Career Relaunch®
Joseph Liu
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Taking Imperfect Actions with Julia Taylor
When you’re trying to build anything new, the hardest part is often getting started. In this episode of Career Relaunch®, Julia Taylor, a former US government defense intelligence officer turned web developer and founder shares her thoughts on building a helpful community, thinking outside of the box, and creating your first website. I also share some thoughts on the importance of being okay with taking imperfect actions and my own challenges I faced building my first website. Key Career Takeaways Just because you’ve never done something doesn’t mean you can’t do it in the future When it comes to community-building, there are no shortcuts around the blood, sweat, tears, and time required to fully engage with people Thinking outside the box of what you’ve assumed your career should look like can really open up new possibilities for your career and life It’s very easy to focus on what doesn’t go well, so it’s important to take a moment to be proud of the work you’re doing and progress you’re making Resources Mentioned How to Set Up Your First Website in 7 Steps– Joseph’s blog 8 Reasons I Left Rainmaker Platform for WordPress– that blog post I mentioned during the episode that I wrote about why I shifted to WordPress Listener Challenge During this episode’s Mental Fuel® segment, I challenged you to think about something you’ve been trying to perfect before putting it out into the world–whether it’s your CV, social media profile, product, service, or website. Focus on getting a version out there that’s good enough. Sometimes referred to as a minimum viable product (or MVP), this can be something you feel may still need some work, but certainly won’t embarrass you. Try to just get the ball rolling on the idea, knowing that you’ll improve, refine, and rework it as you go. Instead of trying to start in the perfect place, in the perfect way, or on the perfect day, focus on just starting somewhere. I’m actually going to try and do this myself with a bit of a social media refresh I’m planning to tinker with in the upcoming months ahead. About Julia Taylor, found of Geeksquad Julia Taylor was an intelligence officer for the US Department of Defense with assignments in places including Kabul and Kandahar, Afghanistan. She eventually met her husband during one of her deployments, moved to the UK, and went through a transitional period where she bounced around a bit with some 9-5 jobs, before eventually moving to North Carolina where she began building websites. She’s now the CEO & Founder of GeekPack®, focused on empowering women & girls to change their lives for the better through the power of code, community & confidence. As a (former) military wife, self-taught web developer, and lover of location independence, Julia has taught over 2,500 women to not only master WordPress but also take control of their lives and live by their own terms. Learn more about her GeekForGeek Grant Program providing women access to the WP Rockstar Program and 6 months membership in her private GeekPack® community. Did You Enjoy This Episode? Please Let Us Know! Tweet: If you enjoyed this episode and have a few seconds to spare, Tweet to let me and Julia know! Tweet a thank you! Review: I’d also love for you to leave a positive review and rating for the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, which helps my show reach more people who want to relaunch their careers. Follow: Be sure to follow Career Relaunch podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, or Android to automatically get each new episode on your device. Full instructions. Stay in touch: Follow Career Relaunch on Twitter and Facebook. You can also follow host Joseph on LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. Comments, Suggestions, or Questions? If you have any lingering thoughts, questions, or topics you would like covered on future episodes, record a voicemail for me right here. I LOVE hearing from listeners! Leave Joseph a Voicemail You can also leave a comment below. Thanks! Thanks to Audible for Supporting Career Relaunch Thanks to Audible for supporting this episode of Career Relaunch. Audible is the premier provider of digital audiobooks, offering over 180,000 audiobook titles for listening anytime and anywhere on your favorite device. Career Relaunch listeners can download a free audiobook download and get 30-day trial at audibletrial.com/careerrelaunch. Interview Segment Music Credits Hazy – Dreamer Ever So Blue – Calme Podington Bear – Sidecar Ecovillage – Unending Love Lama House – Sola Ventus Infraction – Last Hope Episode Interview Transcript Teaser (first ~15s): I wish that I had given myself a little bit more credit and thought outside the box. I didn’t really know anything different at the time. It was just one of those experiences that I needed to go through. That was part of my journey to get to where I am now. Joseph: Let’s start by talking a little bit about what you have been focused on recently in your career and your life, and then we’re going to go back in time and talk about your very interesting career trajectory. What has been keeping you busy lately? Julia: [02:38] I love this time of year because I get to reflect on what I’ve done and my team, what we’ve accomplished. Also, look forward to what we want to do in the future. I’m doing a lot of that right now, and it’s really exciting. It starts out being a bit overwhelming, and then as I start to dig in and chat with different team members and some coaches and kind of identify next steps, it does get really exciting. That’s really where I am now. I got a couple priorities that I’m focused on. Professionally, my big priority is focusing on my team. I’m a big believer that if I can build a solid, supported, and encouraged team of folks who love what they do and believe in the mission and vision of my company, GeekPack, that will trickle down to my community. That’s been working for the last couple of years, so I spend a lot of time and energy focused on my team, empowering them, making sure that they’re happy and they feel supported. That’s my big focus, professionally. Personally, I’m in a really fortunate position to be able to — I don’t want to say “step back,” but because I can empower my team so much and give them more responsibility, I’m actually able to have a much better work-life balance than I’ve ever had before. That’s been a big priority this past year and will continue to be, so I can really be the visionary and not so much in the weeds and move the business forward and reach our vision. That’s been what I’ve been working on. Joseph: Is your team based where you are, physically and geographically, or are they spread out everywhere? Julia: [04:18] All over the world. I’m in Colorado. I’ve got a team member in Florida. We’ve got one in Canada. We’ve got one in the UK, and we’ve got two in Australia. I’ve got another one on the East Coast. Someone in Texas. Literally, all over the world. Joseph: I know that one of the things that you’re really passionate about is the independence of working wherever you want to. I think you refer to as “location independent.” We’re going to come back to that and talk about how you’ve done that in your own life. It sounds like you’re bringing that to life with your team. too. That’s really cool. Also, GeekPack, can you just give us a snapshot of what exactly you do as the CEO and founder of GeekPack? What do you do for your clients? Julia: [05:00] The mission of GeekPack is we empower women in tech to get into tech. Anyone who has ever dabbled in anything kind of techy in the past, or maybe they didn’t get into anything techy because maybe they weren’t very good at math when they were a kid, and someone said to them, “You’re never going to be good at tech,” that sort of thing. Anyone who wants to give tech a go. We primarily focus on coding. We teach web development. We teach coding languages. We just empower women to learn these hard skills that they can then use whether it’s in a 9-to-5 job, or they want to start their own online business, and they learn these skills with a community around them. That’s what GeekPack is. It’s a community where people can ask the “silly questions” that normally they might be terrified to ask because someone might be rude, or they might laugh at them. There’s none of that allowed in my community. We support one another, we encourage each other. We’re there when there’s wins and when there’s lows, answering questions, and all that goes along with learning these skills, but also finding clients and finding work. That’s what GeekPack is. Joseph: Very cool. What a great mission that you’ve got out there. I think that that’s especially important these days, just empowering people to be able to have the tools to create their own websites and to learn how to code. It seems like it’s a very current necessary skill these days that pretty much I guess all of us need to have. I have zero of those skills. Now, you haven’t always been the founder of GeekPack, Julia. I would love to go back in time and talk about your chapter in your career when you are actually a defense intelligence officer. Let’s talk about that and then we can move forward from there. What exactly were you doing as a defense intelligence officer? Julia: [06:57] Back in about 2006, when I joined the U.S. government and joined the Department of Defense as an intelligence officer. It was an amazing job. I got to travel all over the world. I actually deployed to Afghanistan twice, which was a real honor to get to go there and work with everyone there and the mission that we were doing. This was back in 2008, ’09, and 2010. Kind of at the height of when stuff was going on in Afghanistan. I was an intelligence officer, so
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