Build An Influential Network & Own Your Success [Interview with Andy Storch]
Petra
Especially at this time of the year, this is usually when we reflect on the year it was but also set intentions and goals for the year to come. And I personally think it's one of the best opportunities in the year to network to build relationships, and to also meet new people. And as we know, relationships is such an important factor when it comes to career development and progression. And I couldn't be more excited to be joined by somebody who I personally think, who lives and breathes all of the above. And storage is joining us today. Anything so much for being here?
Andy
Well, Petra, thank you so much for having me on. I appreciate it. I am such a big fan of everything that you do. And I know we're so aligned on a lot of these things. And I'm excited to dive in.
Petra
I'm honestly, really looking forward to this conversation, because we've been connected for a little while now. And it you're a consultant, you are a facilitator, you're a culture speaker. And most recently, you are also the author of on your career on your life, which I absolutely love. I've read it. I've inhaled it. And I love everything that you stand for, because your approach to career development is not the traditional to these three steps. Method. It's a holistic approach. Can you talk us through a little bit? How did you land at the book idea?
Andy
Yeah, I appreciate that. You said holistic approach. And I think that's like the approach I like to take to almost everything, which is, it's not a prescriptive, do this, then do that, then do that.
Because everybody's life and everybody's career is different. And what I really want people to do is design a career for them, and really take ownership of that career. And kind of the impetus of where this came from, was, I've been working in a corporate consulting for more than a decade now, I had the luxury, the pleasure of being able to travel all over the world working with a lot of different companies, leading workshops on strategy, finance, leadership, development, things like that, and seeing what allowed a lot of companies and leaders to be successful.
But I also observed a lot of people really drifting through their careers, they might be moving up the ranks, but they're really operating in reaction mode don't really seem to be that happy.
Many people kind of wake up one day and go, What the heck happened, what was I doing the last 10 years, right, and I wanted to create something that would be helpful to those people. And as I was going through my own personal development journey, reading lots of books, learning lots of things, listening to podcasts, doing a lot of reflection, investing a lot of my own development, making a lot of changes, discovering where I wanted to go in my career, I started to document a lot of the things that I was learning and doing, and realize that it could be really helpful to a lot of people, especially in the corporate space, who were trying to kind of find their way and figured out where should I go in my career? What should I do?
And more importantly, how do I find this idea of happiness and fulfillment? How do I become happier? How do I take more ownership of my career and so this book, you know, own your career, and your life is about taking ownership, it's about helping people stop drifting, and really take control of their future, because we never know, we don't know what the future brings, right.
But we know things are changing all the time. And I want to help people really prepare for what the future brings. So the first part of the book is about taking ownership of your career. The second part is about preparing for the future. And the third part is more about owning your life and kind of bringing it all together to stay on track for your goals.
Petra
And this is exactly what we need. These days, we have to change jobs more often but entire careers. And we don't know what happens next. Everyone says COVID-19 is only a sign of its time, and we will face another disruption might be technology, it might be another disease. We don't know what's next. But what we can control is how do we respond to it? How do we prepare proactively for it? And this is what I love about you. You take people on the journey. Since we've connected, I think it might be two or three years ago, you've had so many personal and professional challenges, highlights lowlights, all of the above, and you take people on the journey and share your learnings. Have you always been like that?
Andy
Yeah, it's been an interesting journey. I would say Devin always been like that I was a very shy kid. So I was I barely talked to more than three people. When I was a kid in high school, I had maybe five friends and I rarely branched out of that. But I, I started to come a little bit out of my shell in college or university, as some people might refer to it. And then really, when I got to business school, when I was 25, I went back to school and got my MBA. And I read a book called Never Eat Alone by Keith Ferrazzi, which was a big game changer. For me, it was all about really the importance of building a network and leveraging relationships for success in your career.
I went on a mission to meet as many people as possible talk to as many people as possible. And later on, as I got more into years later, as I got more into personal development, I started noticing that people really benefited the most or were inspired the most by others when they were really sharing their journey and being authentic and vulnerable. Versus like the person that just seems to have it all figured out.
So I started sharing a lot of you know, what was going on with my life with my journey, using that as inspiration to help other people even when I still didn't really know what I was doing, but I noticed people responding really well, so that so and I became kind of hooked to it, I know you're big on building the brand sharing content, sharing a lot of your journey in your life to help and inspire others. And I love following you know, all of your content on social media. For that reason, you know, we live on different continents, we never met in person, right, but I feel like I know you well, and probably vice versa. And I think we have an opportunity to do that and create that. And then, you know, even when we face big challenges, when we take people with us, we can show them how we get through these things.
So, you know, a couple of the bigger challenges I faced recently, in 2020. Obviously, we've all faced a big challenge with COVID, my entire business was shut down, my whole business was selling and running in person, training programs, I was on planes all the time flying around the world, delivering in person workshops, everything went away. And I took a couple days to cry about it. And then I asked myself, okay, what am I going to do? What
What can I, how can I leverage this situation to create something new, and I pivoted, because you mentioned earlier, the importance of focusing on what we can control. And I'm big on that, when it comes to taking ownership mindset, I think that includes are the big, the big part of that is focusing on what's in your control, and not spending so much time focusing on the things that are out of your control.
Because there are a lot of things that are out of our control, right politics, the world economy, global pandemics, you know, you name it, your boss, your spouse, your kids, like you can't control those people in those things. But you can control how you show up how you react, how you interact with people.
want to spend most of my time focusing on that, and which is what I did. And I was able to build a new business, publish a book, can pivot my business, and still have my best year ever last year in 2020. And then as you know, as I went to publish my book, at the end of last year, I was also diagnosed with cancer.
I had surgery two days after I published my book, and then I went through some pretty tough treatment early in 2021. And, you know, thanks to the help of my wife, and my family, and so many friends in my network, I got through that, focusing on all the things that I can control, right, not trying to be a victim through it, taking a holistic approach, and really owning my health and owning my life. I got through that. And now I'm focused on how do I use this experience to help and inspire others.
I shared a lot of what I was going through, you know, through that time, not only to keep people in the loop, but also share what I was going through from a mindset perspective, and hopefully use that to help and inspire others. Because why go through challenges, were not going to leverage it in some way to help other people in the world, not saying everybody needs to do that. But that was a big motivating factor for me. And it makes me feel a lot better about the experiences that I've gone through knowing that I can use that to help other people.
Petra
Absolutely. You're the perfect example of the phrase, make your mess, your message, your business was shut down, you period, you got sick, you focus on becoming healthy again, these are the effects that we can control. This is I think why you are such an extremely likable person, also, that you're not the victim. But you're the victor. And you take people on the journey, say, you know, it's a bit of a rough situation, but this is how I'm going up and working on it. And this is what people are interested in. But just the shiny, perfect end result. But how do you get there? What is the journey to learn where you are now?
Andy
Yeah, absolutely. I think that's I think that's so important is that, as I mentioned, with the with the Ownership mindset, focusing on what you can control, not being a victim getting out of that victim mindset, something I talk about in my book, is getting out of the victim mindset. Getting out of the habit of complaining, which a lot of people do and when things don't go your way, complaining kind of feels good in the moment because you're like passing the responsibility to someone else. But it doesn't really solve any problems.
I have a no complaining challenge in the book. And the switch from victim mindset to Ownership mindset is the switch from believing that everything in life happens to you, to everything in life happens for you. And it's a hard pivot. It's a hard switch for many people. But when you truly believe that everything in life happens for you. It really helps you feel like you're more in control of life, because you can't control everything. But you take everything that comes your way and says okay, what am I going to do with this? How can I turn this challenge into an opportunity? What can I do to make the most of this? And to help with that? I have three questions in the book that I like to ask when I'm facing any big challenge.
Question number one is what is great about this, because in almost every challenge, we can find silver linings, not always. But for instance, when COVID shut down my business, I was able to pivot and went to you know, more virtual business as we all did, right. And I went from being on planes and traveling all the time to being home with my kids every night for the next year and a half, right. And that brought us closer together as a family.
So complete silver lining from COVID that I know many others have experienced as well. The second question is what can I learn from this? And this is of course, a big one, when we when the challenge we face is due to our own mistakes, right? Because we try to try new things. We're gonna make mistakes, right? And that's okay as long as we learn from them and try to improve for the future. So what can I learn from this and number three is what Is this make possible because we often we look at challenges, we just think, Oh, this is horrible, I just lost my job, or my business got just got shut down. But this actually might create a new opportunity that I wouldn't have ever seen or wouldn't have ever received if it wasn't for what happened.
I've seen so many people lose their jobs and been so unhappy in the moment, and then found a new job that was like the dream job, right? That they they love and they never would have gotten it if they didn't lose their job in the first place. The example I go to a lot is, I don't know if you remember Petro. But a couple years ago, I was I was organizing a conference called the talent development Think Tank. We worked on it all throughout the year in 2019. I co-hosted it with my friend Bennett Phillips. And one week before the conference happened, there was a big wildfire that came into town. This was in California, and our hotel was evacuated. And we were forced to postpone our conference or send an email to 150 people and say, you know, hey, I know you're excited about coming to this conference. But it's not happening. Because our hotel is on fire. So, but we rescheduled it two months later to January 2020. We got all our speakers back on board. There were some people who originally bought tickets who weren't able to come. However, there were also some new people who were originally not going to come in November, but could come in January and bought tickets. And many of those people have become friends have become clients have become people I keep in touch with on a regular basis. And I never would have met them if it wasn't for the wildfires.
I always look at that and think, you know, it was almost like a blessing in disguise in some reasons. And for some reason, I think we can look at a lot of the challenges in our life, and ask that question, what is this big possible, like, Oh, if it wasn't for that bad thing that happened, this other thing, you know, never would have happened. And now I'm so appreciative that I have this in my life. And I think when we can ask these questions, we can look for those silver linings and those great things that come and we keep asking that question.
You know, what does this make possible, as well as thinking about everything in life happening for us, we can start to really turn challenges and opportunities to you know, focus on what we can control, and really take ownership that holistic approach and ownership of our career and our life.
Petra
Oh, excellent. And the three questions, I think, are also the perfect demonstration of becoming and being a lifelong learner. Because you can learn from every single situation, it doesn't need to be a degree that you actually enrolled to, to learn. But what can we learn from the situation? What does it enable in this growth mindset that you also live and breathe? In your book, you have lifelong learning to be one of the principles to own your career and your life. But you also talk about your personal brand. And of course, your network, I would say you've got, you had always a strong personal brand since we met but of the last few years, I think you've just skyrocketed your personal brand. And that network that you've got, it's just another level. Can you talk us through a little bit? How do you go about building and managing your personal brand? And also, how does that impact building relationships?
Andy
Yeah, I think those two go together so nicely. I'm glad you mentioned all those. So the middle part of my book is about preparing for the future. And the three things that you can do to prepare for the future of work, future career changes, whatever it may be, are number one, investing, continuous learning, you always need to be learning, we can't just rely on whatever degree we got from university 20 years ago, and think that's going to, you know, help us get through the rest of our career.
So always be learning. Number two is building your network. And number three is building your personal brand. And those second two, I think they do go really hand in hand. Nothing's been more important for me in my career than having a network and relationships. Almost every job that I've gotten in my career has come from a relationship going back to my very first job when I was 15, that my mom got from me working for the county doing highway maintenance, it was not a glamorous job by any means. But she got me that job, there was not really much of an application process.
Then the next job I got was from my best friend in high school got me a job working out of pharmacy. And you know, on and on, it kind of went after that. And it has as it's gone through most of my career. And as I talked to a lot of people who are really happy in their careers, a lot of times the job they've jobs they found or businesses they started came from relationships, they had people that they knew. And so I think it's really important to be investing in that. And I think it's also important to think about doing it before you need it. Right. So there's an old adage to dig your well before you're thirsty.
Start building that network, building those relationships now, before you get laid off, or you need to call somebody or you're starting that business or whatever it may be. And what that looks like is different for everybody. But I think it's you know, connecting with people who are doing interesting things who are doing similar work to you or doing work that you might want to be doing one day.
You and I are both very active on LinkedIn. I think that's the best place to do that. Right. But I've also made friends through Twitter or through Instagram, through Facebook, Facebook communities and groups. There's so many opportunities as well as of course in person, you know, networking groups, which are starting and conferences I think are starting to make a comeback. Now, as we go into 2022 and more. I'm seeing more and more in person events.
There's opportunities everywhere. You just got to be intentional and go out and or be proactive. I mean, and go out and start to build some of those relationships and be curious, right ask people questions, get to know people, and I think that feeds into the Personal Brand discussion because I know you're an expert on this idea of brand and something you talk with people about all the time.
You know, for me, a personal brand is nothing more than your reputation, right? It's what people think about you. It's what they say about you when you're out in the room.
And when you're applying for a job, or you're going for a promotion, guess what, when the conversation happens about should we hire Petro or not? You're not going to be in the room when that conversation happens, right? So it's gonna come down to what is their impression of you? What is what is your reputation, what they think about you? And that's heavily influenced by how you show up? How you, you interact with people, you know, Are you friendly? Are you collaborative? Are you interesting? Or are you standoffish? And you know, boring for lack of a better word, or hard to work with hard to get along with? As well as how you show up on social media as well? Are you posting content? Are you commenting on other people's content on LinkedIn, which can influence you know what people think about you and your brand.
It doesn't have to be like original content all the time, like what you and I create, right? But it could be, Hey, listen to this really great podcast interview between Petra and Andy. And here's three things that I learned. And it just sets you up shows you are someone who are curious or interested in learning about things going on in the career space, or the field that you're in. And I think all of that impacts your brand. And just to take it back to kind of your question of marrying these two, I believe that I've gained a lot of benefits in building my brand, by being associated with other people who have great brands as well. Right. So that's where that networking comes in. Because I go to conferences, I host a podcast, I host events myself, I bring in speakers, I get invited to speak in different stages, or come on podcast like this right now. Right?
There are a lot of people listening, who have no idea who I am, have a very favourable opinion of you, I assume if they've listened to this, at least a couple of times, they're like Petra is amazing. If she was willing to invite this guy Andy on his podcast, and say that she's read his book, and that they're friends, then he must be a pretty good guy, right? Because we are now associated with each other. And I think we can all benefit from that, or it's kind of I think they call it the halo effect, right? Where you're like around people that others admire. And then you get some of that as well. So just building your network going out and talk with a lot of people. And then having a favourable opinion of you can heavily impact your reputation and your brand in a positive way. And I'm sure you've seen that as well.
Petra
And I'm glad you mentioned that. So, when decisions are made these days without us being in the room or on the Zoom, and we also have a shorter window of opportunity to make a good impression. So consistency across your online and your offline or in person presence is becoming more and more relevant. And so many, especially the technical professionals have their heads down, they are just doing the doing to hope in the hope to get to the next level. But they usually get stuck there because they don't build the relationships, they don't have access to the right decision makers. And this is why they get stuck in their career at a certain level and wonder what happens. And a really good point that you also make is what we call brain by association that you are associated with people who are already respected and trusted in the industry are in the field. And you just wrapped up an incredible online summit with some of the heavy hitters like just mentioned Dorie Clark and Mike Kim, some of the biggest names in the industry. How do you build relationships with those kinds of people?
Andy
Yeah, it's a great question.
I hosted a virtual summit recently called the own your career Summit. And we had 18 Really fantastic speakers on there. Many of them I had relationships with before this summit and a couple I didn't. For the ones I did something I noticed, and I don't I don't want to act like I'm, you know, tooting my own horn here. But I reached out to some pretty well-known speakers who I had relationships with and said, Hey, I'm hosting this summit, would you be willing to speak?
And almost all of them said yes, instantly, and said for you absolutely anything. And I took that as I've given a lot to them, I've built a strong relationship with them, so that when they I asked them for something, they're there for me, and I know that I would be for them as well. It was a kind of a testament to the relationship we've built on other a couple people that I didn't know as well.
I used, you know, kind of that network effect of like, Hey, I'm associated with these other people, you know, these people are speaking in the Senate, would you like to come speak, the one that I didn't have a relationship with was Dorie Clark, who's probably the biggest name on the summit.
I just reached out to her and follow it up. And the timing was good, because she was just publishing her new book called the long game. And I knew she wanted to get onto multiple podcasts to talk about her new book.
I leveraged that I talked about the connections, we had the opportunity to get in front of more people how I was going to be leveraging it on the summit and my podcast, and would be trying to get it in front of as many people as possible to help sell more copies of our book. And luckily, she was gaming for that. And then once we got on, you know, we did an interview, but we also had an opportunity to be on Zoom and build a little bit of a relationship, talk about the, you know, mutual connections we have, and hopefully that means she might remember me next time when I go to do something again, and I asked her to join, but I think the key is throughout that process. I was also trying to give her a lot of value by surprise.
We're seeing her and what she's doing with her book. And something else that I think is important. You know, when talking about all this and thinking about how we leverage relationships and our brand to grow our career or business, whatever else is that you are giving as much if not more than you're taking, right. And so I'm a big believer in karma, but you can call it whatever you want. I'm always looking for ways to help other people, so that it's easy for them to, you know, return the favour and I do favours I help other people with no expectation, right? I'm not one of those like, Oh, I'll help you only if you're gonna help me. I'm just always looking to help friends and people around me. And I find that because I do that I get so many people reaching out and you know, being willing to help and support me with the things that I'm doing. And I just think that that's, that's the way to go. Right. And we can never do enough of that helping and supporting others. If we want to get you know that coming back our way.
Petra
Absolutely. I want to highlight what he said again, that is say, we need to take the one before we are thirsty. And coming now towards Christmas season. This is a perfect time to go to end of year functions and to Christmas parties and build relationships. Because every year in January, when people are coming back from holidays when we've got a long summer break in Australia, they realize actually my job is not that excited. Exciting. February and March to read resignation is also predicted to hit a lot harder in Australia. And this is exactly why you need relationships. But this is usually the time when people start building their brand in relationships and this is too late. I've had this year a few people reaching out who hasn't heard index, at least for five years. But they asked me for a favour. And I was so put off by that because it's not building the relationship and giving what you just mentioned, but it just wanted to take and this can also harm your brand and your reputation.
What are some of the practical tips that you would suggest that we can do to network either in person, if we can go to a function or online is anything that we can get started with?
Andy
Yeah, there's a lot of things we can doing. If you work for a dog, for a company for an organization, especially a bigger company, I would start there, because it's beneficial to have contacts and people who know what you're doing within the company you work for, not just the small group that you work in. But you know, expanding outside of that within your division or business unit, and maybe two different functions that you don't normally work with finance it is accounting, marketing, legal, it's nice and good to have, you know, not just conversations, but connections in those different areas, right, because you never know when you might need someone's help.
I would get intentional and starting to reach out to some people. And it can be a little awkward at first, but just say, you know, hey veteran, we haven't really talked that much. I think we've connected once the work, I'd love to just talk to you get a virtual coffee and find out more about the type of work that you do, just so I can understand what you do, and maybe tell you what I'm working on. Just you can get to know people better. Obviously, we talked about reaching out to people through LinkedIn, for you know, the jobs that you might want to be doing are the types of people who are doing similar work to you. You mentioned there's going to be holiday functions going on right, whether it's in person or virtual, I think it will be a seeing a lot of both of those.
I think there's a tendency to kind of even for me to shy away, like I don't want to go to that I just want to stay home and sit on my couch and watch Christmas movies or you know, something like that. But there's a real opportunity to connect with people and have conversations to get to know people. And there's going to be new, more conferences happening in 2022, both in person and remote, right virtual, and we have an opportunity to jump into some of those things.
The biggest piece of advice I would give is, Well, number one, be proactive, right and going out and trying to meet people. And number two is be curious, right?
When you do meet new people start with asking questions about you know, who they are, what they do, what type of work they do, do they like it? Do they not like it? Or what do they like about it? What are their goals? What are their challenges, and maybe try to find ways to help them if you can, we can't always help everybody.
It could be as simple though, as a, you know, a dog sitting recommendation or something like that, that helps people out when you find out what's going on in their lives. And they really appreciate that and start to have a favourable opinion, a view or opinion of us. So I'm always and I'm not perfect at this, you know, sometimes I get shy in person functions in my local area, whatever. But trying to get better all the time, being proactive, getting out and talking to new people. And it doesn't have to be, you know, 100 just one new person at a time, right. And you never know who you're going to meet and what that might do for you. In your career in your life. I had a quote in my book from my good friend, Ben Kilcoy, who hosts a podcast called The military veteran dad podcast. And he said to me once that we're always only one conversation away from changing the rest of our life. And it's true, right? You never know who you're going to meet what they're gonna say, what they're gonna inspire you what connection they might make, you know, introduce you to someone that get you a new job. So it's worth having those conversations.
Petra
Oh, couldn't agree more. And I also love your tip that you start with a question What's next for them? Rather than saying, Oh, I'm not sure what to say. And this is what people are often struggling with to say, I don't want to sound like a douchebag I don't want to sound you know, too full of myself. And it's all about me, me me. But if you're just flipping the script and just saying what are your goals for 2022? What are you working towards? What are you saying
Flip the script and ask a question. that already starts a conversation and all of a sudden, I make you feel good about yourself because you can talk about yourself. And we love hearing our own name. And we love talking about ourselves. And we already in the good books.
Andy
Yeah, there's a famous book called How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie is written the 1930s. Just as true today, as it was back then Dale said that everybody's favourite word is their name, and everybody's favourite subject is themselves. And it's true whether you're introverted, extroverted, shy, everybody likes talking about themselves, because we're thinking about ourselves all the time. So I'm talking about myself right now, right? Why not? ask people questions and let them talk about themselves, and use that to build relationships?
Petra
Absolutely. Speaking of relationships, you're also incredible, not just making new connections, but also staying in touch with them. Have you got any tips, how you can nurture the relationship moving further, especially if there are quite a few already in your network?
Andy
Yeah, everybody's got different I think systems and ideas and methods for this. I know some people who are very methodical, who have a spreadsheet or use a, you know, CRM, customer relationship management system, like a HubSpot, or something like that, others who just do it based completely on memory, I sometimes do a hybrid of both, but you know, I am, I'm always I do have a big network and lots of friends doing different things. I am on social media almost every day and only creating content, but also kind of scrolling through from time to time to see what other people are doing.
And I will definitely use those opportunities to support people if I see what's going on in their lives. But there are lots of different things throughout the day and the week that might trigger a thought of like, Oh, I just read this article about the future of work that makes me think of Petra, because she's an expert in this space. So maybe I send you the article, or maybe I just shoot you a text message or a WhatsApp and just say, Hey, how are you doing? I heard you're working on a book, like what's going on with that. And just let people know that you're thinking of them. I do that a lot with emails, text messages, you know, Facebook, LinkedIn, you name it, like, there's so many different platforms, I think it's just about reaching out, keeping in touch with people checking on them asking questions, telling them what's going on with you. I'm just doing that all the time.
It helps, you know, not as well as creating content on social media that helps me stay, you know, kind of top of mind for a lot of people and also know what's going on with people. But at the same time, like I said, My system is not perfect, there's still a lot of people in my network that I haven't talked to in years, and I would love to reach out to, I just haven't done it in a while.
Petra
Well, nobody's perfect. But you know, I did a keynote a few weeks ago. And, and, and there were two technical experts who were, you know, consultants and director level. And I said, networking equals working. Because now with working from home, our networks shrink by 20% every year.
It's not just about adding more context to our network. But it's also fostering the ones that we've got already, because I'm sure we're all sitting already on a ton of gold mines, in terms of, you know, previous relationships with people that we went to uni with, or we work in a company. And it's much easier to get a warm introduction and somebody who opens the door for us than us having to record calls and the, you know, the awkward Hey, do you want to work with me calls? Because nobody wants to do that anymore?
Andy
Right? Absolutely. And yeah, there's some people that say that you already have everybody you need in your network. I don't know if I fully believe that I think we can always benefit from meeting new people and more people, but at the same time, you may already have a great network of people doing interesting things. And if you just took the time to reach out to people, ask them questions, let them know what you're working on. If you're looking for a new job or starting a business, you got to let people know so that they can help you because people can't help you unless they know what you're up to. Right. And so it's about having those conversations. And so I'm just always talking to people.
Petra
So that's a good point. Especially now, as I said, we've got so many opportunities with those Christmas functions and so forth. And the one question that I guarantee everyone asked, so what have you been up to? And the most underrated opportunity we say, Oh, not much. Same, same. Like no, don't say that.
Andy
I know, I need to get better at that too. But yeah, pick something exciting that you've been doing. That's what people want. And, and really like a conversation is like a dance, right? And it's kind of like you're looking for what is that thing that we can start talking about, we can put our stake in the ground, say, Okay, this is our conversation starter, we're looking for a commonality. So if you put something out there, then the other person you grab on to and then you might have a conversation going.
Petra
Exactly, that also makes you likable and interesting. So many people are worried about how can it be more interesting. For others? It's like, firstly, you need to be interested in them. And we already talked about the question, but then also being able to have different conversations. If I only have just one topic that I always talk about. It might be cricket, or it might be a certain, you know, a science, and I'm not into it. I don't have a context, this conversation. So also, I think expanding your mind with different topics.
Andy
Yeah, absolutely. And it could be pop culture, it could be science, politics, you know, research, work, career stuff, whatever it may be. You'd be willing and able to talk to people about all kinds of stuff.
Petra
Absolutely. Now speaking about all sorts of stuff. What have you got on for 2022? What's on your radar? How are you going? First 2021?
Andy
Oh, I like that question. I'm really starting to think through that now. And it reminds me of something that I think is really important for all of us, which is to make sure that you have time at the end of the year and on a regular basis for some reflection, right to really think about what's going on in your career in your life. And are you happy with certain aspects? Are there things that you want to change? What changes do you want to make? What goals do you want to set? What habits do you want to, you know, put in place?
I think a big problem is a lot of people don't spend much time with reflection or having you know, an opportunity to think you know, 20 minutes for the journal or think about what's going on with their life. I've got a million things going on, just like anybody else, right running multiple podcasts, and a business and a family and text messages and social media and all this stuff.
And you and I both like to get up early, we were talking about that before we started recording. Finding time every morning, to start the day with intention and being able to think and reflect our could be an evening, you know, for some people, if they're not morning people, whatever it may be.
For me, I'm starting to really think about where I'm going with my business and my career for the next year and talking to my wife about it. I'm about to launch. So, my book’s been out for a year, really starting to grow that business there, I'm planning on getting on more stages in 2020, to doing a lot more speaking to help people own their careers. I've got a training program, an online course, and a training program I created that I'm planning on getting in front of more people both inside and outside of companies to help them take ownership of their careers. That's a big focus point for me part of my business and where I want to make a big impact. I have also eroded membership, community, and talent development. So I'm going to keep that going. And I'm launching a new podcast soon about non fungible tokens, NF t's just because that's like an interest of mine, it's kind of a side project called My NFT journey that actually just published today, or it's coming out very, very soon.
I'm always kind of working on these little things, and seeing what grows and what becomes more interesting for me. But you know, in 2022, I'm going to finish this year strong and keep talking to people building that network.
And 2022 is going to be about getting on more stages and making a bigger impact with my book and my message to help people really own their career, as well as helping and educating people in lots of different areas, like investing in FTS health, that sort of stuff, and all supporting people in helping them own their lives, as well as building the business that I want and the life that I want, and traveling and having more fun with my family. So I'll add that in as well. Because it's not just all about work and impact. I took a big road trip with my family last summer. And we want to do that again.
You know, next summer when it comes around. I say summer, I mean, you know, June, July, August for us here in the United States. You know, it could be winter for you. But whatever it is, we want to be able to travel and have more fun together while making a bigger impact of the world.
Petra
This is such an important message that you share. It's not just about work. Of course, it takes a big part in our lives. But it's not all about that. So also making time for other elements. It might be family, it might be you know, the NFT topics that you want to discuss also, again, it shows that you're a lifelong learner, you take people on the journey, and you are not one dimensional, you are multi-dimensional. So if you decided two years extra, don't talk about careers anymore. You can pivot a lot easier.
Andy
Yeah, ‘cuz I've started other things, right, dabbled in other areas. And so I can phase one thing out and move more into the other?
Petra
Exactly. I love everything that you do and what you stand for, and how you inspire everyone else and your dedication commitment. So sharing your message.
I also think you're one of the most referral people that I know. So if I come across any opportunities where you can speak at conferences, and people are always looking for referrals anyway, this is, you know, I would be more than happy to introduce you to them as well.
Andy
Well, thank you so much. I appreciate that, Petra. And, you know, last year, several months ago, I don't know when it was a good friend of mine named Lauren Davis introduced me to a friend and I thanked her. And she said something that has stuck with me for a long time that goes back to our whole networking conversation. She said thank you for being so introduce Sybil. And I asked her what does that mean? And it's really about, you know, you are not going to ruin my reputation, right?
If I introduce you to somebody, you're going to make a good impression, you're going to be kind to them, you're going to be generous, you're going to you know, they're going to like you. And they're going to say Petra, thank you so much for making this introduction, right. And that's what I strive to be. And so I appreciate that. And of course, the feeling is mutual. And I'm always happy to introduce you, you know to others, and make referrals as well, because I know that you're going to provide value wherever you go,
Petra
Oh, this is a perfect testament for being trusted, and social proof. And we trust others who we know and like already that they make the right introductions to us. And this, I think is the future of work that we have a stronger network and have a lot more referral work and also have the responsibility to find design and deliver work for ourselves. So again, you're very referral and introduce role and more than happy to make those introductions. So again, thank you so much for being here. And where can everyone find to connect with you learn more from what's next for you?
Andy
Well, thank you better I appreciate it. I'm active all over social media, LinkedIn, especially Instagram, Twitter, all that sort of stuff. I do have a website and I, you know, I mentioned earlier the three questions to ask anytime you face a big challenge, you can go to my website and grab those questions as well as my guide to owning your career and a ton of other free resources by going to own your career, own your life.com/bonus on your career on your life.com/bonus, you can get three questions, the guide to only your career included, I even have a guide there of the top five most common career mistakes that people make, and you want to check that out to make sure you're not making this mistake. So go grab that guide. I've got podcasts, you know, check out the own your career podcast and the NFT my NFT Journey podcast if you're interested in that, as well as find me on social media, but you know, start with that website and go grab those resources.