Interview #19 with Emma Leyden

UNFAMILIAR TERRITORY

After framing her interest in human interaction, Emma emphasized the value of travel to her personal and career development. As she pursued her dream to travel after college, she discovered the freedom of traveling alone. To her, part of the journey is to get lost and reset your learned perspective to find ways to communicate in unfamiliar territory. 

Experiencing what exists beyond your familiar boundaries is such an important way of expanding your network of experiences– whether that be through travel, or in my case, collaboration with others who excel in unrelated fields than that of my own. I find it extremely rewarding to learn from those who have extracted the values of their unique scenarios. 

As she returned from travel, Emma was aware of the impending pressure to finally shape her education and experiences into a career– a pressure that most students face upon graduation. 

EMERGING PATTERNS

After taking on a basketball coaching position, Emma found that she had a passion for using women’s sports as a vehicle for feminism. She joined a team of women at a small startup in New York, called XL Sports, that served as a news platform for females in the sports field. Emma was able to utilize her writing skills from her background in Psychology to feed a position that published content connecting female athletes.

She then went on to explain that she later realized there was a pattern coming from each of the experiences she had created for herself. Though she did not recognize it at the time, Emma collected an array of connected skills along her seemingly spontaneous journey. 

“At some point you’ll look up and realize there’s this really common thread through all of this.”

It was motivating to hear about how someone with such a breadth of interests like myself was able to weave them all together. Though it can be difficult, I know that trusting the process is an important piece of advice. 

TACKLING THE SOURCE

When Emma noticed that her community was lacking a supportive space for women to play basketball, she took action. With the simple organization of a Facebook group, a team was established and a culture began to emerge. 

 “When you see a problem and you care enough about that problem, why not go for it?”

Just as in this scenario, Emma has used this passion for connecting users to what is most important to them to drive her other endeavors. 

CONNECTING THE STORY

Currently, Emma works as a Product Manager at IDEO, where she uses Design Thinking to solve the problem of what the user needs. This human-centric approach is not distant from the perspective she adopted over the course of her academic studies, her travels, her leadership in women’s sports, and her journalism. 

I was left with some great advice from Emma to take advantage of any and all opportunities that you are passionate about, regardless of whether or not they directly relate to your previous course of action. Emma discovered that some of her most revealing experiences came from challenging her learned habits and simply tackling problems that she cared enough about.