Phil McKenzie on How Life and Career Goals Can Support Each Other

In Chapter 10 of 18 in his 2013 Capture Your Flag interview, entrepreneur Phil McKenzie answers "How Are Your Personal Experiences Shaping Your Professional Aspirations?"  To McKenzie, his personal and professional lives inform one another and thrive off one another.  He brings personal well-being approaches, such as mindfulness and presence, into his work and finds ways for life and career goals to support each other. 

Philip L. McKenzie is the Founder and Global Curator of Influencer Conference, a global content platform that brings together tastemakers in the arts, entrepreneurship, philanthropy and technology to discuss the current and future state of influencer culture. Prior to that, he was Managing Partner of influencer marketing agency FREE DMC and an equities trader at Goldman, Sachs & Co.  He earned an MBA from Duke University and a BBA from Howard University.

What Gets Easier and What Gets Harder - Andrew Epstein

In Chapter 1 of 23 in his 2013 Capture Your Flag interview, charter school CFO Andrew Epstein answers "What is Getting Easier and What is Getting Harder in Your Life?"  Epstein embraces the challenge of an increasingly demanding career while also preparing to become a father and start a family.  Leading and managing teams - from working with teams to inspire confidence and cultivating talent - gets easier as he gains experience. 

Andrew Epstein is CFO of the Ascend Learning Charter School Network.  Previously, Epstein was a finance executive at Democracy Prep Public Schools and an operations executive at Universal Music Group's Island Def Jam Records.  He is a former Teach for America corps member and middle-school science teacher.  He holds a BA from the University of Michigan and an MBA from Columbia Business School.

How to Perform Under Pressure and Meet Work Goals - Andrew Epstein

In Chapter 13 of 23 in his 2013 Capture Your Flag interview, charter school CFO Andrew Epstein answers "What Does It Mean to Perform Under Pressure in the Work That You Do?"  Epstein finds performing under pressure means working toward and meeting longer-term deadlines while also managing day-to-day operations with his team.  He finds it is important to ask for help when it is needed. 

Andrew Epstein is CFO of the Ascend Learning Charter School Network.  Previously, Epstein was a finance executive at Democracy Prep Public Schools and an operations executive at Universal Music Group's Island Def Jam Records.  He is a former Teach for America corps member and middle-school science teacher.  He holds a BA from the University of Michigan and an MBA from Columbia Business School.

Andrew Epstein on Setting Work Expectations When Starting a Family

In Chapter 16 of 23 in his 2013 Capture Your Flag interview, charter school CFO Andrew Epstein answers "How Are Your Personal Experiences Shaping Your Professional Aspirations?"  Epstein speaks to the work-life balance he is struggling to better understand.  As his career aspirations grow as a higher education executive, so do his family aspirations to start a family.  This is the challenge he now faces in his late 30s. 

Andrew Epstein is CFO of the Ascend Learning Charter School Network.  Previously, Epstein was a finance executive at Democracy Prep Public Schools and an operations executive at Universal Music Group's Island Def Jam Records.  He is a former Teach for America corps member and middle-school science teacher.  He holds a BA from the University of Michigan and an MBA from Columbia Business School.

CFO Andrew Epstein on Getting Management Career Advice

In Chapter 18 of 23 in his 2013 Capture Your Flag interview, charter school CFO Andrew Epstein answers "At This Moment in Your Life, Where Are You Seeking Advice and Coaching?"  Epstein reaches out to peers in comparable management roles.  He looks for support learning how to hire and develop bridge positions between higher education manager and executive level jobs.  Further, he looks for guidance on how to better manage home and work balance. 

Andrew Epstein is CFO of the Ascend Learning Charter School Network.  Previously, Epstein was a finance executive at Democracy Prep Public Schools and an operations executive at Universal Music Group's Island Def Jam Records.  He is a former Teach for America corps member and middle-school science teacher.  He holds a BA from the University of Michigan and an MBA from Columbia Business School.

Andrew Epstein on Doing What is Best for Your Family and Future

In Chapter 23 of 23 in his 2013 Capture Your Flag interview, charter school CFO Andrew Epstein answers "What Steps are You Taking to Do What is Best for Your Family and Your Future?"  Epstein shares the struggle of finding a balance between aspiring more in his career to provide more for his family and managing time at work to be present at home.  He shares how he asks for help as he continues to seek that equilibrium. 

Andrew Epstein is CFO of the Ascend Learning Charter School Network.  Previously, Epstein was a finance executive at Democracy Prep Public Schools and an operations executive at Universal Music Group's Island Def Jam Records.  He is a former Teach for America corps member and middle-school science teacher.  He holds a BA from the University of Michigan and an MBA from Columbia Business School.

Kyung B. Yoon on Career Advice for Gen Y Women Professionals

In Chapter 7 of 17 in her 2013 Capture Your Flag interview, non-profit executive Kyung B. Yoon answers "How Are Your Personal Experiences Shaping Your Professional Aspirations?"  As a Wellesley student, Yoon remembers wanting to have it all.  Experience teaches her you can have it all but not have it all at the same time.  She advises young Gen Y female professionals to invest in careers early to gain educational credentials and work experience to provide negotiating and bargaining leverage later in life and career. 

Kyung B. Yoon is the executive director of the Korean American Community Foundation (KACF) in New York City.  An award-winning journalist and documentary film producer, Yoon earned an MA in International Relations from Johns Hopkins University and a BA in History and Political Science at Wellesley College.

Jullien Gordon on How a Hard Work Lifestyle Can Help or Hinder a Family

In Chapter 1 of 21 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, business coach Jullien Gordon answers "What Childhood Experiences Have Been Most Fundamental in Shaping Who You Are Today?"  Growing up with two busy working parents, an anesthesiologist and an oral surgeon, Gordon sees the downside of working a lot, namely having parents miss important events.  Conversely, he watches his 86-year old Godmother keep a family together by employing family at her Carmela and Family Bar-B-Q restaurants in Hayward, California.  Jullien Gordon is a high performance coach and consultant to organizations, individuals and teams who want to increase employee performance, motivation, engagement and retention.  He earned a BA from UCLA, an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business, and a Masters of Education from Stanford University.

Transcript:

Erik Michielsen: What childhood experiences have been most fundamental in shaping who you are today?

Jullien Gordon: There’s a couple of them. One, I’m the son of two doctors. So I grew up the son of an anesthesiologist and an oral surgeon, and I saw the way my parents worked. They woke up at the crack of dawn, and even on weekends they’d be on call, and so they had to miss some very important events in my life as a child. On the other side, I saw my godmother who—her name is Carmen Kelly and she has a barbecue restaurant in Hayward, California called Carmen & Family Bar-B-Q. And even at the age of 86 today, she still works six days a week. And that restaurant has employed the entire family, and it’s even expanded to three restaurants, run by the two sons. And so, I’ve seen this way of entrepreneurship helping a family stay together as opposed to a career keeping a family apart, and I think that’s a tension that a lot of people deal with growing up. As I think about their careers and think about how their parents manage their careers, how much their dad and mom had to travel, what kind of events they missed. I saw two different models, I didn’t just see one way of doing it.

Erik Michielsen: And how has that reform your own approach?

Jullien Gordon: Well, obviously, I’m an entrepreneur today and I’m trying to think about my life, not just my career, my life, from a lifestyle-design standpoint. So how can I find my unique balance between my career, my family, myself, and my community, and really that’s really been the focus. It hasn’t just been how can I maximize my career and make the most income. I’m not playing a game of income maximization. I’m playing a game of satisfaction maximization. And so it requires me to find my unique balance and designing my life according to that.

Lulu Chen on How Personal Priorities Change With Age

In Chapter 1 of 16 in her 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, art director Lulu Chen answers "How Are Your Personal Priorities Changing With Age?"  Chen notes how she has learned not always to be a people pleaser and to let go of guilt of not always helping others and put herself first sometimes.  By taking care of herself she is able to be more helpful to friends and family. 

Lulu Chen is a photo art director working in retail e-commerce in New York City.  Previously, Chen worked as a freelance stylist for leading fashion catalogs and magazines.  She earned a BFA in design and art history from the University of Michigan.

Transcript: 

Erik Michielsen: How are your personal priorities changing with age?

Lulu Chen: I definitely try to strive for a better work/life balance. And as I get older I prioritize my personal—my own needs more than everyone else’s.

Erik Michielsen: For example?

Lulu Chen: I was always a people pleaser and I always wanted to make everybody else happy, and I worked really hard, but sometimes, you know, you just keep going and you don’t actually step back and think about yourself. You’re just too busy accomplishing all the tasks or all the roles that you’re supposed to play, or just, you know, doing the right thing, or you just get busy, and you forget to think about yourself sometimes.

Erik Michielsen: What approach have you taken to create that time for yourself?

Lulu Chen: Well, I’ve learned how to say “no,” to every event, or any events that I don’t want to attend or can’t attend, or, you know, I’ve let go of a lot of guilt, you know. And I realize I’m putting my own mask on first, you know, like on the airplane, how they tell you, “You can’t really help anyone else if you can’t help yourself first.”

Erik Michielsen: Does that also involve getting more comfortable being in a quiet place?

Lulu Chen: Oh, literally and figuratively? Both? Yeah. I think you have to be more comfortable with yourself. I think maybe you kind of settle down as you get older too, and you’re not going out every night, or, you know, definitely in my 20s, I think I worked every day and probably went out a lot, you know, whether it be to see friends, or industry events, or just parties in general, you know. And I definitely think now I take more time for myself, and I try to carve out more time with close friends, family, and my boyfriend.

Hattie Elliot on Behavioral Traits For Entrepreneur Success

In Chapter 15 of 19 in her 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, female entrepreneur Hattie Grace Elliot answers "How Do You Balance Experimentation and Commitment in the Projects That You Pursue?"  Elliot notes that to be a successful entrepreneur one must be stubborn - almost delusional - yet open-minded enough to be flexible and try out new options or let old ones go at the right time. 

Hattie Grace Elliot is the founder and CEO of The Grace List, a social networking company that creates destination events and experiences to forge lasting personal and professional connections across its young professional members. Elliot graduated from the University of Cape Town in South Africa, where she studied economics, philosophy, and politics.

Transcript: 

Erik Michielsen: How do you balance experimentation and commitment in the projects that you pursue?

Hattie Elliot: Balancing experimentation and commitment is a balance within itself, it’s—I, by no means, am perfect at it at this point, I think though that whether it is, for instance, we’re re-tweaking the Grace List offering at the moment, and I’ve kind of had to roll with the punches, if you’re gonna be a successful entrepreneur, you have to be partly really stubborn and steadfast, like when you think something’s gonna fail, you kind of, again, have to be partly delusional and partly brilliant, and just partly stupidly, like blindly stubborn to just stick things out, but then there’s also moments when you have to realize you have to wave a white flag and call a spade a spade, and realize that something’s not working, and that’s really part of I think experimentation, really being open to what’s working and not working in the business, and experimenting, maybe with new things that could be beneficial, whether it’s new employees, or something that a lot of entrepreneurs, including myself, struggle with, trusting someone and allocating them, like letting go of some of the responsibilities, and having a business is an experiment, like it’s a work in progress, I wish, you know, it’s not for people who thrive off of stability, it’s not—I mean, ultimately, you strive for that, but the journey along the way is never that. It’s full of—there’s plenty of glorious potholes, bumps, meteorites, like everything you can imagine, like a cow thrown in there through a tornado, whatever crazy images that your head conjures up, like that is the story of the journey to being an entrepreneur but it’s always laughable and like, you know, what can you do but laugh? It’s kind of hilarious, like there’s never a dull moment. 

However, you know, it’s really important not to have ego, it’s important to, you know, know when to stay strong, and when to, you know, to stand your ground, and you know, when to own something, even when you kind of have to fake it before you make it, like those moments, and also when there’s moments that you have to let something go, you know, where you just have to let it go, and—it sounds simple but it just—let it go. Because we hold onto so much, you know, with our businesses. We thought that, you know, the business is gonna go this way and this was our goal, or, we were really, you know, gung ho on the name of this new product, but guess what? Consumers aren’t being perceptive to it, so maybe we have to, you know, reevaluate it. 

So it’s—it’s, you know, making things less personal, and a lot of that just hap—you know, experimenting as part of that process, but it’s really what ultimately I believe really leads to success. Something just sticks, you know what I mean? When you trying out a bunch of different options within your company, if you didn’t experiment, you would never know that. 

Hattie Elliot on Finding Healthier Ways to Manage a Busy Schedule

In Chapter 17 of 19 in her 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, female entrepreneur Hattie Grace Elliot answers "How Are You Learning to Better Manage Your Time and Your Commitments?"  Elliot emphasizes making her appointments on time and, as her schedule gets busier, she learns the importance of not overcommitting to a point where she gets run down and sick.  As a small business owner, Elliot realizes she needs to stay healthy to do her work well.  Hattie Grace Elliot is the founder and CEO of The Grace List, a social networking company that creates destination events and experiences to forge lasting personal and professional connections across its young professional members. Elliot graduated from the University of Cape Town in South Africa, where she studied economics, philosophy, and politics.

Transcript: 

Erik Michielsen: How are you learning to better manage your time and commitments?

Hattie Elliot: You know, being true to your word is very important, so if I say that I’m gonna be, you know, meet a client or a friend or my mom for coffee at 10:00, if I’m not there, you better believe like I’m in the E.R. on a stretcher. Like—or, you know, swimming with the fishes, like it just doesn’t happen. However, I think my issue is, I can sometimes be overly hard and overly commit myself, so in terms of time allocation, I don’t always allocate enough time just to kind of downtime, to relax, to myself, because I take all these other commitments so seriously, you know, kind of really passionate about all the things that I’m involved in and I’m involved in a lot, so as I’ve, you know, I would say the last couple of years, I’ve come to the conclusion that, no, I’m not superwoman, I’m only—I can do a lot, but I’m like, only one person, and especially, you know, being responsible for my own business, paying my own rent, having responsibilities to my family, friends, clients, just keeping the people who work for me that if I let myself get run down, sick, I overwork myself, then I’ve got nothing.

Adam Carter on Deciding Not to Grow a Nonprofit

In Chapter 8 of 13 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, micro-philanthropist Adam Carter answers "What Made You Decide Not to Expand the Scope of Your Micro-Philanthropy Efforts?"  As Carter gains experience, he finds it is not in his best interest to scale his non-profit in the funds it raises and the number of projects it completes.  Carter notes his struggle to do more good while staying true to his hands-on founding goals. 

Adam Carter is a micro-philanthropist currently living in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.  He is the founder of the Cause and Affect Foundation, which raises small amounts of financing to provide direct-to-source project funding for individuals and communities in need across the globe.  To date, Carter has traveled to over 80 countries.  He earned an MA in International Development from George Washington University and a BA in Cultural Anthropology from the University of Michigan.

Transcript: 

Erik Michielsen: What made you decide not to expand the scope of your micro-philanthropy efforts?

Adam Carter: I think a lot of start-ups whether it’s a nonprofit or a business, they’re immediately thinking, okay, how big can I get? I think that’s kind of the instinct there. So when I started Cause & Affect, I was really excited to really create a model that could be ramped up in time. And so as I started the process, as I started to raise money, and then I started to distribute the funds to these projects around the world, I got to the point where I realized that there was a problem and that was that as I scaled up Cause & Affect, it would change the whole structure of what I had envisioned. You know, I created this so that I would be able to be out in the field personally overseeing all of these projects. I mean, Cause & Affect is based on the fact that I’m able to see exactly how every dollar is spent, and that I’m not just simply sending it over to organizations that look like they have a good website, or someone goes and visits and says, “Oh, it’s a good project. Okay, here’s a few thousand dollars.” That’s not how it works.

So what I realized is that for me to really scale this up, first of all it would require a lot more time. I mean, as it is I’m putting in a lot of my own time and money for traveling, and I’m content with that. That’s fine, but in order for me to do this really full time, you know, to that extent, I would have to get some income, and so then you just kind of work backwards. Well, what’s the minimum amount of income I would need to live my life and plan for a future, whatever? So, I mean, even if it was just, let’s say $50,000, from $50,000—If I’m gonna raise $50,000, that’s gonna go towards me, we have to be sure that’s only maybe 10% of what we’re raising. So then you’re looking at $500,000 that we’d have to bring in every year in order to justify a $50,000 salary for myself. And that’s obviously quite a challenge these days, and also once you—in order to bring in $500,000 a year, you might have to hire someone to help you with your marketing or your fundraising, and then you’ve got another salary to deal with, so that’s more money you need to bring in just to break even, and I felt like this was just setting up a lot of pressure for me personally, whereas what I’m really good at, I wasn’t born to be a CEO and to micro-manage four or five people working for me, and if I wanted to do that I probably would have set up a business or an NGO 15 years ago.

What I’m good at is the interpersonal relationships in the field and assessing each of these projects and finding the best way to help them, and finding out how to be the most effective with this small amount of money. Now, obviously, it would be wonderful to be able to distribute more money, and hopefully, down the road, we will find a way to do that, to ramp up these contributions in that there is still a way within this model to give a lot more money. I mean each of these projects that I’m assisting with, $1,000 or $2,000. I could easily add a zero to that if some other donors come on board that really share the vision, but I kind of realized that I needed to focus on the task at hand which was making sure that every dollar distributed goes directly to the people in need, instead of worrying about how big of a structure I could create and, instead of getting my ego in it of like, how big of an organization I could create.

Ken Rona on How to Be a More Engaged Parent

In Chapter 4 of 15 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, digital media executive Ken Rona answers "What Does It Mean For You to Be Engaged in Your Children's Education?"  Rona reflects back on his own childhood education experience growing up with Eastern European immigrant parents and taking on school more or less alone.  As a parent, Rona shares how he stays engaged as an advocate for his 7-year old daughter and his son in Pre-Kindergarten. 

Ken Rona is a Vice President at Turner Broadcasting, where he leads teams across advertising sales, big data software development and business strategy.  Rona earned a BA and MA in Political Science from Stony Brook University and a PhD in Behavioral Economics from Duke University. 

Transcript: 

Erik Michielsen: What does it mean for you to be engaged in your children’s education?

Ken Rona: I think folks would say I’m a very engaged parent. When I was growing up, my parents were busy earning a living. That they worked very hard to keep food on the table, and keep us, you know, in clothes, you know, we had a lower middle cla—what I would call lower middle class existence. And we had everything we needed but not much more. We had, you know, a few toys but it was, you know, a pretty modest life. And I kind of had to figure out school by myself. I more or less was left alone to kind of figure that stuff out. And I made some choices—I’m not exactly sure that they were wrong, I mean I certainly turned out well. 

But certainly early on, certainly like from junior high school, high school, and into college, parents weren’t very involved. Partly by my design, truthfully, they probably wanted to be more involved and I kind of kept things at arms bay and—because I thought that I could make—I was a person on the ground, right, I was a person that could make decisions better. And part of it is because my parents were eastern European immigrants, right? 

So part of my involvement with their education is to say I believe that you can have a better experience than mine in school. And I am one of the science dads, me and one of the other dads come in and do science experiments for the kids. Charlotte certainly understands what an experiment hypothesis is—at least on a basic level. I’ve tried very hard not to be, you know—what I’m committed to is not being a helicopter parent, right? The kids have to figure out their own way but in an appropriate pace, right? 

So I’m sure by—I’m sure by grade 12, our involvement will be much less after colleges are picked. But for now, I’m very committed to staying engaged and making sure that Charlotte has a good experience and that she has an advocate. So I would say actually that the primary way I’m involved with Charlotte’s school is that I’m an advocate for her, not that—and I’m trying to teach her to advocate for herself. Both my wife and I would say that I think that—and you know, she’s 7, so she’s not really in a position—although she does a—I think a pretty good job of it. 

So my involvement is, you know, is to be an appropriate advocate. I’m not planning on—I’m not planning on being one of these parents that calls up your kid’s first job and say why didn’t you promote him, right? That’s not—That’s—They’ve gotta run there.  But I think at age 7, at age 8, you know, for the foreseeable future, her mother and I and Doyle—you know, Doyle requires less advocacy at this moment, because he’s in preschool, but I would expect that we will continue advocacy, but interestingly you know, we—You also have to be really thoughtful about when you don’t advocate. 

So—just today, we got the class list for what class she’s—Charlotte’s gonna be in next year, and she’s—there are 3 classes in her school, each class has 21 kids, and there’s a shuffling from year 1—from 1st grade to 2nd grade, and Charlotte’s—like we’re not super thrilled with Charlotte’s shuffle. There are a very few friends from that class in her new class, right? Seems like—and I think that’s a shame, right? Because we just moved to Atlanta. And I—My wife and I haven’t discussed it but I’m pretty sure we’re on the same side of it like we’re not gonna advocate for changing a class, we’re not gonna—like Charlotte’s gotta kind of figure out how to be successful in an environment which is very friendly, right. Is it exactly what I would’ve wished for her? No. But like that is part of our existence, right, that you—that—this is not an incredible hardship, right? She certainly has friends in the class, she will make other friends. She knows all of those children. I would’ve liked that one or two of her close friends would’ve been in the class, that didn’t go that way. It’s gonna be fine, right? 

So I think that part of what you need to be able to do in supporting your children’s education is knowing when to not advocate, right, when to hold back and not be involved, because I think being involved is actually easy. You can just say yeah I gonna be involved. I think restraint is the harder part.

Ken Rona on How Reflection Informs Manager Career Growth

In Chapter 9 of 15 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, digital media executive Ken Rona answers "What Role Has Reflection Played in Shaping Your Personal Growth?"  Rona refers to fundamental attribution error, which is where you take credit for good things and blame bad things on the external world.  Understanding this bias helps Rona reflect and make sense of challenges and his choices to overcome them.  Ken Rona is a Vice President at Turner Broadcasting, where he leads teams across advertising sales, big data software development and business strategy.  Rona earned a BA and MA in Political Science from Stony Brook University and a PhD in Behavioral Economics from Duke University. 

Transcript: 

Erik Michielsen: What role has reflection played in shaping your personal growth?

Ken Rona: You know, there’s that line about a self-reflected life is not worth living. I take some of that to heart. When I have a challenge, I try to think about what role I’ve played in creating it. Do you know what the fundamental attribution error is? 

Erik Michielsen: Tell me more about that.

Ken Rona: Sure. It’s a psychological phenomenon, right, that many people experience. And the notion is that when something good happens, it’s because I’m great.  Right? And when something bad happens, it’s because the world is against me. Right? Or you know, it’s your fault, basically. Right? So you blame good things on yourself—Or you take credit for good things, but for negative things, you attribute to the rest of the world. And that’s one where, you know, when I think about something, I really try to separate that out. I really try not to take too much credit for the good, nor try to put so much of the bad, some of the negative factors on the external world. I try to kind of have a much more balanced—I try to—because I know about this I’m biased. I try to think about how to have a really honest assessment about what my role in whatever the challenge was, was. And I found that helpful. 

And I actually—it’s actually my—almost my talking point for the year has been to tell people about this. Because I have been in a situation in business where it happened with a vendor, where they were blaming something on us that was—like their product failure. They’re like, well, you’re not using the product right. Look guys, it’s your product. Right? Like, you know, why would you not take ownership of your product, and like blaming your customer is not a good way to go, right? But—So I’d say that’s kind of the—how I think about reflection. I guess it’s an empirical question if I do it enough or not, it’s certainly it seems to be okay but I think that you have to—especially as you get more senior, as you get more senior, you really have to think carefully about what your role in things are. And to make sure that you’re having the appropriate amount of influence, how you’re doing that influencing, where you use more direct power, right? 

I used to be accused of being a bit -- my elbows were too sharp. My elbows are probably always gonna be too sharp for the level I’m at, but I think that my use of the elbows is much more surgical. Right? I’m not like whacking them around, I’m more like—I’m more just going… And it was funny, I have a staff member who works for me and he’s—I—Do you know this notion in a—like World of Warcraft in a multimassive, multiplaying—massively multiplayer role-playing game, you have roles, right? And one of the roles that people have is they’re called tanks, and a tank is basically like a character that is designed to take abuse, right? 

So that while everyone else is running around stealing the vorpal sword, you know, the enemy is beating on the tank. Right? He is that guy. People just beat on him and he just takes it and takes it and takes it. And he’s—has much more—much higher emotional intelligence than I have, right? His EQ is much higher. I think. Because he takes that stuff and he takes it with a lot of equanimity, right? He’s just like really cool about it. And somebody was taking advantage of him. And I said, dude, they’re taking advantage of you. He said, I know, what should I do? I said, you gotta throw the elbow, man. Like so there are times when like being the calm voice, right -- the tank, is not always the right thing, right? Sometimes you gotta go a little bit on the offensive. 

So I’ve tried to be more—I’ve tried to kind of take actually from him the “be cool,” right? And I’ve tried to be a little more tank-ish. But I’m much more surgical about my use of my elbows.

Ken Rona on What It Means to Be Productive at Work

In Chapter 13 of 15 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, digital media executive Ken Rona answers "How Do You Get Yourself into a Flow State of Productivity?"  Rona talks about what it means to be productive in his work and how it has changed as he has transitioned out of a developer and analyst role and into general management.  Part of this is understanding that "flow state" productivity is more relevant in individual contributor roles than in management roles. 

Ken Rona is a Vice President at Turner Broadcasting, where he leads teams across advertising sales, big data software development and business strategy.  Rona earned a BA and MA in Political Science from Stony Brook University and a PhD in Behavioral Economics from Duke University.

Transcript: 

Erik Michielsen: How do you get yourself into a flow state of productivity?

Ken Rona: I don’t really need to be. My job is different. I think if you’re a developer then you need to be able to get into that flow. That’s an individual contributor kind of question, right? Or somebody who does individual contributor work, you know, analytics or programming or art, right? And then, you know, if you’re managing people, you kind of have to go back and forth. That’s not really what I do. 

My career has kind of taken a different turn in that I’m not an analyst anymore. I don’t do that. I can use our tools. So one of the things I’ve tried to do is make it so that I understand how our analytic tools work and I can get into data if I need to, if I’m curious about something. Or I want to role model something, which I’ve done. 

But in terms of like producing deliverables, my deliverables are not so much pieces of paper anymore, my deliverables are discussions, and giving advice, and taking advice, and doing internal PR or internal marketing or—so that kind of—that kind of state is less relevant, it’s less relevant for me now that I have to be a good—I actually believe this, I really believe—I’m very ample about this. I believe that you should have focus. You shouldn’t work on too many things at once. And I don’t but I work on many things over the course of a day, but I’m pretty kind of unified—pretty focused on the thing I’m doing at that moment. But as I say the things that I do at that moment aren’t the kind of things that require the kind of extreme focus that I needed when I was a developer and analyst

Mark Graham on How Personal Priorities Change With Age

In Chapter 2 of 17 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, digital media executive Mark Graham answers "How Are Your Personal Priorities Changing as You Get Older?"  After getting married in the past year, Graham faces a new challenge of figuring out the balance of growing his career to provide for a family in the future and being an engaged, present, and supportive husband. 

Mark Graham is currently a managing editor at VH1, an MTV Networks company. Previously Graham worked in editing and writing roles at New York Magazine and Gawker Media.  He graduated from the University of Michigan with a B.A. in English.  

Transcript: 

Erik Michielsen: How are your personal priorities changing as you get older?

Mark Graham: Personal priorities and professional priorities haven’t always synced with me. I’ve always been someone who from a very early age has placed a lot of value and a lot of time in my week into making sure I succeed in a professional space. Particularly someone who graduated college with an English degree, which I quickly learned wasn’t the most helpful degree to have in the world. 

So I think I’ve really had to work hard to get where I’m at. You know, now that I got married in the last year, and understanding and balancing how important my wife and our relationship is, and how important our marriage is, you know, I need to learn how to dial down the amount of time that I spend at the job working on professional stuff, and be able to figure out how to spend more time, you know, continuing to build our relationship and make sure that my wife’s needs are being met, and that she’s happy, and that we’re having fun together, and that we’re doing things together more often. 

So that’s something that, you know, I’m really looking to spend more time on, and continuing to focus, and get that balance where it used to be professional-personal, you know, start to get those things a little bit more here. And, you know, as a man, hopefully, you know, we’ll have a family sometime soon, you know, I still need to place a lot of emphasis on, you know, ensuring that I’ve got a good career, and I’m able to provide for a family at some point. So, you know, figuring out that balance is something that’s definitely a work in progress, and something that I need to, you know, just continue to spend more time on, and figure out where that sweet spot is.

Mark Graham on Growing into a New Manager Job Role

In Chapter 11 of 17 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, digital media executive Mark Graham answers "At This Moment in Your Life, Where Are You Seeking Advice and Coaching?"  Graham shares how he gets coaching support from his boss, VH1 editorial director Matt Muro, and Muro's boss, Dan Sacher, VH1 VP Media.  By meeting each week, they help Graham learn to manage, delegate, lead, and grow in his career. 

Mark Graham is currently a managing editor at VH1, an MTV Networks company. Previously Graham worked in editing and writing roles at New York Magazine and Gawker Media.  He graduated from the University of Michigan with a B.A. in English.  

Transcript: 

Erik Michielsen: At this moment in your life, where are you seeking advice and coaching?

Mark Graham: It’s simply an active part of what I’m doing. In my new role as a managing editor, I now have a team of people, and I’m learning how to effectively manage them, effectively lead them, to motivate and to grow and to help continue to build our work up. So sort of as a result of that, I’ve been leaning very heavily on both my boss, his name is Matt Muro, he’s our editorial director at VH1, as well as his boss, his name is Dan Sacher, he’s our vice president of digital media, both for VH1 as well as for Logo. 

I really look up to both of those individuals. I think they’ve done excellent work in their career and they’re both at places that ultimately I’d like to be at some point in my career. You know, I’d like to, you know, continue to grow and learn, and they’ve both been very valuable and very helpful to me into helping me recognize things that I’m good at and things that I need to continue to work and improve on in my professional career. So both of those guys I lean very heavily on, you know, we meet on a weekly basis to make sure our goals are being met, we’re on track with certain programs. 

You know, a lot of our content is sort of churned out on a day-to-day basis reacting to things that are happening in the news but we also have longer term plans and initiatives that we’re working on that take, you know, months and months and months to get an idea that, you know, grows ultimately into a product that you can execute on the web. So, you know, really staying in close contact with both of those guys has been very important to me and they’ve both shown incredible support to me through my couple of years in the organization, and are people like I said that I look up to and that I lean on for help and guidance, and sort of, you know, recognizing that you can’t do it all. 

And, you know, one thing that they’ve really been great at helping me realize and understand is, is learning how to effectively delegate responsibilities. And helping me sort of understand and prioritize which things I should be taking out on my own and which things that I can sort of help generate the seed of an idea and then step a little it back and check in on it from time to time rather than, you know, running the ball the whole way through. So that’s something that I’m continuing to learn and grow. 

Candidly, I’ll admit that that’s something that I’m not great at right now. I’ve sort of gotten to this point in my career by seeing projects through very personally and spending lots and lots of time at the office and now that I have the amount of responsibility that I do, I can no longer do that. There just aren’t enough hours in the day for me to balance my professional life and my personal life together in a way that makes sense, so really sort of learning how to hand off responsibilities and to also be able to solicit feedback from my peers and also people that work for me. Really being in close contact with them, understanding ways that I can help them better, ways that they can help me better too, and really sort of understanding that, and understanding the dynamics of how people work in an organization, that’s been very important and I think I continue to learn that.

Mark Graham: How to Develop Passions In and Out of Work

In Chapter 17 of 17 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, digital media executive Mark Graham answers "How Are You Learning to Apply Your Passions in New Ways?"  Graham notes that he is fortunate to spend most of his professional life pursuing his passions in his personal life such as television, music, film, and books.  He notes that as he gets more experience, he learns to separate work time from "me time" and enjoy the personal experiences instead of constantly chronicling them.  In the office, Graham puts a short-term priority on learning video editing skills such as Final Cut Pro so he may be more engaged with the video production teams working at VH1. 

Mark Graham is currently a managing editor at VH1, an MTV Networks company. Previously Graham worked in editing and writing roles at New York Magazine and Gawker Media.  He graduated from the University of Michigan with a B.A. in English.

Transcript: 

Erik Michielsen: How are you learning to apply your passions in new ways?

Mark Graham: I’ve got a lot of different passions. I’m a pop culture fiend. I love movies. I love music. I love TV. I love reading. Fortunately I’m in a position where I spend most of my professional life actively pursuing passions that I have in my personal life, which is really cool. I think one of the things that I’ve learned over—particularly over the last year and so, is that you do need to make time to create a little barrier between things that you’re passionate about and things that you do professionally, and by that I mean every time I used to go to a concert for example, I would always take notes during concerts and always write about things like that and I’ve sort of learned to pick things that are going to work for work and things that are more just sort of for “me time” to lay back, kick back, you know, drink a couple of root beers, enjoy the experience rather than sort of constantly chronicling it. I’m sending out tweets and Instagrams and taking notes and things like that, so I’ve really tried to focus this year on making sure that I do allow some sort of personal time for me in that way. 

And so the ways that I’m trying to apply passions in a new direction, you know, one of the things that I’m really trying to focus on over the course of the next year and some change, I haven’t gotten started on this yet but it’s one of the things that’s on my list of things to do this summer, I like to start learning how to do video editing. I think that that’s a skill set that is very important to someone who’s in my particular space, if you’re—the more trades that you can sort of do, the more relevant and useful you are to an organization. And also ways that you can help give better feedback and direction to people that you are working with. So as I’m spending more time working with video, with people who are operating cameras, and people who are sitting in editing base, and editing on Final Cut. You know, helping to understand their language, and the way that they work and the ways that we can help create a good product, end-product for a consumer, helping them get to that place is something that I’d definitely like to spend more time learning and developing.