How to make yourself un-hireable

My dad was in the Navy, then a corrections officer. My mom worked odd jobs.

So I was painfully ignorant about how the world of white collar work operates, and I basically had to figure it out by trial and error.

(emphasis on error 😅)

And because of that, my career has been the exact opposite of the “optimal” path:

🟪 Did websites for Nike, Nintendo & Red Bull and product design for Swiffer, Febreze, Tide, Bounce etc at agencies in the 2000s.

Also learned about: Running an agency

🟪 Design & marketing at Abercrombie & Fitch. Designed a few hundred Hollister girls' t-shirts. Spent months at factories in China, Korea, Indonesia, etc.

Also learned about: Working at a big, global company

🟪 Influencer marketing at CreativeLive, an online education startup. Made 75+ courses for them.

Also learned about: Venture-backed companies (joined at series A, left after series B).

🟪 Product manager at URM Academy (B2C SaaS). We do online education for music producers.

Also learned about: Running a remote SMB

🟪 Started YouTube channels that currently sit at 760k subscribers and 130 million views

Also learned about: Being an entrepreneur with a large following

As you can see, I’ve done a lot of sht. And I’m proud of everything I’ve done. But I’m not telling you this to brag, because it’s actually not a brag at all:

It made me a TERRIBLE candidate for any job because I don't have the kind of tidy linear path that HR wants to see. I’ve never once made it through a traditional hiring process without knowing someone on the inside who basically got me the job.

And for years, I thought I’d made a horrible mistake and totally fked up my career.

→ But I was wrong:

I'm doing by FAR the most fulfilling, fun work of my life now.

I legitimately love the clients I work with, the work we do together is incredibly stimulating and inspiring, and people actually listen to my advice!

(Paying someone for their advice and actually following it… crazy idea, right?)

And there's no way I could do it without all that "messy" experience that made me into this hybrid person I’ll call a “creator/operator":

I’m a content creator with a big audience AND I’m a business operator with 20+ years of experience in design & marketing

Which means that I can super-serve a specific group of clients WAY better than my “competitors.” As a few examples of current clients:

The founder of a design agency, a product strategy consultant, an SEO agency owner, and the founder of an online education app.

Go back to the beginning of this post— that’s basically a list of all the things I did in the last two decades of my career.

There’s a million LinkedIn and YouTube consultants and copywriters. But how many of them can ALSO connect your content to revenue-generating things like new offers, product features, sales funnels, etc?

Not many.

And even if they started learning it now, they’re 20+ years behind me so they’re not gonna catch up.

→ But more importantly, here’s what this means for you:

If you’re reading this, there’s a good chance you also have a weird, messy career path— and it’s probably been a problem for you in the past.

But when you figure out a way to re-configure all that seemingly unrelated experience into something new and unique that only YOU can deliver, it becomes an extremely powerful differentiator for you.

That’s what I did when I figured out the “creator/operator” idea, and it led me to the most fulfilling, fun work of my life.

So my question is: What’s that idea for you?

How can you re-assemble all your personal and professional experiences into something that only YOU can do?

Find that, and things will change for you— and change FAST.

PS - Here’s the part where I try to sell you something. If you want to talk about how you can use LinkedIn or YouTube to grow your business, reply to this email or just set up a call here!