Why Being a Generalist Might Be Your Best Strategy ft Julie Lavergne

What works for other might not work for you. What if your key to success was to not have a niche? What if tring to focus on one thing was actually hindering your path success?

Founder and CEO of 8Ball Clarity, the host of the podcast The Generalist Advantage,  former executive with nearly two decades in a global tech company and holds a masters in Engineering, Julie Lavergne is the quintessential Generalist who challenges the trend and notion of focusing on one niche.

Stay tuned for a direct and thought-provoking discussion on the beauty of the generalist and how it might be your key to success ;) 

 

Stay in Touch with Julie:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/julie-lavergne/

https://8ballclarity.com/

https://open.spotify.com/show/1tgDKNCnTxrLiXCe0n9u8b

 

Script: 

Choosing a nonlinear path is unheard of.

Every time I reinvent myself, I have to reinvent my brand.

I'm going to go and disrupt myself and prove that I can do this.

How do we help generalists understand their value and help them explain their value?

 The common theme was always like, oh, what about this piece? Okay, go do this piece. And then what about this other piece? Go there.

Having a generalist must be, it must feel like having like a cross-functional team in one person.

 We have so many interests. We want to do good in so many areas and trying to pick which one that with our limited resources.

Welcome to Weirdos in the Workplace, the podcast that celebrates authenticity, transparency, passion, and purpose. And of course, I am your host, Erin Patchell, and I'm here with the lovely, I am your host, Erin Patchell, and I'm here with the lovely, amazing Julie Laverne. And Julie is the founder and CEO of 8 Ball Clarity, the host of the podcast, The Generalist Advantage, and she loves to minimize thinking waste and help organizations, teams, and leaders to make better and faster decisions. You are in the right place, Julie Laverne, my friend.

 Oh, thank you. What a lovely intro and lovely podcast host. So thank you. Thank you. So question of the day for those of you who do not know Julie, which is maybe one or two of you, because you're very popular, especially in Ottawa. I want to get to know you a little bit. So tell me about yourself. And also tell me about like, what makes you a weirdo?

Oh, that's interesting. I just, I had a talk just recently. And all I did was like, why am I being asked to talk? And I realized is because I just make my own path. And some people could resonate with that. But I've often asked why fought the system? Why are we doing it this way? And I kind of like, why do those rules exist there? Why are are we thinking this way and so maybe that's a little bit of what makes me um good to have but also really annoying to have perhaps in the meeting room of you know going back of asking why um and so if you're asking a little bit of my journey uh it's I I started as an engineer uh because I couldn't fathom, I wanted to help people. Like this difference between science and engineering was like, no, no, I really want to build things that helps people. So that started with engineering.

 And then I made my way having a lot of different roles and made my way to HR executive and now founder. And that's probably what made me a generalist, but I'm sure we'll get into that. Oh, we'll definitely get into that. So yeah, today we're going to be talking all about what it's like to be a generalist, the journey to being a generalist, and how maybe being a generalist could solve some of these problems that we have in the world today. And I know that is of deep interest to a lot of the people who listen to this podcast and we're all very well aware um of some of the ways you know that our world is you know sometimes daily feels like it's imploding so true yeah yeah and from the macro to the micro you you know? Yep. Yeah. So, yes. So you went from engineer to HR executive and now founder. Julie, wait, before we go any further, though, like how the heck did we meet? Like, I literally can't remember.

I just feel like we absorbed each other into each other's lives somehow. I feel too. How did this happen? I don't know. I want to credit the LinkedIn world. How did this happen? I don't know. I want to credit the LinkedIn world. I find, you know, sometimes like like-minded, you know, people kind of find each other on there somehow. And that's, that's how, that's what I'm thinking. But obviously we have lots of friends in common. We end up in the same circle sometimes. Yeah. 

I started talking and go, let's do more of that together. I feel like I need to go back in time and figure out how this happened because I just enjoy you so much. And I really resonate with everything that you say, especially when it comes to like being rebellious and questioning. And I think that's such a good trait in people. Like, I don't think that's something that's annoying or should be bad or should be annoying at least.

 You know know I think it's so good to be able to question things and find the holes and provide more context because the more context we have the better we can make decisions and I know you're going to probably tell us a little bit about that too but anyways I just had to I was just thinking like how the heck did I did we meet and I have no idea well can I just say thank you for saying that, like, just going back to like, thank you for saying that's okay to be that way. Because I think a lot of generalists would feel that it wasn't, it's not always embraced. And I could say, I probably spent 10 years of my career being the annoying person of going like, why are you bringing this up to then shifting and who I reported to, to then being called an excellent gap filler. Right. And that was praised, right? It was like, thank you. Thank you for finding those gaps and bringing those to the surface.

 Cause we need to talk about them and we need to bridge them. So it's interesting that thank you for saying that it's a good thing, but cause I don't think everybody has always been embraced that way. No, actually they're not. I talked to like literally in my last job, I pretty much talked to people every single day who were looking for coaching, but in the quest to do better and for their professional development often had really emotional stories that they were telling me about, like how they weren't appreciated how you know there are the things that they noticed in the workplace were dismissed or denied or unappreciated and they were actually a lot of the time afraid they had to figure out like how do I say this the right way so that I'm not like fired or whatever you know and that just sucks so maybe we can talk about that too. Yeah, I was gonna, I was gonna keep going, because that's exactly how a lot of generalists feel, because the generalist work is kind of invisible.

Like, you don't see the work. It's not like this, like, we're not the product developer, you know, we're not the software coder or anything that comes to something tangible. We're more like this um somebody called it man behind the curtain like providing linkages across things and therefore it's not visible work therefore it's often not appreciated and therefore a little bit the conversation is maybe not the tough conversation of how to bring something up but the tough conversation of i am providing value i I am contributing and, you know, there's, there's, it's, it is valuable. Can you not see that? That comes up a lot. I think this, this actual conversation could go in a totally different direction than what I originally thought. I thought we were like, we're going to go down this one path. And now I'm like, I'm like, how do we help generalists understand their value and help them explain their value? Right.

Well, welcome to my purpose. Oh my gosh. Okay. Let's start with your story though. You went from, you were an engineer. Once upon a time, you were a child with all the hopes and dreams and then you were an engineer and then you were an HR executive and then you now you're obviously a founder and a coach and you know you're doing all the things bringing light to the world tell me about that journey and what that felt like yeah so I started so started, so started in the workplace, had, had the role as I, you know, was led to, sorry, had to do. And then what brought me is back to that questioning. So those people that are like, why is it done this way? Or why are we, why are we, what's that gap over there? Or I'm not understanding, you know think about the inputs and outputs right like I have a role and all these things are coming to me from inputs from the organization and I'm outputting and maybe I you know where is that going and so kind of those curiosity pieces led me to go but what about here and so we call like coloring outside your job description like I would do that all the time my, boss loved and hated it at the same time because it causes issues, but also love because you're doing kind of more and picking up the pieces. So that's kind of like the, operations, to finance, to systems development, to quality, to organizational development.

So it was just always about, if you think about the holistic picture and this whole like a wheel of a spoke, I always wanted to kind of try to color each, each spoke to really understand how all of it works. Right. So that's kind of like the piece that drove me was curiosity. But then how a lot of people go, how did you make the leap from a technical operational to let's say in HR, right? Sometimes that's very vastly different. And it was critical thinking. So I took the course and then I sat and then did the facilitation course. Then I did the teaching course. And then I started teaching the organization critical thinking.

 And then I realized how much I love seeing people make it doesn't matter if you're in sales or software, health and safety, whatever topic, like the ability to make a better decision or the ability to like, take a really complex situation, kind of break it down and find an action plan, right? Like, I just love seeing those aha moments. And so I knew that was something I wanted to do more of. And that was the pivot. I talked with the CEO and the pivot was, Hey, can you bring this as a kind of organizational competency and really like lift the organization? And I said, challenge accepted. And that's how I kind of went into the HR kind of people space. Yeah. Okay. So it started with sort of competency development, skills development, building, helping people build context and then led you. So it was learning and development kind of like that learning and development HR bubble. And then how far, how deep into the HR world did you end up going?

Well, the part so he he the ceo would give me a nugget and what he thought would take two three years i would have like chewed up in six eight months wow he's like oh okay feed next nugget so then i got recruiting and then same same thing and i think that's where even though i had huge accomplishment accomplishments as an engineer or you know operationals person I think he had made the transferable link of how I operate is not just because a technical perspective it's more from that thinking approach perspective and using the experts around me right so I wasn't an expert in these things but pair me up with the expert man I kind of developed the process or built whatever needed to be built so then he just like kept piling it on and then said okay you're you're on the executive team now as the kind of organizational development talent person so and became quite close with him and advisor and then he then before I left was getting into strategy because he's like, oh, okay, the way you think, right? And so what was interesting is that each milestone I hit, there was always a surprise that I could hit it probably for both of ourselves really. But yeah.

Did you have any points where it was like you like kind of like growing pains through that at all? Like what was that like? kind of like growing pains through that at all like what was that like yeah I mean we talk about imposter syndrome for sure when I transferred to let's say the HR space I definitely have faced a lot of adversity of like you like but you have no training in this field right like like back to those classic questions like how you, what do you know in this space? And I face a lot of adversity, especially when I start talking with somebody, let's say a manager or whatever. And they'd be like, no, no, well, I've been managing people in this for a very long time. So let me kind of educate you or let me tell you, which I appreciated. But there's also this perspective of you've been doing it naturally for many years, right? Leadership sometimes was just from a natural place. Whereas what generalists often do is the minute they get their hands on a topic and they deep dive, right? Like multiple books, multiple videos, training, like whatever. It's like there's a deep dive into the topic really quickly. So then you get into the best practice and systems and understanding it that you could kind of apply. get into the best practice and systems and understanding it that you could kind of apply. So that was difficult because I didn't have the cred, right, to do the job.

And I just needed to show them, show value, prove myself, really serving them and showing that their life is easier working with me and that they kept coming for more. Yeah. Yeah. Once you can demonstrate it for sure, but it's, it's interesting that people don't realize how much, um, that third party outsider perspective, how valuable that can be, you know, uh, especially when you're trying to innovate, cause it's like, you aren't going to come in and do things the way that they've always been done before. Um, you're going to bring best practices in from other areas in order and apply them in this context. And then obviously integrating like the best practices probably that were known into a better system. And so I just think that's really cool. Yeah. And I think it's like marrying up multiple systems. Like I was on the operational side, like I knew what had to the work that you need to do to deliver. So I knew not to come and put in like a very, maybe labor intensive or whatever process. Like I need, I wanted to marry it up with their day-to-day to make it as efficient as possible.

And so it's kind of appreciating that, like, we need to do this piece and you're doing this other piece. How do we best do that together? And that appreciation for sure. Oh, I was just thinking like having a generalist must be it must feel like having like a cross-functional team in one person all your multiple personalities I was gonna say the worst part is when you talk to yourself about like what about this way but there's this going on and you literally could do that yeah that's amazing and then at what point did you decide like, and I mean, if it's too personal, then don't don't you don't need to tell us why you decided to start your, your business. But I'd love to hear what that journey was like. What was that moment for you that were like, I'm gonna do this on my own now? Yeah, there's definitely multiple versions of that story. I will say that without sounding arrogant, it was, I felt like I'd outgrown it. Like I felt like I needed to do more. And I knew that the system that worked, which was, you know, needed to work for the business that they are, was limiting me. And after I had delivered some major things, I said, Okay, do I want to go around this block again? And I wasn't feeling it. And so, funny enough, I actually when I started feeling that way, I was researching, like, okay, let's go do this job in a different industry. And I couldn't get a bite. So the job I had been doing in a global tech company, when I tried to go smaller company, midsize, HR, tech, they said, oh, no, sorry, you don't have the degree. You don't have this.

You don't have this you don't have that and i was like oh it's my engineering degree isn't useless like this is where i was starting like butting up against this kind of checkbox view of things and and i said white right well i'm gonna go and disrupt myself yeah and prove that i can do this And so that's where led me to this journey. Oh, dude, that resonates with me so much. I am like totally unemployable. Despite the fact that I've done so much of like, nobody's nobody wants this because I don't fit in neatly inside a box. Exactly. And that's that is something that's one of my missions is disrupt that org structure, hiring checkbox. Like we know there's a lot of value, like, oh my God, like who wouldn't want to have Erin Patchell on their team? They'd be crazy.

 But because again, there's this institutional structure that said, well, where would Erin fit that is not disruptive? She doesn't fit and she might be disruptive of all her knowledge and all like, she'll then let's just not do it and I think that is a big mistake oh you can guarantee that both of us would probably be a little disruptive that's for sure but it's it works extremely well as a consultant actually um to go in gently you know kind of not shake things up too much because you can't really as a consultant or at least you shouldn't um but you know gently nudge you know nudge the nudge nudge and then and then leave you know before things get too hot leave everyone in a good position yeah yeah i'll uh i never looked at it that way but yeah i guess that's what's what I, yeah, definitely trying to do. Tell you a little bit story. When I started on talking about this topic, somebody reached out from the, he didn't say the organization he was from. I'm assuming like the Nortel days.

Cause he says, Oh, like back, way back when we do product innovation and you know, my tech, big tech company, we realized that there was like a group of misfits that kind of like, he didn't say the word misfit, but he says they like would innovate faster. Their product would go, he goes like, and then we actually hired a consultant to understand why that group was faster than the others. And that's what he said is like, they were, they had more of this generalist mindset and thinking, and it was 10% of it. He was, but politics would drag them down they were disruptive so they were they were put the corner because again they would challenge status quo and why are we doing it this way and so yeah so there's definitely an aspect of disruptive uh to what we do i can definitely vouch for that you know the last team at career joy um that you know we were developing awesome we just did such awesome work and we were so good at like getting shit done and I think most of the team were for sure generalists and like a little bit you know just definitely outside the box thinkers in different ways and then on the train to help project now it's the same it's like four of us are totally generalists like way way out like totally rebellious um and then the one person who is not is a total specialist is my husband who's our software engineer and literally he'd be happy if he was coding 15 hours a day and that's just fine yep yep we need those definitely need those exactly um but yeah yeah i think great things can.

 Do you think you'll have your own crazy little team of generalists someday, Julie? Well, it's interesting as I try to embark on this topic. I, to be honest with you, I struggle a little bit of like what it could be like, is this, is this, am I just voicing something, but like, am I creating something out of it? Like what's the output? And I talked to a lot of others. I said, what are we defining as success? Right? Like, we could talk about it, but what's the end goal? Where do we know that we've reached something? And so that's still in work. I have definitely a few ideas, but the creation of more generalists or those embracing that they are a generalist, adopting generalists like there's definitely a theme there whether they all work for me or not to be determined yeah yeah I think that you could do a little bit of what we like to call world domination for good you know I think you could do some good there for sure thank you I'll uh that's my project for the summer is help sketch that out a little bit more where to put my energy well you know where to come if you need any help with that because that's my favorite thing in the entire world yes thank you so I know sometimes going through these identity transformations is difficult like how or some for some people or some people like it's it's just as easy as putting it on like a new like a new pair of like a new shirt or something you know um how did it feel to go through this these this transformation process for you uh bumpy okay like bumpy because you're going against the grind a little bit, right? Like you're causing friction with others.

Um, I'll give you an example. I finished engineering, I'm working as an engineer and I decided to go teach English in Korea. Right. Okay. Right. And so when I quit, my boss at the time said, you'll never work as an engineer again. Right? So I'm 21. Right? Making a choice and you have a person of authority, kind of say, I'll never work in what I finished five years of hard work to do again, right? Like, right. But but again it's just because for them this choosing a non-linear path is unheard of yeah and so every time you go through this process you're always less so now but earlier on definitely met with a lot of that uh like who are you to be this what this you'll never be this person and you just have to kind of keep coming back to your own identity, who you are, trust yourself, trust in your abilities to figure it out. Even when you dive into an area that you're complete, you feel like imposter, right?

 I never claimed to be an expert in anything, right? So it makes it really tough when you're in a room full of experts and going, well, why are you here? so you just have to kind of trust that the way you think is a bit different and that's okay so this constant re-identifying yourself re-identifying who you are because then you're the the language you're using is different right like today i'm engineering your language another day your hr language but also um re-identifying yourself and reasserting yourself that like you are offering something in the way you think has value. And that's why you're here today, right? In that project or team or whatever it is. It's true that like branding is so important because people don't like when I started Positivist Group, people are like, I just don't get it. Like, what are you doing?

And I'm like, I'm solving people problems solving people problems you know they're like what does that mean like oh my god here's what yeah you don't have people problems like we've got no people problems but that's what we kind of generalists kind of end up being experts in is like the problem solving yes yes like learning and problem solving um because and then and then I think sometimes, at least I feel like this is starting to become a sweet spot for me, is every time I reinvent myself, I have to reinvent my brand. And so marketing and communication is starting to become really important on how I articulate like, what am I doing now? Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. And you know what, you could definitely help provide some tips on that because that's the one thing that comes up again and again with generalists is again, they have all these pieces of a career and skills and competency, but they seem so different. And so they have to bring a through line to it. They have to bring a little bit of that marketing spin. Like they got to tie the dots for the other person. And it's really hard to do it yourself. And it's a little bit of that marketing feel to it, as you said, in communication.

So that's definitely where I see a lot struggle. And there's some resources out there, especially the one question everybody hates is if you go to an event and goes what do you do right I don't even know what I tell people anymore same I like I honestly now I feel that's a really good question I'm still trying to figure that out like I'm just kind of joking with it or I give a different answer each time like I just play with it now yeah I'm the same. Depends on what I think they would be more perceptive to. Perceptive, is that the right word? Receptive, more receptive to. Or sometimes I'll just say I'm an entrepreneur. And then they're like, okay. Okay, yeah. And if they're curious, they'll say, of what? Tell me more. If not, then okay. I know we're talking, but when did you identify as a journalist? Like when, like you embrace that, which we love. Some people are still on that journey. Yeah. I mean, I didn't have a choice, but to embrace it. Cause I don't think that I, I couldn't be fit in box. Like I didn't have a professional job until I was 30. Right. So like I was freelance and I was doing home daycare and you know freelance marketing and communications and fundraising and home daycare and stuff throughout my 20s when my kids were young um because I had three kids by the time of 25 right um so I didn't really know I knew I was good at a lot of things but I didn't really know what to do until or how to frame that or like, I think it was about 30, 31 by the even before I'd heard the word generalist. And I was like, OK, interestingly, on a lot of the tests that I do, like there's a lot of psychometric testing tools on some of them.

 I actually identify as I, I test as a specialist. It's cause I like details. So they think if you like details, you must be a specialist. Not true. Actually. I like all the things. Thank you very much. Um, um, so, but I think that I've been a generalist my whole life and I don't think I had any choice, to um but to sort of be that way yeah I think so you know what now that you're telling now you never been thinking about this I have a little I have obviously the ADHD and I'm that's a theme that's a theme yes um but when I was a kid I didn't really talk till I was about outside the house outside of my safe spaces till I was like 11, 12 years old. Um, and that's a story that I've told on the podcast a few times before. But, uh, I, all I did when I was a child was like, I drew horses. I would draw horses like all day, every day. It was psychotic. Almost. It was like really fix hyper fixated. It was like ridiculous. So all I would do is like draw horses. And then I was like, I'm going to be a veterinarian. I started volunteering a veterinary clinic.

I started horseback riding my parents. We didn't grow up with a lot of money, but they finally got a little bit of money together. So I could start horseback riding lessons when I was around 11. And then within like six months I had to quit because my, I just all of a sudden developed these insane allergies. So I had to quit all of that. I had to quit the veterinary clinic. I had to quit because I just all of a sudden developed these insane allergies. So I had to quit all of that. I had to quit the veterinary clinic. I had to quit horseback riding. And I became very depressed for a little while. And then I started my clown business when I was 12. So that kind of brought me out of it a bit, gave me something to do. So maybe I would have been a more of a specialist. Maybe I would have focused had it not been for that like dramatic life transition that changed that was thrust upon me I just don't know what do you think you're the expert here I I don't claim to be an expert of anything I am claiming of uh yes researching and talking to people and trying to draw this data that is definitely a question that comes up quite a bit of if I had better career guidance would I have been a you know would I figured it out earlier if I yeah didn't have these events would I have been without any proof I think it's more of a mindset it's a little bit on the ADHD like I think that's who you are fundamentally and even if you had career guidance and didn't have, you might have been, you know, one races as a, you know, horse racing, and then you would have pivoted because you've done it and you've, you know, it's fun and you'll move to something else. So, but that's just Julie version.

 I have no proof or data to say that's, that's my opinion. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, certainly, you know, my life would demonstrate that that's probably true. Yeah. Yeah. Cause everything else that maybe you didn't have a major event, you just chose to keep going into something else. Cause there's not enough time for all the things that we want to explore, which is one of the challenges, right? Like we're, we have so many interests. We want to do good in so many areas and trying to pick which one that with our limited resources. This is the one thing that I always think about is like, I wish I could have, I wish I could live multiple lives to do all of the things that I wish I would, that I want to do, right? Yeah. If there was one other thing, if there's like's like you know one life that you could pick for yourself that's like totally different from what you're doing now I'm curious if you have something in mind oh god no you're like oh I wish I could do that no and you know a little bit about me is something I've learned over time is I never had those crazy big I wish dreams. And so, I mean, it's good in one way that I'm happy in my life. Like, you know, I feel, you know, I've traveled to over 40 countries. I've done the backpacking. I've, you know, been the exec, I, I, I, you know, I have financial, I have friends.

Like, so in some ways I don't have these other big, crazy, like, Oh, if only I wish probably the one right now is maybe yes, right now is like going to learn Spanish in another country and living there. Um, but that's like the retirement plan. Sure. You can still do that. Yeah, totally. Yeah. Yeah. totally yeah yeah yeah that's very cool um how do you create how do we create more generalists i'm gonna say we because i would like to help you um well there's there's there's a few options i'm thinking about one is though how do you identify them right like those that are sometimes self-identified great some are still on I I talked to somebody I said oh like she had done so many different things in an organization like oh you're a generalist and right away she said no no I'm not I've actually done some important things and so there's a there there's a, there's, there's a stigma right now. And some people say it's changing, speaking to brand and marketing and reinventing this brand. Some people say generalist has a stigma that has to be removed, but there's a lot of other kind of movements that's calling it something different, but I'm like, it doesn't matter what you call it. It's still the same thing.

 So it's kind of identifying that, that there is value. So I think it's one communicating that there is value there and not just shying away from it um and then i'm curious and that's something i've been researching i my upcoming on my podcast is gen z's will generalists exist with gen z like my assumption is they're naturally exposed to many many different things like way more than when i was younger um but they still don't identify generalists. I've talked to a career advisor for university there. There's still a thing about picking that one career, right? And so they're what some of them are trying to play the game and go, well, we we took a major that was still broad as a topic, right? And so they're trying to pursue interest, but it's really interesting. It's, it's actually the high school problem having, I have three high school children.

 So I'm like, this is a big problem in the high schools right now is they are pushing them to stream them into university and to, you know, ideally, you know, the most narrow course they can find. Cause usually that comes with, you know, a guaranteed thing or whatever, if you can hack it. Right. But the problem is universities are actually adapting faster than, than high schools right now. They're really moving to, if you ask anyone in university, moving more to micro credentials, right. That build into larger degrees. If you look at like, you don't just see a lawyer anymore. It's like a lawyer who specializes in this narrow niche that is like overlapping with this other thing. See like in short, like people who are like, you know, lawyers who are like also like realtors and like dabble in insurance or whatever, you know, like you have, and that focus only on this type of corporation, you know, like you, people are niching down so much that they have to become generalists in a way.

 And they're doing that because they are following their curiosity, I think. But it's like, but like you see the kids, like the teenagers are completely unaware that this is even an option. Yeah, yeah. Crazy. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I've heard that. so when I spoke to a career advisor specialist she said it's such a noxious moron right she calls herself a generalist but the career advisor specialist but we each have a field right um she was saying the parents have started embracing being generalists and understanding the careers will change etc as you are talking but sometimes it's more of the kids and the environment that they're in.

They haven't embraced it, which I think is just really fascinating. Where in the past would have been the parents going, you have to be a lawyer, go do this. So yes, we have work to do in multiple fronts. Yeah. Yeah. The career, the, the, the, I don't know if they, what do they call guidance counselors in high schools? I don't know what their KPIs are. I think that they have KPI. I do believe they have them because of the amount of pressure they put on kids. Like my, my son who had been through cancer, you know, and he deserved a gap year. Uh, and we had planned for him to have a gap year, came home a couple of falls ago before he had graduated and was like in panic mode because he hadn't applied to anything.

 And I was like, hold on, this is the plan. Yeah. We planned for this. You deserve a year off. You wanted a year off. What's going on? He's, and he described to me the kind of pressure that they were getting from their guidance counselors. And it's just, please stop. Please stop. Doesn't it make you angry angry it actually does make me angry yeah especially i mean on the generalist front on life experience front on you are better human if you take some time sometimes and especially it's interesting traveling um it's so normalized in uk uk is one of the countries i know that gap year is very much embraced so why why not here yeah no and he did end up taking a gap year but believe me like getting him from getting him back to you know to like yeah this is okay you don't have to follow the you know the crowd like this is right um getting him to feel okay about that again was a struggle so anyways it's it's thank you thank you for doing obviously it's your son to do that but yeah thank you you know i just don't get it anyways we that's one thing i think universities actually have a better handle on this than than the high schools and i do wonder if it's because they're being rewarded somehow you know i'm curious about that.

Any high school guidance counselors out there? Let me know if you don't like me anymore, but that's okay. Well, they could come on the podcast and talk about it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Come talk about it. Or maybe on your podcast. Oh, yeah. A hundred percent. Yeah. Yeah. The generalist's advantage. So tell me what you've got planned for the podcast. Well, again, it's what happened is when I posted about being a generalist, I know a couple years ago, like I hit a nerve, like I, you know, I'm on a good day. I have 20 likes on LinkedIn, right?

Like, oh, yeah, that was a good day. So when I was like 150, 200, respond, like likes and responses and personal messages, I was like, oh respond like likes and responses and personal messages I was like oh oh oh I hit something so then I wanted to connect with them because again there is a bit of a lonely feeling like other people think like this as well like really resonated with the book range etc um so I had all these amazing conversations and somebody said why did you press record right like and I went oh right okay you know like I should like because they were really great on with like you know careers and like recruiters and just like all these different people with some with ADHD and some in the military from across the world and I was like these are really and they all felt lonely and so it was like about the sharing and so I finally got there of you know getting all of the pieces together to talk about again having these conversations with various people that agree or may disagree with it or don't identify with it and you know I'd love the specialist perspective of working with a generalist right like it must be really hard for them to like follow us or kind of connect with us sometimes and so uh yeah so that's what the the purpose is is talk like exploring it in all these different avenues finding some common themes which i already kind of talked about like a lot some of them definitely on the adhd spectrum and um yeah seeing what comes out of it after multiple conversations seeing what because we need more data multiple conversations, seeing what, because we need more data. We need more research. We all feel a certain way and I'm trying to, you know, engineer it with data and say, okay, after so many conversations, this is what it looks like.

Yeah. Well, I'm a big fan of what you're doing. So you let me know how I can, you know, how we can share this message further. I think it's important i actually think it's even more important like we chatted like very briefly at the beginning of the podcast about how many problems we have in the world right now yes um and a lot of it i think is the result of just silos and bad communication and miscommunication and discommunication or disinformation. Yeah. And that can be prevented by just more context.

 A hundred percent. And also like if they were going to put together a quote unquote tiger team to try to solve some of these problems and they go, well, we need one person from here and a person from here and a person from here, who are we saying, okay, bring in the generalist. And they're going to go, well, what role do they fit?

 Just, just there'll be the glue of that team that will accelerate your innovation problem solving. Just trust that. Yeah, totally. Yes. Yeah. That should be a role. Like we should write a job description. Yeah. And that was one of the metrics. Like if somebody puts out a job description that is a version of looking for the generalist, then that's, that's a win. Yeah. Yeah. That's a really cool idea. I love that. Okay. So there's different metrics along the way that we could celebrate together. Yeah, for sure. Thank you for coming on the show.

Thank you so much for having me. I feel like we could talk about this for, there's so it's such a juicy topic. Like there's so many layers here I know if I could do this full time I would but well at least we've got your podcast so we can listen to that and that's on all your usual podcast platforms apple podcast spotify for now yes perfect okay well I will definitely link to that in the show notes and other ways that you can get Julie. Is there anything you'd like to say? Just like final words? No, thank you. I love connecting with people. I was open for it.

So please do. And again, thank you for all that you do.

Don't forget to stay weird, stay wonderful, and don't stay out of trouble!