From Berkeley to Google to Creator - Trailblazing Your Own Success
I had a great chat with education disruptor Dr. Ai Addyson-Zhang on her podcast on how I turned away from the "traditional" professional career to become a full time creator.
In this deep dive, we cover how I built resilience from being laid off to finding my dream job at Google and how young people can blaze their own creator path.
Here are a few takeaways:
🗺 My formal education set the foundation for my success
Going to UC Berkeley helped me several ways:
1) My Legal Studies degree taught me to think in first principles and ask why things exist. It’s a mindset that I rely on today.
2) My Haas Business School degree signaled to the market that I had what it takes to excel in the professional world.
3) The network and exposure to smart and ambitious friends drove my own growth.
🗺 Blessing in disguise: Getting laid off from my first tech job forced me to be resilient
In my 2nd year in the professional world, I was let go from my first tech startup job. It took over 8 months to find another job.
I had just bought a new house and took on a mortgage. It was a stressful period when I barely made ends meet through unemployment checks and rental income.
However, instead of idling, I started a new company with a Berkeley friend and learned how to design websites, make investor pitch presentations, and work with engineers. I worked part time to help a renewable company set up their project and sales processes.
These are skills and mindsets that I ended up using for my future product management and startup roles.
I applied to nearly 100 jobs and tracked my progress from application to 1st, 2nd, and final round interviews on a spreadsheet. I reviewed this tracker daily and told myself that I wouldn’t feel angry or defeated until I hit triple digital applications.
After a 3-month drama-filled interview process with Google, I finally landed my dream job on their strategy team. All the hard work and determination paid off.
I’m glad to have gone through the worst case professional scenario so early in my career. Since then, the possibility of losing my job no longer frightens me, which led to taking more risks throughout my career than my peers.
🗺 Your ability to change is like a muscle, use it or lose it
This lack of fear and attachment helped shift my career mentality from security to curiosity and growth. If you look on my LinkedIn, you’ll notice that I tend to change companies every 2-3 years. Each jump landed me in a completely different role, industry or country.
I’ve been a consultant, sales analyst, strategist, project manager, product manager, designer, user operation specialist, venture capitalist, business developer, and founder and community manager.
This is the equivalent of someone going through 7-8 different careers. Each jump became easier as I became more used to the discomfort of change and sprinting up new learning curves.
🗺 I grew resilient as a student outside the classroom
My grades were only average (below average by my peers’ standards) in high school, college, and grad school because I always gravitated towards extracurricular activities.
In middle school, I starred in plays. In high school, I led cultural performances and student clubs. At Berkeley, I took on real world consulting projects for Fortune 500 companies. In London Business School, I organized hackathons and brought together the city’s startup community for conferences and meetups.
All these experiences helped me deal with the professional world’s challenges and responsibilities.
🗺 If you asked me 3 years if I’d be on YouTube, I would’ve said you’re crazy
It's been a strange & rewarding journey. My very first video was published on March 2020 as the world shut down.
The pandemic was the turning point because it:
1) Gave me a reason to begin sharing useful knowledge and tools like Mind Maps to people who were suffering from chaos overload
2) Grounded me from work travel enough to sit down to film and learn editing.
🗺 It's easier than ever to start creating thanks to two trends
1) The democratization of creation tools (smartphones, cheap and robust editing software, free stock music etc)
2) The rise of permissionless platforms like YouTube, LinkedIn, TikTok, Instagram that connect you to people who are interested in your content.
The internet has a way of making the obscure long tail huge. And it's permissionless because there are no gatekeepers - anyone can just start.
🗺 Competition is for losers (Peter Thiel) + Find something you do better than anyone else (Naval Ravikant) = Discovering your unique niche that fits your strengths and interests the best
If you find what you're good at and love and the right audience/market for it, you essentially become a monopoly, which is the dream of every business. This is Mind Mapping and Systems Thinking for me.
Many universities these days are designed to funnel kids to specific cookie cutter (high paying and competitive) jobs. The downside is that it ignores the student’s individual strengths and interests, which becomes detrimental in the long run.
I have many friends who, after 5-10 years in their jobs, are only now discovering these fundamental personal truths. I was one of them.
🗺 Being successful in Content Creation requires consistency, which means you need a system
I use Notion kanban boards to manage my content pipeline and projects. I also outsource much of my editing these days, so I can focus on ideating, Mind Map Nation community and coaching business.
🗺 No experience? No worries
Remember that the master often forgets how to be a student. Therefore as a beginner, you can document your learning process and guide folks who are just a few steps behind you.
🗺 All that said, you'll encounter many challenges
Judgement from your peers and family will likely be huge. Many people will not understand. Social comparison and imposter syndrome is real. What you’d consider your best videos and articles will be met with 🦗. You will go through periods of jubilation and defeat, sometimes for weeks on end.
The most important thing is to cultivate the right mindset. This means:
1) Knowing *why* you want to create. What's your mission? You need to be aware and intentional. Otherwise you'll be swept up in the noise of social media.
2) Learn from others but don't compare. Put your blinders on if necessary. Remember, you are unique and competition is for losers ;)
You can watch the full episode here with timestamps based on topic:
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