Norman Tran: [00:00:00] But, basically, a lot of people kind of like monkey see, monkey do, or they prematurely disqualify themselves, or they just commit before exploring alternatives. And if there's one thing I've learned a lot in design, which is like always kind of like fan out before narrowing it in how we think.
Andy Molinsky: [00:00:21] Welcome to From the Dorm Room to the Board Room, a podcast where we provide insights, tips, and inspiration for college students and young professionals, so they can make a really successful transition from college life to the professional world and beyond.
Andy Molinsky: [00:00:39] My name is Andy Molinsky, and I'm your host. I am also a Professor of Organizational Behavior and International Management at Brandeis University's International Business School, where we record and produce this podcast.
Andy Molinsky: [00:00:58] Okay. So, our guest today is Norman Tran. After a two-year tour of duty in Silicon Valley as a product designer, Norman realized that the real bugs weren't in software, but they were in people. Interesting. And since then, he shifted from designing screens to designing learning experiences. He's currently the Head of Design at Tradecraft, where he helps smart people going through professional inflection points figure out what's next while avoiding avoidable failures.
Andy Molinsky: [00:01:30] Before that, Norman created emotional intelligence trainings at Mission U, a tuition-free college alternative, that helps underrepresented adults get roles at companies like Spotify, Survey Monkey, Accenture. He has facilitated Stanford Graduate School of Business' flagship course on emotional intelligence. He's helped Facebook bring accessible vocational skills to millions of professionals around the world through online micro courses. Lots of really interesting experience—professional experiences. And apparently, Norman, also, is a junior jazz pianist, a passable poet, and as he says, absolutely an alliteration addict. So, with that, Norman, thanks so much for being on the podcast.
Norman Tran: [00:02:15] I'm so glad to be here, Andy.
Andy Molinsky: [00:02:18] So, tell us a bit about—I gave a flavor for what you do now, but tell us, if you were describing what you do now to someone who really doesn't know much about it, how would you describe it?
Norman Tran: [00:02:30] So, I like to think in metaphors. Right now, a metaphor that I really enjoy is that of someone who leads an escape room. So, I don't know if you or any of your audience members might have been through an escape room, but you're, basically, in this like room, and for two hours, you have to solve puzzles and find clues, and figure out how to get out of that room to win. That's kind of like the challenge.
Norman Tran: [00:02:58] And for me, what I do at Tradecraft is, basically, it's a three-month program helping career transitioners figure out what's a good next step for them, but I've designed in a way that's not like going to a vending machine and pressing buttons to get information. It's a challenging environment that helps you discover, what are your patterns for how you show up in the professional world and how might that be helpful or not helpful for you, so that you can rise to the challenge, or when you leave the place, you just do a really awesome job in the professional settings you're in. Now, specifically, I-
Andy Molinsky: [00:03:38] So-
Norman Tran: [00:03:38] Oh, go ahead.
Andy Molinsky: [00:03:38] I was just going to ask, like, who—can you just paint a picture of someone who might be one of your clients, someone you might work with?
Norman Tran: [00:03:46] Yes. So, a lot of the individuals that comes to Tradecraft are, usually, several years out of their first few jobs, and they've just realized that there's probably some kind of inkling in them that's longing for something more fulfilling, more creative, or just more exciting. And so, my focus is, actually, helping to become product designers, which is my original career path. And so, a lot of people come in, and I train them to become product designers.
Andy Molinsky: [00:04:19] Cool. Wow! So, that's interesting. And for those of us who aren't super familiar what a product designer is, I mean, I have a rough idea, but tell us a little bit more about that.
Norman Tran: [00:04:29] Yeah. So, think of the apps that you have on your phone, like Facebook, Messenger, or Lyft, or maybe Gmail. So, product designers are the people who create these apps. They're the people who are thinking, what should a person click now? And then, now? And then, now? What kind of information do they need to do certain things on the screens? And how should it look and feel? So, really product design is kind of like all the underground stuff that happens to bringing these apps on your phone to life.
Andy Molinsky: [00:05:03] Cool! So, where did you—let's rewind, and I want to hear—sort of hear about your own path. It's interesting. So, you help people make career transitions. And I'd love to hear about your own career, and I imagine some career transitions you've experienced. Where did you go to college? What did you major in? Let's start there.
Norman Tran: [00:05:22] Yeah. Oh, boy. I've had so many career transitions myself. So, I went to college at UC Irvine, and I studied Business Information Management, which was this hybrid business and computer science degree. When I was there, I was basically trying to follow the footsteps of my parents, both of which who studied computer science. But I realized, like, for me, I appreciated that kind of like computational thinking, but my real interest was always in like creativity and working with people.
Norman Tran: [00:05:55] And so, after actually dabbling in a lot of different internships like in consulting and advertising, I realized that like, "Oh, these actually aren't for me." And I had to figure out what I actually enjoy. And it wasn't until I happened upon something called Startup Weekend, which is like a create a startup in 36 hours challenge that I realized like, "Wow! This is really fun." It brings me a lot of adrenaline to be thinking like, how do we create things from scratch?
Norman Tran: [00:06:27] And so, through several other experiences after that, I realized that I wanted to be a product designer. I want to be creating things. And so, I won this competition in college to build a, like, business plan and product demo. And like any naive college student, I was like, "Oh, we won. So, let's definitely make this a startup." So, that was my first failed startup. And that was a really humbling but really fun experience. That actually confirmed for me that I do enjoy this part.
Norman Tran: [00:07:04] So, the big turning point for me was after college, I dabbled in a few things, but I wasn't ready to be a product designer. I didn't have like a portfolio. I didn't have like a large body of work to get into the industry. And so, I actually joined Tradecraft as the very, very first cohort. And so, I taught myself as much as I could in design throughout my entire life, but I needed someone to show me like the ropes, someone to help me avoid those avoidable failures, and level up, so I could get to the next level. And so, I went through that, and that's how I became a product designer.
Andy Molinsky: [00:07:47] So, let's rewind. And it's an interesting path. And I want to ask a couple of follow-up questions.
Norman Tran: [00:07:52] Yeah.
Andy Molinsky: [00:07:52] The first is, in college itself, it sounds like you were—the way that you discovered this passion for product design, correct me if I'm wrong, but was not in a class, per se, but was in sort of an extracurricular opportunity, that startup weekend. Is that right?
Norman Tran: [00:08:10] That is absolutely correct.
Andy Molinsky: [00:08:12] And what drew you to that? Like, how did you—because I think, if you think about it, college, in some ways, is almost like a buffet. It's like there's [crosstalk].
Norman Tran: [00:08:22] Yes, there's [crosstalk].
Andy Molinsky: [00:08:22] There's all sorts of options that you can pick and choose from. And you, at some point, just happened to pick and choose that. What brought you there? Was it random? Was it purposeful? Did someone suggest it?
Norman Tran: [00:08:38] So, I think I was extremely lucky when I was in college to find some just really incredible people who saw something in me that I couldn't see in myself. And they were the individuals who suggested me to try more things. They, basically, were like, "Norman, you're playing it really safe. I see you're wanting to do what everyone else is doing," which is I go into consulting, "and I don't think that's right for you." And I stubbornly said, "No." I did it anyway and then realized like, "Okay, you're right."
Norman Tran: [00:09:08] And so, when I was in that path of like finding what's next, one of them, he has always just been, like, the really, like, insightful sees beyond kind of, like, where everyone else is. It's kind of like that fish who sees water, when everyone else is like, "Wait, what's water?" All right. And so, he sees like the invisible. And he told me like, "There's something else you should be trying." And he talked to me about Startup Weekend because he was organizing one at UCI. And so, I attended it, and it was just magical from there.
Andy Molinsky: [00:09:43] And when was this? Is this a friend, or a professor, or-
Norman Tran: [00:09:48] So, he is one of my best friends, younger than me. but he's just out there. And the way he sees the world, it's just incredible.
Andy Molinsky: [00:09:57] Interesting. And so, that's cool. That's an interesting story. So, you left college, and you had that naive idea that, "Oh, the startup won the competition or did really well. This must be what I should pursue, and it will be successful in the real world." And then you said, "You know what, it didn't work out as expected." Tell us about it. What was the startup? What was the topic? Why—what's your story about it?
Norman Tran: [00:10:23] Yeah. So, we were aspiring to create an app called Group Munch, which would help you and your friends figure out where to eat in a minute or less because we realized that, so often, when we're in groups, we're standing around like, "What do you want to eat?" "Well, I don't know." "Do you like Asian?" "Well, I don't know." "Are there gluten-free options?" Just this annoying process where we just want to, like, hang out and eat together quickly. And so, we wanted to solve that.
Norman Tran: [00:10:57] And that seemed like a really fun challenge to do just because it was a problem relevant to me and my friends. But the biggest reason why it didn't work out is because, surprise, startups have big money. And at that time, that app idea, we couldn't find a feasible way to actually make money. It was just a cool idea. And it was not so painful of a problem that people would throw money at it.
Norman Tran: [00:11:26] So, the biggest lesson for me is like build things that, actually, solve real problems that people have. You can build apps for fun, for sure, but if you're trying to make a business out of it, like I was, be really clear about how you're going to make money. Otherwise, it's not gonna work out.
Andy Molinsky: [00:11:45] Interesting. So, you pursued it because of your intrinsic interest, and you realized, "There's got to be some sort of like extrinsic benefit, some financial benefit for it to be sustainable."
Norman Tran: [00:11:56] Yeah, that's how I would think about like career paths, right? Like, we can have an intrinsic interest, which we might label as passions, but until the Venn diagram intersects with what the world needs and is willing to pay for, it's pretty hard for us to find something as a job.
Andy Molinsky: [00:12:14] It's a good point. It's really an interesting way of thinking about it. So, then, after this startup, tell us again, where did you pivot from there? And how long did you actually do that for?
Norman Tran: [00:12:25] Yeah. So, after that, it was about a few months as I was trying to figure out my next steps. And then, this was the January of 2014 when I moved to
San Francisco from Orange County and went to the first program of Tradecraft. I was in that for three months. And then, several months after that, I got my first job working at a startup as a product designer. I was at a company called Declara, which is kind of like Pinterest for articles. So, kind of helping teams collect articles and information.
Norman Tran: [00:13:04] And my God, that was—the whole like Silicon Valley show compressed into one year as like a lived experience. So, there is like—I came in thinking I was going to build one thing, and then two months later, we're completely changing courses. I had to design an entire like mobile app in two days. There was a premature expansion across the world. Yeah, we had like $30 million in funding, but we didn't have a product that yet made money. It was kind of a parabola. It went from zero to a hundred, and back to ten, and now to zero.
Andy Molinsky: [00:13:44] How long did it last?
Norman Tran: [00:13:47] So, eventually, as in like, I think, this year, the company got acquired. Bless their heart. But while I was there, I was there for about a year and a half. And even though the experience was quite shattering and shocking in some ways, it was also one of the most beautiful experiences because like a lot of the team members are one of the—just the most amazing people. I learned so much from them, and I grew so much in that time. So, yes, it was a challenging experience, but I also took away a lot of like beautiful learnings and relationships.
Andy Molinsky: [00:14:21] So, you help people, sort of, navigate their careers. Tell us about some of your philosophies. Well, you just tell me about the Venn diagram before you kind of rattled that off. I imagine you're a—you've got a lot of wisdom about this. So, what's your perspective on careers and young people, and what it takes to be successful, and what success even means?
Norman Tran: [00:14:46] So, very big questions. I think the one thing that I would have the listeners focus most on is knowing thyself or the famous quote of like, "You must live an examined life." And so, a lot of times, it's very easy to do what everyone else is doing
when we ourselves don't know what we want. And there's a lot of peer pressure. There's a lot of inertia in staying in that.
Norman Tran: [00:15:16] And so, for me, what has helped me kind of like carve my own unique path that you won't like see in normal job descriptions is because I kept figuring out what I liked. And I am like a—I'm basically, like, addicted to self-learning. And so, I'm always trying to read more, always taking like self-assessments. So, for example, Clifton Strengths Finder or Enneagram, things like that. Anything to help me know my patterns better. Anything to help me understand how I operate, what cadence works for me. Am I a person who, like, loves operating and building from someone else's stuff? Or am I someone who likes creating, envisioning, or both, right?
Norman Tran: [00:16:09] And so, for me, the greatest thing I've given to myself is a compass basically. And the compass came from self-discovery, came from sitting with these hard questions, like what does success mean to me? What makes me feel alive? And I know like some of these questions were a little airy and a little like not practical, but something that a person can try, which may feel a little morbid is to actually contemplate your mortality.
Norman Tran: [00:16:46] So, in 2014, as I was becoming a product designer, I got really sick, and that kind of made me think like, "Oh my God. What if I die?" And in that process, I thought a lot about like, what do I care about? What's the impact I want to leave behind? And that's—in the process of wrestling with these questions, after Declara, I realized I actually want to be in education. I actually want to teach people. I don't care about like scaling products to reaching 10 million people. I just want to like impact one life at a time. And I wouldn't have gone through that insight if I didn't sit with these hard questions of like, if I were to disappear, what is the legacy I wish to leave behind? So, asking ourselves these kind of questions is probably like the key to discovering what an authentic version of success looks like.
Andy Molinsky: [00:17:36] That's interesting. So, in college, you had this feeling, this instinct that you really like designing products. And then, after college, you kind of followed your nose to just sort of work on designing products. But then, only a little bit
later when you had this scare, and you started to focus on yourself and examined your previously, perhaps, less-than-examined life, for however you want to put it, you're able to kind of orient with a compass where you wanted to direct that passion. Is that a fair way of characterizing it?
Norman Tran: [00:18:13] Yeah. And actually, an even more powerful analogy would be like think of it as like if you're driving a car, you have a dashboard, right? And the dashboard will tell you when you need gas. It'll tell you when you need to change your oil. But some of us, at least, for me, at the time, it's kind of like driving around with a clogged dashboard or, at least, like it's covered in like myst. And so, I can't really see it clearly.
Norman Tran: [00:18:42] So, if I think back right now, the compass has always been there, I just wasn't looking at it. And so, if I actually reflect back, I always knew I wanted to be like facilitating experiences for people. Back when I was a sophomore in college, when I was my in my student orgs, I was the person who would try to get like all the board members together, and do retreat, and like do like, "Let's learn about our strengths and weaknesses and talk about that," and like really try to connect, and then do some like vision exercises. Like all that stuff is now called like learning and development. I just didn't know that it was a field. And so, like my compass was already pointing there even as early as like me being a sophomore in college, I just didn't know it was a thing.
Andy Molinsky: [00:19:31] But you didn't—yeah.
Norman Tran: [00:19:31] Exactly.
Andy Molinsky: [00:19:33] Right. And that's hard if you think about it for—it's a good exercise for people who are in college or even after college to kind of simply reflect on what aspects of school or work do they gravitate towards, do they really like. And then, I mean, the leap is trying to understand how that translates, I guess, into something professional. And in your case, it—there's a real strong link, it seems like, but that you didn't initially see it.
Norman Tran: [00:20:01] Yeah, exactly. And I think it's because, like, I didn't know what I didn't know, right? It's an unknown unknown. And sometimes, we need people in our lives who challenge us to say, "I think your standing just right before the tip of the mountain where you can see everything else," and just ascending that, and seeing that there's a whole different world out there unbeknownst to us before.
Andy Molinsky: [00:20:25] Interesting. So from where you sit, what misconceptions do you think college students have about when entering the workplace?
Norman Tran: [00:20:34] So, I think, there's two or even three main ones. One is not having a structured, methodical approach to figuring out what's next, right? So, we—I spoke to this a little bit earlier, but basically a lot of people kind of like monkey see, monkey do, or they prematurely disqualify themselves, or they just commit before exploring alternatives. And if there's one thing I learned a lot in design, which is like always kind of like fan out before narrowing it in how we think.
Norman Tran: [00:21:07] And so, that's something I've been really taking into heart when thinking about careers, which is until we really see what's out there, how can we really know what we're moving towards that's best for us? And that's why it's important to think about our strengths, look at people we look up to or even envy because that's like a data point in terms of what we really want. That's a data point from the compass.
Norman Tran: [00:21:30] And then, really just being strategic about reaching out to people over LinkedIn, over Twitter, getting coffee, figuring out like, what do you do? And is that really what I want to do? So, that's like approaching the career finding through a more structured approach.
Norman Tran: [00:21:46] And then, another one would be thinking that asking for help is a weakness, right? I think depending on our upbringing, we might see asking for help as shameful or not good. But, actually, asking for help makes people want to help you, right? And so, for me, I've always asked for help, like, relentlessly and, sometimes,
bothering people, but there is a way of asking for help that makes people want to help you. And that's by being prepared, right?
Norman Tran: [00:22:19] So, if you're like, "Hey, I don't know what I'm doing. Can you, like, help me, please?" which is no one wants to help you. But like, "Okay, I have this current hypothesis about what I want to do. I already talked to three other people. And, now, I want to talk to you because you have this experience. And so, I have this hypothesis I am trying to test." Like that makes you sound so much more thoughtful. And I'd be willing to put in like 20-30 minutes to talk to this young professional, because they're so thoughtful about it.
Andy Molinsky: [00:22:48] Interesting. So, strategize about how to use the help that you're asking.
Norman Tran: [00:22:53] Precisely. Just like you can't ask, basically, a bad input, bad output, right? If you ask not, like, well-thought out questions, you're going to get vague answers than being really specific in your questions. And so, like, "How—what should I do to pursue my career?" it's like, "Hey, I think, I really gravitate towards creating experiences for people. I don't really know what that keyword is. Like I don't know what to call that. Do you happen to know what that might be called, given that you've been in HR for 20 years?" So, like that's a much more specific question that makes it easier for the person to help you.
Andy Molinsky: [00:23:29] Interesting. How about from what you learned in college, you said it was a combination of business and computer science, was there anything in retrospect about what you actually learned in terms of either the content of your classes or things outside of class? I know you talked about that startup experience. But tell us about how college either did or did not end up being useful for what you do now and for your career path.
Norman Tran: [00:23:57] So, I think I really connect with what you said earlier about college being a buffet. It certainly was. And I consumed a lot of content, got exposed to
a lot of interesting things. I think for me, the way I saw college was it was a planting of many seeds that, then, blossomed for many years.
Norman Tran: [00:24:15] So, a lot of the things that I feel really passionate about now, which is like emotional intelligence, and mindfulness, and helping develop self-awareness, I thought like I developed my interest in these areas like recently. But if I look back on my college papers, I'm like writing about Aristotle's definition of friendship, things like that. And it's like, "Well, I forgot all of this stuff, but the seeds were planted." It's just fascinating.
Norman Tran: [00:24:43] And so, I think, for college, the biggest benefit was actually exposure to ideas far outside of my comfort zone. One of my favorite classes I took was the Neuroscience of Religion and Spirituality, which was such a wild class that I took not for credit, but just out of interests. And it's stuff like that that actually really impacted the way I think about the world now.
Norman Tran: [00:25:10] And so, the biggest value wasn't actually the technical classes, because a lot of the technical stuff I learned outside later, but it was the exposure to these fascinating ideas and world views that I didn't have and wasn't thinking about, especially when I was in high school.
Andy Molinsky: [00:25:26] So, sometimes you hear—in the United States, at least, you hear an argument about the liberal arts, that it's impractical, and what are you going to do with that? And you need to study things that are far more practical. And in your case, you did. You studied Computer Science and you studied Business, but you also talked about this class on the Neuroscience of Religion. So, neuroscience is hard science, but religion is sort of social science, humanities. Can you make a case for liberal arts?
Norman Tran: [00:26:00] I think this is a difficult balance, given that I most recently was building a college alternative. And there's basically two spectrums of thought for what a college is supposed to be or what higher education is supposed to be. On the one hand, it's supposed to be vocational training. So, like skills training. And then, on the other
hand, it's more in the liberal arts category of exposing you to different world views, and ideals, and ways of thinking.
Norman Tran: [00:26:29] And I think the healthy and the best type of education needs to involve both because a person who walks around with skills but has no sense of ethics or has no sense of what matters to them in the world are lost essentially. They're mercenaries with no direction. But then, a person who has all these ideals and perhaps robust ways of thinking about themselves that relate to the world, and have no skills, they are not going to make money.
Norman Tran: [00:27:02] And so, like to be on either extreme is very dangerous and not resilient. To be in between where you have a solid set of skills that are employable, as well as some new ways of thinking about the world that are helpful, I think, is the best balance. So, I wouldn't argue for a school to be either or strictly because that's not going to be helpful, given that all of us, generally, need to be employed, but, somewhere, mixing the two would be the best case.
Andy Molinsky: [00:27:37] And I think that's a really interesting point. Just as an aside, you know I'm a professor at Brandeis University, and I'm in the Business School, and we work very hard to try to create the undergraduate business program to be exactly that, to be highly practical and skill-based, but at the same time, sort of deeply connected to the rest of the university and the social sciences, humanity, and hard sciences. So, I'm—you're preaching to the choir.
Andy Molinsky: [00:28:06] And so, with that, this has been such an interesting interview. Where can people who are interested learn more about your organization, or about you, or what you do?
Norman Tran: [00:28:17] Absolutely. So, the company I'm at right now is Tradecraft. So, you can find us at tradecrafted.com, like, education, E.D. So, tradecrafted.com. And then, personally, I'm more active on medium. So, they could find some of my past writings on medium.com/@norman_tran. So, my username is norman_tran.
Andy Molinsky: [00:28:47] Excellent. So, in our show notes, we'll find that, and we'll include that link. And thanks so much. This is a very thought-provoking interview. I appreciate your coming on.
Norman Tran: [00:28:57] Thank you. It's awesome to be here.
Andy Molinsky: [00:29:02] Thank you for listening to From the Dorm Room to the Board Room. If you're interested in learning more about the work that I do in helping people step outside their comfort zones and transition successfully into the professional world, please visit my website, www/andymolinsky.com. That's A-N-D-Y-M-O-L-I-N-S-K-Y dot com.. And also feel free to email me directly at andy@andymolinsky.com with any feedback or ideas for guests for future podcasts.
Andy Molinsky: [00:29:33] This podcast is brought to you by Brandeis University's International Business School. By teaching rigorous business, finance, and economics, connecting students to best practices and immersing them in international experiences, Brandeis International Business School prepares exceptional individuals from around the globe to become principled professionals in companies and public institutions worldwide. Thank you so much for listening.