Why you don’t need to take a traditional path to achieve career success

EPISODE SUMMARY

In this episode of Chan With A Plan, host Max Chan speaks with Annie Singer, Founder of Reciple. In this conversation, she talks about her career beginnings where she ended up dropping out of high school due to unhappiness and mental health struggles and took a nontraditional career path to get to the level of success that she has today, consisting of completing 2 degrees, working in her dream field of marketing and starting her own business in an industry she is passionate about. The main message she wants listeners to take away from her story is that you don't always need to take the path that everyone takes in order to achieve your definition of career success. 

 

QUOTES

• “I was kind of a miserable teenager in general. And I think a lot of it for me was mental health struggles, and I was depressed and felt very, very restless in school. And so, you know, I think I just had a different learning style than what they teach at high school, because you're really only getting one mode of teaching in high school. And that didn't work for me.” - Annie Singer
• “It's okay to look at everything and say, my priorities have changed. And that's why I have burnout. I'm doing this because I want future me to be happy. But today me is very, very unhappy. And it's okay to take care of today me when you need to do that.” - Annie Singer
• “Have confidence that you can progress your career, even if you haven't had the most traditional background so far.” - Annie Singer

 

TIMESTAMPS

• [1:22] Meet Annie
• [3:09] What made Annie dropout of high school 
• [4:22] Getting buy in from her parents on dropping out of high school
• [5:53] Annie’s plan after dropping out of high school
• [10:22] Why the community college environment was better for her compared to the high school environment she left
• [13:10] The break she took from community college to discover her ideal career path 
• [16:21] Should professionals who don’t have a degree be worry that their career will have a ceiling if they don’t go back to school to get one
• [17:39] The correlation between getting more advanced degrees with higher compensation packages and when should someone consider going for a Master’s degree
• [21:59] Juggling work and studies for Annie’s Master degree and the experience of burnout
• [26:45] Thoughts on taking a step back when you are not happy but believe you are so close to completing a goal that you don’t want to stop 
• [31:28] How Annie transitioned out of corporate to start her own business
• [35:30] Advice for building a lifestyle you’ll enjoy and staying the course when things are not going as well as you initially intended
• [41:36] The biggest factor that Annie believed, contributed to her success in her career
• [43:34] Main lesson Annie wants listeners to take away from her story
• [45:06] Main career challenge that Annie had to overcome to get to where she is today in her career
• [46:11] Contacting Annie
• [47:03] Outro

 

RESOURCES & RELEVANT LINKS

• Reciple
• Annie Singer on LinkedIn
• Chan With A Plan
• Chan With A Plan Facebook Group