How to Learn Any New Skill: A Simple Process for Working Smarter

One hour in the sun. No sunscreen. One brutal chest sunburn—and a perfectly protected face and neck.

SUPERGOOP!

We start with this painful but very relatable mistake because it reveals a bigger pattern: when something does not feel serious, we often skip the basic steps and pay for it later. I share the tinted facial sunscreen I use, why daily sun protection matters, and the simple reminder many of us still need to hear: wear sunscreen whenever you leave the house.

Then we move into the heart of the episode: competence is not about knowing everything. It is about knowing how to approach something unfamiliar.

I break down a simple, repeatable process you can use to learn a new skill, complete an unfamiliar task, or manage an overwhelming project:

Clarify the goal, gather the right information, break the work into manageable steps, create a first draft, review what worked, improve it, and repeat.

When you rely on a proven framework instead of panic, procrastination, or perfectionism, you no longer have to start from zero every time the topic changes. This mindset can reduce anxiety, improve productivity, strengthen problem-solving skills, and make new challenges feel much more manageable.

We put the process into practice with real-life examples, including my system for planning kids’ birthday parties, why morning birthday parties are an underrated win for parents, and how individually packaged snacks can simplify food safety, allergy concerns, serving, and cleanup.

I also share practical podcasting tips, ways to simplify your workflow, and how AI productivity tools such as Microsoft Copilot can help you write professional emails faster—without losing your voice or replacing the foundational skills you already have.

This episode is for anyone who feels overwhelmed by unfamiliar work, struggles with perfectionism, or wants to become more confident and productive without making life more complicated.

Listen now, subscribe to the podcast, share the episode with a friend, and leave a review so more women can discover the show.

What area of your life would become easier if you created a repeatable process for it?

Transcript

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Welcome And Podcast Mission

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello everyone, this is Still Roses Podcast. This podcast was created for women by women to elevate women's voices.

The Sunscreen Mistake That Stung

SPEAKER_00 0:05

I hope everyone had a really, really wonderful weekend. I had a great weekend, but made a very stupid mistake because on Saturday, um, I was enjoying the day outside with my kids, did not put sunscreen on, and basically almost turned purple on my chest because I didn't have any sunscreen on and the sun was hitting really hard. I didn't think I needed to put it on. I honestly threw caution to the wind because it was like it was sunny, but it was breezy and not a day that you felt like you were being fried out there like a piece of bacon. So I was like, it's not that big of a deal. We're fine, we're not out here for that long. But that one hour that I was like waiting for them to finish their activity, yeah, really got me. So just kind of food for thought for everybody else. Whenever you leave the house, you should put sunscreen on. The comical part of the sunburn is that I always, always put sunscreen on my face. I use this product called Supergoop. One of my coworkers put me on it. She she showed up to work one day and her face was like glowing, like beautiful. Just and again, she's in her 20s. So when you're in your 20s, your face is always glowing and you always look beautiful. But just this one day she came online and it's just gorgeous. And I was like, What do you what are you doing? Like, help me. I'm four, I'm in my 40s. Like, you can't be walking around like this, and I look like this. So she told me about this product. I bought it. It's the tinted moisturizer version, not moisturizer, the tinted sunscreen version. It has a little bit of a sparkle in it, but it gives you a really nice little subtle glow. It's not tacky at all. Now, the funny part of the sunburn that I got is that I use my super goop on my face and my neck. So my face and my neck did not get burned, but there's a very distinct, distinct stopping point where I actually did get sunburned because I did not super goop everything. I'm gonna link that product in the episode description. Little pricier than I prefer to spend on stuff, but excellent product. And to be honest with you, I've had it for like months and I use it almost every single day, and I still have some, which is weird because it's a very small bottle. Nevertheless, great product. So that was one thing I wanted to share. Wear sunscreen. Like we don't already know this, right? Jenny, why would you not wear sunscreen, right? The question is, why didn't you think to wear sunscreen? You know better. And I'm gonna be honest with you, sometimes I do dumb things. This was one of them. So lesson learned.

The Repeatable Process Behind Any Task

SPEAKER_00 2:13

Now, core idea for today's for today's podcast is once you understand the process behind a task, you do not have to start from zero every time the subject change changes. Now, the reason why this came up is I was working with one of my medical colleagues. Shout out to Liz, because she's phenomenal. And we're working on something together, and she, and I said I was impressed with how she's doing something. And then we're going back and forth, and she she used to teach, and she said, you know, once you learn the process for something, you can really plug any other item into that process. And I thought for a minute, I'm like, you know, you're right, because that's why I never really batted eyelash for new projects coming my way, because the process is always the same. It's just maybe like the content changes, but the process is always the same. So when you're, I think the part that like really caught my attention is people often think that competence means knowing everything about a particular subject or topic. But a lot of competence is really just knowing how to approach unfamiliar work. So here's the concept: understand the goal, gather the right information, break the work into steps, complete a first attempt, review what worked, improve and repeat. This is actually like almost the common sense steps that we should be applying to pretty much everything in our lives, right? Like if you're trying to learn how to bake, this is where you're gonna start, right? This is the steps. If you're trying to learn a language, really, like this is where you're starting. Like you're really, it's repetition, like you're just going through it. So, again, examples you can use for this is cooking from a recipe. You don't know how to cook everything, but you need to know how to read, prepare, follow directions, taste the food, and adjust it. I love cooking, so I can do cooking all day long and like figure out different ways to spice things and different flavor profiles. That comes really naturally because all you have to really do is taste test things out.

Birthday Party Planning Made Simple

SPEAKER_00 3:51

Planning a birthday party. I have that down to a science at this point. So, my preferred method for birthday parties, everyone, unpopular opinion. I group my kids' birthdays together. A few moms around me do it. One mom in particular is the one who inspired it. She had her birthday one year. It was a really big party. All the kids had their friends there and they kind of had it broken up into different age groups. And I was really impressed. I was like, oh my gosh, like I was like, that's crazy. Did you plan your kids to be born around the same time? And she was like, they're not at all born around the same time. Their birthdays are months apart, but I pick a, you know, a middle point and celebrate everyone's at once with their friends because I don't want to have to pay for like three separate parties. And I'm like, wow, that concept is amazing. So two years ago, I started doing that. Now we celebrate my kids' birthdays when they actually happen in March and April. We do some uh family celebrations at those times. So they get their birthday days like actually celebrated. But when it c pertains to their friends, because they still want to have parties and have people like all around them, I wait until the summertime. We have a pool in our backyard. Our backyard is really great for parties. I'm gonna move all your birthday, your birth friend's birthday party to June when we have the pool open. And okay, so that's number one. I know some people might not like that idea, but that is what I'm going with. And I'm gonna be honest with you, I love it. And every parent that comes knows what I'm doing, and they think this is awesome. So, you know. Now, number two, for birthday parties, I discovered a secret. And the secret is parents love morning birthday parties. Think about it. Majority of people will celebrate birthdays in the afternoons or in the evenings, like mid-afternoon, like two to six or one to three, or whatever the hell it is. Heck it is. But if you do the first time I did a morning party, I was nervous no one was gonna show up. But it was the only time slot that the particular venue had available. This was about goodness, four years ago. So it was the only time slot the venue had available was morning. And I was like, oh my gosh, no one's gonna come. It's gonna be a horrible turnout. Boy was I wrong, and boy did I have to pay for that. Because every single mom in the class RSV PDS and was super excited that it was a morning time slot. I'm like, you can't see me now, but my head is in my hands because that particular birthday, I think I was like scraping the bottle, bottom of the barrel barrel, and it was like nearly $2,000 for this thing. It was ridiculous. Because there was about 30 plus kids that showed up because it was a morning party. So I started to catch on a little bit. At that particular party, what I did for food, we eat pizza all the time, to be honest with you. So I'm not a big fan of having pizza at parties because my kids are gonna be like, what? We eat this all the time. Like this isn't special. So I do a kid buffet. In the kid buffet, I have everything's pre packaged snacks. So the packaged mini muffins, packaged rice crispy treats. Everything is separated into individual packs. One, sanitary, right? Two, it allows for safety for any allergies, food allergies that anybody has because everything's already separated. And three, um, it's easier for cleanup. So food safety, allergies, cleanup, right? Everything's more sanitary, it's just there, it's just easier. So that's a big one for me. And then I'll have like my last birth morning birthday party, I did individual fruit cups that I already had a spoon in it. So the kids just had to grab it. Whatever you can do so that it's easier in a grab and go situation, that's really the goal, right? Make it easy on yourself. You don't have to go really big for kids. Make it look cute, put it all out, they're gonna love it. And then this also allows them to self-serve. You don't have to be serving anybody, which I don't really want to be doing. So that's my big like birthday party takeaway. And that's actually how I've been doing it for a couple years now. And I love it. It's easy and it's just wonderful. So the last birthday party we had this year, 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., was great. Everyone's gone by one o'clock. You still get the rest of your day for whatever

Simplifying Podcasting And Getting Started

SPEAKER_00 7:24

you need to do. This process applies to, let's see, here, creating a presentation, obviously recording a podcast episode. You know, it's interesting. When I first started recording podcasts, if you check out my YouTube channel, there is a tutorial series in there of like how how part podcast startup, like how are you gonna do this? And I used to sell it as a package for people and offer training to go along with it, like live training for myself to do QA, make sure somebody was set up and help them like troubleshoot stuff. I retired it, posted it for free so people could just access it. And if you read through it, it's very meticulous and it's very organized. I I say a lot in the videos, it's as complicated as you make it. Podcasting is as complicated as you make it. The how I podcast today is vastly different than how I used to podcast. I record on my phone. I don't even use my mic anymore. I don't use any of my equipment. I literally just record on my phone. I do not layer music in, as you know, to my episodes because to be honest with you, I didn't want to sit around fiddling with it. Everything that I could do to simplify the process of getting an episode published and recorded and published, that's what I do. So, quite literally, I have a little list of topics right next to me. I'll queue up some information on the side to make sure that I'm referencing things properly for you guys. And then I post the episode. It literally quite literally is that easy. If you have an idea and you're really passionate about it or you really want to get your voice out there and you got this burning inkling inside of you, you can send me a message on LinkedIn and on LinkedIn or on Instagram. I could give you a couple resources and get you just set up really quick. It's quo, it's incredibly easy

Using AI Tools Without Losing Skill

SPEAKER_00 8:53

to do. Let's see here, learning new systems at work, writing an email, uh, food for software emails. If you're working in a professional setting, strong recommendation recommendation for copilot. If you're struggling with an email and you filter it into copilot and ask them to streamline it, give you a couple of different options, they change the tone for you. It's just really a great, it's a great support to a seasoned professional. The reason why I say a seasoned professional, because if you have no experience with communicating and you're using copilot or AI to write your emails, that's a problem because that means that you actually are not learning how to write the emails. I've been in the industry for 20 years. So I already know how to do it and I know how to chop it up and I know how to write the emails and I know how to make it sound nice. But in the interest of speed and time, I'll I leverage AI for that. Like, why not? You can also leverage it for, I mean, there's a multiple multitude of things. I'll do a whole episode on AI support and how you can use it because it really, I've been exploring it. I'm actually gonna write that down right now. AI support. I've been exploring it quite a bit because I use it personally quite a bit a lot. Really great resource if you're okay and comfortable with it, because I know not a lot of people are. Researching an unfamiliar topic, parenting through a new phase, notice the change, listen before reacting, gather information, try the approach, watch the response.

Confidence Through Process Plus Closing

SPEAKER_00 10:07

It's a process, right? It is, it's a process. Solving a household problem, starting a new job. I mean, learning a process for something and applying it across the board, it's gonna give you more confidence. It's gonna allow for you to feel more comfortable with changes and settings for things because you'll know that you can fall back on something. Processes are in place because it's going to make it easier on you as an individual with how you're handling things. And it gives you almost a known, which is what people really need in some instances to be set up for success. They need a known. So following a process is really fantastic. The framework of it is going to reduce your anxiety, it's gonna reduce your feel, and it's gonna help. Now you'll still need the subject matter expertise. You're still gonna have to do research on the subject, and that's fine. That actually might help you amend your process a little bit once you learn the subject a little bit in more detail. So it just, it's it's just important. And it's funny because we're we're chat, I was chatting again with my my colleague, and as soon as she said it, I was like, I'm gonna jot this down because I think this is a strong episode. So I hope you found this informative. I I do actually encourage everybody, like, look things up, explore, research things. Do not take anyone's word for like, you know, Bible. Like, make sure you're forming your own opinion about stuff and doing your own homework to figure things out because there's so much out there that is unknown. And it's important to be able to have your own perspective and opinion. Um, and you guys know I feel very strongly about that. I hope that you found this episode informative. I really greatly appreciate all of you being here with me and huge shout out to the new subscribers from last week. Honestly, I was thrilled to pieces to see see all the activity in the uploads and everything for the podcast. I just I greatly appreciate all of you. I really sincerely do. I mean, from the bottom of my heart, working on this podcast for as long as I have now at this point. I think it's been about three years. It's it's a little, it's amazing. Honestly, it's been an amazing journey. And I'm just happy that you're all here with me for it. So um, until the next one, I greatly appreciate you being with me today. Um, and take care.