How Far You Can Go In Your Professional Life In 10 Years
Reflecting On A Decade Since Graduating From University
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How Far You Can Go In Your Professional Life In 10 Years
Reflecting On A Decade Since Graduating From University
Most People Overestimate How Much they can Do in One Year...
But Highly Underestimate How Much they can Do in Ten Years.
I Know for a Fact because I have "Lived" this Experience.
Let me Tell You My Story, so that You can Understand "Exactly" How Much can Occur in the Next 10 Years of Your Life...
In May of 2015, I walked up on a Stage to Receive my Bachelor's of Art in Business.
I thought I Knew how my Life would Go.
I was going to Start Graduate School.
Find a Job in Accounting.
My Career would be Secure and Straightforward.
I'd Probably Rise through the Corporate Ranks.
Everything that My Education up to that point had Promised that a Degree would Provide.
That is what I had been Told since Elementary School.
A Degree Opened Doors.
As Long as You Worked Hard and Stayed Honest...
You'd Keep a Secure Career until You Decided to Retire.
This was the Promise of the American Dream.
This had been Programmed Into Me.
But Life turned out Much Differently.
My First Dose of Reality came with a Job Hunt.
What did a Degree Provide?
Nothing.
My Name was Simply a Drip of Water in a Sea of other Applications that Looked Nearly Identical to so many others.
Hundreds of Applications.
Dozens of Interviews.
Utilizing Two Hiring Agencies.
I went Months without a Job as I was Constantly Putting my Name Anywhere I Could.
So Much for the "Promise of a Job" Out of University.
But, eventually, I did land a Job.
It was with a Company that was part of a Portfolio owned by an Equity Firm that required me to take Tests to Determine if I had a High Enough Caliber of "Cognitive Abilities" and "Personality Traits" to Work for Them.
This is what allowed me to Finally Stand Out amidst the Plethora of Candidates that Existed.
I thought to myself...
Finally!
This would be the Beginning of Security that I was Promised!
Wrong Again.
My First Week on the Job, I was Thrown Into an Emaciatedly Understaffed Team...
Three Members in Total, Including Me...
With, if Memory serves me correctly, Five Different Accounting Systems that had been Smashed Together from Other Companies that had been Merged...
And at the First All Hands Meeting, barely after Starting?
The CFO, on Stage in front of the Entire Organization, talked about how Our Team "Gave Him Nightmares".
Every Other Team in the Organization saw Our Team as "The Problem".
Talk about a Toxic Workplace!
But I Thought...
It is Alright...
If I Worked Hard and Ethically, I Could Turn This Around...
Maybe it would even be a Gigantic Growth Opportunity!
So, that is what I did.
I Worked Extremely Hard.
The Team got a New Manager, and I Performed Excellently alongside them.
Our Team was Instrumental in Turning that Organization Around.
We Found Flaws in Multiple Systems and Teams, and When We Helped Fixed Them.
We Created a Better Organization.
I was Frequently Finding Myself in Meetings with the CFO, Specifying How Other Departments would Need to Alter their Processes so that the Entire Organization would Work Better, Smoother, and Become More Profitable.
I worked directly with Other Departments, like Sales and Legal, to figure out How New Deals would get Laid Out.
We Had Even Turned the Toxic Environment into a Pretty Great Place to Work.
People Enjoyed Coming Into the Office and Working Together to Accomplish Real Goals.
It Seemed that My Hard Work was Paying Off.
I was Promoted in Just Over a Year, and was being Considered for Another Promotion.
Things were Going Smoothly...
Until Everything Changed Overnight.
The Equity Firm that Owned Our Company Bought Our Largest Competitor and Merged the Companies.
We were Told and Promised that this would be Beneficial for Everyone as the Merger was Getting Cleared by the Government.
Then, almost as quickly as we heard that the Merger was Finalized...
Most of Our Company was Laid Off Immediately.
A Few Teams were Kept On to Train their Replacements...
Knowing that their own Layoffs were Imminent.
I was one of the "Lucky" Individuals who had to Train their Replacements.
But the Problem?
Our Replacements were Not "Nearly" as Good as We Were...
Nor Did They Care to Be.
I was Constantly getting Calls and Emails from Other Departments, "Demanding" to Know Why XYZ Customer was So Angry.
They were Completely Surprised by how Violently Upset Customers were Becoming.
All I could tell these Individuals...
Who had Learned to Trust Me Over Years of Dedicated Work...
Was that We had Trained Our Replacements How Things "Should" be Done, but We Were Ignored and Had No More Say.
It was Outside Our Control.
The Entire Work Culture became "Significantly" More Toxic than when I Began Working at the Company.
This was my First Insight into the Fact that Business "Success" is Not Always Attained with Better Leaders, Teams, or Products...
However, a Company's Health and Toxicity Will "Always" Limit its Growth Potential.
The Company that had Taken Over was No Exception.
It Failed to Stay Public, which led to this Merger...
It Struggled to get "Back" to becoming a Public Company, taking Years Longer than it "Should" have based on the Trajectory Our Company was Headed Pre-Merger...
Then, this Company has Shown "Again" that it was Unable to Stay Public as it has been Acquired Yet Again...
All Under the Same CEO.
When my "Extremely" Unpleasant Time Finally Ended...
I had Three Thoughts.
The First was an Exhilarating Feeling of Freedom from a Workplace I was Happy to be Rid of Forever.
I Refused to Even Attempt to Work for Another Company within the Portfolio of the Equity Organization...
Despite it Being a Near Guarantee of Secure Work...
Because I Knew that if "This" happened Once, it Could and Likely Would Happen Again.
The Second was that I No Longer Cared for Work in Accounting.
I Discovered that the "Theory" of it in University did not match the "Reality" of Working in it.
I was Great at my Work, but I was Not Utilizing My Skills or Potential to the Fullest.
I Stopped My Graduate School Courses because that was a Path I No Longer Wanted.
The Third was that I "Needed" to Do Something about the Horrors that I had Just Experienced in the Workplace.
I Didn't Know What that would Be Immediately, but I Started Searching.
I began doing Some Consulting so I Could Stay Afloat.
But I Quickly Landed on the Next Stage of My Career...
Leadership Coaching.
I had Never Heard of this Career Path before, but Once I Heard what it was...
I Knew it was the Direction I Needed to Head.
Leadership was what I wanted to Impact.
Coaching was something that I had been doing for Nearly My Entire Life in different Capacities - with Friends, Family, and even within Different Workplaces.
I Just Didn't Know I Could Make it a "Career" until this point.
So I Began "The Leadership Guide".
This quickly became More than a Coaching Business.
I was also doing Public Speaking, Larger Trainings, and started a Podcast and TV Show.
Very Different from Accounting Work.
It had Challenges, but I worked through them.
My Work led to the Forbes Coaches Council reaching out to me to Join their Organization, and Being Selected as part of an Elite Advisory Council for the Future of Business Coaching.
Within Both of these, I was Frequently Recognized as a Top Expert.
But I Began to Notice Something within Everything I was Doing...
Everyone was Sounding the Same.
People said the Same Things Over and Over Again...
Some of those things were Even Completely Wrong.
Part of the Reason I was Standing Out in My Work was because I Did Something Simple...
I Didn't "Follow" the Crowd.
It is Easy to Get Seen when Everyone Says One Thing, but You Say Something Different...
Especially when What They Say Does Not Work...
But What You Say Does Work.
After Encountering this Far Too Many Times...
I Began to Question the Leadership Development Industry as a Whole.
That was When I Came Across a Statistic that Changed My Career Path Again...
Leadership Development Programs "Completely Failed" 80% of the Time...
With "Limited Success" the Remainder.
What made this Even More Odd to me was the Fact that, at the time, the Leadership Development Industry was a $350 Billion Industry.
That Math Didn't Add Up to Me.
Why Were People "Wasting" Hundreds of Billions of Dollars Yearly for No Results?
So I Began to Ask Two New Questions...
Why Were People Continuing To Pay for "Leadership Development" that Did Not Work?
What Did We "Actually" Need to Do to Create Better Future Leaders?
The First Question is Easy Enough to Answer...
Have you ever heard the old saying?
If You Tell a Lie Enough Times, People Begin to Believe It...
The Scientific Term for this is "Frequency Bias," and it was what was Keeping the Leadership Development Industry Afloat.
Businesses were being "Told" that "Leadership Development" was the Key to Success So Frequently, they "Believed" It...
Then, when These Programs Failed, these Businesses and Leaders Blamed Themselves...
Because they Continued to Hear that "Leadership Development Works".
Some people may call it Gaslighting...
I would say it is a form of Emotional Addiction Tactic.
Either way, the Leadership Development Industry was Not Working...
And You Can Only Keep a Lie Going as Long as People Believe It...
Which the Leadership Development Industry has been Unable to Maintain.
At its Peak, the Industry hit $370 Billion...
But its Value Dropped Significantly after 2020...
And is Now Estimated to be Under $40 Billion.
Once You See the Truth, You Can No Longer Unsee It.
That was When I Began to Focus on Psychophysiology and what I call "Legendary Leadership".
My Aim at the time was to Design a Hyper-Specific Form of "Leadership" that followed a Categorically Different Model from "Leadership Development".
This, I Later Called "Leadership Cultivation".
Over what has become Six Years Now, I have Researched with the Top Minds and Leaders in Different Areas of Psychophysiology.
To Date, I have Over 15 Advanced Certifications in Different Areas of Psychophysiology.
Most of those could become Entire Careers themselves.
My work has been called "Excellent, very relevant, and scientifically rigorous..." by Michael Mannino, Ph.D. in Complex Systems and Brain Sciences and TEDx Speaker.
I've Received over 100 Awards and Nominations for My Work.
This includes becoming a Hall of Fame Leadership Coach.
I've also become a Digital Writer, where I have Written 850+ Articles to Date.
I worked on Developing Myself and My Psychophysiology.
I Increased My IQ and Joined Mensa, where Membership is Restricted to those with the Top 2% of IQ.
I Increased My EQ and Tested in the Top 1% on the MEIQ-R9 Test.
I Began Doing Obstacle Course Races, and have Completed Trifectas Yearly since 2019, as well as Conquering Multiple 50k (31 Mile) Courses with 60+ Obstacles.
By Most Accounts, I would be Considered Successful.
Yet...
Despite All of This...
I Saw a New Challenge.
"Leadership" as a Term, and even the Form that I Focused on Creating called "Legendary Leadership" had a Problem...
It was All Based on a Fundamentally Flawed Foundation...
Business, as We See It Today, is a Result of that Flawed Foundation.
It has Become what has been called "The Rot Economy" and Created what I Call "Zombie Businesses".
You Can't Build a Great Building on a Flawed Foundation.
So, in November of 2024...
I Began a New Project...
It is what I Now Call Sageship.
The Goal is to Completely Rethink Businesses from the Foundation Up.
The Knowledge Economy put the Focus on Leadership Development...
The Wisdom Economy will Belong to those who Pursue Sageship Cultivation.
Even only Six Months after Creating this Category, it has already become Multi-Award-Winning.
Now, let's Step Back and Look at what has Occurred in 10 Years...
I Changed Careers Multiple Times.
I Earned Enough Certifications and Built Enough Skills to Potentially Start Multiple Other Careers.
I have Been at the Height of an Industry.
I have Watched an Industry Crumble.
I have Had Nothing.
Struggled...
To Get a Job...
To Build a Business...
To Get Noticed...
To Stay Fit...
I have Also Gained So Much.
The Future is So Full of Potential if We are Willing to Embrace It.
I Know that Many People are Struggling Today...
Jobs Feel Scarce...
AI Seems to be Ending Once Highly Sought After Career Paths (Maybe)...
Governments are Rumbling with Change...
There is So Much Chaos Swirling...
But I Know This...
Change Will Come...
The Future is Unknown...
And If We Work Toward Building Our Own Future...
What We Can Accomplish In Ten Years May Be Unfathomable.
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Now, this has been a Long Reflection Piece…
And I Make a Promise to Keep these Newsletters Readable in 1% of Your Time…
So in Today’s Paid Section, I’m going to do a Quick Hit of Top Lessons and Wisdom I’ve Earned over these 10 Years.
Impactful Enough to Change Your Life…
Short Enough to Keep the Promise.
Here are 30 Pieces of Wisdom.
Let’s Dive In…
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