What If Your Career Could Bring You Joy? With Jenny Zook

What if the career path you were taught to follow is not the only way to build a good life?

In this episode, I sit down with Jenny Zook, a former middle school teacher turned entrepreneur, to talk about career changes, motherhood, entrepreneurship, finding purpose, and the work that brings us joy.

Jenny spent more than 20 years in education before stepping away from the classroom and eventually building Style School, a business that brings together her love of personal style and her passion for teaching. But the interesting part of her story is not just the career change.

It is how she figured out what she wanted her work to give her.

Jenny talks honestly about the hard parts of entrepreneurship, including building something that initially failed, learning to listen to feedback, making expensive mistakes, and accepting that a business rarely becomes what you first imagined.

We also talk about something I think we need to discuss much more when it comes to careers:

Joy matters. But joy alone may not be enough.

The bigger question is how we connect what brings us joy with what gives our lives purpose.Because there is no single career path that everyone needs to follow.

You can work in corporate. You can teach. You can build a business. You can change direction halfway through your career. The goal is not to find the "perfect" career.

It is to build a life and career that actually fit who you are.

What you'll get from this episode:

How Jenny went from teaching for more than 20 years to becoming an entrepreneurWhy career paths do not have to follow a predictable formulaThe difference between finding something you enjoy and finding something that gives you purposeHow motherhood changed the way Jenny thought about her careerWhy her first business idea failed and what she learned from itWhat entrepreneurship really looks like beyond the overnight-success storiesWhy being willing to change and evolve is essential when building a businessThe importance of being careful about who you hire and where you investHow difficult experiences can sometimes become valuable skills laterWhy teachers have a unique opportunity to influence the trajectory of a young person's lifeWhat Jenny believes we should be teaching young people about careersWhy building a career you enjoy is possible, even if the path looks different from everyone else'sHow to think about joy, purpose, impact, and the kind of life you actually want to build