This episode of Tech Reads features Julia Stegman, a certified career coach, author, and speaker with over 30 years of experience in the tech industry, including roles as a tech executive and executive recruiter.

Stegman discusses her new book, "Discover Meaningful Work: A Career Transition Workbook for Professionals in the Tech Industry". She offers her signature system, the five phases of a career transition, designed specifically for people in the tech industry, especially those who feel stuck, unfulfilled, or are navigating a layoff. Julia's goal with the book is twofold: to provide hope and to offer a clear, structured system for navigating meaningful career transitions on their own terms, allowing individuals to define what meaningful is for them.

Julia explains that the tech industry, while offering promising income potential (salaries 32% to 85% higher than the national average), can lead to "golden handcuffs," where professionals stay for the money at the expense of other priorities or well-being. Her book addresses the common pitfall of people jumping straight to job searching without self-reflection. Instead, it helps individuals step back and think about their life, offering numerous exercises and assessments in the first phase to clarify their identity, strengths, and values.

The five phases of a career transition outlined in her book:

This five-phase career transformation framework begins with self-assessment to identify satisfaction gaps and define a personal brand, using tools like colorful wheels to reflect on strengths and values. Next, it guides market research into high-growth industries—including tech-adjacent sectors—and explores side hustles as low-risk entry points. The third phase focuses on setting and documenting career goals across short- and long-term horizons. Phase four helps build a strong personal brand through resumes, LinkedIn profiles, and cover letters. Finally, the job search phase emphasizes networking, recruiter collaboration, and strategic interviewing to maximize opportunities and compensation.

Julia's conversation with Brian Schwartz and a live studio audience also covers:

• The concept of "off-ramps" as an interesting niche for career development.
• The importance of financial flexibility, ideally having a year's worth of personal expenses saved to enable career pivots.
• The role of AI in career transitions: AI can help identify core job competencies for specific roles and industries, craft "killer cover letters" and strong value propositions by leveraging strength assessments, and assist in tailoring communication to specific companies.
• The value of knowing and playing to one's transferable strengths across industries, especially when pivoting from tech.
• The idea that tech has become a utility, not just an industry, permeating nearly every sector.

The book provides practical advice and exercises, helping individuals take charge of their careers and find fulfilling, meaningful work.

To connect with Julia visit her website at https://discovermeaningfulwork.com/

For more information, listeners can visit softec.org.

The Apple Insider on a Mission to Rewire Education: Exclusive Stories from Steve Jobs' Inner Circle

What does it take to be Apple's 54th employee and survive the company's most turbulent years? In this riveting episode of Tech Reads, we sit down with John Couch—the man who helped birth the graphical user interface, witnessed Steve Jobs' unfiltered genius up close, and later transformed both a failing school and Apple's entire education empire.

From Accidental Programmer to Apple Pioneer

Couch's journey into tech reads like fiction: no formal computer science background, yet he became instrumental in creating the Lisa's revolutionary GUI that would reshape computing forever. But this isn't just another Silicon Valley success story—it's the untold narrative of someone who watched Jobs evolve his "mental bicycle" philosophy and saw firsthand how technology could amplify human potential rather than replace it.

The Untold Steve Jobs

Prepare for revelations. Couch doesn't just share business insights—he opens the vault on never-before-heard stories about his personal friendship with Jobs. These aren't the sanitized anecdotes you've read in biographies. These are raw, intimate glimpses into the mind of a visionary who saw education as technology's ultimate battleground.

The Decade That Changed Everything

After leaving Apple at its peak, Couch made a shocking pivot: spending ten years resurrecting a dying Christian school. This wasn't corporate charity—it was a laboratory for educational revolution. The lessons he learned there would later fuel his return to Apple, where he built the education division into a multi-billion dollar powerhouse by championing challenge-based learning over soul-crushing standardization.

The Education Manifesto

In "Rewiring Education: How Technology Can Unlock Every Student's Potential," Couch launches a full-scale assault on our broken educational system. He argues that we're systematically destroying children's natural curiosity through memorization drills and test-prep torture. His alternative? A radical reimagining where creativity, collaboration, and critical thinking become the new fundamentals.

Beyond the Boardroom

This conversation ventures into territories most tech interviews fear to tread: Couch's philanthropic philosophy, his surprising views on local governance, and his bold predictions about AI's potential to completely revolutionize how we learn. You'll discover how a man who helped create the personal computer now sees artificial intelligence as education's next great equalizer.

Warning: This episode contains stories about Steve Jobs you've never heard anywhere else. Consider yourself forewarned—and fortunate.

Our guest, Dr. Mary Lippitt is the author of 'Leadersheep: Saving the Herd' - A fable and framework for successfully executing change.

What can we learn from a dedicated sheepdog about successfully executing change in an era of complexity and uncertainty? Dr. Lippitt will discuss the five-component framework for executing complex change she developed from over 40 years of leadership experience.

Key Takeaways:

🔥 Why do so many change efforts still fail? Despite improvement, 50% of change initiatives fail due to a lack of focus on implementation beyond just setting a vision. Failed change is costly in terms of resources, credibility, and even organizational survival.

🚀 What's the secret to actually implementing change? Successful change requires a framework with five levers: vision, skills, incentives, resources, and action planning. Without attention to all these areas, even a clear vision will likely fail.

🎯 What's the biggest mistake leaders make with their vision? Leaders often articulate a vision that is vague and lacks specific actions. A true vision needs clarity and must translate into concrete steps; otherwise, it's just a "hallucination".

👂 How can you spot hidden resistance to change? Watch for quiet rooms followed by booming hallway conversations. This "covert" or "B team" passive resistance, where people don't voice concerns but don't engage, is more dangerous than overt objections.

🌱 Is change a constant now for organizations? Yes, in today's fast-paced environment, change is a constant, like "death and taxes". Even successful organizations must continuously adapt with new products, markets, or partnerships to avoid stagnation.

🧠 How do different perspectives hinder change? Individuals have different "situational mindsets" or priorities, leading to conflict over change initiatives. Recognizing these different perspectives (like innovation vs. structure) is crucial for finding common ground.

💡 Why can't organizations just copy what successful companies do? Replication of another company's strategy is rarely successful because each organization has a unique talent pool, resources, and context. Over-relying on single "fads" or solutions ("Brilliant or Blender") blindsides organizations to their own specific needs.

⏳ Why are older individuals sometimes more resistant to change? Older individuals often have more experience with the failure of change initiatives, leading to a sense of disenchantment and lower trust in new promises. A history of poorly managed or excessive change ("piling on") also contributes to this resistance.

🗣️ What crucial feedback do organizations often overlook? Actively seeking and truly listening to customer feedback is a key early indicator of potential problems and the need for change. Additionally, understanding and addressing employee concerns, even seemingly small ones, is vital.

🤝 Is disagreement within a team always bad? No, professional conflict and divergent thinking are valuable as different roles bring unique perspectives to problem-solving. The danger lies in "group think," where a lack of diverse viewpoints can lead to less effective decision-making.

***

To learn more about Dr. Lippitt, visit https://enterprisemgt.com

To learn more about Softec, visit: https://softec.org

Featuring author Harpreet Ghumman discussing her book, Living and Loving Unapologetically.

Our discussion explores themes of female leadership, overcoming biases in the corporate world, and the importance of self-awareness. Ghumman shares her personal journey and insights on empowering women to find their voice and lead authentically. Brian Schwartz and guests contribute their perspectives, touching upon concepts like alpha personalities, societal conditioning, and the role of self-validation. Ultimately, the conversation recognizes the book's universal appeal, extending beyond gender to encompass leadership and personal growth for all.

Learn more about Softec at Softec.org.

The creator and host of Tech Reads is Brian Schwartz. Learn more at SelfPublish.org.

Join us for a truly inspiring episode of TechReads as we welcome JC Chamberlain, author of "Antidote: A New Emotional Wellth™ Framework to Build Resilience," a groundbreaking new emotional wealth framework for building resilience. In this episode, JC shares his incredible personal journey, revealing how a life-altering bicycle accident, where he was hit by a car, led to the development of his unique framework. This framework helped him recover from paralysis, learn to walk again, and even get back on a bike. He also used the framework to cope with and recover from an aggressive form of prostate cancer.

JC's story is not just about overcoming physical challenges; it's about cultivating inner strength and resilience. He emphasizes the importance of a mindset that embraces challenges as opportunities for growth.

Here's a glimpse into what you'll discover in this episode:

The "Antidote" Framework: JC explains his emotional wealth framework, which includes seven key elements: health, learning, earning, giving, love, spirit, and dreams. He explains how these elements act as a network of resources to help people navigate life’s inevitable setbacks. He discusses how these elements were present in his life, even before he recognized them.

The Power of Resilience: Learn how JC's mother instilled in him the importance of resilience from a young age, teaching him to be "overprepared" for life's challenges. His mother taught him to "not worry, nothing is going to be okay," which helped him embrace the reality that life will not always go his way.

Turning Setbacks into Strengths: JC shares how his personal setbacks, including a severe bicycle accident and cancer diagnosis, led to the discovery of his emotional wealth framework. He emphasizes the importance of a positive balance in each of the seven emotional bank accounts.

The Importance of Dreams: JC shares how his mother stressed the importance of dreams as the foundation of his framework. She said, "Without your dreams and your aspiration, you have nothing,". She taught him that aspiration leads to inspiration and then to perspiration.

A Life Satisfaction Quiz: JC has developed a quiz to assess how you're doing in each of the seven areas of the emotional wealth framework. This quiz, which is in the shape of a wheel, is a tool for radical self-kindness and helps you see where you're doing well and where you have deficits.

The Innovation Cycle: JC discusses the innovation cycle in business that allows you to fail fast, find a new solution, test it out in the marketplace, and integrate elements of the new solution into a new product.

JC also shares his ongoing ambition to break the world record for the most distance cycled in one hour in his age group. He has ridden over 437,000 miles since 1970, with a third of those miles on velodromes.

This episode is packed with practical wisdom and inspiring stories that will leave you feeling empowered to build your own emotional wealth and face life's challenges with greater resilience.

Don't miss this opportunity to learn from JC's incredible journey. Listen to Episode 24 of TechReads now!

Visit antidotethebook.com to learn more about JC's work and to access additional resources. Visit Softec.org to learn more about TechReads and SelfPublish.org to learn more about Brian Schwartz.

Recorded LIVE at ACI Jet in San Luis Obispo, this episode of the Tech Reads podcast features Captain George Dom, a former Blue Angel pilot and author of the book High Trust Leadership: Building High Performance Teams.

The episode covers Dom's 26-year Navy career, his transition to the private sector, and his philosophy on leadership. Dom's impressive military background includes over 1,000 aircraft carrier landings (400 at night), and active combat duty in Libya, Iraq, and the Adriatic Sea serving as airwing commander to lead nine squadrons from the carriers Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy.

Dom has experienced firsthand the transformative power of training and preparation “You don’t rise to the occasion, you fall to your training”. The mantra 'Train Hard, Fight Easy' not only allows the US Military to retain its superiority, but is the key to improving productivity, agility, innovation, and resilience within teams and organizations.

Dom emphasizes that his experience in the Navy, especially as a Blue Angel pilot, taught him invaluable leadership lessons. He believes that the most important leadership skill is earning high levels of trust, which leads to increased productivity, agility, innovation, and resilience.

In High Trust Leadership, Dom identifies five key areas that leaders must focus on to earn the unconditional trust of their teams:

• Character: Walking the talk and living up to obligations and shared values
• Commitment: Being present and supportive during difficult times
• Competence: Continuously improving and demonstrating expertise
• Connection: Understanding team members' challenges and perspectives
• Communication: Transmitting messages clearly and ensuring they are understood

Dom shares specific examples and anecdotes from his time with the Blue Angels to illustrate these principles, including the importance of:

• Controlling emotions during high-pressure situations
• Debriefing after every flight to analyze performance and identify areas for improvement.
• Acknowledging the contributions of all team members, not just the pilots.

Dom also discusses his transition to the private sector, noting that the fundamental leadership principles remain the same despite differences in culture. He reflects on the importance of his father's influence, who instilled in him a philosophy of "service above self." This philosophy, combined with the discipline and teamwork he learned in the Navy, has guided Dom throughout his career.

This episode provides listeners with a unique perspective on leadership, drawing on the extraordinary experiences of a former Blue Angel pilot. Dom’s insights on building trust, fostering connection, and prioritizing service offer valuable lessons for leaders in any field.

Learn more about George Dom at https://hightrustleader.com

Learn more about Softec at https://softec.org

In this episode, Bill Canady, author of The 80/20 CEO, shares his expertise on turning businesses around in 100 days, drawing from his 30+ years of experience leading global companies and developing the profitable growth operating system.

My co-host was Bob Dumouchel who recommended Bill to me after he read (and enjoyed) Bill's book.

Learn more about softec at: https://softec.org

Learn more about Bill Canady at https://billcanady.com

Enjoy the latest episode of TechReads! Hear past episodes at:

https://rss.com/podcasts/techreads Learn more at: https://meetup.com/softec

The book we are discussing: https://amzn.to/4dMQdHf

Summary: This episode of Tech Reads brings together publishing professionals Thad McIlroy and Brian Schwartz for a lively discussion about the intersection of artificial intelligence and the ever-evolving landscape of book publishing. McIlroy, a prolific author and expert in both publishing and technology, shares his experiences writing and self-publishing a book about AI using the iterative platform Leanpub. This platform allows him to constantly update his book with new information and reader feedback, ensuring its relevance in a rapidly changing field. Schwartz raises concerns about the potential impact of AI on the overall quality of books, given the ease with which content can be generated. McIlroy acknowledges this concern, pointing to the emergence of "junk books" on platforms like Amazon. However, he argues that discerning readers and Amazon's review system, which he sees as a generally reliable indicator of quality, can help filter out poorly written books, whether AI-generated or not. Both agree that AI should be viewed as a powerful tool for authors, not a replacement for human creativity and expertise. McIlroy highlights the value of AI in generating ideas, assisting with research, and streamlining workflows, citing Perplexity as a particularly useful tool for research that, while not perfect, offers a starting point for authors. He emphasizes the importance of human oversight in evaluating and editing AI-generated content, as it is prone to inaccuracies and "hallucinations"— instances where the AI generates false or nonsensical information.

About Thad McIlroy (https://thefutureofpublishing.com): Thad McIlroy is a leading voice in the publishing industry, with decades of experience as a consultant, analyst, and author. His latest book, "The AI Revolution in Book Publishing," Thad provides an essential roadmap for writers and publishers navigating the evolving landscape of artificial intelligence.

About Brian Schwartz (https://selfpublish.org): Schwartz is the CEO of SelfPublish.org, a full-service concierge author services firm based in San Luis Obispo. He is the event director of the Central Coast Writers Conference and past president of the Colorado Independent Publishers Association. #techreads #ai #publishing #authors #artificialintelligence #bookpublishing