Fire Your Boss by Aaron McHugh

Fire Your Boss by Aaron McHugh

Author:Aaron McHugh [McHugh, Aaron]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Post Hill Press
Published: 2019-11-20T05:23:35+00:00


From where I’m standing, these end-of-life wishes are not warning signs as much as they are invitations. Not all fences are keeping us safe. Some are advertising safety but are actually preventing us from experiencing more fulfillment and satisfaction in our careers. I view Bronnie Ware’s findings as field notes from those at the end of their life—veterans of life looking back with earnest clarity and saying, “I wish I would have explored more of the wild places, hopped fences, risked more in relationships and how I spent my time. I wish I’d not adhered to all of the unwritten and unspoken rules of society, and I wish I’d given myself permission to deviate from the narrow script of success.”

Here’s my advice. I’m not able to provide you directives on which fences you should hop and which ones pose a real danger. Only you can do that. I can promise you that some barriers are story props and relics. “Firing your boss” is about developing the skill to identify those fences that are protecting you from real danger—like a thousand-pound Texas bull. And although this sounds almost silly, I’ve found the best place to start is by asking, “Is this fence real?” Let me give you a personal example.

A few years ago, when I decided to leave my software career behind, hop the fence, and go explore a new career as a consultant for culture transformations, I was genuinely nervous. If I stayed the course in the software field, I was guaranteed $200,000 a year, an executive position, stock options, and lots of responsibility yielding predictability and the perception of safety. By hopping the fence and leaving behind those guarantees, I explored Bronnie Ware’s antidote to regret. I let myself be happier and dared to live a life true to myself. Full disclosure? It required me to bottom out our savings account, pray a lot, and travel to Europe for training. (Did I mention I pray a lot?) It was scary at moments, full of uncertainty, and simultaneously exhilarating. And just what did I find on the other side of the fence? A new career with McKinsey & Company working alongside some of the most talented people on the planet inside the globe’s most successful companies. There were real risks, no doubt, but none of them could sink my story. The best part is that all of the benefits and rewards are a thousand times more rewarding, and my future is so much brighter.

The Way I See Things

I’m betting many of you identify with my friend who is eight years from retirement. I can imagine that must be excruciatingly difficult to grapple with—the guarantee of financial certainty by staying your current course partnered with the fixed return of slow soul corrosion. I’m not like Bronnie Ware’s patients, at the end of their earthly lives. But I was at the end of a very literal way of living that, oddly enough, felt like I was dying on the inside. So I hopped the fence.



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