140: Become Forever Employable - Jeff Gothelf

In his twenties, Jeff Gothelf wanted to be a rock star. After college, he spent a year as a sound and lighting tech for the Clyde Beatty Cole Bros. Circus. Then he started a band and he worked as a touring musician, playing the piano. For the next few years, he formed and managed several bands. Once he realized that his music career was not going to cover his bills, Jeff, then 26, migrated into the tech world. In those days, you could learn on the job. He was trained in HTML and web design. Over the next nine years, he progressed through a series of roles in different software companies increasing his income, responsibilities, skills and developing his reputation as a UX expert. Then the dot com bubble burst and while he continued to survive in the industry, Jeff knew he needed to do something else. By then he had a young family. Jeff hired a business coach to explore his options. Today, Jeff works as a coach, consultant, and keynote speaker, helping companies bridge the gaps between business agility, digital transformation, product management, and Human-Centered Design. He helps organizations and executives build the cultures that build better products. Through the use of concepts like design thinking, lean, UX, and agile software development, Jeff brings a new approach to running organizations and the departments within them, most recently focusing on human resources, and how they can be more agile as well as supporting agility in the organization. In this week’s learn more about Jeff’s journey: Jeff’s most recent book, , was published in June 2020. He is the co-author of the award-winning and the Harvard Business Review Press book, Learn more and connect with Jeff here: