Billy Keels  0:00  

A powerful parenthesis revealed the corporate life nobody teaches. Today's episode is sponsored by Billy Keels advisory services. If you want to learn more about how to make your 99 optional, just go to make it optional.com. Once again, that's make it optional.com.

Speaker 1  0:19  

Helping you build freedom without losing your edge. This is the going long podcast with Billy Keels.

Billy Keels  0:31  

A powerful parenthesis revealed the corporate life nobody teaches is the very brief episode that's for you. If you have ever struggled with communicating your humanness inside of corporate communication, ie emails. If you've ever struggled with saying what you've been doing, where you're going, what you what is really, truly happening, something happened for me that I am going to share with you today, and I'm jump right into it, because I received an email the other day from an ex colleague who is now a friend, and it took us down a path of having a conversation. I asked him if I could share the conversation, and I'm not going to actually share the conversation, but I'm going to share what we talked about, because he said that I could. And there's a lot of learnings that can happen as a result of this conversation and the communication that he sent to me. And here it is. I'm just going to start right away reading the communication, and it says, Well, let me paint the backstory real quick. He and I have a scheduled call. We're supposed to we speak very frequently. We're ex colleagues at the last company that I worked for 16 years in enterprise software sales, and we have a standing call. And it's one of the, like, coolest things that I am able to do nowadays. But just imagine we were supposed to meet one morning, and I guess things changed and and so I got the following mail that I am now going to share with you, because I have his permission to share it with you. And it says, Hey, Billy, I have a conflict today. In parenthesis, playing golf. Period. I'm wide open tomorrow at 8:30am That's it. That's the entire episode. I don't have anything else to share. No, of course, of course, I've got more to share. I've got a story to tell. Of course I do. Well, you know, this is the thing, because everything that we're going to share, that I'm going to talk to talk to you about today. It exists within the parenthesis that I mentioned to you earlier. It's that whole playing golf, because, as I mentioned before, I love having these standing calls. It's like one of the greatest things that I enjoy as part of my current chapter of my life, right? I get to stay into close contact with the people that I want to stay in contact with that fill my energetic cup, my being very intentional about building relationships. And a number of these are still now, I call them friends from my corporate role. Some have moved on. Some are still in the corporate world, which is great. And the guy that I'm going to call Dan, he's one of those people, you know, we crossed paths without when I was working at this enterprise software company, SAP. I was there for 16 years. I think everybody knows. You can look it up on my LinkedIn. It's very, very public. But Dan, I'll call him, was like, is one of the sharpest people and executive and with global responsibility. And just like he was one of those people when he was your leader, you just knew that the skill set that he had, the way that he led, the relationships, the judgment, all those kinds of things, this is like he's the guy that you want to be around, and he's taken that skill set, and now he has his own business, and we continue to share ideas on what's happening, and we talk about all of the things that are going on in life, and like I said to be really, like, transparent with you, it's like, these are some of the most grounded conversations that I have. They're super real. They're very intentional, because we don't have to play a game. There's no game that we're playing anymore. There's no performance review, or there's no filter that keeps things from what might be said and what might not be said. But anyway, so the whole point is, that's what made that message so powerful. Because he simply needed to reschedule a call. And instead of language that I would have gotten during my corporate decade or decades, something like super careful or professional illegally, like written and thought about and over thought about and maybe even a little bit vague, he just wrote, Hey, Billy, I got a conflict playing golf. How about tomorrow? And I just thought that that was so cool, like I literally, I screenshotted it. I probably will do a LinkedIn post on that, or something like that, because it was just so cool. But the thing that happened is, after that, during our call, I told him, like I laughed out loud and all this stuff, but I did ask him during the call, and this is and this is why he when he gave me permission, I said, Hey, listen, would you have written me that same email during our SAP days or during our days in corporate? Right? His answer was so fast, and he said nope. And I was like, what it was so like, it was just super. Honest. And I thought, You know what? What was actually even cool. What he said next is that like that was the because he kind of kept going on. And he said, you know, he didn't blame the company. He didn't say, like that the company required him to like, act in a certain way, or write in a certain way, or or force him to prioritize certain things. But he said, Look, there's so many things that at that point in time that he would have just prioritized over other stuff, that he would not have written the email in the exact same way, because he's such a responsible and accountable person, he always wanted to be doing his best and perceived as, perceived as doing his best. And it was one of those things where it just, it really made me realize that there's so much that happens during the corporate experience, and it's, it's, it's by design, right? There's, there's a part of that that is, that is by design. But what he started realizing, what he went on to then share with me. It made things even more. Really hit home, because we got to a point and he said, You know what? There were some times that there were communications that he made, or sacrifices that he made and and they were things that just happened. He didn't get to a point where he felt like he had to continue to over, over, analyze him or overdo them. But things began to shift in his life, like the priorities that he had early on in his in his corporate days is, you know, he was focused, no kids, no responsibilities, or less kids, less responsibilities. And as time went on, the more energy that he was putting into writing, communications, emails, certain things, like, he wasn't getting the same type of return out of it. When he he wasn't getting the same type of return, right? He was, because at this at the end of the day, he realized, like, when he got started, and I'll use an analogy for anyone who's in software, because there's a lot of you that listen like he was, like when he got started, he realized over time, that he was still running on the same operating system, like that he was running on before, but it wasn't giving him the same return. So he was like, Look, this needs to be upgraded. And so he just started thinking in a very, very different way. But what we realized over time is, and I said, like, was it the company that made you do this, or did and this? And this, and, I mean, it was so honest, and this is why I'm sharing with you, like a powerful parenthesis, because there's so much in that parenthesis that revealed the corporate life that nobody talks about. Because, yes, this is part of the corporate life, and it's one of the things that happens for anyone who is a high achiever, and many of you are. That's why we are here together. We start to realize that, and this was the hardest part for us to for me to really sit with, because I recognize a lot of things as we were talking about it, but leaning into the honesty, and also a lot of the conversations I have like there was nothing that the company actually took from him, because there was nothing imposed by the company to perform it in a certain way. And I started realizing, and thinking to myself, but you realize as part of you being able to show that you are a performer in your accountability and your responsibility. These are things that that, that you gave, that we gave to the company, like this, additional responsibility, mindshare, prioritizing, things that the company needed us to prioritize, rather than doing it ourselves, and giving an early morning on a Saturday or maybe an even later evening on a Tuesday or heck, even, maybe even missing a birthday party or two, because none of it was really required. It's just these are the things that that we chose to do because we needed to be that person. Needed to personally know that you had to be at a certain meeting, or you had to have a certain type of perception. And over time, you start to realize pretty clearly that once you recognize the operating system that is was operating and you're in a different place today, you start to ask different questions. It's not anymore like you get to this point and say, Hey, how can how can I get more time back? How can company give me more time back? If I'm working this time I go that time? It's really like, do I still want to be doing the things that I'm doing? Do I still want to run on an old operating system, even though my life feels differently? And when you start to get these little moments in time. These little snippets, you start to realize, like, what was it that helped us, me and the colleague they are talking about, be able to be in the position today where one for me, the last four years of my corporate role, I didn't really need, I didn't need the paycheck at all, but that was because I recognized the things that were the most important I they aligned them with my values. I helped to recognize that my identity was not simply the person behind the email that came up with the creative ideas. It was the identity of the father of the business owner, of the person who was able to control the. Additional streams of income, and that all started. Why? Because I got crystal clear. And as I mentioned that I was crystal clear, and Dan also mentioned that he got clear on what it was that he wanted to be able to do. You know, we calculated our optionality number. I know I've talked about that ad nauseum, but the thing is, and this is why, when I talk about the powerful parenthesis that revealed the corporate life that nobody teaches, is when you get to that point and you start to build your plan, yes, there's going to be conflict. That conflict is real because, like, the same identity that helped you get to the position where you are today, that also has you scripting these types of emails, because it's a part of your identity, and you're always being available and you're always being locatable, you know, you start to recognize that the same identity that you use to get to be the person that you were recognizing the Corporate it's that identity is also can work against you, and especially when it comes to this communication, but the literally, the last thing that you start recognizing is that over time, it's about being able to come up with the plan that you have, and moving beyond The optionality, and also being to a point where you recognize that you're that you're able to get to a point where you don't have to write the emails anymore, you don't have to pretend anymore. For for Dan, he's at a point now where he's able to write and share exactly what he's doing, there's no longer this reason to hide behind these types of communication games that nobody really wants to talk about in in the open space, in corporate life, but it exists. I was there. I played it. Dan played it. But as we're leaning into these conversations today, there's a refreshing part to be able to lean into. And these are the types of mails that I would have written towards the end, maybe not so transparent, but when you don't need your paycheck anymore, you start to realize that you can be much more open, much more transparent in the way that you communicate, always respectful, always professional, of course. But this was such an ironic email that I was like I laughed out loud. I had to share it here on the go along podcast. And, like I said, so for Dan, it's, it's to a point where, yeah, he's, he's now at the, at the point in life where he is very transparent. He can put in parentheses playing golf. So that, you know, for me, during corporate got to that point when I had over 40 different streams of income that my company's owned 100% with my paycheck, and so I didn't need the paycheck anymore. But over time, what you start to realize is that there is so much that can be done once you are truly in control of your time, truly in control of being able to predictably create additional streams of income, that life starts to feel different. And what I hope for you, as you're listening to the this or watching this on YouTube, is that you get to a point where, where you don't, where you recognize that there is so much that can be said in inside that parentheses, having the confidence, having the ability to say, I'm playing golf today, it goes so much beyond just a number, it's really about helping to make that shift in identity, to recognize that it's not about the title. It's about how you're contributing, and it's about how you are able to live in that life where you can share inside of your your your parentheses. So if there's nothing else that you take away from today? It's Yes, there is a certain standard of communication. Is it combined with the identity that you have, and more importantly, is that identity that you're having, that you are running on the operating system in the beginning? Is it the same one that is really relevant for you today if you're starting to feel that shift, if you're starting to feel that move, and you want to explore more about optionality so you can step into and own the identity that you truly are. Well, I made a free guide for you. You can check it out in the in the show notes, but go to make it optional.com. Pick up more figure see how the path, the proven path to optionality. Can can serve you. And if you know anybody has talked about this, like, Hey, listen, I got to hide where I'm doing or where I'm going, this could be the podcast episode that's really going to help them to unlock and help that person realize that they are not alone. It happens. It's happened to lots of us, and continues to happen. So no, you're not alone. Share the episode with them. If this is something that you have gone through as well, share talk about it. Go from theory to practice. That's what this is all about, is being able to gain true experience. And while you're doing that, guess where I'll be? I'll be right here preparing for the next episode. So until then, go out and make it a great day. And thank you very, very much.

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