When I was in my early twenties my uncle sat me down and gave me the clearest career advice I have ever received.
He worked for the Department of Navy as a consultant. He had figured something out that most people never do. He told me to change jobs every two and a half years. Build your credibility. Build your statistics. Move to the next company at a higher rung. Do that consistently and your salary will make you a millionaire by the time you retire.
I did not listen.
I stayed at the company that hired me out of college for ten years. Ten years. Until they laid me off. Then I started my own business, worked for a few other companies, and somehow ended up back at the same place that let me go after I had tripled my salary. I have been with them a total of twenty-seven years now. Not managing teams. Not leading divisions. Not building anything with my name on it. Just contributing. Quietly. Reliably. Invisibly.
I want to tell you what that actually looks like from the inside so you do not make the same mistake.
What Corporate America Actually Is
I have had my boss’s boss look me in the eye and tell me I was too valuable an asset to move somewhere else after I tried to make an internal transfer to another job. He meant it as a compliment. What he was actually saying was that keeping me exactly where I was benefitted him. My growth was inconvenient for his operation.
I have had managers and directors call other departments when I applied for internal roles and convince them to drop me from consideration. Not because I was not qualified. Because I was needed right where I was. My ambition was a problem to be managed. And they had no problem telling me that to my face.
Let me say what nobody in a corporate position of authority will ever tell you.
Corporate America does not exist to benefit you. HR is not your friend. HR’s job is to support the company’s best interests and protect them from being sued. Your needs are never considered. Not even a little bit. It is not personal. It is about revenue. The minute you are no longer useful you will be terminated. If you have a job right now it is because your presence benefits them. Full stop.
I am not bitter about this. I am clear about it. There is a difference. Clarity keeps you from being blindsided. Bitterness just keeps you stuck.
The Thing I Built On The Side
I started my consulting company twenty-four years ago. It has saved me more times than I can count. Not just financially. Spiritually. Psychologically. It has been the place where I am not a cog. Where my name is on the work. Where what I bring cannot be buried or redirected or quietly managed out of a promotion process.
At my job I get paid well. I know I will not be promoted. I know the raises will only come when they think I might leave. I know exactly what I am to them and they know exactly what they are to me. That clarity is actually freeing once you accept it.
But my heart. My spirit. My real returns. Those live in the personal branding and relationships I have built outside of those walls. That is where I am becoming who I was supposed to be all along.
I am just now really starting to understand what a powerhouse I am. If I had understood that at thirty, my coffers and my psyche would both look very different right now.
What I Would Do Differently
If I had it to do again, I would take my uncle’s advice without hesitation.
Change jobs every two and a half years. Use each role to build credibility, gather statistics, and develop a reputation that travels with you. Leave before they can make you invisible. Arrive somewhere new with momentum.
Start your business at the same time. Not when you feel ready. Not when you have enough saved. Not when the timing is perfect. The timing will never be perfect. Start it while you still have a paycheck covering your survival so you can build it without desperation driving every decision.
Get a mentor who has already done what you want to do. Not someone who is on the same journey. Someone who has made the mistakes and survived them and is willing to tell you the truth about what they cost. Choose someone you admire. Ask them without fear.
Ask for more money. Regularly. Without apology. Your employer knows your market value. They are counting on you not knowing it too.
Get meaningful experience that builds on itself. Learn a language- whether that is a programming language or a spoken one. Do the things that are considered building blocks and do them early while time is still on your side.
Do not let patriarchy and polite racism convince you to make yourself smaller. I spent years buried under both. Years of being told in a hundred quiet ways that I should be grateful for what I had and not reach for what I deserved. Do not let that happen to you.
Where I Am Now
My “on paper” job is on autopilot. I know exactly what it is and what it is not. And because I know that, I have stopped waiting for it to become something it was never going to be.
My life now is built around what I have created outside of it. The consulting. The relationships. The personal brand. The writing. The income streams that have nothing to do with whether that company decides to keep me or not.
I am happier now than I have ever been.
But I would have been happier at thirty making a million-dollar salary listening to my uncle.
Do not wait as long as I did to figure out what you are worth. The longer you wait the more you leave on the table. And you cannot get those years back.
Start now. Whatever now looks like for you. Start now.
