193: Here’s a Quick Way to Jumpstart a Stagnant Engineering Career

[00:00:17] That have come up in just the last week, three things in the last week that have pointed to this problem. And I was thinking about it today as I was riding around on my motorcycle, my wife and I just got our Harley fixed. Finally, shout out to Prameet and everybody I work with. Who’s at Harley Davidson.

[00:00:35] I’ve got an amazing old Harley that’s been rebuilt by her grandfather. We finally got a new carburetor put in it. So I was riding around today. I still got my jacket on. If you’re watching on YouTube, some good Harley leather here, but I was thinking about this topic while I was riding around and just said, I need to go straight to the studio and record this episode because it was bugging me so much about the recurrence of this barrier to success in your engineering career.

[00:01:02] First I’ll tell you about Robert, Robert and I had a one on one session this week talking about where he wanted to go in his career. And it just so happens for Robert that he’s ready to take the leap into entrepreneurship. He wants to start his own business and he’s taken that step. He left his nine to five job and he’s launching a company.

[00:01:27] Kudos to him, right? Really courageous move. And we talked about everything that he needs support on in order to get to that first revenue in order to build his company and the things that were happening inside of him with imposter syndrome, the things coming up in his mindset, the fact that he was struggling to really manage his energy and to invest his time properly, that this sudden freedom of his calendar was Was actually paralyzing him from being effective.

[00:01:56] Not uncommon when someone gets out of the structured systems of a big company where we don’t realize, we don’t see how many of those systems are prebuilt that we just plug into. And when you start your own business, you don’t have that. Well, Robert got to the end of our one on one and said, this is a great fit.

[00:02:16] Zach, joining your program, working with you and your team sounds like exactly what I need. You know, I have the money. But I need to talk with my spouse and it is a lot of money. I want to think about it And i’m just not ready to make that decision and I asked him, you know, what were the barriers? What was really holding him back?

[00:02:33] He said I just don’t know But I need some time to think about it and I need to respect my spouse and have that conversation, which is not uncommon. I really appreciate that. So we made an agreement to reconnect the next day. Well, I got a text from Robert that evening and the text said, Zach, thank you so much for everything that you talked about with me today, the things that we uncovered, the plans we put in place and the coaching session.

[00:02:57] It was tremendous, but I’m just not comfortable making the investment. While I don’t have revenue and income from a nine to five w two job, I don’t have a paycheck anymore and I just don’t feel comfortable putting out the cash to help me build my business until I get some revenue and some sales In the business.

[00:03:18] So I’m going to wait until I get things moving and then I’ll take that next step.

[00:03:23] Interesting. Now, before we judge Robert, he’s in a tough spot. He doesn’t have any income. I totally get it. I totally get it. Let me tell you about Lily. Lily is someone who I’m already working with and she’s in our program. She’s making tremendous strides in understanding herself, her own psychology, the mindsets that have been holding her back.

[00:03:49] She’s taking new actions in her career. She’s getting success. Things are going really well. And we got to the people pillar. Of the lifestyle engineering blueprint, we have these pillars, purpose, priority, productivity, and people, and they all fit together and integrate a system of systems to help you accelerate your career.

[00:04:08] We’re working through the people pillar and I challenged Lily to go out and connect with some senior leaders in her organization as mentors. There were a couple of female engineers in particular who had made it to that VP level. And I said, go reach out to them, send them an email, connect with those leaders and ask them to mentor you.

[00:04:34] Getting those high level mentors is going to help you accelerate your career within this organization. You can learn faster. You can get some sponsorship mentors are so important to your growth. Go connect with these senior leaders. Well, Lily came back three days later to our next coaching call and I asked her had she gotten any feedback and got any responses from those VPs.

[00:04:58] And guess what her answer was, no, I said, ah, bummer. Let’s put a plan together on when to follow up. And her face had that look, you know, that look where she’s kind of not saying the whole story. Okay. And said, well, Hey, what’s up? are you not going to follow up? Are you not open to that? again, that kind of bashful look on her face.

[00:05:25] And I pressed in and I started to realize, Oh, she didn’t do it. So I asked her, Hey, did you send those emails? Did you reach out? She said, well, no, no, I didn’t do it. Now remember she’d had three days to send a couple of emails and she hadn’t done it. And I asked her, well, why not? What was the barrier to getting that done?

[00:05:49] It’s only going to take five minutes. She said, well, I just wasn’t comfortable reaching out to these high level leaders. Because they don’t know me and they’re really busy and I don’t want to bother them. And I’m not sure what I would even say and I wasn’t sure what to write in the email. And I just froze up because I’m not comfortable from my level as an engineering manager, reaching out to these VP level leaders.

[00:06:18] I just wasn’t comfortable doing it. So I wanted to wait and ask you today for more help on what to say and how to do this. Maybe you can relate to that. I’ve heard exactly this line dozens, if not a hundred times from engineering leaders. Oh, I didn’t want to bother somebody.

[00:06:37] Oh, I got busy. Oh, I had a different priority. Oh, I wasn’t sure what to say. I just wasn’t comfortable.

[00:06:47] Now, again, before we judge Lily for sitting on that and procrastinating, let’s look in the mirror. We’ve all had those moments where we could have taken action and we didn’t. I’ll tell you one more. We are back in episode one 90. We talked to Curtis, it was an incredible episode. If you’ve missed it, go back and check it out.

[00:07:04] And even Curtis confessed when we were working together that he was uncomfortable talking about his results, the great work that he’d been doing. He was not comfortable. He didn’t want to come across like he was arrogant. He didn’t want to sound like he was bragging. So Curtis was uncomfortable in talking about his own results.

[00:07:27] And if you go back and listen to that episode, when he got Out of that comfort zone. When he started taking action and sharing what he’d been doing, talking about the great work that he had delivered for the organization, he went from in his last company, being on a performance improvement plan to delivering the best performance review of his career, receiving rather the best performance review of his career in just one little switch, a massive turnaround, a quantum leap of growth, setting him on a completely new trajectory for his career.

[00:08:01] All because he decided it’s time to get out of that comfort zone and do something different. Do you see the theme here? Robert wasn’t comfortable investing in his own success until he already had some success. To show for the bold decision of starting his business. Lily wasn’t comfortable reaching out to a senior leader because she didn’t want to bother them or come across in the wrong way.

[00:08:34] Curtis wasn’t comfortable talking about his results with his boss and he was getting put on performance improvement plans instead of being seen as the tremendous leader that he was capable of being all three of these leaders. Fell into the trap of letting their comfort level be the metric by which they made decisions in their life.

[00:09:03] The comfort zone was winning. It is winning and it’s probably winning for you too. And I say that because the comfort zone wins for me. All right. I’m, I’m a coach. I do this all day, every day, helping engineering managers and senior managers and directors and leaders of companies all across the country.

[00:09:23] So startups to the fortune 10 organizations, people get stuck in their comfort zone. I get stuck in my comfort zone. It is so. So stealthy, how it pulls us in and your comfort zone is robbing you of an absolute fortune. Your comfort zone is a terrible decision metric. It does not matter how comfortable you are with that action.

[00:09:57] All right. If your comfort zone is the thing that you’re gauging, whether or not you ought to do something, then you are stuck. You, you will never reach your full potential if you’re using your comfort level as the metric to make decisions. All right. You just won’t, your comfort zone is going to keep you stuck in your past.

[00:10:19] All right. The comfort zone wants to hold you back and keep you safe. It means well, right? It’s hard wired into your nervous system because your nervous system is wired for survival. It’s not wired for success. Your success is not the primary aim of your subconscious mind, which You know, you look at the studies, you’ll see numbers like 95 percent of the the horsepower of your nervous system is in the subconscious. we want to believe that we’re so conscious and we’re so in control of our lives and it’s just not true.

[00:11:03] 95 percent of your life is on autopilot and that autopilot. The hardware of that autopilot system, your subconscious mind, is wired for your survival. It is wired to pull you square smack dab into the middle of that comfort zone and keep you there. And it is keeping you stuck. It’s robbing you of your success.

[00:11:27] It’s holding you back from your potential, your purpose, your impact in your work. It’s awful. It is a thief, I’m telling you. If you will not let go of using comfort as a metric of your decisions, then you’re stuck. and you might as well stop listening to the podcast because the rest of what I have to say will not help you if you’re not willing to make a conscious decision with the five percent Of your conscious mind and say, I will be courageous and step out of my comfort zone.

[00:12:01] The saying around the oasis of courage is really simple. We call it a C4 lifestyle. C4 crush, comfort, and create courage. Crush, comfort, create courage. C4 happens to also be an explosive because I want you to blow up the comfort zone. It is not serving you. And I’ll tell you this, don’t fall into the trap of believing that a comfort zone always feels good.

[00:12:34] It’s not just sitting on the couch eating Cheetos and watching movies or sitting on a beach in Hawaii sipping Mai Tais. The comfort zone is not always pleasant. The comfort zone does not always feel good. You can be trapped in a comfort zone that Actually feels terrible. Your comfort zone could be suffering.

[00:12:58] Comfort, you know, we associate that with a positive thing. No, no, no. Your comfort zone can be awful, but it’s a comfort zone for you because it’s familiar because you understand it. You’ve lived with it for a long time and your nervous system knows how to survive it. It may be a. very measly existence.

[00:13:17] It may be a very unpleasant existence. It might be a very stressful, frustrated, stuck, stagnant, awful experience, but You’ve lived it, you’ve survived it, and you know how to survive it, and getting out of that place would still require you to face a new fear, to take on something that feels dangerous, and getting out of your comfort zone for something better is still worse to that subconscious than just staying in that suffering and stagnation.

[00:13:49] if you want to accelerate your career, if you want to jumpstart something incredible, if you want to experience a quantum leap, You must, non negotiable, be willing to get out of your comfort zone. Delete your comfort level from your decision matrix of how you think about decisions in your career. I’ll give you one action, one example.

[00:14:12] Let’s, let’s take Lily’s story and apply it into your situation. My challenge to you right now, without hesitation, find a senior leader in your organization or in your industry at another organization and send that person a quick email or a quick LinkedIn message and ask them if they would be open minded to chatting with you for five minutes about one or two questions that you have for career development in your industry.

[00:14:51] Just do it now, don’t hesitate, reach out, say, Hey, I’ve admired your career path, your work, your fill in the blank, whatever it is. That’s true and genuine and authentic about what you admire about that person. And I was wondering if you would be open minded to offering five minutes of your time to answer one or two questions that I have about how to excel and perform and deliver in our industry.

[00:15:19] Send that note right now. Now, if you were serious about getting out of your comfort zone, serious about accelerating your career, you could pause this podcast right now and be done with that action in three minutes, five minutes, right? And then hit play and finish this episode. It could be done right now.

[00:15:44] my challenge to you, my question to you is why have you not already done that? If you haven’t paused the podcast. Why not? Okay. Maybe you’re driving, you’re, you’re working out, you have some pleasant, reasonable excuse, right? But, but, but it’s reasonable, right? It makes sense. Okay. You’re driving.

[00:16:04] You got to be safe. You’re not going to reach for your phone. That’s, that’s reasonable. That makes total sense. Or you’re at the gym, this is a bad time or you’re, you’re cleaning the house or well, Zach, I want to hear the whole story. I want to finish the episode before I actually take action on this.

[00:16:19] And I don’t even know who I would reach out to. I need some time to think about it. Those are all reasonable excuses, but they’re excuses. And if you want an unreasonable result in your career, if you want a quantum leap, if you want to grow fast, if you want to get to a big goal, you’ve got to start being unreasonable, pull over, park the car, send the note.

[00:16:42] Stop working out for a minute. Send the note, alright? Hold on the dishes, and send the note. there is no barrier. If you have the technology to be listening to my voice right now, you have what it takes to send that note right now. Do you see? Are you feeling the difference between massive action out of the comfort zone, not caring about a risk or a consequence?

[00:17:08] Look, there is no downside to this. There isn’t the worst thing that happens is they, they don’t reply or they say no, that’s it. Like there’s no downside. Just go do it. Success loves speed. And if you want to become the kind of leader, who’s getting massive results, totally different than you’ve ever gotten before in your life.

[00:17:28] You gotta be willing to get out of your comfort zone and move fast and do these kinds of things. Now I have good news about Lily. That second session when I challenged her about why it hadn’t gotten done. Guess what we did. You’re going to love this. We did it right then, right in the middle of the session.

[00:17:49] I said, before we go any further, get out, LinkedIn, open your email, send those notes, right? And I sat there in silence, holding her accountable and challenging her to that action and wow, surprise, surprise. She was done sending the notes in just a couple of minutes. And then we moved on with our coaching call I think she sent it to five people, two of the five.

[00:18:16] Responded within 24 hours and she had a mentorship meeting with one of them the following week. The other is still on her calendar. Hasn’t happened yet. That result, that connection, and now a powerful new mentor who’s at the VP level in her world, available to support her. Came out of a three minute action, but it was a three minute action outside of Lily’s comfort zone.

[00:18:44] If you want a quick way to jumpstart your career, to quantum leap your life to the next level, get out of your comfort zone, crush comfort and create courage.

[00:19:01] It needs to become the kind of thing where being in your comfort zone is the red flag. you’re not feeling edge, that sense of like, Oh man, this is kind of scary. This is out of my comfort zone. If you don’t feel that at all for a whole day or a whole week, That becomes your red flag.

[00:19:19] That’s, that’s the warning sign that I’m not growing. I’m not actually challenging myself. If you’re comfortable for days and weeks on end, that becomes your new sign that it’s time to take action. Let’s reverse the script on this. And one of the best ways to do that, frankly, is to get around people who are doing that to get coaching, to get accountability, to get support.

[00:19:44] I think about Jake, an incredible leader. Who’s in my mastermind right now. When I asked Jake, like, why did you sign up for this? You were already crushing it in your career. You’re a top performer. What was it for you that made you want to invest all of this time and money? You know, money and time and energy into coaching and masterminding with our community.

[00:20:01] And his answer was really simple. I needed to be around the people like me to hold myself to a higher standard and accelerate my growth to the next level. And this was the place where I knew I could find it. You need that in your life too. Here’s one more action you can take. If it’s time to get out of your comfort zone right now, grab your phone and let’s book a career growth audit for you.

[00:20:31] A quick 10 to 15 minute conversation to get clear on where your gaps are, where you need to focus to accelerate your career. What are your goals? Where do you want to get to? Or are you lacking a clear vision? Do you not know what you want? Then let’s flag that and. Work on answering these core questions so that you can go experience, a life at the next level, stop letting your comfort zone, rob you of a fortune, rob you of your impact, rob you of your happiness.

[00:21:02] Let’s cut that out our program, the lifestyle engineering blueprint. We crush comfort and create courage in this program. So book this growth audit. You grab your phone and you can text the word lifestyle to the number five, five, four, four, four, just one word lifestyle to the number five, five, four, four, four.

[00:21:24] If you’re outside the U S or if it’s easier for you, you can go into the show notes. There’s a link right there. You can click it when you click this, it’s going to open up a calendar. Just grab a time and don’t think about it. Don’t let that comfort level be a metric of your decision. It’s 10 minutes, 15 minutes.

[00:21:41] There’s no risk whatsoever. There’s no cost. Just book the call and let’s see where you’re at. And if it makes sense to you and you see what you need and we can help you, then we’ll book time together directly. You and me, we’re going to talk about what you need. I’m going to show you how we can help you transform your career.

[00:21:58] I’ll walk you through how the blueprint works and let’s see if this is the right step for you. To accelerate, which you want the most out of your career, getting to that next level, finding balance and happiness in your life. Loving the journey every step of the way. I’ll tell you this. You will not experience that in side your comfort zone.

[00:22:21] You want to jumpstart your career start right now, getting outside your comfort zone, book a call 15 minutes. It’s worth it. Totally free. We can see where you’re at. We can help you get clear on your next steps. Text lifestyle to five, five, four, four, four, or click the link in the show notes. I will absolutely look forward to connecting with you, meeting you, hearing about your story, and helping you take a step that Robert and Lily and Curtis weren’t taking.

[00:22:51] But when you do, I promise you the results are tremendous. Let’s do this.