Anish Majumdar Discusses Creating Your Own Job

Dustin Steffey: 0:00

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Jaden Norvell: 1:09

Welcome to your top rated business entrepreneurship self development and smart investment podcast. This podcast is hosted by creator and founder Dr. Dustin Steffey and also hosted by coach, music producer and influencer yours truly Jaden rush Norville, we are blessed for many accolades such as being nominated for the People's Choice Award for Best Business Podcast, as well as raising over $5,000 last year for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation as well as for the Boys and Girls Club, spending a global reach our podcasts in the top four downloads in four countries. Without further ado, welcome to chopping wood fire ladies and gentlemen, let's chop it up

Dustin Steffey: 1:51

Hello, and welcome to another episode of chopping wood fire. You're joined with your host today Dustin Steffey I have a treat for you guys. But before I introduce our special guests, I do want to dive into a couple things real quick, first and foremost, social media. We all know it's important, I just want to reinforce that. If you guys are enjoying shopping with fire, you're enjoying all the things that we offer. You guys are getting a net win out of us, please head on over to all of our social medias. And hit that LIKE SUBSCRIBE, and most importantly comment and give us some feedback on what we can do to keep this train going and keep it going in a good positive way. Again, we did create a YouTube for this year where you guys can see us visually. And we also are on all of your major podcast platforms. So please choose your favorite one. And give us a listen. Our website houses everything that's kind of the starting point. So if you head on over to www dot chopping with fire that ch o p p i n with feiyr.com that houses everything and gives you a benchmark to get started to stay in contact with us. All right. Also, we do have two charities that we are very fond of that we like given back to you. There's going to be more to come in the coming months for special charity events. But for now we do rely heavily on donations to our charities. The first one is Cystic Fibrosis. For those of you that don't know what cystic fibrosis is, that is a rare lung disease. Imagine having a straw to breathe out of in your lungs instead of your normal lung capacity. That's not fun. I don't know it firsthand, but I know that the straw hole is very small so to breathe out of that is not good. So please head on over to C F F dot o RG forward slash donate and throw any donation that you can and please make sure to give us a shout out what you donated so we can shout you out on our podcast. Also we do support the Boys and Girls Club. So please head on over to BG PC dot o RG forward slash donate obviously with the Boys and Girls Club. They're very good for our kiddos. I have a daughter that's 10 She utilizes them I utilize them and they are an amazing organization. So please head on over and donate today. I think that's everything for right now I am excited because I want to dive right into our special guest. So but that being said, let's introduce in a niche a niche is from a special make a make that for us, embodies everything that our podcast is about he's he's not only good at acting and journalism he's good at helping others to create their own pathway for creating jobs instead of The normal traditional means I'm not going to ruin anything that he has, because he's better at explaining it than I am. So without further ado, I introduce a Nish.

Anish Majumdar: 5:11

What's up, man? How are you?

Dustin Steffey: 5:12

Good. How are you?

Anish Majumdar: 5:14

Good, good, good. I'm, yeah, I'm really psyched. And I've been I've been really looking forward to engaging with your listeners as well, because I sort of feel like you know, if you're someone who's listening to your podcast, you a lot of the hard work has already been done in terms of you're already party probably questioning yourself, you're already probably asking yourself, you know, I want something better for my life, how am I going to put the pieces together? You know, there's no transformation without that without that first discomfort and that questing so hopefully, hopefully, I can shoot drop some, you know, knowledge bombs that will really help everyone listening.

Dustin Steffey: 5:47

I think based off of me getting to know you and pre roll, I think there's more than knowledge bombs, you you embody what my podcast is, and what the journey is. So I'm excited. I think the first step though, is everybody likes to know who they're talking to, or who they're listening to. So let's get to know you a little bit.

Anish Majumdar: 6:07

So I am 43. I have I'm married with, with three kids, three, boys, nine, six, and four, they definitely give us a run for our money. I was born and raised in Montreal, conservative Indian family. Everything kind of, you know, went topsy turvy for us around the time that I was 10, where my mom's schizophrenia really kind of blossomed. And so we didn't talk about it, we were communicative. So for me acting and the ability to sort of take all of that ugly churning, feeling all of that destruction of our family, all of the force, Cuddles, etc, we were able to sort of, I was able to find a real home for that, and a real place for that and a way that legitimized it. So, you know, acting for me became really the calling and the and the drive, I've been a filming TV Actor worked in Toronto, New York, etc. And then while this was going on, my mom, before she took really, really sick, you know, she used to be an English teacher back in India, she kind of gave me a really solid footing, I would say, beyond just standard education in that realm. So I developed a career concurrently, as a journalist. I've won awards and stuff for my for my work there. And so as all of this is going on, and I've got a fan, you know, I'm now you know, in my 20s, and I'm looking to say, Okay, what's the next step here? Knowing that every other step acting journalism, or whatever had come from inside had come from a vision or inspiration. So I'm talking with this guy who's like 52, ostensibly for help with a job search email, I'd been doing that as a sideline, literally just to make cash like resume, LinkedIn, people knew like I had a talent for reframing who they are in a different way to get a result. So I was making the money that way, and I'm talking to this guy. And I quickly realized, you know that it's, there's no resume or LinkedIn or on planet earth that is going to help him or the majority of people because what he was laying out to me was, he spent 20 years in one company, they told him that he'd had equity at the end of it, they made a change one year before he was set to retire gave him nothing. He's basically out there. But he's not, he's not dealing with a job search problem. He's dealing with a self identity problem. He feels like a failure. He feels old, he feels out of date. And he looks and seems out of date, in terms of in terms of the marketplace. So that's a lot more and no, there's no resume on planet earth that's gonna solve all of that. So it was the first time in my life. And it continues this way, where the impetus came from those people that I'm working with, and the impetus came from a point that says, Oh, I get it. The one thing that made me an outsider, which is I don't have any of the normal credentials or standards, but I have an overdose of, you know, real life accomplishments up the wazoo when I realized that that didn't work for me. And I realized that oh, the business of doing this another way, which I taken for granted up to that point, was an absolutely foreign language, especially for the people who thought that there's always going to be some mommy or daddy out there who's going to give them permission. Once I understood that, I didn't know if there was going to be an answer there. But I could stop mad, I got upset. And I said, Look, if there's another answer, and end to end, I'm going to find it. So six years of that while working with clients and I strongly recommend that I think you're a fool if you say I know I'm going to start a business let me go off and create a business plan. No, no, you build it off the back of client one you build it off the back of client two that's the only way you're gonna know if it works or not okay? And so it took me six years almost bankrupted us I'm it's just me. It's just me. I'm one person, so and a laptop learning with every coach figuring out every way how to deploy LinkedIn, how to deploy messaging, how to build relationships with the high level, how to delete the fear from that. And so now, you know, I've got a pretty small team here, but we're 2500 People in 2500 people who've like sort of broken out of this, I'm not gonna lie to you and say everyone, just like, you know, in the days of the matrix, you know, Laurence Fishburne is like many people have spent so long plugged in that not only do they not actually want to go out, don't say it, they say they want to break up. But not only will they not want to break out, they will actively fight you. And I will say this, with all of our success stories for every one of them, there's five or six of you listening who you don't have it do. Okay, go back, go back to go back to Job land. Okay, go back to Monster. And indeed, I'm talking to the one out of five or the one out of 10, maybe, you know, or the one out of 15 or 20, who's listening right now.

Dustin Steffey: 10:38

There's so much to unpackage from everything that you were saying just now the one direction I want to had that kind of resonated with me, is you brought up the individual that was working and invested in a company for almost 20 years. And all of a sudden the rug got swiped from under him, right. Like with everything. And it's, it's just sad, because I see that happening these days, even with the company that I'm working for, right? There's lots of restructure lots of changes. This bodes the question, is it? Is it feasible? Is it is it? Is it like the old days anymore, where vesting in a company is important anymore? In a sense, like I was raised old school, right, where you work your job, you put in all the years, and that seniority is rewarded. But I'm seeing a shift where I'm not sure anymore, that it is rewarded. Do you want to touch on that a little bit?

Anish Majumdar: 11:44

Yeah, definitely, I think, you know, even highly in demand professionals over the course of their career, they lose an average of four to five years on this crap, like being between roles, interviewing, etc. So when we when we look at this, you know, the old paradigm, yeah, it's dead and gone. But honestly, it probably should have gone a long time ago, you know, the 40s and 50s. Were an age of like, far more trusted institutions and far more trust and like a big, big entity. And I think we all know that none of that crap works anymore. So So yeah, I think I think things have changed. And I but I would, the other thing I would say is, what can you control, you can't control. If you're at a job, or if you're working with a business, you can't control what they do, you can't control if a merger comes in. Or if a new boss comes in, there's plenty that you cannot control. And there's nothing that you can do that is going to enable you to control because you can't control what people do. You can't control that fine. So what can you control, you cannot take a bad apple and make it good. You cannot take a toxic job and make it good. No one individual can, okay, because the status school was designed to keep that dysfunction in play. All you can control is the number of apples in the cart. That's the number one thing you can flex, okay, is that when you have a bad one, instead of it being my God, look at my family, it's gonna it's gonna get tanked. Because of this. It's one out of 20. Okay, so yeah, that's, that's problematic. But let's keep it in perspective here. Right? It's part of a universe of opportunities for us. And so the future and certainly right now, what we're seeing is the most successful people it's not because of the safety of their bank account are their job title, etc. These are people who for themselves for what they do, they have figured out a way to stand on their own two feet, free of any company, readjust their skills, and find out a way to to build relationships. And they found a way to foster that abundance for themselves. Hey, by however means you want to talk about this, whether it's networking this up, we're talking about whatever they found that way. And if you don't have that, and I've worked with people run up to the CEO level, if you never can say 100% Like I accepted a role people will say that I negotiated a role did you? Did you have other offers in front of you at that moment? Because if you didn't, Bs dude, you didn't. You just took what was desperate enough to make you feel better, right about not being unemployed. That's not power, I'm sorry, that is not power. So our whole focus is to get people away from thinking, perfect job, perfect company, etc. Get you if you are working with us away from thinking, perfect job thing that's going to make me feel less insecure, and getting you into a zone where you're like, the universe is always there. I always will have opportunities in front of me. And none of that works. If you're not being perceived as an equal, like, like, you're not the same as Amazon or Sony or CEO. But you've got to have integrity in your pathway. And in every signal that you send out. There cannot be what I call desperate job seeker in there. Okay, none of this clammy handed crap. Okay, because it's not going to work. Right? The second you send out that you're telling me you don't really care about me. You don't care about getting to know me. The only reason you're talking to me desperate person is because you want a job, but I'm not I'm gonna give you the real details of what's going on here, you're always gonna be on the outs, this has to change for anyone. And if you've been in the job market for a couple years, and you're asking yourself, like, why the old tricks aren't working, you know, like this is why, because your experience level your capability, it demands that you do this in a different way. And if you don't, you're gonna fall into the exact same trap that my father did very hard to working engineer, he spent his whole career in one company, exactly, you're seeing a very old paradigm Bell Helicopter, right? Went to senior management never broke through past that point, had more and more responsibility, couldn't figure it out until a couple of months ago, we were told we were chatting, you know, and he's like, you know, I wish I never understood what you were doing, because it's so foreign from from anything that I was thinking of. But when I look back at my work there, I do understand, like, I was marginalized, by what I didn't know, and what I when I could never have privy to. So I just kept doing more and more and more for the things that I knew, while the other people had to do less and less of the right things. And they moved forward, they were sending the signals that said, You can trust me at this level of impact. And he never was able to do that, you know, so 15 years, 20 years ago by basically spinning your wheels.

Dustin Steffey: 16:15

So we've discussed, we've discussed that this old paradigm obviously has changed, it doesn't work anymore. But the lead up question on this old paradigm is old school people were taught, if you stay in, in your job for X amount of years, and all of a sudden you want to jump ship to another job, you look a little more desirable, because you have many years in a company. Are you saying that that paradigm is broken and false to? Yeah, and

Anish Majumdar: 16:47

I think that that was also based on a misunderstanding on our parts, because it's not what gets you the job is not how long you spent at your previous job, or even what title you have, the only real currency that matters is impact impact beyond your job posting. In other words, your resume should have nothing that I should be able to see in a job listing for any of those roles. I want to know what you did be on that. Right. So with that in mind, let's look at this because it's a great question. On average, if you're a highly in demand professional, you should be extremely cynical about either being an employer or even doing business with a client for longer than two years. Because statistically, that's where the underpayment happens. That's where it happens. So if we're looking at it there, and we say, Okay, what makes it worth me taking a guaranteed pay cut to be here longer than the two year period? That's the way that you want to think about this, right? So if I say, Okay, what makes that worthwhile. If I see larger impact, if I see a clear career path, if I see progression going on, if I have these things that's working, and if it's not, probably the most important thing is not getting caught in the bubble of your just one company. And that perception. So no matter how hard you're working, I would say 10 to 15%, I would, I would say I'm aggressive 20 to 30% of my week, but no matter how busy you are 10 to 15% of your week should be spent on building relationships and identifying pain at target companies, clients and all that and having these conversations, okay? Even if, and especially if you're not looking for an opportunity right now, that should be constant, okay? Because what it'll do is it'll also give you that perspective at whatever role or whatever you have going right, so that you're not just taking the Kool Aid, you can actually see, I worked with Varun, one of one of my favorite clients of recent memory, high tech, he'd been, he'd been trying to convince his boss to do these very, very necessary initiatives at his company for like, the last two years hadn't been working. So out of frustration, he's like, initial, let's go, I'm ready. We're scaling this up. Let's go. I'm done. Okay. He actually ended up staying at that company. And the reason he Why was not because he pitched or presented because we'd already seen that that is a word. His CEO started seeing that very quietly. Runes perspective on the conversations are no longer this is what I think he's done. He's over with that the brand that he's putting out is clearly not job secret, but it's open, it's high level, there are changes there. The way he's talking about that is not from a perspective of oh, you dude. It's from the experts perspective, which is, look, if you want to do business with me, if you want to do it, great. If not, whatever, you know, you're one of the 10,000 lives that we want to teach. That's the that's the that's the truth of it. All of those things, resulted in the CEO basically saying, hey, look, we're gonna give you the money increase, we're gonna give you the impact. We're gonna we're gonna do this, I'm still not 100% sold on that way. But I'm willing certainly, to give you the benefit of the doubt here. You know, you just have to be willing to move on. If you're in a toxic relationship, guess what, the best thing you can do is start sending the signals that says, hey, I'm not only done I'm taking the actions to keep my life strong, secure away from this, that's just the way that it is. And so that's what I would say is yeah, you gotta be you gotta be thinking like a free agent. And you've got to be thinking like also Who's to say that you spending 15 to 20 years working for a bunch of different amazing places learning, who's to say that that's not better than some guy getting a dumb watch and getting kicked out on his ass basically, at the end of 20 years, like, that's a dumb dream to me, you know, like, that's not one that I ever wanted. You know, I want I want fulfillment, I want options. And I want freedom, freedom above all else. And there's no freedom in that, in that dream. You know, there's only so long term subservience. And who cares about that, you know,

Dustin Steffey: 20:37

I like I like what you brought up about the freedom and, you know, all all of those concepts are excellent concepts. For me, at the end of the day, what I want is to make an impact on wherever I am. So like, with this podcast, My impact is giving back to others way to reach out and connect with the people that I interview. And furthermore bettering themselves in whatever they're doing, whether it be, they want to be an entrepreneur, or we want to be better at the job that they're currently in right now, or they want to market themselves out better. Like, that's, that's my goal of giving back. Right. And that, for me, is a big goal, right? It's huge, because it evolves all the time, the impact that I make changes daily, right, the guests that I have on are different and have different walks alive. So it's

Anish Majumdar: 21:30

all and the ways and the ways that you can, and the ways that you can leverage the these aspects of what you do. You know, we kind of call it like peeling the onion. That also, you know, for most people could stand with some real thoughts, some coaching and some development because, for example, a non obvious way to leverage exactly your pathway, you could definitely leverage, not just the fact that you built the podcast, but these specific relationships that you've had, right? If you were able to say, okay, so all of this is starting to, like, give me a little sense of let's call it the Dustin process, okay, the Dustin process is, all of these leaders that you've been, you know, talked to all of the, you know, this knowledge, this insider knowledge that you have that even CEOs don't have. Maybe you start looking that at that and you say, hey, you know, there's some connective tissue here, you know, there are some some things that are working consistently, there's some things that are not working consistently, well, you could very easily and I could, I could help you directly set that up, you could leverage that right now. So that the, if you want it to the bulk of your time, or a large percentage of it, can be talking with Fortune 1000, CEOs, leaders, CEOs, not from a point of of a job, but from a point of let me understand what you're doing. And let me bounce off of this perspective, this context that I have to see what's working, what's not, you can create roles for yourself absolutely at the high level based on what you've done, but it's just that you almost like meet someone to kind of like be like, Okay, you're right about that Catholic, you're right about that. But why don't we open this one up as well, you know, because a lot of times, I don't know about you, but a lot of times in my life, like the most fulfilling professional experiences I had, were totally off plan, like, like, I there was no plan to it, it was literally a found opportunity that was so much better than what I was going for that I'm like, got it, you know, I would say that's true. But my wife, you know, like, like, I was not looking for a serious relationship. But the second I saw her and the second I was I was like, there's not going to be another opportunity, right? There's only this one window. So it's my choice what I want to do here, right? You know, these things about bravery, freedom, all of that ultimately, all it comes down to, I think is for all of us, being brave, being brave in in small ways, you know, being brave in terms of just telling one person in our life, that who really loves and cares about us being honest about your vision for what you really want, you know, I think a lot of people I've worked with, they try to, like hide that from their spouses and their loved ones because they feel like I'm under stress, you know, and so let me keep the stress on myself. So it doesn't bleed out to my kids. And my MLM makes sense, right? But the truth, the truth is, if you have a big dream right now, you need all the love and support that you can get. And it is not possible for you to do it on your own. I tried. And I've had many people who tried but now now's the time that your people they need to share in your dream, they need to see that it's not just about you getting that next role, are you making that pivot? This is the life that we want. This is the vision for the life that we want. And this is abundance for all of us, you know, and I need your help because I'm going to be stressed on this and I'm gonna have ups and downs and there's gonna be times that I doubt myself and I really need someone in my corner who can like help me to say, Hey, you're good, man. Don't worry about this. This is necessary turbulence, you know? I feel like we could all you know, do with a little bit more of that, you know, especially when we're talking the entrepreneurs journey or the business training, please don't keep it to yourself, you know, truly,

Dustin Steffey: 25:06

there was another term that kind of was a hot button for me that came up, you said something about Kool Aid. And it sparked something for me. A lot of these companies that you work for as you progress up in the ranks, I like to call it drinking the company Kool Aid, where you change as a person and you become, instead of an individual, in my opinion, you become a yes person within that organization as you go up, because they're molding you to embody what they want, versus what you can bring to the table and offer. I know, there are a lot of companies that look at and focus on, hey, put together a development plan for the year on what your opportunities are, or, Hey, do this or do that. But at the end of the day, and correct me if I'm wrong, but at the end of the day, the way I see it is is you kind of lose a portion of yourself, the company's trying to mold you into what they want, versus what your personality is, and how you can how you can provide value to that company. So a good example of that is, for me, I'm a very expressive person very, like open I think, for me being in management and managing a team. I'm all about the people work for a person, they don't work for an organization. So if you have a bad manager, or if you have someone that can't quite get past that company Kool Aid BS, right. You're you're unhappy.

Anish Majumdar: 26:43

Yeah, no, I totally agree. Yeah, they're gonna leave. Yeah, I agree. The boss is the the representative of the company. It's a standard in some sense for the for the entire company. You know, as far as the person who was working there is concerned totally.

Dustin Steffey: 26:57

I've been told many times that I'm not promotable because of my personality, which I really did. Yeah, because of my personality, or because, you know, I'm a liability, because I act a certain way, or whatever the case may be, like, I've been told that and it's like, you know, I strongly disagree. Actually, I, I strongly disagree. So that bodes the next question for me, which is that ceiling that you hit as an individual? So for me, I've hit that ceiling in, in my current role, right? Where the company just Alt promote me, so I'm not a ceiling right now I am at the max of where I can go. Because I am unwilling to drink that company Kool Aid per se. Right. And it's, it's sad, because I think companies lie in a sense, right? Because they sit there and they say, they want to retain the best talent. They want to promote the right people. But in my mind, they don't.

Anish Majumdar: 28:01

Yeah, I think I think you what you're saying here is so perfect. And the thing that I would say is, imagine this, promoting, versus partnering, okay. And the reason I'm saying this is the promoting pathway is filled with a lot of exactly what you're talking about. And probably the number one thing exactly as you've described, even if you had everything going and that needed, everything was there, you're always going to be fighting the first impression of what brought you in there no matter what. Okay, so that's why for most, for many people at a certain point, right, usually, after the two to three year mark, it actually behooves them to start building it fresh, so that they can actually re state what the sort of game field is, right? They can say, here's where I'm starting from, right. Here's the angle. Here's the level I want to talk about. So you're right, promotable, I'm probably not promotable either. Dude, I you know, I'm terribly brutal. But what I also understood is that there is a level that is higher, that we can all tap into, let me give you an example. If I was suffering from cancer, right now, skin cancer, and I'm looking for somebody to treat me, I promise you, it doesn't matter if the doctor is a culture fit. Or an introvert like me, I don't give a crap, right? That is a level of competence that is based on burning pain. Now, here's what I'm gonna say, for you. Yeah, your, your journey is also so unique that you don't want to think about it that way. Because there's the there's always going to be gatekeepers who are going to be like, that's a little atypical. That's a little risk. Why should I put my neck out for Dustin? You know what I mean? Like, why would I do that? I don't know, you know, so definitely that pathway has that thing. But you've got to think like this. You've got to think like a partner to that business, regardless of what the role is. And what you're talking about is if the solution to the Kool Aid look, it's normal for a company to apply its pressure, but it has to be balanced out by your priorities and what you want so that this has a positive back and forth that's going on right and that means you've got to have an idea of where you're going beyond this job, right? Where does this jobs fit into your larger thing? If you are understanding what you're really paid for, and this is a big problem that I see people are not addressing, okay. Let's say you're in marketing, your marketing director, what do you actually get paid for? If you tell me marketing, you're not thinking on your anything beyond the promoting path, what you're really paid for, because any business owner, including myself, will tell you. If I could off source marketing, I would the only reason I would work with anyone there is to grow the business the way that I would like to grow this business, right. So if that marketing director differentiated him or herself, by a branding themselves around this is the kind of growth that I can catalyze is the right way to grow the business versus the wrong way that would give you a standing to have these conversations that would give you a point of view that you could filter your questions through. And that would give you the entree to start identifying what are the deep growth challenges, right, the deepest aspects of what you solve, that's what you've got to understand, right? That's what you want to make people feel comfortable with having a conversation with you about ideally in that first, in that first interaction, call meeting, interview, whatever, right. And so that the most important signal I would say that a partner would do. A partner insists on making an engagement about present tense, and present details, not the past. In other words, every detail I share you whether I'm in an interview room candidate, it doesn't matter to me, okay, every time I share a detail, I expect something from you, right? I expect information about how you're handling that detail information about who have you tried to hire in the past information about do you think that this works, right? challenging you? Right, all with an eye towards finding out those two or three things that are truly keeping you up at night? Right, truly driving the hire, and people aren't doing that, you know, they're not thinking appropriately high level enough or deep enough about about about what they solve. And then they're not understanding on the on the flip side 99% of job, like, postings are BS, I can tell you that having hired for other people, I will tell you that, because no company is sharing their confidential details of what's really driving that hire on Monster indeed, for public consumption, if that's the key towards actually coming in at a company at a high level and not being pushed out is people at the high level your boss, everyone else understanding look, there's an indispensable aspect of Dustin here. I don't know how he does it. But this perspective here, we're not we can find 50 other people in marketing 50 other people into business development. There's one person who actually understands what I'm trying to do here, what the real drivers are, right? You've got to be dogged about not talking about money about not talking about job titles, or any of that crap. Until you understand what that is. That is your only goal when you start building a relationship. I don't care what it is, like if I'm on worktime. That's the only thing we're talking about. And you better believe it doesn't matter if you're a client of mine or not. If I'm looking at your career, and you're I'm giving you a piece of advice. I expect you to handle that 100% If we're going to keep talking about this situation, right? And that's not your priority. That's a me priority, right? And that gives me an entree and an authority that people who are like, hey, Dustin, you got some problems with your career. You got some, like, Jazzy like, I don't give a crap, dude. Right? Because I understand what this mission is. Right? Do you understand what your mission is? Do you understand what your Y is? Right? And how high level you can be? Or are you going to let that little voice inside dictate? Right? You telling me I gotta fight that voice the same as everyone else listening to this dude, every day, I gotta fight that voice. I love my kids. I love snuggling, dude, that's what I want to do. Okay, I gotta fight that voice. But I know now I've had enough experience to know, oh, everyone is trying to figure this out. Everyone is lost. Everyone is dealing with incomplete information. And people want to do business with you. People actually want to collaborate, but they're in need a little help. They need a little extra from you or anyone else. And that 1% of people who are going to be who care enough to do that are going to get like the 80 to 90% of opportunities. And that's been true in my business as well. You know, the only reason I'm here is because I was dumb enough. We're crazy and upper stupid enough to keep walking to a ridiculous extent, so far into the woods, that at a certain point, when I found the treasure, I'm like, I'm 400 miles back, so I got to find my way back there. But no one else cared enough. You know, they didn't. So I deserve it. And so does anyone else who's who's who's thinking of it this way, you know, that what's your territory? Like? What's your unique stake? I would really encourage everyone to to really think about that.

Dustin Steffey: 34:44

Shifting gears a little bit because I mean, identifying your unique state is important stuff, but a common a common thing that comes up these days is people, especially high level people, right? They look at these job boards and And they're either a not qualified based off of what these job boards say or be, they have too much experience. So like bringing myself in, for example, I have a PhD, right? So if I go in and interview for, I don't know, like McDonald's or something, right? I'm too overqualified. So they won't hire me because they think that I want a bunch of money. Right? So the question that this leads into, is, are there enough jobs out there right now, I know you and I talk about or have spoken about already. These job boards, and this is where you come in with creating your own job? Is there enough opportunity out there for one to be able to live and be paid what they're worth, essentially? I mean, when I look at Monster, and indeed and all that, and I only look just to see what's out there, I'm not seeing very much in my mind that truly encompasses fulfilling me.

Anish Majumdar: 35:58

Well, I mean, you know, this, this goes back to what we're what we're talking about, I would say that what we've seen on the employer side over the last couple of years is more and more incentivization, of getting talented people in through non traditional means, because the normal way is also not working for them. So but, you know, in terms of this, is there enough jobs, I mean, I'll be honest with you, maybe it's a bit of a cold way to look at it, it doesn't really matter to me, I don't know, if there's if there's going to be enough abundance for everyone, like I don't know, I'm not the president of United States, I'm not selling my job to care for the welfare of everyone, I will tell you, all I care about is that the people who are I've noticed in every company in any capacity, there's like five to 10% of people who are doing 80 to 90%, of the real work of the real moving forward. All I believe, is that those people should have opportunities, those people should have freedom, and they should be able to generate that freedom anywhere in the world, on their terms. Right? That's what I believe. So I don't know, I don't know what that answer is. But I know that you know, what we're talking about. If we can take away the hidden job market thing and just say, look, start trusting people and helping people now, instead of waiting on permission to do that, that's all I'm asking you to do. That's all I'm asking anyone here to do. And that is not an if it's a must, because what we're seeing is five years from now, the disintegration in the applicant tracking systems, all of that it's gonna get worse, we're already looking at near 90% Auto rejection, regardless of what your qualifications are, what do you think is going to happen five years from now? 10 years? What do you think is going to happen? When most people, especially the people who have been doing everything possible to avoid this right? What do you think is going to happen when it becomes like a 99.5%? rejection rate, right? And then it starts to you start to understand, oh, all of these opportunities are being filled, but I'm not being exposed to any of them. Right? That's the difference. You know, don't don't, I would say, Don't draw an industry wide conclusion, based on incomplete information and to don't look at yourself as an average participant in your industry. Look at yourself as a top 5%. Right. That's the way that I would look at it. Everyone else? I don't know. It's telling me.

Dustin Steffey: 38:07

So that bodes the next question, which is old hiring practices versus new hiring practices. And when I bring that up, I mean, old hiring practices where you walk in, you fill out a paper application, you interview with someone on the spot, or whatever the case may be, versus new, which is you use social media, digital technologies, you put together your resume, you have to put in keywords and stuff so you don't get rejected and all that stuff. How's it really gotten easier? Or has it gotten harder in your mind? And is there a part of where these practices have evolved? Where if we missed the mark, somewhere where it needs to evolve again, into something better?

Anish Majumdar: 38:50

Yeah, I think we know what you're talking about from that application onwards, it gives employers the illusion of choice, which fundamentally disempowers you and it forces you to go through these hoops? Look, let's start with this. Those tools don't get you anything. Okay. The LinkedIn resume interview strategy, those don't count for anything on their own. What I would say is, if you're coming in, based on the relationship and based on pain uncovered, then for example, the resume can be used to deepen that dialogue can be used to provide pressure for that follow up, right? But everything has to do with the pain that you identify and serving as a champion for solving that it has to stop being about you. And so when we look at this what you're talking about, you know, people will do that. They'll say, Oh, I paid like 1000 bucks to get my LinkedIn profile done. What do you think is gonna happen, man, like, that's not going to do anything on its own? Right? So I would say an expert does business based on assessment. In other words, not interviewing, assessing right asking for Questions, having a plan and having a process of vetting what's going on here and directing that conversation? An expert knows how to assess instead of interview, an expert knows that you don't provide anything there unless there's accountability. So if you're saying you want to have a follow up here, fine. Here's what we discussed. Because I've been taking notes. You know, here's what we discussed, lead up, what specifically are we going to be discussing here, that's going to get us closer. And also, if I decide as an expert, that we've reached a point where no further discussion is necessary, it's okay for me to gently say, Hey, I think we're at offer point, right? So all of these signals that we're talking about, you know, Dustin, you sound like a man who could really benefit from what we do. I'm just being very honest here. Because, you know, a man was a PhD, you should not be thinking I know, what's an example. But you should not be thinking about McDonald's, you should not be thinking about falling out job applications. All of that should be a completely foreign language to you at this point. Because you've spent so long, you've got a world of people, man, isn't that what it's all about? So that when you have a goal, or you have a dream, the first people is, hey, let me talk to Dustin, let me talk to Sarah, let me talk to Aaron, who I got to know, through you. That's the long term payoff of doing this through the relationship is as well, because the longer you're filling out applications, every relationship that you build, falls apart at the end of that, right. But you've got to capture all of those relationships, that's actually arguably more important than whoever the next person is. That can manifest or get you the inside the inside scoop there, right? So make it all about pain, make it all about what is discovered and have some balls, like, like, understand that, like, no one people are acting like a good employee from from level one, you're not an employee. You're negotiating with me. So have some courage. Challenge BS, when you hear someone saying crap, call it out. What do you mean by that? That flies against the face of the other companies that I've been talking with? Here's specifically what I saw a company wide. What do you guys think about that? Right? Challenge, right? Avoid passivity, avoid TV, watching your way through your career. You know?

Dustin Steffey: 42:09

I agree with that. And while we were using examples with me, right, like, that's, I know, my worth, I know what I'm about. I know what I've networked in, you're right, like someone with my caliber, like, I'm past, like filling out applications and stuff, I have doorways that have opened to me that are better, that I've created kind of like what you're talking about, which is creating doorways for others to create their own success.

Anish Majumdar: 42:38

And you can leverage and you can leverage what you've done here to quickly open new targeted high level doors, without necessarily investing the time to do so based on a smart intelligent utilization of brand messaging development. That's the other part, like, like you're using all of this, to speed it up, our average is two interactions to an offer. That's the goal most of the time, right? So the way you've got to do that is you got to apply apply additional pressure. So when someone sees your LinkedIn profile, instead of there being like one or two quality markers, there's 13, there, right, that are relevant, right? When you jump into, like, that has to be there, you know, and so not to not to not to distract, but I would say, you know, let's not be naive, most people, it's not like, you know, someone who has the ideal role for you. Most probably it's one level out from your network, right? So the strategy should no matter what your strategy is, should hinge on those people, how can I attack and bring these people into my world who are feeling the highest manifestations of my pain? One level out, one level out, and those people should be focused on number one of what you do?

Dustin Steffey: 43:52

What's your take on these companies that or hiring people to check a box per se? And I? I don't bring this up negatively? Because Oh, yeah, I'm one for diversity, right. And I love diversity, because you get a bunch of different viewpoints. But lately, it seems like in this century, like currently, companies are hiring to check that diversity box or do check that men versus women box to really just put the persona out there that they're good company to work for, because they hire diversely, or they have X amount of men and women or whatever the case, maybe what's your take on those companies?

Anish Majumdar: 44:33

Yeah, you know, I think, you know, like, we were saying, you know, if this five to 10% of people are out there with an uncommon amount of opportunity and generation 80 to 90% are kind of going through the marketplace, right? And what you're talking about is there is there's a huge amount of commoditized hiring going on, right? So you go in I'm telling you what the job is I'm telling you what to execute it's mostly you're gonna have your performance is based on what you execute very little strategic and We move on, those roles are available all the way on through. And there are certainly companies that could benefit from that. But again, going back to what we were saying, successful career is built on the creative conflict between the company's clients, you work for their priorities, meeting you and your priorities, right? And so, in that kind of a situation, yeah, maybe it's for diversity, maybe it's for anything, right? Like, like, like, like, Whatever, whatever you whatever you want to call it. It's, as long as it's based on this and the information from here, you don't have the power or the ability to really advocate for yourself, right? Because you're always saying, look at how good I can do this, look at it, but you don't know that this is what's actually driving. Right? So I mean, I don't know man, I mean, I, there's, that's gonna, that's gonna continue as long as there's people who feel like somehow it's like, harder to, like, bend and scrape for a company that actually getting to know a human being. And by the way, I'm not judging that because I was also that person, like, I'm a shy, introverted person. And I would gladly work in a computer for many hours, right. But what I understood is that getting to know three of the right people and being open and vulnerable and figuring out a plan to do it will get me way further than that every time every time. Right? So why are we? How did we get to a place where the hardest thing on planet Earth is to talk to your fellow human beings? Like, how did we get there? And I'm really asking you, like, how do we get to a point where there's so much shame, embarrassment awkwardness, for the simple thing that I would say is almost a human right? That should be as easy as breathing for us getting to know other people getting to know their lives, getting to know, what are you doing? What made you make these decisions? Can you tell me a little bit more about that? Ooh, let me challenge that. This is natural men, you know, like, the unnatural thing is what you're talking about? Everything that you're talking about? That's the unnatural crap, right? The only reason you're normalizing it and people are normalizing it, it's because you've lived with it for a long time. Decide what you want to do, you know, like, decide, because I because I would tell you, ultimately, it's going to be an either or decision for you and everybody else, right? You cannot play both of those games, one will continuously try to commoditize and drag you down. Even if you get to the offer. They're cutting, cutting, cutting, Bethany, one of our clients, high tech, she got sick and tired, the higher up she rose, the more BS assessments and tests she had. What's up with that? So this, you have to decide, you've got to decide what is your value? Is it is it higher than this? Because then you've got to be the one who coalesces that first impression. If you're waiting for an employer to do it, you're never going to you're never going to do it. And I think people who spend most of their lives trying to check those boxes. Look, I probably been unfairly rejected for roles as an actor many a time because of the way that I look at my skin color. So I'm not fully unsympathetic to that, okay, if people need to bring on diversity, do whatever you need to do. Right? But again, I'm not. I don't care about the group. I'm not interested in the group. What resonates with me, is that one person, right? What resonates with me, is that one out of 10, right? They're getting this, everyone else is gonna go shut off this podcast and, and pat themselves on the back for having done some like business work or whatever, no, and then you're gonna go on with your life, right? And you're gonna keep that subscription. And you're gonna say that's the virtue. But you haven't done anything. Right.

Dustin Steffey: 48:39

The other thing that the other than that you just brought up in, in a question format, right is what happened to us, like, with the bare basic needs of talking to each other as humans, right. And I think the biggest the biggest downfall for us, and the biggest win for us, right, technology is great. But I think technology and I talked about this with a couple of my other guests, has been a deterrent to developing the soft skills that are super important that my father had, or my father's father or my mom or my grandma had, right, like soft skills are disappearing, because people are sitting in front of a computer instead of collaborating with other people. And so I feel that soft skills are declining, in my opinion.

Anish Majumdar: 49:33

Another way to look at it would be that soft skills, the value of soft skills are increasing exponentially for the right people, right. So if I work with the tech, let's say I work with an IT director or something, right? If we're talking about an IT director who either through experience or through his own learning or whatever, has developed those people's skills can can work it like an engineer with people skills, I can get you two to three times what you're asking prices right? because you have that, because you have those soft skills and because you also determined that those were important, right? A big part of the reason that this is shrinking away is the same reason that arts is shrinking away in our education system, it's not considered important. It's not considered essential, because you don't see a direct lineup. Right. But it's like writing, you know, like writing is my superpower. Right? And it's just one skill, right? Writing, I have other skills. But the magic at the at the bottom of that is deeply spending the bulk of my life building and building and becoming truly expert at a couple of things that really resonated with me. Right. So yeah, I think I think that I think there's so much abundance out there. And I honestly just want to almost like just take the wool away from people's eyes, and see, look, this is, at the end of the day, companies are a dime a dozen. But if you have something special, and you've done special things, and again, you're going after something that matters to you, dude, you're the you're the prize, you're the one who should have everything that you want here and your career should get easier and easier know, as your as your thing progresses, you know, and I think about that now, you know, at 43, my goals are very different than what it was at 25, you know, but the same goal of I want to feel fulfilled, I want to feel options, and I don't want to feel like I'm like, my life is out of my control. Because 50 things can happen. And I don't know what to do if it happens, you know, like, that's what it's all about. To me.

Dustin Steffey: 51:30

This interview has been full of amazing stuff, right? This is a goldmine and a wealth of knowledge. I think you and I could talk for a whole eight to 10 hours on this stuff. But I agree. Yeah, I think relevance though, and everything that we've brought up, is going to resonate with a lot of people. Last thing I wanted to leave our listeners with is, in your opinion, if you were to give one important piece of information, what would that be? I

Anish Majumdar: 51:59

would say, act as if, by which I mean you're going out there you're you're you're about to interview for a role that you feel is way beyond you put yourself into the mindset of the person who already has it put yourself into the mindset of that future state, right? What would you do differently? How would you prepare? What moves would you take? Same thing for the first time you have to verbalize your your ideal number, not the number you got on the PayScale resources, the real number that's gonna do it for you, right? What would the version of you that's already earned that and honestly feels a little underpaid? Right? Now? How would he handle this? Right? I've used this myself. And the thing that really makes it resonate and come alive is also asking the follow up, what would he or she do? Like, what would that person do in this situation? But also, what can I bring and do right now that does not require the permission of this next offer, right, that this person is doing, I did that for working out, which I hate, but I always had an idea in my mind that when I wouldn't when our business hits like this financial target, I'm gonna have a personal trainer, right? I'm gonna magically find, you know, this time. And what changed it for me was realizing, like, look, I'm getting busier as things are going on. Right? So that's that I, that guy would not be doing that, right, that guy would probably, for me, as equipment right here have opportunities right here. So I can bring it seamlessly into my day and actually use it as a source of energy. Right? When I understood that, that's one more piece, that's one more thing I don't have to do on that call. That's one more aspect of self belief, right? That I can go into that room with without having to create on the spot, right. So it can be very, very powerful to choose to start thinking like that. And as if is like a wonderful, like, it's a wonderful mental workaround around these natural sort of, you know, limitations we have you know, like that make us feel like I'm gonna freak out from anxiety. You know, by doing this, you know, that can be it can be really helpful. A niche,

Dustin Steffey: 54:01

thank you for just the wealth of knowledge that you bring in. It's It's refreshing to have someone that aligns with the same goals like I have. So I think that the wealth of knowledge you brought to this episode and to my listeners is amazing. I think this is going to be good, good stuff. If people need to get a hold of you. What's the best way for people to get a hold of you?

Anish Majumdar: 54:24

Ah, two things. Hello, anish.com. That's kind of our headquarters on the web. For people who want to go deeper into our career trainings. Again, we're just sharing the atypical stuff that is actually working out there. That would be a good place. LinkedIn, if you put in a NSH and you put in the word career, that would be a great place and then one final link, tap the hidden job period market, Ford slash ASAP for those of you who are like in opportunity generation mode. If you go over there, free class, we just wrapped it new rules of the job search 2023 2024 It'll break down the biggest shifts that we're seeing, and you can start utilizing that right now to start seeing more activity, more opportunities and just better outcomes, you know, that's, that's what it's all about, you know? Yeah.

Dustin Steffey: 55:11

Excellent, my friend, thank, thank you so much for taking time out of your day to come on in, just to educate. I appreciate it. So, from me to you, thank you.

Anish Majumdar: 55:21

Thank you, man. I, the time went by like, like, very, very quick. So I still appreciate it. But I appreciate your energy and everything that you're bringing out there, because I think it's really necessary.

Dustin Steffey: 55:33

Well, we appreciate you and I'm sure this isn't the last that we've heard from you. I'm sure we'll have a couple more to come on. Because like I said before, I mean, you and I can speak on this for like 1015 20

Anish Majumdar: 55:46

Yeah, for sure. For sure.

Dustin Steffey: 55:48

Excellent, my friend. Thank you very much. You have a wonderful day. I appreciate it.