Latest / Success Story with Scott Clary / Lessons - Redefining Success Through Fulfillment Over Ambition | Erin Blaskie - Fractional CMO & TedX Speaker

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Lessons - Redefining Success Through Fulfillment Over Ambition | Erin Blaskie - Fractional CMO & TedX Speaker · Success Story with Scott Clary

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  In this lessons episode, you'll explore the challenges of non-linear career paths.
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  From entrepreneurship to structured roles, it highlights the impact of burnout,
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  the importance of self-care, and making career choices based on personal fulfillment,
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  rather than societal expectations.
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  Discover how redefining success can lead to a more balanced, fulfilling life.
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  Let's dive into some of the history, because the history definitely queues up,
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  like what you're working on.
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  So non-linear career path is one of the things that you've definitely lived.
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  Why did you, let's just figure out why after making 250K,
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  did you ever want to work with somebody, 25K, you know, in your own business?
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  Why would you work for somebody again?
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  What were the benefits?
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  What were the lessons learned?
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  What was it difficult?
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  Let's talk about just pivoting, because I think people think the opposite of what you do,
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  right? They want to escape the nine to five.
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  They want to escape the company, right?
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  Yeah, well, I mean, here's the thing, like when you, when people start businesses,
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  and like if they at all have this vision in mind that they're escaping a nine to five,
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  I mean, like park that, that is, you know, that is just absolutely 1,000% not true.
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  In fact, you're going to work more than the nine to five if you start your own thing.
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  And a lot of what you do, you're not getting paid for, you know?
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  So you have to do a lot of the business calls and the accounting and the bookkeeping.
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  And even if you're not, like even if you outsource that stuff,
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  you still have to facilitate it and organize it.
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  And, you know, so there's a lot of stuff that you do when you're self-employed
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  that you're just not getting paid for.
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  And you don't get the luxury all the time of just closing up the laptop at the end of the day.
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  And then, you know, not looking at it again until you go back.
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  So for me personally, what ended up kind of happening for me is that in,
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  in about 2015, 2014, 2015, somewhere in there,
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  I ended up hitting a pretty significant wall of burnout.
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  And that burnout led to, like I've always been predisposed to depression my whole life,
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  like I've dealt with it from the time I was probably 14.
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  But I really was like impacted greatly inside of my business.
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  I was, you know, I was going through a divorce.
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  I was like, you know, kind of managing a lot of different things,
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  obviously learning how to be a single parent,
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  starting to figure out like, how am I going to sustain this business?
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  And this, you know, raised my daughter and also do this all on my own.
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  And there was just a lot going on.
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  And then at the same time, I had a subcontractor that we were working on a lot of web development projects.
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  He ended up bailing on me out of the blue, which is the complete risk you run when you don't have
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  employees and you have freelancers and subcontractors.
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  And it was kind of like everything came to a head for me.
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  And I just realized how trapped I felt like I had this enormous amount of, you know, burnout.
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  And I really couldn't function.
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  And but at the same time, I had no choice, you know.
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  And I think it was in that moment that I really had to look at, you know, everything in my life.
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  Like, what was I doing?
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  How had I structured this business?
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  Was this actually set up in a way that could sustain my life and could sustain the ups and downs?
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  And the answer was no.
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  You know, the answer was absolutely.
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  It was not set up that way.
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  So I spent the next year after that, after I actually came out of that burnout and that
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  depression and, you know, worked really hard to get through that.
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  I spent the next year restructuring everything and really like evaluating what was important to me.
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  And when the, when I started consulting with Elspark, the accelerator,
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  I honestly, in that moment, I love the team there.
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  Like, I still do.
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  They're still amazing.
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  And I loved what they were doing.
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  It was very similar to what I was doing, but inside of four walls, right?
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  And there was like team support.
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  And there was people and the founders were all in there.
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  And it was a co-working space.
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  So it was dynamic and interesting.
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  And I had spent 14 years working by myself in a home office, just like this.
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  You know, and so for me, it was like, because I had had that experience and begin,
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  really began evaluating like what was important.
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  And it just bit, you know, and the moment was just right for me.
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  And it checked a lot of the kind of the boxes that I was after.
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  So I decided, you know, I'm very much a gut person.
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  Like, I will listen to my gut all the time.
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  And for me, it was just like, this is right.
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  And so when they sat me down over lunch and asked me one day,
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  like, hey, would you ever consider coming on board full time?
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  I didn't hesitate.
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  I was like, yeah, let's do it.
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  Let's do it.
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  I don't care what it looks like.
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  Let's do it.
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  You know, and then I closed up shop essentially and took a job.
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  So for me, it was right in the moment.
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  You know, it was it was the perfect job in terms of like what I needed at that time,
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  the community involvement, the the level of, you know,
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  just like deep appreciation that the team had for each other was exactly what
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  my heart and soul kind of needed.
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  And yeah.
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  And then I mean, of course, we can talk about like any lessons learned going into like the next kind
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  of phase like next full time company.
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  But that that was just like the perfect thing, you know, that my soul needed at the time.
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  I do want to unpack some of those lessons.
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  I just want to highlight something that resonated with me from that.
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  And it's something that I see
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  hurting a lot of people in their career or entrepreneurs.
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  And it's that they feel like pivoting into something else.
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  It could be in in their own business or
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  going into or going from entrepreneurship back to working for somebody.
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  Or even if they are in a role and they feel like they're burning out in that role in the company,
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  there seems to be this stigma against changing or
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  taking care of yourself or doing something that
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  perhaps to some people may be less impressive or less.
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  And I'm not saying what you did was less impressive.
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  But for example, if you're in a role, it's burning out.
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  I use this example a lot and say you're a VP level or a director level at a startup.
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  And it's not going well and you just hate every single day.
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  And you don't want to take a role at a larger company that perhaps could be a better suited role.
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  You'd have more resources, more support because it's a different job title or something like that.
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  Like just you you're afraid of changing because of what people will think of you.
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  What you know, I don't know.
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  It just seems like that's something that we should champion more and make okay more because there
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  is no right way to do life or do a career or do entrepreneurship.
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  And we have we think that like, oh, we've achieved this certain status level.
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  That's where we have to stay or up or bust, right?
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  And you've proven you're you're you're living proof that you can pivot and do different things
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  and take a step back and refresh and then look at where you're at now, which is a much better
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  version, a much better iteration of where you were, you know, I guess two, three years ago.
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  So it's just something to take a note of because I don't think it's talked about enough
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  that taking step back just gets forward.
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  And honestly, I think like one of the best things I think I've ever done in my life
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  is is completely ditched societal success.
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  Meaning like, you know, the typical version of what success looks like in society.
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  I've taken that and like literally thrown it out.
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  It, you know, because for for some, that's very motivating and it's very, you know,
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  it's very aspirational to drive towards all of the things we think are successful.
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  And to your point, a lot of those things are upward trajectories, right?
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  It's like you got to earn more.
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  You have to have the bigger title.
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  You have to have the bigger house and the better car and like none of that none of that
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  has mattered to me for over a decade.
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  And I think that has literally been, I think the biggest driving fat, like driving kind of forced
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  for me to be able to make these decisions is I really don't care what anyone else thinks.
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  I know people say that I actually don't care what anyone else thinks of like my career
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  and like what my choices are because at the end of the day, I'm making them based on,
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  you know, fulfilling the needs that I have.
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  And I was just actually talking to someone this morning and they were talking about goals and
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  like setting goals for your life.
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  And I was saying like I'm in this weird spot right now because I actually feel so content
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  with my life and like what I have and I'm so grateful for what I have that I actually don't have
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  a lot of like those traditional goals that people have like I'm not striving for, you know,
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  a million dollar business.
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  I'm not like trying to have the BMW in the driveway.
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  Like I've had those things and they literally made my life zero percent better.
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  Like, you know, they didn't because like at the end of the day, I wasn't listening to like what
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  was actually in my heart in terms of like what would make me feel truly successful.
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  And what I've realized is for me personally again, this is a very personal thing.
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  For me personally, it's like I just want to be financially secure.
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  Like I want to be able to pay my bills without worrying about it.
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  I want to be able to buy myself something every once in a while.
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  You know, I want to have free time though.
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  Like I want to be able to get out and hike and kayak and you know,
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  do the outdoor adventure stuff I love.
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  I want to have time to spend with my daughter, you know, she's 10 now and she's at this beautiful
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  age where she's like cool to hang out with, you know, like we can hang out and do stuff.
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  And like as long as I have those things and I have like a house over in my head and food
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  on the table, I'm good.
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  Like I'm actually good and I don't really want for anything.
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  Which, you know, is kind of it's a great place to arrive at but it takes really throwing out
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  the comparison, you know, game that you might do with other people or any of that.
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  Like I don't have any of that anymore.
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  And how did you arrive at that?
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  Was it the burnout and just a two-part question.
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  I hate doing this but it's important to the add-on.
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  How would you recommend somebody
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  try and come to peace with what they have
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  without having to go as far as you did?
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  Yeah, that's a great, I actually really like how you freeze that kind of thing because I don't
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  recommend that any would do it the way that I did it.
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  You know, I actually did a lot of therapy.
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  Like I've done a lot of personal work on myself with the help of professionals like I've done,
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  you know, psychotherapy, I've done like a lot of different things that were very helpful
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  to allow me to really start to unpack like what was important.
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  And I've also done a lot of like work on my own like I'm constantly reading, I'm constantly
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  you know, learning about other people's experiences and I feel like the more that I expose myself to
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  the experiences of others and like, you know, the experiences in the world,
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  it's very easy when you do that to then have a lot of gratitude for what you have because you
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  realize that this isn't like, you know, the norm, right?
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  And I also, I honestly do attribute a lot to my humble beginnings like I didn't grow up with a lot.
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  In fact, like at times we were, you know, very poor and that that humbles you, you know, in a way
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  because I don't take anything I have for granted or at least I try really hard not to.
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  And so I think if folks are kind of struggling with it, I think, you know, realizing that stuff
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  in your life is not going to fill the void that you might have and chasing things,
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  it won't necessarily bring you ultimate happiness. I think you is really doing some, you know,
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  introspection on that, trying to figure out like what do you really want in life if you actually
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  put aside a lot of those materialistic things. And that's not to say, by the way, that I judge
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  anyone if they have like more materialistic goals like that's that's again, it's a very personal
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  thing and that can be completely motivating for some people. But I do think that there's some
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  value in doing the work, you know, that's required. And honestly, there's no real shortcut to it.
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  I think you have to just do the work. But honestly, therapy is great.
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  On like, yeah, totally great. No, I was going to say it's, by the way, you mentioned some point
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  about, about not, you know, if people have material goals, it's fine. But I do believe that there
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  are far more people that speak about the hustle culture, the, you know, the achieving material
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  wealth through perhaps entrepreneurship for otherwise. There's too many people waited on that
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  side of the discussion and not enough people waited on the side of the discussion that you're,
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  are there lens that you're sort of looking at entrepreneurship in life is success through,
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  which is you can be successful, you can, you can achieve, but understand what that success comes with
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  as well, right? Yeah, and it also in those founders succeed and get, you know, the the million
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  dollar plus assets. I've seen them, you know, get on the other side of that and they're miserable
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  because like, they, you know, they don't know what to do with themselves and they're not fulfilled.
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  And, and I think if you don't do the work to figure out like what does success actually look like
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  for you beyond those materialistic things, you're going to arrive at those moments and you're still
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  going to be unhappy, you know? And for me, like, that's why I spend a lot of time really asking myself,
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  you know, what, what, what do I want this to feel like? Look, what do I want my life to feel like?
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  And as long as it feels right and the work I'm doing feels fulfilling and, you know, I have that
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  security that I'm sort of makes me feel very comfortable. The rest of it, like, yeah, for me personally,
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  again, it's a very personal thing, but it just doesn't really matter.
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  Check out the links in the description to watch the full episode. See you in the next one.