“Really there’s no halfheartedness in being God’s expression.”

About Our Guest in this episode:

Trudy Palmer — Ph.D, Educator, Administrator, and Deputy Editor of the Daily Edition of The Christian Science Monitor
Trudy Palmer is a deputy editor for the Monitor Daily. After earning her Ph.D. in English and American literature at Stanford University, she pursued a wide-ranging career built around a love of words. She has taught American and African American literature at Tufts University and the University of Pittsburgh; edited a scholarly book on the blues; worked as a senior staff editor for the Christian Science religious publications; and, just before joining the Monitor, served as editorial director in the Marketing Department at Principia. In addition to her work as deputy Daily editor, she oversees the Monitor’s commentary section.

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Transcript of Episode:

Robin: This is the Net Effect, Career Conversations and Connections, episode 46. We have a truly special guest today with us. Her name is Trudy Palmer. We are so looking forward to having her this afternoon. She is the Deputy Daily Editor for the Christian Science Monitor.

After earning her PhD in English and American literature at Stanford University, she pursued a wide ranging career, built around a love of words. She has taught American and African-American literature at Tufts University and the University of Pittsburgh, edited scholarly books on the blues, worked as a senior staff editor for the Christian Science Monitor and the Christian Science religious publications.

Before joining the Monitor, she served as Editorial Director at the marketing department at Principia. In addition to her work as Deputy Daily Editor, she oversees the Monitor’s commentary section.

This Net Effect is sponsored by the Albert Baker Fund. Our vision is to realize the unlimited possibilities that emerge when Christian Scientists journey together through inspiration, education, and career development. We’re easy to find, just go to AlbertBakerFund.org. You’ll find all kinds of wonderful resources there to be able to choose from.

If you know a student, or if you are a student, and you need financial assistance for the upcoming college vocational school year, or you’re interested in Christian Science nurses training, click on the apply button and you’ll see a dropdown menu. Find the topic that suits your needs and click on it, and off you go.

The question I have for you to kind of kick things off, I just want to dive right in, is, how has or does your faith, Christian Science, play an active role in directing your career?

Trudy: Sure. I certainly believe that God has always been directing me. I’ll say sometimes I’ve listened, and sometimes I haven’t.

I’ll give you two examples of when I did listen related to my career.

I took a pretty circuitous route through college. I have transcripts from eight schools over 11 years before I got my BA. I wasn’t always trying to get a degree. Sometimes I would just see a course that looked interesting. I was basically trying to figure out what the heck to do with my life.

Eventually I graduated with a BA in English, from UCLA and by then I had reconnected with Christian Science after taking some time away.

I was praying about my next steps. I found this line in Science and Health, it is just part of a sentence. It says “growth is the eternal mandate of mind.”

I could see from that, that since my growth was impelled by God, it would be growth spiritward, and it could only be good. And so I could trust that, and I didn’t need to fear progress essentially.

The results were twofold.

It became clear I should go onto graduate school, and that worked out. And I also had a physical healing of several growths that had been on my arm for years. They just disappeared. It makes perfect sense, of course, as I had gotten this better understanding of growth as mandated by God, by Mind, then any evidence of something contrary to that was obviously going to fall away from my experience.

That is certainly one time early in my career when Christian Science absolutely guided me.

Another time, a little bit later, I was in a job that just felt stagnant. It just didn’t seem like it was maybe what I should keep doing.

So, I applied for other jobs. Crickets, absolutely nothing.

Robin: We’ve all been there.

Trudy: Sometimes I’d get the automated…

Robin: The automated decline, thank you very much.

Trudy: Sometimes I didn’t even get that. So eventually I just thought, okay. There’s obviously a lesson for me to learn here and I kinda got myself to the point, through prayer, that I was truly willing to do whatever God wanted me to do.

And if that was to stay put, I’m good. If it was move on, I’m good.

I really honestly got to the point where I wanted to be wherever God wanted me to be.

I stopped applying, not there’s anything wrong with applying for jobs, but I just felt confident in that. And I stopped looking around.

In the story, you can guess, another job surfaced. And I moved on.

Robin: So when you say you got to that point where you knew that you had to stop doing all the other stuff, what did it look like when you got to that point? Was there something that kind of happened? Was it over time? Was it a process? Because I get that question all the time. How do I know? When do I know what to do next?

Trudy: I’m not saying that it would have been wrong to apply for another job. I would say that my efforts up until I got this sense of peace, all the other applications were very much so, Hey, maybe that could work.

What I remember most clearly about the sense of peace that I gained was it was kind of like a conversation with God. I was like, okay, God, I totally don’t get it, why I’m here. Really this is where you want me? Okay. If that’s, if this is where I can best do your work I’m in.

I really did have more than once probably that kind of conversation with God. But at that point, I felt like I was at peace enough and tuned in enough that if I was supposed to apply for a job, I would know, and then I would have moved forward. It wouldn’t have been that same kind of scrambling feeling that I had before.

So I’m definitely not trying to say don’t apply for jobs, but you just want to be impelled divinely to do so if possible.

Robin: I really appreciate that. I hear that from folks and they go, I’ve been praying, I don’t hear anything. Or, I’m not sure what to do next.

It’s so nice to hear that, it does come, that sometimes staying that course helps a great deal.

Trudy: I still didn’t understand why I was there. But I was confident that it wouldn’t make any sense for God to have me someplace where I wasn’t making the most of the talents God had given me.

Even though it humanly didn’t make sense to me, it’s not like that changed, but I really just felt confident that God was in charge and I was willing to follow God’s way.

Robin: I was able to go back out to some of the camps this summer, where I do workshops with the staff. One of the topics that I cover in my workshop are transferable skills.

I love that you’re willing to talk about that because that’s a really hard thing for people to get ahold of.

For students and recent grads, how does that work and what is a transferable skill and what does that look like?

Maybe you can talk a little bit about your thoughts about transferable skills and what those look like?

Trudy: I’ve had a somewhat wide range of jobs. I’ve taught college. I’ve done administrative work in higher education. I’ve been in publishing. I’ve been in marketing and now journalism.

It’s not been a sort of necessarily obvious straight course.

I think what’s important is to be very clear about your skills.

I’m not just talking about skills that you have learned at school, or practiced on a job. I’m talking about all sorts of skills that you’ve had and used in your life, in your family, in your friendships, in whatever.

I think of those skills kind of like ingredients, and you haven’t done whatever the next job is. But you’ve used a lot of those ingredients. So if you think of that next job, sort of as a cake that you’ve never baked that’s fine. It is new, but you’ve used a lot of the ingredients that are going to go into that cake already.

In my case, critical thinking, teamwork, communication, thinking about the audience, brainstorming, being detail oriented. There’s just a million skills.

Here’s an example of when I combined those skills in a way that was new and, and the skills were familiar, but I put them to get together in a way that was definitely new to me.

When I was hired at Principia in the marketing department, I had never done marketing. I brought to them other skills, other ingredients.

I was well familiar with writing, with editing, with knowing the audience, with managing details, with meeting deadlines. There were all sorts of elements that I had, but I definitely had not made that particular cake before with those ingredients.

So of course there was a lot to learn, but having identified my skills for first of all, you kind of need to do that in order to talk in the interview and get the job, but also it also, it just gives you a kind of context and confidence for knowing that, okay, there’s going to be a lot of new coming at you, but Hey, it’s not like you’ve never written before.

It’s not like you’ve never edited. Not like you’ve ever, never worked with a team before. So you can not feel so freaked out about what’s new, right? That’s true of my situation now, when I moved from Prin to the Monitor, oh man, Monitor journalism and marketing, it couldn’t be more different,

I’m still writing, mostly editing. I’m working with a team, I’m meeting deadlines, and paying attention to details. All of those ingredients are still there. This is yet another kind of cake, but all of those ingredients are still there.

You just don’t want to feel overwhelmed by the new. At this point I have a lot of jobs that I can bring things from, but they don’t have to be things you learned in a job. Teaching is an important skill and maybe you taught your baby sister or something, it doesn’t have to be on the job.

Robin: I think that’s such an important point because there are many ways to acquire skills that that our desire or the, there are many ways to, to find what to find like volunteer opportunities or, clubs there’s there’s ways to gather those skills that, that isn’t isn’t in a work-related environment, but still transfer over into a professional resume because it’s a skillset.

And if you’ve learned it, if you have it, then you can certainly demonstrate to someone though that you, that you’ve got it, you’ve kind of got it in your bag, so to speak.

Another topic that I love that you brought this up, I just think, and this may be the hottest topic out there, particularly for students and recent grads.

Employers are always bending my ear about work ethic. I can’t tell you how you know I am, so they’ll, they’ll go on and on and on about work ethic. Just a quick plug – I came back from all these camps and boy, one thing that a camp counselor learns is a work ethic. They’re on 24/7. It’s such an incredible skill that they learn while they’re there.

Talk to us a little bit about work ethic and what does it mean to have a work ethic?

Trudy: That is a really important point and I will say that I’m going to do my best, period. So whatever’s put in front of me, I’m going to do the best I can with it.

And that’s sorta what it means to me. And in more detail, that means I’m going to take ownership of it. It doesn’t mean I’m not going to collaborate and work with others and all of that by any means, but I’m not, I’m almost certain I’m not going to go, I dunno. I just can’t do that. I might say, I don’t know, but I’m not going to leave it there.

I’m going to do whatever it takes to get it to where the person who knows that is, or for me to find out, whatever it takes, I’m going to see it through to completion. And I think that sense of ownership is a big part for me of having a work ethic.

It’s sort of like thinking of your work, having your byline.

Occasionally I write and that will have a byline, but mostly, yeah. What I’m doing has served me. Doesn’t have my byline editors. Obviously you don’t have their byline on the articles. But you kind of want to feel like it’s there. And so you want to be able to say, yeah, I’m proud of that. I did my best.

Really there’s no halfheartedness in being God’s expression. There just isn’t. The Psalms are constantly saying, praise God with your whole heart. And Jesus said the first and great commandment is thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with all thy heart and that’s the first and great commandment with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy mind.

So really I think that that’s our nature as God’s reflection. You think about a sunbeam reflecting the sun, it doesn’t on a cloudy day say, it’s cloudy, I’m going to. I’m going to kind of take, take a little break here. It just doesn’t do that. It’s going to shine fully, no matter what, it’s just it’s nature.

And I think that is how reflection works for us. That is actually putting herself wholeheartedly come into something comes naturally. I’m not saying it’s easy, but it does come naturally. And we just need to be willing to give it expression. Now, this is different, I want to be clear than being a perfectionist.

The perfectionist is almost well, I don’t know if, how often it’s helpful. There’s that expression, perfection is the enemy of the good I think or something. Right. So I’m not talking about perfection, I’m talking about giving it your whole heart.

So you’re going to do the best you can within the budget or within the deadline or within whatever the constraints are. You are going to give it your all. So to me, that’s what a work ethic is.

Robin: Well another part of that is thinking about the kind of work that you’ve done and what you’ve done.

You said, I’m always going to do my best, I started out working, I’m going to work hard to do my best.

I’m wondering, has doing your best always turned out perfectly?

Trudy: Oh my gosh, no. No, absolutely not. Of course not. No, but that’s okay. You do your best, and then you learn what you could do better next time. That’s also frankly, part of a work ethic, that you’re not just sort of sitting back going, oh man, I’m cool, done.

You are saying, yeah, I gave it my all, I think maybe next time I could go farther in this way.

Robin: Looking back on your background in looking at, as far back as you’d like, what do you draw from, what has helped you gain that confidence to work at it the best or to be the best, or, have that sense of persistence when maybe you’re failing or things aren’t turning out so good.

Tell us a little bit about that?

Trudy: Well there’s kind of two sides to it. To be perfectly honest, I think it began for less than ideal reasons. I was in a pretty dysfunctional family growing up and my survival strategy was I’m just going to be really, really good and kind of stay out of trouble that way.

And so, I was obedient. I was a parent pleaser, I was a teacher pleaser, that was just how I survived. Maybe that sounds good. It’s actually not the best. A lot of that is good, but it’s not the best way to either practice failing and recovering, or to just be an independent thinker.

That was my situation.

The other piece was that I grew up in a generation and a class where it was really important to represent the race well. And so that fed beautifully to being a good girl, pleasing adults, all of that stuff. So to be honest, that’s how it started. But I did at least then have the experience of seeing that doing well was satisfying.

Eventually that shifted from being a people pleaser to wanting to do my best for myself. That’s certainly a better approach, but it doesn’t mean that others aren’t going to have any role in what you’re doing, and what motivates you.

I’m thinking about other people all the time in my work, I’m thinking as a writer and editor, I’m thinking about the reader, what will make it clear? What will make it persuasive? What will just make somebody think all of that?

I think it comes down in a way to service. I kind of think that most every job ultimately has an end user. Whether you’re a driving Lyft or you’re designing a bridge or whatever you’re doing, waiting tables, there’s some end user.

Now your position might be quite far away from the ultimate end user. But if you think about most jobs having an end user, then most jobs I think are service jobs.

Essentially a service job means that you’re loving your neighbor. And that is the second commandment. We started out with love God with your whole heart. And the second is like unto it. Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.

So if I’m right about that fact, that most jobs ultimately lead to an end-user, then they are a way to serve others. A way to love your neighbor. What I’m saying then, in a wrap up way, is that having a work ethic is being wholehearted, loving God, whole heartedly, and serving others, loving your neighbor as yourself.

Those are really the sort of core of a good work ethic and certainly whatever task, however, mundane or whatever it may be, if you can think of it in those more spiritual terms, it will uplift it. I think.

Robin: Your insight to that is so helpful and has such great perspective. To kind of carry that on further, and I think now more than maybe ever since we’ve had this transition from working in an office to work in our homes and working in our home office and working in our home studio, and now we’re all thinking about a balance, and, and people are shifting their thought.

I wonder if you could share with us how you’ve managed to balance work and life and your career and family and business and health and all that. Those seem to be the dominant topics of folks today.

Trudy: I have to be honest and say that on a day-to-day, week-to-week basis, I’m probably not the best at work-life balance. It tends to tilt towards work.

I will say that two really super important things in my life have overall, well, maybe not every single day or every single week, but overall they have balanced my life so that it’s much more than work.

Those two things are family and church.

I’ll tell you a little bit about family. I adopted my daughter as a single parent. I wanted to adopt since high school, whether I married or not. As time went on, it was kind of hard to know whether marriage was going to be in the picture. Should I move forward on my own? Should I give up on the idea altogether? She’s almost 30. It’s not that uncommon to adopt a child on your own now. 30 years ago it was a little unusual.

Robin: That was a big step.

Trudy: Yeah. And, and so I just didn’t know if I should move forward with it. So I was kind of fraught over it all and I remember I will never forget one night in graduate school. I was actually babysitting this little kid and she was in bed and I was just like, stewing over all of this.

And then I don’t know, I read, I guess the, this sentence that just the very first part of this very long sentence, Mrs. Eddy loves long sentences, but the very first part of this sentence, it says ” “this is the doctrine of Christian Science, that divine love cannot be deprived of its manifestation or object.”

Suddenly I realized, oh, I am going to have an opportunity to have this whole hearted loving experience. Maybe it will be a child. Maybe not. Maybe it’ll be a business, who knows, but here’s why. Love cannot be deprived of its manifestation or object. So that means that I have to be both the manifestation and object of God’s love.

So the object part was easy. I had lots of friends, extended family. I certainly felt God’s love. But what mattered that night, I realized, was that I couldn’t be deprived of being the manifestation or expression of Divine Love, because if so, then that would mean that God was deprived of part of His manifestation of love.

And that obviously can’t be of omnipotent and infinite Love. So. I suddenly realized it was a guarantee. It was a given. I was going to have an opportunity to manifest or express love in this whole hearted, challenging, engaging way. And like I said, maybe be a child, maybe be a business maybe, I had no idea what it was going to be.

But I felt totally certain that I was guaranteed that, and had to be, not because of me, but because of God. God wasn’t going to be deprived of it.

At that point, after that, I was at peace. I had no more clue whether, what it would be for a long time, but I really did feel confident that couldn’t be deprived.

And, so I did then wind up adopting this little girl, totally a match made in heaven. I know you can ask her if she agrees, but I think she would agree at this point. Maybe not when she was in high school.

Anyway, and back to the original question. So family was a real balance to work. In terms of work-life balance. There were just limits, and wonderful limits, that family imposed on how much I could overwork.

The other thing that continues to be a really wonderful balance is church.

It fluctuates how many committees you can be on and you give more some years than others. But participating in church has been such a blessing. It’s really been a boon to my growth, my spiritual growth, and It just gets you to think bigger than yourself to think about your congregation and your community, the movement, the world.

So over all these years participating in church has been another really, really good way to bring a sense of balance into life. And I would just say not completely unrelated, but when it comes to church work, I would just say to everybody, if you ever have a chance to be First Reader, do it. It is like the hardest total blast, aside, perhaps from parenting that I have ever experienced.

It is just the best.

Robin: That’s an interesting topic is particularly I appreciate you bringing it up as it relates to students and recent graduates. I think they struggle with church more than most, and trying to figure out if it’s worthy, if it’s worthwhile, they have time to do it.

There’s all kinds of arguments that kind of come into that. So I think it’s so important to hear from someone like yourself as to why that’s been such a blessing to you and how you’ve been able to bless others by being a part of a church and and the congregation at large kind of a thing.

Trudy: I recommend it. It’s really about service, but it is also, it kind of keeps you honest in a way, just in terms of you know how sometimes you wouldn’t make the effort to do something for yourself, but you’ll make the effort for somebody else?

I think that may be just kind of the nature of the human condition. I don’t know.

In a sort of similar way, church, I have found just brings out the best in me. When I think I would not make the effort for myself, or have nothing more to give, then church just calls it out of me and it is such a blessing for me.

I’m hoping it’s a blessing for the churches I’ve been a part of too, but it is just such a blessing to have that something bigger than you pull out of you more than you knew you had.

There’s this interesting statement in the Manual. It says God requires our whole heart, kind of bringing us back to what we talked about before, God requires our whole heart and He supplies within the wide channels of the Mother Church beautiful and sufficient occupation for all its members.

That’s a really interesting statement. I don’t think it means that all Christian Scientists are literally supposed to work for the Mother Church as in getting a paycheck from the Mother Church. Though I will say that two times I’ve done it. I’ve loved it.

One is now with the Monitor. I’ve absolutely loved it. And if you have that opportunity, I recommend it. But I don’t think that’s what that statement is saying. I think it’s saying that working for church, whether in that kind of an official capacity or in your branch church or, however you are working for church, is an important part of your career, of your life work.

At this point, anyway, that’s my understanding of that statement. It has certainly been proven true to me that it has been an important part of my life’s work and a really key way to love God and love my neighbor.

Robin: I have a question for you that just came in. So you kind of talked about this a little bit, but let’s just kind of revisit it a minute. The question is, did you map out your journey?

Trudy: No. If so I’m a really bad cartographer.

No, it’s been, kind of all over the place. No.

I did think when I was in graduate school and wondered, is this really what I should be doing? I did think well it could be a good way to make that other thing that you kind of want to do in terms of being a parent and possibly as it turned out a single parent, It could be a way to kind of make that work, maybe summers off because this was teaching college.

They tend to be a little bit, sometimes more liberal communities and, back then single parent adopting maybe would benefit from a more liberal community. That was one time when part of what sort of helped me persevere through graduate school was, I guess you could say mapping out.

You see how much that mattered.

I didn’t stay in that profession. So no, I was not mapping anything out. It was very much a one thing leading to another.

Robin: As a follow-up of that question, are you where you thought you would be?

Trudy: Well, no, and here’s how much I’m not. My father was a journalist and I think in my childhood rebellious- ness even though I was really, really good, I sometimes thought other things.

And I do remember thinking I am never going to be a journalist.

Here I am at the Monitor. Now I’m not a reporter, but so no, I, I certainly never intended to be, but I also, as I then got older and all of that stuff. It wasn’t just being rebellious. I never dreamed I could be at the Monitor. I didn’t think of myself as a journalist. It was beyond my wildest dreams that I could be at the Monitor.

So I did not have the vision of how my skills would be transferable enough to get to be at the Monitor.

Thankfully they did. And I was ready, willing to step out on that. So no, in a literal sense, I am absolutely not where I thought I would wind up. I am so much in a happier place than I would have dreamed.

The one thing I would say is that there is a kind of through line. And I think that that often winds up being true for people.

I can see my daughter’s through line, even though she’s done a lot of different things. And for me, I’d say my through line is that I do love working with words.

And so when I was teaching, I was teaching literature. Whether it’s marketing or whatever. I have pretty much always in some form been working with words.

So there is that through line, but it’s certainly has developed in ways far better than I ever could have imagined.

Robin: It sounds like early on you loved words and you love the whole idea or the things around that, obviously you picked English as a major.

The questions come out, how do I find what it is I want to do? I have this interest. How do I find that? Where do I go to get that information? How would you answer that question?

Trudy: Well I would first say that English was my second choice. What I really loved was theater. And too long of a story to tell. The long and short of it is all those transcripts I had with me, which weren’t even trying to get a degree. And UCLA had a ceiling on the number of units you could have. And by the time I got there, I didn’t have enough units left that they would allow me to fulfill a theater major.

The thing that I could fulfill, because a lot of those units were related to English and would transfer, the thing I could fulfill was an English major, which obviously I liked I had taken those courses, but my point in saying that is it would just be good not to be completely fixated on the one and only thing I want to do.

And to be open to what, all the things that you care about and enjoy. And I would say, that led me toward teaching and it turns out that wasn’t for me. That wasn’t for me the best fit. So I think. It is good to be doing. It’s really lovely if the main sort of task is something that you enjoy, but it’ll come, it’ll get dressed in different ways.

Some will be better. Some will be worse. That’s all fine.

It doesn’t always have to be that you’re in your perfect burning passion position.

Robin: So a question from Sydney is what principles of Christian Science guide you as you choose words for whatever you write.

Trudy: That’s a good question.

I would say that I definitely feel like I try to write in listening mode. So that I am listening to God for sort of where this thing is going. And what’s the key idea to convey and the best way to convey it.

Here’s one example. A Daily Lift that I wrote a while ago. It had floated through my head, oh, you should do a Daily Lift on that.

I had done one about George Floyd’s murder and then when the Chauvin trial was going on, I thought, oh, you should do something about that.

Literally that flitted through my head and it was gone. And then one morning I woke up really, really early. I’ve learned when that happens to say, okay, Father, is there a reason I’m supposed to be awake now?

Is there something you want me to do?

And it came back to me. You should try writing that. So I did. I didn’t have all the time in the world, because I had to go to work.

I just sat, I’d write. I’d get stuck. I’d stop. I’d listen, I’d write some more.

Get stuck. I’d stop. I’d listen.

By the time I needed to jump in the shower, I had this thing that I could send to them. Well, it turns out that so that’s that morning and it turns out that that was the afternoon when the verdict came out.

So it was able to be in a timely way, shared with listeners and the kind of version of it went into the Monitor.

It was a wonderful precious time of communion with God. I’m not a particularly fast writer. I had a few hours. It was just like, oh wow, I actually listened to God say, get up and write.

I actually listened this time and it met a need for people. It was timely. So that was a kind of really lovely example to me of the ripple benefit of listening.

Robin: One final question. You’ve been so gracious. Thank you for answering all these questions. It is from William and William asks, the phrase “to injure no one” that the Monitor has, he asks, has that ever come up while deciding things at the Monitor?

Trudy: I think it is kind of always with us, both that one, “injure no man, bless all mankind.”

The other thing that she says about the Monitor, in the first editorial, is to spread undivided the Science that operates unspent. That is always in our thought. That is always what we are trying to do. Now, we do it better sometimes than others, but that is always what we’re trying to do.

It’s interesting because not everyone at the Monitor is a Christian Scientist. So we are also always sort of translating that concept, taking it out of Christian Science terms and putting it in terms that feel accessible to everyone. So yes, we are always thinking about both of those statements.

And as I said, sometimes executing better than other times, but that’s our North Star.

Robin: You have been fabulous. We so appreciate your willingness to be with us this afternoon. Good questions. It’s just been terrific.

If you’re not an Albert Baker Fund Career Ally, why not? Our students and recent grads could use your help. A word of encouragement, a new idea, help with their resume, mentoring, a professional connection, potential internships, or job opportunities.

Maybe just a warm friendly conversation could be of great help. So please reach out and connect with them. And follow us with the ABF Career Alliance. If you’re interested in having a conversation with Trudy, reach out to me, robin@albertbakerfund.org, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and join our group on LinkedIn.

Thank you Trudy, for your inspiring ideas you shared with us today and your continued support of the Albert Baker Fund. Trudy is also a trustee with the Albert Baker Fund. And it’s just been great having you today.

Trudy: Thank you. Grateful to be here

Robin: And thank you to the incredible team at the Albert Baker Fund for helping put this event on, this webinar series and supporting the Net Effect. If I missed a question, I’ll get to it. Send me an email.

Remember it’s not just about working hard and casting the net as Trudy shared with us. Let your prayer lead you and into casting your net on the right side. So again, if you have questions or want a conversation please reach out to me, robin@albertbakerfund.org.

Thank you all. Good afternoon. Look forward to seeing you next time on the Net Effect.

Topic: “Curiosity and ‘Questionsanswers’–How to have a memorable conversation that leads to unforeseen career opportunities!”

About Our Speaker:
What is a “questionanswer”? Is curiosity leading you to have memorable conversations? Would you like to listen, listen, listen, when you need to listen the most?

Jennifer Ann Gordon has devoted her life to understanding the power of words to uplift and benefit humanity. She now pours her “heartmindsoul” into helping people as a Christian Science practitioner and enjoys contributing to the Christian Science Journal and the Christian Science Sentinel. In August of 2018, Gordon conducted a workshop on writing for the periodicals with Associate Editor Tony Lobl in Northern California.

From 1997-2019, Jennifer helped small businesses with marketing communications. She also provided ghostwriting, writing coaching, manuscript review, and editing services for leaders with heart. She has given many talks on her writerly adventures, and created and conducted a writing workshop for women. Jennifer is the author of Writing With Your Ears: 50 Soulful Secrets to Writing (and Living) with Freedom and A Woman’s Mind Half Naked.

Jennifer has guest-taught at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona; Sacramento State University; University of California, Davis; and the Sacramento Entrepreneurship Academy, where she served as a director from 2007-2013. She is also an artist, a muralist, and a poet.

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Join us live for the Net Effect!

The replay of our September career conversation with Dan LaBar, innovative educator and community-builder, is now available in video, podcast, and transcript. Click “Watch Net Effect Replays” below!

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Topic: “Career Path or Listening Path?”

About Our Speaker:
A magna cum laude graduate of Northeastern University, a gourmet chef, and a published author, Paul describes himself as a “Manhattan-trained businessman” who found his way to his dream job of managing a high-quality food services operations for people he loves. He is currently the Head Chef and Food Services Manager for High Ridge House, a Christian Science nursing facility in Bronx, New York. Prior to that, Paul was a “coach, resident counselor, mentor, chauffeur, chaperone, and spiritual advisor” for five years at Principia Middle School and High School. In the summers, Paul ran the camp kitchens for Camp Owatonna in Maine and Crystal Lake Camp in Pennsylvania. His book, “Dear Children,” is a series of letters written to his children about how he overcame life’s challenges by following a spiritual path.

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Join us live for the Net Effect!

The replay of our September career conversation with Dan LaBar, innovative educator and community-builder, is now available in video, podcast, and transcript. Click “Watch Net Effect Replays” below!

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Bruce E. G. Smith has been in Information Technology related businesses in sales, sales management, and executive sales positions for 50 years for major companies including IBM, Westinghouse and British Telecom as well as numerous software and business process outsourcing companies. He has had a successful sales consulting and sales coaching practice for almost 20 years acting as VP of Sales for software start-up and later stage companies doing business as Achieving Sales Results, LLC. The website is: www.achievingsalesresults.com.

In 2006, Mr. Smith also started a musical theater production company in Pittsburgh named Front Porch Theatricals that produces two professional productions each year using union actors, choreographers, musicians and local actors, directors and crew known as “Pittsburgh’s Boutique Professional Musical Theater Company”. The website is www.frontporchpgh.org. Mr. Smith has been a Regional Ambassador for the Albert Baker Foundation since 2006 having interviewed dozens of potential ABF grantees and is also an ABF Career Ally.

Subscribe to our YouTube channel here

Join us live for the Net Effect!

The replay of our September career conversation with Dan LaBar, innovative educator and community-builder, is now available in video, podcast, and transcript. Click “Watch Net Effect Replays” below!

Register for Upcoming Episodes Watch Net Effect Replays

Episode Transcript

Special thanks to DiscoveryBound NLC intern Brenna Erickson who volunteered to transcribe this episode.