Changes Big and Small

Choosing Meaningful Work to Make an Impact This week’s episode is with Adam Greenberg. Adam is in his 30s and was most recently working with the Peace Corps along with his girlfriend, Lianne. What I really enjoyed about talking with Adam was the way that he expressed his thought process. As he shared his journey with us, Adam’s had some interesting experiences living in multiple countries and various cities in the US while doing meaningful work. Adam’s Brief Biography Adam has an eclectic and fascinating background. He has paved his own non traditional career path, which has included backpacking and traveling both in the US and abroad for the past 13 years, traveling with intention through work with meaning. He is a proud 2-term alum of Americorps, as well as a recently evacuated Peace Corps volunteer working in rural Zambia the past two years. He has also lived on a vegetable oil powered school bus as part of an environmental nonprofit, helped redesign a campaign for the popular social enterprise Toms shoes and served a stint in the Obama White House. His is clearly an impressive and unique path which he credits to setting bold goals and the privilege of being debt free. Adam is an advocate of expanding national service and increasing access to such programs by reforming the United States’ broken student loan debt issues. Welcome Adam. Your Challenge Invitation Challenge 1 Look into a password manager for your online account. If you’re interested in learning more about that, Adam has created a handy guide for you, which you can find here. Challenge 2 Are you interested in listening to audio books or podcasts more quickly? If so, try this challenge. Slowly speed up your listening speed over time. Some apps will let you increase the speed in increments of 0.1 while others only allow jumps of 0.5. Start at the next speed up from 1 and once the audio sounds normal to you, increase the speed slightly once more. Keep increasing the speed over time as long as you are able to successfully adapt to the new speed. Contact Links Contact and follow Adam on his website, Instagram, Twitter or Linkedin. You can connect with Damianne on the Changes BIG and small website, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube. You’re also invited to join the Changes BIG and small Facebook community. It’s about having the opportunity, the access to make your own choice. That’s freedom. Timeline of the Chat 00:24 – Adam’s bio06:11 – Choosing meaningful work and the relationship to purpose08:20 – Finding and living your purpose11:30 – Lessons learned from travelling and moving often14:10 – Recognizing our privilege15:01 – Higher education in the US18:44 – The shortcomings in development work20:03 – Working in Zambia with Peace Corps24:37 – Social Activism in Business26:57 – Reflecting and finding what’s next28:22 – Editing and cybersecurity32:35 – Two challenges from Adam35:08 – Where to connect with Adam Quick Links * Happiness course by Laurie Santos on Coursera * Go, Went, Gone by Jenny Erpenbeck * The Hedonic Treadmill, Akimbo Podcast * Adam’s Edits * Cybersecurity guide https://changesbigandsmall.com/choosing-meaningful-work-to-make-an-impact/ This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit adamgreenberg.substack.com