Invincible Career - Claim your power and regain your freedom

I wish Facebook had the decency to send a similar message to me when they suspended my account years ago. Instead, I found out the hard way. One morning, I was booted out of the app and couldn’t sign back in.

There was no warning. They provided no explanation.

On Monday, I shared this story with my premium subscribers as part of this month’s focus on owning your domain and controlling your personal website as your “forever online home.”

I lost access to my Facebook business groups and pages. So, I called one of my moderators and asked them to message the groups and let people know what happened. Note: Always have people you trust as additional admins and moderators for your online communities.

I was locked out for about a week before Facebook suddenly reactivated my account with no explanation. To this day, I still don’t know why it happened.

My best guess is that a competitor falsely reported me for something, and Facebook suspended my account while they investigated. But I’ll never know for sure, so there’s nothing I can do to prevent it from happening again in the future.

I vowed never to let myself be that vulnerable ever again:

* I created my Slack community that week and migrated over as quickly as possible. A few months ago, I closed my Facebook groups (fool me once…).

* I built other communities on Mighty Networks, Discord, and a few other services.

* I distributed my marketing efforts more equally and frequently across Twitter, LinkedIn, Quora, Medium, Flipboard, YouTube, Instagram, etc.

* I built my mailing list here on Substack and created a backup list on ConvertKit (my affiliate link).

* I launched more robust websites using open-source software on domains that I own.

My current strategy puts my core website and mailing list entirely under my control. Everything is portable, so I can migrate to a new platform whenever I want. Sure, I still use numerous online services, social media, publishing sites, etc. But, they are simply tools, marketing channels, and ways to grow my audience.

Most importantly, I no longer have a single point of failure or a risky dependency on another company. I will never again make my primary “internet home” on a service that leaves me vulnerable, and neither should you.

Own your domain and control your website.

Never build your home on someone else’s land. Never put all of your eggs in one basket (especially if Facebook owns that basket).

How about you?

* Do you have a personal or professional website (feel free to share a link in the comments so we can give you some SEO love)?

* Do you own the domain?

* Do you have total control over the site (e.g., you can make updates, redesign it, migrate it to another hosting service)?

I hope so…

Invincible Career® is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Why it matters

As I mentioned to premium subscribers earlier this week, having your own website is different from relying on a cookie-cutter profile page (e.g., on LinkedIn) or microblogging on a service (e.g., Twitter). You have complete freedom and flexibility to make your site exactly what you want.

* Your website is all about you and nothing but you. No one else will be competing for a visitor’s attention while they are on your site.

* You have more control over the design of your website.

* You can showcase your work, portfolio, and stories precisely as you want.

* It is completely dynamic and can be changed as often as you like.

* You have almost unlimited control over what you put on your website.

* If you follow good SEO practices, it makes you easier to find, and you control the experience of what someone sees when they do find you.

* You can choose to use your website to generate income however you want (e.g., ads, affiliate links, paid content, services).

* It can be your “forever home” for all of the content you create (e.g., writing, art, photography, design, music, code samples).

* You can also feature your testimonials on your site (e.g., so they don’t get lost on LinkedIn if something happens to your account).

* Of course, you’ll still be active elsewhere, so you can create a one-stop page to link to your other profiles on the internet (e.g., Twitter, Discord, LinkedIn, Reddit, TikTok, GitHub, Dribbble, Medium, Substack, Quora, Instagram, SoundCloud, YouTube).

Think of it this way:

Your website is your permanent online home that no one can take away from you or shut down (e.g., as happened to me with Facebook).

We all know that companies and services come and go over the years. But, you can own your domain forever, and you get to decide what goes on your website.

However, there are a bewildering number of choices available for creating and hosting a site. Of course, you can code it yourself and host it on a server of your choice if you have the skills.

I used to do that from around 1998 to 2003. My site was basic HTML with some JavaScript. It had a contact form and pages to feature my design services, show a past clients list, and showcase my portfolio.

If you don’t feel like developing your website and getting deep into the operational aspects of hosting it, there are dozens of popular services available. Actually, there are probably hundreds of different services for creating your personal website, but who has time to try them all?

Comparing the many options

Choosing a hosting solution for your website can be a little overwhelming. There are so many options that range from:

* Simple to complex

* Very constrained to very flexible

* Free to pricey

If you already have a website up and running somewhere, this is a chance to review your decision and make sure you’re still happy with it. You may be experiencing some growing pains and becoming frustrated with your current solution.

As an example, here is my full website stack is:

* Domain managed with Google Domains.

* Cloudflare provides caching, enhanced performance, security, and ease of DNS management.

* WordPress open source software to manage my dynamic website.

* Flywheel for my managed WordPress hosting (reliability, performance, and security).

Some other options available to you for a website:

* Blogger is still around (acquired by Google in 2003), and it’s free.

* WordPress.com is free.

* WordPress.org is open source, but you’ll need a hosting service for the software.

* A managed service is the easiest. As I mentioned, I use FlyWheel ($13/mo).

* There are other hosting providers too.

* About.me is a very basic one-page site builder. They have a free version, but you can also upgrade for more features ($6.58/mo).

* Weebly is another website builder that has a free version. You can get more features for $6-26/mo.

* Squarespace is pretty easy to use but is less customizable than WordPress and not open source ($14/mo). Prices go up as you add more features to enable customization, analytics, e-commerce, etc. ($23-49/mo).

* Wix is similar to Squarespace but offers something they call “Wix ADI” that is supposedly an AI-based automatic website creator ($14-49/mo).

* Behance, Deviantart, and Dribble are simple options for hosting your creative portfolio if you want to showcase your artistic talent or design work. But, they offer limited customization beyond having a profile page.

* Ghost is an interesting new publishing platform that helps you turn your audience into a business. Like WordPress, you can use an open-source version for free if you host it somewhere. But, they also provide a hosted service from $9-199/mo.

* Each of the following services is also becoming richer and more full-featured to enable them to become more like a personal website:

* Substack (I use this for my newsletter)

* Medium, especially when you create a publication (I write there too)

* Patreon

* Gumroad

Do some research and explore the information available about all of these services. You may also have some other options in mind. Do you know of something cool that we all should hear about? Leave a comment!

Choose a dependable solution

I hope this article helps you think through the pros and cons of each website hosting option. Instead of quickly shooting from the hip and regretting your decision in a few years, think of the long-term benefits of what you end up selecting.

Way back when I decided to migrate my old HTML website to something more dynamic and data-driven, there weren’t as many choices. Initially, I created a WordPress site around 2003, and it was a messy, confusing experience. I also made a Posterous site a few years later to compare to my WordPress experience.

Posterous was a simple blogging platform that started in 2008. It was the hot new service that integrated with social media, analytics, and made it easy to lifestream from your mobile device. You could email something to your Posterous blog to create a post (e.g., text, photo, video, sound file). You could even manage comments via email.

It was acquired by Twitter in 2012 and shut down in 2013. Ah, the Silicon Valley cycle of life and death…

There are hundreds of CMS systems out there. But, I remember struggling with the decision to invest in Movable Type, Tumblr, Posterous, or WordPress.

* Movable Type was going to be too expensive for me at the time, so I dropped that one quickly.

* Tumblr was the simplest and fastest to set up but lacked deep customization features. It didn’t really feel like your own personal website.

* Posterous was more powerful than Tumblr and had cool features like the mobile posting, but you couldn’t get deep under the hood.

* WordPress was the most complex, finicky, and got hacked a lot. But, I saw that you could write code to deeply customize it and add in real functionality (e.g., shopping and payments).

Even though WordPress had a steep learning curve (and still does), I liked fully owning where I could install and host my own instance of it. I also liked that it was open source and might escape the fate of other services that got acquired, ruined by the new parent company, or shut down.

Ironically, I remember reading that some guy compared WordPress, Posterous, and Tumblr and decided to migrate his WordPress blog to Posterous in 2011. Oops!

I guess this was a long-winded way to tell you to think hard about where you decide to create your forever internet home. You know what features are essential for you and how complex your website might become.

If your needs are very simple, basic, and you’re ok with migrating your whole website later if something happens (e.g., the company gets acquired), your decision might be based on cost and ease of setup and management.

But, if your needs are more complex, you want more control, and you want something that will last, WordPress.org might be interesting for you. I’ve been using it for over 19 years and haven’t been forced to switch to anything else yet. You can use WordPress.com to set up a hosted blog for free, but it has less functionality than using the .org software hosted elsewhere.

The founder, Matt Mullenweg, has built a profitable and growing parent company (Automattic) and is seriously dedicated to the open-source software philosophy. So, I don’t envision him selling out any time soon or ever, like the founders of those other companies did.

Good luck with your decision! As I mentioned above, feel free to share a link to your website in the comments so I can check it out.

Thank you for reading Invincible Career®. This post is public so feel free to share it.

By the way, there is a great way you can support my work without spending any money on a premium subscription:

📣 Recommending my newsletter on social media! 📣 

It only takes a few seconds, and it helps grow my business so I can continue making time to write it.

I’ll even provide some copy and paste text to make it easy to share on Twitter, Reddit, LinkedIn, Facebook, etc. Thanks in advance!

I've really been enjoying the Invincible Career newsletter by Larry Cornett (@cornett). If you want to get ahead at work and be happier in your job, but you aren’t subscribed yet, you’re missing out.

https://newsletter.invinciblecareer.com

Larry Cornett is a leadership coach and business advisor who hosts a private mastermind community for ambitious professionals with weekly challenges, office hours, and confidential support. If you’re interested in starting your own business or side hustle someday (or accelerating an existing one), check out his “Employee to Solopreneur” course (launching later this year).

Larry lives in Northern California near Lake Tahoe with his wife and children, and a gigantic Great Dane. He does his best to share advice to help others take complete control of their work and life. He’s also on Twitter @cornett.

"I'll tell you what I want, what I really really want."— Spice Girls

My client was dragging his heels and not making much progress in his job search. As much as he said he wanted to land a new job with one of the FAANG companies, his heart certainly didn't seem to be in it.

I looked him in the eye, "Are you sure you want to stay on this career path? Let me ask you something. If you knew for certain that you would be successful and financially secure choosing whatever you wanted to do for your next career move, would you still want to interview for one of these tech jobs?"

He took a deep breath and slowly let it out. He shook his head and chuckled. "No, I guess not. Going back into one of those companies is the last thing I'd want to do if I didn’t have to."

"Ok," I said. "Now that we know this isn't what you really want let's figure out what the right path forward actually is. You shouldn't have to dread going back to work. What would you choose to do if you knew you wouldn't fail?"

All too often, we continue on the same path because we've already come so far. It's familiar, even if we aren't happy with it. That’s why my client assumed he had no choice but to continue with his tech career.

“The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.”― H.P. Lovecraft

Fear of the unknown keeps us from exploring all of the intriguing alternate paths branching off left and right, even when we know we're not living the life we want. We’re too afraid to take a significant risk that might end up in failure. So, we keep marching ahead, even though it's now becoming clear that the destination isn't what we had hoped it would be, and the journey is making us miserable.

Invincible Career® is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

The life you want

I'm friends with several small business owners and entrepreneurs. One of our shared beliefs is that you should structure your business operations to create the lifestyle you want. If you’re in complete control of building your business, why wouldn’t that be one of your primary goals?

Life is way too damn short not to live it the way you want.

Unfortunately, too many people get it backward and twist their daily life around their business. They discover that they have even less freedom than they experienced as employees. That’s pretty messed up! It's not the life they wished they were living, but they backed themselves into a corner and now need to make it work.

Most of us make the same mistake with our jobs. Our lives revolve around our work. Traditionally, before the pandemic, we moved to be close to our employers’ workplaces. If that doesn’t symbolize letting your job dominate your life choices, I don’t know what does.

It certainly happened with me and my career. After graduate school, I relocated to the Bay Area of California when I decided to become a software designer in Silicon Valley.

Also, as an employee, we structure our weeks and days around our work schedules. We bend and twist our lives to accommodate the demands of our employment. I can’t even count the number of times I disappointed my wife and children when my job interfered with our evening and weekend plans.

It’s not like I was happy about it, either. Before I left the corporate world behind, I was spending more than 625 hours a year commuting to an office. I never felt like I had time for exercise, dinner with my family, or a good night’s sleep.

However, you can avoid my mistakes and the regret I feel. You can choose to flip that relationship around. Define the life you want to lead, then plan your career to support it.

Is it easy to do this? Of course not.

If it were that easy, everyone would love their jobs and feel happy and fulfilled. Unfortunately, we know that's far from the truth.

Nothing worth having comes easy. But, you’ll never regret investing in yourself to become empowered and take control of your work and life. Fortunately, I did that before it was too late. I recovered my health, rebuilt my relationships with my family, and began living the best years of my life.

However, it took several years to finally make that decision and take action. What held me back? Well, like many of us, I felt like I couldn’t just walk away from a career that I had invested years into building.

The Sunk Cost Fallacy

I have to start here because it is so hard to let go of your past. I’ve talked with hundreds of people about their careers and what they want for their future. As you might imagine, most people say they want something that is essentially the next rung on their current career ladder.

If I sense that something is “off” and they seem unhappy with the work they do, I’ll probe more deeply to try to uncover what they wish they could be doing with their career and life. 

However, when I suggest that this new path might be worth exploring, they pull back and gasp, “Oh no! I could never do that. I’ve invested way too much in what I’m doing now. I can’t give that up.”

What they mean is they can’t give up their:

* Years of hard-won career progress

* Reputation in a specific profession

* Job title

* Total compensation (i.e., “golden handcuffs”)

* Lifestyle based on that compensation

* Professional network

* Respect of their peers

* Friends they’ve made during this career journey 

* Financial investment (e.g., degrees aren’t free — at least they aren’t in the U.S.)

* Time investment in this specific career

We believe that we are rational about investments like this and their future value. The reality is the very existence of the investment influences our decision-making ability. We are not objective, logical, or emotionless about a hard choice we may need to make.

The “sunk cost fallacy” is:

“…the general tendency for people to continue an endeavor, or continue consuming or pursuing an option, if they’ve invested time or money or some resource in it. That effect becomes a fallacy if it’s pushing you to do things that are making you unhappy or worse off.” — Christopher Olivola, assistant professor of marketing at Carnegie Mellon’s Tepper School of Business

The more time we’ve invested in something, the harder it is to move on. People stay in terrible jobs long after they should have quit. But, they can’t admit they made a mistake and wasted years in a company.

The more money we’ve invested in something, the harder it is to sell it or give it up. People get attached to expensive lifestyles, financial investments, and material possessions. They could get out, but it sickens them to accept the sunk costs.

The problem is, the longer you refuse to move on, the worse it gets. Your losses keep mounting.

However, not only do you incur additional losses, you miss new opportunities to bring good things into your life. You bankrupt your future.

Again, awareness of this fallacy helps you combat it. Sometimes you have to accept that you will never get your investment out of something, and you certainly can’t recover the time you may have wasted.

A new future begins when you admit failure and make peace with losing that time and money. Accepting a sunk cost does hurt, but you can’t let it become an albatross around your neck that prevents you from moving on and pursuing better opportunities.

Making peace with moving on

If you’re finding it hard to accept that it’s time for a career change, I get it. Believe me, I do. I was at a similar crossroads about 12 years ago. 

When I decided it was time for a massive professional pivot, I literally had friends telling me that I was throwing my career away. They said I was making a huge mistake leaving Silicon Valley, the corporate world, and tech. 

Yes, I suppose you could say that I “lost” a lot of things. When I stepped off that career ladder, I gave up my title, executive compensation, a luxury car, and a home in a prestigious zip code. I lost “friends” who suddenly weren’t as interested in spending time with someone who wasn’t an executive.

But was it worth keeping all of that and losing my future? My future happiness, health, relationships, and fulfillment? 

No. I was willing to walk away from what was no longer serving me well so I could pursue what would give me my life back. I overcame the sunk cost fallacy, left my old life behind, and began a journey to reclaim my power, freedom, and future. 

Nothing is perfect, of course. I still work very hard, and I have moments of anxiety and stress. But, I do have one indicator that reminds me that I made the right decision:

The last time I felt depressed on a Sunday evening and dreaded a Monday morning was more than 12 years ago. 

Not many people make this choice. But that’s why so many people are unhappy at work and let it bleed over to create unhappiness in their lives. 

However, I have witnessed others reach the same conclusions and cut themselves free from the ties that bound them to their past. Friends, family members, colleagues, and acquaintances have successfully pivoted into adjacent roles or entirely new careers. The good news is that they are thriving! 

It’s ok to leave a path that is now making you miserable. You don’t need to live the rest of your life with that albatross around your neck.

For example, I’ve watched more than one friend leave a management career path and return to being an individual contributor. They missed the craft of their professions and no longer wanted to spend their days in endless meetings.

I have several friends and colleagues who spent years advancing their careers in one profession but decided to pivot into an adjacent profession in the same industry (e.g., moving from design into product management). They happily discovered that most of their skills and knowledge transferred quite well.

I also know a few people who made radical changes in their careers to pursue something entirely new. For example, my friend Pim Techamuanvivit began her first career working for Netscape and Cisco Systems in Silicon Valley. But, her passion is food, so she made a radical change in her life to pursue it years ago. She is the owner of Nari, Kamin, and Michelin-starred Kin Khao restaurants in San Francisco, and became the executive chef of Michelin-starred Nahm in Bangkok in 2019.

How in the world could the experience in a tech career transfer to the life of a restaurateur? You might be surprised.

Your professional investments transfer

Let me reassure you that you are not “throwing everything away” when you change career paths. What you’ve learned as a professional — and as a human being — belongs to you and stays with you forever. You take the knowledge, skills, and experience with you as you move forward into something new. 

For example:

* Interpersonal skills

* Research skills

* Writing skills

* Design skills

* Experience with persuasion and sales

* Collaboration best practices

* Problem-solving skills

* Connecting to others with compassion

* Leadership skills, knowledge, and experience

I know that great leaders are great leaders, no matter where they take their talent and experience. Great salespeople are great at sales, which they can apply to almost everything in work and life. Research skills are invaluable no matter what you do. People who are excellent collaborators are valuable on any team. 

What you have learned and accomplished is transferrable. You just need to dig below the surface a little.

I often describe core talents and skills as Lego building blocks. You can deconstruct the first-act career you built with your Lego blocks to construct a new second-act career. You’re not starting over from scratch!

Your personal and professional development makes you more valuable and powerful in any environment. Whether you decide to seek a new job or build your own business, who you are and what you’ve become will enable you to succeed on your new path.

So, now, let me ask you that question again. What do you really, really want?

Exploring your new future

Defining your ideal vision of the future can feel overwhelming. Where do you begin? If almost any career path is possible, how do you decide which one to take?

When I work with clients who want to redefine their careers completely, I give them some “homework exercises.” The questions help them focus on specific details that eventually reveal a desirable path forward.

I shared many questions around defining a vision, mission, and purpose a few weeks ago. So, I won’t include them again. Check that article out when you have time.

The following questions are a helpful way to capture what you want and don’t want in your ideal future career and life. As you answer them, see what this exercise reveals for you.

What You Don’t Want

A crucial part of understanding what you do want is knowing what you don’t want. Keep in mind what you want to ensure you don’t experience in your future work and life.

* Where are you currently feeling vulnerable in your job (e.g., your relationship with your manager)?

* If your job doesn’t feel ideal right now, what do you specifically think is going wrong?

* What aspects of your work do you not enjoy?

* What tasks are you currently doing every day or week that you do not want to carry forward into a new job?

* What is not going well with your boss (e.g., the way you interact, things they say, etc.)?

* What red flags will you look for when meeting a potential new boss?

* What is not working well with your coworkers?

* What are your bad days like, and what exactly is it that makes them bad?

* Are there issues with your current work culture, environment, etc., that you want to avoid with a new company?

* What prevents you from changing those work situations to make your current job more ideal? Do you feel like this is under your control or not?

* Are there any other situations, issues, or aspects of your past jobs that you absolutely want to avoid in your future career moves?

What You Do Want

Focus on your future path, lifestyle, companies, bosses, and work. Don’t worry about being realistic or constraining yourself to what is known or even possible with your current situation and where you currently live.

Visualize an ideal end state working in a perfect role for a perfect employer. Later, you can create a more realistic plan to get you there.

* Think about all of the companies you’ve worked for and other companies you are aware of today. If you could take the best of the best — and remove all unwanted attributes — how would you describe your ideal company?

* Where do you wish you were living?

* Where is your ideal company located?

* What is your commute?

* What is the workplace like?

* What customer does your ideal company serve? Why do you feel passionate about helping this customer?

* What product or service does your ideal company provide?

* How does your ideal company generate revenue to remain profitable?

* What specific role do you play in this ideal company?

* What is the career path for you at this company?

* Who is your ideal boss? Describe them in detail: their specific role, where they fit in the overall organization, leadership style, management approach, personality, group meeting style, 1-on-1 meeting style, etc.

* How do you feel after meeting with this ideal boss? What benefits do you receive from this relationship?

* What are the more senior executives (including C-level) like at your ideal company? What is your relationship with them?

* Do you have a team reporting to you? If so, what is the composition of this team, what is their range of seniority, what do they do, how do they interact with you, what do you expect from them, and what do they need and expect from you?

* How do you interact with the company’s industry?

* How do you interact with the community for your specific profession? How well are you known? What do you do to be involved and noticed?

Now, describe your ideal work week day by day. One of the most powerful changes you can make in your life is to own your time and control your calendar.

* Overall, how do your personal life and work-life fit together? Where are the boundaries, and how do you maintain them?

* How do you feel about everything in this ideal end state of work and life?

* What would make this work-life balance feel sustainable for several years?

* In a perfect world, what comes after this ideal job? Visualize 5, 10, and even 20 years from now.

* Where does retirement (or semi-retirement) fit into the long-term picture?

* What do you want your legacy to be?

Whew! Yes, I know that’s a lot of questions, and thoughtfully answering all of them will take some time. This isn’t the kind of homework you finish in one session. Some of my clients work on their answers for weeks and months.

However, this time investment in defining and planning your ideal vision of your future is well worth it. You are worth it. You deserve to feel fulfilled in your career and have the freedom to pursue the life you want.

So, what’s your next move? What actions will you take to make your vision become a reality?

I’m looking forward to sharing more of my book with you this year! Subscribe now to read the draft chapters as I complete them.

By the way, there is a great way you can support my work without spending any money on a premium subscription:

📣 Recommending my newsletter on social media! 📣 

It only takes a few seconds, and it helps grow my business so I can continue making time to write it.

I’ll even provide some copy and paste text to make it easy to share on Twitter, Reddit, LinkedIn, Facebook, etc. Thanks in advance!

I've really been enjoying the Invincible Career newsletter by Larry Cornett (@cornett). If you want to get ahead at work and be happier in your job, but you aren’t subscribed yet, you’re missing out.

https://newsletter.invinciblecareer.com

Larry Cornett is a leadership coach and business advisor who hosts a private mastermind community for ambitious professionals with weekly challenges, office hours, and confidential support. If you’re interested in starting your own business or side hustle someday (or accelerating an existing one), check out his “Employee to Solopreneur” course (launching later this year).

Larry lives in Northern California near Lake Tahoe with his wife and children, and a gigantic Great Dane. He does his best to share advice to help others take complete control of their work and life. He’s also on Twitter @cornett.

Note: Next week, I will be working with premium subscribers on their professional branding for an upcoming Invincible Career exercise. On Monday, they will have access to my private office hours to share their ideas for crafting their professional reputation and getting feedback from the community and me.

Are you interested in participating? Please upgrade to a premium subscription at 25% off and join us before the end of this week!

“Your brand is what other people say about you when you’re not in the room.”― Jeff Bezos

It’s kind of funny when you think about it, but the biggest decisions about you and your career are typically made when you’re not in the room — or on the Zoom. For example, when I was a corporate manager, we made hiring decisions about candidates in meetings without those people being present. When we made decisions about the employees we would put on an upcoming layoff list; those people certainly weren’t invited to those conversations.

You won’t be present for these types of decisions about your career either, so you can’t defend yourself if someone in a meeting with your manager thinks you should be demoted or fired. You can’t use your best communication skills or your mastery of the art of persuasion to try to convince people in some secret Zoom call to hire you or promote you.

People make these significant decisions using the information they have at hand (e.g., your performance review, interview notes about you, your portfolio). But, these decisions are also influenced by how people view you and think about you. We wish that decision-making could be a purely rational process, but we all know that emotion plays a significant role, too. So, your reputation and “brand” will either help you have fans and supporters in those meetings or critics and detractors.

On that note, how do you feel about the phrase “Personal Branding”? Many of us probably believed it was only relevant for people who make a living from their name and who they are (e.g., models, celebrities, actors, athletes). The concept of personal branding can also feel a bit distasteful or annoying when you think about how it has been used and abused by social media influencers (e.g., the Kardashians).

By the way, if you’re in the mood for a laugh at the expense of some influencers, check out Influencers in the Wild on Instagram. You’ll see some of the most ridiculous behavior in public that you can imagine, and it’s all captured on video.

After viewing some of those videos, I wouldn’t be surprised if other words come to mind, too:

* Flashy

* Shallow

* Tacky

* Superficial

* Meaningless

* Greedy

* Inappropriate

The new poster child for fake personal branding is Shimon Hayut, AKA Simon Leviev, and AKA The Tinder Swindler. This new Netflix documentary tells the story of a notorious conman who used the Tinder dating app to live a life of luxury while defrauding numerous women across Europe (and maybe worldwide). He stole an estimated $10 million from his victims!

He developed a fake personal brand and online persona as the wealthy son of billionaire Lev Leviev, known as the “King of Diamonds.” That guy should be in prison, but, believe it or not, he now claims to run business workshops (probably helping other con artists become better con artists).

When we see examples of obviously fake personal brands all around, no wonder many people think the words “personal” and “brand” shouldn’t be used in the same sentence. I get it. No one wants to be viewed as superficial or manipulative.

However, there is a difference between a personal brand and a professional brand. I’m not a personal brand kind of person, nor do I encourage it for others. But, I do believe you should treat your career like a business, and the product that business sells is the work you do professionally.

Therefore, I do encourage building a professional brand for your career and the value you deliver through your work (either as an employee or solopreneur). Another way to think about this is your professional reputation. How do people think about you and the work you do?

A professional brand is your reputation at work with colleagues, managers, customers, etc. You build it with the quality of your work and how you get things done. It is reinforced by your words, accomplishments, communication style, behavior, and interaction with others.

Intentionally define your reputation

Rather than letting your professional reputation organically and haphazardly happen by chance, you should take control of what you want it to be. As part of next week’s exercise, premium subscribers will have access to a workbook that helps them explore and define their professional brand and reputation. But, you can think through the following questions to start exploring yours:

* What comes most naturally to you at work?

* What are you good at doing?

* What are you known for doing well?

* How do coworkers and friends tend to describe you?

* What comments have you seen in your performance reviews?

* What descriptors fit your personality and feel genuine (e.g., considerate, competent, compassionate)?

* How do you want to be viewed by your professional peers?

* What personal attributes will help you get to the next level in your career if people believe that about you (e.g., persuasive, high potential, leadership material)?

You should find out how your manager, peers, and partners currently view you. See if it already fits the reputation you wish to cultivate.

However, if a mismatch exists between your desired professional brand and your current reputation, you have some work to do. Take control of your brand and shape it the way you want to be perceived and remembered vs. letting it just happen.

Intentionally craft your brand and build the evidence to support that image of you at work. Develop a career portfolio and behavior that supports the professional brand you know is best for you and employers will value.

I also recommend aligning your brand with who you really are. It’s too tiring to maintain a fake persona, anyway.

Start by choosing one core attribute that you want at the center of your professional brand. It’s the word you wish someone would use to fill in the blank in this statement about you:

“They are so _________!”

What single word do you want as the foundation of your professional reputation? I know this is a challenging exercise. How do you boil down the essence of who you are into a single word?

But, I would bet you probably describe other people you work with this way. Here are some positive examples:

* “Amy is brilliant.”

* “Brian is very reliable.”

* “Sarah is so creative.”

* “David is fast.”

* “Tina is persuasive.”

You can probably think of some negative examples too. We’ve all worked with a few people who have a poor professional reputation. These are things you’d never want someone to say about you when you’re not in the room.

* Andy is a liar.

* Beth is lazy.

* Chris is slow.

* Dani is always late.

* Edward is a jerk.

After you’ve selected your primary professional reputation/brand word, create a list of secondary attributes that are also important to you. These words will enhance and extend your brand. Feel free to explore words and phrases that reflect your unique knowledge, talent, and the way you see the world.

* How do other people describe you (e.g., your parents, loved ones, teachers, bosses, colleagues, peers, friends)?

* How do you want people to view you?

* How do you wish that people in your industry described you?

* What attributes support the reputation you are building?

* What descriptors will help you get hired, promoted, etc., when the decision-makers believe them about you?

Years ago, I used this same exercise to help define the brand for my solopreneur business. I considered my target audience and ideal customers. I thought about the problems they faced and the solutions they needed. Then, I brainstormed words, attributes, and descriptors that I assumed they would want to be true about someone they hired to solve their problems.

For example:

* First and foremost, I wanted potential clients to view me as a very helpful person. Otherwise, no one would want to hire me.

* Of course, I also had to be trustworthy and dependable.

* They would want someone who listened to them.

* In my case, being a bit “techie” was a helpful descriptor.

* They wanted help from someone who had “been there and done that” and had learned from a wide variety of experiences (i.e., they viewed me as older and “wise”).

I found the visualization above helpful. It put my core brand attribute at the center with a “cloud” of supporting attributes around it. It helped me remember to develop and maintain a professional brand that made people feel this way about me as I built my business.

You can do this homework on your own, of course. I created a workbook that makes it easier to capture your answers, define your brand attributes, and build your own professional brand cloud (access it here).

However, if you want to share what you’ve captured and get some feedback to make it better, join us in the community. You can discuss it with the rest of the premium subscribers and me during our office hours on Monday.

Prove your reputation

Now that you know how you wish to be perceived, what are you doing to build and support that image? Simply claiming a professional brand is not enough.

For example, over the years, I’ve seen many people claim they are “innovative”, yet I couldn’t find anything in their background that supported that claim. So, if you want your reputation to grow and people to believe in you, you need to back it up with actual evidence.

You build credibility and support for your professional reputation every day. Every meeting is an opportunity to reinforce your professional brand. For example, if you claim to be a compassionate leader, act like one during challenging meetings with your employees. Every accomplishment is your chance to elevate your professional reputation, too. If you claim to be dependable, you can’t drop the ball on the work you deliver.

The proof of who you are as a professional will be reflected in:

* The work you do.

* How you interact with people.

* Online social proof (e.g., what you tweet).

* The content you create.

* Your accomplishments.

* How you communicate.

How to protect your reputation

“It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you'll do things differently.”— Warren Buffett

A few friends of mine have always been careful with their professional brands. They’re even cautious about their behavior outside of work that could impact their brand. In this modern world of social media, instant tweets, and photos shared globally with a single tap, are you ever “off the clock”?

The people you associate with may help or harm your reputation. I’ve seen both happen in the corporate world.

Your actions can build your reputation. But, thoughtless actions can also damage it (e.g., shouting at someone in a meeting).

Obviously, what you say can support or damage your reputation too. That can happen during live conversations, and with the words you share online. I’m sure you’ve read about people who lost their jobs after posting something offensive on social media.

If you’re ambitious and your career matters to you, then your professional reputation should matter to you, as well. Nurture it and protect it!

How to rebuild your reputation

You’re only human, and you will make mistakes. We all do! Unfortunately, sometimes those mistakes can damage your reputation.

However, even when that happens, all is not lost. It is possible to repair and rebuild your reputation. Some people have made remarkable comebacks after colossal failures.

I won’t go into more detail here since I already wrote an article about how to do this. If you’re interested, check it out.

Your professional brand matters

Personal branding may feel icky to you, and perhaps it should. But, I hope you now see how professional branding is quite different.

* It’s not fake.

* It’s not based on a fantasy.

* It’s not artificial.

* It’s not about manipulation.

Your professional brand and reputation are a reflection of who you really are and who you want to be. When you build it successfully, people know your name. You also tend to climb the career ladder more quickly when you have a strong professional brand.

Your name will come up when new opportunities arise. When hiring managers and recruiters start making calls, you will be top of mind.

Hiding from the spotlight and hoping people discover you won’t do you any favors for your career growth. If you’re an ambitious professional who wants to get ahead, you must put yourself out there and be visible.

That starts with defining and owning your professional brand.

By the way, there is a great way you can support my work without spending any money on a premium subscription:

📣 Recommending my newsletter on social media! 📣 

It only takes a few seconds, and it helps grow my business so I can continue making time to write it.

I’ll even provide some copy and paste text to make it easy to share on Twitter, Reddit, LinkedIn, Facebook, etc. Thanks in advance!

I've really been enjoying the Invincible Career newsletter by Larry Cornett (@cornett). If you want to get ahead at work and be happier in your job, but you aren’t subscribed yet, you’re missing out.

https://newsletter.invinciblecareer.com

Larry Cornett is a leadership coach and business advisor who hosts a private mastermind community for ambitious professionals with weekly challenges, office hours, and confidential support. If you’re interested in starting your own business or side hustle someday (or accelerating an existing one), check out his “Employee to Solopreneur” course (launching later this year).

Larry lives in Northern California near Lake Tahoe with his wife and children, and a gigantic Great Dane. He does his best to share advice to help others take complete control of their work and life. He’s also on Twitter @cornett.

This is a short excerpt from the chapter

She seemed depressed on our weekly call. “I can’t take much more of this. I’m not sure how much longer I can stay in this job. I want to quit now, but I know that I shouldn’t.”

We discussed what had happened at work and what she could do to address those issues and hopefully improve the situation. More importantly, we also discussed a plan for the future, how to make the best of the situation until she moved on for a better opportunity, and a timeline for the next steps. We established a tentative date when she thought she might be ready to leave her job.

Setting that date is more important than you might think. One of the worst things about an unbearable situation is not knowing when it will ever end. When you create a future “finish line,” you immediately feel better because you’ve made a decision, and you know something better is coming.

"History never repeats itself, but the Kaleidoscopic combinations of the pictured present often seem to be constructed out of the broken fragments of antique legends." — Mark Twain

However, even when you’re suffering, the last thing you should do is make a rash decision and “leap out of the frying pan and into the fire.” If you don’t take the time to fully understand what’s going wrong, why it went wrong, and how to avoid those mistakes in the future, you’re most likely doomed to repeat this unfortunate history (or create a new variant of it).

If everything were 100% on track with your work and life, you wouldn’t be reading this right now. Something you’re experiencing in your life isn’t ideal. You’re probably frustrated by a situation at work. You want something more. Something different. Something better.

Don’t we all?

But, before you can get to where you want to be, you must know where you are and understand where you have been. When I work one-on-one with my clients, they receive “homework exercises” to help us understand their past, look for patterns, assess what’s happening now, and explore future plans.

This chapter gives you an idea of what that in-depth homework is like. Of course, I won’t be able to discuss your answers to the questions below (unless you work with me or join my community). But, it is still beneficial for you to capture your thoughts and use that information to plan a path forward to creating your Invincible Career.

“The unexamined life is not worth living.”— Socrates

How are you feeling right now? Are you doing well at work? Is your career on track? Are you happy with where your life is going?

It can be challenging to think about all of this in the abstract. You often have a gut feeling about how your work is going and a general feeling about your life. But you can’t put your finger precisely on the issues causing those feelings.

I do value qualitative judgments (e.g., feeling happy or a little sad), but I’m also a fan of quantitative assessments to understand the scale of a problem. So, I created a series of statements to assess how happy and successful you feel in your career and life. You can take my free quiz online to find out! Your score will be automatically calculated and emailed to you.

Subscribe to read more draft chapters from my book as I release them. I’ll also notify you when the book is available!

By the way, there is a great way you can support my work without spending any money on a premium subscription:

📣 Recommending my newsletter on social media! 📣 

It only takes a few seconds, and it helps grow my business so I can continue making time to write it.

I’ll even provide some copy and paste text to make it easy to share on Twitter, Reddit, LinkedIn, Facebook, etc. Thanks in advance!

I've really been enjoying the Invincible Career newsletter by Larry Cornett (@cornett). If you want to get ahead at work and be happier in your job, but you aren’t subscribed yet, you’re missing out.

https://newsletter.invinciblecareer.com

Larry Cornett is a leadership coach and business advisor who hosts a private mastermind community for ambitious professionals with weekly challenges, office hours, and confidential support. If you’re interested in starting your own business or side hustle someday (or accelerating an existing one), check out his “Employee to Solopreneur” course (launching later this year).

Larry lives in Northern California near Lake Tahoe with his wife and children, and a gigantic Great Dane. He does his best to share advice to help others take complete control of their work and life. He’s also on Twitter @cornett.

I will be launching my Employee to Solopreneur courses and private community later this year. If you’ve ever thought about starting your own business or side hustle, sign up to be notified!

Please note: This article is for informational purposes only and is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical or mental health condition.

Every day, I talk with someone who wants to quit their job. They’re frustrated, angry, and stressed about their projects at work and relationships with coworkers and management.

They feel anxious about their performance and fear that they will get a bad review or even lose their job. The thought of continuing to work for their employer every day for several more years is depressing.

I hear statements like:

* “They don’t appreciate me.”

* “I don't feel respected.”

* “My employer isn’t investing in me.”

* “I never receive any training.”

* “I don’t feel like I’m growing.”

* “I want to walk away, even though I don’t have another job lined up.”

* “I’ve lost faith in my abilities.”

* “I’m beginning to doubt myself.”

* “I’ve lost my mojo.”

These feelings are more common than you might think. Our work has a significant impact on our sense of wellbeing.

I’ve shared this data before from research by Clarine M. Jacobs, Ph.D., published in Ineffective-Leader-Induced Occupational Stress:

* ~75% of employees said their leader is their most significant source of stress.

* ~70% of employees said their work is a substantial source of stress.

* ~80% of employees experienced stress-related physical symptoms (e.g., fatigue, irritability, anger, lack of motivation, headaches).

It can take several months or even years to recover from a toxic work environment or a bad boss who tears you down. I've experienced that. In one case, I didn’t feel “back to normal” for almost six months after I quit a job that had an incredibly negative and political culture.

I thought I could push through the stress and anxiety that I was feeling in that job. But, I paid a steep price for not dealing with it. My health suffered considerably. But, I finally took steps to get it under control and changed my life forever.

Last year, I shared some strategies and techniques to relieve stress. I’ve found that actively managing my stress levels also dramatically improves my work productivity. Maybe some of these can help you too!

However, these strategies still feel more like a painkiller than an actual solution. That is, they treat the symptoms more than they stop the stress and anxiety from happening in the first place.

I’ve had a year to think more about this problem, work with clients struggling with stress and anxiety, and manage my own issues and struggles with depression. I still use all of the techniques I shared last year to manage my symptoms. But, I’ve found that it's better to head them off at the pass sooner.

One of the most effective and lasting strategies is to take complete control of what you believe is your life's mission vs. simply adopting your employer’s mission and giving your heart and soul to some company. Owning your sense of purpose gives you more control of your physical, mental, and emotional health.

I made that mistake earlier in my career. I “drank my employer’s Kool-Aid” and threw myself 100% into my job. My sense of identity was tied to my job title and the company’s mission. That was a huge mistake.

You are vulnerable if you let someone else (e.g., a boss or employer) hold the keys to your wellbeing and a sense of purpose. Tying your identity to your employer, its mission, and a specific job title is always risky.

* When the project fails, you feel like a failure.

* When your boss gets upset with you, you feel stressed and anxious.

* When your world-changing project gets canceled, you get depressed.

* What happens if your employer makes a strategic pivot away from the mission you’ve been committed to for years?

* What happens if your company gets acquired and the new leadership changes everything (e.g., your title, role, projects, etc.)?

* What happens if you get demoted or lose your job?

Don’t fall into that trap as I did. Yes, you should absolutely have a job or run a business that feels meaningful. But, your sense of purpose needs to rise above that. It should endure beyond the boundaries of any specific job or company.

When you have a sense of purpose, and your efforts have meaning, you can keep going and push through almost anything. But, they need to be under your control.

When I work one-on-one with my clients, they receive “homework exercises” to explore and create their personal vision and mission. We discuss how this can become their purpose in life instead of solely focusing on what an employer wants them to do (e.g., help them acquire more users, increase revenue, and beat the competition).

I know that when I create my own purpose, I feel more in control, and that reduces my anxiety. I look forward to every day because I will be working on my mission. Having a meaningful sense of purpose takes the edge off my seasonal depression, which has become a little less seasonal and a little more persistent over the past two years.

For most of my life, I didn't feel like I had a purpose. Years ago, I probably had some shallow, corporate, materialistic answer to the question, “What is your purpose in life?”

But, now? Now, I finally feel like what I'm doing matters.

When I launched Invincible Career and started working with people who were frustrated with their jobs, feeling sad about their careers, and wondering about their future, it made me realize that I was finally doing something that actually helps people. I could see the change in their confidence, happiness, and hope for the future. I’d never experienced that before in my corporate jobs.

So, this is how I answer that question today:

"My purpose in life is to empower good people and give them the confidence to plan, create, and live the life they deserve."

I want to give you a sneak peek at some of the homework I give my clients. We work on this very exercise of exploring and defining their purpose, vision, and mission to align their career path with what matters most to them.

A calling vs. passion

Over the last few years, it has become quite popular to tell people to follow their passions. I’m not a fan of this recommendation because I think it misleads people. They believe that they can identify a passion and then make a living from it. Easy, right?

My problem with this is:

* Something might be a passion (e.g., playing guitar), but that doesn’t mean that you are actually good at that thing.

* You may have a passion for something (e.g., birdwatching), but it doesn’t solve a problem or meet a need for anyone else. Therefore, no one will pay you to pursue this passion.

* Finally, when someone turns a passion into a way to make a living (either as an employee or an entrepreneur), they often lose their passion for that very thing. For example, there are many stories of people who loved singing for fun but lost their passion for it once it became a job to pay the bills.

I prefer to have my clients think about their “calling.” A calling isn’t necessarily a passion, although you can feel passionate about pursuing a calling (many people do). It also isn’t necessarily fun to pursue a calling, but you feel drawn to it and driven to make it happen. Some might call that an obsession. I prefer to think of it as finding meaning and fulfillment in life. 

I see a calling as something that taps into your core talent, strengths, knowledge, and experience in a way that changes the world or improves the lives of others in a meaningful way. It is valuable enough to these people that you can, indeed, turn it into a living for yourself. Your unique way of bringing this to the world gives you purpose every day.

What do you feel compelled to do?

What would you say is your calling?

Your vision and mission

I’ve used a vision and mission framework to propose new corporate projects and formalize business ideas. But, I also find it useful for my clients to help capture their thoughts around their calling and purpose.

It helps to think about yourself and the world we live in since a purpose has more meaning when it improves the world and helps others. The following questions can help.

* What does the world need? What problems need to be solved? What are the big opportunities?

* What are you great at doing? Think about your natural talents and the skills you’ve acquired. What are your unfair advantages (e.g., you’re brilliant, naturally persuasive, people seem to like you, etc.)?

* What do you love doing? Most importantly, what do you love doing that you’re also really good at doing?

* What can you get paid to do? Unless you’re financially independent, you’ll want to align your purpose with some way to make a living.

Here is an example of how someone might turn the answers to these questions into more meaningful work:

”Sarah has a passion for teaching people how to use new technology. She is great at it and loves doing it. She feels that her calling is to help educate disadvantaged children, thus combining what she loves and what the world needs. Obviously, the world needs educators and you can get paid to be an educator. So, she created a business to get paid to educate children through online workshops. Now, she is focused on scaling her technology platform and the workshop programs to reach more children. She does this to have a larger and more positive impact on them and the world, but also to generate more income for herself.”

In this example, Sarah said that her calling is to help educate disadvantaged children. She could expand on this to create a more detailed vision and mission statement for her business.

What is a Vision statement? It’s an aspirational view of the future that would inspire yourself and others. As you think about your vision, what would your life ideally look like at the end of the next 15-20 years? How would you like to change the world? What impact do you want to have on others?

What is a Mission statement? Your mission is the realistic endeavor you believe will enable your vision to come true. Your personal mission statement will be what you want to commit to for your vision to become a reality.

For example, Sarah might create the following statements for her business:

* Vision: Every child is prepared for the future of work. 

* Mission: We provide disadvantaged children with affordable and accessible educational opportunities to learn the latest technologies to prepare them for their future careers.

Exploring your purpose

You are absolutely unique. No other person on this planet has experienced the same life as you.

No one else has the exact combination of who you are, what you know, and what you are capable of accomplishing. I find that someone’s exact purpose is just as unique as they are. 

For some people, their purpose is deeply tied to a creative act. They can’t imagine life without making “the thing” that gives them purpose every day. This could be writing, designs, music, art, code, etc.

These creators feel compelled to bring their work to life. Even if they weren’t getting paid to create it, they would do this.

For others, their purpose is instead deeply tied to people. They can’t imagine life without helping certain types of people every day.

Some teachers obviously feel this way about children. Some medical professionals feel this way about patients. So, this type of purpose is less tied to a specific act of creation and more about helping the people they care about the most.

Sometimes, these two types of purpose overlap when a creator uses what they create to help a specific kind of person (e.g., a children’s author who wants to entertain and educate young people). 

Now, consider yourself. Do you feel compelled to create something, and you can’t stop doing it no matter what?

Or, do you feel drawn to helping specific types of people, and you believe that your purpose in this world is to make their lives better? You may even be one of the few whose sense of purpose lies at the intersection of both.

What are your thoughts on your purpose?

Once you have your own vision and mission statements, you’ll probably find it easier to define your purpose in life. Your purpose will be to follow your mission to make your vision of the world come true.

Your purpose is larger and more significant than any single project. It’s more meaningful than the work most employers ask us to do. It belongs to you and gives your life meaning beyond the jobs that come and go.

I find that defining and following a purpose — your life’s mission — gives you more control over managing your physical, mental, and emotional health, too. Focusing your energy on making your vision come true takes the edge off any stress or anxiety you might be feeling in a job, which suddenly feels a little less important.

Of course, when you pursue an Invincible Career, the ultimate goal is to rebuild your career around your own vision, mission, and purpose. Getting there might take years. But, when it happens, you can then dedicate all of your time to something that you find personally fulfilling and meaningful.

What is your purpose?

I’d love to hear your thoughts on your purpose. What do you feel is your mission in life? What vision do you want to make come true? How do you want to change the world?

Feel free to share with me in the comments if you’d like. Or, reach out to me. I’m always here to listen.

This week’s Invincible Career exercise

⭐ Write the Story of You

By the way, there is a great way you can support my work without spending any money on a premium subscription:

📣 Recommending my newsletter on social media! 📣 

It only takes a few seconds, and it helps grow my business so I can continue making time to write it.

I’ll even provide some copy and paste text to make it easy to share on Twitter, Reddit, LinkedIn, Facebook, etc. Thanks in advance!

I've really been enjoying the Invincible Career newsletter by Larry Cornett (@cornett). If you want to get ahead at work and be happier in your job, but you aren’t subscribed yet, you’re missing out.

https://newsletter.invinciblecareer.com

Larry Cornett is a leadership coach and business advisor who hosts a private mastermind community for ambitious professionals with weekly challenges, office hours, and confidential support. If you’re interested in starting your own business or side hustle someday (or accelerating an existing one), check out his “Employee to Solopreneur” course (launching later this year).

Larry lives in Northern California near Lake Tahoe with his wife and children, and a gigantic Great Dane. He does his best to share advice to help others take complete control of their work and life. He’s also on Twitter @cornett.

This is an excerpt from Chapter 2

Our boss looked around the conference room, sighed, and said, “I need your final list of employees for the layoff next week. Have you decided who you’re keeping and who can be let go?”

There’s nothing like a corporate layoff meeting to reveal the truth about who is valued in an organization. Some employees are so precious that they are untouchable. You might even say they’re “invincible.” Others are so vulnerable that their managers are happy to put them on a layoff list. Most people fall somewhere in the middle.

I still remember that conversation with the leaders of the various organizations in the company. We were discussing numbers and debating names. Someone mentioned another team’s employee as a potential candidate for the layoff list.

His manager snorted. “Yeah, right. Matt is the only one who understands the code for our legacy system. He wrote the whole damn thing, it’s not documented well, and no one else could keep it running. If we get rid of him, we’re screwed.”

The senior leader frowned. “Ok, ok. We can’t afford to lose Matt. What about Tim? What’s he working on?”

Tim’s manager looked uncomfortable. “Umm, he’s on a new project testing some experimental concepts. He’s a good guy. I want to keep him.”

The leader grunted, “Uh-huh. I see. Well, we don’t have the luxury of experimentation right now, and someone has to go.”

Guess who lost their job that day?

Subscribe to read more draft chapters from my book as I release them. I’ll also notify you when the book is available!

Before I continue, I should clarify what I mean by vulnerability in your career and life. After all, doesn’t Brené Brown tell us that there is power in being vulnerable?

Yes, she does. But, to be clear, she’s talking about vulnerability in the sense of being your authentic self and not being afraid to be human, make mistakes, and connect with others more deeply. Even she doesn’t recommend that you’re vulnerable with the wrong people or in the wrong situations.

You can be confident, authentic, and willing to be vulnerable. But you still wouldn’t turn your back on a tiger.

Similarly, at work, it’s good to be your authentic self, honest and open, and human. But, never forget that your job is a transactional relationship, and the workplace is a competitive environment. Your coworkers are not your family, and your boss is not your friend.

You’ll be treated well as long as you’re delivering more value to the organization than the bottom 10% of employees. You’ll keep your position as long as your paycheck is a positive ROI for the company. You’ll have job security as long as your employer remains profitable, the leadership keeps making good decisions, and the company doesn’t stumble in the competitive market.

You may be thinking, “This doesn’t apply to me. My job is rock solid, and it always will be.“

But… will it?

Sooner or later, we all become vulnerable in our careers. Welcome to the joys of growing older and age discrimination! If you haven’t experienced it yet, you probably will one day.

The reality is most of us are always vulnerable, even if we don’t realize it or want to admit it. Eventually, something will happen that wakes you up to this fact. I certainly experienced that and learned the hard way that I had let myself become vulnerable over the years. For example:

* If your primary source of income is from one job and you have a single boss who controls your fate, you are vulnerable.

* If you heavily depend on a single source of income to make ends meet, sometimes paycheck to paycheck, you are vulnerable.

* If your regional cost of living is so high that your rent or mortgage consumes most of your income, you are vulnerable.

* If you want to quit your job and find a new one, but you discover there are no opportunities for you elsewhere, you are vulnerable.

* If your profession vanished — or your industry collapsed — and you don’t have a sufficient financial cushion to pivot and rebuild your career, you are vulnerable.

* If you’re growing older and age discrimination makes it harder to find employment in your chosen profession, you become increasingly vulnerable with every passing year.

I’m excited to share more of my book with you this year. Subscribe now to read the draft chapters as I complete them.

By the way, there is a great way you can support my work without spending any money on a premium subscription:

📣 Recommending my newsletter on social media! 📣 

It only takes a few seconds, and it helps grow my business so I can continue making time to write it.

I’ll even provide some copy and paste text to make it easy to share on Twitter, Reddit, LinkedIn, Facebook, etc. Thanks in advance!

I've really been enjoying the Invincible Career newsletter by Larry Cornett (@cornett). If you want to get ahead at work and be happier in your job, but you aren’t subscribed yet, you’re missing out.

https://newsletter.invinciblecareer.com

Larry Cornett is a leadership coach and business advisor who hosts a private mastermind community for ambitious professionals with weekly challenges, office hours, and confidential support. If you’re interested in starting your own business or side hustle someday (or accelerating an existing one), check out his “Employee to Solopreneur” course (launching later this year).

Larry lives in Northern California near Lake Tahoe with his wife and children, and a gigantic Great Dane. He does his best to share advice to help others take complete control of their work and life. He’s also on Twitter @cornett.

Welcome to Invincible Career — a newsletter by Larry Cornett that helps ambitious professionals live better lives. If you find this article helpful or interesting, consider sharing it with a friend or two. If you’ve been reading and enjoying my newsletter for a while, consider a premium membership that gives you access to my private community, weekly office hours, and exclusive professional development prompts and challenges!

My guest for this episode is Chris A. Cornett MD, MPT. He’s an associate professor of orthopedics at the University of Nebraska Medical Center.

He also works as a spine surgeon in the affiliated hospital Nebraska Medicine. He’s the L. Thomas Hood, MD, Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery & Rehabilitation. He is vice-chair of clinical services in the department of orthopedics, medical director of outpatient physical/occupational therapy at Nebraska Medicine, and co-medical director of the comprehensive spine program at Nebraska Medicine. 

Clinically, he takes care of spine patients in the region. In addition to his administrative duties, he teaches medical residents, fellows, and students. He also participates in and publishes spine research.

You can find Dr. Cornett and more about his work here:

* Chris A. Cornett, MD - Nebraska Medicine

* Research publications for Chris Cornett, MD

* His faculty page at the University of Nebraska Medical Center

We talk about:

* Why he decided to pivot to surgery after getting a master’s degree in Physical Therapy.

* His commitment to a 17-year educational and training journey after high school.

* Ways to fund an advanced education in medicine (e.g., providing primary care in underserved areas).

* Why he thinks autonomy is more valuable than money.

* The future of medicine, healthcare, and surgery.

Key points from our conversation

I want to call out a few points from my conversation with Dr. Cornett to consider if you feel like you’re not working in a career you’re passionate about. If you’re a potential career changer, you’ll find this helpful.

Passion for your career

Don’t be afraid to pursue a career you will love. Some people will question your choice and belittle your commitment, but the only thing that matters is how you feel about it. For example, folks in our hometown made fun of me for pursuing a Ph.D. and teased Dr. Cornett about still being in medical school and training in his early 30s.

But, we only have one life. If you feel like you have a different calling, there’s something you can do that will fulfill you more, or there’s something more you can contribute to this world or society; life isn’t long enough to not do it.

No matter how long it seems (i.e., preparing for your career), it doesn’t seem as long as sitting and doing work that you don’t like for the rest of your life. Even though you’re working a lot, it doesn’t feel like it in a job you enjoy.

He loves his work as a spine surgeon, and it’s more rewarding than any other job he’s ever had. Feeling fulfilled, positively impacting people’s lives, and doing work you love is worth the upfront investment to make that happen.

The value of autonomy

Being a surgeon can be hard when you’re training. You’re working a lot of hours, doing a lot of calls, the work is mandatory and “forced” on you, and you don’t have any control over your schedule. You don’t have a lot of autonomy.

He still works a lot of hours as a staff surgeon. But, the big difference is that his autonomy increased significantly.

That is one of the things he desires most. He values autonomy over income, work hours, etc. The question is, what are you willing to give up to have it?

Typically, the more autonomy you have in your job, the more you have to work. His hours are variable, but he’s never totally “off.” But, he controls his schedule and the work he does.

Every career has tradeoffs

You could have a job with more certainty, less stress, and predictable hours. But, the rewards are lower than a more demanding career. That’s just the reality.

Many people who have careers with higher income, more autonomy, and better long-term freedom have made sacrifices and significant investments to make that happen.

* A significant investment in their education and training, which delayed the start of their primary work by several years or even decades (e.g., “Wow, are you still going to school?!?!”).

* A willingness to work long hours, deal with significant stress, and take considerable risks to invest in rapid professional growth early in your career.

* Accepting unpredictability in your life — and blending your work and life — to ultimately have more freedom.

Unless you’re really lucky, choosing an easier life, a simple career path, and a predictable 9-5 job won’t give you significant wealth, freedom, or control in your life.

⬆️ Scroll to the top if you want to listen to our entire conversation, and hear more of Dr. Cornett’s story! 🎧

Do you have a friend or family member who is considering a career in healthcare? They might enjoy this article and podcast episode. Feel free to share it with them!

Thank you for reading Invincible Career®. This post is public so feel free to share it.

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📣 Recommending my newsletter on social media! 📣 

It only takes a few seconds, and it helps grow my business so I can continue making time to write it.

I’ll even provide some copy and paste text to make it easy to share on Twitter, Reddit, LinkedIn, Facebook, etc. Thanks in advance!

I've really been enjoying the Invincible Career newsletter by Larry Cornett (@cornett). If you want to get ahead at work and be happier in your job, but you aren’t subscribed yet, you’re missing out.

https://newsletter.invinciblecareer.com

This week’s office hours topic

⭐ Create a Plan to Achieve Your Goals

Larry Cornett is a leadership coach and business advisor who hosts a private mastermind community for ambitious professionals with weekly challenges, office hours, and confidential support. If you’re interested in starting your own business or side hustle someday (or accelerating an existing one), check out his “Employee to Solopreneur” course (launching later this year).

Larry lives in Northern California near Lake Tahoe with his wife and children, and a gigantic Great Dane. He does his best to share advice to help others take complete control of their work and life. He’s also on Twitter @cornett.

This is an excerpt from the first chapter

“No, I won’t be promoting you.”

JB sat in stunned silence on the video chat. They hoped their face wasn’t revealing their surprise and disappointment. 

“But, I thought I was on track for one this cycle? My previous manager was happy with my performance and said they were going to put me up for a promotion this year.”

The manager frowned, “Yeah, well. They’re gone now, and I don’t have any paperwork to support that. But, let’s see how things go this year, ok?”

The call ended. JB was shocked, slumped down in the chair, and stared at the laptop screen. All of that extra hard work this year for nothing. How could this happen?

Everything had been fantastic working for the previous manager. JB had enjoyed years of significant raises and steady promotions. Their career was on an amazing trajectory. But, that all changed in the blink of an eye.

The wonderful manager left the company for a great new opportunity. The resulting re-org placed a new leader in the role JB had expected to grow into. The relationship with this new person was already rocky, and they didn’t seem to click. 

Now what?

Subscribe to read more draft chapters from my book as I release them. I’ll also notify you when the book is available!

Thanks for joining me on this journey! I’m excited to share more of my book with you this year. Subscribe now to read the draft chapters as I complete them. As I mentioned in an earlier article, this weekly process is my forcing function to meet my goals this year and finally publish something.

I hope you’ll experiment with this productivity strategy for 2022. I’d love to hear more about your goals and the progress you make. We can help hold you accountable!

By the way, there is a great way you can support my work without spending any money on a premium subscription:

📣 Recommending my newsletter on social media! 📣 

It only takes a few seconds, and it helps grow my business so I can continue making time to write it.

I’ll even provide some copy and paste text to make it easy to share on Twitter, Reddit, LinkedIn, Facebook, etc. Thanks in advance!

I've really been enjoying the Invincible Career newsletter by Larry Cornett (@cornett). If you want to get ahead at work and be happier in your job, but you aren’t subscribed yet, you’re missing out.

https://newsletter.invinciblecareer.com

Larry Cornett is a leadership coach and business advisor who hosts a private mastermind community for ambitious professionals with weekly challenges, office hours, and confidential support. If you’re interested in starting your own business or side hustle someday (or accelerating an existing one), check out his “Employee to Solopreneur” course (launching later this year).

Larry lives in Northern California near Lake Tahoe with his wife and children, and a gigantic Great Dane. He does his best to share advice to help others take complete control of their work and life. He’s also on Twitter @cornett.

Happy New Year! Welcome to a brand new year and another chance to take a swing at your biggest goals.

Something about starting fresh and leaving the past year behind makes us feel hopeful. That’s why so many people love to make resolutions in January. Unfortunately, most people will fail to stick with them.

Hey, no judgment. I failed last year too. I made progress on my books, wrote multiple short stories, but didn’t formally publish anything other than my newsletter, Medium articles, LinkedIn articles, blog posts, etc.

I could blame the pandemic and chaos, but I accept full responsibility. I made the mistake of trying to squeeze additional time into my already packed schedule.

It’s that natural tendency to say “yes,” take on more responsibility, and try to accomplish more. But, the only way to make time for new tasks is to take time from something else. You have to say “no,” ruthlessly reprioritize, and reallocate time from your fixed 24 hours/day.

To-do lists might work for you, but they don’t work for me. They don’t work for a lot of people. Adding items to a list doesn’t set you up for success.

Those lists just grow larger and larger every day. I have a few massive running lists in Evernote with some items that date back over 10 years!

I often forget to review the list since it’s not in my face. Then, when I do, I get overwhelmed and stressed about how much there is to do.

So, I’m taking a new approach this year. I will use the Ray Bradbury strategy of consistently writing every damn day.

But, where will I find the time to do that? Well, that’s the power of using my calendar. Instead of trying to squeeze more hours into the day, I will repurpose time that I have already demonstrated that I can consistently commit to something else.

Finally, I know that I need accountability. We all do.

So, I want to leverage my existing community to help me stay accountable to the process. That’s you, my dear reader. And it’s my private community of 117 ambitious people who will help push me because we all have been encouraging each other to achieve our goals every week, month, and year for almost five years now.

Therefore, I will be leveraging the existing calendar time I’ve been using to consistently write this newsletter every week for the past 2 1/2 years. I’ll be sharing draft chapters of my book with you every month to hold myself accountable to you.

Don’t worry. The book is about the same themes and topics that fuel this newsletter. It’s not about dating, spaceships, blockchain, vampires, snowboarding, or zombies. 🤣

I will be sharing my strategies and methods for reclaiming your power in your work and life, your freedom to spend more of your time the way that you wish you could, and the future you want for yourself and your loved ones.

I’m looking forward to hearing your feedback and finetuning the book to address your questions, issues, and concerns. Of course, the research, recommendations, and advice will be things that you can take advantage of right away (e.g., to pursue your dreams, get promoted, find a better job, start your own business, and get more of what you want out of life).

Now, I encourage you to experiment with this same strategy for 2022. Burn your stressful to-do lists and focus on these three things that will help you achieve your goals this year better than any list app or productivity hack.

I know this sounds silly, but spelling “succcess” with three C’s helps me remember them even if it drives my spellchecker insane.

* Consistency

* Calendar

* Community

Invincible Career® is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

1. Consistency

James Clear (the author of Atomic Habits ← my affiliate link) says:

“Commit to a process, not a goal.”

I actually do like setting goals and making plans. You have to know where you’re heading and what you want to do before you can build the right habits that will take you to the desired finish line. But, he’s spot on about the powerful value of a consistent process.

What’s better for your health; running a marathon twice a year or jogging two miles every day? I know my poor body would implode if I stepped outside and tried to run 26 miles/42 km without first establishing a consistent training practice.

The same is true for weightlifting. You have to put in the daily reps to develop strength, build muscle memory, and perfect your technique.

You won’t get stronger if you sporadically drop into a gym a few times a year and toss some dumbbells around. That fitness resolution only works if you consistently work out.

Many people create goals and plans, but very few make it all the way through their plans to achieve final success. If you don’t take action consistently, you won’t make serious progress.

Putting in the daily work is hard, and sometimes it feels monotonous. But, trying to leap all the way from the beginning to the finish line is a surefire way to fail. Success comes with a series of smaller steps that you consistently take every day, week, and month.

If you want to achieve your goals this year and make progress on your plans, create daily habits and consistently do them. Leverage the power of compounding actions to reap huge rewards from small, seemingly insignificant activities (e.g., running a mile every day, writing for an hour every morning, talking to three new people every week).

What do you need as daily habits in your life to achieve your goals this year? Break your big goals into subgoals, your subgoals into tasks, and your tasks into tiny habits. The commitment can be as little as 30-60 minutes every day.

But, where will you find this time? Well, the secret isn’t trying to find new time, but instead to repurpose existing time and safely block it off on your calendar.

2. Calendar

One of the biggest reasons people fail to achieve their goals is that they can’t find the time to work on them. They don’t make the new goal a serious priority, so they don’t schedule time on their calendar to work on it consistently.

Once you have defined your new habits that will build up to achieve your goals, you have to block time on your calendar for them. For example, I literally schedule time on my calendar to work out every morning. I block off entire afternoons to write my newsletter and record podcast episodes.

You can’t let other people (e.g., your boss) have total control of your calendar, which gives them complete control of your life. The first step to taking back your power and freedom is to own your time.

Yes, I know your employer already requires several hours of your day during the workweek. But, that doesn’t mean that they own your evenings and weekends too.

If you’re a salaried employee, your employer will happily take all of your time if you allow them to do so. Some of my past bosses definitely took advantage of my workaholic tendencies.

I worked evenings and weekends for many, many years. But, the ROI wasn’t worth it. I gave up way too much (e.g., my health, wellbeing, and relationships) and received too little in return.

Your future is too valuable to let that happen to you. It’s a new year! Sit down with your calendar this week and start scheduling recurring blocks of time for tasks that are important for you (not your employer).

Some examples of recurring appointments you might schedule on your calendar:

* Time to exercise every day.

* 30 minutes of meditation every evening.

* A weekly block of time for intelligent networking.

* 30 minutes every morning to journal and brainstorm while you enjoy your coffee or tea.

* A block of time every month to plan your next career move, research potential employers, and look for a better job.

* An hour every week to brainstorm ideas for your own business that you’ll launch someday.

* A couple of hours every week to explore your creative side (e.g., sketch, paint, write, make music).

You will have a better chance of achieving your goals when you commit time on your calendar to consistently perform the tasks and habits that help you make progress. But, there’s an additional way to further improve your odds of success by leveraging the power of human relationships.

3. Community

The secret sauce of success combines consistent habits with accountability to other people. I know I’ve shared this data before, but it still surprises me.

* If you promise someone else that you will achieve a goal, your probability of success rises to 65%.

* When you schedule regular accountability appointments with someone, your probability of success goes up to 95%!

Do you have someone in your life who can hold you accountable for your goals this year? Is there someone you can meet with regularly who will encourage you, push you, and help you keep going when you’re feeling overwhelmed or discouraged?

If you don’t already have this type of support, you should look for a community that can provide it. If you can’t find one, you may need to create your own tribe.

I know that I need this type of accountability, so I often share my goals and plans with my wife. She encourages me and reminds me of what I want to achieve.

Over 12 years ago, I wanted this type of supportive environment at work too. Unfortunately, I discovered that the competitive and political corporate world of being a tech executive wasn’t exactly the nurturing environment that I needed.

I wished that I had a community of trusted peers back then. I could see that many of my friends were struggling with similar issues too. So, about five years ago, I created my private community and began welcoming like-minded souls to join us.

I created one accountability environment with my Career Accelerator. We meet every week, discuss goals and activities, support each other, give advice, and hold each other accountable for progress toward our goals. That community helps us all stay on track.

Last year, I also expanded my community to be more affordable and accessible to more people. It’s not free, but we provide tremendous value for that $15/month. We’ve helped connect people with hiring managers, discover great opportunities in the hidden job market, and negotiate job offers to make thousands more every year. Turning $15/month into thousands more in income every month is a pretty damn good investment.

I did shut down my free groups on Facebook and other places. People have asked me why I no longer have those free communities.

I’ll tell you why. Over the years, I’ve learned that people don’t commit to something free. They don’t value it enough, and they don’t take it seriously.

When it’s free, it’s easy to skip it. But, when you pay even a tiny amount for support, advice, and access to a professional community, you value it more. You show up to get your investment out of it.

So, if you can’t find the right community to support you and help you achieve your goals this year, check us out. We’re always here to help!

Good luck this year!

I wish you the best of luck with your goals for 2022. Feel free to ask questions in the comments on this post online. Reach out if you’d like to work with me on your plan and if you know that you would benefit from having a coach hold you accountable for making progress.

Check out my private community if you’re interested in the support of smart, friendly, and ambitious people like yourself. I think of it as the fun water cooler and helpful colleagues that I wished I had when I was an employee so many years ago.

Thank you for reading Invincible Career®. This post is public so feel free to share it.

By the way, there is still a great way you can support my work without spending any money on a premium subscription:

📣 Recommending my newsletter on social media! 📣 

It only takes a few seconds, and it helps grow my business so I can continue making time to write it.

I’ll even provide some copy and paste text to make it easy to share on Twitter, Reddit, LinkedIn, Facebook, etc. Thanks in advance!

I've really been enjoying the Invincible Career newsletter by Larry Cornett (@cornett). If you want to get ahead at work and be happier in your job, but you aren’t subscribed yet, you’re missing out.

https://newsletter.invinciblecareer.com

Larry Cornett is a leadership coach and business advisor who hosts a private mastermind community for ambitious professionals with weekly challenges, office hours, and confidential support. If you’re interested in starting your own business or side hustle someday (or accelerating an existing one), check out his “Employee to Solopreneur” course (launching in 2022).

Larry lives in Northern California near Lake Tahoe with his wife and children, and a gigantic Great Dane. He does his best to share advice to help others take complete control of their work and life. He’s also on Twitter @cornett.

Less than 3 days left in my holiday offer!

If you’d like access to my weekly professional development challenges and private career community, please consider subscribing to the premium newsletter.

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”― Viktor E. Frankl

I’m sitting here writing this newsletter in the dark with the hum of a generator rumbling outside. We lost our power and internet a couple of days ago, and it looks like we won’t have it back for 5-7 more days. 

Winter storms dumped a record amount of snow in the Sierras. The weight of all of that snow is snapping branches and toppling trees. 

But, we’re doing our best to make the most of a bad situation. It’s cold and dark, but we’re able to keep a fire going, and we stocked up on food before the storm hit. We light candles at night and read physical books. 

Yes, paper books! I’d forgotten what a joy it is to sit by a warm fire with a hot drink and read a good book.

My phone has a weak data connection, but I hope it will be sufficient to publish this newsletter and get it out to you. We’ll see…

Complaining about the snow and power outage accomplishes nothing. Anger won’t melt the snowdrifts on the road. Frustration won’t force PG&E to work faster to restore our power. 

It is what it is, so we have no choice but to make the best of it. The constraints and limitations of a more primitive environment have helped me reconnect with two things near and dear to me; reading and writing. 

Yes, I do read every day. But, it’s not the same. I read fragments of articles, bits of research, and a few paragraphs of books in the margins of time between client meetings, running my community, marketing, and other daily tasks. 

For the past two days, I’ve been devouring hundreds of pages for hours at a time because there really isn’t much else I can do in this storm. I’ve been reading The Bradbury Chronicles - The Life of Ray Bradbury by Sam Weller (my affiliate link). Bradbury was one of my favorite authors when I was growing up, and reading more about him has reawakened my desire to write and publish fiction.

Running my business has given me a deeper purpose for the past 11 years than I ever experienced as an employee working for someone else. I mean, how could I feel like my work had meaning when we were essentially asked to just drive more clicks on ads to make the company more money?

Wow. What an amazing contribution to humanity. 🙄

However, I still feel an itch for more significant meaning in my life beyond the business. I enjoy running it, and I love helping people, but I want to have a more lasting impact on the world. I want something that I create to survive long after I’ve left this world.

Therefore, I’ve decided to dust off my book drafts, finish something, and publish it next year. Ray Bradbury makes me feel lazy. He wrote and submitted a short story every single week during his entire career! 

He wrote the first draft of The Fireman in nine days on a rented typewriter in the basement of UCLA’s Powell Library. He later expanded the story in just nine more days to create Fahrenheit 451, which I’m sure you’re familiar with. The book has never gone out of print and has sold more than 10 million copies. 

I’ll never achieve Bradbury’s success, of course. But that’s not why I want to publish my books.

I’m simply trying to keep a promise that I made to myself so very long ago. That young boy wanted to be a writer, so perhaps the meaning that will drive me forward for the rest of my life will be fulfilling that dream.

Meaning or happiness?

Would you rather have a happy life or a meaningful one? What gives your life meaning?

Sure, you can be happy when you only live in the moment. Pursuing pleasure will bring you fleeting joy. But, like all emotions, peaks of happiness and joy are brief, and they fade.

Also, living that way opens you to sadness, anger, and frustration when your pursuit of happiness is thwarted. And, trust me, you are not in control of the world, environment, or people around you. 

So, how will you react when things go sideways and interfere with your daily pleasures? If hedonism guides you, you’re going to be pretty damn unhappy when the going gets rough. 

“It is the very pursuit of happiness that thwarts happiness.”— Viktor Frankl

However, if a larger purpose guides you, you’ll find a way forward. A temporary setback doesn’t derail you when pursuing long-term or even lifelong goals. 

Holocaust survivor, Viktor Frankl, realized that the difference between those who survived and those who died came down to one thing: Meaning. People who found meaning, even in the worst of situations, were more resilient. 

Having a purpose gives you the drive to continue. You feel that you must push through and forward because your work is not yet done. 

Finding your purpose

I encounter four types of people when I speak of finding your purpose. One group already has a purpose, and they’re spending time every day — in some way — pursuing it. 

Another group acutely feels the need for a purpose, but they haven’t uncovered it yet. Many people who reach out to me for my help fall into this group. They want to discover their purpose and find a way to redesign their working life around it.

The third group can’t be bothered with it. They struggle to survive and have no time for lofty thoughts of purpose and meaning. But, in that case, I would argue that survival is their purpose — at least for the time being.

The final group shrugs off the whole notion of having a purpose in life. They think it’s silly. They’re chasing success and accumulating wealth. They think they don’t need a larger purpose or meaning in their lives. As you can imagine, I don’t often work with these people, and my writing doesn’t seem to interest them.

“Those who have a 'why' to live, can bear with almost any 'how'.”― Viktor E. Frankl

How about you? Have you found your purpose yet? Do you want to? 

Is the pursuit of meaning important to you? Have you ever thought about finding your “calling”?

If so, I created a course called “Finding Your Purpose and Calling.” Check it out and see if it can help you with that pursuit. Note: the price goes up next year, so get it now!

However, you shouldn’t feel overwhelmed by the prospect of finding an earth-shattering life’s purpose. Not everyone is meant to cure cancer or eliminate world hunger. 

Also, your purpose can change. Something can serve you well and motivate you for years. But, at some point, you might feel like you’ve either achieved what you wanted or that it no longer drives you. 

It’s not uncommon. It happens. It simply means that it’s time to find your next purpose.

Meaning is your thread

When you have a purpose, no moment feels wasted. Bradbury had times when he couldn’t write or capture his drafts on his typewriter (e.g., long bus rides). So, he wrote stories in his head. Even those moments were productive. 

The same is true when you have a purpose that is larger than the work you do for an employer. It gives your life meaning even when you might feel like you’re wasting your time at work. It becomes a consistent thread in your life that you follow forward — like a lifeline.

I know that feeling. I’ve had some terrible and pointless jobs. I’ve worked for horrible bosses who made me dread going to work every day. 

But, even in those times, I had my eye on something more meaningful. My job was just a means to an end. It paid the bills while I pursued my dreams. I used every free minute and mindless moment at work to read, study, and write (sometimes in my head, as Bradbury did). 

I often work with clients who feel trapped in a job draining their souls. When we first start talking, they are down and dejected. They sound hopeless. 

However, we take the essential first step of giving them a larger purpose beyond that job. We create a vision of their future that gives them hope. They can see the light at the end of the tunnel and realize that this unpleasant moment in time is temporary. 

It will get better. They will do something more meaningful with their life. 

So, we start crafting a plan to help them escape and pursue work with purpose. A vision, mission, goals, and plan change everything. Now, they see that they have a larger purpose and their efforts have meaning. 

“When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.”― Viktor E. Frankl

They begin seeing opportunities even in the job they can’t stand. They aren’t settling by any means. They know they’re still going to leave. But now it’s on their schedule, and they’re making the most of a bad situation to get what they need out of it until it is time to quit. 

They use their last months in that job to acquire:

* More knowledge

* Useful skills

* Valuable experiences

* Powerful connections

* A larger financial cushion

Rise above temporary circumstances

There will always be setbacks in life. The road to long-term success is bumpy and littered with roadblocks. 

But, you can’t let temporary circumstances bring you down. You can’t let a negative situation stop you from pursuing your dreams. 

When your life has more significant meaning than receiving a 9-to-5 paycheck, you know bad times will pass. You may even weave a silver lining out of those unpleasant moments, just as Bradbury did when he turned traumatic memories into stories that people can’t stop reading. 

You are more important than an employer who treats you like a small cog in their giant machine. Your life’s purpose is larger than any single job. 

Rise above it all.

Less than 3 days left in my holiday offer!

If you’d like access to my weekly challenges and private community, please consider subscribing to my premium newsletter.

Save 50% if you join us before the year ends! This will give you access to:

* My private career community for confidential advice, feedback, and support.

* A weekly career prompt and professional development challenge delivered to your inbox every Monday.

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By the way, you can easily support my work without spending any money:

📣 By sharing my newsletter on social media! 📣 

It only takes a few seconds, and it helps grow my business so I can continue making time to write the articles and publish the podcasts.

I’ll even provide some copy and paste text to make it easy to share on Twitter, Reddit, LinkedIn, Facebook, etc. Thanks in advance!

I've really been enjoying the Invincible Career newsletter by Larry Cornett (@cornett). If you want to get ahead at work and be happier in your job, but you aren’t subscribed yet, you’re missing out.

https://newsletter.invinciblecareer.com

Larry Cornett is a leadership coach and business advisor who hosts a private mastermind community for ambitious professionals with weekly challenges, office hours, and confidential support. If you’re interested in starting your own business or side hustle someday (or accelerating an existing one), check out his “Employee to Solopreneur” course (launching in 2022).

Larry lives in Northern California near Lake Tahoe with his wife and children, and a gigantic Great Dane. He does his best to share advice to help others take complete control of their work and life. He’s also on Twitter @cornett.