The Graduate Theory Review with James Fricker

hello, and welcome to graduate theory. Today's episode is a special episode. No guests on the show today. It's me and you. It's been nearly six months of weekly content. We've interviewed, thought leaders, CEOs. And various other occupations from various different industries. There's now quite a collection of people and interviews that we've, that we've created here as part of the show. So I thought today, what better way to kind of mark the 25th episode of graduate theory than to kind of do a bit of a. Right. I want to go back and I wanted to investigate, what have we have we done over the last few episodes and kind of what people have we spoken to what lessons have we really gained from a lot of these people that we've had on the show. So. Often, people have mentioned different concepts in different episodes. And I thought, can we collate a lot of these things, put them together and deliver them in one nice package for you, the listener. And that is what I aim to do in this episode. So in this episode, what we're going to do is we're going to go through. Five of the key lessons that I've learned so far from graduate theory, and I've summarized them as best I can. I've got insights from different guests that we've had in the show, different stories that they have been told along the way and different insights from my personal life and things that I I'm interested in as well to kind of add some flavor and add some unique, a unique take on some of these to. Before we get started today. I just want to thank my pod crew. Some of my friends that have been riding this wave along with me over the last six months Joe wadey with the withdrawal wavy podcast. Luke Smith, and Don Bullock and their podcasts with the chiefs and Liam Hounsell as well being massive support myself over the last couple of months and could not have got this far without you guys. So just wanted to mention you all the staff and that without, without further ado, let's dive into this area. So the five keys, the five lessons that I want to talk about today, we've got the first one productivity versus reactive. Alright, proactivity versus reactivity. Time management is the second one. How can we manage our time, better networking as well? What is the, what is your general practice around network and how can we be effective network is trusting your gut, right? What is the importance of doing that? How can we do that? Better, what are the pros and cons, I guess, of doing that as well. And finally, the fifth personal branding. Okay. How can you brand yourself? How can you gain opportunities? What are the, what are the kind of the steps? What does it take to brand yourself? Right. So these are the five things, and there's been a lot of discussion on these five things across the episodes. And so today what we're going to do is get into a bit of a summary and I think this is going to be quite powerful for those of you listening. It's going to be quite interesting. Certainly it was very interesting for myself. When I was going through the content, trying to prepare a little, this, I think there are some really powerful lessons in here and really powerful anecdotes from guests as well. So we're going to try and explain these as best as we can, like I said, using some of, some of the information that guests have provided to drive the points. And, and often woods as well, something I'm really big on is kind of what are the actions that we're going to take from this what actions can I take and what things can actually do. It's nice to have these concepts. It's nice to have, all the cool ideas, but you know, what is the action that we're going to take after this? That's something that Aaron gone says is. Let's take some action on things and often everyone knows what to do, but no one actually does it. So to that, I'm going to try and dissect these concepts and distill them down into things that you can actually do today and things that will make a measurable difference on your life. So I'm excited to share this is there's been obviously a lot of time invested in in this podcast so far and. Really marks an important period, an important point in the podcast where I'm, I'm trying to summarize it kind of a lot of what's being said. And really if you're going to listen to any part of the show any episode of the show, this is the one to listen to for sure. So let's do it. Before we start as well, each of these points is going to be timestamped. Mm. The description of wherever you're watching. So you can go in there and if you don't want to listen to a certain potty, you can, that timestamp will be that. So you can skip around, come back to it. If you'd like, whenever you please. Also before we get started. I just want to say, if you do enjoy this at any stage, it would make my day. If you could either leave us a review. If you're on Spotify that has reviews. Now apple has reviews. Either of those would be great. And if you're on YouTube, leave us a like subscribe to the channel. And one of the best things that you can do, folks is subscribe to the graduate theory newsletter. So it comes out every single week. The episode comes out, the newsletter comes out with it. It's got my takeaways from the episode I go through and coach take away some of the really important things that I learned from the episode. And you get that straight to your inbox. It's almost saving you having to listen to the episodes. It, it is quite good. And I do like the newsletter a lot. So if you're not already on there, I'd highly recommend doing that co. Now this is enough Java, Java, James. It's tough. To get started. So proactivity versus reactivity, this is the first point number one, proactivity versus reactivity. So being proactive rather than reactive is probably one of the most important traits that I picked up during the episode interviews, proactive guests and proactive people achieve much more than those who are already. Well, those who wait for situations to occur, to act versus those that act before they need to this is a really critical distinction. People are, people say you're either growing or you're dying, and this is kind of what we're talking about here. Proactivity versus reactivity. If you're not proactive, then perhaps, you're not living your life to the fullest that perhaps. So as a framework that we're going to go through these, what kind of gun to kind of go through a definition of what, what it is, example of the, of the trait and then some actions to take, like I explained earlier, so if we're going to define productivity and reactivity, so we've got some definitions for. The encyclopedia here for you or encyclopedia? I don't think it's that it must be something else. What is it? Dictionary. That's what it is. Okay. Dictionary. So to be proactive is to act in advance, to deal with an expected change or difficulty. And in contrast to be reactive is to tend to be responsive or to react to a stimulus. Right. So proactive we're acting before the expected change or difficulty, right. We're reacting as a response to this expected change or difficulty. So this, this applies in our careers. We can anticipate what is going on in the world around us. We can seek out solutions to problems or we can wait until the problem has arrived and deal with it. So this is one of the key concepts, like I said, probably the most important thing that I've picked up from guests on the episode, they're constantly looking for new opportunities, new career paths, new adventures, and new things for them. But for them to try their hand at new things that they could potentially be doing, if they're not happy in a job that they won't wait for permission before looking at alternatives they don't stagnate that they continue to progress. And this almost becomes a mindset that these people have. They have a genuine belief that they can go. And get what they want. Cause if you didn't believe that you wouldn't even try to go out and get the things that you wanted, it's almost like that growth mindset idea where they believe they can improve. So they're constantly looking for ways in which to test themselves. So let's move on to the examples for. What examples do we have from the episodes? And the first of these is from Dan Brockwell. So Dan is one of the one of the most exciting guests that I had on the shows he's very relevant to the audience. He's is just a fantastic plug and Dan's advice. Was PayPal in the process of applying for startups and even companies more broadly. Right. So when we think about applying to companies, you typically have the job board that you can get a job through, and then there's also refer. It was all like ad hoc introduction. So like you're a friend of a friend. You get into the company that way that's kind of, that is a big part of it. Right. And I think like 80% of jobs are filled through like ad hoc introductions. It's, it's really important to look at, but when I spoke to him, he said the following I'm going to kind of paraphrase what he said, but I've got it. I've got the quote here and I'm just going to kind of read it and, and, and, and summarize it as best I can. So he was when he was in high school, he was conceptually conceptualizing. With friends called friends with deficits, and they were trying to track debts between friends in different currencies. And they did some competitive research and found this company called tilt. And, he kind of saw the bed solved this problem, but they had an ambassador group at uni at the university of new south Wales. Yeah, this is Dan he's now proactive. He's he's seeing this problem, but instead he's boom, like what's, what's the, what is a way that I can turn this into a win? He emails the country manager in Australia and he kind of said, Hey, I'd love to enjoy I'd love to join the ambassador group. And he said, the guy he emailed said shores, the country Madigan country manager said. Yeah, sure. And he joined the ambassador group, Dan. It was a part of the ambassador group and converted that into an internship where he was leading the ambassador program with a couple hundred students across Australia. And it's just fascinating. Many people would first off, most people aren't having ideas like that. But secondly, people who have those kinds of ideas, they're pursuing these things often, they don't have. You say the competitor and that's kind of it. Okay. We're done like time to stop but not dang, he's seeing this, he's turning it into a win. How can we, what can I gain out of this? And he's being proactive in the face of a challenge. I thought that was really, really interesting. The second example comes from work Donaldson. So work also works in, works in startups, but he used to work in the call center at ends at and he didn't enjoy working out. It wasn't really his life's goal to work at the call center, but what he did when he was. He would sit down and look at the gout, which is known as the global address list and kind of, it contains emails of like lots of people, lots of people. It contains the emails of everyone at ions ed. Yeah, you can just, you can just aim out pretty much anyone. So what he would do, he was there for, I think, eight or nine months. He would, he would email people and he would say, Hey, I'm interested in what you do. Do you have time to go out and get coffee? And he worked his way through different, like credit risk market, risk traders, et cetera. And, people were really receptive to what he was. Yeah. I've found that as well. When I reach out to people, they're receptive of what I'm doing, which is you don't think that when you, when you're, when you're not reaching out to people, but, he found that people were really, really receptive. He worked his way through ANZ ed and eventually found his way to the Asians at treasury. And they said, Hey, we're hiring for a role actually. And then boom, he got a job there through just kind of emailing people and putting himself out there. And I think that is something. Well, he's, he's got this challenge that he's facing where he's not doing what he wants to be doing for the long term. And he's proactive, he goes out and gets what he wants. And so I think that was really great. And these are two examples of people that, in the face of a challenge, they didn't take a step back and, and kind of go into their shell. They expanded and, and were able to take on the challenge and, and approach things in a really cool way and get really cool results. Cool. So the next step of this, and the way that we're going to finish with these is we have actions, right? So what can you actually do now as a result of hearing this? Right. So proactive versus reactive. Yeah. I understand that James, that's, that's all well and good, but kind of what can I do now as a result of this? And the first thing that I would say is understand what an asymmetric risk is. Okay. This is important. And it's something that I think is it's a really cool. So we will take risks in life. Okay. We understand some things are risky. So the easy example to give here is like, you're putting money in the stock market, right? There's some risk because you might lose money, but obviously there's some gain. Cause like the stock might go up and you might make money. Right. So there is some, there is some possible way in and a possible loss there, but what was, and so this would be like the stock market is. Let's say if we had an equal chance of going up in an equal chance of going down, which it doesn't necessarily, but if you took that as an example, that would be a symmetric risk, right? Because the risk of it going down and the risk of it going up is the same. And so the, the likelihood you lose or gain is the same. So that's symmetric risk. And then there's what we call an asymmetric. Right. Which is where the odds are stacked one way or the other. So you could have an asymmetric risk that there is not much upside, but there's lots of downside. And then you could also have an asymmetric risk where there's not much downside, but lots of upside. And the thing with networking and the, what these guys have done is these are examples of an asymmetric. And it's the best kind of extra metric risk because there is no downside, it's only upside. So if you think about asking someone for a favor or like work was doing emailing people and saying, Hey, I'm interested in what you do. And he's, he's got a job out of it, right? These are asymmetric risks because even if they said no work is still where he is, hasn't lost anything. So there's no downside to what he's doing. The worst they could do is say no, the best they could do is say yes, there are only upsides. And if you even wanted to call it a risk, which necessarily it probably isn't, it just feels risky to ask someone. But in fact, there is actually no risk to doing some of these things. And I think. Understanding this and understanding the power of reaching out and this idea of, what's the worst that could happen. It's easy to say, but it's hard to do, but if you could actually get in the habit of doing things like that, I think it's really, really powerful. The second thing, understanding what you want. Okay. Understanding what you want, Dan, and work both had quite clear intentions of saying, Hey, this would be cool. That's something that. How can I go out and get it particularly with Warrick? He, he knew that he wanted to work at ANZ ed and in, in some kind of markets financial role, and he's gone out and he's achieved that, right. Dan had clarity in his desire for internships and getting experience, and he was able to go and achieve that. So some questions to ask yourself, and these are quite deep Hobbs. You can. Actually, like I challenge the listener. I'll challenge you to actually actually answer these. Cause I think that they're quite cool, so ask yourself what is, what it is that you actually want. What do you want? And if you could ask for anything and receive it, what would you ask for, if you could ask for anything and get it, what would you ask? And then now that what you would ask for who could you ask today to get closer to that? What could you do today to get closer to getting that? And I think if you can answer these questions and give you a social, something to do today, then you're one step closer to getting the things you want. And any undisturbed to understand that a lot of what is in the way is kind of in your head and not. A real legitimate problem. Although of course those exist, but oftentimes, and I know for myself, a lot of the time it's been a mental game rather than it than I've been something I can actually do. A good thing to ask yourself is like, what would the best version. Doing this situation, or if Elon Musk was transport it into my body, what would you do in this situation? That's a kind of good way to get yourself out of those mental blocks, but anyway, we're off topic, we're off topic. So the next thing, so now we've finished, section one is done proactive, best reactive. That was little, great little segment there. But what we're going to talk about now is time management, time management. And I just want to mention as well, if you do want to read this later, it is available on the graduate theory website. So please. If you're enjoying yourself so far, please go and listen and read this afterwards. Everything is written down. So don't, don't feel any pressure to sort of transcribe this yourself. All this is written down, sorry. Graduate theory.com. Episode 25. All right, I'm going to need some water. I'm talking a lot. Okay this is the second one. Okay. Second part of this episode, time management, probably one of the most important skills leaders must have tonight. We've all got constant pressure on our time, whether it's meeting social activities, things we want to do outside of work, et cetera, knowing how to get things done effectively is extremely. And Adam jihad is w we had him on episode 20. He is really the pinnacle of, of, of kind of time management. He's got fantastic processes around this. He's extremely disciplined with his time, and he's got a lot of things to say about how we can use our time more effectively. And, and he had this decide. He said, if you are not interested in the question of how to extract maximum value from those 16 waking hours, in my view, you are not thinking straight and you're frankly, Not even on the field in terms of high performance, right? So you've heard it, that flux, we need to get on the field. We need to take this issue seriously. This is not just some mumbo-jumbo productivity nonsense, right? This is what is going to separate you. This is what is going to take your career to the next level. If you can manage your time effectively, it is a skill that is going to last the rest of your life. And it is something that, you're going to benefit from every single day. If you can get it down, pat. What actually is Tom James. So time management is the process of planning and exercising conscious control of time spent on specific activities, especially to increase effectiveness, efficiency, and productivity. Right? So that is Wikipedia is definitely. Of productivity, how can we do that? How can we manage our time? How can we exercise conscious control of our time? Right? As Adam said, we have 16 hours every day. And so we want to maximize kind of this 16 hours. We want to get as much out of it as we can be able to squeeze the juice out of it. So some examples of this. So Adam Adam's episode is fantastic. And if you haven't already listened to what it is, is a really good episode, but in this episode, Adam, we're in the episode with Adam, he gave many examples of things. He does to be more effective with his time. And he's very serious with it. He's got a very strong boundaries around his time. And so these are probably more advanced techniques in what the grads need to know that certainly they give you some. Some perspective on kind of the way that a high performer treats their time. So he says, don't default to one hour meetings, keep meetings as short as necessary. He has a predefined wardrobe, so he's wearing the same thing. Every day, you might have five of the same shirts, for example. So he does know he doesn't have to waste time thinking about what he's going to wear. He knows people that reverse the car in at night so they can get out faster in the mornings. It does things like brushes his teeth and Michelle, I gratitude at the same time every day, et cetera. So he's done a lot of these things to create routines in his life so that he can have more, more mental bandwidth to be able to do other things. He spoke about you doing this and using your routines. And he said, if you've got tasks that are routine, if you have routines to deal with them, you should have routines do deal with routine tasks so that they don't use Ram. When he's talking about Ram, he's talking about five-year mental bandwidth, kind of what you can use your brain. So you're going to get problems and tasks that are non-routine, but what you need to actually use brain power. Yeah. So it's important that you use, that you use routines to deal with the routine tasks. So. Another example of someone that is extremely productive and someone that really is great at time management is paid a lot. So penny is extremely busy and, she has her own tricks that she uses to get more done. So, so her first thing was, surround yourself with people that are also busy and have, have side hustles. Like she does. And make sure you set your schedule using some kind of board or tracking system to track what you're doing. Break pieces of work down into small pieces and then plan your week in advance. And so these are all things that certainly you can do today and, and certainly things that. And I will you to get more done there the day. All right. So let's talk about actions. What can you actually do? This is a kind of a special pace of this episode because I I've been, I think honestly, I've been on a massive binge of account Newport recently. And you have, if you don't know who Cal Newport is, he is this productivity guru, digital minimalism, world without email, he's kind of. He's got a lot of advice as well for graduates and people in their early career university students to, he is he's got a lot of interesting content and, he's kind of known as the productivity guru, right. And so I've been binging through his podcast recently. In one of his recent episodes here, someone asked him, if you were gonna distill your productivity into, into kind of some steps, baby steps, what would they be? And so. That he goes seven, but I've kind of narrowed it down to five because I thought the up the last two weren't super relevant. And I'm gonna like paraphrase the five that, that he, that he mentioned. Cause I think this is, this is the game-changer for your productivity. This is what I try and use in, in my, in my career and in my time management and I've found it to be very, very effective. The first one, the first out of these five baby steps that Cal mentioned is a time block plan. Okay. Time block plan, every job needs time. Okay. So using your calendar, you can allocate time for each task that you need to come. And, and if you get knocked off this time, you start a bit tiring time and race reset race at your plan for the rest of the day. So I actually spoke about this in episode 10 of the graduate theory podcast and kind of w it was this idea of often people use to do lists as their way to track what they're doing and, and, and get things done. But you'll find that if you use that at the end of the day, you almost always have things left on the list, right? So you never really complete that today. But instead we can do is you can say, Hey, this task is going to take me 25 minutes and then I'm going to schedule 25 minutes in my calendar to complete this task fine. And then if, if at the end of the day, if I've planned my day, well, and I didn't finish anything, what didn't finish everything then, Hey, I still spent eight hours working. So I wasn't able to achieve that. That's totally fine. And I think this idea of time blocking and converting your task. And estimating how long it's going to take. Putting that time in your actual calendar is, is way more powerful than it than just just taking items off of it to do list. And then it brings a lot more clarity to. Needs to be done at a given time. Certainly the second thing that Cal says is a task board. So you need a place to keep track of what it is you're doing, right? You need a place to keep track of kind of what things are on your plate, where are they out to keep some, some notes perhaps key recommends for each of your professional roles. You use some kind of board like Trello flow assigner, et cetera. Some kind of board system is what he recommends, but again, Not super important. What's, what's most important is that, you know, what's, what's happening and you have a place where that information is kept. So for me personally, I use Trello to keep track of what's on my plate. I have comments on my cards when something gets updated, I have, I have my own system for doing that and it's been very effective, right. Because that means I can just return to the board. I can see what's going on. I can see my comments of what I My updates on certain activities. And I think that's really powerful. Number three is Cal says to have a shutdown ritual. So at the end of each day, once you finished, so it's five o'clock, Workday's done. I've I've after I've allocated time across the day. Now it's time to shut down and kind of make sure that I've left everything in a place where I know it's kind of been taken off. And I can leave my work and knowing that there's no loose ends still hanging. So whether that's, emailing, leaving comments in places, making sure that in my things are wrapped up, that is important, right? Because we want to have a clear separation for when is the end of the day. You don't want to have your work life seep into your personal life. So you want to have a clear end and say, Hey, this is the animal. No more. And so making sure all those loose ends are tied, whether it's you've, you've you've, put emails in a certain place, allocated Tommy accounted for tasks, moved some tasks into a certain step, whether it's moving tasks to dime or whatever it might be number four is having a weekly plan, right? What do I, what is my plan for the week? What things do I want to have achieved by the end of this week? Right. It's important to have that. And that way you can, you can use that when planning, planning your week, blocking out certain times during the week to do a certain thing. So if you say at the end of the week, I will have achieved this big project. And like, I need this much time to do it. Perhaps you block out like three hours in and off. And it helps to do that at the start of the week before your calendar starts getting clogged up with, with a random stuff as, as the week goes on, people can't just book time in there. It's important that you take control of your calendar. And if you want to have time to yourself, book out time in your calendar so that no one else can book time in there. I think that is something. And the fifth part, the last part is having a strategic plan, strategic plan. This is something that I think is really cool and something that you can return to when you write your weekly plan, but let's have a strategic plan for the quarter, right? For the, for the half year or the year, whatever it is, whatever distance you choose. Personally, I use quarterly because it's, it's not so far. It's, it's not so close that it's like too soon, but it's not so far away that I can actually, realistically, I can kind of see the end to a quarter and the ones well, with kind of the workplace calendar. So, you've got a ride in here. What things do you want to have achieved by the end of the quarter? Right? What are your quarterly goals? What are your strategic goals? Put them in this plan and make sure that when you're referring to them, I'll make sure that you do refer to them JIRA. The weekly plan, during, when you're planning your week, when you're writing, when you're fixing things in your calendar, make sure that you refer to this so that you can know, Hey, this is what I'm going to achieve this quarter. This is the time that I've set aside to complete the tasks that here. I think, I think that is so important. All right. Number three is networking, networking, right? So it's networking is a bit of a dirty word, right? But in episode one, I spoke to Joe and he had Joe wavy. He had this to say about networking. He said, networking is a dirty word, but it's one I'm happy to use because every time I think. The way to do it most effectively is just at the end of the day to become a better person. Right. So the way to be an effective network is just become a better person. I mean, that's fantastic advice, right? We don't want to be a snake oil salesman networker, right? Nobody wants that you will get found out. So it's best to be genuine best to become as, as as best a person as we can be so that we can, continue to make connections and grow our careers. So networking is kind of this ability to connect with others, right? Someone that is a good network. It's good with connecting with other people, good at growing their network. But we don't want to do this in a, in a nasty way or your left, the snake oil salesmen, white rot because like you can grow your network maliciously, like it can be done, but you know, we don't want to do that. We want to be January. And some examples of this. So I spoke to Joe Joe Weeby episode one, and he gave a great example out of the book, give and take by Adam Grant. And we will see in this book, Adam looks at different archetypes as networkers and kind of what what's the most effective one. To, be someone in your career, what's the most effective way to network. And it, there, there are three kind of archetypes that Jo Jo spoke to me about there's givers matches and takers. Right. And Joe's example, you gave some examples in the episodes, right? Takers are kind of what's in it. Right. So what is in it for me, that's going to be something for me to be willing, to help and then matches. I like, I like traders, right? There's gotta be an even exchange of value. So it's like you scratch my back. I'll scratch yours. It's gotta be 50 50, like I've got to be getting something and it's gotta be equivalent to what you're getting for us to continue. And that is a very common thing to do. And the third thing is give us someone that just gives with no expectation of receiving. Right. so Joe said, he, he said, he thinks everyone's benefit is linked to everyone else in the big picture. But the fascinating thing I think about is if you expand your thinking and you think long term other, normally other people's advantages become either. Advantages too. So I think that was really powerful. And it's certainly interesting. Know if you think about yourself as a networker, do you expect something in. What are you with Kyla? Yeah. Are you someone that just contributes with no expectation of a return? And someone who does that? Someone who is a give-up is Hanes D'Souza. So Haynes was a massive help for myself early on in the podcast. We had him on the show and it continues to be someone that. Almost mentors may in some sense, someone that is always watching what's going on and giving me some advice. So I really appreciate him and his impact on the podcast. But when we spoke, he, he spoke about people reaching out to him. So he is someone that he works at. Our Wallacks is kind of a well-known guy and people will reach out to him and ask him for stuff. And so, yeah, he gave this advice. He said, you've got to be careful when cold emailing and cold reaching out to people because. This is like one of the things about networking, right? It's like if I want to meet someone perhaps like for the podcast, I do it, emailing, reaching out to someone called, this is common and this is something that, we can only be more off, but there are things that you must abide by when you are. When you were reaching out to someone called Andy and Hanes says, you've gotta be very careful when you do this. And there are kind of two things that you should be careful of. And one thing that he looks for is, is this person legitimate? If they, if he says yes to what they're asking, will they take it seriously? And will that show up on time? And the second thing is, is what they want to get out of it. Why are they reaching out? Do they just want to have a coffee and get referred to a position or do they have some actual genuine. So he said, when you're reaching out to people, please be clear on what it is that you want to get from people's time. You've got to be wary. People are busy, what exactly do you want? Let's get clear on that before we start reaching out to people. Sorry, how can we get better at networking? How can we get better at this? This is a very important skill and one that, it certainly pays to be better. So I think a big part of this, and one of the angles I'm going to take is, how can we get better at reaching out to people that we haven't necessarily met, but people that were. Okay. I think that is important, similar to work. And Dan, right at the start of this episode, we were talking about how they were reaching out to people that they didn't necessarily know, or, they were reaching out with, trying like seeking opportunities. And I think getting good at that is really important and is a fundamental skill, when it comes to networking. So this is something that I do for the podcast. A lot of the guests that I've had on the show, I didn't. Before reaching out to them and asking them to be on the show. Sometimes they're referred, but sometimes, and usually they're just people that I say, Hey, you're interesting. Would you like to come on the show? And there's certain ways to do that. There are effective. And one of the templates that I use to do this is from de Pere rails podcast. He has a podcast invite email, and it's linked. If you want to go and look at this in on the blog post it is there. So what, what he does, when you're reaching out to someone called in a start with a specific praise, what. What is something that I've done recently to that with blog out recently that did well, did something recently happened in their life, start with that shows some interest in them personally. Then, then you can introduce yourself, say what you are and what do you want from them? And then social proof. So say. Something about, I had this person, or I know you through this person or whatever, some kind of proof that just shows, Hey, I'm a reasonable, I'm not just a random stranger. I actually do have something to offer here. And there is some level of proof that, Hey, I actually do know what I'm talking about. And the next part is a plan. Let's have a plan around. Okay. Yes, I'm interested. What is the, what are the next steps? What are the next. And let's, let's talk about this. Why am I reaching out? I want to speak to you about this, or I want to do this with you, or I want to like discuss this or whatever it is. Like, that's gotta be quite clear as well. And then the outcome, what is going to happen as a result? I'm confident that in here, it says confident I can provide this for you, confident that we can have a great discussion, whatever it might be, let's finish with, with an outcome. So this is, this is a template that I use. Well, my podcasts when I'm reaching out, just to have those things that say, Hey, when I'm reaching out to someone, I want to say this, this, this, this first of all, because I want to be actually wanting to be genuinely interested in this person. Otherwise I don't want to reach out to them. And secondly, I think it's important that you treat the person like Hanes said, with respect, right? We want to respect people's time. When I spoke to Dan Brockwell as well. He mentioned some tips when reaching out, probably he used some of them when he was reaching out to these guys at like we mentioned in the first point, but, he said, make sure you include who you are, why you're reaching out, what is in it for you. Kate and use the following techniques ride, provide value. So you could suggest an improvement to the business perhaps, or suggest suggested improvement to the app they building or whatever it might be. And then have a clear ask, what exactly do you want them to do and say it in a way that they can accept, right? So like, would you be open to this? This is what Dan said, would you be open to having me as a marketing? Yeah, no one wants to be closed. So Dan said, so ask them, would they be open to doing this? That is an effective technique. trusting your gut number. Number four, trusting your gut. Okay. What does it actually mean to trust your gut? Well, we spoke to Michael Gill on the podcast and he said you have three ways of knowing three ways of knowing that's your head, your heart and your gut, okay. Your head, your heart and your gut. And you've got to keep them all in balance. Right? You've got to keep them all in balance. The gut, is that feeling inside your stomach that you get, when you're doing something, you shouldn't be, or. It's things aren't going as well as they could be. You've got to listen to your gut and, and some examples from the show, Lydia runny area is one such example. So Lydia is used to work at Goldman Sachs, but it turns out that she actually initially started her career in law. She had her first job out of university. She was working at a law firm and she thought that she was kind of made to work in. And she, she was doing it for three months. And then, she knew she had that feeling of headcount that said, Hey, this is not for me. And she told her friends and family that, she wasn't going to do it anymore. Cause she had that gun. They were all saying, you're silly. Like you've got this fantastic career, have you, what are you doing? But Lydia pushed through followed her God. And then she went on to have a fantastic career at Goldman Sachs. And now she, she's a coach and she's got a fantastic career. So certainly following her gut. And she knew at that time, this is, this is something that is not. Act on it act on it is so important. Also spoke to Andrew Caven. Andrew is the CEO of Maslow, which is a disability and accessibility startup. And he said to follow your gut, follow your gut is so important. The things, this is what he said. So the thing you're thinking about doing don't just kick the, can down the road and keep thinking about it. If there's something you're thinking about, just do it. He said he would have started Maslow a few years earlier if you did this. Right. And he said, you, are they you either going to start it or you're not right. You either will. Or you won't. So if you are going to do it, you may as well start. Now. And, and I thought that was really great advice. And tell me from him, I, he, he, he really stressed how important it was that he trusted his garden. And he wished looking back that he had done that sooner because he had that feeling, but he pushed it away. And he's glad that he went he finally acted on it that he wishes, he wishes it was in your shoes, the person listening to this, he wishes he was you. And he could go back and act on that thing today. So another guest speaker. That God feeling, and that was Mel know, kettle was the previous, the most recent guest on the show. And, she had this role, it was called the three night rule where she was saying, if something is deep inside my gut and is keeping me awake for three nights in a row. It is time to act on that thing. So if it's keeping me up three days in a row, three nights in a row, then it's time to either quit the job. Now leave that partner, do that thing, start that channel, whatever it is, three nights in a row that is the warning sign. Right. Your body's going to tell you when things aren't right, and this is a great rule of thumb that you can use to stop acting on this infant. So, what are the actions from here? I would say pay attention to your gun. Right? And if it is I would honestly just use Mel's rule. I think that was really, really great. Way of looking at it is if something is keeping you up for three nights in a row, folks, it is tight. To make a decision on that thing. It is time to do it time to start at time, to quit it, whatever it is, you've got is super important, as Gilly said, you got those three ways of knowing and it's important that we act on them. Okay. It's important. Very important. Don't be like Andrew, where, you've done. You've had that idea for so long. And, and you haven't acted on it. Do it now, folks do it. Now do it now. All right, we've got the last one here. Number five, personal brand. Personal branding. Right? This is huge. And it's something that now with the invention of modern technology, there is nothing stopping you from having your own personal brand. Okay. So personal branding is all about creating an avenue for people to know you, right? You want to shift from a consumer, someone that just watches, reads whatever, to someone that creates, someone that shares someone that is known amongst the community. And, we've had plenty of guests who have spoken on this topic and the first one is Dan and I keep referring to him a lot of the time. But Dan Rockwell is someone that does this extremely well. And, and the reason why one of the reasons I liked dance so much is that he practices what he preaches, right? He is someone that doesn't just give advice. He is living that advice day in and day out. Dan is, has an incredible personal. Lots of people on LinkedIn, follow him, his posts are extremely engaging. So if you're not already following Dan, I don't know what you're doing, but you should get on LinkedIn, get into early work right now and follow this man. Cause he is. And I, and we spoke to when I spoke to Dan here and he was speaking about the importance of a personal brand, and he was saying that a online, personal brand allows you to get your story out to people in a much more scalable way. Know it allows people to find out who you are. And he said, it's finding out who you are, but there's actually some switches to this, right. It's actually, who knows. Who knows you, that is powerful, who knows you. And then he said, there's an even further modification to this who knows you for what, who knows you for what? Okay. This is so important. Ask yourself that who knows you and. Who knows you for what, having an an online personal brand will get you these extra shots on goal. You have access to more opportunity. You'll be able to get into certain places. You'll be friends with certain people because of putting yourself out there and contributing to kind of the ecosystem of, of information and not. And that, and I think this can open up fantastic opportunities. Dan had offers from Google just through his personal brand, not from any. If someone came and asked him to work at Google and not for any particular reasons. So aside from his personal brand, so powerful stuff, powerful stuff. Eric and Aiden as well, I spoke to them in episode nine and, and we, we spoke about like mental health and careers, but they had some great things to say about personal branding and in their book called the new job. The new job code is, was their book that they wrote. And they had some great things to say about personal branding as well. So Eric said when I was close to graduating, he had a mentor at the time, someone that he'd sought out. And he some advice that this mentor gave him which he took two years to act on, which was to build something, to create a visible identity or something that you could be. Outside of your role, because it gives you confidence and it, it requires that you build skills to create that thing. And it means that you're visible and, and Eric and and, and Aiden said the same thing that they wish they'd started doing something like that. It's these things that people wish they started doing earlier, that you have the power to do that today. Folks, you have the power to do that today. So get amongst it and start doing some of this stuff. And Adam, Ashton was he, he has a podcast called what you will learn. A book summary podcast. And they kind of read books him and his co-host has also called Adam, they, they read books and I get this summary. Right. And, and he had a really interesting insight into kind of the, why did you could start to create that wasn't necessarily so much pressure. Like if you are someone that's creating, it's, it's hard to go from zero to one. It's hard to like, think of new ideas. Right. New audience has never been said it's hard work. So he had some really interesting inside where he said, I'm a good middle step between consumption, which is kind of the zero and creation, which is saying is kind of the one, right. Zero to one. He said the middle step between consumption and creation is curation curation. And he, this is what he said, like, this is kind of what I went with the podcast ride, so that they're learning. And, and they're curating the books so that the reader book and up here at the knowledge from the book and then release it. So it's not like they're creating something completely new, but they're curating, what's already out there. And that enables them to be effective and efficient creators without necessarily having a lot of the, the effort and the mental. It takes a lot of, like, it takes a lot of effort to, to create something completely new. So I think curation is a really. Right. Why to get started on. So what actions can you take? What can we do now, folks, to start our personal brand? So many people don't have some kind of personal brand. They haven't really made many steps to start creating something like this. So, I had some questions here, what can you ask yourself to start doing something, something like this, what steps can you take to start creating? And some of the questions I have here, what am I interested in? What are you interested in? What do I tell people about. What, what, what, what am I calling? What am I conversations about? What do people ask me for advice about? What do people ask me for advice about, if I was a YouTuber, what would my videos be? It down if I was Ichiba, what would my videos be about? And if I had a sub staff, what if I was around. What would I write about? So if I was a writer, what would my writing be about if I was a YouTube, what would my issue channel be about, what am I interested in? What do people come to for me to advice about? These are all great questions to kind of get the ball rolling and things that, you know, Hey, I forgot about this. So I could write about that. And this is the, this is the stuff. Start doing something, start contributing something, and I think a great example of this is myself, right. It's important to remember that people who now have some kind of public image, whether it's Dan or people on this podcast, or myself included, those at one stage where they did not have what I have now, they, they started from zero, and, and I'm, I'm an example of that too. I didn't have. No one really knew who I was and I've kind of gone out there and started contributing. I found an area that I was interested in and that, that was how can we empower and grow young people's careers and, and that's what I'm doing. And I'm trying as best I can. And doing that, contributing to the knowledge that is around and adding my little touch on to on to the world is. We can all do it. You will have that place where you can add some value to someone and, and, and I think that's really cool. And I, I, I'd highly recommend that people go out and, and start doing this, step out and share your abilities with the world, be proactive, be proactive, I think is so important. Well, we've been chatting for a while now. It has been, you've done well. You've made it this far. Thank you so much. You've listened to me to nearly an hour. So thank you. Thank you so much for putting up with me this long. I really appreciate it, and I hope that you found some value in this, this podcast and there's there's we've, we've gone through a lot. We've gone through a lot to be honest. So if you did miss it, if you want to recap some of the content that we've covered, Post this, all this information you've heard is in text format and it is on the graduate theory website. So please go there, find what it is you're looking for and you can reread it, like do whatever you want. It's all there. And, and share this episode far and wide, if you did enjoy it as well. It would mean a lot to me. And like I said, at the start of this episode, please review the podcast on Spotify. Review it on an apple life and subscribe. If you're on YouTube and wherever you are, please subscribe to the graduate theory newsletter. Right? You get emails like this episodes like this direct to your inbox, and it comes with my takeaway. So it's not just the episode I'm going to go through. I analyze the episode, find some key parts that I thought were really insightful and I add them to the newsletter. So get on that, subscribe to that. Yeah. And I just want to thank you again for listening. It really does mean a lot to me. If you, if you, if you're still listening, email me let me know what you thought. My email isJames@graduatetheory.com. So go there, send me an email. I'm happy to chat to anyone that has any thoughts. Yeah. Thanks again so much. Yeah, we'll see you around.