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From Academia to Entrepreneurship: Stephanie Manka's Journey in Wildlife Conservation · How To Protect The Ocean

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Welcome back to the show, everybody. On today's episode, we're going to be talking with
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Stephanie Manka. She is a fellow podcaster. She has
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a podcast called The Fancy Scientist, and she's here to talk about
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her career and how you can get a better career, not only
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in ocean conservation, but maybe even in wildlife conservation. We're
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going to talk to Stephanie on today's episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast.
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Let's start the show. Hey
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everybody, welcome back to another exciting episode of the how to protect the ocean podcast. I'm
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your host Andrew Lewin, and this is the podcast where you find out what's happening with the ocean,
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how you can speak up for the ocean and what you can do to live for a better ocean by
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taking action. And on today's episode, we've got a great one for you folks.
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We've got Stephanie Manka. who is a fellow podcaster from
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the Fancy Scientist Podcast. And she
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is just bringing the heat with career advice, how she built
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her career, how she went from academia down to,
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not down, over to her own company,
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and how she is helping people get careers in
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wildlife conservation, that's including ocean conservation. So
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it's a lot of what you can do to better your
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resume, what you can do to build up your mindset and
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get in the right mode to build your wildlife conservation
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career, and even what to do within wildlife conservation. She
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goes into all of that in this episode. She also talks about her time
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on TV. She does a couple of, well, a couple.
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different shows around with the History Channel really reacting
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to videos that may have a questionable kind
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of thing about the science and and conservation and
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wildlife. So it's a lot of fun-filled packed
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information here with Stephanie Manka from the Fancy Scientist
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podcast and you can go to her website. I'll put the website
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in the show notes as well as her podcast so you can check it out.
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But here's the interview with Stephanie. Enjoy and I will talk
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to you after. Hey Stephanie, welcome to the How
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Wonderful, this has been a long time coming apparently, because I think we
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realized that neither of us have been on each other's podcast and
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we're like, why hasn't that been? We've had the podcast for quite
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a long time, each of us, probably some of the longest running podcasts,
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I think in biology, I would say, but
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this is gonna be fun. We're gonna be talking about your career and how you
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ended up where you ended up as a science communicator, having
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your own podcast, but also having your own business, a full-time business.
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which is interesting in itself because not a lot of people can
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do that. And so I'm gonna like start to prod about
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how you can do that so I can learn how to do that as well. But
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also I think for a lot of people who are in the business of
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wildlife biology or ocean biology or marine biology or
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what have you, some people need to do that on their own and because
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it's hard to fit in. to some of the places and move
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and everything like that, depending on what we have going on in our life. So I'm looking
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forward to getting into all that. But Stephanie, if you could just
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so introduce yourself to the audience, if they don't know you, and
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Sure. I am Stephanie Manka. I
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used to be Shuttler. So if you hear about Stephanie Shuttler, that's me too.
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That was my married name. And I am
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a wildlife biologist, science communicator, career
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mentor. Like you said, I have my own business now,
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but I started out in this career as a traditional wildlife
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unreal and that is quite a tale
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I assume like going from research to you
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know where you are now and having your own business and going to science communication. I guess
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the first question to start off really is did you ever expect
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No, not at all when okay, so my
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my father is actually a business owner and as a
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child I would watch him come to home
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from work and He always carried the business with
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him now He was an excellent father like we spent lots of time together and
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everything but you know There were definitely days where he was late
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to dinner because he had to stay with a diamond customer he's he's
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a jeweler and Okay. And even on the weekends, you know, we'd like,
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he'd be talking about business and he just always like carried this on him. So
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I remember thinking like, I don't want a job like that. I want to
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separate work. So you can already see where this is going. I
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want to separate work. Yeah. Life. But,
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um, okay. I'll try to keep this a little bit shorter, but I, um,
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okay. I'll go ahead. Okay. I'll tell you guys everything. I
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basically didn't know what I wanted to do. For really
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college, I was still confused. And my brother
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went to NYU for acting school. And I don't
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know, I just thought that was cool. I was like, oh, I'll be an actor. That sounds like a
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fun job. But I was also really scared of it. It's
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really risky. You hear about people never making it. People
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have to wait tables and they do their plays at
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night and everything. So I also at the same time
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decided to major in biology and
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that would be my backup career. I could be a medical doctor. I
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did always like biology, especially the ecology stuff,
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but I never really knew there was a career that you could have with ecology
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or wildlife. I knew about Jane Goodall, but I was
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like, I'm not going to move to Tanzania in the middle of
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the forest and just live amongst chimpanzees. Even
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if I wanted to, I didn't know how you would do that. So
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I studied biology as a backup career to be a doctor because
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that seemed like a safe career. I could make lots of money,
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you know, there's always doctors. And so that was my plan, but
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I still wanted to be an actress. And, um, then
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also I realized my brother had a big influence on me. Um, he
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also recommended I study abroad just like kind of nonchalantly. He's
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like, Oh yeah, that'd be a cool experience for you. And I
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didn't go away to college. So I felt like I was missing
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out on getting an experience. I lived with my parents and
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I commuted. So I, I
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thought that sounded really great. I was like, okay, I'll do that. And
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I went to the study abroad office and, um,
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at that time there were brochures because we had the internet, but
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it wasn't like how it is today. And they looked at all these different
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brochures. I gathered the ones for theater and those were all in
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Europe. And then I found, I think I found two that were related
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to nature. One, one was in Africa and one
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I think was in the, in like, I think it was Turks and Caicos, but
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I don't remember, but it was, it was ocean related. Yep. And
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I remember spreading all the brochures on my bed and looking at them.
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And the theater ones, I don't know, it just didn't seem as interesting, like
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learning about like ancient Greek plays and stuff, like didn't excite
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me as much. And, um, I
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was a traveler growing up, even though my family didn't travel. I
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had this, I got this student exchange or, and it
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wasn't exchange, but the student ambassador program to Australia. And
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I did that. So I went to Australia when I was like by
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myself, technically, I mean, I went as a part of a group, but I didn't go with my
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family. So I did that, and the
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one for Kenya was especially calling my name because I
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just felt like, when am I ever going to have a chance to go to Africa again?
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That seems really scary. Nobody in my family wanted to go
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to Africa. It's not like, I don't know, I couldn't imagine myself going
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there. So I was like, I'm just going to do that. And it was a
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study for wildlife management program. So
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it took me going all the way to Africa to realize like, oh,
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I can have a job in wildlife biology. I didn't realize
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that. So I just did the summer program. It was short a
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month, but it introduced me into this world. And
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then when I came back, I went
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to a local state school. So it wasn't the best for wildlife, but
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I connected with the science professors and ecology professors
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there and I knew you had to go to graduate school and I now
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had the root of like, okay, how do I become a wildlife
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biologist? So then
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I was on my way, and I did a couple of internships. And
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then I went to graduate school. I got my PhD. I
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did some postdoc work. I had two postdocs. One
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was really short after I did my PhD at the same university
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that I graduated. And then, to be honest, I
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really didn't want to move again. I had moved a bunch. And
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I got married. I'm a big animal lover. So
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I accidentally rescued like six animals. Accidentally.
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Yeah. Yeah. Two dogs. Yeah, two dogs and four
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cats. The last one really was an accident. I
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really didn't want her, but she was semi-feral and
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there was no shelter room, so they would have put her down. My
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lab, my undergrads that were working for
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It's tough not to keep to like especially once you become an
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animal lover and you have multiple pets Then it's like I
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can take this one in like I know and I can figure it out, you know Especially
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when you have a house you have no restrictions I
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have to stay away from some of those Facebook Accounts. Oh,
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I know shelters because I'm like, I'll take all of them. Yes, like you need help
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I know it's pets. I My boyfriend now didn't grow up with any
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pets and he has one dog. We live separately. He has one
10:06
dog. I have two dogs and two cats. And I'm
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slowly trying to convince him that like, this is normal to have like
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multiple animals, but he's so against it. But
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I show them those Facebook posts. I'm like, see, this is how you get them. You
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That's exactly it. And once you have a wildlife degree, then it
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makes it easier. I know how to handle this. So let
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me ask you this. So with the PhD, with the postdocs, was
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it more of a focus working directly with animals? Or was it
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more of a conservation-focused, almost policy-driven,
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policy-focused, or protected
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So I did my PhD on forest elephants
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in animal behavior and using non-invasive genetics. So
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my focus was always like research focused, but
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I wanted a conservation application. But
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to be honest, I still didn't know what I wanted to do, and that
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was what I call my big mistake, is that I
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didn't have a clear end goal. I was like, I want to work in conservation, maybe
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for the government or nonprofit. So I had these animals.
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I had a house. And I didn't want to move. I wanted to move
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once and for all. And that was it. So I was applying to
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permanent jobs. And I was really confident in
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my job applications and stuff. But I wasn't getting any interviews
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except for I got one interview
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for a permanent job. And then I didn't want to apply for postdocs
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because those are temporary positions. But I did let myself
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when it was like really perfect, when there's a postdoc I really liked, and
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or it wasn't an area I wanted to live forever, I could see myself living.
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So the temporary kind of, yeah, the temporary, like the temporariness
11:56
of the job kind of helped if you want to live somewhere and then I'm not gonna
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No, that I could, I could, Yeah, so I
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wanted a job where it wasn't like a big enough city that I
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could find another job. I would take it through postdoc, but
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then find a permanent job afterward. But I didn't want to go to
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South Dakota, where the chances for a job that
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I was interested in wouldn't come up. Okay. So,
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um, I knew academic jobs are really competitive, like
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being a professor, but I had no idea how competitive wildlife
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jobs were. So this was totally shocking to me that like, I was not getting
12:36
jobs. And I know that sounds funny, but, but,
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but it was, I was like, I have the experience. I have a PhD, like,
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how am I not qualified? But I
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just slowly realized that just the market is so saturated out
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there. So I did get a postdoc. I got a long postdoc in
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Raleigh, North Carolina. It was five years. So Raleigh,
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Durham, and Chapel Hill are considered the research triangle. So
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I was like, OK, over five years, I will find a permanent job in
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the research triangle. Well, guess what? In five years,
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I didn't. And it
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was kind of a couple of things that, well,
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mostly I was surprised by how few jobs I was qualified for, because
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what I learned from my first experience is that I I
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got interviews for jobs where my experience really
13:29
lined up with the job. So I thought getting your PhD would
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be kind of a blanket where you could, you know, I could easily work
13:36
for the Nature Conservancy, but I had worked in Gabon on
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forest elephants. if I was applying for
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a job in North Carolina working on mammals, like
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there, there's not a lot of crossover. So, so I
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didn't like, again, I didn't realize how competitive were. So I think maybe a decade or
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so ago I would have been fine, but now they're going to hire the
13:57
person who has been working in North Carolina with that mammal experience over
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somebody with my experience. So just
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every interview that I had, I would get like so close, but they would be like,
14:08
Oh, there's just somebody with, this much more experience. In one case, it
14:11
was somebody with 10 years of experience. So it's like, oh my gosh, like,
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and people were even asking, like, why is this person applying for this job?
14:19
Like, they're clearly overqualified. But again, the market's just
14:22
so oversaturated. So, so
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I love my job in Raleigh. I loved I worked at the North Carolina Museum of
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Natural Sciences. I love that. And at the same
14:33
time, they really encouraged science communications. And I really
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loved science communication. So I started blogging
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with a friend, and then I eventually developed my own blog. And
14:44
a couple of things happened at the same time. I
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realized that I loved science communication. I
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loved writing. I loved public speaking. Um,
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and, um, I was also blogging about the troubles on the
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job market and I knew I wasn't the only one. So I started
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to give advice about this. Um, and,
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um, just slowly, honestly, I transitioned into doing
15:08
more blogging and stuff. And then I was listening to.
15:13
podcasts where people, I eventually found podcasts where people were
15:17
making money off of doing this. And so I was like, okay, I like, like
15:20
eventually I started, stopped applying for jobs and, and I, and
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I decided to do this full time. Um, so
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I do a combination of science communication and career mentoring
15:32
and, um, yeah, some other stuff like writing books and
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It seems like a lot to take on like a lot of different streams, right?
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I guess that's what you have your own business. You're able to do that. Um,
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now like, do you miss the research aspect or finding that
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job? Like, do you ever go back and look and just be like, Oh
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man, I kind of wish I, I went into this route
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instead of another route. Or did you feel like you exhausted everything
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That's a good question. Yes and no. I
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would say mostly I don't miss it because
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another thing that was going on was I felt like my
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research was very academic and I loved it, but I really
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wanted a conservation application. I loved animals growing
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up. I wanted to save the world. And when
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I was doing my research, I thought it was cool, but
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it was just going into academic journals and like, yeah, maybe somebody could
16:33
use it for a conservation application. But it was
16:36
just like an if, you know, like, like, you know, maybe if somebody
16:39
does this, whereas if I was
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working on a project that had a direct conservation application, I
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think I would have enjoyed it more. And
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also, I could have applied for jobs all over the country and
16:53
stuff, but like I said, I really wanted to stay in Raleigh. I was really happy in Raleigh. I
16:58
do miss when I talk about
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science communication, I do miss the first-hand experience being
17:05
like, we discovered this or our group found this
17:09
out. I miss that part, but I don't miss necessarily writing
17:13
the papers. I miss being part of
17:17
a larger lab where we can share ideas and talk about
17:21
what's new in science and stuff like that. But
17:25
in terms of the research, um, itself, I
17:29
don't miss a ton and I do miss like going, getting those
17:32
neat experiences as well, I guess. Yeah. So those are the things that I
17:35
miss. Um, but at the, at the same time, also
17:39
I was working with kids, my job required to integrate
17:42
research into classrooms, like real research. So we would have kids set
17:46
up camera traps and we would use the images for research. And
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I was doing a lot of social science research too, and I realized that
17:56
for people to care about the environment and conservation, it's really important
18:00
for them to have a connection with nature. So that was also
18:03
like where things started to pivot for me that like, oh, science communication
18:07
is really important because I can Um,
18:10
you know, create that connection for, for kids. Like,
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like, like, I mean, I mean, think about like, you know, Steve Irwin, he created that
18:17
connection for so many people. And so, so
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I realized like, yeah, for sure. Like, like I, even though I never really
18:24
watched Steve Irwin. But
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yeah, so I realized like, oh, I can have a bigger impact
18:33
by getting people to care and then they carry that
18:36
throughout their lifetime. Whereas when I was working on forest
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elephants, yes, I was working on an endangered species, but
18:44
The problem was not like we weren't studying them enough. The problem was
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people were poaching them. So like how do you get the people to stop poaching
18:51
them, which ultimately boils down to people
18:55
caring enough about wildlife, whether it's the politicians, the government, the
18:59
people buying it, or the
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gap in knowledge between what people are buying versus
19:05
what they think they're buying, all of that sort of stuff. It's a
19:10
Yeah, for sure. For sure. So like when you
19:14
when you first started your business, like
19:18
that's not an easy thing to start. Did you have like
19:21
you started talking about the career thing that
19:25
was that your first sort of venture into building
19:28
the business was okay, I'm going to offer career advice to people. Was
19:33
Um, I
19:38
think so. I officially opened an LLC in,
19:42
I believe it was April of 2020. This happened right
19:46
around the pandemic too. I decided before the pandemic and
19:49
it was great timing because everything
19:53
shut down. Um, so I opened
19:56
it and then, um, at the same time,
20:00
yeah. So like I knew they were, there's several ways to make money through, through
20:03
blogging. One is ads. So at that time I
20:08
watched tiger King like everybody else. And I wrote
20:11
blog posts about it and those did really well. Yeah. And
20:15
I was able to sign up with, um, an advertising
20:19
company that pays better than, um, like Google ads. So,
20:25
It's still not a ton of money, but, but that, so I do have ads
20:31
Well, and I, I wasn't a lucky situation where I didn't have to
20:34
worry about money that my, my ex did have
20:37
a lucrative job. Um, so I did, I didn't have
20:40
to, make money in the
20:44
first place, but I did make money with ads. And then yes, I opened
20:47
up group programs to add
20:52
some more income. And then the other way for
20:56
people to make money is affiliate links
20:59
too. So I did experiment with some of that, but I
21:04
never made a ton of money off of that, but I also never really worked
21:07
at that. It was really, Oh, and I was writing my book, too.
21:11
So I do get income from my book. But it's
21:15
mostly my book and the group programs that do
21:18
the most. Yeah, those are the two most lucrative.
21:22
And once I started taking students, and then especially
21:26
when I started seeing the success of my students, that's really
21:29
what helped out. Because at first, it was kind of like, oh,
21:32
here's, like, based on my experience, if I wanted this,
21:36
like, here's what I would have done differently. Um,
21:40
but like, I wasn't a hundred percent sure it was where it would work. I'm like, okay, it
21:43
should work. But then once I started working with my students and stuff, cause
21:47
because my problem wasn't my, my job applications, I did, I
21:50
wrote really good job applications. It was, I didn't have the experience. So
21:54
really applying that on my students and then seeing it work for them.
21:58
It's like, wow, this really works and this is awesome. And then. And
22:01
then it grew from there. But then I did get a divorce, so
22:05
I did have to provide income for myself. And
22:12
Yeah, for sure. Like I did the, you know, I did the same thing. I started
22:16
to make money off of, off of like, you know, the podcasting and
22:19
I started doing, I ventured into careers as well. Um,
22:22
and I had a job at the time. So like, you know, coming, I have
22:26
a wife who, so, you know, the dual income was nice. And so
22:29
I didn't have to worry about too much money, but when I didn't have a job
22:32
and you know, then all of a sudden like this money is going towards paying bills.
22:37
It's a lot of pressure on yourself, I found for
22:40
me anyway, to put on yourself once you're like, okay, now I've got to make a
22:43
go of this. Before, if I got a student or I didn't get a
22:47
student, then it wasn't terrible, but it wasn't great. But
22:50
now I need every student that I can. Did you find that
22:57
Yeah, that can definitely happen to
23:00
you and there's kind of like two schools of thought and I listen to a
23:04
lot of, not a lot of career mentors, but I have a couple of chosen
23:07
that I listen to. I listen to a lot of their advice and And
23:12
yeah, different people use different approaches. There's like, you know, Tony Robbins
23:15
will say kind of like burn your bridges, like burn, burn your boats.
23:19
It's based off of that anecdote where it's like a
23:23
war. I can't remember the story, but basically it's a war general. They
23:26
went to an island and they like burned the boats to like, cause
23:29
they were planning to win or something like this. There's no way out. There's no way
23:32
back. Yeah. So you quit your job, or you make
23:36
things happen for you. Or the
23:40
other one is you keep your day job. And the
23:44
nice thing about that is that you don't
23:48
have that financial pressure then. Then it becomes more of a joy, and
23:51
you don't have to worry about selling it. So yeah, those are the two main
23:56
schools of thought. But yeah, sometimes you can get
23:59
caught up in that. But
24:03
it's really important, I think, to separate yourself from that
24:06
as well and decide what works best for you, too. For some people,
24:10
one method works better than the other to jump all in, whereas
24:13
the other, like, for them to... And, you know, there's part-time
24:17
work, too, that people can get. And, you
24:20
know, I tell my students, like... I mean,
24:24
that's the one great thing about being connected to the entrepreneur community
24:28
is that It attracts a
24:31
certain type of people and I would say that they're
24:35
either taught or just are more likely to do this, but
24:39
to make sacrifices and just willing to do what
24:42
it takes. I was part of this one group coaching
24:46
program. It was an expensive program and somebody sold
24:50
their car to be a part of it. Um, and
24:54
yeah, yeah. Cause they, they really wanted this, this
24:57
business for themselves. And, um, so they were just like willing
25:01
to do what it took. And, um, and, and
25:04
actually the, the, the mentor, she was incredible too.
25:08
She came from Venezuela. She was a single mom. She was
25:11
going through a divorce. She had tons of legal bills and
25:15
stuff. So, um, So
25:18
that's what I tell my students, too. I charge
25:22
for my programs. It's an investment for them and themselves so
25:27
that I can give them unbiased advice. And my
25:31
career now is to serve them. But I
25:35
think a lot of times, we have this stigma in our head, like,
25:39
oh, if we do Uber or something like that, that means we're you
25:43
know, we haven't made it. And if you're, especially if you're a college graduate, you see your
25:46
friends move on, like doing, you know, quote unquote, real jobs. And
25:50
you are in, even if you are working wildlife jobs, for me, my
25:53
temp jobs never lined up. So I would go home, I would
25:57
work for six months and go home for six months and like wait for the
26:00
next job. And I would live with my parents and,
26:03
you know, like work at Starbucks and stuff. And my other friends would, would
26:07
have jobs, you know? And so, but
26:11
it's just, we just live in a different world. It's just a different system and
26:16
Well, and it's challenging. It definitely is challenging. The
26:20
people I see in ocean conservation, they are moving
26:24
from place to place to place and they're happy with that. And that's their lifestyle that
26:28
they chose, but they move from place to place and it'll be from not
26:31
only cities, but it'll be in like, you know, Towns
26:35
that are that are far from cities, you know like country areas that
26:39
there's not a lot around and they'll move to another place because that job was
26:42
only For four to six months and then they'll go to another place and they'll go
26:45
to another place And it's it's a hard life to lead where you can't put
26:48
roots down You can't you know buy a home, you know You're you're going
26:52
from apartment to apartment or you're renting a home or Airbnb or
26:55
whatever that that might be and it's it's a
26:59
very challenging place to be in life, unless
27:03
that's what you choose to do. But if you wanted to start
27:06
a family, or if you wanted to have any kind of routine, it's very difficult
27:10
to continue to move like that. So it's very challenging. And
27:14
there are jobs that are full-time, permanent, like a lot of government jobs
27:18
and things like that. But a lot of the ones that people go for
27:21
and that are available are these six months jobs,
27:24
and they're usually based on funding and so like what is
27:27
that the biggest challenge you find for some of your students? I
27:31
just kind of want to talk a little bit about that if that's okay like with the career stuff
27:35
like what are the biggest challenges that you find that that students have?
27:38
that they can't get jobs. That's the biggest one. So
27:43
I do think, and oceans might be different. In my
27:46
field, I do think it's normal for people to take several jobs before
27:50
they land their permanent job. I
27:53
was actually, for my latest training, I read this
27:56
paper about, it's called It Pays to get paid in
28:00
wildlife work. It was all about how the more paid jobs you
28:03
have, the more likely you're going to end up with a permanent job. It
28:07
was like seven to nine jobs predict success.
28:12
I think that's a lot though. My students have not had
28:15
seven to nine jobs. They've gotten permanent jobs with maybe
28:19
like three to five or something
28:23
around that range. That makes sense. I think that's pretty normal. And,
28:26
um, and even like my one friend in graduate school, she
28:30
got her master's and she couldn't get a job afterwards.
28:33
She worked at Starbucks for a while. So it's, it's, I
28:37
think like the biggest message I want to tell people out there who are struggling is
28:40
it's, it's competitive. It is so saturated. It's not
28:43
about you. And then talking to employers too, employers
28:48
are like, it's so hard to choose people because sometimes it's like, this
28:51
person would be great, but so would this person. So if you're
28:54
not getting a job, I don't want to
28:59
say you have to try harder, but
29:03
you have to think about it more strategically. So
29:07
it's about building up The, so I say, I
29:10
mean, I say it takes clarity, uh, strategy and application. So
29:14
it's about first figuring out what you want to do, ultimately want to do,
29:17
then building up your experience, especially towards that
29:21
thing. So in the beginning, that might be hard because you have
29:24
no experience. So you might need to get broader experience, but as you progress, you
29:27
want to get more and more closer to that. And then,
29:31
um, and then also network network is part of the strategy. Those
29:34
are the big ones. And of course your education. And then job application.
29:38
I actually think, so most people, most of my students struggle with,
29:42
they don't get interviews. They apply for jobs and they don't get interviews.
29:46
And what I have found is, is most people don't
29:49
write strong job applications. I think that they write just
29:53
very basic, regular job applications. And a
29:57
lot of the information out there about job applications is
30:01
not for wildlife jobs. So people, look
30:04
at that stuff for like businesses or, you know, like just
30:07
like the general, like LinkedIn stuff where you got to do like bullet points
30:11
of like a couple of words. Like, no, that doesn't work for our field. So,
30:15
um, for a lot of my students, once they improve their job applications
30:22
I find the same thing. I find, I find the biggest thing. I
30:26
find that actually the biggest thing, the first step for, for us is like clarity.
30:30
Like, yeah, you can't just go and I want to protect the ocean, or I want to
30:33
go into conservation, or I want to go into sharks, like you have to have clarity
30:38
and then identifying, you know, the job that you want. I'm
30:41
very, very much the same way. And in your thought
30:45
process is like, figure out what you want to do, and then figure out how to get to that point
30:48
and what you need. what kind of experience you need. That'll help you start to
30:52
target the jobs that you want. And then the application is
30:55
the biggest thing. It's unreal to see some
30:59
of the applications. It's not the people's fault. It's not the fault of students or
31:04
early career scientists. It's just they haven't been taught or they've been taught from
31:08
somebody who's done business resumes before. And like you said, they're
31:11
very different. When I did government jobs and I
31:15
applied to government jobs, my cover letter If
31:18
I look at it, sometimes they were like eight to nine pages long because
31:21
you had to answer. Yeah, for the federal government,
31:25
for the federal Canadian government, you had to answer all these questions. And
31:28
if you actually printed it out, it was like nine pages long, eight
31:31
to nine pages long with all that. Because then you had to hit certain
31:35
things that they wanted to hear and they wouldn't even look at it
31:39
if it didn't. But it's interesting because it
31:42
took me a while to find the jobs that I wanted. But
31:47
when I, when somebody actually sat down and I used to get frustrated, I stopped,
31:50
I stopped applying to government jobs. I got so frustrated with it. I was like, they
31:54
don't even, they never answer me back. So what's the point? And then some, I
31:57
was actually working a contract in a government building for
32:00
the government that I wanted, like for the department that I wanted to work for, uh, or
32:04
one that was like adjacent. And, uh, somebody sat me down. It's like, Oh, if
32:07
you want to do this, there's a certain way, like you have to know the specific way.
32:10
Why don't they teach us and they do but they teach it in-house. They
32:14
don't teach it outside Yeah, so this is where like people
32:17
like yourself come in where it's like you have to know where to
32:20
apply how to apply and and how to like take the
32:24
Skills and experience that you have and put it on paper in
32:28
a way that people are like this is I want to see this
32:31
kind exactly. Yeah, so I think that's that's that's really important
32:35
Yeah, and I think people don't know how to,
32:39
for lack of a better word, brag about themselves. They're very
32:43
humble. They'll say, oh, educated guests. And it's like, well,
32:47
can you provide some more details about that? Or
32:50
data analysis? They just don't know
32:54
how to speak. Yeah, job applications talk. And
32:59
then I also, yeah. And then to go off of that, I don't feel like they know the
33:03
value that they have too. It's like, like, I remember working with
33:06
this one, um, student, she had like
33:09
four bullet points on her list and she lived in Borneo for like
33:12
a year and a half studying orangutans. And I was like, there's no way
33:15
you did just four things. Like you were in the field,
33:19
like living at a field station at the very least, you
33:22
know, you were like, like doing like field camp type
33:26
stuff, where you're ordering supplies, doing logistics, with
33:30
a million mosquitoes around you or something. You know what I mean? There's
33:34
more complicated things to this than you're not painting the picture
33:38
What is funny, we laugh at that too, but it's so true.
33:42
You don't realize how many important things that people look
33:46
for. You can do fieldwork. Everybody
33:49
can do fieldwork, but how well do you do fieldwork? How well do you prepare for
33:53
fieldwork? how well do you make sure
33:56
that like the data is intact and like you've got the right field
33:59
sheets and if not field sheets it's covered. I'm from a water
34:03
background so everything has to be covered or if it's digital it's got to make sure
34:06
it doesn't it's waterproof and all that kind of stuff right so it's
34:09
there's a lot that goes in and and that it's it's
34:13
it's You have to learn how to do it.
34:17
A lot of people just don't know. And some people
34:20
get a little resistant when they're like, I should know this or my university should
34:24
have taught me. Do you ever get students that are looking
34:28
for your help but may not want to join a group or
34:32
may not want to pay for that kind of service because they
34:35
feel like they should do it? And how do
34:41
Um, so, I mean, I,
34:45
I give away a lot of, of free stuff. I, you know, like I have my
34:48
podcast, I have free trains. I just did a, I just did
34:51
a free training that used to be a webinar plus a
34:54
bonus webinar. And I turned it into three free chains. That's like three,
34:58
it probably ends up being like more than three hours long. Um,
35:02
so a couple, a
35:06
couple of things, um, it's. It's
35:11
impossible for some stuff to train
35:15
without them enrolling in something. I do
35:20
have resume revamp, which they could take. And they could learn
35:25
and totally redo their resume by themselves. Or even I
35:28
have a job application academy. But actually,
35:32
that part does include job application reviews. So
35:36
you review them. Yes, yes. So
35:39
some students might be able to take themselves to the next level
35:43
on their own, and they don't need any review. But I would say most need
35:46
the personal review and need how to break down the
35:50
job posting. Because it's not just about you. It's really
35:53
about dissecting the job posting. And I've become very good at that, like
35:57
interpreting, oh, this is what they want. This is what they think is most important, and
36:01
then matching your stuff to that stuff. But
36:05
I think the biggest thing is that there's a
36:09
shift that happens when you invest in yourself. You take it
36:13
much more seriously. So it actually, honestly, is
36:16
a benefit to them because they value it
36:20
so much more. And like going back
36:23
to that coaching program I was a part of, it was expensive. And
36:27
I made sure I showed up every single week
36:30
because I did not want to waste my money. Um, so
36:34
I was there and, and she changed the program around too. So,
36:38
um, so towards the end, it was just me and one other person who were in
36:41
the program. And I would be at the meetings every single week and she'd be like,
36:44
OK, what do you like just to troubleshoot problems? She's like, what are your problems
36:48
this week? And I'm like, I don't really have any problems. I'm just here to
36:51
like absorb more information and get inspired. And
36:55
then like I would talk to her and I realized I did have more problems that
36:59
we could talk about. So so you show up differently. And
37:04
yeah, you take it more seriously. You put in the work. I've
37:08
done scholarships for my program. And some people do take
37:12
it really seriously. Like I've had Chitra. I gave
37:15
her a scholarship in Nepal. And
37:19
she is actually now in Illinois. It's amazing. Her
37:23
dream was to get a master's in the United States.
37:29
And she did it. She took my program. We
37:32
worked on her cover letters and everything. But she also put
37:36
in the work ahead of time, too. I do
37:39
have people fill out applications. But she
37:43
started in Nepal attending a free – she
37:46
loved turtles. She attended a free, I think, turtle webinar
37:50
or her conservation talk. And
37:54
afterwards she contacted the scientist and she's like, how can I help? Like I want
37:57
to get involved. So she had that drive. Like she wasn't letting anything
38:01
about her situation hold her back. Um,
38:04
and yeah, she didn't have the money being, being, um, with
38:07
her circumstances, but she filled out a good job or
38:11
a good application for the scholarship and she showed up
38:14
to the calls and she took my advice. Whereas
38:18
other people, before I
38:21
did the application and stuff, I would gift it to people and
38:24
do scholarships. And some people would never show up at all. And I
38:27
had to be like, hey, what's going on? But they would tell me
38:31
they really wanted it and stuff. So there
38:35
is a certain click or a change that happens when
38:41
Yeah, I can imagine. I think that would, yeah, I
38:45
agree. I've done a couple of coaching programs before and
38:49
every time, like if I did a free one, I wouldn't be as invested. If
38:52
I had to pay, you're like, I just put down a boatload of money.
38:56
I need to actually make sure I get the most out of this as possible so
39:00
that I can get back. In fact, sometimes I look at it and I'm like, how much
39:03
money, how much more money can I make if I'm putting you
39:07
know, sometimes it's a hundred dollars, sometimes it's $500, sometimes it's
39:10
a thousand dollars. And you're like, how much money am I going to make off of
39:13
this? Like that's, that's how I look at it and say, okay,
39:19
Yeah. Yeah. I just joined a program for,
39:23
for fitness or for weight loss. And I, I, since I've
39:26
been moved to the Chicago area, I slowly gained like 12 pounds. And
39:33
That's what it is. That's the problem. I
39:39
I blame my boyfriend. I'm like, I'm too happy being with you. So
39:45
I gained this weight and I've been trying, like really
39:49
consciously trying to lose it. Like, you know, and I know how to lose weight.
39:52
I've done it before. I've, what's always worked for me is personal trainers.
39:56
So, you know, but like I've calorie counted by myself and all
39:59
this stuff, but when I, you know, it hasn't been working. So
40:03
I'm like, okay, I'm fed up of figuring this out myself. So I joined
40:06
a program. And then it's also nice because it's
40:10
kind of like the responsibility is taken off of you. I still
40:13
put in the work, but it's like, OK, you tell me
40:16
what to do. And if it doesn't work, it's your fault. So
40:21
they tell me what to do. But because I invested money
40:25
and then also I have someone to report to, Like,
40:29
you know, like if accountability, right? Yeah. Yeah. So, so
40:32
I found out I was, yeah, I was, I was counting calories,
40:36
but I was using heaping scoops. Oh
40:44
my gosh. Well, now I have to weigh stuff and weigh stuff.
40:47
It's like, you can't cheat with that. But, um, but
40:51
yeah, it works. Like I've, I've, I've lost the
40:54
12 pounds. I can't, like, I can't believe it. It's been amazing. And
40:57
so, I remember
41:01
the first few days, I'm like, crap, I can't lie to myself because
41:06
they're going to be like, what's going on, Stephanie? How come you're not losing
41:09
weight? I can't be like, oh, your program's not working
41:13
because I'm the one who's not doing it. So
41:17
yeah, it's that accountability. And then
41:21
also, yeah, taking the weight off of your shoulders. So you don't have to do it
41:24
alone anymore. In my group mentoring program, you
41:27
get to talk to me. Right now, it's small enough that I'm
41:31
able to answer every question. So even though it's
41:35
group mentoring, we do training. So there's recordings that people watch.
41:38
And then we have group mentoring for whatever questions people have or if
41:42
they want me to review things. But yeah, it's small enough
41:45
that I'm able to get to every question. I get to know the people. And
41:52
yeah, it's been great. I've loved working with them. And
41:56
then also just like, I don't know how it's been for
41:59
you, but I've I felt like it's very
42:02
common. I mean, there's definitely exceptions to the rule, but it's very common in
42:06
the science world for people to be negative and hard on
42:09
you. And honestly, sometimes abusive. I've
42:13
never really been abused, but I have no situations where people have
42:17
been like taken advantage of, like you're supposed to work 20 hour
42:20
days. And just like in academia, you
42:24
know, like, you just never feel good enough and smart enough and
42:28
stuff like that. So I really want to do this to
42:31
give back because I was never the
42:34
smartest. I was never the best at science, but I was really
42:38
dedicated and passionate. And that's how I got through my
42:41
PhD. You don't need to be the smartest at all. It's
42:50
Yeah, I had a high school teacher who told me that I did not belong
42:54
in science and he was a physics teacher And I then screw
42:57
you I am good for you. Yeah, that's kind of been my driving factor
43:01
like in University Yeah, every time there was a difficult part. I was
43:06
Yeah. And some people probably carry that with them the whole life and let them like
43:10
not be in science. So I like to be that, that
43:13
positive force and support for people that,
43:17
that, I mean, I truly believe anyone can do it as, as
43:20
long as, um, as long as they want it
43:23
in there. Again, you have to be willing to put in the work. You can't just
43:27
like. sign up for my program and you'll get a
43:30
job. You have to put in the work. But, um, if
43:33
you're, and if you're stubborn enough to that's like, like
43:36
there are competitive jobs. If you like, I
43:40
mean, ocean jobs, like if you want to be a Marine biologist, that's a super
43:43
competitive job. Um, if you want to work with
43:46
whales and dolphins and stuff, but I think if you're stubborn enough and
43:49
you work at it hard along long enough with the right strategy and doing,
43:53
doing things with intention, building your network, it can happen for you or
43:58
Yeah, absolutely. So how often do you run these groups? Is it done all
44:01
throughout the year? Is it like an ongoing group? Or is it like, or
44:05
do you do it? you open it up for like a small group and then you
44:10
Good question. I've changed it a lot. I
44:14
have decided on like, I recently decided on
44:17
one strategy. So I have a
44:21
couple of different levels. My favorite and the
44:24
best level is a successful wildlife professional. That is
44:28
my group mentoring program. Um, so it's, it
44:32
used to be a year long. Now it's, it's four months worth
44:35
of content. Um, you get to, you get to keep it forever though. So
44:38
you can pace it however you want, but it's technically you watch like
44:42
an hour long training per week and do exercises. and
44:45
then every other week we have group mentoring. But
44:49
I'm thinking about changing that to weekly, or you
44:52
can ask whatever you want. I did have open
44:56
enrollment before, then I switched to cohorts. Now,
45:00
I'm doing both, where people have
45:03
to sign up for the training to get in, and then it's open for a
45:06
short period of time, and then I run
45:09
the trainings throughout the year. So right now, I'm doing the trainings every
45:13
six weeks, Nice. But it
45:17
depends on how full the group gets, I think, how often I'll
45:20
do the trainings. But I would say at
45:23
least three times a year I would have the trainings. And then
45:28
I have the Job Application Academy. So this is for people who who
45:32
know what they want to do. Like they don't, they have the clarity, they
45:36
have the experience, but they're, they're just like struggling on
45:39
the job applications. And I teach them, it's all the same stuff
45:42
from the successful wildlife professional, but just the job application stuff. And
45:46
then we do reviews once a month, just on job applications. Um,
45:50
and then I have, um, like masterclasses where it's,
45:57
Okay, interesting. That's really interesting. So that's one side. We just got into the
46:00
one side of your business. Yeah. And that looks really
46:04
great. And we'll put some links in so people can check out some more information
46:08
on those if they're interested. Great. Also,
46:11
you do like a science communication. So this is not the only thing you do. You
46:14
do a little bit of science communication. Now, I know you
46:18
and I have discussed your TV escapades quite a bit, you know,
46:21
going on TV and doing some stuff for the History Channel. How
46:27
I started out on TV first through somebody I
46:30
knew, my boss at the museum. I think
46:34
he got on a TV show from somebody he knew too as well,
46:38
Rob Nelson. You should
46:41
interview Rob. He's not
46:45
exclusive to oceans by any means, but I think he's done some
46:49
ocean work. was
46:53
a scientist and then he transitioned to communicator, but he does like film.
46:56
That's his big thing. Now he's
47:00
really successful on YouTube now. He changed a little bit.
47:03
He still does science communication, but he changed his name to Stone Age Man and kind
47:06
of does some like. I like that name. Yeah, you like him.
47:10
But he makes a lot of videos and stuff anyway. So he got us
47:14
on the science channels. Show
47:19
what on earth and so so then I just did that show
47:22
for several years and then independently I
47:26
got invited to do a show on the history channel called the proof
47:30
is out there and that I got through my youtube channel because
47:34
I was just creating content and at
47:38
the time I was I did a lot of camera trap
47:42
work and people, um, I
47:45
would, you know, visit a lot of places too, giving talks and people would always tell
47:48
me that they saw a mountain lion or a black panther. And
47:52
in North Carolina, we, we used to have mountain lions, but
47:56
now they're extinct there. Um, and there are
47:59
no black panthers in the United States. So I did a video about that
48:03
and slowly but surely over time that blew up and
48:07
that's probably my most successful video. Um, and
48:10
the people from the history channel, just somebody found my video and they
48:14
were like, I really like how you explain things, how you, um,
48:18
you know, you didn't like, I, I didn't, um, although
48:21
a lot of the commenters probably disagree, I didn't like immediately poo poo
48:25
them and be like, no, this doesn't, they don't exist. Like
48:28
I went through like, well, like with the evidence that like, why, why we,
48:32
we haven't found any evidence of them. So, so now I'm
48:35
on this TV show, um, where. where
48:39
I evaluate stuff. So a lot of times it's like Bigfoot videos or
48:43
just like weird videos, but there's also a lot of like just weird things
48:46
happening in nature too that are not well explained or just
48:49
some animals doing weird things. So
48:57
I comment on those things. And then I've just been doing a couple of
49:00
extra shows here and there, mostly through that connection, because people from
49:03
the history, that's on the History Channel. So people got to know me and
49:08
and yeah, so they call me in to do some some extra shows here and there.
49:11
I love it. And like, how often do you spend on that?
49:16
Oh, good question. It usually
49:19
happens maybe like three or four times a year, and I
49:25
kind of crunch before the assignment. I hope they're not listening. I
49:31
don't I mean I think part of part of the reason why
49:34
I do that is because so the stories and stuff will be really fresh in my head and
49:38
the information will be fresh in my head because they give
49:41
you you know they give you the videos and stuff to review on and
49:44
you talk it over with them and you talk about like the different angles
49:48
that that will take so for instance if it's a bigfoot video
49:52
they would you know, they'll be like, okay, like what other animals live in the area? Could
49:56
it be? And like, why couldn't it be that? So, so
49:59
sometimes, you know, there's things I might have to research or
50:03
look up, like, like, okay,
50:08
like, there's this one video with a snake. I still don't
50:11
know how it happened. But it got like this algae growing on it. So it
50:14
looked like a hair, it looked like a hairy green snake, like, kind
50:18
of like a muppet. And it was a real snake, so talking about how I
50:21
know it's a snake, and then some things I might have to look up, like how
50:24
does algae grow on a snake, or how would things happen? But
50:29
yeah, so I just study the week and
50:32
prepare the week before, usually a couple of hours every
50:35
day, and then it's a full day of filming.
50:39
That's amazing. And like when you're done, like,
50:42
I mean, when you do a full day of filming like that, you get pretty tired
50:46
after a while. You're talking all day. You're going through takes and multiple takes and
50:49
multiple takes. You must be exhausted. So it's probably good that it's only like three
50:52
or four times a year where you're just like, all right, that's good. I got it out of
50:57
Yeah. What have you learned the most from doing TV
51:01
work with science communication, like traditional TV
51:07
That's a good question. Maybe that people love Bigfoot. That's
51:12
my fake funny answer. I think my
51:16
fake funny answer is that people take cryptids really
51:20
seriously. I had no idea. I didn't even
51:23
know cryptid was a word. It's like societies. There's
51:27
conferences. They take it very, very seriously. Oh,
51:37
this is hard. Maybe, I mean, obviously like sensational stuff
51:41
is, is interesting. Like, like what,
51:45
I mean, I think people are always interested in like the unknown and like
51:48
what's left to be discovered and the intriguing. And,
51:52
um, I mean, I think so many people probably like Bigfoot and stories
51:56
like that too, is because they know somebody who has had an experience. That's
51:59
another thing is like making it relatable. Um, But
52:04
I mean sometimes I guess like also like what people don't
52:08
know and what people find interesting and this
52:11
kind of goes back to being a scientist. Like when
52:16
I first became a scientist or even
52:21
into my science career, I felt like I was a terrible scientist because in
52:25
school, I was so well at studying. I would just memorize
52:28
for a test. And I liked it too. I wasn't just cramming for
52:32
the test. But I was good at studying. And then science
52:36
is all about figuring out answers to questions that people don't know.
52:40
So I had to come up with questions. And I just assumed
52:44
so much stuff was known because because
52:47
that's what I was taught in school. Here's all the stuff we know.
52:53
I think just that there's so much stuff out there that we don't know
52:56
still. They had me do this one video about these worms forming
53:00
piles. And like, and it was like after
53:04
a storm and like, they were like in the middle of the road and they were talking about like, why
53:07
would they be in the middle? And it's like, I don't know. I just assumed like people would
53:10
know the answer to this, but like people don't. I looked it up and like, there's
53:14
these different speculations and, and then also that people
53:17
would find that interesting too. Like, Oh, I guess people are interested in
53:20
like how the world works and, and strange
53:24
phenomenon and stuff like that. And you don't have to, it doesn't have to be
53:27
fake. Like, I'm sorry, Bigfoot's not real guys, but. There's
53:36
I think one of the best things that I've ever learned was talk to people who are not involved
53:39
in science, and maybe not conspiracy theorists like
53:44
people, but also take somebody on a hike, or take somebody into
53:48
a river area, or a lake area, or an ocean area for me, or even
53:52
anywhere, and then listen to the questions that they have. Sometimes
53:55
they're the simplest questions, but they are interesting. You'll be like, oh, actually, that
53:59
was a really good question. I think oftentimes as biologists, we
54:03
often overthink and we're like, what can we give that's super exciting
54:07
and that'll go over the top, like for TV or something
54:10
like that. I did a TV show as well and it was about evolution
54:14
and some of the little things, like just the function, I'm
54:17
like, oh, that's interesting. Okay, like people
54:21
really want to know about that. Okay, I can do that And
54:24
and I think when you hear people or even kids ask questions because then
54:27
you're just like yes Okay, these are this is like like the
54:31
top of the curiosity chain is when you get to talk to kids Yeah,
54:34
as you know when you worked with kids and continue and you're like, okay
54:38
now these are questions that people really want to know it's almost like
54:42
You know, you have that TV show, Smarter Than a Fifth Grader. It's almost like,
54:45
can you ask a question like a fifth grader? Because that would be something I
54:48
think that would be really interesting to hear. Like, can you answer a question
54:52
from a fifth grader or something like that? Because they always
54:55
have great questions, I find, around kids. But
54:58
that's interesting. And now so growing the business, like in terms of
55:01
science communication, the TV is one aspect. Do you ever get
55:04
to work with organizations on their science communication? Have
55:08
they ever reached out? Because you do podcasting, you do videos,
55:11
you do TV. Do you ever provide advice for
55:15
some like organizations or other science communicators themselves?
55:20
Um, I have like during my postdoc, I would
55:24
be part of like panels and things like that. But since then, not
55:28
really. I've just I've just been more focused on my
55:32
own business. And honestly, I've been focusing on getting the
55:35
career mentoring thing. So so that might be part of the reason why
55:38
is I've been really focusing on getting the career mentoring because I've
55:42
had to learn so much with I mean, and not only creating
55:46
the programs, but also You know, like wondering what
55:49
structure of the programs works well, obviously creating the content and
55:52
then selling. Like I never thought I would be selling. So,
55:56
and science communication is actually kind of selling too. It's the same principle.
56:01
So I've had to learn so much with that stuff. And now
56:05
I finally feel like I'm kind of. not finished with it,
56:09
but at a good place where I can take a back seat. And then next
56:12
year, I really want to focus on science communication again. And
56:16
also, I did do this kids
56:20
program, and I want to revisit that and
56:24
do that again, but change it. I started
56:28
out initially more like
56:32
a teaching kids about the process of science and stuff. And
56:35
then Was it last year? Yeah, last year I
56:39
worked with a coach. And he helped
56:43
me transform it into kind of like a parenting course. Because
56:49
he felt that nature and science wouldn't sell on its own. He felt
56:53
like parents aren't really looking to
56:56
get their kids involved in science. That's not a strong need. But
56:59
parents fear losing connection with their kids. So we framed
57:03
it as like, to create the best connection and long lasting connection
57:07
with your child, like work with them outside on these collaborative projects
57:11
in nature, which I totally agree with and, and,
57:14
and believe in, but I felt like it kind of took a parenting twist
57:18
and I want to, I want to put it back more to be just
57:22
about like getting kids outside in nature and getting them connected and getting
57:25
them curious. So less of a focus on parenting. So I want
57:29
to be doing more of that again next year and yeah,
57:32
figuring out how I want to run that and. So yeah,
57:36
if your audience members have ideas for like what kinds of things they'd want
57:39
to see, but I don't know, I'm thinking about some sort of membership where like I
57:42
provide an activity for them to do outside and we have like a community
57:46
where they can share and contribute to community science
57:51
Yeah, get him like be a part of something bigger maybe or part of
57:55
a project like an ongoing project that multiple people can contribute
57:58
to. I like that. I like that idea. That's kind of cool. I think the
58:02
more you can do with with young children, the better, right?
58:05
So they can get that hands on experience, especially with parents and stuff. Oh,
58:08
that's awesome. That's awesome. Now, we're kind of coming to the end here. You
58:12
know, you and I can talk forever. We do that all the time. And
58:16
we didn't even get into the podcast. So
58:20
Fancy Scientist is the podcast that you have. Now,
58:23
it's on YouTube as well, but it's on
58:26
any favorite podcast app that people can get, including Apple Podcasts and
58:30
Spotify. And what can people get from the
58:38
So it all centers around the idea of
58:43
really wildlife. So that's what I've always felt like I've been
58:46
about, like my connection to animals and connection to nature. So
58:51
I talk about my experiences as a researcher. I
58:55
talk about careers. I mean, that's something I've been talking about a lot, careers. I
59:00
interview guests. So I interview guests with
59:03
all different types of careers, all different types of backgrounds,
59:07
basically, I mean, related to our field. So I mean, some people like
59:11
I've talked to people who have worked in the climate change sector
59:14
of corporations, or
59:18
anything related to to lifestyle as well, that
59:22
relates even indirectly to wildlife. So I'm also
59:25
like super interested in health and Just
59:29
even being like a more conscious consumer and stuff like that. Or diet as
59:33
well, like how your diet impacts wildlife. So
59:37
there's a huge variety of things. I'm also really
59:41
big on mindset as well. So sometimes I have episodes about
59:45
mindset because as I mentioned before, this career,
59:49
um, and the people can have be kind of negative. And
59:53
then also just the nature of what we're doing, what we're dealing with, with loss, it
59:56
can get depressing. So, um, and then I
1:00:00
just like, I don't know, I'm just really interested in like productivity and efficiency and things like
1:00:03
that. So just like making yourself a better, um, biologist
1:00:08
or, or like whatever career trajectory you're, you're going towards.
1:00:11
So it's a mishmash of things, but it centers around wildlife and
1:00:15
This is what I love about podcasting is everybody can make, the host makes it
1:00:19
what it is. And it's based on your interests and it kind of feeds it
1:00:22
and what you think is needed within sort of the field.
1:00:26
And I think that's really important. And I
1:00:33
Well, that's the thing. It's the same with mine. It's whatever I want to talk about,
1:00:37
but we get to talk about it. That's the fun part, right? Now,
1:00:40
one question, like, what would you, like, as from the experience that
1:00:43
you have from building a business and being sort of in the wildlife career
1:00:47
itself, what advice would you give, like, my listeners here
1:00:50
if, you know, not only are they listening to start a career, but maybe talking about
1:00:53
doing a little bit of a job, like, or working as,
1:00:57
like, building their own business. Like
1:01:01
a side hustle? Yeah. What would the recommendation be
1:01:04
or the best thing you can give? If you had to give one piece of advice, what
1:01:08
First, let me say that even before I became an entrepreneur, when I was a
1:01:12
scientist, I
1:01:17
was like, oh my gosh, my job is so much like being
1:01:21
a business owner, like my dad's. Because when you're a
1:01:24
scientist, especially like, I was never a principal investigator, but
1:01:28
being a postdoc, it was, it kind of felt like that because I
1:01:32
was, you know, at times like writing my own grants and
1:01:35
trying to fund my own projects. But I got to see, you know, the people
1:01:38
I was working with and they were the principal investigators. And
1:01:44
Their science is kind of like a business. They have to
1:01:48
fund their projects, hire
1:01:51
employees, which are either graduate students or field assistants, to
1:01:55
run those projects. And then the output, the
1:01:58
profit, is the publication. So
1:02:04
it's just a different element, but the same
1:02:07
type of system. And that's what my dad would do. He'd get customers to
1:02:12
make money. So it was very similar. And
1:02:16
also, you were probably laughing when I was talking about my dad,
1:02:19
because I never went home and felt like I was off. I could always
1:02:23
be like, Like, I mean, at the time I was applying for jobs, but I
1:02:26
could always be, you know, writing more papers, doing
1:02:29
more data analysis, like coming up with this new idea, setting up this
1:02:33
project, like there was always so many things to do. But
1:02:37
I think, I think the biggest, I'm going
1:02:41
to give two parts, I'm going to cheat and give two answers, but the biggest part
1:02:45
I think is first to know that that it
1:02:48
is really possible for you in this day and age. It is so cool
1:02:52
what people sell online. So I think
1:02:55
my biggest piece of advice is to follow people who are
1:02:59
doing what you want. Follow digital entrepreneurs who
1:03:02
are doing this type of stuff. And there's so many free
1:03:05
podcasts out there, so many free resources to
1:03:09
help you. One of the people I follow is James Wedmore. He's the
1:03:12
biggest one I follow. Um, and that there's so
1:03:15
much opportunity out there. Like he had somebody on his podcast who,
1:03:20
uh, who taught people how to hike and, and
1:03:24
he was like joking. He's like, okay, like, how are you making money of this? You're
1:03:27
just telling people like put one foot in front of the other. And, you know, I
1:03:30
mean, he was being a jerk, but, um, I mean, I'm purpose to
1:03:34
be silly, but, um, but this woman, you
1:03:37
know, she started a business teaching people how to hike. People
1:03:40
wanted to do backpack. hiking. They
1:03:43
didn't know how to do it. So she made a course. Here's how you
1:03:47
do it. And here's how to be safe. Here are the things you need to think about.
1:03:51
And she made money doing it. So just
1:03:54
start out. And James will teach you way better
1:03:58
than I will, but he has so many free resources. just start
1:04:01
out thinking about what are you, you don't even have to be a full-blown expert,
1:04:05
but what do you know more about than somebody else that you
1:04:08
could start teaching them. And it's as simple as, I started mine
1:04:12
with a posting, I'm thinking about starting a course
1:04:16
teaching you how to get a career in wildlife. If
1:04:20
you're interested, drop an emoji and I'll send you the link
1:04:24
with more information. And it's as simple as that. And
1:04:28
if you don't want to charge people in the beginning, if you just want to like help people to
1:04:31
get some ideas, you can do that. You can charge them. You don't have to charge
1:04:35
them a lot. You can charge them 50 bucks or something. And
1:04:38
just get that experience of working with people. And
1:04:42
you just you just don't know, again, like what you can sell. Like people people
1:04:46
are just looking for help. And and yeah, you
1:04:50
can probably go online and learn how to hike, but you
1:04:53
have to sort through all the noise and everything when it's like so
1:04:56
much nicer to just sign up for a program and watch trainings
1:05:00
and know that you know how to do it. And then if you have like a group mentoring
1:05:04
program, you can ask this person questions. So, yeah. So,
1:05:07
yeah, if you're if you love birds, if you love fish, if you love
1:05:12
Plants like can you teach a plant identification course or
1:05:15
a bird like a like bird people are crazy in
1:05:19
a good way Yeah, can
1:05:22
you teach an audio course like here's how to learn bird songs like
1:05:25
yeah Like I'll teach you the top ten bird songs. And yeah again,
1:05:29
they can do it online. But if you can Teach them
1:05:33
in a way that makes it faster and easier for them Then you
1:05:36
have some people even like an audio catalog like you bring
1:05:41
Yeah, it's a list or something like that and hear the birds it'd be yeah, that's a it's
1:05:45
a really good idea Well,
1:05:53
this has been great, Stephanie. This has been awesome. You know,
1:05:56
you and I, we're good friends and we've become great friends over like talking
1:05:59
about this, talking about podcasting. So I'm gonna put links to
1:06:03
your website, to the podcast and everything so people can get access to the
1:06:06
YouTube channel. So people can get more access to you and connect with you.
1:06:10
And just, I wanna thank you so much for coming on the podcast. Yeah,
1:06:15
it's been so much fun to have you on. We'll definitely have you back on
1:06:19
sooner than later to talk more about science communication
1:06:22
and everything, but really appreciate you coming on and thank you so much.
1:06:26
Thank you. Thank you, Stephanie, for joining us here on
1:06:30
the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. It was great to have you on. You know,
1:06:33
what's funny is before we did the interview, I was like, hey, when
1:06:36
was the last time you were on? She was like, I don't think I've ever been on. And I was like, yes, right. And
1:06:40
she goes, when was the last time you were on my podcast? I think I did it, but she's like, no, I
1:06:43
don't think you did. And we haven't gone on each other's podcast
1:06:46
and been able to speak about what we do, but we are doing that now. So
1:06:50
you can check out the fancy scientists podcast with
1:06:53
me on it soon. We're still, we're still about to record that next
1:06:57
week, but it's going to be a lot of fun and you should
1:07:00
check that podcast out. But also just like what information, great
1:07:03
information that she led, like let us have here on this episode,
1:07:07
like, It was great. It's been a while since we've talked podcasting and
1:07:11
not only podcasting, but conservation careers. And a lot of
1:07:14
times it's me talking about it. It's great to see somebody else having a
1:07:17
very similar position, but also a little bit different in their approach. And
1:07:21
I really like the approach she takes. I think it's really great. So if you want to
1:07:24
take one of her courses, please feel free to do so. You can go
1:07:28
over to her website, which the link is in the show notes below. Or
1:07:31
if you're watching this on YouTube, it's in the description. And you
1:07:35
can just click on that and go over there and find out more about Stephanie. But
1:07:38
that's it for today's episode. I want to thank you all for joining me
1:07:42
today with Stephanie. I want to thank Stephanie for joining us and taking
1:07:45
time out of her busy time building her business and being able to
1:07:49
share those great knowledge bombs with us today. So thank
1:07:52
you so much for joining me on today's episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast.
1:07:56
I'm your host Andrew Lewin. Have a great day. We'll talk to you next time and happy