Stephanie's Career Journey
Early Interests and Education:
Stephanie Manka, originally known as Stephanie Shuttler, began her academic journey with a major in biology, initially considering a career in medicine as a backup to her interest in acting.
She discovered her passion for wildlife biology during a study abroad program in Africa, which opened her eyes to the possibility of a career in wildlife conservation.
Academic Path:
Stephanie pursued her PhD focusing on forest elephants and animal behavior, utilizing non-invasive genetics for her research.
After completing her PhD, she undertook two postdoctoral positions, one of which lasted five years in Raleigh, North Carolina, within the research triangle.
Transition to Science Communication:
While working at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, Stephanie developed a love for science communication, blogging about her experiences and the challenges of the job market in wildlife biology.
She realized that her research, while valuable, often went unnoticed in academic journals and sought to make a more direct impact through communication and mentoring.
Establishing Her Business:
In April 2020, Stephanie launched her own business, focusing on career mentoring and science communication.
She began offering group programs and writing a book, leveraging her experiences to help others navigate the competitive job market in wildlife conservation.
Current Focus:
Stephanie now combines science communication with career mentoring, helping aspiring wildlife professionals improve their job applications and gain clarity on their career paths.
She emphasizes the importance of networking, gaining relevant experience, and crafting strong job applications tailored to specific roles.
Advice from Stephanie
Clarity and Strategy:
Identify what you truly want to do in your career. Having a clear goal helps in targeting the right opportunities and experiences.
Build Experience:
Gain a variety of experiences, especially those that align closely with your career goals. This may involve taking on multiple jobs or internships.
Networking:
Build and maintain a professional network. Connections can lead to job opportunities and valuable insights into the field.
Strong Job Applications:
Focus on writing compelling job applications. Many candidates struggle with this, often writing generic applications that do not highlight their unique experiences and skills.
Invest in Yourself:
Consider investing in career coaching or mentoring programs. This investment can lead to greater accountability and motivation, ultimately enhancing your chances of success.
Resilience and Dedication:
Persistence is key. The job market can be competitive, but with dedication and the right strategy, success is achievable.
Connect with Stephanie: Website: https://stephanieschuttler.com/
Career Programs: https://stephanieschuttler.com/work-with-me/https://stephanieschuttler.com/3-pillars-to-success/
Fancy Scientist Podcast: https://stephanieschuttler.com/category/podcast/
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welcome back to the show everybody on today's episode we're going to be talking with Stephanie Menka she is a fellow podcaster she has a podcast called the Fancy Scientist and she's here to talk about her career and how you can get a better career not only in ocean conservation but maybe even in wildlife conservation we're going to talk to Stephanie on today's episode of the how to protect the ocean podcast let's start the show hey everybody welcome back to another exciting episode of the how to protect the ocean podcast i'm your host Andrew Lewin and this is the podcast where you find out what's happening with the ocean how you can speak up for the ocean of what you can do to live for a better ocean by taking action and on today's episode we've got a great one for you folks we've got Stephanie Menka who is a fellow podcast from the fancy scientist podcast and she is just bringing the heat with career advice how she built her career how she went from academia down to not down over to a all her own company and how she is helping people get careers in wildlife conservation that's including ocean conservation so it's it's a lot of you know what you can do to better your resume what you can do to build up your mindset and get right in the right mode to build your wildlife conservation career and even what to do within wildlife conservation she goes into all of that in this episode she also talks about her time on tv she does a couple of well a couple different shows around with the history channel really reacting to videos that may have a questionable kind of thing about the science and and conservation and wildlife so it's a lot of fun-filled packed information here with Stephanie Menka from the fancy scientist podcast and you can go to her website i'll put the website in the show notes as well as her podcast so you can check it out but uh here's the interview with Stephanie enjoy and i will talk to you after hey Stephanie welcome to the how to protect the ocean podcast are you ready to talk about science communication yes i am 100% so excited for this wonderful this has been a long time coming apparently because i think we realize that neither of us have been on each other's podcast and we're like why hasn't that been we've had the podcast for quite a long time each of us um probably some of the longest running podcasts i think in in biology i would say um but uh this is going to be fun we're going to be talking about your career and how you ended up where you ended up as a science communicator uh having your own podcast but also having your own business a full-time business which is interesting in itself because not a lot of people can do that and so i'm going to like start to prod about how you can do that so i can learn how to do that as well but also i think for a lot of people who are in the business of wildlife biology or ocean biology or marine biology or what have you um some people need to do that on their own and because it's hard to fit in to some of the places and and move and everything like that depending on what we have going on in our lives so i'm looking forward to getting into all that but Stephanie if you could just so introduce yourself to the audience if they don't know you and just let us know who you are and what you do sure i am Stephanie Manka i used to be shutler so if you hear about Stephanie shutler that's me too that was my married name and i am a wildlife biologist science communicator career mentor like you said i have my own business now but i started out in this career as a traditional wildlife biologist going down the research route unreal and that is quite a tale i assume like going from research to to you know where you are now and having your own business and going to science communication i guess the first question is to start off really is did you ever expect to have this sort of path like this career path when you first started no not at all when okay so my my father is actually a business owner and as a child i would watch him come to home from work and he always carried the business with him now he was an excellent father like we spent lots of time together and everything but you know there were definitely days where he was late to dinner because he had to stay with a diamond customer he's he's a jeweler okay and even on the weekends you know we'd like he'd be talking about business and he just always like carried this on him so i remember thinking like i don't want a job like that i want to separate work so you can already see where this is going i want to separate work with life but um okay i'll try to keep this a little bit shorter but i i um okay okay i'll go is okay i'll tell you guys everything i um i basically didn't know what i wanted to do for um really college i was still confused and my my brother went to NYU for acting school and i don't know i just thought that was cool i was like oh i'll be an actor that sounds like like a fun job but i was also really scared of it it's you know really risky you hear about people never making it um you know people have to like wait tables and they do their plays at night and everything so i also at the same time decided to major in biology and that would be my backup career i could be a medical doctor and i i did always like biology um especially the ecology stuff but i never really knew there's a career that you could have with ecology or wildlife i knew about jin good all but i was like you know i'm not going to move to Tanzania in the middle of the forest and just live amongst chimpanzees like i didn't know even if i wanted to i didn't know like how you would do that so i i studying in biology is a backup career to be a doctor because that seemed like a safe career i could make lots of money you know there's always doctors and so that was my plan but i still want to be an actress and then also i realized my brother had a big influence on me he also recommended i study abroad just like kind of nonchalantly he's like oh yeah that'd be a cool experience for you and i didn't go away to college so i felt like i was missing out on getting an experience i lived with my parents and i commuted so i i thought that sounded really great i was like okay i'll do that and i went to the study abroad office and um at that time there were brochures because we had the internet but it wasn't like how it is today and they looked at all these different brochures i gathered the ones for theater and those were all in europe and then i found i think i found two that were related to nature one one was in africa and one i think was in the like i think it was Turks and Caicos but i don't remember but it was it was ocean related yep and i like i remember spreading all the brochures on my bed and looking at them and the theater ones i don't know it just didn't seem as interesting like learning about like ancient greek plays and stuff like to explain me as much and um i was a traveler growing up even though my family didn't travel i had this i got this student exchange or it wasn't exchange but the student ambassador program to australia and i did that so i went to australia when i was like by myself technically i mean i went as a part of her group but i didn't go with my family so i did that and um the one for for kenya was especially calling my name because i just felt like when am i ever going to have a chance to go to africa again that seems really scary like nobody in my family wanted to go to africa like it's not like i don't know i couldn't imagine myself going there so i was like i'm just gonna do that and it was it was a study for wildlife management program um so so it took me going all the way to africa to realize like oh i can have a job in wildlife biology i didn't i didn't realize that so i did i just did the summer program it was short a month but it introduced me into this world and then when i came back i i went to a local state school so it wasn't the best for wildlife but i connected with the science professors and ecology professors there and i knew you had to go to graduate school and i i now have the root of like okay how how do i become a wildlife biologist so then um so then i was on my way and i did i did a couple of internships and then i went to graduate school i got my phd i did some post-doc work i had two post-docs one one was really short after i did my phd at the same university they graduated and then um to be honest i really didn't want to move again i had moved a bunch and i got married um i'm a big animal lover so i accidentally rescued like six animals accidentally accidently now these were like domesticated animals yeah yeah two dogs yeah two dogs in four cats uh the last one really was an accident like like i really didn't want her but she was semi-feral and like there's no shelter room so they would have put her down so my my lab um my undergrads that were working for me they like they convinced me to keep her so it's it's tough not to keep too like especially once you become an animal lover and you have multiple pets then it's like i can take this one in like i know and i can figure it out you know it's and especially when you have a house you have no restrictions oh yeah oh hundred percent hudger i've i have to stay away from some of those facebook uh counts the way the shelters because i'm like i'll take all of them yes like you need help yeah i'll take you and it just i can't do that i can't i can't hold every piece of pets my boyfriend now didn't grow up with any pets and he has one dog we live separately he has one dog i have two dogs and two cats and i'm slowly trying to convince him that like this is normal to have like multiple animals but he's so against it but i show him this facebook post i'm like see this is how you get them you feel exactly it that's exactly it and once you have a wildlife degree then it makes it makes it easier like i know how to handle this so let me ask you this like so with you know with the phd with the postdocs was it more of a focus like working directly with animals or was it more of like a conservation focus like you know almost like policy-driven like policy-focused or like protected area planning or things like that like what it was so i did my phd in on forest elephants in animal behavior and using non-invasive genetics so my focus was always like like research focused um but i wanted a conservation application right so so but to be honest i did i still didn't know what i wanted to do and that was that was what i call like my big mistake is that i um i didn't have a clear end goal i was like i want to work in like in conservation maybe for the government or non-profit so i had these animals i had a house and i didn't want to move i wanted to move once and for all and that was it so i was applying i was applying to permanent jobs and i was really confident in my job applications and stuff but i wasn't getting any interviews except for i got one um interview for a permanent job and then i didn't want to apply for postdocs because those are temporary positions but i did let myself when it was like really perfect when there's a postdoc i really liked yeah when door it wasn't an area i wanted to live forever i could see myself living gotcha so the temporary kind of yeah the temporary like the timbreiness of the job kind of helped if you want to live somewhere and then i'm not gonna live there forever i'll come back or or go around no that i could i could yeah so i could i wanted a i wanted a job where it wasn't like a big enough city that i could find another job i would i would take it not but then find a permanent job afterward but i didn't want to go to like you know south dakota where the chances for a job that i was interested in want to come up uh so so um i knew academic jobs are really competitive like being a professor but i had no idea how competitive wildlife jobs were so this was totally shocking to me that like i was not getting jobs and i i know that sounds funny but but but it was i was like i have the experience i have a phd like how am i not qualified but um i just slowly realized that just the market is so saturated out there so i did get a postdoc i got a long postdoc in Raleigh North Carolina it was five years and i was like so Raleigh Durham and Chapel Hill are considered the research triangle so i was like okay over five years i will find a permanent job in the research triangle yeah well guess what in five years i did it um and and i was it was kind of a couple of things that um well mostly i was surprised by how few jobs i was qualified for because what i learned from my first experience is that i i got i got interviews for jobs where my experience really lined up with the job so i thought getting your phd would be kind of a blanket where you could you know i could easily work for the nature conservancy right but i had worked in Gabon on forest elephants so if i was applying for a job in North Carolina working on mammals like there there's not a lot of crossover so so i did like again i didn't realize how competitive were so i think maybe a decade or so ago i would have been fine but now they're going to hire the person who's been working in North Carolina with that mammal experience over somebody with my experience so just every interview that i had i would get like so close but they would be like oh there's just somebody with this much more experience in one case it was somebody with 10 years of experience so i was like oh my gosh like and people were even asking like why is this person applying for this job like they're clearly over qualified but again the market's just so over saturated so so i loved my job in Raleigh i loved i worked at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences i loved that and at the same time they really encouraged science communications and i really loved science communication so i started blogging with a friend and then i eventually developed my own blog and a couple of things happened at the same time i realized that i loved science communication i loved writing i love public speaking and i was also blogging about the troubles on the job market and i knew i wasn't the only one right so i started to give advice about this um and um just slowly honestly i transitioned into doing or blogging and stuff and then i was listening to podcasts where people i eventually found podcasts where people were making money off of doing this and so i was like okay i like like eventually i started stopped applying for jobs and and i and i decided to do this full-time yeah so i do a combination of science communication and career mentoring and um yes some other stuff like writing books and being on tv and and all of this stuff it seems like a lot to take on like a lot of different streams right i guess that's what you have your own business you're able to do that um now like do you miss the research aspect or finding that job like do you ever go back and look and just be like oh man i kind of wish i i went into this route instead of another route or did you feel like you exhausted everything before you went in um that's a good question yes yes and no um i would say so mostly i don't i don't miss it um because another thing that was going on was i felt like my research was very academic and i loved it but i really wanted a conservation application i went i loved animals growing up i wanted to save the world and when i was doing my research i thought it was cool but it was just going into academic journals and like yeah maybe somebody could use it for a conservation application but it was just like an if you know like like you know maybe if somebody does this um whereas if i was working on a project that had a direct conservation application i think i would have enjoyed it more um and also i i could have you know applied for jobs all over the country and stuff but like i said i really wanted to stay in Raleigh i was really happy in Raleigh um i do miss i do miss like when i talk about science communication i do miss like the first-hand experience being like we discovered this or like our group found this out i missed that part but i don't miss and it's necessarily like writing the papers um and i miss i miss like being part of a a larger lab where we could like share ideas and talk about like what's new and science and stuff like that but but in terms of the research um itself i don't miss a ton and i do miss like going getting those neat experiences as well i guess yeah so those are the things that i miss yeah um but at the same time also i was working with kids my job required to integrate research into classrooms like real research so we would have kids set up camera traps and we would use the images for research and i was doing a lot of social science research too and i realized that that um for people to care about in the environment and conservation it's really important for them to have a connection with nature so that was also like where things started to pivot for me that like oh science communication is really important because i can um you know create that connection for for kids like like like i mean i mean think about like you know stever when he created that connection for so many people and so so i realized like yeah for sure like like i even though i never really watched stever when but um but but yeah so so i realized like oh i can have a bigger impact by getting people to care and then they carry that throughout their lifetime whereas when i was working on forest elephants yes i was working on an endangered species but the problem was not like we weren't studying them enough the problem was people were poaching them so like how do you get the people to stop poaching them which ultimately boils down to people caring enough about wildlife whether it's the politicians the government the people buying it um or the you know the gap in knowledge between people what people are buying versus what they think they're buying all of that sort of stuff it's a person problem at that point yeah for sure for sure so like when you when you first started your business like that's not an easy thing to to start did you have like you you started talking about the the career thing that was that your first sort of venture into building the business was okay i'm going to offer career advice to people um was that the first thing um i think yeah i think so so i officially opened an LLC in um i believe it was april of 2020 so this happened right around the pandemic too so i decided before the pandemic and it was great timing um because you know everything shut down so um so i opened it and then um at the same yeah so like i knew there were just several ways to make money through through blogging one is ads yeah so at that time i watched tiger king like everybody else and i wrote blog posts about it and those did really well yeah and i was able to sign up with um an advertising company that pays better than um like google ads so so i started getting ad revenue it's still not a ton of money but right but that so why do you have ads enough to get money in at least well and i i i wasn't a lucky situation where i didn't have to worry about money that what my my ex did have a lucrative job yes so i did i didn't have to make money in the first place but i did make money with ads and then yes i opened up group group programs to to um additional to add some more income and then the other way to for people to make money is uh affiliate links too um so i did experiment with some of that but i i never made a ton of money off of that but i also never really worked at that it was really oh and i was writing my book too so i do get income from my book um but it's mostly my book and the and the group programs that that do the most um those yeah those are the the two most lucrative and once i started taking students and then especially when i started seeing the success of my students that's really what helped out because at first it was kind of like oh here's like they sent my experience yeah if i wanted this like here's what i've done would have done differently um but like i wasn't 100 sure it was work it would work i'm like okay it should work but then once it started working with my students and stuff because because my problem wasn't my my job applications i did i wrote really good job applications it was i didn't have the experience so really applying that on my students and then seeing it work for them it's like wow this really works and this is awesome and then and then i grew from there but then i did i did get a divorce so i did have to provide income for myself and that that is the trickiest part probably well yeah for sure like i i did the you know i did the same thing i started to make money off of off of like you know the podcasting and i started doing i ventured into careers as well um and i had a job at the time so it like you know come i have a wife who so you know the dual income was nice and so i didn't have to worry about too much money but when i didn't have a job and you know then all of a sudden like this money is going towards paying bills uh it's it's a lot of pressure on yourself like to i found for me anyway to put on yourself once you're like okay now i've got to make a go of this like you know before if i got a student or i didn't get a student then it was like it was it wasn't terrible but it wasn't great but now i like i need every student that i can did you find that was a lot of pressure when you had to pivot in life like that yeah um that that can definitely happen to you and there's there's kind of like two schools of thought and i listened to a lot of um and i have a lot of career mentors but i have a couple of chosen that i listened to i listened to a lot of their advice and um and you know different people use different approaches there's like you know tony robins will say kind of like burn your bridges like or burn burn your boats it's based off of that anecdote where it's like a war i can't remember the story but basically it's a war general they went to an island and they like burned the boats to like because they're planning to win or something like there's no way there's no way back yeah so like you quit your job or you just you know you you make things happen for you um or the other one is you you keep your day job and and the nice thing about that is that you you don't have that financial pressure then then it becomes more of a joy and you don't have to worry about selling it so yeah those are the two main schools schools of thought um but yeah sometimes you can get caught up in that but um but it's really important i think to separate yourself from that as well and decide what works best for you too for some people one method works better than the other to jump all in um whereas the other like for them too and then you know there's part-time work too that people can get and you know i tell my my students like and i mean that's the one great thing about being connected to the entrepreneur community is that they it attracts a certain type of people and i would say that those they're either either taught or just are more likely to do this but to make sacrifices and just willing to like do what it takes um you know like i was part of this one a group coaching program it was an expensive program and somebody sold their car to be a part of it um and yeah yeah because they they really wanted this this business for themselves and um so they were just like willing to do what it took and um and actually the the mentor she was incredible too she came from Venezuela she was a single mom she was going through a divorce she had like tons of legal bills and stuff so um so like that's what i tell my students too like for like you know i do i charge for my programs it's an investment for them and themselves um so that i can give them unbiased advice and this is you know like my my career now is is to serve them but um i think i think a lot of times we have this uh our stigma in our head like oh if we do uber or something like that that means like we're you know we haven't made it and if you're especially if you're a college graduate you see your friends move on like doing you know quote-unquote real jobs and you're in want even if you are working wildlife jobs for me my temp jobs never lined up so i would go home i would work for six months and go home for six months and like wait for the next job and i would live with my parents and you know like work at Starbucks and stuff and my other friends would would have jobs you know and um so but it's just we just live in a different world it's just a different system and that's totally normal for us what and it's it's challenging it definitely is challenging the people i see in in ocean conservation they are moving from place to place to place and and they're happy with that and that's their lifestyle that they that they chose but they move from place to place and it'll be from not only cities but it'll be in like you know towns that are that are far from cities you know like country areas that there there's not a lot around and they'll move to another place because that job was only for four to six months and then they'll go to another place and they'll go to another place and it's it's a hard life to lead where you can't put roots down you can't you know buy a home you know you're you're going from apartment to apartment or you're renting a home or or airbnb or whatever that that might be and it's it's a very challenging place to be in life as unless you that's what you choose to do yeah but if you wanted to start a family or if you wanted to have any kind of roots it's very difficult to continue to move like that so it's it's a it's very challenging and there are jobs that are full-time permanent you know like a lot of government jobs and things like that but a lot of the ones that people go for are and that are available are these six months jobs they're usually based on on funding and so like what is that the biggest challenge you find for some of your students i just kind of want to talk a little bit about that if that's okay like with the cool stuff like what are the biggest challenges that you find that that students have that they can't get jobs that's the the biggest one right um so so i do think and and and oceans might be different in my field i do think it's normal for people to take several jobs before they land the permanent job right um i was actually for my latest training i read this paper about like it paid it's called it pays to get paid and wildlife work and it was all about how the more paid jobs you have the more likely you're going to end up with a permanent job and it was like seven to nine jobs predict success i think that's a lot though for my students have not had seven to nine jobs like they've gotten permanent jobs with yeah maybe like three to five or something around that range that makes sense i think that's pretty normal and um and even like my one friend in graduate school she got her masters and she couldn't get a job afterwards she worked at Starbucks for a while so it's it's i think like the biggest message i want to tell the people out there who are struggling is it's it's competitive it is so saturated it's not about you and then talking to employers too employers are like it's so hard to choose people because sometimes it's like this person would be great but so that with this person so if you're not getting if you're not getting in a job um like like you do i don't want to say you have to try harder but you have to think about it more strategically so so it's about building up the so i say i mean i say it takes clarity strategy and application so it's about first figuring out what you want to do ultimately want to do then building up your experience especially towards that thing so in the beginning that might be hard because you have no experience so you might need to get broader experience but as you progress you want to get more and more closer to that and then and then also network network is part of the strategy those are the big ones and of course your education yeah and then job application i actually think so most people most of my students struggle with they don't get interviews they apply apply for jobs and they don't get interviews and what i have found is is most people don't write strong job applications um i think that they write just very basic regular job applications and a lot of the information out there about job applications is not for wildlife jobs so people look at that stuff for like businesses or you know like just like the general like linkedin stuff where you got to do like bullet points of like a couple of words like no that doesn't work for our field so um for a lot of my students once they improve their job applications and nothing else and then they get jobs i find the same thing i find i find the biggest thing i find actually the biggest thing the first step for for us is like clarity like yeah you can't just go and i want to protect the ocean or i want to go into conservation or i want to go to sharks like you have to have clarity and then identifying you know the job that you want i'm very very much the same way in in in your thought process is like figure what you want to do and figure how to get to that point and what you need what kind of experience that'll help you start to target the jobs that you want yeah and then the application is the biggest thing it's it's it's it's unreal to see some of the application is not the people's fault it's not the fault of students or right right you know early career scientists it's just they haven't been taught and they've been or they've been taught from somebody who's done business resumes before and like you say it's right they're very different like when i do when i did government jobs and i applied to government jobs like my my cover letter if i look at it sometimes they were like eight to nine pages long because you had to answer yeah for the federal government for the federal Canadian government you had to answer all these questions and if you actually printed it out it was like nine pages long eight to nine pages long wow with all the because then you had to hit certain certain things that they want to hear yeah and they wouldn't even look at it if it didn't um but it's you know it's interesting because like it took me a while to find the jobs that i wanted um but when i when somebody actually sat down and i used to get frustrated i stopped i stopped applying to government jobs i got so frustrated with it i was like they don't even they never answering back so what's the point and then some i was actually working at contract in a government building for the government that i want to like for the department that i want to work for or one that was like adjacent and somebody sat me down it's like oh if you want to do this there's a certain way like you have to know the specific way i'm like why don't they teach this and they do but they teach it in-house they don't teach it outside and so this is where like people like yourself come in where it's like you have to know where to apply how to apply and and how to like take the the skills and experience that you have and put it on paper in a way that people are gonna be like this is helpful like i want to see this kind of thing exactly yeah so i think that's that's that's really important yeah and i i think i think people don't know how to like for lack of a better word brag about themselves like they're you know like they're very humble like they'll say like oh educated guests and it's like well can you provide some more details about that like ridiculous analysis like yeah they just they just don't know how to speak yeah job applications speak like talk and um and then i also yeah and then to go off of that i don't feel like they know the value that they have too it's like like i remember working with this one um student she had like four bullet points on her list and she lived in Borneo for like a year and a half studying orangutans and i was like there's no way you did just four things like like you were in field like living at a field station at the very least you know you were like like doing like field camp type stuff where you're like ordering supplies doing logistics like with like a million mosquitoes around or something or you know what i mean like there's there's more complicated things to this than you're not painting the picture well enough well it's funny we laugh at that too but it's like it's it's so true you you don't realize how many important things that people look for yeah it's like like you can do field work everybody can do field work but how well do you do field work how well do you prepare for field work how well do you like how well do you make sure that like the data is intact and like you're you've got the right field sheets and if not field sheets it's covered i'm from a water background so everything has to be covered or if it's digital it's got to make sure it doesn't it's waterproof and all that kind of stuff right so it's there's a lot that goes in and and and that it's it's it's it's it's educate you have to learn how to do it a lot of people just don't know um and some people get a little resistant when they're like i should know this with my university should have taught me do you ever get students that are like looking to for your help but may not want to like join a group or may not want to pay for that kind of service because oh yeah how do you and how do you deal with that i'm curious um so i mean i i give away a lot of of free stuff i you know like i have my podcast i have free trains i just did it i just did a free training that used to be a webinar plus a bonus webinar and i turned it into three free trains it's like three it probably ends up being like more than three hours long um so a couple a couple of things um it's it's impossible for some stuff to to train without them enrolling in something and um like just like like especially like i do have resume revamp which they could take and they could um learn and totally redo their resume by themselves or even i have a job application academy but that actually that part does include job application reviews right so you review them yes yes so so some students might be able to take themselves to the next level on their own and they don't need any review but i would say most need the personal review and need how to like break down the job posting because it's not just about you it's it's really about dissecting the job posting and i become very good at that like like interpreting like oh this is what they want this is what they think is most important and then matching your stuff to to that stuff um but i think i think the biggest thing is that there's there's a shift that happens when you invest in yourself you take it much more seriously so it's actually it actually honestly is a benefit to to them because they value it so much more um and like going back to that coaching program i was a part of it was expensive and i made sure i showed up every single week because i did not want to waste my money um so i was there and and she changed the program around too so um so towards the end it was just me and one other person who were in the program and i would be at the meetings every single week and she'd be like okay what do you like just a troubleshoot problem she's like what do you what are your problems this week and i'm like i don't i don't really have any problems i'm just here to like absorb more information and get inspired and then like i would talk to her and i realized i did have more problems that we could talk about so so you show up differently um and yeah you take you take it more seriously you put in the work um i've i've done scholarships for my program and some people do take it really seriously like i've had chitra she i give her a scholarship um in Nepal um and she is actually now in Illinois it's amazing she she wanted to her dream was to um get a master's in the united states yeah and um and she she did it you know she took took my program we worked on her cover letters and everything but she also put in the work ahead of time too like she like i had i do have people fill out applications but she um you know she started in Nepal like attending a free she loved turtles she tended a free i think turtle webinar or her um conservation talk and afterwards she contacted the scientist and she's like how can i help like i want to get involved so she had that drive like she wasn't letting anything about her situation hold her back um and yeah she didn't have the money being being um with her circumstances but she filled out a good job out or a good application for the scholarship and she showed up to the calls and she took my advice um whereas other people i were you know i before i did the application and stuff i would i would gift it to people and do scholarships and some people would never show up at all and i had to be like hey what's going on yeah but they would tell me they really wanted it and stuff so so there is um a certain click or change that happens when you when you invest in yourself yeah i can imagine i think that would yeah i i agree i've done a couple of coaching programs before uh and every time like if i did a free one i wouldn't be as invested if i had to pay you're like i just put down a boatload of money i need to i need to actually make sure i get the most out of this as possible so that i can get back in fact sometimes i look at it and i'm like how much money how much more money can i make if i'm putting you know sometimes it's a hundred dollars sometimes it's a five hundred dollars sometimes it's a thousand dollars you're like how much money am i going to make off of this like that yeah that's how i look at it and say okay this is what i this is what i got to shoot for so i got to make sure i get this yeah yeah i just joined a program for for fitness or for weight loss and i have since i've been moved to the chicago area i slowly gained like 12 pounds and i have been trying to do this pizza that's what it is that's the problem no i don't i don't i know i blame my boyfriend i'm like i'm too happy to be with you um so i gained this weight and i've been trying in like really consciously trying to lose it like you know and i know how to lose weight i've done it before i've what's always worked for me is personal trainers so you know but like i've calorie counted by myself and all this stuff but when i you know it hasn't been working so i'm like okay i'm fed up of figuring this out myself so i joined a program and then it's also nice because like it's kind of like the responsibility is taken off of you like i still put in the work but it's like okay you tell me what to do and if it doesn't work it's your fault so you know they tell me what to do but because i invested money and and then also i have someone to report to like like you know like if it's out of accountability right yeah yeah so so i found out i was yeah i was i was counting calories but i was using heaping scoops and like now it makes a difference makes a difference oh my gosh well now i have to weigh stuff and weigh stuff it's like you can't cheat with that no but um but yeah it works like i've i've lost the 12 pounds i can't like i can't believe it it's been amazing and so so yeah um and i remember like the first few days i'm like crap i can't like lie to myself because they're gonna be like you know what's going on Stephanie how come we're not losing weight and i can't be like oh your program's not working because you know i'm the one who's not doing it so so yeah it's that accountability and um and then also yeah taking the weight off of your shoulder so you don't have to do it alone anymore like you get to talk in my group mentoring program you get to talk to me right now it's small enough that i i'm able to answer every question so even though it's it's group mentoring we do we do training so there's recordings of people watch and then we have group mentoring for whatever questions people have or or if they want me to review things um but yeah it's small enough that i'm able to get to every question i get to know the people um and um and yeah it's been it's been great i loved i loved working with them and and and then also just like in i don't know how it's been for you but i've i've felt like it's very common i mean there's definitely exceptions to the rule but it's very common in a science world for people to be negative and hard on you and honestly sometimes abusive i've never really been abused but i have no situations where people have been like taking advantage of like you're supposed to work 20 hour days and um and just like in academia you know like you just never feel good enough and smart enough and stuff like that so i i really want to do this to give back because i was i was never the smartest i was never the best at science but i was really dedicated and passionate and that's that's how i got through my PhD like you you don't need to be the smartest at all um it's just it's kind of like about being stubborn like you just you just want to like something happen yeah i had a high school teacher who told me that i did not belong in science and he was a physics teacher and i then screw you i am good for you yeah that's kind of been my driving factor like in university yeah every time there was a difficult part i was like no no i'm going to continue yeah and some people probably carry that with them the whole life and let them like not be in science so i like to be that that positive force and support for people that that i mean i truly believe anyone can do it as as long as um as long as they want it and there again you have to be willing to put in the work you can't just like sign up for my program and you'll get a job you have to put in the work but um if you're and if you're stubborn enough too that's like like there are competitive jobs if you like i mean ocean jobs like if you want to be a marine biologist that's a super competitive job yeah if you want to work with whales and dolphins and stuff but i think if you're stubborn enough and you work at it hard long enough with the right strategy and doing doing things with intention building your network it can happen for you or will happen for you yeah absolutely so how often do you run these groups is it done all throughout the year is it like an ongoing group is it like like uh or do you do it you open it up for like a small group and then you close it and then open it up for another small group good question i've changed it a lot and i've i've decided on like i recently decided on one one strategy um so i have i have a couple of different levels my my favorite and in the best level is the successful wildlife professional that is my group mentoring program um so it's it used to be a year long now it's it's four months worth of content um you get to you get to keep it forever those so you can pace it however you want but it's technically you watch like an hour long training per week and do exercises and then every other week we have group mentoring um but i'm thinking about changing that to weekly or you can ask whatever you want i did have open enrollment before then i switched to cohorts now now i'm doing kind of both where i like people have to sign up for the training to get in and then it's open for a short period of time um and then i run the trainings throughout the year so right now i'm doing the trainings like every six weeks nice but um it depends on how full the group gets i think how often i'll do the the trainings but um i would say at least three times a year i would have the trainings and then and then i have the job application academy so this is for people who who know what they want to do like they don't they have the clarity they have the experience but they're they're just like struggling on the job applications and i teach them it's all the same stuff from the successful wildlife professional but just the job application stuff and then we do reviews once a month just on job applications um and then i have um like master classes where where it's just recordings and you can you can do it on your own okay interesting that's really interesting so that's one side we just got into the one side of your business uh yeah and that's that looks really great and we'll put some links in so people can can check out the some more information on those if they're if they're interested um also you do it like a science communication so this is not the only thing you do you do a little bit of science communication now i i know you and i have discussed your your tv escapades quite a bit you know going on tv and doing some stuff for the history channel how did that all all come about i started out on tv first through somebody i knew my boss at the museum um he i i think he got on a tv show from somebody he he knew too as as well rob nelson rob um you actually like you should interview rob he does i he um i mean he's not exclusive to oceans by any means but he i think he's done some ocean work but he um he was a scientist and then he transitioned to communicator but he does like film that's his big thing um now he's really successful on youtube now um he changed a little bit he's still the science communication but he changes me into stone age man and kind of does some like what that name yeah you like him but he he makes a lot of videos and stuff anyway so he got us on um the the science channels uh show what on earth and so so then i just did that show for several years and then independently i got invited to do a show on the history channel called the proof is out there and that i got through my youtube channel because i was just creating content and um at the time i was i did a lot of camera trap work and people um i would you know visit a lot of places too giving talks and people would always tell me that they saw a mountain lion or a black panther and in north carolina we we used to have mountain lions but now they're extinct there um and there are no black panthers in the united states so i did a video about that and slowly but surely over time that blew up and that's probably my most successful video um and the people from the history channel just somebody found my video and they were like i really like how you explain things how you um you know you didn't like i i didn't um although a lot of the commenters probably disagree i didn't like immediately poo poo them and be like no this doesn't they don't exist like i went through like like with the evidence so like why why we we haven't found any evidence of them so right so now i'm on this tv show um where where i evaluate stuff so a lot of times it's like bigfoot videos or just like weird videos but there's also a lot of like like just weird things happening in nature too that are not people want explained right well yeah not well explained or um or just some animals doing weird things so i comment on those things and then um i've just been doing a couple of extra shows here and there mostly through that connection because people from the history that's on the history channel so people got to know me and um and yeah so they call me in to do some some extra shows here and there i love it and like how often do you spend on that oh good question um it's usually happens a cup like maybe like three or four times a year and i i kind of crunch before the assignment i hope they're not listening i don't i i mean i think part of part of the reason why i do that is because so the stories and stuff will be really fresh in my head and the information will be fresh in my head because they give you you know they give you the videos and stuff to review on and you talk it over with them and you talk about like the different angles that that will take so for instance if it's a bigfoot video they would you know they'd be like okay like what other animals live in the area could it be and like why couldn't it be that so so sometimes um you know there's things i might have to research or or look up like um like um okay like there's this one video with a snake um i still don't know how i happened but it got like this algae growing on it so it looked like a hair it looked like a hairy green snake like like kind of like a muppet and it was a real snake so like you know talking about like how i know it's a snake and then you know some things i might have to look up like how does algae grow on a snake or how does how would things happen um but but yeah so i just like study the week and prepare the week before usually like a couple of hours every day and then um it's a full day of filming that's amazing and and like when you're done like i mean when you do a full day of filming like that you get pretty tired after a while you're talking about a day you're going through takes and multiple takes and multiple takes you must be exhausted so it's probably good that it's only like three or four times a year where you're just like all right that's good i got it out of my system yeah yeah what have you learned the most from doing tv work with science communication like like traditional tv work hmm that's like a good question maybe that people love big but here's my like fake funny answer but that yeah i think my my fake funny answer is that people take cryptids really seriously i had no idea i don't know any new cryptid was a word like right yeah yeah society is there's conferences like they take it very very seriously um i think i think i think just i think in terms of um this is hard maybe i mean obviously like sensational stuff is is interesting like like what i mean i think people are always interested in like the unknown and like what's left to be discovered and the intriguing and um i mean i think so many people probably like Bigfoot and stories like that too is because they know somebody who's had an experience that's another thing is like making it relatable um but i mean sometimes i guess like also like what people don't know and what people find interesting and this kind of goes back to being a scientist like like um when i first became a scientist or even even into my science career i felt like i was a terrible scientist because in school i did i was so well at like study like i would just memorize her a test and and i liked it too i wasn't just like cramming the test but i was good at studying and then as a science science is all about figuring out answers to questions that people don't know so i had to come up with questions and i just like assumed so much stuff was known because because you know that's what i was taught in school like here's all the stuff we know yeah so so i think just that there's there's so much stuff out there that we don't know still like even i was they had me do this one video about these worms like forming piles and like and it was like after a storm and like they were like in the middle of the road and they were talking about like why would they be in the middle and it's like i don't know i just assumed like people would know the answer to this but like people don't i looked it up and like there's these different speculations and and then also that people would find that interesting too like oh i guess people are interested in like how the world works and yep and strange phenomenon and stuff like and you don't have to it doesn't have to be fake like sorry bigfoot's not real guys but it doesn't there's lots of really cool stuff out there that we don't know that's real so um i think one of the best things that i've ever learned was talk to people who are not involved in science um and maybe not conspiracy theorists like people but also like you know take somebody who like take somebody on a hike or take somebody you know into like a river area or a lake area or an ocean area for me or even anywhere you know and then listen to the questions that they have yeah sometimes they're like the simplest questions but they are interesting you'll be like oh actually that was a really good question and yes i think oftentimes as biologists we often overthink and we're like what oh yeah that's super exciting and that'll like go over the top like for tv or something like that yes i did a tv show as well and it was it was about evolution and some of the the little things like just the function i'm like oh that's interesting like oh yeah oh okay like people really want to know about that okay i i can do that and and i think when you hear people or even kids ask questions because then you're just like yes okay these are this is like like the top of the curiosity chain is when you get to talk to kids yeah as you know when you work with kids and continue and you're like okay now these are questions that people really want to know it's it's almost like you know you have that that tv show smarter than a fifth grader it's almost like can you ask a question like a fifth grader because that would be something i think that would be really interesting to hear like can you answer a question from a fifth grader or something like that because they always have great questions i find yeah and kids so but that's interesting and now so growing the business like in terms of science communication the the tv's one aspect you ever get to work with organizations on on their science communication have they ever reached out because you do podcasting you do videos you do tv do you ever provide advice for some it's like organizations or other other science communicators themselves um i have like during my postdoc i would be part of like panels and things like that but since then not really i've just i've just more focused on my own business and honestly i've been focusing on getting the career mentoring thing so so that might be part of the reason why is i've been really focusing on getting the career mentoring because i've had to learn so much with i mean and not only creating the programs but also you know like wondering what structure the programs works well obviously creating the content and then selling like i never thought i would be selling so and science communication is actually kind of selling too it's the same principle um so i've had to learn so much without stuff um and now i finally feel like i'm kind of not finished with it but at a good place where i can take a back seat and then next year i really want to focus on science communication again and also um i did do this kids program and i want to revisit that um and do that again but change it i've i started out initially more like a like a teaching kids about like the process of science and stuff and then yeah was it last year yeah last year i worked with a coach and he helped me transform it into like kind of like a parenting course where to because because he felt that like nature and science wouldn't sell on its own he felt like like um you know parents aren't really looking to get their kids involved in science like that's not like a strong need but parents like fear losing connection with their kids so like we framed it i was like to create the best connection and long lasting connection with your child like work with them outside on these collaborative projects in nature which i totally agree with and and believe in but i felt like it kind of took a parenting twist and i want to i want to put it back more to be just about like getting kids outside of nature and getting them connected and getting them curious so less of a focus on parenting so i mean i want to be doing more of that again next year and yeah figuring out how i want to run that and love it so yeah if your audience members have ideas for like what kinds of things they'd want to see but i don't know i'm thinking about some sort of membership where like i provide an activity for them to do outside and we have like a community where they can share and contribute to community science or something like that yeah get it like be a part of something bigger maybe or something part of a project like an ongoing project that multiple people can contribute to i like that i like that idea that's kind of cool i think the more you can do with with young children the better right so they can get that hands-on experience especially with parents and stuff oh that's awesome that's awesome now um we're kind of coming to the end here and you know you and i can talk forever we do that all the time um what we and we didn't even get in it didn't even get into the the the podcast so fantasy scientist is is the podcast that you have now it's on it's on youtube as well um but it's on your if any favorite podcast app that people can get including Apple podcasts and Spotify and what can people get from from the podcast like what would they expect to hear from the podcast um there's so it all centers around the idea of um have what really wildlife so that that's what i've always felt like i've been about like my connection to animals and connection to nature so i talk about my experiences as a researcher i talk about careers i mean that's something i've been talking about a lot careers um i i interview guests so i interview guests with all different types of careers all different types of backgrounds basically i mean related to our field so some i mean some people like i've talked to people who have worked in the climate change sector of corporations um or anything related to to lifestyle as well um that relates even indirectly to to wildlife so i'm also like super interested in health and um just even being like a more conscious consumer and stuff like that or diet as well like how your diet impacts wildlife um so so there's a huge variety of things i'm also really big on mindset as well so sometimes i have episodes about mindset because as i mentioned before this career um and the people can have be kind of negative and then also just the nature of what we're doing what we're dealing with with loss it can get depressing so um and then i just like i don't know i'm just really interested in like productivity and efficiency and things like that so just like making yourself a better um biologist or yeah or like whatever career trajectory you're you're going towards so it's a mishmash of things but it centers around wildlife and the environment this is what i love about podcasting is everybody can make the host makes it what it is and it's based on your interests and it kind of feeds it and what you think is needed within within sort of the field and i think that's that's really important and and uh i know a lot of your audience connects on that too so kind of like whatever i want to talk about but that's that's the thing is same with mine it's whatever i want to talk about but we get to talk about it that's the fun part right um now one that one question like what would you like as from the experience that you have for building a business and being sort of in the wildlife career itself what advice would you give like my listeners here if you know not only are they listening to start a career but maybe talking about doing a little bit of a job like uh are working as like like in like making like building their own business like a side hustler yeah like what would what would the the recommendation be or the or the best thing you can give if you had to give one piece of advice what would you do what would you say i got one piece of advice well first let me say that even before i became an entrepreneur when i was a scientist i was like oh my gosh my job is so much like being a business owner like my dad's because when you're when you're a scientist especially like i was never a principal investigator but being a postdoc it was it kind of felt like that because i was um you know at times like writing my own crayons and trying to fund my own projects but i got to see you know the people i was working with and they were the professor principal investigators and like like their science is kind of like a business like they they have to fund the their projects higher employees which are either graduate students or field assistants to run those projects and then the output like the the like profit is like the the publication so you're so it's just like a different different elements but the same the same type of system and that's what my dad would do you know he'd get customers and like to make to make money and so so it's very it was very similar and also you know like i you're probably laughing when i was talking about my dad because i never went home and felt like i was off like i could always be like yeah like i mean at the time i was applying for jobs but i could always be um you know writing more papers doing more data analysis like coming up with this new idea setting up this project like there was always so many things to do yeah um but i think i think the the biggest the i'm gonna give two parts i'm gonna cheat and give two answers but the biggest part i think is first to know that that it is really possible for you in this day and age like it is so cool what people sell online um so i think my biggest piece of advice is is to follow people who are doing what you want like follow digital entrepreneurs who are doing this type of stuff and there's so many free podcasts out there so many free resources to help you the person one of the people i follow is james wedmore he's the biggest one i follow um and that there's so much opportunity out there like he had somebody on his podcast who who taught people how to hike and and he was like joking he's like okay like how are you making money of this you're just telling people like put one foot in front of the other and you know i mean he is being in a jerk but um i mean i'm purpose to be silly but um but this woman you know she started a business teaching people how to hike people wanted to do backpack hiking they didn't know how to do it so she made a course here's how you do it and here's how to be safe here are the things you need to think about and she made money doing it so so just start out like and like james james will teach you way better than i will but he has so many free resources just start out thinking about like what are you you don't even have to be like a full-blown expert but like what do you know more about than somebody else than most people you could start teaching them and it's as simple as like i started mine with like a posting like i'm thinking about starting a course teaching you how to get a career and in wildlife um like if you're interested drop an emoji and i'll send you like the link with more information and it's as simple as that and if you don't want to charge people in the beginning if you just want to like help people to get some ideas you can do that you can charge them you don't have to charge them a lot you can charge them 50 bucks or something right right and just get that experience of working with people and you just you just don't know again like what you can sell like people people are just looking for help and and yeah you can probably go online and learn how to hike but you have to sort through all the noise and everything when it's like so much nicer to just sign up for a program and watch trainings and know that you know how to do it and then if you have like a group mentoring program you can ask this person questions so yeah so yeah if you're if you love birds if you love fish if you love plants like can you teach a plant identification course or a bird like a like bird people are crazy in a good way they love their birds yeah can you teach an audio course like here's how to learn bird songs like like i'll teach you the top 10 bird songs and yeah again they can do it online but if you can teach them in a way that makes it faster and easier for them then you have some people even like an audio catalog like you bring it as a podcast or you can like put it on a list or something like that and hear the birds it'd be yeah that's a it's a really good idea um so many ideas that one percent royalty is whoever did that but this has been great uh Stephanie this is this has been awesome you know you and i were good friends and we've come great friends over over like talking about this talking about podcasting so i'm going to put links to your website to the podcast and everything so people can get access to the youtube channel so people can get more access to you and connect with you um and just i want to thank you so much for coming on the podcast it's been yeah it's been so much fun to have you on we'll definitely have you back on sooner than later uh to talk more about science communication and everything but uh really appreciate you coming on and thank you so much thank you thank you Stephanie for joining us here on the how to protect the ocean podcast it was great to have you on you know it's funny is before we did the interview i was like hey what was the last time you're on she was like i don't think i've ever been on and i was like yes right she goes what was the last time you're on my past i'm like i think i did it but she's like no i don't think you did and we haven't gone on each other's podcast and being able to speak about what we do but we are doing that now so you can check out the fancy science of podcast with me on it soon we're still we're still about to record that next week but it's going to be a lot of fun and uh you should check that podcast out but also just like what information great information that she that led like let us have here on this episode like it was great it's been a while since we've talked podcasting and not only podcasting but the conservation careers and a lot of times it's me talking about it it's great to see somebody else having a very similar position but also a little bit different in their approach and i really like the approach she takes i think it's really great so if you want to take one of her courses please feel free to do so you can go over to her website which the link is in the show notes below or if you're watching this on youtube it's in the description uh and uh you can just click on that and go over there and find out more about Stephanie but that's it for today's episode i want to thank you all for joining me today with Stephanie i want to thank Stephanie for joining us and taking time out of her busy time building her business and being able to share those great knowledge bombs with us today so thank you so much for joining me on today's episode of the how to protect the ocean podcast i'm your host angelou and have a great day we'll talk to you next time and happy conservation
