Why Am I Here?
I’ll be the first to admit – for a first-time author with oversized ambitions, I have very little idea what I’m doing.
I read books on the subject. I write every day. Podcasts, YouTube videos, joining cohorts and classes – I do all of that stuff, too.
But I’m in the tall grass, hacking away with a dull machete.
I’m not sure exactly what I have going for me, or whether or not this will all work out in the end. I just keep showing up and doing the work, because I want to be a writer – and not for the title. I just like doing it now. It’s how I best express myself. I’ll do it if they don’t pay me, though I prefer to be compensated.
HOW DID I GET HERE?
Another quote I like is from Will Smith (from an interview filmed well before “The Slap Seen Round The World”):
“The only thing that I see that is distinctly different about me is that I am not afraid to die on a treadmill. I will not be outworked, period. You might have more talent than me, you might be smarter than me, you might be sexier than me, you might have me in nine categories. But if we get on a treadmill, two things: you’re getting off first or I’m going to die. It’s really that simple.”
You’re going to get off first.
Or I’m going to die.
I had never really thought about…well, anything in my life in that context. Growing up, I never had a clear vision of what I wanted to become. “Successful.” As nebulous as that was, it’s no surprise that I ended up with a nebulous result. For what in my life was I willing to die on the treadmill? Anything?
I did the normal, straightforward suburban-American thing after I left high school. I went to college and picked a major (see: initial life direction) at 19. I wouldn’t trust 19-year-old me to do much of anything – maybe deliver pizza? That’s the guy who initially set the course for what I was going to be when I grew up.
I finished college with good enough grades that people would employ me. They did.
I bounced around, unsure what I wanted to do, ultimately falling into a field that seemed to work for me – Recruiting. I understood the business quickly and saw a few pockets of opportunity to exploit. After a couple of months of watching others fall away, I decided that this was the thing I would get good at. For the first time in my early career, I saw a path that could take me from being broke to making decent money, all based on my performance.
So I dove in for a decade. I accomplished my goals. I wanted to become elite in the field. Did I go to college envisioning recruiting being the thing I would become good at? No. But did I work my ass off to become great at it? Fucking A-right I did.
WHAT DOES A RECRUITER DO?
Most people who haven’t been recruiters don’t really understand the space. A high level flyover for the uninitiated:
Recruiting (also known as Talent Acquisition) is responsible for bringing all employees into the company. Every coworker. Every leader. Every person making the decisions that will shape every function of every organization. Talent Acquisition is arguably as critical to a business’s success as the sales function.
Despite its vital importance, it’s not treated like an important function. It’s almost unilaterally viewed as a cost center, not a revenue engine. A company’s recruiters are the “other-side-of-the-tracks” kids in the People (formally HR) function. A recruiter’s reputation rests somewhere between “a salesperson who couldn’t cut it” and “someone too rough around the edges to be trusted with an HR investigation.”
If you’re a recruiter at a recruiting agency – take the reputation above and add in the stereotypes of low-value partnership, low-quality performance, and overindulgence in social settings. This certainly isn’t true of all recruiting firms – some are great, and I wouldn’t be where I am without my years in these types of organizations – but stereotypes exist for a reason.
As a rule, whether you’re in-house or agency, most of the training on how to do your job is shit. You learn by fumbling through it. Do you remember that one undergraduate business elective, “How to Interview and Hire 101?” No more than you remember your semester taking “Defense Against The Dark Arts.” Neither class exists in the real world, so you go into the recruiting job blind. I was on the phones recruiting candidates and negotiating salary in my second week.
Despite this obvious lack of training, if you fail, leadership takes zero accountability. In fact, they apply the screws and micromanage the hell out of you, examining your outbound call numbers, interview numbers, and pipeline updates. They try to break you and make you quit. Plenty do. It might not be as dramatic as BUD/s candidates ringing the bell, but the majority of agency recruiters don’t make it through their first year.
The vast majority of recruiters start out at agencies and make their way into organizations. So if you’re dealing with a recruiter, the road I just described is very likely the road they took to the conversation you’re now having.
SO WHY PUT UP WITH THAT?
Underbelly aside (and what job doesn’t have an underbelly), the work is, viewed from the right angle, pure. It speaks to all levels of Maslow’s hierarchy. It connects people. It helps people provide for themselves and their families. It solves mutual problems, changes lives, and stimulates the economy. These are all good things.
For me, I saw a way to make good money and be a good person at the same time. As a lost young professional in the midst of a recession, that was all I needed. Green light – let’s go.
So I leaned into as much of the good as I could and tried to avoid (some of) the riff-raff. I climbed and climbed and made it to the tippy top of my little Talent Acquisition world. My ledger is more green than red – I’ve solved a lot of problems and made the lives of the people I work with better. I make solid money. By all accounts, I should just keep doing what I’m doing.
And yet…
I’m now on the other side of 40, a 16-year recruiting veteran who still has a lot to share about the profession he’s sunk 4 presidential terms into. I’ve hit my stride as a leader. I don’t have the biological ability to mail it in at work, so I show up every day and work to leave things better than I find them.
But I’m also planning my next move. Because it’s obvious to me that my recruiting journey is somewhere in the 4th quarter.
It has nothing to do with my teams and colleagues. I’ve worked (and still work) with some of the best in the business. I’ve had an amazing run of bosses who I’ve loved working with and who have shaped me into a better leader. I’ve built teams whose relationships lasted far beyond the existence of the team.
It has to do with me.
“MIKE, YOU NEED TO GO WORK FOR YOURSELF, BECAUSE YOU DON’T WANT ANYONE TELLING YOU WHAT TO DO ANYMORE.”
A leader who I respect told me that a few years back.
It’s stuck with me.
The reasons to stay put and play it safe are valid. I’m a husband and father of three little boys. I’m firmly planted in the American dream – family, house, daycare bills, some savings, some debt – and can’t just pull the ripcord and “follow my passion.”
I’m connected with a lot of 20-30 year old entrepreneurs who have the story of “I quit my job on Wall Street, and now I make 7 figures with my own company.” I’m happy that they figured it out earlier than I did. I’m deep in. Deep enough that most guys in my situation throw in the towel and stick with what they’ve accepted as their lot in life.
For better or worse, I’m doing the opposite.
That one sentence – “you need to go work for yourself, because you don’t want anyone telling you what to do anymore” – has amplified the soft voice telling me that it’s time and turning this whole little experiment into a “must-have” for my sanity.
I’m not going to burn the boats and leave my kids hungry just because I’m at an existential career crossroads. But I do know one thing about myself, and I’m really fucking glad I figured it out before I turned 40:
I’m not afraid to die on the treadmill for this.
The only thing I know about this journey to become a New York Times Bestseller (by age 42 in big, according to the big blue letters on my office whiteboard) and being the only person who tells me what to do every day (besides my wife) is this: I am doing this now. I’ll do it for as long as it’ll take, and it’ll take as long as it takes. But I won’t quit. And to quote Alex Hormozi, “I cannot lose if I do not quit.”
With what I’m playing for, my only option is to win.
So that’s the journey I’m embarking on. That’s why I drafted this warped “hello world” late at night in a hotel room within walking distance of Disneyland. I should have been resting for my eldest son’s 5th birthday celebration the following day, but the gnawing in my gut that I need to write – need to create, because it’s now who I am – had my ass planted on a faux leather couch, transmitting a version of these thoughts onto a digital page.
I imagine you’re here because some part of this story resonates with you.
Maybe you have a passion you’ve been nurturing and aren’t sure what to do with it.
Maybe you got good at the wrong thing, and don’t want to spend the rest of your life doing what you’re doing.
Maybe you know exactly what you need to do, but the kick in the ass hasn’t come at the proper angle or with the proper amount of force.
Whatever reason you’re here, I’m stoked that you are. I’ll share what I learn along the way – most lessons acquired the hard way – in the hopes they either help you out or make you smile at my stupidity.
Keep building. Keep growing. Keep going.