Happy Labo(u)r Day Sunday!

This weekend we (Katie, I and Fernie) spent the long weekend celebrating Katie and, technically, my nephew, Orion's, first birthday in Prescott.
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Where is Prescott, you ask?
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It's east of Brockville and 45mins south of Ottawa.
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Needless to say, we had a long drive up on Thursday night.
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Of the many things I admire and frankly love about Katie, is her open mind and curiosity for learning.

That quality complements me extremely well.
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Katie took the reins of the car for the first two hours, as I tied up phone calls, ate dinner, wrote emails and checked when my fantasy football draft was, for the fourth time. During that time, I asked Katie if I could read her an email read a few days later, which perfectly summed up a concept I've been mulling but couldn't articulate clearly in writing.

It’s a story I came across from a newsletter I follow, written by a brilliant entrepreneur named Justin Welsh. And it perfectly captures the conversation many of us are having, in our own heads or with our partners, about career security, building wealth, and living a life on our own terms.

So the story goes, Justin recently caught up with an old college friend, a talented guy who started his own one-man SEO agency. He did a solid $250K in revenue in 2023, but had a slower 2024. As they were talking, his well-meaning parents were trying to convince him to go back to a "safe" job with a steady paycheck.

When Justin's friend told him how he felt about it, he said something that stuck with him for days:

"They mean well, but I feel like they're giving me advice for a world that doesn't exist anymore."

That sentence hit Justin hard because he'd heard it, in different forms, from dozens of entrepreneurs. It finally helped him understand the disconnect between the old way of thinking and the new reality we’re living in.

The World That Created Their Advice

Justin's friend's parents, and his own dad, who worked at the same company for 42 years, were raised on a different playbook. In their world, companies invested in employees for decades. Loyalty was rewarded with pensions, gold watches, and retirement parties where people actually cried because they were going to miss you. It was a world where a "safe" job truly meant security.

But that world started dying long before we noticed.

The rules have changed, and so has the game. Justin, in his early career, tried to follow that old playbook, and it was a disaster. He was young, inexperienced, and completely uninspired. He couldn't fake enthusiasm for products he didn't believe in, just to make someone else rich.

The result?

He was fired three times and never received more than a 3% raise.

The third time Justin was fired was the final straw. His boss and the HR guy surprise-fired him at a Panera in a strip mall and tried to take back his company car right then and there. The problem was, he didn't have another car. So, in his not-so-proudest-but-most-honest moment, he drove that company car straight to his parents' house 207 miles away and parked it in their driveway. They eventually retrieved it, but not before Justin had a few days to think about his life.

There he was, twenty-eight years old, sitting in his childhood bedroom with no job, no car, and three terminations on his resume. His parents told him to "get more serious" and "not to steal any more cars." But they didn't understand what he was starting to realize: The game itself was broken, not just my ability to play it.

That was his turning point. He learned the hard way that the old map doesn't always lead somewhere good anymore. It was time to learn the new rules.

The New Rules: Building Equity in Yourself

Justin’s story is a powerful testament to the new rules of success. Here’s what he learned that changed his career and his life, forever:

• Individual Contribution Matters: The days of being "employee #4,847" are over. At a scrappy startup, Justin wasn't a number. He found his value, and he created it.
• Speed and Results Beat Tenure: The old playbook said you had to wait ten years to get a promotion. The new playbook says you have to deliver results. Justin was managing teams just seven months into his tenure. The game rewards action and results, not just loyalty.
• Direct Value Creation Gets Rewarded: Justin learned that in the new economy, you could build equity in yourself, not just in someone else's company. He spent the next decade climbing ladders in two startups and helped them both achieve billion-dollar-plus valuations. He learned how value actually gets created, what gets rewarded, and how decisions really get made.

But he was still renting his success from someone else.

Then, in 2015, he finally got high enough to see behind the curtain. He was sitting in his first downsizing meeting as an executive, looking at a spreadsheet of names about to lose their jobs.Good, loyal people who’d skipped vacations and missed kids' games for the company.

Want to know what they discussed?

Numbers and line items.

Want to know what they never discussed?

Their loyalty, their kids' names, the weekends they worked.

When pressure from the board is on, executives look at spreadsheets, not people.

And he realized he was probably one budget cut away from being a line item, too, someday.

So in 2019, he did something his parents couldn't comprehend. He left his executive role and started building his own thing. No boss, no office, and no commute. Just him, his knowledge from 15 years in the game, and a laptop.

By the time he left his "real job," he had five companies ready to pay him as a consultant. Within 12 months, he'd built a business that produced more revenue than his previous jobs ever paid him. And he was doing it with nothing but a laptop, a LinkedIn account, and his expertise.

Best of all?

Everything he built belonged to him.

Every subscriber, every piece of content, and every dollar was his.

The Choice You're Actually Making

His dad felt satisfied after 42 years because he was a respected expert in his field, and he truly enjoyed his work. But when he retired, all that expertise walked out the door with him. There were no assets to take along, no ongoing revenue, and no compounding returns on four decades of work.

When I explain what I do now to my parents, they still tell me, “I don’t even know how to explain what you do to people.” Even after four years, the idea of making money without a boss feels like wizardry to them. And that's how Justin's friend's parents feel too. They focus on the risk, and they don't see that he's making more than most corporate jobs while owning his time.

His parents aren't wrong about wanting security for their son. They're just wrong about where that security comes from today.

Every day you stay in false safety, you're betting your future on someone else's spreadsheet. The question isn't whether to build something of your own. It's whether you'll start before or after your company makes that decision for you.

Justin learned what took him three firings and a stolen company car to understand.

The old map doesn’t always lead somewhere good anymore.
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After reading that story aloud to Katie, we both just paused. We looked at each other with that knowing stare that says, "This hits hard." The old world is long behind us. The new world is scary, unpredictable, and full of uncertainty. And that, with our inherent human bias of loss aversion, often traps us in a place of comfort and complacency.

That isn't necessarily a bad thing, that's for you to decide, but it’s not the life for me or my family.

If this story resonated with you, I encourage you to think about how you're building your own "internal brand" and your own assets.

Your financial security is not a given; it's something you have to actively create.

Start by thinking about what you've seen, done, and learned in your career, and how you can turn that into something that belongs to you.

Webinar with the Alberta Physiotherapy Association & Jane. I'm thrilled to be giving a webinar with the Alberta Physiotherapy Association in partnership with Jane on September 29th! We'll be diving deep into practical strategies for managing your finances as a healthcare professional, from streamlining your practice to building a sustainable business. If you're a physio in Alberta, this is a must-attend!

​Register for the Webinar Here​

My friend and colleague, Gen Drummond, is running her next cohort for Mastering Practice Optimization, and I'm excited to be a guest contributor. Gen is a true expert in helping practitioners move from feeling overwhelmed to running a sustainable, profitable, and systemized practice. If you're someone who feels like you're constantly wearing all the hats and are ready to create a practice that can run without you, this course is for you.

Registration is now open!

​Learn More & Register Here​

Just a quick shout-out to the Wellness Center Creator's Retreat, hosted by my friend, Kendall Hagensen we talked about a few weeks ago! It's a fantastic opportunity to step away from the daily grind and focus on strategic growth and well-being. These kinds of immersive experiences are a great way to recharge and get clarity on your goals.

​Learn More & Register Here​

My mission is to give you the tools and resources you need to build a life on your own terms.

​@financiallyfulfilledphysio and Certified Financial Counsellor CFC™

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