Feb 24, 2025
Beth shares her journey from attending the Naval Postgraduate School to 15 years in the private sector before joining Oracle. Beth discusses how her experiences shaped her appreciation for pace and purpose, and the importance of bringing people together to stay grounded in our impact and goals. We also highlight a book that emphasizes the value of diverse skills in boosting both personal growth and the ability to contribute to the needs of others.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/beth-sammons/
---------------------------------------------------------
Episode Transcript:
00;00;00;00 - 00;00;31;26
You're listening to the Oracle Maven podcast, where we bring people
together from the veteran affiliated community to highlight
employees, partners, organizations and those who are continuing the
mission to serve. Welcome to the Maven podcast. I'm your host,
Chris Spencer. In this episode, I'm joined by Beth Sammons,
Operations chief of Staff and Maven chapter lead to discuss her
journey from attending the Naval Postgraduate School to 15 years in
the private sector.
00;00;32;02 - 00;00;51;13
Before joining Oracle. Beth shares how her experience has shaped
her appreciation for pace and purpose, and the importance of
bringing people together to stay grounded in our impact and goals.
We also highlight a book that emphasizes the value of diverse
skills, and boosting both personal growth and the ability to
contribute to the needs of others. We have all we need to become
the person we want to be.
00;00;51;13 - 00;01;09;20
Let's remember how to connect with others with sincerity and
genuine intent as we continue the mission to serve. Thanks for
listening. We hope you enjoy this episode, and please remember to
check in on your buddies and family. Best contact details are in
the podcast description and you can always find me on LinkedIn.
00;01;09;22 - 00;01;50;01
Good morning Beth. How are you? Good morning Chris, I am well. How
are you? I'm doing all right. Thanks. Well, welcome. And we're
happy to have you and have this conversation. You know, you're
sitting here because of the reputation that you have seemingly
built for yourself to where people have recognized the type of
person you are and how you contribute in all kinds of different
ways that we'll talk about, specifically within the Maven
community, inside of Oracle here, you know, how you've contributed
in doing things for the community, maybe in and as you talk through
this, it's related to what you grew up being surrounded by or the
location in which you live
00;01;50;01 - 00;02;12;03
and things like that. But, you know, I think it's a good example of
the elements when you come into Oracle, when you come into this
community, the military affiliated community, you know, you you
never know. Obviously, who you're going to meet. But once you
settle in, you start to feel like there are things that you can do
and that discovery and that curiosity builds relationships.
00;02;12;03 - 00;02;30;14
And that's the essence of of how it came about. So before we get
too far into these things, you want to share a little bit about
those types of things where where you're from and how you navigated
to get to where you are today. Well, thank you for having me,
Chris. I want to just start with that, I appreciate it.
00;02;32;06 - 00;03;05;21
So my background, I was raised in Cincinnati, Ohio, and didn't have
a huge military influence ahead a little bit in my family. But, I
went to undergrad for business management at Purdue, and I ended up
getting my MBA at naval post-grad. And I think that's a good
portion of where I spent a lot of time with military and, spent two
years in a different cohort and getting to do and have like a
virtual MBA program, which was really neat.
00;03;05;21 - 00;03;33;07
It was a program designed for naval officers, and it was good
exposure and all that. But I did that while I was in one of the
federal agencies that got three letters and doesn't like to be
talked about, but I spent about 15 years there. I started out in
government contracting, and I was a contracting officer, and I
ended up moving into I do project management.
00;03;33;07 - 00;04;06;00
We kind of built a new financial system. I helped on that project
that in a way, and really liked it at the budget. And then I spent
some time doing that and working in the IT division, and ended up
becoming a unit chief. And because I just loved managing people and
helping develop their careers. And so I managed a couple of
different software development teams and shops and different, like,
testing type organizations, and then a little over three years ago,
I left the public sector.
00;04;06;14 - 00;04;29;23
I really thought I'd be there forever and retire there, but I ended
up getting an opportunity to come here to Oracle and work in Oracle
Cloud. I am a chief of staff, to our head of Sovereign Cloud. And I
also, a couple of months ago, that manager bug bit me again, and I
just missed managing people and helping develop others.
00;04;29;25 - 00;04;55;25
So I became a manager again. Actually, just a few months ago,
literally. And so as I got that itch as well, I started mentoring.
So like the last year when I was an individual contributor at
Oracle, I was just missing management so much that I mentored in
the Oracle Veteran Intern program, and a couple of cohorts.
00;04;55;25 - 00;05;24;00
But I also mentor and like the Oracle Global Mentoring, where you
can be paired up with someone who, you know, has similar interest
or is you're where you're trying to develop your career in that
area. But at Oracle, I've had a lot of Oracle volunteer events and
a lot of that kind of introduced me to Maven. Honestly, it was just
a colleague, who sat a couple of rows down for me in the office and
said, you do all of this like giving back and volunteering your
time.
00;05;24;00 - 00;05;42;12
Why aren't you a part of Maven? And I said, you know, explain to me
what Maven is. And then I said, well, I'm not a veteran. And, and
he said that that's okay. You don't have to be a veteran. You just
have to appreciate them. And I was like, well, that's very much
something I'm passionate about. And so I've been a part of Maven
since.
00;05;42;12 - 00;06;01;14
But I just like in the last few weeks, started helping out and that
Maven, DC, Maryland, Virginia chapter. And we're going to try to
have more volunteer events, more ways to connect in our area.
Because there's a lot of opportunities in the DC area, to give back
and to help veterans. And I want to be a part of that.
00;06;01;17 - 00;06;38;12
I'm also a mom of two young boys who keep me quite busy carting
them around to activities and enjoying their energy. Yeah, you're
being subtle. Yeah, yeah. Yes. I think someone asked me yesterday
about work life balance and I'm like, I'm not really sure what that
means anymore. Yeah. You just shifting your attention from one
thing to the other at this point, a lot of it is, you know, I work,
and for the most part, we're able to work hybrid and remote, and
there's a lot of people interested in that, kind of
flexibility.
00;06;38;14 - 00;07;02;08
But I come into the office every day simply to get out of my house
to see other adults. I mean, to feel a little bit more calm coming
to work is how I come down. Yeah, it makes sense. There's value in
all of that. So thanks for that. Thanks for sharing that. The how
did you end up going to or what made you lean towards going to the
Naval Postgraduate Academy?
00;07;02;10 - 00;07;23;02
Yeah. So because I got my undergraduate degree in business, you
kind of always think at some point I'll go back and get my masters
in it. But when you work in the federal government, you know, a lot
of those principles that you learn in undergrad about, like
maximizing profits, just kind of they don't pan out and you don't
use them.
00;07;24;27 - 00;07;57;28
And so as much as I wanted to get my MBA, I hadn't really thought
about the best way to do it. You know, I didn't want to spend a
huge amount of time going to an elite school, if I wasn't going to
use it. And if I was going to stay in the government, where you're
really just trying to spend all of your budget like their goal, but
we had know a couple of seats in a special program, that was
virtual with naval post-grad, where we all got to kind of come
together and one day a week, instead of going to work, you got
authorized to go to class
00;07;58;01 - 00;08;30;06
that way. Other classmates across the country. And so I got
accepted into that program. It was a huge opportunity because I sat
next to people who were doing similar work on kind of the DoD
civilian side. They were doing finance and budget work, but also
sat next to helicopter pilots. And, one of my colleagues was
working on the F-35 program, which was at the time, very
interesting and probably painful if you ask him.
00;08;31;12 - 00;08;55;01
But it was really good exposure. Our we had a Norfolk group as well
who a lot of them worked on subs. And so it was very good exposure
to understanding, what, you know, enlisted military go through, how
they're, you know, most of, the classmates we had in the two year
program didn't even get to stay living in the same spot.
00;08;55;18 - 00;09;27;15
The moving around part of it, is something that it's, not a lot of
people, you know, in the civilian life who don't have a lot of
military friends. Understand? Once you understand it, you realize,
like, military families go through a lot. And part of Oracle
veteran intern program and mentor to couple of military spouses and
have understood, you know, some concepts about, you know, their
resume may have to have them jump around every few years.
00;09;28;15 - 00;10;02;09
And it's not that they're job hopping looking for a better
opportunity or something like that. As some people interviewing
them, they look at it's more that, you know, you are going where
the military sends you. And so I got a lot more appreciation at
naval grad living, the DC area. You also just have a lot of friends
and colleagues who are either in the military at the time or,
veterans themselves, and you kind of understand and empathize a lot
more with the struggles that they have coming back into, you know,
getting out of the military.
00;10;02;09 - 00;10;34;14
And how do you transition? And it's a very different workspace. I
was scared moving from public to the private sector. It's certainly
different, but it's it's much more different. You know, I was never
deployed or anything like that. I didn't have to go through that
change. Yeah. And thank you for recognizing the challenges. You
know, I'm sure we all agree that everybody experiences challenging,
situations and, and relative to their environment and their, their,
choices and things like that.
00;10;34;14 - 00;11;10;23
But it's, you know, it's the unique acknowledgment, the
acknowledgment of the unique situations that we, we, you know, when
we choose and civilians alike, when you choose to go on and take on
a role that where it's the norm, where you're constantly going,
where the team needs you, let's say. Yeah. And the perspective that
you gain from it, I think is going to be obviously it's going to
pay dividends on the work that you're doing now and who you're
surrounded by, because it's easier to connect with those when you
understand without even speaking, you know, just knowing that
they've gone through some of these things and you can be more
relatable in the context
00;11;10;23 - 00;11;31;19
of empathy and things like that. As a leader, which you've
emphasized that something that you missed and you have a strong
desire to do is, you know, not just mentorship, but also leading
the teams as you're growing business and applying the principles of
the career choice that you're in the industry. So thanks for that
and a wordy summary to get us on to the to the to the next
thing.
00;11;31;19 - 00;12;00;21
But it's, you know, you talked about struggle. So in your, in your
transition from, the three letter agency into the civilian sector
where you are now. What share some insight of what you maybe didn't
anticipate or didn't expect, but you learned. Yeah, very relevant
actually. It was just, talking to someone yesterday who's
interested and worried about making that leap from the public
sector to the private sector.
00;12;00;23 - 00;12;35;26
And I was ultimately scared as well and not sure which company, you
know, I'm going to make the jump, which I'm to go to. But I think
the biggest change was the pace. And I think a lot of us who have
worked in government and I know military is very similar sometimes
the pace is really, really fast because it's something mission
critical and urgent, but a lot of the pace of change and the pace
of policy that I worked in for a long time and the pace of it was
unfortunately, you know, beholden to a lot of security and
compliance and governance process.
00;12;35;29 - 00;12;58;13
And it seemed frustratingly slow at times. And so really, the big
pitch to leave the public sector was for me, it was, do I want to
sit here and wait in line for the next few years and migrate a lot
of our systems to the cloud, or do we want to kind of build it? And
that was exciting and an interesting challenge for me.
00;12;58;16 - 00;13;25;00
But coming over here, the big difference I think was definitely
pace and it took a lot of getting used to. I came over at a time
where we had a giant solicitation drop that week, and so I didn't
sit around in orientation for very long. I just kind of jumped in
because I had a background in contracting and I saw where I get out
there, but I think the pace of it is just it's such a benefit.
00;13;25;03 - 00;13;45;15
I know a lot of people worry about like burnout and how that will
affect them, but I think it's also amazing to see, you know, one of
our customers in the cloud has a problem, and it's amazing to see
the amount of executives and the amount of people that we can throw
at that problem very quickly and solve that problem and one of the
OCI values is put your customers first.
00;13;45;18 - 00;14;05;25
And that's a huge important factor to everything that we do. But
it's also nice I, I stay within a group that we call ourselves
Sovereign Cloud, but we really support the government and within
the US and globally. And so it's nice to also be able to explain to
everyone the importance of what our customers are doing. They have
mission critical applications.
00;14;05;25 - 00;14;31;00
These applications are very important for many of them. We have DoD
applications running. They're supporting our veterans. We're
working with a group that's going to be moving all of the veterans
electronic health records over to one of our cloud rooms, and it's
helpful to have that perspective and understand why what our
customers are doing is so important, and that we can bring the pace
of change and support that they need.
00;14;31;03 - 00;15;08;01
And it's nice being on the side that gets to help with that. Yeah,
I was just thinking about that, how the the correlating factors of
being on one side and then going to the other side to help drive
some of the issues that that you experienced. And I say issues, but
some of the feelings you had on the experiences of pace, probably
skills and security, I mean, processes, all of those factors weigh
into things that, you know, probably drives us to look in other
areas of where we can provide more value, which it sounds like you
did so and so for everybody listening, OCI is Oracle Cloud
Infrastructure.
00;15;08;03 - 00;15;30;05
And most, most will know that if you're paying attention to what
what Oracle is and has become. But the transition in the mindset,
you covered a little bit of it and you landed on it with the work
that you're involved in is including the veteran community, but
also the health records, I mean, the importance of it and the
relevance of it.
00;15;30;05 - 00;16;02;13
You know, how is this to share your feelings about the impact that
you feel you're having now with that responsibility to be a part of
that effort? Yeah. So that was one of the careers I had when I left
the government was, well, I still feel that same sense of mission.
Because at the end of the day, you can kind of feel like, well, our
job is actually just to make money, but I think we've been able to
bring that sense of mission to a lot of our teams that my boss is
very helpful in this, but we bring in on a monthly basis to our
team.
00;16;02;13 - 00;16;31;23
We have like a spotlight speaker. And we bring in customers, we
bring in potential customers, we bring in some of the Oracle Global
business units who are running on our cloud and show the actual
mission that, they're supporting. So, for example, we have a safety
global business unit, and Oracle is running local and state law
enforcement like a suite of tools, but they are running an
emergency management system.
00;16;31;24 - 00;17;11;12
They're running, you know, police law enforcement videos in the
cruisers, you know, pull cameras, all of it. It's all integrated
into what we do. And we've been able to reinforce that with our
teams and show them, you know, our teams are doing a lot of
operations work, deploying changes. They may never speak to a
customer. And I think it's important to put your customer in front
of you on a regular basis so that you understand their mission and
why what we're doing has to be done with a sense of urgency,
because we have really important customers out there that if we
have an outage, there is an emergency management system that's
that's gone down.
00;17;11;17 - 00;17;39;04
And one of our US local organizations. So I think it helps to drive
home that sense of mission and importance just by hearing from your
customers. We also bring in a lot of partners. My team, tries to
bring in more partners and have more collaboration engagement with,
US defense and intelligence customers or partners as well. And it's
good to hear from some of those partnerships, the work they're
doing to support our customers.
00;17;39;04 - 00;18;00;07
And they're going to run it on Oracle Cloud. But it's nice to see
what new partners like Palantir and Anduril are doing and and how
they're helping serve. A lot of them are helping serve us.
Department of Defense. That's amazing. I mean, that's a great
that's a great concept. And we can we can look at it simply. We're
human.
00;18;00;07 - 00;18;28;23
And sometimes we may lean towards forgetting our purpose, you know,
because of how our lives are shaping our mindset and our attention,
focusing on things, internalizing things. And so I love to hear
that what you're doing is bringing people in to remind us and keep
us focused, keep us aware of what we're actually affecting and
impacting when we contribute the customers, the experiences, the
subtleties behind that.
00;18;28;25 - 00;19;04;00
You know, I'm hopeful that everybody's understanding the importance
of that. So they can always be reminded that this is why you're
doing what you're doing. Yeah, no it's good. So so now so you're
here and and you're doing these things and you've become more
familiar with your surroundings enough. And I'm kind of floating
around it. So the relationship that you've, the relationships that
you've created here talk a little bit about those and, and share
some of the, some of the value that comes from meeting different
people in different roles and how it contributes to the things that
you're doing.
00;19;04;03 - 00;19;30;28
So I and the position I have as a chief of staff, a lot of the
people that I work with. So I directly support our VP. And so from
day one, I have kind of always been in meetings and supporting and
reporting to, a lot of executives, which was an interesting change.
I think the piece of that that can be difficult is that I have to
be very succinct and clear.
00;19;31;00 - 00;19;58;16
But I think a lot of what we try to do with, the volunteer events
and also what we're doing with Maven is create relationships that
you wouldn't normally have. And so we've got different groups. We
run our classified ops teams for Oracle Cloud. But I think about a,
I think we're now at like two years ago maybe before Oracle kind of
encouraged people to come back into the office.
00;19;58;16 - 00;20;17;12
We were thinking of what are the ways that would drive people to
come back, like they don't want to come back and sit on zoom all
day. And so we started having Oracle volunteer event. And I think
the best thing that we've gotten out of that and it's good to get
back, but every time we host one of these, we get someone who's
never been into the office and they're like, how do I get a
badge?
00;20;17;12 - 00;20;37;11
How do I get in the door? But we always have people that as we're
doing these volunteer events, they're talking. They work on
different parts of this very, very large organization that we work
for. Some of them realize they do similar work just in different
divisions and lines of business, but it's been a good opportunity
for people to connect where we don't normally do that.
00;20;37;11 - 00;20;58;11
I mean, I still come into the office but sit on a zoom call most of
the day. And so these Oracle volunteer events are a really good way
for us to give back. Our company supports it and helps us increase
our social impact. But I think the relationships that we've got
there, I have a really, really strong group of volunteers who come
to just about any event I have.
00;20;58;14 - 00;21;18;10
We do a monthly volunteer event where we serve meals in the
evenings with one of our local nonprofits, and I have a group of 4
to 5 people. I think half of them are actually Maven, but they come
out every month and they're there. I had some of them in the snow
the other night. They're like my ride or die group of
volunteers.
00;21;18;25 - 00;21;36;06
And I have a lot of people who come to all of our in-person events
in the office, and they're like, this is the only time I ever come
into the office. I work from home the rest of the time. So I think
we create a lot of good relationships because we're doing good
things that, you know, make us feel like we're giving back as a
company.
00;21;36;18 - 00;22;07;05
But it's also just creating those opportunities for people. A lot
of times working from home, that was one of the scariest things
that I left for government, as I had been in the office coming to a
work from home or flexible remote opportunity. It sounds great, but
it's also can be isolating. And so I think having these volunteer
events and anything we can do with Maven to bring people out and
meet in person, helps develop great relationships that we're all
kind of looking to that same sense of purpose of giving back and
continuing to serve.
00;22;07;08 - 00;22;29;28
I love it, and I, you know, I'm excited. I get chills in the back
of my neck just imagining the feeling, right? Because it's, it's
common, right? We get it. We we we have life and we do things and
we're focused on business, let's say. Right, whatever your
priorities are. So you can, take care of the family, take care of
the house and, you know, pay bills and things like that.
00;22;29;28 - 00;22;56;21
And it's it's I wouldn't call it a distraction so much, but it is,
you know, it serves as a, responsible action you can take to remind
yourself of the value and humanity and, and helping others in
different ways. And so this one, I believe, you know, there's a
there's a bunch of different reasons and the benefits, but, you
know, a couple that stand out is the fact that you're going to also
provide an environment for other people to explore things that they
otherwise wouldn't have.
00;22;56;21 - 00;23;23;06
You summarized it well, but it's also to get them to realize, I
didn't think I'd like it. I didn't think I'd want to do this. And I
think that that helps us uplift, especially in winter. You know,
where it's cloudy, dreary, cold, and you're not going out a lot.
You get out and you start to do things, takes your mind off of the
monotony and the minutia to be able to now serve that little
internal need of service, like you said, continuing the mission to
serve.
00;23;23;09 - 00;23;46;06
So they say, yeah, yeah, it's great. Thanks for that and thanks for
doing that. And thanks for stepping up to lead that and support
that and co-lead. I imagine there's a bunch of people within your
your team there that do a bunch of different things. You had
somewhat of a segue because you had mentioned the book. And it's
the title itself is was the grab for me.
00;23;46;06 - 00;24;06;02
It was the hook, and I was more curious about it. So immediately
when you mentioned it. And we here do love to talk about books and
things like that. Talk a little bit about the book that you, you
mentioned. Yeah. So it was recommended. There is a great book club
if anyone wants to be a part of it and or got caffeinated chapter
eight.
00;24;06;03 - 00;24;44;07
There's there's a slack channel you can find it, but it's one of
the books they are meeting about and reading and book club. And I
like assigned reading because it gives me, you know, a motivation
and a deadline to finish it. But the book is called Range Why
Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World, and I was drawn to it
because I am one of the many people that are also described in the
book that feel I have kind of bopped around to different things in
my career, and I think you get a little bit of imposter syndrome
from some of that you feel like you were.
00;24;44;09 - 00;25;07;25
We're all kind of taught that specialization is important and it
will, you know, make us successful in our careers and I definitely
have, you know, I don't I've never been a software developer, but
I've managed them and always a little bit of that imposter
syndrome. Do I do I belong managing someone who I have no idea what
they're doing and working in technology, not having a huge tech
background.
00;25;07;27 - 00;25;29;14
And I always thought that way. But, you know, I started in
contracting, went into it. It's like a project manager and then
ended up managing these teams. But a lot of that is and then jumped
over here to become a chief of staff, which I didn't have really
experience in it either. And all of those kind of career pivots
that I took were off at the time.
00;25;29;16 - 00;26;03;19
And I think because it is that like desire or what we are taught,
is specialization and that idea of what is that like 10,000 hours
of practice will make you great at something. And the book talks
about that from the perspective of, yes, there are there are things
that you can learn and do better that way. Chat is a really good
example that they use in the amount of practice and starting early
with children and getting them interested because is, you know, you
can learn rules, there are strategies.
00;26;03;19 - 00;26;33;19
It is you know, all knowable. But the book talks about most of the
work that we do is what it calls wicked. But, most of it, you
require a lot of different skills. It's not linear and easily
learner, and you need a variety of a background. And so the book
actually, the author says he started writing this book and started
the idea of the book because he was actually giving a speech, too,
and it was the Pat Tillman Foundation.
00;26;33;19 - 00;26;54;21
So a lot of really high up military leadership, who came to him
afterwards and said they felt they had been told in their careers
that specialization was the way to go, and each of them had
actually made a career pivot at some point and felt scared of it
because they didn't feel it would be valued and that it might
derail their success.
00;26;54;26 - 00;27;26;00
And the book gives a lot of great examples across music and art and
business and engineering and technology, where there's great
examples of people who actually have incredible success because
they had a diverse background, because they didn't only know one
type of engineering, because the instruments are the most
fascinating one kind of think that if you want to become a great
violinist, you should start at the age of three and play
violin.
00;27;26;03 - 00;27;51;11
Oh, your whole career. But some of the greatest violinists actually
learned, you know, 5 or 10 different instruments. And it made them
better because they could understand and adapt, to different
things. And that was kind of very reaffirming. I've also had many
people recently. I don't know why this book just kind of when
you're reading something, we've brought it up many times with
people that I'm mentoring.
00;27;51;17 - 00;28;16;03
I have a lot of people reaching out from public sector right now
who are interested leaving to go to the private sector, but they're
very scared. They don't think they're, you know, government skills
are transferable. And I felt that way at some point too. But you
can't you can choose to specialize for a long time if you want, but
a lot of that diverse background will actually help make you more
successful, I think.
00;28;16;06 - 00;28;39;25
And it was interesting. It was a very, very good read. I recommend
it, but I think it was helpful in affirming for me to know that
this strange background I have, where I haven't really met anyone
with something similar, but it does make me it can help make me
really more successful and more understanding of different parts of
this kind of business process that we're in.
00;28;39;27 - 00;29;00;29
Agree 1,000%, and I'm glad you brought it up because it is. So I
mean, the story you're sharing and the way you're phrasing things
is very similar to the environment to which the military affiliate
community thrives in. Right? Dictates their experience. Right? And
we hope everybody thrives. But it's a reality of saying, I did
this, you know, didn't it becomes a dilemma that I'm going to
transition.
00;29;00;29 - 00;29;17;28
I'm going to choose to do something different, do something
different in a different place, whether it's doing something
different or just doing it a different place, you know, apply the
principle of what that means. I'm going to go do something
different. We often think about the comfort and security and, you
know, the safety and doing what you've done.
00;29;17;28 - 00;29;47;01
But to realize some of those in the the emotional component, and
this is my opinion, right? I'm not think I'm qualified to speak too
deeply on this, but in my experience, it's to say because of that,
because of that belief that I have, I'm going to stick within this
area because it's going to give me the thing that I'm looking for
when the reality is sometimes we forget to, I don't know, maybe
play with the idea of breaking it down like a project plan where
you're looking at resources of self.
00;29;47;03 - 00;30;08;04
I can do these things. I do these things. I don't know how to
correlate those. And you're able to isolate each one,
compartmentalize it and look and say, well, I'm stronger in this
area. It's a hard skill, and I'm familiar in these areas, which
might be the soft skills in today's world. And I'm I swear I'm
going to land somewhere in a minute because we're talking about
mentoring.
00;30;08;07 - 00;30;27;28
When we look for mentors, we have a purpose. And so when we see
somebody who specializes, there is a play, a place for that, for
sure. But there is something uniquely different in the experience
of getting to a mentor, somebody in a position of influence that
you can feel, you can learn from and realize that you can ask
almost any question.
00;30;27;28 - 00;30;51;02
And there's a, there's a, a certain level of familiarity in each of
the spaces of what you're asking that. Yeah. And for me blows my
mind like, wow, great. This is perfect because it's almost like a
one stop shop that allows me to get generally familiar with these
areas that I'm not comfortable with yet, and it moves me forward
and just gets me, potentially.
00;30;51;02 - 00;31;11;22
It gets me through the situation where I am. So when you're talking
about over at the Oracle Veteran Internship Program, where they,
you know, the the interns that come in, they're in a specific
situation to where that generalization that you're allowing them to
hear about will help them get through the situation where they are.
If they're looking for a job, looking for an experience and things
like that.
00;31;11;22 - 00;31;38;02
So absolutely relevant. And skimming through the book, I probably
landed in some of the spaces that you we'll talk about. But you
know, the one one place inside here, if I may, when we try to
briefly touched about it, touched on it before we started recording
here, the desirable difficulties, you know, the obstacles that make
learning more challenging, slower and more frustrating in the short
term, but better in the long term.
00;31;38;04 - 00;32;02;13
What are your thoughts on that particular statement inside the
space? Yeah, I think that's part of a section of the book that's
talking about, you know, how we learn and you can like, apply it
within. I had young children who were trying to figure out how do
they best learn. And I think they have like a study where you give
kids, they learn one thing, take a test, and then they move on to
the next topic.
00;32;02;13 - 00;32;24;05
But kids who actually, like, dabble in all of the topics, learn it
and retain it better. And I think that's helpful knowledge to know.
And I think really as we grow, we need to understand how we best
learn. I know I can breeze through like 30 audiobooks and not
retain any of it because that's not how I learn.
00;32;25;01 - 00;32;47;29
But I think reflecting back and actually every time you go to write
a resume is a good point to reflect and figure out what you learned
in that role. And I, even as I've brushed up my resume in like the
last year, gone back to way previous jobs and thought, how do I
frame this differently? And that was one of the changes as I moved
from government to private sector.
00;32;47;29 - 00;33;14;05
Like, you have to get rid of all the acronyms and things that
didn't make sense to people outside of the government. But what did
I learn from that? Like you want your resume to focus on results
like, oh, I, you know, decrease costs by X percentage grade. That
is important stuff. But what did you learn from it? And it's a
question I ask and a lot of my interviews of other people, it's
like, tell me about something you went outside of your comfort zone
to learn and how did you do it?
00;33;14;07 - 00;33;32;21
And I think that tells you a lot about someone. And I think that's
a big piece of anyone coming out of the military. You have had to
learn things that didn't make any sense when you started them.
Right? Like, how did you go about doing that and how would you then
apply it to learning a whole new space if you came into the private
sector or wherever you're headed?
00;33;32;24 - 00;34;08;09
And I think using those examples and demonstrating that pretty much
everyone I know coming out of the military is really, really good
at learning something new, handling stress and pressure. And that's
something that we all are looking for in good candidates, someone
who, you know, could reduce that learning curve and help add value
quickly on my team and someone who can handle the pressure or, you
know, the quick turnaround that I'm going to have, and the roles
that we're in and I think a resume writing that helps you reflect
on that.
00;34;08;09 - 00;34;28;28
But I think it's also something that I think we just went through
kind of like a mid-year performance review is a sitting down and
how did I grow? I'm one of those people that I always want to have
a goal of, what am I going to learn? New what new certification am
I going to get? And I think you need to sit down and reflect on
like what helps me in my career, but also the same piece of what
this book is talking about.
00;34;28;28 - 00;34;49;03
I don't need to sit here and specialize and an oracle cloud and
only take for cloud classes what are the other things that are
adjacent to what I do that would help make me better at my job? Or
maybe lead me to a different career path that I have explored
again. And I think I also I will always throw up, volunteering.
00;34;49;03 - 00;35;13;05
But if you're ever worried, if you can do something, there's
probably a volunteer opportunity. You don't necessarily have to,
learn something new by getting paid to do it. You can find an
organization or a nonprofit that needs some help in an area, build
some skills there by volunteering and figure out if that's
something that the career path you want to go down, or somewhere
where you can take those skills and apply them.
00;35;13;05 - 00;35;45;13
If you are looking to change careers, you landed on so many things.
There is the connecting the dots. It's, the imposter syndrome,
right? It's feeling you're out of place from a from a perspective.
And, you know, the exploration of new things as you're reflecting
and paying attention to the small things that you might overlook or
dismiss because you in the moment don't find value in those things
that you're writing down as maybe you're reviewing your resume, you
know, and reconciling and tying it back to relevance.
00;35;45;15 - 00;36;10;03
You know, this happened everything. I believe, everything that
we're doing is an opportunity to be able to understand how it's
connecting to something else. I believe it's all interconnected.
And I'm not I'm not blowing anybody's mind and saying that. I'm
saying just for me, that this is why I'm saying it is because, like
relationships, you don't know how important it is to treat
everybody with kindness because you don't know when that may come
around.
00;36;10;03 - 00;36;40;16
And that's the situation. Make it make it connect to the
situations. Every situation is going to now bring a value and you
don't know when or where it's going to occur. But these are the
things that we're talking about. When you talking about what you've
experienced and what you've learned, it's important to journal it,
write it down, take inventory of it because you want to tie it back
to help alleviate some doubt that you may have on where I am and
why I'm here and those types of things, and especially in
transition, because the common question is where will I fit in?
00;36;40;18 - 00;37;17;00
I'm looking for something specific. Sometimes that narrow focus has
this overlooked the peripheral because we're so yeah, we're so
we're shining the light on very specific things that we believe
needs to occur. But sometimes what needs to happen is actually in
your blind side. Yeah, yeah. You know, a plan is just a plan kind
of thing. So when you're mentoring, tying it back to that, that's
part of the occurrence is it's helping helping you, helping us as a
mentor, speaking with others who are mentees, it's helping us as
well because now it's helping us.
00;37;17;03 - 00;37;31;24
Am I am I who I think I am? Am I as effective as I think I am? Am I
as helpful or being an asset like I think I am? And sometimes
you'll learn that you I mean you'll learn the hard way. You get
humbled it you maybe you're not you're not as good as you thought
you were.
00;37;31;29 - 00;37;49;07
And here's why. You know, and that helps us grow even in leadership
positions. And you never know when it's going to happen. Yeah, even
you even you come in here in this conversation and it kind of bring
it back to the book. You know, the Outsider advantage is one of the
chapters, you know, and the benefits of an external
perspective.
00;37;49;09 - 00;38;15;05
I think you touched on it here, but just because we're now
specifically talking about it, what is the value of an outsider
perspective? Yeah, the book actually talks about it from the
perspective, I think, in engineering of people who have a very
specialized engineering or specialized research role. And like they
see things the way they see it and even gives like an example of
like a specific type of cardiologist.
00;38;15;05 - 00;38;41;27
And that's, that's exactly what they see and that's how they want
to act. But I think anyone coming in with different perspectives,
and we all bring those but different backgrounds will help you
think about a problem differently. And ultimately, like we
sometimes we'll see it. We have a problem. We bring in a bunch of
different people, and sometimes you get in as an engineer, like, I
think too many of us being thrown against this problem.
00;38;41;29 - 00;39;13;23
Then you hear a thought or an idea and none of the rest of us have
thought about it, and it's great. And those only come if you bring
people in and bring in several people with different backgrounds
and different perspectives and different, you know. Agendas of what
they need to accomplish. And so I in my role as a chief of staff, I
have to think a lot about the financial aspects of what we're
doing.
00;39;13;25 - 00;39;33;02
And you can start to think about, like, bottom line of everything
but a lot, bringing people in who have different ideas and
motivations. And they're thinking about, how do I keep work for my
employees and how do I, you know, grow them and grow their careers.
And so we'll all get better ideas from that. And they have very
specific examples in the book.
00;39;33;04 - 00;40;03;07
It's a great chapter about huge innovations that have come about
because they brought people in who weren't specialized. And I think
that's really amazing to see. Good to remember that you have value
even if you don't have a very specialized background in something.
And I think that's important to remember, and it will help us, you
know, have better ideas to have better project outcomes and, and
results, hence volunteering.
00;40;03;11 - 00;40;21;28
Right. So this this all ties back to bringing people together. And
you know, you can classify it or categorize it however you want.
Volunteering work, workplace in the office. You know, when you
bring people together, there's a higher potential of new things
occurring because of a realization. Oh, I didn't think of it like
that. Or the obviously the importance of taking a break, right?
00;40;21;29 - 00;40;57;24
You know, when you're so focused on it, the theory is get up, walk
away, give yourself 15 minute, take a walk, get distracted. And
sometimes those epiphanies occur when you least expect it in the
shower. You know, we're walking your dog. You know, some of these
elements are the the essence of what we're talking about. And, and
and, you know, as we kind of wind down this conversation a little
bit, it's, you know, it's great to have you on be able to talk
about these things because your perspective from where you started
and how, you know, I'll say evolved or maybe you know, how you kind
of, you know, shifted your attention through from as
00;40;57;24 - 00;41;20;14
your experiences were, you know, shaping your mindset to change
life, change, maybe, you know, maybe it's a bunch of them. But all
the factors that you talked about early on as to as to why you were
now looking to do something different, those started from somewhere
else, I'm sure. And those are a walking example of how information
is important for us when we're open to see it and hear it as it's
occurring.
00;41;20;17 - 00;41;42;00
Instead of being and it have jokes, being stubborn and not allowing
it to kind of freely flow into into what you're doing. Volunteering
is one of those elements, you know, reminding ourselves what
service means and, you know, bringing customers in, bringing
partners in to bring a perspective to remind us that whatever
you're doing, don't forget this is why you're doing it here.
00;41;42;02 - 00;42;17;28
And that's for everything family, personal life, professional life,
things like that. You know, there's a there's a ton of things that
we could go through, inside this space, inside this book. I will
touch on one thing, and then I'll ask you if you want to, you know,
mention anything on your own specifically, but, you know, experts
and and the ones that know what are some of the pitfalls based off
of what we just talked about, what are some of the pitfalls of
engaging with somebody that is, is, supposed to be an expert or
someone who knows a lot about something?
00;42;18;00 - 00;42;48;14
Pitfalls of an expert? I think they have gotten really great by
doing things. They're known set of ways, and it can really help
them in certain situations, but it gives them kind of a myopic
focus, and they don't always see the broader options of perspective
and kind of see the force and everything. And so I think it can
also help link if those experts think with an open mind and think,
I would I approach this problem if I were someone else, if I didn't
know everything that I know.
00;42;48;20 - 00;43;10;21
And so there are pitfalls, but there are ways to kind of try to
avoid them. And there are plenty of experts that we absolutely need
out there. If you have a doctor, you would like them to be an
expert and have, you know, as much expertise and years of
experience as possible. But I think it's it's good for those of us
who are generalists and helps us know that, like, you can take a
career pivot and and do something different.
00;43;10;21 - 00;43;27;22
It might be a better fit for you. I think that's good to be open to
that as well. Yeah. Well thanks for that. And that's a good, good
summary. So any final words or things that you'd like to share with
the audience? For those of you who are or alone please I'm just
going to do another pitch for volunteering.
00;43;27;22 - 00;43;44;22
You can lead an effort. You can lead a project. You can lead an
event. It's not as difficult as people think. That's what a lot of
people think. It'll be a ton of time. I'm happy to help you with
it. There's a whole community, social impact, community leaders and
awful. And you can reach out to any of them for help.
00;43;44;24 - 00;44;03;06
And that's what I'll leave us. Got it. Thank you so much. And for
anybody else outside that's not an Oracle employee. Get with your
community. Get with any workplace and where you are, get with your
you know, even if it's your neighborhood. Think about the things
that you can pull people together for and find value in that and
pay it forward.
00;44;03;06 - 00;44;24;12
So Beth, thank you so much for your time. Thanks for the input.
Like I said, we could have gone down a whole bunch of different
paths to discuss this further, but, I think this was a good
scraping the surface on what people can consider, you know, whether
you're a military service member or a military spouse. The
transition does sometimes play mind games on how you can focus on
things.
00;44;24;12 - 00;44;41;02
But remember, use your use your network, use your support
mechanisms. You know, bring people together, get a perspective and
ask for help. We're all here to help and keep moving forward. Yeah.
Thank you bet. Thanks, Chris.