#132 From tech giant to embracing entrepreneurship with Glenn Block

Another Door Stories

“What if I could author my life the way I want it to be? What would that look like? And the more I started to think about that it was, you know, not working for anybody. It was creating my own spaces, creating my own company where I get to do the things I really care about, and where I can structure it”

Join me talking to Glenn Block, whose journey from corporate life to entrepreneurship is packed with valuable lessons and insights, and stories of how getting it wrong on the first go can turn out to be OK! Glenn shares the moment he decided to close a door on working in ‘big tech’ and launch not one but two of his own businesses. We discuss the magic of having unfiltered conversations with people when you first have an idea, our love of books and the importance of watching out for your mental health during life changes.

"Leaving corporate politics felt like closing the door on a toxic relationship; it was a necessary step towards reclaiming my mental health and professional integrity."

Here are the highlights:

06:47 MBA led to realisation: Leave the corporate for new opportunities.

20:39 Enjoying flexibility and fulfillment outside corporate environment.

22:30 Launched business in 2023; in a struggling economy.

30:01 ADHD's hyperfocus can lead to extreme productivity.

33:10 Learned more being self-employed than in a corporate job.

42:07 Seeking music to inspire hope during change.

51:57 Runway provides security and focus for success.

Glenn’s Another Door go-tos

The things that helped Glenn navigate change.

Book: “Leadership and Self Deception” by The Arbinger Institute

Music: "My Life" by Billy Joel

The one piece of advice: "Planning is crucial. Having a financial runway, for me it was a year-long plan, gave me the stability I needed to make the leap from corporate life to self-employment with confidence."

About Glenn Block

Glenn is a product and innovation leader with almost 30 years of experience in the tech industry. Throughout his career he has been at the forefront of building innovative enterprise solutions and advancing cloud computing. He has led initiatives at a number of top tech companies including Microsoft, Docusign, Auth0, and Splunk. After many years of witnessing the deep systemic inequities in the tech industry and how that impacts product development, Glenn started ProdSense where he advises organizations on how to build more inclusive products.

Glenn’s mission is to create a more inclusive and safe environment in tech. He invests a large amount of his energy in mentoring, advising, and sponsorship especially for black women, women of color, and the LGBTQ community. He has also worked in multiple organizations to change culture and policies, and has collaborated with several non-profit organizations as part of his mission including TechBridge Girls, Tech2Empower, and Code Nation.

He is a lifelong learner and received his executive MBA in leadership and social justice from Seattle University

Find out more: https://prodsense.net

Connect with Glenn:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gblock/

About your host Eleanor Tweddell:

Eleanor supports individuals, teams and organisations through change. Whether it’s 121 coaching or large scale organisational change through communications and training. Eleanor’s work centres around how we, as humans, work through change, embracing the messy bits, the role of playing, with the aim to see opportunity. “Too often we get stuck in the change happening to us, when just through that next door is an exciting next chapter.”

Eleanor is the founder of Another Door, and Get-Recommended.com and the author of Why losing your job could be the best thing that ever happened to you.

Connect with Eleanor:

Instagram:instagram/anotherdooruk

LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/eleanor-tweddell/

Website: eleanortweddell.com

Produced by winteraudio.co.uk