Chapter 10
My career
PREFACE
My career started at a model agency; I stumbled into that career at a very early age—maybe nineteen years old, not by any real desire to be in the fashion industry or even because I cared about models or wanted to be around them. No, it was simply an ego choice, with the promise of being paid well and additionally, I liked being in a position of power and influence. The Model Agency was widely considered to be the largest and most successful men’s agency worldwide (we represented women too—but the men’s board is where we excelled).
But all that came at a price. My more conservative business viewpoints (and what on earth did I know back then anyway?) were largely ignored and I went along with the plan of “world domination.”
My career took me from the London Agency to South Africa to run a model agency there; after that, it took me to New York City to run another office and then later, after I shifted focus, it took me to Louisville, Kentucky, USA.
There, I moved to the beauty industry—which I very much enjoyed and then to digital marketing and website design—which is where I am now.
PREMISE
My career is what I do (work wise). Historically, I have never believed that I had a choice in my career. I used to think that “I just fell into things by accident.” However, I now know that there are no “accidents” and I can choose what I do. I know now that I am not a victim, and am in complete control of my world. My thoughts control my world, and I am not just blindly living my life.
To develop my career, I need to first discover and develop my talents. Once I know what my talents are, then I can contribute to others and serve a need in a meaningful way. I should listen to my intuition in discovering my talents, and then, under such guidance, pick something that I am good at, am natural at, and that I may eventually become a master at. It should also be something that I enjoy. I would need to love my choice and be able to make a significant contribution to others.
The steps involved in choosing a career are:
- Find something that I love. Apply myself. Become good at it and have a passion for it. If I retain a good internal attitude and continue to listen to my intuition, then success will naturally follow me. I should look forward to getting up and doing what my choice of career is.
- Get really good at it, develop competence, deliver the goods every time and as I deliver, then I will get more confident and people will seek me out.
- Serve a need somewhere for someone. Make myself valuable. Create value.
- Create a Financial Model that works. Earn a profit.
How did I pick my career? To be honest, it felt like an accident. It wasn’t, of course, but, as I had no knowledge of the way life worked, I was not consciously working to a specific goal or deliberately making real choices.
After I finished high school and before starting college, I decided to take a year off and traveled to New York City from the UK. I met with my estranged uncle—we had not seen or been in communication with each other for almost ten years. I dabbled in modeling as well as doing a little work for him behind the scenes at the model agency. I worked for an Accounting Group and then worked as the office manager for, of all things, a sponge company (the sponges you now buy from L’Oreal that get crazy soapy) before returning to the UK to start college. When I started college, I was working for a charity arm of BP (British Petroleum).
During this time, my uncle had decided to set up a new agency in London, and, as I was drawn into working with my uncle—someone whom I greatly respected as a young adult—I was quick to offer my services. I believed that the experience of running an international modeling agency was worth the sacrifices that I was making at the time. I was not getting rich—indeed very little money stuck to me personally—and I was in financial ruin when I left the UK in 1999 to head up the South African modeling agency. My experience in South Africa ended up being a disaster, and when I left the country (I was asked to leave by the South African Government), I thought I was done with that industry.
However, around six weeks after I arrived back in the UK, my Grandmother died, and with the funeral, once again, my uncle came back into my life. He asked me to head up the New York modeling agency. I did not want to do this at the time but wanted to be helpful, and I had not yet come up with a better alternative. So, I moved to New York in the year 2000 and spent around five years running that Agency.
Once I finally left the model agency business, I stayed within the industry and accepted a paid job, with a biweekly paycheck, as the Executive Studio Manager for one of the world’s top photographers at the time. That didn’t last too long—I was let go just a year and a half later because I had gotten complacent with having a regular paycheck. After a period of rest and relaxation in Costa Rica and then Panama and dabbling with my own sunglasses company, my money was running out and I had to do something. Within my job searches, I stumbled across a skin care company based in Louisville, Kentucky. The headhunter was ideally looking for someone to take over as President of the company; someone who would be willing to transition from the fashion industry to the beauty industry. It turned out that they were essentially looking for someone with my exact fashion background. I had studied chemistry in school and college and so this enticed me. Besides, I wanted to get away from New York City.
For the first time, I was working in an environment where I was being paid and enjoying my work. Alas, this was short-lived as the very success that I was having in my work led the company to have a higher profile and with that, it was acquired by a multi-billion dollar company with most everyone being laid off. I was paid very handsomely to lose my job though.
It was around that time that my son was born and I moved from one relatively poorly-paid VP position to another in an effort to support my new family. It was not anything that I particularly enjoyed. I had set up an LLC to accommodate side-hustles, and when I quit my last crappy VP position, I concentrated only on my digital marketing and website design company. It was not terribly lucrative, and I was struggling to make sufficient money to cover my share of the household bills.
I remember I had paid the $600 balance of my Amex card, leaving me with only around $1,000 in my bank account. However, unbeknownst to me at the time, I had an auto-pay set up, and although my bill was paid in full, Amex took another $600 out of my account. Now my credit card was over-paid and I only had a few hundred bucks in my bank account. At this time, I reached out to another skin care company, based in Texas, that was looking for some assistance with a new brand. I negotiated a three-month contract with them, and when the term was ending, they flew me to Dallas and offered me a full-time position as the Vice President of the company. I refused the offer to relocate, and it was agreed that I could work remotely for a while. This position went very well; it kept my interest and allowed me to grow and learn more within my career.
My pending divorce, at the time, took a toll on me and I didn’t work or speak to anyone for a couple of weeks (except via email). Shortly after going back to work, money started running out at that company that I was working for and I stopped being paid. I continued working without compensation for an extended period, even though everyone else had, by that time, left. By now, I was solely reliant upon the money I was making through my marketing and website design company and so I started putting more resources into that.
As Covid hit, I was faced with an opportunity that I very much embraced, which was an expansion of my retainer with an Industrial and Commercial Energy Solutions Company. This put me back on track with financials similar to when I was working for the Skin Care Company—albeit I now had real business overheads that ate into my fiscal resources and did not exactly match the prior W2 earnings.
Which is where I am today. I could not be happier with the work/ play balance that I have in my life just now. My current career may not have been my first choice, but my life balance is very much worth it. I have invested heavily into making my marketing and website design company available for government contracts and this, I believe, will enable me to diversify and increase profitability and income without having to sacrifice my work / play balance.
VISION
I need to be passionate about my career and be really good at it. If I maintain a good internal attitude and listen to my intuition, then I will be good at my career and successful at it. I refuse to let money be the most important factor. I can attract great clients, have skills that are highly sought after, and make a difference in people’s lives. It’s important that I get to decide my schedule and be able to work from anywhere.
What kind of relationship do I want with Money?
I see myself as living in an abundant universe and today I live in the richest country and at the richest time. There is plenty of opportunity and I am destined to be a big financial success and always have been. I will continue to create value for others, and I will treat money well and not abuse it. I will enjoy it and have the best of everything as I also enrich other people’s lives.
My experience of the universe is as abundant as I allow it to be. If I feel guilty, it’s not going to be an abundant universe, but if I recognize both my innocence and the innocence of everybody else and keep moving along that path to incorporate the innocence more and more then I will have no financial worries.
If people have money and it dwindles—it’s not so much that they abused money, it’s that they do not have the consciousness to keep that money because their consciousness is still a more impoverished consciousness, and so it will just slip through their hands.
What have I always enjoyed? I have enjoyed chemistry, working in the beauty industry, and creating products.
What am I good at? I am good with computers, whether it’s design work or simply databases and office products. I generally know more about these things that most anyone else in the room. I am good at communicating with those who often do not have a voice (i.e. when working with the software company, I would be the communication between management and the coding developers).
If my favorite skill could be my career, what would it look like? I am very grateful for my present work; it enables me to work from anywhere, including working from the boat, where I can be on the water.
How can I improve the lives of others? I can help people develop their business with websites and social media, I can create assets for their businesses such as logos and branding; I can create beauty products for people and develop their SKUs. I can help sell their product or service with digital marketing. I can position myself and my business to be of help and not necessarily to make money—although the more value that I bring, the more money comes in.
I am expanding my marketing and website design company through government contracts. I am still in the mode of being open to these ideas, waiting to see if doors will open and waiting for guidance as to when I should proceed further. I do not want my career to be an extension of my earlier career—the modeling agency—that was clearly ego driven.
PURPOSE
My career is the vehicle—or is at least a large part of—how my finances are developed; my career is what I am potentially spending a great deal of my time doing. If I do not get this category correct, then it affects all my other categories:
- My Health and Fitness—If I am stressed, then I cannot function as well as I might otherwise, and if I am doing something that I do not enjoy, then it may lead to me punishing myself—which means that I will take it out on my own body and become sick or injured.
- My Intellectual Life—An unrewarding career, one which does not enable me to exercise my mind daily, will potentially adversely affect my intellectual life.
- My Emotional Life—Emotions allow me to let go of guilt. I must first and foremost listen to them and then feel them; I must release myself from the fight or flight response and then interpret what guilt needs to be released. Happiness is an emotion and so enjoying my time whilst undertaking my career means that I am (generally) happy during that span of time. Conversely, a career that I do not enjoy means that I am not happy. It is simply not worth being miserable in my work.
- My Character—Moral order or living lovingly is what stamps my character. My career cannot violate this. My career choice cannot be dishonest.
- My Spiritual Life—My spiritual life is being one with the world; it’s following my intuition; it’s being grateful and forgiving. If I choose a career that is self-punishing, then I cannot be following my intuition and therefore, cannot be spiritual. My career is a vehicle for contribution to others and to self-actualization.
- My Love Relationship—For richer, for poorer, spending time with my wife is an important part of my life. Having the financial resources to travel with my wife, to eat and drink with her, and to do enjoyable things with Jennifer is an exceptionally high priority. I will not sacrifice this for a career that takes up too much of my time or does not provide me with sufficient finances to enjoy my love relationship.
- My Parenting—I have responsibilities to my son, Edward. A career that does not allow for these responsibilities—like attending sporting events with my son or picking him up from school, etc.—means that I am potentially failing my son and setting a poor example for him.
- My Social Life—Having a career that takes up all my time and does not allow for a social life is not worthwhile. Either I will be working all the time or will be too tired to spend time with friends.
- My Financial Life—My career plays a pivotal role in my finances. It is likely that the regularity of income resulting from my career will be a significant factor in the health of my finances.
- My Quality of Life—A work / play balance is a high priority in my Quality of Life.
- My Life Vision—My career takes up a significant part of my waking hours. A career that I enjoy, one that enables a significant contribution to others, and benefits all the other eleven categories is a significant part of my life vision.
In choosing my career I should never sacrifice anything—my relationships or health, etc. I did this at the model agency, and it was very much a mistake
STRATEGY
My strategy is simple—follow my guidance/intuition. Note—guidance and intuition are basically the same, and I should remember that I am always either following my intuition or my ego—my learned defensive responses (about what I think will keep me safe). I will always ultimately feel better when I am following my intuition than when following my ego, I will always essentially feel worse. So, my strategy is to follow those inclinations, whether they make sense to my intellectual mind or not. It is best not to even give the ego a chance to “vote” in these life-altering decisions. Following my guidance is the only sane choice and it doesn’t matter if my ego understands or approves. Note, when the energy fades out of a place or situation, it’s a sign to move on—sometimes literally.
Sometimes, guidance may prevent me from taking a certain course of action for my own protection and best interests. The “doors” simply will not open—i.e., prevents a plan rather than facilitates it. I may never know what was avoided. My job is to trust that I am always being directed with my best interests at heart.
Everyone has access to their inner guidance but trusting it and following through is essential. I must remember that my intellect has only what I’ve learned, or can research, but guidance is an “out-of-time” phenomena so has access to everything. Sometimes the guidance message may be short, but it will plant the necessary seed to consider. Guidance contains the wisdom that my intellect does not.
If I want to make more money, then I need to figure out how to create more value. To figure out how to create more value, I need to listen to my intuition.
It is said that 85 percent of career success is due to personality—the ability to communicate, negotiate, and lead. 15 percent is due to technical expertise. I should get really good at what I do. I should be an expert and be multi-faceted; perhaps even become certified. I should learn to be good at story-building, learn to sell—get people to take action by rallying the heart towards the goal. If my career is not supporting all of the other eleven categories, then it is time for change.
MY CAREER THOUGHTS
I live in an age of unprecedented opportunity. When it comes to careers, I have a wider range of choices than ever before in human history. There are many professions that didn’t even exist a hundred years ago. I can choose just about any career that I want. I can pick a career that I like and get good at it—and trade the fruits of my labor for the fruits of labor of others. This is an amazing opportunity, but there is a downside—information overload. It is easy to become overwhelmed because there are too many choices that can make it bewildering and confusing. With all the possibilities, how can I possibly choose? The answer is, of course, to listen to my guidance—listen to my intuition; I do not need for my ego to logically dictate this decision, instead, I need a higher power—my intuition.
Choosing the ideal career can be a very complicated matter, but there are a few commonsense things that I can consider. My career is how I spend most of my time. Most of my waking hours get invested here. My career is what I “do.” I do not want to spend the hours of my life doing something that I hate. So, it makes sense to pick something that I like. Something that I enjoy. It’s the smart, common-sense thing to do.
It also makes sense to pick something that I am good at—or that I could be good at. It doesn’t make a lot of sense to spend my life doing something that I lack the aptitude to do well. That would be frustrating. I don’t want to work and work and not get better. If I pick something that I am a “natural” at, then I will get better and better at it over time. That is a good thing. I might have to experiment to find out what that is. I might have to try a few different things. But when all is said and done, I will find something I can do well.
The next consideration is financial abundance. I want a career that make me the most money possible—a career that maximizes my potential to create wealth.
To do this, I must contribute to others at the highest level of which I am capable. The greater my contribution, the greater my financial rewards. Note: While maximizing dollars is a prominent consideration, my work-life balance ratio is my primary consideration. I am very grateful for my current work and I have learned that such a balance is not something to be given up easily.
With guidance I can have clarity and focus. Fuzzy targets won’t get hit. Clear targets keep productivity charging forward. I always need to know exactly what I am doing but if I rely upon my intuition to make the decision initially (but I do not necessarily need to know why I am doing it or how I am going to get it done) then I can quantify goals and set hard numbers for expected performance (but this should not get me sidetracked). I should continue to trust in the process of my guidance . . . my heart.
I should have an intolerance of crisis and urgency. If this happens, it means that I have gotten sidetracked and I am no longer listening to my intuition or I have allowed my ego to be in charge. With times of crisis, I am being presented with an opportunity to let go of guilt and should take that opportunity. I should learn from my time at the Model Agency where every day was a crisis. Crisis goes against the reason that my career exists in the first place—to make my life better—and I am unwilling to tolerate a loss in my Quality of Life.
I should have constant improvement of every product, service, system and department in my company. I should benchmark against the best in the world in every category. Ideally, I should have no debt, but trusting my instinct is first and foremost.
Simplicity. My companies, my job, and my entire career should be understandable, efficient, and profitable. I should be myself. I should accept who I am and do things as my intuition guides.
MY CAREER STRENGTHS
Creativity is a core competency of mine. Creativity is the highest expression of individuality. It is the ability to see what has not been seen before, to question what has not been questioned before, and to project a vision that has not been conceived before. To create things. This is what I enjoyed whilst working in the beauty industry.
I can absorb vast amounts of information, boil things down quickly, achieve clarity, make decisions, gather resources, and motivate and inspire others to help me accomplish my mission. I am usually so confident and so sure about my mission and my message that other people can’t help but be excited by it and want to experience or be a part of it.
Organization—I am efficient, effective, and can understand and integrate vast amounts of information.
The ability to execute—I should know how to get things done on a massive scale. I deliver the goods—and usually over-deliver.
Leadership—I can inspire and motivate people. I can enlist others in my dreams and get people excited about working toward the accomplishment of my goals. I lead by example, by what I do—not what I say. People respect and follow me because they want to, not because they must.
Technical Skills—I have more computer skills than most people. I am not a programmer, but am very adept at using online resources, creative suites, and office products.
Product development—I can create consumer goods products that are valuable and desirable to others.
Management—I have decades of management experience, although sometimes I may not have the patience to be the best manager that I can be.
MY CAREER WEAKNESSES:
Management—I am an entrepreneur, but am I a manager? I can create good businesses, but I must hire competent management in every smaller department in order to maintain them.
Finance—I understand the big-picture numbers. I have been the CFO of many businesses, but I did not enjoy the day-to-day financial details. To mitigate this challenge, I must always have this area covered by competent accountants and CFOs.
Marketing—I have extensive marketing experience; I have worked as the VP of Marketing for multiple organizations. Figuring out the best way to sell my products or services has never been my best area of strength. I have seen good companies and great products fail because of this weakness, and that has made me realize that sales are the lifeblood of any business. The good news is that this subject is not exactly rocket science. To mitigate this area of weakness, I must surround myself with people who know how to market and focus a tremendous amount of energy on marketing plans.
Spreading my focus too thin—I can take on a lot, but I must guard against taking on too much (as I tend to do). Spreading myself too thin goes directly against my number one value—my work / life balance. My business philosophy is to define the most important battles and focus all my energy on them, one at a time, until I win them decisively.
Does my career have the potential to meet financial goals? Almost. I am expanding my marketing company’s business to include government contracts. I have invested heavily in this process, and I expect it to pay off. I have also become more-in-touch with my inner self, have been developing inner peace, and with that, I have seen a substantial increase in business.
