How Taking Ownership Beyond Job Description Transformed a Podcast into a Product Success

So I'm, I'm trying to, it's hard to, uh, it's, it's hard to determine how much personality to portray in an interview that's like the right amount. Sure, uh, I don't know. Um, all right, so, uh, there's a pretty obvious one, um As, uh, as I've talked about, I had a lot of pretty heavy lifting product management tasks and a team that was running, and I was spinning up new product management teams constantly. Um, but at the same time, I had the opportunity to Be on our podcast and make YouTube videos, um, which, uh, definitely aren't direct drivers of my success at, um, it was something that what didn't fall into my Um, It, it didn't, it didn't increase my metrics as being the best product manager, which is always something I'm trying to do anyways, um, so it was picking and choosing when to, uh. When it jiveed with all of the current projects I had, and the features and the and the team building, and, and making sure that that never was compromised in any way. But even though it was more work, it was, it was enjoyable to me, and I felt like I had value to add, and I could make a product better, um, which is at the end of the day is, it's, I now I know that about myself is that seeing inefficiencies or seeing something we could change just a little bit without that much work is definitely something that Gets me out of bed in the morning, and so I could take on some extra projects, but make sure that they, I, I kind of set the boundaries right from the beginning that sometimes it might be weeks where I, I cannot push anything forward on, on these extra responsibilities that I took on at the company, um, but I enjoy them so much that I'll always make time if I have extra time, um, and so what I ended up doing

Um, I like, uh, I think it boils down to, I like participating in things, and I like being, I like. Uh, I like really being present at work and interacting with colleagues and making things better. And so, at, uh, as a constant improvement, I think our podcast, I, as someone who listened to the podcast, and who has watched YouTube videos, I felt like we could make things better, and there was no one else that could kind of provide the insight or the spearhead them in the direction that I could. And so, I would, if I didn't take them up, I would watch them stay, they would still grow and change, but not in a way that I thought would be beneficial. Um, and so what I could do is I could kind of spend some targeted time and make sure that I had a plan for how to interact. And how to make these small things better. But the podcast, um, it's both between these couple projects, it's a huge, if I really involve myself, it's a, it's like 25% of my time, um, which as a, as a 40-hour workweek, that's just not enough. Uh, I mean, you can't, you can't do both of those things. Um. And so what I would end up doing is, uh. I enjoyed them enough and I thought that I contributed value, that it's something that, uh, I felt like I was beholden to the company to share these, to share these insights, to share these values, and to make something better so that it's, it's impacting more people in, in, in a way that that's the only way I know how, um, and so that's

Um, I think it's twofold. Uh, I think that the As a, as a company, um, I think a more diverse. Group of people working on something definitely makes it better um and so uh our company was fairly engineering heavy and fairly um. I, I guess I don't know, there's probably a better way to say this, but type A personalities, I guess athletes, right? We're filled with athletes, cyclists. So, so there's, there's a very specific flavor of, of employee. And I, even though I fall within that category, I'm definitely, uh, something that is closer to a different perspective, um, and we had so few of those on the podcast that I felt like I could contribute something that would grab another bucket of people listening to the podcast. Um, and the same with the race analysis videos on YouTube, where I felt like There's, there's many people who want the formula of how to win a race, but there's also people who will ingest something and get slightly smarter or or have a, have a takeaway that only I can provide. And so I felt like we're effectively widening. Our market every time I join something and even if it's a small one, I think the diversity added to the, to the projects was, was really important because that will change the projects forever, um, but also widening the market as I'm participating, um, we'll get more people into the system which at, at the end of the day is what, what those were driven, that's, that's the metric we're trying to increase with those projects.