From the Olympics to Starbucks to the world stage, SUU alum and National Alumni Council President Jamie Shaw has seen it all. In this episode, Jamie joins hosts Bobby Hodge and Trekker Burt to talk about how students can stand out before graduation by saying yes to new experiences, taking bold leaps, and actually using LinkedIn for more than just scrolling. Jamie shares stories from her incredible global career. From helping host the Salt Lake Olympics to jumping on a plane to Brazil with only three weeks’ notice, and explains why building relationships, volunteering, and getting involved outside the classroom often matter more than a perfect GPA. If you’ve ever wondered how to turn small-town roots into a worldwide career (or how to make group projects slightly less painful), this one’s for you.
Topics
Show Notes
Jamie Shaw discussed her career journey, highlighting her roles at major international sports firms and her extensive experience in hosting events globally. She emphasized the importance of networking, both during and post-college, and advised students to seek out opportunities beyond academia, such as internships and volunteer work. Shaw stressed the value of building relationships, engaging in extracurricular activities, and developing a learning mindset. She shared her belief that practical experiences and personal initiatives often trump academic achievements on resumes. Additionally, Shaw encouraged students to try new things, embrace challenges, and maintain an openness to diverse experiences.
Bobby Hodge 00:00
Hi. Welcome everybody. Welcome T birds to the career Cafe podcast. We are here today with a very special guest, Jamie. Shaw, welcome Jamie. Thank you so much for being here. Thanks for having me. Having me. Yeah. So today, you selected the topic. The topic is what students can do right now to stand out when they graduate. So luckily, you have some, you have some pretty cool experience. I was, I was pretty impressed when, like poking through your LinkedIn. I'm just going to give a couple of highlights, and you can correct me where I'm wrong. You said it might not it might not be updated, because it's been a while since we've done any job searching. So Jamie is currently the Operations Director at sport five. It is a major international sports firm, right? You guys help, help cities and teams host events, from what I understand. Okay, so you've helped with Olympics on LinkedIn. It talked a little bit about the Commonwealth Games, but then you've also led global teams. You're talking about that. You've worked in India, Australia, all over the world before that. You were a senior consultant at event knowledge services, and you've also held leadership positions at the Salt Lake Olympics, Starbucks and Verizon. Does sound
Trekker Burt 01:28
right? That's right. No small potatoes, no.
Bobby Hodge 01:31
And then Jamie is also one of our own. She earned her Bachelor of Business Administration from SUU and then went on to some other school in Provo and got got her MBA
Jamie Shaw 01:44
best left unsaid, yeah, right.
Trekker Burt 01:47
Jamie is also our National Alumni Council President. Yes, beginning her term,
Bobby Hodge 01:53
I am the most important role on that whole. It is right there. Yeah. So, yeah, really quickly. Jamie, do you want to just walk us through, like I gave a couple highlights, but walk us through your journey from the time you left SUU to kind of what led you to where you're at. Now, look,
Jamie Shaw 02:09
it was a lot of Su use fault all along the way. So I had a really amazing professor here who said, Maybe you should go to graduate school. And I'm from a small town, that concept had never even existed for me, but I took her encouragement, and when got my graduate my MBA, and then I started looking for jobs, which you know you do, and I ended up in Texas, thanks to an alumni of that other school we're not mentioning, with a great job. But I got really bored after about two years, which I think is kind of normal out of college, right? And I really, really miss the mountains. I think it's a Southern Utah person in me. So I started looking for jobs back in Salt Lake or Utah or somewhere closer, and I found one with the Salt Lake Olympics. I thought, Oh, that would be so cool, because I still remembered I was a college student when they announced that the games were coming, I thought, and I remember thinking, Oh, how cool it would be to be a part of that someday. So I thought, Oh, how am I going to do this? And I remembered one of my colleagues from SUU was working there already, so I called TASH up and I said, Hey, look, this job, it's exactly the work I'm doing right now. Will you just make sure my resume gets to the right person I know I've got the right background. I just need you to help to do that. And he did. He pulled it through. So connection, it's the best, yeah, I got the job. Honestly, it was the best job I've ever had in my life, and probably ever will have. And I was in my 20s, so that kind of sucks. Like, what do you do now? But you know, the job ends because the games end, and it was fine. And then I went to Seattle to work for Starbucks, which was fantastic. I really loved Seattle. Had a great time, great friends that I still am close to today. And then my boss from Salt Lake called one day and he says, Hey, do you want to go to Brazil for 17 months? And I'm like, I think I have to say yes to this, even though it sounds incredibly crazy, because he wanted me there in two weeks. Oh, Wow, gosh no, it was three, but Christmas was part of that. And this was with Starbucks. I was with Starbucks. I had just taken a great new job. Honestly, there was no reason to leave, other than 17 months in Brazil sounded really cool, so I took it and thought, I'll come back to Starbucks or something else after this is over. And that's when I went to help with the Pan American Games. And I stayed there for the 17 months, and then I stayed on and helped them with their Olympic bid for the 2016 games. All fantastic. And that company that hired me was Eks event knowledge services, and I went to work for them, and I have stayed to work with them for now nearly 20 years. Swart five was bought into them, so it's now a little bit part of the same company, and I have just worked a couple of years here, a couple of years there, on different projects over the time, and it's been an amazing experience, you know, for a small town girl from Utah to get to go and live and work in all these places, it's been really an amazing experience. And I've had the best time. I've learned so much
Bobby Hodge 04:58
that's awesome. Yeah. So you credited su a little bit beginning there. What did your time at SU, you look like like, did you know exactly what your major was going to be from day one, you bounce around to 10 different
Trekker Burt 05:11
colleges. You didn't switch majors? Did you? No,
Jamie Shaw 05:15
I actually didn't. I, oh my god. I thought I knew. Thought being it relative exactly what I was going to do. And we had a great advisor in the business department. She had me lined up. I honestly finished my required classes, I think, in three years, because I knew exactly what I was going to do. I don't do what I thought I was going to do, by the way, that's just not the way it usually works. But I got in, got my classes, but then I found out that you could do lots of other more fun things at SU along the way. So I got involved in student government, PBL, alpha, fee, Student Alumni, all the things I started getting involved. And that's where the world really opens up. You know, if I know a lot of the students who come here are like me from very small places. You know, my high school class was 56 people, and we had been together from kindergarten on, and I this small town, when you look around, there just aren't jobs. You know, you worked in the coal mine, or a teacher, or maybe, like my dad, you're a banker that supports those folks, but that's all there is. And so I just kind of thought, I'll go into business. My dad used to bring me home business magazines. I think he was pushing me to get a business degree silently, and it made sense. And, you know, I thought I'll do HR, that sounds like a nice, friendly kind of job to do, and that's what I thought I would do. And to be honest, I started my career there, but you start to realize, Oh, there's more of the world out here. And so for me, it was just taking a step and figuring out what you're going to do and trying it, and deciding who I like that part, but not that part. So if, where do I find more of this? And so I think we'd get too caught up. I know I did as a student of needing to know exactly what you need to do and going there. But the truth is, the best part is that journey of bouncing around and trying different things and getting caught up, and it has to be this path. It's not helpful. And I look at the people I've hired over the years and worked with very few of them knew their exact path. It was finding their way that kind of led to really fun, more exciting adventures.
Trekker Burt 07:09
I think we can all relate to that in one way or another. I never thought I'd be where I am today, but very glad I am, yeah, and I think Suu, I resonate with what you're saying, with your career story, but that specifically, that was it a professor that said, Hey, you should go to grad school because I'm from a tiny town, you know, 700 people, and it's like, you just don't even consider that when you come from that type of town, that type of upbringing. So, man, it's amazing what people like that can do.
Jamie Shaw 07:39
It is, but you also had to take that first step right, which was come to a school, complete, someplace a little bit bigger, try a few things that are hard. You just have to keep taking the steps before the paths open to you, and the dreams even.
Bobby Hodge 07:52
Yeah, I'm currently doing my MBA. That's kind of the same thing of just like I always thought grad school is for rich people or really smart people. I grew up in the blue collar family. That's what it was like. My dad, like, was a project manager, and so when people said, Oh, are you going to grad school? It's like, no, that's not me. And now here we are. So it's kind of interesting how, yeah, getting outside of your immediate community and seeing even Suu, which is, you know, a small school, but it's bigger than, than where a lot of us are from.
Trekker Burt 08:23
So, so you, you mentioned taking that step, and it, it comes from the small town, taking the first step to to get out of the small town, because it's comfortable to just stay there, right? But then taking the first the next step after that, going to grad school, and the next step, just making that walk, right? What would you have done differently, if anything? Because I know you said you'd never changed your major, you kind of knew what you were going to do the whole time. That definitely wasn't me. But what would you have done differently, if anything, I think I would have tried harder things, more difficult things. Yeah,
Jamie Shaw 08:57
I was obsessed with grades. Not even cool to say, right? But I always thought I had to get those A's and a minuses. And sometimes you're so focused on getting the grade that you're not so worried about actually learning and taking the harder class because you want to learn it, even though it might not get you the grade you wanted. And I wish I would have focused more on just the pure learning of a few things and tried a few things. You know, I was here recently and talking to some of the incoming student officers for Su you so impressed with them being brave enough to run for these offices and do those things. And I was involved in student government. I just never was brave enough to run for anything. I just always found a way to get myself appointed. I don't know though, but there's something about that courage of being willing to try the hard thing, even if you fail. I think there's a process that if you're not willing to do that, you can't get anywhere. I mean, we talked a little bit about my going to Brazil. That was crazy. I had a great. Job in a good city, I worked for bosses who really liked me, and I could see them helping my career progress where I was at. But the chance to live and work in a foreign country, it was a really good one, and taking that leap was scary. I didn't speak the language I knew nobody I was going on my own, not with part of team in a country that at that time, maybe the reputation for safety wasn't the highest it could have been, and that was a scary thing. But sometimes you take those really scary leaps, and those are the ones that help you the most. They also sometimes are the risky ones, so sometimes they don't work. You have to regroup.
Bobby Hodge 10:37
Well, that's awesome. Well, let's, let's shift gears a little bit, and we'll get kind of into the topic now that we've gone through why we should listen to you. You have some experience and not convinced. If you're not convinced after that, sorry. Okay, so what students should be doing in college to really prepare you kind of mentioned that grades maybe aren't like the most important thing you should be focusing on if you were in college right now and your goal is to get a job right out of college. Like, what would you be doing to make yourself stand out?
Jamie Shaw 11:10
Yeah, and I be honest, when you gave me a list of topics, I chose this one particularly because I have a niece getting ready to go into college this year, and so it felt really relevant of what I've been thinking about for her. And look, grades do matter. You have to pass if you're on scholarship. You have to keep your scholarship. If you want to go to graduate school, you have to keep your grades in a way. So I can't tell you they don't matter. They do, but where do they matter? And where does everything else that you can do make a difference? You know, when you're going to college, everybody's doing the same thing. You're competing against people who are going to class just like you, getting same ish grades as you are. So what makes you different and what makes it easier to stand out, you know? And I thought back to how I got an internship while I was my last year at Suu. It was a professor who put me in touch with somebody, and it was because I had gone and spent in time with that professor. Got to know them. They got to know me. You know, I took advantage of their office hours if I was having a problem with a concept I didn't understand. I went and asked if I wanted advice. I went and asked. It seems so simple, but it's also really hard sometimes to do, but you because a sometimes you just want to stay under the radar. Yeah, which is okay, but if you want to stand out, guess where that is, not under the radar. So you have to go and have those conversations and get to know and that's the great thing about a school like Suu. It's still small enough and the professors are still open enough that you can actually go and have conversations with them, get to know them. And they do have. They hear about opportunities for internships for grad schools, they can help make a difference. The other thing, I'm old, so when I went to school, we didn't have things like LinkedIn. You have that tool now, and there's a ton of alumni who are out there working in the fields you want to and will. 100% of them answer your call or your email to ask questions. No, but a lot of them will. A lot of them have been right where we are or where you are right now. They'll take a call. They'll tell you what things help them get into their career. They might even know where an opening is or an internship. So if you're not, you know, spending some time looking through the alumni list on LinkedIn, seeing who's going into similar careers, or if you're trying to choose your career, write to them, ask them what you like, or what they like about their career, what they hate. They'll give you honest information. And so there's so many advantages we have today where you can connect with these people so easily.
Trekker Burt 13:37
YOUR Story of connecting with your your friend from SU you to get that job at the 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake that was before LinkedIn. And that just shows the importance of networking and connecting somehow. Yeah, your peers, with professors, with staff, with Yeah, it is vital.
Jamie Shaw 13:53
And not just, not just going to class with them, connecting with them. I mean, if you've just seen the guy once in the hallway, it's pretty hard to call up and say, couple years later, four years later, hey, will you help me get this job? But I had known him. I'd worked with him. He knew me, and so I knew I could just say, Here's my skills. Can you tell them I'm cool? So I had to be able to say, can you tell them I'm cool? Because he knew I was and so you need to build relationships too. You know, I was visiting with someone in my neighborhood the other day, and we figured out we'd been here at SUU at the same time, and I got all excited and started talking about all these experiences and things, and I realized she and I had had an entirely different experience at Suu, all the things I was talking about, and the getting engaged and all this she just hadn't experienced. She had just gone to class and she got her degree, and she was working and she's happy, but I realized you can have an entirely different experience at the same time, and the only difference is that I put in the effort to get out and go do those things. So that was it, because it mattered to me, yeah, and it might not have mattered to her, and that's great, but. It did for me, and I think it helped me with my career and my life in general well.
Trekker Burt 15:03
And I think even if you don't do something like student government, I mean, you still you're here. Get the most out of it, make the connections that are going to last a lifetime, people that you can call on and they could call on you, right? Yeah, especially
Jamie Shaw 15:15
people in your major or areas where you want to work, because they're all going to be out in the same field you are. You're going to be able to be able to call and say, Hey, have you encountered this problem before? There's lots of ways that they can help.
Bobby Hodge 15:29
Yeah, one thing that I realized I graduated last May, and when I stood in line to, like, walk into graduation, I looked around, I saw all these people that were graduating, graduating in the same major as me, and I knew maybe, like, 10% of them, and I was so mad that, like, all these people that supposedly I went to class with for four years, and I had no clue who they were. And so I've made a bigger, a bigger effort since I've started working here at SU to like, connect with the people around me, because, like, I don't want to leave su at whatever point and look around and see all these people that are like, worked in the office next to me or worked down the hall and I never talked to and so I think that's really important for our students that are wondering, like, well, what, what else can I do besides just going to class? It's like, just talk to somebody. Just say hi, because they're probably just as nervous as you are sitting in like your first day of freshman class having no clue what's going on.
Jamie Shaw 16:27
Yes, there we all were. I mean, all you just want to sit there and nobody noticed you for a while, right until you feel like you have an understanding. The truth is, everybody feels pretty much the same, and everybody has a story, and they just want someone to say, Hey, how are you? Tell me about you. And once you do, the relationships are there, and you start feeling better about your classes and study groups. Your classes even do get easier if you make the right friends, right because if you find people, you know, I've worked for years, I'm a very I just jump in. I don't need to know the full details before I start work, I jump in good with ambiguity. I have another friend who needs to know every single detail before he starts working separately. We're not real great. Combine the two of us. I push enough that we get us going, and he slows me down enough that we actually ask the questions we need to ask. So you find someone like that in your classes. It's the same way you find somebody who's good at maybe something you're not so good at, and you figure out that figure out that you're better together, and that works in classes and jobs synergy. It's really good.
Bobby Hodge 17:28
It almost makes you feel like all the group projects actually have a purpose, besides just to make you so angry,
Trekker Burt 17:35
to ruin your weekend. Yeah, hey, can you guys meet Saturday night at 10pm
Jamie Shaw 17:41
they're the worst, but also, honestly, it's one of the most real things you learn in college, because that is work is just one big group project. I mean, not to spoil it for anybody, but it really kind of is,
Bobby Hodge 17:52
yeah, so kind of we touched on networking. Um, what advice do you have for students that are that are wanting to network? I mean, you LinkedIn, it wasn't a thing when you were in school, like, what things should they be doing, besides just talking to people in classes? What events should they be attending?
Jamie Shaw 18:09
Talk to professors, talk to your fellow students, and then do some searches on LinkedIn. Set aside 30 minutes a week to find somebody who works in your area. Send them a note and say, hey, could we connect? Could I have a 15 minute call with you just to ask you a few questions, and if you're really polite and upfront about what you're doing, I think a lot of people will tell you, yes. I know anybody who's ever asked me that question, I will. I've been to classes here. I've brought a stack of business cards. I've said, Here's my card. If you want to talk more, call me. Maybe one or two people in that entire time have ever taken the time to call me, and I've literally given them permission and given them the card. And so you actually have to take that next step. You have to be the one who'll pick up the phone or the email and say, Hey, can we talk?
Trekker Burt 18:57
Well, and alumni always seem so happy to do that my my wife is a financial analyst, and she is on LinkedIn, and she's listed as an SU alumna, and she has had students reach out to her, and whether it's for an assignment or whether it's for whatever purpose. I mean, she is always just jumps on it and is happy to help out. You know, she looks forward to it. It's enriching to give back to your university in that
Jamie Shaw 19:23
way. Yeah, I know a lot of us, and this is definitely true for me. I feel like I got so much from Suu, my good friends, the life I've had came from my choice to come here, and I gained so much that I want to be able to give it back in some way. You know, would I like to donate enough to do a building? Sure, I'd like to have that kind of money. That's not the reality of my life, but this way I can give back. So if a student called me and said, Hey, can I talk to you for a few minutes? I'd say, Yes, I might, even if they were close, take them out for coffee. You know, there's all these things that we can do. If you're just willing to call and and reach out to the alumni,
Trekker Burt 19:57
take the first step.
Bobby Hodge 19:58
Well, in that window of. Of effortless networking. It kind of stops once you're not a student. I don't know I I feel like when you have that student tagged next to your name on LinkedIn, it's like, I'm more likely to answer you than if you're just somebody that's like, Hey, I'd love to talk. It's like, okay, what are you selling me? I think you're right. So while you're a student, like, really make the effort to get out and talk to people, because once that title is gone, now you're just another person working at whatever company.
Jamie Shaw 20:26
Yes, I will say, in the last last week, I've had three people from that other school, we're not discussing their alumni department, who are financial advisors, reach out to try and connect with me. And I know what they're doing. Yep, they're trying to sell me. And so I connect with them, but I write the back, hey, I've got an advisor I'm really happy with. I'm not looking and I never hear from hear from them again, right? But yes, I think taking advantage now is your students a really good idea.
Trekker Burt 20:49
People want to help students. People don't always want to help non students.
Bobby Hodge 20:53
Yeah. So we talked a little bit about internships, that you got an internship. A lot of students, you know, they hear get experience. They need an entry level job with 10 years of experience right out of college. What are other ways that they can get experience besides just an internship?
Jamie Shaw 21:11
There's a lot. There's so many organizations locally and on campus who need help. You know, I am the chair of a nonprofit down in St George, and we put on a conference, and we realized we needed some help. And about that time, I was up at SUU with the events class. There's an events class here, and I'd spoke to them, I said, Hey, I need some help. If anybody's interested, two or three of them reached out and said we'd like to help. So they came and helped us with this event that we put on, but we also made sure that there were specific things they could say they were in charge of. So when they went to sit down and write their resume, they were able to say, I led these things at a two day event and conference. Now I couldn't pay them very much, in fact, almost nothing, because it was a nonprofit, but if you structure it right, then you can take that and put it as a job experience on your resume and with relevant tasks that you're going to have to do in your job, it didn't take them tons of time. I'll bet they spent 20 to 30 hours total. So it doesn't have to be a huge time thing. But you know, the type of jobs you're searching and the types of experience you need, you can reach out. There's community organizations that can give you some of that experience, and most of them are nonprofit type. They would love to be able to do some of that. And here's the thing, too. You go there, you meet all these people who are doing cool work, and you've just impressed them. So not only did you get something to put on your resume, you can now reach out to these people when you graduate and say, here's that resume you helped me build. Do you have any
Trekker Burt 22:43
connections, another networking opportunity that gets you out of the school, out of the
Jamie Shaw 22:47
professors, into the community, which is great, you know? And it can be in any community. It can be your hometown, you know, if that's where you want to go back to, it can be wherever you're at.
Bobby Hodge 22:56
And how much time would you say, those interns that you had, are those helpers, assistants? How much time did they have to put into it? I
Jamie Shaw 23:04
think honestly, 20 to 30 hours, really? Yeah, I don't think it was a huge time.
Bobby Hodge 23:07
Yeah, I've done assignments that take longer than that. So it's like, you're literally just getting something on your resume. It's just another assignment. It's like doing extra
Jamie Shaw 23:16
credit. Yeah, and, you know, and again, the networking alone is really good. You know, you have to impress them, right? So you have to go in knowing you're going to have to do some things and and want to step up, but it's great experience. But even here on campus, SUU such a great place. And I know this comes a little bit from my career background, which is more in events. There's an event here every month. There's always ways to help every organization here hosts certain things that have to be organized, or the club itself has to be organized. They have to have an operating plan. They have to have budgets. All of these are things that help you in your next career. So perfect.
Bobby Hodge 23:56
So kind of final question on our main topic, at least, is if you were to be looking to add somebody to your team, and you could find, like the perfect fresh out of college student entry level, what would you look for on their resume? And what would you look for in a person?
Jamie Shaw 24:13
First, I'd want to see somebody who's really involved, not just going to classes. It tells me so much about their ability to get out, to get to know people, to make an impression, and for my career, that matters. You know, what we sell in my company is people's experience, so I need them to have some experience so I can even hire them some professionalism, basic communication, which is really, I know it's harder. AI is making it a little easier these days to write a credible email, but you need to be able to do that. I look for somebody who's a go getter, who started something unique or made a big change where they're at, and who led in a certain way. So I'd want to hear for sure that they didn't just go. To clubs that they ran and became a leader in some way, because that tells me what they'll do in the job,
Bobby Hodge 25:07
see, and I didn't hear at all in that description of they need to have this, this degree or this or this major or this GPA. It's a lot more about how you are as a person that tells an employer more it does than what your GPA was.
Jamie Shaw 25:22
You know, I don't even care that somebody's GPA is on, you know, their resume. I care much more that they did something at school besides go to class. Yeah.
Bobby Hodge 25:36
And how much more valuable is it if they can say like, oh, yeah, my GPA is not great because I absolutely failed at this class and decided I didn't want to do that anymore, or had to retake it, and did a lot better the next time. I think that shows more initiative than I like you said, like, I took easy classes just so I could maintain the GPA get through school. Never really learned anything, because it was pretty easy. Oh, make the most out of college,
Jamie Shaw 26:02
yes, and even early job opportunities I had. I worked at Starbucks, I was hiring a new data analyst, and I got this resume, and she had some experience, but then she was working at Target, and I was like, oh, but it was really hard position to feel. So I brought her in anyway, and she talked. She her experience had been in Colombia, where she lived, and when she moved to the US and started looking, it was a little going, but she also her English wasn't she could speak English fluently. Her accent was very strong. And she said, How am I going to fix this? So she took a job at target where she had to talk to people all day, every day, and then, you know, they get bonuses if you give out credit cards. She decided she was going to give out more than anybody else, because it required her to talk more and be more persuasive. So she spent two years doing everything she could in that position to learn English, improve her accent and get out that story that she told was so much more powerful to me than anybody who'd spent their entire career doing the data analyst work. Right she could do it, but it told me who she was as a person, and I hired her, and she moved up the ranks so quickly. I mean, she was amazing, but so it your resume doesn't have to be perfect. You don't have to have a perfect GPA. You just have to show that you're willing to go and do the cool things and the hard things to get you there.
Bobby Hodge 27:14
Yeah, that sounds like that target job was probably harder than most other, like professional jobs. If that was her main goal was to learn how to speak English, if it's
Jamie Shaw 27:22
something, yeah. If it's really hard for you and you're doing it anyway, new
Trekker Burt 27:25
country, yeah. Well, yeah, yep,
Bobby Hodge 27:26
okay. Well, thank you. That kind of concludes our topic of what students should be doing. Let's move into this little rapid fire. Round these can just be short, punchy answers, however long you want them to be. What is one skill you use every day that you didn't learn in a classroom
Jamie Shaw 27:44
how to get a copy machine unstuck. I worked for a professor here on campus who was a reading professor, and I spent every day in the library making copies. I have all over the world. I am known for somebody who can get a copy machine unstuck.
Trekker Burt 28:00
It's good to know. Give you a call from the alumni office.
Bobby Hodge 28:04
They don't teach you that that's like, no, it's like, taxes, death and a stuck copy machine are the
Trekker Burt 28:09
inevitable parts of life, but I know how to find the radius of a circle. Yeah, no, exactly. So there's that. Okay, next one, most overrated piece of career advice,
Jamie Shaw 28:20
geez, get a good grade, I guess.
Trekker Burt 28:24
But you still should, right? You got to
Jamie Shaw 28:26
pass, right? You got to keep your scholarship, if that's what your goal is. But you know, I
Bobby Hodge 28:30
know we're going to get a call saying all of these students are failing their classes thinking that it's better. Great time, okay, um, if you weren't in the current field that you're in, where do you think you'd be?
Jamie Shaw 28:45
I have learned over the last few years how much I enjoy connecting people, and so I think I would be more in external relations, working with stakeholders and helping bring them together and finding solutions. Awesome. I think that's probably a through line in my career. Though I really like getting to know people and connecting with them.
Bobby Hodge 29:03
Sweet for students who feel like they're behind or unsure of their direction, what's one thing they could start doing this week?
Jamie Shaw 29:11
Try new things. Keep trying new things. If you're confused you just haven't found the thing you like yet. So keep trying the new things. Don't get too caught up. And this is the path I thought I was going and I have to stick to it, because maybe you just need to change. That
Trekker Burt 29:29
seems like a whole mindset, you know, being able to try, because it comes with a lot of failure, and in putting yourself out there, maybe feeling vulnerable, what what mindsets got you through that, like, how, what's your what attitude has gotten you through that? Look,
Jamie Shaw 29:46
I was not good at this when I was younger, I should say, and even probably when I was older. I really started in the last few years, deliberately trying things that I'm crappy at. I learned how to cook. I was really terrible at it. I garden because I'm terrible. A lot at I kill a lot of things, but I regularly do things I'm bad at, because then I'm in the learning mindset, and it's easier to learn other things as well. And I don't get I don't beat up on myself if I kill a plant, great, I get to go to the nursery and buy a new one. You just I've had to reset my mind that I don't have to do everything perfectly. In fact, it's better to deliberately find things I'm bad at, so I'm actively growing, and it really has made a difference in my career. As I've done that too, I've been more willing to try different things.
Bobby Hodge 30:28
I think you touched on this a little bit. I think I heard you kind of mention it, but like, the confidence that you get from being in the learning mindset, like once you realize that you can figure something out, then you can do the next thing and you have a little bit more confidence. Yeah. So my dad always tells me, when I go work on my car and have to, like, figure something else out, is like, well, now you know how to do that. And so yeah, then when, like, my gas pump, or my my fuel pump goes out, I'm like, Okay, I could probably figure this out where, 10 years ago, I'd look at and be like, Um, no, shop, yeah, take it to a shop. It's like, the more that you're learning, the more confident you'll get. And if you do that throughout your career, and your employer comes you and says, I need you to do this thing, look at them and go, I have no clue how to do it, but I know I can figure
Trekker Burt 31:14
it out. And I've failed at this, that and the other. So I know I can avoid those pitfalls and build off of them, right? And
Jamie Shaw 31:20
I will say one of the really fun ways to do this is travel. You know, you get good and lost in a place where you don't speak the language and still manage to be okay.
Trekker Burt 31:29
Sounds like that's from experience. I thought I was past
Jamie Shaw 31:33
it now that we have phones with maps, but I managed to get really lost in Korea last year. And so look, it's still possible, and it still makes you feel when you solve that problem, like, oh, okay, this was hard. It was scary. I did it. I can do other things.
Trekker Burt 31:46
Lot of hand signs, and that's great, though. I mean asking for help, if you can, if you can get lost in a foreign country and manage to pull your way out of it, that's that's great.
Bobby Hodge 31:58
I think you're a citizen at that point. Yes, honorary citizen,
Jamie Shaw 32:05
highly recommend getting lost.
Bobby Hodge 32:09
Last question of our of our episode. Thank you so much for being here. First off, it's been good fun. Um, what advice would you give to your younger self, starting out in college, looking at everything that you've had. And this, you know, this is for our students. What advice would you give to
Jamie Shaw 32:24
them? Look, if I think back, I was pretty hard on younger Jamie, she had to achieve and do a lot of things, and I was pretty rough on her, and tell her to just have a little more fun. The grades matter a little less. Back to that learning mindset, it really is, and college is the very best time on Earth to get into this mindset, because you can try everything, you know, try tack on an extra class once in a while that's just for fun. That has nothing to do with your major, but just because it's something you want to learn or sign up for a workshop, go do something new. You know, I was really a lot too serious. And look, it got me good places, right? So I can't totally discount them, but being free to try new and more, it definitely helps and meet as many people as you possibly can. There's amazing stories out there, and you never know when one's going to really resonate with you.
Trekker Burt 33:23
That's awesome. That's great life advice, not just for students. That's I'm going to take that advice. Thank you, Jamie,
Bobby Hodge 33:29
yeah, thank you so much. We really appreciate it. I think I'm going to take a lot of this to heart and try and change how I am
Trekker Burt 33:36
so good. Thank you, Jamie.
Bobby Hodge 33:39
We'll see you guys next time. Thank you so much. You.