Stacie Bloom: When to Step Back and Think About the Big Picture

In Chapter 8 of 18 in her 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, Neuroscience Institute Executive Director Stacie Grossman Bloom answers "When Are You at Your Best?"  Bloom notes how she benefits from taking a step back from the minutiae of daily live to get a strategic, big picture perspective and make decisions.  While she enjoys performing under pressure she notes the importance of gathering different insights to make the decision. She shares the experience of putting together the Neuroscience Institute for NYU Langone Medical Center. 

Stacie Grossman Bloom is Executive Director for the Neuroscience Institute at the NYU Langone Medical Center.  Previously, she was VP and Scientific Director at the New York Academy of Sciences (NYAS) and, before that, held editorial roles at the Journal of Clinical Investigation and Nature Medicine.  She earned her BA in chemistry and psychology from the University of Delaware, her PhD in Neurobiology and Cell Biology at Georgetown University and did post-doctoral training in Paul Greengard's Nobel Laboratory of Molecular & Cellular Neuroscience at Rockefeller University. 

Transcript: 

Erik Michielsen:  When are you at your best? 

Stacie Grossman Bloom:  I think I’m at my best when I’m under pressure. I think I’m at my best when I have the opportunity to think strategically and take a step back and look at the full picture. I think you know it’s very easy in any job to get very wrapped up in the day-to-day minutiae and all of the little details, it’s not so often that you have the opportunity to just take a deep breath, take a step back, assess the overall picture and make very strategic and important decisions. And I think those are the times when I’m at my best. 

Erik Michielsen:  How have you come to realize that over time? 

Stacie Grossman Bloom:  You know, I think when I started this job as executive director of the NYU Neuroscience Institute, there wasn’t a lot going on at the very, very beginning. We had to lay out all these plans and that was the time that I was thinking most big picture strategically, and then as it was rolling out we were hiring people, I was putting together the administrative infrastructure, we started recruiting the faculty and life became more about, you know, how do we on board this person? Where are the fire exits? You know, I have to go through this checklist for human resources and train all of these people? How do I get them on payroll? What are their scientific areas of interest? How do I transfer their grants over? And I realized, wow, I’m gonna get really wrapped up in these daily details, at least once a week, I need to stop, and think back at why are we here? What’s our vision? What’s our mission? How are we accomplishing it? What are the steps that we’re making? What are our major accomplishments? What are our goals? And allow myself the opportunity to think that way and give myself the time to work like that.

Stacie Bloom on Breaking Out of a Comfort Zone

In Chapter 9 of 18 in her 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, Neuroscience Institute Executive Director Stacie Grossman Bloom answers "Where is Your Comfort Zone and What Do You Do to Break Free of Living in It?"  Bloom notes she feels comfortable in a broad range of situations.  She learns over time to push through situations where she feels self-conscious or uncomfortable, such as speaking up at a meeting with someone very senior in her field.  

Stacie Grossman Bloom is Executive Director for the Neuroscience Institute at the NYU Langone Medical Center.  Previously, she was VP and Scientific Director at the New York Academy of Sciences (NYAS) and, before that, held editorial roles at the Journal of Clinical Investigation and Nature Medicine.  She earned her BA in chemistry and psychology from the University of Delaware, her PhD in Neurobiology and Cell Biology at Georgetown University and did post-doctoral training in Paul Greengard's Nobel Laboratory of Molecular & Cellular Neuroscience at Rockefeller University. 

Transcript: 

Erik Michielsen:  Where is your comfort zone and what do you do to break free of living in it?

Stacie Grossman Bloom:  My comfort zone is pretty big. I would say that it takes a lot to get me out of my comfort zone. I think one of my best characteristics, one of the things that’s helped me the most is that I feel comfortable in a really broad range of situations. To break out of it, you know, I sort of force myself sometimes to do things that I’m not necessarily comfortable with. I’ll force myself to speak up at a meeting where, you know, there’s the head of the FDA sitting across the table from me. Those are situations that might make me feel self-conscious or uncomfortable. At work, you know, I very often have to have difficult conversations with people that are a little bit outside my comfort zone, I just make myself do it, I don’t usually hesitate very much, I’ll just usually go in guns a-blazing.

Stacie Bloom on Learning to Manage High Potential Employees

In Chapter 10 of 18 in her 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, Neuroscience Institute Executive Director Stacie Grossman Bloom answers "What Leadership Skills are Becoming More Relevant to You as Your Career Progresses?"  Bloom notes why management skill development is central to her current growth.  As she gains management experience, she gets more comfortable making difficult decisions and helping high potential employees flourish. 

Stacie Grossman Bloom is Executive Director for the Neuroscience Institute at the NYU Langone Medical Center.  Previously, she was VP and Scientific Director at the New York Academy of Sciences (NYAS) and, before that, held editorial roles at the Journal of Clinical Investigation and Nature Medicine.  She earned her BA in chemistry and psychology from the University of Delaware, her PhD in Neurobiology and Cell Biology at Georgetown University and did post-doctoral training in Paul Greengard's Nobel Laboratory of Molecular & Cellular Neuroscience at Rockefeller University. 

Transcript: 

Erik Michielsen:  What leadership skills are becoming more relevant to you as your career progresses?

Stacie Grossman Bloom:  The leadership skills that are becoming more relevant to me as my career progresses are definitely those associated with management. Managing a larger and more diverse team of individuals. I would say there’s a lot of different personalities, there are a lot of very difficult conversations, I think for me a few years ago, having those difficult conversations was unbelievably taxing, it was so stressful. I’m at the point now—I don’t love to have a difficult conversation with an employee, nobody does. But I’m certainly at the point now where I feel a lot more comfortable. I know what needs to be done. 

And that’s part of management, putting people on a professional development career path is something that’s become more important as I’m supervising higher levels of individuals, really talented people who I’m hoping they’ll stay with me for 2 or 3 years but I know that they’re not gonna stay with me forever, these are the people who are gonna have my job and more, very soon. Mentoring those people is really, really important to me. Making sure that they understand that they’re on a path where they’re gonna be able to accomplish great things. And I really take that mentorship very, very personally and very seriously.

Stacie Bloom on How to Be a Better Mentor

In Chapter 11 of 18 in her 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, Neuroscience Institute Executive Director Stacie Grossman Bloom answers "What Do You Find To Be the Most Important Elements of a Mentorship Experience?"  Bloom shares how mentors have shaped her non-traditional science career outside the laboratory.  She notes the importance of respect, trust, open communication, selflessness, and dedication to your personal network and knowledge development.  She also makes it clear a good mentor does not necessarily need to dedicate a large amount of time to the relationship; rather it just needs to be focused and dedicated. 

Stacie Grossman Bloom is Executive Director for the Neuroscience Institute at the NYU Langone Medical Center.  Previously, she was VP and Scientific Director at the New York Academy of Sciences (NYAS) and, before that, held editorial roles at the Journal of Clinical Investigation and Nature Medicine.  She earned her BA in chemistry and psychology from the University of Delaware, her PhD in Neurobiology and Cell Biology at Georgetown University and did post-doctoral training in Paul Greengard's Nobel Laboratory of Molecular & Cellular Neuroscience at Rockefeller University.

Transcript: 

Erik Michielsen:  What do you find to be the most important elements of a mentorship experience?

Stacie Grossman Bloom:  You know I think a relationship with a mentor is really important. For me, it was really key in helping to shape my career, I try really hard to be a good mentor, in particular to people with PhD’s who are looking for careers outside of the laboratory, so outside of that very traditional career path. And I’ve hired a lot of those kinds of individuals and they’ve gone on to do amazing things. I think a lot of communication, open communication, having a mentor who you really respect and trust is really important, someone who’s really selflessly being helpful to you and not undermining you. And I think someone who can help you build your network, someone who will take you to places where you can meet people who may be able to help you in your career. I really think of a relationship with a mentor as being like a lifelong relationship.

Erik Michielsen:  And how do you set aside time to be a mentor? 

Stacie Grossman Bloom:  I don’t think it takes a lot of time to be a mentor. I don’t necessarily say, okay, today I’m gonna set aside an hour of my time to being a mentor, but I get contacted by a lot of people. I’ve spoken at a lot of conferences and I’m invited to give talks at a lot of universities about my career, and afterwards I’m contacted a lot. I also have hired a lot of PhD scientists who have worked for me and I’ve spent a lot of time with those individuals. I don’t think that you necessarily need to set aside time, but I do think that it’s really important to take the time to help people like that, so I get a lot of cold calls, I get a lot of emails, I’m always trying to respond, if I can’t respond to an email directly then I usually ask someone who’s worked with me or -- and for me, to help me and maybe they can step up and be a mentor to that individual. I think it’s very hard to field all the calls and all the emails but I do try to make an effort to get back to everybody. Because I think my career path has been unique and I think that it’s a really—that it’s a career path that a lot of people could pursue, I don’t think that I’m so special, but I think knowing how to do it and how to navigate it is really important.

Stacie Bloom on Reflection-Informed Personal Growth

In Chapter 12 of 18 in her 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, Neuroscience Institute Executive Director Stacie Grossman Bloom answers "What Role Has Reflection Played in Shaping Your Personal Growth?"  Bloom shares how reflection has become more important as she gets older.  Now in her 30s, Bloom uses reflection to set more clear priorities in her work and her relationships. 

Stacie Grossman Bloom is Executive Director for the Neuroscience Institute at the NYU Langone Medical Center.  Previously, she was VP and Scientific Director at the New York Academy of Sciences (NYAS) and, before that, held editorial roles at the Journal of Clinical Investigation and Nature Medicine.  She earned her BA in chemistry and psychology from the University of Delaware, her PhD in Neurobiology and Cell Biology at Georgetown University and did post-doctoral training in Paul Greengard's Nobel Laboratory of Molecular & Cellular Neuroscience at Rockefeller University. 

Transcript: 

Erik Michielsen:  What role has reflection played in shaping your personal growth? 

Stacie Grossman Bloom:  I’ve become a much more sort of reflective person over time. I think, you know, I was in my 20’s, I was running around all the time, I was doing a million things, I didn’t really think about my actions, I just sort of lived for the moment. And now I realize I wanna create a legacy, and I wanna build a great Neuroscience Institute at NYU, I wanna help contribute to an effort that really will bring benefit to people’s lives, and in my own personal life. I want to have a successful relationship with my husband, and I wanna raise great kids. And a lot of that is looking into myself and my actions and my behaviors, and trying to make the best decisions that I can to make sure that I’m gonna be proud of my life.

Stacie Bloom on What Makes a World Class Science Institution

In Chapter 13 of 18 in her 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, Neuroscience Institute Executive Director Stacie Grossman Bloom answers "What Is Your Experience Teaching You About What It Takes to Build a World Class Scientific Organization?"  Bloom notes it requires being 1) Global; 2) Excellent; and 3) Multi-Sectoral.  Bloom notes "world class" requires working across global cultural boundaries, across scientific disciplines, and doing so  while consistently performing at the top quartile or better of a peer group. 

Stacie Grossman Bloom is Executive Director for the Neuroscience Institute at the NYU Langone Medical Center.  Previously, she was VP and Scientific Director at the New York Academy of Sciences (NYAS) and, before that, held editorial roles at the Journal of Clinical Investigation and Nature Medicine.  She earned her BA in chemistry and psychology from the University of Delaware, her PhD in Neurobiology and Cell Biology at Georgetown University and did post-doctoral training in Paul Greengard's Nobel Laboratory of Molecular & Cellular Neuroscience at Rockefeller University. 

Transcript: 

Erik Michielsen:  What is your experience teaching you about what it takes to build a world-class scientific organization? 

Stacie Grossman Bloom:  I think in order to be really a world-class institution, you know it’s very easy to tout yourself as, oh, we’re world-class, to be truly world-class, you have to really be global, and you have to be excellent, and you have to be multi-sectoral. I think that you can’t really have a world-class institution or you can’t call yourself a world-class institution if you’re very isolated or insular or siloed you have to work across boundaries, scientific boundaries, cultural boundaries, you have to be metric oriented, you have to prove yourself to be in the top quartile of performers, internationally. And I think only then can you say that you’re really world-class. 

Stacie Bloom on How Problem Solving Skills Improve Your Life

In Chapter 14 of 18 in her 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, Neuroscience Institute Executive Director Stacie Grossman Bloom answers "How Are You Applying Your Problem Solving Skills in Your New Role?"  Bloom notes how problem solving is the skill she uses from her PhD studies more than any other.  She uses the skills to manager her life, clearly delineating the problem and putting a plan in action to solve it, across her work and raising her three kids at home. 

Stacie Grossman Bloom is Executive Director for the Neuroscience Institute at the NYU Langone Medical Center.  Previously, she was VP and Scientific Director at the New York Academy of Sciences (NYAS) and, before that, held editorial roles at the Journal of Clinical Investigation and Nature Medicine.  She earned her BA in chemistry and psychology from the University of Delaware, her PhD in Neurobiology and Cell Biology at Georgetown University and did post-doctoral training in Paul Greengard's Nobel Laboratory of Molecular & Cellular Neuroscience at Rockefeller University. 

Transcript: 

Erik Michielsen:  How are you applying your problem solving skills in your new role?

Stacie Grossman Bloom:  I am a problem solver. I mean I feel like people who are trained as scientists are problem solvers. That’s what your training gives you, besides from your scientific knowledge, the ability to navigate a problem and figure out how to solve it independently. I think that that’s the one skill from having a PhD that I use more than anything else, and I use it at work, I use it at home, I use it with my children, I use it as a working mother. I definitely think that I apply problem-solving skills to—maybe a little bit too much I think. My husband would complain about it a little bit. But I do think that I can very clearly delineate the problem and put a plan in action to solve it. 

Erik Michielsen:  How are you applying your problem solving skills in new ways?

Stacie Grossman Bloom:  I would say that my life is more complicated and busier than it probably ever has been before. My job is pretty intense. I have 3 kids at home. There’s a lot to manage. And I would say that I use my problem solving skills to manage my life. I’m a really organized person. I sort of start each day with a plan of attack, a plan of action. And having good problem solving skills and the ability to stay organized just help me do all of these things that I sort of need to get done.

Stacie Bloom on How Increasing Diversity Improves Communities

In Chapter 15 of 18 in her 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, Neuroscience Institute Executive Director Stacie Grossman Bloom answers "What Have You Found to Be the Keys to Build More Effective Communities?"  Bloom feels more effective communities can be built with multi-sector stakeholders.  The background diversity helps the community learn from each other from its different backgrounds, experiences and problem solving approaches. 

Stacie Grossman Bloom is Executive Director for the Neuroscience Institute at the NYU Langone Medical Center.  Previously, she was VP and Scientific Director at the New York Academy of Sciences (NYAS) and, before that, held editorial roles at the Journal of Clinical Investigation and Nature Medicine.  She earned her BA in chemistry and psychology from the University of Delaware, her PhD in Neurobiology and Cell Biology at Georgetown University and did post-doctoral training in Paul Greengard's Nobel Laboratory of Molecular & Cellular Neuroscience at Rockefeller University. 

Transcript: 

Erik Michielsen:  What have you found to be the keys to building more effective communities?

Stacie Grossman Bloom:  I think more effective communities are built when you bring multi-sector stakeholders to the table. I think an effective community is one that comprises individuals with all sorts of backgrounds who can bring their own experiences and their own perspectives to the table. I think usually that’s a community who can really learn from each other, who really represent a broad spectrum of ideas and experiences and problem solving techniques, so those multi-sector communities, I think are really the most effective.

Stacie Bloom on Managing Across Work Disciplines

In Chapter 16 of 18 in her 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, Neuroscience Institute Executive Director Stacie Grossman Bloom answers "How Are You Learning to Work More Effectively Across Different Disciplines?"  For Bloom it starts with respecting the different cultures within each discipline.  This allows her to then find better ways to encourage and support collaboration across disciplines.  She shares her experience doing so encouraging translational research between basic scientists and clinical scientists. 

Stacie Grossman Bloom is Executive Director for the Neuroscience Institute at the NYU Langone Medical Center.  Previously, she was VP and Scientific Director at the New York Academy of Sciences (NYAS) and, before that, held editorial roles at the Journal of Clinical Investigation and Nature Medicine.  She earned her BA in chemistry and psychology from the University of Delaware, her PhD in Neurobiology and Cell Biology at Georgetown University and did post-doctoral training in Paul Greengard's Nobel Laboratory of Molecular & Cellular Neuroscience at Rockefeller University. 

Transcript: 

Erik Michielsen:  How are you learning to work more effectively across different disciplines?

Stacie Grossman Bloom:  I think I’m learning to work more effectively across different disciplines simply by virtue of having a better understanding of the perspectives of those different disciplines. Understanding that different disciplines have different cultures, and learning as a supervisor or a manager how to serve role with that, how to adapt my expectations to that, how to encourage collaborations between people who have different perspectives.

You know, one specific example is, and it’s funny, it’s just very timely, so we had this meeting last week, it was called the translational interface committee, and this is a group of department chairs, from the basic science side and from the clinical side, so the chairman of Neurology and a Neuroscience researcher, a big meeting, and we talked a lot about how do we encourage translational research, how can we get clinicians into the labs, to understand the basic science so that they can go back and treat the patient with schizophrenia or Parkinson’s disease. 

Those cultures are really different, the culture of a clinical scientist is very different from the culture of a basic scientist, and it’s very interesting to put those populations of people together. It’s usually very successful, it’s very collaborative, it’s—ends up being very collegial but there might be a little bit hesitance on the clinician’s part to go into the lab because the science can be a little bit intimidating. These are very smart people but it’s a different training, it’s a little bit of a different background and from the basic scientist part, the clinician may be a little bit intimidating, you know, that’s the person who’s going head-to-head with the patient and solving the problems in the clinic. 

So I think breaking down that wall and showing people that what you, sort of what you perceive to be intimidating or what you perceive to be a cultural difference, you know, in reality when you get two people in a room they’re usually okay.

Stacie Bloom on How Life Science Career Paths Are Changing

In Chapter 17 of 18 in her 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, Neuroscience Institute Executive Director Stacie Grossman Bloom answers "What Has Your Experience Taught You About How Science Careers are Changing?"  Bloom notes that with more life science PhDs being awarded then ever before, there is a supply and demand mismatch for purely academic jobs.  Bloom notes that people trained as scientists are not aware what else they can do with a PhD.  Bloom calls for more scientific or education training for alternative science careers. 

Stacie Grossman Bloom is Executive Director for the Neuroscience Institute at the NYU Langone Medical Center.  Previously, she was VP and Scientific Director at the New York Academy of Sciences (NYAS) and, before that, held editorial roles at the Journal of Clinical Investigation and Nature Medicine.  She earned her BA in chemistry and psychology from the University of Delaware, her PhD in Neurobiology and Cell Biology at Georgetown University and did post-doctoral training in Paul Greengard's Nobel Laboratory of Molecular & Cellular Neuroscience at Rockefeller University. 

Transcript: 

Erik Michielsen:  What has your experience taught you about how science careers are changing?

Stacie Grossman Bloom:  I think my experiences just being involved in the scientific fields, especially in life science, has shown me that we’re awarding more PhD’s than ever before, there are a lot of people who just by virtue of sheer numbers cannot follow that traditional academic path, cannot end up in that in that ivory tower, and there are a lot of people who are there for either by choice or simply by virtue of the fact that they just can’t compete off looking for alternative types of careers, and by alternative I just mean anything outside of the traditional lab, whether it be academic or pharmaceutical company, biotech, what I see and sort of what I hear is that people trained as scientists aren’t really aware of what the possibilities are for them. What else can you do with a PhD and the truth is you can do a lot, but having the ability to take your skill set and adjust it for a new career, people with PhD’s aren’t being trained to do that, and the academic institutions may be a little bit hesitant to provide that training because the head of the lab wants to train the next Nobel prize winner, I don’t know if they’re as interested in training the next executive director of  the NYU Neuroscience Institute, or the next editor of Nature Medicine, they want to get the biggest return on their investment in you, and they’re investing a lot in you, so I think that there’s a great need to educate people with science backgrounds on other things that they can do, alternative types of careers and I don’t think we’re really providing enough of that just yet. 

Erik Michielsen:  What do you think would help get that process started?

Stacie Grossman Bloom:  So that process is starting a little bit. So when you go to a large scientific meeting, there’s usually one session about alternative careers and the room is usually packed and I’ve been a speaker at a lot of these. At NYU, we have a bi-annual event called “What can you be with a PHD” where there are panels of people who are doing really interesting other things, and that event is attended by almost 2,000 people, I think, the last one. So there’s obviously this great need for it and I think also some of the big scientific journals like Nature, I know for example has nature jobs network that’s not just focused on, you know, where to get a postdoc, where to get a professorship, so it’s starting, and I think as more of us end up in high-profile alternative careers and can be mentors to other people, you know, you hope that you’re the beginning of a larger group that’s going to encourage this kind of thing.

Stacie Bloom on Planning a STEM Career in Scientific Research

In Chapter 18 of 18 in her 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, Neuroscience Institute Executive Director Stacie Grossman Bloom answers "What Opportunities Do You See to Better Encourage People to Careers in the Sciences?"  Bloom notes the push toward promoting STEM - science, technology, engineering, and math - careers.  She also notes the need for role models.  She then details the distinct challenges presented in scientific research careers, from the competitive education constraints to the financial constraints of National Institute of Health (NIH) early career salaries. 

Stacie Grossman Bloom is Executive Director for the Neuroscience Institute at the NYU Langone Medical Center.  Previously, she was VP and Scientific Director at the New York Academy of Sciences (NYAS) and, before that, held editorial roles at the Journal of Clinical Investigation and Nature Medicine.  She earned her BA in chemistry and psychology from the University of Delaware, her PhD in Neurobiology and Cell Biology at Georgetown University and did post-doctoral training in Paul Greengard's Nobel Laboratory of Molecular & Cellular Neuroscience at Rockefeller University.

Transcript: 

Erik Michielsen:  What opportunities do you see to better encourage people to pursue careers in the sciences? 

Stacie Grossman Bloom:  So, you know, in this country, I think there’s a big emphasis now on trying to improve STEM: science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education in younger people. I think that in order to pursue a career in research, there have to be role models and incentives, it’s not the same as law or finance or business where you know that you can go out and become a very successful person. A life in scientific research is unbelievably daunting and challenging, for a lot of reasons, I mean first of all, it’s hard. You go to school for a very long time, but when you get out of school, after 5 years, for doing a PhD, at that point, you’re generally about 30 years old, sometimes older, sometimes younger, you still have to go and do a postdoc, and postdoc salaries are really dictated by the NIH, by the National Institutes of Health. And those salaries are very hard to live on. 

So a starting postdoc, a 30-year-old person with a PhD might be making $42,000 a year, and you can see why many people maybe wouldn’t choose that path, but even if you do choose that path, and you are gonna live on $42,000 a year in a place like New York City, which—a lot of people do it. Obviously I did it. And at the time, not even making $42,000 a year, I think my salary was $33,000 a year. You know, you still have a very challenging future ahead of you if you’re on the track that where you’re pursuing the traditional scientific career, where you do a postdoc, maybe you do a second postdoc, and then you interview for an assistant professor, tenure track assistant professor job, and get on, you know, the path to a tenured full professor position, maybe even a chairman position. 

There’s a big drop off at the postdoc stage because making that transition to the next phase is really, really difficult because you have to be unbelievably successful scientifically, you have to publish your work. It would be great if you were funded independently as a researcher, and then those positions for assistant professors, associate professors, full professors, they just don’t come up very often. So it’s hard to be positively reinforced I think, and it’s hard to succeed. I mean it’s hard to compete with the giant pool of postdocs that are out there.

Erik Michielsen:  Where’s the inflection point, how do you make it easier?

Stacie Grossman Bloom:  I don’t think it’s going to become easier until the NIH changes their funding structure. The budget for the NIH has been basically flat for a while, which doesn’t give you a lot of incentive to go that route. I mean the success of your grand proposal is not very promising. I think there have to be big changes in the way that we support scientists and fund scientists in this country.

Simon Sinek on How to Improve Strategic Thinking

In Chapter 14 of 16 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, author and public speaker Simon Sinek answers "How Do You Make Strategic Thinking More Implementation Friendly?"  To Sinek it comes down to language and the importance of using words people understand.  When the language is simple, the directive becomes clear to everyone and can be more easily followed and implemented.  Simon Sinek teaches leaders and organizations how to inspire people.  His goal is to "inspire people to do the things that inspire them" and help others find fulfillment in their work.  Sinek is the author of "Start With Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action".  He works regularly with the United States Military, United States Congress, and many organizations, agencies and entrepreneurs.  Sinek is an adjunct professor at Columbia University and an adjunct staff member at the think tank RAND Corporation.  Sinek earned a BA in Cultural Anthropology from Brandeis University.

Transcript

Erik Michielsen:  How do you make strategic thinking more implementation friendly?

Simon Sinek:  Language.  Strategic thinking can be more implementation friendly when you use words that you understand. It’s amazing to me how often we read strategies that are incomprehensible. To be the pre-eminent supplier, you know, we’re gonna—I mean, what—I mean these are things that you can’t do. Based on what metric? We wanna be the best? That’s your strategy? Like that’s not a strategy. That’s nothing. We wanna be the—we wanna be ranked number one. What—revenues, profit, quality, customer satisfaction, loyalty, what? It’s complete nonsense, you know? And so the more specific a strategy can be, the clearer the language can be, the more implementable it can be.

I’m a great believer that if you speak like a scientist, only scientists will understand you, but if you speak like a truck driver, both truck drivers and scientists will understand you. And the amazing thing is if you actually speak like a scientist, even a lot of the scientists don’t understand you. The point is use very simple terminology that’s somebody who’s not in your industry who doesn’t know your business would understand what you’re trying to do. And if that’s the basis of the language that you choose to use that anyone can understand what you’re attempting to do and if you started someone tomorrow, they would be able to take the reins and go because it’s so crystal clear. That’s the standard that we need to use inside our own organizations. When the language is clear, when the language is specific, when the language is simple, it’s easy. It’s easy to implement. Right? Off the races you go, you know?

Using Twitter to Exercise Creative Writing Skills - Ross Floate

In Chapter 20 of 20 in his 2012 interview, branding and design strategist Ross Floate answers "How Do You Use Social Media to Exercise Your Creative Skills?"  As a trained journalist, Floate uses Twitter as a creative outlet to share thoughts, connect with smart, intersting people and to work through and vet creative ideas.  Referencing his journalism experience, Floate uses what he learned to write lead sentences to write inside the 140-character format of Twitter.  Ross Floate is a principal at Melbourne, Australia-based Floate Design Partners.  Experienced in branding, design and both online and offline publishing, Floate and his team provide marketing services to clients seeking to better communicate business and culture goals via image, messaging, and story. He is a graduate of RMIT University.

How to Fix Entrepreneurship Skill Gaps in Education - Richard Moross

In Chapter 8 of 17 in his 2012 interview, London entrepreneur and Moo.com CEO Richard Moross answers "How Can the Education System Better Prepare Entrepreneurs?"  Moross notes the high occurrence of the education system failing to educate entrepreneurs.  He notes the importance of education teaching core skills such as how to argue, how to make a case and how to plan strategy.  He finds it is less about teaching students how to start companies and more about providing access and training to core skills, especially programming or writing code, as well as a broader cultural education that starting a company is a viable career option.  Moross is founder and CEO of Moo.com and a leader in the London startup scene.  Before starting Moo.com, an award-winning online print business, Moross was a strategist at Imagination, the world's largest independent design company.  He graduated from the University of Sussex, where he majored in philosophy and politics.

How to Stay Ahead of the Innovation Curve - Richard Moross

In Chapter 9 of 17 in his 2012 interview, London entrepreneur and Moo.com CEO Richard Moross answers "How Are You Learning to Apply Your Passions in New Ways?"  Moross shares how making design more accessible to people means he must consider looking beyond paper products to serve his customers.  This requires him to look beyond paper to future options that may evolve from physical to digital.  Moross is founder and CEO of Moo.com and a leader in the London startup scene.  Before starting Moo.com, an award-winning online print business, Moross was a strategist at Imagination, the world's largest independent design company.  He graduated from the University of Sussex, where he majored in philosophy and politics.

Joe Stump on How to Use Your Passion to Lose Weight and Stay Fit

In Chapter 1 of 14 in his 2012 interview, Internet entrepreneur Joe Stump answers "How Are You Learning to Apply Your Passions in New Ways?"  Stump applies his passion for programming and the software building process to his diet.  As a result, he is able to lose nearly 40 pounds in less than a year.  He compares the software programming process to dieting and the importance of turning bad habits to good habits and making it sustainable.  Joe Stump is a serial entrepreneur based in Portland, OR. He is CEO and co-founder of Sprint.ly, a product management software company.  Previously he founded SimpleGeo, which was sold to Urban Airship in October 2011.  He advises several startups - including attachments.me and ngmoco:) - as well as VC firm Freestyle Capital.  He earned a BBA in Computer Information Systems (CIS) from Eastern Michigan University. 

Transcript:

Erik Michielsen: How are you learning to apply your passions in new ways?

Joe Stump: I am at heart a hacker and a tinkerer. I like puzzles. I've always been that way, you know, I was the kid that had more Legos than he knew what to do with it and was always kind of putting them together in different ways. And I've taken that and have kind of started applying it to other areas in my life.

The hacking -- Probably the recent successful hack has been the fact that I've lost about 35, 40 pounds over the last year-ish and I approached it very much in the same way that I approached triaging a software bug. And when you're triaging a software bug, the first thing you do is you get a baseline, right? Where are we at right now? You then get a – you then do logging and statistics and kind of figure out, you know – basically you gather information as much as you can, right? After you’ve established your baseline. And then as you're gathering your information, hopefully you figure out what the problem is and you can then resolve it, right?

And I kind of basically applied that same approach to my diet where basically I started doing research and started tracking all sorts of things. And I actually, when I approached it, I approached it from -- again, in a very similar way to the way I approach bugs. So, when I go and change someone else’s code, I try to be as minimally invasive as possible. Because I don’t know whether or not if I change too much code, I don’t know whether or not that code will be sustainable. I may introduce other bugs. So, with dieting and changing health, like I wanted to change bad habits and the good habits and I wanted it to be sustainable.

And I think a lot of people, you know, you hear a lot of people talk about this with diet where they try and go cold turkey or they try to like do some really extreme diet and they end up falling off the wagon and they end up going back to poor eating habits. So I did things like I tracked how often I biked to work. I didn’t track how far; I just tracked yes or no. Did I ride my bike to work? And my goal was I wanted to ride my bike to work half of the time. I also wanted to cut down on my diet soda intake, so I tracked that. And if I had less than two, cool; if I had more than two, not cool, right?

And then I ended up going and getting really geeky and ended up getting like this thing called a DEXA Scan that tells you all this terrifying information about your body that you don’t want to know, like how much you're intestines weigh and how much muscle mass you don’t have when thought you were all ripped. And having that very objective analytical view into my body and how it worked really helped me approach turning the knobs in a much more nuanced way.

So, rather than going and saying, “I'm going to train for an Ironman and that’s how I'm going to lose 40 pounds.” I was like I’m going to go and bike to work half the time. I'm going to drink a little less soda, I’m gonna cut down my sugar a bit and introduce a very, very small amount of exercise. And it worked out very well. I've been able to sustain that over time. And what was really interesting also was when you overextend your body, you're basically shocking the system and when you shock the system like think about when there's a five-alarm fire, right?

People miss the little things that are happening around them when there's a five-alarm fire and I feel it's the same way with your body. When I introduced small changes, I was able to be a little bit more perceptive about what my body was telling, whereas if I had went really extreme and was like on a fasting diet or total vegetarian, my body would have been like -- and I wouldn’t have been able -- my body overwhelmingly would have been saying, “What are you doing?” whereas if you introduced a little bit more incrementally. It was like, you know, you can basically say, it's almost like committing transactions to a database.

So transactions to a database, you can commit like, you can do something and then if it didn’t work you can roll it back. No harm, no foul, right? And so if you do that incrementally, that’s what I was basically doing. I was like, I'm going to step in here, okay, that worked, cool. And then I'm going to step in here, that didn’t work, roll back, right? It was like a very iterative kind of process and it's allowed me to really be a lot more perceptive to what my body is telling me.

So now, what's kind of nice about this is I've been on the road a lot for the last six months and I've been eating – I’ve been cycling basically, eating like utter crap while I’m on the road. It's really hard to eat really healthy when you're on the road to cycling in the good habits. It's like my body tells me basically, “Dude, you're eating sugar. You got to like up your protein,” and I'm a lot better at listening to that now.

Joe Stump on Finding Joy Working a Job You Love

In Chapter 2 of 14 in his 2012 interview, Internet entrepreneur Joe Stump answers "What Do You Enjoy Most About What You Do?"  Stump shares how working a job he loves comes at the intersection of his passion, his hobby, and his profession - software development.  He compares this to what he thinks it must be like to be a professional sports player and play a game you love for a living.  Joe Stump is a serial entrepreneur based in Portland, OR. He is CEO and co-founder of Sprint.ly, a product management software company.  Previously he founded SimpleGeo, which was sold to Urban Airship in October 2011.  He advises several startups - including attachments.me and ngmoco:) - as well as VC firm Freestyle Capital.  He earned a BBA in Computer Information Systems (CIS) from Eastern Michigan University. 

Transcript:

Erik Michielsen: What do you enjoy most about what you do?

Joe Stump: I think what I enjoy most, to be totally honest, is that I get to look like this and act the way that I do and still make a decent living and work on what I love. But I think what I love most about what I do is that it doesn’t feel like I'm actually doing it. I say a lot that I'm often blessed and cursed that my passion, my hobby, my profession are at a perfect intersection.

So, that’s probably like the best thing that you can say, right? ‘Cause like I do exactly what I want to do and I just happen to get paid for it. I think I'm one of the few people maybe that works in an office environment that can say I kinda get what it's like to be like a professional sports player, like they get paid to play a game and like do what they love. So, that’s probably number one.

Joe Stump on Finding Meaningful Work Making Software

In Chapter 3 of 14 in his 2012 interview, Internet entrepreneur Joe Stump answers "What Makes Your Work Meaningful?"  At his core, Stump simply loves helping people.  He finds software provides him an opportunity to empower and help people at scale.  His current company, Sprint.ly, makes product management software that Stump hopes, jokingly, will "make life in a cubicle a little nicer."  Joe Stump is a serial entrepreneur based in Portland, OR. He is CEO and co-founder of Sprint.ly, a product management software company.  Previously he founded SimpleGeo, which was sold to Urban Airship in October 2011.  He advises several startups - including attachments.me and ngmoco:) - as well as VC firm Freestyle Capital.  He earned a BBA in Computer Information Systems (CIS) from Eastern Michigan University. 

Transcript:

Erik Michielsen: What makes your work meaningful?

Joe Stump: You know me fairly well and I like helping people. I like helping people a lot and one of the things that I think software can do is it can enable, empower, and help people. And the software that, you know, really the software that I'm building now is kind of it’s software as a service, it's business software.

Most people would look at it -- I mean, it's product management software. People are not like -- people shouldn’t love that kind of software, right? But our customers love it. They say like, the number one word that comes back and like when people respond back is love. They love using it.

And I often say that like jokingly, I say that our mission at Sprint.ly is to make life in a cubicle a little nicer.  And I think that, you know, you can have a huge impact through software because if I was just a philanthropist I could help maybe dozens of people but I'm now enabling thousands of people to hopefully get a few less grey hairs.