Career Conversations with Patricia Q Jenkins

And hello and welcome to another episode of Career Conversations with Janice myself, obviously. And we have a guest today. Her name is Patricia Q. Jenkins. Welcome, Patricia. Hi. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Oh, man. Podcast voice. Everyone I interview has a podcast voice. I feel like I need to create a podcast voice. All right. I don't have one. I just blab. But everyone comes on and they're like, hi, I'm chardet on the mic today. So welcome.

And the first question I ask everybody is, what does introversion mean to you?

That's cool. What does it mean to me? It means focused energy and not in a snobby way, but I like to give my full attention to people or what I am engaged in. If I'm being pulled in too many directions, I can be overwhelmed and a bit scattered. So introversion to me means focused attention on what's in front of me and

what's important. So if I'm having a conversation like we are now, you are my main focus, which is why big groups of people and all of that dynamic energy just wears me out because I feel like I'm spreading myself too thin. Wow. Okay. I'm going to add that to my little idea of introversion. That's great. Thank you so very much. And so because this is Career Conversations, I have to ask you a, what would you consider your title to be now? And B, what was the first job you had? Okay, first job is

easier. The first unofficial one, I had a paper round. First official one was I was sort of like a junior administrator on a project. Good God. This takes me back on a project in Lasotu where they were resettling people because they were going to build a dam on that land. Okay, I'm fascinated, but I will carry on with out of the jobs you've had because we're going to skip the what you call yourself now part. Out of the jobs you've had. Which has been your favorite and why? Favorite I'm.

Or worst, actually. Oh, no, that's that's a long list. We don't have that

time. My favorite one was it was probably being self employed running podcast, maven. Because it can be over. No, not overwhelming. It can be difficult sometimes to keep all the balls in the air, but those successes and when things build on things and people get to know who you are and you've actually done the work to career a niche for yourself, and you get that recognition for you and your work and it's nobody else, that's an absolutely amazing feeling.

Not managing it well can lead to burnout, but I still feel like that's one of the best things I've done because I built it from scratch on my own without really having the techie background. So you mentioned burnout there. It's a favorite topic of mine. And as someone who had a business, ran their own business as an introvert and you mentioned juggling all the balls can lead to burnout. If you don't mind, what advice would you give to an introvert entrepreneur to avoid some of that?

Plan in the breaks. It doesn't matter if your schedule doesn't look like whatever you see on Instagram and you're not busy, busy, busy, busy bouncing around. Plan in the breaks. That can mean on busy days, making sure that if you need at least ten minutes before phone calls, make sure you've put in 15 if you need public holidays are something as well. Where I used to think, okay, now I can really push through and get everything done. No plan in the holiday.

Take the break. Have even just one person that you can discuss your business with from sun up to sundown, who knows what you're trying to achieve, who's possibly trying to do it for themselves or is a little bit ahead of you because it's important to have somebody to bounce ideas off when you take a break. Take one completely. So if you go on holiday, okay, you're going to take your laptop, but for goodness sake, don't use your holidays

to catch up on work. Feel I'm going away from the question more. No, keep going, keep going. That was great. I'm like, she's calling me out. I feel called out on this.

I know it's an overused phrase, but self care. Find something that you really love and indulge in it. Indulge in it. You don't have to be working 18 hours a day. Find something that is totally unrelated to what you do and make the time for it. If you are coupled or in a partnership or whatever it is and you are running your own business. Mine was small and I was working from home, so I found that we needed to have a conversation about kind of division of labor in the home.

Just because I am working at home, it doesn't mean that my job is entirely looking after the whole house and doing my little project. It's like, no, I'm trying to do something here and positive things. It's hard to promote yourself as an introvert. I think for me it was really difficult. I felt like I didn't want to tell people what I did off the bat because I wasn't sure how to balance it. But don't be afraid to go to meetups and business meetings and all of those things.

Just Google it, go to the local ones and if there's a lot of people there, just I used to make myself I made a promise to myself that I would meet three people, have three really great conversations, and then I was allowed to leave. But I couldn't leave unless I'd met two or three people and I know what they do, and even if it wasn't related to what I do, you're just making those connections. Yeah, okay, I've run out of steam. That's perfectly fine. What I loved in there was when you said

indulge in something you love. I feel like as humans, never mind as introverts, it's very hard for us to make carve out, find insert word. Here the time to indulge, because indulgence is extravagant. It brings to mind extravagance, and there might be guilt around that or other things pulling you in different directions, but the idea of indulging is so luxurious and so upfilling. I guess I like that phrase, indulge in something you love. And it brings to mind a conversation

I was having yesterday about what are your vices? I'm like, I don't really know, maybe chocolate. I'm not really sure what my vices are, but a vice might be indulging in something that you love. You mentioned about going out there and meeting connections. So how have you made a connection that changed the course of your life? It doesn't have to be a big course change.

I'm not saying you pivoted and got married or whatever it might be, but is there a connection that you have made that has changed your life in some way?

I was thinking on this one, and I guess meeting my partner was life changing because I became an expat and I became the traveling spouse and I built my podcasting business. So that was a connection that changed the way that the plan that I had for my life, because I very much didn't think that I wanted to get married. I am happily married and it works. But there was that another connection. Let me see.

I think it's hard for me to come up with one because for the past, let's say two and a half, three years, it has kind of been pretty isolating, what with COVID and lockdown and moving countries. But I did meet a lady when I was in the US. And she's a really great friend. We talk sporadically, which is nice. That's our communication style. It doesn't have to be every day, we just talk sporadically. But we had similar backgrounds

and when I was new in the US. It was just really beautiful that somebody held out the hand of friendship because they had been in that position before and they knew that it could be just scary, overwhelming not to know how to interact in a certain environment or country. So that

was amazing. I was touched and was still good friends. But I also tried to do that myself by creating expat meetups and joining that expat organization where you can meet up every month for lunch and stuff like that, just so that people wouldn't feel weird or lonely or isolated in a new city. So yeah. Wow, okay. And so you talked about time and overwhelm and doing all the things. What is something that you say no to?

I say no to a lot of social activities. I live in a very small place. There's only one or two things to do, and a lot of the time I say no to going to the pub. I say no to going to the pub when it's going to be full of people. Now, do I want to meet people and make friends? Yes, I do. Do I want to go introduce myself to a big group of people that have known each other for years and years and years? No, I don't. So it's going to be a slow burn. What else do

I say no to? I say no to my husband making that noise in the passage while I'm recording this. But that's an aside. I say no to a lot of social invitations. It's nothing personal. It's really weird. I want to be invited, but then on the day, I might not want to go. It depends on what my energy is on the day. It sounds really childish unless you have the time to explain it. And I don't at the moment. But overwhelming, heaving social situations is the thing that I say no to the most.

And how does saying no improve your life?

Oh, God. The relaxation. God, the relaxation. I like to meet new people. I love it. I love to form connections. I want to hear about people and their lives. I just find it fascinating. You could have lived in the same place all of your life and I think your story will still be amazing. But I would prefer that that was always sort of a one on one or at the most a one to two kind of conversation, because then I can give it the energy, the time, the listening,

the thought that it deserves. So I find that it's improved if I'm not thrown into situations where I'm trying to remember a whole lot of things about a whole bunch of people because my memory is crap. Yeah. So I find them more restful. Okay. And so that kind of leads me to what is the scariest and or most uncomfortable thing that you've ever had to do for maybe a job or for your business? Certainly for my business.

I went to, oh, what is it? Podcast Movement. I went to Podcast Movement and there were so many people there, and I just think, yeah, nobody knew anybody. Like, it was, I think, one of the first ones. It was really amazing and I met some people there, but it was just like there was no place just to collect yourself. So I keep using this word. What I did was I just needed a quiet five minutes from all the hustle and bustle, from all of the stalls, from all of the noise,

from all of the promoting, from all of the business cards. So I went to go hide in the lady's bathroom. Yeah. And I really wish ladies bathrooms were like, they were like back in the day in the something where there was a toilet bit and then there was a place where you could just sit down. The used to have sofas in there and stuff like that. I'm just like I just need two minutes to collect myself from all of the noise is yeah, sorry, went on a tangent.

What was the question? No, we're talking about something that was scary or uncomfortable to do because of your profession or whatever it might be. And conference creators and event creators 99.9% of the time. Never think about entry fence or anyone who's neurodivergent, to be fair in any way, shape or form or other. People just think that everyone

wants all the things I think they do. But it's like kind of that's the VIP treatment, because then you get to go sit in the VIP lounge when it all gets a bit too much for you. But if there was maybe just some sort of quieter space that was, I don't know, sponsored by somebody just where you could gather yourself. And these are the seats where you can gather yourself, look at your phone, make your notes or just be for

five minutes. That's the thing. Yeah. Putting that out there so that maybe somebody can run with that. Please use that idea. Conferences. But you're right about the VIP thing, especially at conferences like podcast movement, they did have a VIP section because I went to a podcast movement event and one of the people that I sort of went with was in the VIP section, and it's normally those with enough money, so it's gatekeeped

in a really weird way. And for Schmoozing, it was very much people in there dressed a certain way and were like names of humans. They weren't the speakers lounge, it was the speakers. So you got to go and try not to be fangirl over the speakers. But also yeah, you write the VIP section, especially in that particular conference was the peace and quiet section. Yeah, and it was the big names. And I get it. I mean, that's what you're going to do to attract those big names to your

conference. I mean, it's got to be done, but I'm just saying maybe there's a way to shape it a little bit and have just another quiet corner. I'd be prepared to pay, like, I don't know, some stipend to get in there and just have quiet and I can bring my own headphones and then just listen to something. Yeah, putting it out there to all of these what do you call these things? Oh, God. The meditation app. People like

calm. Yeah, well, calm on this side, but I also know there's the UK one headspace. Yes. And Balance. I'm a fan of balance. Like five minutes to calm breathing exercises. Beautiful. We need more of that at conferences. Yeah, I'm going to start tagging these people. We really would like this. This would be so good. I wish I could insert this into an event that I am currently planning, but I don't think we have

time. I've never seen the venue space before. So I've been told that everything bounces everywhere, so I don't think I can have a but next time. Next time, Gadget. Next time. All right, so speaking of podcasting, haha. Let's get a bit meta here. What is a misconception about your job and or industry with podcasting? That I am in a great big studio,

perhaps not so much anymore, and I've got all of the bells and whistles in front of me. I don't before we turned on this video, I'm going to be honest, like, I'm sitting in my makeshift study in my messy home with a blanket over my head, hoping that this audio turns out well because I haven't dusted off my mic in a while. What else? Misconceptions? I think sometimes the money. There's a whole spectrum when it comes to earning.

I'm going to say there's friendly competition. So, yeah, it's not all jawing and fighting for clients that much, but I'm just going to say what people think you need to get started. The barriers to entries, they've changed so much in the past 18 months that you truly, truly, truly, truly just need a laptop and a microphone to get started now because they've done some amazing things with the software, where a lot of all the dithering about with it is going to be done for you.

So, yeah, I love it. Like, everybody's innovating now and the competition between the Door programs and where you can record interviews, they're all just trying to be better. So it's amazing for the users. All right. It's all about the consumers. All right, so thank you so very much. I have one final question for you. And the question is, is a hot dog a sandwich? Oh, God. Right? Yes. All right. Yeah. This is a hill I'm prepared to die on, almost. What was the thought

process? Because you stopped and you're like, tick, tick, tick were okay. What was the process that happened then? Well, I'm thinking about well, maybe it was just

what I was used to growing up and what I call a sandwich. But I think that the story I heard was it came about because there was some sort of or don't quote me on this, there was some guy a couple of hundred years ago and he was a gambler and he didn't want to stop his game so that he could go eat. So what they did was bring him some slices of roast beetle, something between two slices of bread, hence the sandwich. And that

might just be all cobblers, but I think it's a super story. So if it is something in between a slice of bread or sliced bread, it's a sandwich. All right, thank you very much for walking us through that. It has been a pleasure talking to you. I have learned so much and got some really good quotes. Everyone indulge in something you love. That's the one I'm taking away. I don't know what it's going to be. I think overindulging in chocolate might be bad for me, but, hey,

Patricia said I should do it. So indulge in something you love. Any final words you have for our audience before I let you go back to this beautiful day. Wow. So no pressure. I'm going to say that what I learned through being kind to myself and learning to rest more and following joy and dreams is don't be afraid to go after what you really want. Don't let things stand in your way. And if people are negative the whole time to your idea, you're talking to the wrong person. Find a new crowd.

It will happen. It happens slowly, but yeah, just try it out. Just jump. See what happens. Just jump. That's my life advice. Just jump. Just jump. All right. Thank you so much. It's been a pleasure. This is Janice@thecareintra.com helping you build your brand and get hired. Have a great rest of your week.