Steph Smith - Carving a 21st Century Career & Life (Podcast)
· 1 min read
Steph has a hard time identifying as anything. Remote worker, writer, or coder don’t really do it justice. The thing that stands out when you talk to Steph is that she is a LEARNER. Through competing in chess as a child she learned the valuable meta-skill of how to improve and never really saw any reason why she couldn’t just take something up.
- 0:00 – Welcome & how she picks where to live
- 2:24 – Her experience working and living in Bali
- 5:30 – Her experience traveiling around & competing globally as a kid playing Chess
- 9:00 – Why the default path never made sense for her and what Chess taught her about learning
- 14:10 – The risks of going solo early in your career and what she sees her peers doing
- 19:30 – How people always find ways to label you
- 23:00 – How not to blind yourself to opportunities
- 27:00 – Why you can write great content online
- 28:50 – Her writing and content marketing at Toptal
- 31:50 – Her assessment of talent platforms
- 34:00 – How Steph landed a job by writing online
- 36:20 – Her long term goals to work solo
- 39:45 – Confidence and being able to own your own path
- 42:30 – Untranslatable words
- 47:15 – How to Connect with Steph
This mindset is invaluable in today’s world and this is demonstrated by the way Steph landed her job at The Hustle (hint: it didn’t involve a formal application.
In this conversation, we cover:
- This conversation was a lot of fun and explores:
- Digital nomadism myth vs. reality
- How she chooses where to live
- What she learned traveling the world competing in chess as a child
- How she thinks about work and her identity
- One of her favorite topics - words that don’t translate
Learn More: StephSmith.io
