Storylines is my new

4:41

project and baby and agency.

4:43

I started it in the,

4:43

during the pandemic.

4:47

So, , it's an umbrella for

4:47

my multifaceted interests.

4:52

My long term plan is to build

4:52

it into a full service agency.

4:57

But at this point, I serve

4:57

my clients as an independent

5:00

marketer and freelancer. And I offer services that

5:03

are primarily focused on

5:06

content marketing packages. Again, with the focus on

5:08

that thought leadership,

5:11

which to recall for our

5:11

listeners is content based

5:15

on some form of research. Because I feel that that's

5:17

where my skills, the ones

5:21

that I acquired during my PhD

5:21

really differentiate myself.

5:25

So at this point, I can offer

5:25

different kind of services.

5:29

I can, you can hire me for

5:29

content strategy, right, to

5:31

think about the content that

5:31

you need, why you need it,

5:35

how do you create it best. You can hire me for content

5:36

development, as I just

5:39

explained where you come

5:39

with the topic and an expert.

5:42

I interview them, I

5:42

create content for them.

5:46

Or I can just serve as a

5:46

consultant for your team.

5:48

I can advise, I can train you. I offer career coaching for

5:50

graduate students, or any

5:54

kind of young professional

5:54

that wants to break into

5:58

content marketing basically. And my expertise of course,

5:59

is advising on this transition

6:03

from the academic world to

6:03

the corporate world, to the

6:06

content marketing world. You know, I even taught a class

6:08

for graduate students at the

6:11

University of Chicago last

6:11

spring on content marketing and

6:15

what it takes to understand the

6:15

field, to break into the field.

6:18

And I'll do it again if

6:18

given the opportunity.

6:22

Coaching is, is really something

6:22

that I'm very passionate about.

6:26

So Laura, now that we have a really great understanding of, of

6:28

what you're doing now, I'm

6:30

wondering if we can dive into

6:30

the backstory a little bit.

6:33

So where I like to, to start

6:33

with that type of thing is

6:37

that I, I know that you,

6:37

you have a PhD, obviously

6:39

we mentioned that earlier. But I also know that you

6:40

have an MA, and I'm kind of

6:43

curious what prompted that

6:43

first venture into grad school?

6:47

Why did you decide that

6:47

you wanted to go beyond

6:51

undergrad in academic work?

6:54

That's a,

6:54

that's an amazing question.

6:57

I, I think we have to take

6:57

a step even further back.

7:00

I have a very unusual

7:00

story, I think.

7:04

It's, it's really a

7:04

story of love, love and

7:08

passion for literature

7:08

and foreign languages.

7:12

I'm, I'm fluent in Romanian,

7:12

English, French, And it

7:16

starts in Romania, which is

7:16

my, my basic, my homeland.

7:20

And I was born and raised

7:20

and lived in Romania

7:23

until the age of 21. So I spent half my life at

7:25

this point in Romania and half

7:28

my life in the United States. And it all started with

7:31

my mom and my family.

7:34

It's it's interesting. I come from a

7:35

family of engineers.

7:38

My mom was in electrical

7:38

engineering, and my dad

7:40

was a civil engineer, so

7:40

very folks, very focused

7:44

on the sciences on math. And yet they allowed me

7:46

to follow my passion for

7:49

the humanities and they

7:49

were two very loving

7:52

and supporting parents. And my mom was my greatest fan.

7:56

She has always been. She used to say that she was

7:57

waiting for me to become the

8:00

next Harry Potter author.

8:04

I don't do creative writing,

8:04

but she's always applauded

8:08

me and helped me on and on.

8:11

So she shaped my life and I

8:11

owe her, owe her everything.

8:15

And unfortunately she

8:15

passed away last January

8:18

during the pandemic. Yes, it was, it

8:19

was an awful time. I miss her every day.

8:23

She was a visionary

8:23

and my beacon.

8:26

Imagine this lady living in

8:26

communist Romania, borders

8:30

closed, but she came from

8:30

a super highly educated

8:36

family that absolutely loved

8:36

learning with generations

8:41

of women that were educated

8:41

and went to college.

8:44

Actually, my on my mother's

8:44

side, my great-grandmother

8:48

who lived with us until I was

8:48

14, so I actually got to know

8:51

her, she was born in 1901, and

8:51

she had a law school degree.

8:57

So, I, I feel that I, I have

8:57

the obligation and the honor

9:02

to follow in the footsteps of

9:02

all the women in my family.

9:06

My grandmother, my mother's

9:06

mother, she had two

9:10

undergraduate degrees that she

9:10

got right after World War II.

9:14

One was in social work

9:14

and one was in law.

9:17

In Romania, law is an

9:17

undergraduate degree.

9:21

You go straight into law

9:21

school from high school.

9:24

And this grandmother spent

9:24

her entire career teaching

9:27

in a deaf and mute school.

9:30

And her passion was

9:30

teaching, and she passed

9:33

on this passion and her

9:33

pedagogical skills to her

9:36

daughters, my mom and my aunt. So I, I kind of grew up

9:38

with, in that environment.

9:41

My mom was, was

9:41

tutoring and teaching.

9:44

She was an amazing mentor. She had her own small

9:46

tutoring business.

9:48

I started working with her and

9:48

tutoring English when I was 14.

9:53

She, she really was a polymath

9:53

and the multipotentialite.

9:57

She, she was amazing,

9:57

inspirational and

10:01

my life mentor. And she tutored me from day one

10:03

to the day I left for college.

10:08

When she finally gave

10:08

up, she was like, Okay, I

10:10

guess you're really going

10:10

to pursue humanities path.

10:14

Fly free. But you know, I went

10:15

all the way to calculus.

10:17

So , I could have taken

10:17

a different path as well.

10:20

She made sure of that. She, she was quite a force.

10:24

And she influenced our life. You know, she loved

10:25

literature, art, the opera.

10:29

And she passed that

10:29

passion on to myself.

10:33

And because she was,

10:33

as I said, a visionary.

10:37

The borders were closed

10:37

for 40 years in Romania, so

10:40

nobody could exit or enter the

10:40

country, just like the other

10:44

countries in the communist bloc. And yet, when we were

10:45

growing up, we were

10:48

studying English and French. And oftentimes our, her friends

10:49

would be like, Why are you,

10:52

why are, why what's the point? But she hoped that one day the

10:54

borders would open and that,

10:58

that would serve us well. And, indeed, it did.

11:03

The communist regime fell in

11:03

1989 across the entire Eastern

11:07

Europe and the borders opened.

11:10

And my brother and I got

11:10

scholarships abroad at that

11:13

point and left the country. I got a PhD from the University

11:15

of Chicago with an undergraduate

11:19

degree from Trent University

11:19

Canada, where I also spent a

11:24

year abroad in Nantes, France,

11:24

and I got a full ride as well.

11:29

So I have a, a lot of degrees

11:29

and a lot of years in school.

11:35

I love, I love being in school.

11:38

And I loved being in school. I'm a professional student.

11:40

I call myself a professional student. You know, I have three degrees,

11:42

six years of undergraduate

11:45

education in Romania,

11:45

Canada, and France at four

11:49

different universities. I have a two years master's

11:51

degree from Purdue University,

11:54

again in English literature

11:54

and the PhD from the University

11:58

of Chicago, which took me

11:58

seven years to complete.

12:01

And at the University

12:01

of Chicago, I was the

12:04

third to graduate in a

12:04

cohort of 19 students.

12:08

So to answer your question,

12:08

what prompted me to enroll

12:11

in graduate school after

12:11

getting an undergraduate?

12:15

Absolutely everything. I am a professional student.

12:18

I have a love relationship

12:18

with learning, with

12:21

literature, with reading,

12:21

with writing, with teaching...

12:24

that was the way to go. So, I loved all the years

12:26

that I spent in school

12:30

really, especially my

12:30

years at Trent University

12:34

in Ontario, Canada and in

12:34

Nantes, France were probably

12:37

the best years of my life. I traveled, I studied, I

12:39

visited all these amazing

12:44

libraries, looked at rare

12:44

collection books, artifacts,

12:49

and I had no obligations.

12:52

I was single and free.

12:55

I had the small scholarship,

12:55

but to me that was treasure.

12:58

And I managed to manage my

12:58

finances very well because I

13:01

came from communist Romania,

13:01

where my parents were

13:05

literally earning $500 a year.

13:09

$500 a year. So, that's kind of my story.

13:13

That's how I end up at Purdue. And they made me after my

13:15

undergraduate a great offer.

13:21

It was a great school and

13:21

I loved my time there.

13:24

Did you

13:24

intend to be a professor?

13:27

Or was it kind of a, I, I just

13:27

wanna study what I love and

13:31

I'll figure out what happens

13:31

work wise after I graduate?

13:35

What was your mindset like,

13:35

especially as you were

13:37

nearing the end of your PhD?

13:40

Yeah. You know, it was interesting.

13:42

So, when I went to Purdue, I had

13:42

these two amazing professors.

13:47

They were an academic

13:47

couple and they were my

13:50

mentors and advisors. Their names are Dino

13:51

Felluga and Emily Allen.

13:55

They're still at Purdue. They're amazing.

13:57

And, you know, I, I

13:57

was inspired by them.

14:01

Their classes were magic,

14:01

so, so I took everything

14:04

they could offer. I, I chose to write a, a

14:05

master's thesis with Dino.

14:10

He was my thesis

14:10

advisor at Purdue.

14:13

And really everyone encouraged

14:13

me to go and on and on

14:19

from Trent to Purdue to

14:19

the University of Chicago.

14:22

You know, all my professors

14:22

told me, Go on, get a PhD,

14:26

be a professor, be like me. Right.

14:28

I was so good. I was the professional student.

14:31

I was aceing this academic life.

14:34

And basically nobody told

14:34

me to think about money.

14:39

Look at the job market. You know, nobody told

14:40

me that the academic profession was dying.

14:44

Maybe they didn't even

14:44

know it themselves.

14:46

Emily and Dino were the

14:46

only ones that kind of

14:49

tried to bring this up. They were coming up for tenure.

14:51

But you know, they didn't wanna

14:51

be the ones stopping anyone

14:55

from trying either, right. So, so basically what I'm

14:57

trying to say is I went into

14:59

the PhD program out of love.

15:02

And then I discovered that it

15:02

was kind of like bungee jumping.

15:06

And I hate heights. I, I would never bungee jump.

15:10

Okay. That's my oldest daughter. She's the crazy one.

15:13

I am cautious and I like my

15:13

feet firmly on the ground.

15:17

So, there were no jobs

15:17

when I graduated from

15:21

my PhD program in 2010.

15:24

And we were plunged

15:24

in a recession.

15:27

And by that time I

15:27

also had a family.

15:30

I had two little kids. And, I, you know, didn't

15:31

think that a commuter

15:36

marriage would work for me. I saw many of my peers and

15:38

professors doing postdocs and

15:42

looking for tenure track, while

15:42

doing a commuter marriage.

15:46

You know, I had professors

15:46

at the University of Chicago

15:49

that I saw doing that. I decided up front

15:51

that it wasn't for me.

15:54

I kind of started thinking

15:54

about that at the three

15:57

year mark in my PhD program.

15:59

Three of seven,

15:59

did you say originally?

16:02

Seven. Right. So about the end of, of

16:04

my third year, I figured

16:08

out, I, I kind of realized,

16:08

Okay, I've dreamt enough.

16:12

And I don't think it's

16:12

gonna happen just because I

16:14

can't sacrifice this much.

16:17

You know, at that time

16:17

I only had one daughter.

16:19

I really wanted to

16:19

have a second child.

16:21

It would have, it would have

16:21

meant making completely

16:24

different life choices. And so, I tried to recalibrate.

16:28

And it took me quite a, I

16:28

think it took me about a year

16:33

just to do a little bit of

16:33

soul searching and figure

16:35

out how I wanted to continue. Did I wanna finish?

16:39

Did I wanna stop? And I started thinking

16:40

really at that point,

16:43

just like big picture. It's very hard.

16:45

There's a grieving process when

16:45

you start realizing that, you

16:50

know, this goal, this dream that

16:50

you've been working for for so

16:53

many years, at that point, I

16:53

was fully convinced up to that

16:57

point that I was gonna make it. It takes you a while to

16:59

kind of shift your mindset.

17:02

So I started slow.

17:04

First and foremost, I had

17:04

to get used to the idea and

17:08

convince myself that, you

17:08

know, it's time to cut costs.

17:12

In economics, there's this,

17:12

this concept sunken costs.

17:16

It means that at one point in

17:16

business, if you've invested,

17:19

invested, even though if, if

17:19

you're gonna lose, you have

17:22

to do it then rather than

17:22

continue and keep losing more.

17:26

I was gonna take basically

17:26

the PhD as a sunken cost.

17:29

But I did keep an open mind.

17:31

So first of all, I started

17:31

getting part-time jobs in

17:34

administration because I,

17:34

all of a sudden I realized

17:38

that even though I had been

17:38

teaching since I was 14 and

17:41

I adored teaching, teaching

17:41

experience would only get me

17:44

teaching jobs beyond my PhD. So I started working in

17:47

administration part-time at

17:50

the University of Chicago. You know, I also, held a

17:52

job in the writing center

17:55

at Purdue, which was a

17:55

teaching job, really.

17:58

It was part of my teaching

17:58

assistantship, but it was

18:01

different than just being

18:01

in a classroom and teaching.

18:04

So. I leveraged that a

18:05

little bit as well. I trolled the career

18:08

services center.

18:10

I became their best friend there

18:10

at Purdue, not at Purdue, at the

18:15

University of Chicago, and then

18:15

I actually worked for the career

18:18

services center part-time. I started reading any books

18:20

I could find on transitioning

18:23

outside of the academic world. I joined forums and

18:25

discussion groups.

18:27

In particular, The Versatile

18:27

PhD, which at that point

18:31

was founded and belonged to

18:31

a PhD who had transitioned

18:34

out of the academic world. Now she sold it, so

18:35

it belongs to a higher

18:38

education consortium. But it still exists.

18:41

And another fellow PhD mom

18:41

told me about MentorCoach.

18:46

And in particular all but

18:46

dissertation coaching.

18:49

So at that point I was really thinking, am I gonna finish or not finish?

18:52

What do I do? Realistically, finishing

18:53

for a job would not have got

18:58

me much more than I already

18:58

had basically in terms of

19:00

qualifications or experience. So, , I found MentorCoach,

19:02

and MentorCoach is a group

19:06

of academic life coaches. Most of them also have

19:08

clinical psychology PhDs.

19:11

So it's very research

19:11

focused, very research based.

19:15

And I found a coach through

19:15

MentorCoach, and I started

19:19

working with that coach to

19:19

establish my life goals,

19:23

to work on finishing a

19:23

dissertation in record time.

19:27

Because at that point I was

19:27

like, Okay, how many more

19:30

years can I put into this? I need to really be focused

19:31

and on point on time.

19:35

And I also started taking

19:35

classes later on to

19:38

train as a coach myself. So. That was kind of a process.

19:43

So once I, everything

19:43

kind of fell into place

19:46

and I had a plan, then I

19:46

moved on at record speed.

19:50

I actually got one of the

19:50

three dissertation year

19:54

fellowships in the department.

19:57

I set the dates. I pushed my committee to

19:58

return my chapters on time.

20:02

I actually reshuffled my committee. I was like, go, go, go.

20:07

And I did finish because,

20:07

you know, I wanted

20:10

to be done by 2010.

20:13

Both my husband and I, my

20:13

husband has a PhD from

20:16

the, from Purdue University

20:16

in computer science.

20:19

At that point he was

20:19

working as a researcher,

20:23

an academic researcher at

20:23

the University of Chicago.

20:26

So in 2010, he left the

20:26

research academic world

20:31

and moved to corporate. And I graduated with my PhD

20:33

and also started the journey

20:37

towards corporate life and life

20:37

outside the academic world.

20:41

So Laura, I'm a little curious about that coaching process.

20:44

What are the things that the

20:44

coaches did for you that, that

20:48

would've been hard for you

20:48

to suss out and, and come

20:51

up with a plan on your own?

20:54

Coaching really changed my life. That's, that's the

20:56

truth of the matter. And it's a great question

20:58

because a lot of people

21:02

think, well, what is

21:02

really coaching are, what

21:04

are they doing for you? Are they even when you tell

21:05

people, Well, you know, I have

21:08

a dissertation writing coach. They're like, Are they

21:10

doing the writing for you?

21:13

That's plagiarism. No, not really.

21:16

So coaches are not there

21:16

to do anything for you.

21:21

A coach is really a sounding

21:21

board and the coach asks

21:24

you three questions. What are you gonna do?

21:29

How are you gonna do it? And how am I to know?

21:33

These are like three

21:33

typical coaching questions

21:36

for a, a coaching session.

21:39

And then you really apply them

21:39

to what you're trying to do.

21:44

I was, for instance, struggling

21:44

to write a dissertation with,

21:49

first, one young child, and

21:49

then a second one and a spouse

21:56

who was also a researcher

21:56

and in the academic world.

21:59

And, , it, it's all about

21:59

trying to figure out

22:03

one, What are your goals? What are your negotiables?

22:08

What can you let go?

22:11

And what are the

22:11

non-negotiables?

22:13

What, you know,

22:13

you cannot let go.

22:16

So it's very hard to figure

22:16

out all this on your own.

22:20

When you have a conversation

22:20

with your coach, it's like

22:24

talking therapy, but they

22:24

don't really do therapy.

22:27

It's more like career focused,

22:27

life focused, goal focused.

22:30

So I'll give you an example. When you are in the academic

22:32

world, your committee, your

22:36

peers, everyone's biased. They think that the dissertation

22:38

is the only thing that

22:42

is consuming your life. And it is.

22:45

You don't wanna know how

22:45

many Saturdays and Sundays

22:48

I spent in exactly three

22:48

hour chunks at the library

22:52

while my husband was like

22:52

taking the kids to the park.

22:55

And when you're a mom and

22:55

writing a dissertation, it's

22:58

not like you can hang out at

22:58

the library the whole day.

23:00

No, no, no, no, no, no. You have from nine to

23:01

12, because then there's

23:04

dinner and nap time. And so you better freaking

23:05

get your act together and

23:08

write in those three hours

23:08

cause you don't have more.

23:11

So, time management was

23:11

another thing that I worked on

23:14

with my coach, for instance. When I started coaching,

23:15

I felt like I was sinking.

23:19

There were not enough

23:19

hours in the day.

23:21

I couldn't get everything

23:21

I had to do done.

23:24

The research was infinite, right. And You feel like you

23:25

have to cover it all. Obviously in order to be

23:28

able to finish, you have

23:30

to put a limit, you have to

23:30

say, Okay this is enough.

23:33

I'm gonna start writing, moving on. Coaching is really having

23:35

somebody who's not biased

23:40

and helping you move towards

23:40

that goal and validate the

23:44

fact that that goal is okay. So the coach will be someone

23:46

who will be able to tell you,

23:49

Okay, you've spent two years

23:49

on researching this thing.

23:53

There's no way you are ever

23:53

gonna cover everything that's

23:57

being said on this topic in

23:57

the field so you can be able

24:01

to put your hand on your

24:01

heart and be like, Yeah,

24:03

yeah, I covered everything. It's impossible.

24:06

So at this point you just

24:06

have to accept that done is

24:09

better than nothing and move

24:09

on, write the thing, you know,

24:13

defend it, submit it, move on. And that's what I did.

24:16

And I actually didn't

24:16

even get comments.

24:19

I was able to file or

24:19

submit and graduate.

24:23

At this point, I mean, you you've had that coaching.

24:25

You've finished your dissertation. You talked a little

24:27

bit about goal setting. Did you have a goal of

24:29

working in marketing?

24:33

What was the gap for lack

24:33

of a better term between

24:36

finishing your PhD and landing

24:36

in your first marketing

24:38

or content marketing role?

24:41

Yeah, that's a great question. I did consider marketing

24:42

upfront because I was

24:46

exploring various careers that

24:46

I could have where I could

24:51

use my transferable skills. And when you're in graduate

24:53

school and you go to

24:55

the career center, , you

24:55

hear this term a lot, you

24:58

know, transferable skills. But when you actually go in

24:59

an interview, nobody cares

25:02

about your transferable skills. What basically, basically

25:04

what that means is, What can

25:07

you do that can translate

25:07

to a different industry,

25:10

a different profession? In my case, I could teach.

25:14

I could write. I could research.

25:16

I could analyze complex topics.

25:19

I could synthesize. And I could present.

25:23

So, I wanted to go

25:23

straight into marketing.

25:26

And I looked at that and I

25:26

figured out that I would be

25:28

really interested in marketing

25:28

research for instance.

25:32

However, I didn't have the

25:32

analytical skills for that.

25:35

You really need statistics and... the social sciences are better

25:38

suited to transition straight

25:41

into that than humanities. So I'll be honest with the

25:42

literature PhD, it's very

25:46

hard to go into an industry.

25:50

So because of that, I could not

25:50

break straight into marketing

25:54

from my academic world. My first job was in nonprofit

25:56

because I got a job on campus

26:01

working for the office of

26:01

international students.

26:04

I wrote some grant proposals

26:04

for them to get funding, so

26:09

that kind of part-time working

26:09

administration helped me out

26:12

because I had stories that I

26:12

could tell in an interview.

26:15

And higher education

26:15

is nonprofit.

26:18

So the transition was much easier. Looking retroactively,

26:21

I realized that I got my

26:24

first job with a small

26:24

nonprofit because nonprofits,

26:28

especially small ones, they

26:28

don't have HR departments.

26:32

The truth of the matter is

26:32

that a marketing department

26:37

for any firm, even a small

26:37

firm, but mid-size, or a

26:41

large firm, they, they will

26:41

have an HR department, and a

26:44

non-traditional resume of a PhD

26:44

or graduate student, whether

26:48

you are MA or ABD, all but

26:48

dissertation, doesn't matter.

26:52

You're not gonna make it past

26:52

that first kind of screening.

26:56

And, you know, your resume

26:56

will go straight to the reject

26:59

pile for various reasons. And so, I was lucky.

27:02

The person who read my

27:02

resume when I applied, who

27:06

interviewed me was my boss. So really she was a one

27:08

person show and she gave me a

27:11

chance and, I did very well. I managed their grant portfolio.

27:15

And I stayed in the nonprofit

27:15

world, worked for two small

27:19

nonprofits for three years. And then I kept like thinking,

27:21

Okay, this is interesting.

27:25

I'm somebody who always approaches something from a 360 point of view.

27:28

So I was managing a grant

27:28

portfolio, manager for

27:31

institutional giving. So what that means really

27:33

is that you write all

27:35

sort of grants for the

27:35

nonprofit to get money from

27:40

foundations, government

27:40

institutions, and corporations.

27:45

And so I noticed that

27:45

the corporations were

27:47

the ones giving the least

27:47

money to nonprofits.

27:51

And I always wanted to

27:51

understand, because I spent

27:53

so many years in, in school, I

27:53

was like, I gotta have a better

27:57

idea about this money thing. How does it work?

27:59

What motivates people to give? How do people use it?

28:03

So, you know, I volunteered

28:03

anytime I could.

28:05

And part of my role there was

28:05

actually to work with accounting

28:11

department and fill out all

28:11

sorts of financials for the

28:16

grant that I was submitting.

28:18

Because you have to do

28:18

reporting, you have to justify

28:20

how the money is spent. So that was a really

28:22

great experience for me.

28:25

I had never had to deal

28:25

with money and budgets and

28:28

things like that before. So I learned everything I could.

28:31

And, I wanted after three

28:31

years to move to corporate.

28:35

I was like, I really gotta

28:35

understand corporate thinking.

28:38

And I transitioned because

28:38

I was lucky to land a

28:43

job in sales enablement,

28:43

really proposal writing.

28:46

So writing grants and

28:46

writing proposals, I

28:49

thought was pretty similar. And it was different, but

28:50

kind of the same idea.

28:54

And I was hired by Grant

28:54

Thornton's non-profit practice.

28:58

Thornton is an audit

28:58

tax and consulting firm.

29:01

They sell services. And I found a job on

29:03

monster.com, but I didn't

29:08

just make it past HR. As I mentioned, I also

29:09

identified the friend who worked

29:13

at Grant Thornton and I sent

29:13

her my resume and I said, Hey,

29:17

please look for the hiring

29:17

manager and give her my resume.

29:21

And that's, that's how I

29:21

actually landed the interview.

29:24

And, the rest is history. They hired me. And once I was

29:26

there, I didn't stop.

29:28

I kind of thought, Okay, I'm

29:28

doing sales enablement now,

29:31

as I mentioned, that was okay. It was interesting.

29:34

I learned a whole bunch

29:34

of other new things, like

29:37

creating really highly designed

29:37

sales proposals in Wo rd

29:43

and working in PowerPoint. I worked with design for the

29:45

first time at that point.

29:48

Super interesting people,

29:48

super fascinating stuff.

29:52

I kind of got interested in that. I was like, Oh, it's not only

29:53

about putting words on the page.

29:56

It's also about how you present them. There's an art to that.

29:59

So I started reading really on

29:59

channels for marketing, media

30:04

and audience engagement, right. And at the same time, I figured

30:06

out that I moved, I wanted to

30:10

move towards content marketing. So I identified the people

30:12

who worked in that respect

30:16

at Grant Thornton, because

30:16

I was already there.

30:18

I, I networked internally.

30:20

I made sure I met the people. I talked to the hiring

30:22

manager in the kitchen,

30:25

and I patiently waited for,

30:25

waited for a job opening.

30:29

And when it came,

30:29

I made my move.

30:31

And I moved laterally.

30:34

And that's when I started

30:34

working on thought leadership.

30:36

So on this content, research

30:36

based content for the first

30:40

time, and I knew I was home.

30:43

I knew I found my niche

30:43

with my research skills

30:46

and my background. I was like, Yep, this

30:47

is what I can do.

30:50

I mostly spent time developing

30:50

content at Grant Thornton.

30:53

I also kind of started

30:53

thinking about the strategy

30:56

aspect, even though that

30:56

was not part of my job.

30:58

So I started reading,

30:58

attending conferences, events.

31:02

I volunteered whenever I

31:02

could to do extra stuff,

31:05

just to kind of dabble in

31:05

what the strategy part was.

31:08

And the rest is history. It was a serendipitous way

31:10

that didn't go straight

31:15

in, in a straight line to

31:15

marketing, because I think

31:18

it's very hard with an English

31:18

degree to go straight for

31:20

that from the academic world.

31:23

One, one question for you. You've mentioned reading

31:25

and, and, and learning.

31:28

And I have to admit that

31:28

that's been helpful for

31:31

me as well, but I was a

31:31

little resistant at first.

31:34

You know, so many business

31:34

books in my experience, whether

31:37

they're business in general

31:37

or specific to marketing,

31:40

they're poorly written or,

31:40

you know, they're 250 pages

31:45

when they could be 30. And it took me a while

31:46

to get over that. And my mindset shift was

31:48

kind of like, I just need

31:50

to absorb this information. This isn't reading

31:52

reading for me.

31:54

This is just about

31:54

meeting that end goal.

31:57

Did you have to go through

31:57

anything similar like that?

32:00

Or were you pretty open

32:00

to that from the get go?

32:04

Yes, I agree with you, right? So coming, especially with an

32:05

academic background, I have

32:09

a very critical thorough lens.

32:13

So, the one thing that I learned

32:13

when I started doing this job,

32:18

content marketing, is that as I

32:18

mentioned, packaging, and really

32:22

caring about your audience as

32:22

even as human beings, right?

32:27

Who wants to sit there

32:27

and read a hundred and

32:30

30 page thing, right.

32:32

So it's almost, creating

32:32

great content, it's almost

32:36

a matter of respect. Say what you have to say

32:38

in the fastest way possible

32:42

in the most efficient way

32:42

possible and in the most

32:45

engaging and aesthetically

32:45

pleasing way possible.

32:49

So I really kind of zoomed in

32:49

throughout the years on that.

32:53

And I take pride in saying that

32:53

the content that I create has

32:59

meaning, has depth, but it also

32:59

tries not to encroach on the

33:04

reader's time and patience. Right?

33:08

However, coming from

33:08

the academic world, for

33:11

me, it was the hardest

33:11

to lower my expectations

33:16

of what could be done. And, you know, that's,

33:18

that's one of the questions

33:20

actually that shows up

33:20

a lot in job interviews.

33:23

You know, people ask, used to

33:23

ask me, hopefully they don't

33:26

ask me anymore now that it,

33:26

because it's been a while,

33:29

but they would say, Oh, in the

33:29

academic world, you have all

33:32

the time in the world, right? You have seven years to

33:33

write the dissertation. Well, here we need to,

33:35

you know, get an article

33:37

done in two weeks. How are you gonna handle that

33:38

kind of time, time pressure?

33:41

Well, the answer is you kind

33:41

of have to get yourself into

33:45

the mindset that you have to

33:45

do a job well done within the

33:51

constraints that you have. And sometimes those

33:52

constraints may be that

33:55

you're not gonna get a perfect

33:55

content asset out there.

34:01

You do what you can with the

34:01

resources that you have within

34:04

the constraints that you have. Sometimes you have to let it go.

34:09

Sometimes done is

34:09

just good enough.

34:11

And yes, ideally we would only

34:11

put content out there that's

34:16

the highest quality that has

34:16

depth, that says something,

34:21

that addresses the audiences,

34:21

interests and pain points,

34:25

that offers a solution. But hey, at the end of the day,

34:27

all of us have to have a job.

34:30

And I had to kind of get

34:30

myself into that mindset.

34:34

I wasn't creating my life work.

34:37

And when you become a ghost in

34:37

that, you don't put your name

34:41

on stuff anymore, I found that

34:41

freeing after the pressures

34:45

of the academic world, where

34:45

you have to be original.

34:49

And I remember walking for

34:49

my graduation ceremony.

34:54

And it's pretty impressive. You know, you walk in

34:56

this beautiful chapel at

35:00

the University of Chicago. And there are these loud

35:01

speakers that mention

35:04

all the graduates name. But what struck me and stayed

35:06

with me was this echoing, a

35:10

repeated message that said,

35:10

So and so is awarded this

35:15

diploma for an original

35:15

contribution to the field.

35:20

And there's so much pressure

35:20

to have that even slightly

35:24

original contribution. When you move out of the

35:26

academic world and you work a

35:30

regular marketing job, nobody

35:30

asks you to be original.

35:34

Unless, you know,

35:34

you are in that job.

35:37

You, you know, you just do your

35:37

job and you do the best you can.

35:41

And at what point

35:41

did you strike out on your own

35:45

and start your own company? What was the, the

35:46

motivation for that?

35:49

The pandemic really. I, I lost my job.

35:53

And my mom was dying at that

35:53

point and, it kind of, my

35:59

daughters were struggling. You know, my, my

36:01

husband lost that job. It was a terrible year.

36:05

And it makes you kind of... situations like this kind of

36:07

make you think where you wanna

36:11

go and what you wanna do. So, one, I started

36:13

it out of necessity.

36:16

You know, I started thinking

36:16

about it and researching,

36:20

researching it in the pandemic

36:20

when I was unemployed going

36:24

through like tens of interviews

36:24

and not getting a job.

36:27

But also it's always

36:27

been my dream.

36:31

And I was like, maybe this is

36:31

the time because I actually

36:34

had to support my family a lot.

36:37

I had to provide emotional

36:37

support, as well as my

36:41

daughters went fully online. And since we are an academic

36:43

family, and my husband has

36:46

a PhD and I have a PhD, we

36:46

actually tag teamed and,

36:50

and took over entirely the

36:50

children's education because

36:54

online learning was deficient

36:54

and we couldn't allow our

36:56

children to fall behind. And so, you know, I took

36:59

over all the humanities

37:02

and social sciences, and

37:02

he took over the math.

37:05

And, you know, we are talking

37:05

calculus here cause our

37:08

daughter was already the

37:08

oldest at the calculus level.

37:11

So, you know, we were,

37:11

I was looking for jobs.

37:14

He was working a full

37:14

time job and we were

37:17

basically homeschooling

37:17

our children as well.

37:20

And I started it with the

37:20

idea that I should try it.

37:25

And you know, my husband's

37:25

very entrepreneurial as well.

37:27

He has an MBA on top of his

37:27

PhD in entrepreneurship.

37:32

He went and got

37:32

an MBA from Booth.

37:35

Yeah, three quarters of

37:35

our marriage was spent

37:37

in graduate school. And we tag team in terms of

37:38

like brainstorming and not being

37:42

afraid to take risks in life. So I started it, I started

37:45

researching it and then I

37:49

fully incorporate in the

37:49

pandemic and then I fully

37:51

incorporated last year. And I enjoy the freedom

37:53

with coming, that comes

37:57

with being your own boss. Honestly, in the academic

37:59

world, you have that freedom.

38:03

And I always loved that. And to be independent.

38:06

To do whatever I pleased. And I gave it up temporarily

38:07

because when you get a regular

38:12

job, that's the first thing

38:12

that you have to prove to your

38:15

first employer and beyond. That you can be part of a

38:17

team, take orders, execute,

38:21

and not just like annoy

38:21

everyone with your questions

38:24

and your attitude, right. Attitude is a thing.

38:27

You have to be a good team fit.

38:30

And the truth is the

38:30

corporate game i s hard.

38:34

And to be honest, that kind of

38:34

game also exist in the academic

38:38

world, which means, you know,

38:38

understanding and obeying

38:42

corporate hierarchy, taking

38:42

orders from your boss, executing

38:48

often without questioning why.

38:50

Your boss doesn't always wanna

38:50

hear, Why do I have to do this?

38:53

They just want you to

38:53

do it and just do it.

38:55

Guessing, assessing,

38:55

and following the many

38:59

unstated corporate rules. Tolerating group think, which

39:02

is really hard for a, for a

39:06

graduate student and the PhD. Oh, we're just doing this

39:08

because everyone's doing this.

39:10

Well, why really? So I will be honest,

39:11

the first years I had a

39:15

little bit of trouble. Because I, I, I would like

39:16

ask too many questions and

39:20

people would take that as,

39:20

um, you know that I was

39:23

being antagonistic and was

39:23

trying to be confrontational.

39:26

I really wasn't. I was, that was, this is

39:27

the academic environment.

39:30

You ask questions. Sometimes you play

39:31

devil's advocate. It's all to the purpose

39:32

of making the work better.

39:36

But really that is not

39:36

what works in corporate.

39:39

So I had to really learn to shut

39:39

up, ask questions at the right

39:43

time, observe more, you know,

39:43

kind of try to get the feeling

39:47

for the corporate culture. I had never thought

39:49

about that before.

39:51

It's very real. And all of this, when you have

39:53

your own business, is, is not

39:57

as much there, but it is in

39:57

the background because the best

40:01

clients come from connections. Networking is everything.

40:05

And indeed, I get my work

40:05

mostly through word of mouth

40:09

from people that I worked with

40:09

during the past 10 years, that

40:12

know me, they know the quality

40:12

of the work that I can do and

40:16

they appreciate me for that.

40:18

So it's not like I go online and

40:18

answer an ad for freelance work.

40:23

That pays very low and

40:23

it's, it's not the way

40:26

to build an agency.

40:28

For you personally,

40:28

do you need to love a job?

40:32

That's, that's a fabulous question. So yes and no, you, you know.

40:39

When you think about that,

40:39

let's, let's take a step

40:42

back and maybe talk a little

40:42

bit about what you read in a

40:45

lot of career advice books. You know, calling the idea

40:47

of having a calling versus

40:52

having a career, right. And, and many people

40:53

say, and, I'm thinking

40:58

about my, my daughter's

40:58

high school counselor.

41:03

They do all these assessments

41:03

to figure out your, your

41:05

career, and they kind of push

41:05

this idea on people that your

41:11

calling has to be your career.

41:13

And that is very much true

41:13

in the academic world, right.

41:17

If you love art, be an artist,

41:17

just go for it because you

41:21

have to love what you do. Yes and no, not really.

41:25

I listened to an amazing

41:25

coach at one time and what

41:30

she said really spoke to me. She said, In fact, actually,

41:32

people have many skills,

41:38

interests, and the possibility

41:38

of following several careers.

41:43

And if you think of my

41:43

mom's story as a polymath

41:46

and multipotentialite,

41:46

that is so true.

41:49

And that is so true

41:49

for my entire family.

41:52

And that's what I tell now,

41:52

my 18 year old daughter who is

41:56

going to Purdue into mechanical

41:56

engineering this fall.

42:00

And I'm very proud of her. But she's as well following

42:01

in the footsteps of the

42:05

family, a multipotentialite.

42:07

She could have gone for

42:07

a degree in creative

42:10

writing, for instance. Point is, figure out several

42:12

potential career paths

42:18

and just sequence them. That's what I do.

42:21

My first career, my first

42:21

love, my first life, was a

42:25

calling for me, teaching and

42:25

following this academic path.

42:30

That was the thing. I followed what I loved.

42:33

My mom would have liked me to become an engineer, but she gave up.

42:37

And then what happens, right? What, what happens if you

42:38

follow your calling as a

42:42

career and then something

42:42

happens and that goes away?

42:46

You just have to have plan

42:46

B and C and D, and that's

42:49

what that coach said. And it really spoke to me.

42:52

So, you know, at this point.

42:56

Work is work. Life is life. You know, it would've been

42:59

great to become a professor.

43:01

I didn't, that's totally fine. Something really spoke to

43:03

me, and I wanna share it.

43:06

When I attended the MLA

43:06

conference, during my PhD,

43:11

it's the Modern Language

43:11

Association conference.

43:13

It's the largest conference

43:13

for humanities in the field.

43:17

And I attended this panel that

43:17

was called Labor of Love and was

43:23

really a panel about adjuncts.

43:25

And so the panel was talking

43:25

about all these PhDs waiting

43:30

for the tenure track unicorn

43:30

position and adjuncting in the

43:35

meantime, and hoping that for

43:35

instance, if the university

43:38

they were adjuncting at

43:38

had a tenure track opening,

43:42

they would get a leg up. They would get first pick for

43:43

that tenure track position.

43:46

And the panel was so surprising

43:46

to me because they were basic,

43:49

there were three people. I remember them even though now,

43:50

and they changed my life really.

43:54

They revealed the fact that,

43:54

Actually, the university will

43:58

go shopping somewhere else. If you're already working

43:59

for them as an adjunct,

44:01

they have you already. And they think that they

44:03

can do better, find a better

44:06

person for their tenure

44:06

track to become a professor.

44:09

So they were literally

44:09

talking about how this

44:12

becomes a labor of love,

44:12

where you're poorly paid.

44:16

You don't get out of it anything. You don't even get

44:17

that tenure track. So you're, you're doing it for

44:19

love for the love of teaching,

44:22

for the love of students, for

44:22

the love of the academic life.

44:26

You're basically just

44:26

lying to yourself, I think.

44:28

So I decided then and there,

44:28

One, I would never adjunct.

44:33

Ever. And that influenced the choices

44:34

that I made, the career choices.

44:38

So I wanna talk, go back to this

44:38

idea of labor of love, and I

44:42

wanna unpack that a little bit. First, labor should be

44:44

remunerated and paid,

44:50

ideally well paid,

44:50

not bare minimum wage.

44:54

You can still enjoy

44:54

it, but labor is labor.

44:58

It should, it should

44:58

get remuneration.

45:01

Love, you should reserve

45:01

that for hobbies, past times.

45:05

And, you can pay for your

45:05

quote unquote loves with the

45:09

money gamed from your labor. So, with that in mind, I

45:11

fully decided to choose a

45:16

career that would meet a

45:16

financial threshold, meet my

45:20

financial needs, and also,

45:20

allow me to have some time

45:24

to pursue my other passions.

45:27

I think this is something

45:27

that graduate students really

45:29

have to consider because the

45:29

majority of the ones that I've

45:32

talked to are really set on

45:32

this idea that work really

45:36

has to be what you love. And I, I, I beg us all to

45:38

kind of, , just reconsider

45:42

that and unpack that.

45:44

Earlier

45:44

you were talking about,

45:47

There's always more that

45:47

you could be doing for your

45:50

dissertation or the research.

45:53

And your coaches helped you

45:53

compartmentalize a lot of that

46:00

so that you could focus and

46:00

get the dissertation done.

46:03

And I'm curious now that

46:03

you're, you've been

46:06

out of academia for a

46:06

little over 10 years.

46:10

How would you describe your

46:10

relationship to work now?

46:12

How large of a role does

46:12

your work play in your life?

46:18

Work... define work.

46:21

You know, paid work?

46:23

Yeah, let's stick with paid work.

46:25

Right? I love to work a

46:26

limited number of hours.

46:29

And my goal ever since I

46:29

graduated was to work a

46:35

certain amount of hours a

46:35

week, my ideal is 30 hours, and

46:39

reach a financial threshold. Now, sometimes that works.

46:43

Sometimes that doesn't. Following the corporate

46:45

path, you know, the corporate

46:47

hierarchy and make it

46:47

to the director level.

46:50

And there were jobs that I,

46:50

where I worked 60 hours a week.

46:54

Now that for me

46:54

is unsustainable.

46:57

I don't want that because

46:57

that doesn't, like you said,

47:00

then that doesn't live any

47:00

room for, for living, right?

47:05

And I'm realistic. I work to meet a financial

47:08

threshold and the role that work

47:14

has in my life, I enjoy work. I want to work.

47:17

And if it's meaningful

47:17

work all the better.

47:20

But I do also keep an open mind.

47:22

I honestly try to find something

47:22

enjoyable in anything that I do.

47:28

And for me that means

47:28

learning something new.

47:30

For instance, if I'm

47:30

just working on a really

47:34

basic webpage copy,

47:34

that's not very exciting.

47:37

But maybe I can just learn

47:37

more about search engine

47:41

optimization for that page. That's not something

47:43

that I'm an expert in. So just for instance, trying

47:45

to optimize the page and

47:48

work with a team member or

47:48

like incorporate that or

47:51

make the page perform better. That for me is interesting.

47:55

So it becomes enjoyable. So if I learn something new,

47:56

anything, for me that is a game.

48:01

And that's how I keep

48:01

myself and my mind active.

48:04

It's really a mindset. If you are thinking, Well,

48:06

I shouldn't be doing this

48:09

because I have a PhD. Well then, you're in trouble.

48:12

You're not gonna enjoy it. You're gonna be bored.

48:14

You're gonna feel like you're

48:14

spending time doing things

48:16

that you shouldn't be doing. But I always try

48:18

to find something. And, you know, I enjoy a

48:20

flexible schedule and, living

48:24

life in a different way. And what I acquired working

48:26

with my coach and on my

48:30

own afterward are amazing

48:30

time management skills.

48:33

So I can do the work

48:33

anytime, anywhere.

48:36

I can do it fast. I know how much time

48:37

it's gonna take me. And then I dedicate my life to

48:39

my interests in my spare time.

48:43

And I, I, used to have very

48:43

limited time for a lot of

48:47

things when I was doing my

48:47

dissertation and I was a mom.

48:51

Now I have much more time than that. So it's amazing, you know.

48:54

I parent my two daughters

48:54

with love and passion.

48:59

And it's the same love and

48:59

passion that I would have

49:02

used if I had become a,

49:02

a professor and teacher.

49:05

But I didn't, but

49:05

I am one for them.

49:08

I'm present in their lives

49:08

and I'm an involved parent.

49:12

And in this respect, I hope

49:12

I'm honoring my mother and

49:15

following in her footsteps. You know, my mom used to

49:17

say that the best gift you

49:20

can give to your children

49:20

is the gift of time.

49:23

Of being there, present

49:23

for them, of having time

49:26

to just spend with them,

49:26

not even doing something

49:28

special, just being there. And when I worked those 60

49:30

hour jobs, and you know,

49:34

I was traveling and ...no.

49:36

It was awful. It made me, it made me

49:37

feel like I was missing the

49:40

best years of their life. You know, I hope that I'm a

49:42

role model and a mentor to them.

49:46

And I, my husband and I

49:46

together, actually, we're

49:49

trying to model that

49:49

life is unpredictable.

49:53

Change is unavoidable. Life doesn't turn out

49:54

the way you hope it will.

49:58

Neither one of us became a professor. But you should always

50:00

keep a zest for life and

50:03

the passion for learning,

50:03

which is really our, our

50:07

culture and our background. And my current work arrangements

50:09

allow me to homeschool my

50:13

youngest daughter part-time. We started doing that

50:15

during the pandemic. And you ask me what my business

50:17

brings, that's what it brings.

50:21

I have continued and I

50:21

will probably continue.

50:24

So I'm tailoring really

50:24

unique curricula and

50:27

learning opportunities for

50:27

her, just like I would have

50:31

created amazing classes for

50:31

my undergraduate student.

50:34

She's my undergraduate

50:34

student of one, and she's 13.

50:39

I read extensively on things

50:39

that interest me and that I

50:42

love, marketing research, all

50:42

sorts of marketing aspects.

50:47

I'm very passionate about

50:47

positive psychology.

50:50

I can read any kind

50:50

of literature that

50:52

strikes my fancy. You know, for years and years

50:53

and years, I only read the stuff

50:56

of the 19th century because I

50:56

was writing my dissertation.

50:59

I didn't have time to

50:59

read anything else.

51:01

I keep up with my French. I've watched all the French

51:03

movies, probably, that came

51:06

out for the past decade. I didn't have time to watch

51:07

even one during my PhD.

51:12

You know, I practice yoga. I'm considering getting

51:13

a yoga certification.

51:16

I keep building my business. I wanna certify as a

51:18

coach, so slowly but surely

51:22

I'm, I'm keeping up with

51:22

the coaching training.

51:24

And I'm planning my

51:24

next career move.

51:27

Like I told you, you have

51:27

to have something else.

51:29

What am I gonna do when I'm 60? So, I wanna write a novel,

51:31

probably, when I retire.

51:35

And once my daughters

51:35

go to college, I plan

51:38

to return to live in

51:38

Europe and work remotely.

51:42

That's where my business,

51:42

hopefully by that time, will

51:44

have picked up even more. And I dream to live in various

51:46

countries, one year at a time.

51:50

With my husband, we can

51:50

both work remotely until

51:53

I get bored and tired

51:53

and I wanna settle down.

51:55

So one year in France, one year

51:55

in Italy, one year in Spain,

51:58

one year in Greece, one year

51:58

in the Netherlands, why not?

52:02

I think the sky's the limit. All we need is health.

52:05

I think

52:05

that's a really great,

52:08

aspirational note to end on.

52:10

Thank you so much for this,

52:10

this interview, Laura.

52:12

It was really a treat talking to you.

52:14

Oh, Jesse. Thank you so much for having me.

52:16

It was a pleasure.