Professional Life Crisis

Today’s episode features Wesley Braden, ex-Chief of Staff at Clay and Ex-Googler. In our conversation, we talk all about what the Chief of Staff role is, Wes’ journey to get there, and some of the biggest obstacles along the way.

Some highlights:

* WTF even is a Chief of Staff? (because *I* didn’t know until I became one)

* The differences between a seed stage CoS and a late-stage CoS

* Corporate vs startup experience & whether our corporate roles set us up well for the CoS role (hint: mine didn’t!)

* How to bring the good parts of corporate to startups, which may only be 20%, or maybe just 10, or 5%

If you enjoy today’s episode, please leave it a 5 star review and share with a friend who would love these career chats!

-AB

Share this with your favorite Chief of Staff, or corporate friend who you know would make a great one!

This week’s episode with Porter Hayes is a must listen if you’re a young female professional, navigating the early steps on the corporate ladder and don’t know who to look to for meaningful advice and feedback.

We discuss:

* Learning to love a mindset of “continuous adolescence” instead of constantly battling imposter syndrome

* How it’s just as important (if not more) to learn what you DON’T want for yourself as it is important to learn what you DO want.

* How to vet other people’s feedback early in your career, and decide which feedback you internalize, vs which you say “thank you, next”

* Consulting skills vs startup skills: what transfers, and what doesn’t

Share this with a girlfriend that’s currently navigating Corporate America 🫶🏼

In this week’s episode I talk with Harry Catalani, about what it’s like to work in the beer industry (Anheuser Busch), move all around the country for work, and how to decide when it’s time to leave after 6.5 years.

We cover:

* Moving to new cities and establishing a life multiple times in your twenties

* Punching above your weight when you’re total unqualified to do so, and how being humble can help you learn what you don’t know

* How to take ownership over your career path (without panicking)

* Determining how you view your career (like Mount Everest or like a rock climbing wall at a gym) and understanding which model gives you more personal satisfaction

If you know someone who will love this episode, please share with a friend, and thanks to everyone who has already shared!

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Today’s episode is another episode in the series, 10 things I learned working for a startup, and today we’re deep diving into #2 on the list - Learning how you like to learn.

By the end of the episode, you’ll have some solid strategies for learning more efficiently and identifying how much time and effort you actually need to spend learning new skills to be amazing at your new job.

Some highlights?

* You don’t need to know everything, follow your natural curiosities

* Building scalable and repeatable processes vs the “brute force” method

* Defining your preferred mediums and channels for learning

-Amanda

Please share with a friend if you found today’s tips useful!

Today’s episode details the most important mindset shift you need to make coming from corporate, in order to be successful working at an early stage startup. The first up on the list is: developing your experimentation mindset.

This episode is the first in a series I’m starting, expanding on my Top 10 things you should know before working at a startup episode. Each of these episodes will go deeper into one of the themes on my original list to give you more depth and a better understanding of each theme.

Add me on LinkedIn and let me know what your hardest mental hurdles were with joining a startup for the first time! On the outside it seems like similar skills would transfer from corporate to startup much better than they do in practice. I want to hear from you so we can continue to support each other on this journey!

Cheers!

-Amanda

This week’s episode is about defining your personal threshold for the amount of unhappiness you’re willing to endure at your first job before you make the decision to leave.

If you’re like me, starting your career in corporate America can feel like you’re trapped in golden handcuffs, and time ticks by faster that you’d think when you planned to leave 3 years ago. Moving into the startup world was a huge stepping stone for me toward my eventual goal of being an entrepreneur, but it came with a huge f*cking learning curve. If you’re startup curious, or starting out your new career in tech, you can now book a 1:1 “friend-tor” session where I will be your startup friend and mentor! I promise to make your first 90 days in tech a hell of a lot easier than mine.

As always, thanks for listening and watching!

-AB

Today's episode is such a fun, funny, yet incredibly genuine chat with a dear friend of mine, Kat.

If you're somewhere on the struggle spectrum between do I need a new job, to move to a different city or all of the above, this episode is for you. And if you've ever gone through a tough personal time and worried about how to prioritize your mental health while also juggling a very demanding workplace, Katherine is so vulnerable and shares how she was able to work with her company to take an unprecedented leave of absence to prioritize her mental health, and to come back to work better than she'd felt in years.

If this episode makes you think of a friend, I hope you’ll share it with them.

Hey there! Happy New Year! This week’s episode is a follow up to last week’s episode on setting goals. I realized that I talked about manifesting my goals but I didn’t talk too much about how I do it, and what my only-slightly-woo-woo practice of manifesting actually looks like. So if you’ve got some lofty goals you’re looking to accomplish this year but you’re still not in the mindset of actually achieving them, take a listen to this quick 10 min episode.

Happy goal-getting!

-Amanda

In this little time warp portal between Christmas and New Year's that’s like totally fake, I just wanted to record a quick and dirty episode for you. Now that the holidays are in the rearview mirror, I think it’s time we get intentional about our goals for the new year, and get a little delulu about what we want!

Hope you enjoy the end of the year, and the chance to reset and dream big.

-Amanda

Send this to a friend who needs a reminder to dream bigger this year!

References:

Hailey Hoffman Smith who I mentioned in the episode is a law of attraction creator who I think does a much lovelier job than I do at conceptualizing the law of attraction and how to manifest your goals.

Gemma Troy who I’ve now learned is a poet, author, and sculptor. Her instagram is filled with magical fairies and inspirational quotes.

In this episode, we (and I really just mean me) cover:

* What elements make up your self-worth, and what specifically does not (hint: your ✨accomplishments✨)

* Psychological research about why we have such a strong connection between money and self-worth

* Some small things we can do to detach our self-worth from our salary and live happier, less comparative lives

Quote of the day:

“Not only is our income framing the way we think about our status, but the stuff we buy is linked to our sense of identity. Centuries later, this behavior persists, which is why trading up to nicer clothes, nicer apartments, and nicer vacations seems so seductive.”

Amanda’s post-recording reflections:

This is probably the most vulnerable episode I’ve recorded so far. If you’ve also been harping on your salary too much, I hope this chat allows you to move this spiraling conversation out of your head, validate it and help give you some tools to name it, and tame it, like they say. I’m dying to chat more with people about this topic, so please send me a note on IG: @professionalifecrisis

Share with your overachieving friends- I know I’m not alone in this one!

References:

Higher income predicts feelings such as pride and confidence

Your Salary Does Not Define You: How to Separate Your Net Worth From Your Self-Worth

Human Brain Appears "Hard-Wired" for Hierarchy

Amanda’s Clayman’s financial coaching website