In this Business Blast Podcast episode, host Tyler Wagner interviews Judy Moad, a chemical engineer and innovation advisor. Judy shares her career journey, emphasizing her early pivot into chemical engineering at a time when few women entered the field and her ongoing advocacy for women in technical roles. She stresses that problem solving is the fundamental value any company can offer, regardless of industry, and promotes a personal mantra that "life isn’t about finding yourself, it’s about creating yourself," highlighting adaptability as a key skill. Judy advises younger professionals to leave each role in a better state than they found it and to continuously learn from every experience. She discusses happiness as an internal state controlled by one’s response to circumstances. The conversation also covers her favorite book, Andy Grove’s Only the Paranoid Survive, and the lesson of maintaining constant vigilance against disruption. Finally, she shares her favorite quote (the same personal mantra) and directs listeners to connect with her on LinkedIn.
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Welcome to the Business Blast Podcast. I'm your host, Tyler Wagner. This episode is brought to you by Authors Unite. Authors Unite makes the process of becoming a published bestselling author as simple as sipping your morning cup of coffee. You can learn more about Authors Unite at authorsunite.com. Now let's jump into the episode. All right everyone, welcome back to another episode of the Business Blast podcast. I'm your host Tyler Wagner. Today I have Judy Mode with us. She is a chemical engineer who has dedicated her career to helping senior executives and their organizations fix critical business problems through the acceleration plus application plus adoption of innovation. So welcome to the show.
Thank you so much, Tyler. I appreciate the opportunity to be here.
Of course. And we're grateful to have you here, Judy. And we'll dive into the first one. The first question I have for you is, what is the best story from your life that has an underlying valuable message?
You know, I was blessed with having the opportunity to go down a technical field at a point where it was— there were very few women that were entering engineering, let alone chemical engineering. And so I think that a true pivot point in my career for the 30-plus years was really in those early days of kind of paving the way for women in technical fields, which I'm a huge advocate and continue to be. And so I think the chemical engineering degree was really the pivot point for me that really pretty much established a lot of, of, of where, where, where my life took me professionally and personally. So I'm very proud of that. And, and now I'm here to support other women who, who want to go down a similar path.
And what is the most valuable piece of information we should know that's within your expertise or industry?
You know, I think that it's kind of interesting to see the impact, but if I could tell anybody anything, is to be a problem solver, right? And so the value of you, the value of your company to the world in general, it is really about problem solving. And so if you can always think of it in that way, regardless of what you do personally or what you do professionally, folks will value that and they appreciate it because of the impact that you can have. So regardless of the industry, regardless of the technology, if you kind of approach life as a problem solver, it'll never, you know, you'll never go wrong.
And it could tie in, but what's your best piece of overall business advice, so not necessarily industry-specific.
You know, I, um, I think it's also my personal mantra, um, that, uh, is also my favorite quote, which is, uh, life isn't about finding yourself, it's about creating yourself. And, um, I can say it now because, you know, I've been out here for, for a while, that, you know, me as a graduate, if you would have said to me here's where I would be 30 years from now, or here's what I would have been 15 years, right? I never would have expected it. It wasn't about, hey, let me find out. It's really about creating it. So what I'm most excited about for folks looking ahead is the world that we're living in. If you embrace the fact that you can kind of create your destiny. Now, granted, life happens, right? Professionally, personally, but you actually are the architect of your future and the ability to adapt to the changes that happen along the way, which are inevitable, are really a good skill set. So problem solving and adaptability. But for me, it's always been about how do I, right? It's not about finding myself. It's really about creating myself. And that part, I've done as best a job as I could over the span of my career. But hopefully that helps.
And if you could give your younger self one piece of advice, what would that be?
I'm sorry, what?
If you could give your younger self one piece of advice, what would that be?
You know, I think that especially in today's world moving forward, always find what you can learn from each experience. So one of the things that I always did, regardless of the company that I worked for, regardless of the industry that I was in, is two things. I wanted to leave the job that I had in a better position than where it started, right? So I always had, I wanted to have a positive impact and I always wanted to learn from that experience. And as long as I did those two things, then it didn't really matter. Right. And I found that as long as I could look back on every, you know, every job as an employee or when I started my first business or so forth, I wanted to do that, do better than where, what I had when it started. And then and actually learn from the experience, which I think is one of the reasons I've had a pretty broad, you know, a pretty broad exposure to a lot of different industries, a lot of different technologies and so forth. That's what I would recommend.
And it kind of goes a little bit down a different path, but in your opinion, what's the key to happiness?
Well, I think the key to happiness is, one, that it's within your domain, right? So happiness is not something that's outside of you. Happiness is within you. And so it's a matter of how you adapt to situations. Do you allow anger to take control? So if you're always looking for external effect on happiness, then you'll be looking forever, right? And I know people like that, and it's hard because they're never happy. Whereas if you really focus on you and internally, regardless of what's happening outside, then happiness is really within your control. That's kind of my mantra.
And what is the best book that you've read and what was the number one thing you learned from that?
It's kind of an interesting question. I'm an avid reader, so that's a hard question to answer, but I will say a pivotal book for me was written by Andy Grove. You may remember Andy Grove. He was the CEO of Intel. And in fact, we— he has a similar background. My parents also emigrated from Hungary, just like he and his brother did. And of course he came to the United States and went on to become the CEO of Intel. But he wrote a book called "Only the Paranoid Survive." And it was a very popular book of its time. But a lot of the teachings in that book, I still carry with me today. And it really has to do with not ever becoming comfortable that you've cracked the code, that you've won the game, right? The assumption is that there's always gonna be somebody behind you that can disrupt the status quo. And so there's a whole bunch of companies out there, as you know, that, you know, people like, oh, I don't know, Blockbuster, right? So Blockbuster had its heyday and all of a sudden there's this thing called Netflix that disrupted the way that we consume video. And all of a sudden the company's gone, right? So regardless of your success, regardless of how much money you made, always have a sense of paranoia that there's somebody that's gonna come behind you that's better than you, faster than you, cheaper than you. And that actually, I took that to heart very early, and that was absolutely a pivotal book for me.
And what is your favorite quote and why?
Well, I shared that with you, right? Which is, life isn't about finding yourself, it's about creating yourself. Yeah, that is my quote. And I've got— I actually have a kind of a whole library of quotes, and I'm a big believer in inspirationalism. And every year I share the quote of the year on my holiday cards. It's become kind of my thing. And I think there's so many learnings from people who have passed on versus people who are still with us that, that have a connection to us intellectually and emotionally. So, so yeah, I, but that one for me has been with me for a long time.
Thank you so much for coming on. The last question I have for you before we let you go is where is the best place for people to find you online?
Yeah, I, uh, I love LinkedIn. Uh, so, uh, Judy Moad, M-O-A-D, you can find me, uh, on LinkedIn. And, uh, I love meeting new people, learning new things. I'm a huge fan of, of innovation and the application of innovation to solve business problems. And so, uh, that's probably the, the, the fastest and, and the best way to reach me.
Perfect. Thanks again for jumping on.
All right, Tyler, thank you so much. The podcast you just heard was made using Anchor. Ever thought about making your own podcast? Anchor makes it really easy for anyone to get started. It's a one-stop shop for recording, hosting, and distributing podcasts. Best of all, it's 100% free. Sign up now at anchor.fm/new. That's anchor.fm/new to get started.
