531: How to Break Into Politics and Policy With Lisa Witter, Apolitical [Espresso Shots]

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Lisa Witter is the Executive Chairperson and co-founder of Apolitical, a virtual platform that trains public servants in various areas to improve their ability to serve in governmental positions. Prior to launching Apolitical, Lisa was the Chief Strategy Officer and Chief Operating Officer at Fenton Communications, the largest public interest communications firm in the U.S.. In 2010 Lisa was honored as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum and has chaired the YGL Public Leadership Initiative and co-chaired the Sustainable Development Goal Initiative. She is the co-author of The She Spot: Why Women are the Market for Changing the World and How to Reach Them. Lisa earned her B.A. in politics from The University of California at Santa Cruz. Press play on this T4C episode if you want to learn more about how to use your degree in politics in a variety of different careers!

WHAT YOU’LL LEARN ABOUT IN THIS EPISODE:

• Who are the two types of people that get hired at Apolitical (3:20)
• Why it’s critical to be able to crunch data and synthesize information through your writing (5:07)
• Why Lisa like to hire people with backgrounds in athletics, journalism and campaigns (6:33)
• Why your major doesn’t matter (7:50)
• What aspect of Lisa’s job sucks the most (9:58)
• How Lisa embraces the motto “Don’t worry about where you’re going to be in five years. Just do what you need to do tomorrow.” (11:25)
• How Lisa is able to live without regrets (12:45)
• How ‘So Good They Can’t Ignore You’ explains that telling young people to follow their ‘passion’ is terrible advice (13:32)
• Why Lisa has been devouring books on psychology and why she loves the movie “Miss Sloane” (14:26)
• Why it’s important to prioritize spending time with people instead of over-intellectualizing how we live our lives (15:46)
• If you want to learn more about what Lisa does as co-founder of Apolitical and how she built her career tune in to T4C episode #371