What I've Learned the Hard Way
Real mistakes and what they taught me. Transparency about the times I got it wrong.
I believe transparency is a superpower. Everyone talks about their wins. Here are my losses. Not because I'm proud of them, but because they taught me more than any success ever did.
I've had a great career, and I've also made real mistakes. The biggest one is a pattern, not a single event: I've picked the wrong companies when I needed a paycheck more than I needed the right fit.
Zenefits was the best opportunity of my career. I failed a licensing exam that mattered, with two weeks to prepare. I didn't take the study window seriously enough. That one still stings.
At Meallogix, the writing was on the wall and I saw it. I took the job anyway because I needed the income. The company closed on me.
At Proper, I repeated the pattern. The warning signs were there, and I rationalized them because I needed to land. I built a great business in spite of that, but I should have been more honest with myself at the front of the process.
The Lesson
Four years of that taught me something I couldn't have learned another way. What I'm doing at SCW now gives me the runway to be patient, and patient is the only thing that has ever produced the right outcome.
The next move is the one I actually want, not the one I can afford.