Most people believe the ones who succeed after escaping corporate are the smartest, most experienced, or most credentialed.

They’re not.

In this solo episode, Brett breaks down a pattern he’s seen across hundreds—if not thousands—of conversations with corporate escapees: success outside corporate has far less to do with talent and far more to do with action.

This episode is for anyone still in corporate, recently laid off, or quietly wondering if there’s another path—but feeling stuck, underqualified, or unsure where to start.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode

• Why the most talented corporate professionals often struggle after leaving

• The real traits shared by people who successfully escape—and stay out

• Why overthinking your offer is one of the biggest mistakes escapees make

• How job interviews and client conversations are essentially the same thing

• Why “sales” after corporate is really just problem-solving

• How small wins (not big plans) create momentum

• Why redefining success becomes inevitable once you regain control of your time

• How to safely test a solo path while still in corporate—or during a job search

Key Takeaways

• You don’t need more experience to get started—you need movement

• Confidence comes after action, not before

• Business owners care about outcomes, not job titles

• Your network is your greatest advantage if you’re willing to use it

• The biggest risk isn’t trying—it’s never testing what’s possible

If You’re Still in Corporate (or Recently Laid Off)

You’re not behind.

You’re not underqualified.

And you already have skills people will pay for.

The fastest way forward isn’t a perfect plan—it’s one conversation.

Join the Escapee Collective

If you’re tired of figuring this out alone, the Escapee Collective is a community for corporate castaways and escapees at every stage—still in corporate, newly out, or building momentum.

Peer groups. Live sessions. Real conversations. Real progress.

You can find the link in the show notes or visit TheEscapeeCollective.com to learn more.

Welcome back to another episode of the Corporate Escapee podcast. I'm your host Brett Trainer. And today I'm going to go solo. It's a topic that I've been thinking a lot about lately and I think it's really important, especially for folks still in corporate that don't see that path forward. Have you read from the title that is going to be talking about who's actually winning after they escape corporate and it's not who you think. So I want to get into this, share my perspective, right? Experience.

probably hundreds, thousands of conversations at this point to give you something to think about, right? Because it's not necessarily the level of skill that gets you out. It's just the ability to take action. So, but before I get to that, I want to do a self promotion of the escapee collective. really talked about it too much on this podcast, but it's an open invite to anybody that's currently in corporate, just left corporate, or you've been solo for a little while.

And you're looking for that group of people. You're tired of doing this thing alone. That's one of the things I found to be most powerful after I left. When I escaped corporate, corporate quit on me for two years, I was basically a lone wolf doing things solo. And it's the biggest mistake I made when I started this, the collective just about two years ago. It is a huge benefit to me because now I had people to talk to, folks that were ahead of me, folks that are behind me.

And just having the ability to have conversations and learn and share has, has been critical. Anyway, I would highly encourage you if you're like I said, still in corporate, I've created peer groups within the thing. So you're always going to be connected with folks who are at the same stage as you, but access to others, mentors, peers, future teammates, et cetera. And I'm make this super easy. It's $1 for the first 30 days. You get unlimited sessions. Like I said, we got core sessions. We've got.

probably another 10 per month, call them mini workshops where we teach you anything from how to escape, how to have those first conversations, networking, LinkedIn, sales for non-sales people, the psychology of it, wide variety.

I mean, again, you have unlimited access. You can pick and choose which sessions you want to go to. Anyway, enough about that. Highly encourage you. You can find it in the show notes or just search for the escapeecollective.com and you can join there. all right. So back to who is actually winning after leaving corporate. And I think there's definitely a myth that the most talent actually wins and escapes.

And that's just not the case. There's folks with two years of experience that knew corporate wasn't for them and they've been successful. And it's not because they knew more than the person that's been there for three decades. It's because they actually had that conversation. So it's kind of crazy that it's, I would say you don't get rewarded. Obviously, if you have more experience, you've got more options.

But I'm telling you, that's not what's getting and keeping people out of corporate. It's the ability to go, it's ability to get started. It's the ability to basically forget what you learned in corporate to go. So again, here's some of the things that I'm seeing. And this is across all industries that it's not.

So here are the patterns that I'm seeing folks that are successfully made the transition out of corporate and built solo careers, which can go 50 different directions at least. And we can do that in another episode. But actually let me start with what people who are successful are not doing. And that is overthinking the offer. You got to have the perfect website. I need the perfect pitch deck. I need to have the perfect intro email. I need to have.

exactly what my offer is to be figured out. And you want to be a full on business on day one and you really don't need that. It's going to be over complicated, especially if you're targeting small business owners, nonprofits. Again, they're more focused on problem solving and outcomes. And too many folks that are escaping corporate are still reliant on what we all were in corporate, which is job titles.

That's how we were defined. That's what the status was is what was your job title? What was the organization you were in? Business owners don't care, right? You got to break this down to what is the problem that you're solving and have conversations with people. And I tell folks that it is not, it's not that different if you're looking for a job and you know, back again from a job title, that's why you're searching for jobs.

But think about that when you actually talk to the hiring manager, the last interviewer in for a job, you're asking or trying to understand, you know, what's going on in the company, who was successful in this role before, what are the challenges that they're facing? What does this organization really need from that role? And you, as the interviewee are thinking, either I can do this. It sounds like something that I'd want to do. And if you've got any amount of experience, you're going to understand if you can or cannot solve that problem and how you would do it.

It's the exact same thing with business owners. We get so hung up on this being a sales call or I don't know if sales strategies and tactics. And if you really break down that myth, it's problem solving, focused on an outcome, and there's a cost to solve this problem. And ideally, the problems that you're focused on need to solve problems for the business owners and not...

Nice to solve, but we can do that in a different effort or a different episode. So I just wanted to, again, we don't need to overcomplicate this and it's really about having conversations and depending on where you're located and where you're listening to this, you know, there's probably a hundred built businesses, small businesses within, you know, five miles from you that you could go start having conversations with. Hey, I mean, I'm corporate now, but I'm starting to think about doing my own thing. Here's the problem that I think.

I can help businesses. Is this real? Are you experiencing this in your business? So if you approach it as a non-sales call, just to learn, understand what the problems are, you're going to be surprised at the opportunities that that creates. So that's the one thing is don't overthink this. Don't overcomplicate this. Don't think you need some skillset that you don't have. You don't have to have a new website. Heck, you don't even have to update LinkedIn, right? If you're still in corporate and if you're still in corporate, I highly recommend you start doing this.

while you still have a job and you still have a paycheck, because again, you got to be careful with non-competes, but 99 % of the stuff that you're thinking of doing outside of corporate is going to have nothing to do with what you're doing in your corporate role. And you can always position as, I'm just giving back. All these things I've learned in corporate in the big stage, I want to help small businesses with, here's the things I've learned so you can start creating content that way.

So again, I think that's where I've seen the most success and it doesn't matter how much experience. Like I said, one of the success stories we had early on, which opened my eyes to this was somebody was a CRM specialist for two years in corporate and was done, just knew corporate wasn't for him and asked some of the things I talk about and teach would work for him. And I said, absolutely, here's what I would do. I look at small businesses, they struggle with data.

They may or may not even have a CRM. If they have a CRM, they're probably not using it the right way. I would approach business owners and say, Hey, I can help you clean up your data and set up your CRM so you can better manage, right? Your customers, your clients, prospects, et cetera. And I thought that would be the last I saw him as a 20 minute conversation. Two months later, he messaged me back and said he already had four clients and he's starting to figure out how to build a business. So that's some of the two years. So if you're sitting in corporate and you've got 30 years of experience,

you have more than enough to, to help these small business. And it's really is taking action, taking action. If you take nothing else from this episode, it's have that first conversation and, just talk to business owners and see they're more than happy to help you. You can talk to people in your network again, a separate episode. think I actually did one not too long ago talking about networks. So anyway, so, so the real advantage, and if you really want to win and gain the momentum, it's really around this, this speed to action.

If you're still in corporate, it's hard to build in public, but let people know, right? Connect with others. I think the education component of this is so important because there's no one way to go solo. People will tell you, right, you can go fractional, you can go consulting. I like those paths. I love those as cornerstone accounts. But as you're getting started, you're probably going to leave money on the table because those are going to be bigger deals, longer term deals. But if you figure out how to solve a problem for a business owner at

you know, a thousand dollars, $1,500, $2,000, start stacking some of those. It's a whole lot easier to get it going. anyway, I think that the other thing I would recommend is get comfortable being uncomfortable. The one thing that corporate teaches us is stay within the box, stay within the lines, don't make a mistake. Nobody's judging you outside. So if you find something with small business owner, it's not work or you don't like to do it.

There's a hundred other options you can do. So what I'm really trying to say is take that first step. Doesn't have to be perfect. As a former colleague of mine used to tell me all the time, done is better than perfect. In this case, it's absolutely true because you're going to learn anything you do on day one is going to change by the day, by the day, by day 50 or 300. My case, it's been six years, right? I started solo consulting. went into fractional leadership, started to figure out I think the last count.

10 different ways that I was able to monetize my corporate experience. Now I'm doing things with the corporate escapee that wasn't even on my roadmap back then. So the path will lead you, you just gotta be open, but you really, really need to, again, take that first step. So I think the other part of this is from a success standpoint is redefining or defining in this case what success looks like. I had no idea in the big picture what I wanted in this sense. I just knew I wanted to make more money. When I was leaving corporate,

wanted to prove them wrong, that I knew how to make money and I wanted to make more money because in corporate, frankly, you're capped. Unless you're in a sales role, you're not going to make more than you had. But what I found over, it really started about year two, getting all the time back, my priorities shifted and it really made me take a step back and think about what's important to me. And if you've been listening to me long enough, I had that episode on the five F's, the scorecard.

and just see where you are in life and what you really want. And if you can re-prioritize, is corporate going to get you to those goals? It may pay the bills now, but at some point, right, performance doesn't matter in corporate anymore. They're going to quit on you and you really need to have, what is that backup strategy? So I don't want to say closing, but to kind of summarize this is you're not behind if you're still in corporate, you're not under qualified.

and you absolutely have the skills to get paid and make good money, right? Again, you get more time back, you get to choose who you work with, you have control. The one thing you do not have in corporate is control. You're probably gonna get your health back, all those types of things. And so you may or may not find that this is for you, but the biggest mistake you can make is not testing this to go see if this is a path that's right for me.

And I've done some research. It's not a huge sample size, but of the folks that, that went back to corporate after going solo, less than 10 % was because it wasn't for them. I've had a number of folks work with, and in the community, they've picked up another corporate job, but that's just to build a runway. They're taking that corporate job to help them build their solo career and get them out of corporate. So for a change of us, instead of us just being reactive to corporate and,

doing and hoping we keep our job and that we don't have to look for another job. People are now using that as a stepping stone to get out. So I think that's huge piece. Use it to your advantage if you're still in corporate. And if you've been laid off, you have absolutely no excuse to test this. I used to have sympathy because I get it. I've been laid off before. And if all you're doing is applying to jobs and probably tough, it's a really tough job market right now. Why wouldn't you test this? Why not go see if you get worst case?

pick up some extra income while you're still in the job search. And two, you may find you actually may like this and you can build a life. Because at the end of the day, what I found and what my goal is, is to build a life first future. Because in corporate for 30 years or 25 years, I built my life around that job. And didn't matter what job it was. And I had a number of corporate jobs. It was the same thing. My schedule was dictated by them. My vacation schedule was dictated by them.

the events I got to was dictated by them and I really had no say. mean, I accepted it and again, I'm not going to bad mouth corporate completely because I did learn a ton of new skill sets. where is the exit strategy? That's the biggest thing. So anyway, I hope you found this insightful, valuable, and at least take one thing away. You do have the skills and the number one key to success is taking action.

Don't worry what other people say, right? The only people who judging you are gonna be you. And that's it. That's the beauty of this. You don't have to play it safe. You don't have to do these other things. And you just learn. And once you get a taste of that freedom, I can guarantee you, you're never ever ever going back. So look for a few more of these solo episodes. Like I I've been thinking about this a bit, writing about it. So I figured I would actually just record a podcast on this. Let me know if you found this helpful.

And don't forget, join the escapee collective. would love to see you in there. We've got some really good people and again, at different stages. So if you're looking to learn and connect and share, and again, you may see some super or some future teammates in there as well. Anyway, thank you for listening and we'll catch up on the next episode. Thanks.