Ep. 19: Career coach Alec Sorensen helps dreamers of business ideas take action, via habit-building

03/31/22 • 120 min

Alec Sorensen is a career coach who helps people take action on life-changing business ideas they've been putting off.

Alec is also a follower of the Mormon church, a Japan-living American at one point, a California-to-Texas transplant, among other things.

We discussed how he got into career coaching, his faith, cultural shocks in Japan, why he moved to Austin from the Bay Area, and more.

0:00 Intro

1:20 Alec as a Coach: His thoughts about the coaching industry, and how he uses habit-building techniques to help people achieve their goals

12:18 Growing up as a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and thoughts on the Broadway show The Book of Mormon

20:26 Joseph Smith's controversy: His spiritual experience and his motives of starting the Mormon church

27:21 The question of polygamy: Does the current church endorse it, and the logic behind the practice

31:59 The Mormon church hierarchical order and how apostles are selected

35:39 Religion vs Crypto: They are both a commitment to fulfilling an unrealized vision

40:48 Alec's experience as a missionary in Romania

45:53 Missionary KPIs and follow-up of new converts

49:44 Alec's experience in Japan: Learning a new language, and living in a remote village

53:35 Chinese vs American parenting: Expectations of parents of their children, and why economic factors allow for more flexibility

58:44 Replaceability of the working class, China vs US

1:03:34 Japanese stereotypes that proved true during Alec's stay in Japan

1:11:38 Alec's experience as a crisis counselor for male rape survivors

1:18:46 Alec's opinion on microdosing and other mushrooming techniques used in counseling

1:19:28 Illegal drugs, coffee, tea, and sodas: Why the church frowns on their use

1:21:57 Coaching: Why coaching, Insecurities, Working with clients to get them results

1:31:47 Decision to move to Austin: All the pros

1:38:08 How he gets clients from conducting pilots

1:48:30 Conversations in Austin vs conversations in the Bay Area

1:51:37 Cognitive dissonance: How some champions for change in the Bay Area are somehow ill-prepared to pivot when confronted by people of different opinions

1:54:43 Argument for the legitimacy of Russia's invasion

1:58:54 Outro

Alec Sorensen is a career coach who helps people take action on life-changing business ideas they've been putting off.

Alec is also a follower of the Mormon church, a Japan-living American at one point, a California-to-Texas transplant, among other things.

We discussed how he got into career coaching, his faith, cultural shocks in Japan, why he moved to Austin from the Bay Area, and more.

0:00 Intro

1:20 Alec as a Coach: His thoughts about the coaching industry, and how he uses habit-building techniques to help people achieve their goals

12:18 Growing up as a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and thoughts on the Broadway show The Book of Mormon

20:26 Joseph Smith's controversy: His spiritual experience and his motives of starting the Mormon church

27:21 The question of polygamy: Does the current church endorse it, and the logic behind the practice

31:59 The Mormon church hierarchical order and how apostles are selected

35:39 Religion vs Crypto: They are both a commitment to fulfilling an unrealized vision

40:48 Alec's experience as a missionary in Romania

45:53 Missionary KPIs and follow-up of new converts

49:44 Alec's experience in Japan: Learning a new language, and living in a remote village

53:35 Chinese vs American parenting: Expectations of parents of their children, and why economic factors allow for more flexibility

58:44 Replaceability of the working class, China vs US

1:03:34 Japanese stereotypes that proved true during Alec's stay in Japan

1:11:38 Alec's experience as a crisis counselor for male rape survivors

1:18:46 Alec's opinion on microdosing and other mushrooming techniques used in counseling

1:19:28 Illegal drugs, coffee, tea, and sodas: Why the church frowns on their use

1:21:57 Coaching: Why coaching, Insecurities, Working with clients to get them results

1:31:47 Decision to move to Austin: All the pros

1:38:08 How he gets clients from conducting pilots

1:48:30 Conversations in Austin vs conversations in the Bay Area

1:51:37 Cognitive dissonance: How some champions for change in the Bay Area are somehow ill-prepared to pivot when confronted by people of different opinions

1:54:43 Argument for the legitimacy of Russia's invasion

1:58:54 Outro

Previous Episode

Ep. 17: Operations mgr Erin Cuellar moved between five states in 13 years for manufacturing career

Erin Cuellar is Director of Operations at STERIS, a manufacturer of medical devices. At the time of the interview, she was senior operations manager at the same company, and her role was essentially that of a plant manager.

Her responsibilities included supervising teams, managing KPIs, and maintaining quality controls.

Erin comes from a very different world than I do. She dropped out of college, worked at a local manufacturing site, joined an apprenticeship program, got her journeyman’s card which is sort of like a full license to practice in the trades, and moved from state to state for employment in manufacturing.

In the course of 13 years, she moved between five different states. At least one of the moves was the result of a plant shutdown thanks to outsourcing.

But Erin and her family, which includes a husband and three children were fully resilient in transitioning to new homes, new jobs, and new schools.

In fact, about a year after our interview, Erin moved to Pennsylvania to become Director of Operations at her company. I became interested in the trades in recent years after noticing and following the works of Mike Rowe and Andrew Yang, who both highlight a change in the mix of American jobs available as well as people willing to undertake those jobs.

In the US, there just seem to be fewer opportunities in the trades sector, and even fewer young people looking to enter those fields.

Mike Rowe looks to encourage the youths to get into these areas, whereas Andrew Yang sees the loss of these opportunities as the force that hollowed out middle America, which disenfranchised large swaths of the population, leading to rising support for the wings of the political spectrum.

In today’s conversation, Erin and I talked about what it's like to work in a manufacturing plant, her experience of working in the trades as a rare species of a woman, her moves around the country in pursuit of various manufacturing jobs, how does she think about raising her kids, and why she thinks it's a good idea for young people to consider a career in the trades.

Next Episode

Ep. 18: Entrepreneur Karol Guan discusses creativity at art school and in her beauty AI startup

(Episode in Mandarin)

Karol Guan is an entrepreneur. This interview was recorded in Nov 2020. At the time she was co-founder of HelloAva.co, a startup that recommends skin care products based on a combination of AI and doctors. Karol studied Fashion/Apparel design at Parsons School of Design in New York City.

We discussed how the 2020 Covid both helped her startup grow and presented challenges to the way she worked, how she felt about being a woman in the male-dominated startup space, how her training as an artist and creator at Parsons prepared her for entrepreneurship, how she felt about sexual harassment in the venture space and beyond, the career paths of her friends that have returned to China, and more!

0:00 Intro

02:34 HelloAva is the StitchFix for cosmetics

11:41 Rewards and challenges for being a startup founder

16:01 Dealing with messy logistics at her startup during Covid

25:52 Women in startups 36:53 Sexual harassment in venture

45:54 Finding one's calling in life

1:09:45 Reflecting on career paths of friends returning to China

1:14:56 Being Cantonese

1:22:05 Karol asks Richard about his takeaways from hosting Chinatown 2.0