After 13 years, 4 startups, two unicorns and with significant support from friends and colleagues, I’ve decided to start my own company:CDR External Development
I’ll share more details about CDR in the coming days, but for now I’d like to offer some insight into the process I went through to get here, which I hope is useful to those of you who are also exploring what’s next professionally.
If any of the following happens to resonate with you, feel free to reach out. I’d be happy to share the tools and processes that worked for me.
Ok, let’s get into it:
After an amicable departure from my previous company last summer and first true career break, I soon felt the familiar itch to “dive back in.” So, I did what most do…checked in with friends and scanned the job boards.
But of course; rough time. Friends weren’t hiring…which left me skimming a lot of job postings. And I did not like that. Not one bit.
Like many of you, I consider myself a beautiful unicorn of talent and experience. But reading posting after posting of bulleted lists of skill sets with dubious overlap with my personal background was frankly depressing. Companies wanted square boxes, but I was a star. ⭐
This left me in a tailspin...questioning my career choices and simply feeling bad about who I was.
Then, a conversation with a friend changed everything. It shifted my mindset from hopelessly frustrated to thoroughly energized.
He offered a simple perspective: “your uniqueness is a superpower.”
Instead of focusing externally on what you can’t control, what company XYZ is looking for, focus internally. I needed to figure out who I was, what I believed in, and the value my unique experience can bring. But most importantly, I needed to be able to TELL THAT STORY WELL.
He then provided a few frameworks that empowered me to productively focus my energy. I used them to explore my past experiences, tease out the important bits, and regurgitate back out in a formatted personal narrative.
And while this unlocked my creative juices, I did NOT get it right the first time. My initial attempt was clichéd and bland. I had simply substituted my friends' authentic insights with industry platitudes. I showed it to some colleagues, who (thankfully) gave me polite but honest feedback on my poor work product.
So what followed was the actual work - iterations, conversations, exploration. I eventually threw out the frameworks my friend provided and adopted my own style.
Ultimately, I landed on a few pillars, and later founded CDR to channel them into what I believe is a much needed service that will benefit the entire industry.
It’s a bit crazy to admit I’ve never worked on myself like this before. But better late than never. The end result for me is that I’m foundationally more secure about who I am and where I’m going than I’ve been in a long time.
