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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E8 What It's Like Leaving Corporate with Mike Cordone
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