June 29, 2022 • 52 mins
Laura’s multipotentialite mother inspired so much in her life: a love of learning, culture, language, and academic achievement.
But a few years into her PhD in Victorian literature, Laura doubted that a tenured professorship was within reach. Or that it was the lifestyle she wanted.
Thanks to intensive soul-searching and working with a coach, she gained clarity into potential careers, finished her dissertation earlier than the bulk of her cohort, and began her transition to marketing.
Between working for a small nonprofit, a large professional services firm, and a few other employers, Laura has become a well-regarded content marketing strategist and ghostwriter for executives. When the pandemic hit, Laura struck out on her own for more flexibility, including time to augment her daughters’ online learning.
Laura’s future includes big plans for building a content marketing agency, working abroad for five or six years in Europe, and writing a novel. All ambitions her mother — her mentor — would surely be proud of.
Laura’s recommended books for a career switch
Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol S. Dweck
Give and Take: Why Helping Others Drives Our Success by Adam Grant
Yes, And: How Improvisation Reverses "No, But" Thinking and Improves Creativity and Collaboration--Lessons from The Second City by Kelly Leonard & Tom Yorton
Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die by Chip Heath and Dan Heath
Secrets to Winning at Office Politics by Marie G. McIntyre
Workplace Poker: Are You Playing the Game, or Just Getting Played? by Dan Rust
The Power of Bad: How the Negativity Effect Rules Us and How We Can Rule It by John Tierney and Roy F. Baumeister
H3 leadership: Be Humble. Stay Hungry. Always Hustle by Brad Lomenick and Mark Burnett
Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain
Laura’s recommended content marketing resources
LinkedIn Learning Content Marketing Courses
Other resources mentioned
Where to find Laura & Sharp Storylines
Check out more from The Work Seminar
Visit theworkseminar.com or find @TheWorkSeminar on social media.
Sign up for The Work Seminar newsletter to receive updates straight to your inbox.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Jesse Butts (00:23):
Hey everyone.
Thanks for joining mefor another episode.
I'm your host, Jesse Butts.
Today, I'm chatting with LauraStef-Praun, a PhD in Victorian
literature, with a focus onthe history of disability
in the 19th century, fromthe University of Chicago.
Laura now has turnedinto a content marketing
(00:43):
strategist and ghost writer.
She owns her own small agency,Sharp Storylines, and she
also offers career coachingfor grad students, interested
in transitioning to jobsoutside of the academic world.
Laura, welcome to the show.
Thanks for joining me.
Laura Stef-Praun (01:00):
Thank you so much, Jesse, for having me.
I'm so excited to be here.
Jesse Butts (01:04):
So glad you could make it.
So Laura, before we chat aboutyour move from that PhD in
Victorian British literatureto content marketing strategy,
can you first just tell us alittle bit about what you do?
What exactly is contentmarketing strategy?
Laura Stef-Pra (01:22):
Yeah, of course.
I'd love to talk aboutcontent marketing.
I like to talk aboutcontent marketing in
general, not just strategy.
And so maybe we start there.
Content marketing is a typeof marketing that is focused
on creating, publishing andpromoting digital content
for a targeted audience.
It can take many forms,such as articles, blogs,
(01:45):
podcasts, video, you name it.
But the important part is toreach and engage your audience.
Engagement is really key,because successful content
marketing speaks to aspecific audience ,and it's
very different from academicwriting in that respect.
When you write your dissertationor any kind of paper, you do
(02:06):
have an audience, but you don'tcare so much what they think.
You're also writing for yourown purposes and to display your
research and your expertise.
Content marketing isthe opposite of that.
Right?
So basically you want peopleto read your stuff, share it,
promote it, stay on the page.
That's one of the very importantmetrics for content marketing.
(02:27):
So there are three sides youneed to think of when you
think about content marketing.
There's content creation,one, which is the actual
writing, editing, recording,filming, you name it.
This podcast iscontent creation.
We're doing that rightnow, creating content.
Then there's the contentoptimization, which
really thinks about, Okay,now I have the content,
(02:49):
what do I do with it?
How do I measurehow it performs?
How do I improve it?
How do I make more peopleread my stuff, basically.
And of course I left thebest for last, but it
should always come first.
It's the content strategyitself, which is the planning
before you wanna start creatinganything, you really wanna
(03:09):
think about why you're doingit, plan it, do the preliminary
work, know everything youcan about your audience, your
competition, your market,what you're selling, the
topics that you create contenton, what are the best media
to promote that content?
Where is your audience?
What channel, whatdo they engage in?
(03:31):
Are they on Facebook,Instagram, LinkedIn, whatever.
You wanna put the content wherepeople will find it and read it.
And you wanna constantlythink about that.
So that's content strategy.
So, you know, my day to dayis actually nowadays mostly
spent on creating content.
So content development.
And what I do is I focuson thought leadership.
(03:55):
And what that really meansis creating some form of
content based on research.
And I am a ghost writer.
So that also means thatI sell my brain power
and let other people puttheir name on my work.
And that's fine with me.
As long as they pay me,that works fine for me.
So I create a lot ofcontent for other people,
(04:17):
and that's what I do.
And then they contribute to it.
I often interview them.
They have their own expertise,but I put it together.
I create it, I package it,I give it back to them.
They put their name on it.
Jesse Butts (04:30):
For Sharp Storylines, your, your
agency, what's that componentof your business like?
Laura Stef-Praun (04:38):
Yeah, Sharp Storylines is my new
project and baby and agency.
I started it in the,during the pandemic.
So, , it's an umbrella formy multifaceted interests.
My long term plan is to buildit into a full service agency.
But at this point, I servemy clients as an independent
(05:00):
marketer and freelancer.
And I offer services thatare primarily focused on
content marketing packages.
Again, with the focus onthat thought leadership,
which to recall for ourlisteners is content based
on some form of research.
Because I feel that that'swhere my skills, the ones
(05:21):
that I acquired during my PhDreally differentiate myself.
So at this point, I can offerdifferent kind of services.
I can, you can hire me forcontent strategy, right, to
think about the content thatyou need, why you need it,
how do you create it best.
You can hire me for contentdevelopment, as I just
explained where you comewith the topic and an expert.
(05:42):
I interview them, Icreate content for them.
Or I can just serve as aconsultant for your team.
I can advise, I can train you.
I offer career coaching forgraduate students, or any
kind of young professionalthat wants to break into
content marketing basically.
And my expertise of course,is advising on this transition
(06:03):
from the academic world tothe corporate world, to the
content marketing world.
You know, I even taught a classfor graduate students at the
University of Chicago lastspring on content marketing and
what it takes to understand thefield, to break into the field.
And I'll do it again ifgiven the opportunity.
Coaching is, is really somethingthat I'm very passionate about.
Jesse Butts (06:26):
So Laura, now that we have a really
great understanding of, ofwhat you're doing now, I'm
wondering if we can dive intothe backstory a little bit.
So where I like to, to startwith that type of thing is
that I, I know that you,you have a PhD, obviously
we mentioned that earlier.
But I also know that youhave an MA, and I'm kind of
curious what prompted thatfirst venture into grad school?
(06:47):
Why did you decide thatyou wanted to go beyond
undergrad in academic work?
Laura Stef-Praun (06:54):
That's a, that's an amazing question.
I, I think we have to takea step even further back.
I have a very unusualstory, I think.
It's, it's really astory of love, love and
passion for literatureand foreign languages.
I'm, I'm fluent in Romanian,English, French, And it
(07:16):
starts in Romania, which ismy, my basic, my homeland.
And I was born and raisedand lived in Romania
until the age of 21.
So I spent half my life atthis point in Romania and half
my life in the United States.
And it all started withmy mom and my family.
It's it's interesting.
I come from afamily of engineers.
(07:38):
My mom was in electricalengineering, and my dad
was a civil engineer, sovery folks, very focused
on the sciences on math.
And yet they allowed meto follow my passion for
the humanities and theywere two very loving
and supporting parents.
And my mom was my greatest fan.
She has always been.
She used to say that she waswaiting for me to become the
(08:00):
next Harry Potter author.
I don't do creative writing,but she's always applauded
me and helped me on and on.
So she shaped my life and Iowe her, owe her everything.
And unfortunately shepassed away last January
during the pandemic.
Yes, it was, itwas an awful time.
(08:21):
I miss her every day.
She was a visionaryand my beacon.
Imagine this lady living incommunist Romania, borders
closed, but she came froma super highly educated
family that absolutely lovedlearning with generations
of women that were educatedand went to college.
(08:44):
Actually, my on my mother'sside, my great-grandmother
who lived with us until I was14, so I actually got to know
her, she was born in 1901, andshe had a law school degree.
So, I, I feel that I, I havethe obligation and the honor
to follow in the footsteps ofall the women in my family.
(09:06):
My grandmother, my mother'smother, she had two
undergraduate degrees that shegot right after World War II.
One was in social workand one was in law.
In Romania, law is anundergraduate degree.
You go straight into lawschool from high school.
And this grandmother spenther entire career teaching
(09:27):
in a deaf and mute school.
And her passion wasteaching, and she passed
on this passion and herpedagogical skills to her
daughters, my mom and my aunt.
So I, I kind of grew upwith, in that environment.
My mom was, wastutoring and teaching.
She was an amazing mentor.
She had her own smalltutoring business.
(09:48):
I started working with her andtutoring English when I was 14.
She, she really was a polymathand the multipotentialite.
She, she was amazing,inspirational and
my life mentor.
And she tutored me from day oneto the day I left for college.
(10:08):
When she finally gaveup, she was like, Okay, I
guess you're really goingto pursue humanities path.
Fly free.
But you know, I wentall the way to calculus.
So , I could have takena different path as well.
She made sure of that.
She, she was quite a force.
And she influenced our life.
You know, she lovedliterature, art, the opera.
(10:29):
And she passed thatpassion on to myself.
And because she was,as I said, a visionary.
The borders were closedfor 40 years in Romania, so
nobody could exit or enter thecountry, just like the other
countries in the communist bloc.
And yet, when we weregrowing up, we were
studying English and French.
(10:49):
And oftentimes our, her friendswould be like, Why are you,
why are, why what's the point?
But she hoped that one day theborders would open and that,
that would serve us well.
And, indeed, it did.
The communist regime fell in1989 across the entire Eastern
Europe and the borders opened.
(11:10):
And my brother and I gotscholarships abroad at that
point and left the country.
I got a PhD from the Universityof Chicago with an undergraduate
degree from Trent UniversityCanada, where I also spent a
year abroad in Nantes, France,and I got a full ride as well.
So I have a, a lot of degreesand a lot of years in school.
(11:35):
I love, I love being in school.
And I loved being in school.
I'm a professional student.
I call myself aprofessional student.
You know, I have three degrees,six years of undergraduate
education in Romania,Canada, and France at four
different universities.
I have a two years master'sdegree from Purdue University,
again in English literatureand the PhD from the University
(11:58):
of Chicago, which took meseven years to complete.
And at the Universityof Chicago, I was the
third to graduate in acohort of 19 students.
So to answer your question,what prompted me to enroll
in graduate school aftergetting an undergraduate?
Absolutely everything.
I am a professional student.
(12:18):
I have a love relationshipwith learning, with
literature, with reading,with writing, with teaching...
that was the way to go.
So, I loved all the yearsthat I spent in school
really, especially myyears at Trent University
in Ontario, Canada and inNantes, France were probably
the best years of my life.
(12:39):
I traveled, I studied, Ivisited all these amazing
libraries, looked at rarecollection books, artifacts,
and I had no obligations.
I was single and free.
I had the small scholarship,but to me that was treasure.
And I managed to manage myfinances very well because I
(13:01):
came from communist Romania,where my parents were
literally earning $500 a year.
$500 a year.
So, that's kind of my story.
That's how I end up at Purdue.
And they made me after myundergraduate a great offer.
It was a great school andI loved my time there.
Jesse Butts (13:24):
Did you intend to be a professor?
Or was it kind of a, I, I justwanna study what I love and
I'll figure out what happenswork wise after I graduate?
What was your mindset like,especially as you were
nearing the end of your PhD?
Laura Stef-Praun (13:40):
Yeah.
You know, it was interesting.
So, when I went to Purdue, I hadthese two amazing professors.
They were an academiccouple and they were my
mentors and advisors.
Their names are DinoFelluga and Emily Allen.
They're still at Purdue.
They're amazing.
And, you know, I, Iwas inspired by them.
(14:01):
Their classes were magic,so, so I took everything
they could offer.
I, I chose to write a, amaster's thesis with Dino.
He was my thesisadvisor at Purdue.
And really everyone encouragedme to go and on and on
from Trent to Purdue tothe University of Chicago.
(14:22):
You know, all my professorstold me, Go on, get a PhD,
be a professor, be like me.
Right.
I was so good.
I was the professional student.
I was aceing this academic life.
And basically nobody toldme to think about money.
Look at the job market.
You know, nobody toldme that the academic
(14:42):
profession was dying.
Maybe they didn't evenknow it themselves.
Emily and Dino were theonly ones that kind of
tried to bring this up.
They were coming up for tenure.
But you know, they didn't wannabe the ones stopping anyone
from trying either, right.
So, so basically what I'mtrying to say is I went into
the PhD program out of love.
(15:02):
And then I discovered that itwas kind of like bungee jumping.
And I hate heights.
I, I would never bungee jump.
Okay.
That's my oldest daughter.
She's the crazy one.
I am cautious and I like myfeet firmly on the ground.
So, there were no jobswhen I graduated from
my PhD program in 2010.
(15:24):
And we were plungedin a recession.
And by that time Ialso had a family.
I had two little kids.
And, I, you know, didn'tthink that a commuter
marriage would work for me.
I saw many of my peers andprofessors doing postdocs and
looking for tenure track, whiledoing a commuter marriage.
(15:46):
You know, I had professorsat the University of Chicago
that I saw doing that.
I decided up frontthat it wasn't for me.
I kind of started thinkingabout that at the three
year mark in my PhD program.
Jesse Butts (15:59):
Three of seven, did you say originally?
Laura Stef-Praun (16:02):
Seven.
Right.
So about the end of, ofmy third year, I figured
out, I, I kind of realized,Okay, I've dreamt enough.
And I don't think it'sgonna happen just because I
can't sacrifice this much.
You know, at that timeI only had one daughter.
I really wanted tohave a second child.
It would have, it would havemeant making completely
(16:24):
different life choices.
And so, I tried to recalibrate.
And it took me quite a, Ithink it took me about a year
just to do a little bit ofsoul searching and figure
out how I wanted to continue.
Did I wanna finish?
Did I wanna stop?
And I started thinkingreally at that point,
just like big picture.
(16:45):
It's very hard.
There's a grieving process whenyou start realizing that, you
know, this goal, this dream thatyou've been working for for so
many years, at that point, Iwas fully convinced up to that
point that I was gonna make it.
It takes you a while tokind of shift your mindset.
So I started slow.
First and foremost, I hadto get used to the idea and
(17:08):
convince myself that, youknow, it's time to cut costs.
In economics, there's this,this concept sunken costs.
It means that at one point inbusiness, if you've invested,
invested, even though if, ifyou're gonna lose, you have
to do it then rather thancontinue and keep losing more.
I was gonna take basicallythe PhD as a sunken cost.
(17:29):
But I did keep an open mind.
So first of all, I startedgetting part-time jobs in
administration because I,all of a sudden I realized
that even though I had beenteaching since I was 14 and
I adored teaching, teachingexperience would only get me
teaching jobs beyond my PhD.
So I started working inadministration part-time at
(17:50):
the University of Chicago.
You know, I also, held ajob in the writing center
at Purdue, which was ateaching job, really.
It was part of my teachingassistantship, but it was
different than just beingin a classroom and teaching.
So.
I leveraged that alittle bit as well.
I trolled the careerservices center.
I became their best friend thereat Purdue, not at Purdue, at the
(18:15):
University of Chicago, and thenI actually worked for the career
services center part-time.
I started reading any booksI could find on transitioning
outside of the academic world.
I joined forums anddiscussion groups.
In particular, The VersatilePhD, which at that point
was founded and belonged toa PhD who had transitioned
out of the academic world.
(18:35):
Now she sold it, soit belongs to a higher
education consortium.
But it still exists.
And another fellow PhD momtold me about MentorCoach.
And in particular all butdissertation coaching.
So at that point I wasreally thinking, am I
gonna finish or not finish?
What do I do?
Realistically, finishingfor a job would not have got
(18:58):
me much more than I alreadyhad basically in terms of
qualifications or experience.
So, , I found MentorCoach,and MentorCoach is a group
of academic life coaches.
Most of them also haveclinical psychology PhDs.
So it's very researchfocused, very research based.
And I found a coach throughMentorCoach, and I started
(19:19):
working with that coach toestablish my life goals,
to work on finishing adissertation in record time.
Because at that point I waslike, Okay, how many more
years can I put into this?
I need to really be focusedand on point on time.
And I also started takingclasses later on to
train as a coach myself.
(19:40):
So.
That was kind of a process.
So once I, everythingkind of fell into place
and I had a plan, then Imoved on at record speed.
I actually got one of thethree dissertation year
fellowships in the department.
I set the dates.
I pushed my committee toreturn my chapters on time.
(20:02):
I actually reshuffledmy committee.
I was like, go, go, go.
And I did finish because,you know, I wanted
to be done by 2010.
Both my husband and I, myhusband has a PhD from
the, from Purdue Universityin computer science.
At that point he wasworking as a researcher,
(20:23):
an academic researcher atthe University of Chicago.
So in 2010, he left theresearch academic world
and moved to corporate.
And I graduated with my PhDand also started the journey
towards corporate life and lifeoutside the academic world.
Jesse Butts (20:41):
So Laura, I'm a little curious about
that coaching process.
What are the things that thecoaches did for you that, that
would've been hard for youto suss out and, and come
up with a plan on your own?
Laura Stef-Praun (20:54):
Coaching really changed my life.
That's, that's thetruth of the matter.
And it's a great questionbecause a lot of people
think, well, what isreally coaching are, what
are they doing for you?
Are they even when you tellpeople, Well, you know, I have
a dissertation writing coach.
They're like, Are theydoing the writing for you?
That's plagiarism.
(21:15):
No, not really.
So coaches are not thereto do anything for you.
A coach is really a soundingboard and the coach asks
you three questions.
What are you gonna do?
How are you gonna do it?
And how am I to know?
These are like threetypical coaching questions
(21:36):
for a, a coaching session.
And then you really apply themto what you're trying to do.
I was, for instance, strugglingto write a dissertation with,
first, one young child, andthen a second one and a spouse
(21:56):
who was also a researcherand in the academic world.
And, , it, it's all abouttrying to figure out
one, What are your goals?
What are your negotiables?
What can you let go?
And what are thenon-negotiables?
What, you know,you cannot let go.
So it's very hard to figureout all this on your own.
(22:20):
When you have a conversationwith your coach, it's like
talking therapy, but theydon't really do therapy.
It's more like career focused,life focused, goal focused.
So I'll give you an example.
When you are in the academicworld, your committee, your
peers, everyone's biased.
They think that the dissertationis the only thing that
(22:42):
is consuming your life.
And it is.
You don't wanna know howmany Saturdays and Sundays
I spent in exactly threehour chunks at the library
while my husband was liketaking the kids to the park.
And when you're a mom andwriting a dissertation, it's
not like you can hang out atthe library the whole day.
No, no, no, no, no, no.
You have from nine to12, because then there's
(23:04):
dinner and nap time.
And so you better freakingget your act together and
write in those three hourscause you don't have more.
So, time management wasanother thing that I worked on
with my coach, for instance.
When I started coaching,I felt like I was sinking.
There were not enoughhours in the day.
I couldn't get everythingI had to do done.
The research wasinfinite, right.
(23:25):
And You feel like youhave to cover it all.
Obviously in order to beable to finish, you have
to put a limit, you have tosay, Okay this is enough.
I'm gonna startwriting, moving on.
Coaching is really havingsomebody who's not biased
and helping you move towardsthat goal and validate the
fact that that goal is okay.
(23:46):
So the coach will be someonewho will be able to tell you,
Okay, you've spent two yearson researching this thing.
There's no way you are evergonna cover everything that's
being said on this topic inthe field so you can be able
to put your hand on yourheart and be like, Yeah,
yeah, I covered everything.
It's impossible.
(24:06):
So at this point you justhave to accept that done is
better than nothing and moveon, write the thing, you know,
defend it, submit it, move on.
And that's what I did.
And I actually didn'teven get comments.
I was able to file orsubmit and graduate.
Jesse Butts (24:23):
At this point, I mean, you
you've had that coaching.
You've finishedyour dissertation.
You talked a littlebit about goal setting.
Did you have a goal ofworking in marketing?
What was the gap for lackof a better term between
finishing your PhD and landingin your first marketing
or content marketing role?
Laura Stef-Praun (24:41):
Yeah, that's a great question.
I did consider marketingupfront because I was
exploring various careers thatI could have where I could
use my transferable skills.
And when you're in graduateschool and you go to
the career center, , youhear this term a lot, you
know, transferable skills.
But when you actually go inan interview, nobody cares
(25:02):
about your transferable skills.
What basically, basicallywhat that means is, What can
you do that can translateto a different industry,
a different profession?
In my case, I could teach.
I could write.
I could research.
I could analyze complex topics.
I could synthesize.
And I could present.
(25:23):
So, I wanted to gostraight into marketing.
And I looked at that and Ifigured out that I would be
really interested in marketingresearch for instance.
However, I didn't have theanalytical skills for that.
You really needstatistics and...
the social sciences are bettersuited to transition straight
into that than humanities.
So I'll be honest with theliterature PhD, it's very
(25:46):
hard to go into an industry.
So because of that, I could notbreak straight into marketing
from my academic world.
My first job was in nonprofitbecause I got a job on campus
working for the office ofinternational students.
I wrote some grant proposalsfor them to get funding, so
(26:09):
that kind of part-time workingadministration helped me out
because I had stories that Icould tell in an interview.
And higher educationis nonprofit.
So the transitionwas much easier.
Looking retroactively,I realized that I got my
first job with a smallnonprofit because nonprofits,
especially small ones, theydon't have HR departments.
(26:32):
The truth of the matter isthat a marketing department
for any firm, even a smallfirm, but mid-size, or a
large firm, they, they willhave an HR department, and a
non-traditional resume of a PhDor graduate student, whether
you are MA or ABD, all butdissertation, doesn't matter.
(26:52):
You're not gonna make it pastthat first kind of screening.
And, you know, your resumewill go straight to the reject
pile for various reasons.
And so, I was lucky.
The person who read myresume when I applied, who
interviewed me was my boss.
So really she was a oneperson show and she gave me a
chance and, I did very well.
(27:13):
I managed their grant portfolio.
And I stayed in the nonprofitworld, worked for two small
nonprofits for three years.
And then I kept like thinking,Okay, this is interesting.
I'm somebody who alwaysapproaches something
from a 360 point of view.
So I was managing a grantportfolio, manager for
institutional giving.
So what that means reallyis that you write all
(27:35):
sort of grants for thenonprofit to get money from
foundations, governmentinstitutions, and corporations.
And so I noticed thatthe corporations were
the ones giving the leastmoney to nonprofits.
And I always wanted tounderstand, because I spent
so many years in, in school, Iwas like, I gotta have a better
(27:57):
idea about this money thing.
How does it work?
What motivates people to give?
How do people use it?
So, you know, I volunteeredanytime I could.
And part of my role there wasactually to work with accounting
department and fill out allsorts of financials for the
grant that I was submitting.
(28:18):
Because you have to doreporting, you have to justify
how the money is spent.
So that was a reallygreat experience for me.
I had never had to dealwith money and budgets and
things like that before.
So I learned everything I could.
And, I wanted after threeyears to move to corporate.
I was like, I really gottaunderstand corporate thinking.
(28:38):
And I transitioned becauseI was lucky to land a
job in sales enablement,really proposal writing.
So writing grants andwriting proposals, I
thought was pretty similar.
And it was different, butkind of the same idea.
And I was hired by GrantThornton's non-profit practice.
Thornton is an audittax and consulting firm.
(29:01):
They sell services.
And I found a job onmonster.com, but I didn't
just make it past HR.
As I mentioned, I alsoidentified the friend who worked
at Grant Thornton and I senther my resume and I said, Hey,
please look for the hiringmanager and give her my resume.
And that's, that's how Iactually landed the interview.
(29:24):
And, the rest is history.
They hired me.
And once I wasthere, I didn't stop.
I kind of thought, Okay, I'mdoing sales enablement now,
as I mentioned, that was okay.
It was interesting.
I learned a whole bunchof other new things, like
creating really highly designedsales proposals in Wo rd
and working in PowerPoint.
(29:45):
I worked with design for thefirst time at that point.
Super interesting people,super fascinating stuff.
I kind of gotinterested in that.
I was like, Oh, it's not onlyabout putting words on the page.
It's also about howyou present them.
There's an art to that.
So I started reading really onchannels for marketing, media
and audience engagement, right.
(30:06):
And at the same time, I figuredout that I moved, I wanted to
move towards content marketing.
So I identified the peoplewho worked in that respect
at Grant Thornton, becauseI was already there.
I, I networked internally.
I made sure I met the people.
I talked to the hiringmanager in the kitchen,
and I patiently waited for,waited for a job opening.
(30:29):
And when it came,I made my move.
And I moved laterally.
And that's when I startedworking on thought leadership.
So on this content, researchbased content for the first
time, and I knew I was home.
I knew I found my nichewith my research skills
and my background.
I was like, Yep, thisis what I can do.
(30:50):
I mostly spent time developingcontent at Grant Thornton.
I also kind of startedthinking about the strategy
aspect, even though thatwas not part of my job.
So I started reading,attending conferences, events.
I volunteered whenever Icould to do extra stuff,
just to kind of dabble inwhat the strategy part was.
And the rest is history.
It was a serendipitous waythat didn't go straight
(31:15):
in, in a straight line tomarketing, because I think
it's very hard with an Englishdegree to go straight for
that from the academic world.
Jesse Butts (31:23):
One, one question for you.
You've mentioned readingand, and, and learning.
And I have to admit thatthat's been helpful for
me as well, but I was alittle resistant at first.
You know, so many businessbooks in my experience, whether
they're business in generalor specific to marketing,
they're poorly written or,you know, they're 250 pages
(31:45):
when they could be 30.
And it took me a whileto get over that.
And my mindset shift waskind of like, I just need
to absorb this information.
This isn't readingreading for me.
This is just aboutmeeting that end goal.
Did you have to go throughanything similar like that?
Or were you pretty opento that from the get go?
Laura Stef-Praun (32:04):
Yes, I agree with you, right?
So coming, especially with anacademic background, I have
a very critical thorough lens.
So, the one thing that I learnedwhen I started doing this job,
content marketing, is that as Imentioned, packaging, and really
caring about your audience aseven as human beings, right?
(32:27):
Who wants to sit thereand read a hundred and
30 page thing, right.
So it's almost, creatinggreat content, it's almost
a matter of respect.
Say what you have to sayin the fastest way possible
in the most efficient waypossible and in the most
engaging and aestheticallypleasing way possible.
(32:49):
So I really kind of zoomed inthroughout the years on that.
And I take pride in saying thatthe content that I create has
meaning, has depth, but it alsotries not to encroach on the
reader's time and patience.
Right?
However, coming fromthe academic world, for
(33:11):
me, it was the hardestto lower my expectations
of what could be done.
And, you know, that's,that's one of the questions
actually that shows upa lot in job interviews.
You know, people ask, used toask me, hopefully they don't
ask me anymore now that it,because it's been a while,
but they would say, Oh, in theacademic world, you have all
(33:32):
the time in the world, right?
You have seven years towrite the dissertation.
Well, here we need to,you know, get an article
done in two weeks.
How are you gonna handle thatkind of time, time pressure?
Well, the answer is you kindof have to get yourself into
the mindset that you have todo a job well done within the
constraints that you have.
(33:52):
And sometimes thoseconstraints may be that
you're not gonna get a perfectcontent asset out there.
You do what you can with theresources that you have within
the constraints that you have.
Sometimes you have to let it go.
Sometimes done isjust good enough.
And yes, ideally we would onlyput content out there that's
(34:16):
the highest quality that hasdepth, that says something,
that addresses the audiences,interests and pain points,
that offers a solution.
But hey, at the end of the day,all of us have to have a job.
And I had to kind of getmyself into that mindset.
I wasn't creating my life work.
(34:37):
And when you become a ghost inthat, you don't put your name
on stuff anymore, I found thatfreeing after the pressures
of the academic world, whereyou have to be original.
And I remember walking formy graduation ceremony.
And it's pretty impressive.
You know, you walk inthis beautiful chapel at
(35:00):
the University of Chicago.
And there are these loudspeakers that mention
all the graduates name.
But what struck me and stayedwith me was this echoing, a
repeated message that said,So and so is awarded this
diploma for an originalcontribution to the field.
And there's so much pressureto have that even slightly
(35:24):
original contribution.
When you move out of theacademic world and you work a
regular marketing job, nobodyasks you to be original.
Unless, you know,you are in that job.
You, you know, you just do yourjob and you do the best you can.
Jesse Butts (35:41):
And at what point did you strike out on your own
and start your own company?
What was the, themotivation for that?
Laura Stef (35:49):
The pandemic really.
I, I lost my job.
And my mom was dying at thatpoint and, it kind of, my
daughters were struggling.
You know, my, myhusband lost that job.
It was a terrible year.
And it makes you kind of...
situations like this kind ofmake you think where you wanna
(36:11):
go and what you wanna do.
So, one, I startedit out of necessity.
You know, I started thinkingabout it and researching,
researching it in the pandemicwhen I was unemployed going
through like tens of interviewsand not getting a job.
But also it's alwaysbeen my dream.
And I was like, maybe this isthe time because I actually
(36:34):
had to support my family a lot.
I had to provide emotionalsupport, as well as my
daughters went fully online.
And since we are an academicfamily, and my husband has
a PhD and I have a PhD, weactually tag teamed and,
and took over entirely thechildren's education because
online learning was deficientand we couldn't allow our
(36:56):
children to fall behind.
And so, you know, I tookover all the humanities
and social sciences, andhe took over the math.
And, you know, we are talkingcalculus here cause our
daughter was already theoldest at the calculus level.
So, you know, we were,I was looking for jobs.
He was working a fulltime job and we were
(37:17):
basically homeschoolingour children as well.
And I started it with theidea that I should try it.
And you know, my husband'svery entrepreneurial as well.
He has an MBA on top of hisPhD in entrepreneurship.
He went and gotan MBA from Booth.
Yeah, three quarters ofour marriage was spent
(37:37):
in graduate school.
And we tag team in terms oflike brainstorming and not being
afraid to take risks in life.
So I started it, I startedresearching it and then I
fully incorporate in thepandemic and then I fully
incorporated last year.
And I enjoy the freedomwith coming, that comes
with being your own boss.
(37:59):
Honestly, in the academicworld, you have that freedom.
And I always loved that.
And to be independent.
To do whatever I pleased.
And I gave it up temporarilybecause when you get a regular
job, that's the first thingthat you have to prove to your
first employer and beyond.
That you can be part of ateam, take orders, execute,
(38:21):
and not just like annoyeveryone with your questions
and your attitude, right.
Attitude is a thing.
You have to be a good team fit.
And the truth is thecorporate game i s hard.
And to be honest, that kind ofgame also exist in the academic
world, which means, you know,understanding and obeying
(38:42):
corporate hierarchy, takingorders from your boss, executing
often without questioning why.
Your boss doesn't always wannahear, Why do I have to do this?
They just want you todo it and just do it.
Guessing, assessing,and following the many
unstated corporate rules.
(39:02):
Tolerating group think, whichis really hard for a, for a
graduate student and the PhD.
Oh, we're just doing thisbecause everyone's doing this.
Well, why really?
So I will be honest,the first years I had a
little bit of trouble.
Because I, I, I would likeask too many questions and
people would take that as,um, you know that I was
(39:23):
being antagonistic and wastrying to be confrontational.
I really wasn't.
I was, that was, this isthe academic environment.
You ask questions.
Sometimes you playdevil's advocate.
It's all to the purposeof making the work better.
But really that is notwhat works in corporate.
So I had to really learn to shutup, ask questions at the right
time, observe more, you know,kind of try to get the feeling
(39:47):
for the corporate culture.
I had never thoughtabout that before.
It's very real.
And all of this, when you haveyour own business, is, is not
as much there, but it is inthe background because the best
clients come from connections.
Networking is everything.
And indeed, I get my workmostly through word of mouth
(40:09):
from people that I worked withduring the past 10 years, that
know me, they know the qualityof the work that I can do and
they appreciate me for that.
So it's not like I go online andanswer an ad for freelance work.
That pays very low andit's, it's not the way
to build an agency.
Jesse Butts (40:28):
For you personally, do you need to love a job?
Laura Stef-Praun (40:32):
That's, that's a fabulous question.
So yes and no, you, you know.
When you think about that,let's, let's take a step
back and maybe talk a littlebit about what you read in a
lot of career advice books.
You know, calling the ideaof having a calling versus
having a career, right.
(40:53):
And, and many peoplesay, and, I'm thinking
about my, my daughter'shigh school counselor.
They do all these assessmentsto figure out your, your
career, and they kind of pushthis idea on people that your
calling has to be your career.
And that is very much truein the academic world, right.
(41:17):
If you love art, be an artist,just go for it because you
have to love what you do.
Yes and no, not really.
I listened to an amazingcoach at one time and what
she said really spoke to me.
She said, In fact, actually,people have many skills,
(41:38):
interests, and the possibilityof following several careers.
And if you think of mymom's story as a polymath
and multipotentialite,that is so true.
And that is so truefor my entire family.
And that's what I tell now,my 18 year old daughter who is
going to Purdue into mechanicalengineering this fall.
(42:00):
And I'm very proud of her.
But she's as well followingin the footsteps of the
family, a multipotentialite.
She could have gone fora degree in creative
writing, for instance.
Point is, figure out severalpotential career paths
and just sequence them.
That's what I do.
(42:21):
My first career, my firstlove, my first life, was a
calling for me, teaching andfollowing this academic path.
That was the thing.
I followed what I loved.
My mom would haveliked me to become an
engineer, but she gave up.
And then what happens, right?
What, what happens if youfollow your calling as a
(42:42):
career and then somethinghappens and that goes away?
You just have to have planB and C and D, and that's
what that coach said.
And it really spoke to me.
So, you know, at this point.
Work is work.
Life is life.
You know, it would've beengreat to become a professor.
I didn't, that's totally fine.
(43:03):
Something really spoke tome, and I wanna share it.
When I attended the MLAconference, during my PhD,
it's the Modern LanguageAssociation conference.
It's the largest conferencefor humanities in the field.
And I attended this panel thatwas called Labor of Love and was
really a panel about adjuncts.
(43:25):
And so the panel was talkingabout all these PhDs waiting
for the tenure track unicornposition and adjuncting in the
meantime, and hoping that forinstance, if the university
they were adjuncting athad a tenure track opening,
they would get a leg up.
They would get first pick forthat tenure track position.
(43:46):
And the panel was so surprisingto me because they were basic,
there were three people.
I remember them even though now,and they changed my life really.
They revealed the fact that,Actually, the university will
go shopping somewhere else.
If you're already workingfor them as an adjunct,
they have you already.
And they think that theycan do better, find a better
(44:06):
person for their tenuretrack to become a professor.
So they were literallytalking about how this
becomes a labor of love,where you're poorly paid.
You don't get outof it anything.
You don't even getthat tenure track.
So you're, you're doing it forlove for the love of teaching,
for the love of students, forthe love of the academic life.
You're basically justlying to yourself, I think.
(44:28):
So I decided then and there,One, I would never adjunct.
Ever.
And that influenced the choicesthat I made, the career choices.
So I wanna talk, go back to thisidea of labor of love, and I
wanna unpack that a little bit.
First, labor should beremunerated and paid,
(44:50):
ideally well paid,not bare minimum wage.
You can still enjoyit, but labor is labor.
It should, it shouldget remuneration.
Love, you should reservethat for hobbies, past times.
And, you can pay for yourquote unquote loves with the
money gamed from your labor.
(45:11):
So, with that in mind, Ifully decided to choose a
career that would meet afinancial threshold, meet my
financial needs, and also,allow me to have some time
to pursue my other passions.
I think this is somethingthat graduate students really
have to consider because themajority of the ones that I've
(45:32):
talked to are really set onthis idea that work really
has to be what you love.
And I, I, I beg us all tokind of, , just reconsider
that and unpack that.
Jesse Butts (45:44):
Earlier you were talking about,
There's always more thatyou could be doing for your
dissertation or the research.
And your coaches helped youcompartmentalize a lot of that
so that you could focus andget the dissertation done.
And I'm curious now thatyou're, you've been
(46:06):
out of academia for alittle over 10 years.
How would you describe yourrelationship to work now?
How large of a role doesyour work play in your life?
Laura Stef-Praun (46:18):
Work...
define work.
You know, paid work?
Jesse Butts (46:23):
Yeah, let's stick with paid work.
Laura Stef-Praun (46:25):
Right?
I love to work alimited number of hours.
And my goal ever since Igraduated was to work a
certain amount of hours aweek, my ideal is 30 hours, and
reach a financial threshold.
Now, sometimes that works.
Sometimes that doesn't.
Following the corporatepath, you know, the corporate
(46:47):
hierarchy and make itto the director level.
And there were jobs that I,where I worked 60 hours a week.
Now that for meis unsustainable.
I don't want that becausethat doesn't, like you said,
then that doesn't live anyroom for, for living, right?
And I'm realistic.
(47:08):
I work to meet a financialthreshold and the role that work
has in my life, I enjoy work.
I want to work.
And if it's meaningfulwork all the better.
But I do also keep an open mind.
I honestly try to find somethingenjoyable in anything that I do.
And for me that meanslearning something new.
(47:30):
For instance, if I'mjust working on a really
basic webpage copy,that's not very exciting.
But maybe I can just learnmore about search engine
optimization for that page.
That's not somethingthat I'm an expert in.
So just for instance, tryingto optimize the page and
work with a team member orlike incorporate that or
(47:51):
make the page perform better.
That for me is interesting.
So it becomes enjoyable.
So if I learn something new,anything, for me that is a game.
And that's how I keepmyself and my mind active.
It's really a mindset.
If you are thinking, Well,I shouldn't be doing this
because I have a PhD.
Well then, you're in trouble.
(48:12):
You're not gonna enjoy it.
You're gonna be bored.
You're gonna feel like you'respending time doing things
that you shouldn't be doing.
But I always tryto find something.
And, you know, I enjoy aflexible schedule and, living
life in a different way.
And what I acquired workingwith my coach and on my
own afterward are amazingtime management skills.
(48:33):
So I can do the workanytime, anywhere.
I can do it fast.
I know how much timeit's gonna take me.
And then I dedicate my life tomy interests in my spare time.
And I, I, used to have verylimited time for a lot of
things when I was doing mydissertation and I was a mom.
Now I have muchmore time than that.
So it's amazing, you know.
(48:54):
I parent my two daughterswith love and passion.
And it's the same love andpassion that I would have
used if I had become a,a professor and teacher.
But I didn't, butI am one for them.
I'm present in their livesand I'm an involved parent.
And in this respect, I hopeI'm honoring my mother and
(49:15):
following in her footsteps.
You know, my mom used tosay that the best gift you
can give to your childrenis the gift of time.
Of being there, presentfor them, of having time
to just spend with them,not even doing something
special, just being there.
And when I worked those 60hour jobs, and you know,
I was traveling and ...no.
(49:36):
It was awful.
It made me, it made mefeel like I was missing the
best years of their life.
You know, I hope that I'm arole model and a mentor to them.
And I, my husband and Itogether, actually, we're
trying to model thatlife is unpredictable.
Change is unavoidable.
Life doesn't turn outthe way you hope it will.
(49:58):
Neither one of usbecame a professor.
But you should alwayskeep a zest for life and
the passion for learning,which is really our, our
culture and our background.
And my current work arrangementsallow me to homeschool my
youngest daughter part-time.
We started doing thatduring the pandemic.
And you ask me what my businessbrings, that's what it brings.
(50:21):
I have continued and Iwill probably continue.
So I'm tailoring reallyunique curricula and
learning opportunities forher, just like I would have
created amazing classes formy undergraduate student.
She's my undergraduatestudent of one, and she's 13.
I read extensively on thingsthat interest me and that I
(50:42):
love, marketing research, allsorts of marketing aspects.
I'm very passionate aboutpositive psychology.
I can read any kindof literature that
strikes my fancy.
You know, for years and yearsand years, I only read the stuff
of the 19th century because Iwas writing my dissertation.
I didn't have time toread anything else.
I keep up with my French.
(51:03):
I've watched all the Frenchmovies, probably, that came
out for the past decade.
I didn't have time to watcheven one during my PhD.
You know, I practice yoga.
I'm considering gettinga yoga certification.
I keep building my business.
I wanna certify as acoach, so slowly but surely
I'm, I'm keeping up withthe coaching training.
(51:24):
And I'm planning mynext career move.
Like I told you, you haveto have something else.
What am I gonna do when I'm 60?
So, I wanna write a novel,probably, when I retire.
And once my daughtersgo to college, I plan
to return to live inEurope and work remotely.
That's where my business,hopefully by that time, will
have picked up even more.
(51:46):
And I dream to live in variouscountries, one year at a time.
With my husband, we canboth work remotely until
I get bored and tiredand I wanna settle down.
So one year in France, one yearin Italy, one year in Spain,
one year in Greece, one yearin the Netherlands, why not?
I think the sky's the limit.
All we need is health.
Jesse Butts (52:05):
I think that's a really great,
aspirational note to end on.
Thank you so much for this,this interview, Laura.
It was really atreat talking to you.
Laura Stef-Praun (52:14):
Oh, Jesse.
Thank you so much for having me.
It was a pleasure.
Hey everyone.
Thanks for joining mefor another episode.
I'm your host, Jesse Butts.
Today, I'm chatting with LauraStef-Praun, a PhD in Victorian
literature, with a focus onthe history of disability
in the 19th century, fromthe University of Chicago.
Laura now has turnedinto a content marketing
(00:43):
strategist and ghost writer.
She owns her own small agency,Sharp Storylines, and she
also offers career coachingfor grad students, interested
in transitioning to jobsoutside of the academic world.
Laura, welcome to the show.
Thanks for joining me.
Laura Stef-Praun (01:00):
Thank you so much, Jesse, for having me.
I'm so excited to be here.
Jesse Butts (01:04):
So glad you could make it.
So Laura, before we chat aboutyour move from that PhD in
Victorian British literatureto content marketing strategy,
can you first just tell us alittle bit about what you do?
What exactly is contentmarketing strategy?
Laura Stef-Pra (01:22):
Yeah, of course.
I'd love to talk aboutcontent marketing.
I like to talk aboutcontent marketing in
general, not just strategy.
And so maybe we start there.
Content marketing is a typeof marketing that is focused
on creating, publishing andpromoting digital content
for a targeted audience.
It can take many forms,such as articles, blogs,
(01:45):
podcasts, video, you name it.
But the important part is toreach and engage your audience.
Engagement is really key,because successful content
marketing speaks to aspecific audience ,and it's
very different from academicwriting in that respect.
When you write your dissertationor any kind of paper, you do
(02:06):
have an audience, but you don'tcare so much what they think.
You're also writing for yourown purposes and to display your
research and your expertise.
Content marketing isthe opposite of that.
Right?
So basically you want peopleto read your stuff, share it,
promote it, stay on the page.
That's one of the very importantmetrics for content marketing.
(02:27):
So there are three sides youneed to think of when you
think about content marketing.
There's content creation,one, which is the actual
writing, editing, recording,filming, you name it.
This podcast iscontent creation.
We're doing that rightnow, creating content.
Then there's the contentoptimization, which
really thinks about, Okay,now I have the content,
(02:49):
what do I do with it?
How do I measurehow it performs?
How do I improve it?
How do I make more peopleread my stuff, basically.
And of course I left thebest for last, but it
should always come first.
It's the content strategyitself, which is the planning
before you wanna start creatinganything, you really wanna
(03:09):
think about why you're doingit, plan it, do the preliminary
work, know everything youcan about your audience, your
competition, your market,what you're selling, the
topics that you create contenton, what are the best media
to promote that content?
Where is your audience?
What channel, whatdo they engage in?
(03:31):
Are they on Facebook,Instagram, LinkedIn, whatever.
You wanna put the content wherepeople will find it and read it.
And you wanna constantlythink about that.
So that's content strategy.
So, you know, my day to dayis actually nowadays mostly
spent on creating content.
So content development.
And what I do is I focuson thought leadership.
(03:55):
And what that really meansis creating some form of
content based on research.
And I am a ghost writer.
So that also means thatI sell my brain power
and let other people puttheir name on my work.
And that's fine with me.
As long as they pay me,that works fine for me.
So I create a lot ofcontent for other people,
(04:17):
and that's what I do.
And then they contribute to it.
I often interview them.
They have their own expertise,but I put it together.
I create it, I package it,I give it back to them.
They put their name on it.
Jesse Butts (04:30):
For Sharp Storylines, your, your
agency, what's that componentof your business like?
Laura Stef-Praun (04:38):
Yeah, Sharp Storylines is my new
project and baby and agency.
I started it in the,during the pandemic.
So, , it's an umbrella formy multifaceted interests.
My long term plan is to buildit into a full service agency.
But at this point, I servemy clients as an independent
(05:00):
marketer and freelancer.
And I offer services thatare primarily focused on
content marketing packages.
Again, with the focus onthat thought leadership,
which to recall for ourlisteners is content based
on some form of research.
Because I feel that that'swhere my skills, the ones
(05:21):
that I acquired during my PhDreally differentiate myself.
So at this point, I can offerdifferent kind of services.
I can, you can hire me forcontent strategy, right, to
think about the content thatyou need, why you need it,
how do you create it best.
You can hire me for contentdevelopment, as I just
explained where you comewith the topic and an expert.
(05:42):
I interview them, Icreate content for them.
Or I can just serve as aconsultant for your team.
I can advise, I can train you.
I offer career coaching forgraduate students, or any
kind of young professionalthat wants to break into
content marketing basically.
And my expertise of course,is advising on this transition
(06:03):
from the academic world tothe corporate world, to the
content marketing world.
You know, I even taught a classfor graduate students at the
University of Chicago lastspring on content marketing and
what it takes to understand thefield, to break into the field.
And I'll do it again ifgiven the opportunity.
Coaching is, is really somethingthat I'm very passionate about.
Jesse Butts (06:26):
So Laura, now that we have a really
great understanding of, ofwhat you're doing now, I'm
wondering if we can dive intothe backstory a little bit.
So where I like to, to startwith that type of thing is
that I, I know that you,you have a PhD, obviously
we mentioned that earlier.
But I also know that youhave an MA, and I'm kind of
curious what prompted thatfirst venture into grad school?
(06:47):
Why did you decide thatyou wanted to go beyond
undergrad in academic work?
Laura Stef-Praun (06:54):
That's a, that's an amazing question.
I, I think we have to takea step even further back.
I have a very unusualstory, I think.
It's, it's really astory of love, love and
passion for literatureand foreign languages.
I'm, I'm fluent in Romanian,English, French, And it
(07:16):
starts in Romania, which ismy, my basic, my homeland.
And I was born and raisedand lived in Romania
until the age of 21.
So I spent half my life atthis point in Romania and half
my life in the United States.
And it all started withmy mom and my family.
It's it's interesting.
I come from afamily of engineers.
(07:38):
My mom was in electricalengineering, and my dad
was a civil engineer, sovery folks, very focused
on the sciences on math.
And yet they allowed meto follow my passion for
the humanities and theywere two very loving
and supporting parents.
And my mom was my greatest fan.
She has always been.
She used to say that she waswaiting for me to become the
(08:00):
next Harry Potter author.
I don't do creative writing,but she's always applauded
me and helped me on and on.
So she shaped my life and Iowe her, owe her everything.
And unfortunately shepassed away last January
during the pandemic.
Yes, it was, itwas an awful time.
(08:21):
I miss her every day.
She was a visionaryand my beacon.
Imagine this lady living incommunist Romania, borders
closed, but she came froma super highly educated
family that absolutely lovedlearning with generations
of women that were educatedand went to college.
(08:44):
Actually, my on my mother'sside, my great-grandmother
who lived with us until I was14, so I actually got to know
her, she was born in 1901, andshe had a law school degree.
So, I, I feel that I, I havethe obligation and the honor
to follow in the footsteps ofall the women in my family.
(09:06):
My grandmother, my mother'smother, she had two
undergraduate degrees that shegot right after World War II.
One was in social workand one was in law.
In Romania, law is anundergraduate degree.
You go straight into lawschool from high school.
And this grandmother spenther entire career teaching
(09:27):
in a deaf and mute school.
And her passion wasteaching, and she passed
on this passion and herpedagogical skills to her
daughters, my mom and my aunt.
So I, I kind of grew upwith, in that environment.
My mom was, wastutoring and teaching.
She was an amazing mentor.
She had her own smalltutoring business.
(09:48):
I started working with her andtutoring English when I was 14.
She, she really was a polymathand the multipotentialite.
She, she was amazing,inspirational and
my life mentor.
And she tutored me from day oneto the day I left for college.
(10:08):
When she finally gaveup, she was like, Okay, I
guess you're really goingto pursue humanities path.
Fly free.
But you know, I wentall the way to calculus.
So , I could have takena different path as well.
She made sure of that.
She, she was quite a force.
And she influenced our life.
You know, she lovedliterature, art, the opera.
(10:29):
And she passed thatpassion on to myself.
And because she was,as I said, a visionary.
The borders were closedfor 40 years in Romania, so
nobody could exit or enter thecountry, just like the other
countries in the communist bloc.
And yet, when we weregrowing up, we were
studying English and French.
(10:49):
And oftentimes our, her friendswould be like, Why are you,
why are, why what's the point?
But she hoped that one day theborders would open and that,
that would serve us well.
And, indeed, it did.
The communist regime fell in1989 across the entire Eastern
Europe and the borders opened.
(11:10):
And my brother and I gotscholarships abroad at that
point and left the country.
I got a PhD from the Universityof Chicago with an undergraduate
degree from Trent UniversityCanada, where I also spent a
year abroad in Nantes, France,and I got a full ride as well.
So I have a, a lot of degreesand a lot of years in school.
(11:35):
I love, I love being in school.
And I loved being in school.
I'm a professional student.
I call myself aprofessional student.
You know, I have three degrees,six years of undergraduate
education in Romania,Canada, and France at four
different universities.
I have a two years master'sdegree from Purdue University,
again in English literatureand the PhD from the University
(11:58):
of Chicago, which took meseven years to complete.
And at the Universityof Chicago, I was the
third to graduate in acohort of 19 students.
So to answer your question,what prompted me to enroll
in graduate school aftergetting an undergraduate?
Absolutely everything.
I am a professional student.
(12:18):
I have a love relationshipwith learning, with
literature, with reading,with writing, with teaching...
that was the way to go.
So, I loved all the yearsthat I spent in school
really, especially myyears at Trent University
in Ontario, Canada and inNantes, France were probably
the best years of my life.
(12:39):
I traveled, I studied, Ivisited all these amazing
libraries, looked at rarecollection books, artifacts,
and I had no obligations.
I was single and free.
I had the small scholarship,but to me that was treasure.
And I managed to manage myfinances very well because I
(13:01):
came from communist Romania,where my parents were
literally earning $500 a year.
$500 a year.
So, that's kind of my story.
That's how I end up at Purdue.
And they made me after myundergraduate a great offer.
It was a great school andI loved my time there.
Jesse Butts (13:24):
Did you intend to be a professor?
Or was it kind of a, I, I justwanna study what I love and
I'll figure out what happenswork wise after I graduate?
What was your mindset like,especially as you were
nearing the end of your PhD?
Laura Stef-Praun (13:40):
Yeah.
You know, it was interesting.
So, when I went to Purdue, I hadthese two amazing professors.
They were an academiccouple and they were my
mentors and advisors.
Their names are DinoFelluga and Emily Allen.
They're still at Purdue.
They're amazing.
And, you know, I, Iwas inspired by them.
(14:01):
Their classes were magic,so, so I took everything
they could offer.
I, I chose to write a, amaster's thesis with Dino.
He was my thesisadvisor at Purdue.
And really everyone encouragedme to go and on and on
from Trent to Purdue tothe University of Chicago.
(14:22):
You know, all my professorstold me, Go on, get a PhD,
be a professor, be like me.
Right.
I was so good.
I was the professional student.
I was aceing this academic life.
And basically nobody toldme to think about money.
Look at the job market.
You know, nobody toldme that the academic
(14:42):
profession was dying.
Maybe they didn't evenknow it themselves.
Emily and Dino were theonly ones that kind of
tried to bring this up.
They were coming up for tenure.
But you know, they didn't wannabe the ones stopping anyone
from trying either, right.
So, so basically what I'mtrying to say is I went into
the PhD program out of love.
(15:02):
And then I discovered that itwas kind of like bungee jumping.
And I hate heights.
I, I would never bungee jump.
Okay.
That's my oldest daughter.
She's the crazy one.
I am cautious and I like myfeet firmly on the ground.
So, there were no jobswhen I graduated from
my PhD program in 2010.
(15:24):
And we were plungedin a recession.
And by that time Ialso had a family.
I had two little kids.
And, I, you know, didn'tthink that a commuter
marriage would work for me.
I saw many of my peers andprofessors doing postdocs and
looking for tenure track, whiledoing a commuter marriage.
(15:46):
You know, I had professorsat the University of Chicago
that I saw doing that.
I decided up frontthat it wasn't for me.
I kind of started thinkingabout that at the three
year mark in my PhD program.
Jesse Butts (15:59):
Three of seven, did you say originally?
Laura Stef-Praun (16:02):
Seven.
Right.
So about the end of, ofmy third year, I figured
out, I, I kind of realized,Okay, I've dreamt enough.
And I don't think it'sgonna happen just because I
can't sacrifice this much.
You know, at that timeI only had one daughter.
I really wanted tohave a second child.
It would have, it would havemeant making completely
(16:24):
different life choices.
And so, I tried to recalibrate.
And it took me quite a, Ithink it took me about a year
just to do a little bit ofsoul searching and figure
out how I wanted to continue.
Did I wanna finish?
Did I wanna stop?
And I started thinkingreally at that point,
just like big picture.
(16:45):
It's very hard.
There's a grieving process whenyou start realizing that, you
know, this goal, this dream thatyou've been working for for so
many years, at that point, Iwas fully convinced up to that
point that I was gonna make it.
It takes you a while tokind of shift your mindset.
So I started slow.
First and foremost, I hadto get used to the idea and
(17:08):
convince myself that, youknow, it's time to cut costs.
In economics, there's this,this concept sunken costs.
It means that at one point inbusiness, if you've invested,
invested, even though if, ifyou're gonna lose, you have
to do it then rather thancontinue and keep losing more.
I was gonna take basicallythe PhD as a sunken cost.
(17:29):
But I did keep an open mind.
So first of all, I startedgetting part-time jobs in
administration because I,all of a sudden I realized
that even though I had beenteaching since I was 14 and
I adored teaching, teachingexperience would only get me
teaching jobs beyond my PhD.
So I started working inadministration part-time at
(17:50):
the University of Chicago.
You know, I also, held ajob in the writing center
at Purdue, which was ateaching job, really.
It was part of my teachingassistantship, but it was
different than just beingin a classroom and teaching.
So.
I leveraged that alittle bit as well.
I trolled the careerservices center.
I became their best friend thereat Purdue, not at Purdue, at the
(18:15):
University of Chicago, and thenI actually worked for the career
services center part-time.
I started reading any booksI could find on transitioning
outside of the academic world.
I joined forums anddiscussion groups.
In particular, The VersatilePhD, which at that point
was founded and belonged toa PhD who had transitioned
out of the academic world.
(18:35):
Now she sold it, soit belongs to a higher
education consortium.
But it still exists.
And another fellow PhD momtold me about MentorCoach.
And in particular all butdissertation coaching.
So at that point I wasreally thinking, am I
gonna finish or not finish?
What do I do?
Realistically, finishingfor a job would not have got
(18:58):
me much more than I alreadyhad basically in terms of
qualifications or experience.
So, , I found MentorCoach,and MentorCoach is a group
of academic life coaches.
Most of them also haveclinical psychology PhDs.
So it's very researchfocused, very research based.
And I found a coach throughMentorCoach, and I started
(19:19):
working with that coach toestablish my life goals,
to work on finishing adissertation in record time.
Because at that point I waslike, Okay, how many more
years can I put into this?
I need to really be focusedand on point on time.
And I also started takingclasses later on to
train as a coach myself.
(19:40):
So.
That was kind of a process.
So once I, everythingkind of fell into place
and I had a plan, then Imoved on at record speed.
I actually got one of thethree dissertation year
fellowships in the department.
I set the dates.
I pushed my committee toreturn my chapters on time.
(20:02):
I actually reshuffledmy committee.
I was like, go, go, go.
And I did finish because,you know, I wanted
to be done by 2010.
Both my husband and I, myhusband has a PhD from
the, from Purdue Universityin computer science.
At that point he wasworking as a researcher,
(20:23):
an academic researcher atthe University of Chicago.
So in 2010, he left theresearch academic world
and moved to corporate.
And I graduated with my PhDand also started the journey
towards corporate life and lifeoutside the academic world.
Jesse Butts (20:41):
So Laura, I'm a little curious about
that coaching process.
What are the things that thecoaches did for you that, that
would've been hard for youto suss out and, and come
up with a plan on your own?
Laura Stef-Praun (20:54):
Coaching really changed my life.
That's, that's thetruth of the matter.
And it's a great questionbecause a lot of people
think, well, what isreally coaching are, what
are they doing for you?
Are they even when you tellpeople, Well, you know, I have
a dissertation writing coach.
They're like, Are theydoing the writing for you?
That's plagiarism.
(21:15):
No, not really.
So coaches are not thereto do anything for you.
A coach is really a soundingboard and the coach asks
you three questions.
What are you gonna do?
How are you gonna do it?
And how am I to know?
These are like threetypical coaching questions
(21:36):
for a, a coaching session.
And then you really apply themto what you're trying to do.
I was, for instance, strugglingto write a dissertation with,
first, one young child, andthen a second one and a spouse
(21:56):
who was also a researcherand in the academic world.
And, , it, it's all abouttrying to figure out
one, What are your goals?
What are your negotiables?
What can you let go?
And what are thenon-negotiables?
What, you know,you cannot let go.
So it's very hard to figureout all this on your own.
(22:20):
When you have a conversationwith your coach, it's like
talking therapy, but theydon't really do therapy.
It's more like career focused,life focused, goal focused.
So I'll give you an example.
When you are in the academicworld, your committee, your
peers, everyone's biased.
They think that the dissertationis the only thing that
(22:42):
is consuming your life.
And it is.
You don't wanna know howmany Saturdays and Sundays
I spent in exactly threehour chunks at the library
while my husband was liketaking the kids to the park.
And when you're a mom andwriting a dissertation, it's
not like you can hang out atthe library the whole day.
No, no, no, no, no, no.
You have from nine to12, because then there's
(23:04):
dinner and nap time.
And so you better freakingget your act together and
write in those three hourscause you don't have more.
So, time management wasanother thing that I worked on
with my coach, for instance.
When I started coaching,I felt like I was sinking.
There were not enoughhours in the day.
I couldn't get everythingI had to do done.
The research wasinfinite, right.
(23:25):
And You feel like youhave to cover it all.
Obviously in order to beable to finish, you have
to put a limit, you have tosay, Okay this is enough.
I'm gonna startwriting, moving on.
Coaching is really havingsomebody who's not biased
and helping you move towardsthat goal and validate the
fact that that goal is okay.
(23:46):
So the coach will be someonewho will be able to tell you,
Okay, you've spent two yearson researching this thing.
There's no way you are evergonna cover everything that's
being said on this topic inthe field so you can be able
to put your hand on yourheart and be like, Yeah,
yeah, I covered everything.
It's impossible.
(24:06):
So at this point you justhave to accept that done is
better than nothing and moveon, write the thing, you know,
defend it, submit it, move on.
And that's what I did.
And I actually didn'teven get comments.
I was able to file orsubmit and graduate.
Jesse Butts (24:23):
At this point, I mean, you
you've had that coaching.
You've finishedyour dissertation.
You talked a littlebit about goal setting.
Did you have a goal ofworking in marketing?
What was the gap for lackof a better term between
finishing your PhD and landingin your first marketing
or content marketing role?
Laura Stef-Praun (24:41):
Yeah, that's a great question.
I did consider marketingupfront because I was
exploring various careers thatI could have where I could
use my transferable skills.
And when you're in graduateschool and you go to
the career center, , youhear this term a lot, you
know, transferable skills.
But when you actually go inan interview, nobody cares
(25:02):
about your transferable skills.
What basically, basicallywhat that means is, What can
you do that can translateto a different industry,
a different profession?
In my case, I could teach.
I could write.
I could research.
I could analyze complex topics.
I could synthesize.
And I could present.
(25:23):
So, I wanted to gostraight into marketing.
And I looked at that and Ifigured out that I would be
really interested in marketingresearch for instance.
However, I didn't have theanalytical skills for that.
You really needstatistics and...
the social sciences are bettersuited to transition straight
into that than humanities.
So I'll be honest with theliterature PhD, it's very
(25:46):
hard to go into an industry.
So because of that, I could notbreak straight into marketing
from my academic world.
My first job was in nonprofitbecause I got a job on campus
working for the office ofinternational students.
I wrote some grant proposalsfor them to get funding, so
(26:09):
that kind of part-time workingadministration helped me out
because I had stories that Icould tell in an interview.
And higher educationis nonprofit.
So the transitionwas much easier.
Looking retroactively,I realized that I got my
first job with a smallnonprofit because nonprofits,
especially small ones, theydon't have HR departments.
(26:32):
The truth of the matter isthat a marketing department
for any firm, even a smallfirm, but mid-size, or a
large firm, they, they willhave an HR department, and a
non-traditional resume of a PhDor graduate student, whether
you are MA or ABD, all butdissertation, doesn't matter.
(26:52):
You're not gonna make it pastthat first kind of screening.
And, you know, your resumewill go straight to the reject
pile for various reasons.
And so, I was lucky.
The person who read myresume when I applied, who
interviewed me was my boss.
So really she was a oneperson show and she gave me a
chance and, I did very well.
(27:13):
I managed their grant portfolio.
And I stayed in the nonprofitworld, worked for two small
nonprofits for three years.
And then I kept like thinking,Okay, this is interesting.
I'm somebody who alwaysapproaches something
from a 360 point of view.
So I was managing a grantportfolio, manager for
institutional giving.
So what that means reallyis that you write all
(27:35):
sort of grants for thenonprofit to get money from
foundations, governmentinstitutions, and corporations.
And so I noticed thatthe corporations were
the ones giving the leastmoney to nonprofits.
And I always wanted tounderstand, because I spent
so many years in, in school, Iwas like, I gotta have a better
(27:57):
idea about this money thing.
How does it work?
What motivates people to give?
How do people use it?
So, you know, I volunteeredanytime I could.
And part of my role there wasactually to work with accounting
department and fill out allsorts of financials for the
grant that I was submitting.
(28:18):
Because you have to doreporting, you have to justify
how the money is spent.
So that was a reallygreat experience for me.
I had never had to dealwith money and budgets and
things like that before.
So I learned everything I could.
And, I wanted after threeyears to move to corporate.
I was like, I really gottaunderstand corporate thinking.
(28:38):
And I transitioned becauseI was lucky to land a
job in sales enablement,really proposal writing.
So writing grants andwriting proposals, I
thought was pretty similar.
And it was different, butkind of the same idea.
And I was hired by GrantThornton's non-profit practice.
Thornton is an audittax and consulting firm.
(29:01):
They sell services.
And I found a job onmonster.com, but I didn't
just make it past HR.
As I mentioned, I alsoidentified the friend who worked
at Grant Thornton and I senther my resume and I said, Hey,
please look for the hiringmanager and give her my resume.
And that's, that's how Iactually landed the interview.
(29:24):
And, the rest is history.
They hired me.
And once I wasthere, I didn't stop.
I kind of thought, Okay, I'mdoing sales enablement now,
as I mentioned, that was okay.
It was interesting.
I learned a whole bunchof other new things, like
creating really highly designedsales proposals in Wo rd
and working in PowerPoint.
(29:45):
I worked with design for thefirst time at that point.
Super interesting people,super fascinating stuff.
I kind of gotinterested in that.
I was like, Oh, it's not onlyabout putting words on the page.
It's also about howyou present them.
There's an art to that.
So I started reading really onchannels for marketing, media
and audience engagement, right.
(30:06):
And at the same time, I figuredout that I moved, I wanted to
move towards content marketing.
So I identified the peoplewho worked in that respect
at Grant Thornton, becauseI was already there.
I, I networked internally.
I made sure I met the people.
I talked to the hiringmanager in the kitchen,
and I patiently waited for,waited for a job opening.
(30:29):
And when it came,I made my move.
And I moved laterally.
And that's when I startedworking on thought leadership.
So on this content, researchbased content for the first
time, and I knew I was home.
I knew I found my nichewith my research skills
and my background.
I was like, Yep, thisis what I can do.
(30:50):
I mostly spent time developingcontent at Grant Thornton.
I also kind of startedthinking about the strategy
aspect, even though thatwas not part of my job.
So I started reading,attending conferences, events.
I volunteered whenever Icould to do extra stuff,
just to kind of dabble inwhat the strategy part was.
And the rest is history.
It was a serendipitous waythat didn't go straight
(31:15):
in, in a straight line tomarketing, because I think
it's very hard with an Englishdegree to go straight for
that from the academic world.
Jesse Butts (31:23):
One, one question for you.
You've mentioned readingand, and, and learning.
And I have to admit thatthat's been helpful for
me as well, but I was alittle resistant at first.
You know, so many businessbooks in my experience, whether
they're business in generalor specific to marketing,
they're poorly written or,you know, they're 250 pages
(31:45):
when they could be 30.
And it took me a whileto get over that.
And my mindset shift waskind of like, I just need
to absorb this information.
This isn't readingreading for me.
This is just aboutmeeting that end goal.
Did you have to go throughanything similar like that?
Or were you pretty opento that from the get go?
Laura Stef-Praun (32:04):
Yes, I agree with you, right?
So coming, especially with anacademic background, I have
a very critical thorough lens.
So, the one thing that I learnedwhen I started doing this job,
content marketing, is that as Imentioned, packaging, and really
caring about your audience aseven as human beings, right?
(32:27):
Who wants to sit thereand read a hundred and
30 page thing, right.
So it's almost, creatinggreat content, it's almost
a matter of respect.
Say what you have to sayin the fastest way possible
in the most efficient waypossible and in the most
engaging and aestheticallypleasing way possible.
(32:49):
So I really kind of zoomed inthroughout the years on that.
And I take pride in saying thatthe content that I create has
meaning, has depth, but it alsotries not to encroach on the
reader's time and patience.
Right?
However, coming fromthe academic world, for
(33:11):
me, it was the hardestto lower my expectations
of what could be done.
And, you know, that's,that's one of the questions
actually that shows upa lot in job interviews.
You know, people ask, used toask me, hopefully they don't
ask me anymore now that it,because it's been a while,
but they would say, Oh, in theacademic world, you have all
(33:32):
the time in the world, right?
You have seven years towrite the dissertation.
Well, here we need to,you know, get an article
done in two weeks.
How are you gonna handle thatkind of time, time pressure?
Well, the answer is you kindof have to get yourself into
the mindset that you have todo a job well done within the
constraints that you have.
(33:52):
And sometimes thoseconstraints may be that
you're not gonna get a perfectcontent asset out there.
You do what you can with theresources that you have within
the constraints that you have.
Sometimes you have to let it go.
Sometimes done isjust good enough.
And yes, ideally we would onlyput content out there that's
(34:16):
the highest quality that hasdepth, that says something,
that addresses the audiences,interests and pain points,
that offers a solution.
But hey, at the end of the day,all of us have to have a job.
And I had to kind of getmyself into that mindset.
I wasn't creating my life work.
(34:37):
And when you become a ghost inthat, you don't put your name
on stuff anymore, I found thatfreeing after the pressures
of the academic world, whereyou have to be original.
And I remember walking formy graduation ceremony.
And it's pretty impressive.
You know, you walk inthis beautiful chapel at
(35:00):
the University of Chicago.
And there are these loudspeakers that mention
all the graduates name.
But what struck me and stayedwith me was this echoing, a
repeated message that said,So and so is awarded this
diploma for an originalcontribution to the field.
And there's so much pressureto have that even slightly
(35:24):
original contribution.
When you move out of theacademic world and you work a
regular marketing job, nobodyasks you to be original.
Unless, you know,you are in that job.
You, you know, you just do yourjob and you do the best you can.
Jesse Butts (35:41):
And at what point did you strike out on your own
and start your own company?
What was the, themotivation for that?
Laura Stef (35:49):
The pandemic really.
I, I lost my job.
And my mom was dying at thatpoint and, it kind of, my
daughters were struggling.
You know, my, myhusband lost that job.
It was a terrible year.
And it makes you kind of...
situations like this kind ofmake you think where you wanna
(36:11):
go and what you wanna do.
So, one, I startedit out of necessity.
You know, I started thinkingabout it and researching,
researching it in the pandemicwhen I was unemployed going
through like tens of interviewsand not getting a job.
But also it's alwaysbeen my dream.
And I was like, maybe this isthe time because I actually
(36:34):
had to support my family a lot.
I had to provide emotionalsupport, as well as my
daughters went fully online.
And since we are an academicfamily, and my husband has
a PhD and I have a PhD, weactually tag teamed and,
and took over entirely thechildren's education because
online learning was deficientand we couldn't allow our
(36:56):
children to fall behind.
And so, you know, I tookover all the humanities
and social sciences, andhe took over the math.
And, you know, we are talkingcalculus here cause our
daughter was already theoldest at the calculus level.
So, you know, we were,I was looking for jobs.
He was working a fulltime job and we were
(37:17):
basically homeschoolingour children as well.
And I started it with theidea that I should try it.
And you know, my husband'svery entrepreneurial as well.
He has an MBA on top of hisPhD in entrepreneurship.
He went and gotan MBA from Booth.
Yeah, three quarters ofour marriage was spent
(37:37):
in graduate school.
And we tag team in terms oflike brainstorming and not being
afraid to take risks in life.
So I started it, I startedresearching it and then I
fully incorporate in thepandemic and then I fully
incorporated last year.
And I enjoy the freedomwith coming, that comes
with being your own boss.
(37:59):
Honestly, in the academicworld, you have that freedom.
And I always loved that.
And to be independent.
To do whatever I pleased.
And I gave it up temporarilybecause when you get a regular
job, that's the first thingthat you have to prove to your
first employer and beyond.
That you can be part of ateam, take orders, execute,
(38:21):
and not just like annoyeveryone with your questions
and your attitude, right.
Attitude is a thing.
You have to be a good team fit.
And the truth is thecorporate game i s hard.
And to be honest, that kind ofgame also exist in the academic
world, which means, you know,understanding and obeying
(38:42):
corporate hierarchy, takingorders from your boss, executing
often without questioning why.
Your boss doesn't always wannahear, Why do I have to do this?
They just want you todo it and just do it.
Guessing, assessing,and following the many
unstated corporate rules.
(39:02):
Tolerating group think, whichis really hard for a, for a
graduate student and the PhD.
Oh, we're just doing thisbecause everyone's doing this.
Well, why really?
So I will be honest,the first years I had a
little bit of trouble.
Because I, I, I would likeask too many questions and
people would take that as,um, you know that I was
(39:23):
being antagonistic and wastrying to be confrontational.
I really wasn't.
I was, that was, this isthe academic environment.
You ask questions.
Sometimes you playdevil's advocate.
It's all to the purposeof making the work better.
But really that is notwhat works in corporate.
So I had to really learn to shutup, ask questions at the right
time, observe more, you know,kind of try to get the feeling
(39:47):
for the corporate culture.
I had never thoughtabout that before.
It's very real.
And all of this, when you haveyour own business, is, is not
as much there, but it is inthe background because the best
clients come from connections.
Networking is everything.
And indeed, I get my workmostly through word of mouth
(40:09):
from people that I worked withduring the past 10 years, that
know me, they know the qualityof the work that I can do and
they appreciate me for that.
So it's not like I go online andanswer an ad for freelance work.
That pays very low andit's, it's not the way
to build an agency.
Jesse Butts (40:28):
For you personally, do you need to love a job?
Laura Stef-Praun (40:32):
That's, that's a fabulous question.
So yes and no, you, you know.
When you think about that,let's, let's take a step
back and maybe talk a littlebit about what you read in a
lot of career advice books.
You know, calling the ideaof having a calling versus
having a career, right.
(40:53):
And, and many peoplesay, and, I'm thinking
about my, my daughter'shigh school counselor.
They do all these assessmentsto figure out your, your
career, and they kind of pushthis idea on people that your
calling has to be your career.
And that is very much truein the academic world, right.
(41:17):
If you love art, be an artist,just go for it because you
have to love what you do.
Yes and no, not really.
I listened to an amazingcoach at one time and what
she said really spoke to me.
She said, In fact, actually,people have many skills,
(41:38):
interests, and the possibilityof following several careers.
And if you think of mymom's story as a polymath
and multipotentialite,that is so true.
And that is so truefor my entire family.
And that's what I tell now,my 18 year old daughter who is
going to Purdue into mechanicalengineering this fall.
(42:00):
And I'm very proud of her.
But she's as well followingin the footsteps of the
family, a multipotentialite.
She could have gone fora degree in creative
writing, for instance.
Point is, figure out severalpotential career paths
and just sequence them.
That's what I do.
(42:21):
My first career, my firstlove, my first life, was a
calling for me, teaching andfollowing this academic path.
That was the thing.
I followed what I loved.
My mom would haveliked me to become an
engineer, but she gave up.
And then what happens, right?
What, what happens if youfollow your calling as a
(42:42):
career and then somethinghappens and that goes away?
You just have to have planB and C and D, and that's
what that coach said.
And it really spoke to me.
So, you know, at this point.
Work is work.
Life is life.
You know, it would've beengreat to become a professor.
I didn't, that's totally fine.
(43:03):
Something really spoke tome, and I wanna share it.
When I attended the MLAconference, during my PhD,
it's the Modern LanguageAssociation conference.
It's the largest conferencefor humanities in the field.
And I attended this panel thatwas called Labor of Love and was
really a panel about adjuncts.
(43:25):
And so the panel was talkingabout all these PhDs waiting
for the tenure track unicornposition and adjuncting in the
meantime, and hoping that forinstance, if the university
they were adjuncting athad a tenure track opening,
they would get a leg up.
They would get first pick forthat tenure track position.
(43:46):
And the panel was so surprisingto me because they were basic,
there were three people.
I remember them even though now,and they changed my life really.
They revealed the fact that,Actually, the university will
go shopping somewhere else.
If you're already workingfor them as an adjunct,
they have you already.
And they think that theycan do better, find a better
(44:06):
person for their tenuretrack to become a professor.
So they were literallytalking about how this
becomes a labor of love,where you're poorly paid.
You don't get outof it anything.
You don't even getthat tenure track.
So you're, you're doing it forlove for the love of teaching,
for the love of students, forthe love of the academic life.
You're basically justlying to yourself, I think.
(44:28):
So I decided then and there,One, I would never adjunct.
Ever.
And that influenced the choicesthat I made, the career choices.
So I wanna talk, go back to thisidea of labor of love, and I
wanna unpack that a little bit.
First, labor should beremunerated and paid,
(44:50):
ideally well paid,not bare minimum wage.
You can still enjoyit, but labor is labor.
It should, it shouldget remuneration.
Love, you should reservethat for hobbies, past times.
And, you can pay for yourquote unquote loves with the
money gamed from your labor.
(45:11):
So, with that in mind, Ifully decided to choose a
career that would meet afinancial threshold, meet my
financial needs, and also,allow me to have some time
to pursue my other passions.
I think this is somethingthat graduate students really
have to consider because themajority of the ones that I've
(45:32):
talked to are really set onthis idea that work really
has to be what you love.
And I, I, I beg us all tokind of, , just reconsider
that and unpack that.
Jesse Butts (45:44):
Earlier you were talking about,
There's always more thatyou could be doing for your
dissertation or the research.
And your coaches helped youcompartmentalize a lot of that
so that you could focus andget the dissertation done.
And I'm curious now thatyou're, you've been
(46:06):
out of academia for alittle over 10 years.
How would you describe yourrelationship to work now?
How large of a role doesyour work play in your life?
Laura Stef-Praun (46:18):
Work...
define work.
You know, paid work?
Jesse Butts (46:23):
Yeah, let's stick with paid work.
Laura Stef-Praun (46:25):
Right?
I love to work alimited number of hours.
And my goal ever since Igraduated was to work a
certain amount of hours aweek, my ideal is 30 hours, and
reach a financial threshold.
Now, sometimes that works.
Sometimes that doesn't.
Following the corporatepath, you know, the corporate
(46:47):
hierarchy and make itto the director level.
And there were jobs that I,where I worked 60 hours a week.
Now that for meis unsustainable.
I don't want that becausethat doesn't, like you said,
then that doesn't live anyroom for, for living, right?
And I'm realistic.
(47:08):
I work to meet a financialthreshold and the role that work
has in my life, I enjoy work.
I want to work.
And if it's meaningfulwork all the better.
But I do also keep an open mind.
I honestly try to find somethingenjoyable in anything that I do.
And for me that meanslearning something new.
(47:30):
For instance, if I'mjust working on a really
basic webpage copy,that's not very exciting.
But maybe I can just learnmore about search engine
optimization for that page.
That's not somethingthat I'm an expert in.
So just for instance, tryingto optimize the page and
work with a team member orlike incorporate that or
(47:51):
make the page perform better.
That for me is interesting.
So it becomes enjoyable.
So if I learn something new,anything, for me that is a game.
And that's how I keepmyself and my mind active.
It's really a mindset.
If you are thinking, Well,I shouldn't be doing this
because I have a PhD.
Well then, you're in trouble.
(48:12):
You're not gonna enjoy it.
You're gonna be bored.
You're gonna feel like you'respending time doing things
that you shouldn't be doing.
But I always tryto find something.
And, you know, I enjoy aflexible schedule and, living
life in a different way.
And what I acquired workingwith my coach and on my
own afterward are amazingtime management skills.
(48:33):
So I can do the workanytime, anywhere.
I can do it fast.
I know how much timeit's gonna take me.
And then I dedicate my life tomy interests in my spare time.
And I, I, used to have verylimited time for a lot of
things when I was doing mydissertation and I was a mom.
Now I have muchmore time than that.
So it's amazing, you know.
(48:54):
I parent my two daughterswith love and passion.
And it's the same love andpassion that I would have
used if I had become a,a professor and teacher.
But I didn't, butI am one for them.
I'm present in their livesand I'm an involved parent.
And in this respect, I hopeI'm honoring my mother and
(49:15):
following in her footsteps.
You know, my mom used tosay that the best gift you
can give to your childrenis the gift of time.
Of being there, presentfor them, of having time
to just spend with them,not even doing something
special, just being there.
And when I worked those 60hour jobs, and you know,
I was traveling and ...no.
(49:36):
It was awful.
It made me, it made mefeel like I was missing the
best years of their life.
You know, I hope that I'm arole model and a mentor to them.
And I, my husband and Itogether, actually, we're
trying to model thatlife is unpredictable.
Change is unavoidable.
Life doesn't turn outthe way you hope it will.
(49:58):
Neither one of usbecame a professor.
But you should alwayskeep a zest for life and
the passion for learning,which is really our, our
culture and our background.
And my current work arrangementsallow me to homeschool my
youngest daughter part-time.
We started doing thatduring the pandemic.
And you ask me what my businessbrings, that's what it brings.
(50:21):
I have continued and Iwill probably continue.
So I'm tailoring reallyunique curricula and
learning opportunities forher, just like I would have
created amazing classes formy undergraduate student.
She's my undergraduatestudent of one, and she's 13.
I read extensively on thingsthat interest me and that I
(50:42):
love, marketing research, allsorts of marketing aspects.
I'm very passionate aboutpositive psychology.
I can read any kindof literature that
strikes my fancy.
You know, for years and yearsand years, I only read the stuff
of the 19th century because Iwas writing my dissertation.
I didn't have time toread anything else.
I keep up with my French.
(51:03):
I've watched all the Frenchmovies, probably, that came
out for the past decade.
I didn't have time to watcheven one during my PhD.
You know, I practice yoga.
I'm considering gettinga yoga certification.
I keep building my business.
I wanna certify as acoach, so slowly but surely
I'm, I'm keeping up withthe coaching training.
(51:24):
And I'm planning mynext career move.
Like I told you, you haveto have something else.
What am I gonna do when I'm 60?
So, I wanna write a novel,probably, when I retire.
And once my daughtersgo to college, I plan
to return to live inEurope and work remotely.
That's where my business,hopefully by that time, will
have picked up even more.
(51:46):
And I dream to live in variouscountries, one year at a time.
With my husband, we canboth work remotely until
I get bored and tiredand I wanna settle down.
So one year in France, one yearin Italy, one year in Spain,
one year in Greece, one yearin the Netherlands, why not?
I think the sky's the limit.
All we need is health.
Jesse Butts (52:05):
I think that's a really great,
aspirational note to end on.
Thank you so much for this,this interview, Laura.
It was really atreat talking to you.
Laura Stef-Praun (52:14):
Oh, Jesse.
Thank you so much for having me.
It was a pleasure.
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