The Work Seminar

Ep. 25: Megan Sauter - PhD in Cognitive Psychology Turned Talent Development Leader

June 22, 2022 Jesse Butts Season 2 Episode 10
The Work Seminar
Ep. 25: Megan Sauter - PhD in Cognitive Psychology Turned Talent Development Leader
Show Notes Transcript

Halfway through her doctoral program, Megan knew pursuing a professorship wasn’t the right path. She loved her studies, but seeing how her work could be applied in industry cemented her decision to look outside higher ed for career prospects.

Enlightening conversations with friends and colleagues in the tech scene led Megan to discover the then-nascent user experience (UX) field. One particular chat crystalized UX research as the perfect area for her to focus on. And focus there she did. 

After nine years in UX research and research management roles, Megan was as (initially) surprised as anyone to move into talent development. But her belief in a growth mindset, her evolving identity beyond a UX and psychology practitioner, and an opportunity to stretch herself all aligned. 

Now Megan relishes helping fellow leaders develop their skills and teams, along with finding a sense of accomplishment and balance. 

Books & other resources mentioned

Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol Dweck

JoinLearners.com  — a UX career resource

The Calm App or Headspace for starting a mindfulness practice

Check out more from The Work Seminar

Visit theworkseminar.com or find @TheWorkSeminar on social media. 

Sign up for The Work Seminar newsletter to receive updates straight to your inbox.


Support the show
Jesse Butts:

Hey everyone. Thanks for joining me for another episode. I'm your host, Jesse Butts. Today, I'm chatting with Megan Sauter, a PhD in cognitive psychology from Northwestern turned talent development leader. Before taking this role, Megan spent the majority of her career in user experience research. She is now the director of talent development at Answer Lab, a UX research service. Megan, welcome. Thanks for joining me on the show.

Megan Sauter:

Thanks so much for having me, Jesse. I am glad to be here.

Jesse Butts:

Glad we could find the time. So before we dive into your path from cognitive psychology to talent development, and I'll be sure to ask about that user experience part of it too, but can you tell us a little bit about what you're doing now? What does talent development involve?

Megan Sauter:

That's a really good question. So talent development, I guess I'll put it this way. What do you think of when you think of performance reviews?

Jesse Butts:

So in my experience, you know, three days before it was due, trying to think of what I did for a year. And then six weeks later actually having a conversation, and my manager highlighting what I did well and what could be improved upon. And then a month or six weeks later, it was like, I actually heard about the compensation changes. So that was my experience with performance reviews for the majority of my working in house career.

Megan Sauter:

Yes. Yeah. So it can be, like you said, it could be all of this pressure at the last minute. If you have a great manager, a great relationship, it could be this very enriching experience. Or it could feel like you're being judged. Very perfunctory. Like this is just something you have to get done. It's checking a box. So the idea of talent development is turning that on its head to make experiences, professional development experience, since they're really centered on the person to be centered around growth rather than judgment. Rather than, you know, I'm just doing this, so, you know, maybe I could get a raise. I'm just doing this for this one core reason. I'm doing this too, because I have to. So trying to make experiences that have a greater meaning to the individual and in the end, as well as the, as the company. Because when people are feeling like they're being supported, that they're being seen, that they're, they have the ability to explore their talents and their own growth paths, the organization benefits from that. So that is how I see talent development. It's personal development, it's professional development, and it's, I would hope it's more, becomes more meaningful to the individual going through that experience.

Jesse Butts:

Maybe activities isn't quite the right word, but how does that kind of break down into a, a program or a process?

Megan Sauter:

So I'm trying to think of how do I want to best frame this, without giving away all the secret sauce. I'd say my philosophy is built around the growth mindset, which means that this intelligence and skills we have, they're not fixed traits, but they're, we all have that potential to, to grow. And I also see the skills building as a process and a practice, meaning learning a skill i s something that happens over time. It's not something that it's just one point in time. You get it. It's flipping on a light switch. Most skills don't work like that. It takes time to, to learn, to cultivate, to have a chance, to practice, to mess up, to get feedback. So it takes time. And it's not something that's just, that can only be done like once a year or twice a year or every quarter in a performance review cycle or talent development cycle. Rather, it's something that is, is always happening. So there are official processes that are put in place like talent development cycles, is what I'll refer to them as, where you do have that chance to reflect, to, to fill out, an assessment similar to, to what you described, but making sure it's really human centered, based around the skills and the learning goals the individual has. And then meeting with your talent development partner, which is your manager, to really explore those goals and come to some ideas of how you want to continue to cultivate those skills. So very much there's processes in place, but it's also an overarching philosophy or culture that you always have the ability to grow and making sure that you have those opportunities to grow.

Jesse Butts:

Well, I mean, I, I certainly look forward to a better system than what I had, had experience with. So Megan, going back a little, can you tell us a little bit about what prompted you to enroll in grad school? Like what were you hoping to achieve by going to grad school?

Megan Sauter:

Oh, what a question. So I've always just been in love with learning. Since I was really young. And I went to college because I wanted to keep learning and I couldn't, I couldn't decide on even what to major in. So I double majored in English and psychology. I was always fascinated about learning, I guess, of human stories and the human experiences, how we work. I was going to have a minor in Spanish, but I was like, I already was at the point where I was petitioning my college to take more classes than they thought a human student should take. Uh, so just give you a perspective, like I just was just this voracious learning machine. And so grad school, it made sense to me in that mindset of, well, I need to just keep going. And I thought, Yeah, I might want to be a professor. Like I could see myself just living in a, a place of learning for the rest of my life in some way. And in a way I am. Talent development, that is all about learning and, and personal growth., It's a very different pathway than I could have envisioned when I was, what 22? Whatever it was, I was finishing college and going off to grad school. But it did take some time to figure out, do I want to do psychology? Do I want to go into English lit? I toyed with the idea of studying creative writing. And I ended up landing on psychology partially through just the experiences and opportunities I had in the psychology honors program at Arizona State.

Jesse Butts:

Where you went to college?

Megan Sauter:

Undergrad, yeah.

Jesse Butts:

Okay. As you started the program, were you still in the early stages thinking that you would probably become a professor or something along those lines? Or when did a shift start to occur?

Megan Sauter:

Yes, I think early on. I did well, but I was in over my head in some ways. And some of it had to do with just my relationship to learning and how, honestly, I think, I think I really did have a fixed, that fixed mindset where I'm like, I'm smart. And so any time there was criticism, or I didn't do well, it just had, just a huge impact on my mental health. And it was not sustainable. So in undergrad I used to stay up and pull all nighters, write papers. I tried doing those things, things in grad school and it just wrecked me. By the end of my first semester, I was like, you can not keep going like this. Like something had to change. I had to develop not just better habits for how I was pursuing projects and knowledge and writing, but just my relationship to my work had to shift. I remember probably in my third, second or third year of grad school, I was flying to DC for a conference there. I was going to present there. And I got off the plane, I was covered in like bumps. And I'm like, oh my gosh, I caught something on the plane. I have like an illness. It's like what's happening. And I called student health. And after talking to them for a few minutes, they're like, you have stress. This sounds like stress hives. Take some Benadryl. And it was kind of a wake up call of for someone like me who studies human cognition, that the head, the brain is not just this floating thing detached from your body. That the decisions that you make impact your health, your body. Like there is that strong mind-body connection. And I'd say, like since that time, I have really been focusing on how, how to create harmony in that.

Jesse Butts:

While you were kind of going through this self discovery, learning that a career path in academia might not be right with you, were you still enjoying the, the subject matter itself?

Megan Sauter:

Yes. I was. So even when things became, I guess, more sustainable for me, and more enjoyable for me, later in grad school, I was questioning whether I wanted to be a professor for another reason. So in going to these conferences, I would often meet with people who are teachers who had... they were involved in museum programming. And they would see some poster I did, some work that I had done about like a lab study. And they're like, Oh, I could see this being an activity that I could work with, you know, the kids at the museum, or the students at my school. And hearing that application be applied to someone to make, to help them learn something or give them a better experience in some way that had a major influence on me. I remember talking to my, my advisor had a dual appointment in psychology and the school of education and social policy. And so there were some grants on, on learning. And about halfway through my grad experience while I was preparing for, you know, to figure out my dissertation. It was like, what can I do? Like what, what opportunities might we have to explore something a little more applied?

Jesse Butts:

Sorry, I probably should have asked this earlier, but how, how long was your program?

Megan Sauter:

I took about, five and a half years, I wanna say. Five, five and a half years, somewhere around that.

Jesse Butts:

So when you were in year four, five, as you were, you finished comps, you were, you know, defending your dissertation. What were you thinking at that point that you would do once you graduated?

Megan Sauter:

So this is interesting. I had already done all my data collection. I was doing like the big writing and the analysis piece of my dissertation. My partner, my now husband, he's in tech and he, we were in Chicago and he got a job out in San Francisco. So, I've always been interested in tech. And you might be able to start seeing like, okay, like, yeah, the application technology, like there's a lot of things that were coming together. So I talked to my advisor about, Okay, I have a few months left of writing. How would you feel if I did this remotely from San Francisco? And I tried it out a little bit before I moved officially, but one of the things that that enabled me to do, so I did finish my, my dissertation on time. I'm really proud of my work ethic during that, and how I got it done. So what it enabled me to do being out in the Bay Area is there was like a lot of opportunities for folks with my background in the emerging field of UX. Or in educational research and data science. Like there's a lot of cool ideas out there. So I was able to meet with different folks who had jobs that seemed interesting. And I just talked to them to try to figure out, like, what is it I want it to do? What part of UX? Was it information architecture? Was it research? Are there jobs where you just do UX research? Which now it's very prevalent, but you know, then, you know, you'd see like kind of more UX general jobs and a lot of design, like interaction design jobs. So I joined up with like a meetup for coding because I wasn't sure if I wanted to do data science or if I wanted to do something where that would be useful. So I was, I was exploring. By the time I defended my dissertation, I wasn't sure exactly what it was, but I had an idea that it would be somewhere in technology. Somewhere related to how people are interacting with tech, and it maybe will have the, the, the acronym UX involved in there somwhere.

Jesse Butts:

And that was brought about mainly by just having conversations with people, you said?

Megan Sauter:

Yeah. My first conversation was actually someone I went to grad school with who had been in tech during the initial bubble in the early 2000s and then went to grad school. So I remember them talking to me like, I, we went out for like coffee or a beer and just, I asked questions about what it was like, and, you know, what, what kinds of jobs might be related. And at the time in the early 2000s, UX wasn't the term for it. There were some other terms for what that looks like. But I had some ideas there that there's, there could be some potential.

Jesse Butts:

So once you graduated, did you then kind of pound the pavement looking for work in California?

Megan Sauter:

Yes. Um, one of my favorite stories about this was I had a couple of friends that I met on a long cycling trip that, they were also moving out to, they had been in Chicago. They were also moving out to the Bay Area. Similar timing. And one of them was a grad students at one of the schools out in the Bay Area. And I remembered them telling me like, Hey Megan, there's a grad, there's a grad, there's a grad school job fair that's going on, just for grad students at our school. You should just go. You should just print out your resume and go. Just sneak in. And so that's what I did. So I just printed out my resume. I went to this job fair for a different school. Um, I, I got an interview and I got flown out to like, The DC area. It was like a very, a very like governmenty type. It wasn't for the government, but it was like a company that was like heavily involved in government stuff. So I got to interview there and explore what that vibe was like. And that particular job was not for me, but I really appreciated like everything... you know, that they saw something in me. And they, they gave me that opportunity.

Jesse Butts:

What was it, uh, what is it, maybe I should say too, about user experience that you initially found really interesting?

Megan Sauter:

I think it's all, it's all the things that when you use a new, like a new site or a new app or a new video game that make you rage. That you're like, Why did someone do this? Like, why did they put button here. Why did they make it this easy to close this and lose all my work? Like, those are the things like that... I feel like I could have an influence in that not happening. I can make someone's day better.

Jesse Butts:

How much of that desire or... yeah, desire to do that work was coupled with the cognitive psychology background that you had.

Megan Sauter:

Oh, probably a good amount because there's all these little things. Like I remember working on a project and realizing why people were missing information was based around visual processing. And how there's these different, like Gestalt principles of grouping things together or prioritization. And the way information was flowing across this page was it didn't align with some of those principles. So I would find all these cognitive heuristics that either like that was what was behind an issue or could be used to help fix an issue.

Jesse Butts:

Did you end up relocating to the DC area for this job?

Megan Sauter:

No. Oh no, I did not take the DC job. I, I just, I stayed in the Bay Area but I flew out to interview. So I got my start in UX actually at Answer Lab. So at the company I am still at today that I've been able to explore my own career path. I started as a UX researcher.

Jesse Butts:

What does that type of work look like? What are you doing day to day, week to week as a UX researcher? At least when you started.

Megan Sauter:

My favorite part about it is... I never want to be bored, as you could probably tell from all the different interests and things I've explored, like I want to keep learning. And that was something that was a constant being a UX researcher. So this is a client services firm. So I got to work with lots of different clients, lots of different products. And our clients would come to us with a product or an issue, something they want to learn more about. And then I got to figure out like, How do you take their goal and kind of reverse engineer that into a task? Like a behavioral task where you get to interview a person and importantly observe their behaviors while using that product. I got to do ethnographic research where you actually go to locations where people are doing their job. They're using these different products and tools. I got to do usability testing. Lots of different techniques, both from the kind of exploratory ,to building the product, to, It's already out there, let's keep iterating and make it better. But just like in the lab... So what brought me to the area of cognitive development that I was doing, I did, I did cognitive development. That's the area of cognitive psychology I was at. And part of the challenge there when you're working with kids, you have to take a research question and turn it into something that your, your population, your sample, like kids could do that would also illustrate, you know, it'll answer the question you're doing. So it felt going from like that, where I had to like, say I had a question about like, How do kids develop the ability to, to think spatially? How do kids develop the ability to communicate about, you know, navigation? And, and then I had to it into a game. I had to figure out like what metrics I was using to, to actually measure what was happening. Measure if a learning intervention worked. So that knowledge, I was able to apply as a UX researcher because essentially I would have 10, 12 people coming into the lab or logging onto their computer and talking to me. And I would have to ask the right questions, give them the right tasks for them to demonstrate a behavior. To demonstrate something that would give me the information to answer my client's question.

Jesse Butts:

So how did that anticipation or that idea match reality? I mean, was it kind of a, an instant click? Or were there some adjustments? How did you feel about the work once you got your hands dirty, so to speak?

Megan Sauter:

So once I started, I enjoyed it a great deal. Another thing that happened around that time, it sounds funny that I left Chicago and that's when I started to do improv comedy. But I started doing improv in San Francisco while I was starting my research career. And that had a big impact on it because when you're, when you're doing these interviews with people, sometimes you really have to follow the thread of what's going on because there could be something even beyond like the slice that you're focused on that's causing greater issues or could be an even greater development, for your client for the overall experience. I found that that really helped me. As I was becoming a researcher, I was growing in a lot of different ways. So I was learning more about working in tech. I was learning more about consultative... just being a consultant, because that, that was the role I was in. But I was, I was also like just learning these other skills that helped me too.

Jesse Butts:

I think you might be the first guest who's been continuously with one employer since finishing grad school. So I, I'm curious about your progression, your different roles, things like that with the company. So how was what you're doing, you know, year one different from maybe year five at the company?

Megan Sauter:

Great question. Well, I think I've, I've, had the ability, I think, to grow as my company has grown. And the culture that we've set up, the mentors I've had, has allowed me to pursue different areas of, of UX, of leadership, as we've grown. So, I started as a UX researcher and I spent maybe two and a half, three years doing that. And then we were growing our strategy team. So strategy for us is, you know, developing these relationships with clients, scoping out these research programs and, and projects. And, you know, I like to keep, keep learning. That was like, Oh this is something I haven't done before. The person who would be my manager was someone I really looked up to. I had worked with before. I felt like I could learn so much from her. And so, and I would get to work with clients that I had great relationships with as a researcher. And so I could help them continue to build their products and build that relationship. So it just was a kind of a beautiful opportunity for all of those reasons. And I did that for about two and a half years. And then we were growing and there, one of the things that I found that I loved in that role was working closely with the researchers who were doing the projects that I had initially designed. And I was starting to sharpen my skills as a mentor. And we had an opportunity, as our research management team was growing, for me to take on a role as a research manager and actually oversee... build out our onboarding program, as we were growing. So that was incredibly exciting. So I was a research manager up until about a year ago when the talent development director role opened and allowed me to take my experience navigating my own career path and help mentor and guide others and create processes for our company to, to just really cultivate the learning of our, of our talented folks who work here.

Jesse Butts:

When that opportunity surfaced, were you in a place of thinking of... I mean, everything that you had talked about kind of seemed like a, a progression in ways, or, I mean, like in the same broad discipline, maybe would be a way to put it. Were you looking for something that was a bit different? Did the opportunity present itself and you hadn't considered it? Like what, what was that process like?

Megan Sauter:

Probably more the latter. I, I mean, I love that I've managed some amazing people, and I developed great relationships with my team and, you know, still being, having that experience and being a manager is still something that is near and dear to me. So I wasn't looking for really anything different. It was more that that opportunity came and, you know, my manager at the time and my current manager kind of came to me with, with some possibilities to explore.

Jesse Butts:

So what are you enjoying most about talent development?

Megan Sauter:

So there's a few things. One is leadership development? So having been a manager for four years, I've learned just what an incredible role that person can play on their team members. Not just their, their work-life, but really like you can have a big impact, in terms of being able to use your power to remove barriers. Or to help people find opportunities to coach. It's a really valuable role. And so I have focused in my time on leadership development opportunities for, for managers. How to support them, because it can also be a really tough role. You know, you might be having to react to a lot of different teams or a lot of different things that are happening, you know, how do you take care of yourself while you're taking care of your team? What boundaries do you need to set? How can you best support people? How do you get away from the idea of a, especially if you're someone, if you're someone who held a role, say you were a researcher and you become a research manager ... it's very, it's a very different mindset, right? So how do you get into that manager mindset that just because someone's doing something differently than the way you, you would have done it in that role, that you can still see their style and empower them for who they are? If they're doing something that, is creating, you know, effective results. So, you know, managers can just have a, I think, make or break role. It's just like professional development opportunities is one of the reasons people leave a company. Their manager relationship is up there too. So that's, that's been an area that is a bit of a passion area for me. And the other is... there's been a lot of opportunity to embrace the really gray, sticky challenges that... I like puzzles. I like trying to figure things out. I love building things. I like collaborating with people. And I get to do all of that in this role, especially for the fact that this role is, is new. I mean, I've, I've been in it for a year. So there's still lots of things that I'm learning and figuring out.

Jesse Butts:

What did you have to learn about yourself to find work that fit you? Like why did some of those other ideas just not seem as appealing or, or frankly just like a good fit as user experience did at that time?

Megan Sauter:

That's a really good question. I remember a conversation I had with a friend I made through a meetup group who was doing information architecture. She basically helped me turn my CV into a resume, which was huge. Cause I still had this, you know, giant CV, because we can't do anything concise in academia. So she, she was helping me with that, and she was doing information architecture. So she kind of walked me through what her job looked like and was asking me like, What, what is it that you like, that you want to do? What's, what's interesting to you? And. I was talking about research. The things I was describing very much were like, Well, I want to see how people do things. I want to make, you know, their experiences better. I want to see where the problems are and, you know, try to fix them. I love designing experiments. And she just looked at me and she's like, You're a UX researcher. She's like, don't, don't even, don't apply to this other stuff. That's what you need to look for.

Jesse Butts:

One thing I'm really curious about too, Megan, is In your change to talent development, you've talked a lot about growth mindsets and things like that. Do you think something like that would have been appealing to you after grad school or earlier in your career? Or was it something like going through these experiences led you to a point where something like that would be interesting?

Megan Sauter:

Yeah. The ladder I don't. I don't think early in my career, I, I would have been drawn to like more businessy functions, if that makes sense. The fact that I am, I'm doing, I'm doing it. I'm on the people and culture team, but it's, it's HR. So I think if you would've told Megan from 2011, you're going to go into HR, I would have said, What? I don't know about that. I'm a psychologist, you know, but, Hmm. I mean, there's a lot of overlap. So yeah, I think I had to have these experiences to get where I am. I've had to learn how to have a growth mindset. I've had to explore a lot of opportunities. I've had to have moments where, like I had described to you, where someone, you know, someone's asking me, you know, what is it, what is it you want? And my current manager did that for me too. She's, she just was like, What is it you want from your career? What are your goals? And having a question asked like that, you know, to, to have that time and space to reflect, to synthesize all the things that have happened to get you to where you are. Like, what energizes you? Like, what's something you're really good at, but you never want to do again? Like all these, all this self-reflection to figure out like, What is that next evolution? Like, what's that next stage like in your career? I think I would not have had the lessons or the wisdom to do the stuff I'm doing now had I not had the experiences.

Jesse Butts:

One of the semi-common themes in the show is people kind of grappling with the identity of their grad school work and coming to terms with adjusting that, letting it go. Do you feel a lot different about that sense of identity tied to your academic work now than you did?

Megan Sauter:

Yeah. Yes. 100%.

Jesse Butts:

And how is that different?

Megan Sauter:

I think, like I said, I didn't have the healthiest mindset when I was early on in, in grad school or in undergrad. Just like tying my, tying my identities up so much with being smart, and my brain, and like what I knew. Rather than how I see myself now is I'm a learner. I had a friend who once called me a collector of skills and I love that. Just like, you know, in grad school another thing that happened with me is, uh, when I had my point where I'm like covered in hives and I'm like, I need to take care of myself, I started pursuing hobbies. Either new hobbies, which cycling was at the time a gang, I got really into riding my bike and photography. And trying to expand my sense of self was really key. And I think that's why when I finished my dissertation, that I was able to, to complete it and not completely burn myself out. Because I wasn't tying my identity so closely to my area of study. To being Smart Megan, like I became someone else through the process and I'm really grateful for it.

Jesse Butts:

I mean, it's very clear that you're really interested in your job. You have a passion for it. How important to you personally, not asking categorically, how important is job fit to you? Do you need to love your job?

Megan Sauter:

Yeah. I, I think so. Cause you spend... You spend so much time at your job? I heard someone, I went to like a virtual conference last year, and I'll paraphrase something I heard, which is like, When you're in leadership, your employees are sacrificing so much of their time to be at your company. They're sacrificing time with their family. They're sacrificing... you know, other things are important to to them. Make it worth their time. Make the sacrifice worth it. And so I, I am really grateful that I'm with a company that I believe in their culture, that I feel I am making an impact, I'm liking what I'm doing. I'm seeing growth potential. I'm, you know, I love my team. And those relationships have meaning. I think if I were in a toxic work environment, that, that would be like, you know, 40 hours of my week that ... it would be hard to pull out from that and to separate, to compartmentalize. I think what's especially important to me is that, is that culture. And, you know, feeling like what I'm doing has meaning, and it's, it's authentic to who I am.

Jesse Butts:

How would you describe your relationship to work? How large of a role does it play in your life?

Megan Sauter:

A healthy amount. Like I said, I went through that whole process of, My identity isn't tied to, to work. So I, I see myself as Megan, who happens to be a talent development leader. Who is a mom. Who is a partner. Who lifts weights. Who does yoga. Who wants to get back into improv, you know, as soon as I can get my kid vaccinated, and I don't have to wear a mask on stage. You know, like there's these other parts of my identity. A job is an opportunity for me to be myself and to give of myself in that sphere. Yeah, so I think, I think that's a, for me, that's a healthy approach.

Jesse Butts:

What questions would you recommend someone in or out of grad school who is kind of clear, you know, an academic role or, you know, practicing their discipline might not be for them, and they're considering something outside of what they studied?

Megan Sauter:

So what is it that energizes you? Is a question I would have them ask themselves. When do you feel most engaged, happy in like, Csikszentmihalyi would call a flow state. Like when are you present with the work you're doing, and you're not thinking about anything else? What's energizing you? What are you passionate about? And on the flip side, that question I mentioned, What's something you're really good at that you never want to do again? Cause sometimes, you know, you'll be, you'll, you'll apply to something, you'll be in a job interview, if you realize that the thing that you're going to have to do all the time is something that you're already burned out on, is this the best fit for you? Or is there something better that, that is a better fit for you right now? Yeah, I think those are, those are some of the big ones.

Jesse Butts:

Any reading or listening or viewing recommendations for people out there considering making this kind of a change?

Megan Sauter:

I guess in talking about mindset, book Mindset is a good one, by, uh, Carol Dweck? Carol Dweck, I think. So that's a great one that kind of goes into the science behind the growth mindset. JoinLearners.com is a really great resource for, for UX research and getting into the field. There's like tons of talks there that that folks have made, and some are just really bite-sized. The other thing I think I would recommend is less of a, a resource about content. But more about, getting, getting more mindfulness in your life. So I would say starting a mindfulness practice. So something like The Calm App or Headspace app, yoga... any of those things that help you feel more, I guess, centered, cause that's going to come in handy, no matter which career path you take. And especially in transitioning into a career that can be very like anxiety provoking. So how are you taking care of yourself as you're making this big transition?

Jesse Butts:

All right. Well, I'll include links to all of those in the show notes. But, Megan, this was a wonderful conversation. Thank you so much for joining me.

Megan Sauter:

Thanks for having me.