657: How to Stop Drifting and Start Directing Your Career & Life with Andy Storch

Pete Mockaitis
Andy, thanks for joining us here on the How to be Awesome at Your Job podcast again.

Andy Storch
Pete, thank you so much for having me back on. I am flattered, I’m honored, I’m a big fan of yours and everything you do, and I’m excited to be back on here to talk with you.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, thank you. Thank you. Well, I’m excited to be talking with you. Now, boy, a lot has changed in the last two and a half years since we recorded an episode. And for you, in particular, you’ve dealt with an extra dose of changes and you seem to be holding up masterfully. So, could you give us a bit of the life update and sort of a little bit about how your mindset and how you’re thinking about things?

Andy Storch
Sure, yeah. Over the last year, I faced many challenges like many of your listeners and people you network with. At the time, early in 2020, my whole business was selling and running in-person training programs, I was flying all over the country and the world. And, of course, that got completely shut down by COVID, and I made some pivots in my business last year. I wrote and published a book which we’ll be talking about.

And around the time that I published my book in November of 2020, I was also diagnosed with testicular cancer, which was a complete surprise, not something I was planning on at all. I ended up having surgery two days after I published my book, and then spent December and January trying some different treatments, and basically on the couch, unable to work, and then started chemotherapy in January.

And you and I are recording this in March, it’s been a couple of months of treatments. There had been some really hard days, some ups and downs. I’m feeling pretty good now as I’ve gotten through a lot of it. And, yeah, mindset is something I was already big on going into this. In fact, I have a chapter in my book about the importance of having the right mindset, and it’s something that’s helped me get through this.

And I would say, to take it a step further, taking responsibility for everything that’s going on, accepting what I can’t control, focusing on the best path forward, and spending a lot of time focusing on gratitude, which is hard to do sometimes when you feel like everything is horrible. You feel horrible, you can’t walk, and you just feel nauseous and terrible, but I remind myself and I remind others that no matter how bad things seem, no matter what the challenges you’re going through, and we all have challenges, we always have things to be grateful for, reasons to be grateful, and that gratitude has helped me a lot. I write down in my journal my gratitude every single day.

The other thing that helped me, from mindset perspective, was remembering the nature of impermanence. So, that’s something I learned about through my time of meditation and mindfulness over the last few years. And a certain phrase that I learned from a friend of mine, that I kept in mind, when I was going through the worst of the treatment on those days where I just felt absolutely horrible, that hating life feeling, I can’t believe it’s this bad.

And I remember this phrase, I recite it often, which is, “This is how it is right now.” And that just kind of reminded me that, “I am going through this right now but it’s not going to be like this forever, and I’m going to accept the situation for what it is right now. I’m going to get through this. Tomorrow will be a better day.” And, sure enough, it almost always was. There were some days that were absolutely horrible, but then things would get better. Like today, I feel pretty good and a lot of that stuff is in the rear view, and we just keep moving forward day by day knowing that there are going to be challenges but we will get through them, possibly come out stronger. That’s my plan.

And I don’t know why this happened for me but I know it does create opportunities for me to share more of my story to inspire people and help people who may be going through similar challenges. And I know there will be plenty of those who come after me, and so I’m always happy to share my story. I’ve been sharing a lot on social media and on my podcast so people know what’s going on, and also to know that, hey, if I can get through this stuff, you can get through whatever challenge you’re dealing with right now, especially with that focus on gratitude.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, thank you for sharing that. And, yes, that is inspiring, just how you’re handling things. And I heard you even say, “I don’t know why this happened for me,” and then your Chapter 13 is called “Mindset Is Everything.” And that’s one of the distinctions you talk about there. So, I’d actually like to start with mindset and then rock and roll throughout the book. So, tells us about that phrase, “something happens for you,” as opposed to “to you.”

Andy Storch
Yeah, it’s a simple but a very big flip and switch in your mindset. It’s this idea of going from everything in life happens to you, to everything in life happens for you. And the “to you,” I see that as more of the victim mindset. In other words, “I’m waiting for things in life to happen to me,” “My boss did this to me,” “That person cut me off in traffic,” “Someone said something not nice to me,” “You made me angry,” or, “You made me happy,” instead of taking full responsibility and seeing everything in life as an opportunity.

So, from going from “everything in life happens to me,” to “everything in life happens for me.” When you believe everything in life happens for you, then you start to see the silver linings, you start to see the opportunities that come up. And so, I started even a couple years ago using that language and trying not to say that anything is happening to me or that this happened to me. Instead, I get to do this and this happened for me.

By the way, that’s another great switch you can make in your language. Stop using the phrase “I have to.” Like, “Oh, I have to do this podcast interview with Pete today.” No, “I get to do this podcast interview with Pete,” just like I get to go through cancer and I get to go through chemo instead of “I have to.” And that is simple, it’s a small switch but it flips in your mind, and you start to see everything in life as an opportunity as almost something that you’re choosing to do.

And most of what we do, we do choose to do, and I think a lot of people don’t realize it. They say things like, “Well, I have to go to work,” “I have this commute because I have to go to that place,” or, “I have to go to this meeting.” And the truth is if you live in most countries in the world, you have free will, you have the opportunity, you are making choices every day. You are choosing to go to work at that company that you work for. You are choosing to do the job that you’re doing. You could walk away and do something else if you wanted to. I’m not saying it’ll be the best option if you don’t like your job but you are making a choice.

And when you’re honest about that, then you start to realize that you have more control and ownership in your life than maybe you thought. And the whole idea behind this is I want people to take more ownership, to take more initiative, and be more intentional with what you’re doing and what you’re saying.

And when you’re honest with yourself about what you get to do and you’re able to make the switch and take that ownership mindset, it’s a lot easier to then turn challenges into opportunities by saying things like, “I get to go to this job,” “I get to deal with cancer right now.” Well, why? I don’t know. It’s not what I would’ve chosen but I get to do it and it gives me the opportunity to share my story and, hopefully, inspire and help more people when I’m done.

Pete Mockaitis
And I really like that notion about the “have to” because usually that’s not true. And I’m thinking about the book Nonviolent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg, which is awesome. And it says, “Most often behind the ‘have to’ is a ‘because.’” Like, “I choose to do this because I don’t want to get fired.”

Andy Storch
Right.

Pete Mockaitis
And, in a way, that’s still pretty coercive. It’s like if it’s all or nothing like that, and most things aren’t. If it’s all or nothing like that, it’s still your choice. It’s like, “Well, I could choose to not comply with these things and not have this job anymore or I could continue doing this.” So, your “have to” is still a choice even if it’s kind of a narrow coerced choice.

Andy Storch
Yeah. Another one that people do all the time that I think is a big switch, when you’re willing to be honest with yourself and others, is when people say, “I don’t have time to do that,” or, “I wish I could work on that project but I don’t have time,” or, “I would’ve stopped by your happy hour but I didn’t have time.” And the truth is you always have time to do anything you want. It’s just that you chose to do something else. And that choice may have been because you had a project that you felt you needed to get done, otherwise you’d get fired, or it may be just that you chose to go do something else.

Let’s say you invited me on this podcast and I said, “Oh, Pete, I’m sorry, I don’t have time,” or I asked to come on and you said, “Sorry, we don’t have time,” you really do have time. What you’re saying is, “I don’t see the value in having you on or coming on the show because I’m choosing to do something…”

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, relative to my alternatives, it’s not valuable.

Andy Storch
Exactly, “I’m choosing to do something else during that time,” when you’re honest with yourself. Now, the hard thing is to be honest with other people because, when they invite you to something and you say, “I can’t come,” which is not true. What you really mean is, “I’m sorry, I’m not going to come because I’m choosing to go somewhere else,” that can sound kind of bad so you go to pick your battles but it really is about being honest, at least with yourself. And I think that also changes a lot because it brings a lot of awareness to how you are prioritizing your time, which allows you to think more about how you could be spending your time to maybe achieve more of your goals.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, let’s get right to the heart of that issue then in terms of you mentioned defining your unique purpose is, in fact, the ultimate productivity tool. So, I love productivity tools. Tell us, how do we get to that unique purpose?

Andy Storch
I know you do, Pete, and I know you’re all about helping people be awesome at their jobs. In the book, I talk about the importance of setting a vision and getting clarity on where you are going with your career and with your life. No one’s going to hold you to that. Things always change. You never know exactly what’s going to happen down the line, but the more clarity you have on where you’re going, the easier it is to make decisions when they come up, whether you get laid off or someone offers you a new job or a business opportunity or something like that. These decisions become easier when you have clarity on where you’re going, and then you use that to set the goals for accomplishing and achieving that vision.

But when we set big goals, if you are an ambitious person, like you and I, you know that challenges are almost always going to come up, some things are going to try to get in your way. And that’s where I think being connected to your purpose, understanding your why behind that goal and behind why you’re doing anything and everything can be that really motivating factor to help you get through things.

And the way you find that purpose and you connect to that purpose is through a lot of self-reflection. At least for me, it’s asking that question why over and over again, “Why do I want to achieve this goal?” “Why do I want to get that promotion?” “Why do I want to move into finance?” “Why do I want to achieve financial freedom?” or, “Why do I want to travel with my family?” Any goals, “Why do I want to lose weight?” or “Why do I want to pay off my debt?”

Whatever goals you have, asking yourself why and really getting honest and deep with it because, what I’ve noticed over time, and this is part of I talk about people drifting and operating in reaction mode, in the book, is that a lot of people are setting goals based on other people, based on things that they see out there on social media, or what their friends are doing. And when you truly set goals based on your own values and your own priorities, and connect with your own purpose for what’s driving you to do those things, you become a lot more motivated to go out and achieve those things and to overcome those challenges.

When you’re trying to lose weight and you set a goal to go to the gym three or four times a week, you need a good purpose behind that because challenges are going to come up, somebody is going to invite you to happy hour, work is going to run long, you’re going to feel tired one day and not feel like going to the gym. But when you have that purpose, “I want to have more energy to play with my kids, and I want to be around for a long time,” that’s the driving why behind your goals that’s going to give you more motivation to go out and overcome challenges to achieve those things.

You can also get ideas from other people as far as purpose is concerned, and then get feedback from people around you as well. So, in the book, I mentioned an interview I did with my friend Travis Jomer who used to run purpose programs in the organization where he worked where people would go to a workshop to discover their personal purpose, and then they’d go around and spend several days running that by other people, their colleagues in the company, and get feedback on that.

So, I might say, “Pete, my purpose,” and this is my life purpose that I recite every day, by the way. My life purpose is to love and support my family to continue to grow and improve, to model a healthy and intentional lifestyle and add value to the world. You could give me feedback on that, and say, “Well, I know you, Andy, and I don’t really see you doing those things,” or, “Could you give me a little bit more clarity on this one thing?” or, “Tell me more about this. Maybe you could hone it down a little bit more,” or you could say, “I love it.” But either way, if I get feedback from you, I might be able to hone it down and improve it a little bit more.

And then come back to that purpose on a regular basis. Write it down. Recite it as an affirmation, as I do mine every day, and it can be a really motivating factor in everything you do, just like mine has been for me, both with achieving big goals like publishing a book, and getting through cancer and making sure that I’m still there for my family and I’m still doing the things that I know are going to help me be happier and more successful in the long term.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. So, part of arriving at that, you need purposes, is bringing in feedback from other people. And then, I’m curious, prior to that, how did you land upon yours as you’ve articulated it?

Andy Storch
Well, to be honest, the initial spark of the idea came from hearing a couple other people talk about theirs, one of whom was Hal Elrod who wrote the book The Miracle Morning. I borrowed some of my affirmations from his when I started developing those. And hearing him, I think on a podcast once, even talk about his purpose, and then thinking through, “Okay, what do I want mine to be? I see what he’s doing, I see what other people are doing with theirs.”

And a lot of it also came from, going back to that self-reflection, what really motivates me. And what I realized in really reflecting on my life, especially throughout my 20s when I really felt like, looking back, was really drifting, I was having fun but I wasn’t really progressing, I was happy but I wasn’t truly happy.

And what I realized is, after college, I stopped learning, I stopped growing. And then when I got into my 30s later, and I got into personal development and I started investing in myself and reading more and learning and taking courses and going to workshops, I felt so much happier and more fulfilled. And I realized that growth has to be a big part of my purpose because it’s a driving factor for me. So, that’s something I built in that I must always be learning and growing.

And I’ve realized, through my own self-awareness and through reflection, that that’s something that’s a driving factor for me – growth and contribution. And it may be for other people, it might be something different for other people, but that reflection is so critical, I think, to really developing that purpose and understanding why you live the way you live, what truly makes you happy and fulfilled, and what’s driving you and going to help you go forward and achieve your goals.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, thank you. Well, so we’ve already got into a number of the key ideas inside your book Own Your Career, Own Your Life: Stop Drifting and Take Control of Your Future. Let’s talk about this. This title almost feels like it’s two topics, two podcast interviews – owning one’s career and owning one’s life. Tell us, what’s the same versus different when we’re going about owning each of these domains?

Andy Storch
Yeah, it’s a good point. And I often describe the book as a personal development book disguised as a career development book. So, for those listening, if you’re looking for straight career development with interview help and things like that, it’s not all in there. This is a lot more personal development.

Where the overlap is this idea of being really intentional with how you’re spending your time with the goals you set, with how you go and achieve those things, getting help along the way, and going after and achieving the goals that you want in your career, and not operating in reaction mode, waiting for other people to tell you what to do, doing the things just because you think society deems it, “I should be watching sports or Netflix,” or, “I should spend my time doing these things,” when you might really want to be doing something else.

And then, for your career, that’s where I really dive into how do you set yourself up for future success. The middle section of the book that kind of bridges the two is about planning for the future or owning your future, controlling your future, whatever you want to call it, by doing things like investing in continuous learning, building a network and building a personal brand. All those things are going to help you in your career but they’re going to help you in your life as well.

And then, on the life side, of course, talking about the importance of things like investing in your health, getting enough sleep, getting exercise, eating right, things like that, that are going to serve you well in your life, but I think they will also serve you well in your career as well.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Understood. And I’m intrigued, when it says, the subtitle, “Stop Drifting and Take Control,” I think that word drifting is resonant, that many people feel they’re adrift or they’re currently drifting or they’ve had seasons in which they’re drifting. What’s behind the drift? Where does it come from and what do we do about it?

Andy Storch
Yeah, I was worried, to be honest, that would offend people or people wouldn’t realize they are.

Pete Mockaitis
“How dare you?”

Andy Storch
I know. Hey, I’m a friendly guy. I shy away from conflict but I do want to wake people up. And I’ve been there myself. As I mentioned, I was drifting through much of my 20s. I had a lot of friends, I had a decent job, but I was going up partying every night, I was watching a ton of sports, and there’s nothing wrong with those things, but I realized, after the fact, that they weren’t moving me forward, they weren’t helping me in my career, they weren’t helping me achieve my goals, and they weren’t contributing towards my growth or my fulfillment.

And I’d rather, now that I realized those things, I’d much rather be having a conversation with someone like you, investing in a course or a mastermind group or reading a book and learning than watching football and baseball all day. And, again, nothing wrong with those things if that’s how you choose to spend your time, but I want people to realize that how they’re spending their time can have a big impact on their life. And a lot of things we do are not really moving us forward. They’re just kind of static exercises that we’re often doing because we think, “Well, that’s what we need to do. That’s what society tells us to do.”

And this originally came from a book by Napoleon Hill that was all about drift. It was written some 80 years ago and it’s still resonant today as it was back then, the idea that the devil gets hold of us through drifting, through people just spending too much time drinking or smoking or watching TV or doing things that really don’t move them forward versus being really intentional with their lives and being intentional with how you’re spending your time and where you’re going and what you’re doing.

And I think this comes also down to you being honest. And I’m sure you’ve come across this all the time, Pete. You work with a lot of people in the professional world, successful and not successful, whatever, people who say things like, “Well, family is the most important thing to me,” but they’re working 60, 80 hours a week and then spending all day Sunday watching football. Again, nothing wrong with those things. It’s just about being honest with who you are, what’s important to you, and how you’re spending your time.

And does that time, how you’re spending your time, actually match up with what you say or your values and your priorities and what the most important things are to you? Or, are you spending your time doing other things? And do you need to maybe make some adjustments, kind of wake up, stop drifting, like I said, and take control of your future by being a lot more intentional with your actions and how you’re spending your time?

Pete Mockaitis
What’s interesting to me is some of those drifting examples you shared in terms of watching sports, watching Netflix, drinking, smoking, in some ways, I guess the theme I see there is it may be sort of societal messaging that these things are cool or fun or what to do. I think it also can be that those are some of the easiest ways to just sort of push the pleasure button. I might add video games into that mix as well.

Andy Storch
There’s lots of things you can add in there. Even like reading romance novels all days. Some people might say reading is superior to watching TV but you’re still just kind of spending your time doing something that doesn’t really advance you in any way. And society, we as men, especially, Pete, and I always hate to generalize, but men are supposed to be into sports and watch every tournament and championship game. The commercials tell us that. But we don’t have to live that way, we don’t have to do that.

Again, there’s nothing wrong with those things. And I spent all my 20s watching sports like 24/7. I was a huge, huge fan. And now, looking back, I realize that I gained almost nothing from that. And the funny thing is, what I always joke about now is that you could spend six hours or four hours on a night watching a basketball game or a football game and I can skip it and check the score and spend 30 seconds reading the recap the next day, and you and I have the same exact amount of information. So, you can save yourself a lot of time just by scanning the headlines.

You could be spending that time learning something or making progress in your career, working on a goal, working on a new project, spending time with your kids, with your spouse, with friends. There are so many things you could be doing that I think would contribute so much more happiness and fulfillment to your life than watching sports.

Pete Mockaitis
And so then, there’s a theme there associated with it’s the easy thing, it’s the messaging you’ve heard elsewhere. It’s just sort of the rut that you’ve been into. It might give you a bit of a dopamine hit here and there but it seems like you’re really saying, “Well, let’s elevate the perspective and evaluate how we’re spending time in these ways,” in terms of the better criteria are not so much those but rather, “Is it advancing me into where I want to go and who I want to become?”

And what are some of the other key questions or criteria you use to evaluate whether something is a great or okay or bad use of time?

Andy Storch
Yeah. So, does it connect with your values? And this would require you to probably go do a values exercise. I’m not an expert on this but you can go Google values exercise. There are tons of them available out there and, usually, it involves looking at a lot of different words, and then eliminating and narrowing it down to the top five, and saying, “Hey, what are the most important things to me?” And that helps guide you in making decisions and how you spend your time.

The easy example is if you say health is one of the most important things to you. When 5:00 o’clock rolls around, you’re planning on going to the gym and your friends invite you to happy hour, what do you do? Do you go to happy hour or you go to the gym? There’s no right or wrong answer but if your value is that health is one of your most important things, you’d probably go to the gym. Whereas, if socializing or connection is one of your most important values, you’d probably go to happy hour and hang out with your friends, or get on that Zoom happy hour during a pandemic.

So, think about understanding your values and your purpose, which we talked about earlier, and then figuring out what are those goals, what are those things you want to achieve both professionally and personally. Is it a promotion? Is it moving from finance into marketing, or doing something different with your career? Is it starting or running a side business, maybe starting a podcast, you want to be cool like Pete, or maybe it’s losing weight, or getting a second degree, or learning another language?

And it’s easy to put those things off because you get sidetracked with some of those drifting activities we talked about, whether it’s watching TV or sports or whatever it is. And thinking about how you’re spending your time and being honest with how you spend your time.

And then, going back to the mindset piece, the mental bandwidth, we talked about that ownership mindset. The other thing I would say is when you focus your energy on things that are within your control and you try not to spend too much time worrying or thinking about things outside of your control, you can also get a lot more done.

We just came off of a very long and contentious election cycle here in the United States, and so many people spend all this time thinking about the election and who’s going to win, and the other people that don’t believe the thing that I believe, and yet there’s really almost nothing you could do about it other than casting your vote on that one day, which, honestly, takes like an hour or less.

The rest of the time, we’re spending all this time worrying about something that is outside of our control and there’s really nothing we can do about it so we’re much better served focusing on things in our control, like our job, our career, our business, our family, connecting with friends, working on that goal, learning that new language, whatever it may be that’s going to make you happier than focusing your time watching CNN all day wondering what’s going to happen with the election.

And I’m not saying I don’t get sucked into those things from time to time, especially in an election cycle, but I try to avoid it as much as possible because I know I have a very limited amount of time and I want to spend that doing important things that are going to move me forward in my life.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, that’s an interesting perspective and it sounds very simple and maybe almost obvious but it rings true, and I think it’s easy to forget or ignore. What you said there is that the more time we spend on things within our control, the better. And that sounds right. And I wonder if you have a good study on it, I love those, because I think it’s true, that the more we spend time on the here and now, the happier we feel. And I think, likewise, it adds up that the more you spend time on what you can control, maybe the more meaning or fulfillment or excitement is in your life. What do you think here?

Andy Storch
I think it leads to a lot more happiness and fulfillment because when you’re spending your time thinking about things outside your control, that’s when people get really anxious, they experience a lot of anxiety, worry. People spend a lot of time worrying about either things that happened in the past or things that might happen in the future, when you have no control over those things. You could be spending your time focused on the present, as you mentioned, which is the only thing that we can control, as how we act in the present, what we think and how we react to things in the present moment.

We can’t control the things that might happen in the future, and we certainly can’t change anything that happened in the past, but we can do things today to help set us up for success in the future. We can do things today to help influence our future, but we can’t do anything about a thing in the future. I heard a quote a long time ago that I loved, that, “Worry is like a rocking chair. It gives us something to do but it doesn’t take us anywhere.” And we really are not getting anywhere by worrying about those other things that are outside of our control. And this is not easy, by the way.

I’m not saying you can just flip a switch and stop worrying about stuff that might be coming that are outside of your control. Like, if your company announces that, “Hey, we might be downsizing in a couple of months or something,” of course, you’re going to worry that your job might be eliminated, but I’m saying that the more that you can limit the time that you spend worrying about that and focus on what you can do today, which that might include making sure that your boss understand the value that you contribute in your role in your organization.

It might be starting to build your network or honing up your resume, calling a recruiter, going and talking to some people, and looking at future job opportunities, not sitting around waiting and worrying, “What happens if I get laid off?” Start taking action today, things you can do in the present moment that will help set you up for future success.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Lovely. Well, we’ve talked about big picture things. Andy, could we zoom in, before we shift gears and hear about your favorite things, about just a few tactics like, “Oh, boy, here’s a quick trick or script or key question that makes a load of difference when it comes to owning your career and owning your life”?

Andy Storch
Yeah. One of those is investing in continuous learning. The days of relying on getting that college degree and then working for the next 40 years are gone. I think we can all agree easily on that. The future of work, work is changing all the time. Jobs that exist today, there are a lot of jobs that exist today that didn’t exist 20 years.

Pete, you probably have a podcast producer and editor. That job didn’t exist 20 years ago. There are tons of social media managers out there, that job didn’t exist 20 years ago. And that means jobs are going to change again in the next 10, 20 years, and the job you do today might not exist. You’ve got to be learning all the time to help you get better at your job and prepared for things that come up.

If you’re listening to this podcast, I’m not preaching to the choir, you are listening because you want to learn and better yourself, that’s why you follow Pete and listen to this podcast, of course. And, hopefully, you listen to others, you read books, you take courses, you hire coaches, things like that, because all of those things can be really helpful, as well as formal education.

The next thing is building your network. Nothing has been more critical to my success over the years than having a strong network, having relationships with lots of different people. Every opportunity I’ve gotten in my career has come through my network and through relationships. And you can be doing that whether we’re in a pandemic, in a virtual world, or in-person world, there are plenty of opportunities to do that by attending virtual summits, getting active on LinkedIn, reaching out to people inside and outside your organization on a regular basis to have virtual coffees, get to know each other sessions, and just chatting with people and find out what they’re working on.

Look for opportunities to give value and contribute and help other people around you because I believe karma is real. It does come back to you when you do that. And so, you can get really practical and tactical with that by saying, “Hey, I’m going to reach out to three new people a week,” especially if you have a specific goal, like, “I want to move from finance into marketing.”

Start reaching out to people who work in marketing. Build your network in that space. Make those connections. Ask them questions. Learn about how they get to where they did, learn about the mistakes they made, the things they made, they did, what helped them become more successful. And that’s going to lead to you being more successful. It might lead to job offers. You have no idea what might come from that.

And then the third piece that I mentioned there is building your personal brand. And a lot of people believe a myth that if you just do a good job of your job then you’ll be rewarded and promoted, when the truth is people often are rewarded based on their reputation, not on the job, the quality of the job that they do, or they did. And you’ve probably seen this a lot, Pete, as well. Reputation is huge. It’s everything.

And a personal brand, I talk about a personal brand or professional brand, it’s nothing more than your reputation amongst your colleagues, your peers, out in the marketplace. And the interesting thing about the personal brand and the reputation is that, whether you do anything about it or not, you have a reputation. So, I always say you might as well be intentional about building that. And I always recommend being authentic. I never want anybody to be inauthentic in their personal brand or the reputation they’re building.

But think about how you’re showing up at work, the types of projects you take on, the way you collaborate with others, the way you work with others. Are you easy to work with? Do you easily get along with? Are you difficult to work with? And then, do you put any content on social media? Do you post anything on LinkedIn? Do you go interact with other people’s posts, comment on things, send messages, connect with others? All of those things can contribute to your reputation and your personal brand and can help you get that next job that you might want, or that promotion. A lot of it comes down to the brand and the reputation that you’re building. And so, there’s a lot of things you can do on a regular basis to help set you up for success in that area.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Well, now, tell me, anything else you want to make sure to mention before we hear about some of your favorite things?

Andy Storch
No, I think that’s it. We’ve covered so much great ground. It’s really about being intentional with your actions, being honest about how you’re spending your time, and remembering that nobody cares more about your career than you do so you’ve got to be the one to kind of take the reins to set your vision, set your goals, connect with purpose, and start doing the things that I talked about to set you up for future success and take control of your future.

Pete Mockaitis
You know, Andy, when you say that line “no one cares more about your career than you do,” I chuckle a little bit because, well, it’s so true kind of on the inside about how you feel about your own career. But I see it on the outside because, hey, I’ve got the show, I love talking about this kind of stuff. Nonetheless, when I’m in a meeting and people start introducing themselves, and they give me like a three-minute kind of a career story, “Well, I did a stint in marketing and then I went and came back to operations.” I don’t know about you but I’m just so bored.

Andy Storch
Like, “Why should I care? Why is this relevant to me?”

Pete Mockaitis
They just give me a theme, just like, “Hey, man, I’m the guy who always has the wild ideas, whether I was in marketing when I did this, or manufacturing when I did, or finance when I did that.” I was like, “Okay, got you.” But you see, I don’t know, I kind of understand what your thing is as opposed to just a chronology of things. Maybe I’m just…

Andy Storch
No, but it’s true. And you’re not going to care as much as they do about that career that they did. By the way, if you’re lucky, you might have a manager who cares a lot about your career, and a lot of people have…your mom probably cares a lot about you and your career, but nobody really cares as much about your career as you do.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, certainly. And I think that the “what you can control” side of that is, “Therefore, go ahead and take some big action to rock and roll because most other folks won’t.” Maybe friends, family, love ones, manager can nudge, but maybe not. So, seize the reins. All right. Now, can you share with us a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Andy Storch
One that resonated with me recently was from Albert Einstein, which is “Try not to be a person of success but try to be a person of value.” And the reason that resonated with me recently because I feel like, especially as you’re building a career and we’re in this tumultuous world, you see a lot of people out there that are kind of showcasing or talking about how successful they are on social media or wherever it may be.

But if you want to get far, if you want to build a network, or you want to build relationships, if you want to get promoted or find success in a job or career that you’re in, the more you prove to be valuable to the people around you, the more successful you’re going to be in the end because they’re going to want to work with you more, they’re going to want to promote you, they’re going to want to do business with you, they’re going to want to help you. So, when you seek to be more of a person of value than just trying to show that you are successful, not only are you going to be more valuable but you’re going to be rewarded, I think, across the board.

Pete Mockaitis
All right.

Pete Mockaitis
And how about a favorite book?

Andy Storch
One of the ones I mentioned in my book is the book The Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod. It’s kind of changed my life and set me on this trajectory when I got into personal development in 2016. But another book that I love that I probably give as a gift more often than any other book is The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday.

And so, that is kind of like my Bible. It’s a book of 366 quotes from the stoics, each with kind of an explanation for modern times, and I read it every day often with my kids. And, just, it’s always thought-provoking, always gives me things to think about, and helps me reflect in how I want to live my life, and has been really influential for me.

Pete Mockaitis
And how about a favorite tool, something you use to be awesome at your job?

Andy Storch
I’m a big fan of the Google Suite. So, I use Docs and Sheets a lot. And I have an assistant who helps me integrate everything in my business to be able to easily share and have everything in the cloud for us to work together on. I’m a big fan of Zoom like anybody else. It became even more important during the pandemic to get on video calls with each other.

The reason I mentioned that, too, is I mentioned the importance of networking. And I think it becomes more important that we become intentional with how we build our network when we’re in a remote and virtual world, especially within your company. You’ve got to reach out to people intentionally. And it’s great to have a video tool like Zoom where you can still get on video with people, you can connect, and it becomes more intimate than just being on the phone. You could build those connections to help you build that network which becomes critical for you later on down the road.

Pete Mockaitis
And is there a particular nugget you share that tends to resonate with folks; they quote it back to you frequently?

Andy Storch
Well, I already talked about the idea that nobody cares more about your career than you do. Lately, what we talked about at the very beginning of this podcast is about gratitude. And I’ve been sharing a lot of that lately as I’ve been going through my journey, that gratitude really is everything. And when you think about it, and I learned this from going to a Tony Robbins workshop years ago, that when you are fully immersed in gratitude, you really cannot experience anxiety or anger or any negative emotions.

And that’s why I think gratitude is so important, so powerful, that no matter what challenge we are going through, we can always find reasons to be grateful. And it’s also important when you’re an ambitious person. We talked about being awesome at your job, you set big goals, you want to get promoted, you want to do well, whatever it is you want to experience or accomplish. It’s great to have big goals but we never want to tie our happiness to the goal because there are always going to be more goals and it’s almost always going to elude us.

We also want to make sure that we’re enjoying the journey that we’re on, that we are grateful for the things that we have today. We always have things to be grateful for whether it’s family, friends, great weather, a great podcast to listen to like this, anything. You can be grateful for anything, a good cup of coffee, but make sure that you spend time thinking about reflecting on and immersing yourself in gratitude on a regular basis. And I think that tends to lead to a lot more happiness and fulfillment in life.

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

Andy Storch
Well, I’m pretty active on social media. LinkedIn and Instagram, I’m there all the time. I’ve got a couple podcasts, as you mentioned, including the Own Your Career Own Your Life podcast and the book “Own Your Career Own Your Life” which is available on Amazon and everywhere else. And I’ve got some free resources, including the five steps to owning your career, which is available at OwnYourCareerOwnYourLife.com/bonus. So, if you just go to OwnYourCareerOwnYourLife.com/bonus you can pick up all the bonus resources from the book, including five steps to how to own your career.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Do you have a final challenge or call to action for folks looking to be awesome at their jobs?

Andy Storch
So, the challenge, the final challenge is, and I have this challenge in the book, it’s the no complaining challenge. If you want to take on an ownership mindset of your life, and you believe that everything happens in life for you and not to you, and you take full responsibility in life, then I challenge you to stop complaining for a day or a week or a month. Some people may not do this already very much. Some people complain all the time and it’s going to be difficult to get away from that.

But I challenge you to stop complaining because complaining, while it feels good in the moment, and it passes the buck or responsibility to somebody else, it doesn’t ever really get you anywhere. So, if you want to take full responsibility, you take responsibility and ownership for everything going on in your life, and you try to eliminate all complaining, if possible, to try to do it for a day or a week, see if that works. And if it does, see if you can last longer. I try to never complain about anything and I find that I’m a lot happier as a result.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Andy, thank you. This has been a treat. I wish you lots of luck with the book and your work and your recovery, and keep on inspiring.

Andy Storch
Pete, thank you so much for having me on. I love all the work that you’re doing. It’s been an honor to come on and talk with you and share, and I just really appreciate you having me on.