Empowerment Journey Step 2

We’ve established that business is all about solving problems, and the bigger the problems the bigger the potential profits. By taking an empowerment mindset, we view money as a badge of honor, a reward for adding value to peoples’ lives. Money can also be used as building blocks to design our ideal life, so we want to pursue it.

In life, things we can’t control (such as who you meet, your personality and talents) interact with things we can (like the choices you make, knowledge you develop, and experience you acquire) and molds us to be well-suited for certain things more so than others. This interaction between where we are right now and how we respond to our situation constantly shapes us as people, and provides clues about what problems we may be well suited to work on. From there you can look for people and organizations seeking working on those issues and look to join them, or go into business for yourself.

It’s time to find a career path.

Know Yourself

I’m a fan of simple visuals to help convey ideas. Here’s a visual of what we’ll cover in this post:

Knowing yourself as a person will help you find problems which you have the insight and passion to solve. Sure, you can always pick the hottest college major or industry because it sounds cool or your hear it pays well. But finding career paths that fit you will not only help you estimate how much money you can earn, it will help you make money in ways you actually enjoy. Whether you’re trying to pick a college major or making your fifth career change, identifying your personal strengths will help you find areas you can quickly add value.

Some resources to help you get started:

• The Myers-Briggs personality test may offer surprising insights into the type of work that may suit you. There is a free version here: www.16personalities.com/
• The Clifton Strengths assessment can reveal your natural talents to emphasize. It’s $20-$50 (worth it if it helps you in your journey): www.gallup.com/cliftonstrengths/en/252137/home.aspx
• “What Color is Your Parachute” is the classic reference for those seeking their ideal vocation. It’s updated annually and has exercises and activities designed precisely for this purpose.
• “What You’re Really Meant to Do” by Robert Kaplan
• If you have a mentor in your life, ask them what they think you are uniquely good at. Talk to your friends about it also.

The Perfect is the Enemy of the Good

You want to find a career path that sparks your interest, but don’t spend too much time mulling it over. It’s important to realize that nothing is perfect. Some people are born knowing what they want to do in life while others (like me) struggle to figure it out. My career in finance suits me well because I’ve always had an analytical mind. It took me some time to figure this out however, and while being analytical works for me now, it has hurt me in the past. As a young man my tendency to over-analyze led me to not take risks unless everything lined up. I had a broad set of interests, but I had trouble when it came time to choose a college major. I worried that choosing one path meant closing all the other doors. How could I “know for sure”?

The truth is you can’t. One of the most important things I learned later in life is aptly summarized by a quote often attributed to Voltaire: “the perfect is the enemy of the good.” Now, with the benefit of hindsight, I firmly believe that the best thing to do when “analysis paralysis” hits is to identify something that interests you and just get started. Study it, work at it, get better. The more natural interest you have in a field, the better, and if an obvious choice materializes, that’s great. But even if it doesn’t, starting to build experience in pretty much ANY field is better than endlessly searching and never getting started. If you discover you’ve made a choice that isn’t for you, you’ll usually find out quickly, and you can pivot to something else. But if you enjoy a field of study, continue to go deeper. Life is a game of incremental improvements over time, and in many cases the skills you learn in a given field will be useful in others.

We all know it at some level but it bears emphasizing: the perfect situation does not exist.

Pick up Skills Along the Way

Since I was initially unsure about college, I worked in restaurants for a few years after high school. The money wasn’t great but I met interesting people and it was a fun job. It also gave me some clue as to my personal strengths.

Pretty much any job out there is demanding in some way. If you’ve worked in restaurants you know that sometimes everyone orders food at once. When that happens, it’s important that actions are coordinated so the food gets made and served on time. Stress levels peak and you see how people react when pushed to their limits. I saw adults behave like children, yelling and throwing things. A few times I was that person, but usually I wasn’t. I discovered that I tended to have a naturally calm demeanor under pressure. Not perfect, but more calm than average. Rather than yell, my first instinct when we were busy was to focus and think about what needed to happen next; my instinct was to get organized. Instead of freaking out, I looked at those busy times as a test, and challenged myself and my coworkers to overcome it.

Later, when working in finance, I rarely had people yelling at me for an order of buffalo wings, but there were times when markets were melting down, and the advisors and clients I worked with needed help understanding what was happening. Brexit, Trump’s election, and COVID-19 all caused market turbulence, and the ability to remain calm and think under pressure helped me communicate to the people who relied on my team and help them understand how these events affected their investments. When clients’ money is on the line, it causes a different kind of stress, and keeping your cool in these situations comes in handy.

I share this as an example of how something that wasn’t a perfect career choice initially – working in restaurants – still taught me something important about myself. There are other aspects of restaurant work that didn’t prepare me for my professional career, so it’s tempting to think of it as “wasted time”. But remaining calm, thinking quickly under pressure, getting organized before engaging with emotions, and seeing calamity as a challenge, are all pretty important lessons which some people never learn.

So don’t underestimate your ability to “pivot” and leverage skills learned in one field somewhere else. If an opportunity presents itself in a field that may not be your “dream job”, consider giving it a chance. Especially if you are starting out in your career, it’s important to start gaining experience somewhere. As time goes on and meet people in the industry (an other fields), it will become apparent whether or not you’re in the right place.

Keep Learning, Keep Earning

Harkening to my inner Voltaire, my career search eventually turned into “what can I do to make money that doesn’t suck?” I had fun working in restaurants for a while, but over time it became clear that I was not making enough money. My rent was often late and I barely had money for groceries. I also found that restaurant work grew less interesting over time, so I lost motivation. Nothing against restaurant work, but it wasn’t for me. I had a sense that college could help me find a career I for which I was better suited.

In today’s competitive economy, a college degree will open doors and help you find meaningful work. While it’s true that many people work in different fields than the ones in which they majored in college, a college degree – even in an unrelated field – helps you get your foot in the door. It is “just a piece of paper” but it’s also a winnowing tool that employers believe (right or wrong) separates people with dedication and focus. There are many valid criticisms of college, especially the cost, but we aren’t here to complain about things, we’re here to figure out how to make lots of money. And the data couldn’t be more clear: college graduates earn more money than those without a degree. Don’t take my word for it, check out these resources for more information:

• The chart above is from the BLS “Education Pays” study which shows that people with a bachelor’s degree earned 68% more per week than those with a high school diploma.
• An article from Money magazine highlighted a report from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York that found that recent college graduates earned an average of $22,000 more per year compared with those with high school diplomas.
• A 2015 report from the Social Security Administration found that, “Men with bachelor’s degrees earn approximately $900,000 more in median lifetime earnings than high school graduates. Women with bachelor’s degrees earn $630,000 more.”

More education = more money. If you want to maximize your earning potential, you should definitely consider getting a college degree.

But don’t just think degrees – there are many ways to learn and become more valuable, depending on what field you’re in. Professional designations, online certifications (like those from Google and LinkedIn), or reading books in your spare time are additional ways to increase your knowledge in a given field; and with it, your earning power. It’s possible that what you are driven to do doesn’t require a degree. But it will require constant dedication to learning.

Be Open-Minded, Opportunities Are Everywhere

Eventually I quit restaurant work and moved back home to finish my bachelor’s degree. I loved my introductory finance class, and did well enough that the instructor pulled me aside to suggest I major in Finance. I landed an internship after graduating with an small investment advisor in Denver. The internship helped me land my next role which is where I gained most of my experience, started making real money, and brought me to Texas.

I graduated college in 2007, right before a brutal recession in 2008. The housing market collapsed, banks failed, the economy was gridlocked, and financial markets tanked. There were no jobs in finance, which was unfortunately the field in which I had experience. I was fortunate to have the family business to fall back on, so I helped manage rental properties for a year. I also started a relationship with a young woman who would end up helping me land my next job. She passed my resume to a financial advisor who regularly visited her workplace to drum up business. We traded emails and he invited me to come to their office.

I was incredibly nervous when it came time to meet with David (the advisor). He was a successful business owner who people trusted to manage their life savings. I was a recent college grad living in my parents basement and fixing houses for a living.

I didn’t have any right to be there!

I was wasting everybody’s time, what was I thinking? All these thoughts went through my head, but regardless I drove across town and TOOK THE MEETING ANYWAY. I didn’t want to work on houses for a career. I didn’t want to work in restaurants. I was interested in finance and wanted to learn more. I figured there were only two outcomes; I get a job offer or I learn why my skills aren’t a fit.

I was nervous as hell but I shook David’s hand and looked him in the eye when he came in. The first thing he said to me was, “you look really nervous right now – calm down, this isn’t a job interview, I don’t have a job for you”.

In retrospect, this is hilarious; at the time, it just made me more nervous. I thought I’d blown it before it even started.

But I got through it. We talked about how I enjoyed finance classes in school and the internship I’d done after. I wouldn’t have gotten the meeting without my degree, but the act of SHOWING UP and talking to David despite my anxiety led to me meeting Tim, his partner who managed the client investments. It turns out there WAS a job that needed done, but it was Tim, not David, who needed help. They hadn’t formally created a job listing, but since I happened to be there anyway, they took a chance on me. The first shaky “interview” led to an unpaid internship which eventually turned into a full time position. At 29 years old, I was a research analyst earning a modest salary and could actually support myself financially. I was on my way.

Finding my way in a roundabout fashion to a career taught me a vital lesson: be open to the unconventional. I would’ve never imagined that handing my resume to a friend would’ve been a key moment in finding my career.

Some people fall into perfect situations effortlessly, but for most of us it takes 100 “NO”s to lead to one “YES”.  Talk to people in your life about your interests, what you’re studying, and your career goals.  Research companies and make connections with people in your field. Take the meeting or the phone call, even if it’s inconvenient or feels like a waste of time. Put yourself in uncomfortable situations.

Believe in yourself and know that even if the person you talk to today isn’t the right one, the opportunity to refine the way you speak about your strengths, goals, and experience is time well spent. Practice makes it more likely that when you DO meet the right person, you will knock it out of the park. 

Choose Your Ride, Get in and Go

The field of work you put your energy into is the vehicle for your journey of empowerment. It gets you from point A to point B (financial freedom). You may start out in a go-kart or even a bicycle, but keep learning new skills and building experience, and in time you could find yourself in a Mercedes. As you devote yourself to a given field of work, you find that, over time, you know more about that particular field than most people you happen to meet; eventually you become the expert. Experts are valuable; their services command a premium in the marketplace.

Do all this and you put yourself in an excellent position to add value to the world and help solve meaningful problems. Solving problems helps you make money and your experience empowers you to address more, and larger, problems down the road. If you do it right, the stakes keep getting higher.

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