how do I advance in my career? with Julia Haber

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Sprite obey your thirst. Hi everyone, I am Margot. Welcome back to Working Title. I am sitting here today with Julia Haber, who is a dear friend and mentor and kind of quasi business partner who is the co founder and CEO of Home From College, which is a career platform for Gen Z. Julia has been founding businesses in the college space since she was a college freshman and has been routed in the intersection of brands and Gen Z with the mission to help people start their careers. As a matter of fact, guys, my own entrepreneurial journey started when I met Julia my freshman year of college, and it's actually crazy to think how many people's careers probably start with you, whether they realize it or not. I'm so excited to sit down with her today to share more about a project that we've actually been working on together to help you guys navigate your careers and share some helpful tips.

So.

So let's get into it.

So excited. Thanks for having me.

We've been wanting to record this podcast for so long.

So long.

And the time is finally here. I kind of had a feeling that at some point our paths would cross again in a very close manner, that this would make sense to sit down and do the conversation. And here we are.

I love it. It's funny because some of my friends tell me I'm a little bit of like a witch. Like I have the ability to see into the future a little bit. And I do agree with that. Like, I think when what we've been working on kind of manifested, there was no choice but to bring you in in a way that like, we could collaborate and make something so special together. So I'm happy to do this and happy that it's coming to life.

I love that. And I love that you say that you're a witch because I'm starting to get more into my like Spirituality journey.

Welcome to la, baby.

I went to the beach yesterday and I was listening to Deepak Chopra oh my gosh. Headphones. And it just felt like the right thing to do here. But you really have always had a vision. Where does that confidence come from? Because I'm finding in my own journey that just like trusting the process and knowing that I'm on the right journey for my career or my personal life really comes down to the confidence that you have in yourself and trusting yourself. So where to find that? Because you've had that since you were like, I have to imagine, very young.

I think it really came from, and I speak about this a lot. I grew up with a learning disability and I always saw the world a little bit differently than others because things didn't come to me as easily. So I was prone at a very young age to break the rules because the rules were not working for me anyway. And that gave me permission to think creatively, to think outside the box, to really hone my superpower. And I think that's really been about relationship building and finding people I love and deeply connecting and investing in that. So I think overall, over time I've worked that muscle and it's given me the strength and the confidence to know and the reps to see that that actually does work in my life.

But even breaking the rules and kind of stepping to the beat of your own drum, dancing to the beat of your own drum, you have to find the right people, I imagine, who let you do that and where that kind of works in the environment that that types of thing works, in. Which I'm assuming is kind of what led being interested in entrepreneurship, because so much of that is just creating your own rules and building your own worlds. But how did you initially find the people and the communities that let you create your own rules?

I think it really started I was in high school in this program called the alternative school in my normal high school. And it was a separated program where there was, I think 14 or 15 students in it. And it was all about the Socratic learning method. So learning for the sake of learning. And it was all conversation. There was no, there was no test. It was all essay based. And every Monday of the week we would be able to go into the city and have an internship in New York. Wow. So one of. I graduated high school not with a gpa, but with comments and, and no letter grades. And through that I graduated high school, I think, with 11 internships and a ton of real world experience that I realized was such a benefit Going into the infrastructure of college and life saying I have permission to do this differently and if it's not, obviously this. And I mean I can't even tell you how many times I have a vision of me calling my mom outside of a Psych 101 class, crying that I failed another test because I just had to follow the structure that the school forced me to do until I said I'm not going to continue to make myself feel unsuccessful. I want to find a path to break my own rules. And it also came from the trauma of not feeling successful. So I think it's like can be glamorized with the sense of like oh, forges their own path. But like there's a lot of hard work that and resilience that that requires.

I love everything you just said, first of all, because I just realized where the first seed of Home from college was, which was having those 11 small micro internships by the time that you entered college that I'm sure helped you navigate what it, what you wanted to do and the people that you knew.

Exactly.

And that's the world that you're building for hundreds of thousands of college students around the states now, which is incredible. And college age students because I'm sure there's a lot of people in different structures. But something else I love that you just talked about is actually a journal page from the journal that we're launching together that I was just filling out. So I'm really excited to talk about in the margins with you and I want to jump into that because I think it's going to inform a lot of our conversation because it's really written from both our experiences and other students experiences. So with some more context we'll be able to touch on this throughout the conversation. But the page that I just filled out myself is describe what creative success means to you without using external validation like grades, money or recognition. And I think you just really spoke to that. And for me that's always also been about forging my own path and dancing to the beat of my own drum and creating products conversations with people that are meaningful to me. And I'm really excited to talk about how this product came to be. Really quickly. Do you want to just touch on what Home from College really does and how this project between no particular order, my paper goods brand and Home from college came to be?

Yes, definitely. So it's not a secret that I've spent a lot of time on college campuses. My first business, I started my freshman year of college like you mentioned, which was an experiential marketing agency helping brands basically activate pop ups on college campuses. And this was kind of before, it's as big of a thing as it is now. But what would happen is students would come to these activations that we would do with big brands like Shopify and Rent the Runway and they'd say, great, I get that this brand wants us to use the product, but I have no idea what I'm doing with my life and I've never made a dollar and my major doesn't align with my career aspirations and I don't know who I am yet. And it was this big light bulb moment that we had this opportunity to build this next gen kind of career platform oriented towards where the world is today. Giving people real experiences, getting paid for those experiences, no free labor, getting the opportunity to build your network in a flexible way. And obviously such a digital world now that you can do flexible work. So Home from college really is a career platform oriented to be the starting point of someone's professional journey. And every feature we've built, every tool is oriented to combat imposter syndrome, guarantee payment, give clarity on your output of your work, and ultimately work with some of the brands that we have on the platform.

And I love that that really stemmed from conversations that you were having with students on campus because I think a lot of brands, especially when they're trying to market to Gen Z as a member of Gen Z is really looking like top down. And how do we take this idea that we have or this product and just like shake it over the heads of Gen Z and hope that they get it and want to buy in. Whereas you really went from the quad up and we're talking to students about their issues. And Home from College was launched during COVID which I fondly remember. I was I guess the first quote employee with you and your co founder Kai.

Yeah.

And so much of the conversations from day one were, was really you guys asking me like what were my pain points as a college student and in my community and with my audience. What are people asking me? And I love that you guys took the feedback and built something absolutely incredible based on those real feelings and struggles.

It's still a huge part of our story today. In the beginning we did focus groups with thousands of students on like a weekly basis. And what's so crazy is a lot of those really early students who were using our platform now obviously work at companies. They're a little later in their career. They now have brought their companies onto Home from college, which is such a Cool cycle. But every week we have, we have a Gen Z advisory panel. We run every feature, every product, our marketing campaigns by students. And it's the most important thing to make sure you have your pulse on what's going on.

And that's actually what we did. That was the first step in building this journal. So just for a bit of context and then we can get into more of Julia's background and her path here. And there's so many questions that selfishly I want to ask Julia and I'm excited to hear what she's going to say. Home from College has been working with Barnes and Noble College, which Barnes Noble College runs a lot of the campus bookstores that you guys probably have on your own campuses. Whether you realize that it's Barnes and Noble powered. And they are launching this amazing career readiness platform and initiative to make sure that students can get the tools that they need to feel prepared for their the rest of their career, starting at the bookstore and on campus and in their own communities. And they came home from college to say, basically, how can you help us do this? And actually, I would love to hear how this journal kind of came about from your perspective.

I have been obsessed with the concept of physical products. We're a tech business, so like the tangible is really tough when it comes to that. And we work with a ton of cool brands and we do collabs with them and we do pop ups and activations, but the tangible feeling of career readiness and experience and having a place to go, you know, physically with a journal or an outlet was so important. And I actually pitched Barnes and Noble saying that I wanted to do a collab with one of their merchants. And then it immediately dawned on me that there's absolutely no better person to do this than you. And we pitched it to Barnes and Noble to basically say, how can we create a physical journal that supports this professional development in a really accessible way, taking kind of both of our ethos into life. And then Barnes and Noble loved it and was so supportive. And they're now going to be carrying thousands of journals in their bookstores, which is such an amazing feeling.

It is so incredible. And to bring this to life, as you said, we started with the Home from College advisory panel and I was having these conversations with groups of college students from all different backgrounds on all different campuses, in different grades, different work experiences, and just asking them about their college experience. Today especially, I graduated in 20. So a lot has changed since COVID with both remote opportunities and I'm sure the kind of campus Lifestyle has changed quite a bit since 2020. And it was so interesting to hear what they were saying about the stress of creating a network and finding the right mentors and balancing their life in and out of the classroom and in and out of their careers and how much should they be doing when they're still a student and just got this feeling that these students that are so hard working and eager to do well in their career from like the very early seeds and early days of their career were feeling so overwhelmed about how to navigate it. So I took all of those conversations and had so many notes to go through and this was a pretty quick turnaround that we were working on this project. So using those notes and also just thinking about my own experience in college and the mentors that I have been very lucky to have, including you, and the conversations we've had and the questions you've asked me and distilled this down into in the margins, which is a prompted journal. If you guys have off the Grid, which is our travel journal, it is basically the exact make of that. So super portable, beautiful materials. And the journal is broken into three parts and short enough to fill out over the course of a semester. So if you feel like every year you want to fill out a new one of these and kind of see your growth, you're able to do so. So part one is all about leveraging relationships. This really is the Julia Haber mark of the book because if there's something Julia is so talented at, it is harnessing her network to build incredible things and to navigate her own career. So so much of this part are questions and things that I think you would think about a lot. So actually I am going to ask you this question. This is a random page I just opened to in part one. When you think about the most meaningful relationships in your life right now, what qualities or moments make them valuable to you? Toast the holidays in a new way and raise a glass of Rumchata, a delicious creamy blend of horchata with rum. Enjoy it over ice or in your coffee. Rumchata.

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It's so funny because my co founder and I, we. We get. We bicker about this all the time. And I am someone who has quick, deeply emotional reactions to things. I either absolutely hate something or I love it. There's nothing in between. And I get that a lot with reactions to things. So the thing that just immediately came to me is we have been working with this business coach and over the last couple of months, and it has been an absolute game changer in our career. And as someone who mentors people and gets mentored, there's something a little bit different in a coaching relationship, which I think is really interesting to explore if you have the opportunity to do so. And it's a little bit of a push. It's a little bit of, you know, a challenge on your thought process, but it's also a very, like, protected and safe space. Space. And I think if you have the ability to create an environment like that where you can have someone who will look at you and say, I get that you're doing that, but, like, have you thought about it in a different way? Because that probably is, like, you know, stunting your growth while also saying, you are safe here and you have a place and it's okay to cry and whatever you feel. And he really encompasses that combination, and that's been really valuable for me.

So he's able to help navigate having both very, like, guttural responses to things and then also seeing the fuller picture and more of the nuance and different.

Things, and also pushing on the buttons that sometimes you're not ready to handle and push on and say, like, I think you're being a little avoidant of that topic. Let's explore why you're avoiding that and not just, you know, acknowledging that it's there.

So if somebody doesn't have access to a business coach, how would you recommend they have these conversations either with their colleagues or peers?

Something that I've learned a lot in life is that one person doesn't need to be everything for you. And if your cup isn't being filled up in every direction, like inspirational and also organized and also aspirational, it's important to find pieces of those people in people in your life. So if there's someone you can look to and say, you are my rock, you ground me when I need to be grounded. I go to you when I want to be pushed because I'm ready to be there. I'll go to you and try and identify the characteristics that you are missing in your life and then build a little community around you so you can tap those people.

I love that you just said that. And you're proving my point that this is the Julia Haber chapter of this book. Because the next page is who's on your dream team plan your roster, and it goes through the different types of characters that you really need in your personal roster to have that fulfilled life without relying too heavily on one person or yourself. So you have your head coach, who's the leader and the decision maker. You have the emotional therapist who provides more guidance teammates. So I love that. I think this journal kind of also acts as a business coach, if I do say so myself.

Absolutely. And I think it will give you the ability to put people in a certain place, because sometimes you may say that in your brain. And maybe you're going through things where you're transitioning friend groups or you're thinking about a new job. And that roster is changing very frequently. And I think giving the space that that's okay. That in your first semester of college, it may look one way at the end.

It may look so different and so interesting to track who kind of stayed in the ecosystem and might have moved around. And so interesting. Also so, so crazy to think about when you're a senior in college to think about the people who were in your life the freshman year.

Totally.

And who stuck around and who changed. And now I'm five years out of college. You're eight now. Think about all of the players that are still a part of our lives and businesses today is quite amazing. Okay. The second part of the journal is called Staying Motivated. So this is really about creating more of a full life in every part of your life. So not only in your career as a student, but in your work and in your hobbies and your personal life and making sure that you're balanced so that you're not completely burnt out and frustrated when one single thing that you're writing out doesn't go as planned or.

That we've been really using in our business that I'm obsessed with is abundance. And I think thinking about things with an abundant mindset is so important in that prompt you just said, because everything can feel really dark at times. There's moments where you're like, oh, why didn't I get that parking spot? And I'm not getting you know replies to the jobs that I'm applying to and why am I getting rejected. And that like dark cloud can be really heavy and it makes the world seem as though everything is glass half empty. But I think that thinking in that mindset where everything is coming to me, I have everything that I need, the moment is coming.

I think that also will really resonate with college students or people who are early in their career and maybe even if you're in your mid-20s or you're in your 40s and you're listening to this and you want to shift your career and it feels like there's a lot of rejection or a lot of the seats have already been filled to have that abundant mindset which again, I love that so much of what you're saying really rings true with the product that you're building. Because gigs, which are the kind of small career opportunities on your platform, you can have so many gigs at once and get so many different type of gig opportunities that it isn't just about getting one thing on your plate and saying that you put one thing on your resume or experience or thing that you wanted to test out. There are so many different lives that we get to kind of like dip our toes in, especially as Gen Z. So I love that you're building that with your platform.

Thank you. Yeah, that's been really important for us. Giving a level of flexibility but also information. And when we talk about relationships like that's actually the hardest thing to build, but we're really harnessing that at scale and giving people a chance to meet the people behind some of the brands that they love, work with them, show their worth so that they can build a longer relationship and maybe get hired or even just have this roster of network that you never know where they go.

So can you explain actually if somebody is interested in switching up their career or starting their career and they come to home from college to do that, what is the journey like of a student or a person who is coming to the platform?

Yeah, so we're a two sided marketplace. So you could think of it like if you're familiar with Uber, there's obviously drivers and there's also riders in our situation, there's companies who create opportunities on our platform and then there's students or young professionals who are, you know, the riders and we are the matchmaker between the two. We create these opportunities that sometimes are one day and others that could convert into a full time role. Some of these opportunities place hundreds of students and sometimes it's just a one to One relationship. And they can be anything from product testing, focus groups, ambassador programs, graphic design, content creation, to more resume building work. And all of the opportunities will tell you how long they go for, what the compensation is, what are the key deliverables. So it's very clear what you can put on your resume. And we have a ton of areas where you as a student or young professional can come on and share qualitative information, portfolio work, your social links so that you're more than just what your resume has to offer. And we have a matching platform so companies can easily find students that are a great fit. And then all of the logistics for the program run through our back end. So it's really supporting teaching you professionalism skills like how should I respond to this email? Or when are my tasks due? And levels of accountability that are really great. If you haven't actually had real professional experience or if you have and you're trying to up level or pivot in.

Your career, that's amazing. So what do you see is like the goal of a student coming on to a home from college? Because I think about how, I think Hinge made their whole campaign promo that they actually want you to delete the app and they've done their job. If you delete the app from their phone, do you see something similar for students that are logging on home from college?

It's funny, I think when we started we knew that we really wanted to be at the ground floor at the starting point. We knew there was a huge opportunity to make it really low barrier to entry, very accessible for people to start. And that still reigns true. So if you have no experience and no idea what you want to do, you will find success and home from college simultaneously. As the platform has evolved and the types of companies we work with and the opportunities we create, that has changed a ton as well. Because there's a lot of high value skill based roles that can be something you can do supplemental to a full time job or could even become a full time job. So I think 20% of the students on our platform or you know, young professionals are recent grads and they do gig work as maybe their full time thing or they're doing it supplemental to work. So I think statistically 85% of Gen Z will do multiple things when they graduate and we're positioning ourselves as the support system to make it more accessible to do so.

And that's 85% of people are doing multiple things at one time or just over the course of their career one time.

So you get a Full time job at XYZ company. You're creating content at the side. On the side. You're also doing some product testing. You're doing, you know, a freelance stint on the side. There's a huge push towards that.

From a culture perspective, that's incredible. And also feels very overwhelming that maybe sometimes Gen Z doesn't feel like if they're just doing one thing, it feels like enough.

Yeah.

I'm also really curious, just from your own experience, because you have been a founder since you graduated college and actually maybe we should jump to, to talking about how we actually met in the first place, because I've always been astounded by how much has been on your plate. But I was a freshman in college in one of my communication classes and Julia came in to pitch her club, which was called Vision. And I, first of all, I had my mom's voice in my ear of her saying, like, join all the clubs that you can join and get all of the opportunities and say yes to things. But also, this was like a really cool girl that came into my class who was entrepreneurial and seemed to kind of understand the world of social media and the landscape of being a female. You know, this was like very much Girl Boss era, Emily Weiss era. And I was just obsessed. So I went to your studio basically at the Syracuse Library and I interviewed.

I can visualize it. Actually. I have no recollection of coming into your classroom, but I have a vision of you walking and I can visualize this sitting on the couch. And you were so nervous and so cute.

I was so nervous.

So cute.

And I think I like quietly said that I had this YouTube channel.

Yes, you did. It was so underrated. And I remember looking you up after like, wait, she's a real influencer. Why did she say it like that? We need to tell her to scream it off the rooftop.

Oh, so sweet. But I joined this club and that was kind of how we met. And on a weekly basis we had these club meetings where we were interacting with local businesses. And I don't even know, honestly, the.

Mission of the club was basically like, if you have crazy ideas, we're here to bring your vision to reality. And it was because I was doing a lot of entrepreneurial things on campus and I was dealing with like the bureaucracy and the limitations. And I wanted to build an environment where people could come if they had other creative ideas and we can help bring it to life. I don't know if we ended up doing anything, but I think it was a really awesome group of Creatives it was. And just like good energy and everyone wanted to be part of something and. Yeah.

And manifested in like a longer term version of that where here we are today having these crazy ideas and bringing them to life. And here we are together and that.

Was a muscle we flexed. And by you raising your hand to join this club, like imagine. I mean, I don't want to be like responsible for your life, but like think about who you've become by raising your hand and these little choices, these micro choices that ultimately become really impactful.

What are some more of those small. Like everyone's obsessed with the butterfly effect right now and the debate over what's cause and effect versus yada yada. But what do you feel are small things that people can do to expand their opportunities and their worlds and get these really cool things that they might not do if they don't do these small little. I said that so poorly, but I think you know what I'm saying.

I was just thinking about it because I mean something that I did, which I think is ridiculous at the time, I was like hyper fixating on it. But in college I would build a relationship with, with every single one of my professors, no matter what. I did it for my purpose because I knew I wasn't going to test well and I wasn't going to come across successfully in the class and I wanted to be successful. So I would become friends with the professors and I would go to office hours weekly from my professors. And what it did was created a true relationship with people who I respected, who were older than me, who knew a specific path, who could see me for me as a person rather than just what I had done. And a lot of those relationships ended up being really meaningful for me when I graduated. And that's something that I would definitely incorporate. Like, don't go to office hours when you need to, you know, say why you got a bad grade on a test, but go proactively so that you can practice that relationship building muscle because then it will give you more confidence later when you want to like slide into somebody's LinkedIn messages or you want to walk up to somebody that you admire, you can become more comfortable with that.

That I think is really, it's great advice, but I think it's really intimidating for people, especially in the workforce. Say if they have a boss or a boss of a boss or a manager that they really look up to and respect and they want to build more of a relationship, but they don't want to feel like they're taking up too much of this person's time or that they're asking of too much, or that there's ulterior motives to get paid more. So how do you go about building relationships that you know, might be helpful down the line, but you don't want to go into it as like a transactional type of thing?

I think you just nailed it. It's about when you do it. Like if you're going in to approach your boss and you know it's kind of coming up on your one year mark and you want to do it with the hopes to be promoted in the next couple of months, like that will feel like an ulterior motive. But I think that what I always recommend is thinking like 6 to 12 months in advance of what the future state of you wants. So if that's knowing in a year from now you maybe want to switch teams, send your manager a note being like, hey, I'd love to shadow someone on XYZ team and know that that would be, you know, six or 12 months from now, that that would be the potential. But I think it's about like laying those little groundwork stages to set yourself up for success later. But to your point, like, how do I not take up space and how do I be thoughtful about not asking too much? I think the way you do it is you have to be really thoughtful of their time. So it could be something where you reach out and say, hey, hi boss. Like I would love to just pick your brain for 15 minutes about how you've got, you know, where you are today. We can do anytime. That works best for you. I put a hold on the calendar first three weeks from now. It can be flexible. But I just would love the opportunity to chat with you. Like, let me know if that works.

So amazing because then from there, what's.

The worst case scenario? I'll say, hey, Margo, sorry, like, don't have bandwidth right now. Your response is, no worries. Thanks so much. Is there someone that you think I should talk to and like allow them to bring someone else in and just like, it's never personal. So try and take that emotional piece out of it, but give yourself the courage credit to try.

You just said so many things that I want to double click on and it's so good. The first thing that you mentioned was shadowing someone. And that was also one of your superpowers as a young professional. And I'm curious if you still do it now at all. But There was a YouTube video that we posted that a lot of people I think have come to home from college from that video and just started following your journey, which is great. And it's really just like it was a day of me shadowing Julia around. But during that day, Julia went and had a couple meetings. And I remember you telling me that there would be people in different industries that you would shadow. And I really don't hear anyone talking about this. And I'm so curious what that means to you to shadow someone and how someone might be able to go about asking somebody that they admire to kind of follow them around for a day.

I think there's in the construct of having a job and working at a company, I think it could be a question of saying, hey, I'd love to sit down on a meeting with a different team that's not related to me. And then from that, identify who's in that meeting and what projects are they working on that are interesting to you and then ask to join another meeting and then from there. I think there's a balance between providing value and taking up up space. And if you're providing value where that person says, hey, like, I love that that person's raising their hand actually, like, we may have an opening on our team or there's a project we need an extra hand for, like you're, you're there, which I think is like an important positioning play. But if you're just like, take, take, take, take, take. Within that dynamic, like asking to be in a new meeting, you need to strike the balance between your boss not feeling like you're. You're just like wanting what's best for you.

What's an example of providing value when you're totally new to a space, Take.

All the notes in the meeting, like have your, your chat GPT on like ready to summarize everything, come up with an action plan, give even some of your own recommendations on the bottom and say like coming from an outside opinion, but think this would be interesting or articles that are relevant to this and then share that out. And I think anything that could be like a snippet of value add would be really productive in the contract on the, in the context of what they're doing.

I also, I love this idea of having an understanding of what's going on in a certain ecosystem or space so that you can bring value to a conversation. I'm curious how you stay on top of. You're interacting with so many different brands every day and you're working in the college space, but also the corporate space and entrepreneurial and founder. So how do you spend stay on top of all of these conversations and feel like you kind of know what's going on in the world and in these different spaces and can walk into meetings feeling confident as it relates to.

Gathering information and knowing what's going on in the world? We have a number of Slack chats internally on our team. Like, we have market news and relevant brands and all these sub channels that we've made an effort to assign team members a responsibility too. And that actually came when I was thinking about when we started this from my internship at Spotify, and I was like the youngest person on the team. My manager said to me, you don't deserve to be here. Pretty much like you were the only applicant that, like, we didn't hate. And I was like, sick. Wow. But that put a real chip on my shoulder and they assigned for me to do a weekly newsletter about all the things going on in the world. And it was distributed to the whole company.

Wow.

And that was a huge responsibility, but it made me have an understanding of, like, keeping a pulse. So if you're part of an organization or a company or a team where you can raise your hand and say, hey, I would like to send something out on a weekly basis or develop a Slack chat that I can share relevant news, like, I'd like to be responsible for that. It's a good role to play as, like, someone early in your career.

I think a lot of anxieties for people in their careers is not really knowing if they're in the right place or if they should be doing a lot more or if they would be better matched in a different part of the business or in a different industry entirely. So I'm curious, just from conversations that you have had with different mentors, I know this is like a little bit out of your wheelhouse for your day to day, but what's the best way to figure out if you are kind of like aligned with your career and what you want to be doing, or if you really should be putting in the effort to be changing things up? If you should always be kind of doing that in the background, but just going. I think a type of career personally that I really admire and I hope to have by the time I'm 70 or 80, 90, looking back at my career is like, wow, I could have never predicted how I got here. And a large part of that is in taking risks and jumping around and knowing when to shift and challenge myself and get out of my comfort zone. So how would you recommend that people start to do that proactively in their own lives, whether they're aware that they want to change or not quite yet.

I think it first starts with the journal. In reality, like, it's about being introspective and saying, like, am I. Is my. You know, am I being. Is my cup being filled by the things that I'm doing today? And if that's not happening, that's totally fine. And think about how many people feel that way, but then take inventory of what are the things that make me really excited. And a question I've been asking a lot in interviews is, like, if you could paint kind of your dream job and a time where you felt most successful in something you've done, like, tell me what you've been doing. And every time I ask people this, whether they're entry level or senior, the response has been, wow, I love that question. I actually haven't thought of that. Because you're giving yourself the permission to see your ideal state. And when you remove all the constraints of, like, hey, that's not actually part of my job, or I don't know how I'd ever be able to do that. You get to be able to see what is possible. And through that, a lot of people have said, hey, you know, I actually work in, you know, copywriting, but I would really love to do graphic design and have an amazing vision. Like, I think it starts with within and understanding what is exciting you and what's not. And the journal is a great place to discover that so you can try those pieces without it having to be this big hole. I need to pivot my career. I'm not doing what. What aligns with my life. It's like, it's about the little steps and knowing what's within you first.

I love that. I completely agree with that. And I always. I think of journaling as kind of my brain outside of my body, because my thoughts are so tangled and fast and contradictory when they're in my head and when I actually take a minute to write them out. And I actually journal, just kind of basically creating my own prompts and responding to them. If you go into my blank journal, you would see, like, questions at the top of the page or different diagrams, which is really obviously the impetus of.

No particular order, which is why you're exactly doing what you're meant to do. Like, it is such a beautiful thing that you've created that outlet for yourself and know that's what you need and now are giving that to so many others. Because, personally, journaling is so intimidating for me. Like, I was never able to really write in a journal. I would, like, not have direction in a. In a great way. And I think the way that these journals are developed gives everyone the tools, so it's beautiful. Thank you for bringing us into your brain, outside of your brain.

Oh, that's so nice. I know. Isn't that weird? Now I'm like, like, spilling it for everyone. But I love that, and I would love to go through part two just to bring it back to kind of this, like, bigger world that people have and ask you some of the questions as if they're interview questions, I guess. I've already done my interview prep with this. Ooh. I'm gonna kind of adjust this one. Shift it to this conversation. A flow state is that feeling of being completely immersed in what you're doing. When time flies, distractions fade, and you're in the zone, what helps you get there?

Such a good one. I think I have two flow states. One is I am a very productive meeting person. I think it's because of the people piece. And I love Wait.

I am too.

Really?

I'm, like, at my best in meetings.

Me too. And I hate that it has the stigma of, like, meetings are when you're not working. Like, I don't feel that way. I had 13 meetings yesterday, which is, like, a little ridiculous. I count my calendar. That's, like, not great. But I had the best, most productive day because I felt like I was really able to move things forward. So that's interesting that you feel that way.

Also, I love meetings. I feel like I'm at the top of my game. I think I perform the best in meetings and can share what I'm doing and, like, invite people into my world and my future and what I'm building. What makes a successful meeting for you?

This has been something I've really honed over the last couple of years. There is a meeting framework that I think every meeting should run by, whether it's in person or real life. You gotta get on the call two to three minutes of warm niceties, complimenting, talking about something that's neutral and not threatening to anyone. But if the person on the other side does not want that, you need to quickly a board, like, read the energy. Then you need to come in. And if the meeting was set by you, you gotta say the agenda at the top. It's like, I think my goal for this conversation is to cover XYZ topics. I'd love to walk away understanding xyz. And then, of course, I'd love to hear Anything that you have to say as well. And then everyone loves order. Like they need to know what's the point of this? And by doing that, you're giving everyone a little bit more confidence to have the direction so that when you're watching the time tick, you're seeing is this going where I need it to go? And that's a great rulebook kind of like to follow and then end being aware that there's two minutes left and summarize what's next and then build the plan for what's next and say like, okay, so we'll get on a call next week. How does Thursday at 2pm work for you and like move it forward while you're in it. And that's been a really big game changer in productivity.

So. Interesting. Yeah, I started having these conversations with my dear friend Brigitte who works in sales and she actually manages people in sales and she's brilliant. And a lot of what you just said are tips that she has. Like have a date that you're meeting next and clue people into what's happening. And actually if you guys are working title fans, subscribe because I want to have her on the podcast at some point. But so much of it is about that structure and letting people in. And I love that you just brought that up because so much of it is, I mean, everything is sales when.

It comes down to it. I actually had an in person coffee chat this morning and I didn't have my phone directly on me, so I didn't know how much time had passed, but I had a feeling that it was long. And I think it's a really big benefit to have the time on your screen in a meeting or be very aware of, of like what's next. How am I pacing in this conversation? Because it helps everyone with the flow.

So interesting. Okay, I want to know what your second flow state is.

My second flow state is I love to work on Sundays. Maybe that's like not a work life boundary thing that Gen Z will love too much that I'm saying that. But because I'm someone who has 9 million 375 meetings during the week, I have to just, just sit there and like answer emails, build my plan for the week. I'm obsessed with notion, so I use like frameworks and processes that I build and I actually cannot do that during the week. Like I can really context switch between meetings and topics and things, but if you asked me to do like a presentation in the middle of four meetings or something like that, that's like Real brain work. I can't do it. So my flow state has to be a couple of hours dedicated with like four or five things that I know I need to get through that. I give myself a dedicated window with music playing and no one talking to me. But it is like night and day from the other Persona and they don't go together.

It's interesting because it sounds like your week, your. Your Monday through Friday is dedicated to other people and making sure that you have. You're in constant communication with other people, managing your team, your partners, and your Sundays are just for you to get what you need to get done. I hope for your sake that you get to move that to like a Friday soon. I know you're growing your team to hopefully be able to do that totally.

But I agree and I think it's a lot of like, bigger vision things we've done a lot to reorient our team structure of like how to actually have meetings most productively, how to use Async tools to help us be more productive. But I love that it actually no one has permission to reach out to me on a Sunday, you know, no one is coming in and slacking me and saying something's wrong or something's going on. So even if it was always a Sunday, I'd be happy for that because, you know, it's tough to manage a week.

I'm curious as. As you've built home from college and your team has been growing and growing, you just moved into this spectacular business office space in Santa Monica. So if anyone's in LA and in Santa Monica, you'll see the massive home from college sign, which is like the biggest.

It's crazy.

It's just unbelievable. I cannot get over it. Just knowing where the company started in Covid, not even being sure really what the company was going to turn into. And now in la, having this massive sign on Main street in Santa Monica is crazy. But I'm curious, guess as you've built the business, what tools have been really helpful for you to manage yourself and also manage other people? You mentioned notion. I'm curious how you use notion and if there's other ways that you kind of have been able to scale a business as somebody who really is more on like the marketing and growth side rather than like the operation side, which is what you're.

I was gonna say I cannot speak to the OPS infrastructure structure. There's a lot of that though. I mean, we have a whole team of engineers and an OPS team. I kind of sit in the middle more on marketing and sales and strategy. And my co founder basically, like, keeps the lights on.

Wow.

Yeah.

So the tools.

The tools. So Notion I use is almost like our. Our hub for the company. So there's a marketing org, there's a sales org, there's a product team. And within that, we have. Have and make sure that everyone has visibility to the.

And just to really quickly interrupt if people aren't familiar with Notion.

Yes. Notion is almost like a creative Google Docs. It's powered by AI and it has a lot of, like, templates and frameworks. As someone who's more of a creative thinker, I think it's a really good blend between someone who would maybe just do well in like a Canva or like a Miro kind of whiteboard mixed with Google Docs. There's like a lot of frameworks you can build. They make it really easy for you to share external documents and more of like a. Almost like a website feeling. This is not sponsored by Notion, but Notion does use Home from college. So shout out to Notion. So I love that from like giving everyone a center and a source of truth to know where the. Where to go. Like, we have all of our core docs in Notion.

Okay, fun.

What are yours?

What are my tools?

I really.

We do use this Notion for the marketing side of Home. From Call. Sorry, not home. No Particular order.

Yeah.

And I want to build that out a bit more for all of my other things that I'm working on, but because my life is kind of split into Margot Lee world and no Particular Order world. Those exist in different places. Yeah, I guess. Notion. Love Pinterest. Oh, I actually do have to shout out Rella, which was created by an influencer, Natalie, who actually used to work at. She did an internship, right?

Yeah. No, I don't think she worked with us, but we were like. That was in that era.

Okay. Natalie Barboo. We somehow worked with her when I was interning for one of Julia's earlier companies called Wave, and she now has a SaaS platform to help you plan out your content and schedule it. We don't use it to schedule, but we just do like all of the feed and captions and everything. And it's such a great platform. So. Shout out Rilla.

Go, Natalie.

Yeah, I want to jump into part three of this journal and which is. This is really the career readiness section. So we've talked a lot about career readiness and once you're in your career. So I want to just kind of like dive deeper into this and hear your tips about interviews and getting the job and everything. We wanted to include this part three because something that we have always talked about on any products that we're working on, whether it's your stuff, my stuff, brands that we admire, is that advice needs to feel tangible and it needs to feel like you can walk away from listening to this podcast, hopefully with knowing exactly what you have to do to kind of like get to know yourself better, level up, understand your career better. And that's what this part is for. We want you to walk away from finishing this journal with having a way better grasp on what's interesting to you and the next steps that you need to take to like pursue that. There is a question about shadowing in here, so I love that. We've already talked about that. We're actually gonna do the Would you rather that's on here because it's so fun and it'll be kind of rapid fire. Great. Okay. Would you.

Very excited.

I love the. Would you rather we put this in here? Because in off the Grid, which is our travel journal, we have a Would you rather travel edition. And it's so fun and I've actually met so many friends by doing that. Like we've had servers sit down at our tables in the south of France and do this with us. And it's such a great way to meet people and get to know people's vibe quickly. Julia Haber, would you rather stay in one industry your whole life or jump around to different careers?

Do you want to answer that for me?

1 oh no, I actually don't know.

That's so interesting. Jump around.

Jump around. Even though you've been in like the college space. Yes.

I'm so excited for so many other things.

Wow. Can't wait to talk about that over dinner tonight. Get a drink for that.

Yep.

Work in a more analytical or creative position. Creative.

I actually can't do analytics work.

Remote hybrid or in person to the.

End of the earth. In person. Like, I feel so strongly about that. We have a very much an in person culture at home from college. We've financially invested in that and emotionally as well. And I think it is such a game changer.

What do you say to gen zers that are only looking at jobs that are remote or maybe hybrid?

I think people who are looking for jobs fully hybrid or remote will not advance in their career as fast as people who sit in the office. I feel that way because there's nothing like collaboration in person. There's nothing like walking over to someone's desk and saying, hey, I don't really understand that. Or overhearing a different conversation that does not at all apply to your life. And I think you will not get the visibility to leadership in a way that. That you would remote. So I hope your job for you in that case is just very much one part of your life and that you have other things going on that can help you grow.

Wow, Clip that.

Sorry.

This also reminds me of something I wanted to say earlier, just really quickly, about finding time on people's calendars that like mentors or bosses, is they really will get to know your personality. If nothing else, that by the time that you do walk in for the promotion, they will know you as a person and not just as like KPIs that you're turning in totally. And that happens in person. It does not happen over zoom. No. Okay. Love that. Work within your school major or try something new. I know you want to say try something new, but your school major.

Yeah, I kind of made up my major. I was an advertising major with an emphasis in entrepreneurship, which I was like, able to hack. I think you should always be trying something new. But if in the beginning you feel like that will give you the confidence to be able to break into a specific job, go for that. Because getting in the door doesn't mean that that's your end result. It's just the place to begin. And it's much easier to switch when you're internally in a company after you have that first job.

How important do you think where you went to school, what your GPA is, what you majored in, how important is that to companies that are hiring that.

You see what's most important to companies? I see is the story you're telling about yourself as a potential employee. So if school is a really big part of your story and you want that to be part of your value prop, lean into it. If it's not, don't even add your school. If your GPA is the way you want to be measured, keep it. If you don't want it, remove it. If you think that you actually show yourself better through a video that's explaining who you are rather than your resume, accompany that. So I think it's about adapting it to a way that will best represent you.

Elle woods knew that.

Yeah, she did. And sprayed her resume with perfume too.

That's right. Work at a startup or established corporation.

So funny. I've never worked at a corporate company, so I have no idea. But we work with a lot of corporate companies now and I am very much learning what is it means to work in corporate America? And I think I couldn't do it. Absolutely not. I have a lot of respect for people who do and there's a world where it's very successful for them. But as a rule breaker, I think I would probably get fired.

Be your own boss or work for your dream company?

Both. I think everyone should have the opportunity to be their own boss in some regard of their life. It doesn't need to be started a company, but it can be something where you're controlling your own destiny. But you should surround yourself by people that really fire you up. And starting your own thing is very much glamorized. It's very lonely and it's very exhausting and it takes a lot of resilience. So if you don't feel like you're there yet, don't be mad about that. But you can find creative outlets to be your own boss.

And you've done a great job also of starting your own thing at a bigger company or establishment. Totally.

Intrapreneurship.

Intrapreneurship. Love that. Okay, take a job with a higher salary in a city you dislike or a lower salary in your dream location.

Lower sal. Take a job with a lower salary in your dream location like a hundred thousand percent. This is so interesting because we have an in person culture and that is a big thing that we hire for. If we're interviewing someone and we say would you move to la? And they're like, like I would debate it. We're like don't. Like don't. We don't want you to not be excited about your life outside of the office because that impacts inside the office. So don't punish yourself for that. It's not all about money.

Okay, Julia, there's so much more we could continue to talk about but we have to shoot a lot of content for this journal this week in la. So we are going to get to that. If you guys want to find these journals you can go to your college campus bookstore. We'll have a book finder in the Show Notes or just go to no particularorder Co and order them there. And check out homefromcollege.com for career opportunities to update your resume to connect with really cool brands and be a part of brand communities. And you can find us at Julia Haber and Margo Lee. I hope these journals are super helpful and brings this whole conversation to life for people.

I love it and I just want to give you a shout out to this because no one works harder than Margot to support her community through journals like this. You brought this to life with record speed, with the level of care and effort and love that you bring into every project you do. Going to the warehouse, feeling the materials, thinking through every prompt. It's not just a mass market journal that someone ideated in a room that doesn't isn't connected to their community. So I so commend you for all the hard work.

Thank you. I'm so proud of these and I'm, I'm really excited for them to get into people's hands.

Me too. Yay.

Okay, let's shoot this content girl.

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