Latest / Amazing Life Breakthrough / Ep 58 | The Day I Returned the Uniform: When the Easy Path Isn’t the Right Path

Transcript

Ep 58 | The Day I Returned the Uniform: When the Easy Path Isn’t the Right Path · Amazing Life Breakthrough

• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: Hi there everyone.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: Steve Klein here.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: Have you ever been offered something that looked perfectly good on paper, but somewhere deep inside you knew it wasn't right for you?
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it was a job, a relationship, a business opportunity, or simply a direction in life that would have been easier than the road you really wanted to take, and that is what makes those decisions difficult.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: If the choice were obviously terrible, you could just say no.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: But what happens when it is a good opportunity?
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: What happens when it provides income, security, and a clear path forward?
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yet every time you imagine yourself taking that path, something inside you says, This isn't where I'm supposed to go.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: Well, for me, I had one of those moments early in my career.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Amazing Life Breakthrough.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Steve Klein.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: And today I want to tell you about the day I sat in a parking lot with a brand new work uniform in my hands and realized I was about to walk away from my own dream.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: At the time, I was trying desperately to get into the high-tech computer field.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: I had gone to college for data processing and computer programming, along with a minor in marketing, and I believed that technology was where my future was headed.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: But getting that first job was much harder than I expected.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: Jobs were tight, especially when you were trying to break into the field without much professional experience.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: And like a lot of people starting out, I took other jobs just to keep money coming in.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: Before that, I had worked for a regional pizza restaurant chain while going to school.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: I became one of their stronger employees and was even sent from Portland down to Eugene, Oregon to help open a new restaurant.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: At first I thought this might lead to management.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: I was excited about that possibility.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: I got to stay in a nice apartment near a golf course, spend some time around the founder of the company, and ask questions about business and entrepreneurship.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: But when the restaurant opened, I discovered that they had brought in one of their experienced managers from California.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: I wasn't going to be running the store after all.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: Then on my birthday, I found myself working in a back hallway around trash bins and leftover vegetables, and something hit me.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: I asked myself in that moment, what am I doing?
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: This is not where I want my life to go.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: So I made a pretty dramatic decision, which was to say I quit, and looking back, I'm not necessarily recommending that everybody go quit their job without notice.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: That was my situation, my decision, and there were risks involved.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: But I knew something about myself.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: If I stayed comfortable, I might never make the move into the career I actually wanted.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: So I walked away.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: I had a little over$3,000 saved, which was a lot of money to me at the time, and I gave myself some breathing room to figure out what came next.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: Only the computer job didn't come.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: I applied, I looked, I kept trying, and nothing seemed to open up.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: I took jobs at places like a hardware store and a shoe store just to get by, and after a while the uncertainty started wearing on me.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: The kind of thing that makes you start to question your decisions.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: Makes you think, did I make the right move?
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: Then I saw an advertisement for Pizza Hut, and they were hiring a manager trainee, and suddenly I thought, now this could work.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: Unlike the previous restaurant job where I thought management might happen someday, this one was different.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: They were actually hiring me to train as a restaurant manager and eventually run a store.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: That was a real opportunity.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: After a few weeks of applications, follow-up calls, and interviews, I got the answer I wanted.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: I was hired.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: All I had to do was go to the Pizza Hut location in Beaverton, sign the paperwork, and pick up my uniform.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: So I did.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: I walked out to my car, sat down with that uniform, and instead of feeling excited, I felt something completely different.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: I realized I had done it again, the same thing I had always done.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: I was about to choose a familiar path, the easy way out.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: Because it was available, even though the path I truly wanted was high tech.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: Now understand there was nothing wrong with becoming a restaurant manager.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: It was respectable work.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: I knew the restaurant business, I understood the operations, and I probably would have done very well at it.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: That was exactly what made the decision so difficult.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: The opportunity wasn't bad, it was simply taking me in the wrong direction, and sometimes those are the hardest choices we ever make.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: Because a bad road is easy to recognize.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: A good road going the wrong direction can be much harder.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't know what to do, so I did something I have done many times in my life when I need to clear my head.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: I drove.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: I drove all the way out to the Oregon coast to seaside.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: This was before cell phones, so at some point I found a payphone and called my wife.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: We had only been married about a year, and I told her I was okay.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: I just needed some time to think because I wasn't sure this new job was the direction I wanted for my life.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: She was supportive, and then I spent several hours walking along the beach.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: There's something about the Oregon coast that has always helped me slow down.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: The ocean is big enough that your problems suddenly don't feel quite as big.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: And while I walked, I started looking at the two roads in front of me.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: One road was easy to understand, take the management job, learn the system, work hard, get my own store, and probably build a decent career.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: I already knew restaurants, I knew I could succeed there.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: The other road had no guarantees, I could keep pursuing computers, keep applying, keep trusting that somewhere there was going to be an opportunity for me to get my foot in the door.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: And possibly keep hearing no.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: And that was a real possibility.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: And through it all, I realized something.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: I wasn't really choosing between a job and no job.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: I was choosing between comfort and direction.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: The safe choice could pay me sooner, the uncertain choice could take me where I actually wanted to go.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: So I came back from the coast and returned the uniform.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks, but no thanks, and I went right back into the uncertainty.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: Now here's the part that still amazes me when I look back.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: Just three months later, I landed my first job as a computer operator.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: My foot was finally in the door from there.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: I moved into programming, then software engineering, eventually becoming a senior software engineer, a high tech entrepreneur, and a business owner.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: That one decision in the Pizza Hut parking lot changed the trajectory of my career, but when I made it, I didn't know any of that was coming, and that's an important distinction.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes when we tell stories years later, everything sounds inevitable.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't return the uniform knowing a computer job was three months away.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: For all I knew it might have taken another year.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: I simply knew that if I kept choosing what was comfortable every time uncertainty became uncomfortable, I might never reach the thing I had spent years preparing for.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: And there is the breakthrough.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes the easy path isn't the wrong path because it is bad.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: It is wrong because it slowly carries you away from where you know you want to go.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: That can happen almost without noticing.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: You take the temporary job and five years later you are still there.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: You put the dream aside until things calm down, but things never calm down.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: You tell yourself you will start the business later, write the book later, change careers later, go back to school later, or finally pursue that calling when the timing is perfect.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: And then one day you look around and realize the temporary road became your permanent destination.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I don't believe every difficult choice is automatically the right choice either.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes the safe decision is wise, you have responsibilities, you may have children, bills, health concerns, or circumstances that require stability.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: This is not about throwing wisdom out the window and calling it courage.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: It is about being honest with yourself.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: Ask the deeper question.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: Am I staying here because this is truly the right direction for me?
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: Or because I'm afraid of what happens if I leave?
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: Those are two very different reasons.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: Another question I like is if I keep going in this direction for the next five years, where does it take me?
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: Not just what does it give me today?
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: Because sometimes a choice can solve today's discomfort while creating tomorrow's regret.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes accepting uncertainty today opens a door that comfort never would have.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: There was another layer to this story, too.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: Earlier in my life, someone had told a girlfriend of mine that I was living in a fantasy world if I thought I was going to get a job in computers, and I always found that interesting.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: I mean they were partly right, it was a dream, but it wasn't a fantasy land dream.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: There is a difference.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: A fantasy is something you simply imagine and expect to appear out of thin air.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: A dream becomes a goal when you start doing the work.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: I went to school, I studied the field, I got good grades, I applied for jobs, and I kept learning, I kept trying when the opportunities weren't there yet.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: I was stacking the deck in my favor.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: There was still no guarantee, but I was given the dream somewhere to land, and that is something I want you to think about.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe there is something in your life right now that feels uncertain.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: You know the direction you want to go, but the road is taking longer than you hoped.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: Meanwhile, something easier has appeared.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: Before you automatically take it, ask yourself whether it is a bridge toward your goal or an exit from it, because those can look very similar in the beginning.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: A bridge helps sustain you while you keep moving toward the destination.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: An exit quietly becomes the destination.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: So here's your challenge this week.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: Look at one important direction in your life and ask yourself these three questions.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: Where am I really trying to go?
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: Is the path I'm on actually taking me there?
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: And am I making my current choice out of wisdom or simply because it feels safer?
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: You don't necessarily need to make some giant decision today.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe your breakthrough is simply becoming honest about the road you're on.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: Because once you see the fork in the road clearly, you have a much better chance of choosing intentionally.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: On Thursday, we're going to go deeper into this idea of comfort versus calling.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: We'll talk about how to tell the difference between a courageous risk and a reckless one, what happens when other people don't believe in the direction you're taking, and how to keep moving when the thing you believe you are called toward is taking much longer than you expected.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: But for today, remember this a good opportunity can still be the wrong opportunity.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes you have to be willing to return the uniform.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: If this episode spoke to you, share it with someone who may be standing at a crossroads in their own life.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: And if you haven't yet, follow or subscribe to Amazing Life Breakthrough so you don't miss the next episode.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: If you'd like to support the mission financially, you can make a small donation at AmazingLifebreakthrough.com.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: Every contribution helps us continue sharing messages that may give someone the breakthrough they need at exactly the right time.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for spending this time with me on Amazing Life Breakthrough.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: And remember to live life to the fullest.