Ep 125: From Building NASA Launch Pads to 1.9 Million TikTok Followers?! | Tanya Zakowich (Founder, Pink Pencil Math)

It takes guts to quit your job.But what if it was NASA? BOEING? Or Elon Musk’s Hyperloop One?!Because that’s exactly what Tanya Zakowich did.Tanya grew up with a fascination for space & like most kids, she wanted to be an astronaut.But unlike many, that fascination held even when she grew up, which is why she ended up studying mechanical engineering at Columbia.An internship in India helped her land a job at NASA, but she soon left for BOEING! Only to realise that at BOEING, she was just a cog in the wheel. She wasn’t being challenged.Hence her third role at Elon Musk’s Hyperloop One, where she lived the ultimate startup life.That is, until she realised that what she truly loved & cared about was her family and home in Singapore.So she gave it all up to return home.Now if you listen to this STIMY interview, you’ll soon realise that Tanya is quite the go-getter!During the pandemic, she strategically launched a new TikTok channel where she teaches maths in a fun and interesting way. Within 6 months, she hit 1 million followers! Then quit for 2 months because of the toll it took on her mental health.She now stands at 1.9 million followers. 🤯That said, Tanya doesn’t have everything figured out. She’s constantly experimenting, learning to give up on things that don’t work to try something else again. And if there’s one takeaway I hope you’ll receive from this episode, it’s this: Failures make us stronger. Don’t let it hold you back.Now are you ready to listen to Tanya’s episode?Let’s go. 😉Highlights:2:13 Interest in space5:37 Engineering at Columbia University7:22 How an internship in India helped Tanya get into NASA9:42 NASA’s interview process12:57 Quitting NASA14:32 Quitting is easy?!15:41 Deal breakers18;11 Elon Musk’s Hyperloop One21:54 Singapore’s startup scene22:35 US v Singapore startups26:50 Dating app29:10 Getting into TikTok29:52 Personal branding34:03 TikTok trends36:21 Secret to going viral36:42 Hooks38:21 Drafting scripts40:30 Tanya’s unique selling point46:54 Not moving to the US for content creation?49:27 Goal of 1 million followers54:04 Going on a break56:29 Change in frequency57:11 Putting her name out in public📍Show notes: https://www.sothisismywhy.com/125 🍿 YouTube: https://youtu.be/wclFmzVbMmw 💌 Weekly STIMY Newsletter that deconstructs how you build a portfolio career to prepare yourself for the future of work: https://sothisismywhy.ck.page/acd5bd1062✍🏻 Leave a review on STIMY: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/so-this-is-my-why/id1521191442