You're listening to the Oil and Gas This Week podcast with Mark LeCour and Jake Corley.

This is the show for busy oil pros who quickly want to keep their finger on the pulse of the industry.

What's going on guys?

Welcome back to another episode of Oil and Gas This Week. What's up, Mark? Jake, what's up is that we are running a contest. So audience, if you would like to join us as a professional podcaster, that means you get paid as a part of the Oil and Gas Global Network professional podcasting team as part of our Allengas Global Network family. We're running a contest. We have a new show coming out, Oil and Gas Offshore. I don't care if you know about offshore at all. All I cares if you have a passion for being a podcaster. If you do and you want to enter a contest, it's really simple. You have to have a LinkedIn account. And if you don't have one, go open one up now. But I need you to shoot a quick video saying why you should

be the next host for the oil and gas offshore podcast. I need you to use the hashtag OGGN host search.

So it's hashtag OGGN host search. Then also tag OGGN in it. The contest ends Friday, July 22nd

at 5 p.m. Central Standard Time. But enter and we're going to pick one lucky winner and you go join us as a professional podcaster. How cool is that, Jake? That's pretty awesome. And you had no idea to get ready to springing on you, did you? No, I didn't. Yeah. So we've grown to the point now where we're reaching out to our audience looking for a podcast hosts. And what a lot of people don't know, Jake, is every single one of our hosts start out as a listener to one of our shows. You start out as a listener to one of our shows. Yep. Yeah. Exactly. So great place to find people to have similar interest because you listen to podcast. So come on people. Enter the contest. We're getting a lot of traffic on this already. We just launched it yesterday. So shoot a quick video. It doesn't need to be professionally done. I don't care if you know anything about offshore. I don't care where you live in the world. As long as you have internet access, come join our family. It would be fun. Yep. So that's what's up, Jake. So we've also got another review we should probably read from Yintam. Writes, what a better way to beat the Bay Area Traffic Blues, five stars.

He writes, this podcast keeps me entertained and well informed about the industry as I braved the Bay Area Traffic in California. Love listening to Mark and Jake on my lawn drives to work. Always excited to see a new episode get published. That is, he's exactly, he's hit the nail on the head. There's like pretty, there's Bay Area traffic is absolutely terrible. I got stuck in Bay Area traffic for like four hours last time I was there due to just a variety of reasons. I like fell asleep. Luckily I was driving. It was miserable. We just could not escape the Bay Area for the life of us. Yes, this is a great view. And Yintam, we're actually, you're on our list of happy hours. The Bay Area, we're actually launching one. We don't have a date yet. It'll probably be early 2020. But pay attention. When we launch it, you'll hear about it on this show. So awesome. Thanks for the review. All right, guys, you know the drill. It is the first Friday Q&A. So you guys are in questions. And we hopefully, hopefully, with just a lot of really, really great questions.

So hopefully, we get some good answers. So without further ado, let's go ahead and hop into it.

First question from who's a geophysicist. She writes, I'm in a good and not so good predicament. I've spent the last four years working with the geophysical consulting company, primarily for small

independent E&P companies.

When the owner of the company retired, I'd choose. I can go off on my own or join another company. So I joined another company. And to be honest, it does a great job, great company to be working for, but the thoughts to linger about what ifs going on with mine and the skills and the technological capabilities I can lend to other E&Ps. I know what I am good at and and I know what I can bring to the table, and I never stop trying to learn new things to add value to my work. So my question is, two parts, I suppose. What suggestions do you have as I battle the security of a job that most people would jump for with the urge to pursue my own venture and the uncertainties of being accepted by companies. To that end, I choose to take this job because I am young, 28, and I'm unsure about my ability to properly sell myself, proclaim an introvert for sure. I still don't feel good about it. I firmly believe in my competencies as a geophysicist and the value that I can add to companies. Thanks guys, love the show, love the content, keep it up. But great question. Do you want to take it first? You want me to. Jake, I won't let you take this first because this is like right in your wheelhouse. You're a bit of an introvert. You're young. You had to make that choice yourself. Yeah. So I first kind of went out of my own. I was 23. Yeah, I was 23 when I went on my own. I did not have like a super great job to leave or anything. So I guess it was a little bit easy for me. But what I was leaving was school. So I think if you've got that it and if I think if you know that you're not going to be fulfilled in a position working for somebody else and you know that you need to kind of go out there and do your own thing. There's really no easier way to do it. You just got to put together a plan, sometimes without a plan. Colin left his job, for example, without any kind of a plan. We were just throwing a lot of things at the wall and see what was going to stick and it all worked out. So my suggestion would be to do it. It's better to do it now when you're young and without hopefully too many dependents. You can always bounce back from something like this. If it just completely goes belly up, hey, guess what? You can go start something else or, hey, you can go get another job. So my suggestion would be to just do it. And then it also surround yourself with other people who've already done it, too.

So if you have any more questions, you can always read out to me. I'll be glad to meet up with you and kind of talk you through some things. I'm definitely introverted as well. Most people don't realize that until you actually spend some time around me. So I'm pretty good at selling myself. I'm pretty good at selling whatever I've kind of set my mind to. That's an acquired skill. It's something that can be practiced and something that you can get good at.

So that's my two cents. Yeah. So I agree 100% with you, Jake. The other couple of things is because she's a geophysicist, I would suspect she could go halfway, which means she probably can approach her company she's working for now and be very open and transparent and go, look, I want to do my own thing, but I really love it here.

Can I stop being an employee and start being a contractor? for now and be very open and transparent and go, look, I want to do my own thing, but I really love it

here. Can I stop being an employee and start being a contractor? That will give her the financial freedom to explore that. And then the other thing is she, and I love the fact that she's self-aware enough to say she just worries about selling herself. I get that. That's what you hire for. So as you grow, you hire for the skill sets you don't have.

So myself, I'm very much an extrovert, right? I have no problem selling almost anything to anybody. I struggle things like business skills, like financial skills. So we hire for that. So I think you're in a good place. And I agree with Jake, while you're young before you have a lot of fiscal and dependent responsibilities, go ahead and go for it.

The worst that can happen is that you have to go look for another job somewhere down the road. And that's not necessarily a bad thing. So you've tried it. But I would venture out halfway and see if your company let you go to be a contractor. Now, you can't stay there. That is just buying you time. Once you do that, you have to immediately hit the road, get your website built, get your marketing your marketing your services to other companies because you can't have one client as your only income because if you lose that client, it's a bad place to be. You need more eggs in the basket. But yeah, I agree with Jake 100%. Just go do it. All right up next. We had a question from Bailey. Should I tell him, a new listener to your podcast and as I'm trying to get a job as an account servicer in an energy corporation, I apologize if this has been asked, but I'm just starting to kind of make my way through your archives. As a recent college grad in a non-STEM field, I was wondering what is the best way to learn about the field or the best way to supplement my resume to put me in a position to have a great application to get a job in the energy field. Thank you in advance. Oh, perfect, easy thing.

Look at all the energy organizations. So API, IADC. Who else, Jake? There's like a gazillion.

SPE. And go volunteer. They will, they need volunteer help. This way you get exposure to the oil and gas industry.

You get exposure to what these industry representation organizations are doing. You get to meet the people

and be open and honest. Say, look, I don't know anything about the industry. So I'm volunteer to learn.

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