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Shifting Perspectives
Last week I wrote about how a lot of our excuses are simply lies. That was a big perspective shift for me when I really took it to heart.
That got me thinking about how powerful a perspective shift can be, and how one sentence, one phrase or one book can completely BREAK your path and change your life.
So this week I’m detailing the 5 perspective shifts that completely exploded how I viewed my self and the world.
But first, an exciting announcement:
I’m getting ready to launch my first course: Advantage Mapping Foundations in about 30 days. Advantage Mapping is all about a systematic, high-odds approach to career discovery.
I would love it if you hopped on over to my sales page and reserved your spot (no cost to reserve your spot).
Here’s what you get, simply for registering:
A chance to win 1 of 5 free course slots (valued at $250)
Early access to our BREAKERs community
Access to an exclusive interview with an upcoming special podcast guest!
Simply click below to check out the Advantage Mapping Foundations page!
The 5 Shifts that changed my life:
1. Sometimes backwards > forwards.
My first BREAK came from a book. I’ve written about this before. A chapter of a book titled “Investment In Loss shattered my linear thinking so much that I quit my job the very next day. That’s a true story.
Up to that point, I thought I could never quit anything - even if it killed me. I thought all progress was linear. I just had to keep trying to roll the boulder up the hill one inch at a time.
But Investment In Loss means that sometimes you have to go backwards to make an exponential leap forwards. The “loss” of going backwards is your investment in your growth.
I stopped fearing loss. I stopped fearing taking my foot off the gas. I picked up my head and for the first time started long range planning. I could see the forest instead of the trees.
2. Every decision you make is an investment.
That lesson on Investment in Loss started me thinking about how every single decision we make is an investment, and how you can improve your decisions by framing everything with odds and thinking about your life as a giant series of decisions on a long time horizon.
Every decision has an upside and a downside. A cost and a potential estimated payoff. Usually we know the costs pretty well, but we tend to underestimate or over estimate the payoff.
We focus on the costs because those are usually known (and scary), so the art (and growth) comes in figuring out how to influence our odds. We can influence odds in two main ways: mitigate risk or press our advantages to win big.
3. Advantage over talent.
Thinking about influencing odds, and trying to grapple with what I thought were my own shortcomings, I spent a lot of time in my 30’s thinking about what were my “talents”, “skills” and “expertise.”
I honestly had a really hard time with this. I felt like I didn’t have any true talent, and that I was just very mediocre at everything.
But I read about Warren Buffett and his “Circle of Competence” which I found incomplete. That exploration led me to view everything in terms of advantage.
Advantage is freeing because it’s a shift from “I am” to “I have.” This was important for me to break the tether between work and my identity that was toxic.
From the perspective of advantage, I looked at my attributes as tools that I could use if I wanted to, but didn’t define me. But also my advantages went far beyond my hard skills and attributes. I realized that advantage can be found in my interests since I would likely stick with those longer.
So, I started listening to my inner voice more.
All I had to do was pick which pieces fit together and put them in the right order, and I would find success.
4. You don’t need a job, you need a revenue source.
We live in an era where we are not constrained by the availability of jobs. Not everyone needs to be a full fledged entrepreneur, but we can all gain from thinking more creatively about how we earn a living, so I love the idea of asking what are my revenue sources?
We can be corporate executives and side hustlers. We can be full time employees and music producers. We can be doctors and passive income experts.
We can be hybrid professionals and by doing so get more out of our work-lives.
“You don’t need a different job, you need a revenue source”, gets us to think outside the box.
5. You have to feel your path, not think your way to it.
Most of us are trained to be logical, analytical and practical. I certainly was (and am). This is smart, but what I realized is that we miss a lot of wisdom if we shut off our “feels.” If you want a successful, fulfilling path, you must use both your head and your heart.
Your body knows the right answer. You have That Feeling (more to come next week). You must explore that feeling. It is correct. Use it to guide you, but then use your brain to build the map, make the plan and execute the work to make that direction a reality. Feel your path, then engineer it.
See you next week!
Mike
3 ways I can help you:
1. Book a free Intro To Advantage Mapping coaching call . In this 30 minute, no obligation call, we'll get you executing on a high odds career path by leveraging your natural advantages and Circle of Competence.
2. Find your new job! Remote tech jobs curated for you. Follow me on Pallet .
3. Get in the Breaking Work conversation on Linkedin. Messages are open. Follow me here .
The Break Job Board
I teamed up with Pallet to create a curated job board for our community ! These jobs are tech focused, remote first opportunities. I’d love it if you followed. Maybe, just maybe you’ll find your next big opportunity here.
Here are a few featured opportunities:
TestGorilla: Product Manager (Remote)
Hey Jane: Head of Marketing
Geisinger: Compensation Analyst Intermediate
BeyondTrust: Senior Product Manager
Also, If you’re looking to support the community and have a job to post, you can do so by clicking the ‘ Post a Job’ button.
What’s happening on the pod?
My most recent guest was Josiah Goff, Vice President of Product at Tune, a technology for partner marketing programs and affiliate networks.
Josiah has been on both sides of the entrepreneurial journey. He believes that only after leaving behind the safety net of corporate life could he truly concentrate on achieving success on his own terms. Additionally, he stresses that personal transformation is crucial to becoming ready to start one's own business.
We get real deep and real on personal transformation leading to career transformation. Josiah shares the two questions that changed his life (#2 is amazing)
You won’t want to miss Josiah’s journey and how he found his break by leaving entrepreneurship and going back to work for a company - a journey he said he never could have made if he hadn’t struck out on his own and learned some valuable lessons working for himself. Keep listening, and if you dig the convo please leave us a 5 star review so others can discover these conversations.
You made it to the end! Hopefully you learned something about breaking your career today! If so, please share this with someone you care about.
P.S. What did you think of today's email? Click one of the ratings below to send us your feedback. We'd love to know what you think!
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ This was super helpful! ⭐️⭐️⭐️ Could be better. ⭐️ This one needs work!