Post Corporate Life with Brett Trainor & John Arms

I recently had the chance to join John Arms on his podcast: Fractional Unfiltered Link: https://open.spotify.com/episode/0z9pQOOMZEVI4T2NvoOiqP?si=uJoycF4LRGyZQNB4MofrtQ

John was kind enough to allow me to share this with my audience.

Corporate has done a number on people. A bad one. For 30 minutes we bitch about what is and was, and then we spend 30 minutes on how to thrive in the post corporate world.

This episode also includes real-time audience coaching around “job hugging,” starting from zero, and how to simplify your entry point so you can land your first client.

What you’ll hear in this episode

1. Why corporate feels colder now (profits over people, layoffs as strategy)
2. The “solo employee” mindset: treat your employer like your first customer
3. Why job searches after 45 can feel like PTSD — and how to reframe it
4. How Brett monetized his corporate experience in 10 different ways
5. Why chasing “big deals” first can slow you down (and what to do instead)
6. The good / better / best ladder to get in the door with business owners
7. Why community and relationships beat lone-wolf execution
8. The difference between being capable and being confident (and how corporate crushes confidence)
9. The simplest success ingredients: take action, build relationships, stay curious
10. Live coaching: why “starting from zero” is hard — and how to find your “entry problem” so you can get traction

Key frameworks + concepts mentioned

1. Corporate is a transaction (not a family): loyalty is gone, act accordingly
2. Start before you hit the breaking point: build an exit strategy while you still have income
3. Small wins stack: don’t wait for the home run
4. The 3 revenue levers every business cares about:
5. Problem-solving > selling: discovery conversations look a lot like job interviews
6. “Done is better than perfect”: unlearn corporate perfectionism
7. Community as leverage: don’t do this alone
8. Job hugging: holding on until you’re forced out — and why you still need a plan

Memorable lines / moments

1. “Layoffs are a business strategy now.”
2. “You are your own company — even if you’re still employed.”
3. “It’s not a tightrope between skyscrapers. If you misstep, you’re six inches off the ground.”

Call to action

If corporate feels unstable — don’t wait for it to get personal. Start building momentum now:

1. Have one conversation this week
2. Identify one “must-solve” problem you can help with
3. Get your first small win and stack it into the next one

And so, because you know what happens, you get all this brilliance and then afterwards you forget it. And then you go, what was that thing that was said that other day in that one thing? And we want to make sure you have access to it as well. So good news there. Let's begin. So welcome everybody to the show. Welcome to the show. Welcome to the big game. With me today, this is called Ask Me Anything for anybody who's wondering why you're here and what we're doing.

My job, my hope is to illuminate in the AMA, as they ask me any things, is to illuminate as much as I can about the post-corporate life for people interested in it, facing it, experiencing it, living it. And that has been my journey for several years. And along that journey, I met this gentleman named Brett Traynor, also known as the corporate escapee. And Brett also has a similar goal, which is to help people understand

the corporate world and the post-corporate life. And so today we decided, we were talking the last couple weeks, we said, let's get on a thing and just really have at it. Let's get after it. Let's share what we know and it illuminate this path for folks. So we have conversations about consulting, we have conversations about fractional, of course. And then of course we're gonna spend a good amount of time bitching about corporate life. Cause you know, every story has to have a villain and that's an easy one. So we're gonna talk about that. So welcome Brett, welcome everybody.

Good to be back and I don't know if folks know that you are the godfather of Fractional. I know you like to go by Mayor, but I still think of you as the godfather.

I answer to them both. When someone says the Godfather, they say the Mayor. I definitely answer to them both, for sure. I like, the Mayor is nice, right? That's nice. The Godfather's kind of cool, because it's got a little bit of a, you know, some little taste of organized crime, which makes it interesting. So, you know, I'll take both. I'll take both. So, we'll take...

It means you're connected, you know guys, you know.

I'm connected, exactly. I know a guy. I walk into a building and say, be a shame if this building caught on fire. Be a shame. what we're going to talk about today is, as you saw in the invite and in the information, we're going to talk about post-corporate life. We're going to talk about corporate life. We're going to talk about life after 45. We want to cover all these really important territories that

I think it's fair to say, Brett, that you OCD over and I OCD over, and it's important that we do. It's important that we illuminate something other than the status quo nine to five path. And that's what we're gonna talk about today. But before we do that, Mr. Trainer, for those who don't know you, haven't seen you, heaven forbid, haven't jumped into your podcast, share a little bit about what you're up to, how you're trying to change the world, and what you're doing.

Yeah, and I know some of our community members here will roll their eyes because they've heard this a few times, but okay.

Not repetition, it's reminding. It's not repetition. Yeah, right, exactly.

Exactly. And I've actually gotten pretty good at getting this in pretty quick. so way of background for the folks that haven't met me before, we haven't been on 25 plus years in corporate. I made the decision at the end of those 25 years to go into management consulting. So if anybody's thinking about that path, talk to me before you pull the trigger. I can tell you there's some good that came out of it, but it wasn't the right

Turn around and run, turn around and run, is that what you're saying?

You'd appreciate this, John, because when I went there, it was really my first fractional deal, and I convinced them to bring me on full time. So I brought myself down with that path. It did teach me market. It taught me a bunch of things. So when I left there, I did solo consulting.

and you lost it.

And then after about a year realized it just wasn't for me I didn't like virtual stakeholders and project plans and just gave me a headache and so I'm like, know what this fractional leadership sounds like a Good path for me as well. So I did that for a while But we're really what really unlocked it for me is the two years after I think by last count I've figured out how to monetize my corporate experience ten different ways and

You've got 10 revenue streams now.

Well, I had not all were. Yeah. But yeah. And so it was just one of those paths that it was like an aha moment, right? That there's no one path for folks to get out. But I think there's so many people, you know, when I get I tell people that, you know, corporate quit on me. I mean, I kind of pushed the envelope a lot and didn't leave them much choice to kick me out. But it was it was the spark I needed to take action. And what

And I'm going to come back to that in a second, because I do want to how I got to the escapee piece of that. So once I figured out how to monetize corporate experience, I'm like, man, there's got to be other people. And when I started the corporate escapee, it was all Gen X. I'm like, there's got to be others that put 20 plus years into corporate, 30 years in some cases are done with it, but don't see a path forward. So that was, that was my mission for literally six months. I changed the name of my podcast to that. was posting all the time on LinkedIn and guess what? It was crickets.

Friends and family and maybe Don were kind enough to follow along and push because Don had already been out. And I was literally about to go back to just doing my solo thing. But I made the decision of all places to just kind of goof around on TikTok. And it wasn't like this Hail Mary to see what was out there. I'm like, new platform. seemed, you know, I've got short attention span. Yeah. And again, I just started doing some of my corporate rants on there.

And talking about right place, right time and right audience, it's how I connected, would say, I think I've got what 75,000 followers on there. And these are all corporate folks. I couldn't get in front of these people on LinkedIn, but hello TikTok. And it just kind of opened the door. So it started a path to, all right, so I know people care, right? I know I wasn't the only one that was burned out looking for a different path. And so that's really what started.

My mission, we've upped it to a million people. How do we get a million people that want out to get out and more importantly, stay?

This year data wise there's going to be 5 million people that are going to be shoved out of corporate. So I think you're aiming low, but you know got to start somewhere.

We'll get one, well, but I think if you look at the numbers from last year, was five million, know, the press reports the 1.1 million or whatever it was. But if you look at all of the other unreported layoffs, it's closer to five million. So we're probably looking at maybe double that.

That's the entire state of Minnesota, if you want some sort of comparative. That's our population, about five and a half million people. Not small potatoes, not insignificant. Now, I'm Mr. Positive, so I'm going to say, you know, it's an opportunity, right? That's a tremendous amount of wisdom and skill and judgment that just didn't have a place to go in corporate, but it has the place to go here.

Well, you know how to y'all, know, find Brett in all the digital places and catch his podcast. I love seeing everybody here. You're all here to learn. You're hopefully here to network a little bit, connect with each other. With that, please put your, know, if you want to drop your email in the chat, like one of the key things I'll talk about later is, you know, you don't do this alone. You need others. So we'll talk about that. But first, but first, as I said at the top, I like to bitch and I like to complain.

It feeds a little bit. I get a little dopamine hit from it. So Brett, I have a very simple question for you. Are ready for this one? What is broken in corporate America?

much time do we have for this now?

This is a half hour. I'll give you five minutes on this one.

Yeah, to me the biggest change, and again, folks that are still in there have been there for more than 20 years, will say, well, it's always kind of been broken. It's been more the corporation first, people second. But back in the day, corporations at least pretended to care about people. Let me put it this way, even pre-COVID, if there was a layoff, that was still a big deal, right? Because you're destroying trust within the organization.

Now layoffs are a business strategy on a quarterly basis. Record profits, you know what, we can trim a few more to drive that profitability. I think that's the biggest one, and I talk profits over people all the time, but the apologists will say it's always been this way. Yes, but. think, because I've done some research on this too, then you look at the average tenure of the CEO is getting shorter.

So you don't have people looking at 20 year horizons for these companies. It's literally quarter to quarter. And what is the CEO's incentive tied to? Profitability, right? Earnings per share. So one of the most troubling stats, and there's many that I saw, was kind of looking at the layoffs and then at the number of companies that also, they spend a trillion dollars buying back stock. So just artificially inflating stock price. anything you need to know about where the numbers and what's driving them.

It's not you. I think what's the, the tail of that is performance just doesn't matter anymore, right? Back in the day, we could be a good and you'd be relatively safe, right? If you're a good performer, you'll survive the rounds of layoffs. You'll make it to the bottom of the spreadsheets. How it doesn't matter. You see people forcing people back to the office. It's like, Hey, whoever doesn't want to come, they're going to quit. We don't have to pay them severance. It doesn't matter if they were.

It's it's become very cold, very inhumane. I'm hearing a couple things in there. I'm hearing an increase in greed maybe is one thing or however you want to articulate it. I'm hearing a definite decrease in loyalty. Those are two things I'm hearing you say. When you coach them, when you talk to them, is this what people voice to you?

100%.

Yes, and but it's more of the they feel stuck right they know it's it's broken But don't know an alternative right because even when I was pushed out into the cold it made me figure I didn't realize that solo starting solo was actually an option right is I thought you had to start a company buy a franchise sure all good options, but but I think it's just that that stuck and

Two, think it's the thing that really surprised me is the lack of confidence, right? Not just to go solo, but the confidence of the organization just crushing people, they doubt their own ability. 25 years in success in corporate, but yet now folks are actually doubting if they're actually good employees anymore, which is, just, was mind blowing to me. And it's, that's the, that's the part that really.

think I'm with you on that. I think we use a term that I think is really good to be clear on it. When we say corporate, when we say those words, there's a lot of ways you can look at that. You could say fortune 500, but it's also mentality, isn't it? I think what you just described, it's probably more to do with the culture and the mentality than the individual company. Because there's probably large fortune tens that maybe don't behave like the rest of them. But by and large, our corporate culture in America has

changed quite a bit and not necessarily for the better, which again, Mr. Positive is going to say it's great opportunity if you can choose to see it that way and pursue it. I think the hard part, and I want to have you talk about this a little bit, is when you try to go back in. So what I see, and I'd love to hear your thoughts on this, is essentially when I study this and teach fractional, the effect on that, the net effect of if you're over 45, you're out, you're laid off, and then the path back in is very, very difficult.

It looks more like PTSD to me than it does career transition. And I'd love to hear your thoughts on that.

Yeah, 100 % right. And I think what's helped me kind of reshape that and have conversations with folks is if you're going back in, and this is a recent aha moment for me, if you actually defined or looked at, consider yourself a solo employee, even if you're in corporate right now, you are your own company. Your only client is your employer. And if you looked at them as your only customer,

are they a good customer, right? They're probably paying you pretty well if you're still there, you get the benefits, but in fact you gotta go to the office five days a week, these types of things. You may find the trade off in your hourly rate is really not as strong as you'd think it is. And what's happened is I've worked with some folks that ended up going back into corporate, but they're going back into corporate to build a runway in order to get out. So this time they're going in kind of eyes wide open with, I'm gonna,

I don't want say use the company, but it's gonna be a transaction, right? I'm getting something out it, I'm gonna give to them to get out of it. And I think that's the biggest change I've seen, because at least for me, and I think I hear this from a lot, is throughout my career, I was completely reactionary. I built my life around those corporate jobs, and so it really wasn't even me thinking that this is a transaction. Maybe the last consulting experience was closer to that, but I still was.

reactionary to everything going in. So I think just that little bit of a mindset shift can flip it. Because if you're just going back, I'm going to take whatever job I can get. I need to get the pay. I mean, you have to do what you have to do. I completely understand that. But flipping this and say, you don't owe this company anything. Right? They're hiring you. They're paying you to do something. And that's what this is. It's a transaction. I think flipping that helps. But again, we've been conditioned for 20 plus years.

contributed to a pretty large wealth inequality gap that we had. But I want to come back to this thing on the psychology of it. I teach mostly from the psychology side and the mindset side. I have had people crying, in shock, extremely sad, entering depression. And we can get them out of that, right? But I think when a company says we're going to lay off 20,000 people.

or something like that. When that happens, I think we look at people like commodities and we don't see the human in them. I really don't think we do, and I think that's a loss to society, and I'd love to hear your thoughts on that and the macro of that. Not just the micro on how to get them better, but I think there's a macro loss there.

Yeah, no, I 100 % agree with you. And I think part of what I had to learn when I started working with folks getting to make that transition is, you throughout my career, I must have been in right industries, wrong place, whatever, but yeah, there's, think, five or six layoffs. So I got kind of numb to it by the end of it, but you forget sometimes this is people's first time or just the second time that they've gone through this. especially if you've given a lot of time that...

You know, you're right, it's the human side of this thing that is lost and one the companies don't care about anymore. You may have a team or a boss that absolutely cares about you, but as an organization, those days are absolutely, absolutely gone.

When did that start? When did you see that happening in earnest,

I want to say post and again, dating myself after the financial crisis, seemed to start shifting a little bit. And what woke me up to it was when we hit the pandemic and everybody realized that they could work from home, right? Without consequences say, holy crap, this is kind of awesome, right? I'm making this 45 minute commute each way every day. And now I can do this from home. And I'm like, all of sudden you get to experience what life was again.

because every other job I had before that was work from home, or not for work from home, was in the office. And all of sudden you get that there is a balance to life. And I think that one pushed workers, us, to see, right, there is a better way to do this. And it pushed the office to say, yeah, we can't do this, but now we want to bring you back in. So I think it's, I would say in the last five years, it's really become, it woke everybody up.

And I think if at one note, we'd still be just sleepwalking through this process.

into these realities of give most of your life to the job and less, math is math, there's only 24 hours in a day. If you're give 12 hours to a job, it's coming from somewhere. It's coming from your relationships, it's coming from your health, it's coming from your free time, it's coming from some incredibly important places. And I think we sort of, like you said, I think we slow walked our way.

into a culture that said, only recognize you as an input. Therefore, I am going to extract as much as I can. So there was a time when the eight hour day was normal and a 40 hour week was normal. I don't know anybody, anybody who's done eight hours and 40 hours a week. Now maybe that's me, but do you? I mean, it's so rare.

Yeah, no, I mean, again, maybe Gen Z figured this out and realized that corporate was a transaction when they started. you know, what do mean you're not coming to an eight o'clock meeting? Well, I don't start till nine, right? When I first heard that, I'm like, the work is wrong. But once I actually process this, I'm like, you know what? They've got a point. What are they going to gain, right? By going in and prove, you know, this is how you get your future by putting in the extra hours. And but with the elimination of middle management now, we're seeing that.

cut out, where is the corporate ladder going? There isn't even one in corporate a lot of the times anymore. So even if you wanted to go down that progression, I don't even know what that looks like. Right. And it keeps getting jumbled the more the changes and layoffs that we have and restructuring.

dissonance, more friction. Essentially what it means is more change. mean things are just the underpinnings of normal, the rules of engagement, the norms, they just continue to change. And that happens, right? That's okay, that happens. I promised everybody we're going to turn the corner about halfway through into the positive side of things, but like I said, I like to bitch. I want to bitch about stuff a little bit. It feels a little good. I get a little dopamine hit, but there's a reason for that. There's a reason for that, and that is...

I think, all the change that you're expressing and seeing and sharing and all that we see, I think there's something greater at work. I think it's coming out sideways and a lack of a look at the inherent value in people, their skill, understanding them as people rather than just cogs. I think the reason there's so much drama in it is because it has to change. We could not keep going on that nine to eight schedule that we just couldn't keep going the way we were going otherwise.

people were gonna crash, already are. Burnout rate right now is 72 % in full-time America.

Yeah, I'm not surprised.

I mean, let's just pause on that for a minute. 72%. If you had a family with 10 people and seven out of 10 were just pissed and burned out and didn't want to contribute, like you wouldn't have a family. It was just a disaster. If you had a football team like that, well, I'm a Vikings fan. We did have a team like that. for a different comparative, right, that is just not sustainable.

and it keeps getting worse. And I think it's getting worse because it's forcing itself to change. It's literally, I think, outgrowing its skin. What are your thoughts on just the underpinnings? Like, is this all just a change that just has to happen anyway? Are we just fighting change? What's going on in your mind there?

It's gonna change and I'll give you a personal story that it hit for me was the burnout stage. So it was about two years after being solo and you know, my wife looked at me one day, I don't even remember what we were talking about. And she was, we were talking about when I still in consulting, she's like, what the hell is the matter with you? Right? mean, she was, what was wrong, right? Because on the surface it looked good, you know, in consulting, basically doing work I liked, you know, paid me well, the family's doing great.

But to your point, that 70%, that burnout, it was just an unhappiness that was, know, I think I got to the point of what am I doing this for and what is my, what's the exit strategy, right? Because I never really sat down and thought, what do I have to work in corporate if, you know, if projections are right and health keeps getting, we the healthcare system out for now, but assuming we get healthier and medicine gets better, keeps us, you know, there's a good chance that we're going to live to 90 healthy and active.

I ain't working in corporate till I'm 80, right? So, you know, part of that, everything just kind of hit for me at once. And that's what I'm kind of seeing with folks across the spectrum. Everybody's having that flash point at different moments, right? 30 somethings, 25 somethings, 40 somethings, 60 somethings are all hitting it. But what I'm still trying to figure out and solve for...

Is there a way that we can get people motivated to just take that first step before they hit that breaking point? And maybe at some point we'll get to the transition. the way I look at it, in my world, I've got 100,000 people following, which one is insane. But it tells me that there's an interest, they know corporate's broken, they're looking for a different path. But then we look at the number of people that take action, it's in the hundreds.

So 100,000 to 100, and again, I don't care how good my funnel is or conversion rate, that just tells me there's a lot of people that know it, that are just sitting out here waiting for either that breaking point or that moment where they're just not gonna take it anymore. So.

Do you think that might relate to the demands on people's time? Meaning, when you need to take action on it, you know you do, right? Like you can just look at the world today and say, there's a chance I'm gonna get cut out of this, or I'm gonna run into a wall, like this isn't gonna end as well as I thought it was gonna be. You might know that. But when you're so focused on the company's success, or surviving at the company, or just trying to paycheck to paycheck it, I wonder, like, well.

Where's the time and space to take action on it? And I will tell everybody, Brett and I make it pretty easy. Like we have an embarrassment of riches when it comes to resources to get out and stay out, but it's hard. We recognize it's hard because there's so much occupying people's time. And I wonder if you'd have some thoughts on that. I people are just too overburdened.

Overburdened or again, I think the bigger one is, what is that, that first step? Because I thought back into my time, I mean, I knew my time was coming to an end. was pushing back and refusing assignments. Right. I'm not going to San Francisco to manage a small project. Just know. Right. So at some point I knew, but did I do anything to prep? No, because I really didn't know what there was to, to prep for.

So I actually started a podcast. So I had the time. I just didn't know how to fill the time. the only reason I say the podcast is because it did have time, even though I felt like I was busy. And I think that's more and more that if people can just get a taste or a sense that there is a, maybe demystifies the right word that, you know, I used to say the, think people see corporate and then solo, whether it's fractional consulting, whatever.

you're standing on the top of two skyscrapers, right? And the tight rope is going there. And if you make one misstep, right? It's all, if you make a misstep, you're literally six inches off the ground. Right? If solo is not for you, you give it a month or two months, have some kind if it's not for you, you can always go back and fight. So.

If you can't, though, that's the scary part, Brett. We used to say you can always go back in, but if you're to go back in, it's going to be at two-thirds of what you were getting paid. You're going to get ghosted on the way there, and if you're over 45, it might be a year before you're back in. So even that idea that you can always go back in, there's a lot of friction on that right now, don't you think?

Yeah, for sure, unless you work with my buddy out there, Don who's made it his life passion to help. know, but anyway, but I appreciate what Don does, because there are some folks that it's just a hundred percent, I want to see them corporate. But I think that's right, that there's, you really don't have a choice and it's not the risk of your path to go solo, it's just, I don't want to say it's a mindset, because that'd be too easy.

get to their

I think it's a skill set. So the more I talk to folks is, we talked about, you your employer is your first customer. The way I think about, you know, I don't know how to sell. Well, you don't, it's really about problem solving. And, you know, Don, we had a conversation the other day, it's about problem solving and outcomes. That's all you're doing with small business owners. They need problems solved. You can help them get to an outcome. And guess what? There's a fee for this. It's the same thing as when you're negotiating, interviewing for a job, right? Jacked a job title instead of problem.

You're talking to your future boss. You want to understand what is the current environment in this company? What am I stepping into in this role? What are the biggest challenges? I may have to face so when you're interviewing for that you're asking for the challenge when you're talking to a business owner It's the same type of questions you understand the challenge and you're thinking to yourself either I can address these and help them or I can't and where

That's people have. That's what we teach at Voyager and certainly there's ways to do that. And I'm gonna get there, I promise, I promise. 30 minutes of bitching, 30 minutes of solutions. So the last little thing on the sort of the erosion, I hope everybody's finding comfort that it's not you, that there's bigger forces at work. There's things that you have zero control over that are influencing your life. But one more thing.

I don't know how to bottle this yet, John. I do.

Let's talk about this a little bit. I'm not going to quote you on this, but I would love to hear your thoughts. Is it ever going back in any way to the way it was? Why or why not?

Absolutely not, because I think one, the corporate model is broken, right? It's evolved and we are going to get to a point with AI and some automation and these types of things. But anybody that's been in corporate for a while, especially with legacy companies that have been around for a while, they can't even align sales and marketing, let alone figure out how to automate across multi-billion dollar operating budgets, right? It's going to take time to do that. But I think where we're going to see an acceleration of this, and it's like a drug for these

these shareholders and C-suites is getting that profitability. And one I've been, I posted on the other day is the, the RPE metric revenue per employee. I know it's been around forever, but I, I would bet my bottom dollar that this is going to be what's driving these, these shareholder meetings. If you look at a company like Nvidia, who's at, I think one point, $173 billion in revenue somewhere, give or take.

They've got 36,000 employees, that's it. So revenue per employee of $5 million. You look at Meta, almost exactly the same revenue, they've got twice as many employees. I guarantee you those shareholders are like, whoa, we've got people, come our RP isn't up at five? And so now you've got super unrealistic expectations.

but they're gonna start trying to figure out automation. And Don sent me a note the other day on the India market on employment and how many people are, I mean, so if they can't figure out the technology, they're gonna outsource it to get to that profitability number. that's why I don't think it's, that's the negative side of corporate trying to get everything down. But on the flip side, we're seeing multi-million dollar one person companies. So you can start to scale.

in the new model to start to compete with those companies. They're going to be chaos and mess. Yes, they've got a head start. And I think we're going to see a rise of these small and mid-sized companies leveraging the technologies for good, the people because people aren't going away. We need the people to make the decisions and help it. that's where I think corporate, as we know it is, it's going to implode, but it's going to create a lot more opportunities with small businesses.

It always does. It might be a step down on an escalator that's still going up. So our first half, the bitching about the status quo is now done. It's now come to a conclusion. You can always call Brett and I or tune into another place. We'll go on this all day long. We love it. But there's sort of our promise to everybody is we want you to see a better future for yourself because it's there. And Brett and I just have the ability to see that because we're nerds about fractional and independence and

post-corporate life. We've been decided years ago to make it our life's work and in different ways, but it all all roads lead to a place where outside of the status quo you can be very happy and fulfilled. And one of the things that we talked about is, okay, let's share that. Let's share that. So you had mentioned, let's get into solutions here a little bit. And I'd like to start where you kind of talked about a little bit is you found a way post-corporate.

So the rest of our conversation is post-corporate. If I start bitching, you gotta hit the buzzer on me and not let me do it, Because it's easy. Yeah, right, yeah, yeah, yeah. So hit the buzzer on me. you talked about, found 10 ways to monetize yourself post-corporate. Share two or three.

same.

Yeah, I mean, think the traditional ones, right? Because I think the big ones, which are cornerstone, I would say, of Solo is fractional and then consulting. But then got into some more advisory. I did some business development for a growing company and people think business development, sales. It was sales, but it really more introductions. I had a small brand that wanted access to my network. I made introductions and then they paid me to do that. I'm like, all right, this is kind of cool. Right? And then...

TikTok was a channel that became somebody that paid me to do this. And then all of a sudden there was coaching that followed on. And I think the biggest, I wouldn't say mistake, because everything was a learning process, is when I started, I was looking for the home runs. I was looking for the six figure consulting deals. I was looking for the six figure fractional. Nothing wrong with that, but I left a lot of money on the table. So if I had flipped that and understood how did...

pick up some of the smaller projects or solve smaller problems, maybe I could do a little repeatable learn, that would have jump started me a lot quicker. And then those tend to turn into consult bigger deals or fractional deals. And that's where I've spent a lot more time now.

There was a little bit of a step. You came in and solved a minor issue by being present and solving that. You're like, you can solve our major issues. And then it became larger.

Yeah. And again, I think, as you know, some of the fractional is it's still learning that the small business owners don't necessarily know that title or how that would work. And man, there's still some education to go with understanding that you don't have to have full time employees for this thing to work. And honestly, you could get the talent much. Who was it? was the. Ron Johnson, think of the CEO of lettuce.co. And I had him on the podcast.

his first 41 people he brought into this high growth company were all fractional and contract workers. He's like the talent density that I could get going that model versus that. So there's no doubt the ROI and everything's there, but it was me just being super stubborn. It's fractional or nothing, right? Or it's a big, it's whole thing deal or nothing. typically if you can help them way...

I ended up solving it as kind of a good, better, best, right? That when I meet with a business owner, because early on it was, coming in with Fractional. This is what I can help you build this out, take this over. But now when I listen to that owner, it was, all right, I can definitely solve this problem. And there's three ways we can do it. Super simple, I can be your sounding board. A couple hours a month we can talk about this. Two, can dive in and help you map this out and build a plan and then help you execute it.

Or three, bring me in as a fractional on a part-time basis, I can take ownership and build this out. 90 % of the time, they're going to plan two. One is fine. Eventually, they come to plan three because they don't have that leadership capability in there. So I think what I've been focused on is the path of least resistance. How do you get in? And quite honestly, if you can do that number two to get started.

end up at plan three.

it gives you a chance to understand, I even want to work with this company? Because you may find that that's not exactly what you had signed up for, where if you go straight with the fractional deal, I know most of them have outs that they do it, but if you can build, and again, they're going to trust you and they want you to come in and you're going to build a long-term relationship. So I think the end game's the same, but I could have had a lot more traction if I would have kind of flipped that script earlier in the process.

Yeah, think all roads lead to a certain place, and that is you're going to be with that client in a significant way for a significant period of time. And here's why I say that. Everybody on the call, from what I can see, and I may not have this absolutely right, is at or older than 40 years old. And what that means, and I might have that wrong a little bit, but what that means is you have a tremendous amount of wisdom to bring to the table. And that's in short supply.

That's an AI is not going to give us any more wisdom. It's just that's not its job. We have a tremendous amount of wisdom. So you apply that wisdom to a client like I'm really struggling with this. Can you help it? Whether that's a project, a two month thing, what they get is the wisdom that they haven't had. And that makes the problems go away and the motions start to go fast forward. And once you have that, you don't let it go.

because you will start to move backwards. So it might start with, can you come in and just give me some coaching for a month? Let's just come up with a five grand for a month or some such number. I think there's two wins in there. The client's now moving forward on something that they were stalled on before. That's one, but for those of you who don't have clients yet or are not at full on fractional is you're moving to, you're stretching, you're testing out your new muscles.

You're getting used to the idea of having clients, not an employer. Your money is coming into the bank. You're moving in the right direction. And I cannot say enough how important it is just to have motion going in the right direction. It really, really matters quite a bit. It matters for your soul and your spirit and your attitude. And the one thing I can tell you, and we teach this in class.

The energy you put out is the energy that comes back to you so if you're putting out positive vibes and Forward motion and like if you're feeling good about what you're doing even though you're not making the kind of money you want to make yet People see that Clients see that and that's when you start to get referrals and that's when things the whole Sort of virtuous loop of opportunity starts to come your way. So I like what you say there is be be flexible

Be flexible. It will probably end up as a fractional role. That happens all the time. But it might start out as a 30-day advisory. And that's okay. That's okay. So you were a little too firm. Did you get that from corporate? All right, that sounds like bitching I'm not gonna do.

No, no, was well, but but but I think that's a it's a good point because one thing I tell people at times you got to unlearn everything that corporate taught Stay in the box. Don't rock the boat Don't make a mistake because it could hurt you or you're gonna get your performance review And I mean, think all of us early in our career were like that's dumb Why do we do this and we did push the boat but you get slapped enough times that you end up not rocking the boat and Guess what in corporate you're getting judged all the time whether she liked it or not

my gosh.

When you go solo or fractional, nobody's judging you but you. And if you make a mistake or you're under charge, nobody's judging you. And it is just about that learning and the freedom of flexibility. I think the paralysis of having to have everything perfect is, I had a guy when I was consulting.

He said, done is better than perfect. He reminded me all the time and I still have to remind myself of that. But that's why I think when you, when you go into your first client meeting or you're in a networking call, you think you have to have everything completely outlined and no, just listen, listen, listen, be a problem solver. And then it's going to, you're going to start to get clarity. and it seems to me.

Yeah, well, yeah, these are concepts, right? These aren't things that people are used to. This is the new shit that you're kind of learning. You can see it and feel it probably in yourself, but maybe the last 10, 20, 30 years, you haven't been able to be that problem solver, to be that wisdom worker, to be that agent of change because of structures, because whether those are toxic structures or political structures or whatever, right?

but there's new structures here and I always have to remind myself to slow down because it is a learning curve. But speaking of that, this isn't gonna be a speed round, but it's gonna get close to a speed round. So what I'd like you to talk about here speaking of this is talk about three different ingredients for post-corporate success.

interesting. One, take action. Don't overthink about it. Just go. Have that first conversation. Have that second conversation. Two is, this is good. The people side of this still don't matter. They can't figure out how to quite frame it. But because you had talked about AI, yes, AI is great, but you know the one thing AI can't do? It doesn't have tribal knowledge, right? Big corporate, small companies.

Let's go.

There's a bunch of things going on in these companies that AI is never going to figure out because it's not documented anywhere. You can't even explain it. So leverage the human side and build a relationship. So maybe that's where I'm trying to get to the human side is build real relationships with people. three is be curious. Again, part of where when I was still in corporate, there was some curiosity. like, what am going to do? The podcast opened things up, but then I started talking to authors and different things. Now I'm like,

just let me learn who can I talk to to do this. So I think curious, the human to human piece of the relationships are going to go a long way with this and just go, just get started.

I love that so much, Brett, and I cannot, if I could just get a megaphone and blast that louder to the rest of the world, I would, because those three steps are critical, and I would agree, and I would add a few of myself, but that is not where people tend to go. People usually start, I'm gonna go build a website. I'm gonna go work on a pitch. I'm gonna go network like a motherfucker and meet a million people. Like, they do the wrong things, I think, in many ways, or they approach the right things in the wrong way, and networking is one of those things I wanna talk about.

a deeper ingredient I think, is on what Brett said is the people part. I know that you just launched a community, we have a community. There's a lot, Fractionals United is a community, community is great. It's how you, I'm not gonna say Brett's community is better or worse than mine, that's not even the point. They're all gonna be great. They're all gonna say, here's a resource of humanity for you. It's how you approach others. I don't think, I mean, I have a great community, I got a lot of people.

So does Brett, so do others. It's not like I'm finally in the right room, it's how you approach it. Now one thing I know from what we teach is if you have 10 other people, five other fractionals in your community, talk to these people once a month or every couple weeks or something like that, you're gonna do well. Because the deeper you go with a small amount of people, the more success you have here. Absolutely, without a doubt, we see that in Voyager U.

So I would add that as another thing for success, for post-corporate success, which I think is a relief. I know that from a behavioral science standpoint, like that anchors to where you have a human need for community. Now, I know that video games gets people out of community more than it should, like sitting in your basement playing video games, but we do have a human need to help others and be helped by others. We don't do that as much anymore because...

remote and non-office and all that kind of stuff. And the communities we had before didn't really serve us very well. So I say community up, collective up, huge key component.

I'm give you two, I'm pile them. I'm going go back to the introverts. So the introverts out there feel some of our best networkers are introverts because they don't like to do it. So they get really good at it. The extroverts are like, I can talk to anybody all day, all the time. And they just get the energy from it, but they get nowhere in the future. The introverts are like, all right, I'm going have to do three of these. So what's the best case that you get out there?

You can give me ten, dude!

Yeah.

Shock it. I kind of fit in between right I'm not on the high end or the low end but I like I like the efficiency and I want to share with the community John because one of the things when I left Corporate the mistake. I mean I didn't tell anybody for two years, right? I mean it was maybe a few friends and family if that and I had no reason not to I wasn't going to just Down low did it myself lone wolf type of an approach. It was the biggest mistake I made

kept it on the down low.

And even looking within with our community, part of when I started this, I thought it was going to be tactics, strategies, right? Playbooks, which are still important. But I found it's actually that connection that you're not in this alone because even when you're thinking about incorporate, you're still in corporate thinking about leaving, who are you going to talk to about this? Probably not your coworker. You can't have a family because you haven't figured it out. So you're sitting in isolation.

Sure.

worrying about this and then when you go solo, you don't want it to look bad so you may not talk to anybody. So I think just in hindsight, I would have done that completely. I would have flipped it differently and put more focus. And so that's why you're gonna see with our community, it's gonna be the connections first, right? How do we get the peer to peer and the support and people so they don't feel alone and that's, we've got the education and the tactics. So if anybody's out there feeling that isolation, I get it.

Yeah, totally, yeah. And I want our people in a couple different communities, I really do. I know this, mathematically you have to have 10 other fractionals in your world. I know this mathematically, I'm sorry, five other fractionals. And they might be in my community, they might not. Because some of that has to do with who you get along with, or just some other things. Sometimes it's just proximity, right? I'm in the Twin Cities, Brett's in Chicago. They're kind of close, but they're not really. There's a couple of things in here, wow, these go fast.

But there's a couple of things I heard in the chat that I want to bring out and have you guys talk to us about it. And I'm going to ask our friend Don to come off of mute, and Don, if you could, and talk to us more about this idea you interjected here called job hugging. Share with the world here what that is, what it means, how it hurts you, how it helps you. Let's hear it, baby. baby, you want to it.

Job hugging is the concept to where I'm not going to let go of this job until they fire me. I'm going to stay here because I'm concerned, I'm worried. The world is an interesting place right now as we all know, all politics aside, but the economy is crazy, chaos. So I'm doing everything I can to fly low and avoid radar. Isn't that interesting? And it seems like, what have you seen here, but it seems like the harder you squeeze something, the more you kill it. Yes.

Yeah, I didn't say it necessarily works. I'm just saying that's okay. Right, right. It was kind of a comment when Brett was talking about the burnout of 74 and you were saying the same thing, John, the burnout rate is percent that even given that I need my income. I've got kids in this age group, 40 years old, probably kids going to college, if not already there.

one the reasons I'm rebranding the company into third chapter coaching. I'm in the third chapter of life. I've got a big mortgage. I've got kids in college. It's a rock and a hard place for a Catch-22. Any thoughts on that, Brett? Do you see a lot of job hugging? Did you job hug?

I didn't, but I hit my breaking point, right? I probably did earlier just to avoid that, I just, again, when you hit that breaking point, it just, it opens everything up and you don't care anymore, but a hundred percent, right? It's because the job market's tightening. It's, I'm going to ride this out as long as I possibly can, which again, I'm fine with, start planning.

We'll get it. Start now.

exit strategy because eventually corporate's going to find you and you're going to have to have a second plan.

Get in a class, read a book, get in a community, start now. Don't wait for it to be right at your jugular. It is coming. There's another thing in here that I want to share. And Sandra Smith shared, and Sandra, if you want to come off, can. If not, that's OK, too. But you shared something I think that is worth pulling out and talking about, and that is it is very hard if you are laid off and you are starting from zero.

Brett and I talk about this all the time. We know what not zero looks like and we're too schooled in that, right? We often have to remind ourselves what zero looks like. But it is hard starting from zero and maybe you could help us, Sandra. You're at zero, it's very, very hard. How could we help you more? What more resources could we provide for you? Or just share mentally what that's like for you. Thank you.

I have met with quite a few fractional since I started my offering and I started nine months ago. Okay. And most of them have started from they were either leaving their companies and they were offering a fractional position or they knew a friend or a family member that will start them like kind of like what I said with a small project or something like that. In my case, I didn't have any of that.

Okay. And I did not spend time building my network when I was in corporate for more than 20 years. So it was a really, really like battle to figure out how to properly network, figure out who would be a good contact. I read your book, John. thank you. I'm a member of the collective and it's been nine months of networking, organizing and everything. And I have not even landed my first client.

to the point of thinking, I'm quitting, I'm just going to figure out how to get back in the corporate world because it seems to me that you have to have some sort of understanding of how to get in front of the right client or have somebody that already really knows your work that can give you this kind of lift. Otherwise, are like, it's hard, mentally hard too. Yeah, yeah. I want to help you here. I want to help you here right now in real time.

in real time because you're being pulled in a fractional direction and it's just not, the two ends aren't connecting yet it sounds like. So what I'm gonna encourage you for the next week to think about and then find me in the community and let's talk. But spend time, spend time on kind of put networking aside, put anything resume aside, really think deeply and I'm gonna send you a resource for this. Really think deeply about that inner stuff.

I'm gonna ask you to really think about that, because usually when they don't connect, usually when they don't connect, there's some self work that hasn't been done yet. It's not, the networking's not working, or I'm not getting the right opportunities. There's some mechanical things that you're trying, and usually that tells us, there's still some inner work to do. In class, we call it finding your inner nerd, like that thing about you. So Sandra, you have 20 years behind you, and just give me an idea of what lane were you in, ops, or IT, or sales, where was your thing?

I mean finance and accounting, so CFO roles. we have to get to that internet. So let me ask you this. So in that world, as someone who has a tremendous amount of wisdom about that by now, 20 years is a big retiree's what drives you most crazy about finance and accounting when it's not going right? The lack of, sometimes when you work with the owner or the founder or the CEO, they see

They wait too long into bringing the actual people that can help them to think strategically and build a business. They wait too long to do that. By the time they hire for cost, I experienced it through my entire career, by the time they hire somebody, they are on fire, like literally on fire and they want somebody that comes and solves the problems in 24 hours because they're drowning. So now let's say you're there.

Sure.

and they solved it. And, or at least you're there. When you are doing what you love, finance and accounting, what is the stuff that drives you most crazy when it's not going right? What is it about that thing that you do that drives you nuts, that doesn't help the business? What is that thing?

as far as like what work I do? Not the work you do, what drives you nuts? If I asked you to write a paper about finance and accounting going wrong, what would you call that paper? Lessons learned from failures in finance and accounting that we put a chapter of implementations, setting up the systems, hiding the proper themes.

allowing the people to do that job is that trying to think that they know how to do it better than them that kind of thing so this is what i mean and this is for everybody thank you for being vulnerable center sandra doesn't like when finance and accounting goes wrong and she can fix it she knows what good looks like and she and i've never met her before i don't think it may be just electronically that's the work we have to get to you have to get to that place where what really drives you nuts is also the value that you bring and it's not time-based and it's not retains its its its

It's making change on behalf of clients. So please stay with it. And we got to continue to work on this thing that we call it our inner nerd, right? It's not just I'm a finance and accounting pro. I'm more passionate about it than that. I care more about it. I know it's contribution goes farther than that. That's where we all have to get to. There's a great book called From Strength to Strength. I encourage everybody to read it.

Once you're over 45 years old, you have all of this wisdom and you don't know where it's supposed to go and it doesn't want to go back into corporate. That's what Sandra is facing right now and that's what many people face. If it's been a long time in this rational journey and the sides aren't connecting yet, it's usually not on the client side. It's usually somewhere in you is understanding your core strengths, getting beyond the transactional and into the relational. Brett, more help and coaching here for Sandra.

Yeah, no, mean, I think you're right. And the way I like to think it is, is there a smaller problem you can break down to get started? Right. So I'm always thinking with where's the world going? Right. We're seeing more fractionals, more flex staffing, these types of things. Is there an angle that you can go with these small business owners talking about, man, if you've got 32 full-time employees, right, you as a finance understand where the staffing models are going.

I'm just looking for an angle to get in that says maybe they've hired the wrong people or is there something else when finance with the systems and technology alignment to find what is, is there a one single problem and you could probably solve a thousand problems, but is there one that you can see three or four times that gets you in the door to have conversations with people? Cause I think that that was one of my biggest challenges as early.

And I share this with, when I left consulting, I do B2B digital transformation. There is not a single business owner alive that needed me to do that. They didn't even know what that was. It sounds cool. sounds- What is that? Exactly. But then when I kind of picked it down to a smaller, that I had a boss like 10 years prior talk about three revenue levers. That's all business has acquisition, retention and expansion.

And so I started leading conversations, do you have a strategy for these three levers? They're like, I don't even know what two of those are, right? And all of sudden it opened the door for me to go in and figure out where their business is broken. So when I was leading with the big, it was really hard. When I could start to pick a problem to get me in, it opened the door a lot farther. So I spent a lot more time now thinking about what is that entry point. You can still do everything. You can be opportunistic about everything.

But is there something that's resonating with business owners now that gets you in to have that conversation? Because I guarantee if you had the conversation with the business owner, they would see the value you could provide them to their business. It's just...

100%. There is no scenario, Sandra, where your decades of wisdom in that lane that you love, that the problems they are facing are not happening thousands of times a day across this country. They literally are. It's just connecting those two. In fact, there's 25 people here with us today. I can guarantee you, and maybe show of hands, you all know somebody.

that knows either a client or a connection where finance is an absolute shit show. I know one and I bet you all do too. So they're out there, it's there, right? But there's other dimensions about community and networking that helps you get to that. So thank you for being vulnerable, Sandra, and thank you for sharing and please reach out to Brett and I and we'll coach you through. Thank you. I just volunteered some of your time, Brett, what do you think about that?

No, absolutely. It's been a while since I chatted

Well, yeah. We are, we're really coming down there. So a couple of things. First of all, Brett, thank you.

I appreciate you having me. Anytime I could get to vent and share, it's awesome.

Right, half hour of bitching, half hour of solutions. I think that's a nice format. Maybe we'll carry it forward. But some questions in the chat, know, how do I find more help and things like that? If you visit the corporate escapee, he's got a link on his LinkedIn. You can go to his website. You can find me on LinkedIn, Voyager University. We try to provide a lot of resources for what did Brett say? Just start learning, just move. Start making motion in a fractional and independent direction.

Start making motion in a post-corporate direction. That's your first thing to do. The rest, I'm not gonna say the rest will take care of itself. There's work to do, right? We are in the biggest transition of work change that our country has ever seen. We started with a pandemic in this decade. And then after that, we went to remote work right on the heels. Shortly after that, AI came. And then shortly after AI, the normalization of layoffs.

for profitable companies. Five things, is that five? Five things in five years, halfway through this decade. That would be like having the car, the train, and the airplane all in the same five-year window. That's how much innovation is happening right now. So it feels a little unsteady. If it feels a little frickin' crazy, yeah, it ain't you, right? Things are moving at a crazy pace. So what that's forcing is we have to get down.

to the core nature of what makes us awesome. You have to get familiar with your inner nerd and your wisdom in order to thrive on the outside of what's all breaking down around us. Brett, closing thoughts.

Yeah, no, just want LG to ask the question, what was acquisition, expansion, retention? Are you keeping your current customers? Right, so those three. I dare anybody else to find a different lever. So I think anybody on this call can use this for whatever business they're in, because owners care about revenue. So if there's a way you can operationalize it, sales, marketing, customer success, service, tech, whatever it is. Yeah, no, again, just keep the momentum.

get that first win and celebrate the small wins and just start to stack them. And I know it's easier said than done, but it definitely builds. again, once you get to that point, you'll be like, I'm never going back. You're never going not feel like it now, but I guarantee you're gonna get there and you're gonna be like, okay, now I get it. Now I You're here to see it, but I guarantee it's worth the effort.

them.

Yep, yep. Thank you, Mr. Corporate Escapee. Will you come back for another AMA?

Anytime. We'll have to have you come back into our world here before 2 o'clock and share it.

Stay on the path everybody, you're all on the right path. Keep learning. Go to Brett's website, go to mine. We're trying to provide as many resources as we can. We want you in this independent world. You want to be there. I think the universe is calling you there and we will provide every damn resource we can come up with to help make that happen. One person at a time. So thanks everybody for joining. You were very smart to do so today. You've advanced your life just by learning today. So thank you so much and we'll be back.

One person at a time.

next week for the next AMA where we're talking about, I believe we're talking about artificial intelligence.

Thank you