Alaina G. Levine shares her inspiring journey from a math major to a lifelong mission to help people see that they have value, choice, and power in building their authentic careers. This episode offers practical insights for emerging leaders and professionals seeking to craft careers aligned with their passions and values. Alaina is an award-winning, professional speaker, science journalist, coach, TEDx speaker, and author of multiple books including Networking for Nerds, which beat out Einstein for an award (YES IT’S TRUE!), and Create Your Unicorn Career. She is an expert in innovation and STEM workforce and career development, and NASA said “she is worth her weight in gold!” She has spoken over 1000 times for clients in 35 US states, 16 nations and on 5 continents, and she has written over 500 articles for international publications like Scientific American, National Geographic News Watch, and the World Economic Forum. To sum up, she has much wisdom and advice to offer emerging leaders. Enjoy the listen.
For Your Leadership Toolkit
· on creating a unicorn career
· the three-step framework for building an authentic career
· the importance of intrinsic and extrinsic data in career decisions
· strategies for effective networking within and outside organizations
· how to turn your current job into your ideal role
· the role of self-awareness and data-driven journaling in career growth
· using joy and pain scorecards to discover your passions
· handling uncertainty and building confidence as a young leader
Sound bites
“It became my lifelong mission to help people see that they have value, choice, and power in building their authentic careers.”
“We have to understand the full data set of who we are if we're gonna make the right choices for us.”
“You are not expected to know everything about everything.”
“Keep the networking up even when you are working.”
“Networking is not what can I get, it's what can I give.”
“Identifying what brings you joy and what brings you pain, it can be very, very helpful.”
Chapters
04:27 Alaina's journey from mathematics to career coaching
05:40 The concept of a unicorn career and its origins
12:08 The three components of building an authentic career
22:00 Networking as a long-term relationship-building process
28:07 Using joy and pain scores to discover your passions
32:23 Handling uncertainty and outgrowing roles
37:54 Lessons from competitive pool playing and strategic moves
Resources
Alaina’s Website – https://alainalevine.com/
Alaina on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alainaglevine/