Latest / Executive Careers with Fexingo: VP, C-Suite, and Senior Leadership Career Strategy / How Executives Build a Career Safety Net
Transcript
- Lucas: There is a dangerous assumption that sits at the top of almost every Fortune five hundred organization. It is the belief that if you perform well, if you hit your targets, and if you align with the culture, your position is secure. But we know that is not true. Security at the executive level does not come from tenure or loyalty. It comes from optionality. Luna: Right. Most people think they have security because they have a nice title. But titles are leased, not owned. The moment the lease expires, what do you actually have? Lucas: Exactly. And what they usually have is nothing but a resume that only speaks the language of their current employer. I want to talk about what I call Career Capital Diversification. It is the practice of treating your professional identity like an investment portfolio. You do not put everything into one stock. You hold bonds, you hold equities, you hold cash equivalents. For an executive, that means maintaining multiple revenue streams and influence channels outside your primary job. Luna: So you are suggesting that even if you are fully employed, you should be actively building other assets? That sounds exhausting. How do you find the time? Lucas: It is not about working eighty hours a week. It is about strategic allocation. Let us look at the three main buckets of external capital. First is Advisory Board Service. Second is fractional or consulting work. Third is thought leadership and speaking. These are not distractions. They are insurance policies. When the market shifts, as it did in early two thousand twenty-four, the person with only one income source panics. The person with three options breathes. Luna: But isn't there a huge risk of conflict of interest? Your primary employer will never let you build a competing business while you are on their payroll. Lucas: That is the critical constraint. You cannot build a competitor. You must build complements or neutral assets. A CFO might consult for a non-competing industry peer on treasury management. A marketing leader might advise a venture studio on brand positioning. The key is to stay within the bounds of your employment agreement while expanding your reach. If you cross the line, you lose your job. If you stay within the lines, you build resilience. Luna: Okay, so the first bucket is advisory boards. Why are those so valuable right now? I see a lot of companies struggling to fill them. Lucas: Because private equity firms and mid-market companies are desperate for seasoned operators. They do not want another academic. They want someone who has actually fired five hundred people and rehired them. Serving on an advisory board gives you exposure to different business models, different crises, and different boards. It keeps your judgment sharp. More importantly, it keeps your network alive. If you only talk to your internal team, your network rots. Luna: I have seen that happen. My friend Sarah, she stayed at one tech firm for twelve years. She knew everyone internally, but when they restructured, she had no external contacts. She was stuck for six months. Lucas: That is the single-threaded failure mode. Sarah knew her customers, but she did not know the ecosystem. By the time she needed help, the trust-based relationships had cooled. An advisory role forces you to maintain warm ties with people outside your org. Those ties do not cool quickly. They wait for you. Luna: What about the second bucket? Fractional work. Is that realistic for someone already working full-time? Lucas: It is very realistic, provided you manage the scope. A fractional Chief Revenue Officer might work ten hours a week for two different startups. That is forty hours total. It leaves sixty hours for the primary job. The income is significant, but the real value is the rapid iteration. Startups move fast. You learn new tools, new tactics, and new problems in weeks rather than years. It makes you faster in your main role. Luna: But doesn't that split your focus too much? I worry about burnout. If you are doing this on top of a VP role, aren't you just running yourself into the ground? Lucas: Burnout comes from ambiguity and lack of control, not necessarily volume. If you set clear boundaries, fractional work can be energizing. It reminds you why you entered this field. It provides a creative outlet that corporate politics often suffocate. The danger is saying yes to everything. You must curate your external commitments like you curate your internal projects. Only take the ones that challenge you or pay well. Never take the ones that just fill time. Luna: So curation is key. What is the third bucket? Thought leadership and speaking? Lucas: This is the lowest friction, highest leverage asset. Writing articles, speaking at conferences, participating in panels. This builds your personal brand independent of your company logo. When you speak at a major industry event, you are reminded that you are a recognized expert. That confidence carries over into negotiations. It also attracts opportunities. Recruiters and headhunters watch speakers. If you are invisible, you are passive. If you are visible, you are active. Luna: I agree. But writing articles feels like homework. How do you make it sustainable without turning it into a chore? Lucas: You write about what you solve. Do not try to be a generalist philosopher. Pick one problem you face in your job. Write about how you solved it. Share the framework. That is it. One article a month. That is twelve pieces a year. Over five years, that is sixty assets. That is a body of work that defines you. It takes the pressure off being profound. You just need to be practical. Luna: Practicality over profundity. I like that. It lowers the barrier to entry significantly. But Lucas, there is a legal hurdle here. Employment contracts. They are getting stricter. Lucas: They are. Non-competes are banned in many states, but non-solicitation and IP assignment clauses are still everywhere. You must read your contract. Specifically, the clause regarding outside employment. Some require written consent. Some prohibit any paid outside work. Others only prohibit work that competes. You cannot guess. You must know exactly where the line is drawn. Ignorance is not a defense. Luna: So the first step is legal due diligence. Before you build anything, you audit your constraints. That seems like a boring but necessary step. Lucas: It is unsexy, but it is the foundation. Once you know the rules, you can design your portfolio. Maybe you cannot do consulting, but you can serve on a nonprofit board. Maybe you cannot write for trade journals, but you can mentor junior leaders externally. There is always a path. The goal is to maximize optionality within the boundaries you are given. Luna: Let me push back on the nonprofit angle. Is that really career capital? Or is it just volunteering? Does it count if it does not generate income? Lucas: It counts immensely. Governance skills are transferable. Managing a nonprofit budget requires discipline. Navigating a diverse board requires political acumen. Leading a crisis in a resource-constrained environment requires creativity. These are exactly the skills tested in executive interviews. Plus, it signals character. It shows you care about something beyond the P&L. That matters to boards. Luna: I had not considered that. I tend to view volunteering as charity. But if it builds governance experience, it is actually professional development. Lucas: Precisely. It is professional development disguised as charity. The trick is to choose nonprofits where you can have impact, not just attend galas. Get on a finance committee or an audit committee. Put your skills to work. That is how you turn good deeds into career assets. Luna: Okay, so we have advisory boards, fractional work, and governance. How do you measure if this is actually working? How do you know your safety net is strong enough? Lucas: You test it annually. Every September, which is coming up soon, I sit down and review my external commitments. Do I have at least two active advisory or consulting roles? Have I published or spoken at least once in the last quarter? Do I have a list of ten people outside my company who would answer a call if I lost my job tomorrow? If the answer is no to any of those, I have a gap. I fill it. Luna: The phone a friend test. Ten people who would answer. That is a very concrete metric. Most executives probably have fewer than five. Lucas: Probably fewer than two. Because they rely on LinkedIn connections, not actual relationships. LinkedIn is a directory. Relationships are networks. A directory tells you who someone is. A network tells you who they trust. You need trust to get a referral. You need referrals to get the next role. Without a safety net, you are relying on luck when things break. Luna: And luck is a terrible strategy for a high-paid executive. So the core message is: do not wait for the crash to build your parachute. Lucas: Correct. You build it while the sun is shining. When the market is hot, when you are successful, when you feel safe, that is the exact moment to diversify. Because that is when you have the energy and the credibility to attract good opportunities. If you start looking for safety nets when you are already unemployed, you are negotiating from weakness. Luna: Negotiating from weakness. That is the brutal truth. Everyone wants to hear the success story, but nobody talks about the preparation that prevents the disaster. Lucas: Disaster prevention is the most underrated part of executive strategy. We celebrate the turnaround, but we ignore the risk management. Yet the risk management is what allows the turnaround to happen. You cannot turn around a company if you are panicked about your own livelihood. You need that stability to make hard calls. Luna: Stability enables boldness. I think that is the link a lot of people miss. They think diversification dilutes their focus, but it actually concentrates their courage. Lucas: Exactly. You can be bolder in your main role because you are not terrified of losing it. You can say no to bad projects. You can fire toxic peers. You can invest in long-term bets instead of short-term fixes. The safety net is not just for you. It is for the organization you lead. It makes you a better executive. Luna: That is a powerful reframing. It is not selfish to build your own safety net. It is responsible leadership. Lucas: It is. And it is also pragmatic. The modern career is not a ladder. It is a jungle gym. You climb, you swing, you sometimes drop. If you have hands free to grab the next bar, you survive. If you are holding onto one rope with both hands, you fall. Build the grip strength. Build the other bars. Luna: Jungle gym vs ladder. I am going to remember that. It changes the entire metaphor of how we approach our annual reviews. Lucas: Try it. Next time you review your goals, add one goal that has nothing to do with your current P&L. Add one external commitment. See how it feels. It might feel uncomfortable at first. Like you are neglecting your main duty. But give it three months. You will see the difference in your confidence. Luna: We will. And if you want to support us while you do that, honestly, if today was worth a coffee to you, that's the link — buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. Lucas: It keeps the show ad-free and helps us bring you these deep dives. No pressure, just appreciation if you can spare it. Now, back to the jungle gym. Luna: Back to the gym. So, Lucas, what is the one thing listeners should do this week to start building that net? Lucas: Audit your calendar. Find one hour a month you are spending on low-value activities. Internal meetings that could be emails. Busywork that adds no strategic value. Reclaim that hour. Use it to reach out to one former colleague or industry contact. Just check in. Do not ask for anything. Just maintain the tie. That is the seed. Luna: Reclaim one hour. Reach out to one person. Simple, actionable, and it starts the compounding effect immediately. Lucas: It does. And remember, the goal is not to quit your job. The goal is to make your job a choice, not a necessity. That freedom changes how you walk into the room every single day. Luna: Walking into the room knowing you have options. That is the ultimate power move. Lucas: It is. And it is available to anyone willing to do the quiet work while everyone else is celebrating the loud wins. Stay diversified, stay sharp, and keep your options open. Luna: Thanks for listening. Let us know which bucket you plan to build first.