374: Future-Proofing Your Career through Three Key Skills with Stephen Warley

Pete Mockaitis
Stephen, thanks so much for joining us here on the How to be Awesome at Your Job podcast.

Stephen Warley
Thank you so much for having me on. I enjoyed meeting you at Podcast Movement.

Pete Mockaitis
Whoohoo!

Stephen Warley
It’s fun geeking out over work stuff because we all do it.

Pete Mockaitis
It is. Totally, totally. And apparently you said I was a bit more wild at Podcast Movement than I am behind the microphone.

Stephen Warley
I know. You’re just so uber professional here on the mic, but let me tell you folks, when you meet Pete in person, he’s the guy you want to go have a beer with, let me tell you.

Pete Mockaitis
It’s funny, I don’t feel uber professional on the mic. I think I’ve said some things that are pretty zany from time to time. But I guess I am – I really do feel a sense of what a privilege it is to be talking to such brilliant people, who have something to share and what a duty I have to get the goods to show up. I guess that does naturally bring a little bit of business likeness into the equation.

Stephen Warley
But I do like how you just described that too. It’s just showing how much you really care about what it is that you do and the effort that you put behind it and the respect that you have for your listeners, for yourself, and for the people that you bring on the show. I really appreciate that.

Pete Mockaitis
Aw, shucks. Well, thank you. But let’s start with something zany. First of all, I understand you don’t like to use any kind of paper. What’s this about?

Stephen Warley
I do use toilet paper, folks. I tried a bidet. I can’t do it. That’s too far for me.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s the first time bidets have come up on the program. Cutting edge.

Stephen Warley
And toilet paper. Yeah, I think long ago before it was kind of this movement of minimalism, I just don’t like clutter. I like order. I truly believe that a cluttered physical space is a direct connection to my mind, therefore my mind is cluttered.

One thing I always tell people to declutter any space in your life is you’ve got to get rid of that paper first. And it’s never been easier to do that because we can automate and digitize like everything now.

Now once in a while, I will say this, I do like sending cards still because nobody does that anymore, so when you do send somebody a card in the mail, it’s a big deal. They text you about it. They call you about it. They even put it on social media

Pete Mockaitis
The paper, it’s not so much that you don’t like writing on paper, you just hate the clutter that paper contributes into your visual field.

Stephen Warley
Absolutely. I write very minimally on paper. Even when I journal I prefer doing an electronic note on my phone or a spreadsheet – we can talk about that, yes, journaling on spreadsheets, it’s possible – or a Word document. Because it’s also because of, again, the searchability of digital versions of your thoughts and your writing can help you see things in many different ways as opposed to having it all written in a journal.

Pete Mockaitis
Very cool.

Stephen Warley
There’s like an …. There’s people who are like, “I love my journal.” Well, good. Journaling is a super important life skill. Keep writing. Get it out of your head. No matter how or where, you want to put it on a screen or on a piece of paper.

Pete Mockaitis
Noted, thank you. Well so let’s talk about – you’ve got your company. It’s called Life Skills That Matter. We like skills that matter over here. What are you all about there?

Stephen Warley
Well, I am trying to help people understand that work as they know it is fundamentally changing because I think we all start hearing about “Is automation, AI, going to take all of our jobs? There’s just even written recently Verizon is offering their entire workforce, 44,000 employees, a buyout package. I just got a text from a friend who works at Red Hat and he’s like, “Oh, they just got bought by IBM. I just got laid off.”

And even in a good economy, we’re seeing these shifts. The work in the way that we were taught by our parents or even sometimes still to this day, it’s changing. We can get into how I think it’s changing, but I want to let people know is that you can do something about it. You can survive and thrive in this emerging new economy.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, now we talked about work changing. I know we could wax – I don’t know if it’s poetic – but we can talk about trends and the robots and artificial intelligence, but maybe could you share – you’ve got a ton of numbers, stats on your website, which I dig.

Could you give some of the most hard hitting evidence that says “Oh no, for real, it’s happening now and so here’s the proof in terms of X percent of this or Y percent of that” or kind of what is the transformation and just how fast is it coming here?

Stephen Warley
The one that blows my mind – there’s two that I’m going to give you. The one that blows my mind was from the US Census Bureau, so pretty conservative, the US Census Bureau. They’re not going to say crazy stuff.

2013, they came out with a stat that said that as of that year 65% of the children born in 2013 would be doing work that had not yet been invented. Let that soak in people. That has never happened before in human history. That is how fast our economy is changing, that people born right now will be doing work that has not yet been imagined or invented.

Pete Mockaitis
That is wild. Yeah, the Census Bureau is not a fantastical sci-fi kind of a place. It’s sort of hard demographics that they see. 65% that’s a good, just about two-thirds majority. Okay.

Stephen Warley
I’ve got one more from the US Census Bureau.

Pete Mockaitis
Let’s take it.

Stephen Warley
If I can because, again, just again to that point we’re making because it’s a lot of gravitas there, the US Census Bureau, that in 2016 to 2017, single founder or solopreneur businesses, that means there’s a business and there’s only one person running it, those making over a hundred thousand dollars increased by about 5% and the same is true for those making over a million dollars. Again, this has not happened before at that rate.

Pete Mockaitis
In one year, that number of sort of solo – solopreneur is what you’re saying here?

Stephen Warley
Like you and I. We’re running our own business. We have no employees. Maybe you do.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’ve got full time contracts, so ….

Stephen Warley
That’s a little different.

Pete Mockaitis
It is. Yeah, it is.

Stephen Warley
We have teams. We can get into all of that. But this is a solopreneur business. There’s only that. They are recognized as a single-founder business. The rate of those businesses that are making more money over hundred thousand dollars and a million dollars is going up significantly.

Again, something we haven’t seen before and is increasing because of automation. A lot of times we see the downside of automation, but the upside of automation, it’s never been easier to work for yourself and to make more money.

Pete Mockaitis
Understood. Okay. That’s your take is that many more people are going to find themselves in a self-employment situation at least for a portion of their careers is one of your contentions.

Stephen Warley
Posits. Let’s couch that a little bit because I’m not as crazy as you might read on my website. So here’s the deal.

I think we have all been educated in a system that taught us to be employees for the most part, myself included. I believe there’s a much greater population of people that have the capabilities to work for themselves but they were taught that they couldn’t. They were taught they didn’t have what it took. Their self-confidence to a certain extent was systematically eroded to make sure that they continue to be employees.

I’m saying to people, you might have the capability. I was that person. I never thought I’d ever work for myself. Then economic reality, getting laid off Election Day 2000. By the way my entrepreneur birthday is coming up November 7^th. I’m excited to celebrate that. I’m going to be 18 in entrepreneur years.

Pete Mockaitis
….

Stephen Warley
So that’s what I want to put out there to folks that this could be an option for you. Again, because things have changed so much in terms of the work that we can be doing, that we can have these single-founder businesses and we have technology to help us run those businesses now and there’s just so many more infrastructure growing every day, co-working spaces and communities popping up all over the place, especially in the last ten years to help this new growing workforce.

It’s estimated, depending on where you look, but about a third of the American workforce right now is considered to be self-employed in some shape or form. In the next decade that is supposed to be just over 50%. We are trending towards a majority independent workforce and we have not necessarily on a mass scale been taught how to thrive in that. That’s what I’m trying to help people understand and to do.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. You’ve identified a number of particularly essential skills, life skills that matter, if you will, in this context that I think would be great to kind of dig into a bit. These are helpful if you do find yourself in a self-employed situation, even if you don’t. I think you can’t lose by digging into some of your deep expertise in these particular skills. Can you lay them out for us?

Stephen Warley
Yeah, I just want to make one other note about self-employment. Even if you are going to be conventionally employed, continue to be a W-2 employee, you’re going to function much more like a self-employed person. I call it the decision shift.

Incrementally, maybe you even notice this over the last five years, you’re being asked to do more work or be responsible over different aspects of your work. Even telecommuting, you’re going to work from home. Where are you going to work? How are you going to organize your work day? That is also a shift.

It’s almost like there’s a blurring of the lines between what it means to be a freelancer or a consultant or a full-time employed person. That’s the reality that all of us need to get ready for. That’s a lot of these skills that I’ve identified. I think a lot of times first people are like, “Oh my gosh, this is happening. What do I do about it?”

The first thing I tell people is do the work that you want to do, not do the work that you’re supposed to do. I think a lot of us haven’t really understood, like, “What do I really want to do with my life?” The skill that I often tell people is this most important life skill that is going to teach you about yourself and about your potential, your possibles, what you really want to do. It’s self-awareness. And again, Pete, the most important skill in my book and not taught to us. It’s kind of crazy.

Pete Mockaitis
Well that showed up again and again actually in terms of high-performers in corporate environments. That’s one of the top things they’ve got going for them is self-awareness. Tell us, how do you define it and can you paint a picture of what it looks like when you’ve got it versus you don’t?

Stephen Warley
Sure, that’s great. Self-awareness is the ability to observe your actions without judgment and to see the consequences of those actions to then decide “Do I want to keep having those results or should I start changing some of my behaviors and habits?”

Let me repeat that. Self-awareness is not self-judgment. It’s not about judging yourself. It’s about looking at yourself almost as if you’re hovering over yourself from a third-party perspective, an outer body experience.

Pete Mockaitis
I’m seeing the UFOs right now.

Stephen Warley
Right. It’s like somebody is watching – Pete’s watching himself right now, which is very hard to do. It’s very hard to – a big part of self-awareness is about getting really honest with yourself and to say, “You know what, Stephen, if I continue – if I go out every night and I’m getting these results and this is how it’s impacting my work.”

It’s not about beating yourself up that you’re doing that. It’s about asking yourself, “All right, I have this goal of making X amount of dollars or taking this big trip or having a family or buying a house or whatever it is, so is going out every night is that helping me or is not helping me?” That’s the type of kind of observation I would want people to practice self-awareness with.

Getting good at self-awareness – I have two exercises for people. One, is to start bringing awareness in your day-to-day life as we all do this, bring just self-awareness to when you just react, when you just react, whether you just get super excited or you get super angry, you get super frustrated, just notice when you have an instant reaction and you didn’t really think about it.

Because a lot of times those instant reactions aren’t very helpful. They kind of cause miscommunication. If you can start bringing awareness that you’re doing it.

Then the next step after that is understanding what’s the trigger. Where is that coming from? Why am I doing that? Those are the types of questions we want to be asking ourselves. I see this pattern of behavior in myself, why do I keep doing it? Where does it come from?

Pete Mockaitis
That’s really connecting for me right now because I notice – for example, there’s – so right near where I live there is this graphics shops. It’s kind of independent. I was pretty excited to see that it was going to start to open. You see people bringing in the copy machines and building some shelves. It was looking pretty good.

I was like, “Oh yeah, this is going to be great. Maybe I’ll use that as a sort of mailbox that I can have publicists and sort of a public address to go to. Or maybe that will serve as a UPS drop-off spot, so I won’t have to truck it so far or pay the pickup fee when I’m sending stuff via UPS.” I sort of started to imagine how wonderful this graphics shop will be in our life.

I even said “When are you going to open?” They’re like, “Oh yeah, maybe next week.” I was like, “Oh cool.” I got excited. But that was more than a month ago and it’s not open. When I pass this graphics shop, I have a reaction. I’m just angry. Not like enraged, you know? I don’t scream or huff and puff, but I’m irritated. I’m like, “It’s still not open. What’s the deal? How come it’s not open?” I don’t care for that. I don’t really need that irritation in my life.

Stephen Warley
So why are you irritated?

Pete Mockaitis
Well, yeah. I haven’t quite gotten to the very bottom of it. I think part of it is – at the very surface level, it’s just sort of like, “Oh, people should live up to their word. He told me it would be here next week and it’s not there,” but more than that I think it’s that I – I think the truth is I just sort of feel kind of overwhelmed maybe too often in terms of all this stuff.

It’s partially my own doing. I get so excited by all these ideas and I chase after them. It’s like, oops, didn’t set aside some time for this or that. Then I view that this graphic shop is kind of an opportunity to have that kind of just little extra bit of time, whether it’s – because I’ve walked to a UPS drop off spot several times over the last few months, so I just sort of imagine that this graphic shop represents to me maybe a half hour a month that is reclaimed for me.

Stephen Warley
This is what I’m hearing from Pete – because this by the way is an amazing example of self-awareness. And I’ll tell you how if I wasn’t here how he could get to where I’m probably going to hopefully bring him a little bit more quickly. This is not about that graphic shop.

Pete Mockaitis
….

Stephen Warley
It is not. It’s not even about the drop off at UPS. What Pete is – kind of now that he’s gotten a little bit more honest with himself, he already kind of started to say. He’s like, he’s feeling overwhelmed and he might need to look at all of his work activities and be like, “Okay, it’s really not about the UPS store. Like I’m doing a lot of stuff. What do I really need to be doing here and maybe what do I need to be doing less of or what I can I automate, what can I delegate?”

That’s something, Pete, that’s a whole other probably episode. People never stop to reflect once a month, once a quarter, even if you’re working at your job of “What are my work activities?” And then saying to yourself, “Which one should I eliminate?” because there’s stuff that we’re always accumulating or people are asking us to do and all of the sudden you’re like, “Why am I even doing that anymore?”

Maybe your boss, your manager, your team says, “I don’t even know. Stop doing it.” Or even you have to do that to yourself when you’re working on your own like Pete and I are.

Number two, can I automate stuff because there’s all kinds of tools that are pretty low cost or free that can automate a lot of what you do now.

Number three, what can I delegate? Even if you’re the low man or woman on the totem pole there, you’re kind of way down on the food chain, you could be surprised. There’s lot of opportunities to delegate stuff that you really shouldn’t be doing to other people.

Finally, you schedule what’s left. That’s the stuff that you should be really focused on doing. And you will feel such relief if you can do that. That’s kind of a very strategic self-awareness exercise that you can turn into a regular part of your work life.

Pete Mockaitis
Yes. So we jumped right to some strategies associated with how does one handle overwhelm, which is great. I guess I kind of want to dig into some of the broader perspective in terms of I love what you said that when you see a reaction, it’s like it’s just there, then that is sort of fertile ground for digging in and gaining insights and getting somewhere.

So how do we go from the place of “I’m irritated that this graphic shop hasn’t opened yet,” to the self-awareness, insight that’s really going to be helpful and transformational? Are there kind of key questions that you dig into?

Stephen Warley
Absolutely. The most important and the most effective self-awareness practice that I’ve come across is journaling. It’s writing. I know you hear that word. There’s baggage with it. When you say meditation, the walls go up. Hear me out.

There’s lots of different ways to journal. You can do a free write. Some people like that. Sometimes people want prompts. Sometimes – actually I do an Excel spreadsheet sometimes when I’m feeling really negative and I’m aware that I am. I actually kind of put all these different thoughts into a spreadsheet.

I say, “What time of day did they occur? Who are they about? Who was I with? Where did they occur? What was it about? What do I think the trigger might be?” Then I go back a week later to look at those thoughts and you can start to see patterns and trends. That’s the true gift of having a writing habit every single day is that you get to communicate with your subconscious mind, your inner voice.

Because we try to think our way out of everything. We overuse our rational mind and we do not use our subconscious mind, our gut enough. We really need to use both parts of our brain because oftentimes your subconscious knows what you really want before your conscious mind does. The conscious mind is kind of like the one who’s going to get the job done. The subconscious mind is your motivation, your purpose, what gets you really excited.

When you’re writing, I often recommend looking back after a week, after a month to look for those patterns and trends, especially if you’re somebody like, “I want a big career change, but I have no idea what I want to do.” Start journaling about it. It’s a way to start communicating with that subconscious, so you can start to uncover things.

What it does, it allows you to see your thoughts from a different perspective almost as if somebody else was going to give you this information. So it’s kind of like you’re coaching yourself. Does that make sense, Pete?

Pete Mockaitis
Oh yes, thank you. All right, that’s a self-awareness side of things. What’s the next skill?

Stephen Warley
By the way, I have a daily growth journal. This will be a little segue into the next important skill that we’re going to talk about. Four questions you want to ask yourself every single day, especially if you really want to make a big change in your life or you feel like you need some more focus.

Number one, what did I learn about myself today? Pete might have journal about his frustration with this graphic store not opening up and what that was all about.

Number two, did I learn something new today in terms of helping me learn my work better, get better at my craft or get better at whatever my profession might be?

Number three, did I meet somebody new to you? This is something that we’re going to talk about as the next most important skill.

Finally, did I create something today? That’s a lot of things. Especially when we are working in jobs, we are constantly always having to live up to other people’s expectations and we are under this unfair regime of perfectionism that you really need to start thinking about stuff in your own life.

If you really want to learn, you’ve got to learn by doing, not just by listening to other people and reading. You’ve got to see how it feels for yourself. You’ve got to take that imperfect action. You’ve got to do stuff on the side. Or maybe you have a forward-thinking employer that’s going to allow you to get messy from time to time.

But let’s get back to that next most important skill and that’s outreach. You’ve probably seen this quite a bit, Pete, especially on this show or the people that you work with. When do people generally think about reaching out to people?

Pete Mockaitis
When they need something immediately.

Stephen Warley
Yup, when you need something. Guess what? After you’ve been at your job for two – three years, maybe five years, maybe longer and you get laid off or you quit or whatever, all of the sudden you notice that the only people that you really know professionally are the people that you’ve been working with and they’re really not going to be that much of a help to you, maybe a couple of them. Maybe they’ve moved on to somewhere.

The thing that can never stop and it’s never a to-do list item, it’s never part of your job search process or whatever it is that you want to do is you’re always on the outlook to meet new people. Even if you tend to be more introverted, it doesn’t mean that you don’t want to meet people.

I always tell folks, you never want to meet people when you need something because they can smell it a mile away. You want to meet people just like you make friends. You want to be drawn to interests or topics or subjects that really light you up.

I encourage you whether you see something on social media or overhear in conversation out and about, jump in. Let them know why you might be excited about that or an idea that you have because that’s how you build true, genuine connection with people.

That’s really the first step when you want to get a job or you’re building a business that you want to be very clear with your values and your purpose and your mission about who you are and not feel bad about it. Don’t feel like you have to change because you want to attract people that also share that same vision, that same interest, those same values.

Pete Mockaitis
For these people, what are your top tips in terms of finding them and connecting with them in great ways?

Stephen Warley
My unconventional advice is this. I don’t believe there’s a one-size-fits-all way to reach out. I actually have a whole worksheet that I use in my 30-day accelerator to help people understand how do they like to reach out to people.

The questions that you want to ask yourself. Do I like to meet people online or offline more? Do I like to meet people in large groups like, go to conferences or like smaller, intimate groups or do I like one-on-one interactions? How frequently do I like to interact with people? You know maybe it’s like once or twice a week, but maybe it’s like five times a day. Even in social media, start bringing attention to which social medial platform do you like more than others and really get better and give yourself over to that.

So I think broadly speaking, that is what I would recommend to people is to actually make the best use of who you are as an individual human. Bring awareness that you already have a habit for interacting and engaging people. But just start calling yourself out. Do some journaling about how do you do it, how can you make it better, and how can you bring awareness to make sure that you’re doing it all the time.

Pete Mockaitis
I dig it. Yes. So you mentioned several different formats. Maybe could you mention some perhaps overlooked or unconventional formats because I think sometimes we think, oh mixer, cocktail party, business cards, that is – networking. We just sort of paint a picture as to what that word sparks for people. You’re saying, “Oh no, hey, you’ve got the online thing as well. You’ve got the kind of small group thing.” What are some of your favorite approaches or manifestations where this comes into play?

Stephen Warley
Your everyday life. Don’t be afraid. I do this all the time at my co-working space, in lines at grocery stores. I live in Boston; I could be on the T. If I overhear a conversation that is super interesting to me, I chime in and I jump right in. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve met people that way. Sometimes it goes nowhere and sometimes it really could lead to an opportunity or they give me another idea about somebody that I could meet.

I think one of the unfortunate things that we do is we compartmentalize a lot of these different activities. What I’m always telling people, the folks that I work with is, how to start integrating that just in your daily life. Like, there’s opportunities to meet people all the time, just start being more open to them. Right now we’re so closed off.

Yesterday, I treated myself – it was Halloween – after work I went and got a beer at a local coffee shop slash brewery. I generally don’t have my computer or my phone, but I was actually working on a presentation. But I couldn’t believe these four women sat next to me, who were in their early 20s. They all got there. They all said hello to each other and for the next 90 minutes they just looked at their phones and their computers the entire time and didn’t talk to one another.

Pete Mockaitis
Are you sure they weren’t choosing to have a productive work session inspired by shared culpability?

Stephen Warley
They were wearing costumes, which made it – I wanted to take a picture of it. I’m like, “Oh my gosh, talk to each other.” And not saying that – I’m being unfair because there were plenty of other great conversations going on throughout the space.

But a lot of times I think we – all of us even if somebody’s an extrovert like myself, if you didn’t guess that already, a lot of times it’s like kind of that home base, that safe, that security blanket where you whip out your phone because nobody’s talking to you. You almost feel like you go back to middle school sometimes. You feel like, “Oh, other people are talking to everybody and I’m talking to nobody,” so now we have a phone so we can look like we’re doing something.

Instead of picking up our head, kind of – don’t be creepy, but you can be listening on other things and jump in, jump into a conversation. Go for it. I challenge you next time in the next 48 hours if you hear somebody say something that really energizes you, really sparks you or you feel like you have something to add to that conversation, jump in.

Pete Mockaitis
What I dug about what you said there in terms of compartmentalizing, ….

Stephen Warley
Yes.

Pete Mockaitis
Indeed with Halloween we took precious baby Jonathan for his first trick-or-treating experience.

Stephen Warley
What did he go as?

Pete Mockaitis
He was a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, Michelangelo, to be precise. It was so cool, I hadn’t chatted with my neighbors much at all in the year that I’ve lived here, but then in the context of Halloween and trick-or-treating, suddenly that’s just normal. Yes, you show up at someone’s home and you talk to them for a moment and take their candy. They were so cool. I was like my neighbors are awesome. It was like, how come we never talk to each other?

Stephen Warley
Or now, you can call yourself out, how many times did you pass each other, but you guys, you were both so busy with your lives that you couldn’t even just do, “Hey, how’s it going? How is your day today?”

Pete Mockaitis
I hear you. Yeah. A lot of times we’re in motion, but you can at least say hello. It was ….

Stephen Warley
I’m in Boston. I make it when I walk to my co-working unit, it’s about a two-minute walk, I look people in the eye and I smile at them because people don’t do it. We are so closed off from each other. I know that sounds like really timeless advice, but be aware of that. Realize that in our modern, fast-pace life, we’re losing that.

We’re not doing that and that is a simple thing that you can be doing all the time to kind of be practicing your outreach muscles, so that way you’re always meeting new people, building up that community, building up your network. That way when you do need people, you have that to fall back on. You’ve been developing and nurturing it all along.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s good. You’ve got another key skill about embracing discomfort.

Stephen Warley
Yeah, here’s the deal folks. Work is changing in such a way that it is changing faster than ever before. Remember US Census Bureau stat about babies born in 2013, how they’re going to be working on something that has not yet been invented. You’re no longer going to be hired just to do something and be trained to do something and do it over and over again.

A lot of times people – I don’t know if you get this Pete – but a lot of times people ask “What skill can I learn that I can have for the next ten years?” I’m like, “There isn’t any. They’re gone. Done. Over.” “Not even coding, Stephen?” I’m like, “Yeah, it’s changing all the time.” The timeless skills are these life skills that I’ve identified like self-awareness, purging, even letting go. We haven’t talked about that. But also – reaching out.

But also one of them is embracing discomfort. I think a lot of times we want everything so secure I think that’s why a lot of us don’t consider the option of having a side hustle or maybe considering other forms of work like freelance, consulting or working for ourselves as a single founder because we are so afraid of losing everything, having that security lost.

I will tell you as somebody who’s worked for himself for 18 years, the idea of having all of my money come from one entity and that they can lay me off at any time or fire me, that freaks me out. That does not sound like security to me. I love having multiple income streams. That’s where I think more and more of us need to start thinking about. Even if you have a primary job, you might want to have a backup plan. You might want to start playing around with something.

Or if you have a job where you feel like you’re not growing or you’re not – maybe you’re just not happy but it’s decent money and this is what you’ve got to do for the next six months or a year, outside of work you can start challenging yourself. You can be learning new skills. You can be doing experiments. You can be taking imperfect action. You can do messy things.

It’s that creation habit once again. What are those four questions that you’re asking yourself? Maybe you want to learn how to cook. A lot of times it doesn’t have to be a direct professional skill that you’re going to figure out how to monetize.

Sometimes we need to be doing other types of skills that we’re not exactly sure if it’s going to make us money or not, but we just enjoy them. It actually helps us learn about ourselves, reconnects with our self.

I love gardening. I don’t make any money off of that, but I tell you one thing, if you are a gardener like weeding, planting, doing all that stuff when you’re working through a lot of mental stuff that I’m going through all the time because of the work that I do, it helps me process that so much more quickly.

And that’s the other thing. Humans were not designed to sit in front of a freaking screen on our butts for eight hours a day. You have to move a lot more. I see that as a future work trend of how do we start evolving so we are moving more again. We’re not just trapped in cubes.

Pete Mockaitis
It seems like the cool theme there when it comes to that embracing that discomfort is that it is sort of the meta skill or the uber skill in terms of if you get comfortable being uncomfortable, then you are more agile and ready to learn the next thing when you need to learn it.

Stephen Warley
That’s why I tell people even if you want to work – and there’s nothing wrong with working for somebody else, nothing. I have had a lot of great experiences. I think it’s still a great way. I think looking at a job as a paid apprenticeship if you can look at it that way. There’s different seasons to your career. Sometimes you might work for somebody else; sometimes you might work on your own.

But I do believe that if everybody, honestly, I really mean this, Pete, if everybody could give themselves the chance of working for themselves for just one year, just one year of your entire career, that is going to teach you – I think it is the most elaborate, effective, intense way to really learn about yourself, your potential and your opportunities. It really gets you out of your comfort zones in lots of different ways.
You’ll never look at your money, your time, your energy, your connections, your self the same way again after that year. And that’s why I guide people through a 30-day accelerate to really give them that intense experience of what could this look like, what does it feel like even after just 30 days?

Also, this is a great study from the University of California at Berkley. It was from 1979 to I believe 2015 or ’16. They tracked 2,500 – no, I’ll get the exact – I believe it was 5,000 adults. Adults that tried to work for themselves, yet failed and then they went back to the job market.

Guess what? They earned on average 10% more in income than their peers who had the exact same characteristics, exact same skillset. The one difference is one tried to start a business and failed and one didn’t. The one that failed got rewarded. Isn’t that amazing?

Pete Mockaitis
That is fascinating. I hadn’t heard that one. Thank you.

Stephen Warley
The reason behind that is employers feel like you’re no longer just in your little silo of your skill. You have a greater understanding of the entire context of the business so that way you can talk to a greater number of people within the company, so that’s going to be better for the business.

Number two, it shows that you’re a little bit more of a risk taker, that you want to learn, that you have curiosity, that you have initiative. You’re not just going to wait to be told what to do. Guess what? The future of work is not about sitting around and waiting to be told what to do. People are going to hire you because things are changing so fast that you better be ready with some ideas. You better be ready with some experiments to find an answer to a new challenge.

Pete Mockaitis
Another driver I think that might be behind that 10% bump if you have a year of self-employment could just be even from the negotiating, making an offer side of things.

Stephen Warley
Absolutely.

Pete Mockaitis
It’s kind of like they’re thinking, “Now this is a person who is totally cool, not accepting something that doesn’t work for them and doing it their own way, so maybe I had a range in my head, I’m just going to error toward the higher end of that range because I might be told no.”

Stephen Warley
But again, they did something that was really uncomfortable I think and negotiations is very uncomfortable for most people, but when you work for yourself, you really understand the value of every single minute of your day in a way that you don’t as an employee. I’m serious. I didn’t realize it either. And the value of every single dollar.

That way you are going to become that much more of an effective negotiator if you do go back into the job market for their reason that you just cited.

Pete Mockaitis
Awesome. Well, now let’s talk about a few of your favorite things. Can you tell us a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Stephen Warley
I say a mantra to myself every single morning. Everything is temporary. I’m sure that’s some ancient Chinese wisdom, but it’s very liberating hearing that. Whether something is good or something is bad, everything in your life, no matter what you’re feeling right now, it’s temporary and it will change. You’ve got to get ready for it.

Pete Mockaitis
How about a favorite study or experiment or bit of research?

Stephen Warley
My own experiments. One reoccurring experiment that I do is I always like to take something out of my life. I like to stop drinking for 30 days. I like to not watch television or video for 30 days or not use a social media platform for 30 days.

Why I like to do this because it’s just clear, it’s focused. It also kind of shows me the role of that thing in my life. Sometimes I realize, whoa, for somebody who I feel like I’m not addicted to these things, there is a little bit of an addiction going on there. I call myself out on that.

But also the effect that it has on the rest of my life. When I stopped watching television for four months once, the first time I did that, I realized that I started waking up an hour earlier every day and I was much more energized because I started going to bed earlier.

Also, they’ve done a lot of studies, that blue light, the screens. You really shouldn’t be looking at any type of screen about an hour before you go to bed because the blue light that it projects out kind of screws with the chemicals in your brain and messes up your melatonin.

To really learn about yourself, kind of another self-awareness exercise, do some experimentation on yourself, just try removing one thing from your life and to see the effects that it has on the rest of it.

Pete Mockaitis
Cool, thank you. How about a favorite book?

Stephen Warley
First book I read after getting laid off, Rich Dad, Poor Dad, completely changed my mind about money that the middle class does buy a lot of their stuff with debt. You’ve got to stop doing that. You’ve got to buy stuff with assets. Make your money, invest in assets and let those assets buy you your fun stuff.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. How about a favorite tool?

Stephen Warley
My favorite tool – people are going to laugh. I will tell you the great thing about this tool. It’s free. You can use it in every part of your business and you can use it to journal. My favorite tool, Pete, I swear, is a spreadsheet.

Pete Mockaitis
I won’t laugh. I think that’s an excellent tool.

Stephen Warley
A lot of times we overthink because there’s all these little, “Stephen, how come we’re not using this and that?” When I introduce technology to … it really has to save me time, save me money and I’ve got to keep it simple and it has to be really flexible and has to have a lot of uses. I don’t like having different tools to do very specific things across the board. I like a lot of integration. Spreadsheets, let me tell you, as a tool, they are quite amazing.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, I’m right with you there. Do you have a favorite function?

Stephen Warley
Function, what do you mean, in terms-

Pete Mockaitis
I’m thinking about like in a spreadsheet, like sum would be an example of a function or a shortcut.

Stephen Warley
Yeah.

Pete Mockaitis
Anything that – some secret sauce?

Stephen Warley
I can’t say that I do. I mean I’m forever always putting little notes in everything because I think a lot of times we forget about the significance of the data that we’re putting in there, so I always like to deepen it and I always make sure that I put extra information in there in the notes.

Pete Mockaitis
How about a favorite habit?

Stephen Warley
Oh habits. I’m all about habits. People, your life is the sum of your habits. You want to make a change in your life; you’ve got to focus on your habits.

One of my favorite habits, I actually have turned – the first hour of my day, I call it my robot morning. The first hour of my day is nothing but habits. I don’t make any decisions. I don’t think. I’m on autopilot. The reason why I do this is to conserve my limited willpower energy and to minimize the effects of decision fatigue. That way when I do start working I still have as much of my fresh mind as possible.

I know if you have a crazy life, you have kids and life happens to you. I can’t say that I do my robot morning every single day the same way. But it gives me a lot of freedom now not having to think about what do I have to do. I get up, I pee, I brush my teeth, I floss, I put on SPF moisturizer on my face, I drink an eight-ounce glass of water, I stretch, I meditate for ten minutes, I do a little journaling, eat breakfast, get dressed, head out the door.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And tell me, is there a particular nugget you share that seems to connect and resonate and get quoted back to you frequently?

Stephen Warley
I actually – “it’s possible” is – I know that sounds corny, but it’s something that everybody says, like, “Stephen, I come to you with all this stuff. And it feels so chaotic and I leave feeling like yeah, this is possible. You give me clarity.” That’s something I say all the time.

Pete Mockaitis
If folks want to learn more or get in touch, where would you point them?

Stephen Warley
If you are thinking – first if you really want to learn about yourself, you’re in the middle of a big transition, go to LifeSkillsThatMatter.com/challenge and I have a free 12-week self-assessment challenge. If you are kind of exploring maybe thinking about working for yourself, I would head over to LifeSkillsThatMatter.com/GetStarted to learn the first five actions to take to start working for yourself.

Pete Mockaitis
Awesome. Well, Stephen, this has been a real treat. I wish you tons of luck in all of your adventures.

Stephen Warley
The same to you. And don’t be mad at that graphic designer anymore, okay?

Pete Mockaitis
I won’t.

Stephen Warley
Thank you, Pete.