This week marks 6 years since my last official day in corporate. I remember the day well – I turned in my badge, walked to the water, looked out over the Hudson river and took a deep breath. It’s been a wild, fun and challenging ride – and I must say I’m a much better person for it.

That said, I feel it’s a good time to revisit why I left corporate, considering the amount of people looking to make the jump today, and also the many who made the jump and are thinking about going back. But it’s also a good time to chat about what I’ve learned since, and why I could consider going back to the cubicle, office and hallway world of bad free coffee and awkward “waiting for elevator” smirk/smiles.

Why I Left Corporate 

I always say I hated corporate – which isn’t exactly accurate. At the time, I couldn’t put my finger on exactly what I disliked about it, but ultimately I had no drive or desire to do more than what was required.

I did good work – but stopped when the work was done. In an Office Space kind of way, I didn’t think I had any incentive to go beyond the minimum expected. Leadership respected me and saw more in me than I did myself, but the idea of creating work and driving something bigger than myself forward just never occurred to me.

It sounds ridiculous, but I didn’t know *how* to work in a corporate setting. Yes, I was professional, my work was pristine, and I did what was expected of me. But when we talk about purpose, passion, etc. – it wasn’t there, and that’s what brings me to what I’ve learned.

What I’ve Learned

First and foremost – I learned that my issues with corporate were my own doing. I had more control over my work product and satisfaction than I allowed myself. It was easier to point fingers at culture or bosses or lack of feedback for reasons as to why I wasn’t getting to where I wanted to go. All of those are red herrings – we ultimately control our own development and next steps.

Many entrepreneurs will tell you that the passion, drive and more that they were looking for doesn’t necessarily come from the product that they deliver – it comes from the creation of something and the risk and reward that comes from it. This entrepreneurial mindset and psychology will do wonders in a corporate environment – we ultimately want to create something that we can own and be proud of. That can be done inside a company or outside – where it is will be up to you.

Why I Could Go Back

I have a different perspective today, and recognizing that there is an entrepreneurial aspect to navigating a corporation is a bit of a game changer for my clients. From accountability to efficacy – there is a merging of personal capability with business goals and culture that needs to happen. And we, as individuals, have more control over that than many of us give ourselves credit for.

Especially today, with the discussion on culture, hybrid work and going back into the office – it’s the people who understand this bigger picture who are making significant strides in embracing it and making it their own. Yes, flexibility has its place, but ultimately there is a larger picture than ourselves, and one we need to explore and make an impact on.

More on the podcast – but those are my thoughts today. Hope it’s helpful – and I’m always here to chat!

 

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Click Here for an Unedited Transcript of the Podcast

 welcome to bellwether episode 102. And I’m gonna talk about something very topical today. I’m gonna talk to you all about why I left corporate, uh, it’s top of mind for many, many people right now, whether it’s their thinking about the great resignation or I’m. So I hate my job more than anything. And the world is, you know, continually changing. We talk about that all the time work is making me come back to the office and I hate it. Do I actually leave now, do I take this time? Uh, a lot of people have moved, uh, out of corporate and are now looking to get back. They weren’t quite ready for the movie, even though they thought they were, and this week is a milestone for me because I’m recording this on a Wednesday. But this Friday of this week is my anniversary. Seven sixth year anniversary of the day I left corporate officially May 20th, 2016 was my last day within a corporate building with a badge with one of those little badge things.Um, so what I wanna talk about today, why I left, I’ve learned so much since you know, why as to why I left. I’ve learned so much about it just in my industry, what I do as a coach, working with people. And so I understand more of why I actually left corporate and what was going through my mind, even though I couldn’t articulate it at that time. I’ll talk to you a little bit about what I’ve learned since, and then I’ll, you know, I’ll tease it a little bit. Would I actually go back? Maybe I will, maybe I won’t cliff hanger to, to get you to stick around till the end, or you can just pass forward. It doesn’t matter. Um, <laugh> whatever works, but that’s what I wanna talk about today because I know it’s top of mind, I’m gonna keep this probably under 15 minutes.We’re all busy. We don’t have time for this. So I’m gonna tell you why I left corporate what I was thinking, what I’ve learned and, and why I would, or wouldn’t go back. So why I left? I tell people quickly why, when they ask me why I left corporate, I automatically, my response is I hated corporate and that’s not fully true. Um, I hated my position within corporate and it’s mostly because I didn’t feel like I fit in, in corporate. And you know, this’ bleed into a little bit of what I’ve learned is what I realize now is that I didn’t fully know how to operate in the corporate environment. Now I was very good in the corporate environment. So Ty put me in front of any group. It wasn’t, it wasn’t about the manners or anything. It was about dictating what it was that I wanted to do, finding that desire to do work and all of that type of work.So I love the people. I love the people I worked with. Um, but I can never put my finger on what exactly it was. I disliked at the time becoming a coach, taught me more, uh, which I’ll talk about, but, um, I had no drive. I had no desire to do more than the bare minimum. Um, you know, I could do my work very, very well. I could do it in a very short amount of time and that was good enough. And I had no inkling or inclination or, or desire to really create work, do more and whatever it was more you tell me what to do, I’ll do it fine. Just leave me alone. And that’s it. And I, I think if I were still in corporate during the pandemic with people trying to call me back, I’d probably fight going back to the office because I could probably mail it in.I was mailing it in back then. I was making, you know, six figures, good money. Um, and I was good enough to do that. And I probably would’ve, well, I not probably, I definitely would’ve made a lot more money if I put in the effort and everything else, I fully understood more if I had some kind of mentor or anything, you know, I could blame others, but I also just didn’t really wanna pay attention at that point. So going back would be, would be very different. What I also, um, learned is that I’m very hostile to authority. Um, and I learned that in, in becoming a coach and, and, you know, we give assessments to people and if you’re gonna give assessments, you have to take them yourselves. And the person who gave you my assessments, like you really hate authority. And that was kind of, uh, a good learning, uh, thing for me.So, so everything I didn’t like about corporate, what I’ve learned actually came from me yet. I was always look looking externally at who I can blame whether it was my boss or somebody else or, or whatever. I always had a really good view from leadership leadership respected me, peers respected me. They knew my value. Um, they saw it more than I did. I remember the president in one business coming to me and said, you have to tell me what you want to do. If you wanna run any business within this company, I will get you to run that business. And I just looked at him and said, okay, whatever. And, and it wasn’t, you know, it sounds so ridiculous, but I didn’t know how to articulate what it was I wanted to do where I wanted to fit in. And I didn’t really understand the value of good partnerships within the office.It was more about, you know, whatever. Um, none of the work was particularly challenging, which is nice. Uh, but I think that’s probably part of my problem and why, you know, I didn’t look for anything that was necessarily difficult and I didn’t really take any risk and I didn’t do any of that stuff. So that’s, you know, when I think about why I left, it’s really comes down to didn’t care, uh, which is my own fault. Uh, didn’t want to do more than the bare minimum, which is my own fault, but I also, you know, it’s my own fault because I didn’t understand. And I didn’t look to understand on what working in corporate actually entails and working in corporate and creating work and doing all of these things. We’re never taught that we just, you show up to the office, the boss tells you what to do and that’s it.And when you learn as you evolve and what the good, what the go getters learn and what the really good people in corporate learn is that they’re not just there to do work. You’re there to create work and create value for the organization. And that’s ultimately what they’re paying for. And as a business owner now completely changed my mentality. You know, before I went in and said, look, you gimme money. I’ll give you work. But if you flip it just a little bit and give it a little nuance, I’ll give you money. If you give me value, okay. And I’ll give you more money. If you give me more value and everything else. And that’s, that’s great. And, and so a lot of phone calls and now coming in from, from media and I’m, I’m doing these interviews on, you know, how do I quit my job and follow my path and my passion and my yada yada nonsense.Um, ultimately it comes down to, you know, your job could be your passion. If you just figured out how to do your work. I mean, that’s, that’s ultimately, you know, it sounds a little harsh. It’s a little too kind of pro corporate because I’m not pro corporate in that kind of way. So there’s this balance between what an individual understands on what they can bring and what they can do and how they can push the, the envelope in their way. Right? I mean, when we create something, we feel ownership and that’s, we have that responsibility to ourselves, not necessarily to the company, but to ourselves. That’s where our, our real value comes in. And now, by the way, this is how I’m getting into what I’ve learned. Corporate obviously wants you to do that because it’s good for their bottom line. And what’s fair and what’s not in terms of payment and everything else is, is to be hashed out.But you know what I see with now with people wanting to go back to the office, not wanting to go back to the office. Um, what I see is the people who are go-geters who understand what it means to work in corporate, the, the value of good relationships in person, the value of not just my work, but pushing the business forward. Those are the people that are excited to go back to the office because they recognize the value of being in the office. And there’s this entrepreneurial mindset that I’m trying to push. We’re not trying to push, but I’m, I’m talking to clients about pushing, because I think this is the future of, of, of work. Um, <affirmative> um, is if you put an entrepreneur in an office with a bunch of other people, that entrepreneur is going to be networking the hell outta that office, that entrepreneur is going to be creating work, coming up with ideas.They’re gonna be very energetic while they’re in front of people. They’re going to make that people time valuable. Whereas back my old corporate time, I would’ve gone in, plugged in the headphones, complained about having to get on a zoom call while I was at the office. And then I would’ve taken off as soon as possible. So when we think about going back to the office, there has to be value for you and going back into corporate and everything else. I never had that bigger view of me pushing the whole business forward until now. Um, or until, you know, the past couple years, this philosophical view of something bigger than myself, my team, right? We it’s, it was always about me and what I did and my little work and, you know, I can get my work done just fine and work it from home, whatever it is.Um, I hear that a lot and that’s great. Maybe you can, but just because you are getting your little bit of work done, there is a bigger picture. We need perspective. Are you pushing a business forward? And, and I was talking to one, uh, colleague of mine, who’s so happy to be back then office. He said, yeah, just ran into this other guy in the office. If I didn’t even run into him, we wouldn’t have come up with it. They created some new insurance product and they were doing all this stuff. And now it’s, you know, it’s blasting forward. He would not have gone down that path if he hadn’t seen that person in, in, in the office. So I understand why corporate wants people back in the office, at least some of the time it’s pushing the business forward, not necessarily just getting work done.And, and when we think about remote work, we think about leaving corporate, the desire of, you know, the frustration of the individual versus the business, kind of this meta philosophical, you know, I will give you what I want to give you and pay me money. And, you know, you can go into the whole labor discussion and, and theory and everything else. Some companies are set up really, really well for remote work most aren’t, but some really are, and that’s fine. Good for you. That’s great. They can make it work. There there’s a cultural aspect to it. There are communicating expectations of it. There are, you know, there are ways that it can work, but you as an individual have to fit into that, you have to create the work and do the work that’s going to align with that kind of work, virtual workforce and, and, and everything else.Um, otherwise there’s a social wellness aspect, right? I hate the term family, right? Companies of family, we’re family, yada yada, yada, uh, it’s a bunch of BS, but there is a, a social aspect to being in the office that should not be overlooked. There’s validity to that. Now, again, you have to understand how to use the network, how to use the social and all that, but that entrepreneurial mindset, that time of creating value, not just for the business, but for you. This is ultimately for you. When we think about creating value, it’s good for the business. That’s nice. And the people excited about going back into the office are positioning themselves to grow in that company and do more. Okay. But creating work, taking effort, ownership of risk, taking a risk and having it work out. This is when we talk about passion, when we talk about what I want, and I want this, you know, thing, and I want, you know, I want to know where I fit and I want this passion.I want this drive. I want, you know, whatever I’m looking for, something, I don’t find it here. It’s ultimately up to you to do that. And it’s not outside of the company because what’s gonna happen. You’re gonna leave that company. You’re gonna go, I’m gonna go leave corporate and go work for like a non-profit. And you’re gonna do the same amount of work for less money. And that’s great. Good for you. But you’re still gonna be frustrated because you’re not tapping into the risk effort, risk reward type of thing, in terms of creating something, right. Passion is about, you know, creating something. I wanna follow my passion, passion to be a musician, go ahead and be a musician, have your job fulfill whatever it is that you wanna do, it’s gonna pay for that. Okay. So you can do both. Uh, but ultimately when we talk about this passion, nonsense and everything else, it’s, I mean, it’s not nonsense.It’s about, what’s gonna get you outta bed in the morning. You’re creating something. And I, I miss that. And that’s what I’ve learned. I’ve learned that being an entrepreneur, being outside of corporate is, you know, if I were to go back to corporate today, I’d be creating the hell outta work, right? Not just doing a job, we’re creating work. We want something that we could be proud of. When we think about mentors that we had and the leadership of previous companies, those people created something. And the question I would leave you with today is, is what are you creating? And I’ve asked that a few times is, you know, the creation of work is, is ultimately what passion comes from and, and quitting corporate is we’re not creating something in corporate. Now we could blame others. We could blame my boss. Doesn’t give the visibility.I don’t get the feedback I need. I don’t get, you know, yada, yada, yada, whatever excuse you have, then get feedback another way, help your boss, give you the feedback that you want, articulate, where you want to go. I want, uh, a promotion in two years. Am I on that path? What do I need to change today? What do I need to change in, in two quarters, open up that conversation. Yes, your boss has an obligation to do more for you and to get you to where you want to go. But they’re also busy and they’re thinking about themselves, all right, you can’t blame your boss or your office or your culture for ultimately what you are responsible for, which is your development, your career, your growth, and everything else. It’s a tug, a pull, a push pull tug of war between the two that you have to be very involved in.Okay. So that’s what I did not know. And what I do know now about being in corporate about taking ownership, accountability, understanding, um, what it was I needed to do to, to get that passion, drive desire, to get the promotions, to get the recognition, to get all of those things that I claimed I wanted, but I didn’t want to do the work to get it. And work is, work. Work is hard. All right. To get those types of things. Now, the question, what would I go back to corporate? Corporate’s easy. Um, and so I always do this whole debate. Do I go back to corporate? Do I not go back to corporate? Do I go back to corporate? Do I not go back to corporate corporate? I can mail it in and it’s easy money. Um, but not anymore because now I have to create work.Am, am I actually going to get that value out of it? Corporate is easy, but it’s also frustrating, right? I’m hostile to authority. Apparently, according to my personality assessment, uh, am I going to fit in well with a boss and that’s gonna be difficult? Um, but there is a, a creativity, if I, I would consider going back knowing now what I know, but I, I would dictate what it was that I wanted to create. And it’s this understanding of, you know, how do you teach your teams to become philosophical? How do you teach them to think about the bigger picture of creating work of some kind of, you know, whatever it is that, that, you know, they, they can bring you’re hired for a reason at your company. And you hired these people on your team for a reason. And we say, we want to give them the, um, autonomy and the freedom to make these decisions and do that.This is, you know, it’s part, culture, it’s part boss, but it’s very much the individual. And are they able to, to do that? And are you giving them the, the capability to do that in your organization? So, yeah, I’d consider going back to corporate, if it were the right fit. Um, knowing now what I know, I really like the flexibility of having my own business. So I probably wouldn’t do it, but I’d consider it. I’d be open to it if the right thing came up, um, you never know, man, look, the world is, the world is evolving. But understanding if you’re thinking about leaving corporate, recognize that, you know, if you’re thinking about going the entrepreneurial route, it’s a lot of work that you have to create. You’re selling your business, you’re creating the business, you’re doing product for the business, whatever it is, whether it’s a service business or an actual product, you’re networking the hell out of everybody.You have to raise visibility, nobody’s paying attention, all of this stuff, you have to do it all. Okay. Very difficult. It’s fun. It’s rewarding, but it’s rewarding because you’re creating something. That’s why entrepreneurs love what they do. What are you creating in corporate? Right? It’s almost, you know, when we think about, I could be an entrepreneur today and I could run my business and put up my shingle and do all that stuff, which I do, or I could take it and be an entrepreneur within the confines of an organization, right. Where I get the computer system and the structure and everything else where it’s slightly different, but it’s within the context of something else. It’s the same mindset that we have to do. When I think about financial advisors, the way financial advisors work, they usually work for like a big company and I’ll use that example.Cause I used to work at finance, but financial advisors jump around and they pay whatever you pay a financial advisor, a portion that goes back to their company, right? So they pay like 40% of whatever they make to Morgan Stanley, UBS, JP Morgan, whatever it is, um, because advertising and everything else. And, and you’re part of that structure, right? So you’re giving up a percentage to go to that. Sometimes they go out independently and they take on all of those expenses and it’s slightly different. It’s a very different kind of model. It’s the same with you. You’re giving up, I don’t know, 40% of your freedom, X percent of your freedom to work within those confines, but you get additional structure, right? You get the, um, the days off that maybe you need, because you can’t really take a day off as an entrepreneur, cause people are gonna forget you.And, um, you know, do you get the leverage of a team and can you build something bigger? And it’s just a very different environment that you can, that you can work in. And what I encourage everyone to do is start thinking in that entrepreneur mindset of you are ultimately responsible and accountable for all of the work that you can create. And that’s why I, I quit corporate because I didn’t understand that. And now I do. And, uh, I hope that’s helpful for you as you’re thinking about what you are going to do over the next few years, with all the change in the world and everything that’sHappening. And, um, it’s certainly an exciting time. It’s crazy time. Um, but we have to recognize where our, our place is within, within the bigger confines of, of an organization or, you know, whatever it is. So, um, with that, that’s why I left corporate. That’s what I think about now. I hope that was helpful. I hope you have a fantastic week. Um, yeah, I’ll talk to you later. Have fun. Enjoy bye.