Never Pigeonhole yourself - words of wisdom from Dr. Myla Bui

Dr. Myla Bui is a fantastic marketing professor at Loyola Marymount University (LMU). We recently chatted about her career and personal life. She also shared some great advice that I’m really going to remember as I pursue a career. All of Dr. Bui’s answers were incredibly insightful and I genuinely enjoyed talking with her. 

FOMO

Dr. Bui recently wrote a super interesting article on the fear of missing out (FOMO) in the digital age, which I highly recommend you read. It is titled Fear of missing out in the digital age: The Role of social media satisfaction and advertising engagement by Myla Bui, Anajala S. Krishen, Eda Anlamlier, and Orie Berezan. She told me that her inspiration for researching FOMO was to promote mental well-being. Her work focuses on social marketing, promoting social justice, and identifying where business can be used for good. FOMO was something she saw evolving but not yet being understood. There was a lot of information that implied overuse of social media leads to dissatisfaction in one’s life. She explained that “there are always points of comparison that are not true and unrealistic.” Her research was not meant to be prescriptive, but she hoped it would contribute to awareness. 

How She Chooses What to Research 

I asked how she picks what research topics to pursue. She said that she actually sucks at it. “I want to say yes to everything, and then I don’t get enough sleep.” Where she is in her career right now, she doesn’t really have to say yes to anything but wants to say yes to many things. Dr. Bui’s drive to publish articles is because she is someone who has “a mind that requires quite a bit of intellectual stimulation.” Right now, every day of her life is exciting. “I am working on projects that are dynamic, that are incredibly meaningful because I know that what I bring to the table pushes the field forward.” She’s able to do things in many fields thanks to her background in research which allows her to find that intellectual stimulation she needs. She works on projects she knows will better consumers and that builds out the promotion of education. The things that she works on are also taken back into the classroom, and the research is connected to the industry. “I love working because it doesn’t feel like work. It feels like my hobby, and it’s my lifestyle.”

Figuring Out What She Wanted to Do with Her Life

I asked how she decided what she wanted to do with her life, which was interesting because she mentioned many times how she has so many interests. She said, “I never figured it out and I still haven’t.” Her students often get the question “What are you going to do with your life” and her response is always “You’re going to do many different things in your life. You’re not going to know what they are today. There are things that you are interested in and you should explore those interests. But should you know exactly what you want to be ten years from now? Some people do but I guarantee you even if they do know what they want to be, when they reach that point they’re going to ask themselves: ‘What next?’’’ We think that people climb the ladder straight up, but it doesn’t happen that way. We evolve and form in all sorts of directions that we never know where it will take you.”

She never knew she wanted to be a researcher. If you asked her as a kid she wouldn’t have even known what a researcher was at the time. The only thing she knew was that she wanted to be in education. Growing up, her family owned several small businesses in New Orleans. When she got older she realized how comforting and familiar business was to her but still didn’t think she’d go into business or marketing. Eventually, a professor showed her a research job description. At first, she thought it looked boring, but she reluctantly applied and got the job. She realized she always enjoyed watching people and trying to understand how the world works, and how people make decisions. 

She remembered a very specific and pivotal moment in her journey. It was a random night, and she went to Blockbuster. She came across a DVD of the movie entitled Runaway Jury, which she only picked up because it was set in New Orleans. She watched the movie and was fascinated by one of the jobs, which made her really question what it truly was that she wanted to do with her life. The job she was so infatuated with was the jury consultant who picks members of the jury to hopefully vote for your side. The consultant needed to understand the psychology of these people to know what they would choose. 

“It totally blew me away, but I didn’t know what these people were in real life, and I knew that I didn’t really want to be a jury consultant.” She began digging and looking for related jobs. She would look at research and articles, eventually reaching out to authors that eventually lead to doctoral dissertation advisors. This led her to her doing research in the well-being and health public policy spaces and her training in business analytics equipped her for a range of business consulting contributions in the healthcare, financial, engineering, and innovative technology industries. Meanwhile, she also found administrative leadership in higher education to be a space she could contribute meaningfully because she saw the significant impacts she could make in helping to transform the educational arena for the mass community. So to answer the question, she never knew what she wanted to be and she still doesn’t. She said that having to put titles on something pigeonholes you, which puts a ceiling on your potential. We are always evolving and changing. 

Advice

The advice she gave me was to never define things too early and to always explore your interests, even if they seem irrelevant to your current life. She recommended always having a wide range of knowledge because nothing in life is purely isolated. One quote that I think really encompasses all the knowledge and advice she gave: “We only live once. Why would you want to live it being only one thing?”

Closing 

I genuinely had the most amazing time talking to Dr. Bui. I learned so much from her and I hope you, too, will take some of her knowledge into your own life. Many thanks to Dr. Bui for taking time out of her busy schedule to talk to me!