E8 What It's Like Leaving Corporate with Mike Cordone
Welcome to Working Towards Our Purpose, a podcast that
offers a different perspective on what a job can be. For everyone
out there that's heard that voice in the back of their head asking for something
more, it's time to listen to it. I'm your host, Gino,
and join me as I interview people who have decided to work in their own
purpose. Together, we will learn, become inspired,
and hopefully find our own path towards working in our purpose.
Thank you, everybody, for tuning in to working towards our purpose once
again. Thank you for everybody that's listened so far. I appreciate all
the support. And today, we have a special
episode, and I got to interview my brother,
my twin brother, for those of you that don't know. He also went to engineering
school with me, and we went together. We both
graduated with our mechanical engineering degree, and he now lives in New
York City, and he just recently quit his corporate job.
So we sat down and had a conversation about a lot of different things,
about his motivations to quit, what he's doing
now, and what he wants to be doing in the future. So
really excited about this interview, and I hope you all enjoy.
My name is Mike Cordone. I used to be a mechanical engineer.
I did, HVAC design, which is, like, heating, cooling
systems for buildings, plumbing, electrical,
that kind of thing. And I did it for high end residential. It gave me
a really different perspective, I would say, from the disparity of
people who have a lot of money and people who don't. And
I think at the beginning when you start a job, you kind of just try
and do a good job and learn the job and do all that.
And then eventually, you kind of start to think, like, why am I doing
this? And then my answer was just for a paycheck
and then I kind of said alright what do I want to do? And I've
always been interested in photography, and that's kind of always been in the
background. And I think simultaneously with my thoughts of my corporate job,
I got way more into photography because of
COVID. I had more time. I was watching a lot of YouTube,
learning the actual basics of of photography. I I always
took pictures, but I didn't really know what I was doing. I would keep it
in auto and just, like, take cool pictures, like, oh, these are awesome. And
then once you learn the basics, you can kind of,
like, connect the dots together and then it makes a lot more sense. And that's
kinda what I was doing simultaneously is getting frustrated with my job. So,
you know, obviously, the idea came that maybe I can make some money out of
this. So I started doing it on the side and
basically got to a point where I was so frustrated because I would spend so
much time at the office and then so much time when I
got home that I was completely burnt out. And I I got to a point
where I was like, I can't do both of these at the same time. And
which one do I wanna do? And obviously, the answer was photography, but I wasn't
making that much money at it. So that was a long drawn out
decision. But eventually, I made the decision that I had to start somewhere and I
have to give it time. And if I don't, it's never gonna turn into anything.
So so that's why I chose to left my job. So can you tell
us a little bit more about, like, what it is that you do now, what
your business is, and, like, what types of things you do and, like, where you
want it to go, and just some kinda ideas about that to give people an
idea of, like, what it is that you do. So just for context, it's only
been about, I left in the 2nd week of January.
We're beginning of March right now, so it's only been about a month or so.
I've done a lot of learning. I've been going to conferences trying to
network, trying to meet new people, trying to build a whole new, you know,
network of purpose, which is difficult and and time consuming really.
So I've been trying to reach out to some previous
clients as that I had in my mechanical engineering job, which are
architects, designers, and and seeing if I can
utilize those existing networks
to kinda bring in photography. So when an architect is done with a job, they
will have it photographed and they will need that for their portfolio, for their
website, you know, and that kind of stuff. So I'm trying to get into
that world of interior photography, which is a difficult
world to get into. That's one avenue. I've kinda been trying
to just kinda put my energy in every every little
path that I can think of at this point. I mean, I haven't really
decided on a certain path yet. And not that I necessarily need to or will,
but I'm just trying different things and seeing what works and what doesn't work at
this point. I've got some existing clients that I was working with previously that I
wanna continue to work with, and I've done some family shoots for
holiday cards and and that stuff. And I and I really enjoy doing that, and
I think that that's definitely something I wanna push and keep doing.
My previous work mostly consisted of
landscapes and street photography, which I'm still doing and I'm still
interested in. It's kind of a more difficult area to make money
in. I mean, unless you're teaching people or you're selling prints, there's not a whole
lot you can do with it. People don't, like, commission you to go take pictures
of waterfalls or, like, it's not normally something you get paid for.
So I think with photography is is is you don't necessarily have to do one
thing. You can have multiple streams of income. You can make a little bit of
money selling prints online. You know, you can do some family
shoots around the holidays, but there's not gonna be, like, something you're
gonna constantly be doing every day. I I don't see that being, like, the
answer or the way to to do it. It's gonna be more
doing certain things, you know. And again, like, burnout is something
that's important and that's not something that you wanna do anywhere, whether you're working for
somebody or you're working for yourself. So I don't wanna just push
interior photography and only do that because I feel like I would get burned out
with that. I wanna keep doing different things. I wanna keep doing street photography, keep
doing landscape photography because those things keep me interested in photography and passionate about
photography. So you gotta, you know, you gotta do your passion projects
as well as trying to make money at it or you're not gonna really succeed,
I don't think. Mhmm. Yeah. That definitely makes sense. I talked to
somebody recently who's an artist, and she makes the
majority of her income from doing, like, business painting
windows. We had a conversation, I think it was episode 3, where we
talked about, like, what do you do as far as, like, the money
coming in and the income and then how much time do you set aside to,
like, be an artist and to create. And the balance between that is definitely something
that I think people always have to, I don't know, be conscious of. So you
like you said, you don't burn yourself out and you don't just do it because
I mean, I mean, I've certainly done that in the past as far as just,
like, doing something. Oh, this is making money. I'm gonna just keep doing this and
keep doing this, and then you get to a point where you're like, oh, why
I don't like doing this anymore. Why am I doing this? Yeah. So I think
to have a balance of, like, the things that also keep you
excited is good too. And to one thing that she also said too was that
she creates every day regardless of, like, what mood she's in. So she goes and
paints every day or does something that's creative every day to
kinda keep that creative juices flowing. But yeah.
So, also, I kinda wanna back up a little bit and get back into, like,
how you got into engineering to begin with because I know my story of how
I got into engineering, And I could if I reflect and look back, I could
definitely see, like, oh, that was a red flag there. Oh, that, you
know, that kind of meant that I didn't wanna do that. Or so I kinda
am curious to see what it is from your perspective and how you got into
engineering and, like, even back as far as graduating high school and picking a major
and that sort of thing. Yeah. I mean, I think
I think back then, I didn't know what I wanted to do. Right? I was
in high school. They're like, oh, you have to go to college. You're never gonna
do anything with your life. Like, okay, well, what do I go to college for?
You know, you have this meeting with your guidance counselor, and they're like, well,
Michael, let me look at your grades here. You're pretty good in math and science,
so why don't you be an engineer? And I was like, alright.
Like, what's an engineer? And, like, well, it's really hard, you know?
And and honestly, I think that was what got me into it. But he told
me it was difficult, and he told me it was hard to do. So I
wanna be like, I can do that. Right. Intelligence complex. Yeah. Yeah. I
wanted to be like, well, I'm smarter. I can do that. You know? And and
and really, I don't even think it's a it's a matter of being hard. It's
just a matter of having an enormous amount of work
and being able to do it, you know, and not get frustrated
with having to do so much classwork and, like yeah. I mean Yeah.
Because I think for me, a big part of it too was I remember Griz,
our shop teacher, who I, like, respected as a person because he treated us
like purpose. And I remember him asking me
and a couple of our friends, like, hey, what are you guys doing after this?
And I was like, I don't know. I don't really want to go to college.
And I and he's like, well, I know you guys like doing this stuff and
working with your hands, but he said if you pick a trade like this, you're
gonna have to do that trade for the rest of your life. You're gonna have
to work on your hands for the rest of your life. You have one thing.
Whereas if you go to college, you open up your opportunities to doing multiple different
things. And that kind of changed my opinion, I think, a little bit as far
as, like, wanting to go into engineering. But, yeah, I I don't
for I I mean, all high school, I said I wasn't gonna go to college
because I didn't like school. I didn't wanna do it, Then I ended up there.
Yeah. I mean, I wouldn't say that I didn't wanna go to college. I definitely
did. But I think I got
kind of pushed into a field and then I didn't really
you know, I think the older I get at least, the more I start to
think about things and, like, be more intentional about everything. And when I was a
kid, I was just wanting to kinda take the path of least resistance. Mhmm.
And someone told me what to do, and I said, okay. That sounds reasonable.
I don't need to think about what I really wanna do. I think that makes
sense. Right. And that's what I did. And then you spend 4 years not thinking
about it because you're just trying to get your degree. And and that's
fine, but, you know, I think you need to kinda think about what you really
wanna do. You know, you getting out of high school, you can literally do whatever
you want. You can you know, people are gonna tell you go to college, do
this and that, whatever, but you're really starting from 0 and you can
do anything. But you don't really feel that way because you feel like you have
to do a certain thing for your parents or for whoever, you know, your
teachers who tell you you're smart and you need to do this and go to
school for this and that, you know, so that you get a good job. But
it's the goal to get a good job or it's the goal to, like, do
something you wanna do? You know, it's like people don't really talk about that.
They just talk about getting a good paying job so you don't have to worry
about paying the bills. And sure, that's important, but it's not everything. Right. And it
definitely depends on, like, your background and, like, where you grew up and that sort
of thing. But, certainly, the, you know, middle class environment
that we grew up in, it was like, oh, this is the next step. And
like you alluded to too, it's it's almost easier just to do what is
XPW than to make up your mind on something. Because making up your mind on
something, especially something that goes against the grain, takes, like you know,
you have to be sure of yourself that you wanna do that. And at that
time, yeah, I was the same way. I wasn't really, like, sure of anything. I
was like, well, I guess I could do whatever I want. I don't I don't
really have any opinions this way or that way. Yeah. I
remember specifically in, like, middle school, we had an art class,
and our teacher was really cool. And she wanted me to go to this
summer program because she thought I I had some talent, and she wanted me to
expand upon that and learn more outside of the class.
And at first, I was like, that's dumb. I don't wanna do that, you know,
because art's not cool when you're a 7th grade
boy, you know. And I actually remember my dad, like,
telling me, you should do this. You should see what it's about. If you don't
like it, that's fine, but just do it. And And I was like, no. Absolutely
not. I'm not gonna do that. And I didn't wanna do it because I was
scared of doing it, and then I didn't wanna, like, you know, make a
decision on my life. I just wanna be like, oh, I'll just go to school
like everyone else and, like, not stir the waters or,
you know, make this this decision basically is what it
was. And so I didn't. I I put that
on pause, and I did have a passion in art, and I always was interested
in it. And I had some sort of talent in it, and I never
really went back to that, you know, because I've always been into
photography. You know, at the time, I think she really liked my paintings
or whatever, and I never expanded upon that
until years years later because, you know, you get out of college, you start
your job, you're focused on trying to do a good job at your job, you're
learning, you're, you know, meeting people, you're trying to, like,
start that whole life and you can't really,
like, look back on it until you get to a point where, like, you're on
autopilot at your job and you're just, like, you know, coming in, getting bored with
doing what you're normally doing every day. And then at that point, you start to
think about those other things because you have time. And, you know, especially
COVID, I think, really got everybody to think about their lives and
what they were doing and what was important with their lives. And I
remember, like, being, you know, the first couple of weeks in COVID or
a month or 2, you know, I'd I'd be at home the whole time or
be, like, walking around, like, going for walks in the middle of the day. I'm,
like, man, this is awesome. Like, I really like, you know, having this
freedom, you know, and not having to be stuck in an office all
day long, you know, waking up, going to the office,
coming home, like, it's already, like, 7 o'clock dinner time, you know,
and I have very little time to myself. You know, a couple of hours after
dinner before I go to bed, that's it. I'm, like, do I really wanna live
my life like that? Like, that's kinda crazy. Like, I don't like this, you know.
And I think I never really looked at it that way before.
You know? Not not not to say there's, like, no positive about going to an
office and being around other people, but, like, was
that what I wanted to be doing? And the answer was no. Mhmm.
Yeah. That definitely I think that whatever
that, like, bug is first got me when we
backpacked Europe after college. Because I remember
first thinking, like, oh, we can't do this. You you gotta get a job after
college, you know, you got but somehow, because, you know, we had
a connection to a friend in Denmark, and it it was able to happen,
luckily. But I think once we were on that trip, I remember, like, just
walking around in random cities. Like, it was a beautiful day out. You're looking at
amazing architecture and thinking, like, wow. This is really cool.
Like, why can't I do this more often? Why do I have to now put
my life on pause for 40 years and work at a job? So I had
that, like, kind of roll around the back of my head, and then, you know,
as frustrations occurred in corporate, I think I was always kind of thinking,
like, I need to not do this. But
yeah. I don't know. It's interesting. I I guess, you know, obviously, I'm
fortunate enough to have those opportunities to spark that idea to continue to
want something further. But, yeah, I think not taking advantage of it
is maybe, you know, a mistake. So, also, I want
to ask about, like, what was your experience when you
first got into corporate? Because I remember when I first started my
job, I was, like, just confused. Like, I
didn't understand what was happening. I didn't it seemed like
people were, like, doing and saying different things and, like, not there's just none of
it made sense to me. Like, you go through engineering school, and I enjoyed
engineering school because it was fun and you had you were challenged. But then you
got into corporate or at least my experience, like, getting into corporate,
they give you, like, this little tiny task that, like, a high schooler can figure
out, and then you spend 3 weeks writing a report.
And I'm just like, what is like, what what are we doing? Like, we're just
felt like we were pretending to work and pretending to be busy all the time.
And that it just never made any sense to me. And that was my first
impression of, like, corporate. Obviously, I can't I went into a big
corporation, so that's probably different than a lot of people's experience. But that was kinda
how I felt. So I was curious to see, like, how did you feel going
in because you worked for a a bit of a smaller company.
Yeah. So I for the job that I I was at for 8 years before
I just recently left them, Before that, I actually did have another job for about
6 months, which was the complete opposite. It was it was literally one guy
kinda working for himself and I was helping him out. And I
remember being in that job and being extremely bored, kinda like you said, he would
give me a task, give me an enormous amount of time to do it,
and I just feel like I wasn't learning anything and I I really wanted to
be in an office. I wanted to have, like, people who were my age that
I can, like, hang out with and talk to and learn from. And,
know, so that didn't last very long. I got this this other job at a
company and there was probably about 60 or 70 people in the company when I
started. And at first, there there
was a lot of people around my age. And I remember, like,
wanting to be friends with them and hang out with them, but then, like, also
thinking that it was really clicky and, like, like, high school y
and, like, I was like, this is kinda weird. Like, I thought we were adults
here. Like, why are we, like, you know, acting like
children almost? And that was kinda weird. But as far as the job, I
would say, I almost had an obvious experience where, like, they would just give
us so much work to do and, like, I was always working overtime and
not getting paid for it because I was salary. You know? And I remember,
like, specifically, one of my coworkers on my team, she was like,
well, you know, like, in in college, we would always have to do an enormous
amount of work and, like, stay up late. So I just figured that the work
environment would be the same, so it's okay, like, that we have to work late.
I remember thinking, like, what? Like, I don't wanna work late. I'm not getting paid
for this. Like, why do I have to do this? It's ridiculous. But in a
way, you have to do it or you're not gonna, you know, look like you're
a good employee if you don't do what they want you to do.
Right? Mhmm. Yeah. Totally.
It's definitely interesting because, like, my perspective
of corporate, like, you didn't have to do work to be a good employee. You
just had to get along with and make it seem like you're busy.
And Yeah. That to me was, like, the most confusing part because it was, like,
people always pretend like they're doing something, and then you ask them a question or
something, and, like, they can't help you or, like there's very, very few people
that I found were helpful and, like, wanted to do a good
job, And those people were very few and far between, and they always left.
Like, anytime I found somebody that I like I liked and they were
helped me out honestly, they would always leave, and they'd go to a different company.
So that was kinda like my thing of, like, oh, well, all these people that
I like are leaving. Why am I still here?
And then I think another funny part of it too was when I switched
jobs to work for the 2nd big military
defense contractor. I remember in
college, some guy from that same company, like, came and talked to
us. And my impression was, well, this guy seems really boring,
and he seems like his job sucks, and he seems like he's not happy with
his life at all. I never wanna work for that company. And then, like,
you know, 8 years later, I find myself there. So I think going into that
company, I kinda had already made my mind up that I wanted to leave, and
it was kinda just a stepping stone. But so when was it that you
decided to, like, leave or or, like, what was the the trigger to
make your mind? I mean, you touched on a little bit with the COVID, but
I imagine that you had thoughts about that before that. I think
I always I don't know. The company I work for was kinda weird to the
fact where, you know, they would kinda treat us poorly in in
the sense of, like, you know, not paying us as much as they probably should
have been or overloading us with work.
But at the same time, they would they would pretend like it was a family,
you know. So it was like everyone was super close. We'd hang out after work.
We'd go to happy hours all the time. So there was kind of this, like,
juxtaposition of, like, they really care about you and it's like a fun place
to be, but it's miserable doing the work, you know. So I was always kind
of, like, on the knife's edge of alright. It's not so bad. Like, at
least, like, the people are cool at work and I like them, you know, even
though I have to spend a bunch of time here. And then I would like
be like, oh, this I hate this job. Like, I need to leave. You know?
And in the beginning, it was like, I just wanna go somewhere else. You know?
I wanna find another job where I don't have to put as much time in
because I I don't value that anymore. Like, I don't value climbing up the corporate
ladder like I thought that I did originally. You know? And I was okay with
maybe just getting a job where I would have your 9 to 5 and you
would be done, and you can have a life outside of work. And then
the more I thought about it, I guess, the less interested I
was becoming in engineering and the more I was interested in
photography and the more I knew I could, if I wanted to, try and make
a career out of photography. I would say for the last whole year, like,
all of 2021, I was kind of on the fence of what I wanted to
do. I I think the point really was like in, you
know, towards the end of last year, our our aunt passed away and
I think that was that was my decision right there was was
that you, because of your job,
was able to spend a lot of time with her in the last couple of
weeks. Mhmm. And I was stuck at work. And,
yeah, I was stuck at work and I couldn't spend that time with her
and then she passed away and
and that hit me. Like, this is something that you can't have
being in a corporate job because they don't really care. They'll give you a day
or 2 days of bereavement, but they're not gonna allow you to spend that time
with them. Mhmm. And that was like, okay. Well,
then this isn't gonna work. You know? I I value that
way more than I value my job, and I want to, you
know, be able to do that. And and another part of it was just like,
you know, life's short. Like, you don't know when you're gonna go. So why am
I trying to prolong this? Because I think, initially what I thought was like I'll
get a job where I'll have a set amount of hours and I'll have more
time to focus on photography so that I can build it up more build it
up more so that I'm making a steady income with it so that the transition
will be smooth. Mhmm. And then I'm like, well, why am I doing that? Like,
I'm just prolonging what I wanna do anyways. So I might as well do it
now and force myself to learn faster because,
you know, I can do that. Now, I've got this opportunity where,
you know, I don't have kids right now. I don't have, like, any other responsibilities.
Like, I I have this opportunity to do this. And even if I fail, I
can go back to doing engineering if I wanted to. I can go to do
something else. That's fine. But I need to do it now. Like, why keep
waiting? Yeah. And I definitely I hear that a lot from people
and and not that it's right or wrong or, you know, everybody's got a different
path and that sort of thing, but I do hear people say, like, oh, well,
it's just my job, you know, I just work there for money and this and
that. But to hit on the point that you talked about is, like, well, we're
only here for a certain amount of time. Like, if you're forced to be
somewhere for 40 hours, like, that's a huge chunk of your life. I
mean, if you consider that plus the amount of time you're sleeping, I mean, that's,
like, 2 thirds of your life. So it's like, yeah, I get
that, like, maybe you don't care about your job and that's
fine. Whatever. But for me, personally, it's like, well, I wanna take advantage of
the time that I'm here and that and one thing that I always used to
do when I was, like, trying to quit too because, I mean, it was
hard to put I mean, it was a whole lifestyle. Right? Like, it's
it's it's a whole lifestyle to, like, you know, go to college,
get the degree, get your job, and, like, you're you're in this system, you're on
this, like, one track path and it's kinda hard to get out of that track
because there's so many different things going against you, including the people you work for,
like, the your family, friends, like, all that stuff. But one thing I always used
to do was I remember when I was at my last job before I quit,
I would always, like because whenever I would go to the bathroom, I'd have to,
like, walk downstairs and give me a couple minutes to think, and I'd be like,
man, this really sucks. What am I doing with my life? Then I would think
about it and be like, what if I had cancer tomorrow? Like, I'd be so
mad that if I had, like, 6 months to live or something, I'd be so
pissed at myself because I'm wasting my everything at this
job that I don't care about at all. And, like, thinking of it
in a morbid way kinda, like, fired me up to be able to be
like, no. You know what? I'm done with this. Like, I'm leaving. So that was
kind of something that I used to do to, like, kinda trick myself to to
actually go through with it. Yeah. But, I mean, I think it goes back towards
kind of what we were saying earlier of of having to make a decision and
having to be more intentional about your life. It's like,
not everybody wants to do that. Not everybody wants to have to make a big
decision, and that's fine. And and then maybe having a job suits
you because you can just show up, get paid, and and that's fine. Or or
maybe you're really passionate about your job and you and you wanna climb up the
corporate ladder and that's what you care. I mean, I remember I used to work
with some people who I remember thinking, like, this job is for you. Like, you
were really good at this job. You love spending all your time here. Like, you're
really passionate about it and that's great. You know? Like, that suits you,
but that didn't suit me. Like, I didn't wanna spend all my time at the
office. I wanted to spend time with people that I love and my friends and
family. Like, that was more valuable to me than my job. Mhmm. Yeah. And
I think a lot of times too because myself included when I was in that
job, I always thought, like, oh, well, I can't do this. Because as you were
saying about, like, the part time thing, I did do my job part time for
a long time, and I was trying to get it to a point where it
made enough money to then I could just switch over. But, I mean, if you
think about that, you're you're working 2 full full time jobs to make 2 full
time incomes at the same time. Like, I got to the point where during COVID,
I was completely burnt myself out, and then I came to the decision of, well,
you have to pick 1 because you're gonna put your energy into 1
and it's gonna work, but you can't keep splitting your time and doing it
to 2. And I think that there's also something to be said about
just, like, the sub belief part of it because a lot of people will
automatically just write themselves off and be like, oh, I can't I can't do photography
and make money. That's not gonna work. But if you try, you'll
figure it out. Like, you could do anything you want. And, yeah, maybe you're gonna
make some sacrifices here and there. You gotta do some things that maybe you weren't
used to doing before, maybe work some part time jobs, but, like,
it's possible to do anything. And if you
actually believe that, it will work out. And there's
really not a failure part of it. The the only time you fail is when
you give up. So you're gonna fail. And I think that's something that
corporate also isn't very you don't really learn when you're
in corporate is that failing is, like, good. Like, if you fail okay. Good.
Now I learned how to not do that, and now I learned a better way
of doing it or, you know, it brought me to a path I didn't even
think about. And I think that that is, like, a good thing that
I've learned ever since I've quit. It's like, well, it's fine to fail. Like, it's
good thing to fail because now I know how to do this and I know
not how to do this, where in corporate, it was never like that. It's always
just, like, you know, one track thinking.
Yeah. Yeah. For sure. And definitely, you
know, the culture of The Office too of, like, you know,
maybe you have a better way of doing things, but your boss has an ego
and he doesn't want you to outdo him. So instead of doing it a better
way, you have to be stuck with doing it the old way and, like, kinda
being forced to do things that don't make sense, but that's the way they do
it, you know. And, like and that's okay for some people. Some people like to
follow directions, you know. Some people are really good at following directions and they execute
well. They don't need a lot of hand holding. They can figure it out and
do it on their own and that's fine. But I think,
personally, I like to question things and when things don't make sense, I'm a
I'm a very, like, you know, pragmatic person where, like, if you're doing
something and it doesn't make sense to me, you have to explain it to me.
And if it still doesn't make sense to me, I'm not doing it that way.
You know? And that doesn't really fit well in a corporate office. Like Yeah. For
sure. So, yeah, I guess, to to move
on and talk a little bit more about your experience post quitting,
what was that experience like? And, I mean, it's definitely a
huge shift from having to go to the office every single day and, you know,
pretend like you care, and then now you have the entire day free.
And and especially talk about, like, options and making
decisions to do some specific something. Like, what was that transition like
for you? Yeah. I mean, I'm still in it. So I think,
honestly, it's been a lot more difficult than I thought. When I was
doing my photography while I was working my corporate job, it was easy because
I was at work. I was thinking about what I wanna do when I get
home. You know, I'm riding the subway home and I'm like, alright. When I get
home, I'm gonna do this and this. I'm gonna finish this tonight and I'll move
on. And I got home and I was focused and I would sit down and
I would do it. Now I don't have all this
excess time to be thinking and planning about what I wanna do because it's all
my time now. So I've been struggling with
focusing what to work on and getting things
done in a productive manner. Even though I thought I was someone who
was very good at that, I realized that maybe I'm not so good at that.
And part of it maybe was, like, you know,
at work, obviously, like, if you're goofing off or, like, you know, you
can't focus on something, you'll take your phone out. You'll look at your phone. You'll
go talk to a friend or whatever. You'll go for a walk, and
you can do that because you're still working. Right? But now it's all your time.
So you have to you know, people joke all the time like, oh,
like, you don't just constantly scroll through Instagram while you're working, you know,
and you can't do that anymore. You can, but you're not gonna be
getting anything done, You know? It's your time now. So
having to manage that and deal with that and and and another
thing about, you know, scrolling through Instagram all day at work is it trains
your brain to be not focused. And I thought that
I wasn't that bad. I thought that I was like pretty good with not using
my phone, about being focused and being able to get
what I want to get done, but I realized that I'm not as good as
I thought I was. Like, I'm actually pretty distracted during the day
and not just having those couple of hours at the end of the day to
do what I wanted to do, having the whole day to do what I want
to do has kind of changed it, you know. So it's it's
been a struggle. It's been it's been tough to kind of focus on things and
and the other part of it is too is like I'm working on things that
are not necessarily making me money, that are just things that I need to do
or things that I need to learn. And when you're learning, it can kind of
feel like, you know, you're running in beach sand, if you will.
Like, you know you have to do it and you know you're learning from it,
but it's frustrating because you want to just know how to do it, you know.
So that doesn't really help you as far as, like, mindset
of feeling good. Right? It's like, I know I need to learn how to do
this but it's difficult to learn, and I know I
just have to go through it, and then I'll be better, but it doesn't make
you feel good in the time, you know. Yeah. I mean, I I think part
of that too is is unlearning a lot of things you learned in corporate. Because
in corporate, when you wanted to take I mean, I remember the
mandatory trainings we had to do. It was frowned upon if you just did them
and you weren't, like, just had them on in the background and, like, pretended to
do work. You know what I mean? Like so valuing education and
self growth was never a thing in corporate.
And I think that just kinda like switching your mindset into being like, well,
no. I'm gonna do this because it's gonna make me better at something or I'll
learn how to do something better. Like, valuing self
growth is, I found, the most important thing
because you could sit and do a task all day
long that, you know, is mundane and maybe it's making you some money, but,
like, you're gonna get you're gonna do that for 5 years, then you're gonna be
like, well, now I just made myself another job. Like, this sucks. So,
which I've kinda gotten to the point of myself. But, like, if you think about
if you're always thinking about things in the future and
you can kinda, I don't know, always want something more or something
bigger or, you know, think about how to do something in a better way, Like,
that is what makes you excited about it because you're constantly learning and growing. And
I think when you stop learning and growing, that's when your mind kinda just
goes on autopilot, and that's my experience in corporate
America. So Exactly. If you set time aside specifically to do
that so, like, every you know, just for example, every Mondays, I'm learning, like,
and every Monday, I just learn all day long, and I take that as a
productive day. That, like, mindset shift is gonna help
you to not, like, feel guilty about it. Because at first day, I felt guilty
about doing stuff like that too. Like, well, I'm learning how to do this thing,
but I didn't make any money with it. So, maybe I should not do this.
You know what I mean? But you I think you have to value that stuff
and, like, self growth, I think, is the most important thing you can do for
your business. Yeah. I mean, I I think that,
like, what you said with being on autopilot at work, I
I recognized that and I was like, this is dangerous because I don't I don't
like this, you know, because I love to learn and I wanna learn all the
time. And I got to a point where, like, I had been doing it for
8 years and I was kind of on autopilot, you know. I would show up
to work. I would do the same thing and that was it. And I wasn't
really growing as much and I was like, this is this is toxic. You know,
I don't I don't wanna be in this situation anymore. To go off
of of kind of being distracted at work how we're talking about previously,
another thing about a desk job is, like, you can show up in a bad
mood. You can show up, like, not feeling it. Just sit there, get through your
day, get paid. Right? When you're self employed, you can you can't
do that. Right? Like, if you're in a bad space or you're not feeling
great, you're not gonna get your work done. Right? Just like you would in
corporate, but you have to get your work done or you don't get paid.
Right? So you have to yeah. I I was at a,
photography conference back in January, and I was at
this speech. And he was this guy, the presenter was
talking about he says, like, you know, a lot of people say try and keep
your work and your business separate. And he said, well,
that's bullshit. He's like, if you're self employed, it's your whole life. Like, you can't
keep them separate. You know? Like, your business is your life. So
if you're not feeling right or you're not something's wrong with you, you know,
you need to fix that first. Stop the business, fix yourself, and then get back
to the business. Because he said every single time this guy had been
working for himself for 40 years, and he said every time there was something wrong
going wrong in my business, I realized it was because there's something wrong with me
and I need to fix myself first and then I can get back to my
business. Because it's one thing, you know, you it's not your job you show up
to, you know, it's your life. Yeah. And I mean, even just I've had
experiences of that too, and that's been a challenge to allow yourself to
just give yourself space. Right? Like, you wake up, you're in a down
mood or whatever, and you're like, oh, well, I gotta do this thing anyway. So
then you force yourself to do it. You sit at your computer, and then half
the day goes by and it's like, well, I didn't accomplish anything. And then eventually,
I'll be like, let me just not do anything for the rest of the day.
I won't do anything for the rest of the day. I'll go to bed early,
and then I'll wake up refreshed, and I'll be like, oh, now I'm ready to
work. And now I did that thing in an hour that I tried to do
all day yesterday and then reflecting on that, it's like, well, maybe if I just
stopped when I recognized I wasn't in the right headspace
for it, I would have recovered sooner. Right? Like Well, it's like
you said, like, going back to what you said earlier about, you know, changing the
habits that you've learned in corporate. It's like you've I think the most
important thing is recognizing that you're in that bad headspace
and you're not gonna get something done. You know, like, for me, it's like I
would start to get anxious about, like, I need to make money. I need to
do something to make money. What I'm doing right now is not that And I
would just kind of get in this, like, repetitious cycle of
bad thoughts. And instead of trying to force myself to do the work,
I need to do something else to break that. You know? Go outside, go for
a walk, like, meditate for a little bit, do some yoga. Like, do something else.
Right? Because you can do that because now you have the time to do that.
You don't have to sit at your desk from 9 to 5 because it doesn't
matter. You know? So if I'm being unfocused and I'm distracted, you know, maybe I'll
go for a run. Maybe I'll go volunteer and get my head out of my
business for a little bit so that I can clear my head and come back
to it. Right? Like, it's important to, like, learn those skills and and, like, learn
how to do that and how to how to recognize where you're at and how
to fix that. Like, it's something completely new that you have to learn. Mhmm.
Yeah. No. I've I've definitely definitely found that. And that's always a
working process too. You know, it's you're never gonna be, you know, done doing that.
I think that's always gonna be an evolution and a practice of
of being able to do that. You're not gonna be perfect every time. But, like,
if you can start to recognize and then self
correct, I think that's it's better than than the previous
just taking out your phone, scrolling on Instagram for 3 hours, and then being like,
oh, am I doing? That's That's the thing is there's no easy solution to that.
You can't just turn your phone on and drown it all out.
You can, but that's not gonna help you. You know? That's that's what I mean
by, like, it's not separate anymore. Like, you can't just show up and
sit at a chair and make money. You know? You can't
it is completely different now. Like, you have to you have to keep
pushing and and and force yourself to not just zone out. You know
what I mean? You can't just sit on autopilot and then zone out. Like, you
can't do that. Yeah. I mean, especially Instagram too, I think is
a it has other negative effects other than just being
distracted too because then, you know, it's the perfect image of everybody's life. You're scrolling
through it. You see all your friends and, like, then your head goes in a
1000000 different directions. Oh, they have a they have a job, not on vacation because
they got 2 weeks paid vacation. For me, personally, that's why I deleted my personal
Instagram because it wasn't helpful at all. And I also put timers on
my phone for all social media apps to where I can't access
them until, like, noon, I think, every day because mornings are
usually where I'm most productive. So then I not like, it makes it that much
more difficult. Like, I could get around it here, but it makes it that much
more difficult to, like, click on it and look at it. So I've trained myself
to not reach for Instagram whenever I'm uncomfortable or
bored or, like, want to distract myself. So things like that I think could be
helpful too. Alright. So, yeah, just a couple more questions before we
wrap up here, and one of them is what
excites you today and what are what are things that you're, you know, excited about
and looking forward to? I'm just really
looking forward to building relationships
in 2 separate ways. Right? So I guess going back to my corporate
job, like, obviously, over 8 years, I had built up relationships
with contractors I worked with, with architects I worked with,
with coworkers that I've worked with. And that was great. You know, it was nice
to have, like, kind of a network of purpose. But at the same time, it's
like you would go to a happy hour and you'd be talking about air air
conditioning systems, and it'd be like, can we talk about something else? Like, I don't
really care about this. You know? So now being able
like, I've gone to a few conferences. I've met with a few photographers to go
on, like, photo walks and that kind of thing recently, and it's just been, like,
very, very positive and very just
amazing to be around people who kinda have the same passions as you. And I
I didn't have the corporate job because I wasn't passionate about engineering or heating a
building or cooling it. Like, that didn't get me going, you know. Like, I I
could manage it, but it wasn't something that excited me. So being around
people that are passionate about it and, like, being able to talk to them, you
just get so much energy from them. It's, like, really exciting. You walk away and
you're like, oh, that was awesome. You know? Mhmm. And so talking about building relationships
in 2 separate ways, that's building it with with photographers. And then also on the
other side, the client side of being able to you know, I'm
excited about being able to help somebody appreciate photography.
And I think I've realized how important photography really is. It's like
especially in this day and age where people realize, like, I can take a picture
on my phone and it comes out pretty good, you know, especially with, like, portrait
mode and HDR edits on their own. They start to look pretty
good and you don't have any skill at taking a picture. Right? So everyone
thinks they're a photographer, but that's not what photography is about. Like, photography
is much more than that. It's it's about you know, you have so much
power as a photographer. You know, you're capturing anything about
composition, if you don't
know anything about you can't do that with a phone.
You can't do that if you don't know anything about composition, if you don't know
anything about people, if you don't have a relationship with somebody. Like, there's
so much that goes into it and it's such a valuable thing. Like, think
of back a 100 years, 50 years ago, when
people had kids, most of them never took pictures of them as
kids. They never had a picture of their kid if they grew up in the
thirties, the forties, fifties. And then eventually, middle class started being
able to, you know, have access to a camera themselves or or be able to
go to a photographer and have pictures taken. And those pictures will
hang on somebody's wall for 30 years, 40 years.
And that's something that people cherish and that people really, really care about,
and that's super important to them. So diluting that with your
cell phone and thinking, like, oh, I'm just gonna take pictures of my kids or
I'm just gonna, you know, take pictures of friends or family, it's not the
same. And being able to show people that and get
them excited about that and convey the value to
them of what this really is, I think that's very exciting for
me. I'm really excited to show that to people. Yeah.
That's a good point because I think what happens when you just take a 1,000,000
pictures on your phone, you never do anything with them either. Right? You don't print
them out and hang them on your wall. You don't most cases, I'm generalizing, but,
like, most cases, you don't do that, and they just become this void of pictures
that you never look at. So, like, yeah, I think that's an
important thing to hit on in regards to photography is, like,
well, we're actually gonna care about this one. We're gonna put some energy and effort
into it so then you can actually be proud of it and appreciate it and,
like, look at it and cherish it for years to come. I think that's definitely
a good part of the business. And even just, like, being able to hit on
that emotionally and figuring out, like, how to do
that because I think you're right. A lot of people don't notice the
difference between that sort of thing. Right? They don't they don't think of it in
that way. But after hearing that, it's like, yeah. Yeah. You're right. I mean, I
have so many pictures of my phone that I don't do anything with. Yeah. I
mean, it's kind of like an education thing where some people say, like,
why are you going to photography? Like, AI is gonna be taking photos on its
own now pretty soon and, you know, that seems like a a
dying field to wanna get into. You know, cameras themselves already have AI built in
with autofocus and all these other sorts of things that they're implementing.
You know, Photoshop, you can replace the sky with one click of a button, you
know. So what what is the value? Well, the value
is it's it's art. Right? It's it's
making something that's made by a human. You know? Like, I don't think that's ever
gonna die. Right. It's the human connection piece of it. Yeah. Exactly.
So the responsibility of the photographer in 2023 is to
convey to people how important this is and how it can't be replaced
because it's true. It can't. You can't have a camera take a great portrait
of somebody. You know, a portrait that you look at and you you connect with
the person because that portrait is conveying who they are,
you know, their personality. Hey. I can't do that. Mhmm. Yeah. And I
think even as a, like, a culture or population, I
think we are trending back in that direction because, I mean, you even see it
with I mean, records were like the first thing. People appreciating records now
and and bookstores. People appreciating going to a bookstore. Like, for a long
time, bookstores were dying and, like, they're you know, nobody could
care less about a bookstore. They go on Amazon if they want to buy a
book. Actually, I just read an article this morning that Barnes and Noble had their,
like, first profitable quarter, like, in a very long time,
and they were up, like, 4%, and they're opening new stores. And, like,
I think people, especially after COVID, are craving just the human
connection piece of it. And that's something that I've learned as
being able to work on my own and like making relationships with people
is like the human connection aspect
who you are as a person. That's really what they're buying into. Exactly. And to
to rope that back into photography, how many times have you had a picture taken
by, you know, a school photographer? You're at your work and you're
doing headshots today. The photographer doesn't really care about you. He's just taking your picture
because he's getting paid to do it. You know, like, no one likes that. You
know? Like, that's anybody like, there's no connection
there. It's it's, like, stale, you know, and you could tell. You can look at
the picture and you say, oh, I don't like that picture myself. And why didn't
you like the picture? Because there was no connection there. You know? The first thing
you have to do is build a connection between who you're taking a picture of
before you even pick up the camera. You know, you have to figure out what
that person's about, what makes them tick, and then you can take a picture of
them. Like, it's just so much more than just clicking a button and, you know,
editing a photo and and putting it up. It's it's not what it's about.
Right. Yeah. No. That's that's a that's a good point. I think it
describes well, like, how that plays into photography. So,
yeah, last question here to kinda wrap up this interview. What's next for you and
how can people support you or find you if, you know, they wanna learn more?
So my business is m c three photography. I live in, New York
City. Instagram is m c three photo. My website's mc3photography.com.
And yeah. So right now, I'm kind of just kind of exploring all my avenues
still and trying a little bit of everything before I really wanna commit to a
certain path or a certain lane. And just seeing where where it takes me, you
know. I'm open to try anything at this point. You know, I'm I'm
kind of just learning is is the big word that I'm that I'm
doing right now. So yeah. Yeah. Hey. Well, I think that's a
good attitude to take. It's just be open to learning and being curious about
things. I think that's the best thing you could do at at this point. Yeah.
So if you can, like my pictures on Instagram, that means a lot to me.
So please get those numbers up for me. I'm kidding.
Well, I appreciate you sitting down with me and having this conversation, and maybe we'll
come back in a year or so and and see where you're at. Awesome.
Yeah. Thanks for having me on. Sure. It's been fun.
Thanks for tuning in and listening to Working Towards Our Purpose.
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