The Corvus Effect

Ep. 63: TL;DL - Breaking the Chief Everything Officer Trap with Michael Gardon

• Scott Raven • Episode 63

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Summary:

This episode features a "Too Long, Didn't Listen" (TLDL) summary of my conversation with Michael Gardon, three-time entrepreneur and CEO of Rejoin Coaching who helps people break their limiting relationship with work. Michael transformed from a "type A madman" chasing corporate success to building a multimillion-dollar business while becoming what he calls a "full stack human."

Key insights include his counterintuitive principle that time sovereignty must precede financial freedom, why saying yes to everything destroys your professional value through basic supply and demand economics, and his revolutionary advantage mapping framework that goes beyond Warren Buffett's circle of competence. Michael also reveals the hidden costs of compartmentalization and how integration as a full stack human creates better flow, creativity, and life satisfaction than rigid work-life boundaries.

Show Notes:

01:31 The Trap of Being a Yes Person

03:04 Advantage Mapping Framework

04:53 From Compartmentalization to Integration


Intro

Scott Raven: Welcome to The Corvus Effect, where we explore what it takes to succeed professionally and truly enhance all parts of your life. I'm Scott Raven, Fractional COO and your host. Each episode we go behind the scenes with leaders who've mastered the delicate harmony of growing their professional endeavors while protecting what matters most. Ready to transform from Chief Everything Officer to achieving integration in all facets of your life? Let's soar!


Guest Introduction: Michael Gardon

Scott Raven: Hey everybody, it's Scott. Welcome to our TLDL - Too Long Didn't Listen for my conversation with Michael Gardon, three-time entrepreneur and CEO of Rejoin Coaching. He helps people break their limiting relationship with work after chasing corporate success like a type A madman. He engineered his own escape, building a multimillion-dollar business while becoming what he calls a full stack human.

And now as he progresses with his upcoming book, "Just Leave Me Alone So I Can Work," Mike now guides others to reclaim their time sovereignty and design careers that fuel their entire lives. It was a phenomenal episode. I encourage you to go back and listen to the full episode. But this being the TLDL, let's dive into some of the key takeaways from my chat with Mike.


The Trap of Being a Yes Person

Scott Raven: First, he had a profound insight about the trap of being a yes person and how it destroys your leverage. He explained when you say yes to everything, and even if you excel at everything, you ultimately lose control over your time, and that becomes your identity. You become the Chief Everything Officer and the killer insight is that if we know anything about supply and demand, when a resource is abundant, it's less valuable.

When a resource is scarce, it is more valuable. So what does this mean for us? When you make yourself available to everyone, when you show that you have unlimited supply, for lack of a better term, that makes you less valuable in the minds of others, and it makes your time and the results that you produce less valuable.

However, if you are seen as scarce in terms of your ability to get things done, but the quality of what you produce is killer, that makes the perception more powerful and more valuable in terms of what you are delivering. So we all want to be able to help others. That's part of our core here at Corvus, but it's also helping others while being true to ourselves in terms of that time sovereignty dimension. Time sovereignty must precede even financial freedom at the end of the day.


Advantage Mapping Framework

Scott Raven: Second, his revolutionary advantage mapping framework. It went beyond traditional competence assessments, and it was inspired by Warren Buffett's circle of competence. He realized competence is really about knowledge. What do you know? What do you not know? What can you take advantage of in yourself, whether it be your personality, your aptitude, your learning style, knowledge, skill, expertise - what makes you special and unique?

And then the key being to try to put concentric circles around those and find the intersection of where those things come together. And that is when you are at your best. Now, here in the Corvus paradigm, as you know, I am a Clifton Strengths certified coach. I live off the fact that you are at your best energy flow state when you are playing from your strengths and being able to align what you do to what you are naturally good at.

In order to help drive the ball forward in an effective and efficient manner. So make sure as you're going through, and Michael would say the same, that you're playing to your strengths, for lack of better term. No, that doesn't mean that you immediately delegate everything which isn't part of your core, but at the same time, can you find ways to work with somebody on those?

Or can you say, all right, I may not be good at this particular task, but I am good at these styles of things, which can help me get these things done. So don't try to force yourself into fitting another person's mold. Be the mold that you are.


From Compartmentalization to Integration

Scott Raven: And that really gets us to the final key takeaway in terms of moving from compartmentalization to true integration as a full stack human.

And he shared a powerful moment. He said, if I said, okay Scott, I'm going to get off this podcast and I'm going to compartmentalize and I'm going to go to dad mode, trying to get something done, then I'm going to go into work mode and try to get something accomplished. He realized that all of that switching caused him to lose energy and efficiency throughout the day, and that it was much easier for him to be able to let selective boundaries down so that the cost of switching did not become prohibitive.

So, as an example, he lets his kids run into the office just to scrap and be with them. It gives him a euphoric high in terms of that dopamine hit of them coming to him. It allows him to take a brief respite from being able to be heads down, but not to the point that it derails him, and by allowing that, it actually allows his brain to rest a little bit, and things like creativity or inspiration accelerate because the brain is allowed to breathe, for lack of a better term.

So boundaries are clearly important. Structured time is clearly important. There's no doubt about that in terms of the use of effective time, but there's also a need to not allow so much rigidity that you're actually costing yourself flow because of hard switches in context. That's why we talk a lot about batching in terms of the way that we organize our days here and that we want similar things to get done so that the inherent cost of flipping between one thing and the other is as little as possible.


Final Thoughts

Scott Raven: So wonderful conversation with him. I fully encourage you to take a look at listening to his full episode. Be able to go back and get ready for his book "Just Leave Me Alone So I Can Work." Check out his company, Rejoin Coaching, and also he's got his Breaking Work podcast along with his 14,000 member strong community.

So a lot of resources that he has available for us here in Corvus Land. But until then, this is Scott. Take care and I'll see you next time on The Corvus Effect.


Outro

Scott Raven: Thank you for joining me on The Corvus Effect. If today's conversation sparked ideas about how to free yourself from overwhelm, visit TheCorvusEffect.com for show notes, resources, and our free Six Dimensions Assessment, showing 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.

If this episode helped you see a new path forward, please subscribe and share it with others who are ready to pursue their definition of professional freedom. Join me next time as we continue exploring how to enhance your life through what you do professionally. It's time to make that your reality!