The Grind Podcast

On this week's episode we meet Youcef, a computer science student from UW-Tacoma trying to break into the tech industry. He's been getting internship interviews at major firms but hasn't been able to close the deal. Marc and Warren wonder if perhaps he's being too honest in his interviews.

They bring on interview expert Vincent Feliciano and a very special guest, Lindsay (Marc's sister), to discuss the pros and cons of being brutally honest in interviews.

At the end of the episode, Marc and Warren share interview tips from their research and come to a conclusion about whether you should strive to make yourself look good in interviews or be yourself at all costs.

Marc catches up with Amina four months after her last update. We talk the MCAT, medical school applications, and dealing with adversity...publicly. We also talk about the difficult life of a doctor and wonder if it's okay to be unhappy if you're doing something meaningful. Is our first obligation to ourselves or our community?

We're off next week but back 11/16 to introduce a new voice.

Marc and Warren are two cisgender men, which doesn't make them experts about this week's topic: women. And more specifically, challenges facing women in the workplace. Luckily, we bring on Annie Dean, founder of Werk, an online job marketplace for women seeking flexible work arrangements without giving up the leadership track.

Annie talks to us about the future of work and flexibility and we test her ideas with two college students and a new working mother.

This week we revisit Amina, a senior at the University of Washington, who thinks she has her life planned out, only to discover, maybe she doesn't. A summer research job, meant to be a pit stop on her way to medical school, takes on new meaning as she works on developing a vaccine for malaria, a disease she suffered from growing up.

Marc brings on New York Times bestselling author Emily Esfahani Smith to help understand the difference between happiness and meaning. And we ask Amina if she still feels 100% sure about medical school.

In Part 2, we reintroduce Amina, a senior at the UW who plans her life to the minute and is 100% sure she wants to go to medical school.

Marc and Warren are stirring up trouble for Amina as they challenge her to think more about her decision to attend medical school. They bring on Kat Koh, creative career coach (or...wait...a career coach for creatives)  to help them get clear on careers. Kat takes us on a journey and introduces a Japanese flower that helps you plan your life, convinces us that compasses are better than maps, and makes us imagine ourselves as frogs jumping to lilypads. It's out there.

And after all of that, we endeavour to answer our question: Is it better to have a life plan or live in the moment?

Amina is a planner. And you can't blame her. She grew up as the only Somali in her elementary school in Dubai, living a life rigidly planned for her by her father. The financial crisis upended that plan and landed her in Seattle in school with boys and white people for the first time. Now she's a decorated senior at the University of Washington who structures her time to the minute and keeps a strict list of priorities for herself. Her goal: medical school.

Marc and Warren wonder if all this planning is keeping her from new experiences and exploring other career options. They pose the question: Is it better to have a life plan or live in the moment?

Also joining them is guest Naa-Sakle Akuete, founder of Eu'Genia Shea, who literally has a 30-year life plan...written out.

It's not your parents' career advice. The Grind Podcast brings you real talk about navigating the today's working world. We're launching in Fall 2017 but you can listen to our trailer now.