Hey, welcome to Lessons From A Quitter, where we believe that it is never too late to start over. No matter how much time or energy you've spent getting to where you are. If ultimately you are unfulfilled, then it is time to get out. Join me each week for both inspiration and actionable tips so that we can get you on the road to your dreams.

Hello my friends and welcome to another episode. I'm so excited you are here. Before we get started, I just wanted to let you know that if you're listening around the time that this comes out, which is in August, 2024, if you're listening later, I apologize. I'm sure I'll have classes, but if you're listening at the time, I am going to have a free class on September 10th, 2024, and it's going to be all about how to quit the rat race. Whether you're gonna stay in your job or you're gonna leave your job.
If you want to figure out how to prevent or stop burnout and actually be able to work in corporate America without losing your mind, if you wanna kind of learn how to take control of your career and not be in this hamster wheel that so many of us get caught in, you can join my class on September 10th. You can go to quitter club.com/masterclass to sign up. I hope to see you there. If you like the podcast and you like the stuff that we talk about like today and in every other episode, you will get more of that, but more in depth, more teachings, more workshopy kind of work that you will walk away from knowing how to apply it to your own career. So join me on September 10th for how to quit the Rat Race at quitter club.com/masterclass. All right. I wanted to make this episode because I've realized that so much of why we operate the way we operate and so much of the harm that we create ourselves within our jobs comes from how we were programmed in school.

Obviously that's not a surprise. Like you learn to be a certain way from when you're a child through not just high school, but often college and grad school. You operate one way for so long that that sort of becomes your mo. That's how you think everything in the world needs to be. That's how you have sort of proved yourself. That's how you got quote unquote successful. And so you continue to operate in that way. And I've realized that because so many of us are operating under the paradigm of what worked in school, we are burning ourselves out at work because that paradigm doesn't work in corporate America, it doesn't work in the corporate world. And you have to really become aware of these beliefs and these paradigms and these foundations that you've been instilled with in order to start breaking free of it. I think for a lot of us, we just assume that what we think is right or it just is the way it is and it's not.

You can change it and you can start acting in a different way, um, with respect to your career. But you can't do that until you sort of see what paradigm you were operating under, um, before, right? So I want to talk about everything that you have to unlearn that you learned in school in order to really be successful in work. And I don't mean successful, like get to the highest position. I mean in order to be able to have a career that you don't burn out from in order to not be exhausted all the time in order to actually like your career and not dread going into work every day. So here's all the things that I think from what I've seen from working with my clients that you need to unlearn, okay? One is when you're in school, a big tenant or a big thing that you've been taught is to go above and beyond give 110%, right?

We've all heard those sayings and it starts very early on and we're gonna put aside from the fact that like you quite literally can't give 110% 'cause that's not how math works. You can only give a hundred percent, but the sentiment behind it is like always do extra, right? And in school you often did get rewarded for that, right? If you did extra credit, you got, you know, higher scores in class on your assignment, it helped you bump up your grade, you ended up reaping those rewards like you maybe got a higher GPA which would help you get into a better school. And so you saw this sort of return on investment, right? If I do more work, if I do extra credit, if I, you know, raise my hand for that project, if I show the teacher that I'm really involved, if I do all of this extra stuff, then I will be rewarded for it in some way.

Unfortunately, that's not the case in corporate America. I feel like with corporate America or with work, there's a saying that's what's the prize for winning a pie eating contest more pie. That's what it is with work. Nobody's giving you extra credit. I think that for a lot of us, we think if I'm just the biggest team player and if I'm the biggest helper, you know, and I'm, I'm the teacher's pet and if I'm doing all of these things then I'm gonna get rewarded. And I think unfortunately for a lot of us, what we've seen is that that's just not the truth. You can break your own brack. You can do more than everybody else. You can take on your coworkers assignments when they say jump say how high. And oftentimes that's still not what is going to get you promoted. That's not what's going to get you a salary increase.

That's not what's going to even get you job security to be honest. Like a lot of you might kill yourself for years and years and years and you still get lay it off when there's a round of layoffs because of course corporate America wants you to give it your all. And they still do try to instill these kind of sayings of you know, work hard, play hard and we're a family and whatever, and getting you to kind of be a team player and wanting you to accept this idea that you have to do as much as possible to help everybody else around. But for you, when you have to think about your career and how you wanna approach it, for a lot of us doing all of this extra work does not result in additional benefits or additional pay or anything. It just results in additional work.

Just like the prize for doing really good work and more work is just more work. And that's not to say that you have to mail it in. I know there was like the trend on social media was like quiet quitting, which I actually agree with in a lot of ways. But it is really to become conscious of how much extra work am I doing and is this extra work really going to have some kind of result? Just doing more work is not going to have a result. Like you have to really get clear on the fact that people can advance in their careers and they can get promotions and they can get salary increases, but that's typically if they're providing something that the company believes is additional value and that may not always be additional work. And so it's your job to really figure out what does this company value, right?

How do I make my self more valuable to my manager or to my manager's manager or to the bottom line or whatever it is. And for every company it's gonna be different. For some companies it really isn't gonna be at all about extra work and it's going to be about maybe, you know, creating new business development and connections and having a bigger roster of people that are gonna open doors, right? That may not be that you're spending more time, it just means that you're being more strategic with your time in the work that you're doing. And in fact, I think a lot of us when we realize like the work that is the quote unquote valuable work that kind of moves the needle forward for the company is usually not the work that we're doing a lot of extra work with. Like that's usually grunt work, right?

If you know the Pareto principle, which is like the 80 20 rule, it says that like basically 20% of our effort creates 80% of the results and then 80% of our effort, which is like a lot of the tasks and the mundane stuff creates only 20% of the results, right? You wanna get clear on what's the 20% that's moving the needle forward that's gonna get the company 80% of the results. How can I maybe do more of that or be better at that or you know, set myself up strategically where they see me as an expert in that as opposed to can I stop doing all of the 80% that's not really doing much for the company and it's running me into the ground? It's all of those things that I might just say yes to because I wanna be a team player, like I'm gonna volunteer on this committee.

And you know, when someone asks at a meeting like, Hey, can someone send me this file? It's like me rummaging through our database in order to find something for someone. And yes, that might seem like a small thing, but when I'm doing it constantly, when I'm being volunteered to do, let's say all the presentations 'cause I'm good with PowerPoint and somebody else isn't, how much of my time is that taking away and is that really a skill that the company is gonna look at as something that's irreplaceable? Or if push came to shove, would they still be able to replace me? And so I want you to really just think about this idea that you've been ingrained in. And for so many of us that were successful in school and so many of us that did get the A pluses and did try to do the extra credit and did always do more, we have a tendency to believe that we always have to give more, more, more.

No matter how much they ask, we have to go one above it. And you have to really ask yourself like, is that in my best interest? Because the thing is, is you live in a finite reality, right? You only have a certain amount of energy, you only have a certain amount of time and so you can do all this stuff but then you're gonna burn yourself out. Then you're not gonna have time at home for the rest of your life, right? And so you have to start really like evaluating is it worth the result I'm going to get? It isn't just a given just because like in school it was that way, it's not that way in corporate America. And so you have to really get clear is this going to be a good trade off for me or am I only doing it because I'm really deeply uncomfortable with not being the star employee and not getting the pats on the back and not getting validation and not, you know, being seen as the best part of the team.

And you know, God forbid I ever get any type of like feedback that's not a hundred percent glowing. If that's the case then you have to get better at dealing with that discomfort. You have to get better with like can I not be the our employee and still be okay with myself and allow myself to like take the energy that I save from that and put it into other things in my life. So that's one we all have to get out of this teacher's pet star employee a plus like always doing the most kind of mentality. We have to really figure out like this is a transactional relationship. They pay me for a certain level of tasks. Am I doing more than what I should be doing like than what I'm getting paid for? Am I taking on tasks that have nothing to do with me or my job?

Why am I doing that? Why am I not bringing up the fact that like I'm not getting paid for this So you know, can you give it to someone else or can we talk about my compensation or whatnot? Like why am I not advocating for myself? Why am I just taking on more and more the other thing that I think? So that was the first one. The second thing that I think is actually really huge for people in the corporate world is really disentangling yourself from the idea that it is possible to get a hundred percent correct on something, on anything. So what I mean by that is when you are in school you learn that there's a closed set of information. There is, you know, the test is gonna be on chapters 10th to 15 or whatever it is that you've learned in that semester.

That's all you're gonna be tested on, right? They're not gonna come test you on another subject, they're not gonna test you on something that nobody was ever taught. There's a closed universe that you were taught in that is limited and you get tested on that. And then obviously the way that we are tested is you know, on the scale of like zero to a hundred and we get grades and whatnot and you can get to a place where you memorize everything and you're really good at test taking and you're really smart and you get that a hundred percent right? And for so many of us it becomes almost this knee jerk reaction of like always having to try to get that a hundred percent. That's what you work towards and that is what all of school's based on. So of course after years and years and years and years of doing this, a lot of us develop these perfectionist tendencies where we have to try to be the best of the best.

We have to try to get the best score there is. And yeah, maybe you don't get a hundred every time but you get kind of close to it, right? And you sort of learn this game of I have to memorize or learn everything in this universe and then I have to regurgitate it on this test. What happens is that you go from this closed universe into the real world, which is not a closed universe is an open universe and there's an insane amount of information. Even more so now with technology for a lot of us it's very different from when we were in school. But there is just constantly more things to learn or to know. And so many of us become debilitated by this and we become debilitated by our own perfectionism. And I actually think this is a big reason why a lot of people have imposter syndrome because for so many of us we go into work thinking I have to know everything and if I don't know everything then I'm a fraud.

There's something wrong with me. They're gonna find out I felt like this when I was a lawyer and I had graduated And obviously when you're first starting out you're just learning. But I kept thinking this idea of like, oh my god, I don't know what I'm doing. They're gonna figure out I don't know what I'm doing. And it was because like at any given moment if a question came up, I didn't know the answer to it. And even if I researched it, I wasn't a hundred percent sure that I found every case on that matter and I might have missed something. And you know, new cases were coming out all the time and I didn't know if I was maybe searching in the right way. And there was this very open-ended kind of question. A lot of law in general is very open-ended and gray and constantly fluid and in fluctuation.

And I know that for me I'd been so used to getting straight A's and always getting really good grades on my test because I could take the finite information and memorize it and give you the exact you know, answer you need for any question. But when I didn't know what question was gonna pop up and I didn't know, you know, there was no finite universe, there was tons and tons of information. I was debilitated by this idea of I don't know what I'm doing and someone's gonna figure that out soon because I had this mistaken belief that other people, I don't know somehow did know all of the law and knew all of the answer, but I was so terrified that I was gonna make a mistake. Not realizing of course I'm gonna make a mistake 'cause I'm a human and there's just so much information out there and of course I'm gonna overlook something once in a while, right?

And that's just a normal part of being a human in this world. But I was so locked in on this idea that like I had to be an a plus student, I had to get a hundred percent and if there was something that I didn't know all of the answers to, then I was terrified. And I think that so many people feel like this in their jobs and they have this sense of like, I don't know what I'm doing, I don't know what the answer is here and everyone else is going to know that I don't know and that's a problem. And so we keep ourselves beyond like anxious. We don't go for promotions, we don't put ourselves up for bigger jobs for a lot of women we don't even apply for the job 'cause we think we don't have all of the answers or we don't have all of the qualifications because we're under this impression that there is some place where you can learn all this information, you can know everything and until you know it you can't move forward.

Right? And that is just based on the schooling model is that like you kind of learned in levels, you go from each grade, you learn everything and then you get passed on and you go to the next level and the next level. And that's just not the way it works in corporate America. And I think when you start realizing like of course I'm not gonna know everything, of course I'm gonna make mistakes, of course I'm not going to ever have like a hundred percent of the answers and nobody's testing me on that, nobody even needs that. I have a concept in my program that I talk about a lot and I really get people to be comfortable with doing B minus work because for so many of us we never were comfortable with that. It was like if it wasn't an A then I want nothing to do with it.

And we created these kind of mechanisms, these like protective mechanisms of perfectionism around ourselves and we always strive for that. And so it becomes deeply uncomfortable when I have to do work that's good enough. But the reality of it in corporate America and in work is that there's only a finite amount of time and things have to keep moving, right? And you have to go on to the next deadline and the next deadline and there's the next problem and the next problem. And if you're constantly looking to be perfect and every single thing has to be a hundred percent, you will get so bogged down with one thing that you actually will miss tons and tons of other stuff that you should be doing. And so most employers don't want you or don't need you to be perfect. Most of your coworkers don't need you to be perfect, they just need the job to get done.

And again, that comes back to our own discomfort of not turning in something that's you know, close to a hundred percent or our best work or you know with all the information and you just have to become comfortable with the fact that like I won't have all the information. And that's not to say that you can't try your best or that you can't try to look for the information or you can't try to like create safeguards to make sure you're not making a mistake. But it's simply understanding again that like you are a human being with a human mind and you're gonna sometimes make mistakes or you're sometimes not gonna have all the answers or you're gonna sometimes have to be okay with the fact that there's still doubt and uncertainty because you can't comb through all of the information on this topic. You sort of have to like cut your losses at a certain point and decide like this is good enough.

Like where is good enough? You have to define that for yourself like what does good enough look like if it's not a hundred percent? 'cause that's just not how it works in the real world and you don't need it to work like that. I think one of the biggest lessons I learned in entrepreneurship that's been great is I was terrified from the beginning of like when things didn't look perfect or they weren't perfect and I realize if I'm constantly waiting for it to be perfect, I will never get anything out because it's just not gonna happen, it's not gonna be up to my standard. And so I had to really redefine like what is good enough? You know, it's like good enough to go out to people, it might help one person, it may still have typos and you know the link might be broken once in a while or I'm not doing it on purpose but it's gonna happen and I'll deal with it when it happens, but at least I'm moving forward at least I'm, you know, creating podcasts and putting things out there and sending a new newsletter and um, creating a program and selling the program and doing it all kind of in this B work kind of way is a caveat Every time I do this concept of B minus work, I have to say that like other people will view your B minus work as a work.

The reason we go with B minus based on your standard is because you are typically too hard on yourself, you typically are going for perfection and what you do, other people will look at it and be like, oh that looks great. I thought what they did was wonderful, right?
And so it's not to say that it is actually V minus work again, nobody's grading us. There's no grade system anymore, right? It's more for yourself it's a concept of understanding is it good enough to go out and what does that mean good enough cannot be a hundred percent perfect with no mistakes and everything is wonderful because I will never get past this point, right? So that's the second one is trying to get things a hundred percent correct. Trying to go for the a plus is really embracing this good enough standard of B minus work and putting things out there and understanding that you live in an infinite world with infinite information and there is no way to know everything about everything. And so you have to start really like picking and choosing what are the projects where I really do wanna spend a ton of time maybe the email that I have to respond to that I'm spending 45 minutes crafting two sentences. Like maybe that one I can let go. Maybe good enough for that can be like, can I just respond in five minutes and just let it be right? Can I sit with the discomfort of like, oh no, they might think something, they might not think I'm, you know, that smart or maybe I put too many exclamation points or whatever. Like can I stop the obsession with every part of my day having to like me having to be the perfect person.

The last thing I will say with stuff that I think we've learned in school that has been really detrimental and there is other things, this isn't to say that it's an exhaustive list, but I think these three things are what I see really holding a lot of people back is again this concept that we were indoctrinated in that somebody else has the answers and knows the path and you just have to put your head down and follow the one path. There's one path to get there. And so you have to, you know, take the tests, get the grades, go to this school, get the degree in order to get this job. And that was the case for a lot of us in school. That was the case of like, yeah, like if I wanna be a lawyer in America, this is what I have to do.

If I wanna go to medical school, this is what I have to do. Even on a micro level, the message that was given within school that we all kind of grew up learning is that like the adults know better, they know what's best for us and you don't really need to understand it, you don't need to ask a lot of questions, you just kind of do what they've told you to do and you try to excel within that system. You know, you try to get the best grades and then you will be a quote unquote success then you'll make it somewhere, right? And we've all tried that to a certain extent and it's not to say that there isn't any benefit in that. Of course as you're growing up and you're a child, you don't know a lot of things and your parents are teachers are looking out for you and they are trying to teach you obviously and instill in you a lot of skills that will be helpful.

But I think that what happens is that for so many of us, we sort of give up our agency and we really then look to like somebody else has to have the answers for my life. Somebody else has to tell me exactly what I should do and exactly what the path is. And we even do this within our careers, even like within a career path. I think we think like there is only one way to create that career or create that path and that's typically not the case. Not to say it's not always. Sometimes maybe there's a linear path that's laid out by people before you great. But from now having like witnessed so many other people's careers and seeing the different ways that people create their careers and the different detours that they take and the sabbaticals they take or the time off they take to be with their kids and then come back or you know, just different avenues they took to get to that place.

I think that it's such a disservice to think that there's only one way and when you start realizing like I think the worst advice anybody could ever give you is put your head down and don't ask questions, right? I mean it's like you have to pick your head up, you have to look around and think about these questions for yourself and your career of like where do I wanna go? What is at the end of this road? Do I wanna be on this road? Is there a better way to get there? Is there a faster way? What I was just talking about earlier when I was saying how every company wants to create value and if you can help them create value in a certain way for their customers or their clients, you will become more irreplaceable to them. You will become a bigger value add to them, right?

And when you realize this, it becomes easier to play the game of figuring out, if I wanna advance in this career, maybe everybody else is doing it a certain way, but I can add value in this other way, I can likely make myself valuable maybe even faster than other people, right? But I think a lot of us don't ever wanna rock the boat, so we just always do it the way that we've been told. And you know, what is it fortune favors the brave or the bold or something like that. It's like, the thing is is that a lot of times when there are people that come that kind of break the paradigm or try different things or do it in a really bold way, they do tend to be rewarded for it or maybe shorten the time that it takes to get promoted or whatnot because it's not that they're trying to be disruptive, it is that they're looking at like, where is the hole in this market or in this company, what needs to be filled and can I offer that?

And I think for a lot of us, we've been programmed to be more docile than that, more timid. Like just do what you're told, don't ask questions, don't make waves, don't try to stand out, don't try to, you know, I don't know, you don't want your coworkers to hate you if you're good at your job or you're, you know, better at something. And so a lot of us dim our shine, A lot of us don't think about ways that we can't add value. A lot of us don't really look up to think about these deeper questions of like what is the value we're creating here? What would help my managers most? I think about this sometimes like when I was a lawyer and I worked in big law obviously like there was a very set path that is set towards like becoming partner. And I think that a lot of us and I ended up leaving, but I think that people followed a very similar path and a lot of it is a lot of grind and working a ton.

And I do think you have to like pay your dues in certain ways. But I always think about like there was certain people who really understood that you can either do that, you can either become a partner because you are just the hardest worker and you work the most hours and you bill the most hours. And that is one way and that is sort of the path that's created for most people. And then other people realize like, okay, but the law firm just wants to bring in money, it wants to bring in new cases, it wants to bring in new business, right? And if I have more contacts with people that will bring their cases or their, you know, companies to us and have us represent them, if I can bring in more business then I am a value. I am an asset to this law firm.

Even if I don't sit behind my desk and bill 2000 hours let's say. Right? And so some people were like, if I'm naturally, let's say I have a natural skill of being a connector with people and I really like connecting with people and I like business development. Well that is the way I can value add without having to be basically like the best motion writer, right? Like I'm not gonna do the best research and writing, but I can get more clients, I can bring business in. And guess what? Those people also make partner and they actually become much more valuable to the law firm because they are the ones bringing in business because they're gonna have tons of people that are just cogs in the wheel that are just doing all the grunt work because they're used to doing that, but they don't have the couple of people that are like, you know what, I'd rather be out at lunches or at networking events or you know, meeting these people at whatever it is being a part of whatever group I need to be in to then get more business for our law firm.

That's just one example I'm thinking about and I was thinking about it because I am someone that likes connecting with people and networking and I was realizing like I never even realized that that was sort of an option as a lawyer is to like merge this legal background with like business development and bring in more business and then you could stay there, you know, without working the same types of hours maybe. And so I just say that as like one example and I think that for a lot of people when you start looking up and really like thinking about these deeper questions of like what is the end goal here for this company? What are things that really do move the needle forward? What are the 20% of things that make this place more successful and how would I be able to support that or help that or think outside the box at that?

You can't do that if you're always put your head down and just do what you're told now that's within your specific job. But I think even more so within your career, I think for so many of us, again, we've been taught to be this like sort of follow the crowd, this subservient person that like does what we're told and we did that so long in school that so many of us just keep doing that in our careers. And I can't emphasize this enough that like if you wanna have a career that you love, like you have to take control of it. You have to decide if I don't do it the way everybody else does it, what would it look like for me? Right? I get so many people that DM me and ask me questions about like, well I really wanna take a sabbatical, but I'm afraid it's gonna look bad on my resume or there's gonna be a gap.

And that's because the narrative you've been told is like, there should never be a gap, right? Again, it's like somebody else told you these rules and we just keep living by it. And again, I'm not saying that you don't have to like be concerned or you shouldn't think through things. You should, you should think about how it's gonna affect you and whatnot. But I think for so many of us, we really have to decide like, okay, but do I want a career where I never get to take a break where I don't get to take time off to be with my kids where I work for companies that don't allow me to have more than two weeks off a year? Like that has to be a choice for me, right? Maybe I do it for a lot of us, we just randomly fall into it.

But if you wanna take control of it, you really have to start inciting, is this gonna be something that I choose to do or do I want my career to look different? And if I wanted to look different, how can it look different? What are some jobs, let's say some companies that are okay with sabbaticals that allow their their employees to take sabbaticals. What are other examples of people that have taken sabbaticals and have gone back, right? Can I look at it and start really figuring out like what is the type of career I want to have and how do I create that for myself? You have to look up, ask questions, look around, figure out what you want and start moving towards that. Um, it's not to say that it's gonna happen instantly or it's gonna happen exactly where you are, but it can happen and it can't happen if you're just kind of following the crowd and always doing what everybody else does.

It requires you to be like, you know what? I don't want this. So is there another way for me to work in this job? If not, is it there another way for me to work in this career at another job? If not, is there another career that I want? Is there a way that I can build this career? I want you guys to just ask more questions. I want you to ask more questions of yourself. I want you to look into what other people are doing. I want you to plan more in the future so that maybe you can't do it this year, but can you do it in two years, three years, five years? Right? Can you set yourself up for that? And so I really think those three things that I've noticed from people that I think keeps them really deeply unhappy in their careers and keeps them on this rat race, on this hamster wheel because for so many of us we're just constantly running ourselves into the ground, trying to give 110%, trying to be the a plus student.

Many of us are running ourselves into the ground like trying to, you know, do whatever it is people told us, like put our head down and follow this path constantly. And a lot of us are trying to like know a hundred percent the right answer and always be perfect. And that is just the fastest way to get yourself into burnout. And so if you wanna prevent that, you're gonna have to start like unlearning all of these things and approaching your job in a different way with a different mindset, with different beliefs. And if you want help with that, that is exactly what I help people with in my membership in the Quitter Club. And we're gearing up to open doors soon. You can come to that free class to learn more. You can come to the Quit the Rat Race Masterclass. You can go to www.quitterclub.com/masterclass. I hope to see you there.

Hey, if you are looking for more in-depth help with your career, whether that's dealing with all of the stress, worry, and anxiety that's leading to burnout in your current career or figuring out what your dream career is and actually going after it, I want you to join me in the Quitter Club. It is where we quit what is no longer working like perfectionism, people pleasing imposter syndrome, and we start working on what does and we start taking action towards the career and the life that you actually want. We will take the concepts that we talk about on the podcast and apply them to your life and you will get the coaching tools and support that you need to actually make some real change. So go to lessonsfromaquitter.com/quitterclub and get on the wait list. Doors are closed right now, but they will be open soon.