The Four Seasons of Your Career: Warrior to Sage

Show notes

The Four Seasons of Your Career: Warrior, Prince, King and Sage

Every career moves through stages. Dr. John Oberg, Randy Lorensen and guest Anthony Marino walk through the four seasons of a career: warrior, prince, king and sage. They share what each one looks like and how to find your path.

John lays out the framework. The warrior climbs the ladder on their own effort, the prince finds leverage by delegating and managing, the king makes decisions that affect many people, and the sage passes on wisdom. Anthony shares his path from a call center job to owning a business, and all three talk about the moments that shaped them, from a disappointing raise to learning that the warrior's real battle is with yourself.

They make the point that the seasons aren't tied to age. You can go back to the warrior phase, and it's better to focus on developing skills than on the job title. Then they share four questions for finding your path, including writing your own obituary, and why passion and skill don't always arrive together.

The last part is about developing your career: the individual and relational work, balance over a long period, and how to find business, financial and spiritual mentors.

Warrior, Prince, King, Sage: Career Stages, Ikigai and Mentorship

What you'll discover:

The four career stages: warrior, prince, king and sage
Why the seasons aren't tied to age
Feedback vs feed forward
Four questions for finding your path, including your own obituary
Passion vs skill, and showing people the paths
How to find business, financial and spiritual mentors

Timestamps

[00:00] Silent lead-in (the episode audio starts at 2:17)
[02:17] Welcome: Dr. John Oberg and Randy Lorensen with Anthony Marino
[03:41] What are the four seasons of a career?
[05:03] A framework for career transitions
[06:30] Anthony's path: from a call center to owning a business
[07:55] Early career: climbing the ladder as a warrior
[10:42] The prince: finding leverage by delegating and managing
[12:06] From warrior to prince to king to sage
[13:28] A natural flow, like parenting and grandparenting
[14:55] Healthy and unhealthy shields
[16:22] Building a team of like-minded people
[17:45] Stretching your muscles, and First, Break All the Rules
[19:14] Respect, peers and counsel
[20:39] A disappointing raise and an honest conversation
[22:03] A key career moment, and a foundation of fear
[24:49] Influence as an individual contributor or volunteer
[26:12] Knowing where the turns are coming
[27:35] The king: when your decisions affect other people
[30:22] Leading from the front: rethinking the warrior
[33:09] The warrior's battle is with yourself
[34:34] Feedback vs feed forward
[35:58] Playing to people's strengths
[38:42] Peak achievement, and getting ready to transition
[41:30] Moderation, and straddling king and sage
[42:52] The sage: counsel and guidance
[44:18] Planning for the sage years
[45:42] The seasons aren't tied to age
[47:04] Focus on developing skills, not the job title
[48:27] Helping the next generation
[49:51] Going back to the warrior phase
[51:13] Four questions for finding your path
[52:36] "You can be anything" vs the path you were built for
[54:00] Removing self-limiting beliefs with a friend or mentor
[55:22] Writing down what you're good at
[56:45] The impact you want to make: write your own obituary
[58:07] The four-questions tool
[59:32] Mentoring people starting a business
[1:02:23] Don't switch paths to run away from something
[1:03:44] Why your answer at 20 may be wrong at 50
[1:06:31] Passion vs skill
[1:09:17] Show people the paths, not the answer
[1:10:40] Watching kids choose their college paths
[1:12:04] A letter to your kids about making decisions
[1:14:50] Developing your career
[1:16:13] The individual and relational sides of growth
[1:17:34] A 10-year plan to become a CEO
[1:19:00] Finding a purpose beyond money
[1:21:43] Balance over a long period of time
[1:23:07] Final question: how to find mentors
[1:25:52] Organic mentorship vs formal programs
[1:27:14] Community centers and other places to find mentors
[1:28:37] Business, financial and spiritual mentors
[1:30:03] Wrap-up

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About the hosts

This episode features Dr. John Oberg and Randy Lorensen, with Anthony Marino as a guest (he later became a co-host). Host bios are on the host pages linked below.

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Related episodes

Meet the hosts: Randy Lorensen · Dr. John Oberg · Anthony Marino

Transcript

A full transcript is below. It was generated automatically from the episode audio, so expect some spelling errors in names and terms.

[02:17] hey listeners we're back it's Tales of abundance I am Dr. John Oberg and joining me as always my co-host Randy Lorensen and Randy how are you today doing great how about you John you know I can't complain I'm excited about today's episode said all right me too and we have a special guest today Anthony Moreno uh one of our partners on this endeavor is in and we're going to talk today about describing the Four Seasons and uh just a little bit for the listeners if they're not familiar with Anthony uh Anthony has been a very successful business person uh both in the corporate world and entrepreneur uh that you will we've got other episodes we can dig a lot deeper into that but somebody that has certainly lived this topic today and gone gone through these phases all the way from Warrior to Sage uh you know John and myself you're a little four seon four seasons of the career right Randy not the four seasons of like winter fall spring and summer but four seasons of the career where we're headed today yeah yeah life career correct yes cool yeah love it and and John and you know John and myself you've heard more about our background as we've gone uh but you know again starting in the early parts of our career and cutting our sales in direct sales uh to you know John getting his MBA running companies and uh you know now has a doctorate in Clinical Psychology and running a running a medical practice amongst other endeavors so uh both of these gentlemen I'll be asking most the questions today they'll be giving most the answers and both of them have uh just tons of wisdom around this area so let's uh let's jump into it John what are these four seasons that you're talking about you know there there's a lot of different people who talk about like the seasons of masculinity the seasons of your career uh the seasons of Life there so there's there's lots of different models that are out there and somebody once shared one with me that was Warrior Prince King and sage and I'm not saying this is like the right model it was just one that at a moment in time I was going through one of those Transitions and it helped me to understand what was changing in my career at that moment and so I latched on to Warrior Prince King Sage or you know Warrior Princess Queen Sage could work just as well and and I think that um there are some things that are similar to the stages of masculinity that people talk about there are some you know that are similar to other career stages these just happen to be ones that grab me and that I've used to talk with uh about you know for clients over the years um I've talked to the two of you about these over the period of the years and it was really not that um someone has to be a warrior somebody has to be a prince or a king or a sage or a princess or a queen or a sage what it really was identifying for people was that there's these stages in our career that people naturally progress through it's not always linear but generally it's you know it's directionally right and it helps people to wrap their heads around what's happening during a transition of their career and I can walk you through what all those stages are but that's it it just it helped me to understand oh there's something happening here this is a normal part of evolution development of a career and it's okay and and so and I and it helped me to understand what to look for so I wasn't you know walking through potholes and off cliffs yeah I I found these to be helpful I mean these are something that you've brought to me over the years that we've worked together uh and I have used them just yesterday I think uh one of the guys that you know in my business that I work with on a weekly basis is struggling moving from the warrior phase to the prince phase uh you know and we've been discussing ongoing discussing this for a while so I think it's a really interesting topic and you know different listeners will be at different different places along this journey so Anthony uh again you've got a lot of experience here but can you give us some examples of when you were in the Warrior phase is which is where we're starting and and why you have some stories about that yeah happy to do that thanks for having me here um you know I struggle with distinguishing between the phases and I what I mean by that is I feel like throughout my career which has you know the began as an entrylevel person in a call center and progressed ultimately to owning my own business you know 40 years later that I always as I as I kind of thought through this I always feel like there's a bit of warrior at in all the stages but early early on specifically in those entry level and those early you know corporate careers it it was it was a violent feeling um you know I I felt like and rightly a wrongly by the way as I reflect on it that I was a singular entity and I wasn't really uh aware or did I take advantage of the rest of my Army that might have been fighting this a similar battle it seemed that early in our careers that we were lone Warriors that in fact um people on the team whether it's in a a call center environment or in a um an other management team environment you you were always kind of worried about the other person in the room and it was a struggle and the goal was to move up the next um rung of the ladder and it unfortunately during that early career I'm going to call it the first you know five or six years of that career I was I was singularly focused on getting to that next ladder and I and I really didn't care I wasn't aware of the damage um to my relationships that that was causing so um it was a singular focus it was you know move from the entry level position to a very low level you know supervisory position where I might have been quote unquote managing three or four or five people and then the next run was you know 10 to 15 and the next run was whatever and and during those what what you might categorize as those Prince stages I don't ever feel like I felt like I was a prince I always felt like I was in the Warrior phase even when I had accountability for other people so Anthony I probably should have done this at the beginning but your background again later on it was an executive with Toyota and Sears and and some really high level positions before you become an entrepreneur but you're talking now more in like you were work for a call center company I forget the name of it but I don't know if it matters but you're talking about those days when you were working at the call center yeah I'm I'm talking initially yes um so in that in that even in that environment I was there for 15 years so I moved up into senior level positions in that during that time you know purported senior level positions but what I'm trying to get across is that even even when I was a regional vice president and I had multiple locations and hundreds of people that you know through other managers reported up through me and I was accountable for an result I always felt I was in battle alone I never I never felt like well I've got a team I'm a prince I'm just gonna delegate to these folks no I'm not I'm as I said earlier right or wrong yeah and there's probably there's probably some other issues in there that are outside the scope of like career development that we could maybe have a whole episode on that I think what you're rightfully pointing out those the warrior is the one learning the skills of War right that that's and this is where I think the the analogy works is that like when you're the warrior you learn the skills yourself and then you learn how to use those skills with the person standing next to you those are stages of the warrior if you use the analogy and as the prince what you start to do is you start to find leverage in your career by it could be delegating and managing it could be that you just learn how to operate in your career more effectively if you're in a career that doesn't include management and then as you get to the king you know Kings still went to war sages still went to war so there are still the skills of the warrior they had they don't lose those skills they just layered new skills on top of them and I think that's the beauty of this career Arc is it just it points out that the differences of the job description of the warrior is different than the job description of the prince the prince doesn't stop going to war they just add to those skills to create more lever and more um more impact a broader scope and then at the king they're the top of the career they may not run a company at the king stage of your career they may not even manage people but it's the peak of the career from a learning perspective the peak of the career from a productivity perspective maybe the peak of a career from an earnings perspective and the sage that is a step back and it's a give back phase right and so that's yeah let me let me jump in and here's maybe you're articulating in a very um philosophical way and and what I want to point out is you know during the journey um from you know from Warrior to the opportunity to be a prince to the opportunity to be a a king and the opportunity to be a sage there were times all during that corporate phase where one of my missions among along with you know hitting the number if you will at sometimes was taking down a peer I was actually at war with a peer I think that yeah that that I would say that happens sometimes I'm not sure that happens as much today as it did in the 80s I think 90s you know you're talking about right talking about a moment in time that I don't I don't think that has to be a part of someone's career Arc I think it is a part of some people's career arcs but I think the thing that's that I at least I would want a listener to leave with today would be that everyone goes through the career Arc of warrior Prince King sage in some way and you can call them whatever you want to call them but you go through the part of skill development and once you have skill development then you have leveraging to a larger opportunity and larger influence and then you move into the peak part of your career and then you have the opportunity to give back and and I think understanding that framework is useful for anybody in any career whether that's a professional career a nonprofessional career I think I I've never thought about it in terms of parenting but my guess is there's a similar Arc with parenting if you think about parenting and grandparenting but I think there's a there's a natural flow here and so um I think there's lots of people who went through what you're talking about where there is a very Zero suome game in a corporate environment it's eat or be eaten but I think I think that's a part of the society I don't think everyone experiences that I think everyone experiences the fact that they go they have this maturation in their in the work they do whether that's professional work or not professional work there's a there's a set of seasons yeah and I don't I I don't disagree with anything you said I certainly that you know the um corporate environment in those in quote quot in those days I'm really aging myself was I'm I'm sure different uh than what it is today you know we we live with very little technology and and so on but I would say this that in my observations of people I'm close to if it's if it's not about uh battling a PE here it is about creating a shield around the role that they are in so that they are protected they may not be lashing out as we did back in the day but they're also as Warriors building a shield around their roles so that they're protected from internal um changes or external uh environmental things that could affect their roles so and I you agree that some of those Shields are really healthy and helpful and some of those Shields are really not very healthy and maybe counterproductive to the person Andor the company they work for we've both seen that totally totally agree Anthony I I think it's important that different people go through this at different Paces right and we have different backgrounds and some people go very quickly through some stages very slowly through others um bounce back and forth I know in my career I've bounced back and forth I've I've moved up and then went back to the warrior and started over for the listeners so the the warrior phase was kind of natural to you and I think I have another follow-up question about why that is but what were the skills that you started to develop and what were the me or mental changes that helped you start moving from Warrior to I mean you you have it's uh throw the touchdown passes you know achieve the objectives that were assigned to you um develop uh I thought and I as I think back um developing um M maturity and a personality that fit with what um the the uh upper management team was looking for um having a little bit of fun along the way and and then assembling you know like-minded people to join the fry which resulted in you know becoming a natural leader of people um it was it was clear that um getting chosen for leadership positions was going to happen and it did happen at a very very very rapid Pace early in my career so Anthony I get the feeling I didn't know I've known you for quite a while but I didn't know you back then I get the feeling that you were selected to be a leader or the prince role as we're we're calling it right now before you were ready to make that jump oh without question um I I was thrust into roles that I wasn't I wasn't prepared for and I'm not sure anybody really is no one's 100% um but I was certainly less than half full in terms of my capabilities to take on the level of responsibility that I was given that's but that's okay when you're growing right like no one's ready to run you know the sixth mile after the fourth mile but that's how you stretch your muscles that's how you grow right and I think it's really important you know Marcus Buckingham wrote this great book called First Break All the Rules and one of the things he talks about in that book is that there's a leadership and and management path in companies but sometimes there's not a technical development path for an individual contributor and so I would hate for a listener who's an individual contributor to hear that the only way to grow through these four seasons is through a management or a leadership Arc that happens to be your Arc it also happens to be the arc that I went through and happens to be the arc Randy went through but that that's that's happen stance there are lots and lots of people who aren't in management or leadership positions that that go through this same Arc and they go through through as an individual in this Arc exists and so but we don't always see it coming and we're not always ready and I go back to 2017 Anthony a conversation you and I started in late 2016 about what happens when you retire and we both knew you were eight or 10 years away from that you remember that sure I do and so you remember how negatively you reacted to that I did I so you're you're clearly a lifelong learner so what were the what were the things you were learning skill you were developing that helped you move at that point in your life well a key element was soliciting mentorship from people that I had a lot of respect for both peers and uh call them bosses or uh other people in the organizations that I uh that I could look up to to and and get counsel from um I really felt like you know I I was I was constantly getting guidance on you know what what I should be doing and shouldn't be doing early on on in my career I'll tell you of what it wasn't a funny story at the time but I was I think six or seven years into my lower middle management role I think I was managing about 20 25 people in Atlanta Georgia and I had a a boss my boss's boss was doing our annual reviews and he was a old old school Southern gentleman smoked cigars 6 foot7 very intimidating and I never forget he was sitting at my boss's desk in his office with his feet up on the desk smoking a cigar and I had just finished a year I never missed a goal i' won a trip to Hawaii I was just like you know I was the cocka walk in the operation and he looked at me and he said you know Marino if you were the last manager on Earth I wouldn't work for you and I'm giving you a $100 raise and I was just devastated by that you know first of all the raise was actually a pretty good race but in those days but we got into a conversation as to why and he was very honest he say you're just too tough on people you you don't appreciate the people around you you're you're getting all kinds of results but you can't manage people if you kill them and that his name was Pete and and that sets some a foundation for me and I never forgot it obviously it's almost 40 later and that set me on a path of starting to look at life and management Through The Eyes of the people that work with me and that was a big changed for me because I always viewed them as working for me go dig the ditch um deeper and faster as opposed to being more supportive and understanding where they're coming from and respecting the fact that they have children that have to get to daycare and all of those things were were kind of I was blind to um or uncaring of early on so once that started that that kind of shift in the in the Earth beneath me I was able to start to build on that slowly it was a long journey but it was a it was a very key moment in my career I think for listeners I mean there there you know John and I know you well enough to know where that came from right like you grew up in you know rough streets of Boston I mean we could spend hours on that I don't think we want to do that now but do you want to just give give listeners an idea of kind of that Foundation or that core and some of the first jobs if you call them jobs that you had you know I don't think it's really unique um you know whether I think a lot of people grow up in you know a working class family with working class friends and you know their dads mostly dads at that time and more tra you know the old school traditional households and it was you know everything was a battle so you know early on you know I work for you know the city not the city the town of winth you know making $2 an hour in the Summers painting chain Ling fences and you know most of that money went back into the family and you know so it was just a it was a very you know very typical of the you know the 70s and if you recall the S people who recall the 70s it was um a very difficult time you know during inflation we're coming out of a war um it was not you know a better roses for vast majority of people at that time so it gave me a foundation of fear um where you know I knew I had to do what I needed to do to survive that I wasn't going to get um a handout from a a trust fund or anything like that and none of my friends got those things either so we're all kind of in that same boat and we we went off to do Working Man type roles and um I think it's very normal and I frankly I think it was a great Foundation to build off of okay John Let's transition into the prince phase and we've been bouncing back and forth as many people do throughout their careers uh what are some of the skill sets and changes that typically happen in a person when they move from Warrior to Prince as they make that transition I think the prince is more about broader influence right and so broader influence for an individual contributor can mean that that your work as an individual contributor influences more people because you have more visibility you have more exposure like that's one way that someone might transition to that second phase another way might be moving into leadership or management as a supervisor a manager and and so it's it's sometimes it's different skill sets professionally sometimes it's more of the same sometimes it's a skill set of you know influence as an individual contributor sometimes it's as a uh you know I think about someone who um you know might um be a stay-at-home dad or a stay-at-home mom who volunteering becomes a part of their transition into that next stage where they're just giving back uh of their time and talent um in an early part of their of their career so I think that's you know the the Warriors about the um the building of the individual skills and and getting you know formed in that early part of your career and then the the second stage the prince is really about extension into broader reach and and you know Finding ways to use leverage and whether that's through learning whether that's through managing whether that's through influence I there's a number of ways to do that but I think the important point that we haven't talked about is the danger of someone who wants to skip Warrior to go straight to Prince or skip Warrior and Prince and go straight to King like then you just don't have the underpinnings that that hold you up when you get into those into being ready for those later stages and so again not linear right people can go backwards in their career and restart skills and jobs but this is really about just the um just the transitions you know it's about knowing and and I think that if you can help people see transitions coming it's it's helpful um for some more than others uh but you know the it's like uh having a tour guide and knowing where the turns are coming I think it's just it can make for a a smoother not smooth always but a smoother transition if you know that something's coming and and you can get prepared to a certain extent but Anthony's point I don't think anyone's everever fully prepared for any of these transitions I think that's great right if we're really growing in in search of abundance we're challenging ourselves and probably taking on a role that we're not yet ready for I like I know for me growing up where we had more time than money and you didn't hire you didn't delegate that just wasn't part of the culture I grew up around for me that was the big challenge is as I even though I was a manager and I was in charge of other people people I just I didn't have that skill set but even more so I hadn't developed that belief system that they could do it in that trust that other people could handle it was a was a big challenge for me that took me took me a while to get over but why don't you give us an example John of of your prince phase and what what you did there tell us a story about that I think for me it was my you know when I started to have large leadership roles where I started to manage you know dozens or hundreds of people um was an extension I wasn't in charge of the company I wasn't a CEO but but I I started to have real responsibilities for you know large numbers of people um by some standards and you know the decisions and the choices that I was making impacted more than just me now I was having my decisions were impacting other people and the work that I was doing had a broader impact on those people um you know positively and negatively throughout the process interestingly enough I had a conversation with one of my boss's bosses um where I was on a phone call never forget where I was standing and I was told that if I didn't change my leadership that I was capped out in my career and I would never go any further than I was and I was managing hundreds of people so similar to Anthony's conversation I never put those two stories together even though I've heard his story before um I was devastated and didn't believe my manager because I was also breaking you know records and I was you know a golden boy in the company and upward you know promotions and and all these things but he saw something that uh that I didn't see and I didn't believe it for six months but it really resonated with me and after six months I called him back and said how do I fix it and he said I don't know and and um ended up I did find some solutions to the problem through mentorship and guidance and other people and he and I are still good friends today we still talk and you know so 20 years after that conversation I said you know I've never really talked to you but saying you didn't know how to fix it um it really sucked and it hurt and it wasn't unfair because you didn't know but I wish You' have tried harder to know and he said you know I've reflected back on that too and I wish I would have too and so it was a real moment for us to kind of look back at that moment where I was a prince but I you know it's there's a whole evolution of being princely you know from not very effective Prince to getting ready for King in the career and that was a real moment of uh inflection an inflection point for me in my career yeah I learned that there was a big difference between going a battle with your versus directing every single thing that they were doing and critiquing every single thing that they were doing before they did it while they were doing and after they did it and it took a lot to learn how to um give them authority to do what they felt was right I think Gladiator that movie with Russell Crowe was a real interesting depiction of you know leadership and loyalty and um and honor and all the things they talk about in that movie it was a really great depiction of why people you know invest in their leaders when when a leader leads from the front so and I think I think you learn that as a warrior because you want you want that leadership from the front whatever whatever your Venue is and you I don't know if I love as we talk this through I don't know if I love the the Warrior part in the sense that it tells people you're always at Battle and I think everybody always has a battle going on everyone's got tough days everyone's got their stuff going on so from that perspective I think that's right um I don't think everything has to be Zero Sum that's not my belief system today John don't you think the the battle though can just be with yourself getting better with the work with the next I mean is isn't that the way that ideally I don't know that that's the way most people approach it it's not the way we're talking about it but isn't that ideally the way to to approach it yeah I mean I that's a great question I don't know that I've considered the answer long enough to have a I can give you an off the cuff answer but my off the cuff answer is I think so I think it's uh you know the that that I'm you know I'm I'm the person that gets in my way more than anybody else in the world that's for sure nobody else has gotten M MOA more than me in my life you know I was never in the corporate setting in the same way that Anthony was and I never even when it was there I was probably naive not probably I was naive and unaware of some of the competition uh so I just kind of put my head down and went with it but I never felt that I was in those battles even if I was yeah and I think that's fine I think you know the purpose of this is not to get people fighting with each other the purpose of this framework is to give people language around transitions so that when someone doesn't understand what's coming or what's happening to them they can look at it and say oh well this is actually this is a part of being mature this is a part of growing through something and you know whether it's this model or a different framework I'm not hung up on that I don't I don't care which framework someone uses I just think it's useful for someone to know that changes occur that here's broadly what those changes look like and here's some ways you can get prepared for it and you're never fully prepared and that's okay and you're not alone and that there are people that can help you as mentors that if you're willing to me Mentor people along the way you don't have to be a sage to be a mentor you can mentor someone 10 years behind you when you're a warrior Prince you know and so I I think that's just you know we problem solv sometimes we start from the beginning and we have to build the problem up from like scratch and I find that if you find that other people have already solve the problem and you can grab on to that this is just one way of seeing where other people have solved some of these problem problems and not having to learn the hard lessons all on your own I think that's that's the real value in this framework I now that we think about it I think this is one of the things that probably through good luck more than anything I I got right is that when I was in the Warrior phase it was more a battle with me the self reading the right books to go to the next level figure things out and and that's by the way the mindset that I've thought about it it's interesting you guys think about it in a little bit a different different way which is okay but I thought about it with this is the skill set I need to develop I need to go to this seminar or I need to work on the skill or I need to record what I'm doing and improve it whatever it happened to be I think is maybe that's luck Randy I think knowing your background it also might be just the way you're raised you know in terms of you know you you come from kind of what I would call a prototypical or stereotypical Midwestern farm town with a farm background and a farm work ethic and you meet a lot of those stereotypes and so I think that that wouldn't again I'm not making like you called me a clinical psychologist earlier I'm not I'm not a clinical psychologist yet I'm mean I'm in the process of getting all that lure so thank you for giving it to me before the before the state does but no problem uh but but I think that if you kind of if you drew some of those threads out maybe some of it was luck maybe some of it was the environment that that you're parents raised you in and you know I everyone's got a different background I don't know I and I don't know how important that is I think um it might be interesting to understand that but um you know some someone said to me once um they said feedback is such a tough word feed forward is maybe more helpful and I knew what they were saying which was um you want to take information to see how it can be useful in in moving yourself forward uh versus looking back with you know too much staring at the belly button is sometimes not helpful well that let's move to the king stage oh I want to hear what Anthony had to say what were you jump in there well no a couple things one one thing was the during the during the learning process of being a prince one of the key mistakes that I made was thinking everybody on my team had the same motivations that I had that everyone on that team wanted to become a prince uh wanted to manage a team wanted to grow and and we we early on on I almost looked upon those people with disdain who were were happy in their in their quote unquote their Warrior phase um you know working 40 hours a week going home at 5 o'clock having a family life and work life balance while I was working 80 hours a week and I was never in the off position so that was a that was a a key learning thing that as I progressed I got actually pretty good at and um it it taught me to Leverage the specific skills people had versus dragging them through the mud to something that they weren't necessarily interested in you know um and I wouldn't call it the understanding the Peter Principle it's more about understanding their um their individual desires at that moment in time so I thought that was really an important piece of being in that Prince phase oh by the way they might have been in the prince phase by volunteering at their church or giving to their family like words they might have looked like a warrior to you but they're really a prince in their overall vocation you I I shared with a friend of mine yesterday like one of my biggest fears in life that I did not have early in my career is like it's you know I'm a faithful guy it's like I don't want to take somebody off of God's path because I have a different path for them like that that actually frightens me and so but I didn't early in my career I wanted everybody on my path that was you know that wasn't helpful or healthy at all exactly I think that's a great insight though I still struggle with that I like you Anthony I've gotten better at it but I still struggle we we just think that people want the same things we want or they have the same goals and the same belief systems Etc right and clearly they don't but I let's have a whole episode later on about acceptance I think that's such an important topic that we should delve into it's it's I can only say that because I might have been the worst in the world at it at one point in my life like I'm not sure there's anybody that was worse at that than me and now I think I can spell the word I'm not sure I'm good at it but but I I can understand how bad I was at the least all right let's move to King John tell us tell us about the king phase King King is about is about the peak of the career right it's about the the um the part where you're probably having the most impact in terms of broad impact you probably are at the peak of the skill set peak of learning you might be at the peak of your income uh gain and so this is this is you know generally people experience this in their early to to late 50s and early 60s and um for me I I didn't know what I was aspiring to early in my career but I thought I was aspiring to be a king very young and so a lot of people think that because they're the CEO of a company they're the king and that's not necessarily the case like you don't have to be the CEO to be the king and just because you are the CEO doesn't make you one this is really just about um the apex of the third season right and and growing into the the the maximal maximum sure maximal is even a word maximum um you know productivity and I don't mean productivity necessarily professionally like I think there's people that you know stay-at-home mom stay-at home dad that are all you know have maximum achievement at this part of their career as they're then getting ready to transition into the sage piece of this and I I love talking about this one right in this moment because Anthony I would say that you've just kind of Hit the apex of the transition between King and sage in in your transition I mean just in the last less than 12 months yeah and and as I said earlier um I there there were so many elements of the so many characteristics of the warrior phase and the prince phase that I had to I dragged along into the king phase um and yes that you know the having a lot of maturity um having been in battle you know winning and um so many of those battles gives you a a hardened look at at things and um the the development that I had by the time I reached the opportunity to be in this phase serve me well um and I think we we were along with um help and support from a lot of people uh I was able to navigate this phase uh pretty well not without mistakes and problems along the way but by and large you know it was a very successful time for me didn't feel like that every every day along the way though right I mean oh no no no it didn't feel it didn't feel that way all along the way it wasn't until I started to transition to the next phase that I got a chance to look back and I think that's something that we can't ignore that um the the uh the time that I grew up in one of the things that was never taught to us was reflection while in that phase it was always what's on my to-do list for today what's going to be on my to-do list for tomorrow and I never really had the skill to stop and reflect and enjoy and you know uh express my appreciation to others uh as much as I should have I mean as I went along I got better at it but it was still commanding a an army you know as a king and assessing things so yeah Oscar wild said something about like moderation in all things moderation yep so yeah I think both of you have straddled the king and the sage for a while I mean Anthony you're making the transition more to the sage but you've always had wisdom right and for those listening you know the three of us are part of a group that gets together once a month and basically sit around and try and make each other smarter but you've always had wisdom and insight and there's so part of that Sage even when you're in the king I think it's just you're making a a more full-fledged and actively seeking mentorship now right might be the big change right is that accurate yep absolutely and John certainly you are running you know your organization I mean you've got all this stuff going on and you have been coaching and in the sage I mean I I think even more so you've been straddling the two I mean do you want you want to talk about that or do you not agree with that I don't I I don't think I'm at the sage part yet I think the sage is the give back part of your life where you have generally more time you've got um you got some experiences that I don't have yet and and I appreciate you saying that like I'm I'm trying to give people guidance and and I'm counseling them and and that's true that I am I think there's lots of people that have counseling as a part of their vocation but that that's a little different than the sage part of this model right and again this is just a set of words right we talk about Warrior Prince King Sage that's just a set of words talking about the different seasons so I definitely don't feel like I've been in the fourth season yet I don't think I'm going to be there for the next 10 years I am preparing for what's going to happen in those 10 years and how I want to how I want to enter that phase I think I have the unique um either desire or sickness depending the way you look at it to kind of stay ahead of those types of things and so um you know I've got a 50-year plan about you know what things I want to do to to uh live my life and um it's not like a meticulous day by day minute by minute plan but I do know that like when I get to Sage I want to be able to have a clinical therapeutic um background so that I can provide therapeutic services that I don't provide today and so I'm actually getting my clinical license right now so that I can do that 10 or 15 years from now um and I'll do it along along the way so I can build up the wisdom I need to do that well but but I plan to do that on a part-time basis where I can you know really lean into the sage and so um yeah Anthony do you remember the conversation we had about that you know eight it goes it's see it would have been seven years ago you remember that in 2016 17 where we talked about like what Sage was going to look like and getting ready the transition and I think you poo pooed it for the first four or five years but in the last 12 months before it happened I started pushing pretty hard on that for you and well yeah I do remember I do remember the conversation but I also remember that it was a turbulent time where we we were getting prepared for it we would talk about it because we had transactions on the table um one of which got you know to the 23rd hour and then was the rug was pulled off from under us so I became I would I would get in the zone and then I would have to revert myself back to you know running a business so you know almost every time you would raise it I would poo poo it even more because I was so skeptical about create you know um successfully navigating a transition but I did think about it a lot and and I'm still as you said I'm it's it's a transition it's not a des ation um so I'm still I'm still working through that yeah it's we give maybe we could give the listeners just an idea of what jobs and certainly this is not a hard and fast rule but I would say for myself like in the Warrior phase it started out really young doing picking rocks in Farmers fields and doing farm work and then watching dishes and you know eventually into sales and along the way what other jobs might people do during during the uh the warrior phase what would be common jobs I have to really think about that Randy I think I think the jobs themselves I wouldn't say like some jobs are Warrior and some jobs aren't because I think gives people the misimpression that if I want to skip the warrior I can skip those jobs and go to the next one and so I think it's it's more about um where one is in their own development right where they are in their own and and I think there's a development of skill sets I think there's a devel velopment of someone's mindset and and how they View and see the world I think there's emotional maturity that comes along the way with time and you know the human brain isn't even fully formed until your mid 20s um in terms of just the biology of the brain being formed in many cases and then I think there's um so yeah and so I don't think that I don't think it's about the job itself which is a pretty common misconception and based on the fact that I chose four jobs Warrior Prince King and Sage that actually may maybe a horrible way to create a framework maybe we should rethink about like you know you know Season 1 Season Two Season 3 season 4 might be easier for people to grasp um so I would really encourage people not to think about the job itself and to think about like the the professional development of the skill and of the of the the way you see the world and of the emotional maturity that that's the way I would think people should look at it you know not to not not to throw a wrench into things but why not um there's even a a phase that we're that we're just waving over and that's that's you know when you talk about jobs there are there are there are careers people embark on that don't require you to be a warrior that don't you know they're they're you know workingclass jobs um and people are absolutely happy and content and satisfied to be in those roles where they're just performing a function but that misses though I think that misses and so I think I think I'm really glad you said that because I think that misses the point of the seasons in season one of that workingclass job they're learning the journeyman the basics like how how to do the most fundamental things and then as a prince what they're doing is they're learning how to be efficient and effective and problem solve more effectively and get through more tickets in a day and and then as a king they might be bringing a journeyman along they might be then a part of a Twan team that's out there and they're and they're helping that next Generation create leverage for an organization and as a sage they might be retired and sitting on the porch and passing that wisdom on to their family their friends their community and so I I don't I don't think there are jobs that don't go through this it just looks different than the careers the three of us had and we keep putting it back into like how we walked through it but I think that's shortsighted I think you have to look at this as you know what would happen if somebody did have a trust fund and never had to work a day in their life I still think they go through these phases of maturation successfully or unsuccessfully I think that if you um live in any part of the world you go through these phases um successfully or unsuccessfully and there have been times in history where people didn't live to be a sage because the world was a violent place or was a sick place or was a whatever and life expens expectancy was short but I really wouldn't want someone to hear this and think oh gosh this doesn't apply to me because it really does apply to any career uh regardless of whether it's like I said a paying career not a paying career the the these are phases people go through from a development perspective I I think of the warrior phase more is sharpening skills right and instead of maybe working on sword skills or horse skills or archery skills it's what are the skills I need for this job right what what is it that I have to practice what books do I need to read what mentors do I need to learn from to get me to the next phase is kind of the way I think about it I guess yeah that's fair so and I I've had to go back to the warrior phase a few times right like I mean there are times where I think you know I moved and had to go back and start over on on a different path yeah well let's let's transition let's talk about that path let's talk about identifying a path John um and uh you know I know you got four questions that we've talked about before and uh let's you want you want to go forward with that yeah I think so I think as long as long you know and this I think this comes back to like the sage phase right I think when you're when you're in the sage phase you can look back at your path and recognize how you got to your path and how you got there and so you know this the sage phase is a place of um sharing that sharing that wisdom back through the generations if you will and so I think the the four questions are a way of um maybe grabbing the lens of the sage for your own career and then um trying to kind of just get a view for what that might be by by looking what about what it like might look like looking backwards so other words if I if I looked at the end of my life and said okay at age 80 what path do I wish I would have gone on that would be a way to think about my path these four questions are just a different way to think about the path and um and there are again there are lots of models and lots of people who have different questions um there's a great article by um Laura Nash called success that lasts that comes at these questions that I thought was really impactful but there's also this um you know centuries old idea of a reason for being in in Japan um eeky guy that talks about what you love and what the world needs and what what you can be paid for and what you're good at and so that that's one way of looking at this the thing that I found to be most successful is I thought about the future would be like what am I really good at what am I really passionate about how do I want to spend my time talent and treasure and then how do I want to leave my mark on the world and as I looked at the middle of that V diagram it kind of helped me understand my purpose my calling my being I think the Japanese iiy and I'm not even sure I'm saying that right iy iiy um that is another way of doing that's really successful I think Laura Nash has a way of doing it but the thought that you reflect regularly on the skill set you have the passions you have how you're going to spend all of those things and the impact that you want to have and then of course you know what the world will pay you for that will tell you what path you want to be on right and and and for me it's told me what path I was built for right and you know so I used to subscribe to this thought that like you know uh you can be anything you want to be and I love the Romantic notion of you can be anything you want to be but the truth is if I want to be the starting center for the Los Angeles Lakers and I'm not 7 foot one I'm 5 foot 10 it's true that I could play professional basketball perhaps well you should me Su to basketball it's not actually possible for me personally but uh that like I I I I can't be seven foot one I can't will myself into that so I think just being for me honest about like what are there limitations but then how do I make sure I don't create false limitations a lot of us create really false limitations there's a great book written about um weightlifters in the 1980s in uh Eastern Europe they were in accused of using doping but they were also uh really effective at using mindset control to help people have their maximum potential and some weightlifting coaches from the US went over to train with them uh and the weightlifting coaches that went over there lifted some of their personal bests of their entire life without being in their top physical condition based on the mindset work that was done in those sessions in that one short visit they had with um Eastern European weightlifting coaches and so I think the the eeky guy done correctly the four questions that I have done correctly the questions Laur Nash done correctly they try to remove any self-limiting beliefs and they help you to see the world of possibilities and I think this is best done with you know your friends or a mentor like my friend sat down and explained to me like what they thought I was great at and they told me what um you know what I was passionate about from their perspective and and how they heard me talking about how I want to spend my life and the impacts I want to make and they were generous enough to also tell me what they thought my shortcomings were that wasn't part of my four questions but they they also shared those things with me should we do that exercise now so Anthony I tell you your shortcomings are um I I mean is this a six hour episode I think you probably a pretty long list so let's let's go somebody so that was all high level let's get more granular with this all right let's Dig Down somebody's listening and they want to figure out these four questions or figure out their path okay what do they do what's the what's the first step I mean we give people a piece of paper and the first you know it's like on the on we and we fold the paper into four four four quadrants and then you know on one list we say okay what are you what are you skilled at like what are you good at what whether it's whether it's a natural Talent or a learn skill doesn't matter just write down everything you're good at and and across all five facets of your life you know write down what you're good at in terms of your mind body and spiritual Fitness write down what you're good at in terms of your family and write down what you're good at in terms of your friends and your community write down what you're good at financially and professionally write down what you're good at when you're having fun like like if you're great at playing video games it should go on the list and so write it all down and then when you're done with that question write down everything you're passionate about not with a justification not with why anything you're passionate about just put it on the list then next write down the lifestyle you want to have and again think of all the five FS that we talk about you know your Fitness Mind Body Spirit think about your family think about your friends and Community think about how you want to have fun think about Financial and Professional goals that you have and then how do you want to spend your time your energy your money right and do those things all resolve because if I don't want to work at all and I don't have money and I want to spend a lot of it that doesn't resolve right or what I see as frequently is people say they want to make a huge amount of money but they don't want to spend that amount of money and so I often ask the question like if you made less money so you had enough to spend and enough to save but no more than that what would you do with the extra time and would that reduce the stress in your life like the number of people that I've sent to a financial planner to reduce the stress in their life because they figure out like wow I'm actually doing better off than I think I am happens all the time and then and then the fourth question is what's the impact I want to make in my life and this is usually the hardest question and so um the way that I encourage people to do this is just to write down their obituary like write down what you want someone to say about your spiritual mental mental and you know you like your mind body and spirit uh that part of your life write down what you want someone to say about how you treated your family write down what you want someone to say about how you were with your friends and with your community write down what you would want someone to say at your funeral about how you had fun and then about you know how you uh how you did professionally and and using that frame which by the way is the same framework I used for my mom's obituary and I've had lots of people talk about what a beautiful um story that I told about her life and I I didn't like say you know here's the five FS but when I was writing her obituary I thought about all the facets of her life and I wov them into a tapestry of her story and I thought if I if if someone was going to do that story for me what would that story be and I've written that story down and then I look at it once a year and just say is it all still true and and it's I don't think just because you write it down you have to commit to it it's just an exercise and so I think I think it's a really powerful exercise for people to go through and it's and it's vulnerable it it can be difficult and it can be uh uncomfortable so we have we do have a tool on our website where you can have those four questions and you can have some like thoughts about how to kind of go deeper into those four questions […] you so somebody's done those four questions and they're likely early in their career or midcareer or some people are looking to switch careers what would you what advice would you give to those people um in finding success and trying on careers and just kind of figuring out the path one first you want me to do it I don't I don't think I understand where he's coming from on this go ahead so if you want to start maybe maybe repeat that Randy a little bit I'm you kind of lost me a little I can say it back to you Randy you're you're asking if someone's done this and they don't know what to do with it what would you tell them to do yeah or just if somebody I think there's a lot of people listening they don't know what they want to do with their lives right it could be somebody in college and they have a major but they don't know I mean that was certainly me or they're working a job and they don't know if they want to stay there or should they transition or they're unhappy I mean there could be a hundred different reasons right um what what advice I mean what would you tell them to do well go ahead John I was going to give an example a very recent example now I now I clearly see where Randy's coming from I mean I'm a I'm a volunteer mentor to people that are uh in the first phase of starting a starting a business or they've got a business that's moving and they need help to to scale it and grow it and yesterday I had a conversation with a chemical engineer from Texas Tech um who wants to start a business now she's um you know three and a half years into her undergraduate degree in engineering and she wants to start a company um I'm not sure she could move herself 180 degrees from her previous path um and so the whole discussion uh as John outlined was okay let's answer so you're going to need to spend some time and we we'll get back together in a couple of weeks but you know why did you choose electrical engineering what was your uh chemical engineering what was your drive then what were you chasing what was what were you just good at it and you just just decided to keep going is it is it a passion of yours and then the same questions for marketing you know why all of a sudden are you willing to talk um all the effort that you put into something to move into a a um a field that you only have very narrow skills in and so she's going to have to go through this process to be sure this is something that she wants to um move forward with so it's very very timely in the sense of sorting out um what do I want to put my energy behind and why well the from too is important right like I think a lot of people are moving away from something and they go towards something they they think seems to be easier or the answer or whatever and and I think that's where I you know I've had this type of conversation with people all the time it's like they think the the grasser over there because they don't know enough about that garden and you know there's a I don't know if confucious really said it or not but they say the man who thinks the grass is greener on the other side of the fence needs to become a better Gardener and I think there's a lot of that that happens in the world people and and they they start running from one thing to the next because the next thing looks easier faster cheaper better whatever and this exercise is about stopping that process it's about really stopping and saying and taking an inventory and saying what am I built for and then embracing that and then the whole idea of the Four Seasons we talked about earlier was embracing the work that goes along that like there's no avoiding that and and so um but I do see people who who change and move from one to the other as a coping mechanism of some kind and right I don't I don't encourage people to do that if they're running away from something like I don't I don't think that that gets people to the place they want to be and so if I if I had a conversation with the young woman that you're talking about you know I would I would have them go through the four questions and then I I would ask them what is it that draws them to marketing and I would match up against their skills and their passions and how they want to spend their day-to-day and in most of the cases where I've done that before what they think the day-to-day is for marketing isn't what the actual job that has to get done is and they don't actually want to do that either and then we have a real conversation about what do you want to do or what do and you know there like for me I I got really clear about the environment that I wanted to work in I got really clear about the industry that I wanted to work in I got you know and but I didn't know any of those things in my 20s and so so while all of that's true the other encouragement I would give to people particularly early in their career is you don't have to know where you end up like my 50e plan doesn't say in 50 years here's where I'm going to be it says in 50 years directionally I want to help people and so for the next couple of years what I want to work on is this and so I I think it's directional not and by the way had you asked me where I was going to be when I was 51 at 20 or 30 my answer would have been 100% wrong and I'm fairly sure that that's true for lots of people there are some people that get into a career and as a doctor or maybe as a lawyer and they do that for 30 or 40 years I've met those people they're wonderfully talented and uh fortunate I've also met doctors who have left medicine I've let met lawyers who have left law and so I think sometimes we hold out um an ideal or a norm when people are younger in their career and so my encouragement would be to let that go and not to hold on to that that picture perfect marketing piece um but but to really investigate what they're built for in their own unique way and then walk walk a path that probably someone's walked some of before them not not to step on ry's questions uh but John and and Randy how much of your decision making are that using this this young lady as an example how much of her or similar people's decision making is influenced um by making a living and a living the pressure of making a living um at such an early age I think in her case and maybe others it it colors their decision making to the where you know she had a couple of clients that asked her to do some social media for her and she got Intoxicated by getting a paycheck and suddenly she's ready to abandon um what had to be a brutal existence to become a chemical engineer um and I it just struck me so um so hard that the the her desire to make a living washed away so much of what she had already worked on and I think maybe I'm asking a question do you think there's a a a greater influence here than maybe what might have existed in the past I have a little different take on this maybe than the two of you you two tend to approach it from a practical standpoint and I don't want to belittle that because I think it's important important right like they have to be practical people have got to be able to make a living and I agree with everything you said that a lot of people switch thinking the grass is going to be greener and I would also argue that if it's really and then the questions that you brought up John figuring out if it really is the path she wants to be on are important but I think we have to be really careful in our rush for practicality to not Crush people's dreams right I mean and most of but Ry that's not at odds at all with what I was saying like if someone wants to be passionate about something and wants to be skillful it isn't today I don't think you stop them I don't think you say no you're not passionate about it today no you're not skill I think what you say is what does it take to develop that passion what does it take to develop skill so I think I think I would definitely but but I think that where we here's where we don't serve people well we don't serve people well when we're not honest about what they have to be passionate about or skilled at to get the things they say they want and and then encouraging them to spend resources to move down a path that could be that you can see is going to be a failure before you start not because uh like of a self-limiting belief but because someone doesn't actually want the thing like we could give them that information and say like you know like agreed agreed but I don't think that was clear from the conversation you guys are have like like you guys both approach things from a very practical this is how it is and some sometimes I do that too right I tend to be a little more of a dreamer than you guys but there is I think that we have to be really careful to me the most important thing is figuring out what their dreams are and where they really can make an impact and what's going to ultimately make them happy to me that trumps everything else and yes you have to be practical you have to have a plan it's got to be executable it's got to be a real plan there's no problem with dreaming like I I would say if someone can dream they know what their they know what their calling is in the middle then this exercise might not even be useful to them which which by the way just because someone has a tool you know me I don't believe people should have should use tools just because they have them like that is that's a waste of energy so if someone's like hey I am wired to do this thing and they just know it at the core of their being high five good on you go go get after it I don't think yeah I'm not arguing with you by the way I I don't think like I'm not trying to attack the position or argue with you like I think the tool by the way can help them find their dreams I think the Tool's good I think the whole conversation I just I just think that you know back to the girl with the the engineer or the marketing right what does she really want and then and I think the conversation you had is very relevant and maybe neither one of those are her dream but it's so where where I think you're hitting the nail right on the head is here's what you have to do it's going to take this amount of work here's what the job really is I think having that honest real conversation is great I just think it's important to identify the path that's going to make her happy ultimately and then figure out how to execute that well I'm GNA be a little bit pedantic here I I don't think it's important to tell her what she needs to do to be successful at marketing I think she needs to hear like hey here are the paths in marketing here's each of them take if you want to take one of those just know that these are the paths that that exist in marketing today right there might be new ones that exist going forward so this is what this is what the world looks like today in marketing right and and then make sure that that like for me I'm not a chemical engineer right so what I would do is I would go help her find someone who's 20 years into their chemical engineering um career and and share with her what the different courses in chemical engineering might look like from a career perspective and just giving Insight like what I tell people my role is when I'm counseling through this my role is to show them the landscape so they can see it clearly and then make educated decisions I don't want to have a terms of what the is I just want to make sure they can clearly see the landscape as it's laid out and if there's some person that knows part of the landscape they don't helping them find that person so they can get that that and the problem is that lots of people will only look at the landscape through their lens and say because I did it you should do it because I did it you should do it and so if we can teach people to be the voice of here's the way I did it but there's other ways too like that that's that's where I wish the conversation would change a little bit we don't we don't have as much of that today as we had even 15 years ago yeah it just shows that being a sage is a working process because I missed that completely that's a great idea and follow up on that and Anthony I you know having two kids that are in college right now and watching this process um it saddens me when I watch the decisions I think too many kids are making decisions for the wrong reasons instead of following what they really want to do they're doing it because this is what my parents expect this is what Society expects this is what my friends are doing it's I think most kids are making decisions based on that more than actually figuring out what they want to do now I get it because I went to school to be an engineering major for pretty much that reason right had zero desire to be engineer and went through those classes and zero you know after three years figured out I don't want to do this so I understand but I do think more kids ought to follow their dreams and like I I tell my kids just try things just go try a little bit of everything and figure out what it is you you should be doing or you do like which I think helps answer those four questions so you know we we've kind of gone back to like the early part of the the career where someone going through school or or you know post High School whatever I wrote a letter to both of my kids who are older than 18 I'll write the same type of letter to my youngest when he turns 18 and and what I write in this letter when they turn 18 years old is the same thing I talked to them about how to make decisions um and and one of the reasons I had this is because one of my kids asked me about a big decision I think it was like you know um who did you vote for in an election or uh why did I Christianity uh or how do I make decisions about you know spending large amounts of money and and what I tell them is I'm not going to give you the answer about what you should think when you're 18 instead I'm going to tell you how I got to my decision and and I walked them through decision- making and I asked them to make important decisions in their life in the same way and then I tell them when they're 18 the three most important decisions that they make in their life from my perspective um and and those are really simple it's um who you spend your time with and that generally means your spouse if you're going to get married and the five friends you're going to be closest to during the different phases of your life it's what you choose to work on as a profession and then it's um what you believe in that's bigger than yourself and then I go on and I finish the letter by talking about gratitude and resilience as important things to learn as a young adult and so um but you know my my older son I I saw him keep this letter on his desk for months and months and months and he read it over and over again and and uh um it it's been a helpful part of our relationship in in mentoring a young man as he is coming of age and so I think you know choosing those paths it's about getting him ready to be warrior right and letting him know that he doesn't have to understand the prince or the later career and and when he tells me like I don't know what I want to study in college my answer was like Hey man that is totally fine I changed I want you to learn how to learn so go learn how to be a lifelong learner learn how to ask questions learn how to think critically that's the most important thing and then build your your group of friends while you're in college and learn how to make good decisions socially and you know academically those are the things I want you learning and so I think that's that's how you help someone prepare for these four phases and that's how you help someone get into those four questions about you know what am I built for […] uh let's uh let's move into John developing your career and you want to you want to take you want to kick us off with with this tell us a little bit about developing your career and the different phases and things they can do yeah I think you know when when people are developing their career I think you can manage your career by developing skill sets and I encourage people to think about like what skill sets are you going to need for the next three years the next five years and how to start learning those skill sets now and the more unsure that somebody is the shorter that timeline can be right so like you know you can say what skills do I want to develop in the next 30 days for example but if you're really clear about what you want you can say what skill sets I want to develop in the next 10 years so for me I decided that when I when I retired I wanted to teach part-time at University and so and I and I decided that I wanted to teach at The Graduate level that meant that I needed to have a certain level of education and then I also wanted to uh be able to help people uh clinically and so those are the two things that I've gone to do to make sure that I'm ready for that um you know in in my 60s and into my 70s and so I think you know as we look at the performance of developing your career I think there some fundamental skills early in your career that have to be developed and that's about responsibility and accountability in other words being able to do what you say you're do and and accomplish tasks for other people on time and on budget and that's just that's an early part of anybody's careers they've got to learn responsibility and accountability is the basis for long-term Career Success and then there's a set of individual uh things you have to do and a set of relational things you have to do so on the on the individual side you have to be able to work as hard as you need to work to get what you want you've got to be able to develop a professional skill set whatever your profession is you've got to have a belief system that helps you to get your job done you know for example not thinking you can't do it every day and then you have to be able to prioritize your work because they're always will be more work than there is time like it doesn't matter who you are what company you're with there's always more work than there is resource and so learning how to prioritize is really important so that's so so you have kind of the ground you're standing on is responsibility and accountability then one side of the coin is work effort skill set mindset and prioritization on the flip side of the coin you have relationships so how to be accepting other people in your professional environment how to be appropriately professionally vulnerable about when you need help and things like that how to maintain confidence and Trust so you can you know um not share gossip and those kinds of things and and then how to see people in their best light so that you work well together with people and and then you can get into things like you know you know how how many skills do you need and how like I have people that have come to me and said look I want to be the CEO of a company in 10 years and how do I develop into that and so we put together a plan for you know someone to get to that level and um and you know we've talked about mentorship and all those things but I think as you look at your career you start with the fundamentals responsibility accountability then you start with the things you can control and making sure you get professional relationships done well that's where I think people should start um Anthony how would you sum up your journey or any like thinking back what wisdom would you have for listeners and kind of big Lessons Learned along the way um one I guess the um biggest the biggest lesson I learned was in many in many at many points along the way I did not um give enough thought to the impact uh I was having on my family and friends as I was singularly focused on Career growth and moving to the next level and it result resulted in um significant uh disrupt and in some in some ways pain uh to those that I love the most so I was very very focused on the career thinking that uh chasing um an increased economic environment that that that was the my purpose and um later in life I found out that um that was not my purpose and um but the the um the damage had been done so that's probably the biggest thing is that you've gotta uh widen your um view of the world and include include anyone uh that's impacted and that and that holds true inside of the work that you're doing inside the organization that you're in you know the decisions you make in terms of how you run your department your team your business uh the those decisions don't affect just you those affect uh the people around you and it's it's you know really the difference between being a boss and being a servant leader you know um a servant leader is someone that you know has empathy uh listens to people around them is a you have a self-awareness um you you know there's some foresight of involved there and it's commitment um to the growth of the team and people around you in in this case both as a dad uh that commitment to help your your children grow as well as the people um you know on your team so if if people focused on that as a goal I think it would be very very helpful and help helping them make decisions fantastic thank you great John same same question just don't need to repeat it just wisdom or Lessons Learned along the way maybe even things you wish you done different but what what would you tell people that you know on this path that might might help people out that are listening I'm really glad Anthony got a chance to answer first because first I I love what he said and I think I've had similar experiences but it also gave me a chance to reflect on this conversation and I think the thing that hasn't come out as clearly as I would have liked it to have come out um was that you know there was a period of my life where I objectified people and it was people said that if you help other people get what they want you'll get what you want and I took that to mean how do I get what I want from every transaction every every single thing and you know and that was a mistake and and so um I I learned that you know perfect balance at all moments in life isn't attainable but over a long period of time you can be balanced and sometimes that means you have to dive in one place or dive in another and I think less about what's in it for me uh than I did earlier in my career I'm not GNA say that I never do that's not true it's not real but but but I try to as best I can give back to other people and have a broader View and see the bigger picture and um and and be in it for something bigger than myself now for me that's my faith I think other people have other ways of kind of it being bigger than themselves and I think that uh that's healthy to you know whether it's a charitable cause or a community or but relationships are you know foundational and so um I would hope that people would see this as a way of being self-reflective and improving themselves in career development so that they can show up to those relationships that are important to them personally and professionally and I find that the the more I develop myself the more I have to offer and give of myself and that's been you know the greatest lesson and part of what I've done it's been such a more joyful experience to be thinking about ways to give to others versus how do I maximize this transaction for myself which I've certainly certainly been guilty of uh throughout parts of my career and I'm sure that I'm guilty of that occasionally now too or or maybe more than occasionally you'd tell me right I want to Circle back I think one final question before we wrap things up both of you mentioned mentorship and we kind of went different places and didn't dig as deep as I would have liked to of there so how do you find mentors because I don't think this is obvious to everybody I think there's people out there they would love to have a mentor but they just they don't know how to do it so I would like to spend a couple minutes on that Anthony you want to go first just how you identify mentors and maybe even how do you reach out out to um my understanding of today's businesses based on you know where my son and daughters have been it's a very different there were formal Mentor programs um when I was in Corporate America but I also uh befriended a number of senior people in the organization um back in those days it was okay to go to a uh join a basketball team if you will where we would play basketball on weekends and you know members of the company would be there I'm not sure those things happen anymore and from those relationships you built friendships and then you could you know just start talking to them about you know things relative to um the business the family and things like that so I I'm not sure I'm the best person to ask but the the advice I would give anybody is uh Network and and be friendly and be conversent in a number of subjects to develop relationships and then go seek and find people whose uh wisdom you you would trust and you would take their advice seriously if given well and you're working for score now right like that's a that's a resource that you know this is this part of your Sage phase is you are you have become a mentor for people sure right so how would not necessarily score but if somebody if somebody were to approach you and wanted your wisdom and your Sage advice what should they do what shouldn't they do can I jump in here for a second because I I I wrote I wrote a topic on this for medical students for a medical education company and I think that generally there's formal mentorship which companies do have to bring somebody into a culture and those are generally very short-lived mentorships to to indoctrinate somebody into a culture very normal organizationally I think what we're talking about here is a more organic type of mentorship that you're asking about those generally work most effectively when the mentor Taps the mentee and so I think my guidance would be put yourself in a position where you can be tapped and that usually happens by mentoring other people and so if you're young and you want to Mentor people it's totally appropriate to Mentor someone 10 years behind you and so if you're in you know college or just graduated early in your career like Big Brothers Big Sisters has a really great formal program that teaches people how to Mentor younger kids and it gets you into that process and it then exposes you to people who are then looking for young adults to Mentor in their career and so it puts you in a position where you can be tapped by someone who's looking to Mentor someone in those spaces and so I'd say don't start by looking for a mentor start by looking for who you can mentor and look for someone 10 years behind you on the path and then be aware of people 10 years ahead of you on the path like it doesn't have to be someone who's 70 if you're 30 it can be someone who's 40 if you're 30 and so um and just you know like Anthony said Network take people to Coffee be available but start by giving start by going out there and finding places to do that again I think if you're a part of a church there's lots of like religious education programs in Sunday school I think if you're not doing part of that Big Sister Big Brothers Big Sisters is a really great thing there's lots of community centers out there I'm sure we're going to get blown up with other people who are like what about mine what about mine so check back with our our community and we'll make lists of places you can go Mentor people and give your time and talent and uh and then and then if if you are someone who has the capacity try to tap you know two or three people to Mentor I just I called a kid who's uh a kid a 30-year-old man not a kid but I called someone recently who I was in part of a conversation with and it seemed like maybe they could use some mentoring where I might have some useful guidance and I called and said hey look I I try to Mentor three people at a time I don't have three right now on my calendar and wondered if you'd be interested and uh then you know here's what it looks like and then I'll send him a document a little onepage document […] about what mentorship looks like and it's not like a formal like here's everything you have to do it just gives people some thoughts about like here are some things you could do it's very loose mentorship is about people who don't have a dog in the hunt and so I we should do a whole episode on mentorship I think it's a great topic it's a great question we should dive deep into it definitely and couple things John I want I want you just to hit on and we could certainly hit on that in another topic I think that's a great idea but you I know in conversations we've had one of the things you're able to do is compartmentalize and you have mentors in different phases right you've got business mentors you've got Financial mentors you've got you've got spiritual mentors so I'd like you to address that and the other thing that you're phenomenal at I know Anthony and I have have at times um picked on you for this but it's really a skill that you're that you're really phenomenal at is you are able to look and say these are the best practices and while that might not be a direct Mentor you're able to look at somebody that's had success doing something so if and then take that and apply it to the situation so do you briefly want to hit on both those things yeah I'm I think I'm going to leave a little Cliffhanger too come back and listen to more I think I think I think that it's important to have different types of mentorship at each one of the phases we've talked about today Warrior Prince King and sage and sometimes those are the same mentors who stay ahead of you throughout the entire Journey sometimes there are different Menor mentors that come and go throughout different phases and and some of those mentors help you through things like the four questions like Anthony talked about with our chemical engineer uh example today and um sometimes there are people that are very specific about parts of your life like I've got a mentor that helps me um you know with just my prayer life and and and he's a you know someone I trust implicitly around that and so I think as we as we talk about mentorship and we talk about Frameworks um it's you know you don't have to recreate the wheel you you can find you can talk to people mentors you know people that you work with you know advisers that can give you those Frameworks and and in a great in in the perfect environment someone um understands something about their own bias and at least calls it out and lets you know there might be other ways of thinking about that I I try to be clear that like my framework isn't the only framework it's a framework or it's the best one I've found or in a few cases I've looked at most of the Frameworks that are available and this is the best practice and here's why and I try to I try to be clear about which place I'm coming from so that as people navigate the four seasons of their career that when they come into contact with me I'm helping them Propel forward on their path versus giving them friction or taking them onto my path or onto some other path that's that's the way I try to think about it great well Anthony John thanks I think this has been a great conversation uh to our listeners a few time we've referenced a lot of different tools today you can get those at talesof abundance.com uh interact with the community if you like this please subscribe on iTunes or wherever you happen to listen and look I just hope that everybody listening got Nuggets and things that they can take on their search for abundance and bringing abundance to the world