Have you ever read a business or self-help book only to forget most of the advice a few weeks later? 

Did you ever listen to a podcast but then have trouble remembering the story you heard or the ideas discussed? 

If you have, you know what it feels like for all that time to be wasted. What if there was an easy way to remember that required only two seconds a day?

Well, it just so happens that there’s an app that allows you to do just that. It’s called Brain Bump and we had its creator join us on Creating Your Encore Career.

Along with founding Brain Bump, Mark Herschberg is the author of The Career Toolkit: Essential Skills for Success That No One Taught You. He has spent his career launching and developing new ventures in startups, Fortune 500s, and academia, with over a dozen patents to his name. 

Mark also helped start tMIT’s “career success accelerator.” He teaches there annually. 

At MIT, he received a B.S. in Physics, a B.S. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and an M.Eng. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, focusing on cryptography. 

On the podcast, Mark taught us all about Brain Bump, how it can help you be a better learner, and more tips for your Encore Career. Let’s get into it.

Reevaluate & Be Proactive

 

Mark has worked with many startups over the years and learned a variety of lessons from that work. One of the top lessons he took away was that, sometimes, what’s good for the company isn’t right for you. 

 

You must constantly reevaluate your career plan and say, “Am I on plan? Is this new direction we're going in or the new project that someone wants me on right for me?” If the answer is no, it's time to go. 

 

You have to be proactive in this. Too many people are adrift on the ocean, just go where the current takes them, and then don’t land where they expected to. Instead, you need to be proactive and navigating. You can't control the economy or your company but you can control your choices in your career.

 

Building a Network in Your Encore Career

 

A key component of creating an Encore Career is building a new network. Here are Mark’s top tips for doing this:

 

1. Look around your community. This could be your physical community, including people in your town or your city, but could also be an online community of other people in the same space as you. Build new relationships in your communities by joining an online forum, finding a local meetup group, or going to groups.

 

2. Don’t discard old relationships from your corporate career. You never know what prior experience someone has.

 

3. Remember that your network is not just people, but the people they know. Always ask a new connection, “Who else should I talk to?”

Brain Bump 

Finally, you may want to consider downloading the Brain Bump app if you want to improve your information retention and learning abilities.

Brain Bump contains content from multiple books, blogs, podcasts, and classes. It holds all of the key ideas from these pieces of content and gives you a notification reminding you of them throughout the day. Like a streaming service, they are continually adding more and more content over time. 

They are having a big launch in September so be sure to check it out!