034 Sneak Peek! Chapter 1 of Your AI Roadmap (Future-Proof Your Career)

Ready for a preview of the book? In this episode, Dr. Joan Palmiter Bajorek discusses her new book "Your AI Roadmap," which serves as a roadmap for navigating careers in the age of AI. She shares personal experiences of job loss, the importance of resilience, and strategies for overcoming imposter syndrome.

📚 Get the book today! YourAIRoadmap.com/book

The conversation emphasizes the significance of mindset, networking, and the societal structures that impact career trajectories, particularly for women and marginalized groups. Joan provides practical advice and resources for listeners to future-proof their careers and build fulfilling professional lives.

💼 The reality of job volatility in the age of AI is undeniable.

💡 Building a personal brand and network is essential for career resilience.

🧠 Mindset and resilience are crucial for navigating career challenges.

🤝 Networking is a skill that can be learned and improved.

🛠️ Practical tools and resources are available to help future-proof careers.

Sound Bites

"I could lose my job in a second."
"If you believe you can, you can."
"You deserve to be in the room."

Learn more at: YourAIRoadmap.com

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to the AI Roadmap
• 2:35 Facing Job Volatility in the Age of AI
• 5:33 Building Resilience and Mindset
• 8:04 Overcoming Imposter Syndrome
• 11:01 Thought Work and Reframing Negative Thoughts
• 13:37 Navigating Networking and Professional Growth
• 16:18 The Impact of Societal Structures on Career
• 18:46 Reflection and Resources

Transcript

0:00

Hey folks, so today I have the distinct pleasure of speaking with you about the book because it came, my gosh, so exciting. Beautiful blue, black and white lettering of your AI roadmap. Honestly, we worked really hard to get the color right and I'm really, really happy with this bold, bold look So today, some people have been asking me about what's in the book and kind of how to think about it. and I figure the proof is in the pudding. And instead of telling you about it, I will share with you chapter one. Now, of course, I cannot provide the book to you for free. Wiley and I have an agreement that you have to pay us, obviously, and then I can't share more than 15 % of the book, but no sweat, one chapter out of 17 is not gonna be that much. So here is chapter one, right here, you can see. chapter one, let's future proof your career and income. volatility and opportunity in the age of AI. We don't have the money to pay you anymore, said my boss. I knew the writing was on the wall when my boss asked me completely out of the blue for a one-on-one meeting. My heart sank and I knew I'd be in an AI layoff. He seems genuinely sad as he told me how I would get my last paycheck. My termination was immediate. It was the first time I'd ever been let go from a company. It really hurt. Just months before I'd been on top of the world, I spoke on one of tech's glitziest stages in the world, the Consumer Electronic Show, CES, in Las Vegas. I'd been flown to Australia to meet with the team and international customers. I had a gorgeous wardrobe. I got tech gifts in the mail regularly from Amazon and Google. Google's teams tried to poach me. They even did so in front of my boss at a meeting. Awkward. This is totally true, that happened. At the time, I'd been happy with my manager and compensation to be so wanted and seen. Wow, I felt like a high flyer. But then things changed. What had once been a growing company now lost contracts and enterprise clients that fell out of the sky. The CEO was transparent that the company was in financial freefall. There were regular meetings with a graph that showed a cliff. I was on the innovation and international expansion team. I spoke with customers about conversational AI projects. I collaborated with teammates on reviewing data and designing data-driven AI products. While my team pitched new companies regularly, the financials did not drastically improve. I can't say that this was a surprise, but that didn't mean that I wasn't completely ready for it. Then the layoff happened. I was not alone in losing my job. 30 % of employees lost their job that day. It was the first time I'd ever been let go from a job ever. it was a huge hit to my ego. My team wrote me recommendations and offered to make me intros. I was a ball of shock and sadness. I was the only woman on my team and now my team would be all men. My job was a huge part of my identity and I lacked the vocabulary to talk about it. When family and friends heard the news, some blamed me. I felt the desire to hide my head in my turtle shell. As I went to therapy and worked out, I realized that this was more than just me. It dawned on me that I could lose my job in a second. It didn't matter how hard I worked. It didn't matter that my boss appreciated my work. It didn't matter about my work achievements. I could lose my job in a day. Talk about volatility. This is the reality in the age of AI. We see layoffs daily. No one's job is safe. Sadly, this can happen to you. So what comes next? How do we future proof our careers and income? My answer? expand your horizon and income. What happened next for me? My entrepreneurial skills kicked in. I scaled my side hustle. I'd been building my personal brand and network. I was passionate about supporting women in conversational AI and voice technology, and I scaled my community Women in Voice. The global community that I built on side of my technical career flourished, even more so now that I had a lot more time for it. My team and I filed and made Women in Voice an official 501c3 nonprofit. Within a few months, I closed my first six-figure sponsorship. It was with Google for a summit that co-promoted programming. In this book, I'll talk about the paramount importance of people in careers and business. Although many think that business is a corporate engine, the truth that I have found is that for every contract, there needs to be a signature from both business entities, a signature from a person, a piece of paper, and two humans. At the end of the day, so, so, so much is about people. During this time, I upskilled and contract business negotiations. I closed big deals and set up a business bank account. I began to pay myself and my team from the money I closed. I took on other technical work along the way and scaled both my entrepreneurial chops of how to manage a team and cashflow in addition to working on incredibly innovative AI projects in the field of medicine, customer service, agriculture, waste management, and many more. My own career took more twists and turns before where I got today. I'm excited to share with you my best advice to future-proof your career in income. Some of the advice may sound counterintuitive to advice about getting degrees and polishing your CV. Some of the advice I bet you've heard before, and maybe through explanations and humorous stories, I can convince you to finally take action. And as mentioned in the introduction, I would love for this book to cheer you on. I want to equip you with practical tools to be resilient and live in joy, freedom, wealth, fulfillment. And to help with that, I'll share some of my stories with you, as well as those of other Black, Brown, LGBTQIA +, and female leaders and entrepreneurs in AI and beyond. Future-proofing your career steps In the next chapters, we will cover the following steps of your AI roadmap to future-proof your career. Number one, resilience, mindset, and thought work. Number two, goal setting, whoop method. Number three, job versus career, paycheck versus income. Four, 80 % of your effort on networking and people. Five, professional glow up and personal brand. Six, own your story and share it. Seven, mapping your work to AI jobs, if you want, totally optional. Number eight, professional stories and getting credit with the STAR method. Number nine, taking the next small steps prototyping. And number 10, get ready to talk about money. That's your A-Brow map for careers. Let's start the first step on this journey by talking about mindset. Resilience and mindset. Fear is a common emotion right now. Many people are worried about losing their job. They already had lost their job or they might be supporting someone else going through this. More than 517,554 jobs in the United States have been lost to layoffs in the past three years. That's a stat from layoffs.fyi You are far from alone. Frankly, your fears are totally rational, but hiding in your turtle shell isn't going to make it better. Doomscrolling TikTok isn't going to save you. In this part of the book, we'll talk about resilience and mindset, goal setting and meaning, job versus careers, people, personal branding, owning your story, chasing an AI job if you want one, and building a robust portfolio of things you've tried and charting your own roadmap through the age of AI. I hope it will be a fruitful, practical, fun, and detailed journey that we can go on together. I've done this work myself. It has worked for me to hit my goals and milestones years ahead of schedule. I have helped others achieve their goals too. If you're in a rut, I want to speak to you about your resilience and to stop beating yourself up. What is stopping you from the life of your dreams? Yes, there are their structural societal barriers such as disability, misogyny, exclusion, overwhelming caretaking responsibilities, sexual abuse, toxic environments, and more. Call me naive, but I truly believe in you. I believe if there's a will, there's a way. Something between all and nothing where you can get your foot in the door and pry it right open. Mindset is crucial to resilience. I've fallen hard. I've gotten back up. As Cardi B says in her song, Get Up 10, the lyrics say, knock me down nine times, but I get up 10. Join Cardi B and me and keep getting back up. If you believe you can learn and grow and work at it, or you believe you can't and you don't strive, ultimately you'll prove yourself right. Throughout the book, I'll be sprinkling in a few of my hot takes for you that are in my quick responses to important topics, and here's the first one. So, Joan's hot takes, proving yourself right. If you believe you can, you can. If you believe you can't, you can't. Ultimately, you'll prove yourself right. when I told one of my mentors that I've been laid off, he was thrilled. Congrats on being liberated, he said. What do you want to do next? I was stunned and laughed. This type of expansive thinking is crucial. He saw my job loss as an opportunity where I had the freedom to chart my own course. Having supportive outside perspectives on big transitions in your life can be helpful. Since I'm the family member and friend, who loudly talks about her career. I'm often the family member who people call and text for help when it comes to time to negotiate the big contracts. I'll admit that some of my closest friends have told me about quote, channeling Joan before taking an important negotiation meeting or asking quote, what would Joan do in this context? However, in the last few years, my DMs have been overflowing. I don't have enough time in a day. This book helps me share this advice at scale. I wanna be helpful to more people. Thus, I wrote this book for you, my dear reader. Yes, I mean you, my dear listener. Mindset is crucial. If you are currently beating yourself up right now, let me be clear. Believing in yourself is crucial. When I've looked back at my career, I see that believing in myself is not something else, not something everyone else had. When it comes to my peers from the past, we differ in this. I am not more talented. I'm not more brilliant. I'm not more hardworking. I believe in myself and my potential. If you don't believe in yourself, let's talk about it. The inner saboteur and thought work. Do you struggle with imposter syndrome? Do you beat yourself up internally? Do you have an inner saboteur? Some people call it lack of self-confidence and others call it imposter syndrome. RuPaul, the internationally acclaimed drag queen and drag contestant show host and winner of 12 Emmys, talks openly and regularly. about the saboteur we all have in our heads. Rupaul says the term is used to quote, identify that little voice in your head that is nagging away at your confidence and feelings of insecurity. Do you have a little voice in your head that says nasty things to get you down? Quote, one of the biggest tasks in our lives is identifying our inner saboteur and then basically telling it to shut up all the time, says Rupaul, and I agree. Talking openly, about these inner thoughts that affect us is crucial to moving past them. I mean, talking openly to our support network as well as to ourselves. Many folks have recommendations of how to get out of this mindset as well. I was a horribly mean b*tch to myself. My thoughts were vicious, writes Rachel Rogers. So how did I change the tapes that were playing this quote, you so ugly song in my head every day? I did thought work. Thought work is about reframing our internal thoughts and eventually adopting the narratives we choose. Table 1.1 shows examples of thought work on careers. Okay, so in this part of the book, you literally see a table and I'm gonna read out the table. So on one column, it says topic, then initial thought and reframed via thought work. Topic, losing my job. Initial thought, I'm scared of losing my job. Will AI take my job? Reframed via thought work. AI will transform the workplace as we know it today. While women's jobs could be more disrupted by AI and automation in the short term than men's jobs, citation, I have agency to future-proof my income and build a big career of my choosing. Identity, I've lost my job. I'm a failure is the initial thought, reframed. With layoffs every day, many people will lose their jobs. I'm not a failure. I have fallen, but I will get up and figure out my next steps. Topic, AI jobs, initial thought. How do I get a job in AI? Isn't that the only way I'll be safe? Reframed. I can get a job in AI, but it might be like running after a rocket ship. I'm gonna work to future-proof my income and career to keep upscaling in AI so I have options in the short and long term. Topic, networking. Initial thought, I'm not good at networking. Isn't that sleazy? Reframed. Networking is a skill like any other. It's a skill I can learn and get better at. Tons of tips on this in chapter four. LinkedIn. My LinkedIn sucks, I don't know what to post and I'm stuck. Re-framed. LinkedIn is a powerful social media platform. I can learn how to build a profile and grow my network there. It will take time, but I'm committed to figuring out my career's next steps. Topic, tongue tied. Initial thought, I don't know what to say in professional settings. I don't want to sound stupid. Re-framed. I will be prepared with the star method, story examples and an elevator pitch. I can get support from family and friends. We'll go deep into this in chapter eight. Topic, work portfolio. My work should speak for itself. People should already know that I'm awesome. Why don't they? Why am I still a nobody? Re-framed. For people to know me and my work, I need to package it and share it. I can curate a portfolio of work using the STAR method and a few visuals to make it easier for people to know my work and for me to get credit for the work I've done. Money. Initial thought, I'm bad with money. I don't know what to do. Re-framed. I can learn to use money as a tool. Maybe I didn't get the best financial education, but I can spend my income and build a flourishing rich life. These are some examples of thought work related to this book. Our thoughts are influenced by many things, our larger society, our particular culture, our family and friends, but it is also thankfully something that we ourselves have the power to influence. In a different approach, multimillionaire and media juggernaut Alex Hormozzi says, You don't have to become confident by shouting affirmations in the mirror, but by having a stack of undeniable proof that you are who you are. We'll talk later about the STAR method and how to talk with hiring managers, recruiters, or anyone else who needs to be reminded of exactly what you've already accomplished in your career. Everyone starts somewhere. An investor who came from humble beginnings, Arlen Hamilton, tells herself every day, I deserve to be here. I worked my ass off. I will not shrink myself to make someone more comfortable. I deserve to be in the room. We'll dive more into Hamilton's story in a minute. There are many ways to deal with the doubts and insecurities, these doubts and insecurities. I prepare myself for these rooms psychologically. I remind myself of what I contribute to rooms and that if the event is free and open to the public, that means everyone. There's a list of recommendations about how to prepare yourself for networking events. Check out the list of 10 ways to prepare for effective networking questions for you in chapter four. In addition to the tactics I recommend here, I also text my friends anecdotes about microaggressions and inappropriate behavior so we can commiserate and heal together. To deal with trauma and anxiety, I work out and go to therapy. Therapy is one of the most powerful tools I have leveraged across the years to heal myself and navigate my career. I can't recommend it enough. While there are many people in my life who don't believe in therapy and shame people who do, you don't need to get permission from anyone else to get clinically validated professional support to help you live your healthiest, Happiest life. All right, we're almost done. Imposter syndrome. In 1978, Georgia State University psychologists, doctors Pauline R. Klantz and Suzanne A. Imes researched 150 quote, highly successful women who despite their achievements deeply questioned their own abilities. In the paper they published entitled, The Imposter Phenomenon in High Achieving Women, Dynamics and Therapeutic Intervention. and later the term imposter syndrome was popularized. The authors of the paper wrote that, quote despite the actual achievements of some successful people who believe their abilities have been overestimated and they will eventually be unmasked as imposters, I've met people who struggle with this. As they rise, they somehow don't believe their accomplishments and believe they'll be uncovered. Dun, dun, dun. My take on this is that in the air we breathe, we are in a society that predicates itself on patriarchy and white supremacy. There is a constant pressure being put on folks who are not white and male. I believe the imposter syndrome has a lot to do with internalized white patriarchy. Just as I mentioned earlier, the people doubt my technical credibility because I'm feminine, that's in the intro section. This is not something I can change. Imposter syndrome may simply be related to the feelings of being othered. because of white patriarchy and supremacy. Can anyone feel imposter syndrome? For sure. But I believe this sinister mind game isn't by accident. Who would benefit from you not believing you're good enough despite your list of accolades getting longer and longer? Wealthy white men who pay you less than the value of your work. We'll talk more about pay equity in part two of this book. If you experience imposter syndrome, know that you're far from alone. You might be surprised to see the list of famous people who publicly talked about experiencing imposter syndrome, including Tina Fey, Maya Angelou, Emma Watson, Joshua Jackson, Bella Hadid, Lupita Nyong'o Ellie Goulding, Wolfgang Puck, Tom Hanks, David Bowie, Lady Gaga, and Sonia Sotomayor. There are citations for that. To my knowledge, all these folks absolutely deserve their accolades. The imposter syndrome term was coined in 1978, framing this In a cultural context, women were joining the workforce and entering spaces that were historically only reserved for men. And they were joining a space full of men who were raised to believe that the spouse, these spaces were exclusively for them. There's a citation. The hostility I felt in workplaces as a woman feels just as sexist as 46 years ago. There are male colleagues and bosses of mine who were just as sexist as the folks in 1970s. They were just better at hiding it. As women, we're supposed to figure it out. Put your head down and do the work. Just get used to being one of the only women in tech. It's the air we breathe. Okay, this is sad, but true. To illustrate the point of the tech environments, we'll see some photos of AI events hosted in Seattle in the last few months, figure 1.1. When you walk into these rooms and there's almost no people who are female presenting, it can be othering. If the bulk of people in the room appear to be men and mostly presenting are white or East and South Asian men, I don't always feel physically and psychologically safe. In one interview I had a few years ago in the warehouse lab where I interviewed, I only saw one other woman in the entire building. But this doesn't mean I'm not worthy of being in those rooms. I was offered that job, and I frequently speak at tech events near and far. And now in the book, you see this picture, rooms full of men. Figure 1.1. rooms full of male presenting people at AI events in Seattle, 2023, 2024, I had to get permission, they said yes. I'm not the only one who recognizes these spaces were not built and curated for me as a white woman. Hamilton writes, if you're going to break into an industry from which you've previously been excluded, it's important to remember that the prescribed waves of doing things won't always work for you. As a queer black woman trying to hack my way into Silicon Valley. Knowing that it was built around the lives and experiences of straight white men, I had to be innovative and I had to trust myself. And you, my dear reader, must trust yourself. There are ample opportunities to learn, grow, connect and network in these rooms. Let's acknowledge that these industries and spaces weren't made for us by design. Now that we've acknowledged the thought work and inner work we may need to do in the next chapter, let's talk about big goals and dreams that can help us live lives full of purpose and meaning. Okay, so we're at the end of the chapter and at every... I think almost every chapter and there are questions for reflection. So let me read this for you. Questions for you. Are you scared of being in an AI layoff? Have you already been laid off? Has someone close to you lost their job? How are they experiencing it? Have you experienced imposter syndrome? How does that feel to you? Who do you talk to about your fears? Do you go to therapy? Are imposter syndrome and extreme anxiety some of the explanations you give for why you don't take strides in your career? Do you have an inner saboteur? Do you do negative self-talk? Have you tried thought work, started affirmations, or creating a list of proven track record for you to review? Do you feel comfortable in networking environments? Are there people who look like you? Do you feel physically and psychologically safe? What tactics do you use to navigate these rooms to go after opportunities? And then at the end it says, do you want to get personalized AI roadmap? And there's a quiz for that, yourairroadmap.com slash me. If you want to follow along the checklist that go along with this book, you can download it at yourairoadmap.com slash resources. And there's even a QR code that goes directly there. Okay, so that is chapter one. Now, as you can tell, I'm not a professional reader of the book and there will be someone actually reading the audio book. It's been greenlit audio book. I hope that gives you a taste of what it's about. I know it may not be the lightest of reading, but it's really, really powerful if you are thinking some of these things. and it'll be faster to read than me reading it aloud. And also thinking about jumping to the section of the book that speaks to what you're thinking about right now could be really helpful overall. So I would be so honored if you were to buy the book to get these resources and more, please buy the book at yourairoadmap.com / book, and it'll take you directly to the Amazon page where you can purchase the book and hopefully leave a review. I'd be so honored. Okay. Well, that was some big thinking. Now I gotta think more about thought work and negative self-talk and supporting each other and being confident in yourself. Thanks for listening. I hope you buy the book and see you in the next one.