Make It Happen with Havana

There’s a difference between feeling busy vs getting actual work done and Shayne Bowman joins us today to talk about how to spot the difference! As a UX Director for ADP, he has led many digital initiatives for non-tech companies. If you find yourself constantly working overtime, slammed with meetings, or feeling stuck in your progression, this episode is for you! We talk about strategies to manage meetings, make them more effective, work smarter, not harder, and utilize work hours so you CAN have a healthier work-life balance. 

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Sophia Prater (founder of Object-Oriented UX) and I talk about habits this week! Why are habits so hard to build? How do we change our habits? What should we do when we relapse? Well, we are happy to report that building the habits you want is possible! We dive into the science behind habit-forming and also the mantras and framings that have helped us evolve our own habits over the years. We also talk about leaving behind perfectionism and our current journey of loosening up some of our habits. Tune in!

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When thoughts and feelings swarm our heads, it makes us irritable, confused, and overwhelmed. Journaling wrangles the mental chaos and has been shown to have positive cognitive and psychological effects. But how to get started? How do you stick with it? I’ve been journaling since I was 13 and in today’s episode, I’ll share the different ways you can journal. It’s free, it’s simple, and it can have an immense impact on your mental health. 

This week, Ariel of Sustainable Brown Girl returns to talk about sustainable practices and approaches when it comes to pregnancy! It's no mystery that babies require a lot ... but consumerism has us buying a lot of things we don't need or things that will be outgrown pretty quickly. How can we make smarter choices during this journey? Tune in to learn more!

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If you interact with other humans, you will encounter frustration, annoyance, or anger at some point. It's inevitable. How can we better navigate these scenarios when our colleagues and loved ones are difficult? When I realized that I've developed a short fuse with people this year, I set up a new goal for myself: to expand my sense of compassion. This has brought me more inner peace and more resilience in the face of these social hurdles. Maybe this can help you too!

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We glorify young, successful people but the reality is that most people don't obtain their "dream job" or start their businesses until much later in life. Eric Tiberius Tran is a concept artist in the gaming industry and even though this was a dream he was constantly chasing, he didn't get into that career until he was 36. Before that he was working retail to pay off his student loans and then resorted to upending his whole life, moving up to Chicago, and sleeping on air mattresses to try to wriggle into the gaming space. In this episode, we discuss tenacity, the validity of "paying your dues," and how to balance that drive with self care. 

This is odd advice but ... you gotta master how to talk about yourself. Better understanding rhetorical devices, metaphor, and story structure to make your story, achievements, and strengths stay in people's minds can open some surprising doors to new opportunities and relationships. Too often, we try to make our stories too general or universal but Amanda and I discuss in this episode why the specifics are what make us stand out. On top of that, we reflect on why it can be so hard for us to talk about ourselves, the effects of culture on communication styles, and how to find your unique voice. 

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Did you know the famous Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs is actually based on (and uncredited) on a concept from the Blackfoot nation? While self-actualization is often at the top of the hierarchy, self-actualization is at the bottom of the original Blackfoot concept. Licensed therapist Dr. Han Ren PhD joins us and challenges us on some Western ideas around mental health. We talk about the distress of socioeconomic pressures, the trend of self-diagnosis on social media, and about how we can best take care of ourselves and our loved ones with depression. 

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You will likely witness injustice or unethical behavior in the workplace. And if you're like most people, you're going to be paralyzed from doing something about it. After all, you got bills to pay. SaaS scaling consultant Heather O'Neill is someone who stood up and today, she shares her story. We discuss privilege, power dynamics, and personal resilience. What does life look like after you blow the whistle? How can we better support them and how can we muster the courage to call out wrongdoing at work? 

I believe that we all control our destinies. I also believe that prejudice, bias, discrimination, and systemic oppression exists. How does that work? Brand ambassador, business consultant, fitness trainer, and fellow Type A Daphne Adebayo drops some truth bombs out here on how we get in our own way and the common pitfalls people make when pursuing their goals.

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Conventions are big ole' events full of workshops, shows, contests, vendor halls, panels, competitions, and more for nerds of all kinds! I have played many roles throughout the years: attendee, artist, vendor, panelist, guest, staffer, director-- I've done it all! Staffing a convention pays nothing ... so why do it? Our guest Dana and I will share all the amazing skills, experiences, and friendships we have gained throughout our years of staffing Momocon, an Atlanta-based convention that once started in a student center that has now grown to 45K attendees and counting! 

“Everyone should reflect on their gender identity, not just transgender people.” When DEI consultant, congressional coordinator, and global policy expert Mei Ke said this, it stirred my curiosity. So of course I had to have them on the show! We all have elements of masculinity and femininity; how do they affect our sense of self? Our position in society? Our place in the world? And what is even the point of thinking about this? This conversation was so enlightening and fascinating. We also discuss why understanding queerness can even … improve the happiness of heterosexual people? And if you do find you may be gender non-conforming or trans, what should you do? How can we better support these individuals when they come out to us? Tune in!

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Is there even a point to sustainable living when it's large companies responsible for most of the pollution? Our answer: yes! Ariel from Sustainable Brown Girl joins the podcast to talk about why sustainable living matters. We also talk about the intersection of racial justice, classism, and environmentalism because climate change disproportionately affects marginalized groups. Intimidated? Don't be! We'll share easy, accessible ways to get started. After all, we need a ton of people trying to do better more than we need a handful of "perfect" zero-wasters. 

Here we are with another episode on debt! This time, we feature Jamie McAtee and Amy Santee, two women who got their Masters degrees and tackled down their debt without the help of family or a spouse. How did they do it? And how did they do it without being miserable? Our guests share their stories and tips and also talk about the questions you need to ask yourself before going for a graduate program. 

How do you accelerate your career growth? Become a strategic lynchpin on your team? Develop into a highly coveted asset? These are 12 things I have done to accomplish all three. I'm far from perfect but I promise you that even doing a couple of these things will boost your growth. Some of these cheat codes include: making a friend in every department, building a mental library of business case studies, learning how to switch communication styles for different personality types, and using video to do walkthroughs and demos for overseas and/or humungous teams. Oh and consult your mentors ... a lot. Like way more than you are doing now. There are no unique problems. Someone somewhere has solved this before. 

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The depth of knowledge you get from reading books is uncontested, even in this age of Medium articles and video essays. Reading books can sometimes feel like a battle for the final bastion of our attention span. Shay Xie and I geek out in probably the nerdiest conversation on this podcast and we talk about why it's so important to read and how to read more books especially when you're busy. Whether it's an epic tome on the Civil War or a YA novel about vampires, our attention spans, empathy, and understanding of the world can benefit from reading more books. 

I hope you are ready to get inspired because my guests today are two amazing people who managed to pay off their individual debts on a single income! Sanae Case and Alina I'vette Fernandez have such different financial journeys and different approaches on how they tackled that debt ... and they didn't need a six-figure income to accomplish this. This is one episode you absolutely do not want to miss! 

Look at IG and TikTok and there is no shortage of content on how to deal with toxic people, how to spot red flags, and how to distance yourself from toxic people. But what if ... you're the toxic person in a relationship? Toxicity stems from 3 things: ego, fear, and insecurity. Those are 3 things everyone deals with, so how do we avoid becoming toxic ourselves? Let's do a little self-reflection!

The pursuit of conventional beauty standards is often a lifelong and strenuous endeavor for women. The pursuit is harmful, unrealistic, and rooted in misogyny. We know this and yet it is so difficult to let go of it. Abby and I deconstruct this topic a little bit and share our stories with body image. I dive into my battles with anorexia and assimilation of white beauty standards and Abby shares her experiences with transitioning and internalized transphobia. Does "pretty privilege" exist? In the end, we discuss advice and thoughts on self-acceptance. 

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My SO of 16+ years joins me today to expand on our topic of becoming a better thinker! Critical thinking skills are so necessary in this day and age and luckily, they are skills that can be learned. 

In this and the next episode, I want to talk about how to become a better thinker. Processing and analyzing information, making accurate conclusions, making better decisions are all skills you can actually improve. But first, you gotta learn how to embrace error. This episode covers why being wrong sucks so, so much, the stigma around error, why we make mistakes, how to reduce error, and how to adopt a more constructive attitude around being wrong. 

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Money is a love language in Asian cultures. Ying Yao and I share stories of growing up torn between American culture and our parents' cultures and how those experiences shaped our attitudes, outlook, and anxieties around money. And for our Asian-American friends, we also give tips on how to balance your family's expectations around financial contributions vs working towards your own money goals and how to establish those boundaries. 

After college, I got a job making more than my parents did when I was growing up, which was a huge achievement! But despite following all the money blogs and cutting down expenditures and luxuries, I was living paycheck to paycheck. What was my problem? I tried everything. I even freelanced on the side to bring more money in! Still, money invoked intense anxiety. I then worked with a great personal finance consultant who really opened my eyes and turned my life around. Here are some of the lessons I still practice 5 years later. 

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Jasmine Orange is a Senior UX Designer, speaker, HCI grad student and we talk about the paradox of being overachievers and dealing with capital-D Depression. I wanted to start inviting guests so that you all get to listen to another perspective as well. Jasmine and I also discuss the intersection of being a woman of color and mental health issues, like the trope of "strong Black woman" or the immense first-world guilt as a first-generation person. On top of all this, how do we deal with this but also move forward with holding down a full-time job? 

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Behind my published comic series is a graveyard of unfinished, abandoned side projects. It took me a few years to finally learn how to get my side projects done. Common reasons why side projects wither? Lack of scheduling, being way too ambitious, and getting stuck in perfectionism are just a few. 

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Job hunting sucks. Over the years, I've had mentees reach out 6 or even 12 months into their job hunt completely demoralized, questioning whether or not they ought to give up. All of those mentees eventually landed their first UX role. And even though I'll speak from a UX perspective, a lot of this advice can apply to many other fields. Troubleshooting the job search is actually rather easy. I'll provide some common problems with tips on what to focus on and how to move forward. 

You've got this!

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60% of American adults reported feelings of loneliness. We long for the friends of our childhood and college years but as we get older, it feels like making friends gets harder and harder. This week, I share my stories of how to meet people, start conversations, build friendships, maintain friendships, and how to deepen bonds. And believe it or not, you do not need social media to do this. 

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"Therapy is too expensive!" "I just need to figure out how to overcome this on my own" "I tried therapy before, it doesn't work"

These are common pushbacks I've heard and in this episode, I will address them all! As a former therapy skeptic, I believe that even though therapy is optional, not going to therapy means you are willingly playing your life on hard mode. Everything in your life becomes a mental uphill battle. 

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This is part 2 of how I got into UX with no formal experience, no HCI degree, and barely any contacts. Catch part 1 if you haven't already! I also talk about how to manage your mental health during the job search.

Kicking off this podcast series is the top most frequently asked question that I get: how did I, a former customer service rep with no HCI degree or bootcamp cred, get into UX? After waves of networking efforts, hours of studying UX books and online resources, practicing and applying my new knowledge, building mentorships, and 9 rejections, this is my story of how exactly I landed my first UX job.