289: Stealing Wi-Fi as Career Strategy with Jenny Wood

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Ask for what you want. Because your manager is busy. They don't remember everything you're working on. They don't remember everything you need. They don't remember all of your goals and life desires and wishes. And it is your responsibility to remind them. Think of it as tasteful self promotion. If you're trying to, you know, share your work with your manager to then ask for what you want, AKA that promotion. And remember that it is your responsibility to share your great work with your team and it's your responsibility to share your great work with your company. So if you think of it in that way, it's tasteful self promotion and it's necessary, required and encouraged for you to own your career.

What's next? This is a question we're all having to ask and answer more frequently. I'm Jenny Blake, your host of the Pivot podcast and author of the only move that Matters is your next one.

For show notes from this episode, visit pivotmethod.com podcast if Change is the only constant, then let's get better at it. Here we go.

I am so delighted to be here in person at Gotham Production Studios in Midtown Manhattan with brand new BFF Jenny Would. It's the Jenny and Jenny show today. Jenny and I met through a mutual friend, Bethany Baines, who has a fantastic podcast Working Wife, Happy Life. Jenny is rounding the corner of her 16th year at Google. She's an incredible person. She met her husband by chasing him off a New York City subway, as was featured in the Vows section of the New York Times. That's how you really know you've arrived. It's not the Google accomplishments. She founded this big brand within a brand called Own youn Career. So it's really incredible to see the momentum that she has gained creating this program within Google. She's a director now. You can tell us more about that. And I love how the very first thing in Jenny's email signature is mom of Ari, 7 and Noah, who's maybe now 5 about to be about to be Jenny, welcome to the show.

Thank you so much. Jenny, I love that you're saying we are new BFFs because I feel like it. And this is the first time we are ever meeting face to face. Like, literally, we haven't even zoomed. We've talked on the phone. But it's unusual in this day and age that you've been such a mentor to me. And we've literally never spoken face to face, even digitally.

We had never seen each other.

We'd never seen each other until you just walked out into the lobby right here.

Someone said it, that this is my love language. It's like, yeah, we could just have coffee in New York and catch up, the two of us, but why not do it in the podcast studio? You happen to be in town on a day where I had a session booked, so. So we didn't even meet beforehand. We're here. We're here catching up on the mic. First time seeing each other, first time meeting in person. So it's really a joy.

Totally.

And it's your second podcast ever.

It is my second podcast ever. So you can evaluate me at the end. This is what I like to do at Google. Two up, two down, two things I did well, two things I could improve on. You don't have to do that. I'm just kidding.

See, that's the thing about Jenny. You can see why we're fast friends, because you have a framework for everything.

Sometimes. Sometimes I have a framework. I like me a good framework, Jenny.

I like the framework. Well, the one I want to start with, because I just love how you phrase this is stealing somebody's wifi as a career strategy. So let's just kick off with that because I'm so compelled by this concept.

Yeah, absolutely. So I think a lot about mentorship and how that's one of the critical pieces that helps people succeed. And maybe before I get into stealing WI fi, do you want me to give you a little bit more background on own your career, or should we just go right into stealing WI fi?

Just tell me about stealing stealing WI Fi and then we'll get there on oic. Because that's another question I have for you, that you've been 16 years within a company, and yet you're still building this phenomenal brand within a brand. So I definitely want to get there.

Great. Absolutely. Okay. So stealing WI fi is, to me, one of the types of mentorship you can engage in with such a low barrier to entry. Because when you think of mentorship, or sometimes at Google, we call it sponsorship, just to define those two. A mentor is someone who talks to you A sponsor is someone who talks about you, they're your advocate, they're in the room where decisions are being made, promotions or big projects, and they say, hey, Jenny Blake, she's the one we really want on this. That's a sponsor. A mentor is someone you meet with monthly and they're giving you guidance and you're talking out your challenges. But in both cases in mentorship and sponsorship, you're meeting with someone on a regular basis. Even the sponsor you're probably meeting with, it could be anything from monthly to quarterly. So in both mentorship and sponsorship, you're meeting with somebody, they're investing time in you, they know you, they have a relationship with you. But when you steal someone's WI fi, that's another type of mentorship where that person is probably pretty senior and is probably someone you're never gonna have the time of day with and you're still able to gain from them. So my example here is, let's say that the CEO of your company gives a presentation and you are just wowed by how few ums they and you're wowed by their inflection. They go high on a really exciting point.

And then they have that pregnant pause and they bring it way back down low. And you think, I want to be that kind of presenter. Well, you don't ever have to meet with them. You're entry level, they're the CEO of your 20,000 person company. You're never going to meet with them practically and realistically speaking. But you can observe that beautiful presentation style, the lack of ums and the difference in register highs versus lows and pregnant pauses. You can steal that tool like you're stealing someone's wifi and put it in your back pocket and use that and practice it down the line. So direct Internet connection is the mentor and the sponsor who you meet with regularly. And stealing someone's WI fi are just these amazing tips you can pick up simply by observing, pattern mapping, copy and pasting in your own daily life as you become a budding leader at your company.

It's also a public WI fi network, like Oprah. It's a public network. We can all sign on, we can watch to Oprah, listen to Oprah. I can learn from her. You know, I call it mentors from afar and drafting as well. But what you're saying about sponsorship is so key and so interesting because that's been a progression as well. I know even the conversation at Google when I was there, we were just getting into mentoring and coaching. The word sponsor was Never uttered. Can you give some context on why sponsorship matters? Why not? Because everybody thinks about, oh, I should get a mentor in my career. I always talk about one off mentors don't wait for some holy grail mentor. What's so important about a sponsor?

The reason a sponsor is important, Jenny, is because, let's be real. There are people of influence at any company, in any organization, in any team. And you want to make sure that the people of influence are aware of your work, aware of your talents, aware of your potential, and that they can then influence in the rooms where decisions are being made, promotions, big projects, scores for your performance rating. So you want to identify who those people are. And let's be real. I'm super practical and super real, Jenny, so I hope I'm not being too transparent. We love you, but let's say you have a leadership team of 10 people in your 1500 person. Org. Not all 10 people are going to have the leader's ear as much. So you want to find the two people who you think are the most influential and you don't want to be inauthentic about it. There's a Venn diagram overlap of the people who are high influence, but also who you connect with. Right. You don't want to seek out a sponsor with someone who you just don't have anything in common with or you don't respect or you don't look up to. But the holy grail is when you can find someone who you really look up to admire, connect with. And also someone who has that leader's ear of the 1500 person org and they're the one who can have outsized influence because that's just reality.

Okay, two questions.

Sure.

Can someone even find or get a sponsor? It almost seems like dating, where the harder you try almost, it might work against you. And it seems like a sponsor, in order for them to not just give you advice but advocate on your behalf, would have to be pretty choosy of who they sign up to sponsor. Even in this way, whether it's a formal thing or not, it just seems very delicate. So I have a question about that and I also have a question about some people are more shy than others. So do the people who get sponsors are just the really like active, most active kind of pushy connectors?

Great question. So let's take them separately. If you're more introverted or you're shyer, can you still effectively get a sponsor? Absolutely. So I actually come up as an introvert on Myers Briggs. Nobody believes me. Nobody believes Me, Jenny Wit. I don't believe it. Nobody believes me.

If you're an introvert, I'm a vert. I'm even farther. Just a. Yeah, an urt.

Okay, so it's true. I come up very close to the extroverted line. So maybe an ambivert. But truly, I really do get my energy by reading a book and by being alone. And I'm a total homebody. I've done acting in the past. I like presenting. So those things, I probably am a true ambivert. So if someone is more introverted or they are a little bit on the shyer side, they can absolutely still get a sponsor. So a way that I would go about doing something. For example, I was at an off site in Dublin once, and there was this incredible speaker in this room of 20 of us, and I was so inspired by him. And he walked out of the room, and I followed him out of the room and I said, hey, David, you were amazing in there. Any chance you'd be willing to sponsor me and meet with me once a quarter? And that's bold, right? That is really bold. So that might not work for everybody. And this is gonna make me sound even less like an introvert than I'm saying that I pulled that move. But it did work. So maybe that's not the method that an introvert would use. Maybe an introvert would have an indirect connection. Have somebody make an email intro. Or they might use a different method than following somebody out of the room and accosting them after they spoke in this group. But I think there are ways you can effectively do it. Thinking about the form of communication and softening it. Even though mine was pretty.

Pretty straightforward, the delicate nature of a sponsor is really going out on a limb. And it just strikes me that I remember being often, sometimes turned off if somebody said, will you be my mentor? I'm like, I don't know you. Sorry. I don't respond well actually to that question because there are a lot of ways to get to know me, and that kind of direct ask just didn't work that well for me. So then a sponsor is 10 times more the investment than even mentoring and coaching, because it's advocacy.

Yeah. So how do you get somebody to sign up and say yes when it's kind of a big ask? First of all, you have to be crushing your job every day. If we're talking about a corporate environment, which. Or any kind of work environment, which is typically where sponsors and mentors would come into play, you have to be good at what you do. And so you want people to want to sponsor you. And that exists. I mean, there are people who I see every day who are a couple years out of college, and I'm like, oh, my gosh, I'm gonna report to this person one day. There's so much I can gain from a mentee or a sponsee as they can gain from me. So, one, you have to be good. Number two, someone said to me, you have to find the right balance is number two, someone said to me, if you ask somebody to be your sponsor just out of the blue, it's like asking someone to marry you on a first date. And I think that's what you're reacting to, that you're just like, no, I don't want to see an email or a direct message on social that says, jenny Blake, can you mentor me? And you're just like, what does that mean? I don't want to do that. That sounds like a huge investment.

So some people are really good about that. They're like, they will get on the phone with anyone and everyone and they pride themselves. And I really admire that quality. Meanwhile, I think to myself, I do a podcast. Like, that's how I mentor is I do it at scale one to many, because it doesn't scale having the one on ones. But then someone like you, like, we've talked many times about the book process, and it's joyful. Probably because you've said, I can see the train, your train, I can see it moving, and it doesn't take much. And it's like just giving a few little recommendations can go such a long way. And that is totally joyful.

Thank you.

And there's like a reciprocal. Not that it's a one directional thing, but when there's like a really reciprocal connection that I will go for.

It's funny you say that. I wasn't even thinking about the context of.

Yeah, but I don't think of it like that either. It was an example of someone connecting us. And sometimes it stops there or it stops at one call versus versus. You've also totally met the situation halfway of like pinging, following up, and we connect and then the whole thing evolves. But it kind of happened. I don't know if it's entirely naturally because there's intentionality behind it, but I will say joyfully, thank you.

Agreed. Agreed. Our mentor mentee relationship, I do agree, happened organically. I think there are also things that you can do if you're the sponsee looking for a sponsor where you can Control for someone saying yes. So yes, you have that perspective of somebody who gave this advice. If you ask someone to be your sponsor, it's like asking them to marry you on a first date. Especially if you don't know the person well, which in our case Bethany just connected us and we didn't know each other at all so we happened to hit it off. But yes, there are lots of cases where it's going to be easy for somebody to say no and you want to encourage them to say yes. So there are two things actually that I think help encourage somebody to say yes when you're asking for somebody to sponsor you or be your mentor. One, be specific and time bound. So specific, here are the two things that I want to gain from this sponsor relationship. It's getting promoted. You can really put it out there depending on if you don't know the person at all. You might not want to go right for the jugular on that. But it could be establishing myself as a leader in the women at community in my company. Number two, you want to be time bound. So to me, when someone says can you be my sponsor? I'm like, oh my gosh, how often you want to meet weekly for the next 10 years. But if someone says I would love four 30 minute sessions with you, Jenny, over the next year, just once a quarter and then we can end, is that something you're willing to sign up for? And I have a much easier time saying yes to that than the ongoing who knows how long, right into all perpetuity kind of open ended question. And then the second thing I would offer is think about if you're the person asking for a mentor or a sponsor, gifts and hooks, gifts, what are you going to give the person and hooks, what do you want from them? So hooks, I covered a little bit in the specificity of know what you're asking for, but don't forget about the gifts that you also give. So let's say that I've been in sales for 10 years at my company and the person sponsoring me is from the marketing department. They might really want to know how things work in sales. So a gift I could offer them even if I'm 25 and they're 43, a gift I could offer them is, hey, I've got 10 years of context in sales at our company and I know you need to understand how sales work because they're your number one internal client or stakeholder. So that is a gift that I can give you and what I want from you is help getting promoted. Or help establishing myself as a leader within the women community, et cetera. So people forget that even if you're at very different stages of your career and there's a huge difference in your tenure or your leadership or your level, there's a lot that the sponsee can also provide to the sponsor.

We'll be right back just after this.

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You recently got promoted. Congrats to Director level. This is something that comes up often and I remember even in career dev back in the day we were always saying there's only one CEO. So sometimes people would get promoted early in their career and it would happen once or twice at a somewhat rapid clip. But as you get more senior, there are fewer roles. I mean, I know we don't like to think about corporate as a pyramid per se. However, there are fewer and fewer roles at the higher and higher levels. That's just the nature of an org chart. I'm curious if you felt on your journey to director, was there a time where you felt that you had hit a plateau? Tell me about how do you push past plateaus or accept them as the gift that they are for whatever they may be?

Sure, sure, sure. Okay. So plateaus. Two things on plateaus. Number one, sometimes you plateau because your boss just isn't that into you. And if your boss just isn't that into you, think back Sex in the City he's just not that into you. Or she's just not that into you. Get out. Just get out. Cut your losses. And same if you're just not into your boss, because you need your boss to be your number one advocate. Or you could plateau. One of my promotions just took a long time and it was because my boss just wasn't that into me. I just wasn't his cup of tea. And I didn't recognize accept that and move on fast enough. So one piece of advice, or something I've internalized is if your boss just isn't that into you, move on. That could create a plateau. The second piece of advice around plateaus is think about the beauty of lateral moves. You think about careers as up and to the right and always progressing and always making more money and having more responsibility and having more to do. And then you become a manager, then you become a manager's manager. But a career is so much more than that. The average career is 42 years long. So it's not always going to be up and to the right. And when you think about this zigzag path or this twisty, windy path that a lateral move can bring, it's really beautiful. And that ends up rounding out your career and helps you push through the plateau. Because even if you don't have that promotion, it gives you something new. Some new challenges to learn, some new industry to understand, a new network. Most importantly, your relationships are your capital at pretty much any company. And so there's this one really quick example I want to give where I was moving from New York sales to a technical team in Boulder. And let me just paint the scene. The scene in New York was boisterous and loud and zippy and a lot of people speaking to think. And then the scene in Boulder was quieter and more introverted and more just hushed on the floor. And I made this lateral move from this more boisterous New York scene in this one org to this quieter scene in Boulder in this other org. And I was struggling. And someone said, jenny, I know you've been struggling. Can I give you some advice? And I said, yeah, I love advice. I love feedback. Bring it on. And she said, jenny, you've been interrupting people. And I went.

And she was right. And from that day on, it's not that I never interrupt people. I will always be a speaker to thinker, but I probably do it 40% less just because of that awareness from that one piece of feedback I got. And I never would have gotten that feedback had I not moved roles. I never would have moved roles if I hadn't felt like I was at a plateau. And it was that lateral move, not up and to the right. It was that lateral move. That taught me so much, that helped me gain so much, that taught me this critical thing I needed to know to become a better leader, which was being mindful of interrupting people.

And even geographically, you moved down and to the left.

Geographically, I moved down and to the left. New York City. Boulder, Colorado.

Where you live now?

Where I live now. In Boulder, Colorado. In the mountains? Well, sort of. Right at the base of the mountains. 12 minute drive from the Google office and 1 minute walk and in either direction to incredible hiking trails.

Oh, my gosh. I have a friend from New York who just moved to Colorado. Maybe she's listening. I won't name names. She's like, everyone in Colorado loves to hike. There's no one getting coffee. You don't just get lunch. It's like you want to meet up and go for a hike. Like, what's with all the hiking? We were saying how we're just not hikers. Like, if given the choice, I'll go to lunch, I'll go sit and have a nice lunch, like New York style. But in Colorado, apparently, it's a hike.

It's totally a hike.

Oh, my gosh.

I love it. So this is where our Venn diagram, Jenny, does not overlap. Because I would so much rather go for a hike and talk. Like. Cause I love exercise.

I like a walk and talk.

Yeah, I like a walk and talk.

I love a walk and talk. Especially through Central Park. There are tons of people. Or sometimes I'll record with the guest here and we're in Midtown and we can walk up. So I'm a big fan of walk and talk. But by default, a hike. No, I probably wouldn't suggest it.

So you're perfect to be living here.

I want to ask you about screenshots.

Okay.

You shared with me as we were preparing for this conversation. Not just that you had made a gut wrenching mistake at Google.

Oh, my God.

You know, that's not even what caught my attention. So Jenny, accidentally, we've all. This is like our worst nightmare. At least it was a positive email. You were sending what I call a keeper message from someone who was reading your OIC newsletter, who sent you really kind words, and you wanted to forward it to your core team.

Exactly.

And instead Jenny forwarded it to the entire list of 27,000 people at that time.

Correct.

OMG. So that's already an oh, shit moment. And I wonder how you knew that you had done that. But what I find way more interesting is that she then screenshotted the entire thing, created a slide deck. Of course, in Google Slides. What else? And then sent this out to the entire list as how she recovered from this big and embarrassing public mistake. And so now this list of Googlers could look at her initial flub, the screenshot of the email, of the subject line and everything, and they could see the to address that. Oh God, it's the wrong one. Then they could see the apology she sent to the initial sender. And she just screenshotted every single thing and made a list of five steps. Here's how I recovered. And you can too. Own it quickly, clean it up and take a deep breath. Two, Recognize not everything we do every day will be perfect. Three, apologize directly to those involved. Four, celebrate the unexpected goodness. Five, trust that Google is a company full of warmth. Your fellow employees have your back. Oh my goodness. Like, you didn't just make the mistake, you screenshotted the whole thing, created a slide deck and shared it back out. And I think I would just love to hear your process, not of the event itself, but of you deciding that it was important enough to screenshot the whole thing and actually publicly own it in such a transparent way.

Oh, my gosh. I haven't ever talked about this. We already mentioned this is one of the first podcasts I've done, so I haven't talked about it publicly in this way. And I have chills hearing the question, Jenny, because it was one of my favorite tips. I feel like this one's more than just a little tip of how to get a mentor. I've never been more proud of anything than this. Well, first of all, it was a positive keeper quote, unquote email. But I had typos in the subject. It was still like really, really clunky.

Yeah, a little bit of like chicken scratch.

Total garbledy book. Yeah, Like I had the person's name in the subject line and then their long quote, which was like a four line subject line, which is just bizarre and unexpected. I had typos and misspellings. So it was a really weird thing. And at the time, the list was 27,000 people. This was not that long ago. And like, with a ton of senior Google executives, like, think C suite. So I saw that the reason I found out about it was that I got all of these pings and emails right away saying, hey, Jenny, just a heads up. And here was what was fascinating about it. I forget what number this was. Maybe point number four is recognize the unexpected goodness that comes out of a mistake. None of those emails or pings back to me said, what are you doing? Take me off this list. What happened? Every single one was trying to take care of me and comfort me and make me feel better. And I don't know if that's a Google thing or I don't know if that's just a humanity thing or a heart based thing as you like to talk about, but every single one just wanted me to be okay and thank goodness it was positive words. So she was basically saying, I can personally testify to the goodness, simplicity, actionability.

And impact this has had in owning my career. Because you put it out there, we got to see it in the screenshot, right?

Exactly. So that is what it said with some typos and some garbledygook. So yes, at least it was a positive thing. But the first thing I did was I pinged her and I said, titi. And I don't know her, I said, I am so sorry this happened. And she was so good natured about it. And then I realized, because I'd gotten all this positive reaction about it, that my oh shit moment is a lot of people's oh shit moment. Whether it's emailing six people instead of one person emailing somebody's performance rating to the wrong person. Like Jenny. I got all these examples that people shared with me of their own moments like this and they're just rampant, right? Think about it. It's so easy to make a mistake like this. And to me, the reason I'm so proud of it and the reason it gives me chills to hear you talk about it and I'm so grateful that you brought it up.

Thank you.

It's because I started this whole program to increase people's confidence. Started with women. This program started with me mentoring women one on one and just wanting to scale my ideas. Like you're saying you scale mentorship by doing this podcast. So I'm not quite at your level yet, but I really did think about how can I scale increasing people's confidence. Because at the end of the day, with all the mentoring I was doing, I realized that the one thing that seems to be a blocker for women was my observation. Historically underrepresented groups in tech was confidence. And I feel it too. I have so much imposter syndrome, I lay awake at night.

I found that interesting too, that you think of as do I imposter syndrome. As a North Star, I want to know more about that as well.

Well, going back to just to round this point out on the mistake, the reason I decided to make it so public is because I was shocked by the Positive response of people trying to take care of me, comfort me, help me.

Yes. And people congratulated her as well that the initial sender got cause it was about, she landed a job, thanks to you, and everyone was congratulating her. So it even. I love how you said it. There's one phrase my friend uses, gifts in the garbage.

Oh, totally.

Yeah.

Like, it's a gift in the garbage. And we just spend so much time worrying and thinking the worst possible scenario. And if you send an email and your boss doesn't write back, you think, I'm not valued. I'm irrelevant. Why didn't they, you know? Or you write to an agent. Let's say you're writing a new book or you're trying to propose a book and get an agent. You don't hear back. They think my ideas are terrible. And so my whole idea is that I want to pump people up and make them feel better and give them the tools and increase the confidence. So when this moment happened and I felt like the wind had been knocked out of me after seeing the response, wanted to use it as, like, the ultimate tool to pump people up and say, this happened to me. It turned out okay. In fact, it turned out amazing. It's gonna happen to you. You're going to be okay. In fact, you might be amazing. I mean, Marie Forleo says shame shrivels when shared out loud. So to me, by sharing that shame out loud, it made it accessible, it made it universal, it made it okay. And it gave. Like, I like to do an actual toolkit of how to recover when something like that happens to you.

I just love it. I love the unpacking it, reverse engineering it. They created a handy little slide deck. It's just like, oh, you, Jenny Wood did it.

Jenny wooded it. It started as just an email, but then I was like, I need some visuals here. Let's make it a day.

That's my career as well. It's just something that I struggle with. And then thinking back on it, wondering, how can I systematize, simplify, share this? And anything I create, any podcast episode, any question, any iota of information has usually come from a struggle that I've had. Oh, totally. Because there is no insight without that struggle. Because then I wouldn't even notice. It wouldn't even be in my awareness. I think of it almost as metabolizing a mistake, that you make the mistake and then you go, okay, this just happened. Let me metabolize it. And that the full circle healing and accomplishment comes in sharing it out Loud. That is so rewarding.

Yeah. I also think of it as gpq. Something terrible happened. And then I think gpq. Great panel question down the line where someone asks me, jenny, what's something hard that you've had to overcome? Gpq. Great panel question.

Yes. Yes. And that. Yes. So I love the book Storyworthy by Matthew Dix. Have you ever heard of it?

I have.

Okay, so, like, that's your story of the day, and then it goes in your little story collection bucket. And sure enough, here we are talking about it. And these moments are so ripe. My friend Tony, I don't know when our interview comes out, but his podcast, three Points Podcast, I think is the name. And he starts it off by asking, what's an embarrassing professional moment? Like an embarrassing moment in your career? So now you have it.

Totally. I have a failure resume that I keep where I list everything from elementary school to high school to jobs I didn't get within Google. You know, feedback I got from interviews that didn't go well. And I share it publicly with my team because I want to celebrate failures, and I want it to be okay to go big and take risks and make mistakes. We use emojis. People can throw emojis up on the screen while I'm talking. And so when I talk about that interrupting story, which I've told many times, and I say, someone gave me the feedback, Jenny, you've been interrupting people. The emojis go crazy with, like, hearts and happy faces and, you know, prayer hands. And it's that vulnerability until I started doing this work.

Is this, like, a live Twitter stream? I'm just trying to visualize it. There's a screen and there's like an emoji stream. Almost like Instagram Live.

That's right. So when I talk about things like that when I'm at my most vulnerable. Thank you, Brene Brown. The. The screen is sometimes so covered with emojis that I can't even see my slides. So it's almost data. It is data about what really resonates with people. And it's not talking about your proud moments. It's talking about where you screwed up. And I'll use that as data for what goes into the book. So you mentioned I'm working on a book proposal, which. Jenny, it's because of you. It's because of you. You introduced me to my agent, Lisa Damona of Writer's House, which I'm so excited about. She's just been incredible, and I'm meeting her for the first time in person today.

Yay.

Right after this, along with David Maldauer, who is the ghostwriter for my book proposal, who you also said you've got to go with David and David's gonna.

Be on freetime soon. Probably by the time this comes out, David will have been live on free time. We had so much fun. I loved finally getting to talk to him for the podcast too.

They're amazing. So you have led me to the A team and Jenny and not just connected me with them, but guided me along the way on every aspect of it. Like, I can't believe I'm sitting here looking at you, talking to you.

It's a joy.

It's a total joy.

Yeah, it's a joy. It was easy to do. I feel like I just put a little feather of momentum, like not a push, but like just a tiny feather. And then you took the rest and ran with it. And I can't wait. Maybe by the time this goes live because I have so many in the can. Actually, by the time this goes live, you might have a book deal. Future Jenny Witt will probably have a book deal.

I hope so.

I know.

I hope so. It's been so much fun to work on.

Are you having any imposter syndrome in terms of the book process?

Yes. I enjoy writing. My first job out of college was as a writer for Harvard Business School, working on case studies that Harvard Business Publishing produced. And I've written for Entrepreneur magazine and I write these tips. But I read your writing in free time and pivot and I read David's writing when he sends me back something that he's worked on for the book proposal. I read my friend Jason Pfeiffer's writing who he has his own book coming out in September called Build for Tomorrow. I read an early copy of it. It was amazing. And I feel like these are writers with a capital W. Writers, artists, gorgeous prose, incredible usage of language. And I just feel like I can write a solid three bullet list. That's compell.

That counts.

It counts.

But also it's so interesting when you're reading the finished product. It's gone through so many revisions and edits and enrichments. It's really. It is tricky at that stage. It sounds like sometimes the imposter syndrome comes in of the writing quality or level itself. Do you have any imposter monsters around? Who am I to raise my hand and write a book that there are so many books about career and life and does any of that come in or you feel pretty solid, like, yes, yes, I have something to Say, and I'm gonna say it.

So this is interesting. A year and a half ago I would have said, absolutely, I'm rife with imposter syndrome on the who am I to write a book? And it is a crowded space. And actually I love the direction the book is taking. Cause it's not really going to be about careers. Own youn Career is sort of the Google thing, but this is gonna be totally separate. And this is really about achieving life goals, whether it's professional or personal or in relationships or friendships. And it's thinking about it more as going after what you want unapologetically, going above and beyond being a little bit weird and quirky like that screenshot of my huge mistake is a perfect example of being weird and quirky and doing things that are unexpected, but doing them unapologetically so to sort of succeed in life. And I'm definitely a little bit odd and quirky. So I think it's the right fit for me to write about this. But before the Own youn Career stuff, I would have been rife with imposter syndrome of who Am I? And then I've been on my own journey getting the feedback again, it's all data based. Getting the emails I get every week of people saying this is really helpful. Thank you so much. Constantly. I'm sure you get it too, being a writer yourself in a position to help people, which I just so deeply love doing. I'm so, so, so motivated by helping people. And then when I get that feedback that I am helping people, Whether it's on LinkedIn or through Google, and I'll be starting other social soon, which that part's uncomfortable for me. So we could talk about social media, which is totally new to me, but because I get this positive feedback, I actually don't at this point anymore have the imposter syndrome of who am I? I actually believe the data that says I have a lot of really good, useful, smart, helpful things to share. And I trust that that data is real. And if it's real at Google, which is full of smart, driven, capable, talented people, that there are even more people I can help in a 7.7 billion person world. And so I actually feel pretty darn great that I do have a voice. I do have something to say. I do have something useful that can help millions, if not billions of people. I'm just worried about my writing.

Oh my gosh. Of course.

We'll be right back just after this.

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Every time I've written a first draft of a book, I just want to puke afterward. I read it and I go, oh, my God, this is just. This is just incompetent drivel. You know, I read my first draft and it's the whole hourglass. The difference between taste and talent and just the nature of a first draft is you read it. When we read books, they're finished, they're polished, and so then it's so hard to stomach that first draft. You're like, is this ever gonna get there? And for me, I have to kind of just let it be and know that it's nowhere near my taste and then keep moving.

Yeah, I mean, I think that's great feedback that I will have to keep in mind because I'm not even doing the writing right now, but I'm so excited to write the book when I will not have a full time ghostwriter like I do for the proposal. For those of you who've never written a book, which is probably most people, the book proposal is basically a business plan.

Yes. 30, 40 pages even.

Exactly. And you're basically trying to convince a top publisher that this book is going to sell and it's worth them investing in. I thought it made sense to invest in someone to help me write that because I know my limits and I don't know what a good book proposal looks like. But when it comes to writing the book, assuming the book does sell, and I'm confident it will, and I'm super excited to start writing it when it does sell to a publisher. But then I will be doing the writing. Obviously I'll get, you know, an editor to help me. But that's where I'm nervous about, oh, my gosh, what is this going to look like? So thank you for the confidence and the insight in the process that there are many, many, many iterations. But even just being another place I have imposter syndrome is even just being among these thought Leaders, Jenny, like you and Vanessa Van Edwards and Dory Clark and all these people that I look up to and admire and how great their work is and thinking, oh my goodness, like how am I even in this scene or how am I about to be in this scene if I do end up selling the book? That is pretty intimidating to me.

Interesting. What's intimidating about it? Because when I look at you, I'm like, but you so clearly are already doing it. You're already there. Especially within the Google universe, what is the aspect about the network or the milieu of it that would intimidate you? Jenny Wood, as impenetrable as you are.

I'm definitely not impenetrable in terms of like confidence.

I know.

I know because I have my gremlins too.

I don't believe you.

I toad I have so many gremlins. What do my gremlins tell me? You're faking it. But I guess I talked about how the data suggests that I'm not.

And you know what? You know where you have an advantage for the book process in particular is that you think systematically.

I do.

I had a conversation with Greg Alexander for free time and I said at the end, I'm like, gosh, each one of your responses is about a three point outline. And there's McKinsey research that they taught McKinsey consultants that when they speak to an executive they need to say I have three points. And they start with the end, they start with the conclusion and then they support it with three points. And three tends to convey information best. And that there's a whole method to succinctly getting your point across. Which is what Greg said to me. He said, I actually put a tremendous amount of effort into how I communicate to be understood.

I love that.

Yes. And you have that. And that's what a book is. You have to structure it. And actually the structure. One of the biggest compliments that I get about free time and one of the reviewers said this is that people like all the bullets like bullets and lists and short chapters and there's a lot in terms of the architecture that is intentional but it's also how my mind works. I don't think in data and research and flourishing stories. I'm not that flowery of a writer. I'm very functional. If it were up to me, it would just be only a bunch of bulleted lists. But then, okay, I'll sprinkle in some anecdotes just to round it. But it's not my natural go to are not the Anecdotes and the storytelling. My go to is the bulleted list. Just do this, this and this. And then I guess, oh, okay. I guess we need a little bit of some bread on the sandwich to be able to really give the whole thing over to somebody but you.

And I think very similarly. And I think this is why I loved Free time so much. And I actually talked to David, my ghostwriter, about it the other day, and I was like, so you know how in Free Time, Jenny has all these bullets and there's a chapter summary at the end and it's in a different color and it's really visually easy to understand and have the same takeaw. I was like, David, that I want that because I also feel like my writing is super functional and we'll see what form the book ends up taking in the end. And it can take different forms, obviously. And also like Glennon Doyle's Untamed, her chapters are one to three pages. And I love that. Maybe it's my own lack of attention span.

We all have that. I mean, Johann Hariri, stolen focus. None of us have much of an attention span anymore. And I mean, I try. I try to stick with it, but I was just yesterday talking with friends about how we're finding it harder and harder to sit and read a book. Yeah, it's crazy. And I'm not even on social media. I'm not even on the stuff that would splinter my attention a thousand ways. But even still, I'm finding myself a little more jumpy than I might have been five years ago in terms of sitting and reading a book. I like short chapters too, because. And that was also very intentional that I had experienced the sense of momentum and achievement. Like, I read three pages and I finished a chapter and I can be done for the morning and feel good and feel like I got a little check mark of that as a reader, I really enjoy that experience 100%.

I feel like we're cut from the same cloth in a lot of ways, except for hiking.

And we are. Yeah. Because I also think that Google, I was there five and a half years. That was my MBA. You're there 16. I do think that to succeed there, it's an intense environment and you gotta learn very quickly how to communicate well, succinctly, how to cut through the noise, how to operate at a level of intensity and efficiency that is in the Google water. You can't come out of that experience without these skills. And I often tell people, I never tell anybody to leave, but when they say I'm thinking about it or I'm ready to transition or I've been reworked out and I say to them you have no idea. Like those skills are gonna serve you the rest of your life and if anything you're gonna be so frustrated by how slow interacting on the other side. Sometimes you expect a certain level of responsiveness and structure and clarity that you don't really find at the same level. And I think Googlers who are still in it don't recognize what an advantage it is or I'm sure any other company of this caliber. This is only the only experience I know.

Absolutely. It's so funny you talk about the three point structure. I have had to practice this, this so much in my career and I only started being really intentional about it the last couple of years and now of course classic I incorporated into an own your career tip. I call it fruits and I could do the example if you want for our listeners.

We're almost out of time. Give us a 30 second version. Okay.

It's basically, let's just skip it. It's basically what you said about the guy from McKinsey who came in. And this is the number one feedback I give in interviews when someone doesn't get the role. Internal interviews. So Jenny, will you ask me what are your favorite fruits and why? I'm going to do it two ways.

Oh, what are your favorite fruits and why?

Oh, fruits. Oh, fruits are so good. I love fruits. I like vegetables. I like fruits more than vegetables. Let's see, fruits. Hmm, strawberries are good because they're pink and oh my gosh, pink. My shirt's also pink and also my pen is pink and blah blah blah blah blah. So that is the non fruits way to do it. And now if you will ask me so kindly again, I'll do the fruits way.

What are your favorite fruits? Fruits.

Strawberries, watermelon and cherries. Strawberries because they remind me of summer. Watermelon because it's my daughter's favorite fruit and cherries because it's my son's favorite fruit. So strawberries, watermelon and cherries.

I love it.

But it takes so much practice, Jenny.

It does. And if I even replay to you I think you do something more, which Greg does as well is that ask me what are my favorite fruits.

Jenny, what are your favorite fruits?

There are three fruits that I love for the level of antioxidants that they provide. Berries, blackberries and raspberries. So what I hear you doing a lot is saying well there are three things and then you even Give them.

Yeah.

So you're just always kind of structuring and people think it comes naturally. It takes work. Oh, Greg said it, you said it and I got it. We don't just speak like this. Fully formed it actually. You gotta go, let me think about this. Let me structure it. Let me actually make three. Everything in free time is in threes. There's three parts.

Yep, I noticed.

Yeah, it's this almost OCD level of harmony and balance that I wanted of three parts. Three sections within each part, three chapters within each section. And then I made sure the word count of every single chapter was relatively parallel to every other one. And it was like this crazy grid. But so important to me that it just be this. I don't know. There was a certain harmony to power of three that I really leaned on this time 100%.

And we practiced what we most needed to learn. I built the whole damn Own youn Career program because I need to practice all these things to be successful in my career. And so I am a total rambler. I'm a total rambler. So I created this to help myself. And by the way, the trick is you pause for a minute and you write down some thoughts. And you might write down seven fruits, but then you circle three and then you say, these are my three and it's okay.

And then I would go, what do those three have in common? Or what's the kind of overall blanket I'm gonna wrap them in? Like the overall container even.

So you take it a step further than I even do. Because whenever I give this example, I've never thought about the. Like you gave the antioxidants theme. I've never thought about. What's the theme that wraps these all together. I just go for the three points.

Yeah. But then what I'm saying to you is you actually do it. You just didn't know that you do it.

Interesting. Yeah.

So something to ponder. Oh, interesting. You already wrap it. Just reflecting how I've heard you even in this conversation.

Okay. I didn't think I was doing that.

So let's leave listeners with one biggest aha you've had recently, career wise, let's say. And then one little experiment they can try. One piece of homework.

My biggest aha is when you're passionate about what you're doing, it is not going to feel like work. So if you're not happy in your role, don't try to force it, don't try to stick around because it's going to get better. There are so many jobs out There. Great Resignation. Find something you love because it's not going to feel like work.

What would you like them to do this week?

Ask for what you want.

So good.

Ask for what you want because your manager's busy. They don't remember everything you're working on, they don't remember everything you need, they don't remember all of your goals and life desires and wishes and it is your responsibility to remind them. And if you feel like, oh, that sounds braggy or that sounds like I'm asking too much or I don't want to shamelessly self promote, think of it as tasteful self promotion. If you're trying to, you know, share your work with your manager to then ask for what you want, AKA that promotion. And remember that it is your responsibility.

To share your great work with your team. It is your responsibility to share your great work with your org and it's your responsibility.

To share your great work with your company. So if you think of it in that way, it's tasteful self promotion and it's necessary, required and encouraged for you to own your career.

I love it. So good. Jenny Wood thank you so much for being a guest. This was so fun and I love that instead of catching up over coffee or a hike, we did it right here in the podcast studio.

We did it right here in the podcast studio. Even at the lobby we were like, like, let's not even catch up too much. Let's do it all on air. So we were literally getting to know each other live with all of you listening. Thank you so much for your time. It was so fun to do this.

I second that. Thank you everybody for being here, listening. And Jenny, thanks again for being here. So fun.

Thanks so much for listening to this episode of the Pivot podcast. Make sure you don't miss an episode or my insider tips and templates by signing up for Pivot List, a curated twice monthly newsletter where I share the inside scoop on what I'm reading, watching, listening to and the latest tools I'm geeking out on. Sign up@pivotmethod.com pivotlist get show notes from this episode@pivotmethod.com.

And connect with me on Twitter @jennyblake.

Remember, build first, then your courage will follow. Hasn't it always.

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