The CEO Corner

Summary
We are told to find a niche or create our own category in order to be successful entrepreneurs, but what if you are more of a jack-of-all-trades? Does that mean you won't find success or can't create a memorable personal brand?
While this strategy to niche down works for many, I believe that this year will be the year for the Swiss Army Knife. As we see massive layoffs in tech, many predict that this fresh talent will fuel our next phase of innovation because they will be more inclined to join a startup or start their own companies, not unlike what happened after the economic recession of 2008. And in order to be a successful entrepreneur, you must know how to do a lot of different things.
Topics

3:45 - The Four Stages of Competency and what it means for managers and employee retention.

8:41 - The stressful familiarity of choosing a major in college when trying to define your professional niche.

11:26 - It's the year for Swiss Army Knives and maybe we don’t need a niche. Looking at the tech layoffs as merely a recalibration of the industry, planning ahead for investments in different areas like AI and product-led growth strategy.

13:23 – If you were a part of the tech layoffs, you can view it as a shift in your path to something better by surrendering to the experience and finding the new door you’re supposed to open. Questions to ask yourself to guide you to a better mindset.

15:39 - History repeats itself. The 2008 recession started out the same way with massive layoffs, but we saw new companies like Airbnb, Uber, Square, and Slack rise from the ashes. Motivation comes from necessity and in this case, the necessity is to make money to survive.

19:49 - People who are leaving corporations to start their own companies will benefit from being a Swiss Army Knife because knowing how to do a lot of different business functions will allow you to move quickly and most efficiently without a lot of financial resources.

22:14 - If you are a Swiss Army Knife type, what do you do now? We’ve just established that you’re valuable too, and now you need to market yourself that way. Talk about the intersection of what you’re good at, what you like doing, and what people will pay you for.

24:46 - Be authentic and show vulnerability. Vulnerability and authenticity go hand in hand because you can’t be authentic without vulnerability. Get used to sharing your ideas in public through social media, blogs, podcasts or whatever creative outlet you like. And the more you do that, the better you will know how to deal with the fear of judgment and imposter syndrome.

We live in constant chaos. Our jobs are demanding, our personal lives are demanding, and we are responsible for so many things and other people that we can’t keep up. Burnout has become more prevalent, social anxiety more rampant, and depression at an all-time high.

Could all of these things be solved by learning how to say no, more?

We naturally want to please everyone. So we say yes - I’ll go to the gym. Or, yes - I’ll go out to dinner with you on my only night off this week. Or, yes - I’ll come with you on that trip.

While all these things in the abstract sound fun, we make decisions in a moment of excitement and wonder. We make decisions about something that will happen in the future. But when the future becomes the present, we often want to retract.

Turns out, we are too busy and can’t keep our promises because we need time to recharge. When my friends ask me, what are your plans? Sometimes, staying in to get that much-needed rest from social interactions IS my plan, but to others, it can mean, “oh, so you’re not doing anything?” Followed by an invitation to meet up.

But when you are accountable to too many people and commit to doing too many things, you start to bail more often. You made a promise that you can’t keep and now you’re starting to get an unreliable reputation. The feeling of guilt sets in, you might start disappointing not just yourself but also your friends, and over time, the guilt can turn into depression and you just want out – of everything.

But setting boundaries and communicating those boundaries, as well as saying no when you don’t actually know if you can commit to yes, is your way out. It’s your opportunity to live a more happy and more balanced life. Others will respect you more, not less, and your relationships will be healthier.

Experiencing major life transitions can be difficult to navigate when you’re unprepared or caught by surprise. Learning how to see and interpret the signs of the universe has made my life far more exciting and in this episode, I share with you some examples of those major changes and how I navigated them.

A relationship with a narcissist, a change in the direction of my art business, and almost three years spent at a company that didn't appreciate me and which was a terrible fit culturally are some of the major events that have changed who I am as a person. Those things have also taught me strength and how to respond to difficult tests. Spoiler alert, I didn't always respond well. Who knew a can opener could bring a person to tears?

Within the last year, I’ve felt the universe shifting around me at 3 different times. There's also something about the number three that told me something was coming. I just didn’t know what. For a while, it was exciting because my intuition told me that something good was coming to either my business or my career. A good thing did happen, and it was the June bug that crashed into my forehead that gave me this awareness before the good news at work. And then I misinterpreted another feeling, thinking that I was about to make a move across the country to pursue my art. But as I discovered more and more universe signs, the direction of what was about to happen took an unexpected turn.

My life used to be pretty boring. But the more I pay attention to the signs of the universe and the more that I trust my intuition to follow those signs, the more exciting my life is. I have more gratitude and more appreciation for things and people that are weird and unique because these are the things that fuel my curiosity for learning and growing. This is a trailer for the full podcast episode which is much longer and tells the story of how I used my intuition to guide me toward my next career move.