The Corvus Effect

Ep. 62: The Full Stack Human Revolution with Michael Gardon

• Scott Raven • Episode 62

Share episode

Episode Links:

LinkedIn -  https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelgardon/

The Breaking Work Journal Newsletter - https://www.michaelgardon.com/newsletter

CareerCloud Coaching Community - https://careercloud.com/

CareerCloud Radio Podcast - https://careercloud.com/careercloud-radio/

Website - https://www.michaelgardon.com

Summary:

In this episode of The Corvus Effect, I welcome Michael Gardon, a three-time entrepreneur and CEO of Rejoin Coaching who helps people break their limiting relationship with work after chasing corporate success like a "type A madman" only to find it empty. Michael engineered his own escape, building a multimillion-dollar business while becoming what he calls a "full stack human."

Michael shares his transformation from empty achievement to fulfilled purpose, revealing his three-step framework for career change: creating space, making your paycheck your investor, and building aligned ventures. He introduces his "advantage mapping" approach that goes beyond Warren Buffett's circle of competence and explains why time sovereignty must come before financial freedom.

Show Notes:

00:32 Meet Michael Gardon: From Corporate Success to Full Stack Human

01:49 The Pursuit of Success and Its Pitfalls

13:45 Making Your Paycheck Your Investor

16:10 Understanding and Leveraging Your Unique Advantages

20:38 Becoming a Full Stack Human

22:40 The Importance of Presence

24:05 Balancing vs. Integrating

26:33 Challenging Cultural Norms

28:42 Redefining Success

30:05 Family as a Priority

33:56 Message to Younger Self

35:48 Upcoming Book and Final Thoughts


Intro

Scott Raven: Welcome to The Corvus Effect, where we explore what it takes to build businesses that enhance your life instead of consuming it. I'm Scott Raven, fractional COO and your host. Whether you're a founder trapped in daily operations or a leader seeking better work-life integration, this show is about one thing: creating sustainable success that serves all dimensions of your life.

Each episode, we go behind the scenes with leaders who've mastered the delicate balance of growing their business while protecting what matters most - their health, relationships, and personal fulfillment. Because your business should give you more life, not consume it.

Ready to transform from chief everything officer to strategic visionary? Let's soar.


Meet Michael Gardon: From Corporate Success to Full Stack Human

Scott Raven: And hello everyone. Welcome back to The Corvus Effect. I'm Scott. Today we're joined by Michael Gardon, a three-time entrepreneur and CEO of Rejoin Coaching who helps people break their limiting relationship with work after chasing corporate success like a type A madman, only to find it empty. Mike engineered his own escape, building a multimillion dollar business while becoming what he calls a full stack human.

He has an upcoming book coming out, "Just Leave Me Alone So I Can Work," and his Rejoin Coaching community is 14,000 members strong in addition to those who follow on his Breaking Work podcast, which I was privileged enough to be a guest on. So Michael, welcome to the podcast, man.

Michael Gardon: Well, thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here.

Scott Raven: Pleasure is mine and the honor is mine. And I love how you came up with this term - I didn't come up with this term - chasing success and money like a type A madman. I want to go back a little bit and understand why you characterize yourself as this before starting your journey to being a full stack human.


The Pursuit of Success and Its Pitfalls

Michael Gardon: Yeah, I mean, you know, I think like a lot of us if you grow up in a household that teaches achievement, teaches you to always do your best, we kind of get this mentality of just chasing that achievement. And as we get out into the work world, as we get out of college and start looking at work and providing for ourselves, you know, we look out for markers of success, right?

And the biggest one we see is money. We see people described as successful all the time based on some level of achievement. And I think that mentality, that thinking early on in my life, grounded me. It was like, okay, if I have money, I can do a whole lot of other things. So like, go chase money, go hustle, go be the doer. It was just like a process of checking those boxes and not being enamored with the feelings of the results, kind of that the results waning, right?

It's like you get in your mind, you want to buy a car, you want to buy a really nice car, you buy that. It's all the anticipation, the buildup to that. And once you get it about a week later, it's like, okay, well, whatever. It's just a car.

Scott Raven: The classic, you know what, everybody is chiming for what's on their Christmas list. When you get to New Year's, they've forgotten 90% of what they got for Christmas.

Michael Gardon: Yeah, exactly. And I was able to at least understand that that was a cycle that was happening, eventually break away from it, be able to sort of put that all in perspective. But yeah, I mean, I think it's characteristic of a lot of us who, at least in the US who go to college and want to feel successful, right? We go chase that money.

Scott Raven: The quintessential, born from the Industrial Revolution description of success: Get a great job. Have a great career. Save for retirement. You'll enjoy your retirement once you get there.

Michael Gardon: Yeah. And I think what I really noticed, and it's only in hindsight, was that I was putting so much pressure on myself to be someone that I really wasn't. And so that just started a process of kind of understanding what were my real drivers and how could I use those to develop a different version of success for me, which money is still a part of, but to do that in a more aligned way that was utilizing my natural talents and gifts to make, to drive impact instead of just trying to chase some external marker and putting all the pressure on myself to do the things that I really didn't want to do anyway, but sort of burying those feelings down.

And so it was an evolution, it was a process, but I feel like it was one that has made me much better. And unfortunately, I think it's a realization that a lot of people come to a lot later in life.

Scott Raven: I would agree because you and I had talked before the podcast, right? And I asked you what was the two words that you would use most to vividly describe the progression. And you said from empty to fulfilled. I think to your point, a lot of people, particularly those listening to this podcast, can relate to in terms of there are just certain things that we do that don't fill our tank at the end of the day.

Michael Gardon: Yeah, and I think that the idea of empty - like again, early on in our careers when we don't necessarily know exactly what we want or who we want to be - when a goal is put in front of us, we're very oftentimes motivated. Like it could be almost anything, but we're motivated, and it's not necessarily the end result we think it is, but it's the anticipation. It's the learning that goes into it. It's the challenge and the conquering of that thing.

Once you achieve it, you get the promotion or you get noticed for the work or something, that reward that you think is the thing you're achieving goes away and you sort of feel empty again.

Scott Raven: Yes.

Michael Gardon: And so in order to be fulfilled, I always thought about like, well, how do you stop that cycle? How do you do something that is just fulfilling, like on its own, but still ladders up into some purpose or achievement? The only way that I've found at least, is to work on the things that are really actually naturally aligned with what you care about.

And it's not care about from, oh, like, I'm passionate about the world of finance or whatever. Like we can sort of lie to ourselves and get ourselves to believe that story for a little while, but only a little while eventually. You'll realize that the long lasting work, like the work of your life, can only happen when you really allow yourself to listen to the things that - the problems in the world that you care about deeply, the actions, the ways that you work that are just natural or more natural to you rather than...

Scott Raven: For true impact versus being a professional producing an output. That output is for some other entity which may not share the values that you hold dear.

Michael Gardon: Right, exactly. And I'm not coming here saying the only way to do this is to work for yourself. I believe, I really, truthfully, do believe that people can be very fulfilled in a corporate environment as part of a team. A lot of times teamwork, collaboration, those types of things are really deep motivators for people.

But if you're working in that job, in that corporation and you are not aligned and you don't know those things about yourself, you will inevitably feel discontent, burnout. Not burnout from doing too much - burnout from doing too much of the wrong things that your body tells you are the wrong things.

Scott Raven: And my body has let me know, I'll put it that way.

Michael Gardon: Yeah.

Scott Raven: It's so true what you say in terms of you don't have to go entrepreneur in order to find the connection to the people and causes that you care about. But you do have to have a plan. And a lot of the people, senior executives, they're like, man, I'd love to take the chance on myself, but I've got a family to think of. I've got responsibilities to think of.

You guide them in this very simple three step process, which I'll just give the bullet points and let you take it from there: create space, make your paycheck the investor, build the side hustle. You take it from there, from your own experience.

Michael Gardon: Well, the first thing that has to happen with any type of change, whether it's career, changing your body, whatever it might be, is that without intentional space to think, to try to experiment, to get in touch, nothing happens. If we just allow the default way that we have been living our lives continue and say, well, I'm too busy, or after the quarter three report, or after this, nothing's going to happen.

I mean, this is just so fundamental to any habit change that there possibly is.

Scott Raven: I forget who said the phrase: a dream without a plan is just a wish, but spot on in terms of that.

Michael Gardon: Yeah, exactly. So nothing can happen without creating space. So what we first do is we teach people how to approach their current job. I'm not telling people that they should quit their job right now. That's a very - people that I deal with, people in their forties, fifties, and even sixties, have real responsibilities, right? We're not talking about 20 year olds that are just can quit their job and have nothing going on.

So we teach people real skills and practical strategies to manage their time at work better. And this is not productivity. It's not any of the hacks, it's not any of the apps to manage your time. To give the cliff notes: Number one is how do we make the word no a win-win? So how do we push back? How do we say no and create boundaries and frame that no as a win, not only for you because you're getting time back, but also demonstrate that it is a win for the company.

Scott Raven: And such a key concept because particularly when you've spent so many years investing and working up the ranks, there is a little bit of a fear of saying no at the wrong time. So being able to teach the powerful but well-placed no is critically important.

Michael Gardon: Yeah. And what happens is a lot of the frustration at work happens from - again, culturally, we're all kind of conditioned to be yes men and women, right? Like we pride ourselves on the, I'll take on the extra work, I'll get it done when no one else will. All of that kind of thing.

The root of that, if you really get into the psychology and work with people that label themselves as yes men and these get it done type people, they very often lack clarity about what they're truly good at and where they can get the most leverage in their job.

Scott Raven: Mm-hmm.

Michael Gardon: So they just say, hell yeah, I'll take it. That way I'll get recognized and I'll get promoted and that very often does work. But it also comes with the baggage of your job description morphing into something that you don't even know what the hell it is anymore, and that causes a lot of pain.

Scott Raven: And one of the things that you say is that people who pursue this, right, end up gaining financial freedom in some cases, right? You get more responsibility, higher compensation, whatnot, but losing time freedom, which in your opinion is far more important.

Michael Gardon: Absolutely. That is the cost when you say yes to everything, and even if you excel at everything. You ultimately lose control over your time. It becomes your identity. You're the go-to person. You're someone that I as a manager, I can dump all of my problems on, and you will say yes.

And what happens is because you're giving so much of your time and your energy, if we know anything about supply and demand, when a resource is abundant, it's less valuable. When a resource is scarce, it's more valuable.

Scott Raven: Yes.

Michael Gardon: So we're still in that trap and maybe we've gotten the promotions and we make really good money, but we're still in that trap. We're trapped by our own success because our success is built on saying yes and just giving more time.

And so we try to really teach people to value their time much better and become what I call time sovereign. That doesn't mean that you're going to have ultimate time freedom right away. Most people think that financial freedom comes before time freedom, and that's absolutely wrong.

Time sovereignty, the mentality to own your time, to value it and to say no, protect it, and then invest it in the highest leverage ways that will pay off for you and ultimately your stakeholders. That mentality has to precede even financial freedom, because financial freedom...

Scott Raven: It's one of our six dimensions in Corvus - time sovereignty is do you control your time or does your time control you at the end of the day, right? Ultimately, right. If you want to be great, you better have control of your time, but also to one of the three steps in your approach.


Making Your Paycheck Your Investor

Scott Raven: Make money your ally, make your paycheck the investor. And this is an interesting concept in terms of how to fuel your future desires now.

Michael Gardon: Yeah, and like everything, it's more of a mindset than anything. So making your paycheck your investor - if you think about how businesses are built, what the headlines say about funding new businesses, getting investors, venture capital, all that stuff, right?

When we create space and most of my students get back up to 40% of their time and energy back from work, right? So we're not talking about little 10% tweaks here and there, like a massive chunk of their time back.

What that means is that you're getting paid the same. Your time is less taken up by that job. Now you can take that money that you're still getting paid - you can mentally act as your company is now your investor because you're able to take that time and put it over here and start meaningfully investing hours and time into understanding what success is for you, your core competencies, your advantages, all of the things that you can leverage.

And then yes, ultimately building a business engine that can generate income for yourself, independent of that job. And so that's where it, again, it's not like you're getting external money to now fund this, but it's a very powerful shift in saying, I'm still getting paid. Like actually I don't have to quit my job to then go start this business like I'm getting paid now, and I can use some of that money to say, all right, everything's okay. My bills are paid for, and I can maybe take some of that to make investments in going faster, in developing what you care about sooner, whether that's a business or whether that's just a brand and an expertise that you want to be noticed for, to attract other types, better types of job opportunities or board seats or consulting gigs, speaking gigs, all of that type of thing.

But again, you have to have the time and you have to have the kind of investment mentality of like, all right, I'm actually getting paid to do this.


Understanding and Leveraging Your Unique Advantages

Scott Raven: Right, and you also alluded to this - have self-awareness of where are your comparative advantages, something that you describe in what you call the advantage mapping framework and how to leverage the knowledge of what you bring to the table in abundance to help drive you to where you want.

Michael Gardon: Exactly. I come from a finance investment background. I studied a lot of great investors and you know, Warren Buffett is obviously somebody that's been studied a lot, but he has a concept called Circle of Competence. And what he means by that is you don't have to know everything. You just have to know what you know very, very well, and you have to more importantly then have a big circle of competence. You have to understand the edges of the circle, so you have to understand where you're out of your element, and you don't have an advantage now in understanding a type of company or doing something in marketing or whatever. You have to understand the skillset.

And I looked at that. So this was a time period - I need to tell a little bit of a story here.

Scott Raven: We love stories around here. Stories go round.

Michael Gardon: So this was a critical insight for me in my journey in 2018. I was in a corporate role, looking out from the outside, it was the greatest place in the company to be. We were doing lots of different things, innovating and all this kind of stuff, and I was massively stuck.

I didn't know - I was at a point in my career where I'd accomplished a lot of different things, but I didn't know, like with certainty what my unique gifts were, what I was really good at - a lot of imposter syndrome. And so I took that concept of circle of competence and I studied it. And then I said to me, this is incomplete because competence is really about knowledge.

What do you know and what do you not know? And I looked at life and I said, well, we can create advantage for ourselves in many different ways outside of just knowledge, expertise, and skill.

You know, there's so many people that are C students that are multimillionaires, right? Like, if you look at the world, it's not as black and white as that. And so I came up with a framework to look at my life in eight different dimensions, eight different ways that I thought at the time people could create advantage for themselves.

And this was things like your support network and the resources you have available, what are your just genuine curiosities and interests? What drives your energy during the day? Your personality, your aptitudes, how you learn - understanding how you learn so critical, especially if you're going to go out on your own and build a business because you have to be a learning being. And if you're doing something where like reading and writing is a critical learning style for that, but you are a visual learner, like you don't have a great advantage in doing that thing.

Scott Raven: I mean there are all sorts of people who are smart as hell who were poor students in school because they did not align with the rote methodology. But they get out into the real world and they kill it. To your point.

Michael Gardon: Yeah, absolutely. So, I think this idea of advantage mapping, which is the phrase that I coined, it's basically a way to deeply look at your life, break down the areas where you have advantage, then try to stack those, right? Like try to put concentric circles around those, find the intersection of where those things come together.

Scott Raven: Right.

Michael Gardon: And that's you at your best. Like that is you having your greatest advantage from a current standpoint. And from that, when you really know that, then you can look at the world and start to create options from that foundation.

But if you sit at your desk wanting to build a business or create a different circumstance for your career and life, and you scroll social media and you just look at all of the shiny objects that come through social media, you're going to waste a shitload of time and you're not going to take any actual steps. You're not going to take any action because deep down you understand that this passive income strategy, building something on Amazon, you don't actually frigging care about.

Scott Raven: Now.

Michael Gardon: You don't care about those things, and you don't necessarily have the advantages to do that.

Scott Raven: You're enamored with what the result can bring, but not the path to get there.

Michael Gardon: Yeah.


Becoming a Full Stack Human

Scott Raven: You know, it's interesting, you brought up the word stacking and advantage mapping, but one of the biggest phrases that you preach is what it really means to be a full stack human. And this is a concept I love. Here within the Corvus world, we talk about work-life integration in the pursuit of harmony. Whatever you define harmony to be - how you have linked it to work, family relationships, health spirit, and becoming the physical epitome of that so that people say, look, I'm not just some guru trying to sell you on this. I'm living this right now, and here's how.

Michael Gardon: Yeah. It's just work and life are so intertwined. We spend so much of our time, our waking hours in adulthood working that if our jobs are just a job or we're disengaged, that stuff bleeds over into the rest of our lives. And if we step back and we think about what does it mean to live like a great life now?

What are the attributes? What are the buckets in my life that I need to take care of? When I did this, I looked back and yeah, I had those five buckets, which is, you know, really creativity, family, relationships, health and spirit. And we can start to see how those things intertwine. And if you go through the Advantage mapping program and you understand your foundation, you can also understand how you use that to improve all these areas of your life.

To live as fully as possible. Like the goal isn't to just kill it at work, make a bunch of money, retire, and then give your kids whatever they want, right? Like we sort of think, I want to be able to give my kids all these experiences and give them everything I didn't have and all that kind of stuff. And that, it's kind of a lie to ourselves.


The Importance of Presence

Michael Gardon: What, what they, what our kids want, what our relationships want is for us to be present. Well, if we're consumed with work thoughts of work, pressure, anxiety, all of those things. We can't be present, we can't be our fullest potential in that area of our life.

And so I look at these things as not separate buckets. I look at them as all intertwined. And if we can get to the root of how we perform at our best as a human, we can solve a lot of our problems and everything gets a lot better. And so when I say like chasing money, like a type A madman, I was thinking about my own achievement. It was very self-centered, my own achievement, and then being able to do all of these things later.

And when I stepped back from that and I gained perspective, I really started to look holistically at like, well, the ultimate goal of living is to be a full stack human.

Scott Raven: Mm-hmm. I agree. But circling back to a phrase you and I both share in common - time sovereignty - that your fundamental belief, you cannot be a full stack human if you do not have time sovereignty, if you haven't reclaimed the time in order to have the presence you need at the appropriate time in the appropriate places.


Balancing vs. Integrating

Michael Gardon: Yeah, so the miss - so where we're wading in this conversation is like, I'm sure people are thinking about, well, shit, that's a lot to balance, right? Balance...

Scott Raven: I hate that word. Freaking, I'll put it that way.

Michael Gardon: Yeah, exactly. Like if you think about adding things to the plate to an already busy plate, it becomes too complicated. It becomes, we can't balance all of these things, but when we get to integration, we get to really understanding who we are and what our best gifts are and how to use those. We're able to find leverage points.

Which means that if I am a present father, I shut my phone off at 4:00 PM I let my kids run into my home office, to just scrap with them and be with them. I feel good. I may get a stroke of inspiration about a post I should write or something might come - give me an idea for a landing page or a webinar or whatever, because I'm thinking about all of these things together and I see them as intertwined.

If I say, okay, Scott, I'm going to get off this podcast and I am going to compartmentalize, and then I'm going to go into dad mode, like that's different. That is trying to get something and compensate for something I'm just missing here because I'm working talking to you.

Scott Raven: Right.

Michael Gardon: If I can talk to you about my family and my kids and get that point across to, in a genuine way to your audience, that's integration. I don't have to do anything more. I don't have to balance anything.

And so this is where like we just live in this amazing time where we can integrate these things like we have the luxury to design work lives, design products, design programs, design consulting, whatever our vehicle may be, and use and talk about all of these different things to convey a point of view that resonates deeply with a customer and target market.

Scott Raven: Right.

Michael Gardon: So they're not different.


Challenging Cultural Norms

Scott Raven: Right. But know there's something that, you know in our offline talk in terms of, well, why does this not happen more regularly? Why do people struggle with this concept? And your AHA was finding out folks were trying to create achievement from someone else's definition, not their own. And why is that so common? That we're always in the construction of achievement from another's point of view.

Michael Gardon: It is really multifaceted, but when you boil it down, it just comes down to our cultural and social belief systems and what we're sort of taught as a model to follow, like, you know, you could start talking about risk and uncertainty and when you see someone's path and thousands and millions of people's paths that gets them to a successful endpoint, like that data is sort of hard to overcome.

Scott Raven: Right.

Michael Gardon: And so we're conditioned to go to college, make a choice about a major or a first job, and then we end up making future decisions. We would call this straight lining the data. What I mean by that is we look backwards at data points. Okay? I chose a finance major, I got this finance job. I progressed to this level, and when looking forward, we look back at what's our trajectory.

And then how do I, how do I make a different choice that is growing? But it's all still tied to the past data points. And so it becomes really, really easy to settle and set smaller goals and incremental goals, and the longer we do that, the more ingrained that identity is in us. The more story we tell in our belief system becomes we, I am a finance major, I am a finance professional. I can't...

Scott Raven: And the more that society brands you and labels that and that you... that stigma that can follow you.

Michael Gardon: Yeah.


Redefining Success

Michael Gardon: So I use the analogy of the Grand Canyon, which is formed by a river just flowing through it. And it, over time and time, it's gotten deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper, and the deeper it gets, the harder it is to climb out. And so, you know, that's how it evolves. And it evolves at like a very, like, we're not really conscious of it. We make decisions. We think we're going in the right direction. We don't check in necessarily with how we feel at this moment. We don't realize that as human beings, our goals, our values, what we want, that will naturally change over time.

And the problem comes, and this is basically the midlife crisis in a nutshell. It becomes when you finally realize that your model of success in your head has been an exponential one all along. The model, the mechanical model that you followed is essentially a linear one, and there's a gap there.

There's a gap between all of the things that you've done and invested in, and you can see your trajectory on that linear path. And you can look up and you can say, I thought I'd be here.

Scott Raven: Right.

Michael Gardon: What am I doing? What does it mean? What does it matter? Who am I? What have I done? All in your, you start to question identity.

Scott Raven: And then the larger the gap, the more that depression can set in. Yep.

Michael Gardon: Exactly.


Family as a Priority

Scott Raven: You know, one of the things which I love about your approach is your grounding, your personal grounding for this approach is your family. Your kids. I know that, you know, this is an audio, so I'll describe it for people. We're looking, I'm looking at the back. You've got baseball glove, you've got a couple of baseballs and some cases there, right? You've got a beautiful picture of what looks to be kids at some sort of wedding, right? All of these in terms of the, well, who's who I really serve? Yes, I serve the people that I'm working for and I'm working with, but who do I really serve? My family.

Michael Gardon: Yes. Having kids and all of that really, really changed my priorities. And I started to think about - I credit my wife with this. She was like, we were talking, discussing and moving, and she was like, Mike, we only have 15 years left with our kids in the house.

Scott Raven: Right.

Michael Gardon: And I was like. Holy crap. Like, I have not thought about that. Oh my God.

Scott Raven: I literally had that thought with my son going to high school this year. I've got eight until I'm an empty nester, so I'm right there with you.

Michael Gardon: Yeah. And my whole frame changed thinking about what do I want that 15 years to look like?

Scott Raven: Right.

Michael Gardon: That was how I designed, eventually designed my life. It wasn't about what do I want to do? How do I do it? It was who do I want to be for them? And I said, I started answering that. It took a while, but I started answering that I want to work in my home office. I want my kids to be able to run in my office in the summers and disrupt me. Like I don't want to be so task oriented, have to do these things that I have, that I kick them out.

And it evolved from there. And so, is that my purpose? It drives my purpose. But really when I dug even deeper down into it, I said, ultimately, at the end of the day, what's the greatest lesson I can impart to my kids?

Scott Raven: Mm-hmm.

Michael Gardon: And that became looking out at the future, looking at them in the workforce. I said, I need to build these kids into the most adaptable, resilient, and flexible humans they can be, because I don't know what AI is coming or technology or I don't know what the working world is going to be like for them.

But if I can help them be that I know they're going to be okay. And so the core of my work shifted to really trying to tackle the biggest challenge in the workplace, which I think has all to do with resilience and flexibility, because I see so many people get stuck in the one lane in the identity and can't break out of it to even imagine what else they could do and who they could be.

And I think that is a really, really, it's a tough problem, but it also has societal implications in that we have so many people stuck in cubicles that are capable of serving in different ways and capable of so much more that are essentially afraid to take the proper sequence of steps.

Scott Raven: I agree. You know, you stole my thunder a little bit.

Michael Gardon: Sorry.

Scott Raven: I do, typically I do a closing segment with a tip of the cap to Randy Pausch's The Last Lecture and final coda in his book. This book was for my kids. Well, you kind of already described what your message to your kids would be if they were listening to this, so I'll spin it a different way.


Message to Younger Self

Scott Raven: Talk to young Michael before he learned all of what he's learned in his journey, what's a message you would give young Michael that he would actually listen to?

Michael Gardon: There are infinite opportunities for you to make the kind of money you want to make and do the kind of work that you want to do. It's not about the lanes that they teach you in school. Infinite opportunities.

So what you need to do, and all you need to do is understand how you impact people's lives. How you create value in a unique way that is different from others. Do that on a path towards things that are consuming your curiosity.

Scott Raven: Powerful. Very powerful, you know? People who are listening to this, I can imagine that they're going to want to reach out to you, learn more about this philosophy, put it into action themselves. What are some of the ways that folks can get in contact with you?

Michael Gardon: So you can find me, Michael Gardon, G-A-R-D-O-N, on LinkedIn. I have a Breaking Work newsletter that you can hop on. I talk, I break down one specific thing each week about work and reframing our work lives. It's very actionable and that can be found at my website, MichaelGardon.com.

Scott Raven: Very nice.


Upcoming Book and Final Thoughts

Scott Raven: And let's talk about the upcoming book. Just Leave Me Alone So I Can Work. I love the title, I'll put it that way. Right. What, you know, I assume a lot of the wisdom that we talked about here, but what are some things that people can look forward to in this upcoming book?

Michael Gardon: Yeah, so that book is really about time sovereignty. It breaks down, it's somewhat of a call to arms for people to wake people up. And then it's also kind of practical application and steps. But the title comes from in 2023, I wrote a piece on LinkedIn. It was like, here's the easiest way to be left alone at work.

And a reporter from the Wall Street Journal read it and contacted me and interviewed me for an article by the same title.

Scott Raven: Nice.

Michael Gardon: I said, doggone it. I think there's a book in there. So I ended up writing it. So yeah, it's really about the difference between renting your time and owning your time and then practical applications. Because I think at the end of the day, even if you don't want to leave your job, most of us want to do great work and we feel distracted.

And so the premise is, yeah, like if you're able to get yourself left alone, you're able to own your time. You're able to do better work or invest it in the things that matter to you.

So I started my book writing journey there. It's the first one, hopefully of several. We'll see. We never know what the future holds.

Scott Raven: I am sure that it will be the first of many. I will put it that way, you know? But it's been a wonderful time for you to be on my podcast. Certainly, you know, you've been an incredible guest. Any final words before we close out this episode?

Michael Gardon: The final thing is, is I guess I talk about breaking work, and I don't mean like breaking it and throwing it all away. I mean we need to change, you need a different perspective. And so if the perspective that you have about work right now and the people that you see all around you, if that isn't working for you.

You need to break it. You need to gain a different perspective. And that's really the impetus of it. And there'll become a moment that you get a different, an aha moment and a different perspective change. And you understand that you're capable of much more. And that is your break moment.

That's the start of your origin story. And so always be mindful of that when you get that aha. Even if you think it's dumb. Like some of mine are just dumb, but I didn't have the capability to realize them. At the time I didn't have the perspective. Those are the moments that change your life. And so write those break moments down and that's the start of your origin story.

Scott Raven: Well, it sounds like folks have some homework from this podcast of identifying recent break moments in their lives. So I hope that audience, if you're listening, you got some homework to do. I'll put it that way. But Michael, thank you so much for being on the podcast. It's been an honor and a pleasure, man.

Michael Gardon: Thank you so much. Appreciate it. I'm glad I've run into you and become friends with you and I know there's much more for us to do in the future. So thank you for having me.

Scott Raven: No worries, no worries. To the listening audience, thank you so much for listening to this episode. Please, we do this so that you take the wisdom and you act on it in your life, and also be able to provide it to those in need. So please share and subscribe for those people who could use this wisdom. Give us feedback in terms of how we can improve in our mission on this podcast to create impact. Until next time, I'm Scott. We'll see you next time on The Corvus Effect. Take care.


Outro

Scott Raven: Thank you for joining me on The Corvus Effect. If today's conversation sparked ideas about how to free yourself from operational overwhelm, visit thecorvuseffect.com for show notes, resources, and our free Six Dimensions Assessment - it'll show you exactly where you're trapped and how to architect your freedom.

While you're there, check out the Corvus Learning platform where we turn insights into implementation. Because the best strategies mean nothing without the systems to execute them.

If this episode helped you see a new path forward, please subscribe and share it with another founder who's ready to stop being their business's best employee and start being its true leader.

Join me next time as we continue exploring how to build businesses that run brilliantly without you. Remember, your business exists to enhance your life - it's time to make that your reality.