Jenny Wood: ...the biggest lie you'll ever hear in your career is "keep your head down"

Nobody Told Me!

Business, Entrepreneurship

4.2 • 671 Ratings

🗓️ 28 April 2025

⏱️ 26 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

What if the fear you feel isn’t a stop sign — but a compass pointing you exactly where you’re supposed to go?

In this episode of Nobody Told Me!, we’re talking with Jenny Wood — author of Wild Courage: Go After What You Want and Get It — about how fear, ambition, self-doubt, and boldness are all tangled together on the road to creating a life you actually want.

Jenny spent 18 years rising through the ranks at Google, ultimately leading a team responsible for tens of billions in revenue, and founding Own Your Career, one of the largest career development programs in Google’s history. She knows firsthand what it means to step into bigger, braver versions of yourself — even when it feels terrifying.

Together, we dive into how to turn fear into fuel, why being “too much” is actually your greatest strength, and what it really looks like to bet on yourself when nobody else hands you permission.

If you’ve ever wrestled with impostor syndrome, second-guessed your dreams, or wondered if you’re “ready” to make a leap — this conversation will remind you that courage isn’t something you wait for. It’s something you choose.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Nobody Told Me. I'm Jan Black. And I'm Laura Owens. Today we're diving into a conversation about
0:07.7	bravery, the kind that challenges fear, redefines success, and propels you toward the life you really want.
0:14.2	We are so thrilled to be joined by Jenny Wood. In her 18 years at Google, Jenny rose from entry
0:20.2	level to executive, ultimately leading a massive operations team that drove billions of dollars in revenue each year.
0:27.0	In 2021, she founded Own Your Career, a career development program within Google that became one of the largest in the company's history, helping tens of thousands of people build their confidence,
0:38.7	sharpen their skills, and achieve their professional goals. Jenny's writing has been featured in
0:43.6	Harvard Business Review, Entrepreneur, Inc. and Forbes. And today we're talking with her about her new
0:49.2	book, which is already a New York Times bestseller, Wild Courage. Go after what you want and get it, a fearless
0:55.4	guide to living and leading with unapologetic bravery. Jenny, thank you so much for joining us.
1:01.3	It's so good to be here. Thanks for having me. Tell us more about why you wrote the book and about
1:08.0	the nine traits that are really key in the book and in your whole philosophy.
1:14.1	Yeah, well, it all started in 2011 when I saw a really attractive stranger on the New York
1:20.3	City subway riding at home from work one day. And even though I wanted to talk to him,
1:25.1	something held me back. What if he's a convicted felon?
1:31.8	What if he's married? What if a hundred people stare at me on this packed train? Well,
1:36.2	underneath those questions were really just fears, right? Fear of uncertainty, fear of failure,
1:45.0	fear of judgment of others. So I sat there. I did nothing. But something still, I was so taken by him that I made a deal with the universe.
1:49.0	I said, if he gets off at my stop, then maybe I'll try to strike up a conversation with him.
1:50.3	And if not, then say, Lavi.
1:53.3	Well, he gets off at the next stop, which was not my stop.
1:59.5	And then all of a sudden, this wave of wild courage washes over me and practically pushes me out of my subway seat and off the train. I chase
2:02.7	to catch up with him. I tap him on the shoulder. I say, excuse me, you're wearing gloves, so I can't
	...

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